The Tacitus Encyclopedia [I & II] 9781444350258, 9781394193004, 9781119743354, 9781394192991

Citation preview

About the pagination of this eBook This eBook contains a multi-volume set. To navigate the front matter of this eBook by page number, you will need to use the volume number and the page number, separated by a hyphen. For example, to go to page v of volume 1, type “1-v” in the Go box at the bottom of the screen and click "Go." To go to page v of volume 2, type “2-v”… and so forth.

The Tacitus Encyclopedia

ffirs_Vol1.indd 1

28-04-2023 19:10:37

ffirs_Vol1.indd 2

28-04-2023 19:10:37

The Tacitus Encyclopedia Edited by

Victoria Emma Pagán University of Florida Gainesville, Florida

Volume I

ffirs_Vol1.indd 3

28-04-2023 19:10:37

This edition first published 2023 © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. The right of Victoria Emma Pagán to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with law. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA Editorial Office The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products visit us at www. wiley.com. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some content that appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty The contents of this work are intended to further general scientific research, understanding, and discussion only and are not intended and should not be relied upon as recommending or promoting scientific method, diagnosis, or treatment by physicians for any particular patient. In view of ongoing research, equipment modifications, changes in governmental regulations, and the constant flow of information relating to the use of medicines, equipment, and devices, the reader is urged to review and evaluate the information provided in the package insert or instructions for each medicine, equipment, or device for, among other things, any changes in the instructions or indication of usage and for added warnings and precautions. While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Hardback ISBN: 9781444350258; Volume I ISBN: 9781394193004; ePub ISBN: 9781119743330; ePDF ISBN: 9781119743354 Cover Image: Courtesy of Brenda Fields Cover Design: Wiley Set in 10/12pt Minion Pro by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India

ffirs_Vol1.indd 4

28-04-2023 19:10:37

Emma Gomez Mesorana

ffirs_Vol1.indd 5

28-04-2023 19:10:37

ffirs_Vol1.indd 6

28-04-2023 19:10:37

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Preface Reader Guide Notes on Contributors Abbreviations The Tacitus Encyclopedia (Entries A–I)

ftoc_Vol1.indd 7

viii ix xii xiv xxxiii 1

28-04-2023 18:10:23

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When approached to contribute to the Tacitus Encyclopedia in early 2018, one scholar declined with candor and brevity to rival Tacitus, and an afterthought: “I do hope it doesn’t give you too much aggravation, though I guess it’s bound to.” That statement could not have been more wrong. Any aggravation has been more than offset by the camaraderie of this international team of scholars and students whose hard work, dedication, kind words, patience, encouragement, expertise, and generosity have made the entire project an absolute joy. Each contributor is a hero. Many of them stepped up to compose entries that had been orphaned for any number of reasons, especially once the Covid pandemic took hold—just as we were nearing the finish line— and reduced our workforces, doubled our teaching workloads, and changed the landscape of our work life such that several contributors were forced to leave the project because of additional obligations both personal and professional. Every contributor brought a positive attitude and a commitment to the team. It has been an honor and a privilege to lead them and to learn from them. Together they have created far more than a reference work; they have created a vibrant community of scholars working toward a common purpose. Such an experience does not have to be rare in academia, if only we open ourselves to the possibilities that we find in each other. Thank you, contributors, for entrusting me with your work, for lending yourselves to the enterprise, and for providing an example for others to follow. In addition to the contributors, several scholars provided guidance, expertise, advice, suggestions, and help along the way. I thank Evelyn Adkins, Rhiannon Ash, Christopher Baron, Isaac Bennett-Smith, Susanna Braund, Jeffrey Buller, Cecilia Criado, Margalit Finkelberg, Erich Gruen, Noah Harris, David Jackson, Christina Kraus, Ana Lóio, Simon Malloch, Carole Newlands, Simon Perris, James Rives, Richard Thomas, Constance Shehan, and the anonymous referees who provided invaluable feedback on the original proposal and the headword list. I owe a special debt to Alberto De Simoni for his fine translations into English from Italian, German, French, and Spanish. My colleague Andrew Nichols was the first to accept an invitation to contribute. My former colleague Biagio Santorelli deserves special mention for being the very first to volunteer and for marshalling a host of Italian contributors. Momentum for the project was maintained by workshops graciously hosted by James McNamara at Victoria University Wellington in August 2018 and by Biagio Santorelli at the University of Genoa in November 2019. One more colloquium was planned for the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in March 2020 but was cancelled due to the outbreak of the pandemic in the United States. At Wiley-Blackwell Press, I am grateful to Haze Humbert for seeing me through the Companion to Tacitus and for extending the initial invitation to edit the encyclopedia in 2009. I also wish to thank the many people at the press who have helped along the way. Will Croft always gave prompt attention to detail, and Andrew Minton was very clever at motivating me to finish. To the entire production team, thank you. The University of Florida has provided more than a decade of support. In 2012, I was granted a Faculty Enhancement Opportunity for the initial development of the headword list. The Office of Research bestowed a Research Foundation Professorship for 2014 to 2016. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences awarded a Humanities Enhancement Grant in the summer of 2017 and a sabbatical for the calendar year 2018. I was also supported by a term professorship from 2017 to 2020. The Department of Classics, the Rothman Endowment in Classics, and the Center for Greek Studies always gladly subsidized the project. Yet such generous professional and financial support would have gone wasted without the constant care of friends and family. I wish to thank Angela De Simone, Megan Lyons, Judith Page, and Rose Pruitt who shared their unique talents that directly affected the timely completion of the encyclopedia. Once more I thank the extended, now multigenerational, families of Pagáns and Wolperts who have remained by my side from the beginning. Closest of all, I thank my husband, Andrew Wolpert; our daughter Ellie, whose high school graduation provided a sufficiently imperative deadline; and our son Abraham, whose college graduation is a coincident cause for celebration.

fbetw_Vol1.indd 8

28-04-2023 18:09:54

PREFACE

The Tacitus Encyclopedia provides a point of entry for further research for every person or place named in Tacitus, or for topics related to the study of Tacitus. To achieve this aim, the encyclopedia is built on two principles. The first is that it should contain every person or place occurring in the works of Tacitus. This principle of general inclusion meets with three challenges. First, Tacitus names approximately 1,000 individuals and about 300 of these are known only from his works. Second, because he was writing during the reign of Trajan when the Roman Empire was at its height and stretched from Britain to Babylon, his works are filled with the names of approximately 400 regions, cities, towns, and geographical and topological features. Third, because Roman historiography incorporated historical exempla, Tacitus was free to call upon persons and events from the past. Thus, in addition to the events and people whose history he records within the temporal parameters of his writings (e.g., Tiberius, Agrippina the Younger, Agricola), he is also at liberty to refer to ancient Greeks such as Homer and Solon, legendary Romans such as Romulus and Evander, and major figures from the Republic such as Scipio and Sulla. The principle of general inclusion is easier in theory than in practice. It is impossible to promise that the encyclopedia will contain everything ever mentioned in or concerning Tacitus. Such an objective could never be fully achieved; comprehensive coverage is unrealistic. It may also be objected that some persons or topics that are not mentioned by Tacitus ought to be included because of their importance to Roman imperial history or literature. For example, although Titus Labienus was an important figure of the Late Republic, whose presence is felt at Annals 4.34, he is not included because Tacitus does not mention him by name. Scope is limited in the interest of focus, and Tacitus’ own omissions are as instructive as his inclusions. The reader who looks for Titus Labienus and is disappointed in fact discovers such items are conspicuous by their absence (a phenomenon first recognized by Tacitus at Annals 3.76.2). Finally, general inclusion does not mean comprehensive analysis. Entries are starting points for further inquiry, designed to set the reader on a path toward more in-depth research. Any reference work is bound by such disclaimers. However, it is hoped that these volumes will give a clearer picture of the contents of Tacitus through a text-based historical treatment than has been achieved by previous reference works. The second principle is that the entries are treated in the context of the works of Tacitus. This principle sets the encyclopedia apart from the Onomasticon Taciteum by Philippus Fabia (Paris: Fontemoing, 1900) which contains only proper names mentioned in Tacitus without any context or bibliography, and from the fourth edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary edited by Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) which selectively covers the entire classical world in one volume and thus does not contain all the persons or places mentioned by Tacitus. Although the eighty volumes of the monumental Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft have been updated and revised by Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, Christine Salazar, and David Orton, eds., as Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World (Leiden: Brill, 2002–2010), again the scope is so broad that even if a minor figure from Tacitus is included, it is not situated within the broader Tacitean corpus. Thus, the Tacitus Encyclopedia is neither prosopography nor atlas nor dictionary; rather, the entries are intended to show the relationship of persons, places, and topics across the works of Tacitus.

fpref_Vol1.indd 9

28-04-2023 18:10:37

x

  P R E FAC E

The principle of historical context is the chief strategy for achieving general inclusion. To include every person or place named in Tacitus, I consolidated several entries into larger topics, using a system of “blind entries.” For example, the entry “Rome, topography” includes eight places in the city that Tacitus mentions only in passing (Janiculum, Mulvian Bridge, Palatine, Pomerium, Querquetulanum, Tarpeian Rock, Vatican Valley, Velabrum). The reader can find adequate explanations for the individual places in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. The entry here considers Tacitus’ depiction of the city and puts these landmarks in their Tacitean contexts. Another good example is the Earthquake of 17 ce that affected several cities that are mentioned only in Annals 2.47; the reader looking for Tmolus, Myrina, Mostene, or Temnos will be directed to the entry, “Earthquake of 17 ce.” Several proper names of persons or places are mentioned only in Claudius’ speech on the citizenship of Gauls in Annals 11.24, so these were grouped under the entry for the “Tabula Lugdunensis.” There are a total of 1,892 entries; of these, 846 are blind entries that redirect readers to one of the other 1,046 full entries. The consolidation of incidental items, best treated elsewhere, allows for fuller treatment of topics and persons that have proven important to the study of Tacitus. Through this process of consolidation and blind entries, the encyclopedia comes as close as possible to including every proper name and place, either as its own entry or as part of a larger entry. In addition to headwords gleaned from the Tacitean corpus, the encyclopedia also includes 165 key concepts in ancient historiography (e.g., bias, digression, speeches), history (e.g., army, provinces, civil wars of the Late Republic), social history (e.g., economy, slaves, torture), gender and sexuality (e.g., women, marriage, adultery), literary criticism (e.g., intertextuality, ideology, metahistory), ancient authors (e.g., Suetonius, Cassius Dio, Plutarch), and material culture (e.g., statues, major inscriptions, numismatics). These reflect traditional topics pertinent to ancient historiography and are complemented by entries on emerging trends in scholarship (e.g., disability, emotions, medicine). The encyclopedia includes fewer entries on reception. There are only eleven organized either by historical era or by artistic medium, in stark opposition to the Virgil Encyclopedia with at least one hundred that treat separate historical periods, geographic regions, and individual artists, writers, or musicians. While there are several companions to the receptions of Vergil, Ovid, Cicero, Aristophanes, Euripides, and Sophocles to name but a few, published by Brill, Oxford, Cambridge, and even Wiley-Blackwell, Tacitean scholars have yet to convene and publish findings on the reception of Tacitus under one cover. It is my hope that this encyclopedia will inspire future research on the reception of Tacitus. Encyclopedias can easily be perceived as outdated hegemonic devices. Nowhere was this more painfully obvious than in the gleaning of headwords from the Germania. Indeed, the identification of Germani is not self-evident, and most of the tribes mentioned in the treatise defy literary or archaeological documentation. Since the turn of the century, many scholars have applied postcolonial theory and criticism not just to the ancient texts but to the reception of classical texts in later colonial and postcolonial worlds. Such modes of analysis have moved us beyond the simplicities of labeling tribes toward a greater understanding of the discursive frameworks that underpin Roman hegemony. An encyclopedia would seem to unravel all that work, almost purposefully. The practice of selecting headwords, even under the principle of general inclusion, depends on a static identification of a person, place, or concept. An encyclopedia does not admit ambiguity. For example, a Messalinus is mentioned at Annals 3.18.3; his full name is Valerius Messala Messalinus. Is he the consul of 3 bce, mentioned at 1.8.4 as Messala Valerius, or the consul of 20 ce, mentioned at 3.2.3, as M. Valerius? Tacitus mentions the Hercynia silua at Germania 28.2, but there is no consensus about the location of the place, or even its physical features; we can only agree that it is not to be confused with the Hyrcanian Forest near the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. At the most basic level, contributors have been tasked with identification and description. Although we have resisted prescription, nevertheless the collective result endorses a certain idea of the past. Yet, while the reader holds two volumes, the contributors and editor have experienced a long process of negotiation and exploration that has resulted in meaningful knowledge. This process has led me to

fpref_Vol1.indd 10

28-04-2023 18:10:37

P R E FAC E  

xi

believe that, as important as it is to write books for an audience, sometimes there is much to be gained in the writing of books for the authors themselves. Collaboration is common in the sciences, but rare in the humanities, which is unfortunate, because collaboration is a powerful way to unsettle assumptions and see things from multiple perspectives. If the final product is less satisfying to the reader than the collaborative process has been to the contributors, blame should be assigned to the editor alone. A word, then, about the assembly of contributors. In recruiting scholars, I was reminded of the story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. From its beginning, the OED was a crowd-sourced project. Editors issued in various publications calls for volunteers who agreed to read a set of books from which they identified quotations that would illustrate the meaning or use of a particular word. They sent the quotations on slips of paper that formed the basis of the definitions. On this example then, I constructed a website and asked the Society for Classical Studies, the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, and the Classical Association of Canada to circulate a “Call for Contributors.” By the end of the first day, I had received six responses; the next morning there were six more. I received queries from Romania, Turkey, Sweden, and Spain, which yielded specialists in Roman Dacia, Armenia, and Parthia. Furthermore, volunteers would also recommend scholars, and so the network grew quickly. The call for contributors has introduced me to many rising scholars and advanced graduate students writing dissertations, with access to the most recent developments on a given topic. So, although some scholars declined to participate, the resulting community of scholars is unprecedented for its diversity. In the end, 179 contributors are included here, from six continents and twenty-nine countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and twentysix of the fifty United States. In addition to faculty members at all ranks, contributors include high school teachers and independent scholars and range in age from advanced undergraduates to emeriti professors; among the more senior is Barbara Levick. Many scholars with specialized areas of expertise wrote just one entry, for example, “imagines” by Harriet Flower; “reception, opera” by Robert Ketterer; “Livy” by Stephen Oakley; “Roman roads” by Jared Hudson. Leonardo Gregoratti composed the most entries, forty-nine, followed closely by Steve Rutledge with forty-one. The Tacitus Encyclopedia is no doubt a product of its time and bears all the marks of the early millennium. I anticipate that readers may be interested as much in the democratic approach to research that produced such a diverse roster of contributors as in the content itself.

fpref_Vol1.indd 11

28-04-2023 18:10:37

READER GUIDE

In each entry, the reader may find information about the headword as it relates to Tacitus; for example, the entry on “Vergil” describes the relationship between Vergil and Tacitus without delving into specifics about the poet. Entries do not provide original scholarship; rather they provide the reader with enough background information to comprehend the entry in the context of Tacitus’ writings and to pursue the topic further on their own. Headwords are ordered in letter-by-letter alphabetical order. Multiword headwords are ordered according to first word then by the second word in letter-by-letter alphabetical order (e.g., Cornelius Aquinus, Cornelius Balbus, Cornelius Cethegus). Homonyms are ordered chronologically and indicated by an Arabic numeral in parentheses (see nomenclature below).

Anatomy of an Entry Entries on persons in Tacitus (the bulk of entries) begin, when possible, with birth and death dates, or a sentence that situates the person temporally, followed by a one- or two-sentence description of the significance and importance of the person. Following the principle of historical methodology, entries then provide biographical information in chronological order. When possible, entries on places identify the modern name of the place and refer the reader to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Entries on topics begin with an overview followed by greater detail as it relates to Tacitus. Contributors provide intellectual and social context; changes over time in the topic and its treatment; current emphases in research and methodology; and future directions for research. Within entries, cross-references are indicated in small capital letters that refer the reader to other entries in the encyclopedia. Entries are followed by four possible headings: ●

●

●

●

See also refers to other entries that will complement the topic but are not mentioned specifically in the entry. Reference works may provide references to major concordances, atlases, and lexica for matters prosopographical, geographical, or epigraphic. References are those items explicitly cited in an entry. Entries contain relatively few references. Only the most important works are explicitly cited and listed with full publication details. Further Reading provides suggestions for books and articles that are not mentioned in entries but serve as additional resources on the topic with full publication details.

Blind Entries Following the principle of general inclusion, the encyclopedia contains 846 blind entries, which are alphabetized with the regular entries and direct readers to another entry where the topic is discussed comprehensively, or where the item is put into context. For example, the reader who searches for Egnatia

flast_Vol1.indd 12

28-04-2023 19:54:47

R eader G uide  

xiii

Maximilla will be directed to “Pisonian Conspiracy, victims,” where fourteen persons who are not named elsewhere in Tacitus or other extant sources are discussed in historical context. Many of the blind entries are persons not attested elsewhere in extant literature or attested by Tacitus only once. Within entries, blind entries are indicated in bold face.

Conventions In adopting conventions for the encyclopedia, broad accessibility and preference for forms familiar to the general reader are expected to compensate for departures from strict consistency. Latinized forms of Ancient Greek names, as employed by the Oxford Classical Dictionary are preferred, e.g., Aeschylus. Names which are well-known enough to have achieved a standard English form are preferred, e.g., Homer. Anglicized forms of Latin names, as employed by the Oxford Classical Dictionary are preferred, e.g., Livy. Names which are well known enough to have achieved a standard English form are preferred, e.g., Mark Antony. Emperors (e.g., Caligula, Domitian, Trajan) and classical authors (e.g., Lucan, Plutarch) are listed by their English names. Most places are listed according to Latin name, with few exceptions of places whose English names are more familiar (e.g., Jerusalem). Otherwise, we have used Latin spellings. The following editions of Tacitus have been preferred: S. Borszák, ed. Ab excessu divi Augusti libri I-VI (Leipzig: Teubner, 1992); K. Wellesley, ed. Ab excessu divi Augusti libri XI-XVI (Leipzig: Teubner, 1986); E. Koestermann, ed. Historiarum libri (Leipzig: Teubner, 1957); M. Winterbottom and R. M. Ogilvie, eds. Opera minora (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975). No single translation of the works of Tacitus is consulted uniformly.

Nomenclature Tacitus does not observe consistent nomenclature. For example, he does not give the full name Gaius Asinius Gallus, since praenomina (e.g., Gaius, Lucius, Marcus) were falling out of fashion by his time. The name Asinius Gallus appears three times in Book 1 of the Annals (1.12.2, 1.76.1, and 1.77.3); however, earlier in the same book Tacitus twice inverts the names: Gallus Asinius (1.8.3 and 1.13.2). Therefore, we cannot rely on Tacitus to give the full form of a person’s name or its correct order at the first mention. Sometimes the inversion or shortening appears in the text prior to the full name, if the full name appears at all. Therefore, it is the convention of this encyclopedia to list a person by nomen, then cognomen, e.g., Pedanius Secundus. The exceptions are persons most commonly referred to by cognomina, e.g., Agricola, Agrippa, Cicero, Maecenas. The only persons referred to by praenomina are Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar (sons of Agrippa), or persons whom Tacitus names only by praenomen and who are otherwise unknown. Three strategies are employed to mitigate the difficulties posed by the high incidence of homonymy. First, when possible, we use the English suffixes “the Elder” or “the Younger.” Second, when possible, we include the praenomen to distinguish individuals, e.g., Iunius Brutus, Lucius versus Iunius Brutus, Marcus. However, when all three names are the same (e.g., Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus), we have assigned an Arabic numeral in parentheses, with (1) being the oldest person with the same name; these Arabic numerals are unique to the Tacitus Encyclopedia. Even with these strategies, disambiguation of homonyms requires the reader to consult the birth and death dates, magistracies (with dates when possible), citations to Tacitus, and the reference (in the form A 000) to the second edition of the Prosopographia Imperii Romani.

flast_Vol1.indd 13

28-04-2023 19:54:47

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Colin Adams is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Liverpool, UK. His research interests are Greco-Roman Egypt, the ancient economy, ancient transport, travel, and geographical knowledge, on which he has published widely. Sara Agnelli received a PhD in Classics from the University of Florida, with a dissertation on ancient medicine. She is Assistant Director for Graduate Engagement at the University of Florida Center for the Humanities and Public Sphere. Nathanael Andrade is a Professor in the Department of History at Binghamton University, SUNY. He has authored many publications on the Roman Near East and the Roman Empire’s connections with the societies of Asia. These include Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge: University Press, 2013), The Journey of Christianity to India in Late Antiquity: Networks and the Movement of Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra (Oxford University Press, 2018). Theodore Antoniadis is an Assistant Professor of Latin at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has written various articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings on Senecan tragedy and Flavian epic, while his current research focuses primarily on the Punica of Silius Italicus. Konstantinos Arampapaslis holds a PhD in Classical Philology from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. His work focuses on the depiction of magic and witchcraft in the literature of the Neronian period, and especially its connections with the religious life of the first century ce. His research interests include the topic of marginality in the setting of the Roman Empire as well as the stereotypes and prejudice in Neronian and Flavian literature. Sergio Audano is the Coordinator of the «Centro di Studi sulla Fortuna dell’Antico ‘Emanuele Narducci’»—Sestri Levante. Qualified as Full Professor of Latin Literature, he recently published an annotated edition of Agricola and Germania. Leanne Bablitz is Professor of Roman History in the Department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies at the University of British Columbia. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003. She is the author of Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom (2007) and several articles that examine the interaction of legal practice and physical space. Her current research projects explore various aspects of the lived experience of the law within Roman Italy. Neil Barney (MA, University of Victoria) examines declamation as a venue for self-presentation and communal speech. George Baroud is Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College. His primary areas of interest are Greek and Roman rhetoric and historiography (especially Tacitus); the philosophy of history; and Classical reception in the Arabic and Islamic worlds. His monograph project, tentatively titled Tacitus’ Annals and the Aesthetics of History, is in preparation; he has published on friendship in Valerius Maximus; migration in the Roman empire; and on various aspects of Tacitus.

flast_Vol1.indd 14

28-04-2023 19:54:47

N otes on C ontributors  

xv

Salvador Bartera is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His main research interests focus on Roman historiography, particularly Tacitus, and its interactions with epic poetry. He is also interested in the reception of the Classics in the Renaissance. His main publications include articles on Tacitus, the neo-Latin Jesuit poet Stefonio, the history of the commentary tradition of Tacitus, and the concept of fides in Tacitus’ Histories. He is currently working on a commentary on Annals 16, and is co-editor, with Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson, of the Oxford Critical Guide to Tacitus. Carson Bay (PhD—Florida State University, 2018) is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Institut für Judaistik at Universität Bern in Bern, Switzerland. Trudy Harrington Becker† (1961–2022) was Senior Instructor in History and Classical Studies at Virginia Tech. Martin Beckmann is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada). Luca Beltramini is a Researcher in Latin Literature at the University of Padua. His research focuses on Livy and Roman historiography. His works include a commentary on Livy’s Book 26 (Pisa 2020) and a forthcoming monograph on the conflict of generations in Livy. Herbert W. Benario† (1929–2022) was Professor Emeritus of Classics at Emory University. Yasmina Benferhat has studied Classics at the University Paris-Sorbonne. She is Assistant Professor at the University of Lorraine and does research on political life and also on water culture in ancient Rome. her newest publication is L’eau et le plaisant. Usages et représentations de l’eau dans l’œuvre de Pline le Jeune (Bruxelles, 2019). She has written two books on Tacitus: Du bon usage de la douceur en politique dans l’œuvre de Tacite (Paris, 2011) and L’eau et le mouvant. Usages et représentations de l’eau dans l’œuvre de Tacite (Bruxelles, 2017). Shreyaa Bhatt is Lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University. Her current areas of research include ancient and early modern political thought and the work of Michel Foucault. Her work on Tacitus has appeared in Helios, Arethusa, and Foucault Studies. Kristin Bocchine is a doctoral candidate at the University of North Texas where she studies Greek and Roman knowledge of Jews and Judaism in the Roman Empire. Her research interests include the study of Second Temple and early Rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, and ethnic identity in the Roman Empire. Joshua Seo Breckenridge is a MA candidate for Classical Studies and holds a BA in Classics and Economics, both from Case Western Reserve University. He is currently serving as a 2021–22 AmeriCorps member with City Year Cleveland. His research interests include the intersections of quantitative analyses and Classical Studies and the ancient economy, commerce, and trade networks. He has presented his undergraduate thesis titled “The Role of the Roman Government within the Grain Market during the Beginning of the Roman Empire” at the 2021 CAMWS Annual Meeting. Thomas Brodey is a student at Amherst College (class of 2022) and a recipient of the Schupf Scholarship. Nicoletta Bruno completed her PhD in Classics at Università degli Studi di Bari. She is currently Teaching Fellow at Università degli Studi di Bari. She was Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin at Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (BAdW) and Fritz Thyssen Stiftung Postdoctoral Fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Her main research interests are Latin epic poetry, ancient historiography, Latin lexicography, reception of classics, history of classical scholarship.

flast_Vol1.indd 15

28-04-2023 19:54:47

xv i

  N otes on C ontributors

Marshall C. Buchanan is a PhD candidate in classics at the University of Michigan. His dissertation is about the narrative of decline in Roman historiography and its appearance in Tacitus. Claudio Buongiovanni is Full Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli.” His main fields of research are Latin historiography (especially Sallust and Tacitus); Latin epigram (especially Martial); Latin political vocabulary between Republican and Imperial Age; ancient and modern reception of Latin authors. In 2005 he published the monograph Sei studi su Tacito, in 2012 a philological commentary on the Epigrammata longa in Martial’s tenth book; he also published several articles on Tacitus, Martial, as well as on authors or topics mainly related to the Latin literature of the Late Republic and the Imperial Age. Alberto Cafaro is Adjunct Professor of Roman History at the University of Siena and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pisa. His research interests include Roman politics and institutions during the Late Republic and Early Empire, social and economic history of Roman Italy, ancient prosopography, and Latin epigraphy. He took part in archaeological excavations in Italy and Turkey. He is author of Governare l’impero: la praefectura fabrum fra legami personali e azione politica, Historia— Einzelschriften 262 (2021). He has published in Ancient Society and Studi Classici e Orientali. He is a contributor to the prosopographical database Amici Populi Romani, and a member of the Vada Volaterrana Harbour Project (University of Pisa) and the Misis Höyuk Excavation Project (CNR-ISMA—Roma). Lauren Caldwell is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research is on social history, medicine, and law in the Roman Empire. She has published Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity (Cambridge, 2015) and “From Household to Workshop: Women, Weaving, and the Peculium” in Women’s Lives, Women’s Voices: Roman Material Culture and Female Agency in the Bay of Naples (University of Texas 2021). Hamish Cameron is a Lecturer in Classics at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. His work focuses on mobility, geography, cyberpunk, classical reception in games, and the Roman Near East. His recent book, Making Mesopotamia (2019), examines the representation of Northern Mesopotamia as a borderland in Roman geographic writing of the first four centuries ce. Robert Campbell is a postgraduate researcher. He is contracting with various scholars for copyright and index creation. His current affiliation is with the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The current areas of research are Minoan archaeology, Late Bronze Age history, Minoan religious iconography, and Cretan philology. Currently, he is a Media Editor for the Ancient History Encyclopaedia and is a reviewer for multiple publishing companies. Jacqueline M. Carlon is Emerita Professor, Classics, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her research interests include Roman elite identity in the early principate and epistolography. She is the author of a commentary: Selected Letters from Pliny the Younger’s Epistulae (Oxford, 2016), and a monograph: Pliny’s Women: Constructing Virtue and Creating Identity in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2009). C. Cengiz Çevik, PhD, is from the Department of Latin Language and Literature at Istanbul University (2018). The subject of his doctoral thesis is “Relation of Politics and Philosophy in Roman Republic.” He gave Latin Lectures in Yeditepe University and Doga College (2010–2017). He is the author of “Cicero’nun Devleti” (Cicero’s State) and “Roma’da Siyaset ve Felsefe” (Philosophy and Politics at Rome). He translated some Latin works to Turkish such as Cicero’s De Re Publica, De Legibus, De Officiis, De Fato, De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Finibus, Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones, De Constantia Sapientis. His current area of research is political philosophy of the Greek and Roman periods. Stephen Chappell, PhD, is retired Associate Professor Emeritus of Ancient History with a longstanding interest in Roman historiography and provincial history.

flast_Vol1.indd 16

28-04-2023 19:54:47

N otes on C ontributors  

xv ii

Emery Cholwell is a student at Amherst College (class of 2021), majoring in Classics and Psychology. Panayiotis Christoforou is a Stipendiary Lecturer in Ancient History at University College and St. John’s College, University of Oxford. His main research interests lie in Roman history, particularly the political culture of the Roman empire and popular discourses of the Roman empire. His most recent publication is “‘An Indication of Truly Imperial Manners’: The Roman emperor in Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium” Historia 70 (2021). Jo-Marie Claassen (D.Litt., Stellenbosch) retired from teaching at that university in 2001. She is best known for her work on exile (particularly the banishment of Ovid, but also Cicero, Seneca, Dio Chrysostom, and Boethius). Her monograph, Displaced Persons: The Literature of Exile from Cicero to Boethius, appeared in 1999, and a collection of articles, Ovid Revisited: the Poet in Exile, in 2008. Most of her recent work is on Ovid, but she has also published on the consolatory tradition, on a variety of African figures, on Afrikaans literature and the Classics, and on Latin teaching methods, including computer-aided instruction. Lucie Claire is an Assistant Professor at the University of Picardie Jules Verne (Amiens, France), where she teaches Latin language and literature. She devoted her doctoral dissertation to the humanistic editions and commentaries of the Annales of Tacitus and more particularly to the work of MarcAntoine Muret on the Latin historian. Her research focuses on the issues and commentaries of Latin historians in the Renaissance, the genre of commentary, and the philological writings of Marc-Antoine Muret. Timothy Clark is a Humanities Teaching Fellow in the Department of Classics and the College at the University of Chicago. He completed his doctorate in Classics at the University of Chicago in June 2020, writing a dissertation on Roman representations of Parthia and Armenia. His research interests center around the articulation and negotiation of political power and cultural identity between Rome and the peoples, cultures, and polities on its eastern frontier. Isabelle Cogitore is Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the Université Grenoble Alpes (France) and Director of UMR 5316 Litt&Arts. Published works: La légitimité dynastique, d’Auguste à Néron, à l’épreuve des conspirations, BEFAR 313, Rome-Paris, 1994; Le doux nom de liberté, Bordeaux, Ausonius 2011; edited works: Femmes influentes, dans le monde hellénistique et à Rome, IIIème siècle av. J.-C.-Ier siècle ap.J.-C., Grenoble, ELLUG, 2016. Kathleen M. Coleman is the James Loeb Professor of the Classics at Harvard University. She specializes in Latin literature under the Flavian emperors and Trajan, and in Roman social history, especially spectacle and punishment, and she also has strong interests in epigraphy and material culture, especially mosaics. She is the author of commentaries on Statius, Silvae IV, and Martial, Liber spectaculorum, both published by Oxford University Press. John Granger Cook, Professor at LaGrange College, has focused his research on the interaction of Christianity with Greco-Roman culture and has published monographs on the following themes: the reaction to the New Testament and the Septuagint by Greco-Roman philosophers; the attitudes of Roman political authorities from Claudius to Hadrian toward Christianity; crucifixion in the Mediterranean world; and empty tomb, resurrection, and apotheosis in their ancient context. Anthony Corbeill, Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia, is author of Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic (Princeton 1996), Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (Princeton 2004), and Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome (Princeton 2015). He is currently preparing a commentary on Cicero’s De haruspicum responsis.

flast_Vol1.indd 17

28-04-2023 19:54:47

xv iii

  N otes on C ontributors

Juan Manuel Cortés-Copete is Professor of Ancient History at the University Pablo de Olavide, Seville (Spain). He is the author of articles and books on Aelius Aristides. He is currently working on the edition and commentary of the correspondence between the Emperor Hadrian and the Greek cities. His recent publications include: “Hadrian among the Gods” in Empire and Religion, edited by E. Muñiz, J.M. Cortés-Copete, F. Lozano, 112–136. Leiden: Brill; “Governing by Dispatching Letters: the Hadrianic Chancellery” in Political Communication in the Roman World, edited by C. Rosillo, 107–136. Leiden: Brill; and “Koinoi nomoi: Hadrian and the Harmonization of Local Laws” in The Impact of Justice on the Roman Empire, edited by O. Hekster and K. Verboven, 105–121. Leiden: Brill. Eleanor Cowan is Lecturer in Ancient History in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney. Her core areas of research are the historian Velleius Paterculus as well as the language and ideas of the late republic and early principate and Roman ideas about the rule of law. Recent publications include E. Cowan (2019) “Hopes and Aspirations: Res Publica, Leges et Iura, and Alternatives at Rome” in The Alternative Augustan Age edited by K. Morrell, J. Osgood, K. Welch, 27–45. New York: Oxford University Press and E. Cowan, (2016) “Contesting Clementia: The Rhetoric of Severitas in Tiberian Rome before and after the Trial of Clutorius Priscus,” Journal of Roman Studies, 106: 77–101. DOI 10.1017/S0075435816000605. David B. Cuff, B.A. (Hons.), Memorial (1999), MPhil, Oxon. (2001), PhD, Classics, Toronto (2010), is the Director of Strategic Research and Partnerships in the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University. Dr. Cuff ’s research background is in the area of Roman history, especially of the Roman auxiliary units in the first and second centuries ce. His ongoing interests include identity and cultural diversity in the Roman army and provinces (Cuff, D. “The King of the Batavians: Remarks on Tab. Vindol 3.628.” Britannia 42 (2012): 145–156). Edward Dąbrowa, is Professor of Ancient History at the Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Research interests: history of Anatolia, the Near East (Syria and Judea), Mesopotamia, and Iran in the Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman periods. Megan M. Daly is the Assistant University Librarian of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on the study of Germanicus, Germania, and leaders within the works of Tacitus. She has written “Seeing the Caesar in Germanicus: Reading Tacitus’ Annals with Lucan’s Bellum Civile” and is also interested in Tacitus’ perspective on intellectual freedom. Aske Damtoft Poulsen studied classics at Oslo University (2007–2013). He did his PhD at the University of Lund (2013–2018) with a dissertation on accounts of northern barbarians in Tacitus’ Annals. Having spent the winter of 2018 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Swedish Institute in Rome, in 2019–2021 he was a Carlsberg Foundation Internationalisation Fellow at the University of Bristol with a project on peace and power in the early Roman Principate. He is now working on a project on alternatives to autocracy in imperial historiography at Aalborg University. Shawn Daniels received his PhD from the University of Florida in 2013 and has taught as an adjunct instructor in the Classics at Wright State University, Edison State University, and Bowling Green State University. His research interests include late antiquity and ancient crafting, and he recently published a translation of Boym’s The Medical Key to the Doctrine of the Chinese on Pulses. Christopher J. Dart is an honorary fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne in Australia. His research focuses on the history of the Roman Republic and early empire. He is the author of The Social War, 91 to 88 bce: A History of the Italian Insurgency against the Roman Republic (2014).

flast_Vol1.indd 18

28-04-2023 19:54:47

N otes on C ontributors  

xix

Caillan Davenport is Associate Professor of Classics and Head of the Centre for Classical Studies, The Australian National University. He is the co-editor of Fronto: Selected Letters (Bloomsbury, 2014) and author of A History of the Roman Equestrian Order (Cambridge, 2019). His research focuses on Roman politics and political culture in the Roman Republic, the Empire, and Late Antiquity. Nicholas Dee is an instructor of Classics at Bowling Green State University. In 2016 he completed a dissertation entitled “Oaths and Greed in Tacitus’ Histories” (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign). Jeanine De Landtsheer† (1954–2021) earned her PhD in Classics from the KU Leuven in 1993 and became a full-time researcher in the Seminarium Philologiae Humanisticae in 1995. Her research focused on Justus Lipsius. She was editorial assistant of several international journals. She is remembered by her colleagues for her endless generosity and widely admired attention to detail. Bedia Demiriş is Professor of Latin Language and Literature at Istanbul University in Turkey. Her areas of research are Roman historiography, ancient Greek and Roman drama, and Latin grammar. Her noteworthy publications are: “Türkçede Eski Yunan ve Roma Klasikleri. Bir Çeviri Pratiği” (Ancient Greek and Roman Classics in Turkish. A Translation Practice) Colloquium Anatolicum, 15 (2016): 317–331; Roma Yazınında Tarih Yazıcılığı. Başlangıçtan, I. S. 5. Yüzyıla. (Historiography in Roman Literature. From the Beginning to 5th Century ce), Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, 2006; Titus Livius. Roma’nın Yurtsever Tarihçisi. (Titus Livius. Patriotic Historian of Rome). Istanbul: Arkeoloji ve Sanat Yayınları, 1998. Emma Dench is McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History and of the Classics at Harvard University. Her latest book, Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World, appeared as a Cambridge University Key Theme in Ancient History in 2018. Alberto De Simoni earned his PhD at the University of Florida. He attended the Università degli Studi di Milano where he earned a B.A. and an M.A. in Italian Literature and Philology, with a thesis on Dante’s Inferno. He taught Italian and Latin language and literature in High School, both in Italy and in Florida. In 2017, he earned his M.A. in Classics at the University of Florida. His research focuses on Libanius of Antioch and the problem of prison and incarceration in the Eastern provinces of the Late Roman Empire. He attended the Summer Session at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2017), and p ­ resented papers at various conferences in the US. He received the University of Florida Graduate Student Teaching Award (2017 and 2021) and the International Student Achievement Award (2019). Olivier Devillers is Professor of Latin and Latin literature at the University Bordeaux-Montaigne and Director of the UMR 5607-Ausonius. He specializes in ancient historiography, notably in the historians who wrote about the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He is the author of two monographs (L’Art de la persuasion dans les Annales de Tacite, 1994; Tacite et les sources des Annales, 2003) and many papers on Tacitus. He also directed or co-directed some collective works on Latin literature and Roman history. Eduard Droberjar, PhD, is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Hradec Králové (Czech Republic) and researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra, which deals with the archaeology of the Roman period in the territory Barbaricum and the RomanGermanic relations. Bibliography: https://uhk.academia.edu/EduardDroberjar. Rebecca Edwards is an Associate Professor of Classics at Wright State University. She has published on Tacitus’ Annals, Histories, and Dialogus. Her most recent article (BICS 61.2 (2018)) explores Pliny’s portrayal of Tacitus in his letters. Nathan T. Elkins is Deputy Director at the American Numismatic Society Baylor University. His areas of expertise include Roman imperial art, architecture, and coinage. He is author of Monuments in Miniature: Architecture on Roman Coinage (2015), The Image of Political Power in the Reign of Nerva, AD

flast_Vol1.indd 19

28-04-2023 19:54:47

xx

  N otes on C ontributors

96–98 (2017), and A Monument to Dynasty and Death: The Story of Rome’s Colosseum and the Emperors Who Built It (2019). Harriet I. Flower is Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics at Princeton University. She has published widely on Roman history and culture, with a special focus on spectacle, memory, commemoration, and sanctions against memory. Her most recent book is The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden: Religion at the Roman Street Corner (Princeton, 2017). Lien Foubert is a Senior Lecturer at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. She studies elite narratives in periods of (perceived) crisis. Her research focuses in particular on gendered discourses in the Roman Republic and early empire. Tacitus’ oeuvre appears regularly in her publications, but most prominently in “The Lure of an Exotic Destination: The Politics of Women’s Travels in the Early Roman Empire” (Hermes 144, 2016) and “Literary Constructions of Female Identities. The Parallel Lives of Julio-Claudian Women in Tacitus’ ‘Annals’” (Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 2010). Lee Fratantuono is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Ancient Classics at the National University of Ireland-Maynooth. He has authored numerous works on Latin poetry and Roman history, including commentaries on Tacitus, Annals 16 and Virgil, Aeneid 4, 5, 8, and 11. Bruce W. Frier is the John and Teresa D’Arms Distinguished University Professor of Classics and Roman Law at the University of Michigan. His field is Roman legal history especially as it relates to Roman social and economic history. Rodrigo Furtado is Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the School of Arts and Humanities-University of Lisbon. He specializes in Roman, Late Antique, and Visigothic historiography and in the circulation of Iberian historiographical manuscripts during the Middle Ages. He is member of the Società Internazionale for the Studio del Medioevo Latino/SISMEL and in 2016 he was Resident Researcher in the Casa de Velázquez-Madrid. Currently, he is also director of the Center for Classical Studies-Lisbon. He is currently preparing the critical edition of Isidore of Seville’s Histories. Andrew Gallia is Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. He studies Roman cultural and social history and is the author of Remembering the Roman Republic: Culture, Politics and History under the Principate. Fabrice Galtier is Professor at the Université Clermont Auvergne. His work is concerned with Latin literature of the early empire, especially texts related to the problem of memory and representation of the Julio-Claudians. He has been particularly interested in Tacitus, to whom he has dedicated many articles and a book titled L’image tragique de l’Histoire chez Tacite. Étude des schèmes tragiques dans les Histoires et les Annales (2011). In 2018 he has also published L’empreinte des morts. Relations entre mort, mémoire et reconnaissance dans la Pharsale de Lucain. Uiran Gebara da Silva is Professor of Ancient History at the Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco (Brazil). His research interests are peasants, slaves, and the countryside of Late Roman Gaul. He has recently published the book Rebeldes contra o Mediterrâneo: revoltas rurais e a escrita da história das classes subalternas na Antiguidade Tardia (São Paulo: Humanitas/Fapesp, 2016). Caitlin C. Gillespie is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Brandeis University. Her research explores the relationship between exemplarity, gender, and power in representations of women of the early Roman Empire. Past articles have investigated Agrippina the Younger as a unique role model in Tacitus’ Annals, provided an alternative biography of Poppaea Sabina, analyzed Livia’s association with Concordia, and examined gender and class in the opposition to Nero. Her book, Boudica: Warrior Woman of Roman Britain, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. Her current work continues to interrogate Tacitus’ portrayals of women in the Annals.

flast_Vol1.indd 20

28-04-2023 19:54:47

N otes on C ontributors  

xxi

Leonardo Gregoratti was educated at the Universities of Udine (Italy) and Trier (Germany). He has conducted research in Udine, Trier, Kiel, and Bergen. In 2013–2018 he collaborated with the Department of Classics and Ancient History of Durham University as IAS Fellow. Currently he is a masterless researcher collaborating with various institutions. His research interests include Roman history and epigraphy and the history of Western Asia, in particular the Roman Near East, Palmyra, the long distance trade, and the Parthian Kingdom. He collaborated as classical historian with the archaeological missions conducted by Udine University in Syria and now collaborates with Iranian archaeologists. Elisabeth Günther is Assistant Professor at the department for Classical Archaeology at the University of Trier. Her research interests focus on digital methods in archaeology, on Roman numismatics, and on the application of cognitive theories to ancient visual studies, especially visual narration and reception processes. Her doctoral thesis on comedy-related vases from South Italy (fourth century bce) is entitled “Komische Bilder. Bezugsrahmen und narratives Potenzial unteritalischer Komödienvasen” and will be published in 2022. Together with Prof. Dr. Johanna Fabricius (Free University of Berlin), she is editor of the conference proceedings “Mehrdeutigkeiten. Rahmentheorien und Affordanzkonzepte in der archäologischen Bildwissenschaft” (Harrassowitz: 2021). Sven Günther is Full Professor of Classics at the Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China. His research centers on GrecoRoman socioeconomic history, numismatics, and reception history. Noteworthy publications include a monograph (Vectigalia nervos esse rei publicae. Die indirekten Steuern in der Römischen Kaiserzeit von Augustus bis Diokletian. Wiesbaden [2008]: Harrassowitz), several edited volumes, and numerous articles in distinguished journals. He is also executive editor-in-chief of the double-blind peer-reviewed Journal of Ancient Civilizations (JAC) and co-editor of the Marburger Beiträge zur Antiken Handels-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte (MBAH). Federico Gurgone is a journalist and he teaches Italian, history, and geography in the middle school “Rugantino” of Rome. He graduated from the University of Rome La Sapienza with a master’s degree in classical archaeology. He spent three years working as an archaeologist at the excavation sites of Pompeii, Ancient Ostia, Palatine Hill, and Imperial Fora in Rome. He’s collaborating as a freelance journalist with the Italian daily newspaper Il Manifesto and with several magazines of different countries: National Geographic (Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal), Geo Magazine (Spain, Finland), Focus (Italy), Archaeology (USA), Clio Revista de Historia (Spain). Wesley J. Hanson has recently completed a dissertation on Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently teaches at the University of Delaware and the University of Pennsylvania. His main research interests are biography, historiography, and Latin prose style. Holly Haynes is Professor of Classical Studies in the Department of Philosophy, Religion, and Classical Studies at the College of New Jersey. Areas of research include imperial Roman prose authors, especially Tacitus and Pliny; ancient historiography; and literary and critical theory. Carl Hope is Head of Classics at Durham School in the UK. He authors and marks papers in classical subjects for the national examination board OCR and has written the Plutarch Alcibiades commentary in an A-Level Classical Greek set-texts anthology published by Bloomsbury (2021). Currently he is working on a single-volume commentary for the equivalent Latin series on Pliny’s Letters. Jared Hudson is Associate Professor of Classics at Harvard University. He is the author of The Rhetoric of Roman Transportation: Vehicles in Latin Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Donna W. Hurley writes about the historiography of the early Roman Empire, concentrating on the contribution made by the Roman biographer Suetonius. She has published commentaries on the Suetonius Lives of the emperors Gaius and Claudius and a translation of all of the imperial Lives. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers Universities.

flast_Vol1.indd 21

28-04-2023 19:54:47

xxii

  N otes on C ontributors

Fábio Duarte Joly is Professor of Ancient History in the Department of History at the Federal University of Ouro Preto, in Brazil. He is the author of Tácito e a Metáfora da Escravidão: Um Estudo de Cultura Política Romana (São Paulo, 2004), Libertate opus est: Escravidão, Manumissão e Cidadania à Época de Nero (54–68 d.C.) (Curitiba, 2010), and A Escravidão na Roma Antiga: Política, Economia e Cultura (São Paulo, 2013). He also wrote entries for the Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei (Stuttgart, 2017). Brandon Jones is Visiting Lecturer of Classical Studies at Boston University. His publications focus on social and intellectual history during the Roman imperial period. Timothy Jones earned his PhD at Macquarie University. His current areas of research include the reign of Tiberius (with a focus on Germanicus), narrative in Tacitus, and imperial women. Recent publications include “Julia, Daughter of Drusus: Sejanus’ Imperial Betrothal.” Classicum 43: 22–27; and “A Deafening Silence: Agrippa Postumus and the Will of Augustus.” Iris: Journal of the Classical Association of Victoria (New Series) 29 (2016): 77–85. Molly Ayn Jones-Lewis is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) whose research interests include ancient theories of ethnicity, the social history of the medical professions, and Roman law. She (with Rebecca Futo Kennedy) is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Identity and the Environment in the Classical and Medieval Worlds. Timothy Joseph is Professor of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. His publications include Tacitus the Epic Successor (Brill, 2012) and Thunder and Lament: Lucan on the Beginnings and Ends of Epic (Oxford, 2022). Konstantinos Kapparis is Professor in Classics and Director of the Center for Greek Studies at the University of Florida. His research interests include the Attic orators, Athenian law, Greek and Roman medical authors, women’s history and gender studies, and the social history of the Greco-Roman world. He has published seven books, an edited volume, and more than eighty articles, book chapters, and reviews on topics such as prostitution, citizenship and immigration, gender studies, and the history of medicine and science. Daniel Kapust is Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests include Roman, early modern, and eighteenth-century political thought. He has published two books: Republicanism, Rhetoric, and Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus (Cambridge, 2011) and Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art (Cambridge, 2018). Nathan Katkin is a PhD student in Classics at the University of Chicago. He is interested in how people tell stories about the past in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. Michael B. Kearney graduated with joint bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Classics from Yale University, where in 2018 and 2019 he directed the university’s annual “Certamen” invitational. His senior thesis examined the narrative role of the lucus in Vergil’s Aeneid. Other areas of interest include Late Roman bronze coinage and the hero Diomedes. Peter Keegan is a Professor in Roman History at Macquarie University. His research interests are wide-ranging: the political, military, social, and cultural histories of Rome during the republican and early imperial periods; sexuality, gender, and body history in antiquity; the epigraphy of ephemeral graffiti and death in Roman Italy; and the spatial dynamics of social relations in urban and periurban contexts in ancient Campania. He maintains a productive publication profile, including Written Space in the Latin West; Graffiti in Antiquity; Roles for Men and Women in Roman Epigraphic Culture; Inscriptions in the Private Sphere in the Greco-Roman World; and Livy’s Women. Elizabeth Keitel is Professor Emerita of Classics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has written extensively on Tacitus and co-edited (with Brian Breed and Rex Wallace), Lucilius and Satire in

flast_Vol1.indd 22

28-04-2023 19:54:47

N otes on C ontributors  

xxiii

Second-Century BC Rome (Cambridge 2018) and (with Virginia Closs) Urban Disasters and the Roman Imagination (deGruyter 2020). Benjamin Kelly is Associate Professor in the Department of History, at York University, Toronto. His research concerns Greek documentary papyri (especially juristic papyri), Roman policing institutions, Latin historiography, and the history of the Roman imperial court. He is the author of Petitions, Litigation, and Social Control in Roman Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2011). Adam M. Kemezis is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, Classics and Religion at the University of Alberta. He writes on imperial Roman historiography and biography of several periods, as well as imperial-era Greek literature. His publications include a monograph Greek Narratives of the Roman Empire under the Severans: Cassius Dio, Philostratus and Herodian (Cambridge, 2014) and several articles on Cassius Dio, Tacitus, Philostratus and the Historia Augusta. Robert C. Ketterer is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Iowa. He writes on ancient drama and the reception of classics in early modern and enlightenment opera. His publications include articles and chapters on individual early operas and a monograph, Ancient Rome in Early Opera (Urbana, 2009). He co-edited Syllecta Classica, vol. 23 (2013) “Re-Creation: Musical Reception of Classical Antiquity” and the Oxford Bibliography Online article “Classics and Opera.” Kyle Khellaf is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Classics at the University of California, Riverside. He has recently published scholarship on Greco-Roman historical digressions and DeleuzoGuattarian readings of classical authors. Jayne Knight is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Tasmania. She received her PhD from the University of British Columbia. She researches Latin literature and Roman cultural history, with particular interests in rhetoric, politics, and emotions. Michael L. Konieczny holds a PhD in Classical Philology from Harvard. Alice König is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of St. Andrews. She specializes in the prose literature of the imperial period and has published on Vitruvius, Frontinus, Pliny the Younger, and Tacitus, among other authors. Patrick Kragelund holds doctorates in classics and the reception of classics from the University of Copenhagen and has worked at the Danish Academy in Rome, the Universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark, and of Bergen, Norway, and from 1998 till retirement was director of the Danish National Art Library. Important recent publications are A Stage for the King. The Travels of Christian IV of Denmark and the Building of Frederiksborg Castle, Copenhagen 2019; “Epicurus, Sisenna and the Dream of Metella,” Classical Philology 113.2 (2018), 212–224; “Tacitus and Dio on Tiberius and the Tiber (Annals 1.76.1; 79.1–4; Dio 57.14.7–8)” Classical Quarterly 72.1 (2022), 338–346; and The Latin Inscriptions of Medici Florence. Piety and Propaganda, Civic Pride and the Classical Past, Rome 2021. Mik Larsen is a Lecturer in Ancient History at California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona, and California State University, Long Beach. He works on social class, social mobility, and rhetoric in the Roman Empire. Robyn Le Blanc is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research and fieldwork focuses on communities in the Roman provinces, and in particular the development and transformation of public space, and civic coinage. She has excavated in Israel, Montenegro, and Britain, and has recently published an article on foundation myths on coins of Ascalon in Israel Numismatics Research (2017) and co-authored an article on the Roman bouleuterion from Ascalon/Ashkelon for AJA (2016).

flast_Vol1.indd 23

28-04-2023 19:54:47

xxiv

  N otes on C ontributors

D. S. Levene is Professor of Classics at New York University. Much of his research is on Roman historiography; he is the author of two books on Livy (Religion in Livy (Leiden, 1993) and Livy on the Hannibalic War (Oxford, 2010)), and has also written extensively on other historians, notably Tacitus, Sallust, and Pompeius Trogus. He edited the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Tacitus’ Histories (Oxford, 1997), and co-edited (with D. P. Nelis) Clio and the Poets (Leiden, 2002). His current major project is an edition and commentary on the fragments and epitomes of Livy. B. M. Levick was Fellow and Tutor in Literae Humaniores at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, until 1998. Danielle Chagas de Lima holds a doctorate in Linguistics, Classics from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Her thesis examined political vocabulary in Tacitus’ work. Her research interest focuses on literary genres in classical antiquity, classic historiography and biography, characterization, and history of concepts in classical and neo-Latin writings. Jerzy Linderski is Paddison Professor of Latin Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His current interests include Roman history, religion and law, Latin epigraphy, and Latin language. His major publications are Roman Questions (Stuttgart 1995) and Roman Questions II (Stuttgart 2007). John Alexander Lobur is a Professor at the University of Mississippi, specializing in the interface between culture and power in the transition from republic to empire, with emphases on the role of rhetoric, historiography, biography, and exemplarity. He is the author of Consensus, Concordia and the Formation of Roman Imperial Ideology (Routledge 2008), several related articles. His book Cornelius Nepos: A Study in the Influence and Evidence was published by the University of Michigan Press (2021). Katie Low was awarded a doctorate in 2013 from the University of Oxford that focused on the Tiberian books of the Annals, with particular reference to Tacitus’ portrayal of foreigners and to the theme of civil war. She also studied at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris and held posts at Regent’s Park College, Oxford and Royal Holloway, University of London, and has published articles and reviews on the history of Claudius’ accession and on various aspects of the Annals. She currently lives in Brussels and works at the European Commission. Ivaylo Lozanov is Assistant Professor in Classical Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, Sofia University, Bulgaria, and Adjunct Professor at the Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. His principal research interests lie in ancient urbanism, political history, religion, trade, and economic relations in the Eastern Mediterranean, with particular focus on ancient Thrace in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. He is involved in a leading role in international interdisciplinary projects studying the Thracian elite of the Late Iron Age. He is author of a chapter on Roman Thrace (in A Companion of Ancient Thrace. Wiley-Blackwell, 2015). Trevor S. Luke is an Associate Professor of Ancient History and Classics at Florida State University. He is the author of Ushering in A New Republic: Theologies of Arrival at Rome in the First Century bce (University of Michigan Press). His research focuses on religion and imperial ideology in the Late Republic and the Early Empire. Dominic Machado is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross. He studies the history and historiography of the Roman Republic with a particular focus on the ability of non-elite groups to organize and act collectively. He is also interested in the reception of antiquity in modern media like TV, movies, and video games, and the ways that such receptions can be used pedagogically. Christopher S. Mackay is a Professor at the University of Alberta and has written two books on Roman history (Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History and The Breakdown of the Roman Republic) as well as editions and translations of late medieval texts on witchcraft and the Anabaptist Kingdom of Münster.

flast_Vol1.indd 24

28-04-2023 19:54:47

N otes on C ontributors  

xxv

Shushma Malik is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include Roman emperors and their reception, Roman religions, and imperial historiography. In particular, she has worked extensively on the Emperor Nero’s portrayal in Christian history as the Antichrist and has written on portrayals of Roman emperors in the works and letters of Oscar Wilde. Her monograph The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm was published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. Alessio Mancini received his PhD in Classics at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in 2017 and is currently postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pisa. His research focuses primarily on Lucan’s Bellum Civile and on its reception in the Middle Ages and early Italian Humanism, as well as on Latin textual criticism and on the interactions between Roman declamation and other genres (poetry, biography, historiography). Eleni Hall Manolaraki (PhD Cornell University) is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of South Florida and the author of Noscendi Nilum Cupido: Imagining Egypt from Lucan to Philostratus (DeGruyter 2012). She has published journal articles and book chapters on Roman epic (Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus), historiography (Tacitus, Pliny the Younger), and natural history (Pliny the Elder), and co-authored the Wiley textbook A History of Rome (4th edition). Juliana Bastos Marques is Associate Professor of Ancient History at UNIRIO - Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, and currently researches contemporary public receptions of authority in ancient historiography. She was Fulbright Fellow, 2017 (Florida State University), and Newton Fellow, 2018–2020 (Newcastle University). Her book, Tradição e renovações da identidade romana em Tito Lívio e Tácito, was published in Brazil in 2012. Richard Marshall teaches in the Classics Department of the National University of Ireland, Galway, and is a former Research Associate of the Fragments of the Republican Roman Orators project at the University of Glasgow. Steve Mason is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions and Cultures in the University of Groningen. He edits the international project Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary (Brill, 2000–), for which he has written the volumes Life of Josephus and Judean War 2 and 4. His recent monographs include Orientation to the History of Roman Judaea (Wipf & Stock, 2016), A History of the Judaean War, ad 66–74 (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and From Historical Method to Cases: Jews and Christians in the Roman World (Brill, 2022 forthcoming). Jonathan Master is an Associate Professor of Classics at Emory University. He has published Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus (Michigan, 2016) and several articles on Seneca. Del A. Maticic is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Greek and Roman Studies at Vassar College specializing in early imperial Roman literature and culture. James McNamara (PhD Cambridge) held DAAD Postdoctoral Research Fellow working at the Universities of Potsdam and Florence. He has taught Latin and Greek language and literature at Cambridge, Oxford, and Victoria University (Wellington). His research focuses on Tacitus, imperial Latin historiography, oratory, ethnography, and relationships between poetry and prose literature. He also works on classical reception, including classics in education and early modern historiography. Julia Mebane is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research focuses on Roman political culture, including themes of republicanism, civil war, and the domus Augusta. Her publications include “Carlyle the Tragedian: Staging Euripides’ Bacchae in The French Revolution,” Classical Receptions 11.1 (2019): 44–60; and “Pompey’s Head and the Body Politic in Lucan’s De Bello Civili,” TAPA 146.1 (2016): 191–215.

flast_Vol1.indd 25

28-04-2023 19:54:47

xxv i

  N otes on C ontributors

Michael Meckler is a Permanent Fellow in the Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies at the Ohio State University. Ronald Mellor is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research specialties have included Roman religion, the Julio-Claudian emperors, and Roman historiography. His most recent books are Augustus and the Creation of the Roman Empire (Bedford, 2006) and Tacitus’ Annals (Oxford University Press, 2010). Edward Millband earned his PhD at the University of Cambridge. His doctoral thesis is a commentary on Book 13 of Tacitus’ Annals. He supervises undergraduate students from all three years of the Classical Tripos on Latin verse and prose literature as well as Latin prose composition. His main research interests are Latin historiography and poetry of the Early Empire, particularly the works of Tacitus and Seneca, as well as codicology, textual criticism, and the evolution of literary Latin. Rosemary Moore is Distinguished Associate Professor of Instruction in the departments of History and Classics at the University of Iowa. Her specialties are Roman military history and the history of ancient leadership. She has written case studies on Fulvia, Julius Caesar, and the army mutinies of 14 ce in the Sage series Becoming a Leader in the Ancient World. She is also the author of the chapter “Generalship” in the Oxford History of Classical Warfare, as well as various articles on leadership, command, and gender in ancient Rome. Matt Myers is a Teaching Associate in Roman History at the University of Nottingham. His research interests include the role of space and sensory perception in Roman historiography and the role of violence in Roman history and literature. His PhD thesis, entitled Vision and Space in Tacitus, was passed in 2018. Margot Neger is an Assistant Professor of the Classics department of the University of Cyprus. She gained her PhD from the University of Munich with a thesis on Martial which she published in 2012 (Martials Dichtergedichte. Das Epigramm als Medium der poetischen Selbstreflexion. Tübingen: Narr). Her main areas of research are Greek and Roman epigram and epistolography, especially the letters of Pliny the Younger and Sidonius Apollinaris. She has been principal investigator of a project entitled “Embedded Poems in Ancient Prose Letters” funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Her monograph Epistolare Narrationen. Studien zur Erzähltechnik des jüngeren Plinius (Tübingen: Narr, 2021) investigates the narrative strategies in Pliny the Younger’s Letters. Andrew Nichols is Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Classics at the University of Florida. He is the author of Ctesias: On India (Bloomsbury, 2011). His recent publications include articles in Classici e Orientali and Thessaliko Hemerologio and chapters in the edited volumes Miracles and Wonders in Antiquity and Byzantium and Displacement in Language, Literature and Culture. John Nicols graduated from UC Berkeley and did his PhD at UCLA and at the Universität Freiburg. He has held regular appointments at the Universität Freiburg, at Stanford University, and at the University of Oregon where he is now an emeritus professor of History and of Classics. He has been a visiting professor at five German universities and has received many grants most recently from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In 2009, he received the university’s Williams Award for his teaching. He is now working on a book on the practice of hospitium in the Roman Empire. Ben Nikota is a PhD student in Classics at New York University. His dissertation focuses on the fragmentary Greek-Jewish authors preserved by Alexander Polyhistor. Carlos F. Noreña is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Imperial Ideals in the Roman West (Cambridge University Press, 2011), editor of A Cultural History of Western Empires: Antiquity (Bloomsbury Academic UK, 2018), and co-editor of From Document to

flast_Vol1.indd 26

28-04-2023 19:54:47

N otes on C ontributors  

xxv ii

History: Epigraphic Insights into the Graeco-Roman World (Brill, 2019) and The Emperor and Rome: Space, Representation, and Ritual (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He has published widely in Roman history, the topography of Rome, literary and visual cultures in the Roman empire, historical geography, and comparative empires. S. P. Oakley is Kennedy Professor of Latin in the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College. He has taught also in the University of Reading. His main interests include ancient historiography, Latin prose style, the transmission of Latin texts through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the topography of pre-Roman southern Italy. His principal publication on ancient historiography is A Commentary on Livy, Books VI–X (Oxford University Press, 1997–2005). Rubén Olmo-López, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at Universidad de Oviedo (Spain). He is a member of the research groups Síncrisis (USC) and Ciudades Romanas (UCM), and the international network Toletum: Netzwerk zur Erforschung der Iberischen Halbinsel in der Antike. His research is focused on Roman provincial administration and center-periphery relations in the Roman Empire under the Late Republic and the principate, especially in Hispania and North Africa. He is the author of El centro en la periferia: Las competencias de los gobernadores provinciales romanos en Hispania durante el Principado (Zürich: Lit Verlag, 2018). Joseph R. O’Neill is a Senior Lecturer and Honors Faculty Fellow at Barrett, the Honors College, at Arizona State University. Victoria Emma Pagán is Professor of Classics at the University of Florida. Lee E. Patterson is Professor of History at Eastern Illinois University. He is the author of Kinship Myth in Ancient Greece. He is currently writing a book on Roman-Armenian relations while recent items regarding Armenia appeared in Revue des Études Arméniennes and Latomus with another forthcoming in L’Antiquité Classique. Mitchell R. Pentzer, Lecturer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studies epigram, satire, epic, historiography, and humor. He has most recently authored “Horace-ing Around with Martial Book 10” in CJ (2019). Jonathan Scott Perry is an Associate Professor of History at the University of South Florida, and he is also book review editor for The Historian, the journal of Phi Alpha Theta, the national History Honors Society. Jakub Pigoń is Associate Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Wrocław, Poland. Apart from Tacitus, he deals with Vergil, Ovid, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and other Roman writers, as well as with narrative technique and descriptions of violent deaths in historiography and epic. He has published in such journals as Athenaeum, Classical Quarterly, Hermes, Mnemosyne, and Rheinisches Museum. He also edited The Children of Herodotus: Greek and Roman Historiography and Related Genres (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008). Since 2004, he has been editor-in-chief of Eos, Poland’s oldest classical journal (est. 1894). Maria Cristina Pimentel is Full Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon. Her research interests include Roman historiography (Tacitus), drama and philosophy (Seneca), epigrammatic poetry (Martial), and the reception of Classical topics in Portuguese literature and culture. She is the director of the journal Euphrosyne. Recently she was one of the editors of Violence in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Peeters, 2018) and of Augustan Papers. New Approaches to the Age of Augustus on the Bimillenium of his Death (Olms, 2020). She is

flast_Vol1.indd 27

28-04-2023 19:54:47

xxv iii

  N otes on C ontributors

co-author of the Portuguese translation of Propertius, Martial, and Augustine (Confessiones and De Trinitate). Antonino Pittà holds a tenure-track position at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan). He earned his PhD in Latin Philology at the Scuola Normale Superiore. His areas of interest are republican antiquarianism, technical prose, Flavian poetry (especially Statius), and textual criticism. He published critical editions with commentary of Varro’s work De vita populi Romani and Statius Silvae 1 (praefatio and poem 1). Elizabeth Ann Pollard is Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence at San Diego State University. Her research investigates women accused of witchcraft in the Roman world and explores the exchange of goods and ideas between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean in the early centuries of the Common Era. Her current project investigates the influence of classical understandings of witchcraft on modern pop-culture representations of witches. Pollard is co-author of Worlds Together Worlds Apart (concise, full 6th edition, and Companion Reader). She has published on pedagogical and digital history topics, from writing about witchcraft on Wikipedia to tweeting on the backchannel of the large lecture. Arthur J. Pomeroy is Professor Emeritus in the Classics program, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the author (with Tim G. Parkin) of Roman Social History: A Sourcebook (Routledge 2007) and has researched extensively on the portrayal of the ancient world in film and on television, including Then It Was Destroyed by the Volcano (Duckworth 2008) and A Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome on Screen (Wiley/Blackwell 2017). He has also published a number of articles and chapters on Tacitus. Juan Luis Posadas (Malaga, 1967) is a Spanish editor, translator, and university professor specializing in Tacitus and in women in Latin literature between the time of Caesar and the Severans. He has worked as an editor for many publishing companies, such as Pearson Educación España and Cambridge University Press. Since 2011, he has been a professor in different Spanish universities. He has published many volumes, among which is a bilingual edition of Sallust’s Histories and translations of Sallust’s Letters and Tacitus’ Germania. David Potter is Francis W. Kelsey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Roman History, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan. His most recent books are The Origin of Empire (London, 2018) and Disruption: Why Things Change (New York, 2021). Pauline Ripat, Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Winnipeg, is a Roman social historian with particular interests in magic and divination. She is the author of numerous articles on these subjects, including “Expelling Misconceptions: Astrologers at Rome,” Classical Philology (2011) 106: 115–154 and “Roman Omens, Roman Audiences, and Roman History,” Greece & Rome (2006) 53: 155–174. Carolynn Roncaglia is Assistant Professor of Classics at Santa Clara University. Her research interests include Roman Italy, Greek and Latin epigraphy, and Roman and Hellenistic history. She is the author of Northern Italy in the Roman World, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Gregory Rowe is Associate Professor of Roman History at the University of Victoria in Canada. Inspired by Victor Klemperer’s Lingua Tertii Imperii (Language of the Third Reich) and Jean Béranger’s Recherches sur l’aspect idéologique du principat (Studies on the Ideology of the Principate), he studies the political propaganda of the transition from republic to autocracy at Rome and the distortions it continues to cause. Publications include “Reconsidering the Auctoritas of Augustus” (2013) and and “Luctatio Civitatis: Augustus’ Res Gestae, Tiberius’ Accession, and the Struggle over Augustus’ Legacy” (2021). Side interests include spoken Greek and Latin and language pedagogy.

flast_Vol1.indd 28

28-04-2023 19:54:47

N otes on C ontributors  

xxix

Steve Rutledge is Adjunct Professor of History at Linfield University in McMinnville, Oregon, and Associate professor Emeritus from the University of Maryland, College Park. He is author most recently of Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting in Ancient Rome (Oxford, 2012), and a Bolchazy-Carducci commentary on selections from Tacitus. He is currently at work on a series of essays concerning the intersection of modern life and ancient Greek and Roman religion. Dylan Sailor is Professor of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Federico Santangelo is Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle University. Biagio Santorelli is Associate Professor of Latin at the University of Genoa, Italy. His research interests lie in the field of Roman declamation. His most recent contributions on this topic include a critical edition, with introduction, Italian translation, and commentary of the Major Declamations 11 and 16 (Cassino 2014) and the Major Declamation 1 (Cassino 2017, with A. Stramaglia); he coauthored the Loeb edition of the Major Declamations, with A. Stramaglia and M. Winterbottom (2021) and edited the unpublished works of Lennart Håkanson (Berlin-Boston 2014 and 2016, with F. Citti and A. Stramaglia). He is currently working on a new edition, with Italian translation and commentary, of the Lesser Declamations, directed by L. Pasetti (Bologna). Verena Schulz is Professor of Classical Philology (Latin) at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany. She specializes in ancient rhetoric (in particular, performance, Auctor ad Herennium, Cicero, Quintilian), Roman historiography and biography (in particular, imperial times), and memory studies. Her most important publications are Die Stimme in der antiken Rhetorik (Göttingen 2014) and The Deconstruction of Imperial Representation: Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio on Nero and Domitian (Leiden/Boston 2019). Friderike Senkbeil finished her doctoral thesis in February 2018 at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The aim of her project was to elucidate the specific Tacitean representation of the urban space in comparison to other literary representations and the material Rome of the Tacitean age. Her areas of research include Latin historiography, ancient concepts of memory, and the semantics of space. She currently works as a secondary school teacher for Latin and History in Berlin. Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson holds a DPhil in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature from the University of Oxford and is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of the monograph Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals (OUP, 2019); an edition, translation, and commentary on the Peri Thaumasion of Phlegon of Tralles (Brill, 2019); and of several articles on Roman religion, ancient historiography, paradoxography, and the literature of the Roman Empire. Mali Skotheim is an Assistant Professor of English at Ashoka University. Her research concerns the cultural history of Greek drama and dance in the Roman period, and the reception of ancient pantomime in the eighteenth century. She has published on festival culture in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Eranos, 2019) and actors in the Roman imperial period (in a volume of collected essays, The Ancient Emotion of Disgust, 2016). Anthony Smart is Lecturer in Ancient and Medieval History at York St. John University. He has published on Greek, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon history. He is currently working on a study of grief and sorrow in the Late Republic. Lydia Spielberg is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has published on declamation, on historiographical tropes and political theory in Tacitus, and on quotation in Roman historiography.

flast_Vol1.indd 29

28-04-2023 19:54:47

xxx

  N otes on C ontributors

Jack Stone is an undergraduate student majoring in Classical Studies, Religious Studies, and Political Science at Trinity College (Connecticut). He is interested in the sociopolitical reception of Christianity in the early Roman Empire. William Stover was a graduate student at the University of Virginia. His research interests include ethnic perception in the ancient world, historiography, and ancient legal rhetoric. Thomas E. Strunk is an Associate Professor of Classics at Xavier University. His research interests include Roman republicanism, Cato the Younger, Pliny, and Tacitus. He is the author of History after Liberty: Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants, and Republicans, University of Michigan Press, 2017 and On the Fall of the Roman Republic: Lessons for the American People, Anthem Press, 2022. Jeremy J. Swist is a Lecturer in the Department of Classical Studies at Brandeis University, having previously taught at Miami University and Xavier University. He earned his BA in Latin and History from the University of Maine, and his MA and PhD in Classics from the University of Iowa. His research covers historiography and rhetoric under the Roman Empire. He has published articles on the writings of Florus, Libanius, Himerius, and the emperor Julian, as well as on classical reception in heavy metal music. Jitty Synn graduated in 2019 from Trinity College (Connecticut) with a major in Public Policy and Law and minors in Latin and music. She lives and works in New York City. László Takács is Associate Professor at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University (Budapest, Hungary), head of the Department of Classical Studies, and editor-in-chief of the Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. His research field is the Roman Literature in the first century ad, especially the satires of Persius and the Latin works of his master, L. Annaeus Cornutus. With his colleagues he works on the edition of Medieval, Renaissance, and early modern commentaries on Persius’ satires. He is also interested in early Christianity in Ireland, the interactions between the traditional Celtic religion and the Christian faith, and the medieval lives of early Irish saints. Bram L. H. ten Berge is Assistant Professor of Classics at Hope College. His main areas of interest are in Latin prose literature, especially historiography, of the late republican and early imperial periods. His latest publication is a book chapter on Florus’ account of the Late Republican civil wars (in The Historiography of Late Republican Civil War, Brill, 2019). Richard F. Thomas is George Martin Lane Professor of Classics at Harvard University. He teaches and writes on Hellenistic Greek and Roman literature, intertextuality, aesthetics, reception, and Bob Dylan. Publications include more than one hundred articles and reviews and the following books: Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry (1982), Reading Virgil and His Texts (1999), Virgil and the Augustan Reception (2001), Why Bob Dylan Matters (2017); commentaries on Virgil, Georgics (1988), and Horace, Odes 4 and Carmen Saeculare (2011). He has co-edited and contributed to Classics and the Uses of Reception (2006), Bob Dylan’s Performance Artistry (2007), and the Virgil Encyclopedia (2014). Brian Turner is Associate Professor of History at Portland State University. He has published studies on the commemoration of Roman soldiers and the war dead, on insurgency in the Roman world, and on Roman geography and worldviews. He is co-editor of Brill’s Companion to Military Defeat in Ancient Mediterranean Society (2018). Christopher S. van den Berg is the Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank ’55 Professor of Classical Studies at Amherst College. His first book was a study of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus (Cambridge University Press 2014). A second book examined the invention of literary historiography in Cicero’s Brutus (Cambridge University Press 2021). He co-edited (with Yelena Baraz) a Special Issue of the American

flast_Vol1.indd 30

28-04-2023 19:54:47

N otes on C ontributors  

xxxi

Journal of Philology on the topic “Intertextuality and its Discontents.” His current book project examines how Greco-Roman literary critics and rhetorical theorists refer to visual and material cultures, and how such references are essential to defining these genres. He has published on literary theory, declamation, deliberative rhetoric, Latin lexicography, and the literary dynamics of Greco-Roman Roman prose texts. This work has been supported by fellowships from the DAAD, NEH, ACLS, and the American Academy in Rome. Arnold van Roessel is currently a PhD student engaged in his studies at the University of Toronto. He is currently researching concepts and practices of the future in the late Roman Republic and the Empire. He is also interested in the ancient history of animals, textual transmission, digital humanities, and contemporary reception of Classics in video games. Frederik Juliaan Vervaet is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Melbourne, where he studies the political and socio-institutional history of the Roman Republic and the Early Empire, and Roman public law. He is the author of The High Command in the Roman Republic (2014) as well as coeditor of Despotism and Deceit in the Greco-Roman World (2010, with Andrew J. Turner and James Harvey K.O. Chong-Gossard), The Roman Republican Triumph: Beyond the Spectacle (2014, with Carsten H. Lange), Eurasian Empires in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (2017, with Hyun Jin Kim and Selim Ferruh Adali) and The Historiography of Late Republican Civil War (2019, with Carsten H. Lange). Diletta Vignola is attending the doctoral program in Classical Philology at the Università di Genova and is currently studying the reception of Senecan tragedies in the first decades after their composition, in particular in the context of epic poetry of the Flavian age. She attended the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (2014–2019), and she earned her Laurea Triennale and Magistrale at the Università degli Studi di Pisa, with theses on Silius Italicus’ Punica. Katharine T. von Stackelberg is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at Brock University. She works on the representation of the ancient environment as cultural space with a focus on gender and reception. She is the author of The Roman Garden: Space, Sense and Society (Routledge 2009) and “Reconsidering Hyperreality: ‘Roman’ Houses and their Gardens”, in K. T. von Stackelberg and E. Macaulay-Lewis (eds.) Housing the New Romans: Architectural Reception and Classical Style in the Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2017). Philip Waddell is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Arizona. His research interests include Roman and Greek historiography, particularly involving questions of narrative, rhetoric, and enargeia. He is the author of Tacitean Visual Narrative (Bloomsbury 2020). Robert Wagman is Professor of Classics at the University of Florida. David Welch is a PhD student in Classics at the University of Texas, Austin. His main area of interest is Roman historiography of the Late Republic and the Early Empire, specifically Julius Caesar and Tacitus. His master’s thesis was titled “From Germanicus to Corbulo: The Evolution of Generalship under the Principate in Tacitus’ Annales,” and his most recent conference paper was titled “The Use of Caesar in the First Triad of Tacitus’ Annales.” Debbie Wen is an English and Classics double major at Amherst College (class of 2019), where she won the Billings prize for excellence in Latin. Julia Wetzel is a graduate student at the University of North Texas where she studies Imperial Roman Architecture. Joshua Whang is a student at Amherst College (class of 2021), majoring in Classics.

flast_Vol1.indd 31

28-04-2023 19:54:47

xxxii

  N otes on C ontributors

Christopher Whitton is Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Emmanuel College. His publications include a commentary on Pliny Epistles 2 (Cambridge, 2013), The Arts of Imitation in Latin Prose: Pliny’s Epistles/Quintilian in Brief (Cambridge, 2019) and Tacitus Revoiced: Reading the Histories with Pliny the Younger (Forthcoming). Current projects include a commentary on Tacitus Annals 14 (Cambridge). Kathryn Williams is the Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses primarily on Latin historiography with special interest in the writings of Tacitus and Sallust and in Roman political history and diplomacy. Her most recent publication is a contribution, “Sallust’s Allobrogian Envoys,” to Historiography, Culture and Religion in Classical Antiquity: Papers in Honor of Carin M.C. Green, edited by L. Holland and S. Bell (London, 2018). Andrew Wolpert is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Florida. He has written primarily on Athenian social memory and political culture, focusing on democratic discourse, civil war, and social conflict. He is the author of Remembering Defeat: Civil War and Civic Memory in Ancient Athens (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore) and co-author (with Konstantinos Kapparis) of Legal Speeches of Democratic Athens: Sources for Athenian History (Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis). A. J. Woodman, Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Virginia and Emeritus Professor of Latin at Durham University, is author or co-author of commentaries on Velleius Paterculus (1977–83), Books 3–6 of Tacitus’ Annals (1989–2018), and Tacitus’ Agricola (2014). He is also author of Rhetoric in Classical Historiography (1988), Tacitus Reviewed (1998), From Poetry to History: Selected Papers (2012), and Lost Histories: Selected Fragments of Roman Historical Writers (2015); editor or co-editor of (among numerous other volumes) Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (1986), Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition (1993), and The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus (2007); and translator of Tacitus: The Annals (2004) and Sallust (2007). He has also published extensively on Latin poetry and has just published a commentary on Book 3 of Horace’s Odes (2022). Jonathan H. Young is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford in the Department of Theology and Religion. He also holds master’s degrees in both Classics and Religious Studies. His research centers on the religious, philosophical, and intellectual history of the Roman empire (1st–4th centuries ce). His current research focuses on ancient discussions of animal religion and rationality, especially as seen in the Christian author Origen of Alexandria. His expertise includes early Christian writings, ancient philosophy (especially the Presocratics and Platonic tradition), ancient prose fiction, and ethnographic and fantastic representations of peoples and animals. Chenxi Zhang graduated from Amherst College (class of 2019) with a degree in Classics (magna cum laude). He received several departmental language awards.

flast_Vol1.indd 32

28-04-2023 19:54:47

ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations for Greek and Latin authors and works and modern collections of ancient sources follow those in S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, and E. Eidinow, eds., Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. (Oxford 2012). However, the works of Tacitus are abbreviated as follows: Ag. G. D. H. A.

De vita Iulii Agricolae De origine et situ Germanorum Dialogus de oratoribus Historiae Annales

Abbreviations for journals and series, when used, follow those in L’Année philologique (https://about.brepolis.net/aph-abreviations).

Reference Works Barrington Richard J. A. Talbert, ed. Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Princeton 2000). MRR  T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 2 vols. (New York 1951–1960). PIR2 E. Groag, A. Stein, L. Petersen, K. Wachtel, W. Eck, M. Heil, and J. Heinrichs, eds. Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec. I, II, III, 2nd edition, 8 parts (Berlin 1933–2015).

General b. born bce before common era (= bc) c., ca. circa (“around/about,” with dates) ce common era (= ad) cf. compare/see also (confer) d. died ed., eds. editor, editors e.g. for example (exempli gratia) fl. flourished i.e. that is (id est) l., ll. line, lines MS or MSS manuscript, manuscripts p., pp. page, pages r. ruled s.v. sub verbum (that is, under the headword)

flast_Vol1.indd 33

28-04-2023 19:54:47

JULIO-CLAUDIAN FAMILY TREE JOHN ALEXANDER LOBUR University of Mississippi

L. DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS (COS 54 BCE)

JULIA = M. ATIUS BALBUS

M. ANTONIUS (3) = (3) FULVIA (TRIUMVIR)

CN. DOM. AHENOBARBUS (COS 32 BCE)

IULLUS ANTONIUS (COS 10 BCE)

DECIMUS HATERIUS AGRIPPA (COS 22, †32 CE)

=

DOMITIA LEPIDA MAJOR (ca. 8 BCE - 59 CE)

=

ANTONIA MINOR (36 BCE-37 CE)

CN. DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS (COS 32, †41 CE)

=

ANTONIA MAJOR

AGRIPPINA MINOR

=

L. DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS (COS 16 BCE)

DOMITIA LEPIDA (1) = MINOR

M. VALERIUS MARCELLA (1) = MESSALLINUS MINOR APPIANUS (COS 12 BCE)

M. VALERIUS MESSALLA BARBATUS

JULIA (3) = (2) TIBERIUS CLAUDIU M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS = (1) MAJOR (†23 BCE) M.VIPSANIUS (3) = (2)

IULLUS = (2) MARCELLA = (2) ANTONIUS MAJOR

CLAUDIA = P. QUINTILIUS VARUS PULCHRA (COS 13 BCE)

L. ANTONIUS

NERO

+ GAIUS CAESAR (20 BCE - 4 CE)

*

O MESSALLINA Q. HATERIUS ANTONINUS (COS 53 CE)

SCRIBONIA (3) = (2) AUGUSTUS (3) = (2) LIVIA (70 BCE - 16 CE)

(2) OCTAVIA = G. CLAUDIUS (69 -11 BCE)) MARCELLUS (COS 50 BCE)

(4) NERO CLAUDIUS DRUSUS (38-9 BCE)

C. JULIUS CAESAR (DICTATOR)

I

L. MARCIUS = (2) ATIA = (2) G. OCTAVIUS (1) = ANCHARIA PHILIPPUS (†58 BCE) (COS 56 BCE) OCTAVIA = SEX. APPULEIUS

LUCIUS CAESAR (17 BCE - 2 CE)

JULIA MINOR (19 BCE - 29 CE)

(2) = FAUSTUS CORNELIUS SULLA LUCULLUS (COS. SUFF 31 CE)

=

AGRIPPA P AGRIPPINA (12 BCE - 14 MAJOR (18 BCE - 33 CE) G

L. AEM. PAULLUS (COS 1 CE)

AEMELIA LEPIDA (5 BCE - 43 CE)

FAUSTUS CORNELIUS SULLA FELIX (†62 CE)

M.SILANUS (COS 46)

(3) = APPIUS JUNIUS SILANUS (COS 28, †43 CE)

QUINCTILLA

M. JUNIUS SILANU TORQUATUS (COS 19 CE)

L.SILAN (†49

D.SILANUS TORQUATUS (COS 53)

L. SILANUS TORQUATUS (†65 CE)

M. APPULEIUS (COS 20 BCE)

=

M. JUNIUS (COS 25

G. ASINIUS PO (COS 40 BC

G. ASINIU GALLUS († 33 CE)

= SEX.APPULEIUS (COS 29 BCE)

G. ASINIUS POLLIO (COS 23 CE) FABIA NUMANTINA =

flast_Vol1.indd 34

SEX. APPULEIUS (COS 14 CE)

28-04-2023 19:54:47

M. A AGR (CO

* C. JULIUS CAESAR (DICTATOR)

AGRIPPINA MAJOR

- VIPSANIA AGRIPPINA

MESSALINA

- NERO CLAUDIUS DRUSUS AND ANTONIA MINOR

AGRIPPINA MINOR AND G. DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS

- SCRIBONIA

FAUSTUS CORNELIUS SULLA FELIX

+

- M. VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA - IULLUS ANTONIUS

GAIUS CAESAR

DASHED LINE INDICATES ADOPTION

SCRIBONIA (2) = P. CORNELIUS

= TI. CLAUDIUS NERO (†33 BCE))

(3) = (2) AUGUSTUS (3) = (2) LIVIA DRUSILLA (1) 6 CE) =

JULIA (3) = (2) TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO (1) MAJOR

SAR E)

INDIVIDUALS OR RELATIONSHIPS APPEARING MORE THAN ONCE

DASHED LINE = ADOPTION

- AEM PAULLUS AND JULIA MINOR

VIPSANIA AGRIPPINA

NERO CLAUDIUS DRUSUS = ANTONIA MINOR

+ DRUSUS = (2) LIVILLA (1) = GAIUS CAESAR AGRIPPA POSTUMUS AGRIPPINA (12 BCE - 14 CE) MAJOR (18 BCE - 33 CE) GEMELLUS

L. AEM. PAULLUS (COS 1 CE)

A LEPIDA 43 CE)

=

S

*

GERMANICUS = AGRIPPINA MAJOR

DRUSUS JULIUS CAESAR =

JULIA LIVIA (1) = NERO JULIUS CAESAR

(2) = LIVIA ORESTILLA

L.SILANUS (†49 CE)

JUNIA CALVINA (†79 CE)

JUNIA LEPIDA

M. AEMELIUS LEPIDUS = ? (COS 6 CE)

JULIA = M. VINICIUS LIVILLA (COS 30) (18-41 CE)

JULIA L. CASSIUS DRUSILLA = LONGINUS

(3) = LOLLIA PAULINA L. VITELLIUS (COS 34,43,47 CE)

G. RUBELLIUS PLAUTUS (33 - 62 CE)

M. JUNIUS SILANUS TORQUATUS (COS 19 CE)

L. AEM. PAULLUS = JULIA MINOR (19 BCE - 29 CE) (COS 1 CE)

CALIGULA = JUNIA CLAUDILLA

AEMELIA LEPIDA

(2) = RUBELLIUS BLANDUS (COS18 CE)

M. JUNIUS SILANUS (COS 25 BCE)

LANUS TORQUATUS (COS 53)

CORNELIA = PAULLUS AEMELIUS LEPIDUS (COS 34, CENSOR 22)

=

L. VITELLIUS (COS 48)

(4) = MILONIA CAESONIA

A. VITELLIUS (COS 48, EMPEROR 69)

JULIA DRUSILLA (II) (39 - 41 CE)

(2)= M. AEMELIUS LEPIDUS(?)

PLAUTIA URGULANILLA = (1) CLAUDIUS AELIA PAETINA = (2)

G. ASINIUS POLLIO (COS 40 BCE) G. ASINIUS GALLUS († 33 CE)

ULEIUS 9 BCE) G. ASINIUS POLLIO (COS 23 CE)

=

POMPONIA = (1)

(2)

M. ASINIUS AGRIPPA (COS 25 CE)

M. VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA

CN. POMPEIUS = CLAUDIA ANTONIA (†66) MAGNUS

VIPSANIA AGRIPPINA (36 BCE - 20 CE) ASINIUS SALONIUS († 22 CE)

SERVIUS ASINIUS CELER (COS SUFF. 38 CE)

FAUSTUS CORNELIUS = (2) SULLA FELIX (COS 52 CE) MESSALINA = (3)

L. ASINIUS GALLUS

BRITANNICUS

GN. DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS = (1) AGRIPPINA MINOR (3)

=

(4)

SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS PASSIENUS = (2) OTHO = (2) POPPLEA SABINA (3) = (2) NERO = OCTAVIA (EMPEROR 69 CE) (EMPEROR 69 CE)

flast_Vol1.indd 35

28-04-2023 19:54:47

flast_Vol1.indd 36

28-04-2023 19:54:47

A ABDAGAESES ANDREW NICHOLS

University of Florida

Abdagaeses was a Parthian nobleman and member of the prestigious Suren family who assisted in the revolt against Artabanus III (ca. 36 ce, Ann. 6.36). He, along with his son, Sinnaces, and with the support of the Roman Vitellius, installed Tiridates as king of the Parthians after successfully unseating Artabanus. Abdagaeses handed over the royal tresury to Tiridates before the latter arrived in Seleucia where he was crowned king, though Abdagaeses held sway over the new king (novo rege potiebatur) (A. 6.42–43). Soon after, Artabanus arrived from Scythia with a large force (likely the Dahae among whom he had lived in his youth [Ann. 2.3]) and the backing of Parthian nobles who resented the power of Abdagaeses. Thereupon, Abdagaeses advised Tiridates to retreat to Mesopotamia and await reinforcements from Vitellius and the nations nearby. Many allies deserted Tiridates seeing his retreat as flight causing the king to withdrawl all the way to Syria, arriving with only a few men. Unfortunately, the ultimate fate of Abdagaeses is unknown as the remainder of this affair would have been detailed in the now lost section of the Annals. It is unclear if he is the same Abdagaeses mentioned by Josephus (A.J. 18.9.4) who served as military commander under Artabanus. It is equally unclear if he was the same person as, or in any way related to, the Indo-Parthian king Abdagases I (r. ca. 50–60 ce). The Indo-Parthian

Abdagases is known only through nusimatic evidence, and his relationship to the House of Suren is thus uncertain. FURTHER READING Gazerani, Saghi. (2016). Sistani Cycle of Epics and Iran’s National History: On the Margins of Historiography, Leiden: Brill. Wiesehöfer, Josef. (2001). Ancient Persia. Translated by Azodi, Azizeh. I. B. Tauris.

ABDUS, see PARTHIA ABNOBA, see DANUVIUS ABUDIUS RUSO, see CORNELIUS LENTULUS GAETULICUS, GNAEUS ACADEMY, see PHILOSOPHY ACBARUS, see ARABIA ACCIUS, see ROMAN POETS ACERRONIA, see FREEDMEN OF AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER ACERRONIUS PROCULUS, see PONTIUS, GAIUS ACHAIA, see GREECE

ACILIA ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Acilia was the mother of the poet Lucan and the wife of Annaeus Mela, the youngest brother of Seneca and of Iunius Gallio Annaeanus.

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume I, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c01_Vol1.indd 1

28-04-2023 17:36:39

2

  Acilius Aviola

Acilia belonged to the influential gens Acilia. She was born in Corduba, the chief town of Baetica, of the notable local lawyer Acilius Lucanus, whose cognomen was transmitted to the poet Lucan, his grandson (Hosius 1913, 334.6–12; Rostagni 1944, 179). She likely moved to Rome together with her eight-month-old son in 40 ce. According to Suetonius (Vita Luc. 50.10–51.1 Reifferscheid; see Rostagni 1944, 145) when Lucan was at the beginning of his adolescence, around 55 ce, Acilia had long since lived secluded from her husband Mela because of their incompatibility. When Lucan was indicted by Flavius Scaevinus as a member of the Pisonian Conspiracy, in the attempt to save his own life he accused his mother Acilia of the same deed (A. 15.56.4). This information is reported by Suetonius too (Vita Luc. 51.17–19 Reifferscheid; see Rostagni 1944, 148), who adds maliciously that Lucan hoped that this act of impiety could be appreciated by the matricide Nero. However, Acilia’s alleged involvement in the conspiracy brought neither to a condemnation nor to an acquittal, and her life was spared (A. 15.71.5). REFERENCES Hosius, Carolus. 1913. M. Annaei Lucani De Bello Civili libri decem. 3rd ed. Lipsiae: Teubner. 332–337. Rostagni, Augusto. 1944. Svetonio, De Poetis e biografi minori. Torino: Chiantore. FURTHER READING Wilson, Joseph P. 1990. “The Death of Lucan: Suicide and Execution in Tacitus.” Latomus 49: 458–463.

ACILIUS AVIOLA BRAM L. H. TEN BERGE

Hope College

Acilius Aviola, praetorian legate of Gallia Lugdunensis (21 ce), put down the beginning movements of the Gallic revolt of Iulius Florus and Iulius Sacrovir. Aviola appears once in all of Tacitus (A. 3.41) and is otherwise unknown. Syme (1979, 508; 1984, 1228, 1358–59, 1433; Syme 1986, 378) identifies him with Gaius Calpurnius Aviola, suffect

c01_Vol1.indd 2

consul in 24 ce and proconsul of Asia in 37/38 ce, who would have changed his name after adoption by a Gaius Calpurnius. Manius Acilius, consul in 54 ce (A. 12.64.1), may be his son. Aviola first used an urban cohort from Lugdunum to put down the Andecavi (see Gaul) and then employed legionaries sent to him by Gaius Visellius Varro, legate of Lower Germany, to suppress the Turoni (A. 3.41). Whether Aviola also led the legionaries who next pursued Florus (who had tried, unsuccessfully, to revive his cause by rousing his fellow Treveri) and pushed him to kill himself is uncertain (A. 3.42). According to Tacitus (A. 3.41.3), Gallic prisoners had alerted Aviola that the aid rendered by Sacrovir and other Gallic chiefs against the Andecavi was disingenuous. Tiberius, when consulted (by Aviola?), is said to have disavowed the information and so encouraged Sacrovir’s revolt. Acilius’ response reflects the standard Roman practice of confronting any rebellion with the nearest forces available (Goldsworthy 1996, 91), likewise on display a few chapters before (A. 3.38–39) in Publius Vellaeus’ response to a rebellion of Thracian tribes. The two revolts clearly are meant to be read in conjunction. see also: Bibulus, Gaius Reference work: PIR2 A 47 REFERENCES Goldsworthy, Adrian. 1996. The Roman Army at War: 100 bc–ad 200. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1979. Roman Papers. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, Ronald. 1984. Roman Papers. Vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ACILIUS, Manius, see ACILIUS AVIOLA

ACILIUS STRABO ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Lucius Acilius Strabo was a senator whose activity can be tracked between the Julio-Claudian

28-04-2023 17:36:39

acta diurna  

dynasty and the Flavian dynasty, praetor before 53 ce, and suffect consul in 71 or 80 ce. Tacitus records that after his praetorship, Strabo was sent to Cyrenaica by the emperor Claudius, to claim back the estates bequeathed to the Roman people by the king Apion in 96 bce and illegally occupied by locals. This activity is also attested by several inscriptions that are dated between 53 and 56 ce and reveal that Strabo’s task in the region continued under Nero, too (AE 1934, 260, 1974, 682; Elmayer and Maehler 2008). In 59 ce the Cyrenaeans accused Strabo in front of the Senate, who asserted that Claudius’ original instructions were unknown and for this reason entrusted the trial to Nero himself. Nero decided to endorse Strabo’s conduct, but nevertheless allowed the Cyrenaeans to keep their illegal possessions (A. 14.18.2–3). The year of Strabo’s consulship is debated. A Greek inscription found in Naples (ILS 6460) and dated to 71 ce mentions Strabo and Sextus Neranius Capito as in office on 14 September, so the two had to be the September/October ­suffect consuls for that year (Gallivan 1981, 188 and 196); the Fasti Septempedani instead, discovered in 1997, postpone Strabo’s office as a consul to 80 ce (AE 1998, 419; Marengo 1998). However, this new dating creates a suspect time span ­between his praetorship and consulship (twentyseven years). To solve this difficulty, it has been suggested that the consul of 80 ce was a homonymous son of the character mentioned by Tacitus (NP. Ant 12/2, 878); the Neapolitan inscription, therefore, must either refer to Strabo “the Elder” or be postponed in order to match with the Fasti Septempedani. Another inscription found in Germany (CIL XIII, 7709 = ILS 3456) mentions one Acilius Strabo as legatus Augusti; such a title can be used both for the commander of a legion and for the governor of a province, in this specific case of Germania Inferior. In the second hypothesis this position was probably held by Strabo shortly after the consulship, so the date of the former depends on the aforementioned interpretation of the latter (Eck 1985, 139; NP. Ant 12/2, 878). According to Syme, however, the German inscription could refer to a Lucius Acilius Strabo Clodius Nummus, governor of Numidia under Trajan (1959, 27 n. 15).

c01_Vol1.indd 3

3

While Strabo’s belonging to the gens Acilia is clear, his origin is uncertain: he could be a Campanian, if the inscriptions coming from Cumae and Puteoli and bearing the name Acilius Strabo refer to him (AE 1899, 34; 1903; 166; 1980, 245), or maybe a Spaniard, as are several notable Acilii (Syme 1958, 798). Reference works: PIR2 A 82; RE suppl. XV, 1 (Eck); NP. Ant 12/2, 878 (Eck) REFERENCES Eck, Werner. 1985. Die Statthalter der germanischen Provinzen vom 1.–3. Jahrhundert. Köln/Bonn: Rheinland Verlag. Elmayer, Abdulhafid Fadil, and Herwig Maehler. 2008. “A Boundary Inscription from Roman Cyrenaica.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 164: 136–138. Gallivan, Paul A. 1981. “The Fasti for ad 70–96.” Classical Quarterly 31: 186–220. Marengo, Silvia Maria. 1998. “Fasti Septempedani.” Picus 18: 63–88. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, Ronald. 1959. “The Lower Danube under Trajan.” Journal of Roman Studies 49: 26–33.

ACRATUS, see FREEDMEN OF NERO

ACTA DIURNA GREGORY ROWE

University of Victoria

Acta diurna (acta publica, populi Romani, urbis) were records of public affairs at Rome. Tacitus cites acta diurna as a source of information and a contrast to his own more selective annales. Acta diurna were first collected and made public by Iulius Caesar (Suet. Iul. 20, 59 bce; White 1997; cf. Caesar publishing his war ­commentarii). Their precise contents are unclear. Our best models are probably the inscribed ­commentarii of two Roman priestly colleges, the quindecimviri sacris faciundis who produced the Ludi Saeculares and the Fratres Arvales; these include records of meetings of the colleges, their decrees, and the rites they performed (Schnegg-Köhler 2002; Scheid 1998;

28-04-2023 17:36:39

4

  acta senatus

cf. Petron. Sat. 53: actuarius reading accounts from Trimalchio’s estates “as though he recited the acta urbis”). The Roman acta diurna likely included records of public meetings; magistrates’ edicts, senatorial decrees, and popular statutes; religious rites, official auspices, and prodigies; records of floods and fires; and perhaps notices of bankruptcies and lawsuits. Accounts of public events and prodigies in acta might shade into faits divers. Pliny the Elder cites acta publica for tales of a loyal fan who threw himself on a celebrated charioteer’s funeral pyre, and a loyal dog who refused to leave his master’s corpse when it lay exposed on the Gemonian Steps (Plin. HN 7.53/186, 8.61/145). But it is doubtful that acta diurna ever amounted to a journal, still less a scandal sheet. Thus, Cicero jokingly complains that there was no mention of a recent instance of adultery in a selection of acta he received from Marcus Caelius Rufus (Cic. Fam. 2.15.5=SB 96). Tacitus cites the acta diurna for two kinds of information: public building at Rome and attendance at public events (Devillers 2003, 64–67). Building: Tacitus says that the course of Claudius’ extended pomerium was described in publica acta (A. 12.24.2), and that praise for the foundations and beams of Nero’s amphitheater on the Campus Martius was appropriate for diurna urbis acta but not annales (A. 13.31.1; cf. Plin. HN 16.76/200: a larchwood beam from the largest tree ever seen at Rome). Attendance: Tacitus says that he found no record of Antonia the Younger’s participation in commemorations of her son Germanicus in historians or diurna actorum scriptura (A. 3.3.2; but Tab. Siarensis names Antonia among the family members summoned by Tiberius to approve Germanicus’ honors). In 66 ce Cossutianus Capito charged Thrasea Paetus with not swearing to uphold previous emperors’ acts and with not attending meetings of the Senate, alleging that diurna populi Romani were being scrutinized in the provinces and legionary camps to learn what Thrasea Paetus had not done (A. 16.22.3; cf. publication of SC de Pisone to provincial centers and legionary camps). Even allowing for rhetoric, the item indicates that acta diurna circulated outside Rome and were presumed to be complete.

c01_Vol1.indd 4

see also: annales; portents; Rome, topography; sources; Tabula Hebana, Tabula Siarensis Reference work: Hübner, Emil. 1859. De senatus populique Romani actis. Leipzig: Teubner. REFERENCES Devillers, Olivier. 2003. Tacite et les sources des Annales: Enquêtes sur la méthode historique. Louvain, Paris, Dudley, MA: Peeters. Scheid, John. 1998. Recherches archéologiques à la Magliana: Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium qui supersunt : les copies épigraphiques des protocoles annuels de la confrérie Arvale (21 Av.-304 Ap. J.-C.). Rome: Soprintendenza archeologica di Roma. Schnegg-Köhler, Bärbel. 2002. Die augusteischen Säkularspiele. München-Leipzig: Saur. White, Peter. 1997. “Julius Caesar and the Publication of Acta in Late Republican Rome.” Chiron 27: 73–84.

ACTA SENATUS GREGORY ROWE

University of Victoria

The acta senatus were official minutes of meetings of the Roman Senate. Acta senatus were compiled from freedmen’s stenographic notes (Plut. Cato. Min. 23: first attested for Cic. Cat.) and first collected and made public by Iulius Caesar (Suet. Iul. 20, 59 bc; White 1997; cf. Caesar publishing his war commentarii). Though Augustus in some sense restricted publication (Suet. Aug. 36), acta senatus continued to be compiled by a junior senator appointed by the emperor (A. 5.4.1: Iunius Rusticus, see Arulenus Rusticus; cf. SC de Pisone, lines 174–6, 20 ce: Tiberius directs that the “decree, copied by the hand of my quaestor Aulus on fourteen tablets, be placed in the public archives”) and archived in the Tabularium (cf. Aphrodisias & Rome, doc. 8, 39/38 bc: precise location of a senatorial decree in Roman archives; FIRA 1(2).1.47, 138 ce: senatorial decree “copied and checked from a book of speeches pronounced in the Senate”). Acta senatus included documents read out in the Senate (e.g., A. 1.8.1–2: Augustus’ will), finished senatorial decrees, and—crucially for ­

28-04-2023 17:36:39

Acte  

Tacitus—individual senators’ speeches (­sententiae; cf. Talbert 1988: papyrus “ex actis in sen[at]u,” 180–92 ce; unclear whether speeches ­paraphrased or quoted in full). The author of [Sen.] Apocol., where the assembly of the gods parodies a senatorial meeting, reports that the notarius could not keep up with Ianus; later acta of Church councils confirm that it was possible to record speeches verbatim. It is generally agreed that Tacitus consulted acta senatus directly and based his extended accounts of senatorial meetings on them (H. 4.3– 11, 4.40–44; esp. in A.: 3.65–72, 13.48–52, 16.21– 35; cf. Devillers 2003, 55–64). Tacitus’ fidelity to documentary sources was known from his version of Claudius’ speech on permitting Gauls to enter the Senate (A. 11.23–4; cf. CIL 13.1668, 48 ce) and is corroborated by inscriptions of senatorial decrees honoring Germanicus and condemning Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (A. 2.83; cf. Tabb. Siarensis/Hebana, 19 ce; A. 3.11–18; cf. SC de Pisone). Already Pliny assumed that Tacitus would be consulting publica acta (Plin. Ep. 7.33). Pliny himself, offended by a statue honoring Claudius’ freedman Pallas, had looked up the original decree (Plin. Ep. 7.29, 8.6). Tacitus went one better and named the senators proposing honors to Pallas (A. 12.53.2–3). Regarding encouragement of excellence and discouragement of depraved words and deeds as the principal duty of annales, Tacitus cites only especially honorable or shameful senatorial speeches (A. 3.65.1; cf. 6.7, 14.64). Tacitus’ technique was to interweave paraphrase of senators’ speeches with authorial commentary (Matthews 2010). Only once does Tacitus explicitly name commentarii senatus as his source, when he records that after the suppression of the Pisonian Conspiracy the consul-designate Anicius Cerialis proposed erecting a temple to the living emperor Nero (A. 15.74.3). The proposal was vetoed by Nero, and the incident exemplifies how Tacitus used acta senatus to go beyond the official record and tell the story of senators’ rush to enslavement. see also: acta diurna; Senate; senatus consultum de Pisone; sources; Tabula Hebana, Tabula Siarensis

c01_Vol1.indd 5

5

REFERENCES Devillers, Olivier. 2003. Tacite et les sources des Annales: Enquêtes sur la méthode historique. Bibliothèque d’études classiques 36. Louvain, Paris, Dudley, MA: Peeters. Matthews, John. 2010. “Tacitus, Acta Senatus, and the Inauguration of Tiberius.” In Roman Perspectives. Studies in the Social, Political and Cultural History of the First to Fifth Centuries, 57–84. Swansea: University Press of Wales. Talbert, Richard J. A. 1988. “Commodus as Diplomat in an Extract from the Acta Senatus.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 71: 137–147. White, Peter. 1997. “Julius Caesar and the Publication of Acta in Late Republican Rome.” Chiron 27: 73–84. FURTHER READING Coudry, Marianne. 1994. “Sénatus-consultes et acta senatus: rédaction, conservation et archivage des documents émanant du Sénat, de l’époque de César à celle des Sévères.” In La mémoire perdue: à la recherche des archives oubliées, publiques et privées, de la Rome antique, edited by Ségolène Demougin. Série Histoire ancienne et médiévale 30. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. Martin, Ronald. 2001. Tacitus, Annals 5 & 6. Warminster: Aris and Phillips. Talbert, Richard J. A. 1984. The Senate of Imperial Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

ACTE ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Claudia Acte was a freedwoman and lover of the emperor Nero, with whom she established an intimate relationship from 55 to approximately 58 ce. Acte (the nomen Claudia, inherited from her owner, is attested only through inscriptions: see Mastino and Ruggeri 1995, 513–514) was bought in Asia (Cass. Dio 61.7.1) and freed by the emperor Claudius or by Nero himself. Starting from 55 ce Nero began a passionate relationship with Acte, though he was already married to his adoptive sister Octavia (2); Nero’s counselors and close friends, however, did not oppose the liaison, since they hoped it would provide an

28-04-2023 17:36:39

6

  actors

outlet for the emperor’s juvenile lust (A. 13.12.1– 2). The growing influence of Acte on Nero raised the hostility of his mother Agrippina the Younger, though such opposition enhanced the emperor’s love for the freedwoman. Nero then called on Seneca, who had already helped him to conceal the relationship (A. 13.13.1). Other sources state that Nero almost went so far as to marry Acte, and that for this purpose he fabricated false evidence of a royal ancestry for the woman (Suet. Ner. 28.1; Cass. Dio 61.7.1). The relationship between Acte and Nero ended with the rise of Poppaea Sabina the Younger at the emperor’s side (A. 13.46.2), although she kept some influence on her former lover. In 59 CE Seneca sent Acte to Nero to deter him from the incest with Agrippina (A. 14.2.1; Suet. Ner. 28.2). Acte outlived Nero and buried his remains in the family grave of the gens Domitia (Suet. Ner. 50). Reference works: CIL VI 10549; X 1903; X 6589; X 6599; XI 1414; PIR2 C 1067 REFERENCE Mastino, Attilio, and Paola Ruggeri. 1995. “CLAVDIA AVGVSTI LIBERTA ACTE.” Latomus 54: 513–544. FURTHER READING Holztrattner, Franz. 1995. Poppaea Neronis potens. Studien zu Poppaea Sabina. Die Gestalt der Poppaea Sabina in der Nerobüchern des Tacitus mit einem Anhang zu Claudia Acte. Graz–Horn. F. Bergere & Söhne Verlag. 133–147.

ACTIUM, see CIVIL WARS OF THE LATE REPUBLIC

ACTORS MALI SKOTHEIM

Ashoka University

The Latin histrio (“actor,” pl. histriones) may refer to an actor of a range of performance genres, including comedy, tragedy, farce, mime, and pantomime. Actors are a feature of the Roman imperial court throughout Tacitus’ writings, used

c01_Vol1.indd 6

to symbolize bodily corruption and luxurious indulgence in mindless entertainment. Many of the histriones in Tacitus were pantomimes, who performed a masked dance, with the plots typically derived from the myths of tragedy. Pantomime was associated with silence, because the dancers did not sing, although they were accompanied by instrumental musicians and singers. Pantomime was distinct from mime, an unmasked, comic performance genre with elements of improvisation and slapstick. Ancient sources attribute the invention of pantomime to two dancers living in the time of Augustus, Bathyllus of Alexandria, a freedman of Maecenas, who danced in a comic style, and Pylades of Cilicia, who danced in a tragic style (Lucian, Salt.; Ath. 1.20e; Cass. Dio 54.17.4; Macrob. Sat. 2.7.12–19). In the imperial period, the most popular names for pantomimes were Paris and Pylades (Leppin 1992). Paris, a freedman of Domitia and a fixture at Nero’s parties, was a pantomime (A. 13.19–27). Nero attempted to learn the art of pantomime from Paris but had him killed in frustration (Suet. Ner. 54). Pantomimes appear several times throughout Tacitus as the instigators of riots and disturbances (Slater 1994). The first celebration of the Augustalia games in 14/15 CE was disturbed by fighting amongst the histriones (A. 1.54). That these were pantomimes is clear from Tacitus’ statement that Augustus had indulged this entertainment as a way of humoring Maecenas’ love of Bathyllus, who was a pantomime dancer (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 1.54). Another theater riot, which caused casualties, led to a debate in the Senate about the appropriate punishment for the histriones, whom Augustus had established were immune from lashes. The decision was to forbid senators from entering the houses of pantomimes, to restrict the performance of pantomime to the theater, and to instruct praetors to punish unruly spectators (A. 1.77). Despite his passion for the theater, Nero had pantomimes expelled from Italy as a result of the riots (A. 13.25). Actors of the republican period also appear in Tacitus’ works. In the Dialogue on Orators, Marcus Aper refers to two of the most famous comic actors of republican Rome, Ambivius Turpio and Roscius Gallus (both mentioned by Tacitus only at D. 20). Lucius Ambivius Turpio (fl. 185–160 bce) was the lead actor and producer of the plays

28-04-2023 17:36:39

Acutia  

of Terence. The comic actor Quintus Roscius Gallus (c. 132–62 bce) taught Cicero elocution. Cicero went on to defend Roscius in 76 bce with the speech Pro Roscio comoedo. Just as spectators of oratorical performance would not tolerate the rough oratorical style of the ancients, Aper says, so too spectators in the theater would not tolerate an actor who used the gestures of Ambivius Turpio or Roscius Gallus. The ambiguity of histrio in Latin, to mean either actor or pantomime dancer, allows Aper to draw this parallel between the contemporary stage gestures of pantomimes and the comic actors of republican Rome. Vipstanus Messalla replies that it is better for orators to wear rough clothes than colorful garments associated with the stage and especially with pantomimes. He is critical that orators’ voices were influenced by singers and their gestures by dancers (i.e., pantomimes), leading to his expression that “our orators speak delicately, our actors dance eloquently” (ut oratores nostri tenere dicere, histriones diserte saltare dicantur, D. 26). Messalla claims that the obsession with actors, gladiators, and horses was characteristic of the city of Rome (D. 29). Nero’s relationship with actors was particularly intense and was remembered long after his death. Tacitus claims that actors, eunuchs, and other types of people associated with Nero’s court accompanied Vitellius’ soldiers, because Vitellius so admired Nero (H. 2.71). Nero acted in tragedies and went on a tour of Greece in order to compete as an actor and kitharode (singer to the kithara) in Rome (A. 14.15), Naples (A.15.33, Suet. Ner. 20), and the most venerable panhellenic contests in Greece (Suet. Ner. 22–24). In Rome, he established the Juvenalia (A. 14.15) and the Neronia (A. 16.4) games. The Juvenalia included performances in Greek and Latin, and the Neronia included competitions in music, poetry, and drama. In response to the establishment of the Neronia, Tacitus reports the talk about town about the history of the theater in Rome, as people recall actors being imported from Etruria during the Republic, the first celebration of a Greek-style dramatic festival in Rome, the games of Lucius Mummius, and increasingly elaborate celebration of games following the annexation of Achaia and Asia (A. 14.20–21). The tension between the disrepute of theatrical professionals in Roman culture, on the one hand, and their participation in sacred games and festivals,

c01_Vol1.indd 7

7

on the other, is evident in the anecdote about the actor Cassius (1). Under Tiberius, the knight Faianius was accused of admitting Cassius to the cultores Augusti. This was problematic because of Cassius’ infamia (“bad reputation”), traditionally associated, in Roman culture with people who were paid to perform on stage. Tiberius, however, defended Cassius and other actors who had participated in the Palatine Games. Tacitus refers to Cassius as a mimus (“mime”) when reporting the accusation of Rubrius and histrio (“actor”) when reporting Tiberius’ defense (A. 1.73; for the episode, see maiestas). see also: Dialogus de Oratoribus; games; morality REFERENCES Leppin, Hartmut. 1992. Histrionen. Untersuchungen zur sozialen Stellung von Bühnenkunstlern im Westen des römischen Reiches zur Zeit der Republik und des Principats. Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt. Slater, William J. 1994. “Pantomime Riots.” Classical Antiquity 13: 120–144. DOI:10.2307/25011007. FURTHER READING Beare, William. 1951. The Roman Stage: A Short History of Latin Drama in the Time of the Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bieber, Margarete. 1939. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hall, Edith, and Rosie Wyles, eds. 2008. New Directions in Ancient Pantomime. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lada-Richards, Ismene. 2007. Silent Eloquence: Lucian and Pantomime Dancing. London: Bloomsbury.

ACTUMERUS, see ITALICUS (1)

ACUTIA VERENA SCHULZ

KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI University of Florida

Acutia was the wife and later widow of Publius Vitellius, brother of Lucius Vitellius (1),

28-04-2023 17:36:39

8

  Adiabene

and therefore aunt of the future emperor Vitellius. In 37 CE she was accused of treason (maiestas). Acutia is only briefly mentioned in one passage of the Annals that is dedicated to the imminent death of Tiberius (A. 6.47.1). There are already signs of murders that will take place after the death of Tiberius. The mention of Acutia appears in connection with the fall of the tribune of the plebs Iunius Otho (2): she was accused of treason by Laelius Balbus and convicted. The prosecutor received a reward. Otho objected, and the objection would later lead to his ruin (A. 6.47.1). We learn no more either of the exact content of the alleged treason or of Acutia’s punishment (Rogers 1935, 161–162). Whether her marriage to the convicted Publius Vitellius, to which Tacitus briefly refers in the passage, served as the reason for the accusation must remain unclear. Reference works: PIR2 A 102; Raepsaet-Charlier, 5 REFERENCE Rogers, Robert S. 1935. Criminal Trials and Criminal Legislation under Tiberius. Middletown: American Philological Association.

ADGANDESTRIUS, see ARMINIUS

ADIABENE KRISTIN BOCCHINE

University of North Texas

Adiabene was a kingdom along the border of the Roman and Parthian (later Sassanian) empires in what is modern Iraq. Although it was a vassal kingdom, Adiabene contributed to border politics in the region with notable kings in the first century CE such as Izates II and Monobazus II (Munbaz), converts to Judaism participating in frontier conflicts and negotiations. Located between the Great Zab and the Little Zab Rivers (ancient sources disagree over the boundaries: see Marciak 2014, 2017), the kingdom of Adiabene began during the collapse of the Seleucids in the second century bce. Not

c01_Vol1.indd 8

long after its establishment, the Semitic Adiabene became a vassal to the Parthian Empire during the reign of Mithradates I (122–95 bce). Because of its location along the borders of Parthia and Rome, Adiabene played an important role in regional trade and power disputes both internally in Parthia and internationally with Rome. The kings Izates II (ca. 1 bce–54 CE) and his brother Monobazus II (r. 54–c. 70 CE) contributed to border politics while in power (Joseph. AJ 5.36–37, 66; Marciak 2014). Izates II aided the rise of Gotarzes II to the Parthian throne despite Roman preference for Parthian prince Meherdates (A. 12.13–14) while Monobazus II participated in multiple peace negotiations between Parthia and Rome over Armenia (A. 15.14; Cass. Dio 62.23.4). The Parthians considered Adiabene an asset. When Tigranes, a Romanfavored Armenian king, attacked Adiabene in 62 CE, Parthian king Vologaeses immediately responded to Monobazus II’s plea for help despite previous requests from Vologaeses’ brother Tiridates from whom Tigranes took the Armenian throne (A. 15.1–4). When Queen Helena (d. ca. 54 CE) and other royalty of Adiabene converted to Judaism in the first century CE, Adiabene began to intervene in Judaean crises (Joseph. AJ 20.17–23). The royal family sent famine relief to Jerusalem (46–47 CE; Euseb. Hist. eccl. 2.12; Joseph. AJ 20.49–53; t. Peah 4.18), and several Adiabenians fought in the Jewish Revolt against Rome from 66–70 CE (Joseph. BJ 2.517–522). The kingdom maintained strong ties to Judaism. Monobazus II entombed his mother Queen Helena along with other family members in Jerusalem rather than in Adiabene (Euseb. Hist. eccl. 2.12; Jer. Ep. 108; Joseph. AJ 20.92–96). Although Judaism was significant in the first century CE, Christianity spread into the kingdom during the reign of Trajan. By the fourth century, a significant amount of the population was Christian. Over the centuries, Roman invasions by emperors like Trajan (Cass. Dio 68.26.1–4) and Septimius Severus (Cass. Dio 75.2–3) altered the boundaries of the kingdom, but the Romans never occupied the territory long-term. Adiabene remained a part of the Parthian and the later Sassanian Empires until the Arab conquest in 636 CE.

28-04-2023 17:36:39

adultery  

see also: Arsacid dynasty; Bellum Iudaicum; Domitius Corbulo; Iudaea; Josephus; Mesopotamia REFERENCES Marciak, Michal. 2014. Izates, Helena, and Monobazos of Adiabene: A Study on Literary Traditions and History. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Marciak, Michal. 2017. Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene: Three Regna Minora of Northern Mesopotamia between East and West. Boston: Brill. FURTHER READING Dąbrowa, Edward. 2017. “Tacitus on the Parthians.” Electrum 24: 171–189. DOI: 10.4467/20800909EL.17.026.7508.

ADRUMETUM, see AFRICA

ADULTERY ANTHONY CORBEILL

University of Virginia

Adultery in Tacitus represents more than conjugal infidelity. Chastity of mother and wife furthers Agricola’s moral development (Ag. 4.2, 6.1), while in the Histories adultery among the elite features among numerous disasters, listed alongside urban conflagrations and polluted ritual (magna adulteria: H. 1.2.2). Among the Germani, Tacitus likens marital union to the yoking of animals, with each pair existing in interdependence; as a result, for Germans adultery is rare—applying, as at Rome, only to women—and its punishment fierce (G. 18–9). Tacitus encapsulates this attitude epigrammatically: “Good character is stronger there than good laws” (G. 19.2). This unmistakable reference to Roman moral legislation informs his historiographical views, particularly in Annals. Augustus’ lex Iulia Adulterii of 18/17 bce (see leges) finds the state intruding upon affairs formerly controlled within the family. One provision holds significance for Tacitus’ narrative: if a husband suspects his wife of adultery, he must divorce her within sixty days; if not, a successful informer could obtain a share of his property, with the husband prosecuted as a pimp. The guilty parties

c01_Vol1.indd 9

9

were normally relegated to separate islands, the male losing civic privileges and the woman forbidden remarriage. Adultery also could involve treason (maiestas), with cases involving the elite prosecuted in the Senate (for non-elite see Garnsey 1970, 21–24). The legal situation allows Tacitus to politicize the immorality of elite women (e.g., Vistilia, A. 2.85.1–3), while simultaneously thematizing the greed of delators and the emperor’s cruelty, as adultery becomes a metaphor for concerns beyond sexual. In Annals Tacitus characterizes adultery as a “widespread fault” (A. 3.24.2), wryly observing that Claudius’ fidelity made him exceptional among Caesars (A. 12.6.2). Probably not accidentally the first recorded case is that of Octavian, the future Augustus (A. 1.10.5). The most notorious instances also originate in the imperial household: the two Julias were relegated to an island (A. 1.53.1, 4.71.4), and their numerous lovers were killed or banished (A. 1.10.4, 1.53.3; cf. A. 3.24.3; see Julia the Elder, Julia the Younger). Adultery as treason appears first with Appuleia Varilla, granddaughter of Augustus’ sister; Tiberius punished her adultery but denied additional charges (A. 2.50). The emperor’s criteria are unclear, as in other cases where adulteries involve maiestas (Aemilia Lepida (1), A. 3.22–3; Claudia Pulchra, A. 3.38.2, 4.52.1–3; Albucilla, A. 6.47.2; at A. 4.42.3, adultery constitutes the rare sole charge). Charges fabricated after the fact further betray political factors. Tiberius accuses Agrippina the Elder after her suicide (A. 6.25.2), while Faenius Rufus is charged after Agrippina the Younger’s death (A. 15.50.3). When Poppaea Sabina the Younger marries Nero, Octavia (2), Nero’s former wife, is accused of adultery with a servile flute player; when not confirmed by slaves, Nero bribes Anicetus (1) to fabricate relations (A. 14.60–4). Accounts of Messalina most clearly entwine the sexual and political. In narrating her marriage to Gaius Silius, Tacitus stresses unbelievability while simultaneously emphasizing his sober use of historical sources (A. 11.27). Messalina’s disregard for class boundaries underscores her deviance. These stories, filled with a deceptive woman having lovers of all ranks (A. 11.35.3–36), figure her as the empire that Claudius cannot control (Joshel 1997; cf. A. 12.7.3).

28-04-2023 17:36:39

10

  Aedui

see also: exile; gender; marriage; prostitution; women REFERENCES Garnsey, Peter. 1970. Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Joshel, Sandra. 1997. “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire: Tacitus’ Messalina.” In Roman Sexualities, edited by Judith P. Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner, 221–254. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. FURTHER READING McGinn, Thomas A. J. 1998. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Richlin, Amy. 1981. “Approaches to the Sources on Adultery at Rome.” Women’s Studies 8: 225–250. Skinner, Marilyn. 2014. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.

AEDUI TRUDY HARRINGTON BECKER

Virginia Tech

The Aedui were a Gallic peoples situated in central France with a tribal capital at Bibracte. An early ally of the Romans, Iulius Caesar came to their assistance when the Aedui were threatened by Ariovistus (see Suebi) in 58 bce, although the Aedui would later support Vercingetorix’s rebellion in 52 Bce. Called a civitas foederata by Augustus, they would later move their capital to Augustodunum. The Aedui appear in both the Annals and the Histories. The Annals recounts the efforts of Iulius Sacrovir in 21 CE to incite sedition among the Aedui (A. 3.40), the subsequent unsuccessful battle with the Romans led by Gaius Silius [Aulus Caecina Largus], legate of Upper Germany (A. 3.43–46), and admission of the Aedui to the Senate after Claudius’ speech (A. 11.25). In 21 CE, Iulius Sacrovir roused the Aedui to rebel against the Romans, citing consistent mistreatment in taxes and harsh interest rates, and general arrogance. Because their community was richer than

c01_Vol1.indd 10

other tribes, the Aedui were not eager to join, and Sacrovir was forced to seize their capital at Augustodunum and take noble children as hostages. With supporters numbering 40,000, Sacrovir’s army also included heavily armed gladiators (A. 3.43). Gaius Silius advanced with two legions, plundered border lands shared by the Sequani (see Gaul) and Aedui, and moved at a rapid pace toward Augustodunum. Outside of the city, Sacrovir addressed his troops but it mattered little because, Tacitus noted, his men had no knowledge of soldiering. Silius’ speech was far more effective, calling out the Aedui as unwarlike due to their wealth. Silius’ cavalry and infantry crushed the Aedui. Some Aedui and Sacrovir fled first to Augustodunum, then to a country house where Sacrovir killed himself. (A. 3.46) Despite this rebellion, the Aedui would become the first to gain the right to be admitted to the Roman Senate upon Claudius’ successful argument for the inclusion of the Gauls in 48 CE (A. 11.25). The privilege was granted to them in view of a long-standing treaty and because they were the only ones of the Gallic tribes who retained the title of brothers of the Roman people. The treaty Tacitus refers to might have to do with the status of federated state (Livy Epit. lxi calls them socii; Pliny HN iv.107 describes the Aedui as foederati); the title of brothers stems from Caesar (B Gall. 1.33.2). The references to the Aedui in the Histories are unremarkable. Two might stand out: The first (H. 1.64) revealed the Aedui as only reluctant supporters of Vitellius. The second (H. 2.61) concerned the story of Mariccus, of the Boii tribe, who tried to challenge the armies of Rome. Tacitus described him as acting as a god and as a deliverer of the Gauls. When Mariccus gained some popularity with the Aeduans, the Aedui chose a complement of men, backed by Vitellian troops, who defeated him. Mariccus was thrown to wild animals, who surprisingly did not kill him; therefore he was executed in the presence of Vitellius. see also: Tabula Lugdunensis Reference work: Barrington 18 B3 (Bibracte) AEËTES, see ALBANI AEGEAE, see CILICIA AEGIALIUS, see POLYCLITUS

28-04-2023 17:36:39

Aelius Lamia, Lucius  

AELIA PAETINA DONNA W. HURLEY

New York, New York

Aelia Paetina was the second wife of the emperor Claudius. Suetonius introduces her as the daughter of a consul (Suet. Cl. 26.2); possible candidates are Quintus Tubero, consul 11 Bce, or Sextus Aelius Catus, consul 4 CE. Tacitus makes a point of noting that she was “from the family of the Tuberones” (A. 12.1.2), a distinguished branch of the Aelius clan to which Tiberius’ notorious praetorian prefect, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, also belonged. The precise connection between Paetina and Sejanus is uncertain (Syme 1986, 300–312). Claudius and Aelia Paetina were probably married by 28 CE since their daughter Antonia was evidently born by 29. (She was married in 41: Suet. Cl. 12.1; Cass. Dio 60.5.7.) It was at this time that the influence of Sejanus was greatest. When Claudius became a more important figure with the accession of the emperor Gaius (Caligula), he divorced Paetina on unspecified “trivial grounds” (Suet. Cl. 26.2) in order to make room for a more prestigious marriage with Messalina, who was his first cousin once removed. After the fall and death of Messalina in 48 CE, Claudius once again looked for a wife, and the “trivial grounds” for the divorce made remarriage with Paetina possible. Narcissus, Claudius’ secretary for correspondence, argued in her favor. He reasoned that their daughter, Antonia, was a shared interest and that Paetina was a familiar figure in the court who would not play the evil stepmother to Claudius’ other children, Octavia (2) and Britannicus (A. 12.2.1; Suet. Cl. 26.3). Narcissus’ argument failed, but the fact that Antonia was valuable for the family explains why her mother had kept a place in the court, despite the divorce. see also: marriage

11

FURTHER READING Corbier, Mirelle. 1995. “Male Power and Legitimacy through Women: The Domus Augustus under the Julio-Claudians.” In Women in Antiquity: New Assessments, edited by Richard Hawley and Barbara Levick, 178–193. London and New York: Routledge. Fischler, Susan. 1994. “Social Stereotypes and Historical Analysis: The Case of the Imperial Women in Rome.” In Women in Ancient Societies: An Illusion of the Night, edited by Léonie Archer, Susan Fischler, and Maria Wyke, 115–133. New York: Routledge. Osgood, Josiah. 2011. Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

AELIUS GALLUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Aelius Gallus (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 5.8) was a friend of Sejanus. Upon the demise of Sejanus, Publius Pomponius Secundus protected Aelius Gallus, and for this act of friendship, Pomponius was accused by Considius. Aelius Gallus may be Sejanus’ eldest son; for bibliography on his identity, see Woodman (2017, 72). see also: Pomponius Secundus, Quintus Reference work: PIR2 A 178 REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

AELIUS GRACILIS, see ANTISTIUS VETUS, LUCIUS

AELIUS LAMIA, LUCIUS MICHAEL L. KONIECZNY

REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

c01_Vol1.indd 11

Lucius Aelius Lamia (d. 33 CE) was ordinary consul in 3 CE and a confidante of the emperor

28-04-2023 17:36:40

12

  Aemilia Lepida (1)

Tiberius. On the basis of what is known of his career, Syme postulates a birth date of c. 32 Bce (Syme 1986, 394). Although he was a novus homo, Lamia came from a distinguished family (cf. genus decorum, A. 6.27.2): his grandfather was an equestrian, and his father rose to prominence under Iulius Caesar and Augustus, possibly receiving patrician status in 29 Bce, and serving as praetorian legate of Hispania Tarraconensis (see Hispania) from 24 to 22 (Cairns 2012, 415; Syme 1986, 44, 52; PIR2 A 199). One or more Lamiae appear several times in the poetry of Horace (Carm. 1.26, 1.36, 3.17; Epist. 1.14.6–8), although the identity of the addressee has not been conclusively established in each instance (see Cairns 2012, 415; Syme 1986, 394). Lamia first appears in the public record as one of the tresviri monetales in charge of the mint in c. 9 Bce (Syme 1986, 52). After his consulship, he distinguished himself in the Illyrian revolt of 9 CE, and subsequently held other military commands in Germania and Illyricum (Vell. Pat. 2.116.3). In 15/16 or 16/17 CE he was proconsul of Africa and served nominally as governor of Syria from 21/22 to 31/32, although he was prevented by Tiberius from leaving Rome to take up his post (A. 6.27.2; cf. Cass. Dio 58.19.5); the actual administration of Syria during this time was most likely entrusted to his deputy Pacuvius (2) (A. 2.79.2). In 23 CE he joined Lucius Apronius in defending Gaius Gracchus (2) against the charge of having rendered assistance to Tacfarinas during the war in Africa (A. 4.13.3). Lamia’s career culminated in his appointment in 32 CE as praefectus urbis, succeeding Lucius Calpurnius Piso (Pontifex). Upon his death in 33 he was honored with a state funeral, and Tacitus commemorates him with a brief but complimentary obituary at A. 6.27.2. Reference work: PIR2 A 200 REFERENCES Cairns, Francis. 2012. Roman Lyric: Collected Papers on Catullus and Horace. Berlin: De Gruyter. Syme, Sir Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

c01_Vol1.indd 12

AEMILIA LEPIDA (1) TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Aemilia Lepida, sister of Manius Aemilius Lepidus, was charged with adultery, poisoning, and consulting astrologers, for which she was found guilty and exiled (A. 3.22–23). She could count Pompey the Great and Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) among her ancestors, and she was slated to be the wife of Lucius Caesar (son of Agrippa), but the marriage never took place because he died in 2 CE. In the year 20 CE, Lepida was brought to trial for pretending to have given birth to a child fathered by her ex-husband, the aging and apparently childless senator Sulpicius Quirinius. To this, other charges were added, including the accusation of having consulted astrologers about the imperial house, which was potentially lethal in light of how Tiberius was influenced by soothsayers. She was defended by her brother, Manius Aemilius Lepidus. During the trial, in an attempt to save herself, she went into Pompey’s theater and appealed to the people. Her appeal was successful, since the popular perception was that a woman of noble birth was being sacrificed for an unpopular old man. Despite this, her slaves were tortured, and her crimes were exposed. However, the decision was made not to confiscate her property. see also: astrology; Julio-Claudian dynasty; poison; torture; women Reference work: PIR2 A 420

AEMILIA LEPIDA (2) TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Aemilia Lepida (d. 36 CE) was the daughter of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4), consul in 6 CE, and wife of Drusus Caesar (son of Germanicus). Tacitus records that she assailed her husband with frequent charges but continued to live with

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Aemilius  

impunity, despite her infamy—so long as her father was alive. After his death, she was denoun­ ced for adultery with a slave. Rather than face charges, she committed suicide (A. 6.40). see also: astrology; Julio-Claudian Dynasty; torture; women Reference work: PIR2 A 421 AEMILIA MUSA, see AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, MARCUS (4)

AEMILII CHRISTOPHER J. DART

University of Melbourne

The Aemilii were an ancient patrician family who traced their lineage to the earliest era of Roman history. Multiple, contrary traditions are cited in ancient literature to explain their ­origins. Thus, one claimed that the Aemilii were descended from King Aimulius (Sil. Ital. 8.294– 6) or alternatively from a son of Ascanius. A number of sources traced their origin to the time of king Numa, claiming descent from a Mamercus who was either the son of Numa or the son of the philosopher Pythagoras (Plut. Aem. 2; Num. 8). The implausibility of such stories was apparent to ancient writers as the traditional date for Numa’s death is approximately a century before Pythagoras’ birth. Members of the gens Aemilia during the Early Republic are attested with the cognomen Mamercus which suggests an Oscan origin. Mamercus most likely derived from the Oscan name Mamers (equivalent to Mars). Multiple branches of the gens were preeminent for a time during the republic. The first consul was in 484 with Lucius Aemilius Mamercus. This branch of the gens produced a number of consuls in the fifth and fourth centuries Bce. The Papi, Barbulae, and Paulli then came to prominence in the late fourth century. The most prominent members under the republic, were Lucius Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus (consul 182, 168) the victor over King Perseus in the Third

c01_Vol1.indd 13

13

Macedonic War and Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus (consul 147), conqueror of Carthage. These were followed in the Late Republic and early imperial periods by numerous members of the Aemilii Lepidi. The first to reach the consulship was Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in 285 Bce, with the most prominent member being the triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3). The rustic Roman tribe Aemilia was named after the gens. The Basilica Aemilia, described by Tacitus as a monument to the Aemilian family (A. 3.72), was on the northern side of the Forum Romanum. First built in 179, it was repeatedly restored and remodeled by members of the gens Aemilia. Adorned by portraits of ancient members of the Aemilii by the consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (2) in 78, beginning in 56 it was extensively remodeled and expanded by Lucius Aemilius Paulus and his son Paulus Aemilius Lepidus. Damaged by fire in 14 Bce and rebuilt, it was once again restored in 22 CE by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4), as is described by Tacitus (A. 3.72). Two major roads were also named after members of the gens; the Via Aemilia, running from Ariminum to Placentia, constructed by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (1) and the Via Aemilia Scauri in northern Italy running through Pisae and Genua to Dertona, connecting the Via Aurelia and Via Postumia, by Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (consul 115). Married into the imperial family under the Julio-Claudians, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4) was a prominent aristocrat under Augustus and Tiberius, supposedly viewed by Augustus as capable of being emperor (A. 1.13). The execution of his son, a close friend of Caligula and the husband of Drusilla, marked the end of the family line (A. 6.27.4). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; Rome, myth and history; Roman Republic; Roman roads

AEMILIUS JULIA WETZEL

University of North Texas

Aemilius was a soldier who fought under Germanicus against the Batavi in 16 CE (A.

28-04-2023 17:36:40

14

  Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus (1)

2.11). Based on an inscription, he is also thought to be the same man who witnessed Votienus Montanus slander Tiberius and participated in his trial (CIL 10.3881 = ILS 2686; A. 4.42.2). Aemilius aided Germanicus in his census of the Germanic tribes in 16 CE. Upon landing at the Drusian canal, the Germanic tribes flew into disarray. Aemilius, along with Stertinius and their legions, were sent to fight against the Batavians (A. 2.11). Aemilius’ service allowed him to witness and participate in the trial of Votienus Montanus. Tacitus recalls Aemilius’ persistence in the trial and Montanus’ conviction (A. 4.42) see also: Arminius; Cherusci Reference work: PIR2 A 328; CIL 10.3881 = ILS 2686 FURTHER READING Knox, Peter E. 2004. “The Poet and the Second Prince: Ovid in the Age of Tiberius.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 49: 1–20.

AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, Manius, see AEMILIA LEPIDA (1)

trunk roads in Northern Italy, most notably the Via Aemilia (Livy 39.1–2). In the years that followed, he further strengthened Roman control over the region by founding Mutina and Parma in 183 (Livy 39.55.7–8) and Luna in 177 (Livy 41.13.4–5). In 179, he became princeps senatus and was elected censor, a role in which he oversaw the construction of the Basilica Aemilia (Livy 40.45– 46, 51–52). Four years later, he was elected consul again and won a triumph for his victory over the Ligurians (Livy 41.19). Tacitus notes that Lepidus served as a tutor for the children of a Ptolemaic king (A. 2.67.2). Tacitus’ claim is corroborated by a denarius of 61 Bce, minted by a later Aemilius, in which the famous consul is described as TUTOR REG (RRC 419/2). Modern historians are divided as to whether Lepidus actually served as tutor for the Ptolemies. Otto conjectured that Lepidus was a tutor to Ptolemy Eupator in the 150s (Otto 1934, 27–29, 122–123), while Goodyear contends that the term was used metaphorically to illustrate long-standing Aemilian ties to Egypt (Goodyear 1981, 404–405). see also: Roman Republic; Roman roads

AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, MARCUS (1) DOMINIC MACHADO

College of the Holy Cross

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (c. 230–152 Bce; consul 187 Bce, 175 Bce; censor 179 Bce) was one of the foremost political figures of the early second century Bce. At the age of fifteen, Lepidus came to prominence by killing an enemy and saving a fellow soldier in the Second Punic War (Val. Max. 3.1.1), an achievement for which he was honored by the Senate with a statue. In the years after the war, Lepidus served as an ambassador to Achaia, Rhodes, and Egypt (Livy 31.2.3, 31.18.1–4; Polyb. 16.25–27). He was also chosen as pontifex maximus in 199 Bce (Livy 32.7.15). An aedile in 193 and praetor in 191, Lepidus was consul in 187, carrying out campaigns in Liguria (Livy 38.42.2–9) and building several

c01_Vol1.indd 14

Reference work: RRC 419/2 REFERENCES Goodyear, Frank. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus. Volume 2: Annals 1. 55–81 and Annals 2. Cambridge University Press. Otto, Walter. 1934. Zur Geschichte der Zeit des 6. Ptolomäers. Ein Beitrag zur Politik und zum Staatsrecht im Hellenismus. Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historiche Abteilung.

AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, MARCUS (2) CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY

University of Alberta

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (2) (120–77 Bce) was consul in 78 Bce and championed discontent with

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus (3)  

the settlements of the pro-senatorial dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1). Lepidus proposed a number of laws that would have overturned certain elements of Sulla’s settlement after the civil war, especially aiming to undo the harm Sulla had inflicted on his opponents. To get him out of the way, the Senate sent Lepidus to put down an uprising in Etruria, but he instead tried to use the insurgents to secure a second term as consul. This effort was suppressed by force in 77 Bce, and after fleeing, Lepidus died a natural death. In his overview of republican lawmaking (A. 3.27), Tacitus vaguely alludes to all of this by simply stating that the respite from political disturbance imposed by Sulla was soon upset by “Lepidus’ law proposals” (Lepidi rogationibus). Presumably Tacitus had some understanding of the broader activities pertaining to Lepidus’ political activities, but all that was of immediate relevance was the resumption of what Tacitus took to be anti-senatorial legislation, which he took to be a cause of the republic’s downfall (D. 40). see also: leges; Roman Republic

AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, MARCUS (3) RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the triumvir (89/88– 13/12 Bce), was the younger son of the homonymous consul of 78 Bce. He was pontiff, triumvir monetalis, and aedilis curulis before 52 Bce, when he became interrex during the vacancy of the consulate. He was urban praetor in 49, endorsing the law that appointed Iulius Caesar dictator. During the ensuing civil war, Lepidus remained in Rome as Caesar’s representative. He became proconsul of Hispania Citerior in 48–47. He was consul with Caesar in 46 and magister equitum in 46–44. After Caesar’s murder, he proved pivotal in securing order in Rome, in concert with the consul Mark Antony. In the confusion (Livy Per. 117.2), Antony endorsed his appointment as pontifex maximus, in the place of Caesar. Lepidus took a second proconsulate in Hispania and Gallia Narbonensis in 44–43. He again supported

c01_Vol1.indd 15

15

Antony after the war of Mutina (43), being declared a public enemy by the Senate. Later in the same year, Lepidus, Antony, and Octavian (Augustus) appointed themselves triumvirs “to restore the Republic” (reipublicae constituendae), and on 27 November 43 Bce, they were officially given consular powers for five years (renewed for 37–33). As a result, Lepidus was assigned the provinces of Narbonensis and Hispania Citerior. In the meantime, he had also reached agreement with Sextus Pompeius Magnus, who had established himself in Massilia. Lepidus celebrated a second triumph on 31 December 43. In 42 he was consul for the second time with Munatius Plancus, remaining in Rome during the campaign of Philippi. There were rumors about his collaboration with Sextus Pompeius and probably for this reason, when the territories of the empire were redivided after Philippi, Lepidus was entrusted only with Africa. In 41, he failed to defend Rome in the war of Perusia. Lepidus was not present at the pacts of Brundisium (40), Misenum (39), and Tarentum (37). In the meantime, he was acclaimed imperator for the third time (AE 1959, 77). In 36, at the end of the Sicilian campaign against Sextus Pompeius, he attempted to reinstate the previous division of territories among the triumvirs. After the defection of his legions, he was stripped by Octavian of his triumviral powers and exiled to Circeii (in Latium). Tacitus refers to Lepidus in this context, accusing Octavian of discarding and deceiving him (A. 1.1.1; 1.2.1; 1.9.4; 1.10.3), and Lepidus of growing old and negligent (A. 1.9.4). Lepidus kept his property and remained pontifex maximus. Only rarely was he permitted to return to Rome, mostly for Augustus to humiliate him in the Senate (Cass. Dio 54.15.5–6). Lepidus had married a sister of Marcus Iunius Brutus. In 30 Bce, one of his sons conspired against Octavian (Vell. Pat. 2.88; App. bc 4.50; Cass. Dio 54.15.4). Lepidus died in late 13–early 12 Bce. see also: Aemilii; Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus (2); civil wars of Late Republic Reference works: AE 1959, 77; MRR 2. 228; 2.257; 2.275; 2.288; 2.293–295; 2.306; 2.318–319; 2.326; 2.333; 2.337–338; 2.341–342; 2.357–358; 2.399–400; RE I, 556–561, Aemilius 73.

28-04-2023 17:36:40

16

  Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus (4)

FURTHER READING Weigel, Richard D. 1992. Lepidus: The Tarnished Triumvir. London and New York: Routledge.

AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, MARCUS (4) THOMAS E. STRUNK

Xavier University

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (? Bce–33 CE, consul 6 CE), son of Cornelia and Aemilius Lepidus Paullus (consul 34 Bce, censor 22 Bce), and great-nephew of the triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3), features prominently in Tacitus’ Tiberian narrative, serving as the foremost senator across all six books. He received the ornamenta triumphalia for the Illyrian campaign in 9 CE. He was serving as governor of Hispania Tarraconensis when Augustus died. In Tacitus’ earliest reference to Lepidus, Augustus, near death, advised that Lepidus was capable of rule (capax imperii) but not desirous of it, a disposition that virtuously distinguished him from those incapable but desirous and those capable and desirous (A. 1.13). For all his achievements, Lepidus seems to have been of modest means (A. 3.72.1, pecuniae modicus), and in 17 CE Tacitus reports that Tiberius granted him the goods of the rich yet intestate Aemilia Musa, an apparent relative, while the inheritance of  Pantuleius, a wealthy equestrian, went to M. Servilius (A. 2.48.1). Throughout Annals 1–6 Tacitus portrays Lepidus as acting capably and nobly. Thus in 20 CE, he defended Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso when others were deserting him (A. 3.11.2). Lepidus plays a prominent role in several other trials as well. Of these, Tacitus gives the most attention to the trial of Clutorius Priscus, an equestrian (A. 3.49–51). Priscus had once been paid by Tiberius for writing a poem honoring Germanicus after his death; when he wrote a similar poem in honor of Drusus the Younger (son of Tiberius), who was merely ill and soon to recover, and then read it at a dinner party, a delator accused him. In a senatorial debate mirroring Sallust’s earlier debate on the Catilinarians (Cat. 50–53) and echoed in a later debate on Antistius Sosianus (A. 14.48–49), the Senate was leaning toward a

c01_Vol1.indd 16

sentence of execution, at which point Lepidus spoke for the lighter sentence of exile. Although the Senate was not convinced by his arguments and Priscus was summarily led off to execution, Tacitus still highlights Lepidus’ efforts by giving him the only speech, in oratio recta, in the debate. Lepidus’ concern for the public good revealed itself again in 22 CE when he asked the Senate if he could restore the Basilica Aemilia, a monument from his own family, at his own expense (A. 3.72.1). His request was approved, and Tacitus writes that by this benefaction he revived his family’s glory. In the trial of Sosia Galla, who was exiled for her friendship with Agrippina the Elder (24 CE), Lepidus succeeded in preserving a majority share of her property for her family against the proposal of Asinius Gallus (A. 4.20.1–2). Lepidus receives high praise from Tacitus for his wisdom and ability to direct affairs toward the common good and for maintaining influence with the princeps while avoiding flattery, causing Tacitus to reflect that there exists a middle way between defiance and subservience (A. 4.20.2–3). In 32 CE, Cotta Messalinus, whom Tacitus describes as the author of every most brutal proposal, attacked Lepidus and Lucius Arruntius, with whom he also had a monetary dispute, for their political power; Messalinus added that they were protected by the Senate, but he by Tiberius (A. 6.5.1–2). Lepidus also played a role in provincial affairs. In 21 CE, during the Tacfarinas affair, Tiberius nominated Lepidus and Quintus Iunius Blaesus, Sejanus’ uncle, for proconsul of Africa to be chosen by Senate (A. 3.35). Lepidus, understanding the power dynamics at work, spoke in a manner suggesting that he was not overly interested in the position; the Senate consequently selected Blaesus for the appointment. Lepidus was proconsul of Asia (c. 26–28 CE), and in 26 CE, he received a supernumerary legate to oversee construction of a temple to Tiberius, Livia Augusta, and the Senate, but he declined to choose the legate himself out of modesty; Valerius Naso (see Smyrna) was chosen by lot (A. 4.15.3, 4.56.3). Lepidus died in 33 CE, and given his prominent role in Annals 1–6, it is hardly surprising that he receives an obituary in which Tacitus praises him for his moderation, wisdom, and nobility (A. 6.27.4).

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus (5)  

see also: Aemilii; delators; speeches Reference works: PIR2 A 369; RE Aemilius 75; BNP Aemilius II.8 FURTHER READING Ginsburg, Judith. 1986. “Speech and Allusion in Tacitus. Annals 3. 49–51 and 14.48–49.” American Journal of Philology 107: 525–541. DOI: 10.2307/295101. Strunk, Thomas E. 2017. History after Liberty: Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants, and Republicans. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Syme, Ronald. 1970. “Marcus Lepidus, Capax Imperii.” In Ten Studies in Tacitus, 30–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

AEMILIUS LEPIDUS, MARCUS (5) THEODORE ANTONIADIS

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus (the adulterer) (c. 6– 39 CE) was the great-grandson of Aemilius Lepidus Paullus (consul 50 Bce), brother of the famous triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3). He was sentenced to death in 39 CE on account of his involvement in a failed conspiracy against Caligula. By virtue of his family origins, Lepidus had become an intimate friend, if not a lover, of the emperor Caligula who betrothed to him his favorite sister Iulia Drusilla in 37 CE (Ferrill 1991, 109). According to Cassius Dio, the emperor and Lepidus were sexual partners at the time this marriage took place (τῇ δὲ Δρουσίλλῃ συνῴκει μὲν Μᾶρκος Λέπιδος, παιδικά τε ἅμα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐραστὴς ὤν, συνῆν δὲ καὶ ὁ Γάιος, Cass. Dio 59.1.1). Suetonius (Calig. 24, 36) insinuates further that Gaius treated his sister as a concubine long before his ascension. In any event, there is no question that this marriage further strengthened the special relationship between the two men as well as Lepidus’ privileged position in the court. Lepidus, therefore, was not offended by the emperor’s strong affection for his sister or the

c01_Vol1.indd 17

17

rumors about their incestuous relationship. Quite the opposite, it seems that his marriage with Drusilla was part of Gaius’ desperate efforts to continue the Julio-Claudian dynasty, when he fell seriously ill in late 37 CE. Since he had no children of his own at that point, he is recorded to have changed his will to name Drusilla as his heir to the throne (heredem quoque bonorum atque imperii aeger instituit, Suet. Calig. 24). Cassius Dio (22.6–7, 59.22) notes that Caligula had even designated Lepidus as his successor. His prominent place in the dynasty is further documented by a base bearing his name which belongs to a statue group associated with the imperial family and cult (SEG 30.1251). Nevertheless, Lepidus’ hopes to rule fell short. While the emperor recovered, Drusilla died in less than six months after their marriage at the age of twenty-one (Suet. Calig. 24.2). Her demise was mourned more by her brother than by her widowed husband. Bestowing upon her all the honors that were previously voted only to Livia Augusta, Gaius accorded her a public funeral, while Lepidus simply expressed his typical eulogies (Cass. Dio 59.11). The intimate relationship between the two men was not meant to last for long. Sometime in 39 CE Lepidus reportedly became a lover to the emperor’s sisters, Agrippina the Younger (A. 14.2, the only mention of Lepidus in Tacitus’ extant works; he surely would have appeared in the lost books of the Annals) and Iulia Livilla, counting on their support in his plot to succeed Caligula. His intentions were exposed when the emperor made public some letters allegedly sent to him by the two women, which further showcased his implication in a conspiracy against the throne organized by Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus (Suet. Calig. 24.3, Claud. 9). Lepidus was swiftly executed (Sen. Ep. 4.7), while Livilla and Agrippina were deported to the Pontian Islands. When on her return to Rome Agrippina carried the bones of Lepidus in an urn, Vespasian, the future emperor, made a successful motion in the Senate against Lepidus being given a proper burial (Suet. Vesp. 2.3; Barrett 1989, 106). Reference works: PIR2 A 371; RE Aemilius 76; OCD “Aemilius Marcus, Lepidus” 6, SEG 30.1251

28-04-2023 17:36:40

18

  Aemilius Longinus

REFERENCES Barrett, Antony A. 1989. Caligula: The Corruption of Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ferrill, Arthur. 1991. Caligula: Emperor of Rome. New York: Thames and Hudson. FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1955. “Marcus Lepidus, Capax Imperii.” Journal of Roman Studies 45: 22–33. Wood, Susan. 1995. “Diva Drusilla Panthea and the Sisters of Caligula.” American Journal of Archaeology 99: 457–482.

AEMILIUS LONGINUS JONATHAN MASTER

Emory University

Aemilius Longinus was the murderer of Dillius Vocula, commander of legion XXII Primigenia, at Novaesium in Germania Inferior in 69 CE. Tacitus (H. 4.59 and 4.62) is the only source for the existence of Aemilius Longinus, so readers should primarily consider the purposes his inclusion plays in the narrative. Tacitus introduces Longinus within the context of Vocula’s failed effort to relieve the legionary camp at Vetera besieged by Iulius Civilis and his Batavian forces. In the very attempt to engage the besiegers in battle outside of Vetera, Vocula’s Gallic auxiliary units defected, forcing him to retreat south to the legionary camp at Novaesium. Aemilius killed him there, directly after Vocula gave a principled but strident speech of exhortation to his men. The lone biographical detail Tacitus offers about Aemilius Longinus is scornful: he was a deserter from legion I, in which independent evidence shows that Vocula himself had previously served (CIL VI 1402). The murder of Vocula with the subsequent surrender of his legion at Novaesium and the soldiers’ oath to serve the Gallic Empire marks the low point of Tacitus’ narrative of the Batavian Revolt. Soon after the surrender at Novaesium, additional legions under the leadership of veteran general Petilius Cerialis arrive and promptly suppress the Gallic element of the revolt. Nevertheless, Tacitus

c01_Vol1.indd 18

makes revenge on Aemilius Longinus a turning point. The Picentian cavalry, which had been under Vocula’s command and surrendered after his death, broke off from the procession of the twenty-second legion from Novaesium and rode off toward Mogontiacum. On their way they happened upon Aemilius Longinus and killed him. Tacitus calls it an act of penance, and readers can be confident it is an indicator that the Romans would soon regain their footing against the spreading and humiliating Batavian Revolt. see also: civil wars of 69 CE FURTHER READING Ash, R. 2010. “Fighting Talk: Vocula’s Last Stand (Tacitus Histories 4.58).” In Stimmen des Geschichte: Funktionen von Reden in der antiken Historiographie, edited by D. Pausch, 211–231. Leiden: Brill. Turner, B. 2015. “From Batavian Revolt to Rhenish Insurgency.” In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by T. Howe and L. Brice, 282–311. Leiden: Brill.

AEMILIUS MAMERCUS DAVID WELCH

University of Texas, Austin

Aemilius Mamercus and his colleague Valerius Potitus were the first elected quaestors of the Roman Republic (447 Bce). This election took place sixty-three years after the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus, after a period in which the quaestors were selected by the consuls, who had inherited the king’s power of appointment. They are mentioned by Tacitus only once, in a digression on the quaestorship (A. 11.22.4). Fabia (1964) identifies him as Tiberius Aemilius Mamercus, the consul of 470 and 467 Bce (Livy 2.61.1, 3.1.1). In his first consulship, he waged war against the Sabines to moderate success (Livy 2.62.3–5); his second consulship saw him campaigning for allocation of land to the plebeians (Livy 3.1). His partnership with a Lucius Valerius in the consulship of 470 (Livy 2.61.1) supports his identification with the Aemilius Mamercus to

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus, Lucius  

expedition against Vitellian forces in Gallia Narbonensis, alongside Antonius Novellus and Suedius Clemens (H. 1.87). The soldiers, however, quickly turn mutinous and throw Aemilius in chains (H. 212). Thereafter the expedition plunders the Italian countryside, sacking the town of Albintimilium (H. 2.13). Aemilius for a time disappears from view. His participation, if any, in the battle of Bedriacum is unclear. By the time he resurfaces, he has returned to Rome and, like many former Othonians, aligned himself with the Flavian faction. He is killed fighting on the Capitoline, defending Vespasian’s brother Flavius Sabinus (1) and the young Domitian from marauding Vitellians (H. 3.73). He is not known to appear in any extant source aside from the Histories.

whom Tacitus refers, though the twenty-three-year gap between their consulships and quaestorships would leave them quite old during the latter term. Broughton (MRR) identifies him as Mamercus Aemilius, military tribune with consular power in 438 Bce and dictator in 437, 434, and 426. He triumphed against the Veientes and Fidenates in his first dictatorship (Livy 4.17–20) and reduced the duration of the censorship from five years to eighteen months during his second dictatorship (Livy 4.24). The years in which he held recorded offices are closer to the year of the quaestorship described in Tacitus, though his time as military tribune in 438 Bce, nearly a decade after the proposed quaestorship, is the earliest office of which we have any previous record. The transposition of his names would not be unusual in Tacitus, if this is the figure to whom he is referring.

see also: Liguria; mutinies

see also: Rome, myth and history

Reference work: PIR2 A 387

Reference works: Mamercus Aemilius: MRR I.57, 58, 62, 67; RE 1.570, no. 97; Ti. Aemilius Mamercus: MRR I.31, 32; RE 1.571, no. 99 REFERENCE Fabia, Philippe. 1964. Onomasticon Taciteum. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung. FURTHER READING Malloch, S. J. V. 2013. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

AEMILIUS PACENSIS NATHAN KATKIN

University of Chicago

Aemilius Pacensis (d. 69 CE) was a military tribune who fought for Otho and later Vespasian in the Civil Wars of 69 CE. He was killed at the sack of the Capitolium. Aemilius Pacensis, tribune of the urban cohorts, first appears as one of several Neronian holdovers removed from office by Galba (H. 1.20). Otho, after assuming the principate, restores his tribunate and gives him joint command of a naval

c01_Vol1.indd 19

19

AEMILIUS PAULUS MACEDONICUS, LUCIUS DAVID WELCH

University of Texas, Austin

Lucius Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus (d. 160 Bce) was a Roman general and statesman of the Middle Republic. He held the offices of aedile (192 Bce), praetor (191–189 Bce), consul (182, 168 Bce), and censor (164 Bce). He was also an augur. As praetor, Aemilius Paulus was in charge of Further Spain, where he experienced varying degrees of military success (Livy 37.46.7–8; 57.5– 6); his eventual victory in Lusitania was commemorated with a thanksgiving upon his return to Rome (Livy 37.58.5). He was later chosen as legal counsel when representatives from Further Spain came to Rome with complaints of extortion against their current governor (Livy 43.2). In 189 Bce, Aemilius was selected for the board of ten men who would settle the affairs of the province of Asia after the Romans defeated Antiochus III (Livy 37.55.7). In 182 Bce Aemilius received his first consulship, during which he campaigned in the province

28-04-2023 17:36:40

20

  Aemilius Scaurus, Mamercus

of Liguria, and his success in this campaign won him a triumph (Livy 40.25–28, 34). He received a second consulship in 168 Bce, during which he defeated the Macedonian king Perseus at the Battle of Pydna and ended the Third Macedonian War. When Aemilius later triumphed for this victory, Perseus and his sons were prominently displayed in the procession (Plut. Vit. Aem. 32–34). This is the triumph to which Tacitus refers in his description of the celebration of the capture of Caratacus (A. 12.38.1). After being elected censor in the wake of his glorious victory (164 Bce), Aemilius died in the year 160. see also: Hispania Reference work: RE 1.576, no. 114 FURTHER READING Burton, Paul J. 2017. Rome and the Third Macedonian War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

AEMILIUS SCAURUS, MAMERCUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus (c. 20 Bce (?)–34 CE) was of an ancient family, whose reputation he besmirched through his depraved character and his role as a delator. He is said to have incurred the hatred of Tiberius from the start of his reign, though he did not perish until 34 CE when he was condemned for magic practices and adultery with Livia Iulia, although Tacitus views these as a pretext for the real reason, his friendship with Sejanus. Born c. 20 Bce (based on the possibility that he was praetor in 14 CE, see Syme 1986, 267), Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus came from the ancient and noble republican family of the Aemilii. He first appears in Tacitus during the scene of Tiberius’ succession (A. 1.13.4–5), during which he made an indiscrete remark that cast into relief

c01_Vol1.indd 20

Tiberius’ position as an autocrat, thereby laying bare the carefully constructed façade of republican rule. Tacitus says that Scaurus was a victim of Tiberius’ stored-up hatred from the beginning of his reign, although Scaurus did not fall until late in his tenure. Scaurus next appears when his wife, Aemilia Lepida (1), was tried in 20 for adultery, poisoning, and consultation of astrologers (A. 3.22.2; see poison; astrology); although she was interdicted from fire and water, she was conceded her property out of respect for Scaurus who had a child by her (A. 3.23.3). In the next year he held the office of suffect consul and was numbered among the fratres Arvales (Arval Brothers). He was next involved in a seemingly petty quarrel between Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo (father of Nero’s general) and Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix; Corbulo was angered at Sulla for not relinquishing his seat to him at a gladiatorial contest, and Scaurus, who was both Sulla’s uncle and stepfather (having married his brother’s wife, Sextia (1), soon after he divorced Lepida, A. 6.29.7), settled the dispute to Corbulo’s satisfaction (A. 3.31). Regrettably for Scaurus, he besmirched his family name by turning accusator against Gaius Iunius Silanus in 22 CE for repetundae during his proconsulship of Asia (A. 3.66.2); the task should have been left to men of lower status, not a consular. His fellow prosecutors included Bruttedius Niger and Iunius Otho (1), who added the charge of maiestas, as well as Gellius Publicola and Marcus Paconius, both of whom were on Silanus’ staff (A. 3.67.1). During the prosecution Scaurus famously cited precedents from the republic in undertaking the prosecution, in part to justify his role as a senior statesman undertaking the dubious role as a prosecutor (for the problematic nature of the precedents Scaurus cites, see Badian 1958). The arguments Scaurus put forth indicate that he may only have handled the charges of repetundae, not maiestas. Silanus was condemned and exiled, while Scaurus would have certainly been given a share of Silanus’ confiscated property (A. 3.68.3). He is next heard of in 32 CE, when Tiberius sent a missive denouncing Scaurus and four senators for involvement with Sejanus; Scaurus came in for

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Aemilius Scaurus, Marcus  

particularly harsh treatment, but the matter was dropped temporarily (A. 6.9.7). Scaurus’ end came in 34, due, says Tacitus, to his friendship with Sejanus and the enmity of Macro, who charged Scaurus with writing a tragedy with some verses that reflected badly on Tiberius, although the accusers, Cornelius and Servilius (both known only in connection with this case), charged him in fact with adultery with Livia Iulia and with magic practices (see A. 6.29.4–7 for the case; cf. Suet. Tib. 61.3; Cass. Dio 58.24.4). Tacitus says Scaurus anticipated the verdict with suicide (although Dio says he was compelled, 58.24.3–5), along with his wife, Sextia; he therefore died worthy of his great name, despite having a corrupt character (something about which our sources agree; see A. 6.29.4, Sen. Ben. 4.31.3–5; cf. Tert. de Pall. 5). Both Cornelius and Servilius were exiled soon after Scaurus’ trial for attempting to blackmail Varius Ligur on an unspecified charge (A. 6.30.1). With the death of Scaurus his ancient line came to an end (Sen. Suas. 2.22). Tacitus considers Scaurus one of the best orators of his age, and Seneca the Elder speaks well of him throughout his Controversiae, but his verdict is not without qualification. Seven orations of his survived (Sen. Contr. 10 pr. 3) but were all burned by the Senate’s decree, presumably upon his prosecution in 34 CE; sketches of them still circulated under Caligula. see also: declamation; delators Reference works: PIR2 A 404; RE 11.583–4 = Aemilius 139 (Rohden); CIL 4.1553; 6.2023b (cf. 6.32339); 6.23073; 6.34318; 14.1553 (for Scaurus). PIR2 C 1307(?); 1342(?) (for Cornelius). FURTHER READING Badian, E. 1958. “Mamercus Scaurus Cites Precedent.” Classical Review 8: 216–220. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 68, 98–100, 186–88 (for Scaurus); 100, 216 (for Cornelius); 100, 267–68 (for Servilius). Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 134, 137, 193, 267, 293.

c01_Vol1.indd 21

21

AEMILIUS SCAURUS, MARCUS CHRISTOPHER J. DART

University of Melbourne

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (163/2 Bce–89/8 Bce, consul 115) was born into a poor and obscure patrician family. After serving in Spain and Sardinia, in 123 he was elected curule aedile (Aur. Vic. De Vir. 72.3–4). Failing to win the consulship in 116, he succeeded with great effort in 115 after which Publius Rutilius Rufus brought charges against him alleging he had obtained the office by bribery. Once acquitted, Scaurus accused Rutilius of the same offense. According to Tacitus (A. 3.66) this case was one of the precedents cited by Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus (suffect consul 21 CE) in the prosecution of Gaius Iunius Silanus (consul 10). Campaigning in northern Italy, Scaurus returned to celebrate a triumph and was named princeps senatus. While a legate to Lucius Calpurnius Bestia in Africa in 111, both men were accused of receiving bribes from Jugurtha. Scaurus avoided prosecution by being elected as one of the quaesitores to investigate the affair. As censor with Marcus Livius Drusus in 109, he completed construction of the Via Aemilia Scauri. When his colleague died in office, Scaurus refused to resign contrary to custom until he was compelled. Between 104 and 91 he was embroiled in a number of disputes with leading populares, including Lucius Appuleius Saturninus and Servilius Caepio (see Mallius Maximus). A supporter of the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus in 91, he was charged in 90 with having incited the Social War, although following a direct appeal to the populace he was acquitted. It is possibly this case which Tacitus cites as an example of the Roman and Italian peoples coming to Rome in support of an accused (D. 39). A well-known pleader in the courts, according to Cicero (Brut. 110–112) his style of oratory was better suited to debates in the Senate. He married Caecilia Metella with whom he had at least two children, a son, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, defended by Cicero in 54 (Pro Scauro) and a

28-04-2023 17:36:40

22

  Aesculapius

daughter, Aemilia, who married Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great). Cicero repeatedly praises Scaurus in his works while Sallust (Iug. 15.4) describes him as someone who was skilled at concealing his hunger for power, fame, and riches. see also: Roman Republic; Roman roads AENEAS, see ROME, MYTH AND HISTORY AEQUI, see TABULA LUGDUNENSIS AERIAS, see PAPHIAN VENUS, TEMPLE AESCHINES, see GREEK ORATORS

AESCULAPIUS SARA AGNELLI

introduced the art of healing (artem medendi) in the island of Cos; afterward medicine was practiced with much fame by his descendants (i.e. the Asclepiadae). The emperor then named them one by one, with the periods in which they had respectively flourished. In Egypt many regard the god Serapis as identical with Aesculapius because he cures the sick (H. 4.84). see also: medicine FURTHER READING van der Ploeg, Ghislaine. 2018. The Impact of the Roman Empire on the Cult of Asclepius. Leiden: Brill.

AESTII, see GERMANI, GERMANIA

University of Florida

Aesculapius, hero, later god of medicine, was introduced in Rome in 293 Bce, when an embassy was sent to Epidaurus in order to bring Aesculapius to the city on account of a plague (Livy, 10.47.7). The god was transported via ship in snake form, but he escaped and went ashore at Tiber Island, which was taken as a sign that the god wished his temple to be founded there. Roman emperors worshipped and honored the god in different ways and with various levels of intensity, with Claudius, Hadrian, and Caracalla being the most influential. In Tacitus, Aesculapius is mentioned six times (A. 3.63; 4.14; 12.61; 14.18; H. 4.84). Tacitus recounts Gaius Stertinius Xenophon as the person who had the greatest impact upon the cult of Aesculapius at court. Xenophon, who was born on the island of Cos around 10 Bce and studied medicine there, went to Rome in 23 CE, heading an embassy to petition the emperor Tiberius for the reconfirmation of the right of asylia at the Asclepieion (A. 4.14.1–2). Tiberius endorsed this right, and Tacitus claims that it was the antiquity of the cult which prompted him to do so (A. 3.63). Later, Xenophon became a member of Claudius’ court and served him until his death in 54 CE. Xenophon also played a vital role in prompting Claudius to ask the Senate to bestow the right of immunitas to the Asclepieion and the island (A. 12.61). Claudius relates that Aesculapius

c01_Vol1.indd 22

AFINIUS GALLUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Lucius Afinius Gallus was ordinary consul for the year 62 CE with Publius Marius (both names only at A. 14.48.1). Nothing much is known about Afinius Gallus’ life and career beyond his consulship. The same is valid for his colleague Publius Marius apart from the fact that after his consulship he held the office of curator aquarum in 64–66 CE (Frontin. Aq. 102; Rodgers 1982, 173). In their consulship Antistius Sosianus was accused of maiestas, for having written and recited insulting poems against Nero. He was defended by Thrasea Paetus and sent into exile. In the same year, the praetorian prefect Afranius Burrus died, perhaps poisoned by the emperor. Ofonius Tigellinus and Faenius Rufus took his command (A. 14.51). With the death of Burrus, Nero began to be more and more independent from Seneca’s influence. The philosopher, victim of accusations from his rivals at court, preferred to withdraw from political life (A. 14.52–56). These facts favored the rise of Tigellinus who began to eliminate Nero’s possible rivals to increase his power and influence. Gaius Rubellius Plautus and Faustus Cornelius

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Afranius Burrus, Sextus  

Sulla Felix, both Nero’s relatives, were among his first victims (A. 14.57–59). Nero repudiated his wife Octavia (2) and took Poppaea Sabina the Younger as a new wife. Poppaea with Tigellinus as her accomplice managed to extort some confessions from slaves and handmaids attesting to Octavia’s adultery with a slave. The princess was confined in Campania (A. 14.60). Anicetus (1), a freedman of Nero, was forced to provide a false accusation of adultery, which led to Octavia’s assassination despite the protests of the people (A. 14.62–64). In those same months Vologaeses I, Great King of Parthia, was forced by the aggressive policy of the Roman appointed king of Armenia, Tigranes, and by the consequent protests from his brother Tiridates and some minor client kings, to intervene in Armenia against the Roman governor Caesennius Paetus (A. 15.1– 2). Paetus eager to fight conducted his two legions, the Fourth and the Twelfth against the enemy while Domitius Corbulo, governor of Syria, prepared to defend his province from a possible attack (A. 15.3–10). The lack of collaboration between the two military leaders and the arrogance of Paetus led to the defeat at Rhandeia the following year (A. 15.11–17). During the same consuls’ year, the gymnasium in Rome was struck by a lightning and set ablaze. Nero’s statue inside was melted by the flames. A terrible earthquake occurred in Campania and its most populous city, Pompeii, was largely destroyed (A. 15.22.2). Reference works: PIR2 A 437; M 294; CIL IV 3340.151; VI.16521; AE 1907, 119; 1929, 96; 1939, 305; 312; 1959, 297; 1991, 475; 1993, 462b REFERENCE Rodgers, R. H. 1982. “Curatores Aquarum.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 86: 171–180. FURTHER READING Gallivan, P. A. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24: 290–311. Gregoratti, L. 2017. “Corbulo versus Vologaeses: A Game of Chess for Armenia.” Electrum 24: 107–121. Houston, G. W. 1975. “P. Marius P.f., Cos. Ord. ad 62.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 16: 33–35.

c01_Vol1.indd 23

23

AFRANIUS BURRUS, SEXTUS ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Sextus Afranius Burrus (d. 62 CE) was a Roman politician and praetorian prefect from 51 CE to his death. Burrus is generally considered, together with the philosopher Seneca, the most influential advisor of the emperor Nero during the first part of his reign; Burrus’ influence at Nero’s court declined progressively after the murder of Nero’s mother Agrippina the Younger. Several details of Burrus’ life and of the early stages of his career can be reconstructed thanks to an inscription (CIL XII 5842 = ILS 1321). He was born approximately between 10 Bce and 1 Bce in Vasio Vocontiorum, in Gallia Narbonensis, from a distinguished equestrian family that had perhaps received the Roman citizenship from the Pompeian general Lucius Afranius during the civil wars (McDermott 1949, 234). The inscription lists his offices in ascending order: Burrus was military tribune, realistically at a very young age, and later superintendent (procurator) of the estates of Livia Augusta, Tiberius and Claudius; at some point during his duty as commander of the Praetorian Guard he also received the ornamenta consularia (in late 54 CE, according to McDermott 1949, 233). Burrus enters Tacitus’ narrative at the moment of his appointment as praetorian prefect. Agrippina schemed to remove from that office Lusius Geta and Rufrius Crispinus, whom she considered too close to Claudius’ former wife Messalina, and managed to replace them with Burrus alone, who had an acknowledged military reputation (A. 12.42.1). Burrus’ allegiance to Agrippina became clear when he assured the support of the praetorian cohorts to Nero immediately after the death of Claudius (A. 12.69.1–2). During the first years of Nero’s reign Burrus shared with Seneca a duplex role, i.e., to restrain the emperor’s juvenile passions and to offset the growing interferences of Agrippina in the management of the empire. Tacitus says that Burrus and Seneca, by virtue of their

28-04-2023 17:36:40

24

  Afranius, Lucius

complementary qualities, were particularly effective in accomplishing the task (A. 13.2.1–3; see also Cass. Dio 61.3.3–4; 61.4.1–5; 61.7.5); and when the Parthians invaded Armenia at the end of 54 CE, a part of the Roman people believed that the young emperor would have faced the emergency adequately thanks to the help of his two counselors (A. 13.6.1–3). When the struggle between Nero and Agrippina escalated, Burrus’ activity as mediator made him suspect to both. In 55 CE, when Nero removed from his position the freedman Pallas, Agrippina threatened to bring Britannicus to the praetorian camp to proclaim him emperor. She added that the praetorians would have listened to Germanicus’ daughter, rather than to “the cripple Burrus and the exile Seneca” (Burrus, in fact, had a maimed hand, A. 13.14.1–3). From the other side, when some time after Iunia Silana accused Agrippina of conspiracy, Nero reacted impulsively by ordering his mother’s murder and Burrus’ removal from the command of the Praetorian Guard “on the ground that he owed his promotion to Agrippina and was now paying his debt” (A. 13.20.1). Tacitus specifies that his sources differ on this last point; in any case, Burrus kept his position and supervised the subsequent interrogation of Agrippina, who was discharged (A. 13.20.2–3; 13.21.1). Shortly after Burrus himself had to face a false charge of treason, from which he suffered no consequence (A. 13.23.1–2). The clash reached its peak after the failure of the fake shipwreck arranged to kill Agrippina. Nero, terrified, begged for the help of Seneca and Burrus, whose knowledge of the previous attempt is, as Tacitus states, uncertain (A. 14.7.1–2). Then Seneca asked Burrus whether it was possible to order the praetorians to kill Agrippina, but Burrus replied that they were too devoted to the memory of Germanicus to commit such a terrible deed against his offspring. He suggested instead that Anicetus (1), the organizer of the failed attempt, must complete his task (A. 14.7.3– 4). After the murder, Burrus tried to encourage the distraught emperor through the congratulations of the soldiers under his command (A. 14.10.1–2). After the death of Agrippina, Seneca and Burrus kept trying to oppose Nero’s ignoble passions for chariot races and stage performances,

c01_Vol1.indd 24

but with little success; on the contrary, they were actively involved in organizing and supporting such activities (A. 14.14.1–3; 14.15.1–5; Cass. Dio 61.20.3). Burrus died in 62 CE, apparently because of a respiratory disease. Tacitus reports that there were also suspicions of poison but seems to credit the veracity of the illness (A. 14.51.1); Suetonius and Cassius Dio, instead, present the poisoning as a fact (Suet. Ner. 35.3; Cass. Dio 62.13.3; see Bradley 1978, 218). According to Tacitus, Burrus’ end aroused great mourning in Rome, especially because of his successors’ crimes, and undermined immediately Seneca’s position at court (A. 14.51.2–3; 14.52.1–2). Tacitus mentions Burrus twice more after his death, when Ofonius Tigellinus claimed to be more faithful to Nero than his predecessor (A. 14.57.2) and when Nero repudiated Octavia assigning to her Burrus’ mansion as a compensation, “an ominous gift” (A. 14.60.4). Reference works: PIR2 A 441; CIL XII 5842; XII 1309; XI 1531; VI 16963; ILS 1321 REFERENCES Bradley, Keith R. 1978. Suetonius’ Life of Nero. An Historical Commentary. Bruxelles: Collection Latomus. McDermott, William C. 1949. “Sextus Afranius Burrus.” Latomus 8: 229–254. FURTHER READING Gillis, Daniel. 1963. “The Portrait of Afranius Burrus in Tacitus’ Annales.” La parola del passato 18: 5–22. Griffin, Miriam. 1984. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. 67–82.

AFRANIUS, LUCIUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Lucius Afranius (d. 46 Bce) served as a legate under Pompey the Great in the eastern campaigns and the civil wars of the Late

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Africa  

Republic. His name appears in Tacitus only at A. 4.34, in the speech of Cremutius Cordus. Afranius was from Picenum and remained loyal to Pompey throughout his career. He was pivotal in the battle against Sertorius in Spain in 75 Bce. He was praetor in either 72 or 71. After his successes against Mithridates Eupator, Pompey left Afranius in charge of Armenia. Upon return to Rome, Afranius was elected consul in the year 60; it is believed that because of his lack of personal influence or family connections, he achieved the office through bribery. After 53 Bce, he governed the province of Spain and in 49 commanded troops at Ilerda against Iulius Caesar and was forced to surrender; this episode is narrated Lucan 4.1–401. He was pardoned by Caesar but then captured and executed after the Battle of Thapsus in 46. see also: Afranius Burrus, Sextus

AFRANIUS QUINTIANUS ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Afranius Quintianus (d. 65 CE) was a member of the Pisonian Conspiracy. Tacitus is our sole source about Afranius Quintianus. He was a member of the senatorial order, who joined the conspiracy against Nero among the first for personal reasons: the emperor, in fact, had offended Quintianus for his notorious effeminacy in a scurrilous poem (A. 15.49.4). Quintianus’ involvement in the conspiracy was revealed to Nero by Flavius Scaevinus, together with those of the poet Lucan and of Claudius Senecio. Quintianus therefore, persuaded by the promise of impunity, at first accused his closest friend Glitius Gallus of the same crime (A. 15.56.4), and then, like Lucan and Senecio, reported the names of several other conspirators (A. 15.58.1). Quintianus is mentioned one last time, once again together with Lucan, Scaevinus, and Senecio, for his brave behavior facing death in 65 CE, that was—as Tacitus explicitly states—in a manner dissimilar from his life (A. 15.70.2).

c01_Vol1.indd 25

25

FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus, Annals. Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 227–228.

AFRICA ROBYN LE BLANC

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Often referred to simply as Africa, the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis covered eastern Numidia, Tunisia, and coastal Libya. The region was made up of a cosmopolitan population of local tribes including the Cinthii, Gaetuli (Tacitus calls them Getae at A. 4.44), Macae, Garamantes, and Nasamones (Tacitus, Hist. Frag. 8 = Serv. A. 8.399), as well as Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Italian merchants, and Roman colonists. Africa Proconsularis was formed after the annexation of several North African states (Carthage, Numidia, Mauretania) beginning in the second century Bce. Rome’s first African province, Africa Vetus, was created following the defeat of Carthage in 146 Bce. The province at that time stretched from the border of the Hellenistic state of Cyrene in the east, through Tripolitania (Tunisia), and up to Numidia (Algeria and Tunisia) in the west (App. B Civ. 4.53; Mattingly 1994). Several important battles occurred in Africa during the civil wars between Iulius Caesar and Pompey the Great and the Senate, among them Thapsus (46 Bce) and Utica (49 Bce), and the location of the provincial capital (Caes. B Afr.) With the death of Iuba I (the king of Numidia, reigned 60–46 Bce) at Thapsus, Numidia was also annexed, forming a second African province, Africa Nova. The two provinces were combined into Africa Proconsularius under the Second Triumvirate (Fishwick 1993). The new province covered North Africa east of the Ampsaga River (Rhummel River) to the western boundary of Cyrene at Arae Philaenorum (Ras al-A’ali), and inland toward the Fezzan and Sahara. It also included settlements on coastal islands such as Cercina (Kerkenneh Islands), a Phoenician colony on an island off the east coast of Tripolitania, where Sempronius

28-04-2023 17:36:40

26

  Africa

Gracchus (2) was sent into exile and later assassinated in 14 Bce (A. 1.53; Livy 33.48; Diod. Sic. 5.12.4; Plin. HN 5.7.41). The proconsular governor was now established at Carthage and legion III Augusta was stationed at Ammaedara (Haidra; Le Bohec 1989). Africa was home to several important cities and played significant economic and political roles in the empire. The nature and pace of cultural change accompanying Roman expansion is still debated (Broughton 1929; Gsell 1928), but a number of Phoenician settlements, including Carthage, Oea (Tripoli), Leptis Magna, and Adrumetum (Sousse, Tunisia), were eventually refounded and became large Roman cities. Africa was one of the primary suppliers of wheat for the empire (A. 12.43; Livy 36.3; Raven 1993, 114–134), and control of grain shipments was one way of gaining power over Rome. For example, Clodius Macer, a Roman legate in Africa in 68 CE, led a revolt against Nero by raising an army and preventing grain shipments from leaving for Rome. Clodius was eventually killed by Trebonius Garutianus, an agent of Galba (H. 1.7), and his army temporarily disbanded (H. 2.97). Later Vespasian, after being declared emperor in Egypt, moved quickly to cut off the supply of African grain to Rome in order to undermine his rivals (H. 3.48). A number of local conflicts occurred during the expansion of Roman power in Africa. The Gaetulian Wars (3–6 CE) were fought between local tribes and the Romans in western Africa but are poorly understood (Cass. Dio 53.26; Flor. 2.31). A second revolt led by Tacfarinas, a Numidian and former Roman auxiliary, lasted from 17 to 24 CE and involved the Mauri, Musulamii, and Cinthii (A .2.52; 3.20–21, 32, 72–74; 4.23–26). During this conflict, the Romans suffered a serious defeat at the Pagyda River (A. 3.20). A second legion, legion IX Hispana, was briefly stationed in the province to address the threat. Despite the efforts of proconsuls Marcus Furius Camillus (17/18 CE) and Quintus Iunius Blaesus (21–23 CE), it was Publius Cornelius Dolabella (23–24 CE) who defeated Tacfarinas in 24 CE (A. 4.23–26). Several generals and proconsuls of Africa played important roles in the year of the four emperors (69/70 CE). Among these are Lucius

c01_Vol1.indd 26

Calpurnius Piso (3) (H. 4.38, 48–50) the proconsular governor of Africa in 69 CE, as well as both Galba (proconsul in 44–45 CE; H. 1.49) and Vitellius (proconsul c. 60–61 CE; H. 1.70). Led by Carthage, Africa declared first for Otho (H. 1.76, 2.58), and then Vitellius (H. 2.58–59), before finally aligning with Vespasian. After the death of Vitellius, Piso was suspected of continuing to oppose Vespasian and was eventually executed by the orders of Valerius Festus, the legate of legion III Augusta (H. 4.48–50). The resulting instability contributed to a dispute between the cities of Oea (Tripoli) and Leptis Magna, apparently over theft of livestock and crops, resulting in an appeal to the Garamantes by the Oeenses to raid the Leptitani (H. 4.50; Plin. HN 5.5.38). Festus intervened, pursuing the Garamantes into the Fezzan. A number of other figures are connected to Africa by Tacitus, including Agricola (who was nearly governor of Africa; Agr. 42). He also relates a story featuring a certain Curtius Rufus encountering the numen of Africa. Rufus, suffect consul in 43 CE and proconsul of Africa, is probably to be identified with the Roman biographer of Alexander the Great (A. 11.21). see also: civil wars of the Late Republic; civil wars of 69 CE; Histories; provinces Reference work: Barrington 100 H4/J5 Africa Proconsularis; 33 H3 Cercina Ins.; 35 F2 Oea; 35 G2 Neapolis/Lepcis Magna. REFERENCES Broughton, T. R. S. 1929. The Romanization of Africa Proconsularis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. Fishwick, Duncan. 1993. “On the Origins of Africa Proconsularius, I: The Amalgamation of Africa Vetus and Africa Nova.” Antiquités africaines 29: 53–62. Gsell, Stéphane. 1914–1930. L’Histoire ancienne de l’Afrique du Nord. Paris: Hachette. Le Bohec, Yan. 1989. La Troisième Légion Auguste. Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique. Mattingly, David J. 1994. Tripolitania. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Raven, Susan. 1993. Rome in Africa. London: Routledge.

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Agricola (Iulius Agricola, Gnaeus)  

FURTHER READING Cherry, David. 1998. Frontier and Society in Roman North Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Le Bohec, Yan. 2005. Histoire de l’Afrique romaine: 146 avant J.-C.—439 après J.-C. Paris: Picard.

AGERMUS, see FREEDMEN OF AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER

AGRICOLA (IULIUS AGRICOLA, GNAEUS) DYLAN SAILOR

University of California, Berkeley

Gnaeus Iulius Agricola (13 June 40 CE–23 August 93 CE; military tribune 60–61 CE, quaestor 63–64, tribune of the plebs 66, praetor 68, legionary legate 70–73, propraetorian legate of Aquitania 73–76, consul 76, propraetorian legate of Britain 77–84) was a statesman, general, longtime Flavian governor of the province of Britain, the father-in-law of Tacitus, and the subject of the Agricola. His family hailed from Forum Iulii in Gallia Narbonensis. His grandfathers were procurators of equestrian rank. His father, Iulius Graecinus, was a senator who ran afoul of Caligula and was executed in 40 or 41 CE, leaving his mother, Iulia Procilla, alone to raise Agricola. No siblings are attested. As a child he studied at Massilia, and Tacitus writes that as a young man he developed an interest in becoming famous through the study of philosophy, before opting, in part at Procilla’s urging, for ambitions that were less perilous for a future senator. His initial public role was as military tribune in Britain under Suetonius Paulinus, and it was then, Tacitus writes, that Agricola’s ambition became fixed on military glory. In 62 he married Domitia Decidiana and was elected to a quaestorship, which he held in Asia in 63–64 under Salvius Otho Titianus; there the couple’s first child, a son, died in infancy, and Domitia gave birth to a daughter. Back at Rome for the tribunate and the praetorship in the bloody final years of Nero, Agricola was, in Tacitus’ accounting, careful to do little and avoid drawing attention to himself;

c01_Vol1.indd 27

27

under Galba, he was charged with taking inventory of treasures dedicated in temples. In the civil wars of 69 CE, Procilla was killed in Liguria in an Othonian raid; on the way to pay his respects, he received news of Vespasian’s bid for empire and joined the Flavians, conducting levies. In 70, Licinius Mucianus appointed him legate of the Twentieth Legion in Britain, initially under Vettius Bolanus and from 71 under Petilius Cerialis; under the latter, Agricola took part in extensive campaigning. In 73, Agricola was promoted by Vespasian to patrician rank and given the prestigious post of propraetorian legate of Aquitania, which he occupied for fewer than three years before being recalled to Rome in anticipation of a consulship. He was consul most likely in 76, and in the same year his daughter was betrothed to Tacitus; they were married after his term of office, probably in 77. In 77, Agricola was appointed to a priesthood and made propraetorian legate of the province of Britain, succeeding Sextus Iulius Frontinus. With Agricola’s arrival in Britain began the most significant chapter in his life, a governorship of that province that would in the event extend over seven years (most likely 77–84) and see Rome reconquer northern Wales and conquer northern England and much of Scotland. On arrival, he used what time was left in the season to reconquer northern Wales and Anglesey. In an effort reported for that winter, but that should be understood as Tacitus’ description of Agricola’s standing approach to administration, Agricola is said to have sought to uproot corrupt and abusive practices in the provincial government. His second season (78) was occupied in raiding and establishment of forts in northern England and southern Scotland; in Tacitus’ presentation, the aim of this was to show Britons not yet subject to Rome the dangers of resistance and, conversely, the advantages of submission. In Tacitus’ narrative, the second winter is again used to describe a longer-term approach to governance. According to him, Agricola felt that Britons in conquered territory still untouched by civilization remained likely to rebel and that that risk could be eliminated if they were to be “inured to tranquil inactivity through pleasures” (Ag. 21.1). To achieve this, on Tacitus’ account Agricola began

28-04-2023 17:36:40

28

  Agricola (Iulius Agricola, Gnaeus)

encouraging and assisting Britons in the building of the structures and spaces of civic Roman life and in the pursuit of the liberal arts and rhetoric. Contact with these dimensions of civilized life, Tacitus says, was followed by the Britons’ awakening to the other possibilities of civilization, the degrading pleasures to be found in the bathhouse, the dining room, and the portico; now morally corrupted, the Britons within the zone of Roman control became compliant and no longer inclined to wage war. It is difficult to say whether Tacitus here presents an approach attributable to Agricola; he may instead be promoting his own vision of the rationale and effects of the larger Roman project of provincialization of conquered territories. In support of the view that Agricola promoted public building has been adduced a large fragmentary inscription (RIB 3123), belonging to 79 or 81 and discovered in excavation at St. Albans (Roman “Verulamium”), that mentions Agricola in the context of commemorating some significant act on the part of Titus and Domitian. In his third year (79), Agricola pressed north, laying waste to the countryside as far as the Tay estuary, meeting little resistance and establishing forts. For Agricola’s actions this year, Titus was acclaimed “commander” for the fifteenth time (Cass. Dio 66.20.3). A lead water pipe also dates to this year, inscribed with Agricola’s name, discovered in the remains of the legionary fortress at Chester (RIB II 3, 2434, 1). The following year (80) was spent consolidating the gains of 79, with Agricola securing and fortifying as a frontier the strip of land between the rivers Clyde and Forth. The fifth year (81) saw Agricola crossing the Clyde and establishing a foothold in southwest Scotland. Tacitus intimates that Agricola’s taking this territory looked toward a future invasion of Ireland and mentions that Agricola had taken into his protection, under pretense of friendship, an expelled minor king of Ireland with an eye to restoring him and using him to advance Roman interests; he adds that Agricola used to say that it would be easy to occupy Ireland as well as helpful for maintaining Roman control in Britain, as it would remove from view an example of liberty that Britons might follow. In his sixth year (82), Agricola pushed up the eastern coast of Scotland, subduing tribes “located across the Forth,” establishing forts, and sending ahead ships for reconnaissance; Tacitus’

c01_Vol1.indd 28

vagueness makes it difficult to say how far Agricola advanced. In Tacitus’ telling, faced with British resistance and the prospect of encirclement, Agricola divided his army. Taking advantage of the separation, the Britons made a nighttime attack on the Ninth Legion and succeeded in penetrating their camp; in Tacitus’ account, Agricola was already on the heels of this British force and arrived behind it as it was attempting to take the camp. The Britons were beaten back and escaped into the wilderness. Tacitus declares, had they not escaped, “that victory would have brought the war to completion” and thus paints this episode as nearly a success. Separating his forces had left the Ninth vulnerable, however, and it had nearly ended in calamity. That this affair looked bad is suggested by Tacitus’ reflecting that “it is a most unfair fact about war that when things go well everyone claims credit and when they do not only one person gets blamed” (Ag. 27.1). To this year Tacitus also assigns a mutiny of Germanic auxiliaries in Agricola’s army, although Dio’s epitomator (66.20.2) appears to place this episode in 79. Also in this year, Agricola and Domitia had a son; his death is reported at the beginning of Tacitus’ narrative of Agricola’s seventh year in command. That seventh year (83) Tacitus presents as having completed the Roman conquest of the island of Britain. The details of this year’s action before the climactic Battle of Mons Graupius are notably sparse: Agricola, Tacitus writes, sent the fleet ahead to create widespread panic and marched with his army, traveling light, arriving in late summer at “Mount Graupius,” which Agricola found already occupied by a large force of Britons. We do not know precisely where this was, and various places in the north of Scotland have been proposed; Bennachie, near Aberdeen, has been favored recently (Campbell 2010). Tacitus reckons the Britons above 30,000 and gives for Agricola’s auxiliary infantry the figure of 8,000 and for the auxiliary cavalry 3,000; he does not indicate how many legionaries were present. Tacitus presents, in direct speech, a pre-battle exhortation by Agricola, but there is every reason to suppose that it is Tacitus’ own composition. Agricola’s conduct in the battle is presented by Tacitus in the following terms. He drew up his auxiliary infantry in the flat and positioned the auxiliary cavalry along their flanks; the legions he kept in reserve. The reasoning Tacitus attributes

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Agricola (Iulius Agricola, Gnaeus)  

to him for this deployment is that it would be a notable achievement if the battle were won without the spilling of Roman blood and that, if the auxiliaries should struggle after all, the legions would nonetheless be available to support them. Because of the Britons’ numbers, however, Agricola feared envelopment and ordered that the infantry ranks open up in order to extend the Roman front; this, Tacitus reports, provoked anxiety among many of his advisors, who urged him to bring up the legions. Rejecting the advice, in a Caesarian gesture (Caes., BGall. 1.25.1) he sent away his horse and took a stand on foot before the auxiliary standards. After initial skirmishing, Agricola directed auxiliary units to close in for hand-to-hand combat; these cleared the Britons from the plain and began taking the fight up the hill. As the main body of Britons moved to envelop Agricola’s infantry, he sent cavalry he had held in reserve to block them; at Agricola’s command, these same forces then outflanked the British and took them in the rear. The British side then broke, and Agricola directed the pursuit, “appearing everywhere at once” (Ag. 37.4) in Tacitus’ rendition. By Tacitus’ count, 10,000 Britons were killed (and so more than 20,000 escaped); on the Roman side, 360 died. The late date left no time to pursue the enemy further, so he moved his army into a territory adjacent to the site of the battle—a possible textual difficulty prevents greater specificity—and accepted hostages; from here, he sent his fleet around the island, in the first Roman circumnavigation of Britain, and led his army back south to winter quarters on a slow march meant to intimidate the locals. Tacitus’ account of Agricola’s return to Rome, evidently in 84, is obscure and leaves much to be filled in. According to Tacitus, news of Agricola’s victory was received with great popular enthusiasm back at Rome. Domitian, who had been emperor since the death of Titus in September 81, instructed the Senate to decree him triumphal honors, and according to Tacitus himself encouraged a rumor that the province of Syria, whose governor had recently died, was being held open for Agricola. Tacitus does not report that Domitian formally recalled Agricola, but Agricola did leave Britain for Rome and Britain received a new legate. In Tacitus’ representation, the recall of Agricola was owed to Domitian’s jealousy, fear, and humiliation: Domitian was conscious, he says, of his own

c01_Vol1.indd 29

29

military disgrace, and in particular of what Tacitus regards as a sham triumph over Germania, in which he is supposed to have presented slaves dressed in Germanic costume as captives, and he feared that the glory Agricola would receive for his conquests would make his legate a rival to himself. For this reason, in Tacitus’ account, Domitian desired to separate him from his army, which would form the basis of any bid for empire on Agricola’s part, and to allow public enthusiasm for his achievement to cool with time. It was widely believed, Tacitus reports, that Domitian so strongly desired to remove Agricola from Britain that he sent a freedman to Agricola bearing a letter offering him the governorship of Syria, with the instructions to deliver it only if Agricola were still in Britain, and that, seeing Agricola already crossing the Channel, the freedman had simply turned back to Rome. Agricola’s reception at Rome Tacitus presents as disgraceful: he was made to enter the city at night, without a throng of well-wishers; and at the palace he was greeted by Domitian in the palace with a kiss and, without a word further, “was made to lose himself in the throng of lackeys” (Ag. 40.3). From then to his death in 93, Agricola remained at Rome. In Tacitus’ rendering, Agricola understood the danger his own fame posed to himself, and accordingly sought to live inconspicuously, but was nonetheless the subject of constant secret insinuations made into Domitian’s ear. A series of military reverses for Rome, Tacitus says, caused a public outcry for Agricola’s return to service, and this talk increased Domitian’s anxiety and Agricola’s peril. In 90 or so, Agricola was eligible to draw lots for the prestigious proconsulships of Africa and Asia. Tacitus says that men privy to Domitian’s thoughts visited him and, to prevent him putting his name forward, proceeded from hints to threats, ending by bringing him before Domitian to beg to be excused from candidacy. Tacitus mentions that over this episode, for Agricola as for Domitian, hung the recent precedent of Gaius Vettulenus Civica Cerialis (mentioned by Tacitus only at Ag. 42), a proconsul of Asia whom Domitian had put to death in 88. When Agricola fell ill at some later date, Tacitus says, there was widespread public concern in Rome. During this period, Tacitus and his wife were not in Rome, having been away some four years already when Agricola died. Toward the end, Agricola was, in Tacitus’ telling, visited often

28-04-2023 17:36:40

30

  Agricola (Iulius Agricola, Gnaeus)

by Domitian’s freedmen and doctors, and runners brought Domitian news of his health; there was a rumor, Tacitus writes, that Domitian had had him poisoned. In his will, Agricola made Domitian coheir with Domitia and their daughter. Of funeral arrangements we know nothing. In the preface of Agricola, a work that belongs to 98, Tacitus’ strong suggestion is that he wished to write the biography while Domitian was alive but that it would not have been safe to do so, and that it is the new conditions prevailing since the rise of Nerva and Trajan that have enabled him to give Agricola the praise he deserved. Our information about Agricola comes almost exclusively from Agricola, although he is mentioned by Cass. Dio (39.50.4, 66.20.1–3) and in two inscriptions mentioned above (RIB II 3, 2434, 1; RIB 3123), and a handful of literary passages touch on Roman activity in Britain during, or perhaps during, Agricola’s governorship (RaepsaetCharlier 1991, 1814–1817); there are also remains of Roman camps north of the Forth-Clyde line that are likely to be Agricolan. The place of Agricola in our evidence has consequences for our understanding of Agricola, because important literary and political considerations have likely affected the picture that Tacitus presents of him. There is no reason to doubt key hard data, like dates, family, magistracies held, honors received, and general area and scope of activities while on campaign. Beyond these, however, when it comes to Agricola’s policies and behavior, his intentions, the attitude of others toward him, the details of his conduct of battles, and other matters, it is important to keep in mind certain features of the Agricola. It is not a work of history, and Tacitus makes no commitments of impartiality toward its subject; instead, he announces that it will be a work of praise and that it should be understood as an effort to honor Agricola and satisfy his own sense of familial duty. The aim of praise means not only the possibility of exaggeration of Agricola’s virtues and suppression of his vices, but invention, suppression, or misrepresentation of even significant events. Further, the language of praise was conventional, ascribing to individuals a set of canonical virtues and behaviors. The other side of the work’s praise of Agricola is its obvious denigration of Domitian; in the aftermath of his assassination, there were powerful incentives to attack his memory, which may be

c01_Vol1.indd 30

reflected in Agricola, if for example (something we cannot know now) it exaggerates or even invents his hostility toward Agricola. Such misrepresentation would also have served the end of praise of Agricola, inasmuch as the tyrant’s hatred could serve as proof of the virtue of those he hated. The overall project of praise and blame may also affect the reliability of the account, in that details that might be of greater interest to Tacitus within the context of a historical narrative would be more easily neglected where the guiding principle of the work is forthrightly epideictic. Also potentially affecting the character of the access Agricola gives to the historical Agricola is its broader political and cultural agenda. It seems to deprecate the conduct of Roman elites who have ended up as famed martyr-figures for their demonstrative resistance or noncompliance with the emperors under whom they lived and to endorse a model of life that avoids conflict with the emperor and instead pursues, as Agricola had done, the conquest and pacification of lands outside Roman sway. By making the Agricola of Agricola stand for an imitable type of life-path, Tacitus may also have flattened or removed features that were individual and historically specific; likewise, by seeking to enshrine that life-path on a level of glory comparable to that of the martyrs, Tacitus may have exaggerated his achievements and his fame. Similarly, in framing a vision of Rome’s empire as one that required constant expansion and the cultural transformation of newly acquired territory, Tacitus may have attributed to Agricola policies and intentions—such as those surrounding “Romanization” in Agricola 21, mentioned above—that were of more interest to himself. see also: Britannia; Cornelius Tacitus; De Vita Agricolae; empire; inventio; panegyric; poison; Usipi Reference works: PIR2 I 126; BNP Iulius II 3; RIB II 3, 2434, 1; RIB 3123; RE Iulius 49 REFERENCES Campbell, D. B. 2010. Mons Graupius ad 83. Oxford: Osprey. Raepset-Charlier, M.-T. 1991. “Cn. Iulius Agricola: mise au point prosopographique.” ANRW II.33.3: 1807–1857.

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Agrippa  

FURTHER READING Birley, A. R. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 71–95. Ogilvie, R. M., and I. A. Richmond. 1967. Tacitus: Agricola. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woodman, A. J. with C. S. Kraus. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

AGRIPPA CHRISTOPHER J. DART

University of Melbourne

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (64/63 Bce–12 Bce, consul 37, 28, 27) was descended from an obscure but wealthy family. He was a close ally, friend, and key partisan of Octavian throughout his adult life. In turn, he held a position of unrivaled power within the Augustan regime (see Cass. Dio 54.12; cf. A. 1.3). In 44, Octavian (Augustus) and Agrippa were in Apollonia from where they were to accompany Iulius Caesar on his Parthian campaign. When the dictator Caesar was murdered in March 44 Bce, Agrippa went with Octavian to Italy. He was present at the battle of Philippi in 42 at which Brutus, Cassius, and many of their supporters were defeated. Elected praetor urbanus in 40, Agrippa played an important role in the Perusine War, including the siege at Perusia and the defeat of Lucius Antonius (App. B Civ. 5.31 f). Thereafter he served as proconsul in Gaul, winning victories in Aquitania and on the Rhine. He was offered but refused a triumph upon his return to Rome, supposedly in deference and respect to Octavian who had enjoyed far less success (Cass. Dio 48.49.3). Around the same time, he married his first wife, Caecilia Attica, with whom he had a daughter, Vipsania Agrippina. As consul in 37 he oversaw extensive naval preparations for the conflict with Sextus Pompeius Magnus, constructing a harbor which he named the Julian Port on the Lucrine and Avernine Lakes, near Baiae. Here his crews and marines were trained prior to embarking for Sicily (Vell. Pat. 2.79). In 36 he commanded the fleet in the victories won off the coast of northern Sicily, first at Mylae and then at Naulochus on 3

c01_Vol1.indd 31

31

September 36 (App. B Civ. 5.106–108; 118–121). These battles effectively broke the power of Sextus Pompeius and were received enthusiastically in Rome as an end to civil strife. Octavian received an ovation ex Sicilia (on 13 November 36 Bce) while Agrippa, among other honors, received the corona navalis (Cass. Dio 49.14). Coins issued during his lifetime depict him wearing the crown (RIC 12, Aug., nos. 409 and 414). In 33, he served as quaestor and oversaw extensive public works in Rome, restoring a number of the city’s aqueducts and drains and constructing the Aqua Julia (Front. Aq. 1.9). His naming of the aqueduct after Octavian’s family is indicative of his willingness to accept secondary honors to Octavian, a constant throughout his life. Such behavior meant that he set a powerful example for others as to the expectations of the regime. In 31 he commanded the naval forces in the campaign at Actium. Agrippa sailed in advance of Octavian, attacking key points along the Greek coast and successfully cutting off Antonius’ (Mark Antony) lines of supply. He then commanded the left wing of the fleet at Actium on 2 September 31, where the navies of Antonius and Cleopatra were defeated. As had been the case with the war against Sextus Pompeius, Agrippa’s skill as a military commander was instrumental in the victory. Even though Actium was extolled as the preeminent achievement of Octavian and featured prominently in his triple triumph, Agrippa’s role was widely acknowledged with many of the public honors associated with a naval victor awarded to him (such as receiving a blue pennant). Coins depict an equestrian statue of Agrippa on a pedestal adorned by ships’ beaks (RIC 12, Aug., no. 412). In 28, Agrippa was Octavian/Augustus’ colleague in the consulship and censorship. The two revised the role of senators, expelling many who had been enrolled during the civil wars and completed the lustrum for the first time in decades (Mon. Anc. 8; Suet. Aug. 35; Cass. Dio 52.42). Agrippa appears on a number of coins beside Augustus as his colleague. The same year he married Claudia Marcella, the niece of Augustus. Agrippa held his third consulship in 27 Bce and from 27 until 24 acted as the leading man in Rome while Augustus was campaigning in Spain. It was in this period that Agrippa commissioned

28-04-2023 17:36:40

32

  Agrippa Postumus

construction of major buildings in Rome, including the Pantheon and the Basilica of Neptune (Cass. Dio 53.27.1). In 23 Bce, with Augustus gravely ill, Agrippa was given his signet ring. This act was viewed as indicating that Agrippa should take power in the event of Augustus’ death (Cass. Dio 53.30). This was the supposed source of enmity between Marcellus and Agrippa, leading to Agrippa being sent to take command in Syria (Suet. Aug. 66.3; Cass. Dio 53.32), though ongoing tension over the potential designated successor is easily exaggerated (cf. A. 6.51). In 21, Agrippa divorced his second wife to marry Julia the Elder, the daughter of Augustus. He and Julia had at least five children, including sons Gaius Caesar (born 20 Bce) and Lucius Caesar (born 17 Bce). Both sons were adopted by Augustus in 17 and were thereafter increasingly promoted publicly as his eventual successors. Agrippa’s youngest son, Marcus Agrippa Postumus, born shortly after Agrippa’s death in 12 bce was similarly adopted. Agrippa served in Gaul and Spain between 20 and 19 Bce and put down a rebellion of the Cantabri. For this he was again offered, but refused, a triumph (Cass. Dio 54.11.6). Serving in Greece and the East from 17, he was offered and refused a third triumph in 14 (Cass. Dio 54.24.7). He served in Pannonia in 12 Bce, although while there he fell ill, forcing him to return to Italy. He died in Campania later the same year and was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus (Cass. Dio 54.28) at the northern end of the Campus Martius. In his will he left the majority of his property to Augustus. At least two written works by Agrippa are known to have existed, an autobiography and a treatise on geography, although neither survives. Over his life, Agrippa and his family were increasingly closely tied by marriage to the imperial family. Vipsania, his eldest daughter, was initially married to the future emperor Tiberius. After Agrippa’s death, they were divorced so that Tiberius would be free to marry Julia. Vipsania’s son from her second marriage, Asinius Saloninus, was subsequently betrothed to one of Tiberius’ granddaughters (A. 3.75). Agrippa’s daughter with Julia, Agrippina the Elder, was the mother of the future emperor Caligula and grandmother of the emperor Nero.

c01_Vol1.indd 32

see also: civil wars of the Late Republic; JulioClaudian dynasty FURTHER READING Reinhold, M. 1933. Marcus Agrippa. Geneva, NY: W. F. Humphrey Press.

AGRIPPA POSTUMUS BRAM L. H. TEN BERGE

Hope College

Agrippa Postumus (or Postumus Agrippa; Agrippa Iulius Caesar after his adoption) (12 Bce–14 CE) was the posthumous son of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder; brother of Lucius Caesar, Gaius Caesar, and Agrippina the Elder; uncle of the emperor Caligula. Postumus was an important player in the emperor Augustus’ long struggle to secure a successor. After the deaths of the designated successors Marcus Claudius Marcellus (23 Bce) and his father Agrippa (12 Bce), Postumus stood in the shadow of his brothers Lucius and Gaius, who were groomed for the succession (Cass. Dio 55.10.6, 55.22.4). After their deaths (in 2 and 4 CE, respectively), Augustus adopted Postumus along with Tiberius in 4 CE. Simultaneously, Augustus, likely with Livia Augusta’s input, had Tiberius adopt Germanicus, whom he designated as the future commander of the Rhine legions. Thus, the much older and experienced Tiberius was envisioned as Augustus’ successor, while Postumus’ adoption likely served to control him and the former pro-Gaius (and so anti-Tiberius) crowd that supported him (Pettinger 2012, 47–60). In 6 CE, Augustus, allegedly due to Postumus’ intractable behavior (likely a reaction to Tiberius’ advancement), disowned him and exiled him to Surrentum. Increasingly angry and violent, Postumus was exiled the next year to the island of Planasia and guarded by a small force (Vell. Pat. 2.112.7; Suet., Aug. 65.1; Cass. Dio 55.32; Tac., A. 1.3.4). Augustus ordered that he be confined there forever (Suet., Aug. 65.4). Suetonius reports that some had plans to transport Postumus and put him at the head of an army (Aug. 19.2).

28-04-2023 17:36:40

Agrippa Postumus  

Ancient authors ascribe to Postumus serious moral flaws (anger, intractability) that caused his being passed over for the succession and the Rhine command (Vell. Pat. 2.104.1, 2.112.7; Suet., Aug. 65.1, Tib. 15.2; Tac., A. 1.3.4–5; Cass. Dio 55.32.1–2). Tacitus rehabilitates Postumus somewhat, claiming that, though uncultured and “brute-like” in his physical strength, he had not been involved in any scandal (A. 1.3.4). Instead, he stresses that Livia influenced Augustus’ decision-making (A. 1.3.4). It is likely that Postumus’ loss in the struggle for the succession, rather than actual moral defects, caused his poor representation in contemporary and later sources. Tacitus reports a rumor (Velleius and Suetonius omit it, Dio reports it as fact) that Augustus, alongside Paullus Fabius Maximus, visited Postumus shortly before his death and reconciled with him (A. 1.5). This supposedly was betrayed to Livia, who then engineered Fabius’ death and, Tacitus insinuates, that of Augustus (A. 1.5; Velleius ignores Livia’s involvement, Suetonius is neutral, Dio claims she poisoned Augustus). It is significant that Tacitus marks the visit as a rumor (indeed most modern historians discount it), yet, aware of its impact, retains it (Martin 1981, 109). Immediately after Tiberius’ accession (14 CE), Postumus was murdered by a tribune of his guard, who, according to Tacitus (A. 1.6.3), had received instructions from Sallustius Crispus. Who engineered the whole plot remains uncertain, although Tacitus holds Tiberius and Livia responsible (A. 1.6.2), a fact he stresses throughout the Tiberian hexad (A. 1.10.5, 1.53.2, 3.19.3, 4.71.4). On Crispus’ advice, Tiberius and Livia maintained their innocence and confined the matter to silence (A. 1.6; Suet., Tib. 22). In 16 CE, Clemens, one of Postumus’ slaves, planned to free his master and transport him to the Rhine armies. Having learned about Postumus’ murder, he impersonated him and spread rumors that he was still alive. According to Tacitus, the rumor met with widespread approval in Ostia and, more clandestinely, in Rome, and might have caused civil war, had Tiberius not dispatched Clemens as swiftly and unobtrusively as he did (A. 2.39–40) (on the movement of Clemens and Scribonius Libo Drusus, see Pettinger 2012). The emergence of a

c01_Vol1.indd 33

33

pseudo-Postumus is mirrored by similar cases: a pseudo-Drusus Caesar in 31 CE (A. 5.10) and a pseudo-Nero in 69 CE (H. 2.8–9). Like Postumus, Germanicus was rumored to have still been alive after his death (A. 2.82.4–5). Tacitus connects these two episodes intratextually (Woodman 2017, 266–267), in part to show that Postumus and Germanicus enjoyed popular support as alternatives to Tiberius. Postumus, then, is an important figure in the Annals. His adoption, alienation, and murder are symptomatic of the struggles in the imperial accession under the early principate. The account of Postumus’ murder reflects Tacitus’ profoundly skeptical attitude toward the emperors and official accounts. He is the only author who emphatically holds Livia and Tiberius responsible for Postumus’ death. The contrast with the pro-Tiberian account of the historian Velleius Paterculus, who glosses over Postumus’ murder, is especially striking. Postumus’ elimination is illustrative of the way emperors dealt with potential rivals. Tacitus employs intratextual links to underline this notion (Syme 1958, 306 ff.; Martin 1981, 162): the murder of Augustus’ grandson Postumus, “the first crime of the new regime” (primum facinus novi principatus fuit Postumi Agrippae caedes, A. 1.6.1), is recalled by the elimination of Augustus’ great-great-grandson Marcus Iunius Silanus (2), “the first death of [Nero’s] new regime” (prima novo principatu mors Iunii Silani, A. 13.1.1). Both murders preface reigns that would deteriorate and become increasingly lethal. But there are further links: just as Livia engineered Postumus’ end (A. 1.6.1), so Agrippina the Younger engineered Silanus’ (A. 13.1.1). And just as Postumus’ murder through Livia’s plots opened the way for her son Tiberius, so Agrippina’s murder of the emperor Claudius and his son Britannicus opened the way for her son Nero. Such links create the impression of a persistent oppression under the Julio-Claudian dynasty that was institutional in nature. Perhaps Tacitus’ remark that Postumus had not been involved in any scandals reflects his view that, as the last remaining blood relative of Augustus, he was the rightful heir. Reference work: PIR2 A 214

28-04-2023 17:36:40

34

  Agrippina the Elder

REFERENCES Martin, Ronald. 1981. Tacitus. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Pettinger, Andrew. 2012. The Republic in Danger: Drusus Libo and the Succession of Tiberius. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woodman, A. J., ed. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Scharf, Ralf. 2001. Agrippa Postumus: Splitter einer historischen Figur. Landau: Knecht.

AGRIPPINA THE ELDER CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Agrippina the Elder (Vipsania Agrippina, c. 14 Bce–33 CE), was the daughter of Agrippa (Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa) and Julia the Elder. She married Livia Augusta’s grandson Germanicus in 5 CE and bore nine children, six of whom survived past childhood (Nero Iulius Caesar, Drusus Caesar, Agrippina the Younger, Gaius

(Caligula), Iulia Drusilla, and Iulia Livilla). Agrippina traveled with Germanicus on his military campaigns from 14–16 CE and on his journey to the eastern Mediterranean from 17–19 CE, returning to Rome with the ashes of her husband in the winter of 19/20 CE. Popular with the military and the people, she fell afoul of Sejanus and Tiberius and was banished to Pandateria, where she died in 33 CE. Caligula had her ashes moved to the Mausoleum of Augustus in 37 CE and honored her with games and a procession in which her image was carried in a chariot (carpentum, Suet. Calig. 15.1) (see Figure A.1). Agrippina’s Augustan lineage, imperial rivalries, bold character, moral integrity, and devotion to her husband and children are central to Tacitus’ portrait. Agrippina is introduced as a noble Roman matrona: she is Augustus’ granddaughter, Germanicus’ wife, and mother of his children (A. 1.33.1–2). Through Agrippina and Germanicus, Livia and Augustus shared great-grandchildren (A. 5.1.2). The productive family invokes the antipathy of Tiberius and Livia and the goodwill of the people. Livia exhibits a step-motherly dislike of Agrippina, characterized as overly provokable, but also morally pure and loving of Germanicus (A. 1.33.3). Agrippina is a rival to Livia Iulia, whom she outdoes “in fecundity and reputation” (fecunditate ac fama, A. 2.43.6).

Figure A.1  Bronze sestertius from reign of Caligula (37–41 CE). Obverse with Agrippina the Elder. Reverse with carpentum. Gift of Mrs. William Nelson Pelouze/The Art Institute, Chicago.

c01_Vol1.indd 34

28-04-2023 17:36:41

Agrippina the Elder  

Agrippina’s audacity emerges during Germanicus’ military campaigns on the Rhine (Rhenus). Women did not always accompany their husbands on campaign, and the Senate debated whether a woman could travel with her husband on provincial governorships (A. 3.33–34). In this debate, Agrippina and Munatia Plancina may be implicated as women who transgressed gender expectations while abroad (Ginsburg 1993; L’Hoir 1994, 12–17). During the German Revolt, the pregnant Agrippina initially refuses to leave Germanicus’ camp; her departure with Caligula and other women evokes pity from observers (A. 1.40.4–41.3). This incident initiates an end to the mutiny. Agrippina remains among the Treveri to give birth (A. 1.44.1). On another occasion, Agrippina prevents a bridge from being destroyed and provides the returning soldiers with clothing and bandages, praise, and thanks. Tacitus calls her a woman “great of spirit” (ingens animi, A. 1.69.1) and cites Pliny the Elder’s German Wars as his source (A. 1.69.2). Tiberius criticizes her actions (A. 1.69.3–4). After celebrating a triumph in Rome (A. 2.41.2–3), Germanicus takes Agrippina to the eastern provinces, where she gives birth to Iulia Livilla (A. 2.54.1). Agrippina’s rivalry with Livia manifests when Livia advises Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso’s wife Munatia Plancina to harass Agrippina (A. 2.43.4), and Plancina obliges (A. 2.55.5, A. 2.57.4). Even the populace is aware of Livia’s hatred (A. 3.17.2). Germanicus implicates Plancina and Piso in his death (A. 2.71.1) and asks his friends to show his wife and children to the populace in order to rouse pity and vengeance (A. 2.71.4). He asks Agrippina to curb her spirit (A. 2.72.1). The death of Germanicus is a turning point in Agrippina’s fortunes. As she embarks from Antioch with the ashes of Germanicus, onlookers pity her recently happy marriage and now unhappy fecundity (A. 2.75.1). Her journey proceeds (A. 2.77.3, 2.79.1), and Annals 3 opens as she pauses at the island of Corcyra, opposite Calabria, to collect herself (A. 3.1.1). She arrives at Brundisium holding Germanicus’ urn and accompanied by two of her children. A lamenting crowd observes her disembarkation and procession to Rome (A. 3.1.2–3). On the day of Germanicus’ entombment, the crowd praises Agrippina as the embodiment of old-fashioned morality and hopes for the best for her children (A. 3.4.2). Livia, Tiberius, and Germanicus’

c01_Vol1.indd 35

35

mother Antonia the Elder are noticeably absent (A. 3.3.1–3). Agrippina’s domestic success is complicated by the question of succession. Annals 4 traces the rivalry between Agrippina and Sejanus. Sejanus encourages Livia and Livia Iulia to denounce Agrippina (A. 4.12.1–3). In 24 CE, the priests include Agrippina’s sons Nero and Drusus in their vows for the emperor’s health; Sejanus suggests to Tiberius that this act indicates divisiveness in the populace, as if Agrippina is the leader of a political faction (A. 4.17.3; cf. A. 4.40.3, 4.60.3). Friendship with Agrippina is enough to incite Tiberius’ hatred, as with Sosia Galla (A. 4.19.1) and Agrippina’s cousin, Claudia Pulchra (A. 4.52.1). When Agrippina admonishes Tiberius for persecuting Augustus’ descendants, she initiates her own downfall (A. 4.52.1). Tiberius refuses to give her a new husband, according to the writings of Agrippina the Younger (A. 4.53.1–2; see sources). Tiberius is incensed at a dinner party when Agrippina refuses to eat a proffered fruit, suspecting poison (A. 4.54.1–2; Suet. Tib. 53.1). After Tiberius departs for Capri, Sejanus has Agrippina and Nero followed (A. 4.67.3–4). In 28 CE, Tiberius implicates mother and child in plotting against him (A. 4.70.4). After the death of Livia, Tiberius sends a letter charging Nero with love affairs and Agrippina for her defiance (A. 5.3.1). An outbreak of popular support temporarily suspends a Senate ruling, and Tiberius renews his accusations (A. 5.4.2–5.3.1). Mother and son are exiled, and Agrippina dies by starvation (A. 6.25.1; Suet. Tib. 53.2). After her death, Tiberius accuses her of adultery with Asinius Gallus and masculine ambition (A. 6.25.2). Agrippina’s death brings about the ruin of Plancina (A. 6.26.3). The populace recalls her exile upon the similar departure by Octavia (2) (A. 14.63.2). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; mothers Reference work: PIR1 V 463 REFERENCES Ginsburg, Judith. 1993. “In maiores certamina: Past and Present in the Annals.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. James Luce and Anthony J. Woodman, 86–103. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:41

36

  Agrippina the Younger

L’Hoir, Francesca Santoro. 1994. “Tacitus and Women’s Usurpation of Power.” Classical World 88: 5–25. DOI: 10.2307/4351613. FURTHER READING Barrett, Anthony A. 1996. Agrippina: Mother of Nero. London: Batsford. McHugh, Mary R. 2012. “Ferox Femina: Agrippina Maior in Tacitus’s Annales.” Helios 39.1: 73–96. DOI: 10.1353/hel.2012.0002. O’Gorman, Ellen. 2000. Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Severy, Beth. 2000. “Family and State in the Early Imperial Monarchy: The Senatus Consultum de Pisone Patre, Tabula Siarensis, and Tabula Hebana.” Classical Philology 95: 318–337. Wood, Susan. 1999. Imperial Women: A Study in Public Images, 40 bc–ad 68. Leiden: Brill.

AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Agrippina the Younger (Iulia Agrippina) (15 CE– 59 CE) was the daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, sister of the third emperor, Caligula, niece and wife of the fourth emperor, Claudius, and mother of the fifth emperor, Nero. She was born in oppidum Ubiorum during Germanicus’ military campaigns. She is first mentioned in the Annals as the author of journals that provided Tacitus with information on her mother’s antagonism with Tiberius (A. 4.53.2; see sources). Her marriage to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2) in 28 CE closes Annals 4; Tiberius chose her husband for his close imperial family ties (A. 4.44.1–2). The couple had one child, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, later called Nero. In 39 CE, Agrippina was banished by Caligula on charges of adultery and conspiracy (Cass. Dio 59.22.8). Her husband Domitius died in 40 CE. She returned to Rome during the reign of Claudius and married Gaius Sallustius Passienus Crispus, who died and left her his wealth (Plin. HN 16.242). The populace favored

c01_Vol1.indd 36

her son Nero as the last male descendant of Germanicus and showed her compassion as a victim of Messalina’s brutality (A. 11.12.1). After Messalina’s death (A. 11.38.1), Agrippina’s imperial fortunes flourished. Annals 12 opens with a debate between freedmen concerning Claudius’ next wife. The freedman Pallas promotes Agrippina for her joint Julian and Claudian lineage, proven motherhood, and youth (A. 12.2.3; cf. A. 12.6.1). Agrippina increases her chances through visiting Claudius (A. 12.3.1–2). The marriage requires the law to change and allow for an uncle to marry his brother’s daughter. The law is altered, but only the equestrian Alledius Severus (only Tacitus mentions him by name) is found to desire this type of marriage, likely due to Agrippina’s influence (A. 12.7.2). Uncle and niece marry in 49 CE, and the city reorients to serve a woman austere in public, pure at home unless unchastity gained her power, and desirous of gold (A. 12.7.3). Agrippina’s authority and network of alliances allow her to accomplish the demise or success of those around her. She causes the downfalls of Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2) and his sister Iunia Calvina (A. 12.3.2–4.4, 8.1), Lollia Paulina (A. 12.22.1), and Calpurnia (2) (A. 12.22.3). She brings Seneca the Younger back from exile to tutor Nero (A. 12.8.2) and ensures the promotion of Afranius Burrus (A. 12.42.1), although her assumption that they will be loyal to her backfires (A. 13.2.2). After Britannicus insults Nero by calling him Domitius, she engineers the exile and death of all of his teachers (A. 12.41.3). She convinces Claudius to act brutally toward Titus Statilius Taurus (1) because she covets his gardens (A. 12.59.1–2) and destroys Domitia Lepida, her cousin-once-removed (A. 12.64.2–65.1). When the senator Iunius Lupus (mentioned only by Tacitus) accuses Agrippina’s promoter Lucius Vitellius (1) of treason and a desire to rule, Claudius banishes Lupus (A. 12.42.3). Agrippina presents an image of equal rule with Claudius and receives numerous honors (see Figure A.2). Her power manifests when she founds a veteran colony where she was born, renaming it after herself (A. 12.27.1). When the rebel Briton, Caratacus, speaks before Claudius and Agrippina and receives clemency, he thanks both of them equally (A. 12.37.4). A similar

28-04-2023 17:36:41

Agrippina the Younger  

37

Figure A.2  Marble relief from Sebasteion at Aphrodisias with Agrippina the Younger, Claudius, and a togate personification, 49–54 ce, h. 160 cm. Aphrodisias Museum.

display of partnership in power takes place at a spectacle at the Fucine Lake (A. 12.56.3). In Rome, Agrippina ascends the Capitoline in a carpentum, a type of carriage reserved for priests and sacred objects and adopted by Livia and Messalina (A. 12.42.2). Agrippina’s imperial goals are indicated by Claudius’ adoption of Nero and her receipt of the title of Augusta in 50 CE (A. 12.26.1), strengthened by Nero’s marriage to Octavia (2) in 53 CE (A. 12.58.1), and ensured by the death of Claudius in 54 CE (A. 12.64.2–69.3; Suet. Claud. 44.1–3; Cass. Dio 60.34.2–3). Agrippina has Claudius poisoned with mushrooms, using Locusta as ­poisoner and the eunuch Halotus as agent (A. 12.66.2), with help from the doctor Xenophon (A. 12.67.2). Agrippina keeps the imperial palace

c01_Vol1.indd 37

closed until the death can be announced at the same time as Nero’s accession (A. 12.69.1; compare the circumstances surrounding the death of Tiberius, A. 1.5) (see Figure A.3). Agrippina imitates Livia’s funeral for Augustus in the magnificent display for her husband but does not allow his will to be read (A. 12.69.3). Nero’s reign opens with the death of Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) on the orders of Agrippina (A. 13.1.1). Nero presents an image of harmony with his mother, giving the watchword “best of mothers” (A. 13.2.3). Agrippina even listens to Senate meetings held on the Palatine (A. 13.5.1). Her power is dismantled after Nero falls in love with the freedwoman Acte (A. 13.12.1). Agrippina accuses Nero of depriving her of her ancestral inheritance, that is, imperial power (A.

28-04-2023 17:36:41

38

  Agrippina the Younger

Figure A.3  Marble relief from Sebasteion at Aphrodisias with Agrippina the Younger, diademed and holding a cornucopia, crowning her son Nero, c. 54–59 ce, h. 172 cm. Aphrodisias Museum. Source: funkyfood London Paul Williams / Alamy Images.

13.13.4). When Nero fires Pallas, Agrippina supports Britannicus (A. 13.14.2). After Nero has Britannicus murdered, she promotes Octavia (A. 13.16.4, 13.18.2). Nero has her removed from the imperial palace (A. 13.18.3), and Agrippina is abandoned by her friends and denounced by her enemies. In 55 CE, Iunia Silana claims that Agrippina plans to marry Rubellius Plautus and start a revolution (A. 13.19.3). The actor Paris reports the indictment to Nero (A. 13.20.1– 21.1). Agrippina offers a spirited speech in her own defense and achieves punishment for her accusers and rewards for her friends (A. 13.21.2– 6). Faenius Rufus receives the prefecture over the grain supply; Lucius Arruntius Stella (mentioned only by Tacitus) is granted oversight of games Nero was preparing; the astrologer Tiberius Claudius Balbillus is made prefect of Egypt (A. 13.22.1; cf. Suet. Ner. 36.1). Agrippina’s tragic death sequence opens Annals 14 (A. 14.1–12; cf. Suet. Ner. 34.1–4, Cass. Dio

c01_Vol1.indd 38

61.13.1–14.2). Poppaea Sabina the Younger’s desire for marriage incenses Nero against both Agrippina and Octavia (A. 14.1.1–3). Some of Tacitus’ sources suggest that Agrippina approached Nero, intent on incest (A. 14.2.1–2). Nero decides upon murder (A. 14.3.3). During a festival of Minerva at Baiae (see Campania), Nero feigns reconciliation, and after dinner sends Agrippina to sea on a collapsible boat (A. 14.4.1– 5.3). She is accompanied by Crepereius Gallus (mentioned only by Tacitus) and Acerronia; when a canopy collapses, Gallus is crushed and killed (A. 14.5.1). Acerronia is killed when she proclaims that she is Agrippina. Agrippina escapes to shore but is murdered in her villa on the orders of Nero. Anicetus (1) accomplishes the deed with the ship captain Herculeius and the fleet centurion Obaritus (these two mentioned only by Tacitus, A. 14.8.4). Her final words are directed to Obaritus: “Strike the belly!” (ventrem feri, A. 14.8.5).

28-04-2023 17:36:41

Albani  

Her death is not altogether unexpected. She was told by astrologers that Nero would rule and kill his mother, to which she replied, “Let him kill me, provided he rule” (A. 14.9.3). Reports on the aftermath differ, including whether Nero came to inspect the body and praise her beauty (A. 14.9.1). After Agrippina’s death, Nero sent a letter to the Senate accusing Agrippina of attempted murder and the desire to be his partner in power (A. 14.10.3–11.2). Thanksgivings and honors were decreed, Agrippina’s exiled enemies allowed return to Rome, and Nero entered the city in triumph (A. 14.12.1–12.4). After Nero’s reign, Agrippina received a burial mound near the road to Misenum (A. 14.9.1). see also: astrology; freedmen of Agrippina the Younger; freedmen of Claudius; gender; JulioClaudian dynasty; mothers; poison Reference work: PIR1 I 425 FURTHER READING Barrett, Anthony A. 1996. Agrippina: Mother of Nero. London: Batsford. Bartsch, Shadi. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gillespie, Caitlin C. 2014. “Agrippina the Younger: Tacitus’ Unicum Exemplum.” In Valuing the Past in the Greco-Roman World. Proceedings from the Penn-Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values VII, edited by James Ker and Christoph Pieper, 269–293. Leiden: Brill. Ginsburg, Judith. 2006. Representing Agrippina: Constructions of Female Power in the Early Roman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press. Wood, Susan E. 1999. Imperial Women: A Study of Public Images, 40 bc–ad 68. Leiden: Brill.

ALBANI ANDREW NICHOLS

University of Florida

The Albani, a tribe from a region to the south of the Caucasus Mountains known to modern scholars as Caucasian Albania (modern Azerbaijan), bear no

c01_Vol1.indd 39

39

relationship to the modern nation in the Balkans. They controlled the eastern Caucasus up to the Caspian Sea. To the west, their territory was bordered by that of Caucasian Iberia and, further to the west, Colchis, whose lands lay adjacent to the Black Sea. They were semi-nomadic shepherds who lived by hunting and trading (Str. 11.4). They are first mentioned in the historical record by Arrian (Anab. 3.8.4; 3.11.4) fighting against Alexander at Gaugamela. The Romans first encountered the Albanians when Pompey the Great marched into their territory and defeated them in battle after subduing Colchis and the Iberians (Cass. Dio 37.3.4; Plut. Pomp. 35). Though ruled by Iranian kings from the Arsacid dynasty, in the time of Tacitus they were under the protection of Rome against outside threats (A. 4.5), but would later be subjugated by the Sassanid king Shapur I (252–253 ce). Tacitus (Ann. 6.34 ff), during a brief excursus on a war being fought between the Iberian king Pharasmenes, in whose service the Albani fought, and the Parthian prince Orodes, connects the Albani to the story of the Golden Fleece and says that many of their traditions are drawn from this legend, including their refusal to sacrifice a ram since this was the animal that conveyed Phrixus to the area (cf. Str. 11.2.17). Tacitus seems to be following a local Armenian tradition in which the Albani claimed to have descended from Jason and the Thessalians (cf. Plin. HN 6.15). In this later version of the myth, which contradicts the more famous earlier traditions in which Jason was killed by a beam from the Argo (Eur. Med. 1386–88), or died by his own hand (Diod. 4.55), Jason returned to Colchis after Medea’s flight and claimed the now empty throne of Aeëtes. Tacitus’ description of the ‘empty palace’ (inanem mox regiam) and vacant kingdom (vacuos Colchos) implies that Aeëtes was either banished from his kingdom or dead at the time of Jason’s return. Justin (Epit. 42.2–3) offers a similar account, with some notable differences. In this variant, after his return from Colchis, Jason is eventually driven out of Thessaly by Pelias’ sons, whereupon he returned to Colchis, accompanied by Medea with whom he had reconciled. He sought to restore Aeëtes, who had been deposed after the Argonauts expedition, to the throne in Colchis. He then

28-04-2023 17:36:41

40

  Albinovanus Pedo

launched an expedition into the surrounding territories, both expanding the realm of Colchis and establishing several new kingdoms to be ruled by some of his followers. In this tradition, the Albani, who forged an alliabce with Jason, are not descended from the Thessalians, but rather from Italiot peoples from Mt. Alba who followed Hercules eastward after the latter slayed Geryon. Valerius Flaccus offers yet another connection of the legend to Albania in which Medea was betrothed to an Albanian prince (Albani tyranni; 5.258) before the arrival of Jason (3.495-497; 5.459). Elsewhere, Tacitus (H. 1.6) refers to an expedition under Nero against the Albani to conquer the ‘Caspian Gates’ (claustra Caspiarum). The Caspian Gates are identified with the Derbent Pass, located on the Western shore of the Caspian Sea in Caucasian Albania. However, the name had frequently been (incorrectly) applied to the Darial Pass further to the west in the central Caucasus along the modern border of Russia and Georgia, known in Antiquity as the Caucasian Gates or the Iberian Gates (Plin. HN 6. 15 attempts attributes this error to drawn maps [situs depicti] sent by Corbulo back to Rome with the erroneous name “Caspian Gates’ attached. This explanation was ineffective and the confusion continued; cf. Jos. AJ. 18.97; Suet. Nero 19.2). Thus, Tacitus’ Albani here would refer to the Alans, a Samartian tribe who lived in the Pontic Steppe north of the Caucusus. In doing so, Tacitus would be following a common misattribution, as the Alans, who were only known by that name to the Romans from the time of Nero (Sen. Thyestes 630; Luc. 8.223), were regularly confused with the Albani into the Medieval period, even by Armenian authors (e.g., the 10th century Armenian historian Movses Kaghankatvatsi [I.8] references an invasion of Armenia by Albanians and Georgians; the 5th century Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi [II.50] mentions the same invasion but names the Alans instead of the Albanians). FURTHER READING Bachrach, B. S. 1973. “Tacitus Ignores the Alans.” In A History of the Alans in the West, edited by B.S. Bachrach, 123–125. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

c01_Vol1.indd 40

Shnirelman, V. A. 2001. The Value of the Past: Myths, Identity and Politics in Transcaucasia. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology Press. Wiesehöfer, J. 2001. Ancient Persia. Translated by A. Azodi. London: I. B. Tauris.

ALBIGAUNUM, see LIGURIA

ALBINOVANUS PEDO TIMOTHY JOSEPH

College of the Holy Cross

Albinovanus Pedo was a poet and celebrated wit (Sen. Ep. 122.15) of the first century CE. He wrote epigrams (see Mart. 1 pr. 13; 2.77.5; and 5.5.6) as well as hexametrical poetry. Ovid (Pont. 4.10.71– 78) mentions a poem about the deeds of Theseus, and the elder Seneca (Suas. 1.15 = fr. 1 Courtney, fr. 228 Hollis) preserves the lone surviving fragment, twenty-three lines of hexameter about the journey of Germanicus’ fleet into the perilous waters of the northern Ocean. While some scholars understand the Germanicus named by Seneca when introducing the fragment to be Drusus the Elder who campaigned along the North Sea in 12–9 Bce and was granted the name “Germanicus” after death, more scholars (see Courtney 1993, 316; Hollis 2007, 375) read the fragment as describing his son Germanicus, whose fleet endured a disaster in the North Sea in 16 CE. Our surviving account of that fleet’s disaster is A. 2.23– 4, and it seems likely that the poet can be identified with the Pedo whom Tacitus names as a prefect under Germanicus at A. 1.60.2. And so Pedo’s poetic account of the journey could be the product of personal experience. Scholars have proposed that Tacitus used Pedo’s poem as a source for A. 2.23–4 (see Leigh 2007, 487–488, along with the cautious assessment of Goodyear 1981, 243–245). Comparison of the passages brings out numerous similarities, both in the dramatic depiction of the Ocean and in the fearful beliefs that crewmembers take on (e.g., belief in sea monsters at Pedo fr. 1.5– 11 and A. 2.24.4). There are differences (notably, the Pedo fragment does not describe a storm), and Tacitus’ familiarity with the passage cannot be

28-04-2023 17:36:41

Albis  

confirmed. But if Tacitus indeed drew upon this poetic text as a source, it would shed light on our understanding of his use of literary sources and on his conception of the expectations of a work of historiography. see also: epic poetry; intertextuality; Roman poets; sources REFERENCES Courtney, Edward, ed. 1993. The Fragmentary Latin Poets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goodyear, F. R. D., ed. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus. Vol. II: Annals 1. 55–81 and Annals 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hollis, Adrian S., ed. 2007. Fragments of Roman Poetry, c. 60 bc–ad 20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leigh, Matthew. 2007. “Epic and Historiography at Rome.” In A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography, edited by John Marincola, 483–492. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

ALBINTEMILIUM, see LIGURIA

ALBIS YASMINA BENFERHAT

Université de ­Lorraine

The Albis (modern Elbe) is a river in central Germany which Tacitus mentions mostly in the Annals, but also once in the Germania. The Elbe (1,000 km long) is the third longest river of central Europe. It rises in the Czech Giant’s mountains of Central Europe and flows north mainly through Germany until the North Sea (Tockner et al. 2009, 533–542, Plin. HN 4.100). It was the new frontier of the Roman Empire (see Deininger 1997) as dreamt under Augustus (Johne 2006,179) until Tiberius gave up the idea (G. 41). The Romans had a quite precise idea of the geography of the Albis from its mouth (Plin. HN 4.100 and Vell. Pat. 2.106) to its origin. The Hermunduri lived in Central Europe, near the limes along the Danube, in Thuringia. The Romans reached the Elbe for the first time in 9

c01_Vol1.indd 41

41

Bce with Drusus the Elder (a bit South of the modern Magdeburg), but Tacitus mentions Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (2) (A. 4.44.2) who was the first to cross the river (near the modern Dresden? see Deininger 1997, 15–16) between 3 Bce and 1 CE and even fought on the other side. Tacitus describes an offensive of Germanicus (A. 2.14–23) in 16 CE. After the battle of Idistaviso Germanicus chose to sail back on the Elbe (which was made possible by the earlier maritime expeditions of Drusus and Tiberius, who sailed in 5 CE from the Rhine to the estuary of the Elbe and even to the modern Wittenberg) with most of his troops. It was a disaster because of the winds of the equinox (A. 2.23–24). But his triumph in 17 CE over the Germans who lived between the Rhine and the Elbe clearly showed this river was still considered the next frontier. see also: Danuvius; Rhenus; Suebi; Stertinius, Lucius Reference works: Barrington 1, Map 10 RhenusAlbis, 137; RE 1 Albis; BNP 1 Albis REFERENCES Deininger, Jürgen. 1997. Flumen Albis. Die Elbe in Politik und Literatur der Antike. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Johne, Klaus-Peter. 2006. Die Römer an der Elbe. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Tockner, Klement, Christopher Robinson, and Urs Uehlinger. 2009. Rivers of Europe, Berlin: Elsevier. FURTHER READING Breeze, David. 2011. The Frontiers of Imperial Rome. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military. Schmitzer, Ulrich. 2000. Velleius Paterculus und das Interesse an der Geschichte im Zeitalter des Tiberius. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Wolters, Reinhardt. 2011. Die Römer in Germanien. München: C. H. Beck. Woodman, Antony. 1977. Velleius Paterculus: The Tiberian Narrative (2.94–131). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:41

42

  Albucilla

ALBUCILLA

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

MEGAN M. DALY

JULIANA BASTOS MARQUES

University of Florida

Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Albucilla was the wife of Satrius Secundus and was also known for having many lovers, including Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2), Vibius Marsus, and Lucius Arruntius (A. 6.47.2). In 37 CE she was charged, along with these three lovers, of impiety against the principate (A. 6.47.2–48.4). No details about the charge are known (Forsyth 1969, 204). The sources assert that Macro, who according to Tacitus oversaw the interviews of witnesses and the torture of slaves, invented charges against them (A. 6.47.3, Cass. Dio 58.27.2). Tacitus writes that Macro may have been motivated in this by his hostility toward Lucius Arruntius (A. 6.47.3), and Cassius Dio seems to name Domitius as a main target (Cass. Dio 58.27.2; Forsyth 1969, 206). Forsyth (1969, 206–207) argues that Macro may have seen these men as a threat to Caligula’s accession. Albucilla, having wounded herself, was ordered by the Senate to be taken to prison (A. 6.48.4) where, according to Cassius Dio, she died (Cass. Dio 58.27.4). Tacitus does not mention her death, and Furneaux (1896, 651–653) states that she may have survived the reign of Tiberius and been executed under Caligula. Woodman (2017, 276; 281) notes that Albucilla is otherwise unknown and that Cassius Dio relates the details of her story but does not include her name.

Alexander III (356–323), king of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, conquered in a short period of time one of the largest empires in history, a dominion that stretched from Egypt to the borders of India. Taken later as the greatest example of all generals to be emulated, Alexander appears in a direct mention only once in Tacitus, in the obituary of Germanicus, where the author compares both generals and presents the latter as even greater, due to his virtues. Having become the king of Macedonia when he was only twenty years old, Alexander continued and extended much further the plans of his father Philip II for expansion to the East. After conquering Egypt, his military campaign against Darius III soon turned into a quest to the confines of the world, after the defeat and death of the Persian king. His conquests reached to the Indus river, and his foundation of many cities throughout Eastern lands started an intense new form of cultural contact between Greeks and Eastern peoples that came to define a whole era, coined by the nineteenth-century German historian Johann Gustav Droysen as the Hellenistic age. Alexander died in suspicious circumstances in Babylon, at age thirty-two, and his unique combination of youth and generalship, coupled with a tragic early death, turned him into the ultimate symbol of military greatness. In the obituary of Germanicus, in A. 2.73, Tacitus explicitly compares the Roman general to Alexander—both being young, noble, and talented military leaders who died too early in similar circumstances. The comparison was not new, as Pliny the Elder had already mentioned a poem that Germanicus had composed about Augustus’ horse emulating Alexander’s famous horse Bucephalus (HN 8.64–5). This passage is crucial to the readings of Germanicus as Tacitus’ greatest hero in the Annals: according to the text, Germanicus was not only similar to Alexander, but in fact was even greater, because, unlike the Greek general, he had been “gentle to his friends, moderate in his pleasures, had married only once

see also: maiestas Reference works: PIR2 A 487; BNP Albucilla REFERENCES Forsyth, Phyllis Young. 1969. “A Treason Case of A.D. 37.” Phoenix 23: 204–207. DOI: 10.2307/1086161. Furneaux, Henry, ed. 1896. The Annals of Tacitus. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J., ed. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

c01_Vol1.indd 42

28-04-2023 17:36:41

Alexandria  

and had known children,” with qualities such as “clemency and temperance, among others” (A. 2.73). Tacitus also argues that the only reason Germanicus did not achieve the military glory he could was because Tiberius, and by extension the Roman political system, had him restrained. Scholars have also read the wider depiction of Germanicus’ character and deeds in the Annals as an implicit parallel to Alexander, especially in the sections on his travels to Egypt and Asia (see Further Reading). see also: Macedonia, Philip II FURTHER READING Aalders II, G. J. D. 1961. “Germanicus und Alexander der Große.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 10.3: 382–384. Daly, Megan M. 2020. “Seeing the Caesar in Germanicus: Reading Tacitus’ Annals with Lucan’s Bellum Civile.” Journal of Ancient History 8.1: 103–126. Malissard, A. 1990. “Germanicus, Alexandre et le début des Annales de Tacite. À propos de Tacite, Annales, 2, 73.” In Neronia IV: Alejandro Magno, modelo de los emperadores romanos, edited by J.-M. Croisille, 328–338. Coll. Latomus, 209. Leuven: Peeters. Spencer, Diana. 2002. The Roman Alexander: Reading a Cultural Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spencer, Diana. 2011. “Roman Alexanders: Epistemology and Identity.” In Alexander the Great: A New History, edited by Waldemar Heckel and Lawrence A. Tritle. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

ALEXANDRIA BENJAMIN KELLY

York University, Toronto

Alexandria was a city on the Mediterranean coast in the North West Delta region of Egypt. In the Late Dynastic period, the site’s natural harbor was already used, and there was perhaps a settlement called Raqote (McKenzie 2007, 37–40). The Greek polis, dating to 331 Bce, was one of the many cities founded by Alexander the Great and named for him; the Romans called it Alexandria ad Aegyptum to distinguish it from homonymous foundations.

c01_Vol1.indd 43

43

Alexander and the early Ptolemaic kings began furnishing Alexandria with the physical infrastructure of a Greek polis and building continued throughout the Hellenistic period (McKenzie 2007, 37–79). By the early Roman period, it was famed for the Pharos lighthouse, the Serapeum, and the Ptolemaic palace complex; its renowned library and museum were hubs of literary and scientific activity (Strab. 17.1.6–10; H. 4.82–84). Modern estimates suggest a population in the region of 500,000, placing it among the empire’s largest cities. Notwithstanding its population, grandeur, and local importance as the provincial capital, the city rarely intrudes into narratives of the imperial political history of the first-century CE—so effective were Augustus’ measures to prevent Egypt from becoming an alternative site of power (A. 2.59.2–3; H. 1.11.1). The city is sometimes mentioned incidentally in the Tacitean corpus (A. 2.67.3, 14.60.2; H. 1.31.3, 5.1.2) but foregrounded only twice. First, Tacitus recounts that Germanicus visited Alexandria in 19 CE, opening the granaries to reduce grain prices and adopting Greek dress— and earning a rebuke from Tiberius (A. 2.59.1–2, cf. SB 1.3924; P. Oxy. 25.2435). Second, the city features in the narrative of 69 CE. Tiberius Iulius Alexander, the Egyptian governor, has his legions swear the first oath of loyalty to Vespasian there (H. 2.79). Further, it is to Alexandria that Vespasian hurries upon learning the outcome of the Second Battle of Cremona (H. 3.48.3). There he sojourns from late-69 to mid-70, supposedly carrying out miraculous healings with the assistance of Serapis and visiting the Serapeum (H. 4.81–82; cf. Suet. Vesp. 7). In both episodes, Tacitus sees the city as a potential choke point in the transport of grain to Rome. Augustus kept senators and senior equestrians out of the province “lest someone oppress Italy with hunger” by seizing key points in Egypt (A. 2.59.3: ne fame urgeret Italiam quisquis…). Vespasian, Tacitus claims, went to Alexandria to oppress the Vitellians and Rome with hunger (H. 3.48.3: ut… fame urgeret, cf. H. 3.8.2, A. 12.43.2). While Rome also imported grain from other regions of North Africa, Tacitus’ impression concerning the importance of Egyptian grain is surely correct (Erdkamp 2005, 225–237), and only Alexandria had the

28-04-2023 17:36:41

44

  Alfenus Varus

infrastructure to handle the large-scale transfer of grain from Nile riverboats to seagoing vessels. Tacitus’ presentation of Alexandrian culture is nuanced: it is simultaneously foreign and familiar—and even attractive (or seductive)—for Romans. Germanicus’ lack of a military escort and his adoption of his hosts’ Greek dress (A. 2.59.1) hint at a republican style civilitas (Pelling 1993, 61 n. 5, 74; cf. Plin. Pan. 23.2–3, 49.1–3; Suet. Vesp. 12). The local customs may therefore be non-Roman but embracing them can be read positively. The narrative of Vespasian’s visit initially seems xenophobic: Tacitus calls the Alexandrians’ devotion to Serapis superstitio; Vespasian ridicules requests from Alexandrians for healing; and a naturalistic explanation for the healings is introduced. But after succeeding as a healer and receiving a vision in the Serapeum, Vespasian becomes convinced that he has received divine communications (H. 4.81–82)—much like Ptolemy Soter in the aetiological digression on Serapis that follows (H. 4.83–84). The cultural gap between the Alexandrians and the Roman emperor, whom Tacitus elsewhere says was prone to astrological superstitio (H. 2.78.1), therefore, is narrowed (Shannon 2014, 294–295). Reference work: Barrington 1 I4, 3 A3, 74 B2 REFERENCES Erdkamp, Paul. 2005. The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McKenzie, Judith. 2007. The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt: 300 bc–ad 700. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Pelling, Christopher. 1993. “Tacitus and Germanicus.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by Torrey Luce and Anthony Woodman, 59–85. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shannon, Kelly. 2014. “Aetiology of the Other: Foreign Religions in Tacitus’ Histories.” In Von Ursachen sprechen: Eine aitiologische Spurensuche, edited by Christiane Reitz and Anke Walter, 271–300. Hildesheim: Olms. FURTHER READING Fraser, Peter. 1972. Ptolemaic Alexandria. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.

c01_Vol1.indd 44

Henrichs, Albert. 1968. “Vespasian’s Visit to Alexandria.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 3: 51–80. Weingärtner, Dieter. 1969. Die Ägyptenreise des Germanicus. Bonn: R. Habelt.

ALFENUS VARUS JONATHAN MASTER

Emory University

Alfenus Varus was prefect of Vitellius’ Praetorian Guard in the final two months of 69 CE after having served as second in command to Fabius Valens during his march to Italy. Varus first appears in the Histories as prefect of camp in Valens’ column as it enters northwestern Italy from the Cottian Alps. Varus is instrumental in suppressing a mutiny in that camp that arose after word leaked out that Valens intended to send off some Batavian cohorts to fight the Othonians in Gallia Narbonensis (H. 2.28.1). The legionaries and Batavians had been quarreling frequently on the march but the prospect of fighting the Othonian forces without those Batavian cohorts greatly displeased the legionaries. Valens was attacked and nearly killed in the escalating crisis. Varus restored order by refraining from issuing orders for guard watches and trumpet calls (H. 2.29.2). Tacitus writes approvingly that the absence of the familiar structure of camp life shocked the troops back into obedience and gave Valens the opportunity to regain control. At the first battle of Bedriacum not long after, Varus commanded the Batavian auxiliaries (H. 2.43.2). They pushed Otho’s band of gladiators backward into the Po and slaughtered them there. Plutarch, Otho 12.4 also provides evidence for Varus’ role in the battle. Later in the year in Rome Vitellius named Varus prefect of the Praetorian Guard. Vitellius had arrested the previous prefect Publilius Sabinus in the aftermath of the defection of Caecina Alienus to the Flavian side. Sabinus’ friendship with Caecina rendered him suspect while the loyalty of Varus was not in question. Vitellius dispatched Varus and the other prefect of the guard Iulius Priscus with fourteen praetorian cohorts and all available

28-04-2023 17:36:41

alphabet  

cavalry to hold the Apennines against Antonius Primus’ invasion (H. 3.55.1). A hastily recruited legion followed soon after. Vitellius himself joined the forces at Mevania in Umbria but quickly retreated to Rome and took six of the praetorian cohorts back with him. He had dispatched the remaining praetorians in Rome to Campania in response to the defection of the fleet at Misenum. The Vitellian forces still in Umbria were demoralized and deserting under the Flavian advance. Eventually even Varus and Priscus quit Narnia and returned to Vitellius in Rome (H. 3.61.3). Both men lived to see the final downfall of Vitellius and to face Licinius Mucianus in Rome. Priscus committed suicide but Varus survived. Tacitus offers a disparaging final word on Varus: he outlived even his cowardice and shame (H. 4.11.3). see also: Batavian Revolt; civil wars of 69 CE Reference works: CIL IV Suppl. 1, xlv; PIR2 A 522 FURTHER READING Ash, R. 2007. Tacitus: Histories Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, M. G. 2006. 69 ad: The Year of the Four Emperors. New York: Oxford University Press.

ALLEDIUS SEVERUS, see AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER ALLIARIA, see SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS (2) ALLOBROGES, see GAUL

ALPHABET PHILIP WADDELL

University of Arizona

An alphabet is a list of all letters used in writing a language, usually given in order. During his time as censor in 47 CE, Claudius added three letters to the Latin alphabet, noting that the Greek system of languages did not begin and finish at the same time (A. 11.13.2). This moment prompts a Tacitean digression on the history of letters and writing (A. 11.14.1–3).

c01_Vol1.indd 45

45

Although not explicitly stated by Tacitus, Claudius’ additions to the Latin alphabet are as follows: ●

●

●

“╛” for consonantal “u” (Quint. 1.7.26; Prisc. Gramm. 2.11.5–12.2, 15.1–6). The letter is preserved in multiple inscriptions (see CIL 6.31537  =  ILS 213; CIL 6.919  =  ILS 211; CIL 6.921a = ILS 222.2–4; CIL 10.797 = ILS 5004; CIL 6.26067) (Malloch 2013, 227). “├” for the vowel sound between “u” and “i” (Long. Gramm. 7.75.17–76.3), but only replaces the Greek upsilon in surviving inscriptions (see CIL 6.918  =  ILS 210, CIL 6.553 = ILS 3860) (Malloch 2013, 227). “ ” for “ps” or “bs.” (Prisc. Gramm. 2.33.3–4) This letter is unattested in inscriptions (Malloch 2013, 228).

Tacitus’ digression could serve to ridicule Claudius’ pedantry (Syme 1958, 514–515) or might have been inspired by Claudius’ own historical erudition and linguistic interests ­ (Suet. Cl. 41.2–3), which is also evident in the Tabula Lugdunensis (CIL 13.1668  =  ILS 212). Tacitus begins the digression by asserting that the Egyptians were first to depict thoughts by animal figures and maintain that they invented letters; later the Phoenicians brought letters to Greece (A. 11.14.1). Tacitus then relates a legend that Cadmus, sailing with the Phoenecians’ fleet, was the father of the Greek system (A. 11.14.2). Tacitus then gives the alternate traditions (extant only here, see Malloch 2013, 223) that the forms of sixteen letters had been discovered by Cecrops the Athenian, or by Linus the Theban, and in Trojan times by Palamedes of Argos, with the remainder supplied by others, notably Simonides (A. 11.14.2). Moving to the Roman world, Tacitus states that the Etruscans learned letters from Demaratus of Corinth and the Aborigines from Evander. Tacitus regards Latin letters as identical to the earliest form of Greek letters and shows parallelism in the completion of both alphabets. Just as in Greek, Latin began with a very few characters and slowly increased their number, with Claudius completing the Latin alphabet (A. 11.14.3).

28-04-2023 17:36:41

46

  Alpinius Montanus

Some of these letters survive into Nero’s reign (e.g., “╛” appears at Act. Arv. a 59, dated to 59 CE) and possibly later (see the undated CIL 6.8554 = ILS 1765) (Malloch 2013, 228). see also: digression; Egypt REFERENCES Malloch, S.J.V., ed. 2013. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Hahn, Eleonore. 1933. Die Exkurse in den Annalen des Tacitus. Borna-Leipzig: Universitätsverlag von Robert Noske. 65–66.

ALPINIUS, Decimus, see ALPINIUS MONTANUS

ALPINIUS MONTANUS JONATHAN MASTER

Emory University

Alpinius Montanus was a Treviran prefect of an auxiliary cohort loyal to Vitellius who later joined the rebel side in the Batavian Revolt. Known only from the Histories, Montanus first enters the narrative when the Flavians send defeated Vitellian auxiliaries back to the western provinces to announce the outcome of the second battle of Bedriacum (3.35.2). Tacitus names only Montanus, selected to travel to Germany, and Iulius Calenus, an Aeduan auxiliary commander, selected to go to Gaul. Calenus may also be known from an inscription (CIL XIII 2805 = ILS 4659) found in Aeduan territory (Saône-et-Loire). Tacitus uses Montanus in particular to show the challenge of bringing the Vitellian forces in Germany who did not march south with Vitellius against Otho into the new Flavian regime. After the defeat of the Vitellians, Flavian general Antonius Primus recognizes those armies’ dangerous lack of allegiance and adopts various security measures to prevent them from marching

c01_Vol1.indd 46

south in response. With that threat from the German armies in mind, Primus sends Montanus to Germany to bear witness to the lost cause of Vitellius. The strategy does not turn out as Primus hoped. After Montanus returns to the Rhineland and delivers the news of the Vitellian defeat to the armies (4.31.1), the narrative shows him carry out the further task of delivering orders from Antonius Primus to Iulius Civilis to leave off any hostile activity (4.32.1). Primus’ message communicated by Montanus states that in light of the Flavian victory over the Vitellians any further violence under the banner of the Vespasian would merely veil revolutionary activity in a partisan guise. Civilis recognizes Montanus’ unbroken spirit in this private meeting and convinces him to participate in the Batavian Revolt. Civilis’ speech emphasizes the lack of rewards provincial soldiers earn for their costly service to Rome (4.32.2). Montanus departs from Civilis fully committed to the revolt but also to concealing his involvement in it for the time being. Civilis, however, turns to open revolt against the Flavians at this point. The defection of the rest of the Treveri comes later and more dramatically when Dillius Vocula attempts to lift the siege of Roman legion at Vetera. Montanus exemplifies a specific challenge for the Roman empire in 69 CE. He remained loyal to Vitellius but, with emperors quickly coming and going, that loyalty could not as easily be transferred to Vespasian as to Civilis, a fellow long-suffering auxiliary and northern subject of the empire. Montanus appears one last time in the Histories when he, his brother Decimus Alpinius, and other Treveran participants in the revolt accompany Civilis back to the Batavian Island, between the mouths of the Waal and Rhine rivers along the North Sea (H. 4.12.2 and A. 2.6.3–4). Petilius Cerialis and the legions sent to suppress the revolt by this point have isolated Montanus with the other die-hard Batavian and Gallic participants in the revolt (5.19.3) just before the text breaks off. see also: Aedui; civil wars of 69 CE; Gaul FURTHER READING Master, J. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:41

Amisia (Ems)  

Turner, B. 2015. “From Batavian Revolt to Rhenish Insurgency.” In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by T. Howe and L. Brice, 282–381. Leiden: Brill.

ALPS TRUDY HARRINGTON BECKER

Virginia Tech

The Alps, the highest and longest chain of mountains across central Europe, figure primarily in the Histories as strategic, as a border, and rarely for topographical features. Though Tacitus speaks of the Alps as a collective, he also calls the mountains by regional names: Graian, Cottian, Pennine, Maritime, Raetian, Julian, and Pannonian. On the whole, Tacitus speaks of the mountains, and not the provinces of the same names, Alpes Maritimae, Alpes Poeninae/Graiae, and Alpes Cottiae, all of which were in place by the year of the four emperors. Outside the Histories, the Alps appear by name once in Germania 1 where Tacitus situates the Rhenus (Rhine) as rising in a remote and precipitous peak of the Raetian Alps. In A.11.24, in his speech proposing citizens of Gaul as senators, Claudius points out the successful use of the Alps as a border of Italy as evidence of further potential gain in expanding rights. In H. 1.23, soldiers under Otho complain of struggling to climb the Pyrenees and the Alps under arms. Tacitus suggests other travails of climbing the Alps when he speaks of Caecina Alienus leading men hibernis adhuc Alpibus (H. 1.70) and Iulius Tutor in no hurry to blockade the ardua (difficulty) of the Alps (H. 4.70). Beyond this, there is little mention of topographical features—passes are not named and only one peak (Mons Graius, H. 4.68) is listed. Elsewhere in the Histories, Tacitus employs brief mentions of the Alps simply to note men crossing the mountains, e.g., Caecina Alienus at H. 1.89; the fourteenth legion at H. 2.66, more legions at H. 4.68, and H. 4.85 when Domitian and Licinius Mucianus head to the Alps. In other references, however, the Alps become strategic sites to own in the year’s engagements

c01_Vol1.indd 47

47

between those vying for the emperorship. Individuals and armies break through the Alps by various routes, they garrison passes, or prevent others from crossing, e.g., Fabius Valens via Cottian Alps and Caecina via the Pennines (H. 1.61); Vitellius’ hold of the Cottian and Pennine Alps (H. 1.87); Vespasianic garrisons in the Pannonian Alps (H. 2.98 and 3.1); Vespasian’s army’s blockading position between Raetia and the Julian Alps (H. 3.8); Flavian occupation of passes of the Alps (H. 3.35); and Gallic plans to garrison the Alps at H. 4.55. Further, we see Tutor slow to block the Alps in H. 4.70 during the Gallic rebellion. Tacitus also marks the Alps as a physical border: Otho’s fleet made him master of Italy up to the Maritime Alps (H. 2.11); Vitellius held the plains and cities between the Po and the Alps (H. 2.17); Italy, north of the Po, shut in by the Alps, couldn’t look to the sea for aid (H. 2.32). Only the province of Maritime Alps is mentioned by Tacitus, e.g., the procurator of Maritime Alps receives Valens kindly at H. 3.42. see also: civil war of 69 CE; legions Reference work: Barrington 17, 19, and 40 ALTINUM, see AQUILEIA AMANUS, see GERMANICUS AMASIS, see EGYPT AMAZONES, see SMYRNA AMBIVIUS TURPIO, see ACTORS

AMISIA (EMS) BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

The Amisia River (Ems) also appears in the sources as Amisis (Plin. HN 4.100), Amissis (Pomp. Mela 3.25), Ἀμασίᾳ (Strabo 7.1.3), or Ἀμασίος (Ptol. 2.11). After rising in the Teutoburg Forest, the river flows into the North Sea around the modern town of Emden in northwest Germany. The river served as a significant logistical route for Roman campaigns in northern Germania.

28-04-2023 17:36:42

48

  Ammianus Marcellinus

A notable river between the Rhenus (Rhine) and Visurgis (Weser) (Plin. HN 4.100), reconstructions of its ancient course are difficult to determine. In Tacitus, the Amisia is repeatedly mentioned in association with Germanicus’ campaigns beyond the Rhine. In 15 CE, the river served as a rendezvous point for Roman forces: Germanicus’ fleet (which ferried four legions), Albinovanus Pedo’s cavalry (led through Frisian territory), and Caecina Severus’ four legions (led through Bructerian territory, A. 1.60). These forces then laid waste to the Bructeri and to “everything between the Amisia and Lupia rivers” (A. 1.60). After his ceremonious visit to Quintilius Varus’ battlefield (A. 1.61–62) and a skirmish with Arminius’ forces, Germanicus led his forces “back to the Amisia” (A. 1.63). From there, his forces departed (by different routes) for the Rhine. In the following year, 16 CE, Germanicus sailed through “lakes and Ocean” to the Amisia where Tacitus criticizes his debarkation. The passage is very much confused (see Goodyear 1981, ­208–212): Tacitus’ Amisiae may be a genitive or locative. If the latter, we are to understand that a place called Amisia was located somewhere near the estuary of the river (see Murgia 1985; Barrington 12 unloc.). Later, after defeating the Cherusci, Germanicus transported via the Amisia (A. 2.23) “most” of his army to the North Sea at which point a disastrous storm devastated his fleet (A. 2.23–24). see also: geography Reference works: BNP “Amisia”; Barrington 10 D3 REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. The “Annals” of Tacitus, Books 1–6. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murgia, C. E. 1985. “Tacitus Annals 2.8.2.” Classical Philology 80.3: 244–253. FURTHER READING Poignault, R. 2001. “Les fleuves dans le récit militaire tacitéen.” Latomus 60.2: 414–432.

c01_Vol1.indd 48

AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS MICHAEL MECKLER

Ohio State University

Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth century CE writer of a history, whose surviving books examine political and military events in the Roman empire from the years 353 to 378. Ammianus’ work was the last major history of the Roman empire written in Latin, and as such, it has regularly been compared to the Annals and Histories of Tacitus. Ammianus was a native of Antioch, born sometime around 327 CE. Knowledge of his life is based on information he provides about himself in his work, and he is otherwise unattested except, as seems probable, for a letter from the Greek orator and fellow Antiochene Libanius. Ammianus describes himself as a Graecus, which must mean a native Greek speaker, but he may well have received a Latin education from childhood and would have regularly used the language while he served as an officer in the Roman army for at least a dozen years, a service which included time stationed in the western, Latinspeaking part of the empire. His family was likely associated with the Roman imperial administration that used Antioch as the base for governing much of the east coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian hinterland, and upper Mesopotamia. What we know of his military service includes serving on the staff of the general Ursicinus, witnessing the successful Persian siege of Amida (from which Ammianus escaped just before the city fell) in 359, and later serving on the ill-fated Persian campaign of the emperor Julian in 363. What Ammianus was doing between the retreat of the Roman army from Persia after Julian’s death and when he was in Rome giving public recitations from his history around the year 390 is a matter of speculation, but he appears to have spent some of that time in his hometown of Antioch and also did some traveling in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. While in Rome, he met with current and former government officials who provided him with additional information about the events he narrates in his history.

28-04-2023 17:36:42

Ampsivarii  

Ammianus’ history consisted of thirty-one books, of which only Books 14 through 31 survive. Ammianus writes at the end of his work that his history began with the emperor Nerva (whose reign began in 96). Since Book 14 starts with events in 353, the early part of the history must have been extremely condensed, or perhaps the comment about starting with Nerva referred to a text that circulated separately from the history we have and its surviving book numbers. Already by the mid-nineteenth century, scholars suggested that Ammianus had consciously fashioned his history under the influence of Tacitus’ works. More than sixty parallels in language have been adduced between Ammianus and Tacitus, and Ammianus’ starting point with Nerva connects with Tacitus’ announcement that his Histories will cover Domitian’s reign but not that of Nerva. Some scholars in past generations even claimed Ammianus’ history was a conscious continuation of Tacitus, and some editions title the work Res gestae a fine Corneli Taciti. What Ammianus may have thought of Tacitus, however, is unknown. In what survives of his work, Ammianus never mentions the earlier historian. The view positing strong Tacitean influence on Ammianus has not been supported in later scholarship. The parallels in language have been dismissed as literary commonplaces, and the differing contexts of the supposed Tacitean borrowings in Ammianus render some of the alleged allusions nonsensical. The general styles of the two authors are quite different. Ammianus’ Latin often displays the baroque expressiveness characteristic of late antiquity, while Tacitus’ restrained and condensed language was especially terse even in its own day. The view of the two authors on Roman governance also differs significantly. While both authors expressed criticism of the tyranny of suspicious emperors and the behavior of the senatorial elite, Tacitus’ focus on freedom of expression as a senatorial tradition is not really part of Ammianus’ main concern over the military challenges facing the later Roman Empire. And while Ammianus has some important passages about the Rome of his day, Rome was not a primary focus of his history, as the city had been in Tacitus’ Annals and

c01_Vol1.indd 49

49

Histories. Of course, Roman governance in the fourth century was centered upon where the emperors happened to be, which was rarely at Rome, and that difference is fundamental to the nature of the two historians’ works. Furthermore, using Nerva’s reign as a starting point for Roman history was not novel on Ammianus’ part. The lost biographies of Roman emperors by the third-century author Marius Maximus—an author criticized by Ammianus— also began with Nerva. Nerva’s reign was seen as the beginning of the cosmopolitan Roman world of the high and late empire, a world where being Greek also meant being Roman. The idea that Nerva’s reign marked a new starting point for Rome’s history is specifically mentioned by the fourth-century historian Aurelius Victor, with whom Ammianus undoubtedly was personally acquainted. While most scholars believe Ammianus must have been familiar with Tacitus’ writings, it is difficult to argue that Tacitus held any major significance as a model for Ammianus. Sallust was the Roman historian whose language and thought were more influential on Ammianus, an influence also seen in other Latin authors of Late Antiquity. see also: reception, antiquity; Roman historians FURTHER READING Matthews, John. 1989. The Roman Empire of Ammianus. London: Duckworth.

AMORGUS, see CYCLADES

AMPSIVARII ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

The Ampsivarii were a subtribe of the Germani situated in the lower Emsland. After a short-lived conflict with Rome in 58 CE, they scattered among their neighbors and subsequently disappeared as a political entity. The only mention of the Ampsivarii

28-04-2023 17:36:42

50

  Ancharius Priscus

in the ancient sources is A. 13.55–56, where Tacitus narrates their failed attempt to settle in the vacant lands along the eastern bank of the lower Rhine (Rhenus). These lands, left as a sort of demilitarized zone by the Romans, are first claimed by the Frisii, who are driven out by a force of Roman auxiliary cavalry. However, no sooner have the Frisians vacated the territory than the Ampsivarii move in and seize it. Having been expelled from their own homeland by the Chauci, they are at this point a roaming, homeless tribe searching for a new place to settle. In their attempted land grab, they rely not only on their numbers and the pity felt toward them by their neighbors, but also on the leadership of Boiocalus, a man famous among those tribes and noted for his loyalty toward Rome. In spite of Boiocalus’ friendship with the Romans and eloquent speech on behalf of the Ampsivarii, the petition is rejected by the Roman general Dubius Avitus. The Ampsivarii try to rally the adjacent Bructeri and Tencteri to their cause. However, a coordinated show of force by the armies of Avitus and Curtilius Mancia, general of the army of the upper Rhine, is enough to dissuade them from coming to the aid of the Ampsivarii, who, isolated and friendless, are forced to withdraw to the Usipi and Tubantes. Expelled also from these lands, they take refuge first with the Chatti and then with the Cherusci, before finally disintegrating as a political entity whose remnants are either killed or taken as booty. The Ampsivarii reappear in Gregorius of Tours (2.9) and Laterculus Veronensis (13.12). Reference work: Barrington 10 D3, E3 FURTHER READING Benario, Herbert W. 1994. “Tacitus and Commotus in Ann. 13.56.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 43: 252–258. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4436329. Potter, David S. 1992. “Empty Areas and Roman Frontier Policy.” American Journal of Philology 113: 269–274. https://www.jstor.org/stable/295560. Städele, Alfons. 1985. “Et commotus his Avitus… Barbarenschicksale bei Tacitus.” In ET SCHOLAE ET VITAE: Festschrift für Karl Bayer, edited by Friedrich Meier and Werner Suerbaum, 59–66. Munich: Bayerischer Schulbuch-Verlag.

AMULIUS SERENUS, see SUBRIUS DEXTER

c01_Vol1.indd 50

ANCHARIUS PRISCUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Tacitus narrates rampant, vindictive prosecution under Tiberius (Bablitz 2014 identifies 220 individuals actually indicted among the 227 litigants mentioned in the Tiberian hexad). In 21 CE, Ancharius Priscus prosecuted Caesius Cordus, governor of Crete and Cyrene (A. 3.38, 70), on charges of res repetundae (extortion) and maiestas. Ancharius might belong to the family of an Ancharius (CIL 11.6357) whose father had produced gladiatorial games under Augustus. Both he and Caesius Cordus are otherwise unknown. The same year, two equestrians, Considius Aequus and Caelius Cursor prosecuted the ­praetor Magius Caecilianus (A. 3.37.1–2). All three are also otherwise unattested. Tacitus reports that the charge of maiestas was groundless, and the Senate complied with Tiberius’ demand that Considius be punished. Apparently, Drusus the Younger, not Tiberius, presided over the case (on Tiberius’ awareness of the import of his physical presence in or absence from the courtrooms, see Bablitz 2009). The details of both cases are unattainable, and it is impossible to ascertain whether Tacitus had any personal knowledge of any of these prosecutors or defendants or their descendants. According to Shotter, “The cases as a group illustrate Tiberius’ problem with his public image” (1980, 232). Souza (2020) analyzes the cases to understand the development of the legal ­practices of the Senate in concert with the princeps, with attention to cases conducted after the deaths of Germanicus and Drusus the Younger. These two cases, against Caesius Cordus and Magius Caecilianus, fall between their deaths in 19 and 23 CE, a period in which maiestas was increasingly used in conjunction with other accusations more broadly. see also: Antistius Vetus; Cestius Gallus, Gaius (1); delators; Firmius Catus; Pompeius Macer Reference work: PIR2 A 578

28-04-2023 17:36:42

Anicetus (2)  

REFERENCES

REFERENCE

Bablitz, L. 2009. “Three Passages on Tiberius and the Courts.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 54: 121–133. Bablitz, L. 2014. “Tacitus on Trial(s).” In Aspects of Ancient Institutions and Geography: Studies in Honor of Richard J. A. Talbert, edited by L. L. Brice and D. Slootjes, 65–83. Leiden: Brill. Shotter, D. C. A. 1980. “A Group of Maiestas Cases in A. D. 21.” Hermes 108.2: 230–233. Souza, D. M. R. 2020. “A repercussão das mortes de Germânico e Druso na atuação jurídica de Tibério segundo os Anais de Tácito.” História (São Paulo) 39: 1–26.

Woods, D. 2006. “Tacitus, Nero, and the ‘Pirate’ Anicetus.” Latomus 65: 641–649.

FURTHER READING Rutledge, S. H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge.

ANCONA, see PICENUM ANCUS MARCIUS, see ROME, MYTH AND HISTORY ANDECAVI, see GAUL ANEMURIUM, see CILICIA ANGLII, see NERTHUS TRIBES ANGRIVARII, see BRUCTERI

ANICETUS (1) VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Anicetus was a freedman who served as a tutor to Nero (A. 14.3; Cass. Dio 61.13). In 59 CE he served as prefect of the fleet at Misenum (A. 14.62). He was hostile toward Agrippina the Younger, whose death he orchestrated for Nero, but without success. Nero then obliged him to confess to revolution and adultery with Octavia (2) (A. 14.62). He was driven to Sardinia in 62 where he died in a comfortable exile. According to Woods (2006) he may be the same person as Anicetus (2). see also: freedmen Reference work: PIR2 A 589

c01_Vol1.indd 51

51

FURTHER READING Ash, R. 2021. “The Staging of Death: Tacitus’ Agrippina the Younger and the Dramatic Turn.” In Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography, edited by Aske Damtoft Poulsen and Arne Jönsson, 197–224. Leiden: Brill. Scott, R. D. 1974. “The Death of Nero’s Mother (Tacitus, Annals, XIV, 1–13).” Latomus 33.1: 105–115.

ANICETUS (2) JONATHAN MASTER

Emory University

Anicetus (“unconquered”) led a violent movement in the Roman province of Pontus under the banner of Vitellius in late 69 CE. Anicetus is known to history only from H. 3.47–48, and thus Tacitus’ account of his life, integrated within the context of the broader themes of the Histories, is the only source of information for the man. Tacitus’ brief biographical sketch states that Anicetus had been at one time a slave to Iulius Polemo II, king of Pontus. Eventually freed, he became prefect of Polemo’s fleet, a position he held until Pontus became a Roman province in 64 CE. At that point Anicetus suffered what Tacitus implies was an unendurable diminution of status. After assembling a band of desperate tribesmen from the edges of Pontus, he slaughtered a Roman cohort in Trapezus. A period of general lawlessness followed in which even the local population took to marauding. The eastern Black Sea was unprotected by Roman naval forces at the time because Flavian general Licinius Mucianus had directed all available ships toward Byzantium in support of Vespasian’s bid for the principate. Vespasian however eventually learned of the unrest in Pontus and sent a select force of legionaries under the leadership of trusted veteran solider Virdius Geminus (otherwise unknown) to suppress the violence. Virdius Geminus caught the bandits by surprise at the River Chobus (Enguri) north of Phasis at the extreme eastern end of the

28-04-2023 17:36:42

52

  Anicius Cerialis, Gaius

Black Sea. Anicetus sought refuge with a king of the Sedochezi, a people who lived north of the Chobus beyond the limits of the empire but was swiftly surrendered to the Romans with the stipulation that he be executed. see also: Bithynia Pontus; civil wars of 69 CE FURTHER READING Master, J. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 172–174. Wheeler, E. L. 2012. “Roman Fleets in the Black Sea: Mysteries of the Classis Pontica.” Acta Classica 55: 119–154, esp. 122–126.

ANICIUS CERIALIS, GAIUS ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Gaius Anicius Cerialis (d. 66 CE) was a courtier and a senator during the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and suffect consul in 65 CE. It is known that Cerialis was involved in a failed conspiracy against Caligula, though the historical sources differ greatly on his role. Dio’s epitomator Zonaras (Cass. Dio 59.25.5b) reports that in 40 CE Cerialis was discovered as a member of a plot against the emperor and arrested with his son Papinius Sextus: while the former revealed nothing, the latter was persuaded by the promise of impunity and denounced several accomplices, who were executed immediately after with Cerialis. Zonaras’ account, however, disagrees both with Seneca, who says that Papinius’ father was a former consul (Dial. 5.18.3; Seneca must refer to the homonymous Papinius Sextus, while there is no evidence of a consul called Cerialis before 65 CE), and with Tacitus, who attests that Cerialis was still alive during Nero’s reign and that he was an informer, and not a victim, of the conspiracy against Caligula (A. 16.17.6). Most likely, Zonaras (or Dio himself) confused details and people involved in different events (Barrett 1989, 160).

c01_Vol1.indd 52

According to Tacitus, who explicitly mentions the acta senatus as his source, in 65 CE Cerialis (who was consul designate at the time) proposed to erect a temple to the divine Nero as a celebration for the repression of the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.74.3). We know from an inscription (CIL IV 2551) that on 13 August of the same year Cerialis was suffect consul together with Gaius Pomponius Pius (Gallivan 1974, 292; 310). In 66 CE Annaeus Mela committed suicide, leaving a note in his testament in which he accused both Rufrius Crispinus and Cerialis of being Nero’s enemies. Cerialis consequently killed himself soon after, arousing little compassion because of his activity as a spy during Caligula’s reign (A. 16.17.1–6). Reference work: PIR2 A 594 REFERENCES Barrett, Anthony A. 1989. Caligula: The Corruption of Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gallivan, Paul A. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24: 290–311. FURTHER READING Grady, I. E. 1981. “DIO LIX. 25. 5b, a Note.” Rheinisches Museum 124: 261–267.

ANNAEUS MELA ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Marcus (Hosius 1913, 334.1) or Lucius (Jer. Chron. 185b Helm) Annaeus Mela (d. 66 CE) was a Roman equestrian of senatorial rank, the youngest brother of Seneca and of Iunius Gallio Annaeanus. He was also husband of Acilia and father of the poet Lucan. Mela was distinguished from his brothers for his lack of interest in a political career. Such a choice is explained by his father Seneca the Elder (who considered Mela the most talented among his sons) with the complete absence of ambition and a strong philosophical attitude (Sen. Controv.

28-04-2023 17:36:42

Annaeus Serenus  

2 praef. 3–4; see also Sen. Dial. 12.18.2–3). Tacitus expresses a much harsher judgment: Mela was so ambitious that he avoided any political office out of a perverse vanity which wished to match the power of a consular though remaining a simple knight, while at the same time he tried to acquire wealth as quickly as possible by handling the emperor’s personal businesses (A. 16.17.3). According to Tacitus, after the death of Lucan, Mela endeavored to call in his son’s properties from the debtors, eliciting consequently the accusation of Fabius Romanus (only at A. 16.17), one of Lucan’s closest friends; it must therefore be assumed that Romanus himself was one of these debtors (Furneaux 1907, 449; Koestermann 1968, 369). A letter between Mela and Lucan was forged, from which emerged that Mela was privy to the Pisonian Conspiracy. After inspecting this letter Nero ordered it be brought to Mela, so to prove him guilty and seize his immense wealth (A. 16.17.4). Mela, however, committed suicide by opening his veins and left a codicil with which he bequeathed a significant amount of money to Ofonius Tigellinus and Cossutianus Capito, trying in this way to save the rest of his estate (A. 16.17.5). In addition, Mela’s testament accused Rufrius Crispinus and Anicius Cerialis of being Nero’s enemies; while the former was already dead, the latter killed himself immediately after (A.16.17.6). Mela’s death is recorded—together with those of his brothers, but without any details about its circumstances—by Cass. Dio 62.25.3. According to Polyaenus, Strat. 8. 62, Mela had the freedwoman Epicharis as his mistress. Reference work: PIR2 A 613 REFERENCES Furneaux, Henry. 1907. The Annals of Tacitus. Second Edition, Revised by H. F. Pelham and C. D. Fisher, Vol. II, Books XI–XVI. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hosius, Carolus. 19133. M. Annaei Lucani De Bello Civili libri decem. Lipsiae: Teubner. 332–337. Koestermann, Erich. 1968. Cornelius Tacitus. Annalen. Band IV Buch 14–16. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag.

c01_Vol1.indd 53

53

FURTHER READING Due, Otto Steen. 1976. “Der alte Seneca und Annaeus Mela.” In Studia Romana in honorem P. Krarup seputagenarii, edited by Karen Ascani, 60–63. Odense: Odense University Press. Fairweather, Janet. 1981. Seneca the Elder. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 11–14.

ANNAEUS SERENUS BEDIA DEMIRIŞ

Istanbul University

Annaeus Serenus was an intimate friend of Seneca the philosopher (Mart. Spect. 7.45.2). Seneca addressed three of his dialogues (De Constantia Sapientis, De Tranquillitate Animi, and De Otio) to Serenus. He was much younger than Seneca (Sen. Ep. 63.14–15). Annaeus Serenus was a familiar personage at the imperial court and probably became the prefect of the nightwatch (uigiles) in 54 CE (Griffin 2001, 79). In 55 CE, Nero requested the help of Seneca as he tried to conceal his love affair with Acte, a freedwoman and courtesan. Seneca helped Nero through the agency of Serenus, who pretended to be Acte’s lover. Thus they concealed Nero’s passionate relationship with Acte from his mother Agrıppına The Younger. Accordingly, Serenus lavished the gifts on Acte in public, which Nero granted to her in secret (A. 13.13.1; Mart. Spect. 8.81.11). Annaeus Serenus died prematurely before 62 CE on duty (Griffin 2001, 79). He had eaten mushrooms together with some of his tribunes and centurions at a dinner, and all of them were poisoned by the risky food (Plin. HN 22.96). Seneca mourned his premature death (Sen. Ep. 63.14). Reference works: PIR2 A 618; RE (Annaeus) 18 REFERENCE Griffin, Miriam Tamara. 2001. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. Taylor & Francis e-Library.

28-04-2023 17:36:42

54

  annales

FURTHER READING Colin, Jean. 1955. “La ‘Main’ d’Annaeus Serenus, ami de Sénèque (Martial, Epigr., VIII, 81).” Mnemosyne 8: 222–226. Roper, Theresa K. 1979. “Nero, Seneca and Tigellinus.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 28: 346–357.

ANNALES A. J. WOODMAN

University of Virginia

Annales is the plural form of annalis, which is an adjective derived from the Latin noun annus (“year”) and means “annual” or “yearly;” both the singular and (especially) the plural forms of the adjective came to be used as nouns in their own right to refer to historical records of one sort or another, but ancient definitions and usages of the term are inconsistent, some of the relevant texts are corrupt, the titulature of ancient works is controversial, and many of the relevant histories themselves have survived only in fragments, if at all. The earliest surviving statement about annales comes from the historian Sempronius Asellio (fl. 133 Bce): “Between those who aimed to leave annales and those who tried to describe the things accomplished by the Romans there was this distinction above all: books of annales demonstrated only what deed was accomplished and in what year, that is, like those who write a diary (what the Greeks call ephemeris). But for my part I see that it is not enough only to announce what the deed was but also to demonstrate with what intention and with what reason things were accomplished” (fr. 1C). This fragment is preserved by the littérateur Aulus Gellius (fl. 180 CE), who also reports a different definition (NA 5.18.1): “Some think that historia differs from annales in that, while each is a narrative of things accomplished, nevertheless historia is properly of those things in whose accomplishment the narrator participated.” This definition resembles that offered by Servius, the fourth-century commentator on Virgil’s Aeneid (1.373): “Historia is used of those times which we have seen or could have seen,… but annales of those times of which our present

c01_Vol1.indd 54

age has no knowledge: hence Livy comprises both annales and historia.” Yet each of the two latter definitions is belied by the innumerable places where the same historian’s work is referred to as historia and annales indifferently (Verbrugghe 1989, 225–226), sometimes by the same writer within the space of a few sentences: thus Gellius himself uses both annales and historia to refer to the lost work of Valerius Antias (NA 6.9.9, 17; cf. 3.8.4). Unless we have explicit evidence, we cannot assume that the term annales will identify a work as annalistic in the way described by Asellio: the elder Cato’s (now fragmentary) Origines is called annales by the elder Pliny (HN 8.11), but we know that its material was arranged thematically, not annalistically. Annales could be a synonym for historia in the same way as we can use annals interchangeably with history. Asellio’s dismissive attitude to annales is echoed in a famous passage of Cicero’s dialogue De Oratore (2.52–53): early Roman historiography, says one of the characters, “was nothing other than a compilation of annales, and it was for that reason and for retaining an official record that the pontifex maximus wrote down all matters from the beginning of Roman affairs right up to the pontificate of P. Mucius (130 Bce), copied them onto a white-board, and displayed the panel at his house, so that the people should have the chance of finding out, and they are still called the Annales Maximi (lit. ‘Greatest Annals’) now. A similar manner of writing was followed by the many who without any ornamentation have left only markers of times, men, places and achievements.” To this account Servius adds that the white-board was an annual record, each year headed by the names of the consuls of the year; and, since he also says that at some point the material recorded by the pontifex maximus was transposed to a collection of eighty volumes, modern scholars developed the hypothesis that it was P. Mucius Scaevola who was responsible for producing the volumes and that the Annales Maximi, as the (now lost) collection was called, had a decisive influence on the format and content of subsequent historiography. Whether or not the hypothesis is correct (and almost every detail has been contested), the Annales Maximi were famously jejune (Cic. Leg. 1.6, Quint. 10.2.7; cf. Cato, Orig. fr. 80C/77P). The

28-04-2023 17:36:42

Annals  

very term annales could be used derogatorily (Tacitus, D. 22.5), and often modern scholars likewise describe the early Roman historians disparagingly as “annalists,” even though some of them did not write annalistically at all. Annales is the title of the (now fragmentary) eighteen-book epic poem in which Ennius (239– 169 Bce) described the history of Rome from its beginnings down to his own time. He seems to have written annalistically, beginning each year with the names of the consuls, and it used to be thought that he derived his title from the pontifex maximus’ record; but today it is believed that he invented the title himself and has some claim to be regarded as Rome’s first annalist. Although an epic entitled Annales was criticized by the New Poets of the late Republic (Catullus 36.1, 95.7), prose historians so favored the annalistic format that it became the distinctive method of writing history at Rome. Thucydides and Xenophon had each written annalistically, but Greek historians did not have the decisive advantage of a topic with its own built-in dating system; whereas Roman historians were inspired by writing about their own city, with its ready-made chronology of the annual consuls. Sallust’s lost Historiae, as we know from the appearance of the consuls’ names in the first fragment, was an annalistic account of the years 78 Bce onward. Today we refer to Livy’s history as Ab Urbe Condita (“From the Foundation of the City”), which is the title found in the manuscripts, but he refers to it as “my annales” (43.13.2). Tacitus’ mutilated Historiae, like Sallust’s, begins with the names of the consuls for 69 CE (H. 1.1.1; cf. 4.38.1); and, although in the manuscript his last work is entitled Ab Excessu Diui Augusti (“From the Death of Divine Augustus”), he referred to it as “my annales” (A. 4.32.1), the title by which it is known today. “It accords with the dignity of the Roman people,” he wrote (A. 13.31.1), “that the most illustrious matters be entrusted to annales.” see also: historiography; Roman historians REFERENCE Verbrugghe, G. P. 1989. “On the Meaning of annales, on the Meaning of Annalist.” Philologus 133: 192–230.

c01_Vol1.indd 55

55

FURTHER READING Cornell, T. J. 2013. The Fragments of the Roman Historians. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feeney, D. 2007. Caesar’s Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History. Berkeley/Los Angeles/ London: University of California Press. Frier, B. W. 1999. Libri Annales Pontificum Maximorum: The Origins of the Annalistic Tradition. 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Oakley, S. P. 1997, 2005. A Commentary on Livy Books VI-X. Vols. 1 and 4. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rawson, E. 1991. “The First Latin Annalists.” In Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers, 245–271. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rich, J. 2011. “Structuring Roman History: The Consular Year and the Roman Historical Tradition.” Histos 5: 1–41. Rich, J. 2018. “Fabius Pictor, Ennius and the Origins of Roman Annalistic Historiography.” In Omnium Annalium Monumenta: Historical Writing and Historical Evidence in Republican Rome, edited by K. Sandberg and C. Smith, 17–65. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Scholz, U. W. 1994. “‘Annales’ und ‘Historia(e).’” Hermes 122: 64–79.

ANNALS A. J. WOODMAN

University of Virginia

The Annals is Tacitus’ last work and regarded by many as the greatest historical narrative to survive from ancient Rome. Whether Annals (Annales in Latin) was its original title is unclear. In the First Medicean manuscript Tacitus’ opening sentence is preceded by the words AB EXCESSV DIVI AVG. (“From the Death of the Divine Augustus”), which is used as a title in modern editions. Although there are precedents for the form, as in Livy’s Ab Vrbe Condita (“From the Foundation of the City”), there is no guarantee that this was Tacitus’ original title; he himself refers to the work as “my annals” (A. 4.32.1 annales nostros), in just the same way as his Histories are referred to by his friend Pliny as “your histories” (Ep. 7.33.1 historias tuas; cf. Juv. 2.102–3), but most scholars deny that either of these can refer to titles. It is usually assumed that the now conventional Annals is an invention of sixteenth-century scholarship.

28-04-2023 17:36:42

56

  Annals

At the end of a provocatively brief preface, Tacitus announces that his “plan is to transmit a little about Augustus and his final moments, then the principate of Tiberius, and the rest” (A. 1.1.3), it being clear from the context that by “the rest” he means the reigns of Gaius Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. And this is exactly what he does. After Augustus has been dispatched in little more than two pages (A. 1.2–5), the narrative begins at 1.6 with Tiberius and ends at 16.35 with Nero; but, very unfortunately, much between these terminal points remains obscure, since substantial portions of the work have been lost. The first four books (14–28 CE) have survived complete, but no sooner has Book 5 begun than the text breaks off (A. 5.5), and we are deprived of almost three years’ entire narrative (most of 29, all of 30, and most of 31). When the text resumes, the narrative of 31 is coming to an end, but it is not clear whether Book 6 has already started, as is usually thought, or whether we are still in Book 5, as has recently been argued. At any rate, the narrative of the years 32–37 is intact, and Book 6 ends with the death and obituary notice of Tiberius (A. 6.51). At this point the First Medicean manuscript, our sole authority for Books 1–6, ends and we are obliged to rely on the so-called Second Medicean, which begins in the middle of Book 11 with the events of the year 47: we are thus deprived of Books 7–10, including the whole of Caligula’s reign, and the start of Book 11. Books 12–15 survive intact but Book 16 breaks off in mid-sentence in the middle of the narrative of 66 CE (16.35). Whether Book 16 was intended to be the final book is disputed. According to a statement of Jerome, Tacitus “traced the lives of the Caesars after Augustus up to the death of Domitian in thirty volumes” (Comm. Zach. 3.14 post Augustum usque ad mortem Domitiani uitas Caesarum triginta uoluminibus exarauit), as if the Annals and Histories together were a single work; and indeed, the Second Medicean preserves Annals 11–16 and Histories 1–5 alongside each other and numbers the books consecutively (thus H. 1 is “Book 17,” liber XVII). Since the text of the Histories is also defective, the question arises how Jerome’s “thirty volumes” are to be distributed. Most scholars believe that the remaining events of Nero’s reign are too many and too important to be crammed into the missing portion of Book 16 and that

c01_Vol1.indd 56

Tacitus would have needed further books to bring the narrative down to Nero’s death on 9 June 68. Thus one hypothesis allocates twelve books to the Histories and eighteen to the Annals, consisting attractively of three “hexads” (1–6 Tiberius, 7–12 Caligula and Claudius, 13–18 Nero). On the other hand it seems to some excessive that Tacitus would have needed more than two whole books for the equivalent of two years’ events, no matter how important, and a minority believes that the Annals was intended to end with Book 16, perhaps divided into two “ogdoads,” and that the Histories would therefore have comprised fourteen volumes. Yet a third possibility is that Tacitus died before he could complete Book 16 of the Annals (see Syme 1958, 686–687, for the various alternatives). Tacitus is thought to have completed the Histories at or near the end of the first decade of the first century, and it is known from an inscription (OGI 487) that subsequently he went to Asia as proconsular governor for a year, almost certainly 112–113 CE. It is assumed that on his return he started to write, or prepared to start to write, the Annals, but everything is controversial and depends partly on whether the expression rubrum mare at A. 2.61.2 refers to the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea (see Goodyear 1982, 387–393). Syme believed that all or most of the Annals was written during the reign of Hadrian (117–138 CE), to which he detected covert allusions in Tacitus’ text; but it seems almost certain from internal evidence that the excursus at A. 4.5 reflects the state of the Roman Empire in 115 and that the passage was written in that year (Woodman 2018, 85–87). On the likely assumption that Tacitus wrote his work seriatim, he had by then already completed Books 1–3. The Annals, as the name suggests (see annales), is a year-by-year account of the JulioClaudian period. In the Tiberian hexad the beginnings of Books 2, 4, 5, and 6 each coincide with the beginning of a new year and are marked by the names of the year’s consuls (in Book 3 the names are deferred for two paragraphs in the interests of dramatic continuity). Of the later books only Book 14 starts similarly: the others begin by continuing the year’s narrative from the previous book. Within each book every year begins with the names of the year’s consuls,

28-04-2023 17:36:42

Annals  

although the presentation sometimes differs from year to year. Just as consular dating reflects Roman political life, so the major part played by each year’s campaigning season is reflected in the alternation between narratives set “at home and abroad” (domi militiaeque); but the annalistic format is anything but monotonous: as shown by Ginsburg (1981), Tacitus manipulates the disposition of domestic and foreign affairs for maximum dramatic effect. It is noticeable how much of the domestic narrative is taken up with detailed accounts of senatorial debates, and it has been said, most authoritatively by Syme, that a principal reason for the excellence of the Annals is that Tacitus, as a member of the Senate, took advantage of his position to consult the senatorial archives (see acta senatus). Since there is only a single reference to such consultation in all the surviving books (15.74.3), not everyone has been convinced, especially since elsewhere Tacitus appears to say that his regular practice is to follow the consensus of earlier historians (13.20.2 nos consensum auctorum secuturi). Be that as it may, the Annals happens to offer a few invaluable occasions when Tacitus’ narrative may be compared with external evidence. The trial of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (consul 7 Bce) in 20 CE for murdering Germanicus, Tiberius’ adopted son, is both described by Tacitus (3.1–19; cf. 2.69–81) and officially recorded in the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone, discovered in Spain in the late twentieth century. A long inscription from Olympia (IOlympia 52) corresponds to A. 4.43.1–3. And, perhaps most famous of all, a bronze inscription in Lyon, in France, preserves a speech of Claudius to the Senate in 48 CE (ILS 212), of which Tacitus’ version is given at A. 11.24 (see Malloch 2020; Tabula Lugdunensis). The Annals afford little help in discovering whether or not Tacitus had a “philosophy of history.” A digression in Book 3 ends with the words “unless by chance there is in all matters a certain circularity (as it were), with the result that, just as the changes of season come around again, so do those of behavior. Nor was everything better in the time of our forebears, but our age too has produced many an instance of excellence in the arts which deserves to be imitated by posterity. Whether or not this happens, however, may these be the contests of ours with our ancestors which

c01_Vol1.indd 57

57

will enjoy an honorable survival” (3.55.5). He thus seems sympathetic to the notion of cyclical history; and, while he acknowledges that the past can often seem a golden age, he is confident about the literary achievements of the present, among which he evidently includes his own Annals. A later statement in Book 3 has been understood by almost everyone to mean that Tacitus thought the principal function of history to be “that virtues should not be silenced and that crooked deeds and words should be attended by the fear resulting from posterity and infamy” (3.65.1); but it has been argued that that is a misinterpretation of the context and that instead Tacitus is stating a policy of mentioning only those senatorial proposals which are noteworthy for their honorableness or for their discredit. In other words, he is claiming the historiographic virtue of selectivity in the same way as at A. 14.64.3 (62 CE): “I shall not be silent if any senate’s decision was novel in its sycophancy or unsurpassable in its passivity.” Concern for his readers is in evidence throughout the narrative. In a famous digression in Book 4 he acknowledges that the latter part of Tiberius’ reign cannot compare with the exciting events which characterized republican history such as that of Livy, but he defends his narrative on the grounds that “few men have the proficiency to distinguish the honorable from the baser, or the useful from the harmful, whereas the majority are taught by what happens to others” (4.33.2); yet, while he thus subscribes to the common view that historiography has a moral purpose, he nevertheless admits that “in my case it is savage orders, constant accusations, deceitful friendships, the ruin of innocents and always the same reason for their extermination that I link together, confronted as I am by a satiety of similar material” (4.33.3). In Book 6 there recur similar apologies for subject matter which he describes as monotonously depressing (6.7.5, 6.38.1), and, just before our text of Book 16 breaks off, yet another enforced suicide prompts the following remarkable passage: “Even if it were foreign wars, and deaths met on behalf of the state, that I were commemorating with such similarity of circumstance, not only would I have been afflicted by satiety myself but I would be expecting aversion from others who feel repugnance at the deaths of citizens which, however honorable, are nevertheless

28-04-2023 17:36:42

58

  Annals

grim and constant; but, as it is, servile passivity and so much blood wasted at home weary the spirit and numb it with sorrowfulness” (16.16.1). Tacitus’ dissenting attitude toward his chosen subject leads him to treat the Julio-Claudian years with cynicism and innuendo. He develops the technique of implying that the imperial system functions on two levels, the open and the closed (cf. Cass. Dio 53.19.1–6); that what is said is not necessarily what is meant or carried out; and that what appears to be the case is almost certainly different from the cruel and often murderous reality—falsities which he sees it as his duty to identify and penetrate. When Augustus dies and is succeeded by Tiberius, “there was a rush into servitude from consuls, senators, equestrians. The more illustrious each was, the more false and frantic, and, with their looks composed to avoid delight at the passing—and too much gloom at the commencement—of a princeps, they blended tears with joy and mourning with sycophancy” (1.7.1). His narrative is replete with the vocabulary of veneer (species, facies, imago). He matches imperial indirection with authorial insinuation: “There are many occasions,” one critic has written, “when we have to read him very closely indeed to perceive that he has in fact denied what one thought he had said.” He is a master of the “loaded alternative:” Augustus’ young grandsons “were carried off by fatefully early deaths—or by the guile of their stepmother Livia” (1.3.3); Tiberius hurried back to Rome when Livia was ill, “the harmony between mother and son being still sound—or their hatreds hidden” (3.64.1); the Neronian conspirator Piso “enjoyed a brilliant reputation amongst the public for his virtue—or displays which resembled virtues” (15.48.2). His episodes give rise to pointed aphorisms (sententiae): Tiberius’ attendance in court improved justice, “but the contribution to truth was the corruption of freedom” (1.75.1). And everywhere there is rumor: “All the greatest matters are ambiguous, inasmuch as some people hold any form of hearsay as confirmed, others turn truth into its converse, and each swells amongst posterity” (3.19.2). It is no coincidence that many of these features are already to be found in the works of Sallust. The Annals famously begins with an allusion to Sallust (A. 1.1.1 “Vrbem Romam a principio reges

c01_Vol1.indd 58

habuere” ~ Sall. Cat. 6.1 “Vrbem Romam…condidere atque habuere initio Troiani”), testifying to a stylistic and attitudinal allegiance which is reemphasized at the half-way point of the Tiberian hexad (A. 4.1.1 “repente turbare Fortuna coepit, saeuire ipse” ~ Sall. Cat. 10.1 “saeuire Fortuna ac miscere omnia coepit”). In the Annals Tacitus alludes to an enormous range of earlier writers, including Cicero and Livy, Virgil and Lucan, Velleius and Seneca; but it is Sallust, his Thucydidean style perfectly complementing his narrative of the degenerating republic, whom Tacitus chose as his generic model, proclaiming the kind of historiography to which the Annals belonged. Like other historians, both Greek and Roman, Tacitus constructed his narrative out of episodes of varying length, e.g., Tiberius’ accession debate (1.11–13), mutinies in Pannonia and Germany (1.16–51), fighting on the German frontier (1.55– 71, 2.5–26), Piso’s trial (3.7–19), rebellion in Gaul (3.40–7), the trial of Cremutius Cordus (4.34–5), war in Thrace (4.46–51), double disaster (4.62–4), the trial of Titius Sabinus (4.68–71), fighting in Parthia and Armenia (6.31–7), fighting in Britain (12.31–40), the poisoning of Britannicus (13.15– 17), the murder of Agrippina (14.1–13), rebellion in Britain (14.29–39), the fire at Rome (15.38–44), the Pisonian Conspiracy (15.48–74), and the doom of Barea Soranus and Thrasea Paetus (16.21–35). Such episodes are written in the most vivid manner according to the principles of enargeia or euidentia (the technique of “turning the reader into a witness,” e.g., Quint. Inst. 6.2.32), and very often they involve a dramatic reversal or peripeteia. Indeed, the episodes themselves frequently resemble an actual drama, being structured with a beginning, middle, and end (Tacitus is very fond of tripartite arrangements). Many episodes exhibit speech, both direct and indirect, ranging in length from a single sentence to several paragraphs. Notable examples are the self-defense speeches of Cremutius Cordus (4.34.2–35.4) and Marcus Terentius (6.8.1–6) and the exchange between Seneca and Nero (14.53.2–56.2), but there are many others; sometimes the speech takes the form of a letter, as in Tiberius’ address to the Senate on dealing with luxury (3.53–4) or his exchange of correspondence with Sejanus (4.39– 40). Occasionally the episodes will give rise to a

28-04-2023 17:36:42

Annals  

digression, of which there is a considerable variety (e.g., 3.25–8 the history of law, 4.65 the etymology of the Caelian Hill, 6.11 the history of the Prefecture of the City, 6.22 fate and chance, 11.14 the history of the alphabet, 11.22 the history of the quaestorship). The vividness which Tacitus brings to his narrative is also on display in his portrayal of characters. The paradoxical Petronius is particularly memorable (16.18.1–2), while Sejanus (4.1.2–3) and Poppaea (13.45.2–3) are the counterparts of Catiline and Sempronia as sketched by Sallust (Cat. 5.1–8, 25.1–5). Usually, however, Tacitus prefers a person’s character to emerge from the narrative, as in the case of the heroic freedwoman Epicharis (15.51, 57); or Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4), another of the very few sympathetic and virtuous individuals in the Annals, who is introduced in a flashback at 1.13.2–3, makes a speech in favor of clemency at 3.50, and at 4.20.2–3 receives a commendation for his general behavior which obviates the necessity of a full obituary notice at 6.27.4. Obituary notices, which usually appear at or near the end of a year’s narrative are one of the distinctive features of the Annals. It is generally recognized that Tacitus’ most brilliant creation is the emperor Tiberius, whose ambiguous and mesmerizing personality dominates the first six books of the Annals and is summarized in the striking obituary notice at the end of the hexad (6.51.3). Since the end of the Second World War the study of Tacitus in general and of the Annals in particular has grown and diversified to such an extent that it is now impossible to keep abreast of the many scholarly publications. Great impetus was given to this trend by the incomparable volumes of Sir Ronald Syme (1958), the outstanding Tacitean scholar of modern times, whose masterful deployment of history, language, and literature remains unmatched. Yet the appearance of those volumes is now sixty years in the past; the fact is that readers are forever drawn to Tacitus’ unique manner of expression, which with its linguistic complexity and deceptive articulation is at its most Tacitean in the Annals, while his attitude to the events of history, and particularly to the wielders of power, has been found to be in tune with modern sensibilities. Indeed, one of the problems of interpreting the Annals is that readers

c01_Vol1.indd 59

59

today see cynicism and insinuation in places where neither was intended; like all great works, the Annals will continue to challenge interpretation with each new generation of readers. see also: editions; intertextuality; manuscripts; sources; style REFERENCES Ginsburg, J. 1981. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. New York: Arno Press. Goodyear, F. R. D. 1982. The Annals of Tacitus. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malloch, S. J. V. 2020. The Tabula Lugdunensis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woodman, A. J. 2018. The Annals of Tacitus Book 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING

TRANSLATIONS

Damon, C. 2012. Tacitus: Annals. Penguin Classics. London and New York: Penguin Books. Woodman, A. J. 2004. Tacitus, The Annals. Indianapolis: Hackett. Yardley, J. C. 2008. Tacitus. The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Oxford World’s Classics, with introduction and notes by Anthony A. Barrett. Oxford: Oxford University Press. GENERAL Bartera, S. 2011. “Year-beginnings in the Neronian books of Tacitus’ ‘Annals.’” Museum Helveticum 68: 161–181. Devillers, O. 1994. L’ art de la persuasion dans les Annales de Tacite. Brussels: Latomus. Eck, W., A. Caballos, and F. Fernández. 1996. Das Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre. Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck. Everts, P. S. 1926. De Tacitea Historiae Conscribendae Arte. Kerkrade: N. Alberts. Hausmann, M. 2009. Die Leserlenkung durch Tacitus in Tiberius- und Claudiusbüchern der Annalen. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. Häussler, R. 1965. Tacitus und das historische Bewusstsein. Heidelberg: Winter. Ihrig, M. A. 2007. Sermone ac Vultu Intentus: Körper, Kommunikation und Politik in den Werken des Cornelius Tacitus. Munich: M Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:42

60

  Annius Bassus

Kirchner, R. 2001. Sentenzen im Werk des Tacitus. Stuttgart: Steiner. O’Gorman, E. 2000. Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robbert, L. 1917. De Tacito Lucani Imitatore. Diss. Göttingen. Sailor, D. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shatzman, I. 1974. “Tacitean Rumours.” Latomus 33: 549–578. Sinclair, P. 1995. Tacitus the Sententious Historian: A Sociology of Rhetoric in Annales 1–6. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Suerbaum, W. 2015. Skepsis und Suggestion: Tacitus als Historiker und als Literat. Heidelberg: Winter. Vielberg, M. 1987. Pflichten, Werte, Ideale: eine Untersuchung zu den Wertvorstellungen des Tacitus. Stuttgart: Steiner. Walker, B. 1952. The Annals of Tacitus: A Study in the Writing of History. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Whitehead, D. 1979. “Tacitus and the Loaded Alternative.” Latomus 38: 474–495. Wille, G. 1983. Der Aufbau der Werke des Tacitus. Amsterdam: B. R. Grüner. Woodman, A. J. 1998. Tacitus Reviewed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woodman, A. J., ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2012. From Poetry to History: Selected Papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zimmermann, M. 1889. De Tacito Senecae Philosophi Imitatore. Breslau.

ANNIA RUFILLA, see CESTIUS GALLUS, GAIUS (1)

Primus’ Flavian army in northern Italy, close to Verona. The unit, after long hesitation and after the first Flavian victories, regretted the indecision of its leaders. The nominal commander was the consular legate of Dalmatia, Pompeius Silvanus, but the effective leadership was that of Annius Bassus, who through pleasing and paying homage to his superior exerted his influence upon him and made all the decisions (H. 3.50). His support for the Flavian cause was rewarded with the consulship in the last nundinium the year 70 CE. It is possible that Lucius Annius Bassus was the recently deceased Bassus mentioned in a letter of Pliny the Younger (Plin. Ep., 7.31.5; Syme 1968, 146). see also: civil wars of 69 CE Reference works: PIR2 A 637; CIG 2632 = IGR III, 971; CIL VI 200 = ILS 6049 REFERENCES Bagnall, R. S., and T. Drew-Bear. 1973. “Documents from Kourion: A Review Article Part 2: Individual Inscriptions.” Phoenix 27: 213–244. Syme, R. 1968. “People in Pliny.” Journal of Roman Studies 58: 135–151. FURTHER READING Gallivan, P. A. 1981. “The Fasti for A. D. 70–96.” Classical Quarterly 31: 186–220.

ANNIUS FAUSTUS, see VIBIUS CRISPUS

ANNIUS GALLUS ANNIUS BASSUS

LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Lucius Annius Bassus was suffect consul in 70 CE. His first appearance is in an inscription from Kurion in 65/66 CE as governor of Cyprus under Nero (or Claudius; Bagnall and Drew-Bear 1973, 222–223). Lucius Annius Bassus was the commander of the legion XI Claudiana quartered at Burnum in Dalmatia in 69 CE. The legion joined Antonius

c01_Vol1.indd 60

Appius Annius Gallus was a Roman military commander. He held the suffect consulship in the second half of the year 67 CE (AE 1993, 460, Camodeca 1993) with Lucius Verulanus Severus as colleague. He was among the leaders and the military commanders of the Othonian faction with Suetonius Paulinus, Marius Celsus, and Licinius Proculus. Tacitus says  that his most relevant quality was his

28-04-2023 17:36:42

Annius Pollio (1)  

thoughtfulness (H. 1.87). He was in command of the Othonian forces sent from Rome to occupy the bank of the Padus River and meet the Vitellian army which had just crossed the Alps. His troops included legion I Adiutrix, the praetorian cohorts, and 2,000 gladiators (H. 2.11). He protected Cremona (Plut. Otho 7.1) and reached Bedriacum when the legionaries who were eager to fight began to blame him for his prudent attitude (H. 2.23). At the eve of the battle of Bedriacum, Gallus, along with Paulinus and Celsus, expressed the opinion to avoid military action in order to wait for all the Danubian legions to arrive from the east. Otho, who preferred to listen to Proculus, the praetorian prefect, and his brother Salvius Otho Titianus, ignored his opinion. (H. 2.33; Plut. Otho 8.4). Hindered by a fall from his horse, he could not be on the field the day of the battle. His leadership skills just after the defeat played a relevant role in reorganizing the disbanded units thus allowing other commanders to leave the field safely (H. 2.44). According to Plutarch, Gallus went with Celsus to confer with Caecina Alienus and Fabius Valens to find a peace agreement (Plut. Otho 13.3). After Vitellius’ fall, he was on Vespasian’s side and obtained from Licinius Mucianus the command of the army assembled to quash Iulius Civilis’ rebellion, a command he shared with Petilius Cerialis (H. 4.68). Tacitus mentions him for the last time after the revolt in Germania Superior. According to W. Eck, he was the governor of that province (70 CE; H. 5.19; Eck 1982, 284–290) and died immediately thereafter. He was probably the father of Appius Annius Trebonius Gallus, consul in 108 CE (PIR2 A 692). Reference works: PIR2 A 653; CIL VI 10055 = ILS 5284; AE 1993, 460 REFERENCES Camodeca, G. 1993. “Per una riedizione delle Tabulae herculanenses.” Bollettino del Centro internazionale per lo studio dei papiri ercolanesi 23: 109–119. Eck, W. 1982. “Jahres- und Provinzialfasten der senatorischen Statthalter von 69/70 bis 138/139.” Chiron 12: 282–362.

c01_Vol1.indd 61

61

FURTHER READING Benario, H. W. 1980. “Hadrian’s Supporter Gallus.” Classical Journal 76: 9–13. Morgan, G. 2006. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ANNIUS MILO, see CICERO

ANNIUS POLLIO (1) MICHAEL B. KEARNEY

Yale University

Gaius Annius Pollio was suffect consul in 21 or 22 CE (CIL VI 14221). Together with his son, Lucius Annius Vinicianus, as well as Gaius Appius Iunius Silanus, Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, and Calvisius Sabinus, he was accused of maiestas in 32 CE, but his case was indefinitely postponed (A. 6.9). Annius Pollio married the sister of Marcus Vinicius, who would himself marry Caligula’s sister Iulia Livilla (A. 6.15). Pollio was probably associated with Sejanus, whose downfall may have occasioned the 32 CE maiestas indictments (Sealey 1961, 104). These suits caused concern among senators, many of whom were connected to the defendants by marriage or friendship. Ultimately, one of the prosecutors, Iulius Celsus, removed Appius and Calvisius from danger; Tiberius thereafter postponed the remaining three cases for his personal review in consultation with the Senate (A. 6.9). The emperor never returned to Rome, so presumably Pollio, Vinicianus, and Scaurus escaped sanction. Seneca (Ben. 4.31) also relates a story—perhaps apocryphal—that Scaurus at some point sexually propositioned Pollio. After his effective pardon, Vinicianus, Pollio’s son, became one of the Arval Brethren in 38 CE (CIL VI 2028), as well as a consul under Caligula. However, Caligula’s execution of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (5) jolted Vinicianus into joining the successful plot of Cassius Chaerea and Cornelius Sabinus to kill him (Joseph. AJ 19.49–59). After the assassination, the sitting consuls blocked Vinicianus’ maternal uncle, Marcus Vinicius, from claiming the throne; Vinicianus himself discouraged another

28-04-2023 17:36:42

62

  Annius Vinicianus

claimant, Decimus Valerius Asiaticus (1) (Joseph. AJ 19.251–252). The confused manuscript tradition allows two possible explanations for Vinicianus’ action. Either Vinicianus, having himself proposed his uncle Marcus Vinicius as emperor, blocked the claim of Valerius Asiaticus, in favor of the uncle, or Vinicianus, seeking to restore the republic, obstructed Asiaticus in coordination with the consuls’ halt of Vinicius (for the latter theory, see Swan 1970, 149). That Vinicianus may have himself been proposed as a successor to Caligula (Cass. Dio 60.15) further complicates explanations. In any event, Claudius became emperor; Vinicianus quickly joined the revolt of Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus against him, committing suicide upon its failure (Cass. Dio 60.15). Vinicianus’ sons both conspired against Nero. One, Annius Pollio (2)—the homonymous grandson of our Annius Pollio—was banished after implication in the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.56, 15.71). The other, named Annius Vinicianus like his father, revolted at Beneventum in 66 CE, perhaps in favor of his father-in-law, Domitius Corbulo (Suet. Ner. 36). He was executed following the revolt’s failure. see also: Gaius Silius Reference works: PIR2 A 677; CIL VI 2028; CIL VI 14221 REFERENCES Sealey, Raphael. 1961. “The Political Attachments of L. Aelius Seianus.” Phoenix 15.2. DOI: 10.2307/1086179. Swan, Michael. 1970. “Josephus, A. J., XIX, 251–252. Opposition to Gaius and Claudius.” The American Journal of Philology 91.2. DOI: 10.2307/293039.

ANNIUS POLLIO (2), see ANNIUS POLLIO (1)

ANNIUS VINICIANUS LYDIA SPIELBERG

University of California Los Angeles

The grandson of Annius Pollio (1) (suffect consul 21 or 22 CE, PIR2 A 677) and son of Lucius

c01_Vol1.indd 62

Annius Vinicianus, Annius Vinicianus was the son-in-law of Domitius Corbulo, under whom he served as legate (A. 15.28.3). Vinicianus came from a noble and well-connected family with dissident predilections (A. 6.9.3). His grandfather Annius Pollio perhaps had ties to Sejanus through his wife Vinicia. Annius Pollio and his son Lucius Annius Vinicianus (Vinicianus’ father) were accused of maiestas in 32 CE but survived when the postponement of their trial outlasted Tiberius’ life (A. 6.9.4). Lucius Annius Vinicianus (PIR2 A 701), probably the “Minucianus” whom Josephus describes as “one of the noblest citizens” (Joseph. AJ 19.52), was consul under Caligula and adlected to the Arval Brethren in 38 CE (CIL VI 2028, VI 2030). He played a leading role in the assassination of Caligula in 41 CE and ensuing senatorial debate (Joseph. AJ 19.49–59, 251–252). In 42 CE he instigated the revolt of Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus against Claudius, committing suicide after its failure (Dio 60.15.5). Our Vinicianus was born c. 39–42 CE. Married to Domitius Corbulo’s elder daughter, he served as legate of the legion V Macedonica in Armenia from 63–65 CE under his father-in-law’s command. This extraordinary appointment demonstrated Nero’s trust in Corbulo (Dio 62.23.6, Vervaet 2002, 158), as Vinicianus, not yet twentyfive, had not held the senatorial offices usually prerequisite (A. 15.28.3; Ash, 149–150). During negotiations with Tiridates, Vinicianus was sent with Tiberius Iulius Alexander as an honor guard and pledge of good faith (A. 15.28.3). Vinicianus escorted Tiridates to Rome in 65–66 CE. Corbulo, says Cassius Dio, was now sending his son-in-law to Nero as a hostage for his own loyalty (62.23.6). The manuscript of Dio 62.23.6 reads that Nero even named Vinicianus consul (ὕπατον), and some accept this. More probably, however, ὕπατον is a scribal error for ὕπαρχον (legate), and Dio refers to the same legionary command as Tacitus (PIR2 A 700). Suetonius reports that an ex-praetor translated for Tiridates during his spectacular coronation by Nero (N. 13.2). This may also be Vinicianus, his legateship mistaken by Suetonius or his source for a sign of praetorian rank. In 66 CE Vinicianus conspired against Nero; the coniuratio Viniciana was discovered and suppressed

28-04-2023 17:36:42

Anteius Rufus, Publius  

at Beneventum (Suet. Ner. 36.1–2). No sustained account survives, but it is conjectured that Vinicianus plotted to install his father-in-law as emperor, and that this revolt prompted Nero to order Corbulo’s death (Cass. Dio 63.17.5–6). We assume Vinicianus did not survive either. Tacitus does not mention Vinicianus in connection with Tiridates’ arrival in Rome (A. 16.23.2– 17.1). The coronation and Vinicianus’ conspiracy are beyond the extant text. Vinicianus’ brother Annius Pollio (2) (PIR2 A 678) married Barea Soranus’ daughter, Servilia, and was banished in 65 ce after being implicated in the Pisonian Conspiracy (falsely, implies Tacitus) by his close friend Claudius Senecio (A. 15.56.4, 15.71.3, 16.30.3). see also: army; legions; marriage; Parthians; Vinicius, Marcus Reference works: PIR2 A 700; BNP Annius [II 19] REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus Annals XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 149–150. Vervaet, Frederik Juliann. 2002. “Domitius Corbulo and Senatorial Opposition to the Reign of Nero.” Ancient Society 32: 135–193.

ANNIUS VINICIANUS, Lucius, see ANNIUS POLLIO (1)

ANTEIUS RUFUS, PUBLIUS SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Publius Anteius Rufus is first mentioned at A. 13.22.1 (55 CE), where Tacitus says that, though he was assigned the province of Syria, because of various machinations he was detained at Rome. He was governor (legatus Augusti pro praetore) of Dalmatia in 51 CE; he must have been suffect consul sometime during Claudius’ reign. He may be from Samnium (Samnites). His name appears on several inscriptions from

c01_Vol1.indd 63

63

Dalmatia, where his name was erased (probably after 66 CE) and then restored (probably after Nero’s death). He is one of six men of consular rank to be targeted between the Pisonian Conspiracy and the fall of Thrasea Paetus: three are important (Gaius Cassius Longinus (2), Lucius Antistius Vetus, Marcus Ostorius Scapula), and three less important (beside Anteius, Petronius and Iunius Gallio Annaeanus). He committed suicide in 66 CE, following the accusations of the informer Antistius Sosianus (A. 16.14–15). Sosianus had learned that Anteius was supplying the astrologer Pammenes with money and had intercepted a letter from Anteius to Pammenes in which the former inquired about his horoscope from the latter. Sosianus also intercepted a similar request from Ostorius Scapula, who was also killed. The younger Helvidius (Priscus), whose father had married (as his second wife) Thrasea Paetus’ daughter Fannia, married a woman named Anteia, perhaps a relative of Anteius (cf. Plin. Ep. 9.13.4). An Anteius (PIR2 A 727), an officer of Germanicus, is mentioned at A. 2.6.1, but the text is uncertain (Goodyear 1981 ad loc.). see also: astrology; delators Reference works: PIR2 A 731; RE 1.2349 = “Anteius” 4 (von Rohden); BNP 1.719 “Anteius” [5]; CIL 3.1977 (cf. 1947), 1432116, 149871; RaepsaetCharlier 68; FRHist 1.630 FURTHER READING Cramer, Frederick Henry. 1954. Astrology in Roman Law and Politics. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Goodyear, Francis Richard David. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus. Volume II (Annals 1. 55–81 and Annals 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions. London and New York: Routledge. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ANTHEMUSIAS, see PARTHIA

28-04-2023 17:36:42

64

  Antioch

ANTIOCH NATHANAEL ANDRADE

Binghamton University

Antioch (Antiochia) was a common name for cities in the Seleucid empire and, subsequently, Roman Syria and Anatolia. Antiochia at Daphne, located in north Syria, was the largest and most famous of these and a key royal and administrative site for the Seleucids and the Romans. Situated along the west of Mt. Silpius and on the Orontes river, Antiochia at Daphne (modern Antakya, Turkey; Figure A.4 viewed from east) was at the threshold of north Syria and Cilicia. It was the largest city of the Tetrapolis (Strabo, 16.2.4), which included Laodicea (2) by the Sea, Apamea on the Orontes, and Seleucia in Pieria, the last serving as Antiochia’s Mediterranean port (Cohen 2006, 80–93, 128). While numerous Seleucid and Roman cities in Syria, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran were known as Antiochia due to the prominence of the name Antiochus among Seleucid monarchs, the largest and most famous was the north Syrian one. Established in 300 Bce by Seleucus I Nicator and named after his father Antiochus, it

was a key palace site for Seleucid kings and subsequently a vital administrative center and urban hub for the Romans (Cohen 2006, 80–93). The Roman governor of Syria typically maintained his headquarters there. As such, Tacitus describes it as the capital of Syria (Suriae…caput, H. 2.78.4). Its urban outlay was to a considerable degree informed by the building projects and benefactions of Seleucid kings, Roman emperors, and provincial governors. During Tacitus’ lifetime, Antiochia and its port, Seleucia, witnessed substantial construction of canals, harbor facilities, and various monuments through imperial support or local initiative (Di Giorgi 2016, 41, 54, and 168). It also had a notable Jewish and Christian presence (Joseph. BJ. 7.37–62, 100–11; Acts 11:19– 27). For the later Roman period, the works of the sophist Libanius and the Christian preacher John Chrysostom illuminate many aspects of civic, religious, and social life. The later Roman chronographer John Malalas provides much information, of varied reliability, on Hellenistic and Roman Antiochia. Antiochia plays a prominent role in certain parts of Tacitus’ corpus. Much of the drama between Germanicus and Gnaeus Calpurnius

Figure A.4  Modern Antakya, Turkey, viewed from east. Photograph by Nathanael Andrade.

c01_Vol1.indd 64

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Antiochus  

Piso unfolded there (A. 2.69–73), with Germanicus’ death and funeral happening in the city. Germanicus’ followers apparently retained control of Antiochia and its port Seleucia in Pieria, for Piso decided to land at Laodicea in his effort to reassert control over Syria (A. 2.79.3). Antiochia was also the site where Gaius Licinius Mucianus persuaded the legions of Syria to join Vespasian’s faction, reportedly because he claimed that Vitellius planned to transfer them to Germany, thus separating them from their families (H. 2.80). see also: Antiochus; Laodicea; Licinius Mucianus, Gaius; Syria Reference work: Barrington 67, C4 REFERENCES Cohen, Getzel. 2006. The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Di Giorgi, Andrea. 2016. Ancient Antioch: From the Seleucid Era to the Islamic Conquest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ANTIOCHUS NATHANAEL ANDRADE

Antiochus was a common name for members of the Seleucid royal dynasty and, later, of the Orontid dynasty of Commagene in north Syria. Tacitus refers to various such kings named Antiochus. Antiochus IV of Commagene appears most often in his works, but he also mentions Antiochus III of Commagene and the Seleucid kings Antiochus III and Antiochus IV. Antiochus was the name most commonly borne by kings of the Seleucid dynasty, which reigned in Syria and other parts of Asia starting from Seleucus I (312–281 Bce) to Antiochus XIII Eusebes (reigned 69–64 Bce) and his rival Philip II Barybous (Grainger 1997, 34–35, 52–53). It was also popular in the Orontid dynasty of Commagene, which asserted autonomy from the Seleucids in roughly the middle second century Bce while claiming descent from it (Facella 2006).

c01_Vol1.indd 65

65

Antiochus I Theos, a king who famously built elaborate cult sites and statues throughout Commagene, is not mentioned by Tacitus. Of the Seleucids, Tacitus only mentions Antiochus III and Antiochus IV (reigned 222– 187 and 175–164 respectively; see Grainger 1997, 15–27). Antiochus III Megas is notable for suppressing civil war, campaigning in the eastern satrapies, and defeating the Ptolemies in 201, which put virtually all the Levant, including Iudaea, under Seleucid control. Antiochus, however, invaded Greece in 191 and was defeated by the Romans, who forced him to cede Anatolia, send hostages to Rome, and accept other punitive measures in 188. He died the following year in Iran and was succeeded by his eldest son Seleucus IV (reigned 187–175). Tacitus typically mentions him in reference to his failed war against the Romans (A. 2.63.3, 3.62.1, and 12.62.1). Antiochus IV Theos Epiphanes Nikephoros (reigned 175–164), a son of Antiochus III, had a controversial reign (Mittag 2006). Raised at Rome as a hostage, he returned to Syria after his brother Seleucus IV died and eliminated Seleucus’ son, also named Antiochus. In 170 and 169, he apparently conducted two large-scale invasions of Ptolemaic Egypt (Mittag 2006, 209–214). While successful, he had to withdraw after being intimidated by a Roman ambassador (Polyb. 29.27; Mittag 2006, 214–224). He reportedly died after trying to plunder a temple in Iran (Mittag 2006, 307–317, 328–332). Antiochus IV notoriously suppressed the cult of the Jewish temple of Jerusalem, thus triggering the Maccabaean Revolt and the rise of a Jewish priestly dynasty that governed Iudaea (Mittag 2006, 225–281; Honigman 2014). Tacitus briefly mentions his activity (H. 5.8.1). Of all the kings named Antiochus, Tacitus refers most frequently to Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Orontid dynasty (reigned 38–72 CE), who governed Commagene and parts of Cilicia under the Julio-Claudian dynasty (Facella 2006: 314– 337). Living in Italy during Tiberius’ reign, Antiochus befriended Caligula and Claudius, who made him king of Commagene. Commagene had in prior decades been part of the province of Syria, starting with the death of Antiochus III in 17 CE (A. 2.42). Tacitus usually refers to Antiochus IV in the context of Rome’s eastern military operations (A. 12.55, 13.7, 13.37, 14.26; H. 2.81; his son

28-04-2023 17:36:43

66

  Antistia Pollitta

Epiphanes is mentioned only at H. 2.25) or Titus’ campaigns in Iudaea (H. 5.1.2). He depicts the wealthy king as hastening to join Vespasian’s faction in 69 CE (H. 2.81), thus nurturing his autocratic aspirations. Cassius Dio (59.24.1) treats him as a “tyrant-teacher” of Caligula. Deposed by Vespasian in 72 CE (Joseph. BJ 7.219–43), Antiochus’ children briefly fled to Parthia before returning to Roman territory (Joseph. BJ 7.242– 43; IGLS 6.2796). His grandson Gaius Iulius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappus became suffect consul (109 CE) and an archon at Athens, where he was buried (CIL 3.552; IG 2/32.3451; Facella 2006, 338–358). Iulia Balbilla, Philopappus’ sister, had poems inscribed on the “Colossus of Memnon” at Egyptian Thebes (Facella 2006, 350–354). see also: Antioch; Bellum Iudaicum REFERENCES Facella, Margherita. 2006. La dinastia degli Orontidi nella Commagene ellenistico-romana. Pisa: Giardini. Grainger, J. D. 1997. A Seleukid Prosopography and Gazetteer. Leiden: Brill. Honigman, Sylvie. 2014. Tales of High Priests and Taxes: The Books of the Maccabees and the Judean Rebellion against Antiochos IV. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mittag, Peter. 2006. Antiochus IV. Epiphanes: eine politische Biographie. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. FURTHER READING Feyel, Chr., and L. Graslin-Thomé. 2014. Le projet politique d’Antiochos. Nancy: adRA. Feyel, Chr., and L. Graslin-Thomé. 2017. Antiochos III et l’Orient. Nancy: ADRA. Ma, John. 1999. Antiochus III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ANTIPOLIS, see GAUL

ANTISTIA POLLITTA MARIA CRISTINA PIMENTEL

Universidade de Lisboa

Antistia Pollitta, from a consular family and daughter of Lucius Antistius Vetus, was the wife

c01_Vol1.indd 66

of Rubellius Plautus. In the year 60 CE, when her husband was forced into exile by Nero, Pollitta accompanied him to his properties in Asia (A. 14.22). They remained there, possibly with their young children, until 62, when Nero ordered Plautus to be executed. Tacitus refers to her as atrox (A. 16.10), firm, and unyielding. This was due to the imminent danger she felt was about to befall her family, as well as the intolerable pain inflicted upon her by the soldiers who murdered her husband and delivered his headless body, wrapped in the bloody robes which she kept as a relic and memory. Tacitus outlines the figure of Pollitta with tragic undertones, in her affliction, in her revolt, in her prolonged heartbreak. A model of the uniuira, she lived afterward in permanent mourning and detached from life, eating only the bare minimum to remain alive. In 65, Nero’s hatred unending, Pollitta and her father fall victim to a charge of maiestas. The father retreats to Formiae, where he owned a property, with his daughter and mother-in-law. He refuses to appear before the Senate. He then asks his daughter to intervene in an attempt to save his own life. Pollitta, overstepping traditional feminine behavior (A. 16.10: sexum egressa), confronts Nero with extraordinary courage. She goes to Neapolis, where the princeps was, and tries in vain to be received by him. Her actions depict her extreme despair. Pollitta stalks Nero at every exit, and her interventions alternate between complaints and aggressive threats. She repeatedly screams at Nero to remember that Antistius was his consular colleague, begging him to listen and to not leave him at the mercy of the false witness of an unworthy ex-slave. Pollitta emphasizes aspects that, as a noble and righteous woman, she thinks may have some effect on the princeps: the affirmation of her father’s innocence; the right to be heard by the emperor himself and not being at the mercy of a freedman; and finally, the mutual collegiality and respect with which, in 55, they exercised the supreme magistracy together. When Pollitta realizes that nothing will change Nero’s mind, she tells her father that the only dignified solution is to make the best out of the unfightable (A. 16.11). Meanwhile in the Senate, the cognitio (charge) and the inevitable sentence are being prepared. Pollitta, her father, and her grandmother then meet in the same room of the house and choose the mors uoluntaria which preserves their dignity.

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Antistius Labeo, Marcus  

In the empty house, on the three beds reserved ad suprema, in their final moment, they cut their own veins with the same dagger. They are transported to the house’s balnea (baths), covered only with the necessary clothes to protect their modesty. They step into the hot water that will hasten their death. They stare at each other, each of them hoping to be the first to depart so as to not watch the death of the others. Fortuna, however, respects the natural order: first Sextia, the oldest, then Vetus, and finally Pollitta, found in death the shelter where cruelty could not reach them. see also: women Reference works: PIR2 A 778; PIR2 S 683; RE I.1.2560; RE IIA.4.2055 FURTHER READING Deline, Tracy Linn. 2009. Women in Criminal Trials in the Julio-Claudian Era. PhD diss., University of British Columbia, especially pages 105–106; 108; 125; 335–337. Lightman, Marjorie, and Benjamin Lightman. 2008. A to Z of Ancient Greek and Roman Women. Rev. ed. of Biographical Dictionary of Ancient Greek and Roman Women. Notable Women from Sappho to Helena 2000. New York: Facts on File: 23–24; 301. Marshall, Anthony J. 1989. “Ladies at Law: The Role of Women in the Roman Civil Courts.” In Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, edited by Carl Deroux, 35–54. Bruxelles: Latomus. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge. 141–143, 161. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. 120, 154, 294, 297.

ANTISTIUS LABEO, MARCUS BRUCE W. FRIER

University of Michigan

Marcus Antistius Labeo (c. 50 Bce–c. 10 CE) was the foremost jurist during the reign of Augustus. His family is thought to hail from the Samnite area in southern Italy. Labeo’s father, also a jurist

c01_Vol1.indd 67

67

(Pompon., Dig. 1.2.2.44), helped organize the plot to assassinate Iulius Caesar and committed suicide in 42 Bce after the republican forces were defeated at the battle of Philippi (Plut. Brut. 12, 51; App. B Civ. 4.135; Schol. ad Hor. Sat. 1.3.83). From his father, Labeo is thought to have inherited a fierce republicanism (A. 3.75: incorrupta libertate), which was manifested in 18 when he confronted Augustus over the adlection of his bitter enemy Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3) to the Senate (Suet. Aug. 54; Cass. Dio 54.15.5–8). This confrontation may then have led Augustus to pass over Labeo and award a suffect consulship for 5 CE to Ateius Capito, the other leading jurist of this period (A. 3.75; Pompon., Dig. 1.2.2.47). Tacitus largely constructs his account of this incident around the political divergence between the two: Labeo as the more deserving candidate who failed because of his candor, and Capito as compliant with the Augustan regime. Pomponius, by contrast, also brings out the contrast in their legal views: Capito as a legal traditionalist adhering to precedent, Labeo as a talented innovator with a far wider practical knowledge. Pomponius also suggests that Labeo turned down a later offer of a consulship not out of pique but from a devotion to study: he was accustomed to spend half the year at Rome with his students, half in withdrawal with his writings. Although scholars have long debated the subject, Pomponius’ description is probably closer to the truth. The enmity between the two Augustan jurists was, however, quite real (Gell. NA 13.12.1–4). To them Pomponius traces the origins of the two loosely organized “schools” whose disagreements stamp Julio-Claudian jurisprudence on numerous questions of law: the Proculians from Labeo, the Sabinians or Cassians from Capito, each “school” broadly replicating the legal methods of its predecessor. In the later juristic tradition, Labeo entirely eclipses Capito, although not for the political reasons that Tacitus suggests. Labeo was an extraordinarily prolific writer—four hundred manuscript rolls, says Pomponius—and his most important writings were not only widely consulted, but were frequently commented upon throughout the classical period. Labeo is well known for the breadth of his learning not only in the law, but also in the more traditional arts of grammar,

28-04-2023 17:36:43

68

  Antistius Sosianus

etymology, and dialectic (Gell. NA 13.10.1). This knowledge lent to his decisions a strong sense of equity that would deeply impress later jurists. FURTHER READING Bauman, Richard A. 1989. Lawyers and Politics in the Early Roman Empire: A Study of Relations Between the Roman Jurists and the Emperors from Augustus to Hadrian (= Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und Antiken Rechtsgeschichte 87), 25–55. München: C. H. Beck. Pernice, Alfred. 1873–1900. Labeo: Römisches Privatrecht im 1. Jahrhundert der Kaiserzeit. 5 vols. [I. 1873; II. 1878; II/1. 21895; II/2. 21900; III/1. 1892], Halle: 1873–1900 (ND Aalen 1963).

ANTISTIUS SOSIANUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Anstistius Sosianus (c. 30 CE–after 70 CE) was a notorious and mercenary prosecutor under Nero. Condemned to exile during Nero’s reign, he redeemed himself by informing against Ostorius Scapula before he was exiled again under the Flavians in 70 CE. While we know almost nothing of his early life and family background, we may conjecture a date of birth between 25 and 30 CE, or not much later, since he was tribune of the plebs in 56 (Helvidius Priscus was one of his fellow tribunes). His tenure as tribune was not without incident, for he quarreled with Vibullius (otherwise unknown) one of the praetors, when he ordered an unruly claque of theater-goers who had been arrested by Vibullius to be released. The Senate approved Vibullius’ action, and rebuked Antistius’ leniency (A. 13.28.1–3). Antistius went on to become praetor in 62, when Cossutianus Capito accused him of writing and reciting poems against the emperor at a banquet at Ostorius Scapula’s house, for which Antistius was nearly condemned to death on the proposal of the consul designate Iunius Marullus (otherwise unknown), but in the end merely banished (A. 14.48), due in part to the intercession of Thrasea Paetus (A. 16.21.2).

c01_Vol1.indd 68

Four years later, in 66, Antistius turned delator in exile, having heard of the rewards offered to informers under Nero, and denounced Publius Anteius Rufus, a former legate of Syria (A. 13.22.2) and a man Antistius knew to have been close to Agrippina the Younger, for consulting astrologers concerning his ultimate destiny; the denunciation ensnared Ostorius Scapula as well on a similar charge, and both perished as a result, while Antistius was restored (A. 16.14). Tacitus indicates that he continued his lethal career as an informer/prosecutor after his return from exile (H. 4.44.2). He was still in the city when Vespasian came to power and was one of those delators who fell in early 70, relegated to the same island from whence he came in 66; Tacitus (H. 4.44.2–3) says that Licinius Mucianus allowed his destruction to appease the Senate after he intervened to save some of the more powerful delators under Nero, including Eprius Marcellus, Vibius Crispus, and Aquilius Regulus. We hear nothing of Antistius after his exile. see also: astrology; delators Reference works: PIR2 A 766; RE 12.2558 = Antistius 42 (Rohden). FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 190–191.

ANTISTIUS VETUS, see RHESCUPORIS

ANTISTIUS VETUS, GAIUS (1 AND 2) MARIA CRISTINA PIMENTEL

Universidade de Lisboa

Gaius Antistius Vetus (1), of a remarkable consular family, was praetor urbanus in 20 CE and consul in the year 23, along with Gaius Asinius Pollio (2) (A. 4.1). He was the son and grandson of homonymous consuls: his father, in the year 6

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Antistius Vetus, Lucius  

Bce, and his grandfather, who was also legatus Hispaniae and accompanied Augustus during the Cantabrian wars, in the year 30 Bce. His brother Lucius Antistius Vetus (not mentioned by Tacitus) was suffect consul in the year 28. One of his sons, also named Gaius Antistius Vetus (2), was consul in the year 50, along with Marcus Suillius Nerullinus (A. 12.25). It is possible that Lucius Antistius Vetus, who committed suicide in the year 65, was also his son. The Antistii family was praised by Velleius Paterculus (43.4), who refers to Gaius Antistius Vetus (consul 23), among the various family members, as his contemporary and as a particularly excellent man. Reference works: PIR2 A 772; 773; RE I.1.2559; Acta Fratrum Arvalium Henzen p. CCXLIV FURTHER READING Camodeca, Giuseppe. 2002. “I consoli del 43 e gli Antistii Veteres d’età claudia dalla riedizione delle Tabulae Herculanenses.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 140: 227–236. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. 366–367, 370. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 425–426, 428.

ANTISTIUS VETUS, LUCIUS MARIA CRISTINA PIMENTEL

Universidade de Lisboa

Lucius Antistius Vetus was consul ordinarius in 55 CE (A. 13.11) with Nero. At this point, nothing indicated distrust or animosity from the emperor. Nero, as Vetus began his duties, dismissed him from the oath of allegiance to which the magistrates were bound, even if such a gesture was merely intended to consecrate an image of clementia of the young ruler. In 55/56 he was legatus Aug. pr. pr. Germaniae Superioris, a military command during which he planned to link the Rhine and the Rhône through a canal, so that

c01_Vol1.indd 69

69

troops and goods could reach the North Sea and the interior of the province faster and easier (A. 13.53). Such an ambitious endeavor aroused the envy of the legatus Belgicae, Aelius Gracilis (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 13.53), who then dissuaded him from proceeding with this plan. He alleged that it could provoke feelings of envy and fear from Nero, given the considerable advantages this enterprise would confer to the regions of Gaul. It is quite possible that Antistius Vetus belonged to the Stoic senatorial opposition, a fact which would increase the emperor’s distrust. The possibility of his association to the Stoic faction is strengthened when, in 62, he sent a message to his son-in-law, Rubellius Plautus, who (with his wife Antistia Pollitta) lived in Asia, exiled by order of Nero. On the verge of the execution of Plautus, Vetus urges him not to give up: there was still time to gather forces and defeat the military detachment that was going to kill him, as well as prepare an act of rebellion that could perhaps succeed (A. 14.58). For Vetus, it was more dignified to die bravely than to wait for execution. In 65, a freedman of Antistius, Fortunatus (otherwise unattested), who had stolen from him, accused the patronus of maiestas in order to avoid his deserved punishment. Nero, for whom Vetus and Pollitta were certainly a vivid reminder of the crime committed against Plautus, seized the opportunity to settle his animosity against his former consular colleague, and the proceedings began (A. 16.10). Claudius Demianus (otherwise unattested) joined the accusation. He did it as an act of revenge because, when Vetus was proconsul in Asia (in 63/64), he had Demianus imprisoned as punishment for his crimes. As a reward for his testimony, Nero granted Demianus his freedom. Faced with the ignominy of having to defend himself against the accusations of his freedman, Antistius refused to appear in the Senate. He retired to his estate in Formiae with his widowed daughter and mother-in-law, Sextia (2) (otherwise unattested). A discrete but visible military detachment laid siege to his property. Vetus then asked Pollitta to intercede with Nero on his behalf, which she did with unusual courage, but without success. They were left with the choice of voluntary death, a more dignified outcome than the inevitable sentence. Antistius refused to make his will in favor of the emperor, so as not to

28-04-2023 17:36:43

70

  Antium

tarnish his unpolluted life (A. 16.11). He distributed all the goods he had with him among the slaves and ordered them to take whatever they wanted, leaving only the three beds on which, with the same dagger, they cut their own veins. Although the family was now dead, the Senate nevertheless proceeded to formally accuse them, decreeing that they would be punished more maiorum. Nero simulated the clementia of giving them the free choice of how they would die. Vetus’ friends were persecuted, the freed traitor rewarded. see also: freedmen; Senate Reference works: PIR2 A 776; AE 1973, 146; CIG 2222; CIL VIII 8837; RE I.1.493; I.1.2559–2560 FURTHER READING Rogers, Roger S. 1952. “A Tacitean Pattern in Narrating Treason-Trials.” Transactions of the American Philological Society 83: 279–311. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge. 6, 45, 63, 68–70, 140–143, 158–159, 161, 259, 279, 297, 301, 303. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. 20, 32, 116, 120, 154–155, 172, 214–215, 233, 293, 295, 369. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 559–560.

(rostra) and publicly displayed them in Rome, giving the famous speaking platform its name (Livy. 8.14). Antium was well known in antiquity for its seaside villas, from which Cicero writes several of his letters (Cic. Att. 2.1, 7, 11). It is possible—though disputed—that there was an imperial library in an imperial villa at Antium (Luigi 2013). It was at Antium that Augustus was first hailed as Pater Patriae (Suet. Aug. 58). The emperors Nero and Caligula were both born in Antium (Suet. Calig. 8; Suet. Ner. 6), and Agrippina the Younger was said by Tacitus to have had estates in the town (A. 14.3; 14.4). Nero founded a veteran colony in the town (A. 14.27), and when his daughter was born to Poppaea Sabina the Younger he celebrated her birth with games at Antium honoring the Claudian and Domitian side of his family (A. 15.23). It was while vacationing at Antium that Nero first heard news of the great Fire of 64 CE (A. 15.39). Reference work: Barrington 43 C4 REFERENCE Luigi, Tucci Pierre. 2013. “Galen and the Library at Antium: The State of the Question.” Classical Philology 108: 240–251.

ANTONIA DONNA W. HURLEY

ANTIUM BENJAMIN E. NIKOTA

New York University

Antium (modern Anzio) on the coast of the Lazio region of Italy, was a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea, about 51 km south of Rome. Certain Roman mythological traditions asserted that the city was founded by Anteias, a son of Odysseus and Circe (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.72). According to Livy, it was the ancient capital of the Volscian people in the regal and early republican period. The city was famous for its strength as a naval power. As a result, in 338 Bce, the Romans took the beaks of the Antiates’ ships

c01_Vol1.indd 70

New York, New York

Antonia, whose full name would properly have been Claudia Antonia, was the daughter of the emperor Claudius and his second wife, Aelia Paetina. She was evidently born by 29 since she was married in 41 CE (twelve was about the earliest acceptable age) shortly after her father became emperor. Her first husband was Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. He was also young, but he could serve as an interim successor-in-waiting until Claudius’ infant son Britannicus came of age. The marriage also served to coopt him for the imperial family and neutralize any ambitions that his family had (Suet. Cl. 27.2; Cass. Dio 60. 5.7–9). Claudius’ other daughter, Octavia (2), still a

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Antonia the Elder  

small child, was betrothed at the same time. This first marriage of Antonia lasted until 47 CE when Magnus as well as his parents was killed (Suet. Cl. 29.1–2; Cass. Dio 60.29.6a). That same year Antonia was given a second husband, Faustus Cornelius Sulla Lucullus, halfbrother of Claudius’ wife Messalina. This was the period when Messalina was very influential. A son presumably died young since he is not heard of again after his birth (Cass. Dio 61.30.6). Faustus Sulla’s career continued long after Messalina departed the scene. Nero finally saw him as a threat and in 62 CE had him killed (A. 13.23.1; 47.1–3; 14.47.4). Antonia remained a useful member of the rising generation of the imperial house throughout her life. Her status is overt in a provincial didrachm that has a bust of Messalina on the obverse and on the reverse three standing figures labeled Britannicus, Octavia, and Antonia. Similarly, a statue base names the three and Nero as well (RIC2 Claudius no. 124; Smallwood, Docs. no. 99, no. 101, p. 44). Her mother, Aelia Paetina, as part of the family’s inner circle, was considered a contender in the choice of a new wife for Claudius after the death of Messalina (A. 12.2.1). And Agrippina the Younger, at the time of Nero’s accession, kept her, along with her halfsiblings, out of sight so that they not be the focus of opposition (A. 12.68.3). It was said that Antonia refused to marry Nero after the death of his wife Poppaea Sabina in 65 CE; the bond would have restored Nero’s connection with Claudius that had existed when he was married to Octavia (Suet. Ner. 35.4). Antonia finally lost her life in the aftermath of the Pisonian Conspiracy that was discovered the same year. Suetonius reports that she was “plotting revolution” (Suet. Ner. 35.4). Tacitus explains: There was a plan for her to accompany Gaius Calpurnius Piso to the praetorian camp where he expected to receive the guard’s salutation. Her presence with him would imply a union that could legitimize his claim to the principate. Tacitus thought this an unlikely tale because she would never have attempted anything so risky, and besides, it was known that Piso was devoted to his present wife (A. 15.53.3–4). But the rumor itself indicates that she was still a valuable quantity. Antonia was killed, probably in 66 CE.

c01_Vol1.indd 71

71

see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; marriage Reference work: PIR2 A 886 REFERENCES Smallwood, Elizabeth Mary. 1967. Documents Illustrating the Principates of Gaius, Claudius and Nero. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. no. 99, no. 101, p. 44. Sutherland, Carol Humphrey Vivian, and Robert Andrew Glendinnings Carson, eds. 1984. Roman Imperial Coinage. 2nd ed. London: Spink. Claudius no. 124. FURTHER READING Corbier, Mirelle. 1995. “Male Power and Legitimacy through Women: The Domus Augustus under the Julio-Claudians.” In Women in Antiquity: New Assessments, edited by Richard Hawley and Barbara Levick, 178–193. London and New York: Routledge. Fischler, Susan. 1994. “Social Stereotypes and Historical Analysis: The Case of the Imperial Women in Rome.” In Women in Ancient Societies: An Illusion of the Night, edited by Léonie Archer, Susan Fischler, and Maria Wyke, 115–133. New York: Routledge.

ANTONIA THE ELDER PETER KEEGAN

Macquarie University

Born in Athens during August or September 39 Bce, Antonia the Elder (also known as Iulia Antonia Maior) was the eldest daughter of the triumvir Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) and his third wife Octavia (2) the Younger (Plut. Vit. Ant. 33; App. B Civ. 5.76). Her parents married in the previous year to seal the treaty of Brundisium, which established a state under the control of her father and uncle Augustus (prior to 27 Bce, Octavian). Her presence in the historical record is seen predominantly through the traditional filter applied to elite Roman women, the social relations of blood and marriage: in the first instance, her kinship to the first Roman emperors of the Julio-Claudia dynasty; and secondly, her children. Other than these references and an ­

28-04-2023 17:36:43

72

  Antonia the Younger

important visual representation on the Ara Pacis Augustae, the historical record provides nothing else of the elder Antonia—“Little more than a name, and even her decease went unchronicled” (Syme 1986, 141). Even the references to her in Tacitus (A. 4.44.2, 12.64.2) are indirect, as each attributes a marital or familial relationship with the elder Antonia to one or the other with her younger sister. The elder Antonia was a niece of Augustus: her mother was the first emperor’s elder sister (Suet. Aug. 4.1). She was step-cousin of the emperor Tiberius, paternal great-aunt of the emperor Gaius Caligula, maternal aunt and great-auntin-law of Claudius, and paternal grandmother and maternal great-great-aunt of the emperor Nero (A. 4.75). After 36 Bce, the elder Antonia, her pregnant mother, her younger sister Antonia the Younger, and her stepsiblings from Octavia’s previous marriage to Gaius Claudius Marcellus, left Athens, sailing to Italy with Antonius at Octavia’s request (Plut. Ant. 35). Her mother, her uncle, and her aunt Livia Drusilla (Livia Augusta) raised her (Plut. Ant. 87). After her father died in 30, Augustus allowed her and her younger sister to benefit from their father’s estate in Rome, property seized following the dissolution of amicitia between the former triumviral colleagues (Dio Cass. 51.15.7). Around 22, the elder Antonia married the man to whom she had been betrothed since the age of two, the consul Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (A. 4.44.2). She bore Domitius three children. Her first child was a daughter, Domitia Lepida the Elder, who married the consul Decimus Haterius Agrippa and bore him a son Quintus Haterius Antoninus (A. 12.64.2). Domitia later married Gaius Sallustius Passienus Crispus (suffect consul in 27 Bce, proconsul of Asia, and consul in 44 CE), who is known to have spoken in a case brought by the Domitia against her younger brother Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2), and left her to marry Agrippina the Younger, daughter of Germanicus (Quint. Inst. 6.1.50; 6.3.74). A rivalry developed between the elder Domitia and the younger Agrippina (A. 12.64.2– 3); after the latter’s murder, Nero coveted the elder Domitia’s estates at Baiae (see Campania) and Ravenna and gave the order for her to be poisoned (A. 13.19, 21; Suet. Ner. 34; Cass. Dio 61.17).

c01_Vol1.indd 72

The elder Antonia’s second child was a son, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. Consul in 32 CE, he married his cousin, the younger Agrippina, in 28 CE. Agrippina and Domitius were the parents of the emperor Nero. He was accused by Tiberius, but saved by that emperor’s death, and lived a few years longer under Gaius Caligula’s reign until he died in 40 (Suet. Ner. 5). The elder Antonia’s third child was another daughter, Domitia Lepida the Younger (A. 12.64). She first married her cousin, the consul M. Valerius Messalla Barbatus, to whom she bore a daughter, the empress Valeria Messalina, third wife of the emperor Claudius (Suet. Claud. 26). After the death of her first husband, she married Faustus Cornelius Sulla Lucullus, suffect consul in 31 CE, and gave him a son, Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix, who would become consul in 52 CE. At the beginning of Claudius’ reign, she married Gaius Appius Iunius Silanus, consul in 28 CE, who was put to death in 42 CE. She outlived her daughter Messalina (A. 11.37). There is general consensus that the adults appearing with their children at the end of the procession on the southern frieze of the Ara Pacis Augustae are the elder Antonia and her husband Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (Pollini 1990, 453 and n.3). REFERENCES Pollini, John. 1990. “Ahenobarbi, Appuleii and Some Others on the Ara Pacis.” American Journal of Archaeology 90: 453–461. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon.

ANTONIA THE YOUNGER LIEN FOUBERT

Radboud University Nijmegen

Antonia the Younger was born on 31 January 36 Bce as the youngest daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia (1). She married Tiberius’ brother Drusus the Elder around 18 Bce and became the mother of Germanicus, Livia Iulia (also known as Livilla), and the later emperor Claudius. In 9 Bce she lost her husband, after which she remained

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Antonia the Younger  

unmarried and epitomized the Roman ideal of the univira. Through Germanicus and his wife Agrippina the Elder, Antonia became the grandmother of Nero Iulius Caesar, Drusus Caesar, the emperor Caligula, and their sisters Agrippina the Younger, Julia Drusilla, and Iulia Livilla. She died on 1 May 37 CE. The emperor Nero could count Antonia the Younger as his great-grandmother (through Agrippina the Younger) and her sister Antonia the Elder as his grandmother (through her son Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2)). In other words, Antonia the Younger was a key figure in the domus Augusta during the Julio-Claudian period (Plut. Vit. Ant. 54, 87). Notwithstanding her important position in the dynasty, the relative silence in the literary sources makes it difficult to assess Antonia’s actions, whereabouts, and character during the different periods of her life. Tacitus rarely mentions her. In two occasions, he clearly confuses her with her older sister Antonia the Elder (A. 4.44, 12.64). It is not unconceivable that she figured more prominently in the missing books of the Annals, which would have covered the demise of Sejanus in which Antonia allegedly played a role; the execution of her daughter Livilla; and presumably also the circumstances of Antonia’s death during Caligula’s reign. The dominant characteristics of her representation outside of Tacitus’ texts are her portrayal as a materfamilias supervising the imperial household and her portrayal as a devoted wife and grieving widow. Antonia was six years old when her father committed suicide in Alexandria. Besides her own children, her mother Octavia also took care of Antony’s surviving children by his former wife Fulvia and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. It is believed that Antonia later mirrored her mother’s behavior as a materfamilias. She would have been in charge of not only her own children and grandchildren (Suet. Calig. 10.1, 24.1; Cass. Dio 60.2.5), but also of those of client kings, many of whom would have lived with her in the imperial residence on the Palatine (Foubert 2016; Kokkinos 1992). At the age of twenty-seven, Antonia became a widow when Drusus died unexpectedly in Germania. In the Consolatio ad Liviam, attributed to Ovid, their marriage is presented as a match

c01_Vol1.indd 73

73

made in heaven (Cons. ad Livy 299–342). Due to her age, her position in the imperial dynasty, and the Augustan marriage laws, she would have been expected to remarry, yet she managed to remain unattached (Val. Max. 4.3.3; Joseph AJ 18.180). Tacitus’ most noticeable reference to Antonia concerns her absence during the funeral procession in which Agrippina the Elder carried the ashes of Antonia’s son Germanicus back to Rome. After explaining that Tiberius and Livia Augusta did not appear in public—either because they felt it inappropriate to show their grief, or because they feared that their hypocrisy would be too obvious, so the author states—Tacitus mentions that he failed to discover whether Antonia took part in any of the ceremonies (A. 3.3). The author offers different explanations for her absence: ill health, a broken spirit, or a house arrest enforced by Tiberius and Livia in an attempt to conceal their own absence. In a typical Tacitean manner, the author assesses the latter more plausible (Woodman and Martin 1996). Around 31 CE, a conspiracy instigated by Sejanus to bring about the fall of the emperor Tiberius was discovered. Sejanus had started an affair with Antonia’s daughter Livilla, which led to the poisoning of her husband Drusus the Younger, Tiberius’ son. Josephus claims that Antonia wrote a letter to Tiberius in Capri to warn him, after which she became a confidant of the emperor (Joseph AJ 18.181–182) In what remains of the Annals, Tacitus omits her role during this turn of events. Instead, he assigns the leading role in uncovering the plot to Sejanus’ wife Apicata (A. 4.3, 8, 11). According to Cassius Dio, Tiberius delegated Livilla’s execution to Antonia, who starved her daughter to death (Cass. Dio 58.11.6). The matter of Antonia’s own death is disputed. According to Cassius Dio, her grandson Caligula drove her to suicide at the age of seventy-two (Cass. Dio 59.3.6). Suetonius, on the other hand, states that the emperor only allowed her a private interview in the presence of his praetorian prefect Macro, the dishonesty of which caused her death. Rumor also had it that Caligula had poisoned her (Suet. Cal. 23.2.3). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; poison; women Reference works: PIR2 A 885; Raepsaet-Charlier, 73

28-04-2023 17:36:43

74

  Antonius Felix, Marcus

REFERENCES Foubert, Lien. 2016. “Crowded and Emptied Houses as Status Markers of Aristocratic Women in Rome. The Literary Commonplace of the domus frequentata.” Eugesta 6: 129–150. Kokkinos, Nikos. 1992. Antonia Augusta. Portrait of a Great Lady. London: Libri Publications Ltd. Woodman, Anthony J., and Ronald H. Martin, eds. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus. Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Martina, Gabriella. 2016. “L’interventismo familiare di Antonia Minore: il caso della morte di Germanico e Livilla.” In Matronae in domo et in re publica agentes: spazi e occasioni dell’azione femminile nel mondo romano tra tarda repubblica e primo impero, edited by Gabriella Martina, Francesca Cenerini, and Francesca Rohr, 287–304. Trieste: Edizioni Università di Trieste. Nicols, John. 1975. “Antonia and Sejanus.” Historia 24.1: 48–58. Segenni, Simonetta. 1995. “Antonia Minore e la Domus Augusta.” Studi Classici e Orientali 44: 297–331. Sinclair, Patrick. 1990. “Tacitus’ Presentation of Livia Julia, Wife of Tiberius’ Son Drusus.” American Journal of Philology 111.2: 238–256.

ANTONIUS, see MARK ANTONY

ANTONIUS FELIX, MARCUS ROBERT CAMPBELL

University of Nebraska at Omaha

Antonius was born in the year 10 CE in Neapolis. The date of his death is unknown, but the location is in Iudaea. Little is known regarding the early life of Antonius. Tacitus and Josephus briefly mention that Antonius was a freedman of Antonia the Elder; an administrator of Samaria; and had a brother, Pallas (A. 12.54; Joseph. AJ 20.137–138). As for the family of Antonius, he had three wives throughout his life: Drusilla of Mauretania the Elder (said to be the daughter of Cleopatra Selene II), Drusilla of

c01_Vol1.indd 74

Iudaea, and a third wife of unknown identity. The longest marriage was with his second wife, Drusilla of Iudaea, the granddaughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Before their marriage, Drusilla was married to Azizus king of Emesa. Since the relationship was already uneasy, Antonius devised a plan to win over Drusilla. He sent a friend to see Drusilla and pretended to be a magician in an attempt to persuade her to be with Antonius (Joseph. AJ 20.141–142). The plan was a success and she became Antonius’ wife. They had a son, Marcus Antonius Agrippa. Little is known of the son and mother, except that they perished in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Antonius was procurator of Iudaea from 52 to 60 CE. Tacitus describes him as a man who practiced cruelty and lust (H. 5.9.15) and wielded the power of a king with the instincts of a slave (H. 5.9.15). The pretext for the Bellum Iudaicum was Caligula’s demand for a statue of the himself in the Temple; Antonius used this as an opportunity to create more chaos and used his troops as bandits to beat, steal, and plunder in the fields (A. 12.54). Ummidius Quadratus stepped in as Antonius and his colleague, Ventidius Cumanus (procurator of the other half of the province), nearly created an all-out war. Claudius requested Quadratus review Antonius’ actions and ultimately had him released. The leniency of the emperor’s decision is indicative of Claudius’ fondness for Antonius (Suet. Claud. 28). It also helped that Pallas was loved by Claudius and was able also assist in Antonius’ release. Acts provides further commentary. While the disciple Paul was in Jerusalem, Roman soldiers arrested and jailed him; his case was heard by Antonius. Paul was imprisoned for two years after his initial sentence (Acts 24:27). Antonius and his wife Drusilla of Iudaea returned to meet with Paul. They listened to Paul’s words, but Antonius was not intrigued and had Paul remain imprisoned. He chose to keep Paul bound as he deemed it to be a favor for the Jewish people (Acts 24:26–27). see also: Christianity Reference work: PIR2 A 828

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Antonius Naso  

ANTONIUS FLAMMA LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Antonius Flamma was the Roman governor of Cyrenaica under Nero. At the beginning of Vespasian’s reign he was accused of extortion by the inhabitants of Cyrene and sent into exile for his cruelty (H. 4.45). Such a name appears in the local city leadership of Cyrene and in particular among the influential priests of Apollo. In a list of local priests for the year 111 CE a certain Publius Sestius Pollio, who became governor of Cyrenaica as well as having been a priest, nominated among his ancestors an Antonius Flamma, according to some scholars the same man exiled by Vespasian (Reynolds 1959, nr. 2, 96–98). PIR rejects the identification suggesting that it would be inappropriate to remember the name of an ancestor condemned by an emperor for crimes against the local population. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that the fall of Antonius Flamma was the result of internal city strife between families belonging to leading classes of Cyrene and that after forty years the Antonii had gained the upper hand and its infamous ancestor had been rehabilitated.

75

Domitius Ahenobarbus (2), both of whom died in 25 CE. Ahenobarus had been married to Lucius’ aunt, Antonia the Elder (Syme 1989, 399). Lucius was born sometime after 21 Bce when his parents Iullus Antonius (the son of Mark Antony and Fulvia) and Marcella (the daughter of Augustus’ sister Octavia (1) and Gaius Claudius Marcellus, consul 50 Bce) were married. Tacitus describes his family as renowned but unfortunate. His father Iullus was executed in 2 CE for adultery with Julia the Younger. Consequently, while still a very young man (adulescentulus), he was banished (seponere) to Massilia “where the appearance of studies would conceal the name of exile” (ubi speci studiorum nomen exilii tegeretur, A. 4.44). After he died in 25 CE, the Senate decreed that his bones be returned to Rome for burial in the (unlocated) tumulus Octaviorum (A. 4.44; Richardson, Topog. Dict. Ancient Rome, s.v. Tumulus Octaviorum). see also: Augustus; Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference works: PIR2 A 802; BNP Antonius B II 2 REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1989. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Reference works: PIR2 A 831; IGRom. I, 1029–1030 REFERENCE Reynolds, J. 1959. “Four Inscriptions from Roman Cyrene.” Journal of Roman Studies 49: 95–101.

ANTONIUS, LUCIUS BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

Lucius Antonius (d. 25 CE) was the son of Iullus Antonius (see Julia the Elder) and Marcella. Lucius Antonius is mentioned only once in the extant works of Tacitus when the historian appended his obituary to those of Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus and Lucius

c01_Vol1.indd 75

ANTONIUS NASO LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Lucius Antonius Naso was a Roman officer (Demougin 1992, 597–599 n. 703; Pflaum 1960, 85, nr. 36). He was a military tribune of the Praetorian Guard during Galba’s rule. At the beginning of 69 CE, he was dismissed along with his colleague Antonius Taurus (otherwise unknown) and lost his command (H. 1.20). Most of what we know about Naso comes from an inscription from Baalbeck, ancient Heliopolis of Syria. Born in Baalbeck as his tribe membership (the Fabia) would suggest, Naso was a self-made man who came from the

28-04-2023 17:36:43

76

  Antonius Natalis

military ranks. He was a centurion in legions III Cyrenaica and XIII Gemina, primus pilus, or senior centurion in the latter, before being appointed tribune of legion I Italica, commander of a cohort of vigiles in Rome (the fourth), and of two urban cohorts (the fifteenth and the eleventh). Having proved his commanding skills, he was appointed into the elite of the Roman army at the head of the ninth praetorian cohort by Nero where he was serving when Galba came to power. Having served so long under Nero and having earned several military decorations under that emperor (corona vallaris, corona aurea, hastae purae and vexilla), it is not surprising that Galba suspected him of disloyalty and removed him. According to Naso’s inscription, his career did not end with Galba: after serving in the XIV Gemina, he obtained again a praetorian command under Galba’s successors (the I cohors praetoria). As reward for his military service he was appointed by Vespasian to an administrative office, procurator of the province of Pontus and Bithynia, where at the emperor’s order was very active at building roads (77–78 CE; Waddington et al., I, 236. 7; French 1988, nn. 304; 910; 982). see also: civil wars of 69 CE; legions; Roman roads Reference works: PIR2 A 854; CIL III. 6993 = ILS 253; III. 14387 ff, fff and k = ILS 9199 = IGLSyr (Inscriptions grecques et Latines de la Syrie) VI. 2781; AE 1902, 157

ANTONIUS NATALIS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Antonius Natalis was involved in the Pisonian Conspiracy under Nero. He saved himself by informing against his fellow conspirators. Natalis was one of seven Roman equestrians involved in Gaius Calpurnius Piso’s conspiracy against Nero in 65 CE, and according to Tacitus (A. 15.50.1), was the closest of the conspirators to Piso himself. He was also a close compatriot to one of the leading conspirators, Flavius Scaevinus and was betrayed along with him. In an effort to win immunity, Natalis denounced Piso and incriminated (falsely) Seneca, and it was his testimony, (which supported Milichus’, the freedman who initially betrayed the plot to Nero, A. 15.54–55), that was the most instrumental in the conspiracy’s unraveling. In addition, Tacitus says it was Natalis’ evidence alone which led to Seneca’s death (15.60.4–6), and the vague nature of the relationship between Piso and Seneca notwithstanding, it was enough for Nero, who forced Seneca’s suicide. It is not entirely certain if Seneca was in fact a conspirator, but regardless, Natalis’ denunciation was ultimately lethal for Nero’s former tutor. Natalis’ reward, in the wake of the conspiracy, was immunity from prosecution (A. 15.71.2). After Piso’s conspiracy we hear no more of him, and nothing further is known of Natalis, his family, or career other than what we know from the scattered references in Tacitus.

REFERENCES

see also: Pisonian Conspiracy, victims

Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. French, D. 1988. Roman Roads and Milestones of Asia Minor, 2: An Interim Catalogue of Milestones. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pflaum, H.-G. 1960. Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut-Empire Romain. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique; T. 57. Paris: P. Geuthner. Waddington, W.H., E. Babelon, and T. Reinach 1908–1925. Recueil General des monnaies d’Asie mineure. Paris: Leroux.

Reference works: PIR2 A 855; RE 12.2634 = Antonius 81 (Rohden).

c01_Vol1.indd 76

FURTHER READING Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains Julio-Claudiens (43 av. J. C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome. 475–476. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 167–169, 191.

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Antonius Primus  

ANTONIUS NOVELLUS NATHAN KATKIN

University of Chicago

Antonius Novellus was a centurion primipilaris who served as one of three commanders of the Othonian naval expedition against Gallia Narbonensis in 69 CE. Antonius Novellus first appears as joint leader, alongside Suedius Clemens and Aemilius Pacensis, of a naval expedition against the Vitellian forces in Gallia Narbonensis (H. 1.87). The expedition’s soldiers, however, quickly turn mutinous. Although Antonius avoids the imprisonment suffered by Aemilius, he proves ineffective at corralling the troops Tacitus comments on his lack of authority (H. 2.12). The expedition proceeds to plunder and pillage throughout the Italian countryside. Antonius himself vanishes from view. It is likely but uncertain that he participated in the battle of Bedriacum. His fellowgenerals Aemilius and Suedius both joined the Flavians at some point after Otho’s death; it is not improbable that Antonius did so as well if he survived, but nothing can be confirmed. Antonius is not known from any sources beyond the Histories. see also: civil wars of 69 CE; mutinies Reference work: PIR2 A 857

ANTONIUS PRIMUS NICHOLAS DEE

Bowling Green State University

Marcus Antonius Primus (c. 20–c. 95/98 CE; Primus hereafter) was a capable and charismatic military leader, though less effective in peacetime. His quick-moving and successful campaign from Pannonia to Rome, waged on Vespasian’s behalf, led to Vitellius’ death and ushered in the Flavian dynasty. To achieve that result, he indulged the rapacious impulses of his men and left a path of destruction, including the northern

c01_Vol1.indd 77

77

Italian city of Cremona. Soon after Rome’s capture, his chief rival within the Flavian faction, Gaius Licinius Mucianus, outmaneuvered him and squeezed him from power. Primus was a native of Tolosa (modern Toulouse) in Gaul, where in childhood he acquired the cognomen Becco, or “Rooster’s Beak” (Suet. Vit. 18.1; the name is attested by CIL XII 5381: see Syme 1975, 67). Convicted of fraud in 61 CE under Nero and exiled (A. 14.40.3; Cass. Dio 65.9.3), he was recalled by Galba and given command of legion VII Galbiana (based in Carnutum, in Pannonia; H. 2.11.1, 86.1–2). He and his legion played no part in the Civil War of 69 CE until they declared for Vespasian (H. 2.86.1–2). At a late-August 69 CE conference in Poetovio (in Pannonia), from which both Vespasian and Mucianus were absent, Primus emerged as a powerful and influential force for the Flavian cause. On his offensive campaign in the FlavianVitellian war, Primus, citing the tactical advantage they stood to gain from swift action (H. 3.1), neglected to wait for Mucianus and his legions at Aquileia as ordered (H. 3.8.2). Mucianus, whose own preference for delay was self-interested (H. 3.8.3), had many supporters (H. 3.1)—including, it seems, Vespasian himself (H. 3.8). Yet Primus pressed on regardless—to much success: his decisiveness, rhetorical skills, and personal charisma were well received by both officers and common soldiers (H. 3.3); victories in small skirmishes were quickly garnered as the army moved southwestward from Pannonia and down through the Alps toward Verona, there creating a blockade against German reinforcements from the north (H. 3.8.1). To slow the Vitellian advance further, Primus instructed Iulius Civilis to create a diversionary German revolt (H. 4.13.2, 32.1; 5.26.3). Upon learning of the defections of Vitellian leaders Lucilius Bassus and Alienus Caecina, Primus decided to attack while the enemy forces were weakened and scattered; it was Primus’ decision to make the two-day march from Verona to Bedriacum which precipitated a major engagement before reinforcements could arrive (H. 3.15.1). After winning the initial skirmishes of

28-04-2023 17:36:43

78

  Antonius Primus

the Second Battle of Bedriacum (H. 3.16–18), the Flavian legions assailed the rampart of the Vitellian camp. In order to encourage his flagging men, Primus might have “pointed” (monstrassent; see Wellesley 1972, 115) to Cremona and thereby offered its riches as motivating plunder (H. 3.27.3). Though the siege of Cremona was carried out under Primus’ orders (H. 3.31.3), there remains some doubt regarding his culpability for its total destruction; nevertheless, Primus’ generally permissive attitude toward his bloodthirsty and greedy army is viewed harshly (H. 3.15.2, 32.3; Cass. Dio 65.9.3–4). After Cremona, success caused Primus’ conduct to decline further: greedy and arrogant, he treated Italy like a captured territory; he dramatically reduced the standards of discipline for the common soldiers, causing them to run roughshod over their commanding officers (H. 3.49.1–2). Nevertheless, just enough discipline was reasserted when necessary to prevent total anarchy (H. 3.60.2, 82.1). Following a rare delay in the campaign (H. 3.78), on the night of 19/20 December 69 CE, Primus was five miles north of Rome at Saxa Ruba when he learned of the death of Flavius Sabinus and the conflagration of the Capitolium (H. 3.79.1). He commanded the assault on, and capture of, Rome (H. 3.82–86), but his personal agency in Tacitus’ account gives ground to the general chaos and uncontrollable looting and violence by the soldiers (H. 4.1; cf. Joseph. BJ 4.11.4). Though Domitian had quickly installed himself as Caesar, Primus retained supreme power (summa potentiae, H. 4.2.1), which he exercised to line his own pockets and to assert his dominance over the other generals (H. 4.4.2). It was then he was awarded consular insignia. The success that attended Primus on campaign and in his military career did not follow him in his political struggles within the Flavian faction. Mucianus, long jealous that Primus’ military role afforded him a large portion of the glory, waged a long-term letter-writing propaganda campaign against him (H. 3.52, 78.3). Primus attacked Mucianus with less subtlety: he criticized him in open conversation and sent a nakedly boastful letter to Vespasian, arguing for the necessity and

c01_Vol1.indd 78

rightness of his military action to date (H. 3.53.1). In late December 69 CE, mere days after Primus captured Rome, Mucianus arrived and, through shrewd dealings and showmanship, acquired the support and recognition of the populace, thus effectively ending Primus’ short-lived tenure as de facto commander of the city (H. 4.11.1). Since Primus’ high reputation among the legions prevented Mucianus from either directly or openly usurping Primus’ position, the latter once again attacked his rival obliquely: he praised him publicly and made an unfulfilled offer of a Spanish governorship, while removing the base of his military support, the Seventh Legion, from the city (H. 4.39.4). Domitian was also kept at a distance, and thus from the power such proximity entails (H. 4.80.1). Squeezed out of power in Rome, Primus left the city to join Vespasian. Yet the emperor, motivated especially by Primus’ arrogance and Mucianus’ slanderous letter campaign, did not take the general into his confidence, and his star faded into obscurity (H. 4.80.3). After Mucianus squeezed Primus out of power in 70 CE, Primus seems to have returned home to Tolosa (Mart. 9.99). In the 90s, Martial wrote several epigrams which fill out some facts about his later life: he celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday in c. 95 CE, at which point the poet, a long-time acquaintance (Mart. 10.32), can remark that the former general’s life has been a tranquil one (Mart. 10.23). The identity of the learned “Marcus” of Mart. 10.73 cannot be secured. see also: Hormus Reference work: PIR2 A 866; CIL XII 5381 REFERENCES Syme, Ronald. 1975. “Notes on Tacitus, Histories iii.” Antichthon 11: 61–67. Wellesley, Kenneth, ed. 1972. Cornelius Tacitus, The Histories Book III. Adelaide, Australia: Sydney University Press. FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 1999. Ordering Anarchy. Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ Histories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Aper, Marcus  

79

ANTONIUS TAURUS, see ANTONIUS NASO AORSI, see EUONONES

leaders were able to rendezvous with troops and were able to either negotiate surrender or convince Vitellian forces to join them.

APENNINES

see also: civil wars of 69 CE; Roman roads; Vitellius, rise to power

ROSEMARY MOORE

University of Iowa

The Apennines (Latin Apenninus, Apennini mons, Apennini iuga, Barrington ref. 1) are a mountain range continuing south from the Ligurian Alps through the length of Italy, ending near Calabria. This range very roughly bisects the Italian peninsula into eastern and western halves. The Apennines are a substantial range and not easily passable at many points. They were significant factors in trade as well as military strategy. In the Histories, the Apennines posed a serious obstacle for communication between Vitellius and his supporters in northeast Italy. From June 69 CE, Vitellius was at Rome, while the front extended north and eastwards from the Alpes Maritimae to Ravenna, with the loyalty of soldiers and communities contested at multiple points (H. 3.42). The central Apennines remained relatively secure for Vitellius until the defection and arrest of Caecina Alienus and the Vitellian defeat at the second battle of Cremona (H. 3.50). At this point the territory controlled by Vitellians and Flavians was marked by the Apennines. Of concern was the difficulty of transporting large numbers of soldiers safely and stealthily, because army size limited options for crossing. For this reason, Fabius Valens sent his troops in late October 69 CE to Ariminum by way of the Via Flaminia while he crossed separately to the north, and Antonius Primus scouted an easier passage through Umbria in order to march on Rome. A strategic consideration for both sides was maintaining control of the passes where mass crossing was possible. To defend against the expected Flavian approach, Vitellius stationed multiple praetorian cohorts with cavalry and legionary detachments at strategic Apennine passes as well as at Rome. Though the unusually severe winter weather made operations difficult, Flavian

c01_Vol1.indd 79

Reference work: Barrington 1F2; 39 F4; 40 A4; 42 C1; 44 E2; 45 B2 FURTHER READING Wellesley, K. 2002. The Year of the Four Emperors. 3rd ed. London: Taylor and Francis. Wiedemann, T. E. J. 1996. “From Nero to Vespasian.” In Cambridge Ancient History, Volume X: The Augustan Empire, 43 bc–ad 69, edited by Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

APER, MARCUS THOMAS BRODEY

Amherst College CHRISTOPHER S.VAN DEN BERG

Amherst College

Marcus Aper was a famous orator under Vespasian. Though of Gallic extraction and from humble beginnings, he achieved the rank of praetor. He served in Britain, presumably as an officer, during Claudius’ invasion (D. 17.4 with Syme 1958, 108). We know him only from the Dialogus de Oratoribus, in which Tacitus portrays him as a fervent exponent of his views, with the largest speaking part. He vigorously defends modern oratory against the admirers of the ancients and disagrees with his fellow interlocutors, Curiatius Maternus and Vipstanus Messalla. The Dialogus reveals Aper’s Gallic background (D. 10.2, de Gallis nostris). He pursued a successful forensic, military, and political career at Rome. Oratory allowed him to rise through the cursus honorum and, though a new man, he became quaestor, tribune, and then praetor (D. 7.1; dates unknown; no aedileship is indicated). He may have been eyeing a consulship (D. 7.2). He defended clients on

28-04-2023 17:36:43

80

  Aper, Marcus

criminal charges, was an advocate in the centumviral courts (see Centumvirales), and defended powerful members of the emperor’s circle before the emperor himself. Aper was one of Tacitus’ chief inspirations as a young man. Since he is not mentioned anywhere by Pliny or Quintilian, it is likely that he either died or faded into obscurity shortly after the events described in the Dialogus. Aper defends oratory and especially the modern style, positions which attract vigorous if good-spirited criticism from Messalla and Maternus. Modern readers long viewed Aper’s position with skepticism, if not outright hostility, claiming that he was nothing more than a devil’s advocate who supported opinions he could not hold (suggested already at D. 15.2). He has been thought boorish and utilitarian. Recent defenses of his values and opinions have challenged blanket dismissal of his views. Aper’s first speech (5.3–13.6) defends oratory itself, as opposed to the poetry or playwriting practiced by Maternus. In Ciceronian fashion, Aper lists the advantages of public oratory, including personal glory, powerful connections, and the enjoyment that the art itself provides. He cites his own history to illustrate the social mobility that oratory provides, up to and including connections to the emperor. His emphases are squarely on the assistance and defense of his clients and connections, not on prosecution. His emphasis on defense seems to conflict, however, with his citation of Quintus Vibius Crispus and Eprius Marcellus as models for the enterprising. His values are recognizably Roman, whatever his seemingly utilitarian bent, and his arguments merit serious consideration, both on their own account and in light of the Ciceronian precedents they so closely follow. Aper’s second speech (16.4–23.6) defends modern oratory, arguing that older oratory lacks the sophistication and adornment of its modern counterparts. Aper argues that oratory has improved since the days of the ancients (antiqui) and attributes changes in style to changes in forensic circumstances and aesthetic expectations. Knowledge of philosophy has made listeners more discerning (19.3), and they likewise expect the ornamentation and splendor of modern speechmaking (21.3). Aper’s speeches have been variously received. His style is full and passionate, relying on synonymous doublets, striking expressions, similes and

c01_Vol1.indd 80

metaphors, historical exempla, and Ciceronian doctrine. The choice of Crispus and Marcellus as models has given many pause and would seem to undermine Aper’s arguments (Tacitus undermines all the work’s interlocutors). His sincerity has also been questioned, although unlike, for example, Marcus Antonius in Cicero’s de Oratore, Aper never admits to defending opinions he does not hold. Tacitus presents Aper and Iulius Secundus as role models: weaknesses in Aper’s case may be meant to highlight the complexity and pitfalls of practicing oratory rather than rejection of the art. see also: Cicero; delators; eloquentia; Fabius Iustus; intertextuality; irony; Roman orators; Roman poets; speeches; style Reference work: PIR2 A 910 REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Bablitz, Leanne. 2007. Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom. London: Routledge. Crook, J. A. 1995. Legal Advocacy in the Roman World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Champion, Craige. 1994. “Dialogus 5.3–10.8: A Reconsideration of the Character of Marcus Aper.” Phoenix 48: 152–163. DOI: 10.2307/1088313. Goldberg, Sander. 1999. “Appreciating Aper: The Defence of Modernity in Tacitus’ Dialogus de oratoribus.” CQ 49: 224–237. DOI: 10.1093/cq/49.1.224. Goldberg, Sander. 2009. “The Faces of Eloquence: The Dialogus de oratoribus.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 73–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haß-von Reitzenstein, Ute. 1970. “Beiträge zur gattungsgeschichtlichen Interpretation des Dialogus De oratoribus.” (diss. Cologne). Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. van den Berg, Christopher S. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus: Aesthetics and Empire in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Apinius Tiro  

81

APICATA

APIDIUS MERULA

MEGAN M. DALY

VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

University of Florida

Apicata was married to Lucius Aelius Sejanus, but in 23 CE he expelled her from his home due to his relationship with Drusus the Younger’s wife Livia Iulia (A. 4.3.5). Apicata had three children with Sejanus (A. 4.3.5); one may have been Aelius Gallus, who in A. 5.8.1 had fled for refuge (Shotter 1989, 130; Woodman 2017, 72); a son and daughter are executed in A. 5.9.1–2 (Shotter 1989, 130). Tacitus writes that Sejanus’ plot against Drusus was revealed through Apicata and by the torture of Eudemus and Lygdus (A. 4.11.2). The details of what she revealed and how are not given by Tacitus. It was possibly done through a letter, as Shotter (1989, 140) notes that Tacitus’ phrasing Apicata Seiani in A. 4.11.2 is typical for a letter. Her motive was perhaps to get back at Livia Iulia (Shotter 1989, 140; Martin and Woodman 1989, 128), or perhaps to protect her younger two children with this information (Martin and Woodman 1989, 128). Bellemore (1995, 264) offers further discussion of her possible motives. Cassius Dio writes that when Apicata saw that her children had died, she wrote a letter about Drusus’ death, sent the letter to Tiberius, and then killed herself (Cass. Dio 58.11.6).

Apidius Merula (otherwise unknown) was expelled from the Senate in the year 25 CE by Tiberius, because he did not swear an oath to the legislation of Augustus (A. 4.42). Such oaths routinely concluded the annual meeting on 1 January (Talbert 1984, 201); Thrasea Paetus was also charged with abjuring the oath (A. 16.22). In 25 CE Tacitus also reports the trial of Cremutius Cordus and the communications between Sejanus and Tiberius. According to Martin and Woodman, “Tib.’s involvement with the senate is presented as a motive for his leaving Rome, which he has just been urged by Sejanus to do and which he eventually does towards the end of the following year” (1989, 200). The expulsion of Apidius Merula is one of several moments in the Annals in which Tacitus explores Tiberius’ relationship with Augustan past (Cowan 2009).

see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; marriage; women Reference works: PIR2 A 913; BNP Apicata REFERENCES Bellemore, Jane. 1995. “The Wife of Sejanus.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 109: 255–266. Martin, R. H., and A. J. Woodman, eds. 1989. Tacitus: Annals Book IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shotter, D. C. A. 1989. Tacitus Annals IV. Warminster: Aris and Phillips. Woodman, A. J., ed. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

c01_Vol1.indd 81

Reference work: PIR2 A 916 REFERENCES Cowan, E. 2009. “Tacitus, Tiberius and Augustus.” Classical Antiquity 28.2: 179–210. Martin, R. H., and A. J. Woodman. 1989. Tacitus Annals Book IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talbert, R. J. A. 1984. The Senate of Imperial Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

APINIUS TIRO JONATHAN MASTER

Emory University

Apinius Tiro, a former praetor who participates in the defection of the naval forces at Misenum (Miseno) to Vespasian in late 69 CE. Tacitus chronicles the event in two sections: H. 3.57 and H. 3.76–77. Claudius Faventius, a centurion cashiered by Galba, uses a forged letter from Vespasian to entice the fleet at Misenum to abandon Vitellius. Vitellius’

28-04-2023 17:36:43

82

  Aponius Saturninus, Marcus

position is already extremely diminished; his defeat in the second battle of Bedriacum had occurred more than a month before. Faventius’ fraud works in part because the prefect of the fleet, Claudius Apollinaris, lacks the decisiveness to do anything but go along with the group. After the defection of the fleet, Apinius Tiro, who Tacitus writes was already spending time in the area, steps forward to lead the rebels alongside Apollinaris. Tiro and Apollinaris attempt to spread the rebellion through the towns of Campania. Puteoli joins but Capua remains loyal to Vitellius. Vespasian dispatches Claudius Iulianus, himself a former prefect of the fleet at Misenum, to calm the sailors and bring the fleet back to the Vitellian side. Iulianus along with an urban cohort and gladiators assigned to him promptly defects to the Flavian side too. At H. 3.76–77, this mixed forces of sailors, gladiators, and soldiers occupy Tarracina (Terracina), which Tacitus writes was well protected by the nature of its position not the efforts of the occupying forces. Lucius Vitellius deals with the rebels at Tarracina. He gains entry to the town with the help of an escaped slave who opened the gates in return for freedom. The Vitellians pour in and massacre the rebels and civilians indiscriminately. Apinius Tiro is not present for the climax. He survives the final assault because he had already departed with the urban cohort to extort money from local towns. Tacitus does not again refer to him. Claudius Apollinaris manages to escape by ship, but Claudius Iulianus is not so fortunate. Captured and tortured, he is the only one of the leaders of the defection whose fate is known. Not one of the ringleaders of the defection other than Claudius Iulianus (Pliny, NH 37.45) is securely attested anywhere else in the historical record. Although the details Tacitus offers might provide evidence for a more coordinated conspiracy than the historian indicates, he uses the episode to make a different, broader point. At its outset he states that in times of civil war even individuals, however insignificant they were previously, may make a significant impact (H. 3.57.1). see also: civil wars of 69 CE Reference Work: PIR2 A 917

c01_Vol1.indd 82

FURTHER READING Morgan, M. Gwyn. 1992. “Tacitus and the ‘Battle’ of Tarracina (Histories 3, 76–77).” Museum Helveticum 49. 2: 124–130.

APION, see ACILIUS STRABO APOLLO, see ROMAN GODS APOLLODORUS, see GREEK ORATORS APOLLONIS, see EARTHQUAKE OF 17 CE APONIUS, Lucius, see PANNONIAN REVOLT

APONIUS SATURNINUS, MARCUS ROBERT CAMPBELL

University of Nebraska at Omaha

Marcus Aponius Saturninus (fl. 69 CE) was suffect consul under Nero (year unknown), a member of the Arval Brotherhood since 57 CE (CIL 6:2039, 2040, 2041, 2042, 2044), a legate of Moesia in 69 CE (H. 1.79), and proconsul of Asia perhaps in 73/74 (ILS 8817; Syme 1958, 594). For driving off an attack by Sarmatians, Aponius was awarded a statue by Otho (H. 1.79), after whose death he then took the side of Vitellius. As the operations of Vespasian hastened, the Seventh Legion advanced to Aquileia, bringing news of Otho’s defeat; allegiances were caught between Vitellius and Vespasian. Aponius used this chaotic opportunity to order the assassination of Tettius Iulianus, a legate of the Seventh Legion, for personal reasons. Tettius discovered the plot and fled (H. 2.85). Aponius wrote a letter to Vitellius reporting the defection of the Third Legion to Vespasian and left out certain details regarding his overall plan. Flattering friends downplayed the mutiny and asserted that loyalty to Vitellius was unshaken (H. 2.96). Aponius was ordered to hurry toward Italy (H. 3.5); he moved the Seventh Legion to Vespasian in Verona, where the attack on Vitellius’ troops was to occur. Multiple legions had arrived and began to take shape around Verona. The Seventh Legion took to their lines and noticed a cavalry approaching and panicked as they believed it was the enemy’s. Thinking

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Appuleia Varilla  

they were betrayed, the enraged soldiers began attacking Titus Ampius Flavianus who had no guilt to show. Aponius attempted to speak but was disrupted by soldiers shouting and showing anger toward their commanders (H. 3.10). Aponius was then attacked by the soldiers as well. Finding the letters written by Aponius to Vitellius (H. 3.11–12), the soldiers headed toward Aponius’ quarters where he was located with Antonius Primus, Dillius Aponianus, and Vipstanus Messalla, who, aware that the soldiers were coming for Antonius, hid him in the furnace of a bath which was not being used (H. 3.12). After this incident, Aponius fled to Patavium. Without the assistance of Primus and others, Aponius faced the same deathly fate as Flavianus; however, he appears to have survived to become proconsul of Asia under Vespasian. see also: legions; Vitellius, rise to power Reference works: PIR2 A 938; CIL 6:2039, 2040, 2041, 2042, 2044; ILS 8817 REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

APPIUS APPIANUS, see VITELLIUS, QUINTUS

APPULEIA VARILLA BRAM L. H. TEN BERGE

Hope College

Appuleia Varilla was daughter of Sextus Appuleius (consul 29 Bce), sister of Sextus Appuleius (consul 14 CE), granddaughter of Octavia (1), sister of Augustus. Appuleia’s single appearance in Tacitus comes at A. 2.50, in the year 17 CE, as part of the ongoing narrative about the development of maiestas (treason law) under the emperor Tiberius. Appuleia was accused by an unknown delator of adultery and treason, the latter for verbal injury against the defied Augustus, Tiberius, and the latter’s mother Livia Augusta. In fact, the

c01_Vol1.indd 83

83

informer tried to subsume three separate rubrics of the law under a single charge of treason: “Verbal injury to a god; verbal injury to the emperor and his mother; and adultery by a connection of the emperor” (Bauman 1974, 77–78). Already under Augustus, adultery involving relatives of the emperor could be construed as treason (Rutledge 2001, 60–61, 87; Seager 2005, 129). Appuleia’s case is an example of the practice, increasingly common under Tiberius, whereby charges of treason were appended to regular charges in order to politicize cases, eliminate rivals, and gain rewards (monetary or other) upon successful prosecution (Rutledge 2001, 56, 87–89). Tiberius, despite the Augustan precedent, ordered the two charges to be judged separately. His proclamation that Appuleia, if she had spoken impiously about Augustus, should be charged with treason reflects a new and sinister application of the treason law, opening the door for future informers (Walker 1952, 60). Tiberius, however, judged that words about himself or his mother should not constitute a charge against anyone. Ultimately, he discarded the treason charge and, following traditional practice, delivered Appuleia to her family for punishment regarding the adultery charge. She was removed 200  miles from Rome, while her adulterer Manlius (only at A. 2.50, otherwise unknown) was sent into exile and forbidden to enter Italy and Africa. Appuleia’s is the first recorded case where charges of adultery and treason were combined (subsequent examples: A. 3.38, 4.42, 4.52, 15.50), and, as far as our evidence allows, she is one of only three women condemned solely for adultery (Rutledge 2001, 61). Tacitus uses the case (which he intimates is only one out of many) to illustrate the maturation of the lex maiestatis, but, as many have pointed out (Rutledge 2001, 61; Walker 1952, 95–96), Tiberius’ clemency belies the historian’s rhetoric. Appuleia’s case stands at the beginning of a longer development in which Tiberius, according to Tacitus, increasingly entertained treason charges and enabled venal and lethal informers. Whether Tacitus’ narrative bears out his position continues to be debated. Reference work: PIR2 A 968

28-04-2023 17:36:43

84

  Appuleius, Sextus

REFERENCES Bauman, Richard. 1974. Impietas in Principem: A Study of Treason against the Roman Emperor with Special Reference to the First Century ad. Munich: Beck. Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. Seager, Robin. 2005. Tiberius. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Walker, Bessie. 1952. The Annals of Tacitus: A Study in the Writing of History. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

APPULEIUS, SEXTUS DOMINIC MACHADO

College of the Holy Cross

Sextus Appuleius (PIR2 962; consul 14 CE) was a consul, who along with his colleague Sextus Pompeius, was in power at the death of Augustus (Vell. Pat. 2.123.2; Suet. Aug. 100.1; Dio Cass. 56.29.2) and at the accession of Tiberius (A. 1.7.2). It is in this latter role that Appuleius appears as an important and somewhat controversial figure in the Annals and Roman imperial history. Appuleius’ father of the same name (consul 29 Bce) held numerous influential positions under his half-uncle Augustus—he served as proconsul of Hispania in 28 Bce and Asia from 23 to 22 Bce, even earning a triumph for exploits in the former. His mother was Quinctilia, the sister of the infamous Quintilius Varus, and he married Fabia Numantina, the daughter of the Paullus Fabius Maximus (consul 11 Bce). Together, Appuleius and Fabia had one son, Sextus, who died before reaching maturity and was mourned as “the last of his family” (ILS 935 = CIL XI 1362: ultimo gentis suae). Aside from some evidence suggesting that Appuleius may have been a member of the Arval Brethren (Scheid 1975), almost nothing is known about his career before his consulship. In fact, very little is known about his time in office prior to the death of Augustus, save for a brief notice in the Res Gestae that mentions that Augustus and Tiberius conducted a census while he was consul

c01_Vol1.indd 84

(Mon. Anc. 8). After Augustus’ death, Tacitus brings Appuleius and his consular colleague, Sextus Pompeius, to the fore. The consuls were the first to swear an oath to Tiberius (A. 1.7.2) and put forth the official proposal to elevate Tiberius to princeps (A. 1.13.4: relationi consulum). The relationship between Appuleius and Tiberius has been the topic of some debate for Tacitean scholars. Traditional readings of Tiberius’ accession have viewed Appuleius and Pompeius as pawns (A. 1.7.1: At Romae ruere in servitium consules) in the emperor’s devious attempts to convince the public of his devotion to libertas amidst his desire for absolute power (A. 1.7.3: Nam Tiberius cuncta per consules incipiebat, tamquam vetere re publica). More recently, Woodman (1998) has argued that the Tacitean Tiberius did not want imperial power and preferred to retire. In Woodman’s analysis, Tacitus’ cuncta per consules, then, reflects not a generalization that proves Tiberius’ duplicity, but a simple gloss on the proposal to make him princeps. As an addendum to Woodman’s analysis, Seager (2002) has suggested that cuncta per consules speaks to a division of labor in the interregnal period before Tiberius’ official accession. According to Seager, Appuleius and Pompeius handled civic duties (cf. A. 1.7.4), while Tiberius took charge of military affairs (cf. A. 1.7.5). see also: Plautius Silvanus Reference works: ILS 935 = CIL XI 1362; PIR2 962 REFERENCES Seager, Robin. 2002. “Tacitus, Annals 1.7.1–5.” Classical Quarterly 52.2: 627–629. Woodman, Anthony J. 1998. Tacitus Reviewed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Schied, John. 1975. Les Frères Arvales. Recruitement et origine sociale sous les empereurs julio-claudiens. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

APRONIA, see PLAUTIUS SILVANUS

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Apronius, Lucius  

APRONIUS CAESIANUS

APRONIUS, LUCIUS

BRAM L. H. TEN BERGE

MICHAEL L. KONIECZNY

85

Hope College

Apronius Caesianus was a military tribune or comes et contubernalis (20 CE), septemvir epulonum (21/22 CE?), praetor (32 CE), and ordinary consul (39 CE). Still a teenager, Caesianus served as military tribune or comes (see Kleijwegt 1992, 134–136) under his father Lucius Apronius, proconsul of Africa (A. 3.21.4). His father sent him against the Numidian deserter Tacfarinas, who, after his failed siege of the fortress of Thala, had maneuvered his way to the coast and occupied a camp. Caesianus waged a successful battle and drove Tacfarinas into the desert (A. 3.21.4). Tiberius rewarded Caesianus, though still a youth, with a priestly office as one of the septemviri epulonum, as the boy himself tells us in a commemorative poem dedicated to Venus and set up in her Sicilian sanctuary on Mt. Eryx (ILS 939 = CIL 10.7257 = CLE 1525). Despite being associated with Sejanus, Caesianus received a praetorship (Cass. Dio 58.19.1 ff.) and later became ordinary consul with the emperor Caligula (Cass. Dio 59.13.2). If Inscr. It. 4.1.52 applies to Caesianus, the emperor Claudius made him a patrician. Caesianus and his father are part of a series of father-son teams serving in the provinces in Book 3 of the Annals (Woodman and Martin 1996, 7 ff.). These teams serve as foils for the relationship between Tiberius and his son Drusus the Younger, who, unlike the other boys, is presented as mainly learning negative lessons from his father. see also: Vipstanus Apronianus Reference works: PIR2 A 972; ILS 939 = CIL 10.7257 = CLE 1525; Inscr. It. 4.1.52? REFERENCES Kleijwegt, Marc. 1992. “PRAETEXTAE POSITAE CAUSA PARITERQUE RESUMPTAE.” Acta Classica 35: 133–141. Woodman, Anthony, and Ronald Martin, eds. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 3. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

c01_Vol1.indd 85

Lucius Apronius, suffect consul in 8 CE, was a military commander and statesman who appears frequently in the first six books of the Annals. Following his consulship, Apronius served with Vibius Postumus (PIR2 V 561) in the Illyrian revolt of 9 CE (Vell. Pat. 2.116.3). In 15 CE he served under Germanicus in Germania and was entrusted with fortifying roads and bridges in support of Germanicus’ incursion against the Chatti (A. 1.56.1). For his service in Germania, Apronius was awarded ornamenta triumphalia (A. 1.72.1). In September of 16 CE Apronius was in Rome for the trial of Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus and sponsored a motion to designate the Ides of September a public holiday in commemoration of Libo’s suicide (A. 2.32.2). From 18 to 20 CE Apronius served as proconsul of Africa, succeeding Marcus Furius Camillus. During the last year of his proconsulship, he directed Roman forces after the renewal of the war with Tacfarinas (A. 3.20–21). Apronius’ command was evidently characterized by extreme severity: when a cohort deserted its commander, Decrius, and retreated before the enemy, he put to death every tenth man in accordance with traditional custom. After this initial setback, Roman forces defeated Tacfarinas’ army at Thala, and Tacfarinas was eventually surrounded and driven into the desert by Apronius’ son, Lucius Apronius Caesianus. For his accomplishments in Africa, Apronius was awarded ornamenta triumphalia for the second time (A. 4.23.1). After his African command, Apronius returned to Rome, where in 22 CE he unsuccessfully petitioned that the Fetial priests be allowed to preside over games held for the health of Livia Augusta (A. 3.64.4); this has led to speculation that Apronius himself may have been a Fetial (see Woodman and Martin 1996, 448–449). In 23 CE he joined Lucius Aelius Lamia in defending Gaius Gracchus (2) against the charge of having rendered assistance to Tacfarinas (A. 4.13.3). Apronius was commander of the armies of lower Germany during the revolt of the Frisii in 28 CE and fought against the insurgents with

28-04-2023 17:36:43

86

  Aquileia

mixed success (A. 4.73). Following a series of unsuccessful attacks, Roman forces were finally relieved by Legion V Alaudae under Cethegus Labeo (PIR2 C 698, known only from Tacitus), but according to Tacitus over 1,000 Romans died in the campaign, which he later refers to as a “disaster” (clades, A. 11.19.1). In addition to his son, Apronius had two daughters, one of whom was married to Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, commander of the armies of upper Germany in 34 CE; it has thus been suggested that Apronius was still legate in lower Germany in the mid-30s (Malloch 2013, 280). His other daughter Apronia died in 24 after being thrown out of a window by her husband, Plautius Silvanus, who committed suicide after his case was brought before Tiberius (A. 4.22). see also: Helvius Rufus; legions Reference work: PIR2 A 971 REFERENCES Malloch, S.J.V., ed. 2013. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J., and R. H. Martin, eds. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

AQUILEIA ANTONINO PITTÀ

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan)

Aquileia was a city in the north east of Italy, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, founded in 181 Bce as a colonia Latina, to provide a bulwark against the incursions of the Gauls (Livy 39.22; 40.34) or the Venetae (cf. Adam 1989). Employed as a base for operations against the Histri, it was augmented in 169 Bce (Livy 43.17). In the first century Bce it became a municipium. During the imperial age, Aquileia was often a residence for the emperor and a strategical key point. It was attacked by Celtic tribes under Augustus; under Marcus Aurelius it was severely damaged by a plague and by the wars against the Marcomani. Although

c01_Vol1.indd 86

Maximinus restored it (CIL V 7989), the city sided against him in the civil war of 238 CE: its siege, started by Maximinus, resulted in a sound failure, and the emperor was killed there by his soldiers. Aquileia endured a siege again in 360, by the troops of Julian, and was among the areas drawn into the conflict between Theodosius and the usurper Maximus (387–388 CE). According to Jord. Get. 221, Aquileia was sacked and razed to the ground by the Huns of Attila, but the whole account looks legendary. In 568 the Lombards occupied the city, putting an end to the history of ancient Aquileia. Aquileia was a nodal point and an outpost of great importance for the transportation of troops and commodities, as it stood at the confluence of the roads connecting overland northern Italy with the Eastern provinces (RE II,1 319.24–30). Caecina Alienus’ strategy planned indeed to reach as soon as possible the Po Valley, so as to block the Via Postumia and prevent the Danuvian troops from coming through Aquileia to rescue Otho. Conversely, the army sent from Rome by Otho tried to reach Aquileia and join there the legions from Moesia and Pannonia but turned about when informed that Caecina’s troops had already invaded the region of Placentia. So they retreated to Bedriacum, where they fought without the expected reinforcements. Even after the defeat, it was believed that Otho could still reverse the outcome of the war by waiting for the eastern legions (H. 2.46). When these legions learned of the death of Otho and the victory of Vitellius, they did not stop their march toward Italy, until they reached Aquileia. Here either they pillaged the city and stirred unrest, according to Suet. Vesp. 6, or, according to the more tendentious account of Tacitus (H. 2.85), mutinied and knocked down the images of Vitellius. Once returned to their quarters in Moesia, they protected themselves by joining the party of Vespasian (it is uncertain whether they were already aware of his proclamation when they first rebelled). Vespasian must have been soon acquainted with the news (Alexandria was easily connected with Aquileia by sea: Cosme 2015, 177) and was determined to take the chance and employ these legions to attack Italy from the East.

28-04-2023 17:36:43

Aquilius Regulus  

87

Actually, in the following phase of the war Aquileia played (successfully, this time) the role that it was intended to play in support of Otho: Antonius Primus crossed the Alps, occupied Aquileia, advanced through Opitergum and Altinum, and thence reached Padua and Verona. Vespasian was going to base the army in Aquileia, when he was informed that Antonius Primus had already gone further (H. 3.6; 3.8).

see also: Iulius Civilis

REFERENCES

Marcus Aquilius Regulus (c. 40 CE–before 106 CE) was a delator active in the reign of Nero and continuing into the time of Domitian. In addition to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Martial are important sources for his life and career. Regulus’ career started when he was quite young, stretching from the reign of Nero into early in Trajan’s reign. Under Nero he prosecuted Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (2), Servius Cornelius Salvidienus Orfitus, Sulpicius Camerinus (Pythicus), and his son; the first three were men of consular status. The prosecutions rendered him very unpopular (H. 4.42), and he was briefly exiled under Nero, returning after his death. In the civil wars of 69 the senator Curtius Montanus tried to prosecute him to bring him down, but Vipstanus Messalla, his half-brother, protected him, as did Licinius Mucianus and Domitian, present when Montanus attacked him in the Senate. Montanus further notes his notorious abuse of the head of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus after he and Galba were assassinated in January of 69. He obtained consular honors and earned a number of priesthoods (which are uncertain) and great wealth, and regime change notwithstanding, his career continued to flourish under the Flavians, at least in the civil courts. Under Domitian he may have achieved consular status, though this is uncertain, and he still remained an active, though more discreet, power at court according to Pliny the Younger, who had a difficult and fraught relationship with him and contemplated prosecution against him for his activities under Nero and Domitian after Domitian’s demise (see Plin. Ep. 1.5, 1.20.14–15, 2.11.22, 2.20, 4.2, 4.7, 6.2).

Adam, Anne Marie. 1989. “Le territoire d’Aquilée avant la foundation de la colonie.” In Aquileia repubblicana e imperiale, 13–30. Udine: Arti Grafiche Friulane. Cosme, Pierre. 2015. L’anno dei quattro imperatori. Palermo: 21 Editore. FURTHER READING Chevallier, Raymond. 1990. Aquilée et la romanisation de l’Europe. Tours: Centre de recherches A. Piganiol, Université de Tours. Cuscito, Giuseppe. 2003. Aquileia dalle origini alla costruzione del ducato longobardo: storia, amministrazione, società (atti della XXXIII Settimana di Studi Aquileiesi, 25–27 aprile 2002). Trieste: Editreg.

AQUILIA, see VARIUIS LIGUR, PUBLIUS

AQUILIUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Aquilius (otherwise unknown) was a centurion of the first rank in Germania in 69 CE. During the Batavian Revolt, he commanded a band of Romans who held the line against a band of Canninefates and Frisii led by Brinno (H. 4.15). Throughout the Histories, Tacitus frequently names soldiers and officers otherwise unknown, with no connections to nobility; the practice seems to underscore the unraveling of Roman social fabric under the strains of civil war and the adjacent Batavian Revolt.

c01_Vol1.indd 87

Reference work: PIR2 A 986

AQUILIUS REGULUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

28-04-2023 17:36:43

88

  Aquinas Colonia

After Domitian, Regulus was still active in the courts, and according to Pliny turned to snooping out legacies. Tacitus (D. 15.1) and Martial (4.16, 5.28, 5.63, 6.38, 6.64) speak highly of his oratorical prowess, but Pliny’s assessment (Ep. 4.7.4) is generally negative, though admits that he was a popular speaker; his orations continued to circulate after his death, and Martinus Capella and Cornelius Fronto give him high praise. He was married to Caepia Procula, daughter (or sister) of Galeo Tetienus Tiberius Caepio Hispo (consul in 102 or 103 and later proconsul of Asia) and had a son whose death, according to Pliny, he took very hard. see also: delators Reference work: PIR2 A 1005 FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 2013. “Drip Feed Invective: Pliny, Self-Fashioning, and the Regulus Letters.” In The Author’s Voice in Classical and Late Antiquity, 207–232. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 192–198.

AQUINAS COLONIA BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

Aquinas Colonia (more commonly referred to in antiquity as Aquinum; modern Aquino; Barrington 44 E3) was a Roman colony in Latium Adeictum, some eighty miles southeast of Rome. Aquinum (per Plin. HN 3.63) was a town located on the Via Latina in a well-watered area in the Liris River valley. It appears in the Antonine Itinerary (303.4) and on the Tabula Peutingeriana. A municipium in the late republic, it was frequently mentioned by Cicero and made a colony during the Second Triumvirate (Lib. Colon. 229). Strabo commented upon its large size (5.3.9). The colony shows evidence of significant constructions (including walls, baths, temples, a theater, and amphitheater) and centuriation. Aquinum plays a minor role in Tacitus, who twice refers to the Colonia Aquinas (H. 1.88; 2.63)

c01_Vol1.indd 88

as the location to which Otho had banished Cornelius Dolablla, an associate of Galba. No other Tacitean references to the town survive. see also: civil wars of 69 CE Reference works: BNP “Aquinum”; PECS “Aquinum”; Barrington 44 E3

AQUITANIA OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

Aquitania was one of the three provinces (along with Gallia Belgica and Gallia Lugdunensis) that had been created by Augustus in Gaul in 27 Bce. It extended from the Pyrenees to the Loire and the Cevennes and was an arbitrary grouping of various peoples that were located south of the Loire (see Strabo 4.177; also Plin., HN 4.108–109). Its capital was Bordeaux (perhaps Saintes?; on this question Le Roux 2010). It was an imperial province, was commanded by a former praetor, and hosted no legions. The province was notably governed by Galba under Tiberius, c. 31–32 CE (Suet. Galb. 6). Gallia Aquitania was governed by Agricola for less than three years under the reign of Vespasian (75–77 CE), before his consulship. In the absence of an inscription, this governorship is known only from Tacitus (Ag. 9). Tacitus stresses the significance of the office, which gave hope of a future consulship (Ag. 9.1: spe consulatus; 9.5: ad spem consulatum), an assertion that perhaps should not be generalized but interpreted in the context of Agricola’s career. The biographer then highlights the qualities that Agricola displayed during his governorship. This portrait of an exemplary general and administrator places him in a republican tradition (Ag. 9.2, facile iusteque agebat would have a Ciceronian connotation) and presents him as a model whose Tacitean work will provide further examples, such as Germanicus (Cogitore 2014). This passage also documents the tasks of the governor of this province, showing in particular the large place of judicial activity. Aquitania is also mentioned in H. 1.76.1, when Tacitus surveys the attitude of the provinces after

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Arabia  

Vitellius proclaimed himself emperor. Aquitania does not respect the oath of fidelity to Otho which the governor Iulius Cordus (suffect consul 71) had made it swear. The context may have been that of a mutiny, but Tacitus says no more. The event provides an opportunity for him to produce a sententia morally connoted on the absence of any sense of loyalty: nusquam fides aut amor; metu ac necessitate huc illuc mutabantur (“nowhere was there loyalty or affection; out of fear or uncertainty men shifted allegiance from side to side”)—a phrase that contributes to the emphasis on the theme of fides in H. 1–3 (Bartera 2019). Tacitus would have had opportunities to cite the province in missing books; for example, Iulius Vindex, who led a revolt against Nero, was from Aquitania. see also: civil wars of 69 CE; provinces Reference works: Barrington 100 F2, 14 F3; 1 C2; 17 B4; RE, II, 1 (1895), 335–337 REFERENCES Bartera, Salvador. 2019. “Flavian Fides in Tacitus’ Histories.” In Fides in Flavian Literature, edited by Antony Augoustakis, Emma Buckley, and Claire Stocks, 255–277. Toronto-Buffalo-London: University of Toronto Press. Cogitore, Isabelle. 2014. “De l’Agricola aux Annales: une préfiguration de Germanicus dans le portrait d’Agricola ?” In Les opera minora et le développement de l’historiographie tacitéenne, edited by Olivier Devillers, 149–162. Pessac: Ausonius Éditions. Le Roux, Patrick. 2010. “Burdigala et l’organisation de la province romaine d’Aquitaine.” Conimbriga 49: 97–118. FURTHER READING Bouet, Alain. 2015. La Gaule Aquitaine. Paris: Picard.

ARABIA NATHANAEL ANDRADE

Binghamton University

Arabia is the term that Greek and Roman authors used for the Arabian Peninsula and various places

c01_Vol1.indd 89

89

in the Levant and Mesopotamia inhabited by Arabians (Arabes, Arabi, Arabioi, and variations). These locations included inner Lebanon, Transjordan, and various parts of Syria and upper Mesopotamia. Starting in 106 CE, it was also the name of a Roman province that incorporated Transjordan and parts of the northern Arabian Peninsula. Greek and Roman authors tend to label any geographic space putatively inhabited by Arabians as Arabia. Since various parts of the Levant and Mesopotamia were settled or frequented by peoples from the Arabian Peninsula who spoke preclassical Arabic dialects, they used the terms Arabian and Arabia to describe them and their territories (MacDonald 2009a, V.1–33, 2009b). The Ituraeans of inner Lebanon were among such peoples. By Tacitus’ lifetime, Arabia was also the name of a province incorporating the former territories of the Nabataean kingdom in Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia, including Hegra (see Nehmé et al. 2008-), though the Romans periodically had aspirations of controlling the entire Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea (Speidel 2007). In Tacitus’ works, Arabians variously inhabit the Arabian Peninsula (A. 6.28.4), Transjordan (H. 5.6.1, with 5.1.2), and the kingdom of Osrhoene in upper Mesopotamia (A. 12.12.2, 12.14.1). Nabataea was the region inhabited by Nabataeans, whose kingdom encompassed modern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia (Barrington 70, G 4–5, 71). While their inscriptions are overwhelmingly in an Aramaic dialect, they also apparently spoke a form of pre-classical Arabic, and Greek and Roman authors conceived of them as Arabians. A host of completed and ongoing excavations at the Nabataeans’ primary palace center of Petra (see Schmid and Mouton 2013) and resulting publications continue to illuminate their world, especially their cultural, commercial, and religious life. So do excavations at other places in Jordan or Saudi Arabia, including ancient Hegra (modern Madain Salih), where many tomb inscriptions have been discovered. Nabataean dynasts governed as early as Alexander the Great’s earliest successors (Diod. Sic. 19.94–100), but kings have mostly been identified only for the late Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods (Wenning 1993). The Nabataeans are notable for their role in Indian Ocean trade,

28-04-2023 17:36:44

90

  Arabia

which involved their overland movements through Arabia and their seaborne activity in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. The kingdom was annexed in 106 CE as the province of Arabia, an event to which Tacitus may refer (A. 2.61.2; though see Potter 1991). While describing a banquet of Nabataean kings attended by Germanicus and Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso in 19 CE, Tacitus (A. 2.57.4) claims that the king and apparently his wife (reges) conferred large coronae (presumably diadems) upon Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, and smaller ones on Piso and Plancina. This triggered Piso to criticize Germanicus, whether due to republican pretensions or jealousy that Germanicus received greater honors (Andrade 2012, 467–468). The king of the Nabataeans in 19 CE was Aretas IV (Wenning 1993, 34–36, 38). Acbarus, king of the Arabs, is mentioned by Tacitus (A. 12.12.2, 12.14.1) as a ruler of Edessa (modern Urfa, Turkey; Barrington 67, G2) and Osrhoene under the emperor Claudius. Because Edessa’s rulers overwhelmingly bore the names of Abgar or Ma‘nu, they are often described as the “Abgarids” in scholarship. The identities and regnal dates of the Abgarids for the periods covered by Tacitus, including “Acbarus,” are conjectural. They are notionally provided by medieval Syriac chroniclers like Ps.-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre and Elias of Nisibis (Luther 1999a, 185–186 and 197, 1999b, 439–440 and 444). According to a famous late antique Edessene tradition with probable roots in the third century CE, a king named Abgar the Black (Ukkama) who lived under Tiberius exchanged letters with Jesus of Nazareth and converted to Christianity (Eusebius, Hist. Ecc. 1.12–13; Syriac Doctrina Addai). However apocryphal it may be, this tradition may refer to Tacitus’ “Acbarus” (Luther 1999a, 187). Before c. 165 CE, the Edessene dynasts were usually Parthian clients. Tacitus in fact describes “Acbarus” as affiliated with a Parthian embassy that met with the Roman governor of Syria at the Euphrates river. After c. 165 CE, the Abgarids became client kings of Rome until being deposed by the emperor Caracalla in 213, though a final Abgarid ruled briefly c. 240. Abgar VIII is particularly notable for a long and prosperous reign (177–212) in which Syriac Christian philosophers like Bardaisan flourished.

c01_Vol1.indd 90

see also: Parthia Reference work: Barrington 67–71, 89 REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING Andrade, Nathanael. 2012. “Seducing Autocracy: Tacitus and the Dynasts of the Near East.” American Journal of Philology 133.3: 441–475. Fisher, Greg. 2015. Arabs and Empires before Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Luther, Andreas. 1999a. “Elias von Nisibis und die Chronologie der edessenischen Konige.” Klio 81.1: 180–198. Luther, Andreas. 1999b. “Die ersten Könige von Osrhoene.” Klio 81.2: 437–454. MacDonald, M. C. A. 2009a. Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia. Ashgate: Variorum. MacDonald, M. C. A. 2009b. “Arabs, Arabias, and Arabic before Late Antiquity.” Topoi 16: 277–332. Nehmé, Laila et al. 2008-. Reports on the Excavation Season of the Madâin Sâlih Archaeological Project. Riyadh: Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. Schmid, Stephen, and Michel Mouton. 2013. Men on the Rocks: The Formation of Urban Petra. Berlin: Logos. Potter, David. 1991. “The Inscriptions on the Bronze Herakles from Mesene: Vologeses IV’s War with Rome and the Date of Tacitus’ Annales.” Zeitschrift für Papryologie und Epigraphik 88: 277–290. Ross, Steven. 2001. Roman Edessa: Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire. London: Routledge. Speidel, Michael. 2007. “Ausserhalb des Reiches? Zu neuen römischen Inschriften aus Saudi Arabien und zur Ausdehnung der römishen Herrschaft am Roten Meer.” Zeitschrift für Papryologie und Epigraphik 163: 296–306. Wenning, Robert. 1993. “Eine neuerstellte Liste der nabatäischen Dynastie.” Boreas 16: 25–38.

ARAR, see RHODANUS ARAVISCI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST ARAXES, see ARMENIA ARCHELAUS (1), see CAPPADOCIA ARCHELAUS (2), see CAPPADOCIA ARDUENNA, see TREVERI ARGIUS, see GALBA ARGOLICUS, see POMPEIA MACRINA ARII, see DAHAE

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Aristonicus  

91

ARIMINUM

ARISTOBULUS

VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

LÁSZLÓ TAKÁCS

University of Florida

Pázmány Péter Catholic University

Ariminum (modern Rimini) was a city on the Adriatic Sea. Umbrian in origin, it was founded as a colony in 268 Bce (Eutr. 2.16; Vell. Pat. 1.14.7), at the mouth of the river of the same name, and south of the river Rubicon. The Via Flaminia, constructed in 220 Bce, connected Ariminum to Rome. The later Via Aemilia, completed in 187 Bce, began at Ariminum and ran north to Placentia. As a result, Ariminum was a strategically important junction. Around the end of October in 69 CE, Fabius Valens asked Vitellius for reinforcements; he sent three cohorts with some cavalry from Britannia, a force too small and of uncertain loyalty. Valens sent them to Ariminum, presumably to block the road to Rome and to protect against any advancing Flavians or disloyal Vitellians, while he proceeded with a smaller band westward into Etruria with a plan to seize a ship and make a move on Gallia Narbonensis (see Gaul) to rekindle hostilities (H. 3.41). In the absence of Valens, the garrison at Ariminum offered little resistance to the Flavian general Cornelius Fuscus, who was able to take the town (H. 3.42), using forces gained from the proFlavian rebellion at nearby Ravenna, thirty-five miles to the north.

Aristobulus was a son of Herod of Chalcis and his first wife Mariamne. He was probably the King of Armenia Minor in 55 CE who was confirmed by Nero. Between 57 and 92, Aristobulus was the King of Chalcis. He is mentioned at A. 13.7 and A. 14.26. Aristobulus’ father and mother were grandchildren of Herod the Great. Aristobulus’ wife was Salome, the widow of Philip the Tetrarch. Herod of Chalcis died in 48, but Aristobulus first became the ruler of Armenia Minor thanks to Nero, and between 58 and 63 he and his troops fought in the Roman-Parthian War.

see also: civil wars of 69 CE; Roman roads; Vitellius, rise to power Reference work: Barrington 40 D4; 1 F2 FURTHER READING Chevallier, Raymond. 1969. “Contribution à l’histoire des antiquités de Rimini.” Studi Romagnoli 20: 481–497. Donati, Angela. 1981. Rimini antica. Il lapidario romano. Rimini: Musei Guide 1.

ARIOBARZANES, see ARMENIA ARIOVISTUS, see SUEBI

c01_Vol1.indd 91

see also: Domitius Corbulo; Parthia Reference work: PIR2 A 1052 FURTHER READING Kennedy, D. 1983. “C. Velius Rufus.” Britannia 14: 183–196. Kindler, Roger. A. 1971. “A Coin of Herod Philip—The Earliest Portrait of a Herodian Ruler.” Israel Exploration Journal 21.2/3: 161–163.

ARISTONICUS LEE E. PATTERSON

Eastern Illinois University

Aristonicus claimed to be the son of Eumenes II of Pergamum and was a contender for the throne of that kingdom, especially after the death of Attalus III, who bequeathed the realm to Rome in 133 Bce. Initially the Romans were occupied with other matters, leaving Aristonicus free to lead a revolt that enveloped much of western Asia Minor. Only after vigorous resistance by various Greek cities and the kings of Bithynia Pontus, Cappadocia, and Paphlagonia threatened to destabilize Rome’s Aegean frontier did it send its

28-04-2023 17:36:44

92

  Armenia

initial forces to neutralize Aristonicus. The effort proved more difficult than anticipated as Aristonicus defeated the consular army of Publius Crassus Mucianus in 130. Later that year, a new army under Marcus Perperna defeated and captured the Pergamene pretender. In general, the cities and kings who had opposed Aristonicus, whatever their initial motivations, joined the Roman cause, which eventually led to the transformation of Pergamum into the Roman province of Asia (for sources and analysis see Gruen 1984, 595–603; Kallet-Marx 1995, 99–109). Tacitus mentions Aristonicus only twice, in similar circumstances: certain eastern cities seek the Senate’s favor and remind it of their assistance in the defeat of Rome’s past enemies, including Aristonicus. The first reference comes in Tacitus’ account of the competition of eleven cities in Asia Minor to be chosen as the location of a new temple to Tiberius, Livia Augusta, and the Senate in 26 (A. 4.55.1). In the second, Byzantium seeks relief of its heavy tax-burden in 53, listing for the Senate centuries of services rendered to the Roman state (A. 12.62). see also: Hierocaesaria; memory; Perseus; Roman Republic REFERENCES Gruen, Erich S. 1984. The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kallet-Marx, Robert. 1995. Hegemony to Empire: The Development of the Roman Imperium in the East from 148 to 62 bc. Berkeley: University of California Press.

ARMENIA LEE E. PATTERSON

Eastern Illinois University

Armenia, or more properly Greater Armenia, was a mountainous country east of Anatolia that tended to oscillate between the Roman and Arsacid political orbits (see Arsacid dynasty).

c01_Vol1.indd 92

Its location at the north end of the RomanArsacid frontier afforded such a significant strategic advantage to whoever controlled it that it became a major casus belli for the superpowers, informing much of the Julio-Claudian frontier politics that animates Tacitus’ pages. The usual pattern was for Armenia to be ruled by a vassal king loyal to one side or the other. This state of affairs goes back to the Romans’ first occupation of Armenia in 69 Bce by Lucius Licinius Lucullus during the third war against Mithridates Eupator. The resolution of that war, brought about by Pompey the Great a few years later, saw Tigranes II become a vassal of the Romans—that is, he was expected to help manage, secure, and keep stable Rome’s eastern frontier, an expectation of all eastern allies into the Julio-Claudian period and beyond. In addition to Armenia Minor, Sophene (Barrington 89 B2; see Sohaemus of Sophene), and other places, many Armenian speakers lived in the vast plateau that made up the bulk of Greater Armenia. This mountainous region is known for its extremes in climate. The winters are especially harsh, imposing significant limits on the amount of time available for military campaigns. The sources of the Euphrates and Tigris (see Mesopotamia) can be found here, and the river Araxes traverses the plateau, joining the river Cyrus before emptying into the Caspian Sea. While not heavily urbanized, two significant cities were the capital Artaxata in the north, in the Araxes valley, and Tigranocerta in the south. Even when politically aligned with Rome, Armenia shared more cultural affinity with the Persian world, as seen in the practice of Zoroastrianism and in the relations of king and nobility (Garsoïan 1985, 14–35). The mountainous topography of the plateau meant more autonomy for the noble houses, on whom the king relied for much of his military force. In return the king conferred upon them privileges and status, through which they exercised political influence. This dynamic, while not well understood by Tacitus and other classical writers, informs the history that they record.

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Armenia  

THE LAST ARTAXIADS OF ARMENIA Tacitus’ first foray into Armenian history consists of a series of highlights drawn as part of an overview of eastern affairs leading up to the reign of Tiberius (A. 2.1–4). This is a poorly documented era, on which Tacitus’ tantalizing glimpses shed only scant light, when Armenia was limping out of the Artaxiad period (see Artaxiad dynasty), named for the dynasty that had earlier presided over its political apogee, specifically Tigranes II’s vast if ephemeral empire. That earlier era does not come under Tacitus’ scrutiny, who conveys instead an Armenia racked by internal dissension and external pressures, making it a suitable arena for the troubled Roman-Arsacid relations to play out. In his view, this instability began when Mark Antony removed from power Artavasdes II (r. c. 55–34 Bce), son of Tigranes II, leading the king’s son Artaxias II (ruled 30–20 Bce) to turn to the Arsacids for support. Artaxias in turn was murdered by his “relatives,” probably high-ranking nobles who were part of the extensive Artaxiad network of kinship (A. 2.3.1–2; cf. Plut. Ant. 50.4; Cass. Dio 49.39.4–5, 54.9.4; Aug. RG 27). In response Augustus sent Artaxias’ brother Tigranes III (ruled 20–6 Bce) to Armenia to bring it back into the Roman orbit. His death marks the beginning of a truly opaque period, for which Tacitus provides little help. He notes Tigranes’ children without naming them: these are Tigranes IV and Erato, simultaneously brother and sister and husband and wife (A. 2.3.2; Cass. Dio 55.9.4; Zonar. 10.35). Numismatic and other evidence suggests that each reigned in two phases (Kovacs 2016, 28–29), and amidst those was King Artavasdes III (A. 2.4.1), likely another Artaxiad and described by Dio as a “rival” to Tigranes IV (55.10.20). In this period as well comes a Median named Ariobarzanes, enthroned by Augustus’ grandson and heir Caligula (A. 2.4.2; Cass. Dio 55.10a.5–7; Aug. RG 27). In 4 CE he was followed by his son Artavasdes IV, but the anti-Roman nobles killed him in short order (Cass. Dio 55.10a.7; Aug. RG 27). According to Tacitus Erato resumed her position as queen, but Augustus claimed to have

c01_Vol1.indd 93

93

assigned the throne to Tigranes V, a scion of the Artaxiad house (A. 2.4.4; Aug. RG 27). In fact, he seems to have been descended from Herod the Great of Iudaea and Archelaus of Cappadocia (Joseph. AJ 18.139, BJ 2.222). Scholarship based on now outdated numismatic data has generally regarded Tigranes V and Erato as co-rulers, but newer evidence makes this most unlikely. The chronology is uncertain, but Erato appears to have been the last Artaxiad to rule Armenia. Taking advantage of the vacuum in Armenia was Vonones, the first Arsacid to rule there. Formerly Great King of the Parthian realm (see Parthia), Vonones was forced to flee by his rival Artabanus II (A. 2.3.1). The Armenians had no great liking for him either, and Tiberius saw no need to go to war with Artabanus over him. Thus, Vonones fled to Roman territory around 15 (A. 2.4.3, Joseph. AJ 18.50–52), and Tiberius put his nephew Germanicus in charge of resolving the crisis. The result was the installation in 18 of Artaxias III (ruled 18–34), who proved agreeable to all parties. Originally named Zeno, whose parentage lay in Pontus (see Bythinia Pontus), he nonetheless appealed to the Armenians because he readily embraced their lifestyle, having been raised on Armenian “institutions and culture” since childhood (A. 2.56.2–3). Afterward, the reign of Artaxias generally slips off the radar of our sources because of its lack of drama (see Artaxiad dynasty).

THE IBERIAN INTERLUDE The transition to the next kings, not surprisingly, is another matter, as once again the intervention of the superpowers shaped the narrative of events. Upon Artaxias’ death in 34 (with no heir), Artabanus felt it important to preserve a proArsacid Armenia. On this occasion he appointed his son Arsaces as the new king (r. 34–35). Tacitus suggests that Artabanus had adopted a hostile demeanor toward the Romans by this time and, to complete the characterization, offers the topos that Artabanus threatened to invade all territories once held by the Achaemenids and the Macedonians

28-04-2023 17:36:44

94

  Armenia

(A. 6.31.2; cf. Cass. Dio 58.26.1). To blunt the Arsacids, Tiberius sought a new king from Armenia’s northern neighbor Iberia (called Hiberia by Tacitus). Its king Pharasmanes I was happy to extend Iberian influence southward, though this meant reconciling with his brother Mithridates Hiberus, whom Tiberius had chosen as Rome’s new vassal. Pharasmanes invaded while elements of the Armenian nobility were induced to poison Arsaces. He then overcame another son of Artabanus, Orodes, and secured Armenia (A. 6.32.3–35.2; Cass. Dio 58.26.3–4; Joseph. AJ 18.97–98). The reign of the Iberian Mithridates (r. 35–51) had a bumpy start as Caligula, for reasons difficult to discern, removed him and allowed Armenia to become vulnerable to Arsacid interference once again (A. 11.8.1; Cass. Dio 60.8.1; cf. Sen. Tranq. 11.12). Armenia’s dominions diminished, as shown for instance by Artabanus’ grant of the city of Nisibis and its environs, formerly Armenian possessions according to Josephus, to Izates of Adiabene (Joseph. AJ 20.68). Thus, when Caligula’s successor Claudius reinstated Mithridates, probably in 42, he was forced to wrest control of Armenia back from the Arsacids. Roman soldiers were therefore on the Armenian plateau once again, working in conjunction with Iberian forces to remove Demonax, a governor installed by the Arsacids (A. 11.8.1, 11.9.1). Mithridates, however, proved a difficult quantity for the Romans to manage. His cruel despotism engendered the hatred of the Armenians and required a Roman garrison at Gorneae, not far from the capital Artaxata (A. 11.9.1, 12.45.2). But the violent end that Mithridates suffered in 51 came not from his Armenian subjects but rather from his nephew Radamistus, whose ambitions his father Pharasmanes sought to redirect to Armenia at Mithridates’ expense. In an elaborate plot the young prince drove Mithridates to Gorneae, where a prefect, Caelius Pollio, commanded the garrison. This Pollio forced Mithridates to surrender himself to Radamistus, who then had him killed (A. 12.44–47). The Roman reaction to Radamistus’ short reign (51–c. 54), at least as conveyed by Tacitus, seems largely out of step with previous policy. This section of

c01_Vol1.indd 94

Annals Book 12 focuses on the governors and officials who failed in their duty to preserve a proRoman Armenia, with Claudius conspicuously absent in the narrative. Pollio’s betrayal of Mithridates prompted a meager response from Ummidius Quadratus, governor of Syria, followed by a flaccid military effort by Iulius Paelignus and later by Helvidius Priscus (A. 12.48–49). Lying behind this picture is Tacitus’ implied criticism of Claudius and his court (see Keitel 1978).

NERO’S ARMENIAN WAR In the end the removal of Radamistus came at the hands not of the western power but of the eastern. The upheavals of the Arsacid world that followed Artabanus’ death were largely ended with the accession around 51 of the formidable Vologaeses I, who sought to achieve internal stability in the Arsacid state and a resumption of hegemonic superiority. This goal partially required bringing Armenia back into the fold, and so Vologaeses invaded Armenia, where he attempted to place his brother Tiridates on the throne (Joseph. AJ 20.74). Removing Radamistus was not hard because the Armenian nobles hated him as much as his uncle. But adverse conditions forced the Parthians to withdraw, allowing the Iberian to return. Tacitus waxes dramatic as tells of Radamistus’ failed attempt to remain king, his flight with his pregnant wife Zenobia (whom he stabbed to prevent her capture), and her survival and eventual delivery to Artaxata, where Tiridates, now firmly established as king, treated her well (A. 12.50–51, 13.6.1). From Rome’s point of view, an Arsacid on the Armenian throne was unacceptable, and the crisis flared up just as the teenaged Nero became emperor. In response he dispatched one of his best generals, Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, one of the key figures in Tacitus’ account of Armenian affairs. After a period of establishing supply lines and training the Roman legions in Syria, Corbulo most likely engaged in active campaigning already in 57 (according to the persuasive chronological reconstruction of Wheeler 1997) (A. 13.34–37). Tacitus suggests some preliminary but ultimately

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Armenia  

abortive negotiations, whereby Corbulo offered the throne to Tiridates if he would petition Nero for it (A. 13.37.4–39.1). This agreement would come to pass in 63, but there is some doubt that such terms were being discussed already in 57. In 58 Corbulo traveled up the Araxes valley, where Tiridates tried in vain to prevent him from reaching Artaxata. Afterward, Tiridates fled to Media Atropatene, where his brother Pacorus II ruled. Later that year Corbulo also took Tigranocerta (A. 13.39.6–41.2, 14.23–24; Cass. Dio 62.19.4–20.1). With Armenia now firmly back in Roman hands, Nero attempted a return to the Augustan policy of vassal kingship and thus dispatched a nephew of Tigranes V to become Armenia’s next king, Tigranes VI (r. 59–61). Originally from Cappadocia, Tigranes, who had spent most of his life as a hostage in Rome, met with a mixed reception: some Armenians were still partisans of the Arsacids, even if many of the nobles regarded Arsacid rule as heavy-handed. Such was the Romans’ commitment to this figure that they supported him with a sizable garrison (A. 14.26). As it turned out, Tigranes proved a bad investment as he invaded, probably in 60, the neighboring region of Adiabene. The Arsacid response was swift as Vologaeses dispatched his general Monaeses. The latter drove Tigranes back to Armenia and besieged him in Tigranocerta while Vologaeses himself mobilized forces on the Euphrates frontier. Now governor of Syria, Corbulo matched these moves and sent two legions to Armenia. But both sides seemed wary of a full-scale engagement at this point and opened new negotiations. Corbulo dispatched his agent to Nisibis, Vologaeses’ headquarters, and convinced the Arsacid king to stand down in exchange for a renewed consideration of Tiridates’ petition (A. 15.1–5; Cass. Dio 62.20.2–4). The embassy Vologaeses sent to Rome most likely traveled by land, in accordance with the Zoroastrian tenet of keeping clear of water, which was sacred, to avoid its contamination, requiring several months each way. But the delegation returned to Nisibis in 61 empty-handed. Nero had rejected the latest diplomatic offer and instead dispatched a new general, Caesennius Paetus, who Tacitus says arrived at his province of Cappadocia-Galatia around the same time as the

c01_Vol1.indd 95

95

return of Vologaeses’ embassy to Nisibis. Paetus then promptly announced his plan to annex Armenia as a Roman province (A. 15.6.4–7.1). Some scholars have disputed the historicity of this proclamation, in part by suggesting that Tacitus was casting Paetus in a bad light in an implied criticism of Trajan, who in Tacitus’ lifetime did annex Armenia, and conversely was signaling his approval of Corbulo’s more cautious and conciliatory solution (see further Vervaet 2002, 303–306). But Nero’s continued rejection of Tiridates and his abandonment of Tigranes suggest that his plans for annexation are genuine, whatever Tacitus’ literary affectations. Paetus’ invasion of Armenia commenced in autumn 61, but it was hastily arranged, with inadequate provisioning. While securing his wife and son in the fortress at Arsamosata, Paetus spread his forces across the plateau. Vologaeses, leading his army in person, took advantage of Paetus’ mistakes and ultimately forced his surrender at Rhandeia. There Paetus agreed to withdraw Roman forces from Armenia and perhaps even, according to Dio, affirmed Tiridates as king (A. 15.8–16; Cass. Dio 62.21.2). A new round of diplomacy followed as Vologaeses sent another delegation to Rome, with a letter for Nero, and through this exchange Nero learned that Paetus’ previous field reports had misrepresented the realities on the ground. Now, Tacitus says, is when Nero discovered that Armenia was completely devoid of Roman troops. His outward posture was thus unchanged: Corbulo was once again to resolve the matter by force (A. 15.24.1–25.2). But Tacitus further notes a curious incongruity in Nero’s response to Vologaeses’ diplomacy: the emperor left the door open for Tiridates’ reinstatement as long as he petitioned Nero for it in person. So while Corbulo raised the largest army yet and weeded out some of the Armenian nobles who had opposed the Romans before, he was receptive to Arsacid overtures of peace. Thus, in 63, Corbulo and Tiridates met at Rhandeia, the site of Paetus’ defeat (Tacitus suggests that this choice of location highlighted Corbulo’s prestige at Paetus’ expense), and the Arsacid duly laid his crown before an effigy of Nero, agreeing to receive it back only by the hand of Nero himself in Rome (A. 15.25.3–29.3; Cass. Dio 62.22.3–23.4).

28-04-2023 17:36:44

96

  Arminius

This arrangement was formally ratified in Rome in 66, an event not to be found in the surviving portion of the Annals. After spending nine months traveling by land, Tiridates finally received back his crown from Nero as part of an enormously extravagant celebration. Nero followed by closing the doors of the Temple of Janus, a highly symbolic event that formally signaled a new era of peace. Afterward Tiridates returned to Armenia and, with Roman funds and permission, rebuilt Artaxata (Cass. Dio 63.1.2–5.4; Suet. Ner. 13.1–2). With the king of Armenia now a member of the Arsacid family but still a vassal of Rome, charged with protecting and furthering Roman interests, the Treaty of Rhandeia, as it is known, represented a compromise that satisfied both sides and brought relative stability to the Roman-Arsacid frontier for the next fifty years. Reference work: Barrington 89 C1 REFERENCES Garsoïan, N. G. 1985. “Prolegomena to a Study of the Iranian Elements in Arsacid Armenia.” In Armenia between Byzantium and the Sasanians, X, 1–46. London: Variorum. Keitel, E. 1978. “The Role of Parthia and Armenia in Tacitus Annals 11 and 12.” American Journal of Philology 99.4: 462–473. Kovacs, F. L. 2016. Armenian Coinage in the Classical Period. Classical Numismatic Studies 10. Lancaster: Classical Numismatic Group. Vervaet, F. J. 2002. “Caesennius Sospes, the Neronian Wars in Armenia and Tacitus’ View on the Problem of Roman Foreign Policy in the East: A Reassessment.” Mediterraneo Antico 5.1: 283–318. Wheeler, E. L. 1997. “The Chronology of Corbulo in Armenia.” Klio 79: 383–397. FURTHER READING Chaumont, M.-L. 1976. “L’Arménie entre Rome et l’Iran. I. De l’avènement d’Auguste à l’avènement de Dioclétien.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, edited by H. Temporini, 71–194. II.9.1. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. Garsoïan, N. G. 2004. “The Aršakuni Dynasty (A.D. 12–428).” In The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, edited by R. Hovannisian, 63–94. Vol. 1. New York: St. Martin’s.

c01_Vol1.indd 96

Gilmartin, K. 1973. “Corbulo’s Campaigns in the East: An Analysis of Tacitus’ Account.” Historia 22.4: 583–626. Heil, M. 1997. Die orientalische Außenpolitik des Kaisers Nero. Munich: Tuduv-Verlagsgesellschaft.

ARMINIUS HERBERT W. BENARIO

Emory University

Arminius was born about 19/18 Bce; his father was Segimerus, his paternal uncle Inguiomerus, his brother Flavus (1), who chose to serve Rome rather than his native people. From Arminius’ earliest years he displayed opposition to the presence of the Romans on German soil, and when about twenty years old he was a go-between for his tribe and the Romans. Indeed, he became a Roman citizen, spoke fluent Latin, and had equestrian rank. He evidently wanted the Romans to trust and rely on him in all military aspects, until he could find—or plan—an opportunity for ambushing the Romans. Under his leadership such a chance came when he was able to turn three Roman legions into the Teutoburg Forest. This proved to be one of the greatest defeats in Rome’s history; in subsequent years he ranked with Hannibal as Rome’s greatest military opponent. His steady planning had borne fruit, and the Roman defeat in the Teutoburg Forest gave him immortality. His last years were successful and disastrous. In the year 9 CE, Arminius had the success for which he had so long striven. But his standing among his tribesmen was not unchallenged. His greatest rival was Segestes who believed that the tribe would flourish as an ally of Rome. Segestes had a daughter, Thusnelda, whom Arminius married and who bore him a son, Thumelicus. Arminius never saw his wife or child in the last years of his life. Opposition among his fellow tribesmen was not all he had to face. Tacitus reports (A. 2.88) that a chieftain of the Chatti, Adgandestrius, proposed to kill Arminius if the Romans would furnish the poison. Tiberius rejected this proposal, claiming that Rome took vengeance upon

28-04-2023 17:36:44

army  

her enemies openly and by warfare, not by secret and treacherous means. Tiberius thereby gained significant glory. Ultimately, Arminius fell by treachery. Tacitus calls him liberator haud dubie Germaniae, “by all means the liberator of Germany” (A. 2.88). Arminius died at age thirtyseven; he had been in power for twelve; and he is still remembered in the annals of Germany for some two millennia later. In 1952–1953, I was in the US Army, based in Kassel, assigned to Military Intelligence. One day in the autumn of 1952 I drove to the town of Detmold, the site of the great statue honoring Arminius (Hermann, “a Military Man”), das Hermannsdenkmal, which depicts him with sword raised. At that time the statue was being repaired for damage during the war and general wear and tear, such as rust. The sword was on the ground, and I could read the slogans on each side, Deutsche Einigkeit meine Stärke, Meine Stärke Deutschlands Macht, “German unity is my strength, my strength is Germany’s might.” The statue was constructed in the nineteenth century, and it addressed the gradual unification of the German states, until the German empire was declared in 1875. see also: Quintilius Varus; Teutoburg Forest FURTHER READING Wiegels, Rainer, and Winfried Woesler, eds. 1995. Arminius und die Varusschlacht. Geschichte – Mythos -Literatur. Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, Zürich. Winkler, Martin M. 2016. Arminius the Liberator: Myth and Ideology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ARMY BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

Mommsen’s famous, frequently cited, and critiqued suggestion that Tacitus was the most “unmilitary of writers” can be set aside. While Tacitus’ battle descriptions may sometimes suffer

c01_Vol1.indd 97

97

from embellishment (Ash 1999) or bedeviling details (Morgan 2005), he does nevertheless repeatedly emphasize the army and its roles throughout his major historical works, the Annals, Histories, and Agricola. To begin, Tacitus offers compelling summaries of Rome’s military commitments and capabilities. Indeed, in the Annals, he even confesses a historian’s responsibility to describe Rome’s military forces (A. 4.4–5): eight legions along the Rhine, three in the Spanish provinces, two each in Africa and Egypt, four more in the east (Syria up to the Euphrates), two more in Pannonia, and the same number in Moesia and Dalmatia. Three urban and nine praetorian cohorts guarded Rome itself. Other areas (Mauretania, Iberia, Albania, Thrace) were safeguarded by allied kings. Major fleets stationed at Misenum and Ravenna and a squadron of ships at Forum Iulium in Gaul protected the Mediterranean. At convenient locations in the provinces there were allied ships, cavalry units, and infantry cohorts. These forces, Tacitus noted, tended to be transferred around the empire as needed, so claiming any more specific location was impossible (A. 4.5). Similarly, in his Histories, Tacitus describes the geographic and moral disposition of Rome’s armies at the beginning of 69 CE, the tumultuous year of the four emperors. This report reflects the expansion of Roman territory since Tiberius’ reign and the contemporary geopolitical situation. With Galba installed as emperor, the city of Rome was guarded by urban soldiers (H. 1.5), a Spanish legion (H. 1.6), a legion previously enrolled by Nero from the fleet at Misenum (H. 1.6), and various contingents from Germania, Britannia, and Illyricum (H. 1.6). This “unusual army” (exercitus insolitus) was a powder keg for revolution (H. 1.6). Agitation and anger, pride and fear fueled the German armies (H. 1.8). The army of Britannia, meanwhile, remained unperturbed and focused on Rome’s external enemies (H. 1.9). In Illyricum, the soldiers were likewise quiet (H. 1.9). Rome’s eastern forces—four legions in Syria, three in Judaea—remained calm (immotus, H. 1.10), at least at the very start of the year. Tacitus also mentions military forces in Egypt, legions in Africa, and troops in the two Mauretanias, Raetia,

28-04-2023 17:36:44

98

  army

Noricum, Thrace, and elsewhere, all of whom took their insurgent cues from the nearest and most powerful neighboring armies (H. 1.11). While Tacitus may justifiably be accused of sometimes being “far from helpful” (Syme 1958, 161) with regard to the whereabouts of one unit or another, these two tours of empire reveal the historian’s concern with relating the size and scope of Rome’s armies (see further Saddington 1991, 3486–3488). An element of style rather than purposeful obfuscation, Tacitus describes these military forces with various and inconsistent terminology (see further Saddington 1991, 3494–3496). He often exchanges synonyms or metonyms for armies or soldiers and relies upon regional and corporate descriptions, hence “the soldiers of Spain or Syria” (…. Hispaniae Syriaeve miles, A. 1.42) or the “German legions” (…. Legionum Germanicarum, A. 1.46). Legions are sometimes distinguished by their title: I Italica (H. 3.14), I Adiutrix (H. 2.43), IV Macedonica (H. 3.22), VII Claudia (H. 2.85), VII Galbiana (Gemina) (H. 3.7), X Gemina (H 3.7), and XXI Rapax (A 2.43). Across his works, several other legions are numbered but are never granted the titles with which they were distinguished. These include the I Germanica, II Augusta, II Adiutrix, III Cyrenaica, III Gallica, IV Scythica, V Alaudae, V Macedonica, VI Ferrata, VI Victrix, VIII Augusta, IX Hispana, X Fretensis, XI Claudia, XII Fulminata, XIII Gemina, XIV Gemina, XV Apollinaris, XV Primigenia, XVI Gallica, XX Valeria Victrix, XXII Primigenia, and XXII Deiotariana. Of the three legions lost in the Teutoburg Forest, only legion XIX is specifically mentioned (A. 1.60). Tacitus referred to well over a hundred nonlegionary units (urban, auxiliary, and naval forces), a list of which can be found in Saddington (1991, 3550–3553). Auxiliary units are frequently described with an ethnic or regional adjective (Batavian cohorts, Gallic and German auxiliaries). They may also have been distinguished by their unique weapons (species armorum, H. 2.89). Some auxiliary units appear to be named after local commanders, the most notable perhaps being the Silanian cavalry, presumably after Gaius Silius (H. 1.70 and Saddington 1991, 3498). The derivation of the name for others is often less clear, as in the case of the ala Petriana mentioned

c01_Vol1.indd 98

in Histories 1.70 and 4.49, and attested by several inscriptions (e.g., CIL 16, 32; 16, 69). Tacitus also describes special skills developed by certain auxiliary units: the Batavians (H. 4.12) and some auxiliaries from Britannia (Ag. 18) are noted for their ability to swim. Despite Tacitus’ stylistic obscurity, he nevertheless recognized a sort of unit identity centered upon individual legionary histories or (as in the case of auxiliary units) ethnic backgrounds. This identity inevitably sparked rivalries that could both inspire and degrade military cohesiveness (A. 1.18; Saddington 1991, 3495). When mutinies broke out among the lower Rhine and Pannonian legions after the death of Augustus, Tacitus relates that Tiberius defended his decision not to visit either army by claiming the jealousy of whichever army was visited second (A. 1.47; Brice 2020, 48–49). In 61 CE, after the destruction of Boudicca’s revolting forces, the camp prefect of legion II, Poenius Postumius (otherwise unknown), committed suicide. To be sure, he had failed to follow orders, but Tacitus reveals that he was ashamed that he denied his own forces a share in the glory won by legions XIV and XX (A. 14.37). In the east, Licinius Mucianus’ four Syrian legions were eager to join the rebellions of 69 CE, in part because they were aware that neighboring legions (those led by Vespasian in Judaea) had won no shortage of glory in response to the Jewish revolt (H. 2.4). The arrogance (adrogantia) of Vitellian transfers inflamed (flammaverat) those same eastern armies in large part because these soldiers, hardened by service along the Rhine, mocked the eastern armies’ inferiority (imparis inridebant, H. 2.74). A commander’s prebattle harangue offered Tacitus another opportunity to revel in this regimental rivalry. In the preface to the second battle of Bedriacum in 69 CE, Tacitus has Antonius Primus remind legion III that under the command of Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) in 36 Bce they had defeated Parthia, that under Domitius Corbulo in 63 CE they had defeated the Armenians, and that they had just recently defeated the Sarmatians (H. 3.24). In 70 CE, while preparing his army to quell the Rhenish insurgency led by Iulius Civilis, Petilius Cerialis goaded each legion with the appropriate prod (Proprios inde

28-04-2023 17:36:44

army  

stimulos legionibus admovebat … H 5.16): the men of legion XIV were praised as conquerors of Britain, and those of legion VI were reminded that they had made Galba emperor. Not every act of regimental rivalry focused on the choice of emperor. Indeed, Tacitus appears to understand that such rivalry—and notably the shame that could be felt in failure—helped promote the success of the Roman army. So Cerialis reminds the newly enrolled legion II Adiutrix that they were about to bloody their new standards and eagles (H. 5.16). Tacitus suggests the number of soldiers serving in the legionary and auxiliary forces were about equal (A. 4.5). Modern historians estimate the army combined some 300,000 legionary and auxiliary soldiers (Gilliver 2011, 186). Whatever the number, Tacitus twice has Roman enemies admit Rome’s ability to draw upon seemingly unending manpower reserves. Deflated German prisoners marveled at the fact that despite the destruction of the Rhine fleet, and the loss of their arms, men, and horses in a storm in 16 CE, the Romans returned to battle with renewed vigor and, so it seemed, with more troops (A. 2.25). In 70 CE, as the Rhenish insurgency was quickly coming to an end, Civilis’ Batavian allies demanded to know what they had accomplished by the destruction of Roman forces except for the arrival of more and stronger legions (H. 5.25). Both rhetorical statements recall the Pyrrhic trope that the Roman army shared the same properties as the Hydra (App. Sam. 3.10.3; Cass. Dio 9.40.28; Plut. Vit. Pyrrh. 19.5). Mythic analogies aside, maintaining adequate service numbers was a real concern for the Roman emperors and, so it seems, for Tacitus. During the civil war recorded in the surviving books of the Histories, the various imperial contenders regularly (and unsurprisingly) raised emergency levies (1.65, 1.87, 2.16, 2.82, 2.93, 3.50, 4.70, 4.71). But even in the Annals, where war tended to be directed at external enemies, the need to enroll new troops appears common. A group of citysoldiers levied in Rome after the Varian disaster (A. 1.31) were at least partially to blame for the mutiny of 14 CE. Tiberius evidently planned a tour of the provinces in 23 CE because the army suffered from a lack of quality volunteers (A. 4.4).

c01_Vol1.indd 99

99

Of course, Tiberius never went, but the statement introduced Tacitus’ own description of Rome’s forces noted above. In preparation for war with Parthia early in Nero’s reign, Tacitus also describes levies in the eastern provinces (A. 13.7), Galatia and Cappadocia (A. 13.35). In 65 CE, recruitment drives in Gallia Narbonensis, Africa, and Asia were meant to replace veterans discharged in Illyricum (A. 16.13). Tacitus reflects an awareness that such conscription and the failure to maintain adequate service conditions could prove problematic. Pedius Blaesus was expelled from the Senate in 59 CE because he took bribes and succumbed to corruption while performing a levy in Cyrene (A. 14.18). The Caledonian chieftain Calgacus motivated his people prior to the battle of Mons Graupius by comparing the dilectus (levy) to servitude (Ag. 31). Poor service conditions, especially the extension of enlistment, was a notable complaint among the mutinying legions of Germania and Pannonia after the death of Augustus (A. 1.31). Centurions’ extortion of money from regular soldiers wishing to purchase duty exemptions and leave was another major concern (H. 1.46, 1.58). If conditions deteriorated severely, as they did after the death of Nero, Tacitus could be blunt: “Everything was done by the authority of the soldiers” (omnia deinde arbitrio militum acta, H. 1.46). Under such conditions a commander’s attempt to restore discipline became not only a real military problem, but also a historiographical moment of character development for ancient authors like Tacitus (see further Brice 2020). The army’s principal concern was war, and Tacitus’ battle descriptions have engendered no shortage of historical analysis (see, for example, Colombo 2016; Gilliver 1996; Levene 2010; Morgan 2006). Tacitus, on occasion, does refer to tactical formations like the legionary wedge employed against Boudicca in A. 14.37. He also describes the Roman panoply and its tactical advantages. During Germanicus’ 16 CE incursion of Germania, Tacitus explains how German forces were slaughtered by the disciplined Roman soldiers who advanced with “shields pressed against their chests, hands fixed upon their hilts” (scutum pectori adpressum et insidens capulo manus, A. 2.21). Another passage praises

28-04-2023 17:36:44

100

  army

how easily the Romans moved in their armor (H. 1.79). Despite this supposed technological advantage, Tacitus imagines battle as a contest of courage. As he has Suetonius Paulinus note prior to an engagement in Britain, “Even among many legions, it is the few who conquer in battle” (etiam in multis legionibus paucos qui proelia profligarent, A. 14.36). Exemplifying courage could result in a sort of immortality, even if specific details were lost, as is the case of the two Flavian soldiers who—disguised with enemy equipment at the second battle of Bedriacum—sneakily cut the ropes of a Vitellian catapult (H. 3.23). They were immediately killed, and so while their names were lost (intercidere nomina), Tacitus reminds his readers that there was no doubt about their deed (de facto haud ambigitur, H. 3.23). Losses sustained by the army were a rather consistent concern for Tacitus. Despite a surviving fragment saying he thought it best to avoid numbering war losses suffered from a Dacian defeat (Tacitus Hist. Frag. 6; Oros. 7.34), Tacitus elsewhere appears interested in recording such losses (see further Ash 1999, 127–128). In both Agricola (41) and Germania (37) he recalls some of Rome’s more epic failures. In the Annals, he specifies the loss of a prefect, eight centurions, and the most daring of Rome’s soldiers against the Silures (A. 12.38). He also shows notable concern for the treatment (or mistreatment) of Rome’s war dead. He famously describes Germanicus’ discovery of the Teutoburg Forest battlefield where Quintilius Varus had lost three legions. There Germanicus was overwhelmed with a desire to bury the war dead (A. 1.61), an act Tacitus called a gratissimum munus (“dearest duty,” A. 1.62), and yet Tacitus claimed Tiberius disliked Germanicus’ actions (A. 1.62, cf. Pagán 1999). Elsewhere, Tacitus criticized Lucius Apronius (or perhaps Cethegus Laebo) for not burying those that died in an expedition against the Frisians in 28 CE. Tacitus appears all the more disappointed by the failure to offer these formalities because of the ranks of the perished: several tribunes and prefects and some distinguished centurions (A. 4.73). He reminds his readers that Corbulo ordered the son of Caesennius Paetus to bury the remnants of his

c01_Vol1.indd 100

father’s disaster at Rhandeia (A. 15.28). Like battle then, burial, or the failure to bury the war dead, was a moral problem for Tacitus, a fact readily seen in his gruesome narrative of Vitellius’ ignorant gaze across the thousands of dead after the battle of Bedriacum (H. 2.70 and see further Manolaraki 2005). Surviving soldiers and officers might expect rewards. Tacitus regularly records the imparting of triumphal or ovational honors to Rome’s successful commanders: to Germanicus in Germania (A. 1.55), to Caecina Severus, Gaius Silius, and Lucius Apronius in Germania (A. 1.72), to Furius Camillius in Africa (A. 2.52), to Drusus the Younger in Illyricum (A. 3.11), to Sulpicius Quirinius in Cilicia (A. 3.48), to Lucius Calpurnius Piso (“pontifex”) in Thrace (A. 6.10), to Publius Pomponius Secundus in Germania (A. 12.28). Iunius Blaesus became the last private Roman citizen to be awarded the title of Imperator in Africa (A. 3.74). Tacitus even mentioned rewards for common soldiers and reminds his readers of the empire’s ultimate bestower of such honors. When Lucius Apronius awarded Helvius Rufus a necklace and spear for saving a citizen’s life in the war against Tacfarinas, Tiberius added the civic crown, the traditional award for such feats (A. 3.21). Punishments too are described. Most notably, Tacitus records soldiers punished for mutiny as in the famous outbreaks among the Lower Rhine and Pannonian legions in 14 CE (A. 1.21, 1.44). But punishments for cowardice in battle or other failures of discipline also appear. The governor of Syria in 49 CE, Gaius Cassius Longinus (2), was noted for reviving ancient training regimes and discipline (A. 12.12). While commanding listless armies in the east, Domitius Corbulo was equally harsh. Eschewing the expectations of other armies where leniency was offered for first or second offences, Corbulo immediately executed anyone deserting the standards (A. 13.35). Failure to follow orders or to show cowardice resulted in units being forced to sleep outside the safety of the camp (A. 13.36), a traditional punishment found among republican armies (Polyb. 6.38). Only the entreaties (preces) of the entire army allowed them to return to the camp (A. 13.36). The threat or

28-04-2023 17:36:44

army  

rumor of harsh punishments (such as decimation) could even be employed to rile soldiers to revolution, as the armies of Vitellius evidently were (H. 1.51). While war and battle may be the primary concern of the army, soldiers regularly participated in other duties, a symptom of the empire that Tacitus readily records. Soldiers appear as imperial guards and escorts (A. 1.7), as guarding prisoners (A. 4.67, 6.24), as construction workers, especially for camps, roads, bridges, canals, and even an amphitheater (A. 1.20; H. 2.67), as crowd control operatives, especially during civilian events (A. 1.77, 16.27–29), as diplomats (A. 2.65), as funeral coteries (A. 3.2), as ceremonial attendants and participants (15.29; H. 2.89), as messengers or letter carriers (A. 4.41; H. 2.98), as miners or explorers (A. 11.20, 16.3), and as assassins and executioners (A. 1.53; H. 2.85). Tacitus thus reveals both the quotidian tasks of the Roman solider that were vital to the maintenance of the Roman empire and the more nefarious extracurricular services that Sallustius Crispus advised Livia Augusta to keep secret (A. 1.6). For Tacitus, the army or rather the soldiers, could be just like any other mob: prone to sways of passion, corruptible, greedy, and brutal (see Kajanto 1970). While they may have lacked a sort of collective initiative, directed by the right (or wrong) leader, they were a force. Tacitus reinforces their connection to an individual’s imperial power rather than to the state. Indeed, the killing of Caesar’s assassins Brutus and Cassius left the state with no military arms (… nulla iam publica arma …, A. 1.2). So, as Tacitus notes, in the aftermath of Philippi, Rome’s armies came to be consolidated under the authority of a single individual. Augustus either “bound the legions to himself ” (legiones … inter se conexa, A. 1.9) in an act of piety toward his father and the necessities of the state, or, out of a pure desire for power, he “incited veterans with bribes, outfitted a private army while still a youth, [and] seduced the consul’s legions” (… concitos per largitionem veteranos, paratum ab adulescente privato exercitum, corruptas consulis legiones, A. 1.10). In either case, Augustus reformed the army into a private force loyal (in theory) to the princeps alone (Gilliver 2011). Tacitus deftly reminds his reader of this transfer of power when comparing the motives of legionaries from the end of the republic with

c01_Vol1.indd 101

101

those of the Civil War of 69 CE: “The legions of citizens (civium legiones) did not disarm at Pharsalia and Philippi, nor was it likely that Otho’s and Vitellius’ armies (Othonis ac Vitellii exercitus) would set aside war” (H. 2.38). What had been the legions of the res publica had become the army of monarchs and usurpers. see also: empire; ethnicity; praetorian cohorts REFERENCES Ash, R. 1999. “An Exemplary Conflict: Tacitus’ Parthian Battle Narrative (Annals 6.34–35).” Phoenix 53.1/2: 114–135. Brice, L. L. 2020. “Commanders’ Responses to Mutinies in the Roman Army.” In People and Institutions in the Roman Empire: Essays in Memory of Garrett G. Fagan, edited by A. F. Gatzke, L. L. Brice, and M. Trundle, 44–67. Leiden: Brill. Colombo, M. 2016. “La disfatta di Boudicca e la battaglia del mons Graupius: la composizione delle forze romane, il ruolo tattico delle cohortes equitatae e la forza numerica della cohortes miliariae.” Latomus 75: 403–433. Gilliver, C. M. 1996. “Mons Graupius and the Role of Auxiliaries in Battle.” Greece & Rome 43.1: 54–67. Gilliver, K. 2011. “The Augustan Reform and the Structure of the Imperial Army.” In A Companion to the Roman Army, edited by P. Erdkamp, 183–200. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Kajanto, I. 1970. “Tacitus’ Attitudes to War and the Soldier.” Latomus 29: 699–718. Levene, D. S. 2010. “Warfare in the Annals.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 225–238. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Manolaraki, E. 2005. “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Revisiting Bedriacum (Tacitus Histories 2.70).” Classical Philology 100.3: 243–267. Morgan, M. G. 2005. “The Opening Stages in the Battle for Cremona, or the Devil in the Details (Tacitus, Histories 3, 15–18).” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 54.2: 189–209. Morgan, M. G. 2006. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pagán, V. E. 1999. “Beyond Teutoburg: Transgression and Transformation in Tacitus Annales 1.61–1.62.” Classical Philology 94.3: 302–320. Saddington, D. B. 1991. “Tacitus and the Roman Army.” Aufsteig und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II.33.5: 3484–3555. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:44

102

  Arrecinus Clemens

FURTHER READING Campbell, J. B. 1984. The Emperor and the Roman Army, 31 bc–ad 235. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Goldsworthy, A. K. 1996. The Roman Army at War: 100 bc–ad 200. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Haynes, I. P. 2016. Blood of the Provinces: The Roman “Auxilia” and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Southern, P. 2006. The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ARPUS, see CHATTI

ARRECINUS CLEMENS OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne UMR 5607 Ausonius

At H. 4.68.2, while narrating Gallic affairs, Tacitus evokes some measures taken in Rome. He reports that Licinius Mucianus appointed Arrecinus Clemens as praetorian prefect to replace Arrius Varus. Arrecinus was a Flavian relative. His sister Arrecina Tertulla, who died probably before 64 CE, had married Titus (Suet. Tit. 4.2); a second sister (Arrecina Clementina?) possibly married the son of Titus Flavius Sabinus (1). The links between the Flavians and the Arrecini appear in any case to have been close. Thus, the appointment of Arrecinus would have been intended to please Domitian who had been upset by the dismissal of Varus. Moreover, Arrecinus’ father had fulfilled the same office under Caligula; after he had participated in the plot to assassinate Caligula, he was soon replaced by Rufrius Pollio. His name, however, had remained popular among the soldiers—so Mucianus would have argued, according to Tacitus. Indeed, Mucianus had to answer the objection that Arrecinus, as a senator, could not be praetorian prefect, although it was not unprecedented, as illustrated by Sejanus. In fact, the soldiers were especially flattered by the relationship of Arrecinus with the imperial house; it should be noted that Titus, son of the emperor, replaced his relative Arrecinus, and it is possible that by devoting attention to this appointment, Tacitus

c01_Vol1.indd 102

indirectly criticized Domitian, who used to entrust the office to minor men. It is unclear whether Vespasian agreed with this appointment, but at any rate it was only for a short period of time that Arrecinus held the post while Vespasian was alive. Afterward, Arrecinus was suffect consul in 73 CE and 85 CE; governor of Hispania Citerior in 81/82 CE; and he was urban prefect during the reign of Domitian. He was finally condemned by Domitian (Suet. Dom. 11.1), an event that Tacitus surely would have mentioned in the lost part of the Histories. The specific charges against him are unknown. It is possible that the popularity of his family was presented by the historian as having contributed to his downfall. Reference works: PIR2 A 1072; Raepsaet-Charlier 1987, n. 92, stemma XII FURTHER READING Absil, Michel. 1997. Les Préfets du prétoire d’August à Commode. Paris: de Boccard. Jones, Brian W. 1972. “La chute d’Arrecinus Clemens.” Parola del Passato 25: 320–321. Jones, Brian W., and Robert Develin. 1976. “M. Arrecinus Clemens.” Antichthon 10: 79–83. Mennella, Giovanni. 1981. “Ancora sulla carriera di M. Arrecino Clemente.” Athenaeum 59: 205–208. Rucinski, Sebastian. 2003. “Trois préfets de la ville de l’empereur Domitien.” Eos 90: 83–110.

ARRIA (1 AND 2) JACQUELINE CARLON

University of Massachusetts, Boston

Arria (1) was the wife of Aulus Caecina Paetus, suffect consul in 37 CE, and mother of the likenamed Arria (2). Her natal family remains obscure, subject only to speculation. She may have been a close friend of Messalina (Cass. Dio 60.16.5). Her husband was condemned by Claudius in 42 CE for his involvement in an attempted ­rebellion of the seventh and eighth legions in Dalmatia, led by Lucius Arruntius Camillus

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Arrius Varus  

Scribonianus (A. 12.52; H. 1.89, 2.75; Suet. Claud. 13.2; Cass. Dio 60.15). Arria the Elder chose to die with Caecina Paetus in dramatic fashion, first stabbing herself with a dagger, perhaps with the intention to strengthen his resolve, and then handing the blade to her husband and declaring that it did not hurt (Plin. Ep. 3.16.6, 13; Mart. 1.13; Cass. Dio 60.16.6). Arria the Elder’s suicide became a model of wifely devotion and fortitude, enhanced by Pliny the Younger’s account of her earlier acts of selflessness. These included: her determination to protect her ailing husband from the news of their son’s death; her offer to assume the work of the slaves assigned to care for him, when she was not permitted to accompany him back to Rome following his arrest; and her acquisition of a small fishing boat in which she followed him, when her request was refused. Finally, when she was separated from her husband before their deaths, and her son-in-law was trying to persuade her not to die, she threw herself headlong into a wall to prove that she was determined to die by any means available, no matter how difficult (Ep. 3.16.3–12). Arria the Elder’s elevation to near divinity is attested by a tombstone inscription of the early second century CE in which Oppia, the deceased, is commended to her and to Laodamia, who also killed herself to be with her husband. Arria the Younger was apparently related to the satirist Aulus Persius Flaccus, who traveled with her husband (Vit. Pers. 30–31) and who, as a boy, had written verses in honor of her mother (Vit. Pers. 45–47). Arria the Younger was married to Thrasea Paetus, whose Stoic leanings and staunch opposition to the principate led to a charge of treason by Nero and his condemnation in 66 CE. Although she was not entangled in the charge, when her husband was about to take his own life, she desired to follow her mother’s model and accompany him in death, until he urged her not to abandon their daughter by doing so (A. 16.34). Arria the Younger’s daughter was Clodia Fannia. At the time of her father’s suicide, she was already married to Gaius Helvidius Priscus, who suffered exile when Thrasea Paetus was condemned (A. 16.35). The two men clearly shared a commitment to republican values, in which Helvidius would persist upon his return to Rome following the death of Nero (H. 4.7). His repeated

c01_Vol1.indd 103

103

refusal to honor Vespasian’s superior rank earned him a second exile in 74 or 75 CE, which ended with his execution (Suet. Vesp. 15). Following Arria the Elder’s example, Fannia remained with her husband both times he was banished. Nothing is known of Arria the Younger’s life following Thrasea Paetus’ death until 93 CE, when she was caught up in Domitian’s prosecution of several prominent senators: Fannia’s stepson the younger Helvidius (Priscus), Arulenus Rusticus, Iunius Mauricus, and Herennius Senecio (Ag. 2, 25). Also charged were Fannia and Verulana Gratilla (H. 3.69), most likely the wife of Arulenus Rusticus. Three of the four men were executed, while Iunius Mauricus and the three women were exiled (Plin. Ep. 3.11). Fannia and Arria returned from exile in 97 CE and apparently sanctioned Pliny the Younger’s speech attacking Publicius Certus for his role in the death of Helvidius (Ep. 9.13). After Arria the Younger dies, Pliny writes a letter in praise of Fannia that focuses on her unending commitment to her husband, even long after his death (Ep. 7.19). In the same letter, he extols Arria as a model for her daughter and calls both women his dear friends. see also: suicide; women Reference works: PIR2 A 1113, 1114; RaepsaetCharlier 96, 159, 259, 790; CIL 10.5920 FURTHER READING Carlon, Jacqueline. 2009. Pliny’s Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 18–64. Shelton, Jo-Ann. 2013. The Women of Pliny’s Letters. New York: Routledge. 15–55.

ARRIUS ANTONINUS, see MARIUS CELSUS

ARRIUS VARUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Arrius Varus (c. 20 ce–after 81 CE?) played a prominent role as a Flavian general in the civil wars of 69 CE. Early in the reign of Nero he had served under Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, whom

28-04-2023 17:36:44

104

  Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus

he later denounced to the emperor; he was later brought to ruin for his actions against his former commander. An equestrian, Arrius was praefectus cohortis under Corbulo in 54 CE while on campaign in Armenia against the Parthians, where he was put in charge of some hostages from the family of the Arsacids (A. 13.9.3). He earned repute as a man of energy and ability and rose to the rank of primum pilum (probably for a second time as an honorary rank to higher office) under Nero—but not necessarily for his efficiency as a soldier. It was rumored that in 67 Arrius had denounced Corbulo in secret conversations with Nero, something that eventually resulted in Arrius’ destruction (H. 3.6.1). He sided with the Flavians in 69 and accompanied Antonius Primus on his march through Italy. His competence as a soldier deserted him at the second battle of Cremona, where his eagerness to finish off the Vitellians resulted in an embarrassing rout for the unit of cavalry he commanded (though Antonius saved the day, H 3.16.1–3). Arrius acted as second in command in the campaign, and missives were sent both to Antonius and Arrius from Licinius Mucianus during their advance through Italy, reproaching them with their excessive haste to reach the city (H. 3.52.2–3). He is next reported to have crushed the resistance of 400 Vitellian cavalry at Interamna (H. 3.61.2). The proximity of Arrius to Antonius in our sources attests to a man of ambition; he took the initiative during the Italian campaign, along with Antonius, to negotiate with Vitellius concerning abdication and sent letters offering the emperor his life and comfortable retirement in Campania, if he followed through (H. 3.63.2). The passage indicates that Arrius was trying to endear himself to the new regime, although the letters aroused the concern of those around Flavius Sabinus, who worried that the two generals would overshadow Sabinus (H. 3.64.1). After Sabinus’ death and Vitellius’ execution, Arrius was rewarded with the office of praetorian prefect (H. 4.2.1), and voted praetoria insignia by the Senate (H. 4.4.2), though Mucianus promptly divested him of the office, handing it over to Arrecinus Clemens (H. 4.11.1; 4.68.2); as a consolation prize, he put him in charge of

c01_Vol1.indd 104

Rome’s grain supply, appointing him praefectus annonae. Tacitus says Arrius’ relationship with Antonius and Domitian was suspect and that Domitian was sympathetic to Arrius (H. 4.68.2). It also appears that Arrius had to be stripped of his power with care and caused Mucianus some fear; both Arrius and Antonius were popular with the troops and the people, since they had abstained from violence once the fighting stopped. Legion III (Gallica), to which Arrius was well known, was consequently sent back to Syria (H. 4.39.4). Of Arrius’ subsequent career, nothing is known. Tacitus (H. 3.6.1) appears to indicate that Arrius’ rumored denunciation of Corbulo ultimately resulted in his destruction. He is clearly not among the Neronian delators attacked in the extant portion of Tacitus’ Histories. Rohden plausibly conjectures that it could have been Domitia Longina, Corbulo’s daughter and Domitian’s consort, who had a hand in Arrius’ subsequent fall under Domitian. see also: Arsacid dynasty; delators; legions; Parthia Reference works: PIR2 A 1111; RE 2.1258 = Arrius 36 (Rohden). FURTHER READING Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains Julio-Claudiens (43 av. J. C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française. 575–576. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 198–200.

ARRUNTIUS CAMILLUS SCRIBONIANUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus (d. 42 CE) was a Roman senator, active during the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius. He was born Marcus Furius Camillus Scribonianus and belonged to the famous and ancient gens Furia. His homonymous ancestor was a leader in the fourth century Bce and

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Arruntius, Lucius  

considered a hero by the later Romans. His father, Marcus Furius Camillus, consul in 8 CE and proconsul of Africa, defeated Tacfarinas in 17 CE (A. 2.52). Our Furius Camillus was adopted by Lucius Arruntius, (consul 6 CE) and therefore changed his name to Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus according the Roman custom. In 32 CE Scribonianus was consul for the first six months of the year with Gnaeus Domitius Ahenoarbus, father of the future emperor Nero (A. 6.1.1). After Sejanus’ fall, Tiberius became much more suspicious and ruthless against those he felt constituted a threat to his power. One of the most illustrious victims of this period was Scribonianus’ adoptive father Lucius Arruntius. The old senator took his life in 37 CE (A. 6.47.2; 48.1–3). After the assassination of Caligula, Lucius Annius Vinicianus, one of the pretenders to the throne, hatched a plot to obtain power against the ruling emperor Claudius. Vinicianus, who had no military command but had achieved the support of many knights and senators, persuaded Scribonianus, who was at that time governor of Dalmatia and had some legions at disposal, to rebel (Suet. Claud. 13.2; Otho 2.1; Cass. Dio 55.23.4; Epit. de Caes. 4.4; Plin. Ep. 3.16.7–9; Oros. 7.6.6; 7.8.2). Scribonianus was abandoned by his troops as soon as he revealed to them his plans to restore the republic and ancient freedom. Forced to flee, he then found refuge on the island of Issa where he committed suicide soon followed by his companion conspirator (Cass. Dio 60.15.1–4). Claudius caught by panic at the beginning was ready to deliver the empire to Scribonianus. Once he was informed of the legions’ loyalty, he took he control of the situation and rewarded the soldiers (Suet. Claud. 35–36). In the Histories Scribonianus is mentioned as an example of a civil conflict which took place far away from Italy (H. 1.89). Vespasian reflects on the soldiers’ loyalty: what is the use of controlling cohorts and cavalry when the threat can come from a single man longing for reward, like Volaginius, the soldier who murdered Scribonianus, and for that was raised to the highest ranks? (H. 2.75). Ash notes that the name of the otherwise unknown assassin lends verisimilitude to the contradictory story of Scribonianus’ death (suicide, according to Dio; Ash 2007, 289).

c01_Vol1.indd 105

105

Scribonianus’ son, Furius Scribonianus (PIR2 A 1147), had no better luck; in 52 CE he and his mother, Vibia were accused of interrogating the astrologers about the emperor’s death (see astrology). They were sent into exile where the young Camillus died by illness or by poison (A. 12.52.1–2). Reference works: PIR2 A 1140; CIL III 9864 = ILS 5950; X 899= ILS 6395; X 4847 REFERENCE Ash, R. 2007. Tacitus: Histories Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Forsyth, P. Y. 1969. “A Treason Case of A. D. 37.” Phoenix 23: 204–207. McAlindon, D. 1956. “Senatorial Opposition to Claudius and Nero.” American Journal of Philology 77: 113–132. McAlindon, D. 1957. “Claudius and the Senators.” American Journal of Philology 78: 279–286.

ARRUNTIUS, LUCIUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Lucius Arruntius (c. 28 Bce–37 CE) was a prominent senator whose career started under Augustus and extended through Tiberius’ reign. Prominent in a number of well-known court cases, he was governor of Spain for ten years, a target of Sejanus’ hostility during the prefect’s tenure, and ultimately chose suicide when accused in the case of Albucilla in 37 CE. Tacitus has a rare general respect for Arruntius’ character. Arruntius was the son of Lucius Arruntius the Elder, who had distinguished himself at the battle of Actium (see civil wars of Late Republic). Consul in 6 CE, our Arruntius first appears in the meeting concerning the funeral arrangements for Augustus, in which he proposed that Augustus’ body be proceeded by placards containing the names of the laws he passed and the peoples he conquered (A. 1.8.4). At the first meeting after the funeral, Arruntius gave a speech that offended

28-04-2023 17:36:44

106

  Arsacid DYNASTY

Tiberius, who was already suspicious of Arruntius due to his wealth, his accomplishments, and his reputation (A. 1.13.1); worse still, it was rumored that Augustus had mentioned Arruntius as a hypothetical candidate for succession (A. 1.13.2). Despite hints of Tiberius’ animus against him he remained a prominent senator throughout his reign. In 15 CE he was part of a commission to control flooding of the Tiber (A. 1.76.3, 1.79.1). Five years later (20 CE) he refused, along with numerous others, including Publius Vinicius (father of Marcus Vinicius the consul of 30 CE), Asinius Gallus, Claudius Marcellus Aeserninus, and Sextus Pompeius (consul 14), to undertake Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso’s defense after Piso was charged in the case concerning Germanicus (A. 3.11.2). A year later (21 CE) Arruntius came to the defense of a young noble, Lucius Cornelius Sulla (2), after he had refused to give up his seat at a gladiatorial game to Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo (father of Nero’s general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo), a former praetor. Tacitus says that Sulla hoped his connection with Arruntius (and Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus) would protect him; before the case could get too far it appears the aggrieved parties reached accommodation (A. 3.31.5). He then disappears from Tacitus’ narrative until 32 CE in a monetary dispute with Marcus Cotta Messalinus (Marcus Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messalinus), where he complained about Arruntius’ influence against him. He likely had a place in the missing portion of Book 5 of the A., since Tacitus states (A. 6.7.1) that he had formerly been attacked by two prosecutors, Aruseius (otherwise unknown; Rutledge 2001, 200) and Sanquinius (otherwise unknown; Rutledge 2001, 265), though we are given no details. It is likely, however, given Sejanus’ apparent dislike of Arruntius, that it was an attempt by the prefect to attack Arruntius. Around 25 CE he was appointed governor of Hispania Citerior, which he governed in absentia (Tiberius prevented him from governing his province in person) for ten years (A. 6.27.3). In 37 he was swept up in the case of Albucilla, the former wife of Satrius Secundus, a notorious adulteress, for disloyalty to the emperor; Arruntius was thought to be complicit with her, and Macro, who hated Arruntius, was thought to be behind the charge (much of it forged, A. 6.47.4), although

c01_Vol1.indd 106

Laelius Balbus prosecuted the case. Arruntius’ friends begged him to persevere, but he had seen enough. Tacitus attributes a farewell speech to Arruntius, in which he deprecates the hatred he had incurred from Sejanus and Macro, and the impending tyranny of Caligula (A. 6.48.2–5). He opened his veins and perished (cf. Cass. Dio 58.27.4). Albucilla was placed in confinement, while others allegedly involved with her were punished, including Carsidius Sacerdos, who was exiled, and Pontius Fregallanus (otherwise unknown) who was stripped of his senatorial rank (A. 6.48.6.). Known for his good character, Arruntius’ adopted son, Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus (born Marcus Furius Camillus Scribonianus, consul of 32 CE and descendant of Pompey the Great), went on as governor of Illyricum to lead a revolt against Claudius in 42 CE. Reference work: PIR2 A 1130 FURTHER READING Rogers, R. S. 1931. “Lucius Arruntius.” Classical Philology 26: 31–45. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 242–243. Syme, R. 1970. “Marcus Lepidus: Capax Imperii.” Journal of Roman Studies 45: 22–33.

ARRUNTIUS STELLA, Lucius, see AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER ARSACES, see ARSACID DYNASTY ARSACES II, see ARSACID DYNASTY

ARSACID DYNASTY ANDREW NICHOLS

University of Florida

HISTORY OF THE ARSACIDS The Arsacids were the dynasty who reigned over Parthia (250 bc–226 ce) and, through other branches, ruled in Armenia, Iberia, and Caucasian Albania (modern Azerbaijan). The dynasty,

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Arsacid DYNASTY  

begun in the 2nd C bce by Arsaces (247–211 bce), a northeastern Iranian of uncertain background, ultimately toppled Seleucid rule in the Middle East. Arsaces was likely a chief of the Parni, a nomadic Iranian tribe of the Scythian (Sakaian) Dahae. However, the classical sources offer various accounts of his origins, including a folktale in which he was a lowly brigand (Amm. Mar. 23.6.2; Just. Epit. 41.4.7), an account with striking similarities to legends about Cyrus the Great, founder of the preceding Achaemenids, and Sasan, eponymous ancestor of the succeeding Sasanids. All subsequent rulers of the dynasty adopted Arsaces’ name as a title (Just. Epit. 41.5.5), much as the Romans did with Caesar. The name Arsaces has been connected to the Achaemenid royal name Artaxerxes (Ardashir in Middle Persian) since Ctesias tells us that before being crowned as Artaxerxes II, the young prince was called Arsaces (’Αρσίκας FGrH 688 F15a §4 = Plut. Artox. 1.2; ’Αρσάκης FGrH 688 F15 §55 = Phot. Bibl. 72 p. 43b). Syncellus (Chron. p. 343), following Arrian’s lost Parthika (perhaps indirectly or in conjunction with another source), claims that Arsaces was even a descendent of Artaxerxes (often assumed to be Artaxerxes II based on Ctesias’ testimony about his name). The name also appears in the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries as Aršu (see A. Sachs, “Achaemenid Royal Names in Babylonian Astronomical Texts,” AJAH 4, 1979, pp. 131ff.). In yet another tradition from Arrian’s lost Parthika (Phot. Bibl. 58 p. 17a-b with notable differences from Syncellus), Arsaces and his brother Tiridates, responding to a personal attack by the Seleucid satrap Pherecles, gathered five other accomplices, killed the satrap, and initiated an ultimately successful revolt. This legend, in which a conspiracy of seven initiates a coup, bears a striking similarity to the story of Darius the Great’s revolt against the Magus pretender Bardiya (Herodotus: Smerdis; see Persia). The Dahae, according to Classical sources, originally inhabited the territory southeast of the Aral Sea (modern Uzbekistan) between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya), with at least one branch eventually reaching the eastern limits of the Karakum Desert near the Sindes (Tejen) river (Turkmenistan) to west (A. 11.10). They continued to expand westward, ultimately reaching northern Hyrcania and the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea by the 3rd century and

c01_Vol1.indd 107

107

the borders of the Seleucid Empire. During the mid 3rd century bce, the Seleucids became embroiled in the Syrian Wars, which would cause them to focus on their western territories. During the Third Syrian War (the ‘Laodicean War, 246– 242 bce), following the death of Antiochus II Theos, a succession crisis arose leading to the fracturing of the Seleucid line. Diodotus, the satrap of Bactria, seized the opportunity afforded by this period of instability to assert his independence, forging what would become the powerful Greco-Bactrian kingdoms (245–ca. 120 bce). Around this same time, perhaps even a little before the rebellion of Diodotus, Andragoras, satrap of Parthia (Parthava) seceded as well. Perhaps motivated by the instability of the region, Arsaces invaded Parthia from the north and unseated Andragoras in 238 bce, followed soon after by his conquest of Hyrcania, establishing their capital at Hecatompylos (Sahr-e Qumis). It seems from this point on the Parni were referred to as Parthians, taking the name from their newly conquered territory. The Seleucids under Seleucus II attempted to regain Parthia in 231 bce, but ultimately gave up all claims to the territory in order to focus on the west where the rise of powerful new kingdoms around the Black Sea in Pontus, Cappadocia, and Pergamum posed a greater threat. In 217 bce, Arsaces II, son of Arsaces I, ascended the throne. Little is known of the events during his reign beyond his interactions with the Seleucids. In 209 bce, the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III the Great attempted to recover the provinces of Parthia and Bactria, conquering Hecatompylos and defeating the Parthians at Mt. Labus, and later achieving similar success in Bactria. In the resulting peace, both the Parthians and Bactrians agreed to become vassals of the Seleucids, though theses gestures were mostly nominal. Antiochus turned his focus to the west, withdrawing his troops from the region leaving them essentially independent. Little else is known of the reign of Arsaces II, and that of his successor Phraates I (191–176 bce), though the length of their reigns suggests at least some measure of stability. Tacitus says little of substance about this early Arsaces beyond cursory mentions of him as eponymous ancestor of the dynasty, and makes no mention of his successors until the 1st century ce. He first mentions the Parthians (A. 2.1–3) when

28-04-2023 17:36:44

108

  Arsacid DYNASTY

recounting the Roman establishment of Vonones, son of Phraates IV, onto the Parthian throne soon after Tiberius took office (see below), thus omitting any discussion of the first two centuries of Arsacid rule. Under Mithridates I (171–139 bce), Parthia rose to become a leading power in the Middle East with a series of conquests, beginning in the East against the Greco-Bactrians (Just. Epit. 41.6) before turning south and overtaking Media by 148 bce. His power reached as far south as Seleucia, where he was crowned king, and Babylon, where he had coins minted in his name. He may even have established Parthian residency in Ctesiphon, though it is possible that this occurred during the reign of his son, Phraates II, or even later. Phraates II (139–128 bce) faced the last serious threat posed by the Seleucids after Antiochus VII Sidetes (139–129 bce) briefly reconquered Babylonia and Media. Following a revolt by the local inhabitants, Antiochus VII was defeated and killed by Phraates, after which Seleucid dominion was limited to Syria. Seleucid power had effectively come to an end in the region, but new threats would immediately arise from the nomadic tribes of the north and east, including the Saka, Massegetae, and Yuezhi, the latter having recently conquered Bactria. After a brief period of instability during which both Phraates II and his successor Artabanus I perished, Parthian dominion was restored and greatly expanded under Mithridates II (125–91 bce), who is often regarded as one of the Parthians’ greatest rulers. After subduing Babylonia, he turned his attention to the east, subjugating Bactria and establishing contacts with cultures of the Far East. Sima Qian (Shiji ch. 123) records an embassy from the Han emperor Wu-ti to Mithridates (ca. 115 bce) in which an agreement was made to open trade routes along the Silk Road. However, it was his conquests in the west that would have the greatest impact on the political history of the Ancient East. His conquests of Adiabene, Gordyene, and Osrhoene in northern Mesopotamia expanded his realm to the Euphrates. Sometime after, Mithridates invaded Armenia and defeated the ruling Artaxiad king Artavasdes I, taking the king’s nephew (or son), the future Tigranes II the Great, hostage. In 96 bce, following the death of Tigranes I, Mithridates

c01_Vol1.indd 108

released his hostage and allowed him to ascend the throne as Tigranes II in exchange for a land payment of “seventy valleys” in Armenia (Strabo 11.14.15). In 96, in what would be the first direct encounter between the Parthians and Romans, Mithridates sent an envoy to meet with Sulla, who was serving as propraetor of Cilicia. While little is known of the meeting, it seems that the Euphrates was established as the border between the two powers. Towards the end of Mithridates’ reign, there was growing internal strife within the ruling family and following his death (91 bce), a power struggle erupted between his nephew, Sinatruces and his son, Gotarzes I. Parthia thus entered into a period of instability the details of which are little known. They were still reeling internally as the newly ascended king Orodes II had only recently solidified his claim by killing his brother Mithridates IV, when Marcus Licinius Crassus, proconsul of Syria, decided to invade Parthia expecting an easy victory, likely in an effort to enhance his own authority within the newly established Triumvirate. At the Battle of Carrhae (53 bce), in one of the first of what would be many direct engagements between the two powers, the Parthians under Surena, military commander for Orodes, routed the Romans. 20,000 Romans perished, including Crassus and his son, and ten thousand more were captured. The other ten thousand who fled were led back to Syria by Cassius, who had escaped the battle. Several Roman standards were captured during the battle which would be an enduring embarassment for Rome. Although the Parthians would be unable to immediately capitalize on the victory, even when Rome became embroiled in the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, they did secure their borders along the Euphrates. In 40 bce, siding with the Republican forces in Rome’s post-Caesarean civil wars, the Parthians, led by Orodes’ son Pacorus and aided by Labienus, a Roman and partisan of Cassius who had remained at the Parthian court after the latter’s defeat at Philippi (42 bce), invaded Syria and wrested the territory, including most of Asia Minor, from Antony. However, their conquests were short-lived; the following year, the Romans counterattacked under Ventidius Bassus, one of Antony’s generals, defeating

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Arsacid DYNASTY  

Labienus first, and then Pacorus (38 bce), killing both. Following the death of Pacorus, Orodes named his other son, Phraates IV as successor. Phraates soon after killed his father, brothers, and his own son in order to avoid any rivals. He extended his persecutions to the Parthian nobility, causing many to flee. After failed negotiations with the Romans, Antony invaded Parthian territory in Media with 100,000 men (Plut. Ant. 37.3) but after suffering heavy losses was forced to retreat. Once again the Parthians were unable to take advantage of their victory over the Romans. In response to Phraates cruelty, the Parthians installed Tridates II as a rival king (32 bce), who briefly drove Phraates out. However, Phraates returned with the help of a tribe of Scythians and reclaimed the throne. Although Phraates enjoyed a lengthy reign (37–2 ce), it was marked with internal discord and rival claimants (Joseph. BJ. 16.253). Perhaps this helps explain why Rome remained in the dominant position between the two. In 20 bce, Phraates signed an agreement with Augustus returning all Roman captives as well as the Roman standards lost under Crassus, and those under Decidius Saxa, who was defeated near Antioch (40 bce), and Antony. He also recognized Roman sovereignty over Armenia (a territory that would continue to be a source of contention between the two powers). As part of the deal, Augustus gave Phraates a Roman concubine named Musa, who would eventually become his favorite wife, naming her son by him successor. On her advice (and in order to avoid a succession crisis), Phraates sent Augustus several of his own sons as hostages to be educated by the Romans, one of whom was Vonones (A. 2.1), who would later return from Rome to be coronated (8 ce). Another would eventually ascend the throne as Tiridates III (35 ce). Two other sons appear to have died while in Rome and were buried with honors (CIL 6.1799). Soon after, Musa murdered Phraates and installed her son, Phraates V, on the throne. The relatively brief reign of Phraates V was marked by tensions with the Romans over Armenia and Media. In an effort to avoid war, he concluded a treaty (1 ce) with Gaius Caesar, Augustus’ grandson, in which Rome’s supremacy over Armenia was reaffirmed and Phraates

c01_Vol1.indd 109

109

being recognized as the legitimate king of Parthia. Briefly thereafter, Phraates and Musa were deposed by the Parthian people who resented the king’s vices, including his alleged marriage to his mother (Joseph. BJ. 18.2.42–43). After the brief reign of his successor Orodes III (4–6 ce) and its tumultuous aftermath, the Parthians appealed to the Romans to send one of the sons of Phraates IV to take the throne. Vonones (8–12 ce), the eldest son of Phraates who had spent the majority of his youth in Rome, became king. The Parthian people soon felt that Vonones, who they viewed as an outsider due to his time in Rome, was unfit to rule (A. 2.2). They called upon Artabanus, a member of the Arsacid family from Hyrcania (A. 2.3; 4.36), who spent his youth among the Dahae. After a first failed attempt, Artabanus succeeded in expelling Vonones (10 ce), who briefly took the vacant throne in Armenia before being deposed at the insistence of the Parthians. Artabanus restored stability to Parthia and enjoyed a lengthy rule marked by peaceful relations with the Romans, following a treaty he concluded with Germanicus on behalf of Tiberius (18 ce). Having little to worry about from the Romans enabled him to secure his hold over Mesopotamia and Iran, installing relatives as client rulers throughout the region. However, towards the end of his reign in 35 ce, tensions once again brewed over Armenia following the death of Artaxias III, who was ruling as a Roman client and died without an heir. Opposing Artabanus’ wish to place his son on the throne and receiving appeals from Parthian nobles against Artabanus, Tiberius sent Vitellius the Elder who invaded Parthia, expelled Artabanus, and installed Tiridates III, a grandson of Phraates IV who was raised in Rome, as king. However, once again the Parthians rejected a king raised in Rome and established by the Romans; after a meeting with Vitellius, Artabanus was restored to the throne in 37 ce. Following the death of Artabanus (38 ce), Parthia entered into a period of civil strife between the factions of Vardanes I, son of Artabanus, and Gotarzes II (43–51 ce), his nephew, ending with the former ultimately being murdered. Gotarzes staved off an attempt to elevate yet another Roman-raised Arsacid to the throne, but died shortly after. After the brief and

28-04-2023 17:36:44

110

  Arsacid DYNASTY

unremarkable reign of Vonones II (A. 12.14), his son Vologases I (51–77 ce) assumed the kingship. Vologases interests in Armenia would draw him into direct conflict with Rome, as he attempted to install his brother, Tiridates I, as king. This action was in violation of the agreement with Augustus in 20 bce and Nero responded by dispatching Gn. Domitius Corbulo to deal with the new Parthian threat. After initial Roman success was countered with a decisive Parthian victory at Rhandeia (62 ce), the two sides came to terms in which Nero recognized Tiridates I, crowning him personally (Cass. Dio 63.1-6; A. 15.28–29). This would begin the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia that would last until the 5th C and would usher in a period of peace between the two powers as Vologases would remain on good terms with Nero until the latter’s death (Suet. Ner.57). Vologases was also able to maintain good relations with Vespasian, Nero’s eventual successor, offering 40,000 cavalry to aid with the Roman war in Judaea (H. 4.51). After Vologases’ death in 77 ce, the Parthian Empire fractured and was divided between rival branches of the Arsacid line. Numismatic evidence shows that at various times until ca. 110 ce, there were multiple challengers to the throne, including Vologases II, Pacorus II, and Osroes I. Unfortunately, little is known about this period other than that Pacorus, who was ruling in Atropatene, rebelled against Vologases. It seems that each king ruled over fairly large portions of the empire. By ca.113 ce, Osroes I ruled over the western portion empire, while Vologases ruled in the east. Although Parthia was divided, Vologases would rule relatively unchallenged by his western rivals until his death in 147 ce, as the latter were preoccupied with wars against the Romans over Armenia. In 114 ce, Trajan launched an expedition against Armenia and Parthia in response to Osroes’ decision to install his nephew Parthamasiris as king of Armenia (desire for personal glory may also have played a roll [cf. Cass. Dio 68.17.1]). Trajan quickly defeated and killed Parthamasiris in Armenia (perhaps illegally – see Fronto Principa Historiae, p. 212 [van den Hout 1988]), and then continued into Parthia where he quickly conquered Mesopotamia and captured Susa. He installed

c01_Vol1.indd 110

Parthamaspates, who spent much of his life in Rome, as king. A revolt in Babylon forced Trajan to retreat to Mesopotamia where, after the failed siege of Hatra (116 ce), he fell ill and returned to Rome where he died. Soon after Trajan’s death, the Parthians drove out Parthamaspates and Osroes regained the throne. Osroes himself was soon deposed by Vologases III (129 ce), the latter taking advantage of Hadrian’s abandonment of Trajan’s Mesopotamian conquests and accepting Rome’s eastern borders along the Euphrates. However, Vologases was unable to subjugate the western territories as he had to contend first with Mithridates V, a new claimant to the throne, and then a lengthy invasion by the Alans, who reached Caucasian Albania, Armenia, and Cappadocia. After the repulsion of the Alans, Vologases did little to intercede in Roman activities in Armenia. Vologases IV, son of Mithridates V, claimed the throne in the aftermath of the death of Vologases III and likewise embarked on a lengthy and relatively stable reign (147–191 ce). Most of what we know about his reign pertains to the Roman-Parthian War (161–166 ce), which erupted upon the death of Antoninus Pius, when Vologases invaded Armenia and placed an Arsacid named Pacorus on the throne. After suffering initial setbacks, the Romans, with the arrival of the co-emperor Lucius Verus, proceeded to retake Armenia. They then moved into Mesopotamia where they retook Edessa, burned the palace at Ctesiphon, and sacked Seleucia, even though the latter had surrendered (HA Verus 8.3-4). Verus returned to a triumph, but Rome soon lost many of its gains in southern Mesopotamia (but retained those in the north) and the empire itself was beset with an epidemic brought back by returning soldiers known as the Antonine Plague (possibly smallpox). Marcus Aurelius would henceforth pay little attention to Mesopotamia. Upon Vologases’ death, he was succeeded by his son, Vologases V (Vologases II of Armenia) who quickly restored and put down rebellions that erupted at the end of his father’s reign. War with Rome soon erupted once again when Septimius Severus invaded Mesopotamia (195 ce). Vologases had supported Severus’ opponent

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Arsacid DYNASTY  

Pescennius Niger in the Year of the Five Emperors (193 ce). Severus captured the capital city Ctesiphon (199 ce) but, like Trajan earlier, failed to take Hatra. Due to lack of resources, he was forced to abandon his conquests and retreat westward. A peace was agreed to in which Rome regained Armenia and secured its holdings in northern Mesopotamia (202 ce). The Arsacids would never recover and the dynasty was nearing the end. In the following years, the remnants of the Parthian empire were fractured when Artabanus IV rebelled against his brother, the king Vologases VI (213 ce). The empire was plunged into civil war with Vologases keeping Seleucia, while Artabanus conquered much of the other territory, including Susa. Caracalla’s attempts to intervene were unsuccessful when Roman forces were defeated as Nisibis (216 ce). During the chaos of these conflicts, from Persis rose a chieftain named Ardashir, of the House of Sasan, who eventually toppled Artabanus, killing him in battle at Hormozdgan (224 ce). By 228, Vologases was driven from Mesopotamia. Thus began the Sasanid Empire, which would endure until the Islamic Conquest of Persia (651 ce).

EXTENT OF THE ARSACID LINE The Arsacid line extended well beyond the borders of Parthia, as the Parthian kings often helped to establish branches of the family in power over neighboring kingdoms. The Arsacids, like the Persians before them, were polygamists. They were also deeply entrenched in the politics of the era of Hellenistic kingdoms and were very open to securing alliances through intermarriages with their Greek and non-Greek counterparts, particularly the Artaxiads in Armenia. They also had numerous recognized children with concubines (e.g., Just. Epit. 42.4.14). This created a very broad extended family with numerous coinciding branches that maintained a presence in various kingdoms from Rome to the eastern borders of their empire. Several of these branches would forge their own dynasties in other kingdoms. At one point, all three Caucasian Kingdoms

c01_Vol1.indd 111

111

(Armenia, Iberia, Albania) were ruled by branches of the Arsacids. The Arsacid Dynasty in Armenia, who had intermittently held power in the chaotic years following the fall of the Artaxiad Dynasty (12 ce), during which Rome and Parthia quarreled over establishing their own kings, became firmly established when Nero acknowledged Tiridates I, brother Vologases I of Parthia (53 ce; see above). His lengthy reign, with an early interruption (5862 ce), lasted until 88 ce, helping secure the family on the throne. The Arsacids, ruling through various branches of the family until Vologases II (191–208 ce) established the single line that would govern until the end of the dynasty, held power in Armenia until the Sasanid conquest (428 ce), though they had been vassals intermittently of the Sasanids and Byzantines since the 4th century. The Arsacid Dynasty of Iberia began when the Iberians, tired of the violent and arrogant tendencies of Amazasp II, drove him out thus ending the Pharnabazid Dynasty after four centuries of rule. The Armenian Arsacid king, identified as Vologases II of Armenia, placed his son Rev I Martali (‘the Just’) on the throne (189 ce; Georgian Chronicle 6.30). The dynasty as an autonomous entity lasted only until 226 ce, when it came under the influence of the Sasanids. Subsequent kings would be vassals of the newly emerging Iranian power until Aspacures, resisting the Sasanids with possible help from the Romans under Aurelian, was defeated and driven from the throne, ending the dynasty (284 ce). Little is known of the origins of the Arsacid Dynasty of Caucasian Albania. The Classical sources are silent on the matter and Medieval Armenian sources only began discussing the kings in detail with Urnayr, the 4th century king who was converted to Christianity by St. Gregory the Illuminator (Movses Kaghan­ katvatsi 1.9). The dynasty likely began in the 1st century ce but was certainly established by the 2nd century when branches of the Arsacids ruled the other two Caucasian Kingdoms. It lasted, albeit often as a vassal of the Sasanids, well into the Christian period until the reign of the last Arsacid Vachagan III (487–510 ce).

28-04-2023 17:36:44

112

  Arsacid DYNASTY

CULTURE AND REIGN OF THE ARSACIDS Culturally, the Arsacids assimilated to the Parthians whom they overtook after entering the region from the east, adopting their language and their Zoroastrian religion. As a ruling entity, they encapsulated the ongoing struggle between clinging to traditional Iranian heritage and the Hellenization of the territory under the Seleucids. They also sought to establish and emphasize ties to their Achaemenid ancestors thereby proclaiming themselves as the legitimate heirs to a long established Iranian empire over the Middle East. In 35 ce, the Arsacid king Artabanus II emphasized ties to their past when he sent envoys to Rome issuing threats of his plans to reconquer all territories that fell under the dominion of the Achaemenids and, subsequently, Alexander (A. 6.31). Their attempts to bridge the prevailing cultures of the Middle East were best demonstrated by their coinage, in which they synthesized their royal iconography based on Greek and Iranian traditions, including their own Sakaian background. Arsaces was usually depicted on the obverse wearing Sakaian dress and on the reverse he is sitting on a stool or omphalos while wielding a bow, in a manner very similar to the coins of the satraps of the Achaemenid Empire. The seated figure on the omphalos is an adaptation of the Seleucid coins depicting Apollo seated on an omphalos. The bow was an Achaemenid symbol of royalty and, beginning with Mithridates I (171– 139 bce), the Arsacids assumed the Achaemenid title ‘King of Kings’ (a title the Achaemenids themselves borrowed from their Assyrian predecessors). The texts of the coins were always in Greek, but beginning with Vologases I (ca. 51–76 ce), drachms often contained the king’s name and title in Parthian as well. While the Arsacids emphasized their Iranian heritage and propagated themselves as descendants of the Achaemenids, Hellenism remained a strong component of their culture. Inscriptions were often in Greek (e.g., SEG VII, 12, 13, 14) or bilingual in Greek and Parthian (e.g., The Bronze Heracles of Mesene [Hackl et al., III.1.3.E.3 (Greek Text); III.2.6 (Parthian Text)]). Naturally, the degree of Hellenization

c01_Vol1.indd 112

varied among the kings. Orodes II was among those especially devoted to Greek culture, being fluent in the language and well-read in the literature (Plut. Crass. 33). At a banquet at the court of the Armenian king Artavasdes celebrating their victory over Crassus, there was a performance of Euripides Bacchae in which the head of Crassus was used for that of Pentheus. Greek would maintain a presence in Iran well into the Sasanid period. FURTHER READING Ash, R. 1999. “An Exemplary Conflict: Tacitus’ Parthian Battle Narrative (“Annals” 6.34–35).” Phoenix 53: 114–135. Bivar, A. D. H. 1983. “The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3.1: The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods, edited by E. Yarshater, 21–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Curtis, V. F., and S. Stewart. 2010. The Age of the Parthians. London: I. B. Tauris. Curtis, V. F. 2012. “Parthian Coins: Kingship and Divine Glory.” In Das Partherreich und seine Religionen Studien zu Dynamiken religiöser Pluralität, edited by P. Wick and M. Zehnder, 67–82. Gutenberg: Computus Druck Satz & Verlag. Curtis, V. F., et al., eds. 2017. The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Dąbrowa, E. 2017. “Tacitus on the Parthians.” Electrum 24: 171–189. Dąbrowa, E. 2018. “Arsacid Dynastic Marriages.” Electrum 25: 73–82 Heil, M. 2017. “Die Parther bei Tacitus.” In Parthika: Greek and Roman Authors’ Views of the Arsacid Empire, edited by J. Wiesehöfer and S. Müller, Classica et Orientalia 15, 259–278. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Sheldon, R. M. 2010. Rome’s Wars in Parthia. Chicago: Vallentine Mitchell. Toumanoff, C. 1969. “Chronology of The Early Kings of Iberia.” Traditio 25: 1–33. Wiesehöfer, J. 2001. Ancient Persia. Translated by A. Azodi. London: I.B. Tauris.

ARSAMOSATA, see ARMENIA ARSANIAS, see MESPOTAMIA ARTABANUS, see ARSACID DYNASTY ARTAVASDES, see ARMENIA ARTAXATA, see ARMENIA

28-04-2023 17:36:44

Artaxiad dynasty  

ARTAXIAD DYNASTY ANDREW NICHOLS

University of Florida

HISTORY OF THE ARTAXIADS The Artaxiads were the ruling dynasty of Armenia (189 bce–12 ce). Their empire, based in Greater Armenia, extended to Sophene in the southwest and, intermittently, to Lesser Armenia on the southeastern coast of the Black Sea. Located in between the great empires of Rome and Parthia, Armenia was a constant source of contention between the two (A. 2.56). Their central role in this clash and their determination to maintain some form of independence would shape the politics of the Artaxiad dynasty. Before the Artaxiads came to power, Armenia was a part of the Achaemenid Empire, having been part of Cyrus’ initial conquests. Although they revolted after Darius took the throne, they were soon brought back into the empire (DB §2.37–63). After the death of Alexander, the region was governed by satraps of the same family (often several simultaneously) who were descended from Orontes (the Orontids). Although at times they referred to themselves as kings, they were still operating under Seleucid suzerainty, often with the title strategos. This practice continued into the 2nd century bce when Antiochus III appointed Artaxias (Artashes) as strategos of Armenia and Zariadres that of Sophene (Strabo 11.14.5). Strabo’s claim that they were Macedonian generals has been rejected in light of the discovery of a boundary stone with Aramaic inscriptions referring to Artaxias as an ‘Eruandid’ (Orontid) king and the son of ‘Zareh’ (Zariadres) [see A. G. Perikhanian. 1966 “Une inscription araméenne du roi Artašes,”  REArm., N.S. 3, 17–29]. After the Roman defeat of Antiochus at Magnesia (190 bce), the Romans appointed Artaxias and Zariadres, who had both fought on the side of Antiochus, as official kings of their respective territories under the terms of the Treaty of Apamea (189 bce; Strabo 11.14.15). They proceeded to work together to conquer much of

c01_Vol1.indd 113

113

their surrounding territories and strengthen each kingdom (Strabo 11.14.5). Early in his reign (ca. 176 bce), Artaxias founded a city named Artaxata along the Araxes River at its conflux with the Metsamor River, that would serve as the capitol of the Armenian kingdom until the 2nd century ce. In 120, the royal seat was transferred to Vagharshapat by the Arsacid king, Vologases I of Armenia (Vagharsh), though Artaxata remained a center of political and mercantile importance. According to Greek sources, he was assisted in his project by Hannibal of Carthage, to whom he had granted asylum after Antiochus’ defeat at Magnesia (Strabo 11.14.6; Plut. Luc. 31.3–4), though the authenticity of these accounts is suspect. The city was razed to the ground during the reign of Nero by the roman general Corbula (A. 13.41; Cass. Dio 62.19.4), and sacked again in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (163 ce; HA Marc. 9.1). The city remained a major commercial center and point of contact between the Romans and Parthians (and later between the Byzantines and Sasanids). Unlike the earlier Orontids, Artaxias began minting his own coins, perhaps as a display of his newly recognized autonomy. Coins depict on the reverse an eagle on a mountain top, likely Mt. Ararat, following the Cappadocian style of coins. He also set the borders and boundaries for the villages and estates of his domain, which he marked with boundary stones with Aramaic inscriptions (Movses Khorenats‘i 2.56), several of which have been uncovered by recent excavations (see Naveh, J. 1971. “The Aramaic Inscriptions of Boundary Stones in Armenia” Die Welt des Orients 6: 42–46). Little is known of Artaxias’ lengthy reign until his defeat and capture at the hands of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (ca. 164 bce; App. Syr. 45, 66; cf. Diod. 31.17a). He was not held in captivity but allowed to return to the throne of Armenia as a vassal (Porph. FGrH 260 F38). A few years later (161 bce), he forged an alliance with Timarchos, the rebel satrap of Media who asserted his independence after the death of Antiochus IV (Diod. 31.27a). Artaxias died soon after (ca. 160 bce) and there is much debate as to who succeeded him as the evidence for these early Armenian kings is limited. In fact, most of the first century of Artaxiad rule remains

28-04-2023 17:36:45

114

  Artaxiad dynasty

shrouded in obscurity until the reign of Tirgranes II. Based on the scant evidence available, it seems that Artaxias was succeeded by his son Artavasdes I, who, like his father, embarked on a lengthy reign (ca. 160–123 bce), about which relatively little is known. Under this reconstruction, when Artavasdes died the throne passed to his son or younger brother, Tigranes I (123–96 bce). Justin’s statement that Mithridates II fought an Armenian king named Artoadistes (i.e., Artavasdes; Epit. 42.2) in 120 bce has been a source of contention among historians, as this would necessitate that Artavasdes was the third rather than second king of the Artaxiad line, which would presume that Artaxias’ successor was Tigranes I. Indeed the Medieval Armenian historian Movses Khorenats‘i, in a rather confused and anachronistic account of early Artaxiad history (2.14), names the father of Tigranes II as Artavasdes (which would corroborate this view). However, Appian (Syr. 48), who is far more reliable on these matters, names Tigranes’ father as Tigranes (i.e., Tigranes I). Moreover, it is possible that Artoadistes is not a corruption of Artavasdes, but rather an independent personage (especially since the name is fairly well attested in earlier sources and Artoadistes bears little resemblance to any other variation of Artavasdes), however this would only muddle the matter further. Even the outcome of Mithridates’ campaign against this Artoadistes, though often assumed to be a victory, is unknown as Justin only states that ‘he waged war against Artoadistes, king of the Armenians’ (Artoadisti, Armeniorum regi, bellum intulit). Thus the issue of the order of these early kings remains unanswered. In 95 bce, Tigranes II, under whom Armenia would temporarily become the most powerful kingdom west of Rome, ascended the throne. In his youth he was sent as a hostage to Parthia after Mithridates II’s successful campaign in Armenia (Just. Epit. 38.3). The exact date when he was sent to Parthia is unclear, but it was sometime in the 110’s bce. Upon the death of his father, he negotiated with the Parthians his return to Armenia. The Parthians helped him take the throne, undoubtedly as a vassal, in exchange for ‘seventy valleys’ from his territory (Strabo 11.14.15).

c01_Vol1.indd 114

Tigranes proved to be an ambitious and capable ruler. He immediately conquered Sophene to the southwest, unifying Greater Armenia under his rule. He then forged an alliance with Mithridates Eupator of Pontus and married his daughter Cleopatra to solidify the agreement. At Mithridates’ bidding, Tigranes invaded Cappadocia and expelled Ariobarzanes, who was king and a client of Rome (Just. Epit. 38.3), and placed Gordius on the throne as a vassal to Mithridates. In response, the Romans sent Sulla, who was Praetor at the time, who ousted Gordius and reinstated Ariobarzanes (Plut. Sull. 5.3). Sulla then met with Mithridates II of Parthia where the two sides agreed to Roman control over lands up to the Euphrates (92 bce). For the time being, Tigranes abstained from any further conflicts with Rome, focusing on the Seleucids, who were in a state of irreparable decline, and the Parthians in the east, who were weakened by inner turmoil following the death of Mithridates (ca. 91 bce). During the 80’s bc, he retook possession of the seventy valleys ceded to Mithridates, subjugated Mesopotamia, and crossed over into Syria (Strabo 11.14.15). He adopted the Achaemenid title ‘King of Kings’(App. Syr. 48) and was recognized as king by the Syrians (Just. Epit. 40.1). As the empire now extended from the Mediterranean to the Caspian, Tigranes set about founding a new, more centralized, city named Tigranocerta. The city was fortified with lofty walls and adorned with great extravagance (A. 15.4; App. Mith. 12.84; Plut. Luc. 26.2). To populate the city, he forced settlement from surrounding areas (App. Mithr.10.67; Cass. Dio 2.3), a practice he conducted elsewhere in his empire (Plin. HN 6.32; Plut. Luc. 21.4). Because of his love for drama, he constructed a theater, the first in Armenia, and brought in dramatic artists from all over his empire (Plut. Luc. 29.3–4). The city quickly became a major cultural and economic center, but it was short-lived and never completed. Lucullus, during his campaign against Tigranes (69 bce; see below), sacked Tigranocerta, dismissed the inhabitants to return to their homelands, and razed the city while it was still unfinished (Strabo 11.14.15). The city would be resettled but would never regain its prestige. It would again be conquered by Pompey a few years

28-04-2023 17:36:45

Artaxiad dynasty  

later and once more by Corbulo during Rome’s wars with Parthia in the reign of Nero. Tigranes’ empire, forged in a brief vacuum in which Rome was temporarily engaged in a civil war between Sulla and Marius while Parthia was embroiled in a dynastic struggle following the death of Mithridates II, proved unsustainable. Although his incursions into Cappadocia were at odds with Roman policy, he generally tried to avoid direct conflict with the Romans. He abstained from partaking in the Mithridatic Wars, even though he remained a close ally of the Pontic king. However, after the final Roman victory in the Third Mithridatic War, Tigranes granted asylum to Mithridates and refused to hand him over to Lucullus, thus at last bringing him into war with the Romans. Lucullus invaded Armenia and besieged Tigranocerta (69 bce). Tigranes arrived and attempted to lift the siege but was routed in the battle; the city was sacked and plundered (App. Mith. 12.84–86; Memn. FGrH 434 F 38.1–8 (55–58); Cass. Dio 36.1b; Plut. Luc. 25). The defeat was one from which Tigranes would never recover. Nevertheless, he would remain on the throne and maintain control in Greater Armenia after Lucullus’ advance was halted. Lucullus was not able to continue to Artaxata due to the growing discontent of his troops (Cic. Imp. Pomp. 9.23–24; Plut. Luc. 34.5). He was soon after recalled to Rome and replaced by Pompey the Great (67–66 bce). Soon after Pompey’s arrival in the west, Tigranes’ son, also named Tigranes, revolted from his father and compelled Phraates, the king of Parthia, to attack from the east. When the assault failed, the younger Tigranes approached Pompey and convinced him to assault Artaxata. In response, the elder Tigranes submitted to Pompey, gave up all of his territorial possessions outside of Greater Armenia, and paid a settlement of 6,000 talents (App. Mith.15.104; Plut. Pomp. 33; Cass. Dio 36.52; Strabo 11.14.10). The younger Tigranes, who began to quarrel with Pompey after the agreement was made, was sent to Rome, paraded in Pompey’s triumph (Cass. Dio 36.53), and put to death (App. Mith.15.105). The elder Tigranes, meanwhile, would enjoy a peaceful reign as ‘friend and ally’ of Rome for the remainder of his life (Cic. Sest. 27).

c01_Vol1.indd 115

115

Following the death of Tigranes II (55/54 bce), his son Artavasdes II took the throne and, like his father, enjoyed a lengthy rule (55/54–34 bce). He spent most of his reign jostling between the Romans and Parthians, both of whom continued to try to assert their influence over Armenia. Soon after ascending the throne, Crassus launched his ill-fated assault on Parthia. Although allied to the Romans through his father, Artavasdes failed to join Crassus, who was soon after routed and killed at Carrhae (53 bce). He quickly made an alliance with Orodes II, king of Parthia. He was entertaining Orodes at a banquet in Artaxata where Euripides’ Bacchae was being performed when the head of Crassus was brought in and used as a prop for the dismembered Pentheus (Plut. Crass. 33). Nevertheless, Artavasdes maintained his neutrality between the two powers for the next several years. Artavasdes’ relations with the Parthians soured after the rise of Phraates IV to the throne. In 36 bce, Marc Antony campaigned against Phraates, who was allied with Artavasdes I of Media Atropatene. Artavasdes of Armenia joined ranks with Antony and they invaded Media Atropatene (Plut. Ant. 38–40). Although they failed to take the capitol city Phraaspa, the country suffered much damage while Phraates did little to help recover. Consequently, Artavasdes of Media Atropatene went over to Antony’s side (Plut. Ant. 52). Artavasdes of Armenia, on the other hand, failed to reach Antony’s troops in time and withdrew back home (Cass. Dio 49.25–26). Two years later, Antony summoned the Armenian king under false pretenses and took him captive (Cass. Dio 49.39–40). He brought Artavasdes to Egypt where the Armenian royal family was paraded in triumph. Cleopatra VII eventually had him killed after their defeat at Actium and his head sent to Artavasdes of Media Atropatene in the hopes of securing his aid against Octavian (A. 2.3; Cass. Dio 51.5.5; Strabo 11.14.15). Artavasdes’ eldest son, who escaped Egypt in 34 bce and fled to Parthia, secured the throne with the help of Phraates, adopting the name Artaxias II. Soon after taking power, Artaxias slaughtered all the Romans in his territory, an act that would set him at odds with Augustus, who now ruled Rome as Princeps. Augustus had taken control of

28-04-2023 17:36:45

116

  Artaxiad dynasty

Artaxias’ family after Actium and refused to surrender them because of these actions (Cass. Dio 51.16.2). Artaxias conquered and annexed Media Atropatene and their king, Artavasdes I, who had been an ally of Marc Antony, fled to Augustus. However, a faction of the Armenians still supported the Roman cause against Artaxias. Augustus, wanting to assert Roman authority in the region, dispatched Tiberius to Armenia to install Tigranes III (Vell. Pat. 2.94 erroneously calls him Artavasdes, perhaps confusing his name with that of his father], Artaxias’ younger brother who had been taken to Rome after Actium (20 bce). Before Tiberius arrived, Artaxias was assassinated by members of the royal family (A. 2.3; Cass. Dio 54.9.4–5; Suet. Tib. 9). Little is known of Tigranes’ twelve year reign, but it appears he maintained good relations with Rome until his death (8 bce). Tigranes was succeeded by his son, Tigranes IV, who ruled jointly with his sister, Erato, whom he married. Tigranes, however, had been made king without the approval of Augustus, which caused tensions with the Romans. These tensions were augmented further when Tigranes made an alliance with Phraates V of Parthia and promoted an anti-Roman agenda. However, Phraates, wishing to avoid a war with Rome, concluded a peace with Augustus in which Roman suzerainty over Armenia was once again recognized (1 ce). Tigranes submitted to Augustus and in return was recognized as king (Cass. Dio 55.10.20-21). Shortly after, Tigranes was killed in battle and Erato abdicated her position amidst civil unrest. Augustus sent his grandson Gaius to install Ariobarzanes of Media Atropatene (2 ce), as the new king (A. 2.4; Mon. Anc. 27; Cass. Dio 55.10a.5). Ariobarzanes was distantly related to the Artaxiads through the marriage of his ancestor Mithridates I, whose wife was a daughter of Tigranes the Great. The Artaxiad dynasty was now in its twilight and would be completely ousted within a decade. Ariobarzanes’ reign was brief, as he died within two years of taking the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Artavasdes IV, who likewise ruled both Armenia and Media Atropatene. Unlike his father who came to win over his Armenian subjects with his good looks and high

c01_Vol1.indd 116

character (A. 2.4), Artavasdes proved to be an unpopular ruler and was soon assassinated (6 ce; Mon. Anc. 27). Following his death, Augustus installed Tigranes V, a Herodian prince from Judaea who was distantly related to the Artaxiads. The new king met with opposition from the nobility who recalled Erato, sister and queen consort of Tigranes IV, to Armenia. I order to avoid open civil war, she agreed to co-rule with Tigranes from Artaxata, as numismatic evidence shows. It is unclear from the available evidence if the two ever married. Little is known of their rule but it seems clear that Armenia remained unstable and the two were soon expelled (12 ce). Erato was to be the last native Artaxiad ruler of Armenia. Augustus oversaw the appointment of Vonones, who was recently ousted as king of Parthia, to the throne. Vonones’ stay in Armenia would be brief as he was soon forced to withdraw to Syria (A. 2.4; Joseph. AJ 18.50–52). Vonones was the first Arsacid to rule Armenia, however it would be several decades before the Arsacids of Parthia finally established a branch of their family as ruling dynasty of Armenia. Artabanus attempted to install one of his sons named Orodes (ca. 15 ce), however this proved to be short-lived. The chaotic struggle over Armenia would continue until 18 ce when Tiberius sent Germanicus to stabilize the region. Germanicus had Zeno, son of Polemon, king of Pontus, crowned as Artaxias III. The Armenians accepted Artaxias, even though he was not Armenian and had no ancestral ties to the Artaxiads, because he had adopted Armenian culture since childhood (A. 2.56). Armenia entered into a period of stability that would endure until his death (35 ce). Artaxias, however, died without an heir leading to a vacant throne that Rome and Parthia would strive to fill. Artabanus installed his son Arsaces while the Romans, invited by some Armenian nobles, sent a son of the Arsacid king Phraates IV who had been raised in Rome as a hostage, to be a vassal. No longer were dynasts trying to link themselves to the Artaxiads by stressing their sometimes distant relations or, in the case of Zeno, taking an Artaxiad name. The Artaxiad dynasty had completely died out soon to be replaced by the Arsacids.

28-04-2023 17:36:45

Artaxiad dynasty  

CULTURE OF THE ARTAXIADS The Artaxiads, like the Arsacids in Parthia, emphasized their Iranian heritage while maintaining strong cultural ties to the Greeks. Greek was the language used for the legends of their coins, which often included the epithet “Philhellene”. Greek was likely used often on official business and embassies with other regions to the west (e.g., Metrodorus of Skepsis acted as ambassador for Mithridates of Pontus to the court of Tigranes; Strabo 13.1.55; Plut. Luc. 22). Many Artaxiads were educated in Greek art and literature and seem to have had a particular affection for Greek drama. Tigranes the Great’s grand theater at Tigranocerta was the first ever built in Armenia, for which he brought in many Greek actors to perform at its inauguration (Plut. Luc. 29.4). Artavasdes II was particularly fond of Greek culture, composing tragedies, histories, and orations in Greek (Plut. Crass. 33; see above for his famous banquet at which the Bacchae was performed). Although Hellenized to a degree, the Artaxiads, like the Arsacids in Parthia, celebrated their Iranian origins. While Greek language was commonly heard at the court, the local Armenian language predominated. Parthian, as seen by the numerous loan words in Armenian, was much more prevalent than Greek. Even before the arrival of the Parthians, the Armenians had long used the language of their Iranian neighbors to the east: Persian was used, at least when talking with foreigners, in the villages dating back to Achaemenid times (Xen. Anab. 4.5.10; 4.5.34). They also, following the model of their Achaemenid predecessors, made use of Imperial Aramaic, as seen by the discovery of the aforementioned inscribed boundary stones of Artaxias I (see above; see also Movses Khorenats‘i 2.56; several artifacts with Aramaic inscriptions have also been found in the excavations at Artaxata). The use of Aramaic, when even in Armenia Greek had become so prevalent after the Seleucids (see for example the Orontid-era Greek rock-cut inscriptions at Armavir), shows a deliberate attempt by Artaxias to promote his dynasty as heirs to the Achaemenids.

c01_Vol1.indd 117

117

The Artaxiads linked their ancestry directly to the Achaemenids via the Orontids (Artaxias I in the aforementioned boundary stones refers to himself as an Orontid). The founder of the dynasty may have been the Orontes mentioned as commanding the Armenian contingent of Darius’ army at Gaugamela (Arr. Anab. 3.8.5). They tied themselves to the royal house by claiming descent from Hydarnes (Strabo 11.14.15), one of the seven conspirators who installed Darius the Great on the throne (Hdt. 3.70 ff). Several Artaxiads, beginning with Tigranes the Great, adopted the hereditary Achaemenid title ‘King of Kings’ (which the Achaemenids themselves adopted from their Assyrian predecessors). They also copied the Persian practice of creating large lavish gardens and parks (Paradises; Greek Paradeisos; Elamaic Partetaš; Old Persian *paradaida) populated with wild and exotic flora and fauna (App. Mith. 12.84). After his tours of the east, Lucullus brought the idea to Rome and furnished the famous Gardens of Lucullus (Horti Lucullani) on the Pincian Hill. Although he was mocked for this by his contemporary Tubero as “Xerxes in a toga” (Plut. Luc. 39), his gardens remained a favorite place for Roman nobility in subsequent generations (A. 11.1) and proved highly influential in the construction of other Roman horti.

RELIGION OF THE ARTAXIADS The Artaxiads, like many other Iranian peoples at the time, were Zoroastrians. Their primary deity was Aramazd (Ahura Mazda, conflated into one word during the Achaemenid times; cf. Parthian Hormazd). However, they also retained local Armenian elements and traditions which were incorporated into their religion, including those derived from earlier cultures such as the Hurrians, Urartians, and the earliest Armenian settlers of the Armenian Highlands. Many of the Armenian deities retained and incorporated into their Zoroastrian pantheon were syncretized with Greek deities, including Anahit (Artemis), Tir (Apollo), Vahagn (Heracles), Nane (Athena), and Astlik (Aprhodite). As with other Zoroastrian cultures,

28-04-2023 17:36:45

118

  Arulenus Rusticus

Aramazd was associated with Zeus. However, in a uniquely Armenian feature, Aramazd was depicted as a thunder god and syncretized with Zeus Keraunios. During the Christian period, even Armenian writers still often referred to these deities by their Greek names. According to the Medieval Armenian historian Movses Khorenats‘i (2.49), Artaxias adorned Artaxata with a temple housing a statue of Artemis (Anahit) and placed a statue of Apollo (Tir) alongside the road outside the city. FURTHER READING Chahin, M. 1987. The Kingdom of Armenia. Richmond, VA: Curzon Press. Hovannisian, R. G. 2004. The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times: Vol. I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Keaveney, A. 1992. Lucullus: A Life. London: Routledge. Kovacs, F. L. 2008. “Tigranes IV, V, and VI: New Attributions.” American Journal of Numismatics 20: 337–350. Olbrycht, M. J. 2016. “Germanicus, Artabanos II of Parthia, and Zeno Artaxias in Armenia.” Klio 98: 605–633. Overtoom, N. 2020. Reign of Arrows: The Rise of the Parthian Empire in the Hellenistic Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Russell, J. R. 1987. Zoroastrianism in Armenia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

ARTAXIAS, see ARTAXIAD DYNASTY ARTEMITA, see PARTHIA ARTORIA FLACCILLA, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS

ARULENUS RUSTICUS DYLAN SAILOR

University of California, Berkeley

Quintus Iunius Arulenus Rusticus (d. 93 CE; tribune 66, praetor 69, suffect consul 92) was a supporter of Thrasea Paetus and author of a work in praise of him; the work was grounds for Arulenus’ prosecution in 93 CE, and the trial

c01_Vol1.indd 118

ended in a death sentence and an order that copies of the work be burned. Of Transpadane origin (Plin. Ep. 1.14.4), he was the brother of Iunius Mauricus (Plin. Ep. 1.14.1) and likely son or grandson of a Iunius Rusticus mentioned at A. 5.4.1 (otherwise unattested). At some point he became interested in Stoicism (Plin. Ep. 1.5.2, Cass. Dio 67.13.2). As tribune, he sought to obstruct the senatorial verdict against Thrasea Paetus, who dissuaded him, according to Tacitus on the grounds that it would not save himself but would endanger Arulenus and that Arulenus might yet have a long public career (A. 16.26.4–5). As praetor, while Vitellius held Rome, Arulenus was part of a delegation to the Flavian forces; he was wounded, his fellow envoys were beaten, and one of his lictors was killed (H. 3.80.2). Thereafter, apart from his suffect consulship, there is little information about him until his trial in the Senate for praising Thrasea Paetus in a book and, according to Dio, for “being a philosopher” (Ag. 2.1, Suet. Dom. 10, Cass. Dio 67.13.2). The date of the work is unknown and its character is not fully clear: it praised Thrasea, dubbing him “holy” (Cass. Dio 67.13.2), but whether it was a biography or a narrative focused on his end, like the episodes in the “Deaths of Famous Men” of Titinius Capito (Plin. Ep. 8.12.4) and the “Deaths of those Slain or Relegated by Nero” of Gaius Fannius (Ep. 5.5.3), cannot be established. Arulenus was one of several prominent figures executed (together with Herennius Senecio and the younger Helvidius Priscus) or exiled (Iunius Mauricus, Verulana Gratilla, Arria the wife of Thrasea Paetus, and Fannia the wife of the elder Helvidius Priscus) in later 93 CE (for this list, see Pliny Ep. 3.11.3). The result for Arulenus was a death sentence and an order that his work be burned in the Forum (Ag. 2.1). Tacitus mentions the “sight of Arulenus” after his condemnation as one grim experience of Domitian’s tyranny (Ag. 45.1). After Arulenus’ death, Aquilius Regulus attacked him in a book (Plin. Ep. 1.5.2). Pliny writes that in that period it might have been detrimental to one’s case in court to have been a friend of Arulenus or a Gratilla, who was likely his wife (Ep. 5.1.8). After Domitian’s assassination in 96 CE, it became possible and even advantageous to

28-04-2023 17:36:45

Asciburgium  

celebrate and associate oneself with Domitian’s victims. In two letters of 97 CE, Pliny writes Iunius Mauricus in response to requests for support for Arulenus’ children, in Ep. 1.14 agreeing to identify a marriage partner for a daughter and suggesting a candidate, and in Ep. 2.18.1 reporting on his efforts to locate a teacher for Arulenus’ children; elsewhere too he stresses his friendship with and similarity to Arulenus (Ep. 1.5.5, 1.14.1, 3.11.3). Arulenus’ death was likely commemorated in Titinius Capito’s “Deaths of Famous Men” (see above). Tacitus accords merit and importance to Arulenus’ work about Thrasea, calling it a “monument of brilliant literary genius” (Ag. 2.1) and contemptuously suggesting that Arulenus’ persecutors must have believed that burning Arulenus’ book, as well as Herennius Senecio’s biography of the elder Helvidius Priscus, meant “wiping out the voice of the Roman people, the freedom of the senate, and the conscience of all humanity” (Ag. 2.2). At Ag. 42.3–4, Tacitus appears to deprecate the approach of these “martyrs” in favor of the cooperation and caution of Agricola. However, and if we are to include the author of a work in praise of Thrasea Paetus among “those who have followed a perilous course that was nonetheless no benefit to the public and become famed by an ostentatious death” (Ag. 42.4), then in the Agricola, Tacitus is also expressing, if obliquely, reservations about Arulenus and his work. Given a prominent place in the preface and conclusion of the Agricola, Arulenus and his book are of programmatic importance to that work; his life and writing and the conduct of his subject stand as an implicit point of comparison for Tacitus’ life and writing and the conduct of Iulius Agricola. Reference works: PIR2 I 730; RE Iunius 149; BNP Arulenus 2 FURTHER READING Ogilvie, R. M., and I. A. Richmond. 1967. Tacitus: Agricola. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 132. Sherwin-White, A. N. 1966. The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 95.

ARUSEIUS, see ARRUNTIUS, LUCIUS

c01_Vol1.indd 119

119

ARUSEIUS, LUCIUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Lucius Aruseius (otherwise unknown) is mentioned at A. 6.40, in Tacitus’ account of domestic affairs of 36 CE. His name appears just after a lacuna. He may be the same Aruseius who was an accuser of Lucius Arruntius (A. 6.7), but certainty is impossible. Reference work: PIR2 A 1195 FURTHER READING Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ASCIBURGIUM ANTHONY SMART

York St. John University

Asciburgium is a first century auxiliary fort, positioned opposite the Ruhr, in Germania Inferior (modern day Moers-Asberg). It formed an important part of the Limes Germanicus, defending against incursions from across the river, as well as forming part of a trade network on the road from Colonia Agrippinensis to Ulpia Noviomagus Batavorum. The site can be seen on the medieval Tabula Peutingeriana. The site has been extensively studied, with at least five different phases of building, beginning in the reign of Augustus, and founded perhaps by Drusus the Elder in 12 Bce, as part of the wider offensive military measures that saw a new systematic chain of forts constructed across the region. The original fort was enlarged, with stronger defensive fortifications later in the reign of Augustus (perhaps in response to the clades Variana) before being altered again under Tiberius. Here more can be seen of the interior of the fort, with a clearer sense of the soldiers who lived there. The later modifications could be linked with changes required by Claudius’ invasion of Britannia, or by the efforts of

28-04-2023 17:36:45

120

  Asia

Gnaeus Domitio Corbulo. The focus appears to shift from an infantry camp to a cavalry one (ala) which resulted in substantial alteration in the internal layout, with a layer of destruction visible in the archaeological record that could feasibly be evidence of the Batavian Revolt (69–71 CE). The final stage of construction can be linked to Vespasian’s efforts at securing the military camps of Germania following success in the civil war, and the military was occupied into the early reign of Domitian. Although ultimately the military forces were relocated (most likely as a response to the silting of the lake and the movement of the river, negating its immediate defensive viability), the civilian uicus remained. Tacitus mentions Asciburgium on two occasions. In the Histories he provides a passing reference to the destruction of the site (4.33: hiberna alae Asciburgii sita) during the Batavian uprising, providing a limited but seemingly accurate depiction of the fort and its position. In his Germania Tacitus offers a much more imaginative narrative concerning the fort (3.2–3), linking it to contemporary beliefs. He notes, with some scepticism (e.g., fabulosus error; ex ingenio suo quisque demat vel addat fidem) the possible foundation of the site by Ulysses, the presence of an altar to Laertes, burial mounds marked with Greek writing, and the name itself coming from the Greek Ἀσκιπύργιον. Tacitus frames this with practiced understatement and builds his own subtle argument against this possibility. see also: Quintilius Varus; Teutoburg Forest Reference work: Barrington 11 G1 FURTHER READING Bechert, T. 1989. Die Römer in Asciburgium. Duisburger Forschungen 36. Duisburg: Braun. Lightfoot, J. 2020. “Tacitus’ Germania and the Limits of Fantastic Geography.” Histos 14: 116–151.

ASCONIUS LABEO, see NERO

c01_Vol1.indd 120

ASIA MALI SKOTHEIM

Ashoka University

The province of Asia was created in 133 Bce, from the bequest of Attalus III, king of Pergamum, to the Romans. In the Roman imperial period, the province of Asia stretched from the Aegean coast in the west to its eastern boundary with the province of Galatia in central Anatolia, and from Bithynia in the north to Lycia in the south. Under Roman republican control, the province of Asia was heavily taxed, but prospered in the Roman imperial period. In 17 CE, twelve cities of Asia were damaged by a severe earthquake, but quickly restored. In addition to fertile agricultural land, timber, and valuable minerals, Asia possessed many important industries, including textile production, dye works, pottery, leather, and luxury items such as perfume, metal-working, and specialty cloth (Magie 1950, 47). The economic prosperity of Asia, and its production of luxury goods, contributed to the association of Asia with luxuria (luxury) in Latin literature. The prosperity of Asia in the Roman imperial period can be seen in the lavish public buildings constructed in many cities, the large benefactions of private individuals for their construction, and the active civic and religious life reflected in the epigraphical record. Several important cities of Asia were members of the koinon of Asia, which became a religious association in the imperial period (Edelmann-Singer 2015). They met yearly in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Sardis, and Cyzicus and celebrated a regular agonistic festival, the koina Asias, which included athletic, musical, and dramatic competitions. Asian cities were active in imperial cult celebrations, and many festivals were established and expanded under imperial rule (Mitchell 1993, 100–117). The cities of Asia had important cults, which continued to be celebrated throughout the Roman imperial period. Tacitus reports that under Tiberius, many Greek cities in Asia were required to send representatives before the

28-04-2023 17:36:45

121

Asia  

Senate to establish the legitimacy of their sanctuaries, in response to criticism that they were allowing too many people to seek asylum. The claims of the cities rested on the antiquity of the cults, their mythological connections, stories about their origins, and relations with Rome through history. Representatives from Ephesus claimed that Apollo and Diana were born at Ephesus, not Delos. Those from Magnesia on the Maeander explained that the sanctuary of Leukophryne Diana was established as a refuge. Aphrodisias, in relation to the cult of Aphrodite, and Stratonikeia, in relation to the cult of Diana of the Crossroads, referenced documents from Iulius Caesar and Augustus praising their loyalty to Rome. Hierocaesarea laid out the history of the cult of Persian Diana, going back to the reign of Cyrus in the sixth century Bce (Persia). The senators preferred claims which referenced more recent history, such as that of Sardis, which claimed a grant of Alexander the Great, and disliked claims referencing distant antiquity, such as Smyrna, which claimed an oracle of Apollo as the source of the cult of Venus Stratonicis. In order to ensure the veracity of cult etiologies in the future, the senators required the cities of Asia which appeared before them to display brass plaques with their cult history within their sanctuaries (A. 3.61–63). Due to their fame in Greek mythology, literature, and history, the ancient cities of Asia were sites of tourism in the Roman period. In 18 CE, Germanicus made a tour of Asia after his tour of Greece, as he wished to see ancient and famous places (A. 2.47). His visit included the city of Troy. Asia appears in the Dialogue on Orators as a place of cultural production, where oratorical performances in Ephesus and Mytilene were greeted with noisy applause (D. 15). This characterization is consistent with authors of the Second Sophistic, such as Aelius Aristides and Philostratus, who describe large crowds flocking to see sophists perform in the theaters of Asian cities. Tacitus was proconsul of the province of Asia, likely in 112/113 CE. An inscription from Mylasa (modern Milas) in southwestern Turkey records Tacitus as proconsul (AE 1890, 110 =

c01_Vol1.indd 121

OGIS 487). Some officials appointed to govern this rich province are known to have been corrupt, such as Publius Suillius Rufus, proconsul of Asia in 52/53 CE. Tacitus reports that Rufus embezzled public funds during his proconsulship (A. 13.43). Asia may also refer to the region of Asia Minor in Latin literature of the imperial age, although the term Asia Minor (Μικρὰ Ἀσία) is not attested until Late Antiquity, c. 400 CE (Oros. 1.26). Geographically, Asia Minor stretched from the Aegean coast to the Euphrates River, encompassing the provinces of Asia, as well as Pontus and Bithynia, Galatia, Lycia and Pamphylia, Cilicia, and Cappadocia, in the time of Hadrian. In this sense, Asia includes Armenia, the site of intermittent conflicts described in Tacitus’ Annals. After invading Armenia in 35 CE, Tiberius installed Mithridates Hiberus as a client king. Nero invaded in 54 CE, with Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo leading the operation (A. 13.8, 13.35– 41). Gaius Iulius Civilis, leader of the Batavian Revolt, views Asia, along with Syria and the East, as an area traditionally ruled by kings (H. 4.17). see also: Diana; Earthquake of 17 CE; provinces Reference work: Barrington 100 M4 REFERENCES Edelmann-Singer, Babett. 2015. Koina und Concilia: Genese, Organisation und sozioökonomische Funktion der Provinziallandtage im römischen Reich. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Magie, David. 1950. Roman Rule in Asia Minor to the End of the Third Century after Christ. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mitchell, Stephen. 1993. Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Robert, Louis. 1980. À travers l’Asie Mineure: poètes et prosateurs, monnaies grecques, voyageurs et géographie. Paris: de Boccard. Syme, Ronald. 1995. Anatolica: Studies in Strabo. Edited by Anthony Birley. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:45

122

  Asiaticus (1)

ASIATICUS (1) ANTONINO PITTÀ

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan)

Asiaticus was Vitellius’ freedman. Asiaticus was freed by Vitellius when the latter was appointed to govern Germania Inferior. Suet. Vit. 12 provides a malevolent account of the grotesque vicissitudes of Asiaticus’ life as a slave, where Asiaticus is portrayed as a master-manipulator, an arrogant, vicious man, and a disloyal thief: a description which recurs also in Tacitus’ mentions. When news of the victory at Bedriacum first reached Vitellius’ camp, the troops unsuccessfully asked him to grant Asiaticus the status of an equestrian (H. 2.57; Suet. Vit. 12). Given Asiaticus’ influence on his former master, the soldiers’ request might be regarded as a reward for planning the war operations that had proved successful, although Tacitus dismisses it as a mere shameful form of adulation (see Damon 2006, 248). Nevertheless, a little later Vitellius changed his mind and presented Asiaticus with the golden ring of a member of the ordo equestris in a private ceremony. The decision, attributed by Tacitus to Vitellius’ inconsistency, probably aimed at promoting Asiaticus in covert ways, far from the public appointment of the loathed freedmen of Claudius (Levick 1999, 181; Asiaticus’ advancement was foreshadowed by the fate of Galba’s freedman Icelus, cf. H. 1.13, and followed by the career of Vespasian’s freedman Hormus: see Damon 2006, 246–250; Weaver 1972, 282–283). Despite his promotion, Asiaticus still looked like a “vile slave” in the eyes of Tacitus (H. 2.57; cf. Plin. HN 33.33 and Mouritsen 2011, 59). As a counselor and imperial procurator, Asiaticus proved extremely ambitious and was ready to achieve his purposes by dishonest means. Prone to foster Vitellius’ vices by wasting public money, he rapidly matched the unpopularity of Nero’s freedmen (H. 2.95, where the generic plural Asiatici is employed to define the type of corrupt courtier par excellence, see Levick 1999, 203–204). When Licinius Mucianus entered Rome and took possession of the state, Asiaticus was executed by crucifixion, as if he had never been an

c01_Vol1.indd 122

equestrian (H. 4.11, cf. 4.3 for a similar episode). The choice of the typical servile punishment was a political one, meant to convey the message that Vitellius’ decrees had no legal validity (Cook 2019, 196; Mouritsen 2011, 99). see also: equestrians Reference work: PIR2 A 1216 REFERENCES Cook, John Granger. 2019. Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World. 2nd ext. ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Damon, Cynthia. 2006. “Potior utroque Vespasianus: Vespasian and His Predecessors in Tacitus’ Histories.” Arethusa 39: 245–279. Levick, Barbara. 1999. Vespasian. Abingdon-onThames: Taylor & Francis. Mouritsen, Henrik. 2011. The Freedman in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weaver, Paul R. C. 1972. Familia Caesaris. A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ASIATICUS (2) VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Asiaticus (2), Flavus (2), and Rufinus were Gallic chieftains who had fought for Iulius Vindex. The three are mentioned only at H. 2.94 and are otherwise unknown. Tacitus names them in an anecdote illustrating the degree to which Vitellius indulged his soldiers (because at the time he had no money for donatives). Soldiers were permitted to determine their own service. Furthermore, during one of Vitellius’ speeches, the soldiers clamored for the execution of Asiaticus, Flavus, and Rufinus, on the grounds that they had served Vindex. For Ash (2007, 362), “naming them attests to T.’s diligent research.” The specificity draws attention to the role of non-elite players and thereby underscores the enormous social upheaval of the civil wars of 69 CE. Reference work: PIR2 A 1215, F 451, R 145

28-04-2023 17:36:45

Asinius Gallus  

123

REFERENCE

REFERENCES

Ash, R. 2007. Tacitus: Histories Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Borghesi, Bartolomeo. 1864. Œuvres complètes. Vol. III. Paris: Imprimerie Impériale. Oliver, James H. 1947. “The Descendants of Asinius Pollio.” American Journal of Philology 68: 147–160. DOI: 10.2307/290950. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ASINIUS AGRIPPA, MARCUS JAKUB PIGOŃ

University of Wrocław

Marcus Asinius Agrippa (c. 8 Bce‒26 CE), consul ordinarius (25 CE), was a Roman senator active under Tiberius. He was one of five attested sons of Asinius Gallus and Vipsania Agrippina, and thus a grandson of Gaius Asinius Pollio (1). Apart from naming him and his colleague as eponymous consuls of 25 (A. 4.34.1), Tacitus mentions him only once, in his obituary (A. 4.61). He is paired there with Haterius Agrippa, but Tacitus is very brief about Asinius (claris maioribus quam vetustis vitaque non degener, “his ancestors were distinguished rather than of old lineage, and he himself did not fall behind the standards of his family”) and proceeds to discuss Haterius more fully (without indicating that they were related). Compare A. 3.75, where another of Gallus’ sons, Asinius Saloninus, is paired in a death notice with Ateius Capito and Tacitus’ focus is also on the latter. Both obituaries reflect Tacitus’ interest in the descendants of Asinius Pollio (see Oliver 1947; Syme 1986, 146); no achievements of Asinius (or of his brother) were recorded. It is probable that Marcus Asinius Marcellus, consul ordinarius (54 CE), is Asinius’ son (see Borghesi 1864, 350; cf. PIR2 A 1232); if so, Tacitus’ words at A. 14.40.2 (Marcellus Asinio Pollione proavo clarus neque morum spernendus habebatur, “Marcellus was distinguished by the fact that Asinius Pollio was his great-grandfather, and also his moral character was deemed by no means negligible”) seem to refer to A. 4.61. see also: obituary Reference work: PIR2 A 1223

c01_Vol1.indd 123

FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1970. “Obituaries in Tacitus.” In Ten Studies in Tacitus, 79–90. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ASINIUS GALLUS PHILIP WADDELL

University of Arizona

Gaius Asinius Gallus (consul 8 Bce, proconsul of Asia 6 Bce) was an important senator under Augustus and Tiberius and son of the historian Gaius Asinius Pollio (1.). He starved to death in 33 CE. Gallus’ parents were Gaius Asinius Pollio (Sen. Contr. 4 praef. 4; A. 1.12.4) and Quintia (App. B Civ. 4.12.46, 37.114), and his birth was supposedly the subject of Vergil’s fourth eclogue (Serv. Ecl. 4.11). Beginning in 20 Bce, Gallus was one of the three magistrates that supervised Roman coinage, which accounts for his presence in the numismatic record (Cohen 1880, 367, 369; Grueber 1910, p. 57-f, n. 4494–4500). He was a quindecimvir (A. 1.76.1) during the Ludi Saeculares of 17 Bce (CIL 6.32323, v. 151, 168). Gallus was consul in 8 Bce (CIL 6.1235 = 6.31541, 6.36789; Cass. Dio 55.5.1–2), during which he set the borders for the banks of the Tiber (CIL 6.1235 = 6.31541). Augustus suspected both Gallus and Censorinus of bribery but did not acknowledge his suspicions (Cass. Dio 55.5.3). Gallus was afterward proconsul of Asia (6–5 bce; CIL 3.6070) and an official amicus of Augustus (IG 12.3.174 v.11) who, nevertheless, counted him as one of the three senators who were capax imperii, who might either want or try to take total power for themselves. Tacitus records Augustus’ sentiment that Gallus

28-04-2023 17:36:45

124

  Asinius Marcellus, Marcus

was desirous, but incapable (A 1.13.2). Following Augustus’ death, Gallus proposed that the funeral procession should enter Rome by the Porta Triumphalis (A. 1.8.3). After Tiberius was impelled by Augustus to divorce his beloved wife Vipsania in 12 CE, Gallus married her, creating tension between himself and Tiberius (A. 1.12.4). This was further exacerbated during Tiberius’ ascension debate, with Gallus’ response to Tiberius’ suggestion that, while he was averse to taking all power, he would be happy to take on a part of the governance (A. 1.12.1). Gallus pointedly asked Tiberius which part he would prefer (A. 1.12.2). Tiberius, momentarily shocked, responded that he could not choose when he would prefer to be excused entirely. Realizing his overstep, Gallus apologized, saying that his question had been meant to show that the state could not be divided and must be ruled by one mind, adding praise for Augustus and Tiberius (A 1.12.3). Tacitus reveals that Gallus’ apologies did not soften Tiberius’ established hatred, based on Gallus’ marriage to Vipsania and outspoken nature, inherited from his father (A. 1.12.4). Tacitus gives multiple examples of Gallus’ votes in the Senate (A. 1.76.1, 77.2–3; 2.33.2–4, 35.1–2; 4.20.1, 30.1, 71.2–4). After Scribonius libo Drusus’ suicide following treason charges in 16 CE (see A. 2.27 ff), Gallus voted that offerings be made to Jupiter, Mars, and Concordia, and that the Ides of September (when Libo hanged himself) should be a festal day. Tacitus records this incident to track the increasing senatorial sycophancy toward the emperors (A. 2.32.2). During Tiberius’ reign, Gallus remained prominent, proposing that Tiberius announce the praetorships for five years at a time (16 CE); testing the arcana imperii—the secret inner workings of the empire (A 2.36.1); refusing to defend Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (20 CE; A. 3.11.2); and proposing high honors for Sejanus (Cass. Dio 57.3.1), despite his attested envy of Sejanus’ relationship with Tiberius (Cass. Dio 57.3.3). For unknown reasons—adultery with Agrippina the Elder was alleged posthumously (A. 6.25.2)—Gallus served a three-year term of house arrest and died in 33 CE from starvation, either voluntary or forced, but was allowed burial (A. 6.23.1).

c01_Vol1.indd 124

After his death, Gallus was regarded as a great orator (Quint. Inst. 12.1.22), and one of his epigrams (against Pomponius Marcellus the grammarian) survives (Suet. Gram. 22). Claudius later wrote a rebuttal to Gallus’ criticisms of Cicero (Suet. Cl. 41). Gallus and Vipsania had five sons, who did not fare well: Gaius Asinius Pollio (2) was exiled and executed in 45 CE; Marcus Asinius Agrippa (consul 25 CE) died the year after his consulship; Asinius Saloninus died even earlier (in 22 CE); under Claudius, Servius Asinius Celer (consul 38 CE) was killed; and the youngest son, Asinius Gallus, was exiled. see also: games; quindecimviri sacris faciundis Reference works: PIR2 A 1229; CIL 3.6070, 5.6359, 6.1235, 6.36789, 6.32323, 9.3018; IG 12.3.174 REFERENCES Cohen, Henry. 1880. Description historique des monnaies frappées sous L’Empire Romain. Paris: Alcan-Lévy. Grueber, H. A. 1910. Coins of the Roman Republic in the British Museum: Volumes 1 and 2. London: Longmans and Co. FURTHER READING Bosworth, A. B. 1977. “Tacitus and Asinius Gallus.” American Journal of Ancient History 2: 173–192. Seager, Robin. 1972. Tiberius. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 45, 106, 178–179. Shotter, D. C. A. 1971. “Tiberius and Asinius Gallus.” Historia 20.4: 443–457. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 47–49, 61–63, 130–131, 137–138.

ASINIUS MARCELLUS, MARCUS EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

Marcus Asinius Marcellus was a Roman senator, who served with Marcus Acilius Aviola as an

28-04-2023 17:36:45

125

Asinius Pollio, Gaius (1)  

ordinary consul of 54 CE, giving his name to that calendar year (A. 12.64.1, Suet. Claud. 45). Although the Tacitean passage cited preserves his praenomen, his gentile name is corrupt; the correct version of his gentile name, and his cognomen, are preserved by the inscription CIL 16.3 (which gives his full name) and by the manuscripts of Suetonius (loc. cit., which give only his gentile name and cognomen). He was a great-grandson of Gaius Asinius Pollio (1); his father was a son of Pollio’s son Asinius Gallus, most plausibly Asinius Agrippa. CIL 16.3 confirms that both Asinius Marcellus and Acilius Aviola were in office on 18 June 54 CE (Gallivan 1978, 409); Asinius must, therefore, have been in office for at least six months, but the precise length of his tenure is uncertain. Although Gallivan (1974, 299–300) conjectures that Asinius was replaced by one of three suffect consuls, either by Marcus Aefulanus or by one of the pair Marcus Iunius Silanus (PIR2 I 834, not mentioned by Tacitus) and Ducenius Geminus, in the second half of 54, the date on which any of these suffects entered office cannot definitely be established. In 61 CE, Asinius was implicated, together with his fellow senator Antonius Primus, and the equestrians Vinicius Rufinus and Terentius Lentinus, in the conspiracy of the newly appointed senator Valerius Fabianus to forge the will of his relative Domitius Balbus, an aged ex-praetor, who was an attractive target of conspiracy on account of his combined great age, childlessness, and considerable fortune (A. 14.40.1–3). Tacitus (A. 14.40.2) implies that innate greed was Asinius’ motivation for taking part in the conspiracy, despite his otherwise morally upright character, as befitted a great-grandson of the revered Pollio. Köstermann (1967, 218) hesitates to identify the Asinius of A. 14.40.2 with the ordinary consul of 54 CE on the ground that Tacitus (at A. 14.40.2) neglects to refer to his consular rank. Köstermann’s caution, however, seems needless, since there is no evidence of any other Asinius Marcellus’ being active in the Senate in the 50s and 60s CE. While the other four conspirators were tried before the Senate upon the revelation of the conspiracy, and exiled following conviction under the lex Cornelia de falsis of 81 bCE, Asinius avoided charges on account of both

c01_Vol1.indd 125

his petition to Nero and the esteem in which his ancestors were held (A. 14.40.3). Tacitus nonetheless suggests that his reputation was tarnished thereafter. Nothing is known of his career following this scandal. Reference works: PIR2 A 1232; CIL 16.3 REFERENCES Köstermann, Erich. 1967. Cornelius Tacitus: Annalen. Band III: Buch 11–13. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag. Gallivan, Paul. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24: 290–311. Gallivan, Paul. 1978. “The Fasti for the Reign of Claudius.” Classical Quarterly 28: 407–426. FURTHER READING Garnsey, Peter. 1970. Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ASINIUS POLLIO, see LUCCEIUS ALBINUS

ASINIUS POLLIO, GAIUS (1) RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Gaius Asinius Pollio (1) (76/75 bce–5 ce) was born to a family from Teatina Marrucinorum (modern Chieti). His grandfather died in the Social War, and his father was probably the first Roman citizen in his family. The earliest mention of Pollio is by Catullus, probably around 60 bce (Catull. 12.8–9: “a boy of charm and wit”). In February 56 he went to Cilicia as legate and on 10 January 10 49, he was with Iulius Caesar at the crossing of the Rubicon. Later that year, he served in Sicily and in Africa. Pollio also fought in Pharsalia (48), Thapsus (46), and Munda (45), becoming tribune of the plebs in 47 and praetor probably in 45. In 44, he was in Hispania Ulterior as proconsul, fighting Sextus Pompeius Magnus. After the assassination of Caesar on the Ides of March, Pollio supported

28-04-2023 17:36:45

126

  Asinius Pollio (2)

Mark Antony. In 41, he endorsed Lucius Antonius in the war in Perusia, being rewarded with a consulship in 40. After the conference of Brundisium, he obtained a proconsulate in Macedonia and Illyricum. He captured Salona and defeated the Illyrian Partheni. Disappointed by the relationship between Mark Antony and Cleopatra (Vell. Pat. 2.86.3), Pollio withdrew from active politics, not participating in the campaign at Actium. Probably because of his distance from Augustus, Tacitus considers him to have had a “arrogant” character (A. 1.12.4; cf. Cass. Dio 57.2.5). He protested to Augustus over some “games of Troy,” during which his grandson Claudius Marcellus Aeserninus broke his leg. Pollio was a friend of Herod the Great, receiving in his house the king’s children, Alexander and Aristobulus. Pollio composed poetry and tragedy and wrote a commentary on Vergil and a grammatical treatise in which he criticized the style of Cicero and especially that of Livy for his provincialism (patauinitas). He also added seventeen books to continue Sallust’s Histories, from the first triumvirate (60 Bce) until Philippi (42) or Actium (31), presenting himself as an eyewitness of those events. In this work, Pollio praised the memory of Brutus and Cassius (A. 4.34). Pollio was a friend of Helvius Cinna, Vergil, Horace, Cornelius Gallus, Timagenes of Alexandria, and the grammaticus Aufustius, and he exchanged correspondence with Cicero. With his Illyrian booty he built the Atrium Libertatis in Rome, housing the archives of the censors, a gallery of art, and the first public library in Rome. He married Quintia, daughter of a senator who committed suicide during the proscription of 43–42 Bce. They had four children: Gaius Asinius Gallus (consul 8 Bce), Asinius Saloninus (who died in childhood), Herius Asinius (who died before Pollio), and Asinia, who married Marcellus Aeserninus (consul 22 Bce). Pollio died in Tusculum in 5 CE when he was eighty years old. see also: civil wars of Late Republic; Roman poets; Volcacius Moschus Reference works: MRR 2.266; 2.280; 2.287; 2.306; 2.327; 2.343; 2.372; 2.377–378; 2. 381; 2.387–388; RE II.2, 1589–1602, Asinius 25 (Groebe)

c01_Vol1.indd 126

FURTHER READING Morgan, Llewelyn. 2000. “The Autopsy of C. Asinius Pollio.” Journal of Roman Studies 90: 51–69. Zecchini, Giuseppe. 1980. “Asinio Pollione.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.30.2: 1265–1296.

ASINIUS POLLIO (2) ARTHUR J. POMEROY

Victoria University of Wellington

Gaius Asinius Pollio (2) is chiefly known as consul ordinarius in 23 CE, along with Gaius Antistius Vetus (1) (A. 4.1). Pollio came from a distinguished family with close connections to the imperial household. He was the son of Gaius Asinius Gallus (consul 8 Bce) and Vipsania, daughter of Augustus’ general Agrippa and ex-wife of Tiberius. Among his four brothers was Marcus Asinius Agrippa (consul in 25, died 26 CE). He had previously been praetor peregrinus in 20 CE when Gaius Antistius Vetus was praetor urbanus (Acta Fratrum Arvalium [Henzen]: Fasti Magistratuum p. 244). The two men then shared the honor of being consules ordinarii in 23, but Pollio continued in office, sharing the consulship in the second half with the suffect consul Gaius Stertinius Maximus (Acta Fratrum Arvalium [Henzen] p. 244). The Samians placed statues of this last pair in their Heraeon since as consuls they had proposed to the Senate the restoration of the right of refuge (ius asyli) in the temple of Juno on Samos (IG XII.6; cf. A. 4.14.1 where Tacitus notes the antiquity of this right). Later, Pollio became proconsul of Asia, as indicated by coinage issued by authority of the Asian assembly, probably minted at Pergamum, that reads “to Gaius Asinius Pollio the proconsul.” The year of Pollio’s proconsulship is uncertain. It is not likely to have occurred under Tiberius, as Pollio’s father Asinius Gallus, whom the emperor hated, was imprisoned after the fall of Sejanus and died in 33. It quite possibly occurred in 38/39 (Syme 1983, 196) in the reign of Caligula, since the coinage was issued in honor of “the Caesars Drusus and Germanicus, divine youths working in harmony with one another” (neoi theoi philadelphoi). The commemoration

28-04-2023 17:36:45

Assyria  

would thus be topical, since Drusus the Younger, the son of Tiberius, was half-brother of Asinius Pollio through their mother Vipsania, while Germanicus was the father of Caligula. Brick tiles from Tusculum and Rome which bear the name Pollio may be products of his estates there, although they may also refer of other members of his family. Reference works: PIR2 A 1242; IG XII.6; Acta fratrum arvalium quae supersunt ed. W. Henzen (Berlin 1874); coinage: Roman Provincial Coinage 2995; SNG 3143; British Museum Catalogue of Greek Coins, Lydia p. 251 no. 103 (online illustration: https://hvrd.art/o/195514) REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1983. “Problems about Proconsuls of Asia.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 53: 191–208.

ASINIUS SALONINUS, see AGRIPPA (VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA, MARCUS) ASITIUS, see CALVUS

ASSYRIA NATHANAEL ANDRADE

Binghamton University

Assyria was a region located in upper Mesopotamia and extending immediately east of the Tigris river (roughly northern Iraq). Greek and Roman authors also used the term inclusively for all Mesopotamia or the Levant and Mesopotamia combined. During the second millennium Bce, the Assyrians created states in upper Mesopotamia and east of the Tigris River that included the cities of Assur and Nineveh (Barrington 89, F4, 91 E2). In the early first millennium Bce, the Neo-Assyrian Empire conquered Babylonia and many territories in the Levant. Subsequently Greek and Roman authors sometimes described the Levant and Mesopotamia combined as Assyria and used the term interchangeably with Syria (Hdt. 7.63, Strabo, 16.1.1–2; Diod. Sic. 2.1–21: Andrade 2014, 302–305). They also had a tendency not to distinguish between Assyrians and Babylonians, whom they conflated

c01_Vol1.indd 127

127

under the name Assyrian (Hdt. 1.184; Andrade 2014, 302–305). By the first century CE, Greek authors described Assyria as Adiabene, which was governed by a royal dynasty subject to the Parthians and sporting converts to Judaism (Joseph. AJ. 2.17– 96; Marciak 2017, 269–271). The cities of Assur and Nineveh, which had been key political centers of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, remained active settlements under the Seleucids and Parthians, and thus into Tacitus’ lifetime (Haider 2008). Tacitus (A. 12.13.1– 2) in fact refers to Nineveh as Ninos and locates it both in Assyria and in territory controlled by the Adiabeni. In 116, after invading Parthia, Trajan may have created a province called Assyria at or near classical Assyria, but it was very short lived if it existed at all (Marciak 2017, 366–379). Tacitus (H. 5.8.2) describes the East as having been under the control of the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians (Persia) in the periods before the conquests of Alexander the Great. In so doing, he is employing a common trope of Greek and Latin geographers and historians, who conceived of the Assyrians as having been overthrown by the Medes, who were in turn overthrown by the Persians (Hdt. 1.106–30; Strabo 16.1.2; Diod. Sic. 2.1–34). Like such authors, he also does not distinguish Medes from Babylonians, who were also pivotal in displacing the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the sixth century Bce. Tacitus (H. 5.2.3) also mentions a theory that the Jews were descended from Assyrians who had settled in what became their territory. see also: Bellum Iudaicum Reference work: Barrington 89 and 91 REFERENCES Andrade, Nathanael. 2014. “Assyrians, Syrians, and the Greek Language in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Periods.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 73.2: 299–318. Haider, Peter. 2008. “Tradition and Change in the Beliefs at Assur, Nineveh, and Nisibis between 300 bc and ad 300.” In The Variety of Local Religious Life in the Near East in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, edited by Ted Kaizer, 193–207. Leiden: Brill. Marciak, Michal. 2017. Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene: Three Regna Minora of Northern Mesopotamia between East and West. Leiden: Brill.

28-04-2023 17:36:45

128

  astrology

ASTROLOGY PAULINE RIPAT

University of Winnipeg

In Roman antiquity, astrology was a predictive science that connected the movements of celestial bodies with human fate. It was a heterogeneous discipline with roots in Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek astrological traditions and had correlations with philosophical, medical, and mathematical theories. Tacitus declares himself uncertain about the connections upon which astrology depended (astrology is declared a “superstition” at H. 2.78), but he also tells us that most people did not share his hesitation, although the ineptness of those who claimed to be able to make astrological predictions might compromise the name of the practice itself (A. 6.22). This pair of popular convictions about astrology and astrologers— worthy science, too many unworthy practitioners—is surely the basis of Tacitus’ famous formulation that astrologers were “untrustworthy to the powerful, false to the hopeful, and always expelled and retained in our state” (H. 1.22). Tacitus refers to astrologers interchangeably as mathematici and Chaldaei. Though curiosity about astrology is discernible in the republic, significant enthusiasm for the science appears to have developed in the Augustan period thanks to the interest shown by the princeps himself. Thereafter, astrological interest or prediction commonly featured in anecdotes about the emperors, a favorite theme being the prediction of power made to those who would eventually hold the throne while they were still small, sometimes rendered by the sitting emperor himself (e.g., A. 6.22, 14.9; cf. Suet. Tib. 14.2, Calig. 19.3, and Cass. Dio 57.19.4). It is a commonplace of modern scholarship to posit the presence of “court astrologers” who functioned as retained advisors to the emperors and members of the imperial household; Thrasyllus and his probable son Balbillus are often identified as likely early candidates. But a distinction ought to be made between men (such as Thrasyllus and Balbillus) whose academic interests could include astrology and those who made a profession out of casting

c01_Vol1.indd 128

horoscopes (cf. Cic. Div. 1.132). It is safe to identify Ptolemaeus (2), astrological consultant first of Poppaea Sabina the Younger and later of her ex-husband Otho (H. 1.22; also Onomastus), and Seleucus (H. 2.78), advisor of Vespasian, as part of the latter group, which does not appear to have been made up of specially retained members of imperial staff, but freelancers. However, it has been suggested by Cramer (1954, 132–135; cf. Suet. Otho 4.1, Plut. Galb. 23.4) that Ptolemaeus and Seleucus might have even been the same person. Similarly, Tacitus offers no reason to think that the unnamed astrologers who provided Agrippina the Younger with advice (A. 12.68 and 14.9) were members of her household. Tacitus includes allegations of astrological inquiry in his reports of accusations against those suspected of harboring excessive ambitions (e.g., A. 3.22, 12.22, 12.52). Professional astrologers could be exiled for their participation in real or suspected political intrigues. Pammenes, patronized by Anteius Rufus and exposed as continuing to carry on a mail-order business from the Cycladic island to which he was sent, presents a good example (A. 16.14; cf. Juv. 6.557–559). However, Tacitus, like other sources, offers no evidence that astrology was itself considered a divinatory activity with greater truth value, and so more worrying to emperors, than the omens or oracles that were still frequently sought and interpreted along with horoscopes. It is notable, for example, that Scribonius Libo Drusus was said to consult astrologers (along with magicians and interpreters of dreams, see portents), but the charges of occult activity that brought him down included nothing astrological (A. 2.27–28). By the same token, while the advertisement of favorable stars was surely of benefit to emperors or imperial contenders (such as Vespasian), it is clear that other positive signs and divine responses were also required for claims of legitimacy to be convincing (e.g., H. 2.78). Astrologers were nonetheless expelled (along with magicians or philosophers) several times from Italy in the first century CE, in 16 or 17 (or both; A. 2.32, Suet. Tib. 36, Cass. Dio 57.15.8; Ulpian Mosaicarum et romanarum legum collatio 15.2.1), in 52 (A. 12.52), in 69 (H. 2.62, Suet. Vit. 14.4, Cass.

28-04-2023 17:36:45

Ateius Capito, Gaius  

Dio 64.1.4), in 70 (Cass. Dio 65.9.2), and possibly in 93 (Jer. Chron. 93–94; others say only philosophers were expelled: Suet. Dom. 10.3, Gell. NA 15.11.3–5, Cass. Dio 67.13.2–3; Ripat 2011). The expulsion of 16 CE was also marked by the public executions of two otherwise unknown individuals, Publius Marcius and Pituanius, who were presumably professional astrologers (A. 2.32). The expulsions mentioned by Tacitus are implicitly linked in his narrative to treasonous solicitation of horoscopes by ambitious individuals; these connections encourage a historiographical impression of hypocritical emperors who doubt their own legitimacy while desperately clinging to their faith in their own astrological advisors (cf. Juv. 10.94). Yet it is possible that the contexts of expulsion included more imperial concern for public order than Tacitean narratives of personal paranoia imply. see also: Egypt; magic; maiestas; religion REFERENCES Cramer, F. 1954. Astrology in Roman Law and Politics. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. 112–144. Ripat, P. 2011. “Expelling Misconceptions: Astrologers at Rome.” Classical Philology 106: 115–154. FURTHER READING Barton, T. 1994. Ancient Astrology. London and New York: Routledge. Beck, R. 2007. A Brief History of Ancient Astrology. Oxford: Blackwell. Lehoux, D. 2012. What Did the Romans Know? An Inquiry into Science and Worldmaking. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

ATEIUS CAPITO, GAIUS MICHAEL L. KONIECZNY

Gaius Ateius Capito (d. 22 CE), suffect consul in 5 CE, was “one of the great legal luminaries of the early empire” (Goodyear 1981, 172) and the author of several works of jurisprudence. He was a novus homo, his father having served as praetor, and his grandfather as a centurion under Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) (A. 3.75.1).

c01_Vol1.indd 129

129

He was already renowned as a legal expert at the time of the Secular Games in 17 Bce, when he was consulted on matters of ritual protocol (Zos. 2.4.2). From 13 CE until his death in 22 Capito served as curator aquarum (Frontin. Aq. 102). After a flood in 15 CE devastated large portions of the city of Rome, Tiberius appointed him, along with Lucius Arruntius, to oversee a commission charged with investigating the possibility of diverting the channel of the Tiber River (A. 1.76.1), but this project was ultimately abandoned following concerns raised by the representatives of surrounding municipalities (A. 1.79). In 22 CE, shortly before his death, Capito intervened in the trial of the equestrian Lucius Ennius, who was accused of melting down a silver statue of the emperor. When Tiberius declined to pursue the charges, Capito vehemently asserted the right of the Senate to pass judgment on what he represented as a grievous insult to the state, although the emperor persisted in his veto (A. 3.70). (Ennius himself eventually married the daughter of Thrasyllus, the emperor’s trusted astrologer; see Demougin 241, PIR2 E 61.) Capito frequently appears in the sources as an exemplar of flattery and subservience (e.g., Suet. Gram. et rhet. 22; Cass. Dio 57.17.2) and is subjected to particularly scathing criticism by Tacitus in the Annals. Tacitus cites his conduct during the trial of Ennius as evidence of Capito’s infamia, implying that he put on a false show of outspokenness in order to provide the emperor with the opportunity to reiterate his veto (A. 3.70.3; on the interpretation of the passage, see Woodman and Martin 1996, 471–473). In his obituary of Capito, Tacitus contrasts his subservience toward the imperial household (obsequium dominantibus) with the libertas exemplified by his rival, the jurist Marcus Antistius Labeo (A. 3.75.2). Tacitus further alleges that Augustus had elevated Capito to the consulship as a show of preferment over Labeo, though this claim is disputed by a report in the Digest, according to which Labeo had been offered a consulship by Augustus but turned it down to focus on his studies (Dig. 1.2.2.47). see also: material representations; statues Reference work: PIR2 A 1279

28-04-2023 17:36:45

130

  Athens

REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D., ed. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 1–6. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J., and R. H. Martin, eds. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Seckel, Emil, and Bernhard Kuebler, eds. 1988. Iurisprudentia anteiustiniana. Vol. 1. Leipzig: Teubner. 62–72. Syme, Sir Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 760–761.

ATEIUS, Marcus, see EARTHQUAKE OF 17 CE

ATHENS ANDREW WOLPERT

University of Florida

Athens enjoyed one of the most extensive and stable democracies of ancient Greece. After the formation of the democracy, the Athenians suffered only two brief periods of civil unrest until 322 Bce when Antipater dissolved the Athenian democracy and installed a Macedonian garrison. Because of its naval strength, Athens jointly led the Greek campaign with Sparta to repel Persia from mainland Greece (480–479 Bce) and was a dominant military power until the Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War (431–404 Bce). The arts flourished under the democracy. Greek tragedy and comedy originated in Athens, many famous philosophers and orators settled in the city, and later Romans visited it to study with them. Athens was the political and urban center of Attica, a triangular peninsula that extended into the Aegean with Megara to the west and mountains on its northern border with Boeotia. It was about 2,500 square km (approximately the size of Orange County, California). Only Sparta was larger than Attica. At its height in the middle of the fifth century Bce, Athens had 60,000 adult male citizens, making it the most populated Greek polis. By the middle of the fourth century Bce, the adult male citizen population had declined to approximately 30,000, and the total

c01_Vol1.indd 130

population of Attica may have been around 150,000–250,000. The Athenians sometimes dated the democracy to their legendary king, Theseus, but its history was more complex. In the Archaic period, aristocratic families controlling different regions of Attica ruled Athens. In 594 Bce, Solon weakened their power by extending the right to hold the highest political offices to all wealthy Athenians. He banned the enslavement of the free population of Attica and essentially established their right of citizenship by ending the debt bondage of Athenians. For these and other reforms, he was later celebrated alongside Minos of Crete and Lycurgus (2) of Sparta as one of the lawgivers of Greece. Tacitus even compares him to Servius Tullius (see Rome, myth and history) because of the rights Servius extended to the Roman plebs (A. 3.26). Pisistratus exploited the civil unrest that followed the Solonian reforms to seize power. He made himself tyrant and passed on his rule to his sons (561–510 Bce). After the expulsion of the Pisistratids, the democracy was established when Cleisthenes sought popular support for reforms that diminished the political authority of the elite (508/7 Bce). In the middle of the fifth century Bce, Ephialtes and Pericles extended the democracy when Athens was at the height of its military power. Through its naval empire, the Athenians controlled the Aegean and for a short period of time central Greece and parts of the Peloponnesus. They used imperial revenue to pay for an ambitious public building program, which included the Parthenon. In the fourth century Bce the Athenians further developed the democracy even without a naval empire. Pay was instituted for attendance at assembly meetings; the laws were reorganized; and measures were enacted to protect the grain supply and ensure that Athens had sufficient financial resources for military emergencies. During the Hellenistic period, the Athenians sometimes enjoyed independence and sometimes were subjected to foreign rule, but democratic ideology and institutions persisted. Under the Roman Republic, the city remained independent until the Athenians supported Mithridates King of Bosporus. In 86 Bce, Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) sacked Athens, the economy collapsed, and the assembly fell into silence. In 58 Bce, the province of Macedonia was extended to include Athens. Still, the Athenians were allowed to govern their own

28-04-2023 17:36:45

131

Atilius Rufus  

city, and the Romans continued to hold them in high esteem under the empire (A. 2.53). Hadrian revitalized the city by embarking on his own building program that included the completion of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which was begun under the Pisistratids. Yet, as Tacitus demonstrates, the Romans also saw Athens and its decline as a cautionary tale (A. 11.24) and associated the Athenian democracy with lawlessness (D. 40). see also: Greece; Greek orators; Sparta Reference work: Barrington 59 B3, 1 H3, 57 B4, 58 F2 FURTHER READING Bayliss, Andrew J. 2011. After Demosthenes: The Politics of Early Hellenistic Athens. London: Continuum. Habicht, Christian. 1997. Athens from Alexander to Antony. Translated by Deborah Schneider. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hansen, Mogens Herman. 1991. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, Ideology. Oxford: Blackwell. Ober, Josiah. 1989. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Waterfield, Robin. 2004. Athens: A History from Ancient Ideal to Modern City. London: Macmillan.

ATIA, see AUGUSTUS ATIDIUS GEMINUS, see GREECE ATILIUS, see FIDENAE

ATILIUS CALATINUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

Atilius dedicated temples to Fides on the Capitolium and Spes in the forum holitorium; the latter was restored by Germanicus in the year 17 CE (A. 2.49). Cicero preserves part of Atilius’ epitaph (Sen. 61). see also: Carthage; Duilius, Gaius; Postumius Albus Regillensis, Aulus FURTHER READING Lazenby, J. F. 1996. The First Punic War. New York: Routledge.

ATILIUS RUFUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Titus Atilius Rufus (d. 84 CE) was a suffect consul under Vespasian (before 80 CE, date uncertain; Gallivan, p. 206, 220) and proconsul of the province of Syria, where he died in the year 84 CE, according to the only mention by Tacitus at Ag. 40.1. A military diploma attests that Atilius Rufus was legate of Pannonia on 13 June 80 (CIL XVI 26), and an inscription on a milestone of 83 CE indicates his presence in Syria (AE 1925, 95). We get a glimpse of the state of the army in Syria at that time from Pliny the Younger, who served as military tribune in Syria in 81 or 82 CE. He describes the deplorable lack of discipline among the officers and ranks (Ep. 8.14.7). Syme (1958, 75, n. 2) suggests that Atilius Rufus was from Transpadane, Italy. Reference works: PIR2 A 1304; AE 1925, 94; CIL XVI 26

University of Florida

Aulus Atilius Calatinus (A. Atilius, in Tacitus only at A. 2.49.2), was consul in 258 and 254, praetor in 257, dictator in 249, and censor in 247 Bce. During the First Punic War, Atilius campaigned with mixed fortunes in Sicily in 258 but celebrated a triumph in 257. Polybius (1.38.6) credits the capture of Panormus in 254 to both consuls but only Cornelius Scipio Asina was awarded a triumph. Atilius was the first dictator to lead an army outside Italy (to Sicily; Livy Per. 19).

c01_Vol1.indd 131

REFERENCES Gallivan, Paul. 1981. “The Fasti for A. D. 70–96.” Classical Quarterly 31: 186–220. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.

ATILIUS VERGILIO, see GALBA ATILIUS VERUS, see BATTLE NARRATIVE ATIMETUS, see DOMITIA ATRIA, see VIBENNIUS RUFINUS

28-04-2023 17:36:45

132

  Atticus, Aulus

ATTICUS, AULUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Aulus Atticus served under Agricola as prefect of a cohort in Britannia. He is the only subordinate officer of Agricola mentioned by name and only at Ag. 37.6, where Tacitus relates his death during the Battle of Mons Graupius. Compelled by his youthful impetuosity, Atticus charged into the battle on a horse so fierce as to be fatally unmanageable. The praenomen Aulus occurs often among the Iulii, and an Aulus Iulius Atticus wrote a book on viticulture quoted by Columella, who tells us that one of Iulius Atticus’ students was Iulius Graecinus, father of Agricola, who also wrote a treatise on viticulture (Columella, Rust. 1.1.14). Therefore, it is possible that Aulus Atticus the prefect was related to Iulius Atticus the teacher of Agricola, and therefore known to Tacitus. Reference work: PIR2 A 1340 FURTHER READING Birley, A. R. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J., and C. S. Kraus. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ATTIUS, see DRUSUS CAESAR

ATTUS CLAUSUS JOSEPH R. O’NEILL

Arizona State University

Attus Clausus was recognized as the founder of the gens Claudia and so was a distant ancestor of the emperors Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius. Attus Clausus is the name given by Tacitus to the founder of the gens Claudia (A. 4.9.2, 11.24.1, and 12.25.2). Livy calls him Attius Clausus (2.16.4, 4.3.14, and 10.8.6), and Suetonius, Atta Claudius (Tib. 1.1). Dionysius of Halicarnassus alone assigns him the praenomen Titus (Ant. Rom. 5.40.3), perhaps conflating him with Titus Tatius, who, like Clausus, was of Sabine origin. He was reputedly from Inregillum (or Regillum) and relocated with a

c01_Vol1.indd 132

large band of clients to Rome at the beginning of the fifth century Bce. Clausus and his followers were settled on Roman territory north of the Anio (Aniene), enrolled in a new tribe named in their honor, the tribus Claudia (Verg. Aen. 7.706–709), and welcomed among the patricians. After his relocation, Clausus was known by his Romanized name, Appius Claudius, and given the cognomina Sabinus Inregillensis. Appius Claudius Sabinus Inregillensis was elected consul for 495 Bce with Publius Servilius Priscus as his colleague (Livy 2.21.5), having served previously as quaestor urbanus (CIL VI 1279  =  Inscrit. Ital. 13.3.67). Appius Claudius had at least one son, Gaius Claudius Sabinus Inregillensis, who attained the consulship in 460 Bce. Descendants of Appius Claudius proved influential in the long history of Rome through the imperial period. Appius Claudius Caecus, censor in 312 and builder of the Via Appia and the Aqua Appia, is one of many leading Romans from the republican period. Livia Augusta, third wife of Augustus, was born into the patrician Claudii, and her first husband and father of her two sons was himself a member of the gens Claudia (Tiberius Claudius Nero, praetor in 42 bce). Livia’s elder son, Tiberius, was adopted by Augustus, thereby inaugurating what would become known as the JulioClaudian dynasty. Succeeding emperors Gaius (Caligula) and Claudius were both direct descendants of Livia, and both capitalized on their connection not only to her, but also her grandson, the popular Germanicus. see also: Roman Republic; Roman roads Reference work: CIL VI 1279=Inscrit. Ital. 12.2.67 ATYS, see SARDIS AUFIDIENUS RUFUS, see PANNONIAN REVOLT

AUFIDIUS BASSUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Aufidius Bassus, Roman historian of the JulioClaudian era, died in old age shortly after 60 CE (Sen. Ep. 30.1). He was slightly older than

28-04-2023 17:36:45

Augustus  

Servilius Nonianus, consul in 35 (Quint. Inst. 10.1.103). There is no evidence of a regular political or military career, presumably because of poor health; he may be identified with the Lucius Aufidius Bassus of a dedicatory inscription to Aesculapius and Valetudo at Athens around the year 40 (ILS 3832). Two works are known. Bellum Germanicum covered the campaigns of Tiberius, perhaps from 4 CE when he resumed command of Germania, to 16, when the recovery of the standards of Quintilius Varus was commemorated with a triumphal arch (A. 2.41.1). Historiae, a lengthy annalistic history, started early enough to include Cicero’s death (Sen. Suas. 6.18, 23). Its scope is indicated by Cassiodorus, who cites Bassus for the consuls between 8 Bce and 31 CE (Chronica 587, 634). It was continued by Pliny the Elder (HN pr. 20), whose title A fine Aufidi Bassi (“From the end of Aufidius Bassus,” Plin. Ep. 3.5.6) suggests a terminus not necessarily coincident with the end of a reign, but as early as the fall of Sejanus (31 CE) or as late as the death of Claudius (54 CE). Tacitus may have consulted the portions on Tiberius, Cassius Dio the portions on Augustus. Quintilian praises his eloquence (Inst. 10.1.103) as does Tacitus (D. 23).

133

of Augustus (García Quintela and González García 2016). The city grew quickly and by the early first century CE it was a center of trade and education in Gaul. In 21 CE, Augustodunum was seized by a rebel faction of the Aedui, led by Iulius Sacrovir, who raised an army of 40,000 to oppose Roman rule (A. 3.43.2). With Gaius Silius [Aulus Caecina Largus] having been dispatched to retake Augustodunum with two legions, Sacrovir led his army out of the city to meet the Romans (A. 3.45.4). The ensuing battle was brief, and the rebels were decisively defeated. Having fled first to Augustodunum, and then into the countryside, Sacrovir and his closest followers died by mutual suicide (A. 3.45.6). Following the rebellion, the Aedui were increasingly Romanized, and in 48 CE, under the emperor Claudius they were the first Gauls to gain the ius honorum, allowing them to become senators (A. 11.25.2). The city remained prosperous until the late third century CE and became a noted center of Roman education (Pan. Lat. IX). see also: Tabula Lugdunensis Reference work: Barrington 18 B3 REFERENCE

Reference work: ILS 3832

García Quintela, Marco V., and A. César González García. 2016. “De Bibracte à Augustodunum.” Revue archéologique de l’Est 65: 289–302.

FURTHER READING

FURTHER READING

Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. 274–276, 697–700. Wilkes, J. 1972. “Julio-Claudian Historians.” Classical World 65: 192–197.

Rebourg, Alain. 1998. “L’urbanisme d’Augustodunum (Autun, Saône-et-Loire).” Gallia 55: 141–236. https://www.persee.fr/doc/ galia_0016-4119_1998_num_55_1_3002.

AUGUSTODUNUM

AUGUSTUS

see also: sources

WILLIAM STOVER

ELEANOR COWAN

University of Virginia

University of Sydney

Augustodunum (modern Autun) was a Roman city in Gaul, founded in the late first century Bce by Augustus as a capital for the Gallic Aedui. Archeological evidence suggests that Augustodunum was established late in the reign

Augustus came to be thought of as Rome’s first emperor. He emerged victorious from the long years of civil war which followed the assassination of Iulius Caesar and had a lasting influence on

c01_Vol1.indd 133

28-04-2023 17:36:45

134

  Augustus

the postconflict transition to peace. The rich body of literary, epigraphic, and material evidence which was produced during these postconflict years (including Augustus’ own autobiographical writing), as well as the survival of the later ancient narratives of Velleius Paterculus and Cassius Dio and biographical sketches (principally that undertaken by Suetonius and Nicolaus of Damascus), makes the lifetime of Augustus one of the periods in Roman history about which we are best informed. Tacitus’ writings offer a series of reflections on Augustus and his achievements which are among the best-known and most widely studied in his work. Augustus (63 Bce–14 CE) born Gaius Octavius, was a member of a distinguished family in Velitrae. His father Gaius Octavius (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 1.9) was a new man (novus homo) who had risen to the rank of praetor (61). His mother Atia was the niece of the dictator Iulius Caesar. Tacitus considered her influential in her son’s early education (D. 28.6.4). His early career was typical of that of a Roman elite male to the extent that he combined early intellectual and oratorical training with military service and religious duties (pontifex 47). After the assassination of Julius Caesar and his controversial adoption, he assumed the name Caesar (“Young Caesar”). Octavian (now calling himself Caesar) was not in Rome at the time of the assassination, and his return was marked by astute overtures to his great-uncle’s veterans as well as by the need to establish himself as Julius Caesar’s key avenger. In this his main rival was the consul of 44 Bce, Mark Antony. Antony was in a strong position to represent himself as Julius Caesar’s political and ideological successor. A powerful orator with a well-established military reputation, he was at the forefront of attempts to restabilize the situation in Rome in the days and weeks after the murder. In this early period, Cicero played a significant role in representing the interests of the Liberators (Julius Caesar’s murderers) as well as in challenging Antony’s authority. Cicero’s Philippic orations, a prolonged indictment of Antony, began also to craft an identity for Young Caesar as a virtuous and much-needed leader, and recognition by Cicero came to form a part of the powerful legitimating myths which later accrued to this early period of Augustus’ life (Plut. Cic. 44). Antony

c01_Vol1.indd 134

was increasingly ostracized and then defeated at Forum Gallorum and Mutina. Octavian’s persona of deliverer and his own willingness to march on Rome with an army enabled him effectively to force his community to give him the consulship (Badian 1982; Osgood 2006; Salmon 1956; Syme 1939). Later, in his autobiographical Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Augustus would tread with considerable care over the problems of authority and legitimacy posed by these acts. At the time, his focus was on his role as Caesar’s avenger, and it is in this context that the lex Pedia (a law of Octavian’s consular colleague Quintus Pedius) was passed allowing the punishment of Caesar’s assassins and others associated with the murder (Vell. Pat. 2.69.5; Plut. Brut. 27.4; App. B Civ. 3.95) (Welch 2018). Complex negotiations among those invested in Caesar’s legacy nevertheless continued and gave rise to a meeting of Octavian, Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3) in November at Bononia (43 Bce). Here, a triumvirate was agreed which was formally enabled by the lex Titia. The triumvirate was formally empowered to put the state in order (rei publicae constituendae causa) following years of political unrest. It was always understood to be a temporary role, although the precise scope and time frame allotted for the completion of the task assigned continued to be revisited. The following year Julius Caesar’s deification led to a further modification in titulature: divi filius (son of the god), a status which set him apart among the surviving supporters of Caesar. Competing agendas within the triumvirate still continued and are borne out in the different solutions offered to the question of how Caesar’s murderers should be punished, via proscription instituted by the triumvirate and through the earlier lex Pedia (Welch 2018, 2019). Later exculpatory traditions sought to distance Octavian from the horror of the proscriptions and, in particular, from the execution of Cicero, but other surviving traditions represent him as equally if not more savage in his ruthless pursuit of vengeance for Caesar (Vell. Pat. 2.64– 66; Suet. Aug. 27.1–4). Having condemned the assassins and their sympathizers in their absence, the triumvirs and their supporters next sought to hunt them down and, at two battles at Philippi (42 Bce) Marcus Iunius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus (1) were defeated. In the wake of the

28-04-2023 17:36:45

Augustus  

battle, Antony headed to the eastern part of the empire (where he met Cleopatra VII in Egypt in 41 bce) while Octavian returned to Italy and to Rome where unpopular land confiscations were underway in order to settle veteran soldiers. The following years exposed increasing tensions between Antony and Young Caesar. Octavian’s siege and subsequent ruthless treatment of the town of Perusia (41–40 Bce), which had become a stronghold of Lucius Antonius (Antony’s brother) and Antony’s wife Fulvia, like the proscriptions, left an indelible mark on a community torn apart by civil conflict. Conflict with Sextus Pompeius (youngest son of Pompey the Great) also escalated despite an early attempt to forge a reconciliation symbolized by the marriage of Octavian and Scribonia (1) (sister of Sextus Pompey’s father-in-law Lucius Scribonius Libo) in 40 Bce. With her, Octavian, had a daughter Julia the Elder who, despite his later marriage and rumors of numerous affairs (Suet. Aug. 69), remained his only child. Also in this year, Antony married Octavia (1), sister of Octavian. In 39 Bce Octavian divorced Scribonia and married Livia Drusilla (see Livia Augusta), at that stage the wife of an opponent, who brought with her to the marriage her son Tiberius Claudius Nero (Tiberius) and who was already pregnant with another son Nero Claudius Drusus (Drusus the Elder). The triumvirate itself was renewed and continued to inform the rhetoric and representation of Octavian (Caesar divi filius) and his fellow triumvirs into the 30s Bce even as relations between Octavian and Antony continued to deteriorate (Millar 1973; Vervaet 2010). Sextus Pompeius had provided a refuge for the proscribed, and his coinage had helped to inform the rhetoric and iconography of the emerging conflict. Styling himself Magnus Pius and making use of an iconography which drew on Neptune and on his own father’s superiority as a naval commander, he continued to offer an alternative leadership to that of the triumvirs (Welch 2012). Syme has suggested that Sextus’ experiments with nomenclature help us better to understand the novel use of Imperator as a part of his name which Octavian made use of from 38 Bce (Syme 1958). Sextus’ defeat at Naulochus (36 Bce) and his later betrayal and murder were disparagingly downplayed in Augustus’ Res Gestae (25) as making the

c01_Vol1.indd 135

135

sea free from pirates, yet the influence of this and other early experimentations with titulature, iconography, and divine associations continued to inform the representations of both Antony and Octavian (now Imperator Caesar) throughout the 30s (Levick 2010; Zanker 1988). Significant among these representations was the investment (both financial and ideological) which he and his supporters (particularly Agrippa, aedile in 33 Bce) made in the infrastructure of Rome. Public building signaled an investment in Rome and Italy and could skillfully be contrasted with the apparent shifting of Antony’s loyalties to Egypt and her Queen, Cleopatra. In 32 Bce the peoples of Italy took an oath of allegiance to Octavian (Imperator Caesar) as leader in the coming war which must by now have seemed inevitable (Mon. Anc. 25.2–3). The representation of this war, simultaneously foreign and civil, was complex (Gurval 1995; Lange 2009). The defeat of Cleopatra and Antony’s forces at Actium (31 Bce) and their subsequent suicide after Octavian’s forces pursued them to Alexandria (30 Bce) quickly became the stuff of myth and misrepresentation. To this triumviral and immediately postconflict period properly belong many important works of literature by the poets Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, and Vergil, as well as the early books of Livy’s monumental history of Rome and the work of Cornelius Nepos. Although conveniently referred to as products of Augustan culture, Millar (1993), Burton (2000), and White (2005) have demonstrated the advantages of thinking about these works as pre-Augustan (since he did not yet have the name) and grounded in the years of civil conflict and in the immediately postconflict world of the 20s (see also Kennedy 1992). In the same way, the narrative of the 20s and teens, which is conventionally represented as a series of settlements (28–27; 23 and 19 Bce) in which Augustus (so-called after 27 Bce) gained increasing power within his community while at the same time restoring res publica, might also be thought of as a series of negotiations between Augustus and his community which were informed by a competitive culture of honors and privileges. The publication of an aureus proclaiming leges et iura p. R. restituit (“He has restored to the people of Rome their laws and their rights,”

28-04-2023 17:36:45

136

  Augustus

BM Coins, Rom. Emp. 1995 0401.1) has reignited vigorous discussion of the extent to which Augustus ever claimed to restore the republic in these postconflict years (Judge 2019; Millar 2000; Rich 2012; Rich and Williams 1999). Certainly, careful attention was given to the fundamental building blocks of the state—elections by the Roman people, the authority of the Senate, and the operation of the law—during these years. Augustus’ participation in decision-making and the routine business of government and administration were a hallmark of his politics post–civil war. He developed and maintained an image as civilis princeps, neither equal citizen nor ruler, by an astute balancing act which required his personal charisma and authority to maintain (Wallace-Hadrill 1982). Victorious, Octavian’s return to Rome in 29 Bce was marked by a triple triumph. In the years between 31 and 23 Bce, he held consecutive consulships although he was frequently away from Rome campaigning in the empire (Lacey 1996). He accrued honors and privileges which included extensive power in the provinces and command of strategic legions. Considerable ingenuity was used to ensure his exclusive monopoly over the forces of coercion and control within the empire, including the use of legates subordinate to his authority, the institution of an equestrian governor in Egypt, and the regulation of exceptional achievements by his relations who now commanded troops under his auspices. Sizeable expansion of the empire was coupled with diplomatic successes such as the return of standards by the Parthians depicted on the cuirass of the statue of Augustus Prima Porta and a complex imperial hegemony (Brunt 1990a, 1990b). The revenues of empire, long a source of enrichment for individuals as well as the state, were also carefully curated in order to prevent the rise of a rival commander and to maintain the loyalty of the legions under his own command (Lintott 1993). The representation of the princeps to the peoples of empire and the relationship between empire and imperial rule became a core component of the ideology of the principate (Ando 2000). The twenties and early teens were a period of legal, religious, and constitutional experimentation coupled with a renewed antiquarian interest in Rome’s history and culture and with the

c01_Vol1.indd 136

reinvigoration of traditional religious observances which were themselves linked to a program of temple restoration and the building of new temples (Mon. Anc. 19–20). Augustus’ place within and impact on the political and legal apparatus of the state has been the subject of extensive study from the nineteenth century onward (historiographical surveys are provided in Linderski 1990; Edmondson 2009 and Cooley 2014). A golden age of Roman literature, begun in the triumviral years, accompanied the postwar social and cultural recovery (Galinsky 1998; Wallace-Hadrill 2008). In 17 Bce the community celebrated a reimagined Secular Games in which prayers were offered for the future prosperity of the Roman people and for Augustus and his family. Along with the passing of a suite of innovative laws which targeted marriage, adultery, and the sexual behavior of the elites (18 Bce and 9 Bce), these years could also be represented as a revival of conservative social policies—a mixture of ingenuity and tradition was the hallmark of this approach. Powerful rhetoric had long linked morality (especially female chastity and elite virtue) to the success of the Roman state and, after the moral aberration of civil war, this rhetoric came to inform the narratives of peace time for the remainder of Augustus’ life. New narratives of Roman success emerged, such as the monumental history of Livy and Augustus’ own forum complex. Within these narratives, stories of exemplary individuals served to shape and reshape ideas about leadership. Augustus’ family, particularly his sister Octavia and wife Livia, had already played an important role in his self-representation and in the ideological conflicts before Actium (Osgood 2014; Purcell 1986; Welch 2011). In the years of peace, their prominence increased. Younger generations of males within the family came of age in the post– civil war years. Their current and future roles within their community were represented by concentrating on their military service and by carefully planned political advancement (Kuttner 1995; Rowe 2002; Severy 2003). Tiberius and his brother Drusus held offices in advance of the ordinary cursus, and Augustus himself served as consul again in 5 Bce and 2 Bce to shepherd the public careers of his grandsons Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar. Public expressions of grief and mourning for these

28-04-2023 17:36:45

Augustus  

young men as well as for Octavia’s son Marcus Claudius Marcellus (d. 23 B.C.) demonstrate the extent to which their community had come to view the success, prosperity, and security of the Roman state as dependent upon Augustus and his family (Rowe 2002). The marriages of Augustus’ only child, Julia, to Marcellus (25 Bce), Agrippa (21 Bce), and Tiberius (11 Bce) neatly exemplify the strategic manipulation of family relationships which Augustus undertook. But Julia’s adulterous affairs and her eventual banishment in 2 Bce, along with the banishment of her daughter Julia the Younger, also for alleged adultery in 8 CE, underlined the potential for the family itself to become the locus of political intrigue. Opposition to Augustus himself or to the vision for the res publica with which he came to be associated had continued to exist and could be expressed by intellectuals (poets, historians) as well as political opponents, but it was competition within the imperial family which would be the defining characteristic of the early principate (Raaflaub and Samons 1990). Augustus’ role within the community had been constantly reinterpreted and differently represented during his lifetime (Béranger 1973; Cooley 2019). The final name-title offered to Augustus while living, pater patriae (Mon. Anc. 35), exemplified the binding together of family and state which would characterize the established principate (Alföldi 1971; Stevenson 2009, 2015). During his lifetime the social structure of the community had been transformed. A new Italian elite replaced the depleted elite of the prewar years (Syme 1989; Wiseman 1971). Distinctions in social status, always important, became more pronounced especially for equestrians and freedmen and freedwomen who held roles in the emerging cult and civic practices with which Augustus and his family came to be surrounded (Davenport 2019; Mouritsen 2011). The Senate took on additional importance reconfigured as legitimators of the princeps and principate through the voting and ratification of honors and privileges (Favro 1996; Nicolet 1988; Rehak 2006). As Pater Patriae, Augustus could be understood as both benevolent father and disciplinarian during his lifetime. As Augustus the creator of deeds and words his influence in the principates of his successors was profound. After his death (14 CE) he was buried in his mausoleum which dominated the Campus

c01_Vol1.indd 137

137

Martius. His formal posthumous deification meant that his ongoing authority was assured (Gradel 2004; Koortbojian 2013). His own account of his achievements, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, influenced ancient accounts of his success as a liberator, refounder, and benefactor of his community and continues to inform modern interpretations of his career and self-representation (Cooley 2009; Eder 1990; Goodman 2018). Tacitus’ uses of Augustus within his writing are rich and complex. Augustus is mentioned by name in the Agricola (13.3) as a citation of Augustan precedent on imperial policy in Britain which Tiberius continued to observe, and this use of Augustan precedent is important in the Histories and Annals (see below). In the Dialogue on Orators, references to Augustus by name function as chronological markers which locate information in Roman history (Augustus’ first consulship and his fifty-six year reign; Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (1) was a contemporary of Augustus 17.2–7) or incidental detail (Augustus’ letters testify to Vergil’s popularity 13.1–2; Atia oversaw his early education 28.6.4), and Tacitus also engages directly with imperial rhetoric when he depicts Augustus as a princeps whose actions have secured quies, otium and tranquillitas (key words in imperial rhetoric) for his community (38.2.12). Tacitus’ treatment of Augustus in the Histories and Annals has attracted most attention from scholars. In the preface to his Histories, Tacitus offered an extended consideration of the nature of imperial historiography and the difficulties of writing imperial history after Actium when the interests of peace required one-man rule (H. 1.1) which provides context for his depiction of the principate after the JulioClaudians (Marincola 1999). The Augustus of the Histories is (1) a name (Augustus) to be accepted or rejected (H. 1.47.4; 2.62.9; 2.80.5; 2.90.8); (2) cited as an explanation for a later state of affairs (e.g., 1.11.2; 4.23.3; 4.48.4; 5.9.9); (3) used as precedent to justify current action (even where, as in 1.15.9–12; 1.18.7 Galba also differentiated between his actions and those of Augustus); and (4) used to reflect on a change in the constitutional set-up at Rome (1.50.15; 1.89.6; 1.90.16). Essentially focused on his Julio-Claudian successors, Tacitus nevertheless has Augustus play an important role throughout the Annals (Davis

28-04-2023 17:36:45

138

  Augustus

1999; O’Gorman 1995; Stanton 1998). The central tenets of his representation are established immediately (A. 1–2): Augustus’ principate marks a coming-full-circle of the cycles of constitutions (monarchy, oligarchy, democracy) and exercises a monopoly over the functions and powers of the Senate, magistrates, and legislature. The success of his principate may be partly accounted for by the elimination of effective opposition and the longevity of Augustus himself but also by the willingness of his community to embrace the blessings of peace (A. 1.2). The long years of civil war meant that few were left who remembered the Republic (A. 1.3) (Gowing 2005). Augustus’ death and deification provide an opportunity for an extended consideration of his rise and subsequent career in which Tacitus demonstrates a familiarity with the Res Gestae and offers the views of a number of interpreters (A. 1.9–10). In the remainder of the narrative, references to Augustus function (1) as markers of Augustan history and precedent with which his successors and their communities have to engage (Cowan 2009) (A. 1.11.1–4; 1.13.2–3; 1.16.3; 1.19.2; 1.26.2; 1.35.3; 1.46.3; 1.53.1; 1.54.2; 1.58.1; 1.72.3; 1.73.3–4; 1.76.4; 1.77.3; 2.1.2; 2.4.1; 2.26.3; 2.37.1–2.38.3; 2.39.1; 2.42.2; 2.43.2; 2.49.1; 2.55.1; 2.59.2; 2.64.2; 3.5.1; 3.6.2; 3.16.4; 3.18.1; 3.24.3–4; 3.25.1; 2.28.2; 3.29.2; 3.34.6; 3.48.1; 3.54.2; 3.62.2; 3.68.1; 3.71.2; 3.72.1; 3.74.4; 3.75.1; 4.5.1; 4.15.2; 4.16.3; 4.20.1; 4.34.3; 4.37.3; 4.38.5; 4.39.2–3; 4.40.6; 4.42.3; 6.3.2; 6.11.2; 6.12.2; 6.13.1; 6.51.3; 11.7.2; 1.11.1; 11.25.2; 12.11.1; 12.23.2; 12.25.1; 12.56.1; 12.60.2; 12.69.3; 13.29.1; 13.34.1; 14.15.2; 14.53.3; 14.55.2); (2) to commemorate Augustus’ death and especially his place as divus whose cult needed to be observed, protected, and honored by his community (A. 1.15.2; 1.16.2; 1.31.4; 1.33.1; 1.34.4; 1.43.3; 1.50.1; 1.54.2; 1.59.5; 1.73.1–4; 1.74.4; 1.78.1; 2.22.1; 2.39.1; 2.41.1; 2.50.1; 3.63.3–4; 3.64.2–4; 3.66.1; 4.36.2; 4.37.2; 4.42.3; 4.52.2; 4.55.2; 4.57.1; 4.67.4; 6.45.1; 16.22.3); (3) to mark Augustus as dynastic founder-figure, relation to whom legitimated the rival claims of his successors (A. 1.14.3; 1.33.1; 1.40.3; 1.41.2; 1.42.1; 1.53.1; 2.27.2; 2.50.11–2; 2.53.2–3; 2.71.4; 3.4.1; 3.6.2; 3.18.1; 2.23.1; 2.24.2–3; 4.3.4; 4.8.5; 4.39.2–3; 4.44.3; 4.52.3;

c01_Vol1.indd 138

4.67.4; 4.71.4; 4.75.1; 5.1.2; 6.46.2; 6.51.1; 12.25.1; 12.64.2; 13.1.1; 13.19.3; 14.53.3; 14.55.2; 15.35.1); (4) to commemorate Augustus as an exemplar of a possible relationship between princeps, Senate, people, and empire which his successors fail effectively to emulate (A. 1.12.3; 1.46.3; 1.76.3–4; 3.56.2; 4.38.5; 12.11.1; 13.3.2), and (5) as a name of persons (Augusta: A. 1.14.1–2; 12.26.1; 15.23.1), institutions (Augustal games: A. 1.15.2), or places (Augustodunum, A. 3.43.1– 3.46.4; Augustal Hill, A. 4.64.3) or a name taken up or refused by his successors (Wardle 2015). Tacitus’ pessimistic views on the state of free speech and freedom of written expression during the lifetimes of the Julio-Claudian principes and his abhorrence of what he viewed as the impossible situation for genuine senatorial partnership in governance created by the hypocrisy of tyrannical rulers like Tiberius and the rise of unelected courtiers who could influence the princeps in private also informed his interpretation of the Augustan past. Stories of notable female survivors from that past—chief among them Livia, Aemilia Lepida (1) (A. 3.22–23), Iunia Tertia (A. 3.76.1–5), and Agrippina the Elder—also provided opportunities to reflect on Augustan history and its influence on his community under his successors. see also: civil wars of Late Republic; Hirtius, Aulus; Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference works: PIR2 I 215; BNP “Augustus [1]”; OCD3 “Augustus”; Cooley, Alison 2014 “Augustus” Oxford Bibliographies Online. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195389661-0139 REFERENCES Alföldi, Andreas. 1971. Der Vater des Vaterlandes im römischen Denken. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Ando, Clifford. 2000. Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press. Badian, Ernst. 1982. “Crisis Theories and the Beginning of the Principate.” In RomanitasChristianitas. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Literatur der römischen Kaiserzeit. Johannes Straub zum 70. Geburtstag am 18. Oktober 1982

28-04-2023 17:36:46

Augustus  

gewidmet, edited by Gerhard Wirth, Karl-Heinz Schwarte, and Johannes Heinrichs, 18–41. Berlin: De Gruyter. Béranger, Jean. 1973. Principatus. Études de notions et d’histoire politiques lans L’Antiquité gréco-romaine. Geneva: Université de Lausanne. Brunt, Peter. 1990a. “Augustan Imperialism.” In Roman Imperial Themes, 96–109. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brunt, Peter. 1990b. “Roman Imperial Illusions.” In Roman Imperial Themes, 433–480. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burton, Paul. 2000. “The Last Republican Historian: A New Date for the Composition of Livy’s First Pentad.” Historia, 49.4: 429–446. Cooley, Alison. 2009. Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Text, Translation, and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cooley, Alison. 2019. “From the Augustan Principate to the Invention of the Age of Augustus.” Journal of Roman Studies 109: 71–87. DOI: 10.1017/ S0075435819000674. Cowan, Eleanor. 2009. “Tacitus, Tiberius and Augustus.” Classical Antiquity 28.2: 179–210. DOI: 10.1525/CA.2009.28.2.179. Davenport, Caillan. 2019. A History of the Roman Equestrian Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, Peter. 1999. “Since My Part Has Been WellPlayed: Conflicting Evaluations of Augustus.” Ramus 28.1: 1–15. Eder, Walter. 1990. “Augustus and the Power of Tradition: The Augustan Principate as Binding Link between Republic and Empire.” In Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, edited by K. A. Raaflaub and M. Toher, 71–122. Berkeley: University of California Press. Favro, Diane. 1996. The Urban Image of Augustan Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Galinsky, Karl. 1998. Augustan Culture. An Interpretative Introduction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Goodman, Penelope, ed. 2018. Afterlives of Augustus, ad 14–2014. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gowing, Alain. 2005. Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gradel, Ittai. 2004. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gurval, R. A. 1995. Actium and Augustus: The Politics and Emotions of Civil War. Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press.

c01_Vol1.indd 139

139

Judge, E. A. 2019. The Failure of Augustus: Essays on the Interpretation of a Paradox. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Kennedy, Duncan. 1992. “‘Augustan’ and ‘antiAugustan’: Reflections on Terms of Reference.” In Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus, edited by A. Powell, 26–58. London: Bristol Classical Press. Koortbojian, Michael. 2013. The Divinization of Caesar and Augustus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuttner, Anne. 1995. Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus: The Case of the Boscoreale Cups. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lacey, W. K. 1996. “Coming Home.” In Augustus and the Principate: The Evolution of the System, 17–56. Leeds. ARCA Classical texts and monographs. Lange, Carsten. 2009. Res Publica Constituta: Actium, Apollo and the Accomplishment of the Triumviral Assignment. Leiden: Brill. Levick, Barbara. 2010. Augustus. Image and Substance. London: Routledge. Linderski, Jerzy. 1990. “Mommsen and Syme. Law and Power in the Principate of Augustus.” In Between Republic and Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, edited by Kurt Raaflaub and Mark Toher, 42–52. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lintott, Andrew. 1993. Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration. London: Routledge. Marincola, John. 1999. “Tacitus’ Prefaces and the Decline of Imperial Historiography.” Latomus 58.2: 391–404. Millar, Fergus. 1973. “Triumvirate and Principate.” Journal of Roman Studies 63: 50–67 DOI: 10.2307/299165. Millar, Fergus. 1993. “Ovid and the Domus Augusta: Rome Seen from Tomoi.” Journal of Roman Studies 83: 1–17 DOI: 10.2307/300975. Millar, Fergus. 2000. “The First Revolution: Imperator Caesar, 36–28 bc.” In La révolution romaine après Ronald Syme: bilans et perspectives: VandœuvresGenève, 6–10 septembre 1999: sept exposés suivis de discussions, Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique, 46, edited by Fergus Millar, Adalberto Giovannini, Philippe Borgeaud, and Greg Rowe, 1–30. GenèveVandœuvres: Fondation Hardt. Mouritsen, Henrik. 2011. The Freedman in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nicolet, Claude. 1988. L’inventaire du monde: géographie et politique aux origins de l’Empire romain. Paris: Fayard = 1991. Space, geography, and politics in the early Roman empire. Translated by Hélène Leclerc. Jerome Lectures, 19. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:46

140

  Augustus

O’Gorman, Ellen. 1995. “On Not Writing about Augustus: Tacitus Annals Book 1.” Materiali e Discussioni per l’Analisi dei Testi Classici 35: 91–114. Osgood, Josiah. 2006. Caesar’s Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osgood, Josiah. 2014. Turia. A Roman Woman’s Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Purcell, Nicholas. 1986. “Livia and the Womanhood of Rome.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 32: 78–105. DOI: 10.1017/ S0068673500004831. Raaflaub, K. A., and L. J. Samons, II. 1990. “Opposition to Augustus.” In Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, edited by K. A. Raaflaub and M. Toher, 417–454. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rehak, Paul. 2006. Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius. Edited by John G. Younger. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Rich, John. 2012. “Making the Emergency Permanent. Auctoritas, potestas and the Evolution of the Principate of Augustus.” In Des réformes augustéennes, edited by Y. Rivière, 31–121. Roma: École française de Rome. Rich, J. W., and J. H. C. Williams. 1999. “Leges et iura p. r. restituit: A new aureus of Octavian and the Settlement of 28–27 bc.” Numismatic Chronicle 159: 169–213. Rowe, Gregory. 2002. Princes and Political Cultures. The New Tiberian Senatorial Degrees. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Salmon, E. T. 1956. “The Evolution of Augustus’ Principate.” Historia 5: 456–478. Severy, Beth. 2003. Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire. New York and London: Routledge. Stanton, G. R. 1998. “Tacitus’ View of Augustus’ Place in History.” In Ancient History in a Modern University, edited by T. Hillard et al., 281–298. Sydney: Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University. Stevenson, Tom. 2009. “Acceptance of the title Pater Patriae in 2 bc.” Antichthon 43: 97–108. Stevenson, Tom. 2015. “Andreas Alföldi on the Roman Emperor as Pater Patriae.” In Andreas Alföldi in the Twenty-First Century, edited by James H. Richardson and Federico Santangelo, 187–200. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Syme, Ronald. 1939. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. “Imperator Caesar, a Study in Nomenclature.” Historia 7: 172–188. Syme, Ronald. 1989. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c01_Vol1.indd 140

Vervaet, Frederik. 2010. “The Secret History: The Official Position of Imperator Caesar Divi filius from 31 to 27 bce.” Ancient Society 40: 79–152. DOI: 10.2143/AS.40.0.2056254. Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 1982. “Civilis Princeps. Between Citizen and King.” Journal of Roman Studies 72: 32–48. DOI: 10.2307/299114. Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 2008. Rome’s Cultural Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wardle, David. 2015. “Sometimes a Name is Just a Name: Tacitus’ Use of ‘Augustus.’” Acta Classica 58: 166–190. DOI: 10.15731/AClass.058.07. Welch, Kathryn. 2011. “Velleius and Livia: Making a Portrait.” In Velleius Paterculus: Making History, edited by Eleanor Cowan, 309–334. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales. Welch, Kathryn. 2012. Magnus Pius: Sextus Pompeius and the Transformation of the Roman Republic. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales. Welch, Kathryn. 2018. “The Lex Pedia of 43 Bce and Its Aftermath.” Hermathena 196/197: 137–161. Welch, Kathryn. 2019. “Selling Proscription to the Roman Public.” In Communicating Public Opinion in the Roman Republic, edited by Cristina RosilloLopez, 241–254. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. White, Peter. 2005. “Poets in the New Milieu: Realigning.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus, edited by Karl Galinsky, 321–339. Cambridge Companions to the Classics. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Wiseman, T. P. 1971. New Men in the Roman Senate, 139 bc–ad 14. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zanker, Paul. 1988. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press.

FURTHER READING Bowman, A. K., E. Champlin, and A. Lintott, eds. 1996. The Augustan Empire, 43 bc–ad 69, The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 10, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edmondson, Jonathan. 2009. Augustus. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Galinsky, Karl, ed. 2005. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus. Cambridge Companions to the Classics. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Gibson, A. G. G. 2013. The Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the “Augustan Model”. Mnemosyne Supplements, 349. Leiden: Brill. Morrell, K., J. Osgood, and K. Welch. 2019. The Alternative Augustan Age. New York: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 17:36:46

Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messalinus, Marcus  

AURELIA, see IULIUS CAESAR AURELIUS COTTA, see HATERIUS ANTONINUS

AURELIUS COTTA, LUCIUS DOMINIC MACHADO

College of the Holy Cross

Lucius Aurelius Cotta (b. c. 187 Bce; consul 144 Bce) was prominent Roman politician during the Roman Republic. Cotta was born to a family that was politically important beginning in the third century Bce. Little is known about Cotta’s career before his consulship. Broughton suggests that Cotta served as tribune of the plebs in 154 bce, but this is far from certain (Broughton MRR no. 98; Val. Max. 6.5.4; Lucil. 11.440–442). Similarly, nothing is known about his praetorship other than its terminus ante quem of 146 bce (Brennan 2000). Cotta’s consulship is not well documented. Frontinus states that during his consulship Rome’s dilapidated aqueduct system was renovated (Frontin. Aq. 1.7). Two-mile markers, one in Sicily and one at Vulci, potentially attest to further infrastructural endeavors (ILLRP 1277). However, it is impossible to know whether the Cotta mentioned on them refers to our Cotta or his homonymous son, consul of 119 Bce. On more certain ground is the opposition of Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus to Cotta’s attempts to take up the command against Viriathus in Spain during his magistracy (Val. Max. 6.4.2). The rivalry between these two men continued after Cotta’s consulship. In 138 Bce, Aemilianus prosecuted Cotta for provincial abuse (Livy Per. Oxy. 55). After seven hearings, Cotta was acquitted due to bribery and fear of Aemilianus’ imposing personality (Cic. Mur. 58; Val. Max. 8.1.11). Tacitus recalls this incident in the Annals when Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus prosecutes Gaius Iunius Silanus (consul 10 ce) for his abuse of Asia (A. 3.66.1–2). Scaurus frames his attack on Silanus in light of the history of prosecution of senators by morally upright figures from the republic such as Aemilianus and Cato.

c01_Vol1.indd 141

141

Reference works: Broughton, MRR no. 98; ILLRP 1277 REFERENCE Brennan, T. Corey. 2000. The Praetorship in the Roman Republic. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Astin, A. E. 1967. Scipio Aemilianus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 104–130.

AURELIUS COTTA MAXIMUS MESSALINUS, MARCUS MARGOT NEGER

University of Cyprus

Marcus Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messalinus (born in 14 Bce), son of the orator and patron of poets Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (1), was consul in 20 ce with his nephew, Marcus Valerius Messalla Messalinus (who is mentioned by Tacitus as M. Valerius, only at A. 3.2 and possibly at 3.18). The full name Marcus Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messalinus is revealed by a Greek inscription from the time of his proconsulship in Asia which he may have held in 35/6 ce (Forschungen in Ephesos III. 112 no. 22; IGRom. IV. 1508). He was the son of Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus and an Aurelia of the family of the Cottae (Ov. Pont. 3.2.107–108) and was adopted by an Aurelius Cotta (Schol. ad Pers. 2.72). Cotta Messalinus accepted the cognomen of his late brother Marcus Valerius Messalla Messalinus Corvinus, consul of 3 bce (Vell. Pat. 2.112.2). Probably from 12–13 ce, Cotta Messalinus was quaestor under Tiberius on the Rhine. In 17 ce he became praetor (Inscr. Ital. XIII. 1, p. 297) and in 20 ce consul (A. 3.2.3), the only year in Tiberius’ reign without a suffect consul. Both sons of Valerius Messalla Corvinus appear as addressees in Ovid’s letters from exile. Whereas Marcus Valerius Messalinus receives three letters (Pont. 1.7 and 2.2; Tr. 4.4), Cotta Messalinus receives six letters of the Epistulae ex Ponto (1.5; 1.9; 2.3; 2.8; 3.2; 3.5) and in all likelihood is also

28-04-2023 17:36:46

142

  Aurelius Fulvus, Titus

the addressee of Tr. 1.5, 3.6 and 4.5. According to Ovid, Cotta Messalinus also composed poems (Pont. 3.5.37–42; 4.16.42), and other sources report that he took over the role of his father as a patron of poets (Juv. 7.95; CIL 14.2298; cf. Ov. Pont. 2.3.75–78; Syme 1978, 114–134). Whereas Cotta Messalinus plays an important role among Ovid’s friends and addressees, he appears as a negative character in Tacitus’ Annals. Tacitus depicts him as favored by Tiberius and as ruthless in initiating fierce petitions in the Senate (A. 2.32.1 against Scribonius Libo; 3.17.4 against Marcus Calpurnius Piso; 4.20.4 against magistrates and their wives in provinces; 5.3.2 against Agrippina the Elder and Nero). The hate Cotta Messalinus had provoked among the aristocrats finally led to his own accusation in 32 ce which was only averted by Tiberius’ intervention (A. 6.5–6); instead of Cotta Messalinus, his denouncer Caesilianus (otherwise unknown) was prosecuted (A. 6.7).

senator in his family. He supported Vespasian’s accession in 69 ce. In 64 ce he was in Armenia, as a legate of the legion III Gallica. In February 69 he was still in this legion, but now in Moesia, fighting the Rhoxolani (see Sarmatians). For his victory, Otho granted him ornamenta consularia (H. 1.79.5). Later that year, his legion supported Vespasian against Vitellius (H. 2.85.1, 2.96.1). In the autumn of 69, when the legion moved to Aquileia, Fulvus had already been replaced by Dillius Aponianus (H. 3.10.1). A sign of his support for Vespasian is that Fulvus was suffect consul, perhaps in 70 (Syme 1979) or 72 (Vidman 1982) and was legate in Tarraconensis in 75–78 ce (Alföldi 1969). He was consul for the second time probably in 85 ce (AE 1975, 53; Modugno et al. 1973) and urban prefect (Syme 1988, 615–616). He was the father of Aurelius Fulvus (consul in 89) and grandfather of the emperor Antoninus Pius, who spent the first part of his childhood with him (HA Ant. Pius 1.9).

see also: delators; Roman poets

Reference works: PIR2 A 1510; RE II.2, 2492, Aurelius 136; AE 1975, 53

Reference work: PIR2 A 1488 REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1978. History in Ovid. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Helzle, Martin. 2003. Ovids Epistulae ex Ponto. Buch I-II. Kommentar. Heidelberg: Winter. 157. Koestermann, Erich. 1963. Cornelius Tacitus, Annalen. Band I: Buch 1–3. Heidelberg: Winter. 307–308.

AURELIUS FULVUS, TITUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Titus Aurelius Fulvus was from Nemausus, in Gaul (modern Nîmes, France). He was born around 30 ce and was most probably the first

c01_Vol1.indd 142

REFERENCES Alföldi, Géza. 1969. Fasti Hispanienses: senatorische Reichsbeamte und Offiziere in den Spanischen Provinzen des Römischen Reiches von Augustus bis Diokletian. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. 19–20. Modugno, S., S. Panciera, and F. Zevi. 1973. “Osservazioni sui consoli dell’ 85 d. C.” Rivista storica dell’antichità 3: 87–108. Syme, Ronald. 1979. “Ummidius Quadratus, Capax Imperii.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 83: 287–310. Syme, Ronald. 1988. Roman Papers. Vol. 5. Edited by Anthony Birley. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 615–616. Vidman, Ladislav. 19822. Fasti Ostienses edendos, illustrandos, restituendos. Praha: Československá Akademie 43.

AURELIUS PIUS, see TIBERIUS AURELIUS SCAURUS, see MALLIUS MAXIMUS AUZEA, see TACFARINAS AVENTICUM, see HELVETII AVENTINE HILL, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY AVIONES, see NERTHUS TRIBES

28-04-2023 17:36:46

B BACTRIA ANDREW NICHOLS

University of Florida

Bactria was a region in central Asia north of the Indus and bounded to the north by the Oxus (Amu Darya) River and to the south by the Hindu Kush in what is today Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It held an important position along the Silk Road linking the lands of India and the Far East with those of Iran, Mesopotamia, and the West. It was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire with its capital at Bactra (Balkh) until the time of Alexander the Great, comprising together with Sogdiana the northeastern limits of the empire. Initially conquered by Darius, it was subjugated by Alexander and later became part of the Seleucid Empire until the establishment of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom under Diodotus I (c. 285 bce–239 bce). Tacitus (A. 2.60) offers a fictitious account of the empire established by the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and mentions his conquest of Bactria. The borders of this empire, which included Bactria, Aethiopia, and Scythia, essentially correspond to the eastern edges of the oikoumene during the classical period. The Bactrian plains were nearly the site of a battle between the Parthian king Vardanes and his brother Gotarzes (c. 42 ce; A. 11.7–8), who were both vying for the Arsacid throne. However, the two sides came to a sudden agreement after a plot among their people (popularium insidiis) was discovered. Vardanes retained kingship for the time being and Gotarzes withdrew to Hyrcania, to the northwest of Bactria.

At this time, Bactria was under the control of the Yuezhi (called Tochari by Strabo [11.8.1]), nomadic Iranian people who ruled it under the recently established Kushana Empire. Tacitus makes no mention of the Yuezhi or any other Bactrian tribes participating in this affair. see also: Arsacid dynasty; Egypt; Hyrcani; Parthia Reference work: Barrington 99 B2, 6 B2, 98 G2 FURTHER READING Bernard, Paul. 1994. “The Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia.” In History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume II. The Development of Sedentary and Nomadic Civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250, edited by János Harmatta, 99–129. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Holt, Frank Lee. 1999. Thundering Zeus: The Making of Hellenistic Bactria. Berkeley: University of California Press. Holt, Frank Lee. 2005. Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan. Berkeley: University of California Press.

BADUHENNA, see FRISII

BAEBIUS MASSA STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Baebius Massa (c. 45 ce–after 93 ce) started his career under Nero and rose high enough in the estimation of the Flavians to be given a

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume I, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c02_Vol1.indd 143

28-04-2023 17:37:59

144  

Baetica

proconsulship of Baetica. He was a notorious prosecutor, although the only victim of his to whom we can attach a name is Herennius Senecio. Massa’s date of birth is unknown but given that he was proconsul of Baetica in 91 ce, and since we can conjecture that the post would go to one who was at least in their mid-forties, if not older, we can postulate a birth date of c. 45 ce. Concerning his early career, Juvenal’s scholiast (1.35) tells us that Massa started off as a buffoon at Nero’s court and went on to become so synonymous with delation under Domitian that Juvenal cited him as paradigmatic of this activity. He was of equestrian rank and is first mentioned in 70 as one of the procurators of Africa (H. 4.50.2), possibly of the diocese of Carthage. As such, he was involved in putting down a revolt against Vespasian: Lucius Calpurnius Piso (3), the proconsul of Africa, was suspected of planning rebellion (H. 4.48–50), when soldiers were sent by Valerius Festus, the legatus of Africa, to murder him. Massa was responsible for carrying out Festus’ order; Tacitus takes the opportunity of Piso’s death to besmirch Massa’s character, calling him “even then destructive to each man of the best character,” and telling his readers that Massa was one of the evils (inter causas malorum) of the times. Vespasian adlected him into the Senate, and he went on to become proconsul of Baetica c. 91, though he did not reach the consulship, since the post at Baetica was his last and was a praetorian province. In 93, at the request of the provincials, the Senate assigned Pliny the Younger and Herennius Senecio as prosecutors against him for misconduct during his proconsulship, a proceeding to which Tacitus refers (Ag. 45.1) and one which he will have likely recounted in the lost portions of his Histories, since Pliny sends him a missive for insertion relating details about the case (Ep. 7.33; cf. 3.4.4; 6.29.8). Massa was condemned to be relegated, and his goods put under protective custody, although he soon recovered from the blow to his career and later managed to retaliate by bringing a charge of treason (maiestas) against Herennius Senecio. After this Massa’s fate remains uncertain. Juvenal’s scholiast (1.35) says that Massa, along with Mettius Carus perished at the hands of Heliodorus, one of Domitian’s courtiers, after which nothing more is heard from him.

c02_Vol1.indd 144

see also: delators Reference works: PIR2 B 26; RE 2.2731 = Baebius 38 (Rohden). FURTHER READING Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains Julio-Claudiens (43 av. J. C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française. 611–613. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 202–204. Sherwin-White, A. N. The Letters of Pliny. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 101–102, 389, 444–447.

BAETASII, see MOSA

BAETICA RUBÉN OLMO-LÓPEZ

Universidad de Oviedo TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Baetica was a proconsular province established by Augustus in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula. Its name is derived from the Baetis river (Guadalquivir), which flows in its territory. It was considered one of the most Romanized provinces in the West (Strabo 3.2.15) and an important municipalization process took place in it during the High Empire. The mentions of Baetica in the Annals and the Histories refer to three aspects: the fate of certain provincial magistrates, the relationship of the Baetic elites with the imperial power, and the civil wars of 69 ce. Geographically, Baetica encompassed the heart of the old republican province of Hispania Ulterior: the territory between Sierra Morena (without the saltus Castulonensis), the Anas River (Guadiana), and the southern coast of the peninsula. The identification between old Hispania Ulterior and Baetica persists in Tacitus (A. 4.13.2 and 37.1). As in Hispania Citerior, the Roman presence in this region dates to the Second Punic War. This territory was dominated by the Turdetani and on the coast there

28-04-2023 17:37:59

Baetica  

were important Phoenician colonies such as Gades (Cádiz) or Malaca (Málaga) (Plácido 2009, 50–58, 75 and 111–112). In 206 bce, Rome established a foedus (treaty) with the Gaditani, who would always remain faithful (Cic. Balb. 34–35 and 38). In the same year, Scipio Africanus created the first Roman settlement on the peninsula, Italica (Santiponce, Seville), hometown of Trajan and Hadrian (App. Hisp. 38). In the first century bce, Hispania Ulterior was one of the scenes of civil wars (App. BCiv. 2, BHisp., Pina Polo 2009). Once the final conquest of the northwest of the peninsula was concluded, in which also the imperial legates of the Ulterior intervened, Augustus (c. 15–13 bce) decided to divide the old province into two new ones, Lusitania and Baetica. During the High Empire, the province was governed by a proconsul of praetorian rank, with a legate and a quaestor at his service (Alföldy 1969, 261–274; González 2017). Various factors led to the political rise of Baetican elites within the empire and to the progressive access of their communities to municipal and colonial statutes: the province’s wealth of raw materials, the presence of influential conventus civium Romanorum (associations of Roman citizens), and established ties of patronage between local aristocrats and important Roman politicians (such as Pompey or Julius Caesar) since the end of the Republic. Cornelius Balbus and his nephew, natives of Gades, represent a good example (Rodríguez Neila 1992). Tacitus includes them among the examples Claudius used before the Senate to argue for granting the elites of Gallia Comata the right to stand for political offices at Rome in 48 C.E. (A. 11.24.3; Tabula Lugdunensis). In the Caesarian-Augustan era, an important policy of municipal promotions and colonial deductiones was carried out in Baetica (González and Saquete 2011), and in the first and second centuries, as a result of the concession of ius Latii to Hispania by Vespasian, the communities of this province underwent a profound process of municipalization (Plin. NH 3.30, García Fernández 2001; Fear 1996; Mangas 2001). As in Hispania Citerior, during the High Empire there existed an important network of conventus iuridici (capital cities) in Baetica which the proconsul visited throughout the year. The known assize

c02_Vol1.indd 145

145

centers are the colonies of Corduba (Córdoba), capital of the province (Melchor 2006) Hispalis (Seville), Astigi (Écija), and the Roman municipium of Gades (Plin. NH 3.7–15). The elites of the colonies and the municipia of Baetica were very influential in Rome under the Principate, from Balbus and Seneca to the circle of senators and equites that favored the rise of Trajan and Hadrian (Des Boscs-Plateaux 2005). Tacitus finds in Baetica a series of events that allow him to sketch different facets of the relationships established between the imperial power and the local and senatorial elites in a pacified province. In the first place, Tacitus is interested in certain senators who administered the province: the proconsuls Vibius Serenus and Obultronius Sabinus, the legatus proconsulis Cornelius Marcellus, and the quaestor Caecina Alienus. Under Tiberius, the proconsul Vibius Serenus was condemned de vi publica upon his return to Rome and deported to the island of Amorgos in 23 ce (A. 4.13.2). Tacitus collects in his work numerous examples of trials against governors (Brunt 1961), and he himself represented, together with Pliny the Younger, certain provincials of Africa against the former proconsul Marius Priscus (Plin. Ep. 2.11.2). Vibius Serenus is portrayed by Tacitus as one of the emperor’s typical flatterers, and his case allows him to lecture about moral degradation and the dangers of subservience (A. 4.28–29). Epigraphical evidence has revealed that Vibius Serenus was the proconsul who took charge of spreading the copies of the senatus consultum de Pisone in Baetica (Eck, Caballos, and Fernández 1996; González 2002), a fact that further enriches the Tacitean story. Tacitus seems to play with the paradox that one of the proconsuls, who had disseminated the senatus consultum on the condemnation of an important disgraced senator (Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso), was also punished and repudiated by the emperor shortly afterward. The other three senators served at the same time in Baetica in 67–68 (Alföldy 1969, 155, 175 and 184). They had differing fates during the war, a fact that Tacitus uses to show the arbitrariness of imperial power with the senatorial elite. While Caecina was promoted to legatus legionis for having decisively supported the uprising of Galba in his province (H. 1.53.1), Obultronius

28-04-2023 17:37:59

146  

Baetica

Sabinus and Cornelius Marcellus were assassinated shortly after by order of the new emperor since he had doubts about their loyalty (H. 1.37.3). Through these cases, Tacitus shows that the apparently routine government of a provincia inermis could, however, expose a senator to the anger or suspicions of the emperor, especially if the emperor was unsure of his position, as was Galba in 68, or Tiberius after the death of Germanicus. Regarding the relationship of the Baetican elites with the emperor, Tacitus again presents two opposing examples that allow him to delineate, through the obscure character of Tiberius, the arbitrariness that the autocratic power of the emperor entailed. On the one hand, in 25 ce Tiberius rejected the request that the Baeticans had made before the Senate to erect a temple in honor of the emperor and his mother Livia Augusta following the example of the province of Asia (A. 4.37.1). Tacitus recreates the speech of Tiberius, in which he shows himself opposed to such honors in life and justifies the contradiction of having accepted them before in Asia by appealing to the example of Augustus, who had only allowed these honors in the East (A. 4.37–38). On the other hand, Tacitus recalls the case of the wealthy landowner Sextus Marius who, accused of incest, was condemned to die precipitously from the Tarpeian rock in 33 ce. (A. 6.19.1). The gold and silver mines that he owned in Baetica—in Mons Marianus, located in the western part of Sierra Morena (Rodríguez Neila 2019)— became imperial property, which led Tacitus to suspect that the real reason for the conviction of Marius was Tiberius’ greed. Finally, Tacitus is interested in Baetica as the scene of one of the episodes of the confrontation between Othonians and Vitellians in 69. All of Hispania being under the control of Cluvius Rufus, Otho sought to regain the support of the elites of the province through several benefactions: he added new families to the colony of Hispalis and donated a series of civitates peregrinae from neighboring Mauritania to Baetica to help it fiscally. The procurator who controlled both Mauretaniae, Lucceius Albinus, prepared the invasion of

c02_Vol1.indd 146

the Iberian Peninsula through the Strait of Gibraltar. But these maneuvers did not bear fruit since, after the rapid response of Cluvius Rufus—which placed the legion X on the coast of Baetica and convinced the troops of the Mauri to go over to his side—Lucceius Albinus was assassinated. (H. 1.78.1 and 2.58–59.1). It was not long before Otho died at Bedriacum. These facts reveal the strong connections that existed between Baetica and Mauritania (Bernard 2018, 227–228 and 271–272) and the ability of an emperor to grant favors at will to communities throughout the empire. see also: army; provinces REFERENCES Alföldy, Géza. 1969. Fasti Hispanienses. Senatorische Reichsbeamte und Offiziere in den spanischen Provinzen des römischen Reiches von Augustus bis Diokletian. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Bernard, Gwladys. 2018. Nec plus ultra. L’Extrême Occident meditérranéen dans l’espace politique romain (218 av. J.-C.-305 ap. J.-C.). Madrid and Paris: Casa de Velázquez. Brunt, Peter A. 1961. “Charges of Provincial Maladministration under the Early Principate.” Historia 10.2: 189–227. Des Boscs-Plateaux, Françoise. 2005. Un parti hispanique à Rome? Ascension des élites hispaniques et pouvoir politique d’Auguste à Hadrien (27 av. J.-C.-138 ap. J.-C.). Madrid: Casa de Velázquez. Eck, Werner, Antonio Caballos, and Fernando Fernández. 1996. Das senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre. München: C.H. Beck Verlag. Fear, A. T. 1996. Rome and Baetica: Urbanization in Southern Spain, c. 50 bc–ad 150. Oxford: Clarendon Press. García Fernández, Estela. 2001. El municipio latino: Origen y desarrollo constitucional. Madrid: Editorial Complutense. González, Julián. 2002. Tácito y las fuentes documentales: SS.CC. de honoribus Germanici decernendis (Tabula Siarensis) y de Cn. Pisone patre. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla. González, Julián. 2017. “Augusto y la Hispania Ulterior.” Gerión 35.2: 247–265. González, Julián, and José C. Saquete, eds. 2011. Colonias de César y Augusto en la Andalucía romana. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

28-04-2023 17:37:59

Balbillus  

Mangas, Julio. 2001. Leyes coloniales y municipales de la Hispania romana. Madrid: Arco Libros. Melchor, Enrique. 2006. “Corduba, caput provinciae y foco de atracción para las élites locales de la Hispania Ulterior Baetica.” Gerión 24.1: 251–279. Pina Polo, Francisco. 2009. “Hispania y su conquista en los avatares de la República Tardía.” In Hispaniae: Las provincias hispanas en el mundo romano, edited by J. Andreu, J. Piquero, and I. Rodà, 223–236. Tarragona: ICAC. Plácido, Domingo. 2009. Hispania antigua. Barcelona: Crítica. Rodríguez Neila, Juan Francisco. 1992. Confidentes de César: Los Balbos de Cádiz. Madrid: Sílex. Rodríguez Neila, Juan Francisco. 2019. “Corduba, el Mons Marianus y el Conventus Cordubensis.” Conimbriga 58: 193–232. FURTHER READING Campos, Juan M., and Javier Bermejo, eds. 2018. Ciudades romanas de la provincia Baetica. Corpus Urbium Baeticarum. Conventus Hispalensis et Astigitanus. Volumen I. Huelva: Universidad de Huelva. Fishwick, Duncan. 2002. The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire Vol. III. Provincial Cult, Part 1: Institution and Evolution. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Melchor, Enrique. 2009. “Las élites municipales hispanorromanas a fines de la República y en el Alto Imperio: ideología y conductas socio-políticas.” In Hispaniae: Las provincias hispanas en el mundo romano, edited by J. Andreu, J. Piquero, and I. Rodà, 391–410. Tarragona: ICAC. Olmo-López, Rubén. 2018. El centro en la periferia: Las competencias de los gobernadores provinciales romanos en Hispania durante el Principado. Zürich: Lit Verlag. Panzram, Sabine. 2002. Stadtbild und Elite: Tarraco, Corduba und Augusta Emerita zwischen Republik und Spätantike. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Panzram, Sabine, ed. 2017. Oppidum - civitas - urbs. Städteforschung auf der Iberischen Halbinsel zwischen Rom und al-Andalus. Munster: Lit Verlag. Rodríguez Neila, Juan Francisco. 2009. “Vida municipal y ordenamiento politico de las comunidades hispanorromanas.” In Hispaniae: Las provincias hispanas en el mundo romano, edited by J. Andreu, J. Piquero, and I. Rodà, 361–375. Tarragona: ICAC.

BAIAE, see CAMPANIA BALBI, see TABULA LUGDUNENSIS

c02_Vol1.indd 147

147

BALBILLUS PAULINE RIPAT

University of Winnipeg

Balbillus (also spelled Barbillus), possibly the son of Thrasyllus, and the holder of a number of military and administrative offices, including prefect of Egypt (55 ce), is especially noted for his expertise in astrology and his purported use of it to advise Nero and Vespasian. Balbillus is mentioned just once by name by Tacitus, where he is identified as the prefect of Egypt for 55 ce (A. 13.22; cf. Plin. HN 19.3). A possible second and oblique mention comes when Tacitus says “Thrasyllus’ son” predicted Nero’s reign with an astrological forecast (A. 6.22; note that Tacitus elsewhere credits this to “the astrologers,” A. 14.9), but the evidence does not connect Balbillus to Thrasyllus conclusively. Balbillus appears to have been related by marriage, and possibly by blood on his mother’s side, to the royal family of Commagene. Seneca (QNat. 4a.2.13) praises Balbillus’ range of learning, calling him “a great man, exceptionally well-versed in every type of literature.” In addition to prefect of Egypt under Nero, Balbillus had previously been praefectus fabrum under Claudius and was a tribune of the Twentieth Legion in the 43 ce campaign in Britannia. It is possible that this same Balbillus was the leader of an Alexandrian embassy sent to Claudius in 41 ce, and so the person to whom Claudius referred to in his response as “my friend” (PLond. VI 1912). He is more certainly identified as a procurator in an inscription at Ephesus that memorializes his benefactions there (AE 1924, 78) and in an inscription at Delos (IDélos 1861). It has been suggested that Balbillus was a key figure in the development of Mithraism as a mystery cult at Rome. It is Balbillus’ astrological skills, however, that have often attracted the attention of modern scholars. Recent rereadings of evidence of his forecasting methods suggest that Balbillus’ strain of astrological calculation anticipated Ptolemy’s a century later. Suetonius (Ner. 36.1–2) identifies Balbillus as an astrologer who, upon the appearance of a comet in 64 ce, advised Nero to avoid the usurpation it portended by murdering

28-04-2023 17:37:59

148  

Barea S oranus

prominent men, thus suggesting that the crushing of the conspiracies of Gaius Calpurnius Piso at Rome and of Annius Vinicianus at Beneventum stemmed from astrological prediction. Cassius Dio tells us that Vespasian expelled astrologers from Rome but gave special honours to Balbillus, “a man of that habit,” by allowing him to establish sacred games in Ephesus, the Balbilleia (65.9.2). Reference work: PIR2 C 813; B 38 FURTHER READING Beck, R. 1998. “The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis.” Journal of Roman Studies 88: 115–128. Cramer, F. 1954. Astrology in Roman Law and Politics. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Gansten, M. 2012. “Balbillus and the Method of aphesis.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 52: 587–602. Magie, D. 1950. Roman Rule in Asia Minor, Volume 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1398–1400.

BALEARIC ISLANDS, see HISPANIA BARBIUS PROCULUS, see SPECULATORES

BAREA SORANUS MARIA CRISTINA PIMENTEL

Universidade de Lisboa

Quintus Marcius Barea Soranus was suffect consul in the year 52, proconsul of Asia in the early 60s (perhaps in 62). Among his friends was the future emperor Vespasian. He was the father-in-law of Annius Pollio (2), his daughter Servilia’s husband, who was exiled for his involvement in the Pisonian Conspiracy. It is possible that one of his collateral descendants was Emperor Trajan. We can infer from Tacitus’ account that, during Claudius’ time, Soranus was still subservient to the Senate. In fact, when the princeps raised the issue of relations between free women and slaves, proposing penalties and assuring that it was his freedman Pallas who had inspired such a report (A. 12.53), it was Soranus, consul designatus, who

c02_Vol1.indd 148

suggested that praetoria insignia and 15 million sesterces were attributed to him, as a reward. However, when Nero took power, the hatred and envy of the emperor fell upon Soranus, whose integrity and successful government felt like a shadow to the emperor. During his time as proconsul, Soranus endeavoured to clear the harbour of Ephesus. When Nero ordered his freedman Acratus to take all the works of art from Pergamum, provoking the revolt of the townspeople, Soranus not only disobeyed the princeps’ orders, he also did not punish those who had revolted (A. 16.23). In the year 66, Soranus was tried in the Senate (A. 16.23; 30; cf. Cass. Dio 62.26). At the same time, the trial of Thrasea Paetus, with whom he shared the Stoic doctrinal position, was ongoing. In the trial, there intervenes as accusator Ostorius Sabinus, who justifies the accusation of maiestas thus: the friendship with Rubellius Plautus; the alleged fact that Soranus used his proconsular status for personal glory and to nurse conspiratorial intentions; and the fact that, with his behavior, he did not cease to strengthen the sedition of the cities of Asia. To these earlier accusations, Sabinus added a more recent one regarding the daughter of Soranus, Servilia, who was accused of having resorted to magical practices and the consultation of astrologers. Faced with his daughter’s unsuccessful defense, Soranus denied all the charges against her: he assured the Senate that she had not accompanied him during his time as proconsul in Asia; he pointed out that, given her age, she could not have had close contact with Plautus, who had been executed four years earlier; and finally, that she had nothing to do with the crimina imputed to her husband. Therefore, if Servilia was at fault for anything, it could only be of filial pietas, the concern with her father’s fate. Soranus asks for his daughter’s charges to be dropped and that only he be tried. He knows that he will be convicted, which perhaps explains why he does not try to refute the accusations made against him: everything has been decided and nothing will prevent his death. During these proceedings, several witnesses were called to testify. Among them was Egnatius Celer, who stood out for his ignominy—cliens of Soranus and his former philosophy teacher, Celer sold himself in exchange for accusing his patronus

28-04-2023 17:37:59

Bastarnae  

(A. 16.32; cf. Juv. 3.116–117). Conversely, Cassius Asclepiodotus (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 16.33) the richest man in Bithynia, testified in favour of Soranus. Asclepiodotus had always honored Soranus while he enjoyed the princeps’ favor and remained still loyal to him when he fell into disgrace. Even though Soranus, old and beaten, and his daughter, young and innocent, aroused the pity of the senators, while Egnatius’ behavior provoked their anger, the outcome of the trial could have not been any different from what it was. Like Thrasea, both were sentenced to death, with mortis arbitrium being the only small mercy conceded, for it allowed them to commit suicide (A. 16.33). Their sentence was strategically delivered when Tiridates, king of Armenia, visited Rome and the people were distracted by his reception apparatus (A. 16.23). Moreover, Nero’s absolute power was also revealed in the destruction of the best citizens, those whom Tacitus designates as uirtus ipsa (A. 16.21). Later on, with Vespasian as emperor, Egnatius Celer was sentenced to exile by the Senate (H. 4.7; 10; 40), as reparation to Soranus’ manes (shades). In the Annals, Soranus and his daughter are inextricably linked to the figure of Thrasea Paetus. Therefore, it is with all of them that ends, for us, Tacitus’ work. This is a fact that carries an enormous symbolic meaning: their fates were the highest point of a terrible crescendo of iniquitous prosecutions, suicides, and executions of innocent people, countered by prepotency, greed and evil. Paetus, Soranus and Servilia represent those who, even in the face of the brutal violence that takes their lives, stand in respect of VIRTUS and in the affirmation of wholeness of character. see also: Annius Pollio (1); astrology; delators; magic; Pisonian Conspiracy, victims; Senate Reference works: PIR2 B 55; RE III.5.12–13 FURTHER READING Jones, Brian W. 1973. “Domitian’s Attitude to the Senate.” American Journal of Philology 94.1: 79–91. Martin, Jean-Pierre. 1983. “Néron et le pouvoir des astres.” Pallas 30: 63–74.

c02_Vol1.indd 149

149

Rogers, Robert Samuel. 1960. “A Group of Domitianic Treason-Trials.” Classical Philology 55.1: 19–23. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. 20, 27, 41, 48, 115, 119–121, 124, 154, 172, 220, 224–225, 236, 294, 296. Turpin, William. 2008. “Tacitus, Stoic Exempla, and the praecipuum munus annalium.” Classical Antiquity 27.2: 359–404. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2002. “Domitius Corbulo and the Senatorial Opposition to the Reign of Nero.” Ancient Society 32: 135–193.

BARIUM, see OSTIA BASILIDES (1), see SARAPIS BASILIDES (2), see CARMELUS

BASTARNAE STEPHEN CHAPPELL

James Madison University

The Bastarnae were a populous tribe who dwelt in the area from the Danube Delta northwards as far as the river Dniestr from the second century bce to the third century ce. They engaged in border warfare with the Romans periodically from the first century bce, including latterly as part of the Gothic Confederation. Probus (276–282 ce) and Diocletian (284–305 ce) settled them in depopulated Moesia south of the Danube in the late third century. Strabo explains the alternate name of Peucini as derived from the tribe’s settlement on the island of Peuce in the Danube Delta (7.3.15). The ethnicity of the Bastarnae has caused notable confusion. Strabo describes them as of Germanic stock (7.3.17), but Tacitus hesitates between ascribing them to the Germans or Sarmatians (G. 46). More traditional modern scholarship, such as Sulimirski (1970, 120, 128, 130) identifies the Bastarnae as Celtic on the grounds of its identification with the La Tène archaeological culture. But archaeologists are now loath to identify archaeological cultures with ethnicity in a simplistic fashion. Literary sources confirm that there were large Celtic groups in the Lower Danube region from the third century bce. In all likelihood, the Bastarnae were a mixture of these groups and influences.

28-04-2023 17:37:59

150  

Batavi

Tacitus characterizes the Bastarnae as of mixed Germanic and Sarmatian culture in the final chapter of the Germania (46). He assigns language, culture (cultus can be both wider culture and system of worship), and settled dwellings to German influence and the “foul appearance” to mixed marriages between their nobles and the nomadic Sarmatians. Tacitus’ strongly prejudicial language here may refer in part to the general tendency to treat horse nomads as strongly other, as in the case of Herodotus and the Scythians. But the Sarmatian practice of binding children’s skulls tightly with cloth to elongate their heads is doubtless the specific cause of disgust for Tacitus. He also describes the Bastarnae as filthy and lazy, stereotypes that he also attributes to the Germans (G. 15, 20). The Bastarnae raided southwards both by land and sea throughout their history. Philip V sought to use them to destroy his ancestral enemies the Dardani and then attack the Romans, but the scheme was frustrated by his death in 179 bce (40.57–58). They lost land to the ephemeral empire of Burebista, king of Dacia (Sulimirski 1970, 135). Rhescuporis II of Thrace levied of new forces in 18 ce on the pretext of war with the Bastarnae and Scythians (A. 2.65). During the principate, they attacked Thrace in the reigns of Augustus, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius (Hoddinott 1975, 338–339) but were on friendly terms with the Romans for long stretches. There was general warfare along the Danube during the military anarchy of the third century ce led by the Gothic Confederacy with which Zosimus associates the Bastarnae (1.22–23). Later they settled the ravaged province of Moesia to repopulate it (HA Prob. 18.1). As with other tribes in Late Antiquity, they are lost to historical records, but doubtless were absorbed by other peoples, as with the Sarmatians. see also: Danuvius; ethnicity; Germania References works: Barrington 22 F3, 23 B2/B3 REFERENCES Hoddinott, R. F. 1975. Bulgaria in Antiquity. London and Tonbridge: Ernest Benn. Sulimirski, Tadeusz. 1970. The Sarmatians. New York and Washington: Praeger.

c02_Vol1.indd 150

FURTHER READING Batty, Roger. 2008. Rome and the Nomads: The Pontic-Danubian Realm in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

BATAVI JAMES McNAMARA

Universität Potsdam

The Batavi were a tribe of Germani. Prosody varies in poetry: Bătăvī or Bătāvī. Dio Cassius (55.24.7) explains the name as “the best equestrians” (κράτιστοι ἱππεύειν); an etymology may be surmised from a Germanic root related to Gothic batiza (“better”), bōta (n. “use”) (Neumann RGA s.v. Batavi). Tacitus’ comment at G. 29.1 virtute praecipui Batavi may itself be an etymologizing gloss. Tacitus offers more information on the Batavi than any other author, particularly in his detailed account of the Batavian Revolt led by Iulius Civilis in 69–70 ce in Histories Books 4 and 5. The Batavi occupied the area between the Oude Rijn and Waal/Maas, which came to be known as the insula Batavorum, cf. modern Betuwe. An offshoot of the Chatti, they took over the territory of the Gallic Menapii and Eburones (Roymans 2004, 23). Although Tacitus (H. 4.12.2) describes migration into empty territory, archaeological evidence of continued occupation suggests a fusion of preexisting population and new arrivals. The date of the Batavian settlement is unclear. Their resettlement, like that of the Ubii, may have been organised to serve Roman frontier strategy between 50 and 12 bce, when Drusus the Elder used the insula Batavorum as a staging point for his invasion of Germania (Cass. Dio 54.32.2). The main settlement was Batavodurum, around modern Nijmegen (Barrington 11 F1). Excavations have revealed three military camps and two civilian settlements. The earlier town is probably the oppidum Batavorum named by Tacitus (H. 5.19.1), destroyed in 70 ce; the latter is probably the town named Ulpia Noviomagus under Trajan. Tacitus identifies the family of Iulius Civilis as a royal line (stirps regia, H. 4.13.1), although

28-04-2023 17:37:59

Batavian R evolt  

kingship no longer existed. Members of the family had been invested with citizenship during the Julian dynasty, and nomenclature attests to continuing imperial patronage: Civilis’ sister’s son Claudius Victor bears a name probably reflecting a grant of citizenship from Claudius (named at H. 4.33.1, otherwise unknown). The Batavian civitas may have begun to take on Roman organizational structures soon after Roman patronage of its leading aristocrats was established. No Roman colony was established among the Batavi, but the civitas seems to have been organized increasingly along municipal lines (Roymans 2004, 55–65). The worship of Hercules Magusanus is characteristic of the Batavi, blending Roman and Germanic traditions. The Batavi had special status based on their heavy contribution of troops to the empire’s armies; in return they received exemption from tribute and provincial taxes (G. 29.1). Batavi often served in ethnically distinct units under their own leaders, a pattern that continued even after the Batavian Revolt. Most inscriptional evidence for explicit self-identification as Batavi comes from military contexts away from the homeland, where differentiation and recognition of Batavian military prowess played a role (Derks 2009, 247–251). Batavian troops possessed distinctive equestrian skills, including the ability to swim across rivers fully armed along with their horses (H. 4.12.3). Batavi fought in Germanicus’ campaigns (14–16 ce); the leader Chariovalda led a unit across the Weser against the Cherusci but fell in combat along with many nobles (A. 2.11.1–3, otherwise unknown). Tacitus’ account of the Batavian Revolt emphasizes the Batavians’ ability to combine barbarian and Roman traits, drawing on their experience in the Roman forces and blending what is represented as barbarian ferocity and cunning with tight organization. The Batavi must have come to an accommodation with the Flavian authorities soon after the revolt. Tacitus cites Batavians as prominent combatants at the Battle of Mons Graupius under Agricola (Ag. 36.1–2). Batavi, along with Ubii, were some of the most prominent contributors to the imperial bodyguard and later among the equites singulares Augusti (Suet. Calig. 43.1, Speidel 1994).

c02_Vol1.indd 151

151

There is evidence of major discontinuities in Batavian settlements during the third century ce including the abandonment of Ulpia Noviomagus around 260/270, and the Batavian civitas may have ceased to exist in the third century. No explicit self-identification as Batavian appears from the fourth century in the inscriptional record, although the fourth century auxilia Palatina names a unit of Batavi (Derks 2009). In the sixteenth century, Batavians came to be regarded as the forbears of the modern Dutch (Ash 2006, 106–116). The name Batavia was used for the capital of the colony of Dutch East Indies (Jakarta, Indonesia). Reference works: Barrington 10 A5-B5, 11 E1-G1; Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA), vol. 2 Bataver REFERENCES Ash, R. 2006. Tacitus. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Derks, T. 2009. “Ethnic Identity in the Roman Frontier. The Epigraphy of Batavi and Other Lower Rhine Tribes.” In Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity. The Role of Power and Tradition, edited by T. Derks and N. Roymans. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Roymans, N. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt46mt8n. Speidel, M. 1994. Die Denkmäler der Kaiserreiter: Equites singulares Augusti. Beihefte der Bonner Jahrbücher. Köln: Rheinland-Verlag.

BATAVIAN REVOLT JONATHAN MASTER

Emory University

The Batavian Revolt was a rebellion started by Roman auxiliary soldiers native to the Rhineland provinces during the second half of 69 ce which Roman legions suppressed in 70 ce. The movement began with Batavian auxiliaries under the leadership of Batavian nobleman Iulius Civilis but came to include German tribes living outside the empire and eventually Gallic auxiliaries as well. The Histories is the only detailed

28-04-2023 17:37:59

152  

Batavian R evolt

source for the history and nature of the complex revolt, though Josephus BJ 7.74–88 and Cassius Dio 65.3 also mention it. While Tacitus shows that the Flavians encouraged the early violence as a way to undermine Vitellius’ military strength, he also makes clear that Civilis always aimed for a kingdom of his own. The Histories presents three clusters of causes for the revolt. First, Civilis had personal motives. He possessed both animus toward the principate due to his own experiences over decades of military service and hopes for power in a new kingdom. Second, the Histories shows that Batavian manpower contributed disproportionately to the success of the Roman military on the battlefield and that this manpower was raised by the Romans in an abusive manner. Civilis uses an argument about an exploitative levy to win over allies to the revolt. Lastly, the chaos of the civil wars provided opportunity and cover for the revolt. Vitellius stripped the seven legions of the Rhineland of many troops, so the frontier was lightly defended. Lax discipline and largely unpunished mutinies undermined the tenacity of those soldiers who did remain in Germany. The Histories presents the Batavian revolt in three segments across Book 4 (4.12–37 and 4.54– 79) and the extant chapters of Book 5 (5.14–26). The first section provides background and the revolt’s early stages. Civilis served twenty-five years as an auxiliary, was imprisoned by Roman authorities several times, and saw his brother Claudius Paulus executed (see Fonteius Capito). While the narrative insists that Civilis was intent on a revolt and not just opening up another front in the Flavian campaign against Vitellius, it still shows Civilis receiving direct communication from Antonius Primus, and indirect support from the governor of Upper Germany, Hordeonius Flaccus, who was inclined toward Vespasian. The first foray against the Romans came from the Canninefates, a tribe living near the Batavians in the area between the Rhine (Rhenus) and Waal rivers known as the Island. They attacked several Roman cohorts near the North Sea. The Roman survivors rallied to the upper part of the Island and fought not just the Canninefates but also Civilis, who had shed his

c02_Vol1.indd 152

pretense of loyalty to the Romans. In a sign of things to come, Tungrian cohorts (Tungri) deserted mid-battle, and Batavian rowers on Roman ships either obstructed the operation of the boats or outright engaged the marines on board in battle. The Romans were defeated. News of the victory spread among the tribes of Germany and Gaul, earning the revolt adherents from beyond the empire. To win support from Roman subjects, Civilis offered captured Gallic auxiliaries freedom to return home or to join the rebellion. Legate Munius Lupercus led soldiers from legions V Alaudae and XV Primigenia from the double camp at Vetera (Xanten) to engage Civilis’ forces. Betrayed by a Batavian cohort and deserted by fearful auxiliaries, Lupercus’ understrength legions retreated back to their camp, beginning a siege that ended in surrender and dishonor for the Romans. On top of these early victories in Lower Germany, eight Batavian cohorts that had marched to Italy with Vitellius’ forces and were later dismissed, joined their brethren in the revolt. Starting at Mogontiacum (Mainz), they forced their way through a depleted legion I Adiutrix at Bonna (Bonn) and united with Civilis. Though Civilis possessed a formidable force at this point he nevertheless swore the oath to Vespasian. Civilis subsequently attempted to assault the double camp at Vetera. When the Batavians failed at this—Tacitus writes they were good warriors and cavalrymen but not adept at technical military endeavors—they laid siege to the camp. At this point the legionaries were unhappy with leadership’s handling of the crisis. Hordeonius Flaccus was deeply unpopular with the soldiers, so he gave command of legionaries assembled from various units to Dillius Vocula, who had formerly commanded legion XXII Primigenia. Herennius Gallus, commander of legion I Adiutrix, took joint command with Vocula at Novaesium (Neuss). Hordeonius’ decisions were not enough to save his life as the disgruntled legionaries murdered him in a riot that Vocula only narrowly escaped. The lowest point of the narrative of the revolt comes early in the second section, which details the events of early 70 ce. Treveran and Lingonian auxiliaries, who had fought loyally if not always

28-04-2023 17:37:59

battle narratives  

bravely alongside the Romans through the first stage of the revolt, defect just as Vocula attempts to lift the siege at Vetera. A previous effort had helped provide supplies to the soldiers there but lax discipline had made that effort less effective than it could have been. When arrayed near Vetera, Treveran leaders Iulius Classicus and Iulius Tutor, and Lingonian Iulius Sabinus, led their auxiliary units across the field to the Batavian side. Vocula retreated back to Novaesium where he was murdered shortly after. Soon after Vocula’s demise, the rebels under Iulius Classicus entered the camp at Novaesium and led the Roman soldiers through an oath to the Gallic empire. The besieged legions at Vetera surrendered too. They were nevertheless ambushed and slaughtered as they departed the camp. At this point Civilis and his Gallic allies controlled Lower and Upper Germany as well as neighboring parts of Gaul. The Flavians, who had previously tried to discourage further violence, at this point responded in force, deploying eight legions under the command of experienced general Petilius Cerialis. He quickly crushed the Gallic element of the revolt with an attack on Augusta Treverorum (Trier). He then drove the Batavian forces back onto the Island. Tacitus emphasizes that though the campaign was an overall success for the Romans, due to his own faults, Cerialis still had difficulty decisively defeating the Batavians. In the final section of the narrative, Civilis executed an assault on four Roman positions. While the gambit led by Civilis, Classicus, and Civilis’ nephew Verax (mentioned only by Tacitus) did not turn the tide, it proved costly to the Romans, especially at Batavian towns Grinnes and Vada, where losses were heavy. The Histories breaks off during an ensuing parley between Civilis and Cerialis. Recalling his long-standing friendship with Vespasian (which may have gone back to their service in Britannia in 43 ce) and his coordination with the Flavians against Vitellius, Civilis appears to be negotiating a surrender with Cerialis. see also: Batavi; civil wars of 69 ce; Epponina; Germania; Lingones; reception, opera; Treveri; Veleda

c02_Vol1.indd 153

153

FURTHER READING Brunt, P. A. 1990. “Tacitus on the Batavian Revolt.” In Roman Imperial Themes, edited by P. A. Brunt, 33–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dyson, S. L. 1971. “Native Revolts in the Roman Empire.” Historia 20: 239–274. Lendering, J., and A. Bosman. 2012. Edge of Empire: Rome’s Frontier on the Lower Rhine. Rotterdam: Karwansaray. Master, J. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Müller, M. 2010. “Rom und die Bataver.” Archaologie in Deutschland 4: 20–22. Roymans, N. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Timpe, D. 2005. “Tacitus und der Bataveraufstand.” In Gegenwartige Antike – Antike Gegenwarten, edited by W. Schmitz, R. Schmitt, and A. Winterling, 151–188. Munich: Oldenbourg. Turner, B. 2016. “From Batavian Revolt to Rhenish Insurgency.” In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by T. Howe and L. L. Brice, 282–311. Leiden: Brill. Urban, R. 1985. Der ‘Bataveraufstand’ und die Erhebung des Julius Classicus. Trier: Trierer historische Forschungen 8. Wellesley, K. 2000. The Year of the Four Emperors. 3rd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Willems, W. J. H. 1984. “Romans and Batavians: A Regional Study in the Dutch Eastern River Area II.” Berichten van de Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek 34: 39–331.

BATHYLLUS, see ACTORS

BATTLE NARRATIVES ELIZABETH KEITEL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Theodore Mommsen famously labeled Tacitus “this most unmilitary of all writers,” a charge Ronald Syme called “powerful, and perhaps misdirected” (Syme 1958, 157). To be sure, Tacitus in writing battle scenes occasionally makes errors and omits material that would help the reader. He makes selective use of the topoi of Roman battle scenes with a focus on leadership, troop morale

28-04-2023 17:37:59

154  

battle narratives

and the brave deeds of individual soldiers. He creates very brief, effective battle narratives in a few sentences. Extensive battle scenes he reserves for crucial moments in the narrative. Given the conventions that governed ancient battle scenes, Tacitus could also have easily recycled or just imagined some parts of a battle narrative (Woodman 1979). Scholars have noticed that accounts of the actual fighting in the Annals are shorter than those in the Histories and Agricola but differ as to why. THE MOST UNMILITARY OF ALL WRITERS: TACITUS’ ERRORS Tacitus’ errors are mostly of no great importance to the narrative. Several, however, fail to clarify important events. The praetorians in their camp in Rome mutiny when they discover that a praetorian tribune Varius Crispinus (named only by Tacitus at H. 1.80.1–2) was seen loading arms into wagons at nightfall without explanation. The praetorians feared a plot against Otho. In fact, Crispinus was to give the arms to the seventeeth cohort when they arrived from their post in Ostia. Tacitus fails to explain why Otho had summoned the cohort. If the cohort was meant to replace some of the urban cohorts about to be sent north, the reader then might well ask why Otho bothered to send arms to troops at Ostia when the soldiers were headed to Rome (Murison 1993). During the struggle between the Othonians and Vitellians the reader is never told that Caecina Alienus had captured Cremona, nor does Tacitus make clear where the Vitellian camp at Cremona was, important information if the reader is to understand the civil war. Instead, he lets the reader work it out through clues elsewhere in the text (H. 2.31 and 41 and 3.26; Wellesley 1969, 71, 96 n. 8). When it comes to topography, a basic element in describing battles, Tacitus’ record is mixed. Some of his descriptions are accurate, others, not. He seems well acquainted with the area around Trier and the island of the Batavians, but he shows less knowledge of Britannia than one would expect from the son-in-law of Agricola (Wellesley 1969, 74). We should note, however, that Roman writers in general tended the follow

c02_Vol1.indd 154

the rhetorical models of cities, harbors and mountains rather than investigate them themselves (Horsfall 1985). THE GOOD COMMANDER Drawing on the repertoire of tropes of a capable commander, Tacitus presents the whole range of leadership in the Roman armies. He begins with Agricola whom he presents as the ideal leader. First, Agricola displays the requisite awareness and preparation of a good leader. He finds out about the enemy’s plans (Ag. 25.3). He gets to know the province and thus has a knack for choosing advantageous positions for forts or camps (Ag. 5.1, 20.2; Veg. Mil. 1.21–25). He keeps troops in reserve for emergencies (Ag. 37.1; Veg. Mil. 3.17). During his first stint in Britain, Agricola gets to know experienced Roman troops and learns from them. In the summer of his first year, he is constantly on the march, commending discipline and curbing stragglers (Ag. 20.2). He makes it his business to know everything about his men (Ag. 19.3). His speech before the decisive Battle of Mons Graupius (Ag. 33.2–34) inspires the troops to take up arms quickly. The ideal general should also possess the qualities of a leader and a soldier. Aurunculeius Cotta fights and dies in this way (Caes. BGall. 5.33.2), and Catiline presents himself thus in Sallust (Cat. 20.16) and with his men he dies with wounds in front (Cat. 60.4). Agricola leads troops to battle at the front of the line against the Ordovices to impart his own courage to his men by sharing their danger (Ag. 18.2). The Romans cut the enemy to pieces. Antonius Primus, coping with chaotic danger created by a subordinate, does all the things a good commander and good soldier should do (H. 3.17.1) thus shaming his troops into standing their ground. Onosander, however, in his military manual, disapproves of such leadership since the general might be killed. Rather he should ride around to encourage and direct (Onos. 33.1–6). For the depiction of an inept commander, see the saga of Caesennius Paetus in Armenia (A. 15.6–17) who at one point “abandoned all the responsibilities of soldiering” (A. 15.11.3) in contrast to Domitius Corbulo’s behavior (A. 15.12.1).

28-04-2023 17:37:59

battle narratives  

THE BATTLE SCENE Roman battle scenes came in different sizes and adhered to certain conventions. A battle scene may be very brief or merely given a mention while the more expansive ones include the array of each army, the terrain, an exhortation to the troops by each commander, an initial attack, a Roman check, a final attack, a statement of Roman losses, and “a judicious flavouring of anecdote, horror, pathos, and perhaps grim humor” (Wellesley 1969, 78). Tacitus can merely allude to a battle in passing, present a more detailed one or go all out. When Furius Camillus defeats Tacfarinas in Africa, Tacitus gives the battle less than two lines (A. 2.52.4) while devoting five and a half lines to the lineage of this Camillus and the honor the Senate gives him, since the unassuming Camillus, scion of a once great family, poses no threat to the emperor (A. 2.52.5). When Suetonius Paulinus lands on Mona, the troops are greeted by armed men and women running around them, dressed in black and brandishing torches, and the Druids who were cursing the Romans (A. 14.30.1). The thunderstruck soldiers exposed their bodies to wounds. The “battle” per se occupies three vivid lines: Suetonius urges the men on; they follow the standards and envelop the enemy in their own flames (A. 14.30.2). At the opposite end of the spectrum is the second battle of Bedriacum which takes up three Teubner pages (H. 3.21–25) and well illustrates why Antonius Primus is the only leader the troops respect (H. 3.10.3). THE EXHORTATION A standard element in the Roman battle narrative was the general’s exhortation to his troops before the fighting began (Caes. BCiv. 3.90.1; H. 4. 33; H. 5.16.2). While ancient historians often created a hortatio addressed to the whole army, it is much more likely that the commander sent his message via his subordinates or rode along the lines himself and spoke to smaller units in turn (the epipolesis) such as Antonius did at the second battle of Cremona. There he gave different messages, some critical, to different legions and ended with harsh criticism of the Praetorian Guards, who had already changed sides twice in

c02_Vol1.indd 155

155

the civil war: “Death is waiting if you are defeated, for have you exhausted your disgrace” (H. 3.24.3). Exhortations take various forms. Only once does Tacitus insert a pair of lengthy speeches in direct discourse when Agricola and Calgacus speak to their troops before the climactic battle at Mons Graupius (Ag. 30–34). Here Tacitus employs the commonplaces of exhortations such as the commander’s relationship with his men. Agricola emphasizes his closeness to his troops without seeming to pander to them: “I have had nothing to regret in my soldiers, nor you in your general” (neque me militum neque vos ducis paenituit, Ag. 33.2). As this is the only pair of lengthy exhortations in Tacitus, perhaps such speeches seemed “excessively contrived” (Martin 1969, 126) or would slow the fast-moving narrative (Miller 1969, 110). Instead, he substitutes shorter exhortations given during the fighting. When he spots trouble, Agricola urges some cohorts in the middle of battle to take up their swords since throwing javelins at the enemy was not effective (Ag. 36.1). Germanicus during a battle with the Germans, takes off his head covering, so his men can recognize him more easily, and urges them to press home the slaughter. There was no need of captives; only extermination of the race would end the war (A. 2.21.2). Occasionally, troops exhort each other and the commander. When Corbulo was concerned about the forbidding terrain in the territory of the Silures, his troops demanded battle despite the obstacles and shouted repeatedly “that everything was assailable with courage” (A. 12.35.1). Even if the army meets disaster, according to Onosander “an encouraging speech will give men’s souls new strength” (Onos. 1.13). CASUALTIES AND GORE Tacitus reports Roman casualties just twice; once at Mons Graupius, where 360 Roman troops died (Ag. 37.6), and once from the battle against Boudicca, when about 400 Roman soldiers died (A. 14.37.2). According to the fifth-century historian Orosius (Oros. 7.10.4), Tacitus followed Sallust and others in keeping silent about casualty

28-04-2023 17:37:59

156  

battle narratives

figures. But there are plenty of gruesome anecdotes with intriguing details to pique the reader’s interest. Arminius escapes after smearing his own gore on his face (A. 2.17.5). At the end of the same battle, some Germans who took refuge in the trees “in a disgraceful flight” were “mockingly transfixed” by Roman archers as they tried to hide themselves in the branches. Tacitus mentions as a fact that one of Corbulo’s soldiers in bitter cold was carrying a load of wood with hands so frozen that when he dropped the wood, off came his hands too (A. 13.35.3). When the troops of Gaius Silius [Aulus Caecina Largus] encountered the armored troops (ferrati) in a battle against Iulius Sacrovir, at first, they struggled, but then they used pickaxes and hatchets as if demolishing a wall and sliced through the coverings and bodies. Some soldiers used poles and forks to knock over the ferrati. Now rendered completely helpless, they were left for dead (A. 3.46.3). HONOR AND GLORY Tacitus frequently takes time to record the deeds, brave and shameful, of soldiers. In so doing, he is true to his statement that it is “a principal responsibility of annals, to prevent virtues from being silenced and so that crooked words and deeds should be attended by dread of posterity and infamy” (A. 3.65.1, tr. Woodman 2004). This is true even when Romans are fighting one another. There are many shameful episodes such as the murder of Galba by the praetorian guard and the rampage through Italy by Otho’s soldiers who burned and looted as if they were in a foreign country (H. 2.12.2). Since the victors get to write history, most of the soldiers whom Tacitus mentions dying bravely in the civil war are Flavians. Tacitus is able to name some of these men, but not all. At a key moment in the second battle of Cremona, at night two Flavian soldiers disguised themselves as Vitellians and disabled a ballista by cutting its ropes and springs. They were killed at once, and their names were lost, but there was no doubt about the deed (H. 3.23.2). In the same battle, six centurions of the Seventh Legion were killed, and some of the standards were lost, but the senior centurion, Atilius Verus, saved the legionary eagle, and killed many of the enemy before being killed himself (H. 3.22.4). When Vitellian troops

c02_Vol1.indd 156

besieged the Capitolium, Tacitus named a few notable professional soldiers on the Flavian side who were cut down while putting up a brave fight (Cornelius Martialis, Aemilius Pacensis, Casperius, Didius Scaeva; H. 3.73.2). A good general could play an important part in the soldiers’ quest for honor and glory by witnessing their behavior on the battlefield. After the battle, the general could stage a public ceremony to honor a soldier’s bravery. One Helvius Rufus was honored both by his commander Corbulo and the emperor Tiberius because he had saved the life of a Roman citizen (A. 3.21.3). Soldiers even listed such awards on their tombstones. All recipients of such awards had shown “a willingness to take individual aggressive action” (Goldsworthy 1996, 277). Corbulo (A. 13.39.2–3), and Antonius (H. 3.27) encouraged their troops to compete with one another for glory and spoils by assigning groups of soldiers to different sectors of the battlefield. In both cases, the soldiers met the challenge. HISTORIES VERSUS ANNALS K. Wellesley attributes the decrease of descriptions of actual fighting in the Annals to a general abbreviation of the narrative required in a larger work (Wellesley 1969, 64). Despite the major campaigns in the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero, D. S. Levene argues that Tacitus chose a short form to express the perfunctory nature of the battles, as in the majority of them the victory was, in his version, simple and quite one sided (Levene 2009). Modern readers might be pleased that the JulioClaudian emperors preferred diplomacy and were reluctant to give their “glory-seeking commanders” a free hand, but through these battle narratives, Tacitus suggests that the emperors “were no longer running the Empire according to the canon of traditional military glory” (Levene 2009, 231). see also: army; historiography; narrative; speeches Reference work: RE 9; RE 10; RE 21; RE 49; RE 89; RE Suppl. 9,7; RE 50; Suppl. 3 REFERENCES Goldsworthy, A. K. 1996. The Roman Army at War: 100 BC–AD 200. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 17:37:59

Battle of M ons G raupius  

Horsfall, N. 1985. “Illusion and Reality in Latin Topographical Writing.” Greece & Rome 32.2: 197–208. Levene, D. S. 2009. “Warfare in the Annals.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 225–238. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, R. 1969. “Tacitus and His Predecessors.” In Tacitus, edited by T. A. Dorey, 117–147. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul. Miller, N. P. 1969. “Style and Content in Tacitus.” In Tacitus, edited by T. A. Dorey, 99–116. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul. Murison, C. L. 1993. Galba, Otho and Vitellius: Careers and Controversies. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Wellesley, K. 1969. “Tacitus as a Military Historian.” In Tacitus, edited by T. A. Dorey, 63–97. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul. Woodman, A. J. 1979. “Self-Imitation and the Substance of History: Tacitus, Annals 1.61–5 and Histories 2.70, 5.14–15.” In Tacitus Reviewed, edited by A. J. Woodman, 70–85. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2004. The Annals of Tacitus. Indianapolis: Hackett. FURTHER READING Ash, R. 1999. Ordering Anarchy: Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ Histories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ash, R. 2006. “Following in the Footsteps of Lucullus? Tacitus’ Characterisation of Corbulo.” Arethusa 39.2: 355–375. Ash, R. 2007a. “Tacitus and the Battle of Mons Graupius: A Historiographical Route Map?” In A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography, edited by J. Marincola, 434–440. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Ash, R. 2007b. Tacitus Histories Book II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ash, R. 2018. Tacitus Annals Book XV. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Campbell, J. B. 1987. “Teach Yourself How to Be a General.” JRS 77: 13–29. Carmona, D. 2014. La Escena Típica de la Epipólesis de la épica a la historiografía. Rome: Edizioni Quasar. Gilmartin, K. 1973. “Corbulo’s Campaigns in the East: An Analysis of His Account.” Historia 22: 583–626. Herzog, P. H. 1996. Die Function militärischen Planens bei Tacitus: der Kriegsrat von Bedriacum. Frankfurt: Lang. Keitel, E. 1987. “Homeric Antecedents to the ‘Cohortatio’ in the Ancient Historians.” The Classical World 80.3: 153–172.

c02_Vol1.indd 157

157

Keitel, E. 1991. “Speeches in Tacitus’ Histories I-III.” ANRW II.33.4: 2772–2794. Lendon, J. E. 2017a. “Battle Description in the Ancient Historians, Part I: Structure, Array and Fighting.” Greece and Rome 64.1: 39–64. Lendon, J. E. 2017b. “Battle Description in the Ancient Historians, Part II: Speeches, Results and Sea Battles.” Greece and Rome 64.2: 145–167.

BATTLE OF MONS GRAUPIUS KYLE KHELLAF

University of California, Riverside

The Battle of Mons Graupius (83 ce) was a formal military engagement in Caledonia (modern Scotland) fought between the Roman forces under the command of Agricola and the assembled Caledonian tribes led by Calgacus. The battle is described at length by Tacitus toward the end of the Agricola (Ag. 29–38). It follows the yearly chronicle of Agricola’s campaigns of 77–82 ce (18–26) and the digression on the mutiny of the Usipi (28), and it precedes the concluding sections of the work which recount Agricola’s return to Rome, death, and posthumous laudatio (39–46). As such, the climactic account of Mons Graupius constitutes a significant portion of Tacitus’ Agricola (approximately onefifth of the work). The events surrounding the battle begin with a brief chapter that explains the motives of both the Romans and the Caledonians that led to open conflict (27). Then, following the excursus on the Usipi (28), Tacitus transports the reader to the slopes of Mons Graupius by virtue of Agricola’s arrival there (29.2)—an unknown site which scholars have long attempted to identify (see Ash 2007, 436–437; Ogilvie and Richmond 1967, 64–65, 251–252; Woodman 2014, 232, 234)— where more than 30,000 armed Britons had assembled (Ag. 29.2–4). Thereupon, Tacitus follows the standard narrative sequence employed by ancient historians (Ash 2007, 435–436) and presents readers with the paired speeches of Calgacus and Agricola (Ag. 30–34). The battle narrative continues with a description of the marshalling of Agricola’s forces,

28-04-2023 17:37:59

158  

B eatus R henanus

said to number 8,000 auxiliary infantry, 3,000 cavalry, and several legions (35.2). Agricola positioned his auxiliary troops in the center vanguard; the legions behind them in front of the embankment (to minimize Roman casualties and have strong reserve forces if needed); and the cavalry along both wings. Similarly, the Caledonian frontline was centrally placed on level ground at the base of the hill (35.3). However, the remaining Caledonian infantry, to take advantage of the higher ground, was positioned in an interlocking formation along the slopes of Mons Graupius, while their cavalry and chariots maintained an unruly position on the plain between the opposing infantry. After ranged attacks from both sides, Agricola ordered six auxiliary cohorts (four of Batavi and two of Tungri) to engage with the enemy front lines (36.1). Tacitus specifies that the Caledonians, who possessed small light shields and lacked pointed swords, were at a huge loss in the face of Roman infantry tactics. As a result, the six cohorts succeeded at cutting down the Caledonian line on the plain and began advancing up the slopes of Mons Graupius, which in turn motivated the remaining auxiliary forces (36.2). The enemy cavalry and charioteers are said to have fallen into complete disarray (36.3). The Caledonian infantry occupying the hilltops then descended in an attempt to circumvallate the Roman auxiliary cohorts who were successfully forcing their way up the slopes (37.1). Agricola dispatched his four divisions of cavalry to engage with these contingents. The cavalry warded off the attack and eventually succeeded at surrounding the remaining enemy infantry. The Caledonian army was then brutally routed (37.2–3). Those of the enemy who were not struck down attempted to use the natural advantage of nearby forests against the pursuing Romans (37.3–4). Tacitus tells us that this tactic was short-lived, as Agricola sent a number of light-infantry and cavalry to scour less densely wooded areas for the enemy (37.4–5). By nightfall the battle had concluded. Tacitus gives a figure of 10,000 dead on the Caledonian side versus only 360 Roman casualties (37.6). Because the Agricola remains our only source for the Battle of Mons Graupius (Cassius Dio’s

c02_Vol1.indd 158

account says only that Agricola “overran everything belonging to the enemy” in Britain, 66.20.1), questions have arisen regarding the historical veracity of the battle, its geographical location, the identity of the Caledonian leader, and the contents of his anti-Roman exhortation. Certain details, such as Agricola’s decision to send away his horse and to fight on foot alongside his vanguard (Ag. 35.4), do strain credulity (even if modeled on the Commentarii of Iulius Caesar), and actually contradict Tacitus’ depiction of Agricola as a keen military strategist who was everywhere during the battle (frequens ubique, 37.4; see Woodman 2014, 271). Yet while Calgacus and his rhetoric may be a historical reimagining based solely on Roman topoi; and although Tacitus may be inclined to exaggerate certain actions undertaken by Agricola in battle (following Roman ideals of exemplarity and their importance in biographical literature); it is nevertheless reasonable to infer that Tacitus made use of the firsthand testimony gleaned from his father-in-law when fashioning his narrative. see also: Britannia REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2007. “Tacitus and the Battle of Mons Graupius: A Historiographical Route Map?” In A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. 2 vols., edited by John Marincola, 434–440. Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Ogilvie, R. M., and I. A. Richmond, eds. 1967. Cornelii Taciti de vita Agricolae. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J., ed., with C. S. Kraus. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

BAULI, see CAMPANIA

BEATUS RHENANUS CLAUDIO BUONGIOVANNI

Università della Campania “L. Vanvitelli”

The Alsatian humanist Beat Bild (Sélestat 1485–Strasbourg 1547) was called Beatus

28-04-2023 17:37:59

B eatus R henanus  

Rhenanus (hereafter B. R.), since his father Antonio came from the town of Rheinau. After a preliminary training in Sélestat from 1503 to 1507, B. R. moved to Paris where he completed his curriculum of philosophical studies attending the courses of Jacques Lèfevre d’Étaples, working as a proofreader for Henri Estienne, and encountering Italian humanists who were in Paris at that time. From direct and indirect knowledge of the works of the masters of Italian philology between the second half of the fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth century, he certainly benefited for his subsequent activity as a philologist. B. R. also learned Greek from Iohannes Kuhn in Basel; here he started a fruitful cooperation with the publisher Johann Froben, as well as with prominent cultural figures such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, of whom he became a close friend. B. R. also took part in the heated debate within the Catholic Church at that time, getting close to Martin Luther and the theories of the Reformation, from which he then moved away in the last years of his life. B. R.’s name is linked to the edition of several ancient authors, both pagan and Christian, Latin and Greek: Livy, Velleius Paterculus (B. R. discovered in 1515 in the Benedictine abbey of Murbach the manuscript on which is based our knowledge of this Latin author), Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tertullian, Gregory of Nazianzus, George of Trebizond, Maximus of Tire, Procopius of Caesarea, and also his contemporaries Erasmus of Rotterdam and Martin Luther. B. R.’s Rerum Germanicarum libri tres (Basel 1531) is an important historiographical work that marks a notable progress in methodological terms and testifies to the fundamental role played by B. R. in the shaping of a historical consciousness of the Germanic peoples. In 1523 he received a noble honor from King Charles V. B. R. is an outstanding protagonist in the history of European culture in the first half of the sixteenth century; he authoritatively participates in the development of modern philological science. The first Tacitean enterprise of B. R. is offered by the edition with commentary of the Germania, printed twice in 1519, and again in 1533 and 1544. It is the most representative example of an interpretation of the Tacitean monograph as libellus

c02_Vol1.indd 159

159

aureus (“small golden book”) on Germany’s ancient origins. During the long—sometimes even tragic—history of Germania’s reception in the Germanic area, from Humanism to the contemporary age, the stage of B. R. is undoubtedly one of the most significant. It is worth noting the approach to the Tacitean text, certainly read with an interpretative key aimed at authenticating and ennobling the ancient origin of the Germanic peoples, but also underlining the differences between the Germany and the Germans as described by Tacitus and those of the sixteenth century. Thus, B. R. demonstrates a deep ripeness and an impressive exegetical awareness if compared with the works of many readers of Tacitus with a nationalistic perspective that flourished between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After the textual-critical and exegetical libellus published as appendix to the 1515 edition of Beroaldus the Younger and after Andrea Alciato’s In Cornelium Tacitum Annotationes (Milan 1517 and Basel 1519), B. R.’s 1533 edition of Tacitus’ extant works with double commentary, stylistic-lexical and philological, marks a notable progress in the modern history of Tacitean philology. B. R. based his work on a codex Budensis, which corresponds to the current Yale Manuscript of Tacitus. The specific connotation that the Alsatian humanist intends to give his work is immediately made explicit at the opening of the edition by a Thesaurus locutionum construtionumque et vocum Tacito solennium per Beatum Rhenanum obiter collectus, adiunctis plerunque ex Tito Livio testimoniis, cuius etiam haud pauci loci hic restituntur (“Thesaurus of phrases, constructions, and words usual in Tacitus, collected by Beatus Rhenanus, together with testimony from Livy, of which not a few are restored here”). It is a very useful repertoire— unfortunately not alphabetically ordered—of syntactic and lexical uses of Tacitus: language and style are the tracks along which B. R. wants to delve into the text of the ancient historian, accompanying the reader to avoid as much as possible the risk of irremediably colliding with the extraordinary harshness of Tacitean language. The Thesaurus of B. R. is not properly a lexicon, because it does not collect the headwords systematically; however, despite the absence of a standardizing criterion, it is much more than a simple

28-04-2023 17:37:59

160  

B eatus R henanus

and anodyne alphabetic lexicon and is one of the most relevant modern examples of a “brief guide” to the language and style of an ancient author. From this point of view, but not only, it seems that B. R. owes a lot—at least in terms of inspiration— to Beroaldus the Younger’s Appendix to the edition of 1515 which, although much smaller in size than the one of B. R., together with textualcritical proposals, also presented few linguistic and lexical annotations. The prefatory epistle to Pope Leo X and the Appendix of Beroaldus the Younger’s edition were reprinted in B. R.’s Basel edition of 1533. Even though it is not always acceptable, the emending technique of Rhenanus heavily relies on the internal principle of the usus scribendi; therefore, his proposals for intervention on the Latin text are advanced and supported based on similarities with other places in Tacitean works. In more general terms, this method is also applied to the exegetical side, creating a kind of explanation of Tacitus with Tacitus, according to the internal interpretative criterion of ancient texts that dates back to the philologists of the Hellenistic Age and which we might consider the origin of contemporary intratextuality (see intertextuality). One of the most significant features of Rhenanus’ Tacitean reading is the “Livian characterization” of Tacitus. B. R. creates an interesting continuity between the two historians, starting with the titulature of Annales for the two major works of Tacitus (until then often referred to as Historia Augusta or Historiae), but also making Livy (and not Sallust) the main point of comparison for Tacitus’ style and language. Although the Sallustian matrix of Tacitus’ style is now a widely accepted fact, it can be said that B. R. had a prescience which confirmed—a few centuries in advance—the recent increasingly widespread awareness to reevaluate the Livian contribution in the genesis and definition of Tacitus’ language and style. In the 1533 Tacitean edition, among other things, the prefatory epistle is particularly interesting; it tactfully affirms the primacy of Tacitus over Livy. It is a very important step, a turning point in Tacitean philology and reception. Given the diffusion of B. R.’s edition, it boosts the progressive and irreversible shift between the auctores in the hierarchies of the historiographic genre. In

c02_Vol1.indd 160

B.  R.’s prefatory epistle, the principles of the method and of the philological lexicon are noteworthy: Et tamen non est alia via succurrendi veterum scriptis nisi haec, nempe ut primum conferantur attente exemplaria manuscripta, dein iudicium adhibeatur: “And yet there is no other way to rescue ancient works but firstly to carefully collate the manuscripts, then to decide.” Although it engages in a rather widespread commonplace in these kinds of prefaces, it is worth noting how Rhenanus declares to avoid taedium laboris (“the boredom of the effort”) thinking of the usefulness of his work for scholars (the concept of usefulness offers another link to Beroladus the Younger, especially to the prefatory epistle of his 1515 printed edition). Also noteworthy is the separate section Annalium inscriptionis reddita ratio (“Explanation of the title Annales”), in which, based on the passages where the historian uses the word Annales referring to his work, B. R. tries to remedy the hitherto indeterminacy of the title and calls both the Histories and the Annals “Annales” (see annales; Annals). Once again, B. R. is inspired in his choice by the example of Livy, who also defined his historiographical work Annales (see 43, 13); the Alsatian humanist demonstrates a good awareness of the causes and the dynamics that determined the layout of Tacitus’ manuscript tradition, especially of the major works, thus enhancing some of the most relevant ancient testimonies, in particular those of Tertullian (Apologeticum 1, 16, 1–3) and Jordanes (Getica, 2, 13). Furthermore, his Castigationes, although a bit lengthy, not always appreciable, and often too confident in the ingenium of their author, certainly represent a foundational point of modern Tacitean philology and deserve to be mentioned on a closely related—maybe not always at the same—level of the textual-critical activity of Marc-Antoine Muret and Justus Lipsius, the two giants who, together with B. R., constitute a sort of paradigmatic triad of the interpreters of Tacitus in the sixteenth century. On his death B. R. left a very rich library now preserved in his hometown (Bibliothèque Humaniste de Sélestat http:// bhnumerique.ville-selestat.fr/client/fr_FR/bh). see also: commentaries; editions; manuscripts; reception, early modern to the eighteenth century; reception, Renaissance; translations

28-04-2023 17:37:59

B edriacum  

FURTHER READING Buongiovanni, Claudio. 2007. “Ope ingeniorum: la prima attività filologica sui libri I-VI degli Annales di Tacito.” Paideia 62: 115–144. Buongiovanni, Claudio. 2016. “I libri I-VI degli Annales di Tacito tra ecdotica ed esegesi umanistica. Il caso di Filippo Beroaldo il Giovane.” Incidenza dell’Antico 14: 109–126. D’Amico, John F. 1988. Theory and Practice in Renaissance Textual Criticism. Beatus Rhenanus between Conjecture and History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hirstein, James. 1995. Tacitus’ Germania and Beatus Rhenanus, 1485–1547. A Study of the Editorial and Exegetical Contribution of a Sixteenth Century Scholar. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Peter Lang. Hirstein, James, ed. 2000. Beatus Rhenanus (1485– 1547). Lecteur et éditeur des textes anciens, Actes du colloque international (Strasbourg-Sélestat, 13–15 novembre 1998). Turnhout: Brepols. Hirstein, James, ed. 2018. Beatus Rhenanus (1485– 1547) et une réforme de l’Eglise: engagement et changement, Actes du Colloque international tenu à Strasbourg et à Sélestat les 5 et 6 juin 2015. Turnhout: Brepols. Kaiser, Ronny. 2014. “Understanding National Antiquity. Transformations of Tacitus’s Germania in Beatus Rhenanus’s Commentariolus.” In Transformations of the Classics via Early Modern Commentaries, edited by K. A. E. Enenkel, 261–277. Leiden: Brill. Muhlack, Ulrich. 2013. Rhenanus, Beatus, in Deutscher Humanismus 1480–1520 Verfasserlexikon. Edited by F. J. Worstbrock II, 657–710. Berlin: De Gruyter. Vecce, Carlo. 1985. “Il giovane Beato Renano e gli umanisti italiani a Parigi all’inizio del XVI secolo.” Annuaire des Amis de la Bibliothèque de Sélestat. Spécial 500e Anniversaire de la naissance de Beatus Rhenanus 25: 134–140.

BEDRIACUM ELENI HALL MANOLARAKI

University of South Florida

Bedriacum is a town (vicus, H. 2.23; πολίχνη, Plut. Oth. 8) north of the Padus River on the Via Postumia, 35 km east of Cremona. It was settled in 218 bce alongside the larger communities of Cremona and Placentia to secure the region

c02_Vol1.indd 161

161

from Hannibal’s invasion of Italy and his alliance with Cisalpine Gaul. Archaeologists have identified Bedriacum with the site at the modern village of Calvatone in Lombardy. Tacitus, Plutarch, Suetonius, Josephus, and Cassius Dio use Bedriacum as shorthand for two battles in the civil wars of 69 ce: the battle of Otho’s praetorian cohorts against Vitellius’ legions in April and between the latter and the army supporting Vespasian in October. Since, in fact, both battles took place on the Via Postumia between Bedriacum and Cremona, they are known respectively as Cremona/Bedriacum I and Cremona/Bedriacum II (Corsano 1991). Suetonius (Oth. 10) reports that his father personally knew Otho and that he fought on the emperor’s side at Bedriacum I. Plutarch (Oth. 14) remembers traveling through the area with his friend Maestrius Florus, who had fought in the same battle for Otho. According to Florus, the dead of that battle were afterwards heaped on up into an enormous pile. Tacitus provides the most complete topography of Bedriacum the battlefield, which he locates at some distance from Bedriacum the village (H. 2.44). He details the nature of the terrain, its natural features, and its man-made constructions to illustrate how these factors shaped troop formation and morale in both battles (Morgan 2005). His comprehensiveness emphasizes the strategic role of that battlefield, but Tacitus visualizes its importance also in didactic terms. Introduced as “a village between Verona and Cremona, infamous and doomed with two Roman disasters (H. 2.23),” Bedriacum constitutes a major teachable moment in the Histories: it stages the vicissitudes of three imperial contenders, the fickleness of their commanders, and the shifting loyalties of the legions under their unreliable officers. A few highlights illustrate the point: after their defeat in Bedriacum I, Otho’s praetorians are given a speech in which they rest their hopes on the fresh troops encamped at the village of Bedriacum; that same camp, however, becomes the scene of a mournful fraternization between them and the Vitellians after the former have surrendered (H. 2.44–45). To a similarly elegiac effect, Tacitus includes hearsay about a portent near the battlefield on the day of Bedriacum I

28-04-2023 17:37:59

162  

B elgica , B elgae

(Morgan 1993). Bedriacum even embodies the defeated Othonians’ zeal for Vespasian as it offers them a rematch with the Vitellians (H. 2.67, 2.82, 3.24). Tacitus amplifies these kaleidoscopic images of Bedriacum by alluding to the civil wars of the Late Republic through Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae, Vergil’s Aeneid, and Lucan’s Civil War. This intertextuality embeds Bedriacum within the long conversation of Rome’s internal conflicts (Joseph 2012; Master 2014). The centerpiece of Tacitus’ composition of Bedriacum is his account of Vitellius’ survey of the battlegrounds after the Othonians’ defeat. There, he superimposes his somber picture of the wreckage to the victors’ delight in the spectacle, and he foreshadows the irony of the Vitellian defeat in the same location. The contrast between authorial and internal viewing at Bedriacum sounds keynotes of Tacitean thought: the juxtaposition of surface and substance; the delusions of rulers and the dissimulations of their subjects; the instability of power; and the wretchedness of the human condition (Manolaraki 2005). see also: battle narrative; digression; historiography; portents; Roman roads; speeches Reference work: Barrington 39 G3 REFERENCES Corsano, Marinella. 1991. “Le fonti antiche.” In Calvatone romana. Studi e ricerche preliminari, edited by Guliana Facchini, 51–60. Milan: Cisalpino. Joseph, Timothy A. 2012. Tacitus the Epic Successor: Virgil, Lucan, and the Narrative of Civil War in the Histories. Leiden: Brill. Manolaraki, Eleni. 2005. “A Picture Worth a Thousand Words: Revisiting Bedriacum (Tacitus Histories 2.70).” Classical Philology 100: 243–267. DOI: 10.1086/497860. Master, Jonathan. 2014. “Allusive Concord: Tacitus Histories 2.37–38 and Sallust Bellum Catilinae 6.” Phoenix 68: 126–136. DOI: 10.7834/ phoenix.68.1-2.0126. Morgan, Gwyn M. 1993. “Two Omens in Tacitus’ Histories (2.50.2 and 1.62.2–3).” Rheinisches Museum 136: 321–329. http://www.rhm.uni-koeln. de/136/Morgan.pdf. Morgan, Gwyn M. 2005. “The Opening Stages in the Battle for Cremona, or the Devil in the Details

c02_Vol1.indd 162

(Tacitus, Histories 3.15–18).” Historia 54: 189–209. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4436766?seq=1.

BELGICA, BELGAE KATIE LOW

Brussels

Iulius Caesar is the source of the first extant literary references to the Belgae: they are one of the three tribal groups into which he divides Gaul, along with the Aquitani, and the Galli, known as Celtae in their own language (BGall. 1.1.1). The area he conquered in 58–51 bce became the province of Gallia Comata. Under Augustus, it was divided into three areas matching Caesar’s description: Gallia Aquitania, Gallia Belgica, and Gallia Lugdunensis (Celtica). Gallia Belgica extended over an area covering much of modern Belgium and Luxembourg, but also parts of France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Its capital was Durocortorum (modern Reims), tribal capital of the Remi. Initially the “Three Gauls” were governed by one individual. Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus, brother of Tiberius), Tiberius, and Germanicus are known to have held this office: Tacitus refers to Germanicus conducting a census of the provinces in 14 ce (A. 1.31.2). After 17 ce, each province was governed separately by an imperial legate of praetorian rank. The first known procurator of Belgica, responsible for the province’s financial affairs, was a man named Cornelius Tacitus, probably the father of Tacitus (Syme 1969, 213). In 21 ce a revolt occurred among the Treveri, a Belgic tribe, and the Aedui, located in Gallia Lugdunensis (A. 3.40–7). The cause, according to Tacitus, was excessive debt to Rome, as well as the requirement to pay tribute and Roman administrators’ cruelty and arrogance: the need to finance Germanicus’ campaigns against the Germani in 14–16 ce and higher taxation under Tiberius might have been relevant (Wightman 1985, 64). The revolt’s instigators were men notable in each tribe, Iulius Florus and Iulius Sacrovir respectively. The ancestors of both had been granted Roman citizenship for services rendered, which may have been military in nature; Tacitus’ account of the revolt includes a reference to a

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B ellum I udaicum  

Treveran cavalry squadron under Roman command (A. 3.42.1), which mostly resists joining the rebels (for the career possibilities offered to noble Gauls by Roman service, see Wightman 1985, 71–74). Subsequently, Belgica no doubt benefited from the efforts of Claudius to improve the infrastructure and roads of northern Gaul (Wightman 1985, 65–66). However, Tacitus reports that, under Nero in the late 50s ce, the imperial legate Marcus Aelius Gracilis objected to the proposal of Lucius Antistius Vetus, consular governor of Germania Superior, to dig a canal in Belgica linking the Rhenus (Rhine) and Rhodanus (Rhône) rivers (A. 13.53.2–3) When Otho and Vitellius declared their bids for the throne in 69 ce, the Treveri joined the army of Germania Inferior in swearing allegiance to Vitellius, while most other Gallic tribes were for Otho. Once Vitellius’ forces had been defeated by those of Vespasian, however, the Treveri joined the Batavian revolt of Iulius Civilis. Under the leadership of Iulius Classicus and Iulius Tutor, and elated by reports of chaos in Rome, they swore an oath of loyalty to a new imperium Galliarum (“Gallic empire”), although Civilis and his Batavi did not (H. 4.55–6, 59.2–3, 61.1). However, the Remi led Gallic opposition to this movement, which was itself marred by disorganization (H. 4.68.5–70.1). Tutor’s forces were swelled by contingents from the Caeracates, Triboci, and Vangiones, who nonetheless swiftly deserted him before he was defeated by Sextilius Felix (H. 4.70.3–5); another defeat for Treveran remnants under the commander Iulius Valentinus soon followed (H. 4.71.4–5). Tacitus then presents a conciliatory speech delivered by the Roman general Petilius Cerialis that sketches out the threat posed by the savage Germani (including the Batavian rebels) to the Gallic provinces and justifies Roman rule over the latter, pointing out that the average subject’s lot would be unlikely to improve under a Gallic empire (H. 4.73–4). Classicus and Tutor joined Civilis; in their final appearance in the extant text of the Histories, they are fleeing Roman forces by boat on the Rhenus (H. 5.21.2). The “[s]hort- and long-term effects [of their uprising] on the society of Belgica, and of the Treveri in particular, must… have been considerable” (Wightman 1985, 69).

c02_Vol1.indd 163

163

see also: civil wars of 69; provinces Reference works: Barrington 100 G2; Barrington 11 E3; RE III: 207 REFERENCES Syme, Ronald. 1969. “Pliny the Procurator.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 73: 201–236. Wightman, Edith M. 1985. Gallia Belgica. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. FURTHER READING Deru, Xavier. 2016. La Gaule Belgique. Paris: Éditions Picard. Raepsaet-Charlier, Marie-Thérèse, and Georges Raepsaet. 2011. “Villes et agglomérations de Belgique sous le Principat.” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 89: 633–657.

BELLUM IUDAICUM JONATHAN MASTER

Emory University

The Bellum Iudaicum was a revolt of the province of Iudaea lasting from 66–74 ce, that was eventually suppressed by Vespasian and Titus and resulted in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The primary literary source for the war is the History of the Jewish War of the Jewish general turned Roman prisoner Josephus. Tacitus would be a more significant source had the final books of the Annals and Histories not been lost. All that remains of Tacitus’ accounts of the war are the first thirteen chapters of the fragmentary fifth book of the Histories, which introduce the narrative of the capture of Jerusalem under the command of Titus in 70 by providing an ethnography of the Jews and detailed description of the well-fortified site of the Temple. Tacitus briefly lays out the key figures in the origins and development of the revolt. The Roman rule of Judaea was corrupt and punitive. Only Caligula’s assassination in 41 prevented a revolt after he had demanded that a statue of himself be put in the Temple (H.5.9.2; Joseph. AJ 18.261– 309; Philo, Leg. 188, 207–333). The Roman

28-04-2023 17:38:00

164  

B ellum I udaicum

freedmen and equestrians that Claudius first began to assign to manage the province were uniformly vicious, but it was the unprecedentedly extortionate exaction of taxes under Gessius Florus (mentioned by Tacitus only at H. 5.10), procurator from 64–66 under Nero, that proved too much to bear. The Jews revolted and a not well-understood but certainly feeble effort to march on Jerusalem by the legate of Syria, Gaius Cestius Gallus (2), resulted in heavy losses for the Romans and an exacerbation of the revolt. Nero granted Vespasian a special command to suppress the revolt in 67. Vespasian quickly succeeded in bringing much of Judaea back under Roman control, except Jerusalem and some fortresses, the last of which at Masada held out till early 74 before the Romans captured it. The civil wars of 69 ce directed Roman attention away from Judaea and paused the effort at suppression, but in 70 with Flavian rule well established, Vespasian named Titus to lead the assault on Jerusalem, a task he completed with heavy Roman casualties and the complete destruction of the most sacred site in Judaism. In the extant portion of the Histories, Tacitus identifies the site of Jerusalem and the structure of the Temple as particularly forbidding for attacking armies (5.8.1 and 5.11.3, and 5.12.1–2). Along with the structural advantage the city and Temple provided, Tacitus identifies the unshakable Jewish faith, which he puts a negative coloring on with the expression pervicacia superstitionis, the obstinacy of their cultish belief, as a source of their determined resistance to Titus’ attack (2.4.3). Tacitus also takes note of the internal division within the Jewish ranks within the city (5.12.3–4). He includes the details that one Simon son of Giora held the outer walls of the city, John of Gischala (to whom Tacitus mistakenly gives the same surname as Simon, i.e., Bargorias) the inner walls, and a certain Eleazar held the Temple (H. 5.12, the only time these three are mentioned in Tacitus). John led an attack on Eleazar, killing him and his followers to take control of the Temple himself. Tacitus notes that the arrival of Roman forces put a stop to the internecine conflict between Simon and John, providing another addition to the deep store of Roman historiographical exempla on the power of metus hostilis to unite fractious societies.

c02_Vol1.indd 164

Tacitus’ excursus on the Jews has had a long afterlife in the annals of Judeophobic literature. Tacitus’ contemptuous emphasis on the otherness of the Jews works within the narrative to tie Flavian legitimacy and sentiment to the very superstition displayed by the Jews. Purported divine support was in fact a pillar of the Flavian propaganda, something which Tacitus notes with skepticism from the very beginning of the Histories (1.10.3). The excursus on the Jews comes after the end of Book 4, where Tacitus shows Vespasian in Alexandria acting as a successful faith healer (4.81). Vespasian had also previously visited the sacred Jewish site, Mount Carmel, inquiring about the likelihood of his successfully becoming emperor (2.78.3). Even when Titus is introduced at the outset of Book 2, Tacitus includes the rumor that the future emperor was inflamed with desire for the Jewish Queen Berenice (2.2.1). The explicitly hostile account of the Jews is embedded within a context that challenges the Flavian effort to present themselves as conquerors of a straightforward other, and even within the narrative of the destruction of Jerusalem, there may be sympathetic reflection on the fate of cities, including Rome’s own possible future. FURTHER READING Bloch, R. S. 2002. Antike Vorstellungen vom Judentum. Der Judenexkurs des Tacitus im Rahmen der grieschisch-römischen Ethnographie. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Feldherr, A. 2009. “Barbarians II: Tacitus’ Jews.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by A. Feldherr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodman, M. 1987. The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome, AD 66-70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kadman, L. 1960. Coins of the Jewish War, 66-73 ce. Tel Aviv: Schocken. Magness, J. 2019. Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mason, S. 2016. A History of the Jewish War, AD 66-74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Popovic, M. 2011. The Jewish Revolt against Rome: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Leiden: Brill.

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B eroaldus the Younger  

BERENICE PETER KEEGAN

Macquarie University

A royal Jewish female with Roman citizenship (derived from a grant by Iulius Caesar in 48 bce to Antipater of Iudaea: Joseph. AJ 14.8.3), Iulia Berenice was born c. 28 ce, probably in Rome, to Marcus Iulius Agrippa Herod I, client king of Chalcis ad Libanum, and Cyprus II (Joseph. BJ 2.11.6). Nothing more is known about her after 79 ce (Cass. Dio 66.18.1). She is remembered for allegedly indulging in incestuous relations with her brother Marcus Iulius Agrippa II, king of Chalcis; for interceding with Roman officials on behalf of the Jewish community in Jerusalem; for supporting the Flavian cause during the First Jewish Revolt (66–70 ce); and for reportedly engaging in a romantic liaison with Titus, son of the emperor Vespasian, which she sought to continue when he acceded to his father’s role in 79. Berenice was betrothed c. 41 ce to Marcus, son of Alexander, head (alebarch) of the Jewish community in Alexandria (Joseph. AJ 19.5.1). Following Marcus’ death c. 44 ce, she married her uncle Herod, to whom she bore two sons, Hyrcanus and Berenicianus (Joseph. AJ 20.5.2). Widowed in 48, Berenice’s close ties with her brother Agrippa II encouraged rumors of incest (Juv. 6.156–160; Joseph. AJ 20.7.3), which may have led her to cultivate relations with Iulius Polemon II, king of Pontus and Regnum Bosporanum (Joseph. AJ 20.7.3). When this marriage ended in divorce, Berenice returned to Chalcis. Thereafter, she and her brother are addressed jointly in official correspondence (Joseph. Vit. 48, 180) and shown together in public—on the occasion of Agrippa II’s speech to the people in Jerusalem prior to the rebellion against Rome (Joseph. BJ 2.16.3) and during the trial of the apostle Paul (Acts 25:23). Berenice also put an unsuccessful petition to Gessius Florus, the Roman procurator of Iudaea, as well as a written plea to Gaius Cestius Gallus (2), the legate of Syria, that Florus end his negative campaign against the Jewish population of Jerusalem (Joseph. BJ 2.15.1, 16.1). Berenice chose to side with the Romans and supplied Vespasian with local forces (H. 2.81.2–3). Although considerably older, she and Titus

c02_Vol1.indd 165

165

became lovers in 68 (H. 2.2.8; Suet. Tit. 7.1). In 75, Berenice came to Rome, living as his consort until public pressure required that Titus end the relationship and she leave Rome. Berenice returned to Rome but to no avail, and she was compelled to leave (Suet. Tit. 7.2; Cass. Dio 66.15.3–4). Nothing more is known of her. see also: Bellum Iudaicum FURTHER READING Krieger, Klaus-Stefan. 1997. “Berenike–Die Schwester König Agrippas II, bei Flavius Josephus.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 28: 1–11. Macurdy, Grace H. 1937. Vassal Queens and Some Contemporary Women in the Roman Empire. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 84–90. Mireaux, Emile. 1951. La Riene Bérénice. Paris: Éditions Albin Michel.

BEROALDUS THE YOUNGER CLAUDIO BUONGIOVANNI

Università della Campania “L. Vanvitelli”

Philippus Beroaldus the Younger (Bononia 1472– Rome 1518) represents a milestone in modern Tacitean scholarship, nevertheless almost disregarded until today. As he wrote in a letter to Aldus Manutius (dated July 18, 1500), Beroaldus the Younger was the nephew of the famous Philippus Beroaldus the Elder, an unquestioned protagonist of Italian Humanism in the fifteenth century. Beroaldus the Younger studied in Bononia (modern Bologna) with his uncle and Antony Urcea (also called “Codrus”) and shortly gained a high reputation among the scholars of ancient Greek and Latin literature. In 1502 he moved to Rome as a member of the Archigymnasium (i.e., the University of Rome in the Renaissance), and he spent the rest of his life there, despite some occasional returns to Bononia. The Pope Iulius the Second showed his approval of Beroaldus the Younger, but the turning point for Beroaldus’ career was due to the relationship he had with the Cardinal Giovanni De’ Medici, who, in 1513,

28-04-2023 17:38:00

166  

B eroaldus the Younger

would be elected Pope with the name of Leo the Tenth. Therefore, in 1514 Beroaldus was first nominated by the Pope as praepositus (“Governor”) of the Roman Academy (different from the Roman Academy of Pomponius Leto), then, in 1516, as praefectus (“Prefect”) of the Vatican Library. This was, no doubt, the acme of Beroaldus’ career and cultural achievements, even though a private life not so irreproachable didn’t keep Beraoldus from fulfilling his ambitions (especially his entering the ecclesiastical offices). The name of Beroaldus the Younger is primarily linked to Tacitean philology, but he was also a tasteful and refined poet; if his collection of Epigrammata (“Epigrams”) follows the Catullan fashion of short poetry prevailing in Italy between fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the other collection of Carmina (“Poems”) is probably the first and surely the most systematic attempt to continue the model of Horace’s lyric poetry in the Renaissance poetic context. Beyond extraordinary skills in the Horatian metrical structures, which also confirms a remarkable mastery of the Greek language (in 1502 Beroaldus had translated from Greek to Latin Isocrates’ Speech To Demonicus), the Carmina of Beroaldus the Younger also provide historical, political, and social information about papal Rome in the early decades of the sixteenth century, which the author had known directly and in depth. At any rate, despite the high quality of his poetry, which would deserve more interest and an adequate recognition, the undertaking to which Beroaldus the Younger’s fame will be inextricably linked is certainly the editio princeps (“the first printed edition”) of Annals 1–6, published in Rome in March 1515, a date that marks the acme of Beroaldus’ literary career. First of all, it is worth noting that the choice of Beroaldus as the editor of Tacitus’ works was most likely due to the Bononian origin of the humanist; in fact, during the fifteenth century, Bononia developed a less classicistic and less Ciceronian Humanism, and was more careful to enhance the prose of archaic or archaist authors or anyway of those not necessarily belonging to the so-called Golden Age. Therefore, the Bononian tradition of studies of ancient Latin prose took a different direction from that of Florentine Humanism, where Cicero was considered the indisputable master of Latin prose. Secondly, the

c02_Vol1.indd 166

publication of one of the most hunted ancient works and a long-standing desideratum as A. 1–6 not only earned Beroaldus the Younger fame and credit at the papal court—as testified by the office of Vatican Library’s Prefect he received few months after—but it also became a fundamental ideological occasion to affirm the cultural supremacy of the Roman Papal Court over the other leading Italian cities in the study of the classical past (above all on Florence). This specific notion clearly emerges from the prefatory epistle addressed by Beroaldus the Younger to the Pope, which, also due to the presence of significant historiographical and literary elements, stands as a sort of manifesto of the new Tacitean exegesis. In this very precious document, retracing the almost messianic expectation that had accompanied the path at the end of which the Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici had become Pope Leo X, Beroaldus insists on the relationship of continuity that the new pontiff wants to establish with the patronage of his illustrious father, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Nevertheless, from the words of the dedication it is clear how the cultural policy promoted by the Court of Rome was characterized more by aemulatio than by imitatio in relation to the Medicean Florence, so to induce the Bononian humanist to declare that the son had been able to clearly overcome the extraordinary cultural peaks reached by his father (illum ipsum patrem tuum opulentia, maiestate, amplitudine superasti, “you overcame your famous father in opulence, grandeur and dignity”, see P. Cornelii Taciti historiarum libri quinque noviter inventi et cum reliquis eius operis editi, Romae 1515, page 2 verso). As for the philological work of Beroaldus on the text of Tacitus, we must remove the shadow cast by the giants of the Tacitean philology who followed Beroaldus (above all Beatus Rhenanus, Marc-Antoine Muret, and Justus Lipsius) and who undoubtedly prevented a lucid and equitable reconstruction of the individual contributions to the constitutio textus of Tacitus’ works, in particular of the A. No doubt, Beroaldus is neither Rhenanus nor Muret nor Lipsius, but his merits in the history of Tacitus’ interpretation are undoubtedly greater than those recognized until today. First of all, unlike many of his followers—even the most famous—Beroaldus had the privilege to view the codex unicus (“single manuscript”)

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B ias  

containing the first six books of the Annals, the so-called Mediceus Prior (Laurentianus 68.1), on which Beroaldus’ marginal notes are still visible. Furthermore, Beroaldus shows considerable attention to the overall editorial structure and to the reader’s enjoyment, almost accompanied by hand from the beginning to the end of the work. From an ecdotic point of view, the most valuable novelty is the textual-critical libellus placed immediately after the text, in which, especially with regard to the first book of the A., some of the most important loci critici are discussed, and sometimes Beroaldus anticipates solutions taken up by the subsequent editors and not always correctly attributed to him, with a misunderstanding that has often reached the apparatus of the modern critical editions of Tacitus. In the libellus, although in smaller quantities, are also recorded interesting linguistic considerations which do confirm the full mastery of the language and style of Tacitus. see also: manuscripts; editions FURTHER READING Buongiovanni, Claudio. 2007. “Ope ingeniorum: la prima attività filologica sui libri I-VI degli Annales di Tacito.” Paideia 62: 115–144. Buongiovanni, Claudio. 2016. “I libri I-VI degli Annales di Tacito tra ecdotica ed esegesi umanistica. Il caso di Filippo Beroaldo il Giovane.” Incidenza dell’Antico 14: 109–126. Paratore, Ettore. 1967. Filippo Beroaldo iunior, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. http://www. treccani.it/enciclopedia/ beroaldo-filippo-iunior_(Dizionario-Biografico). Paquier, Jules. 1900. De Philippi Beroaldi iunioris vita et scriptis. Paris: Leroux.

BERYTUS, see PHOENICIA BESTIA, Lucius, see CICERO BETUUS CHILO, see OBULTRONIUS SABINUS

BIAS ELIZABETH KEITEL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Ancient writers of history very often professed their impartiality, and Tacitus’ statements on this

c02_Vol1.indd 167

167

topic are among the most famous (H. 1.1.3–4 and A. 1.1.3). While modern historians write of “objectivity” or “bias,” the ancients wrote of “favoritism” or “hostility” (A. 1.1.3). Writers of contemporary history under autocratic rulers were especially vulnerable to such charges. Tacitus’ claim to write sine ira et studio (“without anger or partiality,” A.1.1.3) (“this immortal phrase,” Goodyear 1972) is the most famous statement of impartiality by an ancient historian, though such statements perhaps began to appear in historical works during the time of Alexander the Great and Philip II. Polybius is the first extant ancient historian to address the problem of bias directly (Pol. 1.14, 8.8.5–9, 10.21.8). Such statements were most frequently used by those writing about the late Roman republic (Sallust and Lucceius) and the early empire (Josephus and Tacitus). Those writing on the distant past, such as Livy, did not make such a claim (Luce 2011). Woodman (2011) has demonstrated convincingly that the ancients’ view of historical truth is not the same as ours. A code of honor governed political life in both Greece and Rome, and “there is only a certain amount of honor at hand, and one resents and envies the possession of it by other people” (Walcot 1973). The historian, whose task is in part to record the honor and glory of his subjects, runs the risk of alienating one group of readers if he seems too prejudiced in favor of someone whom they oppose, hence the statements on partiality and anger. Aside from those comments, ancient historians did not often discuss historical truth, partly because the concept seemed obvious and “partly because the concept was couched in negative terms: when favoritism and hostility are removed, truth is the residuum” (Luce 2011). Tacitus bolsters his claim of impartiality in the major works by explaining his relationship with the emperors who are his subject. In the Histories, he states that Galba, Otho, and Vitellius did not help him or do him harm (nec beneficio nec iniuria, H. 1.1.3). He does not deny that his official career began under Vespasian, progressed under Titus, and advanced further under Domitian, but then generalizes: “Writers who claim to be honest and reliable must not speak about anybody with either partiality or hatred” (neque amore…et sine

28-04-2023 17:38:00

168  

B ibulus , G aius

odio, H. 1.1.3). In the Annals Tacitus promises to write without anger and partiality since he keeps any reasons for such attitudes at a distance (A. 1.1.3). In both passages Tacitus also discusses the decline of truthful historiography under the principate. Historians wrote falsely in their fear of living emperors, but then wrote with “fresh hatred” (recentibus odiis, A. 1.1.2) after their fall (cf. H. 1.1.1–2). For an ancient historian there were some exceptions to the rules of bias, though there too he might get into trouble, specifically if he failed to acknowledge his debts to country, family, and friends. The author could write patriotically about his country’s history and with hostility toward its enemies as long as he did not contradict the facts (Polyb. 16. 14.6), and Livy proudly proclaimed: “Either the love of the task that I have set myself deceives me or there has never been any state grander, purer, or richer in good examples” (Livy praef. 11). Writing about one’s family and friends might also get a historian into trouble. Among the highly competitive elites of Greece and Rome, envy and ambition drove men to use history to extol the achievements of their ancestors (Marincola 1997). Livy criticized Licinius Macer for inventing great deeds for another, earlier, Licinius (7.9.5). When trying to figure out who led the war against the Samnites, Livy observed that the official records were falsified by funeral eulogies and fictitious inscriptions on portrait busts as families tried to appropriate the deeds and offices of others (8.40.4). A historian was also expected to pronounce judgment on the character of his subjects, and failure to do so reflected badly on his own character. For example, Plutarch attacked the malicious nature of Herodotus: “He does not know how to give praise without finding fault” (Plut. Her. Mal. 866D, 869A; Luce 2011). On the other hand, an ancient historian was enjoined to be generous and give his subjects the benefit of the doubt. Seneca the elder called Livy “an outstanding judge of all men of great talent” (Sen. Suas. 6.22). In his autobiography Josephus explains why he had omitted certain things from his Jewish War, “not out of favoritism to the people involved but out of his own moderation” (Vita 339). see also: Cornelius Tacitus; imagines; panegyric; sources; style

c02_Vol1.indd 168

REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D. 1972. The Annals of Tacitus, Volume I (Annals 1.1–54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Luce, T. J. 2011. “Ancient Views on the Causes of Bias in Historical Writing.” In Greek and Roman Historiography, edited by J. Marincola, 314–336. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marincola, J. 1997. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walcot, P. 1973. “The Funeral Speech: A Study in Values.” Greece & Rome 20: 111–121. Woodman, A. J. 2011. “Cicero and the Writing of History.” In Greek and Roman Historiography, edited by J. Marincola, 241–290. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wiseman, T. P. 2011. “Lying Historians: Seven Types of Mendacity.” In Greek and Roman Historiography, edited by J. Marincola, 314–336. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

BIBACULUS, see ROMAN POETS

BIBULUS, GAIUS BRAM L. H. TEN BERGE

Hope College

Gaius Bibulus, aedile (22 ce) under Tiberius, led his colleagues in prompting the Senate to take measures against growing luxury, in particular gastronomic luxury (luxus mensae), after an earlier, apparently ineffective, decree of the Senate of 16 ce. Bibulus appears once in the extant Tacitean corpus (A. 3.52.2) and is otherwise unknown. If he took up his aedileship at the earliest opportunity (around age twenty-seven to thirty), he was born around 8–5 bce. As Woodman and Martin (1996, ad loc.) suggest, he may be the son of the poet mentioned by Horace at Sat. 1.10.86. The suggestion that he is the Gaius Calpurnius Bibulus, who, according to Syme (Roman Papers 6.200, 203; 1986, 378), adopted Acilius Aviola is unlikely given Aviola’s seniority. Since the main interest of A. 3.52 ff. is the broader problem of

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B ithynia- P ontus  

luxury and the emperor’s refusal, in a written response to the Senate (which had referred the aediles’ request to him), to take legal action, Bibulus’ appearance strictly was unnecessary (so Syme, Roman Papers 6.203 n. 67). Woodman and Martin (1996, ad loc.) point to the irony of a “Bibulus” (cf. Suet., Tib. 42.1: pro Tiberio ‘Biberio’… vocabatur) complaining about luxus mensae. Since there was much talk about the problem of luxury and none of the senators, fearing Tiberius’ response, expressed concern, perhaps Bibulus’ significance lies in the fact that it took a mere aedile to broach the subject, thus underscoring senatorial hypocrisy. Reference work: PIR2 C 254 REFERENCES Syme, Ronald. 1979–1991. Roman Papers. Vols. 1–7. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woodman, Anthony, and Ronald Martin, eds. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 3. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

BITHYNIA-PONTUS IVAYLO LOZANOV

Sofia University

Bithynia-Pontus, located between the Mediterranean and Black Seas, Europe and Asia, with an access to the Thracian Bosphorus, was a contact zone of major political and economic importance in antiquity. In 74 bce, upon his death Nicomedes IV of Bithynia bequeathed his kingdom to Rome (Eutr. 6.6.1), probably in anticipation of the Third War against Mithridates VI of Pontus (see Mithridates Eupator) for supremacy in Asia Minor. In 63 bce after the final defeat of Mithridates, Pompey began organizing a single province (under the lex Pompeia mentioned in Plin., Ep. 10.79; 80; 112; 114; 115) on a large portion of the two former Hellenistic kingdoms. Provincial borders fluctuated in time; the triumvir Mark Antony reversed some of the Pompeian arrangements in the 30s bce having reestablished Pontus as a client kingdom and

c02_Vol1.indd 169

169

assigning territories of Bithynia and Paphlagonia to his friends and allies. Under the principate the province never regained its original form. Provincial administration from the time of Augustus was under governors (ex-consuls and ex-praetors) appointed by lot in the Senate. The official name of the province under Augustus was Bithynia (cf. proconsul Bithyniae in the inscriptions); however, it changed in the second half of the first century ce with a series of administrative measures under Nero and Vespasian that eventually brought the annexation of part of the client kingdom of Polemo II and the enlargement of the province “Pontus et Bithynia.” The alleged transfer of Byzantium at the same time to Bithynia-Pontus is dubious. Under Trajan, Pliny the Younger is the first known governor of higher rank (legatus Augusti pro praetore, c. 110–111 ce) appointed directly by the princeps, probably as a temporary measure to enhance imperial control over strategically important territory for the upcoming Parthian campaign. Later, under Antoninus Pius, the “imperial” status of Bithynia-Pontus is permanently attested. Urbanization promoted by Pompey saw rebuilding of old establishments, creation of new centers at nodal points, especially with the new foundations in Pontus (e.g., Magnopolis, Neapolis, Nicopolis), redistribution of land from the larger temple-estates in the interior to the urban territories—all eventually leading to a major realignment of the social and economic life based on the Hellenistic model. However, no uniform internal organization was imposed on all the urban centers. In the 40s and early 30s bce, old Hellenic communities like Heraclea, Sinope, and Apamea-Myrleia received Romanized settlers and rose to colonial status. Under the principate, civic life is marked by stark competition between the cities and the urban elites. Regional and provincial assemblies (koina) created major channels of internal communication and at the same time offered favorable conditions for the cities to directly address the ruling emperor and express their loyalty through organizing and celebrating the imperial cult. The capital Nicomedeia and Nicaea were competing centers of the cult in Bithynia. Recent discussion seems to support the view that there existed a unified koinon centered at Neocaesareia and later also at Amaseia under Vespasian. Political, social, and economic history, and historical and administrative geography of the region

28-04-2023 17:38:00

170  

B oii

are most recently discussed by Fernoux (2004); Gabelko (2005); Marek (1993, 2003); WeschKlein (2001); on the imperial cult see Burrell (2004, 147–165, 205–211). Tacitus mentions Iunius Cilo, equestrian procurator of the imperial property in Bithynia under Claudius and Nero. In 49 ce, he distinguished himself by escorting the claimant king Mithridates VII of Bosporus to Rome for which he was voted consularia insignia (A. 12.21). An anecdote in Cassius Dio (60.33.6) tells that he was publicly accused by a Bithynian embassy at the court of Claudius (52/53 C.E.) of taking enormous bribes, but the hearing failed due to emperor’s deafness and the intrigues of Narcissus; instead, Cilo’s mandate was extended with two more years. The procurator’s name and title in Greek are recorded on the reverses of some coins of Nicaea under Nero. (On Cilo’s career see Magie 1950, 541, n. 4, 1397–1398; Zuckermann 1968, 42–45). see also: Mithridates King of Bosporus; provinces Reference works: Barrington 52 E4; 1 I2; 53 B2; 86 A3; 87 B4; 1 K2; PIR2 I 744 REFERENCES Burrell, B. 2004. Neokoroi: Greek Cities and Roman Emperors. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Fernoux, H.-L. 2004. Notables des cités de Bithynie aux époques hellénistique et romaine (IIIe siècle av. J.-C- IIIe siècle apr. J.-C). Lyon: Essai d’histoire sociale. Gabelko, O. 2005. History of the Bithynian Kingdom (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Humanitarian Academy. Magie, D. 1950. Roman Rule in Asia Minor. Vol. 1–2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Marek, Chr. 1993. Stadt, Ära und Territorium in Pontus-Bithynia und Nord-Galatia (Istanbuler Forschungen, 39). Tübingen: E. Wasmuth. Marek, Chr. 2003. Pontus et Bithynia: die römischen Provinzen im Norden Kleinasiens (Orbis provinciarum). Mainz: Ph. von Zabern. Wesch-Klein, G. 2001. “Bithynia, Pontus et Bithynia, Bithynia et Pontus: Ein Provinzname im Wandel der Zeit.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 136: 251–256. Zuckermann, L. 1968. “Essai sur les fonctions des procurateurs de la province de Bithynie-Pont sous le Haut-Empire.” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 46.1: 42–58.

c02_Vol1.indd 170

BLITIUS CATULINUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS BOCCHORIS, see EGYPT BODOTRIA, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI BOIHAEMUM, see BOII

BOII LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

The Boii were a wide-ranging Celtic people who traveled to northern Italy around 400 bce and were ultimately defeated by the Romans in 191 bce. Today their Italian legacy survives in the name of Bologna, the ancient Bononia. They are named at G. 28 among the inhabitants of Gaul (with their city Boihaemum, i.e., “home of the Boii”; cf. Bohemia). At G. 42 the success of the Marcomani is noted as having come partly at the expense of the fortunes of the Boii. The Boii had ultimately been settled in Gaul between the Loire and Allier (cf. Caes. B Gall. 1.28.5). During the drama of the Long Year 69 ce, a certain Mariccus (otherwise unattested), a plebeian of the Boii, rose up in revolt in Gaul against Vitellius and raised a force of some 8,000 men. The Aedui (with the aid of Vitellian auxiliaries) were able to quell the nascent threat to the regime. Marricus had claimed to be divine; this assertion gained credence among some when Vitellius had him thrown to wild beasts who refused to consume him. His mortality was proven, however, when he was slain in Vitellius’ presence (cf. H. 2.61). see also: civil wars of 69 ce

BOIOCALUS ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

Boiocalus (c. 15 bce–c. 65 ce) was a chieftain of the Ampsivarii. Boiocalus’ only appearance in the ancient sources is at A. 13.55–56, where he leads the Ampsivarii in their effort in 58 ce to settle the vacant lands on the eastern bank of the

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B onna  

lower Rhine (Rhenus). Tacitus notes that Boiocalus was famous among the tribes of the area and that he had remained loyal to Rome during the Varian disaster (see Teutoburg Forest). When the Ampsivarii seize lands along the river, they send Boiocalus to negotiate with the Roman general Dubius Avitus. Boiocalus reminds Avitus of his own long-standing loyalty toward Rome, i.e., that he had been put in chains by Arminius during the latter’s revolt and that he had served under Tiberius and Germanicus and claims that he is about to add to these fifty years of obedience the subjugation of his people to Roman rule. He then puts forth arguments for why the Romans should allow the Ampsivarii to settle the contested territory: he contrasts its limited usefulness for Rome as an occasional grazing ground for cattle with its potential to feed starving men; asks rhetorically why they would prefer to have as neighbors wastelands and solitude rather than friendly peoples; and mentions previous tribes which had lived in the area (Chamavi, Tubantes, Usipi). Finally, he argues that the earth has been given to all mortals and that uninhabited land is common land, and invokes the heavenly powers, telling them that if they prefer to behold an empty earth, it would be better to flood it against these ravishers of lands. Avitus, moved (or “alarmed”; cf. commotus, A. 13.56.1) but not swayed, declines the petition with the laconic “commands of betters must be obeyed” (A. 13.56.1). To Boiocalus personally he promises a grant of land in remembrance of his friendship with Rome, an offer which Boiocalus indignantly rejects as a reward for treason, adding that while they might lack land to live on, they surely do not lack land to die on. The meeting ends with both sides departing in bitterness. When their efforts to create a coalition against Rome fails, the Ampsivarii are forced to seek refuge with other tribes and finally dissolve as a political entity. Neither Boiocalus nor the Ampsivarii are mentioned again in Annals. see also: speeches FURTHER READING Benario, Herbert W. 1994. “Tacitus and Commotus in Ann. 13.56.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte

c02_Vol1.indd 171

171

Geschichte 43: 252–258. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/4436329. Städele, Alfons. 1985. “Et commotus his Avitus… Barbarenschicksale bei Tacitus”. In ET SCHOLAE ET VITAE: Festschrift für Karl Bayer, edited by Friedrich Meier and Werner Suerbaum, 59–66. Munich: Bayerischer Schulbuch-Verlag.

BONNA CARL J. HOPE

Durham School

Bonna, on the western bank of the river Rhenus in Lower Germany, was used by the Romans originally to settle some of the community of the Ubii, a Germanic tribe allied to the Romans, before 12 bce. Drusus the Elder possibly built a fort at Bonna during his German campaign and left an auxiliary force as a garrison. Florus states that he built a bridge there and left a fleet to defend it (Flor. 2.30). After the Roman defeat at the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest in 9 ce, at some later point between 14–16 ce, a larger legionary fort was constructed of timber at Bonna and from c. 30s ce was the base of the legion I Germanica in Lower Germany, attested by various inscriptions from the site. Other legionary bases nearby were at Vetera and Colonia Agrippinensis. The commander of the legion I Germanica at Bonna in 69 ce was Fabius Valens, who traveled from there to Colonia Agrippinensis in January 69 ce where he declared Vitellius emperor after some of his troops had stoned the portraits of the emperor Galba (H. 1.55.2; 1.57.1). In the autumn of 69 ce the commander of this legion at Bonna was Herennius Gallus, who was asked by Hordeonius Flaccus initially to block the progress of the Batavi who were traveling to join Iulius Civilis in Lower Germany before Flaccus changed his mind (H. 4.19.2–3). When the Batavi reached Bonna, they requested passage, but the legionaries made Gallus contest them, leading to the defeat of the Roman forces (H. 4.20). Flaccus visited Bonna on the way to helping Vetera which was besieged but was met with complaints from the soldiers there for their defeat (H. 4.25.1–2). By the spring of 70 ce the camp at Bonna had been abandoned by legion I Germanica (H. 4.62.3),

28-04-2023 17:38:00

172  

B ononia

which marched to Augusta Trevirorum, where it sided with the Flavian cause (H. 4.70.5). Later in the year Petilius Cerialis inspected the camp at Bonna for it to house legionaries for the winter (H. 5.22.1). Bonna became the base for legion XXI Rapax before it housed the legion I Minervia, which was stationed there from c. 83 ce until the middle of the fourth century ce. see also: Germania; legions

FURTHER READING Casini, Luigi. 1907. “Il Territorio Bolognese nell’ Epoca Romana.” Documenti e Studi della reale Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Province di Romagna 3: 201–294.

BORESTI, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI

BOUDICCA CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Reference work: Barrington 11 H2

Brandeis University

BONONIA

Boudicca (d. 61 ce) was the leader of the Iceni and instigator of the largest revolt of Britons against the Romans (60–61 ce). Her name (also spelled Boudica, Buduica, and Boadicea) likely derives from bouda, a Celtic word for victory (Webster 1978, 15). Her army set fire to Camulodunum (Colchester), Londinium (London), and Verulamium (St. Albans) before a single pitched battle led by Suetonius Paulinus put an end to her efforts. Her revolt is recorded by Tacitus (Ag. 14.3–16.2, A. 14.29–39) and Cassius Dio (62.1–12). Boudicca’s revolt has a central place in the history of the Romans in Britain. The reasons for her revolt vary by account. In the Agricola, the Britons lament the avarice and cruelty of the Romans, including property confiscations and crippling taxation imposed by the procurator Catus Decianus, and conscription into the army by the Roman governor Suetonius Paulinus (Ag. 15.1–5). In the Annals, the death of Boudicca’s husband Prasutagus, a client king of the emperor Nero, leads to revolt: after his death, the Romans ignore his will and take hold of his ancestral land, beat Boudicca, assault his daughters, and enslave his relatives (A. 14.31.1). Dio focuses on financial concerns (Cass. Dio 62.2.1). After the death of Prasutagus, the Britons unify under the leadership of Boudicca, a dux femina (commander woman) of royal descent. Unlike the Romans, her sex does not preclude her from leading an army (Ag. 16.1; A. 14.35.1). Boudicca plays the part of queen, mother, rebel, and military leader, fighting for freedom and to

WILLIAM STOVER

University of Virginia

Bononia (modern Bologna) was a Roman city in Cisalpine Gaul, established over the Etruscan city of Felsina after its occupation by the Romans in the early second century bce (Livy 33.37.4). In 189 bce, the city was given the status of colonia (Vell. 1.15.2). As a commercial center in the region, the city was connected to multiple Roman road networks (Livy 39.2.6; Strabo 5.21). The city maintained its importance in the imperial period; after a catastrophic fire in 53 ce, Nero dedicated 10 million sesterces to the restoration efforts (A. 12.58.2). In 69 ce, during the war between Otho and Vitellius, Caecina Alienus, Eprius Marcellus, and a body of senators met for deliberation at Bononia (H. 2.53.2). As a result of this meeting at Bononia, many senators were brought over to the Vitellian faction. After the ascension of Vitellius, the Thirteenth Legion was tasked with the construction of an amphitheater in Bononia (H. 2.67), and games were hosted there by Fabius Valens (H. 2.71.1). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Roman roads; Vitellius, rise to power Reference work: Barrington 40 A4

c02_Vol1.indd 172

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B oudicca  

avenge her daughters’ lost chastity (A. 14.35.1). Her revolt occupies a central place in Annals 14, a book framed by the murders of Agrippina the Younger and Octavia (2). Boudicca is integral to Tacitus’ presentation of powerful women and mothers, as well as Nero’s management of provincial rule. Her revolt complements the narrative of Britain in 50 ce (A. 12.25.1–40.5). Her literary character is comparable to Caratacus and Calgacus, other leaders of rebellion in Britain, and juxtaposed with Cartimandua, an immoral, weak client queen of the Brigantes. Boudicca’s people revolt to recover their lost ancestral freedom. They take advantage of Suetonius’ absence from the Roman colony of Camulodunum. While the governor is attacking the Druidic center of worship at Mona, they march on the colony. They focus their efforts on a temple to Claudius, which they regard as the altar to their eternal enslavement (A. 14.31.4; Ag. 16.1). After burning the colony, they march toward Londinium, ambushing the legion of Petilius Cerialis on the way, and then onward to Verulamium. They take neither spoils nor prisoners but rather torture and kill their captives (A. 14.33.2; Ag. 16.1). Dio details the horrific treatment of the captured women as part of a celebration to their goddess of victory, Andraste (Cass. Dio 62.7.2–3). Suetonius faces Boudicca in a single battle. Dio describes her awe-inspiring appearance (Cass. Dio 62.2.3–4). The pre-battle narrative includes exhortations by both generals. While Boudicca justifies her role as a female leader and the revolt as a necessary fight for freedom from tyranny, Suetonius promises glory and honor to the Romans (A. 14.35.1–36.3). Dio’s Boudicca contrasts herself with failed Roman leaders, especially Nero, and her enduring Britons with the inferior Romans (Cass. Dio 62.5.1–6.5). Although her army outnumbers the Romans, Boudicca suffers a decisive defeat. The Romans do not spare even the women or the animals (A. 14.37.1). Tacitus suggests as many as 80,000 Britons were killed and only about 400 Romans (A. 14.37.2). Boudicca commits suicide by poison (A. 14.37.3); in Dio’s account, she falls ill and dies (Cass. Dio 62.12.6). Boudicca’s death ends the revolt, and Suetonius takes

c02_Vol1.indd 173

173

Figure B.1  “Boadicea and Her Daughters,” Thomas Thornycroft (1815–1885). Bronze statue erected 1902, Thames Embankment, London. Photograph: Caitlin Gillespie.

vengeance on the survivors. He is eventually recalled to Rome for his excessive violence and replaced by Petronius Turpilianus, who hides his lazy inactivity under the name of peace (A. 14.39.3). Boudicca’s rich afterlife in art and literature includes a range of adaptations and representations, from Tennyson’s “Boädicéa” (1859) to William Cowper’s “Boadicea: An Ode” (1782), to Thomas Thornycroft’s Victorian era statue on the Thames to James Havard Thomas’ statue group in Cardiff City Hall (see Figure B.1). She even has a table setting in “The Dinner Party,” Judy Chicago’s 1970s feminist art installation in the Brooklyn Museum. see also: Britannia; gender; reception in opera Reference work: PIR2 B 148 REFERENCE Webster, Graham. 1978. Boudica: The British Revolt against Rome A.D. 60. London: Batsford.

28-04-2023 17:38:00

174  

B ovillae

FURTHER READING

branches were celebrated, at Antium and Bovillae, respectively (A. 15.23). In the Histories, the area just outside Bovillae was also the site of the surrender of Lucius Vitellius (2) the younger—the emperor Aulus Vitellius’ brother—and his execution (H. 4.2).

Adler, Eric. 2011. Valorizing the Barbarian: Enemy Speeches in Roman Historiography. Austin: University of Texas Press. Gillespie, Caitlin C. 2015. “The Wolf and the Hare: Boudica’s Political Bodies in Tacitus and Dio.” Classical World 108.3: 403–429. DOI: 10.1353/ clw.2015.0043. Gillespie, Caitlin C. 2018. Boudica: Warrior Woman of Roman Britain. New York: Oxford University Press. Hingley, Richard, and Christina Unwin. 2005. Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen. London: Hambledon and London. Pagán, Victoria E. 2000. “Distant Voices of Freedom in the Annales of Tacitus.” Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History X: 358–369.

DeRossi, G. M. 1979. Bovillae. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki Editore.

BOVILLAE

BRIGANTES

BENJAMIN E. NIKOTA

see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference work: Barrington 43 C2; 44 C2 FURTHER READING

KYLE KHELLAF

New York University

University of California, Riverside

Bovillae, part of modern Frattochie in the Lazio region of Italy, was a Roman suburb situated roughly 17 km from the city with a history dating back to the regal period. Allegedly a colony of Alba Longa and one of the thirty cities of the ancient Latin League, residents of the suburb referred to themselves as Albani Longani Bovillenses into the imperial period (CIL XIV 2405; 2406; 2409; 2411). In the republican period, the town was the site of the famous altercation between Clodius and Milo described in Cicero’s Pro Milone. The town was of particular importance to the gens Iulia, and as a result its significance increased correspondingly during the imperial period. Tiberius established the sodales augustales in 14 ce to administer the cult of the gens Iulia. The town also possessed an altar dedicated to Veiovis—a little-known deity associated with the gens Iulia. In 16 ce, Tiberius dedicated a sanctuary to the Julian family as well as a likeness of Divus Augustus to commemorate Germanicus’ recovery of Quintilius Varus’ lost standards (A. 2.41). When Nero’s daughter was born, there were twin celebrations for her birth, one for each side of his illustrious family: both the Julian and the Claudian

The Brigantes were a Celtic tribal federation who inhabited the north-central area of Britannia between the River Tweed in the north and the River Trent in the south. Archaeological findings reveal scattered habitation throughout this region from the late Bronze/early Iron Age until the Roman conquest in the mid to late first century ce (Harding 2017, 25–73, 212–214). Their tribal name, meaning “highlanders” and derived from the Celtic words brig (“high”) and briga (“hill”), may be linked to their settlements around the Pennine Hills (cf. Harding 2017, 25). The Brigantes appear in several works of Tacitus always in relation to the Roman conquest of Britain. In the Agricola, Tacitus mentions them twice. Toward the end of his history of the Roman expansion into Britain prior to Agricola’s governorship (Ag. 17.1), he describes how Petilius Cerialis waged a series of successful campaigns against the Brigantes, engaging them in a number of serious battles, reducing their territory, and inflicting terror upon their peoples. Later in the work, the Brigantes along with their “female leader” (i.e., Cartimandua) appear as exempla in the speech of Calgacus, who cites them for razing a Roman settlement (31.4), but

c02_Vol1.indd 174

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B ritannia , B ritanni  

appears to conflate them with the Iceni who sacked Camulodunum under the leadership of Boudicca (Woodman 2014, 248). In the Histories, the Brigantes appear only once (H. 3.45), when Tacitus recounts the uprising by Venutius against his wife Cartimandua which took place in late 69 ce. Within the passage, Tacitus notes that “Cartimandua was ruling over the Brigantes” (3.45.1) until she spurned her husband Venutius and chose his armor-bearer Vellocatus as her new paramour. Tacitus uses this action by Cartimandua to highlight how a subsequent division emerged among the Brigantes that resulted in Venutius’ successful rebellion owing to his popular support (3.45.2). Just as discussions of the Brigantes in the Agricola refer back to earlier events that Tacitus describes at greater length in his major works, so too does the passage in the Histories allude to previous incidents involving the Brigantes in the Annals—namely the imprisonment of Caractacus, who had been leading the Silures, by Cartimandua and his subsequent delivery to the Romans (H. 3.45.1; A. 12.36.1). In the Annals, Tacitus describes these events as part of his account of the military campaigns in Britain undertaken by the successive governors Ostorius Scapula and Didius Gallus during the reign of the emperor Claudius. He mentions the Brigantes in three passages: first, in highlighting how internal tribal dissention nearly led to all-out war had Scapula not intervened with Roman forces (12.32); second, as the subjects of Cartimandua’s rule (12.36.1); and third, as the tribe in which Venutius was preeminent in his knowledge of military affairs, leading to his successful rebellion against Cartimandua (12.40.2). Reference work: Barrington 8 E-F1, 9 E-F6 REFERENCES Harding, Dennis W. 2017. The Iron Age in Northern Britain: Britons and Romans, Natives and Settlers. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Woodman, A. J., ed., with C. S. Kraus. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

c02_Vol1.indd 175

175

FURTHER READING Hanson, W. S., and D. B. Campbell. 1986. “The Brigantes: From Clientage to Conquest.” Britannia 17: 73–89.

BRINNO, see CANNINEFATES

BRITANNIA, BRITANNI DAVID B. CUFF

York University

BRITANNIA Britannia is the Latin name for both the island of Britain (also named Albion in ancient sources) and the Roman provincia, established following the invasion by Claudius in 43 ce. Pytheas of Massilia (late fourth century bce) used the name Prettanikē to describe the island. Britanni (“Britons”) is a collective term used by ancient writers for all inhabitants of Britain. The term is Celtic in origin and is often interpreted as meaning “tattooed / painted people” (analogous to the Roman appellation Picti for Britons living in the north of Britain), though the exact meaning remains uncertain. Within Roman historiography, Tacitus’ works constitute unquestionably one of the most important sources for ancient Britain. Iulius Caesar’s description of Britain and the Britons (BGall. 5.12–14) informed subsequent ethnographic treatments by Roman authors, and its influence in the Tacitean corpus is evident. Like Caesar, and earlier Greek and Roman ethnographers, Tacitus digresses in the Agricola from his main narrative to offer, in the context of a short work, a significant excursus on the geography and customs of Britain and its inhabitants (Ag. 10–17). He contrasts earlier accounts of the island’s geography that described it as shaped “like an oblong shield” or “double-axe” with his own description of the island as a “wedge.” The narrow point of the island refers to the isthmus of the Clota and Bodotria (Clyde and Forth), described in the context of Agricola’s march north to Caledonia, where the river waters are “carried back… by the tides of a different sea” (Ag. 23.1,

28-04-2023 17:38:00

176  

B ritannia , B ritanni

25.3). The narrowness of Britain at the ClydeForth isthmus provided a natural choke point. Thus, Agricola built fortifications (praesidia) during his expedition in 80 ce, which essentially cut off all territory north, “as though another island” (Ag. 23). Calgacus, notably, is presented as describing “Britannia” as the entire island, including Caledonia (Ag. 30.1). Located on the geographical periphery of Europe, Britain’s remoteness, climate, and inhabitants were subjects that had been “related by many writers” (Ag. 10.1). Of these writers, Tacitus names only a selection (Livy, Fabius Rusticus); it is certain that other accounts informed his description. In the fourth century bce, the Greek explorer Pytheas voyaged to Britain, writing an account of observations. Only fragments and paraphrases of this work, now lost, are preserved by later authors often hostile to Pytheas’ account (Polyb. 34.5.7, Strabo 4.3.4). The Greeks identified primarily two “British Islands,” i.e., Britain and Hibernia (Ireland): Arist. [Mund.] 393b: Ἐν τούτῳ γε μὴν νῆσοι μέγισται τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι δύο, Βρεττανικαὶ λεγόμεναι, Ἀλβίων καὶ Ἰέρνη, “Two very large islands, called the Britannic Islands, Albion and Ierne, are located there” (i.e., Britannia and Hibernia, cf. Plin. HN 4.16.102). Polybius relates an intention to write a history of the “Britannic Isles,” noted for their importance as a source of tin, for which extensive trade routes were long known (Polyb. 3.57.3). Tacitus declines, for reasons that are unclear, to mention Caesar’s famous account of his invasion of Britain in the Gallic War, an account he certainly had read (G. 28.1, Ag. 13.2). On the climate of Britain, Tacitus remarks grimly that the sky is always cloudy, and weather always rainy, but otherwise not very cold in winter (Ag. 12.1). Tacitus offers a brief excursus on Hibernia’s (Ireland’s) geography and the customs of its inhabitants within the context of Agricola’s expedition (Ag. 24). Agricola established a Roman garrison on Britain’s coast, facing Ireland. The fortifications may have been established in the Mull of Kintyre, where the transit to Ireland is the narrowest, or further south, in Galloway. He portrays Ireland as beset with leaders consumed with internecine and petty quarrels, a characterization common in Roman descriptions of the inhabitants of Britain, Gaul, and

c02_Vol1.indd 176

Germany. Tacitus characterizes the garrison as a potential site for a future expedition, aiming to unite Ireland with the Roman province as “a flourishing part of the empire … for mutual advantage” (valentissimam imperii partem… magnis invicem usibus). Tacitus briefly mentions a third Britannic island, Thule (Ag. 10.4), which has been variously identified with the northern archipelagoes of the Shetland Islands and the Orcades (Orkney) (Mela, 3.54, Pliny, HN 4.16.103), or possibly Iceland. In his excursus on Britain, Tacitus assigns credit for the conquest of the Orcades to Agricola (Ag. 10.4, Juv. Sat. 2.160–61 and Eutr. 7.13.2–3). The Agricola is the only work by Tacitus that mentions Thule, stating only that it was “sighted from afar” (dispecta est); Strabo, paraphrasing Pytheas, placed Thule beyond the limit of the known world (Strabo 4.5.1; Verg. G. 1.29–30). BRITANNI: INTERPRETATION The Roman names for Late Iron Age (LIA) peoples in Britain are well attested in Roman sources, both literary and epigraphic. However, apart from brief or fragmentary reference in ancient authors, non-Roman evidence for LIA social structures in Britain derives primarily from archaeological, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence. The interpretation of this evidence in both pre- and post-Roman Britain is a subject of intense scholarly debate. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scholars commonly approached the analysis of the Britons’ culture and social organization through the lens of Romanization, an interpretative framework deeply influenced by contemporary worldviews informed by European colonialism. Discourses on Romanization often placed considerable privilege on written accounts of Latin and Greek authors on ancient peoples, as virtually no comparable accounts from provincial peoples in the western empire exist. Ancient ethnographers routinely disregarded, misrepresented or ignored “barbarian” accounts, even when these existed and were readily available, often preferring Greco-Roman historical interpretations. This approach invariably produced accounts interpretations that minimized evidence from material culture and supported

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B ritannia , B ritanni  

interpretations of Roman provincial administrations as consciously promoting the Romanization of non-Roman provincial subjects. Recent research, increasingly influenced by postcolonial frameworks and utilizing evidence derived from more advanced archaeological techniques for non-Roman/rural settlements in Britain, has challenged the dichotomy of “Romanized” and “un-Romanized” Britons. Increasingly, debates about Romanization, if not rejecting the concept entirely, combine critical readings of literary evidence with sophisticated analyses of material culture to generate a broader picture of daily life and identity in Britain before, during, and after Roman rule. OVERVIEW OF BRITANNIC PEOPLES The first century ce geography of the Celtic groups inhabiting the Roman province is well attested. The Atrebates, Cantiaci, Catuvellauni, Corieltauvi, Dobunni, Durotriges, Dumnonii, Iceni, Trinobantes (or Trinovantes), and Regii (or Regnenses) were located in the south and east of the island (A. 12.32, Suet. Vesp. 4, Cass. Dio 60.21). After the initial establishment of the province (43– 46 ce), from 47 to 51 ce the Romans expanded further to the north and west, engaging in a series of conflicts with groups inhabiting or bordering on Wales, i.e., the Silures, Cornovii, Ordovices, and Dec(e)angli. In the northern frontiers of the expanding Roman province was the territory of the Brigantes, Carvetii, and Parisi, inhabiting the northern frontier with Caledonia. Within Caledonia, Tacitus is the only ancient author to mention the Boresti (fines Borestorum), and the name is likely a textual corruption for fines boreos, “northern frontier” (Ag. 38.2). Tacitus, like other Roman writers, comments on what he views as the corrupting influence of Roman luxury in relation to the northern barbari of Britain and Germany. He contrasted the Britons under Roman rule (in 61 ce, just eighteen years after Claudius’ invasion) who had lost their warlike nature with those who, in his view, had not, and treats, in ethnographic fashion, the general customs, religious practices, and physical appearance of the Britons (Ag. 11–13). This

c02_Vol1.indd 177

177

excursus is similar in structure and approach to his subsequent work, the Germania. Stereotyping of the “barbarian other” is a feature well documented in ancient ethnographic writing. Based on shared physical characteristics, such as red hair, Tacitus identifies the Caledonian Britons with the Germani. Tacitus cites the curly hair of the Silures, located in southern Wales, as evidence for identifying them with the Celts of the Iberian peninsula “opposite their shores.” Tacitus viewed Britons in the south of the island, firmly within the Roman province, as largely indistinguishable from the continental Gauls, apart from his scornful remark that the latter, since their subjugation by Caesar, had “lost their courage with their freedom,” and that only those outside the Roman province “remain today what the Gauls were in former times” (Ag. 11.4). The political and social organization of the Britons is a topic of ongoing debate, in which Tacitus’ overview has featured prominently (Ag. 13–14). The leaders of several peoples are characterized as “kings” (reges), typically hereditary leaders within various Britannic societies. After Roman rule, as in other provinces, such kings and local nobility briefly maintained their formal titles and grants of land from neighboring territories that resisted Roman rule. Examples in Britain include Prasutagus (A. 14.31.1) and Togidumnus / Cogidumnus, who is attested in a damaged inscription from Chichester, territory of the Atrebates. Tacitus is one of few Roman authors to mention the Druids (druidae), whose presence in Britain and Gaul is mentioned twice in the extant corpus. The Druids are described as practicing “empty superstition” (H. 4.54.2) and as practitioners of human sacrifice (A. 14.30.2). These allegations, the accuracy of which is intensely debated, had provided a pretext for Tiberius to outlaw druidism (Caes. BGall. 6.14, 6.16, Plin. HN 30.1.4.33), and the Druids were effectively exterminated in Gaul by Claudius’ time, apart from some isolated later instances (Suet. Claud. 25). The last significant bastion of druidism was in Britain was on the island of Mona (Anglesey), located on the west coast of Britain north of Wales on the periphery of the Roman province (Ptol. Geog. 2.2.12). The expedition led by Suetonius Paullinus to

28-04-2023 17:38:00

178  

B ritannia , B ritanni

suppress the Druids in 61 ce coincided with the rebellion of the Iceni (A. 14.29–30, Ag. 14–17), with the absence of his army contributing to the initial successes of the Iceni. THE ROMAN INVASION OF BRITAIN While Tacitus acknowledges Caesar as “the first Roman to enter Britain with an army” (Ag. 13.2, i.e., in 55 and 54 bce), the Roman provincia was not firmly established until the Claudian invasion, under the command of the province’s first Roman governor, Aulus Plautius, in 43 ce. Tacitus’ account of the invasion, unfortunately, is lost. It is narrated briefly by Cass. Dio (60.19–23), the longest extant account written over 150 years after the event (cf. Pompon. 3.49, Suet. Claud. 17). An appeal from the Atrebates provided a pretext for Claudius’ intervention. The legacy of Caesar’s invasion had made Britain a tantalizing project for later emperors, including Claudius’ predecessor, Caligula (Ag. 13.2–3). The Romans focused initially on the territory of the Trinovantes (or Trinobantes), whose capital at Camulodunum was captured and refounded as a fortress for the legion XX Valeria Victrix, two auxiliary units (one cavalry and one mixed cavalry/infantry), and town. Camulodunum quickly emerged as the administrative capital of the new province, where a temple to the deified Claudius, later destroyed in the rebellion of the Iceni, was constructed. Over the next five years the Romans compelled, either by force of conquest or alliance, the submission of the southern and eastern Britannic peoples (A. 12.32, Suet. Vesp. 4, Cass. Dio 60.21). From 47–51 ce, the Romans expanded further to the north and west, engaging in a series of conflicts that would not conclude until Iulius Frontinus’ campaign against the Silures and Ordovices was completed in 76 ce (Ag. 17). ROMAN BRITAIN IN TACITUS’ EXTANT WORKS The Romans reorganized the territory of the Celtic peoples in Britain into administrative units called civitates (“communities”) to facilitate taxation and conscription of auxiliary units for the

c02_Vol1.indd 178

army. In keeping with practices in other provinces, the Romans granted citizenship to supportive local rulers “to have even kings as instruments of slavery” (Ag. 14.1–2). Tacitus cites the example of the Regni’s king “Cogidumnus,” who received authority over Britannic civitates, as well as Roman citizenship granted from the emperor, as a reward for “exceptional loyalty” (fidissimum). His name is likely a manuscript error for “Togidumnus,” attested in a first century inscription from Noviomagus (Chichester) with the Roman name “Tiberius Claudius [To]gidumnus” (RIB 91). No systematic treatment of the civitates of Roman Britain survives in Tacitus, and in general they are assumed to have been largely coterminous with the limits of the preinvasion territories. The rebellion of Boudicca and the Iceni (A. 14.29–39, Ag. 16) attests a number of the most important civitates in southern and western Britannia. The territory of the Iceni bordered mainly with the Trinovantes in the south. Their capital was Venta (Caistor St. Edmund). During the governorship of Ostorius Scapula (c. 48 ce), the Iceni, “a powerful people, and not destroyed by battles because they had willingly allied with the Romans” (A. 12.31.3), rebelled unsuccessfully, and by 51 ce the last stages of initial resistance to the Claudian invasion ceased with the capture of Caratacus and suppression of resistance by the Silures and Ordovices (likely in 50 and 51, respectively). The Ordovices, located in the north of Wales, also are described as a civitas (Ag. 18.2). Tacitus describes Prasutagus as “known for his great wealth” (14.31.1). With no male heir, Prasutagus named the emperor and his children heirs to his kingdom “to avoid abuse.” Instead, on his death the Romans took possession of the territory so violently that the Iceni under Boudicca rebelled. Tacitus preserves key details not mentioned by Cass. Dio (62.1–12), the only other extant account of this event. There were clear historical precedents of monarchs bequeathing their kingdoms to Rome (e.g., Attalus III of Pergamum, Livy Per. 58). Nevertheless, the territory of the Iceni was brought into the “form of a province” (A. 14.31—in formam provinciae). The Trinovantes rose up in rebellion with the Iceni (A. 14.31.2). In his account of portents visible to Roman colonists

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B ritannia , B ritanni  

in Camulodunum, a reflection of the burning city was said to appear in the river Tamesa (Thames), the only time the Thames is attested in the extant Tacitean corpus. After the sack of Camulodunum, Suetonius Paulinus retreated to Londinium (London, A. 14.33.1). Tacitus provides the earliest literary reference to London, described as “not having the status of a colonia but well known as a centre of business and trade.” Tacitus’ description of the status of Roman London remains unclear. London is described as an oppidum in the territory of the Cantii / Cantiaci (Ptol. Geog. 2.3.27; Amm. Marc. 27.8), but it was not the capital of the civitas of the Cantii and does not appear to have been founded on the site of a preRoman settlement. Verulamium (St. Albans), like Camulodunum, was founded on the site of an LIA settlement, Verlamion, the former capital of the Catuvellauni, following the Claudian invasion. The town had risen to prominence relatively soon after the invasion, receiving status as a municipium at least by 50 ce. The city was destroyed by fire (A.14.33, an event corroborated by the archaeological record) in the Icenian rebellion. After the suppression of the Iceni, Roman authority in southern Britain was securely established, and subsequent governors turned their attention to expanding the frontier north into Caledonia, as narrated extensively in the Agricola, until the construction of Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall in the second century ce, followed by the brief reoccupation (208–211 ce) of Agricola’s military installations by Septimius Severus, which were subsequently abandoned by his son Caracalla following his father’s death. see also: empire; ethnicity; ethnography; geography; Hadrian; provinces Reference work: Barrington 100 F1, 101 F1, 2 C2 FURTHER READING Bickerman, Elias. 1952. “Origines Gentium.” Classical Philology 47: 65–81. Birley, Anthony. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c02_Vol1.indd 179

179

Braund, David. 1995. Ruling Roman Britain. London and New York: Routledge. Creighton, Hugh. 2006. Britannia: The Creation of a Roman Province. London: Routledge. De La Bédoyère, Guy. 2006. Roman Britain: A New History. London: Thames and Hudson. Dench, Emma. 2007. “Ethnography and History.” In Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography, edited by John Marincola, 493–503. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Furneaux, Henry. 1896–1907. The Annals of Tacitus. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Haverfield, Francis. 1923. The Romanization of Roman Britain. Oxford: Clarendon. Haynes, Iain. 2016. Blood of the Provinces: The Roman “Auxilia” and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hingley, Richard. 2008. Roman Officers and English Gentlemen. London: Routledge. Hingley, Richard. 2017. “The Romans in Britain: Colonization of an Imperial Frontier.” In Frontiers of Colonialism, edited by Christine Beaule, 89–109. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Manley, John. 2002. A.D. 43: The Roman Invasion of Britain, a Reassessment. Stroud: Tempus. Mattingly, David. 2011. An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire. London: Penguin. Millett, Martin. 1990. The Romanization of Britain: An Essay in Archaeological Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Millett, Martin, Louise Revell, and Alison Moore, eds. 2016. The Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moore, Timothy. 2011. “Detribalizing the Late Prehistoric Past: Concepts of Tribes in Iron Age and Roman Studies.” Journal of Social Archaeology 11.3: 334–360. Murgia, Charles. 1977. “The Minor Works of Tacitus. A Study in Text Criticism.” Classical Philology 72: 323–342. Ogilvie, Richard, and Ian Richmond. 1967. Cornelii Taciti de vita agricolae. Oxford: Clarendon. Wolfson, Stan. 2008. Tacitus, Thule and Caledonia. The Achievements of Agricola’s Navy in Their True Perspective. BAR British Series 459. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, Anthony, and Christina Kraus, eds. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woolf, Gregory. 2011. Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

28-04-2023 17:38:00

180  

B ritannicus

BRITANNICUS ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Germanicus, after his father’s British triumph commonly referred to as Britannicus (c. 12 February 41 ce–55 ce), was the son of the emperor Claudius and of Messalina. Britannicus’ position as the most natural heir to the throne was progressively undermined by the increasing influence of Claudius’ nephew and last wife Agrippina the Younger, who intrigued to favor her own son Nero. Britannicus died, poisoned by Nero, shortly after Claudius’ death. Britannicus was half-brother of Antonia, daughter of Claudius, and brother of Octavia; his original cognomen Germanicus (inherited from his grandfather Drusus the Elder) was changed to Britannicus after Claudius’ return from the British campaign in 43 ce (Suet. Claud. 27.1; Cass. Dio 60.22.2). He was educated by Sosibius (A. 11.1.1; 11.4.3), together with the future emperor Titus Caesar, who was his close friend (Suet. Tit. 2). In 47 ce, during the celebrations of the Ludi Saeculares, Britannicus took part in a reenacting of the battle of Troy together with Nero, his future stepbrother; according to Tacitus, the people’s favor for the latter on that occasion was considered an omen of the following events (A. 11.11.2–3). In 48 ce Britannicus was involved in the plot planned by his mother Messalina and her lover Gaius Silius: Silius, who was childless, would have married Messalina and adopted Britannicus in an attempt to overthrow Claudius and reign as a tutor of the child (A. 11.26.1–3). However, the plan was detected, and both Silius and Messalina were executed in that same year. With the marriage between Claudius and Agrippina (48 ce), Britannicus’ position in the hierarchies of power was put in danger: the ambitious woman in fact maneuvered her aging husband in order to promote her own son Nero as a suitable heir. This strategy started to pay off in 50 ce, when Claudius—thanks to the persuasive efforts of the freedman Pallas, who stressed the precedents of Augustus and Tiberius’ adoptions and the young age of Britannicus (A. 12.25.1–2)— adopted Nero, who was three years older than his

c02_Vol1.indd 180

son. From that moment onward, as Tacitus explicitly says, everybody felt compassion for Britannicus’ fate, and the boy “was abased to slavish services”; however, he was clever enough to understand Agrippina’s hypocritical courtesies and to turn them into derision (A. 12.26.1–2; see also Cass. Dio 61.32.1–2; 61.32.5). In 51 ce Nero received prematurely the toga virilis, so that he would appear ready to start a political career. Shortly after, during games at the Circus Maximus, Britannicus appeared in juvenile dress, Nero in a triumphal robe: such disparity was intended to let the people understand the different destinies of the two, and centurions and tribunes who grieved for the former’s fate were immediately removed (A. 12.41.1–2). At this point Tacitus inserts another example of Britannicus’ wit: when he met his stepbrother, he called Nero with the name he had before adoption, i.e., Domitius. Agrippina interpreted it as an act of contempt against Nero and took the chance to complain to Claudius and to force him to remove or kill Britannicus’ educators, who in her opinion had a bad influence on the boy. In this way, Britannicus became even more isolated at court (A. 12.41.3; see also Suet. Ner. 7; Barrett 1996, 116–118; Bradley 1978, 57). According to Suetonius and Cassius Dio, in 54 ce, therefore little before his death, Claudius started to repent of the marriage with Agrippina and of the adoption of Nero and wanted to reclaim the succession for Britannicus, to whom he showed his affection whenever possible (Suet. Claud. 43; Cass. Dio 61.34.1); Tacitus instead ascribes such conduct to the freedman Narcissus (A. 12.65.1–3). The reason of the discrepancy is unclear (Barrett 1996, 137–139; Hurley 2001, 234); all the accounts, however, agree about the fact that the episode alarmed Agrippina and compelled her to hasten Claudius’ death. After Claudius’ assassination and Nero’s proclamation as his successor, Agrippina used Britannicus to threaten her own son in 55 ce, when Nero relieved Pallas—her protégé and lover—of his duties in the imperial administration: then Agrippina threatened to bring Britannicus to the praetorians’ camp so to

28-04-2023 17:38:00

B rixellum  

put him on the throne (A. 13.14.1–3). In addition to this, during the festival of the Saturnalia, Britannicus showed once again his sharp spirit, when—asked by Nero to sing in public—he began a song about his expulsion from his father’s throne, manifesting a perfect understanding of his personal situation. Finally, Nero, distraught by his mother’s interference and worried about Britannicus’ imminent assumption of the toga virilis, decided to get rid of his stepbrother with the help of the poisoner Locusta (A. 13.15.1–3). A first try was ineffective (A. 13.15.4–5; Suet. Ner. 33.2); then a stronger mixture of poison was given to Britannicus with a trick during a banquet, and it had an immediate effect. Nero blamed epilepsy, from which Britannicus suffered from his earliest infancy, but according to Tacitus both Agrippina and Octavia understood immediately what was going on (A. 13.16.1–4; see also Suet. Ner. 33.3; Cass. Dio 61.7.4). Several modern critics, however (Cizek 1999; Dubuisson 1999; Somville 1999), give credit to epilepsy as the cause of death. Britannicus was cremated that same night, since the funeral was prepared in advance, and his ashes were buried in the Campus Martius (A. 13.17.1–3). Britannicus has a distinguished position in Tacitean seventeenth century reception thanks to Racine’s homonymous tragedy, first performed in 1669. Reference works: PIR2 C 820; BNP 2, 787–788 (Eck) REFERENCES Barrett, Anthony A. 1996. Agrippina. Mother of Nero. London: Batsford. Bradley, Keith R. 1978. Suetonius’ Life of Nero. An Historical Commentary. Brussels: Collection Latomus. Cizek, Eugen. 1999. “Britannicus a-t-il été empoisonné?” Helmantica. Revista de Filología Clásica y Hebrea 50: 173–183. Dubuisson, Michel. 1999. “La mort de Britannicus: lecture critique de Tacite.” L’Antiquité Classique 68: 253–261. Hurley, Donna W. 2001. Suetonius. Divus Claudius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Somville, Pierre. 1999. “Le poison de Britannicus.” Les Études Classiques 67: 255–258.

c02_Vol1.indd 181

181

FURTHER READING Mugatroyd, Paul. 2005. “Tacitus on the Deaths of Britannicus and Claudius.” Eranos 103: 97–100. Schmitzer, Ulrich. 2005. “Der Tod auf offener Szene: Tacitus über Nero und die Ermordung des Britannicus.” Hermes 133: 337–357.

BRIXELLUM KATIE LOW

Brussels

Brixellum, modern Brescello, was a town in Gallia Cispadana on the right bank of the river Po, around twenty miles south of Bedriacum; it was “in a commanding position for the line of the Via Aemilia to Rome, and the road from the Danube” (Shotter 1993, 153). Pliny the Elder (HN 3.115) lists it as a Roman colony, although he may be mistaken (RE III, 884). Otho established his headquarters there during his campaign against Vitellius in the spring of 69 ce. According to Plutarch (Oth. 5.3), he did so directly after advancing from Rome, but Tacitus (H. 2.33.2) reports his decision to withdraw there only after narrating his troops’ successful engagement at Castores (H. 2.24.2–26), saying that he was persuaded to stay away from the fighting to avoid danger and remain ready to rule. However, the detail may be purposely delayed for dramatic effect (Ash 2007, 169). Tacitus stresses the negative influence of Otho’s brother Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus and praetorian prefect Licinius Proculus on this decision (H. 2.33.2; cf. 2.39.1); Plutarch (Oth. 10.1) more explicitly calls his absence an error that deprived the army of his personal authority and its best troops. Subsequently, when Otho heard the news of his side’s defeat in the first battle at Bedriacum, he committed suicide at Brixellum (H. 2.49.3). He was buried there in a tomb that Tacitus (H. 2.49.4) and Plutarch (Oth. 18.1) agree was modest and unlikely to attract jealous attention. Plutarch says that he himself saw it, with its inscription “to the departed spirits of Marcus Otho.” see also: Annius Gallus; civil wars of 69 ce; Cremona; Gaul; Marius Celsus; Padus; Roman roads; Suetonius Paulinus

28-04-2023 17:38:00

182  

B ructeri

Reference work: Barrington 39 H4 REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2007. Tacitus: Histories Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shotter, David C. A. 1993. Suetonius: The Lives of Galba, Otho, Vitellius. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.

BRUCTERI JAMES McNAMARA

Universität Potsdam

The Bructeri were Germanic people first mentioned by Strabo (7.290) on the Amisia and (7.291) “towards the Ocean,” perhaps near the Ijssel. In 15 ce they are west of the Amisia (A. 1.60.2) and the furthest bounds of their territory are between upper Amisia and Lupia (A. 1.60.3), “not far” from the Teutoburg Forest. Tacitus (G. 33.1) locates the Bructeri next to the Tencteri, probably between these and the Frisii to the north and next to Roman territory. Strabo (7.1.3) identifies lesser and greater Bructeri (cf. Ptol. Geog. 2.11.6, 9). The Bructeri first enter history (Strabo 7.290) suffering defeat by Drusus the Elder (12 bce). Tiberius’ victory over them (4 ce) was soon followed by their participation in Arminius’ alliance against Quintilius Varus in 9 (Vell. 2.105.1). A Bructeran nearly assassinated Tiberius in 10–11 (Suet. Tib. 19). Stertinius recovered the eagle of the Nineteenth Legion from them in 15 (A. 1.60.3), and Bructeri were displayed in the triumph of Germanicus (17 ce, Strabo 7.1.4). The Bructeri considered aiding the Ampsivarii against Rome in 58 ce but withdrew (A. 13.56.2– 3). They played a major role in the Batavian Revolt (H. 4.21, 61, 65, 77; 5.18, 22). The Bructeran virgin prophetess Veleda is repeatedly named with Iulius Civilis as a leader in the war (H. 4.61.2), acting with him as arbitrator between the Ubii and Tencteri. She is the only individual Bructeran whose name is found in literature.

c02_Vol1.indd 182

Tacitus is sole witness (G. 33.1) to a shattering defeat of the Bructeri in which 60,000 fell (perhaps across both sides of the conflict) in or soon before 98 ce; they were crushed by their neighbors and their territory occupied by the Chamavi and Angrivarii. Vestricius Spurinna received triumphal honours (Plin. Ep. 2.7.2) for installing a king among the Bructeri; Spurinna may have been taking advantage of the discord, or the Romans may have promoted the intertribal conflict (Rives 1999, 258). The supposed annihilation is exaggerated, although the Bructeri did not fall from prominence until the fourth century. Constantine raided their territory, assuming the title Germanicus (Pan. Lat. 6.12, cf. 4.18.1). The Notitia Dignitatum names a unit of Bructeri (5.39, 5.187). Gregory of Tours (Hist. 2.9) names Bructeri among the Franks. In 16 ce, the Angrivarii (“field-dwellers,” RGA, Angriwarier) surrendered to Germanicus, quickly defected, and were subdued by Stertinius (A. 2.8.4). They helped restore captives from Germanicus’ shattered fleet (A. 2.24.3) and were named in Germanicus’ triumph of 17 ce (A. 2.41.2). The Chamavi can be located north of the Lupia on the right bank of the Rhenus well before 58 ce (A. 13.55.2; Barrington 10 C5). Later they participated in the slaughter of the Bructeri (G. 33.1; cf. RGA, Chaimai). The Chasuarii (cf. Ptol. Geog. 2.11.11 with a problematic location) first appear in Tacitus (G. 34.1) along with unnamed, obscure tribes, south of the Angrivarii and Chamavi, as neighbours of the Dulgubnii (elsewhere only Ptol. Geog. 2.11.9). see also: Germania Reference works: Barrington 10 E4-F4 (Angrivarii), 10 D5-E5, 11 H1-I1, 12 A1-B1 (Bructeri), 10 C5 (Chamavi), 10 F4 (Dulgubnii); Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA), vol. 1 Angriwarier, vol. 3 Brukterer, vol. 4. Chaimai, Chamaver, Chasuarier, vol. 6 Dulgubnii REFERENCE Rives, J. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 17:38:01

B ruttedius N iger  

BRUNDISIUM

see also: Calabria; Roman roads; Tarentum

SHAWN DANIELS

Reference work: Barrington 45 G3

Brundisium (Ancient Greek Brentesion; modern Brindisi) lies in the south of Italy, facing the Adriatic Sea on the “heel” of Italy. Originally Greek (or heavily influenced by Magna Graecia), Brundisium was captured by the Romans in 266 bce and made a full Roman colony in 247 bce. The extension of the Via Appia to Brundisium around the same time made the city a crucial Roman stronghold and the most important port connecting Italy with the Eastern Mediterranean. When Agrippina the Elder returned from Syria with the ashes of Germanicus, crowds of mourners met her at Brundisium (A. 3.1); and Martina, a potential culprit in Germanicus’ death, died there under suspicious circumstances (A. 3.7). Tacitus perhaps refers to this when discussing Scribonius Libo Drusus, the first victim of delators under Tiberius in 16 ce, whose first crime was to consult an oracle to see if he would acquire enough money to cover the full extent of the Via Appia all the way to Brundisium (A. 2.30). During the Second Punic War, when Hannibal controlled much of southern Italy, Brundisium remained under Roman control and helped ensure that Hannibal could receive no assistance from Carthage. Brundisium suffered during the civil wars of the Late Republic, besieged by Iulius Caesar (who wanted to stop Pompey’s flight to Greece) in 49 bce, and again by Mark Antony in 40 bce. Before the conflict escalated too far, Octavian (Augustus) and Mark Antony struck a peace at Brundisium, forestalling more war for almost a decade. Although Tacitus regards the treaty as one more step on the road to servitude (A. 1.10, cf. App. B Civ. 5.6–7), this division between the West and East would guide European history for over 1,500 years. Brundisium was also the center of a short-lived slave revolt, quickly crushed by Curtisius, a quaestor with provincial control over mountain passes (callium provincial, A. 4.27). In the Histories, Brundisium is mentioned as one of the cities of southern Italy that were under threat from Vespasian’s fleet during the civil wars of 69 ce, leaving Vitellius unsure of where an attack might come (H. 2.83).

c02_Vol1.indd 183

183

FURTHER READING Attema, P., G.-J. Burgers, and M. Van Leusen 2010. “Regional Settlement Dynamics of the Salento Isthmus.” In Regional Pathways to Complexity: Settlement and Land-Use Dynamics in Early Italy from the Bronze Age to the Republican Period, 59–80. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Bradley, G., and G. Farney 2017. The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Boston: De Gruyter. Carpenter, T., K. Lynch, and E. G. D. Robinson 2014. The Italic People of Ancient Apulia: New Evidence from Pottery for Workshops, Markets, and Customs. New York: Cambridge University Press.

BRUTTEDIUS NIGER STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Bruttedius (c. 13 bce–c. 31 ce) was a delator under Tiberius. Nothing is known of him after Gaius Iunius Silanus’ prosecution in 22 ce, but it is possible he is the Bruttedius Juvenal mentions in the context of Sejanus’ fall. Seneca the Elder is another important source for his activities. Bruttedius first appears as aedile in 22 ce when he helped to prosecute the case against Gaius Iunius Silanus (A. 3.66.2–6). Both he and Iunius Otho (1) accused Silanus of maiestas, while Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus accused him of repetundae. The charges included denigration of Tiberius and impietas against the spirit of the divine Augustus; his specific role in the prosecution remains uncertain. Tacitus states that Bruttedius was a man of talent and would have gone further had he followed a better course; although it is by no means certain, he was possibly, like Iunius, Sejanus’ client. He was infamous for employing his talents to destroy decent men; eventually he outdid even himself, according to Tacitus, and met a sudden end, disdaining a slow but safe career path. Despite Tacitus’ remarks, we have only one other case to Niger’s credit, in which Vallius

28-04-2023 17:38:01

184  

B yzantium

Syriacus was his opponent (Sen. Contr. 2.1.36); neither the date nor details of the case are known. The rest of his life and career is poorly documented. The date of his birth is inferred from the year of his aedileship, while we can conjecture from Juvenal that he fell in the wake of Sejanus’ conspiracy. Seneca the Elder classes Bruttedius among a group of historians (Suas. 6.20–1), and he appears to have written a history that included the death of Cicero, which Seneca says he did not handle well. His activities as a historian could account for Tacitus’ remark that he was “abounding in noble talents.” The mention of his name in Juvenal (10.83) is significant; Juvenal will have expected his audience to know who Bruttedius was, perhaps through Bruttedius’ own writings, or his notorious activities under Tiberius. Bruttedius’ name is problematic due to orthographical variants in our sources; in addition, the name occurs in no inscription in Italy. see also: delators Reference works: PIR2 B 158; RE 3.907 = Bruttedius 2 (Heinze). FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 204–205. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 326–327.

BRUTUS, see CICERO BURI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST

BYZANTIUM WILLIAM STOVER

University of Virginia

Byzantium (modern Istanbul) was Greek city on the European side of the Bosphorus strait, refounded by the emperor Constantine in 330 ce as Constantinople. Byzantium was established in the seventh century bce as a colony of Megara (Eus. Chron. 2.

c02_Vol1.indd 184

87). Together with the other Greek cities of the Ionian coast, Byzantium was conquered in the sixth century bce first by the Lydian king Croesus (Hdt. 1. 26), and then by the Persian forces under Harpagus (Hdt. 1. 169). In 498 bce the city was captured by Aristagoras and compelled to participate in the Ionian revolt (Hdt. 5. 103). After the Persian wars, the city was made subject to the Delian League, from which it revolted in 440 and 411 bce. Due to its strategic location on the Bosporus and its influence over the vital Black Sea trade route (cf. Poly. 4.43; A. 12.63), the city was the site of multiple engagements during the Peloponnesian War and throughout the fourth century bce (cf. Xen. Hel. 4.3), including an unsuccessful siege by Philip II of Macedon in 340 bce (Dem. 18.71). Although the city welcomed and initially supported Pseudo-Philip, an anti-Roman claimant to the Macedonian throne in 149 bce (Diod. Sic. 32.15.6), they abandoned his cause and entered a treaty with Rome (A. 12.62). Byzantium then enjoyed a friendly relationship with the Roman Republic and supported Rome’s second century bce wars in Greece and Asia Minor. Forces from Byzantium assisted the Romans in numerous campaigns, including the Fourth Macedonian War and the war against Antiochus III (A. 12.62). In light of its service and alliance, the city of Byzantium was granted the status of a free city by the Roman Senate in 146 bce (Cic. Prov. 4). The city maintained this privileged status until its integration into the Roman Empire as a provincial city under Vespasian (Suet. Vesp. 8.4). In 18 ce, after assuming his second consulship, Germanicus traveled throughout the Greek world visiting sites of interest, including Actium, Athens, and Byzantium (A. 2.54.1). In 53 ce, the Senate received an embassy from Byzantium, which requested relief from the financial burdens imposed upon it by Rome (A. 12.62.1). In recognition of their long-standing alliance, and with the vocal support of the emperor Claudius, the Senate granted a fiveyear exemption from tribute to Byzantium (A. 12.63). During the civil wars of 69 ce, Licinius Mucianus, governor of Syria and a close collaborator with Vespasian, staged the Roman Black Sea fleet at Byzantium, in preparation for a

28-04-2023 17:38:01

B yzantium  

possible naval campaign against Vitellius in Italy (H. 2.83). The transfer of the fleet to Byzantium left the Black Sea insufficiently secure, and a short-lived rebellion in support of Vitellius erupted in Pontus, which was quickly put down by Vespasian (H. 3.47). Reference work: Barrington 53 A2

c02_Vol1.indd 185

185

FURTHER READING Newskaja, Walentina. 1955. Byzanz in der klassischen und hellenistischen Epoche. Leipzig: Köhler und Amelang. Russell, Thomas. 2016. Byzantium and the Bosporus: A Historical Study, from the Seventh Century BC until the Foundation of Constantinople. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 17:38:01

C CADIUS RUFUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Cadius Rufus was a Roman senator in the first century ce. He was proconsul of the province of Bithynia Pontus probably shortly before the year 49 ce (c. 43–48 ce). He was sentenced by the Senate for repetundae (extortion) on an accusation by the Bithynians (A. 12.22.3). He was readmitted into the Senate by Otho (H. 1.77) with Pedius Blaesus and Saevin(i)us (cognomen uncertain, otherwise unknown). He is attested as governor and patron in many numismatic ­editions from Asia Minor (Waddington et  al., I, 236. 6, Bithynia; 400. 27–35, Nicaea with Claudius, Messalina and Britannicus; 517.20; 518.23, Nicomedia with Claudius and Messalina). Reference works: PIR2 C 6; CIL VI 1508 = IG XIV 1077 = IGR I 139 REFERENCE Waddington, W. H., E. Babelon, and T. Reinach. 1908–1925. Recueil General des monnaies d’Asie mineure. Paris: Leroux. FURTHER READING Nicols, J. 1990. “Patrons of Provinces in the Early Principate: The Case of Bithynia.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 80: 101–108.

Rostovtzeff, M. 1916/1917–1917/1918. “Pontus, Bithynia and the Bosporus.” The Annual of the British School at Athens 22: 1–22. Seltman, C. T. 1928. “The Administration of Bithynia under Claudius and Nero.” Numismatic Chronicle 8.29/30: 100–103.

CADMUS, see ALPHABET CADRA, see CAPPADOCIA

CAECILIUS CORNUTUS DAVID WELCH

University of Texas, Austin

Marcus Caecilius Cornutus (d. 24 ce) was a Roman statesman of praetorian rank who lived during the principate of Tiberius (A. 4.28.2). He was a member of the Arval Brotherhood in the years 14, 20, and 21 ce and held the position of curator locorum publicorum iudicandorum (“overseer of declaring public places”) under Tiberius. In the year 24 ce, he was implicated in a treason trial in which Vibius Serenus (the Younger) accused his own father, also named Vibius Serenus (the Elder), of stirring up a revolt in Gaul and plotting against Tiberius. According to the younger Serenus, Caecilius Cornutus had been attending to the financial aspects of the revolt on behalf of the elder Serenus. Though the elder Serenus earnestly proclaimed his innocence, Caecilius Cornutus considered the accusation itself to have been a death

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume I, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c03_Vol1.indd 186

28-04-2023 17:44:47

C aecili u s Simple x  

sentence and committed suicide shortly thereafter (A. 4.28.2). The elder Serenus was eventually found guilty of treason and sent back into exile (A. 4.30.1). As a result of Caecilius Cornutus’ mid-trial suicide, a motion was put forth in the Senate that delators (“informers”) should no longer receive their customary bounties (one-quarter of the accused man’s property) if the accused committed suicide before the trial was completed. Before the Senate had an opportunity to vote on the motion, however, Tiberius stepped in and asserted that they would better overturn all of Rome’s laws than do away with those who protected them, thereby strengthening the legal standing of informers during the early principate (A. 4.30.2–3).

187

ease tensions with Parthia, Silanus had Vonones come to Syria and taken into Roman custody, although he was permitted to retain his royal titles (A. 2.4). Silanus was a close friend of Germanicus, and Silanus’ daughter Iunia had been betrothed to Germanicus’ son Nero Iulius Caesar, although she died before the marriage (ILS 184  =  CIL VI 914; A. 2.43). As such, after Germanicus was sent to the east following his triumph in 17, Silanus was replaced in Syria by Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso. REFERENCE Syme, R. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon.

Reference works: PIR2 C 35; RE 3.1200, no.47 FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. New York: Routledge.

CAECILIUS METELLUS CRETICUS SILANUS CHRISTOPHER J. DART

University of Melbourne

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus Silanus (PIR2 C 64) was a close friend of Germanicus who served as governor of Syria between c. 12 and 17 ce. He was probably born Iunius Silanus and adopted by a descendant of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus (consul 69 bce; Syme 1986, 98). Silanus was ordinary consul in 7 ce with Licinius Nerva Silanus until July (Degrassi, Fast. Cap. p. 86). He then served as consular legate in Syria from c. 12/13 to 17 ce. While there he arranged for the removal of Vonones from Armenia. Vonones, a member of the Arsacid dynasty who had been raised in Rome, had been supported by Augustus in his claim to the throne of Parthia but was ousted sometime after 15 ce and briefly permitted by Tiberius to rule in Armenia. In an effort to

c03_Vol1.indd 187

CAECILIUS SIMPLEX LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Caecilius Simplex was appointed consul by Vitellius for the last two months of 69 ce along with Quintius Atticus. After Vitellius’ victory, when the new emperor decided whether to confirm or revoke the appointments to the consulship made by his rival, the rumor spread that Simplex had tried to gain the consulship for money through the death of Marius Celsus, one of the Othonian leaders, who was confirmed by Vitellius in that office. Many gave credit to the rumor, and the accusation was later presented in the Senate, even though Celsus’ consulship was confirmed by Vitellius who bestowed on him a consulate “which cost neither crime nor money” (H. 2.60). As consul in charge, it was later to him that a defeated Vitellius tried to deliver his imperial dagger in the attempt to abdicate from his office of emperor, but Simplex refused (H. 3.68). According to Cassius Dio instead, Simplex and his consular colleague were among those who tried to reach the imperial palace in order to convince Vitellius to act or renounce to the leadership. Driven away by Vitellius’ personal guard they took refuge on the Capitolium with the Flavians where they offered strong resistance (Cass. Dio 65.17.1).

28-04-2023 17:44:47

188

  C aecina A lien u s

Before holding the consular office, he was governor of Sardinia in the years 67/68 ce. As such, he is mentioned in an inscription from Serri concerning a border quarrel between Patulcenses and Galienses where he conceded to the Galienses another three months to produce the documents from the imperial archive in favor of their case. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Otho Reference works: PIR2 C 84; CIL X, 7852 = ILS 5947 FURTHER READING De Kleijn, G. 2013. “C. Licinius Mucianus, Vespasian’s Co-ruler in Rome.” Mnemosyne 66: 433–459. Morgan, G. 2006. 69 ad: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CAECINA ALIENUS NICHOLAS DEE

Bowling Green State University

Caecina Alienus (d. 79 ce; PIR2 C 99), an ambitious man (H. 1.53.1; cf. Plut. Otho 6.3) from Vicetia (H. 3.8.1) was quaestor in Baetica (68 ce), then legionary legate (legatus legionis) of legion IV Macedonica (the legion is uncertain; see Damon 2003, 208) of Upper Germany in 69 ce. Later that year, he was made suffect consul under Vitellius until his expulsion from office for treachery on 30 October 69 ce. While serving as legionary legate in Upper Germany, Caecina joined Vitellius’ imperial bid to head off prosecution for embezzlement of public funds (H. 1.53.1). He distinguished himself early in the war against Galba (then Otho) as an exceptionally ambitious (H. 1.53.1; cf. Plut. Otho 6.3) and unscrupulous legionary legate in Vitellius’ German army (H. 1.52.3, 1.67.1). While his counterpart and eventual rival Fabius Valens brought a column through the Cottian Alps, Caecina was given the quicker path to Italy through the Pennine pass (H. 1.61.1). En route, he escalated a conflict between his legions and the Helvetians which resulted in much death and destruction among the latter (H. 1.67.2–69).

c03_Vol1.indd 188

Eager for recognition, Caecina decided to cross the Alps in winter (H. 1.70.3; Plut. Otho 6.4). First his advance cohorts took possession of the rich farmland between the Po and the Alps (H. 2.17.1); Caecina himself then crossed and, refraining from plunder (H. 2.20.1), tried in vain to weaken the loyalties of the Othonians by extending peace offers (H. 2.20.2). The physical appearance of Caecina (dressed in variegated cloak and trousers) and his wife, Salonina (riding a horse draped in purple), were criticized by the local population—his for its barbarian style and perceived arrogance, and hers for its perceived ostentatious show of wealth (H. 2.20.1, Plut. Otho 6.4). Plutarch further exoticizes Caecina as tall (H. 1.53.1) and unable to speak Latin (Plut. Otho 6.3; cf. “a clever speaker,” scito sermone, H. 1.53.1). Caecina’s decision to attack Placentia was motivated by an obsession with fame (H. 2.20.1) and a competitiveness with the absent Valens (Plut. Otho 6.5). The attack failed, whereupon he withdrew back north across the Po to save face (H. 2.22.2–3). With his rival Valens approaching and threatening to take the spotlight, rather than remain in camp and risk ridicule, Caecina launched another offensive—this time at Castores, twelve miles from Cremona (H. 2.24.1–2): the intended ambush was ruined, however, when the strategy was betrayed ahead of time to the Othonian generals (H. 2.24.3). The Othonians and Vitellians agreed that it was Suetonius Paulinus’  inaction  alone  which  had  saved Caecina’s life (H. 2.26.2; Plut. Otho 7.3). The rivalry between Caecina and Valens only intensified when the two legates’ armies joined in April 69 ce (H. 2.30.1–3). After contributing to victory in the First Battle of Bedriacum (Plut. Otho 13; Cass. Dio 64.10.2) and the subsequent devastation of the Italian countryside (H. 2.55.2), they returned north to meet Vitellius, give him a tour of the battlefield (H. 2.70), and accompany him to Rome (2.59.2–3). Apparently as reward for continuing loyal service (H. 2.70), Vitellius removed Otho’s consular appointments from office and installed them in the position for a few months (H. 2.71.2). When the Vitellian leadership finally arrived in Rome that summer, the rival legates’ constant efforts to outdo one another and win the favor of a passive and indecisive

28-04-2023 17:44:47

C aecina L arg u s  

Vitellius effectively made them joint rulers of Rome (H. 2.92.1–3). Caecina’s treachery (H. 3.9) seems to have begun even before leaving the city to intercept Antonius Primus’ forces. Several causes are alleged: his moral compass had been broken by the realities of civil war (H. 2.93.2, 101.1); Flavius Sabinus, with Rubrius Gallus as agent, enticed him to the Flavian side (H. 2.93.2); as Valens gained in popularity and status, it became increasingly appealing to seek a new emperor rather than vie for affection from the current one (H. 2.93.2, 99.2, 101.1); and unnamed Flavian historians adduced virtuous motivations (H. 2.101.1). In any case, when his intention to defect to Vespasian was announced, the common soldiers refused to comply. They instead clapped Caecina in chains and joined the rest of the Vitellian forces at Cremona (H. 3.13; Cass. Dio 64.10.3–4, 11.2). Neither faction took kindly to the consul’s treachery. Upon the Flavian siege of Cremona, Caecina was released from his chains in order to intercede on the Vitellians’ behalf in his capacity as consul: the Flavian soldiers—disgusted by any treachery, even in their favor—became enraged and Caecina was escorted to Rome under guard (H. 3.31.4; Cass. Dio 65.14–15). Once Vitellius had learned of Caecina’s treachery and imprisonment (H. 3.36), he condemned him harshly and publicly (H. 3.37.1). One day remained on the disgraced Caecina’s term as consul when, on 31 October 69 ce, Rosius Regulus (otherwise unknown) entered and resigned from office on the same day; Vitellius and Rosius Regulus were both ridiculed for the novel maneuver (H. 3.37.2). Excepting the suggestion that he was well treated by Vespasian (Joseph. BJ 4.11.3), Caecina does not reemerge in our sources until 79 ce. In that year, either acting alone (Cass. Dio 66.16.3) or with Eprius Marcellus (Suet. Tit. 6.2), Caecina enlisted the soldiers in a plot against the elderly Vespasian. Titus, however, discovered and preempted it by killing Caecina one evening after dinner (Cass. Dio 66.16.3; Suet. Tit. 6.2; cf. Aur. Vict. Caes. 10.4, who attributes Titus’ motive to Caecina’s improper relations with Berenice). No motive for the conspiracy is mentioned in our sources, and scholars disagree whether any such

c03_Vol1.indd 189

189

conspiracy ever existed (see Crook 1951, 168– 171; Rodgers 1980, 92–95). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Vitellius, rise to power REFERENCES Crook, J. A. 1951. “Titus and Berenice.” American Journal of Philology 71.2: 162–175. Damon, C. 2003. Tacitus: Histories Book I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rodgers, P. M. 1980. “Titus, Berenice and Mucianus.” Historia 29: 86–95. FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 1999. Ordering Anarchy. Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ Histories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Levick, Barbara. 1999. Vespasian. London: Routledge. Manolaraki, Eleni. 2005. “A Picture Worth a Thousand Words: Revisiting Bedriacum (Tacitus Histories 2.70).” Classical Philology 100: 243–267. Morgan, M. G. 1994. “Rogues March: Caecina and Valens in Tacitus, Histories 1.61–70.” Museum Helveticum 51: 103–125.

CAECINA LARGUS BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

Gaius Caecina Largus (birthdate is unknown; probably died before 57 ce; consul in 42 ce; member of the Arval Brethren) was a close friend of the emperor Claudius. Largus probably had roots in the Etruscan town of Volaterrae, where a homonymous ancestor (perhaps his father) helped construct a theater complex (see Munzi and Terrenato 2000, 25–26). A wealthy member of the senatorial order, he owned an extravagant home on the Palatine Hill (Asc. Sca. 27). Pliny the Elder claimed that Largus gave him a tour of the property that once belonged to the famous republican orator Lucius Crassus and then to Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (Plin. HN 17.5). Largus appears in the list of Arvales from at least the year 38 ce (CIL VI 2028; see also CIL VI 2029, 2030, 2032 and 2035).

28-04-2023 17:44:47

190

  C aecina Severu s

He  entered the consulship in 42 ce, and the emperor Claudius, his colleague for two months, allowed him to remain in office for the entire year (Cass. Dio 60.10.1). He makes only a brief appearance in Tacitus, when in 48 ce, Largus, along with Lucius Vitellius (1) and the freedman Narcissus, shared a litter with Claudius as the emperor returned to Rome from Ostia to confront his wife, Messalina, who had apparently married the consul designate Gaius Silius. While Narcissus magnified the threat to the emperor’s position, Tacitus claims that Largus followed Vitellius as an obsequious confidant whose ambiguous opinions would ensure his own safety (A. 11.33–34). From 57 ce he no longer appears in inscriptions listing the Arvales. Since this was a life-long appointment, he is assumed to have died in that year (see Syme 1983, 107), or, perhaps, shortly before. Reference works: PIR2 C 101; BNP “Caecina” II 4; LTUR II 26; CIL VI 2028, 2029, 2030, 2032, 2035 REFERENCES Munzi, M., and N. Terrenato. 2000. Volterra: Il Teatro E Le Terme. Firenze: All’Insegna del Giglio. Syme, R. 1983. “Eight Consuls from Patavium.” Proceedings of the British School at Rome 51: 102–124.

CAECINA SEVERUS REBECCA EDWARDS

Wright State University

Aulus Caecina Severus was governor of neighboring Moesia during the Pannonian Revolt of 6–9 ce and led troops from Moesia to Illyricum to assist Tiberius. Velleius Paterculus (2.112.4–6) criticizes Caecina’s failure to scout out enemy lines before engaging in battle. Cassius Dio (55.29.3) is more complimentary, crediting Caecina’s speed with thwarting Bato the Breucian’s march on Sirmium. Dio also states (55.30.4) that Caecina was forced to return to Moesia to stave off incursions by the Dacians and Sarmatians, but then

c03_Vol1.indd 190

apparently returned to Pannonia (55.32.3), where his camp was ambushed by both Batos (the Breucian and the Desidiatian). Caecina’s men were able to repel the attack. Caecina first appears in Tacitus at A. 1.31.2, where he is introduced as legate of Germania Inferior. At the outbreak of mutiny among the German legions after the death of Augustus, Caecina is criticized for not immediately ­confronting the mutineers (A. 1.32.1). When the men attacked their superiors, Caecina appeased them by ordering the execution of a centurion named Septimius (otherwise unknown) who had sought his protection. After the mutiny had died down, Caecina led the First and Twentieth Legions back to the territory of the Ubii (A. 1.37.2). Germanicus subsequently dispatched a letter to Caecina ordering him to punish the instigators of the mutiny (supplicium in malos, A. 1.48), or else he would use indiscriminate slaughter. Caecina organized his officers to ambush those believed guilty in the middle of the night but was not present himself, as Tacitus points out (A. 1.49.2). In the ensuing campaigns in Germany, Germanicus sent Caecina ahead to clear a path through dense forest (A. 1.50.3). The following season (15 ce), Germanicus handed over to Caecina four legions, 5,000 auxiliaries, and some hastily levied bands of Germans from the left bank of the Rhine (A. 1.56). During campaigns in Germany, Caecina assisted Germanicus by scouting positions and outmaneuvering the enemy (A. 1.60–69; Koestermann 1957, 437–447). According to Tacitus, Caecina, in his fortieth year of “serving or commanding” (A. 1.64.4) was unfazed by adversity, although he had been cornered by Arminius. Despite a nocturnal vision of a bloodied Quintilius Varus calling him into the marshes, in the ensuing battle, even after his horse had been injured, Caecina survived (A. 1.65). As the Romans marched through enemy territory, Caecina transferred his own horse and those of the commanding officers to the bravest men, traveling himself on foot (A. 1.67.3). The Romans finally routed the Germans, and Arminius fled (A. 1.68.4–5). For his victories, Caecina was awarded triumphal insignia (A. 1.72). He was charged the following year (16 ce) with building a fleet of 1,000 ships for transport in Germany (A. 2.6.1).

28-04-2023 17:44:47

C aeli u s  

Caecina’s other major narrative thread in Tacitus’ Annals concerns his actions in the Senate. At A. 3.18.2 (20 ce), Caecina proposed an altar celebrating the avenging of Germanicus’ death, which Tiberius rejected. In 21 ce, Caecina argued that wives of provincial governors should stay in Rome, praising his own exemplary wife, mother of his six children (A. 3.33–35). Nevertheless, it is difficult to ignore his being an eyewitness in Germany to Agrippina the Elder’s interference with the troops (A. 1.69; Barrett 2005). Caecina’s motion was squelched by Drusus the Younger, son of Tiberius, after which Caecina disappears from Tacitus’ narrative and history. see also: Dacia; German Revolt; mutinies Reference works: PIR2 C 106; RE Caecina 24

191

persuaded the emperor to take back his decision (A. 13.20.2). According to Suetonius (Ner. 35.10) and Cassius Dio (63.18.1), he was removed from his office of procurator and exiled in 66 ce because he had used the baths built in Alexandria for the arrival of the emperor. He may have returned to Rome after Nero’s death. According to Tacitus, in the autumn of 69 ce he held a banquet whose guest of honor was Iunius Blaesus and which indirectly caused the death of the latter, poisoned by the order of the emperor Vitellius (H. 3.38–39). see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference works: PIR2 C 109; RE 3–1 1243: Caecina 26; LTUR II 73 REFERENCES

REFERENCES Barrett, A. 2005. “Aulus Caecina Severus and the Military Woman.” Historia 54: 301–314. Koestermann, E. 1957. “Die Feldzüge des Germanicus 14–16 n. Chr.” Historia 6: 429–479.

CAECINA TUSCUS FABRICE GALTIER

Université Clermont Auvergne TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Gaius Caecina Tuscus was the son of one of Nero’s nurses. Of equestrian rank, he was iuridicus Alexandreae et Aegypti in 51/52 ce, then procurator of Egypt, probably between 63 and 66 ce (Sherk 1988, 108). The name Caecina Tuscus appears first in relation to an episode that took place in 55 (Barrett 1999, 175). Tacitus points out that, according to the historian Fabius Rusticus, when Nero was informed of his mother Agrippina the Younger’s attempt to plot against him, he sent a message to Caecina Tuscus to put him in charge of the Praetorian Guard in place of Afranius Burrus. In fact, Caecina Tuscus never performed that duty, since Seneca immediately

c03_Vol1.indd 191

Barrett, Anthony A. 1999. Agrippina. Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire. New Haven, CT and London: Routledge. Sherk, Robert K. 1988. The Roman Empire: Augustus to Hadrian (Translated documents of Greece and Rome VI). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Pflaum, Hans-Georg. 1960–1961. Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut-empire romain, tome I. Paris: P. Geuthner.

CAEDICIA, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS CAELES VIBENNA, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY CAELIAN HILL, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY

CAELIUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Gaius Caelius, a Roman senator, was ordinary consul in 17 ce with Lucius Pomponius Flaccus (A. 2.41). His name is recorded differently on two inscriptions. According to CIL 10.6639, he is Caelius Rufus; however, CIL 11.1356 records

28-04-2023 17:44:47

192

  C aeli u s P ollio

Caecilius Rufus, as does Cass. Dio 57.17.1. The confusion over his name may arise from adoption, although scribal error is more likely (Goodyear 1981, 315). Reference work: PIR2 C 141 REFERENCE Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 1–6. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CAELIUS CURSOR, see ANCHARIUS PRISCUS

CAELIUS POLLIO LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

have left. The king had no other choice but to negotiate and meet his fate (A. 12.46.3; Braund 1994, 221–224). Cass. Dio refers to Caelius Pollio as Pollio (61.6); otherwise, he is unattested. Reference work: PIR2 C 140 REFERENCE Braund, D. 1994. Georgia in Antiquity. A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia 550 bc–ad 562. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

CAELIUS RUFUS, see ROMAN ORATORS

CAELIUS SABINUS, GNAEUS ARULENUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

Caelius Pollio was a Roman officer in Armenia in the middle of the first century ce. In the year 51 ce, Radamistus, the son of Pharasmanes, king of Caucasian Iberia, plotted against his uncle Mithridates Hiberus, the Roman-supported leader of the Armenians (A. 12.44). With an Iberian army he invaded Armenia forcing the king to find shelter in the fortress of Gorneae. Here existed a garrison of Roman soldiers under the command of the prefect Caelius Pollio and the centurion Casperius (A. 12.45.2). Radamistus began to besiege the fortifications, but when he realized that his attacks were ineffective, he changed strategy and tried to bribe Pollio (A. 12.45.3–4). Casperius protested because a king ally of Rome was about to be ruined by crimes and gold with Pollio’s complicity. He obtained a truce in order to leave and inform Syrian governor Ummidius Quadratus (A. 12.45.4). With Casperius gone, Pollio persuaded Mithridates to surrender to his brother and nephew, reminding him of the strong family ties between them, the treachery of the Armenians, and the lack of allies and supplies (A. 12.46.1). The king did not trust Pollio who had seduced one of his concubines, believing him capable of anything for money (A. 12.46.2). Radamistus then offered more money to Pollio for his betrayal. The Roman officer gave money to the soldiers, who urged Mithridates to surrender, otherwise the Roman garrison would

c03_Vol1.indd 192

University of Florida

Gnaeus Arulenus Caelius Sabinus was suffect consul in 69 ce with Titus Flavius Sabinus (2). He was designated for this office by Nero or Galba. He survived the civil wars of 69 ce to become a jurist under Vespasian. His name (Caelius Sabinus) appears only at H. 1.77.2; the full name is provided by CIL VI 2051. Reference work: PIR2 A 1194 FURTHER READING Townend, Gavin. 1961. “Some Flavian Connections.” Journal of Roman Studies 51: 54–62.

CAEPIO CRISPINUS, see DELATORS CAERACATES, see BELGICA CAESAREA MARITIMA, see IUDAEA

CAESELLIUS BASSUS SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennesee, Knoxville

Caesellius Bassus is the protagonist of a famous episode at the beginning of A. 16 (Chapters 1–3, 65 ce), where Tacitus recalls that Bassus, a

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C aesenni u s Paet u s  

deranged Punic, had dreamed that a huge treasure lay hidden in an underground cave in North Africa. Bassus conjectured that this was the treasure that Dido had brought with her from Tyre and later hid, so that neither her people nor the Numidian kings might be stirred by their desire for gold. Bassus traveled to Rome and easily convinced Nero to send an expedition to search for the treasure. Nero, who was in need of cash while building the Domus Aurea, did not doubt Bassus’ story; his envoys, however, never found this treasure, and Bassus, ashamed that his dream had failed him, either committed suicide or was deprived of all his sustenance. Caesellius Bassus is mentioned elsewhere only by Suet. Ner. 31.4, who adds that he was an equestrian (eques Romanus). The story of Bassus’ gold is not only an interlude but also fitting to introduce the last stage of Nero’s derangement. Tacitus’ abundant use of Vergilian language to describe Dido’s gold may be an ironic representation of Nero’s obsession with his Julian ancestry. Braund (1983) has also pointed out that this episode may be alluding to a change in treasure-trove legislation under Nero. see also: Carthage; intertextuality; Numidia; Vergil Reference works: PIR2 C 165; RE 3.1304-5 = ‘Caesellius’ 1 (Stein) REFERENCE Braund, David. 1983. “Treasure-Trove and Nero.” Greece & Rome 30: 65–69. FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 2015. “At the End of the Rainbow. Nero and Dido’s Gold (Tacitus Annals 16.1–3).” In Fame and Infamy: Essays for Christopher Pelling on Characterization in Greek and Roman Biography and Historiography, edited by Rhiannon Ash, Judith Mossman, and Frances B. Titchener, 269–283. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. N. 583. Murgatroyd, Paul. 2002. “Dido’s Treasure at Annals 16.1–3.” In Thinking like a Lawyer: Essays on Legal History and General History for John Crook on his Eightieth Birthday, edited by Paul McKechnie, 131–133. Leiden: Brill.

c03_Vol1.indd 193

193

CAESENNIUS MAXIMUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS

CAESENNIUS PAETUS FREDERIK JULIAAN VERVAET

University of Melbourne

A scion of the imperial senatorial aristocracy, Lucius Caesennius Paetus (PIR2 C 173) enjoyed the favor of Nero and his entourage: throughout the first half of 61 ce he held the second of the eponymous consulships, as a colleague of consul prior Publius Petronius Turpilianus (A. 14.29.1). Shortly thereafter, Paetus received an important commission as the situation in Armenia rapidly deteriorated in the summer of 61. In the spring of that year, Tigranes VI, Nero’s recent appointee to its contested throne, had raided Adiabene, a Parthian vassal kingdom. As the Parthian king Vologaeses I responded in full force, threatening invasions of both Armenia and Syria, Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo (suff. 39), who then governed both Cappadocia-Galatia and Syria, negotiated a bilateral retreat from Armenia and petitioned Nero to send a separate commander for the northern theater of operations (A. 15.1–5). Paetus consequently arrived at some point in the second half of 61 with the rank of legatus Augusti pro praetore tuendae or defendendae Armeniae: in this capacity he received command of Cappodocia-Galatia as well as three legions (IIII Scythica, XII Fulminata, and V Macedonica) plus auxiliaries. According to Tacitus, his brief was to convert Armenia into a Roman province, a sharp break with Armenian policy pursued since Pompey the Great and Augustus (A. 15.6.4). As Vologaeses’ envoys returned from Rome empty-handed in the spring of 62, full-scale war seemed unavoidable. Leaving V Macedonica behind in Pontus Polemoniacus, Paetus promptly invaded at the helm of IIII Scythica and XII Fulminata, then commanded by respectively Lucius Funisulanus Vettonianus (suff. 78; only at A. 15.7) and Calavius Sabinus (otherwise unknown), with the aim of retaking Tigranocerta. Meanwhile, however, Corbulo’s successful defense of Syria prompted Vologaeses to

28-04-2023 17:44:48

194

  C aetroni u s P isan u s

direct the bulk of his army toward the Armenian theater of war, where he succeeded in defeating Paetus’ strong rear guard and besieging him and his legions at Rhandeia. Faced with the onset of winter, Paetus eventually agreed to a humiliating truce and an inglorious retreat from Armenia. Much to his surprise, he would only suffer a mild rebuke as he returned to Nero following the Roman evacuation of Armenia (A. 15.7–17, 15.25.4; Cass. Dio 62.20.2–22.4). Despite this setback, his son Lucius Iunius Caesennius Paetus (suff. 79) served with Corbulo as one of his military tribunes in 64 (A. 15.28), while Vespasian would appoint Paetus himself to the important Syrian command in 70. In this capacity, he was allowed to redeem himself by invading and annexing the client kingdom of Commagene in 72, on the pretext that its king Antiochus IV was plotting with the Parthians (Joseph BJ. 7.59, 219–238). His younger son, Lucius Caesennius Sospes, who probably received his conspicuous cognomen after he and his mother had emerged unscathed from the Parthian siege of Arsamosata (A. 15.10.3, “spouse and son”) in the late autumn of 62, not coincidentally held a suffect consulship in the summer of 114, at the very time Trajan occupied this stronghold in the opening phase of his campaign to conquer and annex Armenia Maior (Cass. Dio 68.19.2). see also: legions; Parthia FURTHER READING Heil, Matthäus. 1997. Die orientalische Aussenpolitik des Kaisers Nero. München: Tuduv-Verlagsgesellschaft. Meulder, Marcel. 1993. “L. Caesennius Paetus, un avateur du geurrier impie chez Tacite (ann. xv, 7–8)?” Latomus. Revue d’études latines 52: 98–104. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2002. “Caesennius Sospes, the Neronian Wars in Armenia and Tacitus’ View on the Problem of Roman Foreign Policy in the East: A Reassessment.” Mediterraneo Antico 5: 283–318.

CAESILIANUS, see AURELIUS COTTA MAXIMUS MESSALINUS CAESIUS CORDUS, see ANCHARIUS PRISCUS CAESIUS NASICA, see CARTIMANDUA CAETRONIUS, see GERMAN REVOLT

c03_Vol1.indd 194

CAETRONIUS PISANUS DANIELLE CHAGAS DE LIMA

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Caetronius Pisanus was a camp-prefect accused of conspiracy by Valerius Festus due to his ­supposed connection with Lucius Calpurnius Piso (3) (consul 57 ce). Caetronius was the camp-prefect of the legion III Augusta around 70 ce. After the murder of Piso, Caetronius was arrested by Valerius Festus under charges of being Piso’s accomplice. However, Festus’ true motivation for framing him was personal revenge (H. 4.50.3). Caetronius is otherwise unattested. Reference works: PIR2 C 218; RE III.1 (1897), 1322 3 FURTHER READING Saddington, Dennis B. 1996. “Early Imperial ‘praefecti castrorum.’” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 45: 244–252.

CALABRIA SHAWN DANIELS

Calabria (modern Salento) referred in antiquity to the “heel” of Italy. It extends north to include Brundisium and Tarentum. Today, Calabria refers to a different part of Italy, the southwestern peninsula (the “toe” of the “boot;” Bruttium in antiquity). The Iapyges, an extinct IndoEuropean group, are the first known inhabitants of ancient Calabria. Strabo divided the territory into Messapia in the south and Apulia further north (Geog. 6.3), although these distinctions disappeared after Roman domination. The inhabitants seem to have belonged to a general Adriatic culture. Cities began to appear throughout the region in the fifth and fourth centuries bce. The Calabrians fought often with Tarentum but sided against Rome during the Pyrrhic Wars and were subsequently conquered in 270 bce. The cities of Calabria generally kept the peace with Rome until the Social War, after which Rome

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C aledonia  

granted most Calabrian cities Roman citizenship. When Agrippina the Elder sought a few days’ respite before returning to Italy with the ashes of Germanicus, she stopped in Corcyra, directly opposite the Calabrian coast (A. 3.1). Magistrates from Calabria were among the honor guard sent by Tiberius to escort the ashes of Germanicus back to Rome for burial (A. 3.2). During the civil wars of 69 ce, Calabria is mentioned as one of the regions in southern Italy that were under threat from Vespasian’s fleet, leaving Vitellius unsure where to defend (H. 83). Reference work: Barrington 45 G3 FURTHER READING Bradley, G., and G. Farney. 2017. The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Boston: De Gruyter. Carpenter, T., K. Lynch, and E. G. D. Robinson. 2014. The Italic People of Ancient Apulia: New Evidence from Pottery for Workshops, Markets, and Customs. New York: Cambridge University Press. Settis, S. 2000. Storia della Calabria antica: età italica e romana. Rome: Gangemi.

CALAVIUS SABINUS, see CAESENNIUS PAETUS

CALEDONIA MICHAEL B. KEARNEY

Yale University

Caledonia was the remote region north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus, comprising the present-day Scottish Highlands and the areas around Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen. The Romans under Gnaeus Iulius Agricola invaded Caledonia in 81 or 82 ce, fighting the Battle of Mons Graupius, but withdrew thereafter. Poets originally used Caledonia to evoke the unknown, distant north (see Luc. 6.68 and Stat. Silv. 5.1.142); the “Caledonian forest” mentioned by Pliny (HN 4.102) was similarly mythologized as “the wilds of Caledonia” (Rivet and Smith 1979, 290). Agricola describes Caledonia as immensum et enorme spatium (Ag. 10.4) and its inhabitants— Tacitus, unlike other authors, does not use the term Caledonii (cf. Ag. 25.3)—as red-haired and

c03_Vol1.indd 195

195

large-limbed, asserting that these physical features reflected Germanic origins (Ag. 11.2). Roman forays into Caledonia began in Agricola’s third year as governor of Britannia (79 or 80 ce) and reached the river Taus (modern Tay); forts were set up at the Bodotria-Clota (Forth-Clyde) isthmus the following year (Ag. 22–23). In 81 or 82 ce, the Romans invaded western Caledonia, sailing across the Clota and stationing forces in sight of Hibernia (Ag. 24.1). The next year, perhaps propelled by Domitian’s expansionism, a combined naval and terrestrial Roman force penetrated the east coast of Caledonia (Ag. 25). In response, the tribes inhabiting Caledonia coalesced and attacked the camp of the weaker ninth legion, only to suffer a serious defeat when Agricola arrived with reinforcements (Ag. 26). The conflict culminated the following year (83 or 84 ce), Agricola’s seventh as governor, when the Romans defeated a sizable Caledonian confederacy under Calgacus at Mons Graupius (Ag. 29–38.3). With winter approaching, the Romans retreated toward the fortifications on the isthmus; their fleet circumnavigated Britain or part of it (see Woodman 2014, 283–285) and sighted Thule (Ag. 38.4–5; cf. Ag. 10.4). Agricola was thereupon recalled and awarded triumphal ornaments by Domitian (Ag. 40.1–3). By 87 ce, the Romans had largely abandoned Caledonia, deeming other frontiers, such as Dacia, of greater value. They returned to Caledonia c. 142 ce, constructing the Antonine Wall on the Forth-Clyde isthmus but ­abandoned the fortification for Hadrian’s Wall twenty years later. In 195 ce, Clodius Albinus, governor of Britannia, revolted against the emperor Septimius Severus and brought the province’s legions to Gaul, allowing the Maeatae, a tribe occupying the land north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus together with the Caledonii, to raid Eboracum (modern York) in his absence. Virius Lupus eventually bought off this tribe (Cass. Dio 75.5.4). An aged Septimius Severus invaded Caledonia in 209 ce, defeating the Caledonii. His son Caracalla crushed the Maeatae the next year but abandoned Caledonia following Severus’ death in 211 ce. The Romans never returned. Reference work: Barrington 9 C3, 2 B2

28-04-2023 17:44:48

196

  C algac u s

REFERENCES Rivet, A. L. F., and Colin Smith. 1979. The PlaceNames of Roman Britain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola (with C.S. Kraus). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Hanson, W. S. 1987. Agricola and the Conquest of the North. Totowa: Barnes and Noble.

CALGACUS KYLE KHELLAF

University of California, Riverside

Calgacus is portrayed in the Agricola as the Caledonian chieftain (see Caledonia) who led the assembled British resistance against the Roman forces under the command of Iulius Agricola at the Battle of Mons Graupius. The name itself, perhaps meaning “Swordsman” or “Shaggy,” appears to be of Celtic origin; it is likely related to the modern Gaelic noun calgach, meaning “bristly” or “sharp-pointed” (Crawford 2009, 17; Woodman 2014, 235). Apart from the single mention of Calgacus at Ag. 29.4, the individual is an otherwise unknown entity. The name occurs nowhere else in Greco-Roman literature. For example, the much briefer account of Agricola’s conquest in the epitome of Dio’s Roman History does not mention any leader of the forces that the Roman army defeated (Cass. Dio 66.20.1). It has therefore been suggested that the character is a fictional creation. Nevertheless, one should not entirely discount the possibility that the name was included in the Agricola based on details shared with Tacitus by his father-in-law. Calgacus is best known for his extended military exhortation (Ag. 30–2), which the historian positions as the first of two paired speeches just prior to the climactic account of the Battle of Mons Graupius. The decidedly anti-Roman and anti-imperial rhetoric touches upon many of the standard topoi one finds in the pre-battle exhortations given by

c03_Vol1.indd 196

foreigners in Roman historiography. These include the themes of native liberty versus servitude in the wake of Roman conquest; the Romans as “global plunderers” (raptores orbis, 30.4) from whose grasp no geographic region, no matter how remote, is safe; the perils of Roman lust to native women and the deceits employed by the conquerors; the cost of tribute; and the threat of corporal punishment. The speech concludes with a series of examples of those who resisted the Romans (31.4–32.3), including the Brigantes, the Gauls (see Gaul), and the Germans (see Germania). Perhaps the most famous aphorism in Calgacus’ speech is the phrase, “They make a desert and call it peace” (the actual Latin reads, “They plunder, slaughter, rape, and call this empire under false pretexts, and where they make a desert they call it peace,” 30.5). The phrase has since gained a fairly notable afterlife. It appears in Lord Byron’s 1813 poem, The Bride of Abydos: “Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease— / He makes a solitude—and calls it—peace!” (II, 20, 424–5). Moreover, it continues to find a prominent place in book reviews and news articles concerning Tacitus, empire, and global realpolitik. Following his exhortation, Calgacus remains conspicuously absent throughout the remainder of the narrative, no doubt a deliberate move on the part of Tacitus. He appears neither in Agricola’s counterspeech (Ag. 33.2–34), nor as part of the battle narrative proper (35–37), in contrast to Agricola who is prevalent throughout this later sequence of events. see also: Britannia REFERENCES Crawford, Robert. 2009. Scotland’s Books: A History of Scottish Literature. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J., ed., with C. S. Kraus. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2000. “Tacitus in Tartan: Textual Colonization and Expansionist Discourse in the Agricola.” Helios 27: 75–95.

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C alig u la  

CALIGULA DONNA W. HURLEY

New York, New York

Caligula (Gaius Iulius Caesar, 12–41 ce, emperor 37–41 ce) came to power as a young man with nothing but his family connection to recommend him. He ruled for a short time and was assassinated by officers of the praetorian guard. Much of the anecdotal material relating to his reign describes wild and exotic activity that has raised questions about his sanity. Caligula was a childhood nickname for Gaius Iulius Caesar Germanicus. It meant “Little Boots,” a diminutive of caliga, the name for the footwear of a Roman legionary. He got the name when, dressed like a little soldier, he was paraded about the camp on the Rhine where his father was in command of the legions stationed in Gaul and Germany (A. 1.41.2; Suet. Cal. 9; Cass. Dio 57.5.6). The ancient texts refer to him uniformly as the Emperor Gaius; Tacitus writes “C. Caesar.” Gaius was born on 31 August 12 ce. He was the son of Germanicus, who was the son of Antonia the Younger and Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus, the brother of the emperor Tiberius) and who had been adopted by Tiberius. His mother was Agrippina the Elder, the granddaughter of Augustus. Gaius was one of nine children. In addition to him, two older brothers, Nero Iulius Caesar and Drusus Caesar, survived their father as did three sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Drusilla, and Iulia Livilla. Gaius also accompanied his parents to Syria, when Germanicus was given the oversight of Roman interests in the East (17 ce), the only one of his siblings to make the journey, although his youngest sister was born on the way. He was there when Germanicus died under suspicious circumstances in 20 ce. After his return to Rome he lived with his mother until she was exiled and then with his great-grandmother Livia Augusta until she died (29 ce) and finally with his grandmother Antonia the Younger. In 30 or 31 ce the emperor Tiberius summoned Gaius to the imperial court on Capri where he governed in retreat. By this time, both of Gaius’

c03_Vol1.indd 197

197

older brothers, caught in the tangle of court hostilities, were dead. Gaius’ youth appears to have saved him; he was the only son of Germanicus left. Tiberius introduced him to public life by the standard route for a young prince of the imperial family: he received the toga of manhood, was made an augur and then pontifex, and became quaestor in 33 ce. He was married to Claudia (Iunia Claudilla), daughter of the prominent Marcus Iunius Silanus. A long friendship with the Jewish prince, Marcus Iulius Agrippa I, began during this time on Capri. Anecdotes show Gaius already displaying the cruel and inconsistent behavior and self-indulgence that would characterize his rule (A. 6.46.4; Suet. Cal. 11; Cass. Dio 58.23.3–4). Tiberius’ young grandson, Tiberius Gemellus, was also a contender for the principate. Tiberius’ will divided his estate between the two. Gaius found support in Macro, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, allegedly using Macro’s wife Ennia as his mistress and ally. When Tiberius died (16 March 37 ce), Gaius was inevitably suspected of hastening the event—with or without the help of the prefect. Macro arranged for the support of the praetorians and for his arrival in Rome with Tiberius’ body for the state funeral twelve days later. Gaius was received warmly. Tiberius had been genuinely unpopular and the young “son of Germanicus” was welcomed (Smallwood, Docs. no. 3 p. 10; Suet. Cal. 13–14.1; Cass. Dio 59.1.1–2; Philo Leg. 12). Tiberius’ will was declared invalid, but Gaius made the popular gesture of paying its bequests nonetheless, as well as the bequests of Livia, which Tiberius had ignored (Cass. Dio 59.1.3, 2.1). He further courted popularity with honors for his immediate family, the only credential that he had to bring to his new role. He made an immediate journey to the Pontian Islands to retrieve the ashes of his mother and his brother Nero; he placed them in the mausoleum of Augustus. He awarded a long-awaited measure of respect to his uncle Claudius, and his grandmother Antonia was declared a goddess (Cass. Dio 59.3.4). His three sisters were to be named in all oaths of allegiance sworn to him. The month of September was renamed (briefly) after Germanicus. In the beginning he was deferential

28-04-2023 17:44:48

198

  C alig u la

to the Senate, rewarded the Praetorian Guard generously for its support, and added days to the Saturnalia. He dedicated the new temple of Augustus on his own birthday in August with an extravagant celebration. In the autumn of his first year as emperor (37 ce), Gaius became ill and was absent from the public stage for several months. His illness was considered serious; his death would have caused political instability. After his recovery in early 38, several who had formerly been close to him were made to take their own lives: Tiberius Gemellus, his former father-in-law, Iunius Silanus, and Macro and his wife. It is thought that these persons were suspected of making alternate plans in the event that he did not survive (Barrett 2015, 113; Winterling 2003, 62–63). Gaius’ first wife died in childbirth before he became emperor. In 38 ce he married Livia Orestilla (or Orestina, Cass. Dio 59.8.7). He divorced her and married Lollia Paulina later in the year and then divorced her too. Despite the fact that the principate was not an inheritable monarchy, Gaius appears to have been impatient to produce an heir. In the interim his sisters provided a degree of protection. He was accused of incestuous relationships with all three but particularly with his middle sister, Drusilla. When he became emperor, he separated her from her current husband and married her to an ally, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (5). If he died, as was feared in late 37, Drusilla was to inherit his wealth and Lepidus to act as regent (Suet. Cal. 24.1). As it happened, it was Drusilla who died on 10 June 38 ce (Docs. no. 31 p. 28). Gaius displayed intense personal grief, declared a period of deep mourning, and arranged her deification (Suet. Cal. 24.2; Cass. Dio 59.10.8, 11.6). Gaius’ fourth and last wife, Caesonia, whom he married in 39 ce, was already pregnant and a solution to the succession issue seemed closer. When a daughter, also named Drusilla, was born, Gaius placed the baby in the lap of a statue of Minerva to assert that she was a special child (Suet. Cal. 25.4; Cass. Dio 59.28.7). Gaius is credited with a number of admirable actions in the first years of his reign. He returned exiles, burned documents that accused his family, and made the courts independent. Most

c03_Vol1.indd 198

importantly, he forbade charges to be brought under the highly unpopular crimen maiestatis, the broadly interpreted crime of insulting the emperor. He allowed the circulation of books that had been banned because they criticized the house of Augustus. He opened the state’s financial records to review, did away with an unpopular tax on the sale of property, and reviewed the equestrian order and corrected its roll. He initiated a number of building projects (Suet. Cal. 15–16, 21; Cass. Dio 59.9.4–7). The Senate voted him a golden shield, and this was paraded with great ceremony (Suet. Cal. 16.4; Cass. Dio 59.16.10). In general Gaius chose to control the territories that bordered the empire by keeping friendly client kings in power rather than by governing the states as provinces. He installed a number of these client kings and returned Commagene from ­provincial to independent status. He made his longtime companion, Iulius Agrippa tetrach in Iudaea (Suet. Cal. 16.3; Cass. Dio 59. 8.2, 12.2). An exception was Ptolemy of Mauretania, whom  he summoned to Rome and executed; Mauretania was annexed at the beginning of Claudius’ reign (Suet. Cal. 26.1, 35.1, Cass. Dio 59.25.1). The province of Africa was the last to have a legion commanded by a Senate-appointed governor; Gaius gave it to an appointee of his own. Gaius encountered severe opposition from the Jews when he attempted to erect a statue of himself in their temple in Jerusalem (Joseph. AJ 18.261–88, 298–304). Unresolved conflict over Jewish rights and privileges took place in Alexandria (Barrett 2015, 157–162, 207–222; Winterling 2003, 84–85). Gaius was generous with the production of popular amusements: gladiatorial games, theatricals, and especially chariot races. His favorite racing club was the “Greens,” and his attachment to his favorite horse, Incitatus, led to the joke that he wanted to appoint it consul (Suet. Cal. 55.3; Cass. Dio 59.14.7). But this extravagance, as well as his fondness for lavish banquets and other entertainments, generated reports of the greed with which he tried to refill the treasury. He manipulated legal issues and found reason for wills to be judged invalid so that estates defaulted to him (Suet. Cal. 38–41). He sold at auction all manner of personal property, levied new taxes,

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C alig u la  

and was alleged to establish a brothel on the Palatine. Anecdotes also portray him as cruel, arrogant, and capricious. In 39 ce he abruptly reversed his earlier policy in which he had denounced Tiberius and abolished the crimen maiestatis. Now he praised Tiberius and restored the use of the law (Suet. Cal. 30.2; Cass. Dio 59.16.1–8). He lost the support of the upper classes; only the masses continued to respond positively to him. One excessive display was Gaius’ construction of a bridge over the Bay of Naples. He bound a large number of vessels together in a double line, constructed a road on top, and rode over and back, dressed first as a conquering general and then as a triumphant general, plausibly dramatizing military success. His chariot was drawn by his favorite racing team from the Greens. An undisciplined celebratory gathering took place in a structure erected midway on the bridge (Suet. Cal. 19; Cass. Dio 59.17). In September 39 ce Gaius left Rome with a large entourage and traveled north. His goal remains uncertain. The expedition may have been intended to culminate in an invasion of Britannia, although trouble along the Rhine border with Germania may have been a reason. It was also said that a diversion through Gaul afforded the possibility of raising money from the wealthy inhabitants of the province. The excursion was, in any case, an opportunity for the emperor who lacked all military experience to interact with the army. Troops were massed and supplies collected (Suet. Cal. 43; Cass. Dio 59.21.2), and two new legions were raised (A. 4.5.1; H. 1.55.2–3; Barrett 2015, 168). Trouble came when the party reached northern Italy. Perhaps an attempted coup took place. Aemilius Lepidus, once Gaius’ confederate, was condemned and executed. There were wide accusations of adultery, and Gaius’ sister Agrippina the Younger was made to carry the ashes of Lepidus back to Rome. She and his other surviving sister Iulia Livilla were exiled (Suet. Cal. 24.3; Cass. Dio 59.22.6–8). Gaius also replaced and executed Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, commander of the army of Upper Germany stationed at Mogontiacum (Mainz) (Docs. no. 9 p. 14; Suet. Cal. 24.3; Cass.

c03_Vol1.indd 199

199

Dio 59.22.5). The relationship between these capital punishments is unclear; a single notice names a “conspiracy of Lepidus and Gaetulicus” (Suet. Claud. 9.1). Anecdotes make light of excursions into German territory, which are described as sham skirmishes. But extravagant games for the entertainment of the legions at Lugdunum (Lyon) were the occasion for salutations of imperator (commander) (H. 4.15; Suet. Cal. 45; Cass. Dio 59.22.1–2). Another piece of theater (like the bridge over the Bay of Naples) took place when he and his party reached the channel coast early in 40 ce. He drew the army up in battle order and then ordered it to collect shells, plausibly a search for pearls without which no triumph over Britain was complete (Flory 1988). He sailed a trireme out a distance and then back and claimed that he had subdued all Britain. (In fact, he had done no more than take in a renegade British prince; Suet. Cal. 44.2, 46; Cass. Dio 59.25.1–3; Barrett 2015, 175– 176.) He left the coast early in the year, long before an invasion across the stormy channel would have been possible and was back in the neighborhood of Rome by the end of May 40 ce (Docs. no. 10 p. 14). The Senate had voted him an ovation, not a triumph. Gaius finally entered the city on his birthday in August. It cannot be determined whether his behavior really became even more deplorable from that point on, but sources assign more and more outrageous actions to this period. These include pretensions of divinity when he dressed like a god or goddess and acted their roles. His anger against the Senate was overt. Both Suetonius and Cassius Dio state specifically that it was his wild behavior that led to plots against his life. Josephus claims that there were three. One at least was successful, and Gaius was assassinated within months of his return to Rome. Cassius Chaerea and Cornelius Sabinus, tribunes of the Praetorian Guard, led the attack. Chaerea was said to be motivated by Gaius’ insult that he was effeminate, but it seems more probable that the two officers were only the visible members of a larger conspiracy that could have included senators and quite possibly one of the praetorian prefects, perhaps even his uncle,

28-04-2023 17:44:48

200

  C alig u la

Claudius (Suet. Cal. 56.1; Cass. Dio 59.29.1; Joseph. AJ 19.17–21; Barrett 2015, 254–255). During the celebration of games in honor of Augustus, Gaius left his place in the audience for lunch. Stopping to listen to a group of boys rehearsing their performance, he became separated from his companions and was met by Chaerea and Sabinus and the praetorians under their command in a passageway in the complex of buildings on the Palatine. He died of multiple stab wounds. The date was 24 January 41 ce (Suet. Cal. 58; Cass. Dio 59.29.5–7; Joseph. AJ 19.75–113). His German bodyguard reacted quickly and killed some of the assassins and several senators in the chaos that erupted. Gaius’ wife and daughter were killed as well. His body was partially burned and buried in a shallow grave. When his sisters later returned from exile, they gave his body a proper burial. The Senate met to try to impose its own order on this new situation; it was only the common people who would miss the extravagant emperor (Suet. Cal. 58.3–59; Cass. Dio 30.1b, 3; Joseph. AJ 114–200). The books of Tacitus’ Annals that covered the reign of Gaius (Books 7, 8, and 9) have been lost, and so the recovery of his life and reign is left to the works of the biographer Suetonius and to the later Greek historian Cassius Dio. Josephus describes in detail in his Jewish Antiquities Gaius’ assassination and the events that preceded and followed it. Philo writes about an encounter between Gaius and a Jewish delegation from Alexandria. Seneca and Pliny make small contributions. Gaius’ successor, Claudius, became emperor with the same credentials that he himself had offered—that of family alone. This meant that those who wrote soon about his brief reign (a few months shy of four years) could not find fault with the principate as an institution or the manner in which an emperor came to power. They explained Gaius’ reign as the interlude of an aberrant individual, and the manner of his death made this the only explanation possible. It was convenient to think of him as a madman. Suetonius writes of “mental illness” (Cal. 50.2), Tacitus of a “disordered mind” (A. 13.3.2, H. 4.48.1) and “inconsistent nature” (Ag. 13.2), Seneca of “frenzied changeableness” (Dial. 11.17.5) and “insanity” (Dial. 3.20.9, 9.14.5).

c03_Vol1.indd 200

It is possible that Gaius did suffer from an incapacitating illness, physical or mental. Historians have tried to read the evidence with the help of modern diagnostic criteria and have identified various diseases, character disorders or severe personality dysfunction: psychological damage in childhood, epilepsy, schizophrenia, psychopathy, mania, narcissism (Benediktson 1989; Esser 1958; Lucas 1967; Massaro and Montgomery 1978). Sidwell (2010) gives a comprehensive survey of the speculation. But the evidence that the investigators read is unfortunately secondhand, biased, and unreliable for serious diagnosis. Others have explained Gaius’ seemingly outrageous actions more generously: He was a young man ahead of his time who saw clearly that the principate was, in fact, an absolute monarchy. It would openly reveal this identity as time went by and show that it was not a cooperative enterprise of the Senate and princeps, (“first man”) as Augustus had pretended. Gaius exposed the Augustan charade by openly acting the monarch and drew blame for his behavior (Willrich 1903, 459–467; Winterling 2003, 175–180). Much of Gaius’ history is told in anecdotes, some perhaps factual, some probably exaggerations, others almost certainly invented. But this material is not worthless, for these are the stories that contemporaries and near contemporaries told of him. The portrait of Gaius is too consistent to be totally without basis. At a minimum the sources describe an arrogant and unpredictable young man, corrupted by power and out of his depth (Balsdon 1934, 205–219; Barrett 2015, 284–287). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; luxury; maiestas; praetorian cohorts; sources Reference work: Smallwood, Elizabeth Mary. 1967. Documents Illustrating the Principates of Gaius, Claudius and Nero. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. no. 3 p. 10; no. 9 p. 14; no.10 p. 14; no. 31 p. 28. REFERENCES Balsdon, John Percy Vyvian Dacre. 1934. The Emperor Gaius (Caligula). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C alp u rni u s Fabat u s  

Barrett, Anthony A. 2015. Caligula: The Abuse of Power. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Benediktson, D. Thomas. 1989. “Caligula’s Madness: Madness or Interictal Temporal Lobe Epilepsy?” Classical World 82: 170–175. Esser, A. 1958. Cäsar und die iulisch-claudischen Kaiser im bibliogisch-ärzlichen Blickfeld. Leiden: Brill. Flory, Marleen Boudreau. 1988. “Pearls for Venus.” Historia 37: 498–504. Lucas, Joseph. 1967. “Un empereur psychopathe: contribution à la psychologie du Caligula de Suètone.” Acta Classica 36: 159–189. Massaro, Vin, and Iain Montgomery. 1978. “Gaius– Mad, Bad, Ill or all Three.” Latomus 37: 894–909. Sidwell, Barbara. 2010. “Gaius Caligula’s Mental Illness.” Classical World 103: 183–206. Willrich, Hugo. 1903. “Caligula.” Klio 3: 85–118, 288–317, 397–470. Winterling, Aloys. 2003. Caligula: eine Biographie. Munich: Beck. FURTHER READING Auguet, Roland. 1984. Caligula ou le pouvoir à vingt ans. Paris: Payot. Gibson, Alisdair G. G., ed. 2012. The Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the “Augustan Model?” Leiden: Brill. Ramage, E. S. 1983. “Denigration of Predecessor under Claudius, Galba, and Vespasian.” Historia 32: 201–214. Wiseman, Timothy Peter, ed and trans. 1991. Flavius Josephus: Death of an Emperor. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.

CALLISTUS, see FREEDMEN OF CLAUDIUS

CALPURNIA (1)

201

slave of the Calpurnia family, perhaps even of the last wife of Iulius Caesar. Her relationship with the emperor Claudius presents negative connotations in Tacitus since he reports her to be a lover of the emperor. Apparently, Calpurnia and her friend Cleopatra had been bribed by the imperial freedman and Claudius’ favorite, Narcissus, an enemy of the empress Messalina, to make them speak to the emperor on his behalf. Along with the bribe, Narcissus promised them that their influence on Claudius would grow with the fall of Messalina. Calpurnia told the emperor about the wedding celebrated between Messalina and her lover Gaius Silius in 48 ce, which caused Claudius to panic and fear a conspiracy against him. Narcissus called for advice, confirmed the story, and added as proof the fact that many objects had been moved from the imperial palace to the house of Silius. Faced with fear that the people who had witnessed the wedding would support the husband of the empress (it needs to be remembered that Messalina was the great-granddaughter of Octavia (1), sister of Augustus), Claudius ordered the execution of both. see also: freedmen of Claudius; women Reference work: PIR2 C 324 FURTHER READING Posadas, Juan Luis. 2012. Mujeres en la literatura latina: de César a Floro. Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas.

CALPURNIA (2), see THRASEA PAETUS CALPURNIUS, see GERMAN REVOLT CALPURNIUS ASPRENAS, see NERO

JUAN LUIS POSADAS

Centro Universitario U-TAD, Madrid, Spain

CALPURNIUS FABATUS

TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Florida

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Calpurnia appears in A. 11.29–30 as one of the freedwomen of the emperor Claudius. Based on her name, she was possibly the descendant of a

Along with senators Volcacius Tullinus and the equestrian Cornelius Marcellus, Calpurnius Fabatus was accused in the same episode as Gaius

c03_Vol1.indd 201

28-04-2023 17:44:48

202

  C alp u rni u s G alerian u s

Cassius Longinus (2), Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2), and Iunia Lepida in 65 ce (A. 16.8.3). The three men, however, escaped condemnation. Lucius Calpurnius Fabatus was an equestrian from Comum, who had a distinguished career. He was the grandfather of Calpurnia Hispulla, the second (or third) wife of Pliny the Younger, who addressed nine letters to him (4.1; 5.11; 6.12, 30; 7.11, 16, 23, 32; 8.10). He was born no later than 30 ce, and died in c. 111–112, when Pliny was administering the province of Bithynia (cf. Plin. Ep. 10.120.2). Tacitus may have known him. Whitton (2012, 351–352) suggests that he may have been implicated in the Pisonian Conspiracy. Reference works: PIR2 C 263; BNP 2.999 ‘Calpurnius’ [II 7]; RE 3.1371 = ‘Calpurnius’ 34 (Stein); CIL 5.5267 = ILS 2721 REFERENCE Whitton, Christopher. 2012. “Tacitus and the Younger Pliny.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Emma Pagán, 345–368. Malden, MA, Oxford and Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

accused of aspiring to the throne during the tumultuous Year of the Four Emperors. Tacitus makes a point of stating that Galerianus had not attempted to overthrow Nero but was targeted largely because he was from a high-profile family (H. 4.11). Tacitus regards the rumors as a symptom of political instability at Rome and contrasts Galerianus’ inertia with the active role his father had taken in trying to overthrow Nero (see O’Gorman 2006, 285–287). At the end of 69, Galerianus was put under military arrest at Rome by Licinius Mucianus, an ally of Vespasian. When Mucianus was concerned that an execution would cause chaos in the city, he ordered Galerianus to be taken to the fortieth milestone on the Appian Way before being killed (H. 4.11). Little else is known about Galerianus, although he appears to have been married to Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (3). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Pisonian Conspiracy Reference work: PIR2 C 301 REFERENCE

FURTHER READING Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. - 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. N. 713. Sherwin-White, Adrian Nicholas. 1965 (repr. 1985). The Letters of Pliny. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

CALPURNIUS GALERIANUS LAUREN CALDWELL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Calpurnius Galerianus (d. 69 ce) was the son of Gaius Calpurnius Piso, leader of the ill-fated conspiracy against Nero in 65 ce. Galerianus was

c03_Vol1.indd 202

O’Gorman, E. 2006. “Alternate Empires: Tacitus’ Virtual History of the Pisonian Principate.” Arethusa 39: 281–301. FURTHER READING Pagán, V. 2004. Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

CALPURNIUS PISO FRUGI LAUREN CALDWELL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso Frugi was the son of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (quaestor in 65 bce), who was thought to have been involved in the conspiracy of Catiline in 63 bce. A staunch traditionalist in the Senate, Calpurnius Piso Frugi was

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C alp u rni u s P iso F ru gi L icinian u s  

also the father of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, who was accused of fatally poisoning Germanicus in 20 ce. Piso was an opponent of Iulius Caesar and joined the republican cause in Africa and Macedonia, fighting on the side of Pompey in 49 bce. According to Tacitus, in 44 he joined Marcus Iunius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus (1) but was subsequently pardoned and allowed to return to Rome (A. 2.43). Augustus persuaded Piso to join him as consul in 23 bce when Aulus Terentius Varro Murena, the consul-elect, died before taking office. In accepting the position, Piso may have wished to raise the profile of his two sons for future career opportunities (Syme 1986, 367–368). Soon after, when Augustus became ill and feared he might not recover, he gave his list of the armed forces and the public revenues to Piso (Cass. Dio 53.30.2) and his signet ring to Agrippa, bypassing his nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Tacitus describes Piso’s son as having inherited a violent personality (insita ferocia, A. 2.43) from his father. Reference work: PIR2 C 286 REFERENCE Syme, R. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Ando, C. 2000. Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press.

CALPURNIUS PISO FRUGI LICINIANUS KONSTANTINOS ARAMPAPASLIS

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus (38 ce– 15 January 69 ce), the son of Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (1) and Scribonia (2), was

c03_Vol1.indd 203

203

adopted by Galba on 10 January 69 ce (CIL 6 2051) as his successor, only to be murdered few days later, on the same day as his adoptive father (H. 1.43; Cass. Dio 64.6). He was a man of the highest nobility (H. 1.14.2; Suet. Galb. 17; Cass. Dio 64.5.1; Oros. 7.8.1) as both his parents descended from aristocratic families: his mother, the daughter of Lucius Scribonius Libo Drusus (consul 16 ce, A. 2.1.1), was the great-greatgranddaughter of Pompey the Great while his father was a descendant of the triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus (H. 1.15.1). Of his four siblings, only Crassus Scribonianus (H. 1.47.2; 4.39.3) and a sister, Licinia Magna (CIL 6 1445), survived him. His parents and a brother, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, who married Antonia, were put to death by Claudius (H. 1.48.1; Plut. Vit. Galb. 23) in 46 ce (Syme 1960, 19 n. 85). Another brother, Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (2), was accused of treason by the informer (delator) Aquilius Regulus and killed by Nero (H. 1.48.1) between 66 and 68 ce (Damon 2003, 135). Regulus’ role in the death of Piso’s brother might explain the deep enmity between the two men which is attested in Plin. Ep. 2.20. Little is known about Piso’s life before his adoption by Galba. During the reign of Nero, on whose orders he was later exiled, he and his brother Scribonianus appointed the future emperor Vespasian as an arbitrator for a land dispute (CIL 6 1268). His absence from Rome might explain why the only attested office he held was that of the quindecimvir sacris faciundis (CIL 6 31723). In 68 ce Galba, who held Piso in high esteem and had named him as heir to both his legacy and property (Suet. Galb. 17), recalled him back to Rome (H. 1.38.1). Our sources are unanimous about Piso’s character who was considered a fine young man with great prospects, intelligent and disciplined (Cass. Dio 64.5.1; Plut. Vit. Galb. 23; H. 1.14.2; Oros. 7.8.1). Upon learning of the uprising of the legions on the Rhine, Galba adopted him and introduced him to the Senate and the praetorians (H. 1.14–15; Suet. Galb. 17; Plut. Vit. Galb. 23). Whether the adoption was based solely on Galba’s favor or also on Cornelius Laco’s, recommendation (H. 1.14.1– 2) is not clear. It seems quite certain, though, that the adoption was expedited because of the revolution as well as Vitellius’ proclamation as emperor

28-04-2023 17:44:48

204

  C alp u rni u s P iso, G ai u s

(Plut. Vit. Galb. 23). The Senate deliberated on sending Piso as Caesar to Germania to end the insurrection of the legions, but Laco thwarted the plan (H. 1.19). During the four days he was Caesar, Piso did not make any public appearances (H. 1.19.1), and on 15 January, the praetorians proclaimed Otho emperor (H. 1.27.2). Galba was murdered, and Piso managed to flee briefly, owning to the bravery of the centurion Sempronius Densus (H. 1.43.1). He found sanctuary in the Temple of Vesta, but he was seized and killed by two soldiers Otho had sent against him, Statius Murcus and Sulpicius Florus (H. 1.43.2). Although possible, it is difficult to assert Regulus’ interference in Piso’s death, despite the allegations of Curtius Montanus attested in H. 4.42.2–3. His body was decapitated, and the assassins held the head for profit (H. 1.47.2). Only after Otho was led to the Palatine he allowed for Piso’s remains and mutilated head to be given to his wife, Verania (Plin. Ep. 2.20), and older brother, Scribonianus, for proper burial (H. 1.47.2; Plut. Vit. Galb. 28). In 70 ce Curtius Montanus filed a motion in the Senate to honor the memory of Piso, and although the senators affirmed it with their vote, it was never put into force (H. 4.40.1). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; quindecimviri sacris faciundis; Scribonius Libo Drusus; speculatores Reference works: PIR2 C 300; RE Calpurnius 100 REFERENCES Damon, Cynthia. 2003. Tacitus Histories. Book I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1960. “Piso Frugi and Crassus Frugi.” Journal of Roman Studies 50.1–2: 12–20. FURTHER READING O’Gorman, Ellen. 2006. “Alternate Empires: Tacitus’ Virtual History of the Pisonian Principate.” Arethusa 39.2: 281–301. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions. Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. Wiseman, Peter T. 2007. “Names Remembered, Names Suppressed.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 20: 421–428.

c03_Vol1.indd 204

CALPURNIUS PISO, GAIUS JAMES McNAMARA

Universität Potsdam

Gaius Calpurnius Piso (d. 65 ce) was the figurehead of the Pisonian Conspiracy against Nero. Major sources of information on Piso are Tacitus’ Annals (14.65.2, 15.48.1–59.5), the inscriptions of the Arval Brotherhood (collected at PIR2 C 284) and probably the 261-line hexameter encomium Laus Pisonis, which presents character traits closely correlating with those sketched by Tacitus (especially at A. 15.48.2–3), though some scholars doubt that the encomium is specific enough to be linked to Piso the conspirator (Geue 2019, 143–163). He was born perhaps in 8 ce (Syme 1980, 335) and died in 65 (A. 15.19.5). Piso was accepted into the high-status Arval Brotherhood in 38 (CIL 6.2028), subsequently appearing numerous times in the Arval inscriptions. He was suffect consul (Laus Pisonis 65–71) either in Caligula’s reign (Champlin 1989, 118) or under Claudius (schol. ad Juv. 5.109). Tacitus first names him at A. 14.65.2 (62 ce), implicated in an attempted charge of conspiracy directed against Seneca by the imperial freedman Romanus. Tacitus dates the origin of the conspiracy of 65 in this incident and the fear that it inspired in Piso, which may imply that Piso was indecisive, especially in light of the remark that the conspiracy’s real motivator could not be discerned (A. 15.49.1). Piso is next named at the outset of the conspiracy (A. 15.48), in which he takes a notably passive role, intervening only to delay the planned assassination, fearing the consequences of murdering Nero as a guest in his villa (A. 15.52.1). After the discovery of the plot, Tacitus describes attempts by Piso’s associates to recommend a daring bid for glory, which leave Piso unmoved (A. 15.59.1–4). After a short time in the company of others, Piso withdrew privately and prepared himself for death. On the arrival of a deputation of junior soldiers, Piso severed the veins in his arms and died. In his will he tried to ingratiate himself with the emperor for the sake of his wife Satria Galla (A. 15.59.4–5).

28-04-2023 17:44:48

205

C alp u rni u s P iso, G ai u s  

His ancestry cannot be securely ascertained, though in a period when direct descent from the republican nobility was rare, he stood out for nobility represented in both gentilicium and cognomen (Mart. 4.40). Certainly high birth was central to his reputation, but the sources offer little detail about his family tree. Such information was presumably well known to his contemporaries and is handled allusively by the Laus Pisonis (triumphs and consulships, ll. 8–9; titles and wars ll. 19–24; corona civica l. 30; triumphs ll. 37–38). Descent from Calpurnius Piso (consul 180 bce) and Calpurnius Piso (consul 15 bce) has been suggested, but proof is impossible, (Syme 1986, 378–379). Tacitus notes nobility inherited from his father (A. 15.48.2), the scholiast on Juvenal the great wealth he inherited from his mother (schol. ad Juv. 5.109). His first marriage was to Livia Orestilla (Suet. Cal. 25; Cass. Dio 59.3.3; 59.8.7; schol. ad Juv. 5.109); Caligula abducted the bride on the wedding day and two years later (Suet. Cal. 25; two months, Cass. Dio 59.8.7–8) banished her, suspecting she had returned to Piso; Dio and the scholiast on Juvenal (schol. ad Juv. 5.109) relate that Piso was also banished, but there is confusion over the date (37 ce in Cass. Dio); Piso’s exile must postdate his involvement in the Arval cult on 2/4 June 40 ce (CIL 6.33347, 26). His second wife, Satria Galla, was taken from her marriage to Piso’s friend Domitius Silus; the story recalls the circumstances of Augustus’ marriage to Livia Augusta; Tacitus emphasizes Piso’s devotion to his wife (A. 15.53.4) but calls her beautiful without high birth or character (A. 15.59.5). Piso’s young son Calpurnius Galerianus (PIR2 C 301), identified at H. 4.49.1 as son-in-law and consobrinus (precisely what manner of cousin is uncertain) of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (3), was the subject of rumors that he might make a claim on the throne and was killed by Licinius Mucianus in 70 (H. 4.11.2). Piso’s desire to be accompanied by a large household of slaves in exile is recorded at Cass. Dio 59.8.8. His freedmen appear at Acta Arv. VI.9831; 14203. His close friends included Antonius Natalis, with whom he shared every confidence (A. 15.50.2; 15.55.4), Flavius Scaevinus (15.55.4), and Domitius Silus (A. 15.59.5). Nero often dined and bathed at Piso’s

c03_Vol1.indd 205

villa in Baiae without bodyguards, a place that was considered as a location for the assassination (A. 15.52.1; see Campania). The encomium calls on Piso to surpass in forensic oratory the glory that his ancestors had won in war, employing military metaphors and similes to compare Piso’s civil accomplishments with the military glory of his ancestors. Piso’s forensic oratory won him many adherents; the encomiast cites his efforts before the decemviri, the centumviral court (centumvirales), and in capital cases (ll. 41–43, cf. A.15.48.3); he was active as a declaimer (ll. 87–88) and, if lines 89–92 be taken literally, he declaimed at Naples in Greek. Piso was a patron of the arts (ll. 132–139, 221– 261, perhaps with a lasting reputation: Juv. 5.109). He composed poetry (ll. 164–165) and played the lyre (ll. 166–168). More unusually, the encomium celebrates his skill in the board game ludus latrunculorum (ll. 190–208). Tacitus and the encomiast record Piso’s handsome appearance and affable manner with people of every station (A. 15.48.3; Laus Pisonis 112–119). While the encomium employs the language of traditional aristocratic gravitas, modified by references to Piso’s charm (Laus Pisonis 100–105, 128–132), Tacitus criticizes Piso for his devotion to ease and pleasure and presents him as a facile character, too inclined to ease and luxury. Lacking austerity or force of character, Piso stands as a cipher, an empty vessel whose role as pretender is constituted by the desires of those around him (A. 15.48.3). The date of the encomium is uncertain; suggestions include 38/39–40 ce (under Caligula, postdating a consulship but predating exile), under Claudius (with reference to the scholiast) and, in a more politically charged reading, 65 ce (summary in Mader (2013, 622–623). see also: Baebius Massa Reference works: RE Calpurnius 65; PIR2 C 284; PIR2 C 301; OCD3 Calpurnius Piso, Gaius (2) REFERENCES Champlin, Edward. 1989. “The Life and Times of Calpurnius Piso.” Museum Helveticum 46: 101–124. DOI: 10.5169/seals-36079.

28-04-2023 17:44:48

206

  C alp u rni u s P iso, G nae u s

Geue, Tom. 2019. Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Mader, Gottfried. 2013. “Re-presenting Piso: Poetic and Political Agenda in the Laus Pisonis.” Classical World 106: 621–643. DOI: 10.1353/clw.2013.0078. Syme, Ronald. 1980. “The Sons of Piso the Pontifex.” American Journal of Philology 101.3: 333–341. DOI: 10.2307/294275. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus. Annals. Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’ Gorman, Ellen. 2006. “Alternate Empires: Tacitus’s Virtual History of the Pisonian Principate.” Arethusa 39.2: 281–301.

CALPURNIUS PISO, GNAEUS TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (late 40s bce–20 ce; PIR2 C 287) was consul in 7 bce, proconsul of Africa 5 bce–2 ce, consular legate in Spain 9–10 ce, and governor of Syria in 19 ce. He committed suicide before a verdict was rendered in his trial for, inter alia, the murder of Germanicus. Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso was born in the late 40s bce, a date inferred from his suicide note written in 20 ce which referred to his forty-five years of service to principes. His father, despite fighting for the liberators against the Caesarians in the civil wars of the Late Republic, was ultimately welcomed back into the political sphere by Augustus in 23 bce when he offered him a suffect consulship for that year. 23 bce also marks the possible beginning of the career of his son, Gnaeus Piso, subject of this entry. His early career is obscure, but presumably it involved attendance at meetings of the Senate (a practice favored by Augustus, Suet. Aug. 38) before he assumed the toga virilis and some early magistracies. Gnaeus Piso was possibly sent as a legate to a province in Gaul while Tiberius was governor of the region in the mid-teens bce, suggesting quite

c03_Vol1.indd 206

accelerated political advancement since, at approximately twenty-five years old, Piso was still very early in his career. Such rapid promotion is possible given that Tiberius, in his opening statement before Piso’s trial in 20 ce, identified Piso as a friend and legate of Augustus, suggesting good relations between Piso and the first princeps. Piso’s career between the teens bce and his consulship in 7 bce is not well documented. In 7 bce, Piso served as consul with Tiberius as his colleague (Cass. Dio 55.8.1–3). Piso’s actions in this year were minor, limited to assisting the young Gaius Caesar in presiding over a festival held in celebration of Augustus’ return from the provinces after Tiberius took the field following reports of trouble in Germany. Minor as his role was, he evidently retained imperial favor, since a few years later he was made proconsul of Africa, one of the chief senatorial governorships. In this post, Piso is said to have behaved with violence and cruelty. Piso’s final appointment under Augustus was as a legate in Spain in 9–10 ce. This appointment was possibly through the influence of Tiberius, since Augustus himself took an everdecreasing role in public life as his health declined in his last years. The favor that Piso enjoyed with Tiberius would form part of the basis for a later appointment as governor of Syria, one of the most prized governorships in the empire. Cruelty and arrogance are traits assigned to Piso by the sources, and similar traits are also applied to Tiberius. Modern scholars have observed that these common character traits between the two men may explain their close relationship. These include what Shotter calls “anachronistic” republican characteristics that were at odds with the new imperial order, in particular the role of the Senate (Shotter 1974). Piso’s good relations with Tiberius were to manifest themselves in great latitude being granted to him, particularly in speech, in senatorial debates in the early part of Tiberius’ reign. As a close associate of the princeps, Piso functioned as a voice of reason and maintained the peace in the Senate (A. 1.74). In 17 ce, Tiberius addressed the Senate and requested that Germanicus be granted greater proconsular power over the eastern provinces to settle affairs in the region. According to Tacitus, Tiberius also removed the then governor of Syria,

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C alp u rni u s P iso, G nae u s  

who was related to Germanicus by marriage, and asked that Piso be selected as his replacement. The legal details of these two appointments and how they related to one another are a major issue around Germanicus’ eastern mission and worthy of further study. Tacitus records Piso’s own belief about his legal relationship to Germanicus: he had been appointed as a check on Germanicus’ actions in the region (Seager 2005). Tiberius, for his part, would later say that Piso had been appointed as a helper (adiutor) to Germanicus in the East. The princeps’ motives for choosing Piso seem clear enough: the two had political history together, including a shared consulship. In addition, Piso’s frankness of speech and daring character meant that he was not likely to be intimidated by Germanicus’ authority. If Tiberius’ intention were to have a check on Germanicus’ authority, Piso was the ideal candidate. We note here that Piso’s wife, Munatia Plancina, accompanied him on his assignment and is alleged to have been involved in the malfeasance that took place. In 18 ce, Piso and Germanicus left for the East. Tacitus portrays Germanicus as affable, charming those whom he met, while Piso is depicted as irritating and offending. An illustrative incident took place at Athens as the pair journeyed to the Eastern provinces. Germanicus entered the city with a single attendant and gave a laudatory speech to the populace, while Piso entered in force and became aggressive with the Athenians. In particular, he was personally affronted that the Athenians had not prosecuted a certain Theophilus (otherwise unattested) for forgery (A. 2.55). The presentation of Germanicus and Piso as antitheses to each other foreshadows the rest of the narrative. It also shows the fundamentally different personalities and governing styles of Piso and Germanicus. The pair went their separate ways upon leaving Athens, and on this journey Piso and his fleet were caught in a storm but were rescued by ships under Germanicus’ command, despite the enmity between the two men. Unmoved, Piso left for Syria, arriving before Germanicus (for the rescue see A. 2.55). When Piso arrived in Syria, he began to ingratiate himself with the soldiers in the region: he offered bribes, he removed long-standing officers from their posts, replacing them with his own men, and he allowed army discipline to decline to

c03_Vol1.indd 207

207

the point that soldiers took license in local cities. This made him so popular with the rank and file that he was called father of the legions (parens legionum, A. 2.55). The fraternization was not limited to Piso himself, since Plancina also became known to the troops, observing drills and ingratiating herself with the soldiers. While this was going on, Germanicus entered the region and crowned Artaxias II as the new king of Armenia, one of his chief tasks on his mission. Germanicus ordered Piso to bring part of the Roman forces stationed in Syria into Armenia, presumably to function as an honor guard for the new king. However, Piso refused to do so, possibly on the grounds that his command was geographically bound to Syria. This created even greater tension between Germanicus and Piso, which their associates tried to calm, but a meeting between them ended with the two men parting in open hostility. (For the details here, see A. 2.57.) In 19 ce, Germanicus visited Egypt (A. 2.59). When he returned to Syria, he discovered that Piso had rescinded all of his orders concerning the soldiers and the administration of the area, increasing the hostility still further. Piso then decided to leave the province of Syria but was delayed by a sudden illness that befell Germanicus. The populace offered sacrifices for his recovery, but Piso intervened and ordered his lictors to disperse the crowds and clear away all sacrificial paraphernalia. Germanicus partially recovered, and Piso then left for Seleucia Pieria but sailed slowly, waiting for news that the illness had returned. As for Germanicus, he believed that Piso and Plancina had poisoned him, and some observers noted the presence of items related to magic in his room. As his death approached, Germanicus composed a letter renouncing his friendship with Piso (A. 2.70), and Tacitus says that the letter also ordered Piso to leave the province of Syria, which raises other legal difficulties about authority and how it overlapped. When Piso was informed that Germanicus had died, he showed his lack of tact by not mourning him, visiting temples and sacrificing in celebration of his rival’s demise. Tacitus adds a comment here that Plancina also celebrated Germanicus’ death along with her husband. Some of Piso’s officers suggested that he return to the province, which now lacked a Roman official

28-04-2023 17:44:48

208

  C alp u rni u s P iso, G nae u s

in command. His son, Marcus Calpurnius Piso, advised returning to Rome, noting that simple disagreement with Germanicus was grounds for hostility but would not bring actual punishment. Some of Piso’s other advisors said that he should regard Syria as his rightful command, since he had been appointed by the Senate with Tiberius’ consent. Piso listened to this latter group and wrote a letter to Tiberius, berating Germanicus and justifying his own actions, including retaining command of the legions in the area. Piso ordered one of his followers to take command of a warship, avoid the coast and travel back to Syria. After assembling an army of deserters, Piso traveled with his fleet back to Syria. During this journey they encountered the convoy transporting Agrippina the Elder back to the west, and only what Tacitus calls “mutual alarm” kept them from engaging in actual civil war (A. 2.79). One of the officials on the convoy ordered Piso to return to Rome so that he could plead his case before Tiberius. Piso rejected the order and continued on to Syria to reclaim what he believed to be his rightful province. In the meantime, one of Germanicus’ confidants, Gnaeus Sentius Saturninuis, had been appointed to replace his patron in the East, a somewhat legally dubious decision since we are told that Piso was already governor of Syria and the extraordinary command had been voted to Germanicus alone and surely did not extend to his staff (A. 2.74). Germanicus had no authority to order Piso to leave the province since he could not to overrule the Senate and Tiberius, the sources of Piso’s appointment. Piso was probably legally correct to regard Syria as his province, but trouble lay ahead in the fact that Sentius was prepared to challenge this claim. Piso had captured a nearby stronghold and created a motley force out of deserters, slaves, and other dependents and prepared to march them against Sentius (A. 2.80). This engagement of a band of militia against disciplined Roman soldiers went as one might expect. The militiamen fled and barricaded themselves inside the fortress. Sentius then ordered his troops to lay siege to the fortified position. At this, Piso relented and was granted safe passage to Rome to plead his case before Tiberius (A. 2.81).

c03_Vol1.indd 208

At Rome, the city was in mourning for Germanicus, and Tacitus’ description includes rumors and other examples of the outrage that the people of Rome felt at the loss of the popular prince. Tacitus includes the extraordinary suggestion that the fate of Germanicus was the result of conversations between Plancina and Livia Augusta (A. 2.82). Once the mourning period was concluded, a trial took place before the Senate, with Tiberius himself presiding. The princeps opened the trial by noting Piso’s service to the state as well as his friendship with Augustus. Piso was, Tiberius said, assigned as an assistant to Germanicus in the administration of affairs in the East. The main issue to be decided was whether Piso had provoked Germanicus through disagreement and hostility, or whether he had physically participated in his murder; and whether Piso had incited civil war through his treatment of the legions. Far from being a forgone conclusion, Tiberius insisted that the verdict be reached without bias and after a thorough investigation (A. 3.12). The charges brought against Piso were that he hated Germanicus, and that, through desire for insurrection, he corrupted the soldiers and led an armed attack on the state. Finally, it was contended that Piso murdered Germanicus through the use of spells and poison. Piso was convicted on all counts except the murder of Germanicus. However, the hostility of the judges, combined with Tiberius’ stone-faced demeanor, convinced Piso that his fate was likely sealed. Piso’s disposition was not aided by the fact that the mob outside the Senate house was baying for his blood. For his own protection, Piso was placed in a litter and carried to his house by members of the Praetorian Guard. This sparked rumors as to the purpose of the soldiers accompanying Piso: Were they security guards or executioners? Piso was found dead the next morning, apparently by suicide. According to Tacitus (A. 3.16), Piso carried around a notebook that he never published, reportedly containing the secret instructions given to him by Tiberius for his time as governor of Syria. Tacitus further alleges that Piso meant to produce it in the Senate but died the night before he intended to do so. It is extremely unlikely that

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C alp u rni u s P iso, G nae u s  

a politician as astute as Tiberius would have written down any nefarious instructions that he may have had for Piso. Piso’s suicide concluded the trial. The Senate then discussed the issue of punishments to be decreed against him. It was first proposed that his name be removed from all public inscriptions, including the list of consuls. In addition, half of his property was to be confiscated, with the remaining half to be given to his son, provided he changed his first name (Gnaeus became Lucius Calpurnius Piso (2), consul in 27 ce; A. 4.62.1). Many of these punishments were disallowed by Tiberius using his tribunician veto, particularly those that decreed against Piso’s younger son, Marcus, on the grounds that he could not have disobeyed his father’s orders. Plancina, who had been implicated in her husband’s alleged crimes and had stood trial with him, suffered no punishment due to the intercession of Livia, who secured a pardon for Plancina by persuading Tiberius to use his veto power and overturn any punishments decreed against her (A. 3.18). In the 1980s, an inscription was uncovered in Spain. Several fragments of a long text that represented the official record, produced by the Senate and Tiberius, of Piso’s trial. This provides readers of Tacitus with the very rare opportunity to verify his account against an independent contemporary source. Naturally, a decree of the Senate, overseen by the princeps, would always be well disposed toward the regime, and this propaganda purpose of the text should be kept in mind when assessing its usefulness. The most well-preserved version bore the title across the top: Senatus Consultum de Gnaeo Pisone Patre (The Decision of the Senate Concerning Gnaeus Piso the Elder). The text is dated to the 10 December 20 ce, which matches Tacitus’ date for the trial, but the decree is far more useful than that. Tacitus’ account of events in the East reflects the text of the decree, right down to fine details. Piso was convicted of all charges except the murder of Germanicus. Despite this, the Senate still recorded Germanicus’ death-bed accusation against Piso, which shows how deeply the prejudice against him ran. The text accuses Piso, through his corruption of the soldiers, of inciting civil war, which the Divine

c03_Vol1.indd 209

209

Augustus had extinguished. This inclusion of Augustus, addressed in this way, indicates the ideological and political tone of the document. Even Tiberius’ vetoing of the punishments decreed against Piso’s son, Marcus, is recorded. In addition, the decree also mentions Tiberius’ intervention on Plancina’s behalf, including the detail that Livia had influenced Tiberius’ decision. These examples are but a small fraction of the insights this senatorial decree offers into the career of Piso in the East as it supplements and corrects Tacitus’ account in concert with other evidence. see also: Arsacid dynasty; senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone; sources; Van Wyk Louw, N. P. REFERENCE Shotter, D. C. A. 1974. “Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, Legate of Syria.” Historia 23: 229–245. FURTHER READING Damon, C. 1999. “The Trial of Cn. Piso in Tacitus’ Annals and the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre: New Light on Narrative Technique.” American Journal of Philology 120: 143–162. Drogula, F. K. 2015. “Who Was Watching Whom? A Reassessment of the Conflict between Germanicus and Piso.” American Journal of Philology 136: 121–153. Flower, H. I. 1998. “Rethinking ‘damnatio memoriae’: The Case of Cn. Calpurnius Piso Pater in ad 20.” Classical Antiquity 17: 155–187. Flower, H. I. 1999. “Piso in Chicago: A Commentary on the APA/AIA Joint Seminar on the ‘Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre’.” American Journal of Philology 120: 99–115. Levick, B. 1976. Tiberius the Politician. London: Thames and Hudson. Marsh, F. B. 1931. The Reign of Tiberius. London: Oxford University Press. O’Gorman, Ellen. 2006. “Alternate Empires: Tacitus’s Virtual History of the Pisonian Principate.” Arethusa 39.2: 281–301. Potter, D. S., and C. Damon 1999. “The senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre.” American Journal of Philology 120: 13–42. Rapke, T. T. 1982. “Tiberius, Piso and Germanicus.” Acta Classica 25: 61–69. Seager, R. 2005. Tiberius. Oxford: Blackwell.

28-04-2023 17:44:48

210

  C alp u rni u s P iso, Lu ci u s ( 1 )

Severy, B. 2000. “Family and State in the Early Imperial Monarchy: The Senatus Consultum de Pisone Patre, Tabula Siarensis, and Tabula Hebana.” Classical Philology 95: 318–337.

CALPURNIUS PISO, LUCIUS (1)

FURTHER READING Griffin, M. 2009. “Tacitus as a Historian.” In Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 168–183. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CALPURNIUS PISO, Lucius (2), see CALPURNIUS PISO, GNAEUS

LAUREN CALDWELL

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Lucius Calpurnius Piso (1) (d. 25 ce) was the homonymous son of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (Augur) and grandson of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso Frugi. Piso may have held the consulship in 21 or 22 ce, though this is uncertain. He was praetor of the province of Nearer Spain (Hispania), where according to Tacitus he was attacked and killed in 25 ce (A. 4.45). The assailant, a resident of Termes, killed himself before revealing the names of his accomplices. Tacitus reports that the motive for the murder was local anger at Piso’s anticorruption efforts in the province, as he attempted to recover stolen public funds. This description of Piso’s tough approach to the local residents is similar to descriptions of the leadership style of his great-grandfather and grandfather, conveying to the reader that certain personality traits are characteristic of the Pisones (Cooley 1998, 204–205). In particular, Tacitus’ account of the murder of Piso in 25 ce echoes Sallust’s narrative of Piso’s great-grandfather’s murder in 64 bce at the hands of local inhabitants when he was in the position of governing Nearer Spain (Cat. 19.4; Martin and Woodman 1989, 204–206). Reference work: PIR2 C 292 REFERENCE Cooley, A. 1998. “The Moralizing Message of the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre.” Greece and Rome 45: 199–212. Martin, R. P., and A. J. Woodman. 1989. Tacitus Annals Book IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

c03_Vol1.indd 210

CALPURNIUS PISO, LUCIUS (3) JACK STONE JITTY SYNN

Trinity College

Lucius Calpurnius Piso (3) (d. 70 ce), grandson of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso and son of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (2), consul 27 ce, was consul in 57 ce with Nero. Known from inscriptions at Rome as a member of the fratres Arvales, from 60 to 63 Piso was also curator aquarum (Frontin. Aq. 102), managing the public water supply in the city. In 62, Nero appointed Piso to a commission for regulating the collection of customs duties on goods brought into the province of Asia. According to Tacitus, he participated in this commission with Ducenius Geminus and Pompeius Paulinus (A. 15.18). An inscription discovered at Ephesus documenting the regulations, the lex portorii Asiae, also lists these three men (Cottier et  al. 2008). In 69, Piso was proconsul of Africa when a grain shortage and popular unrest led to rumors that Piso was plotting against the government and planning a revolt in Africa (H. 4.38). In 70, he was murdered at Carthage by Valerius Festus, the legate commanding the legion in Africa (H. 4.50; Plin. Ep. 3.7.12). Festus sent horsemen (led by Claudius Sagitta, otherwise unattested) to kill Piso in his home after the unsuccessful attempt of Licinius Mucianus, a prominent ally of Vespasian, to have Piso killed by a centurion named Papirius (H. 4.49). see also: Clodius Macer Reference works: PIR2 C 294; CIL VI 2039; VI 2041; VI 2042; VI 2043

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C alp u rni u s P iso, Lu ci u s ( “P ontife x” )  

211

REFERENCE

REFERENCES

Cottier, M. et al., eds. 2008. The Customs Law of Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bhatt, S. 2018. “Exiled in Rome: The Writing of Other Spaces in Tacitus’ Annales.” In The Production of Space in Latin Literature, edited by W. Fitzgerald and E. Spentzou, 215–234. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, R. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

FURTHER READING O’Gorman, E. 2009. “Alternate Empires: Tacitus’ Virtual History of the Pisonian Principate.” Arethusa 39: 281–301.

FURTHER READING

CALPURNIUS PISO, LUCIUS (“AUGUR”) LAUREN CALDWELL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Lucius Calpurnius Piso (d. 24 ce) was consul in 1 bce and proconsul of Asia. Nicknamed “Augur” to distinguish him from the contemporary homonymous Lucius Calpurnius Piso (Pontifex), he was the son of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 23 bce) and younger brother of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, who was accused of attempting to murder Germanicus during the reign of Tiberius. Epigraphic sources attest that Piso was proconsul of Asia and was honored by the people of Mytilene. Tacitus relates that at Rome Piso spoke out in the Senate against judicial bribery and corruption in the courts and announced he would withdraw from Rome as a result (see Syme 1986, 375–376). Piso subsequently brought a lawsuit against Urgulania (A. 2.34), whose close friendship with Livia Augusta he believed had placed her supra leges (see Bhatt 2018, 222–224). When Urgulania refused to appear in court and sought refuge in the imperial palace, Piso pursued her, but with Tiberius’ assistance, Livia was able to pay to settle the case. In 20 ce Piso defended his brother when he was put on trial for poisoning Germanicus (A. 3.11). Possibly as a result of supporting his brother, he was accused of treason in 24, but he died before the end of the trial (A. 4.21). Tacitus describes him as a nobilis ac ferox vir (A. 4.21) like his father. Reference works: PIR2 C 290; ILS 8814; IG XII 2.219

c03_Vol1.indd 211

Syme, R. 1956. “Some Pisones in Tacitus.” Journal of Roman Studies 46: 17–21.

CALPURNIUS PISO, LUCIUS (“PONTIFEX”) LAUREN CALDWELL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Lucius Calpurnius Piso (48 bce–32 ce), called “Pontifex” to distinguish him from the homonymous contemporary Lucius Calpurnius Piso (“Augur”), was an advisor to Augustus and Tiberius. He was the son of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus and the brother of Calpurnia, who was married to Iulius Caesar. Piso was consul in 15 bce and proconsul of Mediolanum, according to Suetonius (De rhet. 6). He then governed Pamphylia 13–11 bce (Cass. Dio 54.34.6) and probably Galatia. In Galatia he was honored by the citizens of Oinoanda with a statue whose inscription described him as legatus pro praetore and the “savior and benefactor of the people,” and monuments honoring Piso and his wife Statilia have been found at Samos and Pergamum (Milner and Eilers 2006, 65–66). Tacitus recounts that as legate of Augustus in 11 bce, Piso suppressed a revolt in Thrace and won an honorary triumph (A. 6.10 and Cass. Dio 54.34.7). He may have gone on to be proconsul of Asia and legate in Syria. At Rome, Piso was prefect of the city from 13 to 32 ce and a valued advisor to the emperor Tiberius (A. 6.11, Suet. Vit. Tib. 42). He was a member of the college of pontifices and the fratres Arvales, a lively presence at drinking parties (Sen.

28-04-2023 17:44:48

212

  C alp u rni u s P iso, M arc u s

Ep. 83.14), and a poet and patron of literary arts. Horace dedicated his Ars Poetica to Piso along with other members of the family (Ferriss-Hill 2019, 104–107), and Antipater of Thessalonica dedicated epigrams to him. see also: pontifex maximus Reference works: PIR2 C 289; CIL XIV 3613; IG XII 6.1.364

Marcus and Gnaeus were spared punishment, although Gnaeus was ordered to change his praenomen to Lucius. Tiberius and the Senate allowed each son to inherit half of his father’s confiscated property, preserving the social standing of the family for the next generation (see Flower 1998). Marcus does not appear in the historical record after 20 ce and is not listed as holding political office. Reference work: PIR2 C 296

REFERENCES Ferriss-Hill, J. 2019. Horace’s Ars Poetica: Family, Friendship, and the Art of Living. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Milner, N., and C. Eilers. 2006. “L. Calpurnius Piso, Moles Son of Moles, and Emperor Worship: Statue Bases from the Upper Agora at Oinoanda.” Anatolian Studies 56: 61–76. FURTHER READING Syme, R. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CALPURNIUS PISO, MARCUS LAUREN CALDWELL

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Marcus Calpurnius Piso was the son of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (consul 7 bce), who was accused of fatally poisoning the emperor Tiberius’ adopted son Germanicus. Tacitus tells of Marcus’ involvement with his father’s plans to regain command in Syria (A. 2.76) after Germanicus’ death in 20 ce. Although Marcus advised his father against such an effort, in the end he deferred and assisted his father with war preparations (see Späth 2012, 445). Tacitus’ narrative of the trial of Piso recounts that Tiberius requested that Marcus and his brother Gnaeus be pardoned because they had no choice but to comply with paternal orders (A. 3.16–17). According to the inscription recording the Senate’s verdict (senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone),

c03_Vol1.indd 212

REFERENCES Flower, H. 1998. “Rethinking ‘Damnatio Memoriae’: The Case of Cn. Calpurnius Piso in ad 20.” Classical Antiquity 17: 155–187. Späth, T. 2012. “Masculinity and Gender Performance in Tacitus.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. Pagán, 431–455. Malden, MA: Blackwell. FURTHER READING Damon, C., and S. Takács, eds. 1999. “The senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre: Text, Translation, Discussion.” American Journal of Philology 120: 1–162.

CALPURNIUS REPENTINUS, see VITELLIUS CALPURNIUS SALVIANUS, see MARIUS, SEXTUS CALUSIDIUS, see GERMAN REVOLT

CALVIA CRISPINILLA OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

At H. 1.73, Tacitus presents a vignette dedicated to Calvia Crispinilla, former pleasure mistress of Nero (magistra libidinum Neronis). This noblewoman is nonetheless not mentioned in the remaining part of the Annals, although she might have been evoked in the narrative of the Greek tour of Nero. Indeed Cassius Dio mentions her as well as Ofonius Tigellinus in his account of the year 67 ce; he reports that at the time she was in charge of Sporus’ wardrobe and he states, perhaps

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C alvisi u s  

with some exaggeration, that she committed many thefts (Cass. Dio 62.12.3-4). According to Tacitus, by the reign of Otho, people at Rome called for her execution because she had passed over into Africa, urged Clodius Macer into rebellion, and had attempted to bring a famine upon Rome. Otho rescued her from the danger and was criticized for that. Afterward, she gained universal popularity from a consular marriage; she continued to benefit from the protection provided by the emperors who succeeded after the death of Nero, Vespasian included. The allusion to the libidines should not overshadow that Crispinilla appears here as a politicized woman (Morgan 2000; also Sirago 1978). Her portrait seems also to be in contrast with the evocation of Tigellinus in the previous chapter (H. 1.74): Tigellinus dies dishonorably in the midst of concubines; Crispinilla gains wealth, respectability, and security with marriage. The first husband of Crispinilla should have been the Roman knight Sextus Traulus Montanus. For her part, she had commercial interests in Histria and in Pannonia, as shown by amphorae and tiles stamped with her name. She owned a maritime villa in Barcola and the production center of olive oil amphorae at Loron. see also: women Reference works: PIR2 C 363; Raepsaet-Charlier 1987, n 184 REFERENCES Morgan, Gwyn. 2000. “Clodius Macer and Calvia Crispinilla.” Historia 49: 467–487. Sirago, Vito Antonio. 1978. “Attività politica e finanziaria di Calvia Crispinilla.” Vichiana 7: 296–309. FURTHER READING Fontana, Federica. 2014. “La villa di Barcola. Un esempio di residenza di lusso lungo la costa tergestina.” In Neronia IX. Villégiature et société dans le monde romain de Tibère à Hadrien. Actes du Congrès International de la SIEN (Villa Vigoni, Loveno di Menaggio, 3-6 octobre 2012), edited by Olivier Devillers, 164–176. Bordeaux: Ausonius Éditions.

c03_Vol1.indd 213

213

Tassaux, Francis. 2014. “La villégiature en Istrie d’Auguste à Domitien: une autre Campanie.” In Neronia IX. Villégiature et société dans le monde romain de Tibère à Hadrien. Actes du Congrès International de la SIEN (Villa Vigoni, Loveno di Menaggio, 3-6 octobre 2012), edited by Olivier Devillers, 147–163. Bordeaux: Ausonius Éditions.

CALVISIUS EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

Calvisius was a Roman citizen of uncertain rank (Rutledge 2001, 208), who, along with his fellow client Iturius, was suborned in 55 ce by his patroness Iunia Silana (A. 13.19.3) to denounce Nero’s mother Agrippina the Younger to Atimetus and Domitius Paris, the freedmen of Nero’s aunt Domitia (A. 13.19.4), who in turn conveyed the accusation to Nero (A. 13.20.1). He and Iturius accused Agrippina of revolution, alleging that she had conspired to marry the aristocrat Rubellius Plautus, who, as a descendant of Augustus, had a claim to the principate, and thereby to overthrow Nero. Alarmed by the allegation, Nero interrogated his mother (A. 13.20.3); she showed the accusation to be false, persuasively arguing that Silana had suborned Calvisius and Iturius, who were motivated principally by greed (A. 13.21.2), to denounce her merely to exact vengeance from her (since Agrippina had discouraged her from marrying the young aristocrat Sextius Africanus in around 48 ce; A. 13.19.2). Calvisius, together with Iturius and Silana, were exiled by Nero (A. 13.22.2) for calumny. Whereas Silana faced capital exile, losing her property, Calvisius and Iturius were merely banished to an unknown location. Following his murder of Agrippina early in 59 ce, Nero pardoned Calvisius and Iturius, recalling them to Rome (A. 14.12.4); nothing is known of Calvisius’ life after this. Calvisius appears alongside his fellow client Iturius in all extant literary references to him. Although the name Calvisius is common in inscriptions, no instance of it can be connected with this particular person (Rutledge 2001, 208). Reference works: PIR2 C 343; RE 3.1410

28-04-2023 17:44:48

214

  C alvisi u s S abin u s

REFERENCE Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge.

Whatever the case, Cornelia and Calvisius together committed suicide before the trial. see also: Cassius Chaerea

FURTHER READING

Reference work: PIR2 C 354

Bauman, Richard. 1992. Women and Politics in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London: Routledge.

REFERENCES

CALVISIUS SABINUS

Barrett, Anthony A. 1989. Caligula: The Corruption of Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sealey, Raphael. 1961. “The Political Attachments of L. Aelius Seianus.” Phoenix 15.2: 94–114. DOI: 10.2307/1086179.

MICHAEL B. KEARNEY

Yale University

Gaius Calvisius Sabinus was consul in 22 ce with Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus (A. 4.46). A tribune of the city cohort saved him from maiestas charges in 32 ce (A. 6.9), but he committed suicide together with his wife, Cornelia, after an indictment in 39 ce (her name is provided by Cass. Dio 59.18). Calvisius Sabinus was grandson and son, respectively, of the homonymous consuls of 39 bce and 4 bce. Alongside Annius Pollio (1), Gaius Appius Iunius Silanus, Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, and Lucius Annius Vinicianus, Calvisius was indicted for maiestas in 32 ce, probably because of association with Sejanus (Sealey 1961, 104). Intercession by the prosecutor Iulius Celsus, a tribune of the city cohort, saved him. Calvisius later became governor of Pannonia; upon his return from the province in 39 ce, he faced a joint indictment with his wife, Cornelia. Tacitus (H. 1.48) says the charges concerned her conduct there: she had dressed as a soldier, entered the military camp at night, disturbed the guard and the other soldiers with her licentiousness, and committed adultery in the general’s quarters with Titus Vinius. Barrett (1989, 101) suggests, however, that Caligula, suspecting the couple of fomenting rebellion among the Pannonian legions, manufactured charges of sexual impropriety in order to enable a prosecution without revealing the existence of dissenters.

c03_Vol1.indd 214

CALVUS, GAIUS LICINIUS MACER BRANDON JONES

Boston University

Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus (28 May 82 bce–c. 47 bce) was the son of the historian Gaius Licinius Macer. The style and content of his poetry was grouped with that of Catullus (Hor. Sat. 1.10.19; Ov. Am. 3.9.61; Plin. Ep. 1.16.5), who seems to have been a close friend (Catull. 14, 50, 96). As an orator, Calvus was best known for his Attic style and opposition to Cicero (Cic. Brut. 283–285; Plin. Ep. 1.2.2; Quint. Inst. 10.1.115; D. 18.5, 25.5– 6; cf. Sen. Controv. 7.4.7–8; D. 21.2). Twenty-one of his speeches were in circulation during Tacitus’ time (D. 21.1) and his draft speeches seem to have been admired (D. 23.3). His prosecutions of Publius Vatinius were particularly popular (Catull. 14, 53; D. 21.2, 36.6). Each of the main interlocutors in the Dialogus de Oratoribus mentions Calvus, grouping him with Gaius Asinius Pollio (1), Marcus Iunius Brutus, Marcus Caelius Rufus, Iulius Caesar, and Cicero. Marcus Aper describes Calvus’ oratory, in Cicero’s view, as “lacking vitality and threadbare” (D. 18.5) and suggests that, although the speeches against Vatinius illustrate Calvus’ awareness of the power of elevated speech, he lacked the intellectual force to maintain such elegance (evident in his speeches against Asitius or

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C ampania  

Drusus, D. 21.2). Vipstanus Messalla, conversely, rates Calvus highly relative to contemporary orators, pointing to his concision (D. 25.4). Messalla confesses that jealousy was a vice of Calvus but argues that this was “a flaw of human nature, not of oratorical prowess” (D. 25.5). Curiatius Maternus notes that Calvus, along with most orators of his time, did not deliver a speech in the centumviral court that was still read at the time of the dialogue. see also: centumvirales; Greek orators; Roman orators; Roman poets Reference works: FLP 201–211; ORF 13 492–500; RE Licinius 113. FURTHER READING Dugan, John. 2001. “Preventing Ciceronianism: C. Licinius Calvus’s Regimens for Sexual and Oratorical Self-Mastery.” Classical Philology 96.4: 400–428. DOI: 10.1086/449558. Gruen, Erich. 1966. “Cicero and Licinius Calvus.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 71: 215–233. DOI: 10.2307/310765. Kennedy, George. 1972. The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, 300 bc–ad 300. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 244–246. van den Berg, Christopher. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 256–259.

CAMERIUM, see TABULA LUGDUNENSIS

CAMPANIA BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

Campania is a region in Southern Italy. Since the second millennium bce it was inhabited by tribes of Oscan language. In the eighth century bce the region was reached by Greek settlers from the city of Chalcis in Euboea: the first Greek settlement in the region was Pithecusa (on the island now known as Ischia); then the cities of Kyme (Latin Cumae, now Cuma), Dikaiarcheia (later Puteoli,

c03_Vol1.indd 215

215

now Pozzuoli), Parthenope (later Neapolis, now Napoli) were established along the coast. In the seventh century the Etruscans founded a league of twelve cities in the inland, including Capua, Nuceria, Nola; in the fifth century, as the Etruscan power in the region faded, most of their cities were occupied by the Samnites. At the end of the Samnite wars (343–290 bce) the region was occupied by the Romans, which established new colonies and municipalities. Here took place the final battle of the Pyrrhic war (280–275 bce): the Romans defeated Pyrrhus at Maleventum, which was then renamed Beneventum (modern Benevento). During the second Punic war, few Campanian cities joined forces with the Carthaginians after their victory at Cannae (216 bce); Hannibal placed his headquarters in Capua (at the time, the second-largest city in Italy after Rome) and from here conducted his campaigns against the other Campanian cities loyal to the Romans, such as Nola, Neapolis, Casilinum (Livy 23.18). Capua was eventually taken by the Romans in 211 bce. In the imperial age, Campania and Latium formed the most important of the Augustan divisions of Italia; the port of Misenum was the largest base of the Roman navy. In 79 ce a catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius occurred. Pliny the Younger wrote a vivid account of this event in two letters to Tacitus, describing the last days in life of his uncle, Pliny the Elder (Plin. Epist. 6.16 and 20). The eruption destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and buried their ruins up to our days. Due to the prosperity of its agriculture and commerce, the region was named Campania felix (“the fertile inland”); the richest Roman citizens built their villas along the coast: cities such as Baiae, Bauli, Surrentum were renowned as holiday destinations for members of the high Roman society. Roman emperors chose Campania as a retreat: Tiberius, in particular, ruled the empire from his villa on the island of Capri for ten years (27–37 ce; Suet. Tib. 40 ff.). The region preserved a Greco-Roman culture throughout antiquity and was one of the most influential cultural centers in the Mediterranean world. The Latin alphabet probably derived

28-04-2023 17:44:48

216

  C ampan u s

from the variety of Greek alphabet in use at Cumae. see also: Roman roads; Spartacus Reference work: Barrington 44 FURTHER READING Mele, Alfonso. 2014. Greci in Campania. Roma: Scienze e Lettere. Pagliara, Alessandro. 2014. “I Campani: prospettiva storica.” In Entre archéologie et histoire: dialogues sur divers peuples de l’Italie préromaine. E pluribus unum? edited by Michel Aberson, Maria Cristina Biella, Massimiliano di Fazio, and Manuela Wullschleger, 281–298. Bern and Frankfurt am Main: Lang.

CAMPANUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Campanus and Iuvenalis were Tungrian chieftains who, in the midst of battle, surrendered their tribes to Iulius Civilis in the Batavian Revolt. The two are mentioned only at H. 4.66 and are otherwise unknown. Tacitus names them in an abbreviated battle narrative. At this point in the revolt (early 70 ce), auxiliaries defect, thus giving Civilis and his Gallic allies control over Lower and Upper Germany as well as neighboring parts of Gaul. Inclusion of their names attests to Tacitus’ research and consultation of sources; however, the specificity also draws attention to the role of non-elite players and thereby underscores the enormous social upheaval of the revolt. see also: Asiaticus (2); Tungraean cohorts;Tungri

CAMPUS MARTIUS, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY CAMULODUNUM, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI CAMURIUS, see GALBA CANINIUS GALLUS, Lucius, see quindecimviri sacris faciundis

CANINIUS REBILUS MIK LARSEN

California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona

Gaius Caninius (or Canius) Rebilus (pr. 48? bce, consul suff. 45 bce) was a suffect consul under Iulius Caesar who served for only one day in 45 bce. Tacitus refers to his short span in office in comparison to a similar incident involving the otherwise unknown Rosius Regulus (consul 69 ce) under Vitellius (H. 3.37). Caninius Rebilus was a legate of Iulius Caesar in his Gallic campaigns and the civil war with Pompey the Great who was appointed suffect consul by Caesar on 31 December 45 bce as a replacement for Fabius Maximus, who had died suddenly (Suet. Iul. 76.2). He served for only a few hours, and the brevity of his consulship became an inspiration for a number of jokes in Latin literature (Kelsey 1909), starting with Cicero (Fam. 7.30; Cass. Dio 43.42.6; Hist. Aug. Tyr. Trig. 8.2; Macrob. Sat. 2.3.6, 7.3.10); Suetonius Ner. 15 likewise attests that the length of his office-holding was met with disapproval even when suffect consulships became commonplace. Tacitus mentions Caninius Rebilus in the context of Vitellius’ elevation of the flatterer Rosius Regulus to consul due to Vitellius’ betrayal by then-consul Caecina Alienus; Regulus resigned on the same day, 31 October 69 ce (H. 3.37). see also: civil wars of Late Republic

Reference work: PIR2 C 375, I 876

Reference work: MRR 2.305

FURTHER READING

REFERENCE

Master, J. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Kelsey, F. W. 1909. “Cicero’s Jokes on the Consulship of Caninius Rebilus.” Classical Journal 4: 129–131.

c03_Vol1.indd 216

28-04-2023 17:44:48

C anninefates  

FURTHER READING Geiger, Joseph. 1972. “Canidius or Caninius?” Classical Quarterly 22: 130–134. Syme, Ronald. 1960. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CANNINEFATES BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

The Canninefates (also called the Cannenefates, Plin. HN 4.101 or Cananefates, Barrington 10 A4), were a people living along the coast where the Rhine and Waal rivers drain into the North Sea. They are best known for their participation in the Rhenish insurgency better known as the Batavian Revolt. Tacitus claims that although fewer in number the Canninefates resembled the Batavi in “origin, language, and courage” (H. 4.15). They appear to have been linked through a hierarchal relationship with the Batavians holding the higher position (Roymans 2004, 92, 205–207). Velleius Paterculus (2.105.1) claims that Tiberius conquered them in 4 ce. According to Tacitus, in 28 ce, a wing of Canninefates suffered losses alongside other German allies under the leadership of Lucius Apronius when they were sent to quell a revolt led by the Frisii (A. 4.73). Their loyalty was not always secured, as illustrated by Gannascus who had served as a Canninefate auxiliary for “a long time” but deserted and led a force of Chauci raiding from “light ships” Lower Germany and the Rhenish bank of Gaul (A. 11.18). Domitius Corbulo constructed a fleet of heavier warships and destroyed Gannascus’ fleet and forced him to flee (A. 11.18). Later, Corbulo’s envoys caught and executed Gannascus through some guile, which Tacitus’ claimed was honorable, although it did stir the Chauci to further war, which in turn caused the emperor Claudius to recall Corbulo and his troops from beyond the Rhine (A. 11.19). During the civil wars of 69 ce, the Batavian Iulius Civilis sent envoys to the Canninefates to encourage them to join a revolt against the Romans (H. 4.15). The chronology is uncertain

c03_Vol1.indd 217

217

enough that the Canninefates may have initiated violence against Rome prior to Civilis, who only then seized the opportunity to expand the insurgency (see Turner 2016, 289 for bibliography). The Canninefates were initially led by Brinno, an audacious man of noble background, whose father had shown bravery in battle but had also mocked Caligula’s failed military adventures in the region. His popularity was displayed when his people, following custom, raised him up on a shield and chose him as their leader. He organized Frisian allies from across the Rhine river and attacked two Roman cohorts and terrorized Roman camp-followers and merchants on the island (H. 4.15). Civilis, first claiming to act on behalf of the Romans against the Canninefates, quickly took command from Brinno and led the Canninefates, Frisii, and Batavians to a victory over Roman forces near the Rhine (H. 4.16). After the outbreak of violence, a unit of Batavians and Canninefates that were on their way to Rome on orders from Vitellius abandoned their charge and made their way north to join Civilis (H. 4.19). For the most part from here on out Tacitus conflates the Canninefates with the Batavians, only mentioning the latter’s march north, their violent uprising near Bonna and their subsequent joining with Civilis (H. 4.20–1) who later, at least, recognized them as a force in his army (H. 4.32). Later, a Batavian and rival of Civilis, Claudius Labeo claimed support for Rome and initiated furtive assaults against the Canninefates and the Marsaci (H. 4.56). These latter people appear to have held territory along the coast of the North Sea south of the Canninefates (Barrington 11 D1; Plin. HN 4.101 and 106) and, like them, may have been a sort of client tribe to the Batavians (Roymans 2004, 207–208). The Canninefates appear as capable and dangers warriors. Tacitus claims that they managed to attack and sink or capture most of the ships that were sent from Britannia against their homeland (H. 4.79). He also says that they routed a force of Nervii who had sided with the Romans (H. 4.79). Tacitus’ last mention of the Cannifetates appears as Licinius Mucianus tries to convince Domitian that they (and the Batavians) are best left to minor commanders rather than an imperial scion (H. 4.85). With the insurgency quelled the

28-04-2023 17:44:49

218

  C apitoli um

Canninefates (and Batavians) returned to the terms of their previous imperial relationship as auxiliaries in the Roman army. At least one soldier was recorded among a list of auxiliary war dead on the altar of Adamclisi (CIL III 14214). Significant growth of the Canninefatian capital, what later became Forum Hadriani (Barrington 10 A4), appears to post-date the insurgency (Roymans 2004, 208). The Canninefates are also recorded on a mile stone located in their territory (AE 2006, 913). see also: Germani, Germania; Rhenus Reference works: Canninefates: BNP “Cannenefates”; Barrington Directory vol. 1, Map 10 s.v. Aurelium Cananefatium / Forum Hadriani § Cananefates; Gannascus: BNP “Gannascus”; PIR2 G 73; Marsaci(i): Barrington 11 D1 REFERENCES Roymans, N. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Turner, B. 2016. “From Batavian Revolt to Rhenish Insurgency.” In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by T. Howe and L. L. Brice, 282–311. Leiden: Brill.

CANNUTIUS, Publius, see Roman orators CANOPUS, see Egypt

CAPITOLIUM DYLAN SAILOR

University of California, Berkeley

In connection with the Capitoline Hill at Rome, “Capitolium” has three meanings: it denotes the entire hill, its southern summit, or the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter Best and Greatest that from the late sixth century bce dominated that summit. A core hill of the ancient city, the Capitoline divided the Forum Romanum and Forum Boarium from the Campus Martius and (before Trajan) was linked by a saddle to the Quirinal Hill to the East. Its smaller summit, called the Citadel and distinguished by the Temple of Juno Moneta

c03_Vol1.indd 218

and the augurs’ precinct, was separated by a depression—the “asylum”—from the larger summit, the Capitolium to the south. From the regal period this peak was home to public cults, but once built the massive Temple of Jupiter overshadowed all of these. Tradition held that this temple was vowed by the elder Tarquin and built by the younger, who funded it with spoils. Its construction involved the transformation of the southern peak by the creation of a great platform supporting the temple and supplying a broad open space before it (the Capitoline Plaza). The temple’s foundations, which survive, attest to a massive structure, some sixty-two meters by fifty-three meters. Inside, three chambers housed cults of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva, and older shrines to Terminus and Iuventas were incorporated into the temple. It was said that the temple was not dedicated until the first year of the republic, 509 bce, by one of the consuls, Marcus Horatius Pulvillus (Tacitus places this in 507: H. 3.72.2). From an early date, it was the central temple of the Roman state, associated with its military success and, in time, its empire. Triumphal processions ended before it, triumphing generals made sacrifice at its great altar, and over time the building filled with dedicated spoils. In 83 bce, the consulship of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus (2) and Gaius Norbanus, the temple burned down; Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) began and Quintus Lutatius Catulus completed its reconstruction. Catulus’ temple was dedicated in 69 bce, and his name inscribed above the entrance. In 69 ce, the temple again burned to the ground, in fighting between Vitellians and Flavians. Lucius Vestinus (mentioned only once in Tacitus, H. 4.53) undertook the rebuilding for Vespasian, but this temple burned down in 80 ce and Domitian completed a new one. Domitian’s temple was noted for its ostentation: columns of Pentelic marble, goldencased doors, gilded rooftiles. This temple survived intact into the fifth century ce. The Capitoline Hill, its southern peak, and the Temple of Jupiter and its plaza were major features of the city’s life and history. In the Annals, Tacitus refers to them more than a dozen times, generally in passing. For instance, at A. 3.36.2 the temple is mentioned by Gaius Cestius Gallus

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C appadocia  

(1) as a refuge for suppliants; at A. 11.23.4, a senatorial debate remembers the Gallic siege of the hill; Nero has trophies and triumphal arches erected “in the middle of the Capitoline Hill” (15.18.1). In the Histories, many of the mentions of the hill and the temple are linked to the temple’s destruction in 69 ce. Tacitus flags (H. 1.2.2) this as one of the signal calamities in his narrative. He remarks that the sight of the hill and its “looming temples” did not deter the Othonians from hunting Galba (H. 1.40.2). At H. 1.86.1, Tacitus records a report of a prodigy: the statue of Victory in the temple’s vestibule dropped the reins of her chariot. Later, as Flavians fought Vitellians in the city, Flavius Sabinus (1) occupied the southern summit. Tacitus narrates in detail the Vitellian attempt to recapture it and the destruction of the temple (H. 3.71), to which he appends a lament and a kind of obituary of the building, retailing its history (H. 3.72) and reflecting that what not even Lars Porsenna or the Gauls had been able to do, Romans had now done to themselves. The question of responsibility for the calamity then comes up several times (H. 3.75.3; 3.78.2–3; 3.81.2). After Vitellius’ death, the Senate decreed that the temple be rebuilt (H. 4.4.2) and Helvidius Priscus moved that it be done at public expense, with Vespasian given an ancillary role (H. 4.9.2); the suggestion was not adopted but Tacitus remarks ominously that there were those who did not forget it. Tacitus describes the ceremony of 70 ce, presided over by Helvidius Priscus as praetor and led by the pontiff Plautius Aelianus, that inaugurated the reconstruction (H. 4.53). News of the destruction of the temple, Tacitus reports, also added fuel to the Batavian revolt in Gaul, where it was received as a harbinger of Rome’s destruction (H. 4.54.2). Reference work: LTUR s.v. ‘Capitolium (fino alla prima età repubblicana),’ ‘Capitolium (Republik und Kaiserzeit),’ ‘Iuppiter Optimus Maximus Capitolinus, Aedes, Templum (fino all’ a. 83 a. C),’ ‘Iuppiter Optimus Maximus Capitolinus, Aedes, (fasi tardo-reppublicane e di età imperiale)’ see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Iulius Vestinus Atticus, Marcus; Rome, myth and history; Rome, topography

c03_Vol1.indd 219

219

CAPPADOCIA WILLIAM STOVER

University of Virginia

Cappadocia (modern central Turkey) was a region in eastern Asia minor, located between the Halys and Euphrates rivers, from the Taurus mountains in the south to Pontus in the north (Str. 12.1). Cappadocia was held by a succession of powers, including Assyrians and Hittites, before being constituted as a satrapy of the Achaemenid empire (Hdt. 1.71). After the death of Alexander the Great the Cappadocian satrap Ariarathes refused to accept the authority of the Macedonian governor Eumenus, resulting in the invasion of Cappadocia and the execution of Ariarathes by Perdiccas in 322 bce (Diod. Sic. 18.16). Although the region regained nominal independence in 301 bce under Ariarathes II, the ruling dynasty soon entered into marriage alliance with the Seleucid kings (Diod. Sic. 31.19). After the defeat of the Seleucid monarch Antiochus III by the Romans, the Cappadocian king Ariarathes IV, a former ally of Antiochus, secured peace and a treaty with Rome in 188 bce (Polyb. 21. 41). The alliance between Rome and Cappadocia was reaffirmed in 163 bce (Polyb. 31.3). In 157 bce, Ariarathes V was restored to the throne of Cappadocia with Roman support (Livy Per. 47.7), after having been deposed by the Seleucid king Demetrius Soter (Polyb. 3.5). After Ariarathes VIII died without an heir in 97 bce, the Roman Senate offered a republic to the Cappadocians (Just. Epit. 38.2). The Cappadocians professed their preference for the monarchy, to which the Roman Senate gave approbation, (Just. Epit. 38.2), allowing the election of Ariobarzanes as king in 96 bce (Orth 1993, 41). Ariobarzanes was driven out of Cappadocia repeatedly by Tigranes of Armenia and Mithridates Eupator VI of Pontus and reinstalled by the Romans in 95 (Livy Per. 70.6), 89 (Livy Per. 74.6), and 64 bce (App. Mith. 105); he abdicated in favor of his son Ariobarzanes II in 62 bce (App. Mith. 105). After the assassination of Ariobarzanes II in 52 bce, his son Ariobarzanes III was installed as king by Cicero, then the governor of Cilicia (Cic. Ad Fam. 15.2.5).

28-04-2023 17:44:49

220

  C apri

Although he had abetted Pompey in the civil war, Ariobarzanes III supported Iulius Caesar after Pharsalus (Cass. Dio. 41.63) and retained his kingdom until his assassination by Gaius Cassius Longinus (1) in 42 bce (App. B. Civ. 4.63). His successor Ariarathes X reigned until 36 bce, when he was deposed by Mark Antony, who installed the priest Archelaus (1) as a client king in 36 bce (Cass. Dio 49.32). In 17 ce Tiberius summoned the king to Rome, where he was tried on fabricated charges (A. 2.42). The aged Archelaus died before the conclusion of the trial, possibly by suicide. Upon his death, Cappadocia was reduced to a Roman province, and its revenues were used by Tiberius to offset a lower rate of taxation (A. 2.42; 2.56). In 36 ce, a rebellion occurred among the Clitae, under the leadership of the homonymous son Archelaus (2) (A. 6.41). The rebels withdrew to the hills of Cadra (A. 6.41) and Davara (A. 6.41.8), within the Taurus mountains (A. 6.41), where they were surrounded by Roman forces and compelled to surrender (A. 6.41). Iulius Pelignus, procurator of Cappadocia in 52 ce, nearly lost control of the province through poor management and corruption (A. 12.49). The province was stabilized and by 54 ce, auxiliaries and cavalry were wintering in Cappadocia in case of Parthian aggression (A. 13.8). Domitius Corbulo levied additional troops in Cappadocia in 58 ce (A. 13.35; 15.6). With these forces, Corbulo went on the offensive in Armenia and installed Tigranes VI, a grandson of Archelaus (1), as a client king in Armenia (A. 14.26). After withdrawing from Armenia, Corbulo left a part of his army in Cappadocia for the winter of 62 ce (A. 15.6), whence they were led again against the Parthians in 63 ce (A. 15.12.4). After a truce was arranged with the Parthians, all Roman fortifications beyond the Euphrates were demolished and Roman forces again wintered in Cappadocia (A. 15.17). During the civil wars of 69 ce, a significant number of soldiers remained garrisoned in Cappadocia (H. 2.6), although it had no legion assigned to it (H. 2.81). Otho granted additional privileges to the province in order to secure its loyalty (H. 1.78). Despite Otho’s efforts, Cappadocia pledged allegiance to Vespasian (H. 2.81).

c03_Vol1.indd 220

see also: Parthia; provinces Reference works: Barrington 64 B2; 1 J3; 3 B2; 63 E4; 66 E1 REFERENCE Orth, Wolfgang. 1993. Die Diadochenzeit im Spiegel der historischen Geographie: Kommentar Zu TAVO-Karte BV2. Wiesbaden: Reichert. FURTHER READING Sullivan, Richard. 1990. Near Eastern Royalty and Rome, 100–30 bc. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Teja, Ramon. 1980. “Die römische Provinz Kappadokia in der Prinzipatszeit.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 7.2: 1083–1124.

CAPRI REBECCA EDWARDS

Wright State University

According to Tacitus (A. 4.67.2), Capri was originally settled by Greeks, namely the Teleboans, who other sources claim originated from Taphos (Apollod. Bibl. 2.4.5; Strabo 10.2.20; cf. Verg. Aen. 7.735). Capri belonged to Naples until Augustus acquired it in exchange for Ischia (Suet. Aug. 92.2). Augustus decorated at least one of his villas there with bones of sea monsters and wild beasts (Suet. Aug. 72.3) and spent time there shortly before his death (Aug. 98.3–4). Tacitus states that Capri is three miles off the promontory of Sorrento (A. 4.67.2) but then claims that Tiberius chose the island for its isolation. Tacitus praises the climate as mild in the winter due to a mountain which blocks the harsh winds, and thoroughly pleasant in the summer. The largest textual controversy surrounding Tacitus’ account of Tiberius’ settlement on Capri concerns the phrase Tiberius duodecim villarum nominibus et molibus insederat (A. 4.67.3), indicating that Tiberius built or settled in twelve villas on the island. Noting the small size of the island, Woodman suggests deleting nominibus and proposes that the space of the so-called Villa Iovis occupied that of twelve villas (Woodman 2018,

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C aratac u s  

309). The name Villa Iovis is provided by Suetonius (Tib. 64.2) and has been called into question by numerous editors. As Champlin argues, the villa more likely derived its name from Ino, or possibly Io (2014, 227–230). Both Tacitus (A. 6.1) and Suetonius (Tib. 40–45) accuse Tiberius of giving into depravity once settled on the island. Champlin, however, believes, “They are dependent on a single hostile authority,” as is indicated by linguistic similarities in their descriptions of spintriae and sellaria, two terms involving sex acts which remain elusive in their exact definition (Champlin 2011, 320). Whatever the case may be, the island became associated in antiquity with the “old goat,” a pun on the Latin word for goat, caper (Suet. Tib. 43.2, 45). Tiberius was ensconced on the island when he sent his letter to Rome denouncing Sejanus in 31 ce (Suet. Tib. 65.2; Juvenal 10.66–72; cf. Cass. Dio 58.5.1, who refers to Tiberius as nēsiarchos, or island-potentate). Tiberius also supposedly inflicted cruel punishments there, some involving the precarious cliffside surrounding the Villa Iovis (Suet. Tib. 60; 62.2). After the death of Tiberius, the island remained in the possession of the imperial family, but was scarcely used until Commodus exiled his sister there in 182 ce. see also: sexual deviance Reference work: Barrington 44 F4 REFERENCES Champlin, Edward. 2011. “Sex on Capri.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 141: 315–332. Champlin, Edward. 2014. “The Odyssey of Tiberius Caesar.” Classica et Mediaevalia 64: 199–246. Woodman, A. J. 2018. The Annals of Tacitus. Book 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Federico, E., and E. Miranda, eds. 1998. Capri antica: dalla preistoria alla fine dell’età romana. Capri: La Conchiglia.

CAPUA, see CAMPANIA CARMANII, see HYRCANI

c03_Vol1.indd 221

221

CARATACUS ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

Caratacus (c. 10 ce–c. 65 ce) (also Caractacus; on his name, see Jackson 1979) was son of Cunobelinus and king of the Catuvellauni. Caratacus organized resistance in Britannia against Rome in 43–51 ce, first jointly with his brother Togodumnus in southeastern Britain and later—after the death of Togodumnus and the Roman occupation of the Catuvellaunian homeland—from modern-day Wales, supported by the Silures and Ordovices. Defeated in battle 51 ce, he escaped to queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes but was betrayed and handed over to the Romans. In 52 ce he was part of Claudius’ triumph but was subsequently pardoned and presumably lived out the rest of his life in Rome. He appears only in Tacitus and Dio Cassius. Caratacus is mentioned briefly in Histories (3.45.1) in the context of Rome’s involvement in the struggle between Cartimandua (and her lover Vellocatus) and her ex-husband Venutius, when the queen’s betrayal of Caratacus is said to have increased her authority. In Annals, due to the loss of the part covering Claudius’ invasion of Britain (in which Caratacus would presumably have played a role; cf. Cass. Dio below), Caratacus appears for the first time and as a major protagonist in the extensive treatment (A. 12.31–40) of Romano-British affairs of 47–58 ce, which includes the governorships of Ostorius Scapula and Aulus Didius Gallus. A man whose many encounters with Rome had given him significant authority, he is relied on by the powerful Silures to organize the resistance against Roman expansion. When the Silures are attacked by the Romans, Caratacus transfers the war to the territory of the neighboring Ordovices and draws those who fear peace with Rome into the struggle. He then deploys his army in a defensive position, challenges the Romans to battle, and delivers a speech to his men on freedom, family, and former glory. Despite the British soldiers’ enthusiasm and fortified position, the Romans emerge victorious, capturing Caratacus’ wife and daughter and receiving his brothers in surrender (A. 12.33–35). Caratacus himself seeks sanctuary with queen Cartimandua

28-04-2023 17:44:49

222

  C armelu s

of the Brigantes, by whom he is betrayed to the Romans. Displayed in Claudius’ triumph in Rome, he does not succumb to dread but delivers an honorable plea for mercy at the tribunal, the only oratio recta speech in Annals 12 (Martin 1981, 156–157). Claudius grants pardon to Caratacus and his family, whereupon they venerate both the emperor and his wife, Agrippina the Younger. The senators promptly praise the capture of Caratacus, comparing it with those of Syphax by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Perseus by Lucius Paullus, and Ostorius is voted the insignia of a triumph (A. 12.36–38.2). The removal of Caratacus, however, does not dampen the spirits of the Britons, who redouble their war effort and inflict several minor defeats on the Romans through guerrilla tactics (A. 12.38.2–40.5). In Cassius Dio, Caratacus (Καράτακος) plays a rather inconspicuous role in the early stages of the Roman invasion of Britain (60.19–22.2): his name is mentioned only once and in passing, as his kinship with Cunobelinus and Togodumnus is noted and his defeat at the hands of the Romans is recorded (60.20.1). Dio, in fact, assigns a greater role to Togodumnus, whose name reappears when, upon his demise, “the Britons, so far from yielding, united all the more firmly to avenge his death” (60.21.1; on the intertext with A. 12.38.2, see Hind 2007, 98). While nothing is said about Caratacus’ later, extended resistance against Rome, he does reappear in the epitome of Book 61, when, having been freed and gazing at the splendor and magnitude of Rome, he exclaims (61.33.3c): “And can you, then, who have got such possessions and so many of them, covet our poor tents?” Caratacus has enjoyed a significant afterlife in British culture, appearing in legends, plays, poems, visual arts, songs, and novels from medieval times until today. REFERENCES Hind, J. G. F. 2007. “A. Plautius’ Campaign in Britain: An Alternative Reading of the Narrative in Cassius Dio (16.19.5–21.2).” Britannia 38: 93–106. Jackson, Kenneth. 1979. “Queen Boudicca?” Britannia 10: 255. Martin, Ronald. 1981. Tacitus. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.

c03_Vol1.indd 222

FURTHER READING Birley, Anthony R. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Braund, David. 1996. Ruling Roman Britain: Kings, Queens, Governors and Emperors from Julius Caesar to Agricola. London: Routledge. Malloch, Simon J. V. 2009. “Hamlet without the Prince? The Claudian Annals.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by Anthony J. Woodman, 116–126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/ CCOL9780521874601.010. Webster, Graham. 1981. Rome against Caratacus: The Roman Campaigns in Britain ad 48–58. London: Batsford.

CARECINA, see HELVIDIUS PRISCUS CARENES, see MESOPOTAMIA

CARMELUS NATHANAEL ANDRADE

Binghamton University

Carmelus (Mount Carmel) is a mountain range in north Israel. Originating near modern Haifa, it extends inland along the southern rim of the Jezreel valley. In antiquity, it was in northern Iudaea, particularly at the threshold of Samaria and Galilee. 1 Kings 18 treats Mount Carmel (Barrington 69, A4–B4) as the site of a significant altar to Baal, and the geographer Strabo (16.2.27) locates the range between ancient Acco-Ptolemais and Strato’s Tower (later Caesarea Maritima). According to Tacitus (H. 2.78), who places Mount Carmel at the threshold of Iudaea and Syria, it housed a cult site without any temple or corresponding building. Tacitus also notes that Carmelus was the name for both the mountain and the primary divinity who dwelled on it. This cultic arrangement typified various sacred high places in the Near East and may have roots in Canaanite forms of worship. Nonetheless, some worshippers conceived of Zeus (Heliopolitanus) Carmelus as a god with a human form and perhaps even reported a temple (Iamb., Vit. Pyth. 2.14–15; Avi-Yonah 1952). Despite the immense variety of religious practices in Roman Syria,

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C arrinas C eler  

Tacitus tends to depict the inhabitants of the Near East as uniformly worshipping gods with aniconic forms, and his treatment of Mount Carmel is consistent with that (Andrade 2012, 448–450, 455). Basilides (2) is a priestly figure that Tacitus places at the cult site of Mount Carmel. He is otherwise unattested and distinct from the Egyptian figure of the same name whom Tacitus also associates with Vespasian’s rise to power (H. 4.82). In Tacitus’ account, Basilides inspects the entrails of a sacrifice that Vespasian, Iudaea’s governor, had made at Mount Carmel and predicts success for whatever Vespasian was planning (similarly Suet., Vesp. 5.6). Intriguingly, Tacitus describes the priest at Mount Carmel as Basilides sacerdos, a phrasing which refers to “Basilides the priest” but also could be construed as the Greek for “a kingly priest.” If so, the turn of phrase reflects Tacitus’ perception that various parts of the Near East were governed by priest-kings, not unlike the Hasmonaeans of Iudaea, the dynasts of Commagene, and perhaps the Ituraean and Emesene dynasts of south Syria and Lebanon (Kaizer 2005). By Tacitus’ lifetime, this way of structuring royal power west of the Euphrates had largely disappeared. Nonetheless, Tacitus’ treatment of Basilides fits into his broader pattern of depicting the client kings and priests of the Near East as encouraging the autocratic pretensions of Roman authorities (Andrade 2012, 448–452). see also: Serapis Reference work: Barrington 69 A4–B4 REFERENCES Andrade, Nathanael. 2012. “Seducing Autocracy: Tacitus and the Dynasts of the Near East.” American Journal of Philology 133.3: 441–475. Avi-Yonah, M. 1952. “Mount Carmel and the God of Baalbek.” Israel Exploration Journal 2: 118–124. Kaizer, Ted. 2005. “Kingly Priests in the Roman Near East?” In Imaginary Kings: Royal Images in the Ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome, edited by Olivier Hekster and Richard Fowler, 177–192. Stuttgart: Steiner.

c03_Vol1.indd 223

223

CARRINAS CELER EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

Carrinas Celer (whose praenomen is unattested) was a Roman senator (A. 13.10.2) of uncertain age at the time of Nero’s accession. The passage cited provides the sole reference to him in extant literature; he leaves no trace in the epigraphic record. His cognomen is a conjecture of the fifteenth-century manuscript Vat. Lat. 1958 for the primary codex’s implausible Cerer; Celer was a common cognomen in senatorial and equestrian circles in the first century ce. He was denounced to Nero by his slave (otherwise unknown) in late 54 ce on an uncertain charge (A. 13.10.2), which was probably maiestas or treason (Rudich 1993, 8). Nero, exercising his tribunician right of veto, prevented the charges from being heard by the Senate and thereby safeguarded Carrinas’ liberty. This action has been interpreted by Griffin (1976, 170) and Rutledge (2001, 111) as being part of the policy of clemency which Nero adopted, on the advice of Seneca, at the start of his reign. It is not known whether Carrinas held any magistracies prior to, or following, this accusation, nor is it known whether he was born into a senatorial family or adlected into the Senate (although the latter seems more plausible given the otherwise total absence of the gentile name Carrinas from senatorial records). He was possibly related to the equestrian Carrinas Secundus (Rudich 1993, 87), who was procurator in Asia in 64. see also: delators; freedmen of Nero; Iulius Densus Reference work: PIR2 C 448 REFERENCES Griffin, Miriam Tamara. 1976. Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London: Routledge. Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge.

28-04-2023 17:44:49

224

  C arsidi u s S acerdos

FURTHER READING Schumacher, Leonhard. 1982. Seruus Index: Sklavenverhör und Sklavenanzeige im republikanischen und kaiserzeitlichen Rom. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner.

CARRINAS SECUNDUS, see FREEDMEN OF NERO

CARSIDIUS SACERDOS MEGAN M. DALY

University of Florida

Carsidius Sacerdos was charged in 23 ce for aiding Tacfarinas with grain but was acquitted (A. 4.13.2–3). It seems he was praetor urbanus in 27 ce (CIL I2 p. 71). In 37 ce when Albucilla and others were being charged for impiety against the principate, he was deported to an island (A. 6.48.4). No details of his involvement in this situation are known, except for his association with Albucilla as one of her stuprorum ministri (Forsyth 1969, 204–206; A. 6.48.4). see also: maiestas; Tiberius Reference works: PIR2 C 451; CIL I2 p. 71; BNP Carsidius Sacerdos REFERENCE Forsyth, Phyllis Young. 1969. “A Treason Case of AD 37.” Phoenix 23: 204–207. DOI: 10.2307/1086161.

CARSULAE, see INTERAMNA

CARTHAGE ROBYN LE BLANC

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Carthage (near modern Tunis in Tunisia) was a Phoenician colony and Punic city in North Africa which was destroyed by the Romans at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 bce, and then refounded as two successive Roman colonies by

c03_Vol1.indd 224

the 40s bce, later becoming the capital of the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis. Archaeological excavations, ongoing since the mid-nineteenth century, place the foundation of the city sometime in the ninth century bce by Phoenicians from Tyre, a date consistent with the ancient assertion that the city was founded in 813 bce (Lancel 1995, 20–32; Timaeus FGrH 566 F60). The traditional myth identifies the Tyrian queen Dido (sometimes called Elissa) as Carthage’s founder (A. 16.1; Timaeus FGrH 566 F82; Verg. Aen.1.340–366; Just. Epit.18.4–6). A Carthaginian cemetery or ritual site, the Tophet, which includes the remains of a large number of infant burials, is well-known from this period, as is the site’s large port. Between the sixth and second centuries bce, Carthage expanded east and west along the coast of North Africa, and north into Sicily, Spain (Hispania), Sardinia, and Corsica. The city was controlled by two suffetes, who were elected each year to head the 200–300 person Carthaginian assembly, the 'drm or “Great Ones.” Hannibal and his father Hasdrubal were among the most famous suffetes, both serving in this capacity in the late third/early second century bce during the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. Rome’s victory at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 bce resulted in the destruction of Carthage and the annexation of the city’s remaining territory to the new Roman province of Africa. A Roman colony was founded on the site of Carthage by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus (see Gracchi) in 122 bce, but it was largely unsuccessful until a new veteran colony, Colonia Iunonia, was located there by Iulius Caesar in 44 bce (Cass. Dio 43.50.3–5). By the first century ce, Carthage was one of the primary Roman cities in North Africa and boasted a grid-planned urban layout, a 30,000-seat amphitheater and two harbors (Davis 1861; Hurst et  al. 1984–1994). Despite its prominence, Carthage does not appear frequently in Tacitus’ works, although it was home to the Roman proconsul. At H. 1.76, Carthage was the first city in Africa to declare for Otho as emperor in 69 ce, a move soon followed by the other provincial communities. Carthage’s decision was apparently inspired by a feast celebrating Otho thrown for the city by Crescens, a

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C artimandua  

former freedman of Nero, and was moreover done without consulting the proconsul, Vipstanus Apronianus. Carthage, and the rest of Africa later supported Vitellius, who had been proconsular governor there under Nero (60–61 ce). After Vitellius’ death in 69 ce, Africa’s proconsular governor Lucius Calpurnius Piso (3), was under suspicion of opposing Vespasian, and perhaps prepared to do so militarily (H. 4.48– 50). An assassin was sent to him in Carthage under the guise of encouraging him to declare himself emperor; in Tacitus’ narrative, the population of the city received these exhortations with boisterous celebrations in the forum and encouraged Piso. However, Piso was not fooled and killed the messenger. In spite of this, Valerius Festus, the commander of the province’s legion, III Augusta, sent a contingent of troops to Carthage to kill Piso in his house in Carthage. In the Annals (16.1–4) Tacitus recounts a certain Caesellius Bassus’ belief concerning a buried hoard of raw gold and ingots buried in a cave by Dido after the foundation of Carthage. Bassus successfully convinces Nero to attempt to unearth the hoard. The treasure was never found and Bassus’ own wealth was seized by the emperor to recoup the cost of the promised gold. see also: Baebius Massa; civil wars of 69 ce; dreams; Phoenicia; provinces; Vergil Reference work: Barrington 32 F3 REFERENCES Davis, Nathan. 1861. Carthage and Her Remains: Being an Account of the Excavations and Researches on the Site of the Phoenician Metropolis in Africa, and Other Adjacent Places. London and New York: Harper. Hurst, Henry R. et al. 1984–1994. Excavations at Carthage: The British Mission. Sheffield: British Academy from the University of Sheffield, Department of Prehistory and Archaeology. Lancel, Serge. 1995. Carthage: A History. Oxford: Blackwell. FURTHER READING Ash, R. 2015. “At the End of the Rainbow: Nero and Dido’s Gold (Tacitus Annals 16.1–3).” In Fame and Infamy: Essays on Characterization in Greek and

c03_Vol1.indd 225

225

Roman Biography and Historiography, edited by R. Ash, J. Mossman, and F. B. Tichener, 269–284. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dridi, Hédi. 2006. Carthage et le monde punique. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Hoyos, Dexter. 2010. The Carthaginians. London and New York: Routledge. Rives, James B. 1995. Religion and Authority in Carthage from Augustus to Constantine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CARTIMANDUA PETER KEEGAN

Macquarie University

Cartimandua (also, Cartismandua), British client queen, ruled the Brigantes, a federation of tribal communities spanning a large geographical region in what is now known as northern England. She held power during the second and early third quarters of the first century ce, the early decades of Roman rule in Britannia (c. 43–c. 69). When the Roman emperor Claudius initiated the organized conquest of Britannia in 43, Cartimandua’s sovereign authority over the Brigantes may have already been established: her status as one of the reges Brit[anniai XI (“eleven kings of Britain”) recorded on the victory arch in Rome whom Claudius devictos sine ulla iactur[a in deditionem acceperit (“received into surrender … conquered without loss”) (Barrett 1991, 12). If not, she may have come to power after Publius Ostorius Scapula defeated a revolt of a faction of the Brigantes in 48 (A. 12.32). Shown to possess aristocratic influence (potentia), Cartimandua presents as a legitimate female ruler (regina) in the historical record. Moreover, she is regarded as queen of the Brigantes by virtue of her “high birth” (nobilitas, H. 3.45). Her noble standing may indicate that she inherited her power, ruling by right rather than through marriage. Cartimandua is first mentioned in 51 ce. She and her husband, Venutius, are described by Tacitus as loyal to Rome and “defended by our [Roman] arms.” In 51, Caratacus, king of the Catuvellauni tribe and military commander of Britannic resistance against Rome (Cass. Dio 60.20; A. 12.33–35),

28-04-2023 17:44:49

226

  C asperi u s

sought sanctuary with Cartimandua after being defeated by Ostorius Scapula; but Caratacus was put in chains and handed over to the Romans (A. 12.36). Credited with capturing Caratacus and thereby affording Claudius the opportunity to exhibit a defeated foreign ruler in his triumphal procession, Cartimandua was the recipient of opes, which may be seen to entail both monetary reward as well as the provision of military and political resources (H. 3.45). She later divorced Venutius, replacing him with his armor-bearer, Vellocatus. Venutius assumed a hostile attitude toward Cartimandua, who devised a stratagem whereby his brother and other relatives were taken captive and held hostage. Venutius made war against the queen and then against her Roman protectors. He built alliances outside the Brigantes, and during the governorship of Aulus Didius Gallus (52–57) he staged an invasion of the kingdom of the Brigantes. Cartimandua sought protection from Rome, which sent a number of cohorts to defend its client queen. The outcome of the fighting was inconclusive until the arrival of a legionary force (legio IX Hispana) under the command of Caesius Nasica (otherwise unknown), which secured the defeat of the rebels. Cartimandua retained the throne thanks to prompt military support from Roman forces (A. 12.40). In 69 her fortunes changed for the worse. Taking advantage of Roman instability during the Year of the Four Emperors, Venutius staged another revolt, again with help from other Britannic tribes. Cartimandua again asked Rome for protection, who were only able to send infantry and cavalry auxiliaries. She was rescued from personal danger, leaving Venutius in control of a kingdom at war with Rome (H. 3.45). After this, she disappears from the historical record.

FURTHER READING Braund, D. 1984. “Observations on Cartimandua.” Britannia 15: 1–6. DOI: 10.2307/526580. Hanson, W. S., and G. Webster. 1986. “The Brigantes: From Clientage to Conquest.” Britannia 17: 73–89. DOI: 10.2307/526541.

CASPERIUS WESLEY J. HANSON

University of Pennsylvania

see also: women

Casperius, sometimes identified with Casperius Niger (H. 3.73.3; Nipperdey 1908, 84), was a Roman centurion involved in the foreign affairs of Armenia. He displays a resolute personality while serving in the military. Both names are attested only in Tacitus. In 51 ce the Iberians and Armenians came into conflict when the Iberian Pharasmanes encouraged his son, Radamistus, to attack his brother Mithridates Hiberius, the Romansupported leader of the Armenians (A. 12.44). Mithridates was forced to retreat to the fortress of Gorneae, which was guarded by a garrison under the command of the prefect Caelius Pollio and Casperius. Radamistus, blockading the fortress, attempted to bribe the Romans, but Casperius refused, negotiated a temporary truce, and left to inform Ummidius Quadratus, the governor of Syria, about what had happened. Upon returning, Casperius attempted to persuade Pharasmanes to lift the blockade but failed (A. 12.45–46). In 62 ce, during the Roman campaigns against Parthia, Casperius was sent by Domitius Corbulo on a diplomatic mission to meet with Vologeses, the king of Parthia. Casperius met the king at Nisibis and delivered a strongly worded message. Vologeses agreed to send a spokesman to the emperor Nero and to pull back his forces.

Reference work: PIR2 C 453

Reference works: PIR2 C 461; RE 3.2.1653

REFERENCE

REFERENCE

Barrett, A. 1991. “Claudius’ British Victory Arch in Rome.” Britannia 91: 1–19. DOI: 10.2307/526627.

Nipperdey, Karl. 1908. P. Cornelius Tacitus. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.

c03_Vol1.indd 226

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C assi u s C haerea  

CASPERIUS NIGER, see CASPERIUS CASSIUS (1), see ACTORS CASSIUS (2), see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY CASSIUS ASCLEPIODOTUS, see BAREA SORANUS

CASSIUS CHAEREA STEVE MASON

University of Groningen

Cassius Chaerea (c. 6 bce–41 ce), tribune of a praetorian guard cohort, was the emperor Gaius Caligula’s lead assassin. He looms large in the three principal accounts of Gaius’ death—in Josephus (AJ 19.1–273), Suetonius (Cal. 56–58), and Cassius Dio (59.29–30; 60.3)—and his fame was such that other writers could exploit it for their themes. Seneca used him to illustrate the uncertainty of life, if an emperor could be removed by such a nonentity (Ep. 4.7), and the wisdom of ignoring insults, given that even a serial insulter of Gaius’ power will meet a fitting end (Constant. 18.3). Plutarch used Gaius and Chaerea, along with Philip II of Macedon, Alexander the Great, and their murderous bodyguards, as analogues for a superstitious person’s posture toward the divine: outward loyalty but secret hatred (De superst. 170F). In the fourth century, Chaerea’s deed appeared without elaboration as a model of true Roman spirit (Aur. Vict. Caes. 3). Our text of the Annals lacks Tacitus’ volumes on Gaius, but the historian must have devoted space to the famous tyrant-killer. We surmise this both because Gaius’ murder fit his themes so neatly and because, already in his narrative of 14 ce Tacitus highlights Chaerea’s valor while a young soldier under Germanicus, also planting a seed of expectation: “he later achieved renown among posterity for cutting down C. Caesar” (A. 1.32.2). The three surviving accounts roughly agree that in January 41 the young emperor hosted Palatine Games near the imperial residences, after constructing a theater for the purpose. Gaius had relentlessly goaded Chaerea for his alleged femininity. (In Terence’s most famous

c03_Vol1.indd 227

227

play, The Eunuch, a soldier named Chaerea plays the titular character.) Near the end of the games, the emperor left the theater in the early afternoon. Chaerea and his fellow-tribune Sabinus trapped him in a passageway, where his German bodyguard could not protect him, and stabbed him. Others joined in abusing the body and killed Gaius’ wife and daughter. The frantic Germans killed many they suspected, including senators. Josephus and Dio agree that Chaerea survived, however, until the new emperor Claudius had him executed—admiring his deed but needing to discourage imitators—whereas Sabinus took his own life. The surviving accounts differ on the date and time of Gaius’ death and the sequence of events at the end, of which Suetonius already knew two versions (Cal. 58.2). Historians continue to debate whether Chaerea was the primary instigator, his reasons, and/or whether he was the tool of a larger conspiracy, of senators or the two Praetorian Prefects (Barrett 2015, 248–269). The Jewish historian Josephus, whose account is by far the fullest, offers support for all scenarios. After describing three groups of conspirators and their motives, he singles out Chaerea as the one in most regular contact with Gaius, whose hatred of the ruler grew with daily mistreatment, and who was also most instantly vulnerable if he did not act. Chaerea conferred, however, with both senators and the prefect Arrecinus Clemens. Josephus justifies devoting most of a volume to Gaius’ death on the ground that it proves that God punishes those who violate divine law (AJ 18.306– 307; 19.15–16; cf. 1.14, 20). He had good Roman sources, but we cannot easily identify them or disentangle them from Josephus’ narrative (Barrett 2015, 263–264; Mason 2016; Wiseman 2013, xiv–xvi). REFERENCES Barrett, Anthony A. 2015. Caligula: The Abuse of Power. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Mason, Steve. 2016. “Review-Discussion: Updates on an Emperor’s Death.” Histos 10: 139–154. Wiseman, T. P. 2013. Death of Caligula: Josephus Ant. Iud. xix 1–273, Translation and Commentary. 2nd ed. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

28-04-2023 17:44:49

228

  C assi u s D io

CASSIUS DIO ADAM M. KEMEZIS

University of Alberta

Lucius Cassius Dio (c. 165–c. 235 ce, remaining nomenclature uncertain) was a consular senator of the Severan period and the author of an eightybook Greek-language history of Rome from its founding to 229 ce. Dio is a useful parallel (or foil) to Tacitus both in his subject matter and in his biographical and literary characteristics. Dio’s Roman History was written in the first decades of the third century and represents the last and only known continuation of the annalistic historical tradition after Tacitus. It survives in complete (albeit lacunose) form for the reign of Tiberius (Books 56–58) and part of Claudius (Book 60) and in substantial fragments and epitomes for the rest of Claudius’ reign and the Neronian (Books 61–63) and Flavian (Books 64–67) periods. He is our most important narrative source for those years where Tacitus is lost and a valuable supplement where he survives, though given the two authors’ different scale, Dio’s account is necessarily the more compressed, above all relative to the Histories. Dio’s account and Tacitus’ often appear to draw on a common source tradition, but it is not generally assumed that Dio uses Tacitus as a principal source. Whatever their common derivation, the two authors produce quite distinct portraits of the various rulers and events. Dio’s Tiberian narrative is more sharply divided into a favorable early portrait and a negative later one, while his Nero is above all a performative figure, reflecting Dio’s personal experience of Commodus, Caracalla, and perhaps Elagabalus. Fruitful direct comparisons can be made of several episodes both authors narrate in detail, starting with the funeral of Augustus (Cass. Dio 56.29–47  ≈  A. 1.1–10; see Manuwald 1979, 131–167), several annalistic years under Tiberius (Syme 1983), and episodes under Nero including the Icenic revolt, in which Dio gives Boudicca a long direct-discourse speech (Cass. Dio 62[62].3-6 ≈ A. 14.35, see Gillespie 2015). In general, Dio comes across as less tight in his rhetorical or moralistic focus, more inclined to anecdotes, including biographical ones concerning emperors, and less interested in independent actions of the Senate (see Devillers 2016).

c03_Vol1.indd 228

Biographically, the two have obvious commonalities as senators with provincial backgrounds, but also key differences. As a second-generation consular with roots in Bithynia, Dio inherited the prestige that Tacitus rose into, and his career would have involved more honors and less administrative work in the early and middle stages, although Dio had an unusual string of significant provincial offices in the 220s (his fifties and sixties). The language difference has little impact on their outlook as expressed in explicit statements. Dio’s Greekness in no way inhibits or qualifies his identification with the senatorial order. He clearly immersed himself in the Latin historiographical tradition, and if Tacitus is not among his factual sources, he still likely served as a model. In literary terms, however, Dio remains distinctly a Greek writing in his own language, and as such his text at the word-and-sentence level necessarily evokes Thucydides more than Sallust or Livy, and he cannot engage intertextually with the Latin tradition as deeply as Tacitus. Tacitus and Dio can be read together as documents of changing senatorial perceptions of the principate and its political trajectory. Both share a pride in their own status, skepticism toward their rulers and a sophisticated analytical take on the Roman monarchy. Where Tacitus looks back from the Trajanic and Hadrianic eras on the tyrannical emperors of his own youth and before, Dio idealizes the recent Antonine past relative to the Severan present. The tension seen in Tacitus between traditional Roman virtus and the Senate’s role under the emperors is not present in Dio. Rather, he has fully internalized the ethos of the monarchical state and the Senate’s collective identity as an administrative and courtier class. It is that very identity, rooted not in the republic but in the age of Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, that Dio sees as under threat in the Severan period. see also: Cornelius Tacitus; Hadrian; intertextuality; sources; Trajan REFERENCES Devillers, Olivier. 2016. “Cassius Dion et l’évolution de l’annalistique: Remarques à propos de la représentation des Julio-Claudiens dans l’Histoire romaine.” In Cassius Dion: Nouvelles Lectures, edited by Valérie Fromentin, Estelle Bertrand, Michèle

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C assi u s L ongin u s , G ai u s ( 1 )  

Coltelloni-Trannoy, Michel Molin, and Gianpaolo Urso, 317–334. Bordeaux: Ausonius. Gillespie, Caitlin. 2015. “The Wolf and the Hare: Boudica’s Political Bodies in Tacitus and Dio.” Classical World 108: 403–429. Manuwald, Bernd. 1979. Cassius Dio und Augustus: Philologische Untersuchungen zu den Büchern 45–56 des dionischen Geschichtswerkes. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Syme, Ronald. 1983. “The Year 33 in Tacitus and Dio.” Athenaeum 61: 3–23. FURTHER READING Devillers, Olivier. 2016. “Cassius Dion et les sources prétacitéennes.” In Cassius Dion: Nouvelles Lectures, edited by Valérie Fromentin, Estelle Bertrand, Michèle Coltelloni-Trannoy, Michel Molin, and Gianpaolo Urso, 233–242. Bordeaux: Ausonius. Freyburger-Galland, Marie-Laure. 1992. “Tacite et Dion Cassius.” In Présence de Tacite: Hommage au professeur G. Radke, edited by Rémy Poignault and Raymond Chevallier, 127–139. Tours: Centre de recherches A. Piganiol. Pelling, Christopher B. R. 1997. “Biographical History?: Cassius Dio on the Early Principate.” In Portraits: Biographical Representation in Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, edited by Mark J. Edwards and Simon Swain, 117–144. Oxford: Clarendon. Schulz, Verena. 2019. Deconstructing Imperial Representation: Tacitus, Cassius Dio and Suetonius on Nero and Domitian. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

CASSIUS LONGINUS, GAIUS (1) THOMAS E. STRUNK

Xavier University

Gaius Cassius Longinus (1) (?–42 bce), quaestor (before 53 bce) and praetor (44 bce), played a leading role in the assassination of Iulius Caesar that same year. He was the brother-in-law of Marcus Iunius Brutus and the husband of Iunia Tertia, niece of Cato the Younger. He adhered to the Epicurean school of philosophy. Cassius died by suicide at the battle of Philippi in 42. Cassius most frequently appears in the works of Tacitus in reference to his role in the civil wars with Mark Antony and Augustus often alongside Brutus (H. 2.6.1; A. 1.2.1, 1.10.3, 2.43.2).

c03_Vol1.indd 229

229

In several passages, Cassius acts as a figure of memory and takes on a more nuanced meaning. In his obituary of Iunia Tertia, Tacitus dates her death in years since the battle of Philippi, a marked way of tracking chronology. He adds that the imagines of Cassius and Brutus were prohibited from the funeral procession. Nonetheless, he remarks that they were all the more notable for their absence (A. 3.76.1–2). It is worth noting that Tacitus makes this comment first before he goes on to recount several incidents that demonstrate the dangers of Cassius’ image. In his defense speech, Cremutius Cordus, who was accused of praising Brutus and calling Cassius the last of the Romans (A. 4.34.1, Romanorum ultimum), names Cassius explicitly in a cluster of passages in his speech before the Senate. He cites Livy, who described Cassius and Brutus as eminent (insignes) rather than as brigands and parricides (A. 4.34.3 latrones et parricidas), which according to Cremutius was how they were described in his day. Cremutius also mentions Valerius Messalla Corvinus (1) who called Cassius “my commander” (A. 4.34.4, imperator), which was a recognition of Cassius’ demonstrated military abilities; Cassius had been hailed as imperator by his soldiers (Plut. Brut. 34.1). Cremutius, in language that is remarkably similar to Tacitus’ at A. 3.76, mentions that while Cassius and Brutus were killed seventy years prior, they were known from their images, which were not abolished by the victor, as well as from historical accounts (A. 4.35.2). Although Cremutius asserts that his portrayal of Cassius and Brutus on the fields of Philippi was not a call to civil war (A. 4.35.2), he closes his speech by suggesting that he would be remembered along with Cassius and Brutus (A. 4.35.3). Cassius served again as a means of condemnation for his descendant and namesake Gaius Cassius Longinus (2), who was charged with venerating a bust of Cassius with the inscription “to the leader of the faction” (A. 16.7.2, duci partium). Tacitus records that Nero, in his written speech to the Senate, charged Cassius with sowing the seeds of civil war (A. 16.7.2 semina belli civilis) and having a hated name (infensi nominis). The Senate exiled Cassius to Sardinia (A. 16.9.1). see also: civil wars of the Late Republic; libertas; speeches

28-04-2023 17:44:49

230

  C assi u s L ongin u s , G ai u s ( 2 )

Reference works: MRR (Cassius 59) 2.229, 237, 259, 270, 283, 320, 327, 360, 543; RE Cassius 59; BNP Cassius I.10 FURTHER READING Castner, Catherine J. 1988. A Prosopography of Roman Epicureans. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 24–31. Rawson, Elizabeth. 1986. “Cassius and Brutus: The Memory of the Liberators.” In Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing, edited by I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, 101–119. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sedley, David. 1997. “The Ethics of Brutus and Cassius.” Journal of Roman Studies 87: 41–53.

CASSIUS LONGINUS, GAIUS (2) BRUCE W. FRIER

University of Michigan

Gaius Cassius Longinus (2) (suffect consul 30 ce), probably the foremost legal expert (iurisperitus) during the later Julio-Claudian period (A. 12.12.1), was probably born in the last decade bce and is thought to have died shortly after Vespasian recalled him from exile in 69 ce. His family, the Cassii Longini, had long been politically powerful at Rome; an ancestor, probably the jurist’s grandfather, had organized the assassination of Iulius Caesar (A. 16.7.2; Suet. Nero. 37.1; Cass. Dio 59.29.3). Cassius also counted among his ancestors two important late republican and early imperial jurists: Servius Sulpicius Rufus and Aelius Tubero (Pompon., Dig. 1.2.2.51). Cassius’ marriage to Iunia Lepida, a great-granddaughter of Augustus, brought him into alliance with the Iunii Silani, among the foremost Julio-Claudian families (A. 16.8.2). The jurist’s political career was one of swift ascendancy: after his praetorship (Ulp. Dig. 4.6.26.7) and suffect consulship under Tiberius, a proconsulship of the province of Asia in 40/41, during which he narrowly evaded the paranoia of Caligula (Suet. Calig. 57.3; Cass. Dio 59.29.3). Soon thereafter, however, Claudius appointed him imperial legate pro praetore in Syria, 45–49,

c03_Vol1.indd 230

a vital command indicating renewed government favor. Josephus (AJ 20.1, cf. 15.4) describes his somewhat heavy-handed armed intervention in a dispute between the procurator of neighboring Iudaea and his Jewish subjects. In 49 he assisted in an ill-fated attempt by Claudius to install a pretender on the throne of Parthia; but Tacitus (A. 12.11–12) praises his strict, rather old-fashioned military discipline in restoring the morale of the Syrian army. Cassius’ integrity upon his return to Rome led him in 58 to oppose some extravagant Senate proposals honoring Nero (A. 13.41.4) but triggered local popular resistance when he was appointed to settle discord at Puteoli (A. 13.48). As a jurist, Cassius headed the loose-knit legal “school” named, first after his teacher Massurius Sabinus (Paul Dig. 4.8.19.2) and then after him, the Sabiniani or the Cassiani (Plin. Ep. 7.24.8–9; Pompon. Dig. 1.2.2.52). This grouping of jurists is generally considered traditionalist and so less open to legal innovation than their rivals the Proculians (headed by Marcus Cocceius Nerva under Tiberius, and then by Proculus). Cassius himself was later best known for his treatise on the Civil Law (ius civile), in at least ten books. While no fragment from his writing survives, subsequent jurists frequently cite him and accord his views considerable weight; early in the second century the jurist Javolenus commented at length on excerpts from his treatise. For the year 61, Tacitus (A. 14.42–44) assigns Cassius a lengthy and highly arresting Senate speech in which he vigorously upholds, largely on grounds of traditional discipline, the senatus consultum Silanianum ordering that, when a household slave kills his master, all the household slaves, no matter how demonstrably innocent some may have been, must be put to death as a form of collective punishment. This speech, thought to derive at least in part from the acta senatus, clearly delineates the sternness, seueritas, that Romans often expected from an upright judge. Cassius insists on the priority of “public advantage” (utilitas publica: A. 14.44.4) over potential injustice to individuals, and in the process he openly conveys a sense of urgency in advocating harsh treatment of slaves. However, the ensuing execution was so unpopular in Rome that Nero was obliged to deploy the army against protesters (A. 14.45).

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C assi u s L ongin u s , Lu ci u s ( 2 )  

In 65, during the aftermath of the Pisonian Conspiracy, Nero had Cassius, by then almost blind, convicted for treason and deported to Sardinia because of the jurist’s supposed covert republicanism and attempted insurgency (A. 15.52, 16.7–9; Suet. Ner. 37.1; Juv. 10.16; cf. Cass. Dio 62.27.1). Vespasian, apparently soon after his victory in the civil wars of 69 ce, recalled Cassius shortly before the jurist’s death (Pompon. Dig. 1.2.2.51–52). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference work: PIR2 C 501 FURTHER READING Bauman, Richard A. 1989. Lawyers and Politics in the Early Roman Empire: A Study of Relations between the Roman Jurists and the Emperors from Augustus to Hadrian (= Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und Antiken Rechtsgeschichte 87), 76–118. München: C. H. Beck. D’Ippolito, Federico. 1969. Ideologia e diritto in Gaio Cassio Longino (= Pubblicazioni della Facoltà dell Università di Napoli 122). Napoli: E. Jovene. Wolf, Joseph Georg. 1988. Das Senatusconsultum Silanianum und die Senatsrede des C. Cassius Longinus aus dem Jahre 61 n. Chr. (= Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Jahrgang 1988, 2). Heidelberg: Winter.

CASSIUS LONGINUS, LUCIUS (1) CHRISTOPHER J. DART

University of Melbourne

Lucius Cassius Longinus (consul 107 bce) is the second Roman commander in Tacitus’ list of those routed or taken prisoner by the Cimbri (G. 37). As praetor in 111, Longinus was tasked with escorting Jugurtha to Rome, giving personal assurances that he would be safe in Italy (Sall. Iug. 32). Elected consul for 107 with Gaius Marius (consul 104–100, 86) as his colleague, he was assigned Transalpine Gaul and initially campaigned successfully against the

c03_Vol1.indd 231

231

Volcae near Tolosa (modern Toulouse). His army was then defeated near Burdigala (modern Bordeaux) by the Tigurini, with Longinus killed during the fighting. The survivors, led by the legate Gaius Popillius Laenas, bargained with the Tigurini for their freedom, giving over hostages and half of their possessions in exchange for their lives (App. Gall. 1.3; Livy Per. 65; Oros. 5.15.23–24). see also: Mallius Maximus

CASSIUS LONGINUS, LUCIUS (2) LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Lucius Cassius Longinus (d. 41 ce) was consul in 30 ce and the first husband of Iulia Drusilla, the daughter of Germanicus, sister of Caligula and granddaughter of Tiberius. Lucius was the descendant of a plebeian but ancient and high reputed family. His father Lucius held the ­consulship in 11 ce, his brother Gaius Cassius Longinus (2) was a famous jurist (PIR2 C 501–502). He held the consulship in 30 ce along with Marcus Vinicius, the future husband of Iulia Livilla, Drusilla’s sister. His brother held the consulship in 30 ce as well. Our Lucius or his brother Gaius was the Cassius who attacked Germanicus’ son Drusus Caesar on behalf of Sejanus (Cass. Dio 58.3.8). In 33 ce, Tiberius chose him as husband for his granddaughter Drusilla. Tacitus says that he was a man “trained by strict paternal discipline who was appreciated more for his accommodating temper than for his energy” (A. 6.15.1–2). At the end of 36 ce, he was among the members of the commission made by the four husbands of the princeps’ granddaughters, whose task was to estimate the damages suffered by Roman citizens in the great fire of that same year. Tacitus says that the members competed against each other in adulation toward the emperor (A. 6.45.2). When Caligula became emperor, Lucius Cassius was forced to divorce from Drusilla so she could marry Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (5) (Suet. Calig. 24.1). Later,

28-04-2023 17:44:49

232

  C assi u s Severu s

just before Caligula’s assassination (41 ce), since an oracle predicted to Caligula his ruin at the hands of a “Cassius,” we know that his brother Gaius was recalled from Asia where he was governor, probably to be assassinated, although he survived, but we do not know what happened to Lucius (Suet. Calig. 57.3). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference works: PIR2 C 503; CIL X 1233 = ILS 6124; VI 29681; 41045 FURTHER READING Syme, R. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CASSIUS LONGUS, see FABIUS FABULLUS

CASSIUS SEVERUS BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

Cassius Severus was an orator of the Augustan and Tiberian age, outspoken opponent of the Julian family and therefore condemned to exile; he is considered the initiator of the new form of eloquence that will prevail in Roman imperial era. We have no certain information on his place and date of birth, nor on his early years, besides that he came from a family of humble origins (A. 4.21.3). Physically robust, with a strong and pleasing voice (Sen. Controv. 3.praef.1–18), Severus is described as a lustful man, whose costumes lacked the severity required of a public figure (A. 1.72.3; 4.21.3). He was both an orator, practicing as a lawyer in real legal cases, and a declamator, performing in schools of rhetoric on fictional cases—although he preferred the former activity. He is credited to have been the first orator to move away from the rules of “classical” rhetoric, as he felt that the form of eloquence should be adapted to the changed literary tastes of his time: he would neglect the disposition of arguments and sacrifice the moderation of his expression in favor of an ardent and impassionate style, colored by a sarcasm that often resulted in insolence (D.

c03_Vol1.indd 232

26.4–5, where he is referred to as Cassius, likewise in a corrupt passage at D. 19.1). In 9 bce Severus accused Lucius Nonius Asprenas, a friend of Augustus, of poisoning 130 guests at a banquet (Plin. HN 35.164); Asinius Pollio (1) and Augustus himself took on the defense and probably obtained a verdict of acquittal. This case, and many of his jokes publicly spoken against members of the Julian family (Plut. Mor. 60 D), lead scholars to consider Severus a nostalgic of the Roman Republic, who took an openly hostile position against the ruling dynasty (Balbo 20072, 143 f.). For his libelous writings against upper class women and men, he was sentenced to exile under the law of maiestas: this was the first case in which this law, until then applied only to seditious actions, was extended also to defamatory writings (de famosis libellis: A. 1.72). His punishment perhaps coincided with the burning of the books of Cremutius Cordus and Titus Labienus (Sen. Controv. 10.praef.4–8; Suet. Calig. 16.1); his own books were banned by the Senate and would be brought back into circulation only by order of Caligula. He was sent initially into exile to Crete, around 8 ce, but from exile he would not cease to attack Augustus, his family and his friends; this led the Senate to reconsider his case (it is debated whether this happened in 12 or 24 ce): all his possessions were confiscated, and he was relegated to the island of Seriphus (A. 4.21.3). According to Jerome (Ad Olymp. 202.4), he died in extreme poverty in the twenty-fifth year of his exile (32 ce). Severus’ jokes, famous for their bitterness, circulated even after the disappearance of his speeches. Seneca the Elder, Quintilian, Tacitus, and Plutarch quote several of his pointed sentences, which may have been circulating in collections of famous sayings. see also: Cornelius Tacitus; Cyclades; eloquentia; declamation; Roman orators Reference work: PIR2 C 522 REFERENCE Balbo, Andrea. 20072. I frammenti degli oratori romani dell’età augustea e tiberiana Parte prima: Età augustea Seconda edizione riveduta e corretta. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C ato the C ensor  

FURTHER READING Deroux, Charles. 2004. “Auguste, Cassius Severus et le proces de Nonius Asprenas (Suetone, Aug. LVI, 6 et Dion Cassius LV, 4, 3).” Latomus 63: 178–181. Rutledge, Steven H. 2007. “Oratory and Politics in the Empire.” In A Companion to Roman Rhetoric, edited by William Dominik and John Hall, 109–121. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

CATO, see CURIATIUS MATERNUS

CATO THE CENSOR ANDREW GALLIA

University of Minnesota

Marcus Porcius Cato, known to posterity as “the Censor” (censorius, A. 3.66.1) on account of his contentious tenure of that office, was a prominent Roman politician of the second-century bce (consul 195, censor 184) and the first historian of Rome to write in Latin (see historiography). He is not to be confused with the anti-Caesarian martyr Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger and was sometimes differentiated from this descendant as Cato “the Elder” (senex, D. 18.2). Apart from the De Agricultura (a manual on farming), Cato’s works survive only in fragments, such that his influence on later writers is difficult to assess. He was said to have had a profound impact on Sallust, who mined Cato’s works for archaic vocabulary (Quint. Inst. 8.3.29, Suet. Gramm. 15.2). Cicero gives mixed reviews of his merits as a stylist, however, sometimes praising Cato’s economy of expression (Brut. 65–7, cf. 293–4), but elsewhere criticizing his historiographical efforts as “meager” (exile, Leg. 1.6, cf. Quint. Inst. 12.10.11). This more negative assessment underpins the Whiggish account of Roman orators provided by Marcus Aper in the Dialogue on Orators, in which the speeches of Gaius Gracchus (see Gracchi) are described as “fuller and richer” (plenior et uberior, D. 18.2) than those of the elder Cato. The reference to “deeds of famous men” in the opening line of the Agricola nevertheless echoes a phrase from the Origines, Cato’s seven-volume history of Rome and Italy from the foundations of

c03_Vol1.indd 233

233

major cities down to his own day (Ag. 1.1 clarorum virorum facta, cf. FRH 5 F2, F113; Woodman 2014, 67–68). This work, which evidently did not conform to the chronological convention of annales for its organizing principle (cf. FRH 5 F80), revealed Cato as a historian who was not reluctant to engage in self-glorification (Plut. Cat. Mai. 14.2). The fact that Tacitus neglects to mention Cato when discussing this aspect of republican historiography later in the same paragraph (Ag. 1.3, see Rutilius Rufus) may suggest the limited scope of his engagement with this predecessor. Tacitus most clearly engages with the legacy of Cato the Censor at two points in Book 3 of the Annals. In the first instance, Cato is not invoked by name, but the speech attributed to him by Livy in his account of the debate over the repeal of the lex Oppia in 195 bce certainly looms over the confrontation between Aulus Caecina Severus and Valerius Messalla Messalinus Corvinus (Tacitus calls him Valerius Messalinus) regarding whether governors’ wives should be allowed to accompany them into the provinces (A. 3.32–34, cf. Livy 34.1–8; Ginsburg 1993). The second reference is more explicit: Mammercus Aemilius Scaurus invokes Cato’s denunciation of Servius Sulpicius Galba who had acted with treacherous cruelty while campaigning in Lusitania, among the precedents for his own prosecution of Gaius Iunius Silanus (A. 3.66.1–2). Cato had included an account of this, his final speech, in Book 7 of the Origines, despite the fact that he was unsuccessful in bringing down his opponent (FRH 5 F104-7; Val. Max. 8.1.absol.2). see also: intertextuality; memory Reference works: RE Porcius (9); DNP Cato [1] REFERENCES Ginsburg, Judith. 1993. “In Maiores Certamina: Past and Present in the Annals.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 86–103. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Woodman, A. J. with Kraus, C. S. 2014. Tacitus, Agricola. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 17:44:49

234

  C ato the Yo u nger

FURTHER READING Astin, Alan E. 1978. Cato the Censor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CATO THE YOUNGER THOMAS E. STRUNK

Xavier University

Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (95–46 bce) was the great-grandson of Cato the Censor. Cato was a life-long political enemy of Iulius Caesar, and following Caesar’s victory at Thapsus, he killed himself on 12 April 46 rather than receive Caesar’s vaunted clemency. Since he died well before the events Tacitus records in his historical works, Cato appears in his writings only obliquely and frequently in speeches evoking either accusations of treason or praise for freedom. Cato first appears in the Dialogus de Oratoribus. Tacitus’ primary interlocutor, Curiatius Maternus has written a tragedy entitled Cato, which offended the powerful because it presented the views of Cato (D. 2). Tacitus claims to have accompanied Marcus Aper and Iulius Secundus to Maternus’ house the day after the performance when Rome was abuzz with the news. Aper and Secundus apparently have come to persuade Maternus to revise his Cato, not to make it better but to make it safer, a suggestion Maternus strongly opposes (D. 3.2–3). The discussion then launches into the question of which is better poetry or oratory. In his argument for oratory, Aper returns to the dangers related to writing of Cato (D. 10.6). In the Histories, Eprius Marcellus, who had successfully charged Thrasea Paetus and Helvidius Priscus with treason, sarcastically compared Helvidius to Marcus Iunius Brutus and Cato the Younger for his bravery (fortitudo) and resolve (constantia) (H. 4.8.3). The one passage where Cato appears which is not part of a speech or dialogue is in Tacitus’ obituary of Iunia Tertia, niece of Cato (A. 3.76). Tacitus remarks how in her funeral procession Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Iunius Brutus were omitted but were conspicuous by their absence. In

c03_Vol1.indd 234

keeping with her republican family tradition, Iunia left Tiberius out of her will. In the following book (A. 4.34.4), Cremutius Cordus mentions how Cicero praised Cato to the skies, which was tolerated by Caesar. Cremutius, accused of treason for praising Cassius and Brutus in his histories, speaks at length on the toleration of free speech prior to his day. His reference is to Cicero’s laudatory Cato, to which Caesar responded merely with another pamphlet, the Anti-Cato. Cato’s final appearance in Tacitus is in a violent speech similar to Eprius Marcellus’ speech at H. 4.8; Cossutianus Capito attacked Thrasea Paetus and likened him and Nero to Cato and Caesar (A. 16.22.2). These accusations to Nero resulted in Thrasea’s trial and condemnation, demonstrating the regime’s ability to use Cato as a symbol of illegal resistance to legitimate authority, a charge Cato would have vehemently rejected. see also: libertas; Livius Drusus, Marcus; maiestas; memory; speeches Reference works: MRR (Porcius 16) 2.174–75, 198, 221–222, 606, 3.170–71; RE Porcius 16; BNP Porcius I.7 FURTHER READING Drogula, Fred K. 2019. Cato the Younger: Life and Death at the End of the Roman Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fehrle, Rudolf. 1983. Cato Uticensis. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Goodman, Rob, and Jimmy Soni. 2012. Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. Kragelund, Patrick. 2016. Roman Historical Drama: The Octavia in Antiquity and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CATONIUS IUSTUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Catonius Iustus (Tacitus inverts the name) was a centurion of the first rank under Drusus the Younger. He was one of the envoys sent to Tiberius with the petitions from the legions of

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C eler , P u bli u s  

the Pannonian Revolt in 14 ce. Iustus is mentioned in Tacitus only at A. 1.29.2. Iustus was one of the prefects of the Praetorian Guard under Claudius (Sen. Apocol. 13.5). In the year 43 ce, Messalina had Iustus put to death before he could inform Claudius about her behavior (Cass. Dio 60.18.3). Iustus may have appeared in the now lost books of the Annals. see also: praetorian cohorts Reference work: PIR2 C 576 CATUALDA, see GOTONES CATULLUS, see ROMAN POETS

235

husband of Boudicca. Dio also includes in the recalled funds some loans given by Seneca. Du Toit (1977, 150) finds it unlikely that Tacitus would have omitted a loan of forty million sesterces on Seneca’s part, and so doubts this portion. Bulst (1961, 500–501) judges that Dio would not have invented this and adduces the words of Suillius Rufus (A. 13.42) in denouncing Seneca for loans to Italy and the provinces. After Catus Decianus left for Gaul, he was replaced as procurator by Iulius Classicianus, and does not appear thereafter in the historical record. Reference work: PIR2 C 587 REFERENCES

CATUS DECIANUS MITCHELL R. PENTZER

University of Colorado Boulder

Catus Decianus, of the equestrian class, was the Roman procurator of Britannia under the emperor Nero in 61 ce, during the governorship of Suetonius Paulinus, and to some degree seems to have prompted the revolt of Boudicca. Tacitus introduces him only after the abuse of Boudicca and the uprising of the Iceni and Trinobantes (A. 14.31). Fearing a series of omens, the veterans at Camulodunum (modern Colchester) sent for reinforcements from him in Londinium, since the governor, Suetonius Paulinus, was away conquering Mona. He sent two hundred ill-equipped troops, which failed to quell the revolt, and the Britons went on to defeat Petilius Cerialis and the ninth legion. At that Catus Decianus fled into Gaul; Tacitus juxtaposes his departure with the observation that his greed had driven the province into war. To explain this, Dudley and Webster (1962, 46) theorize that the Romans revised the taxation of Britannia around 57 ce and that Catus Decianus could have been responsible for this. Another explanation comes from Cassius Dio, who likewise introduces Catus Decianus after the omens, but foregrounds the procurator’s role before the revolt (62.2.1). Per Dio, he had set about reclaiming money given by Claudius to “foremost Britons,” likely including Prasutagus,

c03_Vol1.indd 235

Bulst, Christoph M. 1961. “The Revolt of Queen Boudicca in AD 60.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 10.4: 496–509. du Toit, L. A. 1977. “Tacitus and the Rebellion of Boudicca.” Acta Classica 20: 149–158. Dudley, Donald R., and Graham Webster. 1962. The Rebellion of Boudicca. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc.

CAVALRY, see ARMY CECROPS, see ALPHABET CELENDERIS, see CILICIA CELER, see DOMUS AUREA

CELER, PUBLIUS LUCA BELTRAMINI

University of Padua

Publius Celer (d. after 57 ce) was a Roman knight and imperial procurator in Asia under Claudius and Nero. He was a friend of Helvidius Priscus, quaestor of Achaia. In 54 ce he poisoned Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) during a dinner, with the complicity of the freedman Helius (A. 13.1.1–3, where the manuscript reports the cognomen as Celerius, corrected to Celer by Lipsius on the grounds of A. 13.33.1). The murder was orchestrated by Agrippina the Younger, who feared that Silanus would avenge the death of his brother, Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1), and that his kinship with Augustus represented a danger for Nero’s

28-04-2023 17:44:49

236

  cent umvirales

power. The same episode is also referred to by Cass. Dio 61.6.4, who does not mention the perpetrators’ names, and by Plin. HN 7.58, who, unlike Tacitus, claims that Nero was responsible for the assassination. In 57 ce Publius was prosecuted by the provincials of Asia, but Nero, faced with the impossibility of acquitting him, held the trial up until his death of old age (A. 13.33.1). Reference work: PIR2 C 625 FURTHER READING Demougin, Ségolène. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École française de Rome, n. 524. Meriç, Recep, Reinhold Merkelbach, Johannes Nollé, and Sencer Şahin. 1981. Die Inschriften von Ephesos. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag, VII.1, 3043–3044.

CENTUMVIRALES MOLLY AYN JONES-LEWIS

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Centumvirales causae were legal cases tried before the centumviri, a collegium of judges who numbered around 105 in Cicero’s time and were increased to 180 by Tacitus’. Depending on the nature of the case, either the full collegium (see Plin. Ep. 6.33) or a smaller panel would sit in judgment at any given trial. In Tacitus’ day, this was a high-profile court attracting close interest from the emperor and senatorial classes. While the court’s early mandate is unclear, it seems to have included civil disputes involving valuable property and/or high-profile litigants. By Tacitus’ time, the court’s scope had been narrowed to inheritances, especially those which were being contested on the grounds that the will was undutiful (cf. Dig. 5.2.1). There may also have been a monetary value threshold to merit a trial in the centumviral court because the cases mentioned involve high status litigants with substantial estates. The centumviral court was unusual in that it retained the venerable and solemn legis actio per sacramentum procedure (Dig. 4.16–7) which had been rendered generally obsolete by

c03_Vol1.indd 236

the lex Aebutia c. 240 bce. By the turn of the first– second century ce, sacramentum had been largely replaced by first the formulary procedure, and then the cognitio extra ordinem, making the centumviral court’s procedure remarkably archaic. Even in the late second century ce, a spear was still displayed in the centumviral court: a symbol of lawful ownership according to the jurist Gaius (Dig. 4.16). By the mid-first century ce, the centumviral court had moved from the forum Romanum to the court spaces of the Basilica Julia on the south side of the forum where Tacitus and Pliny the Younger would have pleaded their cases. Domitian in particular took a close interest in centumviral cases; Suetonius tells us that he would reverse decisions that he felt were biased (Dom. 8). These courts seem to have been particularly choice venues for talented advocates in the late first century ce, no doubt due in part to increased imperial interest in the proceedings. The younger Pliny’s letters place him in the court frequently, both as an observer and an advocate (see esp. Ep. 1.5, 5.50, and 9.23), and Tacitus too had spoken in that court. Tacitus in his Dialogus implies a connection between the principate’s increasingly chilling effect on oratory in criminal proceedings and the increased visibility of orators in the centumviral court (D. 38.2). He observes that the court had produced no famous orations before the speech of Gaius Asinius Pollio (1) on behalf of Urbinia’s heirs during the time of Augustus. One must take this assertion with caution, though, as there is evidence that legal activity in general increased substantially under the principate, necessitating the construction of several court spaces in the new imperial fora. Speeches in the centumviral court could be quite lengthy; the younger Pliny tells us that he once spoke for seven hours—a long time no matter how the court’s water clock was calibrated (Ep. 4.16.2). see also: Cornelius Tacitus FURTHER READING Bablitz, Leanne. 2007. Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom. London and New York: Routledge. 51–70.

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C esti u s G allu s , G ai u s ( 1 )  

van den Berg, Christopher S. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ “Dialogus de Oratoribus”: Aesthetics and Empire in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 186–198.

CEPHEUS, see JUDAISM CERCINA, see AFRICA CERES, see ROMAN GODS

CERVARIUS PROCULUS ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

237

ancestry. Letta and D’Amato (1975, 63–65) suggest a Marsian origin for the gentilicium Cervarius and consequently for the Tacitean character, basing their hypothesis on an inscription (CIL IX 3688). Ferguson (1987, 190) lists several bearers of the name Proculus between the first century and the early second century ce. Cervarius Proculus had some afterlife in Tacitean reception: he appears as a character in Daniel Casper von Lohenstein’s tragedy Epicharis, published in 1665. see also: Epicharis Reference work: PIR2 C 680

Cervarius Proculus was a Roman equestrian, member of the Pisonian Conspiracy, who afterward turned informer about the plot. Tacitus introduces Proculus at the beginning of his narrative of the conspiracy, together with six other Equestrians: Claudius Senecio, Vulcacius Araricus, Iulius Augurinus, Munatius Gratus, Antonius Natalis and Marcius Festus (A. 15.50.1). It has long been noticed that such catalogs are typical of conspiracy narratives (see e. g. Sall. Cat. 17.3–4; Livy 39.17.6; Curt. 6.7.15; Ash 2018, 229; Pagán 2004, 87), and that Tacitus’ has a strong theatrical characterization, recalling “the expository nature of dramatic prologues” (so Woodman 1993, 105 n. 6). Proculus switched from conspirator to informer during the interrogations that followed the detection of the conspiracy; in particular, he brought about—together with Flavius Scaevinus and others –the arrest of the praetorian prefect Faenius Rufus, who had joined the plot but tried to conceal his involvement by flaunting intense brutality against his own accomplices. Tacitus specifies that Proculus strove more than all the other prisoners to unmask Rufus’ hypocrisy and show him guilty in front of Nero (A. 15.66.1–2). In contrast to the other informers, thanks to his revelations, Proculus obtained a grant of immunity from Nero. The fact that this same reward was granted jointly to him and to Antonius Natalis (A. 15.71.1), who was the accuser of Gaius Calpurnius Piso and Seneca (A. 15.56.1–2), testifies to Proculus’ importance in crushing the conspiracy. Tacitus, who is our sole source about Proculus, gives no information about his birthplace or

c03_Vol1.indd 237

REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus, Annals. Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferguson, John. 1987. A Prosopography to the Poems of Juvenal. Bruxelles: Collection Latomus. Letta, Cesare, and Sandro D’Amato. 1975. Epigrafia della regione dei Marsi. Milano: Cisalpino–Goliardica. Pagán, Victoria E. 2004. Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History. Austin: University of Texas Press. Woodman, Anthony J. 1993. “Amateur Dramatics at the Court of Nero: Annals 15.48–74.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 104–128. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

CESTIUS GALLUS, GAIUS (1) LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Gaius Cestius Gallus (1) was ordinary consul in 35 ce (A. 6.31.1; Plin. HN 10.124; 34.48; Cass. Dio 58.25.2). Due to his shameful behavior, he had been expelled from the Senate by Augustus. According to Suetonius, Tiberius publicly disapproved of and criticized Cestius’ conduct, but only few days later he accepted an invitation to one of his banquets on the condition that the serving girls had to appear naked, as normally happened at banquets by Cestius (Suet. Tib. 42. 2).

28-04-2023 17:44:49

238

  C esti u s G allu s , G ai u s ( 2 )

In 21 ce Cestius made a speech in the Senate denouncing the custom of slaves and freedmen who accused and denigrated honest people relying on the impunity given by holding an image of the emperor. He maintained that although the emperors were gods, they could not grant protection and impunity to criminals. Cestius himself was the target of injuries and threats in front of the Curia by a certain Annia Rufilla, a woman he condemned for fraud although she held an image of the emperor. Many other senators denounced similar episodes asking Drusus the Younger to act. Rufilla was found guilty and sentenced to prison (A. 3.36). After Sejanus’ fall in 32 ce, Cestius was obliged to read in the assembly a letter in which the emperor accused Quintus Servaeus and Minucius Thermus, friends of the dead praetorian prefect, of being the real instigators of his crimes. The two, condemned, accused many others (A. 6.7.2). Cestius Gallus was the father of the homonymous governor of Syria (PIR2 C 691), Gaius Cestius Gallus (2), suffect consul in 42 ce, appointed after the defeat at Rhandeia by the Parthians (spring 63 ce, A. 15.25.3; H. 5.10) and still in charge at the time of the Great Jewish Revolt in 66 ce. see also: Bellum Iudaicum; food; morality; Senate; women Reference works: PIR2 C 690; CIL VI. 33950; IGR I. 495

prosecutions in the wake of the fall of Sejanus (A. 6.7). This son was suffect consul in 42 and was assigned as legate in Syria in 63 or 65 (A. 15.25), at the same time Domitius Corbulo was given military responsibility for the region and what was in effect a superior position to Cestius given his management of legionary forces. Cestius was already somewhat superannuated for the taxing position (his consulship some twenty years in past), a post that was not destined to afford him an opportunity to manifest his best qualities. At an indeterminate date Cestius assumed sole control of affairs in his province, with baleful consequences. His governorship of Syria is cited at H. 5.10, where Tacitus records his involvement in the failed attempt to suppress the Jewish revolt that broke out in the spring of 66 (with several engagements cited that ended disastrously for the Romans), and his subsequent death in the winter of 66–67, which is attributed either to the natural course of events or to disgust and tedium with life. In his less than stellar administration of affairs in the East he made possible the subsequent, successful career of Vespasian in the same realm. Cestius is one of several examples of the appointment of older, even elderly men to key positions in the waning years of the Neronian principate; it was further a common imperial practice to appoint older men to the Syrian governorship. see also: Bellum Iudaicum

FURTHER READING Gallivan, P. A. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24: 290–311. Vervaet, F. J. 2003. “Domitius Corbulo and the Rise of the Flavian Dynasty.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 52: 436–464.

Reference work: PIR2 C 691

CESTIUS PROCULUS MITCHELL R. PENTZER

University of Colorado Boulder

CESTIUS GALLUS, GAIUS (2) LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

Gaius Cestius Gallus (2) (d. 66–67 ce) was the son of the homonymous consul of 35, Gaius Cestius Gallus (1) (A. 6.31), who had been involved in

c03_Vol1.indd 238

Cestius Proculus was a proconsul of Crete and Cyrenaica under Nero, accused by the Cretans of extortion (repetundae) in 56 ce but acquitted (A. 13.30). Tacitus mentions the proconsul and proceedings at the end of his account of the year, where he customarily records notable prosecutions (see 13.23 and 13.33, e.g., for prosecutions of the years 55 and 57 respectively; Ginsburg 1981). He had experience prosecuting repetundae himself, as

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C haldaei  

he and Pliny the Younger cooperated in the prosecution of Marius Priscus for the charge in 100 ce (Plin. Ep. 2.11). Cestius shares his moment with Vipsanius Laenas, convicted of extorting from Sardinia, and Clodius Quirinalis, a commander in Ravenna who had vexed Italy but avoided sentencing through suicide. Cestius Proculus does not appear again after his acquittal. Crete and Cyrenaica were counted among the senatorial provinces (see Cass. Dio 53.13), which in theory would be entrusted to ex-consuls. Under the principate, however, praetors administrated in increasing frequency. If the 180 bce law regarding the minimum age to hold offices was observed in his case, Cestius Proculus would have been born before 16 ce at the latest, though this standard also relaxed over time. While the manuscripts grant Cestius Proculus a mere six words, editors have made two emendations to them: Rhenanus corrected Cestius from the manuscripts’ cestus (M) and cesius (L), and Nipperdey reads Cretensibus in place of credentibus (M) and cedentibus (L), on the grounds that Tacitus always names the accusing province. see also: manuscripts; provinces Reference work: PIR2 C 695 FURTHER READING Ginsburg, Judith. 1981. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. New York: Arno Press.

CESTIUS SEVERUS, see SARIOLENUS VOCULA CETHEGUS LABEO, see APRONIUS, LUCIUS CETRIUS SEVERUS, see SUBRIUS DEXTER

239

diplomatic interactions between cities of the Greek East and Rome. Chalcedon (modern Kadıköy; Barrington 53 B3) was a city founded as a Megarian colony on the opposite end of the Bosporus from Byzantium (which became Constantinople, later capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, modern Istanbul; Barrington 52 D2). The stories of their respective foundations are paired in Greek historiography, and the cities are thus intertwined in Tacitus’ narrative. Tacitus shows his learning and knowledge of Greek historiography, citing that the Chalcedonii were “blind” for having missed a superior site for settlement at Byzantium. This connects with the foundation stories of Chalcedon and Byzantium in Herodotus, where the Chalcedonians are described as “blind” (Hdt. 4.144; cf. Strabo 7.6.2). Tacitus himself contributes to the primordial rivalry with a short geographical excursus, commenting on Byzantium’s superior agricultural and fishing capacity, its strategic location on the Bosporus, and its good harbors (with the implication that Chalcedon does not enjoy those characteristics); this compares with similar statements in Polybius and Strabo (Strabo 7.6.2; Polyb. 4.38.1–10, 43.3–44.11. Russell 2016, 29, 210–211). For further reading on the literary tradition and foundations of both Byzantium and Chalcedon, see Russell 2016, 229–242. see also: historiography Reference work: Barrington 52 D2; 53 B3 REFERENCE

CHALCEDONII PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Chalcedonii, refers to the people of Chalcedon, mentioned once in Tacitus (A. 12.63.2) in the context of an embassy from Byzantium in their attempt to gain immunity from taxation during the reign of Claudius (53 ce). Accordingly, this episode fits into Tacitus’ interest in geography, antiquarian themes, and descriptions of

c03_Vol1.indd 239

Russell, T. 2016. Byzantium and the Bosporus: A Historical Study, from the Seventh Century bc until the Foundation of Constantinople. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHALDAEI ELIZABETH ANN POLLARD

San Diego State University

Chaldaei, a term used by Tacitus in conjunction with mathematici, were astrologers from the

28-04-2023 17:44:49

240

  C haldaei

region of modern-day Iraq. Consulting Chaldaei was not a value-neutral activity in Tacitus: bad leaders sought their advice (Tiberius and Agrippina the Younger); consulting them was a treasonous act (Scribonius Libo Drusus; Lollia Paulina; Furius Scribonianus); and they were frequently expelled from Italy in the aftermath of treasonous plots. While Tacitus does not offer a straightforward definition of who they were and where they came from, according to Cicero, Chaldaei hailed from the region of Assyria where they had long tracked the constellations, thanks to the open country in which they lived and the view of the sky it afforded them. From those celestial observations, Chaldaei were thought to have perfected the science of predicting a person’s future and fate based on the stars (Cic. Div 1.2). Many examples of firstcentury ce Chaldaeiconsulting appear in Tacitus’ Annals. In 16 ce the senator Firmius Catus pushed a gullible Libo Drusus—who had many connections with the Julio-Claudian line—toward promises of Chaldaei, rites of magi, the interpreters of dreams (Chaldaeorum promissa, magorum sacra, somniorum etiam interpretes impulit, A. 2.27). The Libo Drusus affair concludes with a senatus consultum in 17 ce expelling mathematici and magi from Italy, even executing two members of this group: Lucius Pituanius, hurled from ‘the rock,’ presumably the Tarpeian Rock; and Publius Marcius, killed outside the Esquiline Gate, following ancient custom (more prisco), although what custom is unclear (A. 2.32; see astrology). Years later, around 33 ce, while retired at Capri, Tiberius himself forecasts Galba’s taste of empire (degustabis imperium). Tacitus attributes that foreknowledge to Tiberius’ own study of the Chaldaean arts (scientia Chaldaeorum artis) with Thrasyllus as instructor (A. 6.20). Tacitus depicts Thrasyllus, Tiberius’ magister in the Chaldean arts, at his craft when he ostensibly deduces from the positions and distances of the constellations (positus siderum ac spatia dimensus), and perhaps from the fact that he is on a ledge with Tiberius and a thug, that he is in danger (A. 6.21). In 49 ce, an Agrippina-driven accusation against her rival Lollia Paulina—of consulting with Chaldaei (along with magicians and an image of the Clarian

c03_Vol1.indd 240

Apollo), combined with her high-ranking family connections—were enough to get Lollia banished from Italy, property confiscated, and tribune sent to kill her (A. 12.22). In 52 ce, Furius Scribonianus was accused of investigating the death of Claudius through Chaldaei (per Chaldaeos). After Scribonianus’ exile and death, another senatus consultum banished astrologers (mathematici) from Italy (A. 12.52). Tacitus reports that two years later, in 54 ce, as Claudius lay dying of poison through the scheming of Agrippina and the doctor Stertinius Xenophon, Agrippina saw Claudius’ death and her son’s ascension as the good-omened moment known to her from the oracles of Chaldaei (ex monitis Chaldaeorum; A. 12.68). Perhaps this same consultation is the one that gave Agrippina foreknowledge of her own death. When Tacitus reports Nero’s matricide, he comments that she already knew it was coming because when she consulted Chaldaei about Nero’s imperial chances they told her that he would be emperor but would kill his mother (A. 14.9). During his three-month reign in 69 ce, Vitellius banishes mathematici (not Chaldaei; H. 2.62); perhaps because it was the Chaldaean arts that Tiberius used to forecast Galba’s brief reign and because Otho had been spurred on by astrologers (mathematici) who saw a good year for him in their observation of the stars (H. 1.22). Tacitus notes that Vespasian openly consulted with a mathematicus named Seleucus (H. 2.78). see also: magic; maiestas FURTHER READING Beck, Roger. 2006. A Brief History of Ancient Astrology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Cramer, F. 1954. Astrology in Roman Law and Politics. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Ripat, Pauline. 2011. “Expelling Misconceptions: Astrologers at Rome.” Classical Philology 106: 115–154.

CHAMAVI, see BRUCTERI CHARICLES, see MEDICINE CHARIOVALDA, see BATAVI CHASUARII, see BRUCTERI

28-04-2023 17:44:49

C hatti  

CHATTI MOLLY AYN JONES-LEWIS

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The Chatti are a people of Germania (see Germani, Germania) thought to have settled the area that is now Hesse, west of the upper Weser river, during the first century bce; the word Hesse is likely derived from Chatti (Rives 1999, 246– 248). Sometime between Iulius Caesar’s Gallic wars in the 50s bce and Drusus the Elder’s German campaigns in 12 bce, the Batavi split from the Chatti to form a new faction, settling near the Rhine (G. 28; H. 4.12.2). The migration of the Chatti into lands between the Rhine and Weser seems to have coincided with Drusus’ campaigns of 12–9 bce, at which time Rome built a tower on the bank of the Rhine near Chatti territory (Schneider 2006, 8–26). Drusus was voted triumphal honors following these raids (Cass. Dio 54.36.3). The Chatti were undeterred, however, and joined in Arminius’ revolt in 9 ce. When Drusus’ son Germanicus began his punitive raids of 15–16 ce, the Chatti and their territory were a primary target. Germanicus dispatched his legate Gaius Silius [Aulus Caecina Largus] to Chattian territory, and that mission resulted in the capture of the wife and daughter of Arpus, one of the Chatti leaders. At Germanicus’ triumph in 17 ce, a priest of the Chatti named Libes was among the captives on parade (Strabo 7.1.4, cf. A. 2.41.2). The Chatti resumed periodic hostilities against Rome in 40 or 41 ce (Cass. Dio 60.8.7), again in 50 ce (A. 12.27–8) and participated in the siege of Mogontiacum during Iulius Civilis’ revolt (H. 4.37.3). It was from Mogontiacum that Domitian initiated his own war against the Chatti that was fought from 82 or 83 until 88 ce, raising legion I Minervia to support the campaign. He built a network of roads and fortifications likely meant to undermine the asymmetrical tactics of the Chatti (Rives 1999, 247). Whether or not this war resulted in gains sufficient to justify Domitian’s triumph at the end of 83 is a matter of some debate. While Rome achieved a stronger

c03_Vol1.indd 241

241

footprint in the region of Tanus, the Chatti were mobilizing against the Cherusci, a Roman ally, as soon as 90–91 ce (Southern 1997, 79–90). Tacitus is among the senatorial authors to disparage Domitian’s war against the Chatti by claiming that the triumph’s captives were actually enslaved people purchased to fill the procession (Ag. 39.1, cf. Plin. Pan. 16.3). Such claims were also made of Caligula’s triumph and so may have been a common trope used to undermine an emperor’s campaign narrative (Suet. Calig. 37.4). Pliny (Pan. 11.4) and Cassius Dio (67.4.1) both cast doubt on the degree to which Domitian was involved in actual military action; while the substance of these charges are in doubt, they are strongly suggestive of the military climate into which Nerva and Trajan began the next phase of imperial rule (Rives 1999, 281–282). To Rome’s senatorial classes, the Chatti and their allies represented unfinished business awaiting the new dynasty’s attention. Tacitus’ treatment of the Chatti in the Germania is as striking as it is ambiguous; he gives them an unusually long cameo in his grand tour of the peoples of Germania and describes them in quite positive terms. He tells us that they are more prudent and competent than other Germani (G. 30.2): Where others go to a battle, the Chatti go to war (G. 30.3). Young Chatti often vow not to shave or cut their hair or (more rarely) remove an iron ring until they have killed an enemy, and they will keep that vow for years, if necessary, until this “debt” to their fatherland (patria) and parents is paid. They do not settle into their own households but live as peripatetic guests prone to starting fights. Such men are put in the front line of battle, the better to facilitate the fulfillment of their vows (G. 31). As with much of Tacitus’ ethnography, independent evidence for these claims is difficult to come by, and much of it may be a projection of Roman values onto a distant foe (Rives 1999, 247, 249–250). In the Tacitean corpus as a whole, the Chatti are an antagonist against which a revolving cast of Roman military protagonists tests their mettle. see also: ethnicity; Rhenus

28-04-2023 17:44:50

242

  C hau ci

REFERENCES Rives, J. B. 1999. Tacitus Germania. Oxford: Clarendon. Schneider, Helmuth. 2006. “Die Imperiale Macht der Römer.” In Hessen in der Antike: die Chatten vom Zeitalter der Römer bis zur Alltagskultur der Gegenwart, edited by Dorothea Rohde and Helmuth Schneider, 8–26. Kassel: Euregioverlag. Southern, Pat. 1997. Domitian: Tragic Tyrant. London: Routledge. FURTHER READING Krebs, Christopher B. 2012. A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. New York: W. W. Norton.

CHAUCI MOLLY AYN JONES-LEWIS

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The Chauci were a people of ancient Germany (see Germani, Germania) who lived on the coastal mudflats at the mouth of the Weser. They were known for their raiding activity on the North Sea coast during the first centuries ce. Pliny the Elder considered them part of the Ingvaeones along with the Cimbri and Teutones (HN 4.99). Some Roman authors, including Tacitus, further subdivide the Chauci into the Greater and Lesser Chauci. Tacitus seems to locate the Greater Chauci between the Ems (Amisia) and Weser (Visurgis) and the Lesser Chauci between the Weser and Elbe (Albis) (Ag. 11.19.2, Rives 199, 267). Ptolemy, conversely, puts the Greater between the Weser and Elbe and the Lesser between the Ems and Weser (Geog. 2.11.7). Their lands were among those invaded during Drusus the Elder’s campaigns of 12 bce, and they seem to have come under some degree of Roman control at that time (Livy Per. 140). The impact of Drusus’ raids was light enough that in 5 ce Tiberius required a second campaign to reconquer the Chauci (Vell. Pat. 2.106.1). Tacitus mentions a garrison in Chaucian territory which attempted a quickly

c03_Vol1.indd 242

quashed revolt in 14 ce (A. 1.38.1), and this suggests that Tiberius’ second conquest included the construction of fortified camps. By 15–16 ce they were uneasy Roman allies (Ag. 1.60.2, 2.17.5). At some point before 41 ce they came into possession of one of Quintilius Varus’ lost legionary standards, but whether this is evidence of their collaboration with Arminius’ revolt is unclear. However, sometime between 15 and Aulus Gabinius Secundus’ raids in 41 ce relations between the Chauci and Romans had deteriorated to the point of hostility; Secundus recovered the eagle from the Chauci and was given the cognomen Chaucius by the emperor Claudius (Suet. Claud. 24.3; Cass. Dio 60.8.7; Rives 1999, 266). The setback was a temporary one for the Chauci, who were raiding the coast with their Frisii allies by 47 ce and expanding their territory into the Rhine coastal delta (Ag. 11.18–9, Plin. HN 16.203). Domitius Corbulo, according to Tacitus, had already accepted the Frisians’ surrender, orchestrated the assassination of the Frisian leader Gannascus, and was in the process of campaigning against the Chauci when Claudius ordered him to withdraw (Ag. 11.19– 20). Pliny the Elder, who was part of Corbulo’s Chaucian campaign, tells of the dangers faced by the Roman fleet crossing into Chaucian territory via lake Flevo, which was choked with floating oaks whose roots had come loose from the swampy soil (HN 16.5). He also describes the living conditions in the settlements of the coastal Chauci, whom he describes as a “wretched people” (misera gens) who live in elevated huts, cannot keep domesticated animal or farm, and eat fish. Pliny’s editorial comment that the Chauci serve to illustrate that “in many cases, Fortune spares people as a punishment” (fortuna parcit in poenam, HN 16.4), hints at the mood in Corbulo’s camp as the Romans withdrew without having achieved total victory over the Chauci. Undaunted by Corbulo’s truncated campaign, the Chauci continued to raid and invade their neighbors through the 50s ce, eventually driving the Ampsivarii from their homes along the Amisia river (Ag. 13.55.1). By the time of the Batavian revolt of 69–70 ce, a small number of Chauci were serving as Roman auxilia under Iulius Civilis (Ag. 2.17; H. 4.79.2, 5.19).

28-04-2023 17:44:50

C heru sci  

Given this antagonistic history, it has surprised many that Tacitus’ account of the Chauci in the Germania reads as it does. He describes them as the most noble (nobilissimus) people of Germania, devoted to just rule and without avarice, not at all the sort of people to start wars or pillage their neighbors (G. 35, see Isaac 2006, 433–445). This is an astonishing way to describe some of the most infamous seafaring raiders of the North Sea, and more astonishing still given that a good deal of our evidence for Chaucian piracy comes from Tacitus’ later works. This is likely an artifact of the Germania’s genre: a political pamphlet cum ethnography (Isaac 2006, 434 n. 47: see also Krebs 2011, 29–55). Rives (1999, 267) suggests that Tacitus’ remarks about the Chauci owe much to stock Greek and Roman descriptions of noble barbarians, and they are written as a foil to the complacent Cherusci, who are the next Germanic people described in Tacitus’ account. see also: ethnicity; ethnography; Mannus tribes; Rhenus REFERENCES Isaac, Benjamin H. 2006. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton UP. Krebs, Christopher B. 2011. A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. New York: W. W. Norton. Rives, J. B. 1999. Tacitus Germania. Oxford: Clarendon.

CHERUSCI JAMES McNAMARA

Universität Potsdam

The Cherusci were a Germanic people most prominent in Roman sources during the supremacy of Arminius, when they took a leading role in driving the Romans from the territory between the Rhine (Rhenus) and Elbe (Albis). In the Germania and the Annals, Tacitus recounts Arminius’ later years and subsequent internal conflicts that weakened the tribe. The Cherusci are first mentioned by Iulius Caesar (BGall. 6.10.5) as separated from the

c03_Vol1.indd 243

243

Suebi by the Bacenis Silva, but he does not recount interaction with them. Pliny HN 4.100 classifies the Cherusci as Hermiones, along with Suebi, Hermunduri and Chatti. The Cherusci can be placed, broadly speaking, between the Weser (Visurgis) and Elbe rivers. Ptol. Geog. 2.11.10 suggests a location bounded roughly by the Elbe and Harz, (cf. Vibius Sequester Flum. 22); Vell. Pat. 2.105 and Cass. Dio 54.33, 55.1, 56.8 imply a territory extending west to the Weser and perhaps beyond. Tacitus mentions an earthwork built by the Angrivarii (see Bructeri) on their southern border as defense against the Cherusci (A. 2.19.2). A forest sacred to Hercules was used as a place of assembly for the Cherusci and allies during Germanicus’ campaign across the Weser in 16 ce (A. 2.12.1). The history of the Cherusci is riven by divisions in the royal house between factions friendly and opposed to Rome. The tribe was overrun by the campaigns of Drusus the Elder in 11 and 9 bce (Livy Per. 140; Cass. Dio 54.33.1, 55.1.2; Florus 2.30.24–5; Orosius 6.21.15). Tiberius reaffirmed their allegiance in 4 bce (Vell. Pat. 2.105.1); up to 9 ce, the Cherusci were allied with the Romans, and members of their royal line (stirps regia, A. 11.16.1) served in the Roman army and were granted privileges including citizenship; equestrian status is attested for Arminius (Vell. Pat. 2.118.2). Arminius took a leading role in the uprising that destroyed the army of Quintilius Varus in 9 ce in the Teutoburg Forest, his trusted status helping him to catch Varus off guard. Arminius held on to his leading position among a strong Cheruscan-led alliance (cf. Strabo 7.1.4) for the next decade, through the campaigns of Tiberius (10–12 ce) and Germanicus (14–16 ce, A. 1.55–71, 2.5–26) and at war against the Marcomani under Maroboduus (17 ce, A. 2.45–6). Members of the Cheruscan nobility were displayed in the triumph of Germanicus (17 ce; Strabo 7.1.4). Throughout these wars, the Cherusci were divided; while Arminius held a leading position, members of the royal house sided with Rome (Flavus (1); Segestes, Segimerus, see Thusnelda) or Maroboduus (Inguiomerus). Soon after, Arminius fell victim to treachery within his family (A. 2.88.2), and after this the Cherusci

28-04-2023 17:44:50

244

  C hristianity

fall into greater obscurity, their politics continually undermined by internal struggles. There is evidence of close and fluctuating contact between the Cherusci and Chatti, secured by dynastic marriages (Strabo 7.1.4, A. 11.16.1) and complicated by the divisions in the Cheruscan nobility. Although the Chatti made common cause with Arminius in the face of Germanicus’ aggression in 15 ce, (A. 1.56.5), in 19 ce the chief of the Chatti Adgandestrius offered to poison Arminius in exchange for a reward; he was rebuffed by Tiberius (A. 2.88.1). By 47 ce the only remaining successor to the Cheruscan royal line was Italicus (1), whose parents were Arminius’ brother Flavus and the daughter of chief Actumerus of the Chatti, and who had been raised in Rome. Claudius installed Italicus as king of the Cherusci (A. 11.16–17), and the new king inherited and stirred up the divisions of a generation earlier. Tacitus characterizes his reign as a period of decline for Cheruscan power. The latest surviving record of the Cherusci in the Annals is at A. 12.28.2 (50 ce), continuing their perpetual discord with the Chatti. The last known king of the Cherusci is Chariomerus, who as a friend of the Romans was driven from his kingdom by the Chatti (Cass. Dio 67.5.1); after being restored with Roman aid, he was expelled a second time and granted money but no military support by Domitian. These events may well form the background to Tacitus’ comments in the Germania (98 ce), which represents the Cherusci as a fallen power, vanquished by the Chatti after a period of complacency and sloth (G. 36.1). Their fate was shared by the Fosi, known only from Tacitus (G. 36.3). Late antique references to the Cherusci (e.g., Claudian De Bello Gothico 420) appear to have an archaic ring (Thompson 1965, 88). see also: Germani, Germania; Germania Reference works: Barrington 10 F4; Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 4, Cherusker REFERENCE Thompson, E. A. 1965. The Early Germans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c03_Vol1.indd 244

FURTHER READING Timpe, Dieter. 2006. Römisch-germanische Begegnung in der späten Republik und frühen Kaiserzeit. Voraussetzungen – Konfrontationen – Wirkungen. Gesammelte Studien. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 233. De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110932676.

CHOBUS, see ALBANI

CHRISTIANITY JOHN GRANGER COOK

LaGrange College

Tacitus is the primary source for Nero’s persecution of the Christians in Rome following the Fire of 64 ce. Although Suetonius mentions the fire, he refers to the persecution of the Christians in another context in his biography of Nero. Tacitus writes that the crowd called the Christians Chrestiani, while Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, 1 Peter, and Acts refer to them as Christiani or Christianoi. Tacitus is the sole Roman historian to describe the persecution of the Christians under Nero as a direct result of the devastating fire in Rome. The Christians were convicted of arson, and perhaps some were forced to admit to that crime through torture, although Tacitus makes it clear that they were scapegoats (i.e., innocent of the charge), since he used the expression “fraudulently substituted culprits” (subdidit reos, A. 15.44.2). The fire broke out on 19 July 64 and burned for nine days (A. 15.41.2, CIL VI, 30837). The popular rumor was that Nero had started the fire to build a new capital named after himself (A. 15.40). His imperial generosity (such as distributions of food; A. 15.39, 43–44) and ceremonies to appease the gods (A. 15.44.1–2) did little to dispel the people’s belief (Van der Lans and Bremmer 2017, 308). Suetonius’ decision to separate his narrative of the fire (Ner. 38), which he believed Nero set, and his reference to the persecution of the Christians (16.2) need not trouble the historian, because Suetonius’ habit was to separate laudable actions (such as the persecution of Christians) from criminal actions (Cook 2010, 83; Van der Lans and Bremmer 2017, 301, pace Shaw 2015, 83–84).

28-04-2023 17:44:50

C hristianity  

Brent D. Shaw’s argument that Tacitus’ use of the word Christians is an anachronism (Shaw 2015, 87–90), because second century Roman writers (including Suetonius and Pliny) are responsible for the first existent usages of the term, is an argument from silence—which is inherently weak logically (Cook 2020, 237–240). No fragments of first century Roman historians exist that refer to the Christians by any name, and this absence demonstrates nothing about the first Roman usage of the term Christianus. Tacitus’ different spelling (Chrestiani) clearly indicates according to Jan Bremmer that he had a different source from Suetonius and other contemporary writers (including 1 Peter 4:16 if composed during Trajan’s reign; on Tacitus’ possible sources, see Cook 2010, 41–42). There was an active Christian community in Rome during Nero’s imperium as Paul’s letter to the Romans demonstrates (especially Romans 16; passed over by Shaw 2015, 89; see Jones 2017, 151). In any case there were “followers of Christ” during Nero’s reign, and Luke claims that outsiders started using the term “Christian” in the 40s in Antioch (Acts 11:26; cf. Van der Lans and Bremmer 2017, 319– 322 on the interpretation of the Greek verb chrēmatisai as “public acclamation”). After mentioning Pontius Pilate’s execution of Jesus, Tacitus discusses the spread of Christianity: “And having been repressed for the moment, the deadly superstition (superstitio) erupted again not only in Judaea, the origin of this evil (or “disease”), but even throughout the city [Rome] where from all parts all shocking and shameful things flow and are celebrated” (A. 15.44.3). Presumably Christianity was “repressed” initially because the auctor nominis (“the source of the name”), Christ, had been executed. Tacitus is aware of the growth of ancient Christianity, and his classification of Christianity as a superstition (see Cook 2010, 51–54) was shared by his contemporaries, Suetonius (Ner. 16.2) and Pliny (Tra. 10.96.8). Despite Tacitus’ belief that the Christians were not arsonists, he notes that they were “hated for their crimes” (A. 15.44.3). He does not state that they were suspected of Oedipodean intercourse or Thyestean banquets (charges from later in the second century). Pliny also speaks of “crimes

c03_Vol1.indd 245

245

associated with the [Christian] name” (Tra. 10.96.2; see Cook 2010, 47–49, 165–166). 1 Peter 4:14–16 implies that Christianity was reviled by certain outsiders, and it may be a Roman document. Ronald Syme (1958, 469) hypothesizes that Tacitus investigated the Christians while he was proconsul in Asia, “discovering perhaps no deeds of crime or vice but only an invincible spirit that denied allegiance to Rome when allegiance meant worship of Caesar.” Tacitus affirms that the Christians “were guilty and deserving the most unusual exemplary punishments” (sontes et novissima exempla meritos, A. 15.44.5). Although they were not arsonists, presumably for Tacitus their rejection of the emperor cult or other Roman rituals such as the “supplication of our gods,” (Plin. Tra. 10.97) justified this view. It is not difficult to believe that already in Nero’s time Roman officials were aware of this aspect of early Christianity, and Tacitus accuses Christians of “hatred of the human race” (A. 15.44.4). He also accused Jewish proselytes of “renouncing their ancestral cults” and accused the Jews in general of misanthropy (H. 5.5.1)—charges that Greeks and Romans tended to use against Jews and Christians (Cook 2010, 63–65). Detlef Liebs affirms that Nero enacted no formal edict or mandate against the Christians, but the trial(s) for arson was “sufficient in and of itself to label confession of Christian belief alone as a criminal act” (2012, 123; cf. Dig. 1.4.1.1 “what the emperor has decided after a trial”; see Cook 2020, 249–252). Tacitus, according to the oldest manuscript, states that Nero punished the Christians in three ways: mutilation by dogs; or crucifixion; or being burned as torches. These three penalties correspond to the punishments for arson that were used at different periods of the republic and empire (see Cook 2010, 72). see also: gardens; Judaism; religion REFERENCES Cook, John Granger. 2010. Roman Attitudes toward the Christians: From Claudius to Hadrian. WUNT 261. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Cook, John Granger. 2020. “Chrestiani, Christiani, Χριστιανοί: A Second Century Anachronism?”

28-04-2023 17:44:50

246

  C icero, M arc u s T u lli u s

Vigiliae Christianae 74: 237–264. DOI: 10.1163/15700720-12341410. Jones, Christopher P. 2017. “The Historicity of the Neronian Persecution: A Response to Brent Shaw.” New Testament Studies 63: 146–152. DOI: 10.1017/ S0028688516000308. Liebs, Detlef. 2012. “They Hate Mankind.” In Summoned to Roman Courts, 114–124. Berkeley: University of California Press. Shaw, Brent. D. 2015. “The Myth of the Neronian Persecution.” Journal of Roman Studies 105: 73–100. DOI: 10.1017/S0075435815000982. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van der Lans, Birgit, and Jan N. Bremmer. 2017. “Tacitus and the Persecution of the Christians: An Invention of Tradition?” Eirene. Studia Graeca et Latina 53: 301–333. FURTHER READING Champlin, Edward. 2003. Nero. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 121–126.

CICERO, MARCUS TULLIUS BRANDON JONES

Boston University

Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 bce–7 December 43 bce; consul 63 bce) was the most recognized orator of Roman antiquity as well as a distinguished politician and scholar of philosophy. Hundreds of his letters to friends and family, more than fifty orations, and two dozen rhetorical and philosophical works are extant, making him one of the most prolific authors of antiquity. He is cited and referred to frequently in Tacitus’ Dialogue on Orators, such that the dialogue may be considered a critical response to his rhetorical histories and theories. Born into an equestrian family from Arpinum, Cicero was educated extensively in rhetoric and philosophy, Lucius Licinius Crassus serving as model for oratory, the Scaevolae for legal matters (Plut. Cic. 3.2). In his first recorded court case, he defended Publius Quinctius in 81 bce (Quinct.). In 80 bce, he opposed the clients of Lucius

c03_Vol1.indd 246

Cornelius Sulla (1) in his first criminal case, successfully defending Sextus Roscius against charges of patricide (Rosc. Am.). He then pursued further training in philosophy under Antiochus of Ascalon in Athens and in rhetoric under Apollonius Molon in Rhodes (Cic. Brut. 315–16; Plut. Cic. 4). Returning west, he embarked upon the cursus honorum, serving as quaestor in Sicily in 75 bce. While aedile in 70 bce he famously prosecuted Gaius Verres for corruption during his governorship in Sicily. Though Cicero published two speeches (Verr.), he delivered only the first, having pleaded powerfully enough that Verres fled and Cicero obtained a victory over Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, who had been the leading orator of the period. While praetor in 66 bce, Cicero delivered his first political speech, supporting an extraordinary command of Pompey the Great (Leg. Man.). He was elected consul for 63 bce, a notable achievement for a novus homo of that period. During his consulship he was named pater patriae for the suppression of a conspiracy led by Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline), whom Cicero had defeated in his bid for consulship. In a series of four speeches (Cat.), Cicero attacked Catiline and secured a senatus consultum ultimum, thereafter declaring Catiline and his fellow conspirators enemies of the state and ultimately putting several to death without trial (Sall. Cat.). The years following his consulship saw Cicero flounder politically primarily due to the formation of the first triumvirate and his refusal to back it. In 58 bce, Clodius, tribune of the plebs enacted a law against those who had killed Roman citizens without trial—a measure clearly targeting Cicero, who spent the following fifteen months in exile in Macedonia (Cass. Dio 38.16–30; Cic. Att. 3; Plut. Cic. 32). With the support of the current tribune of the plebs, Annius Milo, and Pompey, Cicero returned to Rome in August 57 bce. In 52 bce, he defended Milo against charges of the murder of Clodius (Asc. Mil.; Cic. Mil.) With Pompey’s armed guards present, Cicero’s delivery of the speech seems to have been a tremendous failure and Milo was forced into exile. In 51–50 bce, Cicero reluctantly took up a proconsulship in Cilicia, during which he defeated a robber band

28-04-2023 17:44:50

C icero, M arc u s T u lli u s  

at Mons Amanus and, declared imperator, hoped for a triumph which he would never receive. Cicero supported Pompey in the civil war and traveled to Pharsalus, though he did not participate in battle. Returning to Rome, he was pardoned by Iulius Caesar. Cicero dedicated his efforts primarily to philosophical and rhetorical theory during the period after Caesar’s victory, and the majority of his treatises on these subjects appeared from 46–44 bce. In 46 bce, however, he gave the so-called Caesarianae speeches on behalf of Marcellus, Ligarius, and Deiotarus, all of whom had either opposed Caesar or had been accused of conspiring against him. Though he was not involved in the assassination of Caesar, he celebrated the deed of Marcus Iunius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus (1) (Fam. 10.28). He returned to political life, spitefully opposing Mark Antony, against whom he produced the Philippics, a series of invective speeches. Cicero supported Octavian (Augustus), aiding his advance to power, but fell victim to the second triumvirate when Octavian allowed Antony to proscribe him in 43 bce. Cicero was killed by Herrenius and Pupilius near his villa in Formiae, his head and hands cut off and displayed in the Roman Forum (Plut. Cic. 48). After his death, his dear slave and, later, freedman, Tiro, played a significant role in the publication of his Letters, making many of his personal thoughts available to the public. Cicero’s political life, though turbulent and at times failing, was by all standards remarkable. Through his philosophical works he contributed greatly to the development of Roman philosophical language and thought. But in antiquity it was his oratory and rhetorical theory for which he was most celebrated. Quintilian remarked that “among posterity indeed it has happened that Cicero now holds not the name of a person, but of eloquence” (apud posteros vero id consecutus ut Cicero iam non hominis nomen sed eloquentiae habeatur, Quint. Inst. 10.1.110). Tacitus similarly received Cicero as a rhetorical figure. He refers directly to Cicero only once in his historical writing, placing a reference to Cicero’s laudatory work on Cato and Caesar’s measured response to it into the mouth of Cremutius Cordus (A. 4.34.4). The Dialogue on

c03_Vol1.indd 247

247

Orators, however, is filled with Ciceronian style, references, criticism, and discussion. Tacitus frequently evokes Cicero’s rhetorical treatises, De Oratore and Orator. In the former, Cicero deployed a reported dialogue between Lucius Licinius Crassus, Mark Antony, and Quintus Mucius Scaevola to describe the ideal orator with an eye to political philosophy—a particular point of interest in the final speech of Tacitus’ Curiatius Maternus. In the latter, a response to Brutus, Cicero describes the ideal orator as striking a unique eloquence, independent of Asianism and Atticism—styles of oratory to which Tacitus’ Marcus Aper variously alludes. The whole of the Dialogue on Orators adds and responds to Cicero’s Brutus, a dialogic history of Roman rhetoric. Specific citation, quotation, allusion and interaction with Cicero’s works occur with tremendous frequency throughout Tacitus’ dialogue, each of the main interlocutors making ample direct reference to Cicero. Aper deploys Cicero’s discussion of ages in the now lost Hortensius to argue that Cicero was a contemporary of the dialogue’s interlocutors (D. 16.7). He uses biographical information provided by Tiro to date Cicero’s death within 120 years of their present day and, by that reckoning, within the span of a lifetime (D. 17.2). Aper also presents himself as, like Cicero before, providing a defense of contemporary oratory against preferences for previous generations (D. 22.1). In arguing about changing tastes, he presents a mixed portrait of Cicero, whom he evaluates as more cultivated and loftier than his predecessors (D. 18.2), the first to cultivate oratory fully with a focus on selection and arrangement, and capable of some clever phrases, particularly in his later speeches (D. 22.2). Yet, in his own day, Cicero had detractors who found him to be superfluous and insufficiently Attic in style (D. 18.4), while letters from Calvus and Brutus criticize Cicero’s oratory as feeble (D. 18.5). Aper adds criticism of his own, namely that Cicero spoke at too great a length for contemporary audiences (D. 20.1, 22.3), lacked style, polish and remarkable phrases in his early speeches (D. 22.3), and created some cheap and repetitive tag lines (D. 23.1). Aper does not miss an opportunity to include a slight at Cicero’s notoriously poorly received verse, adding that only those who read

28-04-2023 17:44:50

248

  C ilicia

such poor poetry could enjoy the slow and tedious oratory of that period, such as Brutus’ failed defense of King Deiotarus of Galatia (D. 21.6), whom Cicero likewise defended a year later. Vipstanus Messalla rejects Aper’s contention, ironically adding that contemporary rhetoricians believe that they were superior to Cicero, but far inferior to Iulius Gabinianus (D. 26.8), who by honest judgment was not at all comparable. In his argument on contemporary failings in rhetorical preparation—directed at declamation halls which, he adds, Cicero once criticized as well (D. 35.1)—Messalla uses Cicero as an example of the preeminence of old-fashioned education. His dedication to a well-rounded education in liberal arts and, most of all, philosophy, as Cicero explained himself in the Brutus, was integral to his success as an orator. In addition to Quintus Mucius, Cicero learned under Philo of the Academy and Diodotus the Stoic (D. 30.3–5, 32.5). Maternus includes Cicero in his first speech on the primacy of poetry over oratory, claiming that more were critical of Cicero’s fame than Vergil’s (D. 12.5). He returns to Cicero in his second speech on oratory’s flagging role given the state of contemporary political affairs, first claiming that Cicero’s reputation as a great orator was not because of civil cases such as his defense of Publius Quinctius in an inheritance dispute or of the Greek poet Aulus Licinius Archias in a citizenship dispute of 62 bce. Rather, he made his reputation on criminal and political speeches such as those against Catiline, Verres, and Antony, as well as his defense of Milo (D.37.6). Orators of the republic were sparked by the enthusiasm of the entire citizen body, which, Maternus says, convened en masse for such speeches as Cicero’s defenses of Milo, Publius Vatinius, Gaius Cornelius, charged with maiestas in 65 bce, Lucius Bestia, charged with bribery in 56 bce, and Marcus Scaurus, charged with extortion in 54 bce (D. 39.5). That Cicero “paid for his fame in eloquence with such a terrible death” (famam eloquentiae Cicero tali exitu pensaivit, D. 40.4) illustrates how, in Maternus’ opinion, contemporary oratory carried much lower stakes than that of the republic and, therefore, could not achieve the same level of glory.

c03_Vol1.indd 248

see also: civil wars of Late Republic; Dialogus de Oratoribus; eloquentia; Greek oratory; Hortensius Hortalus, Marcus; Roman orators; Roman poets Reference work: RE Tullius 29 FURTHER READING Gowing, Alain. 2005. Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 109–120. Keeline, Thomas. 2018. The Reception of Cicero in the Early Roman Empire: The Rhetorical Schoolroom and the Creation of a Cultural Legend. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levene, David. 2004. “Tacitus’ ‘Dialogus’ as Literary History.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 134: 157–200. DOI: 10.1353/ apa.2004.0005. Mayer, Roland. 2001. Tacitus. Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Michel, Alain. 1962. Le “Dialogue des orateurs” de Tacite et la philosophie de Cicéron. Paris: Klincksieck. van den Berg, Christopher. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weil, Bruno. 1962. 2000 Jahre Cicero. Zurich: Classen. Zielinski, Tadeusz. 1929. Cicero im Wandel der Jahrhunderte. 4th ed. Leipzig: Teubner.

CIETAE, see CILICIA

CILICIA MALI SKOTHEIM

Ashoka University

Cilicia, an area of Southwest Asia Minor, comprised the mountainous Cilicia Aspera/ Tracheia (“Rough Cilicia”) to the west, and the fertile lowlands of Cilicia Campestris/ Pedias (“Smooth Cilicia”) to the northeast, watered by the Pyramus River. Cilicia was bordered by mountains on all sides except its seacoast, Isauria to the west, the Taurus range to the north, and the Amanus range to the east. The independent character of the upland region is reflected in its association with piracy (Strabo 13.5.6) and in peoples such as the Homanadenses, who occupied the caves of the

28-04-2023 17:44:50

C imbri  

heights of the Taurus, and were not conquered until 12 bce, by Sulpicius Quirinius (Strabo 12.6.5; A. 3.48; Shaw 1990), and the Cietae, who resisted taxation by hiding in the Taurus mountains until they were besieged by Marcus Trebellius Maximus in 36 ce (A. 6.41). In 52 ce, the Cietae, led by Troxoborus, harassed the lowland and coastal areas from their mountain bases, and blockaded Anemurium, a city at the southernmost promontory of Cilicia Aspera (A. 12.55; Barrington 66 B4). Cilicia Campestris was part of the province of Syria-Cilicia Phoenice from 27 bce, while Cilicia Aspera was ruled by client kings into the imperial period. Both were united into the province of Cilicia by Vespasian in 72 ce (Joseph. AJ 18.5.4). In 17 ce, political disturbance following the deaths of Philopator II, king of Cilicia, and Antiochus of Commagene, prompted Tiberius to send Germanicus to the East (A. 2.42), although he seems not to have visited Cilicia. Tacitus claims that the people of Cilicia and Commagene desired Roman or royal imperium (A. 2.42), a Roman stereotype of Near Eastern servitude, which Andrade (2012) argues was a model for Tacitus’ portrayal of the Roman desire for imperium. Cilicia appears several times in the Annals in connection with Roman political and military affairs. Germanicus sent Vonones, deposed king of Parthia and Armenia, from Syria to Pompeiopolis, formerly Soli (A. 2.58; Barrington 66 E2). Vonones was killed fleeing Cilicia for Armenia, and his Cilician property seized by Artabanus (A. 2.68; 6.31). Following Germanicus’ death in 19 ce, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso besieged the well-fortified Celenderis (modern Aydıncık; Barrington 66 C4), at the southwestern edge of Cilicia Aspera, on his way to regain control of Syria (A. 2.80). In 55 ce, Ummidius Quadratus met Domitius Corbulo, on his way to Syria to obtain forces in support of his Armenian campaign, at Aegeae (modern Yumurtalık; Barrington 67 B3), a coastal city on the eastern edge of Cilicia Campestris. see also: Arsacid dynasty; imperium; provinces Reference work: Barrington 66

c03_Vol1.indd 249

249

REFERENCES Andrade, Nathanael. 2012. “Seducing Autocracy: Tacitus and the Dynasts of the Near East.” American Journal of Philology 133.3: 441–475. DOI: 10.1353/ ajp.2012.0028. Shaw, Brent D. 1990. “Bandit Highlands and Lowland Peace: The Mountains of Isauria-Cilicia.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 33.2: 199–233. DOI: 10.1163/156852090x00149.

CIMBRI ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

The Cimbri were a Germanic (or Celtic) tribe originally situated near the mouth of the Elbe (Albis) in present-day Schleswig-Holstein and as far north as Cape Skagen in Jutland (Strabo 7.1.4; cf. Mela 3.31–32, Plin. HN 2.167, 4.96–97, Ptol. Geo. 2.11.2, 12), classified as a subtribe of the Ingvaeones by Pliny the Elder (HN 4.99) and designated as nomadic by Strabo (7.1.3) and Livy (Per. 63: Cimbri, gens vaga). While most republican writers—in line with Greek ethnography and Roman traditions about invasive Gauls— seem to have regarded the Cimbri as Gauls (Cic. de Orat. 2.266, Sal. Iug. 114.1), writers from the Augustan age onwards, presumably inspired by Iulius Caesar’s reclassification (Caes. B Gall. 1.33.3–4, 40.5; on Caesar’s intention to thus magnify the threat posed by the Germanic Ariovistus, see Rives 1999, 272), regarded the Cimbri as Germanic (Trog. in Just. Epit. 38.4.15, Strabo 7.1.3, Vell. 2.12.2, 19.3, Plut. Mar. 11.3, 39.1). The contradictory remarks about Cimbrian ethnicity might stem from the application of the same name to two different tribes whose involvements with Rome are separated by more than one hundred years: their migration to northern Italy (113–101 bce); and the discovery of their homeland by a Roman naval expedition (9–12 ce). Firstly, the Cimbrian migration to northern Italy, while unverified by archaeological evidence (Rives 1999, 273), is heavily documented in the literary sources. According to Florus (Epit. 1.38.1), the migration was prompted by a great flood in their homeland, a claim rejected by Strabo (7.2.1–2). Having passed through Bohemia and along the

28-04-2023 17:44:50

250

  C ingoni u s Varro

Danube (Danuvius), the Cimbri, joining forced with the Teutons and Ambrones, defeated Roman armies in 113, 109, and 105 bce (Livy Per. 63, 65, 67; cf. Sall. Iug. 114.1, Vell. Pat. 2.8.3, 12.2, Val. Max. 4.7.3, Plut. Mar. 11.2–9, 16.5, 19.2, Flor. Epit. 1.38.4). After an unsuccessful invasion of Spain, they returned to Gaul in 103 bce (Caes. B Gall. 1.33.3–4, 2.4.2, 7.77.12–14, Strabo 4.4.3, Livy Per. 67, Plut. Mar. 14.1), before advancing against the Italian peninsula (Plut. Mar. 15.4–5; cf. Strabo 7.2.2). With the Teutons and Ambrones defeated by Gaius Marius at Aquae Sextiae in 102 bce, the Cimbri were destroyed by Marius near Vercellae in 101 bce (Livy Per. 68; cf. Vell. Pat. 2.12.4–6, Plut. Mar. 18–27, Flor. Epit. 1.38.5–21). They reappear in Jutland some one hundred years later, discovered during the naval expedition undertaken by Drusus the Elder in 12–9 bce, whereafter a Cimbrian embassy travels to Rome. According to Augustus (Mon. Anc. 36.4), his fleet was the first to reach the territory of the Cimbri, who—together with other Germanic tribes—sent envoys to seek his friendship and that of Rome. Strabo (7.2.1, 3) relates that the Cimbri brought a sacrificial kettle as a gift to Augustus, in which their priestesses would customarily pour the blood of prisoners of war as part of a ritual designed to predict the future (cf. Vell. Pat. 2.106.3, Plin. HN 2.167, Suet. Claud. 1.2; G. 34.2; Cass. Dio 54.32.2–3). The Cimbri, their war with Rome, and the story of the Cimbrian who was dispatched to murder Gaius Marius recur frequently in Roman literature, e.g., Cic. Arch. 19, Man. 60, Off. 1.38, Tusc. 5.56; Sall. Cat. 59.3, Hist. 1.48,17; Prop. 2.1.24; Ov. Pont. 4.3.45; Val. Max. 2.6.11; Man. 4.45; Sen. Ben. 5.16.2. The Cimbri appear twice in the Tacitean corpus. At G. 37.1–2, Tacitus locates them between the Cherusci and the ocean, and notes that they are a small tribe whose former glory and great migration are visible only in the remains of their ancient camp. While Tacitus has little to say about the Cimbri specifically, he uses them as a springboard for a broader discussion of the significance of the Germani as enemies of Rome (Rives 1999, 271). By stating that the Roman conquest of Germania has been taking place since their encounter with the Cimbri 640  years after the foundation of the city and is still ongoing under Trajan, he implicitly presents them as the first Germanic tribe with

c03_Vol1.indd 250

which the Romans came into contact. Thereafter follow a list of Rome’s historical rivals, the famous estimation of the freedom of the Germani as fiercer than even the kingdom of Arsaces (G. 37.3: quippe regno Arsacis acrior est Germanorum libertas), and a short history of Romano-Germanic relations culminating in Domitian’s victory-less triumphs (G. 37.6: triumphati magis quam victi). At H. 4.73.2, Petilius Cerialis, in his speech to the Treveri and Lingones during the Batavian Revolt claims that Rome has only ever conquered Gaul in order to protect the Gauls from the Cimbri and Teutons, that is, from the Germani. see also: Arsacid dynasty; exemplarity; Mannus tribes; Suebi Reference work: Barrington 10 E1, F1, F2 REFERENCE Rives, James B. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Timpe, Dieter. 1994. “Kimberntradition und Kimbernmythos.” In Germani in Italia, edited by Barbara Scardigli and Piergiuseppe Scardigli, 23–60. Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.

CINGONIUS VARRO FRIDERIKE SENKBEIL

Berlin

Cingonius Varro (died at the end of 68 ce) was a Roman senator who may have been from the Transpadana (see Eck 1997). He was already part of the Senate in 61 ce as he applied in this year to have the freedmen of the murdered urban prefect, Pedanius Secundus, banned from Italy (A. 14.45.2). In 68 ce he was designated by Nero to receive a suffect consulship. After Nero’s death Cingonius Varro associated himself with Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus, the prefect of the praetorian guard who attempted to seize power instead of Galba (H. 1.6). He must have possessed good rhetorical skills as he composed a speech for him to deliver to the praetorians

28-04-2023 17:44:50

C I V I L WA R S O F 6 9 c e  

(Plut. Galb. 14), although his assassination meant the speech would go undelivered. After Nymphidius’ death, Galba, still on his journey to Rome, gave instructions that his associates should be put to death without trial (Plut. Galb. 14). Among these were Cingonius Varro and Mithridates of Pontus, once the client the Bosporus (Mithridates Bosporus) who had joked publicly about Galba’s bald head and wrinkled face (Plut. Galb. 13). A third victim Tacitus mentions was the ex-consul Publius Petronius Turpilianus who was one of Nero’s generals (H. 1.6.1). Unlike Plutarch, Tacitus emphasizes the innocence of Varro and Turpilianus (H. 1.6.1: tamquam innocentes perierant), and he does not explicitly say who ordered their deaths, although the opening sentence of the chapter gives the impression that Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco were responsible. However, in the context of Otho’s speech to the praetorians at H. 1.37.3, Cingonius is mentioned as one of Galba’s many victims on his bloody march from Spain to Rome. Reference works: PIR2 C 736; RE 3, 2560 (Groag); Kl. Pauly 1, 1191 (Hanslik) REFERENCE Eck, Werner. 1997. “C. Varro.” In DNP Vol. 2, 1207.

251

Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1). Tacitus twice compares an episode from Cinna’s career to events of the civil wars of 69 ce (H. 3.51, 3.83). Cinna was the most prominent supporter of Marius throughout the Marius-Sulla civil conflict. After being expelled from his office as consul in 87 bce for proposing anti-Sulla policies (Plut. Sull. 10.3–4), Cinna, together with the exiled Marius, captured the city of Rome by force in 87 bce, which started a reign of terror that resulted in the deaths of many members of the pro-Sulla faction in the Senate, as well as the other consul of 87, Gnaeus Octavius (Plut. Mar. 41–5). Cinna died in a mutiny in 84 bce (Plut. Pomp. 5.1–2). Tacitus refers to Cinna’s capture of Rome twice. In his narrative of the battle between the Vitellian and Flavian armies at Cremona in October 69 ce, Tacitus includes an anecdote that a brother had claimed a reward for killing his brother there; he compares this unfavorably with a similar anecdote from Cinna’s capture of Rome, where a brother had killed his brother and then committed suicide in horror (H. 3.51). When Vitellian and Flavian forces were fighting in Rome itself, Tacitus mentions that similar fighting had happened in Rome thrice before, twice under Marius and once under Cinna (H. 3.83). see also: memory; Roman Republic

FURTHER READING Haynes, Holly. 2003. The History of Make-Believe. Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Morgan, Gwyn. 2007. 69 AD: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shochat, Y. 1981. “Tacitus’ Attitude to Galba.” Athenaeum 59: 199–204.

Reference work: MRR 2.45–6, 53, 57, 60 CINTHII, see AFRICA CINYRAS, see PAPHIAN VENUS, TEMPLE

CIVIL WARS OF 69 ce JONATHAN MASTER

CINNA, LUCIUS CORNELIUS MIK LARSEN

California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona

Lucius Cornelius Cinna (d. 84 bce; consul 87, 86, 85, 84 bce) was a major figure in the early first century bce conflict between supporters of Gaius

c03_Vol1.indd 251

Emory University

The Roman empire was convulsed by civil war in 69 ce: a year in which four different men (Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian) served as emperor and warfare within Italy reached levels not seen for a century. Various legions, the Praetorian Guard, and other military forces converged on northern Italy and subsequently moved around Italy and back to the provinces. The seven legions

28-04-2023 17:44:50

252

  C I V I L WA R S O F 6 9 c e

in Upper and Lower Germany and the five legions from the Balkan provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia, and Moesia participated in most of the warfare. By the end of December Titus Flavius Vespasianus (Vespasian) had secured the principate for himself, beginning a reign that would last a decade and a dynasty that would continue for a further seventeen years. SOURCES Our principal sources for 69 ce are literary, with Tacitus’ Histories standing out as the single largest and most detailed account of the year’s events. Suetonius’ biographies of all four emperors, and Plutarch’s of Servius Sulpicius Galba and Marcus Salvius Otho also provide information about the year. Josephus and the epitomes of Cassius Dio, Books 63–64, contain information as well. Coins struck by each of the year’s emperors are extant, as are inscriptions that establish the chronology of the establishment of each emperor. PHASE 1: TO THE DEATH OF NERO, JUNE 68 ce The history of the catastrophic year of civil wars begins in March 68 ce, when Gaius Iulius Vindex, the governor of a Roman province (most likely Gallia Lugdunensis, see Gaul), revolted against Nero. Though he held an office that would soon catapult others to the principate, Vindex probably did not intend to replace Nero. Vindex’s family had been enfranchised only recently; he commanded no legions; and his allies were principally Gallic natives. Galba openly threw his support behind Vindex’s rebellion in early April 68. He did not yet present himself as emperor, however, but merely as legate of the Senate and people of Rome. The seventy-year-old Galba had had a successful career interrupted by a ten-year retirement in the 50s. He had several ardent supporters on the Iberian peninsula willing to put the empire’s principal mines at his disposal. The governor of Lusitania, Otho, threw his support and crucially, his province’s gold and silver behind Galba, as did the quaestor in Baetica, Aulus

c03_Vol1.indd 252

Caecina Alienus. These two allies evidently did not enter Galba’s innermost circle of trusted advisors, however. That group included Titus Vinius, commander of the legion in Tarraconensis; Cornelius Laco, an equestrian legal advisor to Galba; and the freedman Icelus, later styled Marcianus. These three men notoriously kept a tight cordon around Galba and profited handsomely from their service to him until all four (Galba, Vinius, Laco, and Icelus) were killed in Otho’s coup. While Vindex was laying siege to Lugdunum the governor of Upper Germany, Verginius Rufus, marched with two legions and detachments from the four others to suppress the revolt. When this large force besieged Vesontio (Besançon), Vindex marched to the city’s aid. Perhaps Vindex and Verginius discussed a peaceful resolution there, but a battle nevertheless ensued in which Vindex’s forces were massacred and Vindex committed suicide. Support for Nero eroded over the ensuing weeks, with even the Praetorian Guard deserting him thanks to the efforts of the prefect Nymphidius Sabinus. Nymphidius pried the Guard away from Nero in no small part by offering a cash payment in Galba’s name. While the Guard did eventually desert Nero, this unpaid promise came back to haunt Galba. Nero committed suicide in early June, and within a week the Senate recognized Galba as emperor. PHASE 2: TO THE DEATH OF GALBA, JANUARY 69 ce Galba spent the next three months establishing his rule while en route to Rome, making several important appointments and dealing with several challenges to his power. After Nymphidius Sabinus failed to ingratiate himself with the new emperor, he attempted to seize power for himself. This attempt failed instantly, and he was killed in the praetorian camp. Galba took a direct hand in purging several associates of Nymphidius, including Cingonius Varro, a consul designate for 69. He also ordered the killing of Clodius Macer, legate of legion III Augusta in Africa, who was withholding shipment of grain to Rome. On the doorstep of Rome

28-04-2023 17:44:50

C I V I L WA R S O F 6 9 c e  

in October, the emperor was met at the Milvian Bridge by a sizable number of former marines whom Nero had conscripted into a not-yet formally constituted legion. The marines rioted and Galba ordered his soldiers to suppress them. What followed is represented in the sources as a massacre. Galba cemented his reputation as violently old-fashioned and cruel when he later formally constituted the marines as legion I Adiutrix only to decimate the legion. When it came to appointments, Galba’s attempts to forestall threats to his power proved ineffective, because although he weakened the leadership of the German armies significantly with these appointments, the legions themselves remained in place. The seven legions of Upper and Lower Germany were a particular problem since they had sided against Galba’s ally Vindex at Vesontio. Galba transferred his supporter Caecina Alienus to command a legion in Upper Germany, but replacing Verginius Rufus was a more delicate matter, since his soldiers were devoted to him. Galba recalled Verginius supposedly to join his inner circle and replaced him with an aged and enfeebled Hordeonius Flaccus. He also sent Aulus Vitellius to replace the governor of Lower Germany, Fonteius Capito, who had been murdered by officers Fabius Valens and Cornelius Aquinus, perhaps as a pledge of commitment to Galba. Vitellius, a noble of little accomplishment or promise, arrived in Lower Germany at the start of December. A month later, he would be declared emperor by the legions of both Upper and Lower Germany. Vitellius successfully led his legions in Lower Germany through the annual oath to Galba on 1 January. Hordeonius Flaccus was not able to do the same in Upper Germany, however. The legions in Mogontiacum (Mainz) rejected Galba and proclaimed themselves bound only to the Senate and people of Rome. Perhaps following the lead of Galba’s former ally Caecina Alienus, who had come under scrutiny for financial malfeasance in Germany, the soldiers in Lower Germany then named Vitellius emperor. The remaining legions of Lower and Upper Germany followed suit over the next several days. In an attempt to strengthen his rule, Galba named Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus his heir on 10 January 69. This

c03_Vol1.indd 253

253

decision had the opposite of its intended effect, since it alienated Otho, one of Galba’s original supporters, who immediately went to work undermining the Praetorian Guard’s loyalty to Galba. Before he could respond to Vitellius’ rebellion, Galba was assassinated in the forum and Otho became emperor. While the associates of his conspiracy were few, he was quickly recognized as emperor by the Senate in Rome and then by the seven provincial governors of Dalmatia, Pannonia, Moesia, Syria, Judaea, Egypt, and Africa. Vitellius held the loyalty of the Germanies and Britain, but it was Otho who possessed the more widely recognized authority. Otho first attempted to deal with Vitellius diplomatically, but Vitellius’ troops were already on the march. PHASE 3: TO THE DEATH OF OTHO, APRIL 69 ce Vitellius’ principal lieutenants were Caecina Alienus and Fabius Valens, commander of legion I Germanica. The two generals led separate columns into Italy, leaving Germany in the second half of January. Vitellius led a third column much more slowly behind them. Valens’ march through Gaul was violent, most notably with a massacre perpetrated against the inhabitants of Divodurum (Metz; see Mediomatrici). Caecina’s column reached Italy in late March more swiftly than expected, since a mild winter meant that the Alps were relatively easily traversed. Caecina established his camp at Cremona on the northern bank of the Po along the Via Postumia. Otho’s original plan may have been to send up an advance force to hold the Alpine passes and prevent the Vitellians from invading Italy, but the ala Siliana, a cavalry unit which had been under Vitellius’ command in Africa, foiled that plan by capturing four strategically important Transpadane towns. Otho then responded in multiple stages. He first sent north a force consisting of five Praetorian cohorts, I Adiutrix, some cavalry detachments, and 2,000 gladiators under the leadership of Annius Gallus to maintain a defense along the Po and keep the Via Postumia open to Aquileia, which would eventually allow the arrival of the Balkan legions. Otho also sent out a maritime force along the

28-04-2023 17:44:50

254

  C I V I L WA R S O F 6 9 c e

Gallic coast in Narbonensis, perhaps to hinder the advance of Valens’ column. With its raids on civilians, the expedition generated more infamy for Otho than delay for Valens. Otho’s early results on land in northern Italy were promising. While Annius Gallus was further east, his subordinate Vestricius Spurinna held Placentia against an assault by Caecina. Caecina spent two days trying to take the city by storm and, rebuffed, led his forces back across the Po to Cremona. Caecina later unsuccessfully attempted to draw the Othonians into an ambush near ad Castores, halfway between Cremona and Bedriacum to the east. Two more Othonian commanders, Suetonius Paulinus and Marius Celsus, had arrived to oversee this action. Fabius Valens led his forces quickly to Cremona after the news of the defeat at ad Castores. His march through northern Italy had not been smooth. Trying to alleviate tension between his legionaries and Batavian auxiliaries, Valens ordered the Batavians reassigned to Gaul. These units would return to the Rhineland later in the year and participate in the Batavian Revolt but at this point the legionaries mutinied at the prospect of losing so valuable a fighting unit. After the mutiny had been suppressed, Valens marched rapidly to Caecina’s aid in Cremona, arriving around the end of the first week of April. By this point Otho himself was present in Brixellum, fifteen miles south of Bedriacum, along with his brother, who held supreme command of the emperor’s military. Although the legions from the Balkans had not yet arrived in their entirety, the Othonians still brought the matter to a decisive contest. The Othonians were marching west from Bedriacum along the northern bank of the Po toward Cremona on 13 April and continuing on the next day when the Vitellians engaged them. On the Othonian side three legions fought along with praetorian cohorts. The Vitellians had three legions and the support of Batavian cohorts. While the Vitellians did not achieve a devastating victory over the Othonians—more legions from the Balkans were coming—the Othonians surrendered. Otho committed suicide on 16 April, bringing his principate and the war to an end.

c03_Vol1.indd 254

PHASE 4: TO THE DEATH OF VITELLIUS, DECEMBER 69 ce The Senate recognized Vitellius as emperor on 19 April, while he was still traveling south through Gaul. He would not reach Rome until July, around the time that the Flavian legions in Iudaea, Licinius Mucianus’ legions in Syria, and those of Tiberius Iulius Alexander, prefect of Egypt, declared Vespasian emperor. In his six-month reign, Vitellius attempted to secure his rule by dispersing the Othonian legions, removing some potential rivals, recruiting new praetorians, and using his six-year old son and slightly older daughter to project an image of a new dynasty. The Flavian challenge was too strong and swift for him to give his authority roots, however. In what proved a vain attempt to disperse the hostile legions who had marched to Italy at Otho’s command, Vitellius sent legion XI Claudiana back to Dalmatia and VII Galbiana back to Pannonia. XIII Gemina, the only legion that likely participated in full force at Bedriacum, Vitellius kept in northern Italy to build amphitheaters in Placentia and Cremona, and then sent back to Pannonia. Vitellius ordered Cornelius Dolabella, once thought a likely heir to Galba, taken out of the city and killed. The deed was done more publicly than intended, earning infamy for Vitellius. Cluvius Rufus, governor of Tarraconensis in Spain, preempted an incursion into Baetica by the governor of Africa, Lucceius Albinus, by having him and his wife assassinated. Cluvius then hastened to meet Vitellius in Italy, since he was now under suspicion of emulating Galba’s path to the principate. While Cluvius avoided Dolabella’s fate, he was compelled to remain in Vitellius’ entourage and govern Tarraconensis in absentia. The last significant decision Vitellius made was to establish sixteen new units of the Praetorian Guard of one thousand men per unit, and four urban cohorts (see praetorian cohorts). Vitellius’ legions were the primary source of manpower for these units, and thus the emperor siphoned off strength and experience from forces who would march back into the field later in the same year.

28-04-2023 17:44:50

C I V I L WA R S O F 6 9 c e  

In the aftermath of Vitellius’ victory at Bedriacum in the spring, Vespasian, Licinius Mucianus, and Tiberius Julius Alexander had all administered the oath of allegiance to Vitellius, but in July Tiberius initiated the acclamation of Vespasian as emperor by administering the oath to the two legions under his command. Tiberius was working in concert with Vespasian, who commanded three legions, and Mucianus, the governor of Syria, who commanded three further legions. Vespasian–nearly sixty years old, from an equestrian family, and with a career that had as many setbacks as successes–lacked the background to make him an obvious contender for the principate. Nevertheless, the eight legions united under his name, along with two grown sons who assured the establishment of a new dynasty, put him in a strong position not only to gain the principate through military might but to hold it. Mucianus followed Tiberius’ lead and administered the oath to Vespasian to both his soldiers and the inhabitants of Syria by mid-July. Mucianus took direct command of the Flavian expeditionary force. He set out from Syria overland to Byzantium, where he was to meet the Black Sea fleet for transport to Italy. Vespasian traveled to the more centrally located Alexandria, from where he could cut off the shipment of Egyptian grain to Italy and perhaps eventually the grain from Africa too. The Balkan legions, several of which had marched to Italy in support of Otho, preempted Mucianus. In September the general Antonius Primus, whom Galba had put in charge of legion VII Galbiana, led a small force into Italy to seize Aquileia and to facilitate the arrival of the rest of the Balkan legions. He then moved southwest to Opitergium and Altinum, which he garrisoned, and then on to Patavium, Forum Alieni, and Ateste. Two complete legions from Pannonia arrived into Italy soon after. The Flavian forces established their headquarters in Verona on the Via Postumia, assuring secure travel from Aquileia deeper into Italy. The only official firmly loyal to Vitellius who was in charge of a province close to the path of the Flavian forces was Porcius Septiminus, procurator of Raetia. He was easily contained by the governor of Noricum, Publius Sextilius Felix, which allowed Flavian forces to pass by

c03_Vol1.indd 255

255

unmolested. Vitellius’ defenses were dogged by defections. Lucilius Bassus, commander of the fleet at Ravenna, defected to the Flavian side and took the fleet with him. Around the same time three more legions from the Balkans arrived in Italy. Only Caecina–with half of Vitellius’ total forces, perhaps around 30,000 men, stationed near Hostilia–was blocking the Flavian advance to Rome. Caecina, however, attempted to surrender those forces to the Flavians. The Vitellian soldiers refused, imprisoned Caecina, and retreated to Cremona around October 18. Antonius Primus was able to lead the five legions under his command to the vicinity of Bedriacum and fight another battle there. The Flavian forces prevailed. The inhabitants of Cremona, which had supported the Vitellian forces, put on a public relations offensive after the battle, which included releasing Caecina. Their efforts failed, however, and the legions sacked the city. Fabius Valens did not participate in the battle because he had been captured by Flavian forces on the Stoechades Islands, off the coast of Massilia. He had not left Rome with Caecina and by the time he did depart, the Flavians had control of northeastern Italy, the original route he was taking to join Caecina. Valens cut across Italy to Liguria and then out onto the sea en route to the Maritime Alps. However, when he took to the sea again, he was captured and sent to Antonius Primus. Vitellius now relied principally on his brother Lucius Vitellius (2) for military matters. Lucius had to be dispatched south to Campania, however, because of an uprising of the fleet at Misenum that spread to some surrounding communities as far north as Tarracina. Lucius succeeded in suppressing the movement, but by the time he was ready for new orders, the Capitol had been destroyed and the Flavians were preparing to assault Rome. Vitellius’ position at this point was extremely weak. Antonius Primus had already started dispersing surrendered Vitellian legions around the empire. The Flavian forces still had to make their way south and across the Apennines, but their numbers and their control of the grain supply from Egypt gave them an immense advantage. Nor did Vitellius muster an effective defense with the troops he did have. He sent cohorts of the

28-04-2023 17:44:50

256

  C I V I L WA R S O F 6 9 c e

Praetorian Guard, cavalry squadrons, and marines to hold Apennine passes, but they stopped a few miles shy of the mountains in Mevania. Vitellius visited them himself but quickly returned to Rome. Those units then retreated to Narnia, about halfway back to Rome. Soon after, the Flavians crossed the Apennines and established themselves at Carsulae, ten miles from Narnia. After some minor engagements the Vitellian soldiers had surrendered by 15 December. Vitellius was not entirely without forces at this point, but victory was simply inconceivable. He began negotiating a peaceful transfer of power with both Antonius Primus and Flavius Sabinus (1), Vespasian’s brother, who was praefectus urbi. When Vitellius failed to abdicate at a public meeting that he appeared to have called for that purpose, a riot ensued that drove Flavius Sabinus into the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill. Sabinus was besieged there, but the cordon was not tight: he sent word to Antonius Primus, whose forces were not far off at the Saxa Rubra celebrating the Saturnalia and summoned Flavian family members including Domitian to join him at the Capitolium. The Vitellians made an assault on Sabinus’ position, and the temple was burned to the ground, though the sources disagree on which side started the fire. Domitian escaped, but Sabinus was captured, taken to Vitellius, and executed. The Flavian army made a threepronged assault on Rome in response. The most ferocious fighting took place at the Colline Gate in the city’s northeast corner and in the praetorian camp just outside it. On 20 December Vitellius was dragged out of a dog kennel in which he was hiding, taken to the Gemonian Stairs, and executed. The Senate convened on 21 December and declared Vespasian emperor. Saturnalia was not even over yet. see also: army; Batavian Revolt; Capitolium; Flavian dynasty; Germania; mutinies; Roman roads; Rome, topography FURTHER READING Ash, R. 2007. Tacitus: Histories Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

c03_Vol1.indd 256

Brunt, P. A. 1990 “The Revolt of Vindex and the Fall of Nero.” In Roman Imperial Themes, edited by P. Brunt, 9–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carradice, I. A., and T. V. Buttrey. 2007. Roman Imperial Coinage 2. Part 1. London: Spink. Chilver, G. E. F. 1979. A Historical Commentary on Tacitus Histories I and II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Damon, C. 2003. Tacitus: Histories Book I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flaig, E. 1992. Den Kaiser herausfordern. Die Usurpation im Römischen Reich. Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag. Griffin, M. 2013. Nero, The End of a Dynasty. London and New York: Routledge. Hainesworth, J. B. 1962. “Verginius and Vindex.” Historia 11: 86–96. Levick, B. 2017. Vespasian. 2nd ed. Roman Imperial Biographies. London and New York: Routledge. Mattingly, H. 1953. “The Events of the Last Months of Nero, from the Revolt of Vindex to the Accession of Galba.” Numismatic Chronicle 13, S. III. McCrum, M., and A. G. Woodhead. 1966. Select Documents of the Principates of the Flavian Emperors. Including the Year of Revolution, ce 68–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, G. 2006. 69 ad The Year of the Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murison, C. L. 1993. Galba, Otho and Vitellius: Careers and Controversies. Spudasmata, 52. Hildesheim: G. Olms Verlag. Murison, C. L. 1999. Rebellion and Reconstruction: Galba to Domitian. An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History. Volume 9, Books 64–67 (ad 68–96). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Power, T., and R. K. Gibson. 2014. Suetonius, the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Scheid, J. 1998. Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium Qui Supersunt. Les copies épigraphiques des protocoles annuels de la Confrérie Arvale (21 av.-304 ap. J.C.). Rome: École Française de Rome, Soprintendenza Archaeologica di Roma. Sutherland, C. H. V. 1984. “The Concepts of Adsertor and Salus as Used by Vindex and Galba.” The Numismatic Chronicle 144: 29–32. Sutherland, C. H. V., and R. A. G. Carson. 1984. Roman Imperial Coinage. Vol. 1. Revised ed. London: Spink. Townend, G. B. 1962. “The Consuls of ce 69/70.” American Journal of Philology 83: 113–129. Wellesley, K. 1972. Cornelius Tacitus The Histories Book III. Sydney: Sydney University Press. Wellesley, K. 1981. “What Happened on the Capitol in December ce 69?” American Journal of Ancient History 6: 166–190.

28-04-2023 17:44:50

civil wars of the L ate R ep u blic  

Wellesley, K. 2000. The Year of the Four Emperors. 3rd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Wiedemann, T. 1996. “From Nero to Vespasian.” In Cambridge Ancient History, edited by A. Bowman, E. Champlin, and A. Lintott, vol. 10, 2nd ed., 256–282. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CIVIL WARS OF THE LATE REPUBLIC JOHN ALEXANDER LOBUR

University of Mississippi

The civil wars of the Late Republic (88–31 bce) produced a good deal of historiographical activity, providing the primary literary models for Tacitus in depicting the catastrophic civil wars of 69 ce in the Histories. Moreover, the Annals depict a system (the principate) and a ruling dynasty (the Julio-Claudian dynasty) that emerged in full strength in the aftermath of these wars, which form a good deal of its contextual backdrop. In composing the Annals, Tacitus also echoes themes and images in the earlier Histories and its models, to imply that civil war was still a threat in the early principate, and that many of the flaws characteristic of civic strife plagued this new system. In short, Tacitus’ work reflects the dominant position of civil war in the Roman social, cultural, and political imagination. The Roman idea of civil war (bellum civile), with armies of fellow citizens ranged against one another, emerged by the middle of the first century bce to occupy a central, defining and persistent place in Roman thought (Armitage 2017). This has great implications for Tacitus’ work, especially the Histories, which looks directly back on the historiography of these wars as a model and reference point for his narrative of the cataclysmic “Year of the Four Emperors.” Thus, his introduction at H. 1.2–3 glances back at these texts, especially their more heavily romanticized aspects (cf. esp. App. B Civ. 4.13ff. and Cass. Dio 47.9–12 along with H. 3.51, which reaches back to Sisenna’s account of Sulla’s war). Later, at H. 1.50.1–3 the Roman crowd directly compares the confrontation between Otho and Vitellius to the wars from Pharsalus to Mutina, and at H. 2.38 Tacitus portrays the same conflict in terms of a

c03_Vol1.indd 257

257

recurrence of factional strife beginning with the Gracchi and progressing, by the end of Pompey the Great’s career, to struggles between would-be autocrats (Ash 2010). Moreover, the civil wars loom over the Annals, which narrates the history of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the ascendancy of which, along with the principate, was forged in conflicts outlined at the beginning. Through subtle literary cues, Tacitus suggests that the principate, far from ending the civil wars, is really their continuation in more subtle form, because the same values that caused them motivate the political agents he depicts. In the Annals this notion is grounded in language reminiscent both of the earlier Histories and in the narratives of the late republic, and heavily influences scenes such as the succession of Tiberius (A. 1.1–15), the mutinies on the Rhine and Danube (A. 1.16– 54), the maiestas trials (e.g., A. 2.50), the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.48 ff) or the nefarious activities of Sejanus and the reign of terror after his downfall (Ash 2019; Keitel 1984). Finally, Tacitus clearly understands, in the Annals, Histories, and Dialogus that the Republic as a political system collapsed because the freedom (libertas) it entailed—though it incited a period of great forensic oratory—led to strife in direct proportion to the growth of the empire (D. 36–41). In the interests of peace power had to devolve on one person, the Roman princeps or “emperor” (H. 1.1; A. 1.9.4–5, cf. A. 1.41–32, 3.28.2). The social and political stance of “republicanism” that had emerged during the civil wars, antithetical to this reality yet critical to Roman identity, had long been spiritualized into a potent moral ethos by Tacitus’ time. Civil bloodshed within the city started with the Senate’s suppression of the Gracchi and their supporters (133 and 122 bce, cf. H. 2.38), while the Social War (91–88 bce) was also a civil war of sorts. In the strictest sense, however, civil war started with the march of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) on Rome (88 bce), picking up after his return from the East in 83 bce to rally the Roman nobility suppressed by the Marian party in his absence. Sulla’s victory was bloody and merciless (but no different had the tables been turned). He assumed the dictatorship and proscribed (or put on a public hit list) his surviving opponents of equestrian or senatorial rank, establishing a

28-04-2023 17:44:50

258

  civil wars of the L ate R ep u blic

much-feared precedent. After installing legislative reform to secure the supremacy of the Senate, he died soon after resigning the dictatorship (78 bce), becoming a byword for tyranny. This first round of war, however, did not end until 72, when Pompey, Sulla’s most important general, defeated the Marian remnants resisting fiercely under Quintus Sertorius in Spain. Civil war returns twenty-three years later, though the intervening period was far from peaceful: It was marked by the war against Spartacus in Italy, the dismantling of the Sullan reforms (70 bce), a series of extraordinary commands granted to Pompey, and the Catilinarian insurrection, suppressed shortly before Pompey returned from his extensive Eastern campaigns in 63, an event anticipated with the dread that he would imitate Sulla and seize power. To everyone’s surprise, he disbanded his army. Stymied by the Senate, he joined an informal coalition with Marcus Crassus and Iulius Caesar (the first triumvirate), which realized the full potential of the tribunes and popular assemblies to sweep aside senatorial opposition to extraordinary commands necessitated by a growing empire and eagerly sought by the ambitious. The death of Pompey’s wife, Caesar’s daughter Julia, in 54 bce, and Crassus’ defeat at Carrhae in 53, eventually upset an unstable balance of power. Pompey now leagued with the senatorial oligarchy staunchly opposed to Caesar and alarmed at the wealth and veteran legions he had acquired during his conquest of Gaul. Despite attempts at reconciliation, a minority of hardline republican senators led by Cato the Younger obstructed any compromise. Refusing to disarm and choosing to defend his dignity over abandoning himself to the mercy of his enemies, Caesar crossed the Rubicon (the legal boundary of his province) in January 49 bce and challenged the Senate. This next round of war would not end until the battle of Actium in 31. Iulius Caesar fought and won several epic battles against republican (generally synonymous with “Pompeian”) forces in Spain, Thessaly and North Africa: Illerda (June 49), Pharsalus (August 48), Thapsus (April 46) and Munda (March 45). All of them—Pharsalus, Pompey’s great defeat, being the most famous— were hard fought, especially the last, at Munda,

c03_Vol1.indd 258

and some involved great slaughter of republican forces. Forgiving those opponents who surrendered to him, Caesar folded nobles such as Brutus and Cassius into his political party and promoted them to high office. Those who refused amnesty died in battle or committed suicide, most notably Cato the Younger. The great exception was Pompey’s youngest son Sextus Pompeius Magnus who escaped to Sicily and raised a large and effective fleet. The assassination of Iulius Caesar (44 bce) saw an initial armistice between the liberators and the Caesareans, under their foremost leader the consul Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), unravel, a situation Caesar’s great-nephew Octavian, who had been posthumously adopted in Caesar’s will, exacerbated after taking on the name Caesar, thereby inheriting his connections and considerable charisma. When Antony, through popular legislation, assumed the proconsulship of Cisalpine Gaul, the Senate instructed its current governor, Decimus Brutus (one of Iulius Caesar’s assassins), not to hand it over. Antony then besieged him at Mutina. The young Caesar, in command of several loyal Caesarean legions, allowed the Senate to use his army in defense of the republic against Antony, who was then defeated by the consuls Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Pansa at the battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina (21 April 43 bce). The consuls did not survive, and when the Senate refused to acknowledge the young Caesar’s leadership, he marched on Rome and extorted the consulship. In the meantime, Antony marched to Transalpine Gaul and coopted the army under Marcus Aemelius Lepidus (3), Iulius Caesar’s former Master of Horse. When young Caesar saw that Antony now had fourteen legions to his seven and also threatened to make common cause with Brutus and Cassius (whom the Senate had extra-constitutionally mandated to raise an army on behalf of the republic in the East) he joined Antony and Lepidus to form the second triumvirate: Antony, Lepidus, and young Caesar shared a five-year office ratified by law (renewed for another five in 37) for the purpose of reestablishing legitimate government (rei publicae constituendae). As a price for their loyalty, the soldiers forced the generals to promise nineteen of the richest

28-04-2023 17:44:50

civil wars of the L ate R ep u blic  

cities of Italy after the campaign. Needing more money and wishing to forestall any resistance while fighting the liberators in the East, the three proscribed their enemies in an act of political terror and confiscated their wealth. Antony and young Caesar then embarked on the campaign that resulted in their victory at Philippi (October 42 bce). Very few republicans were pardoned, though a good number of the proscribed fled to Sextus Pompey in Sicily. After the battle, Antony stayed in the wealthy East while young Caesar returned to Italy to confiscate the land promised the veterans. The current consul, Lucius Antonius (the brother of the triumvir) and Antony’s wife Fulvia took advantage of the unpopularity this measure created and rallied the opposition under the banner of the republic. The veterans realized this was not in their interest and the insurgents were quickly forced to retreat to the town of Perusia (Perugia), which was reduced by siege (41–40 bce); there was a memorable slaughter thereafter. Antony rushed back from the East and a standoff ensued. Meanwhile, Fulvia had died, and in the ensuing reconciliation, Antony married Caesar’s sister Octavia (1). The people then forced the triumvirs to make peace with Sextus Pompey (who had caused a famine by blockading the city), which led to an amnesty for all of the proscribed who survived (reinstating the emperor Tiberius’ father and mother, Livia Augusta). Relations quickly broke down between young Caesar and Sextus and the former was defeated twice off the coast of Sicily before his chief general Agrippa trained a new fleet and orchestrated a joint invasion of Sicily with Lepidus, winning the battle of Naulochus (36 bce). Lepidus, after a vain attempt to reassert himself, was deposed as triumvir and the entire West came under control of young Caesar. After Naulochus, Antony embarked on a disastrous invasion of Parthia, while young Caesar kept his troops busy by invading Illyria. Thereafter relations broke down, as Antony became more involved with Cleopatra and alienated himself from more traditional-minded Romans. His divorce from Octavia was the last straw, and eventually war was declared against Cleopatra, Antony being deposed on the grounds that he was

c03_Vol1.indd 259

259

incapacitated as a leader because she had drugged him. A decisive naval battle was fought at Actium (2 September 31 bce), during which the pair fled to Egypt. When young Caesar successfully invaded almost a year later, they committed suicide. The civil wars were over. Young Caesar, now Augustus, boasted of having “extinguished” them as one of his crowning accomplishments. Several official motifs and slogans appeared as a result, for example Augustus was awarded the corona civica (oak leaf crown) traditionally given to a soldier for saving the life of a citizen, now broadened in significance to celebrate the emperor (or princeps) saving the lives of citizens in general, while clementia (mercy) was one of the four virtues celebrated on the “Shield of Virtues” awarded at the same time. The maintenance of pax, (peace), and concordia (harmony) became concepts central to the legitimacy of the new regime. see also: Iunius Brutus, Marcus; Cassius Longinus, Gaius (1); Marius, Gaius REFERENCES Armitage, D. 2017. Civil War, a History in Ideas. New York: Vintage. Ash, R. 2010. “Tarda Moles Civilis Belli: The Weight of the Past in Tacitus’ Histories.” In Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars, edited by Brian Breed, Cynthia Damon, and Andreola Rossi, 119–131. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ash, R. 2019. “Civilis rabies usque in exitium (Histories 3.80): Tacitus and the Evolving Trope of Republican Civil War under the Principate.” In The Historiography of Late Republican Civil War, edited by Carsten Hjort Lange and Frederik Juliaan Vervaet, 352–375. Leiden: Brill. Keitel, E. 1984. “Principate and Civil War in the Annals of Tacitus.” American Journal of Philology 105.3: 306–325. FURTHER READING Breed, Brian, Cynthia Damon, and Andreola Rossi. 2010. “Introduction.” In Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars, edited by Brian Breed, Cynthia Damon, and Andreola Rossi, 3–21. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 17:44:50

260

  C lau dia I u nia C lau dilla

Börm, Henning 2016. “Civil Wars in Greek and Roman Antiquity: Contextualizing Disintegration and Reintegration.” In Civil War in Ancient Greece and Rome: Contexts of Disintegration and Reintegration, edited by Henning Börm, Marco Mattheis, and Johannes Wienand, 15–28, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Cornwell, Hannah. 2017. Pax and the Politics of Peace: Republic to Principate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jal, Paul. 1963. La guerre civile à Rome: Étude littéraire et morale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Lange, Carsten Hjort. 2009. Res Publica Constituta: Actium, Apollo and the Accomplishment of the Triumviral Assignment. Leiden: Brill. Lobur, John. 2008. Consensus, Concordia and the Formation of Roman Imperial Ideology. New York: Routledge. Osgood, Josiah. 2006. Caesar’s Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osgood, Josiah. 2015. “Ending Civil War at Rome: Rhetoric and Reality, 88 bce–97 ce.” American Historical Review 120: 1683–1695. Syme, Ronald. 1939. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon. Welch, Kathryn. 2012. Magnus Pius: Sextus Pompeius and the Transformation of the Roman Republic. Roman Culture in an Age of Civil War. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.

CLAUDIA AUGUSTA, see POPPAEA SABINA THE YOUNGER

CLAUDIA IUNIA CLAUDILLA ISABELLE COGITORE

Université Grenoble Alpes TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Claudia Iunia Claudilla (d. 37 ce), called Claudia in Tacitus (A. 6.20) and Iunia Claudilla in Suetonius (Cal. 12.1–2), is the daughter of Marcus Iunius Silanus, suffect consul in 15 ce. She married Caligula, but the year is unclear: before the death of Sejanus (Suet. Cal. 12.1–2),

c03_Vol1.indd 260

either in 33 (A. 6.20) or in 35 (Cass. Dio 58.25.2, who places the wedding in Antium but does not mention the wife by name). She died prematurely in 37 (Philo Leg. 62, who does not name her), according to Suetonius during childbirth. Cassius Dio (59.8) falsely states that she had been repudiated by Caligula. Reference work: PIR2 I 857 FURTHER READING Raepsaet Charlier, Marie-Thérèse. 1987. Prosopographie des femmes de l’ordre sénatorial Ier-IIème siècles. Louvain: Peeters.

CLAUDIA PULCHRA JUAN LUIS POSADAS

Centro Universitario U-TAD, Madrid, Spain TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Claudia Pulchra was the daughter of Marcus Valerius Messalla Appianus, consul 12 bce, and Claudia Marcella the Younger, who was the daughter of Octavia (1) and niece of Augustus. Her extremely close ties to the Julio-Claudian dynasty and her connections with the Claudii and the Valerii made her the representative of the highest ranks of Augustan aristocracy. Such aristocracy was related to the great families of the republic. Pulchra married Quintilius Varus, the general whom Augustus exalted since he was the husband of his great-niece. Varus rose to fame in history for being the responsible for the defeat of Teutoburg Forest and the loss of three legions in the year 9 ce, after which he committed suicide on the very battlefield. Augustus never forgave Varus for this defeat, and this may have contributed to the fall from grace of his great-niece. Claudia Pulchra and Varus also had a son, named Quintilius Varus. Claudia Pulchra was Agrippina the Elder’s second cousin and supported her during the long contention with Tiberius along with many other members of the nobility, who saw in Agrippina and

28-04-2023 17:44:50

261

C lau dia S acrata  

her sons a more acceptable alternative to Tiberius and his son Drusus the Younger. The alliance with Agrippina, which posed a great threat to Tiberius, gained Claudia Pulchra the enmity of the emperor. In 26 ce, Claudia was accused of inappropriate conduct with one Furnius (maybe a slave or a freedman, A. 4. 52, otherwise unattested), of attempting to poison Tiberius, and of using magic against the emperor. The accuser was a senator who wanted to advance his career under Tiberius, one Gnaeus Domitius Afer, who eventually became consul in 39 ce (A. 4. 66). Agrippina interceded on Claudia Pulchra’s behalf with Tiberius. It provoked a great confrontation between them during which the emperor snapped with the following words in Greek: “Do you think you are suffering injustice, my dear daughter, if you are not empress?” (Suet. Tib. 53.1). This worsened Pulchra’s plight, and she was condemned, probably for lewdness, and possibly exiled. A year later, her son Varus was accused but, since Tiberius was not in Rome, the Senate decided to defer the trial. Nothing more is known of Pulchra except that if her accuser was consul under her relative Caligula (son of her cousin Agrippina), it is likely that both Varus and Pulchra were dead by then. Reference work: PIR2 C 1116 FURTHER READINGS Marshall, A. J. 1990. “Women on Trial before the Roman Senate.” Echos du Monde Classique: Classical Views 34: 333–366. Posadas, Juan Luis. 2008. Emperatrices y princesas de Roma. Madrid: Raíces.

CLAUDIA QUINTA, see CLAUDII

CLAUDIA SACRATA LIEN FOUBERT

implying that she was an unmarried or widowed woman of respectable status. He characterizes her as a mulier, the only appearance of the word in what survives of the Histories. In oratory, mulier often has negative associations, and considering that every other woman in the Histories is indicated as femina—its positive counterpart, Tacitus makes it hard for the reader to miss his assessment of Claudia Sacrata’s character (Santoro L’Hoir 1992). Her portrayal is instrumental in Tacitus’ representation of Cerialis as a successful but often careless commander. When the German enemy noticed the lack of discipline among Cerialis’ soldiers when they returned with the fleet from Novaesium (Neuss) and Bonna (Bonn), they ambushed the Roman camp during the night. The Germans sailed off on the ships they had captured, including the flagship of Cerialis for they assumed that he was on board. The general only escaped being taken prisoner because he had spent the night with Claudia Sacrata elsewhere, so it is believed. Tacitus adds that he appeared halfasleep and almost naked during the turmoil, thus highlighting his shortcomings as a leader. The sentries tried to exonerate themselves by stating that they had been ordered to keep quiet so that the general’s rest would not be disturbed. The short passage figuring Claudia Sacrata exemplifies Tacitus’ art of innuendo (Haynes 2003). Though Cerialis’ night with Claudia is presented as hearsay, Tacitus makes it clear that it was perceived as truthful for it defamed the general’s reputation. It has been suggested that Tacitus included the name of Claudia for the simple reason that he had heard it either from Cerialis himself or through Agricola, who served under Cerialis during his governorship in Britain (Benario 1988). see also: Britannia; Germani, Germania; women

Radboud University Nijmegen

Reference work: PIR2 C 1120

The only occurrence of Claudia Sacrata in the ancient sources is at H. 5.22, where she is identified as a woman of the Ubii and a love interest of Petilius Cerialis during the Batavian Revolt. Tacitus qualifies the relationship as stuprum,

REFERENCES

c03_Vol1.indd 261

Benario, Herbert W. 1988. “Tacitus, Trier and the Treveri.” Classical Journal 83: 233–239. Haynes, Holly. 2003. The History of Make-Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press.

28-04-2023 17:44:50

262

  C lau dii

Santoro L’Hoir, Francesca. 1992. The Rhetoric of Gender Terms. “Man,” “Woman,” and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose. Leiden, New York and Köln: Brill.

CLAUDII CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY

University of Alberta

The patrician gens of the Claudii goes back to the first years of the republic, when Attus Clausus moved to Rome from Sabine territory and was admitted into the Senate (A. 4.9, 12.25). The main branches of this family in the Late Republic were the Claudii Pulchri and the Claudii Nerones, both going back to sons of Appius Claudius Caecus (censor in 312 bce). The former were more prominent, but the latter entered the imperial family, when the future emperor Augustus fell in love with Livia Augusta, the pregnant wife of Tiberius Claudius Nero, who had fought for the republic but returned to Rome in 38 bce as part of an amnesty. Livia’s husband obligingly divorced her to allow him to marry her (A. 5.1). She already had a toddler (the future emperor Tiberius) and Augustus married her only after she gave birth to Drusus the Elder (Tacitus sneers at Augustus’ efforts to keep the matter respectable by consulting the augurs about the timing of the birth and new marriage). Once they grew up, Augustus used his stepsons as his agents while vainly waiting for his adopted grandsons to succeed him (A. 1.3, 12.25), and eventually he adopted the eldest as his heir (and the praenomen of his adopted name Tiberius Iulius Caesar shows his Claudian origin). Livia was herself of Claudian extraction, her father being a Claudius Pulcher who was adopted by Marcus Livius Drusus, tribune of the plebs in 91 bce (A. 5.1). Hence, the names Livia, Drusus/Drusilla, Nero, and Tiberius entered the Julian imperial family. The merger of the two families started early (note the appearance of Julian images in the funeral of Livia’s son Drusus in 9 bce, A. 3.5). When the direct (Julian) line of Augustus died out with the assassination of his great-grandson Gaius (Caligula) in 41  ce, the Claudian line took over with the proclamation of Gaius’ uncle Claudius (nephew of Tiberius) as

c03_Vol1.indd 262

emperor. Even so, blood descent from Augustus was still important, and this was the decisive reason for Claudius’ marriage to Augustus’ greatgranddaughter Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.2; cf. 12.25). The need for a blood connection with the Claudian family led Agrippina to seek to arrange a marriage between her son Nero (born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus), whom Claudius had adopted as Nero Claudius Caesar, and Claudius’ daughter Octavia (2) (A. 12.3). The Claudii were supposedly arrogant (A. 1.4; see also Suet. Tib. 2), though this seems more a trait of the Pulchri (cf. the famous anecdote of Publius Pulcher who lost the battle of Drepana because of his disregard of omens, Cic. Nat. D. 2.7; the fining of his sister for telling flippant joke about this, Gell. NA 10.6, Suet. Tib. 2; and the humorous term appietas that Cicero coined for aristocratic arrogance on the basis of the unusual praenomen Appius used by the Pulchri, Cic. Fam. 3.7.5). Note also the idea that Tiberius’ son Drusus the Younger’s bloodline was tainted by the equestrian descent of his mother (A. 2.43). The Claudian origin of the successors of Augustus was clearly understood (A. 6.8; 12.2, 26; 13.17), and in Nero’s honor an altar to the Claudian and Domitian gentes (Nero was a Domitius by birth before his adoption by Claudius) was set up at Antium (site of his birth) just as one had previously been set up to the Julian gens at Bovillae (A. 15.23). Claudia Quinta, who belonged to an unknown patrician branch of the gens, had received a public statue to honor her role in the introduction of the cult of the eastern goddess Magna Mater in 204 bce, and this statue had twice miraculously survived a fire, most recently in 3  ce (Val. Max. 1.8.11). This apparent miracle was later recalled when a statue of the emperor Tiberius similarly survived a conflagration (A. 4.64). Tacitus refers to the Claudian “clan” (gens, A. 6.51, 15.23), “house” (domus, A. 6.8; H. 1.16), and “family” (familia, A. 1.4; 12.2; 13.17), always in reference to the imperial Claudii Nerones. The commingled dynasty is known as “Julio-Claudian” in modern works, but Galba refers to them in a speech as the “house of the Julii and Claudii” (H. 1.16). see also: Iulii; Julio-Claudian dynasty; Roman Republic

28-04-2023 17:44:50

C lau di u s  

CLAUDIUS DONNA W. HURLEY

New York, New York

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, as Claudius was formally designated when he was emperor, was born Tiberius Claudius Drusus on 1 August 10 bce, in Lugdunum (Lyon), a principle city in Gaul (Suet. Cl. 2.1). His mother was Antonia the Younger, daughter of Mark Antony and Augustus’ sister Octavia (1); his father was Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus), brother of Tiberius and son of Livia Augusta (later Augustus’ wife). Claudius was born into an important family, and some of its members became members of the Julian clan. Augustus adopted his uncle, who became the emperor Tiberius, and Tiberius adopted Claudius’ older brother, Germanicus, who was launched on a promising career. Similar prospects were not in order for Claudius, who was not only never adopted (the only one of the early emperors who was not a Julian) but was denied a significant role in dynastic plans. Claudius evidently suffered from permanent neurological damage evidenced by a limp, a distorted voice, and drooling. He was described as a sickly child. If he had been, as Augustus put it, “whole” (Suet. Cl. 4.1), he would have been valuable family property. His disability was relatively minor, however, since he was marginalized but not barred completely from any public role. During the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, Claudius held some minor priesthoods and took part in ceremonial events. The equestrian order chose him as their patron. But he was only a minor legatee in the emperors’ wills (Suet. Cl. 4.7, 6.2), and in the Senate’s official consolation on the death of his brother Germanicus he is named last, almost an afterthought (S.C. de Cn. Pisone patre, l. 148). Claudius filled the role often given to a female member of the imperial house, that of being a partner in dynastic marriages, enabling links to families that needed reward or could be introduced into the court. After two aborted betrothals, he married Plautia Urgulanilla (not mentioned by name in Tacitus; see Urgulania), probably by 10

c03_Vol1.indd 263

263

ce; Augustus and his grandmother Livia had had a long connection with her family. Their two children did not survive. By 28 ce he had divorced her and married Aelia Paetina, who came from the extended family of Sejanus, Tiberius’ powerful praetorian prefect. Their daughter Antonia was born in c. 29 ce. Claudius remained away from public view and was an object of derision. He fared somewhat better when Gaius (Caligula) became emperor in 37 ce. The young emperor had no credentials to bring to the principate except his family, and so his uncle Claudius, the brother of his popular father, Germanicus, became an asset. Claudius finally held political office, serving as consul with Gaius at the beginning of his reign, and he was named to the office again four years later. He sometimes presided at games in Gaius’ place, and there he was saluted as the “brother of Germanicus.” He divorced Aelia Paetina and, advancing his connection to another level, married his third wife, his cousin Messalina; she, like Claudius, was descended from Octavia. Their union consolidated and strengthened the imperial house. Claudius and Messalina had two children, Octavia (2) born c. 39 and in 41 a son who would be called Britannicus. Gaius’ reign ended abruptly when he was assassinated on 24 January 41 ce. He was young, with only a very young daughter, and had been emperor for only a short time. There was no provision, even informal, for a successor. There were two versions of the story of how Claudius came to be emperor. Both portray him as passive in his elevation, a reluctant choice (Malloch 2009, 116–117). In one story, fleeing from the assassination scene in fear, he hid behind a curtain in the palace complex. A passing member of the praetorian guard, an ordinary soldier, spied him and investigated. When he recognized him, he saluted him as imperator (commander) and took him to his comrades, who carried him off to the praetorian camp (Suet. Cl. 10; Cass. Dio 60.1.3; Joseph. AJ 216–223). By another account, in the chaos after the assassination, the praetorian leadership decided that the best course for themselves and for Rome was a new emperor whom they themselves chose, and they deliberately looked for Claudius and kidnapped him to their camp (Joseph. AJ 19.163–165).

28-04-2023 17:44:50

264

  C lau di u s

Claudius remained in the praetorian camp adjacent to the city while the Senate met on the Capitoline that day and part of the next and tried to deal with the crisis. They considered a return to the status of the time before Augustus or, if that were not possible, at least the ability to select the next princeps (“first man”) themselves. But real power lay with the praetorians, who had sworn their allegiance to Claudius in the camp. The civilian powers had no choice but to assent. The sources depict Claudius as reluctant to accept their salutation. It is possible, however, that he himself was party to the conspiracy that succeeded in killing Gaius. In the end he promised the praetorians and the rest of the military a bonus of 15,000 sesterces (Suet. Cl. 10.3–4, Joseph. AJ 166–184, 224–266; Cass. Dio 60.1.3a-4). It was now clear that the military was the source of imperial power. But Claudius was left in an awkward position. He needed to erase memory of the “two-day period of indecision” about the future of Rome (Suet. Cl. 11.1). His new position did not permit him to tolerate tyrannicide, but he condemned only a small number of the assassins. He removed statues of Gaius but did it quietly. He revoked his acts but did not mark the day of his death as a holiday. He could, like Gaius, use the credential of family to legitimize his position but could not ride into the principate on the coattails of his failed nephew. Claudius granted honors to his father, Drusus, and his mother, Antonia, and even deification for his grandmother, Livia. He kept the memory of his brother, Germanicus, before the people. This heritage was worth parading, but it was not the same as tracing a line directly back to Augustus. Claudius nonetheless accepted the Julian name Caesar, and it became an imperial title, no longer a family name. The unlikely manner of his accession left a sense of illegitimacy that did not dissipate quickly. The next year (42 ce) Appius Silanus, (Gaius Appius Iunius Silanus), governor of Spain with two legions at his disposal, was recalled to Rome and married to Messalina’s mother, evidently to neutralize the threat he posed. Appius was soon dead, the victim of questionable accusations (Suet. Cl. 37.2; Cass. Dio 60.14.3–4). Another challenge came from

c03_Vol1.indd 264

senators in Rome. This group counted on the support of Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus, governor of Dalmatia, whose two legions would supply the requisite military support. The incipient coup failed when the legionary soldiers refused to follow their commander. They preferred Claudius to senatorial rule (Suet. Cl. 13.2; Cass. Dio 60.15.1– 4; Osgood 2011, 42–45). Claudius’ response to these threats was harsh and opened the charge of cruelty that followed him the rest of his life and beyond. Military success could make him appear a legitimate emperor. A revolt in Mauritania that was settled at the close of Gaius’ reign was credited to Claudius, and the Senate voted him the use of triumphal regalia. But a genuine triumph was much more desirable, and in search of this he chose Britannia as the place where he might claim the military experience missing in his resume. The conquest of Britain had been a Roman ambition since the time of Iulius Caesar. In 43 ce Claudius sent four veteran legions across the Channel under the command of experienced and competent generals. He himself would join the army at an appropriately impressive time. He left his most trusted ally, Lucius Vitellius (1), in charge in Rome and with a large entourage made the long journey through Gaul to the coast, crossed over to the island and led the Roman force into Camulodunum (Colchester). His scripted performance earned him the salutation imperator again (Suet. Cl. 17.1–2; Cass. Dio 60.21–22; Levick 1990, 137–148; Osgood 2011, 87–91). The addition of a new province to the empire was a significant achievement, and Claudius exploited it to his benefit. On his way back to Rome he halted at the mouth of the Po to have a ship put out to sea and return in imitation of his oversea venture. He returned to Rome to an enormous triumph in 44 ce, and his generals and Messalina took part in the procession. Statues, monuments and triumphal arches followed. He received the honorific cognomen Britannicus that his son would share. He placed the naval crown on the pediment of his house in recognition of his conquering the ocean. The celebration continued with annual games at which he wore a general’s cloak and presided over a reenactment of the war

28-04-2023 17:44:50

C lau di u s  

and the surrender of the warlords of Britannia. In 49 ce the pomerium (the religious boundary of the city) was enlarged; the king Caratacus was paraded in 50 (A. 12.23.2, 36–3; Suet. Cl. 17.3, 21.6; Cass. Dio 60.23). As well as nursing his own status, Claudius was busy with the activities and duties of an emperor— as these were developing in the early years of the Empire. His principate was an important segment of the continuum that defined the emperor’s job description. Osgood (2011, 256–259) describes Claudius as “institutionalizing the principate,” turning precedent into practice that would serve as a model for the emperors who followed. Claudius acted in the generally sensible and conservative manner that was coming to be expected of an emperor. When drought brought famine, he arranged for the import of grain, and when fire destroyed a portion of the city, he rewarded the firefighters in person. He undertook important infrastructure projects, building roads, finishing the aqueducts that Gaius had begun, and starting a harbor at Ostia. An attempt to drain Lake Fucinus in central Italy was an engineering failure. He enthusiastically fulfilled his obligation to entertain the population by producing gladiatorial games, races, beast shows, and extravagant battle enactments. It is reported that he enjoyed these shows thoroughly, especially the bloodier examples (A. 12.56–7; Suet. Cl. 18–21; Cass. Dio 60.11.1–5). Suetonius summarized Claudius’ all-inclusive engagement with government, writing that he involved himself in religious and civil affairs, military and social organization, all both in Rome and abroad, and that he reformed some practices, revived others or introduced new ones (Suet. Cl. 22.1). Claudius sometimes acted under the authority of his own edicts and sometimes through the Senate. He paid attention to details and could indulge in pedantic fussiness. This was consistent with antiquarian interests that dated back to the time before he became emperor when he had written histories of Carthage and Etruria and attempted a history of his family. In the provinces, Claudius frequently continued arrangements that Gaius had begun, maintaining friendly kings in place. Remarkable was his intervention in the Alexandrian uprising that had erupted under Gaius. His response was

c03_Vol1.indd 265

265

measured and just (Smallwood Docs. no. 370 pp. 99–102; Osgood 2011, 66–67). Claudius appears particularly interested in questions of citizenship, punishing those who usurped its privileges unlawfully but granting it liberally as well. His liberality provoked the joke that all the known world would soon be wearing togas and also the charge that his wife and freedmen offered citizenship for sale (Sen. Apocol. 3.3; Cass. Dio 60.17.5). He also wanted to maintain the integrity of the social orders. He identified those who should be senators and reviewed the roll, stressing their responsibilities as well as their privileges. A speech that favored allowing “longhaired” Gauls to enter the Senate is known both from its inscription on a bronze tablet (the Tabula Lugdunensis) and from Tacitus’ reworking of it (Docs. no. 369, pp. 97–99; A. 11.23–25.1). Some of this business he performed as censor. In 47 ce he revived the long-neglected (since 22 bce) office of the censorship and shared its responsibilities with his ally Lucius Vitellius. Censors were charged not only with counting citizens but also with maintaining the stratification of Roman society. 47 ce also marked the eight-hundredth anniversary of the traditional founding of Rome. Claudius celebrated the event with the especially extravagant Secular Games that were meant to be witnessed only once in a person’s lifetime. Claudius was premature with their revival (they had been held last in 17 bce) but they, as did the censorship, fit well with his antiquarian interests and recalled Augustan undertakings (A. 11.11; Suet. Cl. 21.2). Claudius took an interest in law and in the dispensation of justice. As emperor, he could hear appeals. He also concerned himself with the existing courts, rearranging the seasons when they were in session and intervening in jury selection. It was during his reign that an alternative judicial system evolved, a system of “hearings” at which the emperor could preside because of his broad authority. These were not limited to trying cases of specific crimes, as were the republican courts, and so could accommodate any charge and result in any punishment. Claudius gained a reputation for hearing cases in this format in private (in cubiculum) and for pronouncing judgment after

28-04-2023 17:44:51

266

  C lau di u s

hearing only one side of the case (inauditos, Suet. Cl. 38.2; Sen. Apocol. 10.4, 14.2). This fueled his reputation for cruelty. It was said that he killed thirty-five senators and more than three hundred knights (Suet. Cl. 29.2; Sen. Apocol. 14.1). Many can be identified (McAlindon 1956). Since the Roman emperor’s position as princeps evolved from his personal power, he had no choice but to manage his increasing responsibilities with the assistance of his household. Freedman were helpful to Augustus and his successors. In time the duties of these imperial secretaries would be taken over by equestrians, but in the mid-first century, freedmen enjoyed their highest prestige. It would be said that Claudius was little more than their instrument and the tool of his wives as well (Suet. Cl. 25.5; Cass. Dio 60.2.4). Through 47 ce Messalina with her connection to the house of Augustus remained an asset; she was paraded at Claudius’ triumph and prominent on his coinage. But the following year she unilaterally divorced him, and the report came that she had married Gaius Silius, consul designate for that year. The event is puzzling. Messalina may have been seeking protection with this risky move. Although she was mother to the heir apparent, Britannicus, he was still a child (about seven) and Claudius was aging. Silius might be able to hold the place for Britannicus until he was of age and she would be in the strong position of mother of the princeps. And perhaps she was wary of a strong rival, Agrippina the Younger, and took preemptive action. Agrippina was waiting in the wings with a closer connection to the house of Augustus than Messalina had and with an older child (about ten). Whatever happened, the event was perceived as a serious threat; both Messalina and Silius lost their lives (A. 11.26–38; Suet Cl. 26.2, 36; Cass. Dio 60.31.3–5; Levick 1990, 66–67; Osgood 2011, 209–211). Agrippina the Younger was the daughter of Claudius’ brother Germanicus and of Agrippina the Elder, a granddaughter of Augustus. Neither Claudius nor Messalina could claim as much Julian blood as she had. A marriage with her (his fourth wife) could strengthen the legitimacy that he always sought. Claudius married his niece in 49 ce after the Senate removed the impediment of

c03_Vol1.indd 266

incest by redefining it (A. 12.5.2–6; Suet. Cl. 26.3). The son that Agrippina brought to the marriage was from her earlier marriage to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2). Claudius adopted him the following year, and he was given the Claudian name Nero. Only a few years older than Claudius’ natural son Britannicus, he was put before the public in roles that made him the presumed successor. But Britannicus, the backup choice, was growing up, and Claudius would have two adult sons before long. This was how things stood when Claudius died on 13 October 54 ce. Poison was blamed. By one account, he was carried from the table and died the next day without recovering consciousness. By another, he recovered, vomited the poison, and had to be ministered a second dose by his physician (A. 12.66–67; Suet. Cl. 44.2–3; Cass. Dio 60.34.2–3). Alternatively, a fatal medical event, a heart attack or a stroke, may have killed him. But the timing of his death made the story of foul play and poison unavoidable. Nero became emperor by the same route that Claudius had taken: transport to the praetorian camp where he was saluted imperator, bonuses promised to the military, and only after that, recognition by the Senate. The Senate gave Claudius a state funeral on the Augustan model and declared him a god, the first emperor since Augustus so designated. A temple for Divus Claudius (the divine Claudius) rose on the Caelian Hill. The posthumous evaluation of Claudius and his reign was mixed. The biographer Suetonius associated him with two abstractions, saevitia and stultitia, cruelty and stupidity (Suet. Ner. 33.1), and the satire, the Apocolocyntosis, developed both. The charge of cruelty can be defended from his repression of the rebellion of 42 ce, the secret trials, and the large number of executions— including that of Messalina. He was, however, of good intelligence as his writing and many of the measures he initiated illustrate. The allegation that he was no more than a passive tool of his wives and freedmen persisted. When he was not held responsible for his actions, he was left, if not unstained, at least acceptable, and his name was a useful and even necessary inclusion in the list of emperors as the principate passed from the fiefdom of a few families into the wider

28-04-2023 17:44:51

C lau di u s C aec u s , A ppi u s  

possession of the Flavians and Trajan and beyond (Griffin 1994, 212–213; Osgood 2011, 256). see also: alphabet; disability; freedmen of Claudius; gardens; Julio-Claudian dynasty; marriage; senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone Reference works:

Smallwood, Elizabeth Mary. 1967. Documents Illustrating the Principates of Gaius, Claudius and Nero. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. No. 369, pp. 77–79; no. 370, pp. 99–102. “The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre.” Edited by D. S. Potter, translated by Cynthia Damon. 1999. American Journal of Philology 120: 13–41. REFERENCES Griffin, Miriam Tamara. 1994. “Claudius in the Judgement of the Next Half-Century.” In Die Regierungszeit des Kaisers Claudius (41-54 n. Chr.): Umbruch oder Episode?, edited by Volker Michael Strocka, 307–316. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Levick, Barbara. 1990. Claudius. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Malloch, S. J. V. 2009. “Hamlet without the Prince? The Claudian Annals.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 116–126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McAlindon, D. 1956. “Senatorial Opposition to Claudius and Nero.” American Journal of Philology 77: 113–132. Osgood, Josiah. 2011. Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Coleman, Kathleen M. 1993. “Launching into History: Aquatic Displays in the Early Empire.” Journal of Roman Studies 83: 48–74. Gibson, Alisdair G. G., ed. 2012. The Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the “Augustan Model?” Leiden: Brill. Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1961. Claudius, the Emperor and His Achievement. Revised ed. Translated by W. D. Hogarth. Cambridge: Heffer. Wiseman, Timothy Peter, ed and trans. 1991. Flavius Josephus: Death of an Emperor. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.

CLAUDIUS APOLLINARIS, see APINIUS TIRO

c03_Vol1.indd 267

267

CLAUDIUS CAECUS, APPIUS BRANDON JONES

Boston University

Known foremost for his accomplishments as censor in 312 bce, Appius Claudius Caecus gained his cognomen after losing his sight, likely late in life (Cic. Sen. 16; Diod. 20.36.6; Livy 9.29.9–11). His speeches were perhaps the first among Romans to be transmitted to posterity (Cic. Brut. 61). An inscription (CIL XI 1827) attributes the following offices to him: censor, consul, dictator, interrex, praetor, curule aedile, quaestor, and military tribune. Additionally, he produced Saturnian verse (Ps-Sall. Rep. 1.1.2) and a legal treatise (Pomp. Dig. 1.2.2.36). As censor, he famously commissioned the construction of the Via Appia and the Aqua Appia (Diod. 20.36.2). His measures in drawing up the list of the Senate and distribution of tribe membership suggests consideration of those beyond the patrician class (Diod. 20.36.4; Livy 9.46.10). As consul and praetor in 296–295 bce, he fought against the Etruscans and Samnites (Livy 10.17– 31), subsequently dedicating the Temple of Bellona in the Circus Flaminius (Ov. Fast. 6.102; Plin. HN 35.12). Beyond the inscription, no record exists of Appius from 295 until 280 bce, when at an advanced age he gave a speech rejecting Pyrrhus’ offer of peace following the Battle of Heraclea (Cic. Brut. 55; Plut. Pyrrh. 19; Val. Max. 8.13.5). The speech was still of interest during Tacitus’ lifetime (Quint. Inst. 2.16.7; D. 18.4). In the Dialogue on Orators, Appius serves as a representative of archaic oratory. Marcus Aper supports his position that Romans frequently prefer that which is ancient by suggesting that there are “those who admired Appius Caecus more than Cato” (D. 18.4). Aper later attacks the style of Gaius Asinius Pollio (1) (D. 21.7), underlining his archaic tendencies by suggesting that he learned in the company of Appius, who was his senior by approximately 250 years. see also: Roman orators; Roman roads

28-04-2023 17:44:51

268

  C lau di u s L abeo

Reference works: CAH 72/2: 395–399; RE Claudius 91 FURTHER READING Conte, Gian Biagio. 1994. Latin Literature: A History. Translated by Joseph Solodow. Rev. Don Fowler and Glenn Most. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. 18–19. Humm, Michel. 2009. “Rome et l’Italie dans le discourse d’Appius Claudius Caecus contre Pyrrhus.” Pallas 79: 221–231. DOI: 10.4000/ pallas.14701. Kennedy, George. 1972. The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, 300 bc–ad 300. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 26–29.

CLAUDIUS COSSUS, see HELVETII CLAUDIUS DEMIANUS, see ANTISTIUS VETUS, LUCIUS CLAUDIUS FAVENTIUS, see APINIUS TIRO CLAUDIUS IULIANUS, see APINIUS TIRO

send Labeo to stay among the Frisii (H. 4.18.4, 56.3). Labeo later bribed his way out of Frisian custody (H. 4.56.3). Later at Colonia Agrippinensis, Labeo promised, in exchange for command of a small contingent, to resecure for Rome the loyalty of some of the Batavians; instead, he used Rome’s manpower to gather for himself a force of Germans, which he in turn used to launch raids against other Germans (H. 4.56.3). In an engagement against Civilis at the River Mosa, Labeo lost his men’s loyalty to his rival’s bravado and rhetoric of Germany unity (H. 4.66.1–2). Labeo, again without an army to command, fled before he could be captured (H. 4.66.3). The results of Civilis’ subsequent manhunt throughout Belgica are unknown (H. 4.70.1). Reference work: PIR2 C 906 REFERENCE

CLAUDIUS LABEO NICHOLAS DEE

Bowling Green State University

Claudius Labeo, mentioned only by Tacitus, was prefect of a Batavian auxiliary cavalry regiment (ala Batavorum) and a rival of Iulius Civilis during the Batavian Revolt. The nature and origin of the rivalry between Labeo and Civilis is not known, except that it was a local dispute between two Batavians (H. 4.18.4). If it can rightly be inferred that Labeo was in command of the Batavian cavalry (number of regiments unknown) that fought against Iulius Vindex at Vesontio (H. 4.17.3), then perhaps tensions either began or worsened as the two men found themselves on opposing sides in the armed conflicts of 68 ce (see Walser 1951, 97). In 69 ce, Labeo’s Batavian cavalry, feigning loyalty to Rome, fought under legate Munius Lupercus in the battle for Vetera; however, their calculated defection to Civilis mid-battle exposed Lupercus’ left flank, leading to a Roman defeat (H. 4.18.1–3). The victorious Civilis, not wanting to provoke ill feelings among the Batavians for killing his rival or to allow dissensions to fester with his presence, decided to

c03_Vol1.indd 268

Walser, G. 1951. Rom, das Reich und die fremden Völker in der Geschichtsschreibung der frühen Kaiserzeit. Baden-Baden: Verlag für Kunst und Wissenschaft. FURTHER READING Saddington, D. B. 1982. The Development of the Roman Auxiliary Forces from Caesar to Vespasian (49 BC–AD 79). Harare: University of Zimbabwe.

CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS AESERNINUS NEIL BARNEY

University of Victoria

Marcus Claudius Marcellus Aeserninus was praetor peregrinus (19 ce). A well-regarded orator, he was one of the men approached by Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso for his defense, a role which he declined (A. 3.11). Aeserninus was born into a prominent family. His father was consul in 22 bce (PIR2 C 927: Marcus Claudius Marcellus Aeserninus) and his mother, Asinia, was the daughter of Asinius Pollio (1). His grandfather, a famous speaker in

28-04-2023 17:44:51

C lau di u s N ero, T iberi u s  

his own right, took a direct hand in his rhetorical education (Sen. Controv. 4 pr. 2–3). The affection of his grandfather was further demonstrated when Aeserninus was injured in the Trojan Games (at earliest, in 2 bce; see Bosworth 1972); Pollio complained so bitterly that the tradition was abandoned (Suet. Aug. 43.2). As a speaker, Aeserninus proved a worthy successor to Pollio. In 20 ce, he was among the prominent men who refused to represent Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso after the death of Germanicus (A. 3.11). While there is no trace of him after this event, he is cited (along with his grandfather) as one of those men who had achieved oratorical mastery without needing payment in Gaius Silius’ demand that the lex Cincia be enforced (A. 11.6). Silius’ opponent, the delator Publius Suillius Rufus, argued that this was only possible due to his familial wealth (A. 11.7). His fate is unknown. It is possible that he achieved the consulship (A. 11.6: “carried to the highest honors;” see PIR2 C 928). It is more likely, however, that he died before receiving that honor (Syme 1986). see also: delators; games; leges Reference works: CIL I2 p. 70; PIR2 C 928 REFERENCES Bosworth, B. A. 1972. “Asinius Pollio and Augustus.” Historia 21.3: 441–473. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Oliver, James. 1947. “The Descendants of Asinius Pollio.” American Journal of Philology 68.2: 147–160.

CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Marcus Claudius Marcellus (42 bce–23 bce) was the son of Octavia (1); he was married Julia the Elder. Thus, he was Augustus’ closest male

c03_Vol1.indd 269

269

relative until his untimely death due to illness at the age of nineteen. Marcellus’ role in the Annals is limited. His sole substantive appearance is at A. 1.3, representing Augustus’ first attempt at blood succession. We are reliant on Cassius Dio (53.26.1, 27.5, 28.3, 30.2, 4–6, 31.2, 32.1, 33.4; see also Suet. Aug. 29.4, 43.5, 63.1, 66.3, Tib. 6.4, 10.1) for the details of Marcellus’ short career. Marcellus was appointed as an aedile, a civil office responsible for putting on games in Rome, which Augustus funded in order to secure popularity for his nephew. Marcellus was also appointed as one of the priests (pontifices), a position of some social importance. His marriage to Julia set the initial example of a pattern that would come to define Augustus’ succession arrangements. Marcellus was further granted the privilege of the years, whereby he was allowed to stand for office ten years earlier than the legally defined age. Despite widespread suspicion that Marcellus was Augustus’ designated successor, when the princeps was ill in the summer of 23 bce, he handed his signet ring to Agrippa instead. Despite its seeming importance, politically the ring meant nothing. In that same summer, Marcellus fell ill also, and despite being treated by the imperial physician, died in the summer of 23 bce. Augustus granted Marcellus a public funeral and had his body interred in the imperial mausoleum. His death was lamented by Vergil (Aen. 6.860– 886) and Propertius (3.18) and honored by Augustus who named the theater under construction at the foot of the Capitoline Hill the Theater of Marcellus. see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference work: PIR2 C 925

CLAUDIUS NERO, TIBERIUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Tiberius Claudius Nero (79/78–33 bce) was born into the prestigious Claudian family, though not into one of its most renowned branches. The last

28-04-2023 17:44:51

270

  C lau di u s S anct u s

consuls in his family had held office in 207 and 202 bce. In 54 bce, he wanted to prosecute Aulus Gabinius (consul 58), but he was turned down in favor of Gaius Memmius (Cic. QFr 3.1.15; 3.2.1). In 50, he was in Asia Minor, where he became patron of the city of Nisa. Cicero wrote to Publius Silius Nerva (praetor in 52 bce), propraetor in Bithynia Pontus, a very complimentary letter of recommendation, stating that “of all our men of rank I value none more than Nero” (Cic. Fam. 13.64). Cicero planned to marry his daughter, Tullia, to him (Cic. Att. 6.6.1). Nero was also a correspondent of Terentius Varro. In 48, Nero became quaestor and participated in the Alexandrian war as one of the commanders of Iulius Caesar’s fleet (48–47). As a reward, in 46 he was elected pontiff and was sent to Gaul to settle new colonies of veterans in the regions of Arles and Narbo (46–45). Despite being trusted by Caesar, after his murder Nero changed sides and proposed a reward for his assassins. Probably in 43 he married Livia Drusilla (Livia Augusta), daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus (praetor in 50), one of the proscribed who committed suicide in that year. Nero’s first son, the future emperor Tiberius, was born in 42. In the same year, Nero became praetor, keeping his insignia in 41, when he supported Lucius Antonius (consul in 41) in the war of Perusia (41–40). After Lucius Antonius’ defeat, Nero still attempted to enlist slaves for rebellion in Praeneste and Naples. Eventually, he took refuge in Sicily with his wife and son. Tacitus confuses the chronology and thinks that this escape had been motivated by the proscription of 43 (A. 6.51.1). In Sicily, Sextus Pompeius Magnus did not receive Nero and denied him the use of the fasces. Therefore, he took refuge in Sparta, later joining Mark Antony. Nero returned to Rome with Antony in 39, benefiting from the amnesty granted after the peace of Misenum agreed with Sextus Pompeius (A. 5.1.1). By this time, Octavian (Augustus) met Livia and, after consulting the pontiffs (A. 1.10.5) and even though Livia was six months pregnant, he persuaded Nero to divorce her. It is probable that the version of Tacitus (A.

c03_Vol1.indd 270

1.10.5; 5.1.2), who speaks of an abduction, originated in Antonian propaganda (Flory 1988). Nero’s second son, Drusus the Elder (brother of Tiberius), was born on 28 March 38, three months after the marriage of Augustus and Livia (Radke 1978). Nero did not remarry and died in 33 bce. The young Tiberius delivered his funeral eulogy (Suet. Tib. 6.4). see also: civil wars of the Late Republic; Claudii; Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference works: MRR 2.274; 2.288; 2.300; 2.303; 2.359; 2.373; 2.381; RE III.2, 2777–2778, Claudius 254 (Münzer) REFERENCES Flory, M. 1988. “Abducta Neroni uxor: The Historiographical Tradition on the Marriage of Octavian and Livia.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 18: 343–359. Radke, G. 1978. “Der Geburtstag des älteren Drusus.” Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 4: 211–213.

CLAUDIUS PAULUS, see FONTEIUS CAPITO CLAUDIUS PYRRICHUS, see PICARIUS DECUMUS CLAUDIUS SAGITTA, see CALPURNIUS PISO, LUCIUS (3)

CLAUDIUS SANCTUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Claudius Sanctus (otherwise unknown) was commander of legion XVI in 70 ce during the Batavian Revolt. Stationed at Novaesium, the legion was ordered to march against a colony of the Treveri (H. 4.62) and did so in disgrace; Tacitus likens their train to a funeral procession. He then provides a physical description of Sanctus who had lost one eye; he was “repulsive in countenance and even more feeble in intellect.” The troops were joined by a legion that had been driven out of their camp at Bonna. Unable

28-04-2023 17:44:51

C lau di u s Tacit u s  

to endure the insults of the victors, the cavalry rode off, disregarding the promises and threats of Sanctus.

271

CLAUDIUS TACITUS MICHAEL MECKLER

Ohio State University

see also: army; disability Reference work: PIR2 C 1007

CLAUDIUS SENECIO ROBERT CAMPBELL

University of Nebraska at Omaha

Claudius Senecio (d. 65 ce) was the son of a freedman from imperial Rome. Tacitus refers to him as a “handsome youth” (A. 13.12). He was a close confidant to Nero, along with Otho, an alliance that Nero’s mother Agrippina the Younger was first unaware of, but later assented to. Senecio knew about Nero’s love affair with the freedwoman Acte which was an affront to Octavia (2), Nero’s wife (A. 13.12). Senecio, in agreement with Otho, kept the secret in order to pacify the emperor and reduce his anger. In 65 ce, the friendship between Nero and Senecio began to dissolve, and Senecio joined the Pisonian Conspiracy. Because he was son of a freedman, he risked not exile (a punishment for elites), but death. While the conspiracy was afoot, Senecio maintained an outward appearance of a friendship with Nero to suppress any suspicion. When the conspiracy was betrayed, Senecio, along with Afranius Quintianus denied allegations until promised impunity (A. 15.56). Although they named some (but not all) conspirators, they were not pardoned, acquitted, or sent into exile. Rather, they were forced to commit suicide. Tacitus notes that upon their deaths they said nothing that calls for remembrance (A. 15.70). see also: Pisonian conspiracy, victims Reference work: PIR2 C 1016 CLAUDIUS SEVERUS, SEE HELVETII

c03_Vol1.indd 271

Marcus Claudius Tacitus was Roman emperor for a period of six months, from the late autumn of 275 ce until the late spring or possibly very early summer of 276. He became emperor after the murder of the previous emperor, Aurelian, and he himself died, either from illness or in a soldiers’ revolt in Tyana in Asia Minor amid a military campaign. The only connections between the emperor Tacitus and the historian Tacitus are offered by the pseudepigraphic text known to modern readers as the Historia Augusta, which is a set of biographies of Roman emperors and usurpers of the second and third centuries ce that claims to have been written by six authors of the late third and early fourth centuries, but nearly all modern scholars believe to have been written by one person around the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century. In the Historia Augusta’s biography of the emperor Tacitus (HA Tac. 10.3), the text says that the emperor called the historian his ancestor and that the emperor ordered the historian’s works to be placed in all the libraries. Furthermore, he ordered that each year, ten copies of the historian’s works were to be made and deposited in libraries. Much of the information in the Historia Augusta is fanciful, and these details connecting the emperor Tacitus to the historian Tacitus are among those considered the most fanciful. When Aurelian was killed on campaign in Thrace in a conspiracy, no individual was immediately named Aurelian’s successor. Tacitus, who was living in retirement in Italy, was then chosen, but the details surrounding the circumstances of his background and selection were not transmitted in the meager historical sources for the period. The author of the Historia Augusta enhanced what little was known about the emperor by making him a senator characterized by old-fashioned probity and literary interests. Modern historians suspect the emperor had in fact been a career soldier, but for the Historia Augusta author, the

28-04-2023 17:44:51

272

  clau su lae

emperor Tacitus was portrayed in the manner of late Roman aristocrats such as Nicomachus Flavianus the younger, who in the early fifth century made an edition of the first ten books of the historian Livy. That both emperor and historian shared a cognomen must have made a connection between the two seem irresistible to the Historia Augusta author, but the details provided in the Historia Augusta cannot be trusted. see also: Interamna FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1971. “The Emperor Claudius Tacitus.” In Emperors and Biography, 237–247. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CLAUDIUS TIMARCHUS, see THRASEA PAETUS CLAUDIUS VICTOR, see BATAVI

CLAUSULAE BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

Clausula in a prose composition refers to the ending of a sentence, intentionally structured by the author according to specific rhythmical patterns. The composition of both Greek and Latin artistic prose was led by principles of euphony, with specific attention to the acoustic effect of the oral delivery of the text. Since the pronunciation of any syllable was marked by a specific duration and pitch, an artistic text, when read aloud, was perceived much like a rhythmical melody (Norden 1915, 55–57). According to the ancient theorists, a period should be built of large segments (kola in Greek, membra in Latin), and shorter cut-off parts (kommata in Greek, incisa in Latin); specific rhythmical patterns, i.e., series of long and short syllables, could be used to a give a particularly emotional tone to a part of the period, or to mark acoustically the conceptual and syntactic breaks—not differently than modern punctuation. Prose-rhythm is

c03_Vol1.indd 272

generally thought of in terms of verse feet; however, ancient theorists agreed that prose-rhythm should not be too close to poetry-rhythm, and patterns too obviously recognizable as verseendings were generally avoided. The earliest author to exploit prose rhythm was the fifth-century sophist Thrasymachus of Chalcedon. Prose rhythm was discussed by Aristotle (Rhet. 3) and further theorized in the Hellenistic age; however, we have only scant relics of the Greek treatises. Our main sources are Cicero’s De oratore and Orator and Quintilian’s Books 5 and 9 (but see Winterbottom 2011, 263 on the issues raised by these ancient discussions). Cicero’s practice and theoretical remarks show that the ending of a sentence (the clausula) carried a particular emphasis, and therefore had to be carefully structured. Modern analyses have shown that Cicero himself favored the use of clausulae envisaging a cretic base (– ∪ –, or variations resolving any long syllable with two short ones) followed by a trochaic rhythm (– x; – ∪ x; or – ∪ – x). The pattern – ∪ ∪ ∪ | – x | (esse videatur), was favored by Cicero to the point that later authors would avoid it, as an overly Ciceronian clause; Cicero also praised the double trochee, also known as dichoreus (– ∪ – x). On the other hand, he and later authors show aversion for the clausula heroa, i.e., the hexameter ending – ∪ ∪ – x, for its being too recognizable as a poetic ending, and as such used in prose for mock-epic purposes (Zieliński 1904). At some point in the fourth century ce, Greek authors abandoned the quantitative system in favor of the accentual one: word rhythm was no longer conceived in terms of long/short syllables, but in terms of accented/unaccented ones; the same process is fully established in Latin in the fifth century ce. The relationship between the two systems and the dating of this change are still much debated questions in modern scholarship (Winterbottom 2011, 262–263). In the accentual system, the sentence-ending is thought of as a cadence of accented (~´ ) and unaccented syllables (~); this is referred to by scholars as cursus. By the end of Late Antiquity, the three main ­patterns in use in the quantitative system ­progressively evolve into three types of cursus: the dicretic (i.e., double cretic – ∪ – – ∪ –) evolves into the cursus tardus

28-04-2023 17:44:51

(~´ ~ ~~´ ~~); the dichoreus (– ∪ – x) into the cursus velox (~~ ~´ ~) and the cretic+trochee clausula (– ∪ – | – x) yields the cursus planus (~´ ~ ~~´ ~). Statistical studies suggest that before the switch from the quantitative to the accentual system was completed, the rhythmical practice envisaged a hybrid situation, in which prose writers would still compose quantitative clausulae, but matching the stresses of the words with the metrical ictus; this form of clausulae, quantitative and accentual at a time, is known as cursus mixtus (Oberhelman 2003; see however the criticism by Winterbottom 2011). In the Dialogus, Aper disparages the excessive use of clausulae (D. 23.1–2) and pokes fun at Cicero’s well-known phrases (Keeline 2018, 254– 260). However, Martin (1967) demonstrates a sustained attempt at Ciceronian rhythm in the speech of Curtius Montanus (H. 4.42). see also: style REFERENCES Keeline, T. 2018. The Reception of Cicero in the Early Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, R. H. 1967. “The Speech of Curtius Montanus: Tacitus, Histories IV, 42.” Journal of Roman Studies 57: 109–114. Norden, Eduard. 1915. Die Antike Kustprosa vom VI. Jahrhundert v.Chr. bis in die Zeit der Renaissance. 2 vols. Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner. Oberhelman, S. M. 2003. Prose Rhythm in Latin Literature of the Roman Empire. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Winterbottom, Michael. 2011. “On Ancient Prose Rhythm.” In Culture in Pieces. Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons, edited by Dirk Obbink and Richard Rutherford, 262–276. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zieliński, Tadeusz. 1904. “Das Clauselgesetz in Ciceros Reden. Grundzüge einer oratorischen Rhythmik.” Philologus 9: 589‒884. FURTHER READING Brakman, C. 1925. “Tacitea. I. De Clausula.” Mnemosyne 53.2: 177–200.

c03_Vol1.indd 273

C lemens  

273

Håkanson, Lennart. 2014. Unveröffentlichte Schriften, I: Studien zu den pseudoquintilianischen Declamationes maiores. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. 47–130.

CLEMENS VERENA SCHULZ

KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

After the death of Augustus, Clemens went to Planasia to rescue Agrippa Postumus from exile and take him to the German armies to make him princeps (A. 2.39.1). When he arrived there, Agrippa had already been murdered. Clemens then adapted his appearance to that of Agrippa and let the rumor spread that Agrippa was still alive (A. 2.39.2–4). Sallustius Crispus, who had participated in the murder of Agrippa (A. 1.6.3; 3.30.3), captured Clemens at the order of Tiberius. Tiberius had Clemens murdered but was afraid to make the punishment public. He did not allow for any judicial investigation to follow, even though Clemens had been supported also by members of his court, knights, and senators (see Suet. Tib. 25.1, where Clemens’ success is mentioned as one reason for Tiberius’ hesitation to assume sole power over the empire). According to Bellemore (2000), it is possible that the Pseudo-Agrippa was the same person as the real Agrippa. In Tacitus, the false Drusus Caesar (son of Germanicus, A. 5.10) and the false Nero are comparable (H. 2.8). Tacitus presents the episode of the short imprisonment of the slave (A. 2.39.1) as the conclusion of the narrative of the year 16 ce (A. 2.39–40). The figure of Clemens reminds once again of Agrippa Postumus as the other potential successor of Augustus, before Tiberius made his plan to remove Germanicus, on whom the hopes were pinned (A. 2.42.1). A central component of the episode is a short exchange in which Tiberius asks Clemens how he became Agrippa, and he answers: “Just as you became Caesar” (A. 2.40.3; designed as the high point of the episode in Cass. Dio 57.16.4). Reference work: PIR2 C 1134

28-04-2023 17:44:51

274

  C lodi u s M acer

REFERENCES Bellemore, Jane. 2000. “The Death of Agrippa Postumus and Escape of Clemens.” Eranos 98.1–2: 93–114. Reinhold, Meyer. 1933. Marcus Agrippa: A Biography. Geneva: Humphrey. FURTHER READING Grünewald, Thomas. 2004. Bandits in the Roman Empire: Myth and Reality. London: Routledge. 140–144.

CLEONICUS, see POISON CLEOPATRA, see FREEDMEN OF CLAUDIUS CLEOPATRA VII, see MARK ANTONY

CLODIUS MACER LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Lucius Clodius Macer (d. 68 ce) was a commander of legion III Augusta in the province of Africa. He revolted against Nero in April 68 ce and recruited new auxiliary units and a second legion, the I Macriana Liberatrix, in an effort to push the whole province to revolt (H. 2.97). When Galba came to power after Nero’s suicide, Galba ordered the assassination of Macer because he refused to join his side and renounce his plans (H. 1.7; Plut. Galb. 6.1; Suet. Galb. 11). Macer, instigated by Nero’s former mistress of the wardrobe, Calvia Crispinilla, attempted to create trouble in Carthage by impeding the exportation of grain from the province (H. 1.73; Plut. Galb. 13.1). Macer was killed by the procurator Trebonius Garutianus (mentioned only at H. 1.7 and Plut. Galb. 15.2; Demougin 1992, 543, nr. 642; Pflaum 1960, 1093) and by the (otherwise unknown) centurion Papirius, later one of Licinius Mucianus’ agents (H. 4.49; Plut. Galb. 15.2). Tacitus calls Macer a “minor tyrant” adding that both the soldiers and the population of Africa were glad of his death (H. 1.11). His name appears among the victims of Galba’s regime in the speech Otho made to the praetorians just before taking the power (H. 1.37).

c03_Vol1.indd 274

see also: Calpurnius Piso, Lucius (3); civil wars of 69 ce Reference work: PIR2 C 1170; PIR2 T 329 REFERENCES Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. - 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. Pflaum, H.-G. 1960. Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut-Empire Romain. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique; T. 57). Paris: P. Geuthner. FURTHER READING Hewitt, K. V. 1983. “The Coinage of L. Clodius Macer (ad 68).” Numismatic Chronicle 143: 64–80. Morgan, G. 2000. “Clodius Macer and Calvia Crispinilla.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 49: 467–487.

CLODIUS PULCHER PHILIP WADDELL

University of Arizona

Publius Clodius (originally Claudius) Pulcher (c. 92–52 bce; quaestor 61–60 bce, tribune of the plebes 58 bce, curile aedile 56 bce, quindecimvir by 56 bce) was a major political enemy of Cicero, brother of Clodia, and supporter of the first triumvirate. He was murdered on the Appian Way in 52 bce. Clodius used his service on the staff of prominent governors to further his political position. Under Lucius Licinius Lucullus, he incited the soldiers to mutiny (68–67 bce; Cic. Har. Resp. 42; Cass. Dio 36.14.3–4, 17.2). Clodius later abandoned Lucullus and became a fleet commander under Quintus Marcius Rex in Cilicia (67 bce) where he was captured by pirates (Cass. Dio 36.17.2–3; App. BC 2.23). Clodius was elected quaestor in 61–60 bce in Sicily under Gaius Vergilius Balbus (Cic. Att. 2.1.5). Clodius was reputed to be a libertine and was charged in 61 bce with incestum for profaning the rites of the Bona Dea, allegedly to seduce Iulius

28-04-2023 17:44:51

C lodi u s Q u irinalis  

Caesar’s wife Pompeia, but was later acquitted (Cic. Att. 1.12.3, 1.16.5). On Clodius’ supposed incest with his sister, Clodia Metelli, see Cic. Cael. 36, Att. 2.1.5, Mil. 73. To secure his eligibility for the tribuneship of 58 bce, Clodius arranged to be adopted into a plebeian family, breaking with tradition in altering his name from Claudius to Clodius rather than accepting his adoptive father’s nomen. He was elected tribune of the plebs (Cic. Att. 8.3.3; App. bc 2.14) and passed legislation against Cicero and Pompey, including the distribution of free grain (Cic. Sest. 55, Dom. 25; Cass. Dio 38.13), banishment of anyone who had executed Roman citizens without trial (clearly indicating Cicero; Cic. Att. 3.15.5; App. BC 2.15; Cass. Dio 38.14–17), and exiling Cicero specifically (Cic. Att. 3.4, 12, 15, 20, 23; Fam. 14.4; Dom. 47, 50; Cass. Dio 38.17). As a quindecimvir sacris faciundis (c. 56 bce; Cic. Har. Resp. 26), and curule aedile (56 bce), Clodius attempted to prosecute Annius Milo (Cic. Att. 4.3; Mil. 40; Cass. Dio 39.7–8) and supported the first triumvirate after the conference at Luca (Cass. Dio 39.29). In 52 bce, Clodius and his attendants passed Milo on the Via Appia. Clodius was wounded in the scuffle and later assassinated on Milo’s orders (Asc. Mil. 31–32). Cicero defended Milo, unsuccessfully—his revised speech is preserved in the Pro Milone. Clodius’ body was cremated in the Curia Cornelia, destroying the building (Cic. Mil. 90). Tacitus mentions Clodius and Gaius Scribonius Curio (tr. pl. 50 bce, and Clodius’ friend) only once, at A. 11.7.2 as examples of speakers who charged exorbitant fees. (For Clodius’ alleged greed, see Cic. Har. Resp. 1, 28–29, 46–48.) see also: Quindecimviri sacris faciundis; Roman roads; Roman Republic Reference work: MRR, vol 2, pages 140, 148, 164, 180, 184, 195–96, 208, 548, 16 of Additions and Corrections. FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1939. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 23–24, 33–39.

c03_Vol1.indd 275

275

Tatum, W. J. 1999. The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Taylor, Lily Ross. 1949. Party Politics in the Age of Caesar. Berkeley: University of California Press. 87–90.

CLODIUS QUIRINALIS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Publius Palpellius Clodius Quirinalis (d. 56 ce) was a Roman military commander from Tergeste in the middle of the first century ce (Demougin 1992, 437–439 nr. 526; Pflaum 1960, 68, nr. 28). He was the commander of the fleet in Ravenna (Eck 1994, 227–228). In 56 ce, he committed suicide with poison after being sentenced to death for his crimes and cruelty against the populations of Italy (A. 13.30.1, the only mention in Tacitus). After many years of debate, now the scholars agree in identifying Tacitus’ Clodius Quirinalis with the admiral mentioned in an inscription from Tergeste. After having served in the ranks of the army (primus pilus of the XX Valeria Victrix), Clodius was allowed to enter the equestrian order and became tribunus militum of legion VII Claudian (after 42 ce). He was allowed to pursue the procuratorial career probably after demonstrating his allegiance to the emperor during the revolt of Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus in Dalmatia. Maybe he was the adopted son of a certain Publius Palpellius, member of a well-known gens in Histria and at Pola in particular and the natural son of a Publius Clodius Quirinalis, soldier of legion XV Apollinaris. Reference works: PIR2 P 72; CIL V. 533 = ILS 2702; 540 REFERENCES Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. - 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome. École Française de Rome. Eck, W. 1994. “Prosopographica I.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 101: 227–232.

28-04-2023 17:44:51

276

  C lu tori u s P risc u s

Pflaum, H.-G. 1960. Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut-Empire Romain. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique; T. 57) Paris: P. Geuthner.

CLOTA, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI

CLUTORIUS PRISCUS ELEANOR COWAN

University of Sydney

Gaius Clutorius Priscus (d. 21 ce) was an equestrian who composed a poem on the death of Germanicus and another in anticipation of the death of Drusus the Younger (A. 3.49–51; Cass. Dio 57.20.3). In 21 ce, he was put on trial in the Senate as a consequence of reading his poem on the death of Drusus after Drusus had recovered from his illness. The nature of the charges against him remains unclear, but it is probable that, if not specifically a charge of maiestas, then something akin to, or extending, the treason law was applied. He was convicted and executed. Tacitus describes Clutorius Priscus as the victim of delators (informers) who had taken advantage of his rash boasting about a performance of his poem in the house of Publius Petronius before an audience of elite women which included Petronius’ mother-in-law Vitellia. Tacitus’ account concentrates on the nature of the punishment to be administered— the death penalty or interdiction from fire and water (including banishment and the confiscation of property) and on the difficulty of knowing what Tiberius would want the Senate to do in these circumstances. The trial itself took place in the Senate, Tiberius being absent. Tacitus offers a set-piece debate between the consul, Haterius Agrippa, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4) which Ginsburg (1986) and Woodman and Martin (1996) have shown alludes to Sallust’s great debate about the punishments of the Catilinarian conspirators (Cat. 50.3–53.1). Rogers (1953) and Ginsburg (1986) note the similarity between this episode and Tacitus’ account of the trial of Antistius Sosianus under Nero (A. 14.48–49). Ash (2016) considers the fates of Clutorius Priscus and three other Tiberian poets

c03_Vol1.indd 276

in order to demonstrate Tacitus’ interest in the interplay of politics and performance. Shotter (1969), Levick (1979) and Bauman (1974, 1996) give an overview of the legal aspects of the case while Dowling (2006) examines the concept of imperial clementia and Cowan (2016) examines the rhetoric of clementia and seueritas in the speeches of Haterius Agrippa and Lepidus. Tiberius’ response to the Senate’s decision was typically ambiguous: he praised the pietas of the Senate but deplored the speedy punishment of such an offense. The trial itself holds an important place in Roman criminal procedure since, as a consequence of Tiberius’ rebuke, the Senate resolved that henceforward the Senate would observe a nine-day moratorium before its decision was lodged in order to allow the princeps an opportunity to intervene and exercise clementia. Reference work: PIR2 C 1199 REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2016. “Tacitus and the Poets: In Nemora et Lucos…Secendendum est (Dialogus 9.6)?” In Wordplay and Powerplay in Latin Poetry, edited by Phillip Mitsis and Ioannis Ziogas, 13–35. Berlin: de Gruyter. Bauman, R. A. 1974. Impietas in principem. A Study of Treason against the Roman Emperor with Special Reference to the First Century ad. Munich: C.H. Beck. Bauman, R. A. 1996. Crime and Punishment in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge. Cowan, Eleanor. 2016. “Contesting Clementia: The Rhetoric of Severitas in Tiberian Rome before and after the Trial of Clutorius Priscus.” Journal of Roman Studies 106: 77–101. DOI: 10.1017/ S0075435816000605. Dowling, Melissa. 2006. Clemency and Cruelty in the Roman World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ginsburg, Judith. 1986. “Speech and Allusion in Tacitus, Annals 3.49–51 and 14.48-49.” American Journal of Philology 107: 525–541. Levick, Barbara. 1979. “Poena legis maiestatis.” Historia 28: 358–379. Rogers, R. S. 1953. “The Tacitean Account of a Neronian Trial.” In Studies Presented to David Robinson, II, edited by G. Mylona and D. Raymond, 711–718. St. Louis: Washington University Press.

28-04-2023 17:44:51

C lu vi u s Ru f u s  

Shotter, D. C. A. 1969. “The Trial of Clutorius Priscus.” Greece and Rome 16: 14–18. DOI: 10.1017/ S0017383500016260. Woodman, A. J. and R. H. Martin, eds. 1996. Tacitus. Annals. Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Levick, Barbara. 1976/1999. Tiberius the Politician. London: Routledge. Strunk, T. E. 2017. History after Liberty. Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants and Republicans. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

CLUVIAE, see HELVIDIUS PRISCUS CLUVIDIENUS QUIETUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS

CLUVIUS RUFUS ANTONINO PITTÀ

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan)

Cluvius Rufus (PIR2 C 1206) was a politician, orator (maybe specialized in epideictic rhetoric: Wiseman 1991, 111), and historiographer of the Neronian and Flavian age. Of noble birth (the Cluvii were a distinguished family from Campania), he belonged to the senatorial rank. If he should be identified with the Cluvius mentioned by Joseph. AJ 19.91 (but the name is restored by conjecture), he held a consulship before 41 ce. Certainly he was consul before the reign of Nero, when he announced to the public the emperor’s performances both in Rome, at the Neronia of 65 ce, and later in Greece (Suet. Ner. 21.2; Cass. Dio 63.14.3). Tacitus approves, through the mouth of Helvidius Priscus, his refusal to be a delator: despite his wealth and eloquence, he did not harm anyone (H. 4.43.1). He was appointed by Galba to govern the provinces of Hispania (H. 1.8.1). After Galba’s murder, he did not immediately support Otho. His ambiguous behavior resulted in an embarrassing episode: Otho, believing false reports, praised Cluvius for his loyalty, right before being informed that he had actually joined Vitellius’ side (H. 1.76.1), apparently out of fear of being attacked by Lucceius

c03_Vol1.indd 277

277

Albinus (H. 2.58; but Cluvius could have already reached out to Vitellius some days earlier: Cosme 2015, 118). He met Vitellius in Lugdunum and there proved his good faith against the complaints of the freedman Hilarus (otherwise unknown). Cluvius’ employment of passes, diplomata, without the name of the ruling emperor had been interpreted as a sign of opportunism (on its true reasons, see Cosme 2015, 116–117). Then he joined the emperor’s march on Rome, while he was still the governor of Spain (H. 2.65; in 70 ce Licinius Mucianus proposed to assign the vacant province to Antonius Primus, H. 4.39.4). In Rome, he witnessed (with Silius Italicus) the meeting between Vitellius and Flavius Sabinus (1), Vespasian’s brother (Dec. 69 ce: H. 3.65.2). Under Vespasian, who had some reasons not to trust him fully, Cluvius Rufus devoted himself to literary activity. For that, he was praised by Tacitus, who adds that Cluvius was far better a scholar than a general (H. 1.8.1). He submitted his own Historiae to the judgment of Verginius Rufus: on this occasion, they had a bright discussion about the historiographer’s duty (Plin. Ep. 9.19.5, cf. 2.1.2; see Bessone 1978, 1987). Tacitus mentions Cluvius as a source twice (A. 13.20.2; 14.2.1–2, related to the reign of Nero). In these passages, Cluvius displays a balanced attitude toward the emperor and disregards the most slanderous rumors. As a figure close to the imperial family, he had access to good sources and was able to deny malevolent fictions. As Tacitus refers to him simply as Cluvius (while in introducing his sources for the first time he tends to employ the full name), it has been inferred that Cluvius might have been already mentioned in the lost books of the Annals (Syme 1958, 289– 290). If Cluvius is to be counted as the main source for the account of the conspiracy against Caligula in Joseph. AJ 19.1–273 (the issue is still debated: see Wiseman 1991, xii–xiv, 113– 117), his work must have covered also the reigns of Caligula and Claudius. The narration included the revolt of Iulius Civilis, since Verginius Rufus was among its characters. It is difficult to say whether the Historiae narrated the civil wars of 69 ce: according to Plut. Oth. 3 (cf. Suet. Oth. 7.1), Cluvius attested that passes signed in the name of Nero Otho were circulating

28-04-2023 17:44:51

278

  C occei u s N erva

in Spain (see Cosme 2015, 62; 115). However, the information is not necessarily drawn from Cluvius’ historical work but might also derive from an oral account. Even if it is admitted that the Historiae covered the events of 69, it remains difficult to state that Cluvius was the common source of Tacitus and Plutarch (Townend 1964, 342). There is no need to attribute a passage about the origin of theater (fr. 4 Peter, HRRel. = Plut. Mor. 289 C–D) to an erudite work, different from the Historiae: it might belong to a digression connected with the main account (e.g., with the description of Nero’s passion for the stage or the institution of the Neronia: Wiseman 1991, 113). REFERENCES Bessone, Luigi. 1978. “Cluvio Rufo sul Bellum Neronis.” Aevum 52: 100–114. Bessone, Luigi. 1987. “Plinio e i due Rufi, Virginio e Cluvio.” Helmantica 38: 135–144. Cosme, Pierre. 2015. L’anno dei quattro imperatori. Palermo: 21 Editore. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Townend, Gavin B. 1964. “Cluvius Rufus in the Histories of Tacitus.” American Journal of Philology 85: 337–377. Wiseman, Timothy P. 1991. Death of an Emperor— Flavius Josephus. Exeter: Exeter University Press. FURTHER READING Wilkes, John. 1972. “Julio-Claudian Historians.” Classical World 65: 177–192; 197–203.

COCCEIUS NERVA BRUCE W. FRIER

University of Michigan

Marcus Cocceius Nerva (suffect consul probably in 22 ce) was a prominent jurist and a confidant of the emperor Tiberius. He committed suicide in 33. Nerva came from an Umbrian family (Epit. de Caes. 12.1: Narnia; see also Aur. Vict. 12.1) that reached the consulship during the triumviral

c03_Vol1.indd 278

period, in 39 and 36 bce; the jurist is probably the son of the consul in 36. Since he is also the grandfather of the emperor Nerva (born 30 ce: see Frontin. Aq. 1.102), he is likely to have been born c. 40 bce. In his abbreviated history of Roman law, Pomponius (Dig. 1.2.2.48) describes Nerva as having succeeded the distinguished Augustan jurist Antistius Labeo in heading the loose legal “school” that later came to be called the Proculians after Nerva’s successor Proculus; Labeo died c. 10 ce. By contrast with the competing school known as the Sabinians or Cassians, the Proculians, starting with Labeo, are generally thought to have emphasized legal development through analogy, with more stress on individual intent and less on formalism. Nerva, however, plays a marginal role in the later juristic tradition; no direct quotation of his writing survives and only thirty-five citations of his views by later jurists. Pomponius calls Nerva an “intimate” of the emperor Tiberius (Dig. 1.2.2.48: familiarissimus), his approximate coeval. Their close connection is confirmed by Tacitus (A. 6.26.1), who generously describes the jurist as the emperor’s constant companion “knowledgeable on divine and human law.” Doubtless through the emperor’s patronage, a now elderly Nerva was made a suffect consul in 21 or 22 (A. 6.26.1; cf. CIL 6.1539 = 31674), and then in 24 a curator of Rome’s water supply, which post he occupied until his death (Frontin. Aq. 1.102). When Tiberius went into self-imposed “exile” on Capri in 26, Nerva was the only senator to accompany him (A. 4.58.1). Tacitus indicates that Tiberius selected his few companions there on the basis of their learning and conversational skills. The latter years of Tiberius’ reign are, in Tacitus’ presentation, a time of increasing political anxiety and gloom. In 33 Nerva ended his life by starving himself (A. 6.26.1–2). On Tacitus’ presentation, he acted neither for health reasons nor out of fear of imminent persecution, but, despite Tiberius’ pleas that he relent, remained silent as to his reasons. Tacitus, however, cites “those familiar with his thinking” for the view that Nerva was deeply concerned at the state of his country and sought an honorable end while he was still unscathed. Cassius Dio (58.21.4–5) has a more colorful account that links Nerva’s suicide to both his

28-04-2023 17:44:51

C olonia Agrippinensis  

aversion to Tiberius and the contemporary monetary crisis. Nerva was survived by his son, also a talented jurist; and by his grandson the future emperor.

279

Reference works: PIR2 P 601; ILS 9059 FURTHER READING

Reference work: PIR C 1225

Bablitz, Leanne. 2009. “The Selection of Advocates for Repetundae Trials: The Cases of Pliny the Younger.” Athenaeum 97: 197–208.

FURTHER READING

COLLINE GATE, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY

Bauman, Richard A. 1989. Lawyers and Politics in the Early Roman Empire: A Study of Relations between the Roman Jurists and the Emperors from Augustus to Hadrian (= Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und Antiken Rechtsgeschichte 87), 68–73. München: C.H. Beck.

COLONIA AGRIPPINENSIS

2

COCCEIUS PROCULUS, see SPECULATORES COELALETAE, see THRACE COENUS, see FREEDMEN OF NERO COERANUS, see MUSONIUS RUFUS COGIDUMNUS, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI COLCHIS, see ALBANI

COLLEGA VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Collega was ordinary consul in 93 ce with Priscus. He is mentioned by Tacitus only at Ag. 44.1 to identify the year of Agricola’s death. His full name is provided by an inscription found in Zafirovo, Bulgaria (Moesia): Sextus Pompeius Collega (ILS 9059). At Plin. Ep. 2.11.20, Collega is mentioned as the youngest ex-consul to give his opinion in regard to the punishment of Marius Priscus, the proconsul of Africa, who was convicted of extortion in 100 ce, Pliny the Younger and Tacitus appearing for the plaintiff. Collega proposed a lighter sentence, which the senators appeared to favor, until the final vote when his proposal was abandoned, notably by Aquilius Regulus (Ep. 2.11.22). Collega is the son of Gnaeus Pompeius Collega, a legate of Vespasian, who prevented an uprising in Antioch in the year 70 (Joseph. BJ 7.3.4) and who later served in the province of Galatia in year 75 (ILS 998, 8904).

c03_Vol1.indd 279

LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

Colonia Agrippinensis was a Roman colony in the Rhineland, and the origin of the modern German city of Cologne. The site has been the chief town of the tribe of the Ubii (a people who had been taken under the protection of Agrippa when they had crossed the Rhine). Agrippina the Younger was born there in 15 ce; in 50 she persuaded her then-husband Claudius to raise the rank of her birthplace to Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (i.e., to give the place a higher status as a city and not a mere town; cf. A. 12.27). At the time of Nero’s death in 68 the legions stationed in Colonia Agrippinensis were under the command of Vitellius and acclaimed him as the new emperor (cf. H. 1.56–57). The city factored significantly in the Batavian Revolt of 69–70, in which the Batavian leader Iulius Civilis threatened to sack Colonia Agrippinensis (H. 4.63); he urged the German inhabitants of the locale to kill the Roman residents and thereby prove their loyalty to the German cause. The townspeople refused, granting instead only economic and diplomatic concessions (H. 4.64– 65). Later the inhabitants of Colonia Agrippinensis would succeed in entrapping and annihilating a force of Chauci and Frisii who were loyal to Civilis; this disaster occurred at Tolbiacum (the modern Zülpich), which was in the territory of the colony (H. 4.79). see also: Rhenus Reference work: Barrington 11 G2; 2 E3

28-04-2023 17:44:51

280

  C omini u s

COLONIA AQUINAS, see CORNELIUS DOLABELLA, GNAEUS COLOPHON, see MILETUS COMICIUS POLLIO, see VESTAL VIRGINS

COMINIUS DAVID WELCH

University of Texas, Austin

Gaius Cominius was an equestrian who lived during the principate of Tiberius. He was charged in 24 ce with writing a slanderous poem about Tiberius. His brother, who was a senator and possibly the Titus Cominius Proculus who was later proconsul of Cyprus in 43 ce under Claudius, later pled with Tiberius to pardon his brother, and Tiberius conceded (A. 4.31.1). This unexpected concession prompts Tacitus to comment that while Tiberius was aware of the benefits that came from clemency, he generally preferred to use the harsher alternatives (A. 4.31.2). see also: Roman poets Reference work: PIR2 C 1261 FURTHER READING Pagán, Victoria E. 2021. “Tacitean Inflections of Sincerity.” In Latin Poetry and its Reception, edited by C. W. Marshall, 124–134. London: Taylor & Francis Group.

Nemrut Dağ. Rome attached significant strategic importance to Commagene from the time of Pompey the Great onward, given its command of the vital river crossing at Samosata, opposite territory controlled by the Arsacids (see Arsacid dynasty). For this reason, the Romans progressively enhanced their management of Commagenian affairs, both through its ruling dynasty and by way of annexation (Speidel 2009, 566–568). The latter first occurred in 17 ce upon the death of Antiochus III (A. 2.42.5, 2.56.4; Str. 16.2.3; Joseph. AJ 18.53). In 38, Caligula restored royal rule, installing Antiochus IV, only to remove him again in short order. But the king was reinstalled by Claudius and remained a loyal vassal until 72 (Cass. Dio 59.8.2, 60.8.1; Joseph. AJ 19.276; cf. Suet. Cal. 16.3). After the installation in 59 of Tigranes VI in Armenia, Antiochus and several other neighboring kings were called upon by Rome to keep Armenia’s borders secure and stand ready to come to its defense as needed (A. 14.26.2). Commagene, as a safe zone, also facilitated Roman military movements eastward, as Domitius Corbulo’s in 62 when he hurried to support Caesennius Paetus’ beleaguered Roman forces in Armenia (A. 15.12.1). This same Paetus, as governor of Syria, removed Antiochus for suspected disloyalty in 72, and Commagene was absorbed into that province (Joseph. BJ 7.219–43). Reference work: Barrington 67 D2 REFERENCE

COMMAGENE LEE E. PATTERSON

Eastern Illinois University

Commagene was a small kingdom along the western bank of the Middle Euphrates which had broken away from Seleucid authority in the second century bce. Greek, Armenian, Persian, and other languages were spoken here. It is known especially for the tomb sanctuary created by Antiochus I Theos (ruled c. 70–36 bce) at

c03_Vol1.indd 280

Speidel, M. A. 2009. “Early Roman Rule in Commagene.” In Heer und Herrschaft im Römischen Reich der Hohen Kaiserzeit, 563–580. Stuttgart: F. Steiner. FURTHER READING Facella, M. 2006. La dinastia degli Orontidi nella Commagene ellenistico-romana. Studi ellenistici 17. Pisa: Giardini. Sullivan, R. D. 1977. “The Dynasty of Commagene.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 8: 732–798. Berlin.

28-04-2023 17:44:51

commentaries  

COMMENTARIES SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

It was only after the discovery of A. 1–6 and the edition of Tacitus’ opera by Beroaldus the Younger in Rome in 1515 that the text of Tacitus began to receive commentaries, although the earliest commentaries are often but short, textual notes, mostly on A. and H., with just a few notes on Ag., G., and the disputed D. The first full-scale commentary, in a modern sense, was that of Justus Lipsius in 1581, which covered Tacitus’ entire opera. If Lipsius’ commentary was markedly scholarly in nature, his interpretation of Tacitus also stimulated the rise of political commentaries, in which their authors emphasized the political usefulness of Tacitus for contemporary events, basing their readings mainly on passages extracted from the A. and H. Although this phenomenon was particularly manifest in Italy, political commentaries appeared throughout Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nowadays, commentaries on Tacitus’ opera are generally aimed at scholars and advanced students, depending on the series in which they are published, the two most notable in English being by Cambridge University Press (the “Orange” and the “Green & Yellow” series). SCHOLARLY/PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARIES Modern commentaries on Tacitus’ opera abound, in English, German, French, and Italian. Some of these commentaries are school-oriented, others are more scholarly, but virtually every work of Tacitus can rely on a wide range of commentaries. Although it is difficult, and subjective, to single out standard commentaries, an attempt will be made. In English, Cambridge University Press offers the best examples in its two series, the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics (the Green & Yellow series), which is more student-oriented (although aimed at advanced, mainly graduate,

c03_Vol1.indd 281

281

students); and the Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries (the Orange series), which offers philological commentaries characterized by substantial discussions on historical, literary, and linguistic matters. In the first series, students can benefit from R. Mayer on D. (2001), A. J. Woodman and C. S. Kraus on Ag. (2014), C. Damon on H. 1 (2003), R. Ash on H. 2 (2007), R. H. Martin and A. J. Woodman on A. 4 (1989), and R. Ash on A. 15 (2018). In the other series, the first six books of the A. are complete: F. R. D. Goodyear on 1–2 (1972, 1981); A. J. Woodman and R. H. Martin on 3 (1996); A. J. Woodman on 4 (2018) and 5–6 (2017). Of the later books, so far only S. J. V. Malloch on 11 (2013) has been ­published. More volumes, however, are in preparation in both series. For H. 3, one must rely on K. Wellesley (1972), which is however not student friendly. The commentaries of G. E. F. Chilver on H. 1–2 (1979) and of G. E. F. Chilver and G. B. Townend on H. 4–5 (1985) have a markedly historical emphasis. Historically focused is also the commentary of J. B. Rives (1999) on the G., with facing English translation. In English, one can still benefit from the older commentaries of R. M. Ogilvie and I. Richmond on Ag. (1967), J. G. C. Anderson on G. (1938), and A. Gudeman on D. (2nd ed., 1914). For the entire A., the ­commentary of H. Furneaux (2nd ed., 1896–1907, rev. by H. F. Pelham and C. D. Fisher), though over a century old, remains ­useful. In German, however, the commentaries of H. Heubner and E. Koestermann cover the entirety of H. (1963–1982) and A. (1963–1968) respectively, and, after almost sixty years, can still be considered standard. All these commentaries, notwithstanding varying degrees of originality, are immensely indebted to a long tradition of commentary-writing. The history of the commentary tradition on Tacitus is, as far as we know, and unlike the tradition of other ancient writers, a relatively recent one. Virtually nothing is known about Tacitus’ Nachleben between Ammianus Marcellinus (fourth century ce) and Giovanni Boccaccio (d. 1375), a period that spans almost a thousand years, except for a few medieval writers who mention Tacitus’ name (though it is very likely that most of these writers were citing Tacitus from

28-04-2023 17:44:51

282

  commentaries

indirect sources). If the Ag. and the G. became particularly popular in England and Germany respectively (for obvious reasons), it is Tacitus’ longer historical works, particularly the A., that contributed to Tacitus’ popularity. Indeed, the first commentaries, which are often nothing more than short, textual notes, did not appear before the discovery of A. 1–6 (the Tiberian Books) in the early sixteenth century. The entire textual tradition of Tacitus’ works can be traced to three main manuscripts. Of these three witnesses, the one containing A. 11–16 and H. 1–5 (from Montecassino in southern Italy) was the first to reemerge from obscurity. A famous letter of Poggio Bracciolini to Niccolò Niccoli (dated 1427) shows that, by that date, the manuscript was in Florence. The manuscript containing Tacitus’ opera minora (Ag., G., and D.) was brought back to Italy from Germany shortly thereafter. Tacitus’ newly discovered works, however, despite being known to the Italian humanists of the fifteenth century, were by no means popular. Livy remained the dominant Roman historian, whom the humanists favored both for his quasi-Ciceronian Latin and for his republican subject matter. The first printed editions appeared in northern Italy toward the end of the fifteenth century. But what furthered Tacitus’ popularity was the discovery, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, of the manuscript that contained A. 1–6, and which Beroaldus the Younger edited. Beroaldus’ edition (Rome, 1515), which covered Tacitus’ entire opera, and was equipped with a few, and mostly textual, notes on A. 1–6 alone, marks the “first great age of Tacitean studies” (Goodyear 1972, 5), which concludes with the edition of Tacitus’ opera by Curtius Pichena (1607). The first commentary on Tacitus’ opera is that of A. Alciatus (Ulery 1986) who, unlike Beroaldus, comments on all the works, though mainly on A. and H. (with a single note on, e.g., Ag.). Alciatus’ notes, which reflect his interests in legal and historical matters, were appended to a pirated edition that A. Minuziano printed in Milan in 1516 or 1517. In 1533, the Froben publisher (in Basel) produced an important edition of Tacitus’ opera, for it contained, in addition to the notes of Beroaldus and Alciatus, Beatus

c03_Vol1.indd 282

Rhenanus’ textual notes (castigationes), and a discussion of Tacitus’ language (in comparison with Livy). Although Rhenanus’ notes on Tacitus’ opera are not extensive, they are important because he is the first scholar to have produced a study of Tacitus’ language and style, and to have based many of his emendations on principles of modern textual criticism. Since the publication of the first printed editions of Tacitus, A. and H. had been printed consecutively as Books 1–21, with Books 1–5 = A. 1–6 (the distinction between Books 5 and 6 was unknown), and Books 17–21 = H. 1–5 (though H. 1 and 2 were printed consecutively without a break). Rhenanus’ edition was the first to reestablish the clear distinction between Books 17 and 18 (= H. 1–2); and to doubt the authenticity of the D. Justus Lipsius based his edition of Tacitus’ opera (1574) on Rhenanus’ revised edition (Basel, 1544). The Gryphian edition of 1542 (Lyon) is important because it contained the annotatiunculae, “little notes” (on A. and H. only), of the Italian jurist E. Ferretti (Ferrettus). Ferretti’s notes are few but of a good quality, and some of his emendations have become established. As his note on obiit eodem anno et M. Lepidus, “on the same year died also M. Lepidus” (= A. 6.27.4 in modern editions) proves, he was the first to suspect that what was transmitted as Book 5 of the A. in the manuscript tradition might have in fact comprised two books (Bartera 2016, 117–118). Yet the credit for restoring this canonical division goes to Lipsius (1574), who first placed the beginning of A. 6 at the start of 32 ce (Cn. Domitius et Camillus Scribonianus consulatum inierant). Although Haase (1848) proposed an earlier starting point for Book 6, Woodman (2017) has reverted to Lipsius’ canonical division. The G., in addition to the few notes of Alciatus and Rhenanus, received a commentary by A. Althamerus in 1536, by P. Melanchthon in 1538, and by J. Willichius in 1551. For obvious reasons, the G. was a popular text in Germany, particularly among reformers (Krebs 2011). In the case of Melanchthon’s commentary, which was first published with U. von Hutten’s Arminius, its purpose “was to make the Germania of Tacitus more widely read in hopes

28-04-2023 17:44:51

commentaries  

of wakening a sense of the past of the German nation” (Ulery 1986, 149). The notes of V. Lupanus (Paris, 1556), on A. and H. alone, and J. Ferrerius’ commentary (still unpublished) on sixty speeches from A. and H., deserve but a short mention, while the notes of Vertranius Maurus (Lyon, 1569) on A. and H. marked a decisive advance on the commentary tradition on Tacitus. Not only did Vertranius make extensive use of other ancient sources, but he was also the first to detect that the opening words of the H. (Initium mihi operis) marked the beginning of a separate work (for which he adopted the title Historiae). Among other commentaries, it is perhaps worth mentioning P. Pithoeus’ commentary on the D., which he attributed to Quintilian; and G. Barclay’s praemetia, “first-fruits,” on the Ag. In 1581 (Antwerp), Lipsius followed his 1574 edition of Tacitus’ opera with a full-scale commentary, which covered every work of Tacitus. It can be considered the first modern commentary on Tacitus: it had an enormous influence, and, to some extent, can still be useful, thanks to Lipsius’ mastery of Tacitus’ Latin and his unparalleled knowledge of Roman history. His Life of Tacitus, the family tree of the Julio-Claudians, and the list of the Ancient Sources on Tacitus bear witness to his immense erudition. Lipsius’ emendations, in particular, are of an outstanding quality, and many are still accepted, even though he may have published–without proper acknowledgment– material that he had received from Marc-Antoine Muret (on the A. only), and especially C. Chifflet, who shared his notes (never published) on the A. and H. with Lipsius. These suspicions aside, Lipsius’ work on Tacitus can be surely recognized as the single, most important contribution to our understanding of the Roman historian, at least until the commentary of K. Nipperdey and the studies of Ronald Syme. Several commentaries followed Lipsius’. In most cases, these commentators focused on textual problems, and mainly on the A. and H., with a few sparse notes on the minor works. Of these commentaries, the textual notes (on the entire opera) of V. Acidalius (Hannover, 1607) are perhaps the best qualitatively (Malloch 2016). In the same year, there appeared J. Gruterus’

c03_Vol1.indd 283

283

Schediasmata, which is at the same time a commentary on all the works of Tacitus and also a variorum edition since it collects much of the previous commentators’ notes. Among the most useful variorum editions, one should probably mention also that of Chevalier (Paris, 1608), for it collects the notes of almost every previous commentator from Beroaldus to Acidalius. When Pichena produced his important edition of Tacitus’ opera in 1607, he published a few textual notes, but not a commentary in the traditional sense. The commentary of M. Beutherus on the G. alone reflects the historical interests of its author (Strasbourg, 1594). Numerous commentaries appeared in the next two centuries, the most notable of which are perhaps J. G. Gronovius (1721), J. A. Ernesti (21772), Th. Kiessling (1829), G. H. Walther (1831–3), G. A. Ruperti (1834), and F. Ritter (1848), all covering Tacitus’ opera (except for Kiessling, on A. alone), and all still in Latin. Although dated, some of these commentaries (e.g., Ruperti and Ritter) offer a mine of information that is still valuable. Tacitean studies continued to advance in the 1800s, especially thanks to a better knowledge of Roman history (supported by coins and inscriptions). In 1852, K. Nipperdey published his edition and commentary on the A. Nipperdey’s commentary was not only the best since Lipsius’, but it was also the first in the vernacular (in German). It became very influential and went through several editions. At about the same time, the linguistic studies of Wölfflin (1933), which began to appear in the 1860s, offered the first scientific investigation of Tacitus’ language. The latest editions of Nipperdey, which were revised by G. Andresen (A. 1–6, 1915; A. 11–16, 1908) are clearly indebted to Wölfflin’s studies. The commentaries of both Furneaux and Koestermann are clearly indebted to Nipperdey. POLITICAL COMMENTARIES The works of Tacitus, particularly the A. and the H., lent themselves to a political reading since their rediscovery. The “first evidence for the appearance of Tacitus in modern political thought” (Momigliano 1990, 121) is Leonardo Bruni’s quotation (from H. 1.1) in his Laudatio

28-04-2023 17:44:51

284

  commentaries

Florentinae Urbis (c. 1403), but it is the publication of the Tiberian Books that propelled Tacitus’ popularity as a political text. The phenomenon of reading Tacitus politically is generally referred to as Tacitism. Tacitus could be read as both a republican and a monarchist (Francesco Guicciardini, Ricordi 1529, C. 18), so much so that Tacitus soon became a dangerous text, and a convenient substitute for Niccolò Machiavelli’s Prince, which the Catholic Church had banned in 1559. Even though Machiavelli’s Prince appears to have a lot in common with Tacitus’ portrayal of Tiberius, it is in fact highly improbable that Machiavelli read the earlier books of the A. (which Beroaldus published in 1515) before he wrote the Prince (1513). Machiavelli, however, was familiar with the later books of the A. and H., which he quotes in his Discourses on Livy. The political readings of Tacitus took various shapes, including essays (e.g., Giovanni Botero’s Reason of State, 1589), commentaries, and even translations (the first Italian translations of Tacitus’ A., e.g., were clearly dictated by political motives: Bartera 2020). Although Italy remained the center of this phenomenon, Tacitus’ political interpretations expanded beyond Italy, and included most of Europe, particularly France (both Jean Bodin and Michel de Montaigne read Tacitus politically). The first commentaries to be explicitly political began to appear soon after Lipsius’ commentary (1581), even though Lipsius expressly denied that he was writing a political commentary. Momigliano (1947) has identified the first political commentaries in C. Paschalius on A. 1–4 (1581), and H. Scotus on A. and H. (1589). This particular genre soon became very popular, and tens of commentaries, in every language, appeared in the next century, until they began to fall out of fashion with the advent of the Enlightenment. Some of these commentaries became very successful, e.g., Scipione Ammirato’s Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito (Florence, 1594). Ammirato was politically active in Florence and chose Tacitus because he had written about the principate, which, according to Ammirato, better suited Florence’s current political life, unlike Machiavelli, who had written his Discourses about the republic (i.e., Livy). Ammirato expressly says that he will extract from Tacitus

c03_Vol1.indd 284

buoni ammaestramenti, “good teachings.” Dedicated to Cristina di Lorena, wife of Ferdinando I de’ Medici, one of Cosimo’s sons, Ammirato’s work includes 143 Discorsi on each of the extant books of A. and H. It proved so popular that it was translated also into French and Latin. Of the many commentaries that appeared afterward, it is perhaps worth mentioning F. Cavriana’s Discorsi on A. 1–5 (1597), G. Pagliari del Bosco’s 618 Osservazioni on A. 1–5 (1611), V. Malvezzi’s 53 Discorsi on the A. (1622), J. de Lancina’s Commentarios Politicos on the A. (1687). The Commentari of T. Boccalini (1556–1613) on Ag., H., and A., were only partly published (and some books remain unpublished). A different genre, though strictly connected with the political commentaries, are the collection of sententiae, “maxims,” extracted from Tacitus for political purposes, to be used by courtiers in their learned conversations: e.g., L. Ducci’s Arte aulica (1601), in which Sejanus is taken as a model of the ideal courtier; A. Piccolomini’s Avvertimenti Civili (1609), based on the Tiberian Books; F. Frezza’s Massime, Regole, e Precetti di Stato e di Guerra (1614), based on Ag., H., A., and also Pliny the Younger’s Panegyric; C. Moscheni’s Tacito Historiato (1622), a collection of 148 aphorisms based on passages from Ag., H., and especially A. In some cases, these works are merely lists of maxims with short political comments on them; in other cases, the political discussions are more thorough, and akin to essays, with mainly a political and moral focus. A notable example of the mixed nature of these works is Álamos De Barrientos’ Tácito español ilustrado con aforismos (1614), which is at the same time a translation, commentary, essay, and collection of maxims on Tacitus’ Ag., G., H., and A. Although none of these political commentaries has any particular philological value, and they often offer banal readings of Tacitus, their existence bears witness to Tacitus’ popularity all over Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. see also: reception, seventeenth century; reception, eighteenth century; reception, nineteenth century; reception, twentieth century; scholarship, antiquity to fifteenth century

28-04-2023 17:44:51

commentaries  

REFERENCES Bartera, Salvador. 2016. “Commentary Writing on the Annals of Tacitus: Different Approaches for Different Audiences.” In Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre, edited by Christina Shuttleworth Kraus and Christopher Stray, 113–135. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bartera, Salvador. 2020. “Tacitus in Italy: Between Language and Politics.” Hermathena 199: 159–196. Goodyear, F. R. D. 1972. The Annals of Tacitus. Volume I (Annals 1.1-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haase, Friedrich. 1848. “Tacitea.” Philologus 3: 152–159. Malloch, Simon J. V. 2016. “Acidalius on Tacitus.” In Latin Literature and Its Transmission. Papers in Honour of Michael Reeve, edited by Richard Hunter and Stephen P. Oakley, 225–244. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1947. “The First Political Commentary on Tacitus.” JRS 37: 91–101 (= 2012. Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography: 205–29. Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1990. The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography (esp. Chapter 5, “Tacitus and the Tacitist Tradition”: 109–31). Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Ulery, Robert W., Jr. 1986. “Cornelius Tacitus.” In Catalogus translationum et commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, edited by F. Edward Cranz, Virginia Brown, and Paul O. Kristeller, vol. 6, 87–174: Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Wölfflin, Eduard. 1933. Ausgewählte Schriften. Edited by Gustav Meyer. Leipzig: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Bovier, Kevin. 2020. Commenter les Histoires et les Annales de Tacite à la Renaissance: de Philippe Béroalde le Jeune à Giovanni Ferrerio (ca 1515– 1570). Diss. Genève. Brink, Charles O. 1951. “Justus Lipsius and the Text of Tacitus.” JRS 41: 32–51. Burke, Peter. 1966. “A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450–1700.” History and Theory 5: 135–152.

c03_Vol1.indd 285

285

Claire, Lucie. 2012. “Commenter les Annales de Tacite dans la première moitié du xvie siècle: André Alciat, Beatus Rhenanus, Emilio Ferretti.” Anabases. Traditions et Réceptions de l’Antiquité 15: 115–128. De Landtsheer, Jeanine. 2012. “Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius. Their Editing and Printing History.” In The Unfolding of Words: Commentary in the Age of Erasmus, edited by Judith Rice Henderson, 188–242. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. De Landtsheer, Jeanine. 2013. “Annotating Tacitus: The Case of Justus Lipsius.” In Transformations of the Classics via Early Modern Commentaries, edited by Karl A. E. Enenkel, 279–326. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Etter, Else-Lilly. 1966. Tacitus in der Geistesgeschichte des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Basel and Stuttgart: Elbing und Lichtenhahn Verlag. Gajda, Alexandra. 2009. “Tacitus and Political Thought in Early Modern Europe, c. 1530–c.1640.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 253–268. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Gori, Franco, and Cesare Questa. 1979. La Fortuna di Tacito dal Sec. XV ad Oggi (Urbino, 9–11 ottobre 1978). Urbino: Argalia. Hirstein, James. 2000. “La méthode philologique de Beatus Rhenanus, son “Trésor du style tacitéen” (1533) et le premier livre des Annales de Tacite.” In Beatus Rhenanus (1485–1547): Lecteur et Editeur des Textes Anciens, edited by James Hirstein, 377–395. Turnhout: Brepols Press. Kapust, Daniel. 2012. “Tacitus and Political Thought.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Emma Pagán, 504–528. Malden, MA, Oxford and Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Krebs, Christopher B. 2011. A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. New York: W.W. Norton &. Co. Luce, T. J. and A. J. Woodman. 1993. Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Martin, Ronald H. 2009. “From Manuscript to Print.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 241–252. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mellor, Ronald. 1995. Tacitus: The Classical Heritage. New York and London: Garland Publishing. Mendell, Clarence W. 1957. Tacitus: The Man and His Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ruysschaert, José. 1949. Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite. Turnhout: Brepols Press. Schellhase, Kenneth C. 1976. Tacitus in Renaissance Political Thought. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

28-04-2023 17:44:51

286

  C onsidi u s

von Stackelberg, Jurgen. 1960. Tacitus in der Romania: Studien zur literarischen Rezeption des Tacitus in Italien und Frankreich. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.

CONSIDIUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Considius appears in Tacitus as the enemy of Pomponius Secundus (A. 5.8); he may be identified with Considius Proculus, who is accused and killed at A. 6.18. The identity is impossible to prove but favored by Woodman (2017, 72). Nothing further can be ascertained. see also: Aelius Gallus; delators; Sejanus Reference work: PIR2 C 1278 (Considius), 1281 (Considus Proculus) REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CONSIDIUS AEQUUS, see ANCHARIUS PRISCUS CONSIDIUS PROCULUS, see CONSIDIUS CORCYRA, see AGRIPPINA THE ELDER

courses of action before deciding to travel east to join his father Vespasian. Second, in A. 5(6).10.3, where the governor of Moesia, Poppaeus Sabinus stops by on his itinerary across Greece to quash rumor and the potential revolt of an imperial pretender posing as Drusus Caesar (son of Germanicus). Third, in A. 11.14.3, during a digression on the history of letters concerning the emperor Claudius’ reform of the Latin alphabet, where the Corinthian Demaratus is credited with teaching the Etruscans writing. This alludes to the long Roman tradition of Demaratus as progenitor of the early kings of Rome and the connection of the Greek east with Italy (Cornell 1995, 124–125; Polyb. 6.11a.7; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.46.3–5; Livy 1.34.2). Thus, Corinth in Tacitus appears as a theater of contestation in imperial politics, and points of antiquarian interest in the early history of Rome, in this context potentially related to Claudius’ own research (O’Gorman 2000, 109–115). Corinth also administered the Isthmian Games, at which the emperor Nero granted the “Freedom of the Greeks” in a speech preserved in an inscription which preserves Nero’s order that Corinth be the meeting place (ILS 8794 l.5 = IG 7.2713; Suet. Nero 19. 2; 24. 2; Plut. Flam.12. 8.) This episode, as well as more information on Corinth, would presumably have been a feature of Tacitus’ treatment of Nero’s trip to Greece at the end of the Annals, now lost. see also: games Rome, myth and history

CORINTH PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Corinth was a city in Achaia situated near the isthmus separating the Peloponnese from the rest of mainland Greece and is alluded to three times in Tacitus. Destroyed in 146 bce by Lucius Mummius, the city was refounded as a Roman colony by Iulius Caesar in 44 bce, and subsequently became a center of business and administration as the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. Tacitus mentions Corinth first in H. 2.1.3, where Titus hears of Galba’s death and discusses

c03_Vol1.indd 286

Reference work: Barrington 58 D2 REFERENCES Cornell, Tim J. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome. Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 bc). London and New York: Routledge. O’ Gorman, Ellen. 2000. Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Wiseman, James. 1979. “Corinth and Rome I: 228 bc–ad 267.” Aufsteig und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II 7.1: 438–548.

28-04-2023 17:44:51

C orneli u s Balbu s  

CORMA, see MEHERDATES CORNELIA (1), see GRACCHI CORNELIA (2), see VESTAL VIRGINS CORNELIA COSSA, see VESTAL VIRGINS CORNELIUS, see AEMILIUS SCAURUS, MAMERCUS CORNELIUS AQUINUS, see FONTEIUS CAPITO

CORNELIUS BALBUS YASMINA BENFERHAT

Université de Lorraine

Cornelius Balbus and Gaius Oppius were two Roman equestrians who worked for Iulius Caesar between 62 bce and 44 bce. They are cited by Tacitus as the first example of persons without any official positions holding power in Rome as merely associates of the princeps (familiares principis, A. 12.60). Lucius Cornelius Balbus was born in Gades (Baetica) around 95 bce (Rodriguez Nela 1992, 29–30). He helped the Romans against Quintus Sertorius (Cic. Balb. 5) and then became a client of Pompey the Great who granted him Roman citizenship in 72 bce; he was even adopted by Theophanes (Cic., Balb. 57 and Att. 7.7.6). Later he was Caesar’s praefectus fabrum while he was propraetor in 62 bce in Hispania ulterior and then continued being a faithful Caesarian; he eventually became an equestrian. He was a familiaris of Caesar in Gaul (Cic. Att. 2.3.3 in 60 bce) and his praefectus fabrum again in 58 bce, but in 56 he had to return to Rome because of a trial. Some opponents of the triumvirs decided to contest his citizenship in court (see Kaden 1912, 10–11). His main activity seems to have been as a currier between Caesar and politicians in Rome. In this capacity, he met Cicero, Scipio Nasica, Pompey, and Curio (see Benferhat 2017, 175–176) and he even lent some money to some of them. When the civil war started, he remained on Caesar’s side and was in charge of the situation in Italy when Caesar was abroad. He kept an eye on finances (Cic. Att. 13.52.1) and on opponents.

c03_Vol1.indd 287

287

When Caesar was murdered, Balbus decided to help his official heir Octavian (see Alföldi 1976, 36–43). Balbus became suffect consul in 40 bce, the first consul in Rome who was not born a Roman citizen. In 19 bce, he received a triumph for his defeat of the Garamantes, another extraordinary honor subsequently granted only to members of the imperial family. Gaius Oppius might have belonged to a family of Italian bankers (Syme 1939, 72). He was an amicus Caesaris (Cic. Att. 4.16.8 in 54 bce) and active as a courier together with Balbus. During the civil war, he was in charge of the situation in Italy together with Balbus. But Oppius was also a writer; he wrote a biography of Scipio (Gell. NA 6.1.1) and a biography of Caesar (see Benferhat 2017, 381–382). According to Suetonius, some thought he wrote the whole Caesarian corpus (Suet. Iul. 56). Syme describes Balbus and Oppius as “tireless and inseparable” (1939, 71). see also: Augustus; civil wars of the Late Republic Reference work: RE Cornelius 69 REFERENCES Alföldi, Andreas. 1976. Oktavians Aufstieg zur Macht. Bonn: Rudolph Habelt. Benferhat, Yasmina. 2017. “Des hommes à tout faire dans l’entourage de César.” In Conseillers et ambassadeurs dans l’Antiquité, edited by Anne Queyrel-Bottineau and Marie-Rose Guelfucci, 373–385. Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté. Kaden, Hans. 1912. Quaestionum ad Ciceronis Balbianam spectantium capita tria. Dissertation Giessen. Berlin: Denter & Nicolas. Rodriguez Neila, Juan Francisco. 1992. Confidentes de Cesar: los Balbos de Cadix. Madrid: Silex. Syme, R. 1939. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Benferhat, Yasmina. 2005. Ciues Epicurei. Les épicuriens et l’idée de monarchie à Rome et en Italie de Sylla à Octave. Bruxelles: Latomus. Gruen, E. 1974. Last Generation of Roman Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press.

28-04-2023 17:44:51

288

  C orneli u s D olabella , G nae u s ( ? )

CORNELIUS CETHEGUS, see VISELLIUS VARRO

CORNELIUS DOLABELLA, GNAEUS (?) REBECCA EDWARDS

Wright State University

Cornelius Dolabella (d. 69; consul 55 or 56 ce; see Tansey 2000, 267–271) was a casualty of the political turmoil during the civil wars of 69 ce. His praenomen is given only by Suetonius (Galba 12) and has been questioned. Syme (1982, 460) proposes Publius. His father or grandfather was likely the consul of 10 ce, Publius Cornelius Dolabella (PIR2 C 1348; RE Cornelius 143). Syme (1982, 460 n. 1) believes this man married Sulpicia Galbilla, daughter of Gaius Sulpicius Galba, brother of the emperor. This would then explain why, according to Plutarch (Galba 23.1), Dolabella was suggested to Galba as a candidate for adoption. For whatever reason, Galba did not approve of Dolabella and selected Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus. This connection to Galba led Otho to exile Dolabella, who was not formally accused of any crime (H. 1.88.1). Dolabella was sent to Colonia Aquinas (modern Aquino), roughly seventy-five miles southeast of Rome, but was not closely guarded according to Tacitus. Plutarch (Otho 5.1) states that Dolabella was exiled because members of the praetorian guard suspected him of plotting revolution. Suetonius (Galba 12.2) further adds that Galba had disbanded a German cohort historically used to guard the emperor because he suspected them of being favorably inclined toward Dolabella, having their camp next to his gardens. At some point after the death of Otho, Dolabella returned to Rome where he was brought up on charges before the urban prefect by Plancius Varus of praetorian rank, who, according to Tacitus (H. 2.63), was a close friend of Dolabella. Varus accused his friend of returning to Rome upon Otho’s death and offering

c03_Vol1.indd 288

himself as the leader of the defeated party. Varus added charges of tampering with the cohort stationed at Ostia. Tacitus states that Varus had no proof of any wrongdoing by Dolabella and quickly regretted his accusation. The urban prefect, Flavius Sabinus (1), was reluctant to pursue the case, until he was scared into action by Triaria, the wife of Lucius Vitellius (2). Vitellius apparently long harbored hatred against Dolabella for marrying his ex-wife Petronia. Vitellius summoned Dolabella by letter to come north from Rome to meet him but specified an unusual route (avoiding the Flaminian Way) to allow a secluded place for Dolabella’s murder at Interamna (H. 2.64). The executioner lost patience and slit Dolabella’s throat at a roadside tavern. The murder of Dolabella, according to Tacitus, cast a dark shadow on the new principate (H. 2.64.1; cf. A. 1.6.1 and 13.1.1). By Petronia, Dolabella was the father of Servius Cornelius Dolabella Petronianus (PIR2 C 1351), ordinary consul in 86 ce. Reference works: PIR2 C 1347; RE Cornelius 136 REFERENCES Syme, Ronald. 1982. “Partisans of Galba.” Historia 31: 460–483. Tansey, Patrick. 2000. “The Perils of Prosopography: The Case of the Cornelii Dolabellae.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 130: 265–271.

CORNELIUS DOLABELLA, PUBLIUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Publius Cornelius Dolabella (c. 30 bce–after 47 ce) had a long and illustrious career spanning from the middle of Tiberius’ reign to at least the middle of Claudius’. From an ancient family, he was a capable governor of Illyricum and successfully put an end to Tacfarinas’ revolt in Africa, though he besmirched his reputation through a nexus of servility and dubious prosecutions.

28-04-2023 17:44:51

289

C orneli u s D olabella , P u bli u s  

Publius Cornelius Dolabella came from an ancient and noble family, and his career is well documented in the epigraphic record: CIL 6.1384 puts him in the consulship in 10 ce with Gaius Iunius Silanus, when he possibly supervised the restoration of the aqua Marcia. He was the propraetorian legate of Illyricum under both Augustus and Tiberius until sometime in 20 ce, and Velleius Paterculus (2.125.5) praised his governance of the province. In addition he was a septemvir epulo (member of the board of seven for feasts), a sodalis Titiensis (priest appointed for Sabine worship) and a quinquennalis Salonis (member of the board of Salona, capital city of Dalmatia). Dolabella first appears in Tacitus in a notice under the year 21 ce when, amidst senatorial decrees, vows and supplications for Tiberius after the end of Iulius Sacrovir’s rebellion in Gaul, he made a sycophantic proposal that Tiberius enter the city with an ovation for his triumph, a proposal that earned Tiberius’ rebuke (and possibly resulted in Tiberius’ refusal of similar honors for Dolabella several years later). He appears again in 22 (A. 3.69.1–2) in the wake of Silanus’ ­condemnation for maiestas. After his prosecution Dolabella proposed an inquiry into the personal character of provincial magistrates, with the princeps as arbiter, a proposal that met with Tiberius’ opposition on the basis that crime must precede punishment. He is next found as proconsul in Africa during a resurgent war against Tacfarinas in 24 ce; during his tenure Tiberius summoned the ninth legion back from Africa, despite the apparently still volatile situation in the province (A. 4.23.2). In that year, Tacfarinas laid siege to Thubuscum, but Dolabella ended the siege and fortified the forward positions; he also made an example of several of Tacfarinas’ native allies (A. 4.24.2). The move was counterproductive, and Dolabella was compelled to call upon King Ptolemaeus (1) to help him wage guerrilla warfare (A. 4.24.3). Dolabella eventually trapped the enemy at Auzea and Tacfarinas, along with his Numidian cavalry, was cut down, putting a final period to a war whose first commander had been Iunius Blaesus, Sejanus’ uncle (A. 4.25). He therefore requested triumphal honors, and Tiberius

c03_Vol1.indd 289

refused, fearing to offend Sejanus or Blaesus, according to Tacitus (A. 4.26.1). Tacitus says that this refusal merely enhanced Dolabella’s reputation, in particular because with a weaker army he had captured some noteworthy enemies, killed their general, and ended the war (A. 4.26.2). He is not heard from again until his involvement in Domitius Afer’s prosecution of Quintilius Varus (son of the Augustan general) in 27 ce (A. 4.66.2), where Tacitus notes that both Dolabella’s illustrious background and a familial connection to Varus (he was his cousin, see Syme 1986, 98) rendered his involvement objectionable. The Senate, however, did not accept the accusation, and insisted that the trial needed to await the presence of the emperor. Despite his attempt to ingratiate himself with the party of Sejanus and Tiberius, which is what appears to have motivated his actions, he survived into Claudius’ reign, where he is last heard from when he proposes that quaestors defray the cost of annual gladiatorial games (A. 11.22.3–4). see also: delators Reference works: PIR2 C 1348; RE 4.130810 = Cornelius 143 (Groag); AE 61.107; 64.227-8; 76.520; 80.56; 95.1229-30; CIL 2.4129; 3.1741 = ILS 938; cf. 3.2908; CIL 3.14712 (cf. CIL 3.3200-1 and ILS 5829); CIL 3.1741 = ILS 938; cf. CIL 3.2908 = ILS 2280; 6.1384 REFERENCE Syme, R. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 216–218. Vogel-Weidemann, U. 1982. Die Statthalter von Africa und Asia in den Jahren 14-68 n. Chr.: Eine Untersuchung zum Verhältnis Princeps und Senat. Bonn: Habelt. 85–92.

CORNELIUS FLACCUS, see INSTEIUS CAPITO

28-04-2023 17:44:52

290

  C orneli u s F u sc u s

CORNELIUS FUSCUS STEPHEN CHAPPELL

James Madison University

Cornelius Fuscus (d. 86 ce) played an important role in the civil war of 69 ce as an adherent of Galba and Vespasian and an energetic military commander. He was later killed in battle by the Dacians in 86 ce during the reign of Domitian while commanding an army as praetorian prefect. Cornelius Fuscus was born into a senatorial family, but as a young man resigned from the senatorial order from a desire for repose (quietis cupidine, H. 2.86). Syme (1937, 7–8) further defines quies as the avoidance of political duties or disturbance and notes the dangers of senatorial life in the late Julio-Claudian dynasty. Despite this prudent desire for peace, Fuscus took notable risks in the civil war and was vigorous in his partisanship and leadership. He chose Galba over Nero and was bitter in his criticisms of Vitellius (H. 2.86, 3.4). He also galvanized the hesitant and elderly proconsul Tampius Flavianus into support of Vespasian (H. 3.4). Fuscus’ home is unknown except that it was a colonia which he was led into support for Galba. Pompeii, Vienne in southern Gaul, Corduba, and a city in northern Italy have all been adduced as suggestions, but the last is the likeliest (Syme 1937, 9–10, 13–14). Galba rewarded Fuscus with a procuratorship in Illyricum (H. 2.86), a large province which was split into Pannonia and Dalmatia at some point in the early or mid-first century ce. Cornelius Fuscus was an important commander in the campaign between the Danubian troops of Vespasian and the Vitellians. Tacitus characterizes him as the most important officer in Pannonia after Antonius Primus (H. 3.4) and mentions him in the same breath as Primus and Licinius Mucianus as partisans of Vespasian (H. 3.66). The marines of the fleet at Ravenna chose him as their commander in preference to Lucilius Bassus and he then besieged the demoralized Vitellian garrison of Ariminum by land and sea (H. 3.12, 42). Vitellius saw Fuscus and other

c03_Vol1.indd 290

leading partisans of Vespasian as a threat to his life if he surrendered after his defeat at Second Bedriacum in 69 ce (H. 3.66). The victorious Vespasian rewarded him for his vigor and accomplishments with Praetorian insignia alongside Arrius Varus and under Antonius Primus who attained consular honors (H. 4.4). Cornelius Fuscus would also have featured in the later books of Tacitus’ Histories which chronicled the Dacian War of Domitian. As praetorian prefect, he commanded an army against king Decebalus of the Dacians. He lost his life in a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the king in 86 ce (Suet. Dom. 6.1; Cass. Dio 67.6.5–6). Juvenal (4.111) satirized him as an amateur soldier more familiar with banquet halls, but this does not accord with Tacitean evidence and perhaps simply serves as a useful poetic trope of the enervating dangers of metropolitan luxuria. see also: Danuvius Reference work: PIR2 C 1365 REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1937. “The Colony of Cornelius Fuscus: An Episode in the Bellum Neronis.” American Journal of Philology 58: 7–18. FURTHER READING Williams, Derek. 1999. Romans and Barbarians. New York: St Martin’s Press (first published 1998).

CORNELIUS, Gaius, see CICERO

CORNELIUS LACO FRIDERIKE SENKBEIL

Berlin

Cornelius Laco (d. January 69 ce) was an equestrian assessor on Galba’s staff in Hispania Tarraconensis and advanced from the position of judge’s assistant to that of the praetorian prefect in 68 ce (Suet. Galb. 14.2).

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C orneli u s L ent u lu s Au g u r  

Together with the consul Titus Vinius and the freedman Icelus he had a great influence on Galba. Suetonius even calls them his paedagogi (“tutors,” Suet. Galb. 14), and Tacitus emphasizes the imperial power of both Laco and Vinius instead of Galba (H. 1.13.1). However, Laco had a strong aversion to Vinius; for example, he refused his advice, attacked him with threats (H. 1.33.2; Plut. Galb. 26), and even planned his death (H. 1.39.2). Laco was a friend of Gaius Rubellius Plautus, one of Nero’s victims who was executed at Ofonius Tigellinus’ urging in 62 ce (H. 1.14.1). In his house he had also become friends with Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus (H. 1.14.1). He therefore influenced the decision of Galba to choose him as his successor (H. 1.14.1) and strongly opposed Vinius, who favored Otho. Due to frequent reports of revolt in Germany, the Senate voted to send Laco to the army, but he opposed their plan (H. 1.19). Tacitus as well as Suetonius and Plutarch criticize Laco’s character. Tacitus calls him an idler (H. 1.6: ignavissimus; 1.24.2: socordia), unacquainted with the soldiers’ spirit and with no head for affairs and no interest in measures that he himself had not proposed (H. 1.26.2). Suetonius defames him as intolerably haughty and indolent (Suet. Galb. 14.2: arrogantia socordiaque intolerabilis), and Plutarch underlines his avarice (Plut. Galb. 29). After Galba’s assassination in January 69 ce Laco was banished to an island and killed by a retired soldier sent by Otho (H. 1.46.5). Plutarch additionally mentions that Laco’s head was delivered to Otho (Plut. Galb. 27.5). Reference works: PIR2 C 1374; DNP 3, 193 (“Cornelius Laco”); RE 7, 1355 (“Cornelius Laco”) FURTHER READING Damon, Cynthia. 2003. Tacitus Histories Book 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haynes, Holly. 2003. The History of Make-Believe. Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Morgan, Gwyn. 2007. 69 AD: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c03_Vol1.indd 291

291

CORNELIUS LENTULUS AUGUR RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Augur (c. 60 bce–25 ce) was born into an old and prestigious family, which, until 27 bce, had already given eighteen consuls to the republic. Lentulus Augur was probably the son of Gnaeus Lentulus Clodianus, praetor in 59 bce; or perhaps the son of another Gnaeus Lentulus, who was praetor in Sicily (CIL XI 6058). He is referred to as “Augur” to distinguish him from a homonymous cousin, who was consul in 18 bce. He (or his cousin) may have been quaestor in Greece before 27 bce (Bourget 1929, 528). Tacitus refers to the name Gnaeus Lentulus six times, but only once as “augur” (A. 3.59.1); Syme assumes that Tacitus always means Lentulus Augur (Syme 1986). Seneca says that his freedmen robbed him of all his wealth, valued at 400 million sesterces. Seneca also accuses Lentulus of having a barren and petty spirit: this was, however, a topic usually used to characterize the Lentuli (the name means “slow” or “sluggish”). Lentulus owed to Augustus his political promotion and, if Seneca is right, probably the recovery of his fortune (Sen. Ben. 2.27.2), since at his death Lentulus was again a very rich man (A. 4.44.1; Suet. Tib. 49.1). Lentulus was consul in 14 bce and proconsul of Asia twelve years later, in 2–1 bce. At some time between 6 bce and 13 ce (see discussion in PIR2 C 1379; Syme 1986, 288–292; Thomasson 2009, 17:011; 20:007), Lentulus was in the Balkans, pushing the Dacians (see Dacia) away from the Danube. This victory granted him the triumphalia insignia. At the end of September 14 ce, Lentulus was sent with Drusus the Younger and Sejanus to Pannonia to resolve the military rebellion, but he was attacked with stones by the soldiers, who thought that he was advising Drusus badly (A. 1.27.1). Lentulus became the most influential man in Rome in fortune and respect (Sen. Ben. 2.27.2). He was known for his avarice and for his very parsimonious way of life. Even if he was not a great

28-04-2023 17:44:52

292

  C orneli u s L ent u lu s G aet u lic u s

orator, he was an influential member of the Senate, with three interventions recorded by Tacitus (A. 2.32.1; 3.59.1; 3.68.2; cf. also Tert. De pall. 4; 9). Lentulus was a member of the Arval Brotherhood. Vibius Serenus the Younger accused him of rebellion and disturbance of the republic in 24 ce, but he was acquitted (A. 4.29.1). Lentulus died in 25 ce (A. 4.44.1). According to Suetonius, Tiberius forced him to commit suicide (Suet. Tib. 49.1), but this version is not confirmed by Tacitus. Since he had no children, Tiberius reclaimed the part of his fortune that had been granted by Augustus. see also: Pannonian Revolt Reference works: PIR2 C 1379; RE IV.1, 1363–1364, Cornelius 181; CIL XI 6058 REFERENCES Bourget, Émile. 1929. Fouilles de Delphes, tome III, fascicule I. Paris: E. de Boccard. 528. Syme, Ronald. 1986. “Lentulus the Augur.” In The Augustan Aristocracy, 284–399. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thomasson, Bengt E. 2009. Laterculi praesidium, vol. I ex parte retractum. Göteborg: Bokförlaget Radius, 17:011; 20:007.

CORNELIUS LENTULUS GAETULICUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus (c. 12 bce–39 ce), consul in 26 ce, was of a family of moderate success and was himself active under Tiberius. He was given the trusted position of governor of Germania Superior sometime before Sejanus’ fall. Despite having close ties to the prefect, he survived his demise, accusations against him notwithstanding. He was executed by Caligula in 39 ce. Lentulus first appears in Tacitus in 25 ce as consul designate, when he argued in a case concerning adultery that a woman named Aquilia (see Varius Ligur) be condemned under the lex

c03_Vol1.indd 292

Iulia, rather than the more severe penalty of exile, although Tiberius rejected his plea and chose the harsher penalty (A. 4.42.3); the next year he held the consulship with Calvisius Sabinus (A. 4.46.1). Before that he had been the praetor peregrinus in 23 ce (we can therefore conjecture he was around thirty-five years of age at the time, putting his birth at around 12 bce). He was known as an author of epigrams (Mart. 1, praef.; Plin. Ep. 5.3.5; Suet. Cal. 8.1–2) and is conjectured to have written history as well. His father was consul in 1 bce. His family had close ties to Sejanus, and Lentulus’ daughter was betrothed to Sejanus’ son prior to the prefect’s demise (A. 6.30.2). The connection subsequently landed Lentulus in trouble when an ambitious delator, Abudius Ruso (otherwise unknown), who had held the office of aedile and had been a legate of Lentulus’, opportunistically accused him as a result of his connection with Sejanus after the prefect’s fall (A. 6.30.2). At the time Lentulus was a governor of Germania Superior (his father-in-law, Lucius Apronius was governor of Germania Inferior) and popular with the legions as a commander (A. 6.30.3). The charges appear to have been dropped, and Ruso, condemned and exiled, is not heard from again (Rutledge 2001, 185–186). One of the reasons it was dropped is doubtless the frank letter Lentulus sent to Tiberius, whose contents (A. 6.30.4–6) can be summarized as follows: the marriage connection to Sejanus’ family was not Lentulus’ idea, but Tiberius’; both Tiberius and he had been taken in by Sejanus’ deceit; the same error could not prove harmless to some while it was deleterious for others; his loyalty remained intact, as long as he was not attacked through treachery; let them solidify a pact—Tiberius keeps the empire, Lentulus his province. The letter proved effective, and Tacitus notes that he was the only one of Sejanus’ connections to remain unharmed and in favor (A. 6.30.7). He was subsequently accused of conspiracy against Caligula in 39 ce and put to death (Cass. Dio 59.22.5; Suet. Claud. 9.1; see also CIL 6.2029 [the Acta Arvalia] which records offerings on 27 October in thanks for the conspiracy’s detection). For a discussion of the existence and nature of Lentulus’ conspiracy and the controversies surrounding it, see Barrett (1989, 101–113).

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C orneli u s L ent u lu s S cipio  

see also: Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus (5) Reference work: PIR2 C 1390 REFERENCE Barrett, A. A. 1989. Caligula: The Corruption of Power. London: Batsford.

293

Martin and Woodman suggest that Tacitus lingers on the subject of the prohibition of the flamines in part because Tacitus was to hold the proconsulship of Asia (1989, 141). Cornelius Lentulus Maluginensis was the brother-in-law of Lucius Seius Strabo, father of Sejanus (Syme 1986, 297). see also: Cornelius Tacitus

FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 162–163, 185–186.

CORNELIUS LENTULUS MALUGINENSIS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Servius Cornelius Lentulus Maluginensis (d. 23 ce) came from an ancient branch of the gens Cornelia, the Cornelii Lentuli. He adopted the old cognomen Maluginensis, a fashionable choice in the early decades of the principate. He held the suffect consulship in 10 ce with Quintus Iunius Blaesus and was appointed flamen Dialis, according to Tacitus, seventy-two years after the suicide of the last priest, Cornelius Merula, in 87 bce (A. 3.58.2), although Cassius Dio gives a later date (11 bce, Cass. Dio 54.36.1). In 22 ce, while still holding the office of flamen Dialis, Cornelius Lentulus Maluginensis asked to be allowed to present his candidature for the governorship of the province of Asia. He spoke against the prohibition of leaving Italy imposed to the flamines of Jupiter, a prohibition that de facto prevented them from obtaining the governorship of a province even when, as in the case of Lentulus, the length of time since his consulship would have allowed him to administer the richest provinces (A. 3.58.1). Tiberius himself examined the case and decided that Augustus’ dispositions on the matter did not allow a yearlong absence from Rome and therefore the governorship of a province (A. 3.71.2). Lentulus died in 23 ce, and his son (unnamed in Tacitus) was appointed as flamen Dialis (A. 4.16.1 and 4).

c03_Vol1.indd 293

Reference works: PIR2 C 1394; CIL VI 20606; 25617; X. 6639; 8070.04; AE 1940, 60; 1987, 163; 1991, 306–307; 2000, 55 FURTHER READING Martin, R. H., and A. J. Woodman. 1989. Tacitus: Annals Book IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sumner, G. V. 1965. “The Family Connections of L. Aelius Seianus.” Phoenix 19: 134–145. Syme, R. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CORNELIUS LENTULUS SCIPIO LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Publius Cornelius Lentulus Scipio was suffect consul in 24 ce and afterward proconsul of Asia. His wife was Poppaea Sabina the Elder. An inscription from Brixia (modern Brescia) reports part of his career before the consulship. Scipio was one of the two praetores aerarii, whose task was to guard the state treasury (15 ce), before being appointed commander of legion IX Hispanica in Africa (21–23 ce). In 22 ce under the leadership of Quintus Iunius Blaesus, proconsul of that province, he led his legion against the rebellion of Tacfarinas, protecting the Lepicitani from the raids of the nomad berbers (A. 3.74). He held the consulship in 24 ce. The only other office known concerning his political career after that year is the pro-consulship of Asia, which was normally obtained at the end of the service as administrator for the emperor.

28-04-2023 17:44:52

294

  C orneli u s M arcellu s

Based on the number of years past the consulship, Scipio’s appointment in Asia had been dated around 36/37 ce, until Syme discussed an inscription from Lydia that indicates the date 41/42 instead, thus demonstrating that the choice of provincial governors depended more on the emperor’s caprice and on the influence at court of the pretenders than on any possible criterion based on seniority (Syme 1983, 195–196). His second wife was Poppaea Sabina the Elder mother of Nero’s wife, whose beauty was famous in Rome. Messalina, in plotting against the senator Decimus Valerius Asiaticus (1) to lay her hands on his wealth, had him accused of adultery with Poppaea, Scipio’s wife (A. 11.1.1). Poppaea, terrified by the possibility of ending in prison, was persuaded to commit suicide. Tacitus says that emperor Claudius was unaware of this: at dinner he asked Scipio about his wife to which Scipio answered that she was dead (A. 11.2.2). After that, Valerius Asiaticus too opted for suicide. Scipio in a session of the Senate was asked his opinion about the recent events involving his wife. He said: “As I think what all think of Poppaea’s offences, take me as saying what all say,” according to Tacitus, an elegant compromise between conjugal love and the duties of a senator (A. 11.4.3). His son, Publius Cornelius Scipio (2) (mentioned only at A. 13.25.1), was consul in 56 ce, with Quintus Volusius Saturninus.

CORNELIUS MARCELLUS SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Along with his fellow senator Volcacius Tullinus and the equestrian Calpurnius Fabatus, Cornelius Marcellus was accused in the same episode as Gaius Cassius Longinus (2), Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2), and Iunia Lepida in 65 ce (A. 16.8.3). The three men were “dragged in as accomplices” (trahebantur ut conscii). They appealed to the emperor Nero and avoided condemnation, and later escaped “as if of less significance” (quasi minores), because Nero was more focused on much bigger crimes, Tacitus wryly adds. Cornelius Marcellus was perhaps a Sicilian. He was both quaestor and governor of the province of Sicily. He has been identified (Syme 1937, 9 ff.) with the man who was killed by Galba in Baetica in 68 ce (H. 1.37.3 with Chilver ad loc.). Reference works: PIR2 C 1403; RE 4.1406 = “Cornelius” 262 (Groag) REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1937. “The Colony of Cornelius Fuscus: An Episode in the Bellum Neronis.” American Journal of Philology 58: 7–18 (= Danubian Papers 1971, 75).

see also: women; suicide Reference works: PIR2 C 1398; CIL V. 4329 = ILS 940; VI. 37836 = ILS 9349; XV 4568 REFERENCE Syme, R. 1983. “Problems about Proconsuls of Asia.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 53: 191–208. FURTHER READING Vogel-Weidemann, U. 1982. “Miscellanea zu den Proconsules von Africa und Asia zwischen 14 und 68 n. Chr.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 46: 271–294.

CORNELIUS LUPUS, see VALERIUS ASIATICUS, DECIMUS (1)

c03_Vol1.indd 294

FURTHER READING Chilver, G. E. F. 1979. A Historical Commentary on Tacitus’ Histories I and II. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

CORNELIUS MARTIALIS MIK LARSEN

California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona

Cornelius Martialis (d. 69 ce) was a centurion, one of the military figures in Rome during the civil wars of 69 ce who resisted Vitellius’ efforts to seek revenge on members of the Flavian

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C orneli u s S alvidien u s O rfit u s  

family, eventually by force, and who were defeated and executed by Vitellian forces. Martialis was a primus pilus (first rank) centurion present in Rome, tasked by Flavius Sabinus (1), brother of Vespasian, as a messenger between Sabinus and Vitellius, when it appeared the latter might abdicate after being defeated at Cremona in 69 ce (H. 3.70). After the parley was unsuccessful, Martialis fled and joined Sabinus and supporters of Vespasian on the Capitolium, which was then besieged and burned by Vitellianist soldiers (H. 3.71, Suet. Vit. 15). Tacitus lists Martialis, along with Aemilius Pacensis, Casperius Niger, and Didius Scaeva (otherwise unknown), as men who died fighting when Sabinus’ defenses collapsed; Sabinus and the consul Quintius Atticus were captured (H. 3.73), and Sabinus was later executed. Martialis is otherwise unattested, unless he is the same person Tacitus attests as being deprived of the tribunate by Nero in the aftermath of the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.71). see also: Casperius; Pisonian Conspiracy, victims Reference work: PIR2 C 1405 CORNELIUS MERULA, see FLAMEN DIALIS CORNELIUS PRIMUS, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY

CORNELIUS SALVIDIENUS ORFITUS SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Servius (this is his praenomen according to A. 12.41.1, although some scholars erroneously say Sergius or Sextus) Cornelius (Scipio) Salvidienus Orfitus was quaestor of the emperor Claudius, became consul (ordinarius) in 51 ce with the emperor (A. 12.41.1, Plin. HN 2.99) and was proconsul of Africa probably in 62/3. In 65, he proposed that the names of two months (May and June) be renamed Claudius and Germanicus respectively, to honor Nero (A. 16.12.2).

c03_Vol1.indd 295

295

Suetonius (Ner. 37.1) records that he “was charged with having let to certain states as headquarters three shops which formed part of his house near the Forum” (Loeb translation), but the year is not specified (he is mentioned along with the famous jurist Gaius Cassius Longinus (2), accused on a different charge; cf. also Cass. Dio 62.27.1). The author of the charges may have been Aquilius Regulus (H. 4.42.1, Plin. Ep. 1.5.3). He is not heard of any more afterward, and therefore it is generally assumed that he died as a consequence of that accusation, probably in 66 or 67. Plin. HN 7.39, a section devoted to remarkable pregnancies, mentions an Orfitus, “a most distinguished citizen,” as the third husband of Vistilia, who was the mother of, among others, Domitius Corbulo. PIR2 C 1444 identifies this Orfitus with the father of our Orfitus. Syme (1970, 31, 37), however, thought that the son of Vistilia and Orfitus was not the consul of 51, but his father. The consul of 51, Syme argued, must have been born around 15 ce, too late to be Vistilia’s son. Bruun (2010), however, has challenged Syme’s reconstruction, and even argued that Pliny’s passage may be ironic, or at least very problematic, for Pliny says that Vistilia’s first four children (including therefore Orfitus) were born prematurely. If one accepts Syme’s proposal, the Orfitus consul of 51 was the nephew of Domitius Corbulo. If this is true, then it was perhaps this connection, more than the actual charge recorded by Suetonius, that caused Orfitus’ fall from favor (Corbulo committed suicide in late 66 or early 67). Two men with the same name as the consul of 51 are recorded, probably his son and grandson. The former (PIR2 C 1445) became suffect consul perhaps before 82; the latter (PIR2 C 1446) became consul (ordinarius) in 110. According to Suetonius (Dom. 10.2), the former was executed by Domitian, along with other ex-consuls, “on the grounds of plotting revolution.” If the executions took place around 93 ce (so McAlindon 1956, 130), the year is significant: it was in that year that some famous Stoics (e.g., the younger Helvidius [Priscus]) were executed. Tacitus, it is safe to infer, must therefore have known him. see also: Cornelius Tacitus; Helvidius Priscus; Pliny the Elder

28-04-2023 17:44:52

296

  C orneli u s S cipio A emilian u s A frican u s

Reference works: PIR2 C 1444-6; BNP 3.835 ‘Cornelius’ [II 50]; RE 4.1506-7 = ‘Cornelius’ 359 (Stein) [cf. Suppl. 14.109 = ‘Cornelius’ 359 (Eck)]; Fasti sacerdotum, N. 1383; ILS 4375, 5025; CIL 1.247 (Fasti Antiates), 6.353, 1984, 10.6638 (Fasti Sodalium Augustalium Claudialium) REFERENCES Bruun, Christer. 2010. “Pliny, Pregnancies, and Prosopography: Vistilia and Her Seven Children.” Latomus 69: 758–777. McAlindon, Denis. 1956. “Senatorial Opposition to Claudius and Nero.” American Journal of Philology 77: 113–132. Syme, Ronald. 1970. “Domitius Corbulo.” Journal of Roman Studies 60: 27–39. FURTHER READING Vervaet, Frederik J. 2000. “A Note on Syme’s Chronology of Vistilia’s Children.” Ancient Society 30: 95–113. Vervaet, Frederik J. 2003. “Domitius Corbulo and the Rise of the Flavian Dynasty.” Historia 52: 436–464.

CORNELIUS SCIPIO AEMILIANUS AFRICANUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus (185/4 bce–129 bce) was consul in 147 and consul for a second time in 134. He defeated and destroyed Carthage in the Third Punic War (149–146). He was a patron of literature and philosophy. He was the second son of Lucius Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus (consul in 182 and again in 168 bce) and Papiria Masonis. He was adopted by his cousin, Publius Cornelius Scipio, the eldest son of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (consul in 205 and again in 194 bce) and Aemilia Tertia. Aemilianus married his cousin, Sempronia, sister of the Gracchi brothers. Aemilius Paulus provided him with a traditional Roman education together with a great artistic, literary, and philosophical Greek training (Plut. Aem. 6.8–9). He distinguished himself as a military man (in the

c03_Vol1.indd 296

Third Macedonian War, in 168; in the Numantine War, in 151–150 and 134–133; and in the Third Punic War, in 149–146, when he eventually defeated Carthage), as a politician (he was consul twice and censor once, in 142) and as a patron of literature and philosophy, gathering in an informal cultural circle that is today sometimes called the Scipionic circle. Tacitus mentions his prosecution of Lucius Aurelius Cotta (consul 144) for extortion in 138 bce (A. 3.66.1). Aurelius was acquitted because the judges did not want to seem influenced by Aemilianus’ own prestige and authority (Cic. Mur. 58). He opposed the reforms of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (1) (tribune of the plebs in 133). His sudden death in suspicious circumstances prompted different accounts of its cause: besides the more obvious natural death, it was said that Aemilianus had committed suicide, was poisoned, or had been smothered (App. B. Civ. 1.20; Plut. Rom. 27.4–5; C. Gracch. 10.4–5). Reference works: MRR 1.455–456; 1.457; 1.459; 1.462; 1.463; 1.467; 1.474–475; 1.478; 1.480–481; 1.490; 1.494; 1.498; RE IV.1, 1439–1462, Cornelius 335 (Münzer). FURTHER READING Astin, A. E. 1967. Scipio Aemilianus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

CORNELIUS SCIPIO AFRICANUS CHRISTOPHER J. DART

University of Melbourne

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236–183 bce, consul 205, 194) was one of the foremost military and political leaders of his generation, his reputation as an innovative military commander was already well established during his own lifetime (Polyb. Hist. 10.2–3), as were stories that he was divinely inspired and protected. Scipio fought in the Second Punic War at both the Ticinus (in 218) where a (possibly erroneous) story claims he saved his father’s life (Livy

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C orneli u s S cipio A siatic u s , Lu ci u s ( 1 )  

21.46.7–10) and then at Cannae (in 216) where he helped to organize soldiers who had fled to Canusium in the aftermath (Livy 22.53). Following the death of both his father and uncle in 211 during fighting in Spain, Scipio was granted consular imperium by the people in 210 and tasked with assuming command in Spain. This was despite never having been consul or praetor and being too young to stand for the consulship. In 209, his soldiers took Carthago Nova (modern Cartagena, Spain), Scipio supposedly claiming that Neptune had come to him in a dream to reveal how they could breach the city’s walls. In 206 his victory over the Carthaginians at Ilipa (near modern Seville) established Roman predominance on the Iberian Peninsula. In 206 Scipio travelled to Africa to secure the support of the Numidian king Syphax (Livy 28.17), who initially agreed to aid Rome before siding once again with Carthage. Elected consul in 205 but obstructed from raising the necessary troops, he assembled an army of volunteers in Sicily (cf. A. 2.59) and launched an invasion of Africa in 204. He defeated a combined force of Carthaginians and their Numidian allies under Syphax in 203 at the Great Plains west of Carthage. The following year, with Hannibal forced to withdraw from Italy, Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama. He concluded a peace on relatively lenient terms with Carthage and upon his return to Rome was granted both a triumph and the name Africanus in recognition. Syphax was detained in Italy to be marched in Scipio’s triumph in 201 bce. Tacitus (A. 12.38) claims that the Senate likened the capture of Caratacus (in 50 ce) to Syphax being led in the triumph of Scipio. Livy (30.45), however, records that Syphax in fact died shortly before the triumph. Scipio was censor in 199 and became princeps senatus (Livy 34.44.4). In 194 he was elected consul for the second time but was unable to secure command in the east. When his brother, Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus (1) was assigned command in Asia in 190, Scipio volunteered to serve as one of his legati. Illness prevented him from participating in the Roman victory at Magnesia. Following their return to Rome the brothers were embroiled in legal actions, alleging they had misappropriated wealth from the campaign and accepted bribes. Scipio eventually

c03_Vol1.indd 297

297

retired to Liternum where he died in 183. He was not buried in the surviving family tomb in Rome. see also: Hispania; Numidia; Roman Republic

CORNELIUS SCIPIO ASIATICUS, LUCIUS (1) DOMINIC MACHADO

College of the Holy Cross

Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus (2) (c. 230–180 bce; consul 190 bce) was the older brother of Cornelius Scipio Africanus. He is most famous for defeating Antiochus the Great at Magnesia in 190 bce (Livy 37.33–44; Polyb. 21.16–17). Asiaticus first appears in the historical record during the Second Punic War as his brother’s legate in Spain, Sicily, and Africa (Livy 28.3; 28.17.1–2; 28.28.14; 29.7.2; 29.25.10; 30.38). After the war, he was elected quaestor and curule aedile in 195 bce (Inscr. Ital. 13.3.15). Two years later, he served as praetor in Sicily (Livy 34.54–55). He soon became involved in affairs in the East, serving as a legate under Glabrio in 191 bce (Livy 36.21.7–9). The following year, he was elected consul (Livy 37.1–2) and assigned to Achaia. During his consulship, he would defeat Antiochus decisively at Magnesia (Livy 37.33–44; Polyb. 21.16–17), a victory for which he was awarded a triumph and given the sobriquet Asiaticus (Polyb. 21.24.16–17; Livy 37.58–59; CIL I2 612 = ILS 864). It is in the context of these successes that Asiaticus appears in Tacitus’ narrative (A. 3.62.1). The people of Magnesia on the Maeander cite an edict issued by Asiaticus to prove to Tiberius the longstanding status of the temple of Leucophryne Artemis as a place of asylum. The edict appears to be just one of several agreements that Asiaticus made with Greek states in Asia Minor after his defeat of Antiochus (cf. SEG 2.566, Heraclea; SEG 4.567, Colophon). His political career after Magnesia was marked by failure. He was accused of misappropriating funds from the Seleucid indemnity (Livy 38.45– 56) and, later, lost a censorial election to Cato the

28-04-2023 17:44:52

298

  C orneli u s Sisenna

Censor in 184 bce (Livy 39.40). Cato would later strip him of his equestrian status (Livy 39.44.1) see also: Magnetes; Roman Republic Reference works: Inscr. Ital. 13.3.15; CIL I2 612; ILS 864; SEG 2.566; SEG 4.567 FURTHER READING Beck, Hans. 2007. Karriere und Hierarchie: Die römische Aristokratie und die Anfänge des cursus honorum in der mittleren Republik. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. 328–368.

CORNELIUS SCIPIO ASIATICUS, Lucius (2), see CAPITOLIUM CORNELIUS SCIPIO NASICA, see CREMUTIUS CORDUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO, Publius (1), see CREMONA CORNELIUS SCIPIO, Publius (2), see CORNELIUS LENTULUS SCIPIO

CORNELIUS SISENNA TRUDY HARRINGTON BECKER

begrudgingly praised by both Cicero (Leg. 1.7), who called him the best historian of the day and noted his deficiencies at the same time, and by Sallust (Iug. 95.2). Sisenna features twice in Tacitus. In H. 3.51 Tacitus cites him for a story about a man’s murder of his brother and his subsequent suicide during the battle between Pompeius Strabo and Lucius Cinna (87 bce). Tacitus contrasts Sisenna’s story with the more recent behavior of a soldier who killed his brother and dared to ask for a reward following the victory of Vespasian’s forces at Cremona. Tacitus implies an increasing lack of military discipline under Antonius Primus and comments on the stronger sense of repentance for guilt among maiores. In Dialogus 23.2, Marcus Aper praises Sisenna’s eloquence in contrast to Aufidius Bassus and Servilius Nonianus. see also: Roman historians REFERENCE Cornell, T. J. 2013. The Fragments of the Roman Historians. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Virginia Tech

CORNELIUS SULLA, see VITELLIUS, QUINTUS

Lucius Cornelius Sisenna (c. 118 bce–67 bce) was a politician, orator, soldier, and historian. Born by 118 bce, Sisenna’s political career comprised praetorship (urbanus et peregrinus) in 78 bce, and possible pro-praetorship in Sicily. In 70 bce, he was involved in the defense of Verres. His brief military career saw him serve under Pompey the Great in 67 bce as legatus in charge of Macedonia and Greece. He fell sick and died after failed attempts to persuade Metellus to spare cities in Crete. Sisenna’s Historiae treated both the Social War and the subsequent civil war up to the time of the death of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) or shortly after. One hundred and forty-four fragments of Sisenna’s history are extant, from a work of at least twenty-three books. The majority of the fragments are preserved by the grammarian Nonius who was chiefly interested in Sisenna’s style and language choices. Sisenna’s history was

CORNELIUS SULLA FELIX, FAUSTUS

c03_Vol1.indd 298

JOSEPH R. O’NEILL

Arizona State University

Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix (d. 62 ce) was a leading statesman under the emperor Claudius, attaining the consulship in 52 ce. He was halfbrother to Valeria Messalina and the husband of Claudius’ daughter Antonia. Nero grew suspicious of Cornelius Sulla, exiling him in 58 ce and ordering his death in 62. Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix (Acta Aru. CIL III p. 844 dip. I), also called Cornelius Sulla (A. 13.23, 47), and Faustus Sulla (A. 12.52; Suet. Claud. 27) descended from a noble family who counted among their ancestors the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) (Suet. Claud. 27). He was

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C orneli u s Su lla F eli x , Lu ci u s  

the son of Faustus Cornelius Sulla, suffect consul in 31 ce. His mother was Domitia Lepida, making him half-brother to Valeria Messalina, third wife of the emperor Claudius. Sometime around 47, Cornelius Sulla married Antonia, eldest daughter of Claudius by his second wife, Aelia Paetina. Cornelius Sulla’s career before the reign of Claudius is obscure. He was betrothed to Claudius’ daughter in 47 ce and was designated as ordinary consul for 52. He served with three colleagues: Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus, Quintus Marcius Barea Soranus, and Lucius Salvidienus Rufus Salvianus. He is recorded as a member of the Arval Brethren in 55, 57, and 58 (CIL VI 2037 = 32352; 2040 = 32353). In 55, Nero’s advisors Pallas and Sextus Afranius Burrus were denounced by Paetus, a man otherwise unknown but whom Tacitus accuses of being involved in financial malfeasance (A. 13.23.1). The charge was that they had suggested that Cornelius Sulla, on account of the brilliance of his lineage and his relationship to Claudius, be made princeps in place of Nero. The accusation was clearly false, as Burrus was allowed to sit in judgement of the case against himself, and Paetus was driven into exile for his calumny (A. 13.23.2). Tacitus reports that Nero grew increasingly suspicious of Cornelius Sulla, whose feeblemindedness and timidity Nero interpreted as an ingenious ploy (A. 13.47.1). The freedman Graptus capitalized on Nero’s suspicions and accused Cornelius Sulla of an elaborate assassination attempt. Graptus alleged that Cornelius Sulla had arranged for a group of assassins to ambush Nero along the Via Flaminia late at night as he was returning from the Mulvian bridge, where the emperor was reputedly accustomed to troll for sex. Chance had spared Nero, Graptus said, only because the princeps had decided to return by another route. The accusation was false, as none of Cornelius Sulla’s clients or slaves were recognized among those who had assailed Nero’s servants that same night. Additionally, Tacitus claims that Cornelius Sulla was rendered incapable of such a plot on account of his cowardly nature. Nevertheless, Cornelius Sulla was sent into exile to Massilia (A. 13.47.3). He remained in exile until 62, when the informer Ofonius Tigellinus induced Nero to execute him, stoking the emperor’s paranoia by playing up Cornelius Sulla’s nobility and his proximity to the

c03_Vol1.indd 299

299

legions stationed in Germany (A. 14.57.1). Tigellinus further claimed that Sulla was motivated to audacity on account of his poverty, and that he had been merely pretending to be sluggish until the time was ripe for daring (A. 14.57.3). Cornelius Sulla was killed while he reclined at table, his head brought to Nero, who mocked its prematurely gray hair. see also: delators; freedmen of Nero; laughter Reference works: PIR2 C 1464; RE 4.1 391; Acta Aru. CIL III p. 844 dip. I; CIL VI 2037 = 32352; 2040 = 32353 FURTHER READING Griffin, Miriam. 1984. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

CORNELIUS SULLA FELIX, LUCIUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix was consul in 33 ce with Galba (A. 6.15.1; Suet. Galb. 6.1; Cass. Dio, 58.20.5). He could be the son of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Faustus, consul in 5 bce (PIR2 C 1460) or of the Sulla Felix, Arval brother in 21 ce (PIR2 C 1463). He was the younger brother of Faustus Cornelius Sulla Lucullus, consul in 31 ce (the beginning of the year is lost in the lacuna of Annals 5 and 6; PIR2 C 1459). Therefore, he was the descendant of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) the late republican dictator. Woodman (2017, 149) identifies this Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix with the Lucius Cornelius Sulla (2) mentioned by Tacitus at A. 3.31. In 21 ce, Cornelius Sulla Felix had an argument with the praetor and future general Domitius Corbulo over the right to sit at gladiatorial spectacles. Corbulo complained about it in the Senate winning the support of the other senators. Sulla was defended by Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, Lucius Arruntius, and by his family. Drusus the Younger, consul for that year, intervened to solve the conflict and give satisfaction to Corbulo (A. 3.31.3–4).

28-04-2023 17:44:52

300

  C orneli u s Su lla , Lu ci u s ( 1 )

Reference works: PIR2 C 1462; 1465; CIL X 1233 = ILS 6124; AE 1927. 172 REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Robinson, D. M. 1926. “Greek and Latin Inscriptions from Asia minor.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 57: 275–295. Syme, R. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CORNELIUS SULLA, LUCIUS (1) RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) (c. 138–78 bce) was consul in 88 bce, dictator in 81, and consul for a second time in 80. His grandfather had been praetor in 186, but his family, although patrician, was no longer part of the wealthy elite of Rome. An opportunity for advancement arose when Sulla’s father married a well-off heiress, who left Sulla her fortune. He was quaestor in 107, winning attention in the Numidian War, under Gaius Marius’ command, for having persuaded Bocchus of Mauretania to hand over Jugurtha. During the Cimbrian wars, he was legate in Cisalpine Gaul under Marius (104–103) and Quintus Lutatius Catulus (102–101). He became praetor urbanus, by bribery, in 97. Propraetor in Cilicia, he installed king Ariobarzanes in Cappadocia and was the first Roman to receive a Parthian embassy. He distinguished himself during the Social War, becoming consul in 88. During his consulate, he was perceived as the leader of the so-called optimate faction and was chosen to lead the war against Mithridates Eupator of Pontus. However, the tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus stripped Sulla of his command, assigning it to Marius, a member of the so-called populist faction. Outraged, Sulla

c03_Vol1.indd 300

marched on Rome (H. 3.83): his opponents were considered enemies of the republic and were executed (Sulpicius Rufus) or fled (Marius). At the end of the year Sulla left for the Aegean to fight Mithridates (see A. 2.55; 3.62; 4.56; 12.62). In 85, Sulla negotiated a mild peace treaty with the king and, after the death of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, he disembarked at Brundisium with his army, initiating a civil war (83–82). Sulla defeated and executed the consuls (82) and was elected dictator in 81. Sulla enlarged the pomerium (A. 12.23), proscribed a huge number of opponents (4,700 rich people, according to Val. Max. 9.2.1), strengthened the power of the Senate (he increased it to 600 members and reinstated its control of the courts; see A. 11.22; 12.60), reformed the cursus honorum and neutralized the tribunes of the plebs (who lost their right to initiate legislation and were barred from holding other political posts). He also started the reconstruction of the temple of Jupiter in the Capitol, burned during the civil war (H. 3.72). Sulla was consul in 80, leaving power after that; hence Tacitus remarks that he did not rule for long (A. 1.1). He died in 78, receiving impressive funeral ceremonies. Tacitus mentions Sulla among Augustus’ predecessors (A. 1.1), accusing him of having abolished the old statutes and of turning liberty into tyranny by arms (A. 3.27; H. 2.38). Tiberius thought that Caligula would have “all the vices of Sulla and none of his virtues” (A. 6.46). Sulla married five times: (1) Ilia (Julia?), who bore him a daughter; (2) Aelia; (3) Cloelia; (4) in 88 Caecilia Metella, daughter of Lucius Caecilius Metellus (consul 119), who bore him twins, Cornelia Fausta and Faustus Cornelius Sulla (pr. 54), who became Pompey the Great’s son-in-law; and (5) Valeria, daughter of Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger (consul 80), who bore him a posthumous daughter. He wrote an autobiography which was the main source used by Plutarch and Appian. see also: Capitolium; Cimbri Reference works: MRR 1.551; 1.554; 1.561; 1.569; 1.573; 2.18; 2.29; 2.36; 2.39–40; 2.48; 2.55; 2.58; 2.61; 2.63; 2.66–67; 2.74–75; 2–79; RE IV.1, 1522–1566, Cornelius 392 (Fröhlich)

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C orneli u s Tacit u s  

FURTHER READING Hantos, T. 1988. Res publica constituta: Die Verfassung des Dictators Sulla. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Santangelo, Federico. 2007. Sulla, the Elites and the Empire. A Study of Roman Policies in Italy and the Greek East. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

CORNELIUS SULLA, LUCIUS (2)

301

Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J., and R. H. Martin 1996. The Annals of Tacitus. Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CORNELIUS TACITUS A. J. WOODMAN

University of Virginia

RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Lucius Cornelius Sulla (2) was a young Roman nobleman, accused of disrespect by Domitius Corbulo in 21 ce. According to Tacitus, Domitius Corbulo, who was already a senator of praetorian rank, accused Sulla of not giving him his place at a gladiatorial exhibition (A. 3.31.3). Sulla was defended in court by Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus (suffect consul in 21 ce), who was, according to Tacitus, his uncle and stepfather (PIR2 A 404; Syme 1986, 172, 261, Table XVI; Woodman and Martin 1996, 282), and by Lucius Arruntius, perhaps married to one of Sulla’s aunts (PIR2 A 1130). Sulla may perhaps be identified with Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, praetor peregrinus in 29 and consul in 33 ce (Woodman 2017, 149), son of Sulla Felix (PIR2 C 1463) and Sextia (RaepsaetCharlier, 711), and younger brother of Faustus Sulla (suffect 31 ce). One might also identify him with the P(ublius) Corne(lius Sulla) Felix referred to in an inscription of Pisidian Antioch as Germanicus’ son-in-law (AE 1927, 172). Based on this inscription, E. Groag (PIR2 C 1465) and Syme (1986) suggested that Sulla had married Agrippina the Younger c. 41 ce, before her marriage to Gaius Passienus Crispus. However, the difference of praenomen in the inscription (Publius instead of Lucius) advises caution. Reference works: PIR2 C 1462 (Groag); PIR2 C 1465 (Groag); RE IV.1, 1517, Cornelius 380; RE IV.1, 1566, Cornelius 393 (Groag); AE 1927, 172; Raepsaet-Charlier, 711 REFERENCES Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c03_Vol1.indd 301

The First Medicean, the ninth-century manuscript which preserves the first six books of Tacitus’ Annals, has written, at the top right-hand corner of its first page, the name P. Cornelius Tacitus in the genitive case. Most other manuscripts of Tacitus omit any praenomen, although a very few exhibit “Gaius;” the majority of scholars, influenced by the authority attributed to the First Medicean, believe that the historian’s praenomen was Publius. According to the stone fragment which is now thought to be an exiguous remnant of Tacitus’ funerary inscription (CIL 6.41106), the mutilated name on the top line (TA]CITO) is followed by a word beginning with the letter C; it is regarded as very likely that the missing word was a further name, perhaps Caecina, but certainty is impossible. Nor is it known for certain when or where Tacitus was born. Pliny the Elder, writing in the mid-first century ce, records (HN 7.76) that “not long ago” a Cornelius Tacitus, equestrian procurator of Gallia Belgica and the two Germanies, fathered a deformedly large son who died in childhood; it is usually assumed that the procurator, the only other known holder of those two names, was Tacitus’ father. In later times the procurator of Belgica and the two Germanies was based at Augusta Treverorum (modern Trier) on the River Mosel, and it has been suggested that this was Tacitus’ birthplace. Also to be taken into account is the famous story told in a letter of Pliny the Younger (Ep. 9.23.2–3): “I’ve never derived more pleasure from a conversation than one recently with Cornelius Tacitus. He told me that at the last circus games a Roman equestrian had sat next to him and after various learned exchanges had asked ‘Are you an Italian or a provincial?’ Tacitus had replied ‘It is in fact from literature that you

28-04-2023 17:44:52

302

  C orneli u s Tacit u s

know me,’ whereupon the man had said, ‘Are you Tacitus or Pliny?’” From this it has been inferred that Tacitus and Pliny shared the same local accent, and, since Pliny came from Comum, that Tacitus perhaps came from Transpadane Italy, although Syme preferred Gallia Narbonensis (favoring Vasio, modern Vaison, on the Rhone). As there were regulations stipulating the minimum age at which each magistracy in the cursus honorum could be held, Tacitus’ later political career suggests that he was born sometime between the years 56 and 58 ce. Tacitus tells us himself that in 75, when he was “just a young man,” he listened to a discussion on orators which he later dramatized as the Dialogus de Oratoribus (cf. D. 1.2); it was perhaps in the same year that he was decemuir stlitibus iudicandis, an office which we know from the second line of the fragmentary funerary inscription. In the preface to the Histories (1.1.3) he acknowledges that his career “was begun by Vespasian [emperor 69–79], upgraded by Titus [79–81], and advanced still further by Domitian [81–96].” Since decemvir, a minor magistracy of a judicial nature, was the first step on a political career, it may have been this office for which he was in Vespasian’s debt. (Alternatively, Vespasian’s favor may have been the grant of the latus clauus, the right given to prospective senators of wearing a toga with a broad purple stripe.) In the latter half of the following year (76), Agricola as suffect consul betrothed his daughter (who was probably no more than twelve or thirteen) to Tacitus, and the two were married shortly afterward (Ag. 9.6). Tacitus will next have spent some years as military tribune in a province: we know nothing about it from any source, although there is speculation that he could have served in Britain, where his new father-in-law was now governor. The third line of the funerary inscription begins with the tantalizing letters ]RIAVG. Since admission to the Senate was acquired by holding the quaestorship, scholars had always known that in the early 80s Tacitus must have been one of the twenty annual quaestors; but what the epitaph reveals—and what was not known previously—is that he was quaestor Augusti, the special quaestor of the emperor: only two of the twenty each year were appointed to this role,

c03_Vol1.indd 302

and it was an indication of special favor. It is almost certain that this appointment explains the reference to Titus in the preface to the Histories: the consequence is that, if Tacitus was Titus’ special quaestor in 81, as seems likely from his career pattern, he will presumably have continued in this position under Domitian, who succeeded Titus on the latter’s death in September of that year. That Tacitus was tribune of the plebs after his quaestorship is confirmed by the last surviving letters of the funerary inscription (TRIBV[), but the next information about his career comes from his own writing. In his account of the year 47 in the Annals he goes out of his way to disclose some personal details (A. 11.11.1): With the same men as consuls, the Secular Games were witnessed in the 800th year after Rome’s founding, the 64th from when Augustus produced them. (I am passing over the calculations of each emperor, sufficiently described as they are in the books in which I compiled the affairs of the Emperor Domitian [i.e., the Histories]. For he too produced Secular Games, and I was present at them with particular attentiveness—endowed as I was with the quindecimviral priesthood and praetor at the time, which I do not record from boasting but because the college of quindecimvirs has been concerned with them since antiquity, and it was those magistrates in particular who carried out the duties of the ceremonies.)

Tacitus’ pride is unmistakable. This priceless passage reveals not only that he held the praetorship in 88, the year in which Domitian staged the Secular Games, but also that he was already holding the priestly office of quindecimuir sacris faciundis at an unusually early age, a further mark of special favor. Five years later, on 23 August 93, Tacitus’ father-in-law died (Ag. 44.1), but in a moving tribute Tacitus says that because of a fouryear absence from Rome he and his wife were unable to be at Agricola’s bedside when he died (Ag. 45.3–5). Presumably he was abroad on government service, but nothing is known. Another death, four years later, was that of the elder statesman Verginius Rufus, who passed

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C orneli u s Tacit u s  

away after becoming consul for the third time. Pliny tells us that the eulogy was delivered by Tacitus as consul: “This was the finishing touch to be added to his good fortune—the most eloquent of eulogists” (Ep. 2.1.6). By this time—Tacitus probably held his suffect consulship in the autumn of 97—Domitian too was dead, but it is very likely that before his death in 96 he had recommended Tacitus for his consulship. It is no wonder that the historian acknowledged that his career had been “advanced still further by Domitian.” For a “new man” or novus homo he had come a long way. Tacitus had evidently intended to write a biography of Agricola on his death in 93, but was deterred by the news from Rome that, during the reign of terror in that year, Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio had been killed for writing biographies of Thrasea Paetus and Helvidius Priscus (Ag. 2.1). Now that Domitian had died and been succeeded by Nerva, however, Tacitus felt able to begin (Ag. 3.1); but, before he had finished writing, Nerva too had died (27 January 98) and been succeeded by Trajan (Ag. 44.5). The Agricola, as the biography is known, hails these two emperors as the founders of a new age, but the bright new dawn is entirely eclipsed by the dark memory of Domitian’s reign—fifteen years, “a substantial period of mortal existence,” during which activists succumbed to the savagery of the emperor, while others, like Tacitus himself, suffered a living death (Ag. 3.2). Here is the central, most important consideration about Tacitus’ career as politician and writer: he was extremely close to, and benefited significantly from, Domitian throughout the man’s long reign, yet, no sooner had the emperor died, than he attacked him as having been the most savage of tyrants (cf. Ag. 39.1–45.3). Since an ancient biographer was expected to praise his subject, Tacitus’ enthusiastic account of Agricola’s British conquests is no surprise, but many readers have thought that the author’s praise of his father-inlaw’s quietism (Ag. 6.3, 42.1, 42.4) is also an attempt at defending his own, more positive compliance. When Trajan succeeded Nerva as emperor in early 98, he had just entered upon his second consulship, which Tacitus uses as a date in his Germania (37.2): “If we calculate from then [113

c03_Vol1.indd 303

303

bce] to the second consulship of the emperor Trajan, the total is roughly 210 years: so long has it taken to conquer Germany.” Most scholars infer from this statement that the Germania was written almost immediately after the Agricola. This second monograph—as is made clear by the fuller title De origine et situ Germanorum—is an ethnographical disquisition on Germany and its various peoples. Although its nature and purpose have been much discussed, Tacitus’ personal interest in Germany seems clear from the time which he devotes to the area in the Histories and Annals (see, for example, his knowledge of the Rhine and its changing nomenclature at A. 2.6.4). That interest may possibly be traced back to his father’s posting; it may also be relevant that in 98 Trajan was campaigning in Germany. One theme, doubtless dear to Tacitus’ heart, is the contrast between the decadence attributed to contemporary Rome and the more primitive virtues of the Germans. An even greater puzzle is presented by Tacitus’ third short work, the Dialogus de Oratoribus, of which the dramatic date is 75 ce. Its date of composition is not certain, and scholars have applied various criteria, such as its Ciceronian manner, to narrow down the possibilities. The likeliest clue is its dedication to Lucius Fabius Iustus, whose interest in the current state of oratory allegedly prompted Tacitus to write the work (D. 1.1). Since Iustus was suffect consul in 102, many scholars have concluded that the dialogue is a tribute to him in the year in which he held the office, much as Horace’s ode to Lucius Sestius (1.4) is thought to date the publication of Odes 1–3 to 23 bce, the year of Sestius’ consulship. Little can be inferred from the subject of the dialogue itself since the decline of oratory had been a popular subject at least since the early days of the first century ce. More interestingly the work has been thought to foreshadow the sense of history and historical development which reached its full expression in Tacitus’ two major works. Our first notice of Tacitus’ Histories comes in a letter to him from the younger Pliny. We do not know when the friendship of the two men began; our first evidence of their collaboration is as coprosecutors in the trial of Marius Priscus for extortion, which dragged on from late 98 to 100

28-04-2023 17:44:52

304

  C orneli u s Tacit u s

(Plin. Ep. 2.11.2). Pliny, who was younger than Tacitus by about three years, consistently portrays his friend as an admired and flourishing advocate to whom he looks up (cf. Ep. 4.13.10, 7.20.4, 8.7.1); he seeks his views on oratorical brevity (Ep. 1.20), exchanges pleasantries about hunting wild boar (Ep. 1.6, 9.10), and likes nothing better than to be mentioned in the same breath as the historian (Ep. 7.20.5–7, 9.23.2–3): he sees their literary careers as proceeding along the same path toward the hope of posthumous fame (Ep. 9.14). At one point Tacitus had written to ask his friend to provide him with an account of the death of his uncle, the elder Pliny, in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79; Pliny replies with a letter (Ep. 6.16) which is to be used in the historical work on which Tacitus is presently engaged: since the Histories begin with the year 69 ce and would conclude with Domitian’s death in 96 (cf. H. 1.1.3–4), it seems inevitable that the information in Pliny’s letter was destined for repackaging in the Histories. At any rate Tacitus was apparently so pleased with Pliny’s letter that he asked for further information about the eruption, which Pliny then provided in a second letter (Ep. 6.20). Unfortunately, the dating of the books of Pliny’s letters (to say nothing of the individual letters themselves) is uncertain; but scholars assign these two letters to the early years of the second century. In his next collection of letters, Pliny sends Tacitus a covering note, to accompany a volume which Tacitus had sent to Pliny and evidently expected him to comment on (Ep. 7.20); in the absence of evidence to the contrary, many assume that the volume was a book of the Histories. Whatever the nature of Pliny’s comments, Tacitus seems not to have minded, since later he sends him another volume likewise (cf. Ep. 8.7). In the final letter of Book 7 Pliny writes to Tacitus (Ep. 7.33.1): “Your histories will be immortal: therefore I desire all the more (I candidly admit) to be inserted into them,” and he uses this compliment to volunteer information about the trial of Baebius Massa in 93, in which Pliny had appeared for the prosecution. It is a matter of great regret that we do not know what use Tacitus made of any of the autoptic information which Pliny provided. The text of the Histories breaks off part-way through Book 5 in the middle of the narrative of 70 (H. 5.26; cf.

c03_Vol1.indd 304

4.38.1). The literary exchanges between Pliny and Tacitus are symptomatic of early imperial intellectual life, of which another feature was the recitation, as Pliny records (Ep. 9.27): The great power, dignity, majesty and, in short, numinosity of history I have felt frequently both at other times and also very recently. Someone had recited a very true book and had kept back part of it for another day. Lo and behold! Here come his friends pleading and praying that he not recite the rest! Such is their shame at hearing what they did, although there was none at doing what they now blush to hear. For his part he acceded to the request (his sense of duty allowed it); but the book, like the deed itself, endures and will endure and will always be read, all the more so because not immediately. Men are impelled to know what is deferred.

The identity of the unnamed historian is unknown, but it has been suggested that perhaps it was Tacitus, reciting an extract from the Histories; there would have been many episodes, especially during the reign of Domitian, of which contemporaries would not wish to be reminded. From another inscription (OGI 487) we infer that in the spring of 112 ce Tacitus was dispatched to Asia for twelve months as the province’s proconsul. This distinguished position was the pinnacle of political success, the natural conclusion to a career which had consistently profited from imperial favor; and it was presumably not until he returned to Rome in the following year that Tacitus embarked on his final work of history. He had begun the Histories with a tribute and a promise (H. 1.1.4): “If my life lasts, I have reserved the principate of Divine Nerva and the rule of Trajan, richer and safer material, for my old age, given the rare fertility of a period when one can think what one wants and say what one thinks.” Had Tacitus kept his promise, he would have fulfilled a pledge he made at the start of the Agricola, that at some point in the future he would have provided both a record of society’s servitude under Domitian and a testament to its present blessings under Nerva and Trajan (Ag. 3.3). The Annals, however, deal with the years from the death of Augustus on 19 August 14 to the death of

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C orsica  

Nero on 9 June 68. Since this period immediately precedes that covered by the Histories, it is not surprising that Jerome seemingly refers to Tacitus as the author of a single work “in thirty volumes” (Comm. Zach. 3.14); but, since the text of the Annals breaks off in 66 ce before the end of Book 16 (16.35), we today do not know whether Book 16 would have been the last book of two complementary “ogdoads” (in which case the Histories would have comprised fourteen volumes), whether the books were distributed between the two works in some other fashion (eighteen for the Annals and twelve for the Histories is the favored alternative), or even whether Tacitus completed the Annals at all before death intervened (see Syme 1958, 686–687, for the various possibilities). Syme believed that all or most of the Annals was composed under Hadrian (117–138 ce) and that covert allusions to that emperor’s reign could be detected in Tacitus’ text; most scholars remain unconvinced, and internal evidence suggests that Tacitus was writing Book 4 around 115 (Woodman 2018, 85–87), and he would no doubt have made further progress before Trajan died on 8 August two years later. In Book 3 of the Annals Tacitus mentions a plan, if he lives long enough, to write about the Augustan principate after finishing his present work (A. 3.24.3), the promise of writing about Nerva and Trajan seemingly abandoned. It is assumed that he died before he could put his plan into operation, but the date of his death is unknown. He had no known descendants. His work seems to have had little immediate impact except on Pliny, although he is quoted by Tertullian (c. 160–240 ce), who puns on his name (Apol. 16.3). In the mid- and late fourth century his work was known to Ausonius, Aurelius Victor, and Sulpicius Severus, while Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330–400 ce), who started his history from where Tacitus’ Histories stopped, aspired to be his continuator. see also: Quindecimviri sacris faciundis; reception, antiquity REFERENCES Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

c03_Vol1.indd 305

305

Woodman, A. J. 2018. The Annals of Tacitus Book 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Alföldy, G. 1995. “Bricht der Schweigsame sein Schweigen?” MDAI(R) 102: 252–268. Birley, A. R. 2000. “The Life and Death of Cornelius Tacitus.” Historia 49: 230–247. Borzsák, S. 1968. “P. Cornelius Tacitus.” RE Suppl. 11: 373–512. Gibson, R. K., and R. Morello. 2012. Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, R. 1994. Tacitus. Orig. 1981. London: Bristol Classical Press. Pagán, V. E., ed. 2012. A Companion to Tacitus. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. Whitton, C. L. 2012. “‘Let Us Tread Our Path Together’: Tacitus and the Younger Pliny.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 345–368. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. Woodman, A. J., ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola. With C.S. Kraus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CORSICA LEE FRANTANTUONO

Maynooth University

Corsica is a large island in the western Mediterranean, occupied by the Romans in the third century bce after the defeat of the Carthaginians in the First Punic War in 259 and 231. Corsica was originally joined with Sardinia to its south in one province; at an unknown date in the imperial period, it became a separate province. In Tacitus the island figures in the civil wars of 69 ce for a memorable, infamous episode (H. 2.16): Corsica and Sardinia had remained loyal to Otho in his conflict with Vitellius, in large part due to the naval operations of the Othonian fleet in the western Mediterranean. The governor Picarius Decumus despised Otho and wished to ally the forces of the island with Vitellius. Claudius Pyrrichus and Quintius Certus opposed the initiative and were executed; the terror instilled by the act brought the rest of the

28-04-2023 17:44:52

306

  C ossu s C orneli u s L ent u lu s ( 1 and 2 )

population into line in Vitellius’ favor. The force and oppression of military duties weighed on the islanders, and Picarius was eventually assassinated in his bath together with his associates. The heads were brought to Otho; in a wry comment on the times, Tacitus notes that there was neither reward from Otho nor punishment from Vitellius, given that the crimes of the age were so great that the events on Corsica—memorably horrible as they were—were obscured by far worse deeds.

it without struggle (A. 14.23–24). Large portions of the kingdom of Armenia were then divided among the Roman allied kings, while Tigranes, a descendant of the royal house of Cappadocia living at court in Rome took control of the rest of Armenia as a Roman client king (A. 14.26). Reference works: PIR2 C 1381; 1382; CIL IV.4182; 3340.144; V.5594; VI.396 = ILS 3671; 2042; 10051 = ILS 5283; 30469.01; XI. 3613 = ILS 5052; CIL XIII.6798; XIV.4013; 1987.163

Reference work: Barrington 48 D 2 CORUNCANII, see TABULA LUGDUNENSIS

COSSUS CORNELIUS LENTULUS (1 AND 2) LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Cossus Cornelius Lentulus was ordinary consul in 25 ce; his homonymous son, Cossus Cornelius Lentulus (2), was consul in 60 ce. Cossus senior was the son of Cossus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, consul in 1 bce. Not much is known about the two Cossii and this not by chance: the famous scholar Ronald Syme describes the family of the Cornelii Lentuli as distinguished by “mediocrity and survival.” They preferred to maintain a low profile in the political tensions of the Julio-Claudian dynasty (Syme 1986, 276). One exception was Cossus Senior’s brother, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, consul in 26 ce, partisan of Sejanus and executed in 39 ce by Caligula. Cossus Senior was ordinary consul in 25 ce with Asinius Agrippa (A. 4.34.1; Cass. Dio Ind. l. 57), the year of the trial of Cremutius Cordus (A. 4.34–35). He was then possibly legatus of Germania Superior (CIL XIII. 6798; Eck 1985, 8–9, nr. 3). Cossus junior (Juv. 3.184; 8.21; 10. 202) was consul in 60 ce with Nero (A. 14.20.1). In that year Domitius Corbulo, commander of the army fighting the Parthians for the control of Armenia, managed to advance as far as Tigranocerta, the capital of the kingdom, and took

c03_Vol1.indd 306

REFERENCES Eck, W. 1985. Die Statthalter der germanischen Provinzen vom 1.-3. Jahrhundert. Köln and Bonn: Rheinland-Verlag. Syme, R. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Gallivan, P. A. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24: 290–311.

COSSUTIANUS CAPITO STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Cossutianus Capito (c. 17 ce–68 or 69 ce) was a notorious delator under Nero, whose career as a prosecutor started under Claudius. Governor of Cilicia in the mid-50s, he was convicted of repetundae in 57. Still in favor some years later, he undertook the notorious prosecution of Thrasea Paetus and his so-called Stoic Circle with the help of Eprius Marcellus in 66 ce. He likely perished soon after, for he appears not to have survived Nero’s reign long. We do not know if Cossutianus is his gentilicium or cognomen, but it appears elsewhere as a cognomen (CIL 14.2987). We know nothing of Cossutianus’ career prior to 47 ce, when he abruptly enters history in the debate over the reintroduction of the lex Cincia (A. 11.6.5). He may not have even held the praetorship yet, since Tacitus portrays him as desiring to speak at a Senate meeting where he does not appear to have

28-04-2023 17:44:52

307

C otys  

had the privilege; that may put his birth at around 17. Cossutianus and Suillius Rufus were the two most vocal critics of the lex Cincia’s proposed reintroduction, which appears to have been directed against them in particular. Tacitus’ characterization leaves little doubt that Cossutianus’ reputation as an advocate was already well established by 47, something supported by his statement concerning how Capito governed his province of Cilicia some years later: “He used the same privilege of audacity in his province which he had determined to exercise in the city” (A. 13.33.3; cf. Juv. 8.92–94 where he refers to Capito, along with Numitor, as one of the “pirates of the Cilicians”). He was legate of Cilicia in 55 or 56 ce, and was subsequently accused by the provincials with the assistance of Thrasea Paetus (A. 16.21.3) and condemned for repetundae in 57 (at virtually the same time Eprius Marcellus was acquitted for the same crime in Lycia, A. 13.33.4). The Senate expelled Capito, but by 62 he had been reinstated through the petitioning of Ofonius Tigellinus, his father-in-law and Nero’s praetorian prefect: in that year Capito accused Antistius Sosianus of maiestas; the specific charge was writing and reciting poems against the emperor (Nero) at a banquet at Ostorius Scapula’s house, for which Antistius was nearly condemned to death but in the end simply banished (A. 14.48), due in part to the intercession of Thrasea Paetus (A. 16.21.2). Capito will have received a quarter share of Antistius’ property. It is a testament to Capito’s influence and power under Nero’s regime that Annaeus Mela, when accused by Fabius Romanus of involvement in the Pisonian conspiracy in 66, tried to forestall the complete confiscation of his property after his suicide by naming Capito and Tigellinus in his will (A. 16.17.6). In the same year Capito, along with Eprius Marcellus, attacked Thrasea Paetus and members of his circle; Capito also named Helvidius Priscus, Paconius Agrippinus, and Curtius Montanus in the charges (which charges T. does not specifically state), and Capito appears to have taken the lead in the prosecution, with Eprius Marcellus following him (A. 16.28.1); because Thrasea had previously helped to convict Capito of repetundae in 57, there was likely an element of personal enmity that motivated Capito. Tacitus says that Capito worked particularly hard

c03_Vol1.indd 307

to excite Nero’s animus against Thrasea, reminding him of various slights both real and imagined (A. 16.22). During the trial he attacked Thrasea as a malcontent, who disrespected both the dignity of the Senate and was intent on destabilizing a city and world at peace (A. 16.28). In the end, Thrasea was condemned and committed suicide, Priscus and Paconius exiled, and Montanus prohibited from holding any magistracies; the charges against Thrasea’s intimates are unknown. Capito earned five million sesterces for his efforts—which may or may not have been in addition to a portion of Thrasea’s property (A. 16.33.4). That Capito had Nero’s ear for denouncing Thrasea and that he planned the trial could indicate that he was a member of the emperor’s inner circle. Quintilian (Inst. 6.1.14) recalls Capito as an accusator who was a good speaker, effective at rousing the emotions of his audience, and who scattered Greek throughout his oratory. After Capito’s accusation of Thrasea nothing more is heard from him; if the fate of his father-in-law, Tigellinus, is any guide, he may have survived Galba, only to perish later in the year (H. 1.72). His absence from Tacitus’ account of the debates in early 70 makes it unlikely that he survived into the Flavian regime. Reference works: PIR2 C 1543; RE 4.1673 = Cossutianus 1 (Groag) FURTHER READING Rudich, V. 1993. Political Dissidents under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London: Routledge. 166–170. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 14, 25, 41, 43, 69, 71, 113–118, 123, 136, 176, 181, 218–219, 226.

COTINI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST

COTYS IVAYLO LOZANOV

Sofia University

Cotys is the name of three different Thracian or Bosporan kings mentioned by Tacitus: Cotys

28-04-2023 17:44:52

308

  C otys

VIII, “king of Thrace” (A. 2.64–67, 3.38); Cotys IX, “king of Armenia” (A. 11.9); and Cotys, brother of Mithirdates Bosporus (A. 12.15, 18). The name is possibly derived from the theonym Cotytto (Κοτυττώ) and is first attested in the Odrysian royal house with king Cotys I (384/83–360/59 bce.) who ruled for twenty-four years (Suda s.v.; Harpocrat. s.v.; Archibald 1998, 219–222; Fol 1975, 108–112; Zahrnt 2015, 44–45). At the heyday of his power Cotys controlled much of the Thracian lands south of the Danuvius (Danube), either directly or by friendly alliances with the local dynasts of the Getae and the Triballians in the north, as evidenced by a number of inscribed vessels of precious tableware found in the richest treasures of Thrace (cf. the Rogozen treasure, SEG 37.618; 40.580). Cotys’ plans for territorial expansion toward the Propontis clashed with the interests of the Second Athenian Confederacy. An earlier marriage of his daughter to the mercenary commander Iphicrates set an example of attracting capable Greeks at king’s service (Dem. 23.129–130; Nep. Iphicr. 2.1; Ath. 4.131; Val. Max. 3. 7 E. 7). Epigraphic and numismatic evidence suggest political and financial pressure over the coastal Greek cities from Abdera to Aenus and in the Chersonese. Silver coins of smaller denominations and some bronzes are thought to have been struck by Cotys. Certain iconographic features associate them with the mint at Cypsela and probably other places (perhaps Maroneia or Pistiros; see Peter 1997, 112– 125; Youroukova 1976, 17–18, 1992, 60–65). The text of the so called “Pistiros inscription” hints back at the time of Cotys when Thasos, Maroneia, and Apollonia were allowed to plant Greek trading posts (emporia) and enjoyed commercial privileges in inland Thrace in exchange of paying taxes to the king (summarizing discussion by Graninger 2012). Cotys’ assassination by the hands of two Aenians is variously dated in the fall of 360 or the spring of 359 bce, depending on the interpretation of the scarce evidence (Theopomp. apud Ath. 12.531e-532a, Diod. 16.2.6, 3.4; discussion in Delev 2015a, 48 f.). After his death the Odrysian kingdom was split into three parts (Dem. 23.8).

c03_Vol1.indd 308

Cotys II was a Thracian king, son of Rhaizdus, honored by a proxenic decree at Delphi 276/5 (?) bce (Syll.3 438) and tentatively associated with Cotys, father of Rhescouporis in IGBulg. I2, 389 (= IGBulg. V.5138) from the mid-third century (cf. discussion in Delev 2015b, 62). Certain bronze coins with the names of Cotys and Rhescouporis served in identifying a shifting center of the Odrysian power in the hinterland of Apollonia and Mesambria (Youroukova 1992, 153–157). Cotys III was an Odrysian king, son of Seuthes (Livy 42.51.10) of the first half of the second century bce. As Perseus’ stubborn ally, he distinguished himself in the Third War with Rome (171–168 bce) and found brilliant description in Polybius preserved in more detail by Livy (Polyb. 27.12; Livy 42.29.12, 57.6, 58.6, 59.2; 44.42.2, 45.6.2; Diod. 30.3; Eutrop. 4.6). Sometime after the battle at Larissa (171 bce) Cotys left to defend his own territory against a Pergamene invasion led by Corragus and a certain local (Caenic?) dynast Autlesbis (Livy 42. 67.3–5). Rare bronze coins, some of them with the royal name and portrait, relate to Cotys’ reign (Youroukova 1976, 33–34, 1992, 158–159). Contemporary issues with legends ΟΔΡΟΣΩΝ (of the Odrosae/ Odrysae) were probably minted in Philipoppolis to proclaim the Odrysian political independence (discussion in Lozanov 2017). After the fall of the Macedonian monarchy Cotys was confirmed as a Roman ally (Polyb. 30.18; Livy 45.42. 4–12; Zonar. 9.23–24) and from this position attempted to obtain new territory southwards along the Aegean coast next to Abdera (IAegThr. E5; Delev 2015b, 67). No information is extant on Cotys’ death and the fate of his heir Bithys. Several other rulers with the name of Corya have been attested in Hellenistic Thrace, either among the Odrysae or in arguably related dynastic houses (the Astae, the Sapaei), as the processes of convergence between the elites led ultimately to establishment of a united Thracian kingdom (Lozanov 2015, 78 f; Sullivan 1990, 27–30; 145– 151; Tačeva 1995). Cotys VIII, “king of Thrace”, after the death of his father Gaius Iulius Rhoemetalces I (13 bce–11 ce) was confirmed by Augustus as a king over a part of the now divided Thracian kingdom. In 17/18 ce he was captured by his

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C otys  

uncle and co-ruler Rhescouporis and murdered despite the belated intervention of Tiberius (A. 2, 65–66; Vell. Pat. 2.129). He received Roman citizenship through his father (Tačeva 1995 with stemma; Raggi 2010, 93). He was the eponymous official, benefactor, and arbiter in the disputes of the Greek cities on the West Pontic coast (IScM III.44: Callatis, and IGBulg. V.5011: Dionysopolis). Cotys’ marriage to Antonia Tryphaena, daughter of the king Polemon I of Pontus and Pythodoris (Strabo 12, 556; Syll.3 798), was probably inspired by Augustus’ policy in promoting loyal dynastic houses in the East (Clinton and Dimitrova 2016, 90). He was internationally acclaimed as archon in Athens (IG II2 1070 = Agora XV.304) and sponsor of a portico building at Asclepius’ sanctuary in Epidaurus (Paus. 2.27.6). Cotys was praised by Ovid (Pont. 2.9), Antipater of Thessalonica (Anth. Gr. 16.75), and Tacitus (A. 2.64.2). After his death his portion of the kingdom and the guardianship of his three underage sons were entrusted to a Roman ex-praetor Trebellenus Rufus (A. 2.64–67, 3.38.3, 4.5.3; Vell. Pat. 2.129.1; PIR2 C 1554; Danov 1979, 133–137; Sullivan 1979, 200– 204; Tačeva 1995). Cotys’ daughter Gepaepyris married King Aspusrgus of Bosporus to produce a dynastic line that ruled there for almost three centuries (Saprykin 2002, 234 ff; Sullivan 1990, 160). An inscription found at Aquae Calidae (near mod. Burgas, Bulgaria) mentions another daughter of Cotys named Pythodoris (II) married to her uncle Rhoemetalces II (SEG 65:549). Cotys IX, “king of Armenia”, son of Cotys VIII, grew up with the future emperor Caligula in Rome. He was appointed by Caligula as king of Lesser Armenia and part of Arabia, and received his throne late in 38 or in the beginning of 39 ce (A. 11.9.2; Cass. Dio 59.12.2; Joseph AJ. 19.8.1; Syll.3 798; IGRom. IV.147; PIR2 C 1555; Sullivan 1979; Tačeva 1995; on the date of his accession see Clinton and Dimitrova 2016, 96; Nigdelis 2017, 144–146). He is identified as Sextus Iulius Cotys in inscriptions from Amphipolis (Nigdelis 2017). The last Cotys mentioned by Tacitus is Cotys, brother of Mithridates Bosoporus and grandson of Cotys VIII. Claudius installed Mithridates as king, but replaced him with Cotys

c03_Vol1.indd 309

309

in 45 ce (A. 12.15, 18). He ruled until 63 ce when he was deposed by Nero. see also: Bithynia Pontus; Caligula; Iulius Aquila; Polemo; Thrace Reference works: PIR2 C 1554; 1555; 1556 Agora XV = Meritt, B.D., Traill, J. The Athenian Councillors. (The Athenian Agora, Vol. 15). Princeton 1974. IAegThr. = Inscriptiones antiquae partis Thraciae quae ad ora maris Aegaei sita est (praefecturae Xanthes, Rhodopes et Hebri), ed. Louisa D. Loukopoulou, Maria Gabriella Parissaki, Selene Psoma, Antigone Zournatzi. Athens 2005. IScM III = Inscriptiones Scythiae Minoris graecae et latinae III. Callatis et territorium, ed. A. Avram. Bucharest 2000. REFERENCES Archibald, Z. H. 1998. The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace: Orpheus Unmasked. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Clinton, K., and N. Dimitrova. 2016. “The Last Thracian Kings: New Evidence.” In Studia classica Serdicensia, 5 (Monuments and Texts in Antiquity and Beyond. Essays for the Centenary of Georgi Mihailov, 1915–1991), 85–100. Sofia: St. Kliment Ohridski University Press. Danov, Chr. 1979. “Die Thraker auf dem Ostbalkan von der hellenistischen Zeit bis zur Gründung Konstantinopels.” ANRW II 7.1: 21–185. Delev, P. 2015a. “Thrace from the Assassination of Kotys I to Koroupedion (360–281 bce).” In A Companion to Ancient Thrace, edited by J. Valeva, E. Nankov, and D. Graninger, 48–58. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Delev, P. 2015b. “From Koroupedion to the Beginning of the Third Mithridatic War (281–73 bce).” In A Companion to Ancient Thrace, edited by J. Valeva, E. Nankov, and D. Graninger, 58–74. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Fol, A. 1975. Thrace and the Balkans in the Early Hellenistic Period. Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo (in Bulgarian =Тракия и Балканите през ранноелинистическата епоха. София: Наука и изкуство). Graninger, D. 2012. “Documentary Contexts for the ‘Pistiros Inscription.’” Electrum 19: 99–110. Lozanov, I. 2015. “Roman Thrace.” In A Companion to Ancient Thrace, edited by J. Valeva, E. Nankov, and D. Graninger, 75–90. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.

28-04-2023 17:44:52

310

  C remona

Lozanov, I. 2017. “The Coins with Legends ΟΔΡΟΣΩΝ: A Reappraisal.” (in Bulgarian with an English summary). In ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΟΣ in honour of Prof. Peter Delev, edited by H. Popov and J. Tzvetkova, 523–535. Sofia: National Institute of Archaeology with Museum. Nigdelis, P. 2017. “A Honorific Inscription from Amphipolis for the Sappaean King Sextus Iulius Cotys.” Tyche 32: 139–149, Taf. 21–22. Peter, U. 1997. Die Münzen der thrakischen Dynasten (5.–3. Jahrhundert v. Chr.). Hintergründe ihrer Prägung. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Raggi, A. 2010. “The First Roman Citizens among Eastern Dynasts and Kings.” In Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East, edited by T. Kaiser and M. Facella, 81–97. Stuttgart: F. Steiner. Saprykin, S. Yu. 2002. The Kingdom of Bosporus on the Verge of Two Epochs. Moscow: Nauka (in Russian = Боспорское царство на рубеже двух эпох. Москва: Наука). Sullivan, R. D. 1979. “Thrace in the Eastern Dynastic Network.” ANRW II 7.1: 186–211. Sullivan, R. D. 1990. Near East Royalty and Rome, 100–30 bc (Phoenix Suppl. Vol. 24.). Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press. Tačeva, M. 1995. “The Last Thracian Independent Dynasty of the Rhascuporids.” In Studia in honorem Georgii Mihailov, edited by Aleksander Fol, 459–469. Sofia: Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” Institute of Thracology. Youroukova, Y. 1976. “Coins of the Ancient Thracians.” BAR Suppl. Ser. 4, Oxford. Youroukova, Y. 1992. Coin Hoards from Bulgarian Lands. Vol. 1. Coins of the Thracian Tribes and Rulers. Sofia: Peter Beron Publ. House (in Bulgarian = Юрукова, Й. Монетни съкровища от българските земи. Т. I. Монетите на тракийските племена и владетели. София: Изд. „Петър Берон.”) Zahrnt, M. 2015. “Early History of Thrace to the Murder of Kotys I (360 bce).” In A Companion to Ancient Thrace, edited by J. Valeva, E. Nankov, and D. Graninger, 35–47. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. FURTHER READING Detschew, D. 1957. Die thrakischen Sprachreste. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Schriften der Balkan-kommission, linguistische Abteilung 14. Wien: R. M. Rohrer.

CRASSUS SCRIBONIANUS, see CALPURNIUS PISO FRUGI LICINIANUS

c03_Vol1.indd 310

CREMONA ELENI HALL MANOLARAKI

University of South Florida

Cremona is a city on the north bank of the Padus River, about 75 km southeast of Mediolanum (modern Milan). The area was originally inhabited by tribes from Gaul, and the name Cremona is associated with the Cenomani people (Plin. HN 3.130). It was settled by Romans in 219 bce as an outpost to monitor Hannibal’s invasion of Italy and his alliance with Cisalpine Gaul (Tozzi 2004). During the Second Punic War Cremona gained strategic significance. After the battle of Trebbia in December 218 bce, the defeated army of Publius Cornelius Scipio (1) (consul with Tiberius Sempronius Longus, both mentioned only at H. 3.34) recuperated there and at nearby Placentia (Livy 21.56; App. 7.7). Despite Hannibal’s attacks, and unlike other Italian communities under the same duress, Cremona remained loyal to Rome (Livy 27.10; Sil. Pun. 8.592; Plin. HN 7.105). Many of its settlers sought refuge in Latium, but they were forced to return together with new colonists (Polyb. 3.40, Livy 28.11, 31.10, 37.46). Due to its proximity to the Via Postumia (eastwest), to the Via Flaminia (north-south), and to the navigable Padus, Cremona developed into an important regional center by the mid-first century bce. The civil wars of the Late Republic, however, took their toll across Italy. Because the Cremonese sided with Iulius Caesar’s assassins, Marcus Iunius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, they were punished by Caesar’s adopted son Octavian: after his victory at Philippi, the future Augustus seized their land for his veterans. Vergil decries these confiscations in his Eclogues. His grief for the dispossessed farmers of his hometown Mantua, “too near ill-fated Cremona” (Ecl. 9.28), was remembered as one of his best lines (Mart. 8.55.7; Macr. Sat. 4.18). The city seems to have recovered under the JulioClaudian dynasty. The geographer Strabo, a contemporary of Tiberius, lists Cremona among the chief cities in northern Italy. Cremona was destroyed during the civil wars of 69 ce, but it was later rebuilt under the auspices of Vespasian (H. 3.34).

28-04-2023 17:44:52

C rem u ti u s C ord u s  

Plutarch, Suetonius, Josephus, and Cassius Dio use Cremona as shorthand for two battles in the civil wars of 69 ce; the battle of Otho’s praetorians against Vitellius’ legions in April, and between the latter and the army supporting Vespasian in October. Since in fact both battles took place on the Via Postumia between Bedriacum and Cremona, they are known respectively as Cremona/Bedriacum I and Cremona/Bedriacum II (Corsano 1991). In the Histories, however, Cremona is more than a topographical marker. Instead, it emblematizes the vicissitudes of the rival armies, it parses collective and individual motivations and allegiances, it exposes the situational morality of civilians trapped in war, and it measures the collateral damages of Rome’s dynastic instability. For instance, Tacitus criticizes the Cremonese celebrations for Vitellius, namely a gladiatorial games and orientalizing rituals on the battlefield of Bedriacum (H. 2.68, 2.70). Additionally, in the Histories Cremona evokes and reverses its fortune in the Second Punic War. Tacitus presents the march on Italy by Vespasian’s Danube legions as an echo of Hannibal’s invasion, and he anchors themes of loyalty and betrayal around Cremona. The two Vitellian legions dispatched to secure the city are shocked to discover their commander Caecina Alienus delivering them to Vespasian’s side at nearby Hostilia; demoralized, they head for Cremona but they are intercepted and defeated at Bedriacum by Antonius Primus; when they retreat to Cremona, the pursuing Flavians assault its walls; despite the Vitellians’ swift surrender, Primus never explicitly forbids harming the city; his nonchalance emboldens his soldiers to pillage and burn it (Blonski 2017). Tacitus memorializes Cremona with an obituary, reviewing its history and contrasting its survival of foreign wars to its obliteration by civil strife (H. 3.34). With a similar tribute, he commemorates the ruined temple of Jupiter on the Capitolium, destroyed by warring factions a few weeks later (H. 3.72). Cremona and this temple resemble other nonhuman casualties in Tacitus, where despoiled natural and artificial structures stand as mute witnesses of human violence (Keitel 2010).

c03_Vol1.indd 311

311

see also: Alps; digression; intertextuality; narrative; Roman roads; topography of Rome Reference work: Barrington 39 G3 REFERENCES Blonski, Michel. 2017. “Antonius Primus et le sang aux bains (Tacite, Histoires, 3.32).” In L’ Antiquité écarlate. Le sang des anciens, edited by Lydie Bodiou and Véronique Mehl, 251–260. Rennes, France: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Corsano, Marinella. 1991. “Le fonti antiche.” In Calvatone romana. Studi e ricerche preliminari, edited by Guliana Facchini, 51–60. Milan: Cisalpino. Keitel, Elizabeth. 2010. “The Art of Losing: Tacitus and the Disaster Narrative.” In Ancient Historiography and Its Contexts, edited by Christine S. Kraus, John Marincola, and Christopher Pelling, 331–352. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tozzi, Pierluigi. 2004. “Le origini delle colonie di Cremona e di Piacenza.” In Artissimum memoriae vinculum. Scritti di geografia storica e di antichità in ricordo di Gioia Conta, edited by Umberto Laffi et al., 409–416. Florence, Italy: Leo S. Olschki.

CREMUTIUS CORDUS BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

Aulus Cremutius Cordo was a Roman historian of senatorial rank. He was the father of Marcia, the addressee of one of the consolations by Seneca. He wrote annales, in which he accounted for the transition from the republic to the principate. Except for few fragments, this work is now lost. We know from indirect sources that Cremutius’ annals glorified the republic and strongly opposed the JulioClaudian principate: Seneca, writing only a few years after Cremutius’ death, states that he proscribed forever those who would have proscribed him (Sen. Marc. 26.1); Quintilian records that in his days many admired Cremutius’ resolute freedom of speech (Quint. Inst. 10.1.104).

28-04-2023 17:44:52

312

  C rem u ti u s C ordu s

For his outspoken praise of the republic, in 25 ce Cremutius was tried under the law of maiestas. Our sources slightly disagree on who took on the prosecution: it was either Sejanus, according to Seneca (Sen. Marc. 26.1) and Cassius Dio (57.24.2–4), or two of Sejanus’ clientes, according to Tacitus (A. 4.34.1–2); Suetonius blames Tiberius directly for this trial (Suet. Tib. 61; Bono 2016, 220). According to Tacitus, Cremutius was subjected to charges until then unprecedented and unheard of: he was accused of praising Marcus Iunius Brutus and of labeling Gaius Cassius Longinus (1) as “the last of the Romans” (A. 4.34.1). Tacitus records the defense speech that Cremutius gave before Tiberius and the Senate, at a time when he was already sure of his impending conviction and, therefore, determined to die. Cremutius defended the historians’ right to preserve the memory of the past with absolute freedom and without being subjected to any consequences other than the criticism of their readers; he also maintained that his own punishment would not erase the memory of the past he had recorded: on the contrary, posterity would remember not only Brutus and Cassius, but also Cremutius himself (A. 4.35.3). In support of his claims, Cremutius recalled the cases of Livy, who praised Pompey the Great, Lucius Afranius and Cornelius Scipio Nasica (among others), without this prejudicing his friendship with Augustus; and of other historians who had praised Brutus and Cassius without facing any consequences (A. 4.35.3–5). Then, Cremutius left the Senate house and starved himself to death. Several scholars, however, read Cremutius’ speech as a literary creation by Tacitus: Seneca’s description of Cremutius’ death (Sen. Marc. 22.5–8), in fact, seems to imply that he decided to let himself die before the real trial began (Balbo 20072, xix–xx). Seneca also records a sharp criticism of Cremutius against Sejanus, which allegedly aroused the latter’s wrath: as Sejanus intended to have a statue of himself placed in the theater of Pompey, which Tiberius was rebuilding after a fire, Cremutius uttered that that would have been the real destruction of the theater (Sen. Marc. 22.4). At the end of the trial, the Senate decreed that all the copies of Cremutius’ annals be burnt. In

c03_Vol1.indd 312

reporting this decision, Tacitus derides the shortsightedness of those who believed that the present authority could quell the memories of future generations (A. 4.35.5): some of the copies of Cremutius’ work, in fact, were hidden and survived up to the times of Caligula, when they could be published again, perhaps along with other works previously censored (Suet. Calig. 16). Seneca the Younger states that Cremutius’ daughter Marcia was instrumental in saving her father’s work and republishing it (Sen. Marc. 1.2– 4). However, Quintilian openly states that Cremutius’ annals had been expurgated of the passages that had brought their author to his ruin (Quint. Inst. 10.1.104). We know from Seneca the Elder that Cremutius’ admiration for the republican past included Cicero, of whom he wrote a eulogy; however, Seneca does not quote it in full, as he believes that nothing in it was actually worthy of Cicero (Sen. Suas. 6.23). see also: Asinius Pollio (1); Cassius Severus; civil wars of Late Republic; memory; panegyric; Roman historians; Roman Republic Reference work: PIR2 C 1565 REFERENCES Balbo, Andrea. 20072. I frammenti degli oratori romani dell’età augustea e tiberiana. Parte seconda: età tiberiana. Tomo I. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Bono, Martina. 2016. “Il processo di Cremuzio Cordo in Dio LVII, 24, 2–4.” Archimède: archéologie et histoire ancienne 3: 218–227. FURTHER READING Rohmann, Dirk. 2013. “Book Burning as Conflict Management in the Roman Empire (213 bce–200 ce).” Ancient Society 43: 115–149. Marino, Rosalia. 2013. “Sul ‘processo’ a Cremuzio Cordo.” ὅρμος. Ricerche di storia antica 5: 44–52. Wisse, Jacob. 2013. “Remembering Cremutius Cordus: Tacitus on History, Tyranny and Memory.” Histos 7: 299–361.

CREPEREIUS GALLUS, see AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER CRESCENS, see FREEDMEN OF NERO

28-04-2023 17:44:52

cru cifi x ion  

CRETE PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Crete is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean, situated between Greece and Libya (Barrington 60 D2) The island was noted in antiquity for its political and constitutional sophistication from early in the archaic period. After the defeat of the pirates in the first century bce, Crete was incorporated into the Roman empire, and during the imperial period was a public province connected with Cyrenaica. The island appears eight times across Tacitus’ works in various contexts, pertaining to religion, law, diplomacy, and ethnographical excurses. Mount Ida, Crete’s tallest mountain (Barrington 60 C2; modern Psiloritis) appears at H. 5.2.1 as part of Tacitus’ excursus on the origins and history of the Jewish people. The first origin story included counts Crete as the original home of the Jews before their expulsion, with Mount Ida being a direct connection due to the similarities of the name: Idaei was later barbarized into Iudaei. Such a story shows Tacitus’ interest in antiquarian research and presenting competing genealogies (see Gruen 2016, 276, with citations). Tacitus includes Crete in his excursus on the origins of law in his discussion of the lex Papia Poppaea. The legendary archaic lawgiver and king Minos appears here, along with other archaic lawgivers, Solon and Lycurgus (1), pointing toward archaic Greek history and traditions of constitutions and law codes being derived from a charismatic law-giver (A. 3.26.3; cf. Arist. Pol. 2.10.1271b31–40). Historically, Crete had a tradition of inscribing law from the archaic period (Thomas 2005, 44). Along the same theme, in D. 40.3, it is mentioned that rhetoric did not flourish in Crete due to this strict legal tradition. At A. 3.63.4, in the diplomatic context of guaranteeing asylia for temples and sanctuaries in the Greek east in front of the Senate, Crete’s koinon requests asylum for their image of Augustus, and an interesting window on a wider world of the imperial cult and questions of asylum at imperial statues (cf. A.3.36.2–4).

c03_Vol1.indd 313

313

Crete also appears in legal disputes. At A. 3.38.1, Caesius Cordus, who was proconsul of Crete and Cyrenaica, is tried for extortion and maiestas; A. 4.21.3, Cassius Severus managed at first to be exiled to Crete, before ending up in Seriphos. A notable example appears at A. 15.20 when Thrasea Paetus speaks against excessive power and sycophancy of notable provincials and councils, due to Claudius Timarchus, a prominent Cretan whose power could withhold thanksgiving for the proconsul, fitting into a wider theme in Tacitus on the dynamics of power between the provinces, Rome, Senate and Emperor (Brunt 1961, 215–216). see also: Cyrene; Greek orators; Iudaea; Sparta Reference work: Barrington 60 D2; 60 C2 REFERENCES Brunt, Peter A. 1961. “Charges of Provincial Maladministration under the Early Principate.” Historia 10: 189–227. Gruen, Erich S. 2016. “Tacitus and the Defamation of the Jews.” In Constructs of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter: 265–282. Thomas, Rosalind. 2005. “Writing, Law, and Written Law.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law, edited by Michael Gagarin and David Cohen, 41–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Francis, Jane E., and Kouremenos, Anna, eds. 2016. Roman Crete: New Perspectives. Oxford and Havertown: Oxbow.

CRISPINA, see VINIUS, TITUS CRISPINUS, see FONTEIUS CAPITO

CRUCIFIXION JOHN GRANGER COOK

LaGrange College

The oldest manuscript of Tacitus states that Nero punished the Christians severely (A. 15.44.4):     “Outrages were perpetuated on the dying: covered

28-04-2023 17:44:53

314

  C u gerni

in the hides of wild beasts, they died mutilated by dogs; or fixed to crosses (they died); or (they died) being made flammable and burned for nocturnal illumination when daylight had faded” (for the editors’ many decisions, see Cook 2010, 69–70; Liebs 2012, 118). These three penalties (beasts, crucifixion, burning) correspond to penalties for arson that were used at different periods of the republic and empire (Dig. 47.9.9 = XII Tab. 8.10: immolation; Collatio 12.5.1: arson fell under the Cornelian law on assassins and poisoners, and persons of lower standing were thrown to the beasts; Collatio 1.2.2 and 8.4.2 include crucifixion and beasts among the penalties of the Cornelian law for persons of lower standing such as the Christians in Rome). Some editors reduce the penalties to two, so that those who were crucified were made flammable (crucibus adfixi ac flammandi, [atque]: Cook 2019, 191). Individuals who were crucified occasionally were subjected to the additional torture of being burned (Cook 2019, 379–382)—either before they were crucified or during the crucifixion itself. The tunica molesta (combustible torture shirt) could be used in such instances, and Tacitus’ flammandi (made flammable) may imply that Nero made use of such tunics (Cook 2019, 192, 380), either for the crucifixions or for the human torches. In classical texts, patibulum normally refers to the horizontal member of a cross (if such were used; see Cook 2019, 15–34). There is a “part for the whole” usage, however, in which patibulum refers to the entire cross (horizontal and vertical elements), and Tacitus uses the term with that meaning. In 15 ce, Germanicus discovered the area in the Teutoburg forest where three Roman legions fell to Arminius, leader of the Germanic tribes. Arminius subjected many of the captives to crucifixion (A. 1.61.4; patibula). The Frisii crucified some Roman soldiers who had been sent to supervise the tribute in 28 ce by nailing them to crosses (A. 4.72.3, patibulo adfixi). Boudicca, in 61 ce, executed thousands of Roman citizens on crosses with horizontal elements (A. 14.33.2; patibula) and crosses (cruces) made of vertical posts. Vitellius crucified a runaway slave named Geta (H. 2.72.2). Vespasian crucified (patibulo adfixus) an escaped slave whom Vitellius had made an

c03_Vol1.indd 314

equestrian for betraying Tarracina to his forces (H. 4.3.2). Vespasian also crucified a freedman of Vitellius named Asiaticus (1) whom he had also made an equestrian (H. 4.11.3; servili supplicio; see Cook 2019, 196, 358, and 498, s.v. “Tacitus”). see also: Christianity; Fire of 64 ce; manuscripts; Scribonianus Camerinus; torture; Vergilius Capito REFERENCES Cook, John Granger. 2010. Roman Attitudes toward the Christians: From Claudius to Hadrian. WUNT 261. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Cook, John Granger. 2019. Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World. 2nd ed. WUNT 327. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Liebs, Detlef. 2012. “They Hate Mankind.” In Summoned to Roman Courts, edited by Detlef Liebs, 114–124. Berkeley: University of California Press.

CRUPTORIX, see FRISII CTESIPHON, see PARTHIA

CUGERNI ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

The Cugerni (also Cuberni, Guberni, and Gugerni) was a Germanic tribe, probably a successor tribe of the Sugambri resettled on the western side of the Rhine (Rhenus) by Tiberius in 8–7 bce (Strabo 7.1.3, Suet. Aug. 21.1, Tib. 9.2; A. 12.39.2; cf. Galsterer 1999, 262). Pliny the Elder (HN 4.106) places them north of the Ubii and south of the Batavi, near the Roman legionary camp of Vetera and the later Colonia Ulpia Traiana (present-day Xanten in Nordrhein-Westfalen). Having participated on the side of the rebels during the Batavian Revolt of Iulius Civilis in 69–70 ce, the Cugerni subsequently disappear from the literary sources. Roman colonies were established in their lands in 50 and 98/99 ce. Epigraphic evidence from this period includes a mid-first century ce testamentary inscription

28-04-2023 17:44:53

C u riati u s M atern u s  

from Dalmatia of a Cugernian cavalryman (CIL 3.2712/9727), a 103 ce Britannic military diploma mentioning a cohors I Cugernorum (CIL 16.48), and two Pannonian military diplomas from 122 and 124 ce respectively attesting its renaming as cohors I Ulpia Traiana Cugernorum civium Romanorum (CIL 16.69, 70). From the second century onwards, with the replacement of tribal with civic identities, the demonym “Cugerni” is gradually superseded by “Traianenses.” The Cugerni appear twice in the Tacitean corpus, at H. 4.26 and 5.16–18. At H. 4.26, the Roman general Dillius Vocula seeks to improve the morale of his men by leading them to plunder the lands of the Cugerni, who had joined Iulius Civilis’ Batavian revolt. We hear nothing of the outcome. At H. 5.16–18, the Cugerni take part in a pitched battle between Civilis and the Roman general Petilius Cerialis. Deployed on the right flank, the Cugerni are caught off-guard when a Roman cavalry unit attacks from the rear and routs Civilis’ army. Nothing more is heard of the Cugerni with the text of Histories breaking off at 5.26. Reference work: Barrington 11 G1 REFERENCE Galsterer, Hartmut. 1999. “Kolonisation im Rheinland.” In Cités, Municipes, Colonies: Les processus de municipalisation en Gaule et en Germanie sous le Haut Empire romain, edited by Monique Dondin-Payre and Marie-Thérèse Raepsaet-Charlier, 251–269. Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne.

FURTHER READING Heinrichs, Johannes. 2001. “Römische Perfidie und germanischer Edelmut? Zur Umsiedlung protocubernischer Gruppen in den Raum Xanten 8 v. chr.” In Germania Inferior: Besiedlung, Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft an der Grenze der römisch-germanischen Welt, edited by Thomas Grünewald, 54–92. Berlin: de Gruyter.

CUMAE, see CAMPANIA

c03_Vol1.indd 315

315

CURIATIUS MATERNUS CHENXI ZHANG

Amherst College CHRISTOPHER S. VAN DEN BERG

Amherst College

Curiatius Maternus (praenomen unknown) was a Roman senator, orator, and dramatist, who appears as one of three interlocutors in Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus. He precipitated the downfall of Vatinius, a favorite of Nero (D. 11.2). Among his dramas are two tragedies featuring Roman figures, Domitius (D. 3.4), and Cato (D. 2.1) and two tragedies based on Greek drama, Medea (D. 3.4), and Thyestes (D. 3.3). None survives. Cato was publicly recited the day before the dialogue’s discussion. Maternus defends poetry against oratory (D. 11.1–13.6) and argues that eloquence has declined due to present political circumstances (D. 36.1–41.5). Speculation about further biographical details depends on interpretation of the dialogue and of its historical context. Two known historical figures might be identified with Tacitus’ Maternus. Marcus Cornelius Nigrinus Curiatius Maternus is known through inscriptions to be a Flavian consul and governor of Moesia and Syria (Barnes 1981). This identification is not widely accepted, though potential links between the two have been noted (Alföldy and Halfmann 1973). The second candidate, Maternus the rhetorician or sophist (σοφιστής), was executed by Domitian in 91 for declaiming against the tyrants (Cass. Dio 67.12.5). Again, doubts persist. Stroux (1931) argues that the designation of Tacitus’ Maternus as a declaiming sophist is unfit; Cameron (1967), based on a common dialogue motif, the imminent death of a significant interlocutor, argues that Maternus probably died soon after the dramatic date of the dialogue (c. 75 ce), whereas Dio’s Maternus died in 91. No compelling evidence links Tacitus’ Maternus to the others. Also noteworthy is the fact that it is quite possible, even likely, that none of the interlocutors were alive long after the setting of the Dialogus: Marcus Aper and Vipstanus Messalla leave no record of a further career; Iulius Secundus, though only a minor character also died young;

28-04-2023 17:44:53

316

  C u rtisi u s

only the dedicatee, Lucius Fabius Iustus and Tacitus himself outlived the Flavian dynasty. Maternus twice speaks at length at length (D. 11.1–13.6, 36.1–41.5). He responds to Marcus Aper’s first speech and defends poetry against oratory. The greed and violence of contemporary oratory are rejected, while poetry, a purer source of eloquence, fosters tranquility and secures renown (D. 11.1–13.6). Maternus frequently cites Augustan poets: Vergil (D. 12.5–13.2, 13.5), Ovid (D. 12.5), and Varius Rufus (D. 12.5). Upon Messalla’s arrival, Maternus asks him to explain oratory’s decline (D. 16.3). Maternus ends the dialogue with his own explanation. Political instability once motivated citizens to achieve influence through public speaking. Only large venues and enthusiastic crowds properly exercise oratorical skills (D. 11.1–13.6). An abiding controversy of the dialogue is the extent to which Maternus’ praise of the princeps in his second speech may conflict with his writing of political tragedies such as Cato and with his earlier activity in bringing down Vatinius, a scurra (“jester”) favored by Nero (Bartsch 1994, 88–125; Gallia 2009; van den Berg 2014, 139–164). How Maternus attacked Vatinius is disputed (“I broke Vatinius’ wicked power, which was defiling even the sanctity of literature,” improbam et studiorum quoque sacra profanantem Vatinii potentiam fregi, D. 11.2); some have thought in a speech (Mayer 2001, 122; Stroux 1931), others in a dramatic recitation (Kragelund 2015; Levene 2004, 169–170). At issue is the precise political nature of Maternus’ tragedies. Although Maternus claims to prefer poetic retreat to the busy and bloodthirsty life of a legal advocate (D. 12.1–2), his recitation of Cato allegedly offended the powerful (D. 2.1). Iulius Secundus’ concerns about the danger Maternus might incur are met with avowed persistence (D. 3.1–3).

Barnes, Timothy D. 1981. “Curiatius Maternus.” Hermes 109: 382–384. Bartsch, Shadi. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cameron, Alan. 1967. “Tacitus and the Date of Curiatius Maternus’ Death.” Classical Review 17: 258–261. Gallia, Andrew. 2009. “Potentes and Potentia in Tacitus’s Dialogus de oratoribus.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 139: 169–206. DOI: 10.1353/apa.0.0020. Kragelund, Patrick. 2015. Roman Historical Drama: The Octavia in Antiquity and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 100–126. Levene, David S. 2004. “Tacitus’ Dialogus as Literary History.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 134: 157–200. DOI: 10.1353/ apa.2004.0005. Mayer, Roland, ed. 2001. Dialogus de oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stroux, Johannes. 1931. “Vier Zeugnisse zur römischen Literaturgeschichte der Kaiserzeit. I: Maternus, Redner und Dichter.” Philologus 86: 338–439. van den Berg, Christopher S. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus: Aesthetics and Empire in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

FURTHER READING Gowers, Emily. 2016. “Noises Off: The Thyestes Theme in Tacitus’ Dialogus.” In Trends in Classics: Roman Drama, edited by Stavros Frangoulidis and Antonios Rengakos, 555–572. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kragelund, Patrick. 2012. “Tacitus, Dio and the ‘Sophist’ Maternus.” Historia 61: 495–506.

CURTILIUS MANCIA, see DUBIUS AVITUS

see also: declamation; irony; Roman poets Reference works: PIR2 C 1407, 1604, M 360; CIL II 3783, 6013

CURTISIUS OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius REFERENCES Alföldy, Géza, and Helmut Halfmann. 1973. “M. Cornelius Nigrinus Curiatius Maternus, General Domitians und Rivale Trajans.” Chiron 3: 331–373.

c03_Vol1.indd 316

Titus Curtisius (sometime corrected Curtilius; cf. Syme 1949, 12) is a former soldier in the praetorian cohorts. In 24 ce, he organized a slave

28-04-2023 17:44:53

317

C u rtisi u s  

insurrection near Brundisium (Apulia), an area in which the latifundia were numerous. The unexpected arrival of three biremes belonging to the fleet at Ravenna allowed Cutius Lupus (otherwise unknown), the quaestor who had the responsibility for administering mountain pastures, to break up the sedition in its beginnings. For his part, Tiberius dispatched the tribune of the guard Staius (otherwise unknown) with a strong detachment of praetorians. Curtisius and his most resolute followers were captured and taken to Rome (A. 4.27). It is possible that Curtisius was publicly executed. Some historical aspects of the event have been discussed. Moderns questioned in particular the presence of biremes near Brundisium, the use of marines for land operations, the pasture administration in the southeastern Italy, the role of shepherds as troublemakers (cf. Suet., Iul. 42.1), and a hypothetical permanent installation of praetorian troops in the area of Brundisium (this hypothesis remains uncertain; cf. Redaelli 2013/2014, 46). Moreover, this episode can be related to two others: in 54 ce, Domitia Lepida was condemned on the charge that her slaves in Calabria were disturbing the peace of Italy (A. 12.65.1); in 58 ce Gaius Cassius Longinus (2) had the support of the Praetorian Guard to restore peace when there were disorders in Puteoli (A. 13.48). The tale concerning Curtisius occurs only in Tacitus. The historian might have found the information in the acta senatus. He may have exaggerated an event that would have been local in its significance. This raises questions about the meaning of the passage. In regard to the composition, the episode is introduced by an annalistic phrase (eadem aestate) and is inserted into the narrative of the year 24 ce (A. 4.17–33), which is constructed according to a traditional annalistic scheme: internal affairs (17–22), external affairs (23–26), internal affairs (27–33). The episode is in between external and internal affairs, since, being started in Italy, it takes the reader back to the Vrbs, where Curtisius is led. By the end of the episode there is also a Sallustian echo (gliscebat immensum; cf. Sall., H. 3.56 M: immensum aucto mari et uento gliscente). The subject of the chapter itself reinforces this republican color; a slave war recalls the war led by Spartacus, which was continuing

c03_Vol1.indd 317

to press the Romans (cf. A. 15.46). Moreover, the shadow of Spartacus has been mentioned in Book 3 about Tacfarinas (A. 3.73.2), whose death is precisely reported before the episode about Curtisius. Thus, Curtisius prolongs somehow a danger that could have been removed with the end of the revolt in Africa. Thematically, the passage fulfills at least three functions. Firstly, it is placed among various events which, between the contrast of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4) with Lucius Calpurnius Piso (“augur”) (A. 4.20–21) and the digression on the disadvantages of writing imperial history (A. 4.32–33), illustrate the clash of freedom and servitude. Secondly, it contributes to a somewhat mitigated perception of Tiberius’ action. Indeed, the emperor seems under the circumstances to have had a prompt and effective reaction, and he may have emphasized this point himself; it has been suggested that an inscription in which Tiberius is named conseruator patriae (CIL 3872 = ILS 159) alluded to the incident (Marangio 1992); Tacitus, however, minimizes this aspect by insisting on the chance that, through the arrival of the biremes, made it possible to put an end to Curtisius’ attempt (A. 4.27.1: fors; uelut munere deum). Thirdly, Tacitus maintains the idea of an atmosphere of anxiety in Rome by reporting that the Romans were anxious because of the large number of slave households there. This number had increased since the time of Augustus, due to various revolts (Thrace, Gaul, Africa) which had resulted in many prisoners sent to Rome. see also: annales; slaves Reference works: PIR2 C 1606; RE IV, 1901:1863 REFERENCES Marangio, Cesare. 1992. “Tacito (Annales IV.27) e la cronologia di un dedica onoraria per l’imperatore Tiberio.” Studi di Filologia e Letteratura 2: 93–98. Redaelli, Davide. 2013/2014. I veterani delle milizie urbane in Italia e nelle province de lingua latina. Indagine storico-epigrafica. Tesi di dottorato: Università degli studi di Trieste. Syme, Ronald. 1949. “Personal Names in Tacitus.” Journal of Roman Studies 39: 6–18.

28-04-2023 17:44:53

318

  C u rti u s Attic u s

FURTHER READING Grünewald, Thomas. 2004. Bandits in the Roman Empire. Myth and Reality. Translated by John Drinkwalter. London and New York: Routledge (first edition: Mainz 1999).

CURTIUS ATTICUS MICHAEL L. KONIECZNY

Curtius Atticus was a member of the equestrian class and an intimate associate of the emperor Tiberius. He was one of a small group of people who accompanied the emperor on his permanent withdrawal from the city of Rome in 26 ce (A. 4.58.1). Nothing is known of Atticus’ family or of his career before Tiberius’ retirement to Capri. He died some time before 31 ce after falling prey to the joint machinations of Sejanus and the otherwise unknown Iulius Marinus (A. 6.10.2). The details of this conspiracy were likely recounted by Tacitus in the lost portions of Book 5 of the Annals. see also: equestrians Reference work: PIR2 C 1609 FURTHER READING Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. - 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. 271.

CURTIUS MONTANUS JAMES MCNAMARA

Universität Potsdam

The name Curtius Montanus appears in two Tacitean episodes: during senatorial debate after the Flavian victory of 69 ce (H. 4.40, 42–43) and in 66 ce during the extended aftermath of the Pisonian conspiracy (A. 16.28–29, 33). It may be that these are two different men.

c03_Vol1.indd 318

In Annals 16, Eprius Marcellus names Curtius Montanus during the prosecution of Thrasea Paetus (A. 16.28.1) along with Paetus’ son-in-law Helvidius Priscus and Paconius Agrippinus; all three are implicated as lesser accomplices in a treason charge. Tacitus suggests sympathy in the Senate for all the accused; in Montanus’ case, for his youth and the suspicion that his poetic talent was the true cause of imperial displeasure (A. 16.29.2). While Thrasea is sentenced to death, and Helvidius and Paconius exiled, Montanus is given a reprieve for his father’s sake on the condition that he remove himself from politics (A. 16.33.2). In Histories 4, Curtius Montanus first appears in the Senate, during the voting of honors to Galba. He proposes that official honors also be paid to the memory of Galba’s chosen successor Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus. The proposal is never enacted (H. 4.40.1). The same Montanus is given the longest senatorial speech of the extant Histories (H. 42.2–6), a call to prosecute Aquilius Regulus, which is fruitless owing to the personal intervention of Vipstanus Messalla, a young man of integrity and the stepbrother of Regulus, who wins admiration and blocks Montanus’ intentions with his display of pietas (H. 4.42.1). Montanus inspires the newly restored Helvidius Priscus (see above) to pursue vengeance against Eprius Marcellus, although the Senate’s enthusiasm is again frustrated (H. 4.43.1–2). Nothing more is known for certain about Curtius Montanus. The authoritative bearing of the senator in Histories 4 throws doubt on identification with the young man recently banned from politics; it may be that the father named at A. 16.33.2 is Regulus’ antagonist (RE IV.2 1867.67 ff., contra PIR2 1615 and 1616). A certain Montanus is the addressee of Pliny Ep. 7.29 and 8.6 and could be identified with Montanus the son (Birley 2000, 74). Sherwin-White (1966, 438, 453) and Syme (1968, 150) propose identifying Pliny’s addressee with other attested consulares. Some have identified the father at A. 16.33.2 with the Montanus at Juv. 4.107, 131–143: a counselor to Domitian, gourmand, and companion in Nero’s dissolution. This sketch of a dissolute character contrasts with the speaker of Histories 4. The speech (H.

28-04-2023 17:44:53

C u rti u s Ru f u s  

4.42.2–6) is remarkable as vivid invective cast in rhythmic Ciceronian periods and has been read as a tribute to the self-confessed Ciceronian Pliny the Younger (Martin 1967; Whitton 2012, 360). Scholars have variously interpreted its call for revenge as praiseworthy and dangerous. see also: Cicero; clausulae; delators; maiestas Reference works: PIR2 C 1615, 1616; RE IV.2 1867.67–1868.24 REFERENCES Birley, Anthony. 2000. Onomasticon to the Younger Pliny: Letters and Panegyric. Munich: K.G. Saur. DOI: 10.1515/9783110958287. Martin, Ronald. 1967. “The Speech of Curtius Montanus. Tacitus, Histories iv, 42.” Journal of Roman Studies 57: 109–114. DOI: 10.2307/299348. Sherwin-White, A. N. 1966. The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1968. “People in Pliny.” Journal of Roman Studies 58.1–2: 135–151. DOI: 10.2307/299703. Whitton, Christopher. 2012. “Let Us Tread Our Path Together: Tacitus and the Younger Pliny.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Pagán, 345–368. Chichester and Malden MA: Wiley Blackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781444354188.ch17.

CURTIUS RUFUS ANTONINO PITTÀ

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan)

Curtius Rufus (d. 53 ce) was a homo novus of very humble birth: Tacitus is quite embarrassed about Curtius’ origin and quotes the rumor that his father was a gladiator. Based on epigraphic sources, it has been suggested that his family came from Provence (Salviat 1986). With the support of influent protectors and his intelligent resourcefulness, he was elected as a questor and won the esteem of the emperor Tiberius, who supported his candidacy to the praetorship against noble competitors and used to say that “Curtius was born from himself ” (A. 11.21).

c03_Vol1.indd 319

319

His career grew under Claudius: in 43 ce he was suffect consul (Gallivan 1978). According to Tacitus, Curtius Rufus showed a bold and arrogant attitude in holding magistracies, mixed with flattery toward his superiors. In 46–47 ce, he was based in Germania Superior as imperial legate. He obtained the triumphal honors for overseeing some operations in search for silver mines. However, his efforts yielded few results; moreover, the soldiers complained about the excessive labor and addressed a plea to the emperor (A. 11.20). Both Tacitus and Pliny the Younger (Ep. 7.27.2–3) report a curious story about his vocation to politics. When he was an orderly to the quaestor in Adrumetum, the vision of a woman of greater size than normal, who styled herself as the Africa, appeared to him and foretold that after a wonderful career Curtius would come back to the same city as proconsul. The prophecy was fulfilled: when he was an old man, he attained the governorship in Africa (approximately 53 ce). Furthermore, a new vision announced Curtius’ death by illness during his office. There is no positive evidence for identifying him with the Quintus Curtius Rufus transmitted as the author of the History of Alexander the Great, about whom nothing more is known. The same dating of the work to the reign of Claudius, favored by scholarship, is uncertain: the hypothesis of a cryptic reference to the killing of Caligula at Curt. 10.9.4 (Huius … non solis ortus lucem caliganti reddidit mundo) seems unlikely on account of the prosodic difference between Călĭgula and cālīgo and considering that the emperor was normally quoted as Gaius by the contemporaries; on the other hand, the possibility that Seneca read Curtius’ work (Wiedemann 1870, 1872) is based on reversible arguments. A preface, in which the writer might have described his personality and career, was probably lost with the first two books, while the internal reference to recent or contemporary history are ambiguous. It can be only said that he wrote during the imperial age (Curt. 4.4.21 refers to the pax Augusta as a longa pax), immediately after a brief, but sharp period of civil wars (Curt. 10.9.3– 6), although the identity of the emperor praised for putting an end to the war remains elusive (the proposals range from Tiberius to Severus Alexander: Atkinson 1998, xi–xviii, 2009, 3; see also Baynham

28-04-2023 17:44:53

320

  C u rti u s Severu s

1998, 201–219). The explicit mention of turmoil troubling the whole Empire (too dramatic to describe the brief revolt of Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus in 42 ce), the image of an emperor arising from East to avert the crisis, and the emphasis on the need for an everlasting dynasty fit better with a reference to Vespasian than to Claudius (contra Hamilton 1988). This, of course, would undermine the identification with the Curtius mentioned by Tacitus. see also: portents Reference work: PIR2 C 1618 REFERENCES Atkinson, John E. 1998. Curzio Rufo. Storie di Alessandro Magno. Vol. I (Libri III–V). Milano: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla. Atkinson, John E. 2009. Curtius Rufus. Histories of Alexander the Great, Book 10. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baynham, Elizabeth. 1998. Alexander the Great. The Unique History of Quintus Curtius. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Gallivan, Paul A. 1978. “The Fasti for the Reign of Claudius.” Classical Quarterly 28: 407–425. Hamilton, John R. 1988. “The Date of Quintus Curtius Rufus.” Historia 37: 445–456. Salviat, François. 1986. “Quinte Curce, Les Insulae Furianae….” Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise 19: 101–116. Wiedemann, Theodor. 1870, 1872. “Über das Zeitalter des Geschichtschreibers Curtius Rufus.” Philologus 30: 241–264; 441–443; Philologus 31: 342–348; 551–562; 756–768.

CURTIUS SEVERUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

merchants on the coast. Finally, they threatened the city of Anemuria. This circumstance caused Roman intervention. Severus’ contingent was defeated since, as Tacitus says, the rugged landscape was more suitable for infantry tactics than cavalry ones (A. 12.55). In an inscription found at Apamea of Syria (Balty 2000, 459–468), Curtius Severus, officer of an unspecified ala, honors Ummidius Quadratus, his relative and governor of Syria (51–60 ce). The scholar who found the inscription questioned how was it possible that an officer who had been defeated on the field by a Cilician tribe could be allowed to raise a dedication in one of the most important locations of the city. Probably the dedication was made before the Cilician expedition, or maybe the family relations with the governor protected Severus’ reputation. It is also possible that Tacitus exaggerated Severus’ failure giving credit to sources openly against his protector Ummidius. Reference works: PIR2 C 1620; AE 2000, 1496 REFERENCE Balty, J. C. 2000. “Claudia Apamea: Données nouvelles sur la topographie et l’histoire d’Apamée.” Comptes Rendus / Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Paris: De Boccard: 459–481. FURTHER READING Dabrowa, E. 1998. The Governors of Roman Syria. From Augustus to Septimius Severus Bonn: Dr Rudolf Habelt. Devijver, H. 1976–2001. Prosopographia militarum equestrium quae fuerunt ab Augusto ad Gallienum. 6 vols. Leuven: Leuven University Press. C 261.

CUSUS, see DANUVIUS CUTIUS LUPUS, see CURTISIUS

Durham University

Gnaeus Curtius Severus was the commander of a cavalry unit, praefectus alae in 52 ce. He was sent from the province of Syria to Cilicia to quash the revolt of the Cietae, a local tribe of mountaineers. Under the leadership of Troxobor, the Cietae built a camp in the mountains and from there began to attack peasants, townspeople, and

c03_Vol1.indd 320

CYCLADES PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

The Cyclades are an archipelago in the southern Aegean, comprising over 200 islands and islets,

28-04-2023 17:44:53

321

C ypru s  

though according to Strabo, ancient geographers disagreed as to which islands were counted in the grouping (Barrington 57 D4; cf. Str. 10.5). Tacitus either refers to the islands as a group or mentions individual islands. Whereas other places in the Greek east are included in Tacitus with respect to his discussion of provincial and diplomatic matters (see Greece), the Cyclades are mostly cited as locations for exile for political dissidents from Rome. As argued by Drogula (2011), the islands were a distinct group from neighboring provinces and were arguably autonomous, thus directly under the jurisdiction of the emperor. Many were far from safe harbors on the mainland across often treacherous seas. Thus, the Cyclades were legally and geographically ideal as locations for exile. The Cyclades as a whole are mentioned twice in Tacitus’ corpus: The first appears as part of an itinerary (A. 2.55.3), in the narrative of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso’s attempt to shortcut and catch Germanicus in his ill-fated journey east; the second occurs at A. 5(6).10.1, where an imperial pretender posing as Drusus Caesar is spotted near the islands, prompting rumor to spread and sedition to foment enough to elicit a response from the governor of Moesia, Poppaeus Sabinus. Amorgus (Barrington 61 B4) is included twice as the place of exile of Vibius Serenus the Elder after his conviction de vi publica in 23 ce (A. 4.13.2) and brought back on the charges of maiestas in 24 ce (A. 4.28). Serenus convinced the Senate to send him back to Amorgus. Donusa is mentioned only once as another possible exile location for Serenus and is noted as lacking water (A. 4.30.1). Gyarus (Barrington 60 A4) appears in Tacitus as a particularly bleak island. It was mentioned in passing as a possible location for Serenus’ exile (A. 4.30.1). In the sentencing of Gaius Iunius Silanus (consul 10) for maiestas, Gyarus is suggested for his exile, though Tiberius called it “rough and without human habitation” (A. 3.68–9; immitem et sine cultu hominum esse) and sent him to Cythnus instead (Barrington 57 C4). This reputation is seen in other sources (RE Gyarus; cf. Plut. Mor. De exil. 602c.; Juv. 1,73; 10,170). During the civil wars of 69 ce, Cythnus is also the base

c03_Vol1.indd 321

of a false Nero who is defeated by Calpurnius Asprenas (H. 2.8–9). One extra mention should be made for Musonius Rufus, the stoic philosopher, who fell victim to exile at the end of the Pisonian Conspiracy. Tacitus includes mention of his exile (A. 15.71.4) alongside the exile of others (see Pisonian Conspiracy, Victims), permitted to go to “islands in the Aegean Sea.” However, according to Philostratus (VA.7.16.2), Musonius went to Gyarus. Seriphus (Barrington 57 C4) is also described bleakly: At A. 4.21.3 the orator Cassius Severus is sent into harsher exile on a “rock” (saxo Seripho) after having been on Crete, and at A. 2.85.3, Vistilia is sent to Seriphus after she registered as a prostitute to avoid a charge of adultery. Finally, Naxos is mentioned as the place of exile for Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2), but he remained in Italy (A. 16.9.1). Delos appears in reference to the Apollo at A. 3.61.1 (see Ephesus). see also: delators; senatus consultum de Pisone Reference work: Barrington 61 B4; 57 D4; 60 A4; 57 C4 REFERENCE Drogula, Fred K. 2011. “Controlling Travel: Deportation, Islands and the Regulation of Senatorial Mobility in the Augustan Principate.” Classical Quarterly 61: 230–266.

CYME, see EARTHQUAKE OF 17 ce

CYPRUS PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Cyprus, the third-largest island in the Mediterranean, is situated in the eastern Mediterranean, south of the coast of modern-day Turkey (Asia Minor) and west of Syria and Lebanon (Barrington 72 C2) and appears twice in Tacitus, in the context of provincial diplomacy and religion. A cultural melting-pot between east and west, Cyprus was a meeting point of many peoples and

28-04-2023 17:44:53

322

  C ythn u s

cultures. The island was annexed by Rome in 58 bce, and under the empire, Cyprus was a public province with its poleis organized into a koinon. This provincial council sent embassies to Rome on various diplomatic, administrative, and legal matters and organized the provincial imperial cult. In H. 2.2.2, in the context of the trip of the future emperor Titus to Iudaea to meet with his father Vespasian during the Jewish revolt of 66–67 (see Bellum Iudaicum), Tacitus shows his wider thematic interests in antiquarian research, ethnography, and foreign religious rites. He describes the Temple of Venus at Paphos in greater detail (for a comparison between H. and A., Shannon-Henderson 2019, 154–155), which lines up depictions on provincial coinage, with the temple and the aniconic statue of the goddess (Roman Provincial Coinage II 1809). Titus receives favorable oracle for future rule from the priest. At A. 3.62.4, Tacitus mentions three Cypriot shrines in the context of the embassies from the Greek east on the question of confirming the retention of asylum rights at temples and sanctuaries: the Temples of Venus at Paphos (Barrington 72 E2) and Amathus (Barrington 72 C3), and Jupiter at Salamis (Barrington 72 D2; see further Kantirea 2014, 421). see also: Greece; Paphian Venus, Temple of; portents Reference work: Barrington 72 C2; 72 C3; 72 D2; 72 E2 FURTHER READING Kantiréa, Maria. 2014. “Reconstituer l’histoire grecque sous l’Empire: à propos de l’asile au temps du Tibère A. 3. 60–64 and 4.14.1–2.” Latomus 73: 415–438. Shannon-Henderson, K. 2019. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CYRENE, see AFRICA CYRUS, see PERSIA

c03_Vol1.indd 322

CYTHNUS TREVOR S. LUKE

Florida State University

An island of the Western Cyclades having a surface area of 86 km2, ancient Cythnus had a capital city of the same name with a port. Its most noteworthy archaeological remains to date belong to a recently excavated archaic double temple. Although the island was sometimes paired with Siphnos as an example of political insignificance (Dem. 13.34; Plut. Mor. 863f), Cythnus fought on the side of the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis (Hdt. 7.90) and later belonged to the Delian League. In the Hellenistic Period, the island was a member of the Nesiotic League and remained strategically important into the second century bce. A mint operated there from the Late Hellenistic Period into the Early Empire (Papageorgiadou and Sheedy 1998). Tacitus reports two events that relate to the island. In 22 ce Tiberius exiled the proconsul of Asia, Gaius Iunius Silanus (consul 10 ce) there, after Silanus abandoned his own defense against charges of extortion and sacrilege to the divinity of Augustus (A. 3.69). The emperor deemed Silanus’ exile on Cythnus clemency in comparison with the original sentence, which had been banishment to the smaller Gyarus, proverbial for its miserable isolation (Plut. Mor. 602c). During the brief reign of Galba, an impostor pretending to be Nero was driven there by storm with his accomplices (including an otherwise unknown Sisenna) and engaged in piracy, until Calpurnius Asprenas, who was on his way to his governorship over Galatia and Pamphylia, trapped and killed him (H. 2.8–9). Reference work: Barrington 57 C4 REFERENCE Papageorgiadou, Charikleia, and Kenneth A. Sheedy. 1998. “The coinage of Kythnos.” In Kea-Kythnos: History and Archaeology: Proceedings of an International Symposium, Kea-Kythnos, 22–25 June 1994, edited by Lina G. Mendoni and Alexandros I. Mazarakis Ainian, 649–655. Paris: De Boccard.

28-04-2023 17:44:53

D DACIA STEPHEN CHAPPELL

James Madison University

Dacia was an Iron Age kingdom north of the river Danube (Danuvius) between the late second century bce and 106 ce. It was based principally in Transylvania and western Wallachia with the axis of power high in the Southern Carpathian Mountains between those two regions. It was the center of a strong state under kings and a warlike priestly aristocracy, the Pileati, and possessed strong stone-built fortresses in the Carpathians. The Dacians raided Roman territory from the reign of Augustus onward and fought major wars against both Domitian and Trajan. Trajan conquered Dacia in two wars and constituted it as a new province in 106 C.E. This province endured until the early 270s when the emperor Aurelian abandoned it in the face of repeated Gothic attacks. Dacia had been occupied first by Scythians (Scythia) from the seventh century bce and then by Celts from the third century, but then fell under the sway of the local Dacian peoples (MacKendrick 1975, 50; Pârvan 1928, 37, 39). These were the western branch of the Getae, who were themselves the northern branch of the populous Thracians (Strabo 7.3.12). Powerful citadels arose in the Southern Carpathians, most notably first at Costeşti and then at Sarmizegethusa Regia (Glodariu et al. 1996, 29). The first Dacian king to attract the attention of the sources was Burebista (ca. 84-44 bce) who conquered an empire which stretched from the Greek colonies in the Dobrogea

along most of the stretches of the river Danube to western Hungary. Strabo asserts that Burebista’s army could muster two hundred thousand troops (7.3.11, 13, 5.2). Iulius Caesar was said to have planned war against Dacia at the time of his assassination because of Burebista’s support of Pompey the Great (Strabo G. 7.3.5, Suet. Iul. 44.3, Aug. 8.2). The war was aborted by the deaths of both men. Burebista’s empire proved short-lived, breaking into four parts, and the Dacian state contracted to its heartland of Transylvania once again. Nonetheless, during the first century ce, the Dacians became an increasingly dangerous threat to the new Roman provinces south of the Danube. The Flavian reorganization of the northern frontier and its shift of legions from internal policing of provinces such as Dalmatia to frontier garrisons reflects this as does the transfer of legions from the Rhine (Rhenus) to the Danube frontier. There were Dacian attacks across the Danube under Augustus which he defeated (Suet. Aug. 22.1, Mon. Anc. 30). Augustus asserted that the Dacians had submitted to Rome, but his Res Gestae contained many such propagandistic distortions and Suetonius mentions only large casualties and the deaths in battle of three Dacian leaders. Strabo, writing in the reign of Augustus, contrasts the army of forty thousand that Dacia could levy in his day with Burebista’s much larger army (7.3.13). The Dacians ravaged Moesia in the reign of Tiberius (Suet. Tib. 41), but then remained quiescent until the civil wars of 69 ce. Tacitus mentions the Dacians relatively infrequently. He would have been well aware of Trajan’s

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume I, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c04_Vol1.indd 323

28-04-2023 17:47:20

324  

Dacia

conquest of Dacia in 106 ce and the significance of the threat they posed. His extant references were, in all likelihood, a foreshadowing of the greater events of the reigns of Domitian and Trajan. In the Germania, written before the conquest of Dacia, but after Domitian’s defeats, he implies Dacian military strength and success by stating that mountains and fear separated the Germans from the Dacians and Sarmatians (G. 1). A brief allusion in the Agricola (41) allows Tacitus to contrast Agricola’s military prowess with the cowardice and incompetence of other commanders and to criticize Domitian’s poor judgment and hypocrisy. He mentions defeats in Pannonia, Moesia, and Dacia. At the beginning of the Histories, he refers to their winning victories as well as suffering defeats (H. 1.2), but his brief allusions in extant books do not justify this comment. He almost certainly wrote at some length of Domitian’s largely unsuccessful Dacian War in the lost books of the Histories, especially given his extremely negative portrayal of Domitian in the Agricola. The Dacians raided into Moesia again in 69 ce and occupied both banks of the river Danube after the garrison was weakened to send troops to support the Flavian invasion of Italy against Vitellius. Tacitus uses the occasion to characterize the Dacians as untrustworthy (H. 3.46). A short while later a self-justifying missive of Antonius Primus to Vespasian refers to order being restored in Dacia (H. 3.53). Lastly, Tacitus alludes to a false rumor that Dacians and Sarmatians were attacking Roman bases in Pannonia and Moesia (H. 4.54). The overall picture is of a strong and warlike barbarian people who lacked Rome’s moderatio and fides. This was typical of Tacitus’ rather stereotyped and prejudicial view of non-Romans. Domitian’s war against king Decebalus of Dacia 85–89 ce survives in outline in the epitomes of Cassius Dio’s History (67.6–7, 10). The Dacians twice defeated the Romans, taking an eagle, and killed the Praetorian Prefect, Cornelius Fuscus. Domitian took personal command of the army but remained behind the lines. The Romans defeated Decebalus at Tapae but were unable to cripple the Dacians. In the face of attacks by the Quadi, Marcomanni and Iazyges in Pannonia, the emperor made peace with Decebalus, paying a

c04_Vol1.indd 324

subsidy and lending engineers for his construction in Sarmizegethusa Regia. Predictably, the senatorial sources portrayed this as a disgraceful capitulation and defeat (Cass. Dio 67.7). The reign of Decebalus was the apogee of the kingdom of Dacia. Roman engineers constructed stone fortifications in murus Dacicus. This style of military architecture was based on those of the Hellenistic period. It comprised two stone walls between which support beams and earth strengthened the whole structure and made it more resistant to bombardment by siege weapons (Glodariu et al. 1996, 53–55). The complex of six great citadels in the Southern Carpathians (Orăştie mountains) focused on the capital, Sarmizegethusa Regia (Grădiştea Muncelului). Further fortifications along the steep and difficult lines of approach extended down to the plains to create a formidable defensive complex. The combination of proto-urban settlements, terrain highly favorable for defense, and extensive stone fortifications made the kingdom of Dacia the most formidable enemy that the Romans faced in Iron Age Europe. Jordanes provides what little is known of Dacian society in his Getica. It was in fact represented as early Gothic history but conforms to details known from other literary sources about Dacia. The confusion perhaps arises from the Late Roman (and later Byzantine) tendency to use long obsolete ethnic terms to designate contemporary peoples. So, the Dacians were indeed Getae, but the term was appropriated for the Goths as was Dacian history. Jordanes gave a king list (Buruista = Burebista, Dicineus, Comosicus, Coryllus, Dorpaneus = Decebalus) and related some fanciful tales about philosophical teachings but was on more solid ground with his brief comments on social classes. He divided the Dacians into Nobles (Pileati), characterized by the wearing of the Phrygian Cap, and Commoners (Capillati). The kings chose the priests from the nobles (Getica 67–78). Archaeological evidence confirms this picture of a strong warrior and priestly aristocracy. Tower houses in the citadels which once were considered purely military are now deemed to have been inhabited and to be expressions of social status (Oltean 2007, 79–80, 116). Trajan’s column depicts Pileati as important figures, and many Dacian figures are depicted as long-haired

28-04-2023 17:47:20

Dacia  

(Capillati). The presence of stone temples in the Dacian citadels on sites of central importance supported by murus Dacicus underlines the prestige of the priesthood. The near total destruction of the Dacian aristocracy and their subsequent absence from the epigraphic record in imperial Dacia is unusual. The Romans tended to incorporate native elites wherever possible. But an analogy may clarify the reason for the discontinuity of the nobles between Iron Age and Imperial Dacia. Dacian resistance to the Romans was strong and determined. Its focus was the Carpathian citadels with their temples. The Romans encountered similar resistance in their conquest of Britannia from the Druids and were utterly ruthless in eradicating them and destroying their island stronghold at Mona (Anglesey or Ynys Môn). The kingdom of Dacia seems to have stretched from the Danube to the Southern Carpathians and beyond to encompass the whole of Transylvania. Archaeology has uncovered many small settlements both on the plains and in uplands. Some were nucleated, but many more were scattered (Oltean 2007, 64). They were principally farming communities or farmsteads. The Dacian economy was strong and varied. It encompassed agriculture, extractive industries, manufacturing, and trade. There was also considerable monetarization around the citadels. The economic importance of the citadels in all these spheres may indicate that the kings exercised notable economic as well as political control. Sarmizegethusa Regia had a mint for coins based on the model of the Roman republican denarius (Glodariu et al. 1996, 105). The citadels also included many imports and concentrations of locally produced metalwork. The distance of andesite and limestone quarries from the major settlements (Oltean 2007, 113, 101) presupposes the ability to levy and enforce considerable man hours of labor. Large granaries at the citadels might imply centralized control of cereal crops. Agriculture was the basis of the economy, but mining of gold, silver, copper, iron, and lead added to the wealth of the kingdoms and materials available to local craftsmen (Glodariu et al. 1996, 184– 186, 103, 139, 299; Oltean 2007, 97–98). Kilns with high quality wheel-made pottery and glassworks were present at Sarmizegethusa Regia (Glodariu et

c04_Vol1.indd 325

325

al. 1996, 105, 193, 200–201). All in all, the Dacian economy was relatively sophisticated, broadly construed, and concentrated hierarchically in a manner similar to society. Dacian religion is relatively obscure. While considerable archaeological remains are extant, little about practice is known. Herodotus mentions Zamolxis as the god of the Getae (H. 4.93– 96) and gives a euhemeristic origin as a learned slave belonging to Pythagoras. But this god, also sometimes called Gebeleisis, cannot certainly be identified with the temples in the Carpathian citadels. In the early empire, Strabo mentions a holy mountain, Kogaionon, which may well be Sarmizegethusa Regia (7.3.5). The springs at Germisara may have been a cultic center too (Oltean 2007, 110–111). There were eleven sanctuaries at Sarmizegethusa Regia, four at Coşteşti and one at Feţele Albe in the Southern Carpathians (Glodariu et al. 1996, 61–62, 109, 149). Their orientation corresponded to the equinoxes. But little else is discernible about cult practice. Nonetheless, the association of priesthoods with the king and aristocracy and the presence of so many stone temples in the citadels clearly indicates the importance of religion in Dacia. The emperor Trajan conquered the Dacian kingdom in two wars: the first (101–102) and second (105–106) Dacian Wars. In 101 ce, he attacked the Dacians because of their growing power, the Roman defeats under Domitian, and the large amount of Rome’s subsidy (Cass. Dio 68.6.1). Trajan was victorious at Tapae and then marched up into the Carpathians. There he captured Coşteşti and recovered the two eagles lost in the Domitianic War. Decebalus sent Pileati (pilophoroi) as envoys and agreed to a peace. The Roman terms were the return of the engineers and Roman deserters, the demolition of the Carpathian defenses, and to become a client kingdom (Cass. Dio 68.8–10.1). Peace soon broke down when Decebalus restored the fortifications of the Carpathians and behaved too independently of the Romans in foreign and military policy. Trajan declared war once again in 105 ce and led his forces personally. He caused Apollodorus of Damascus to build a stone bridge across the Danube at the later city of Drobeta. Dio describes the fighting as long and hard, but his epitomator gives no details. The citadels, including

28-04-2023 17:47:20

326  

Dacia

Sarmizegethusa Regia, were captured and destroyed. Decebalus fled but took poison before he could be captured (Cass. Dio 68.10.4–14). The war ended in the establishment of Dacia as a Roman province and the relocation of upland populations to the plateau of Transylvania. Some Dacians remained free beyond its borders, but most were now subjects of Rome. Imperial Dacia was the only province north of the Danube. It formed a salient into non-Roman territory, but also in combination with Pannonia and Moesia surrounded the territory of the Sarmatian Iazyges and Rhoxolani on three sides. Throughout its occupation by the Romans from 106 to the early 270s ce, it required a significant garrison and a senior administrator as governor, usually a senior senator. Imperial administration was well-developed from the beginning. In the reign of Hadrian (117–138) and Antoninus Pius (138–161) the province was divided into three ruled by equestrian procurators under a senatorial governor overall: Porolissensis in the north, Apulensis in the center, and Malvensis south of the Carpathians. Marcus Aurelius (161–180) abolished the lesser provinces and reunited Dacia under a senior senator based in Apulum. Under the governors, cities ruled their territoria and lesser officials, such as procurators, attended to important imperial concerns, such as the goldmines in west Dacia in the Apusenian mountains. Imperial freedmen and slaves served as the backbone of governance, assuming such roles as customs officers, as at Micia in the west and Porolissum in the north, and in clerical offices in the principal cities of Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegethusa and Apulum. The latter eclipsed the former both administratively and in size from the later second century ce. Dacia was strongly garrisoned. Initially, legion IV Flavia Felix served at Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegethusa but was soon transferred to Singidunum in Moesia under Hadrian. Legion XIII Gemina garrisoned Apulum in Central Dacia throughout the occupation of the province, and Marcus Aurelius restored the legionary garrison to two with the transfer of legion V Macedonica to Potaissa in Northern Dacia. The legions tended to act as central reserves while auxiliary regiments occupied camps on the periphery, as in Britannia. There were consequently rather more auxiliary

c04_Vol1.indd 326

soldiers (35,000) than legionaries (12,000; Wade 1969, 443). Imperial troops saw action during several invasions, most notably in the Marcomannic Wars under Marcus Aurelius and the rise of the Goths on the lower Danube from the mid third century. Auxiliaries would also have played a policing role against lesser raids and the bands of brigands (latrones) occasionally mentioned in inscriptions. The imperial garrison were very active in the epigraphic culture of the province though legionaries played a more frequent role than auxiliaries. The imperial government founded several new urban settlements in Dacia. Most were in previously unoccupied locations. The citadels in the Southern Carpathians were abandoned except for a garrison which was withdrawn a generation later. Trajan’s urban showcase for the province was Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegethusa which he founded as one of the last Classic coloniae in 108 ce The emperor appropriated the name of the Dacian capital, but stamped his own name on the city. The site was twenty-five miles northwest of Sarmizegethusa Regia in the Haţeg depression. It enjoyed more urban amenities than any other city in the province, including an amphitheater, a large forum, many temples, and an aqueduct. It was the center of the Imperial Cult and the seat of the Financial Procurator throughout imperial occupation (Oltean 2007, 165). The location in the Haţeg depression secured the vital Roman road from southern Dacia, bypassing the Southern Carpathians and leading to the Transylvanian plateau. Over time, the city was eclipsed by a second, Apulum, which was more central to Transylvania and more fertile (Oltean 2007, 176). Apulum comprised two settlements, the civilian colonia (Apulum I) and a later settlement which attained status as a municipium (Apulum II). These were physically separated by a cemetery. Apulum I had a governor’s palace and temples. Excavation is harder than in Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegethusa because the city lies under Alba Iulia, and so evidence is sparser. Apulum I (population 30,000–40,000) outgrew Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegethusa (population 15,000–20,000) in both size and importance over time. They were the foremost cities in Dacia and also the centers of the densest settlement of villages and Roman farms (villae rusticatae; Oltean

28-04-2023 17:47:20

Dacia  

2007, 175, 177–178). Other important cities included Potaissa (population 20,000–25,000), a legionary base in northern Dacia, and further north the civilian city of Napoca (population ca. 10,000). Romula and Drobeta were smaller coloniae in southern Dacia. Tibiscum (southwest), Dierna (southwest), Ampelum (west), and Porolissum (north), all municipia, complete the list of official settlements. The countryside also saw significant change. Firstly, there was a trend toward nucleation of settlements. Secondly, the preponderance of small settlements moved closer to the Roman road which followed the river Mureş. Whereas few settlements are known close to the river Mureş in Iron Age Dacia, they tended to cluster close to the river under the Romans. There were large numbers of villages in western and central Dacia. The twenty-eight or so villages in central Dacia were mixed between Roman and Dacian forms, but all had Roman material goods. There were also twenty-four villas in central Dacia, all but one in Roman context. Settlements closer to the main Roman road tended to be more Roman in form (Oltean 2007, 143, 94, 175, 144, 147, 122, 179). Settlements in eastern Dacia abutting the eastern Carpathians remained less densely settled and more Dacian in form though material culture was largely Roman. Epigraphic evidence is plentiful for imperial Dacia. High officials, the municipal elites, soldiers, veterans, imperial freedmen, and slaves were the most frequent dedicants. There is significantly less evidence for the free poor though collegia are attested. The imperial government directed very extensive immigration into the new province from throughout the empire (Eutr. 8.6). Dalmatian miners immediately settled and worked the western goldfields around Ampelum and Alburnus Maior. Colonists, including veterans, founded Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegethusa. Merchants from the eastern empire, including Galatians and Syrians, followed to exploit commercial possibilities. Urban society would have been diverse initially. The citizens of the two foremost cities, Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegethusa and Apulum I, enjoyed the greatest amenities and engaged with the epigraphic habit far more than those of other cities. Their municipal elites engaged in euergetism and both honoring and

c04_Vol1.indd 327

327

being honored as part of the patron-client system. Other cities show much less evidence of this, and the countryside almost none. There are no known examples of members of the Dacian elite being co-opted into the imperial elite. Dacians remained more detached from the new diverse culture than in most other western provinces except in the use of Roman material culture. Religion in the new province followed the pattern of social diversity. The most well-attested cults were those of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Mithras, Silvanus, and Aesculapius. Cults from Syria, Palmyra, Commagene, Egypt, and Anatolia mixed with Celtic, German, and African alongside the Classical Greco-Roman in the greater cities and the rural military camps. The Nymphs at the spa site of Germisara were probably Dacian in origin. There is little evidence for cultic practice in the countryside away from camps of auxiliary regiments. Acceptance of the new Roman practice of tombstones was general in the urban centers and marks a strong discontinuity from the Iron Age kingdom (Oltean 2007, 193–194). The economy of imperial Dacia was based on arable farming, mining, and quarrying, trade, and manufacturing. Integration into the wider imperial economy promoted greater trade. The presence of a large garrison stimulated more widespread monetarization of the economy and the develop of goods and services in canabae. The province was prosperous and productive and grew more so over time (Oltean 2007, 211). Gothic depredations in the mid third century reduced this and caused the imperial withdrawal from the province in the early 270s ce. see also: provinces; Thrace Reference work: Barrington 100 L2, 21 E4, 1 H1, 22 A2 REFERENCES Glodariu, Ioan, Eugen Iaroslavschi, Adriana RusuPescaru, and Florin Stanescu. 1996. Sarmizegethusa Regia: capitala Daciei preromane. Deva: Acta Musei Devensis. MacKendrick, Paul. 1975. The Dacian Stones Speak. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Oltean, Ioana. 2007. Dacia: Landscape, Colonisation, Romanisation. London and New York: Routledge.

28-04-2023 17:47:20

328  

Dahae

Pârvan, Vasile. 1928. Dacia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wade, Donald W. 1969. “The Roman Auxiliary Units and Camps in Dacia.” Ph.D. diss. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. FURTHER READING Ardevan, Radu. 1998. Viaţa Municipală in Dacia Romană. Timişoară: Editură Mirton. Chappell, L. S. 2010. “Auxiliary Regiments and New Cultural Formation in Imperial Dacia, 106–274 ce.” Classical World 104: 89–106. Găzdac, Cristian. 2002. Monetary Circulation in Dacia and the Provinces from the Middle and Lower Danube from Trajan to Constantine I (ad 106–337). Cluj-Napoca: Mega. Hanson, W. S., and I. P. Haynes. 2004. Roman Dacia: The Making of a Provincial Society. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 56. Wheeler, Everett L. 2010. “Rome’s Dacian Wars: Domitian, Trajan, and Strategy on the Danube, Part I.” The Journal of Military History 74: 1185–1227. Wheeler, Everett L. 2011. “Rome’s Dacian Wars: Domitian, Trajan, and Strategy on the Danube, Part II.” The Journal of Military History 75: 191–219.

DAHAE HAMISH CAMERON

Victoria University of Wellington

The Dahae (Dahae in Latin, Däae in Greek) were a people living to the southeast of the Caspian Sea for whom modern Dihistān is named. Strabo calls the Daai the most numerous group of Scythian peoples living near the Caspian Sea with the Massagetai and the Sakai living further east (11.8.2). Pliny the Elder lists the Dahae third among the Scythians, after the Massagetae and the Sacae (HN 6.50). Classical authors characterize them as nomadic: Strabo reports that almost all of these Scythians are nomadic (ἅπαντες δ᾽ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ νομάδες, 11.8.2) and relates a debate (11.9.3) about whether the Daoi had their origin around the Sea of Azov (Maiotis), while Pliny calls his entire list of Scythians a numerous and wandering people (innumeras vagasque gentes, HN 6.50). However, archaeological evidence for

c04_Vol1.indd 328

settled urbanization in southern and western Turkmenistan and a lack of evidence of nomadic invasions suggest that the Dahae may have been at least partially sedentary (Kohl 1984, 193–208; Pourshariati 2008, 23). Herodotus (1.125) lists the Daoi as a tribe of nomads (νομάδες) of secondary importance among the tribes of Persia in his account of the revolt of Cyrus II against Astyages in 550 bce. Xerxes I mentions the Daha among his subjects in his “Daiva inscription” at Persepolis (XPh, line 26). Daoi fought with the Bactrians in Darius III’s army at Gaugamela (Arr. An. 3.11.3; Curt. 4.12.6), with Spitamenes against the Macedonians, (Arr. An. 3.28.10; Curt. 7.7.32; 8.1,6; 8.3.1) and then with Alexander III in India (Arr. An. 5.12.2; Curt. 8.14.5, 9.2.24). Strabo divides the Daai into three sub-groups: (A)parnoi, Xanthioi, and Pissouroi (11.8.2), one of which, the (A)parnoi, accompanied Arsaces I when he seized Parthia from Seleucid rule in the mid-third century bce (11.9.2). The Parni thereafter appear in the historical record with the name Parthians. Daai appear in Antiochus III’s army at Raphia in 217 bce (Polyb. 5.79.3) and at Magnesia in 190 bce (Livy 37.38.3; 37.40.8; App. Syr. 32). The Dahae retained a close connection with the Arsacid house. Tacitus reports that Artabanus II (Arsacidarum e sanguine) was raised among the Dahae (A. 2.3). They (with the Hyrcani) were the major allies of Gotarzes in his civil war against Vardanes (A. 11.8). When Gotarzes renewed that war, he lost a battle on the Erindes river (perhaps the Babol River in western Hyrcania), and Vardanes pursued him as far as the boundary between the Dahae and the Arii at the Sindes river (A. 11.10). These were the people of Aria, a fertile region adjacent to Bactria, according to Strabo (11.10). Strabo reports that the Dahae crossed a great waterless desert to extract tribute from the people of the Hyrcanian, Parthian, and Nesaian plains (11.8.3). This is the Karakum desert, which Strabo also notes connected the territory of the Dahae with Hyrcania and Parthia and extended “as far as the Aroi” (Strabo 11.8.3). Thus, the Sindes river may mark the edge of Dahae territory, and thus the completion of Vardanes’ victory with the subjection of the Dahae to his rule. The Sindes may have been the Sarnios River that Strabo describes as

28-04-2023 17:47:20

Dalmatia  

separating Hyrcania from the desert (11.8.1; perhaps Pliny’s Zonus river, HN 6.36). Olbrycht identifies the Sarnios as the modern Atrak river (2010, 305), but the modern Tejen river is also a possibility for the Sarnios or the Sindes. see also: Arsacid dynasty; Bactria; Hyrcani; Magnetes; Scythia REFERENCES Kohl, Philip L. 1984. Central Asia, Palaeolithic Beginnings to the Iron Age = L’Asie Centrale des Origines à L’Age du Fer. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilisations. Olbrycht, Marek Jan. 2010. “Some Remarks on the Rivers of Central Asia in Antiquity.” In Gaudeamus Igitur: Studies to Honour the 60th Birthday of A.V. Podossinov, edited by T. N. Jackson, I. G. Konovalova, and G. R. Tsetskhladze, 302–309. Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences. Pourshariati, Parvaneh. 2008. Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran. London: I. B. Tauris.

DALMATIA STEPHEN CHAPPELL

James Madison University

Dalmatia was a Roman province established by Augustus which constituted the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It was divided between very numerous islands on the Adriatic coast, a relatively urban littoral, including some Greek colonies, and rural, tribal areas in the mountainous hinterland of the Dinaric Alps and beyond. In its first century, there was a substantial military garrison (A. 4.5), but this was reduced in the Flavian reorganization (Wilkes 1969, 80–81, 84, 97). Dalmatia grew more urbanized over time and was largely unaffected by war until the collapse of the northern frontier in Late Antiquity. Dalmatia was part of the wider region of Illyricum. The river Sava divided it from Pannonia. To the south its boundary was Epirus. Tacitus sometimes includes Moesia in this region too, as when he surveys the swearing of loyalty of

c04_Vol1.indd 329

329

the legions of the three provinces to Otho in the civil wars of 69 ce (H. 1.76). Pannonia and Moesia bounded Dalmatia to the north and east. The province took its name from the tribe of the Delmatae but was a Roman political construct. It included Celts, Greeks, Illyrians, and Thracians though Illyrians predominated (Wilkes 1969, esp. ch. 8). There were substantial Venetic, Greek, and Celtic cultural influences in various parts of the province. Tacitus, rather typically, was interested principally in Dalmatia only as it related to Roman military and dynastic matters. He relates almost nothing of the province outside this context. Its place in the famous survey of the empire at the beginning of book four of the Annals, showed the legions’ role as reserve for Pannonia and Moesia to the north and as an emergency reserve for Italy (A. 4.5). Dynastically, it was the setting for a visit of Germanicus to Drusus the Younger (A. 2.53). The revolt of the provincial governor, Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus, in 42 ce was a brief allusion in Claudius’ treatment of his son Scribonianus (A. 12.52). Otherwise, Tacitus’ references to Dalmatia relate exclusively to the campaigns of the Civil War of 69 ce. The legions of Dalmatia and Illyricum as a whole swore allegiance to Otho (H. 1.76) who summoned them to his aid against Vitellius (H. 2.11). Suetonius Paulinus refers to them as fresh troops to call upon before the battle of Bedriacum (H. 2.32). Vitellius’ execution of their centurions after his victory alienated the troops (H. 2.60) which subsequently joined Vespasian (H. 2.85–86). The Dalmatian legions were drawn into the Flavian party by the legions of Pannonia and Moesia despite their legates not being rebellious (H. 2.86). This same pattern caused the fleet at Ravenna to change sides to Vespasian because of the many Dalmatians in its ranks (H. 3.12). After the Flavian victory at second Bedriacum, Dalmatia also contributed a levy of six thousand newly recruited troops for the march on Rome as well as new sailors for the Ravenna Fleet (H. 3.50). The picture that emerges from these snippets is that the province was crucial for the ultimate Flavian victory in 69 ce because of its legionary support and the crucial strategic access to northeastern Italy.

28-04-2023 17:47:20

330  

Danuvius

Reference work: Barrington 20 C5, 1 G2 REFERENCE Wilkes, J. J. 1969. Dalmatia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. FURTHER READING Morgan, Gwyn. 2006. 69 A.D.: The Year of the Four Emperors. New York: Oxford University Press.

DANDARIDAE, see MITHRIDATES BOSPORUS

DANUVIUS STEPHEN CHAPPELL

James Madison University

The river Danuvius (modern Danube; Ister in Greek) marked the eastern and longer section (over 1700 miles) of the Northern Frontier in Tacitus’ works, as the river Rhine (Rhenus) was the limit in the west (over 700 miles). It meanders significantly more than the Rhine, especially in the Hungarian Plains, finally disemboguing into the Black Sea at a Delta of six branches of the river (G. 1) and considerable marshland. After the broad, flat stretches of the Middle Danube, the river narrows through a series of gorges, fraught for shipping with rocks and rapids, called the Iron Gates. Nonetheless, the river was navigable along its length in antiquity. The river Danube formed the northern boundary of the provinces of (from west to east) Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia Superior, Pannonia Inferior, Moesia Superior, and Moesia Inferior. The terms upper (superior) and lower (inferior) refer to the relative proximity to the headwaters of the river, upper being closer. In 106 ce, later in Tacitus’ life, but after the scope of his extant writings, the emperor Trajan conquered the new province of Dacia, destroying the powerful Regnum Dacicum. It was the only province north of the Danube. Apollodorus of Damascus constructed a stone bridge across the river at the new Dacian city of Drobeta which connected the province to the road networks south of the river. The bank of the river Danube became quite urbanized from the first century ce, especially

c04_Vol1.indd 330

after the Flavian reorganization of the legions brought legionary bases north to the river bank. Canabae outside the camps developed into towns and later cities themselves over the course of time. Castra Regina (Regensburg), Vindobona (Vienna), Aquincum (Budapest), and Singidunum (Belgrade) are examples of new Roman settlements which grew in size and played an important role on the Danube frontier while remaining significant into modern times. The Danube played an incalculably strong role in the development of provincial economies throughout the principate. It was a vital mode of transport for goods and urbanization created significant markets for goods. The southern hinterland tended to be much less prosperous than the ripine regions except in such river valleys as the Sava and Drava. The presence of large garrisons stimulated demand for lucrative military supply and helped to develop monetarized economies. The presence of legions along the Danube grew throughout the principate even as it declined on the Rhine. There were four legions in the time of Tiberius (A. 4.5), but ten to twelve by the second century ce. This reflected both the great length of the river, but also the increasing danger from tribes from the German Marcomanni and Quadi to the Sarmatians, Dacians (up to 106 ce) and Bastarnae. By the third century ce, the Goths had become a dominant presence and by the fifth century the Huns. There were also two Roman fleets on the Danube: the Classis Pannonica for the Upper Danube and the Classis Moesica for the Lower Danube. Tacitus references the river surprisingly little, given the prominence of military campaigns in his narratives. In the Germania, he gives its source as Abnoba, a moderate mountain of gentle slopes in the Black Forest (G. 1). The actual source, Donaueschingen, is in the Black Forest, but in a basin near low mountains. Tacitus’ geographical descriptions tend to be brief and not always accurate (Mellor 1993, 14, 38). His scheme for organizing the last section of the Germania was to follow the course of the Danube, as he had previously the Rhine (G. 41). There is also a brief reference to the peoples of the Agri Decumates, not far from the headwaters of the Danube, perhaps not being German (G. 29).

28-04-2023 17:47:20

D e vita Agricolae  

Otherwise, Tacitus refers to the Danube only in reference to tribes across the frontier. Maroboduus crossed it into Noricum with his followers in 18 ce after being driven out of Germany. His followers were settled between the rivers Marus (Morava) and Cusus (A. 2.63). Similarly, when Vannius, king of the Quadi, was being driven out in the reign of Claudius, the emperor ordered legions to advance from their bases to the riverbank as a precaution. Vannius took refuge with the Danube Fleet, presumably the Classis Pannonica, and was settled in Pannonia with his dependents. Lastly, during the civil wars of 69 ce, after the departure of the greater part of the garrison of Moesia to fight for Vespasian against Vitellius in Italy, the Dacians began to occupy both banks of the Danube (H. 3.46). The overall picture is of the Danube as a permeable frontier rather than an impenetrable barrier. see also: army; geography; provinces Reference work: Barrington 23 A4, 1 E1, 2 F4, 12 B4, 13 B4, 18 F2, 21 A2, 19 A2, 20 E2, 22 A5 REFERENCE Mellor, Ronald. 1993. Tacitus. New York and London: Routledge. FURTHER READING Jilek, Sonja. 2009. The Danube Limes: A Roman River Frontier. Warsaw: Warsaw University Press. Luttwak, Edward. 1976. The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.

DARIUS, see PERSIA DAVARA, see CAPPADOCIA

DE VITA AGRICOLAE SERGIO AUDANO

Centro di Studi sulla Fortuna dell’Antico “Emanuele Narducci,” Sestri Levante

This entry provides an analysis of De vita Agricolae (hereafter, Agricola), its structure, its relation to the biographical genre and the construction of a

c04_Vol1.indd 331

331

new model of biography, literary models, the moral and political vision (Calgacus’ speech and the enemy’s point of view), and the exemplary value of Gnaeus Iulius Agricola. The Agricola is most probably the first work by Tacitus, dating back to 98 ce or in any case to the very beginning of Trajan’s reign, and it has as its principle theme the story of the life of Gnaeus Iulius Agricola, the writer’s father-in-law and governor of Britannia. Some manuscripts carry the title De vita Iulii Agricolae liber (or even De Vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae), evidence of its immediate collocation within the biographical genre. However, a glance at its general structure complicates this schematic conclusion and reveals the complexity of this work. Generally speaking, the forty-six chapters which comprise Agricola are divided into six sections: the first (Ag. 1–4) functions as a proem to the work and immediately places the reader in the dialectic which runs through much of the work, from Agricola’s biography and the historicalpolitical context of Domitian’s empire (81–96). The second describes the early years of the future general and the first stages of his cursus honorum, to then concentrate in particular on his moral education and on the acquisition of his ethical values which will accompany him throughout his life. The third section (Ag. 10–17) marks, instead, a break in biographical order to give way to a digression on Britannia, of which Tacitus provides an in-depth ethno-anthropological analysis, and on the various stages of the island’s Romanization. The fourth (Ag. 18–38) and the largest narrates the years of Agricola’s government, concluding in the decisive Battle of Mons Graupius in 84 over the rebels led by Calgacus (who before the battle pronounced his famous speech, perhaps the most famous and ideologically complex passage in the work). The fifth (Ag. 39–43) narrates Agricola’s return to Rome and his cold reception by Domitian who was jealous of his success, in a political climate which had become unbearable due to the constant fear and persecution caused by the senatorial class who spread suspicion and terror everywhere, to conclude with Agricola’s death in 93, in which the emperor himself perhaps had some involvement. Tacitus consecrates the sixth and final part (Ag. 44–46) instead, to the posterity of his father-in-law,

28-04-2023 17:47:20

332  

D e vita Agricolae

whose death avoided the despotism of Domitian, transforming it into an exemplum of high moral depth. From this brief presentation, the difficulty of placing this work within the biographical genre clearly emerges. The latter represents a literary genre from within an ancient tradition, already widespread in Greek culture (a clear example is Euagoras by Isocrates) which at the time of Tacitus enjoyed much success (if one thinks of his near contemporaries Plutarch and Suetonius, authors of the main biographical collections which have come down to us). Biography, above all in Rome, boasted a high degree of adaptability to the different political contexts and to its contamination with types of oratory specifically linked to the identity habits of the senatorial aristocracy, which thanks to the mediation of the schools of rhetoric, were then codified in a literary context. This is evident in fact, in the deliberate use which Tacitus makes of the characteristic modalities of the elogium and, above all, of the laudatio in the final chapters. The latter is the typical oration made on the death of pater familias, with the presentation of the deceased’s and of his ancestors’ imagines, confirming the typical Roman taste for turning death into a show in order to confirm, in the context of relationships with friends or clientes, social and political roles and affiliations. The confines of these genres are well defined in relation to the social-political functions they express, but they reveal a certain weakness when translated into literary works, structured according to the rules of rhetoric: elogia and laudationes were usually pronounced orally, even if later re-elaborated in order to be circulated among a wider public. Tacitus’ intention to connect himself expressly with this tradition emerges not by chance, in the very first lines of Agricola, from the evident allusion (Ag. 1), which is also fully coherent with the customs of rhetoric, to a text of absolute reference, namely the beginning of the Origines by Cato the Elder (fr. 1 Peter), from which he takes the initial clarorum virorum (Woodman-Kraus 2014, 67). The fact that right from the very beginning he recalls Cato, guarantor of the mos maiorum, allows our author to define precisely the ideological aspects of his work. Tacitus does not carry out a nostalgic recovery of the past nor does he idealize it as an

c04_Vol1.indd 332

antidote to the present, since the reality of the empire, by now far-removed from the golden days of the republic, is a necessity to accept and to suffer, in the absence of credible alternatives. However, it is indispensable to have symbolic figures, which represent a valid example for contemporaries and posterity in virtue of the concreteness of the facta enacted by them and which fully respect mores and virtutes on a public and behavioral level. Agricola, in Tacitus’ narration, is therefore not only an excellent general, but is also the example of the perfect Roman: temperate in his private life, affectionate yet rigorous with his family, loyal to his friends and adversaries, to the Britons and Domitian himself, all conducted with the moderation and balance of the modus, the distinctive sign of his existence and his behavior. This explains the central role of contemporary history, and in particular of a circumscribed event, object of analysis, and a recurring element in ancient historiography starting first of all from Thucydides. Added to this is the choice to adopt an ethical-moral dimension to provide a filter of events: in order to do this Tacitus chooses precise literary models starting from Sallust, his most favorite, as is evident from the numerous citations which are not only textual, as in the case of Cato, but also more deliberately structural. The most evident proof of this is the insertion at about one-third through the work, of the ethno-anthropological excursus on Britannia, an extraneous element to standard biographical but not to historiographical practice, which Tacitus not by chance takes from an analogous digression on Africa which Sallust includes in his Bellum Iugurthinum 17–19 and evidently from what Iulius Caesar wrote in De bello Gallico Books 4 and 5 on the two invasions of Britannia in 55 and 54 bce. The interest for the ethnographical dimension is very strong in Tacitus, who will give more complete proof of this in his work Germania. In the description of Britannia our author also demonstrates that he has read all the preceding literature on this (from Pytheas to Caesar, without omitting the fundamental mediation of Posidonius), with the addition of information obtained over time from Agricola himself, expert connoisseur of the places and therefore guarantee of the veracity of what has been written. As already said, traditional biographies exclude, according to prescriptions of

28-04-2023 17:47:20

D e vita Agricolae  

literary genre, the presence of an ethno-anthropological section. One could certainly affirm that for Tacitus it is important to describe, for the benefit of the reader, the areas in which his father-in-law will operate in the successive chapters, and this undoubtedly constitutes a good argument in favor of the structural coherence of the work. Yet another, and perhaps more incisive motivation can be found when one analyzes the modalities of representation that Tacitus uses in his excursus, his conception of “different” his idea of “culture,” and the profound justification, even on an ideological level, of the Roman occupation. He is always the bearer, and spokesman in this work, of the characteristic limitations of the senatorial aristocracy in their relations with the “others”: even the Britons are likened to “barbarians” and classed together with women and slaves, which is coherent with the widespread opinion of great inferiority that the elite Romans held of the defeated populations. They are inferior and different, therefore, in social structure and political organization; capable of acting only on instinct, without a ponderous appeal to reason; open therefore to be lured by the flattery of the humanitas of that civilized and superior Roman “culture” which succeeds in the same way and even more than with weapons; in subduing consciences, in unifying the diversities, and in annulling the memory of one’s own identity and in extinguishing any residual hotbed of freedom (see in particular Ag. 21). Tacitus’ reflections, which are rich in moralism and in lucid political realism, find in the dialectic between servitude and liberty their real uniting feature in Agricola: the biographical element, which even when formally absent, reemerges between the lines to express not only specific acts carried out by the protagonist, but also and even more so, the ideas (and the ideologies) which inspired them. And the conflict on freedom will reemerge, with greater strength and awareness, in the contrasting speeches of the British commander Calgacus and of Agricola himself (Ag. 30–34). These are two orations built on the principles of epideictic rhetoric, which regulated the words pronounced before a battle, structuring them into a proem with a central argument and a final exhortation. Noteworthy is Calgacus’ speech, in which the famous metaphor “a desert called

c04_Vol1.indd 333

333

peace” (Ag. 30.5) has become over time the slogan of anti-imperialist politics and has guaranteed a certain success for Agricola even in the modern and contemporary age (Benario 2007; Giannotti 2018). It should, however, be underlined that Tacitus does not condemn Roman expansionism nor does he intend to disassociate himself from the military and political reasons which are its cause. Tacitus is a convinced spokesman of the senatorial ideology, who in turn fuels and justifies the occupation of foreign territories, even through the creation of propaganda built on the paradigm of the superiority of Roman civilization, presented as an expression of the right and higher ethical order. At the heart of this idea are probably the famous lines of the Aeneid 6.851–853, where the peace is imposed as a marked sign of Roman expansionism: reprieve (parcere) to those who submit, but punishment to those who try to defend their freedom by behaving haughtily (superbus). In the construction of Calgacus’ speech Tacitus re-elaborates in an original way other examples of critical opinions of the enemy: from the Melian Dialogue in Thucydides’ Book V, to the Gallic nobleman Critognatus in the De bello Gallico Book 7, and above all in the famous Epistula of Mithridates VI of Pontus to the Parthian king Arsaces, which is part of the surviving fragments of the Sallustian Historiae. Particular importance has been given to the letter of Mithridates, as can be deduced from the frequent intertextual references, starting from the famous raptores orbis in which the Britons’ leader defines the Roman conquerors, evidently taken from the Sallustian model of latrones gentium. As regards its literary characteristics, Tacitus shows himself to be a great expert of rhetoric: Agricola is the meeting point, more than the result of a mechanistic contamination of the biography with other genres from which our author has taken different characterizing elements obviously adapting them and bending them to his requirements, sometimes even deforming and overturning them in order to meet his narrative needs. As we previously saw in the case of the ethnographical excursus, the contact with historiography, though always within a coherent predominantly politically orientated course, finds its constant focus in Agricola’s life. The same can be verified in the concluding section, from Ag. 39, when Tacitus combines

28-04-2023 17:47:20

334  

D e vita Agricolae

biography with encomiastic-celebratory literature to commemorate the merits of the deceased in accordance with the ancient aristocratic tradition. He also refers to the consolatio, to project Agricola’s exemplum, in memory of posterity and to guarantee its survival in the individual conscience, in accordance with the lay prospective of Tacitus himself, without the traditional mediation of imagines, destined instead to disappear over time (Ag. 46.3). In this new context the influence of Sallust, with regard to style and intertextual references, gradually gives way to Cicero (above all from De oratore, Brutus, Pro Archia and, perhaps what is fragmentary for us, Consolatio) and in part also to Seneca. Tacitus exalts his father-in-law’s prospective of contemplatio virtutum, by now transformed into example for posterity: the same expression can be found in Consolatio ad Marciam (24.4) but Tacitus, contrary to Seneca, tones down all transcendent elements, connected with the survival of the soul after death, as only Agricola’s virtutes are able to guarantee with the passing of time his memory in the minds of men. The recourse to specific elements of these literary forms has the function of orienting his father-in-law’s biography, assimilating him with the many victims of Domitian’s regime, but maintaining the specificity of his ethical loftiness, the concreteness of his military and political actions, his inborn common sense which always guided him through his choices in life. Agricola’s life therefore is not merely a nostalgic or memorial form of storytelling: Tacitus delineates the narration in a purely pragmatic context, from which he deliberately excludes any virtual abstraction, with the aim of presenting the figure of his father-in-law as a model for the ruling class which was emerging in the delicate period of political transition following the assassination of Domitian in 96, with the new phase of Nerva and then with Trajan, perhaps compensating for a certain difficulty of representation which was more than probable at that difficult time. The new course which is referred to no less than twice by our historian in Agricola (3.1 and 44.5) as beatissimum saeculum, a happy period, in which it was possible to breathe freely again without the nightmare of spying and informers. Tacitus writes: “Now at last our spirit is returning,” at the beginning of Ag. 3, perhaps bearing in mind the famous line of Vergil,

c04_Vol1.indd 334

Eclogue l. 6 (“now Virgin Justice returns, and Saturn’s reign”) with the prospect of a new, happy age. This is without doubt a sort of palingenesis of political life after Domitian’s tyranny, in which empire and freedom must coexist; Tacitus, however, warns of its possible precariousness, owing also to his pessimistic distrust of humankind, in which he criticizes the absence of and even the mockery of, especially among his contemporaries, any moral principle (in Ag. 1 he defines his time as “an age so cruel, so hostile to all virtue”). Agricola’s ethical model could therefore represent, in the concrete example of the deeds (facta) achieved in his lifetime and in the rigorous respect of customs (mores), a valuable reference point for those who support the prince in the management of power: without any moral or political conditioning, they should guarantee the balance of the senatorial elite in their relationships of power with the sovereign, in an attempt to moderate eventual absolute aspirations. The value of Agricola’s exemplum lies in its ability to unite the most noble traditions of the aristocracy, as confirmed by the initial reference to Cato, with a realistic adaptation to the contingent situation and an attitude of political and “institutional” moderatism, suited to a competent state magistrate, who has the good of the empire and Rome at heart. In conclusion, it is a model anchored to solid moral assumptions yet at the same time ready to bend to a high and noble compromise with imperial power, though far removed from the extremist ends of complicit servility and intransigent fanaticism. Besides, Tacitus himself affirms in Ag. 42.4, pronouncing a phrase of universal appeal and a sort of historical rule, that great men can exist even under bad princes. In order to reproduce this exemplary figure in the best possible way, Tacitus was forced to bend the canonical schemes of the biographical genre: this explains his choice to follow a course linked to tradition, but also his ability to integrate different elements which could bring out the many aspects of Agricola’s persona and aside from his family ties, to justify his decision to write about his life. The Agricola, therefore, is a new form of biography just like the model he intends to present; also, in this text appear, albeit with different degrees of attention and depth, many of the reflections that Tacitus will nurture and develop in his successive work. In addition to the interest in ethnography present in

28-04-2023 17:47:20

death  

Germania, a dramatic awareness emerges of the limits of libertas, which already lacking support in the schools of rhetoric (a central theme of Dialogus de oratoribus), risks being easily lost among the conquered and among the winners—as will be evident a few decades later in the collections of Histories and Annals. see also: empire; ethnicity; ethnography; exemplarity; ideology; intertextuality; memory; morality; panegyric; speeches; Vergil REFERENCES Benario, Herbert W. 2007. “Tacitus in America.” In Être Romain. Hommages in Memoriam C. M. Termes, edited by Robert Bedon and Michel Polfer, 57–67. Rehmshalden: BAG-Verlag. Giannotti, Filomena. 2018. “L’Imperium e la pax. La celebre sententia di Calgaco (Tac. Agr. 30, 5) tra modelli e fortuna.” Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica 16.2: 213–232. DOI: 10.1400/270133. Woodman, Anthony J. with Christina S. Kraus. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Audano, Sergio. 2017. Tacito: Agricola. Santarcangelo di Romagna: Rusconi. Devillers, Olivier. 2007. “Le projet de Tacite en écrivant l’Agricola.” In Parole, «media», pouvoir dans l’Occident romain. Hommages offerts au professeur Guy Achard, edited by Marie Ledentu, 211–230. Paris: De Boccard. Ogilvie, Robert M., and Ian A. Richmond. 1967. Tacitus: Agricola. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sailor, Dylan. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 51–118. Soverini, Paolo. 2004. Tacito: Agricola. Alessandria: Edizioni Dell’Orso.

DEATH ANTHONY CORBEILL

University of Virginia

Death and dying in Tacitus represent not merely a historical fact but supply an important literary motif. Annals, in particular, is framed by

c04_Vol1.indd 335

335

murders that introduce the principates of Tiberius and Nero. In between, deaths of both heroes and antiheroes allow the historian to moralize on life, and death, under an autocracy. Inevitably, death receives frequent mention in any historian’s work, and Tacitus provides no exception. Dying, however, often represents not merely a biographical fact, but an important motif, as reported deaths rarely have simple causes; rather, lying behind many is an agent. Indeed, even taking one’s own life is often depicted as determined by a force external to the victim. As biography, Agricola suitably ends with its subject’s demise, but death also occupies the narrative in other ways. Murders frame the work— the preface praises the recent liberation from imperial savagery (Ag. 3.2), and these deaths are detailed by Tacitus after describing Agricola’s “opportune death,” which may or may not have resulted from poisoning (Ag. 45; 43.2). Analogously, although nobody dies in the Dialogue on Orators, the unspecified threat to Curiatius Maternus—relegation, execution?— from the anonymous “powerful” introduces the work on an urgent tone (D. 2–3). In Germania, Roman behavior contrasts with the Germani, among whom executions arise not from autocratic whim but from divine command or human deliberation (G. 7.1, 12.1). In the preface to Histories, Tacitus notes that the deaths recorded will rival in glory those from earlier times (H. 1.3.1). In the extant books, however, among numerous deaths the only honorable example is that of Otho (H. 2.49). For other emperors in 69, death occasions ironic moralizing. In the case of Galba, brutally murdered and mutilated in the forum along with several supporters (H. 1.41–4), Tacitus encapsulates the fate of the elite during this period in the epigram, “capable of rule, had he not ruled” (H. 1.49.4; cf. 3.62.2 [Fonteius Capito]), while the crowd abused the corpse of Vitellius with the same perversity with which they had flattered him while alive (H. 3.85). Evoking particular pathos are two types of contrasting death: the intrafamilial murders inherent in civil war (H. 3.25.2–3, 3.51), and the positive exempla of the Ligurian woman dying to protect her son (H. 2.13.2) or of the

28-04-2023 17:47:20

336  

death

suicides committed to emulate an admired leader (H. 2.49.4, 3.54.2). In Annals Tacitus laments that his material, unlike in Histories, excludes “the renowned deaths of military leaders” (A. 4.33.3), treating instead bloodshed away from the battlefield (domi; A. 16.16.1). Nevertheless, death permeates Annals. Ancient readers probably encountered death in its very title: “Beginning from the Death of Divine Augustus” (Ab Excessu Divi Augusti), and Tacitus memorably frames the work by representing as a murder the foundation act of the reigns of Tiberius and Nero. In Tiberius’ principate this was the murder of Agrippa Postumus (A. 1.6.1: primum facinus novi principatus fuit Postumi Agrippae caedes), where the phrasing contains typical innuendo, suggesting Tiberius’ involvement in the first of what is implied to be many bloody acts. Similarly, the murder of Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) introduces Nero’s reign (A. 13.1.1: prima nouo principatu mors Iunii Silani proconsulis Asiae). Each emperor was indeed to oversee a reign of terror characterized by numerous deaths. Tacitus’ view of humanity is particularly revealed by extended death scenes, where frequently a villain lurks in the background (Garson 1974; see also suicide). Even accidental disasters can have immoral sources, as in the amphitheater collapse at Fidenae, with fifty thousand casualties; here the contractor’s greed frames Tacitus’ sympathetic description of the numerous victims (A. 4.62–3). The deaths of individuals, however, have most prominence, where one remembers the act of dying longer than its cause, as is the case with the daughter of Sejanus, raped by the executioner before her murder lest she perish a virgin (A. 5.9). The hidden villain tends to be the princeps. Although Tacitus refuses committing to the cause of Germanicus’ death, the vivid circumstantial details, combined with an extended deathbed scene (A. 2.69–73), give the unmistakable impression of imperial complicity (A. 3.16, 3.19.2). Autocracy also underlies many individuals of questionable guilt who are killed for maiestas, as well as the mass executions, where chilling lack of details about numbers and names underscores the

c04_Vol1.indd 336

atrocities, from the indiscriminate massacre of Sejanus’s followers, of every sex, age, and class (A. 6.19.2), to the Christian persecution following the great fire of 64 ce (A. 15.44.2–5), to the execution of perpetrators of the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.71.1). At the same time, Tacitus frequently blurs the distinction between executions and suicide by depicting persons who hesitate or refuse to kill themselves being summarily executed (e.g., A. 11.38.1, 16.9.2), or by expressing doubt over the precise means of death (Edwards 2007, 116–127). Tacitus’ narrative of two high-profile murders by Nero reveals the villain lurking in plain sight. After unsuccessfully attempting to poison Britannicus discreetly, Nero administered poison at a well-attended banquet; the guests who realized the crime kept eyes on the emperor until, eventually, the banquet resumed as the fourteenyear old Britannicus lay dying (A. 13.16). Seven years later occurred the murder of Octavia (2) (A. 14.63–64). Wrongly accused of adultery and relegated, she was soon condemned to die. The narrative of her murder, with the veins in all her limbs severed while bound in chains, ends with the delivery of her head to Rome. The subsequent thanksgiving offered the gods prompts Tacitus to remark how gifts no longer recognize prosperous outcomes but rather exile and murder. Deaths of antiheroes also prompt moralizing. As the body of Tiberius deteriorated, Tacitus notes the persistence of dissimulation (A. 6.50.1) and reports his subsequent murder by the impatient Macro with nonjudgmental dispassion (A. 6.50.5). Following Nero’s tortuous failures to murder Agrippina the Younger, her simple dispatch by a centurion’s sword allows her to curse her son’s birth (A. 14.8.5: ventrem feri!, “Strike my womb”). But Tacitus caps this dramatic close with macabre rumors that Nero praised the beauty of his mother’s corpse, thereby suggesting that incest lay behind her final words (A. 14.9.1). Amidst this death, Tacitus digresses to record the miracle of the long-lived phoenix, sacrificed at the altar of the Sun by its next manifestation. Tacitus concludes by doubting this account of nonviolent death. He then immediately returns to his historical narrative—“But at Rome, constant slaughter” (A. 6.28–29.1).

28-04-2023 17:47:20

declamation  

see also: army; Christianity; crucifixion; fear; martyrs; obituary; Pisonian Conspiracy, victims; poison REFERENCES Edwards, Catharine. 2007. Death in Ancient Rome. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Garson, R. W. 1974. “Observations on the Death Scenes in Tacitus’ Annals.” Prudentia 6: 23–32. FURTHER READING Barthes, Roland. 1972. “Tacitus and the Funerary Baroque.” In Critical Essays, translated by Richard Howard, 99–102. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Woodman, A. J. 1995. “A Death in the First Act: Tacitus, Annals 1.6.” Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 8: 257–273.

DECLAMATION BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

For nearly six centuries, from the end of the Roman Republic up to the fall of the Western Empire (first century bce–fifth ce), a Roman citizen aiming at a career in the public domain was expected to spend his teenage years learning to master the art of persuasion. To this end, the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition devised a specific training path, culminating in the composition and delivery of persuasive speeches on fictional subjects. These school exercises, known as declamations, required the student to give his advice to a mythological or historical character on the verge of making an important decision (the so-called suasoriae), or to play the part of either the prosecutor or the defendant in a hypothetical court case (the controversiae). Each speech arose from a situation usually closer to a fiction than to the daily routine of criminal courts: blind sons, cruel stepmothers, rich and poor men, tyrants, and war heroes would accuse each other of murder, poisoning, rape, treason, and the like (van Mal-Maeder 2007, 1–39). This

c04_Vol1.indd 337

337

school practice quickly earned the favor of a large audience of professional rhetoricians, amateurs, and people of average education: by the first century ce, public performances of fictive speeches were among the most popular events throughout the Greco-Roman world. With its fictional universe of characters, laws, and recurring situations, declamation shaped a cultural background common to writers and readers of the Greco-Roman world, who all shared the same, more or less standardized, rhetorical training. Despite its pervasive presence in the GrecoRoman cultural life, declamation has left only limited traces in our manuscript tradition. Our earliest direct evidence is in Latin and amounts to: one collection of nineteen complete controversiae known as Major Declamations, falsely ascribed to Quintilian but stemming from a variety of authors from the second to third centuries ce 2006 (Stramaglia-Winterbottom-Santorelli 2021, xxxii–xliii); one collection of short sketches of controversiae interspersed with theoretical comments, known as Minor Declamations and ascribed to Quintilian, probably dating to the late first century ce (Winterbottom 1984, XI–XIX); and two collections of extracts from otherwise lost declamations: in the first century ce Seneca the Elder recorded the most brilliant passages from the orators of his time, for the benefit of his three children’s education (Berti 2007, 17–39); the manuscript tradition has then handed down to us a collection of excerpts of controversiae by an otherwise unknown Calpurnius Flaccus, to be dated sometimes between the second and third century ce (Santorelli 2017). It is only from the second century onward that we can count on direct Greek evidence, such as a few suasoriae by Lesbonax of Mytilene and Polemon of Laodicea, some pieces by Lucian of Samosata and, most importantly, several speeches by Aelius Aristides (Russell 1983, 4–6). The practice of declamation as an educational tool was often criticized for the far-fetched nature of its subjects (e.g., D. 35; Petron. 1); yet, declamation remained the foundation of Roman education for the whole imperial age. Modern scholarship has shown that, with their fictional settings, declamations created a safe distance

28-04-2023 17:47:20

338  

delators

between students and the issues at stake in each case, allowing teenagers to debate even such sensitive matters as quarrels within family and society, cases of crime and violence, conflicts between ethics and law, and the like: such a rhetorical training, in fact, was not only intended to pass down to a disciple a set of technical skills, but helped to expose the youth to the value system of the society into which they would soon enter with the full authority of Roman citizens (Bernstein 2013, 17–43). see also: Cassius Severus; Dialogus de Oratoribus; Greek orators; Petronius; Roman orators; speeches; Votienus Montanus REFERENCES Bernstein, Neil W. 2013. Ethics, Identity, and Community in Later Roman Declamation. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Berti, Emanuele. 2007. Scholasticorum studia. Seneca il Vecchio e la cultura retorica e letteraria della prima età imperiale. Pisa: Giardini. Russell, Donald. 1983. Greek Declamation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Santorelli, Biagio. 2017. “Metrical and Accentual clausulae as Evidence for the Date and Origin of Calpurnius Flaccus.” In Reading Roman Declamation. Calpurnius Flaccus, edited by Martin Dinter, Charles Guérin, and Marcos Martinho, 129–140. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. Stramaglia, Antonio - Winterbottom, Michael Santorelli, Biagio. 2021. [Quintilian]. The Major Declamations. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Van Mal-Maeder, Danielle. 2007. La fiction des déclamations. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Winterbottom, Michael. 1984. The Minor Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. FURTHER READING Lentano, Mario. 2015. La declamazione latina. Napoli: Liguori.

DECRIUS, see HELVIUS RUFUS DECRIUS CALPURNIANUS, see MESSALINA DEIOTARUS, see CICERO

c04_Vol1.indd 338

DELATORS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Delators acted as informants and prosecutors under the early empire. They are portrayed as a universally negative phenomenon in Tacitus and constitute an essential component in the establishment of the imperial tyranny. Often they constitute a negative social category in their own right, and many who acted as a prosecutor against their fellow senators, even in instances when they were prosecuting clear wrong-doing, are viewed as destructive for siding with imperial interests. For the general scholar of Roman history, delators first come into their own during the reign of Tiberius. It was then, according to our sources, including Tacitus, that informants and prosecutors began to attack those believed to be disloyal to the princeps. According to our sources, delators were one of the central instruments deployed in the establishment of the early imperial tyranny. Despite the traditional scholarly perception that malicious prosecutions and accusations were unique to the empire, they in fact have much earlier origins, grounded firmly in the politically competitive environment of the Roman Republic and various aspects of the Roman cultural ethos, where pietas, personal enmity, and the client-patron relationship also played significant roles (Rutledge 2001, 4). Our sources for delators (and accusatores) are numerous and diverse, and almost universally hostile, except for Quintilian and Seneca the Elder, who admired the style of a number of orators who appear in Tacitus as delators (Rutledge 2001, 8). These sources include Pliny the Younger, Juvenal, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius to name the most important. Of these, Tacitus is by far the most invaluable witness who tells us more than any other source about the progress and development of this activity. However, it is important to appreciate that understanding who and what constitutes a delator is not always straightforward. Delators and accusatores are in fact a social category, and often who is and is not

28-04-2023 17:47:20

delators  

a delator depends on social context and can extend to include a witness (testis), an informer (index), and even the backroom courtier or freedman who denounces someone in private (e.g., Narcissus). The word delator comes from the phrase nomen deferre, meaning either to lay information or to accuse, since the individual who initially denounced another individual before a magistrate could also be the one who conducted the prosecution. The noun delator does not appear at any time during the republic with the sense that it did during the empire (Rutledge 2001, 9). Delator first appears as a noun under Augustus, when Livy uses the word in reference to Roman officials sent to Greece to gather intelligence (45.31.10), where it appears to have a neutral value. The word then virtually disappears until towards the end of Domitian’s reign and appears in Martial, Quintilian, Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius, and Juvenal, where the word becomes a virtual slur; by the period during which those authors were active (the late first and early second century ce) the term delator (and accusator) had become encoded to signify a particular type of behavior or individual, and both words are loaded and imprecise. It often is more a matter of how our sources present a particular accusation than an accusation per se that defines for us who was considered a delator, something scholars have recognized since Mommsen. Tacitus appears to support the claim that the delator must be understood to be as much a rhetorical construction as a historical phenomenon; this point is perhaps best illustrated through his characterization of Caepio Crispinus, who provides a virtual textbook example of a delator (Sinclair 1995, 118–119). Early in Tiberius’ reign, Caepio, Tacitus tells us, created a pattern of life that was to be followed by others: “This man entered upon a form of life which the miseries of the times and the daring of men afterwards made famous. For without means, unknown, restless, while he wormed his way into the princeps’ cruelty by secret letters, he soon endangered each man of most illustrious rank. Having obtained power with the princeps, he won hatred among all. He gave an example

c04_Vol1.indd 339

339

that made those who followed it rich men from poor, men to be feared instead of despised; they destroyed others and afterwards themselves” (A. 1.74.1–3). Tacitus’ description of Caepio is that of a virtually archetypal delator. He is one who is a fierce opportunist, a ruthless careerist who will climb to the top and create peril for all who cross his path, who disregards danger to himself, who gains access to the princeps’ ear. In addition, often he is lowborn, or an overly ambitious noble, or an eager young man trying to climb the first rung of the political ladder, (Walker 1960, 101). But Tacitus takes his characterization of delators still further, frequently portraying the delator as one who stands outside the senatorial tradition which takes pride in its freedom (libertas), embracing instead the path to flattery and servility (see, e.g., A. 15.73). In addition, Tacitus variously uses the imagery of disease (e.g., A. 2.27.1), dirt or filth (e.g., A. 15.34.3), pollution (e.g., A. 3.66.4), madness (e.g., A. 16.14.1), and the ghoulish (e.g., H. 4.42.4) when describing delators (Rutledge 2001, 14). Some of the terms Tacitus uses for delators and accusatores also have contemptuous associations that border on the criminal, such as condemnator (a procurer of condemnations, A. 4.66.1) or criminator (slanderer, A. 4.12.6). Tacitus notes their deleterious nature in general at the opening of his Histories (1.2.3), where he groups them together with the civil wars of 69 ce, the destruction of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in 69 (see Capitolium), and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 ce. Delators are consequently portrayed as an “un-Roman Other” through which Tacitus calls into question the legitimacy of their activities and arguably the legitimacy of the power structures with which they collaborate. For all that, there was a grudging respect accorded them in some circles, as we see in Tacitus’ D. 8.3, when he has Marcus Aper defend the Neronian delators Eprius Marcellus and Vibius Crispus, admiring their eloquence and the fame and fortune they have earned with it, although admitting to their ethical failings. Among the most notorious delators are men such as Bruttedius Niger, Roman(i)us Hispo, and

28-04-2023 17:47:20

340  

D emetrius

Domitius Afer (under Tiberius); Eprius Marcellus, Vibius Crispus, and Cossutianus Capito (under Nero); and Baebius Massa, Mettius Carus, and Valerius Catullus Messalinus (under Domitian). Some of these, such as Domitius Afer, became well known orators in their own right, although the rhetorical style of delators is often portrayed as violent in our sources (see Rutledge 1999). see also: declamation; Granius Marcellus Reference works: PIR2 C 149; RE 3.1280 = Caepio 3 (and probably 4) (Groag); CIL 6.31762; 6.31765 (for Caepio Crispinus). REFERENCES Rutledge, Steven H. 1999. “Delators and the Tradition of Violence in Roman Oratory.” American Journal of Philology 120: 555–573. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions. Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. Sinclair, P. 1995. Tacitus the Sententious Historian: A Sociology of Rhetoric in Annales 1–6. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 118–119. Walker, B. 1960. The Annals of Tacitus: A Study in the Writing of History. Manchester: Manchester University Press. FURTHER READING Riviere, Y. 2002. Les délateurs sous l’Empire romain. Rome: École française de Rome.

DELOS, see CYCLADES DEMARATUS, see ALPHABET

DEMETRIUS LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

Demetrius (fl. 66 ce) was a Cynic philosopher who was among those who attended the suicide of the Stoic senator Thrasea Paetus (A. 16.34– 35); due to the incomplete nature of Book 16, Demetrius in effect closes the work (his name is

c04_Vol1.indd 340

the final word of the surviving Annals), which breaks off just as Thrasea turns his gaze to him. Less to his credit, Demetrius is also mentioned by Tacitus (H. 4.40) as having defended the guilty Publius Egnatius Celer in 70; Celer was notorious for having been the chief witness against Barea Soranus in 66 (Tacitus notes that the ghost of Soranus was thus at last appeased). Tacitus attributes Demetrius’ defense of Celer to a desire for self-promotion rather than the pursuit of morality; scholarly opinion has been divided on the fairness of Tacitus’ verdict on the philosopher. A friend of Seneca who is mentioned often and favorably in his works, Demetrius was a teacher at Rome during the reigns of Caligula and Nero; he suffered banishment under Vespasian in 71 due to the machinations of Musonius Rufus, the onetime prosecutor of Celer, as part of a larger program to expel philosophers from Rome (Suet., Vesp. 13; Cass. Dio 66.13). In Tacitus, Demetrius converses with Thrasea on the nature of the soul and the separation of spirit and body, in a clear imitation of Plato’s account of the death of Socrates; together with Helvidius Priscus, he is permitted into the bedroom for the opening of Thrasea’s veins. With the exception of his defense of Celer in 70, Demetrius’ whereabouts and circumstances after the suicide of Thrasea and before his banishment under Vespasian are unknown; he may well have incurred banishment under Nero in the wake of the rash of forced Stoic suicides, only to be rehabilitated later after the Flavian accession; his return, in any case, would be brief. Suetonius reports that the exiled Demetrius addressed Vespasian simply as a “barking dog” (cf. the canine name of the “Cynic” school from the Greek for dog, with reference to the notoriously poor hygiene of the members of the sect); his ultimate fate is unknown. Lucian relates that Demetrius was opposed to dancing, arguing that it was a pointless accessory to the world of music; he relates the interaction of the philosopher with a dancer during the reign of Nero (who was infamously fond of the art), in which Demetrius was impressed by a solo dance performance that acted out mythological stories that included the celebrated affair of Ares and

28-04-2023 17:47:20

D ialogus de O ratoribus  

Aphrodite (Salt. 63). Seneca records that when Caligula wanted to bribe Demetrius with two hundred thousand sesterces, the philosopher quipped that if he had meant to tempt him, the emperor should have offered him his empire (De Ben. 7.11). Philostratus mentions him as a teacher at Corinth and vigorous adversary of Apollonius (V A. 4.25). It is uncertain whether the homonymous philosopher of Sunium mentioned by Lucian in his Toxaris (27–34) is the same individual. Reference works: PIR2 D 39 FURTHER READING Griffin, M. T. 1984. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 171–177. Sullivan, J. P. 1985. Literature and Politics in the Age of Nero. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 115–152.

DEMONAX, see ARMENIA DEMOSTHENES, see GREEK ORATORS DENTER ROMULIUS, see ROME, MYTH AND HISTORY DENTHALIAS, see MUMMIUS, LUCIUS

DIALOGUS DE ORATORIBUS CHRISTOPHER S.VAN DEN BERG

Amherst College

Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus begins with a question it never definitively answers. This inconclusiveness explains to some extent the work’s continuing fascination. Tacitus remarks that Lucius Fabius Iustus repeatedly asks him, “Why, whereas earlier generations flourished in the glory and talents of so many distinguished orators, our age above all, barren and bereft of the eminence of eloquence, hardly preserves the distinction ‘orator.’” Even after six compelling speeches and some forty sections of lively and learned discussion among the three friends, questions and doubts persist about the work’s overall message and about the validity of the various claims made by its speakers.

c04_Vol1.indd 341

341

CHARACTERS OF THE DIALOGUS Five characters attend the discussion, held in Maternus’ cubiculum (roughly “bedroom”). Tacitus is present but silent. Iulius Secundus delivers no speech. He is involved in preliminaries and virtually presides over the debates but offers no substantive judgment in what we have of the text. Few now believe that he speaks at length in the lacuna after Section 35. Marcus Aper, a successful advocate and champion of modern oratory, visits Maternus with Secundus and Tacitus. Maternus’ tragedies allegedly aroused offense: he authors four tragedies, two on mythological topics (Thyestes and Medea) and two fabulae praetextae on Roman historical figures (Domitius and Cato). Formerly an advocate, Maternus now devotes himself to poetry. The four men will be joined later by Vipstanus Messalla, a young nobleman and champion of markedly conservative (or nostalgically Ciceronian) taste in oratory and education. The arguments presented by the three interlocutors can be divided as follows into three pairs of speeches, two per interlocutor (cf. Bo 1993, 319–337): First Pair: Aper’s First Speech (In Defense of Oratory) Maternus’ First Speech (In Defense of Poetry) Second Pair: Aper’s Second Speech (In Defense of Modern Orators) Messalla’s First Speech (Attack on Modern  Orators) Third Pair: Messalla’s Second Speech (Criticism of Modern Education and Training) Maternus’ Second Speech (Criticism of Modern Oratorical Venues)

APER’S FIRST SPEECH (IN DEFENSE OF ORATORY) The first two speeches (5.3–13.6) have Aper defending oratory and Maternus poetry. Aper emphasizes the rewards gained by working as an advocate in the forum, practical and honorific advantages (utilitas and honestas, respectively).

28-04-2023 17:47:21

342  

D ialogus de O ratoribus

Aper readily alludes to Ciceronian (and Quintilianic) models for his defense, drawing repeatedly from Lucius Licinius Crassus’ defense of oratory in Book One of Cicero’s­ de Oratore. He is motivated by the acquisition of clients, friends, offices, autonomy, renown, pleasure, and wealth. Oratory also promotes social mobility up to and including friendship with the emperor (Caesaris amicitia, 8.3). He cites models who will not have been universally praised, nor are they by Aper, who says that “neither [was] distinguished for his character” (neuter moribus egregius, 8.3). The two men, Vibius Crispus and Eprius Marcellus, climbed from insignificance to power and renown. Maternus, before responding, briefly assesses Aper’s speech—one of the several times that the participants evaluate the rhetorical abilities and strategies of their interlocutors.

MATERNUS’ FIRST SPEECH (IN DEFENSE OF POETRY) Maternus praises poetry and attacks oratory. He also claims that his language (eloquentia) has a social and political bite, citing his attack on one of Nero’s favorites, Vatinius, a scurra (“buffoon”). Poetry brings freedom from oratorical violence and the hustle and bustle of the forum. Maternus chooses canonical models of everlasting fame: Homer and Vergil. This shift in emphasis onto the long-term prospects of securing fame through eloquentia contrasts with, but does not necessarily contradict, Aper’s emphasis on immediate rewards. Maternus broaches what will become crucial themes of the work: how authors become canonical figures in literary and oratorical history. After the first two speeches Vipstanus Messalla arrives. He is a young Roman aristocrat with a family connection to Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (1), the younger contemporary of Cicero and an oratorical talent of the late republic. Tacitus had a fair number of models for this late arrival: Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium, Catulus and Caesar Strabo in Cicero’s de Oratore, or Lucius Furius Philus in Cicero’s de Re publica. Messalla praises the interlocutors and the importance of such discussions as models for budding orators. He

c04_Vol1.indd 342

then humorously undercuts Aper’s supposed interest in the world of the declaimers and rhetoricians, which creates a transition into the next two speeches, which are a debate over the value of modern (Aper) and ancient orators (Messalla). APER’S SECOND SPEECH (IN DEFENSE OF MODERN ORATORS) Aper in his second speech (16.4–23.6) refuses to accept the blind assumption that the ancients undoubtedly excel the moderns and questions the meaning of the terms novus (“new,” “unknown”) and antiquus (“ancient,” “old”). Borrowing arguments that can be traced back in part to Horace and Cicero, Aper claims that Cicero is practically a contemporary and that rhetoric has undergone a continued process of refinement and improvement. He lists out, using the reigns of Rome’s emperors as units of reckoning, the 120 years that have passed since 43 bce, in which year Cicero was killed and Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) was named suffect consul. Aper carefully works through the periods and categories of Greco-Roman eloquence, revealing different models for the periodization and classification of literary history and ending his account with spirited praise for the interlocutors’ rhetorical accomplishments. After the speech, Maternus notes the extent to which Aper has drawn his arguments from texts of the past and suggests that Aper has merely been playing the devil’s advocate. Maternus then urges Messalla not to defend the ancients and instead to discuss why the moderns have fallen away from the ancients.

MESSALLA’S FIRST SPEECH (ATTACK ON MODERN ORATORS) Messalla briefly responds to Aper’s arguments (25.1–26.8) before detailing his larger position. His two speeches contain conservative and nostalgic views on oratory and education, along with a strong dose of Roman moralizing. He laments the loss of the traditional, manly virtues to be found in the oratory of old and claims that Aper

28-04-2023 17:47:21

343

D ialogus de O ratoribus  

has cited no orators who can compare with the talents of past generations. Maternus interjects that Messalla should discuss the causes of decline and not be upset if Aper has criticized ancient speakers. Messalla notes that no one should be offended by such discussions and moves on.

MESSALLA’S SECOND SPEECH (CRITICISM OF MODERN EDUCATION AND TRAINING) Messalla next turns to the effect of education and moral values on oratory, in tones and language that are reminiscent of both Cicero and Quintilian. He cites inadequate child-rearing and education, as well as unrealistic or shoddy oratorical training. His arguments are a marvelous (in both senses) rendition of Cicero’s own doctrine and ideals: a focus on the broad training of the orator, the need for nearly comprehensive knowledge of all possible subjects, and the ability to speak on any topic that presents itself. He further criticizes the institution that was only beginning to establish itself in Cicero’s day but would become a mainstay of education and training for the likes of a Quintilian, a Tacitus, or a Pliny: declamation. Messalla attacks along lines familiar from Cassius Severus (in Seneca the Elder’s collection) and Quintilian. The declamatory schools are only the shadow of true oratory, which must be practiced in the real world of the forum. The tirocinium fori (“orator’s apprenticeship”), an introduction of the budding orator to public life, which included being a protégé of a practiced orator, is no longer a part of Roman custom. This crucial social practice has since been replaced by the declaimers’ halls and the ills to be found there. The text of Messalla’s speech ends with a lacuna at 35, and we pick up in 36 with Maternus’ final speech.

MATERNUS’ SECOND SPEECH (CRITICISM OF MODERN ORATORICAL VENUES) Maternus will conclude by focusing on three interrelated factors that have seriously diminished the renown of contemporary oratory. The principate has ushered in political conditions which do not

c04_Vol1.indd 343

allow for the same kind of orators to flourish in the same what that they could under the old system of the republic (36.1–37.8). Maternus—with close resemblances to Aper’s earlier emphasis on renown, social connections, and offices—argues that oratory cannot entice the modern orator with the same rewards as it had in the past. His second line of argument focuses on the nature of cases in the contemporary era. Forensic practice no longer has the same vibrancy and meaning it once did, because the grand cases of the past are a thing of the past: the greatness of the individuals of the late republic helped make Cicero’s name. Without the allure of fame and the significance of grand trials, oratory is no longer pursued in the same way (38.1–40.1). The third point of his argument focuses on the political order, as Maternus notes that the peace of the principate, with all its benefits, is incompatible with the production of grand oratory. It is not possible to pursue fame without the upheaval like that of the late republic (40.2–41.5). After this rousing conclusion, the interlocutors part ways, promising to renew this long-standing debate, which still remains unresolved.

PROBLEMS OF ARGUMENT AND REFERENCE: HOW TO INTERPRET THE DIALOGUS This lack of resolution has been met with varying responses and different attempts to outline interpretive principles. Three main types of interpretation have all been brought to bear on the Dialogus in order better to understand its manifold statements and to untangle the complexities and difficulties in its presentation. One avenue of interpretation is to consider the arguments on their own merits, including recognition that Tacitus has given each of the speakers inconsistent or factually wrong arguments. A second focuses on the relationship between the discussion and presentation of eloquentia, understood in the broadest sense as political rhetoric in various genres or venues, both oratory and poetry, for example. A third has highlighted the intertextual nature of the dialogue, the wide-ranging set of references to predecessors in the oratorical and rhetorical tradition, with special attention on the

28-04-2023 17:47:21

344  

D ialogus de O ratoribus

relationship to Cicero’s oeuvre. All three avenues have proven remarkably fruitful for interpretation, and, it should be noted, most scholars travel more than one simultaneously. Nearly every interpretation faces the danger of circularity, since evidence cited to substantiate what the dialogue says can tend to reflect preconceived ideas about what the dialogue is trying to say. Readers who believe that Tacitus is arguing one particular position will find ample supporting evidence. A more difficult task is to listen to the simultaneous and conflicting voices that emerge and to give each a fair hearing. Through the end of the twentieth century most scholarship focused on the thesis of the decline of oratory and sought to align Tacitus’ own opinions with those of one of its speakers. The most frequent candidate for the position of Tacitean mouthpiece has been Maternus, because of the rousing and passionate speech with which he concludes the work. In recent decades Aper’s valuable arguments have since been ably defended (see Champion 1994; Goldberg 1999). At the same time, Tacitus seriously undermines Maternus’ arguments in various ways (as he does for all the work’s interlocutors). Maternus’ second speech, with its praise for the tranquility brought by the imperial system seems to conflict irreconcilably with his alleged production of controversial plays, a tension felt in some sense in his first speech’s claims to have brought down Vatinius and to pursue quiet leisure in poetic seclusion. The most serious problem, however, is the extent to which Maternus in his second speech delivers arguments about oratory and rhetoric which are rhetorically plausible but not historically defensible: he accurately represents neither the conditions of the late republic nor those of the contemporary courts. Maternus’ exaggerations and his tendentious presentation make him quite like the other speakers of the work, each of whom selects the best evidence available to make the strongest case possible, even while straining credibility in many cases. Messalla, for example, grossly distorts the educational conditions and the oratorical achievements of the late republic, essentially presenting Ciceronian ideals (from the de Oratore most of all) as if they were the educational norms of the first century bce. Aper too has not evaded criticism, in particular for promoting the material and social rewards that oratory brings to its practitioners.

c04_Vol1.indd 344

However much we may see in Aper a reflection of Tacitus’ own ambitions and career as one of the premier speakers of the day, it is hard to overlook Aper’s appeal to two troubling figures. Vibius Crispus and Eprius Marcellus, however successful, ruthlessly pursued political enemies and advancement through prosecution. The context of the dialogue’s setting has been a similarly appealing subject of scholarship. The occasion of the gathering at Maternus’ house is the offense his plays are said to have given. One can well imagine that Cato offered scope for political criticism, and Maternus’ claim to be crafting a Thyestes (D. 3.3) suggests that he is spoiling for a fight, though with whom and to what end has been the subject of endless speculation and disagreement (Barnes 1981; Bartsch 1994; Cameron 1967; Gallia 2009; Kragelund 1987, 2015; Manuwald 2001; Penwill 2003; van den Berg 2014, 17–25 and 139–164). His breaking of the power of Vatinius, whether in speech or poetry, makes clear that he views poetry as a medium of public attack on political figures. Still, the relationship of this action to criticism of the emperor is never spelled out by Maternus (or anyone else). Many have seen in Maternus hidden allusions to Tacitus’ alleged anti-principate sentiment. Tacitus wrote in the tradition of literary dialogue, which for Romans had a long pedigree stretching back to Plato. Romans of the empire identified the genre above all with Cicero, whose verbal and conceptual presence is felt at every turn. In terms of Style, the Dialogus is neo-Ciceronian prose with an admixture of contemporary touches. It contains little of the abrupt archness and cutting ambiguity so characteristic of the Annals and Histories (see Mayer 27–31). The stylistic choice is likely a reflection of genre, but Tacitus also constantly alludes to and refers to the language and works of Cicero. Cicero’s dialogues, the Brutus and the Hortensius, are cited by name (30.3 and 16.7), and the characters frequently reuse the language of de Oratore (Haß-von Reitzenstein 1970; van den Berg 2014, 208–227 consider some examples). Maternus, as we might expect of a poet, also cites Vergil and his fame as inspirations for his own poetry (D. 13.1–5). see also: centumvirales; delators; intertextuality; irony; Roman orators; Roman poets; speeches

28-04-2023 17:47:21

D iana  

REFERENCES Barnes, T. D. 1981. “Curiatius Maternus.” Hermes 109: 382–384. Bartsch, Shadi. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bo, Domenico. 1993. Le Principali Problematiche del Dialogus de Oratoribus: Panoramica Storico-critica dal 1426 al 1990. Hildesheim: Olms. Cameron, A. 1967. “Tacitus and the Date of Curiatius Maternus’ Death.” Classical Review 17: 258–261. Champion, Craige. 1994. “Dialogus 5.3–10.8: A Reconsideration of the Character of Marcus Aper.” Phoenix 48: 152–163. DOI: 10.2307/1088313. Gallia, Andrew. 2009. “Potentes and Potentia in Tacitus’s Dialogus de oratoribus.” TAPhA 139: 169–206. DOI: 10.1353/apa.0.0020. Goldberg, Sander. 2009. “The Faces of Eloquence: The Dialogus de oratoribus.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 73–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haß-von Reitzenstein, Ute. 1970. “Beiträge zur gattungsgeschichtlichen Interpretation des Dialogus De oratoribus.” (diss. Cologne). Kragelund, P. 1987. “Vatinius, Nero and Curiatius Maternus.” Classical Quarterly 37: 197–202. Kragelund, Patrick. 2015. Roman Historical Drama: The Octavia in Antiquity and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 100–126. Manwuald, G. 2001. “Der Dichter Curiatius Maternus in Tacitus’ Dialogus de oratoribus.” Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft 4: 1–20. Mayer, Roland. 2001. Tacitus: Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Penwill, John. 2003. “What’s Hecuba to Him…? Reflections on Poetry and Politics in Tacitus’ Dialogue on Orators.” Ramus 32: 122–147. DOI: 10.1017/S0048671X00001235. van den Berg, Christopher S. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus: Aesthetics and Empire in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Bablitz, Leanne. 2007. Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom. London: Routledge. Crook, J. A. 1995. Legal Advocacy in the Roman World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Dominik, William. 1997. “The Style is the Man: Seneca, Tacitus, and Quintilian’s Canon.” In Roman Eloquence: Rhetoric in Society and Literature, edited by William Dominik, 50–68. London: Routledge.

c04_Vol1.indd 345

345

Goldberg, Sander. 1999. “Appreciating Aper: The Defence of Modernity in Tacitus’ Dialogus de oratoribus.” CQ 49: 224–237. DOI: 10.1093/ cq/49.1.224. Levene, David S. 2004. “Tacitus’ Dialogus as Literary History.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 134: 157–200. DOI: 10.1353/ apa.2004.0005. Luce, T. J. 1993. “Reading and Response in the Dialogus.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 11–38. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Michel, Alain. 1962. Le Dialogue des Orateurs de Tacite et la Philosophie de Cicéron. Paris: C. Klincksieck. Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge.

DIANA KELLY E. SHANNON-HENDERSON

University of Cincinnati

In Roman religion and mythology, the goddess is associated with hunting, wilderness, crossroads, the moon, and childbirth. Tacitus mentions the goddess Diana seven times in the Annals, nearly always meaning the Greek Artemis worshipped at several important cult sites in Asia Minor or Greece. Tacitus refers to Diana in the context of the senate’s involvement in legal matters related to sanctuaries of Artemis in the Greek East. In 22 ce, the senate assesses the rights of these temples to grant asylum to suppliants fleeing creditors or criminal convictions, with the intention of restricting an abuse of asylum (see Kantiréa 2014; Rigsby 1996). Among the sanctuaries defending their rights of asylum are those of Diana in Ephesus (A. 3.61, with Rogers 2012, 140–143); of Diana Leucophryna in Magnesia (A. 3.62.1); of Diana Persica in Hierocaesaria (A. 3.62.3); and of Diana and Apollo in Miletus (A. 3.63.3). The cult of Diana Limnatis appears in the context of a dispute between Sparta and Messene for control of the sanctuary, on the border between their territories (A. 4.43.1–3; on the sanctuary, see Koursoumis 2014). Ephesian Artemis is mentioned again in the context of determining a site for a proposed Asian temple

28-04-2023 17:47:21

346  

D idius G allus

of Tiberius, Livia Augusta, and the senate; Ephesus is rejected as the site because in Artemis it already has one important cult (A. 4.55.2). In these episodes, Tacitus shows an interest in antiquarian religious detail, as ambassadors from the Greek states frequently include the aetiological myth of their sanctuary’s founding as part of their petition. Tacitus also demonstrates the Tiberian senate’s involvement in the adjudication of religious questions, one of the body’s traditional functions dating back to the Republican Period. Tacitus’ only reference to an Italian cult of Diana is early in his narrative of 49 ce: on the day of his marriage to his niece Agrippina the Younger, Claudius orders the pontifices to celebrate “rites according to the laws of King Tullius and expiations… at the grove of Diana,” i.e., that of Diana at Nemi in Aricia (on the sanctuary and the goddess, see Green 2007), in connection with the incestuous affair falsely alleged to have taken place between Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1) and his sister Iunia Calvina (A. 12.8.1). Tacitus perhaps also refers to Diana in his mention of the temple of Luna or Lucina (both associated with Diana) on the Aventine in Rome, which was destroyed in the Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.41.1). see also: Lydia REFERENCES Green, C. M. C. 2007. Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kantiréa, Maria. 2014. “Reconstituer l’histoire grecque sous l’Empire: à propos de l’asile au temps de Tibère (Tacite, Annales 3,60–64 et 4,14,1–2).” Latomus 73: 415–438. Koursoumis, Sokrates. 2014. “Revisiting Mount Tygetos: The Sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis.” Annual of the British School at Athens 109: 191–222. Rigsby, K. J. 1996. Asylia: Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rogers, G. M. 2012. The Mysteries of Artemis of Ephesos: Cult, Polis, and Change in the GraecoRoman World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

c04_Vol1.indd 346

DIDIUS GALLUS MITCHELL R. PENTZER

University of Colorado Boulder

Aulus Didius Gallus was born before 6 bce, possibly in 10 or 11 bce, in Histonium (modern Vasto) on the eastern coast of Italy. Cicero mentions the Didii as homines novi, and the Aulus Didius Postumus who was proconsul of Cyprus under Augustus is likely a relation. Gallus’ own series of offices began with a quaestorship in 19 ce (AE 1978.145), followed by a praetorship in the 20s (we may safely assume; see Petersen and Vidman 1975, 668). At some point he earned military experience as praefectus equitatus. He was proconsul of Sicily perhaps in the mid-30s (Petersen and Vidman 1975, 662) before he became curator aquorum from 38–49 (Frontin. Aq. 2.102), during which period two aqueducts, including what would become the aqua Claudia, continued to be constructed in Rome (Birley 2005, 33). In 39 (mistakenly 36 ce in the PIR2; but another inscription has been read more correctly since) he was suffect consul from September to the end of the year, along with Domitius Afer. Quintilian preserves an anecdote from their relationship (Inst. Or. 6.3.68). Despite holding the title of curator for over a decade, he was away from Rome in the Balkans and Crimea in the 40s. He was likely involved in the dissolution of the Balkan command instituted by Tiberius into separate governorships of Moesia, Macedonia, and Achaia beginning in 44; Petersen and Vidman (1975, 659) are confident that it was as governor of Moesia that he took legions to Crimea and installed Cotys as king of Bosporus in 44/45. This must have been narrated in a lost book of the Annals; Gallus’ departure from Bosporus, with Iulius Aquila staying to support Cotys, is mentioned in 12.15, when Mithridates set about reclaiming the throne in the narrative belonging to the year 49. Gallus may have helped annex Thrace upon his return and earned triumphal ornaments for this or his efforts in Crimea (Birley 2005, 32; Petersen and Vidman 1975, 661–662). The office of quindecemvir appears on an inscription from Olympia; he may have been involved in the Saecular Games of 47.

28-04-2023 17:47:21

digression  

After a proconsulship of Asia between 49 and 51, Gallus reenters the Annals when he is assigned to Britannia from 52 to 57, taking over the governorship after Publius Ostorius Scapula died in office (A. 12.40.1). Per Ag. 14, Gallus was responsible for advancing a few forts (see also Birley 2005, 36) but otherwise did not expand Roman holdings in Britannia (A. 14.29.1); Tacitus stresses his advanced age and accomplishments in explaining that he delegated a victory against Venutius, husband of client-queen Cartismandua, to his subordinate Caesius Nasica (A. 12.40.4). There are no indications that Gallus died in office in Britannia, like his predecessor Scapula and successor Quintus Veranius, but nothing more appears from him after the governorship. A potential daughter, Didia Galla, appears in an inscription from Histionum, and Aulus Didius Gallus Fabricius Veiento, exiled by Nero in 62 and later three-time suffect consul, may have been his adopted son. Reference works: PIR2 D 70; AE 1973.138; CIL III 7247 + III 12278; IX 2903 + IX 5279 REFERENCES Birley, Anthony R. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Petersen, Leiva, and Ladislav Vidman. 1975. “Zur Laufbahn des. A. Didius Gallus.” In Actes de la XII. Conférence Internationale d’Études Classiques ‘Eirene,’ 1972, edited by Iancu Fischer, 653–669. Amsterdam: Ed. Academiei. FURTHER READING Humphrey, J. W., and P. M. Swan. 1983. “Cassius Dio on the Suffect Consuls of A. D. 39.” Phoenix 37.4: 324–327. Webster, Graham. 1970. “The Military Situations in Britain between A.D. 43 and 71.” Britannia 1: 179–197.

DIDIUS SCAEVA, see CORNELIUS MARTIALIS DIDO, see CARTHAGE DIDYMUS, see DRUSUS CAESAR

c04_Vol1.indd 347

347

DIGRESSION KYLE KHELLAF

University of California, Riverside

Digression (from the Latin digredior, “to go apart” or “depart”) refers to the act of breaking away from one’s primary narrative in order to present additional information that is considered important for understanding that storyline. Digression played a central role in ancient historical accounts. Already evident in the travel-based “inquiry” (historiê) of Herodotus, who employed many ethnographic excursions in his Histories, the act of digressing was recognized by later Greco-Roman historians and antiquarians as a central component of historiography. Tacitus was no exception. He shows a keen awareness of this tradition, uses it in many of his works, and makes several noteworthy innovations to the practice. He employs three distinct types of digression: ethnographic asides, inset or embedded narratives, and full narrative breaks wherein he describes his aims, motivations, and challenges while writing history under the Roman emperors (for a more extensive taxonomy, see Mendell 1957, 189–198). Tacitus uses ethnographic digressions in at least two of his works, the Agricola and the Histories (the Germania is itself an ethnography). A notable example is the Jewish ethnography (H. 5.2–10). This excursus precedes the few extant fragments describing Titus’ conquest of Jerusalem just before the work breaks off. It includes a short history of the earlier Roman conquest of Iudaea (5.9– 10). Similarly, in the Agricola, Tacitus includes an extensive description of Britannia and its peoples (Ag. 10–2) followed by an account of Roman military involvement there prior to Agricola’s campaigns (13–7). Both ethnographies follow the historical paradigm of prefacing one’s narrative of military conquest with an account of the geography of the region to be subjugated, its climate, its natural resources, and the characteristics of its populations. Notable Roman precedents include Iulius

28-04-2023 17:47:21

348  

digression

Caesar’s brief excursions on various Gallic tribes (BGall. 2.4; 3.8, 3.12–3; 4.1.3–4.3; 5.12–4), his longer ethnographies of Gaul and Germania (6.13–20, 6.21–8), Sallust’s description of Africa (Iug. 17–9), and Livy’s Gallo-Etruscan and Galatian digressions (5.33.2–35.3 and 38.16). Such digressions were as much a literary exercise as they were a descriptive imperial record, since the representational act of textually dominating such regions was of equal importance to the physical conquest itself. In the case of Britain, Tacitus is responding to a long-standing tradition that included Caesar’s own ethnographic digression about the island (BGall. 5.12–4), Livy, and Fabius Rusticus (Tacitus mentions the latter two at Ag. 10.3). Tacitus’ ethnographic digressions can be viewed as a rhetorical extension of the competition among Roman elites like Caesar and Agricola for military honors in foreign wars (see Sailor 2008, 51–118). Tacitus also deploys a number of narrative digressions. Most noteworthy in the Agricola is his excursus on the mutiny of the Usipi (28), a Germanic tribe whose conscripted members allegedly took control of three Roman ships en route to Britain, accidentally circumnavigated the island, and achieved an almost legendary renown as a result. These stories, which feature strong elements of paradoxography that destabilize the reader’s understanding of events taking place in the surrounding narrative, become even more prevalent in the Histories and the Annals as a kind of pseudodigression. Examples include the anecdotes about the Neronian impersonator (H. 2.8–9), Mariccus’ uprising (H. 2.61, see Boii), Geta’s masquerade (H. 2.72, see Scribonianus Camerinus), the false Agrippa Postumus (A. 2.39–40, see Clemens), the Brundisian slave insurrection (A. 4.27), and the gladiatorial skirmish at Pompeii (A. 14.17). Such annalistic accounts offer additional glimpses of the failings of the principate and the problems of empire, whether these involve fallout from the civil wars in the Histories, or rare moments of excitement in an otherwise “repetitiveness and superfluity of affairs” in the Annals (A. 4.33.3). In this respect, these stories fit well within the historiographical framework of Tacitean pessimism, whereby the historian builds upon the ideas of decline and decay already evident in earlier Roman historians (e.g. Livy, praef. and Sallust, Cat. 5–13)

c04_Vol1.indd 348

in his cynical vision of constrained speech under the Roman emperors (Ag. 1–3, D. 41, H. 1.1–3, and A. 4.32–5). This theme relates closely to the third and perhaps most noteworthy type of digression employed by Tacitus: narrative pauses in which he lays out his rationale for writing history in the era of the principate. These include his shorter description at Annals 3.65 of the “principal function of annals” (praecipuum munus annalium, 3.65.1), which he claims is to shed light on exemplary or notorious deeds in a time of growing obsequiousness to the Roman emperor; and his lengthier account at Annals 4.32–3 of the decline in meaningful subject matter available to the historian owing to the major political changes that followed the reestablishment of one-man rule at Rome. The latter excursus notably emphasizes the freedom of earlier Roman historians to “remember” great events “with substantial digression” (libero egressu memorabant, 4.32.1), which Tacitus contrasts with his own “inglorious labor” of writing history “in the narrow confines” of the principate (nobis in arto et inglorius labor, 4.32.2). Although some precedent for embedded historiographical moralizing might be seen in the secondary prefaces of Polybius (Polyb. 3.1–5, 4.1– 2, 9.1–2, etc.) and Livy (6.1.1–3, 21.1.1–3), these historians placed such statements at the outset of new narratives and larger blocks of history (e.g. Livy’s second pentad and third decade). The same cannot be said for the two Tacitean digressions in the Annals, which fall squarely within an ongoing series of events (the maiestas trials under the emperor Tiberius). Tacitus’ decision to use the digression as a space for extensive discussion of historical motivations and challenges, as opposed to the preface of the work, was a significant innovation in classical historiography. see also: annales; impostors; morality REFERENCES Mendell, Clarence W. 1957. Tacitus: The Man and His Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sailor, Dylan. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 17:47:21

D illius Vocula  

FURTHER READING Clarke, Katherine. 2002. “In arto et inglorius labor: Tacitus’s Anti-history.” In Representations of Empire: Rome and the Mediterranean World, edited by Alan K. Bowman, Hannah M. Cotton, Martin Goodman, and Simon Price, 83–103. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Feldherr, Andrew. 2009. “Barbarians II: Tacitus’ Jews.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by Andrew Feldherr, 301–316. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press. Luce, T. J. 1991. “Tacitus on ‘History’s Highest Function’: praecipuum munus annalium (Ann. 3.65).” ANRW 2.33.4: 2904–2927. Moles, John. 1998. “Cry Freedom: Tacitus Annals 4.32–35.” Histos 2: 95–184. Woodman, A. J. 1998. Tacitus Reviewed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J., ed., with C. S. Kraus. 2014. Tacitus: Agricola. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

DII, see THRACE

349

In 73 ce Dillius Aponianus was curator of the banks and channel of the Tiber River, a consular post. He was consul at some point between 71 and 73 ce (see Gallivan 1981, 201). He was a relative of Dillius Vocula and probably of Aponius Saturninus (Syme 1958, 594 n.1). Reference works: PIR2 D 89; AE 1932, 78; CIL VI 31574 = ILS 5928 REFERENCES Gallivan, Paul. 1981. “The Fasti for A. D. 70–96.” Classical Quarterly 31.1: 186–220. McAlindon, D. 1957. “Entry to the Senate in the Early Empire.” Journal of Roman Studies 47: 191–195. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. London and Oxford: Clarendon Press.

DILLIUS VOCULA ELIZABETH KEITEL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

DILLIUS APONIANUS CARL J. HOPE

Dillius Aponianus was a legionary commander who joined with Antonius Primus to fight for Vespasian against the Vitellian forces at the second Battle of Bedriacum in 69 ce. Gaius Dillius Sergia Aponianus was born in Corduba in Baetica and served as military tribune in legion IV Macedonica, as quaestor in Sicily, and as commander of the legion III Gallica when it invaded Italy (on his career, see McAlindon 1957, 193–194). This legion, stationed in Moesia on the Danube, left to fight for Otho but declared for Vespasian in 69 ce after Otho’s suicide. It was previously under the command of Aurelius Fulvus (H. 1.79.5). Aponianus joined his legion to those with Antonius Primus at Verona, where they fortified the city with a rampart (H. 3.10.1). When the Flavian forces at Verona became mutinous and sought out Aponius Saturninus, Aponianus, alongside Antonius Primus and Vipstanus Messalla, attempted to calm the legionaries (H. 3. 11.3).

c04_Vol1.indd 349

Dillius Vocula was legate of legion XXII Primigenia in Upper Germany in 69–70 ce, where he was murdered by a Roman soldier. Dillius Vocula, a Spaniard, reached the office of praetor before taking up his command in Upper Germany. He was caught up in the maelstrom of the civil wars of 69 ce and the ongoing tension between the troops, who favored Vitellius, and their commanders who favored Vespasian plus the revolt from Rome led by the Batavian Iulius Civilis and the Treveran Iulius Classicus. Vocula was a competent commander in stark contrast to his superior, the feckless, compliant, and sluggish Hordeonius Flaccus whom Tacitus characterizes as sine constantia, sine auctoritate (“without courage, without authority,” H. 1.9.1; Damon 2003). Tacitus admires Vocula’s mira constantia (“admirable courage,” H. 4.25.4) when he single-handedly snuffs out a mutiny by ordering the soldier who was inciting it to be punished. The troops then unanimously demanded that Flaccus turn over the chief command to Vocula, which he did.

28-04-2023 17:47:21

350  

disability

Flaccus was subsequently murdered by his own troops after he distributed a donative sent by Vitellius but distributed by Flaccus in Vespasian’s name. Vocula barely escaped the same fate (H. 4.36.2) only to deal with further mutinies and meet death at the hands of a Roman deserter (H. 4. 59.1). His last act was to deliver a speech intended to deter his mutinous troops from joining the Gauls in their fight against the Romans. Many had advised him to flee. He chose boldness instead (H. 4.57.3). Modern scholars are divided on Tacitus’ portrayal of Vocula. Syme called Vocula “the Roman hero of the Batavian war, perhaps embellished by Tacitus” (1958, 175). Martin sees Vocula as “no idealized hero… The speech that Tacitus puts in his mouth is therefore a tribute to a brave man, no more” (1981, 98). Master (2016, 154) argues that Vocula’s speech shows how out of touch he was with the very events of 69 that Tacitus has described. Wellesley (2000) helps the reader understand better some of the strategic choices Vocula made. see also: Batavian Revolt Reference works: PIR2 D 90; ILS 983; RE 2; RE 186; RE 189 REFERENCES Damon, C. 2003. Tacitus: Histories Book I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, R. 1981. Tacitus. Bristol: Bristol Classical Paperbacks. Master, J. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wellesley, K. 2000. The Year of the Four Emperors. 3rd ed. London: Routledge. FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 2010. “Fighting Talk: Dillius Vocula’s Last Stand (Tacitus Histories 4.58).” In Stimmen der Geschichte: Funktionen von Reden in der antiken Historiographie, edited by D. Pausch, 211–232. Berlin: de Gruyter.

c04_Vol1.indd 350

DINIS, see THRACE DIODOTUS, see PHILOSOPHY

DISABILITY ANTHONY SMART

York St. John University

Disability studies represents an important emerging field in classical research, and one that offers crucial perspectives upon the cultural, political, and social realities of the ancient world. While in Greece and Rome there may not have been fixed terminology devoted to disability, there was nonetheless an understanding of different disabilities that reflected contemporary religious attitudes, as well as medical knowledge and cultural expectations (Draycott 2015; Laes 2018; Van Lommel 2015). The Latin term debilitas, which we can find across Roman writings, speaks more to a general acknowledgment of difficulty rather than specific disabilities (see also deformis, distortus, deformitatus, informis, vitium and retortus). There is some difficulty in separating disease from disability (Ulp. Digest 21.1.1.7), as well as problems when we try to separate physical and mental disabilities in the ancient writings. Although the traditional image of ancient disability guided by exposure and infanticide persists in some areas of scholarship, there are now substantive reassessments that offer more nuanced images and ideas (Draycott 2015; Laes 2018; Penrose 2015; Trentin 2011). Tacitus describes physical and mental disabilities in three of his works (A. 6.20.1, 6.45.5, 12.49, 13.3, 13.35.3; H. 1.9.1, 4.81–2; Ag. 13.2). While these are often grounded in political commentary, they still offer an important perspective on ancient attitudes toward disability and the narrative constructions of Tacitean historical commentary. They offer assessments of imperial power and the political performance of emperors, as well as reflecting contemporary understandings of disability. Trentin notes that “deformed individuals were regularly displayed for popular entertainment, part of a well-established tradition of displaying the anomalous body (both

28-04-2023 17:47:21

disability  

human and animal) in Roman culture” (2011, 197). This can lead into the discourse on good and bad emperors. In his discussion of emperors, Tacitus’ perspective differs from what can be seen in the caricatures offered by Suetonius. Caligula emerges a monster (Suet. Calig. 22), sadistic and cruel, who enjoyed torture and was prone to ualetudo mentis, an unspecified mental weakness, commonly rendered in modern interpretations as insanity (Suet. Calig. 50–51; compare to dementia in Sen. Ben. 7.11.2). In Tacitus, however, we find a more carefully constructed and nuanced exploration of Caligula, that represents his febrility as more to do with youth and his inherent personality, rather than a specific identifiable mental disability (Ag. 13.2; A. 6.20.1, 6.45.5). His notes speak more here to a contemptable court culture and upbringing, rather than clear indication of insanity. Claudius is well known for suffering several ailments and disabilities and was most likely suffering from cerebral palsy (Suet. Claud. 30, 39.2–40.3). In an imperial culture that was drawn to disparage and display some disabilities, Claudius’ assumption of power, and maintenance of that power, is a remarkable achievement in and of itself. Although well known for stuttered speech, mental confusion, and the dragging of a limb (in Suetonius as well modern interpretations), Tacitus suggests that when prepared, Claudius, despite his propensity to stutter, could still speak with clarity and purpose (A. 13.3). Again, his disabilities are not necessarily a symbol of his poor mental state or indeed his inability to rule; his personal failings (a certain gullibility) and a lack of control undermine his rule. In the Histories, Tacitus provides a very different interpretation of imperial power and its connections with disability that anticipate medieval rulers and saintly figures (H. 4.81–82). Inspired by Serapis, two disabled citizens of Alexandria beseech Vespasian to heal them, one from blindness and the other from an injury to his hand that left him maimed. The emperor initially refuses, before taking advice from doctors and, seemingly, curing both individuals. Tacitus appears convinced by these miracles, and it speaks to a very different embodiment of imperial power that touches very strongly upon the religious responsibilities of rulership.

c04_Vol1.indd 351

351

When discussing members of the elite with disabilities there is a marked distinction. While Tacitus in speaking of emperors does not necessarily use their disability as the defining judgment on their character and capacity to rule well, here we see a rather shallow exploration of disability. Outward deformity is linked closely to a weakness of character or mind. This is particularly apparent when looking at Iulius Paelignus (A. 12.49.1), Vatinius (A. 15.34.3), and Hordeonius Flaccus (H. 1.9.1). When discussing Paelignus, Tacitus indicates very strongly a clear physical disability, as well as ignauia animi, some nonspecific weakness of mind. This is a deliberate choice of language used to explain the failure of imperial foreign policy by the procurator of Cappadocia. Vatinius is also physically disabled, with some unnamed mental ailment, and joins the court of Nero initially to be ridiculed but assumes vast power (Trentin 2011). Flaccus is described as old and infirm (suffering perhaps from gout or some other affliction of the feet) and could not control even the tamest of soldiers. In each of these, Tacitus links disability to the failure of imperial will and to criticisms, in a circumlocutory fashion, of Claudius and Nero. Tacitus reflects wider Roman attitudes toward disability, but there is a distinctive gap between his approach and that found in for instance Suetonius. see also: Claudius Sanctus REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING Draycott, J. 2015. “The Lived Experience of Disability in Antiquity: A Case Study from Roman Egypt.” Greece & Rome 62.2: 189–205. Laes, C. 2018. Disabilities and the Disabled in the Roman World: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Penrose, W. D. 2015. “The Discourse of Disability in Ancient Greece.” Classical World 108.4: 499–523. Sneed, Debby. 2021. “Disability and Infanticide in Ancient Greece.” Hesperia 90: 747–772. Trentin, L. 2011. “Deformity in the Roman Imperial Court.” Greece & Rome 58.2: 195–208. Van Lommel, K. 2015. “Heroes and Outcasts: Ambiguous Attitudes Towards Impaired and Disfigured Roman Veterans.” Classical World 109.1: 91–117.

DIVINATION, see PORTENTS DIVODURUM, see MEDIOMATRICI

28-04-2023 17:47:21

352  

D omitia

DOMITIA DANIELLE CHAGASDE LIMA

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Born around 4–6 ce, Domitia was the eldest daughter of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (2) and Antonia the Elder. She was a sister of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2), Nero’s father, and Domitia Lepida, Messalina’s mother. Domitia was married to Passienius Crispus who divorced her to marry Agrippina the Younger (Quint. Inst. 6.1.50; 6.3.74). Domitia and Agrippina always jousted for Nero’s attention, and Domitia ended up being involved in a quarrel with her in 55 ce. Iunia Silana, led by revenge, persuaded two of her clients to accuse Agrippina of conspiracy against the emperor. The plot aimed to get Rubelius Plautus, a member of the dynasty, into power (A. 13.19.2). They told Agrippina’s supposed plan to Atimetus, a freedman of Domitia. The accusation reached Nero through his close associate Paris (also Domitia’s freedman; see actors) who was convinced by Atimetus to tell him what Agrippina had been plotting (A. 13.19.4). Despite Nero’s anger, Agrippina had the chance to defend herself, so she blamed Domitia for encouraging Iunia Silana and for plotting with her freedmen (A. 13.21.2). Moreover, she criticized her for building fishponds in Baiae while she was helping Nero to reach the throne (A. 13.21.3). Agrippina was successful in achieving the punishment of the informers, and Atimetus received a capital sentence (A. 13.22.2). Domitia was a wealthy woman, member of gens Domitia, and owned properties at Baiae and Ravenna. She passed away soon after Agrippina in 59 ce, and she was likely poisoned by Nero, who had interest for her properties (Cass. Dio 61.17.1; Suet. Ner. 34.5). see also: Campania; Julio-Claudian dynasty; poison Reference works: PIR2 D 171; PIR2 A 1315

c04_Vol1.indd 352

FURTHER READING Carlsen, Jesper. 2006. The Rise and Fall of a Roman Noble Family: The Domitii Ahenobarbi 196 bc-ad 68. Odense: University Press of Southern of Denmark. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. New York: Oxford University Press.

DOMITIA DECIDIANA, see AGRICOLA

DOMITIA LEPIDA PHILIP WADDELL

University of Arizona

Domitia Lepida (d. 48 ce) was the mother of Valeria Messalina and was Nero’s paternal aunt. She was a victim of Agrippina the Younger, and was executed in 48 ce. Domitia Lepida was the daughter of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (2) and Antonia the Elder (not the Younger, as asserted at A. 12.64.2), and the sister of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2), the father of Nero. Although not specifically stated in the ancient sources, there is sufficient biographical data to presume a sister of the same name, usually referred to as Domitia (PIR2 D 171; see Barrett 1996, 45–46, 233). Domitia Lepida and her brother would have been charged with incest but escaped prosecution due to Tiberius’ death (A. 6.47–48.1; Suet. Nero 5.2). Domitia Lepida was married to Messala Barbatus (Suet. Cl. 26.2) and bore Messalina. She was then married to Faustus Cornelius Sulla (consul 31 ce) by whom she had a son, Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix (consul 52 ce). She then married Gaius Appius Iunius Silanus (consul 28 ce) by order of Claudius (Cass. Dio 60.14.3). After Silanus had refused Messalina’s sexual advances, he was executed for treason in 42 ce (Suet. Cl. 37.2). After Messalina’s affair and “marriage” to Gaius Silius was discovered in 47 ce, Domitia Lepida encouraged her daughter to commit suicide rather than be executed, finding pity for her at the

28-04-2023 17:47:21

D omitian  

end of her life, although she had never felt affection for her when she was in power (A. 11.37.3). After Messalina’s execution, the body was turned over to Domitia Lepida (A. 11.38.2). In 48 ce, Agrippina the Younger destroyed Domitia Lepida, fearing her influence over Nero (A. 12.64.2–3). As an aid to motive, Barrett sees Lepida’s ties with Britannicus, her grandson, as a worry to Agrippina and Nero (Barrett 1996, 137–138). Lepida was charged with cursing Agrippina and of throwing Italy into turmoil through her large number of slaves in Calabria. She was sentenced to death, even though Narcissus argued strongly against it (A. 12.65.1). Nero testified against his aunt and on behalf of his mother (Suet. Nero 7.1). Her wealth is corroborated in epigraphic evidence referring to her granaries (AE 1978.139), and she is probably referred to in the epitaph of one of her freedmen, Lucius Domitius Phaon (AE 1914.219). Reference works: PIR2 D 180 REFERENCE Barrett, Anthony. 1996. Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 164–166.

DOMITIAN DILETTA VIGNOLA

Università degli Studi di Genova TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Domitian, (Titus Flavius Domitianus, 51–96 ce, later known as Caesar Domitianus Augustus), was Roman emperor (51–96 ce), seventeen times consul (ordinary consul in 73, 80, 82–88, 90, 92, and 95; suffect consul in 71, 75–77, and 79), and

c04_Vol1.indd 353

353

perpetual censor (starting in 85). Son of Vespasian and Flavia Domitilla, and younger brother of Titus, he held power at Rome while the father and the brother were engaged in the Bellum Iudaicum. He became emperor upon his brother’s death and remained in power for almost fifteen years, during which important military campaigns in Germania, Britannia, Dacia and Pannonia took place. His principate is remembered as despotic for the sentencing to death or exile of numerous senators and for the frequent use of delators. He died during a conspiracy at the palace and was subject to damnatio memoriae after death. Domitian was born on October 24, 51 ce, under the principate of Claudius, a time in which according to Suetonius his family was in relative financial straits (Dom. 1) and did not enjoy particular favor at court (Jones 1992, 8–9) despite Vespasian’s appointment as suffect consul for the later part of the year. When his father and brother were sent to Iudaea, Domitian stayed at Rome, probably with his paternal uncle Titus Flavius Sabinus (1) (Jones 1992, 13). According to Tacitus, in December 69 ce, when his uncle occupied the Capitolium with a group of soldiers, knights, and senators during the conflict with the Vitellians, Domitian was summoned by him and joined him with his cousins (H. 3.69). When the opponents broke through, however, Domitian hid in the house of a custodian, donned a linen dress, and mingled with the priests to find refuge at one of his father’s clients, Cornelius Primus, at the Velabrum (H. 3.74; see Rome, topography); Suetonius presents a slightly different version of the story, with Domitian fleeing across the Tiber to the home of one of his classmates’ mother (Dom. 1.2; Wellesley 1956, 211–214; Wiseman 1978). Other sources on the affair are Cassius Dio (65.17.2–4) and Flavius Josephus (BJ 4.645–9). At the end of the battle, when the enemy presented no further threat, Domitian was acclaimed Caesar by the soldiers (H. 3.86), officially accepted the title, and moved into the palace, although he did not actively rule. Vespasian and Titus were absent from Rome, and the actual power lay in the hands of Arrius Varus, pretorian prefect,

28-04-2023 17:47:21

354  

D omitian

Antonius Primus (H. 4.2), and later of Licinius Mucianus (H. 4.11; 4.39; Jones 1992, 15). According to Tacitus, he did not inherit anything from his father’s rule but arrogance (Ag. 7). Officially, Domitian obtained the praetorship and the consular power (imperium consulare) when his father and his brother were elected consuls. He thus began his praetorship on January 1, 70 ce (H. 4.39). When he entered the senate, he gave a balanced speech, which he recited with dignity, blushing frequently (H. 4.40). Along with Tacitus (here and at Ag. 45), Suetonius (Dom. 18) and Pliny the Younger (Pan. 48) report Domitian’s peculiar tendency to blush. Shortly after, negative rumors about his demeanor reached Judea and his father Vespasian, who decided to return to the city leaving behind Titus in charge of the army. Titus’ intercession on behalf of his brother, who was rumored to have overstepped his privileges, only served to reassure Vespasian all the more of Titus’ good character but did not reconcile Vespasian to Domitian (H. 4.51–52). When news—probably exaggeratedly bleak— about the struggles that Annius Gallus and Petilius Cerialis were facing in quelling the Batavian Revolt headed by Iulius Civilis reached Rome, Mucianus and Domitian marched north, leaving Arrecinus Clemens in Rome in charge of the praetorians (H. 4.68). Before they reached the Alps, they received reports of Roman successes, and Mucianus persuaded Domitian to pause at Lugdunum (H. 4.85). Domitian accepted, but Tacitus reports that in the meantime he secretly sent messengers to Cerialis to ask whether he would have handed him over the command of the army had Domitian completed the journey; Cerialis, however, eluded his request, and Domitian, disappointed, began to neglect even more his official duties, feigning interests in literature and poetry (H. 4.86). We know from Martial (5.5.7) that Domitian composed a poem about the war on the Capitolium (bellum Capitolinum), that is, the battle between the Flavians and the supporters of Vitellius on the Capitol Hill in 69 ce. Valerius Flaccus (1.12–14) seems to refer to another poem dedicated to the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus. Suetonius (Dom. 18) reports that Domitian also composed a booklet on hair care, dedicated to a friend (Dewar 2016, 475;

c04_Vol1.indd 354

Galimberti 2016, 94), but he also notes that once he took power, he disregarded literature almost altogether: they say that he would read only the commentaries written by the emperor Tiberius (Dom. 20; on Domitian’s writings, see Coleman 1986, 3088–3095). During his father’s principate, Domitian was consul seven times, but only once as ordinary consul (in 73 ce) and only by permission of his brother Titus (Dom. 2). In 71 ce, he took part in the triumph of his father and his brother for the victory in Judea. He married Domitia Longina, daughter of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, by taking her away from her first husband Lucius Aelius Lamia, as reported by Cassius Dio (66.3.4). With her he had a son who died during childhood. Once he became emperor, he granted his wife the title of Augusta, but later he divorced her because of her adultery with the actor Paris; subsequently, however, he took her back, alleging he was thus complying with the people’s wishes (Dom. 3). Yet, from that time on, he enjoyed an ever more overt relationship with his niece Julia, daughter of Titus (Cass. Dio 67.3.2), whom he had previously refused to marry. According to Suetonius, he even caused her death, forcing her to have an abortion after she became pregnant by him (Dom. 22). Domitian obtained the principate upon the death of Titus, which happened at Aquae Cutiliae on September 13, 81 ce. According to certain rumors, Domitian himself caused or accelerated his brother’s death and went to Rome to be acclaimed emperor by the army even before his brother breathed his last (Cass. Dio 66.26). Such stories, however, should be considered likely the outcome of a biased interpretation of the actual events (Southern 1997, 32). On September 14, he officially received the imperium and the title of Augustus from the senate, along with the tribunician power (tribunicia potestas), the title of father of the country (pater patriae) and the magistracy of pontifex maximus. Under his principate, he also held the consulship ten times (82–88; 90; 92 and 95 ce), although he never stayed in office past the beginning of May (Plin. Pan. 65.3; Suet. Dom. 13). Shortly after his rise to power, he deified Titus and, just like the latter had done, confirmed with one rescript all the concessions granted by the previous emperors (Cass. Dio 67.2.1).

28-04-2023 17:47:21

D omitian  

As emperor, Domitian promoted and led various military campaigns. Around 82–83 ce, after visiting Gaul for the census, he waged war against the Chatti and celebrated the triumph for this victory assuming the title of Germanicus: both Tacitus (G. 37; Ag. 39) and Pliny the Younger (Pan. 16.3) considered such triumph as an act of propaganda which did not correspond to a real victory, but other pieces of evidence lead us to conclude that after Domitian’s campaign, the Roman limes was actually extended (Galimberti 2016, 98). Furthermore, new skirmishes with the Chatti took place in 89, following the revolt headed by Lucius Antonius Saturninus. After the Roman victory, the territory of Germania was divided into the two provinces of Lower Germania (Germania Inferior) and Upper Germania (Germania Superior). Another area on which Domitian focused his military efforts was Moesia: here, in the winter of 84–85 ce, the Daci, under the leadership of Decebalus, had stormed the region and killed the governor Oppius Sabinus. The affront prompted Domitian to go to the region in person. Although he did not take part in the military operations directly, Decebalus later offered to sign a peace agreement; however, Domitian declined and dispatched against him a large army under the command of Cornelius Fuscus (Cass. Dio 67.6). The Roman army suffered a heavy defeat, in which Fuscus himself lost his life. Tettius Julianus was sent in his place (Cass. Dio 67.10), who achieved the final victory at Tapae in 88 ce. The campaign came officially to a close in 89 ce, when Domitian signed peace with Decebalus and celebrated a double triumph over the Daci and the Chatti. Skirmishes with Transdanubian population who had supported Decebalus—Marcomanni, Quadi, and Iazyges—continued well into 93 ce, when the emperor celebrated yet another triumph, for his dealings with the Sarmatians. As far as Britannia is concerned, under Domitian Agricola carried on with his campaign, which had started during the principate of Vespasian in 77 ce and continued under Titus. An essential source on these events is the De Vita Agricolae by Tacitus. In particular, according to Tacitus—who, having married his daughter, was Agricola’s son-in-law—after the victory against Calgacus in the battle of Mons Graupius of 83 ce, Domitian would have

c04_Vol1.indd 355

355

decided to recall Agricola to Rome, all the more envious of the general’s military successes since he had just caused ridicule by celebrating a fake triumph over the Germani (Ag. 39). The decision to interrupt the campaign in Britannia, however, is generally considered today as part of a wider military strategy, aimed at fortifying the borders over the Rhenus and the Danuvius by deploying there as many troops as possible (Galimberti 2016, 99; Jones 1992, 131–135). Despite the interruption of the war and although he had been accused (and later acquitted) multiple times before the emperor, Agricola maintained his popularity and reputation of good commander, which ultimately caused his doom (Ag. 41). It is not certain, however, whether his death was ordered by Domitian: Cassius Dio thinks so (66.20), but Suetonius, for example, does not mention him among the notable victims of the prince (Dom. 10). Tacitus, for his part, reports only the rumor according to which Agricola died by poison and adds that during his agony, Domitian was suspiciously insistent in asking for updates via certain messengers, and that he feigned grief after Agricola’s death (Ag. 43). In economic policies, to respond to the frequent famines, Domitian supported the production of cereals (which had been hindered by the competing production of wine) by promulgating an edict which prohibited the planting of new vineyards in Italy and mandated the destructions of half the vineyards already active in the provinces. Such a measure, however, was never strictly enforced (Dom. 7). Further, Domitian resolved the problem of the lots of public land that had been left unassigned after the distributions to the veterans (subseciva) by officially granting ownership to those who were already occupying them. As for coinage, in 82 he enacted an appreciation of the denarius, bringing it back to the value it held under Augustus. A few years later in 85, however, he depreciated it again, establishing its value at the one it held under Nero in 64 ce—which was still higher than the denarius under Vespasian (Jones 1992, 75; numismatics). Overall, it is difficult to establish how much Domitian’s economic policies were effective (economy). It is safe to say that the imperial finances under his principate remained sound, and he passed on to

28-04-2023 17:47:21

356  

D omitian

Nerva enough funds not only for the ordinary administration, but also for some emergency measures, such as extraordinary distributions of grain and the lowering of certain types of taxes (Jones 1992, 73). For a long time, Domitian did not accept inheritance from deceased persons who had left children behind and took action against informants (Dom. 9). Later on, however, finding himself in financial straits for the massive expenses toward urban development plans, the organization of games, and the salary of soldiers, he began to use delators in order to gain possession of the inheritance of the wealthy deceased (Dom. 12). As far as religion is concerned, he maintained a tolerant, and sometimes even supportive, attitude toward Egyptian cults, especially that of Isis, whose temple he restored. On the other hand, he showed aversion both to Judaism and Christianity. If he limited himself to levy the fiscus Iudaicus from the Jews, a tax which had been imposed after the Bellum Iudaicum and that Domitian had collected with particular rigor both from practicing Jews and from those who were just of Jewish descent, against Christianity he seemed to have started actual persecutions—although there is no consensus about it among scholars (Sordi 2004, 76–86). His principate, however, when compared to his father’s and his brother’s, was characterized in particular by an ostentatious return to traditional Roman religion: specifically, Domitian showed a keen devotion to Minerva, whose parentage he claimed for himself and whom he worshipped to the level of superstition (Dom. 15), and to Capitoline Jupiter, of whom he portrayed himself as warrior vice regent (Fears 1981, 79) after the battle against the Vitellians of 69 ce which took place, in fact, on the Capitolium. In thanksgiving for the god’s help received on that occasion, Domitian built the sanctuary of Iupiter Conservator, later transformed into the temple of Iupiter Custos; furthermore, he restored the magnificent temple of Capitoline Jupiter which had been severely damaged during the burning of Rome in 80 ce. Domitian started an ambitious building policy (Gallia 2016, 156–162; Jones 1992, 79–98), which included the restoration or reconstruction of many edifices damaged or destroyed during the same fire and the erection of many new ones. Among the latter, it is worth mentioning in

c04_Vol1.indd 356

particular the temple of the gens Flavia built on the Quirinal Hill where once stood the family home where he himself was born (Dom. 1). Domitian paid great attention to the restoration of customs: in 85 ce he assumed the title of perpetual censor (censor perpetuus) and intervened twice, in 83 and 89, to punish the Vestal Virgins who had not been faithful to their vow of chastity. Although in the first case he granted the three condemned priestesses to choose the way to die, in the second instance he imposed that the culprit, Cornelia, be buried alive, enacting the traditional sentence for this crime. In 89 ce Domitian put back into effect the lex Iulia de Adulteriis Coercendis. Because of his efforts to strengthen the imperial power, his relationships with the senate were tense. Pliny the Younger seems to suggest that he favored openly those who were disliked by the senate and conversely showed hatred toward those who enjoyed its favors (Pan. 62). In general, he proved to be much more authoritarian than his brother Titus (Galimberti 2016, 96). During the last years of his principate, he sentenced to death or to exile several senators of consular rank. Among his most notable victims are Vettulenus Civica Cerialis, accused of organizing a revolt, Aelius Lamia, first husband of Domitia and guilty, according to Suetonius, of having cracked some jokes about Domitian in the past, and Titus Flavius Sabinus (2), grandson of the brother of Vespasian by the same name, who had been mistakenly introduced as emperor instead of as consul during the assembly (Dom. 10; Jones 1992, 44–46). The report according to which he would have asked to be called dominus et deus (“lord and god”) is controversial. He certainly deified both the young son he had with Domitia and his niece Julia. Domitian was killed on September 18, 96 ce, during a palace conspiracy which, according to Suetonius, had been long prepared: Stephanus, Domitilla’s procurator, had kept his arm wrapped in bandages for several days and, at the appointed time, had used the bandage to hide a dagger. He then had himself introduced to the emperor under the pretense of unveiling an ongoing conspiracy and stabbed him in the groin while he was reading the very booklet Stephanus had brought to him (Dom. 17). Among those who took part in the aggression, Suetonius mentions

28-04-2023 17:47:21

D omitius A fer  

the cornicular Clodianus, the freedman Maximus, the head of the palace personnel Saturus, and some gladiators. Cassius Dio instead mentions, besides Stephanus, the chamberlains Partenius and Sigerius, and the official in charge of petitions (a libellis) Entellus. He also reports the rumor according to which Domitia and two pretorian prefects, Norbanus and Petronius Secundus, had been involved in the conspiracy as well. Domitian’s nurse, Phyllis, rendered funeral honors to him privately. Later, she transferred the remains to the temple of the gens Flavia and mixed them with the ashes of Julia. After his death, Domitian was subject to damnatio memoriae. His successor was Marcus Cocceius Nerva. see also: empire, Flavian dynasty, morality, provinces Reference work: PIR2 F 259 REFERENCES Coleman, K. M. 1986. “The Emperor Domitian and Literature.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.32.5: 3087–3115. Dewar, Michael. 2016. “Lost Literature.” In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, edited by Andrew Zissos, 469–483. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Fears, J. Rufus. 1981. “Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology: The Role of Domitian.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.17.1: 3–141. Galimberti, Alessandro. 2016. “The Emperor Domitian.” In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, edited by Andrew Zissos, 92–108. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Gallia, Andrew B. 2016. “Remaking Rome.” In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, edited by Andrew Zissos, 148–165. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Jones, Brian W. 1992. The Emperor Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. Sordi, Marta. 2004. I Cristiani e l’impero Romano. Milano: Jaca Book. Southern, Pat. 1997. Domitian. Tragic Tyrant. London and New York: Routledge. Wellesley, Kenneth. 1956. “Three Historical Puzzles in Histories 3.” Classical Quarterly 6: 207–214. Wiseman, T. P. 1978. “Flavians on the Capitol.” American Journal of Ancient History 3: 163–178.

c04_Vol1.indd 357

357

FURTHER READING Girard, Jean Louis. 1981. “Domitien et Minerve: une prédilection impériale.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.17.1: 233–245. Griffin, Miriam. 2000. “The Flavians.” In Cambridge Ancient History XI. The High Empire, 2nd ed., edited by Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone, 1–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jones, Brian W. 1973. “Domitian’s Attitude to the Senate.” American Journal of Philology 94: 79–91. Jones, Brian W. 1982. “Domitian’s Advance into Germany and Moesia.” Latomus 4: 329–335. Levick, Barbara. 1982. “Domitian and the Provinces.” Latomus 41: 50–73. Rogers, Perry M. 1984. “Domitian and the Finances of State.” Historia 33: 60–78. Seelentag, Gunnar. 2009. “Spes Augusta: Titus und Domitian in der Herrschaftsdarstellung Vespasians.” Latomus, 78: 83–100. Thompson, Lloyd A. 1982. “Domitian and the Jewish Tax.” Historia 31: 329–342. Vervaet, Frederik J. 2016. “The Remarkable Rise of the Flavians.” In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, edited by Andrew Zissos, 313–326. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

DOMITIUS, see CURIATIUS MATERNUS

DOMITIUS AFER LEANNE BABLITZ

University of British Columbia

The bulk of what is known of Gnaeus Domitius Afer (d. 59 ce) comes from his student, Quintilian, who ranks him among the most distinguished orators of the Roman forum. Alternatively, Tacitus, in three biting passages (A. 4.52.1; 4.66.1–2; 14.19.1), paints an ugly picture of a man undertaking prosecutions for money and fame—a delator. Reconciling these two characterizations is difficult. The lost portion of the Annals would no doubt aid, as Tacitus surely would not have forgone the opportunity to recount the emperor Caligula’s personal prosecution of Afer in 39 ce before the senatorial court. Cassius Dio’s account of this trial portrays Afer as a prudent adversary who realized that his acquittal depended on acknowledging Caligula’s oratorical skills as far surpassing his own. Thus, he was a

28-04-2023 17:47:21

358  

D omitius A fer

shrewd advocate and teacher who knew that sometimes failure meant success. A praetorship in 25 ce is his first known public office (A. 4.52.1) which suggests he was born around 10 bce or earlier (in Nemausus in Gallia Narbonensis). The next year (26 ce) he led the successful prosecution of Claudia Pulchra, second cousin of Agrippina the Elder and widow of the ill-fated general Quintilius Varus, on charges of adultery and maiestas. This trial established Afer amongst the leading orators of the forum, Tiberius himself acknowledging him as a skilled speaker (A. 4.52.1, 3–4; cf. Cass. Dio 59.19.1–2). The following year Afer joined Publius Cornelius Dolabella, in accusing Dolabella’s cousin, Quintilius Varus (homonymous son of the general), Claudia Pulchra’s son, of unknown crimes. The senate refused to advance the case, and nothing more is heard of the matter (A. 4.66.1–2). Twelve years later in 39 ce Afer erected a statue of Caligula to commemorate the emperor’s second consulship. Caligula takes offense, reading the mention of his second consulship, which he held before legal age, as a criticism of his unlawful activity, and Afer finds himself a defendant in the senate listening to Caligula personally deliver the prosecutorial speech (Cass. Dio 59.19.1–7). No doubt Tacitus’ missing account presented both protagonists in a negative light. Following his acquittal, in the same year Afer was appointed suffect consul in extraordinary circumstances as he replaced one of two suffecti whom Caligula removed from office (Cass. Dio 59.20.1–3). Modern scholars suggest that he held the post from the early days of September through December (Humphrey and Swan 1983). His last recorded office was his appointment as curator aquarum in 49 ce (Frontin. Aq. 102). Nothing further is recorded until his death in 59 ce which Tacitus announces (A. 14.19.1). Some of Domitius Afer’s other activities are known, though the chronology is uncertain. He perhaps started his advocacy career with some potentially lucrative but easily obtainable prosecutions; he developed a slight reputation as a man who prosecuted freedmen of Claudius (Quint. Inst. 6.3.81). These cases must have taken place before Claudius became emperor when he was languishing on the periphery of the Domus Augusta. Although Tacitus labels Afer as a delator, we know the names of more clients whom he

c04_Vol1.indd 358

defended than prosecuted, which perhaps calls this label into question. He defended a woman Laelia (no details are known), and he also undertook the defense of Cloatilla, likely in the senate on charges of maiestas, whose rebel husband was involved in a revolt against Claudius in 42 ce (Quint. Inst. 8.5.16, 9.2.20, 9.3.66, 9.4.31). Success may have been his in both cases since Quintilian knew of various passages from the two speeches. Speeches of another of his defense cases, that of Volusenus Catulus, were circulating during Quintilian’s boyhood. Afer also defended the free status of an unknown defendant (Quint. Inst. 6.3.32). It is likely that the only other prosecution Afer is known to have undertaken, that of one Curvius, as reported by Pliny (Ep. 8.8, 18), occurred during the years which fall within the lacuna of Tacitus’ text. It was a strange case—it seems this Curvius was the natural father of two young men whom Afer himself had adopted. The matter was hardly trivial: the father was banished. Tacitus’ negative opinion of Afer would surely motivate him to include this familial drama in his narrative. Afer not only practiced advocacy but served as a model for future generations. He was known for his wit—as published books of his witticisms attest. He wrote two books on how to treat the evidence of witnesses. He also tutored Quintilian (the future tutor of Pliny the Younger), who mentions hearing him speak in the Centumviral Court (Plin. Ep. 2.14.10). He seems not to have accepted old age gracefully. Both Tacitus and Quintilian remark that his continued pleading of cases into extreme old age betrayed the diminution of his rhetorical skills. see also: centumvirales; delators Reference work: PIR2 D 126 REFERENCE Humphrey, J. W., and P. M. Swan. 1983. “Cassius Dio on the Suffect Consulship of A.D. 39.” Phoenix 37: 324–327. FURTHER READING Bablitz, L. 2007. Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom. London and New York: Routledge.

28-04-2023 17:47:21

D omitius A henobarbus , G naeus ( 2 )  

Bauman, R. A. 1992. Women and Politics in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge. Marshall, A. J. 1993. “The Case of Cloatilla: A Note on Quintilian’s Quotations from the Defence Speech of Domitius Afer.” Ancient History Bulletin 7: 17–27. Rutledge, S. H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions. Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. Rutledge, S. H. 2010. “Oratory and Politics in the Empire.” In A Companion to Roman Rhetoric, edited by W. Dominik and J. Hall, 109–121. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Strunk, T. E. 2010. “Offending the Powerful: Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus and Safe Criticism.” Mnemosyne 63: 241–267. Syme, R. 2012. “Obituaries in Tacitus.” In Oxford Readings in Tacitus, edited by R. Ash, 245–258. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2018. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, Gnaeus (1), see LICINIUS CRASSUS, LUCIUS

DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, GNAEUS (2) FABRICE GALTIER

Université Clermont Auvergne TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was born on December 11 (the year of birth is unknown), and died in 40–41 ce. He was the son of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (2) and of Antonia the Elder, daughter of the triumvir Mark Antony and of Octavia (1), sister of Augustus. He was, therefore, the grandnephew of the latter. Married to Agrippina the Younger, he was the biological father of Nero (A. 12.3.2; 64.2). According to Suetonius (Ner. 5.1), Domitius Ahenobarbus accompanied the young Gaius Caesar, son of Agrippa and Julia the Elder, daughter of Augustus, in the East. This statement creates a chronological problem, because when Gaius was carrying out his mission, starting in 1 bce, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus must have been too young. For had he been old

c04_Vol1.indd 359

359

enough to follow Gaius, this would mean that he was older than forty when he reached the consulship, an unusually old age. The biographer might have confused Gaius Caesar with Gaius Germanicus, who carried out a mission in the East in 17 ce. He could have also mentioned Gnaeus instead of an older brother of whom we have lost track (Syme 1986, 155–156). According to Scheid (1975, 138–139) he could have confused Gnaeus with his father, but any conclusion arising from the hypothesis of a mistake on Suetonius’ side is not completely satisfying, and the late date of the consulship can not be explained. Gnaeus was part of the college of the Fratres Arvales from 25 ce until his death (Scheid 1975, 156). In 28, by choice of Tiberius, he married Agrippina the Younger, daughter of Agrippina the Elder and Germanicus, and therefore great-granddaughter of Augustus (A. 4.75). His career led him to the consulship (32 ce), which he held for an entire year (A. 6.1.1; Cass. Dio 58.20.1). In 36, following a severe fire which destroyed part of the Circus Maximus and the districts of the Aventine, he was chosen by the emperor to be one of five members of a committee in charge of assessing the damage (A. 6.45.1–2). In 37, probably at the instigation of Macro, praetorian prefect at the time, he was accused of maiestas and adultery, as part of the conspiracy of Albucilla (Bradley 1978, 43). He was also accused of having an incestuous relationship with his sister Lepida. The emperor’s death allowed him to avoid a sentence (A. 6.47.2–48.1; Cass. Dio 58.27.2). On December 15 of the same year, Agrippina the Younger gave birth to a son, Lucius, the future emperor Nero. Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus died of dropsy in Pyrgi, Etruria, when the child was three, either at the end of 40 or at the beginning of 41 ce (Suet. Ner. 5.3). Some of the negative traits that his behavior seems to have revealed, like his brutality and cruelty, foreshadow those of Nero. According to Suetonius (Ner. 5), he killed one of his freedman who refused to drink as much as he had ordered him to do; voluntarily crushed a child by throwing his chariot at full speed in a town on the Via Appia; and snatched the eye of a knight who had taken the liberty to criticize him publicly. When

28-04-2023 17:47:21

360  

D omitius A henobarbus , Lucius ( 1 )

his friends offered their congratulations for the birth of his son, he allegedly responded that from him and Agrippina nothing could be born but a detestable being, baleful for the state (Suet. Ner. 6.2). The biographer also reports his efforts not to pay the sums he owed to bankers or, when he was praetor, to the winners of the chariot races. Seneca the Elder (Contr. 9.4.18) makes reference to his alleged idleness. On the contrary, Velleius Paterculus (2.10.2; 72.3), his contemporary, mentions him with praise; according to Josephus (A.J. 20.8.1), he is a famous character. The Fratres Arvales were put in charge of offering a sacrifice on the day of the anniversary of his birth, December 11, on the Via Sacra, most likely in front of the house of the Domitii. Reference works: PIR2 D 127; R.E. 5 1331–1333: Domitius 25 REFERENCES Bradley, Keith R. 1978. Suetonius’ Life of Nero. An Historical Commentary. Bruxelles: Latomus. Scheid, John. 1975. Les frères Arvales. Recrutement et origine sociale sous les empereurs julio-claudiens. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Syme, Ronald.1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Barrett, Anthony A. 19992. Agrippina. Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire. New Haven, CT and London: Routledge. Carlsen, Jesper. 2006. The Rise and Fall of a Roman Noble Family, the Domitii Ahenobarbi, 196 bc –ad 68. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark.

DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, LUCIUS (1) BRANDON JONES

Boston University

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (1) (c. 98 bce– Aug. 9, 48 bce) was consul in 54 bce. Son of

c04_Vol1.indd 360

Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 96 bce), father of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 32 bce), and great-great-grandfather of the emperor Nero, he was an opponent of Iulius Caesar, eventually killed after the Battle at Pharsalus (Caes. B Civ. 3.99; Cic. Phil. 2.29.71; Luc. 7.599; Suet. Nero 2). With brother-in-law Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, he stood in opposition to the first triumvirate, attempting as praetor in 58 bce to rescind Caesar’s consulate measures from the previous year. He was implicated in a scandal as consul in 54 bce when he allegedly promised the following year’s consulship to Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus and Gaius Memmius (Cic. Att. 4.15.7, 17.2). After reconciliation with Pompey, he served as investigator over the trial of Annius Milo (Cic. Milo 22). Appointed to the province of Gaul in 49 bce, he obstinately resisted Caesar’s military advances, but was defeated in battle at Corfinium (Caes. B Civ. 1.6.5; Suet. Nero 2) and Massilia (Caes. B Civ. 1.36) before falling at Pharsalus. Lucan gives Lucius Domitius a central role in the seventh book of the Bellum Civile. In the Dialogue on Orators, Aper rebukes Curiatius Maternus for abandoning oratory in favor of poetry that “places Domitius and Cato— that is, our history and famous Romans—in the same flock as the stories of Greeklings” (D. 3.4). The Domitius to whom Aper refers may be our Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who as opponent to Caesar and ally of Cato would serve as an apt hero in a drama with an anti-imperial undertone of the sort that Maternus’ recently recited Cato seems to have had. Lucius’ son Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 32 bce), who committed suicide following the Battle at Actium, is, however, a viable alternative (see Mayer 2001, 97; Syme 1958, 110). see also: civil wars of the Late Republic; Greek orators; Roman orators Reference work: RE Domitius 27 REFERENCES Mayer, Roland. 2001. Tacitus. Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

28-04-2023 17:47:21

D omitius C eler  

361

FURTHER READING

REFERENCES

Gruen, Erich. 1974. The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ferriès, Marie-Claire. 2010. “Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos 16 a.C.), un dignitaire turbulent.” In Des déserts d’Afrique au pays des Allobroges: Hommages offerts à François Bertrandy, tome 1, edited by Fabrice Delrieux and François Kayser, 165–180. Chambéry: Université de Savoie. Scheid, John. 1975. Les frères Arvales. Recrutement et origine sociale sous les empereurs julio-claudiens. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, LUCIUS (2) FABRICE GALTIER

Université Clermont Auvergne

FURTHER READING

TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

Bradley, Keith R. 1978. Suetonius’ Life of Nero. An Historical Commentary. Bruxelles: Latomus. Carlsen, Jesper. 2006. The Rise and Fall of a Roman Noble Family, the Domitii Ahenobarbi, 196 bc –ad 68. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark.

University of Florida

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (2) was born probably in 49 bce (Ferriès 2010, 166) and died in 25 ce. Son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, consul in 32 bce, he married Antonia the Elder (contrary to what Tacitus wrote in A. 4.44.2 and 12.64.2), daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia (1), and niece of Augustus (Suet. Ner. 5.1). He was the grandfather of Nero. Appreciated by Velleius Paterculus (2.72.3), he is an arrogant and cruel judge according to Suetonius (Ner. 4). When he was aedile (22 bce), he seems to have forced the censor Munatius Plancus (father of Munatius Plancus) to make way for him. During his praetorship and consulship (16 bce), he organized mime shows where Roman knights and matrons were acting, but also extremely cruel venationes and gladiatorial fights (see games). He became proconsul of Africa (12 bce), then legate of Augustus in Illyricum and Germany, approximately from 6 bce to 1 ce (Ferriès 2010, 175; Scheid 1975, 74–76). He notably succeeded in crossing the Elbe (A. 4.44.2; Cass. Dio 55.10a.2) and had the pontes longi built between the Rhine and the Ems (A. 1.63.3–4). He was a frater arvalis from 15–10 bce to 25 ce (Scheid 1975, 98), and he was the executor of Augustus’ will (Suet. Ner. 4.1). Reference works: PIR2 D 128; RE 5–1 1343–1346: Domitius 28

c04_Vol1.indd 361

DOMITIUS BALBUS, see VALERIUS FABIANUS DOMITIUS CAECILIANUS, see THRASEA PAETUS

DOMITIUS CELER DAVID WELCH

University of Texas, Austin

Domitius Celer was a close friend of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso who lived during the principate of Tiberius. After the death of Germanicus in 19 ce, Domitius convinced Piso to return to Syria and retake the governorship of the province of which he had been rightly put in charge (A. 2.77.1). In order to assist Piso in his reclamation of the province, Domitius was given a ship and sent via the fastest route to Syria, having gathered together all of the deserters, camp followers, and new recruits that he could find (A. 2.78.2). When he had landed at Laodicea (2), Domitius made straight for the winter-quarters of the Sixth Legion in an effort to gain their assistance for his designs as well, but he was intercepted by Pacuvius (2), the legate of this legion. Gnaeus Sentius Saturninus, the man to whom the command over Syria had been given for the time being, then sent a letter to Piso warning him not to attempt to take the province by force (A. 2.79.2–3).

28-04-2023 17:47:22

362  

D omitius C orbulo, G naeus

Upon his arrival in Syria, Piso summoned the various troops Domitius had gathered and attempted to engage in a pitched battle with Sentius and his soldiers, from whom Piso’s men quickly fled (A. 2.80). Defeated, Piso requested that he be allowed to remain in Syria until the official decision had been made about the governorship of the province, but he was granted only safe passage back to Rome for a trial (A. 2.81.3). We do not know what happened to Domitius. see also: senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone Reference works: PIR2 D 140; RE 5.1425, no. 47

DOMITIUS CORBULO, GNAEUS FREDERIK JULIAAN VERVAET

University of Melbourne

Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, son of the obscure and homonymous praetorian senator Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo (only at A. 3.31.3), possibly of Narbonensian descent, and Vistilia, known from Pliny HN 7.39 for her remarkable fecundity and unusual gestation periods, was born c. 4 bce–1 ce in Peltuinum, a town of the central Italian Vestini. His conservative and prickly father did not make it beyond the office of praetor and gained some notoriety as prosecutor of fraudulent contractors and neglectful curatores viarum under Tiberius and Gaius (Caligula) before being rebuked by Claudius (A. 3.31.3–5: ex-praetor by 21 ce; cf. Cass. Dio 59.15.3–5, 60.17.2f.). Corbulo was born under favorable auspices: Vistilia’s likely brother Vistilius had been an intimate friend of Livia Augusta’s youngest son Drusus the Elder (38–9 bce), spouse of Antonia the Younger and father of Germanicus (consul 12, II 18) and the emperor Claudius, and, after his untimely demise in Germany in the autumn of 9 bce, also became an amicus (political friend) of his older brother Tiberius (A. 6.9.1), who would succeed to Augustus in 14 ce. Throughout their careers, Corbulo, his halfsiblings through Vistilia, Glitius (born c. 15 bce),

c04_Vol1.indd 362

Quintus Pomponius Secundus (suffect consul 41 ce), Publius Pomponius Secundus (suffect consul 44 ce), (Servius) Orfitus (born c. 11 bce; see Cornelius Salvidienus Orfitus), Publius Suillius Rufus (born c. 10 bce, suffect consul 41), and Milonia Caesonia (born c. 5 ce) would continue to enjoy the patronage of Drusus’ surviving relatives and their offspring (especially Antonia the Younger, Gaius/Caligula, and Claudius), with the relative exception, perhaps, of the final years of the reigns of Tiberius (31–37 ce) and Nero (65–68 ce). The influential Vitellii, unwavering supporters of the house of Germanicus, too played a demonstrable role as patrons of Vistilia’s children. After having been quaestor of Germanicus (A. 6.31.3; 13.42.2; c. 15 ce), Suillius Rufus’ services to Lucius Vitellius (1) (consul 34, II 43, III as well as censor in 47) are on record (e.g., A. 11.1–4). Corbulo, Suillius Rufus, and both the Pomponii brothers all secured suffect consulships in rapid succession under Gaius and Claudius, Corbulo probably in April– June 39, shortly before his half-sister married Gaius. It was probably also around this time that he became a member of the ranking priesthood of the septemviri epulonum (CIL 9, 3426). The son of Orfitus, Servius Cornelius (Scipio) Orfitus, was quaestor of Claudius and in 51 became consul ordinarius with Claudius as a colleague. The year before, Suillius Rufus’ son Suillius Nerullinus had equally held an ordinary consulship. These connections easily explain why Corbulo made an interesting spouse for (Cassia) Longina, probable daughter of one of the noble and wellconnected Cassii Longini, either Gaius (suffect 30) or Lucius Cassius Longinus (2). The latter was married by Tiberius to Germanicus’ daughter Iulia Drusilla in 33 (A. 6.15.1), and together with the other husbands of Germanicus’ daughters, Marcus Vinicius (consul 30, II 45), Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2), and Rubellius Blandus (suffect 18), sat on a special financial committee in 36 ce (A. 6.45.2). Gaius Cassius Longinus was married to Iunia Lepida, daughter of Marcus Iunius Silanus (1) and great-granddaughter of Augustus, whose sister Iunia Calvina, was married to Lucius Vitellius (2) (suffect 48). The marriages of Corbulo’s daughters to Annius Vinicianus (A. 15.28.3; Cass. Dio 62.23.6), son of Lucius Annius Vinicianus (suffect

28-04-2023 17:47:22

D omitius C orbulo, G naeus  

40 ce), and especially Lucius Aelius Lamia Plautius Aelianus (suffect 80; Suet. Dom. 1.10.6), probable son of the preeminent Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus (suffect 45, II 74), furthermore indicate that Corbulo cultivated connections with the Annii Polliones, and the Vinicii, the latter being favorites of Tiberius and Claudius, as well as the influential Plautii, who were closely related to the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the Petronii and the Vitellii. His association with these three families in particular would have ensured Corbulo of powerful patrons during the years 19–31, when the rise of Sejanus caused the house of Antonia the Younger and the immediate adherents of Germanicus severe difficulties. Around 47 ce, when Lucius Vitellius was at the height of his influence, Corbulo was entrusted with his first major command as legatus Augusti pro praetore exercitus Germanici Inferioris, governor of the heavily militarized border province of Lower Germany (see Germania). In command of four legions (as well as a roughly equivalent number of auxiliary forces), he conducted an aggressive campaign across the Rhine against the Germanic Chauci and brought the rebellious Frisii back into line (A. 11.18.-20; Cass. Dio 60.30.4–6). Though reportedly frustrated with Claudius’ order to cease hostilities (A. 11.20.1: beati quondam duces Romani, “happy the Roman commanders of old”), these feats and his subsequent excavation of a canal connecting the Rhine and the Meuse earned him the coveted triumphal ornaments (A. 11.20.2). His subsequent appointment to the prestigious proconsulate of Asia around 52 ce suggests ongoing imperial favor. Late in 54, immediately after the accession of Claudius’ adoptive son Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Corbulo was appointed to a special command in the eastern borderlands of the empire, probably with the support of Afranius Burrus, the powerful prefect of the praetorian guard, and Seneca (suffect 55), both confidants of Germanicus’ daughter Agrippina the Younger. As legatus Augusti pro praetore retinendae Armeniae (for the first time, CIL 9, 3426), Corbulo’s brief was to ensure that the strategically important kingdom of Armenia Maior remained a vassal state governed by a Roman appointee, in

c04_Vol1.indd 363

363

keeping with arrangements made by Pompey the Great and Augustus in 66 and 20 bce In the summers of 52 and 54, the energetic Parthian King Vologaeses I had staged full-scale invasions with the aim to install his brother Tiridates on the Armenian throne, a prospect as yet unacceptable to Rome. Corbulo was put in charge of the newly created province CappadociaGalatia (including, until 60 or 63, Pamphylia) and the two legions he would continuously command until the summer of 65, III Gallica and VI Ferrata. In addition to Cappadocia’s garrison and a number of Syrian auxiliary troops, Corbulo in 57 also received an elite detachment of X Fretensis. The administration of GalatiaPamphylia was left to (Quintus Julius Cordinus Gaius) Rutilius Gallicus (suffect 71 or 72, II 84), some sort of iuridicus avant-la-lettre. After capturing Artaxata and Tigranocerta in 58 and 59 successively, Corbulo’s forces consolidated their hold on Armenia with further operations in 60, allowing Nero’s appointee, Tigranes VI, to take control, secured by a strong Roman garrison. Following the death of Gaius Ummidius Quadratus (suffect c. 40), the elderly legatus Augusti pro praetore of Syria, Corbulo transferred to Syria while retaining his governorship of Cappadocia-Galatia, putting him in command of no less than five legions: III Gallica, IIII Scythica, VI Ferrata, X Fretensis, and XII Fulminata. In the ensuing spring, however, Tigranes raided Adiabene, a small Parthian vassal kingdom, prompting an aggressive response on the part of Vologaeses I, who now threatened both Syria and Armenia. In the summer of 61, faced with the prospect of a full-fledged Parthian war, Corbulo negotiated a bilateral retreat from Armenia, a decision unwelcome to some in Rome (A. 15.6.1f.), and requested a separate commander for Cappadocia-Galatia and Armenia. Nero sent one of his favorites, Lucius Iunius Caesennius Paetus (consul 61), who arrived in Cappadocia later that year with the rank of legatus Augusti pro praetore tuendae/defendendae Armeniae and an expansionist mandate (A. 15.6.4). Ordered to annex Armenia altogether, Paetus was given three legions: IIII Scythica, XII Fulminata, and V Macedonica. Remaining in Syria with III Gallica, VI Ferrata, and X Fretensis, Corbulo ably prevented a Parthian invasion. Late in 62, however,

28-04-2023 17:47:22

364  

D omitius C orbulo, G naeus

Rome’s prestige suffered a humiliating blow as only Vologaeses’ restraint (or lack of supplies) prevented the destruction of Paetus and two of his legions at Rhandeia, since Corbulo’s rescue operation only made it to the Euphrates. As a result, the Romans’ army had to conduct an inglorious retreat from Armenia (A. 13.8f.; 34–41; 14.23–26; 15.1–18; Cass. Dio 62.19–22.1). In the spring of 63, as the full extent of the disaster became clear in Rome, Nero and his advisers restored Corbulo to his former position of legatus Augusti pro praetore retinendae Armeniae (CIL 9, 3426: for the second time). Corbulo reassumed the command of CappadociaGalatia whereas Syria was assigned to Gaius Cestius Gallus (2), on the condition, however, that Corbulo retained the command of the Syrian legions while Gallus was to oversee the province’s civil administration. Nero furthermore instructed all of the local tetrarchs, kings, prefects, the Roman procurators, and those legati Augusti pro praetore who governed the provinces neighboring Cappadocia-Galatia to follow Corbulo’s orders (A. 15.25.3). That Pompey the Great in 67 too commanded (a vastly greater) number of legati pro praetore in the war against Mediterranean piracy may help to explain Tacitus’ exuberant comparison between Corbulo’s command and that of Pompey. At any rate, Corbulo now commanded both a massively reinforced Armenian task force (III Gallica, V Macedonica, VI Ferrata, XV Apollinaris, detachments from four Illyrian and two Egyptian legions, further complemented by an impressive number of cavalry and auxiliary troops, altogether perhaps as many as 50,000 men) and Syria’s equally powerful garrison (IIII Scythica, X Fretensis, and XII Fulminata), a concentration of power not seen since the days of Augustus’ Armenian and Parthian settlements of 20 bce. Still according to Tacitus (A. 15.25.2), Nero took these momentous decisions after close consultation with the primores ciuitatis, the “foremost citizens.” Considering the senatorial circles Corbulo was associated with, it is instructive to identify some of the foremost senators of that period whose connections could have been among the powerbrokers advising Nero on such an important and risky decision at a time when the murder of Agrippina the Younger and the death of Burrus

c04_Vol1.indd 364

had weakened the position of Seneca (A. 14.52.1). Publius Petronius Turpilianus (consul 61), son of Publius Petronius (suffect 19), was ordinarius in 61 with Lucius Caesennius Paetus (A. 14.29.1), a protégé of two other rising stars from the clientela of the Vitellii (H. 3.66.1): Titus Flavius Sabinus (1) (suffect 47?) and his younger brother Titus Flavius Vespasianus (Vespasian, suffect 51). The former succeeded Lucius Pedanius Secundus (suffect 43) as praefectus Urbi in 61, while the latter was proconsul of Africa ca. 62 and comes Neronis in Achaea in 66–67, where he was appointed to his fateful command over rebellious Iudaea in 67. About 60, Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus was given the important Moesian command in succession to Titus Flavius Sabinus, and one of the consules designati for the year 65 was Plautius Lateranus (A. 15.60.1). In 62–63 Servius Cornelius (Scipio) Orfitus, Corbulo’s nephew, was proconsul of Africa as immediate successor to Lucius Vitellius (2). In this respect, it is, finally, also well worth reminding that the Romano-Jewish aristocrats Marcus Iulius Agrippa and especially his brother-in-law Tiberius Iulius Alexander, trusted partners of Corbulo during his eastern campaigns (e.g., A. 15.28.3), were also members of the circle of Antonia the Younger (Jos. AJ 18.156, 165, and 19.360). Following a Roman show of force from the spring of 64, Corbulo and Tiridates came to terms at Rhandeia in the summer of 64: the Arsacid prince was to travel to Rome to receive the Armenian crown by the hands of Nero, an innovative and clever Neronian modification of Augustan policy. In 65, Tiridates departed for Rome, where he received his diadem from Nero in the Forum Romanum during a grandiose ceremony in the spring of 66 (A. 15.26–31; Cass. Dio 62.19–26, 63.1–6; cf. Stat. Silv. 5.2.34–47). Corbulo emerges from Tacitus’ narrative as an old-fashioned commander and a strict disciplinarian, effective and cautious if somewhat vainglorious, who, with the exception of the emergency of 61, was ever careful to operate within Nero’s orders and possibly came to see the benefits of a negotiated peace with Vologaeses and Tiridates. There is, moreover, every indication that Tacitus’ extensive account of the Armenian crisis under Claudius and especially Nero is to be interpreted

28-04-2023 17:47:22

D omitius C orbulo, G naeus  

as indirect, if strident, criticism of Trajan’s decision to abandon the Neronian settlement (e.g., A. 15.18.1; cf. Cass. Dio 68.19f.) and embark on a costly war of conquest in Armenia and Mesopotamia (114–117 ce), an aggressive strategy promptly abandoned by his successor Hadrian. In contrast to some of the more hawkish senators of the time, Tacitus thus approved of Hadrianic policy in the East, essentially a return to Pompeian/Augustan and Neronian best practice. Corbulo subsequently remained in Cappadocia-Galatia until the winter of 66–67, probably retaining his special command until the departure of Tiridates for Rome around August 65, which probably also occasioned the transfer of VI Ferrata to Syria, leaving Corbulo in command of III Gallica, V Macedonica, and XV Appollinaris. Though little is known about his activities following the compact of Rhandeia, Corbulo probably oversaw the annexation of the strategic client kingdom Pontus Polemoniacus, the ensuing organization of the classis Pontica, and commenced the fortification of the borders with Armenia Minor and Maior. Epigraphic evidence (ILS 232) confirms that III Gallica remained in Armenia under the command of legatus legionis Aurelius Fulvus (suffect 70?, II suffect consul 85), probably until the return of Tiridates in the autumn of 66. It is also quite likely that, during his stay in Syria, Corbulo had been responsible for the creation of the alae and cohortes milliariae, which would receive their definitive organization under the Flavians. On the home front, however, Corbulo’s son-in-law Annius Vinicianus perished after making an attempt on Nero’s life at Beneventum in August 66. Vinicianus had been serving under Corbulo as quaestorian pro legato of legion V Macedonia in Armenia and had accompanied Tiridates to Rome for his coronation by Nero. Outraged by the trials and suicides of Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus (suffect 56) and especially Quintus Marcius Barea Soranus (suffect 52) and Servilia, which occurred in about May 66 during the festivities concerning Tiridates’ coronation, Vinicianus decided to act, probably without any connivance from his father-in-law. Although the so-called Vinician conspiracy was a minor affair by comparison with the better known

c04_Vol1.indd 365

365

Pisonian Conspiracy of the previous year, its fallout was far more significant. From this moment on, Nero systematically recalled or indicted his foremost and noblest senatorial legati Augusti pro praetore. One by one they were replaced, either by capable but socially less distinguished and therefore less dangerous new men or by elderly and rather passive senators. The noble Publius Sulpicius Scribonius Rufus and Proculus (both suffect 56), commanders of the armies of Germania Inferior and Superior respectively, were summoned to Greece where they had to commit suicide and were replaced by Fonteius Capito (consul 59) and the able novus homo Verginius Rufus (consul 63, suffect 69, consul II 97). Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus was dishonorably recalled from Moesia in about 67 and replaced by Pomponius Pius (suffect 65). Late in 66, Corbulo, too, was also summoned to Greece specie honoris where he was subsequently forced to commit suicide at Cenchreae near Corinth sometime early in 67. As Suetonius reports, Vespasian got the Jewish command “both as a man of tried energy and as one in no way to be feared because of the obscurity of his family and name” (Vesp. 4.5–6). In addition, just as Nero and his counselors had always been careful to ensure they did not entrust Syria or Cappadocia-Galatia to men friendly with Corbulo during his Armenian campaigns (Ummidius Quadratus, Caesennius Paetus, then Cestius Gallus), the powerful Syrian command was given to the ambitious and adept Licinius Mucianus (suffect 64, II 70, III 72), reportedly Vespasian’s opposite in many respects (H. 2.5). Arguably, the end of the illustrious general also triggered the downfall of Nero and so the Julio-Claudian dynasty, as Nero’s purges of the provincial command caused the senior governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, Servius Sulpicius Galba (consul 33), to commence an armed rebellion after conspiring with Gaius Iulius Vindex, governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, and Tiberius Iulius Alexander, Corbulo’s former trusted aide and then prefect of Egypt. Although there is no evidence suggesting Corbulo’s involvement in the Vinician conspiracy and no accusations were leveled against him, as opposed to the Scribonii brothers, who were accused of all manner of things (Cass. Dio 63.17.4; cf. H. 2.76.3), Nero and his satellites had clearly

28-04-2023 17:47:22

366  

D omitius C orbulo, G naeus

come to perceive the senior, well-connected general and his towering prestige as a threat to his increasingly artistic (and therefore controversial) regime. Prominent among Corbulo’s detractors was Arrius Varus. As early as 55, he was sent by Corbulo as praefectus cohortis to Vologaeses in order to claim hostages (A. 13.9.2). In 69 he was brother-in-arms of Antonius Primus during the latter’s unauthorized and impetuous invasion of Italia. Although he owed his reputation to Corbulo’s campaigns in Armenia, he had been promoted by Nero to the prestigious rank of primipilus of III Gallica in reward for bringing charges against Corbulo in secret conversations (H. 3.6.1). Varus was popular with the soldiers of this legion in 69 (H. 4.39) but Mucianus, hostile to him and Primus, progressively broke their power (H. 4.11.1). Though Varus would make it all the way to praetorian prefect, Mucianus caused him to be demoted to the position of praefectus annonae in 70 (H. 4.68.1). Thereafter he may well have been destroyed by Domitia Longina (H. 3.6.1). Corbulo’s sudden destruction by the increasingly erratic and megalomaniac Nero must have caused significant disaffection with his vast senatorial and equestrian clientela as well as with some of his seasoned centurions and legionaries. In all likelihood, Licinius Mucianus, an able operator who had probably served as legatus legionis of VI Ferrata under Corbulo c. 57–58 and governed Lycia-Pamphylia as legatus Augusti pro praetore around 60 and was now in control of the powerful Syrian garrison, maneuvered to fill this void. Titus subsequently paved the way for a Flavian bid for the imperial purple by reconciling Mucianus and his father. As Vitellius looked to consolidate his tenuous hold on power following the demise of Galba and Otho, the Flavian war machine sprung into action: Tiberius Iulius Alexander, Licinius Mucianus, and Aurelius Fulvus, three confidants of Corbulo, successively declared the powerful garrisons of Egypt (1 July), Syria (3 or 11 July) and Moesia for the Flavian cause. Without exception, they rose to positions of great power and influence under the new dynasty. When Domitian married Domitia Longina in 70 ce, the interests of Corbulo’s clientela were secure. As emperor, he would duly honor some of Corbulo’s foremost legati, such as Rutilius Gallicus and Aurelius Fulvus, with spectacular promotions.

c04_Vol1.indd 366

see also: army; Arsacid dynasty; civil wars of 69 ce; Julio-Claudian dynasty; Parthia Reference work: PIR2 D 142 FURTHER READING Fraser, Trudie E. 2015. “Domitia Longina. An Underestimated Augusta (c. 53–126/8).” Ancient Society 45: 205–266. Gregoratti, Leonardo. 2017a. “Corbulo versus Vologases: A Game of Chess for Armenia.” Electrum 24: 107–121. Gregoratti, Leonardo. 2017b. “Sinews of the Other Empire: The Parthian Great King’s Rule Over Vassal Kingdoms.” In Sinews of Empire: Networks in the Roman Near East and Beyond, edited by Håkon Fiane Teigen and Eivind Heldaas Seland, 95–104. Oxford and Philadelphia: Oxbow Books. Heil, Matthäus. 1997. Die orientalische Aussenpolitik des Kaisers Nero. München: Tuduv-Verlagsgesellschaft. Marciak, Michal. 2017. Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene. Three Regna Minora of Northern Mesopotamia between East and West. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. Meulder, Marcel. 1993. “L. Caesennius Paetus, un avateur du geurrier impie chez Tacite (ann. xv, 7–8)?” Latomus. Revue d’études latines 52: 98–104. Olbrycht, Marek J. 1998. “Das Arsakidenreich zwischen der mediterranen Welt und Innerasien. Bemerkungen zur politischen Strategie der Arsakiden von Vologases I. bis zum Herrschaftsantritt des Vologases III. (50–147 n. Chr.).” Electrum 2: 113–159. Olbrycht, Marek J. 2016. “Vologases I, Pakoros II, and Artabanos III: Coins and Parthian History.” Iranica Antiqua 51: 215–233. Schlude, Jason. 2020. Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace. The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East. London and New York: Routledge. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 1999. “CIL IX 3426: A New Light on Corbulo’s Career, with Special Reference to His Official Mandate in the East from ad 55 to ad 63.” Latomus. Revue d’études latines 58: 574–599. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2000a. “A Note on Syme’s Chronology of Vistilia’s Children.” Ancient Society 30: 95–113. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2000b. “Tacitus Ann. 15, 25, 3: A Revision of Corbulo’s imperium maius (ad 63–ad 65?).” In Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, Volume X, edited by Carl Deroux, 260–298. Leuven: Peters Publishers.

28-04-2023 17:47:22

D omus Aurea  

Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2002. “Domitius Corbulo and the Senatorial Opposition to Nero.” Ancient Society 32: 135–193. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2003. “Domitius Corbulo and the Rise of the Flavian Dynasty.” Historia. Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 52: 436–464. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2007. “The Reappearance of the Supra-Provincial Commands in the Late Second and Early Third Centuries ce: Constitutional and Historical Considerations.” In Crises and the Roman Empire. Proceedings of the Seventh Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire, edited by Olivier Hekster, Gerda De Kleijn, and Daniëlle Slootjes, 125–139. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2016. “The Remarkable Rise of the Flavian Dynasty.” In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, edited by Andrew Zissos, 43–59. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

DOMITIUS CORBULO, Gnaeus, see DOMITIUS CORBULO DOMITIUS SABINUS, see SUBRIUS DEXTER DOMITIUS SILUS, see SATRIA GALLA

DOMUS AUREA FEDERICO GURGONE

MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research)

The Domus Aurea (Latin “Golden House,” because of its magnificence) was the palace built in Rome by the emperor Nero on the Palatine, Esquiline, and Caelian hills in place of the previous Domus Transitoria. The emperor lived there for four years: construction started in 64 ce and was not finished when he died in 68 ce The area named Domus Aurea is understood to be the surviving section of the royal palace: the pavilion located below the Baths of Trajan, on the Oppian Hill. The original complex stretched from the Palatine Hill, where the private rooms were located, to the Velian Hill, where the lobby was erected, from which one reached the slopes of the Oppian Hill. These were covered by the official pavilion with its 240-meter façade facing south,

c04_Vol1.indd 367

367

onto an artificial pond, in the valley where the Flavian Amphitheatre was later built. On the Esquiline Hill, the Domus Aurea included the horti that were already imperial possessions, whereas eastward, along the course of the Servian Wall, reached the Temple of Claudius, on the Caelian Hill (Coarelli 2003, 218). Magistri and machinatores, those who designed and carried out the plan, were the architects Severus and Celer, who used their ingenuity even against the veto of nature (they are mentioned only by Tacitus at A. 15.42 and are otherwise unknown). According to Suet. Ner. 31, the palace was entirely overlaid with gold: cuncta auro lita. The project was inspired by the residential area of Baia, in Campania, where luxury villas and thermal baths stretched from the hills to the coast (Segala and Sciortino 1999, 13), where Nero wanted Severus and Celer to link the mouths of the Tiber river by means of a navigable canal (A. 15.42). After the great fire of 64 ce, the need to rebuild the Domus Transitoria provided Nero the opportunity to portray himself as the initiator of a new golden age and to build himself a new palace that would be larger and fit for the absolutist ideology of the Hellenistic sort he was pursuing. For this reason, in the lobby of the Domus Aurea a 35  m high bronze statue was installed, portraying the emperor as the Sun; it was made by the Greek sculptor Zenodorus (Plin. HN 34.46) and inspired by the Colossus of Rhodes. Nero, who had very unscrupulously plundered Asia Minor and Greece, exhibited the best stolen works of art in the palace halls (Plin. HN 34.84). Frescoes in the Fourth Pompeian Style covered the vaulted ceilings and the higher section of the walls. The painter Fabullus, as Plin. HN 35.120 relates, used to spend only a few hours a day painting, always wearing a toga even when in the midst of his easels. When Nero died, after a short period in which it was used by Otho and Vitellius, on account of its unpopularity the Domus Aurea was demolished by the next emperors, because Nero had expropriated large parts of the city center (Suet. Ner. 39). The pond was drained in order to build the Flavian Amphitheater, which was dedicated in 80 ce; the Domus Flavia on the Palatine Hill was

28-04-2023 17:47:22

368  

D rusilla

inaugurated in 92 ce; the Temple of Venus and Roma on the Velian Hill was accomplished in 135 ce, requiring the displacement of the colossal statue to the square facing the amphitheater which therefore took the name of Colosseum. The Oppian Hill pavilion survived until the fire in 104 ce; that year the construction of the Baths of Trajan started, so thanks to this the pavilion is the only surviving sector of the palace. The architect Apollodorus of Damascus exploited the Neronian building, which was filled with soil, providing a level artificial surface for the baths, which were attended until 539 ce, when vineyards took over the hill. The buried remains were rediscovered around the end of the fifteenth century, when the artists of the Renaissance started lowering in the “grottoes” by ropes, in order to copy and spread the decoration they called “grotesque.” The archaeological excavations, which since the middle of the eighteenth century have been clearing away a great amount of soil, have unearthed 30,000 square meters of frescoes and 150 brickwork chambers with 10–11  m high barrel vaults. The Archaeological Superintendency of Rome started the restoration of the monument in 2012. see also: gardens; luxury; Rome, topography REFERENCES Coarelli, Filippo, ed. 2003. Roma. 3rd ed. Bari: Laterza. Segala, Elisabetta, and Ida Sciortino. 1999. Domus Aurea. Milano: Mondadori Electa. FURTHER READING Beard, Mary. 2015. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. New York: Liveright Publishing. Vasari, Giorgio. 1996. Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects. London: Everyman.

DONATIUS VALENS, see VITELLIUS DONUSA, see CYCLADES DORYPHORUS, see FREEDMEN OF NERO DREAMS, see PORTENTS DRUIDS, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI

c04_Vol1.indd 368

DRUSILLA JUAN LUIS POSADAS

Centro Universitario U-TAD, Madrid, Spain TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Julia Drusilla was born in 16 ce, daughter of Germanicus, nephew and heir of Tiberius, and Agrippina the Elder, granddaughter of Augustus. Her father died in Antioch, seemingly poisoned by his political enemies (behind whose initiative stood his grandmother Livia Augusta, as the rumors had it). His wife Agrippina took revenge to the point of causing her own death and that of her two male sons (Nero Iulius Caesar and Drusus Caesar). Only Caligula and his three sisters survived. Like her sister, Drusilla married a man of consular rank, Lucius Cassius Longinus (2), in 33 ce (A. 6.15). However, in 37 her brother Caligula, recently raised to the throne, annulled the marriage, giving way to rumors about an incestuous affair with Drusilla. Drusilla’s second husband was Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (5), son of his namesake Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4) and great-grandson of Augustus. In 37, Caligula suffered a mental illness under the influence of which he named his sister and his brother-in-law heirs (there was also a rumor about a possible relationship between Caligula and Lepidus). Shortly after, however, in 38, Drusilla died, leaving the emperor in grief. He proclaimed public mourning throughout the empire and, with an unprecedented initiative, deified Drusilla as the goddess Panthea, placing a statue of her in every temple dedicated to a female goddess. Drusilla is one of the twenty-six women of the imperial family who appear in Tacitus (a total of 124, including “anonymous women”). This number constitutes 21 percent of the women named in the works of the historian. However, these imperial women account for 60 percent of all mentions of women, data that proves the importance of the imperial family in Tacitus’ account.

28-04-2023 17:47:22

D rusus C aesar , son of G ermanicus  

see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; women Reference work: PIR2 I 664 FURTHER READING Posadas, Juan Luis. 2008. Emperatrices y princesas de Roma. Madrid: Raíces. Syme, Ronald. 1981. “Princesses and Others in Tacitus.” Greece & Rome 28: 40–52.

DRUSILLA, see MARK ANTONY DRUSUS, see CALVUS

DRUSUS CAESAR, SON OF GERMANICUS TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Drusus Caesar (7–9 ce–33 ce) was the son of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder. His paternal grandparents were thus Drusus the Elder, brother of Tiberius and Antonia the Younger; maternal grandparents Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder. He was thus a direct descendant of Augustus and became part of his succession planning. His early life is largely obscure, and he does not come to prominence until 23 ce, when he assumed the toga virilis, which Tiberius celebrated by a cash distribution to the people. The princeps also requested that Drusus be granted the privilege of the years, whereby he would be allowed to stand for office five years earlier than the prescribed age, just as his brother Nero Iulius Caesar had been. The death of Germanicus placed Drusus and his brother Nero in the care of their adoptive uncle Drusus the Younger, the son of Tiberius. Tiberius’ response to the death of his son in 23 ce was to commend the sons of Germanicus, Nero and Drusus, to the care of the senate (A. 4.8). This was designed to formalize the succession in the line of Germanicus. In 24 ce, trouble began to arise between Tiberius and the sons of Germanicus. Early in this year, some of the priests dedicated Nero and

c04_Vol1.indd 369

369

Drusus to the same gods as Tiberius himself, and the princeps became angry at the implied equality between himself and these two youths. However, the boys were not punished, but rather it was their mother Agrippina the Elder who was the object of suspicion, at least for the moment. In 25 ce, Drusus was temporarily placed in charge of Rome. Such a position should not be confused with the more permanent position that Augustus had created. This appointment, though temporary, was a position of authority and marked Drusus for a prominent public career. After 23 ce, Drusus Caesar’s brother Nero had been the heir-presumptive to Tiberius. The princeps’ close adviser, Sejanus, was working to undermine Nero’s position, and enlisted Drusus’ help in 26 ce to achieve his goal by reportedly offering him the position of princeps. Drusus was said to have been motivated by Agrippina’s preference for Nero. However, Sejanus had succeeded in exposing Drusus’ ambition, which would lead to his ruin. The next few years are difficult to reconstruct since Tacitus’ text breaks off in the year 29 ce. We are thus reliant on Cassius Dio for these years. Sometime after Tiberius’ retirement to Capri in 27 ce, Drusus had been summoned to him and remained on the island with his adoptive grandfather. Sejanus had made accusations against Drusus, and when, in 30 ce, Tiberius sent Drusus to Rome, Sejanus persuaded a prominent senator to initiate legal proceedings. An unspecified charge was leveled against Drusus, possibly related to the accusation that he, along with his mother and brother, had taken pleasure at the death of Tiberius’ brother as reported in Cassius Dio (57.22.4b). Tiberius intended to replace Sejanus as Prefect of the Praetorian Guard with Macro. The princeps issued orders to Macro to take Drusus before the senate and declare him princeps if Sejanus should initiate an armed rebellion. Tiberius’ apparent faith in Drusus vanished following Sejanus’ fall in October 31 ce, since Drusus was kept in an imperial residence and starved to death. Tacitus records that Tiberius ordered Drusus’ actions to be kept under strict surveillance. Such evidence was attested by Attius, an

28-04-2023 17:47:22

370  

D rusus the E lder

otherwise unknown centurion, and Didymus, an otherwise unknown freedman, whose letters “paraded the name of each slave who had beaten and terrorized Drusus” (A. 6.24.1). According to Woodman, “the acceptance of slaves as witnesses indicates the contempt with which Drusus had been regarded” (2017, 191). Tiberius’ continued suspicion of Drusus even after Sejanus had fallen is explained by Sejanus’ method of undermining the imperial family. By creating distrust between its members, Sejanus eroded any faith that the members had in one another. Tiberius’ mistrust of his family lingered even after Sejanus was removed. Tiberius was aware of Drusus’ participation in Sejanus’ scheme to undermine his own brother Nero. In Tiberius’ mind, then, Drusus deserved his fate. see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Edmondson, J., ed. 1992. Dio: The Julio-ClaudiansSelections from Books 58–63 of the Roman History of Cassius Dio. London: London Association of Classical Teachers. Fagan, G. G. 1988. The Roman Imperial Succession under the Julio-Claudians, 23 bc-ad 69. M. Litt., Trinity College. Levick, B. 1976. Tiberius the Politician. London: Thames and Hudson. Lindsay, H., ed. 1995. Suetonius Tiberius. London: Bristol Classical Press. Mallan, C. 2013. “Style, Method and Programme of Xiphilinus’ Epitome of Cassius Dio’s Roman History.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 56: 610–644. Malloch, S. J. V. 2001. “Who were the rudes nepotes at Tacitus, Ann. 4.8.3?” Classical Quarterly 51: 628–631. Marsh, F. B. 1931. The Reign of Tiberius. London: Oxford University Press. Martin, R., ed. 2001. Tacitus Annals V & VI. Warminster: Aris and Phillips. Seager, R. 2005. Tiberius. Oxford: Blackwell.

c04_Vol1.indd 370

DRUSUS THE ELDER JONATHAN MASTER

Emory University

Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus) was the son of Livia Augusta and stepson of Augustus and a decorated general who led multiple successful campaigns in Germany. He was born Decimus Claudius Drusus in 38 bce just three months after his mother had divorced his father, Tiberius Claudius Nero, and married Octavian (Augustus). The unusual circumstances surrounding his birth provoked an oft-quoted proverb: “The lucky have children after three months.” Suetonius records a rumor that Octavian and Livia conceived Drusus through adultery (Claud. 1.1). Octavian sent the newborn Drusus to be reared by his natural father, who already had Drusus’ older brother, the future emperor Tiberius, in his care (Cass. Dio 48.44.5). Tiberius Claudius Nero died a few years later, so both Drusus and Tiberius spent the rest of their childhoods in the house of Octavian. By all accounts Augustus treated the boys as his own and granted them the kinds of privileges emperor’s sons might be expected to receive. Granted the right to stand for office five years early in 19 bce, Drusus was quaestor in 18 bce and, again by special decree, performed duties of praetor in 16 bce. His first major military campaign occurred in 15 bce against the Raeti, an Alpine people whose raiding in Italy and Gaul had become dangerously frequent and notoriously cruel. Augustus also likely had larger strategic aims of protecting Gaul, opening up secure routes to the Rhineland, and perhaps even an eventual conquest of Germany. Drusus drove the Raetians out of Italy but was not successful in completely defeating them. With the assistance of his brother Tiberius who joined in the attack from the west in Gaul, the campaign eventually was a complete success. Drusus then established a road through the Alps which would later become known as the Via Claudia Augusta (CIL V.8002 and 8003). Drusus earned ornamenta praetoria for the victory. Appointed governor of Tres Galliae in 13 bce, Drusus conducted a census, which caused an

28-04-2023 17:47:22

D rusus the E lder  

uprising he suppressed, and dedicated an altar to Rome and Augustus in Lugdunum (Lyon). While in Gaul Drusus repelled an attack by Germanic tribes including the Sugambri. He crossed the Rhenus (Rhine) in pursuit. After overseeing the construction of a canal, the fossa Drusiana, he led an expedition through the territory of the Usipi and into the territory of the Sugambri. He then sailed down the Rhine toward the North Sea, adding the Frisii as allies along the way. An attack on the Chauci was unsuccessful, and Drusus’s forces required the assistance of the Frisii to avoid disaster. Drusus returned to Rome at the end of 12 to become preator urbanus in 11 bce. He spent that year again on military campaign in Germany, fighting the Usipi, Sugambri, Cherusci, Tencteri, and Chatti. For this fighting he received an ovatio and triumphal honors; he was also granted proconsular imperium. Back in Rome, he delivered a eulogy for Octavia (1), his mother-in-law and Augustus’ sister. As proconsul in 10 bce, Drusus was fighting in Germany again against the Chatti. As consul ordinarius in 9 bce, he attacked various German tribes, including the Chatti, the Marcomani, and Chersusci as far as the Albis (Elbe). He did not cross the Albis, however. A popular story, perhaps justifying turning back at the river, was that a woman of superhuman size appeared to him and warned him against going any further (Cass. Dio 55.1.3–4). That same year in his summer camp between the Salas and Rhine rivers Drusus died after a month-long illness (Strabo 7.1.3), possibly resulting from a fall from his horse (Livy Per. 142). Upon receiving news of Drusus’ injury Augustus dispatched Tiberius. Tiberius reached his brother before his death and accompanied the body all the way to Rome. Augustus himself joined the procession in Ticinum. Drusus’ body was cremated in Rome and placed in the Mausoleum of Augustus. Both Augustus and Tiberius eulogized Drusus, with Augustus also writing elogia in prose and verse. Drusus was extensively honored in death. He was granted the title Germanicus, to be assumed by his two sons also. The senate decreed an arch on Via Appia; a cenotaph was set up in Mogontiacum (Mainz) where soldiers held annual ceremonies. A consolation to his mother Livia has come down to us under the name of Ovid but certainly not a product of that author.

c04_Vol1.indd 371

371

Drusus married Antonia the Younger, daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia. The marriage produced three children surviving to adulthood, Germanicus, Livia Iulia, and the future emperor Claudius. Through Germanicus, Drusus was also grandfather of future emperor Caligula. Posthumous accounts of Drusus’ life including Tacitus’ Annals emphasize his widespread popularity with the Roman public. Those accounts frequently also assert that he was of republican sentiment. Suetonius goes so far as to offer the possibility that Augustus had him poisoned for his views (Suet. Claud. 1.4–5). Tacitus’ portrait of Drusus’ liberal perspective in particular was influenced by the author’s desire to use Drusus and his son Germanicus after him as a foil for the isolated and cruel Tiberius. Drusus’ best attested and most lasting contributions to the Roman empire came from his campaigns in and exploration of Germany and the North Sea, the large construction projects he oversaw, in particular the extensive network of forts he built along the rivers of Germany including the Mosa (Meuse), Amisia (Ems), Visurgis (Weser), and Rhine. His victories up to the river Albis would mark the high-water mark of Rome’s military success in Germany, which the annihilation of Publius Quintilius Varro’s three legions in the Teutoburg Forest less than twenty years later permanently erased. see also: Germania; Julio-Claudian dynasty; Raetia; Roman roads Reference works: PIR2 C 857; RE 3.2703–19 (Claudius 139, A. Stein); RIC 12, Claudius 69–72, 98 FURTHER READING Champlin, E. 2011. “Tiberius and the Heavenly Twins.” Journal of Roman Studies 101: 73–99. Fabbrini, Laura. 1964. “Il Ritratto Giovanile di Tiberio e la iconographia di Druso Maggiore.” Bollettino D’Arte 49.4: 304–326. Rich, J. W. 1999. “Drusus and the Spolia Opima.” Classical Quarterly 49.2: 544–555. Vervaet, F. J. 2020. “Subsidia dominationi: The Early Carreers of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Nero Claudius Drusus Revisted.” Klio 102.1: 121–201. Wells, C. M. 1972. The German Policy of Augustus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 17:47:22

372  

D rusus the Younger

DRUSUS THE YOUNGER TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Drusus the Younger, son of Tiberius (15/14 ce– 23 ce) was quaestor in 11 ce and consul in 15 ce and 21 ce. Following the death of Germanicus in 19 ce, he was a major figure in the succession to Tiberius. Drusus was the son of Tiberius and Vipsania Agrippina, who was the daughter of Augustus’ leading political associate, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Although Drusus’ birth year is unclear, it can be reasonably inferred that he was younger than Germanicus (A. 2.43). As a result of the series of marriages and adoptions orchestrated by Augustus in 4 ce, Drusus not only married his first cousin, Iulia Livilla, the daughter of Tiberius’ brother Drusus, but also became Augustus’ grandson, taking the name Drusus Iulius Caesar (on Drusus and the settlement of 4 ce, see Levick 1966). Drusus was granted the privilege of giving his opinion before the ex-praetors at meetings of the senate when he attained the lower rank of quaestor in 11 ce (Cass. Dio 56.17.3). In 13 ce, Drusus was permitted to stand for the consulship without having first held the usual position of praetor. In the same year, Drusus was included among Augustus’ advisory council, which included Tiberius, Germanicus, and other senior figures in the administration. At Augustus’ funeral in 14 ce, Drusus was given a prominent role. Drusus’ first exposure to military command took place in 14 ce, when he was sent to Pannonia in response to an army mutiny which occurred following Augustus’ death. Drusus showed his diplomatic skills in resolving the crisis. He demonstrated considerable political acumen and proved himself a worthy field operative. However, this assignment had not actually involved leading troops in battle, and so, in order to gain experience of command, in 17 ce, Drusus was sent to the region of Illyricum (A. 2.44). Drusus returned to Rome in 20 ce and was offered an ovation (a minor military parade), but refused, for disaster had struck the imperial house with the death of Germanicus.

c04_Vol1.indd 372

As a result of the settlement of 4 ce, Augustus had established a multigenerational arrangement for the succession: Tiberius was to succeed Augustus, Germanicus and his sons were to succeed Tiberius, with Drusus as an option in case of disaster. Germanicus had married Augustus’ granddaughter, Agrippina the Elder, and so any children from this marriage would be direct descendants of Augustus, which would serve his long-term goal of having one of his blood descendants ultimately succeed. The assumption was that Tiberius’ reign, followed by Germanicus’, would allow enough time for one of Germanicus’ children ultimately to succeed in his own right. Tiberius, in his reign, advanced the careers of Germanicus and Drusus in a parallel fashion, with consulships and commands in tandem (allowing for the age difference). This parallelism has had ideas of paired succession read into it, whereby Augustus sought to establish pairs of rulers across overlapping generations to ensure future stability (see Levick 1976). It should be noted that Germanicus was considered the senior partner. However, this arrangement was short lived. Germanicus was assigned a command in the East in 19 ce (A. 2.43) but died during his mission. His children were too young to take their father’s place as heirs to Tiberius, so Drusus was recognized as the heir apparent. His position as the immediate heir was made explicit in the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone issued late in 20 ce (lines 125–130). The following year, in 21 ce, Drusus’ position was augmented when he was consul with Tiberius as his colleague (A. 3.31). Finally, in 22 ce, Drusus was granted versions of Tiberius’ own legal powers, specifically the proconsular power (imperium proconsulare) over the armies and the tribunician power (tribunicia potestas) over the governing apparatus in Rome. His position as second only to Tiberius was now secure. But fate was to intervene. Drusus fell ill and died in 23 ce. Tacitus alleges that Drusus was the victim of a plot concocted by Iulia Livilla, his wife, and Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. It should be noted that this was not put forward as an explanation until 31 ce, which means that violence was not suspected in the death for eight years. Therefore, the possibility

28-04-2023 17:47:22

D ubius Avitus  

that Drusus died naturally is very much open for consideration. see also: imperium; Julio-Claudian dynasty; Pannonian Revolt REFERENCES Levick, B. 1966. “Drusus Caesar and the Adoptions of A.D. 4.” Latomus 25: 227–244. Levick, B. 1976. Tiberius the Politician. London: Thames and Hudson. FURTHER READING Bellemore, J. 2003. “Cassius Dio and the Chronology of A.D. 21.” Classical Quarterly 53: 268–285. Clark, W. P. 1929. “Tacitus, Annales 4.12.6.” Classical Weekly 23: 66–67. Potter, D. S., and C. Damon. 1999. “The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre.” American Journal of Philology 129: 13042. Rogers, R. S. 1940. “Drusus Caesar’s Tribunician Power.” American Journal of Philology 61: 457–459.

DUBIUS AVITUS MITCHELL R. PENTZER

University of Colorado Boulder

Lucius Dubius Avitus (elsewhere Duvius), perhaps born before 15 ce, hailed from Vasio Vocontiorum, now Vaison-La-Romaine and the hometown also of Afranius Burrus, in Gallia Narbonensis (see Gaul). Likely a novus homo (Eck 1985, 123), after holding the office of praetor, he served as legatus pro praetore of Aquitania (Plin. HN 34.47) and then held a suffect consulship in November and December of 56 along with Thrasea Paetus. At some point in 57, Dubius Avitus succeeded Pompeius Paulinus (possibly the brother-in-law of Seneca) as the governor of Germania Inferior. Given the long relative peace of the region—Tacitus’ last narrative in Germania (Superior) left off in the year 50, perhaps (A. 12.27–28)—the legions stationed there were inactive, and consequently the Frisii at some point felt emboldened to settle along the Rhine (see Rhenus)—which side is not clear

c04_Vol1.indd 373

373

(Benario 1994, 253)—and make peaceful use of unoccupied land that the Romans grazed livestock upon (A. 13.54.). It is possible that this settlement, interpreted as an incursion by the Romans, happened before Avitus arrived, but it was he who confronted the Frisii, threatening military force if they did not withdraw or petition the emperor for a grant of the land. The Frisians Verritus and Malorix went to Rome and received citizenship for themselves from Nero, but no grant of land, and when they did not withdraw the Romans abruptly attacked and crushed the Frisii settlers with cavalry, presumably at the command of Avitus. Sometime thereafter, still during Avitus’ tenure, the Ampsivarii moved into the same territory, having been driven west by the Chauci and assisted by Boiocalus (A. 13.55). Despite Boiocalus’ past service to the Romans and the need of the Ampsivarii, Avitus was not persuaded by an eloquent appeal on Boiocalus’ part (there has been some scholarly debate about how sympathetic Avitus was to Boiocalus; see Benario 1994, 255–258), and the Ampsivarii allied with the Bructeri, Tencteri, and more to go to war. Avitus called on Curtilius Mancia, governor of Germania Superior in 56–58 (suffect consul of 55; he is mentioned also in Plin., Ep. 8.18.4; in Tacitus only at A. 13.56), and together they made an offensive across the Rhine. The German allies dispersed, and the Ampsivarii withdrew to be at the mercy of the Chatti and Cherusci (A. 13.56). Reference works: PIR2 D 210; PIR2 C 1605; CIL XII 1354 REFERENCES Benario, Herbert. 1994. “Tacitus and Commotus in Ann. 13.56.” Historia 43: 252–258. Eck, Werner. 1985. Die Statthalter der germanischen Provinzen vom 1.-3. Jahrhundert. Cologne: Rheinland-Verglag GmbH. FURTHER READING Gallivan, Paul. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24.2: 290–311.

28-04-2023 17:47:22

374  

Ducenius G eminus

Reference works: PIR2 D 201; ILS 9384; CIL III 7267 = ILS 963

Kehoe, Dennis. 1984. “Private and Imperial Management of Roman Estates in North Africa.” Law & History Review 2: 241–263. Liou, Bernard, Elizabeth Deniaux, and Françoise Bartaud. 1976. “Trouvailles de l’été 1975 à Vaison-laRomaine.” Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise 9: 251–260. Ritterling, Emil. 1932. Fasti des Römischen Deutschland unter dem Prinzipat. Vienna: Verlag von L. W. Seidel & Sohn. Städele, Alfons. 1985. “Et commotus his Avitus. Barbarenschicksale bei Tacitus.” In Et Scholae et Vitae. Humanistische Beiträge zur Aktualität der Antike für Karl Beyer zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, edited by F. Maier and W. Suerbaum, 59–66. Munich: Bayer. Schulbuchverl.

Bérenger, A. 1993. “La commission financière extraordinaire de 62 ap. J.-C.” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 105–1: 75–101. Syme, Ronald. 1983. “Eight Consuls from Patavium.” Papers of the British School at Rome 51: 102–124.

DUCENIUS GEMINUS

DUILIUS, GAIUS

ARNOLDUS VAN ROESSEL

REFERENCES

FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1983. “Problems about Proconsuls of Asia.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 53: 191–208.

VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Toronto

University of Florida

Aulus Ducenius Geminus (fl. mid-first century), was consul 60 or 61 ce, legate of Dalmatia between 63–68 ce (H. 1.14), and prefect of the city in 69 ce. Born in Patavium, he was the first senator and consul in his family, whose career flourished in the 60s under the final years of Nero and the reign of Galba. He received his consulship under Nero in either 60 or 61 ce (Syme 1983, 112–113). He was selected by the emperor shortly afterwards in 62 ce to oversee public taxes with two other former consuls, Lucius Calpurnius Piso (3) and Pompeius Paulinus (A. 15.18.3). An inscription from Narona in Dalmatia identifies Ducenius as legatus propraetore of the province which he must have held between 63 and 68 ce (ILS 9384). The same inscription also identifies his priestly offices as a member of the quindecimviri sacris faciundis and the Sodales Augustales. In 68 ce Ducenius was appointed prefect of the city by Galba (H. 1.14.1). Ducenius seemingly lost favor following Galba’s assassination, and Otho restored Flavius Sabinus as city prefect (H. 1.46.1). No later offices or political activity of Ducenius are certain. A damaged inscription from Epidaurus identifies an unnamed individual as proconsul of Asia with some of the same titles and priesthoods as Ducenius but the attribution is tenuous (CIL III 7267) (Bérenger 1993, 85).

Gaius Duilius was consul in 260 bce and commander of land forces against the Carthaginians in the First Punic War; however, after the defeat of his consular colleague Gnaeus Cornelius, Duilius assumed command of the fleet and defeated the Carthaginians off the coast of Mylae (modern Milazzo) using the corvus, a boarding bridge which he invented. He went on to relieve the siege of Segesta and to capture Macella. He thus celebrated Rome’s first naval triumph, which he commemorated in the Forum with a columna rostrata, a column decorated with the prows of the captured ships; a fragment of the inscription is preserved (ILS 65). Using the spoils from his victory, he built a temple to Janus in the forum holitorium. Tiberius renovated this temple in the year 17 ce (A. 2.49.1).

c04_Vol1.indd 374

see also: Atilius Calatinus; Carthage; Postumius Albus Regillensis, Aulus Reference work: ILS 65 FURTHER READING Lazenby, J. F. 1996. The First Punic War. New York: Routledge.

DULGUBNII, see BRUCTERI DYRRHACHIUM, see GREECE

28-04-2023 17:47:22

E EARTHQUAKE OF 17 ce MALI SKOTHEIM

Ashoka University

In 17 ce, an earthquake devastated the cities of the Hermus River Basin in western Asia Minor. According to Tacitus, casualties were worse because the earthquake struck at night (A. 2.47). Seneca claims that with this disaster, Asia lost twelve cities at a single stroke (Sen. QNat. 6.1.11), and Pliny describes it as the worst earthquake in memory (Plin. HN 2.86.200). Strabo mentions seismic instability in the area around Laodiceia near Lycus (Strabo 12.8.16) and damage to Magnesia, Sardis, and other cities of Asia (Strabo 12.8.18, cf. 13.3.5 on Magnesia and 13.4.8 on Sardis). Graham (2019) has recently argued that Tacitus based certain elements of his description at A. 2.47–48 on accounts of an earthquake in Antioch in 115 ce (Cass. Dio 68.24.1–25.6), shortly before the publication of the Annals. The twelve cities affected, as recorded by Tacitus (A. 2.47), were Sardis, Magnesia ad Sipylum, Temnos, Philadelpheia, Aegeae (see Cilicia), Apollonis, Mostene, Hyrcanis, Hierocaesarea, Myrina, Cyme, and Tmolus. Sardis, likely the epicenter of the quake, was the most severely damaged, and Tiberius allocated 10 million sesterces for the recovery effort there. Magnesia ad Sipylum sustained the second worst damage. For all twelve cities, ­ Tiberius remitted payments to the imperial treasury for five years. Suetonius calls this

Tiberius’ only act of liberality toward the provinces (Suet. Tib. 48.2). The restitution of the cities of Asia after the earthquake is attested in historiography (Vell. Pat. 2.126), inscriptions, and civic coinage. The twelve cities mentioned by Tacitus, as well as Ephesus and Cibyra, appear on a copy of a statue base of Tiberius from Puteoli from 30 ce (ILS I.156 = CIL X 1624, cf. IGR IV 1514). The inscription says that Tiberius restored the republic, presumably in response to his allocation of funds to repair the cities of Asia (Magie 1950, 500 and 1358 n. 23). Mostene, Aegae, and Cyme called Tiberius their founder (Mostene: ILS II2 8785; Aegae: CIL III 7096 and IGR IV 1351 = OGI 471; Cyme: ICR IV 1739, CIL III 7099). A sestertius minted in Rome in 22 ce commemorates Tiberius’ aid to the cities, with the legend Civitatibus Asiæ Restitutis (“for the restitution of the cities of Asia”). Tacitus refers to the inhabitants of Hyrcanis, one of the cities affected by the quake, as the Macedones. The identity of the Hyrcanians as Macedonians differentiated them from their neighbors, the Mostene, natives of Lydia (Jones 1937, 80). Marcus Ateius (mentioned only by Tacitus, A. 2.47), an ex-praetor, was assigned to inspect the cities of Asia after the earthquake and oversee their recovery, along with five lictors (Cass. Dio 57.17.7–8). On the basis of the archaeological record of Sardis after the earthquake, Hanfmann (1983) argues that Ateius had a master plan for the reconstruction, rather than merely repairing damage. He suggests that Ateius’ efforts entailed

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume I, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c05_Vol2.indd 375

28-04-2023 17:48:50

376  

eco n om y

emergency housing, remains of which do not survive, the demolition of severely damaged buildings, the construction of infrastructure such as roads, water pipes, and drains, and earthquake proofing of buildings and walls through the use of mortared rubble construction. For example, the theater, built with Hellenistic masonry, was repaired after the earthquake with alternating masonry piers and mortared concrete. Hanfmann finds evidence of many reused blocks from Hellenistic buildings, salvaged after the earthquake. The site was terraced, and dumps were created for disposal of materials from damaged buildings. Construction on Main Avenue and the aqueduct began under Tiberius and ended under Claudius (Hanfmann 1983, 142). Reference work: Barrington 56 REFERENCES Graham, Daryn. 2019. “Tacitus, Tiberius, and the CE17 Earthquake in the Roman Province of Asia.” New England Classical Journal 46.1: 1–20. Hanfmann, George A., ed. 1983. Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times: Results of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis 1958–1975. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin. 1937. Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Magie, David. 1950. Roman Rule in Asia Minor to the End of the Third Century after Christ. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. FURTHER READING Ambraseys, Nicholas N. 2009. Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: A Multidisciplinary Study of Seismicity up to 1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guidoboni, Emanuela, ed. 1994. Catalogue of Ancient Earthquakes in the Mediterranean Area up to the 10th Century. Rome: Istituto nazionale di geofisica. Robert, Louis. 1978. “Stele funéraire de Nicomédie et Séismes dans les Inscriptons.” Documents d’Asie Mineure. Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 102: 395–408.

ECBATANA, see MEDES

c05_Vol2.indd 376

ECONOMY JOSHUA SEO BRECKENRIDGE

Case Western Reserve University

The Roman Empire’s government, agriculture, and trade networks have intertwined relationships that can be studied as economic systems; however, scarcity of evidence in literature about economic factors prevents any conclusive models. Reliant on Tacitus’ works, Roman economic research generally falls between two schools of thought—the “Primitivists” proposing unconnected regional markets with little to no understanding of modern economic reasoning (Finley 1973) and the “Modernists” advocating for an empire-wide system of efficient markets driven by modern, rational motivations, whether intentional or unintentional (Temin 2013). Tacitus’ works provide three main categories of evidence when discussing the economy: the importance and reach of trade networks, mentions of pricing, and the economic policy reactions by the government. The narrative liberties of Tacitus’ writing, however, demand caution in the use of this evidence in conclusive economic analyses. Nevertheless, the information is still essential in future research as the field harnesses new developments like machine learning and complexity sciences to create more comprehensive models of Rome’s economy (Brughmans et al. 2019). Tacitus stresses the commercial ties of the provinces to Rome as a necessity for their successful, imperial power structure. He emphasizes the necessity of provincial agricultural production to sustain Rome, especially from Africa and Egypt. The requirement and capability of maritime trade to continually supply Rome is also emphasized (A. 12.43). Mentions of specific monetary values in Tacitus are usually included for their exceptionality or to support his narrative instead of as a base of value (for an overview on specific prices in antiquity, see Duncan-Jones 1974). The usage of credit in Rome, often without any collateral, demonstrates a limited understanding of monetary policies, but also highlights the role of the government in guaranteeing credit (A. 13.31; 15.18). Despite the continuous debasement of the currency material,

28-04-2023 17:48:50

editio n s  

the relative stability of currency up through Tacitus’ time suggests how essential the role of the government was in stabilizing Rome’s economy beyond just monetary policy. Economic decisions in Tacitus’ works show the reliance on massive, imperial interventions like setting prices and monetary stimuli to try and solve crises. Tiberius is depicted with mostly successful economic interventions, e.g., the 2 sesterces per modius grain subsidy to address the grain shortage in 19 ce (A. 2.87); but his interventions are not always initially successful, e.g., the credit crisis of 33 ce where the initial intervention tanks real estate prices instead of stabilizing them, requiring a large, monetary stimuli from Tiberius himself to stabilize debt markets (A. 6.16–7). On the other hand, Tacitus depicts Nero’s economic actions as mostly unsuccessful, e.g., the fixing of the grain price at 3 sesterces per modius after the Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.39.2). Tacitus’ depiction of economic policies, although likelier to support his characterization of an emperor, show the broad economic reach and control that the Roman Empire had to successfully manage their vast economy. see also: empire; numismatics; provinces REFERENCES Brughmans, Tom, John Hanson, Matthew Mandich, Iza Romanowska, Xavier Rubio-Campillo, Simon Carrignon, Stephen Collins-Elliott, Katherine Crawford, Dries Daems, Francesca Fulminante, Tymon de Haas, Paul Kelly, Maria del Carmen Moreno Escobar, Eleftheria Paliou, Luce Prignano, and Manuela Ritondale. 2019. “Formal Modelling Approaches to Complexity Science in Roman Studies: A Manifesto.” Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal 2.1: 1–19. DOI: 10.16995/ traj.367. Duncan-Jones, Richard. 1974. The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Finley, Moses. 1973. The Ancient Economy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Temin, Peter. 2013. The Roman Market Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. FURTHER READING Garnsey, Peter, Richard Saller, Jaś Elsner, Martin Goodman, Richard Gordon, Greg Woolf, and

c05_Vol2.indd 377

377

Marguerite Hirt. 2015. The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture. 2nd ed. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Scheidel, Walter, ed. 2012. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

EDESSA, see MESOPOTAMIA

EDITIONS ARTHUR J. POMEROY

Victoria University of Wellington

After the rediscovery of the works of Tacitus in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, numerous copies were rapidly made, ensuring the survival of his work was no longer in doubt (see manuscripts). However, truly widespread circulation only occurred as the result of the innovation of printed texts, relying on the printing press and the industrial production of paper that replaced parchment. Gutenberg had produced his famous bible at Mainz in the middle of the fifteenth century, and the technique of printing spread rapidly through Europe with Venice, as perhaps the most important trading hub in Europe, having a leading role in the widespread distribution of texts. The first significant reproduction of Tacitus can be attributed to Wendelin von Speier, who had inherited a printing monopoly at Venice from his brother Johann. Speier’s editio princeps reproduced Annals 11–16 and Histories 1–5 as a single text (following the Second Medicean codex but based on a copy that had lost Histories 5.23–26) and also included the Germania and Dialogus. Dating from 1472–3, the Spirensis text had been preceded by a separate Bologna edition of the Germania in 1472, while the Agricola had to wait until the 1480s when it was printed as part of the Milan edition by Francesco Dal Pozzo (Franciscus Puteolanus). It was only in 1515, after Pope Leo X had acquired the First Medicean codex, that the first six books of the Annals were included in Filippo Beroaldus the Younger’s edition of Tacitus. Goodyear (1972, 5) describes this as “no perfunctory and commonplace piece of work” because of the large number of sensible corrections of the text made by Beroaldus.

28-04-2023 17:48:50

378  

editio n s

Bilde von Rhenau (Beatus Rhenanus) is the most important figure in Tacitean studies of this period. He had edited the Germania in the Basel edition of Tacitus from 1519, which was mainly a reprint of a pirated 1516 Milan edition of Beroaldus’ text that had also included notes by Andreas Alciat. Rhenanus’ full editions of the historian (Basel 1533, 1544) show considerable knowledge of Tacitus’ usage. This even led him to question on stylistic grounds the authorship of the Dialogus, while noting at the same time that the historical evidence is consistent with Tacitean authorship. As Bovier (2016) has shown, Rhenanus is also indebted to the notes of Emilio Ferretti (1541) as well as those of Alciat, making accurate attribution of the source for textual corrections in his editions difficult for modern editors. The next major step in Tacitean studies was the Antwerp edition by Joost Lips (Justus Lipsius) in 1574. Lipsius not only improved the text in numerous places, often unwittingly recreating the actual text of the Medicean codices, but also included a complete commentary. His edition also saw the first textual separation of the Annals from the Histories, a division that had already been proposed in 1569 by the Lyonese lawyer Vetranius Maurus. Lipsius’ edition, often reprinted, was to form the basis of Tacitean studies for the next 250 years. Perhaps the most significant advance in this period is Pichena’s creation of our modern chapter divisions in his Frankfurt 1607 edition. Pichena also recognized the value of the Medicean codices, but his use of Beroaldus’ text alongside these indicates that he was most impressed by the oldest versions of Tacitus, rather than understanding the need to recreate a text as close as possible to the original. A clear understanding of how manuscripts might be related to one another and how later copies might be eliminated was not to occur until the nineteenth century, particularly through the work of Lachmann (Reynolds and Wilson 1991, 208–211). Lipsius’ edition of Tacitus resulted in a “vulgate” text to which scholars could attach their suggestions and explications. In particular, the variorum editions of I. A. Ernesti (Leipzig 1752) and G. A. Ruperti (2nd edition, Hanover 1834) offer useful collections of parallels and textual

c05_Vol2.indd 378

comments. A case may be made that the dominance of Cicero as a model for classical Latin since the Renaissance hindered the appreciation of Tacitus’ elliptic historical style in this period (Eyffinger 1998, 23–24). Still, by the mid-nineteenth century appreciation of the manuscripts and how to record their readings and variants, awareness of Tacitean style, and historical knowledge had advanced to the extent that K. Halm’s Teubner edition (Leipzig 1850) is aptly described by Goodyear (1972, 14) as “the basis of a modern vulgate.” At the same time, modern commentaries on Tacitus can be considered to be the descendants of the editions of K. Nipperdey (Annals: Leipzig 1852; all works: Berlin 1871–1876). In Germany, Halm’s Teubner text saw three revised editions (1857, 1874, 1883) while G. B. Andresen produced the fifth edition in 1926– 1928. Andresen also performed the same service for Nipperdey, culminating in an eleventh edition of Annals 1–6 in 1915. In this period, Henry Furneaux produced his text and commentary on the Annals (Oxford: vol. 1 1884, vol. 2 1891; revised by Pelham and Fisher 1907) and on the Agricola (1898, revised by J. G. C. Anderson in 1922, who made full use of the rediscovered Jesi manuscript). Furneaux also produced the first Tacitus for the Oxford Classical Texts series in 1900 with his edition of the Germania and Agricola. This left the Annals to be edited for Oxford by C. D. Fisher in 1906, followed by the Histories in 1911. The most important Oxford Classical Text of Tacitus in recent years is the edition of the Opera Minora (1975) by R. M. Ogilvie (mainly responsible for the Agricola) and M. Winterbottom (Germania, Dialogus, and correction of Ogilvie’s text). More recent times have seen Teubner editions of the Annals by Erich Koestermann (1934–1960). Koestermann’s editions after 1960 were vitiated by an overestimation of the Leiden manuscript BPL 16B, since is likely that the Leiden manuscript is simply a copy of another manuscript derived from the Second Medicean, although it preserves significant emendations by Agricola (Roelof Huysman) made in the mid-1470s. As such, the manuscript has no independent status for recreating the text of the Annals. Koestermann did, however, popularize the subdivision of chapters

28-04-2023 17:48:50

E g natius C eler , P ublius  

that is now commonly used by modern scholars. Heinz Heubner’s Teubner texts of the Annals (1983; corrected edition 1994) and Histories (1978) are presently the standard texts, used in this encyclopedia. Both Koestermann (Annals, 4 vols, Heidelberg 1963–1968) and, especially, Heubner (Histories, 5 vols, Heidelberg 1963– 1982) have also produced important commentaries on Tacitus. Increased understanding of Tacitus’ style, his use of tropes and themes, and archaeological and historical investigation has almost rendered the division between editions and commentaries insignificant. For instance, J. B. Rives’ translation and commentary on the Germania (Oxford, 1999) in the Clarendon Ancient History series lacks a Latin text but makes important observations about textual readings (see especially page 76). Most notable in recent times are the productions from Cambridge. The Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries series, commonly known as the Cambridge orange series, has seen editions of Annals 1.1–54 and 1.55–81, Book 2 by F.R.D. Goodyear (1972, 1981), Book 3 by A. J. Woodman and R. H. Martin (1996), Book 4 and Books 5–6 by A. J. Woodman (2018, 2017), and Book 11 by S. J. V. Malloch (2013). The Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series (commonly known as the Cambridge green and gold) includes editions of the Agricola by A. J. Woodman with C. S. Kraus (2014), Annals 4 by A. J. Woodman and R. H. Martin (1989), the Dialogus de Oratoribus by Roland Mayer (2001), Histories 1 by Cynthia Damon (2003), and Histories 2 and Annals 15 by Rhiannon Ash (2007, 2018). Mention should also be made of a significant commentary by Kenneth Wellesley on Histories 3 for Sydney University Press, published in 1972. see also: reception, Middle Ages; reception, Renaissance; scholarship, antiquity to fifteenth century REFERENCES Bovier, K. 2016. “Apparat critique modern et conjectures d’ humanistes: le cas des Annales de Tacite.” Museum Helveticum 73: 211–221. Eyffinger, A. 1998. “‘Amoena gravitate morum spectabilis’ – Justus Lipsius and Hugo Grotius.”

c05_Vol2.indd 379

379

Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 68: 297–327. Goodyear, F. R. D. 1972. The Annals of Tacitus, Volume I. Annals 1.1-54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reynolds, L. D., and N. G. Wilson. 1991. Scribes and Scholars. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Goodyear, F. R. D. 1972. The Annals of Tacitus, Volume I. Annals 1.1-54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. “Editions of the Annals,” pages 5–19. Mendell, C. W. 1957. Tacitus: The Man and His Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. “History of the Printed Text,” pages 349–378.

EGNATIA MAXIMILLA, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS

EGNATIUS CELER, PUBLIUS JAKUB PIGOŃ

University of Wrocław

Publius Egnatius Celer, d. (after?) 70 ce, was a Stoic philosopher of provincial, most probably Greek descent, who was active in Rome under Nero. When his senatorial patron, Barea Soranus, was put on trial, he testified against him, thus contributing to his punishment with death. He was exiled (or possibly executed) in the reign of Vespasian. Egnatius seems to have been born in Berytus (see Phoenicia) and educated in Tarsus (a supposition which allows us to reconcile Cass. Dio 62.26.2 with Juv. 3.117–118). Having arrived in Rome, he became a client, friend, and tutor in philosophy of the senior consular Barea Soranus. If he was in fact his elder (cf. Juv. 3.117), he must have been born c. 10 ce or earlier. Apart from presenting him as a follower of Stoicism, our sources give no details about Egnatius’ philosophical views. When Barea was being tried for maiestas in 66, Egnatius acted as a witness for the prosecution, and Tacitus emphasizes the Roman public’s hostile response to this action (A. 16.32.2). For

28-04-2023 17:48:51

380  

E g y pt

the historian himself, Egnatius is the epitome of a false friend and hypocritical philosopher whose deeds contradict his professed principles. A stylistically elaborated passage criticizing Egnatius’ duplicity (A. 16.32.3) has been adduced in scholarly discussions of Tacitus’ attitude to philosophy, but no unfavorable assessment of it may be inferred; the negative example of Egnatius is followed by a positive one of another philosopher from Barea’s circle, Cassius Asclepiodotus (they are also contrasted in Cass. Dio 62.26.1–2). Tacitus specifies financial gain as Egnatius’ motive for testifying against his patron; according to Cassius Dio, he received “money and honors” after the trial. The details about Egnatius’ testimony given by the scholia on Juvenal (6.552) seem unreliable. In the last days of 69, immediately after the victory of the Flavians in the civil war, Egnatius was put on trial (by another philosopher, Musonius Rufus) for his role in the condemnation of Barea, apparently under the lex Cornelia de falsis. Tacitus places this trial in a wider context of attempts undertaken by oppositional circles in Rome early in the reign of Vespasian to punish informers active under Nero (H. 4.10; 4.40–44; and see 2.10; 4.6.1–2 for earlier such actions). These attempts generally failed, and Egnatius—a minor figure with no backing in the Senate—was the only one whose punishment was carried out (probably exile and confiscation of property rather than death, cf. Cass. Dio 62.26.2). For possible reasons for singling out Egnatius as the first culprit (Vespasian’s connection to Barea), see Evans 1979. Tacitus notes the controversial defense of Egnatius by the Cynic philosopher Demetrius and remarks that during the trial “Publius himself lacked both courage in the face of perils and eloquence” (H. 4.40.3). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; delators; Senate Reference work: PIR2 E 19 REFERENCE Evans, J. K. 1979. “The Trial of P. Egnatius Celer.” Classical Quarterly 29: 198–202. DOI: 10.1017/ S0009838800035308.

c05_Vol2.indd 380

FURTHER READING Goulet, R. 1994. Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques, Volume II. Paris: CNRS Éditions, page 252, Celer, P. Egnatius, by M. Ducos. Heider, Michael. 2006. “Philosophen vor Gericht. Zum Prozess des P. Egnatius Celer.” Römische Historische Mitteilungen 48: 135–155. DOI: 10.1553/rhm48. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 223–225.

EGYPT COLIN ADAMS

University of Liverpool

Egypt appears little in the works of Tacitus, but what he records is of great interest and importance, offering light on important themes such as Tiberius’ relations with Germanicus, Jewish customs, provincial government, and the secrets of empire, as well as comments on its culture and history. It also provides an interesting sidelight on Tacitus’ prejudices and those of his peers. Given Tacitus’ Romano-centric approach, we should not be surprised that Egypt is marginalized, but there was no reason for it to be treated otherwise. In the company of his rough contemporaries Pliny the Elder and Juvenal, he is dismissive of its history and culture and certainly presents a dim view of it as a Roman province. His various accounts in the Annals and Histories, though short, present an odd mix of myth and (misrepresented) detail to contextualize recent events or present situations. Given Tacitus’ brief account, there has been little scholarly attention, apart from the visit of Germanicus in 19 ce and his account of the appearance of the phoenix in Egypt. The Histories, the earlier of Tacitus’ two great historical works, focused its attention on the short reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, before moving onto the Flavian emperors. Only the first four and part of the fifth book survive, and it is in the latter that he turns to an account of Egypt (5.2–6). The context is the conquest of Iudaea by Titus in 70 ce and the sack of Jerusalem; Tacitus recounts the origin of the Jews and Iudaea. Such an account

28-04-2023 17:48:51

E g y pt  

adheres to the literary device of inserting an excursus by way of introduction to a battle narrative. He outlines various foundation myths, settling for the version on which “most authorities” (plurimi auctores) agree. Due to the presence of a wasting disease in Egypt, the Pharaoh Bocchoris consulted the Oracle of Hammon (Ammon), which advised expulsion of those affected. Under the leadership of Moses (Moyses), and experiencing a fraught journey through the desert, they arrived in Canaan, threw out its inhabitants, and settled there, building Jerusalem and its temple. Tacitus then turns to the rites and customs of the Jews and emphasizes their superstitious nature. He here relies on a literary tradition of the Hellenistic writers Mnaseas and Posidonius, which can be traced through Diodorus Siculus to Josephus and Plutarch. While Tacitus does not make the connection, his association of the Jews with an ass is possibly connected to the Egyptian god Seth, which association is also related by Josephus, who recorded that the Egyptian Apion claimed that the Jews installed the head of an ass in their temple to worship (Joseph. Ap. 2.79, also Plut. Quaest. Conv. 4.5.2). The tradition of not eating pork is linked to the disease Tacitus mentions (leprosy) which is also mentioned by Josephus, citing the writings of Manetho (Aegyptiaca fr. 54 from the Contra Apionem). Tacitus’ mentioning of unleavened bread, the seventh day of rest, restrictions on marrying gentiles, and circumcision all reflect this tradition and point to common sources. Stereotypes and inaccuracies abound. Tacitus’ account of Judaism is highly critical of their “sinister” ways and “wickedness,” but also directs criticism at Egyptian animal worship (so graphically described by Juvenal and criticized by Plutarch), which is linked to the “barbarous” notion that pork was unclean—the alterity of Judaism is the central theme, with Roman culture the norm. While the account is critical of Jews and Egyptians, it offers important information on how Tacitus, and presumably his contemporary Romans, conceived of Judaism, contrasting the bizarre nature of worshiping anthropomorphic animals with Jewish aniconism. The attribution of the Oracle of Hammon’s consulting by Bocchoris must be wrong. Diodorus Siculus mentions Bocchoris

c05_Vol2.indd 381

381

(1.65, 1.79, and 12.94), whose Egyptian name was Bokenranef (c. 726–712 bce; Manetho 3.64–67), the second king of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty. The dates of his reign are too recent for the link with Moses. Manetho links these events (recorded with different details) to the reign of Amenophis, but his account (and Josephus’) is horribly confused, and can even be linked, through mention of polluted humans and the killing of sacred animals, to the reign of Ahkenaten. Whatever the case, the link to the Eighteenth Dynasty makes more chronological sense. The other account of Egypt in the Histories (H. 1.11) is treated second here due to its connection with Tacitus’ description of Egypt in his greatest work, the Annals. The context of H. 1.11 is Vespasian’s clash with Vitellius in 68 ce, Tacitus’ description of the dispersal of Roman forces and commands in the East, and the portents of Vespasian’s rise to the purple. It is a well-known passage, almost invariably misunderstood by Roman historians, replete with Tacitean prejudice: “Egypt, together with the forces designed to keep it in order, has been governed ever since Augustus’ day by Romans of equestrian rank (see equestrians) acting as successors to the Ptolemies. It seemed policy that a province of this sort—difficult of access, exporting a valuable corn crop, yet divided and unsettled by strange cults and irresponsible excesses, indifferent to law and ignorant of civil government— should be kept under the immediate control of the imperial house. It was ruled at the time by Tiberius Iulius Alexander, himself an Egyptian”. These points are reflected at the beginning of Tacitus’ account of Germanicus’ visit to Egypt in 19 ce (A. 2. 59–61). Among other secrets of power (dominationis arcana), Augustus had banned access to Egypt for senators and senior equites without permission. Egypt’s easy defensibility, wealth in grain, and threat to famine in Italy if its supply was interrupted were the reasons adduced. The passage from the Histories contains criticisms of the lawlessness of Egyptians and their bizarre worship of animal-headed gods familiar from other writers. Although Tacitus’ account of Germanicus’ visit to Egypt is brief, it is rich in detail (Hennig 1972; Weingärtner 1969). Tacitus’ use of praetendo

28-04-2023 17:48:51

382  

E g y pt

(“pretext”) to describe Germanicus’ reasons for visiting the province, his pointing out Germanicus’ relief of grain prices, and courting of popularity through a dramatic “common touch,” all invoke a sinister air to the visit and allow Tacitus to highlight Tiberius’ suspicion and jealousy of ­ Germanicus. We are then treated to a concentrated description of the prince’s progress through the province, with descriptions of its marvels, always linking them to a Greek past, the Spartan foundation Canopus, and the river mouth associated with Hercules. At the temples of Thebes, Tacitus notes with some disdain the priests’ recounting of the victories of (presumably) Ramses II at Kadesh, enumerating booty and hosts of conquered peoples (pointedly, perhaps, many of those whom the Romans had not defeated); Tacitus compares them with the successes of Parthia and Rome. Germanicus visited the famous statue of Memnon with its strange voice (actually Amenophis III, standing at the gates of his mortuary temple), the great pyramids of Giza (where Tacitus echoes Pliny the Elder HN 36.12 in his criticism of royal rivalry and vulgar display of wealth), Lake Moeris, and the First Cataract. Germanicus finally arrives at Syene and Elephantine (see Rubrum Mare). Tacitus’ geography is erroneous. The cataract lies beyond Syene. Tacitus’ presentation of Germanicus’ itinerary (Thebes, Giza, Syene) reflects Herodotus, and, to judge by a fragmentary papyrus recording, a (possibly fictitious) journey in a similar order (P. Lond. 3. 835 = P. Sarap. 101, early 2nd cent.), a widely held view of Egypt (Adams 2007). More importantly, Tacitus’ comments in the Histories and Annals are taken by modern scholars to show that Egypt was unique as a Roman province and was somehow the private domain of the emperor (domi retinere). This view cannot be sustained. There was no typical Roman province. The status of the praefectus Aegypti allows Tacitus to display his hostility to the equestrian class, especially in the insult to senators (in his view) that they should be sidelined. Like any legatus Augusti, the prefect was appointed for a threeyear period by the emperor and was, like any other, subject to laws passed in the Senate (Jördens 2009). His equestrian status, however, meant that he could not possess imperium, and thus Augustus passed a law affording the prefect the same powers

c05_Vol2.indd 382

as a proconsul, which he needed to command legions (Dig. 1. 17. 1 [Ulpian]). This is one way we could understand ignaram magistratuum, a snide comment that Egypt had no imperium-bearing magistrates. Strength is added to this interpretation by a passing remark later in the Annals (12.60.1), where Tacitus explicitly states that legal matters were to be heard before the prefects, whose judgments ranked equal to that of a Roman magistrate (magistratus Romani), presumably holding imperium. Another is more common: “ignorant of municipal administration.” Taken this way, Tacitus is seen to be referring to the lack of town councils in Alexandria and Egypt. Recent research, however, has highlighted the presence in Egypt of institutions which increasingly undertook the traditional roles of councils, perhaps as a direct result of Augustan innovation in the social hierarchy of the Egyptian chora (Bowman and Rathbone 1992). That Tiberius Iulius Alexander, a member of a prominent Jewish family and an Egyptian, should be prefect simply added insult to injury. Finally, his stress on the importance of Egyptian grain as a stimulus to Augustus’ arrangement of the province is anachronistic. In the time of Augustus most grain came from Africa and Sicily; Egypt did not yet figure greatly. Two other sections in the Annals deserve attention, 6.28 and 11.14, and both relate to Egyptian antiquity. First, at 6.28 Tacitus begins his account of the year 34 with a short excursus concerning the appearance of the phoenix in Egypt, the only such excursus in the Annals. The focus is myth, “matters uncertain and exaggerated by fantasy,” but it serves as an important antithesis to the “constant slaughter” in Rome instigated by Sejanus, with which it is juxtaposed. Tacitus pointedly describes it as a “pleasing subject for presentation.” However, unlike Tacitus, both Cassius Dio (58.27.1) and Pliny the Elder (HN 10.2.5) date its appearance to the year, 36; for his part, Pliny cites Cornelius Valerianus as his source (Peter F1, see FRHist. II. 637–638). For Cassius Dio, the phoenix’s appearance was contemporary to fires in Rome, and it foreshadowed the death of Tiberius in 37. It is difficult to explain the discrepancy in dates. Tacitus might be mistaken, but would he have disregarded the opportunity to suggest that the appearance of this mythological bird was a portent of Tiberius’

28-04-2023 17:48:51

E g y pt  

demise? Thus, his conclusion that because the interval between the previous sighting of the bird and Tiberius’ reign was only 250 years suggests that it was fake is the most likely explanation; we should not be concerned by the discrepancy in dating. This mythological bird appeared in Egypt at particular intervals and was associated with the sun and thus Heliopolis in Lower Egypt. It was of considerable interest to ancient authors such as Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, and the poets Lucan and Ovid. There was debate as to the exact interval between the appearances of the phoenix. According to Herodotus, the phoenix first appeared in the reign of the semimythical pharaoh Seostris, and Tacitus notes its return during the reign of Amasis (c. 570–526 bce), Ptolemaeus Euergetes (246–221 bce), and of Tiberius. Tacitus notes that 500 years was the most commonly accepted figure (this accords with Herodotus 2.102, who claims this is what he was told by priests at Heliopolis), but others claimed that the interval was 1,461 years. For the Egyptians, 1,461 years was the Sothian cycle of the star Sirius. Herodotus and others (Ov. Met. 15.595; Sen. Ep. 42.1; Pompon. 3.8.10) give 500 years, and it has been suggested that this might equate to a rounding up of 487 years, which would represent one-third of the Egyptian cycle. Pliny the Elder gives 540 years, while later in his Natural History, 1,000 years (29.1.9). None of these intervals, however, match the intervals between the reigns of the kings mentioned, and we should note that the Egyptians figured on the year 139 ce as the end of a cycle. Tacitus uses the name Seosis, which is likely a corruption of Sesostris. This king was thought by Herodotus to be the greatest of the pharaohs (2.102–110), certainly the most wide-ranging, conquering large portions of the ancient world. This tradition finds its way into other works (Diod. Sic. 1.53–59; Strabo 1.3.21 and 15.1.6, where he notes that Sesostris did not conquer India, and thus pales before Alexander the Great; Plin. HN 36.14). He is mentioned by Manetho (F. 34 [Syncellus] and Frs. 35 and 36 [Eusebius]). However, the name Sesostris itself is a Hellenized corruption for the name of three pharaohs of the Twelfth dynasty, of which Senwosret I and Senwosret III were particularly outstanding and

c05_Vol2.indd 383

383

were deeply ingrained in the Egyptian historical tradition. The legend was greater than these two kings alone, however, and came to subsume the characteristics of other renowned Egyptian pharaohs: Ramses II and III, Seti I of the Nineteenth Dynasty, and Sheshonk I of the Twenty-second Dynasty. Herodotus may have been swayed by Egyptian propaganda celebrating their glorious past; there is certainly the fanciful allusion to conquering Persian lands, and Greeks certainly embellished the story. Tacitus certainly was not, highlighting the legend’s inscrutable nature. Second, at A. 11.14, under the year 47, Tacitus relates details about games celebrated in Rome, the sexual adventures of Messalina, and legislation of Claudius. He states that Claudius, a renowned scholar, had added three new letters to the alphabet (and three to Greek). We are then treated to a short excursus on the origins of writing. “Animal shapes” had been used by Egyptians on their ancient temples to express ideas, and they claimed to have invented writing. There is little doubt here that Tacitus had read the work on languages that we know was written by Claudius (Suet. Claud. 41). He goes on to say that from Egypt, language spread to the Phoenicians and thence to the Greeks. It is safe to assume that Tacitus would have had a good command of Greek and would have read Greek literature going back to Herodotus and thus continues in a long tradition of associating the origins of language with Egypt. We can assume that it was from these authors that he also derived information about Sesostris, and also the story of Cadmus, to whom he ascribes the invention of writing as Greeks and Romans understood it (Herodotus 5.59–61, for example, notes the use of “Cadmeian letters” at the temple of Apollo Ismenias at Thebes). Tacitus tells us that Claudius’ new letters fell into disuse after his death, although they can be found in contemporary inscriptions (e.g., ILS 222). Tacitus’ account of Germanicus in Egypt and of the appearance of the phoenix have been mobilized by some scholars as internal evidence for the date of composition of the Annals. In his account, Tacitus notes that Germanicus’ arrival at Syene and Elephantine brought him to what “was once the limit of the Roman Empire, which now extends to the Red Sea”

28-04-2023 17:48:51

384  

elo q ue n tia

(nunc rubrum ad mare patescit, A. 2.61.2). Cassius Dio (68.29.1) states that Trajan in a letter to the Senate claimed that he had taken the limits of empire to the Red Sea. The so-called Nabataean Debate on one side sees Trajan’s conquest of Mesopotamia in 116, the other the annexation of Nabataea in 105–6, as a terminus ante quem. Other points in the Annals are adduced in support, as arguments about later additions and annotation are marshaled. Whatever the case, while we should be mindful that Roman notions of frontiers were fluid, and their reluctance to mention military setbacks notorious, we can still conclude with some confidence that at least part of the Annals was composed before 114. The appearance of the phoenix likewise is taken by some as a firm allusion to a specific event. However, Tacitus’ clear ambivalence to folklore, the fact that it is the only such digression in the Annals, and the fact that coins celebrating the accession of Hadrian bearing a phoenix rising from the ashes and heralding a new era more properly point toward the satirical. see also: Augustus; paradoxography; provinces REFERENCES Adams, C. E. P. 2007. “‘Travel Narrows the Mind’: Cultural Tourism in Graeco-Roman Egypt.” In Travel, Culture and Geography in Ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Near East, edited by C. E. P. Adams and J. Roy, 161–184. Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society 10. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Bowman, A. K., and D. W. Rathbone. 1992. “Cities and Administration in Roman Egypt.” Journal of Roman Studies 82: 107–127. Hennig, D. 1972. “Zur Ägyptenreise des Germanicus.” Chiron 2: 349–365. Jördens, Andrea. 2009. Staathalterliche Verwaltung in der römischen Kaiserzeit: Studien zum praefectus Aegypti. Stuttgart: Verlag. Weingärtner, D. G. 1969. Die Ägyptenreise des Germanicus. Bonn: R. Habelt. FURTHER READING Bowman, A. K. 1996. Egypt after the Pharaohs. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c05_Vol2.indd 384

Bowman, A. K., et al. 2007. Oxyrhynchus: A City and Its Texts. London: EES. Brunt, P. A. 1990. “The Administrators of Roman Egypt.” In Roman Imperial Themes, 215–254. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cornell, Timothy, et al. 2013. The Fragments of the Roman Historians. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lewis, N. 1983. Life in Egypt under Roman Rule. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lloyd, Alan B. 1975. Herodotus, Book II, Introduction. Leiden: Brill. Lloyd, Alan B. 1976. Herodotus, Book II, Commentary 1–98. Leiden: Brill. Lloyd, Alan B. 1993. Herodotus Book II, Commentary 99–182. Leiden: Brill. Matthews, R., and C. Römer. 2003. Ancient Perspectives on Egypt. London and New York: Routledge. Parsons, P. 2007. City of the Sharp-nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson.

ELEAZAR, see BELLUM IUDAICUM ELEPHANTINE, see RUBRUM MARE ELEUSIS, see SARAPIS

ELOQUENTIA CHRISTOPHER S.VAN DEN BERG

Amherst College

Eloquentia (and its corresponding adjective, eloquens, uncommon in Tacitus) is a Latin term with a broad semantic range. It initially indicated something like “fullness and quality of speech” but would develop in the imperial period to express a capacious sense of “skilled language” across genres and spoken or written venues. The pursuit of eloquentia was a central aspect of elite self-definition for educated Romans. The term was frequently synonymous with the study of rhetoric and is often paired with philosophy (sapientia), a tendency which has its origins in Cicero’s explorations and definitions of eloquentia, especially in his dialogues. The term could encompass related ideas such as facundus/facundia (“well-spoken / well-spokenness”) no less than more common adjectives such as disertus (“expressive”). It was the highest

28-04-2023 17:48:51

emotio n s  

register of terms used to positively evaluate speech; to it can be contrasted the more mundane synonyms, sermo and eloquium. It typically describes expressive or artistic language in a public venue or in writings intended for circulation among a cultivated audience. Though primarily the domain of the orator (in the more capacious sense of “the true orator”), Marcus Aper shows in his ecumenical response to the poet Curiatius Maternus that it also became the province of poets: “I regard as sacred and august the whole of eloquence and all its parts” (omnem eloquentiam omnisque eius partis sacras et venerabilis puto, D. 10.4). In this and similar examples the term comes remarkably close to the English term “literature,” the modern concept for which the Romans had no directly equivalent noun (in fact, eloquentia may be the closest term that Latin had, though litterae and studia in certain cases cover much of the same terrain). Tacitus uses the term eloquentia most of all in the Dialogus, and the term’s frequency there reflects its importance as the central subject of investigation throughout the dialogue, which, though it begins as an inquiry into the historical differences of past and present oratory, also addresses the thornier and more abstract question of how to define, judge, and explain qualitative language. Eloquentia is an important characteristic of authors who write history (Ag. 10.3, H. 1.1.1, A. 4.34.3). In Tacitus’ historical accounts eloquentia occasionally defines men and speakers of considerable achievement, such as Agricola’s father, Iulius Graecinus, (Ag. 4.1), Vipstanus Messalla (also a speaker of the Dialogus, H. 4.42), and Marcus Servilius (A. 14.19.1), although in the Annals in particular the term is often used with some irony or about figures whose eloquence is suspect (e.g., Laelius Balbus, A. 6.48.4 and Eprius Marcellus, A. 16.22). see also: declamation; Roman orators; Roman poets; speeches; style Reference works: Thesaurus Linguae Latinae V.2.408.28–412.5 [Kapp and Meyer, 1933], s.v. eloquentia; Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik II.1091–1098, s.v. eloquentia.

c05_Vol2.indd 385

385

FURTHER READING Dominik, William. 1997. “The Style Is the Man: Seneca, Tacitus, and Quintilian’s Canon.” In Roman Eloquence: Rhetoric in Society and Literature, edited by William Dominik, 50–68. London: Routledge. Feeney, Denis. 2005. “The Beginnings of a Literature in Latin.” Journal of Roman Studies 95: 226–240. Goldberg, Sander. 2009. “The Faces of Eloquence: The Dialogus de Oratoribus.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by Anthony Woodman, 73–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levene, David S. 2004. “Tacitus’ Dialogus as Literary History.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 134: 157–200. DOI: 10.1353/ apa.2004.0005. Préaux, Jean. 1979. “Le couple de sapientia et eloquentia.” In La rhétorique à Rome. Colloque des 10–11 décembre 1977, Paris, 171–185. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. van den Berg, Christopher S. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus: Aesthetics and Empire in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ELYMAIS, see PARTHIA

EMOTIONS JAYNE KNIGHT

University of Tasmania

Emotions were central to the practice and reception of ancient historiography. Tacitus recreates the emotional atmosphere of the events and periods he narrates. For example, Ag. captures how Domitian’s jealousy and anger guided his decisions and impacted his subjects, while H. foregrounds the anger and anxiety of generals, soldiers, and provincials during the events of the civil wars of 69 ce. In A., Tacitus conjures the gloom of living under tyranny. Negative emotions such as fear, anger, and hatred are especially prominent in Tacitus owing to the grim nature of his subject matter. Emotions served as historical explanations. Tacitus narrates events with reference to the emotions that were thought to cause them and the emotional responses they generated. For example,

28-04-2023 17:48:51

386  

emotio n s

Tiberius’ moral decline at the end of his life is explained by the loss of the shame and fear that had previously restrained him (A. 6.51.3). Otho’s rise to power is propelled by his anger against Galba and jealousy of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus (H. 1.21.1). Tacitus blames emotions for the poor quality of imperial historiography: fear and hatred of powerful men distorted the truth (H. 1.1; A. 1.1). Tacitus uses a variety of rhetorical techniques to influence his readers’ emotional responses. For example, he intensifies the emotional impact of the aftermath of defeat at the Teutoburg Forest with vivid description of human remains (A. 1.61). Tacitus narrates death scenes with great pathos; the execution of Octavia (2) is a powerful example (A. 14.64.1–2). Structural elements are also deployed for emotional effect. For example, Tacitus’ abrupt introduction of Tiberius’ principate with the murder of Agrippa Postumus provokes dread for what is to follow (A. 1.6.1). The absence of emotion can also have a powerful effect, as in Claudius’ lack of reaction to Messalina’s death (A. 11.38.3). Tacitus projects his own emotions, despite his claims to dispassionate objectivity in the prefaces to H. and A. At H. 1.1.3 he remarks that historians must write without affection (amor) or hatred (odium) in order to be faithful to the truth. The preface to A. ends similarly with Tacitus’ intention to transmit history sine ira et studio, “without anger or partiality.” Sallust makes a similar prefatory announcement (Cat. 1.4.2). Tacitus, like many of his predecessors, viewed the promotion of morality as a key goal of history. Roman writers presented figures of the past as examples worthy of emulation or contempt. Tacitus suggests historical exemplarity deters immoral behavior by inspiring fear for future infamy among readers (A. 3.65.1). Emotions were thought to reveal moral character. For example, Agricola’s forthright emotional communication demonstrates his fitness for leadership (Ag. 22.4), while Tiberius’ frequent difficulties with public displays of emotion indicate his unsuitability to rule (A. 1.11). The emotional dynamics of hierarchical power relationships are a recurring theme in Tacitus. Emotions and morality were connected by the major contemporary schools of

c05_Vol2.indd 386

philosophy, but rhetorical theory, with its focus on the appropriate contexts for the arousal of audience emotions for moral ends, likely had a more direct influence on Tacitus’ engagement with emotions. Studies of emotions in ancient literature and history have proliferated since the 1990s. Early investigations focused on ancient philosophical theories of emotions, which were then applied to the analysis of other kinds of sources. Studies of historiography have looked to philosophy as well as other genres, especially tragedy and epic poetry, in order to understand historians’ use of emotions. Marincola (2003) argues that a predominant focus on the “tragic” emotions of fear and pity in earlier scholarship produced a one-sided view of ancient historians’ meaningful engagement with a range of emotions. Levene (1997) proposes a useful distinction between “audience-based” and “analytic” emotions: emotions are audience-based when the reader feels the same emotions as a character in the story, while analytic emotions are the result of a reader’s assessment of a scenario. Scholars have recently begun to apply theory drawn from cognitive sciences to the study of ancient literature. Future scholarship may continue to examine the wider cultural, historical, and psychological contexts of Tacitean emotions. see also: narrative; laughter; speeches; suicide REFERENCES Levene, David. 1997. “Pity, Fear and the Historical Audience: Tacitus on the Fall of Vitellius.” In The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, edited by Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill, 128–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marincola, John. 2003. “Beyond Pity and Fear: The Emotions of History.” Ancient Society 33: 285–315. DOI: 10.2143/AS.33.0.503603. FURTHER READING Damon, Cynthia. 2017. “Emotions as a Historiographical Dilemma.” In Emotions in the Classical World: Methods, Approaches, and Directions, edited by Douglas Cairns and Damien Nelis, 177–194. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

28-04-2023 17:48:51

empire  

EMPIRE EMMA DENCH

Harvard University

Tacitus’ concept of empire should be understood within the context of broader semantic shifts in the Latin noun imperium, from which the English term empire is derived. He uses the noun and its cognates to denote an individual’s power to command, empire, and the imperial power of the princeps. While Tacitus marks the scope of his Annals (4.32–35) as restricted to the claustrophobic court and capital, the Republican past and unsubdued “barbarians” function as foils throughout his works. The Latin noun imperium referred in the Middle Republic primarily to the power to command bestowed on the highest Roman magistrates for the limited term of their office. The coercive nature of this power to command was symbolized by the fasces carried by lictors who accompanied these magistrates. By extension, imperium could also denote a more abstract “sway,” to which other peoples submitted, and from the Late Republic can denote “empire” as an increasingly concrete, territorial entity with frontiers, albeit ones that can and should be extended. Between the later Republic and early principate, considerable innovations in the concept of imperium reflected the needs of the growing sway of the Romans, and ultimately marked progress toward de facto Roman monarchy. In the case of proconsulships and propraetorships, the power to command associated with the offices of consul and praetor were “prorogued” beyond the year of office. Imperium maius (“greater power to command”) was granted to individuals to distinguish various kinds of superpowers from those of an ordinary magistrate. From the end of the Republic, usage of the noun imperium and its cognates was further adapted to accommodate an individual supremacy that eclipsed but did not wholly monopolize power to command. There is, however, no ancient equivalent of the modern usage of “Roman Empire” to refer to the period when Rome was ruled by emperors. During the triumvirate, Octavian (Augustus) assumed the title “Imperator” (“Commander”) in the place of his

c05_Vol2.indd 387

387

praenomen, styling himself “Imperator Caesar,” the source of our term emperor. Victorious generals had traditionally been acclaimed “Imperator” by their troops. After the turbulent year of civil war following the death of Nero, the lex de Imperio Vespasiani (“Law about Vespasian’s Power”) presented to Vespasian in December 69 ce a legal package of power associated with emperorship. This package consisted of accreted, ad hoc, time-limited, and de facto powers attributed in the law exclusively to “good” emperors on whom they had allegedly been conferred in the past. Tacitus regularly uses the noun imperium and its cognates to denote the specific power of the princeps, although it can also denote others’ power to command and empire (both that of the republic and that of the Caesars). Tacitus’ use of imperium and its cognates to denote the imperial power enhances his treatment of emperorship as a system rather than merely a parade of individual rulers. The workings of this system are particularly visible in the process of succession, by comparison with the Republican past, and through the brokerage of power by nontraditional agents, namely the emperor’s household and personal associates. The emperorship encompasses and integrates the entire Roman world: the empire, along with the city of Rome and Italy. Thus, the provinces fall to Tacitus’ Augustus as surely as functions and constituents of the Roman state (Ann. 1.2.2), while a panoramic assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of city, individual armies, and individual provinces forms the miseen-scėne at the outset of the Histories (1.4–11). The landscape of both the Histories and the Annals is one in which the only real alternative to rule by a princeps is rule by another princeps, and there are plenty of others waiting in the wings. Leaving aside succession questions concerning members of the imperial family, Tacitus’ Augustus had supposedly revealed to Tiberius the names of individuals who were capable and unwilling, incapable but desirous of, and both capable and willing to assume the emperorship (Ann. 1.13.2; cf. Hist. 1.49.4). This formulation both regularizes emperorship as a position and conveys the sinister atmosphere of suspicion that characterizes Roman monarchy. Tacitus’ principes are occasionally made to engage explicitly with awkward questions about

28-04-2023 17:48:51

388  

e nargeia

the nature and scope of their imperium vis-à-vis other office holders and organs of state. This is particularly a leitmotif of Tacitus’ Tiberius in the immediate aftermath of the death of Augustus in the early chapters of the Annals. While other characters and the narrator expose the reality of Tiberius’ supremacy, Tiberius himself demurs. With Tacitean hindsight, the uncertain nature of succession to the deeply personalized principate of Augustus is rendered an exasperating farce. Across Tacitus’ corpus, the long-gone Republican past and the external world of the overseas empire function as foils to the stifling atmosphere of his city of Rome, and the self-consciously circumscribed nature of his own writing, dominated by the imperial court. Untamed “barbarian” peoples and Rome’s long-gone Republican past are both characterized by libertas (“freedom”), a heavily compromised state in Tacitus’ Rome ruled by emperors. For Tacitus, like his contemporaries, libertas can in fact signal the period that we call the Republic. A yearning for warfare and expansion, free speech, the glorious pursuits of Republican imperatores, and the challenging landscapes of unconquered or restive “barbarians” pervade his narratives. If emperors themselves tend to disappoint by their unwillingness or incapability of expanding the empire, senatorial commanders face the challenge of a resentful princeps if they attempt these old-fashioned pursuits. Tacitus’ “barbarians”, particularly the archetypically wild “northern barbarians” of Britain and Germany, can exemplify everything that is lost in contemporary Rome. A striking passage of the Germania follows a Herodotean ethnographic trope to spell out the topsy-turvy nature of their moral universe, an absence of contemporary Roman vices (G. 19). As in earlier Roman literature, “barbarian” characters are made to voice critiques of empire. Calgacus the Caledonian notably comments on the name of empire as a veil for “robbery, massacre, despoilment,” and Roman creation of “wasteland” under the name of “peace” (Ag. 30.5). Elsewhere, Tacitus’ own narration signals empire as encroachment, deceit, moral corruption, and even enslavement. Nevertheless, there is no call to return to the Republican past and no idealization of “northern barbarians”. Tacitus’ Germans are notable for their lack of staying power (G. 4), their laziness (G.

c05_Vol2.indd 388

15.1), and their fondness for getting drunk and brawling (G. 22.1; 23), as well as for their exemplary marital mores (G. 18), while Germanicus’ particular brand of heroism in the early books of the Annals reveals him to be a character out of step with the straitened times in which he lives. see also: Roman Republic; ethnography; imperium FURTHER READING Brunt, Peter A. 1977. “Lex de Imperio Vespasiani.” Journal of Roman Studies 67: 95–116. Derow, Peter S. 2012. “Imperium.” In Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Griffin, Miriam T. 1995. “Tacitus, Tiberius and the Principate.” In Leaders and Masses in the Roman World: Studies in Honor of Zvi Yavetz, edited by Irad Malkin and Z. W. Rubinsohn. Mnemosyne Supplements 139. Leiden: Brill. Moles, John. 1998. “Cry Freedom: Tacitus Annals 4, 32–35.” Histos 2: 95–184. O’Gorman, Ellen. 1993. “No Place Like Rome: Identity and Difference in the Germania of Tacitus.” Ramus 22: 135–154. Pelling, Christopher B. R. 1993. “Tacitus and Germanicus.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 59–85. Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press. Richardson, John. 2008. The Language of Empire: Rome and the Idea of Empire from the Third Century B.C. to the Second Century A.D. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sailor, Dylan. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shumate, Nancy. 2013. Nation, Empire, Decline: Studies in Rhetorical Continuity from the Romans to the Modern Era. London: Bloomsbury. Syme, Ronald. 1955. “Marcus Lepidus, Capax Imperii.” Journal of Roman Studies 45: 22–33. Syme, Ronald. 1958. “Imperator Caesar: A Study in Nomenclature.” Historia 7: 172–188.

ENARGEIA ELIZABETH KEITEL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Enargeia (Latin evidentia), the ability to create vividness in speech or writing, was a standard topic in ancient rhetorical handbooks. According to them,

28-04-2023 17:48:51

E n n ia  

enargeia should make the readers or listeners feel as if they are actually seeing what is described (Rhet. Her. 4.68; Cic. Part. Or. 20; De Orat. 3.202; Inv. 1.104;1.107; 2.78; Orat. 139; [Longinus] Subl. 15.2; Quint., Inst. 4.2.63–64; 6.2.32; 8.3.61–71; 9.2.40–43.) Quintilian, the great teacher of rhetoric at Rome, believed that a speech does not totally dominate if it only reaches the judges’ ears. The matter must also reach the judges’ minds’ eyes (Quint. Inst. 8.3.62; Keitel 2014). To the ancient rhetoricians, detail was a key element in creating enargeia. According to Demetrius, “vividness derives in the first place from accurate detail and the fact that no circumstance is omitted or deleted” (Demetr. Eloc. 209). He also believed that “it is often more vivid to repeat an idea than to express it only once” (Demetr. Eloc. 211). Tacitus uses detail to brilliant effect when recounting the battle in Rome between the troops of Vitellius and Vespasian in 69 ce during the Saturnalia, a boisterous holiday in mid-December (H. 3.83). Normally in scenes of sacks of cities the civilians were depicted as frightened and helpless. In Tacitus’ scene they stand by watching the combatants as if they are at games in the circus. They applaud and shout to encourage one party or the other. They demand that soldiers who had hidden in a house be pulled out and killed so they can gain more of the loot. Tacitus then makes vivid the grotesque facies or appearance of the city in a series of antitheses. Battles and wounds are juxtaposed with open baths and bars; blood and heaps of corpses near prostitutes; every perverse debauchery found in a city at peace next to every crime that can be committed when a city is captured. Finally, Tacitus recalls other civil wars fought by Romans in Rome, the only difference being that in 69 people showed inhuman indifference and never relaxed their pleasures as they took pleasure in public misfortune. see also: eloquentia; historiography REFERENCE Keitel, E. 2014. “‘No Vivid Writing Please’: Evidentia in the Agricola and the Annals.” In Les opera minora et le développement de l’historiographie tacitéenne, edited by O. Devillers, 59–70. Bordeaux: Editions Ausonius.

c05_Vol2.indd 389

389

FURTHER READING Davidson, J. 1991. “The Gaze in Polybius’ Histories.” Journal of Roman Studies 81: 10–24. Walker, A. D. 1993. “Enargeia and the Spectator in Greek Historiography.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 123: 353–377. Webb, R. 2009. Ecphrasis: Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice. Surrey: Ashgate.

ENNIA DONNA W. HURLEY

New York, New York

Ennia (PIR2 E 65) was the wife of Macro, the powerful praetorian prefect for both the emperors Tiberius and Gaius (Caligula). Her intimate relationship with Gaius was credited with influencing his accession to the principate. Cassius Dio gives Ennia’s name as Ennia Thrasylla (Cass. Dio 58.28.2), and this has prompted speculation that she was the daughter of the Greek astrologer Thrasyllus, the longtrusted confidant of Tiberius and resident in his court (Cramer 1954, 107). Gaius began a liaison with Ennia after his first wife died in the final months of Tiberius’ reign, early in 37 ce. The affair included a promise of marriage should he become emperor, and this was supported by a sworn oath and written contract (A. 6.45.3; Suet. Cal. 12.2). Suetonius reports that Gaius initiated the liaison in order to ingratiate himself with Macro. The idea was that Ennia, who had become enamored of Gaius, use her influence with her husband to support Gaius’ bid to become Tiberius’ successor (Suet. Cal. 12.2). Philo of Alexandria describes the same rationale (Philo Leg. 39). By this interpretation, Macro is the dominant power in the court, and Gaius needs his help. Tacitus and Cassius, on the other hand, report that it was Macro who initiated the liaison. He offered his wife to Gaius and had her pretend to be in love with him (A. 6.45.3; Cass. Dio 58.28.4). Once Gaius became emperor, Macro could call in any favors that he wished. By this interpretation, Gaius was already preeminent, and Macro needed him. The differing explanations evidently arose

28-04-2023 17:48:51

390  

E phesus

from speculation about what must have seemed an enigmatic affair (Barrett 2015, 48–49; Winterling 2003, 48–49). An understanding of the affair soon became immaterial, however, for Gaius forced both Macro and Ennia to suicide in 38 ce. Among the charges brought against Macro was that of pimping for his wife (Suet. Cal. 26.1; Cass. Dio 59.10.6; Philo Leg. 61). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; praetorian cohorts; suicide; women REFERENCES Barrett, Anthony A. 2015. Caligula: The Abuse of Power. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Cramer, F. H. 1954. Astrology in Roman Law and Politics. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society. Winterling, Aloys. 2003. Caligula: eine Biographie. Munich: Beck. FURTHER READING Levick, Barbara. 1999. Tiberius the Politician. Rev. ed. London: Routledge. Seager, Robin. 2005. Tiberius. 2nd ed. Malden MA: Blackwell.

ENNIUS, Lucius, see ATEIUS CAPITO ENNIUS, Manius, see GERMAN REVOLT EPAPHRODITUS, see FREEDMEN OF NERO

EPHESUS PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Ephesus was a wealthy and important civic and religious center, situated on the mouth of the river Caÿster on the western seaboard of Asia Minor (Barrington 61 E2; modern Turkey). The city was part of the province of Asia and the seat of its proconsul, and therefore would have been familiar to Tacitus during his proconsulship. Other than a passing mention in D. 15.3, where Ephesus appears as a center of Asian rhetoric (see OCD3 Second Sophistic; OCD3 Asianism and Atticism), the city is mentioned a further three times.

c05_Vol2.indd 390

Though these appearances are relatively short, Tacitus’ knowledge of the city, province, and its interaction with Rome comes out in the detail he provides in explaining political and religious activities. At A. 3.61.1, Ephesus presents its case for the maintenance of asylia at the sacred grove Ortygia near the city (Barrington 61 E2), basing their argument on its mythological claim as the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis (Diana), and which had been historically sanctioned by authorities from the Persians through to the Romans. Tacitus thus relates important details of the religious life and identity of Ephesus and how the Ephesians presented their arguments in a legal and diplomatic context (Rogers 2012, 140–143). At A. 4.55 (cf. A.4.15.3), eleven cities from Asia Minor were arguing over which city would build a temple to Tiberius, Livia, and the Senate. The winner would gain the coveted title of neokoros, which means “temple-warden,” but designates the honor of maintaining a temple to the Roman emperor (Burrell 2004, 4–5, 59–60). The representatives of these communities presented their arguments, though Ephesus fell out of contention for being too occupied with the Temple of Artemis. At A. 16.23.1, in the context of the arraignment of Barea Soranus, who was Tacitus’ predecessor in the proconsulship, Tacitus mentions in passing that Soranus helped open the port of the Ephesians, which was necessary due to the progressive silting of the harbor from the river, a battle with nature throughout history (Hdt. 2.10; Str. 14.1.24; Plin. HN 2.201; 5.115). The city now lies 9 km from the sea. see also: Cornelius Tacitus; Miletus; Smyrna Reference works: Barrington 61 E2; BNP Ephesus; RE Ephesos REFERENCES Burrell, Barbara. 2004. Neokoroi: Greek Cities and the Roman Emperor. Leiden: Brill. Rogers, Guy M. 2012. The Mysteries of Artemis of Ephesos: Cult, Polis, and Change in the GraecoRoman World (Synkrisis). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

28-04-2023 17:48:51

epic poetry  

FURTHER READING Price, Simon. 1984. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

EPIC POETRY TIMOTHY JOSEPH

College of the Holy Cross

Tacitus’ older contemporary Quintilian writes that “historical writing is very close to the poets, and in a way a poem in free verse, and it is written for the purpose of telling a story, not for proving something” (historia proxima poetis, et quodam modo carmen solutum est, et scribitur ad narrandum, non ad probandum, Inst. 10.1.31). Historiography and epic poetry indeed share many of the same narrative strategies (in story structures, scene types, stylistic devices, and diction) and also a similar focus in content, often on wars and the fortunes of great men (cf. the concise definitions of epic content by Vergil at Ecl. 6.3, G. 4.4–5, and Aen. 1.1 and 7.41–42 with Tacitus’ statement about ideal historiographical content at A. 4.32.1). Tacitus’ writing is reflective of this closeness between the genres in a number of ways. In all of his works there is allusion to epic works, with a special concentration of allusive engagement with Vergil and Lucan. Tacitus also appears to enhance the characterization of several figures through the evocation of characters from epic. Scholars have argued, for example, that the presentation of Germanicus in A. 1–2 builds upon Vergil’s portrait of Aeneas (Baxter 1972) and Silius Italicus’ portrait of Hannibal (Manolaraki and Augustakis 2012), along with Albinovanus Pedo’s epic account of Germanicus’ exploits. Tacitus’ use of catalogs (G. 27.2–46, with Thomas 2009, 62–63; and H. 1.4–11, with Joseph 2012, 42–53), inclusion of ominous dreams (e.g., A. 1.65 and 2.14.1), and development of battle narrative with stock episodes of siege and plunder is revealing of more general narrative similarities with epic. Tacitus appears to hold up the proximity of historiography and epic by making the opening

c05_Vol2.indd 391

391

sentence of the A. a freestanding hexameter: urbem Romam a principio reges habuere (“From the beginning kings held the city of Rome,” A. 1.1.1). The inclusion of this hexameter (on which see Lauletta 1998, 96–101) follows the practice of Sallust at Iug. 5.1 and Livy’s use of two-thirds of a hexameter to open his preface. While underscoring the affinity between historiography and epic, this bravura opening line also speaks to the interest in recurrences and continuities across time that Tacitus’ work shares with epic. His use, for example, of inter- and intratextual repetition to highlight patterns in Roman history is comparable with the pervasive and in a sense ingrained use of that trope in epic (Joseph 2012; and see O’Gorman 2009 on repetition in historiography). At the same time, Tacitus’ historical works share with epic a focus on etiologies and the causes of things. Just as, for example, Vergil’s Aeneid offers an etiology of the Roman race, and Lucan’s epic tells the story of the origins of Caesarism, Tacitus’ H. traces the causes of the civil wars of 69 ce and the rise of the Flavian dynasty, and the later A. goes back to the year 14 ce to offer an etiological study of the principate itself, how its customs came into being. Further, Tacitus, in a manner like the epic poets (e.g., Hom. Il. 1.8; Verg. Aen. 1.11; Luc. 2.1 and 4.808– 809), cites the hostility of the gods as an explanation for events in his narrative (e.g., H. 1.3.2 and 2.38.2; A. 4.1.2 and 16.16.2). Prominent individuals and their deeds had long filled the pages of epic and historiography. Early in Rome’s epic and historiographical tradition, the republican poet Quintus Ennius (239– 169 B.ce) wrote in an oft-quoted line of his epic Annales that “the Roman state stands on its ancient morals and on its men” (moribus antiquis res stat Romana uirisque, Ann. 156 Skutsch). In Tacitus’ times, the contributions of men to the state remained central to both historiography and epic. But the state had changed to an autocracy, with all others now subservient to the princeps; and, as Buckley (2018) explores in reading Tacitus’ statesmen alongside the narrative of the dutybound Jason in the near-contemporary poet Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, the epic and historical writing that narrated the deeds and values of men would also have to adapt to the times.

28-04-2023 17:48:51

392  

E picharis

see also: intertextuality; Roman poets REFERENCES Baxter, R. T. S. 1972. “Virgil’s Influence on Tacitus in Annals 1 and 2.” Classical Philology 67: 246–269. Buckley, Emma. 2018. “Flavian Epic and Trajanic Historiography.” In Roman Literature under Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian: Literary Interactions, AD 96–138, edited by Alice König and Christopher Whitton, 86–107. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Joseph, Timothy. 2012. Tacitus the Epic Successor: Virgil, Lucan, and the Narrative of Civil War in the Histories. Leiden: Brill. Lauletta, Mario. 1998. L’intreccio degli stili in Tacito: Intertestualità prosa-poesia nella letteratura storiografica. Naples: Arte Tipografica. Manolaraki, Eleni, and Antony Augustakis. 2012. “Silius Italicus and Tacitus on the Tragic Hero: The Case of Germanicus.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Pagán, 386–402. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. O’Gorman, Ellen. 2009. “Intertextuality and Historiography.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by Andrew Feldherr, 231–242. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, Richard F. 2009. “The Germania as Literary Text.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by Anthony J. Woodman, 59–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Foucher, Antoine. 2000. Historia Proxima Poetis: l’Influence de la poésie épique sur le style des historiens latins de Salluste à Ammien Marcellin. Brussels: Collection Latomus. Ginsburg, Lauren Donovan. 2020. “Allusive Prodigia: Caesar’s Comets in Neronian Rome (Tac. Ann. 15.47).” TAPA 150: 231–249. Leigh, Matthew. 2007. “Epic and Historiography at Rome.” In A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography, edited by John Marincola, 483–492. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Wiseman, T. P. 1979. Clio’s Cosmetics: Three Studies in Greco-Roman Literature. Leicester: Leicester University Press. Woodman, Anthony. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies. London: Croom Helm.

c05_Vol2.indd 392

EPICHARIS YASMINA BENFERHAT

Université de Lorraine

Epicharis (d. 65 ce) was a freedwoman who played a part in the Pisonian Conspiracy against Nero in 65 ce. Her complete nomen was Claudia Epicharis (see RE VI-1, 34): libertina mulier (A. 15.57). She was close to Annaeus Mela, Seneca’s brother (Polyaenus, Strat. 8.62). It seems she became the owner of Horace’s Sabine villa and renovated it between 60 and 65 ce (Frischer, Crawford, and De Simone 2006). She might have been the wife of Tiberius Claudius Abascantus, who was a freedman working at the treasury under Nero’s reign (see Herz 1989, 167–174; Rudich 2006, 315–326). Considering the Sabine villa was well situated between Rome and Nero’s villa Sublacensis, some think Nero might have used her villa as a stopover and perhaps he might have even stalked her, which would have given her a good reason for revenge. If she were married, however, it would have been difficult for her to have an affair with Mela or seduce an officer of the navy. Although Tacitus avoids connecting her to Mela, he presents her as a courtesan who made up her mind to find some help among the officers of the praetorian fleet in Misenum because she thought the conspiracy was not efficient enough (A. 15.51.1). She met a navarchus (see Chapot 1896, 136–137; Starr 1960, 38–43) named Volusius Proculus who might have been an ex-lover and tried to convince him to join the conspiracy. Some have discerned the influence of Roman comedy in the presentation of this scene (Benferhat 2013). Though he seemed at first interested, Volusius decided to denounce Epicharis to Nero: she could defend herself in front of him but was nonetheless imprisoned (A. 15.51.4). After the conspiracy was discovered, Nero remembered Epicharis; she was tortured but did not betray the conspiracy. She finally managed to kill herself before another day of torture (see Mastellone 2005, 95–111). She remains an example of courage and as such has inspired many authors who wrote tragedies about her: Caspar von Lohenstein in 1655, Gabriel-Marie Legouve in 1793 (Epicharis et Néron ou: Conspiration pour la

28-04-2023 17:48:51

E ppo n i na  

393

liberté), and Thomas Henry Lister in 1829 (Epicharis, a Historical Tragedy). This robust afterlife is probably due to the presentation of Tacitus who underlined her courage and her physical resistance when many betrayed the names of others. Machiavelli underscored another aspect: her imprudence with Volusius (Il Principe 6).

Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero. The Price of Dissimulation. London: Routledge.

see also: prostitution; torture; women

EPPONINA

Reference works: PIR2 E 72; RE VI-1, 34

EPICURUS, see PHILOSOPHY EPIDAPHNA, see GERMANICUS EPIPHANES, see ANTIOCHUS EPOREDIA, see PETRONIUS URBICUS

BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University REFERENCES

VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

Benferhat, Yasmina. 2013. “La belle et la brute. De l’influence des Comiques sur la présentation de la conjuration de Pison (Tacite, Annales XV, 51).” Mosaïque. https://revuemosaique.files.wordpress. com/2013/07/mosaique-9-08_benferhat.pdf. Chapot, Victor. 1896. La flotte de Misène. Son histoire, son recrutement, son régime administratif. Paris: Ernest Leroux. Frischer, Bernard, Jane Crawford, and Monica De Simone, eds. 2006. The Horace’s Villa Project, 1997–2003. Oxford: Archaeopress. Herz, Peter. 1989. “Claudius Abascantus aus Ostia. Die Nomenklatur eines libertus uns sein sozialer Aufstieg.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 76: 167–174. Mastellone, Eugenia. 2005. “Epicari in Tacito: la congiurata senza emozioni.” In L’emotività tra poesia e prosa latina, edited by Paola Della Morte and Eugenia Mastellone, 95–111. Napoli: Loffredo. Rudich, Vasily. 2006. “The Ownership of the Licenza Villa.” In The Horace’s Villa Project, 1997–2003, edited by Bernard Frischer, Jane Crawford, and Monica De Simone, 315–326. Oxford: Archaeopress. Starr, Chester. 1960. The Roman Imperial Navy. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Heffer.

University of Florida

FURTHER READING Cizek, Eugen. 1972. L’époque de Néron et ses controverses idéologiques. Leiden: Brill. Cogitore, Isabelle. 2002. La légitimité dynastique d’Auguste à Néron à l’épreuve des conspirations. Rome: École Française de Rome. Corsi Zoli, Donatella. 1972. “Aspetti inavvertiti della congiura pisoniana.” Studi Romani 20: 329–339. Pagán, Victoria. 2004. Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History. Austin: University of Texas Press.

c05_Vol2.indd 393

Epponina was the wife of Iulius Sabinus (d. 79 ce), one of the leaders of the Batavian Revolt. According to Plutarch (Amat. 770E), her Gaulish name was Empona, which means “Heroine.” Their romantic story inspires works of art in postrevolutionary France. Defeated by the Romans, Sabinus faked his own death by burning the villa in which he was hiding (H. 4.67; Cass. Dio 66.3.2). Assumed dead, the Lingones’ rebellious adventure petered out. After relating his defeat, Tacitus announces that he would later describe how Sabinus survived the arson with the help of his friends and wife, Epponina (H. 4.67). Although the book of the Histories in which their story must have been recorded is lost, Plutarch (Amat. 770C–771C) and Cassius Dio (66.3 and 65.16) preserve some details. Plutarch relates that Sabinus prepared to commit suicide. With the poison ready, he sent two freedmen to spread news of his demise; a third, the trusted Martalius, told his wife that he had taken poison and that his body was burned in the fire that consumed his villa. This news achieved an outpouring of grief beyond the expectations of Sabinus, who feared that his wife might hurt herself in response. So he had Martalius explain the ruse and beg her to keep up the appearance of grief. She made nightly visits to Sabinus while outwardly grieving during the day. At one point, she and a disguised Sabinus even traveled to Rome where they hoped to achieve a pardon. Failing, they returned to their lair where Epponina

28-04-2023 17:48:51

394  

E prius M arcellus

gave birth to two boys. She hid the pregnancies during her daily excursions—even to the bathhouse—with various ointments that tended to swell her body and so hide her baby bump. One of the boys was later killed in Egypt, while Plutarch met the other at Delphi shortly before composing his dialogue on love (Plut. Amat. 770C–771C). Dio relates that they spent nine years in hiding, after which Sabinus was finally discovered and brought to Rome (Cass. Dio 65.16.1). Standing before the emperor Vespasian, Epponina, with her two boys present, begged for clemency. While the sight apparently brought tears to the eyes of all those at the trial, both Sabinus and Epponina were executed. Tacitus, like Dio, praises the “remarkable example of [Sabinus’] wife Epponina,” (insgne Epponinae uxoris exemplum, H. 4.67). Her fortitude and steadfastness appear in contrast to Tacitus’ portrayal of Sabinus himself. The romantic story of Epponina and Sabinus inspired works of art in postrevolutionary France, including the opera Sabinus by François-Joseph Gossec (1773; Ketterer 2009, 159–166) and paintings by Nicolas-André Monsiau (“Eponine and Sabinus,” 1802, oil on canvas) and Etienne Barthélémy Garnier (“Éponine et Sabinus,” 1810, oil on canvas). Although the name Éponine was common in postrevolutionary France, the circumstances of the fictional character Éponine in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables recall Epponina. He may have taken the name from Baudelaire’s poem “Little old Ladies,” which was dedicated to Hugo (Gély 1962). see also: reception, in opera; reception, women; Veleda; visual arts Reference work: PIR2 E 81 REFERENCES Gély, C. 1962. “Baudelaire et Hugo: influences réciproques.” Revue d’Histoire littéraire de la France 62: 592–595. Ketterer, R. C. 2009. Ancient Rome in Early Opera. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. FURTHER READING Suerbaum, W. 2011. “Neun Jahre Liebe im Untergrund bei Tacitus, Cassius Dio und in Plutarchs

c05_Vol2.indd 394

Amatorius. Zu einem Vorverweis in Tacitus’ Historiae 4.67.2.” Gymansium 118.5: 463–482. Turner, B. 2016. “From Batavian Revolt to Rhenish Insurgency.” In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by T. Howe and L. L. Brice. Leiden: Brill: 282–311.

EPRIUS MARCELLUS JAKUB PIGOŃ

University of Wrocław

Eprius Marcellus (PIR2 E 84), c. 15–79 ce, twice consul suffectus (62, 74), was a Roman senator and orator active under Nero and Vespasian. Tacitus presents him as an infamous but powerful informer, prosecutor of Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus and antagonist of Helvidius Priscus. His full name, Publius Clodius Eprius Marcellus, is known from epigraphical material (particularly important is CIL X 3853); literary sources name him Eprius Marcellus. Born in Capua, he came from a nonsenatorial family of modest means. Marcus Aper (who in D. 8 cites him and Vibius Crispus as examples of the usefulness of oratory; cf. 5.6) insists that it was his rhetorical skill alone—and not high birth, financial resources, moral fiber, or handsome appearance, all of which he lacked—which gained him an eminent position both as a public speaker and as Vespasian’s friend; Eprius and Vibius “for many years have been most powerful (potentissimi) in Rome” and “are held in affection, and even some reverence, by the emperor himself.” This is countered by Curiatius Maternus, for whom their influence (potentia) is comparable to that of freedmen and who draws attention to their sycophancy (adulatio) and fear, both instilled in others and felt by themselves: “For the emperors, they are never slaves enough; for us, never free enough” (D. 13.4; for discussion, see Goldberg 1999). Eprius’ chronologically first appearance in Tacitus’ major works comes at A. 12.4.3: Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1) was forced to resign from the praetorship, and it is Eprius who replaced him, if only for the last day of the year. Another mention comes at A. 13.33.3: the Lycians (whom he governed as praetorian legate of the province of Lycia-Pamphylia sometime between

28-04-2023 17:48:51

E prius M arcellus  

50 and 54) brought him to trial for extortion, but his position was strong enough to avoid punishment and even to make the accusers themselves punished. Both items are brief and placed at the very end of the year’s narrative (48 and 57, respectively); the reader may therefore expect to hear more about Eprius (for this technique, see Ginsburg 1981, 46–49). His next, and most important, appearance comes under 66, in the narrative of Thrasea’s trial. Tacitus mentions neither his proconsulship of Cyprus, between 58 and 62 (SEG 18, 587), nor his suffect consulship in 62. Tacitus is our only source for Eprius’ role in the trial of Thrasea (cf. Cass. Dio 62.26; Suet. Nero 37.1). Cossutianus Capito (cf. A. 13.33.2) presented charges against Thrasea to Nero who chose Eprius as Capito’s companion in the prosecution, impressed by his “biting eloquence” (acris eloquentia, A. 16.22.6). In fact, after an introductory address by Capito it was Eprius who took over the accusation “with greater force.” Tacitus devotes a full chapter (16.28) to summarizing his speech. He also reports rewards for the prosecutors; both Eprius and Capito received 5 million sesterces (A. 16.33.2; cf. D. 8.2 for Eprius’ fortune of 300 million sesterces). At H. 2.53.1 Tacitus registers a “harsh quarrel” between Eprius and a new senator, Licinius Caecina (perhaps identical with an ex-praetor mentioned by Plin. HN 20.199; cf. PIR2 L 178), who wanted to gain renown by attacking the notorious informer; he criticized Eprius for not clarifying his position regarding the new emperor (it was April 69 and the Vitellians had just defeated Otho). More important were Eprius’ disputes with Helvidius, Thrasea’s son-in-law, who, having returned from exile after Nero’s fall (he had been punished together with Thrasea), made two attempts, in 68 under Galba and early in 70 under Vespasian, to put Eprius on trial for his role in Thrasea’s condemnation; both failed (H. 4.6.1; 43–44.1; see Leithoff 2014, 91–98). On the second occasion, Eprius found support from Domitian and Licinius Mucianus, who evidently did not want any major discord in the Senate immediately after the Flavians’ victory. Here, as in the Dialogue, Eprius is paired with Vibius; Tacitus vividly presents their reaction to Helvidius’ attacks.

c05_Vol2.indd 395

395

Earlier in the same book Tacitus narrates another dispute between Helvidius and Eprius (H. 4.6–8), concerning the method of choosing members of the senatorial embassy to be sent to Vespasian—either by lot (as supported by Eprius) or through nomination by magistrates (as proposed by Helvidius; for political implications, see Levick 1999, 82–83). Eprius’ speech contains statements which scholars usually take as expressing Tacitus’ own opinions, notably on the necessity of moderation and acceptance of the realities of power (thus, paradoxically, Tacitus makes the disgraceful informer his mouthpiece; see Syme 1958, 109). For other points raised by this speech, see Pigoń (1992) and Spielberg (2019). At D. 8.3 Aper refers to Eprius (and Vibius) as “first in Caesar’s friendship.” Eprius’ close association with Vespasian led to his remarkable promotion: the proconsulship of Asia for an unprecedented period of three years (70/71– 72/73; but perhaps Vespasian wanted to remove Eprius from senatorial politics) and second consulship (74). His career came to a sudden end in 79, in the last months of Vespasian’s reign; Eprius is said to have formed a conspiracy with Caecina Alienus; he was tried before the Senate and committed suicide after being condemned (Cass. Dio 66.16.3–4; cf. Suet. Tit. 6.2; for this mysterious affair, see Levick 1999, 192–195). Thus Eprius’ end conforms to the pattern outlined by Tacitus in his description of the archetypal informer (A. 1.74.2: “they caused destruction of others—and finally of themselves”). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; delators; Senate; suicide Reference works: PIR2 E 84; RE VI 1 (1909), 261–264 (A. Kappelmacher) REFERENCES Ginsburg, Judith. 1981. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. New York: Arno Press. Goldberg, Sander M. 1999. “Appreciating Aper: The Defence of Modernity in Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus.” Classical Quarterly 49: 224–237. DOI: 10.1093/cq/49.1.224. Leithoff, Johanna. 2014. Macht der Vergangenheit: Zur Erringung, Verstetigung und Ausgestaltung des

28-04-2023 17:48:51

396  

e questria n s

Principats unter Vespasian, Titus und Domitian. Göttingen: V&R Unipress. Levick, Barbara. 1999. Vespasian. London and New York: Routledge. Pigoń, Jakub. 1992. “Helvidius Priscus, Eprius Marcellus, and Iudicium Senatus: Observations on Tacitus, Histories 4.7–8.” Classical Quarterly 42: 235–246. DOI: 10.1017/S0009838800042725. Spielberg, Lydia. 2019. “Fairy Tales and Hard Truths in Tacitus’s Histories 4.6–10.” Classical Antiquity 38: 141–183. DOI: 10.1525/ca.2019.38.1.141. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Bradley, K. R. 1978. “The Career of Titus Clodius Eprius Marcellus, consul II A.D. 74: Some Possibilities.” Symbolae Osloenses 53: 171–181. DOI: 10.1080/00397677808590721. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 225–228.

EQUESTRIANS CAILLAN DAVENPORT

The Australian National University

Tacitus’ works provide important perspectives on the role of the equestrian order and its members in the Roman Empire, particularly the attractions and privileges of imperial service, the influence of equestrians at court, and conceptions of the differences between equestrians and senators. The equestrian order (ordo equester) ranked second only to the Senate in the Roman social hierarchy. While the Senate had 600 members, there were probably between 20,000 and 30,000 equestrians (equites). As its name implies, the equestrian order emerged from Rome’s elite citizen cavalry. The connection between cavalry service and equestrian rank broke down over the Republican Period, and membership of the order became a mark of social status. From the late republic onward, equestrian rank was awarded to citizens of free birth and good moral character who were rated by the censors as possessing property worth 400,000 sesterces. Over the course of the early empire, and the absorption of the powers of the censorship into the imperial office, membership of the equestrian

c05_Vol2.indd 396

order became an imperial benefaction, bestowed by the emperor and administered by his officials (Davenport 2019, 206–226). Equestrians could hold a wide array of civilian and military positions in the Roman Empire, serving as governors of some provinces, such as Egypt (A. 12.60; H. 1.11) and Mauretania (H. 2.58), financial procurators (A. 12.60), imperial secretaries (H. 1.58), and commanders of auxiliary units. The number of these positions was limited, however, so they were only open to c. 600 equestrians in any generation, a small minority of the larger order. Imperial service was not an altruistic endeavor, as the salaries that came with high procuratorial office could be very lucrative (A. 16.17), as much as 200,000 sesterces per year. Equites could also be hired by the state to act as tax collectors (publicani), working on a freelance basis for personal profit (A. 4.6, 13.50–51). Imperial employment was not a necessary precondition for equestrian rank: indeed, most equestrians held no office in the Roman army or administration, content with municipal magistracies in their home town or the honor of the status itself. Tacitus memorably and accurately described the equites in imperial service as constituting an “equestrian nobility” (equestris nobilitas, Ag. 4) which stood above other members of the order. Tacitus himself emerged from this equestrian elite, as his father was the procurator of Gallia Belgica and the German provinces (Plin. NH 7.76; Birley 2000, 223). The historian was therefore a new man, the first member in his family to enter the Senate. The equestrian order, and especially its members with imperial service, constituted the primary source of new senators, and both orders were often regarded as sharing an aristocratic sensibility (H. 1.4). Despite his own equestrian background, and the inescapable reality that equites played an important role in the Roman imperial state, Tacitus highlights what he saw as the inappropriate influence of equestrian advisers. This began, he notes, with the prominence of Gaius Oppius and Cornelius Balbus, friends of Iulius Caesar, and continued with Sallustius Crispus and Maecenas under Augustus (A. 3.30, 6.11, 12.60). None of these advisers held any elected position and thus stood outside the framework of the traditional hierarchy of the res publica. The ability of equestrian friends to influence the

28-04-2023 17:48:51

397

E th n icit y  

emperor represented the growth of a new institution, the imperial court. One key court position was that of praetorian prefect, commander of the elite praetorian cohort, the most famous example being Sejanus in the reign of Tiberius. Under Sejanus, the praetorians acquired a permanent camp in Rome for the first time, an innovation which Tacitus regards as symptomatic of the growth of the prefect’s power (A. 4.2, 4.7). Although the praetorian prefects were not senators, they were often suspected of aiming at the imperial office itself, as in the case of Sejanus and later Nymphidius Sabinus under Nero (H. 1.5). Tacitus’ works nevertheless preserve an outdated republican conceit that equestrians were essentially apolitical individuals when compared to senators. A speech of Tiberius contains the sentiment that equites were “distinguished by their peacefulness of life, and entangled in no political business” (insigni tranquillitate vitae, nullis rei publicae negotiis permixtos, A. 4.40). This distinction manifested itself in Cornelius Fuscus’ decision to eschew a senatorial career and remain an equestrian, which was motivated by “a desire for peace” (quietis cupidine, H. 2.86; see further Syme 1937). The idea of equestrian quies, which Tacitus shared with his contemporary Pliny the Younger, was primarily indebted to the works of Cicero (Davenport 2019, 349–352). Yet in an imperial regime, no one was truly apolitical, and remaining an equestrian was hardly a sure route to safety, as Annaeus Mela discovered when he was forced to commit suicide by Nero (A. 16.17). see also: Cornelius Tacitus REFERENCES Birley, A. R. 2000. “The Life and Death of Cornelius Tacitus.” Historia 49: 230–247. Davenport, C. 2019. A History of the Roman Equestrian Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Syme, R. 1937. “The Colony of Cornelius Fuscus: An Episode in the Bellum Neronis.” American Journal of Philology 58: 7–18. FURTHER READING Brunt, P. A. 1983. “Princeps and Equites.” Journal of Roman Studies 73: 42–75.

c05_Vol2.indd 397

Byrne, S. 1999. “Pointed Allusions: Maecenas and Sallustius in the Annals of Tacitus.” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 142: 339–345. Demougin, S. 1988. L’ordre équestre sous les JulioClaudiens. Rome: École française de Rome.

ERATO, see ARMENIA ESQUILINE GATE, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY ESQUILINE HILL, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY

ETHNICITY NATHANAEL ANDRADE

Binghamton University

In the study of ancient Mediterranean societies, ethnicity is the coinage widely employed to convey the process by which people fashioned experiences of community through premises of a shared descent and past (Hall 1997, esp. 32–33; recently, McInerney 2014). Such premises, being imagined or “constructed,” are understood to have been motivated by a recognition of common language, religious practices, and cultural characteristics that enabled the formulation of social boundaries and differences from external populations (often called an “other”). While most scholars now treat ethnicity as a social and discursive construct and not a biological or genetic fact, inquiry into ancient ethnicity confronts many challenges. In modern scholarship, the term ethnicity can refer to the social process by which people conceived of themselves as members of a community defined by common descent and heritage or to the actual peoples who engaged in this process (otherwise called an ethnic group). It is now overwhelmingly accepted that ethnic identities are cognitive and social constructs, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. While peoples may experience their ethnic identities as real and immutable facts that exist independently of their perceptions, scholarship in a variety of fields has focused on how social agents create, recreate, and experience ethnicity in response to a complicated array of social and cultural factors. It has also stressed the critical distinction and close relationship between ethnic self-perception (or emic definitions) and ethnic categories imposed on people

28-04-2023 17:48:51

398  

E th n icit y

by outsiders (etic definitions: see Hall 1997, 18–19), as well as the intricate process by which people can adopt the ethnic categories created by others, especially in imperial or diasporic contexts. Moreover, scholars of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Mediterranean have overwhelmingly gravitated toward conceiving of the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean as structured by ethnic categories (McInerney 2014, 1–4). This is in part due to the widespread belief that among ancient peoples racial categorizing and concepts of nation did not exist; being the products of modern discourses and practices, it would arguably be anachronistic to ascribe them to ancient peoples. METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES Nonetheless, recent works have started to refine this orthodoxy in a variety of ways that challenge the premise that only ethnicity, as opposed to race and the nation, structured ancient thought and social practice. One challenge has been communicated through the premise that even if skin color was not the sole dominant focal point for racial structures in antiquity, the ancients still had their own definitions of race through which they could classify certain people as having hereditary and unchanging characteristics putatively informed by physical or environmental factors (Hall 1997, 20–21; Isaac 2004, 2017; Kennedy, Roy, and Goldman 2013; McCoskey 2012, esp. 8–9, 23–32; McInerney 2014). According to this view, race should be deemed as much a social construct as ethnicity, and not a biological fact. Even if people can espouse racial classifications to be immutable and real, they have specific historical contexts and reflect cognitively engineered categories associated with notional physical or environmental traits. The Hippocratic Airs, Waters, Places and the papyri of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, along with the social categories that they record, have recently been treated as reflecting such modes of racial thinking and practice (McCoskey 2012, 46–49 and 81–131). Moreover, it has been observed that the recent tendency for scholars to avoid inquiries into ancient race has in fact been shaped by the modern politics of race (McCoskey 2012, 1–34, 167–199). Meanwhile, increasingly sophisticated modes of DNA and isotope analysis performed on

c05_Vol2.indd 398

human remains have added an additional wrinkle to scholarly inquiries into ancient ethnicity and race. These have in fact encouraged scholars, in the natural sciences in particular, to treat both ethnicity and race as biological facts independently of how ancient peoples actually defined themselves in ethnic or racial terms (McInerney 2014, 4–5). This trend has arguably been encouraged by modern nation-state nationalisms too (Quinn 2018, 3–24). The Etruscans are a case in point (Etruria). While little evidence exists for how speakers of Etruscan language defined and conceived of themselves, a considerable body of research, especially in Italy, has been invested in tracing their origins based on DNA markers. This implies that the Etruscans, as defined by modern observers, can be reckoned a coherent ethnicity even if they did not conceive of themselves as such (de Grummond 2014, 417–418; McInerney 2014, 4–5 comment on this approach). Perhaps with greater justification, recent archaeological studies of mobility based on isotope analysis have similarly associated demonstrable human movement with certain formulations of diaspora (various studies in Eckardt 2010; Eckardt, Müldner, and Lewis 2014), though diaspora too foremost reflects cognition, not the fact of scientifically traceable movement (Brubaker 2005). Amid such trends, recent scholarship by archaeologists, historians, and classicists has continued to emphasize ethnicity as a social construct. It has even explored how people often construed as an ethnicity by ancient or modern observers never really had an ethnic consciousness at all. Speakers of Phoenician dialects (Phoenicia), who established settlements throughout the Mediterranean basin during the Iron Age, are a notable example (Bonnet 2014, 2015; Quinn 2018). Greeks and Romans conceived of them as members of a common Phoenician people, and in modern times, it has often been formulated that Phoenicians were a self-defined people who called themselves Canaanites in their own language. But Phoenician speakers themselves did not cultivate such a consciousness of a Phoenician identity during the Iron Age despite shared language and certain shared cultural characteristics. If anything, “Phoenician” was largely an ethnic category

28-04-2023 17:48:51

E th n icit y  

imposed upon Phoenician-speaking peoples of Lebanon, North Africa, and other coastal areas by Greeks and Romans, even if peoples in these regions adopted such categories for themselves in the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. A second challenge to the study of ancient ethnicity is posed by the terminology itself. Greek and Latin terms like ethnos, genos, gens, or natio, which have been overwhelmingly understood to denote ethnic thinking, are rife with semantic instability and could signify many different types of social classification (McCoskey 2012, 28–31). While such pliable terms could be used as ethnic or racial classifications, they could also refer to virtually any social category of people. This premise is significant particularly for studies of the Roman empire, whose sociopolitical formations inspired the creation of cognitively experienced social identities that can easily be mistaken for articulations of ethnicity or race in the sources. For example, recent scholarship has argued that “Syrian” was foremost a regional provincial identity in the Roman empire, even though some Syrians had a Syrian ethnic consciousness and Greek and Romans often ascribed certain racial characteristics to people living in Syria (Andrade 2013). By this logic, references to a Syrian ethnos or genos foremost describe a provincial or regional origin, not ethnicity or shared descent, even if other observers (like Tacitus) could define Syrians as members of a single ethnicity or even a race. In a similar vein, the distinction between ethnicity and nation has been revisited in recent publications. Given the frequency with which ethnic categories have spawned modern political movements and nation-state nationalisms amid the availability of mass media, it is noticeable that such phenomena were more exceptional in antiquity. This has certainly discouraged scholars from categorizing ancient Mediterranean peoples in terms of “nation.” Indeed, throughout much of the later twentieth century, it had been almost universally accepted that nations and nationalism only came to exist in modern times and were intimately tied to the rise of the forms of nation-states that have typified modern Europe (Anderson 2006, originally published in 1983, is very influential). In more recent developments, however, scholarship has sought to define the relationship between ethnicity and nation in ways that have

c05_Vol2.indd 399

399

implications for the study of antiquity. For example, some scholars have posited that ethnicity should foremost be reckoned a mode of cognition, not a form of community action or coordination (Brubaker 2004a). This formulation maintains that ethnicities are not necessarily groups that are capable of mass organized action, of exercising a certain cultural homogeneity, or of making political claims on the basis of their shared identity, whereas nations are (Brubaker 2004b). One of its implications is that both ethnicity and nation, while defined by different criteria, can exist without the formation of modern nation-states. Some scholars have even advocated that experiences of nation and nationhood could materialize without the possession of a sovereign state. According to this view, nations did exist when members of a “self-defined human community” maintained shared myths, memories, and traditions, identified themselves with an ancestral homeland, communicated a distinctive public culture, and formulated shared customs or laws (Smith 2004, esp. 18–19, 2008, esp. 19). Such views raise the possibility that it is justifiable to conceive of Greeks, Romans, or Jews, for example, as “nations” whose sense of nationhood was rooted to various degrees in ethnic origins or other criteria (whether legal, civil, cultural, or religious). A third challenge to the study of ancient ethnicity and similar social categories pertains to their identification in material culture. Scholars of the Roman Empire in particular have been debating the relationships between culture and Roman identities, and whether it is best to conceive of such culture or identities in ethnic terms. While it has long been surmised that ethnic groups could be identified through stable forms of material remains, this view has more recently been challenged by archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians on various grounds. One is that the cultural forms through which ethnicity is expressed are unstable, transform in various contexts, and can communicate multiple or polyvalent ethnic identities that are not binary opposites. Another is that the cultural expressions that scholars often associate with an ethnic identity category may have not expressed an ethnic identity at all. Instead, they could have reflected participation in a cultural koine, expressions of royal

28-04-2023 17:48:51

400  

E th n icit y

legitimacy or elite identity, or other forms of social classification. A third premise is that the correlation between certain types of culture and a specific mode of ethnic cognition, as often posited by modern scholars, are oftentimes tenuous and not demonstrated. These various premises have informed the recent debates regarding “Hellenization” and “Romanization,” terms long associated with the circulation of Greek and Roman Italian culture and putatively Greek and Roman identities, and the coinages more recently espoused to replace them, like hybridity, creolization, globalization, and discrepancy. Much scholarship from recent decades reflects such concerns (on such issues, see Versluys 2014 and the responses to his article in the same volume). ETHNICITY AND RACE IN TACITUS All the premises outlined so far are pertinent to the corpus of Tacitus, who sometimes specifies or implies racial characteristics for provincial or external populations independently of whatever self-perceptions they maintained. His treatment of the Germani and the people of Britannia are a case in point. In his treatise Germania and his other writings, Tacitus classifies the Germans as a discrete people with stable characteristics that largely make them into the Romans’ polar opposites, despite the absence of any such stable ethnic consciousness among peoples in Germanicspeaking places (see Krebs 2010 on “Borealism”). His treatment would later be used as fodder for the racial and national ideologies of Nazis in the twentieth century, who on the basis of Tacitus’ Germania conceived of an ancient German race in completely anachronistic terms (Krebs 2011). In Agricola and his lengthier histories, Tacitus similarly defines the Britanni as a discrete race or ethnicity with relatively homogenous traits (Mattingly 2006, 34–35). Altogether, Tacitus’ conceptualization of Germans and Britains as peoples reflects conventions of Roman historiography and the imperial categories that Roman authorities imposed (or sought to impose) on territories of conquest. In fact, after the Romans consolidated their control of Britannia, certain inhabitants, and especially military recruits, adopted the provincial identity of “Briton” (Mattingly 2006, 92). The same can be said about the inhabitants of Germania Superior

c05_Vol2.indd 400

and Germania Inferior (roughly Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany west of the Rhine river), who appear in epigraphic sources as “Germani.” Such an identity was presumably not embraced in unconquered “Germany.” Tacitus’ general characterization of the Batavi, a Germanic people in conquered territory who were actively recruited into the Roman army, reflects such complexity. Recent scholarship on the topic now deems the ethnic category of Batavian to have been formulated largely through Roman imperial classification and intervention, particularly c. 50 bce–50 ce. As the Romans organized certain peoples that they defined as Germanic into a Batavian polity in the lower Rhine region, these peoples embraced a Batavian ethnic identification while in various ways conceiving of themselves as a particular type of Roman (Derks 2009; Roymans 2004, 2009). Even so, Tacitus’ treatment of the Batavians in particular poses a host of quandaries. Endowing them with Germanic characteristics conventional to Greek and Roman literature, like military prowess (G. 29), he treats mutinies involving Batavian soldiers in the Roman army as a form of Germanic ethnic separatism (H. 4.17) and often defines the Batavians as a gens opposed to Roman rule (H. 1.59, 4.14–15, 4.20). Yet, a Batavian ethnic consciousness was in fact the product of Roman imperial classifications, and Batavian soldiers were actually seeking to improve their situation within the Roman imperial system, not separate from it (Haynes 2013, 2–3, 112–117). Likewise, in his discussion of Syrians, Tacitus does not distinguish the descendants of Greek settlers from those of Aramaeans in Syria. They all are classified as Syrians and endowed with the characteristics that Greeks and Roman associated with them, like the worship of aniconic gods and the dispositions of slaves (Andrade 2012). Despite their particularity, Tacitus, like many other Roman authors, treats the Jews of Iudaea as sharing in these conventional “Syrian” characteristics (Andrade 2012, 454–457). He does so, however, while narrating in particular detail the origins of the Jews and their customs, as he understood them. He identifies Moses (Moyses) as the primary founder of their laws and rites (H. 5.3–5), and he imparts theories that circulated among Greek and Roman authors regarding how Jews

28-04-2023 17:48:51

E th n icit y  

had settled Jerusalem. Tacitus’ account reflects a basic awareness that Jews or Judaeans conceived of themselves as a self-defining ethnicity, but it narrates the past and present of Jewish ethnicity with characteristic Roman bias. see also: empire; ethnography; identity REFERENCES Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London: Verso. Andrade, Nathanael. 2012. “Seducing Autocracy: Tacitus and the Dynasts of the Near East.” AJP 133.3: 441–475. Andrade, Nathanael. 2013. Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bonnet, Corinne. 2014. “Greeks and Phoenicians in the Western Mediterranean.” In A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by Jeremy McInerney, 327–340. Chichester, Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Bonnet, Corinne. 2015. Les enfants de Cadmos: le paysage religieux de la Phénicie hellénistique. Paris: Boccard. Brubaker, Rogers. 2004a. Ethnicity without Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brubaker, Rogers. 2004b. “In the Name of the Nation: Reflections on Nationalism and Patriotism.” Citizenship Studies 8.2: 115–127. Brubaker, Rogers. 2005. “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28.1: 1–19. de Grummond, Nancy T. 2014. “Ethnicity and the Etruscans.” In A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by Jeremy McInerney, 405–423. Chichester, Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Derks, Ton. 2009. “Ethnic Identity in the Roman Frontier: The Epigraphy of Batavi and Other Lower Rhine Tribes.” In Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition, edited by Ton Derks and Nico Roymans, 298–347. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Eckardt, Hella. 2010. Roman Diasporas: Archaeological Approaches to Mobility and Diversity in the Roman Empire. Portsmouth, RI: JRA. Eckardt, Hella, Gundula Müldner, and Mary Lewis. 2014. “People on the Move in Roman Britain.” World Archaeology 46.4: 534–550. Hall, Jonathan. 1997. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

c05_Vol2.indd 401

401

Haynes, Ian. 2013. Blood of the Provinces: The Roman Auxilia and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Isaac, Benjamin. 2004. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Isaac, Benjamin. 2017. Empire and Ideology in the Graeco-Roman World: Selected Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, Rebecca Futo, C. Sydnor Roy, and Max Goldman. 2013. Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Primary Sources in Translation. Indianapolis: Hackett. Krebs, Christopher. 2010. “Borealism: Caesar, Seneca, Tacitus, and the Roman Discourse on the Germanic North.” In Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by Erich Gruen, 201–222. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute. Krebs, Christopher. 2011. A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. New York: Norton & Co. Mattingly, D. J. 2006. An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire, 54 BC–409 CE. London: Allen Lane. McCoskey, Denise. 2012. Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McInerney, Jeremy. 2014. “Ethnicity: An Introduction.” In A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by Jeremy McInerney, 1–17. Chichester, Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Quinn, Josephine Crawley. 2018. In Search of the Phoenicians. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Roymans, Nico. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Roymans, Nico. 2009. “Hercules and the Construction of a Batavian Identity in the Context of the Roman Empire.” In Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition, edited by Ton Derks and Nico Roymans, 274–297. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Smith, Anthony. 2004. The Antiquity of Nations. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Smith, Anthony. 2008. The Cultural Foundations of Nations: Hierarchy, Covenant, and Republic. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Versluys, M. J. 2014. “Understanding Objects in Motion: An Archaeological Dialogue on Objects in Motion.” Archaeological Dialogues 21: 1–20. FURTHER READING Andrade, Nathanael. 2014. “Assyrians, Syrians, and the Greek Language in the Late Hellenistic and Roman

28-04-2023 17:48:51

402  

eth n ograph y

Imperial Periods.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 73.2: 299–318. Pitts, Martin, and M. J. Versluys. 2015. Globalisation and the Roman World: World History, Connectivity, and Material Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press.

ETHNOGRAPHY RICHARD F. THOMAS

Harvard University

The works of Tacitus show deep interest in and engagement with the ethnographical tradition, a tradition coterminous with the beginnings of Greek historiographical and geographical writing, from the Description of the Earth (FGrH fr. 27–369) of Hecataeus of Abdera (c. 560–489 bce). From beginning the ethnographer is interested in other societies as an outgrowth of an interest in that of the home culture and customs. Herodotus, in his treatments of the Egyptians (2.2–182) and the Scythians (4.5–82) treats matters of geography and climate, origins and social structures, and in particular the nomoi (customs), including political systems, religious customs, burial practices, sexual practices, familial structure, gender roles, clothing, hair styles, and jewelry. The focus is not just on differences from the customs of the Greeks, but also on how Egypt and Scythia correspond to each other in terms of geography, especially rivers (Nile and Danube), perceived age of the culture (Egypt the oldest, Scythia the youngest), and other ways. Herodotus, and the tradition as it continues, is especially interested in wonders and paradoxes of all types. The Hippocratic treatise Airs, Waters, Places introduced enquiry into the ways location, environment, and weather affected the health and helped fashion the character of different peoples. The specifying of a particular type of climate would have a particular consequence on such character; this development helped to produce a formularity in ethnographic description. In the fourth century Plato (Critias 114d1–121c4) and Theopompus of Chios (FGrH 115 F 75c) combine ethnographical form with Utopian accounts of mythic states (Atlantis and Meropis respectively). Tacitus engages with this tradition from the very beginning. Stylistically he takes his lead from

c05_Vol2.indd 402

the Roman continuation of the tradition as found in Sallust’s Bellum Iugurthinum (c. 41–40 bce) with its ethnographic excursus on Libya (16–19) integrated into a monographic history. The most perfect formalistic, and most straightforward, model of the subgenre, appears in first work, the Agricola (98 ce), itself a work whose treatment of Britain and the Roman campaigns in Britain (Ag. 10–38) are framed by an early (Ag. 4–9) and concluding (Ag. 39–43) biography of Agricola, the latter more about Domitian than the father-in-law who gave his name to the work. He shows signs of awareness of Caesar’s ethnographical comments in BGall. 3–5 and of the sketch on Britain at 5.12– 14 of that work. And at Ag. 10.3, citation of Livy and Fabius Rusticus on the shape of Britain shows him working in a historiographical tradition. Tacitus stands at the end of this tradition from the perfection of its use as an instrument of historiographical as well as literary and artistic creativity. The actual ethnography (Ag. 10–13.1) adheres to the formal expectations that are now set in treating first geography (situs), which includes shape, orientation, and topographical features; then ethnography proper (populi), including origins and political, social, and military organization. As throughout the tradition, treatment of climate (Ag. 12.3–4) is followed by assessment of agricultural activity, by way of the agronomical triad crops, trees/vines and livestock (Ag. 12.5), and of the presence or absence of mineral resources (Ag. 12.6). This last category allowed Tacitus to develop a feature of his writing in general, the use of sententiae, whose moral implications look often not so much to the country under study, as to Rome herself. In the Agricola, this functions as a climax of the ethnography. Britain has gold, silver, and other metals, the “prize of victory,” a neutral enough term though with the implication that it was the prize that motivated invasion. The pearls of Britain, unlike those in the Red Sea which are torn from the living oysters in which they are found, are just gathered on the shore where they wash up. This for Tacitus is sure proof of the poor quality: Ag. 12.6 “For my part I would more readily believe the quality was lacking to the pearls than greed to us.” This emphasis continues in the Germania (98 ce), the first actual ethnography to survive, whose

28-04-2023 17:48:51

E truria  

fuller title makes clear its genre: De origine et situ Germanorum, “On the origin and place of the Germans.” The work falls into two halves: 1–27.2 origins and elaborated customs of the Germans as a whole; 27.3–46 characteristics, migratory patterns, and oddities of the various tribes, a formal departure from and expansion of the formularity of the ethnographical sketch of the Agricola. Climate and agricultural practices are interwoven into the different accounts. There is little agreement on why Tacitus wrote the work, whether its aims are simply informational, providing a propaedeutic to Roman invasion or some other, essentially literary function (Thomas 2009). The Germans of Tacitus share in the mythological and religious heritage of the Greeks and Romans, with visits from Hercules and Odysseus, and observance of Mercury and Castor and Pollux. And it is distance from Rome that most affects the character and the very humanity of these people, at the extremes mythical, as the work ends with Tacitus leaving open the veracity of claims that the otherwise unknown Hellusii and Oxiones, had “human faces and the bodies and limbs of beasts.” As for closing sententiae, their moralizing again looks to Rome as much as to the purported subject: G. 5.2 “I am unsure whether in denying them silver or gold the gods were well-disposed or angry;” G. 15.3 “by now we have also taught them to accept money [bribery and corruption];” G. 19.1 “there nobody laughs at vices;” G. 20.3 “there are no prizes [from attention by legacy-hunters] for being childless.” While ethnographical material has a minor place in Tacitus’ historiographical works, and would perhaps be more abundant if, for instance Claudius’ invasion of Britain had survived, for the most part such material is less visible. The readership of Tacitus hardly needed description of the various parts of the Roman Empire, all quite familiar by the beginning of the second century. Tacitus does however engage with the tradition in a more literary way at A. 4.67, more indebted to the Vergil’s georgic ethnographies in Georg. 2, 3, and 4, as Tacitus constructs a microethnography of the island of Capri, describing its situs, climate, origins (Teleboan settlers), and social organization consisting of twelve villas. In such an idyllic setting, severed from Italian

c05_Vol2.indd 403

403

coastline by a three-mile strait as Tacitus unnecessarily informs his readers, Tiberius, no longer participant in the Roman state, indulges in hidden luxury and evil leisure, the island by virtue of this mini-ethnography constituting a land separate in culture as well as place from the Italian mainland and Rome, with implications concerning the character of its inhabitant. see also: Britannia; Germania; historiography; paradoxography; Roman poets; style REFERENCES Thomas, R. F. 2009. “The Germania as Literary Text.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 59–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Kraus, C. 2014. In Tacitus Agricola, edited by A. J. Woodman, 125–158. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rives, J. B. 1999. Tacitus, Germania. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 11–21. Thomas, R. F. 1982. Lands and People in Roman Poetry. The Ethnographical Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society Supplement 7. Trüdinger, K. 1918. Studien zur Geschichte der griechisch-römischen Ethnographie. Basel. Woolf, G. 2011. Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the West. Chichester: WileyBlackwell. 98–105.

ETRURIA ROSEMARY MOORE

University of Iowa

Etruria (modern Tuscany) was a region of central Italy just north of Rome and Latium. Augustus designated this regio VII in his administrative organization of Italy. Romans considered the inhabitants of Etruria, the Etruscans (Etrusci), enormously influential on Rome, although the actual degree of influence is debatable. Several kings of Rome were Etruscan. Archaeology from the ninth through fifth centuries bce portrays a sophisticated society that

28-04-2023 17:48:51

404  

E udemus

exerted power and cultural influence over Rome from a period prior to the monarchy through the early republic. Historical tradition records the Roman capture of the Etruscan city Veii in 396 bce as marking when Rome began to surpass the Etruscans. During this period Rome was also becoming the dominant state in Latium. Though citizenship was extended to Etruria by means of the lex Iulia of 90 bce, culturally and socially it had for some time been Romanized. Tacitus acknowledges Etruria’s former foreignness (A. 11.24; see Tabula Lugdunensis) as well as its integration into Roman Italy (A. 4.5, the catalog of Roman military strength in 23 ce) in his works. Geographically Etruria is located north of Latium and west of the Apennines, though its foothills comprise its eastern border. The area is known for its agricultural diversity and production, as the Italian region Tuscany, sharing roughly the same territory, is also known today, as well as many other resources important for trade. Travelers from Rome to the northwest could choose several public roads through Etruria. Agrippa Postumus’ slave Clemens traveled through Etruria (H. 1.81) with his former master’s ashes and remained in Cosa, a Roman colony in Etruria, until he could pass as Postumus himself. The Vitellian commander Fabius Valens heard of his side’s defeat at the second battle of Cremona while he traveled through Etruria. This news caused him to choose to travel to Gallia Narbonensis with naval forces he would gather instead of his original intention, rejoining the legion he sent ahead to Ariminum through the Apennines (H. 3.41). Tacitus embarks on antiquarian digressions reflecting Rome’s early engagement with Etruscans at A. 4.65 and A. 11.14. He claims (A. 4.65) that the Caelian Hill in Rome was named for Caeles Vibenna, an Etruscan warlord who received it as a gift from the Etruscan king of Rome Tarquinius Priscus. This version differs somewhat from the accounts of other sources, including Claudius, who was an expert on the Etruscans. Other digressions are directly connected to Claudius’ initiatives. Claudius’ decision to introduce new letters to the Roman alphabet (A. 11.14) causes Tacitus to remark that Demaratus of Corinth introduced the Etruscans to the Greek alphabet. Modern scholars attribute the Etruscan alphabet as an adaptation of the Euboean Greek version to their own language. At A. 11.15, Tacitus reports Claudius’ decision to

c05_Vol2.indd 404

establish a Roman college for the Etruscan practice of haruspicy. Though Roman magistrates commonly consulted Etruscan haruspices, such consultation was not officially sanctioned though accepted, and until this decision Romans were apparently not trained in haruspicy. see also: portents; Rome, topography; Rome, myth and history; Roman Republic Reference works: Barrington 42 B1; 1 F2; 41 D3; 43 A1 FURTHER READING Furneaux, Henry. 1896. The Annals of Tacitus. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weidemann, T. E. J. 1996. “From Nero to Vespasian.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume X: The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C.–A.D. 69, edited by Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

EUBOEA, see GREECE EUCAERUS, see POPPAEA SABINA THE YOUNGER

EUDEMUS ELIZABETH ANN POLLARD

San Diego State University

Eudemus (d. 31 ce) the physician played a crucial role in Sejanus’ and Livia Iulia’s assassination of Drusus the Younger in 23 ce. Tacitus describes Eudemus as Livia Iulia’s friend and physician (amicus ac medicus; A. 4.3). Eudemus’ role as a physician gave him a shockingly high level of access to a pivotal member of the Julio-Claudian family, since, as Tacitus notes, Eudemus was able to meet frequently and secretly with Livia Iulia, who was granddaughter of Mark Antony and Octavia (1), daughter of Antonia the Younger and Drusus the Elder, niece of Tiberius, and sister of Germanicus and Claudius. While Eudemus presumably concocted the uenenum that killed Drusus—selected, Tacitus says, by Sejanus because it was slow working and might be mistaken for a chance sickness (fortuitus

28-04-2023 17:48:51

E u n o n es  

morbus)—the poison was administered by the eunuch Lygdus. The slow-acting nature of Eudemus’ poison was evidently convincing enough that Tiberius long thought Drusus had died from disease related to his “bad habits” (Suet. Tib. 62). Eudemus was tortured in 31 ce to reveal the full details of the assassination plot (A. 4.11), after Sejanus’s ex-wife Apicata submitted a statement to Tiberius revealing what she knew of the treachery (Cass. Dio 58.11). Although Tacitus does not reveal what happened to Eudemus after his torture, Dio’s statement that Tiberius had all those involved put to death suggests that Eudemus was executed at that time for his role in the conspiracy. Eudemus’ ueneficium would have been explicitly illegal under Sulla’s lex Cornelia de sicariis et ueneficiis (81 bce), which outlawed making and selling poisons. Pliny the Elder (HN 29.8), near contemporary of Tacitus, included Eudemus in his discussion of physicians in which he echoes Cato the Elder’s suspicion of the profession. Pliny explicitly cites the intrigues of Eudemus as proof of how the medical profession fuels poisoning, inheritance fraud, and adultery. Although caught up in Sejanus’s political intrigue, Eudemus was mentioned by later medical writers including second-century Galen (de Meth. Med. 1.7) and fifth-century Caelius Aurelianus (de Morb. Acut. 2.38). Eudemus’ role in the political intrigue of Tiberius’ reign is imagined in Benjamin Jonson’s 1603 play, Sejanus His Fall. see also: medicine Reference work: PIR2 E 108 EUDOSES, see NERTHUS TRIBES

EUNONES HAMISH CAMERON

Victoria University of Wellington

Eunones was king of the Aorsi in the 40s ce, a Scythian people living northeast of the Black Sea between the Sea of Azov (Maiotis) and the northern shores of the Caspian Sea. The Aorsi were powerful neighbors of the Bosphoran Kingdom who appear in our sources supplying powerful cavalry forces in regional conflicts.

c05_Vol2.indd 405

405

During Eunones’ reign, he supplied cavalry to a pro-Roman army in a civil war in the Bosphoran Kingdom. Claudius had appointed Mithridates VIII (a descendent of Mithridates Eupator of Pontus) as king of the Bosporan Kingdom in 41 ce (Cass. Dio 60.8.2). At some point in the 40s, Mithridates’ [VIII] brother Cotys conspired against him to seize the kingdom (frater Cotys, proditor olim, A. 12.18; Batty 2008, 435) apparently with Roman military assistance commanded by Aulus Didius Gallus (A. 12.15). When Mithridates raised an army to reclaim his throne, Cotys and the Roman garrison commander, an equestrian Iulius Aquila, appealed to Eunones for aid (A. 12.15). The combined forces campaigned successfully against Mithridates and another hostile tribe (the Siraki under King Zorsines) with the Aorsi providing the cavalry and the Romans and Bosphorans engaging in siege warfare (A. 12.15–16). When Mithridates wished to surrender, he didn’t trust Cotys and he judged Aquila insufficiently influential to protect him, so he appealed to Eunones to arrange that he be allowed to surrender without being executed or led in a triumph (A. 12.18). Tacitus reports that Eunones communicated directly with Claudius to successfully broker Mithridates’ surrender (A. 12.19–20). Strabo describes the Sarmatians, Aorsi and Siraki collectively, and says that some are nomads and others are tent-dwellers and farmers (οἱ μὲν νομάδες οἱ δὲ καὶ σκηνῖται καὶ γεωργοί, 11.2.1)— probably pastoralist and seminomadic communities. Later, Strabo includes the Aorsi in a list of people living between the Caspian Sea and Maiotis (Nabiani, Panzani, Siraki, and Aorsi) and calls them nomads (νομάδες, 11.5.8). The Aorsi are the most northerly of these and dwell along the Tanais river and wide areas of land along the Caspian coast (Olbrycht 2001). Strabo also describes them as participating in long-distance trade and tribute networks, receiving Indian and Babylonian goods from Armenia and Media (11.5.8), and supplying 20,000 cavalry for Pharnaces II (King of the Bosphoran Kingdom from 63–47 bce). Pliny the Elder gives the alternate name Hamaxobii (wagondwellers, HN 4.80) and calls them a branch of the Sarmatians. The Hamaxobioi are listed among the greatest Sarmatian peoples by Ptolemy (Geog. 3.5.19) and also mentioned by Pomponius Mela

28-04-2023 17:48:52

406  

E uphrates

(2.2). Ptolemy mentions a tribe called Alanorsi (Ptol. Geog. 6.14.9), leading some to suggest a relationship between the Aorsi and the Alani. see also: Medes; Scythia REFERENCES Batty, Roger. 2008. Rome and the Nomads: The Pontic-Danubian Realm in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Olbrycht, Marek J. 2001. “Die Aorser, die Oberen Aorser und die Siraker bei Strabon: zur Geschichte und Eigenart der Völker im nordostpontischen und nordkaukasischen Raum im 2.-1. Jh. v. Chr.” Klio 83.2: 425–450.

EUODUS, see FREEDMEN OF CLAUDIUS

EUPHRATES YASMINA BENFERHAT

Université de Lorraine

The Euphrates is a river of the Middle East which was for a long time the frontier between Roman territory and the Parthian kingdom. Actually what the Romans called the Euphrates is most of the time the middle valley of the Euphrates, since it is a very long river of 2,780 km (Blaschke 2018), whose source can be found in Armenia. It flows south in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) for 420 km, then in Syria (around 500 km) and Iraq. It joins the river Tigris to finally arrive at the Persian Gulf. It is also probably sometimes the river Karasu which joins the Murat in the middle of Anatolia and forms the Euphrates, especially when Tacitus describes the military operations of Domitius Corbulo around Armenia. This river is unstable, with big floods in springtime because of the snows and low levels in summer (Gaborit 2015). The Euphrates was used as a natural frontier against the Parthians who dreamt of an access to the sea as a natural continuation of the Silk Road. The first hot spot was the valley of Middle Euphrates where stood the limit between the Roman province of Syria and the Parthian kingdom. This was a permanent frontier, while the second hot spot was North Euphrates and its

c05_Vol2.indd 406

tributaries which protected—more or less— Armenia, which was regularly a source of conflict between the Romans and the Parthians. The Euphrates started to be a limit of the imperium Romanum in the Late Republic when a part of the Seleucid kingdom became the Roman province of Syria (62 bce) while Asia Minor was reorganized with a mix of Roman provinces and little vassal kingdoms. Tacitus mentions only the end of the first round of military operations (H. 4.5) with the victory in 38 bce of Ventidius Bassus over the king Pacorus who died then (Sheldon 2010, 57–60). This was the beginning of a relatively long time of peace between the Romans and the Parthians who had serious problems of dynastic succession in these years. The king Artabanus went to the Parthian side of Euphrates to pay respects to Germanicus in 18–19 ce (A. 2.58) without crossing the river which was considered the limit by both sides (Ziegler 1964, 158–159). Under the reign of Tiberius, the governor of Syria Lucius Vitellius crossed the river (A. 6. 31–37) in 36 ce to threaten Mesopotamia, but without any fight (Sheldon 2010, 92–95): the goal was to prevent Artabanus from attempting trouble in Armenia. The situation changed with the Parthian king Vologeses I, who started an offensive because of Armenia and took advantage of the difficult last years of Claudius’ reign. Nero reacted as soon as he succeeded Claudius by launching an offensive on the Euphrates (A. 13.7). His general Corbulo was in charge of the operations and won the war, but since Tigranes, the new king of Armenia and vassal of Rome, had provoked the Parthians, the war started again (A. 15.3–9). The Roman army of Caesennius Paetus was defeated in Armenia, but Corbulo managed to save the situation in Syria along the Euphrates. Finally there was an agreement in 63 ce: the Parthians stopped their offensive in Armenia, while Corbulo destroyed the military installations on the Parthian side of the Euphrates which was once more the natural frontier (A. 15.16–17). But actually Vologeses had managed to put his brother Tiridates on the throne of Armenia (Ziegler 1964, 71–78). see also: Arsacid dynasty; empire; Parthia

28-04-2023 17:48:52

exemplarit y  

Reference works: Barrington 93 A2, 1 K3, 3 C2, 64 H1, 67 G2, 89 A1, 91 A2 REFERENCES Blaschke, Theresa. 2018. Euphrat und Tigris im Alten Orient. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz Verlag. Gaborit, Justine. 2015. La vallée engloutie. Géographie historique du Moyen-Euphrate (du IVe s. av. J.C. au VIIe s. apr. J.C.). Beyrouth: Presses de l’Ifpo. Sheldon, Rose Mary. 2010. Rome’s Wars in Parthia. London: Valentine Mitchell. Ziegler, Karl-Heinz. 1964. Die Beziehungen zwischen Rom und dem Partherreich. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. FURTHER READING Keitel, Elizabeth. 1978. “The Role of Parthia and Armenia in Tacitus Annals 11 and 12.” American Journal of Philology 99: 462–473. Lerouge, Charlotte. 2007. L’image des Parthes dans le monde gréco-romain. Du début du 1er siècle av. J.C. jusqu’à la fin du Haut-Empire romain. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Levick, Barbara. 1990. Claudius. New York: Yale University Press.

EURIPIDES, see GREEK POETS EVANDER, see ROME, MYTH AND HISTORY

EXEMPLARITY ARTHUR J. POMEROY

Victoria University of ­Wellington

Romans most often chose or defended their actions on the basis of concrete examples from their past rather than theoretical argument. Hence the emphasis on behavior following customary practice in the imperial period and Tacitus’ own declarations that a record of notable examples of right and wrong will be valuable for the reader in choosing his paths of action. The historian also notes how the emperors used or misused precedents, particularly Tiberius and Claudius, and the preeminence of Augustus as an imperial role  model. Others may also provide patterns worth following, such as Tacitus’ father-in-law Agricola does in contrast to the glorious death

c05_Vol2.indd 407

407

of the Stoic martyrs. As the relevance of exempla needs to be assessed according to individual situations, the historian also notes the misuse of precedent (particularly those from the Republican Period) in imperial times. When considering possible courses of action, a decision may be formed on the basis of intellectual judgement—so, for instance, Stoics would choose the virtuous over evil and, in less obvious cases, make a preferable choice. However, for most, it would be simpler to consider traditional approaches (the customs of the ancestors, mos maiorum, of the Romans), particularly if they were encapsulated in actual examples of what was best behavior or even the unfortunate outcomes of bad behavior. Concrete examples usually prevailed over theory: so, Agricola was discouraged from excessive interest in philosophy by his mother while at the same time assimilating the parsimonious, yet open-minded values of the community at Marseilles (Ag. 4.2–3). Tacitus himself was apprenticed to two of the leading orators of his time, Marcus Aper and Iulius Secundus (D. 2.1), gaining experience of actual practice as well as declamatory training. Thucydides (1.22.4) claims that his historical research will be useful for future readers who want to make decisions based on the recurrent nature of human action, and his successors repeatedly assert the educative value of their work. This is most clearly stated by Livy in his preface (Praef. 10) who declares that “it is particularly salutary and fruitful to regard depictions of every type of precedent (exempli) set out in a noble record (monumento); from this you should choose for yourself and your community what to imitate and what, repulsive at the outset and disgusting at its outcome, you should avoid.” A similar program of praise and blame is explicitly set out in the first chapters of the Histories: after foregrounding the numerous ills and disasters of the Flavian years in 1.2, Tacitus notes the period also produced examples of good behavior (bona exempla: 1.3.1). In Annals 4.33.2 he clarifies the intellectual underpinnings of this type of historiography when he declares that it is important to understand the political changes under the early principate as “few can distinguish by their own insight (prudentia) what is fine from what is worse, the useful from the harmful, but

28-04-2023 17:48:52

408  

exemplarit y

most people learn from what happens to others.” While, the historian declares, readers may derive greater enjoyment from the more traditional features of classical historiography, such as battle scenes and ethnographical accounts of the peoples that Rome conquered, his account of the savagery of Tiberian politics will be more useful. Consistent with this vision, he will record the finest and the most disgraceful opinions voiced in the Senate: these are paradigms that ensure honorable behavior is remembered and hopefully will discourage vile words and deeds (A. 3.65.1). From the Tiberian era comes Valerius Maximus’ Memorable Words and Deeds, a collection of exempla drawn from previous authors, including Cicero, Sallust, and Livy. Since patterns and precedents of the past were traditionally cited in Roman society, they are frequently mentioned by speakers in Tacitus’ works. After the Flavian victory in the civil war, Eprius Marcellus falls back on precedent (vetera exempla, H. 4.8.1) in seeking to have the senatorial delegation chosen by lot, rather than selected by the magistrates under oath, where he fears he would be pointedly rejected. A request from the province of Spain in 25 ce to set up a temple to Tiberius and his mother, Livia Augusta, provokes a debate focusing on exemplars (A. 4.37– 38): the Spanish delegation cites the permission given to Asia to erect a similar temple two years previously, while the emperor himself seeks to follow the precedent set by Augustus, but not extend it. This becomes Tiberian policy—but one that is questioned by some on the basis of the divine honors earned by Hercules, Dionysus, and Romulus. Ignoring one’s future reputation is to demean the importance of traditional values (virtutes). Augustus is once again the precedent chosen, when Galba defends his selection of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus as his successor on the basis of Augustus’ methods (H. 1.15.1) and, when speaking to the praetorian guard, he adds that this is also according to military procedure (more militari, H. 1.18.2). The full gamut of the use of historical examples can be seen in the debate over the introduction of Gallic nobles into the Senate (A. 11.23–24; see Tabula Lugdunensis). Opponents of the extension of senatorial rights cited “the memorable deeds (exempla), still retold, performed in old fashion

c05_Vol2.indd 408

by the Roman spirit to achieve honour and glory,” presumably thinking of the tales of Manlius Torquatus’ and Valerius Corvus’ victories over Gauls highlighted in Livy (7.9–10; 7.26). However, the emperor Claudius not only lists numerous precedents in favor of extending Roman rights but concludes with the striking sententia: “This will also become established and what we defend today through precedents will be included among precedents” (A.11.24.7). Ironically, Claudius’ marriage to his niece which is highlighted as quite unprecedented (A. 12.5.1) is defended by Vitellius who concludes his speech in the Senate by arguing that customs develop according to suitability and “this will be one of those which will soon be used” (A. 12.6.3). The nature of one’s death might often define a Roman. Otho’s suicide is exemplary, since he both blames Vitellius for beginning the civil war and takes credit (penes me exemplum erit) for refusing to prolong the struggle after being defeated (H. 2.47.2). His end can readily be contrasted with those of Flavius Scaevinus and Gaius Calpurnius Piso after the collapse of the Pisonian Conspiracy (Ash 2018 ad A. 15.54– 59). Seneca’s death (A. 15.62–3) was intended to be modeled on that of Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo, although the performance did not go as planned. The last words of Thrasea Paetus are addressed to Helvidius Priscus, himself to become another martyr: “Watch closely, young man. May the gods forbid, but you have been born into times where it is important to bolster one’s spirit by firm role models” (exemplis constantibus, A. 16.35.1). Women too can be notable role models. An anonymous Ligurian woman earns fame by enduring torture until death without ever revealing where her son was hiding (H. 2.13.2), just as the tale of the freedwoman Epicharis’ refusal to name the Pisonian conspirators under torture is even more glorious in comparison to the craven confessions of Roman knights and senators that will follow (A. 15.57.2). Tacitus himself acknowledges that he is writing exemplary history following a long Roman tradition when he mentions the tale recounted by highly respected sources (celeberrimos auctores) that a Roman soldier had sought a reward for killing his brother in the battle of Cremona. In comparison, as recorded by Cornelius Sisenna,

28-04-2023 17:48:52

exemplarit y  

during the civil war in the time of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1), a soldier serving Pompey committed suicide when he discovered that he had slain his brother. In olden times, Tacitus opines, there was greater glory in one’s actions and greater regret following misdeeds and so, as the situation requires, he will recount examples of rectitude or cases that offer respite from evil (exempla recti aut solacia mali: H. 3.51.2). This ironic contrast with the glorious historical past (Tacitus can only say that the Flavian leaders avoided a decision on the outrageous claim by the fratricide) shows the value of exemplars in historical writing. However, as the practitioners of declamation show, such material can be adapted to the arguments of both sides in any case. In a splendidly metahistorical depiction, Roman soldiers serving under Caesennius Paetus in the Armenian campaign decide to avoid fighting the Persians who are besieging their camp, after taking into account the peace settlements at Numantia and the Caudine Forks (provisis exemplis Caudinae Numantinaeque pacis: A. 15.13.2). Famous cases of the republican past, the Roman defeat at Caudium, and the capitulation by Mancinus to the Numantines, probably recalled from Livy’s history, can thus be misused in the imperial period to justify disgraceful

c05_Vol2.indd 409

409

choices as readily as to support honorable behavior. see also: memory; metahistory REFERENCE Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus: Annals Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 2009. “Fission and Fusion: Shifting Roman Identities in the Histories.” In Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 85–99, esp. 92–95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chaplin, Jane. 2000. Livy’s Exemplary History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Malloch, Simon J. V. 2009. “Hamlet without the Prince? The Claudian Annals.” In Cambridge Companion to Roman Historians, edited by A. Feldherr, 116–126, esp. 124–126 (“The battle for History”). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roller, Matthew. 2009. “The Exemplary Past in Roman Historiography and Culture.” In Cambridge Companion to Roman Historians, edited by A. Feldherr, 214–230. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 17:48:52

F FABIA NUMANTINA, see PLAUTIUS SILVANUS

FABIUS FABULLUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Fabius Fabullus was the legate of legion V Alaudae. After the advance of the Flavian army led by Antonius Primus in northern Italy and the defection of the Vitellian commander Caecina Alienus he was chosen as new military leader by the soldiers still loyal to Vitellius along with the prefect of the camp Cassius Longus (otherwise unknown, H. 3.14). He could be the same Fabius Fabullus who, according to some of Plutarch’s sources, cut off Galba’s head and, asked by his companions not to conceal his deed, put it on a spear and paraded it dripping with blood (Plut. Galb. 27). Nothing much is known about his offices apart from the fact that his name seems to originate from Baetica. According to Syme (1983, 360 n. 7) the identification with the Marcus Fabius Fabullus, then legate of XIII Gemina in Africa mentioned in an inscription from Poetovio, proposed by Groag (PIR2 F 32) is highly dubious. see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference works: PIR2 F 30–32; PIR2 C 505; CIL III. 4118 = ILS 996

REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1983. “Antistius rusticus. A Consular from Corduba.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 32: 359–374. FURTHER READING Morgan, G. 2006. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, R. 1982. “Partisans of Galba.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 31: 460–483.

FABIUS IUSTUS, LUCIUS EMERY CHOLWELL

Amherst College CHRISTOPHER S.VAN DEN BERG

Amherst College

Lucius Fabius Iustus is the addressee of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus. There Tacitus claims that Iustus frequently asks about the differences between past and present oratory, to which the dialogue is a response. Iustus was also a friend of Pliny the Younger. He was a man of letters known for his successful military and civic career under Trajan. He was consul suffectus (102 ce) and held consular command in Syria (109 ce). Pliny writes to him seeking news (Ep. 1.11). Plin. Ep. 7.2 is addressed to a Fabius who is busy with duties; the identification with Fabius Iustus is not certain but widely accepted (e.g.,

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume I, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c06_Vol1.indd 410

28-04-2023 18:13:30

Fabius M aximus  

recently, Gibson and Morello 2012, 188–189). Further details about his career and provenance (possibly Spain) are suggested by Sherwin-White (1966), 98, 403–404 and Syme (1970), 110–118, and were likely to have included legionary command or a praetorian province (c. 96–98 ce) and consular command in Moesia (105/6 ce). Marcus Aquilius Regulus asked Iustus to reconcile him with Pliny (Plin. Ep. 1.5.8). see also: Nerva Reference works: PIR2 F 41; CIL VI 2191; 10244; XIV 4537 REFERENCES Gibson, Roy, and Ruth Morello. 2012. Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sherwin-White, Adrian Nicholas. 1966. The Letters of Pliny. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, Ronald. 1970. Ten Studies in Tacitus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

FABIUS MAXIMUS ISABELLE COGITORE

Université Grenoble Alpes TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Patrician of the gens Fabia (Ov. Pont. 1.2.1–4), belonging to the lineage probably going back to Aemilius Paullus as his praenomen would indicate, Fabius Maximus (PIR2 F 47) accompanies Augustus in the East as quaestor Augusti (22 or 21/19 bce). Around the age of thirty he marries Marcia, Augustus’ cousin (PIR2 M 257). Daughter of Lucius Marcius Philippus (consul 56 bce) and Atia, Marcia is the only woman Ovid mentions in the Fasti (6.804), praising her lineage, her chastity, and her beauty. The poet also writes an epithalamium for Fabius and Marcia (Pont. 1.2.131–132), who is a friend of his third wife. Fabius Maximus obtains the consulship in 11 bce, with Aelius Tubero as colleague. Assuming

c06_Vol1.indd 411

411

the proconsulship of Asia very rapidly (from 10 bce), he proves his loyalty to Augustus notably through a reform of the calendar of the province which marks the beginning of the year with the anniversary of Augustus. Around 3 or 2 bce he becomes governor of Hispania Tarraconensis. Horace (Carm. 4.1.14–15) describes him as a man of letters and patron of poets (so does Juvenal 7.95). Moreover, Ovid asserts his talent as orator and defense lawyer (Pont. 1.2 and 3.3); Fabius Maximus opposes in court the dreadful Cassius Severus (Sen. Contr. 2.4.11). Quintilian (Inst. 6.3.52) reports an anecdote that reveals the freedom of speech and of behavior Fabius Maximus enjoys with Augustus, whose generosity he criticizes as too meager. In May 14 ce, he accompanies Augustus to Planasia where Agrippa Postumus is held under guard, a journey whose authenticity is now accepted (since Augustus and Fabius Maximus cast their ballot in writing for the cooptation of Drusus the Younger to the college of the Fratres Arvales. (Scheid 1975, 87–88 contra Syme 1989, 415). He is the only companion of Augustus on that occasion (A. 1.5.1; Cass. Dio 56.30), but he informs his wife Marcia of his expedition, who in turn informs Livia Augusta (A.1.5; Plin. HN 7.150); these indiscretions, according to his wife, cause his death (A. 1.5). He dies before Augustus during the year 14 (Ovid Pont. 4.6.11). His son Fabius Paullus (Paullus Fabius Persicus, ca. 1 ce–57 ce; PIR2 F 51), succeeds him among the Arvales; quaestor of Tiberius, he obtains the consulship in 34 (A. 6.28, year of the apparition of the phoenix in Egypt), then the proconsulship of Asia in 43–44. He is mentioned by Claudius and described as nobilissimum uirum in the Tabula Lugdunensis (ILS 212), but most of all he leaves traces on account of his dubious morality (Sen. Ben. 2.21; 4.30). He is the last of the Fabii to hold the fasces (Syme 1989, 283). REFERENCES Scheid, John. 1975. Les frères arvales, Recrutement et origine sociale sous les empereurs julio-claudiens. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

28-04-2023 18:13:30

412  

Fabius P riscus

Syme, Ronald. 1989. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

FABIUS PAULLUS, see FABIUS MAXIMUS

FABIUS PRISCUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Fabius Priscus (otherwise unknown) was a legate of legion XIIII Geminae in 70 ce. The legion was marched overland under his command into the territory of the Nervii and Tungri (H. 4.79). Throughout the Histories, Tacitus frequently names soldiers and officers otherwise unknown, with no connections to nobility; the practice seems to underscore the unraveling of Roman social fabric under the strains of civil war and the adjacent Batavian Revolt. see also: Iulius Civilis; Iulius Classicus Reference work: PIR2 F 55 FABIUS ROMANUS, see ANNAEUS MELA

FABIUS RUSTICUS EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

Fabius Rusticus, whose praenomen is unknown, was a Roman citizen (of uncertain rank) and historian, possibly of Spanish origin (Levick 2013, 568–569); his work, of uncertain scope, was plausibly an annalistic history (Ash 2018, 280) which Tacitus cites as a source for his description of Britain (Ag. 10.3) and his narrative of Neronian politics (A. 13.20.2, 14.2.2, 15.61.3). Aside from these citations, which suggest that it covered at least the period from 55 to 65 ce, his history is wholly lost. A plausible terminus ante quem for its completion is 84 ce (Ash 2018, 280), since Tacitus (Ag. 10.3) shows his description of Britain’s shape as resembling that of a shoulder-blade to be erroneous; Fabius

c06_Vol1.indd 412

is unlikely to have erred here had he known of the eyewitness accounts of Agricola’s sailors, who circumnavigated the island in that year. Furthermore, if Tacitus’ paraphrases of Fabius’ account are accurate, the tone of his history can be shown to be anti-Neronian, in accordance with the Flavian zeitgeist (Levick 2013, 571). He had almost certainly reached adulthood by Nero’s accession in 54 ce; that he was still alive in 108 ce is suggested, though (pace Townend 1960, 106) not conclusively proved, by the will of a Lucius Dasumius dated to that year (CIL 6.10229.24), which names Fabius, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger as legatees. Although he lauds the elegance of his prose style (Ag. 10.3), Tacitus explicitly rejects Fabius’ account on every occasion (bar one) on which he cites him; at A. 14.2.2, he uses the rival testimony of the senator Cluvius Rufus to show Fabius’ account of Nero and Agrippina the Younger’s incest to be implausible. At A. 13.20.2, he rejects Fabius’ account of Nero’s questioning Afranius Burrus’ loyalty, not only for its being at odds with those of Cluvius and Pliny the Elder, but also for its probable bias, stemming from Fabius’ friendship with Seneca. That Fabius was an intimate friend of Seneca is further suggested by Tacitus’ explicit reliance upon him for the recondite details of events leading to Seneca’s suicide at A. 15.61.3. Pace Champlin (2003, 42), this friendship need not have amounted to literary patronage; Champlin’s (ibid.) view that Fabius wrote a biography of Seneca, in addition to an annalistic history, is speculative, although not implausible. The extent to which Tacitus relied on Fabius elsewhere in his historical works cannot be known (Martin 1981, 23). see also: annales; historiography; sources; Vipstanus Messalla Reference works: PIR2 F 62; RE 6.1865–6; SchanzHosius 2.648; FRHist: 1.568–72; CIL 6.10229.24 REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus: Annals: Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Champlin, Edward. 2003. Nero. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.

28-04-2023 18:13:31

Fabius Valens  

Levick, Barbara. 2013. “Fabius Rusticus.” In The Fragments of the Roman Historians: Volume 1: Introduction, edited by Timothy Cornell, 568–572. Oxford: University Press. Martin, Ronald. 1981. Tacitus. London: Batsford. Townend, George. 1960. “The Sources of the Greek in Suetonius.” Hermes 88: 98–120. FURTHER READING Sailor, D. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

FABIUS VALENS NICHOLAS DEE

Bowling Green State University

Fabius Valens (d. 69 ce) was legionary legate (legatus legionis) of Legion I in Lower Germany in 68–69 ce and under Vitellius suffect consul in fall 69 ce. He was instrumental in Vitellius’ bid for imperial power in January 69 ce. Along with his rival Caecina Alienus, Valens helped lead the Vitellians to victory in the war against Otho, but later failed in his efforts to salvage the faltering Vitellian regime. He was executed in Flavian custody. Valens was born in Anagnia to an equestrian family, first rising to prominence as a performer of farces in Nero’s ludicrum Iuvenalium (H. 3.62.2; A. 14.15.1). When Nero’s rule ended, Valens cast about for a new emperor to support. It seems that in 68 ce Valens encouraged Verginius Rufus’ imperial ambitions, but then turned against him after Verginius’ refusal (H. 1.8.2, 3.62.2); now ostensibly in Galba’s service, Valens later that same year participated in the murder of Fonteius Capito, legate of Lower Germany, after similarly failing to convince him to rebel (H. 1.7.1–2; 3.62.2). Galba’s lack of gratitude for Capito’s murder angered Valens, who next set about convincing Capito’s replacement, Vitellius, to seek imperial power—this time successfully (H. 1.52.3–4). In the first days of January 69, when word came that the legions of Upper Germany had abandoned their allegiance to Galba, Valens and his cavalry traveled from Bonna (the base camp of his legion) to Colonia

c06_Vol1.indd 413

413

Agrippinensis and there became the first to salute Vitellius as imperator (H. 1.57.1; Plut. Galba 10.3). The rest of Lower and Upper Germany soon offered their allegiance and support (H. 1.57.1–2). To his credit (H. 3.62.2), Valens would remain loyal to his chosen emperor for the rest of his life. In Vitellius’ campaign against Galba—which soon became a campaign against Otho (H. 1.64.1)—Valens was tasked with advancing southward through Gaul into Italy (his rival Caecina Alienus led the other column: H. 1.67– 70). Valens’ taste for self-enrichment and extortion slowed the pace of the march, sowed distrust among the soldiers, and exacerbated already existing problems with discipline (H. 1.63.1–2, 1.66.3; Plut. Otho 6.4). Most significantly, when Valens accepted the peaceable surrender of Vienna, the common soldiers (perhaps reasonably) suspected their commander of secretly accepting bribes (H. 1.66.1–2). These resentments resulted in a mutiny south of the Alps (see Ash 2007, 150), which Valens narrowly survived (H. 2.27–30; Plut. Otho 7.5). Though the mutiny began ostensibly as a protest against Valens’ decision to send away the Batavian cohorts, it then escalated as disgruntled legionaries ransacked Valens’ tent and searched his baggage for the Gallic gold they believed he had denied them (H. 2.29.1; Plut. Otho 7.5 instead credits the legionaries’ frustration with not seeing combat). Valens survived by disguising himself in slave clothes and hiding (H. 2.29.1). He was able to reassert his authority, once the mutiny had cooled, through a combination of leniency and well-timed appeals to the soldiers’ guilty consciences (H. 2.29.2–3). For Valens, the victory over the Othonians and the early phases of Vitellius’ principate were largely defined by a contentious relationship with Caecina Alienus. The relationship began to deteriorate when, in April 69 ce, Valens caught up to, and joined forces with, Caecina at Placentia. The legionaries’ and auxiliaries’ preference for Caecina’s handsome charisma provoked jealousy in Valens (H. 2.30.1–2). Yet even as mutual contempt grew and insults were exchanged, both legates managed to keep their focus on defeating Otho (H. 2.30.3) and advancing their own careers under Vitellius.

28-04-2023 18:13:31

414  

Fabricius V eiento

After participating in the First Battle of Bedriacum (Plut. Otho 12–13), Valens, like Caecina, devastated the Italian countryside to his own financial benefit (H. 2.55.2). Then, having traveled back north through the Alps, Valens and Caecina joined Vitellius’ southward journey at Lugdunum on 1 May 69 (see Murison 1993, 154), where they were publicly honored (H. 2.59.2–3). At the site of the First Battle of Bedriacum, Valens and Caecina served as Vitellius’ tour guide (H. 2.70); at Bononia, Valens entertained the new emperor with a gladiator show. At Rome, apparently as reward for his legates’ loyal service, Vitellius removed Otho’s consular appointments from office and installed Valens and Caecina in the position for a few months (H. 2.71.2). Now in power, the rival legates’ constant efforts to outdo one another and secure a passive and indecisive Vitellius’ favor landed them effectively in charge of the government (H. 2.92.1–3). The remainder of Valens’ life was marred by failure. A lingering illness delayed Valens’ departure by a few crucial days (H. 3.36.1) to neutralize the advancing Flavians (H. 2.99.1). The march north, when it finally began, was compromised by sexual impropriety, rapacious greed, and indecision, which allowed Caecina’s defection to go unchallenged and caused the Vitellians in northern Italy to go unaided (H. 3.40). News of the Vitellian loss in the Second Battle of Bedriacum reached him in Etruria (H. 3.41.3). A last-ditch scheme to save the Vitellian regime would fail: a storm blew his ship into territory controlled by Massilia, where the pro-Flavian procurator Valerius Paulinus apprehended him (H. 3.42–43). In late 69 ce, as Antonius Primus’ forces were nearing victory in Italy, Valens, who was still being held prisoner, was executed at Urbinum (H. 3.62.1). His head was displayed to the Vitellians in order to crush their morale. Much as Valens’ capture had precipitated a massive loss of Vitellian support in the western empire (H. 3.44.1), his death signaled the end of the war between the Vitellians and Flavians (H. 3.62.1). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; mutinies; Vitellius, rise to power Reference work: PIR2 F 68

c06_Vol1.indd 414

REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon, ed. 2007. Tacitus, Histories Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murison, C. L. 1993. Galba Otho and Vitellius: Careers and Controversies. Zürich: Olms. FURTHER READING Manolaraki, Eleni. 2005. “A Picture Worth a Thousand Words: Revisiting Bedriacum (Tacitus Histories 2.70).” CP 100: 243–267. Morgan, M. G. 1994. “Rogues March: Caecina and Valens in Tacitus, Histories 1.61–70.” MH 51: 103–125.

FABRICIUS VEIENTO STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Fabricius Veiento (mid 20s ce–c. 100 ce) started his long career likely during Claudius’ reign and was a courtier of Nero’s who fell from grace after he was convicted of libel and accepting bribes. He returned to power and was prominent under the Flavians; an influential courtier under Domitian, it is uncertain if he acted as a delator during his tyranny. His role at Domitian’s court notwithstanding, he was still friends with and a part of Nerva’s inner circle, despite attacks from Pliny the Younger. Veiento was likely the adopted son of Aulus Didius Gallus, legate of Britain from 52–58 ce; his praenomen and family background are subject to conjecture (see Rutledge 2001, 230 for bibliography). Since he was praetor in 54 (Cass. Dio 61.6.2) a date of birth in the mid-20s can be surmised, if he followed the normal career path. His first appearance in Tacitus is in 62 ce, when Tullius Geminus (who had been suffect consul in 46 and legate of Moesia under Claudius) accused him of writing libelous codicilli (i.e., scurrilous wills which allowed him to abuse others in his writings) against a number of senators and priests; he was also accused of accepting bribes in exchange for winning promotion from the princeps (A. 14.50). Veiento was convicted and expelled from Italy, and his books ordered burned. Tacitus says this made them the more popular

28-04-2023 18:13:31

Faenius Rufus  

and sought after, until they could again be read with impunity, when they fell into oblivion. Veiento returned sometime after Nero’s demise and must have held his first suffect consulship under Vespasian, since he held a second under Titus from the middle of January 80. He maintained his powerful position within the state and is found (in 82–83) as a member of Domitian’s inner circle, helping to plan his campaign against the Chatti. He might have held his third consulship around this time as well. In addition, he was a member of the quindecemviri sacris faciundis in 88 (Tacitus was his colleague), as well as sodalis Augustalis, sodalis Titius, and sodalis Flavialis; he thus held a notable number of priestly offices and appears himself to have had an interest in religion in general (see McDermott 1970, 137, 139–140; McDermott and Orentzel 1979). McDermott (1970, 143) also identifies him as the name to be restored on a dedication to the numen Augusti in a sanctuary at Arles. If he is correct, then at some point he will also have been (presumably under the Flavians) proconsul of Africa, legate of Syria with propraetorian power, and legate in one additional (but unidentifiable) province with legionary command. He is not heard of again until the reign of Nerva, when he protected Publicius Certus in the Senate (Plin. Ep. 9.13.13). He clashed violently with Pliny in the course of his defense of Certus, and when he tried to reply to Pliny’s attack he was shouted down and forced to appeal to the tribune but was humiliated when the Senate dispersed as a body while he was still trying to speak. Veiento, to judge from Juvenal’s portrait, was also an arrogant man to whom others were obliged to pay court (3.184–5). In the satirical depiction of Domitian’s council, he is called “wise” (prudens, Juv. 4.113), entering with Valerius Catullus Messalinus; he there reads the turbot as an omen of future victory for Domitian. Juvenal also satirized Veiento’s wife at length for accompanying a gladiator to Egypt (6.82–114). Although scholars are quick to identify him as a delator, there is room for doubt, since he is decidedly absent from the list of the most notorious delators under Domitian in the Agricola (see McDermott 1970, 132–133), although the matter remains unsettled (Rutledge 2001, 231–232). After Domitian’s demise he still stood close to the centers of power,

c06_Vol1.indd 415

415

was Nerva’s dinner companion, and wielded some political clout (Plin. Ep. 4.22.4; 9.13.13). The last reference to Veiento is in Aurelius Victor where is said “to have prosecuted many through secret charges” (Epit. De Caes. 12.5). see also: sodales Augustales Reference works: Fabricius Veiento: PIR2 F 91; RE 62.1938–42 = Fabricius 15 (Groag); AE 48.56 = CIL 16.158; 52.168; 79.399; CIL 13.7253 = ILS 1010 Tullius Geminus: PIR2 T 381; RE 2.72.1312–13 = Tullius 35 (Groag); CIL 6.36850 (cf. Cass. Dio 60.27.1); SEG 23.329; 62.294. REFERENCES McDermott, W. C. 1970. “Fabricius Veiento.” American Journal of Philology 91: 124–148. McDermott, W. C., and A. Orentzel. 1979. Roman Portraits: The Flavian-Trajanic Period. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 11–26. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 114–15, 229–232.

FAENIUS RUFUS SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennesee, Knoxville

Lucius Faenius Rufus had a distinguished career under Nero: he was prefect of the food supply (praefectus annonae) in 55 ce (A. 13.22.1), thanks to the support of Agrippina the Younger and prefect of the praetorian cohorts (praefectus praetorio) with Ofonius Tigellinus in 62 (A. 14.51.2– 3). Tacitus remarks that, while Nero had chosen Tigellinus because they shared a natural inclination for lusts, his choice of Rufus was owed to the latter’s good reputation, for Rufus had administered the food supply without profit to himself and was well thought of by people and soldiers—and for these very reasons he did not enjoy Nero’s favor. It is likely that an inscription, erected by the slave Speratus for his comrade Soteris and mentioning “Faenius’ granaries” (horrea Faeniana), refers to Rufus’ role as prefect of the food supply (Cairns 1999, 218), while two roof-tiles (tegulae) found on

28-04-2023 18:13:31

416  

fear

the Esquiline mention Lucius Faenius Rufus as prefect of the praetorians. Faenius Rufus was able to survive Agrippina’s fall in 59, perhaps thanks to the protection of Seneca, with whom he may have had a particular connection (A. 15.61.3). After Seneca’s death, however, Rufus’ star began to decline, the charge being his friendship with Agrippina (A. 14.57.1). Rufus’ main rival, and perhaps the architect of his fall, was his colleague Tigellinus, with whom he had a problematic relationship (Cass. Dio 62.13.3) and who accused him of having committed adultery with Agrippina (A. 15.50.3). Perhaps out of desperation, when he realized that he had no future, Rufus joined the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.50.3, 53.3, Cass. Dio 62.24.1) but distinguished himself for his cowardly behavior when the plot was uncovered. Before his own complicity was unveiled, probably in one last effort to save his own life, he acted savagely toward his fellow conspirators (atrox adversus socios); in fact, he even saved Nero’s life when, during the interrogations, he kept the conspirator Subrius Flavus from drawing his sword and killing the emperor on the spot (A. 15.58.3–4). Informants accused Rufus of being “accomplice and at the same time accuser” (A. 15.66.1–2, eundem conscium et inquisitorem). He was imprisoned and put to death. For the final moments of this ambiguous character, whose entire political career always relied on the support of one of Nero’s victims, Tacitus has one of his characteristically pointed comments, remarking that, unlike other centurions, who did not demean themselves in suffering their reprisals, Rufus “transferred his wailings even to his will” (A. 15.68.1 lamentationes suas etiam in testamentum contulit). In the aftermath of the Pisonian Conspiracy, the equestrian Publius Gallus, otherwise unknown, a close acquaintance of both Rufus and Lucius Antistius Vetus, was accused by a freedman (probably the Fortunatus mentioned at A. 16.10.2) and exiled (A. 16.12.1). Tacitus does not specify Gallus’ formal accusation, but it was probably maiestas, “treason” (Rogers 1952, 208), though his main crime was evidently his close relationship with the disgraced Rufus and Vetus, whose fall Tacitus describes immediately before, and thanks to whose protection Gallus had perhaps been able to survive Rufus’ disgrace.

c06_Vol1.indd 416

Reference works: Faenius: PIR2 F 102; RE 6.1963–4 = ‘Faenius’ 1 (Stein); BNP 5.318; CIL 6.37796, 15.1136–7; Gallus: PIR2 G 66; RE 7.683 = ‘Gallus’ 8 (Stein); BNP 5.680 ‘Gallus’ [2] REFERENCES Cairns, Francis. 1999. “Epaphroditus, Φαινιανοκορίοιϛ and ‘Modestus’ (Suda e 2004).” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 124: 218–222. Rogers, Robert S. 1952. “A Tacitean Pattern in Treason-Trials.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 83: 279–311. FURTHER READING Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. n. 577, 584. Griffin, Miriam T. 1984 (repr. 2000). Nero: The End of a Dynasty. London and New York: Routledge. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge. 114–119. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions. London and New York: Routledge.

FAIANIUS, see POMPEIUS MACER

FEAR VERENA SCHULZ

KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Fear is the most important emotion in Tacitus’ historiographical works. As an irrational force, it determines actions of characters and therefore historical events. Both rulers and subjects are driven by fear. Especially in the Annals, the situation is often depicted as a Macbethian plot: the emperor is afraid of his enemies and consequently spreads terror. Thus, he increases the number of his enemies, consequently increasing also the ground of his fear. The most common term in the semantic field of “fear” in Tacitus is metus. In addition, Tacitus uses often periculum, formido, terror, pauor along with the verbs terrere, timere, metuere,

28-04-2023 18:13:31

F erentinum  

pauere and the adjectives trepidus and pauidus. The exact meaning of these words has been thoroughly studied, including statistical analysis. The juxtaposition of the opposites of the opposites terror and hope (spes/fiducia) is common. Tacitus’ use of the word group is not decisively different from that of the other Roman historians (Travilian 2013). The emotion of fear is a central component of the Tacitean model of personality, since it explains behavior and actions of a person. Fear determines the actions of the ruler, thereby determining historical events. Tiberius is afraid of freedom (qui libertatem metuebat, A. 2.87) and of people (A. 1.6.2; 1.80.2). Fear holds him back and prevents him from fully living out his bad qualities. He rids himself of fear gradually throughout the course of his reign (remoto pudore et metu, A. 6.51.3). Tacitus illuminates the topos of the tyrant’s fear in the figure of the always anxious Nero (pavore ­exanimis, A. 14.7.2; facinorum recordatione numquam timore vacuus, A. 15.36.2; metum Neroni fecerat, A. 16.15.1; see Schmidt 1982, also for the Platonic background of the tyrant’s fear). His fear, therefore, can be exploited by others, e.g., Poppaea Sabina the Younger (A. 14.62.1). Also, the reign of Vitellius and his end are marked by fear (quae natura pauoris est, cum omnia metuenti praesentia maxime displicerent, H. 3.84.4). Domitian can conceal his fear worse than he can his joy (qui facilius dissimularet gaudium quam metum, Ag. 43.3, but see Ag. 39.1). The spread of fear emerges occasionally as a Roman ruling strategy (cf. Artabanus’ fear of Germanicus, A. 6.31.1; but Calgacus in Ag. 32.2). The ever-present fear of a tyrannical rule leads generally to adulation and submission. It can also lead to death (A. 2.42.3). Tacitus illustrates the reciprocal fear of the emperor and the guests at one of Otho’s banquet (H. 1.81.1). But there is fear also outside of the emperor’s circle. In soldiers who are taken far away by a storm at sea, Tacitus assumes fear as the cause of hallucinations (A. 2.24.4). Generally, just showing fear can trigger new fear (id ipsum pauentes, quod timuissent, A. 4.70.2). Some biographical interpretations claim to prove, on the ground of the fear that finds expression in Tacitus’ works, the

c06_Vol1.indd 417

417

emotions and the personality of the author himself. see also: emotions; historiography REFERENCES Schmidt, Ernst A. 1982. “Die Angst der Mächtigen in den Annalen des Tacitus.” Wiener Studien 16: 274–287. Travilian, Tyler T. 2013. “Figuring Fear in the Roman Historians.” New England Classical Journal 40.2: 87–121. FURTHER READING Mastellone Iovane, Eugenia. 1989. Paura e angoscia in Tacito: Implicazioni ideologiche e politiche. Naples: Loffredo. Pagán, Victoria. 2014. “Fear in the Agricola.” In Les opera minora et le développement de l’historiographie tacitéenne, edited by Olivier Devillers, 73–86. Bordeaux: Ausonius Scripta Antiqua 68.

FENNI, see SARMATIANS

FERENTINUM ARNOLDUS VAN ROESSEL

University of Toronto

Ferentium, or Ferentinum, is a town in southern Etruria roughly 65 km north of Rome near the modern town of Viterbo. It is most notable as the birthplace of Otho (H. 2.50.1) and Flavius Liberalis, the father of Flavia Domitilla, Vespasian’s wife (Suet. Vesp. 3.1). Originally Etruscan, it came under Roman sway in the early third century bce. Its land was redistributed as a colony under the lex Sempronia in 133 bce (Lib. colon. 1.215.9–216.10). Vitruvius praised the town’s architecture and statuary constructed from the local peperino (2.7.4). The town was destroyed by the neighboring Viterbo’s expansion in 1172 ce. Considerable structural remains of the town survive, including a Roman theater, bath complex, and smaller domestic buildings. The town was first excavated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and

28-04-2023 18:13:31

418  

F idenae

more recently by the Tuscia University of Viterbo from 1994 to 2009 (Maetzke 2002). Flavius Scaevinus took a dagger from the town’s temple of Salus or Fortune, with which he intended to assassinate Nero as part of the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.53.2). It is unclear which town Tacitus indicates (Ash 2017, 244). He may instead refer to Ferentinum (modern Ferentino) of the Hernici in Latium, 65  km southeast of Rome where two inscriptions name a shrine to Fortune and Salus Publica (CIL X 5820– 1). The passage’s textual corruption furthers the uncertainty. The earlier emendation frentano identifies the dagger’s home as Histonium (modern Vasto), 180  km east of Rome on the Adriatic coast where Scaevinus’ family may have originated (Wiseman 1967, 264–265). Reference works: CIL X 5820–1; Barrington 44 D2, 42 C4 REFERENCES Ash, R. 2017. Tacitus Annals Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maetzke, G., ed. 2002. Ferento, Civitas Splendidissima: Storie, reperti e immagini di un’antica città della Tuscia. Università degli Studi della Tuscia. Wiseman, T. P. 1967. “Tacitus, Ann. xv.53.2.” Classical Review 17.3: 264–265.

FERONIA, see TARRACINA FESTUS, see LUCCEIUS ALBINUS

FIDENAE KATHLEEN M. COLEMAN

Harvard University

Fidenae was a town in Latium about five miles north of Rome on the Via Salaria. At H. 3.79.2, the town marks the limit beyond which the temporarily victorious Vitellians did not pursue the Flavians in their flight from Rome. In 27 ce Fidenae suffered a major disaster, recounted in a dramatic and pathos-laden set piece by Tacitus (A. 4.62–63) and more briefly and objectively by Suetonius (Tib. 40), when a flimsy wooden amphitheater collapsed, causing thousands of

c06_Vol1.indd 418

casualties—50,000 killed and wounded (Tacitus), or 20,000 killed (Suetonius). Tacitus ascribes motives of “sordid profit” (merces sordida) to Atilius (otherwise unknown), an entrepreneur of freedman descent who built the stadium to stage gladiatorial shows that he produced himself. Atilius was punished for the catastrophe by being sent into exile. The Senate thereafter restricted the staging of gladiatorial combat to persons possessing capital of 400,000 sesterces (equivalent to the census imposed for membership of the equestrian order) and required that the terrain at a potential site for an amphitheater be shown to be sufficiently stable before construction could begin. Tacitus implies that a large proportion of the spectators were from Rome, which, as argued by Chamberland (2007), suggests that Atilius’ “sordid profit” was made by charging an entrance fee to visitors, since games that were put on by a local benefactor were conceived as a free gift to the community itself. The financial requirement imposed by the Senate may have been intended as a type of insurance in the event of an accident and a means of preventing gladiatorial shows from being treated as a money-making enterprise by people of limited means. Suetonius, in accordance with his focus on his biographical subject, records that the emperor Tiberius, despite his reclusive nature and strict instructions that he not be disturbed, returned at once from Capri by popular demand to initiate disaster relief. Tacitus omits any mention of Tiberius, but describes how the leading citizens in Rome made their own homes and resources available to care for the wounded, a gesture that he interprets as a rare example of Rome’s ancient standards of decency, thereby capping a highly wrought and emotional account with implicit condemnation of the moral degradation of contemporary society. see also: games Reference works: Barrington 43 C2; Map-by-Map Directory vol. 1, 627 REFERENCE Chamberland, Guy. 2007. “A Gladiatorial Show Produced in mercedem sordidam (Tacitus, Ann. 4.62).” Phoenix 61: 136–149.

28-04-2023 18:13:31

FIRE OF 64 ce 

FIRE OF 64 ce KELLY E. SHANNON-HENDERSON

University of Cincinnati

Ancient Rome was prone to fires; Tacitus had described one in 27 ce (A. 4.64.1) and notes that the Fire of 64 recalled an even earlier one, the famous burning of Rome by the Gauls in 390 bce (A. 15.41.2). But the Fire of 64 ce, Tacitus claims, was “more serious and more horrible than all the violent fires that had befallen the city” previously (A. 15.38.1). Its impact does seem to have been immense. It began in the Circus Maximus, spread rapidly through nearby shops, and burned for nine days. Of Rome’s fourteen regiones, only four survived; three were completely, and seven partially, destroyed (A. 15.40.2; commentators disagree on which regiones were destroyed; see Champlin 2003, 318 n. 6). Tacitus reports Nero’s benefactions to those displaced from their homes by the fire (A.  15.39.2) and urban planning measures he took during rebuilding to reduce the likelihood of such destruction in the future, e.g., mandating the use of fire-retardant stone (peperino tufa) and widening streets to slow the spread of fires (A. 15.43). For a modern assessment of the devastating impact of the fire and reconstruction on Rome’s population, see Newbold (1974). Accounts of destructions of cities like Tacitus’ description of the fire were a generic topos in historiography (Keitel 2010, esp. 342–344). The historical tradition was largely in agreement about blaming Nero for the fire (e.g., Plin. HN 17.5, Suet. Ner. 38; see Champlin 2003, 178–191). Tacitus, however, is more cautious: he states that “it is uncertain” whether the fire started “by chance or by trickery from the princeps (for authors have handed down both)” (A. 15.38.1) and refers to the belief “that the fire had been ordered” as a persistent rumor (A. 15.44.2). Whereas Suetonius reports explicitly that Nero sent out his cubicularii with torches to set fire to various buildings in the city, Tacitus, while including a similar report of torch-wielding men seen prohibiting firefighting efforts, does not explicitly attribute their activities to Nero and allows the possibility that they were simply looters acting on their own initiative (A. 15.38.7).

c06_Vol1.indd 419

419

Tacitus is likewise cautious about the nowfamous dictum that Nero “fiddled while Rome burned,” classifying as rumor the report that Nero performed a dramatic piece on the fall of Troy in his own private house-theater during the fire (A. 15.39.3). Yet despite this maintenance of authorial distance, Tacitus is clear in his criticism of Nero’s behavior surrounding the event: Nero was in Antium when the fire started and did not return to Rome until it threatened his own house (the Domus Transitoria; A. 15.39.1); in his enthusiasm for reconstruction, Nero “seemed to be seeking the glory of founding a new city and calling it by his own name” (A. 15.40.2) and actually “used the ruin of his country and built a house,” the luxurious domus Aurea that included a massive pleasure garden (A. 15.42.1). Religious problems posed by the fire are also a major feature of Tacitus’ account: it destroys many ancient temples dating back to Rome’s foundation (A. 15.41). Although Nero performs a ceremony of expiation prescribed by the Sibylline Books to placate the angry gods (A. 15.44.1), his ransacking of Greek and Italian shrines to raise funds for rebuilding amounts to sacrilegium (A. 15.45), and a spate of dire prodigies at the end of 64 ce reveals continuing divine anger (A. 15.47) (see Shannon 2012). Tacitus is also the first author to connect the fire with the persecution of Christians, whom Nero blames for the fire and condemns to death in the arena or lights on fire as human torches (A. 15.44.2–5). The historicity of this so-called “Neronian persecution” in 64 ce is hotly debated (Shaw 2015). Tacitus also includes a short digression on the group’s history (A. 15.44.3). see also: Christianity; gardens REFERENCES Champlin, E. 2003. Nero. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Keitel, E. 2010. “The Art of Losing: Tacitus and the Disaster Narrative.” In Ancient Historiography and Its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A. J. Woodman, edited by C. S. Kraus, J. Marincola, and C. Pelling, 331–352. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Newbold, R. F. 1974. “Some Social and Economic Consequences of the A.D. 64 Fire at Rome.” Latomus 33: 858–869.

28-04-2023 18:13:31

420  

F irmius C atus

Shannon, Kelly. 2012. “Memory, Religion, and History in Nero’s Great Fire: Tacitus Annals 15.41–7.” Classical Quarterly 62: 749–765. Shaw, B. D. 2015. “The Myth of the Neronian Persecution.” Journal of Roman Studies 105: 73–100. FURTHER READING Closs, V. 2016. “Neronianis Temporibus: The So-called Arae Incendii Neroniani and the Fire of AD 64 in Rome’s Monumental Landscape.” Journal of Roman Studies 106: 102–123.

Reference works: PIR2 F 158; RE 62 2380 = Firmius 2 [Goldfinger] REFERENCE Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. New York: Routledge.

FLAMEN DIALIS TREVOR S. LUKE

FIRMIUS CATUS HOLLY HAYNES

The College of New Jersey

Firmius Catus was a senator whom Tacitus names as a delator in the trial of Scribonius Libo Drusus in 16 ce (A. 2.27–32; cf. Cass. Dio 57.15.4). He encouraged the young Libo, whose aunt Scribonia (1) had been married to Augustus, to aim at the principate. Firmius’ chief methods of entrapment were to suggest the consultation of magicians and dream interpreters and to provoke Libo’s spending toward higher debt. With what he believed to be enough evidence, he sought out Vescularius Flaccus to act as an intermediary to Tiberius. However, the latter did not act immediately, preferring to advance Libo politically and watch his behavior. Eventually a necromancer came forward claiming that Libo had asked him to perform a ritual, and Libo was charged before the Senate with Firmius Catus named as one of the prosecutors. Libo was most likely prosecuted under the law concerning magic practices, not maiestas (cf. Rutledge 2001, 158–161); nevertheless, Tacitus reports the trial as the first of the delations that so eroded the imperial political system. Indeed, his one other mention of Firmius concerns the latter’s expulsion from the Senate for the crime of calumnia, which he incurred for having tried to bring his own sister to trial for maiestas (A. 4.31.4). Tiberius intervened to mitigate the Senate’s original decree to banish Firmius because of his gratitude for Firmius’ aid in prosecuting Libo. see also: delators; magic

c06_Vol1.indd 420

Florida State University

The flamen Dialis was one of a group of priests in the pontifical college called flamens, each of whom attended to the cult of a single god. The flamen Dialis was the special priest of Jupiter. Burdensome requirements and restrictions placed upon this priest may have made the post unattractive to ambitious men as Rome’s sphere of influence expanded. In Books 3 and 4 of the Annals, Tacitus depicts Tiberius and the Senate wrestling with problems regarding the restrictions and staffing of this priesthood. Rome’s flamens (flamines) were fifteen priests who were each devoted to the cult of one deity. They belonged to the pontifical college and fell under the authority of the Pontifex Maximus. Candidates for the major flaminates of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus were required to be patricians married by confarreatio (Gai. Inst. 1.112) and born to parents married by the same rite. In the Early Republic, the major flamens were likely included in the Senate on account of their priesthood and patrician status (Livy 27.8.4–10). The flamen Dialis was the priest of Jupiter. Most flamens Dialis in Rome’s history sprang from the patrician branches of the gens Cornelia (Vanggaard 1988). The flamen Dialis was subject to numerous religious restrictions (Gell. NA 10.15; Vanggaard 1988) that militated against service in imperiumbearing magistracies. In the Middle Republic, supreme pontiffs enforced limits on the major flamens’ travel, presumably to ensure the performance of their ritual obligations (Goldberg 2015). These restrictions inhibited the flamens’ full participation in Rome’s

28-04-2023 18:13:31

F lavian dynasty  

foreign wars and diplomacy, thus making the priesthood less attractive. The civil wars of the republic’s last century also impacted the staffing of the Dial flaminate. After Lucius Cinna and Gaius Marius captured Rome in 87 bce, the suffect consul and flamen Dialis Cornelius Merula (Fasti sacerdotum 1356) committed suicide to avoid trial (Val. Max. 9.12.5; Vell. Pat. 2.22.2; A. 3.58; App. B Civ. 1.74). A young Iulius Caesar was nominated to fill the priesthood (Vell. Pat. 43.1; Suet. Iul. 1.2; Plut. Vit Caes. 1.3–4), but his subsequent inauguration is uncertain (Pelling 2011). The Dial flaminate remained empty after the victory of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1). The pontiffs, therefore, performed the priest’s ritual duties until Augustus, as part of his restoration program, inaugurated Cornelius Lentulus Maluginensis (consul suff. 10; Fasti sacerdotum 1349) as flamen Dialis in 11 bce (A. 3.58; Cass. Dio 54.36). Tacitus provides accounts of two episodes in the history of the Dial flaminate under Tiberius. The first appears to be a reaffirmation of the flamen Dialis’ travel restrictions. At A. 3.58–59, Tacitus recounts Maluginensis’ petition of 22 ce to obtain the governorship of Asia. In his speech before Tiberius and the Senate, the flamen argued that the other major flamens had taken up governorships. Indeed, the flamen Martialis Gaius Iunius Silanus (consul 10; Fasti sacerdotum 2126) was governor of Asia at the time. Moreover, Maluginensis observed that the pontiffs could perform his ritual duties in his absence as they had for decades prior to his inauguration. The augur Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus (consul 14; Fasti sacerdotum 1344) and other experts presented opposing arguments (A. 3.59). At a later meeting (A. 3.71), Tiberius exercised his pontifical authority in denying Maluginensis’ request on the basis of a pontifical decree of Augustus. This decree required the flamen Dialis to obtain the pontifex maximus’ permission to be away from Rome for more than two days for reasons of illness. Tiberius also appealed to the republican precedent of supreme pontiff Lucius Metellus (Fasti sacerdotum 978) forbidding the flamen Martialis Aulus Postumius (Fasti sacerdotum 2817) from leaving the city.

c06_Vol1.indd 421

421

The next Tacitean episode involving the Dial flaminate regards proposed adjustments to candidates’ eligibility requirements after the death of Maluginensis in 23 ce (A. 4.16). Tiberius initiated a discussion about difficulties obtaining the full slate of three candidates, since few couples were marrying by confarreatio. The emperor then urged, in the spirit of Augustus’ accommodation of tradition to present circumstances, the passing of a law or senatorial decree relaxing requirements for candidacy. The Senate opted instead to update the rights of the flamen’s wife (the flaminica) to conform to those of other Roman women in most respects. Tiberius then appointed the son of Maluginensis as flamen Dialis. Since no other candidates are mentioned, there may not have been any. The Senate apparently preferred modifying the priesthood’s selection process to changing its eligibility requirements. Tacitus’ coverage of the Dial flaminate helps illustrate the character of Tiberius’ adherence to Augustan precedent in religious matters (Shannon-Henderson 2019). Interactions between Tiberius and the Senate concerning requirements for the Dial flaminate also show a working relationship that was, at least early on, productive. REFERENCES Goldberg, Charles. 2015. “Priests and Politicians: Rex sacrorum and flamen Dialis in the Middle Republic.” Phoenix 69.3/4: 334–354. Pelling, Christopher, ed. 2011. Plutarch Caesar: Translated with an Introduction and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shannon-Henderson, Kelly. 2019. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vanggaard, Jens H. 1988. The Flamen. A Study in the History and Sociology of Roman Religion. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.

FLAVIAN DYNASTY JOHN NICOLS

University of Oregon, Eugene

28-04-2023 18:13:31

422  

F lavian dynasty

TACITUS AND THE FLAVIANS How does Tacitus represent the Flavian dynasty and its members? Closely connected to that question, given that so much of the history of the dynasty does not survive in the Histories, is whether a reasonable account of dynastic politics can be constructed from what does survive in the Agricola and his other works. Regarding the first question, Tacitus himself is candid about his connection to the Flavians. In H. 1.1, the historian writes: “As for myself, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius were known to me neither as benefactors nor as enemies. My official career owed its beginning to Vespasian, its progress to  Titus, and its further advancement to Domitian.” There is uncertainty about the timing and nature of the offices he held under these emperors with the exception of the praetorship in 88 and the priesthood among the quindecemviri sacris faciundis that he expressly mentions (A. 11.11.1; see Cornelius Tacitus). To judge by what we know of the careers of other men like him (well-connected but with no consular ancestors), he would have probably been awarded the latus clavus from Vespasian in about 75 or 76; served as a tribunus laticlavius in a legion; became betrothed to the daughter of consular Agricola no later than 78; served as questor possibly under Titus or under Domitian; and served as tribunus plebis or aedile also under Domitian (Syme 1958, 59ff; Chilver 1979, ad 1.1). His own words are the anchor for these dates, namely that he was praetor in 88 and was already on the board of quindecemviri when the secular games were celebrated. At the time that his father-in-law Agricola died (August 93), Tacitus was outside of Rome possibly  comm­ anding a legion (Syme 1958, 68). Despite the “disgrace” of his father-in-law, he appears to have been designated in 96 (?) for the consulship he served in 97 (ILS 1021) and after the death of Domitian. As Syme notes (1958, 70), Tacitus must have had influential patrons and promoters beyond Agricola by this time. In the following year he was active in the courts and may have been away from Rome in some unknown position. Pliny the Younger notes his return to Rome in 104–105 (Ep. 4.13.1). In 112–113, he served as proconsul of Asia (Syme

c06_Vol1.indd 422

1958, 72; OGI 437). The main concerns here are: How did the promotions he received from the Flavians define / influence his representation of the dynasty and its members? So too, given his access to imperial administrators of the highest rank, how well informed was he about the dynastic politics of the Flavians? Given that all three Flavian emperors advanced his career, he must have maintained a reputation for constructive and cooperative service even under Domitian. We have to accept Tacitus’ own disclaimer at the end of H. 1.1: “I have no wish to deny these preferments (offices and honors), but historians who claim to be honest and reliable must not write about anybody with partiality or hatred.” Bearing in mind that the missing books of the Annals and the Histories might contain compelling evidence to the contrary, the scholars cited here generally accept his depiction of the Flavian dynasty and of the individual emperors as balanced or neutral (Syme 1958, Ch. 10). For example, consider the case of Domitian. Despite early moderation, Syme (1958, 210–211) notes that Tacitus understood that unlimited power “allowed his (Domitian’s) true nature to be revealed.” THE FLAVIANS UNDER THE JULIO-CLAUDIANS How influential the Flavian brothers were earlier in the Julio-Claudian period may be determined with some confidence. Vespasian himself was closely connected to the court of Antonia The Younger; Antonia Caenis (PIR2 A 888), Vespasian’s long-time mistress and confidant, was freedwoman of the influential but very discrete mother of Claudius (Nicols 1978, 15–26). Vespasian and his brother, Flavius Sabinus (1), the later praefectus urbi, served on the staff of Aulus Plautius during the conquest of Britain. Plautius, too, was close closely attached the Claudian circle. Thereafter, the young Titus, Vespasian’s son, was brought to court to be trained with his contemporary Britannicus, the son of Claudius. Such indications place the two Flavians among the Claudian and Neronian elite and suggest that the parents of Sabinus and Vespasian were well connected to the court even

28-04-2023 18:13:31

F lavian dynasty  

if details fail. Sabinus, surely the smoother operator of the two, retained imperial favor throughout the reign of Nero, serving as noted above, as governor and then a praefectus urbi. Vespasian was not as discreet and fell out for favor for sleeping during one of Nero’s performances (A. 16.5.3). Vespasian’s appointment to command the Roman army in Iudaea probably indicates the continuing influence of Sabinus and also that the brothers were considered competent to command and not dangerous to the regime (as Domitius Corbulo had been; Vervaet 2004). As to Tacitus’s judgment of the domus in this period, consider this passage at H. 3.75. On Sabinus, the historian notes that after being brutally slain by the Vitellians: Thus died a man who was of by no means worthy of being so degraded. He had served the state for thirty-five years, gaining distinction in civilian and military operations. No one would question his integrity or justice but he talked too much. This was the only calumny that that might be leveled against him in the seven years during which he governed Moesia or his twelve years as prefect of the city. At the end of his life some thought that he lacked energy, many believed him to be moderate and to seek to spare his fellow citizens. In any case, all agree that up to the time that Vespasian became emperor the reputation of the house (domus) depended on Sabinus.

These words confirm what we otherwise know about the domus: In the latter years of Nero’s principate, the two brothers, one the prefect of the city and the other the commander in the Jewish War (see Bellum Iudaicum), were very prominent indeed. As Nero’s authority waned, Sabinus continued as praefectus urbi and Vespasian as governorgeneral of Iudaea. Galba removed Sabinus, but Otho reappointed him. Vitellius confirmed him in this office. Perhaps both did so, recognizing that there was nothing to be gained by antagonizing Vespasian and his army in Iudaea. Moreover, the brothers each had sons who were in or nearing adulthood. Sabinus may have had two sons, Flavius Sabinus (2) and Flavius

c06_Vol1.indd 423

423

Clemens (PIR2 F 240), who were mature enough to serve as suffect consuls in the year 69 (on this difficult question see Townend 1961, 55 ff; PIR2 F, p. 183 shows an alternative scheme). Vespasian also had two sons, Titus (F 399) and Domitian (F 259). Hence, the domus had in 68–69 all the ingredients for dynastic continuity that Augustus himself might have envied. The greater prestige belonged to Sabinus, but the brothers together formed a significant center of influence. Admittedly, the surviving Tacitean material does not discuss this issue directly but the conclusion provided here is consistent with what we know: The Flavians were important figures in the Neronian court; they were not compromised by the Pisonian Conspiracy, by connections to the so-called Stoic Opposition, or by the fall of Domitius Corbulo though they had connections to all these groups. Their reputations may have been somewhat ambiguous as Tacitus notes about Sabinus, and that of Vespasian perhaps a bit lower (fama ambigua, H. 1.50). The combination of administrative competence and political discretion insured their survival, and, most importantly, Tacitus does not find fault with either of them in any of the surviving texts. THE FLAVIAN HOUSE IN 69 During the civil wars of 69 ce, the Flavian “house” consisted of two consulars, the praefectus urbi, Sabinus and his brother the Emperor Vespasian. The daughter of Sabinus (b. 27) had married the consular Lucius Caesennius Paetus (consul 61). This couple already had a son, born in about 43, who attained the consulship in 79. The son of Sabinus and bearing the same name as the father and grandfather was born about 30, had married an Arrecina, perhaps the sister of the praetorian prefect of 38, Arrecinus Clemens. This couple also had two children, Flavius Sabinus (b. 53), consul in 82, and Flavius Clemens (b. 60), consul in 95. Vespasian himself had of course two sons, Titus (b. 39) and Domitian (b. 51), and a daughter, Domitilla (b. 45), who married Petillius Cerealis (consul 70 and 74). Including the in-law relatives Paetus and Cerealis, there were

28-04-2023 18:13:31

424  

F lavian dynasty

then a total of three or four consulars and five other young men: two younger Sabinii, Titus, Domitian, Flavius Clemens, and the younger Paetus all of whom would become consuls. The Flavian house then was blessed with an unusually high number of males of various ages and providing a credible promise of governing continuity. The use of adoptions to secure the power of the family dynasty need not be considered. Did this constellation of potential heirs play a role in determining the Flavian triumph and consolidation of power? Certainly Vespasian thought so, as Suetonius reports, and Tacitus might have shared this opinion: “All agree that he had so much faith in his own horoscope and those of his family, that even after constant conspiracies were made against him he had the assurance to say to the Senate that either his sons would succeed him or he would have no successor” (Suet. Vesp 25). Was there a consensus that the empire would be jointly ruled by the two brothers? If so, that would explain why Licinius Mucianus was not displeased by the death of the Flavian praefectus urbi in December 69. Any potential conflict for access and influence between the brother of the emperor and Mucianus as the colleague in empire was thereby removed (consortem imperii, H. 3.75; the expression appears in other sources, e.g., Plin. Pan. 8.6. Titus, too, would play this role, see below). In sum, dynastic concerns surely played a role in this year, and all the advantages were with the Flavians. Mucianus, though competent, loyal, and well-connected to other leading men, had no children and could not offer a dynastic solution. He was given honors but not any prominence that would make him a threat to the new dynasty. Finally, it is noteworthy that there seems to have been no movement to make Sabinus and the more respected member of the family, the new emperor. There was then consensus within the family about the primacy of Vespasian. In sum, the actions of the Flavians and their colleagues during this year point to consensus within the family, to careful planning, and to flexibility in response to changing circumstances.

c06_Vol1.indd 424

THE FLAVIANS DURING THE PRINCIPATE OF VESPASIAN Whatever ambitions Mucianus may have had for a share in the rule of the Roman Empire, they were not realized. He was indeed honored with a third and suffect consulship in 72 but held no other significant offices and probably died, so Syme believes, before 78 (Syme 1980, 15). Given the age and experience of Titus, there was really no reason for Vespasian to turn to Mucianus, and indeed, the line of succession was clear. If Titus did not marry and have children, the empire would pass on his death to Domitian. That does not mean there were no problems. Titus did not marry again during the principate of his father; whether he would have done so cannot be answered. Essentially, that meant that Domitian, even if he was not given the administrative responsibilities of his older brother, was manifestly the next in line. The distribution of honors to Titus, Domitian, and Mucianus under Vespasian confirmed the presumed pattern of dynastic succession. Titus was in in his thirties, and his primacy in the line of succession was marked by a series of ordinary consulships with this father and as colleague in the censorship. However, he was not co-emperor. Domitian, not even twenty years old in 69, received a series of suffect consulships and notably the title princeps iuventutis (PIR2 F 259 for the evidence). Moreover, the pattern of marriages suggests a conscious dynastic program. Domitian took as his wife Domitia Longina, the younger daughter of the very competent Neronian general, Domitius Corbulo. Many of the Flavians adherents in 69 had connections to Corbulo, so the marriage may have helped to reconcile and / or secure the support of such men to the new regime (Fraser 2015; Nicols 1978, 118–124; Vervaet 2004). Moreover, even though no children came from this connection, there were plenty of younger Flavians, especially the descendants of the praefectus urbi, who could be trained and promoted to maintain dynastic control. Admittedly, the deeper one proceeds into the stemma, the greater the number of uncertainties. It is not just that there are so many Flavii Sabinii, but there are also a good number of Flaviae Domatillae.

28-04-2023 18:13:31

F lavian dynasty  

425

succession proceeded, as noted above, Vespasian to Titus, Titus to Domitian (see Figure F.1). As Domitian had no children with Domitia Longina, Domitian had to look to the sons of his cousin Sabinus, some of whom became too dangerous: Flavius Sabinus (PIR2 F 355) and his brother Flavius Clemens (PIR2 F 240), who had been on the Capitoline in December 69 (H. 3.69), reached the consulship in 82 and 95, respectively. In 81, and when Titus died, Sabinus was the senior Flavian after the emperor. Domitian followed precedent and shared an ordinary consulship with the heir apparent, just

Moreover, the role of some of the Arrecini and of the Iulii remains unclear in the details. THE FLAVIAN DYNASTY UNDER TITUS AND DOMITIAN Again, the critical books of the histories do not survive for this period. Tacitus’ Agricola covers much of the period but from a distinctive and partisan perspective and does not provide much guidance for understanding how Tacitus judged individuals and events. In brief: the line of

SOME FLAVIAN CONNECTIONS SUGGESTED STEMMATA T. Flavious Petro m. Tertulla

T. Flavius Sabinus I m. Vespasia Polla

T . Flavius Vespasianus b. 9, cos. 5 I m. Flavia Domitilla I

T . Flavius Sabinus 2 b . 3, cos . 45

Flavia Sabina b . 27 m . L . Caesennius Paetus b. 18, cos. 6 I

T . Flavius Vespasianus b. 39, cos. 70, etc. m . Arrecina Tertulla m . Marcia Furnilla

T . Flavius Sabinus 3 b. 30, cos. 69, 72 m. Arrecina b. 35

L . Junius T . Flavius Caesennuis Paetus Sabinus 4 b. 43, cos. 79 b. 53, cos. 82 m. Julia

T . Flavius Clemens b. 60, cos. 95 m . Domitilla 3

T . Flavius Domitianus b. 81

Julia b. 63 m. Sabinus 4

Flavia Domitilla 2 b. 45 m. Q. Petillius Cerealis b. 30, cos. 70, 74 Flavia Domitilla 3 b. 64 m. Clemens

T . Flavius Vespasianus b. 82

M .Arrecinus m. Tertulla

Ti. Fulius

M .Arrecinus Clemens = Julia b. 2, pf. pr. 40

M .Arrecinus Clemens b. 33, pf. pr. 70 cos. 73, 85 m. Cornelia Ocellina

T . Flavius Domitianus b . 5I m. Domitia Longina b. 53

Arrecina b. 35 m. Sabinus 3

Ti. Julius Lupus Trib. praet. 4I Ti. Julius Lupus pf. Aeg. 70

Arrecinus Tertulla b. 40 m. Titus

Ti. Fulius Lupus Names and dates in italics are conjectural.

P. Julius Lupus cos. 98 m. Arria Fadilla

Figure F.1  “Some Flavian Connections, Suggested Stemmata,” Townend, G. 1961. “Some Flavian Connections.” Journal of Roman Studies 51: 62.

c06_Vol1.indd 425

28-04-2023 18:13:31

426  

F lavian dynasty

as Vespasian had with Titus, and Titus with Domitian. Sabinus did not survive Domitian; his indiscretions appeared to challenge the primacy of Domitian (Jones 1992, 45–47). What Tacitus thought of their demise can only be guessed at, but he may have seen parallels in the fates of Germanicus, of Drusus the Younger (son of Tiberius), or Britannicus under the JulioClaudians. Clemens (PIR2 F 240) had married Flavia Domitilla (PIR2 F 418), the granddaughter of Vespasian and they had two children, Titus Flavius Domitianus (PIR2 F 397), born about 81, and Titus Flavius Vespasianus (PIR2 F 257), born about 82; both emerge late in the reign as the heirs apparent (Suet. Dom. 15.1) after the demise of their elders (PIR2 F 355 and F 240). They were the descendants of Sabinus, the praefectus urbi, and of Vespasian. Once the children were given new cognomina, Domitianus and Vespasianus, they were entrusted to Quintilian to provide an education appropriate for heirs apparent (PIR2 F 257 and 397; see Jones 1992, 44–49 for a succinct summary). On their education, Quintilian writes: “But now Domitianus Augustus has entrusted me with the education of his sister’s grandsons, and I should be undeserving of the honor conferred upon me by such divine appreciation, if I were not to regard this distinction as the standard by which the greatness of my undertaking must be judged” (Quint. Inst., 4, pref. 2). How Tacitus viewed the fates of these four Flavians cannot be recovered but was surely an element in the narrative of the latter years of Domitian’s reign. Indeed, Tacitus’ words, “Agricola did not live to see the Senate house besieged by arms, and, in one act of butchery, the killing of so many consulars and the exile and flight of so many noble women” (Ag. 45) may be construed as the historian’s judgment on last of the Flavians. THE CULT OF THE FLAVIAN FAMILY Titus began a temple for Divus Vespasianus soon after the death of his father, but it was not completed until January of 87. Originally, the temple was to Vespasian only, but Titus’ name was later added. Epigraphical evidence indicates that there were flamines of Divus Vespasianus

c06_Vol1.indd 426

throughout the Roman municipalities of the western empire. Evidence also points to a Diva Domitilla (Vespasian’s wife? For evidence, see Scott 1975, Chapters 3 and 5). What Tacitus might have said about deification or about the dedication of the temple or about the cult cannot be known, but the Flavians did not act in a manner different from that adopted by Augustus and the Julio-Claudians. REFERENCES Chilver, G. E. F. 1979. A Historical Commentary on Tacitus’ Histories, I and II. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fraser, T. E. 2015. “Domitia Longina: An Underestimated Augusta.” Ancient Society 45: 205–266. Jones, Brian. 1992. The Emperor Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. Nicols, J. 1978. Vespasian and the partes Flavianae. Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag. Scott, Kenneth. 1975. The Imperial Cult under the Flavians. New York: Kohlhammer. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, R. 1980. Some Arval Brethren. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Townend, G. 1961. “Some Flavian Connections.” Journal of Roman Studies 51: 54–62. Vervaet, F. 2004. “Domitius Corbulo and the Flavian Dynasty.” Historia 52: 436–464. FURTHER READING Briessmann, A. 1955. Tacitus und das Flavische Geschichtsbild. Wiesbaden: Steiner = Hermes Einzelschrift, 10. Chilver, G. E. F., and K. Wellesley. 1985. A Historical Commentary on Tacitus Histories IV and V. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Griffin, M. 2000. “The Flavians.” In Cambridge Ancient History. 2nd ed., Vol. 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heubner, H. 1963. P. Cornelius Tacitus: Die Historien. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Jones, Brian. 1994. The Emperor Titus. New York and Sydney: Croom Helm. Levick, Barbara. 1999. Vespasian. London and New York: Routledge. Wellesley, K. 1972. Cornelius Tacitus, The Histories: Book III. Sidney: University of Sydney Press.

28-04-2023 18:13:31

F lavius S abinus , T itus ( 1 )  

Zissos, A., ed. 2016. A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome. Chichester: WileyBlackwell. Especially Part II, Dynasty. See the chapters by F. J. Vervaet, “The Remarkable Rise of the Flavians” 43–59; J. Nicols, “The Emperor Vespasian” 60–75; C. L. Murison, “The Emperor Titus” 76–91; A. Galimberti, “The Emperor Domitian” 92–108.

FLAVIUS NEPOS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS

FLAVIUS SABINUS, TITUS (1) B. M. LEVICK

St. Hilda’s College, Oxford

Titus Flavius Sabinus (1) (before 9 ce–69 ce) was the elder brother of the Emperor Vespasian and the more distinguished and better off of the two until Nero selected Vespasian to crush the revolt in Iudaea in 66 ce. He bore his father’s cognomen (for the brothers’ antecedents see Vespasian). They had a maternal uncle who reached the praetorship and Sabinus assumed the broad stripe on the tunic (latus clavus) showing his intention to stand for senatorial office without demur, unlike his brother (Suet. Vesp. 2). At his death Tacitus H. 3.75.1 gives him thirty-five years in public life, entering office then (as quaestor?) in 34 ce. Much of his career is controverted because of difficulties with the texts. Cass. Dio 60.20.3 on the British expedition of 43 describes him as a subordinate (hypostrategounta), apparently to Vespasian, when in fact they were both in command of legions, and the text, slightly emended, shows both of them under the command of Claudius’ supreme general Aulus Plautius. After that, he went on to a consulship in the second half of 47 (Birley 2005, 231), four years before Vespasian. The next post that H. 3.75.1 assigns Sabinus is a governorship of Moesia for seven years, during the years 53–60 ce. In the second surviving line of ILS 984, an inscription set up by the Senate in Sabinus’ honor after his death, the word Gallici occurs, which should refer to a census in Gaul,

c06_Vol1.indd 427

427

but none can be connected with Sabinus (see Stein in PIR2 F 352). Finally comes the prestigious Prefecture of the City. Here Tacitus seems to count a tenure of twelve years. That would be from 57 to Sabinus’ death in 69, but other are attested as holding the office during the period and dying in it. Either the text is faulty (see the discussion of Griffin 1976, 456–457), or there were two separate periods of office, including one from 56, when Lucius Volusius Saturninus died holding the post (A. 13.30.2), and 60; it is generally supposed that he was appointed in 61 ce on the murder in office of Pedanius Secundus (A. 14.42). Rather than a copyist, Tacitus has erred. The census that Sabinus had been intended to carry out in Gaul had to be left to others (A. 14.46). Sabinus was removed from office by Galba in 68 and restored by Otho on Galba’s death, 15 January 69 (Plut. Otho 8; H. 1.46). Sabinus’ later adherence to Vitellius did not prevent him being accused of treachery toward the new emperor (H. 2.99; 3.59) and leading men urged him to go over to his brother’s side (H. 3.64). Vitellius himself entered into negotiations with him on terms of surrender (Suet. Vit. 15; Cass. Dio 65.17.1), but he was forced to the Capitol with Domitian, cut to death, and beheaded; his body was thrown onto the Gemonian stairs (H. 3.71– 74). When the Flavians were victorious Sabinus was given the funeral of a man of censorial rank, on a bill promoted in the Senate by Domitian in 70 (H. 4.47). Tacitus’ obituary gives Sabinus a clean bill of health as an administrator at home and abroad, to be faulted by his loquaciousness (H. 3.75, with 2.65 and 3.65 for his soft-heartedness and indecision). The City Prefect still outstripped Vespasian in wealth and seniority when Vespasian came back from his proconsulship of Africa (?64 ce). He had to mortgage all his property to his brother, and they were allegedly on bad terms because of it. Sabinus’ town house was the scene of the preliminary acts of his efforts to end the struggle for Rome in 69 (H. 3.69); it was full of leading senators and knights and defended by soldiers of the urban cohorts and watch. But Sabinus was forced to retire to the Capitol. This residence, on the Quirinal, in which Domitian had been born, was

28-04-2023 18:13:31

428  

F lavius S abinus , T itus ( 2 )

later converted by the emperor into the Temple of the Flavian Gens (Suet. Dom. 1.1, with DarwallSmith 1996, 159–165). Sabinus had children (for the stemma see Townend 1961, 62; Figure F.1): a son, suffect consul in 69 and suffect again in 72; a homonymous grandson (PIR2 F 355), consul in 82 ce and his brother Titus Flavius Clemens (PIR2 F 240), consul 95, by an Arrrecina; and a daughter Flavia Sabina (PIR2 F 440), wife of Lucius Caesennius Paetus, consul in 61 (ILS 995). Paetus and Sabina’s son Lucius Iunius Caesennius Paetus was consul in 79. Sabinus and Clemens were both put to death by Domitian: a herald announced Sabinus’ election not as consul but as imperator (Suet. Dom. 10.4); surely not in 82, or he would not have served the term in that year. Clemens’ two young sons Domitianus and Vespasianus were taken by Domitian for his future heirs, their original names changed as a sign of their future greatness (Suet. Dom. 15.1). see also: Bellum Iudaicum; Britannia; civil wars of 69 ce REFERENCES Birley, Anthony R. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Darwall-Smith, Robin H. 1996. Emperors and Architecture. A Study of Flavian Rome. Brussels: Collection Latomus 231. Griffin, Miriam T. 1976. Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Townend, G. B. 1961. “Some Flavian Connections.” Journal of Roman Studies 51: 54–61. FURTHER READING Homo, Léon. 1949. Vespasien, l’empereur du bon sens (69–79 ap. J.-C.). Paris: Presses Universitaires. Jones, Brian W., and R. D. Milns. 2002. Suetonius and the Flavian Emperors. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Levick, Barbara. 1999. Vespasian. London and New York: Routledge. Nicols, John. 1978. Vespasian and the Partes Flavianae. Wiesbaden: Historia Einzelschriften 28. Stevenson, Tom, ed. 2010. “Titus Flavius Vespasianus 9–79 CE.” Acta Classica 53: 95–206.

c06_Vol1.indd 428

FLAVIUS SABINUS, TITUS (2) B. M. LEVICK

St. Hilda’s College, Oxford

Titus Flavius Sabinus (2) (c. 30 ce–?) was the son of Vespasian’s elder brother (Titus Flavius Sabinus [1]) and was designated by Nero or Galba for a suffect consulship of April–June 69 ce and kept in office by Otho (H. 1.77). He was put in charge of gladiators and led them without success, surrendering to the Vitellians after the battle of Bedriacum (H. 2.51). Sabinus did not share his father’s fate in 69 but went on to hold a second suffect consulship in 72, preceded, as Townend argued (1961, 60–61), by a command in the crucial province of Pannonia. His date of birth is inferred from the year of his first consulship; that of his death depends on that of the last office he is thought to have held. Sabinus married a woman called Arrecina, daughter of Arrecinus Clemens, Prefect of the Praetorian Guard in 40 ce, who had taken part in the conspiracy against Caligula. Sabinus became the father of another Titus Flavius Sabinus, the consul of 82 ce and so father-in-law of the Emperor Titus’ daughter Julia (Figure F.1). Both the consul of 82, fatally married to Julia, and his brother Clemens were executed by Domitian. But the son of Clemens the Praetorian Prefect, another Marcus Arrecinus Clemens (PIR2 A 1072), having held the same post as his father under Licinius Mucianus’ regime in 70, reached the suffect consulship for the first time in 73, the year after his brother-in-law Sabinus (H. 4.68). Titus Flavius Sabinus was Curator of Public Works (curator operorum publicorum) under Titus (CIL VI 814), but E. Groag (PIR2 F 353), who held the earlier view that the consul of 82 (PIR2 F 355) was Vespasian’s nephew, doubted that this office was held by a connection of Vespasian. see also: civil wars of 69 ce REFERENCE Townend, Gavin B. 1961. “Some Flavian Connections.” Journal of Roman Studies 51: 54–61.

28-04-2023 18:13:31

F lavus ( 1 )  

FURTHER READING Gilmartin Wallace, Kristine. 1987. “Flavii Sabini in Tacitus.” Historia 36: 343–358. Syme, Ronald. 1983. “Domitian: The Last Years.” Chiron 13: 121–146.

FLAVIUS SCAEVINUS ARNOLDUS VAN ROESSEL

University of Toronto

Flavius Scaevinus (d. 65 ce) was a senator and one of the leaders of the Pisonian Conspiracy alongside Afranius Quintianus (A. 15.49.4). His freedman, Milichus, disclosed the plot to Nero, and, following an inquiry, Scaevinus shortly revealed further details and was executed (A. 15.56.3, 70.2). He was friends with Petronius, on which grounds Petronius was impugned in the conspiracy (A. 16.18.3). He was possibly from Ferentinum or Histonium (Vasto) on the Adriatic coast where Scaevinus’ family may have originated (Wiseman 1967, 264–265). Scaevinus is known only from Tacitus for his foremost role in the Pisonian conspiracy to overthrow Nero in 65 ce. When the conspirators planned to attack Nero at the Circus during a game honoring Circe, Scaevinus demanded to be the first to strike and had retrieved a dagger from the temple of Fortune or Salus from his hometown specifically for the deed (A. 15.53.1–2). The day before the ambush, Scaevinus visited Antonius Natalis and they discussed the plot. Scaevinus then had his will sealed and held a lavish dinner where he freed numerous slaves. He also ordered his freedman, Milichus, to sharpen the dagger and to prepare bandages and salves. Milichus became suspicious, and at the instigation of his wife, approached Nero with his suspicions and showed the dagger (A. 15.54.1–55.1). Soldiers brought Scaevinus for questioning. At first, Scaevinus defended himself against Milichus’ circumstantial claims by claiming it was his typical conduct, but Nero then summoned Natalis to separately inquire about their earlier discussion. The two men were not able to provide identical testimony, and they were imprisoned and

c06_Vol1.indd 429

429

tortured for further information. Natalis and Scaevinus then divulged names of additional conspirators, including Afrianius Quintianus, Lucan, and Claudius Senecio (A. 15.55.2–56.4) Nero’s inquisition of the conspiracy continued, and while Scaevinus was being interrogated by Faenius Rufus, he openly identified Rufus as an accomplice. Rufus was then also imprisoned (A. 15.66.1–2). Ofonius Tigellinus used Scaevinus’ friendship with Petronius to accuse the latter of participating in the conspiracy (A. 16.18.3). Scaevinus himself was shortly sentenced to death (15.70.2), while his wife, Caedicia, was banished from Italy (A. 15.71.5). After the conspiracy had been fully addressed, Nero erected a temple of Salus where Scaevinus had retrieved the dagger (A. 15.74.1). Tacitus marks Scaevinus with an irresolute temperament (Rudich 1992, 97). He is characterized for a luxurious mind and lethargy that contrast with his enthusiasm in performing the plot (A. 15.49.3). Portrayed as helpless, he betrays his fellow conspirators in contrast to the silently resolute Epicharis, Subrius Flavus, and Sulpicius Asper (Pagán 2004, 80). Despite this, he displayed courage at his execution (A. 15.70.2). see also: Pisonian Conspiracy, victims Reference works: PIR2 F 357 REFERENCES Pagán, V. E. 2004. Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History. Austin: University of Texas. Rudich, V. 1992. Political Dissidence under Nero. London and New York: Routledge. Wiseman, T. P. 1967. “Tacitus, Ann. xv.53.2.” Classical Review 17.3: 264–265.

FLAVUS (1) ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

Flavus (1), whose name means “Blondie,” was a Cherusci noble and (presumably younger) brother of Arminius. Unlike his more (in)famous brother,

28-04-2023 18:13:31

430  

F onteius Agrippa

Flavus remained loyal to Rome during the Varian disaster (see Teutoburg Forest). Tacitus’ Annals is the only ancient source that mentions Flavus, whose Germanic birth name is unknown. Son of Segimerus, son-in-law of the Chatti chieftain Actumerus, and father of Italicus (1), Flavus is one of the many Germani (cf. Maroboduus and Adgandestrius) and one of the three relatives of Arminius (cf. Segestes and Inguiomerus) that Tacitus pits against Arminius in the RomanoGermanic conflicts of Annals 1–2. Flavus makes his appearance at A. 2.9–10 during Germanicus’ campaign of 16 ce. With the Roman and Germanic armies positioned on opposite sides of the Weser (Visurgis), Arminius goes to the riverbank and asks for permission to speak with his brother, who is serving in the Roman army. Flavus is noted for his loyalty toward Rome and his loss of an eye while serving under Tiberius, a facial disfigurement shared with Roman heroes such as Horatius Cocles (Dion. Hal. AR. 5.23) and Lucius Caecilius Metellus (Plin. HN 7.141), as well as with more questionable characters such as Sertorius (Sall. Hist. 1.88M) and Iulius Civilis (H. 4.13.2). The fraternal conversation, which quickly turns into a verbal confrontation with Flavus forced to defend his life choice against his brother’s accusations of desertion and treachery, is modeled on similar duel episodes in Livy (Sailor 2019): Horatius Cocles (2.10), Manlius Torquatus (7.9.6–7.10), Valerius Corvus (7.26.1–10), the younger Manlius (8.7– 8.2), and Mucius Scaevola (2.12–13.1). The discussion, which ends when the Roman legate Lucius Stertinius intervenes to restrain Flavus in order to avoid a physical confrontation, reveals the ideological differences between a resistance fighter and a collaborator: Arminius speaks of freedom versus slavery and duty versus treachery, Flavus of rewards, the greatness of Rome, and the power and clemency of the emperor. However, it also stresses the similarities between the two brothers: family, fatherland, gods, past (presumably joint) service in the Roman army, promptness to anger, and knowledge of both Germanic and Latin languages. The Vergilian expression arma poscens is used to describe both Flavus (2.10.2) and Arminius (1.59.1). After the confrontation, nothing is heard of Flavus until his Rome-grown son Italicus appears

c06_Vol1.indd 430

on the political stage at A. 11.16–17. Italicus is dispatched by Claudius to establish himself as king of the Cherusci, and Flavus is mentioned twice by name and once as “father”: Italicus’ enemies claim that his paternal parentage makes him unsuited for kingship, while Italicus defends his father’s life choice. Flavus’ afterlife is mostly consigned to Germany. His encounter with Arminius at the Weser is the motif of one of Peter Janssen’s 1871–1874 murals in the Krefeld Town Hall, and he appears also in Heiner Müller’s 1971 play “Germania Tod in Berlin” (including “Die Brüder 1” and “Die Brüder 2”). In the Anglophone world, he makes an appearance in Robert Graves’ 1934 book I, Claudius. REFERENCES Sailor, Dylan. 2019. “Arminius and Flavus across the Weser.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 149: 77–126. DOI: 10.1353/ apa.2019.0003. FURTHER READING Suerbaum, Werner. 2018. “Germanischer Bruderstreit an der Weser: Arminius contra Flavus bei Tacitus (ann. 2,9–10) und bei Robert Ranke-Graves.” Gymnasium 125: 41–55. Timpe, Dieter. 1970. Arminius Studien. Heidelberg: Winter Verlag. Tylawsky, Elizabeth. 2002. “What’s in a Name, a Face, and a Place? Significant Juxtaposition in Tacitus’ Annales.” Historia 51: 254–258. https://www.jstor. org/stable/4436654.

FLAVUS (2), see ASIATICUS (2)

FONTEIUS AGRIPPA STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Fonteius Agrippa (fl. reign of Tiberius) was a delator who flourished under Tiberius and was involved in the case of Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus. Fonteius Agrippa is only known from the case of Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus in 16 ce (A.

28-04-2023 18:13:31

F onteius Agrippa , G aius  

2.30.1, 2.32.1). What role he took in the accusation Tacitus does not say. He received a share of Libo’s goods and the praetorship extra ordinem. He is heard from for the second and last time in 19 ce, competing with Domitius Pollio (also recorded as Comicius Pollio) to offer his daughter as a Vestal Virgin to replace one named Occia who was recently deceased (A. 2.86). Pollio’s daughter was preferred over Agrippa’s since Agrippa was recently divorced. Nonetheless, Tiberius bestowed the generous sum of one million sesterces upon Fonteius’ daughter for her dowry. Whether Fonteius advanced further in the cursus honorum is unknown, although his son, Gaius Fonteius Agrippa, went on to become suffect consul in 58 ce and attained the peak of his career in 68–69 when he was proconsul of Asia and in the next year threw in his lot with Vespasian (H. 3.46.3). Nothing further is known of Fonteius beyond his involvement in the case against Libo and his daughter’s rejection as a Vestal, though that he could put forward his daughter and be given a generous consolation prize would indicate a man of high status, as does his son’s subsequent rise to the consulship. see also: delators Reference works: PIR2 F 465; RE 62.2846 = Fonteius 15 (Kappelmacher) FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 233.

431

His father Fonteius Agrippa was one of the four accusers of Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus in 16 ce (A. 2.30.1). His sister, probably called Fonteia, was set to be chosen as a Vestal Virgin in 19 ce. However, since their father had recently divorced, she did not win the honor, instead receiving a million sestertii as a consolation from the emperor Tiberius (A. 2.86.1). As the successor of Nero’s third consulship, Fonteius had become suffect consul in June 58 ce and held the office together with the ordinary consul Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (2) (Mommsen 1877, 129). Between 66 and 68 ce, he was curator aquarum, in which position he was responsible for the water supply in Rome (Frontin. Aq. 102. 12–13). After that, he succeeded Marcus Aponius Saturnius as proconsular governor of Asia (CIL 3 6083). Because of his affiliation with Vespasian, he was recalled one year later by the new emperor and transferred to take charge of the defense of Moesia. As legatus Augusti pro praetore (governor of an imperial province), he was commissioned to pacify the Sarmatians, who had crossed the Danube (Danuvius). As support he was given additional troops from the army of Vitellius (H. 3.46.3). However, only a few months later, in January 70 ce, he was defeated and killed by the Sarmatians (Joseph. BJ 7.91). Only his successor Rubrius Gallus could restore peace in Moesia in the late spring (Morgan 2006, 223). Reference works: PIR2 F 466; CIL 3 6083 REFERENCES

FONTEIUS AGRIPPA, GAIUS FRIDERIKE SENKBEIL

Berlin

Gaius Fonteius Agrippa (?–January 70 ce) was a Roman senator who was suffect consul (58 ce) and curator aquarum (66–68 ce) before attaining the position of proconsular governor in Asia and Moesia (69–70 ce), where he was killed in battle by the Sarmatians in 70 ce.

c06_Vol1.indd 431

Mommsen, Theodor. 1877. “Die pompeianischen Quittungstafeln des L. Caecilius Jucundus.” Hermes 12: 88–141. Morgan, Gwyn. 2006. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford and New York. FURTHER READING Eck, Werner. 1998. “C. F. Agrippa.” DNP 4: 588. Levick, Barbara. 2005. Vespasian. London: Routledge Press. Wellesley, Kenneth. 2002. Year of the Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 18:13:31

432  

F onteius C apito

FONTEIUS CAPITO SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Fonteius Capito was consular legate of Lower Germany (Germania) in 68 ce and arrested the Batavian chiefs Claudius Paulus (otherwise unknown), whom he executed (on a false charge of rebellion), and Iulius Civilis, whom he sent in chains to Nero (H. 4.13.1). The text of the H. is, however, uncertain, and has been variously emended. Paulus and Civilis may be brothers (Heubner ad loc.; cf. 4.32.2). Capito’s family came from Tusculum: he is a descendant of the consul of 12 ce (Gaius Fonteius Capito, see Vibius Serenus the Younger). A man of the same name is also recorded as consul (ordinarius) in 67 ce: he may be the same person as the governor of 68. A Fonteius Capito is recorded as consul (ordinarius) also in 59. It is unlikely that he is the same person as the consul of 67, for Nero did not normally confer second consulships other than his own. He may be his brother (Eck 1985, 130). Capito was murdered soon after Galba was made emperor, in 68 ce (H. 1.7.1). The men responsible for Capito’s death were two legionary legates, Cornelius Aquinus and Fabius Valens, who acted, Tacitus says, antequam iuberentur, “before they could be ordered” (cf. also Plut. Galb. 15.2; Suet. Galb. 11; Cass. Dio 64.2.3). The former, who is mentioned only here, was perhaps the legate of legion XVI at Novaesium (Syme 1982, 468). At H. 1.58.1–2, in his account of Vitellius’ proclamation in Upper Germany (69 ce), Tacitus adds that the accusations against Capito had been plotted by Iulius Burdo, the prefect of the German fleet. Despite the soldiers’ demands for his execution, Burdo was spared by Vitellius, and simply put in custody. Instead, Vitellius offered as a scapegoat the centurion Crispinus, who is revealed to have been the man who had actually killed Capito. Subsequently, after the Vitellians’ victory, Burdo was released. He may be the same man as Lucius Iulius Burdo, a municipal magistrate (quattuorvir) in Gallia Narbonensis (CIL 12.1050). Capito’s death was, according to Tacitus, caused by his lack of allegiance to Galba: he was suspected of starting an insurrection in Germany. But Tacitus also adds, in his usual fashion, a second alternative: that Capito, although he was a man of avarice and

c06_Vol1.indd 432

wantonness (cf. H. 1.52.1), was in fact believed to have maintained his allegiance, and that he had been killed because Aquinus and Valens could not persuade him to declare war on Galba (in his later obituary of Fabius Valens, however, Tacitus makes Valens alone responsible for Capito’s death: H. 3.62.2; cf. H. 1.52.3). Galba, Tacitus continues, because of his “weakness of character” (mobilitate ingenii), had failed to inquire further (H. 1.7.2). The death of Capito was unpopular and contributed to the state of uncertainty that prevailed in Germany, especially after the refusal of Verginius Rufus to accept the throne, and his subsequent recall from Galba (1.8.2). see also: Batavian Revolt; civil wars of 69 ce Reference works: Fonteius: PIR2 F 467–468, 470–471; BNP 5.491–2 ‘Fonteius’; RE 6.2846–7 = ‘Fonteius’ 18 (Kappelmacher). Paulus: PIR2 P 186; RE 10.690 = ‘Iulius’ 380 (Stein) (cf. 10.550–1). Cornelius: PIR2 C 1325; RE 4.1259 = ‘Cornelius’ 62 (Groag); Iulius: PIR2 I 213; RE 10.181 = ‘Iulius’ 125 (Stein); CIL 12.1050. Crispinus: PIR2 C 1585; RE 4.1720 = ‘Crispinus’ 4 (Stein) REFERENCES Eck, Werner. 1985. Die Statthalter der germanischen Provinzen vom 1. – 3. Jahrhundert. Köln: RheinlandVerlag. 129–131. Heubner, Heinz. 1976. P. Cornelius Tacitus. Die Historien. Band IV. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universitätsverlag. Syme, Ronald. 1982. “Partisans of Galba.” Historia 31: 460–483 [= RP 4.115–139].

FONTEIUS CAPITO, Gaius, see VIBIUS SERENUS THE YOUNGER

FOOD MARIA CRISTINA PIMENTEL

Universidade de Lisboa

In his work, Tacitus normally does not explicitly refer to food, or when it is eaten, except when such a mention serves literary or ideological purposes. It does not seem anodyne even to indicate the eating habits of the Germanic peoples (G. 23), since their frugality is presented as a counterpoint to the

28-04-2023 18:13:31

food  

objectionable excesses of the Romans. Certain observations, albeit of a historical nature, suggest the same interpretation; for example, mentioning the cereal supply when stressing the instability and discontent conducive to disturbances or insurrection that food shortages could cause (A. 6.13); or criticism of government policies regarding the decision to abandon cereal cultivation in Italia to then become dependent on remittances from Egypt and North Africa (A. 12.43). Knowing the extent to which food supply control could become an instrument of sedition (H. 3.48; A. 2.59), Tacitus nevertheless points to the right decisions of the principes leading to social peace when threatened by food shortages. For example, the actions of Tiberius in the year 19 setting the price of cereals to avoid speculation (A. 2.87), or the exceptional measures to alleviate the effects of a calamity, as Nero did by lowering the price of wheat after the Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.39). Tacitus often suggests that behind the distribution of food was usually an intention of propaganda or manipulation of popular opinion with favors and liberalities (A. 12.41; 15.18). In the military context, Tacitus stresses the importance of providing for the troops and taking steps to ensure that they have the necessary food supplies. He also describes the plundering of the populations and fields by the army, even when the military was carrying food and animals (A. 13.55; 15.12). The importance of food is also seen in the fact that a besieged city can only withstand the siege if it is well supplied (A. 11.8; 15.4; 16). The scarcity of supplies is one of the main reasons for pushing back a military campaign (A. 12.50) or putting it at risk. However, the abundance of food and the possibility of consumption without restraints can lead to indiscipline (H. 2.21; 76): an army that eats and drinks too much is easy to defeat (A. 4.48). The reference to food can also be a resource to underline the pitiful details of a situation of extraordinary adversity, such as when, following a severe setback in the fight against the Germanic peoples, Tacitus focuses on the dispirited soldiers who, at night, share food soaked in mud and blood (A. 1.65). The degradation that could be inflicted upon the soldiers in adverse situations can be reflected by the food they had to eat to survive: after a shipwreck, from the legions of Germanicus, only those who ate the flesh of the horses that came ashore with them survived (A. 2.24).

c06_Vol1.indd 433

433

The sharing of food becomes like a bond reinforcing the woe of particular acts, specifically when these occur during banquets or even simple meals, because they infringe the sacra mensae. This was the case with the poisoning of Britannicus (A. 13.17) during a banquet presided by Nero. Similarly, when several conspirators planned to kill Nero at Gaius Calpurnius Piso’s villa, Piso felt disgusted at the thought of tarnishing the sacredness of the table and the gods of hospitality with bloodshed (A. 15.52). Such sacredness is gravely infringed whenever poison is administered with food or drink (A. 13.1: uenenum inter epulas). In the Annals, there are several deaths by poisoning: Germanicus, whom Tacitus suggests to have been poisoned; Drusus the Younger, son of Tiberius, poisoned due to Sejanus’ machinations; Claudius, by eating a mushroom in which poison had been injected; Marcus Iunius Silanus (2), proconsul of Asia, during a feast; Doryphorus and Pallas, freedmen of Claudius; perhaps Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, sons of Agrippa and grandsons of Augustus. Poisoning through food was so common that Tacitus describes the fear and distrust that led to precautions: Agrippina the Younger took antidotes against possible poisons (A. 14.3), and Seneca, who always ate very little, took on special frugality after removing himself from the court, for fear of being poisoned (A. 15.45). Any violence perpetrated during a meal gave prominence to the tragedy of the victims of imperial tyranny. Taken by surprise at a moment meant to be a celebration of life, or its mere maintenance by the consumption of food, for these victims, cruelty and arrogance become sacrilege: death brutally interrupts what is most natural in everyday life. Cornelius Sulla Felix (consul 52) is summarily executed when preparing for a meal (A. 14.57): Tacitus points to the moral transgression of a murder committed against someone amidst a daily ritual, perpetrating what almost constitutes a religious interdict. From this perspective, it does not seem strange to interpret as an adverse omen the fact that the food Nero ate at one time was struck by lightning as he was dining at his villa at Sublaqueum (A. 14.22). When death is expected or accepted, a last meal can evoke the greatness of those who are capable of facing death in a dignified manner. They

28-04-2023 18:13:32

434  

fortuna

integrate it, as far as possible, into the normality of life in a gesture of final farewell. Decimus Valerius Asiaticus (1), whose death was plotted by Messalina, exemplified this serenity of stoic contours: advised to choose a mild death by depriving himself of food, he refused and, before cutting his veins, indulged in his usual daily routine and a cheerfully eaten meal (A. 11.3). Unlike Asiaticus, however, others chose mors uoluntaria by starvation, such as Cremutius Cordus (A. 4.35) or Cocceius Nerva, grandfather of the future emperor (A. 6.26). Nevertheless, forced deprivation of food can be a particularly cruel way of eliminating enemies or those who have fallen in disgrace. Agrippina the Elder died from starvation, even though it is not certain whether voluntary or imposed (A. 6.25). And it was the deprivation of food, in the last nine days of long captivity, that drove Drusus Caesar, the son of Agrippina and Germanicus, to the unbearable desperation of eating the stuffing of his straw mattress (A. 6.23). see also: suicide FURTHER READING Galtier, Fabrice. 2011. L’image tragique de l’Histoire chez Tacite. Étude des schèmes tragiques dans les Histoires et les Annales. Bruxelles: Latomus. Garnsey, Peter. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: University Press. Malissard, Alain. 1991. “Le décor dans les Histoires et les Annales. Du stéréotype à l’intention signifiante.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II. 33.4: 2832–2877. Pimentel, Maria Cristina. 2016. “Ex mensa exitium: morte e ignomínia nos alimentos ou na privação deles.” In Patrimónios Alimentares de Aquém e Além-Mar, edited by Joaquim Pinheiro and Carmen Soares, 543–555. Coimbra: IUC-Annablume.

FORTUNA TREVOR S. LUKE

Florida State University

Beginning with Herodotus (1.32, 126; 9.91), Greek and, later, Roman historians often turned

c06_Vol1.indd 434

to tyche and fortuna, respectively, in their many nuances of meaning in order to explain the cause of past events. The Hellenistic historian Polybius notably employed the concept of tyche to explain the rise of Rome in his new universal history of a world united by the dominance of Rome (Walbank 1990, 67–68). Still, vexing to modern interpreters is the absence of a discernibly consistent principle of tyche in Polybius’ work (Walbank 1990, 60–65). Polybian tyche takes a variety of forms, including blind chance, retributive justice, and divine providence. At the same time, the moral and tragic aspects of tyche enliven Polybian historiography by the author’s design (Sacks 1981, 137–139). Roman historians also utilized a rich and flexible view of fortuna following in the Polybian tradition of historiographic causality. Sallust linked the workings of fortuna to the morals of human actors: fortuna simul cum moribus inmutatur (Cat. 2). Nevertheless, he also viewed fortuna as an independent cause that exhibited a capriciousness (lubido) suitable for the dark history he depicted. In structural terms, Sallust additionally invoked fortuna at watershed moments such as the fall of Carthage (Stewart 1968). Writing in a manner that almost personifies fortuna, Sallust describes how at that juncture in Rome’s history it “began to rage” (saevire … coepit; Cat. 10). Unlike Polybius and Sallust, Livy does not employ fortuna to explain epochal changes. Still, his fortuna exhibits a flexibility and range of meaning similar to Polybian tyche, sometimes taking a philosophical cast, and at other times being used in the conventional sense of chance occurrence (Levene 1993, 31–33). Livy is, however, more apt than either Polybius or Sallust to depict fortuna as belonging to the divine sphere (Davies 2007, 118–122). Tacitus’ use of fortuna evolves over time. In his early works (Agricola, Germania, Dialogus), it is less marked. Often fortuna refers to the measure of personal or group success (Ag. 7.2– 3, 8.3, 31.1, 44.3–4; G. 21.2, 36.2–3, 39.4, 46.5; D. 8.2, 13.1, 13.4). At other times fortuna refers to the outcome of military engagements (Ag. 16.2, 30.1–2; G. 3.1, 30.2). Only twice is the word used in connection with an emperor. At the beginning of Agricola (7.2–3), Tacitus, depicting Rome after Flavian victory over

28-04-2023 18:13:32

435

fortuna  

Vitellians but before the arrival of Vespasian, writes of how Licinius Mucianus was directing affairs, while Domitian exploited his paterna fortuna to do as he pleased. In the thirteenth chapter of the same work, Tacitus refers to Vespasian’s earlier success in Britain as the beginning of his future fortuna. Arguably Tacitus’ use of fortuna in connection with Vespasian in Agricola presages its usage in connection with other emperors in his major historical works. The single example from his early works of a larger sense of fortuna as a divine force or entity influencing the destiny of the Empire appears at Germania 33.2, where it is envisioned as providing nothing greater than discord between Rome’s foreign enemies. In his major historical works, Tacitus’ use of fortuna has greater structural significance. Tacitus alludes to Sallust’s statement in the Bellum Catilinae about fortuna raging, but his adaptation of his predecessor is telling. In contrast with Sallust, Tacitus further emphasizes individual responsibility for the resulting savagery: turbare fortuna coepit, saeuire ipse aut saeuientibus uires praebere (A. 4.1; Martin 1981, 106). Whereas Sallust may be said to have used Catiline and others to illustrate the role of the individual actor in the workings of fortuna (Santangelo 2013, 182–191), Tacitus applied the Sallustian principle more broadly to his emperors and usurpers. Alternatively, one may argue that in his emphasis on the fortune of individual men having a decisive historical impact—already present in Histories— Tacitus was also influenced by such authors as Velleius Paterculus and Lucan. In Velleius, the fortuna of Caesar and the fortuna of Octavian compete with the fortunae of others, until the fortuna of the reigning princeps dominates everything (Pelling 2011, 167). In Velleius, therefore, one observes a sea change in the operations of fortuna in the transition from republic to empire. Velleius views the outcome, i.e., the dominance of the emperor’s fortuna, as providential. Similar to Velleius, in Tacitus the rhythm of fortuna’s involvement follows the vicissitudes of imperial politics in an almost biographical way, with the lives of individual emperors dominating the larger trajectory of Roman history. Tacitus introduces a distinctive vision of fortuna early in the Annals (1.11), where Tiberius, laying out for

c06_Vol1.indd 435

the Senate the monumental task of succeeding Augustus, remarks on how susceptible to fortuna the task of ruling everything is. Placing these words in the mouth of Tiberius bodes ill, and it is the case that Tacitean fortuna is most active in the dark and chaotic periods of imperial history. The politically providential fortuna Caesaris of Velleius is hardly present, except in the rise of Vespasian in the Histories (Ash 2007, 74–75). In other words, one might say that Tacitean fortuna is a creative amalgam of the fortunae of Sallust and Velleius. From Sallust he derives his dark, moralizing vision of fortuna, and from Velleius he learns to accommodate the workings of fortuna to the pattern of imperial events. Lacking in Tacitus is any jingoistic sense of the triumph of fortuna in his own age, such as one finds in Velleius, even where one might expect it (H. 1.1). see also: historiography; intertextuality; Lucan; Velleius Paterculus REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2007. Tacitus. Histories. Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, Jason P. 2007. Rome’s Religious History: Livy, Tacitus and Ammianus on Their Gods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levene, David S. 1993. Religion in Livy. Leiden and New York: Brill. Martin, Ronald H. 1981. Tacitus. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pelling, Christopher. 2011. “Velleius and Biography: The Case of Julius Caesar.” In Velleius Paterculus: Making History, edited by Eleanor Cowan, 157–176. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Sacks, Kenneth. 1981. Polybius on the Writing of History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Santangelo, Federico. 2013. Divination, Prediction and the End of the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stewart, Douglas J. 1968. “Sallust and Fortuna.” History and Theory 7.3: 298–317. Walbank, Frank W. 1990. Polybius. Berkeley: University of California Press.

FORTUNATUS, see ANTISTIUS VETUS, LUCIUS

28-04-2023 18:13:32

436  

F orum I ulii

FORUM IULII ROSEMARY MOORE

University of Iowa

Forum Iulii (modern Fréjus) was a city on the Adriatic coast in the province of Gallia Narbonensis. Tacitus also refers to this city as Foroiuliensis colonia (Ag. 4.1). It was about 120 km east of Massilia. Forum Iulii was founded, presumably as a market town, probably sometime in the 40s bce by Iulius Caesar, although the area was inhabited by indigenous peoples, Greeks, and Romans prior to this period. Augustus settled soldiers of the Eighth Legion there at some point between 40 and 28 bce, and soon after the battle of Actium in 31 bce he stationed at Forum Iulii ships captured from Mark Antony’s forces (A. 4.5). These ships became Rome’s Gallic fleet. Both aspects of this community’s purpose are reflected in the full name of the community, colonia Octavanorum Pacensis Classica. Forum Iulii was well situated for trade and was strategically significant due to its location on the via Iulia Augusta. In 22 bce it was made capital of its province. Catualda, Marcomannic noble in exile and enemy of the Marcomannic king Maroboduus, led a rebellion of the Gotones against Maroboduus in 19 bce. Due to both the size of his army as well as bribery, Catualda overthrew Maroboduus. Vibilius, leading the Germanic Hermunduri, overthrew Catualda. Rome subsequently settled Catualda in exile at Forum Iulii at a safe distance from his supporters (A. 2.63). Tacitus’ father-in-law Agricola, the subject of the eponymous biography, was born at Forum Iulii in 40 ce. Agricola’s ancestry reflects Forum Iulii’s origins as well as its prominence to Rome: his nomen suggests that his family received Roman citizenship when Forum Iulii was founded, his father was a Roman senator, and his grandfathers were imperial procurators and therefore of equestrian rank. Agricola left Forum Iulii to be educated in Massilia and spent most of his life abroad in service to Rome (Ag. 4). Othonians and Vitellians were involved in conflicts at and around Forum Iulii in early 69 ce (H. 2.14–15). Otho’s fleet operated along the Adriatic Coast, raiding and attempting to take

c06_Vol1.indd 436

Gallia Narbonensis and Alpes Maritimae from Vitellian control. During the plundering of Albintemilium (modern Ventimiglia, see Liguria) and surrounding territory, Agricola’s mother Iulia was killed. While travelling to Forum Iulii to address the matter, Agricola decided to back Vespasian and subsequently recruited troops in support (Ag. 7). In 69 ce, the Vitellian commander Fabius Valens brought auxiliary forces and cavalry to resist the Othonians. At Forum Iulii, Vitellian cavalry were unable to resist a combined force of veteran soldiers and civilians and retreated by night. A Vitellian counterattack on the Othonian camp was not successful, and both sides retreated. Later in 69 ce, Valens was captured near Massilia after plotting to secure additional naval support from Forum Iulii (H. 3.43). see also: Suebi; civil wars of the Late Republic; civil wars of 69 ce Reference works: Barrington 16 C3 FURTHER READING Ogilvie, R. M., and I. A. Richmond. 1967. Tacitus: Agricola. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weidemann, T. E. J. 1996. “From Nero to Vespasian.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume X: The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C. – A.D. 69, edited by Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wellesley, K. 2002. The Year of the Four Emperors. 3rd ed. London: Taylor and Francis.

FOSI, see CHERUSCI

FREEDMEN FÁBIO DUARTE JOLY

Federal University of Ouro Preto

The view of Tacitus on freedmen (liberti, libertini) is similar to that on slaves. He is concerned about examples of freedmen who were loyal or disloyal to their patrons (Joly 2004, 77; Vielberg 2017, 2999). As for the imperial freedmen, he was not interested in detailing their administrative

28-04-2023 18:13:32

freedmen  

careers, but he rather focuses on their power, because of their close relationship with the emperors (Weaver 1972, 10). Tacitus refers to freedmen as having a servile nature (A. 2.12.3: libertorum servilia ingenia, also H. 2.92.3, and H. 5.9.3, on the imperial freedman Antonius Felix’s servile ingenium). The display of loyalty (fides) is the criterion for a positive or negative evaluation. Tacitus’ portrayal of a loyal freedman may be seen in one episode of the Annals. He writes that, in 58 ce, the tribune of the plebs, Octavius Sagitta, followed by a freedman, went to his mistress’ house, Pontia Postumia, and upon arriving there, he stabbed and killed her. All was witnessed by a female slave (ancilla) of Pontia, who was also wounded in the incident. The freedman assumed the responsibility for the crime, although the testimony of Pontia’s slave eventually incriminated the tribune. At the end of the narrative, Tacitus mentions the greatness of the freedman’s example (A. 13.44.4: commoveratque quosdam magnitudine exempli). The deeds of the freedwoman Epicharis are also turned into an exemplary behavior (A. 15.57.2: clariore exemplo libertina mulier). She had participated in the conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso against Nero in 65 ce, but she did not betray anyone—as members of Roman elite had done—, even under torture, choosing instead suicide (A. 15.57.2). The unfaithful freedman is characterized by the example of Milichus, freedman of the senator Antonius Natalis, and the denouncer of the Pisonian conspiracy. Milichus’ predisposition is described as being aimed to attain wealth and power to the detriment of his obligation to serve the patron in recognition for his freedom (A. 15.54.4). However, in spite of the convergence between the Tacitean characterization of slaves and freedmen, there is a clear distinction as to how they are perceived from a sociopolitical point of view. In his account of the murder of Pedanius Secundus in 61 ce by one of his slaves, Tacitus points out that Nero had rejected a senator’s proposal of punishing the prefect’s freedmen by expelling them from Italy. Nero argued against this proposal, saying that it would be a proof of cruelty (A. 14.45.5: saevitia). Another passage that distinguishes between freedmen and slaves is the debate in 56 ce, in the council of Nero, relating to a

c06_Vol1.indd 437

437

decision to grant the patrons the right to revoke the freedom of those freedmen considered to be ungrateful (A. 13.26–27). Such a proposal was rejected based on the argument that freedmen and their descendants were part of the social and political structure of the city of Rome. Tacitus also draws a negative picture of imperial freedmen. On various occasions they are compared to slaves (H. 4.11.3; A. 13.2.2; 14.39.3), and, as such, prone to evil deeds (H. 1.76.3; A. 15.45.2). In general, Tacitus implies that imperial freedmen should not be engaged in the administration of the res publica. In this sense, he approves that, in the house of Tiberius, there were few freedmen (A. 4.6.5: intra paucos libertos domus). In contrast, he openly criticizes the freedmen of Claudius and the freedmen of Nero. Tacitus reprehends the former for attributing to the freedman Pallas the position of a rationibus (A. 13.14.1; in A. 12.53.3 he criticizes the Senate for giving honors to Pallas; See also Plin. Ep. 7.29 and 8.6). However, his most inflamed criticisms are directed to those cases in which freedmen acted in the provincial sphere. For instance, he criticizes Claudius for delegating decision-making powers to freedmen acting as procurators in the provinces (A. 12.60.4). When Tacitus mentions the freedman Antonius Felix, procurator of Iudaea, he imputed to him the causes of disturbances in that province (A. 12.54, cf. H. 5.9.3), and Nero is equally blamed for sending the freedman Polyclitus to mediate a quarrel between the legate and the procurator of Britannia (A. 14.39; also H. 1.37.5 and H. 2.95.2; for Syme 1967, 413, Tacitus uses the term auctoritas for imperial freedmen “to emphasize personal or illicit influence”). Tacitus even draws a parallel between the provincial and domestic governments, praising Agricola for never treating matters of the interest of the res publica through the use of freedmen and slaves (Ag. 19.2). In the Germania he observes that freedmen, except among those peoples governed by kings, were not far above slaves, so that their inferiority was a proof of freedom (G. 25.2: ibi enim et super ingenuos et super nobiles ascendunt; apud ceteros impares libertini libertatis argumentum sunt; also H. 1.76.3: nam et hi malis temporibus partem se rei publicae faciunt; D. 13.4). Tacitus’ view of the imperial freedmen is therefore connected to his wider evaluation of the Principate.

28-04-2023 18:13:32

438  

freedmen of Agrippina the Younger

see also: freedmen of Agrippina the Younger REFERENCES Joly, Fábio D. 2004. Tácito e a Metáfora da Escravidão: Um Estudo de Cultura Política Romana. São Paulo: Edusp. Syme, Ronald, ed. 1967. Tacitus. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vielberg, Meinolf. 2017. “Tacitus.” In Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei, edited by Heinz Heinen and Johannes Deissler, 2995–3000. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Weaver, Paul R. C. 1972. Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Barja de Quiroga, Pedro L. 2007. Historia de la Manumisión en Roma: de los orígenes a los Severos. Madrid: Publicaciones Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Mouritsen, Henrik. 2011. The Freedman in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511975639.

FREEDMEN OF AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

The freedmen of Agrippina the Younger demonstrate exceptional loyalty and are instrumental in Tacitus’ representation of Agrippina’s influence. While Claudius was ruled by his wives and his freedmen (Suet. Claud. 25.5), Agrippina uses her freedmen and freedwomen to her advantage. The actions of freedmen provide an index of Agrippina’s popularity and authority with the emperor. Pallas, a freedman and client of Claudius, is vital to Agrippina’s ascent to power: he advises Claudius to marry Agrippina (A. 12.1.2, 12.2.3) and to adopt Nero (A. 12.25.1) and supports Agrippina after the death of Claudius (A. 13.2.2). Pallas’ fortunes follow Agrippina’s fall:

c06_Vol1.indd 438

he is accused of adultery with Agrippina by Narcissus (A. 12.65.2; A. 14.2.2), dismissed from the court of Nero in 55 ce (A. 13.14.1), sent into exile (A. 13.23.2), and murdered on the orders of Nero, who is jealous of his accrued wealth (A. 14.65.1; cf. Suet. Claud. 28.1). Several freedmen and freedwomen are involved in the assassination of Agrippina in 59 ce (A. 14.1– 12; Suet. Ner. 34.1–4; Cass. Dio 62.13.2–5). The freedman Anicetus (1), prefect of the fleet at Misenum and tutor of Nero (Suet. Ner. 35.2), shares a long-standing hatred of Agrippina. He offers the idea of a boat that will collapse on cue, which Nero finds clever (A. 14.3.3; Cass. Dio 62.13.2). On the night of Agrippina’s journey in this boat, she is accompanied by Crepereius Gallus and the freedwoman Acerronia (A. 14.5.1). Their conversation is cut short by the fall of a canopy; while Crepereius is crushed to death, Acerronia calls for help, claiming to be Agrippina, and is killed (A. 14.5.3; Cass. Dio 61.13.3). Agrippina, wounded, swims to shore, and sends one of her closest freedman Agermus to report her survival to Nero (A. 14.6.3). She also orders Acerronia’s will found and her property sealed. Nero, horrified at the news of Agrippina’s survival, sends Anicetus to finish what he started (A. 14.7.4–5). Throwing a sword at his own feet, Nero claims that Agermus was trying to kill him on the orders of Agrippina; this contrivance of an attempt on his life is used as partial justification for Nero’s murder of his mother (A. 14.7.6, 14.10.3, 14.11.2). Herculeius and Obaritus join Anicetus on the mission to kill Agrippina (A. 14.8.4). When they arrive at Agrippina’s villa, Agrippina is abandoned by her sole remaining servant woman, and the men enter her bedchamber. Herculeius clubs her on the head, and then she turns to Obaritus and cries, “Strike the belly!” (ventrem feri, A. 14.8.5). Anicetus is later deemed a suitable candidate to falsify an adulterous relationship with Octavia (2); he receives a wealthy exile in Sardinia for his efforts and dies a natural death (A. 14.62.1–4; Suet. Ner. 35.2). Reference work: PIR2 A 34; 456 FURTHER READING Barrett, Anthony A. 1996. Agrippina: Mother of Nero. London: Batsford.

28-04-2023 18:13:32

freedmen of C laudius  

FREEDMEN OF CLAUDIUS FÁBIO DUARTE JOLY

Federal University of Ouro Preto

A peculiar feature of the principate of Claudius was the role played by the so-called familia Caesaris. With Claudius some freedmen from his household assumed a greater political-administrative role and even interfered in dynastic rivalries. Pallas, Callistus and Narcissus are the main freedmen of Claudius (Plin. HN 33.134; Cass. Dio 60.30.6b) and occupied, respectively, the offices of a rationibus (in charge of the finances of the imperial domus), a libellis (in charge of petitions), and ab epistulis (in charge of the imperial correspondence). Gaius Iulius Callistus (PIR2 I 229) was initially a slave of a privatus and became a property of Caligula, who made him a freedman (Sen. Ep. 47.9) (Simonis 2017, 495). He obtained great wealth and power (Joseph. AJ 19.64; Plin. HN 33.60) and even supported the political careers of such aristocrats as Gnaeus Domitius Afer (Cass. Dio 59.19.6), who became consul in 39 ce. Callistus took part in the conspiracy that assassinated Caligula in 41 ce (Joseph. AJ 19.65–9). Tacitus mentions that Nymphidius Sabinus, Prefect of the Praetorian Guard under Nero, was the son of a freedwoman from the imperial house (A. 15.72.2), and Plutarch asserts that this freedwoman was the daughter of Callistus (Galb. 19). In the aftermath of the alleged conspiracy of Messalina, in which she married Gaius Silius in 48 ce, Pallas and Callistus—according to Tacitus, due to his experience in Caligula’s court—are described as having refrained from denouncing Messalina (A. 11.29.1–2). Narcissus has prevailed (omnia liberto oboediebant, A. 11.35.1) and instigated two concubines (paelices) of Claudius, Calpurnia (10) and Cleopatra, to denounce Messalina (A. 11.30.1). Another freedman, Euodus (PIR2 E 115/116), was put in charge of accompanying the centurions and the tribunes who would execute the wife of Claudius (A. 11.37.2). After Messalina’s death, Callistus supported that Claudius be married to Lollia Paulina, while Narcissus preferred Aelia Paetina and Pallas

c06_Vol1.indd 439

439

defended Agrippina the Younger, who was then chosen by Claudius (A. 12.1). Callistus died in 52 ce (Cass. Dio 60.33.3a). Three other freedmen belonging to Claudius are briefly mentioned. Halotus (PIR2 H 11) was the eunuch (spado) who served Claudius the portion of poisoned mushrooms, as he was the praegustator at the emperor’s table (A. 12.66.2; Suet. Claud. 44.2). The freedman Helius (PIR2 H 55) is mentioned together with Publius Celer, a Roman knight, as in charge of the imperial properties in Asia. Both of them participated in the poisoning of Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) the proconsul of Asia in 55 ce (A. 13.1.2; on the influence of Helius under Nero, cf. Cass. Dio 63.12.1–3; 18.2; 19.1; Suet. Ner. 23.1). He was executed by order of Galba in 68 ce (Cass. Dio 64.3.4). Finally, Sosibius (PIR2 S 773) is mentioned as the tutor of Britannicus (Britannici educator) and helped Messalina to incriminate Decimus Valerius Asiaticus (1) for the crime of maiestas in 47 ce (A. 11.1.1). This freedman was killed in 50 ce at the instigation of Agrippina the Younger (Cass. Dio 60.32.5). see also: freedmen of Agrippina the Younger; freedmen of Nero; freedmen Reference work: PIR2 C 1146; E 115/116; H 11; H 55; I 229 REFERENCES Simonis, Marcel. 2017. “Callistus.” In Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei, edited by Heinz Heinen and Johannes Deissler, 495. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. FURTHER READING Levick, Barbara. 1990. Claudius. London: B. T. Batsford. esp. 53–67. Millar, Fergus, ed. 1984. The Emperor in the Roman World (31 BC-AD 337). 2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. esp. 69–83. Weaver, Paul R. C. 2005. “Repertorium Familiae Caesarum et Libertorum Augustorum.” Edited by Werner Eck, 101–102. Accessed December 1, 2018. http://alte-geschichte.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/500. html

28-04-2023 18:13:32

440  

freedmen of N ero

FREEDMEN OF NERO LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

The reign of Nero, like that of his predecessor Claudius, was marked by the powerful role of liberti or freedmen in the daily management of the empire. Nero inherited this culture and did nothing to suppress it (indeed, it would be the notorious emperor Vitellius who took the first meaningful steps to reform the situation); the names of various freedmen are recalled in Tacitus and other extant sources for a variety of episodes, usually negative in their import. Indeed, the first recorded Tacitean death of the new principate, that of Marcus Iunius Silanus (2), was committed inter alios by the freedman Helius (see Publius Celer), who is noted as having been responsible for the emperor’s Asian affairs (A. 13.1); toward the end of Nero’s life, he would be the one in charge of imperial business in Rome while the emperor was in Greece. While Nero maintained the use of imperial freedmen, he was offended by the powerful Pallas (A. 13.2), despite the fact that Agrippina the Younger had connived with the libertus in securing both marriage and the throne for her son; he would soon be dismissed from his official roles (13.14) in the second year of the new principate. He would still manage to make headlines for himself in Roman gossip (cf. A. 13.23; 14.2); if anything, it may be a cause for wonder that he survived so long (cf. A. 14.65). Pallas’ equally notorious Claudian freedman colleague Narcissus did not fare so well; he was killed soon after Nero’s accession (A. 13.1), though Tacitus notes that it was without the connivance or will of the new emperor, who was positively inclined toward Narcissus’ vices. At A. 13.47 (58 ce), the old freedman Graptus is noted for his malicious lie to the young emperor Nero. Graptus (otherwise unattested) implicated Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix in a plot to assassinate Nero; allegedly a trap was set for the emperor on his return from enjoyment of the nightlife in the Mulvian Bridge neighborhood, and only a fortuitous return by a different route than usual was alleged to have saved his life (Tacitus notes that Graptus decided on the story

c06_Vol1.indd 440

after members of the imperial retinue had been frightened by overly raucous citizens on the way home). Tacitus notes that Graptus had served in the imperial household since the days of Tiberius, an impressive longevity given the tenor of the times. At A. 14.39, Tacitus records that in 61 ce the freedman Polyclitus was sent on a mission to Britain; Tacitus makes the memorable point that while the libertus was a burden even on his journey because of an enormous retinue, he was viewed with contempt by the Britons, who did not yet understand a culture that accorded such power and authority to what they considered slaves. At A. 14.65, Tacitus notes that in 62 ce Nero is said to have murdered two of his most powerful freedmen: Doryphorus (who held the secretarial post a libellis) for opposing his marriage to Poppaea Sabina the Younger (cf. Suetonius, Nero 35), and the notorious Pallas (the freedman of Claudius) for his immense wealth. At 15.37, Tacitus identifies Sporus and Pythagoras as the two male brides of Nero; in 64 ce Nero married the latter who in Suetonius (Nero 29) is identified incorrectly with Doryphorus. At A. 15.45, Acratus and Carrinas Secundus are sent out by Nero in 64 ce to see to the plundering of Achaia and Asia to raise money for imperial expenses; Acratus identified as more than willing to engage in any sort of criminal act, while Carrinas Secundus is noted to have a student of Greek philosophy who did not profit from his academic exercises. This attempted theft of Eastern riches is mentioned also at A. 16.23, where one of the charges leveled against Barea Soranus was that he did not punish Pergamum for its refusal to acquiesce in Acratus’ demands to seize statues and other objets d’art. The freedman Epaphroditus is mentioned at A. 15.55 as being the one who escorted his fellow libertus Milichus to Nero when the latter reported the Pisonian conspiracy, a plot in which the name of no imperial freedman is implicated (cf. 15.54; 59). Epaphroditus is most famous for his assistance to his emperor at the imperial suicide (Suet. Nero 49). He was killed under Domitian (Suet. Dom. 14), while Milichus would be rewarded financially for his part in revealing the plot; he adopted the title Soter (Greek for

28-04-2023 18:13:32

F risii  

“savior;” A. 15.71). The future emperor was criticized by the freedman Phoebus for dozing off during Neronian recitations (A. 16.5) and was lucky to have escaped with his life. The freedman Crescens receives a memorable and stinging rebuke from Tacitus (H. 1.76); he notes in his account of the Long Year of 69 ce that in difficult times, even liberti manage to take a role in the workings of government. Crescens hosted a lavish dinner in Rome in support of the imperial accession of Nero’s former boon companion Otho, and the example of Crescens and his exorbitant party contributed to a general indulgence in luxury in the capital. Moschus (see Otho) survived the death of his emperor Nero to serve as fleet commander under Otho (H. 1.87). The Neronian freedman Coenus was involved in the machinations during the time of transition from Otho to Vitellius. At H. 2.54 he invented the story that the Fourteenth Legion had joined forces with Othonian praetorians at Brixellum and that the victorious Vitellian army had been destroyed. He hoped thereby to obtain renewed authority for Otho’s diplomata regarding free passage; he is said to have been punished for his malfeasance in Rome some days later. Agrippina the Younger’s freedman Mnester committed suicide at her funeral (A. 14.9). Tacitus notes that it was either out of genuine grief, or out of fear that Nero would have him slain. The most famous of the freedwomen of the Neronian Age is perhaps Epicharis (A. 15.51; 57), who committed suicide after enduring appalling tortures for her complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy. Tacitus notes that her bravery surpassed that of male liberti as well as many equestrians and senators. It is perhaps fitting that Nero’s death was largely stage managed by freedmen (Epaphroditus as assistant in suicide; Phaon as owner of the last imperial residence, Suet. Nero 48, 49; Cass. Dio 63.27.3). see also: freedmen of Agrippina the Younger; freedmen of Claudius FURTHER READING Mellor, Ronald. 2010. Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 145–156.

c06_Vol1.indd 441

441

FRISII KATIE LOW

Brussels

The Frisii were a Germanic tribe living near the mouth of the Rhine (Rhenus). Modern scholars “universally locate them in the coastal region north of the IJsselmeer, the modern provinces of Friesland and Groningen; archaeological evidence suggests that by Roman times they may also have spread east of the IJsselmeer into Noord-Holland” (Rives 1999, 261). Tacitus says that they were divided into “Greater” and “Lesser” branches, reflecting their respective numerical strengths (G. 34.1), although geography may also have influenced this division. They became part of Rome’s sphere of influence during Augustus’ reign, but asserted their independence several times in the first century ce. Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus, brother of Tiberius) first established Roman hegemony over the Frisii in 12 bce, as part of the annexation of tribal territories close to the Rhine. They subsequently supported his campaigning (Cass. Dio 54.32.2–3). Tacitus reports that Drusus imposed on them a tribute of cattle hides, but in a quantity proportionate to their poverty; however, in 28 ce the centurion Olennius specified that the hides had to be the size of those of aurochs, even though the animals kept by the Frisii were much smaller, and this triggered a revolt (A. 4.72–3). Forced to give up their herds and fields and to sell their families into slavery to meet these demands, they eventually murdered the Roman tribute collectors and chased Olennius away. They also resisted punitive incursions coordinated by Lucius Apronius, killing 900 Romans in a grove sacred to the (otherwise unattested) goddess Baduhenna. Four hundred other Roman soldiers, in order to evade capture, committed collective suicide in the house of a man named Cruptorix, who had served as an auxiliary in the Roman army—a glimpse of the no doubt numerous interactions between Frisii and Romans not reported in any surviving written text (Woolf 2009). Nevertheless, Tiberius chose not to continue the war, and the Senate showed no interest in the disaster (A. 4.74.1). Afterward, the loyalty of the Frisii remained uncertain until 47 ce, when Domitius Corbulo induced them to deliver hostages, settle in lands

28-04-2023 18:13:32

442  

F ufius G eminus

indicated by him, and be governed by what Tacitus calls a senatum magistratus leges (“a Senate, magistrates, [and] laws”); he also established a Roman garrison (A. 11.19.1–2). This suggests that the “Frisian nobility, or a substantial portion of it, was clearly pro-Roman” (Malloch 2013, 281). In 58 ce, internal disputes between Roman commanders in the Germanic provinces gave the Frisii the opportunity to lay claim to territory south of the IJsselmeer, at the instigation of their rulers Verritus and Malorix. Under threat of being dislodged, the two men traveled to Rome to plead their case. Tacitus describes them, on a visit to the theater, showing more interest in the spectators than the performance, and ingenuously claiming that their own military prowess and loyalty to Rome should make them worthy of seats of honor among the senators. He follows this vignette with the rather deflating detail that Nero granted the two of them Roman citizenship but ordered the Frisii to leave their new home (A. 13.54). In 69–70 ce, the tribe joined the Batavian Revolt, attacking a Roman fort and providing troops for Iulius Civilis (H. 4.15.2, 16.2, 18.4 and 79.2). Tacitus’ recurrent references to the Frisii give a flavor of the many minor skirmishes between Roman forces and individual tribes on the empire’s edges that must have occurred in the first century ce. Moreover, the revolt of 28 ce is said to have been triggered by Roman greed and marked by Roman failures, which heightens the feeling evoked in the Annals that Rome is degenerating under the malign influence of Tiberius and Sejanus, while the lack of interest shown by the emperor and his subjects adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere of the second half of Tiberius’ reign. Subsequently, the account of the visit of Verritus and Malorix to Rome plays on stereotypes of old-fashioned, noble-minded barbarians, but also throws into relief Nero’s profligacy (and propensity to waste time in the theater) and accentuates the sense that, under the imperial system, even talented generals like Corbulo cannot match the military achievements of Rome’s past. see also: empire; ethnography; Germani, Germania; Germania; provinces Reference works: Barrington 10 A4; RE VII: 105–107

c06_Vol1.indd 442

REFERENCES Malloch, Simon J. V., ed. 2013. The Annals of Tacitus. Book 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rives, James B., ed. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woolf, Greg. 2009. “Cruptorix and His Kind.” In Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity, edited by Ton Derks and Nico Roymans, 207–217. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

FUFIUS GEMINUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Gaius Fufius Geminus (d. 29 ce) and Lucius Rubellius Geminus were ordinary consuls in 29 ce, the year Livia Augusta died (A. 5.1.1). Tacitus says that Tiberius did not participate in the funerals but sent a letter in which he criticized the friendly relationships with influential women, alluding to the fact that the consul Fufius had gained authority thanks to his friendship with the deceased Livia Augusta. Fufius was a man who knew how to win the affection of a woman but was also a witty man accustomed to making jokes of Tiberius “with those bitter pleasantries which linger long in the memory of potentates” (A. 5.2.2). Despite the ensuing lacuna in the Annals, we know from Cassius Dio that in fact Tiberius never forgot Fufius’ jokes. Livia Augusta’s death left him without any support at court; thus he was accused, in the same year and during his consulship of maiestas against the emperor. He read his will in the Senate. Suspected of cowardice, he returned home and slit his wrists upon the news that the Senate voted for his execution. His last words were “Report to the Senate that it is thus one dies who is a man” (Cass. Dio. 58.4.5). After his death, his wife Mutilia Prisca entered the Senate and killed herself with a dagger she had concealed in her clothes (Cass. Dio 58.4.5). A few years later, during the purges that followed Sejanus’ execution Fufius’ mother Vitia was sentenced to death for having mourned her son’s death (A. 6.10.1).

28-04-2023 18:13:32

F ulcinius T rio, Lucius  

Some more details about Fufius’ early career are known thanks to some inscriptions from Montefano where he is remembered as Tiberius’ questor, plebeian tribune, member of the religious corporation of the Septemviri Epulorum, and patron of the colony of Urbs Salvia (Gasperini 1982). Almost nothing is known of his colleague Lucius Rubellius Geminus beyond the fact that he was the brother of Gaius Rubellius Blandus consul in 18 ce (PIR2 R 111). The consulship of the two Gemini is remembered by several later Christian authors since it was reputed that during their year Jesus died (Tertull. adv. Iud. 8.18; Sulpic. Sev. chron. 2.27.5; Epiph. adv. haer. 51.23.5). Reference works: PIR2 F 511; PIR2 R 113; CIL V 5832 = ILS 2338; VI 2022 = XIV. 2227 = ILS 3072; 2489 = ILS 2028; 10293 = ILS 7918; IX, 5815; XV 4573; 4603; AE 1987. 163 REFERENCES Gasperini, L. 1982. “Sulla carriera di Gaio Fufio Gemino console del 29 d.C.” In Ottava Miscellanea Greca e Romana, 285–302. Roma: Istituto Italiano per la Storia Antica. FURTHER READING Rogers, R. S. 1931. “The Conspiracy of Agrippina.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 62: 141–168. Syme, R. 1982. “The Marriage of Rubellius Blandus.” The American Journal of Philology 103.1: 62–85.

FULCINIUS TRIO, LUCIUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Lucius Fulcinius Trio (c. 10 bce–35 ce) was possibly descended from an old republican family still active in politics under the principate, although no one in his family appears to have previously held the consulship. Fulcinius was only honored with the office of suffect consul, an office generally reserved for novi homines; his family,

c06_Vol1.indd 443

443

therefore, was probably not of noble lineage. He possibly had a brother, Gaius Fulcinius Trio, attested as praetor peregrinus in 24 ce (see Rutledge 2001, 234). Fulcinius Trio shows up first in the trial of Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus in 16 ce, although he was already a celebrated talent among accusatores (A. 2.28.4). He learned of Libo’s activities when a certain Iunius (1), who is otherwise unknown but appears to have been skilled in the dark arts of necromancy, denounced Libo after Libo had approached him to make use of his nefarious skills. Fulcinius immediately informed the consuls and demanded an inquiry in the Senate; he participated in the prosecution, although he did not earn the role as principle prosecutor, which went to Vibius Serenus the Elder (A. 2.30.1). Dio, though, tells us that Tiberius held Fulcinius’ services in the case against Libo in high regard (Cass. Dio 58.25.2). We next hear of Fulcinius in 20 ce, when he was the first to apply to the consuls to prosecute Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (Germanicus’ rival), much to the objection of Germanicus’ friends. Trio dropped his bid (A. 3.13.2), but he obtained the right to attack Piso’s previous career and was the first to speak in the case that was conducted before the Senate and the emperor himself. Tacitus plays down Fulcinius’ efficacy, although Tacitus surely knew the value of an attack on an opponent’s past life, career, and character. Fulcinius assailed Piso for his conduct as governor of Hispania, due to his greed and self-interested behavior in the conduct of his office (A. 3.13.2), and his fellow accusers followed his lead, making similar charges for his conduct as governor of Syria (see Woodman and Martin 1996, 153 for discussion). At trial’s end Fulcinius received a promise of support for future offices, which was tempered by Tiberius’ warning to tone down his violent rhetoric (A. 3.19.1). We next hear of Fulcinius as governor of Lusitania in 22 ce (AE 53.88). He then went on to become suffect consul, entering office 1 July 31. He owed his office probably to Sejanus’ patronage, and his loyalty to Tiberius appeared suspect when the prefect was finally taken down (Cass. Dio 58.9.3), something for which his fellow consul, Publius Memmius Regulus, attacked

28-04-2023 18:13:32

444  

F urius C amillus , M arcus

him (A. 5.11). The Senate intervened to stop Regulus’ and Fulcinius’ mutual recriminations. In the next year (32) Decimus Haterius Agrippa tried to stir up Fulcinius’ and Regulus’ old quarrel, until the Senate urged that the matter be dropped (A. 6.4.4). Fulcinius was to meet his end in 35 ce. Growing anxious as accusers continued to denounce Sejanus’ former associates, he could no longer endure the anxiety and chose suicide as a way out, though not before composing savage imprecations against Macro, certain of Tiberius’ freedmen, and the emperor himself (A. 6.38.2). Cassius Dio indicates that Fulcinius was actually indicted (Cass. Dio 58.25.2) before killing himself. His sons tried to conceal his will, but Tiberius had its contents made public (A. 6.38.3). see also: delators Reference works: PIR2 F 517; RE 71.212–13 = Fulcinius 8 (Kappelmacher); AE 53.88; CIL 10.1233 = ILS 6124; CIL 14.4533 FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 101, 158–161, 234–235. Woodman, A. J., and R. H. Martin. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 128–129, 153.

FUNISULANUS VETTONIANUS, Lucius, see CAESENNIUS PAETUS

FURIUS CAMILLUS, MARCUS DOMINIC MACHADO

College of the Holy Cross

Marcus Furius Camillus (c. 26 bce–37 ce; consul 8 ce; PIR2 F 577) was a Roman senator during the principates of Augustus and Tiberius. Camillus was descended from the homonymous “second founder” of Rome, whose accomplishments in the early fourth century bce were firmly etched in Roman cultural memory (A. 2.52.5). Despite that

c06_Vol1.indd 444

fame, the family’s fortunes waned, and Camillus was the first family member to hold the consulship in 300 years. Little is known about Camillus before his consulship (Fast. Cap. p. 86). He likely married a daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Libo (consul 15 bce), a union that produced Livia Medullina Camilla, who was engaged to Claudius before her death (Suet. Cl. 26.1; CIL X 1098). Camillus also had two sons of some repute. One son became a member of the Arval Brethren in 38 ce, while the other, Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus, was adopted by Lucius Arruntius and became consul in 32 ce. Later, Scribonianus plotted an unsuccessful rebellion against Claudius and was killed by his soldiers (Suet. Cl. 35.2–36.2). Furius Camillus’ consulship appears to have been unremarkable, and he first appears in our literary sources as proconsul of Africa at the outbreak of the rebellion of Tacfarinas in 17 ce, (A. 2.52.3–5). Camillus proved a capable commander and scored a victory against the Numidian chieftain for which he was awarded the ornamenta triumphalia. Tacitus casts the honor as classic Tiberian dissimulatio—it was Camillus’ lack of military experience (bellorum expers) and his inability to discern the emperor’s more cynical motivations (Camillo ob modestiam vitae impune fuit) that made him fit for the honor. Reference works: PIR2 F 577; CIL X 1098; Fast. Cap. p. 86 FURTHER READING Gambash, Gil. 2015. Rome and Provincial Resistance. London: Routledge, 64–100. Syme, Ronald. 1989. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 259–268.

FURIUS SCRIBONIANUS ELIZABETH ANN POLLARD

San Diego State University

Furius Scribonianus (d. 52 ce) was exiled, along with his mother Vibia, for consulting with astrologers about the emperor Claudius’ death. Scribonianus died shortly thereafter, either naturally or by poison.

28-04-2023 18:13:32

F urius S cribonianus  

Furius Scribonianus was the son of Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus (d. 42 ce), consul in 32 CE, the year after Sejanus’ and Iulia Livia’s poisonous machinations against Tiberius were uncovered (A. 6.1–6.2). Ten years later, the former consul, now legate, led a legionary revolt in Dalmatia against Claudius, during the first year of Claudius’s reign (H. 2.75; Suet. Claud. 13). When describing Vespasian’s thinking in 69 ce about the strength of Vitellius’ forces in Germany, Tacitus reports that the rebellion’s leader, Scribonianus, was killed by Volaginius (H. 2.75), which would mean that the dead Dalmatian rebel father of 42 ce should not be confused with the exiled-then-poisoned Chaldaean-consulting son of 52 ce (contra Smith 1867, 592). When describing the younger Scribonianus’s consulting of Chaldaei and the attachment of the charge to his mother Vibia, Tacitus confirms that it was the elder Scribonianus who had rebelled in Dalmatia and that his wife Vibia (Furius’ mother) had been exiled before (A. 12.52). Reading between the lines, Vibia is clearly part of the threat to Claudius. While it is difficult to pin down Vibia’s precise lineage, members of the Vibian gens reached political prominence in the late republic and empire, notably a Gaius Vibius who ironically squashed a Dalmatian revolt in 10 ce (Vell. Pat. 2.116.2); two Vibii who were accused of plotting against Tiberius (Vibius Serenus accused by his own son, A. 4.28; and Vibius Marsus, A. 6.47); Gaius Vibius Rufinus who may have been a governor in Germania Superior at the time of the elder Scribonianus’ nearby Dalmatian revolt (Gallivan, 417); and later, Vibia Sabina, wife of Hadrian. It is not farfetched to surmise that Agrippina the Younger wanted Vibia out of Rome. Tacitus writes that Claudius wanted to be seen as exhibiting clementia in his sparing, a second time (iterum), a hostile lineage (stirpem hostilem); but like father (and, apparently, mother), like son—Furius Scribonianus was a palpable threat to Claudius’ power. His mother was from a gens on the rise; his deceased father had mounted a genuine challenge to Claudius’ accession; his aunt, Livia Medullina Camilla (sister of Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus), had been engaged to Claudius but got sick and died on her wedding day (Suet.

c06_Vol1.indd 445

445

Claud. 26); and his distant ancestor on his father’s side was the republican hero Marcus Furius Camillus, “second founder of Rome” (κτίστης δὲ τῆς Ῥώμης ἀναγραφεὶς δεύτερος, Plut. Cam. 1). As such, Scribonianus’ family was clearly capax imperii, and his inquiry into Claudius’ death was not idle curiosity. Scribonianus died not long after his banishment, and Tacitus reports that rumors circulated as to the cause of his death: either naturally or by poison (A. 12.52). In the aftermath of Scribonianus’ and his mother’s exile, a senatus consultum expelled astrologers (mathematici) from Italy. The last expulsion of mathematici and Chaldaei by senatus consultum had been in 17 ce, squeezed in between the suffect consulships of two Vibii (Gaius Vibius Rufus and Gaius Vibius Marsus). It is unclear whether the Senate’s expulsion of mathematici is the direct consequence of Scribonianus’ (and Vibia’s) consultation with Chaldaei. Whether due to their role in Scribonianus’ inquiry against Claudius or their potential rumor mongering about poison as the cause of Scribonianus’ death (Ripat 2011, 145–146), Tacitus clearly thought the Scribonian affair and astrologers’ expulsion were related developments. see also: Chaldaei, magic Reference work: PIR2 A 1147 REFERENCES Ripat, P. 2011. “Expelling Misconceptions: Astrologers at Rome.” Classical Philology 106: 115–154. Smith, William. 1867. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. “Furius Camillus” (no. 6 and 7), p. 592. FURTHER READING Gallivan, Paul. 1978. “The Fasti for the Reign of Claudius.” Classical Quarterly 28.2: 407–426. Syme, Ronald. 1981a. “The Early Tiberian Consuls.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 30.2: 189–202. Syme, Ronald. 1981b. “Vibius Rufus and Vibius Rufinus.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 43: 365–376.

FURNIUS, see CLAUDIA PULCHRA FURNIUS, Gaius, see ROMAN ORATORS

28-04-2023 18:13:32

G GAIUS CAESAR (SON OF AGRIPPA) TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Gaius Iulius Caesar (20 bce–4 ce) was born Gaius Vipsanius Agrippa, the son of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and was adopted by Augustus in 17 bce, whereupon he assumed the name Gaius Caesar, together with his younger brother Lucius Caesar. Despite what Tacitus calls a veiled display of reluctance, Augustus wanted to see Gaius (and his brother Lucius) designated as consul and to be leader of the youth, which was achieved by popular acclaim and senatorial decree (Mon. Anc. 14). Augustus’ adoption of his grandsons has had anachronistic monarchic interpretations read into it by Syme (1939), and other authors have followed him (e.g., Seager 2005). Such a view is based chiefly on Cassius Dio, who grew up in the second century ce and was politically active when the principate had become a hereditary monarchy and emperors adopted their successors. Gaius Caesar became the leading active member of Augustus’ household following Tiberius’ departure for Rhodes in 6 bce. He became the de facto heir to Augustus. Gaius was appointed commander of the East in 1 bce with a region-wide grant of proconsular power (Cass. Dio 55.10.18). To settle the region, Gaius crowned Ariobarzanes as king of Armenia. At the same time as his appointment to the Eastern

command, Gaius was married to Livia Iulia, the daughter of Drusus the Elder, brother of Tiberius. Gaius died when traveling through Armenia in 4 ce. Tacitus ascribes his death to fate, then in a loaded alternative he insinuates that Livia Augusta may have been responsible (A. 1.3, 53; see also A. 2.4). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference work: PIR2 I 216 REFERENCES Seager, R. 2005. Tiberius. Oxford: Blackwell. Syme, Ronald. 1939. Roman Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Levick, B. 2010. Augustus: Image and Substance. Harlow: Longman. Swan, P. M. 2004. The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History, Books 55–56 (9 bc–ad 14). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

GALATIA SHAWN DANIELS

Galatia encompasses much of central Anatolia—it lies east of Lydia, west of Cappadocia, and south of Bithynia and Pontus. Its earliest inhabitants,

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume I, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c07_Vol1.indd 446

28-04-2023 18:01:22

G alba  

the Phrygians, are best known from myth—King Midas ruled there, as did Gordias, whose legendary knot was cut by Alexander the Great. After Alexander’s death, Phrygia passed among his successors, until Nicomedes I, the king of Bithynia, brought several Celtic tribes—the Trocmi, the Tolistoboii, and the Tectosages—to serve as mercenaries. In exchange, Nicomedes granted them the land of Phrygia. The Celts’ loss in an “elephant battle” against the Seleucids dashed their hopes of expansion, but they adapted well to their new land, assimilating into the Hellenistic world while maintaining a distinct Celtic identity. Thus, the Greeks called them Hellenogalatai, the Romans Graecogalli, and the land they inhabited became Galatia, “the land of the Celts.” The tribes ruled jointly over an independent kingdom before it was reduced to a Roman client in the early second century bce and finally, after Augustus’ consolidation of power, into a Roman province. Galatia would prove important in several ways: the most complete extant copy of Augustus’ Res Gestae was found in a Galatian temple; the ninth book of the new testament is a letter to the Galatians, allowing them to forego Moses’ law (especially circumcision); and strategically, Galatia served as a loyal buffer between the empire’s near-eastern conquests and its foes further east. In the early principate, the chief threat was Parthia. In his campaign to reclaim the throne of Armenia, the Syrian governor, Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, seeing that the current troops were insufficient for the coming war, dismissed any troops unfit to serve and levied the Galatians (alongside Cappadocians and Germans) to fill out the ranks. Corbulo forced them to winter in tents, causing great suffering for the soldiers but leaving the survivors all the stronger, while also proving the commander’s loyalty to his troops—he endured all the hardships alongside his men (A. 13.35). Later, as preparations against Parthia escalated, Corbulo requested a second commander to monitor Asia Minor while he held Syria. Caesennius Paetus, the governor of Cappadocia, was chosen, and given three legions (IV, XII, V) and auxiliaries from Pontus, Bithynia, and Galatia. Paetus, however, mismanaged his command and was trapped by the Persians at Rhandeia. With Corbulo only

c07_Vol1.indd 447

447

days away, Paetus surrendered, and he and his troops were forced to flee, possibly having to pass under the yoke. Tacitus notes that they had to move with haste—the weak and the ill were abandoned if they could not keep up. Despite this humiliating defeat, Corbulo was able to negotiate terms with the Parthian king, and the Galatians stayed loyal to (and a province of) Rome (A. 15.1–28). During the Year of the Four Emperors, Calpurnius Asprenas, the governor of Galatia and Pamphylia (a region of the province of Galatia) was given two triremes to find a fake Nero that had emerged in the near east. The impostor was tracked to Cythnus, betrayed, and killed (H. 2.9). see also: impostors; Nero; provinces; Res Gestae Divi Augusti; Syria; Vologaeses Reference work: Barrington 101 N4 FURTHER READING Darbyshire, Gareth, Stephen Mitchell, and Levent Vardar. 2000. “The Galatian Settlement in Asia Minor.” Anatolian Studies 50: 75–97. DOI: 10.2307/3643015. Strobel, Karl. 2009. “The Galatians in the Roman Empire: Historical Tradition and Ethnic Identity in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor.” In Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition, edited by Derks Ton and Nico Roymans, 117–144. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

GALBA JAKUB PIGOŃ

University of Wrocław

Servius Sulpicius Galba (after adoption: Lucius Livius Ocella Servius Sulpicius Galba; imperial titulature: Servius Galba Imperator Caesar Augustus), 3 bce (?)–69 ce, twice consul ordinarius (33, 69), was the sixth Roman emperor, the first in a series of ephemeral rulers who rose to the throne after the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, during the turmoil of the civil wars of 68–69 ce. His principate lasted seven months until his assassination on the orders of Otho on

28-04-2023 18:01:22

448

  G alba

15 January 69. In Histories 1 (H. 1.4–49), Tacitus provides a gripping narrative of his last days; the ambiguous picture he draws of Galba has given rise to differing interpretations. Apart from Tacitus, our principal literary sources on Galba are Plutarch’s and Suetonius’ biographies of him and Cassius Dio’s history (63.23, 27, 29; 64.1–6). (Some parallels, especially those between Plutarch and Tacitus, are very close and indicate that they used a common source; see Damon 2003, 291–299 for a list.) Suetonius in particular (Galb. 2–3) furnishes information about Galba’s illustrious ancestry on both sides, going back well into the Republican Period (his mother belonged to the family of the Mummii); in due course, Galba’s noble lineage would become an important asset in his bid for power. His father, a suffect consul of 5 bce, won some reputation as a speaker (Macrob. Sat. 2.6.3); his elder brother, Gaius Sulpicius Galba, the ordinary consul of 22 ce, committed suicide in 36 (A. 6.40.2; Suet. Galb. 3.4). Galba was adopted by his stepmother Livia Ocellina, possibly a distant cousin of Livia Augusta; Suetonius notes that Livia Augusta supported his early career and left him a substantial legacy (Galb. 4.1; 5.2). Another imperial woman who played a role in his life was Agrippina the Younger; in the early 40s, she made insistent advances to Galba, which he rejected; possibly, she stood behind his long withdrawal from public life (c. 48–59; Suet. Galb. 5.1; 8.1; see Murison 1993, 37). When Agrippina was making her advances, Galba was still married to a Lepida; his wife died, as did their two sons, and he remained a widower. It is again Suetonius to whom we owe details about Galba’s career; in Tacitus’ Annals (as extant), only his consulship of 33 is mentioned (A. 6.15.1; 6.20.2). The latter passage concerns Tiberius’ prophecy about his reign: “And you, Galba, someday will have a taste of imperial power” (also in Joseph. AJ 18.6.9; Cass. Dio 57.19.4 and 64.1.1; cf. Suet. Galb. 4.1, who attributes the saying to Augustus, but notes that Tiberius made a similar prediction; for the Tacitean passage, see Woodman 2006). Among Galba’s offices were the governorship of Upper Germany (39–41 or 42) and the proconsulship of Africa (probably 44–46); after his return from Africa, he was granted triumphal honors and received membership in three priestly

c07_Vol1.indd 448

colleges. Suetonius underscores Galba’s concern for military discipline, his harsh severity, and his sense of justice (Galb. 6.2–3; 7; 9.1). His next appointment came in 60 (see above for his withdrawal from public life) when Nero sent him to Hispania Tarraconensis (Suet. Galb. 8.1). It was as a legate of this province that Galba made a bid for power. In spring 68 Gaius Iulius Vindex urged him to “undertake the role of the protector and leader of the human race,” that is to declare against Nero (Suet. Galb. 9.2; cf. Plut. Galb. 4.3; Cass. Dio 63.23). At an assembly in Tarraco, Galba was hailed as Imperator, but he declined the title, assuming instead that of the “legate of the Senate and People of Rome” (see Murison 1993, 41 for his “constitutional legalism”; he wished to formally receive his imperial power from the Senate). Initially, things went badly. The Senate declared Galba public enemy and the revolt of Vindex was crushed. However, when the praetorians in Rome under Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus turned against Nero, the Senate voted imperial power for Galba (on 8 June); he embarked on his journey to Rome, where he arrived in early autumn (Suet. Galb. 11). The Galban narrative in Histories 1 falls into two parts, the first giving a survey of the empire in the last months of 68 (H. 1.4–11) and the second presenting the events in Rome in the first half of January 69 (H. 1.12–49). The introductory survey makes it clear that during his short reign Galba managed to alienate almost all groups of Roman society, especially the soldiers in Rome. He is depicted as a “feeble old man” (H. 1.6.1), unable to control the situation and manipulated by his evil advisers, Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco (cf. H. 1.13.1, where also Galba’s freedman Icelus Marcianus is mentioned). Much resentment was caused by the executions (without trial) of senior senators Cingonius Varro and Publius Petronius Turpilianus as well as some army commanders deemed disloyal. Upon his arrival in Rome, he ordered the massacre of the marines whom Nero had started to organize into a legion and who demanded the rights of the legionaries; thus, his entry into the capital was perceived as “ill-omened” (H. 1.6.2; cf. Plut. Galb. 15.4). Particularly fateful was his unwillingness to pay the soldiers a donative promised by Nymphidius; Tacitus depicts Galba’s dictum that he enlists his

28-04-2023 18:01:22

G alba  

soldiers and not buys them (H. 1.5.2; cf. Plut. Galb. 18.2; Suet. Galb. 16.1; Cass. Dio 64.3.3) as “honorable to the state, but perilous to himself.” Galba’s old-fashioned severity and stinginess were criticized, as were the abuses of power by the members of his court. Also, the situation in the provinces was far from secure; Tacitus emphasizes the resentment among the German armies (H. 1.8.2–9.1). The narrative proper begins with Galba’s adoption of his heir (H. 1.12–19). This move was accelerated by the news that the legions in Upper Germany had refused to swear allegiance to Galba; he believed that the nomination of his successor would calm the situation. Here, too, Tacitus underlines the evil influence of Vinius, Laco, and Icelus; they were intriguing (in two groups) to advance their candidates. Tacitus leaves it open whether Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus was Galba’s own choice or whether it was Laco’s candidate; at any rate, Piso’s old-fashioned sternness appealed to the emperor (H. 1.14). Modern historians agree that the choice of someone inexperienced with politics and military matters (Piso had been exiled for a long time) was, in view of the ongoing crisis, a fatal mistake. Galba delivered a speech in which he insisted that the selection of an heir to imperial rule was a much better solution than hereditary succession; in fact, it was a “substitute” for republican freedom (H. 1.16.1). Some scholars regarded Galba’s speech as expressing Tacitus’ political creed (Kornemann 1947, 27); this view is no longer upheld. Tacitus’ purpose, rather, is to show how disastrously out of touch with reality Galba was; the contrast between the speech and the surrounding narrative is glaring. Galba’s speech bears some striking similarities to Pliny the Younger’s Panegyricus; the relation between the two texts is variously debated (Bruère 1954), as is the question of possible allusions in Tacitus to the adoption of Trajan by Nerva in 97 (Syme 1958, 150–156). The scene moves from the imperial palace to the praetorian camp and then to the Senate-house. Galba announced his decision, but the reactions of the two gatherings were disappointing. Once again, there was no mention of paying the donative. The choice of Piso in fact sealed Galba’s doom. Otho hoped that he would become Galba’s heir; his support for Galba in spring 68 had been

c07_Vol1.indd 449

449

resolute, and he had been making efforts since then to strengthen his position. After Piso’s adoption, the only way to fulfill Otho’s ambitions was to form a conspiracy. Tacitus graphically describes the preparations (H. 1.21–26). Five days after the adoption, on January 15, the plot was put into execution. When Otho’s venture became known, some attempts were made to find military support for Galba; in particular, Piso delivered a speech to the cohort stationed in the palace (H. 1.29–30). The prospects were, however, bad. Galba’s advisors were divided as to whether to remain in the palace and organize the defense there (Vinius) or whether to go to the Forum and face the danger (Laco and Icelus); Galba “agreed with those whose proposal sounded more magnificent” (H. 1.34.1). Tacitus describes the attitude of the crowd gathered on the Palatine Hill; they publicized their loyalty to Galba, played courageous, but were in fact cowards. The emperor’s reaction to a soldier (Iulius Atticus, see speculatores) who claimed to have killed Otho was remarkable: “Comrade, who gave you this order?” (H. 1.35.2; cf. Plut. Galb. 26.2; Suet. Galb. 19.2; Cass. Dio 64.6.2); Tacitus appends a comment, praising Galba in an unambiguous way. Galba was being carried in a litter to the Forum; there was a large crowd around him, but it dispersed when Otho’s soldiers arrived. Tacitus’ account of Galba’s death (H. 1.40–41) is highly emotive, and he is explicit in his indictment of the assassins; the pathos is heightened by an evocation of Vergil’s Priam (see Joseph 2012, 79–85). The signal to act was given by the standard-bearer of the palace cohort (Atilius Vergilio, according to Tacitus’ sources); near the lacus Curtii, a symbolically laden site in the Forum evoking the Roman legendary past (see Ash 1999, 83; also H. 2.55.1; 3.85), Galba fell out of his litter and was killed, receiving a blow in his throat (it is not certain by whom: three names appeared in Tacitus’ sources—Terentius, Laecanius, and Camurius; these names are also mentioned in Plut. Galb. 27.2). Tacitus records two versions of his last words, one from a tradition hostile to Galba (cf. Suet. Galb. 20.1; Cass. Dio 63.6.4), the other from a tradition favorable to him (cf. Plut. Galb. 27.1; Suet. Galb. 20.1)—and immediately afterward he questions these traditions (“the killers were indifferent to what he was saying”).

28-04-2023 18:01:22

450

  G aleria F undana

Galba’s head was cut off and later put on display, and his corpse was mutilated. He was cremated and buried in his gardens by a freedman Argius (H. 1.49.1; cf. Plut. Galb. 28.3; Suet. Galb. 20.2: Argivus); Plutarch adds that Helvidius Priscus took up Galba’s body, having obtained Otho’s permission. His head was found on the next day in front of the tomb of Patrobius (a freedman of Nero whom Galba had executed) and placed with the rest of his incinerated body. There follows an obituary in which emphasis is laid on the clash between Galba’s public image before his accession and what he really was—a man of “mediocre caliber.” The obituary is capped by one of Tacitus’ most famous epigrams: “In everyone’s unanimous opinion capable of imperial power—if only he had not wielded it” (omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset, H. 1.49.4; for consensus in the Galban narrative, see H. 1.15.1; 16.1; 30.2). Galba is mentioned several times in the subsequent narrative, also in the context of his effigies, first demolished and then restituted (H. 1.55.3; 1.56.1; 2.55.1; 3.7.2). See also H. 4.40.1 for the rehabilitation of his memory under Vespasian. see also: sources; speeches Reference works: PIR2 S 1003; RE IV A, 1 (1931), 772–801 (M. Fluss) REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 1999. Ordering Anarchy: Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ Histories. London: Duckworth. Bruère, Richard T. 1954. “Tacitus and Pliny’s Panegyricus.” Classical Philology 49: 161–179. DOI: 10.1086/363789. Damon, Cynthia. 2003. Tacitus, Histories, Book I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Joseph, Timothy A. 2012. Tacitus the Epic Successor. Virgil, Lucan, and the Narrative of Civil Wars in the Histories. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Kornemann, Ernst. 1947. Tacitus. Eine Würdigung im Lichte der griechischen und lateinischen Geschichtsschreibung. Wiesbaden: Dietrich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Murison, Charles L. 1993. Galba, Otho and Vitellius. Careers and Controversies. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

c07_Vol1.indd 450

Woodman, A. J. 2006. “Tiberius and the Taste of Power: The Year 33 in Tacitus.” Classical Quarterly 56, 175–189. DOI: 10.1017/S0009838806000140. FURTHER READING Geiser, Melanie. 2007. Personendarstellung bei Tacitus am Beispiel von Cn. Domitius Corbulo und Ser. Sulpicius Galba. Ramscheid: Gardez! Verlag. Morgan, Gwyn. 2006. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

GALERIA FUNDANA JUAN LUIS POSADAS

Centro Universitario U-TAD, Madrid, Spain TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Galeria Fundana (d. 69 ce) was the second wife of Aulus Vitellius, emperor in 69 ce, with whom she had two children (one boy and one girl). She was a paragon of virtue and moderation, like the emperor’s mother Sextilia. Galeria Fundana came from a senatorial family about which not much is known (her father was praetor). She married Vitellius and had with him a son and a daughter. Due to her husband’s excesses in food and drink, she never lived comfortably, and creditors persecuted her. She stayed at Rome during her husband’s tenure as governor of Germania Inferior. It is worth noting that Tacitus attributed great importance to the debate in the Senate under the reign of Tiberius regarding whether wives should accompany their husbands in the provinces (and he appeared to be in favor of the practice: A. 3.33–34). After the victory of Vitellius over Otho, Galeria Fundana moved into the imperial palace of Nero with Vitellius and her two children. Galeria stayed away from the dissolute life of her husband during the months in which he was emperor. However, she used her influence to reduce the executions ordered by Vitellius. Specifically, she saved her relative Galerius Trachalus, one of Otho’s advisers. When eventually Vespasian defeated Vitellius and the latter was killed, her son was executed,

28-04-2023 18:01:22

games  

but Galeria and her daughter Vitellia were pardoned. The latter even enjoyed the protection of Vespasian, who provided the dowry for her marriage. Nothing more is known about her. As with Sextilia, Tacitus uses the character of Galeria Fundana to balance the principate of Vitellius and as a counterpoint to her sister-in-law Triaria, the wife of the emperor’s brother (H. 2.63–64 and 3.77). The counterpoint is apparent: Triaria is cruel and proud, Galeria is moderate and afflicted. Reference work: PIR2 G 33 FURTHER READINGS Posadas, Juan Luis. 2008. Emperatrices y princesas de Roma. Madrid: Raíces. Posadas, Juan Luis. 2009. Año 69. El año de los cuatro emperadores. Madrid: Ediciones del Laberinto.

GALERIUS TRACHALUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

451

become proconsul of Africa in 78–79 ce. Trachalus was probably a descendant of the equestrian Gaius Galerius, prefect of Roman Egypt (ce 16–23). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Othonian Conspiracy; women Reference works: PIR2 G 30; CIL VI 1984 = ILS 5025; 8639; 9190; V 5812; X 5405 = ILS 6125; ILS 9059 FURTHER READING Avery, W. T. 1959. “Roman Ghost-Writers.” Classical Journal 54: 167–169. Eck, W. 1994. “Prosopographica I.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 101: 227–232. Gallivan, P. A. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24: 290–31.

GALLIA COMATA, see TABULA LUGDUNENSIS GALLIA NARBONENSIS, see GAUL GALLUS, PUBLIUS, see FAENIUS RUFUS GAMBRIVII, see MANNUS TRIBES

University of Durham

Publius Galerius Trachalus was a Roman politician in the second half of the first century ce. Trachalus was from Ariminum and was considered Otho’s main political adviser (H. 1.90). He got the consulship in 68 ce, and his colleague was the poet Silius Italicus. Trachalus was a famous orator, praised by Quintilian: “He was elevated and sufficiently clear in his language, […] but he was better to listen to than to read. For his voice was, in my experience, unique in its beauty of tone, while his delivery would have done credit to an actor, his action was full of grace and he possessed every external advantage in profusion” (Quint. Inst. 10.1.119 and 6.3.8; 8.5.19; 12.5.5–6; 10.11). Tacitus says that many in the audience recognized in Otho’s speeches Trachalus’ peculiar oratorical style, well known because it was heard many times in the Forum and because it was meant to fill the populi aures, the ears of the people (H. 1.90). As a relative of Vitellius’ wife, Galeria Fundana who protected him, he survived Otho’s fall despite the accusations (H. 2.60). Patron of Mediolanum, he later was allowed to

c07_Vol1.indd 451

GAMES KATHLEEN M. COLEMAN

Harvard University

“Games” in Tacitus encompass ludi (dramatic performances and/or circus races staged in the context of festivals), munera (gladiatorial shows), venationes (beast hunts), and naumachiae (staged naval battles). They were one of the most prominent venues in which the emperor came face-to-face with the public—a point specifically mentioned by Tacitus in the context of the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero at the circus; Nero in turn staged circus games in honor of Ceres to celebrate the foiling of the conspirators (A. 15.53, 74). These occasions are useful to Tacitus for diagnosing the relationship between princeps and people. Furthermore, performing in public for a fee was considered disgraceful and hence unsuitable for more than cursory mention in annalistic history, so that many notices of such events and their associated

28-04-2023 18:01:23

452

  games

culture cluster in the miscellaneous section at year’s end, and most are laced with moral judgment. Games feature most prominently in the reigns of Nero and Vitellius, the two most dissolute emperors in the extant Histories and Annals. Games are also an index of the uncorrupted nature of the Germans, who perform only one type of spectacle (G. 24). Tacitus commonly puts a negative construction on the games. He scarcely stoops to mention the construction of Nero’s wooden amphitheater in 57 ce (A. 13.31.1). The magnificence of the emperor’s gladiatorial shows in 63 ce, although acknowledged, is immediately undercut by the claim that many women and senators were disgraced by appearing in them (A. 15.32); surprisingly, however, Vitellius, who reputedly never concentrated on business to the exclusion of pleasure, prevented equestrians from disgracing themselves on stage or in the arena (H. 2.62.2, 67). In 55 ce, soldiers previously on duty at the games were removed to prevent their contamination by the decadent influence of the theater and—a practical reason—to see whether the audience would behave properly without them (A. 13.24.1). One of Otho’s generals, Martius Macer, used gladiators against the Vitellians at Cremona, but they showed less staying power (constantia) than soldiers (H. 2.35.1); likewise, in December 69 most of the gladiators assigned to the admiral Claudius Iulianus to quell a naval revolt ran away (H. 3.57.2, 76.1–2). By quoting the rumor that the father of a certain Curtius Rufus—perhaps the historian—was a gladiator (A. 11.21.1), Tacitus implies that Curtius was the bastard son of a citizen mother (Malloch 2013, 304). Nero’s performances as a charioteer, singer, and declaimer are condemned as profoundly unbecoming (A. 14.14–15, 15.34–35, 16.4.1), and by introducing the ludi Iuvenales (youth games) he is alleged to have spread moral rot among the upper classes (A. 14.15.1). Tacitus uses Nero’s introduction of Greek-style games in 60 ce as an occasion to employ the literary device of an anonymous debate on the merits and demerits of theatrical performance (A. 14.20–21). The shadow of Spartacus loomed over the Roman imagination, as Tacitus remarks in mentioning how gladiators at Praeneste were foiled in an attempted break-out (A. 15.46). He

c07_Vol1.indd 452

repeatedly associates the games with ­unrestrained violence and passes judgment on the protagonists and the reactions of the authorities. In 14 ce, competition between actors disrupted the ludi Augustales in honor of Augustus; Tacitus comments that while Augustus had made a point of engaging in popular enthusiasms, Tiberius barely concealed his disapproval and in the following year tried to intervene (A. 1. 54.2, 77.4). At a gladiatorial show, Drusus the Elder rejoiced in the shedding of blood, worthless (vilis) though it was (A. 1.76.3). In 15 ce, Tiberius attempted to introduce countermeasures to stem theatrical violence, and in 23 he had actors expelled from Italy (A. 1.77.4, 4.14.3); in 56, Claudius expelled them again for fomenting theatrical unrest (A. 13.25.4). The most notorious such incident is the riot in the amphitheater at Pompeii in 59 ce, resulting in severe casualties among visitors from neighboring Nuceria, which caused the Roman Senate to ban the Pompeians from participating in “a gathering of that type” (eius modi coetus) for ten years (A. 14.17); since Tacitus does not define “that type,” and two separate communities were evidently involved, blame is variously assigned to gladiatorial fan clubs (Franklin 1997), youth brigades (Moeller 1970), or resentment among the Pompeians about Nuceria’s recent injection of colonists (Galsterer 1980). Tacitus’ comparatively matter-of-fact—if oblique—account of this incident contrasts with his highly emotive description of the collapse of a jerry-built amphitheater at Fidenae, where a sudden reversal of fortune elicits treatment in high tragic style (A. 4.62–63). As praetor, Tacitus’ father-in-law, Agricola, achieved the golden mean in mounting games and simultaneously winning popularity by avoiding excess (Ag. 6). Emperors, on the other hand, exploited the games for their own political purposes. Claudius introduced the fiancé of Octavia (2), Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1), to the public with a triumph and magnificent gladiatorial show, and paraded Britannicus and Nero at circus games (A. 12.3.2, 41.2). In 51 ce he celebrated the defeat of the British king Caratacus with an insigne spectaculum (“outstanding spectacle,” A. 12.36.2), possibly the same event as the British surrender that he

28-04-2023 18:01:23

G aramantes  

restaged on the Campus Martius, which is coupled by Suetonius with a naumachia to celebrate the draining of the Fucine Lake (Suet. Claud. 21.6); Tacitus’ annalistic structure forces him to postpone the naumachia to its proper chronological place (A. 12.56–57). Among the Claudian innovations that Nero rescinded, quaestors designate were no longer to sponsor gladiatorial shows (A. 13.5.1). Nero’s monopoly went further: no magistrate or procurator was to put on gladiators, beasts, or games of any kind (A. 13.31.3). The Senate picked up the link between emperor and spectacle and celebrated the birth of a daughter to Nero and Poppaea the Younger by decreeing circus games at Antium in honor of the gens Claudia and Domitia (A. 15.23.2). The Flavian general, Antonius Primus, argued that urban luxuries, including theaters and circus, had made the Vitellians soft (H. 3.2.2); games are the touchstone for their leader’s profligacy (H. 2.71.1, 94.3, 95.1). Like the Romans watching the defeat of the Bructeri by neighboring tribes as though the spectacle of the battle were entertainment (G. 33), the protagonists in the Histories repeatedly fail to distinguish reality from simulation (H. 1.32, 2.70). Tacitus’ ultimate indictment upon spectacle culture comes in his characterization of the Roman populace watching the carnage in the Flavian capture of Rome as if it were holiday fun (H. 3.83.3). see also: Campania; morality; Germani; annales REFERENCES Franklin, James L., Jr. 1997. “Cn Alleius Nigidius Maius and the Amphitheater: Munera and a Distinguished Career at Ancient Pompeii.” Historia 46: 434–447. Galsterer, Hartmut. 1980. “Politik in römischen Städten: Die ‘Seditio’ des Jahres 59 n. Chr. in Pompeii.” In Studien zur antiken Sozialgeschichte: Festschrift Friedrich Vittinghoff, edited by Werner Eck, Hartmut Galsterer, and Hartmut Wolff, 323–338. Cologne: Böhlau. Malloch, S. J. V. 2013. The Annals of Tacitus Book 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moeller, W. O. 1970. “The Riot of A.D. 59 at Pompeii.” Historia 19: 84–95.

GANNASCUS, see CANNINEFATES

c07_Vol1.indd 453

453

GARAMANTES ROBYN LE BLANC

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

The Garamantes were a people from Libya, living largely south of the Roman provincial borders of Africa and Tripolitania, but who traded with the Roman cities of the province and were sometimes drawn in to local or provincial disputes, including Tacfarinas’ revolt against Rome from 17–24 ce and the tensions between Oea (Tripoli) and Leptis Magna in 69 ce The heartland of the Garamantes lay in the Libyan Sahara, around the Fezzan, with a capital at Garama/Jarma (Germa, Libya) (Plin. HN 5.5.35–37). Archaeological work centered on the Garamantes over the past fifty years have ­challenged the image presented in Greco-Roman historical sources (e.g., Hdt. 4.174, 183; Strabo 17.3.19, 17.3.23). This work has highlighted, among other things, Garamantian towns and cities, and shed light on long-distance trade and on Garamantian burials and agriculture (Mattingly 2003–2013). The Garamantes were one of several North African groups to support Tacfarinas during the revolt against Rome, supplying lightly armored troops for use against the Romans, and purchasing spoils seized by the rebels (A. 3.74, 4.23). After Tacfarinas’ defeat and death in 24 ce, the Garamantes sent ambassadors to Rome with Publius Cornelius Dolabella (A. 4.26). In 69 CE the Garamantes were also involved in the dispute between Oea and Leptis over stolen goods and livestock, on the side of Oea (H. 4.50; Plin. HN 5.5.38). Only the involvement of the Roman commander, Valerius Festus, put a stop to the conflict. The Leptitani were able to recover some goods taken by the Garamantes, except for those which had already been conducted down the long-distance Garamantian trade network, a system for which there is much archaeological evidence. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; provinces Reference works: Barrington 36 C4 Garamantes; 36 C5 Garama Metropolis; 35 G2 Neapolis/Lepcis Magna; 35 F2 Oea

28-04-2023 18:01:23

454

  gardens

REFERENCES Mattingly, David J. 2003–2013. The Archaeology of the Fazzan. 4 vols. Jamahariya: Society for Libyan Studies, Department of Antiquities (Tripoli). FURTHER READING Daniels, Charles M. 1970. The Garamantes of Southern Libya. Stoughton, WI: Oleander Press.

GARDENS KATHARINE T. VON STACKELBERG

Brock University

Luxury gardens attached to important residences emerged in Rome toward the end of the first century bce. Known as Horti, these sites appear in Tacitus with more frequency than in any other work by Latin historiographers. Ostensibly topographical markers, they serve a narrative function as loci of transgression and fatal transformation (Pagán 2006). Most garden references specify locales within the city of Rome where ownership of the largest and finest Horti concentrated in imperial hands: these include the Horti Serviliani, Horti Sallustiani, Horti Luculliani, and Horti Maecenatis. The Horti Luculliani and Horti Maecenatis are most famous as the respective sites of Messalina’s murder (A. 1.37) and Nero’s vantage point for observing the Great Fire of Rome (A. 15.39). As symbols of wealth and power, gardens are the object of Messalina’s desire at the start of Annals Book 11 when she initiates the prosecution of Decimus Valerius Asiaticus (1) to seize the Horti Luculliani (A. 11.1). Tacitus uses these gardens as a framing device to stage the narrative of Messalina’s downfall, emphasizing her transgression (A. 11.32–37) and creating parallels between her own and Nero’s boundary-crossing performances of marriage (von Stackelberg 2009). Similarly, Agrippina’s desire for the Horti of Titus Statilius Taurus (1) (A. 12.59), in addition to the garden estates she already owns in Tusculum and Antium (A. 14.3), is an indication of her masculine lust for power (Boatwright 1998). However, men also covet ostentatious gardens. Vitellius’ generals Fabius Valens,

c07_Vol1.indd 454

Lucilius Bassus, and Caecina Alienus (H. 2.92, 3.11), and Vespasian’s supporter Gaius Licinius Mucianus (H. 4.11) all demonstrate excessive interest in gardens. Seneca attempts to surrender his garden estates to Nero when their splendor is presented as a challenge to the emperor (A. 14.5). The appearance of gardens in the Annals and Histories usually signals a fatal threat. The earliest mention concerns an equestrian accused of sacrilege for selling his garden together with a statue of Augustus (A. 1.73). Tiberius rules in the defendant’s favor, but from this point in the combined historiographical narrative gardens are increasingly dangerous places, finally becoming the site of open conflict between Vitellian supporters and Flavian cavalry (H. 3.79, 3.82). Garden retreats are fatal precursors not only for Messalina, Agrippina the Younger, and Seneca, but also Aelius Gallus (A. 5.8), Thrasea Paetus (A. 16.34), and Vitellius (H. 3.36). Nero also extends his theatrical use of gardens for staged performance (A. 15.33) to deadly effect, executing Christians as entertainment (A. 15.44). Even when no death is immediately forthcoming, the morbid associations of Tacitus’ gardens signal the moral decay and physical weakness of their occupants. Tiberius will only approach Rome as far as the Horti Caesaris Transtiberim before returning to Capri to debauch children (A. 6.1), Aponius Saturninus cowers in his Veronese gardens during a mutiny (H. 3.3), and Vitellius experiences serious illness in the Horti Serviliani (H. 3.38). It is therefore surprising to see gardens in the Germania used as an index of civilization (G. 26.3). However, in this instance Germanic horticultural ignorance is presented as example of environmental stewardship, since without gardens the tribes do not damage their fertile soil with intensive irrigation, and by extension do not damage themselves with excessive desire for luxury gardens. see also: Rome, topography; Fire of 64 ce; Christianity; luxury; morality Reference Works: Steinby, Eva Margareta, ed. 1993– 2000. Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae. 6 vols. Rome: Edizioni Quasar.

28-04-2023 18:01:23

G aul  

REFERENCES Boatwright, Mary T. 1998. “Luxuriant Gardens and Extravagant Women: The horti of Rome between Republic and Empire.” In Horti Romani. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Roma, 4–6 Maggio 1995, BCAR supp.6, edited by Maddalena Cima and Eugenio La Rocca, 71–82. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Pagán, Victoria E. 2006. Rome and the Literature of Gardens. London: Duckworth. DOI: 10.5040/9781472540072. von Stackelberg, Katharine T. 2009. “Performative Space and Garden Transgressions in Tacitus’ Death of Messalina.” American Journal of Philology 130: 595–624. DOI: 10.1353/ajp.0.0087. FURTHER READING Hartswick, Kim J. 2004. The Gardens of Sallust. A Changing Landscape. Austin: University of Texas Press. Häuber, R. Christina. 1998. “«Art as a weapon» von Scipio Africanus Maior bis Lucullus. Domus, horti und Heiligtümer auf dem Esquilin.” In Horti Romani. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Roma, 4–6 Maggio 1995, BCAR supp.6, edited by Maddalena Cima and Eugenio La Rocca, 83–112. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. von Stackelberg, Katharine T. 2009. The Roman Garden: Space, Sense and Society. London and New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203875193.

GAUL JONATHAN H. YOUNG

The University of Oxford

Gaul (Latin Gallia) is both a geographical designation and an artificial construct for the area of roughly modern France. The first interactions between the Romans and the predominately Celtic peoples of Gaul occurred long before the creation of any Gallic provinces. Around 390 bce, the Gallic Senones sacked the Capitoline of Rome (Livy Epit. 5.38–49). This encounter lingered in the cultural memory of Roman citizens. In 125–121 bce, Rome took political control of the Mediterranean coast of Gaul and created the first province in Gaul, which they named Gallia  Transalpina. The Roman inhabitants of

c07_Vol1.indd 455

455

Narbonensis felt ethnic prejudice against the portion of Gaul to their east (Goudineau 1996; Sherwin-White 1967). Thus, Narbonensis took on the additional name of Gallia Togata to show its Roman culture as opposed to the purported lack thereof in the eastern region of Gaul which was termed Gallia Comata (“long-haired Gaul”; c.f. A. 11.23.1). Gallia Comata remained autonomous until Iulius Caesar conquered the territory during the years of 58–51 bce. Augustus reformed the provinces of Gallia Transalpina and Gallia Comata. He divided Gallia Comata into Tres Galliae (Aquitania, Belgica, and Lugdunensis) and renamed Transalpina as Gallia Narbonensis. Thus, a distinction was made between the Mediterranean Narbonensis and the more foreign Tres Galliae (Goudineau 1996, 468). According to Syme (1958), Tacitus amplifies this distinction, uncoupling Narbonensis from the designation of Gaul. In fact, Syme contends that whenever Tacitus refers to Gallia, he effectively means Tres Galliae and not Narbonensis (Syme 1958, 456 n. 3; cf. A. 11.23). In any case, the province of Narbonensis serves for Tacitus as the touchstone for much of what he writes about the land and peoples of Gaul.

GALLIA NARBONENSIS Pliny the Elder estimates that Narbonensis was Italia verius quam provincia (“Italy more truly than province,” HN 3.20). Characteristic of the province was its integration into Roman political life more so than the Tres Galliae. Namely, Narbonensis provided many Roman senators. The first senator, in 35 ce, a certain Decimus Valerius Asiaticus (1), came from Vienna (modern-day Vienne), the former capital city of the Allobroges (Inscr. Ital. 13.1). The second senator Domitius Afer, in 39 ce, hailed from Nemausus (modernday Nîmes; Syme 1958, 456; Jer. Chron. 179H). Later, senators from Narbonensis gained the ability to freely travel back to their homes without having to gain prior approval from the emperor (A. 12.23). Contrasted to this, were the political restrictions on the peoples from the provinces of Tres Galliae. Senators had not yet come from the region originally called long-haired Gaul (quae

28-04-2023 18:01:23

456

  G aul

comata appellatur, A. 11.23). Claudius’ speech (A. 11.23–24) attests to the debate whether to open the Senate to men from Tres Galliae. This notwithstanding, the number of senators from the region would still remain few (Syme 1958, 461–462; Woolf 1998, 64).

NARBO MARTIUS Narbonensis further contrasted with Tres Galliae in that it was organized according to cities, whereas the latter was not based on an urban scheme (Syme 1958, 454–455). The chief city of Narbonensis was Narbo Martius (modern-day Narbonne; Barrington 25 H2). Since the seventh century bce, there is evidence of a fortified settlement named Naro on the nearby hill of Montlaurès. By 118–7 bce, Narbo Martius was founded as a Roman colony and served as its provincial capital (cf. Cic. Font. 5.13; Vell. Pat. 1.15.5). Then, in 46 bce in order to compete with the city of Massilia (modern-day Marseille), Julius Caesar entrusted Tiberius Nero to establish another colony at the city by populating it with veterans of the Tenth Legion. The full name of the colony became Colonia Iulia Paterna Narbo Martius Decumanorum (Plin. HN 3.32; cf. Suet. Tib. 4.1). Later, Claudius would add the final appellation of Claudia to the colony’s full name and add the citizens to the voting tribe Papiria. The status of Narbo was well reputed in the late republic and early empire. For example, the poet Publius Terentius Varro Atacinus—known for his epic the Bellum Sequanicum about Julius Caesar’s battles against Ariovistus in 58 bce—called Narbo Martius home. Narbo also became an important religious site for the cult of the emperor. In 11 ce, an altar was dedicated to the numen Augusti (the numen of Augustus). Other monuments there include a theater and several temples. Additionally, imperial authors also note the city’s location on the navigable Atax (Aude) river (Strabo 4.1.6; Pompon. 2.81). Narbo also developed both major and minor ports. Moreover, Narbo’s economy was strengthened by the province’s abundance of agriculture, especially the production of wine (cf. Cic. Font. 9.19).

c07_Vol1.indd 456

ANTIPOLIS On the coast, roughly east-northeast of Narbo Martius, lay the important city of Antipolis (modern-day Antibes; Barrington 16 D2). In the fifth century bce, the Phocaean colony of Massilia founded Antipolis as a colony. Previously, the Deciates, a Ligurian people, controlled the area. The city’s name seems to be a Greek translation of an established Ligurian term for the location. In the first century bce, even after Julius Caesar took control of Massilia, Antipolis remained indirectly outside of Roman rule. Nevertheless, by the early imperial period, Strabo refers to Massilia as one “of the Italiote [cities]” (τῶν Ἰταλιωτίδων) (4.1.9). On one hand, Pliny calls Antipolis an oppidum Latinum (“Latin town,” HN 3.35). Tacitus, however, calls it a municipium (“a free town,” H. 2.15). Inscriptions likewise suggest its status as a municipium (cf. CIL 12.175, 176, 179, 181, 185). Antipolis provided an ideal retreat, in 69 ce, for Vitellius and his supporters, following their truce with Otho (H. 2.15). The material culture of Antipolis suggests a port city possessing material resources. For instance, its famous export was muria, a type of fish sauce (Plin., HN 31.94; Mart. 13.103). Not all ships, however, made it to Antipolis’ harbor; evidence off the coast suggests that shipwrecks were common (Rivet 1988, 230). In the city itself, excavations have uncovered an amphitheater, multiple baths, and mosaics suggestive of their owners’ wealth. Further inland, lay multiple villas of modest wealth. VOCONTII Northwest of Antipolis lived the Vocontii, who once controlled a large territory and probably a confederation of other Gallic peoples, such as the Vertamocori, Segontii, Sabagini, and the Avantici. Also, it is known that Hannibal traveled through the Vocontii’s vast territory when he marched to Italy in the third century bce. The defeat of the Vocontii was not until 125 bce. The government of the Vocontii differed from the other cities in Narbonensis. The Vocontii’s major city was Vasio (modern-day Vaison-la-Romaine; Barrington 15

28-04-2023 18:01:23

G aul  

E1). Vasio uniquely obtained a status of a civitas foederata (“an allied state”), a status which only Massilia shared (Rivet 1988, 286; cf. Strabo 4.6.4; Plin. HN 3.37). Furthermore, Vasio never became a Roman colony. It did, however, obtain the rights of ius Latii (“Latin right”; cf. Plin. HN 3.37). At some point, however, Vasio did obtain the full name Vasio Iulia Vocontiorum (Vasio Iulia of the Vocontii), and its free inhabitants later became citizens in the voting tribe Voltinia. Vasio was home to renowned individuals and organizations, both speculative and historical. Syme (1958, 611–624), for instance, posits Vasio as the birthplace for Tacitus himself. Rivet (1988, 287) sees the speculation as plausible and still open for debate; indeed, from Vasio an inscription does bear the rare name “Tacitus” (CIL 12.1301), a name which is only found elsewhere in Alaunium (CIL 12.1517). More thoroughly documented, however, are the unique military organizations associated with Vasio. Men from Narbonensis regularly served in Roman legions and the Praetorian Guard, but not usually in auxiliary regiments. Vasio, however, proved the exception and provided two auxiliary wings (alae Vocontiorum), which were deployed both in the east and the western empire. In the early empire, Vasio held a good reputation. For instance, Pomponius Mela ranks Vasio as one of the wealthiest cities (urbium … opulentissimae, 2.75), and Pliny comments about the good dessert wines from the area (HN 13.83). The city’s material remains, however, do not readily indicate as much information about the city’s prosperity. Much of the excavation occurred before the standardization of modern archaeological practices (Goudineau 1979, 184–197). Nevertheless, coins, for instance, from excavations suggest prosperity until the fourth century ce. Northeast of Vasio, lay two other towns of importance: Lucus and Dea Augusta. Lucus (modern-day Luc-en-Diois; Barrington 17 E4) was a town of the Vocontii and, like Vasio, shared the rights of ius Latii (Plin. HN 3.37). In contrast, Dea Augusta (modern-day Die; Barrington 17 E4) was the site of a Roman colony of the Augustan era, whose full name was Colonia Dea Augusta Vocontiorum (CIL 12.690). Notably, Lucus— sometimes referred to as Lucus Augusti (Plin. HN 3.37)—functions as the site for multiple events in the year 69 ce. The Roman suffect consul Fabius

c07_Vol1.indd 457

457

Valens led his army through the territory of the Vocontii and their neighbors the Allobroges. During this march, Valens threatened to burn down Lucus and other towns and extort them for money (H. 1.66). Compared to Lucus, the colony of Dea Augusta possesses more archaeological information, with many inscriptions found which testify to the types of government officials present. ALLOBROGES South of the Vocontii lay the territory of the Allobroges. They fought and resisted Roman attempts to control their people and territory, which was quite vast at the time of Hannibal’s journey through the area (Livy 21.31.5–7). Cicero also attests to the Roman perception that the Allobroges wished to retain some autonomy apart from Roman rule. Evidently Catiline, as Cicero at the year of his consulship in 63 bce mentions, wished to stir up rebellion against Roman officials (Cic. Cat. 3.4–6). Cicero thought that the Allobroges could be successful since the Allobroges had resisted Roman domination once before. Earlier in 66 bce, Calpurnius attempted to bring the Allobroges under Roman rule. Then, final control of the Allobroges’ territory was achieved at the end of the decade when Gaius Pomptinus, with the aid of legates, brought the Allobroges’ rebellion to an end. Referring to this, Julius Caesar comments that the Allobroges “were recently pacified” (nuper pacati errant, BGall. 1.6.2). The civitas of the Allobroges included the smaller towns of Genava (modern-day Genève; Barrington 18 D3) and Cularo (modern-day Grenoble; Barrington 17 F3). The main town for the Allobroges, however, was Vienna (modernday Vienne; Barrington 17 D2). Vienna would become the site of a colonia, first a colonia Latina and then a colonia Romana (Rivet 1988, 306). Caesar perhaps was the first to make it a colony. The emperor Caligula brought Vienna fully into the status of a full colony. The colony’s full name became Colonia Iulia Augusta Florentia Vienna or Viennensium (CIL 12.2337). The wealth and abundance of both the civitas and Vienna are well-recorded (Pompon. 2.4.75; Plin. HN 14.26, 14.57, 18.85; Columella Rust. 12.23; Mart. 7.88, 13.107; Plut. Quaest. conv.

28-04-2023 18:01:23

458

  G aul

676c). As seen above, Pomponius Mela, in his same citation of Vasio (2.75), refers to Vienna as also one of the most prosperous cities (urbium … opulentissimae) of the Allobroges. Archaeological evidence backs up these claims. Remains of buildings and monuments survive. For instance, there is an indication of a forum at the city center and the remains of a theater dedicated to Cybele on the side of the Pipet hill. There are also baths from the late part of the first century ce. Material evidence also suggests that, during the time of Augustus, people enclosed the hills of modernday Ste-Blandine, Pipet, Salomon, Arnaud, and St-Just with city walls. Despite its prosperity, the colonia Romana of Vienna perhaps eventually fell into disuse. According to Cassius Dio’s account (46.50.5), the Allobroges expelled some inhabitants of Vienna from the colony. This led the Senate, in 43 bce, to order that Lepidus, the governor of Transalpina, and Plancus, the governor of Gallia Comata to establish another city for the former residents of Vienna. Thus, came about the colony of Lugdunum (modern-day Lyon; Barrington 17 D2). This colony, in turn, would become the capital of the province of Lugdunensis. ANDECAVI Northwest of Lugdunum, in the same province of Lugdunensis, lay the territory of the Andecavi (Plin., HN 4.107), also known by the names of Andes (cf. Caes. BGall. 3.7) and Andecavi (Oros. 6.8.7). On the Liger (Loire) river, the Andecavi inhabited Iuliomagus (modern-day Angers; Barrington 19 A2) as their main city (Ptol. Geog. 2.8). The Andecavi and their neighbor to the west the Turoni both joined Iulius Sacrovir’s rebellion of 21 ce against Roman rule. The Andecavi and Turoni were among the first to revolt. Their attempt, however, was thwarted by the legate Acilius Aviola who sought aid from soldiers in Lugdunum (A. 3.41.2). TURONI The Turoni people inhabited the midway region of the Liger (Loire) river in the province of Lugdunensis (Ptol. Geog. 2.11). Inscriptions

c07_Vol1.indd 458

indicate that, since Augustus’ rule, the Turoni held a civitas status within Lugdunensis. (CIL 13.3076). Augustus then made the new capital for the Turoni Caesarodunum (modern-day Tours; Barrington 14 F1), located at the intersection of the Cares (Cher) and Liger rivers. Material remains exist from the time of the emperor Tiberius onward, with examples ranging from baths, an aqueduct, and an amphitheater. Like the Andecavi, the Turoni were unsuccessful in their resistance to Roman occupation. The legate of lower Germany Visellius Varro sent men to squelch the Turoni’s attempted coup (A. 3.41). Previously, the Turoni had also involved themselves militarily against Roman armies. In 52 bce, they supported Vercingetorix’ revolt against Julius Caesar (Caes. BGall. 7.75.3). SEQUANI The Sequani lived to the east of Caesarodunum and outside the provincial boundaries of Lugdunensis. The territory and boundaries of the Sequani changed multiple times until the first century ce. Originally, the Sequani seem to have lived on the Sequana (Seine) River before they moved into the area of the modern region of Franche-Comté. The Sequani came to know the Romans during the course of Julius Caesar’s conflicts with the Helvetii and with Ariovistus in 58 bce (Caes. BGall. 1.1; Cass. Dio 38.32; Livy Epit. 104). Later Augustus reorganized the Sequani’s territory as a civitas bounded by the rivers Rhenus (Rhine) (Caes. BGall. 1.1, 4.10; Strabo 4.3.4, 4.6.10–1) and Rhodanus (Rhône) (Caes. BGall.1.33), as well as the Jura mountains (Caes. BGall. 1.12; Strabo 4.1.11, 4.3.2–4). Then, as part of reforms to provincial administration in 16/13 bce, the main city for the civitas of the Sequani became Vesontio (modernday Besançon; Barrington 18 D2), and the entire civitas itself became part of the province of Belgica. In 82/90 ce, the civitas of the Sequani then changed administrative boundaries again when Domitian added the Sequani’s territory to the newly founded province of Germania Superior (Ptol. Geog. 2.9.21). The Sequani took part in two revolts against existing Roman rule. Tacitus reports that the Sequani joined Aedui in Iulius Sacrovir’s failed rebellion of 21 ce (A. 3.45). In 68/9 ce the Sequani

28-04-2023 18:01:23

G avius Silvanus  

at Vesontio then successfully participated in the fight of Iulius Vindex against Verginius Rufus. For this act, it seems, the Sequani obtained ius Latii (H. 4.67; A. 1.51; Cass. Dio 63.24). see also: Cornelius Tacitus; Germania; Lugdunum; Tabula Lugdunensis; provinces REFERENCES Goudineau, Christian. 1979. Les fouilles de la maison au Dauphin: Recherches sur la romanisation de VaisonLa-Romaine. Supplément à “Gallia” 37. Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la Recherche scientifique. Goudineau, Christian. 1996. “Gaul.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, 464–502. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rivet, Albert L. F. 1988. Gallia Narbonensis, with a Chapter on Alpes Maritimae: Southern France in Roman Times. London: Batsford. Sherwin-White, A. N. 1967. “Tacitus and the Barbarians.” In Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woolf, Greg. 1998. Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Bedon, Robert. 1996. “Tours, Caesarodunum.” In Les villes de la Gaule Lyonnaise, 279–303. Caesarodunum 30. Limoges: Presses universitaires de Limoges. Drinkwater, J. F. 1983. Roman Gaul: The Three Provinces, 58 B.C.–A.D. 260. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Duval, Paul-Marie. 1971. Les sources de l’histoire de France: Des origines à la fin du XVe siècle. Vol. 1, La Gaule jusqu’au milieu du Ve siècle. 2 vols. Paris: A. et J. Picard. Ebel, Charles. 1976. Transalpine Gaul: The Emergence of a Roman Province. Leiden: Brill. Fischer, B. 1988. “Le premier monnayage des Sequani.” Études Celtiques 25.1: 69–78. Grenier, Albert. 1931–1960. Manuel d’archéologie gallo-romaine. 4 vols. Paris: A. Picard. Johnston, Andrew C. 2017. Sons of Remus: Identity in Roman Gaul and Spain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jullian, Camille. 1908–1926. Histoire de la Gaule. 8 vols. Paris: Hachette. King, Anthony. 1990. Roman Gaul and Germany. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

c07_Vol1.indd 459

459

Mangin, Michel. 1987. “Zur Besiedlung der FrancheComté während der Römerzeit.” Offa. Berichte und Mitteilungen zur Urgeschichte, Frühgeschichte und Mittelalterarchäologie 44: 153–173. Provost, Michael. 1988. Carte archéologique de la Gaule. Vol. 37, L’Indre-et-Loire. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Provost, Michael. 1993. Le val de Loire dans l’Antiquité. Gallia Supplément 52. Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la Recherche scientifique. Syme, Ronald. 1953. “Tacitus on Gaul.” Latomus 12.1: 25–37. Wightman, Edith Mary. 1990. Gallia Belgica. London: B.T. Batsford.

GAVIUS APICIUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Marcus Gavius Apicius (early first century ce) was famous for his luxury and was rumored to have purchased illicit sex from Sejanus (A. 4.1.2). He lived at Minturnae in Campania and entertained elite Romans, including Maecenas and Iunius Blaesus. Apicius is often mentioned in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. The recipes contained in De re coquinaria transmitted under his name are a later fourth century collection. see also: food; Tiberius; sexual deviance Reference work: PIR2 G 91

GAVIUS SILVANUS ARNOLDUS VAN ROESSEL

University of Toronto

Gavius Silvanus (d. 65 ce) from Augusta Taurinorum (modern Turin), was chief centurion of legion VIII Augusta (43 ce), tribune of the second cohort of the watch (Vigiles), tribune of the thirteenth urban cohort, and tribune of the twelfth Praetorian Cohort. A member of the Pisonian Conspiracy, he was pardoned by Nero but committed suicide shortly after.

28-04-2023 18:01:23

460

  G elduba

A decorated veteran, nothing is known about his earlier military career. An honorific inscription from Augusta Taurinorum records his origin and higher military offices and honors (CIL V 7003). He was of the tribe Stellatina indicating he was a local of Turin where he was named patronus coloniae (Keppie 1971, 150) He received honorary necklaces, armlets, medals, and a golden crown from Claudius for his actions in the invasion of Britannia in 43 ce where he served as chief centurion of legion VIII Augusta. He held his remaining known tribunates of the cohort of the watch, the urban cohort, and praetorian cohort in Rome. In 65 ce while a tribune of the praetorian cohort, Silvanus joined the Pisonian conspiracy as one of its military supporters (A. 15.50.3). His participation was not initially realized upon the plot’s discovery. Nero sent Silvanus with a squad of soldiers to question Seneca on his alleged participation in the conspiracy. He was then to command Seneca to commit suicide, but Silvanus was unwilling to provide the order himself and commanded a centurion to administer the sentence (A. 15.60.4–61). When Nero learned of his involvement, Silvanus was pardoned, perhaps for his obedience (Rudich 1992, 119). He nevertheless committed suicide (A. 15.71.2). see also: Pisonian Conspiracy, victims; army Reference work: PIR2 G 112 REFERENCES Keppie, L. J. F. 1971. “Legio VIII Augusta and the Claudian Invasion.” Britannia 2: 149–155. Rudich, V. 1992. Political Dissidence under Nero. New York: Routledge.

GELDUBA

The camp was created under the command of the legates Herennius Gallus and Dillius Vocula during the revolt of Iulius Civilis in mid69 ce (H. 4.26). It lay between the fortified sites of Novaesium and Vetera. With the revolt of Civilis threatening and the morale of their legions wavering, Gallus and Vocula constructed the Gelduba camp to steady their forces (H. 4.26). Subsequently it served as a base for raids on the mutineers until Civilis besieged the legions there (H. 4.27–33), resulting in an indecisive battle outside its walls (H. 4.34). Afterwards, with nearby fortresses also besieged, Vocula abandoned Gelduba to the mutineers and changed his main camp to Novaesium (H. 4.36), at which point it falls out of Tacitus’ narrative. Gelduba remained as a permanent fortification under Roman use and was a settled site up until the early medieval era (Reichmann 2001). see also: Mogontiacum; Rhenus; mutinies Reference works: Barrington 11 G1

DFG Schwerpunkt Programm. 2019. “The Roman Harbour of Gelduba.” Accessed January 14, 2019. http://www.spp-haefen.de/en/projects/der-rheinals-europaeische-verkehrsachse/die-teilprojekte/ the-roman-harbour-of-gelduba. FURTHER READING Reichmann, Christof. 2001. “Gelduba (Krefeld-Gellep) als Fernhandelsplatz.” In Germania Inferior, edited by Thomas Grünewald, 480–516. Ergänzungsband des Reallexikons der Germanischen Altertumskunde 28.

GELLIUS PUBLICOLA, see IUNIUS SILANUS, GAIUS GEMINIUS, see IULIUS CELSUS GEMONIAN STAIRS, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY

MIK LARSEN

California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona

Gelduba (near modern Krefeld, Germany) was a camp erected by the loyalist commanders of the German legions near the banks of the Rhine during the revolt of Iulius Civilis in 69 ce. It was the site of several clashes before being abandoned to the mutineers (H. 4.36).

c07_Vol1.indd 460

GENDER CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Gender refers to a set of behaviors that a given society regulates and considers appropriate

28-04-2023 18:01:23

gender  

based on biological sex. Gender provides a means of classification into the distinct social categories of “masculine” and “feminine,” but also implies a relationship between them. Masculinity and femininity are connected to politics, power, and morality, and interact with other categories, including class, legal status, and ethnicity. The performance of gender has multiple, sometimes contradictory meanings, due to the intersection of such categories. Gender identity in Tacitus is neither inherent nor fixed, but variable according to context-specific action. Gender provides a productive access point for the study of Tacitus as a moral historian and the concept of an exemplary history, and a means of examining Tacitus’ representation of power relationships, particularly among members of the imperial family. MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY Tacitus uses normative concepts and available models of masculinity and femininity from his historical context. Masculinity was aligned with power (potens) and authority (auctoritas) and connected to a man’s public role in the state and in the military. The performance of masculinity requires both action and dominance. Within the household, the paterfamilias was responsible for the control, care, and exploitation of his subordinates, as well as his own self-control (Späth 2012, 435–438). The quality of manliness (virtus) was central to this performance of gender and combined courage with a sense of morality (McDonnell 2006). Politics and the military were considered masculine spheres in which a man should display dominance, strength, and authority. A general (dux) should combine military courage and glory won on the battlefield with clemency, fortitude, constancy, and an appropriate level of affability, so as to inspire willing obedience in his soldiers. The general Domitius Corbulo displays this type of old-fashioned republican morality: he shares in the labors of his soldiers, proving himself humane but demanding, prudent, and fearless (A. 13.35.1, 14.24.1, 15.30.1). The display of courage must be modified during

c07_Vol1.indd 461

461

the reign of a tyrannical emperor: Agricola balances obedience and modesty with industrious and vigor during the reign of Domitian (Ag. 42.4). Elite men should be educated and practiced orators. In the Dialogus, Vipstanus Messalla criticizes men of his time, whose oratory is more suited to singing and dancing: there is something feminine about their speech that lacks the appropriate level of gravity (D. 26.1–3; see Bartsch 1994, 100–101; Rutledge 2012, 75). He blames this fault on their education. It is the mother’s duty to bring up her children and regulate their studies and entertainments. Children raised by slaves and Greek servant women develop a desire for the urban vices offered by actors, gladiators, and horse racing (D. 28.4–29.3). A woman’s world centers on domestic concerns. Women who conform to the domestic ideal are praised for similar attributes and actions: the ideal matrona displayed sexual virtue (pudicitia), loyalty to her husband (fides), fertility (fecunditas), and moderation (moderatio), managed the household, devoted herself to her children, and worked in wool (see Figure G.1). As virtuous wives and caring mothers, they were responsible for passing on the prestige of the family to their children. A woman must safeguard her sexual virtue (pudicitia) above all; without it, a woman is liable to acquiesce to all kinds of evil, as Livia Iulia does after being seduced by Sejanus (A. 4.3.3). Femininity is identified through absence or excess. Women did not have a place in politics or the military and were without official power. They are described as the weak and “unwarlike sex” (imbellis sexus, A. 14.33.1), incapable of self-control and thus liable to be tempted by luxury, infidelity, and overindulgence. Even beauty should be tempered: a beautiful woman may be suspected of also being immoral, such as Livia Iulia and Poppaea Sabina the Younger (A. 4.3.3, 13.45.2–3). Women are overly emotional and can be overtaken by extreme rage, passion, or fear, bordering on madness (furor): Messalina is overwhelmed with desire for Gaius Silius (A. 11.12.1), and the women of Camulodunum are frenzied by portents of their imminent destruction (A. 14.32.1).

28-04-2023 18:01:23

462

  gender

Figure G.1  Draped woman in pudicitia pose. Roman copy of Flavian period from Hellenistic original, Vatican Museums, Rome.

During the principate, morality was influenced by the emperor. The cardinal virtues of the emperor included manliness (virtus), clemency (clementia), justice (iustitia), and dutifulness (pietas). Under Augustus, the Romans discarded their former morality and equality and looked to the emperor instead (A. 1.4.1). Tacitus observes that his Annals require a different type of writing than narratives of the past, in part because of the constraints of recording a one-man rule (A. 4.32.1–33.4). This new form of writing history impacts Tacitus’ narrative and language, in which gender terms are imbued with moral meaning (L’hoir 1992, 120–143), and the manifestation of manliness (virtus) must be altered (Balmaceda 2017, 157–241).

c07_Vol1.indd 462

GENDER PERFORMANCE AND EVALUATION While some values are not gender specific, their expression may differ. Both men and women may be affable (comis), but where a good general might display this quality to his army, as Germanicus, Otho, and Titus (A. 1.71.3, A. 15.30.1, H. 1.13.4, H. 5.1.1), feminine affability allows for a wife to be a good companion for her husband, as Livia Augusta in her marriage to Augustus (A. 5.1.3). While grief is universal, a feminine display includes visible mourning, while a masculine leader replaces mourning with a renewed vigor in war. Agricola uses war as a remedy after the death of his infant son (Ag. 29.1). Tacitus observes, “It is honorable for women to mourn, for men to

28-04-2023 18:01:23

gender  

remember” (feminis lugere honestum est, viris meminisse, G. 27.1). Some laws combined an understanding of gender with morality. Augustus introduced a series of social laws (18–16 bce) that honored or disgraced women for certain actions: adultery became a crime against the state, while women who produced three or more children received special privileges, as did their husbands (Milnor 2005, 140–185; Severy 2003). Both men and women may be accused of treason; however, men are usually condemned for plotting against the state, whereas women are accused of adultery. Tacitus reminds readers that Augustus exiled both his daughter Julia the Elder and granddaughter Julia the Younger for adultery (A. 3.24.2, 3.25.1). Poisoning was considered a female crime and was often combined with accusations of adultery, magic, or the consulting of astrologers (A. 3.7.2, 3.22.1). Poison signified feminine weakness or subterfuge and caused the death of Germanicus at the hands of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso and his wife Munatia Plancina (A. 2.69.3, 2.82.1), Drusus the Younger at the hands of Sejanus and Livia Iulia (A. 4.8.1), Claudius on the orders of Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.67.1–2), and Britannicus on the orders of Nero (A. 13.16.1–2). Those who did not conform to gendered behavior were disgraced or discarded. Tacitus reports the suicide of Caninius Rebilus; although a wealthy legal expert, he was not credited with a constancy of mind sufficient for choosing a noble suicide because he was known for his effeminacy (A. 13.30.2). The wife of Calvisius Sabinus had a perverse desire to view his military camp and entered it at night, disguised as a soldier; she committed adultery in the camp headquarters (H. 1.48.2). Gender boundaries, including both the character of an individual and her connection to gendered spaces, are tested and revised in times of conflict. Tacitus praises women who have the strength to follow their husbands and sons into exile (H. 1.3.1). An unnamed Ligurian woman earns Tacitus’ high praise for hiding her son and refusing to betray his whereabouts, even under torture (H. 2.13.2), as does Epponina, who hid with her husband Iulius Sabinus (H. 4.67.2). Agrippina the Elder, Arminius’ unnamed wife,

c07_Vol1.indd 463

463

and Radamistus’ wife Zenobia display strength under duress while pregnant (A. 1.40.1–4, 1.57.4, 12.51.1–4). Women who remain steadfast in the face of death, violence, and injustice earn praise. A woman who commits suicide together with her condemned husband exhibits a masculine strength, as Sextia (1), wife of Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus (A. 6.29.1; cf. H. 2.59.1). Epicharis, a freedwoman involved in the Pisonian conspiracy, is noteworthy: Nero assumes that female bodies are weak and unable to withstand torture, but Epicharis remains strong and commits suicide rather than betray the names of her fellow conspirators (A. 15.57.2). Epicharis offers a contrast to the freedman Milichus’ wife, who gives advice that is feminine and thus worse, prompting Milichus to betray the conspirators (A. 15.54.3). Among those who commit suicide as a result of the Pisonian conspiracy, Seneca dies a Stoic, masculine death, and his wife Pompeia Paulina attempts to commit suicide with him (A. 15.63.1–64.2). Arria, wife of Thrasea Paetus, is likewise ennobled for offering to commit suicide with her husband (A. 16.34.2). These exceptions are demanded by their particular historical circumstances: domestic heroism becomes a form of female virtus. Feminine concerns place family first; when family is forgotten, female acts of courage are criticized as either indicative of a feminine lack of control or as overtly masculine and can reflect badly on their husbands. Lucius Vitellius’ wife, Triaria, is aggressive more than is acceptable for a woman (ultra feminam ferox, H. 2.63.2), and her outrageous behavior is contrasted with the moderation of the emperor Vitellius’ wife Galeria Fundana and the old-fashioned morality of Sextilia, mother of the Vitellii (H. 2.64.2). Verulana Gratilla is criticized for braving Vitellius’ siege of Rome because her motivations are unfeminine: she is driven by a fascination for war, not her love of her children and kin (H. 3.69.3). Categories of gender and status conflate in narratives of Roman expansion: while Romans display a masculine authority as the ruling power, their enemies show feminine weakness, subversiveness, and a lack of control. Boudicca, who led a rebellion in Britain against the Romans in

28-04-2023 18:01:23

464

  gender

60–61 ce, is characterized as a commander woman (dux femina, Ag. 16.1, A. 14.35.1). She attacks Camulodunum while the Roman governor Suetonius Paulinus is away at Mona, fighting against the Druids and their supporters, including a fanatic battle line of fury-like women (A. 14.30.1–2). Boudicca successfully attacks Camulodunum, Londinium, and Verulamium, but her army treats their captives with barbarian savagery and loses to Suetonius Paulinus and his well-trained Roman army. Cartismandua, another queen in Britain, combines a lack of sexual virtue with brutality and a desire for luxury (H. 3.45.1–2; A. 12.40.2–3). Both Boudicca’s masculine leadership and Cartimandua’s female weakness and savagery demonstrate the intersectionality of gender and status (Shumate 2012, 488–490). Germanic peoples maintain the boundary of the battlefield: the women provide support to their husbands and sons and do not quake to examine their wounds (G. 7.2). However, Germanic women are still not valued as rulers: the Sitones (see Suiones) have a female ruler and are considered to have given up their freedom (G. 45.6). Among other peoples, the Armenians tolerate a woman ruler, Erato, only briefly (A. 2.4.2; see Armenia), and the Batavians prefer to strike an accord with the Romans after the revolt led by Iulius Civilis, rather than serve the female prophet Veleda (H. 5.25.2). Roman women who display too much courage on or near a battlefield invite criticism for their masculine actions. When Agrippina the Elder, wife of Germanicus, provides encouragement, bandages, and foodstuffs to her husband’s retreating legions, she is severely criticized by Tiberius (A. 1.69.1–4). Plancina, wife of Piso, goes beyond female decorum when she observes the military practice of Piso’s troops (A. 2.55.6). Both women are implicit in a debate in the Senate over whether women should be allowed to accompany their husbands on their provincial governorships (A. 3.33–34). Aulus Caecina Severus characterizes the female sex as weak and unequal to exertion, but also brutal, ambitious, and greedy for power (A. 3.33.1–4). Marcus Valerius Messalla Messalinus responds, confirming Caecina’s views of female frailty, but argues that it is a husband’s fault if his wife is excessive (A. 3.34.1–5).

c07_Vol1.indd 464

GENDER, POLITICS, AND THE IMPERIAL FAMILY Augustus ushered in a new era by eliding the division between his family and the state. His family responded by testing the permeability of the boundaries of traditional gender roles (see Severy 2003, 232–243). While women might adopt masculine traits, men become unmanly or effeminate: such gender transgressions result in mistrust or fear. Gender is used to signify the negotiation of power among members of this family, particularly imperial mothers. Livia, wife of Augustus and mother of Tiberius, is well matched for the subtle skillfulness of her husband and the deceitfulness of her son (A. 5.1.3). Her management of the imperial household ensured the accession of her son and elimination of his rivals (A. 1.3.3). Motherhood and morality provide a means of comparison: Agrippina the Elder, for example, outshines Livia Iulia in her fecundity and reputation (A. 2.43.5). Livia Iulia allows herself to be seduced by Sejanus (A. 4.1.3). Agrippina, by contrast, is a model of sexual virtue (A. 1.33.3), but she is thwarted by her masculine ambition. After her death, Tiberius condemns Agrippina’s masculine concerns, including her greed for domination, while recognizing her lack of feminine faults (A. 6.25.2). Messalina uses sexuality as a means of power (A. 12.7.3), and Tacitus criticizes Claudius as, “submissive to the commands of his spouse” (coniugum imperiis obnoxio, A. 12.1.1). Claudius’ next wife, Agrippina the Younger, rules the state through masculine domination, displaying austerity and even arrogance in public (A. 12.7.3). Agrippina engineers Claudius’ death and Nero’s rise to power (A. 12.3.2, 9.1–2, 58.1, 68.1–69.2). Agrippina has the ambition of her mother but does not share her sexual purity. She is closely aligned with Livia, particularly in her womanly excess (impotentia muliebris, A. 1.4.5, 4.57.3, A. 12.57.2; L’hoir 2006, 111–157). Both Tiberius and Nero accuse their mothers of attempting to be partners in power, which undermines their own authority (A. 4.57.3, 13.13.4). Nero is perhaps the worst offender of gender expectations. He allows his mother Agrippina to maintain a degree of control, indirectly affirming her masculine domination (see Figure G.2).

28-04-2023 18:01:23

gender  

465

Figure G.2  Gold aureus with confronting busts of Nero and Agrippina the Younger (obverse), 54 ce, British Museum. Source: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo.

Agrippina’s power is dismantled after Nero begins his affair with the freedwoman Acte and then with the noblewoman Poppaea Sabina. Poppaea has the appearance of a virtuous woman but lacks a respectable character (A. 13.45.1–4). Poppaea seduces Nero through flattery (A. 13.46.2). Nero allows her to convince him to murder both Agrippina and his wife Octavia (2). Agrippina has a typical womanly gullibility and does not suspect Nero’s plot until it is too late (A. 14.4.1). After Agrippina’s murder, Nero indulges in debaucheries that respect for his mother had restrained (A. 14.13.2). Among these disgraces, Nero performs publicly as a chariot racer, lyre player, and actor (A. 14.14.1–16.2). Actors are considered effeminate, and Nero goes to extremes. He performs the part of the bride in a staged marriage to Pythagoras, during which all aspects of the wedding night are on display (A. 15.37.2–4). After the Pisonian conspiracy is betrayed and many men put to death, a rumor circulates that the tribune Subrius Flavus had planned to replace Gaius Calpurnius Piso with Seneca, for it would have been shameful for the lyre-player Nero to be succeeded by Piso, an effeminate actor (A. 15.65.1, 15.67.1). Nero’s impact is felt in the Histories as Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian fight for the title

c07_Vol1.indd 465

of emperor. Galba is indulgent and weak and allows himself to be ruled by his freedmen; even his age causes disgust to those who were accustomed to Nero’s youth (H. 1.7.3). Otho won the favor of Nero because he mimicked his vices, particularly in seduction, lust, and other pleasures (H. 1.13.3; 1.30.1). Nevertheless, Otho acts bravely in his final days on campaign and achieves honor through his suicide (H. 2.11.3, 2.46.3–49.4). Whereas Otho’s hedonistic lifestyle is considered dangerous to the state, Vitellius’ gluttony and sensuality are only dangers to himself (H. 2.31.1). Vitellius follows the example set by Nero (H. 2.71.1). He desired imperial rule and anticipated the enjoyment of indolent pleasures and luxuries that it would bring (H. 1.62.2). Because of Vitellius’ laziness, his soldiers ruin their masculine physiques by idleness (H. 2.93.1, 2.94.1–3). In Vitellius’ obituary, Tacitus observes that Vitellius depended on lavish gifts rather than a masculine, steadfast character (H. 3.86.1–2). In contrast, Vespasian provides a model of masculine control and displays neither pride, nor arrogance, nor a different personality once he becomes emperor (H. 2.80.1–2). see also: freedmen of Nero; marriage

28-04-2023 18:01:23

466

  geography

REFERENCES Balmaceda, Catalina. 2017. Virtus Romana: Politics and Morality in the Roman Historians. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Bartsch, Shadi. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. L’hoir, Francesca Santoro. 1992. The Rhetoric of Gender Terms: “Man,” “Woman,” and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose. Leiden: Brill. L’hoir, Francesca Santoro. 2006. Tragedy, Rhetoric, and the Historiography of Tacitus’ Annales. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. McDonnell, Myles. 2006. Roman Manliness: “Virtus” and the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Milnor, Kristina. 2005. Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Severy, Beth. 2003. Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire. London and New York: Routledge. Shumate, Nancy. 2012. “Postcolonial Approaches to Tacitus.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Emma Pagán, 476–503. Oxford: Blackwell. Späth, Thomas. 2012. “Masculinity and Gender Performance in Tacitus.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Emma Pagán, 431–457. Oxford: Blackwell. Rutledge, Steven H. 2012. “Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus: A Socio-Cultural History.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Emma Pagán, 62–83. Oxford: Blackwell. FURTHER READING Edwards, Catharine. 1993. The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ginsburg, Judith. 2006. Representing Agrippina: Constructions of Female Power in the Early Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hallett, Judith P. 1989. “Women as Same and Other in [the] Classical Roman Elite.” Helios 16: 59–77. Kaplan, Michael Steven. 1979. “Agrippina semper atrox: A Study in Tacitus’ Characterization of Women.” Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 1: 410–417. L’hoir, Francesca Santoro. 1994. “Tacitus and Women’s Usurpation of Power.” Classical World 88: 5–25. Scott, Joan Wallach. 1988. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” In Gender and the Politics of History, edited by Joan Wallach Scott, 28–50. New York: Columbia University Press.

c07_Vol1.indd 466

GEOGRAPHY CARLOS F. NOREÑA

University of California, Berkeley

Geographical exposition is not a central theme in Tacitus’ works. He is not ignorant of the geography of the Roman world, however, nor unfamiliar with the conventions of writing about it. Tacitus brings in geography as necessary in order to provide essential background on events and on the deeper structures of the Roman state and imperial culture, and also, more occasionally, for literary effect. From Tacitus’ presentation of geography, we can also reconstruct how a Roman senator imagined both the strategic space of the Roman empire and the wider contours of the Mediterranean basin. Tacitus foregrounds geography in a few short, prefatory passages that serve to describe, in broad terms, the physical settings in which his narratives and ethnographies were to be situated. The best known such sketch occurs in the first chapter of the Germania (G. 1). Here Tacitus sets the stage for his account of the German peoples by delineating the physical boundaries that separated them from their neighbors, highlighting the Rhine (Rhenus) and Danube (Danuvius) rivers (with descriptions of their respective courses), mountains, and the ocean. Allusion to the opening of Iulius Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum cannot be ruled out here, but the treatment was part of a long-standing tradition that can be traced back to Herodotus (e.g., 2.5–18 on the boundaries of Egypt). The same organizing principles are evident in a parallel passage in Tacitus’ earlier work, the Agricola, in which the geography of the British Isles (Britannia) serves as a transition to events there (Ag. 10). Here, too, Tacitus seeks to locate the territory in question with reference to other landmarks (Germania, Gaul, and Hispania), while also commenting on the “sluggish” nature of the water surrounding the island. Similar geographical introductions appear in the main historical works, too, including brief accounts of the landscapes of Iudaea (H. 5.6–7) and Armenia (A. 2.56). Sometimes Tacitus describes geographical conditions to add vivid detail to his narrative, such as

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G erman R evolt  

the dense German woods and murky swamps in which Germanicus was operating (A. 1.63–4); the violent coast on which his fleet was destroyed (A. 2.24); or the solitude and pleasant climate of Capri (A. 4.67). From other passages we can reconstruct what we might call Tacitus’ geographical awareness. One theme that recurs throughout the Agricola is the nexus of imperialism, conquest, and geographical knowledge, sounded, for example, both in the speech of Calgacus (Ag. 30) and Agricola’s response: “Britain is discovered and conquered” (Ag. 33.3: inventa Britannia et subacta; cf. 10.4). That such imperialist knowledge could be lost is clear from Tacitus’ reference to the Elbe (Albis) River, “once known directly but now only heard of ” (G. 41.2). There is also an imperialist coloring to his interest in the physical boundaries of the empire, such as the Euphrates River (A. 15.17), and in the edges of the world, especially toward the northern ocean (e.g., G. 34.2, 45.1; cf. A. 1.9). His sense of geographical space is also shaped by long-term patterns of human mobility. The location of Ireland “halfway between Britain and Spain” (Ag. 24.1), for example, is less a geographical error than a reflection of established maritime communications in this Atlantic corridor. Tacitus also preserves a vision of strategic space as seen by a high-ranking Roman senator. This vision is expressed in a highly compressed form in the overview of imperial forces used to mark the beginning of the second half of Tiberius’ reign (A. 4.5), in which Tacitus begins with the fleets protecting Italy and then proceeds, starting with the Rhine legions, in a counterclockwise fashion around the perimeter of the empire, ending with the city of Rome. This is a cartographic conception of imperial space with Rome at the center. It is in Tacitus’ masterful account of the military logistics of the civil wars of 69 ce, though, that his sensitivity to geography and its constraints is most evident, especially in Vespasian’s calculations about the locations of legions, their movements across time and space, and the role of the Mediterranean as a buffer between Rome and the East (e.g., H. 2.6, 2.82–3, 3.1–2, 3.8). Tacitus, then, is well informed about the geography of the Roman world, even if it is not a

c07_Vol1.indd 467

467

central theme of his work. Promising directions for future research on the role of geography in Tacitus’ writings include the thematization of imperial discourses through depictions of territories and landscapes, and the experiential and cognitive dimensions of his conceptions of space and time. see also: empire; ethnography; imperium; provinces FURTHER READING Brodersen, Kai. 1995. Terra Cognita: Studien zur römischen Raumerfassung. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. Clarke, Katherine. 2001. “An Island Nation: Re-Reading Tacitus’ Agricola.” Journal of Roman Studies 91: 94–112. Tan, Zöe. 2014. “Subversive Geography in Tacitus’ Germania.” Journal of Roman Studies 104: 181–204.

GERELLANUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY

GERMAN REVOLT JAKUB PIGOŃ

University of Wrocław

The German revolt was one of two major mutinies (the other one was the Pannonian revolt) which marked the beginning of Tiberius’ principate. Four legions stationed in the Roman province of Germania Inferior rebelled. In his detailed narrative (A. 1.31–49), Tacitus stresses the political dimension of the revolt, as soldiers offered their support for Germanicus as a potential rival of Tiberius. Apart from a graphic description of collective frenzy (see Woodman 2012), these chapters are important for the portrayal of Germanicus; his presentation here has given rise to differing interpretations. Of the two armies stationed on the Rhine (Rhenus), it was the lower one, under Aulus Caecina Severus (legions I, V, XX, XXI), which rebelled; the upper army (under Gaius Silius [Aulus Caecina Largus]) remained quiet. From the start of his account Tacitus emphasizes

28-04-2023 18:01:24

468

  G erman R evolt

the difference between this and the Pannonian mutiny: although almost simultaneous and generated by the same causes, the German revolt was greater and more dangerous from the political point of view (because of Germanicus). Since the Pannonian narrative came first, Tacitus can make comparisons, either explicit or implicit, between the two mutinies (see Woodman 2012, 290–300). Thus, he points out (A. 1.31.5) that among the Rhine legions there were many instigators, not just one Percennius. He notes (A. 1.32.1) that Caecina did not intervene: the reader may contrast this with Quintus Iunius Blaesus’ behavior (A. 1.18.3). Violence broke out very early in the German narrative; centurions were severely beaten and one of them, Septimius, was handed over to the soldiers for execution, although he had fled to Caecina’s tribunal for rescue (A. 1.32.3). Germanicus (who had been engaged elsewhere) arrived, but his speech did not quieten the soldiers; on the contrary, after offering their help in fighting for the throne (which he abhorred), they threatened him with arms. Germanicus drew out his sword and directed it against his breast; a soldier named Calusidius (named only by Tacitus) offered his, which was sharper, as he explained (A. 1.35.5). Germanicus was snatched by his friends and led to his tent. It was decided after some consultation that the soldiers could be calmed down by partially fulfilling their demands. A letter was forged “in the name of the princeps” with such promises as a complete discharge after twenty and a partial one after sixteen years of service, and the payment of the legacy promised by Augustus. The legions, well aware that the letter had been forged, demanded the immediate fulfillment of the promises. Germanicus went to the upper army and made them the same offer (although they did not voice any demands). There follows an account of another disturbance, which broke out among detachments stationed in the territory of the Chauci. Tacitus emphasizes the brave behavior of the camp prefect Manius Ennius, who, although attacked by his men, eventually managed to restore order (A. 1.38). The mutiny was not over. Legions I and XX, now in their winter camp together with

c07_Vol1.indd 468

Germanicus, reacted with violence on the arrival of the senatorial delegation headed by Munatius Plancus; they believed that the Senate had decided to deprive them of what they had been given. Munatius sought refuge at the legion’s eagle and Tacitus says with indignation that, had it not been for the brave eagle-bearer Calpurnius (otherwise unknown) who held back the attackers, he would have been killed even in this sacred precinct. Germanicus, pressed by his associates, decided to send away his pregnant wife Agrippina the Elder and his two-year-old son Caligula. Seeing their departure, his soldiers began to repent; he delivered a speech (A. 1.42–43), ending with a suggestion that they should now punish the culprits. There follows a description of their punishment, administered by the legate of the First Legion, Gaius Caetronius (A. 1.44.2, otherwise unknown); Tacitus notes the legionaries’ reaction (“the soldier enjoyed executions, as though he absolved himself from guilt”) and mentions that Germanicus did not intervene. Punishment was also inflicted on mutineers from two other legions (V and XXI, stationed elsewhere), but this time it was a slaughter, with many innocent victims (A. 1.49). Thus, the mutiny ended, probably a few days after mid-October, some seven weeks after it had begun (see Levick 1976, 73–74). Two chapters serve as an intermezzo focusing on sentiments in Rome and Tiberius’ response (A. 1. 46–47), two more as an epilogue: Germanicus led his men to fight the Germans and thus to expunge the stain of the mutiny (A. 1.50–51). During this expedition, they demolished a famous cult center called Tamfana, situated in the territory of the Marsi. In earlier scholarship, the prevailing opinion was that even in this narrative Germanicus is presented, as elsewhere in Tacitus, in the most favorable light. This view cannot be upheld. There is a marked contrast between his characterization at A. 1.33.1, where his affability and civility are stressed, and such passages as A. 1.48, where he encouraged the massacre of soldiers. His handling of the mutiny was lamentably inefficient; he made no effort to oppose his soldiers (contrast Germanicus at A. 1.39.3 and Ennius at 1.38.1; a standard appears in both passages); and his

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G ermani , G ermania  

suicide attempt may be regarded as a theatrical gesture. Some scholars believe that Tacitus is highly critical here of Germanicus (e.g., Rutland 1987); it is not as simple as that, and a more nuanced approach is advisable (Pelling 2012 is outstanding). Tacitus’ account has been compared to other mutiny narratives: especially important is Livy 28.24–29 on the mutiny at Sucro, and Germanicus’ speech echoes that of Scipio (Goodyear 1972, 290). Cassius Dio’s treatment of the German revolt (57.5) differs in some important details; it remains debatable whether these differences stem from Tacitus and Dio using different sources. Other accounts are Vell. 2.125.1–5 and Suet. Tib. 25.1–2. see also: army; emotions; enargeia Reference work: CAH2 10, 207–209 (T. E. J. Wiedemann). REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D. 1972. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 1–6. Vol. 1: Annals 1.1–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levick, Barbara. 1976. Tiberius the Politician. London: Thames and Hudson. Pelling, Christopher. 2012. “Tacitus and Germanicus.” In Tacitus, edited by Rhiannon Ash, 281–313. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rutland, Linda W. 1987. “The Tacitean Germanicus: Suggestions for a Re-Evaluation.” Rheinisches Museum 130: 153–164. Woodman, A. J. 2012. “Mutiny and Madness: Tacitus, Annals 1.16–49.” In From Poetry to History. Selected Papers, 296–321. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Pigoń, Jakub. 2008. “The Passive Voice of the Hero: Some Peculiarities of Tacitus’ Portrayal of Germanicus in Annals 1.31–49.” In The Children of Herodotus: Greek and Roman Historiography and Related Genres, edited by Jakub Pigoń, 287–303. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Williams, Mary Frances. 1997. “Four Mutinies: Tacitus Annals 1.16–30; 1.31–49 and Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 20.4.9–20.5.7; 24.3.1–8.” Phoenix 51: 44–74. DOI: 10.2307/1192585.

c07_Vol1.indd 469

469

GERMANI, GERMANIA JAMES MCNAMARA

Universität Potsdam

Tacitus uses the term Germani to describe many peoples in Europe near or east of the Rhine (Rhenus) and north into Scandinavia. The Germania, Histories, and Annals deal extensively with the Germani and Germania, both within and beyond the empire’s frontiers, often providing information available in no other source. Roman sources often employ generalizations and stereotypes in describing the various people they identify as Germani and must be appraised with care, accounting for their historical and literary context. By Tacitus’ time, the long and intense military activity on the Rhine and Danube (Danuvius) frontiers had added much to Rome’s knowledge about the Germani, though it is likely that knowledge of the nearer regions colored impressions of the Germani in general.

GERMANI UP TO CAESAR Some Germanic history is only regarded as such in hindsight, such as the encounters of the Romans with Sciri and Bastarnae in the early second century bce. The triumphal fasti for 222 bce, recording Marcus Claudius Marcellus’ triumph de Galleis Insubribus et Germ[aneis] in Cisalpine Gaul, is difficult to equate with later uses of the name. Tacitus traces Roman encounters with the Germani back to the migration of the Cimbri (G. 37; 113-101 bce); there is no evidence that contemporary Romans identified the Cimbri as Germani. Iulius Caesar, however, does so (e.g., BGall. 1.33.4; cf. Plut. Vit. Mar. 11.5–8). Caesar uses the name Germani in two ways: a small grouping of tribes between Rhein and Maas are Germani Cisrhenani (BGall. 2.3.4; 4.10; 6.2.3; 32.1f.), but, in a usage that became generally established, he also identifies as Germani a large collection of peoples east of the Rhine, including the Suebi, the greatest grouping of Germani. While Poseidonius is likely to have known of and described some peoples later known as Germani, the greater

28-04-2023 18:01:24

470

  G ermani , G ermania

collective use of the term is traceable only as far back as Caesar, who distinguishes them from Galli in the west and from Scythae (Scythia) in the east. Caesar offers ethnographic excursuses on the Suebi (Caes. BGall. 4.1.3–4.2.5) and the Germani in general (Caes. BGall. 6.21–28), which emphasize their ferocity and distance from civilization.

unwarlike character and their appearance, the Veneti for their practices of banditry, and the Fenni because of their very simple material culture. The Helusii and Oxiones (G. 46.4) are named in reference to tall tales about half-animal humans. Many names of Germanic individuals and tribes in Roman sources have been traced to Celtic roots, a sign of cultural interaction and exchange. It should, however, be noted that Tacitus does not use the term Celtic.

GERMANI IN TACITUS Tacitus offers a mythical and genealogical definition of the Germani as those who claim descent from a chthonic deity Tuisto and his son Mannus, whose three sons in turn gave their names to the groupings of Ingvaeones, Herminones, and Istvaeones (G. 2.3; see Mannus Tribes). The division appears in variant forms in other Roman sources, and in the form we read, it is probably a Roman, rather than Germanic tradition (Timpe 1995, 1–60). In the so-called Namensatz (G. 2.5) Tacitus has given rise to intense and unresolved debate (Timpe 1995, 61–92). He reports a source that calls the names Germani and Germania “recent and newly applied”: originally the Tungri bore that name; crossing the Rhine and displacing Gaulish tribes, their name came to be applied to other related tribes, who eventually adopted the name themselves (G. 2.5). It is, however, more likely that the broad collective term Germani is a Roman usage. The distinction between Germanic and Gaulish languages is noted by Caesar (BGall. 1.47). Tacitus distinguishes Germani from other peoples by language, customs, and appearance (G. 46.1–2). He mentions the Cotini as speakers of Gaulish (G. 43.1). To the Osi and Aravisci (cf. Plin. HN 3.148) he accords a Pannonian language (G. 28.3, 43.1; cf. Rives 1999); the terminology does not easily square with modern conceptions of languages in the region. The Aestii (G. 45.2) are said to have Suebian customs but (implausibly) a language closer to that of the Britanni; it has been proposed that their language was Baltic (Rives 1999, 317). At the end of Germania Tacitus hesitates to classify some tribes as Germani or Sarmatae (G. 46.1–3): the Peucini/Bastarnae for their

c07_Vol1.indd 470

GERMANI IN INSCRIPTIONS Inscriptions sometimes identify Germani in the Roman armed forces by a particular tribe or civitas, especially inscriptions outside an individual’s homeland. In the Roman provinces of Germania, dedications to the Celtic maternal goddesses known as matres or matronae are widespread and in many instances include an epithet associating the matres with a local area (Riese 1914, 3069– 3219). Scholarship has recently led to greater understanding of specific examples of Germanic ethnogenesis (Roymans 2004). GERMANIA Caesar uses the name Germania for the territory east of the Rhine occupied by Germani. Germanic settlements west of the Rhine (see Germani Cisrhenani, above) certainly existed in the first century bce; Agrippa’s resettlement of the Ubii to the west of the Rhine and Tiberius’ resettlement of the Sugambri (8 bce) established Germanic peoples on the western bank within Roman territory. In the wake of Quintilius Varus’ disaster Augustus established the military administration on the Rhine, bolstering the army from six to eight legions and dividing it into the exercitus superior and inferior. The major bases were Vetera (Xanten), Ara Ubiorum (Cologne, Colonia Agrippinensis), Mogontiacum (Mainz), Argentorate (Strasbourg), and Vindonissa (Windisch). Claudius took away two legions in 43 ce for his invasion of Britain. Domitian designated the regions of Gaul bordering on the Rhine as the

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G ermani , G ermania  

provinces of Germania Superior and Inferior (Upper and Lower Germania), separated at the Vinxtbach (Marcianus Heracleensis 28). Tacitus’ focus on the territory outside the empire in his Germania can be regarded as a marked reaction to Domitian’s assumption of the title Germanicus and his claims to have conquered Germania, as represented on coins bearing the legend Germania capta. In the Germania Tacitus always uses the name of the country in the singular; in the Annals, the plural Germaniae is sometimes used to describe a multitude of tribal territories (e.g., A. 1.57.2). The grim image of the countryside of Germania is exaggerated by Roman authors (e.g., G. 5.1). While forests covered large parts of the territory there is evidence of clearance before the first century ce. The Hercynian Forest looms large in Germanic geography. Animal husbandry was important in Germanic agriculture and conceptions of wealth. Germania offered relatively few luxuries desired by Romans, but amber from the Baltic coast attracts particular attention (Plin. HN 37.42–6; G. 45.4–5). Extensive finds of Baltic amber in Rome are matched by finds of Roman coins, along with bronze vessels, on the Baltic coast. Finds attesting to extensive trade between the empire and Germani show a zone closer to the frontier in which a wide range of Roman objects, including those of lower value, are found. Further into Germania, it is primarily luxury products, obtained at greater expense by people of high status.

HISTORY The first major encounter between Romans and Germani occurred when the Cimbri, Teutones, and allies migrated into the Roman sphere of influence. The war is remembered as an existential threat to the Roman empire (Livy Per. 63–68; Orosius 5.16.1–7; Vell. Pat. 2.12; Plut. Vit. Mar. 11.3–5, 11–14). A number of Roman armies were defeated in battle, under Gnaeus Papirius Carbo (113), Marcus Iunius Silanus (109) (both conflicts provoked by the Romans), Lucius Cassius Longinus (1) (107), Mallius Maximus, and Servilius Caepio

c07_Vol1.indd 471

471

(105). Gaius Marius returned from his victory over Jugurtha and led the Romans to crushing victories at Aquae Sextiae (102) and Vercellae (101), and during his command consolidated the basis of the professional Roman army. Caesar came into conflict with the Germanic forces of Ariovistus in 58 bce; the Sequani had engaged the services of Germanic mercenaries in exchange for a third of their territory. In 55 and again in 53 bce, Caesar bridged the Rhine from the territory of the Ubii and launched raids on the Suebi as a demonstration of power but without leaving any lasting presence. Major Roman campaigns east of the Rhine resumed under the auspices of Claudius Drusus the Elder (13–12 bce). Roman aggression seems to have aimed at securing the Gallic provinces and organizing Germanic affairs in the empire’s interests, but excavations such as those at Waldgirmes (Von Schnurbein 2003) show organized settlements that go beyond the scope of military camps, attesting to a process of provincial organization of Germania to the Elbe (Albis), cf. Vell. Pat. 2.118.1 and Cass. Dio 56.18.1. After the death of Drusus (9 bce), Tiberius led campaigns between the Rhine and Elbe in 8 and 7 bce. The continuing Roman subjugation of the territory up to the Elbe was severely checked by the disaster in the Teutoburg Forest (9 ce) when a Germanic force led by Arminius of the Cherusci, formerly a soldier in Rome’s armies, destroyed the three legions of Quintilius Varus. After this the legions on the Rhine were increased from six to eight; their dangerous strength became apparent in the mutinies in Germania and Pannonia after the death of Augustus. Efforts to conquer Germania east of the Rhine probably only ceased after Tiberius halted the indecisive campaigns of Germanicus (14–16 ce) and relied on fomenting political discord among the Germani. Up to Tacitus’ time the emphasis on consolidating the Rhine frontier and destabilizing potential opponents continued. In 69 ce Vitellius began his bid for power at Colonia Agrippinensis. Domitian personally led three campaigns in Germania: against the Chatti in 83, against the Marcomani and Quadi in 89, and against the Suebi and Sarmatae in 92. Two of Domitian’s four triumphs were over Germanic tribes: the Chatti

28-04-2023 18:01:24

472

  G ermani , G ermania

in September 83 (Ag. 39.2; Stat. Theb. 1.18; Cass. Dio 67.4.4) and in a double triumph over the Germani and Daci (see Dacia) in 89 (Stat. Silv. 4.2.66–7; Suet. Dom. 6.1). He bears the title Germanicus on coinage from September 83 onward and by 88 had the month September renamed Germanicus. Sources hostile to Domitian depict the claims to victory as a sham, but Trajan’s official policy did not repudiate the claim that Germania had been subdued. In 89 the revolt of Lucius Antonius Saturninus, the governor of Germania Superior, once again drew attention to the dangerous power of the Rhine armies. By the time of Domitian’s death, the upper and lower Rhine provinces had three legions each, while the number on the Danube had been raised from six or seven to nine. Tacitus’ Germania may in part express frustration at policies that had recently weakened the Roman military presence and prospects of further conquest in Germania (G. 37.2–6). There seemed, however, to be prospects for further conquest, given Vestricius Spurinna’s success with the Bructeri (perhaps 97 ce) and Nerva’s continuation of Domitian’s Suebian war, from which he took the title Germanicus. Trajan was governor of Germania Superior when he was adopted by Nerva (27 October 97) and did not return to Rome for two years. Trajan settled terms with the Suebi to end the wars started by Domitian, but his greatest military efforts were in Dacia (101–102) and Parthia (114–117).

SOCIAL STRUCTURE From the late republic to Tacitus’ time, Roman sources depict aristocracies as an organizing principle of Germanic tribes. Tacitus uses three leadership terms in close proximity: rex, dux (G. 7.1), and princeps (G. 11.1), which appear to demarcate the roles of king, war-leader, and chieftain respectively. There was considerable variety between tribes, especially since Roman sources most often describe polities on the empire’s borders in times of warfare and change, and often under the influence of Roman patronage (e.g., Batavi, Cherusci, Marcomani). Where the word rex appears in Roman sources, it

c07_Vol1.indd 472

may represent a Roman perspective more than a Germanic concept of kingship, as notably in the case of Ariovistus. A leading family (stirps regia) might provide a king, and the family might be recognized as such after the end of kingship (e.g., Iulius Civilis). While hereditary kingship is attested, there are also indications of an elective principle. Kingly authority seems not to have been absolute, but Tacitus notes various systems: the eastern Germani and the Suiones (G. 44.1, 44.3; 45.6) have more dominant kings; the Sitones (see Suiones) have queens (G. 45.9). War leaders gained their position through merit and could gain considerable power. Tacitus describes a custom called the comitatus (G. 13.3), by which warriors were bound in loyalty to a leader, serving him on the battlefield and in return receiving gifts from the spoils of war. Tacitus denies the existence of cities in Germania, and archaeology confirms that the Germani mostly lived in networks of smaller settlements. Archaeological sites reveal extensive trade with the empire along the frontiers and into further Germanic regions, which probably supported mercantile economic activity. Richly furnished graves are most evident from the late first century ce displaying fine Roman products in high-status tombs.

MILITARY For the Germani of the classical period warriors had an important role in society. Warfare was primarily conducted on foot, though the social organization of some tribes, notably the Batavi and Tencteri, produced highly skilled cavalry. Archaeological finds attest to the limited use of swords and probably wider use of spears with a small metal point, to which Tacitus assigns the Germanic name, rendered framea (G. 6.1), able to be thrown or used in close combat. Archaeological evidence for shields is lacking for Tacitus’ time, but earlier and later finds suggest it is likely that relatively small, light shields were in use, even if A. 2.14.3 is rhetorical exaggeration. Caesar employed a unit of 400 Germanic cavalrymen in his army (BGall. 7.13.1), and units of Germani served under him in the civil war.

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G ermani , G ermania  

Throughout the subsequent history of Rome, Germani served the Roman army as allies and auxiliaries. The notable rebels Arminius and Iulius Civilis drew on considerable experience in the Roman army. Octavian had a unit of Germani under his personal command during the civil war; this became a personal bodyguard, and the Julio-Claudians engaged a personal unit of Germanic bodyguards (cf. A. 1.24.2; Joseph. AJ. 19.1.15; Suet., Cal. 47). This was dissolved by Galba (Suet. Gal. 12.2), but under the Flavians a new unit of equites singulares Augusti, predominantly Germanic and Pannonian, was instituted; the unit eventually gained its own camp in Rome (ILS 2180–2214). A Saturnalian epigram of Martial (Ep. 14.176) depicts a small figurine of a Batavian, playing on its appearance as both an amusing caricature and as an image of a barbarian that frightens children.

473

extensive evidence of the high status of Germanic women as prophets and seers (e.g., Veleda), some of whom gained recognition in the Roman Empire (Rives 1999, 286).

ROMAN STEREOTYPES Roman literature represents the Germani with a fairly consistent set of stereotyped ethnic characteristics, many of which belong more broadly to a conception of barbarians. In Caesar a Romanocentric geographical conception casts the Germani as a fringe society, less sophisticated and more warlike than the Gauls (e.g., Caes. BGall. 1.1.3–4). Tacitus depicts Germanic culture as less advanced, while simultaneously romanticizing virtues associated with a supposedly less corrupt society. Germania is sometimes represented in moralizing terms evoking early Roman virtues.

RELIGION Caesar’s restricted account of Germanic religion (BGall. 6.21.1–2) is contradicted by subsequent classical sources and archaeological finds. Roman writers liberally employ interpretatio Romana in descriptions of Germanic religion, and accounts are probably influenced by a complementary tendency to interpretatio Germana. Tacitus (G. 9.2) situates Germanic religion in sacred groves and denies the use of anthropomorphic images. Hercules is widely worshipped, as well as Isis (G. 9.1) among some of the Suebi and the Alces/Alci corresponding to Castor and Pollux (G. 43.3). Tacitus names the preeminent Germanic god as Mercury at G. 9.1 but Mars at H. 4.64.1; for the pair, cf. A. 13.57.2. In some cases equivalences with later Germanic religion may be drawn, as here with Wotan and Ziu. The Earth Mother Nerthus (see Nerthus Tribes) is named only at G. 40.2. The Aestii worship a mother goddess (G. 45.2). Tacitus offers the names of Tamfana (A. 1.51.1, with a templum, either a building or a grove) and Baduhenna (A. 4.73.4). Human sacrifice is ascribed to several Germanic cults, including the worship of Mercury and Nerthus, and the cult of the Semnones. Captives were sometimes killed in groves in times of war (A. 1.61.3; 4.73.4; 13.57.2). There is

c07_Vol1.indd 473

THE LATER EMPIRE The Germani on Rome’s Rhine and Danube frontiers became an integral part of Rome’s military during the third and fourth centuries. During the fifth century ce, migrating Huns drove the eastern Germanic Goths westward, and the instability in Germanic territories led to the long series of invasions that eventually resulted in multiple Germanic kingdoms ruling over the western Roman Empire. Given the late entry of these peoples into documented history, Tacitus remains an important source for historians and linguists of the early middle ages (Green 1998).

RECEPTION The understanding of Germani as predecessors to contemporary speakers of Germanic languages— particularly German—spread after the rediscovery of Tacitus’ Germania in the fourteenth century. The study of Germanic antiquity (germanische Altertumskunde) flourished from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century in combination with German nationalism. Much of

28-04-2023 18:01:24

474

  G ermania

the research of that time was too trusting in the factual reliability of Roman literary sources. Historians and archaeologists often employed theoretical models that too readily equated material culture with racial and linguistic groupings. Contemporary research into the Germani up to Tacitus’ time has been advanced by greater awareness of the literary traditions that informed Roman literary sources (Lund 1988), by anthropological perspectives (Woolf 2011), and by developments in archaeology (Bonfante 2011; Roymans 2004).

Todd, M. 2004. The Early Germans. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Woolf, Greg. 2011. Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Wells, P. 1999. The Barbarians Speak. How the Conquered Peoples Shaped Roman Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

see also: ethnography; ethnicity; empire; Frisii; Germanic peoples of the northeast

Centro Universitario U-TAD, Madrid, Spain

Reference works: Barrington: 10, 100 G1 (Germania Inferior), 100 H2 (Germania Superior); Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 11, Germanen, Germania, Germanische Altertumskunde; Epigraphische Datenbank Heidelberg, https://edh-www.adw.uni-heidelberg.de REFERENCES Bonfante, Larissa. 2011. The Barbarians of Ancient Europe: Realities and Interactions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Green, D. H. 1998. Language and History in the Early Germanic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lund, Allan. 1988. Germania. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. Riese, A. 1914. Das rheinische Germanien in den antiken Inschriften. Leipzig: Teubner. Rives, J. B. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roymans, Nico. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt46mt8n. Timpe, Dieter. 1995. Romano-Germanica. Gesammelte Studien zur Germania des Tacitus. Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner. DOI: 10.1515/9783110962420. von Schnurbein, S. 2003. “Augustus in Germania and His New “Town” at Waldgirmes East of the Rhine.” Journal of Archaeology 16: 93–108. DOI: 10.1017/ S1047759400013015. FURTHER READING Lund, Allan. 1991. “Kritischer Forschungsbericht zur ‘Germania’ des Tacitus.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 33.3: 1989–2222.

c07_Vol1.indd 474

GERMANIA JUAN LUIS POSADAS

TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

The origin and birthplace of Tacitus are quite relevant to study his De Origine et Situ Germanorum, better known as Germania. In a well-known passage, Pliny the Younger reports the encounter between a Roman knight and Tacitus at the circus: “He said that at the last games he was sitting next to a Roman knight who, after engaging in many learned conversations, asked him: ‘Are you from Italy or the provinces?’ At this, Tacitus answered: ‘You know me, and surely through my writings.’ At these words, the other said: ‘Are you Tacitus or Pliny?’” (Plin. Ep. 9.23.2–3). This conversation, the only one which reports Tacitus’ words verbatim, makes clear that Tacitus was recognized by his provincial accent and that he enjoyed certain fame for his works, at least at the time in which the letter was written, probably between 110 and 112 ce. The majority of scholars believe that Tacitus was originally from Gallia Narbonensis, although Syme thinks that he could have been born in Gallia Belgica during his father’s service in the administration (perhaps in Augusta Treverorum or in Colonia Agrippinensis). In support of his father’s provenance from Gallia Narbonensis stands Tacitus’ marriage with the daughter of the general Agricola, since both belong to a family native of Gallia Narbonensis. Pliny the Elder is the source for his father’s stay in Gallia Belgica: “filio Corneli Taciti, equitis Romani Belgicae Galliae rationes procurantis.” (HN 7.76). That our

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G ermania  

historian was born there is Syme’s assumption based on his apparent sympathy toward the Germani (Syme 1958, 611–624). Another fact of Tacitus’ life relevant to the study of the Germania is that between c. 89 and 96, Tacitus lived outside of Rome (Ag. 45.4). Syme believes that he could have been governor of Gallia Belgica, perhaps as legatus Augusti pro praetore, and this fact would certainly explain the accuracy of the information in the Germania. GERMANIA’S PRECEDENTS Tacitus’ first work was De Vita et Moribus Iulii Agricolae, better-known as Agricola, and it appeared after the death of the emperor Domitian, around the year 97. The work describes the customs, traits, character, and career of Iulius Agricola, Tacitus’ father-in-law. Since the apex of Agricola’s career was his campaign in Britain, the bulk of the work describes varying geographic and ethnologic aspects of Britain and its inhabitants. Agricola can be considered a clear thematic precedent of the Germania. Tacitus used a biographic, perhaps laudatory, genre with ethnographic flavors to hide a political message about the impossibility of preserving one’s dignity while at the service of tyranny. The defense of the fatherin-law’s memory and his campaigns under Domitian lie hidden under a genre that we cannot clearly define today. Also in this respect the Agricola constitutes a precedent of the Germania, since both are hardly classified under one literary genre alone. The second precedent is the way Tacitus describes the customs of the indigenous tribes in Britain. A keen proclivity for these ethnographic aspects runs throughout all his works: from the descriptions of the Britanni in the Agricola and the Germani in the Germania, to the mention of Jews and Gauls in the Histories and the sundry ethnographic descriptions of Britanni, Gauls, Germani, and easterners in the Annals. Without pushing it to the point of speaking of anti-east bias in Tacitus, it is however true that his sympathies are more for the northwestern tribes than for the eastern ones.

c07_Vol1.indd 475

475

THE WORK: ITS STRUCTURE AND DATE OF COMPOSITION The Germania was published after the Agricola between the years 98 and 99. These dates are confirmed by both internal and external evidence (see G. 37). The choice of the theme of this work was highly topical for the Romans: in 69, Vitellius had been proclaimed emperor when he was at the German border; in 83, Domitian led an expedition against the Chatti which ended with a triumph rather than a victory; in 89, the legate Antonius Saturninus rebelled against Domitian at the German border; and finally, Nerva’s death caught his successor, Trajan, by surprise, while he was governor of Germania Superior. Far from coming immediately back to Rome to secure his position—unsafe despite the appearances—Trajan decided to stay in his province for almost a year, probably to subdue the Germani at the border. During these months, rumors spread in Rome, and the Germani became the main topic of conversation. The work was an independent one. It is a unique book in Latin literature because it is the only extant and complete example of ethnographic literature, although there are many incomplete precursors both in the Greek and Roman world (Caro Baroja 1983). In the past, the theory that the Germania could have been an excursus of the Histories, on the model of the one on the Jews in book V, appeared. If this were case, however, it must be noted that its size would throw off balance that of the Histories. Besides, a book that was composed nine or ten years earlier and on such a different topic cannot be an excursus of the Histories. On another hand, the precedents of the Dialogus and the Agricola make us think that at an early stage, Tacitus preferred shorter works since his preoccupations are similar to the ones of an active politician (we ought not to forget that he had just completed his term as suffect consul, with the probable ambition to obtain some provincial governorship). Of course, one of the founding principles of any historiographic monograph is the variety of the sources and their critic assessment, and on this point, Tacitus shows notable effort: he seems to have used Iulius Caesar (whom he calls summum auctorum in G. 28.1), Posidonius,

28-04-2023 18:01:24

476

  G ermania

Sallust, Aufidius Bassus, a lost work by Pliny the Elder, Livy, Terentius Varro, Marinus of Tyre, and the map of Agricola, along with other official sources, both documents and witnesses. To this list we should add the opportunity to consult officials, merchants, and other people who knew the region, both in Rome and in Gallia Belgica (if, as suggested by Syme, Tacitus himself was intended to go there as governor, or in any other official capacity, in the years 80–90). For the structure of the work, some scholars claimed to detect in the Germania a certain disorder proper of the ethnographic tradition, which was inclined to programmatic chaos. Nevertheless, one can observe a method in the structuring of the work, according to which Tacitus treats first the geography (location and natural features of the region) and the origin of the people under study, and later moves to traditions and customs related to food, sex, clothing, and housing; amusements and funerary rituals; military, political, and juridical institutions; social and economic affairs; and finally, the study of the individual tribes. In fact, in Germania 27, Tacitus divides his work in two: a first part dedicated to the origin and the customs of the Germani and a second one in which he details institutions and rituals of every tribe individually. It is necessary to understand that in ordering the themes of his treatise Tacitus followed an ethnographic tradition out of the necessity to abide by the rules of the genre he had chosen in order to present a book with the clear political purpose of supporting the new princeps, Trajan. For this reason, one could be inclined to consider the Germania as an ethnographic treatise, a paperback, if you will or, at a quick glance, a coffee-table book, with a clear political intention: to call the attention of Rome to the danger posed by the Germani. In this manner, Tacitus places himself in line with the historiography of his predecessor, Sallust, following his theory of the metus Punicum: the idea that fear of the Carthaginians slowed down Rome’s decadence until the conquest and destruction of Carthage, which brought forth a desire for excessive luxury and the beginning of moral and political corruption of the city. It will not be uncommon for later historiography to try to recreate the “fear of the enemy” (metus hostilis) and offer it as a remedy to the degeneration of the

c07_Vol1.indd 476

empire: possibly, it is what Tacitus tried to do with a new metus Germanicum (Posadas 2020).

WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE GERMANIA? It is very hard to answer this question. The beginning of the book, with the clear reference to the incipit of Caesar’s De Bello Gallico (Gallia est omnis diuisa in partes tres), suggests that the Germania is an informative and historical work about a people which the Romans had to fight (or even conquer). Given the impossibility of conquering the whole Germania, Tacitus introduces the well-known passage urgentibus imperii fatis (G. 33.3): according to the historian, Rome’s vices could lead the empire to ruin when confronted with Germanic virtues, if only the barbarians themselves were not always engaged in internal struggles. Considering the character of historical document of the Germania and, therefore, underlining the time of composition, some scholars have pointed out the coincidence of the publication of the book with the accession to the throne of the new emperor Trajan. Furthermore, the emperor remained on the German frontier. The Romans were likely wondering what was happening in Germania that was holding back the new emperor from entering Rome. According to this group of scholars, Tacitus wrote the Germania to answer this question. The last possible interpretation is that the Germania was a suasoria, a piece of writing with political advice for the emperor. This interpretation is based on at least three passages where the historian uses the second person singular to address someone in particular, calling the attention on various aspects of the tribes he is describing or on possible tactics to be implemented in the future (G. 20.2; 23.2; 30.3). It is possible that at an early stage, Tacitus wrote the book as a political suasoria addressed to someone to suggest possible military courses of action and foreign policy toward the Germani (Posadas 2014). Who this person could be but the new emperor Trajan, as he was standing at the border and had not returned to the City yet? The use of the second person stands in contrast to the four instances in which Tacitus uses the

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G ermania  

first-person plural to speak about “our customs.” He refers to the Romans in parallels that generally aim at highlighting the superiority of Germanic morals. Whatever Tacitus’ true motivation to write this work, it is accurate to say that it presents all features of a geo-ethnographic treatise: it refers to the possible origins of the Germani; it describes their habits and customs; and it presents a report on all the tribes individually, emphasizing their peculiar differences and showing the connection with Roman decadence. Many scholars support this hypothesis and believe that the Germania is an ethnographic and historical monograph. According to this view, Tacitus would have consciously placed himself in the footsteps of Herodotus on the Persians and Polybius on the Romans themselves.

477

four manuscripts: the Vaticanus 3.429, the Vaticanus 4.498, the Toletanus, and the Aesinas. see also: Cornelius Tacitus; declamation; empire; ethnicity; ethnography; Gaul; geography; provinces REFERENCES Caro Baroja, Julio. 1983. La aurora del pensamiento antropológico: La antropología en los clásicos griegos y latinos. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Posadas, Juan Luis. 2014. Romanos y germanos a finales del siglo I d. C. según Tácito. In Conquistadores y conquistados: relaciones de dominio en el mundo romano, edited by G. Bravo and R. González Salinero, 311–324. Madrid: Signifer Libros. Posadas, Juan Luis. 2020. Trajano y los intelectuales. Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

THE FORTUNE AND MANUSCRIPT TRADITION OF THE GERMANIA

FURTHER READING

Tacitus was well known by various authors throughout the centuries. Until the sixth century, he was mentioned by Ptolomeus, Cassius Dio,  Tertullian, Lactantius, Eumenius, Vopiscus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Sulpicius Severus, Saint Jerome, Claudianus, Eutropius, Hegesippus, Sidonius Apolinaris, Orosius, and Cassiodorus. During the seventh and eigth centuries, there are no extant mentions of Tacitus, although Mendell supports the use of Tacitus in Jordanes, the scholiast of Juvenal, Dictys of Crete, and others. In the ninth century, Tacitus is mentioned by Einhard of Fulda and by Rudolph of Fulda, especially the Germania. This link to the Germania with the monastery of Fulda has led some authors to think that there must have been a copy of the treatise there, or even that the Codex Mediceus I came from Germany. This hypothesis would make sense, given its German theme. It is precisely in the Codex Hersfeldensis, of the Monastery of Hersfeld (Hesse), where the minor works are preserved: the Agricola, the Germania, and the Dialogus, which have been preserved in

Devillers, O., ed. 2014. Les opera minora et le développement de l’historiographie tacitéene. Bordeaux: Ausonius. Grimal, Pierre. 1990. Tacite. Paris: Fayard. Krebs, Christopher. 2011. A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Laugier, Jean L. 1969. Tacite. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Lucas, Joseph. 1974. Les obsessions de Tacite. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Martin, Ronald. 1981. Tacitus. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Mendell, Clarence W. 1957. Tacitus, the Man and His Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Michel, Alain. 1966. Tacite et le Destin de l’Empire. Paris: Arthaud. Pagán, Victoria Emma. 2017. Tacitus. New York: I. B. Tauris. Chapter 4. Paratore, Ettore. 1951. Tacito. Varese: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino. Perret, Jean. 1950. Recherches sur le texte de la Germanie. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Posadas, Juan Luis. 2011. Cornelio Tácito: Germania. Cuenca: Alderabán. Rives, J. B. 2012. “Germania.” In Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 45–61. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

c07_Vol1.indd 477

28-04-2023 18:01:24

478

  G ermanic peoples of the northeast

Rives, J. B., ed. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1970. Ten Studies in Tacitus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST EDUARD DROBERJAR

Trnava University (Slovakia)

In Germania 43, Tacitus describes two groups of Germanic peoples. The first are the Marsigni, the Cotini, the Osi, and the Buri (G. 43.1), who “cover the backs of the Marcomanni and the Quadi” and in the first century can be located in various territories of today’s Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland (see the particular tribes described below). The second group consists of the Lugii, of which Tacitus (G. 43.2–4) lists the five most important—the Hari, the Helveconi, the Manimi, the Helisi, and the Nahanarvali. Until the end of the first century ce, these Germanic peoples can be placed north of the first group, i.e., in the territory of today’s Poland.

MARSIGNI According to Tacitus (G. 43.1), “they recall the Suebi with their speech and customs.” They appear only once in written sources. They belonged to the tribe of Suebi. They lived near the Marcomanni and the Quadi and to the west of the Cotini, according to older considerations, most probably in northern Moravia (Dobiáš 1938, 25) or in northeastern Bohemia (Kolendo 2008, 157). The Marsigni can most recently be best placed in Eastern Bohemia, or more precisely in the Malá Haná region (western Moravia), both according to new finds and sites from the early Roman period (Droberjar 2018, 36, Fig. 10) and according to the proximity to the South Moravian Marcomanni, with whom they were later to merge (Dobiáš 1964, 174). Archaeologically, they belong to the Elbe-Germanic circle of the early Roman period.

c07_Vol1.indd 478

COTINI They belonged to a group of non-Germanic (Celtic) tribes because they used “the Gaelic language” (G. 43.1). The oldest mention of the Cotini comes from the Tusculumnian inscription, which is associated with the military expedition of Marcus Vinicius around 10 bce, which was the first Roman military campaign across the Danube river (Dobiáš 1964, 70–72). The Cotini settled the northern and central mountainous parts of Slovakia, from there they gradually expanded to northeastern Moravia and north to the Lesser Poland (Kolendo 2008, 157–159). Archaeologically, they are most often identified with the Púchov culture of the La Tène period (from the second half of the second century) and the earlier Roman period (Pieta 1982), for which hill settlements (fortifications) as production and trade centers are typical. The peak of the Púchov culture is in the late La Tène period. This culture is characterized by rough pottery, specific types of ornaments and by individual types of coins with a strong La Tène influence, which is also evident in the architecture (fortifications and houses). The Cotini “mine iron” (G. 43.1) and the high level of iron processing is documented in the Púchov culture by the findings of iron furnaces and tool depots. Numerous Roman imports, especially from Noricum, and later from Pannonia, testify to the trade. The first extinction horizon of the Púchov culture dates back to the second half of the first century bce (expansion of the Przeworsk culture from the north); the second extinction horizon is related to the expansion of the Vanni Quadi in the Tiberian period; and the final extinction is then in the second half of the second century, i.e., during the Marcomanni wars.

OSI Very little is known about them, they were a non-Germanic tribe and used the Pannonian (Illyrian) language (G. 43.1). They had the same language, government, and morals as the Aravisci (G. 28.3) and therefore probably lived close to each other in northern Pannonia (Kolendo 2008, 159) or in southern Slovakia around the Ipeľ river (Dobiáš 1938, 25).

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G ermanic peoples of the northeast  

479

Like the Marsigni, “they recall the Suebi with their speech and customs” (G. 43.1). They belonged to the Lugian union (according to Tacitus, they were the Suebi), which had the character of a kind of military and political alliance. They can be located north of the Carpathian Arc, i.e., in southern Poland. From there, they gradually moved to the east (Dobiáš 1938, 28), i.e., to eastern Slovakia, western Ukraine, and to northeastern Hungary (Kolendo 1999). Claudius Ptolemy refers to them as the Lugii Buri, who lived to the east of the Lugii Omani and the Lugii Diduni, to the north of the continuous mountain ridge (continuum montium iugum), i.e., Asciburgium (Kolendo 2008, 159– 160). According to another view, the Lugii Buri cannot be connected with the Buri, as the Buri belonged to the Suebi tribes (Olędzki 2017). During the time of Tacitus, they settled in central Slovakia on the upper course of the Ipeľ river and probably in the middle of the second century they moved south to the area of the Mátra Mountains in northern Hungary. In the second century, they took part in the Dacian (101–106) and Marcomanni (166–180) wars.

culture was evolving since the middle of the third century bce to the fifth century ce. It experienced an extraordinarily dynamic development in the early Roman period (first to second centuries), when the ironworks and the amber trade flourished along the Amber Road, which influenced the development of local elites. The expansion of contacts with the Roman provinces is evident in the imports of metal, ceramic, and glass artifacts. There are numerous finds of depots of Roman coins, especially denarii. The Lugii lived in aboveground houses in lowland fortified settlements. They buried their dead in the earthen urns in large cemeteries, where there are numerous graves of warriors. The elite were buried in skeletal graves. In the second half of the second century and at the beginning of the third century, the culture expanded into the surrounding areas, especially south to the Danubian Lowland. Groups of Lugian warriors also took part in the Marcomanni wars. The bearers of the Przeworsk culture lived until the Migration Period, some in Poland and some left for North Africa. The Przeworsk culture belongs to one of the most important cultures of the European Barbaricum in the Roman period.

LUGII

NAHANARVALI

To the north of the mountains (continuum montium iugum), i.e., the Sudetenland and the Carpathian Mountains, there are many tribes, the largest of which are the Lugii—the Lugii tribal union (Lugiorum nomen) and the most important of which Tacitus lists: the Hari, the Helveconi, the Manimi, the Helisi, and the Nahanarvali (G. 43.2). In more detail, Tacitus deals only with the Hari and the Nahanarvali, probably the hegemons of the Lugii (Kolendo 2008, 160–164). They appear in written sources until the second century, after which they are better known as the Vandals. Archaeologically, monuments of the extensive Przeworsk culture can be seen in them (Dąbrowska 2003, further literature listed there), especially in southern and central Poland. For example, the Wielbark culture (mainly the Goths) in the north of Poland belonged to the group of so-called superiores barbari. The Przeworsk

The Nahanarvali have a “grove with an ancient religious cult,” they do not worship any idols, and their gods are called the Alks (G. 43.3). During the cult ceremonies, the priests of Nahanarvali dressed in women’s clothing and thus adopted the symbols of the women priestesses, whom they replaced. Therefore, the Alks (Alcis = elks) are considered the dioscurian pair. The Ślęża Mountain in Lower Silesia is considered to be the center of the Lugian Nahanarvali (Kolendo 2008, 163–165).

BURI

c07_Vol1.indd 479

HARI This Lugian tribe is described in an extremely rhetorical way. Tacitus writes that the Hari wore black shields, painted bodies, and chose a dark night to fight, terrifying the enemy. The Hari were

28-04-2023 18:01:24

480

  G ermanicus

also very aggressive (G. 43.4). In their so-called aggressive army (feralis exercitus) one can see either only a retinue of the Hari or a retinue of the entire Lugian tribal union (Kolendo 2008, 165– 169). In the linguistic conception of Tacitus, we can distinguish two levels of interpretation in the characteristics of the Hari. The first testifies to the belief in the existence of an “army of spirits” or an “army of the dead.” The second has a metaphorical meaning and is a testimony to the existence of secret unions of young men in the Germanic environment. see also: Germani, Germania; Germania; Mannus Tribes REFERENCES Dąbrowska, Teresa. 2003. “Przeworsk-Kultur. Jüngere vorrömische Eisenzeit und Frühe Römische Kaiserzeit.” In Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 23, 540–553. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. Dobiáš, Josef. 1938. “K výkladu Tacitovy Germanie, kap. 43.” Listy filologické 65.1: 14–30. Dobiáš, Josef. 1964. Dějiny československého území před vystoupením Slovanů. Praha: Nakladatelství Československé akademie věd. Droberjar, Eduard. 2018. “The Emergence of the Suebi and Further Developments in Bohemia.” In IN TEMPORE SUEBORUM. El tiempo de los Suevos en la Gallaecia (411–585): El primer reino medieval de Occidente. Volumen de estudios, 35–44. Ourense: Deputación Provincial de Ourense. Kolendo, Jerzy. 1999. “Lugiowie Burowie oraz Burowie. Przyczynek do interpretacji sytuacji politycznej i kulturowej Europy barbarzyńskiej w końcu I wieku i w II wieku n.e.” In COMHLAN: Studia z archeologii okresu przedrzymskiego i rzymskiego w Europie Środkowej dedykowane Teresie Dąbrowskiej w 65. rocznicę urodzin, 217–231. Warszawa: Fundacja Przyjaciół Instytutu Archeologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. Kolendo, Jerzy. 2008. P. Cornelius Tacitus Germania– Publiusz Korneliust Tacyt Germania. Poznań: Wydawnictwo naukowe UAM. Olędzki, Marek. 2017. “The Problems Connected with the Identification and Localisation of the Suebian Tribe of Buri.” Ephemeris Napocensis 27: 187–196. Pieta, Karol. 1982. Die Púchov-Kultur. Nitra: Studia Archaeologica Slovaca Instituti Archaeologici Academiae Scientiarum Slovacae.

c07_Vol1.indd 480

GERMANICUS TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Germanicus Iulius Caesar (May 24, c. 15 bce–19 ce), was quaestor in 7 ce; consul in 12 ce and again in 18 ce; he held proconsular command in Germany 13–18 ce and greater proconsular power over the Eastern provinces 19 ce. Germanicus was born in approximately 15 bce. He was the son of Drusus the Elder, the brother of Tiberius, and of Antonia the Elder, the daughter of Mark Antony. Germanicus first comes to political prominence in 4 ce during the series of marriages and adoptions Augustus initiated to ensure the succession following the deaths of Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar within the previous two years. Augustus compelled Tiberius to adopt Germanicus, even though Tiberius already had a biological son in Drusus the Younger. Once this adoption was complete, Augustus adopted Tiberius. As part of the 4 ce settlement, Germanicus married Agrippina the Elder, the daughter of Augustus’ daughter Julia the Elder and his leading political associate Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Germanicus’ marriage to Agrippina produced six surviving children: three sons, Nero Iulius Caesar, Drusus Caesar, and Gaius Caesar (the future princeps known as Caligula), and three daughters, Agrippina the Younger, Iulia Drusilla, and Iulia Livilla. These children were direct descendants of Augustus, and his intention was for his family to be at the center of the political order for generations to come. The order of the adoptions suggests that Augustus planned for Tiberius to succeed him, and Tiberius would then be succeeded by Germanicus. We note here that Tiberius was forced to bypass his own son Drusus the Younger as his rightful heir. Germanicus would then be succeeded by one of his sons, thus securing Augustus’ legacy. Germanicus held the entry-level position of quaestor in 7 ce (Cass. Dio 55.31.1), five years before the legal minimum age. This is an example of the so-called privilege of the years, where members of the imperial family were granted exemptions from both the age requirements for the various offices as well as the usual sequence in

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G ermanicus  

which those offices were held. Despite the civilian nature of the quaestorship, Germanicus was dispatched with an army to assist Tiberius who was fighting Germanic tribes. As a result of his service, Germanicus received triumphal decoration as well as the right to stand for the consulship five years earlier than was customary. He was not required to hold the praetorship, which was usually a prerequisite for being consul. In 12 ce, Germanicus was consul. His term in office is not particularly noteworthy aside from the fact that he held office for the entire year, which was an irregular occurrence at this time. According to Cassius Dio (56.26.1–2), Germanicus was essentially sole consul since his colleague was a mere figurehead. Germanicus’ intended role as future ruler of Rome was becoming increasingly clear. This role was emphasized even further when, in that same year, Augustus sent a letter to the Senate commending Germanicus to its members, and the members to Tiberius. This letter contained what Swan calls a “remarkable monarchic presumption” in Augustus’ entrusting the Senate to the care of Tiberius (Swan 2004). The letter represents quite a brazen statement of the succession order: Tiberius followed by Germanicus. The latter was also made a member of Augustus’ advisory council, and in the year 13 ce, it was decreed that decisions made by this body should be viewed as coming from the entire Senate. Even if the major decisions were made by Tiberius due to Augustus’ advancing years and infirmity, Germanicus was gaining valuable experience in how the empire was governed. Following the death of Augustus in 14 ce, Tacitus says Tiberius requested that Germanicus’ proconsular power, first granted in 13 ce for five years, be redefined to represent Tiberius’ imperium rather than that of Augustus (A. 1.14). Germanicus was in Gaul taking a tax census (a useful indication that his duties were not entirely martial) when he was informed of Augustus’ death. When the soldiers learned of Augustus’ death, there were to be dire consequences: the troops would revolt. Tacitus’ treatment of the mutinies of 14 ce is extensive, taking up more than thirty chapters of Annals Book 1 (A. 1.16–53). The focus on military revolt is likely a reflection of his own experience

c07_Vol1.indd 481

481

of the civil wars of 69 ce. In 14 ce, Roman forces were divided into two camps, one on the lower Rhine and one on the upper Rhine. Some of the troops on the lower Rhine were hopeful that Germanicus would launch a direct military challenge to Tiberius. Some recent recruits began to push for veterans to receive early discharge, for increased pay for common soldiers and for vengeance against the more disciplinarian officers. Tacitus’ account of the 14 ce mutinies does not reflect positively on Germanicus’ leadership. In 15 ce the Senate voted Germanicus a triumph, even if the precise reasons for it are unclear (for discussion see Goodyear 1981). The following year, he campaigned once more against the Germans (A. 1.55–71). Germanicus campaigned for the rest of 16 ce before returning to Rome in 17 ce. In 17 ce, Tiberius requested that the Senate appoint Germanicus to a commission over the eastern provinces with superior military authority (imperium proconsulare maius). Germanicus’ precise legal position is subject to debate, but the crucial point is that his military authority was superior to the governor in any territory within his region of command but remained subordinate to the authority of Tiberius. The reason for Germanicus’ appointment, according to Tacitus, was Tiberius’ advanced years and Drusus the Younger’s lack of maturity, but it is far more likely that Tiberius was simply following precedent by choosing his heir apparent for the eastern command. Tiberius removed the governor of Syria, who had a connection to Germanicus through marriage, and replaced him with someone closer to himself, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso. The precise legal relationship between Germanicus and Piso is complicated, despite epigraphic attempts at clarity (senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone lines 30–35). Germanicus assumed his second term as consul on route to his Eastern command in 18 ce. This was the first of three examples in Tiberius’ reign of the princeps sharing a term as consul with the man he considered his heir apparent. Germanicus made a leisurely progress east, ingratiating himself with the locals he was one day expected to rule. His immediate goal in the region was to settle the dispute between the Roman and Parthian empires over the independent state of Armenia,

28-04-2023 18:01:24

482

  G ermanicus

which lay between the two realms. Germanicus complied with local sentiment and crowned as king a candidate favored by both the nobles and the common people (A. 2.56). However, Germanicus’ satisfaction at achieving his goal was curtailed since Piso refused to obey his commands to bring part of the army from Syria into Armenia, presumably to function as an honor guard for the new king. Piso’s refusal to follow Germanicus’ orders led to a tense confrontation, and the two parted in open hostility. Germanicus’ achievement in Armenia reached Rome, and the Senate responded by voting an ovation. In the following year, 19 ce, Germanicus visited Egypt (A. 2.59). Strictly speaking, it was forbidden for a senator, even if he were a member of the imperial family, to visit the region. It had been held as the personal domain of the princeps since its annexation by Augustus following the battle of Actium in 31 bce. Germanicus was reportedly behaving as though he were already princeps. Tiberius’ response to Germanicus visiting Egypt was to rebuke him in a letter, outlining the special nature of the province as well as the travel restrictions that were in place. On his return to Syria, Germanicus discovered that Piso had ignored all orders that he had issued to the regional legions. Piso initially resolved to leave the province but decided to stay when it was discovered that Germanicus’ health had deteriorated (A. 2.69). Germanicus believed that Piso had poisoned him, and paraphernalia connected with black magic were found near where he was staying. His response was to write a letter to Piso renouncing his friendship and ordering Piso to leave the province of Syria. Piso is said to have sailed away slowly in case Germanicus should die, which would leave open the possibility of Piso resuming his command as governor. Germanicus then addressed his attendants and friends, asking them to report Piso’s misdeeds to Tiberius and Drusus and asking them to avenge him by placing Piso on trial. The dying heir apparent then turned to his wife and ordered her not to create greater trouble by challenging Tiberius and Livia Augusta (A. 2.72). In light of the narrative of Annals Books 3 and 4, this statement contains much by way of dramatic and tragic irony. Thus perished Germanicus, heir apparent to Tiberius, and a genuinely popular prince at Rome. Upon his death

c07_Vol1.indd 482

numerous honors were decreed. A public tomb was built for him at Antioch, where he was cremated, and a tribunal at Epidaphna, the suburb where he died. A triumphal arch was erected in his honor on Mount Amanus in Syria, with an inscription recording his achievements; similar monuments to his memory were constructed at Rome and on the banks of the Rhine. see also: German Revolt; Panonnian Revolt; Julio-Claudian dynasty REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus: Volume II Annals 1. 55–81 and Annals 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swan, P. M. 2004. The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius’ Dio’s Roman History, Books 55–56 (9 B.C.-A.D. 14). Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Damon, C. 1999. “The Trial of Cn. Piso in Tacitus’ Annals and the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre: New Light on Narrative Technique.” American Journal of Philology 120: 143–162. Drogula, F. K. 2015. “Who Was Watching Whom? A Reassessment of the Conflict between Germanicus and Piso.” American Journal of Philology 136: 121–153. Flower, H. I. 1998. “Rethinking ‘damnatio memoriae’: The Case of Cn. Calpurnius Piso Pater in AD 20.” Classical Antiquity 17: 155–187. Flower, H. I. 1999. “Piso in Chicago: A Commentary on the APA/AIA Joint Seminar on the ‘Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre.’” American Journal of Philology 120: 99–115. Last, H. 1947. “Imperium Maius: A Note.” Journal of Roman Studies 37: 157–164. Levick, B. 1976. Tiberius the Politician. London: Thames and Hudson. Marsh, F. B. 1931. The Reign of Tiberius. London: Oxford University Press. Pelling, C. 1993. “Tacitus and Germanicus.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 59–85. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Potter, D. S., and C. Damon. 1999. “The senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre.” American Journal of Philology 120: 13–42.

28-04-2023 18:01:24

483

G otarzes  

Powell, L. 2013. Germanicus: The Magnificent Life and Mysterious Death of Rome’s Most Popular General. South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Military. Rutland, L. W. 1987. “The Tacitean Germanicus: Suggestions for a Re-Evaluation.” Rheinisches Museum 130: 153–164. Seager, R. 2005. Tiberius. Oxford: Blackwell. Severy, B. 2000. “Family and State in the Early Imperial Monarchy: The Senatus Consultum de Pisone Patre, Tabula Siarensis, and Tabula Hebana.” Classical Philology 95: 318–337. Shotter, D. C. A. 1968. “Tacitus, Tiberius, and Germanicus.” Historia 17: 194–214. Wardle, D. 1994. Suetonius’ Life of Caligula: A Commentary. Bruxelles: Latomus. Woodman, A. J. 2006. “Mutiny and Madness: Tacitus Annals 1.16–49.” Arethusa 39: 303–329.

GESSIUS FLORUS, see BELLUM IUDAICUM GETA, see SCRIBONIANUS CAMERINUS GETAE, see AFRICA

GLITIUS GALLUS ARNOLDUS VAN ROESSEL

University of Toronto

Publius Glitius Gallus (c. 15 ce–?) was military tribune, triumvir capitalis, and quaestor (CIL XI 3097). He was impugned in the Pisonian Conspiracy and exiled in 65 ce (A. 15.56.4, 71.3). He was the son of Lucius Glitius Gallus and grandson of Vistilia (Syme 1970, 31). Through Vistilia, he was the nephew of Domitius Corbulo (Plin. HN 7.39). He rose to prominence under the reign of Nero. He was military tribune of an unknown legion, perhaps XXII Primigeniae in Germania Inferior or Superior. He then served in Rome as triumvir capitalis and quaestor before 65 ce (CIL XI 3097). His career ended with his participation in the Pisonian conspiracy. Tacitus does not identify his role until Afranius Quintianus implicated his involvement to Nero (A. 15.56.4). He was not fully convicted but sentenced to exile due to a lack of condemnatory evidence (A. 15.71.3). The reduced punishment may also have stemmed from Gallus’ influence as a relative to the sons of Vistilia (Vervaet 2000, 110–111). He and his wife, Egnatia Maximilla, entered exile (A. 15.71.3) in Andros, where they were

c07_Vol1.indd 483

honored as patrons and benefactors (Syll.3 811– 812). Egnatia erected his funerary monument in Falerii, where perhaps he spent his final years when recalled after Nero’s death. He had one known son, Publius Glitius Gallus, whose career flourished under the Flavian dynasty (ILS 999; Syme 1984, 175). see also: Pisonian Conspiracy, victims Reference works: PIR2 G 184; CIL XI 3097; Syll.3 811–812; ILS 999 REFERENCES Syme, R. 1970. “Domitius Corbulo.” The Journal of Roman Studies 60: 27–39. Syme, R. 1984. “P. Calvisius Ruso. One Person or Two?” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 56: 173–192. Vervaet, F. J. 2000. “A Note on Syme’s Chronology of Vistilia’s Children.” Ancient Society 30: 95–113. FURTHER READING Devijver, H. 1976–1980. Prosopographia militarum equestrium. Louvian: University of Louvain, G 21.

GORNEAE, see ARMENIA

GOTARZES YASMINA BENFERHAT

Université de Lorraine

Gotarzes II was a Parthian prince who was active under the reign of Claudius (40–51 ce). His origins are not very clear. He might have been a son of Artabanus III according to Josephus (AJ 20.3.69). Some have considered he was born the son of a noble Hyrcanian named Gev and would have been adopted by Artabanus III during his exile in Hyrcania. Some inscriptions of Gotarzes seem to support this version (Verstandig 2001, 252). Tacitus (A. 11.8) and Philostratus (VA 1.21) describe him as a usurper. When Artabanus II died in 38 ce, Gotarzes was made king in the winter capital Ctesiphon (Colledge 1967, 49). But he turned out to be so

28-04-2023 18:01:24

484

  G otones

cruel—Tacitus says he killed his brother Artabanus IV with his wife and children (A. 11.8)—that another son of Artabanus III, Vardanes, was called to reign and managed to push him aside in Hyrcania. The kingdom was divided in a war between the partisans of Gotarzes—the Hyrcanians and the Dahae—and Vardanes, when another king, Mithridates Hiberus, began to take control of Armenia. There was then an agreement between the two Parthian princes, and Gotarzes went to Hyrcania, leaving the throne to Vardanes. Gotarzes did not respect the agreement very long and made war again against Vardanes. He was defeated at a battle near the river Erinde (i.e., Charindas between Media and Hyrcania, see Kahrstedt 1950, 27) and disappeared for a while. Nevertheless, some consider the two men might have ruled together from 41 to 47 ce. In 47 ce, when Vardanes I was murdered, Gotarzes became king of Parthia, His cruelty (A. 12.10) or some territorial losses (Kahrstedt 1950, 35) convinced some Parthians to ask secretly for the return of Meherdates who had been brought up in Rome and was the son of Vonones I and the grandson of Phraates IV. The governor of Syria, Gaius Cassius Longinus (see Dąbrowa 1998) brought him to the frontier at the Euphrates and found him two allies: the king of Adiabene and the king of Osroene. But they were not faithful, and when Meherdates decided nevertheless to fight against Gotarzes who had first found a protection beyond the river Coma, Gotarzes caught him and cut his ears as a sign of shame but saved his life, thinking Meherdates could no longer pretend to rule. In 51 ce Gotarzes died of disease, according to Tacitus (A. 12.14.4), but according to Josephus he was murdered (AJ 20.3.74). Vonones II briefly became king of Parthia (A.12.14). Reference works: PIR2 G 195; NP 5; RE VII2 REFERENCES Colledge, Malcolm. 1967. The Parthians. London: Thames and Hudson. Dąbrowa, Edward. 1998. The Governors of Roman Syria from Augustus to Septimius Severus. Bonn: Rudolph Habelt.

c07_Vol1.indd 484

Kahrstedt, Ulrich. 1950. Artabanos III und seine Erben. Bern: A. Francke. Verstandig, André. 2001. Histoire de l’empire parthe. Bruxelles: Le Cri éditions. FURTHER READING Keitel, Elizabeth. 1978. “The Role of Parthia and Armenia in Tacitus Annals 11 and 12.” American Journal of Philology 99: 462–473. Lerouge, Charlotte. 2007. L’image des Parthes dans le monde gréco-romain. Du début du 1er siècle av. J.C. jusqu’à la fin du Haut-Empire romain. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Levick, Barbara. 1990. Claudius. New York: Yale University Press. Ziegler, Karl-Heinz. 1964. Die Beziehungen zwischen Rom und dem Partherreich. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner.

GOTONES ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

The Gotones (also spelled Gothones, Gut(h)ones, and, probably, Boutones) were a Germanic tribe that in the first and second centuries ce inhabited the area around the lower Vistula on the Baltic coast in present-day Poland (G. 44.1; Ptol. Geo. 3.5.8; cf. Plin. HN 4.99). The early history of the Gotones is shrouded in mystery, not least due to the variety of names by which they are known (for a rejection of the possibility that they might hide also behind the name Guiones, a tribe placed by Pytheas, according to Plin. HN 37.35, on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, see Rives 1999, 113) and the confusion about their relationship to the later, and more famous, Goths (Gothi). While their identification with the Goths was once taken for granted (cf. Anderson 1938, 202; Goodyear 1981, 396; Much 1967, 486–488), the current communis opinio is much more careful in assigning a one-to-one relationship between them. While their names are probably both derived from Germanic geutan = “to pour out” (Wolfram 1988, 20–21), archaeology has been unable to uncover traces of the large-scale migration that, according to the sixth century ce historian

28-04-2023 18:01:24

485

G otones  

Jordanes (Get. 9, 16, 25–26), brought the Goths from their ancestral homeland in southern Sweden to Poland, as well as to demonstrate any links between the material culture of the two regions (Todd 1987, 75–76). The second century ce geographer Ptolemy’s mention of two different tribes, the Goutai in Scandinavia (Geo. 2.11.16: Γοῦται) and the Guthones at the mouth of the Vistula (Geo. 3.5.8: Γύθωνες), neither proves nor disproves that there were two distinct tribes, as his information might refer to the same tribe at different periods. At best, one might speculate that a small group of Goths who settled in Poland became known as Gotones (Wolfram 1988, 39–41; cf. Rives 1999, 309–310), before the name Goths was again reverted to when they—after several hundred years of settlement in Poland and during an archaeologically well-attested migration toward the Black Sea—reached prominence during the later Roman Empire. Little is known about the Gotones prior to their literary and/or political mutation into the Goths. If the Βούτωνας (“Boutones”) mentioned by Strabo (7.1.3) do indeed refer to the Gotones, as scholars generally believe (Rives 1999, 308), they are introduced to the written record among those tribes (most notably the Lugii) over which Maroboduus exercised authority after his return from Rome around in 9 bce. In Pliny the Elder (HN 4.99), the Gotones appear (under the name “Gutones”) as a subgroup of the Vandals, a tribe whose extensive links with the Lugii have led to the suggestion that they were basically the same tribe (Wolfram 1988, 40). While the extent of Maroboduus’ control over the Gotones might always have been limited (perhaps due to the distance between them and the center of Maroboduus’ kingdom in present-day Bohemia), they seem— along with several other tribes—to have established their independence in the aftermath of his defeat at the hands of Arminius in 17 ce (cf. A. 2.44–46). According to Tacitus, Catualda (known only from Tacitus), the usurper who toppled Maroboduus in 19 ce, had previously sought refuge with the Gotones (A. 2.62.2). The Gotones make two appearances in the Tacitean corpus, once in Germania and once in Annals. In Germania (44.1), Tacitus notes that the Gotones are situated beyond the Lugii (trans Lygios; cf. Strabo 7.1.3, Ptol. Geo. 3.5.8) and that

c07_Vol1.indd 485

they are ruled by kings somewhat more strictly than other Germanic tribes, but not yet to the point that their freedom is compromised (Gotones regnantur, paulo iam adductius quam ceterae Germanorum gentes, nondum tamen supra libertatem). While Tacitus then seemingly moves on to deal with the Rugii and Lemovii, which he places along the Baltic coast, the proceeding description of the “distinguishing marks of all these tribes” (G. 44.1: omniumque harum gentium insigne) appears to include also the Gotones. The three tribes, then, are characterized by their use of circular shields and short swords, as well as by their subservience to kings (G. 44.1: rotunda scuta, breues gladii et erga reges obsequium). While subservience toward kings might seem incompatible with their (admittedly somewhat reduced) freedom, and although the progress towards the northeastern boundary of Germania is indeed accompanied by a gradual diminution of freedom (cf. the qualification inherent in nondum, “not yet,” followed by the unrestricted powers of the kings of the Suiones at G. 44.3 and the female domination suffered by the Sitones at G. 45.6), the expression omnium harum gentium can hardly refer to only the Rugii and Lemovii (similar expressions at G. 29.1 and G. 43.2 clearly include more than two tribes, while variations of uterque are used when only two tribes are intended, e.g., at G. 28.2 and G. 34.2). In Annals 2.62.2, the young nobleman Catualda, once a refugee from the might of Maroboduus, finds himself among the Gotones while plotting revenge. With Maroboduus’ position weakened after his defeat to Arminius, Catualda enters the Marcomannic kingdom with a strong force (presumably of Gotones), secures an alliance with the chiefs, and captures the palace and a nearby stronghold. While Catualda takes control of the kingdom, Maroboduus flees to the Romans and is granted a safe abode in Ravenna (A. 2.62.3–63.4). Not long after, Catualda is defeated by Vibilius and the Hermunduri, whereupon he too seeks refuge with the Romans and is sent to Forum Iulii (A. 2.63.5). see also: Marcomani; Germani; Suebi; Germanic peoples of the northeast Reference Work: Barrington 2 G3-H3; for Goths during late antiquity, 13 H1-I1–12

28-04-2023 18:01:24

486

  G racchi

REFERENCES Anderson, J. G. C. 1938. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus. Books 1–6 – Volume II: Annals 1. 55–81 and Annals 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Much, Rudolf. 1967. Die Germania des Tacitus. 3rd ed. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Rives, James B. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Todd, Malcolm. 1987. The Northern Barbarians 100 bc – ad 300. Oxford: Blackwell. Wolfram, Herwig. 1988. History of the Goths. Berkeley: University of California Press. FURTHER READING Heather, Peter. 1996. The Goths. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

GRACCHI CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY

University of Alberta

The ancient interpretation of the fall of the republic generally saw the tribunate of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (1) as the starting point for the violence that eventually led to the establishment of the principate (App. B Civ. 1.2.1, Flor. 2.2, Vell. Pat. 2.3.3– 4). The Gracchi were a comparatively new family in the plebeian senatorial nobility, but Tiberius’ father was prominent (twice consul and censor) and had married the daughter of Scipio Africanus. As tribune in 133 bce, Tiberius proposed land legislation that met with unexpectedly strong opposition, and his efforts to get his way led to a major conflict with the Senate. When Tiberius tried to secure reelection as tribune for the next year, he was killed by a senatorial mob. His younger brother Gaius Gracchus (1) then gained election as tribune for 123 bce, and overtly acting as the avenger of his brother, he had several laws passed that were considered anti-senatorial. Though he succeeded in gaining reelection as tribune for the next year, his popularity was successfully undermined by his opponents. As a private citizen the following year (121 bce), Gaius was killed in the violent suppression of rioting that broke out in connection with an

c07_Vol1.indd 486

effort to repeal an element of his legislation. Thus, in his brief summary of republican lawmaking (A. 3.27), Tacitus disparagingly characterizes the two Gracchi as “disturbers of the plebs” (turbatores plebis), pairing them with the even more disreputable Lucius Appuleius Saturninus. Though there is some indication of Tiberius’s activities as an orator, Gaius was widely recognized (see esp. Cic. Brut. 125) as being among the best orators in the period before Cicero (the surviving fragments of his speeches are second in extent only to those of Cato the Elder). His place in the development of Roman oratory is laid out by Marcus Aper in the Dialogus, where he rates Gaius as superior to Cato the Elder but inferior to the later Lucius Licinius Crassus (D. 18.2). Vipstanus Messalla, who disparages contemporary oratory, indicates his preference for either Gaius or Crassus over effete orators of the time of Augustus (D. 26.1). In the final speech of the work, Curiatius Maternus includes the eloquence of the Gracchi in the argument that disturbed political times nourish great oratory, which explains why the oratory of the peaceful principate saw a decline in oratory: It was not worth it for the republic to attain the height of their skill at speaking if the price was their legislation (whose anti-senatorial nature is taken for granted, D. 40.4). It was thought in antiquity that the Gracchi’s mother Cornelia (1) was responsible for their education after the death of their father (Cic. Brut. 104, Plut. Ti. Gracch. 1.14–15), and Messalla cites this in his catalog of women who raised children to be great leaders (D. 28.5). Both Tiberius and Gaius are attested as having children, and their family reemerges in the triumviral period. A descendant is attested as having persistently committed adultery with Augustus’ daughter Julia the Elder, and after being exiled at the time of her downfall, he was murdered under disputed circumstances upon the accession of Julia’s ex-husband the emperor Tiberius (A. 1.53); with his usual interest in the way in which prominent people die, Tacitus notes that despite the man’s degenerate life, his steadfastness in meeting death was worth of “name of the Sempronii.” This man’s son Gaius at first led a tawdry existence during his father’s exile but eventually was apparently restored to favor and became praetor (A. 4.13; 6.16, 38).

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G ranius M arcellus  

see also: Roman orators; eloquentia; Sempronius Gracchus, Tiberius (2); Gracchus, Gaius (2) GRACCHUS, GAIUS (1), see GRACCHI

GRACCHUS, GAIUS (2) ANTHONY SMART

York St. John University

We know very little about Gaius (Sempronius?) Gracchus, beyond his senatorial rank, role as a praetor, and subsequent legislative efforts and responsibilities under Tiberius. He shares his name with the famous tribune of the plebs, and as a cognomen “Gracchus” was particularly prevalent in the Sempronii (see Gracchi). It is most likely that he was part of the gens Sempronia, although that is not made clear in Tacitus or elsewhere. He is mentioned twice in the Annals, although it is not certain that Tacitus is referring to the same person (Woodman 2017, 156). On the first occasion (A. 6.16), Gracchus is presented against the backdrop of financial pressures, usury, and corruption. In 33 ce the empire was subjected to a financial crisis, most likely a short but quite severe economic depression (potentially linked with the gravitas annonae, or the mines in Hispania, e.g., A. 13.1–2, 19.1). The crisis is mentioned also in Suetonius (Tib. 48.1) and Cassius Dio (58.21.4–5). It is Gracchus’ responsibility as praetor to report the many accusations brought forth against those lenders, and he does so with trepidation because so many senators were involved in the practice. Tiberius offered an eighteen-month grace period, but it looks as though the principate entered into a difficult period of economic hardship; one exacerbated by the erratic policies of the princeps (notably different to Augustus’ control of the economy). The second time Tacitus mentions Gracchus as the accuser of Granius Marcianus (A. 6.38). The suicide of the accused should be viewed alongside the five other deaths Tacitus mentions here (e.g., Fulcinius Trio, Poppaeus Sabinus), as well as more widely the prevalence of maiestas accusations and cases in the reign of Tiberius. Both Cassius Dio and Suetonius mention this

c07_Vol1.indd 487

487

period, and note certain deaths, but do not mention specifically Gracchus or Marcianus. These delators are often seen as a damning indictment of the leadership of the princeps. It is important to recognize how Gracchus’ accusation is part of a wider pattern of political activity and that these deaths could serve not only the accuser, but also Tiberius himself (e.g., Cass. Dio 58.4.8). In mentioning Gracchus by name, Tacitus is demonstrating not simply how widespread this practice was, but also that individuals could use this as a means of career advancement. Suetonius writes of a “certain praetor” who asked the princeps whether the courts should convene for cases of maiestas, and this could perhaps be Gracchus, although it difficult to say with certainty (Suet. Tib. 58.1). If so, then Suetonius has confused Granius Marcianus with his father or conflated their alleged crimes. Whether Gaius Gracchus is to be identified as the son of Sempronius Gracchus (2) is uncertain (Martin and Woodman 1989, 135). see also: Gracchi Reference works: PIR2 G 197, S 353 REFERENCES Martin, R. H., and A. J. Woodman. 1989. Tacitus: Annals Book IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

GRANIUS, see ALPES

GRANIUS MARCELLUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Granius Marcellus (c. 30–35 bce–after 15 ce) was governor of Bithynia and was accused in 15 ce by a member of his own staff, Caepio Crispinus (see delators), of maiestas; the charge may have stemmed from a combination of charges of provincial maladministration and verbal disapproval of Tiberius. Romanius Hispo assisted in

28-04-2023 18:01:24

488

  G ranius M arcianus

the prosecution and may have added a charge of impietas. The case was dismissed, except for the charges of provincial maladministration. Tacitus calls Granius Marcellus a former praetor of Bithynia, although it was a proconsular province; we can conjecture, then, that Granius will have been in at least his mid-forties, if not older, having likely held a consulship at some point prior to his governorship, after which he was accused of maiestas in 15 ce. Tacitus (A. 1.74) uses the occasion of his trial to introduce the emergence of delators under Tiberius and the principate in general. Granius’ case was particularly disturbing because Caepio Crispinus had been on Granius’ staff while he was governor of his province. While the accusation of his superior clearly offended Tacitus, it was by no means unique; for example, Gellius Publicola and Marcus Paconius, legates of Gaius Iunius Silanus (consul 10), joined Silanus’ accusers in prosecuting him for extortion in Asia (A. 3.66.1). No less disturbing was that Caepio accused Granius of holding sinistros sermones—“sinister conversations”—concerning Tiberius. The second of those charges was particularly egregious since the conversations were about Tiberius’ depravities. Romanius Hispo was the assistant prosecutor in the case. Tacitus depicts Hispo in particular as embodying the depraved, craven nature of the delator in the early empire. Hispo was responsible for adding a charge of impietas since Granius had placed a statue of himself higher than those of members of the imperial house and because he had replaced an effigy of Augustus with that of Tiberius. Exasperated, Tiberius ultimately dismissed all the charges, except for that of provincial maladministration (repetundae) of which Granius had also been accused, allowed it to stand, and referred it ad reciperatores (a judicial board that investigated the claims of provincials against Romans). Nothing further is known concerning Caepio Crispinus after this trial, though his family may have remained in public life, and there is the possibility that there was a subsequent marriage connection between the families of Caepio and Hispo, whose subsequent familial fortunes appear to have been interwoven (see Rutledge 2001, 207 for bibliography). The fate of Granius after this case is unknown, and he does not appear in the historical record again.

c07_Vol1.indd 488

Reference works: PIR2 G 211; RE 7.1822–3 = Granius 14 (Groag) REFERENCE Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. FURTHER READING Badian, E. 1973. “More on Romanus Hispo.” Revista storica dell’ antichita 3: 77–85. Katzoff, R. 1971. “Tacitus Annales 1.74: The Case of Granius Marcellus.” American Journal of Philology 92: 680–684. Sinclair, P. 1995. Tacitus the Sententious Historian, A Sociology of Rhetoric in Annales 1–6. University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press. 11–12, 118–119.

GRANIUS MARCIANUS ANTHONY SMART

York St. John University

Marcus Granianus Marcianus (d. 35 ce) was governor of Baetica (rank of proconsul). It is probable that he is the son of Marcus Granius Marcellus, proconsul of Pontus-Bithynia, who was accused of treason by his quaestor Caepio Crispinus and supported in the prosecution by the rhetor Cornelius Romanius Hispo (15 ce; A. 1.74–75). If so, then Granius Marcianus was a member of a powerful and wealthy Allifae family and one with previous exposure to the dangers of maiestas. His life has been partly rebuilt through a study of an Allifae inscription (CIL IX, 2335), which suggests that he may have been accompanied in Spain by his cousin (Alfödy 1969, 149; Comodeca 2008, 82), Marcus Aedius Celer. Other sources however suggest that it was Marcus Propertius Celer. The town of Allifae sat at an important junction between Samnium and Campania. Tacitus mentions Granius Marcianus only once, to record the accusation of treason against him and his subsequent death by his own hands (A. 6.38). This act characterizes the violence witnessed in Tiberius’ rule, and although he is not

28-04-2023 18:01:24

R obert G raves  

named in other ancient sources (e.g., Suetonius, Cassius Dio), they do contain general depictions of delators and maiestas. His choice of suicide may imply some guilt, but it also reflects wider interpretations of aristocratic virtue, behavior, and protection of family (if not assets). see also: suicide Reference works: PIR2 G 212 REFERENCES Alfödy, G. 1969. Fasti Hispanienses. Senatorische Reichsbeamte und Offiziere in den spanischen Provinzen des römischen Reiches von Augustus bis Diokletian. Wiesbaden. Camodeca, G. 2008. I ceti dirigenti di rango senatorio, equestre e decurionale della Campania romana. Napoli. Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

GRAPTUS, see FREEDMEN OF NERO

ROBERT GRAVES ARTHUR J. POMEROY

Victoria University of Wellington

Robert von Ranke Graves (1895–1985) was a British poet and novelist. He also produced a mythological handbook, The Greek Myths (2 vols, 1955), in part drawing on theories he expounded in The White Goddess (1948); and translated Apuleius’ Golden Ass (1950) and Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars (1957) for Penguin publishers. His fictional autobiography of the emperor Claudius (I, Claudius and Claudius the God), published in 1934, is his best-known work, particularly after the adaptation of the novels for the BBC television series, I, Claudius in 1976. Graves was educated at Charterhouse School (1909–1914) where he suffered from bullying but also obtained a good education in Greek and Latin, leading to a Classics exhibition scholarship to St. John’s College, Oxford. Enrolling in the British army with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, he was seriously wounded in the

c07_Vol1.indd 489

489

Battle of the Somme in 1916 and later contracted influenza in the pandemic of 1918. He entered Oxford in 1919, switching his specialty to English Language and Literature, but his poor health, physically and psychologically, was a substantial hindrance and led him to seek a warmer climate, eventually settling at Deia, Majorca in 1929. In 1929 Graves had published his autobiography, Goodbye to All That, whose success was nevertheless not able to free the author of financial concerns. In his “Journal of Curiosities” entry for 5 September 1929 (But It Still Goes On: An Accumulation, 134–136), he writes that he has been reading Suetonius and Tacitus. This has led to an interest in “a complete historical romance or interpretative biography” of the emperor Claudius, “a puzzle to the historians, as indeed he was to his contemporaries.” In Graves’ opinion, Claudius was actually an opponent of the imperial system whose physical weaknesses and feigned stupidity assisted in his survival until he could restore the Roman Republic. Work on the novel began in 1932, and the manuscript of I, Claudius was complete by August 1933, with publication following in May 1934. The successor volume, covering the period when Claudius was emperor, Claudius the God was completed by August 1934 and published in November. The two volumes were well received by the public and critics, winning the James Tait Black Memorial (1934) and Hawthornden (1935) Prizes. Graves was deeply concerned for historical accuracy in the novels, acknowledging the assistance of Eirlys Roberts in the first volume and Jocelyn Toynbee in the second. In particular, in the prefatory Author’s Note to Claudius the God he stresses that he had consulted “Tacitus, Dio Cassius, Suetonius, Pliny, Varro, Valerius Maximus, Orosius, Frontinus, Strabo, Caesar, Columella, Plutarch, Josephus, Diodorus Siculus, Photius, Xiphilinus, Zonaras, Seneca, Petronius, Juvenal, Philo, Celsus, the authors of the Acts of the Apostles and of the pseudo-gospels of Nicodemus and St. James, and Claudius himself in his surviving letters and speeches.” He also acknowledges a debt to Arnaldo Momigliano’s Claudius, the Emperor and His Achievement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934; Italian edition: 1932), although this publication appeared too late to have had much influence on the novel. More

28-04-2023 18:01:24

490

  R obert G raves

likely, Graves is seeking academic support for a positive view of the emperor, despite Momigliano’s treatment of Claudius as upholding the principate as a champion for the populace against the established nobility. The novels are presented as the emperor’s autobiography, written in Greek as the world’s main literary language (see Du Pont 2005) and preserved in a lead casket for perhaps 1,900  years. Such self-irony by the implied speaker and the actual author should be a warning that the novels are intended to feign authenticity rather than be historical. While scholarly interest has often focused on the debate between Livy and Pollio on the correct method of writing history (I, Claudius, chapter 8; Bennett 2015; Kennedy and O’Gorman 2015), Claudius’ own account frequently parodies classical historiography and suggests an unreliable narrator. This is particularly true of events involving Messalina, whose actual intentions only become clear to the narrator at a later point. Graves also mixes classical references, sometimes obscure, with more contemporary genres. For instance, Claudius is originally tutored by a Cato, a descendant of the famous censor and his great grandson, the Younger, a character probably invented from the Suetonian grammarian Publius Valerius Cato (a freedman and hence no relative of the famous Catos). This Cato is then promoted to be headmaster of the Boys’ School at Rome where he comes into conflict with Agrippa Postumus, the head boy, in a parody of English public-school stories. Tacitus is a major source for incidents in the novels, and Graves supplies I, Claudius with an epigraph that he attributes to the historian, warning of the dangers of credulity and the misrepresentation of events at the time of their occurrence and afterward. This appears to be a very loose recollection of A. 6.22. The inaccuracy of the quotation is ironic in itself. While Claudius claims to be writing in annalistic style, the progressive development of the novel is quite different from the structured form of Roman annals. Graves is most obviously indebted to Tacitus for providing a detailed narrative of major historical events during the reign of Tiberius and of Claudius from 47–54 ce. The use of other sources for most of Claudius the God causes the novel to lose its vividness (perhaps deliberately as a parody

c07_Vol1.indd 490

of Claudius’ own style or simply the result of the necessary speed of composition to take advantage of the first novel’s success). Claudius as narrator seems to be anachronistically aware of Tacitus and engaged in an agonistic rewriting of the historian. For instance, he parodies the famous sine ira et studio preface, by noting that he is “writing with my own hand, and what favour can I hope to win from myself by flattery.” While Tacitus first introduces the emperor Gaius Caligula’s assassin, Cassius Chaerea, with his display of courage during the mutinies of the Rhine legions after Augustus’ death (A. 1.32.2; see Pannonian Revolt, German Revolt), Graves has already described Chaerea’s killing of a German champion at the gladiatorial games in Rome and his bravery in rescuing a detachment of soldiers during the Varian disaster (see Teutoburg Forest). So, this is, in fact, the third mention of Chaerea. Tacitus describes Augustus’ path to becoming an autocrat as a gradual progression (A. 1.2.1). Graves, who sees Livia Augusta as manipulating her husband into assuming imperial power, adapts this into “By following her advice, he gradually concentrated in his single person all the important Republican dignities” (I, Claudius, ch. 2). Such examples can easily be multiplied. As the conquest of Britain is a major episode in Claudius the God, Graves supplements the meager sources with material derived from Tacitus’ Agricola and the ethnographic tradition followed in the Germania. An invented letter of Augustus suggests that the Britons will “make better Romans than we shall ever succeed in making of the Germans,” an adaptation of Agricola’s verdict on the ability of the Britons to assimilate Roman culture thoroughly (Ag. 21.2). A particularly striking reinvention of Tacitus’ account is Graves’ version of the trial of Cremutius Cordus (A. 4.34–5), briefly giving the historian’s defense for his favorable description of Brutus and Cassius, but then suggesting that the whole trial must be some sort of joke, such as played on Lucius at Larissa (cf. Apul., Met.1.24–5). This and the storyteller’s invitation to his audience prominent in Claudius’ introduction to his biography should be a warning that the fabulous is as important as the historical to the novelist.

28-04-2023 18:01:24

G reece  

The novels were adapted to be made into a film by Alexander Korda in 1937, but the project was canceled after a car accident injured Korda’s wife, Merle Oberon. The 1976 BBC television adaptation in twelve episodes (nine for I, Claudius, three for Claudius the God) is remarkable for its literate script and outstanding performances by Derek Jacobi as Claudius, John Hurt as Caligula, Patrick Stewart as Sejanus, and Siân Phillips as Livia. Filmed as a family drama, its influence can be seen on the HBO/BBC television series Rome (2005–2007) and even in the depiction of Tony Soprano’s mother, Livia, in first three seasons of The Sopranos (1999–2001). see also: reception, film; reception, twentieth century REFERENCES Bennett, Andrew. 2015. “‘It’s Readable All Right, But It’s Not History:’ Robert Graves’ Claudius Novels and the Impossibility of Historical Fiction.” In Robert Graves and the Classical Tradition, edited by Alisdair G. G. Gibson, 21–42. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Du Pont, Olaf. 2005. “Robert Graves’s Claudius Novels: A Case of Pseudotranslation.” Target 17: 327–347. Graves, Robert. 1934. I Claudius; Claudius the God. London: Arthur Barker; later editions by Methuen and Penguin/Viking. Kennedy, Duncan, and Ellen O’Gorman. 2015. “Claudius in the Library.” In Robert Graves and the Classical Tradition, edited by Alisdair G. G. Gibson, 43–56. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Burton, P. 1995. “The Values of a Classical Education: Satirical Elements in Robert Graves’s Claudius Novels.” The Review of English Studies 46: 191–218. Graves, Richard Perceval. 1990. Robert Graves: The Years with Laura 1926–1940. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Joshel, Sandra R. 2001. “I Claudius: Projection and Imperial Soap Opera.” In Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture, edited by Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire Jr., 119–161. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Keser, Robert. 2005. “The Epic that Never Was.” Senses of Cinema 62. Accessed March 22, 2020. http:// sensesofcinema.com/2005/cteq/ epic_that_never_was.

c07_Vol1.indd 491

491

Malamud, Martha. 2009. “Tacitus and the Twentieth Century Novel.” In Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 300–316. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, Martin Seymour. 1982. Robert Graves: His Life and Works. London: Hutchinson.

GREECE PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Greece is situated in eastern Europe at the end of the Balkan peninsula, between the Adriatic and Aegean (Barrington 102 L4; Maps 50–51; 57–60). Renowned in antiquity for its mythology, literature, historiography, philosophy, political thought, and organization, Greek civilization had a profound effect on Rome and its culture, both indirectly and directly (cf. OCD3 Greece, prehistory and history). Though connections between Italy and Greece had been attested for centuries before, Rome encountered the Greek East diplomatically, politically, and imperially. From the third century bce, onward, it increased power and influence in the region through treaties and alliances with local koina, poleis, and kingdoms, developing them into the territorial provinces of the imperial period (Chaniotis 2018; Eckstein 2008). This reveals a complex picture of reciprocal and hierarchical relations between various Greek polities and Rome, making generalizing statements about Greece as an entirety in this period challenging, at least in how it corresponds to the modern nation state. In short, modern Greece is bigger in territory than its ancient counterpart, though smaller than what would be considered the Greek world, and roughly includes the provinces of Achaia, Macedonia, Thrace, Crete, and the regions of the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, and the islands of the Aegean. Furthermore, some regions, islands, and cities which form part of “Greece” are treated in separate entries, as well as certain places included here that fall out of “Greece” proper, revealing the ill-fit of modern conceptions of the nation state and national territory to an ancient context.

28-04-2023 18:01:25

492

  G reece

The impact of Greece on Rome and of Rome on Greece have been parallel topics of scholarly activities for several years, including understanding provincial and local administration in the Greek world; religious and diplomatic interactivity between Greek cities and Rome, particularly with respect to the imperial cult; and the impact of Roman ideas and ideology on Greece’s identity, landscape, and history. This project of understanding Greece under Roman rule is of considerable scholarly interest recently in classics and ancient history, particularly along the lines of cultural exchange and the second sophistic. Greek affairs, Greek people, and locations in Greece are mentioned several times in Tacitus. This entry will concentrate primarily on locations in Greece that do not receive separate treatment elsewhere in this encyclopedia, including Achaia, Dyrrhachium, Euboea, Lesbos, Mytilene, Nicopolis, and Samos. For Greeks and Greek literature, see relevant entries on persons and Greek literature. Often, these locations are mentioned with antiquity, antiquarian interest, scholarly learning, and foundational myths. Greece is also the theater of imperial politics and competition: there are passages on the competitiveness of religious practice and the nature of diplomatic relationships between the Greek world and Rome, as well as examples of provincial maladministration, litigation, and visits from members of the imperial household. Greece as a whole is mentioned sparingly, in comparison with more attestations concerning Greek figures, literature, and customs. At D. 3.4, 10.5, Greece is mentioned in passing as the home of tragedy and public performance and oratory. In the Annals, Greece appears primarily in passages of mythological or antiquarian interest. At A. 2.60.1, Greece is mentioned in a gloss about Canopus in Egypt concerning Menelaus’ return trip from Troy. At. A. 4.55.3, connections with the Peloponnese are mentioned in Sardis’ arguments that detailed mythological genealogies between the people of Lydia and Etruria, in order to secure the honor of building a temple to Tiberius, Livia Augusta, and the Senate and gain the title neokoros (see further, Miletus, Smyrna, Ephesus). At A. 11.14.1, Greece is mentioned in the excursus on the history of the

c07_Vol1.indd 492

alphabet, with Cadmus and the Phoenicians bringing the letter forms from the East. Achaia was the name of the Roman province in southern Greece (see provinces). After an allied relationship with Rome for the first half of the second century bce, Achaia was incorporated into the Roman empire after the destruction of Corinth in 146 bce. During the reign of the emperor Augustus in 27 bce, Achaia was made into a public province, which was comprised of central Greece and the Peloponnese (See BNP Achaia, for more on Achaia’s geographical extent and provincial organization). In total, Achaia is mentioned nineteen times across Tacitus’ works. Achaia appears only once at D. 30.3, (Athens in particular, cf. Plut. Cic. 19.4) as Cicero’s destination for his philosophical and oratorical education. Bowersock noted that Tacitus had a stylistic mannerism of mentioning Achaia together with the province of Asia, suggesting that the historian’s interest in both regions came from an early post as a proconsul’s legate in Achaia and Asia (Bowersock 1993, 7–9). In contrast, Birley explains this peculiarity through geography, suggesting their connection as representing the normal route east from Rome (Birley 2000, 245– 246, for relevant citations). Their conjoined and separate representations in Tacitus would be a fruitful avenue of future research (e.g., at A. 14.21.1, the conquests of Achaia and Asia are cited as a watershed for greater attention to games and the theater in Roman culture in Tacitus’ excursus on spectacles; see games). In the Histories, Achaia and Campania are mentioned together as a byword for luxurious living to describe the decline of military discipline (H. 1.23.2). This is mirrored in A. 3.7 in the description of the sojourn of Drusus the Younger (son of Tiberius) in Achaia and Asia before going to Illyricum. Otherwise, Achaia is a theater of imperial politics during the tumultuous civil wars of 69 ce. Titus travels through Achaia via Corinth on his trip east to meet with his father Vespasian in Iudaea (H. 2.1.3; 2.2.2); rumors circulate about a false Nero rising in the east (see impostors), spreading discord and alarm in the region (H. 2.8–9); and Achaia pledges allegiance to Vespasian after his proclamation as emperor in July 69.

28-04-2023 18:01:25

G reece  

The majority of Achaia’s appearances are in the Annals. Under Tiberius in the year 15 ce (A. 1.76.2), Achaia was placed under the provincial command of Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus (A. 1.80.1), the governor of Moesia, making it an imperial province ultimately under the emperor’s command in order to relieve its tax burden, rather than a public province as it had been and would be in the future (Claudius in 44 ce would change its status back: Suet. Claud. 25.3; Cass. Dio 60.24.1). This reveals an important fact about Roman provincial administration: provinces could be altered geographically and placed under the direction of different types of promagistrates, allowing for changes in status and category. It is under Poppaeus Sabinus that an imposter of Drusus was found and tried, which would fall under his provincial remit (A. 5.10). Diplomatic relations are seen at A. 4.13.1, with the Achaian polis Aegium (Barrington 58 C1; see Cilicia) petitioning Tiberius and the Senate for tax relief due to an earthquake. At A. 4.43, a dispute in front of the Senate between the Spartans and Messenians over the temple of Diana Limnatis is described, showing Tacitus’ interest in alternate traditions in historical writing and poetry as well as competing precedents from past Roman authorities, including a praetor of Achaia, Atidius Geminus (otherwise unknown; Gibson 2014, 137–139). This episode mirrors others describing diplomatic and religious disputes (cf. A. 3.60–3; 4.55–56). At. A.15.33.2, Nero is at Neapolis to perform publicly in Greek at a “Greek city” (quasi Graecam urbem) as a preliminary stage before competing in Achaia at the Panhellenic sanctuaries and their ancient and famous festivals (namely at Olympia, Nemea, Delphi and Isthmia). A rich passage on Nero’s interest in performance and philhellenism (Griffin 1984, 161–162), it lays the groundwork for Nero’s abortive attempt to travel to Greece in 64 ce (A. 15.36.1) and foreshadows his later trip to Greece in 66–67 ce, a narrative that is now sadly lost. Indeed, it is within this context that Nero proclaimed “Freedom of the Greeks” at Corinth (cf. Syll.3 814  =  ILS 8794  =  IG 7.2713). This grant of “freedom” gave Achaia free status, that is freedom from taxation, which was repealed by Vespasian (Suet. Vesp. 8.4). In stark contrast, Nero is said to have plundered Achaia and its

c07_Vol1.indd 493

493

temples in the aftermath of the fire of 64 ce (A. 15.45; cf. Griffin 1984, 211, 294, n.15). Dyrrhachium, founded as Epidamnus on the Adriatic coast in the seventh century bce, is now known as Durrës in modern Albania (Barrington 49 B2). The city appears once in H. 2.83.2, as part of an alternate strategy by Licinius Mucianus, to march down the Via Egnatia from Byzantium and cross the Adriatic to Italy. Euboea is an island north of the Boeotian and Attic coast, which was part of the province of Achaia in the imperial period (Barrington 55 E3; cf. RE Euboia). It is mentioned twice in passing in the narratives of the journey of Gaius Calpurnius Piso (A. 2.54.1) and as part of Poppaeus Sabinus’ itinerary to track down Drusus the Younger’s impersonator (A. 5.10.3) Lesbos (Barrington 56 C3) is an island in the northeastern Aegean off the coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and is featured in developments of imperial politics. In Tacitus, Lesbos is the location of Iulia Livilla’s birth (A. 2.54.1) and is described as an insula nobili et amoena (A. 6.3.3; “a renowned and pleasant island”) and thus an inappropriate place for Iunius Gallio’s exile. Mytilene (Barrington 56 D3), the island’s most prominent city on its east coast facing Turkey, enjoyed privileged status as a free city from 62 bce due to the intervention of Theophanes (see Pompey the Great). His descendants were prominent in Roman politics thereafter and fell under a spate of maiestas trials in 33 ce (A. 6.18; cf. Laco and Argolicus, prominent Spartans and Achaians who also fell, see Pompeia Macrina; for more on the relationship between Mytilene and Rome, see Ellis-Evans 2019, 258). The city is the base where Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa held proconsular imperium over the eastern part of the empire (A. 14.53.3). Nicopolis, or “victory city” (Barrington 54 C3; cf. OCD3 Nicopolis) was a foundation by the emperor Augustus to commemorate his victory at Actium in 31 bce against Mark Antony, placed on the site of the land-camp. The city was a combination of Greek and Roman elements; a synoecic foundation from older cities and a civitas libera, which revealed a complex institutional, cultural, and religious mix, and a provincial manifestation of Augustus’ ideology. It is here where Germanicus encounters the

28-04-2023 18:01:25

494

  G reek mythology

past through monument and memory during his fateful journey east, reflecting on his familial connections with both Augustus and Antony (A. 2.53.2). It is also here that Poppaeus Sabinus finds and tries Drusus’ impersonator (A. 5.10.3). Samos is an island in the southwestern Aegean, only 2  km from the coast of Asia Minor (Barrington 61 D2; BNP Samos). The island appears twice in the Annals, both concerning religious matters. At A. 4.14.1, the Samians were petitioning for the reaffirmation of asylum at their famous Temple of Hera, and at A. 6.12.3, Samos is mentioned in a short historical gloss as a place from where Sibylline Books (see quindecimviri sacris faciundis) were sought after the burning of the Capitolium in 83 bce. see also: civil wars of Late Republic; legendary Greece; Greek orators; Greek poets; Earthquake of 17 ce Reference works: Barrington 49 B2; 54 C3; 55 E3; 56 C3; 58 C1; 61 D2; 102 L4; Maps 50–51; 57–60. OCD3 Greece, prehistory and history; Nicopolis; BNP, Achaea; Samos; RE Euboia REFERENCES Birley, Antony R. 2000. “The Life and Death of Cornelius Tacitus.” Historia 49: 230–247. Bowersock, Glen. 1993. “Tacitus and the Province of Asia.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by Torrey J. Luce and Anthony J. Woodman, 3–10. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chaniotis, Angelos. 2018. Age of Conquests: The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Eckstein, Arthur M. 2008. Rome Enters the Greek East: From Anarchy to Hierarchy in the Hellenistic Mediterranean, 230-170 BC. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Ellis-Evans, Aneurin. 2019. The Kingdom of Priam: Lesbos and the Troad between Anatolia and the Aegean. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gibson, Bruce. 2014. “The Representation of Greek Diplomacy in Tacitus.” In Roman Rule in Greek and Latin Writing: Double Vision, edited by Jesper M. Madsen and Roger Rees, 124–144. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Griffin, Miriam. 1984. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. New York: Routledge.

c07_Vol1.indd 494

FURTHER READING Alcock, Susan. 1993. Graecia Capta. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gruen, E. 1992. Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Whitmarsh, Timothy. 2013. Beyond the Second Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

GREEK MYTHOLOGY KONSTANTINOS KAPPARIS

University of Florida

The myths of the Greeks charmed and conquered the Romans and through them the modern world. The body of Greek mythology with which the Romans came in contact had been built over a long period of time into a very substantial corpus, with countless variations, versions, and alterations introduced over a millennium by prominent authors such as Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, the great tragic poets, or the Hellenistic poets, Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius of Rhodes. This rich literary production continued in Roman times, especially in the period of the second sophistic, adding, augmenting, and altering traditional myths, while the Romans themselves accepted Greek myths, mixed them with their own, and substantially enriched the body of classical mythology, to the extent that by the end of this process it would be fair to speak about GrecoRoman mythology as an undivided continuum. This creative process came to an end with Christianization, as to the devotees of the new religion, the rich mythology of the Greco-Roman world represented the beating heart of paganism. The works of the Greek epic are dominated by the Olympian pantheon. In the Iliad a handful of Olympian gods, like Zeus, Athena, Hera, Aphrodite, and Apollo, determine the fate of humans and actively participate in the war, sometimes fighting side by side either with the Greeks or with the Trojans. In the Odyssey, other than the intimidating figure of an angry Poseidon, the Olympian gods retreat into the background to

28-04-2023 18:01:25

G reek mythology  

make room for lesser but perhaps more interesting deities like Calypso or Circe, or semidivine immortal beings like Scylla and Charybdis. The Theogony of Hesiod brought together a large array of myths and exerted enormous influence on later Greek theology and mythology. The inspirational pluralism of the Odyssey and the Hesiodic works was continued in the works of influential lyric poets like Stesichorus and Pindar. Attic drama enriched the traditional body of myths with plots based on the epic cycles of Mycene and Troy and the rich mythology of Thebes. It also added a predominantly Athenian cycle based on the old myths of Attica, infused with the democratic spirit and imperial ambitions of fifth century Athens. This creative activity continued in the Atthidographers of the classical period, an impressive assembly of authors who reinvented the historical roots of Attica, starting from the mythological past. Hellenistic authors made their own distinct contribution to the development of Greek myth by focusing on lesser known aspects, topics, and episodes of Greek myths, and developing an entirely new body which had moved away from the old epic cycles and grand themes of previous literature, and had reinvented myth to reflect the literate and sophisticated interests cultivated in the large, splendid cities of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The Romans came in contact with Greek mythology at this particular stage of its development and were enchanted and heavily influenced by it. Traditional Roman mythology and religion absorbed Greek mythology, and many of the gods of the Roman pantheon were identified with their Greek equivalents. The myths of Zeus were appropriated by Jupiter, those of Demeter were appropriated by Ceres, and so on. Thus, in a single stroke the Romans made their own the rich material of Greek mythology, which had been accumulating in the creative writing of centuries. Roman authors sometimes picked up from where their Greek counterparts had left off. For example, the poetae novi followed on the footsteps of the Greek neoteric poets, and in turn they paved the way for the high creativity of the Roman elegy of the Golden Age, with its imaginative reinventions of Greek myth that exerted a heavy influence upon European literature and art, especially after the Renaissance. Greco-Roman mythology has provided an abundance of themes

c07_Vol1.indd 495

495

to painters, sculptors, composers and creative writers through the centuries, and its allure remains strong in our times. Greco-Roman mythology remained highly adaptive and responsive to the needs of various genres, as well as individual authors, because it lacked the dogmatism which characterized monotheistic narratives about the divine in later centuries. When Greek and Roman authors altered myth to suit their purposes they were not worried about heresy, and they did not set out to upset audiences with unorthodox views about the nature and conduct of their gods. Instead, they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, namely telling stories about themselves and their own society through the telling of stories about gods, heroes, monsters, supernatural forces, and battles. The Greeks and Romans did not expect their gods to be perfect. The abundant imperfections of gods and heroes provided rich material for stories, and neither the Greeks nor the Romans viewed their deities as examples of ideal human conduct. If anything, their gods and goddesses often indulged in behaviors which secular law would consider criminal, such as abductions, rape, adultery, or vengeful killing. Humans did not look up to their gods to find exalted examples of virtue. For these they looked into their history, into the legends about the great humans of their past, the ancestors or heroes that had overcome adversity to reach lofty goals. Thus legends of heroes and ancestors, although often just as fictional as the stories about the gods, served as inspirational models. Tacitus has no interest in traditional GrecoRoman mythology. The small number of references to it are typically peripheral (e.g., H. 4.53) and only occasionally introduced as a structural component to a story, as for example in the description of the fall of Messalina (A. 11.31), where the comparison of the empress with a Bacchant is purposefully reminiscent of the play of Euripides and is intended to dramatically enhance the whole narrative. As with other historians following the tradition of Thucydides, Tacitus intentionally avoids myth or other such material which might endanger the factual presentation of history. see also: Greek poets; historiography; religion

28-04-2023 18:01:25

496

  G reek orators

FURTHER READING Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Translated by John Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Buxton, R. 2013. Myths and Tragedies in their Ancient Greek Contexts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Detienne, M. 1986. The Creation of Mythology. Translated by M. Cook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Morford, Mark, Robert J. Lenardon, and Michael Sham. 2011. Classical Mythology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parker, Robert. 2011. On Greek Religion. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Roman, L., and M. Roman. 2010. Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology. New York: Infobase Publishing. Vernant, J. P., P. Vidal-Naquet, and J. Lloyd. 1988. Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece. Translated by J. Lloyd. New York: Zone Books. Woodard, R. D., ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

GREEK ORATORS ANDREW WOLPERT

University of Florida

Oratory was studied formally in ancient Greece with the rise of democracy and thrived especially in classical Athens. The poems of Homer and Hesiod show that rhetoric was a celebrated skill from the beginning of the Greek polis. As democracies rose and leaders needed to persuade mass audiences to gain political prominence and defend themselves against lawsuits lodged by their rivals, they sought assistance from experts to hone their ability to speak persuasively in public. In the middle of the fifth century bce, Corax and Tisias of Syracuse were the first to develop rhetorical handbooks. Their works provided only basic schematics and seem to have included little more than examples of arguments. Around the same time, the Sophists, most notably Protagoras of Abdera and Prodicus of Ceos, came to Athens to teach rhetoric. In the fourth century bce, Aristotle’s Rhetoric and the Rhetoric to Alexander, probably written by Anaximenes of Lampsacus, provided a more systematic and comprehensive analysis of the subject and, as a result,

c07_Vol1.indd 496

had a greater impact on subsequent work. Quintilian drew on these studies as well as Hellenistic works, including those by Hermagoras of Temnos and Apollodorus of Pergamum, but their approaches were later criticized as too rigid and dogmatic (D. 19). Beginning in the third century bce, Alexandrian grammarians selected what they regarded as the best works of literature for inclusion in the canons of each poetic and prose genre to be studied in school. The canon of ten Attic orators, probably developed by Caecilius of Caleacte in the first century bce, included Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Lycurgus (2), Hyperides, and Dinarchus. The collection contains forensic and deliberative oratory as well as epideictic (display) speeches, including funeral orations. The speeches date from the second half of the fifth century to 323 bce, but only Antiphon flourished in the fifth century. It is likely that orations were included in the canon to showcase different styles and techniques or because they were delivered for legal disputes or at assembly meetings that were particularly noteworthy. Isaeus, for example, focused his attention primarily on inheritance cases while the majority of Isocrates’ speeches were epideictic. Lysias was famous for the elegant simplicity of his style and for his ability to prepare speeches for his clients to deliver that matched their character. His corpus also includes some extraordinary cases. One of his clients on trial for murder defended himself on the grounds that the killing was justifiable because it happened when he found the man in bed with his wife. In the only extant speech delivered by Lysias, he prosecuted Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens, for the murder of his brother. Demosthenes stood out especially for his expressive language and his masterful use of the periodic style. He was regarded as the best Greek orator, and his achievements in prose were even compared to Homer’s for poetry (e.g., D. 12, 25). Demosthenes was perhaps remembered most for his rhetorical success in the political debates waged with Aeschines in assembly meetings as well as in the courts over going to war with Philip II of Macedonia (see D. 37). For the Romans, the Attic orators delivered their speeches in a style that they should aspire to and stood in sharp

28-04-2023 18:01:25

G reek poets  

contrast to the extravagance of the Asiatic style with its short rhythmic sentences that was practiced in the Hellenistic period. see also: Dialogus de Oratoribus; Roman orators; Cicero FURTHER READING Kennedy, George A. 1994. A New History of Classical Rhetoric. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Usher, Stephen. 1999. Greek Oratory: Tradition and Originality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Worthington, Ian, ed. 2007. A Companion to Greek Rhetoric. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

GREEK POETS MALI SKOTHEIM

Ashoka University

Greek poets, such as Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, and Menander, were central to the education of elite youths in the Roman imperial period. In Tacitus, Greek poets appear in the Dialogue on Orators as examples of ancient authors, in contrast to contemporary Roman poets. For elite Romans, the purpose of literature in education was to improve the oratorical style of the students, who were expected to continue on to political careers, rather than to produce poets. In the Dialogue on Orators, this is the central tension between Curiatius Maternus, who applies his education to the writing of tragedy, and Marcus Aper, who sees oratory as the proper end of a good education. Aper characterizes Maternus’ efforts to write tragedy as an attempt to add Roman names to the “dramas of the Greeks” (Graeculorum fabulis, D. 3) and encourages him to leave behind the composition of poetry for oratory. Maternus replies that the distant past lacked orators but was full of poets and bards, such as Orpheus, Linus, and Apollo. Moreover, he claims, the epic poet Homer is as honored as the orator Demosthenes, and the tragic poets Euripides and Sophocles are as respected as the orators Lysias and Hyperides (D. 12).

c07_Vol1.indd 497

497

While Tacitus represents the composition of Greek poetry as a belonging to a distant past, in fact, the composition and performance of Greek poetry continued throughout the imperial period. In the time of Tacitus, Greek poetry competitions, including tragedy and comedy, were a part of festivals such as the Capitolia in Rome, established by Domitian, as well as those of the Greek East (Aneziri 2014; Jones 1993). These poetry competitions included newly written dramas as well as reperformances of old plays, likely Euripides and Menander. Homer was performed at such festivals by rhapsodes and Homeristai, who acted out scenes from the epics (West 2010). Other contexts for poetic performances included auditoria and private dinner parties (Nervegna 2013). Recitations of poetry, including epic and tragedy, were regularly performed in imperial Rome (Markus 2000). The popularity of Homer in early imperial Rome may also be seen in the practice of representing Homeric scenes, as well as scenes from the Trojan Cycle, on marble tablets, known as the Tabulae Iliacae (Squire 2011). see also: Greek orators; Roman poets; epic poetry; Dialogus de Oratoribus

REFERENCES Aneziri, Sophia. 2014. “Greek Strategies of Adaptation to the Roman World: The Case of the Contests.” Mnemosyne Fourth Series 67: 423–442. DOI: 10.1163/1568525X-12341293. Jones, Christopher. 1993. “Greek Drama in the Roman Empire.” In Theater and Society in the Classical World, edited by Ruth Scodel, 39–52. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Markus, Donka D. 2000. “Performing the Book: The Recital of Epic in First-Century C.E. Rome.” Classical Antiquity 19: 138–179. DOI: 10.2307/25011114. Nervegna, Sebastiana. 2013. Menander in Antiquity: The Contexts of Reception. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Squire, Michael. 2011. The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. West, Martin L. 2010. “Rhapsodes at Festivals.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 173: 1–13.

28-04-2023 18:01:25

498

  grief

GRIEF VERENA SCHULZ

KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Tacitus expresses the emotion of grief or sorrow as mental pain through the nouns tristitia, maeror, maestitia, dolor, and the verbs and adjectives maerere, dolere, maestus, and tristis. Luctus and lugere refer specifically to grief exteriorly expressed. The inner state of sorrow manifests itself in set markers (tristitiae … signa, A. 11.38.3) such as tears (lacrimae), moans (gemitus), and wails (lamenta). These markers can be spontaneous or heavily conventional and ritualized, especially at the death and burial of men. Tacitus distinguishes the inner emotion from the outer markers, for example in the description of the mourning customs of the Germans: lamenta ac lacrimas cito, dolorem et tristitiam tarde ponunt (G. 27.1). Showing or making obvious a state of grief can be dangerous, thus is Agrippina the Younger accused of mourning the death of Britannicus (A. 13.19.3). After the death of Sejanus, watchers are in place to detect whoever shows signs of mourning (A. 6.19.3). The risk leads to manipulation of grief: Tacitus often reports how grief is suppressed or feigned. At Nero’s appearance on a stage, Afranius Burrus praises openly Nero, although he is grieving inside (maerens Burrus ac laudans, A. 14.15.4). After the murder of Agrippina, Nero feigns grief for her death (ipse diversa simulatione maestus, A. 14.10.2), similarly to Domitian at the death of Agricola (Ag. 43.3). Tiberius and Livia Augusta do not show their mourning for Germanicus openly, perhaps, according to Tacitus, because they wanted to avoid someone noticing their dissimulation (A. 3.3.1).

c07_Vol1.indd 498

In dealing with grief, a correct measure plays an important role. A high level of grief is considered as typically female (Mustakallio 2003). Nero is depicted as excessive in his grief over his dead child (A. 15.23.3). Agricola endures the grief for his child by choosing, among other things, war as a cure (et in luctu bellum inter remedia erat, Ag. 29.1). Tiberius warns to be moderate in the great grief for Germanicus and to put an end to it (A. 3.6.2). The grief that Tacitus describes after the death of Germanicus has been the object of many studies (e.g., Versnel 1980). On the one hand, there is a great sadness over his death in the provinces and neighboring territory, on the side of foreign peoples and kings (A. 2.72.2). On the other hand, the suspected murderers Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, and Munatia Plancina feel an unrestrained joy over his death. Plancina even puts off the mourning clothes which she was wearing because of the recent loss of her sister (A. 2.75.2). see also: emotions REFERENCES Mustakallio, Katariina. 2003. “Women and Mourning in Ancient Rome.” In Gender, Cult, and Culture in the Ancient World from Mycenae to Byzantium, edited by Lena Larsson Lovén and Agneta Strömberg, 86–98. Sävedalen: Åström. Versnel, Hendrik S. 1980. “Destruction, devotio and Despair in a Situation of Anomy: The Mourning for Germanicus in Triple Perspective.” In Perennitas: Studi in onore di Angelo Brelich promossi dalla Cattedra di Religioni del mondo classico dell’Università degli Studi di Roma, 541–618. Rome: Ed. dell’ Ateneo.

GRINNES, see BATAVIAN REVOLT GYARUS, see CYCLADES

28-04-2023 18:01:25

H HADRIAN JUAN MANUEL CORTÉS-COPETE

Universidad Pablo de Olavide

Hadrian, Publius Aelius Hadrianus, was born probably in Rome (HA Hadr. 1.3) or, maybe, in Italica (Jer. Chron. 197 Helm), on 24 January 76 ce and died in the Italian city of Baiae on 10 July 138 ce (HA Hadr. 25.6). Between 11 August 117 ce and the date of his death, he was the emperor of Rome, as Trajan’s successor. Hadrian was born into a senatorial family. His father, Publius Aelius Hadrianus Afer (PIR2 A 185), had been praetor before 90 ce, the year in which he died prematurely (HA Hadr. 1.4). His family came from Italica in Baetica, some six miles northeast of Hispalis. Thanks to the emperor’s autobiography, De vita sua, we know that Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus was attributed with having founded Italica during the Hannibalic War (HA Hadr. 1.1). Hadrian claimed that the remote origins of his family were to be found in Hadria, in the Piceno region. It is likely that this news is yet another example of the second-century sophists’ penchant for inventing the past, with the intention of ennobling cities and families. Italica was granted the status of Roman municipium by Iulius Caesar. Hadrian also recalled that his great-grandfather’s grandfather, going by the name of Marullinus, had been the family’s first senator (HA Hadr. 1.2). Hadrian’s ascent from the municipium to the senatorial aristocracy was thanks to his kinship with Trajan’s family, who also came from Italica. Marcus Ulpius Traianus Pater, the Emperor

Trajan’s father, had been one of Vespasian’s most staunch supporters (Nicols 1978). After emerging victorious, Vespasian had rewarded Traianus Pater’s loyalty with a position among Rome’s social and political elites. Hadrianus Afer exploited the fact that he was Traianus Pater’s nephew to climb the social and political ladder. The fortune that his family had amassed thanks to the exporting of metals and olive oil produced in Baetica sustained his yearning for social advancement. Hadrianus Afer married Domitia Paulina (Raepsaet-Charlier 1987, 330) who was from Gades, also in Baetica (HA Hadr. 1.2). A solid hypothetical proposal identifies Domitia with the main heiress to the so-called Testamentum Dasumii, “Will of Dasumius” (CIL VI 10229 + AE 1976, 77). As it happens, this will correspond to Gnaeus Domitius Tullus, who was consul in 70 ce and died in around 108 ce (Plin. Ep. 8.18). Should this hypothesis be correct, Hadrian would have been related through his mother to one of the wealthiest Roman families, originally from Gallia Narbonensis (Di Vita-Evrard 1989). Following Afer’s death, Hadrian was assigned two tutors, Acilius Attianus (PIR2 A 45), an equestrian from Italica, and Trajan, the son of Traianus Pater and a supporter of Domitian. Under Trajan’s guidance, Hadrian was educated by the best teachers. The famous grammarian Quintus Terentius Scaurus (HA Verus 2.5. Gell. NA 11.15.3) was tasked with teaching him Latin literature and oratory. However, Hadrian had a particular fascination for Greek culture, earning him the sobriquet of “Graeculus,” that is, little Greek (HA Hadr. 1.5). Hadrian’s tutor of Greek

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume I, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c08_Vol1.indd 499

28-04-2023 18:01:05

500

  Hadrian

oratory was Isaeus, a sophist of Syrian origin but established in Athens and who had come to Rome to pursue a teaching career (Philotr. VS I 20. Plin. Ep. 2.3). In addition to his love of the classical Greek language, Isaeus instilled in him a devotion to the two Eleusinian Goddesses, Demeter and Kore (IG II2 3632). Hadrian was meticulously prepared for participating in the political and military life of Rome. When he was fifteen, Trajan sent him to Italica, where he began his military instruction and developed a fondness for hunting (HA Hadr. 2.1). On returning to Rome in 94 ce, he embarked on his cursus honorum (ILS 308) as one of the decemviri stlitibus iudicandis, who were responsible for the civil courts. That same year, he was appointed as the praefectus Feriarum Latinarum, the person left in charge of the city by the consuls when all the Roman magistrates were required to attend the Feriae Latinae or Latin Festival held on the Alban Mount. Additionally, he was the sevir of a cavalry squadron that participated in the transvectio equitum, a horse parade of young Romans belonging to the equestrian class. Hadrian continued his military training as a tribunus laticlavus, namely, one of the six military tribunes in a legion. Contrary to the customary one year of service, Hadrian completed three tribunates in three different legions during several years: the legion II Adiutrix stationed in Aquincum (Pannonia); the legion V Macedonica, with headquarters in Oescus (Moesia); and the legion XXII Primigenia, deployed in Mogontiacum (Germania Superior). During his tribunate in Mogontiacum, in 97–98 ce, Hadrian learned about Trajan’s adoption by Nerva and the latter’s death. He wanted to be the first to break the news to Trajan—who was governing Germania from Cologne (Colonia Agrippinensis) at the time—about his ascension to the throne (HA Hadr. 2.6). Hadrian had become the new emperor’s closest male relative. His marriage to Vibia Sabina (Raepsaet-Charlier 1987, 802) in around 100 ce had reinforced his family ties with Trajan, for Sabina’s maternal grandmother was Ulpia Marciana (RaepsaetCharlier 1987, 824), the emperor’s sister. Hadrian became quaestor in 101 ce, being assigned to the emperor with the task of delivering his speeches before the Senate. It was during

c08_Vol1.indd 500

this magistracy that a famous episode should be placed (HA Hadr. 3.1): when delivering a speech one day, Hadrian made the senators laugh with his rustic pronunciation. It was not a case of censoring a provincial accent, but yet another example of the story of a young sophist who fails and strives to better himself. In 101 ce, Trajan proceeded to the Danube to engage in his first Dacian War, with Hadrian accompanying him as his comes. Hadrian’s courage and merits during the war earned him awards and honors. On returning from Dacia, Hadrian was put in charge, as a curator, of keeping the record of the Senate proceedings. In 105 ce Hadrian was Tribune of the Plebs (HA Hadr. 3.4). This makes it necessary to date his praetorship to 106 ce, even though this would mean that there was no interval between both magistracies. Despite the uncertainties in the manuscripts of the Historia Augusta (Hadr. 3.8), the Athenian inscription recording Hadrian’s cursus honorum claims that he held the praetorship and the command of the legion I Minervia during the Second Dacian War. This new conflict raged from 105 to 106 ce. Trajan’s interest in Hadrian’s political promotion can also be seen in the next steps in his career. Hadrian became the first governor of the new province of Pannonia Inferior in 107 ce, and in the following year, he attained the consulship. Although Hadrian did not serve as consul ordinarius, he held this magistracy when he was only thirty-two, while candidates usually had to wait until they were forty. On the occasion of the consulship in 108 ce, Licinius Sura is said to have informed Hadrian that Trajan intended to adopt him as his successor (HA Hadr. 3.10). However, after his consulship, for some years Hadrian did not hold any other relevant magistracy, a lull in his career of which he made the most of to visit Greece as a simple privatus in around 112 ce. Hadrian was invited to become an Athenian citizen (ILS 308). He held the archonship of Athens and presided over the Dionysia. Hadrian reentered public life when Trajan arrived at Athens in 113 ce, on his way to the east. In the Greek city, he received the ambassadors of the Parthian king and told them that there would be war (Cass. Dio 68.17.2). Hadrian joined the emperor’s consilium, being appointed to the position of legatus Augusti for the direction of the

28-04-2023 18:01:05

Hadrian  

Parthian War (Cass. Dio 69.1.2. HA Hadr. 4.1), which was conducted swiftly. But successes such as the conquest of Armenia, the invasion of Mesopotamia, the taking of Ctesiphon, and Trajan’s arrival on the Persian Gulf, all between 114 and 116 ce, were followed by setbacks provoked by both the Jewish revolt in the imperial territories and rebellions in recently conquered ones. Sick and defeated, Trajan decided to return to Rome in 117 ce, leaving Hadrian behind as the governor of Syria, commanding the largest army in the empire. Hadrian was designated consul ordinarius for 118. The imperial retinue had to stop in Selinus (Cilicia), where the emperor died (Cass. Dio 68.33.3). Hadrian’s succession was the darkest episode of his reign. Trajan had not taken steps to adopt his successor at any public ceremony. Perhaps this might have been the reason for having wanted to return to Rome. However, the illness that had detained him in Selinus forced him to adopt Hadrian by letter. Hadrian received the letter of adoption in Antioch on 9 August 117 ce. Two days later, a new letter arrived, announcing the death of Trajan (HA Hadr. 4.6–7). When the news was communicated to the army, the troops acclaimed Hadrian as their new emperor. This proclamation occurred just before the Senate had received news of Hadrian’s adoption and Trajan’s death, for which reason the senators were faced with a fait accompli. And even though Hadrian sent them a letter of apology, in which he claimed that the empire could not remain without an emperor (HA Hadr. 6.2; cf. H. 1.16.1), the primacy of the army, at the expense of the Senate, produced a deep rift between the emperor and the assembly. This estrangement would have a profound impact on Hadrian’s reign. Rumors aimed at discrediting the new emperor started to circulate: the adoption and succession would have been an imposition orchestrated by Plotina, Trajan’s wife (HA Hadr. 4.8–10. Cass. Dio 69.1). Thus, Hadrian was portrayed as an emperor whose succession had been stage-managed by a woman. On the other hand, the failure of the Parthian War led Rome to abandon its new conquests, thus making it possible to accuse Hadrian of betraying his predecessor’s legacy (HA Hadr. 5.3. Eutr. 8.6.2).

c08_Vol1.indd 501

501

Furthermore, four ex-consuls, Celsus, Palma, Avidius Nigrinus, and Quietus, were accused of plotting against the emperor and tried in absentia. Although the Senate had condemned them, it was the praetorian prefect Attianus, to whom Trajan had awarded the post during his final months of life, who was given the job of killing them (HA Hadr. 7.1–2. Cass. Dio 69.2.5). Hadrian would never be able to shake off the suspicion that he had delivered justice in a partial fashion. Tacitus does not refer directly to Hadrian in any of his works. Nevertheless, Syme (1958, 481– 491), on the suggestion of Strack (1933, 52), put forward an immensely influential hypothesis in historiography: the Tiberius of the Annals was actually Hadrian. This proposal rested on two phrases in Tacitus: per uxorium ambitum et senili adoptione, “with the help of connubial intrigues and a senile act of adoption” (A. 1.7.7), and primum facinus novi principatus, “the opening crime of the new principate” (A. 1.6.1). Accordingly, Livia Augusta and Augustus would have been analogous to Plotina and Trajan, with Agrippa Postumus representing the four ex-consuls. In addition to this, it has been proposed (Cizek 1980) that an eulogy to Avidius Nigrinus could be hidden behind the narrative of the death of Thrasea Paetus (A. 16.16). Notwithstanding the fact that this hypothesis suffers from overinterpretation and has been heavily criticized (Sherwin-White 1959), it continues to be one of the cornerstones of Hadrianic studies (Birley 1997, 5, 88). Despite the difficulties arising in the first two years of Hadrian’s reign, it was a peaceful one. To the attempts at discrediting him and the conspiracy of the four ex-consuls should be added the problems in the empire’s provinces and on its frontiers. From 115 to 117 ce, a rebellion affected the Jewish diaspora, with Cyrene, Cyprus, and Egypt feeling the brunt. Similarly, there were clashes with the Sarmatian tribes along the Danube frontier, in Britannia, where a widespread revolt had broken out, and in Mauretania. Once order had been restored between 118 and 119 ce—the year of Hadrian’s third and last consulship—there would no further armed conflicts until the Bar Kochba Revolt, the final war between the Jews and Rome between 132 and 135 ce, which only affected Palestine (Horbury 2014).

28-04-2023 18:01:05

502

  Hadrian

Hadrian spent ten of the twenty years of his reign systematically visiting the empire’s provinces. Hadrian’s travels were a way of fostering mutual understanding between the empire’s provinces and cities, on the one hand, and the emperor visiting them, on the other. The emperor’s trips can be classified in four major itineraries. The first was the return journey from Antioch to Rome in 117–118 ce. This was followed by a full tour of the empire from 121 to 125 ce. Hadrian left Rome for the western provinces—Gaul, Germania, Britannia, where he ordered the building of the eponymous wall, and Hispania—before leaving for the east, where he traveled through Anatolia and Hellas. In 128 ce, Hadrian again departed from Rome to visit Africa. After returning to Rome in the autumn of 128 ce, he set off again for the east, where he visited Athens and the most important cities in the provinces of Asia, Syria, Iudaea, and Egypt. While progressing through Egypt, his favorite Antinous drowned. Antinous was deified and converted into a constellation (Smith 2018). He founded the colony Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem, which had been one of the causes behind the Bar Kochba Revolt. During his return journey from the east, Hadrian stopped for the third time in Athens (132 ce), where he consecrated the Temple of Olympian Zeus, on which building had begun in the sixth century bce but had never been completed. It was the first temple in a provincial city to be consecrated by an emperor, and its grandeur triggered a wave of religious fervor among the Greeks who acclaimed Hadrian as Olympian. Hadrian founded the Panhellenion. This was a league whose aim was to coalesce all the Greeks in the empire, united by their shared language and origins and by the will of the emperor. Hadrian demonstrated that the empire could be governed from the provinces, far from Rome, thanks to the strengthening of the imperial administration (Cortés-Copete 2017). The principal imperial services, the chancellor’s office, ab epistulis, and the office handling petitions submitted by subjects, a libellis, became the key tools for governing the empire. Thanks to the rescripta system, imperial subjects could address the emperor directly to petition him or to ask him for legal advice, normally linked to the interpretation of the laws (Honoré 1994). The composition of the Perpetual Edict wrested the capacity to legislate from the former

c08_Vol1.indd 502

republican magistracies once and for all. The emperor thus became the only source of law. Hadrian was a great benefactor. In the imperial capital, as well as restoring the Pantheon, in 128 ce he ordered the construction of the Temple of Venus and Rome. He then transformed the former Parilia festival, held on 21 April, into the Romaia or Dies Natalis Urbis, the city’s birthday, which became an ecumenical event. That was when he assumed the title of Pater Patriae (Boatwright 1987). His building programs, donations, and favors not only benefited Rome, but also the rest of the empire (Boatwright 2000). The cities of the empire, both in the west, especially Italica, and above all in the east, notably Athens, are full of temples, stoas, aqueducts, ports, theaters, and gymnasiums built by him. During his last year of life, the childless Hadrian organized his succession. At first, he adopted Lucius Aelius and proclaimed him Caesar. In poor health, Aelius soon died, thus forcing the emperor to look elsewhere. He ended up adopting a prestigious senator who would reign as Antoninus Pius and who, in turn, would have to adopt two young men, the future emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. In this way, Hadrian ensured political calm in Rome during half a century (Hekster 2001). Following his death, the Senate was unwilling to deify Hadrian, which was tantamount to repudiating his reign and annulling all of his decisions. Antoninus had to go to great lengths to change that opinion, thus winning him the sobriquet of Pius (HA Hadr. 27). However, feelings were unanimously favorable in the provinces. In the words of Pausanias (1.5.5), Hadrian was the emperor who had done it all for the well-being of his subjects. see also: metahistory; provinces; Suetonius Tranquillus Reference works: PIR2 A 184; RE 1.493.64; ILS 308 REFERENCES Birley, Anthony. 1997. Hadrian. The Restless Emperor. London: Routledge. Boatwright, Mary T. 1987. Hadrian and the City of Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Boatwright, Mary T. 2000. Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:05

Haterius Agrippa , D ecimus  

Cizek, Eugene. 1980. “L’eloge de C. Avidius Nigrinus chez Tacite et le complot des consulaires.” Bulletin de l’Association G. Budé 3: 279–294. Cortés-Copete, Juan M. 2017. “Governing by Dispatching Letters: The Hadrianic Chancellery.” In Political Communication in the Roman World, edited by C. Rosillo, 107–136. Leiden: Brill. Di Vita-Evrard, Ginette. 1989. “Le testament dit de Dasumius: testateur et bénéficiaires.” In Novedades de epigrafía jurídica romana, edited by C. Castillo, 159–174. Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra. Hekster, Olivier. 2001. “All in the Family: The Appointment of Emperors Designate in the Second Century A.D.” In Administration, Prosopography and Appointment Policies in the Roman Empire, edited by L. de Blois, 35–49. Leiden: Brill. Honoré, Tony. 1994. Emperors and Lawyers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horbury, William. 2014. Jewish War under Trajan and Hadrian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nicols, John. 1978. Vespasian and the partes Flavianae. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Raepsaet-Charlier, M. 1987. Prosopographie des femmes de l’ordre senatorial (Ier-IIe s.). Louvain: Peeters. Sherwin-White, Adrian N. 1959. “Rev. R. Syme, Tacitus, Oxford, 1958.” Journal of Roman Studies 49: 140–146. Smith, R. R. R. 2018. Antinous: Boy made god. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum. Strack, Paul. 1933. Untersuchungen zur römischen Reichsprägung des zweiten Jahrhunderts. II. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Caballos, A. 1990. Los senadores hispanorromanos y la romanización de Hispania, I. No. 7–8. Ecija: Gráficas Sol. Calandra, Elena. 1996. Oltre la Grecia: alle origini del filellenismo di Adriano. Napoli: Edizioni scientifiche italiane. Fündling, Jörg. 2006. Kommentar zur Vita Hadriani der Historia Augusta. Bonn: Habelt. Spawforth, Anthony J. S., and Susan Walker. 1985– 1986. “The World of the Panhellenion I, II.” Journal of Roman Studies 75: 78–104; 76: 88–105.

HAEMUS, see THRACE HALOTUS, see FREEDMEN OF CLAUDIUS HALUS, see PARTHIA

c08_Vol1.indd 503

503

HARI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST

HATERIUS AGRIPPA, DECIMUS THEODORE ANTONIADIS

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Decimus or Didius Haterius Agrippa (c. 13 bce– 32 ce) was a Roman senator under Tiberius, who advanced to the higher levels of imperial administration, first as tribunus plebis in 15 ce and two years later as praetor (A. 2.51). In 22 ce he shared the consulship with Gaius Sulpicius Galba (A. 3.52). His father was the orator Quintus Haterius who was also a member of the Senate (Cass. Dio 57.1.20; CIL VI 562 10051; XI 1356). There is a controversy, however, regarding the identity of his mother. Sabina Tariverdieva (2014) recently argued that his mother was not actually the daughter of Marcus Agrippa, Vipsania, as scholars believed so far (Syme 1989, 145) based on a reference in Tacitus (A. 2.51), but the child of Agrippa’s sister of the same name. At any rate, Haterius’ kinship with Germanicus (A. 2.51) was critical for his political career, as he was suggested as a substitute praetor in place of the recently deceased Vipstanus Gallus (mentioned only by Tacitus, A. 2.51). According to A. 1.77, soon after he was elected tribune of the people, he exercised his veto against several proposals. During his consulship he made a motion against prominent Romans who were falsely charged (A. 3.49; 3.52). He condemned the senator Clutorius Priscus, while he was planning the execution of many other aristocrats (A. 6.4.16–17). His actions were enough to provoke the hatred of his contemporaries and many members of the Senate. Pointing to his degeneracy Tacitus describes him as a “somnolent creature” (somno aut libidinosis vigiliis marcidus, A. 6.4.15). Haterius married Domitia, elder sister of Domitia Lepida, daughter of Antonia the Elder and Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who bore him a son, Haterius Antoninus (consul 53). He died in 32 ce, having fallen victim of Tiberius’ reign of terror.

28-04-2023 18:01:05

504

  Haterius A ntoninus

Reference works: PIR2 H 25; RE Haterius 4 REFERENCES Syme, Ronald. 1989. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tariverdieva, Sabina. 2014. “Децим Гатерий Агриппа (консул 22 г. н.э.): Происхождение и Родство с Императорским Домом.” Journal of Ancient History 1: 88–101. FURTHER READING Cowan, Eleanor. 2009. “Tacitus, Tiberius and Augustus.” Classical Antiquity 28: 179–210.

for not having relieved the notables ruined by the proscriptions of Nero and recalled to Rome by Galba (H. 2.92.2). Regarding Antoninus, however, a comment of Tacitus sheds an unfavorable light on Nero’s liberalitas; the historian adds that Antoninus and Aurelius Cotta had squandered their inheritances through luxus; so it seems that their poverty was not honorable and was not to be relieved. Tacitus’ disapproval of Nero’s generosity can be explained by aversion to the ancestors of Antoninus (A. 1.13.; 2.51; 6.4). But the same moral argument appears at A. 2.48.3: there, Tacitus names some senators who were led to indigence by their vices and received no support from Tiberius. see also: luxury; Senate

HATERIUS ANTONINUS OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

Quintus Haterius Antoninus was ordinary consul in 53 ce, with Decimus Iunius Silanus Torquatus as his colleague (A. 12.58.1). The cognomen Antoninus implies that his father, the prosecutor Decimus Haterius Agrippa, had married Domitia Lepida, a daughter of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Antonia the Elder; he was, therefore, a cousin of the future emperor Nero. Antoninus and Iunius Silanus probably retained the consulship for the first six months of the year; during this period, the Senate traditionally received foreign embassies. In this respect, many provincial affairs are mentioned in the Tacitean narrative of year 53 ce (A. 12.58–63). The historian presents them in such a way that the emperor Claudius, who seems to have been concerned with the provincial administration, is not valued. Antoninus is also mentioned in the narrative of Nero’s principate. At A. 13.34.1 (58 ce), Tacitus reports that, along with two other impoverished senators, Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (2) and Aurelius Cotta (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 13.34.1), Antoninus received an annual grant from Nero. Suetonius seems to praise this kind of generosity (Suet. Ner. 10.1). Such praise could have been expected from Tacitus; the historian in fact criticizes Tiberius’ reluctance in supporting Hortensius Hortalus, and he blames Vitellius

c08_Vol1.indd 504

Reference work: PIR2 H 26 FURTHER READING Hurlet, Frédéric. 2016. “L’envers du prestige: les sénateurs désargentés sous les Julio-Claudiens (29 av. J.-C.-68 apr. J.-C.” In Le Prestige à Rome à la fin de la République et au début du Principat, edited by Robinson Baudry and Frédéric Hurlet, 265–279. Paris: Éditions De Boccard.

HATERIUS, QUINTUS NEIL BARNEY

University of Victoria

Quintus Haterius (c. 63 bce–26 ce, A. 4.61; Jerome Chron. p.172 H) was suffect consul in 5 bce. A declaimer and orator from a senatorial family, his style is remarkable for its rapid and unrestrained flow of words (Sen. Controv. 1.6.12; 4 pr. 6–11; Sen. Ep. 40.9). His lack of control over his speech was cause for criticism, notably from Augustus and Iunius Gallio (Sen. Controv. 4 pr. 7; Suas. 3.7). Nevertheless, his vehemence afforded him a reputation for eloquence—at least, within his own lifetime (A. 4.61). This reputation was established, at least in part, through declamation as he was known to admit the public to his performances (Sen. Controv. 4 pr.7). No later than 14 bce, he married a Vipsania (Syme 1986) with whom he had a son (Haterius Agrippa). The cause of this unlikely union may

28-04-2023 18:01:05

hatred  

rest with Haterius’ involvement with mining in Sierra Morena (Hispania), which provided significant social and economic benefits (Sinner 2021). Despite this connection, his consulship was delayed until quite late in his life. Despite his reputation for eloquence, Haterius has little success as a speaker in Tacitus. In 14 ce, as Tiberius was preparing to assume power, Haterius needled the princeps with a blunt question about his intentions (A. 1.13: “How long, Caesar, will you suffer the State to be without a head?”). While this comment may have been made as a sycophantic affirmation of the princeps, Tacitus places it in the context of other such barbs (from Asinius Gallus, Lucius Arruntius, and Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus), which may explain Tiberius’ poor reception. Haterius further bungled when attempting to make amends. When he supplicated himself before Tiberius, he caused the man to trip and did little to dispel his anger; indeed, the situation was not resolved until Haterius secured an intercession from Livia Augusta (A. 1.13; cf. Suet. Tib. 27). Similar failures occur elsewhere. In 16 ce, after Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus was charged with maiestas and his property distributed, Haterius attempted to have sumptuary legislation enacted in the Senate (A. 2.33). In this, he was accompanied by Octavius Fronto (only here in Tacitus), a former praetor who wished to put in place even more restrictive measures. This attempt was rebuffed by Asinius Gallus with the support of Tiberius. In 22 ce, there is more evidence of sycophancy as Haterius proposed that the Senate’s decision to honor Drusus the Younger be erected in gold in the curia; a suggestion for which he was roundly mocked (A. 3.57). see also: eloquentia Reference works: PIR2 H 24; PIR2 O 34 REFERENCES Sinner, Alejandro. 2021. “Un nuevo lingote de plomo de Q. Haterius Gallus y la participación de la gens Hateria en la explotación de las minas de Sierra Morena.” Pyrenae 52.1: 137–159. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c08_Vol1.indd 505

505

FURTHER READING Roller, Matthew B. 2011. “To Whom Am I Speaking? The Changing Venues of Competitive Eloquence in the Early Empire.” In Von der militia equestris zur militia urbana: Prominenzrollen und Karrierefelder im antiken Rom, edited by W. Blösel and K.-J. Hölkeskamp, 197–221. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

HATRED JAYNE KNIGHT

University of Tasmania

Hatred (Latin odium) is one of the most prominent emotions in Tacitus’ corpus, along with fear. The noun odium (verb odi) is defined as a feeling of aversion, hatred, dislike, or antipathy (Oxford Latin Dictionary 1a). Odium can denote political hostility or interpersonal enmity depending on the context of its usage. Hatred is connected with anger (ira) in ancient theoretical treatments of emotions (see philosophy). Duration differentiates hatred from anger in Roman thought; anger can vary in length, but hatred is typically long lasting. Cicero defines odium as “chronic anger” (ira inveterata, Tusc. 4.9.21). This distinction between anger and hatred is reflected in Ag. 22.4 where Agricola prefers to express his anger as soon as it is provoked because concealing it would give rise to hatred. By contrast, Domitian’s tendency to dissimulate rather than express his emotions openly results in his abiding hatred for Agricola, which does not dissipate until the latter’s death (Ag. 42–3). When hatred is not suppressed or mitigated, it can lead to violence. In Germania Tacitus hopes for hatred between the peoples of Germania because discord among enemies is beneficial to Rome (G. 33). Calgacus’ speech to the Caledonians identifies hatred as a probable stimulus for rebellion (Ag. 32). Hatred was sometimes considered a pragmatic emotion in military contexts; for example, Tacitus writes that the auxiliaries of Britannia were easy to control because they had learned to hate the enemy (and not their commanding officers, H. 1.9). The prefaces of the Histories and the Annals address the distorting effect of hatred on imperial

28-04-2023 18:01:05

506

  H elvetii

historiography. For Tacitus, the influence of hatred on writing is particularly insidious because hateful accounts are more likely to be believed than flattering ones (H. 1.1). At the outset of the Annals Tacitus famously attempts to distance himself from hatred and its associate, anger, yet many readers still detect an overarching tone of hostility or dissatisfaction, if not hatred, toward the principate in Tacitus’ writings. Damon (2017) highlights the dilemma of emotions for historians: it was important to appear free from emotions associated with authorial bias, but historians were also expected to write emotionally engaging narratives, which often involved direct or indirect expressions of their own emotions. The morality of hatred in Tacitus varies with context. For example, the tribune Subrius Flavus’ hatred for Nero on account of the emperor’s disgraceful public behavior is represented as moral (A. 15.67), while Domitian’s hatred for Agricola on account of his virtue and popularity is judged immoral (Ag. 39). Tacitus suggests that concealed hatred is particularly worthy of contempt, especially among emperors, whose emotions can impact the lives of their subjects (e.g., Domitian in Ag. 39; Nero in A. 14.56). see also: sententiae; virtus REFERENCE Damon, Cynthia. 2017. “Emotions as a Historiographical Dilemma.” In Emotions in the Classical World: Methods, Approaches, and Directions, edited by Douglas Cairns and Damien Nelis, 177–194. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. FURTHER READING Braund, Susanna Morton, and Christopher Gill, eds. 1997. The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

HELIOPOLIS, see EGYPT HELISI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST HELIUS, see CELER, PUBLIUS HELUSII, see GERMANI, GERMANIA HELVECONI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST

c08_Vol1.indd 506

HELVETII TRUDY HARRINGTON BECKER

Virginia Tech

The Helvetii were a Gallic tribe from central Switzerland who figured prominently in Iulius Caesar’s subjugation of Gaul. In 58 bce, Iulius Caesar blocked their migration southward into Gaul at the Rhodanus River (modern Rhone) and defeated them at Bibracte. Forced to return to Switzerland, the Helvetii would later create a capital at Aventicum (modern Avenches), which was renamed a colonia circa 73 ce by Vespasian with the full name Colonia Pia Flavia Constans Emerita Helvetiorum Foederata. According to Tacitus, the Helvetii inhabited the land between the Hercynian Forest and the Rhenus (Rhine) and Main rivers (G. 28). Elsewhere in Tacitus, the Helvetii appear only in the Histories 1.67–70 when Aulus Caecina Alienus, legate of a legion in Upper Germany, slaughtered the Helvetii, who had balked at joining Caecina’s Vitellian forces. In 69 ce, unaware that Galba was dead, the Helvetii refused to recognize Vitellius. When Caecina’s legion XXI Rapax stole Helvetian monies intended for a garrison, hostilities broke out. The Helvetii responded in turn by taking hostages who were carrying messages from the German army of Vitellius. Caecina, hungry for action, sacked a nearby watering-hole (likely modern Baden) while the Helvetii began to panic. Although the Helvetii were celebrated in the past as fighting men (H. 1.67) and full of spirit before the engagement, under the leadership of Claudius Severus (H. 1.68, otherwise unattested) they became terrified in the face of danger, inexperienced in combat and order. Caught between Caecina’s army and auxiliaries from Raetia, the Helvetii fled to Mons Vocetius, where they were flushed out and slain. The army of Caecina advanced on to Aventicum, which surrendered, and Caecina had Iulius Alpinus, a possible instigator of the rebellion, executed. The city itself was spared from the rapacious army by the pleading of the Helvetii envoy Claudius Cossus (H. 1.69, otherwise unattested). Mons Vocetius is attested only in Tacitus (H. 1.68). Between Basel and Zurich, the mountain lies in the northeastern range of the Jura in the Swiss canton of Aargau, likely near the town of Brugg.

28-04-2023 18:01:05

H elvidius P riscus  

Reference work: Barrington 18 E3 (Aventicum) HELVIDIUS (PRISCUS), see HELVIDIUS PRISCUS

HELVIDIUS PRISCUS THOMAS E. STRUNK

Xavier University

Gaius Helvidius Priscus, of Cluviae (glossed as Carecina, H. 4.5 but exact location uncertain), was the son of a senior centurion, the husband of Fannia, and son-in-law of Arria and Thrasea Paetus (H. 4.5.1–2). Helvidius Priscus practiced Stoicism and had a strong sense of political libertas. Helvidius held the quaestorship in Achaia in 48 ce (Schol ad Juv. 5.36) and served as legionary legate in Syria 51 ce (A. 12.49.1–2). When Iulius Paelignus, procurator of Cappadocia, abandoned his post and encouraged the designs of Radamistus, Helvidius was sent with a legion to restore order, which he quickly did, as Tacitus notes, more by moderation than by violence (A. 12.49.2). As tribune in 56 ce, Helvidius personally intervened to obstruct Obultronius Sabinus, the quaestor of the treasury, who was abusing his power against the poor (A. 13.28.3). Although Helvidius proved himself to be an able and conscientious legate and tribune, he did not hold the praetorship until 70 ce, the gap in his political career is attributed to either his unwillingness to serve under Nero or the emperor’s refusal to advance his career (Rudich 1993, 175– 176; Syme 1991, 575). In 66, Helvidius was accused by Eprius Marcellus along with his father-in-law Thrasea Paetus. Under intimidation by the soldiers who surrounded the Senate house, the Senate voted to exile Helvidius from Italy, although Tacitus writes that some pitied Helvidius who was being condemned merely because of his relationship with Thrasea (A. 16.28–29, 33). The text of Tacitus’ Annals breaks off with Helvidius accompanying Thrasea Paetus as he is committing suicide (A. 16.35). Upon the death of Nero, Helvidius returned from his exile; Plutarch writes that he saved

c08_Vol1.indd 507

507

Galba’s body after his murder (Galb. 28.4). Helvidius first appears in the text of Tacitus’ Histories as praetor-elect opposing Vitellius in the Senate (H. 2.91.3). Helvidius’ willingness to speak frankly to emperors or their appointed satellites became a hallmark of his political life, and it is in this capacity that he appears next in the narrative. Following the victory of the Flavians, the Senate granted imperial powers to Vespasian and with much adulation voted honors for his commanding generals; Helvidius seems to have objected to the tone of some of the proposals, which Tacitus writes was the beginning of both his great offense and great glory (H. 4.4.3). Tacitus then gives a formal introduction to Helvidius, since, as he writes, he will have cause to mention him often (H. 4.5.1). As part of this introduction, Tacitus states that Helvidius imitated his father-inlaw’s libertas and greatly praises him as a citizen, senator, husband, son-in-law, and friend, who despised wealth and was constant in the face of fear; he also mentions that some thought Helvidius too ambitious (H. 4.5.2–6.1). He adds that when Helvidius returned from exile he attacked Eprius Marcellus, who was responsible for Thrasea’s death, but dropped the matter in the face of opposition (H. 4.6.1–2, D. 5.7). Nonetheless, Helvidius’ animosity toward Marcellus was apparent, and Tacitus records opposing speeches from both on the question of the Senate’s delegation to Vespasian (H. 4.6.3–8.4). In his speech Helvidius argued that the delegation should be chosen based on individual character, a clear attack on Marcellus (H. 4.7), who responded by arguing that he was not responsible for Thrasea’s death and that Helvidius was simply another Marcus Iunius Brutus or Cato the Younger (H. 4.8). Marcellus’ speech has often been seen as voicing Tacitus’ own opinions on accepting whatever emperor comes to power, but there is good reason to question whether Tacitus would use as his mouthpiece a notorious delator, whose victims’ memories were still alive in Tacitus’ own lifetime. At the same meeting of the Senate, Helvidius also gave opinions arguing for the Senate to take the leading role in public matters including the treasury and the restoration of the Capitolium (H. 4.9). As praetor in 70, Helvidius resumed the debate on how to handle Nero’s informers, particularly Marcellus (H. 4.43). Tacitus writes that a majority

28-04-2023 18:01:05

508

  H elvius Rufus , M arcus

of honorable senators supported Helvidius, but he was opposed by an influential minority (H. 4.43.2), and at the next meeting of the Senate Domitian and Licinius Mucianus stepped in to prevent further debate on the matter (H. 4.44.1). Although the Senate had ignored Helvidius’ proposal to have the Capitolium restored at public cost and with only some support from the princeps, Helvidius did play a central role in the purification ceremony initiating the restoration (H. 4.53). Tacitus takes special care to describe Helvidius’ part in leading all orders of society in the ritual. As many of these events might suggest, Helvidius’ relationship with Vespasian was rocky at best and then declined completely. He was exiled a second time at an unknown date (between 71 and 74 ce) and executed in 74–75 (Suet. Vesp. 15; Dio 66.12.2). Herennius Senecio was condemned under Domitian because of his biography of Helvidius Priscus, which Tacitus most likely used as a source (Ag. 2.1, Plin. Ep. 7.19.5, Dio 67.13). Helvidius was survived by his wife Fannia and his son Helvidius (Priscus), who attained the consulship at an unknown date under Domitian but was then executed by him in 93. According to Suetonius, he made an offensive allusion to Domitian’s divorce in his comic play on Paris and Oenone (Suet. Dom. 10.4). Tacitus particularly laments the Senate’s (and presumably his own) participation in the condemnation of Helvidius (Priscus) (Ag. 45.1). Perhaps at the behest of Helvidius’ stepmother Fannia and his widow Anteia, herself likely an exile, Pliny the Younger delivered a speech to the Senate (De Ultione Helvidi) attacking his accuser Baebius Massa (Ep. 9.13). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; delators; Demetrius; memory; suicide Reference works: PIR2 H 59, PIR2 H 60; ILS 993; BNP Helvidius 1, BNP Helvidius 2; RE Helvidius 3 REFERENCES Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London: Routledge. Syme, Sir Ronald. 1991. “A Political Group.” In Roman Papers. Vol. 7, edited by Anthony R. Birley, 568–587. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c08_Vol1.indd 508

FURTHER READING Strunk, Thomas. 2017. History after Liberty: Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants, and Republicans. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

HELVIUS RUFUS, MARCUS BRAM L. H. TEN BERGE

Hope College

Marcus Helvius Rufus, from Varia (modern Vicovaro) near Tibur (modern Tivoli), was a common soldier (20 ce) and later became primipilaris (highest ranking centurion). Rufus appears once in the extant Tacitean corpus (A. 3.21). He served as a common soldier in Africa under its proconsul Lucius Apronius. In an engagement at Thala against the Numidian deserter Tacfarinas, Rufus distinguished himself by saving a fellow citizen’s life. He was awarded a neck-chain (torquis) and spear (hasta) by his governor, as well as the civil crown of laurel (corona civica) by the emperor Tiberius. Rufus later became a primipilaris and adopted the title Civica (attested in his dedication of a public bath suite in his hometown: CIL 14.3472 = ILS 2637). As far as we know, Rufus was the only lowerranked soldier under the principate to receive the hasta (which soon became restricted to those of senior centurion rank and above: Woodman and Martin 1996, 207). But his example also has narrative significance. Rufus’ courage exemplifies the positive influence on the army of the decimation of a Roman cohort that had fled against Tacfarinas (A. 3.20). In that contest, a certain Decrius, abandoned by his fellow troops, single-handedly charged the enemy and died fighting (A. 3.20.2, otherwise unattested). Thus, in succeeding chapters, Tacitus records the extraordinary courage of two otherwise obscure individuals to contrast Roman cowardice with Apronius’ old-fashioned (republican) discipline. see also: Apronius Caesianus Reference works: PIR2 H 75; CIL 14.3472 = ILS 2637

28-04-2023 18:01:05

H ercynian F orest  

REFERENCE Woodman, Anthony, and Ronald Martin, eds. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

HENIOCHI, see VONONES HERCULEIUS, see AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER HERCULES, see ROMAN GODS

HERCYNIAN FOREST ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

The Hercynian Forest (silua Hercynia; the name is probably of Celtic origin, possibly derived from the Indo-European root *perkwu-  =  “oak”; cf. Pokorny 1959, 822–823) is a vaguely defined region of forest-covered hills located somewhere between the Rhine (Rhenus) and the Carpathians (not to be confused with the Hyrcanian Forest near the southern shores of the Caspian Sea in present-day Iran and Azerbaijan; cf. Luc. 1.328 and see Syme 1987 on Sen. Med. 713). Although widely mentioned in Greco-Roman literary treatments of northern European geography, the ancients are either greatly confused about or in disagreement over its exact character (forest, mountain, wilderness?), location, and extent (Goodyear 1981, 333; cf. Rives 1999, 232, 248). Initially an unchartered region of wonder, it gradually receded in front of and was domesticated by the expansion of Greco-Roman knowledge about the north, abetted not least by the northward expansion of the Roman Empire. By the time of Ptolemy (see below), it had been circumscribed to the forests of present-day Bohemia (Ptol. Geo. 2.11.7). A tribe by the name of Hercuniates is placed by Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy near the bend of the Danube (Danuvius) in the province of Pannonia in present-day western Hungary (Plin. HN 3.148, Ptol. 2.15.3; cf. Koch 2006, III.907). The earliest references to the region are notoriously vague: Aristotle, by whom it is first mentioned, writes that most European rivers flow northward from the Hercynian mountains (Meteor. 1.13: τῶν ὀρῶν τῶν Ἀρκυνίων), the

c08_Vol1.indd 509

509

pseudo-Aristotelian On Marvellous Things Heard claims that the Danube rises in the Hercynian forests (105: τῶν Ἑρκυνίων καλουμένων δρυμῶν), and Apollonius of Rhodes mentions a Hercynian peak (4.640: σκοπέλοιο … Ἑρκυνίου) somewhere in the far north toward Oceanus. However, from the time of Iulius Caesar its character becomes more precisely defined and its location more narrowly demarcated: Caesar—who provides information also about its history (nearby plains settled by the Gallic Volcae Tectosages), great size (nine days of travel laterally, at least sixty longitudinally), lack of roads, and exotic wildlife—defines it as a forest (silua) and locates it north of the Danube between the upper reaches of the Rhine and the Carpathians (B Gall. 6.24–8); but note that it explicitly lacks a northern border and thus remains infinite (Riggsby 2006, 61–62). Aided by new firsthand knowledge about the north acquired during the Germanic campaigns of Tiberius and Drusus the Elder, some subsequent writers attempted to pin down the location of the region more precisely, while others continued to use it as a general term for the wildernesses beyond the Danube (cf. Rives 1999, 232). Strabo, Velleius Paterculus, Pomponius Mela, and Ptolemy all define it as a forest (δρυμὸς, silua): Strabo locates it on the far side of (and partly inside) the lands of Suevi, near (or even embracing) Maroboduus’ kingdom in Bohemia and close to the sources of the Danube and Rhine (Str. 4.6.9, 7.1.3–5; cf. 7.2.2, 3.1), Velleius and Ptolemy place it near Maroboduus’ kingdom in Bohemia (Vell. 2.108.1, 109.5; cf. Ptol. Geo. 2.11.7), and Pomponius Mela—calling it the biggest and best-known forest (maior aliis ita notior) of Germania—notes its contribution (next to that of the swamps) to the impenetrability (inuia) of the region as a whole (Mela 3.29). Pliny the Elder, locating it north of the Danube, describes it once as a “(forested and hilly) wilderness” (HN 4.80: Hercynium saltum) and once as a mountain range (HN 4.100: Hercynium iugum). Florus, who does not mention its location, defines it as a “wilderness” (Epit. 1.12: saltus). Dionysius Periegetes speaks of the mountains of the Hercyinan Forest (286: Ἑρκυνίου δρυμοῖο … ὀρόγκους). The region appears four times in the Tacitean corpus, twice as an adjective to saltus (“forested, hilly region”), once as an adjective to silua

28-04-2023 18:01:05

510

  H erennius G allus

(“forest,” “forested region”), and once as a proper noun. Three of the occurrences are gathered in Germania: citing Caesar as an authority on the former vigor of the Gauls, Tacitus claims that the Helvetii once held the lands between the Hercynian forest (28.2: Hercyniam siluam) and the Rhine and Main rivers. The region here seems to be located near Bohemia, southeast of the Main (Rives 1999, 232). Further on, however, he claims that the hills of the Hercynian wilderness are inhabited by the Chatti, which are commonly situated north of the Main (30.1: Hercynio saltu … saltus Hercynius; on the personification of the forest in this passage, see Thomas 2009, 70). Thus, Tacitus appears to either use the term inconsistently or employ it to describe a larger region, covering both sides of the Main (cf. Rives 1999, 248). The region is mentioned once in Annals, when Arminius in his pre-battle speech against Maroboduus claims that his adversary had been protected by the hiding places of Hercynia (2.45.3: Hercyniae latebris defensum). While the slight seems to be a reference to Maroboduus’ absence from the Varian Disaster, the region intended is probably Bohemia, the center of his kingdom (Goodyear 1981, 333; on the allusion to the snake at Verg. G. 3.544–545, see Woodman 2009, 1–2). The aura of wonder and mystery attached to the Hercynian Forest has proved persistent, inspiring some imaginative recent scholarship, e.g., Graham Robb’s 2013 The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts. Reference work: Barrington 2 E3-4, F3-4, G3-4 REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus – Vol. II: Annals 1.55–81 and Annals 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Koch, John T., ed. 2006. Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio. Pokorny, Julius. 1959. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern and Munich: A. Francke Verlag. Riggsby, Andrew M. 2006. Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words. Austin: University of Texas Press. Rives, James B. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1987. “Exotic Names, Notably in Seneca’s Tragedies.” Acta Classica 30: 49–64. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/24591810.

c08_Vol1.indd 510

Thomas, Richard F. 2009. “The Germania as Literary Text.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 59–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, Anthony J. 2009. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by Anthony J. Woodman, 1–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/ CCOL9780521874601.001.

HERENNIUS GALLUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Herennius Gallus was the commander of the legion I Germanica located in Bonna during the first phase of the Batavian Revolt in the last months of 69 ce. He was asked by the governor of Germania Superior, Hordeonius Flaccus, to stop the passage of those Batavian and Canninefates units that were marching northward to support the Batavian Revolt after hearing Iulius Civilis’ call on their way to Italy. The order was later withdrawn, leaving the legionary commander in doubt whether to engage in battle or not against the Batavian Roman units who asked permission to get back to their homeland (H. 4.19). His soldiers persuaded him to attack but were badly defeated (H. 4.20). With his legion, he then joined Dillius Vocula’s rescue army marching to Castra Vetera to relieve the siege, becoming Vocula’s second in command (H. 4.26). In the camp of Gelduba after a lost skirmish against the Germans, Herennius Gallus blamed the governor Flaccus for the defeat (H. 4.27). After the defections and the surrender of the German legions, including the I Germanica, and after the assassination of Vocula, as the supreme military commander, Gallus was taken prisoner by the rebel leader Iulius Classicus (H. 4.59). After some minor defeats suffered by the rebels, the defected legions pledged allegiance to Vespasian before deserting the rebel army and fleeing into the territory of the Mediomatrici. Iulius Valentinus and Iulius Tutor, rebel leaders of the Treveri, killed Herennius Gallus and his colleague Numisius Rufus to bind those soldiers in the crime and worsen their condition

28-04-2023 18:01:05

H erennius Senecio  

in the eye of the Romans (H. 4.70). The fate of the legionary commander is mentioned by Petilius Cerialis, commander of the army in charge of quashing the revolt, to Gallus’ former soldiers who joined his troops to remind them the consequences of their betrayal and to urge them to rally again and resist to the attacks of the rebels (H. 4.77). Reference work: PIR2 H 108 FURTHER READING Carbone, M. E. 1967. “The First Relief of Castra Vetera in the Revolt of Civilis (A Note on Tacitus ‘H.’ 4.26.3).” Phoenix 21: 296–298. Schmitz, D. 2008. “Der Bataveraufstand im Kontext des römischen Bürgerkrieges 68–70 n. Chr.” In Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten und sein Umland in römischer Zeit, edited by Martin Müller, HansJoachim Schalles, and Norbert Zieling, 117–140. Mainz: von Zabern. Timpe, D. 2005. “Tacitus und der Bataveraufstand.” In Gegenwärtige Antike – antike Gegenwarten. Kolloquium zum 60. Geburtstag von Rolf Rilinger, edited by Tassilo Schmitt, Winfried Schmitz, and Aloys Winterling, 151–187. München: Oldenbourg.

HERENNIUS SENECIO DYLAN SAILOR

University of California, Berkeley

Herennius Senecio (d. 93, quaestor at unknown date) was author of a biography of the elder Helvidius Priscus; the work was grounds for his prosecution in 93 ce, and the trial ended in a death sentence and an order that copies of the work be burned. His place of origin was Baetica, and the last magistracy he held was a quaestorship in that province (Plin. Ep. 7.33.5, Cass. Dio 67.13.2). In the late 80s or early 90s ce (SherwinWhite 1966, 283), he spoke at trial for an absent Licinianus, whom Domitian had indicted (Plin. Ep. 4.11.12). In August 93 ce (Ag. 45.1), on behalf of the province of Baetica, Herennius and Pliny the Younger were prosecuting Baebius Massa, who had been propraetor in that province, for extortion (Plin. Ep. 7.33). After Massa was found

c08_Vol1.indd 511

511

guilty, Herennius sought tougher restrictions on the disposition of his impounded property; Massa accused him of malpractice, a charge Pliny proudly reports defusing (Plin. Ep. 7.33.4–8). Pliny has (Ep. 4.7.5) Herennius at some point criticizing Marcus Aquilius Regulus, in an inversion of the elder Cato’s words, as a “bad man unskilled at speaking.” Herennius was one of several prominent figures executed (together with Arulenus Rusticus and the younger Helvidius (Priscus)) or exiled (Iunius Mauricus; Verulana Gratilla, probably wife of Arulenus Rusticus; Arria, the widow of Thrasea Paetus; and Fannia, the widow of the elder Helvidius Priscus) in later 93 ce (for this list, see Pliny Ep. 3.11.3). He was accused by Mettius Carus (Plin. Ep. 1.5.3, 7.19.5). According to Pliny (Ep. 7.19.5), he was charged with having written volumes on the life of the elder Helvidius Priscus; Dio adds that Domitian killed Herennius because “despite a long life he had sought no office beyond the quaestorship” (Cass. Dio 67.13.2). The date of the biography is unclear but must fall after Helvidius’ death. According to Pliny, Herennius testified that he had written it at Fannia’s request, and she testified that she had supplied him with Helvidius’ journals (Ep. 7.19.5); this involvement was apparently the grounds for her own banishment (Ep. 7.19.4, 6). The work was laudatory (Ag. 2.1) and seems to have been a full biography, unlike the episodes in the “Deaths of Famous Men” of Titinius Capito (Plin. Ep. 8.12.4) and the “Deaths of Those Slain or Relegated by Nero” of Gaius Fannius (Ep. 5.5.3). Herennius was sentenced to death, his property confiscated, and his work ordered to be burned in the Comitium (Ag. 2.1; Plin. Ep. 7.19.6). Tacitus’ description of the Senate’s condemnation of him is that he “bathed us in innocent blood” (Ag. 45.1). After Herennius’ death, Regulus attacked him in a book (Plin. Ep. 1.5.2). Although Herennius’ book had been banned, Fannia preserved a copy (Ep. 7.19.6), thus ensuring its survival. After Domitian’s assassination in 96 ce, it became possible and even advantageous to celebrate and associate oneself with Domitian’s victims. A decade or so later, Pliny sends Tacitus a letter describing his support of Herennius against Massa (see above), for Tacitus’ use in the Histories.

28-04-2023 18:01:05

512

  H erod the G reat

Herennius’ death was likely commemorated in Capito’s “Deaths of Famous Men” (see above). In the Agricola, Tacitus accords merit and importance to Herennius’ work about Helvidius, calling it a “monument of brilliant literary genius” (Ag. 2.1) and contemptuously suggesting that Herennius’ persecutors must have believed that burning Herennius’ book, as well as that of Arulenus Rusticus’ work about Thrasea Paetus, meant “wiping out the voice of the Roman people, the freedom of the Senate, and the conscience of all humanity” (Ag. 2.2). At Ag. 42.3–4, Tacitus appears to deprecate the approach of these “martyrs” in favor of the cooperation and caution of Agricola; however, if we are to include the author of a work in praise of Thrasea Paetus among “those who have followed a perilous course that was nonetheless no benefit to the public and become famed by an ostentatious death” (42.4), in the Agricola Tacitus is also expressing, if obliquely, reservations about Arulenus and his work. Given a prominent place in the preface and conclusion of the Agricola, Herennius and his book, together with Arulenus Rusticus and his own work on Thrasea Paetus, are of programmatic importance to that work; their lives and writing and the conduct of their subjects stand as an implicit point of comparison for Tacitus’ life and writing and the conduct of Iulius Agricola. see also: Cornelius Tacitus; martyrs Reference works: PIR2 H 128; RE Herennius 44; BNP Herennius II 11 REFERENCE Sherwin-White, A. N. 1966. The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Ogilvie, R. M., and I. A. Richmond. 1967. Tacitus: Agricola. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 133.

HERMAGORAS, see GREEK ORATORS HERMINONES, see MANNUS TRIBES HERMUNDURI, see SUEBI

c08_Vol1.indd 512

HEROD THE GREAT ROBERT CAMPBELL

University of Nebraska at Omaha

Herod the Great (c. 73 bce–4 ce; PIR2 H 153), also referred to as Herod I, was born in Idumea, son of Antipater, a wealthy high-ranking official who supported Pompey the Great’s invasion of Palestine. Herod was appointed to his first political position as the tetrarch of Galilee by his father in 47 bce. Herod’s rule became possible as Mark Antony and Gaius Sosius pushed through and seized Iudaea in the wake of unrest during the Parthian invasion of 40 bce. Once Mark Antony claimed victory, he appointed Herod to take the throne in Iudaea (the selection took place back in Rome as Herod fled from Galilee for safety, H. 5.9). Mark Antony had to decide between Herod and Hyrcanus, but Hyrcanus stepped down and allowed Herod to become ruler (Joseph. BJ 1.244). After the death of Antony, Herod faced Octavian (Augustus), who granted him kingship over Iudaea and restored the lands taken from him by Cleopatra. Herod’s territory grew as his reign continued thanks to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. He married a Hasmonean princess named Mariamme; this was to bring peace among the Hasmoneans in the region. Herod had multiple wives and a total of fourteen children. During his reign, Herod built large architectural masterpieces. Tacitus mentions Antony’s tower, built in honor of Mark Antony (H. 5.11). Herod also built aqueducts, theaters, gardens; the harbor at Caesarea; and a theater and amphitheater in addition to the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Herod also had a darker side to his rule. According to the Gospel of Matthew, during his tyrannical rule near the end of his reign, he felt threatened by the notion of a new Jewish king (i.e., Jesus; Mat. 2.2–3). He suffered from arteriosclerosis and tried to take his own life (Joseph. AJ 17.7). His rule lasted until his death in 4 bce in Jericho. After Herod’s death, Simon (mentioned by Tacitus only at H. 5.9), a slave of Herod, took power over Iudaea without the consent of

28-04-2023 18:01:05

H iero  

Tiberius. He was quickly put to death. Augustus reorganized the region into three parts given to Herod’s sons, Herod Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Philip; later Herod’s daughter Salome I briefly held the land of Jamnia. FURTHER READING Knoblet, Jerry. 2005. Herod the Great. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

HIBERNIA, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI

HIERO LEONARDO GREGORATTI

Durham University

Hiero was the Parthian governor of a major satrapy of the Arsacid empire during the reign of Artabanus II (12–38/41 ce) in Parthia and Tiberius in Rome (Karras-Klapproth 1988, 64–65). He is mentioned by Tacitus along with his colleague Phraates in connection with prince Tiridates’ efforts to size the Parthian throne in 35–36 ce. In the year 35, a delegation of Parthian nobles reached Rome in secret to ask support in overthrowing the ruling Great king Artabanus (A. 6.31). Tiberius sent one of the Arsacid princes living in Rome: Tiridates (A. 6.32. 3). The young prince crossed the Euphrates and, thanks to the support of the first rank dignitaries of Mesopotamia, he rapidly advanced towards Seleucia on the Tigris where he was welcomed as a liberator (A. 6.37, 41–42). Not all Parthians joined Tiridates’ cause. Among those gaining time, Tacitus mentions Hiero and Phraates, qui validissimas praefecturas obtinebant, who held the most important satrapies. They sent letters to the young prince persuading him to postpone the coronation ceremony until after their arrival (A. 6.42.4). In the meantime, they looked for Artabanus, who had fled to the eastern satrapies in the hope to find support. They found him among the Hyrcani, covered in rags, hunting for food with his bow. Moved by fear and hate for the powerful Abdagaeses, the mind behind Tiridates’ coup, Hiero and Phraates pledged their loyalty to the

c08_Vol1.indd 513

513

dethroned monarch complaining about the immaturity of Tiridates, a puppet in the hands of Abdagaeses (A. 6.43). Artabanus, who was an experienced and skilled leader, knew that Hiero, though not sincere in his love was sincere in his hate. Therefore, he accepted their alliance, promptly collected an army, and regained the throne with their support (A. 6.44.1–3). It is impossible to establish with certainty which satrapy Hiero was administering in those years. From Tacitus’ narration, it seems it took a few days to travel from there to Seleucia. This would lead to thinking about a praefectura immediately to the east of Mesopotamia. A Phraates is mentioned in the famous Artabanus’ letter to Susa (21 ce, Zambelli 1963) along with a certain Antiochos. It has been suggested that the two dignitaries were the representatives of the king in the city of Susa and in Susiana (Karras-Klapproth 1988, 149–150). The identification of the Phraates mentioned in the letter with the associate of Hiero, would give a vague indication on where to collocate also the latter’s satrapy. Unfortunately, due to the popularity of the name in Arsacid time and in the absence of any other element, the identification of this dignitary with the one mentioned by Tacitus remains a mere hypothesis. see also: Arsacid dynasty Reference work: PIR2 H 170 REFERENCES Karras-Klapproth, M. 1988. Prosopographische Studien zur Geschichte des Partherreiches auf der Grundlage antiker literarischer Überlieferung. Bonn: Habelt. Zambelli, M. 1963. “La lettera di Artabano III alla città di Susa.” RFIC 91: 153–169. FURTHER READING Gregoratti, L. 2012. “The Importance of the Mint of Seleucia on the Tigris in the Arsacid History.” Mesopotamia 47: 129–136. Gregoratti, L. 2017. “The Arsacid Empire.” In King of the Seven Climes a History of the Ancient Iran World (3000 BC–651 CE), edited by T. Daryaee, 125–153. Irvine, CA: Jordan Center for Persian Studies at the University of California, Irvine.

28-04-2023 18:01:05

514

  H ierocaesaria

HIEROCAESARIA KRISTIN BOCCHINE

University of North Texas

Hierocaesaria (also known as Hiera Kome, Hierakome, Hiero Come, Hieracome, Hiera Come, Hierocaesarea, and Hierokaisareia) was an ancient city located near modern Akselendi and Sazoba in Turkey that survived the Earthquake of 17 ce. Known for its temple to the Persian goddess Anahita (nicknamed Persian Artemis or Persian Diana), the city enjoyed special status as asylia (inviolable). Originally known as Hiera Come (sacred village), Hierocaesaria began as a small settlement around a temple to the Persian goddess Anahita in Lydia in the sixth century bce (A. 3.62; most scholars think Cyrus the Great dedicated the temple, see Rigsby 1996 and Sekunda 1985). From its foundation, the city was a part of the Persian Empire, but beginning in the fourth century bce, various Hellenistic kings controlled the city (Polyb. 16.1; 32.15; Paus. 5.27.5). In 130 bce, Rome incorporated the city into the province of Asia. Hierocaesaria experienced an earthquake in 17 ce, and Tiberius granted the city remission from taxes for five years to aid its recovery (A. 2.47). To commemorate Tiberius’ generosity, Hiera Come changed its name to Hierocaesaria. Hierocaesaria remained under Roman and then Byzantine administration until the twelfth century ce. The Cult of Anahita played a role in the foundation and development of the city. After Persian rule, the goddess assimilated the qualities of Cybele and Artemis during Greek and Roman occupation often appearing on coins as a Hellenized huntress (RPC III, 1863, 1867). From the fourth century bce, the Temple of Anahita enjoyed the right of asylia, meaning the temple and surrounding areas had immunity from civil law. In 22 ce when Rome accused several Greek cities of exploiting asylum rights, Hierocaesaria made a case for its asylia. The delegation noted two Roman commanders as evidence: Perpenna (Perperna) and Publius Servilius Isauricus (consul 48, 41) (A. 3.62). Perpenna was a Roman commander charged with quelling the ambitions of Aristonicus (Eumenes III), an illegitimate

c08_Vol1.indd 514

heir of Pergamum after Attalus III willed the kingdom to Rome in 133 bce. Perpenna killed Aristonicus in 130 bce while respecting the asylia of Hierocaesaria. Publius Servilius Isauricus was the son of Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus. He shared the consulship with Iulius Caesar in 48 bce, and his daughter Servilia was betrothed briefly to Octavian (Augustus). The delegation noted that while Publius Servilius Isauricus was proconsul of Asia (46–44 bce) he extended the asylia of Hierocaesaria by two miles to include the surrounding land and the city. After this meeting, the Roman Senate allowed Hierocaesaria to keep its asylia under the condition that the city never exploit these rights (A. 3.63). see also: Persia; religion; Roman gods Reference works: Barrington 56 F4; Roman Provincial Coinage III, 1863, 1867 REFERENCES Rigsby, Kent J. 1996. Asylia: Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sekunda, Nicholas Victor. 1985. “Achaemenid Colonization in Lydia.” Revue des Études Anciennes 87: 7–30. DOI: 10.3406/rea.1985.5544. FURTHER READING Jones, A. H. 1998. Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces. New York: Sandpiper Books, Oxford University Press.

HILARUS, see CLUVIUS RUFUS

HIRTIUS, AULUS ANTONINO PITTÀ

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan)

Aulus Hirtius was a Roman general, politician, and writer. An officer and probably a secretary of Iulius Caesar, Hirtius was in Gaul in 54–52 bce (Cic. Fam. 16.27) and 51–50; he added an eighth book to Caesar’s De bello Gallico (cf. B Gall. 8

28-04-2023 18:01:05

H irtius , Aulus  

praef., Suet. Iul. 56, Hausburg and Gaertner 2013, 21–30; 169–184; Hirtius has been suggested as the author of the Bellum Alexandrinum, but it seems he never took part in this war). In 50, in the eve of the civil war, he was sent to Rome to negotiate (Cic. Att. 7.4.2); on this occasion he became Cicero’s friend and correspondent. He might have been a tribune in 48 and have successfully proposed a lex Hirtia, which forbade the Pompeians to hold public offices (Cic. Phil. 13.32). According to numismatic evidence, Hirtius was praetor in 46; in the same year, he was again in close contact with Cicero, who was seeking a connection with Caesar’s protégés (Cic. Fam. 9.16; 9.18; 9.20). In 45 he may have been an augur and have met the young Octavian (Augustus) at Munda (Suet. Aug. 68). On the Ides of March, Hirtius was not in Rome, being governor of Transalpine Gaul. However, he reached the capital soon after Caesar’s assassination and showed his diplomacy in mediating between the Caesarians and the conspirators: probably as a reward for his ability, he was consul designate for the year 43 (Cic. Phil. 13.24; on Hirtius’ career between 50 and 43, see Cristofoli 2010). As a consul, after he had distanced himself from Mark Antony, he was charged by the Senate, mainly under pressure from Cicero, to come to the aid of Decimus Brutus, then besieged by Antony at Mutina. Hirtius, who was hostile to Antony but could not align with the republican party, mainly aimed at maintaining the status quo, and for this reason Octavian mistrusted him (Cic. Att. 15.12): when Octavian’s private army joined the consular troops based in Ariminum, rumors spread that Octavian was setting the soldiers against their commander. Anyway, for the moment both armies moved against Antony and tried to join the reinforcements sent from Rome and led by Hirtius’ colleague, Vibius Pansa. In order to prevent this maneuver, Antony ambushed Pansa’s army near Forum Gallorum: in the subsequent battle, Antony’s attempt was frustrated by Hirtius’ counterattack, but Pansa was fatally wounded (Cass. Dio 46.37.5–7). As Antony came back to Mutina, Hirtius and Octavian attacked his camp, until it came to the final battle, on 21 April. Hirtius successfully stormed Antony’s camp (Cass. Dio 46.38.5) but was killed while

c08_Vol1.indd 515

515

fighting. The battle ended with the victory of the republican side, but both consuls were dead (Ov. Tr. 4.10.6); Octavian, who was now the only general in charge, was immediately suspected as the man who actually plotted their death. Tacitus mentions Hirtius just twice (A. 1.10.2 and D. 17.2). In the Dialogus Hirtius appears merely as the consul named to date Cicero’s death in 43, although Tacitus calls attention to his death by naming the consuls who took the place of Hirtius and Pansa: Augustus and Quintus Pedius. Far more interesting is the first passage: in the imaginary debate held at Augustus’ funeral on the attitudes about his reign, his detractors list, among other evil deeds, the suspicion of plotting the assassination of Hirtius and Pansa, by inciting Hirtius’ troops to kill their commander (cf. Suet. Aug. 11, who reports the rumor that Octavian had slain Hirtius by his own hand, and Cass. Dio 46.39.1; an apologetic version, meant to exonerate Octavian, at App. B. Civ. 3.71). The passage evidently focuses on Octavian more than on Hirtius: Tacitus is not interested in Hirtius in himself nor in his alleged assassination, but in the political consequences of this stain on Augustus’ past. Similar views are displayed in Seneca’s De Clementia, again in the context of a discussion of the limits of Augustus’ clementia: in contrast with Nero, Octavian committed several acts of cruelty in his youth (see 1.9.1 with Malaspina 2005; cf. 1.1.6; 1.11.1), a Neronian topic which Tacitus echoes in a poignant way at A. 13.4: Nero, in his first public speech, compares himself to Augustus in the same terms. Furthermore, it has been hinted that Tacitus suggested a parallel between Augustus, who got rid of his competitors Hirtius and Pansa by violence and plots, and Tiberius, who overtly arranged the deaths of Augustus’ grandchildren (Keitel 1984, 314–315): the hypothesis adds a new shade to Tacitus’ portrait of Augustus and limits the trivial opposition between the good Augustus and the evil Tiberius. see also: civil wars of the Late Republic REFERENCES Cristofoli, Roberto. 2010. “La strategia della mediazione: biografia politica di Aulo Irzio prima del consolato.” Historia 59: 462–488.

28-04-2023 18:01:05

516

  H ispania

Hausburg, Bianca C., and Jan Felix Gaertner. 2013. Caesar and the Bellum Alexandrinum: An Analysis of Style, Narrative Technique, and the Reception of Greek Historiography. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Keitel, Elizabeth. 1984. “Principate and Civil War in the Annals of Tacitus.” American Journal of Philology 105: 306–325. Malaspina, Ermanno. 2005. De clementia libri duo. Prolegomeni, testo critico e commento. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. FURTHER READING Putnam, Michael C. J. 1989. “Virgil and Tacitus, Ann. 1.10.” Classical Quarterly 39: 563–564. Shotter, David C. A. 1967. “The Debate on Augustus (Tacitus Annals 1.9–10).” Mnemosyne 20: 171–174. Velaza, Javier. 1993. “Tácito y Augusto (Ann. I 9–10).” Emerita 61.2: 335–356.

HISPANIA RUBÉN OLMO-LÓPEZ

Universidad de Oviedo TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Hispania is the toponym Latin authors use to name the Iberian Peninsula. Tacitus, however, tends to use this noun in reference to Hispania Citerior or Tarraconensis, one of the three provinces in which the peninsula was divided during the High Empire. This entry is therefore dedicated to it. When Tacitus wants to include the whole peninsula, he usually employs the plural Hispaniae in reference to the sum of the three provinces (Ag. 10.2; G. 37.3; H. 1.52.1, 2.32.1, 2.65.1, 3.2.2, 3.13.1; A. 1.71.2, 3.44.1), conceptualizing it more as a political space rather than a geographical region. This political perspective can be found also in the main questions that catch Tacitus’ attention about Hispania Citerior: the role of the senators in the government of the provinces, the military units stationed in it, and the allegiance of the provincials to the imperial power. The Roman presence in Hispania began within the context of the Second Punic War (218–202 bce). Tarraco (modern Tarragona), future provincial capital, will be the first base of operation of

c08_Vol1.indd 516

the Roman generals (Livy 26.19–20; Plin. HN 3.21). In 198 bce the Senate decided to establish a stable administration in Hispania, dividing it into two provinces assigned to two new praetors: Hispania Citerior (“the closer,” encompassing the northwestern part of the peninsula) and Ulterior (“the farther,” in the south) (Livy 32.28.11). In Hispania Citerior, Rome had to interact with a significant variety of peoples with different cultural traditions (Iberi, Celtiberi, Vaccaei) as well as with Greek (Emporion, modern Ampurias) and Punic communities (Plácido 2009, 70–123 and 193–296). In the second century bce, the sources highlight the wars against the Celtiberi during the advance through the valley of the river Hiberus (modern Ebro), which ended with the capture of Numantia by Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus in 133 bce (Richardson 1986, 95–155). The resistance of Numantia and the skills of the Hispani soldiers become literary topoi which Tacitus employs in two passages. On the one hand, he points out that the Roman soldiers, besieged by the Parthians in Armenia in 62 ce, surrendered to save their lives just as Mancinus had done in the past before the Numantini (A. 15.13.2 see exemplarity). On the other hand, Tacitus praises the resistance of the Germani against Rome by saying that even the submission of Hispania took place in a shorter amount of time (G. 37.3). In the first century bce Hispania Citerior was one of the main stages of the ensuing civil wars (Pina Polo 2009). The final submission of the northern parts of the peninsula was not accomplished until the time of Augustus, whose legates defeated the Astures and the Cantabri in 26–19 bce (Cass. Dio 53.25.2–8, 29.1–2, 54.5.1–3 and 11.2–6; Oros. 6.21.1–11; Vell. Pat. 2.90). Besides the ephemeral administration of the Northeast as Transduriana provincia, Augustus (c. 15–13 bce) reorganized all Hispania into three provinces which would last until Diocletian (López Barja 2017): Hispania Citerior and Lusitania, governed by legati Augusti pro praetore, and Baetica, under the orders of a proconsul (Alföldy 1969). While the last two came about out of the division of Hispania Ulterior, Hispania Citerior was expanded. Augustus integrated into it the communities of the Transduriana and of the eastern part of modern Andalusia. It also included the Balearic Islands. This province therefore

28-04-2023 18:01:05

H ispania  

encompassed all the northern part of the peninsula up to the river Durius (modern Duero), the central Meseta, and all the Mediterranean area except its southernmost part. It bordered to the west with Lusitania and to the south with Baetica on the saltus Castulonensis of the Sierra Morena (Plin. HN 3.18). As far as the population and the civic development of its communities, the province presents contrasts within its regions during the High Empire. During the Julio-Claudian era, the Mediterranean area and the Hiberus valley, where the Roman presence was the most ancient, saw a considerable concentration of colonies and municipia, while in the area at the center of the peninsula or in the north Roman communities were more scarce and rural settlement predominant (Mangas 1996). Despite that, an important network of privileged cities, well connected by land routes, existed. Some of them worked as assize centers in which governors exercised their jurisdiction and received the petitions of the inhabitants of the communities (both Romans and peregrini) which were assigned to them. Governors spent the winter in the colonies of Tarraco and Carthago Nova (modern Cartagena) and used the summer to travel the rest of the province (Strabo, 3.4.20) to visit the other sees of conventus iuridici: Caesaraugusta (modern Zaragoza), Clunia (modern Coruña del Conde), Asturica (modern Astorga), Lucus Augusti (modern Lugo), and Bracara Augusta (modern Braga) (Plin. HN 3.18–28; Haensch 1997, 162– 175 and 480–489). Furthermore, the governors had different legates (three, originally) at their orders who could oversee the cities the governors could not visit in person (Olmo-López 2018, 37–74). Vespasian granted the ius Latii to all Hispania (Plin. HN 3.30), which expanded access to Roman citizenship to local elites and fostered the civic growth of their communities (García Fernández 2001, 73–124). The social upward mobility of the Hispani facilitated their progressive integration in the equestrian and senatorial orders throughout the first century ce (A. 11.24.3 and 14.41.4). In the time of Tacitus, there existed an important lobby of Hispani in the Senate (Des Boscs-Plateaux 2005), among whom a man from Tarraco and friend of Trajan and Pliny the Younger, Lucius Licinius Sura, stood out (Cass.

c08_Vol1.indd 517

517

Dio 68.15; Plin. Ep. 4.30 and 7.27). The power and wealth of the elites of Hispania (A. 6.19.1) explain why Tacitus considered Hispania one of the most powerful parts of the empire (H. 3.53.3). In the Annals and in the Histories, Tacitus shows a particular interest in the government of Hispania Citerior since it allows him to clearly mirror the difficult relations between senators and emperor (Devillers 2014). Concretely, he recalls the case of the following senators who received the administration of this province: Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, Lucius Arruntius, Lucius Calpurnius Piso (1), Galba, and Cluvius Rufus. This is due not only to their social status and political influence, but also to the military power they wielded as legates of the province. The governor of Hispania Citerior was the only one who had at his orders at least one legion in the peninsula during the High Empire. Until 68 there were three legions in Hispania Citerior: IV Macedonica, VI Victrix, and X Gemina (Le Roux 1982; see army). This situation granted the governors of Hispania Citerior the keys for the control of all the peninsula during the civil wars of 69 ce (H. 1.8 and 2.58.2). In the account of the maiestas trial against Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (20 ce) promoted by the friends of Germanicus, Tacitus points out that one of the official accusers, Fulcinius Trio, attempted to discredit the senator by recalling that he had shown his ambition and greed when he had served as governor in Hispania Citerior. Such an accusation, however, was never proven true (A. 3.13.1). On the contrary, we know that Piso distinguished himself in his services to the imperial power in Hispania, boosting the growth of the cult of Rome and of Augustus in the Northwest in 9–10 ce (Alföldy 1969, 10–11, 2007, 340; Syme 1979). The inscription of Campa Torres (modern Gijón) proves that the damnatio memoriae was applied to the monuments erected by Piso in the provinces (CIL II.2703). The case of Lucius Arruntius helps Tacitus to show the fear of Tiberius toward the most illustrious senators who belonged to ancient families and, therefore, the arbitrariness of imperial power. Tiberius appointed this consular as legate in Hispania Citerior in 23 ce, but he was prohibited from taking up the post because he had been included by Augustus in the list of the capaces

28-04-2023 18:01:05

518

  H ispania

imperii (A. 1.13.1; H. 2.65.2). The three legions of Hispania would have provided Arruntius with a great military power. Since he never left Rome, in practice Arruntius was never governor of Hispania Citerior (Olmo-López 2018, 377–378). As in the case of Aelius Lamia, this anomalous situation lasted for ten years (A. 6.27.3). Tacitus recalls that in 25 ce one of the Termestini (a tribe whose main town was Termes, near Numantia) murdered the legate of Hispania Citerior, Lucius Calpurnius Piso (1), as vengeance for the harshness he had shown against his community in the valley of the Hiberus in the collection of tribute (A. 4.45). It is not possible to ascertain the official post he occupied. Traditionally, he had been identified as a legate of the governor of Citerior (Alföldy 1969, 14 and 67), but Tacitus calls him praetor provinciae, a phrase he employs elsewhere to refer to the provincial governors (A. 1.74.1 and 4.43.3). The interest of Tacitus in this minor episode is due to Piso’s belonging to the so-called “virtual dynasties” which constitute the backbone of the narrative of the Annals and the Histories (O’Gorman 2006). In addition, the episode also helps Tacitus to reinforce the topos of the belligerence of the Celtiberi, which an ancestor of the victim had already suffered. In 64 bce the quaestor pro praetore Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso was murdered in Hispania Citerior by a Spanish horseman. This attack was also justified by the cruelty which the magistrate had shown with the local population, but there were rumors that Pompey was involved in his death (Sall. Cat. 19; Pina Polo 2009, 229). Tacitus then constructs a web of allusions between both events pertaining to the same senatorial family, which tended to be looked at with suspicion by those who held power in Rome both at the end of the republic and at the beginning of the principate. In addition, the passage of Tacitus is an important witness to the survival of the vernacular languages in the province: when he was questioned, the Termestinus only spoke in his own language, stating that he would not betray his accomplices. The following day, he committed suicide (A. 4.45.2). Tacitus spends few praising words about the government of Galba in Hispania Citerior within his obituary (H. 1.49.4). The mention of Galba’s justice and moderation is in contrast with the

c08_Vol1.indd 518

account of Suetonius (Galb. 9), who recalls different anecdotes about the extreme severity he showed in the exercise of the coercive power. Suetonius also notices that his subsequent moderation was due to the desire to go unnoticed by Nero. Tacitus highlights the brilliance of Galba before 68 to establish a contrast with his failure as emperor. Galba served as governor of Hispania Citerior between 60 and 68 (Alföldy 1969, 16), and from there he seized power thanks to the legions he commanded and the local elites (Suet. Galb. 9–10). The triumph of Galba attests to the influence that Hispania Citerior could exercise over the balance of power which existed among the western provinces. Tacitus makes this clear in his narrative of the events of 69. The role of Galba’s successor in the province, the historian Cluvius Rufus, was crucial for the Hispaniae’s support of Vitellius. From the narrative of Tacitus one can deduce that this consular controlled the entire peninsula using the superiority that the legions of the Citerior granted him (H. 1.8.1, 76.1 and 2.58.2). Despite being bellis inexpertus, Cluvius Rufus managed to prevent the invasion of the peninsula from Mauretania, planned by the Othonian procurator Lucceius Albinus. In addition to locating legion X in the Strait of Gibraltar, the consular legate managed to convince the Mauri to defect from Albinus (H. 2.58–59.1). Tacitus once again emphasizes the idea that the control of the Hispaniae made their governors dangerous when he points out that Vitellius, suspicious of the hidden ambitions of Cluvius Rufus, forced the governor to go meet him (H. 2.65.1–2). Vespasian’s party also sought the favor of the Hispaniae through letters (H. 2.86.4). After the defeat of the Vitellians at Bedriacum, the legions of Hispania were informed and swore allegiance to Vespasian (H. 3.44.1 and 53.3). This allowed Licinius Mucianus to use the promise of the prestigious government of Hispania Citerior to try to appease the ambitions of Antonius Primus after the war (H. 4.39.4). Although Tacitus attributes the presence of three legions in Hispania at the time of Tiberius to the fact that part of its territory had recently been subjected (A. 4.5.1), the truth is that this was considered a pacified province. This idea underlies the speech of Germanicus, in which he exhorts the troops not to show themselves inferior

28-04-2023 18:01:05

H ispania  

to the soldiers of Hispania or Syria (A. 1.42.3). Mentioning the soldiers of Hispania, Tacitus seeks to highlight the contrast between the discipline of an army accustomed to the comforts of peace versus the tension of another subjected to the extreme conditions of a war zone. The prominence of the legions of Hispania in the work of Tacitus is limited to the civil wars of 69 and the subsequent Batavian Revolt. Except for the maneuvers of Cluvius Rufus, these legions act outside the peninsula, being mobilized on different fronts (H. 2.32.1, 3.15.1, 4.25.2, 4.68.4, 4.76.2, 5.19.1). Hispania is presented as a resting destination for the legions (H. 2.67.2, 86.4). The tragic story of Iulius Mansuetus and his son allows Tacitus to represent the horrors of the civil war (H. 3.25.2–3). Finally, Tacitus is interested in different episodes that reflect the loyalty of the Hispani or the Citerior province to imperial power. In 15 ce the Hispaniae competed with Gaul and Italy in offering help to alleviate the losses suffered by the army in its campaign across the Rhine (A. 1.71.2). In the same year the Hispani of the Citerior province requested permission from Tiberius to erect a temple dedicated to Divus Augustus in Tarraco, offering, says Tacitus, an example to follow for the rest of the provinces (A. 1.78.1). This local initiative in the introduction of the provincial imperial cult is an exception in the West at this time, which shows the degree of political integration of the people of Tarraconesis in imperial dynamics (Fishwick 2002). Tacitus emphasizes throughout his work the idea that Hispania is one of the pillars of the empire and that its inhabitants (except in extraordinary cases as reported at A. 4.45) demonstrate a strong loyalty to the Roman power. For this reason, he considers an exaggeration the rumors that circulated in 21 that Iulius Sacrovir’s rebellion had shaken the loyalty of the Hispaniae (A. 3.44.1). Behind the doubts or changes of position of Hispania during the civil war are the legions stationed in it, whose collective psychology is dissected by Tacitus in the Histories (Ash 1999). see also: empire; provinces Reference work: Barrington 1 B2; 101 E4

c08_Vol1.indd 519

519

REFERENCES Alföldy, Géza. 1969. Fasti Hispanienses. Senatorische Reichsbeamte und Offiziere in den spanischen Provinzen des römischen Reiches von Augustus bis Diokletian. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Alföldy, Géza 2007. “Fasti und Verwaltung der hispanischen Provinzen.” In Herrschen und Verwalten. Der Alltag des römischen Administration in der Hohen Kaiserzeit, edited by R. Haensch and J. Heinrichs, 325–356. Köln-Weimar-Wien: Böhlau Verlag. Ash, Rhiannon. 1999. Ordering Anarchy: Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ Histories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Des Boscs-Plateaux, Françoise. 2005. Un parti hispanique à Rome? Ascension des élites hispaniques et pouvoir politique d’Auguste à Hadrien (27 av. J.-C.-138 ap. J.-C.). Madrid: Casa de Velázquez. Devillers, Olivier. 2014. “Rome et les provinces. Analogies, transferts, interactions dans l’Agricola et dans les Annales.” In Les opera minora et le développement de l’historiographie tacitéenne, edited by O. Devillers, 163–174. Bordeaux: Ausonius. Fishwick, Duncan. 2002. The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire vol. III. Provincial Cult, Part 1: Institution and Evolution. LeidenBoston: Brill. García Fernández, Estela. 2001. El municipio latino: Origen y desarrollo constitucional. Madrid: Editorial Complutense. Haensch, Rudolph. 1997. Capita provinciarum: Statthaltersitze und Provinzialverwaltung in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Mainz: Philip von Zabern Verlag. Le Roux, Patrick. 1982. L’armée romaine et l’organisation des provinces ibériques d’Auguste à l’invasion de 409. Paris: CNRS. López Barja, Pedro. 2017. “La reorganización de la Hispania Citerior bajo Augusto.” Gerión 35.2: 237–246. Mangas, Julio. 1996. Aldea y ciudad en la Antigüedad hispana. Madrid: Arco Libros. O’Gorman, Ellen. 2006. “Alternate Empires: Tacitus’ Virtual History of the Pisonian Principate.” Arethusa 39.2: 281–301. Olmo-López, Rubén. 2018. El centro en la periferia: Las competencias de los gobernadores provinciales romanos en Hispania durante el Principado. Zürich: Lit Verlag. Pina Polo, Francisco. 2009. “Hispania y su conquista en los avatares de la República Tardía.” In Hispaniae: Las provincias hispanas en el mundo romano, edited by J. Andreu, J. Piquero, and I. Rodà, 223–236. Tarragona: ICAC.

28-04-2023 18:01:05

520

  H istories

Plácido, Domingo. 2009. Hispania Antigua. Barcelona: Crítica. Richardson, John. 1986. Hispaniae: Spain and the Development of Roman Imperialism, 218–82 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1979. “A Governor of Tarraconensis.” In RP II, 732–741. Oxford: OUP. FURTHER READING Alföldy, Géza. 2011. “Tausend Jahre epigraphische Kultur im Römischen Hispanien: Inschriften, Selbstdarstellung und Sozialordnung.” Lucentum 30: 187–220. Andreu Pintado, Javier. 2004. Edictum, municipium y lex: Hispania en época Flavia (69–96 d.C.). Oxford: Achaeopress. Curchin, Leonard A. 1991. Roman Spain: Conquest and Assimilation. London: Routledge. Lozano, Fernando, and Jaime Alvar. 2009. “El culto imperial y su proyección en Hispania.” In Hispaniae: Las provincias hispanas en el mundo romano, edited by J. Andreu, J. Piquero, and I. Rodà, 425–437. Tarragona: ICAC. Martínez Caballero, Santiago. 2017. “El asesinato del praetor provinciae L. Calpurnius Piso por un termestino (Tac. Ann. 4.45): ¿persecución de la libertas y la alta nobleza romana en época de Tiberio César?” Gerión 35.1: 203–228. Melchor Gil, Enrique. 2009. “Las élites municipales hispanorromanas a fines de la República y en el Alto Imperio: ideología y conductas socio-políticas.” In Hispaniae: Las provincias hispanas en el mundo romano, edited by J. Andreu, J. Piquero, and I. Rodà, 391–410. Tarragona: ICAC. Morillo, A. 2007. El ejército romano en Hispania: Guía arqueológica. León: Universidad de León. Ozcáriz Gil, Pablo. 2013. La administración de la provincia Hispania citerior durante el Alto Imperio romano. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona. Palao Vicente, Juan José. 2006. Legio VII Gemina (Pia) Felix: Estudio de una legión romana. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca. Panzram, Sabine. 2002. Stadtbild und Elite: Tarraco, Corduba und Augusta Emerita zwischen Republik und Spätantike. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Panzram, Sabine, ed. 2017. Oppidum - civitas - urbs. Städteforschung auf der Iberischen Halbinsel zwischen Rom und al-Andalus. Munster: Lit Verlag. Ruiz de Arbulo, Joaquín. 2009. “El altar y el templo de Augusto en Tarraco: Estado de la cuestión.” In Fora Hispaniae: Paisaje urbano, arquitectura, programas decorativos y culto imperial en los foros de las ciudades hispanorromanas, edited by J.M. Noguera, 155–189. Murcia: Museo Arqueológico.

c08_Vol1.indd 520

HISTORIES JONATHAN MASTER

Emory University

Tacitus’ Histories is a work of annalistic historiography that originally narrated the events of the years 69–96 ce, from the first day of the Year of the Four Emperors through the assassination of Domitian and accession of Nerva. The extant work comprises only the first four books and twenty-six chapters of the fifth. The rest is lost, though a few fragments remain. The Histories probably included twelve books originally, though a total of fourteen cannot be irrefutably rejected. The text of Histories 1–5.26 was preserved in a single eleventh-century manuscript, the second Medicean (see manuscripts), and was attached to Annals 11–16 in chronological order of the events narrated, not the order of writing. The books that do survive cover the long year 69 ce and the early part of 70. The three books and thirty-eight chapters devoted to 69 are the longest extant Latin historical narrative of a single year. The Histories begins with the announcement in Rome of the revolt of the legions in Upper Germany, Galba’s adoption of Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus, and the aged emperor’s assassination soon after. The new emperor–– Galba’s former ally Otho, who was behind the coup––immediately faces Vitellius’ legions from the German provinces. They cross the Alps rapidly and defeat Otho’s forces in northern Italy. Otho commits suicide and Vitellius is emperor, but his support is concentrated in the western empire. The legions of the newly declared emperor Vespasian quickly invade Italy from the Balkans and overwhelm the Vitellians. With Vitellius executed, Vespasian is successfully established as emperor but must suppress a rebellion along the northern Rhine started by Batavian auxiliaries.

SOURCES AND BIAS Tacitus is not the lone literary source for the events of 69–70. Plutarch wrote biographies of Galba and Otho, and Suetonius of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. The epitomes of Cassius Dio, Books

28-04-2023 18:01:05

H istories  

63–65, provide information on the period, as do parts of Josephus’ Jewish War. Close correspondences in Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius suggest that all three authors relied on an unidentified common source who wrote closer in time to the events of 69. Tacitus is reticent about sources in the Histories, naming only Vipstanus Messalla (3.25.2 and 3.28.1) and Pliny the Elder (3.28.1) for the events of 69, but he does also make occasional vague reference to authorities and unnamed writers (2.37.1, 2.101.1, and 3.29.2). Tacitus prefaces the work with a statement on the importance of historians avoiding bias but does not explicitly guarantee that he can achieve the ideal (1.1.3). In one particularly notable passage he writes that many sources for the events of 69 are colored by later Flavian bias (2.101.1). Some have leveled this very charge against Tacitus himself for his account of the Batavian Revolt in Books 4 and 5, which he portrays as a rebellion at its core, though he shows that it originally had Flavian support.

THE HISTORIES AND TACITUS’ LIFE Tacitus’ correspondence with Pliny the Younger (Ep. 6.16 and 6.20) indicates that he was working on the Histories around 105–106. It was to be his first long work of narrative history. He was nearly fifty years old by this point, and had already written the Agricola, Germania, and Dialogus de Oratoribus. He had also maintained his political career, which included the consulship in 97 and would include a proconsulship of Asia in 112. Tacitus would have been an adolescent in 69, and wherever he may have been that year, he would have had some memory of the events. He would also have had personal connections to many of the major figures he includes in the Histories. He writes in the preface that his successful political career was attributable to the favor of the Flavian emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Tacitus does not say so, but he also delivered the funeral oration in 97 for the former governor of Upper Germany, Verginius Rufus (Plin. Ep. 2.1.6), whose refusal in 68 to become emperor looms over the early books of the Histories. Many other participants in the events of 69 were still alive in

c08_Vol1.indd 521

521

the 90s and some even into the second century, whom Tacitus could have known or indeed did know, including Antonius Primus, Vestricius Spurinna, Silius Italicus, and Iulius Frontinus. The mother of Tacitus’ father-in-law Agricola was herself the victim of Othonian naval raids on the Ligurian and southern Gallic coasts (Ag. 7.1) narrated at Histories 2.12–14.

PURPOSE OF THE HISTORIES Tacitus opens his work by asserting a twofold purpose: to present an annalistic history (see annales) beginning at the outset of 69 and to reestablish unbiased historiography as it was written before Actium and the advent of one-man rule (1.1.1). Tacitus casts the principate as an institution that had destroyed truthful historiography by removing political decision-making from the public sphere and providing incentive to flatter the emperor. The emperors Nerva and Trajan, however, allow a more independent spirit to flourish in thought and writing, according to the preface. While one might interpret this statement as formulaic flattery (see panegyric), the very existence of the Histories supports the claim. The focus of the Histories on the violent and often catastrophic years of 69–96 nevertheless implies that the happy present may not necessarily be a permanent state of affairs. Tacitus primes readers to attend carefully to all aspects of the narrative in search of historical meaning. The style and its framing of the events, the explicitly identified causes of events, the ideas expressed by figures within the text, especially in speeches, individual decision-making, successful plans, and unsuccessful plans all contribute to the complex historical vision of the Histories. STYLE Since the outline of the events of the extant Histories and many details of the incidents related are shared between Tacitus and other authors, the distinctiveness of Tacitus’ work must be sought in his authorial choices, from narrative and structural framing of the work to the

28-04-2023 18:01:05

522

  H istories

language he uses. Many stylistic features for which Tacitus would later become famous are present in the Histories, including elevated diction, brevity, variatio, lack of balance between clauses—especially displacement of the primary idea of a sentence from the main clause to a far longer subordinate clause—sententiae, and epigrams. This difficult and highly literary style challenges readers to pay close attention and to grasp the complexity of imperial history along with the difficulty of explaining causes and motives even retrospectively. Tacitus as narrator writes with a moralizing and skeptical tone; however, the narrative as a whole features a great variety of viewpoints––including those from morally ambiguous figures like general Licinius Mucianus and outright dishonest participants in the events such as the Batavian rebel Iulius Civilis––which should all contribute something to readers’ understanding of the events.

entertaining narrative that will keep the reader’s attention. In the second and third chapters, Tacitus catalogs many disasters, from the assassination of four emperors to slaves betraying their masters, which will afflict the Roman people in the course of the Histories. Still, Tacitus assures readers that the narrative’s march through this horrible terrain will be educational for them, and he declares that the Histories will adhere to the specifically Roman didactic mode of offering exempla (1.3.1; see exemplarity). In the extant narrative Tacitus highlights three individuals’ actions as positive exempla (1.43, 2.13.2, 2.64.2). But productive actions that benefit the Roman people as a whole are rare in the extant books. Often, as in the cases of Vespasian and Titus, both of whom, Tacitus writes, improved with age, good character is prospective. The good fortune of Tacitus’ present day under Trajan may also compensate for the horrors of Domitian’s reign, with which the Histories would have concluded.

ANNALISTIC STRUCTURE The first distinctive feature of the Histories is the annalistic framework that Tacitus applies to imperial history. The work begins with a future tense verb promising that the consulship of Galba and Titus Vinius will mark the start of the narrative. Eleven chapters intervene before he offers the traditional annalistic marker of consular dating to signify the start of the narrative proper. From the first sentence Tacitus shows that the republican mode of annalistic historiography with its republican ideology encoded within it makes a poor fit for the history of the principate. Throughout the narrative, key features of annalistic historiography are shown to be compromised or irrelevant. The distinction between the categories of res internae and res externae, the organizing principle of the annalistic year, virtually disappears and the consular fasti is packed to the point of bursting, with one consul shamelessly taking up the office for one day (3.47).

DISASTERS AND EXEMPLA Alongside announcing the annalistic frame of the text, the opening chapters also promise an

c08_Vol1.indd 522

HISTORICAL EXPLANATION In the Histories, historical explanation is more a question of identifying factors and possibilities rather than drawing a straight line between obvious causes and outcomes. Since the implicit focus of ancient historiography is the reader’s present (see metahistory), a central purpose is to inform future decision-making by showing the range of factors that can contribute to any given outcome, be it a new dynasty, civil war, or successful generalship in the field. Tacitus offers as a principle for historical explanation in the prefatory section of Book 1 that because outcomes of events are largely fortuitous, the historian should probe the rationale behind events and causes (1.4.1). The narrative consistently supports the contention that the outcomes of the events were highly contingent. Tacitus comments explicitly on Otho’s suicide (2.46.3) and general Dillius Vocula’s failure to raise the siege on the legionary camp at Vetera (Xanten) in the Batavian Revolt (4.34.1) as two major events that could have turned out differently and would have changed

28-04-2023 18:01:05

H istories  

the course of Roman history had the participants acted differently. The principle applies to nearly everything in the Histories, however, from Galba’s refusal to adopt Otho (1.13.2) to Vitellius’ failed abdication (3.68). EVENTS OF 69 ce WITHIN THE BROADER CONTEXT OF ROMAN HISTORY The Histories features a few moments of historical reflection, in which the narrator or individuals within the text put the events of 69 into the broader context of Roman history. For example, Tacitus attributes the ease with which a Vitellian cavalry unit seized northern Italy to the longlasting peace that had broken any fighting spirit the local citizens might have had previously (2.17.1). In Book 1, unidentified Romans anxiously await the confrontation of the Othonian and Vitellian forces and reflect on the “savage peace” (saevae pacis) of recent years (1.50.2), a comment that echoes the narrator’s own language in the preface (1.2.1). Those same Romans also connect the events of 69 to the civil wars of the Late Republic, lamenting that instead of Julius Caesar and Octavian contending against Pompey and Brutus—all four of them men who could be counted on to preserve the Roman state in some form—the current conflict is between two corrupt scoundrels, Otho and Vitellius. Tacitus as narrator also contributes to this pessimistic historical frame for the events of 69. Before the first battle of Bedriacum, which would decide whether Otho or Vitellius would be emperor, Tacitus rejects the veracity of a rumor that the combatants on both sides considered setting aside their arms and settling the matter of who should be emperor themselves or sending the matter to the Senate for consideration (2.37.2–38). Tacitus’ image of Roman history emphasizes the exponential growth of desire for personal power as a concomitant of the expansion of the Roman Empire, which over the course of several centuries had become so ingrained that there was no chance anyone would put aside the opportunity to gain power for himself, however great the cost. The composite image of these passages is a dark vision of the principate and the stability it brought.

c08_Vol1.indd 523

523

The Histories does not glorify the republican past, however. Many passages present unities within Roman history regardless of the form of government, something the Histories as a whole also does on a smaller scale. Tacitus frequently compares apparent nadirs in the catalog of events of the civil wars of 69 ce to republican precedents. From Rosius Regulus’ eagerly entering into the consulship for a single day (3.47, see Caecina Alienus) to a Flavian soldier demanding a reward for killing his brother who was a supporter of Vitellius (3.51) to, worst of all, the burning of the Capitolium (3.72.3), in the moments when the narrator uses his most moralizing outrage at the shameful depths the Romans reached in 69, he also cites similar precedents from republican history.

CHARACTERIZATION Much of the historical vision of the Histories must be sought in the depiction of personalities and the characterization of the individual figures involved in the events of 69–70, from the emperors and other powerful figures who wield imperium down to low-level soldiers to whom civil war offers the opportunity to make a great impact on history. Galba (1.7.3), Vitellius (1.52.4), and Vespasian (2.74–75) all display passivity and hesitation in the execution of their plans. Neither these emperors nor Otho personally command their forces in battle, and all of them completely rely on lieutenants not only to carry out their orders but often to urge them into action in the first place (1.6.1, 1.53, 2.76–77). Tacitus shows that the emperors’ reliance on their lieutenants is risky because those officers are uniformly vicious, completely selfish, and not at all concerned with the general welfare. Officials loyal to Galba authorize executions without orders from the emperor himself (1.7), and Antonius Primus, who nearly single-handedly wins the principate for Vespasian, acts without and even contrary to Vespasian’s orders (3.8.2). As the emperors are unable to maintain a tight grip on their lieutenants, so those same lieutenants are unable to maintain control over soldiers under their command. Subverting discipline and undermining the chain of command in hopes of winning the principate are

28-04-2023 18:01:06

524

  H istories

habits not so easily abandoned once it has been won (1.83.1); and even loyal troops such as Otho’s praetorians, who nearly massacre Roman senators in Otho’s presence when they think a plot is afoot, prove hard to control. From the praetorian guard to the legions to the auxiliaries, every unit within the Roman military spends much of the year ignoring or defying the chain of command. Fabius Valens’ legions and auxiliaries mutiny in northern Italy and nearly kill him (2.27–29) before following his orders to success at Bedriacum; Primus’ legions are insubordinate in camp (3.10.1–3) and sack Cremona at what Tacitus suggests is likely their own initiative (3.32–33). Tacitus makes the point when narrating the defection of the fleet at Misenum from Vitellius that civil war offers opportunities for even common soldiers to make an impact on events (3.57.1), a point he had already illustrated in his narration of the actions of two manipulares who, he writes, transfer the empire from Galba to Otho (1.25.1). The lack of respect for command is evident in the narrative of the Batavian Revolt too. When governor Hordeonius Flaccus is rejected by his soldiers, Dillius Vocula briefly calms the passions of legions on the Rhine (4.25–26) only to have to escape being killed alongside Hordeonius Flaccus (4.36.2). It is only in 70 after the civil wars are concluded and Petilius Cerialis takes command of seven legions on the Rhine that soldiers begin to display obedience.

SENATE AND PEOPLE OF ROME With the military in disarray and the turnover of emperors unprecedentedly high, the old republican authoritative bodies like the Senate and populace of Rome are not up to the task of trying to take back their former prerogatives. The Histories shows that the senators are unable even for a moment to imagine a different arrangement in government but instead lapse into avenging past crimes within their ranks (2.10 and 4.5–10). The Histories does not deny the damage done by delatores (informers) to the senatorial order under Nero, but the conspicuous pursuit of vengeance rather than a constructive focus on rebuilding the entire state suggests that it is not only individual

c08_Vol1.indd 524

commanders who lose sight of the general welfare. The people of Rome and Italy are no better. They watch civil war as though it were a spectacle (3.83.1). Good leadership is nowhere evident in the dire situation. The size and demands of the empire are combined with an elite and populace uninterested in managing the task. CONCLUSION While the civil wars of 69 ce inaugurate a new era in Roman history, they do not reveal that the Romans themselves are ready to retake control of their own destiny. When Tacitus denies the rumor that the Othonian and Vitellian forces considered settling their dispute by diplomacy, he writes that he does not believe someone so prudent as the general Suetonius Paulinus would have believed that in such degenerate times enough moderation would exist to bring the Romans back from a battle in civil war (2.37.2). Galba’s speech when adopting Piso also addresses the spirit of the Roman people. In particular Galba says that the immense body of the empire could simply not remain balanced without a single ruler (1.16.1), because the Roman people cannot be treated as slaves, but equally cannot handle freedom (1.16.4). The view propounded by Galba in this speech, placed by Tacitus at the outset of the narrative––and certainly edited and embellished by the author, since the occasion described was a small, private meeting between six men (1.14.1)—provides a way of interpreting the regrettable facts of the Roman principate. The Roman people, whether senators, soldiers, or populus at large, cannot rule themselves but do not accept total subservience either. All these factors put tremendous pressure on the single emperor to bear the immense and complex burden of managing the empire. Tacitus states that he wrote the Histories under a good emperor, but he also has the delator Eprius Marcellus (4.8.2) and commander Petilius Cerialis (4.74.2) separately assert that emperors come and go, some good, some bad. see also: Bellum Iudaicum; empire; Cornelius Tacitus; Flavian dynasty; geography; morality; memory; prefaces

28-04-2023 18:01:06

historiography  

FURTHER READING Commentaries Ash, R. 2007. Tacitus: Histories Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chilver, G. E. F. 1979. A Historical Commentary on Tacitus’ Histories I and II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chilver, G. E. F., and G. B. Townend. 1985. A Historical Commentary on Tacitus’ Histories IV and V. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Damon, C. 2003. Tacitus: Histories Book I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heubner, H. P. 1963–1982. Cornelius Tacitus: Die Historien. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Wellesley, K. 1972. Cornelius Tacitus: The Histories Book III. Sydney: Sydney University Press. Monographs and Articles Ash, R. 1999. Ordering Anarchy: Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ Histories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ash, R. 2009 “Fission and Fusion: Shifting Roman Identities in the Histories.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ash, R. 2010 “Tarda Moles Civilis Belli: The Weight of the Past in Tacitus’ Histories.” In Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars, edited by B. Breed, C. Damon, and A. Rossi, 119–132. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ash, R., and M. Malamud, eds. 2006 “Ingens Eloquentiae Materia: Rhetoric and Empire in Tacitus.” Arethusa 36.2. Aubrion, Etienne. 1985. Rhétorique et histoire chez Tacite. Metz: Centre de recherche Littérature et spiritualité. Barnes, T. D. 1977. “The Fragments of the Histories.” Classical Philology 72.3: 224–231. Haynes, H. 2003. The History of Make-Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hellegouarc’h, Joseph. 1991. “Le style de Tacite: Bilan et perspectives.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.33.4: 2385–2453. Keitel, E. 1991. “The Structure and Function of Speeches in Tacitus’ Histories I–III.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 33.4: 2772–2794. Keitel, E. 1993. “Speech and Narrative in Histories IV.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Levick, B. 1985 “L. Verginius Rufus and the Year of the Four Emperors.” Rheinisches Museum 128: 318–346. Levene, D. S. 1997. “Pity, Fear, and the Historical Audience: Tacitus on the Fall of Vitellius.” In The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, edited by S. Braund and C. Gill, 128–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

c08_Vol1.indd 525

525

Levene, D. 1999. “Tacitus’ Histories and the Theory of Deliberative Oratory.” In The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts, edited by C. S. Kraus, 197–216. Leiden: Brill. Manoloraki, E. 2005. “A Picture Worth a Thousand Words: Revisiting Bedriacum (Tacitus Histories 2.70).” Classical Philology 100.3: 243–267. Master, J. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Morgan, M. G. 1992. “The Smell of Victory: Vitellius at Bedriacum (Tacitus Histories 2.70).” Classical Philology 87: 14–29. Morgan, M. G. 1994. “‘Rogues’ March’: Caecina and Velnus in Histories 1.61–70.” Museum Helveticum 51: 103–125. O’Gorman, E. 1995 “Shifting Ground: Lucan, Tacitus and the Landscape of Civil War.” Hermathena 159: 117–131. Pelling, C. 2009. “Tacitus’ Personal Voice.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 147–167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pigón, J. 1992. “Helvidius Priscus, Eprius Marcellus and Iudicium Senatus: Observations on Tacitus Histories 4.7–8.” Classical Quarterly 42: 235–246. Plass, Paul. 1988. Wit and the Writing of History: The Rhetoric of Historiography in Imperial Rome. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Pomeroy, A. 2003. “Center and Periphery in Tacitus’ Histories.” Arethusa 36: 361–374. Sailor, D. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shannon-Henderson, K. E. 2019. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J. 1998. Tacitus Reviewed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

HISTORIOGRAPHY GEORGE BAROUD

Emerson College

THE GRECO-ROMAN HISTORICAL TRADITION The term historiography properly refers to the study of historical writing, including the analysis and interpretation of a historian’s methodology, epistemological assumptions, ideological orientation,

28-04-2023 18:01:06

526

  historiography

selection and arrangement of material, and literary style, and explores how these create historical meaning. The term also refers to the history of history, for example studies that trace how historical method or purpose change over time. Other uses of the term refer to a body or a particular style of historical writing on a given topic (e.g., the historiography of the Punic War) or as a substitute for history itself. Several classical genres, most notably epic poetry, treat past material, but the invention of history as a discrete genre with its distinct conventions is usually attributed to Herodotus. Its most basic hallmarks are that it is an inquiry or research (the etymological root of the word historia itself) into the past, which it seeks to commemorate or whose causes it attempts to explain, and it must be written in prose. Roman historical writing itself ultimately derives from Greek history; the pontifex maximus at Rome kept a chronicle that recorded notable events such as famines or eclipses, and early Roman poetry concentrated on historical subjects (Naevius’ Bellum Punicum and Ennius’ Annales). But the first Roman to write prose history, Fabius Pictor, wrote in Greek, and it was Cato the Censor in his Origines who first wrote history in Latin. The earliest texts treating historical material in Rome are extant only in fragments and so our understanding of them is necessarily limited and speculative. Romans deployed a wide vocabulary to signify writings about the past, including annales (“annals”), facta et dicta (“deeds and words”), historia (“history”), memoria (“memory”), and res gestae (“accomplishments”). Although these terms are conceptually interrelated and sometimes have a coterminous semantic range (indeed, they are sometimes used interchangeably), they express different nuances. Historia, for example, signifies investigations, while annales suggests an annual, year-by-year, chronicle. Roman history is generally considered to be a senatorial genre, written by men with political experience to edify and entertain their elite compatriots. Roman history was thus deeply moralizing and exemplary, offering a paradigm of behavior for the elite to emulate or avoid. To be effective, it was expected to hold the reader’s attention and to exhilarate. The chronological scope of Roman history could begin with the

c08_Vol1.indd 526

founding of Rome down to some past event or the historian’s own day; it might be restricted to contemporary affairs; or it might be a monograph on a circumscribed event (e.g., the Catilinarian conspiracy). In terms of substance, Roman history usually covered both domestic and foreign affairs and typically focused on political, military, and legal history. Relevant material included political debates and developments, for example conflicts between the people (plebs) and the aristocratic elite (optimates); the identity and character of office holders or significant individuals; the deaths of famous men; prodigies and other religiously significant material; natural (or other) disasters such as disease; and the details of a military campaign. Roman history was often patriotic in nature and exalted the Roman people and state. Only one treatise on historical writing is extant from antiquity, Lucian’s quomodo historia conscribenda sit—but it is late and, because it is satirical, presents its own difficulties (the tone of Cicero Ad. Fam. 5.12, in which he asks Lucceius to write a history of him raises similar problems). Consequently, to reconstruct ancient theories of history, scholars must be satisfied with piecing together ideas articulated by various authors with differing agendas in diverse genres and from different eras. Clear enough is that classical historians and rhetoricians understood history to be a literary and highly rhetorical craft, described by Quintilian as close to poetry (10.1.31). The precise relationship between history and rhetoric (a connection explored by Cicero in de Legibus 1.5 and de Oratore 2.51–64) continues to generate controversy, however, in part because scholars today disagree on how such passages understand historical truth. Nevertheless, a key aim of ancient historiography, like oratory, was to move and to persuade. To that end, ancient historians deployed and elaborated stock figures and events, embellished their material, and following the rhetorical practice of inventio had a freer hand in composing their material, for example inventing fictive (but plausible) speeches. Thus, although classical authors anticipate the critical attitude toward the relationship between writing, language, and reality that characterizes the linguistic and rhetorical turns in our last century, it was the publication of Hayden White’s Metahistory (1975) that ultimately

28-04-2023 18:01:06

historiography  

revolutionized the study of Greek and Roman history by turning classicists away from nineteenthcentury notions of scientific, objective, and positivist theories to appreciate ancient historical literature and culture on their own terms. The majority of classical scholars today understand that ancient conceptions of historical writing and its integral elements—its conventions of genre, style, and content—such as bias and impartiality, truth and falsehood, fact and fiction, subject matter, narrative structure (especially chronology), and indeed the very purpose of history should not be assumed to be synonymous with our own expectations or to reflect contemporary popular notions of objective or veridical history.

TACITEAN HISTORIOGRAPHY All of Tacitus’ writings contain historical elements: the Agricola a brief recent history of the conquest of Britain (and paired speeches—a feature of historiography), the Dialogus de Oratoribus a history of eloquence and rhetoric (and its decline), and the Germania a spotted history of Germanic tribes. But Tacitus wrote two major historical works and in reverse chronological order: Histories (covering 69–96 ce), and From the Death of Augustus (Ab excessu divi Augusti, usually referred to as Annals) covering 14–69 ce. Because most of the Roman historical writing from the first century ce is lost, we cannot place Tacitus precisely into his immediate historiographical context, although he does occasionally mention his sources, and his style indicates his affinity to Sallust, whom he highly praises and emulates (A. 3.30.2). Still, we know enough about Roman historiography to understand how Tacitus conforms to, subverts, or otherwise manipulates its conventions to his own ends, and we can gain insight into his method by contrasting his work with contemporary biographers like Suetonius and Plutarch (who sometimes share his subject matter) or earlier imperial historians like Velleius Paterculus. Both Histories and Annals, for example, are annalistic in format, thus suggesting allegiance to republican history against imperial biography (which revolves around the details of the life of

c08_Vol1.indd 527

527

the princeps). Still, Tacitus does not always follow annalistic structure (Annals, for example, does not begin with the consular year), and his distortions of time are significant: the narrative struggle between annalistic and imperial chronology points to a broader significance that reflects a competition between republican and imperial modes of politics. Tacitus’ work is uniquely crucial for our understanding of the transition from republic to empire and the effects of this transformation on its social history, language, culture, and beyond. Although both Histories and Annals treat an expansive range of conventional historical subjects, what makes these works exceptional is Tacitus’ critical engagement with the principate. Working in the Thucydidean and Sallustian tradition of critical history, Tacitus does not simply chronicle Roman affairs, nor only explains the causes and effects of Rome’s metamorphosis from republic to principate, but offers a ruthless, clinical analysis of the nature, method, and logic of the imperial system. His work illuminates a government that mendaciously insists itself to be a restored republic, a charade he unmasks to expose the realities of its imperial rhetoric, propaganda, and power. In this way Tacitus’ work is not patriotic nor a straightforward glorification of Rome but emphasizes and diagnoses instead its moral and political failings, which his dissects. Other notable novelties about Tacitean historiography are the introduction of historically unconventional material such as (Roman) dynastic affairs, especially dynastic successions (the Agricola is written under the backdrop of the new Nervan-Antonine regime, to which it repeatedly draws attention, while both historical works practically begin with a crisis in succession and trace its aftermath). Tacitus also focuses on conventionally politically marginalized figures like women and nonelites (e.g., freedmen; slaves), and represents them as now able to insinuate themselves in government and acquire power by ingratiating themselves with or actually manipulating principes. In so doing, Tacitus recognizes the role of traditionally marginalized figures as a driving force in history. This handling of the material maximizes poignant, ironic reversals and collapses important binaries: the nominally republican Roman state comes to resemble an

28-04-2023 18:01:06

528

  historiography

Eastern dynastic monarchy like its enemy Parthia (parallels brought out in prominent interludes, as at A. 2.1ff; 12.44ff, but c.f. A. 16.23); (bankrupt) senators are shown to be at the mercy of (rich) freedman; and northern barbarians fight for libertas and self-determination at a time when the Roman Senate pathetically enslaves itself to the princeps.

PURPOSE AND FUNCTION OF HISTORY In their prefatory statements, the majority of classical historians explicitly state their views that historical writing has a didactic, utilitarian purpose: historical instruction, moral and political edification, and entertainment. But Tacitus, whether in his prefaces or in important programmatic passages, never explicitly or clearly furnishes us with a statement of purpose, and when he does seem to do so, writes so obscurely and ambiguously such that it is never absolutely clear to the careful reader what overarching moral, historical, or didactic principles guide his work— what the purpose or value of his historical writings are. For example, he suggests that his work improves or corrects previous histories when he issues claims to impartiality (H. 1.1; A. 1.1), implies his work is exemplary (H. 1.3; A. 3.65, 4.32.2), and asserts that he will offer explanations, causes, or reasons for events (H. 1.4; A. 4.32–33), but he never explicitly explains how or why these are useful or significant. This obfuscation invites readers to consider for themselves what utility, if any, history might offer, and leaves open the possibility that for Tacitus, in an autocratic political system that restricts political agency and action, historical knowledge is generally restricted to a commemorative rather than pragmatic function.

CAUSATION/ETIOLOGY Tacitus supplies numerous causative forces for historical action, including fate and fortuna, politics, economics, the military and warfare,

c08_Vol1.indd 528

and the environment (e.g., when the moonlight tips the scales of in favor of a Flavian victory at the second battle of Bedriacum, H. 3.23). He also gives significant weight to the irrational in history and illustrates how this can be a motivating basis for historical action: dreams; fear (legitimate or unfounded—for example Tiberius’ fear of Germanicus); rumor (usually false, but sometimes true); sexual desire (see sexual deviance); and misinterpretation or miscommunication. But arguably the foremost causative agent in Tacitus, and the one that underpins all the aforementioned, is human nature—and more specifically human psychology—whose portrait Tacitus is a brilliant pioneer. After supplying overt, external, or professed causative reasons for action, Tacitus often peels these back to explore and uncover internal, usually secret, darker emotional and psychological motives. (For example, the charge of treason brought against Granius Marcellus by Caepio Crispinus and Romanius Hispo was not out of their love for the state or its laws, but a desire for power and money, A. 1.74.) Human motives in Tacitus range from the noble to the base to the banal: desire for liberty (both of Romans such as Thrasea Paetus [A. 16.24] and barbarians such as Calgacus [Ag. 30] or Caratacus [A. 12.34]); lust for the political or financial benefits social status confers (desired especially by freedmen, but also women like Agrippina the Younger, A. 12.3); or the restlessness of bored soldiers who desire to see action. In excavating the human psyche, Tacitus does not simplify all his subjects by representing them as entirely one way or another; many of them harbor ambivalent or contradictory desires and impulses and may not always be aware of these themselves (in this sense it is meaningful to think of Tacitus as an analyst of the subconscious avant la lettre). Tacitus also articulates an intimate, intertwined relationship between human psychology and power, itself an object of his analysis and a closely related causative agent. Indeed, his work can be summarized as an analysis and history of human interaction with power: desire for it, struggle over it, fear of it, reaction to it; its manifold—though usually intoxicating and corrosive—effects on individuals and groups.

28-04-2023 18:01:06

historiography  

STYLE Tacitus is a supreme literary artist and a masterful dramatist. His histories are painterly and cinematic: they are vivid, imbued with rhetorical color, epic in scope, with exciting pacing and focal shifts. Every page evidences his perfectionism and obsessive attention to detail, from the finest minutiae such as descriptions of facial expressions and tone of voice, to his carefully crafted mise en scène, to the large-scale architectural arrangement and organization of his works. His writings contain numerous immortal characters like the inscrutable, tragic, lonely Tiberius, and unforgettable episodes such as the inexorable, brutal Flavian march on Rome and the swift, peripeteian fall of Vitellius. Allusions to Vergil and Lucan lend his work a strongly poetic flavor, for example intertexts between Germanicus’ visit to the site of the Varian disaster and the Aeneid. But it would be a mistake to consider all of Tacitus solemn or gloomy (as is often the case): he is also a satirist and a humorist of the first order, aspects of his writing not yet sufficiently appreciated. His vignette of Silius’ wedding to Messalina is tragicomic and borders on the farcical (A. 11.26 ff), and even Nero’s assassination attempt on Agrippina has a touch of the comic and slapstick for the mishaps and incompetence of Anicetus, the freedman entrusted to dispatched the deed (A. 14.3.3 ff). More often, Tacitus’ humor is bitter, contemptuous, or sardonic, a tool for mocking the absurdities of the early Roman Empire and its ridiculous potentates. Although Histories and Annals are not identical in style, both are marked by obscure or archaizing vocabulary, unnatural word order, rare or unusual grammatical constructions, inconcinnity (imbalanced periods and false parallels), elevated diction, periphrasis, and irony and innuendo. Moreover, Tacitus employs various narrative strategies that include representing multiple, sometimes contradictory perspectives that stand unresolved; he offers alternative explanations (the so-called “loaded alternative”) without endorsing any, and he repeats rumors (explicitly identified as such) which he does not substantiate. He even goes out of his way to offer an impression of a person or episode that diverges from the facts that he himself asserts about them. The cumulative

c08_Vol1.indd 529

529

result is a complicated, condensed, polyphonic, ambiguous, often misleading style that is a masterpiece of misdirection. In the past (and under the spell of the aforementioned objective theories of history), Tacitus was maligned for deploying these devices: his insinuations, because they imputed (without explicitly stating) guilt were seen as malicious, disingenuous, and irresponsible, as was his noncommittal attitude to any one of the multiple versions he related. His damning portrait of imperial Romans was believed to be tendentious and especially rancorous (despite claims to the contrary in his prefaces), and his apparent contradictions called into question his historical reliability and integrity. Today Tacitus’ idiosyncratic register and style are understood to be central to his historical method. On this view, by reproducing rumors, multiple perspectives, and competing voices, Tacitus captures and conveys the atmosphere, tensions, and complexities of lived experience in the world of the early empire as he saw it. Moreover, contradictions between the narrative in his authorial voice and a character’s direct discourse, between two characters, or indeed within characters themselves are now explained not as authorial mistakes or oversights, but as a technique for artful and realistic characterization. These are now also seen as a method of encouraging readers to evaluate the claims, beliefs, and ideas of any given figure against those of the narrator or other characters—a deliberate strategy for inviting readers to probe a host of programmatic themes, for example discrepancies between words and deeds or pretense and truth. In this light, a factual error in the speech of a character might be an illustration of their failure of judgment (they believe the error to be true and reveal themselves to be ignorant) or a quiet authorial spotlighting of their deceitfulness (they are deliberately promoting what they know to be an error and are thus shown to be insincere and manipulative). In short, by focusing on minute details and the particular, Tacitus seems to reveal universal laws of human nature and elaborates how these inform politics and power, encapsulated best by his electric sententiae, for example at Ag. 42.2: proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris (“it is a feature of the human character to hate those whom you harm”). Tacitus’ historical works employ enargeia,

28-04-2023 18:01:06

530

  Hordeonius F laccus

immersing readers in the text and bringing the material before their eyes. They are also highly self-conscious and metahistorical, with numerous passages that reflect on the process of history-making. By consistently challenging the reader and subverting their expectations, these writings demand a culturally specific mode of engagement from the reader in which they must actively participate in the construction of their meaning. In so doing, Tacitus’ language implicitly articulates a theory of history in which affect transmits valuable historical knowledge in addition to the historical facts or information. see also: Annals; battle narrative; digression; empire; exemplarity; Histories; ideology; metahistory; morality; philosophy; style; syntax REFERENCE White, H. 1975. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. FURTHER READING Marincola, J. 1997. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, R. 1981. Tacitus. Berkeley and Los Angeles. Wiseman, T. P. 1981. “Practice and Theory in Roman Historiography.” History 66: 375–393. Woodman, A. J. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies. London, Sydney and Portland: Routledge.

HISTRIA, see SCRIBONIANUS CAMERINUS HOMANADENSES, see CILICIA HOMER, see GREEK POETS HORACE, see ROMAN POETS HORATIUS PULVILLUS, see CAPITOLIUM

HORDEONIUS FLACCUS NICHOLAS DEE

Bowling Green State University

Hordeonius Flaccus (d. 69 ce) was legate of Upper Germany from 68 ce until his death, during which

c08_Vol1.indd 530

time he served Galba, Vitellius, and Vespasian. His tenure in Germany was marred by poor physical health (including gout: H. 1.9.1; Plut. G. 18.4), indolence, and ineffectiveness. His support of the Flavian cause, combined with his poor overall leadership, made him unpopular with the mutinous pro-Vitellian German legions, by whom he was executed at the end of 69 ce. Succeeding in office the beloved Verginius Rufus (Plut. G. 10), Hordeonius Flaccus was appointed legate of Upper Germany by Galba in 68 ce (H. 1.9.1; Plut. G. 18.3), though stood idly by as a revolt against the emperor erupted in his province in early January 69 (H. 1.56.1; Plut. G. 22). His negative qualities and totally ineffective leadership, which at this point were already apparent, helped embolden the legate of Lower Germany and eventual emperor, Aulus Vitellius, to launch his bid for imperial power (H. 1.52). During Vitellius’ war against the challenger Vespasian, the pro-Flavian Flaccus advised Iulius Civilis to feign rebellion against Rome and thereby detain Vitellius’ armies in the northern provinces (H. 4.13.2–3; see also 4.27.2, 5.26.3). Thus Flaccus ignored and downplayed Civilis’ earliest successes (H. 4.15–16). Eventually, news of the Romans’ defeat at the hands of the nascent Batavian Revolt and expulsion from the Batavian homeland compelled Flaccus to send Munius Lupercus to (unsuccessfully) combat the threat (H. 4.18.1–4). Flaccus’ tendency to overindulge his German auxiliaries’ demands for more pay prepared the way for another defection: Canninefates and Batavian cohorts, while en route to Italy, turned back north to join Iulius Civilis’ rebellion (H. 4.19.2). Though the decision not to pursue the defectors was neither entirely unreasonable nor Flaccus’ alone, it was arrived at indecisively and sloppily (H. 4.19.1–3) and to the detriment of the Roman military position in Germany (H. 4.21.1). The pro-Vitellian legions now came to despise Flaccus, accusing him of abetting the Flavians, making secret alliances with the Flavian-allied Civilis (H. 4.13.2, 54.1), and thereby provoking war between Vitellius and Vespasian (H. 4.19.3, 24.1–2). Going forward, the disastrously mutinous legions repeatedly attributed their military failures to Flaccus’ Flavian allegiance (H. 4.19.3, 27.2–3, 77.3). Flaccus, owing to his physical unfitness (he was so sickly that gave his orders from a

28-04-2023 18:01:06

Hormus  

couch in his bedroom; H. 4.24.2) and extreme unpopularity, delegated to legionary legate Dillius Vocula the leadership of select forces tasked with lifting the siege at Vetera (H. 4.24.1). But the already enraged legions’ mistrust deepened when the arrival of a letter from Vespasian implied further Flavian collusion (H. 4.24.3). Flaccus’ swift denouncement of the letter only bought him time before the next mutiny at Bonna, during which the legions demanded Vocula replace him as general: Flaccus acquiesced, voluntarily relinquishing his field command (though he apparently retained his position as provincial governor; see Chilver and Townend 1985, 44; H. 4.25.1–4). At Gelduba, Flaccus was dragged from his tent, beaten, and imprisoned; only Vocula’s intervention saved him from execution (H. 4.27.1–2). Upon news of Antonius Primus’ victory at Cremona in October 69 ce, Flaccus attempted to swear the German legions into Vespasian’s allegiance, but the common soldiers were unready to accept a new emperor (H. 4.31.2). Finally, during another mutiny at Novaesium, the soldiers’ previous grudges, compounded with Flaccus’ recent decision to give them Vitellius’ donative in Vespasian’s name, led them in a drunken frenzy to drag Flaccus from his bed at night and murder him (4.36.1–2). After Flaccus’ murder, the Batavian Revolt widened in scope, as the conspiracy between Civilis and the Gauls became known (4.55.1). see also: disability; Herennius Gallus; Germani, Germania; mutinies; Numisius Rufus Reference work: PIR2 H 202 REFERENCE Chilver, G.E.F., and G. B. Townend, eds. 1985. A Historical Commentary on Tacitus’ Histories IV and V. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Brunt, P. A. 1960. “Tacitus on the Batavian Revolt.” Latomus 19: 494–517. Murison, C. L. 1993. Galba Otho and Vitellius: Careers and Controversies. Zürich: Olms.

c08_Vol1.indd 531

531

HORMUS NICHOLAS DEE

Bowling Green State University

Hormus was an imperial freedman (Caesaris libertus) and military general of the Flavian regime who contributed to the victory at the Second Battle of Bedriacum in 69 ce. He was granted equestrian status by the Senate on 1 January 70. Hormus seems to have wielded considerable influence in the campaign waged by Antonius Primus against the Vitellian forces, though details are scant. When Lucilius Bassus, who had defected from Vitellius to Vespasian, was imprisoned by praefectus alae Memmius Rufinus (see Vivennius Rufinus), Hormus immediately freed him. Tacitus explains: “He [Hormus] too was considered one of the leaders” (is quoque inter duces habebatur, H. 3.12.3). The phrasing reveals the historian’s contempt, a typical stance toward freedmen (see, e.g., Mellor 2010, 145–156). Later, during the Second Battle of Bedriacum, Tacitus names Hormus as one of the two possible Flavian leaders (the other being Antonius Primus) who reinvigorated the fighting spirit of the men assaulting the Vitellian rampart: in a move pivotal to the battle, one of these two men “pointed out” (monstrassent) Cremona, and seemingly thereby offered it up as the spoils of future victory (H. 3.27.3–28.1). Given our general lack of biographical information, it is unclear how this act, if indeed committed by Hormus, would be in keeping with his life and reputation, as Tacitus asserts (H. 3.28.1). Vipstanus Messalla, who according to Tacitus credited the act to Hormus, is often considered to be Tacitus’ primary source for this battle (see Syme 1958, 177); his military service under Antonius Primus gives him ample cause to deflect blame onto Hormus. Pliny the Elder, who according to Tacitus blamed Antonius Primus, seems generally to have toed the Flavian party line (see, e.g., Cornell 2014, 533). Tacitus’ studied refusal to commit to either source leads to no outright condemnation, but rather skillfully tarnishes the reputations of all involved (see Wellesley 1972, 15). Amid a description of some of the rewards and punishments meted out by the Senate on 1

28-04-2023 18:01:06

532

  Hortensius Hortalus , M arcus

January 70 (after Flavian victory) is the stark notice: “Equestrian status was granted to Hormus” (Hormo dignitas equestris data, H. 4.39.1). That Hormus’ elevation is noted alongside those of higher-status men once again implies the freedman’s influence and the historian’s contempt. A praising reference to a Hormus in a brief epigram of Martial’s (Mart. 2.15) may refer to the freedman, but evidence is lacking either way (see Williams 2004, 77). see also: equestrians; freedmen REFERENCES Cornell, T. J. 2014. The Fragments of the Roman Historians. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mellor, Ronald. 2010. Tacitus’ Annals. New York: Oxford University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wellesley, Kenneth, ed. 1972. Cornelius Tacitus, The Histories Book III. Adelaide, Australia: Sydney University Press. Williams, Craig A. 2004. Martial: Epigrams Book Two. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Damon, Cynthia. 2006. “Potior utroque Vespasianus: Vespasian and his Predecessors in Tacitus’ Histories.” Arethusa 39: 245–279.

HORTENSIUS, see CICERO

HORTENSIUS HORTALUS, MARCUS OLIVIERDEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

In 16 ce, as the Senate held a session on the Palatine, Marcus Hortensius Hortalus asked Tiberius for financial assistance. His four sons, who were not yet senators, and too poor to become so, were standing at the doors of the curia. Tiberius frankly expressed his refusal to the request made by Hortalus; as his words were received in silence or with murmurs by the most

c08_Vol1.indd 532

numerous senators, Tiberius understood that they disagreed with him. He then moderated his position and bestowed 200,000 sesterces on each of the children of male sex of Hortalus. Following this, he no longer helped Hortalus or his house (A. 2.37–38). This episode is also evoked by Suetonius (Tib. 47.2–3). The biographer reports that Tiberius declared that he would financially support no senators unless they proved to the Senate that there were legitimate causes to their neediness; Suetonius adds that most impoverished senators, and namely Hortalus, refrained from applying, either out of modesty or out of shame. In his first mention of Hortalus, Tacitus refers to him by the genitive Marci Hortali (A. 2.37.1). Maybe Marci is the genitive of the nomen Marcius, not of the praenomen Marcus. If so, this senator would be to be identified with Marcius Hortalus, praetor peregrine in ce 25, possibly also with Lucius Marcius, proconsul of Cyprus (Corbier 1991; also Briscoe 1993). If so, he was a relative of Augustus. In any case, the Hortalus who appealed to Tiberius was a grandson of the famous orator Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (114–150 bce, consul 69), after whom Cicero named his lost dialogue Hortensius or De Philosophia (the work is cited at D. 16.7) in which he quoted him many times (esp. in the Brutus). After being close to Sulla, Quintus Hortensius died fighting for Brutus and Cassius at Philippi. Moreover, his domus, on the southwest slope of the Palatine, was acquired by Augustus. So, in the episode narrated in the Annals, Marcus Hortalus humbles himself in a place close to the property of his ancestors and in front of the bust of his grandfather (Corbier 1992). The decor takes part in the drama, and its potent memory weighs on the debate. Speaking in a place which recalls both Augustus and his own ancestor Hortensius, Marcus Hortalus creates a concurrence between the remembrance of the republican Palatine and the current context of the imperial Palatine. This ambiguity between the two periods permeates the debate, Hortalus referring to the republican illustriousness of his family, even though he has to ensure its survival under conditions imposed on him by the princes; similarly, although he speaks in front of the senators, he addresses the emperor, and the emperor himself, although personally requested by Hortalus, cares about the reactions of the senators. Between these two periods, between these two regimes, stands

28-04-2023 18:01:06

H yrcani  

out Augustus, named five times in A. 2.37–38. He is both an authoritarian figure for the Romans— he basically commanded to Marcus Hortalus to raise a family—and an essential reference for his successor. Tacitus thus shows the central place that the emperor occupies in public life. He favors a political approach, highlighting the centrality of the emperor, rather than a moral approach. At the same time, he underlines the lack of understanding between Tiberius and the senators. see also: luxury; memory; Senate Reference works: PIR2 H 210 (M. Hortalus); FRH, n°31 REFERENCES Briscoe, John. 1993. “The Grandson of Hortensius.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 95: 249–250. Corbier, Mireille. 1991. “La descendance d’Hortensius et de Marcia.” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Antiquité 103.2: 665–701. Corbier, Mireille. 1992. “De la maison d’Hortensius à la curia sur le Palatin.” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Antiquité 104.2: 871–916. FURTHER READINGS Cowan, Eleanor. 2009. “Tacitus, Tiberius and Augustus.” Classical Antiquity 28.2: 179–210. Hurlet, Frédéric. 2016. “L’envers du prestige: les sénateurs désargentés sous les Julio-Claudiens (29 av. J.-C.-68 apr. J.-C.” In Le Prestige à Rome à la fin de la République et au début du Principat, edited by Robinson Baudry and Frédéric Hurlet, 265–279. Paris: Éditions De Boccard.

HORTENSIUS HORTALUS, Quintus, see HORTENSIUS HORTALUS, MARCUS

HOSTILIA MIK LARSEN

California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona

Hostilia (modern Ostiglia) was a village in Northern Italy in the Po Valley which served as a secondary base of operations for the Vitellianist

c08_Vol1.indd 533

533

forces during and after the conflict around Cremona in September and October of 69 bce. Hostilia was a settlement in the Po Valley located on the Via Claudia Augusta, roughly forty miles east of Cremona and settled by the citizens of Verona (H. 3.9). In September of 69 ce, the Vitellian commander Aulus Caecina Severus, with his main forces stationed at Cremona, placed an advanced guard at Hostilia (H. 2.100). When the Flavian forces arrived and seized Verona, Caecina fortified a camp between Hostilia and the marshes of the river Tartarus to its north (H. 3.9). After Caecina was imprisoned for treachery to Vitellius, the army fell back to Hostilia, then destroyed a bridge and retired to Cremona (H. 3.14), whereupon the major battle occurred there. The reinforcing army of Fabius Valens dispatched by Vitellius was advised to take a position at Hostilia, but he took flight before his army reached the area (H. 3.40–43). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Padus Reference work: Barrington 39 A2, 40 I3 FURTHER READING Wellesley, Kenneth. 1956. “Three Historical Puzzles in Histories 3.” Classical Quarterly 6: 207–214.

HYPERIDES, see GREEK ORATORS

HYRCANI LEE E. PATTERSON

Eastern Illinois University

The Hyrcani were an Iranian-speaking people who settled in a region at the southeast corner of the Caspian Sea that came to be named Hyrcania after them (modern Gorgan). This region neighbored the homeland of the Parthians (see Parthia), the term Hyrcania even coming to apply to both regions (Boyce 2000, 159). From the beginning of the Arsacid period (third century bce, see Arsacid dynasty) Hyrcania was politically associated with that dynasty (Just. Epit.

28-04-2023 18:01:06

534

  H yrcani

41.4.8; Strabo 11.9.2), in particular a branch of the Arsacids descended from the Great King Mithridates II (Olbrycht 2012, 216). This branch included Artabanus II and his son Gotarzes II. During the reign of Vologaeses I, who hailed from a different branch, the Hyrcani were actively trying to throw off the Arsacid yoke. Hyrcania potentially was a place of refuge for Artabanus in the troubled final years of his reign. In 36 the great king fled eastward after the Romans supported a rival king named Tiridates. Tacitus says that Artabanus had marriage ties with the Hyrcani and the Carmanii (A. 6.36.4), in addition to having grown up in the nearby domain of the Dahae (A. 2.3.1). When Tacitus goes on to say that some of Tiridates’ erstwhile allies, now defecting to Artabanus, found him in Hyrcania in squalor and relying on his bow for food (A. 6.43.2), that is likely a literary convention (Woodman 2017, 263). Indeed, Artabanus eventually regained his throne with the help of Scythian cavalry, who would have come from the vicinity of Hyrcania (A. 6.44.1). Likewise, his son Gotarzes was aided by horsemen of the Hyrcani and Dahae in his civil war against his brother Vardanes in the early 40s (A. 11.8.4). At some point Gotarzes retreated to Hyrcania by agreement with Vardanes before changing his mind and leading a force once again westward. Vardanes temporarily got the upper hand over his brother and eventually defeated the Dahae and Hyrcani along the river Sindes, forcing them to pay tribute (A. 11.9.4–10.3). By the time of Vologaeses I, the Hyrcani had risen up in revolt, eager to win their independence from Arsacid rule. The timing was particularly inconvenient as he presently faced, in the late 50s, an acute crisis on his western frontier: an attempt

c08_Vol1.indd 534

by the Romans to dislodge his brother Tiridates from Armenia (A. 13.37.5). Evidently the Hyrcani sent a delegation to Nero to propose an alliance, which then received an armed escort from Nero’s general Domitius Corbulo along a route that bypassed Arsacid territory (A. 14.25.2), but nothing more can be said about this venture. By 60 ce, Vologaeses made peace with the Hyrcani, which freed him to pursue his Armenian venture more vigorously (A. 15.2.4). Reference work: Barrington 96 C2; 3 F2 REFERENCES Boyce, M. 2000. “Gotarzes Geopothros, Artabanus III, and the Kingdom of Hyrcania.” In Variatio Delectat: Iran und der Westen: Gedenkschrift für Peter Calmeyer, edited by R. Dittmann, et al., 155–166. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Olbrycht, M. J. 2012. “The Political-Military Strategy of Artabanos/Ardawān II in AD 34–37.” Anabasis 3: 215–238. Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Bivar, A. D. H. “GORGĀN v. Pre-Islamic History.” Encyclopaedia Iranica 11.2: 151–153. http://www. iranicaonline.org/articles/gorgan-v. Brunner, C. J. “IRAN v. Peoples of Iran (2) PreIslamic.” Encyclopaedia Iranica 13.3: 326–336. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ iran-v2-peoples-pre-islamic.

HYRCANIA, see HYRCANI HYRCANIS, see EARTHQUAKE OF 17 ce

28-04-2023 18:01:06

I IAZYGES, see SARMATIANS

IBERIA VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Iberia (also spelled Hiberia; modern Georgia) was an ancient kingdom located in Transcaucasia, the area between the Black and Caspian Seas, across which runs the Caucasus mountains that formed a substantial barrier with Colchis to the northwest. Iberia was bordered by Armenia to the south. Colchis and Iberia occupied a central place in the GrecoRoman imagination as a peripheral location that raised ethical questions about colonization, sea travel, magic, marriage, gender, and ethnicity (Braund 1994, 8). Because of its proximity to Armenia, Iberia was brought into the conflicts between Rome and Parthia. Pompey the Great was the first Roman general to invade in 65 bce, as part of the ongoing conflict with Mithridates Eupator. His campaigns resulted in extending Rome’s sphere of influence (Braund 1994, 168), but due to the ensuing civil wars, Roman authority was “discredited, even ignored” (Braund 1994, 170). It was not until 37/36 bce that Publius Canidius Crassus retraced Pompey’s route into Iberia. After Actium, Iberia pledged friendship with Octavian. In his survey of the empire, Tacitus catalogs “the neighboring Iberian and Albanian and

other kings, who are protected by our expanse against foreign powers” (A. 4.5.2). Tacitus also includes a brief digression on the mythological origins of the Iberians and Albani that recounts the native legend that they descended from Jason, and because of him they tended the oracle Phrixus, to which they did not sacrifice rams because of the associations of Phrixus with rams (A. 6.34.2). Under Tiberius, Mithridates Hiberus was installed as king of Armenia in the year 35 ce (A. 6.32.3), but he was eventually usurped and murdered by the machinations of his brother Pharasmanes, king of Iberia, who enlisted his son Radamistus to invade Armenia (A. 12.44– 47). Tacitus is our only extant source for the story of Radamistus and his wife, Zenobia. Cornered in the palace in Armenia, Radamistus fled with his pregnant wife, who faltered on the journey and begged for an honorable death over the ignominy of captivity. After an emotional exchange, he wounded her and cast her in the Araxes River, thinking even her corpse would be delivered from humiliation. However, she lived and was rescued by shepherds who, learning her name, took her to Artaxata, where she was escorted to Tiridates and treated very well (A. 12.51). Braund suggests this is due to the importance that Iberia played in the summer of 114 ce, that is, during Tacitus’ own lifetime: “Trajan had recently received the Iberians, not for the first time, into the fides of the Roman people” (Braund 1994, 232; see also Woodman 2009, 40–41). Thereafter, the king of Iberia became an integral part of the eastern frontier (Braund 1994, 235).

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume I, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c09_Vol1.indd 535

28-04-2023 18:00:41

536

  Ice lus M arcianus

see also: Caelius Pollio; Casperius; Iulius Paelignus; Sarmatians; Ummidius Quadratus Reference work: Barrington 88 B 2 REFERENCES Braund, David. 1994. Georgia in Antiquity: A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia 550 bc-ad 562. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woodman, A. J. 2009. “Tacitus and the Contemporary Scene.” In Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 31–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Ash, R. 1999. “An Exemplary Conflict: Tacitus’ Parthia Battle Narrative (“Annals” 6.34–35).” Phoenix 53.1/2: 114–135. Dąbrowa, E. 1989. “Roman Policy in Transcaucasia from Pompey to Domitian.” In The Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire, edited by D. H. French and C. S. Lightfoot, 67–76. BAR 553. Part 1. Oxford: British Institute of Archaeology.

ICELUS MARCIANUS ELIZABETH KEITEL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Icelus Marcianus was the most influential freedman of Galba. Icelus, along with Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco, was a member of Galba’s inner circle. Galba was old and tired, and the actual power of his principate (potentia principatus) was divided between Vinius, Laco, and Icelus (H. 1.13.1; cf. Plut. Galb. 20.4 and Suet. Galb. 14.2). Popular opinion at the time believed that everything was for sale under Galba: venalia cuncta, since his freedmen and slaves were so greedy (H. 1.7.3). According to Otho, Icelus acquired more wealth in Galba’s seven -month reign than three freedmen of Nero did in his (H. 1.37.5). When the praetorian guards abandoned Galba for Otho, Galba consulted his advisers. Titus Vinius urged Galba to stay in the palace while Vinius and Icelus opposed him. When Vinius objected, Laco threatened him, egged on by Icelus,

c09_Vol1.indd 536

“who persisted in his personal enmity towards Vinius to the ruin of the state” (H. 1.33.2). Once Otho seized power, all three advisors were killed. Icelus, as befits a freedman, was crucified (H. 1.46.5). see also: crucifixion Reference work: PIR2 I 16 FURTHER READING Keitel, E. 2006. “Sententia and Structure in Tacitus Histories 1.12–49.” Arethusa 39.2: 219–244.

ICENI, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI IDA, see CRETE

IDEOLOGY GEORGE BAROUD

Emerson College

Ideology is a capacious and contested term, successively redefined by the thinkers who have theorized it. In common parlance today ideology has come to indicate a shared system of beliefs that understand some aspect of the world to be natural or true. But the term, a neologism coined by Destutt de Tracy in the intellectual and political context of the French Enlightenment and Revolution, originally denoted a science of ideas: their formation, genealogy, and nature, and their relationship to the material world and human cognition (de Tracy 1817). De Tracy argued that such a science would serve as a foundational discipline upon which to build true knowledge. This, in turn, would have applied political implications: the ordering and organizing of society on rational principles and a correct understanding of real truth. Napoleon, initially associated with the ideologues and their republican, pedagogic program, was the first to use this term pejoratively when he turned on them in his increasing despotism. The term has come to be associated with Marx and Marxists, who adopted and elaborated it, but there is no one Marxist definition of ideology. For Karl Marx himself, the class which controls the means of material production also

28-04-2023 18:00:41

ideo l og y  

controls the means of mental production (Marx 1998). Ideology is thus the legal, political, religious, aesthetic, and philosophic set of ideas advanced by the bourgeoisie to uphold its own material interests at the expense of the working class, who accept and even identify with these values. Ideology, then, is a distortion of reality and the real material conditions, one which makes institutions and social constructs seem natural or inevitable. Although ideology on its strict definition is anachronistic to Tacitus and Rome (itself neither a modern nor a capitalist state), it is a productive analytical lens that illuminates our understanding of both. Tacitus himself is an ideologist on de Tracey’s terms insofar as he is a thinker deeply invested in the origin, evolution, and history of ideas, and how they shape (and are shaped by) material practices—for example how the concept of virtus shapes concrete ethical and political actions, and how such repeated actions can in turn (re)define notions of virtus. But because Tacitus’ authorial hallmark is the identification, unmasking, and correcting of false or deceptive narratives, especially of the dominant classes, he is also an analyst of ideology in several Marxist senses. The early Roman empire was founded on Augustus’ pretense of a restored republic and coequal, shared, republican governance. Tacitus’ writings attack this dispensation as a charade and represent Augustan ideas and practices as propaganda designed to legitimate and entrench imperial power and to protect imperial material interests by maintaining monopoly on the power and purse of the state. Indeed, the entire interpretive framework through which we understand the early Roman Empire, and even the very vocabulary we use to describe it, is indebted to Tacitus’ analysis. One of Tacitus’ techniques for countering Augustan and imperial ideology is to identify and rectify the language through which the regime manipulates, falsifies, or distorts reality. In so doing, Tacitus looks back to Sallust’s Cato, who claims that the true meanings of words (uera uocabula) have been lost and virtues consequently reversed (Cat. 52.7) and, further back, to Thucydides’ representation of the breakdown of signifier and signified during the Corcyra stasis

c09_Vol1.indd 537

537

(esp. 3.82.3). For example, Tacitus explains that while the names of (republican) political offices may have remained intact, and while Augustus himself may have only held republican titles, the substance and signification behind these had been radically altered (A. 1.1–2; 1.9–10). For Tacitus, princeps (first citizen) is nothing more than a euphemism for an autocrat, and Augustus’ claims to a res publica restituta (restored republic) is merely a cynical facade that conceals indisputable monarchy. That today we refer to Augustus and the Julio-Claudians as emperors rather than principes and to the Roman state in this period as empire rather than republic is a testament to our own rejection of their ideology, shaped in part by Tacitus’ enduring insight. Tacitus uses an identical technique of semantic correction to voice critiques of Rome’s colonial foreign policy and imperial ideology. In a speech by the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus, Tacitus writes that Romans use lying language (falsis nominibus): they call plunder, slaughter, and rapine “empire” and the wasteland of war, “peace” (Ag. 30). But Tacitus’ analysis of the conquest of Britain also articulates ideas reminiscent of Gramsci’s notions of cultural hegemony, a theory of ideology whereby the bourgeoisie controls the working class through cultural values rather than martial domination (Gramsci 2011). Although Tacitus does not frame his ideas in these precise socioeconomic terms, his work is sensitive to the importance of local upper classes as instruments of (foreign) Roman power, and to the efficacy of mobilizing culture as an attractive tool that secures hegemony by consent. He emphasizes that Agricola’s pacification of the Britons is brought about not only through warfare but also through acculturation (especially of the children of the native elite): Roman clothes, baths, and Latin language and rhetoric. The success of this strategy is evidenced by the British adoption of Roman imperial discourse: they (erroneously) call “civilization” what is really an aspect of their enslavement (…humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset, Ag. 21; Shumate 2012). Tacitus’ work illustrates the means and mechanisms by which ruling classes, including those that are oppressive, maintain themselves and are maintained by others. Tacitus’ writings repeatedly portray the widespread belief in imperial ideology

28-04-2023 18:00:41

538

  ideo l og y

across all classes and illustrates the high level of cooperation between all members of Roman society—regardless of social class, intellectual aptitude, or moral rectitude—in the preservation of this ideological system. For example, senators, freedmen, and slaves all function as volitional surveillance and delators, thus consolidating the power of the hyper-elite ruling family rather than undermining it (as in the notable case against Scribonius Libo Drusus, but cf. also that of Titius Sabinus, A. 2.27; 4.68). Similarly, the Pisonian Conspiracy to overthrow Nero (betrayed by a freedman, Milichus) never seeks to restore the republic, only to substitute the figurehead of the imperial system (A. 15.48), and the so-called “Stoic Opposition” seeks to reform rather than eliminate the ruler. Not even principes themselves (Augustus is a notable exception) are exempt from participating in this “make-believe” (Haynes 2003), and they too can believe in the ideological illusions pioneered by their predecessors. Tacitus’ histories then present an approximate portrait of what Friedrich Engels termed “false consciousness”—the identification of subordinate classes with bourgeois ideology—by illustrating how all classes subordinate to the imperial household (itself a new class one rung above even the elite senators) accept and adopt its ideological program (Engels 1949). But Althusser’s popular definition is also illuminative: ideological belief is not false consciousness, since ideology is the imaginary relationship to real conditions of existence, one that ensures the preservation of the relations of production, and to which all are subject (Althusser 1971). As for Tacitus’ personal ideological commitments, these will remain an enigma. The act of writing itself implies that Tacitus believes his work will be meaningful in the future, a view that is predicated on a number of (ideological) presuppositions about human nature or the nature of power: that these are knowable, constant, and universal. More prominently, the antipathy in his writings to the imperial system and the affinity for conservative mores and republicanism can be analyzed in ideological terms: as a desire for, and struggle over, the means of mental and material production by a member of an increasingly diminished and dispossessed senatorial class. Still, despite his depiction—and critique—of imperial politics as ideological, Tacitus himself also

c09_Vol1.indd 538

exists within Roman ideology, and his voice consequently reflects many of the ideological positions of his time, culture, and class. The most obvious of these is that he takes for granted that Roman government is the entitlement of its male citizens (and preferably of elite men), despite his representation of women as competently wielding power. His writings also betray a deep anxiety about class, in particular the social mobility and newfound political power of freedmen, now able to impinge on the territory of the elite and to challenge their monopoly on finance and political power. This would explain the normative ideas about morality and class that permeate Tacitus’ writing: even when he ironically reverses roles, for example by illustrating a freedwoman like Epicharis (A. 15.61) to be morally superior to a senator; the point of such remarks is precisely that they defy moral and ethical conventions about class and character. What little we know of Tacitus’ life requires us to reconcile that so great a critic of the regime was also its beneficiary—an observation that ideological theory is particularly equipped to clarify. Indeed, the application of ideological theory to his works helps appreciate how even perceptive visionaries and shrewd critics of contemporary politics and culture like Tacitus can themselves be hopelessly trapped within the ideological, conceptual confines of their time, unable to conceive of an alternative world beyond these. see also: historiography; imperium; irony; metahistory; memory; philosophy; reception, nineteenth century; Roman Republic REFERENCES Althusser, L. 1971. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Translated by B. Brewster. London: New Left Books. De Tracy, Destutt. 1817, repr. 2009. A Treatise on Political Economy to Which Is Prefixed a Supplement to a Preceding Work on the Understanding or, Elements of Ideology. Translated by Thomas Jefferson. Auburn, AL: Mises Institute. Engels, F. 1949. “Letter to F. Mehring.” In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Selected Works in Two Volumes, Volume II, 450–453. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Gramsci, A. 2011. Prison Notebooks. Vols. 1–3. Edited by J. A. Buttigieg. New York: Columbia University Press.

28-04-2023 18:00:41

I l ly ricum  

539

Barth, H. 1976. Truth and Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press. Eagleton, T. 1991. Ideology. New York: Verso. Sailor, D. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Berkeley: University of California Press.

At A. 12.58.2, the future emperor Nero speaks to the Senate and Claudius on behalf of Ilium, using Rome’s origin story as well as the connection of the Julian family with Aeneas to secure freedom from taxation for the city (cf. Suet. Claud. 25.3; Ner.7.2). Nero’s connection with Troy is a leitmotif in Tacitus. In A. 11.11 he appears in the Trojan spectacle with Britannicus during Claudius’ Saecular games, and he allegedly sang about the destruction of Troy in the context of the fire of 64 ce. At A. 16.21.1 Thrasea Paetus performs at Patavium’s games, which were connected to that city’s mythological Trojan founder Antenor (cf. Livy 1.1; Verg.Aen.1.242–47).

IDISTAVISO, see STERTINIUS, LUCIUS

see also: games; Rome, myth and history

Haynes, H. 2003. The History of Make-Believe. Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Marx, K. with Engels, F. 1998. The German Ideology. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Shumate, Nancy. 2012. “Postcolonial Approaches to Tacitus.” In Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 476–503. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Press. FURTHER READING

ILIUM PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Ilium (modern Hisarlık; Barrington 56 C2) was a city in northwest Asia Minor (modern Turkey), founded on ancient Troy, the mythological location of Homer’s Iliad. A place imbued with memory for Rome due to the connection to Aeneas and its mythical foundation, Ilium’s appearances in Tacitus refer to this tradition, indicating the importance of mythology in diplomatic interactions between the Greek east and Rome. In A. 2.54.2, Ilium is visited by Germanicus in his ill-fated trip east, where Tacitus provides a presaging gloss on Germanicus’ future by mentioning the city as a place of varied fortune, as well as it being the site of Rome’s mythical origin. In A. 4.55.2, in the context of the various cities from Asia arguing their case for being the location of a new temple to Tiberius, Livia Augusta, and the Senate, the envoys from Ilium reportedly accentuated their antiquity and parentage of Rome, though this strategy was ultimately unsuccessful. At A. 6.12.3, Ilium is mentioned in a short historical gloss as a place from where Sibylline oracles were sought after the burning of the Capitol in 83 bce, in a wider discussion on the role of the Quindecemviri, Senate, and princeps in the acceptance and rejection of new Sibylline poems, showing Tacitus’ own experience as a quindecemvir.

c09_Vol1.indd 539

Reference works: Barrington 56 C2; BNP Troy; OCD3 Ilium FURTHER READING Erksine, A. 2001. Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ILLYRICUM BENJAMIN E. NIKOTA

New York University

Illyricum was both a Roman province as well as a general term referring to the hinterland beyond the Adriatic Sea, populated by various tribes speaking an Indo-European language (e.g., Pannonians and Delmatae). The province of Illyricum was situated in portions of the modern-day nations of Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzgovina, and Croatia. The Romans first became involved in the area across the Adriatic Sea in an attempt to quell piracy in the region in what were later called the First and Second Illyrian Wars (229/8, 219 bce). The Romans had an intermittent presence in the region after the Illyrian kingdom sided with Perseus of Macedon in one of the Roman-Macedonian Wars and was defeated by Lucius Anicius Gallus. Octavian (Augustus) campaigned in Illyria against the Pannonians in 35 bce and the Delmatae in 34–33 bce. His victory over the Illyrians formed

28-04-2023 18:00:41

540

  imagines

one of the three parts of his triple triumph of 29 bce alongside his victories over the Egyptian Cleopatra at Actium and Alexandria (see civil wars of the Late Republic). In 16 bce Tiberius campaigned there against the Delmatae. The province was a public one, that is, not administered by the emperor, until 11 bce at which point it became imperial (Cass. Dio 54.34). In the Flavian period it was divided into the two provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia. Tiberius was on his way to the province of Illyricum when he was recalled and learned of Augustus’ illness and eventual death (A.1.5). In 14 ce, the Pannonian legions stationed in Illyricum revolted (A 1.16), and Tiberius dispatched his son Drusus the Younger to quell the mutiny. Due to the area’s status as a frontier province, skirmishes with the Germans ensued, and in 17 ce Tiberius once again dispatched his son Drusus to Illyricum. Tacitus claimed the pretext was fighting between the Suebi and Cherusci, whereas in reality Tiberius wished to keep his son away from the temptations of the city (A. 2.44). During the civil wars of 69 ce, the Illyrian armies initially remained quiet (H. 1.9). Later, however, the Pannonian and Dalmatian legions declared for Otho (H. 1.76). Tacitus described their pivotal role in supporting Vespasian against Vitellius due to their hatred of the man and the Vitellians’ treatment of centurions who supported Otho (H. 2.60; 2.74; 2.85–6). see also: Pannonian Revolt; provinces Reference work: Barrington 49 B3, 1 G2 FURTHER READING Wilkes, J. 1996. The Illyrians. Oxford: Blackwell University Press.

IMAGINES HARRIET I. FLOWER

Princeton University

Tacitus is a vital source for our knowledge of the imagines (wax masks of male ancestors who had held high political office) in the first century ce,

c09_Vol1.indd 540

the period of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian emperors, as well as for attitudes under Trajan, when Tacitus himself was writing. An imago was a functional and life-like mask made of beeswax, which was used to recall a deceased male family member who had held high office (aedile, praetor, consul, censor) under the republican system of government in Rome (Flower 1996). Made during a man’s lifetime, it was worn by an actor, first at the funeral of the person depicted by the mask, and then at subsequent family funerals. The “ancestors,” wearing their masks and the garb of highest office they had held in life, were accompanied by attendants including lictors with fasces. They walked ahead of the bier of the deceased from the family home to the forum. There a eulogy (laudatio) was delivered from the speakers’ platform (rostra), preferably by a son or other relative. The “ancestors” sat on ivory curule chairs (sella curulis) to listen to the eulogy, which would mention each of their careers and achievements, in addition to those of the newly deceased. When not in use during a family funeral, the masks were kept in labeled cupboards (armaria) in the atrium of the house, where they were on view for the family and any visitor who entered this room from the front door. The cupboard doors were often closed to protect the fragile wax masks, but the labels giving each name and brief career outline were always visible. Duplicates of masks were made for a son or daughter who moved away to their own homes or to join a spouse’s household in marriage. Copies might also be found in some country houses. Such masks were cheap to manufacture but were considered one of the most prestigious items for a Roman, since they marked the status of nobilitas (a term that denoted republican political and social elite defined by a combination of wealth and election to political office). An individual with this status was termed a nobilis; his election to each magistracy in the hierarchy of offices (cursus honorum) enhanced the status of his whole family. At his funeral the masks of relatives both by blood and by marriage could be paraded in order to commemorate his personal prestige and that of his broader kin group. Our fullest evidence about these traditional practices comes from Polybius (6.53–54, second century bce) and Pliny the Elder (HN 35.4–14, 70s ce), while the

28-04-2023 18:00:41

imperium  

latest reference is in Boethius (Cons. 1 pros. 1.3, 520s ce). When republican government was replaced by a system of one-man rule (under Augustus, the adopted son of Iulius Caesar), men were still elected to magistracies and continued to express their own and their family’s accumulated prestige by displaying and parading imagines masks. Both the imperial family (domus Augusta) and other families valued the masks as prestige items that made a family’s long line of ancestors and current prominence come to life before a wide audience in the city. Far from being eclipsed by the shadow of a single, supreme ruler, the masks were put to even greater use, as processions (pompae) became longer and ever more elaborate, including legendary “ancestors” from the more distant past. Tacitus provides more references to imagines than any writer of his time, mentioning them twelve times in his extant works. Despite the fact that he himself probably did not come from a politically elite family or perhaps even from Italy, his political career would have earned him the right to such a mask after death. He refers to the masks both as subjects of inherent interest and in casual asides that show how familiar these items still were (D. 8.4; A. 2.43.6; 2.73.1; 6.1.2). Tacitus never feels the need to explain them to his readers, even as he stresses the expectation of ordinary citizens in Rome to participate as spectators in watching the masks of the great families on parade (A. 3.5; 4.9.2). He tells us that having a fine pedigree of republican ancestors was a factor that might cause a man to aim for the position of emperor and to expect others to support his bid for power (H. 2.76.2; 4.39.3; A. 2.27.2). The masks of usurpers or other traitors might be banned by the Senate in an officially advertised sanction on a man’s memory (A. 2.32.1), while the absence of the masks of Marcus Iunius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus (1) only made them more conspicuous to an audience attuned to the nuances of traditional funeral spectacle (A. 3.76; 4.35.2). Tacitus makes clear how important a role the wax masks continued to play, especially under the Julio-Claudian emperors, both for the imperial family’s self-presentation and for others who were trying to compete with them or merely to hold their own in a changing political and social environment.

c09_Vol1.indd 541

541

see also: Cornelius Tacitus; Iunia Tertia; memory REFERENCE Flower, Harriet I. 1996. Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

IMPERIUM PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Imperium (OLD s.v. imperium), a noun that means command, authority, or power, and noted either the command itself or the authority to give commands, is the supreme power of a magistrate or promagistrate (see OCD3 pro consule, pro praetore) to campaign and litigate as part of the duties of his office. In practice, imperium included coercive power to give orders and command obedience and was represented by a retinue of lictors bearing fasces, which were bundles of rods with a singleheaded axe (OCD3 imperium; Lintott 1999, 96–97). Generally speaking, imperium is also used to describe the supreme command of Jupiter and the kings of Rome, and subsequently the power given to consuls, praetors, military tribunes, and magistri equituum in the Roman Republic, and even to emperors under the empire, by the populus Romanus in assembly through a lex (Gai. Inst. 1. 5; see Brunt 1977, 105–106 for a discussion of Vespasian’s power and the lex de Imperio Vespasiani). Accordingly, this form of power and authority ultimately derived from and belonged to the populus Romanus (Dig 1.4.1 = Ulp. Inst. 1; cf. RE imperium). In other words, imperium technically empowered a magistrate on behalf of the populus Romanus to represent the community and act in their interests. Under the republic, the theoretically unlimited imperium was restricted by collegiality and finite terms of office, though this could be circumvented by prorogatio, held by promagistrates (extending the magistracy beyond its limit). In the imperial period, it is with this form of promagisterial power that Roman governors would command their provinces, both public and imperial, though in the latter they were legati pro praetore (with five lictors) and subordinated under

28-04-2023 18:00:41

542

  imperium

the greater proconsular imperium maius of the emperor (cf. senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone). From the time of Augustus onwards, imperium started to shift in meaning, from the more abstract understandings of power outlined above, to understandings that encompassed the emperor’s greater power and the territorial entity known as the Roman Empire. Augustus’ constitutional settlements connected the republican era understanding of magisterial imperium with Augustus’ position, which effectively drew command over a large portion of Rome’s territorial empire to himself through the exercise of his proconsular imperium maius. As Richardson has argued, “The single (effective) holder of imperium has a quasi-provincia which encompassed almost the whole world, and that quasi-provincia is henceforth called imperium Romanum” (Richardson 2008, 145; cf. Richardson 1991, 1–9 for further explanation of this process). Imperium, then, with its developing geographical connotations, describes the reach of Roman rule in a territorial sense (hence the English word “empire”), rather than a more abstract meaning that would be better translated as “influence” or “dominion” (cf. Lavan 2013, 53). As a post-Augustan writer, these complexities of meaning are apparent in Tacitus’ use of the word throughout his works. What follows is a thematic summary of those various uses with selected examples. Terminology of power, the meaning of words denoting power, and their development have gained scholarly attention in recent years (Lavan 2013; Moatti 2018; Richardson 2008). Richardson in particular has shown a deep interest in the language of power and its development from the republic to principate and has made the first tentative steps exploring how the word is used in Tacitus, with helpful categorizations of the different meanings of imperium (Richardson 2008, esp. 170–171). This entry broadly follows this rubric, though deeper analysis of the use of imperium in context will be a fruitful avenue of future research, particularly when its usage is ambiguous. Imperium appears 245 times and was sorted under eleven categories by Richardson, though there are instances where there are several overlapping meanings and thus can be placed into various categories. It is recommended that scholars and students of Tacitus tease out all potential meanings in context. The categories are: an order

c09_Vol1.indd 542

or command; power, meant generally; power of a magistrate or promagistrate; power of the emperor; power of foreign kings or queens; power of a foreign commander; foreign powers; foreign empires/territories; the Roman state; power of the Roman people; the territorial or geographical designation of the Roman Empire. Selected examples of each category (and from each of the works, if possible) will be included here. As for frequency, appearances of imperium across the works are as follows: Dialogue on Orators = 2; the Germania = 5; the Agricola = 7; the Histories 114; the Annals = 117. Imperium means “order” or “command” fifteen times and is often found in military contexts. For instance, at H. 1.84., in a speech, the emperor Otho exhorts his troops to obey the commands of their leaders rather than question them. Alternatively, at A. 12.1.1, Claudius is described as being susceptible to the commands of his spouses. Imperium means power “generally” seven times according to Richardson, though with its larger and abstract connotations, it can be said that other examples across Tacitus could also fall under this category and vice versa. At D. 40.3, Tacitus refers to states under a “settled government,” equated to Macedonia and Persia, where eloquence never took hold. The meaning of imperium is ambiguous (cf. Bartsch 1994, 111). At H. 1.30.1, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi uses the word generally in a speech to the praetorian guard, imploring them not to allow seditious elements to bestow power on Otho, thus revealing tensions in imperial power and from where an emperor’s power derived. Another instance of ambiguity appears at the famous passage at A. 1.1.1, where Tacitus describes Augustus’ settlement, taking power under the name of princeps, can also suggest the power of the emperor, as well as a shorthand for the various types of magisterial and promagisterial powers he acquired throughout his reign. Imperium describes the power of a Roman magistrate or promagistrate twenty-four times. Here, references concern the duties and trappings of magisterial power (see Ag. 13.1) and the description of the imperium exercised by promagistrates: notable is the gloss that the emperor Tiberius would extend the terms of his governors (A. 1.80.1). Another important theme is the description of the type of imperium exercised by

28-04-2023 18:00:41

imperium  

the emperors and their kin, e.g., the proconsular imperium of Germanicus and Nero at A. 1.14.3 and A. 12.41.1, and Domitian’s praetorship with consular imperium at H. 4.3.4. By far, the greatest proportion of attestations concern the emperor, his absolute power, and supreme position in the state: 108 times across Tacitus’ works, with 66 in the Histories and 40 in the Annals. A full treatment here is not possible, though Richardson (2008, 170 n. 199) provides the relevant citations. Examples include Ag. 7.3.2, when Agricola switches to Vespasian’s side in his attempt to take imperial power; A.1.7.7, where it is feared by Tiberius that Germanicus would want to hold power rather than wait for it; and H. 2.83.1, when Licinius Mucianus is described as being a partner in empire, rather than assistant. Thus, imperium serves as a shorthand for the power and position of the emperor. Tacitus also uses imperium to describe the power of foreign kings and queens seventeen times. At Ag. 16.1, in the reign of Boudicca, Tacitus notes that Britons made no distinction in sex with respect to royal rule. The remaining attestations come from the Annals and concern client kingdoms and Parthia. For example, at A. 3.38.3, Thrace is described as an imperium, divided between Rhoemetalces and Cotys’ children, and at A. 12.50.1, Armenia is invaded by Vologeses and the Parthians to provide Tiridates a command. A closely connected category is the power of foreign commanders. This appears once in the Germania, where Tacitus describes German generals leading by example rather than command (G. 7.1). The remaining categories concern the imperium of people and places, and thus can take geographical or territorial connotations. There is one attestation where this is meant generally: at A. 15.1.4, in a reported speech of Monobazus to Vologeses, it is said that great empires are maintained by contests of men and arms. More concretely, foreign nations and empires are included ten times, including Parthia (A. 6.34.3) and a furtive breakaway state, the Gallic empire (H. 4.59.2), mentioned in the context of Iulius Classicus joining Iulius Civilis’ revolt. According to Richardson, the power and territory of the Roman state is described twenty-nine times: in examples of this at A. 2.33.2, Gaius Asinius Gallus states how private wealth expanded with

c09_Vol1.indd 543

543

the empire’s expansion, and at H. 1.50.3, in a short historical excursus after the death of Galba, where the empire had remained intact after both the victories of Iulius Caesar and Augustus. The power and empire of the Roman people are mentioned eighteen times. Under this category comes the famous part of Calgacus’ speech in Ag. 30.5 in describing the adverse effects of “empire.” At G. 29.3, the greatness of the Roman people is heard outside the boundaries of the empire, alluding to a thought-world of Roman power being limitless (on this, see Nicolet 1991). In the context of the Pannonian Revolt, the power held by the Julio-Claudians is called the empire of the Roman people, with its multifaceted meanings (A. 1.28.4). A further fourteen times, imperium has a clear territorial and geographical sense: at Ag. 41.2, the Danube (Danuvius) is mentioned as a frontier; at G. 29.1, Batavia is counted as part of the empire; at H. 1.16.1, the empire is called a “body” (corpus); and at A. 1.11.4, there is the famous mandate from Augustus to keep the empire within its borders. Richardson’s citations are mostly comprehensive, though nine instances where Tacitus uses the word imperium are missed in his footnotes and are thus included here for completeness. Most describe the emperor’s power: In H. 1.49.2, as part of Galba’s obituary, Tacitus states Galba was happier under the imperial power of others rather than his own, and at H. 1.52.3, “old” Galba’s rule is called brief. At A. 12.64.3, Agrippina the Younger is said to have given Nero imperial power; at. A. 13.14.2, Britannicus is feared to be mature enough and worthy of becoming emperor; A. 2.36.2 is a famous Tacitean aphorism about the secrets of (an emperor’s) power becoming known (arcana imperii; cf. H. 1.4.3) in the context of elections being streamlined; and A. 2.42.3 describes when Tiberius became emperor. The others are as follows: D. 5.4 mentions empire in a geographical sense. H. 2.92.2, the “wealth” (opes) of empire is exploited by the praetorian guard. At H. 4.54.2, imperium is used generally to mean Roman power: the survival of the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter after the Gallic sack in 390 bce is connected to the maintenance of Roman primacy thereafter. The predication of the power of the Romans to Jupiter is seen in a short excursus on the history of the temple in the

28-04-2023 18:00:42

544

  impostors

context of its burning and destruction in December 69 ce, described at H. 3.72 (see Capitolium). see also: empire; geography Reference works: OCD3 imperium; OCD3 pro consule, pro praetore; RE imperium; Oxford Latin Dictionary imperium REFERENCES Bartsch, Shadi. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lavan, Myles. 2013. Slaves to Rome: Paradigms of Empire in Roman Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moatti, Claudia. 2018. Res Publica: Histoire romaine de la chose publique. Paris: Fayard. Nicolet, Claude. 1991. Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Richardson, John. 1991. “Imperium Romanum: Empire and the Language of Power.” Journal of Roman Studies 81: 1–9. Richardson, John. 2008. The Language of Empire: Rome and the Idea of Empire from the Third Century BC to the Second Century ad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Béranger, Jean. 1959. Recherches sur l’aspect idéologique du principat. Basel: F. Reinhardt. Lintott, Andrew W. 1993. Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration. London: Routledge.

IMPOSTORS ANTHONY CORBEILL

University of Virginia

Since dissimulation plays a key role in the historical narratives of Tacitus, it is unsurprising that he includes accounts of deception by which individuals adopt the identity of important Roman figures. In all extant cases, the impostor appears following the death or imprisonment of the “real” person, thereby constituting a threat to the current regime. In each narrative, rumor strengthens the impostor’s effectiveness. The chronologically earliest account treats the false Agrippa Postumus (A. 2.39–40). After the

c09_Vol1.indd 544

death of Augustus, Clemens, one of Postumus’ slaves, conspired to rescue his master from exile and introduce him to the armies in Germania in an attempt to usurp supreme command. On finding Postumus dead, Clemens decided to impersonate him, visiting towns of the empire until rumors that Postumus remained alive created a large following in Italy and Rome among both general populace and elite (cf. rumor concerning the dead Germanicus: A. 2.82.4–5, with Woodman 2015, 266–267). The imposture continued for approximately two years until 16 ce, when Tiberius has Clemens discreetly arrested and executed. Tacitus notes that, had the imposture not been exposed, the result could have been civil war (A. 2.39.1), clearly illustrating (more so than Suet. Tib. 25 and Cass. Dio 57.16.3–4) how Tiberius’ principate remained in doubt, even into its second year. The last words of Clemens underscore belief in the dissimulating nature of Tiberius’ reign. When the emperor asked how he had become Agrippa, Clemens replied, “In the same way that you became emperor” (A. 2.40.3). A second story of imposture also threatened Tiberius’ authority (A. 5.10; cf. Cass. Dio 58.25.1). In 31 ce a strong but short-lived rumor circulated that Drusus Caesar, son of Germanicus, had escaped imprisonment in Rome, fleeing to Greece to join his dead father’s legions and invade Egypt and Syria. As had been the case with Clemens, pseudo-Drusus attracted a following among both members of the imperial court and the wider public. A governor in the East, Poppaeus Sabinus, succeeded at apprehending the impostor and learning his identity, after which Tacitus abruptly concludes by saying that Tiberius was informed but that he is otherwise ignorant of details. In introducing the violent events that will fill his Histories, Tacitus includes a failed uprising in Parthia caused “by the sham of a false Nero” who had appeared after the emperor’s death (H. 1.2.1: falsi Neronis ludibrio; cf. Suet. Nero 57.2, Cass. Dio 66.19.3b). Extant portions of the Histories in fact mention only one pseudo-Nero, with no reference to Parthian involvement, but Tacitus indicates that he had included others as well (H. 2.8–9). Rumors had originated in Achaia and Asia claiming that a slave from the East, or an Italian freedman, skilled at singing with the lyre, was enlisting soldiers and arming slaves. The conspiracy was stopped only when a

28-04-2023 18:00:42

I nteramna  

governor en route to his province chanced upon it, capturing and killing the pretender. His corpse was sent to Rome. The lowly origins of the impostor and the swift growth of the plot through rumor allow Tacitus to underscore the uncertainty of the times. see also: paradoxography REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 2015. “Tacitus and Germanicus.” In Fame and Infamy. Essays for Christopher Pelling on Characterization in Greek and Roman Biography and Historiography, edited by R. Ash, et al., 255–268. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Haynes, Holly. 2003. The History of Make-Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mogenet, Joseph. 1954. “La conjuration de Clemens.” L’Antiquité Classique 23: 321–330. Tuplin, C. J. 1987. “The False Drusus of ad 31 and the Fall of Sejanus.” Latomus 46: 781–805. Tuplin, C. J. 1989. “The False Neros of the First Century A.D.” Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 5. 364–404. Collection Latomus 206.

INGUIOMERUS, see ARMINIUS INGVAEONES, see MANNUS TRIBES

INSTEIUS CAPITO THEODORE ANTONIADIS

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Insteius Capito was a centurion in the Roman army in Syria under the government of Ummidius Quadratus. He was in charge of receiving the hostages the Romans asked from the Parthian king Vologaeses on account of his invasion in Armenia. In order to restore Roman authority in Armenia Nero sent the general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, who demanded from the king Vologaeses (54–55 ce) to supply hostages so that a war against him was not declared (A. 13.9.1–3). It seems that Vologaeses accepted the deal so as to

c09_Vol1.indd 545

545

gain time and prepare himself for the war, which was about to last until 63 ce (Barret, Fantham, and Yardley 2016, 86). The governor of Syria, Ummidius Quadratus, had chosen to send Insteius as his representative in this important mission. However, Domitius Corbulo had also asked from Arrius Varus, the prefect of a cohort, to join the meeting with Vologaeses in order to take possession of the hostages. This was enough for the prefect and the centurion to get engaged in a quarrel, which was soon transferred between their generals. The whole matter was settled only after Nero’s intervention. At any rate, Insteius’ services must have been appreciated, since in 58 ce Domitius Corbulo promoted him to praefectus castrorum (together with Cornelius Flaccus, a legate, otherwise unknown) over a number of small fortifications in Armenia, which were built during the war that followed suit with the Parthian king (A. 13.39.1). Reference works: PIR2 I 31; RE Insteius 2 REFERENCES Barrett, A., Fantham, E., and Yardley J. 2016. The Emperor Nero: A Guide to the Ancient Sources. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brunt, P. A. 1977. “Lex de Imperio Vespasiani.” Journal of Roman Studies 67: 95–116. Lintott, A. 1999. The Constitution of the Roman Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Isaac, B. H. 2018. The Near East under Roman Rule. Leiden: Brill. Saddington, D. B. 1996. “Early Imperial ‘praefecti castrorum.’” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 45: 244–252.

INSUBRES, see TABULA LUGDUNENSIS

INTERAMNA FEDERICO SANTANGELO

Newcastle University

Interamna Nahars, modern Terni, was a community in ancient Umbria, on the right bank of the river

28-04-2023 18:00:42

546

  interte x tua l it y

Nar (Nera) and at its confluence with the river Serra; the toponym Interamna, widely attested in Central Italy, means “between the rivers.” In 15 ce it was among the communities that brought their grievances to the Senate about plans for the diversion of several tributaries of the Tiber, which were intended to prevent floods in Rome: they warned that splitting the Nar into several watercourses would have caused major flooding across some of the most fertile plains in Central Italy (A. 1.79.2). Their objections, along with those put forward by the people of Florentia and Reate, proved effective, and the plan was shelved. The town plays a prominent role in highly traumatic events over half a century later. In 69 Vitellius chooses Interamna as the venue for the execution of his rival Cornelius Dolabella, who had been sentenced to death by the urban prefect Flavius Sabinus on the accusation of having sought to reorganize Otho’s faction. He instructed him by letter to leave Rome and head for Interamna without taking the busy Via Flaminia: he wanted to have him killed at a less frequented site. The executioner, however, did not even wait for Dolabella’s arrival at Interamna and killed him in a tavern along the road (H. 2.63– 64.1). Interamna is attacked by the Flavians in December 69, after a series of successes in Italy; they launch the offensive from neighboring Carsulae (near modern San Gemini). The 400 knights that form the garrison in charge of the town barely oppose any resistance, and most of them surrender unconditionally. Tacitus has disparaging comments on the moral compass of Vitellius’ men (H. 3.61). More among the associates of Vitellius in the area surrender to Antonius Primus in the following days: their capitulation is accepted, and they are settled partly at Narnia (modern Narni) and partly at Interamna. A modest military presence is left in the area to keep them under check (3.63.3). Interamna has a significant place in the account of Vitellius’ rule: it is the intended scene of his first major crime (the assassination of Dolabella) and the place where the demise of any residual loyalty among his troops becomes apparent. The emperor Claudius Tacitus, who briefly ruled from 275 to 276, owned land at Interamna (HA Tac. 15.1) and alleged to be a direct descendant of the historian (HA Tac. 10.3). That

c09_Vol1.indd 546

contention, along with the few references to the town in Tacitus’ oeuvre, inspired a tradition that views Interamna as the hometown of the historian and is a prominent feature of the local identity of modern Terni, but lacks any historical basis whatsoever. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Roman roads Reference work: Barrington 42 D3 FURTHER READING Angelelli, C., and L. Bonomi Ponzi, eds. 2006. Terni – Interamna Nahars. Nascita e sviluppo di una città alla luce delle più recenti ricerche archeologiche. Rome.

INTERTEXTUALITY ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

Intertextuality is used to denote and describe the interaction among texts. While its modern origins may be found in the works of literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975), the term (intertextualité) was coined by psychoanalyst and semiotician Julia Kristeva in the late 1960s as a way to express her conceptualization of texts as “mosaics of quotations.” Born as a more general theory of language (i.e., a way of understanding textual and cultural phenomena), the wide diffusion of the term has spawned a range of usages different from that originally intended by Kristeva (cf. Godard 1993). Its successful transition into classical philology, which owes much to Gerard Genette’s trilogy on transtextuality (1979, 1982, 1987), hinges on its usefulness as a theoretical basis for what has always been a predominant concern within the discipline: the identification and interpretation of verbal similarities among texts. This is not to say, however, that the postmodern roots of the term have not profoundly influenced the ways that (many) classical philologists work. Not least has it generated a great deal of thinking about how we deal, in the words of Fowler (1997/2000, 14), “with what goes after the magic word ‘cf.’” First and foremost, the broadness and vagueness of the term, which in common

28-04-2023 18:00:42

interte x tua l it y  

parlance simply designates “any kind of relationship between texts” (Nilsson 2010, 202), has spurred a flurry of attempts at categorization and provoked a number of epistemological questions: What qualifies (and what does not qualify) as an intertext? Where does an intertext exist, in the mind of an author, on the page of a text, or in the mind of a reader? And how do the interpretive implications of the various types distinguish themselves from each other? With different scholars having promoted different categorizations (cf. Fowler 1997/2000; Hinds 1998; Thomas 1999), the current terminology of intertextuality is both impressive and somewhat confusing. While intertext commonly refers to any textual relation between one text and another, whether in the shape of verbal similarity or similarities in theme, situations, and plot structures, “allusion” and “reference” tend to designate an authorially intended intertext, and the trio “parallel/echo/ reminiscence” is primarily used to refer to intertexts where the scholar makes no assumption about authorial intention (cf. Fowler 1997/2000; Thomas 1999; see also Hinds 1998). The debates about terminology betray a divide between those who embrace the death of the author and the concomitant liberation of the text from authorial intentions (cf. König and Whitton 2018) and more conservative scholars who either question the interpretive viability of such fainter echoes or simply prefer to build their analyses on more tangible—and therefore perhaps authorially intended—verbal similarities (cf. Levene 2010). Similar controversies manifest themselves in the term intratextuality, which entered classical scholarship in the 1990s and has been theorized most thoroughly by Alison Sharrock. While often used simply to designate the exploration of relations within a text (i.e., intratexts) rather than between texts (i.e., intertexts), intratextuality has a stronger narratological flavor. It aims to (re)construct a text’s internal structure, in the words of Sharrock (2000, 5), “how parts relate to parts, wholes, and holes”. As a consequence, an intratextual study will typically look at—in addition to repeated words and themes—discernible structural markers, e.g., digressive formulae, scene shifting expressions, and temporal indicators. Born as a challenge to an alleged scholarly obsession with textual unity, intratextuality initially

c09_Vol1.indd 547

547

sought to distinguish itself from terms such as design and architecture by shifting emphasis from authorial intention to readerly perception (cf. Laird 2000), but recent usage suggests that it has shed some of its pugnacity and seeks rather to subsume the study of both authorial design and readerly experience under its common flag (cf. Papanghelis, Harrison, and Frangoulidis 2018). ROMAN HISTORIOGRAPHY While intertextuality has dominated the study of Latin poetry since the 1980s, its main flowering in the study of Roman historiography—presaged by some visionary articles at the end of the last millennium (cf. Kraus 1994; Woodman 1979)—dates to the early 2000s, when a number of scholars sought to understand the peculiarities of intertextuality in a genre that aims at some form of truthful reconstruction of extratextual events (Damon 2010; Haimson Lushkov 2013; Levene 2010; Marincola 2010; O’Gorman 2006, 2009; Pelling 2013; Woodman 2009). Where once intertexts were understood either as aesthetic extras (to be categorized and analyzed by a literary scholar) or as examples of historical source criticism (to be excavated and evaluated by a historian), scholars increasingly recognize that the literary and rhetorical aspects of a text are frequently inseparable from its historical aspects. As noted by Pelling (2013, 19), although intertexts in historiography are similar to those in poetry from a formal point of view, they compel us to deal with our inferences in different ways. Firstly, the frequently ambiguous provenance of intertexts in historiography complicates the quest for authorial intention. Since real-life historical agents could and did model their behavior on predecessors (cf. the rumor that Nero alluded to burning Troy during the great fire in Rome at A. 15.39.3: praesentia mala uetustis cladibus adsimulantem, “assimilating present calamities to olden disasters”), it is often unclear whether similarity with an action in an earlier text derives from the agent of the action or from the author who gave it textual form (Damon 2010, 381; Marincola 2010, 265–266; Levene 2010, 85). Secondly, given that a reader is more likely to find a narrative trustworthy if it conforms with an already accepted plot structure, intertextual links

28-04-2023 18:00:42

548

  interte x tua l it y

may increase the persuasiveness of an historical narrative. Thirdly, since similarities with or differences from past events prompt reflection on historical continuity and discontinuity, intertextuality facilitates interpretation: it invites the reader to try and make sense of the text, to see “what is distinct about a particular event” (Ash 1998, 37). Fourthly, the nature of historical writing means that allusions to older texts dealing with more recent history are two-pronged. Both the new and the old text are influenced by intertexts between them. By disrupting ordinary temporality, this peculiar form of intertextuality, among other things, provides historiographers with an opportunity to offer retroactive interpretations of already published texts, including their own. The classic example is Livy’s use of Sallust’s Catiline (and Jugurtha) in his portrayal of Hannibal. As noted by O’Gorman (2009, 238–239; cf. Levene 2010, 99–104), two chronologically impossible things occur when Livy models his Hannibal on Sallust’s portrayal of Catiline: Hannibal alludes to a man not yet born, and Catiline influences a man long dead. The effect? The legacy of Catiline is contaminated through association with one of Rome’s greatest enemies. In other words, we cannot help but reread Sallust’s account of Catiline differently after we have read Livy’s account of Hannibal. The blossoming of intertextual studies on historiographical texts has been variously welcomed as a rejuvenation of and as an existential threat to the subject, stoking the flames of the debate that formed in the aftermath of the rhetorical turn in Roman historiography. While some applaud its potential to tear down disciplinary boundaries with other forms of ancient literature and open up historiographical texts for new approaches (Ash 2012; Feldherr 2009; Laird 2009; Marincola 2009), others fear a corrosion of one traditional pillar of the historical handicraft, sober and rigorous source criticism (Lendon 2009; cf. Bosworth 2003; Levick 2012). While the latter claim that historians can and should separate hard core historical fact from rhetorical elaboration, the former maintain that postulating a strict division between the two misconstrues how ancient historians understood and practiced their undertaking and that rhetorical elaboration plays an important role in the configuration of historical truth.

c09_Vol1.indd 548

TACITUS As befits the arguably most poetic of Roman historians, Tacitus’ corpus constitutes an intertextual treasure trove. The very first line of Annals—urbem Romam a principio reges habuere, “the City of Rome from its inception was held by kings”—not only gestures toward epic poetry by forming a dactylic hexameter (Woodman 2012, 380) but also echoes (and distinguishes Tacitus’ work from) Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae, whose account of Rome’s origins begins with the Trojans (A. 6.1): urbem Romam, sicuti ego accepi, condidere atque habuere initio Troiani, “the city of Rome, as I understand, was founded and held at first by Trojans.” Unsurprisingly, then, the study of verbal parallels between Tacitus and other Roman writers goes back at least to the early twentieth century ce (cf. Andresen 1916; Charlesworth 1927). It would be fair to say, however, that the study of Tacitean intertextuality underwent a renaissance in the aftermath of the rhetorical turn—whose classical roots can be traced back to Syme’s 1958 Tacitus, which bridged the gap between Tacitus as historian and literary artist (Ash 2012, 8–11)—as the appreciation of the literariness of ancient historiography complicated the distinction between aesthetic and historical intertexts, between literary and source criticism. Indeed, many of the skirmishes in the debate about the rhetorical turn have been fought on Tacitean ground. For Woodman (1979), Tacitus’ account of Germanicus’ 15 ce march into the heart of Germania (A. 1.61–62) is modeled on Vitellius’ visit at the site of the first battle of Cremona in 69 ce (H. 2.70); likewise, Tacitus’ description of the Germanic king Maroboduus as a snake (A. 2.45.3) draws on fellow historian Velleius (2.129.3) for aesthetic effect and on Vergil (G. 3.544–545) for factual detail (Woodman 2009). As noted by Ash (1998) in her analysis of Tacitus’ imitation of Livy in his representation of the surrender scenes of 69 ce (H. 3.31, 4.62; cf. Livy 9.5–6), such creative engagement with his predecessors complicates the use of Tacitus’ works as accurate depictions of the events narrated while simultaneously betraying what models he considered relevant for them.

28-04-2023 18:00:42

interte x tua l it y  

The thorny issue of authorial allusion versus real-life imitation is succinctly put by Ginsburg in her discussion of Tacitus’ account of the senatorial debate at A. 3.33–4 about whether or not wives should be allowed to accompany husbands taking up provincial command (1993, 92): “We cannot know, of course, to what extent the speakers in the actual debate of ad 21 alluded to and exploited the debate over the lex Oppia as the model for themselves and to what extent Tacitus was responsible for creating such a connection between the two debates.” The same issue is at stake when interpreting Tacitus version of Claudius’ speech in favor of extending Senate membership to the primores Galliae (A. 11.24; cf. Griffin 1982, a comparison with the Tabula Lugdunensis). Studies on Tacitean intertextuality tend to focus on (1) his use of poetic language, especially epic, (2) parallels with other ancient historians, especially Sallust and Livy, or (3) literary interactions with his contemporaries, especially Pliny the Younger. In the first category belong Baxter (1972, Virgil in A. 1–2), Bews (1972/1973, Virgil in A. 1–2), Putnam (1989, Virgil at A. 1.10), Pelling (1993, Germanicus as Aeneas in A. 1–2), Woodman (2009, Virgil in A. 2) and Woodman (2020, Ennius in A.), Keitel (2010, Aen. 2 in H), Joseph (2012, Virgil and Lucan in H.), Manolaraki and Augoustakis (2012, Silius Italicus in A. 1–2), Geisthardt and Gildenhard (2019, Catullus and Virgil in A.), Daly (2020, Lucan in A. 1–2), and Ash (Forthcoming, tragic motifs in the account of the murder of Agrippina the Younger in A. 14.1– 13). In the second category belong Keitel (1992, Livy in H.), Morgan (1994, Caesar in H. 1), Ash (1998, Livy in H. 3–4), Krebs (2012, Sallust in Ag.), Pomeroy (2017, Livy in A. 15), Kraus (2017, Caesar in Ag. and G.), and Spielberg (2017, Thucydides and Sallust in H. and A.). In the third category belong Edwards (2008, D. and Pliny the Younger), Whitton (2010, Ag. and Pliny the Younger) and Whitton (2018, Tacitus, Quintilian, and Pliny the Younger), Keane (2012, Tacitus and Juvenal), and Rimell (2018, Tacitus and Martial). Among the characters with whom Tacitus engages most intensively is Lucretia, the Roman matron whose suicide—committed after she was violated by Sextus Tarquinius, son of Rome’s last

c09_Vol1.indd 549

549

king—spurred the Romans of old to expel the kings and establish a republic. Traces of Lucretia may be detected in characters so diverse as Livia Augusta (A. 1.10.5, 5.1; cf. Strunk 2014), Livia Julia (A. 4.3; cf. Sinclair 1990), Boudicca (A. 14.29–39; cf. Gillespie 2015), Nero’s wife Octavia (2) (A. 14.61–64), and the adulterous noblewoman Pontia Postumia, whose affair with Octavius Sagitta is (parodically) narrated as a reversal of the traditional Lucretia story (A. 13.44). With acknowledgment of the literariness of Roman historiography has come also greater attentiveness to Tacitean intratextuality, the way the various parts of his corpus are connected and how the exploration of such connections may allow scholars to reconstruct the relationship among individual accounts, books, reigns, and entire works. Key studies include Keitel (1977, 1978, the structure of A. 11–12) and Keitel (1993, the speeches of Petilius Cerialis and Eprius Marcellus in H. 4), and Ginsburg (1981). The study of Tacitean intratexts is shaped by his gradual withdrawal into the past (Ag. covers events of 40–93 ce, D. is set in 75, the preserved part of H. treats the years 69–70, and A. narrates 14–68), which gives Tacitean intratexts a distinctively anachronistic hue. Rather than events alluding to earlier events and characters alluding to their predecessors, we find events alluding to future events and characters alluding to people not yet born. While Tacitus is not the first historian to employ anachronistic allusions of this sort (see above on Catiline), the particular make-up of the Tacitean corpus means that its intratexts invariably follow this nonsynchronous pattern. As a consequence, Tacitean intratexts tend to work both ways, raising questions about the finality of any historical interpretation and encouraging readers to ponder who is alluding to whom (cf. Damtoft Poulsen Forthcoming, on the speeches of Calgacus and Eprius Marcellus). The almost complete loss of Latin historiography of the second and third centuries ce means that we do not know to what extent Tacitus’ works were read and used by authors from these periods. Ammianus Marcellinus certainly knew Tacitus, but there is little evidence of a larger allusive pattern (Kelly 2009).

28-04-2023 18:00:42

550

  interte x tua l it y

see also: digression; speeches REFERENCES Andresen, G. 1916. “Tacitus und Livius.” Wochenschrift für Klassische Philologie 33: 210–214, 401–406, 688–694, 758–766. Ash, R. 1998. “Waving the White Flag: Surrender Scenes at Livy 9.5–6 and Tacitus, Histories 3.31 and 4.62.” Greece & Rome 45: 27–44. Ash, R. 2012. “Introduction.” In Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Tacitus, edited by R. Ash, 1–35. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Ash, R. Forthcoming. “The Staging of Death: Tacitus’ Agrippina the Younger and the Dramatic Turn.” In Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography, edited by A. Damtoft Poulsen and A. Jönsson. Leiden: Brill. Baxter, R. T. S. 1972. “Virgil’s Influence on Tacitus in Books 1 and 2 of the Annals.” Classical Philology 67.4: 246–269. DOI: 10.1086/365896. Bews, J. 1972/1973. “Virgil, Tacitus, Tiberius, Germanicus.” Proceedings of the Virgil Society 12: 35–48. Bosworth, A. B. 2003. “Plus ça change … Ancient Historians and their Sources.” Classical Antiquity 22.2: 167–198. DOI: 10.1525/ca.2003.22.2.167. Charlesworth, M. P. 1927. “Livia and Tanaquil.” Classical Review 41: 55–57. DOI: 10.1017/ S0009840X0003955X. Daly, M. M. 2020. “Seeing the Caesar in Germanicus: Reading Tacitus’ Annals with Lucan’s Bellum Civile.” Journal of Ancient History 8.1: 103–126. DOI: 10.1515/jah-2019.11-0007. Damon, C. 2010. “Déjà vu or déjà lu? History as Intertext.” In Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar, Fourteenth Volume: Health and Sickness in Ancient Rome; Greek and Roman Poetry and Historiography, edited by F. Cairns and M. Griffin, 375–388. Cambridge: Francis Cairns. Damtoft Poulsen, A. Forthcoming. “From Thrasea Paetus to Calgacus—Or Was It the Other Way Around? An Example of Tacitean Intratextuality.” In Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography, edited by A. Damtoft Poulsen and A. Jönsson. Leiden: Brill. Edwards, R. 2008. “Hunting for Boars with Pliny and Tacitus.” Classical Antiquity 27.1: 35–58. DOI: 10.1525/ca.2008.27.1.35. Feldherr, A. 2009. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by A. Feldherr, 1–8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi-org.bris.idm.oclc. org/10.1017/CCOL9780521854535.001. Fowler, D. 1997/2000. “On the Shoulders of Giants: Intertextuality and Classical Studies.” In Roman

c09_Vol1.indd 550

Constructions: Readings in Postmodern Latin, edited by D. Fowler, 115–137. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (orig. published in Materiali e discussioni 39: 13–34) Geisthardt, J., and I. Gildenhard. 2019. “Trojan Plots: Conceptions of History in Catullus, Virgil and Tacitus.” In Augustus and the Destruction of History: The Politics of the Past in Early Imperial Rome, edited by I. Gildenhard, et al., 241–282. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society. Genette, G. 1979. Introduction à l’architexte. Paris: Seuil. Genette, G. 1982. Palimpsestes. La Littérature au second degré. Paris: Seuil Genette, G. 1987. Seuils. Paris: Seuil. Gillespie, C. 2015. “The Wolf and the Hare: Boudica’s Political Bodies in Tacitus and Dio.” Classical World 108.3: 403–429. DOI: 10.1353/clw.2015.0043. Ginsburg, J. 1981. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. New York: Arno. Ginsburg, J. 1993. “In maiores certamina: Past and Present in the Annales.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 86–103. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https:// www-jstor-org.bris.idm.oclc.org/stable/j.ctt7ztggx.10. Godard, B. 1993. “Intertextuality.” In Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms, edited by I. R. Makaryk, 568–572. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Griffin, M. T. 1982. “The Lyons Tablet and Tacitean Hindsight.” Classical Quarterly 32.2: 404–418. DOI: https://doi-org.bris.idm.oclc.org/10.1017/ S0009838800026586. Haimson Lushkov, A. 2013. “Citation and the Dynamics of Tradition in Livy’s AUC.” Histos 7: 21–47. Hinds, S. 1998. Allusion and Intertextuality: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Joseph, T. A. 2012. Tacitus the Epic Successor: Virgil, Lucan, and the Narrative of Civil War in the Histories. Leiden: Brill. Keane, C. 2012. “Historian and Satirist: Tacitus and Juvenal.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 403–427. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781444354188.ch20. Keitel, E. 1977. The Structure of Tacitus, Annals 11 and 12 (diss. Chapel Hill). Keitel, E. 1978. “The Role of Parthia and Armenia in Tacitus Annals 11 and 12.” American Journal of Philology 99.4: 462–473. https://www.jstor.org/stable/293893. Keitel, E. 1992. “The Function of the Livian Reminiscences at Tacitus Histories 4.58.6 and 62.” Classical Journal 87: 327–337. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/3297443. Keitel, E. 1993. “Speech and Narrative in Histories 4.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J.

28-04-2023 18:00:42

interte x tua l it y  

Luce and A. J. Woodman, 39–58. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://www-jstor-org. bris.idm.oclc.org/stable/j.ctt7ztggx.8. Keitel, E. 2010. “The Art of Losing: Tacitus and the Disaster Narrative.” In Ancient Historiography and Its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A. J. Woodman, edited by C. S. Kraus, J. Marincola, and C. Pelling, 331–352. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558681.003.0020. Kelly, G. 2009. “Ammianus Marcellinus: Tacitus’ Heir and Gibbon’s Guide.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by A. Feldherr, 348–361. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CCOL9780521854535.023. König, A., and C. Whitton, eds. 2018. Roman Literature under Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian: Literary Interactions, ad 96-138. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kraus, C. S. 1994. “‘No Second Troy’: Topoi and Refoundation in Livy, Book V.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 124: 267–289. https://www.jstor.org/stable/284293. Kraus, C. S. 2017. “Caesar, Livy, Tacitus.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Writings of Julius Caesar, edited by L. Grillo and C. B. Krebs, 277–288. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781139151160.021. Krebs, C. B. 2012. “Annum quiete et otio transiit: Tacitus (Ag. 6.3) and Sallust on Liberty, Tyranny, and Human Dignity.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 333–344. Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781444354188.ch16. Laird, A. 2000. “Design and Designation in Virgil’s Aeneid, Tacitus’ Annals, and Michelangelo’s Conversion of Saint Paul.” In Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations, edited by A. Sharrock and H. Morales, 143–170. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laird, A. 2009. “The Rhetoric of Roman Historiography.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by A. Feldherr, 197–213. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi-org.bris.idm.oclc.org/10.1017/ CCOL9780521854535.013. Lendon, J. E. 2009. “Historians without History: Against Roman Historiography.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by A. Feldherr, 41–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi-org.bris.idm.oclc. org/10.1017/CCOL9780521854535.004. Levene, D. S. 2010. Livy on the Hannibalic War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levick, B. 2012. “Tacitus in the Twenty-First Century: The Struggle for Truth in Annals 1–6.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 260–281.

c09_Vol1.indd 551

551

Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI: https://doi-org. bris.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/9781444354188.ch13. Manolaraki, E., and A. Augoustakis. 2012. “Silius Italicus and Tacitus on the Tragic Hero: The Case of Germanicus.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 386–402. Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781444354188.ch19. Marincola, J. 2009. “Historiography.” In A Companion to Ancient History, edited by A. Erskine, 13–22. Malden, MA: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1002/9781444308372.ch2. Marincola, J. 2010. “The Rhetoric of History: Allusion, Intertextuality, and Exemplarity in Historiographical Speeches.” In Stimmen der Geschichte: Funktionen von Reden in der antiken Historiographie, edited by D. Pausch, 259–289. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110224184.259. Morgan, M. G. 1994. “Rogues March: Caecina and Valens in Tacitus, Histories 1, 61–70.” Museum Helveticum 51: 103–125. Nilsson, I. 2010. “The Same Story, but Another: A Reappraisal of Literary Imitation in Byzantium.” In Imitatio – Aemulatio – Variatio: Akten des internationalen wissenschaftlichen Symposions zur byzantinischen Sprache und Literatur, edited by A. Rhoby and E. Schiffer, 195–208. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. O’Gorman, E. 2006. “Intertextuality, Time and Historical Understanding.” In The Philosophy of History, edited by A. L. Macfie, 102–117. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. O’Gorman, E. 2009. “Intertextuality and Historiography.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by A. Feldherr, 231–242. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi-org.bris.idm.oclc. org/10.1017/CCOL9780521854535.015. Papanghelis, T. D., S. Harrison, and S. A. Frangoulidis. 2018. “Introduction: The Whats and Whys of Intratextuality.” In Intratextuality and Latin literature, edited by S. Harrison, S. A. Frangoulidis, and T. D. Papanghelis, 1–14. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110611021-001. Pelling, C. 1993. “Tacitus and Germanicus.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 59–85. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j. ctt7ztggx.9. Pelling, C. 2013. “Intertextuality, Plausibility, and Interpretation.” Histos 7: 1–20. Pomeroy, A. 2017. “Fabius and Minucius in Tacitus: Intertextuality and Allusion in Annals Book 15.” Classical Quarterly 67.2: 1–14. DOI: 10.1017/ S0009838817000593.

28-04-2023 18:00:42

552

  in V entio

Putnam, M. 1989. “Virgil and Tacitus, Ann. 1.10.” Classical Quarterly 39.2: 563–564. DOI: 10.1017/ S0009838800037642. Rimell, V. 2018. “I Will Survive (You): Martial and Tacitus on Regime Change.” In Roman Literature under Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian: Literary Interactions, ad 96-138, edited by A. König and C. Whitton, 63–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi-org.bris. idm.oclc.org/10.1017/9781108354813.004. Sharrock, A. 2000. “Intratextuality: Texts, Parts, and (W)holes in Theory.” In Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations, edited by A. Sharrock and H. Morales, 1–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, P. 1990. “Tacitus’ Presentation of Livia Julia, Wife of Tiberius’ Son Drusus.” American Journal of Philology 111.2: 238–256. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/294977. Spielberg, L. 2017. “Language, Stasis and the Role of the Historian in Thucydides, Sallust and Tacitus.” American Journal of Philology 138.2: 331–373. DOI: 10.1353/ajp.2017.0015. Strunk, T. E. 2014. “Rape and Revolution: Tacitus on Livia and Augustus.” Latomus 73.1: 126–148. DOI: 10.2143/LAT.73.1.3275332. Thomas, R. F. 1999. Reading Virgil and His Texts: Studies in Intertextuality. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Whitton, C. 2010. “Pliny, Epistles 8.14: Senate, Slavery and the Agricola.” Journal of Roman Studies 100: 118–139. DOI: 10.1017/S0075435810000043. Whitton, C. 2018. “Quintilian, Pliny, Tacitus.” In Roman Literature under Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian: Literary Interactions, ad 96-138, edited by A. König and C. Whitton, 37–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781108354813.003. Woodman, A. J. 1979. “Self-Imitation and the Substance of History: Tacitus, Annals 1.61–5 and Histories 2.70, 5.14–15.” In Creative Imitation and Latin Literature, edited by D. West and A. J. Woodman, 143–155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511659171.009. Woodman, A. J. 2009. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 1–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi-org.bris.idm.oclc. org/10.1017/CCOL9780521874601.001. Woodman, A. J. 2012. “Epilogue.” In From Poetry to History: Selected Papers, edited by A. J. Woodman, 378–405. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199608652.003.0026. Woodman, A. J. 2020. “Ennius’ Annals and Tacitus’ Annals.” In Ennius’ Annals: Poetry and History, edited by C. Damon and J. Farrell, 228–240. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI:

c09_Vol1.indd 552

https://doi-org.bris.idm.oclc. org/10.1017/9781108650908.015.

INTIMILII, see LIGURIA

INVENTIO A. J. WOODMAN

University of Virginia

Inuentio is one of the five basic competences required of an orator (Cic. Inv. 1.9, Rhet. Her. 1.3, Quint. Inst. 3.3.1), the other four being dispositio (arrangement), elocutio (diction), memoria (memory), and pronuntiatio (delivery). It was defined by Cicero in his book on the subject as “the devising of content true or lifelike which will make a case appear convincing” (Inv. 1.9), and by a modern expert as “the ‘discovery’ of what requires to be said in a given situation, the implied theory being that this is somehow already ‘there’ though latent” (Russell 1967, 135). A good example is to be found in Quintilian, who, to illustrate the technique of vivid writing, chooses the topic of the storming of a city (Inst. 8.3.67–70): No doubt, simply to say “the city was stormed” is to embrace everything which such a fate involves, but this brief communiqué, as it were, does not touch the emotions. But, if you expand everything which was implicit in the single phrase, there will come into view flames racing through houses and temples, the crash of falling roofs, the single sound made up of many cries, the blind flight of some, others clinging to their dear ones in a last embrace, shrieks of children and women, the old men whom an unkind fate has allowed to live to see this day; then will come the pillage of property, secular and sacred, the frenzied activity of plunderers carrying off their booty and going back for more, the prisoners driven in chains before their captors, the mother who tries to keep her child with her, and the victors fighting one another wherever the spoils are richer. “Sack of a city” does, as I said, comprise all these things; but to state the whole is less than to state all the parts. We shall make things clear if they are plausible, and it will even be legitimate to make false additions of what usually occurs. (Trans. Russell, adapted)

28-04-2023 18:00:42

in V entio  

If one infers—and by no means all scholars make this inference—from Cicero’s description of historiography as “an oratorical task” (Leg. 1.5 opus…unum hoc oratorium maxime; cf. De or. 2.62) that in his opinion the various techniques of oratory can and should be applied to historiography, it follows that inuentio is as applicable to historiography as to oratory. Tacitus knew that his readers wanted to read about “mighty wars, stormings of cities, and routed and captured kings” (A. 4.32.1). “It is the localities of peoples, the fluctuations of battles, and the illustrious deaths of leaders which rivet and reinvigorate readers’ minds” (A. 4.33.3). On the other hand, it is commonly accepted that ancient historians generally did not do primary research: they neither investigated eyewitness accounts (even assuming that these existed) nor visited the places where the various events took place. Since the storming of one city looks very much like the storming of another, historians had every incentive to describe the storming of a city by resorting to the kind of emotive commonplaces or topoi (loci communes or, in Greek, koinoi topoi) which Quintilian deploys. Modern commentaries on historical authors such as Livy and Tacitus provide in their indexes under the heading “topoi” invaluable lists of the entirely fictional details with which Roman historians constructed their narratives of battles and combat (see, for example, Ash 2018, 363; Oakley 1997, 789–790, 1998, 849–850, 2005a, 745, 2005b, 647–648). Many such narratives include hortatory speeches from the opposing generals, and these too are entirely invented by the historian according to the principles of inuentio. It can be difficult to determine whether, in any given case, a historian such as Tacitus is resorting to topoi or is constructing his narrative on the basis of one or more individual models. In Annals 4.46–51, for example, his account of the war in Thrace in 26 ce seems particularly indebted both to Caesar’s account (BGall. 7.69–90) of the battle of Alesia in 52 bce and to Sallust’s account (Hist. 2.87M/2.74R) of fighting with the Isaurians in 76/75 bce (Woodman 2018, 240–256). On such occasions the procedure may as accurately be described as intertextuality as inuentio. A variation on this occurs when an author uses his own

c09_Vol1.indd 553

553

text as a model: thus it has been argued (Woodman 1998, 70–85) that Tacitus’ account of fighting the Germans in 15 ce in the Annals (1.61–5) is modeled on his own earlier account of events in 69–70 ce in the Histories (2.70, 5.14–15). Such examples of “self-imitation” or intratextuality can be hard to distinguish from the cases of so-called “doublets” that are a familiar feature of Livy’s history. In all of these narratives the enemy is as much a rhetorical construct as the battle itself. To describe foreign peoples, historians—and Tacitus is no exception— resorted to transferable motifs, to which German scholars have given the name Wandermotive: these motifs, which may ultimately be traced back as far as Herodotus, simply serve to identify various barbarian peoples as “other” and can be transferred from one people to another almost without distinction. Since travel in the ancient world was extremely difficult and dangerous and rarely undertaken by the average citizen, readers had little cause to question the accounts of foreign affairs which they enjoyed in their books of history. But inuentio poses two major problems for modern readers. First: since inuentio is the devising of “that which for the most part happens or which does not strain credibility or which contains within itself an approximation to either of these, whether it be true or false” (Cic. Inv. 1.46), there is no intrinsic criterion for distinguishing the true from the lifelike; without external evidence, we cannot tell whether what is described as having happened actually happened. Second: most of the scholarship on inuentio has perforce related to foreign narratives; whether Tacitus and others applied the technique similarly to domestic narratives remains to be proved, but modern psychological research suggests that autopsy cannot be relied upon to disprove the fictionality of a narrative. see also: ethnography; geography; historiography; intertextuality; narrative; speeches REFERENCES Ash, R. 2018. Tacitus: Annals Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oakley, S. P. 1997, 1998, 2005a, 2005b. A Commentary on Livy Books VI-X. Vols. 1–4. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

28-04-2023 18:00:42

554

  iron y

Russell, D. A. 1967. “Rhetoric and Criticism.” Greece & Rome 14: 130–144. Woodman, A. J. 1998. Tacitus Reviewed. Oxford: Clarendon Press Woodman, A. J. 2018. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press FURTHER READING Bacha, E. 1906. Le génie de Tacite: la création des Annales. Brussels: Lamertin. Dauge, Y. A. 1981. Le barbare. Recherches sur la conception romaine de la barbarie et de la civilisation. Brussels: Collection Latomus. Lausberg, H. 1998. Handbook of Literary Rhetoric. Eng. trans. Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill. Lendon, J. E. 2017. “Battle Description in the Ancient Historians.” Parts I–II. Greece & Rome 64: 39–64, 145–167. Paul, G. M. 1982. “Urbs Capta: Sketch of an Ancient Literary Motif.” Phoenix 36: 144–155. Woodman, A. J. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography, Chapter 2. London, Sydney, and Portland: Croom Helm/Areopagitica Press.

IORDANES, see IUDAEA

IRONY GEORGE BAROUD

Emerson College

The theoretical literature on irony is vast. Scholars in numerous disciplines including linguistics, philosophy, psychology, rhetoric, sociology, and aesthetics have proposed various theories, implications, and nuances for what irony is and how it works, but the concept continues to defy categorization and eludes unanimous definition. Even the history and development of this notion is a subject of scholarly dispute. Although there are many sophisticated instances of irony as early as Homer, in ancient Greek the word eirōneia was derived from eirōn, a stock figure who is a “dissembler,” “pretender,” or “liar,” and so originally meant “dissimulation.” The first attested use of eirōn occurs in the comedies of Aristophanes (for example, when Strepsiades accuses Socrates of being ironic in Clouds 449), and the first attested use of eirōneia occurs in Plato’s Republic, where Thrasymachus repeats this accusation (Republic 337a). Uses of the

c09_Vol1.indd 554

word in Aristotle (EN 1108a22; 1124b30), Demosthenes (Philippic 1, 7), and Theophrastus (Characters 1) suggest a semantic force that includes “malicious liar,” “self-deprecator,” “evasive pretender,” “understatement,” or “sarcasm.” The word often has a comic, mocking, or abusive sense. Some scholars, building in part on the reflections of Cicero (Acad. 2.5.15) and Quintilian (9.2.46) on Socrates, have argued that the Platonic usage marked a shift away from the abusive meaning of the term to signify what is now called “Socratic irony.” On this reading, Socratic irony is a mode of being, a posturing of “feigned ignorance,” or “mock-modesty” as a philosophical technique and pedagogical tool central to Socrates’ dialectical methodology (Vlastos 1987). The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum offers our first explicit definition of the term: irony is saying something but pretending not to say it or calling things by contrary names (1434a18). In Roman oratory irony is rendered by Cicero both as ironia and dissimulatio and is defined as “saying one thing but thinking another” (cum alia dicuntur ac sentias, de Oratore 2.67.269ff). It is a kind of serious (or sharp) jesting (seuere ludas). Elaborating upon Cicero, Quintilian defines irony as both a figure of speech and a trope whereby “what is said is contrary to what must be understood” (contrarium ei quod dicitur intellegendum est, 9.2.44; c.f. 8.6.54). This rhetorical definition becomes standard until the eighteenth century and following, when irony becomes a prominent subject of Romantic and postmodern analysis. It is in this later period that the term would accrete a new range of meanings, notably its passive, unintentional, observable senses: irony as something that simply exists or can “happen” to someone (Muecke 1970, 18ff). “Tragic irony” is one such instance, first advanced by Karl Solger (although some scholars attribute this notion to Hegel or to Schlegel). In twentieth-century historiographical theory, Hayden White argues that irony is one of four tropes of historical writing, one that is “radically self-critical” and skeptical of the ability of language to capture truth (White 1973). Irony—in both its ancient and modern senses— is ubiquitous in Tacitus’ writings, even intrinsic to his historical method, style, and thought. This affinity to irony can be explained by the congruence between how irony functions as a device and the chief themes Tacitus explores in his work. Irony always expresses a disjunct: it consists of a

28-04-2023 18:00:42

iron y  

tension between the apparent and the hidden; what is stated and what is meant. This device is thus especially effective for describing (or reflecting) an ironic historical moment, one that is founded on a contradiction between appearance and reality: an imperial government whose revolutionary and autocratic substance violently militates against its rhetoric of traditionalism and republicanism. Irony also inherently raises questions about sincerity and deceit; intentionality and accident; and knowledge and ignorance, in part by vacillating between and hence threatening the stability of these poles. Tacitus is singularly effective at harnessing this power of irony to confuse, and he deploys it as an instrument that compels readers to adopt a critical and creative approach to the text by compelling them to explain the substantive lacunae. Tacitus thus exploits irony to explore or uncover the “real” (rather than the professed) intentions of historical actors and, consequently, for nuancing our understanding of historical truth by complicating it (for example by hinting at its plural possibilities). Tacitus produces all manner of irony in his work. This includes verbal irony (a word or phrase that says something other than what it means); situational irony (an event or outcome opposite to one’s expectation), and dramatic irony (when an author represents a character as ignorant of something that readers already know). Tacitus’ writings also contain different species of ironic characters such as Tiberius (himself a consummate ironist) and Claudius (a caricature ironically mocked by Tacitus). A key Tacitean method for creating irony lies in crafting contradictions between what he articulates in his narrative voice and what a character says or thinks, by highlighting contradictions between two or more characters, or by arranging episodes such that elements in one invert, reverse, or contradict the other. Galba’s speech in which he proposes to adopt Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus to succeed him offers an example of how multiple classes of irony work in tandem. Galba explains his decision by claiming that Romans are not ruled by a king or a single family and that they cannot endure the extremities of slavery or freedom (H. 1.18)—a claim Tacitus himself contradicts when he bears witness to Roman servility in his preface. The (unintentional, verbal) irony lies in the patent absurdity of this demonstrably false

c09_Vol1.indd 555

555

assertion, an irony that evidences Galba’s fundamental misunderstanding of his world and anticipates the almost immediate fatal consequences to his miscalculation. But this speech can also be interpreted as an example of situational and dramatic irony: Galba himself does not see that he is practically enslaved to his subordinates, while his political mistake arguably repaves the path to that which he denies: the domination of single house, the Flavians, which culminates in the despotism of Domitian, whose rule Tacitus describes as enslavement in the Agricola. Tacitus’ ironies have a wide range of effects. His witty ironic epigrams express universal insights or truisms, often through paradox (Plass 1988; Sinclair 1995)—for example, his quip that governments with the greatest number of laws are also the most corrupt (A. 3.27). Tacitus’ ironies can range from the verbal, sarcastic humiliation of a figure (Otho playing the slave for the sake of domination, H. 1.36) to the underscoring of a cosmic absurdity (“barbarians” more virtuous than Romans; or the inheritance of power devolving upon Tiberius against all odds). His arrangement of historical material creates situational and dramatic ironies that build tension and suspense and lend the work its depth and pathos. Importantly, understanding contradiction in Tacitus as an ironic strategy rescues him from accusations of failure and error: contradictions that seem to be authorial oversights can also be interpreted as instances of ironic distancing or portraiture. Despite the prevalence of irony in his writing, one major problem of irony in Tacitus is that it is not always simple or easy to know definitively when a particular statement or figure should be understood ironically (Köhnken 1973). The reason for this is important: the reader’s correct inference of irony is predicated on a complex process of reasoning that includes correctly identifying intentionality—whether of the author, the narrator, character, or all three (Booth 1974). This difficult and perhaps impossible task is exacerbated by problems raised by the authorial fallacy: the inscrutability of the intentions of an author and by the fact that an author’s intentions may contradict those of their characters. A second major problem is that it is not always apparent what Tacitus’ ironies mean, and O’Gorman (2000) has sought to reframe our approach by redirecting us instead to concentrate on how Tacitus’ ironies mean.

28-04-2023 18:00:42

556

  iron y

The Dialogus illustrates these precise challenges. Ostensibly a response to Fabius Iustus’ question as to why oratory has declined, Tacitus repeats a discussion between Curiatius Maternus, Marcus Aper, Iulius Secundus, and Vipstanus Mesalla on this very topic that he had heard in his youth. But the text ends with no resolution, authorial clarification, or explicit “message,” and scholars have debated to what extent—if any—Tacitus endorses any one of the competing perspectives he represents. Deeper ironies further complicate interpretation of this text: its dramatically distant date and the conceit of the frame may be an ironic and subversive mask for discussing topical matters; Tacitus’ own prose may be a medium through which he metaliterarily critiques or comments on the arguments of his speakers; and the text is itself a dialogue on the decline of oratory authored by a masterful orator. This last observation serves as a reminder of irony’s dangerous, infinite circularities, and resurrects the ever-looming menace that all readers are ever at risk of being the victims of an elaborate Tacitean joke (Haynes 2014). Even instances of apparently simple verbal irony turn out upon close analysis to be highly complex. Consider for example Nero’s eulogy of Claudius, ghostwritten by Seneca (A. 13.3.1). During the speech, Nero’s praise of Claudius’ foresight and wisdom evokes laughter. This is potentially a straightforward instance of simple verbal irony in which a speaker says the opposite of what they mean for comic effect. But it is unclear whether Seneca had intended for this statement to be ironic, or whether the patent absurdity of his conventional elegy automatically evokes the scornful laughter of the audience. It is also possible that Nero’s delivery suggested to the audience an ironical import that Seneca had not intended. But this episode itself contributes to further, deeper ironies on the authorial level: because this speech is ghostwritten, everybody, including Seneca, underestimates Nero’s political and rhetorical shrewdness and believes they can manage him. But Tacitus will go on to show Nero has learned from and is fully capable of outmaneuvering and destroying this tutor. Later, when Seneca approaches Nero with a prepared speech to tender his resignation, Nero extemporaneously mobilizes Senecan language and Stoic ideals to

c09_Vol1.indd 556

reject Seneca’s request. In so doing, the text calls into question the philosopher’s own wisdom and foresight and suggests that he has laid the foundations for his own downfall (A. 14.53–7). Even if Tacitus were to have outlined clearly and explicitly for us his intentions, this would nevertheless not resolve our exegetic bind, since it would leave open the possibility that this admission is itself ironic. This dilemma is best encapsulated by Tacitus’ claim in the preface of Histories that the new dynasty of Nerva and Trajan ushers in an age of transparency and freedom, where “you can think what you want and say what you think” (sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet, H. 1.1). It is impossible to know whether that statement is itself sincere, or whether this is an ironic remark— a necessary and vital platitude. The possibility of an allusion to Cicero’s definition of irony only complicates the matter (cum alia dicuntur ac sentias, de Oratore 2.67.269 ff). Our entire understanding of Histories pivots on our interpretation of this sentence, since an ironic reading will structure our approach to the material and inflect our hermeneutic practices, for example whether we take Tacitus’ prose at face value or whether we look for hidden meanings, allegory, or metaphor. Irony in Tacitus is simultaneously (and sharply) inclusive and exclusive: it creates “discursive communities” (Hutcheon 1994) by fostering a sense of mutual belonging among readers who see and understand, but always at the cost of a “victim”: an imperceptive reader or an ignorant character. Irony is thus hierarchical, judgmental, and even “conspiratorial,” binding together like-minded readers, and readers and author, against others (even other imagined readers). Irony thus can also serve as a source of entertainment, for example because it produces humor (mockery or otherwise), but also because readers feel pleasure in successfully solving the intellectual puzzles with which the text confronts them. But in addition to building community and entertainment, irony is a clever Tacitean instrument of exerting authorial power, since it demonstrates his superior wit, keen observation, careful skepticism, and disarming charm—qualities that contribute to his credibility and, ultimately, to the persuasive power of his account. Tacitus’ ironies also produce textual difficulties. These are not meaningless accidents of his style

28-04-2023 18:00:42

I sis  

but central to his modality of thought (O’Gorman 2000). The disorienting ambiguities that emerge from ironic language, characters, and situations convey to Tacitus’ audiences the potential for miscommunication and “misreading” the language and politics that faced the historical actors. At the same time, the representation of such difficulties and failures conveys to the audience the manifest labor of historical reconstruction and emphasizes the difficulty of the historian’s task. Irony in Tacitus thus demands active, thoughtful, careful reading. It trains readers to be exceptionally sensitive to context, alert to multiple meanings, and suspicious of inconsistencies, and encourages us to become analysts of human motivation. This sustained exegetic practice helps hold readers’ attention, but also has a pragmatic, portable function: political and philosophical edification. This didactic valence of irony raises an important but understudied possibility: that Tacitus’ narrative voice is not a veridical reflection of the biographical author, but a constructed, ironic persona in the philosophical and satiric traditions. On this reading, irony in Tacitus is not only a figure of speech but also a method of discourse and a mode of behavior. Research is only now beginning to recognize the possibility that ancient historians, like poets, may have constructed literary personae—which ancient audiences would have interpreted as characters who mediate the material and whose voice should be interpreted critically. On this reading, Tacitus’ moral outrage and sardonic humor may be an ironic strategy analogous to the deliberate provocations of Juvenal’s indignant narrator in his Satires. Or Tacitus’ voice can be read as that of a slippery, ambiguous, playful, deceptive, Socratic eirōn whose feigned ignorance, textual inconsistencies, and complex humor is a calculated strategy to goad readers to rethink their unexamined worldview, to analyze their hackneyed, complacent language, and to interrogate their credulous assumptions. see also: Dialogus de Oratoribus; laughter REFERENCES Booth, W. 1974. A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

c09_Vol1.indd 557

557

Haynes, H. 2014. “The In- and Outside of History: Tacitus with Groucho Marx.” In Les opera minora et le développement de l’historiographie tacitéenne, edited by O. Devillers, 31–44. Bordeaux: Ausonius. Hutcheon, L. 1994. Irony’s Edge. The Theory and Politics of Irony. London and New York: Routledge. Köhnken, A. 1973. “Das Problem der Ironie bei Tacitus.” Museum Helveticum 30.1: 32–50. Muecke, D. C. 1970. Irony and the Ironic. Methuen, London, and New York: Routledge. O’Gorman, E. 2000. Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Plass, P. 1988. Wit and the Writing of History: The Rhetoric of Historiography in Imperial Rome. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Sinclair, P. 1995. Tacitus the Sententious Historian. A Sociology of Rhetoric in Annales 1–6. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Vlastos, G. 1987. “Socratic Irony.” The Classical Quarterly 37.1: 79–96. White, H. 1973. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. FURTHER READING Keane, C. 2012. “Historian and Satirist: Tacitus and Juvenal.” In Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 403–427. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Kierkegaard, S. 1989. The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates. Notes of Schellings Berlin Lectures. Edited and Translated by E. H. Hong and H. V. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Knox, N. 1972. “On the Classification of Ironies. Reviewed Work(s): The Compass of Irony by D. C. Muecke: The Ironic Vision in Modern Literature by Charles I. Glicksberg.” Modern Philology 70.1: 53–62. Muecke, D. C. 1969. The Compass of Irony. London. Rorty, R. 1989. Contingency, Irony, Solidarity. New York.

ISIS LEE FRANTANTUONO

Maynooth University

Isis was a major Egyptian goddess whose worship and cult became fairly widely diffused in the Greek and Roman worlds. In Tacitus she is mentioned in

28-04-2023 18:00:42

558

  I ta l ia

passing in connection with Vespasian’s time in Alexandria before his assumption of the principate in 69 ce. Amid his account of the wondrous signs of favor that accompanied the crucial time in the Long Year before Vespasian made his way to Rome, Tacitus digresses to explore the origins of the Egyptian god Sarapis. The historian makes reference to a shrine of Isis and Sarapis in the Rhacotis district of western Alexandria (H. 4.84). At Histories 5.2, in his account of the theories of the origins of the Jewish people, Tacitus cites the reign of Isis as the time when a surfeit of population in Egypt under the leadership of Hierosolymus settled in neighboring areas; here one sees evidence of the idea that Isis was in origin an Egyptian queen (and her divine consort Osiris a king). In an interesting and difficult passage that might seem to attest to how widespread the cult of Isis was disseminated in the ancient world, Tacitus notes at Germania 9.1 that some of the Suebi make sacrifice to Isis; he observes that the celebrated ship imagery associated with the goddess that could be seen in Germany was evidence that her cult was imported (but cf. G. 1.2, where Tacitus says there were no foreign importations into Germany). Since the Suebi were not under Roman domination and would not likely have adopted the worship of Isis from the Romans, it is likely that Tacitus has perhaps assimilated some local goddess and her nautical iconography with the more familiar Egyptian Isis (cf. G. 40.2, where Tacitus says that the northernmost of the Suebi worship the goddess Nerthus), though it is clear that the historian seems to think that the Suebi somehow worship a goddess more associated with the Nile than the Rhine. see also: Nerthus tribes; religion; Rhenus ISTVAEONES, see MANNUS TRIBES

ITALIA CAROLYNN RONCAGLIA

Santa Clara University

Gradually unified during the fourth through first centuries bce, Italy was the center of the Roman Empire and home to its most populous city and

c09_Vol1.indd 558

capital, Rome. Politically and strategically important, Italy was the site of military action during the civil wars of the Late Republic and the civil wars of 69 ce. Roman Italy exhibited significant regional variation in geography, agriculture, settlement density, recruitment patterns, political integration, and economic activity. Definitions of “Italia” evolved over time, and there were likely differences in how Greek and Roman authors defined this geographic entity before the second century bce (Carlà-Uhink 2017). Most likely, the name “Italia” derives from Greek colonists’ application of the Italic “Vitelia” (“calf-land”) to southern Italy. Greek myths attributed the origins of the name to the mythical king Italus and to Hercules’ bull-calf. Greek authors defined Italia first as only Bruttium; later Lucania was included as well (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.35.2; Gell. 11.1; Hekataios FGrH I F 41, 51–53; Thuc. 7.33.4). Theophrastus in the fourth century bce offers an expanded definition of Italia that includes most of southern Italy but excluded Latium (Ath. Deipn. 2.43b). By the thirs century bce, Greek authors used the term to denote the whole of peninsular Italy south of the Apennines. In the second century bce, Polybius has Italy extend to the Alps (Alpes; Polyb. 2.14). Roman definitions of Italia generally postdate these Greek mentions; these largely follow the Polybian definition. The history of Italy during the Roman Republic was marked by the expansion of Roman hegemony, particularly in the third century bce. Wars against Pyrrhus, the Samnites, and Hannibal were fought on Italian soil and led to the eventual consolidation of Roman authority in Italy, which consisted of a patchwork of alliances of varying equality (David 1997). Roman and Latin colonies also solidified Roman control over the Italian peninsula. In the third to second centuries, Italian allies provided much of the manpower for the wars of Roman overseas expansion, and Italian merchants increased their economic activity throughout the Mediterranean. Italian dissatisfaction with their perceived unequal economic and political status led to the Social War of 91–81 bce, which saw the rebellion of many of Rome’s Italian allies and the brief establishment of a rival capital at Corfinium, renamed Italica by the rebels.

28-04-2023 18:00:42

I ta l ia  

After the Social War, Italians south of the Padus received Roman citizenship, and Italian elites gradually incorporated themselves into the political and social elite at Rome. By the time of the civil wars of the Late Republic, key figures like Pompey the Great and Gaius Cilnius Maecenas were of Italian extraction. The civil wars of the Late Republic were accompanied by proscriptions, land confiscations, and veteran settlements imposed on communities throughout Italy. The civil wars also saw the full incorporation of Gallia Cisalpina (Gaul) into Roman Italy. After the Social War, Italy north of the Apennines had continued to be treated as a separate province, Gallia Cisalpina, administratively separate from Italy. The province was only partially enfranchised. The Transpadanes—those in Gallia Cisalpina living north of the Padus— received only Latin rights, not full citizenship. Iulius Caesar gave the Transpadanes full citizenship in 49 bce. Augustus, as triumvir in 42 bce, incorporated Gallia Cisalpina into Italy, and “Italia” largely retained these Augustan borders until the Tetrarchy (App. BC. 5.3; Cass. Dio 48.12.5; A. 11.24.1). The idea of a unified Italy was a key part of Augustan propaganda, and the conceptual unification of Italy occurred during the reign of Augustus. Before the battle of Actium, the whole of Italy swore allegiance to him (“tota Italia;” Mon. Anc. 25.2). Augustus reorganized Italy into eleven regiones, named largely after older Italian ethnic groups. This division mirrored his division of the city of Rome into fourteen regiones and followed a new fashion for Italian antiquarianism (Bispham 2007). Many of Augustus’ associates and supporters were from Italian towns, and the reign of Augustus saw the culmination of a decades-long trend of the political integration of Italian elites into Roman politics. This political integration shows important regional differences, with fewer elites from southern Italy, particularly from Magna Graecia, obtaining senatorial rank (Wiseman 1971). Nearly a century after the Social War, Italy achieved a privileged place within the empire. The literature of the Augustan era regards Rome, Latium, and Italy as a unit, one distinct from the provinces. The standard language of

c09_Vol1.indd 559

559

state documents was “Italy and the provinces,” emphasizing Italy’s exceptional status. During the Augustan era, construction of civic buildings and monuments increased throughout Italy. This trend continued into the Julio-Claudian period but reversed in the late first and second centuries, when the overall level of civic construction in Italian towns declined (Patterson 2006). The reigns of Augustus and Tiberius saw the last inscriptions written in the native languages of Italy other than Latin. This was the last part of a process by which Latin had displaced the other native languages and scripts of Italy, including Etruscan, Umbrian, and Venetic. This process began in the second century bce, accelerated dramatically in the first century bce, and by the early first century ce was largely complete. Throughout Roman Italy of the principate, Latin—and Greek in the south—were the predominant languages. During the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the imperial cult became more widespread in Italy, although there is evidence of cultic activity dating from the lifetime of Augustus. The cult of Isis became more widespread in Italy under the JulioClaudians, especially after the construction of a sanctuary of Isis and Serapis in the Campus Martius in Rome. The reigns of Tiberius and Caligula saw few new imperial building projects in Italy outside of Rome. Tiberius’ proposal to divert the Tiber in the aftermath of a flood was met with opposition by settlements along the river and abandoned (A. 1.79). Caligula’s bridging of the Bay of Naples was temporary. In contrast, Claudius initiated important building projects throughout Italy, including new aqueducts, new roads (the Via Claudia Augusta, the Via Claudia Nova, and the Via Claudia Valeria), the partial draining of the Fucine Lake, and the construction of the harbor at Ostia. The benefactions and construction projects of Nero were largely confined to Rome and Greece, although Tacitus reports he began construction on a canal linking Lake Avernus to Ostia (A. 15.42). The civil wars of 69 ce were largely fought on Italian soil, particularly in the north. The war in Italy can be broken into two phases. In the first phase, forces loyal to Vitellius and under the

28-04-2023 18:00:42

560

  I ta l ia

command of Caecina Alienus crossed the Great St. Bernard Pass into Italy and met those of Otho at the first battle of Bedriacum in April. In the second phase, Vitellian forces formerly under the command of Caecina met those of Antonius Primus at the second battle of Bedriacum in October. After the battle, the victorious forces of Antonius Primus subjected Cremona to a fourday sack. Other Italians proved reluctant to buy captives taken from the city, and when Antonius Primus issued an edict forbidding their sale, the owners began killing their captives (H. 3.34.1). The long-term effects of the civil war of 69 ce were not as severe as those of the Late Republic, a result perhaps of the brevity of the war (Dyson 1992). Cremona had been almost entirely destroyed, but the donations of other Italian towns helped restore the town’s public buildings, and those Cremonese captives not killed by their owners were ransomed by their surviving relatives (H. 3.34.1). The Flavian emperors stressed the reconstruction of Italy and a return to normalcy Vespasian emphasized his municipal Italian—and in particular Sabine—origins, which were associated with an old-fashioned and natural austerity (A. 3.55.1–4, Suet. Vesp. 1–2). Flavian construction projects were concentrated in the city of Rome. The Capitolium, burned during the civil war, saw both speedy reconstruction under Vespasian and a more elaborate renovation under Domitian. During Cornelius Tacitus’ lifetime, Italia included the Italian peninsula, the unbroken expanse of flat land to its north formed by the Po Valley and Venetic plain, most of the Istrian peninsula, and some of the surrounding Alps. Surrounding the Italian peninsula are the Adriatic, Ionian, Tyrrhenian, and Ligurian Seas. The Apennine mountain chain runs 1,200  km down the length of the Italian peninsula, dividing its eastern and western shores. The Italian peninsula’s rivers, including the Arnus, the Tiber, the Volturnus, the Tibernus, and Metaurus, have their source in the Apennines. North of the Po Valley are the higher peaks of the Alps, in which the Padus and the rivers of the Venetic plain have their sources. Larger lakes are concentrated in Etruria (Volsiniensis, Trasimenus) and the Alps (Benacus, Larius, Verbanus). An arc of volcanic activity existed from Sicily to Campania, with the eruptions of Vesuvius and

c09_Vol1.indd 560

Aetna being the best documented. Pliny the Younger describes the 79 ce eruption of Vesuvius in two letters to Tacitus (Plin. Ep. 6.16, 6.20). Seismic activity was concentrated around the central Apennines near Reate and Spoletum; in Campania around the Bay of Naples, and on either side of the Strait of Messina. The Mediterranean triad of olives, cereals, and vines dominated Italian agriculture, although in the Po Valley and in the Alpine and Apennine uplands, olives could not be grown due to colder winter temperatures. Legumes, fruit, nuts, and vegetables rounded out the diet and could be interspersed with other crops. Ancient Italian agricultural activity peaked in the period from 100 bce–150 ce; this coincided with increased urbanization and population growth in the Late Republic and Early Empire. Viticulture in particular was a boom industry in early imperial Italy, and Roman elites were increasingly involved in the business. In times of poor harvests, viticulture could be seen as keeping land from being used for grain production. The emperor Domitian issued an edict forbidding further planting of grapevines in Italy and ordering half of vineyards in the provinces to be cut down (Suet. Dom. 7.2). The number and average height of cattle, pigs, and ovicaprids (sheep/goats) also peaked during the period 100 bce–150 ce, although faunal assemblages do show important regional differences in animal husbandry. Pigs were more common in northern and central Italy than in the south, while cattle were more numerous in the north than in the south and center (Witcher 2016). Transhumance continued to be practiced in the Apennines and Alps. Aquaculture and exploitation of marine resources was practiced both along the coast and in Italian lakes. The Tyrrhenian coast in  particular was the location of intensive fish  farming. Italian aquaculture was a highly developed industry that encouraged regional interaction. For example, oysters from Brundisium were transported live across the Apennines to continue their growth in the coastal lagoon of Lake Lucrinus in Campania (Marzano 2013). Industrial production varied by region. Such variation was encouraged both by topography and by urban demand, which was not uniformly dispersed throughout Italy. High demand for building materials in Rome encouraged a

28-04-2023 18:00:42

I ta l ia  

brickmaking industry in the Tiber Valley. Wool and textile production were dominant in the flatlands of the Po Valley. Local industrial production was integrated with the empire-wide economy, driven by the consumer centers of Rome and the army on the Rhine and Danube borders. Women were involved in industrial production, and female manufacturers are attested for ceramic and glass production (CIL I2 3556a; AE 1955, 101). The population of Italy grew from 100 bce–150 ce. Estimates of the Italian population at the time of Augustus range from six to sixteen million persons; the broad range stems from a long-standing debate on whether a “high-count” or “low-count” is more appropriate in explaining census figures from the Augustan era. Of the major population centers, Rome was by far the largest, with an early imperial population of near one million. After Rome, the most populous cities in Italy were Capua, Patavium, and Mediolanum. There were around twenty to forty major cities of populations of around 10,000–25,000; these cities included the important centers of Tarentum, Brundisium, Beneventum, Neapolis, Ariminum, Bononia, Cremona, Placentia, Verona, and Aquileia (Morley 2011). A network of Roman Roads linked these cities to each other and to Rome. Leading out in a spoke pattern from Rome were the Via Aurelia, Via Cassia, Via Flaminia, Via Salaria, Via Tiburtina, Via Popilia, and Via Appia. In the Po Valley, the Via Aemilia and Via Postumia were the major roads. This road network, in conjunction with fluvial networks, enhanced connectivity and economic integration for Latium, Campania, the Po Valley, and coastal Italy. Less connected were northern Etruria, Calabria, Bruttium, and Liguria. Civic administration of Italy was largely conducted through urban centers, the municipia. Smaller settlements and rural areas fell under the jurisdiction of the municipia. The municipia were run by local elites, who serves as decuriones (town councilors) in their municipium’s curia or ordo decurionum (town council or municipal Senate) and were elected by their fellow townsmen as the local magistrates—IIviri/duoviri, IIIIviri/quattorviri, and aediles. Membership in the local ordo decurionum generally had age, wealth, and residency requirements. Freedmen were not allowed into the ordo decurionum, but their sons were.

c09_Vol1.indd 561

561

Italy in the first and second centuries ce retained privileges that distinguished it from the provinces. Its inhabitants were exempt from direct taxation. Municipalities in the provinces could be given the ius Italicum (Italian right), which gave them the same rights and benefits that Italy enjoyed. Unlike the provinces, Italy was not administered by a provincial governor, and its municipia in theory reported directly to the emperor and consuls at Rome. Beginning with Nerva, special curatores rei publicae were occasionally appointed by the emperor to oversee an individual municipium’s finances. Hadrian added four iuridici (judges) for Italy. These positions were removed by Antoninus Pius only to be reinstated by Marcus Aurelius. Otherwise, direct central control of Italian municipia was minimal, especially in comparison with the provinces. Permanent military installations were limited to the city of Rome, where the urban and Praetorian Cohorts were stationed, and to Misenum and Ravenna, the two main bases of the Roman navy. Until the annexation of the Cottian Alps by the Roman state during the reign of Nero, additional forces could be requested from the allied rulers of that region (Suet. Tib. 37.3). Through the second century ce, the Praetorian Guard was largely recruited from Italy, while the fleets at Misenum and Ravenna drew their recruits from the provinces, in particular Dalmatia, Egypt, and Thrace. While at the beginning of Julio-Claudian era Italians were still the majority of legionaries throughout the empire, this proportion declined significantly throughout the first century ce. By 69 ce, the proportion of Italians in the Roman army was around half, and by the reign of Hadrian the number of Italians serving in the legions was insignificant. Within the army of the first century ce, attested Italians were disproportionately drawn from areas north of Rome. Campania in particular shows a surprising absence of recruits. Italy is prominently featured in the Histories, where it is the setting of the key campaigns and battles of 69, and in the Annals, where it is particularly conspicuous in Claudius’ speech to the Senate about the extension of citizenship to Gallic nobles. There Claudius refers to the historical extension of Italy and the incorporation of Gallia Cisalpina (A. 11.24.1). In the opening of the Germania, Tacitus ranks Italy with Africa and

28-04-2023 18:00:42

562

  I ta l icus ( 1 )

Asia as being preferable to Germany (G. 2). The word Italia does not appear in the Agricola. see also: geography; Tabula Lugdunensis Reference work: Barrington 16, 19, 39–46

Potter, Timothy 1987. Roman Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press. Torelli, Mario. 1999. Tota Italia: Essays in the Cultural Formation of Roman Italy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ITALICUS (1)

REFERENCES

LEE FRANTANTUONO

Bispham, Edward. 2007. From Asculum to Actium: The Municipalization of Italy from the Social War to Augustus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carlà-Uhink, Filippo. 2017. The “Birth” of Italy: The Institutionalization of Italy as a Region, 3rd–1st Century B.C.E. Berlin: de Gruyter. David, Jean-Michel. 1997. La Romanisation de l’Italie. Paris: Flammarion. Dyson, Stephen L. 1992. Community and Society in Roman Italy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Marzano, Annalisa. 2013. Harvesting the Sea. The Exploitation of Marine Resources in the Roman Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morley, Neville. 2011. “Cities and Economic Development in the Roman Empire.” In Settlement, Urbanization, and Population, edited by Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson, 143–160. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Patterson, John R. 2006. Landscapes & Cities. Rural Settlement and Civic Transformation in Early Imperial Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wiseman, T. P. 1971. New Men in the Roman Senate. 139 bc – ad 14. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Witcher, Robert. 2016. “Agricultural Production in Roman Italy.” In A Companion to Roman Italy, edited by Alison Cooley, 459–482. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons.

Maynooth University

FURTHER READING Cooley, Alison E. 2016. “Coming to Terms with Dynastic Power, 30 bc-ad 69.” In A Companion to Roman Italy, edited by Alison Cooley, 103–120. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons. de Haas, Tymon, and Gijs Tol, eds. 2017. The Economic Integration of Roman Italy. Leiden: Brill. Eck, Werner. 1979. Die staatliche Organisation Italiens in der hohen Kaiserzeit. München: Beck. Farney, Gary D. 2011. “Aspects of the Emergence of Italian Identity in the Early Roman Empire.” In Communicating Identity in Italic Iron Age Communities, edited by Margarita Gleba and Helle W. Horsnæs, 223–232. Oakville, CT: David Brown Book Company.

c09_Vol1.indd 562

Italicus was a Roman citizen who was appointed by Claudius as king of the Cherusci in 47 ce as part of a diplomatic settlement of affairs in northwestern Germany (A. 11.16–17). In Tacitus’ account the Cherusci had asked for a king in consequence of the dearth of nobility left after years of instability occasioned by internecine strife; Italicus was the only available candidate of royal blood. The son of Arminius’ brother Flavus, Italicus’ mother had been the daughter of Actumerus, a chief of the Chatti. Claudius is said to have noted that Italicus was the first man born in Rome (a citizen and not a hostage) to leave the city to take on a foreign crown. Possessed of a mixture of positive and negative qualities, Italicus enjoyed some success in his newfound kingdom, though soon his arrogance engendered a spirit of rebellion among his subjects (not to mention the resentment occasioned by his Roman citizenship and a sense of that he was a puppet of Claudius). Full scale rebellion led to a war in which Italicus triumphed in one major battle, though soon enough he was driven into exile and restored to power through the intervention of the Langobardi. Thereafter he is said to have continued to afflict the Cherusci with his overbearing manner. His ultimate fate is unknown; a successor, Chariomerus, is attested by Cassius Dio in the ­ context of seeking Roman support from Domitian in a fight against the Chatti; while he was able to secure financial aid, by the end of the first century ce the monarchy had been abolished. see also: Suebi Reference work: PIR2 I 60 ITALICUS (2), see SUEBI ITURAEUS, see SYRIA

28-04-2023 18:00:42

I uba  

ITURIUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Iturius was a delator suborned to prosecute Agrippina the Younger in 55 ce by Iunia Silana; he is otherwise unknown. Iturius was a client of Iunia Silana’s, and in 55 ce she persuaded him to accuse Agrippina in revenge for Agrippina’s discouraging Sextius Africanus from marrying her. The charge was plotting revolt against Nero with Rubellius Plautus, though Agrippina successfully attacked Iturius’ (and his fellow accuser’s, Calvisius’) motives, claiming that Iturius was a spendthrift, with his eye on profit, and interested in a place in Silana’s will, now an old woman for whom he was performing this last service (A. 13.21.4). Iturius and his band lost their case, and he was relegated, along with Calvisius (A. 13.22.3). His banishment lasted until 59 when after Agrippina’s death those who had been exiled through her influence were allowed to return and their punishment annulled; nothing more is known of Iturius, his career or family. see also: delators Reference works: PIR2 I 62; RE 9.2380-1 = Iturius (Stein) FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 238–239.

IUBA ROBYN LE BLANC

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Iuba II (48 bce–23/24 ce) was a Numidian client king who ruled Mauretania from 25 bce–23/24 ce. Born in 48 bce, Iuba II was brought to Rome after the death of his father, Iuba I of Numidia (Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) in 46 bce, having sided against Iulius Caesar in his war against Pompey the Great and the Senate (Caes.

c09_Vol1.indd 563

563

BAfr.; Suet. Iul. 35; App. B Civ.2.44–45, 2.100– 101). Iuba II may have been raised in the household of Augustus and seems to have fought under him on campaigns in Spain in the 20s bce. By 25 bce, Augustus created him king of Mauretania (Algeria and Morocco), a region west of the kingdom of Iuba’s father, which was by now part of the province of Africa (A. 4.5; Strab.17.3.7, 17.39, 17.3.25). Iuba married Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and the pair had at least two children survive to adulthood, Ptolemaeus (1) (king after Iuba) and Drusilla (Anth Pal. 9.235; Strab. 17.3.25; Cass. Dio. 51.15.6; Roller 2003, 244–256). Increasing Roman cultural and political influence into North Africa marked Iuba’s reign. The preserved coins and sculpture of Iuba and his family and the architectural program at urban centers such as Caesarea (Iol) and Volubilis reflect a combination of local, Greco-Roman, and Egyptian styles (Strab. 17.3.12). Iuba was also known for his writings, as the author of at least ten works on various subjects and a collection of epigrams, and was widely cited in antiquity (e.g., Plin. HN 6.31, 5.10, 25.38, 37.32; Plut. Mor. Quaest. Rom. 24, 78, 89; for full bibliographic discussion, see Roller 2003, 261–263). Iuba died in the later stages of Tacfarinas’ revolt (A. 4.23). His son Ptolemaeus was executed by Caligula in 40 ce, leaving Mauretania to be annexed formerly to the Roman Empire as Mauretania Tingitana in the west, and Mauretania Caesariensis in the east (Suet. Calig. 35; 55). see also: civil wars of the Late Republic Reference work: Barrington 100 E5, 100 G4 REFERENCE Roller, Duane W. 2003. The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene: Royal Scholarship on Rome’s African Frontier. London: Routledge. FURTHER READING Coltelloni-Trannoy, Michèle. 1997. Le Royaume de Maurétanie sous Juba II et Ptolémée (25 av. J.-C. – 40 ap. J.-C.). Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Études d’antiquités africaines).

28-04-2023 18:00:42

564

  I udaea

IUDAEA NATHANAEL ANDRADE

Binghamton University

Iudaea is what Greek and Latin authors often called the region between Phoenicia (Lebanon), Egypt, and Arabia inhabited by Ioudaioi (meaning either Judaeans or Jews). It corresponds generally to modern Israel/Palestine and what ancient Jews described as 'Eretz Isra’el in Hebrew. It was also the name for the region immediately surrounding Jerusalem and for a larger Roman district that eventually became a province. The name Iudaea originated in the Iron-Age Near East. Located south of the kingdom of Israel, Judah was the kingdom centered on Jerusalem, its key palace and temple site. Vulnerable to empires in Assyria, Egypt, and Babylonia, it was conquered by the Babylonians in 597 bce and again in 586 bce. Judah corresponded to the district of Yehud under the Achaemenid Persians. The Greek and Latin term Iudaea was derived from Judah/Yehud and, when used restrictively, referred to the environs of Jerusalem (Barrington 70, F2–G2, F3–G3; Joseph. BJ 3.51–58; Plin. HN 5.68–70; Isaac 2017, 137; Roller 2018, 914). Yet, its semantic value was expansive. By Roman times, it could denote territory controlled, conquered, or settled by Jews under the Hasmonaean kings in the late Hellenistic period (Isaac 2017, 137–139). Jews surmised such territory to be rightfully theirs and expected a general absence of polytheistic temples, imperial cults, statues, and human likenesses on coins in its public spaces (Bernett 2007). This definition encompassed all of Palestine and parts of south Syria. Iudaea could also refer to the region in which the Romans identified Ioudaioi, not Greeks, to constitute the governing class of cities and their landscapes, namely Judaea proper, Galilee, Idumaea, parts of Transjordan, and in some instances Samaria (Joseph. AJ 15.328; Strabo, 16.2.21; Andrade 2010, 346–349; Bernett 2007, 23–26; Isaac 2017, 137–143; Rosenfeld 2000, esp. 145). Because this definition excluded territories that Jews understood to be theirs, such diverging definitions sometimes triggered violence (Andrade 2010).

c09_Vol1.indd 564

In administrative terms, Iudaea was also the name of a constantly transforming district of the province of Syria encapsulating Iudaea proper, coastal Palestine, Samaria, Idumaea, and eventually Galilee and parts of Transjordan. It came into being in 6 ce, when Augustus deposed the Herodian king Archelaus and transferred his realm to an equestrian prefect (Joseph. AJ. 18.1–3; Bernett 2007, 23–26; Isaac 2017, 138; Rosenfeld 2000, 182). The Gospel of Luke (2:1–3) treats this episode as the context of the birth of Jesus, and Pontius Pilate, who had Jesus crucified, is the most famous such prefect. While it is possible that Iudaea became an autonomous province governed by a procurator after 44 ce, it also may have remained a district of Syria (Bernett 2007: 310– 317). When the first Jewish revolt broke out in 66 ce, Nero transferred Iudaea to a senatorial governor, in this case Vespasian. After the revolt was suppressed, Iudaea became a province and was eventually garrisoned by two legions, though it was renamed Syria Palaestina by the emperor Hadrian in the 130s, after the Bar Kochba revolt (CIL 16.87; Isaac 2017, 134–137). Tacitus (H. 5.6) conceives of Judaea as surrounded by Arabia to the east, Egypt to the south, Phoenicia and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and Syria at the north. His definition reflects a common perception of where Jews constituted the preeminent population since the period of Hasmonaean control (see above, Strabo 16.2.21; Roller 2018, 908, 914). It is somewhat distinct from the province of Iudaea as it existed in his lifetime. Tacitus (H. 5.2) describes various understandings for how the Jews came to populate Jerusalem and Iudaea. Caesarea Maritima (modern Qesarya, Israel, Barrington 69, A4) was a large coastal city and the principal headquarters of the Roman governors of Iudaea, including Vespasian, during the first century ce. Tacitus thus calls it the capital of Iudaea (Iudaeae caput, H. 2.78.4). Located at the site of Strato’s Tower, it was famously reestablished in honor of Augustus as Caesarea by Herod I (see also Herod the Great) from roughly 22 to 10 bce. Herod outfitted the city with many of the monumental features of contemporary Greek cities in the Roman empire and founded a temple for Rome and Augustus there (Joseph. AJ 15.331–41,

28-04-2023 18:00:42

I u l ia Livia  

BJ 1.408–16; Patrich 2018, 9–16). His activity apparently triggered differences of opinion regarding whether the city belonged foremost to Greeks or Jews, an issue that led to serious violence during the reign of Nero (Joseph. AJ 20.173; BJ 2.266). After the first Jewish revolt, the city was settled by Roman veterans and had the status of a colonia (as Prima Flavia Augusta). It remained the seat of administration for the provincial governor of Iudaea and, subsequently, Syria Palaestina (Patrich 2018, 19–30). Excavations at Caesarea have shed light on many aspects of the civic and religious landscape of Caesarea in the Roman and later Roman imperial periods (Patrich 2018). Iordanes amnes (the Jordan River, Barrington 69, C3-4) is a river whose headwaters originate in Lebanon and which flows south into the Sea of Galilee and then into the Dead Sea. In antiquity, as today, it marked the geographical distinction between Iudaea/Israel and Transjordan. Because its headwaters originate in Lebanon, Tacitus, like Strabo before him (16.2.16; Roller 2018, 905), locates the Mons Libanus in Iudaea, though it is strictly in Lebanon. see also: Christus; Bellum Iudaicum; ethnicity Reference works: Barrington 69–70; CIL 16.87 REFERENCES Andrade, Nathanael. 2010. “Ambiguity, Violence, and Community in the Cities of Judaea and Syria.” Historia 59.3: 342–370. Bernett, Monika. 2007. Der Kaiserkult in Judäa unter den Herodiern und Römern: Untersuchungen zur politischen und religiösen Geschichte Judäa von 30 v. bis 66 n. Chr. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Isaac, Benjamin. 2017. Empire and Ideology in the Graeco-Roman World: Selected Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patrich, Joseph. 2018. A Walk to Caesarea: A Historical-Archaeological Perspective. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Roller, Duane. 2018. A Historical and Topographical Guide to the Geography of Strabo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosenfeld, Ben-Zion. 2000. “Flavius Josephus and Portrayal of the Coast (Paralia) of Contemporary Roan Palestine: Geography and Ideology.” Jewish Quarterly Review 91.1–2: 143–183.

c09_Vol1.indd 565

565

IULIA LIVIA TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Iulia Livia (c. 7 ce–43 ce; PIR2 I 636), was the daughter of Drusus the Younger and Livia Iulia. The marriage was a consequence of the series of arranged marriages and adoptions which took place in June of 4 ce as part of Augustus’ response to the succession breakdown following the deaths of Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar. Iulia Livia is largely in the background of events until, in 20 ce, she was married to Germanicus’ son Nero Iulius Caesar, who had reached the age of maturity in that year (A. 3.29). Iulia Livia is said to have participated in the political schemes of Lucius Aelius Sejanus. Both Iulia Livia and her mother Livia Iulia are said to have informed on Nero to Sejanus in order to undermine the young prince, with the ultimate goal of removing him from consideration for the succession. The goals of this scheme, as well as the role of the women in it, are debated. Nero was exiled in 29 ce. In the year 30 ce, Sejanus was betrothed to a woman named Iulia, possibly this one. We read in Cassius Dio (58.3.9) that Sejanus was betrothed to Iulia, the daughter of Drusus. While seemingly quite specific, this claim is actually rather vague, since the nomenclature Iulia, daughter of Drusus could apply to either to our Iulia Livia, or to her mother, Livia Iulia. Scholarly opinion varies as to the identity of this woman (see Edmondson 1992; Jones 2017; Seager 2005). Whatever the details, by 30 ce, Iulia Livia was soon to be either the wife or the stepdaughter of the extremely powerful court official Sejanus. However, Sejanus soon fell from grace, for reasons that remain unclear. There followed a purge of his supporters and associates to expose the disloyal. Strangely, Iulia Livia seems to have survived this purge, and, in 33 ce, would be married to Rubellius Blandus (A. 6.27). This marriage would last until Iulia’s death in 43 ce, when she ran afoul of Valeria Messalina, the wife of Claudius (Cass. Dio 60.8.5). Messalina brought about Iulia’s removal as part of her scheme to move her family, particularly her son Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, to the

28-04-2023 18:00:42

566

  I u l ia Livi l l a

center of the succession. To do this, she engineered the removal of descendants of Germanicus and his brother Drusus the Elder who could produce male heirs with superior claims to power based on their descent from emperors going back to Augustus. see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; marriage; women REFERENCES Edmondson, J., ed. 1992. Dio: The Julio-ClaudiansSelections from Books 58-63 of the Roman History of Cassius Dio. London: London Association of Classical Teachers. Jones, T. 2017. “Julia, Daughter of Drusus: Sejanus’ Imperial Betrothal.” Classicum 43: 22–27. Seager, R. 2005. Tiberius. Oxford: Blackwell. FURTHER READING Birch, R. A. 1981. “The Settlement of 26 June ad 4 and Its Aftermath.” Classical Quarterly 31: 443–456. Levick, B. 1966. “Drusus Caesar and the Adoptions of A.D. 4.” Latomus 25: 227–244. Levick, B. 1976. Tiberius the Politician. London: Thames and Hudson.

IULIA LIVILLA CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Iulia Livilla (18 ce–41/42 ce) was the youngest child of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder (Suet. Calig. 7.1). She was born on the island of Lesbos (see Greece) during her parents’ tour of the eastern Mediterranean (A. 2.54.1). After her father’s death at Antioch in 19 ce, she accompanied her mother and Caligula back to Italy. In the opening of Annals 3, the trio disembarks with the ashes of Germanicus at Brundisium and travels thence to Rome for the funeral (A. 3.1.4). Although the populace has high hopes for the children of Germanicus (A. 3.4.2), Agrippina invokes the ire of Livia Augusta and Tiberius, and falls prey to the machinations of Sejanus. After Agrippina is sent into exile in 29 ce, Tiberius manages the fortunes of her children. The emperor

c09_Vol1.indd 566

betroths Iulia Livilla’s sister Drusilla to Lucius Cassius Longinus (2) and Iulia to Marcus Vinicius: neither man poses a challenge to the imperial succession (A. 6.15.1). Vinicius, a mild, eloquent man whose father and grandfather were consular, married Iulia in 33 ce (A. 6.15.1). The Caligulan books of the Annals are missing, and other authors fill in pieces of Iulia Livilla’s remaining biography. Along with her sisters Drusilla and Agrippina the Younger, Iulia Livilla received excessive honors in the first year of her brother Caligula’s reign, including the honors of the Vestal Virgins (Suet. Calig. 15.3; Cass. Dio 59.3.4). Suetonius accuses her of an immoral lifestyle, including incest with Caligula and prostitution (Suet. Calig. 24.1, 24.3, 36.1). She was sent into exile with Agrippina the Younger in 39 ce for her involvement in the conspiracy of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (5) (widower of her sister Drusilla) to overthrow Caligula (Suet. Calig. 29.1; Cass. Dio 59.22.8). She was recalled under Claudius, and, together with Agrippina the Elder, entombed with Caligula’s body (Suet. Calig. 59.1; Cass. Dio 60.4.1). After being accused of adultery with Seneca, she was banished by Claudius to Pandateria in 41 ce and put to death in late 41 ce or early 42 ce (Suet. Claud. 29.1, Octavia 946–947). Her remains were later brought to Rome and interred in the Mausoleum of Augustus, likely when her sister Agrippina was married to the emperor Claudius. Iulia Livilla’s exile and that of her mother are remembered by the pitying crowd that observes the similar departure of Octavia (2) (A. 14.63.2). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference works: PIR2 I 674; Raepsaet-Charlier no. 443; CIL 6.891, 6.3998, 6.10563, 6.4362 FURTHER READING Barrett, Anthony A. 1996. Agrippina: Mother of Nero. London: Batsford. Wood, Susan. 1995. “Diva Drusilla Panthea and the Sisters of Caligula.” American Journal of Archaeology 99.3: 457–482. DOI: 10.2307/506945.

IULIA PROCILLA, see AGRICOLA

28-04-2023 18:00:42

I u l ius A fricanus ( 1 )  

IULII CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY

University of Alberta

Though of comparatively obscure background himself, Augustus managed to become sole ruler of the Roman world through his posthumous adoption by his maternal grandmother’s brother, Gaius Iulius Caesar, whose name he adopted. In trying to establish a successor for himself, Augustus was hindered by a lack of a male heir but undertook various schemes to secure an heir via his daughter Iulia the Elder. These were abortive, and he was succeeded by his wife’s son Tiberius, whom he adopted (A. 1.3). The modern term for the dynasty is the “Julio-Claudians” (Claudian because of descent from Tiberius and his brother), though Tacitus calls it “the Julian and Claudian house” (A. 6.8; cf. H. 1.16). In addition, Tacitus uses the terms Julian “clan” (gens, A. 2.41, 83; 4.9; 15.23) “family” (A. 1.8; 6.51; 12.2; 14.22) and “lineage” (A. 12.58). Τhe term “Julian” could refer to anyone with the nomen Iulius but in all these instances Tacitus is clearly referring specifically to the lineage of Augustus (Iulii by itself is also used in this narrow sense in A. 16.6 in reference to Augustus’ mausoleum). The family of Iulii claimed descent from Venus via Anchises’ grandson Iullus, the son of Aeneas (see A. 4.9; 11.24; 12.58). The Iulii were connected with Bovillae, which was settled from Alba Longa, which was supposedly settled by Iullus, who was considered the founder of the Julian gens, and for this reason, an altar to the Julian gens was established there (A. 2.41) along with circus games (A. 15.23). Blood descent from Augustus was an important factor in imperial success until the line started by him came to an end with the death of Nero. His immediate successor was born a Claudian but was adopted as Tiberius Iulius Caesar. The Iulii Caesares normally used the praenomina Gaius, Lucius, and Sextus, and the retention of the birth praenomen (contrary to the normal practice with the nomenclature of adoption) shows how the intertwining of Iulii with the Claudii had already taken root at this early stage (note the mixture of Julian and Claudian imagines at the burial of Tiberius’ brother Drusus

c09_Vol1.indd 567

567

the Elder back in 9 bce; see A. 3.5). Though Tiberius had a son of his own, he adopted his nephew Germanicus because the latter was married to Augustus’ granddaughter Agrippina the Elder and hence their children (and his presumptive heirs) would carry the blood of Augustus. This connection would prove disastrous for much of the family of Germanicus and Agrippina, but their son Gaius (Caligula) did become emperor because of it. Upon his death, the direct descent from Augustus came to an end. Tiberius’ nephew (and Gaius’ uncle) Claudius became emperor without Augustus’ blood, but her descent from Augustus led Claudius to marry his niece Agrippina the Younger and to adopt her son Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (later Nero) despite Claudius having a son of his own (Britannicus, A. 12.2). Descent from Augustus would prove fatal for collateral members of the family like the Iunii Silani. By the time of Nero’s death, the most prominent members of the lineage had died out, and the comparatively few residual members played no role in imperial politics. see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; Rome, myth and history

IULIUS AFRICANUS (1) KONSTANTINOS ARAMPAPASLIS

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Iulius Africanus (1), a member of the Gallic tribe of the Santoni, was the father of the famous homonymous orator of the Neronian period, Iulius Africanus (2). In the wake of the fall of Sejanus, he was implicated in the conspiracy against Tiberius, prosecuted, and convicted in 32 ce (A. 6.7.4). However, he escaped death by following the example of Minucius Thermus, Quintus Servaeus, and Seius Quadratus, turning himself into an informer (index; Rutledge 2001, 322 n. 13). see also: delators; Roman orators Reference works: PIR2 I 119; RE Iulius 44

28-04-2023 18:00:43

568

  I u l ius Agrestis

REFERENCE Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge.

IULIUS AFRICANUS (2), see ROMAN ORATORS

IULIUS AGRESTIS CARL J. HOPE

Durham School

Iulius Agrestis was a centurion in the forces of the emperor Vitellius in 69 ce. After the defeat of the Vitellian forces by those aligned to Vespasian, Agrestis attempted in vain to make Vitellius acknowledge the disaster and take appropriate steps. Through his persistence, the emperor sent him from Rome to discover what had happened at Cremona and survey the situation regarding the Flavian forces. Rather than spying, Agrestis approached Antonius Primus personally and explained his remit, seeking permission to look around. Given a tour by the enemy of the battle site, the burnt remains of Cremona, and the captured legions, he returned to Rome to report his findings. When Vitellius disbelieved his brief and accused him of taking bribes, Agrestis backed his words by committing suicide, though he may have been put to death at the orders of the emperor (H. 3.54). The suicide of a soldier is reported in other sources (Suet. Otho 10; Cass. Dio 64.11; Plut. Otho 15), all of which place the event earlier and connect it to the suicide of the emperor Otho. Reference work: PIR2 I 125 FURTHER READING Langlands, Rebecca. 2017. “Extratextuality.” In Roman Literature under Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian: Literary Interactions, ad 96–138, edited by Alice König and Christopher Whitton, 330–346. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

IULIUS AGRIPPA, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS

c09_Vol1.indd 568

IULIUS AGRIPPA II EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

Marcus Iulius Agrippa II (28 ce–c. 93 ce), son of Marcus Iulius Agrippa I (client king of Iudaea), was raised at the court of Claudius, who deemed him too young to rule Iudaea after his father’s death in 44 ce. Claudius sent the procurator Cuspius Fadus to govern Iudaea (Joseph. AJ 19.362), granting Agrippa Chalcis, formerly ruled by Agrippa’s uncle Herod, in 49 ce (Joseph. AJ 20.138); he exchanged this for territories once ruled by Philippus and Lysanias in 53 ce (Joseph. BJ 2.247). Agrippa supplied Nero’s legate Domitius Corbulo with troops for his Armenian campaign late in 54 ce (A. 13.7.1); Nero granted him, in return, parts of Galilee and Peraea (Joseph. AJ 20.159). He received the Apostle Paul at Caesarea in 61 ce (Acts 25: 13–26). The Jews expelled him from Jerusalem in 66 ce (Joseph. BJ 2.406–7), accusing him of supporting the Roman cause (Levick 1999, 27). He furnished Vespasian and Titus with reinforcements throughout the Jewish War of 66–74 ce (H. 5.1.2, Joseph. BJ 3.29) and supported Vespasian’s claim to the principate during the Civil wars of 69 ce (H. 2.81.1). In return for his loyalty, Vespasian granted him praetorian insignia (Cass. Dio 66.15.3– 4) when, in 75 ce, he settled at Rome with his sister Berenice, with whom he allegedly committed incest (Juv. 6.158). After his death (c. 93 ce), his territories were absorbed into the Roman province of Syria (Sullivan 1977, 344). see also: Antiochus; Armenia; Bellum Iudaicum; Sohaemus Reference work: PIR2 I 132 REFERENCES Levick, Barbara. 1999. Vespasian. London: Routledge. Sullivan, Richard. 1977. “The Dynasty of Judaea in the First Century.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 28: 296–354. FURTHER READING Millar, Fergus. 1993. The Roman Near East, 31 BC to ad 337. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius Aqui l a  

IULIUS ALEXANDER, TIBERIUS LEE FRANTANTUONO

Maynooth University

Tiberius Iulius Alexander was a Jewish native of Alexandria (identified as “Egyptian” by Tacitus on this account). He was the nephew of the celebrated writer Philo and served as procurator of Iudaea during the reign of Claudius in 46–48 (Joseph. AJ 20.100) and prefect of Egypt in 66 (Joseph. BJ 3.209; cf. H. 1.11). Tiberius is cited at Annals 15.28 as an eminent Roman equestrian who accompanied Domitius Corbulo’s son-in-law Annius Vinicianus in 63 on an embassy to King Tiridates. It is possible if not probable that Tiberius’ father had been granted Roman citizenship by the emperor whose name he took; the son certainly rose to prominence. Tiberius was an early and resolute champion of the imperial ambitions of Vespasian (H. 2.74), and he administered the oath of loyalty to his men on 1 July 69 (H. 2.79), the date which was later reckoned the start of Vespasian’s principate; he was involved with the emperor’s son Titus in the final stages of the successful campaigns in Iudaea (Joseph. BJ 5.46; 6.237), having clearly embraced allegiance to Rome over any attachment to Judaism, a loyal partisan of the Flavian regime. Tiberius had abandoned Jewish practices and observances in his pursuit of a career as a Roman knight; in his professional ambitions he was remarkably successful in navigating the challenging circumstances of imperial life from Claudius through Vespasian, holding offices under Claudius, Nero, Galba, and Vespasian, with circumspect, judicious conduct on full display during the controversies and hazards of the Long Year. His ultimate fate is unknown. see also: Bellum Iudaicum; civil wars of 69 ce; equestrians; Judaism

569

IULIUS AQUILA EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

Gaius Iulius Aquila, whose praenomen is preserved by the bilingual inscriptions CIL 3.6984 (=IGR 3.83) and CIL 3.346 (=IGR 3.15), was an equestrian born in the Roman colony of Amastris in Paphlagonia, within the senatorial province of Bithynia and Pontus; that he was descended from Italian colonists, rather than a Romanized provincial, is suggested by the fact that the two surviving Pontine inscriptions which commemorate him (CIL 3.6984  =  IGR 3.83, CIL 3.346  =  IGR 3.15) are bilingual in Latin and Greek (Demougin 1992, 444). Only certain stages of his career are known: he was appointed twice by Claudian consuls (first by Aulus Gabinius Secundus, then by Titus Statilius Taurus Corvinus) to the prefecture of the craftsmen in Rome (CIL 3.6984 = IGR 3.83), then by Claudius’ legate Didius Gallus as a commander of a number of auxiliary cohorts in the campaign against Mithridates VIII, who sought to recover the Bosporan kingdom from his brother, the client king Cotys, in 49 ce (A. 12.15.1–2). Aquila was responsible for Mithridates’ capture, for which he was later awarded praetorian insignia by Claudius (A. 12.21.1, Pflaum 1961, 68). He is later attested (CIL 3.346 = IGR 3.15) as being appointed procurator of Bithynia and Pontus by Nero in 58 ce; this same inscription records that as procurator, he financed the restoration of the road between the Bithynian towns of Apamea and Nicaea. He was appointed by his home town Amastris as perpetual priest of Augustus (CIL 3.6984 = IGR 3.83), perhaps under Claudius (Pflaum 1961, 68). Nothing else is known of his career. see also: Stertinius; Statilius Taurus, Titus (1); Balbillus Reference works: PIR2 I 166; RE 10.1.1919; CIL 3.6984 (=IGR 3.83), 3.346 (=IGR 3.15)

Reference work: PIR2 I 139 IULIUS ALPINUS, see IULIUS CLASSICIANUS IULIUS ALTINUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS

c09_Vol1.indd 569

REFERENCES Demougin, Ségolène. 1992. Prosopographie des Chevaliers Romains Julio-Claudiens. Rome: École Française.

28-04-2023 18:00:43

570

  I u l ius B riganticus

Pflaum, Hans-Georg. 1961. Les Carrières Procuratoriennes Équestres. Paris: Paul Geuthner.

IULIUS ATTICUS, see SPECULATORES IULIUS AUGURINUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY IULIUS AUSPEX, see IULIUS VALENTINUS

IULIUS BRIGANTICUS JULIA MEBANE

Indiana University, Bloomington

Iulius Briganticus (d. 70 ce; PIR2 I 211) was a Batavian commander of an auxiliary cavalry unit in the civil wars of 69 ce. His gens name (Iulius) confirms he was a Roman citizen. He initially supported the cause of Otho but surrendered (with an otherwise unknown Turullius Cerialis) to Vitellian forces after the Battle of Placentia (H. 2.22). He subsequently commanded a cavalry unit formed by Vitellius (H. 4.70). In the Batavian Revolt of 69–70 ce, Briganticus fought for Roman forces against his uncle, Iulius Civilis. Despite their familial connection, Tacitus reports that there was bitter enmity between the two men (H. 4.70). Briganticus fell in battle while defending the Roman settlements at Grinnes and Vada in 70 ce. Tacitus praises him for his opposition to Civilis and loyalty to the Roman cause (H. 5.21). FURTHER READING Derks, Ton. 2009. “Ethnic Identity in the Roman Frontier: The Epigraphy of Batavi and Other Lower Rhine Tribes.” In Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition, edited by Ton Derks and Nico Roymans, 239–282. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Roymans, Nico. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

IULIUS BURDO, see FONTEIUS CAPITO

c09_Vol1.indd 570

IULIUS CAESAR FEDERICO SANTANGELO

Newcastle University

Mentions of Gaius Iulius Caesar (Julius Caesar, 100–44 bce) in Tacitus’ oeuvre are relatively frequent and almost unfailingly meaningful. In the Germania there is a passing reference to his victories in Gaul against the Germans (37.4), factually listed between those of Gaius Marius in Italy and of Drusus the Elder, Tiberius, and Germanicus in Germany. In the Agricola there is no explicit mention of his campaigns in Britain, although Caesar’s work has been identified as a significant intertext. Caesar receives relatively prominent attention in the Dialogus de Oratoribus, where his achievements as a public speaker are pitted against his political accomplishments. Aper argues that Caesar and the other great orators of the late republic should still be treated on a par with contemporary ones, and corroborates the point by reporting the curious anecdote of his encounter with an old Briton who claimed to have fought against Caesar’s troops in 55 bce (D. 17.4: the dialogue is set in the mid- or late 70s). His overall assessment of Caesar’s ability as a speaker is that it is not in keeping with his political talent, and that his accomplishment in that area explains his lack of rhetorical distinction; he levies a similar criticism at Brutus, whose philosophical interests were dominant and argues that his poetic efforts are as insubstantial as those of Cicero (D. 21.5). Vipstanus Messalla expresses a much more positive view on Caesar (D. 25.3) and indeed on other early orators. Although Cicero was by far the best speaker of his generation, Caesar shines among his contemporaries for his brilliance (for a similar judgement cf. A. 13.3.5). The education he had received was a central aspect of his achievements: he was one of those men of the good old days that were brought up at home with a strong involvement of the mother in framing his education and in upholding the highest standards of discipline; Aurelia had a central role in his upbringing, just like Cornelia for the Gracchi and Atia for Augustus. Some speeches of Caesar are clearly in circulation when the dialogue is

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius C aesar  

supposed to have taken place: the prosecution case against Publius Cornelius Dolabella is singled out as testimony to the precociousness of his rhetorical talent (D. 34.7). Some of his speeches, though, failed to draw any interest as they had been given before the court of the centumviri (see centumvirales), which was no longer in existence (D. 38.4); they had therefore lost much of their practical use. Both Aper and Dolabella agree on an underlying periodization that places Caesar in the republican context and in fundamental continuity with established republican traditions. In the opening passage of the Annals Caesar is but a stage in a series of political upheavals that precede the advent of Augustus: after the failures of Lucius Cinna and Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) to establish a long-term hegemony, Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus also prove ineffective and end up handing the power over to Caesar; a symmetry is established between him and Augustus, who also emerged victorious from the clash with two prominent contemporaries (A. 1.1.2). There is a recognition of the fact that Augustus’ power ultimately derives from the base established by Julius, even well after the death of the dictator. The memory of Caesar’s funeral, which had been a key moment in the definition and management of his political legacy, comes back to the fore in the late summer of 14 ce, when Tiberius issues instructions on Augustus’ funeral: in spite of the request of some senators to carry his corpse on a funeral pyre, Tiberius invites moderation, and claims his intention to avoid any repeat of the turmoil that followed the Ides. Popular enthusiasm and emotion must be contained, and Augustus is to be buried in the Campus Martius, rather than in the Forum (A. 1.8.5). The sight of soldiers guarding and protecting the corpse of the emperor and the funerary cortege is read by some as a political statement: in spite of the princeps’ best efforts and of the firm grip over power of his successor, the funeral can only take place under armed guard. Tacitus records the bitter comments of those who still had direct memory of the Ides of March and of the hopes for freedom that the assassination had raised in some quarters, and the indictment in others (A. 1.8.6–7): the implication being that for some a political cycle had come to an unhappy end. The sharp and painful divisions

c09_Vol1.indd 571

571

of over half a century earlier are still on the minds of some. A decade later, in 25 ce, the Ides come back to the fore, when Cremutius Cordus is indicted for having written a historical work praising Brutus and Cassius. In the speech that Cremutius gave in his defense, Caesar was explicitly pitted against Tiberius as a relatively positive example (A. 4.34.4): when Cicero wrote a work extolling the virtues of Cato, he replied by writing a fictional speech that made the opposite case (cf. Suet. Iul. 56) but did not take any repressive action. Cremutius will soon take his own life: Tiberius and his advisor Sejanus are explicitly contrasted with the dictator, and with Augustus too. Caesar returns as a prominent reference point in the narrative of the civil wars of 69 ce. When the senators discuss the imminent prospect of the rule of one between Otho or Vitellius, the memory of the late republican civil wars is revived: back then the prospect of a survival of republican freedom was real, and even with the victory of Caesar, who brought to an end, the empire did survive; now the prospects were comprehensively uncertain, and even the possibility of a rise of Vespasian is uncertain (H. 1.50). It is telling that the reflection on the civil wars of a century earlier is taking place away from the battlefields, within a senatorial order that is confined to a largely marginal role. The comprehensive debasement of Roman politics is also echoed in a later comment at the end of the first book of the Histories (H. 1.90), when Tacitus registers the servile enthusiasm of the crowd that cheers Otho upon his departure from Rome in March 69: it cheered him with enthusiasm and affection, as if it were applauding on Caesar or Augustus. The analogy is all the more loaded and precise in light of the full-scale civil war that awaits Otho. The links with the season of the civil wars prove far-reaching at other moments too. A precedent from the age of Caesar’s rule is invoked in the narrative of October 69, when Rosius Regulus (see Caecina Alienus) is appointed to the consulship by Vitellius and his term of office expires on the same day. Some knowledgeable people had reservations on the workings of the transition process and invoked the precedent of Caninius Rebilus, whom Caesar had elevated to consulship on the last day of the year 45 bce. The civil conflict

28-04-2023 18:00:43

572

  I u l ius C e l sus

enhanced the need to reward people for their loyalty, and the same logic applied in 69 ce (H. 3.37.2). The memory of the civil wars is not altogether obliterated among the armies that are fighting for supremacy. When Vitellius’ soldiers contemplate defeat and debate the possibility of surrender, they conclude that Vespasian is unlikely to show clemency toward his enemy, and invoke somewhat imperfect analogies with Pompey’s treatment by Caesar and Antony’s by Octavian (H. 3.66). Yet Vitellius briefly contemplates abdication in order to save his family and possibly himself. Tacitus comments on how extraordinary that scenario was, and contrasts it with the end of several great figures in Roman history: Caesar’s sudden demise at the hands of a secret conspiracy opens the list, which continues with Caligula, Nero, Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus, and Galba. The hostile reaction of the Roman populace compels Vitellius to continue the fight against Vespasian’s troops, with disastrous consequences (H. 3.68). There is also scope for the occasional mention of a decision taken by Caesar during his time in power: a ruling of his is invoked as a precedent by an embassy of Sparta arguing to the Senate that the temple of Diana Limnatis pertained to the jurisdiction of the city (H. 4.43.2). see also: civil wars of the Late Republic; historiography; intertextuality; Julio-Claudian dynasty; memory; Roman orators; Roman Republic

He was brought down in the wake of the nefarious prefect’s ruin. Nothing is known of Iulius Celsus other than that he was a tribune of the city cohort (tribunus urbanae cohortis) of equestrian status in 32 ce whom Tacitus refers to as an informant, presumably against those involved with Sejanus (A. 6.9.6). In that capacity he appears to have divulged involvement by certain members of the Praetorian Guard in Sejanus’ conspiracy and to have also had inside information about the involvement of some prominent citizens involved in the plot: Annius Pollio (1), his son Vinicianus, Gaius Appius Iunius Silanus, Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, and Gaius Calvisius Sabinus were all implicated, but Celsus was able to exonerate Silanus and Calvisius, and Tiberius put off taking any action against the remaining individuals. Celsus was very likely trying to save himself by turning informer against those involved with Sejanus. It helped Celsus little: he later was charged with conspiracy (together with Geminius and Pompeius (1), equestrians otherwise unattested) and committed suicide by breaking his own neck with the chains in which he had been bound (A. 6.14.1–2). see also: delators; equestrians Reference works: PIR2 I 256; RE 10.543 = Iulius 179 (Stein)

FURTHER READING

FURTHER READING

Pitcher, L. 2009. “The Roman Historians after Livy.” In A Companion to Julius Caesar, edited by Miriam Griffin, 267–276, esp. 267–268. Oxford and Malden: Oxford University Press.

Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 239.

IULIUS CALENUS, see ALPINIUS MONTANUS IULIUS CARUS, see VINIUS, TITUS

IULIUS CIVILIS JONATHAN MASTER

IULIUS CELSUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Iulius Celsus (d. 32 ce) was a delator whose activities are closely involved with the fall of Sejanus.

c09_Vol1.indd 572

Emory University

Iulius Civilis was a Batavian auxiliary commander and Roman citizen, who led the Batavian Revolt, a movement of Germanic and Gallic peoples, most of whom were subjects of the Roman empire, in 69–70 ce. Aside from a brief

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius C ivi l is  

mention in Josephus (BJ 7.80), Civilis is entirely known from Tacitus’ Histories. A biography of Civilis, however minimal, reflects Tacitus’ portrayal of the man and therefore must be read with the awareness that any information about the Batavian reflects the historian’s particular historiographical approach. Civilis descended from a royal Batavian family, and upon enfranchisement by the Roman empire, its descendants served in a position of local leadership and as head of Batavian auxiliary units within the Roman military, a form of relationship that the Roman state cultivated with local nobility across the empire. Civilis refers to a brother who had been executed by Roman authorities (H. 4.32.2). That may be the Claudius Paulus with whom Tacitus formally introduces Civilis and the Batavians in the Histories (4.13.1; see Fonteius Capito). A son is also mentioned in passing (H. 4.63.1). Tacitus writes about Civilis’ nephew through his sister, praefectus alae Iulius Briganticus, who detests his uncle (H. 4.70.2), remains loyal to Rome, and dies fighting against the revolt (H. 5.21.1). Another nephew, Verax, supported Civilis and participated in one of the final successful actions against Roman forces before Civilis opens negotiations with the commander of the Roman forces, Petilius Cerialis (5.20.1). Civilis likely served in the Roman army for decades; he refers to having known Vespasian before he was emperor, probably in Britain during Claudius’ invasion (H. 5.26.2). But Civilis’ service record was checkered, he was “put into chains” once under Nero, only to be released by Galba, and then again under Vitellius, only to be released soon after (H. 4.13.1). Tacitus’ portrait of Civilis, integrated within the larger thematic framework of the Histories, reveals a clever, charismatic, and duplicitous figure, who takes advantage of the civil wars to lead a rebellion that, if successful, would result in a kingship for himself, if unsuccessful, would offer enough plausible deniability to make the claim that he was acting on behalf of Vespasian. Civilis has the explicit support of Flavian leaders to lead a military action against the units loyal to Vitellius that remained in the Rhineland (H. 4.13.2–3 and 4.32.1) and even after the rebellion was in the open, he still administers to his soldiers the oath of allegiance to Vespasian (H. 4.21.1). While some modern scholarship has taken this engagement with the Flavians as

c09_Vol1.indd 573

573

evidence that Civilis did not really intend to attempt to break away from Roman rule, Tacitus insists that Civilis always saw the civil wars as a cover for his true rebellion (H. 4.14.1). Civilis acts dishonestly with his own allies in the revolt too, at one point secretly offering a kingdom of Gaul to Cerialis in return for ceasing hostilities with the Batavians (H. 4.75.1), though he promises an equal partnership to the Gauls themselves. Early in the revolt, Civilis makes several arguments to persuade potential allies, in each case emphasizing the abuse and exploitation the northern subjects of Roman power faced, especially in the context of the levy which supplied the manpower the Romans demanded from the Batavians as tribute (H. 4.14.3, 4.17.2, 4.32.2). These are points Tacitus’ readers would be well advised to take seriously, even though Tacitus presents Civilis himself as a dishonorable man. Still, Tacitus affirms that Civilis was motivated to revolt by his own personal experiences at the hands of Roman authorities (H. 4.13.1), and likewise when the Batavian people eventually start to reconsider the wisdom of the revolt, Civilis quickly moves to negotiate with the Romans to save himself (H. 5.26.1). Even in battle, when Civilis displays bravery as he faces risk alongside his soldiers (H. 5.21.1), he hides his personal desire for power under humble slogans of solidarity (H. 4.66.2). Tacitus devotes so much attention to Civilis and the Batavian Revolt in order to explore several areas of interest. Tacitus repeatedly highlights the nature of the revolt which displays elements of civil war and foreign war (H. 2.69.1, 4.12.1, and 4.22.2). Tacitus uses the civil wars of 69 ce not only to look at the destructive and dysfunctional principate, but also to explore the nature of the far-flung, diverse, yet well-connected Roman Empire that relied on enormous numbers of provincial men to fill out military units and to fight on campaigns against foes outside the empire or police upstarts within the empire. Tacitus shows during a mutiny of Vitellius’ forces that Batavian auxiliaries in particular were valued for their reliably courageous service in the toughest fights (H. 2.28.1–2). The blended nature of the revolt then reflects the blended identities of the inhabitants of the empire, with the distinction between Roman and other, ruler and subject, Roman and provincial all muddied. Civilis’ name itself stands as an evocative symbol of the principate in 69,

28-04-2023 18:00:43

574

  I u l ius C l assicianus

suggesting citizenship and civil war, yet belonging to a provincial whose loyalties may have been more closely aligned with free German tribesmen living across the Rhine than with the Roman commanders giving him orders. Tacitus writes in the Germania that the greatest guarantee Roman power had of maintaining its rule was the dissension of the German tribes (G. 33.2). The portrait of Civilis’ leadership of the Batavian Revolt in the Histories reflects this assertion. Civilis briefly succeeds in uniting Batavian and other Germanic auxiliary units, a large number of Gallic communities including the Lingones and Treveri, and some free German peoples too. He honors the Bructeran priestess Veleda. But the Gauls starting with the Morini and Menapii (tribes named by Tacitus only at H. 4.28) never fully join the revolt. Within six months, it is the Gallic communities led by the Remi who actively resist the revolt and urge their fellow Gallic subjects of the Roman Empire to stick with Rome too (4.69). At the end of the Histories, where the text breaks off, only the Batavians remain under arms and even they are starting to remember the benefits of service to Rome (5.25). Civilis, always sensitive to the direction of the winds opens talks with Cerialis. Standing across a broken bridge, history gets one last glimpse of Civilis as he tries to negotiate his way out of trouble. We do not know what became of him, but his story stimulated the Dutch imagination in the seventeenth century when his rebellion became a founding myth in the creation of modern Dutch identity. see also: Belgae; Capito; empire; Fonteius; provinces FURTHER READING Ash, R. 2006. Tacitus. London: Bristol Classical Press. esp. 96–116. Haynes, H. 2003. The History of Make-Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. esp. 148–177. Haynes, I. 2013. Blood of the Provinces: The Roman Auxilia and the Making of the Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c09_Vol1.indd 574

Master, J. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Slofstra, J. 2002. “Batavians and Romans on the Lower Rhine.” Archaeological Dialogues 9.1: 16–38. Tilmans, K. 2017. “Aeneas, Bato and Civilis, the Forefathers of the Dutch: The Origin of the Batavian Tradition in Dutch Humanistic Historiography.” In Renaissance Culture in Context: Theory and Practice, edited by J. R. Brink and W. F. Gentrup. London: Routledge. Turner, B. 2016. “From Batavian Revolt to Rhenish Insurgency.” In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by T. Howe and L. L. Brice. Leiden: Brill. pp. 282–311. Roymans, N. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

IULIUS CLASSICIANUS MITCHELL PENTZER

University of Colorado Boulder

Gaius Iulius Alpinus (or Alpinius) Classicianus was an equestrian procurator of Britannia under Nero, from 61 to perhaps 65 ce. Little is known about him beyond the account of Tacitus (A. 14.38–39), but a sepulchral monument from Londinium, commissioned by his widow, Iulia Pacata, and pieced back together in 1935, provides information about his background in Treverorum (modern Trier) and possible familial connections. In the office of procurator, Classicianus replaced Catus Decianus, who had fled to Gaul when the Britons in the revolt of Boudicca scored two quick victories against Roman forces (A. 14.32). After Boudicca and her allies were defeated by the legate Suetonius Paulinus, Rome’s presence in Britannia was reinforced and Classicianus was brought in. Tacitus presents him, not uniquely among the procurators in his histories, in a negative light, suggesting that he contributed to ongoing hostilities, that a personal feud motivated a disagreement with Paulinus and led him to stir up desire for a new legate, one more merciful to the defeated Britons. Classicianus sent to Rome to achieve just this, and Nero dispatched his freedman Polyclitus to survey

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius C l assicus  

the situation in Britannia and perhaps, ambitiously, to mend fences between legate and procurator and between Roman and Briton. Polyclitus did not remove Paulinus immediately, but after the loss of a few ships and their crews, the legate was recalled and replaced by Petronius Turpilianus, whom Tacitus characterizes as lazy. Classicianus thus got his more merciful governor and seems to have continued in that office through Turpilianus’ tenure, ending in 63, and some of Trebellius Maximus’. Neither legate was so severe as Paulinus; Tacitus admits in the Agricola (16.2) that Paulinus was feared for a lack of clemency and some Britons kept arms because of this, so Classicianus’ concerns may have been justified (see also du Toit 1977, 155–158). Given that procurator’s terms are rarely longer than four years and his tomb was in Londinium, he probably died in office, in or close to 65 (Grasby and Tomlin 2002, 43). The inscription on said tomb considerably enriches our picture of Classicianus. His widow commissioned it and identified herself: Iulia Pacata, daughter of Indus. This father-in-law of Classicianus would be the aristocrat of Treverorum, Iulius Indus, who in service of Rome put down a rebellion under Iulius Florus in 21 ce (A. 3.42.3). Grasby and Tomlin (2002, 65–67) make a case for reconstructing Classicianus’ own place of birth on the monument as Treverorum. Another cognomen or gentilicium, Alpinus or Alpinius, appears in the inscription as well, opening up the possibility that Iulius Alpinus (otherwise unknown), leader of a rebellion of Helvetii (H. 1.68), was perhaps a cousin. The Treveran brothers Alpinius Montanus and Decimus Alpinius have been nominated as his children (Birley 2005, 304). Iulius Classicus, also of Treverorum, may also be a connection; like the Alpinii, he too joined the revolt of Iulius Civilis. A tombstone of a Diocharis, slave of one Iulius Classicianus, has been found at Rome; the name is rare, and if they are the same, this suggests Classicianus resided there prior to the term in Britannia (Birley 2005, 304). see also: Treveri Reference works: PIR2 I 145; PIR2 I 144; CIL VII 30 = AE 1936, 3 = RIB 12; CIL VI 9363 = VI 33805

c09_Vol1.indd 575

575

REFERENCES Birley, Anthony R. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. du Toit, L. A. 1977. “Tacitus and the Rebellion of Boudicca.” Acta Classica 20: 149–158. Grasby, R. D., and R. S. O. Tomlin. 2002. “The Sepulchral Monument of the Procurator C. Julius Classicianus.” Britannia 33: 43–75. FURTHER READING Pflaum, H. G. 1950. Les procurateurs équestres sous le Haut-Empire romain. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve.

IULIUS CLASSICUS NICHOLAS DEE

Bowling Green State University

Iulius Classicus (fl. 69–70 ce) was a wealthy Treveran nobleman of royal lineage (H. 2.14.1, 4.55.1), whose family likely had been granted citizenship by either Iulius Caesar or Augustus (see Wightman 1970, 44). As prefect of a Treveran cavalry regiment (H. 2.14.1), he turned against Vespasian in 70 ce, conspiring with fellow Gallic nobles to create an independent “Gallic empire” (imperium Galliarum). In close partnership with Iulius Civilis, Classicus’ efforts to break away from Rome, though initially successful, were eventually challenged by Petilius Cerialis. The date and circumstances of Classicus’ death are not known (PIR2 I 267). Following the death of Hordeonius Flaccus, Iulius Civilis, who had recently revealed himself to be an enemy of Rome (H. 4.54.1), exchanged messages with Classicus (H. 4.55.1; cf. Joseph. BJ 7.4.2), presumably in an attempt to expand the scope of the Batavian Revolt. Already disloyal and prone to boasting of his family’s record of hostility to Rome (H. 4.55.1), Classicus and fellow Gallic notables Iulius Sabinus and Iulius Tutor met in secret at Colonia Agrippinensis to discuss strategy, at which time they resolved to cultivate Gallic independence (H. 4.55.4), entice or coerce the rank-and-file proVitellian legionaries into an alliance, and put to death the pro-Flavian legates (H. 4.56.1).

28-04-2023 18:00:43

576

  I u l ius C l emens

Classicus and Tutor first signaled the Gauls’ break from Rome by establishing a separate camp from the legions’ camp near Vetera (H. 4.57.1) and then again at Novaesium (H. 4.57.3), where Classicus set the conspirators’ plans in motion: when the legate Dillius Vocula failed to dissuade either the Gauls’ rebellion or his own legionaries’ defection to their cause (H. 4.57.2–3, 59.2), Classicus tapped a deserter of the First Legion, Aemilius Longinus, to murder Vocula; the other legionary legates Herennius Gallus and Numisius Rufus were merely imprisoned (H. 4.59.1). Dressed in Roman imperial garb, Classicus proceeded to administer to the turncoat legionaries an oath of allegiance to the “empire of the Gauls” (pro imperio Galliarum, H. 4.59.2)—an aspirational polity whose good reputation and influence he would proactively cultivate through the exchange of hostages (his own daughter) and the extension of clemency (H. 4.63.1, 79.1). Aided by Civilis, Classicus then co-opted the existing defectors from Novaesium to secure allegiance to the imperium Galliarum among the besieged legionaries at Vetera (H. 4.59.3–60.2). The ensuing period of distraction and disorganization among the rebels did not spare Classicus, who prematurely counted the imperium Galliarum as realized (H. 4.70.1); however, the arrival in Gaul of several Roman legions led by Petilius Cerialis reinvigorated his spirit of resistance, even as many of his fellow Treverans’ resolve weakened (H. 4.71.5). When an attempt to shake Cerialis’ loyalty to Rome failed (H. 4.75.1–2), Classicus’ advocacy for swift action (H. 4.76.4) proved pivotal in a joint Gallo-German attack on the Roman position at Augusta Treverorum (Classicus’ hometown: H. 4.72.1), which ended in defeat and the destruction of the rebels’ camp (H. 4.78.2). Yet Classicus pressed on undeterred (H. 4.79), leading an assault on the auxiliary camp at Grinnes as part of Civilis’ larger four-prong action (H. 5.19.1–20.1): the Roman cavalry commander and nephew of Civilis, Iulius Briganticus, was killed before the rebel forces were thoroughly routed. Amid wholesale flight, Classicus escaped by boat on the river Waal (5.21.1–2). His ultimate fate presumably would have appeared in the lost portions of the Histories. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Nervii; Treveri

c09_Vol1.indd 576

REFERENCE Wightman, Edith Mary. 1970. Roman Trier and the Treviri. London: Rupert Hart-Davis. FURTHER READING Brunt, P. A. 1960. “Tacitus on the Batavian Revolt.” Latomus 19: 494–517. Master, Jonathan. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 146–147. Saddington, D. B. 1982. The Development of the Roman Auxiliary Forces from Caesar to Vespasian (49 bc-ad 79). University of Zimbabwe.

IULIUS CLEMENS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Iulius Clemens was a Roman centurion who was in Pannonia during the mutinies of August– September 14 ce. He was in the legions that mutinied in Emona, just after Augustus’ death, almost killing their commander, Quintus Iunius Blaesus. The soldiers expelled from the camp the tribunes and the prefect of the camp and killed at least one more severe centurion, Lucilius (2). Clemens was spared because his easy-going temper made him suitable to carry messages to and from the soldiers (A. 1.23). As such, on 26 September, Clemens mediated between the legions and Drusus the Younger who had in the meantime been called to the region to resolve the rebellion (A. 1.26.1). During that night an eclipse of the moon occurred, and Drusus exploited the superstitions of the soldiers in his favor. Along with a few others who had a good image among the soldiers, Clemens was sent by Drusus to persuade them to withdraw. He succeeded in this mission (A. 1.28.3–6). see also: Pannonian Revolt Reference works: PIR2 I 270; RE X.1, 569, Iulius 192 (Stein)

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius F l orus  

IULIUS CORDUS, see AQUITANIA

577

IULIUS FLAVIANUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

IULIUS DENSUS EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

Iulius Densus (whose praenomen is unattested) was a Roman equestrian of uncertain age and occupation (Demougin 1992, 429). A. 13.10.2 is the only extant reference to him in literature, and his name is absent from the epigraphic record. He was denounced to the new emperor Nero, around two months after his accession in late 54 ce, by an unknown accuser (A. 13.10.2), who construed his public expressions of support for Britannicus, Claudius’ biological son by Messalina and the rival heir to the Julio-Claudian throne, as treasonable (Rudich 1993, 8; Rutledge 2001, 111). Nero exercised his right of tribunician veto in order to prevent the Senate from hearing the accusations against Densus, and he was spared trial (A. 13.10.2). Nero not only thereby adhered to the policy of imperial clemency, which he adopted on the advice of Seneca following his accession (Rutledge 2001, 111), but also sought, at this early point in his reign, to reconcile supporters of Britannicus with his own principate, by demonstrably refusing to countenance treason charges against them (Rudich 1993, 8; Rutledge 2001, 111). Nothing else is known of Densus’ life or career. see also: Carrinas Celer; delators Reference works: PIR2 I 289; RE 10.1.1917 REFERENCES Demougin, Ségolène. 1992. Prosopographie des Chevaliers Romains Julio-Claudiens. Rome: École Française. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London: Routledge. Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge.

c09_Vol1.indd 577

University of Florida

Iulius Flavianus (otherwise unknown), a prefect in the Flavian army in 69 ce, was captured by Vitellian forces (H. 3.79). see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference work: PIR2 I 313

IULIUS FLORUS BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

Iulius Florus (birthdate unknown; died in 21 ce) was a Treveran who co-led a Gallic revolt in 21 ce. A Roman citizen whose family received citizenship when such dispersals were rare and based on bravery, Florus joined the Aeduan Iulius Sacrovir as the sharpest instigators of a Gallic rebellion centered upon the provinces of Lugdunesis and Belgica (A. 3.40, cf. Vell. Pat. 2.129). Florus incited his followers with complaints about tribute payments, indebtedness, and high interest, and saw the waffling of the legions mourning the death of Germanicus as an opportunity to revolt. By slaughtering Roman merchants amongst the Treveri, he hoped to entice (A. 3.42) a cavalry wing to join his rebellion; a few turned, most remained loyal to Rome. Tacitus discredits Florus’ followers by calling them a “mob of debtors and dependents” (A. 3.42) and a “disordered band” (A. 3.42). While trying to reach the safety of the Ardennes forest, Florus and his followers were checked by legionary forces sent by Gaius Visellius Varro and Gaius Silius [Aulus Caecina Largus]. These generals sent forward a picked unit led by Iulius Indus, a fellow countryman and rival of Florus among the Treviri, who was, according to Tacitus, “very eager to finish the job” (A. 3.42). Indus demolished the rebels. Defeated, Florus

28-04-2023 18:00:43

578

  I u l ius F rontinus

first hid under weak cover and then, having found himself surrounded, committed suicide (A. 3.42). Indus appears to have given his name to a cavalry wing, the ala Indiana Gallorum, which later served in Germania and Britannia (RIB 01 108). His sister may have been the woman recorded on a funerary inscription discovered in Britain (RIB 01 12). see also: Aedui; Lugdunum Reference works: Florus = PIR2 I 315; BNP “Iulius” II 58; Indus = PIR2 I 358; BNP “Iulius” II 72 FURTHER READING Bellemore, J. 2003. “Cassius Dio and the Chronology of A.D. 21.” Classical Quarterly 53.1: 268–285.

IULIUS FRONTINUS ALICE KÖNIG

University of St. Andrews

Sextus Iulius Frontinus (c. 40–103/4 ce) was a contemporary of Tacitus, a fellow consul and author, who features briefly in two of Tacitus’ texts. Frontinus’ origins are uncertain, but his family was probably equestrian, perhaps from Narbonese Gaul. Admitted to the Senate in the 60s (by either Galba or Vespasian), he was urban praetor at the start of 70 ce (H. 4.39), then suffect consul in c. 73. On military service in the Rhineland region in the late 60s–early 70s, he was peripherally involved in the Batavian Revolt (if the episode he narrates at Strat. 4.3.14 is reliable) and may later have been involved in Domitian’s German campaigns in the early 80s (Strat. 1.1.8, 1.3.10, 2.11.7). He succeeded Petilius Cerialis as governor of Britannia in 74 and conquered significant parts of Wales before handing over to Agricola in 77–78 (Ag. 17.2). It was probably under his leadership that the Roman fortress of Isca (Caerleon) was built. His movements in the 80s are more difficult to trace, but he served as proconsul of Asia in 84–85. His next major appointments came under Nerva and Trajan: first as curator aquarum in

c09_Vol1.indd 578

97 (Front. Aq. 1), then suffect consul in February 98, before a rare third consulship (ordinarius) in 100, in both cases with Trajan as his partner (Plin. Pan. 61.5–7). He was part of a senatorial committee that Nerva set up in 97 to consider financial economies (Plin. Pan. 62.2), and he must have been among the small coterie of senators who temporarily took control of the day-to-day running of the state when Trajan stayed away from Rome after Nerva’s death. Pliny notes that he succeeded Frontinus as augur in 103–104 (Ep. 4.8.3), giving us a date for his death; as Pliny’s comparison of Frontinus with Verginius Rufus in Ep. 9.19 indicates, Frontinus had by then become one of Rome’s most prominent and influential statesmen. Frontinus authored at least four different texts on important Roman institutions: a work on Roman land surveying (preserved in fragmentary form in the Corpus Agrimensorum), a lost Science of Warfare (mentioned at Strat. 1.pr.1), the surviving Strategemata, and the De Aquis, a discussion of the management of Rome’s water supply system. Frontinus and Tacitus must have worked alongside each other on matters of state: consuls in consecutive years, they may even have been involved in Nerva’s adoption of Trajan as his heir (Eck 2002). They also shared social and literary acquaintances. Frontinus makes no mention of Tacitus in his writings, but Tacitus mentions Frontinus twice (at H. 4.39 and Ag. 17.2), and it is reasonable to suppose that Frontinus may also have featured in the Histories’ lost books. In describing Frontinus as a magnus vir quantum licebat (“a great man, as far as he was allowed to be”) at Ag. 17.2, Tacitus invites readers to consider him alongside his father-in-law Agricola as a model statesman whose experiences could prompt reflection on the constraints and difficult choices that senators encountered under the Flavians. Reference work: PIR2 I 322 FURTHER READING Eck, W. 1982. “Die Gestalt Frontins in ihrer politischen and sozialen Umwelt.” In Wasserversorgung im antiken Rom. I: Sextus Iulius Frontinus, curator aquarum, 47–62. Munich: R. Oldenbourg.

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius G ratus  

Eck, W. 2002. “An Emperor Is Made: Senatorial Politics and Trajan’s Adoption by Nerva in 97.” In Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World, edited by G. Clark and T. Rajak, 211–226. Oxford: Oxford University Press. König, A. R. 2013. “Frontinus’ Cameo Role in Tacitus’ Agricola.” Classical Quarterly 63: 361–376. Rodgers, R. H. 2004. Frontinus: De Aquaeductu Urbis Romae. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

IULIUS FRONTO CARL J. HOPE

Durham School

Iulius Fronto was a tribune of the city watch in Rome under the emperor Galba in 68 ce who was discharged alongside two tribunes of the praetorian guard, Antonius Taurus and Antonius Naso, and a tribune of the urban cohorts, Aemilius Pacensis (H. 1.20.3). Tacitus does not specify the reason, but other sources suggest an involvement with Nymphidius Sabinus and his failed coup (Plut. Vit. Galb. 23.4; Suet. Galb. 16.1). These report that several persons were removed by Galba for this reason (Birley 1977, 281 posits that Galba removed a number of officers since he suspected the loyalties of the armies in the east and north-west). Plutarch states that those so discharged joined Otho. Fronto bears this out, next heard of as a tribune in the Othonian army (H. 2.26.1). During the first Battle of Bedriacum in 69 ce, after the Vitellian ambush at the Castores near Cremona was apparently betrayed, Fronto was arrested by the Othonian troops on suspicion of treacherously conspiring with his brother, Iulius Gratus, who was serving as prefect of the camp among the Vitellian forces under Alienus Caecina. As tribune of the city watch, Fronto had obtained equestrian rank unlike his brother Gratus, prefect of the camp (see table in Demougin). He was possibly the father of the Iulius Fronto (PIR2 I 324) who was prefect of the fleet at Misenum in 129 ce, but the connection (in this case as grandfather) was discounted by Demougin due to the popularity of the name. Along with brother, he was perhaps originally from Gallia Narbonensis (see Birley 1977, 279).

c09_Vol1.indd 579

579

Reference work: PIR2 I 325 REFERENCE Birley, Eric B. 1977. “The Aftermath of an Incident in A.D.69.” Chiron 7: 279–281.

IULIUS GABINIANUS, see ROMAN ORATORS IULIUS GRAECINUS, see AGRICOLA

IULIUS GRATUS CARL J. HOPE

Durham School

Iulius Gratus was a prefect of the camp in the Vitellian forces under the general Alienus Caecina during the first Battle of Bedriacum in 69 ce, left at the camp to supervise the troops while Caecina organized an ambush at the Castores near Cremona (H. 2.24.2). After Othonian successes under the leadership of Marius Celsus and Suetonius Paulinus, the Vitellian forces were in disarray. A mutiny in the camp broke out because the Vitellian army had not been led out to battle together. Suspicion fell on Gratus since his brother, Iulius Fronto, was serving in the Othonian forces. Fronto himself was arrested by his soldiers, suspected of colluding with his brother (H. 2.26.1). Gratus is mentioned by Tacitus only here. Gratus is conjectured to have been prefect of the camp of the Fifth (Alaudae) Legion (see Saddington 1996, 250); along with his brother, they were perhaps originally from Gallia Narbonensis (see Birley 1977, 279). see also: mutinies Reference work: PIR2 I 348 REFERENCES Birley, Eric B. 1977. “The Aftermath of an Incident in ad 69.” Chiron 7: 279–281. Saddington, Denis B. 1996. “Early Imperial ‘praefecti castrorum.’” Historia 45.2: 244–252.

28-04-2023 18:00:43

580

  I u l ius M ansuetus

IULIUS INDUS, see IULIUS FLORUS

IULIUS MANSUETUS CARL J. HOPE

Durham School

Iulius Mansuetus (otherwise unknown) joined the legion XXI Rapax in Germania, leaving his young son back at home in Hispania. When the boy was of age, he was conscripted by Galba into the Seventh (Galbiana) Legion in Spain to aid his revolt against the emperor Nero. This legion joined the Flavian forces after the emperor’s defeat. At the second Battle of Bedriacum this son dealt a fatal wound to his father. Recognizing one another as Mansuetus died, the son embraced the corpse, blamed the state for his parricide, dug a grave, and laid his father to rest (H. 3.25.2). Tacitus records that the battle was notable for this incident on the authority of Vipstanus Messalla. Reference work: PIR2 I 400 IULIUS MARINUS, see VESCULARIUS FLACCUS IULIUS MARTIALIS, see PLOTIUS FIRMUS

IULIUS MAXIMUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Iulius Maximus (otherwise unknown) was a Batavian who commanded troops against Didius Vocula and his army in 69 ce (H. 4.33). Throughout the Histories, Tacitus frequently names soldiers and officers otherwise unknown, with no connections to nobility; the practice seems to underscore the unraveling of Roman social fabric under the strains of civil war and the adjacent Batavian Revolt. Reference work: PIR2 I 421

c09_Vol1.indd 580

IULIUS MONTANUS, GAIUS LUCA BELTRAMINI

University of Padua

Gaius Iulius Montanus (c. 30/32 ce–56 ce) was a member of the equestrian order, admitted into the senatorial order after serving as military tribune and engineering officer of the legion V Macedonica (in Moesia), and later Xvir stilitibus iudicandis (the board of ten responsible for settling civil disputes). In his account of 56 ce (A. 13.25.1–3), Tacitus reports Nero’s habit of organizing nightly incursions in the city, during which, disguised as a slave, he committed crimes of all sorts (theft, random violence, sexual assault) and often got into violent fights. On one of these sprees, Montanus, at the time a designated quaestor, seriously injured Nero, and in retaliation the emperor forced him to commit suicide. The same story is told by Cassius Dio (61.9.2–4) and Suetonius (Ner. 26.1–2), who does not mention Montanus’ name and refers to him simply as “a man of the senatorial order.” Both add details not found in Tacitus, namely the fact that the fight was caused by Nero’s advances to Montanus’ wife. According to Dio, initially Montanus did not suffer any consequences from his act; Nero forced him to commit suicide only after receiving a letter of excuse, which made it clear that he had recognized the emperor despite the disguise. Montanus and his wife had a daughter, Iulia Nobilis, who dedicated an epitaph to him. Reference works: PIR2 I 435; CIL XI.1.3884 = ILS 978 FURTHER READING Bartsch, Shadi. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 16–20. Demougin, Ségolène. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome, n. 524. McAlindon, Dennis. 1957. “Entry to the Senate in the Early Empire.” Journal of Roman Studies 47: 191–195.

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius P l acidus  

IULIUS PAELIGNUS WESLEY J. HANSON

University of Pennsylvania

Iulius Paelignus, noted for his lazy mind and physical deformity (A. 12.49.1), was a friend of Claudius, before he became emperor, and the procurator of Cappadocia in the year 51 ce. Fabia (1898, 133ff.) adds another potential source about Paelignus, arguing that Paelignus ought to be identified with Laelianus, the prefect of the vigiles, at Cass. Dio 61.6.6 due to a transliteration mistake in the transmission of the epitome. In 51 ce Paelignus took part in the conflict between the Iberians and the Armenians. Pharasmanes, the leader of the Iberians, sent his ambitious son Radamistus to Armenia to lull Mithridates Hiberius, the Romansupported leader and Pharasmanes’ brother, into a false sense of familial security while preparations for war were made. During this conflict, Paelignus raised auxiliary forces under the pretext of reclaiming lost Armenian territory, but plundered Roman allies instead of their enemies. Facing the desertion of his troops and encroaching enemies, he turned to Radamistus, who sought Paelignus’ support by bribing him with gifts. Paelignus encouraged Radamistus to take up royal insignia, and he stayed on as Radamistus’ supporter and courtier (auctor et satelles, A.12.49.1). Helvidius Priscus was sent to pacify the turbulent situation (A. 12.49.2). Tacitus portrays Paelignus as a corrupt buffoon, deficient in both body and mind, whose friendship with Claudius is a discredit to the company that both men kept before Claudius became emperor. There may be some implication that Paelignus’ rise to procurator is due to his relationship with Claudius. Dio’s Laelianus is also noted for his greed, which fits Tacitus’ characterization of Paelignus.

581

REFERENCE Fabia, Philippe. 1898. “Julius Paelignus, préfet des vigiles et procurateur de Cappadoce.” Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes 22: 133–145.

IULIUS PLACIDUS CARL J. HOPE

Durham School

Iulius Placidus, a tribune of a cohort (H. 3.84.4), dragged the emperor Vitellius out from his hiding place in the imperial palace on 20 December 69 ce once the Flavian forces had advanced on Rome. Arresting the emperor and tying his hands behind his back, Placidus led Vitellius out of the imperial palace. As they went through a crowd which was cursing the emperor, a German soldier set upon them, wanting either to end Vitellius’ humiliation or to attack the tribune. Placidus’ ear was cut off (H. 3.84.4) before the soldier was killed. Most likely Placidus was the tribune at the Gemonian Steps in response to whose mocking Vitellius spoke his final words, stating that even so he had been that man’s emperor (H. 3.85). Devijver suggests he was tribune of the praetorian guard, although he might have been a tribune in a cohort of the Flavian forces, proposed by Demougin. Placidus is not named in other accounts (Suet. Vit. 16; Cass. Dio 64.20.1). see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference work: PIR2 I 469 FURTHER READING

see also: disability; Ummidius Quadratus; Vatinius

Demougin, Ségolène. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École française de Rome, n. 678, page 569. Devijver, H. 1976–1980. Prosopographia militarum equestrium. Louvian: University of Louvain, I, page 474.

Reference works: PIR2 I 445; RE 10.1.685–686

IULIUS POLLIO, see POISON

c09_Vol1.indd 581

28-04-2023 18:00:43

582

  I u l ius P ostumus

IULIUS POSTUMUS MEGAN M. DALY

University of Florida

Iulius Postumus was chosen to help make Livia Augusta implacable toward Agrippina the Elder. Iulius Postumus was a lover of Mutilia Prisca’s, and in Annals 4.12.4 Tacitus seems to suggest that Postumus was able to reach Augusta through Mutilia Prisca (see Furneaux 1896, 506 n. 3). In 47 ce he may have been prefect of Egypt (Shotter 1989, 141; CIL VI 918). If he was, then “he must have escaped successful prosecution after Sejanus’ fall in 31” (Martin and Woodman 1989, 133). Mutilia Prisca, if she is the same woman who appears in Cass. Dio 58.4.5–6 (see BNP Mutilia Prisca), killed herself after her husband Fufius Geminus committed suicide due to an accusation of impiety against Tiberius.

Vitellius, soon after entering Rome in July 69 ce, appointed Iulius Priscus, then a centurion, to praetorian prefect, along with Publilius Sabinus (H. 2.92). Tacitus records that Priscus and Sabinus competed fiercely for popularity and for Vitellius’ favor, which was inconstant; Sabinus was later imprisoned for his proximity to Aulus Caecina Severus and replaced with Alfenus Varus (H. 3.36). After Vitellius’ defeat at Cremona in October 69 ce, Priscus and Varus were ordered to occupy the Apennines with fourteen cohorts of the guard, a legion drafted from the navy, and a cavalry detachment (H. 3.55). With mass defection later affecting their forces, Priscus and Varus left their army and returned to Vitellius in Rome (H. 3.62); after Flavian forces under Licinius Mucianus seized Rome, Priscus committed suicide, reportedly out of shame (H. 4.11). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; praetorian cohorts; suicide

see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; maiestas; Tiberius Reference works: CIL VI 918; PIR2 I 482; PIR2 M 763; BNP Mutilia Prisca

IULIUS SABINUS BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University REFERENCES Furneaux, Henry, ed. 1896. The Annals of Tacitus. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, R. H., and A. J. Woodman, eds. 1989. Tacitus: Annals Book IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shotter, D. C. A. 1989. Tacitus Annals IV. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.

IULIUS PRISCUS MIK LARSEN

California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona

Iulius Priscus (d. 69 ce; PIR2 I 487) was a centurion placed in joint command of the Praetorian Guard by Vitellius upon his accession and also temporarily commanded Vitellian forces outside of Rome itself. He committed suicide after Vitellius’ fall.

c09_Vol1.indd 582

[Gaius] Iulius Sabinus (d. 79 ce) led his people, the Lingones, in the Rhenish insurgency known as the Batavian Revolt. Sabinus, along with Iulius Tutor, joined the insurgency sparked by Iulius Classicus and Iulius Civilis (H. 4.55). According to Tacitus, his claim of authority was based on his own natural vanity compounded by his (false) belief that he was the great-grandson of the dictator Iulius Caesar (H. 4.55). He and Tutor secretly organized their forces at Colonia Agrippinensis, where Tacitus describes how the followers of both men competed in offering anti-Roman sentiments (H. 4.55). After securing this alliance, Sabinus does not appear to have participated in the capture of Novaesium, the siege of Colonia Agrippinensis, the execution of Dillius Vocula, nor the imprisonment of Herennius Gallus and Numisius Rufus (H. 4.55–66). Rather, he seems to have traveled south to his homeland and his people, the Lingones. There he destroyed the

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius S acrovir  

monuments upon which their treaty with Rome had been inscribed and demanded that he be addressed as Caesar (H. 4.67; Cass. Dio (Xiph.) 65(66).3.1). His self-confidence outpaced the realities of his position. According to Tacitus, “He hurried a great and disordered mob of people against the Sequani,” who obliged with battle and routed Sabinus and his followers (H. 4.67). While Cassius Dio suggests that he was defeated in “several engagements” (Xiph. 65(66).3.2), Tacitus claims that Sabinus was as quick to abandon the battle as he was to start it (H. 4.67). Both authors describe how Sabinus faked his own death by burning the villa in which he was hiding (H. 4.67; Cass. Dio (Xiph.) 65(66).3.2). Assumed dead, the Lingones’ rebellious adventure petered out. After relating his defeat, Tacitus announces that he would later describe how Sabinus survived the arson with the help of his friends and wife, Epponina (H. 4.67). The book in which this story must have been recorded is lost, but details are provided by Dio and Plutarch (Amat. 25). After nine years in hiding, Sabinus was finally discovered and brought to Rome (Cass. Dio (Xiph.) 65(66).16.1). Standing before the emperor Vespasian, Epponina, with her two boys present, begged for clemency. While the sight apparently brought tears to the eyes of all those at the trial, both Sabinus and Epponina were executed. Tacitus, like Cassius Dio (who called her Peponila) and Plutarch (who called her Empone), praises the “remarkable example of [Sabinus’] wife Epponina,” insgne Epponinae uxoris exemplum, (H. 4.67). Her fortitude and steadfastness appear in contrast to Tacitus’ portrayal of Sabinus himself. see also: Gaul Reference works: PIR2 I 535; BNP “Iulius Sabinus” II 125 FURTHER READING Suerbaum, Werner. 2011. “Neun Jahre Liebe im Untergrund bei Tacitus, Cassius Dio und in Plutarchs Amatorius.” Gymansium 118.5: 463–482. Turner, B. 2016. “From Batavian Revolt to Rhenish Insurgency.” In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by T. Howe and L. L. Brice. Leiden: Brill.

c09_Vol1.indd 583

583

IULIUS SACROVIR BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

Iulius Sacrovir, from the wealthy Aedui (A. 3.43), organized a revolt with the Treveran Iulius Florus in 21 ce. A member of the Gallic nobility, Tacitus says that one of Sacrovir’s ancestors was likely granted citizenship by Iulius Caesar (A. 3.40). He and Florus roused their respective communities to revolt around 21 ce on account of their debt, high tribute, interest rates, and the harsh treatment of local governors. The first outbreak of violence occurred among the Andecavi and Turoni (A. 3.41). To hide his insurgent leanings and to cause more disruption with his desertion, Sacrovir began the war by supporting the Romans against the Turoni (A. 3.41). While Tacitus quotes Sacrovir saying that he fought bareheaded to illustrate his courage (A. 3.41), in the aftermath of the battle, captured Turoni bitterly accused him of doing so to avoid being the target of the insurgent missiles (A. 3.41). After the death of Florus and the surrender of the Treveri (A. 3.42), the Aedui, who were wealthier and further away from Roman forces, continued to fight (A. 3.43). Sacrovir and his men seized Augustodunum, where he took hostage the sons of local chieftains who had been sent there to receive an education (A. 3.43). He raised a force of about 40,000 men. About one-fifth of them were armed like legionaries, the rest with whatever weapons they could manage, mostly farm implements but also some manufactured in secret (A. 3.43). He also armed a band of slaves like “crupperlarians,” heavily armored gladiators (A. 3.43). Gaius Silius [Aulus Caecina Largus] led a Roman army against Augustodunum and met Sacrovir’s forces about twelve miles from the city (A. 3.45). Sacrovir illustrated his tactical wherewithal: he stationed his gladiators at the front, his legionary-like soldiers on the wings, and the mass of armed militia in the center (A. 3.45). Despite a rousing speech claiming the virtues of freedom (A. 3.45), the Romans quickly surrounded and demolished the inexperienced insurgent lines (A.

28-04-2023 18:00:43

584

  I u l ius Secundus

3.46). Sacrovir retreated, first to Augustodunum and then to a nearby villa. There, he and his followers committed suicide by burning the villa around them (A. 3.46; cf. H. 4.67, see Iulius Sabinus). The revolt is best known because it afforded an opportunity for Tacitus to comment upon Tiberius’ imperial manners. The emperor refused to respond to growing and severe rumors about the extent of the revolt (A. 3.44). Ultimately, he only announced the existence of the war after it had already been quelled (A. 3.47; Vell. Pat. 2.129). The affair is also famous as the last significant military action of Gaius Silius, who would succumb to the machinations of his political enemies in 24 ce (A. 4.18–19). see also: Gaul Reference works: PIR2 I 539; BNP “Iulius” II 126 FURTHER READING Bellemore, J. 2003. “Cassius Dio and the Chronology of A.D. 21.” Classical Quarterly 53.1: 268–285.

IULIUS SECUNDUS CHRISTOPHER S.VAN DEN BERG JOSHUA WHANG

Amherst College

Iulius Secundus (b. c. 35 ce) plays a minor role in the Dialogus de Oratoribus, facilitating the conversation through interjections and questions without offering any substantial arguments himself. Tacitus and Quintilian, a friend of Secundus, praise his oratorical accomplishments. In addition to being among the most celebrated orators of his day, Secundus wrote a biography of his uncle Iulius Africanus. He was (probably) secretary to the emperor Otho during the rebellion of Vitellius in 69 ce. Secundus is of Gallic origin, possibly from Burdigala (Bordeaux; Jones 1968 offers full arguments). He trained under his paternal uncle, Iulius Florus (not to be confused with the Gallic rebel, Iulius Florus, whom Tacitus documents at A. 3.40– 2). Quintilian heralds Florus as the leading orator

c09_Vol1.indd 584

of Gaul (Tres Galliae, which he never left) and as so great a speaker that few could rival him (Quint. Inst. 10.3.13). His nephew Secundus was of comparable abilities and was a coeval (aequalis) and close friend (familiariter amatus, Quint. Inst. 10.3.12–13). Jones (1968) has argued, based on discussion of Plin. Ep. 6.6.3–4, that Secundus was the father of Iulius Naso, a protégé of Pliny. If the identification is correct, then Secundus will have also been a senator and likely died around 80 ce. Like many other figures of the Dialogus, we are ill informed about his career. He may have been the secretary to Otho, if Plutarch’s cited source (Σεκοῦνδος ὁ ῥήτωρ, Plut. Otho, 9.3) is the same man. Tacitus strongly praises Secundus, noting that he would follow Secundus and Marcus Aper about at public and private speaking venues (in something like the tirocinium fori, the “orator’s apprenticeship”). They were the most celebrated talents of the Roman forum (D. 2.1). Some men thought Secundus not the readiest (promptus) of speakers, an idea which may be reflected in Quintilian’s anecdote, in which Florus tells his nephew, who has toiled for days in vain over an exordium, that he shouldn’t fret too much when crafting material— one can only create what is within one’s talents (Quint. Inst. 10.3.13–15; cf. 12.10.120–1). Tacitus corrects his contemporaries’ ungenerous opinion of Secundus, noting his simple cogency (purus et pressus) and his sufficient fluency (profluens sermo non defuit). Quintilian praises the selectivity (elegantia, Inst. 12.10.11) of Secundus, citing him as the last example in a canon of notionally contemporary speakers which stretches back to Gaius Iulius Caesar and other figures of the late republic. We also hear of his reluctance and his excessive attention to content over style, along with the claim that Secundus would count among the great orators who pursued eloquentia, had he only lived longer (Quint. Inst. 10.1.120–1). In the Dialogus, Secundus speaks little, expressing concern over the potential offense of Maternus’ recitation of his play Cato (D. 3.1). It appears that he does not accept the role of judge in the conversation, citing his connection to the poet Saleius Bassus (5.1–4; textual corruption makes it unclear if he actually is judge; cf. Possanza 1995). After the arrival of Vipstanus Messalla he lauds and summarizes the style and content of the

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius T utor  

preceding speeches. Messalla praises him (and the other interlocutors) for their oratorical achievements and singles out the exemplary role of Secundus’ biography of his uncle, Iulius Africanus (2), another famous orator from Gaul, remarking that the biography will spur others to such endeavors. It is hard not to see a cautious and indirect reference to Tacitus’ own composition of the Agricola, a biography written for an older male relative. Secundus urges Messalla to give a speech concerning the failings of modern oratory and thus changes the direction of the dialogue to a new speaker and a new topic. Scholars long thought that Secundus must have delivered a speech in the lacuna before Curiatius Maternus’ last speech (between 35 and 36), in part because Messalla responds to Secundus’ promptings by asking the other interlocutors to speak as well and because Maternus states that both he and Secundus will finish up what needs to be said (D. 16.1–3). This view has since fallen out of favor. see also: Cornelius Tacitus; Iulius Africanus (1); Pliny the Younger; Roman orators Reference works: PIR2 I 559; I 120 (Iulius Africanus); I 437 (Iulius Naso) REFERENCES Jones, Christopher. 1968. “Julius Naso and Julius Secundus.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 72: 279–288. DOI: 10.2307/311082. Possanza, Mark. 1995. “A Crux in Tacitus ‘Dialogus’ 5.3–4.” Phoenix 49: 131–139. DOI: 10.2307/1192630.

IULIUS TUTOR BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

Iulius Tutor, a Treveran from Augusta Treverorum (Trier; H. 4.55, 58, 72), was made prefect of the bank of the Rhine (praefectus ripae Rheni; see Rhenus) by Vitellius (H. 4.55). He is best known as one of the leaders of the Rhenish insurgency known as the Batavian Revolt. Tutor, along with his fellow Treveran Iulius Classicus and their supporters defected from

c09_Vol1.indd 585

585

Dillius Vocula’s Roman forces as they approached the Roman legionary fortress at Vetera, which was at the time under attack by Iulius Civilis (H. 4.57). After fortifying their own camp, and seeing Vocula assassinated by their supporters, the two Treverans divided their forces and commands (H. 5.58–9). Tutor then besieged Colonia Agrippinensis and forced its inhabitants and the soldiers guarding the upper Rhine to swear an oath of allegiance to the insurgents (H. 4.59). He then had the tribunes of Mogantiacum executed and the camp prefect expelled (H. 4.59). After the initial shock and success of the uprisings, the insurgent leaders were not always on the same page. Tacitus notes Tutor’s slowness to occupy and defend the Alpine passes (H. 4.70). When Roman reinforcements inevitably made their way north, Tutor augmented his own Treveran forces with levies of Vangiones, Caeracates, and Triboci. By plying hopes or stoking fears, he also managed to convince a number of Roman veterans to join his cause. While they were able to defeat a Roman cohort, these forces deserted Tutor when faced with the full force of a Roman army. Consequently, he and what was left of his loyal Treverans managed to escape to Bingium (Bingin). He tried to slow the Romans approach by destroying a bridge across the Nava river, but the Roman leader, Sextilius Felix, discovered a nearby ford and continued the pursuit. Tutor and his forces were helped by the return of Iulius Valentinus, and they subsequently executed the Roman commanders, Herennius Gallus and Numisius Rufus. As Tacitus says, by such an act the murderers ensured their continued support of the insurgency (H. 4.70). Tutor’s ultimate goals are unclear. The Roman general Petilius Cerialis, in an attempt to check the insurgency, argued that Tutor (or Classicus) wanted to rule over the Gauls (H. 4.74). Tutor’s failure to defend the Alps and check the arrival of Roman reinforcements forced the insurgency’s leaders to consider their options. Civilis suggested delaying further operations until German reinforcements could arrive. Tutor, according to Tacitus, argued that any delay only benefited the Roman forces, which he claimed were gathering from Britain, Spain, and Italy. Classicus sided with Tutor, and the insurgents

28-04-2023 18:00:43

586

  I u l ius Va l entinus

attacked the Roman army under Cerialis at Augusta Treverorum (Trier) (H. 4.76). The insurgents were ultimately defeated by the Romans despite their leaders’ (Tutor, Classicus, and Civilis) attempts to rally their forces (H. 4.79). Tacitus describes what happened to Classicus and Civilis in the aftermath of the battle, but nothing is heard again about Tutor until Book 5. Absent from Tacitus’ narrative for a time, Tutor next appears around the Batavian homeland with Classicus and 113 Treveran senators, including Alpinius Montanus whom Antonius Primus had originally sent to Gaul in an attempt to quell the insurgency (H. 5.19). Alongside Civilis, Verax (Civilis’ nephew), and Classicus, Tutor participated in a series of final and failed raids against Roman forces at Arenacum, Batavodurum, Grinnes, and Vada (H. 5.20). Tacitus’ last surviving mention of Tutor has him fleeing across the Rhine on a small boat (H. 5.21). His ultimate fate is unknown, but given his leadership role and the punishments inflicted on others, such as Iulius Sabinus, we might guess that he either fled to live in hiding in Germania, or ended up dead, by execution or his own hand. see also: Alps; Belgica; Treveri Reference works: PIR2 I 607; BNP “Iulius” II 139 FURTHER READING Turner, B. 2016. “From Batavian Revolt to Rhenish Insurgency.” In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by T. Howe and L. L. Brice. Leiden: Brill.

IULIUS VALENTINUS NICHOLAS DEE

Bowling Green State University

Iulius Valentinus (d. 70 ce), mentioned only by Tacitus, was a Treveran nobleman (H. 4.71.5) and ally of Iulius Civilis and Iulius Classicus. As a political operative, public speaker, and military leader, his strong support of the Gallic rebellion (the so-called imperium Galliarum) against the Flavians remained unwavering until his execution at their hands.

c09_Vol1.indd 586

In 70 ce, when the Remi—prompted by news of Gallic conspirator Iulius Sabinus’ defeat (H. 4.67.1) and of several legions approaching Gaul led by Petilius Cerialis (H. 4.68.1–4)—convened a delegation of tribal leaders to discuss the possibility of peace between Rome and the Gallic rebels (H. 4.67.2), Valentinus was the “fiercest proponent of war” (acerrimo instinctore belli) among the Treveran contingent (H. 4.68.5). His reportedly inflammatory, anti-Roman speech won some supporters, but in the end the propeace sentiments of Iulius Auspex (otherwise unknown) were adopted (H. 4.68.5–69.1). When the Gallic provinces consequently requested via letter that the Treveri end their rebellion, the continuing pro-war rhetoric of Valentinus among his countrymen dissuaded them from compliance (H. 4.69.1). Thus the Gallic rebellion wore on. Valentinus now took to the field of battle to enforce his hawkish stance. The Treveri, under the command of Iulius Tutor, were soon defeated in battle near Bingium (modern Bingen) and ready to sue for peace, but Valentinus’ arrival and calculated murder of two previously imprisoned (H. 4.59.1) legionary legates, Herennius Gallus and Numisius Rufus, forced the tribe to persist in their rebellion (H. 4.59.1, 70.5). Leading a large force of Treveran irregulars (H. 4.76.3) under the strategic direction of Civilis and Classicus, Valentinus then received an emboldened Cerialis’ offensive at Rigodulum (modern Riol): victorious, Cerialis took Valentinus prisoner (H. 4.71.5) and apparently shipped him south to Italy. At his trial and execution in Rome, Valentinus continued to exhibit in speech and appearance his typical bellicosity and devotion to the cause of Gallic freedom, though Domitian and Licinius Mucianus viewed the spectacle as proof of the success of Cerialis’ ongoing Gallic campaign (H. 4.85.1). see also: Batavian Revolt; Belgica, Belgae Reference work: PIR2 I 611 FURTHER READING Saddington, D. B. 1982. The Development of the Roman Auxiliary Forces from Caesar to Vespasian (49 bc-ad 79). University of Zimbabwe.

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I u l ius V inde x  

Wightman, Edith Mary. 1970. Roman Trier and the Treviri. London: Rupert Hart-Davis. 43–47.

587

IULIUS VINDEX HOLLY HAYNES

The College of New Jersey

IULIUS VESTINUS ATTICUS, MARCUS LEE FRANTANTUONO

Maynooth University

Marcus Iulius Vestinus Atticus was consul in 65 (A. 15.48) with Aulus Licinius Silius Nerva and possible son of the Lucius Vestinus, who was an equestrian from Gaul and restorer of the Capitolium in the wake of the destruction of the end of the Long Year (H. 4.53). Tacitus declares that Marcus was innocent of involvement in the Pisonian conspiracy (A. 15.52); Gaius Calpernius Piso was fearful that Marcus might rise up in defense of the restoration of the republic in the wake of an assassination of Nero, or that he might entrust the principate to another man as a personal gift. Marcus was loathed by Nero as a violent man who harbored a hatred for the emperor (A. 15.68); he had been one of Nero’s close companions, given to witticisms at the emperor’s expense that instilled a growing sense of annoyance and irritation with the free-spoken senator. Besides this, Marcus married Statilia Messalina, though he was fully aware that she was a mistress of the emperor. The tribune Gerellanus was dispatched to the consul’s house with a company of soldiers (A. 15.69); Marcus was hosting a dinner party either in ignorance of his impending doom or out of dissimulation. Marcus immediately retreated to his bedroom and had his veins opened; he was carried into the bath to meet his end, which came with no expression of self-pity. His guests were detained for some time; Nero later let them go with the observation that their terror as they waited for word of their ultimate fate was punishment enough for having dined with the consul. see also: suicide Reference work: PIR2 I 624

c09_Vol1.indd 587

Gaius Iulius Vindex came from a line of the Aquitanian nobility granted citizenship by Iulius Caesar. Vindex himself was given senatorial status by Claudius, reaching the rank of praetor and by 68 ce was praetorian legate of a Gallic province, most likely Gallia Lugdunensis. Dissatisfied with Nero’s increasingly tyrannical style of rule and possibly acting together with other Gallic potentates (Joseph. BJ 4.440), Vindex instigated a revolt in March of that year. Tacitus refers to this uprising variously as bellum Neronis (H. 2.27.2), bellum Vindicis (H. 1.70.1), bellum adversus Vindicem (H. 1.53.2), conatus Vindicis (H.1.65.2), and motus Vindicis (H. 1.89.1); and further reports that Vindex was strongly supported by tribes of Gaul, the Arveni (H. 4.17.3), Sequani (H. 1.51.4), and Aedui (H. 1.51.4 and 4.17.3; cf. Królczyk 2018). The Batavi, who would themselves stage a revolt later in the year, also appear to have backed him. Against him stood the parts of Gaul closest to the Rhine (H. 1.16.1), the Treveri and Lingones, and his own province, Lugdunensis, which was loyal to Nero because of his sizeable donation to them after a fire in the capital city of Lugdunum. Vindex had no legion in his own province, which Tacitus describes as inermis, and attempted to enlist the support of Roman officials in nearby provinces. Scholarship differs on the question of Vindex’s motivation: the end of the principate and restoration of a republican style of government (Mommsen 1878); less radically and much more likely, the renovation of the principate as a constitutional Augustan-style government (Brunt 1959; Wiedemann 1996); or, by contrast, liberation of the province from Rome, with Nero’s fall as an unforeseen and unlikely consequence (Syme 1958). In support of the latter view is Tacitus’ own emphasis, derived from Flavian sources, on Vindex’s revolt as a nationalist movement to overthrow Roman rule like that of the Batavian Iulius Civilis. However, the most recent scholarship points out that especially Vindex’s coinage of the era, similar in propagandistic imagery to Galba’s,

28-04-2023 18:00:43

588

  I u l ius V inde x

argues for his recognition of Rome’s authority (cf. Wiedemann 1996). Types include imagery of Roma Restituta, the oak crown given a Roman soldier for saving another’s life together with the legend “Salvation of the Human Race,” and the lettering SPQR (Kraay 1949). Cassius Dio (63.22) reports a thunderous speech in the Gallic assembly that emphasized Nero’s heavy taxation of the provinces, moral outrages, and attacks on the authority of the Senate. Though most likely fictitious, the speech indicates that Vindex’s propaganda at least promised the restoration of rather than revolt from Rome. But in his first approaches to neighboring governors and military commanders, in the winter of 67–68, Vindex proposed no particular person as Nero’s replacement, perhaps to better appeal to those who were more attracted to liberating the province than ameliorating Roman government. Vindex’s overtures resulted in his correspondents’ betrayal of the plot to Nero. The political mood was particularly paranoid in the wake of the Pisonian Conspiracy and its reprisals (see Pisonian Conspiracy, victims); other officials would wish to preempt any suspicion of involvement with another intended coup. Only Servius Sulpicius Galba, then governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, remained neutral, neither betraying Vindex nor responding to him. Suetonius (Nero 40–41) tells us that Nero was at first unperturbed by the news of Vindex’s uprising, which he received while in Naples, apparently more upset by the fact that Vindex had criticized his musicianship (cf. Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 5.10; Juv. 8.222) and called attention to his lineage from the gens Ahenobarbus (thereby disputing his auctoritas as a true Julio-Claudian). But by April 68 Galba had accepted Vindex’s nomination to replace Nero, gathering troops, funds, and support most notably from Marcus Salvius Otho, governor of Lusitania, who was later to overthrow him, and probably from the Tiberius Iulius Alexander, prefect of Egypt. His coinage from the era alludes to motifs in Vindex’s, depicting concord between Spain and Gaul. Things looked more serious. Nero declared Galba a public enemy and amassed forces, including recruiting new soldiers at Rome, forming a new legion from the fleet at Misenum and calling back the Illyrian legions. Ultimately it was Verginius Rufus, legate in Upper Germany, who stopped the rebellion. Vindex had likely tried to enlist Rufus’ support,

c09_Vol1.indd 588

and if so, the latter would have known about the uprising before news of it had reached Nero (cf. Shotter 1975). Gathering his own three legions along with other forces he besieged Vesontio, a stronghold of Vindex’s uprising. Vindex came to its defense. The ensuing battle resulted in a total victory for Rufus and Vindex’s suicide. However, the sources give information too scant or ambiguous to resolve several important questions, including those concerning Rufus’ motivations, loyalty, and behavior. Dio writes that Rufus and Vindex had reached an agreement before the battle, but the armies engaged one another before receiving word of their leaders’ intentions (63.24– 5; cf. Plut. Galb. 6.3). This suggestion makes sense of Vindex’s engagement with Rufus without waiting for reinforcements from Galba, and also of his boast to Galba that he had 100,000 men at his disposal: he assumed that Rufus would join him (Plut. Galb. 4.3; cf. Brunt 1959, 537–540). According to Tacitus, who echoes pro-Flavian sources, Vindex’s revolt lent indirect support to Vitellius’ successful bid for the principate in March 69 ce. The Rhine troops victorious against Vindex were already mobilized in Upper Germany around Vesontio and ready for more action against the Gallic forces that had supported Vindex and Galba (H. 1.51). They were therefore easily enlisted to Vitellius’ cause by their commanders Aulus Caecina Alienus and Fabius Valens. Galba honored Vindex with a public funeral (Plut. Galb. 22.2), and Pliny the Elder calls him adsertorem illum a Nerone libertatis (“champion of liberty against Nero,” HN 20.57). Vindex’s fame is still evident in the Historia Augusta, which twice names him as a contender for power in 68 (HA Alex. Sev. 1.7; Firm. 1.1). see also: Vitellius, rise to power Reference work: PIR2 I 628 REFERENCES Brunt, P. A. 1959. “The Revolt of Vindex and the Fall of Nero.” Latomus 18: 531–559. Kraay, Colin M. 1949. “The Coinage of Vindex and Galba, ad 68, and the Continuity of the Augustan Principate.” Numismatic Chronicle 9: 129–149. Królczyk, K. 2018. “Rebellion of Caius Iulius Vindex against Emperor Nero.” Vestnik of Saint Petersburg

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I unia Lepida  

University. History 63: 858–871. DOI: 10.21638/11701/spbu02.2018.312. Mommsen, Theodor. 1878. “Der Letzte Kampf der Römischen Republik.” Hermes 13: 90–105. Shotter, D. C. A. 1975. “A Time-Table for the ‘Bellum Neronis’.” Historia 24: 59–74. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wiedemann, T. E. J. 1996. “From Nero to Vespasian.” In The Cambridge Ancient History. 2nd ed. Vol. 10, edited by A. K. Bowman, E. Champlin, and A. Lintott, 256–282. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

IULLUS ANTONIUS, see JULIA THE ELDER IUNCUS VERGILIANUS, see MESSALINA

IUNIA CALVINA JUAN LUIS POSADAS

Centro Universitario U-TAD, Madrid, Spain TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Iunia Calvina was the daughter of Marcus Iunius Silanus (1) and of Aemilia Lepida (not mentioned by Tacitus), through whom she was descended directly from Julia the Elder, daughter of Augustus. Iunia married Lucius Vitellius (2), suffect consul 48 ce, brother of the future emperor of 69 ce and younger son of one of the friends of the emperor Claudius. When she divorced him, her father-in-law Lucius Vitellius (1) accused her of incest with her brother Decimus Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1). The suit was an initiative of the new empress, Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.4) Iunia Calvina was sent into exile in 49 ce, and her brother committed suicide (A. 12.8). When Agrippina died, the new emperor Nero allowed her to return to Rome (A. 14.12), along with ex-praetors Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus (both otherwise unknown). However, her siblings had died or had been exiled: Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) was forced to commit suicide, and her sister Iunia Lepida was accused of magic and sexual intercourse with her nephew Lucius Iunius Silanus

c09_Vol1.indd 589

589

Torquatus (2) and was likely executed around the year 65 ce. Iunia Calvina survived Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius and finally died at the end of the reign of Vespasian. It is said that when she died, a big crack opened in the mausoleum of Augustus: after all, she was his great-great-granddaughter (Suet. Vesp. 23). In Tacitus, Iunia Calvina is portrayed with both negative and positive traits. Tacitus doubts the accusations of incest, although he defines the relationship with her brother as unwise. Also, he says “she is as beautiful as she is provocative” (A. 12.4). Both statements are negative characteristics in Tacitus (Posadas 1992). The mentions of Iunia Calvina are examples of the diachronic characterization in Tacitus: women who are mentioned in one place and reappear years later with the cause of their fortune or death, in the case of Calvina, with the reasons for her return from exile after the death of Agrippina. Reference work: PIR2 856 REFERENCE Posadas, Juan Luis. 1992. “Mujeres en Tácito: retratos individuales y caracterización genérica.” Gerión 10: 145–154. FURTHER READING Posadas, Juan Luis. 2012. Mujeres en la literatura latina: de César a Floro. Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas.

IUNIA LEPIDA SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Iunia Lepida was the (perhaps first) wife of the famous jurist Gaius Cassius Longinus (2), who was accused in 65 ce for his republican sympathies (A. 16.7–9). She could boast a distinguished ancestry, for she was the daughter of Marcus Iunius Silanus (1) (A. 2.59.1), who had married Aemilia Lepida (not mentioned in Tacitus), a great-granddaughter of Augustus. Her four siblings were Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) (A. 13.1.1), the infamous “first death”

28-04-2023 18:00:43

590

  I unia Si l ana

of Nero’s principate; Decimus Iunius Silanus Torquatus (consul in 53: A. 12.58.1), who committed suicide in 64 (A. 15.35.1); Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1), to whom Claudius had betrothed Octavia (2) and who fell victim to Agrippina the Younger’s machinations, after being accused of incest with his sister Iunia Calvina, who was exiled (A. 12.3–4, 8.1). For the family tree of the Silani, see Syme (1986, Table XII). Iunia Lepida, too, was accused of incest (A. 16.8. 1–2), with her nephew Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2), who had been raised in the house­ hold of Cassius and Lepida (A. 15.52.2). In addition, Lepida was accused of magic, a standard accusation against women, especially those of higher status. Cassius, because of his advanced age, was exiled to Sardinia; the young Silanus, too, was sentenced to exile, but killed in Bari. The same accusations also involved the senators Cornelius Marcellus and Volcacius Tullinus, and the equestrian Calpurnius Fabatus. Lepida’s fate is unknown (A. 16.9.1). An inscription dedicated to her shows that she was priestess of Athena Polias, probably under Claudius. A reference to a Ἰουνίαν in Paul Ad Rom. 16.7 has caused some to suppose that she may have been a Christian (as in the case of Pomponia Graecina at A. 13.32.2), but this is very unlikely (Eck 1971, 392). see also: Christianity; Iunii; Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference works: PIR2 I 861; RE 10.1113 = ‘Iunius’ 203 (Hohl); IG 2–3 (Part 3, Fasc. 1) 4242; Raepsaet-Charlier, 472 REFERENCES Eck, Werner. 1971. “Das Eindringen des Christentums in den Senatorenstand bis zu Konstantin d. Gr.” Chiron 1: 381–406. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Gaius Silius (consul designate 47 ce), and friend, then rival and victim, of Agrippina the Younger. Her first husband, Gaius Silius, divorced her in 47 ce to engage in an affair, then a “marriage,” with Messalina (A. 11.12.2). According to Barrett, the enmity with Messalina likely either created or strengthened Silana’s friendship with Agrippina (Barrett 1996, 91, 174). Although she had been close friends with Agrippina, both women engaged in covert action against the other. Agrippina had warned Sextius Africanus against marrying Silana by saying that she was promiscuous and rapidly aging, when in actuality Agrippina wanted to avoid the centralization of wealth and power (Silana was both wealthy and childless; A. 13.19.2). In retaliation, Silana used her clients Iturius and Calvisius (through intermediaries) to denounce Agrippina for allegedly attempting to challenge Nero’s power through marriage to Rubellius Plautus (A. 13.19.3). Upon hearing the charges, Nero wanted to kill Agrippina and Plautus, and to remove Afranius Burrus (Agrippina had placed him in power) from his position as praetorian prefect (A. 13.20.1). Burrus and Seneca gave Agrippina a hearing, which earned her an audience with Nero. After Agrippina acquitted herself before Nero, Silana was driven into exile in 55 ce (A. 13.22.2). At some point, Silana returned from exile. Tacitus records that she died in Tarentum in 59 ce of natural causes. Tacitus notes that Agrippina had either mellowed or had fallen from power (A. 14.12.4). Reference work: PIR2 I 864 REFERENCE

IUNIA SILANA PHILIP WADDELL

Barrett, Anthony. 1996. Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

University of Arizona FURTHER READING

Iunia Silana (d. 59 ce) was the daughter of Marcus Iunius Silanus (suffect 15), wife of

c09_Vol1.indd 590

Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 160–61, 175, 196.

28-04-2023 18:00:43

I unii  

IUNIA TERTIA RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Iunia Tertia or Tertulla (c. 75/70 bce–22 ce) was the third daughter of Decimus Iunius Silanus (consul in 62 bce) and Servilia. She was closely related to the main enemies of Iulius Caesar: she was the niece of Cato the Younger, wife of Gaius Cassius Longinus (1), and half-sister of Marcus Iunius Brutus. She was also the sister of Marcus Iunius Silanus (consul 25 bce). Her elder sisters married Servilius Isauricus (see Hierocaesaria) and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3). Iunia Tertia married probably before 59–58 bce, since in 44 Cassius already had a son who assumed the toga virilis (Plut. Brut. 14.2). Cicero attests that Tertia had an abortion, in 44 bce (Att. 14.20.2). Suetonius and Macrobius wrote that Servilia had prostituted her daughter Tertia to Iulius Caesar (Suet. Caes. 50.2; Macr. Sat. 2.2.5), but Tacitus seems to be unaware of this. In his extant letters Cicero, who according to Suetonius is the source for that information, sometimes mentions Tertia (ad Brut. 2.3.3, 2.4.5; Fam. 16.22.1; Att. 14.20.2; 15.11.1), but he does not refer to that story. Tertia accompanied her husband to the East after Caesar’s murder (Cic. ad Brut. 2.4.5). She was spared after Philippi. Iunia Tertia died in 31 December 22 ce, more than ninety years old. Her death is referred to by Tacitus because she did not mention Tiberius in her will, as would have been customary. Her funeral was accompanied by the imagines of twenty great Roman families, and a panegyric was given on the rostra in the forum. However, the imagines of Cassius and Brutus, who symbolized the Roman Republic and opposition to the Caesars, were not displayed during Tertia’s funeral: “But outstripping them all were Cassius and Brutus, all the more so because their effigies were not to be seen” (A. 3.76). Tacitus is thus credited with the origin of the modern expression “conspicuous by its absence” (see reception, nineteenth century) Reference works: PIR2 I 865; RE X.1, 1114, Iunius 206 (Münzer)

c09_Vol1.indd 591

591

FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 158, 199, Table II.

IUNIA TORQUATA, see VESTAL VIRGINS

IUNII CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY

University of Alberta

A number of cognomina are attested for the Iunii in Tacitus, but only two are noteworthy. The first is that of Marcus Iunius Blaesus. Tacitus speaks three times of the familia of the Iunii (A. 3.24, 69; 15.35), always referring to the Iunii Silani, a moderately prominent family of the plebeian nobility of the Late Republic. There are two branches of this family (the relationship of the two is unclear), and both had unfortunate interactions with the Julio-Claudians. Decimus Iunius Silanus had been exiled among the adulterers of Augustus’ daughter Julia the elder but was recalled from exile (though not to favor) through the influence of his brother Marcus Iunius Silanus (A. 3.24), a sycophant in the Senate (A. 3.57; 4.2) whose daughter was Caligula’s first wife (A. 6.20). He also was perhaps the father of the Iunia Silana whose marriage plans were thwarted by Messalina (A. 11.12) and Agrippina the Younger, who had her exiled (A. 13.19–22); Iunia died in exile (A. 14.12). The other branch was directly related by blood to the imperial family. Marcus Iunius Silanus (1) married Aemilia Lepida, whose mother was Julia the Younger, the disgraced granddaughter of Augustus, and whose father was Lucius Aemilius Paullus (consul 1 ce), who was executed under Augustus for plotting against him. Silanus’ descendants would thus be direct descendants of Augustus. His younger son Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1) was betrothed by Claudius to his daughter Octavia (2) when she was an infant. In order to free Octavia for marriage to her son (the future) Nero, Agrippina the Younger had Silanus accused of incest with his sister Iunia Calvina, because of which Claudius

28-04-2023 18:00:44

592

  I unius B l aesus

broke off the engagement and resigned from his praetorship (A. 12.2–4). Lucius committed suicide on the day of Agrippina’s marriage to Claudius, and the sister was exiled (A. 12.8); the sister was allowed to return after the death of Agrippina (A. 14.12). At the time of Claudius’ death, Lucius’ innocuous brother Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) was proconsul of Asia, and as a precaution, Agrippina had him poisoned (A. 13.1). The last brother, Decimus Iunius Silanus Torquatus, was driven to suicide by a false accusation (A. 15.35). Marcus’ son Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2) fell under Nero’s suspicion, first being exiled and later executed (A. 16.8). IUNIUS (1), see FULCINIUS TRIO IUNIUS (2), see STATUES, MATERIAL REPRESENTATIONS

According to Tacitus (H. 3.38–39), one night the emperor, in Rome at the time, caught sight of the lights of a palace, from a garden where he was recovering from an illness. It was the residence of Caecina Tuscus, where he was hosting a great banquet, whose guest of honor was Blaesus. This must have irritated the prince. Lucius Vitellius (2), his brother, probably exploited such disappointment to incite him to take down Blaesus, under the pretext that he would constitute a rival capable to seize power. The emperor, out of fear, had Blaesus poisoned, probably in October or November 69 ce (Morgan 2006, 216). Tacitus, however, emphasizes the whole-hearted faithfulness of Iunius Blaesus who, although urged by Caecina Alienus and others to take his chances, had systematically refused, proving his loyalty to Vitellius until the end. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; gardens; Gaul; poison

IUNIUS BLAESUS FABRICE GALTIER

Université Clermont Auvergne TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI University of Florida

Iunius Blaesus, whose birthdate is unknown, died in 69 ce. He was the grandson of Quintus Iunius Blaesus, consul in 10 ce, who died during the repression that followed the execution of Sejanus in 31–32. He was therefore a descendant of Mark Antony (H. 3.38.3). Iunius Blaesus was governor of Gallia Lugdunensis when, in January 69, the legions of Germany proclaimed Vitellius emperor. He quickly joined him, offering him the support of the legion Italica and of the ala Tauriana, corps of auxiliary cavalry then quartered in Lugdunum (H. 1.59.2). In April, after the victory of the Vitellians in the first battle of Bedriacum and the subsequent suicide of Otho, he welcomed with great honor Vitellius in Lugdunum. Upon realizing the destitute state of the latter, he offered him a sumptuous escort (H. 2.59.2). At the beginning of the month of July, Vespasian was in turn proclaimed emperor by the troops in Iudaea and Syria, and defections started in Vitellius’ camp.

c09_Vol1.indd 592

Reference works: PIR2 I 737; RE 10-1 966: Iunius 40 REFERENCE Morgan, Gwyn. 2006. 69 ad: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Cosme, Pierre. 2012. L’année des quatre empereurs. Paris: Fayard.

IUNIUS BLAESUS, QUINTUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Quintus Iunius Blaesus (c. 33 bce–31 ce) was suffect consul in 10 ce with Servius Cornelius Lentulus Maluginensis. He was a homo nouus. Nothing is known about his family or his earlier career. Given his suffect consulship in 10 ce, he may have been born around 33 bce, in a family that had emerged during the turbulent times of

28-04-2023 18:00:44

I unius B rutus , Lucius  

Iulius Caesar and Augustus. He was also proconsul in Sicily (Eck 1972/1973: 238). When Augustus died, Blaesus was in Emona, Pannonia, leading three legions and was incapable of preventing the subsequent mutinies (A. 1.16–19). The rebels tortured and killed his slaves and tried to kill Blaesus himself (A. 1.20– 23; Cass. Dio 57.4). He sent a delegation to Tiberius, led by one of his sons, asking for support. Tiberius’ son Drusus the Younger, Sejanus, who was Blaesus’ nephew, and Gnaeus Lentulus Augur were sent to Pannonia, and eventually Drusus resolved the situation, exploiting an unexpected lunar eclipse on the night of September 27 (Vell. 2.125.5; A. 1.24–30). For Tacitus, Blaesus played no part in the pacification; Velleius Paterculus seems to attribute to him a greater responsibility. In 21 ce, in order to put an end to the war led by Tacfarinas in Africa, Tiberius asked the Senate to appoint a new proconsul (A. 3.32.1). The emperor proposed Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4) or Blaesus to the position. Probably through Sejanus’ influence, Lepidus declined the offer and Blaesus was eventually chosen without the drawing of lots (A. 3.35; 3.72.4). His main mission was the capture of Tacfarinas without conditions (A. 3.73.3). Blaesus granted a general amnesty to the allies of Tacfarinas, causing the defection of most of the rebel’s supporters. Blaesus also divided the Roman forces into three military columns and built small forts in order to close off the Berbers’ routes into Roman territory (A. 3.74). After his proconsulate was prolonged for one more year (A. 3.58.1), Blaesus eventually succeeded in at least capturing Tacfarinas’ brother. Although the Roman victory was not complete, Blaesus was granted the title of imperator (the last time it was given to someone outside the imperial family) and the triumphal insignia (A. 3.72.4; 74). These insignia were denied one year later, in 23, to Publius Cornelius Dolabella (consul in 10 ce), who finally succeeded in capturing Tacfarinas (A. 4.26.1). Hence, Tacitus considers that Blaesus’ ornamenta, which had been conceded mainly as a compliment to Sejanus, had not brought him a good name (A. 4.23). In 31, Tiberius accused Blaesus of complicity with Sejanus (A. 5.7.2). He may have committed suicide shortly thereafter.

c09_Vol1.indd 593

593

Blaesus had two sons: Quintus Iunius Blaesus (suffect consul in 26 ce) and a second son who committed suicide in 36 together with his elder brother (A. 6.40.2, duo Blaesi). Syme thinks that he may have been suffect consul in 28 (Syme 1981, 373). see also: Pannonian Revolt Reference works: PIR2 I 738; RE X.1, 967, Iunius 41 REFERENCES Eck, Werner. 1972/1973. “Über die prätorischen Prokonsulate in der Kaiserzeit. Eine quellenkritische Überlegung.” Zephyrus 23: 233–260. Syme, Ronald. 1981. “Vibius Rufus and Vibius Rufinus.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 43: 365–376.

IUNIUS BRUTUS, LUCIUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Brutus was the son of Tarquinia, sister of the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus. After his brother was executed at their uncle’s orders, in order to escape the same fate Brutus pretended to be a simpleton (the meaning of the name Brutus). He was sent to Delphi with Titus and Arruns Tarquinii, Superbus’ sons, to seek interpretation of an omen that had troubled the king. At the oracle, they asked who among them would be the future king of Rome. The oracle answered the one who first kissed his mother: solving the riddle, Brutus fell and kissed “mother” earth. After the rape of Lucretia, he led the revolution that removed Superbus and his sons from power (in 509 bce, according to Terentius Varro), becoming the first consul of Rome, along with Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus (Livy 1.60.4), widowed husband of Lucretia and another of the king’s nephews. Several different accounts of the beginning of the republic evidently circulated: hence, five consuls were said to have succeeded each other in just the first year of the republic. It is possible that Brutus was initially a sole magistrate, and only later were all the names incorporated into a single narrative. It was perhaps only at the end of the

28-04-2023 18:00:44

594

  I unius B rutus , M arcus

fourth century bce that Brutus came to be considered the ancestor of the Iunii (Wiseman 2008). Brutus revived an ancient lex curiata which, although not used by Servius Tullius and Superbus (Livy 1.41.6; 1.49.3), had been enacted to confirm the ancient kings’ power (A. 11.22.4). After Brutus, this law served to confirm the higher Roman republican magistrates in their office. Tacitus is the only author to state that this law somehow confirmed that the quaestors had existed already in the regal period. Brutus is also credited with enlarging the Senate to 300; calling the new clans gentes minores, the maiores being those created by Romulus (A. 11.25.2; cf. Livy 2.10; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.13.2); establishing the practice of the consuls’ taking the auspices before assuming office and alternating use of the fasces; and creating the office of rex sacrorum (MRR, 1.1–2). Brutus sentenced two of his sons to death for conspiring to overthrow the Roman Republic. Collatinus refused to apply the sentence to his nephews, who had also participated in the conspiracy, and in consequence Brutus induced him to abdicate (Livy 2.2) or abrogate his power (Cic. Off. 3.40), replacing him with Publius Valerius Publicola. After Collatinus’ abdication, Brutus exiled all Tarquinii from Rome. Brutus is said to have been killed, still in 509, by Arruns Tarquinius in a battle against the Etruscans at Silva Arsia (Livy 2.6–7; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.15–17; Plut. Popl. 9). see also: Rome, myth and history Reference works: MRR 1.1–2; RE suppl. V, 356–369, Iunius 46a (Schur) REFERENCE Wiseman, T. P. 2008. Unwritten Rome. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. 293–305. FURTHER READING Mastrocinque, A. 1988. Lucio Giunio Bruto: Ricerche di storia, religione e diritto sulle origini della repubblica romana. Trento: La Reclame.

c09_Vol1.indd 594

IUNIUS BRUTUS, MARCUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Marcus Iunius Brutus (c. 85–42 bce) was the son of Marcus Iunius Brutus (tribune of the plebs in 83) and Servilia, half-brother of Marcus Iunius Silanus (consul 25 bce), and brother-in-law of Servilius Isauricus, of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3), and of Gaius Cassius Longinus (1), who married his three half-sisters (see Iunia Tertia). Brutus’ father died in 78 or 77 on the orders of Pompey the Great. Brutus was delivered into the care of his uncle, Cato the Younger, halfbrother of his mother, who gave him a careful philosophical education. He became known as an orator and a literate man: before Pharsalia, he was composing an epitome of Polybius’ Histories (Plut. Brut. 4.6–8). Around 59, he was adopted by another maternal uncle, Quintus Servilius Caepio, becoming known as Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, a name he later abandoned. By the same time, he may have been involved in the Vettius affair, a failed plot to assassinate Pompey: Cicero insinuates that his mother, who was said at the time to be Iulius Caesar’s lover, interceded in his favor (Cic. Att. 2.24). In 58–56, Brutus accompanied Cato during the annexation of Cyprus. In 53, he refused to join Caesar in Gaul, becoming quaestor in Cyprus and Cilicia during the proconsulate of his father-in-law, Appius Claudius Pulcher (who was consul in 54 bce). During his mission in the East, he lent money at excessive interest (perhaps to Salamis or to Ariobarzanes I, former king of Cappadocia), extorting exorbitant payments from the debtors. Brutus became a close friend of Cicero, with whom he exchanged many letters. In 52, Brutus was against assigning the dictatorship to Pompey. In 51–50 (or 47) he became pontiff. In 49, he sided with Cato and Pompey against Caesar. In that year he was appointed again to Cilicia, joining Pompey in Macedonia at the end of the year. After Pharsalia, Brutus was pardoned by Caesar, probably again through the influence of Servilia. In 46 he became propraetor in Gallia Cisalpina, until the spring of 45. He was urban praetor in 44 and consul designate for 41.

28-04-2023 18:00:44

I unius G a l l io  

With Gaius Cassius Longinus, he led the conspiracy that murdered Caesar on the Ides of March, 44. The conspirators do not seem to have had any plans for the day after the murder. Although Brutus benefited from an amnesty and was granted bodyguards, lack of popular support forced him to flee Rome in early April. To justify his absence, on June 5 the Senate assigned him the lower-ranked task of curator for the corn supply from Asia and Sicily, prompting the indignation of Brutus’ family (Cic. Att. 15.11). In early August, the Senate assigned him a proconsulate in Crete. Brutus sailed for Greece in August 44, receiving in Athens a statue that was placed next to those of the Athenian tyrannicides. Soon Brutus began to prepare for war, gathering about 400 million sesterces in the East and building up an army of veterans. On 28 November 44, the Senate revoked Brutus’ proconsulate; consequently, he took over Macedonia, where he defeated and imprisoned the appointed proconsul, Gaius Antonius (praetor in 44), Mark Antony’s brother. At Cicero’s proposal, Brutus was then appointed proconsul to Macedonia, Achaea, and Illyricum, later receiving supreme command in the East. He was acclaimed imperator in Thrace. With the second triumvirate and the ensuing proscription condemning Caesar’s assassins, at the end of 43 Brutus and Cassius met in Smyrna, being greeted as imperatores in Sardis. At least one coin from this period represents two daggers with the words “Ides of March” and the head of Brutus, with the legend “Brut(us) imp(erator)” (RC 508/3). After a quick military intervention in Rhodes and Lycia, Brutus and Cassius returned to Macedonia, where they faced Mark Antony and Octavian in the two battles of Philippi (October 42). In the first battle, Cassius was defeated by Antony and committed suicide; Brutus however defeated Octavian. Only in the second battle (23 October) was Brutus defeated and also committed suicide. Probably in 54 or shortly before, Brutus had married Claudia Pulchra Maior. He divorced her in June 45, to marry his cousin, Porcia, widow of Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus (consul 59 bce). They had no children. see also: Augustus; civil wars of Late Republic Reference works: MRR 2.29; 2.254; 2.267; 2.301; 2.311; 2.321–322; 2.328; 2.346–347; 2.361; RRC 508/3; RE X.1, 973–1020, Iunius (Gelzer)

c09_Vol1.indd 595

595

FURTHER READING Rawson, Elizabeth. 1986. “The Memory of the Liberators.” In Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Writing, edited by I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, 101–120. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tempest, Kathryn. 2017. Brutus: The Noble Conspirator. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Wistrand, Erik. 1981. The Policy of Brutus the Tyrannicide. Goteborg: Kungl. Vetenskaps-och Vitterhets-samhallet.

IUNIUS CILO, see BITHYNIA-PONTUS

IUNIUS GALLIO NEIL BARNEY

University of Victoria

Urban praetor (18 ce), Iunius Gallio was a prominent declaimer from Spain, who was expelled from the Senate in 32 ce (A. 6.3; Cass. Dio 58.18). As a declaimer, Gallio is treated favorably in the work of Seneca the Elder, who ranks him as one of his first quartet (Controv. 10 pr. 13). This praise may be the result of their friendship (Controv. 2.1.33; 2.5.11, 13; 3 pr. 2; 7 pr. 5; Suas. 3.6; Controv. 10 pr. 8: as friend to his sons) as Quintilian makes little mention of him (Inst. 3.1.21; 9.2.91), and Tacitus describes his speech as jangling (D. 26). Gallio enjoyed access to prominent literary circles. He visited Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (1) to offer comment on new declaimers (Sen. Suas. 3.6) and established a lasting friendship with Ovid (Sen. Suas. 3.7), who would later console him from exile after the death of his wife (Ov. Pont. 4.11). Gallio capitalized on these associations not only as opportunities to display his own eloquence, but also to ingratiate himself to those in power (Sen. Controv. 10 pr 8: Maecenas; Sen. Suas. 3.7: Tiberius). In 32 ce, he proposed that retired members of the Praetorian Guard should be allowed a seat in the fourteen rows; a proposal that drew a fierce rebuke from Tiberius and resulted in Gallio being ejected from the Senate and banished from Italy (A. 6.3; Cass. Dio 58.18). His exile, moreover, was

28-04-2023 18:00:44

596

  I unius G a l l io A nnaeanus , Lucius

suspended in favor of detention in Rome after it was decided that Lesbos was too pleasant a destination. According to Cassius Dio (58.18), the reason for this harshness was Tiberius’ growing suspicion of the Senate. Tacitus, however, does not offer such qualifications; rather, he uses the opportunity to demonstrate Tiberius’ (mis)use of Augustan precedent as a means of asserting his own authority (Cowan 2009). There is little recorded of Gallio’s activities after his removal from the Senate. He did, however, adopt Seneca’s son Novatus (henceforth, Lucius Iunius Gallio Annaeanus) sometime between 41 and 52 ce. see also: declamation Reference work: PIR2 I 756 REFERENCE Cowan, Eleanor. 2009. “Tacitus, Tiberius and Augustus.” Classical Antiquity 28.2: 179–210. FURTHER READING Griffin, Miriam. 1972. “The Elder Seneca and Spain.” Journal of Roman Studies 62: 1–19. Roller, Matthew B. 2011. “To Whom Am I Speaking? The Changing Venues of Competitive Eloquence in the Early Empire.” In Von der militia equestris zur militia urbana: Prominenzrollen und Karrierefelder im antiken Rom, edited by W. Blösel and K.-J. Hölkeskamp, 197–221. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

IUNIUS GALLIO ANNAEANUS, LUCIUS SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Lucius Iunius Gallio Annaeanus was the elder brother of the philosopher Seneca and Annaeus Mela. His original name was Annaeus Novatus, which changed after he was adopted by Lucius Iunius Gallio, a prominent orator who lived under Tiberius and who features frequently in

c09_Vol1.indd 596

the works of Seneca the Elder (see A. 6.3.1 with Woodman 2017 ad loc.). Seneca (the Younger) addressed to his brother Gallio both his De Ira and De Vita Beata, but he is mentioned in several other works of Seneca as well. Iunius Gallio Annaeanus had a distinguished career: he was praetor in c. 46 ce, proconsul of Achaia in 51–52, and suffect consul in 56 (Camodeca 2015, 273). It was during his proconsulship of Achaia that the Jews brought St. Paul to trial (Acts 18.12–17), but Gallio maintained a very balanced attitude toward the issue. In a famous inscription from Delphi (dated 52 ce), the emperor Claudius calls him “my friend” (φίλος μου), although Dio (60.35.2) says that he was the author of a very witty remark at Claudius’ death. When Nero made his appearance in the theater during the Iuvenalia, he was introduced by Gallio (Cass. Dio 61.20.1). Plin. HN 31.62 mentions his ill health, perhaps the same episode to which Seneca Ep. 104.1 alludes. Stat. Silv. 2.7.32 calls him dulcem, “charming” (cf. Sen. QNat. 4a.pr.10). Columella (Rust. 9.16.2) says that Gallio had requested his book De cultu hortorum (“On the cultivation of gardens”). Gallio Annaeanus is first mentioned by Tacitus in the aftermath of the discovery of the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.73.3), where Tacitus recalls that Titus Salienus Clemens (mentioned by Tacitus only here) rebuked Gallio, calling him an enemy and a parricide. (Gallio is perhaps to be identified with a praetor who built a monument in the Vicus Cornicularius near the Ludus Magnus in Rome.) Tacitus describes Gallio as “panic-stricken on account of the death of his brother Seneca” and begging for his own safety. The following year (A. 16.17), Gallio is mentioned alongside his brother Mela, Gaius Anicius Cerialis, Rufrius Crispinus, and Petronius, as victims of Nero’s cruelty. Tacitus does not say when he died, but both Jerome and Cass. Dio (62.25.3) seem to suggest that his death followed shortly after that of Mela. It was probably narrated in the latter part of Annals, now missing. see also: Christianity; Pisonian Conspiracy, victims Reference works: PIR2 I 757; RE 1.2236–7 = ‘Annaeus’ 12 (Rossbach); BNP 6.1101 ‘Iunius’ [II 3]; IG 7.1676; Syll.3 801 D (cf. SEG 3.389); PIR2 S 74; RE Ser. 2, 1.1874 = ‘Salienus Clemens’ (Nagl)

28-04-2023 18:00:44

I unius O tho ( 1 and 2 )  

REFERENCES Camodeca, Giuseppe. 2015. “I Consoli degli anni di Nerone nelle Tabulae Herculanenses.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 193: 272–282. Woodman, Anthony John. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Griffin, Miriam T. 1976. Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mratschek-Halfmann, Sigrid. 1993. Divites et praepotentes. Reichtum und soziale Stellung in der Literatur der Prinzipatszeit. no. 129. Stuttgart. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge.

IUNIUS LUPUS, see AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER IUNIUS MARULLUS, see ANTISTIUS SOSIANUS

IUNIUS MAURICUS JACQUELINE CARLON

University of Massachusetts, Boston

Iunius Mauricus was one of a group of four Roman senators prosecuted for treason in 93 ce during the reign of Domitian (Ag. 45). Likely of Northern Italian origin (Alföldy 1982, 361), Iunius Mauricus’ earliest appearance in the historical record occurs during the reign of Galba in 69 ce, when he asked that the imperial diaries be given to the Senate to expose the charges brought to Nero by informers, a way to stem the violence against those who might be innocent (H. 4.40.4 and Plut. Galb. 8.5). He served as suffect consul sometime during Flavian rule, probably under Domitian, but the year is much debated (see Groag; Jones 1979, 110; Rogers 1960, 20). The nature of his involvement with the so-called Stoic opposition to Domitian is unclear, but he was tried, along with his brother Arulenus Rusticus, the younger Gaius

c09_Vol1.indd 597

597

Helvidius (Priscus), and Herennius Senecio. He was the only one of the four senators who was exiled rather than executed (Plin. Ep. 3.11). After his recall, likely following the emperor’s death, he served as an adviser to Nerva and Trajan (Plin. Ep. 4.22) and had an enduring reputation for integrity and fairness (Mart. 5.28.5; Plin. Ep. 1.5.16). see also: Helvidius Priscus; Senate Reference works: PIR2 I 771; RE 10, Iunius 94 (Groag) REFERENCES Alföldy, Géza. 1982. “Senatoren aus Norditalien.” in Epigrafia e Ordine Senatorio II. Edizione di Storia e Letteratura, Tituli 5. 309–368. Jones, Brian. 1979. Domitian and the Senatorial Order. American Philosophical Society. Rogers, Robert Samuel. 1960 “A Group of Domitianic Treason-Trials.” CP 97: 41–60. FURTHER READING Carlon, Jacqueline. 2009. Pliny’s Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 29–34. Shelton, Jo-Ann. 2013. The Women of Pliny’s Letters. New York: Routledge. 67–69.

IUNIUS OTHO (1 AND 2) NEIL BARNEY

University of Victoria

Iunius Otho (1) was praetor in 22 ce. He was a declaimer of obscure birth, and he maintained a school of rhetoric before being elevated into the Senate through the influence of Sejanus (A. 3.66). As a speaker, he excelled at cases that required an allusive approach (Sen. Controv. 2.1.33–4, 37–9). His speech, however, is generally poorly reviewed in the Elder Seneca’s collection of controversiae (Controv. 1.3.11, 2.1.33, 7.3.10, 10.5.25). This was a result of his desire to supply irrefutable colores, which often led to him relying

28-04-2023 18:00:44

598

  I unius Si l anus , G aius

on dreams as evidence (Sen. Controv. 2.1.33, 7.7.15). He published four books of colores, which Iunius Gallio described as “the books of Antiphon” as they were so full of dreams (Sen. Controv. 2.1.33; 1.3.11). As praetor, he (along with Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus and Bruttedius Niger) added charges of violating the divinity of Augustus and maiestas when Gaius Iunius Silanus, proconsul of Asia, was arraigned for extortion in that province. While this is the sole instance of his activity recorded in Tacitus, the historian suggests that this was not an isolated incident of “unabashed acts of daring” (A. 3.66). His fate is unknown. The ominous tone used by Tacitus at the end of the passage, as well as his association with Sejanus, may indicate that he fell along with his patron (Rutledge 2001). His son, also Iunius Otho (2) (tribune 37 ce), similarly appears only once. After the condemnation of Acutia, he vetoed the rewards for Laelius Balbus, her prosecutor. This sparked enmity between them, which led to Otho’s destruction (A. 6.47). see also: declamation; delators Reference work: PIR2 I 788; 789 REFERENCE Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. New York: Routledge. FURTHER READING Fairweather, Janet. 1981. Seneca the Elder. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rutledge, Steven H. 1999. “Delatores and the Tradition of Violence in Roman Oratory.” American Journal of Philology 120: 555–573. Sinclair, Patrick. 1995. Tacitus the Sententious Historian: A Sociology of Rhetoric in Annales 1–6. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press.

IUNIUS RUSTICUS, see ARULENUS RUSTICUS

c09_Vol1.indd 598

IUNIUS SILANUS, GAIUS ANDREW GALLIA

University of Minnesota

Gaius Iunius Silanus was consul in 10 ce and member of a prominent senatorial family. He was condemned by the Senate and exiled to the island of Cythnus in 22 ce. In addition to an ordinary consulship, Gaius Silanus also attained the priesthood of the flamen Martialis under Augustus (CIL VI 1384). He went on to serve as proconsul of Asia under Tiberius, and it was after this posting that he was denounced by the provincials and a trio of delators, Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, Iunius Otho (1) and Bruttedius Niger, who were later joined by two members of Silanus’ own staff, the quaestor Gellius Publicola and his legate Marcus Paconius. Tacitus provides an extended account of the trial, which he adduces as an early moment in the redeployment of the Senate’s subservience toward malignant ends under Tiberius (A. 3.66–69). The principal basis for Silanus’ prosecution was provincial extortion (repetundae, A. 3.66.1). Tacitus allows that the defendant’s guilt on these charges was manifest but focuses attention on the addition of charges of maiestas and impiety toward Augustus’ divinity, which made it possible for slaves to be questioned under torture and dissuaded anyone from coming to Silanus’ defense (A. 3.67.3). In the following year, after the condemnation of the procurator Lucilius Capito for similar abuses, the cities of Asia decreed a temple to Tiberius, Livia Augusta, and the Senate in gratitude for their attention to these crimes (A. 4.15.3). In Tacitus’ account of the trial, the defendant is described as outmatched by the eloquence of his accusers. No mention is made of his brother Marcus Iunius Silanus, suffect consul in 15 ce, whose powerful eloquence was credited with securing the return from exile of a third brother not long before (A. 3.24.3, Decimus Iunius Silanus). Two concessions to the standing of female relatives are noted, however. On the proposal of Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Augur, the portion of Silanus’ estate derived from his mother (whose name—Atia or Appia?—has fallen

28-04-2023 18:00:44

I unius Si l anus , G aius A P P I U S  

victim to a corruption in the text) was set aside for his son (A. 3.68.5, see Woodman and Martin 1996, 467 ad loc.). Tiberius’ decision to relegate Silanus to Cythnus (instead of gloomy Gyarus, as Lucius Calpurnius Piso had proposed) is also described as prompted by a request from his sister Iunia Torquata, a Vestal Virgin (A. 3.69.6). see also: senatus consultum Silanianum; Lucilius Longus; Cyclades; Iunii Reference works: PIR2 I 825; RE Iunius (159), DNP Iunius [II 32]; CIL VI 1384 REFERENCE Woodman, A. J., and R. H. Martin. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

599

probably “violation of oaths and offence against the sovereignty” (laesarum religionum ac violatae maiestatis, A. 3.24.2). After Tiberius’ ascendance to the throne, Decimus took advantage of his brother Marcus Iunius Silanus’ political power to appeal to the Senate and the emperor for his return (A. 3.24.3). The request was granted on the grounds that he had not been convicted by any law or decree of the Senate (A. 3.24.4), and Decimus eventually returned to Rome in 20 ce. However, Tiberius, recognizing the indignation of Augustus toward Decimus, did not lift the prohibitions imposed by his predecessor which restricted him from holding any office (A. 3.24.4). see also: Iunii; maiestas; Vestal Virgins Reference works: PIR2 I 826; RE Iunius 164

FURTHER READING

REFERENCES

Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy, Chapter XIV, 188–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vogel-Weidemann, Ursula. 1982. Die Statthalter von Africa und Asia in den Jahren 14-68 n. Chr. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt GMBH.

Pettinger, Andrew. 2012. The Republic in Danger: Drusus Libo and the Succession of Tiberius. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

IUNIUS SILANUS, DECIMUS

IUNIUS SILANUS, GAIUS APPIUS

KONSTANTINOS ARAMPAPASLIS

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Decimus Iunius Silanus, son of Gaius Iunius Silanus, and adoptive father of Decimus Silanus Gaetulicus (CIL 6 1439; Juv. 8.26–27), was a lover of Augustus’ granddaughter, Julia the Younger (Syme 1986, 193–194). In 8 ce, when the affair became known, Decimus lost the emperor’s favor and was banished from Rome (Α. 3.24.3). It has been also suggested that Ovid’s exile to Tomis in the same year might have been imposed in connection to this relationship, and that the poet’s famous error (Ov. Tr. 2.1.207) was his unwitting witnessing of Julia’s intimate moments (Pettinger 2012, 129). Although Tacitus refers to Decimus as an adulterer (adulter, A. 3.24.3), the charges were

c09_Vol1.indd 599

MICHAEL L. KONIECZNY

Gaius Appius Iunius Silanus (d. 42 ce) was ordinary consul in 28 ce alongside Silius Nerva (A. 4.68.1). He was the son of Gaius Iunius Silanus (consul 10 ce). Silanus was prosecuted for maiestas in 32 ce, along with several other prominent individuals, but acquitted thanks to the intercession of Iulius Celsus, tribune of one of the urban cohorts. Tacitus does not specify the precise nature of the charges but states that the prosecutions caused great consternation among the senatorial class (A. 6.9.3). In 41 ce Silanus was recalled by the emperor Claudius from his post as governor of Hispania Tarraconensis (see Hispania) to marry Domitia Lepida, the mother of Messalina.

28-04-2023 18:00:44

600

  I unius Si l anus , M arcus

The following year, 42 ce, Silanus was murdered in a plot orchestrated by Claudius’ freedman Narcissus, an event to which Tacitus refers only in passing (A. 11.29.1). According to Dio, Silanus had incurred Messalina’s displeasure by refusing her sexual advances, whereupon Messalina and Narcissus accused him of plotting to kill the emperor (Cass. Dio 60.14.3–4; cf. Suet. Claud. 37.2). see also: delators; Iunii Reference work: PIR2 I 822 FURTHER READING Malloch, S. J. V., ed. 2013. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 11. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 420.

IUNIUS SILANUS, MARCUS ISABELLE COGITORE

Université Grenoble Alpes TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Marcus Iunius Silanus (c. 15 bce–38 ce) was suffect consul in 15 ce. He was a friend of Tiberius and father-in-law of Caligula, who despised him. The beginning of his career is uncertain until he becomes consul suffectus with Drusus the Elder in 15 ce. His main activities seem to place him within the imperial circle on account of his close relationship with Tiberius, who appreciated him (Cass. Dio 59.8). Through his potentia, based on his nobilitas and eloquence (A. 3.24), he obtained from the emperor the return of his brother Decimus Iunius Silanus. The latter, accused of adultery with Julia the Younger, the granddaughter of Augustus, had in fact left Rome in 8 ce, without waiting to be condemned (Syme 1986, 115). When Tiberius became emperor, he did not restore the amicitia which Augustus had revoked, but he yielded to the entreaties of Marcus Iunius Silanus and granted the return. Decimus Iunius Silanus returned in 20 ce and led a retired life, far from public honors. When Marcus thanked Tiberius for that authorization before the Senate,

c09_Vol1.indd 600

the emperor reaffirmed the severity against Decimus on the one hand and his friendship with Marcus on the other (A. 3.24). Marcus Silanus, on his part, displayed his total allegiance to the regime of Tiberius when, in 22 ce, he proposed to name the years not after the consulship but after the tribunicia potestas of the emperors. Tacitus interprets this measure as a means to revile the Senate, which ranks such proposal among the manifestations of adulation (A. 3.57). His position of influence on Tiberius transpires in an interesting episode: in 31 ce, a false Drusus Caesar son of Germanicus gained popularity in the Cyclades and started rivalling Tiberius; driven into a corner, the impostor would have claimed to be son of Marcus Silanus (A. 5.10). Tacitus does not comment on the reality of such claim and confesses his lack of information on the denouement of the story (Devillers and Hurlet 2007). When Caligula succeeded Tiberius, Marcus Silanus was in the position of father-in-law of the emperor, whose marriage with his daughter Claudia Iunia Claudilla was probably prior to 34 ce. However, although he enjoyed a solid reputation among the senators (Philo, Leg. 75; Cass. Dio 59.8), Marcus Silanus did not hold the same position with Caligula as he did with Tiberius, and the premature death of Claudilla left him without any influence. His attempts to offer guidance to Caligula resulted in violent rebuffs (Philo Leg.62), and the emperor prevents him from giving his advice among the first senators when they have to express their vote (Cass. Dio 59.8). Caligula even tried to bring an accusation against him through Iulius Graecinus (Ag. 4.1). The circumstances of his death in 38 are not entirely clear: he died either by order of Caligula (Sen. Apoc. 11.2; Philo Leg. 65; Suet. Cal. 23 on the occasion) or by suicide (Cass. Dio 59.8). see also: Impostors; Iunius Silanus, Marcus (1); Iunii Reference work: PIR2 I 832 REFERENCES Devillers, Olivier, and Frédéric Hurlet. 2007. “La portée des impostures dans les « Annales » de Tacite: la légitimité impériale à l’épreuve.” In

28-04-2023 18:00:44

I unius Si l anus , M arcus ( 1 )  

Ripensando Tacito (e Ronald Syme): storia e storiografia: atti del convegno internazionale (Firenze, 30 novembre – 1 dicembre 2006), edited by Maria Antonietta Giua. Memorie e atti di convegni; 41, 133–151. Pisa: ETS. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

IUNIUS SILANUS, MARCUS (1) MITCHELL PENTZER

University of Colorado Boulder

Marcus Iunius Silanus (1) Torquatus, son of Marcus Iunius Silanus and Domitia Calvina, was consul ordinarius in 19 ce, along with Lucius Norbanus Balbus (A. 2.59.1). While his only appearance in the Annals as extant is that consular dating, his family had several remarkable connections and encounters with the JulioClaudian dynasty, and Tacitus makes two other controversial references to a Marcus Silanus. Questions about the identity of that referent, and consequently about the course of this Silanus’ life, persist due in some part to the contemporaneous existence of the different yet homonymous Marcus Iunius Silanus, suffect consul in 15 ce and father-in-law of Caligula. Their shared ancestor among the Iunii Silani was the Marcus Iunius Silanus who was praetor in 77 bce, great-grandfather of the consul of 19 and the grandfather of the consul from 15 (see Syme 1989, Tables XII and XIII). In H. 4.48, Tacitus recalls that Caligula feared the governor of Africa, Marcus Silanus, and had him removed. Scholars have related this to the circumstances around Iulius Graecinus’ death (Ag. 4.1), where the father of Agricola was asked to prosecute a Marcus Silanus. Given that the former father-in-law Silanus was compelled by Caligula to suicide in 38, and the death of Graecinus occurred several years after the traditional dating of 29 or 30–35 for this Silanus’ proconsulship (Rubellius Blandus replaced him in 35; see Syme 1989, 191), some scholars have sought to adjust the dating of the proconsulship to 33–38 or 36–39 (e.g., Thomasson 1960, 25; see RaepsaetCharlier 1991, 1829–1831 for a broader

c09_Vol1.indd 601

601

discussion). Syme (1989, 192) reasons that Tacitus made a mistake in H. 4.48; that Cassius Dio (59.20.7) is correct in identifying the recalled proconsul of 39 as Lucius Calpurnius Piso (consul 27 ce, son of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso) and that Tacitus himself likely conflated the recall of a proconsul from Africa with the events leading to Graecinus’ death because of Marcus Silanus’ name. Raepsaet-Charlier (1991, 1830) observes that this would mean the pressure to prosecute Silanus had nothing to do with Africa. The immediate family of Marcus Iunius Silanus figures more prominently in the Annals. He married Aemilia Lepida (not mentioned in Tacitus), daughter of Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Julia the Younger. Aemilia Lepida had previously been betrothed to Claudius, but her parents’ scandal broke that off. Together Silanus and Lepida had five children survive to adulthood: Marcus Iunius Silanus (2); Decimus Iunius Silanus Torquatus (consul 53); Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1); Iunia Lepida; and Iunia Calvina—all of whom would either be killed, exiled, and/or accused of incest by Agrippina the Younger and Nero. see also: Iunii Reference works: PIR2 I 839; CIL IV 2827, VI 27034, VIII 14603, XIV 02466, X 8041 REFERENCES Raepsaet-Charlier, Marie Thérèse. 1991. “Cn. Iulius Agricola: mise au point prosopographique.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 2.33.3: 1807–1857. Syme, Ronald. 1989. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thomasson, B. E. 1960. Die Statthalter der römischen Provinzen Nordafrikas von Augustus bis Diocletianus. Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup. FURTHER READING Romanelli, Pietro. 1959. Storia delle province romane dell’Africa. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Syme, Ronald. 1981. “The Early Tiberian Consuls.” Historia 30.2.189–202. Thomasson, B. E. 1996. Fasti Africani. Stockholm: P. Åström.

28-04-2023 18:00:44

602

  I unius Si l anus , M arcus ( 2 )

Vogel-Weidemann, Ursula. 1982. Die Statthalter von Africa und Asia in den Jahren 14-68 n. Chr.: eine Untersuchung zum Verhältnis Princeps und Senat. Bonn: Habelt.

IUNIUS SILANUS, MARCUS (2) BEDIA DEMIRIŞ

Istanbul University

Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) was the son of Augustus’ great-granddaughter Aemilia Lepida (not mentioned by Tacitus) and Marcus Iunıus Sılanus (1), who was the consul in 19 ce. According to Pliny, he was born in the year of Augustus’ death (14 ce), and so Augustus could see his great-granddaughter’s son (Plin. HN 7.58). Lucius Iunıus Sılanus Torquatus (1) and Decimus Iunıus Sılanus Torquatus, the consul of 53 ce, were the brothers of Marcus Iunius Silanus. His sisters were Iunıa Lepıda and Iunıa Calvına. During the reign of Claudıus, Marcus Iunius Silanus became consul together with Valerıus Asıatıcus in 46 ce. He held this office for the whole year, while Asiaticus did not finish his term in this post and left this office voluntarily (Cass. Dio 60.27.1). During his governorship of Asıa in 54 ce, he was killed by Agrıppına the Younger with treachery, without Nero’s knowledge. This was the first murder in the time of Nero’s reign as emperor (A. 13.1.1). Marcus Iunius Silanus did not have a character of extreme passions; he was a slothful man and was disliked by the previous rulers, especially Calıgula, who called him “the golden sheep” (A. 13.1.1). However, this was not the reason why he was murdered. The reason for his murder was, firstly, that Agrippina, who had murdered Marcus’ brother Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus, was afraid of that Marcus would avenge his brother’s death. Secondly, and more importantly, there was also the main factor that Marcus was, like Nero, the son of great-great-grandchild of Augustus (A. 13.1.1), which meant that Marcus

c09_Vol1.indd 602

too was from a noble family. He was an innocent and respectable character. Being well aware of these positive qualities, Agrippina was anxious that he would be preferred to her son Nero because of the latter’s disreputable manner of life (A. 13.1.1; Cass. Dio 61.6.4–5). The murder of Marcus Iunius Silanus was committed by the Roman knight, Publius Celer and the freedman Helius, by whom the poıson was given at a banquet (A. 13.1.2; 13.33.1). see also: freedmen; Iunii Reference works: PIR2 I 833; RE (Iunius) 176 FURTHER READING Griffin, Miriam Tamara. 1984. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. New York: Routledge. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London: Routledge.

IUNIUS SILANUS TORQUATUS, DECIMUS BEDIA DEMIRIŞ

Istanbul University

Decimus Iunius Silanus Torquatus (d. 64 ce) was the son of Marcus Iunıus Sılanus (1), the consul of 19 ce and of Aemilia Lepida (not mentioned by Tacitus), who was the great-granddaughter of Augustus. His brothers were Lucius Iunıus Sılanus Torquatus (1) and Marcus Iunıus Sılanus (2), the consul of 46 ce. Decimus was consul together with Haterıus Antonınus in the last year of the reign of Claudıus (53 ce), when Nero, then sixteen years old, and married Claudius’daughter Octavıa, (A. 12.58.1). In 64 ce Decimus became the victim of Nero’s cruelty and was forced to commit suıcıde. The charge that Nero brought against him before the Senate was very strange. The accusers had been ordered to charge Decimus with showing extravagant generosity and aspiring to revolution (A. 15.35.2; Cass. Dio 62.27.2). The second crime with which he was

28-04-2023 18:00:44

I unius Si l anus T orquatus , Lucius ( 1 )  

charged was that he, like an emperor, possessed freedmen whom he entitled as his general secretaries dealing with petitions and financial issues (A. 15.35.2). But these titles belonged solely to the emperor, and so those established by Decimus were duplications that suggested a bid for imperial power. Thereupon the freedmen of Decimus were arrested and were snatched away. When he understood that his condemnation approached, Decimus committed suicide by cutting the veins in his arms (A. 15.35.3). In fact, according to Tacitus, he was driven to death as he, not content with the nobility of his Iunian family, boasted descent from Augustus by bringing forward the deified Augustus as his great-great-grandfather (A. 15.35.1). Rudich says that his illustrious family had already long been suffering, for his brother Marcus Iunius Silanus too had been poisoned by Agrıppına the Younger immediately upon her son Nero’s accession to the throne (Rudich 2005, 77). After Decimus’ death in 64 ce, Nero stated that Decimus would somehow have stayed alive, if he had only waited for the judge’s mercy (A. 15.35.3). In 65 ce, Lucius Iunıus Sılanus Torquatus (2), Decimus’ nephew, was also accused of the same malpractices. He was charged with treason and incest with his aunt Iunıa Lepıda, as a result of which he was exiled and then murdered before he left Italy (A. 16.8.1–2). In the same year the name of the month of June was changed to Germanicus, because the executions of these two members of the gens Iunia for their offenses were considered a disgrace to the name of the month (A. 16.12.2). see also: freedmen; Iunii Reference works: PIR2 I 837; RE (Iunius) 182 REFERENCE Rudich, Vasily. 2005. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library. FURTHER READING Griffin, Miriam Tamara. 1984. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. New York: Routledge.

c09_Vol1.indd 603

603

IUNIUS SILANUS TORQUATUS, LUCIUS (1) KONSTANTINOS ARAMPAPASLIS

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1) (c. 24 ce−49 ce), son of Marcus Iunius Silanus (1) and Aemilia Lepida (not mentioned by Tacitus), quaestor and praetor (48 ce), was the fiancé of Octavia (2) before her marriage to Nero. A member of a prominent political family (both his father Marcus, and his siblings, Marcus and Decimus, held the consulship during their lives; Syme 1986, 191–192), he claimed descent, on his mother side, from Augustus (Sen. Apocol. 8.2). His noble bloodline as well as his betrothal to Claudius’ younger daughter in 41 ce (A. 12.3.2; Suet. Claud. 24.3; Cass. Dio 60.5.7) secured for him an early career in public life (Cass. Dio 60.5.8). Immediately after his engagement to Octavia, he was appointed to the vigintivirate, and became temporary prefect in Rome for the duration of the Latin festival on the Alban mountain (praefectus urbi Feriarum Latinarum; Cass. Dio 60.5.8). He was also a priest of the imperial cult and served as one of the three mint magistrates (CIA 3 612). In 43 ce he accompanied Claudius in his campaign to Britannia, and after the defeat of the British tribes, he carried the news of the victory to Rome (Cass. Dio 60.21.5). During the triumphal procession, he escorted the emperor on his ascent to the Capitoline Hill (Cass. Dio 60.23.1), and it is likely that his own triumphal honors (A. 12.3.2; CIL 14 2500; Suet. Claud. 24.3; Cass. Dio 60.23.2) were garnered in connection to his participation in the expedition to Britain. In 48 ce he became praetor “among citizens and foreigners” (inter civis et peregrinos; CIL 14 2500). In the same year, and while holding the praetorship, Vitellius accused him of “unconcealed desire” (incustoditum amorem) for his sister, Iunia Calvina, who was until recently Vitellius’ daughter-in-law (A. 12.4.1–2). A different version is provided by Dio, who claims that Lucius was charged with conspiracy against Claudius (Cass. Dio 60.31.8). In any case, the charges were

28-04-2023 18:00:44

604

  I unius Si l anus T orquatus , Lucius ( 2 )

probably the result of Agrippina the Younger’s machinations (A. 13.1.1; Cass. Dio 60.31.8), who eyed Octavia as a match for Nero to further increase her influence on Claudius (A. 12.3.2). As a result, the emperor canceled the engagement with Octavia, and Lucius was forced to forswear his magistracy four days before the Kalends of January of 49 ce (Suet. Claud. 29.2) and was subsequently removed from the senatorial order by an edict of Vitellius (A. 12.4.3). He committed suicide on the wedding day of Claudius and Agrippina in 49 ce (A. 12.8.1; Suet. Claud. 29.2). see also: Iunii; Iunius Silanus, Marcus (2); Iunius Silanus Torquatus, Decimus; Iunius Silanus Torquatus, Lucius (2); Iunia Lepida Reference works: PIR2 I 829; RE Iunius 180 REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Horstkotte, Hermann. 1989. “Die ‘Mordopfer’ in Senecas Apocolocyntosis.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 77: 113–143.

IUNIUS SILANUS TORQUATUS, LUCIUS (2) LEE FRANTANTUONO

Maynooth University

Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2) (d. 65 ce), ill-fated descendant of Augustus, was a casualty of the Neronian regime. Popular and respected, no less than the infamous conspirator Gaius Calpurnius Piso worried that Lucius might be a candidate for imperial power in the wake of a Neronian assassination (A. 15.52). This younger Silanus was the son of Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) and grandson of Aemilia Lepida, the great-granddaughter of Augustus (not mentioned by Tacitus). He was the nephew of

c09_Vol1.indd 604

Decimus Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1) and the homonymous Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1) (cf. A. 12.4). Like all of the surviving members of the Augustan line, Lucius was viewed as a particular threat to Nero’s regime. He was accused by the emperor of incest with his aunt, Iunia Lepida; his prosecution was joined to that of Gaius Cassius Longinus (2) in the aftermath of the death of Poppaea Sabina the Younger in 65 ce (A. 16.7– 9). For Tacitus, Lucius was doomed by both his pedigree and his inherent qualities of modesty and decorum that evidently were an affront to the emperor. Cassius was accused of co-opting Lucius for his revolutionary designs; Lucius was charged initially with the same offenses that had been imputed to his uncle: he was inappropriately assigning duties to his freedmen and distributing responsibilities that were imperial prerogatives. When these charges failed to gain prosecutorial traction, incest accusations followed, as well as the performance of inappropriate liturgical rites. Lucius was condemned to exile and sent to the harbor at Ostia, with a presumed destination of the island of Naxos; he was later imprisoned in Barium (modern Bari) in Apulia. A centurion there urged him to commit suicide; Lucius responded that while he had indeed come to terms with the inevitability of his death, he would not deprive the soldier of his glorious deed. Lucius was unarmed but physically powerful; the centurion in consequence urged his men to restrain him. He was then dispatched by the centurion, dying bravely in the struggle with wounds all on the front of his body—another spectacular death tableau in the grim catalogue of the later Neronian annals. see also: Iunii Reference work: PIR2 I 838 FURTHER READING Syme, R. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

IUVENALIS, see CAMPANUS IZATES II, see ADIABENE

28-04-2023 18:00:44

The Tacitus Encyclopedia

ffirs_Vol2.indd 1

28-04-2023 19:10:56

ffirs_Vol2.indd 2

28-04-2023 19:10:56

The Tacitus Encyclopedia Edited by

Victoria Emma Pagán University of Florida Gainesville, Florida

Volume II

ffirs_Vol2.indd 3

28-04-2023 19:10:56

This edition first published 2023 © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. The right of Victoria Emma Pagán to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with law. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA Editorial Office The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products visit us at www. wiley.com. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some content that appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty The contents of this work are intended to further general scientific research, understanding, and discussion only and are not intended and should not be relied upon as recommending or promoting scientific method, diagnosis, or treatment by physicians for any particular patient. In view of ongoing research, equipment modifications, changes in governmental regulations, and the constant flow of information relating to the use of medicines, equipment, and devices, the reader is urged to review and evaluate the information provided in the package insert or instructions for each medicine, equipment, or device for, among other things, any changes in the instructions or indication of usage and for added warnings and precautions. While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Hardback ISBN: 9781444350258; Volume II ISBN: 9781394192991; ePub ISBN: 9781119743330; ePDF ISBN: 9781119743354 Cover Image: Courtesy of Brenda Fields Cover Design: Wiley Set in 10/12pt Minion Pro by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India

ffirs_Vol2.indd 4

28-04-2023 19:10:56

Emma Gomez Mesorana

ffirs_Vol2.indd 5

28-04-2023 19:10:56

ffirs_Vol2.indd 6

28-04-2023 19:10:56

CONTENTS

Reader Guide Notes on Contributors

viii x

The Tacitus Encyclopedia (Entries J–Z) 605 Map1192 Index1193

ftoc_Vol2.indd 7

28-04-2023 18:10:10

READER GUIDE

In each entry, the reader may find information about the headword as it relates to Tacitus; for example, the entry on “Vergil” describes the relationship between Vergil and Tacitus without delving into specifics about the poet. Entries do not provide original scholarship; rather they provide the reader with enough background information to comprehend the entry in the context of Tacitus’ writings and to pursue the topic further on their own. Headwords are ordered in letter-by-letter alphabetical order. Multiword headwords are ordered according to first word then by the second word in letter-by-letter alphabetical order (e.g., Cornelius Aquinus, Cornelius Balbus, Cornelius Cethegus). Homonyms are ordered chronologically and indicated by an Arabic numeral in parentheses (see nomenclature below).

Anatomy of an Entry Entries on persons in Tacitus (the bulk of entries) begin, when possible, with birth and death dates, or a sentence that situates the person temporally, followed by a one- or two-sentence description of the significance and importance of the person. Following the principle of historical methodology, entries then provide biographical information in chronological order. When possible, entries on places identify the modern name of the place and refer the reader to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Entries on topics begin with an overview followed by greater detail as it relates to Tacitus. Contributors provide intellectual and social context; changes over time in the topic and its treatment; current emphases in research and methodology; and future directions for research. Within entries, cross-references are indicated in small capital letters that refer the reader to other entries in the encyclopedia. Entries are followed by four possible headings: ●

●

●

●

See also refers to other entries that will complement the topic but are not mentioned specifically in the entry. Reference works may provide references to major concordances, atlases, and lexica for matters prosopographical, geographical, or epigraphic. References are those items explicitly cited in an entry. Entries contain relatively few references. Only the most important works are explicitly cited and listed with full publication details. Further Reading provides suggestions for books and articles that are not mentioned in entries but serve as additional resources on the topic with full publication details.

Blind Entries Following the principle of general inclusion, the encyclopedia contains 846 blind entries, which are alphabetized with the regular entries and direct readers to another entry where the topic is discussed comprehensively, or where the item is put into context. For example, the reader who searches for Egnatia

flast_Vol2.indd 8

28-04-2023 18:10:54

R eader G uide  

ix

Maximilla will be directed to “Pisonian Conspiracy, victims,” where fourteen persons who are not named elsewhere in Tacitus or other extant sources are discussed in historical context. Many of the blind entries are persons not attested elsewhere in extant literature or attested by Tacitus only once. Within entries, blind entries are indicated in bold face.

Conventions In adopting conventions for the encyclopedia, broad accessibility and preference for forms familiar to the general reader are expected to compensate for departures from strict consistency. Latinized forms of Ancient Greek names, as employed by the Oxford Classical Dictionary are preferred, e.g., Aeschylus. Names which are well-known enough to have achieved a standard English form are preferred, e.g., Homer. Anglicized forms of Latin names, as employed by the Oxford Classical Dictionary are preferred, e.g., Livy. Names which are well known enough to have achieved a standard English form are preferred, e.g., Mark Antony. Emperors (e.g., Caligula, Domitian, Trajan) and classical authors (e.g., Lucan, Plutarch) are listed by their English names. Most places are listed according to Latin name, with few exceptions of places whose English names are more familiar (e.g., Jerusalem). Otherwise, we have used Latin spellings. The following editions of Tacitus have been preferred: S. Borszák, ed. Ab excessu divi Augusti libri I-VI (Leipzig: Teubner, 1992); K. Wellesley, ed. Ab excessu divi Augusti libri XI-XVI (Leipzig: Teubner, 1986); E. Koestermann, ed. Historiarum libri (Leipzig: Teubner, 1957); M. Winterbottom and R. M. Ogilvie, eds. Opera minora (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975). No single translation of the works of Tacitus is consulted uniformly.

Nomenclature Tacitus does not observe consistent nomenclature. For example, he does not give the full name Gaius Asinius Gallus, since praenomina (e.g., Gaius, Lucius, Marcus) were falling out of fashion by his time. The name Asinius Gallus appears three times in Book 1 of the Annals (1.12.2, 1.76.1, and 1.77.3); however, earlier in the same book Tacitus twice inverts the names: Gallus Asinius (1.8.3 and 1.13.2). Therefore, we cannot rely on Tacitus to give the full form of a person’s name or its correct order at the first mention. Sometimes the inversion or shortening appears in the text prior to the full name, if the full name appears at all. Therefore, it is the convention of this encyclopedia to list a person by nomen, then cognomen, e.g., Pedanius Secundus. The exceptions are persons most commonly referred to by cognomina, e.g., Agricola, Agrippa, Cicero, Maecenas. The only persons referred to by praenomina are Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar (sons of Agrippa), or persons whom Tacitus names only by praenomen and who are otherwise unknown. Three strategies are employed to mitigate the difficulties posed by the high incidence of homonymy. First, when possible, we use the English suffixes “the Elder” or “the Younger.” Second, when possible, we include the praenomen to distinguish individuals, e.g., Iunius Brutus, Lucius versus Iunius Brutus, Marcus. However, when all three names are the same (e.g., Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus), we have assigned an Arabic numeral in parentheses, with (1) being the oldest person with the same name; these Arabic numerals are unique to the Tacitus Encyclopedia. Even with these strategies, disambiguation of homonyms requires the reader to consult the birth and death dates, magistracies (with dates when possible), citations to Tacitus, and the reference (in the form A 000) to the second edition of the Prosopographia Imperii Romani.

flast_Vol2.indd 9

28-04-2023 18:10:54

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Colin Adams is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Liverpool, UK. His research interests are Greco-Roman Egypt, the ancient economy, ancient transport, travel, and geographical knowledge, on which he has published widely. Sara Agnelli received a PhD in Classics from the University of Florida, with a dissertation on ancient medicine. She is Assistant Director for Graduate Engagement at the University of Florida Center for the Humanities and Public Sphere. Nathanael Andrade is a Professor in the Department of History at Binghamton University, SUNY. He has authored many publications on the Roman Near East and the Roman Empire’s connections with the societies of Asia. These include Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge: University Press, 2013), The Journey of Christianity to India in Late Antiquity: Networks and the Movement of Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra (Oxford University Press, 2018). Theodore Antoniadis is an Assistant Professor of Latin at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has written various articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings on Senecan tragedy and Flavian epic, while his current research focuses primarily on the Punica of Silius Italicus. Konstantinos Arampapaslis holds a PhD in Classical Philology from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. His work focuses on the depiction of magic and witchcraft in the literature of the Neronian period, and especially its connections with the religious life of the first century ce. His research interests include the topic of marginality in the setting of the Roman Empire as well as the stereotypes and prejudice in Neronian and Flavian literature. Sergio Audano is the Coordinator of the «Centro di Studi sulla Fortuna dell’Antico ‘Emanuele Narducci’»—Sestri Levante. Qualified as Full Professor of Latin Literature, he recently published an annotated edition of Agricola and Germania. Leanne Bablitz is Professor of Roman History in the Department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies at the University of British Columbia. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003. She is the author of Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom (2007) and several articles that examine the interaction of legal practice and physical space. Her current research projects explore various aspects of the lived experience of the law within Roman Italy. Neil Barney (MA, University of Victoria) examines declamation as a venue for self-presentation and communal speech. George Baroud is Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College. His primary areas of interest are Greek and Roman rhetoric and historiography (especially Tacitus); the philosophy of history; and Classical reception in the Arabic and Islamic worlds. His monograph project, tentatively titled Tacitus’ Annals and the Aesthetics of History, is in preparation; he has published on friendship in Valerius Maximus; migration in the Roman empire; and on various aspects of Tacitus.

flast_Vol2.indd 10

28-04-2023 18:10:54

N otes on C ontributors  

xi

Salvador Bartera is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His main research interests focus on Roman historiography, particularly Tacitus, and its interactions with epic poetry. He is also interested in the reception of the Classics in the Renaissance. His main publications include articles on Tacitus, the neo-Latin Jesuit poet Stefonio, the history of the commentary tradition of Tacitus, and the concept of fides in Tacitus’ Histories. He is currently working on a commentary on Annals 16, and is co-editor, with Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson, of the Oxford Critical Guide to Tacitus. Carson Bay (PhD—Florida State University, 2018) is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Institut für Judaistik at Universität Bern in Bern, Switzerland. Trudy Harrington Becker† (1961–2022) was Senior Instructor in History and Classical Studies at Virginia Tech. Martin Beckmann is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada). Luca Beltramini is a Researcher in Latin Literature at the University of Padua. His research focuses on Livy and Roman historiography. His works include a commentary on Livy’s Book 26 (Pisa 2020) and a forthcoming monograph on the conflict of generations in Livy. Herbert W. Benario† (1929–2022) was Professor Emeritus of Classics at Emory University. Yasmina Benferhat has studied Classics at the University Paris-Sorbonne. She is Assistant Professor at the University of Lorraine and does research on political life and also on water culture in ancient Rome. her newest publication is L’eau et le plaisant. Usages et représentations de l’eau dans l’œuvre de Pline le Jeune (Bruxelles, 2019). She has written two books on Tacitus: Du bon usage de la douceur en politique dans l’œuvre de Tacite (Paris, 2011) and L’eau et le mouvant. Usages et représentations de l’eau dans l’œuvre de Tacite (Bruxelles, 2017). Shreyaa Bhatt is Lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University. Her current areas of research include ancient and early modern political thought and the work of Michel Foucault. Her work on Tacitus has appeared in Helios, Arethusa, and Foucault Studies. Kristin Bocchine is a doctoral candidate at the University of North Texas where she studies Greek and Roman knowledge of Jews and Judaism in the Roman Empire. Her research interests include the study of Second Temple and early Rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, and ethnic identity in the Roman Empire. Joshua Seo Breckenridge is a MA candidate for Classical Studies and holds a BA in Classics and Economics, both from Case Western Reserve University. He is currently serving as a 2021–22 AmeriCorps member with City Year Cleveland. His research interests include the intersections of quantitative analyses and Classical Studies and the ancient economy, commerce, and trade networks. He has presented his undergraduate thesis titled “The Role of the Roman Government within the Grain Market during the Beginning of the Roman Empire” at the 2021 CAMWS Annual Meeting. Thomas Brodey is a student at Amherst College (class of 2022) and a recipient of the Schupf Scholarship. Nicoletta Bruno completed her PhD in Classics at Università degli Studi di Bari. She is currently Teaching Fellow at Università degli Studi di Bari. She was Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin at Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (BAdW) and Fritz Thyssen Stiftung Postdoctoral Fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Her main research interests are Latin epic poetry, ancient historiography, Latin lexicography, reception of classics, history of classical scholarship.

flast_Vol2.indd 11

28-04-2023 18:10:54

xii

  N otes on C ontributors

Marshall C. Buchanan is a PhD candidate in classics at the University of Michigan. His dissertation is about the narrative of decline in Roman historiography and its appearance in Tacitus. Claudio Buongiovanni is Full Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli.” His main fields of research are Latin historiography (especially Sallust and Tacitus); Latin epigram (especially Martial); Latin political vocabulary between Republican and Imperial Age; ancient and modern reception of Latin authors. In 2005 he published the monograph Sei studi su Tacito, in 2012 a philological commentary on the Epigrammata longa in Martial’s tenth book; he also published several articles on Tacitus, Martial, as well as on authors or topics mainly related to the Latin literature of the Late Republic and the Imperial Age. Alberto Cafaro is Adjunct Professor of Roman History at the University of Siena and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pisa. His research interests include Roman politics and institutions during the Late Republic and Early Empire, social and economic history of Roman Italy, ancient prosopography, and Latin epigraphy. He took part in archaeological excavations in Italy and Turkey. He is author of Governare l’impero: la praefectura fabrum fra legami personali e azione politica, Historia— Einzelschriften 262 (2021). He has published in Ancient Society and Studi Classici e Orientali. He is a contributor to the prosopographical database Amici Populi Romani, and a member of the Vada Volaterrana Harbour Project (University of Pisa) and the Misis Höyuk Excavation Project (CNR-ISMA—Roma). Lauren Caldwell is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research is on social history, medicine, and law in the Roman Empire. She has published Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity (Cambridge, 2015) and “From Household to Workshop: Women, Weaving, and the Peculium” in Women’s Lives, Women’s Voices: Roman Material Culture and Female Agency in the Bay of Naples (University of Texas 2021). Hamish Cameron is a Lecturer in Classics at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. His work focuses on mobility, geography, cyberpunk, classical reception in games, and the Roman Near East. His recent book, Making Mesopotamia (2019), examines the representation of Northern Mesopotamia as a borderland in Roman geographic writing of the first four centuries ce. Robert Campbell is a postgraduate researcher. He is contracting with various scholars for copyright and index creation. His current affiliation is with the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The current areas of research are Minoan archaeology, Late Bronze Age history, Minoan religious iconography, and Cretan philology. Currently, he is a Media Editor for the Ancient History Encyclopaedia and is a reviewer for multiple publishing companies. Jacqueline M. Carlon is Emerita Professor, Classics, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her research interests include Roman elite identity in the early principate and epistolography. She is the author of a commentary: Selected Letters from Pliny the Younger’s Epistulae (Oxford, 2016), and a monograph: Pliny’s Women: Constructing Virtue and Creating Identity in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2009). C. Cengiz Çevik, PhD, is from the Department of Latin Language and Literature at Istanbul University (2018). The subject of his doctoral thesis is “Relation of Politics and Philosophy in Roman Republic.” He gave Latin Lectures in Yeditepe University and Doga College (2010–2017). He is the author of “Cicero’nun Devleti” (Cicero’s State) and “Roma’da Siyaset ve Felsefe” (Philosophy and Politics at Rome). He translated some Latin works to Turkish such as Cicero’s De Re Publica, De Legibus, De Officiis, De Fato, De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Finibus, Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones, De Constantia Sapientis. His current area of research is political philosophy of the Greek and Roman periods. Stephen Chappell, PhD, is retired Associate Professor Emeritus of Ancient History with a longstanding interest in Roman historiography and provincial history.

flast_Vol2.indd 12

28-04-2023 18:10:54

N otes on C ontributors  

xiii

Emery Cholwell is a student at Amherst College (class of 2021), majoring in Classics and Psychology. Panayiotis Christoforou is a Stipendiary Lecturer in Ancient History at University College and St. John’s College, University of Oxford. His main research interests lie in Roman history, particularly the political culture of the Roman empire and popular discourses of the Roman empire. His most recent publication is “‘An Indication of Truly Imperial Manners’: The Roman emperor in Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium” Historia 70 (2021). Jo-Marie Claassen (D.Litt., Stellenbosch) retired from teaching at that university in 2001. She is best known for her work on exile (particularly the banishment of Ovid, but also Cicero, Seneca, Dio Chrysostom, and Boethius). Her monograph, Displaced Persons: The Literature of Exile from Cicero to Boethius, appeared in 1999, and a collection of articles, Ovid Revisited: the Poet in Exile, in 2008. Most of her recent work is on Ovid, but she has also published on the consolatory tradition, on a variety of African figures, on Afrikaans literature and the Classics, and on Latin teaching methods, including computer-aided instruction. Lucie Claire is an Assistant Professor at the University of Picardie Jules Verne (Amiens, France), where she teaches Latin language and literature. She devoted her doctoral dissertation to the humanistic editions and commentaries of the Annales of Tacitus and more particularly to the work of MarcAntoine Muret on the Latin historian. Her research focuses on the issues and commentaries of Latin historians in the Renaissance, the genre of commentary, and the philological writings of Marc-Antoine Muret. Timothy Clark is a Humanities Teaching Fellow in the Department of Classics and the College at the University of Chicago. He completed his doctorate in Classics at the University of Chicago in June 2020, writing a dissertation on Roman representations of Parthia and Armenia. His research interests center around the articulation and negotiation of political power and cultural identity between Rome and the peoples, cultures, and polities on its eastern frontier. Isabelle Cogitore is Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the Université Grenoble Alpes (France) and Director of UMR 5316 Litt&Arts. Published works: La légitimité dynastique, d’Auguste à Néron, à l’épreuve des conspirations, BEFAR 313, Rome-Paris, 1994; Le doux nom de liberté, Bordeaux, Ausonius 2011; edited works: Femmes influentes, dans le monde hellénistique et à Rome, IIIème siècle av. J.-C.-Ier siècle ap.J.-C., Grenoble, ELLUG, 2016. Kathleen M. Coleman is the James Loeb Professor of the Classics at Harvard University. She specializes in Latin literature under the Flavian emperors and Trajan, and in Roman social history, especially spectacle and punishment, and she also has strong interests in epigraphy and material culture, especially mosaics. She is the author of commentaries on Statius, Silvae IV, and Martial, Liber spectaculorum, both published by Oxford University Press. John Granger Cook, Professor at LaGrange College, has focused his research on the interaction of Christianity with Greco-Roman culture and has published monographs on the following themes: the reaction to the New Testament and the Septuagint by Greco-Roman philosophers; the attitudes of Roman political authorities from Claudius to Hadrian toward Christianity; crucifixion in the Mediterranean world; and empty tomb, resurrection, and apotheosis in their ancient context. Anthony Corbeill, Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia, is author of Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic (Princeton 1996), Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (Princeton 2004), and Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome (Princeton 2015). He is currently preparing a commentary on Cicero’s De haruspicum responsis.

flast_Vol2.indd 13

28-04-2023 18:10:54

xiv

  N otes on C ontributors

Juan Manuel Cortés-Copete is Professor of Ancient History at the University Pablo de Olavide, Seville (Spain). He is the author of articles and books on Aelius Aristides. He is currently working on the edition and commentary of the correspondence between the Emperor Hadrian and the Greek cities. His recent publications include: “Hadrian among the Gods” in Empire and Religion, edited by E. Muñiz, J.M. Cortés-Copete, F. Lozano, 112–136. Leiden: Brill; “Governing by Dispatching Letters: the Hadrianic Chancellery” in Political Communication in the Roman World, edited by C. Rosillo, 107–136. Leiden: Brill; and “Koinoi nomoi: Hadrian and the Harmonization of Local Laws” in The Impact of Justice on the Roman Empire, edited by O. Hekster and K. Verboven, 105–121. Leiden: Brill. Eleanor Cowan is Lecturer in Ancient History in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney. Her core areas of research are the historian Velleius Paterculus as well as the language and ideas of the late republic and early principate and Roman ideas about the rule of law. Recent publications include E. Cowan (2019) “Hopes and Aspirations: Res Publica, Leges et Iura, and Alternatives at Rome” in The Alternative Augustan Age edited by K. Morrell, J. Osgood, K. Welch, 27–45. New York: Oxford University Press and E. Cowan, (2016) “Contesting Clementia: The Rhetoric of Severitas in Tiberian Rome before and after the Trial of Clutorius Priscus,” Journal of Roman Studies, 106: 77–101. DOI 10.1017/S0075435816000605. David B. Cuff, B.A. (Hons.), Memorial (1999), MPhil, Oxon. (2001), PhD, Classics, Toronto (2010), is the Director of Strategic Research and Partnerships in the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University. Dr. Cuff ’s research background is in the area of Roman history, especially of the Roman auxiliary units in the first and second centuries ce. His ongoing interests include identity and cultural diversity in the Roman army and provinces (Cuff, D. “The King of the Batavians: Remarks on Tab. Vindol 3.628.” Britannia 42 (2012): 145–156). Edward Dąbrowa, is Professor of Ancient History at the Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Research interests: history of Anatolia, the Near East (Syria and Judea), Mesopotamia, and Iran in the Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman periods. Megan M. Daly is the Assistant University Librarian of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on the study of Germanicus, Germania, and leaders within the works of Tacitus. She has written “Seeing the Caesar in Germanicus: Reading Tacitus’ Annals with Lucan’s Bellum Civile” and is also interested in Tacitus’ perspective on intellectual freedom. Aske Damtoft Poulsen studied classics at Oslo University (2007–2013). He did his PhD at the University of Lund (2013–2018) with a dissertation on accounts of northern barbarians in Tacitus’ Annals. Having spent the winter of 2018 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Swedish Institute in Rome, in 2019–2021 he was a Carlsberg Foundation Internationalisation Fellow at the University of Bristol with a project on peace and power in the early Roman Principate. He is now working on a project on alternatives to autocracy in imperial historiography at Aalborg University. Shawn Daniels received his PhD from the University of Florida in 2013 and has taught as an adjunct instructor in the Classics at Wright State University, Edison State University, and Bowling Green State University. His research interests include late antiquity and ancient crafting, and he recently published a translation of Boym’s The Medical Key to the Doctrine of the Chinese on Pulses. Christopher J. Dart is an honorary fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne in Australia. His research focuses on the history of the Roman Republic and early empire. He is the author of The Social War, 91 to 88 bce: A History of the Italian Insurgency against the Roman Republic (2014).

flast_Vol2.indd 14

28-04-2023 18:10:54

N otes on C ontributors  

xv

Caillan Davenport is Associate Professor of Classics and Head of the Centre for Classical Studies, The Australian National University. He is the co-editor of Fronto: Selected Letters (Bloomsbury, 2014) and author of A History of the Roman Equestrian Order (Cambridge, 2019). His research focuses on Roman politics and political culture in the Roman Republic, the Empire, and Late Antiquity. Nicholas Dee is an instructor of Classics at Bowling Green State University. In 2016 he completed a dissertation entitled “Oaths and Greed in Tacitus’ Histories” (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign). Jeanine De Landtsheer† (1954–2021) earned her PhD in Classics from the KU Leuven in 1993 and became a full-time researcher in the Seminarium Philologiae Humanisticae in 1995. Her research focused on Justus Lipsius. She was editorial assistant of several international journals. She is remembered by her colleagues for her endless generosity and widely admired attention to detail. Bedia Demiriş is Professor of Latin Language and Literature at Istanbul University in Turkey. Her areas of research are Roman historiography, ancient Greek and Roman drama, and Latin grammar. Her noteworthy publications are: “Türkçede Eski Yunan ve Roma Klasikleri. Bir Çeviri Pratiği” (Ancient Greek and Roman Classics in Turkish. A Translation Practice) Colloquium Anatolicum, 15 (2016): 317–331; Roma Yazınında Tarih Yazıcılığı. Başlangıçtan, I. S. 5. Yüzyıla. (Historiography in Roman Literature. From the Beginning to 5th Century ce), Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, 2006; Titus Livius. Roma’nın Yurtsever Tarihçisi. (Titus Livius. Patriotic Historian of Rome). Istanbul: Arkeoloji ve Sanat Yayınları, 1998. Emma Dench is McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History and of the Classics at Harvard University. Her latest book, Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World, appeared as a Cambridge University Key Theme in Ancient History in 2018. Alberto De Simoni earned his PhD at the University of Florida. He attended the Università degli Studi di Milano where he earned a B.A. and an M.A. in Italian Literature and Philology, with a thesis on Dante’s Inferno. He taught Italian and Latin language and literature in High School, both in Italy and in Florida. In 2017, he earned his M.A. in Classics at the University of Florida. His research focuses on Libanius of Antioch and the problem of prison and incarceration in the Eastern provinces of the Late Roman Empire. He attended the Summer Session at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2017), and p ­ resented papers at various conferences in the US. He received the University of Florida Graduate Student Teaching Award (2017 and 2021) and the International Student Achievement Award (2019). Olivier Devillers is Professor of Latin and Latin literature at the University Bordeaux-Montaigne and Director of the UMR 5607-Ausonius. He specializes in ancient historiography, notably in the historians who wrote about the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He is the author of two monographs (L’Art de la persuasion dans les Annales de Tacite, 1994; Tacite et les sources des Annales, 2003) and many papers on Tacitus. He also directed or co-directed some collective works on Latin literature and Roman history. Eduard Droberjar, PhD, is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Hradec Králové (Czech Republic) and researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra, which deals with the archaeology of the Roman period in the territory Barbaricum and the RomanGermanic relations. Bibliography: https://uhk.academia.edu/EduardDroberjar. Rebecca Edwards is an Associate Professor of Classics at Wright State University. She has published on Tacitus’ Annals, Histories, and Dialogus. Her most recent article (BICS 61.2 (2018)) explores Pliny’s portrayal of Tacitus in his letters. Nathan T. Elkins is Deputy Director at the American Numismatic Society Baylor University. His areas of expertise include Roman imperial art, architecture, and coinage. He is author of Monuments in Miniature: Architecture on Roman Coinage (2015), The Image of Political Power in the Reign of Nerva, AD

flast_Vol2.indd 15

28-04-2023 18:10:54

xv i

  N otes on C ontributors

96–98 (2017), and A Monument to Dynasty and Death: The Story of Rome’s Colosseum and the Emperors Who Built It (2019). Harriet I. Flower is Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics at Princeton University. She has published widely on Roman history and culture, with a special focus on spectacle, memory, commemoration, and sanctions against memory. Her most recent book is The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden: Religion at the Roman Street Corner (Princeton, 2017). Lien Foubert is a Senior Lecturer at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. She studies elite narratives in periods of (perceived) crisis. Her research focuses in particular on gendered discourses in the Roman Republic and early empire. Tacitus’ oeuvre appears regularly in her publications, but most prominently in “The Lure of an Exotic Destination: The Politics of Women’s Travels in the Early Roman Empire” (Hermes 144, 2016) and “Literary Constructions of Female Identities. The Parallel Lives of Julio-Claudian Women in Tacitus’ ‘Annals’” (Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 2010). Lee Fratantuono is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Ancient Classics at the National University of Ireland-Maynooth. He has authored numerous works on Latin poetry and Roman history, including commentaries on Tacitus, Annals 16 and Virgil, Aeneid 4, 5, 8, and 11. Bruce W. Frier is the John and Teresa D’Arms Distinguished University Professor of Classics and Roman Law at the University of Michigan. His field is Roman legal history especially as it relates to Roman social and economic history. Rodrigo Furtado is Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the School of Arts and Humanities-University of Lisbon. He specializes in Roman, Late Antique, and Visigothic historiography and in the circulation of Iberian historiographical manuscripts during the Middle Ages. He is member of the Società Internazionale for the Studio del Medioevo Latino/SISMEL and in 2016 he was Resident Researcher in the Casa de Velázquez-Madrid. Currently, he is also director of the Center for Classical Studies-Lisbon. He is currently preparing the critical edition of Isidore of Seville’s Histories. Andrew Gallia is Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. He studies Roman cultural and social history and is the author of Remembering the Roman Republic: Culture, Politics and History under the Principate. Fabrice Galtier is Professor at the Université Clermont Auvergne. His work is concerned with Latin literature of the early empire, especially texts related to the problem of memory and representation of the Julio-Claudians. He has been particularly interested in Tacitus, to whom he has dedicated many articles and a book titled L’image tragique de l’Histoire chez Tacite. Étude des schèmes tragiques dans les Histoires et les Annales (2011). In 2018 he has also published L’empreinte des morts. Relations entre mort, mémoire et reconnaissance dans la Pharsale de Lucain. Uiran Gebara da Silva is Professor of Ancient History at the Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco (Brazil). His research interests are peasants, slaves, and the countryside of Late Roman Gaul. He has recently published the book Rebeldes contra o Mediterrâneo: revoltas rurais e a escrita da história das classes subalternas na Antiguidade Tardia (São Paulo: Humanitas/Fapesp, 2016). Caitlin C. Gillespie is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Brandeis University. Her research explores the relationship between exemplarity, gender, and power in representations of women of the early Roman Empire. Past articles have investigated Agrippina the Younger as a unique role model in Tacitus’ Annals, provided an alternative biography of Poppaea Sabina, analyzed Livia’s association with Concordia, and examined gender and class in the opposition to Nero. Her book, Boudica: Warrior Woman of Roman Britain, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. Her current work continues to interrogate Tacitus’ portrayals of women in the Annals.

flast_Vol2.indd 16

28-04-2023 18:10:54

N otes on C ontributors  

xv ii

Leonardo Gregoratti was educated at the Universities of Udine (Italy) and Trier (Germany). He has conducted research in Udine, Trier, Kiel, and Bergen. In 2013–2018 he collaborated with the Department of Classics and Ancient History of Durham University as IAS Fellow. Currently he is a masterless researcher collaborating with various institutions. His research interests include Roman history and epigraphy and the history of Western Asia, in particular the Roman Near East, Palmyra, the long distance trade, and the Parthian Kingdom. He collaborated as classical historian with the archaeological missions conducted by Udine University in Syria and now collaborates with Iranian archaeologists. Elisabeth Günther is Assistant Professor at the department for Classical Archaeology at the University of Trier. Her research interests focus on digital methods in archaeology, on Roman numismatics, and on the application of cognitive theories to ancient visual studies, especially visual narration and reception processes. Her doctoral thesis on comedy-related vases from South Italy (fourth century bce) is entitled “Komische Bilder. Bezugsrahmen und narratives Potenzial unteritalischer Komödienvasen” and will be published in 2022. Together with Prof. Dr. Johanna Fabricius (Free University of Berlin), she is editor of the conference proceedings “Mehrdeutigkeiten. Rahmentheorien und Affordanzkonzepte in der archäologischen Bildwissenschaft” (Harrassowitz: 2021). Sven Günther is Full Professor of Classics at the Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China. His research centers on GrecoRoman socioeconomic history, numismatics, and reception history. Noteworthy publications include a monograph (Vectigalia nervos esse rei publicae. Die indirekten Steuern in der Römischen Kaiserzeit von Augustus bis Diokletian. Wiesbaden [2008]: Harrassowitz), several edited volumes, and numerous articles in distinguished journals. He is also executive editor-in-chief of the double-blind peer-reviewed Journal of Ancient Civilizations (JAC) and co-editor of the Marburger Beiträge zur Antiken Handels-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte (MBAH). Federico Gurgone is a journalist and he teaches Italian, history, and geography in the middle school “Rugantino” of Rome. He graduated from the University of Rome La Sapienza with a master’s degree in classical archaeology. He spent three years working as an archaeologist at the excavation sites of Pompeii, Ancient Ostia, Palatine Hill, and Imperial Fora in Rome. He’s collaborating as a freelance journalist with the Italian daily newspaper Il Manifesto and with several magazines of different countries: National Geographic (Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal), Geo Magazine (Spain, Finland), Focus (Italy), Archaeology (USA), Clio Revista de Historia (Spain). Wesley J. Hanson has recently completed a dissertation on Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently teaches at the University of Delaware and the University of Pennsylvania. His main research interests are biography, historiography, and Latin prose style. Holly Haynes is Professor of Classical Studies in the Department of Philosophy, Religion, and Classical Studies at the College of New Jersey. Areas of research include imperial Roman prose authors, especially Tacitus and Pliny; ancient historiography; and literary and critical theory. Carl Hope is Head of Classics at Durham School in the UK. He authors and marks papers in classical subjects for the national examination board OCR and has written the Plutarch Alcibiades commentary in an A-Level Classical Greek set-texts anthology published by Bloomsbury (2021). Currently he is working on a single-volume commentary for the equivalent Latin series on Pliny’s Letters. Jared Hudson is Associate Professor of Classics at Harvard University. He is the author of The Rhetoric of Roman Transportation: Vehicles in Latin Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Donna W. Hurley writes about the historiography of the early Roman Empire, concentrating on the contribution made by the Roman biographer Suetonius. She has published commentaries on the Suetonius Lives of the emperors Gaius and Claudius and a translation of all of the imperial Lives. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers Universities.

flast_Vol2.indd 17

28-04-2023 18:10:54

xv iii

  N otes on C ontributors

Fábio Duarte Joly is Professor of Ancient History in the Department of History at the Federal University of Ouro Preto, in Brazil. He is the author of Tácito e a Metáfora da Escravidão: Um Estudo de Cultura Política Romana (São Paulo, 2004), Libertate opus est: Escravidão, Manumissão e Cidadania à Época de Nero (54–68 d.C.) (Curitiba, 2010), and A Escravidão na Roma Antiga: Política, Economia e Cultura (São Paulo, 2013). He also wrote entries for the Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei (Stuttgart, 2017). Brandon Jones is Visiting Lecturer of Classical Studies at Boston University. His publications focus on social and intellectual history during the Roman imperial period. Timothy Jones earned his PhD at Macquarie University. His current areas of research include the reign of Tiberius (with a focus on Germanicus), narrative in Tacitus, and imperial women. Recent publications include “Julia, Daughter of Drusus: Sejanus’ Imperial Betrothal.” Classicum 43: 22–27; and “A Deafening Silence: Agrippa Postumus and the Will of Augustus.” Iris: Journal of the Classical Association of Victoria (New Series) 29 (2016): 77–85. Molly Ayn Jones-Lewis is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) whose research interests include ancient theories of ethnicity, the social history of the medical professions, and Roman law. She (with Rebecca Futo Kennedy) is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Identity and the Environment in the Classical and Medieval Worlds. Timothy Joseph is Professor of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. His publications include Tacitus the Epic Successor (Brill, 2012) and Thunder and Lament: Lucan on the Beginnings and Ends of Epic (Oxford, 2022). Konstantinos Kapparis is Professor in Classics and Director of the Center for Greek Studies at the University of Florida. His research interests include the Attic orators, Athenian law, Greek and Roman medical authors, women’s history and gender studies, and the social history of the Greco-Roman world. He has published seven books, an edited volume, and more than eighty articles, book chapters, and reviews on topics such as prostitution, citizenship and immigration, gender studies, and the history of medicine and science. Daniel Kapust is Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests include Roman, early modern, and eighteenth-century political thought. He has published two books: Republicanism, Rhetoric, and Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus (Cambridge, 2011) and Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art (Cambridge, 2018). Nathan Katkin is a PhD student in Classics at the University of Chicago. He is interested in how people tell stories about the past in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. Michael B. Kearney graduated with joint bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Classics from Yale University, where in 2018 and 2019 he directed the university’s annual “Certamen” invitational. His senior thesis examined the narrative role of the lucus in Vergil’s Aeneid. Other areas of interest include Late Roman bronze coinage and the hero Diomedes. Peter Keegan is a Professor in Roman History at Macquarie University. His research interests are wide-ranging: the political, military, social, and cultural histories of Rome during the republican and early imperial periods; sexuality, gender, and body history in antiquity; the epigraphy of ephemeral graffiti and death in Roman Italy; and the spatial dynamics of social relations in urban and periurban contexts in ancient Campania. He maintains a productive publication profile, including Written Space in the Latin West; Graffiti in Antiquity; Roles for Men and Women in Roman Epigraphic Culture; Inscriptions in the Private Sphere in the Greco-Roman World; and Livy’s Women. Elizabeth Keitel is Professor Emerita of Classics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has written extensively on Tacitus and co-edited (with Brian Breed and Rex Wallace), Lucilius and Satire in

flast_Vol2.indd 18

28-04-2023 18:10:54

N otes on C ontributors  

xix

Second-Century BC Rome (Cambridge 2018) and (with Virginia Closs) Urban Disasters and the Roman Imagination (deGruyter 2020). Benjamin Kelly is Associate Professor in the Department of History, at York University, Toronto. His research concerns Greek documentary papyri (especially juristic papyri), Roman policing institutions, Latin historiography, and the history of the Roman imperial court. He is the author of Petitions, Litigation, and Social Control in Roman Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2011). Adam M. Kemezis is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, Classics and Religion at the University of Alberta. He writes on imperial Roman historiography and biography of several periods, as well as imperial-era Greek literature. His publications include a monograph Greek Narratives of the Roman Empire under the Severans: Cassius Dio, Philostratus and Herodian (Cambridge, 2014) and several articles on Cassius Dio, Tacitus, Philostratus and the Historia Augusta. Robert C. Ketterer is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Iowa. He writes on ancient drama and the reception of classics in early modern and enlightenment opera. His publications include articles and chapters on individual early operas and a monograph, Ancient Rome in Early Opera (Urbana, 2009). He co-edited Syllecta Classica, vol. 23 (2013) “Re-Creation: Musical Reception of Classical Antiquity” and the Oxford Bibliography Online article “Classics and Opera.” Kyle Khellaf is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Classics at the University of California, Riverside. He has recently published scholarship on Greco-Roman historical digressions and DeleuzoGuattarian readings of classical authors. Jayne Knight is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Tasmania. She received her PhD from the University of British Columbia. She researches Latin literature and Roman cultural history, with particular interests in rhetoric, politics, and emotions. Michael L. Konieczny holds a PhD in Classical Philology from Harvard. Alice König is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of St. Andrews. She specializes in the prose literature of the imperial period and has published on Vitruvius, Frontinus, Pliny the Younger, and Tacitus, among other authors. Patrick Kragelund holds doctorates in classics and the reception of classics from the University of Copenhagen and has worked at the Danish Academy in Rome, the Universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark, and of Bergen, Norway, and from 1998 till retirement was director of the Danish National Art Library. Important recent publications are A Stage for the King. The Travels of Christian IV of Denmark and the Building of Frederiksborg Castle, Copenhagen 2019; “Epicurus, Sisenna and the Dream of Metella,” Classical Philology 113.2 (2018), 212–224; “Tacitus and Dio on Tiberius and the Tiber (Annals 1.76.1; 79.1–4; Dio 57.14.7–8)” Classical Quarterly 72.1 (2022), 338–346; and The Latin Inscriptions of Medici Florence. Piety and Propaganda, Civic Pride and the Classical Past, Rome 2021. Mik Larsen is a Lecturer in Ancient History at California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona, and California State University, Long Beach. He works on social class, social mobility, and rhetoric in the Roman Empire. Robyn Le Blanc is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research and fieldwork focuses on communities in the Roman provinces, and in particular the development and transformation of public space, and civic coinage. She has excavated in Israel, Montenegro, and Britain, and has recently published an article on foundation myths on coins of Ascalon in Israel Numismatics Research (2017) and co-authored an article on the Roman bouleuterion from Ascalon/Ashkelon for AJA (2016).

flast_Vol2.indd 19

28-04-2023 18:10:54

xx

  N otes on C ontributors

D. S. Levene is Professor of Classics at New York University. Much of his research is on Roman historiography; he is the author of two books on Livy (Religion in Livy (Leiden, 1993) and Livy on the Hannibalic War (Oxford, 2010)), and has also written extensively on other historians, notably Tacitus, Sallust, and Pompeius Trogus. He edited the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Tacitus’ Histories (Oxford, 1997), and co-edited (with D. P. Nelis) Clio and the Poets (Leiden, 2002). His current major project is an edition and commentary on the fragments and epitomes of Livy. B. M. Levick was Fellow and Tutor in Literae Humaniores at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, until 1998. Danielle Chagas de Lima holds a doctorate in Linguistics, Classics from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Her thesis examined political vocabulary in Tacitus’ work. Her research interest focuses on literary genres in classical antiquity, classic historiography and biography, characterization, and history of concepts in classical and neo-Latin writings. Jerzy Linderski is Paddison Professor of Latin Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His current interests include Roman history, religion and law, Latin epigraphy, and Latin language. His major publications are Roman Questions (Stuttgart 1995) and Roman Questions II (Stuttgart 2007). John Alexander Lobur is a Professor at the University of Mississippi, specializing in the interface between culture and power in the transition from republic to empire, with emphases on the role of rhetoric, historiography, biography, and exemplarity. He is the author of Consensus, Concordia and the Formation of Roman Imperial Ideology (Routledge 2008), several related articles. His book Cornelius Nepos: A Study in the Influence and Evidence was published by the University of Michigan Press (2021). Katie Low was awarded a doctorate in 2013 from the University of Oxford that focused on the Tiberian books of the Annals, with particular reference to Tacitus’ portrayal of foreigners and to the theme of civil war. She also studied at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris and held posts at Regent’s Park College, Oxford and Royal Holloway, University of London, and has published articles and reviews on the history of Claudius’ accession and on various aspects of the Annals. She currently lives in Brussels and works at the European Commission. Ivaylo Lozanov is Assistant Professor in Classical Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, Sofia University, Bulgaria, and Adjunct Professor at the Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. His principal research interests lie in ancient urbanism, political history, religion, trade, and economic relations in the Eastern Mediterranean, with particular focus on ancient Thrace in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. He is involved in a leading role in international interdisciplinary projects studying the Thracian elite of the Late Iron Age. He is author of a chapter on Roman Thrace (in A Companion of Ancient Thrace. Wiley-Blackwell, 2015). Trevor S. Luke is an Associate Professor of Ancient History and Classics at Florida State University. He is the author of Ushering in A New Republic: Theologies of Arrival at Rome in the First Century bce (University of Michigan Press). His research focuses on religion and imperial ideology in the Late Republic and the Early Empire. Dominic Machado is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross. He studies the history and historiography of the Roman Republic with a particular focus on the ability of non-elite groups to organize and act collectively. He is also interested in the reception of antiquity in modern media like TV, movies, and video games, and the ways that such receptions can be used pedagogically. Christopher S. Mackay is a Professor at the University of Alberta and has written two books on Roman history (Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History and The Breakdown of the Roman Republic) as well as editions and translations of late medieval texts on witchcraft and the Anabaptist Kingdom of Münster.

flast_Vol2.indd 20

28-04-2023 18:10:54

N otes on C ontributors  

xxi

Shushma Malik is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include Roman emperors and their reception, Roman religions, and imperial historiography. In particular, she has worked extensively on the Emperor Nero’s portrayal in Christian history as the Antichrist and has written on portrayals of Roman emperors in the works and letters of Oscar Wilde. Her monograph The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm was published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. Alessio Mancini received his PhD in Classics at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in 2017 and is currently postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pisa. His research focuses primarily on Lucan’s Bellum Civile and on its reception in the Middle Ages and early Italian Humanism, as well as on Latin textual criticism and on the interactions between Roman declamation and other genres (poetry, biography, historiography). Eleni Hall Manolaraki (PhD Cornell University) is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of South Florida and the author of Noscendi Nilum Cupido: Imagining Egypt from Lucan to Philostratus (DeGruyter 2012). She has published journal articles and book chapters on Roman epic (Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus), historiography (Tacitus, Pliny the Younger), and natural history (Pliny the Elder), and co-authored the Wiley textbook A History of Rome (4th edition). Juliana Bastos Marques is Associate Professor of Ancient History at UNIRIO - Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, and currently researches contemporary public receptions of authority in ancient historiography. She was Fulbright Fellow, 2017 (Florida State University), and Newton Fellow, 2018–2020 (Newcastle University). Her book, Tradição e renovações da identidade romana em Tito Lívio e Tácito, was published in Brazil in 2012. Richard Marshall teaches in the Classics Department of the National University of Ireland, Galway, and is a former Research Associate of the Fragments of the Republican Roman Orators project at the University of Glasgow. Steve Mason is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions and Cultures in the University of Groningen. He edits the international project Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary (Brill, 2000–), for which he has written the volumes Life of Josephus and Judean War 2 and 4. His recent monographs include Orientation to the History of Roman Judaea (Wipf & Stock, 2016), A History of the Judaean War, ad 66–74 (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and From Historical Method to Cases: Jews and Christians in the Roman World (Brill, 2022 forthcoming). Jonathan Master is an Associate Professor of Classics at Emory University. He has published Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus (Michigan, 2016) and several articles on Seneca. Del A. Maticic is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Greek and Roman Studies at Vassar College specializing in early imperial Roman literature and culture. James McNamara (PhD Cambridge) held DAAD Postdoctoral Research Fellow working at the Universities of Potsdam and Florence. He has taught Latin and Greek language and literature at Cambridge, Oxford, and Victoria University (Wellington). His research focuses on Tacitus, imperial Latin historiography, oratory, ethnography, and relationships between poetry and prose literature. He also works on classical reception, including classics in education and early modern historiography. Julia Mebane is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research focuses on Roman political culture, including themes of republicanism, civil war, and the domus Augusta. Her publications include “Carlyle the Tragedian: Staging Euripides’ Bacchae in The French Revolution,” Classical Receptions 11.1 (2019): 44–60; and “Pompey’s Head and the Body Politic in Lucan’s De Bello Civili,” TAPA 146.1 (2016): 191–215.

flast_Vol2.indd 21

28-04-2023 18:10:54

xxii

  N otes on C ontributors

Michael Meckler is a Permanent Fellow in the Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies at the Ohio State University. Ronald Mellor is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research specialties have included Roman religion, the Julio-Claudian emperors, and Roman historiography. His most recent books are Augustus and the Creation of the Roman Empire (Bedford, 2006) and Tacitus’ Annals (Oxford University Press, 2010). Edward Millband earned his PhD at the University of Cambridge. His doctoral thesis is a commentary on Book 13 of Tacitus’ Annals. He supervises undergraduate students from all three years of the Classical Tripos on Latin verse and prose literature as well as Latin prose composition. His main research interests are Latin historiography and poetry of the Early Empire, particularly the works of Tacitus and Seneca, as well as codicology, textual criticism, and the evolution of literary Latin. Rosemary Moore is Distinguished Associate Professor of Instruction in the departments of History and Classics at the University of Iowa. Her specialties are Roman military history and the history of ancient leadership. She has written case studies on Fulvia, Julius Caesar, and the army mutinies of 14 ce in the Sage series Becoming a Leader in the Ancient World. She is also the author of the chapter “Generalship” in the Oxford History of Classical Warfare, as well as various articles on leadership, command, and gender in ancient Rome. Matt Myers is a Teaching Associate in Roman History at the University of Nottingham. His research interests include the role of space and sensory perception in Roman historiography and the role of violence in Roman history and literature. His PhD thesis, entitled Vision and Space in Tacitus, was passed in 2018. Margot Neger is an Assistant Professor of the Classics department of the University of Cyprus. She gained her PhD from the University of Munich with a thesis on Martial which she published in 2012 (Martials Dichtergedichte. Das Epigramm als Medium der poetischen Selbstreflexion. Tübingen: Narr). Her main areas of research are Greek and Roman epigram and epistolography, especially the letters of Pliny the Younger and Sidonius Apollinaris. She has been principal investigator of a project entitled “Embedded Poems in Ancient Prose Letters” funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Her monograph Epistolare Narrationen. Studien zur Erzähltechnik des jüngeren Plinius (Tübingen: Narr, 2021) investigates the narrative strategies in Pliny the Younger’s Letters. Andrew Nichols is Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Classics at the University of Florida. He is the author of Ctesias: On India (Bloomsbury, 2011). His recent publications include articles in Classici e Orientali and Thessaliko Hemerologio and chapters in the edited volumes Miracles and Wonders in Antiquity and Byzantium and Displacement in Language, Literature and Culture. John Nicols graduated from UC Berkeley and did his PhD at UCLA and at the Universität Freiburg. He has held regular appointments at the Universität Freiburg, at Stanford University, and at the University of Oregon where he is now an emeritus professor of History and of Classics. He has been a visiting professor at five German universities and has received many grants most recently from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In 2009, he received the university’s Williams Award for his teaching. He is now working on a book on the practice of hospitium in the Roman Empire. Ben Nikota is a PhD student in Classics at New York University. His dissertation focuses on the fragmentary Greek-Jewish authors preserved by Alexander Polyhistor. Carlos F. Noreña is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Imperial Ideals in the Roman West (Cambridge University Press, 2011), editor of A Cultural History of Western Empires: Antiquity (Bloomsbury Academic UK, 2018), and co-editor of From Document to

flast_Vol2.indd 22

28-04-2023 18:10:54

N otes on C ontributors  

xxiii

History: Epigraphic Insights into the Graeco-Roman World (Brill, 2019) and The Emperor and Rome: Space, Representation, and Ritual (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He has published widely in Roman history, the topography of Rome, literary and visual cultures in the Roman empire, historical geography, and comparative empires. S. P. Oakley is Kennedy Professor of Latin in the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College. He has taught also in the University of Reading. His main interests include ancient historiography, Latin prose style, the transmission of Latin texts through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the topography of pre-Roman southern Italy. His principal publication on ancient historiography is A Commentary on Livy, Books VI–X (Oxford University Press, 1997–2005). Rubén Olmo-López, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at Universidad de Oviedo (Spain). He is a member of the research groups Síncrisis (USC) and Ciudades Romanas (UCM), and the international network Toletum: Netzwerk zur Erforschung der Iberischen Halbinsel in der Antike. His research is focused on Roman provincial administration and center-periphery relations in the Roman Empire under the Late Republic and the principate, especially in Hispania and North Africa. He is the author of El centro en la periferia: Las competencias de los gobernadores provinciales romanos en Hispania durante el Principado (Zürich: Lit Verlag, 2018). Joseph R. O’Neill is a Senior Lecturer and Honors Faculty Fellow at Barrett, the Honors College, at Arizona State University. Victoria Emma Pagán is Professor of Classics at the University of Florida. Lee E. Patterson is Professor of History at Eastern Illinois University. He is the author of Kinship Myth in Ancient Greece. He is currently writing a book on Roman-Armenian relations while recent items regarding Armenia appeared in Revue des Études Arméniennes and Latomus with another forthcoming in L’Antiquité Classique. Mitchell R. Pentzer, Lecturer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studies epigram, satire, epic, historiography, and humor. He has most recently authored “Horace-ing Around with Martial Book 10” in CJ (2019). Jonathan Scott Perry is an Associate Professor of History at the University of South Florida, and he is also book review editor for The Historian, the journal of Phi Alpha Theta, the national History Honors Society. Jakub Pigoń is Associate Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Wrocław, Poland. Apart from Tacitus, he deals with Vergil, Ovid, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and other Roman writers, as well as with narrative technique and descriptions of violent deaths in historiography and epic. He has published in such journals as Athenaeum, Classical Quarterly, Hermes, Mnemosyne, and Rheinisches Museum. He also edited The Children of Herodotus: Greek and Roman Historiography and Related Genres (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008). Since 2004, he has been editor-in-chief of Eos, Poland’s oldest classical journal (est. 1894). Maria Cristina Pimentel is Full Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon. Her research interests include Roman historiography (Tacitus), drama and philosophy (Seneca), epigrammatic poetry (Martial), and the reception of Classical topics in Portuguese literature and culture. She is the director of the journal Euphrosyne. Recently she was one of the editors of Violence in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Peeters, 2018) and of Augustan Papers. New Approaches to the Age of Augustus on the Bimillenium of his Death (Olms, 2020). She is

flast_Vol2.indd 23

28-04-2023 18:10:54

xxiv

  N otes on C ontributors

co-author of the Portuguese translation of Propertius, Martial, and Augustine (Confessiones and De Trinitate). Antonino Pittà holds a tenure-track position at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan). He earned his PhD in Latin Philology at the Scuola Normale Superiore. His areas of interest are republican antiquarianism, technical prose, Flavian poetry (especially Statius), and textual criticism. He published critical editions with commentary of Varro’s work De vita populi Romani and Statius Silvae 1 (praefatio and poem 1). Elizabeth Ann Pollard is Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence at San Diego State University. Her research investigates women accused of witchcraft in the Roman world and explores the exchange of goods and ideas between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean in the early centuries of the Common Era. Her current project investigates the influence of classical understandings of witchcraft on modern pop-culture representations of witches. Pollard is co-author of Worlds Together Worlds Apart (concise, full 6th edition, and Companion Reader). She has published on pedagogical and digital history topics, from writing about witchcraft on Wikipedia to tweeting on the backchannel of the large lecture. Arthur J. Pomeroy is Professor Emeritus in the Classics program, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the author (with Tim G. Parkin) of Roman Social History: A Sourcebook (Routledge 2007) and has researched extensively on the portrayal of the ancient world in film and on television, including Then It Was Destroyed by the Volcano (Duckworth 2008) and A Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome on Screen (Wiley/Blackwell 2017). He has also published a number of articles and chapters on Tacitus. Juan Luis Posadas (Malaga, 1967) is a Spanish editor, translator, and university professor specializing in Tacitus and in women in Latin literature between the time of Caesar and the Severans. He has worked as an editor for many publishing companies, such as Pearson Educación España and Cambridge University Press. Since 2011, he has been a professor in different Spanish universities. He has published many volumes, among which is a bilingual edition of Sallust’s Histories and translations of Sallust’s Letters and Tacitus’ Germania. David Potter is Francis W. Kelsey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Roman History, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan. His most recent books are The Origin of Empire (London, 2018) and Disruption: Why Things Change (New York, 2021). Pauline Ripat, Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Winnipeg, is a Roman social historian with particular interests in magic and divination. She is the author of numerous articles on these subjects, including “Expelling Misconceptions: Astrologers at Rome,” Classical Philology (2011) 106: 115–154 and “Roman Omens, Roman Audiences, and Roman History,” Greece & Rome (2006) 53: 155–174. Carolynn Roncaglia is Assistant Professor of Classics at Santa Clara University. Her research interests include Roman Italy, Greek and Latin epigraphy, and Roman and Hellenistic history. She is the author of Northern Italy in the Roman World, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Gregory Rowe is Associate Professor of Roman History at the University of Victoria in Canada. Inspired by Victor Klemperer’s Lingua Tertii Imperii (Language of the Third Reich) and Jean Béranger’s Recherches sur l’aspect idéologique du principat (Studies on the Ideology of the Principate), he studies the political propaganda of the transition from republic to autocracy at Rome and the distortions it continues to cause. Publications include “Reconsidering the Auctoritas of Augustus” (2013) and and “Luctatio Civitatis: Augustus’ Res Gestae, Tiberius’ Accession, and the Struggle over Augustus’ Legacy” (2021). Side interests include spoken Greek and Latin and language pedagogy.

flast_Vol2.indd 24

28-04-2023 18:10:54

N otes on C ontributors  

xxv

Steve Rutledge is Adjunct Professor of History at Linfield University in McMinnville, Oregon, and Associate professor Emeritus from the University of Maryland, College Park. He is author most recently of Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting in Ancient Rome (Oxford, 2012), and a Bolchazy-Carducci commentary on selections from Tacitus. He is currently at work on a series of essays concerning the intersection of modern life and ancient Greek and Roman religion. Dylan Sailor is Professor of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Federico Santangelo is Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle University. Biagio Santorelli is Associate Professor of Latin at the University of Genoa, Italy. His research interests lie in the field of Roman declamation. His most recent contributions on this topic include a critical edition, with introduction, Italian translation, and commentary of the Major Declamations 11 and 16 (Cassino 2014) and the Major Declamation 1 (Cassino 2017, with A. Stramaglia); he coauthored the Loeb edition of the Major Declamations, with A. Stramaglia and M. Winterbottom (2021) and edited the unpublished works of Lennart Håkanson (Berlin-Boston 2014 and 2016, with F. Citti and A. Stramaglia). He is currently working on a new edition, with Italian translation and commentary, of the Lesser Declamations, directed by L. Pasetti (Bologna). Verena Schulz is Professor of Classical Philology (Latin) at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany. She specializes in ancient rhetoric (in particular, performance, Auctor ad Herennium, Cicero, Quintilian), Roman historiography and biography (in particular, imperial times), and memory studies. Her most important publications are Die Stimme in der antiken Rhetorik (Göttingen 2014) and The Deconstruction of Imperial Representation: Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio on Nero and Domitian (Leiden/Boston 2019). Friderike Senkbeil finished her doctoral thesis in February 2018 at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The aim of her project was to elucidate the specific Tacitean representation of the urban space in comparison to other literary representations and the material Rome of the Tacitean age. Her areas of research include Latin historiography, ancient concepts of memory, and the semantics of space. She currently works as a secondary school teacher for Latin and History in Berlin. Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson holds a DPhil in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature from the University of Oxford and is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of the monograph Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals (OUP, 2019); an edition, translation, and commentary on the Peri Thaumasion of Phlegon of Tralles (Brill, 2019); and of several articles on Roman religion, ancient historiography, paradoxography, and the literature of the Roman Empire. Mali Skotheim is an Assistant Professor of English at Ashoka University. Her research concerns the cultural history of Greek drama and dance in the Roman period, and the reception of ancient pantomime in the eighteenth century. She has published on festival culture in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Eranos, 2019) and actors in the Roman imperial period (in a volume of collected essays, The Ancient Emotion of Disgust, 2016). Anthony Smart is Lecturer in Ancient and Medieval History at York St. John University. He has published on Greek, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon history. He is currently working on a study of grief and sorrow in the Late Republic. Lydia Spielberg is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has published on declamation, on historiographical tropes and political theory in Tacitus, and on quotation in Roman historiography.

flast_Vol2.indd 25

28-04-2023 18:10:54

xxv i

  N otes on C ontributors

Jack Stone is an undergraduate student majoring in Classical Studies, Religious Studies, and Political Science at Trinity College (Connecticut). He is interested in the sociopolitical reception of Christianity in the early Roman Empire. William Stover was a graduate student at the University of Virginia. His research interests include ethnic perception in the ancient world, historiography, and ancient legal rhetoric. Thomas E. Strunk is an Associate Professor of Classics at Xavier University. His research interests include Roman republicanism, Cato the Younger, Pliny, and Tacitus. He is the author of History after Liberty: Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants, and Republicans, University of Michigan Press, 2017 and On the Fall of the Roman Republic: Lessons for the American People, Anthem Press, 2022. Jeremy J. Swist is a Lecturer in the Department of Classical Studies at Brandeis University, having previously taught at Miami University and Xavier University. He earned his BA in Latin and History from the University of Maine, and his MA and PhD in Classics from the University of Iowa. His research covers historiography and rhetoric under the Roman Empire. He has published articles on the writings of Florus, Libanius, Himerius, and the emperor Julian, as well as on classical reception in heavy metal music. Jitty Synn graduated in 2019 from Trinity College (Connecticut) with a major in Public Policy and Law and minors in Latin and music. She lives and works in New York City. László Takács is Associate Professor at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University (Budapest, Hungary), head of the Department of Classical Studies, and editor-in-chief of the Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. His research field is the Roman Literature in the first century ad, especially the satires of Persius and the Latin works of his master, L. Annaeus Cornutus. With his colleagues he works on the edition of Medieval, Renaissance, and early modern commentaries on Persius’ satires. He is also interested in early Christianity in Ireland, the interactions between the traditional Celtic religion and the Christian faith, and the medieval lives of early Irish saints. Bram L. H. ten Berge is Assistant Professor of Classics at Hope College. His main areas of interest are in Latin prose literature, especially historiography, of the late republican and early imperial periods. His latest publication is a book chapter on Florus’ account of the Late Republican civil wars (in The Historiography of Late Republican Civil War, Brill, 2019). Richard F. Thomas is George Martin Lane Professor of Classics at Harvard University. He teaches and writes on Hellenistic Greek and Roman literature, intertextuality, aesthetics, reception, and Bob Dylan. Publications include more than one hundred articles and reviews and the following books: Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry (1982), Reading Virgil and His Texts (1999), Virgil and the Augustan Reception (2001), Why Bob Dylan Matters (2017); commentaries on Virgil, Georgics (1988), and Horace, Odes 4 and Carmen Saeculare (2011). He has co-edited and contributed to Classics and the Uses of Reception (2006), Bob Dylan’s Performance Artistry (2007), and the Virgil Encyclopedia (2014). Brian Turner is Associate Professor of History at Portland State University. He has published studies on the commemoration of Roman soldiers and the war dead, on insurgency in the Roman world, and on Roman geography and worldviews. He is co-editor of Brill’s Companion to Military Defeat in Ancient Mediterranean Society (2018). Christopher S. van den Berg is the Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank ’55 Professor of Classical Studies at Amherst College. His first book was a study of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus (Cambridge University Press 2014). A second book examined the invention of literary historiography in Cicero’s Brutus (Cambridge University Press 2021). He co-edited (with Yelena Baraz) a Special Issue of the American

flast_Vol2.indd 26

28-04-2023 18:10:54

N otes on C ontributors  

xxv ii

Journal of Philology on the topic “Intertextuality and its Discontents.” His current book project examines how Greco-Roman literary critics and rhetorical theorists refer to visual and material cultures, and how such references are essential to defining these genres. He has published on literary theory, declamation, deliberative rhetoric, Latin lexicography, and the literary dynamics of Greco-Roman Roman prose texts. This work has been supported by fellowships from the DAAD, NEH, ACLS, and the American Academy in Rome. Arnold van Roessel is currently a PhD student engaged in his studies at the University of Toronto. He is currently researching concepts and practices of the future in the late Roman Republic and the Empire. He is also interested in the ancient history of animals, textual transmission, digital humanities, and contemporary reception of Classics in video games. Frederik Juliaan Vervaet is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Melbourne, where he studies the political and socio-institutional history of the Roman Republic and the Early Empire, and Roman public law. He is the author of The High Command in the Roman Republic (2014) as well as coeditor of Despotism and Deceit in the Greco-Roman World (2010, with Andrew J. Turner and James Harvey K.O. Chong-Gossard), The Roman Republican Triumph: Beyond the Spectacle (2014, with Carsten H. Lange), Eurasian Empires in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (2017, with Hyun Jin Kim and Selim Ferruh Adali) and The Historiography of Late Republican Civil War (2019, with Carsten H. Lange). Diletta Vignola is attending the doctoral program in Classical Philology at the Università di Genova and is currently studying the reception of Senecan tragedies in the first decades after their composition, in particular in the context of epic poetry of the Flavian age. She attended the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (2014–2019), and she earned her Laurea Triennale and Magistrale at the Università degli Studi di Pisa, with theses on Silius Italicus’ Punica. Katharine T. von Stackelberg is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at Brock University. She works on the representation of the ancient environment as cultural space with a focus on gender and reception. She is the author of The Roman Garden: Space, Sense and Society (Routledge 2009) and “Reconsidering Hyperreality: ‘Roman’ Houses and their Gardens”, in K. T. von Stackelberg and E. Macaulay-Lewis (eds.) Housing the New Romans: Architectural Reception and Classical Style in the Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2017). Philip Waddell is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Arizona. His research interests include Roman and Greek historiography, particularly involving questions of narrative, rhetoric, and enargeia. He is the author of Tacitean Visual Narrative (Bloomsbury 2020). Robert Wagman is Professor of Classics at the University of Florida. David Welch is a PhD student in Classics at the University of Texas, Austin. His main area of interest is Roman historiography of the Late Republic and the Early Empire, specifically Julius Caesar and Tacitus. His master’s thesis was titled “From Germanicus to Corbulo: The Evolution of Generalship under the Principate in Tacitus’ Annales,” and his most recent conference paper was titled “The Use of Caesar in the First Triad of Tacitus’ Annales.” Debbie Wen is an English and Classics double major at Amherst College (class of 2019), where she won the Billings prize for excellence in Latin. Julia Wetzel is a graduate student at the University of North Texas where she studies Imperial Roman Architecture. Joshua Whang is a student at Amherst College (class of 2021), majoring in Classics.

flast_Vol2.indd 27

28-04-2023 18:10:54

xxv iii

  N otes on C ontributors

Christopher Whitton is Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Emmanuel College. His publications include a commentary on Pliny Epistles 2 (Cambridge, 2013), The Arts of Imitation in Latin Prose: Pliny’s Epistles/Quintilian in Brief (Cambridge, 2019) and Tacitus Revoiced: Reading the Histories with Pliny the Younger (Forthcoming). Current projects include a commentary on Tacitus Annals 14 (Cambridge). Kathryn Williams is the Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses primarily on Latin historiography with special interest in the writings of Tacitus and Sallust and in Roman political history and diplomacy. Her most recent publication is a contribution, “Sallust’s Allobrogian Envoys,” to Historiography, Culture and Religion in Classical Antiquity: Papers in Honor of Carin M.C. Green, edited by L. Holland and S. Bell (London, 2018). Andrew Wolpert is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Florida. He has written primarily on Athenian social memory and political culture, focusing on democratic discourse, civil war, and social conflict. He is the author of Remembering Defeat: Civil War and Civic Memory in Ancient Athens (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore) and co-author (with Konstantinos Kapparis) of Legal Speeches of Democratic Athens: Sources for Athenian History (Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis). A. J. Woodman, Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Virginia and Emeritus Professor of Latin at Durham University, is author or co-author of commentaries on Velleius Paterculus (1977–83), Books 3–6 of Tacitus’ Annals (1989–2018), and Tacitus’ Agricola (2014). He is also author of Rhetoric in Classical Historiography (1988), Tacitus Reviewed (1998), From Poetry to History: Selected Papers (2012), and Lost Histories: Selected Fragments of Roman Historical Writers (2015); editor or co-editor of (among numerous other volumes) Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (1986), Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition (1993), and The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus (2007); and translator of Tacitus: The Annals (2004) and Sallust (2007). He has also published extensively on Latin poetry and has just published a commentary on Book 3 of Horace’s Odes (2022). Jonathan H. Young is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford in the Department of Theology and Religion. He also holds master’s degrees in both Classics and Religious Studies. His research centers on the religious, philosophical, and intellectual history of the Roman empire (1st–4th centuries ce). His current research focuses on ancient discussions of animal religion and rationality, especially as seen in the Christian author Origen of Alexandria. His expertise includes early Christian writings, ancient philosophy (especially the Presocratics and Platonic tradition), ancient prose fiction, and ethnographic and fantastic representations of peoples and animals. Chenxi Zhang graduated from Amherst College (class of 2019) with a degree in Classics (magna cum laude). He received several departmental language awards.

flast_Vol2.indd 28

28-04-2023 18:10:54

J JANICULUM, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY JANUS, see ROMAN GODS JASON, see ALBANI

JERUSALEM NATHANAEL ANDRADE

Jerusalem (Hierosolyma) was a prominent city of ancient Iudaea and the seat of the Jewish Temple. During the late Hellenistic period, it was the main administrative site for the Hasmonaean dynasty. Under Herodian and early Roman rule, it was a key pilgrimage center for diasporic Jews. In 70 ce, the city was captured by the Romans after a protracted siege, and the temple was destroyed. Under Hadrian, the Roman colonia of Aelia Capitolina was founded on the site, and the city became a vital attraction for Christian pilgrims after the reign of Constantine. Located on hills surrounded by valleys, Jerusalem (Barrington 70 G2) was inhabited as early as the Bronze Age; the Gihon Spring attracted settlers in a dry climate. By the early Iron Age, Jerusalem was populated by the Jebusites, apparently a Canaanite tribe. According to the Hebrew Bible, it was conquered by the king David, and his son Solomon built a vast temple for the Israelite divinity there (Galor and Bloedhorn 2013, 18–54; Magness 2012, 20–45). Jerusalem remained a palace site for the kings of Judah in the eighth and seventh centuries. Priests and prophets increasingly promoted Jerusalem as an exclusive site of monotheistic worship,

particularly during king Josiah’s reign (c. 622 bce). Jerusalem was twice captured by the Babylonians, first in 597 and then in 586, and Solomon’s temple was destroyed. Many Judahite elites were deported to Babylonia, though some remained in Judaea. When the Achaemenid Persians allowed the exiles to return in 538 bce, these revived their ancestral cult in a more modest temple, along with various fortifications. The city’s population was relatively small (Galor and Bloedhorn 2013, 55–62; Magness 2012, 53–54). The temple’s priests subsequently promoted the Torah as the basis of Jewish law and weathered the shift from Persian to Ptolemaic and then Seleucid rule. While they were generally successful in negotiating with imperial authorities, the reign of Antiochus IV represented a dramatic shift. Notoriously suppressing the Jewish cult at Jerusalem, he established a fortress near the Jewish Temple called the Acra in 168–167 bce. Destroyed by Simon Maccabee in 141, its location is still debated (Galor and Bloedhorn 2013, 74–76; Magness 2012, 72). After the Hasmonaeans quashed Seleucid authority and established autonomous rule, Jerusalem saw the restoration and expansion of its walls and the construction of elaborate tombs (Galor and Bloedhorn 2013, 68–70, 101–103; Magness 2012, 98–99). But it was under Herod I (37–4 bce; see Herod the Great) that the most impressive building projects took place in the city. Mostly completed in this lifetime, they involved an impressive monumental temple located on a massive platform and within a vast walled precinct (Figures J.1–J.2), platform view from east and west respectively). Herod also

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume II, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c10_Vol2.indd 605

28-04-2023 18:03:36

606

  J erusalem

Figure J.1  Platform for temple, viewed from east. Photograph by Nathanael Andrade.

Figure J.2  Platform for temple, viewed from west. Photograph by Nathanael Andrade.

built an elaborate stoa at the precinct’s southern end and a large fortress at its northwestern corner (Galor and Bloedhorn 2013, 78–88; Magness 2012, 147–156). The Western or “Wailing” Wall is the remains of one of the precinct walls (Figure J.3). At his city’s western end, Herod also built a palace surrounded by three towers,, and he and his successors expanded the city’s circuit walls (Magness 2012, 140–143, 159–162). The Herodians were largely responsible for making Jerusalem a massive pilgrimage site for Jews until the Romans under Titus sacked the city and destroyed the temple in 70 ce (Schwartz 2014, 63–65). According to the

c10_Vol2.indd 606

synoptic Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth, a Galilean, was crucified during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem during Passover week. In 132 ce, the emperor Hadrian established the Roman colonia of Aelia Capitolina at Jerusalem, thus triggering the bloody Bar Kokhba revolt. After its suppression, Jews were banned from the city, if Christian authors are to be trusted. Whether the Jewish sacred precinct was adorned with a polytheistic temple or simply left in ruins is debated (Eliav 2005, 83–150). The formation of Hadrian’s colony and the stationing of the Tenth Legion at Jerusalem generally shifted its topography westward, with new territory now falling within Aelia’s boundaries (Galor and Bloedhorn 2013, 113–120; Magness 2012, 258–260, 271–285). During and after reign of Constantine, Christians established churches and monasteries in various parts of Jerusalem, particularly those associated with Jesus’ final days (Galor and Bloedhorn 2013, 133–150). The most notable was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, reportedly founded on the site of Jesus’ tomb (see the bluish domes in Figure J.1 background). During the reign of Julian (361–63 ce), a brief effort to rebuild the Jewish Temple occurred. But the fourth century saw the transformation of Jerusalem into a Christian topography, a feat often associated with its influential bishop Cyril (active c. 350–387 ce). In his treatment of the Jewish cult at Jerusalem, Tacitus identifies Moses (see Moyses) as the founder of the Jews’ ancestral laws and aniconic worship (H. 5.4; also Diod. Sic., 19.94; Strabo, 16.2.35–26). He communicates various theories about Jerusalem’s origins (H. 5.2.2–3), including settlement by

Figure J.3  The Western or “Wailing” Wall is the remains of one of the precinct walls. Photograph by Nathanael Andrade.

28-04-2023 18:03:36

J osephus  

Egyptians named Hierosolymus and Juda. He also imparts the tradition that Moses’ followers were diseased exiles expelled from Egypt (H. 5.2.3), a common theme in Greek and Latin commentaries (Joseph., Ap. 1.223–320; Diod. Sic., 1.28.2–3; Strabo, 16.2.35–36). He variously (H. 2.4, 5.9, and 5.11) refers to the siege of Jerusalem in 70, an episode narrated by his Jewish contemporary Josephus (BJ 5–6). see also: Bellum Iudaicum; Christianity; Christus Reference work: Barrington 70 G2 REFERENCES Eliav, Yaron. 2005. God’s Mountain: The Temple Mount in Space, Time, and Memory. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Galor, Katharina, and Hanswulf Bloedhorn. 2013. The Archaeology of Jerusalem: From the Origins to the Ottomans. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Magness, Jodi. 2012. The Archaeology of the Holy Land: From the Destruction of Solomon’s Temple to the Muslim Conquest. New York: Cambridge University Press. Schwartz, Seth. 2014. The Jews from Alexander to Muhammad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Drijvers, J. W. 2004. Cyril of Jerusalem: Bishop and City. Leiden: Brill. Stern, Menahem. 1974–1984. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Arts and Sciences.

JOHN OF GISCHALA, (Ioannes BARGORIAS), see BELLUM IUDAICUM

JOSEPHUS STEVE MASON

University of Groningen

LIFE AND WRITINGS Josephus (37–c. 100 ce), whom later writers plausibly call Flavius, was a member of Jerusalem’s

c10_Vol2.indd 607

607

hereditary priestly caste. At twenty-six he undertook a diplomatic mission to Nero’s court. Three years later he was present in Jerusalem as it erupted in response to violent raids on the temple by Nero’s procurator (66 ce). The Jerusalemites’ massacre of their auxiliary garrison and ambush of the legion brought by the Syrian legate resulted in Josephus’ posting to Galilee in the north, to mitigate the effects of Rome’s expected response. When Vespasian brought that response, in early 67, Josephus surrendered after a siege of the town he was hoping to save. He avoided execution or dispatch to Nero, he alleges, by personally acclaiming Vespasian Caesar. Although Vespasian dismissed this as desperation, when he finally launched his bid for power in 69 he freed Josephus, who remained in the Roman camp through the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (70). Josephus accompanied Titus to Rome ahead of the Flavian triumph in 71, which he alone describes. As a new citizen and resident of Rome, Josephus wrote three works in Greek. They have survived thanks to the interest of Christian scribes, which made Josephus the West’s most impactful ancient historian. The Judaean War (by 79 ce) has seven volumes, the Judaean Antiquities (93/94 ce) twenty plus an autobiographical appendix, and a final essay on Judaean antiquity (after 94), misnamed Against Apion by tradition, comprises two volumes. The proem of each work shows Josephus in lively interaction with Roman literary circles (e.g., BJ 1.1–16). The extant part of Tacitus’ Histories does not mention him, though Suetonius (Vesp. 5.6) and Cassius Dio (apud Xiphilinus, 65/66.1.4) do, and Josephus claims that Titus designated his account of the war definitive (Vit. 363). By the mid-second century, he had become the authority for Judaean realia.

SCHOLARLY DEVELOPMENTS From the beginning of critical scholarship until about the 1980s, the following assumptions were common, not as a single coherent view but mixed and matched. The circumstances of Josephus’ life—a presumed Pharisee from a province of slight Hellenic culture, who quickly surrendered to and flattered Vespasian, then enjoyed a comfortable life under Flavian patronage—made him seem

28-04-2023 18:03:36

608

  J osephus

distasteful. Efforts to understand his War focused on its obscure reference to an Aramaic precursor, which was assumed to be Flavian propaganda produced in Rome and the Greek work’s imagined replication of official sources. The War was valued for whatever historical facts and sources could be extracted from the farrago of his odious opinions and the polished style of ghost writers. Josephus’ later works, which celebrate Judaean antiquity, laws, and culture, were attributed to a further opportunistic turn: he must have tried to ally himself with the new rabbinic movement, unless his earlier betrayal had filled him with self-loathing and a need for repentance. Even with the later works, scholars remained interested chiefly in the sources used to affect this new tone, which were guessed to be Alexandrian-Jewish. The 1980s and 1990s brought fundamental changes. Larger developments in the humanities prepared the way, including the literary turn, new interests in social history, and a more expansive view of the Near East’s Hellenization. More specifically, the Complete Concordance to Josephus (1973–1983) facilitated new kinds of literary study, which exposed consistent patterns across the corpus and precluded any notion that he simply copied large sources. Tessa Rajak (1983), in treating Josephus as a real-life product of his context and class, with all of its complexities, showed that he must have functioned well in Greek culture (and needed no ghost writers), that the differences among his works had been overstated, and that scholars’ preoccupation with the elusive Aramaic War was a distraction from understanding the existing work. Per Bilde (1988) provided a trenchant critique of scholarly myopia. He consolidated partial efforts at compositional study while making original and provocative suggestions about the structures and themes of each work. Steve Mason (1991), trying to provide a new foundation for historical research on the Pharisees, asked how Josephus’ Pharisees functioned in each narrative, while incidentally challenging the pervasive assumption that Josephus identified himself with the group. An important by-product of the reorientation from searching Josephus for facts about Judaea to first understanding his compositions in their context has been his growing acceptance as a Greek and Roman historian (first in Marincola 1997).

c10_Vol2.indd 608

The same shift has sparked interest in his Roman audiences, his use of rhetorical devices, and his “safe criticism” of imperial Rome, sometimes informed by postcolonial studies. The discovery of Josephus as a true author yielded thirty volumes that, in spite of his long-standing fame, had hardly been explored from these perspectives. Since the early 1990s, numerous international conferences, graduate seminars, doctoral dissertations, and commentary projects in several languages have sprung to life, beginning to pick up the slack. JOSEPHUS AND TACITUS One who reads both Josephus and Tacitus will be struck by similarities between their works, both composed in Roman retirement after high-level political careers. Both writers are self-conscious historians in the Thucydidean tradition of style and analysis. Both revel in psychological aperçu, reading the motives of groups and individuals while recognizing fortune’s constant reversals. Both deploy irony pervasively. More specifically, both are alive to the perils of monarchy and fascinated by the succession problem, Josephus extending the critique of “tyrants” to all the successors of Julius Caesar (AJ 19.173; cf. 4.223). Both digress on philosophy and range schools according to their views of fate (A. 6.22 with AJ 13.171–73). Both cite the absurdity of a conquest that produces a peaceful desert (Ag. 30 with BJ 1.355; 2.213; 5.373) and the folly of voluntary slavery (A. 1.7.1; 3.65; cf. H. 1.16 with BJ 2.209, 264, 443; 4.177–178, 394). Just one episode in the Annals, the capture of Caratacus in 50 ce (A. 12.33–38), recalls not only Josephus’ surrender story (BJ 3.392–396) but also Titus’ decision to preserve Jerusalem’s temple as an ornament of imperium (BJ 6.241: κόσμον τῆς ἡγεμονίας αὐτοῦ μένοντος; cf. A. 12.37.3, aeternum exemplar clementiae); Josephus’ insistence that Roman historians’ denigration of the Judaeans diminished the Flavians’ achievement (BJ 1.7–8; cf. A. 12.36.2); and Eleazar ben Yair’s climactic appeal on Masada, that his comrades die before seeing their wives and children molested (BJ 7.344–346; cf. A. 12.34). Tacitus’ truncated account of the war in Judaea (H. 5.1–13) offers particularly suggestive similarities to Josephus’ War. In BJ 6.286–310, as the

28-04-2023 18:03:37

J udaism  

temple burns, Josephus describes seven signs that had appeared in Jerusalem and makes the repeated point that the ignorant took them as good omens, whereas the wise perceived their disastrous import. Tacitus recalls the fourth through sixth of these Jerusalem signs and deduces the same moral (H. 5.13). If these were Josephus’ literary creations, Tacitus must have been directly or indirectly influenced by him. see also: Bellum Iudaicum; sources; intertextuality; Judaism Reference works: PIR2 F 293; Mason, Steve, ed. 2000–. Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary. Leiden: Brill; Rengstorf, Karl H., et al., eds. 1973–1983. Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus. Leiden: Brill. REFERENCES Bilde, Per. 1988. Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome. Sheffield: JSOT. Marincola, John. 1997. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mason, Steve. 1991. Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: A Composition-Critical Study. Leiden: Brill. Rajak, Tessa. 1983. Josephus: The Historian and his Society. London: Duckworth. FURTHER READING Schwartz, Daniel R. 2013. Reading the First Century: On Reading Josephus and Studying Jewish History of the First Century. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

JUDAISM CARSON BAY

Institut für Judaistik, Universität Bern

Tacitus provides the fullest extant account of Judaism of all classical Latin authors. He comments on Jews and Iudaea throughout the Annals, and Histories 5.2.1–13.4 contain his extended excursus on Jewish religion, history, and culture. Tacitus’ knowledge apparently comes from multiple sources. His (largely negative)

c10_Vol2.indd 609

609

opinion of the Jews may represent aristocratic Roman perspectives of his time (though cf. Feldman 1996). Tacitus’ scattered, cursory remarks pertaining to the Bellum Iudaicum (H. 1.10.3–11.1; 2.4.3; 4.51.2), Iudaicum exercitum (H. 1.76.2; 2.81.3), and Iudaea as wartime region (H. 2.1.1, 5.2, 6.1–2, 73, 76.5, 82.3; 4.3.3; A. 2.42.5; 12.23.1) constitute his most frequent references to Judaica. Tacitus usually offers no commentary on Judaism per se. His geographical and toponymical descriptions are commonplace (H. 2.78.3–4). Tacitus occasionally mentions particular Jewish historical characters, like the Herodian Queen Berenice, supporter of Vespasian (H. 2.81.2) and rumored consort of Titus (H. 1.2.1). Tacitus’ treatment of Jews and Judaism is generally mundane, making his substantial Judenexkurs in the Histories all the more intriguing. In the final extant book of the fragmentary Histories, Tacitus undertakes to narrate the Roman subjugation of Iudaea, especially Jerusalem, under Titus Caesar (H. 5.1.1–2). He digresses at length into the longest, most famous discourse on Judaism in classical Latin literature (H. 5.2–13). Bloch (2002) shows that this account reflects earlier ethnographic traditions prominent among historians. Tacitus begins with six variants of Jewish origins, ostensibly refusing to choose between them. He lists theories (memorant) that the Jews originated as (1) exiles (profugi) who moved from Crete to Libya in the mythical past; (2) a surplus population in Egypt that dispersed into neighbor territories under the leaders Hierosolymus and Iuda, clearly etiological ur-figures; (3) Ethiopians forced to migrate under the reign of Cepheus (king of Ethiopia) due to metus (fear) and odium (hatred); (4) Assyrian refugees who partially controlled Egypt before establishing cities in “Hebrew lands” (Hebraeae terrae) and Syria; (5) the “illustrious” (clari) Solymi celebrated in Homer’s poems (Il. 6.184; cf. Schol. Od. 5.283; Herod. 1.173; Joseph. Ap. 1.173, 248), hence the name Hierosolyma, Jerusalem. Finally, Tacitus proffers a sixth Jewish origins account, on which he says plurimi auctores agree (H. 5.3.1). Though not stated explicitly, this last account may embody Tacitus’ perspective given its length (longer than the other five put together), Tacitean tone, etiology of real Jewish religious praxis, and its move from oratio obliqua to oratio recta (Stern

28-04-2023 18:03:37

610

  J udaism

1980, 2). Here Tacitus casts the Jews as a genus once expelled from Egypt under King Bocchoris due to bodily disfigurements caused by plague. This largely comports with Hellenistic accounts attributed to Pompeius Trogus (Justin Ep. 26.2.12), Hecataeus (Diod. Sic. 40.3.1), and Manetho, Chaeremon, and Lysimachus (Joseph. Ap. 1.232, 289, 305 respectively). Tacitus portrays Moses (Moyses), the nation’s founder, as a naïve wandering fool who eventually founded Jerusalem and its temple (H. 5.3.1–2). Tacitus’ account of Jewish ritus et sacra contains conventional motifs: the Jews have odd sacrificial and eating (i.e., kosher) habits that embody a direct contradiction to Roman custom. For Tacitus, these habits speak to a historical national character of laziness and weakness and may be derivative of the Idaeans (H. 5.4.1–4). Tacitus portrays Jews as monetarily and sexually introverted and nationalistic, with an unhealthy obsession with Jerusalem (H. 5.5.1). Their xenophobia manifests in sexual, eating, and ritual habits (e.g., circumcision; H. 5.5.2). They proliferate freely, refuse to abort babies, and bury rather than burn dead bodies (H. 5.5.3). They are aniconic and monotheistic (H. 5.5.4). Their worship is rumored to resemble Dionysus devotion but rather is absurdus sordidusque (H. 5.5.5). Tacitus’ accompanying geographic description of Iudaea (H. 5.6.1–8.1) is detailed and used by later authors; Tacitus is particularly interested in the mytho-geography of the Dead Sea and Sodom and Gomorrah (H. 5.6.2–7.1). Tacitus’ geographia Iudaeae finds parallels in Strab. Geog. and Plin. HN. Tacitus’ regional demography and political/ military history of the Jews (H. 5.8.1–13.4) is prejudiced but not ahistorical. A central concern seems to be the Jewish superstitio nationalized by the marriage of the honor sacerdotii with political power exemplified in the Hasmonean dynasty (H. 5.8.3). Tacitus routinely uses superstitio to characterize the Jewish people as an ever-latent political problem (H. 2.4.3; A. 2.85.4); he may imply Judaism when he records Pomponia Graecina’s having been arraigned on a charge of foreign superstition (superstitionis externae rea, A. 13.32.2), though Christianity or Druidism could be meant. He portrays the Jerusalem Temple as exotic, and its molestation by Romans explains Jewish uprising (H. 5.9.1–2). Indeed, misconduct by Roman governors and procurators often

c10_Vol2.indd 610

foments Jewish resistance according Tacitus (H. 5.9.3–10.1; A. 12.54.1–4). For him, Jews are a problematic people in many ways, but not fully unjustified in resisting Rome. Tacitus correctly connects Jews to Christians (see Sulpicius Severus Chr. 2. 30. 3, 6, 7). Discussing Christians, he calls Iudaea origo eius mali (and records Nero’s blaming Christians for the fire of 64 ce; A. 15.44.2–5). An idiosyncratic religiosity essentializes the Jews and Iudaea (like Egyptians/Egypt) for Tacitus (see H. 2.78.2–4), and thus it is in unsurprising when he describes fantastic prodigia presaging the Jerusalem Temple’s destruction in 70 ce (H. 5.13.1); the Jews did not appease said prodigies because they are a gens superstitioni obnoxia … religionibus aduersa (cf. Livy 1.31.6). For Tacitus, this defines Judaism. Tacitus may or may not have known Josephus’ famous and strikingly similar description of the same prodigies (BJ 6.289–301). Most scholars agree that Tacitus’ opinion of Judaism is derogatory; Gruen (2016, 265) calls it “defamation” and argues that when Tacitus introduces Jerusalem as a famosa urbs whose supremus dies he is about to describe, this signals an “‘infamous’ or ‘notorious’ city, rather than ‘renowned’ or ‘celebrated.’” There is much suggesting antiJewish perspective in Tacitus, with emphasis upon superstitio and proselytism, classing him with, e.g., Seneca, Quintilian, and Juvenal. see also: digression; Egypt; ethnicity; ethnography; Josephus; religion; Severus; Sulpicius; Syria REFERENCES Bloch, René S. 2002. Antike Vorstellungen vom Judentum: Der Judenexkurs des Tacitus im Rahmen der griechisch-römischen Ethnographie. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Feldman, Louis H. 1996. “Pro-Jewish Intimations in Tacitus’ Account of Jewish Origins.” In Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, 377–407. Leiden: Brill. Gruen, Erich S. 2016. “Tacitus and the Defamation of the Jews.” In The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History, 265–282. Berlin: de Gruyter. Stern, Menahem. 1980. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, Volume Two: From Tacitus to Simplicius. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 1–93.

28-04-2023 18:03:37

J ulia the Younger  

JULIA THE ELDER CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Julia the Elder (30 October 39 bce–14 ce) was the daughter of Augustus and Scribonia (1) and was born on the day of her parents’ divorce (Cass. Dio 48.34.3). In 25 bce, she was wed to her cousin Marcus Claudius Marcellus. After Marcellus’ death in 23 bce, she married Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in 21 bce. She bore Agrippa five children: Gaius Caesar, Julia the Younger, Lucius Caesar, Agrippina the Elder, and Agrippa Postumus. After Agrippa’s death, she wed Tiberius on the orders of Augustus; their only child, a son, died in infancy. In 2 bce, she was indicted by Augustus and banished to Pandateria on charges of adultery and treason. Scribonia joined her daughter in exile, and Augustus allowed them to relocate to Rhegium five years later (Cass. Dio 55.10.14). Of her multiple partners, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (2) was sent into exile, while Iullus Antonius (only at A. 3.18.1) was condemned to death for having designs on the imperial throne (Cass. Dio 55.10.15). In his will, Augustus refused Julia burial in his mausoleum in Rome (Suet. Aug. 101.3). Julia’s life was shaped by imperial politics. While other ancient authors record her licentiousness and debauched behavior (e.g., Sen. de Ben. 6.32, Suet. Aug. 65.1, Cass. Dio 55.10.12, Macr. Sat. 2.5.1–10), Tacitus uses her exile and death to comment upon the characters of Augustus and Tiberius. Her exile is used as an example of the extreme cruelty Augustus employed against members of his own family (A. 3.24.2; see Julia the Younger). Upon her death, Tacitus reviews the history of her exile, as well as her marriage to Tiberius (A. 1.53.1). Tacitus suggests the disharmonious marriage was one rationale for Tiberius’ self-imposed exile in Rhodes: Julia despised Tiberius as her inferior (A. 1.53.1). Tiberius left her in exile when he came to power, allowing her to die a slow death of deprivation; with the death of her son, Agrippa Postumus, all hope of reprieve had been lost. Tiberius hoped that his murder would be obscured due to her lengthy exile (A. 1.53.2). Tiberius also took vengeance on Sempronius Gracchus; a letter from

c10_Vol2.indd 611

611

Julia to Augustus expressed her hatred of Tiberius, and Tiberius interpreted the letter as the influence of Sempronius (A. 1.53.3). He dies with courage, and there is no doubt that Tiberius is responsible (A. 1.53.5–6). Years later, Lucius, the son of Iullus Antonius, dies. After his murder for violating Augustus’ household, Iullus did not suffer a damnatio memoriae (A. 1.10.4, 3.18.1); nevertheless, Augustus sent Lucius to study in Massilia, a form of exile under cover of an educational enterprise. As a grandson of Augustus’ sister Octavia (1), Lucius is granted a place in the tomb of the Octavii (A. 4.44.3). see also: Gracchi; Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference work: PIR2 I 634; Raepsaet-Charlier no. 421 FURTHER READING Fantham, Elaine. 2006. Julia Augusti: The Emperor’s Daughter. New York: Routledge. Richlin, Amy. 2014. “Julia’s Jokes, Galla Placidia, and the Roman Use of Women as Political Icons.” In Arguments with Silence: Writing the History of Roman Women, edited by Amy Richlin, 81–109. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

JULIA THE YOUNGER CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Julia the Younger (c. 19 bce–28 ce) was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder. She was the sister of Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, Agrippa Postumus, and Agrippina the Elder. She was the granddaughter of Augustus and Scribonia (1) (Suet. Aug. 64.1). She married Lucius Aemilius Paullus around 5 bce and gave birth to a daughter, Aemilia Lepida (not mentioned in Tacitus) and a son, Aemilius Paullus. Her husband was either exiled or executed for forming a conspiracy against the emperor in 6 or 8 ce (Suet. Aug. 19.1). Although she was raised in Augustus’ household to be a moral model of womanhood (Suet. Aug. 64.2), she and her mother were both found guilty

28-04-2023 18:03:37

612

  J ulio - C laudian dynasty

of adultery and exiled (Suet. Aug. 65.1); her brother Agrippa Postumus was also banished (A. 1.3.4). Julia’s exile commenced in 8 ce after she was charged with adultery with Decimus Iunius Silanus. Some scholars have argued that her crime involved participation in her husband’s conspiracy or that her disgrace was connected to Ovid’s relegation to Tomis (Fantham 2006, 108– 116). Augustus ordered her villa destroyed and the child born to her in exile killed (Suet. Aug. 65.4, 72.3). He also forbade her burial in the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome (Suet. Aug. 101.3). Augustus later referred to her as one of his three boils or ulcers, together with her mother Julia and her brother Agrippa Postumus (Suet. Aug. 65.4). Silanus went into voluntary exile for treason (maiestas) and was allowed to return to Rome during the reign of Tiberius, although he never attained office (A. 3.24.4; for his brothers, see Marcus Iunius Silanus, suff. 15). Roman popular opinion considered Augustus’ treatment of both mother and daughter as overly harsh. The memory of Augustus’ cruelty emerges in Tacitus. Tacitus juxtaposes Augustus’ good fortune that proved advantageous to the state with the misfortunes of his household in the adulteries of his daughter and granddaughter. According to Tacitus, Augustus’ punishments were considered sacrilegious and treasonous, a departure from his customary clemency and even from his own laws (A. 3.24.2). Julia remained in exile for twenty years on Trimerus. Trimerus, also called Trimetus, refers to a group of islands in an archipelago off the Adriatic coast of southern Italy, not far from the shores of Apulia. Iulia remained there until her death in 28 ce and was supported by Livia Augusta throughout that time (A. 4.71.4). Her obituary offers Tacitus an occasion to comment upon the ambiguous beneficence of Livia, who overturned her stepfamily through secrecy, but displayed pity once they were downcast (A. 4.71.4). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference work: PIR2 I 635 REFERENCE Fantham, Elaine. 2006. Julia Augusti: The Emperor’s Daughter. New York: Routledge.

c10_Vol2.indd 612

JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY JOHN ALEXANDER LOBUR

University of Mississippi

The ruling family of Rome from Augustus to Nero found its roots in the merger of two distinguished clans, the gens Iulia and the gens Claudia (see A. 4.9) through the descendants of three individuals: first, Julia the Elder, the only natural child of the emperor Augustus whom he had with his second wife Scribonia (1); second, Livia Augusta, with her two sons whom she had with her husband (of the gens Claudia) prior to Augustus; and third, Octavia (1), the sister of Augustus. The last significant representative of the lineage was the emperor Nero, who died childless. Scholars have tended to see a rivalry between the two branches of the dynasty, though the dichotomy has been shown to be not as neat as supposed and might derive from the dynastic dueling of two of Augustus’ wives: Scribonia and Livia (Levick 1975). It is important to remember that the idea of a royal dynasty itself along with that of a succession distorts the picture as a modern projection (Osgood 2013; Simpson 2008).

IULIUS CAESAR TO AUGUSTUS The future emperor Augustus became the primary representative of the gens Iulia upon the death of Iulius Caesar, who adopted him in his will (the Roman principle of adoption considered the adoptee the natural descendant of the adopter). The dictator Caesar, himself posthumously deified, greatly enhanced the political charisma of the gens through his own accomplishments and by emphasizing its descent from Venus, through Iulus, the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas. Moreover, upon adoption, the future Augustus styled himself divi filius, “son of a god,” to advertise his descent from divinity. This potent lineage was expressed through the visual program of the forum of Augustus (dedicated in 2 bce) and the “national” epic of Rome, Vergil’s Aeneid. The gens also dominated the architectural landscape of Rome through other key edifices: the Curia

28-04-2023 18:03:37

J ulio - C laudian dynasty  

Iulia (or new senate house) at the northern end of the forum Romanum, and the temple of divus Iulius (divine Julius Caesar) at the southern, both dedicated in 29 bce. The massive Mausoleum of Augustus was complete in the next year and would be the future burial place of the members of the gens (at least those in good standing). Finally, the Saepta Iulia, a structure started by Caesar the dictator and designed for the popular assembly, was finished in 26. Though there were other Roman families of great nobility, none occupied so official a spot as the one created by cultural “propagandists” who fashioned Rome’s founding mythology. The young Caesar (Octavian, the future emperor Augustus) and Livia Drusilla (Livia Augusta) married in January of 38 bce. Both already had children. Octavian had divorced his second wife Scribonia, whom he had married for the sake of a political alliance with Sextus Pompeius Magnus (who was husband to her niece). She provided Augustus’ only natural offspring, Julia the Elder (b. 39 bce) on the day of the divorce. Livia, a scion of the patrician Claudii, had been married to her cousin Tiberius Claudius Nero of the same gens. The fact that Livia’s father had been adopted by the famous tribune Marcus Livius Drusus also made her a descendant of the Livii Drusi (hence her name), a family of the plebeian nobility. She and Octavian married in three days after the birth of Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus), her second and last child (there were rumors Octavian actually fathered him). The sister of Octavian, Octavia Minor (69–11 bce), also played an important role. Originally married to Gaius Claudius Marcellus, another Claudian and descendant of the Marcellus who sacked Syracuse, they birthed a son, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, in 42, and two daughters, Marcella Maior (the Elder, b. 41) and Minor (the Younger, b. probably late 40). The death of Octavia’s husband (40 bce) coincided with the death of Mark Antony’s third wife, the formidable Fulvia (80–43 bce), with whom he had two children, Marcus Antonius Antyllus (47–30 bce) and Iullus Antonius (45–2 bce). These deaths conveniently allowed a political reconciliation between Octavian and Antony to be sealed with a marriage. Antony and Octavia produced two

c10_Vol2.indd 613

613

daughters, Antonia the Elder (b. 39 bce) and Antonia the Younger (36 bce–37 ce) who would count among their descendants the last three “Julio-Claudian” emperors. Around 36 bce, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Octavian’s leading general, married Pomponia Caecillia Attica, (b. 51 bce), the daughter of the leading equestrian and central figure of the Roman intelligentsia, Pomponius Atticus (Cicero’s famous friend). A daughter was born, Vipsania Agrippina (36 bce–20 ce), betrothed in infancy to the child Tiberius Claudius Nero (Livia’s first son). They married some fifteen years later. After total victory over Mark Antony (30 bce), Octavian, known after 27 as “Augustus,” turned to influence a line of descent. Since Roman political ideology could not justify a dynastic monarchy— nevertheless required for the sake of state stability and the prevention of the very civil war the new arrangement claimed to solve—the expectation was that leaders of the new regime would earn surpassingly high office through a record of public achievement (Tiberius was the only one to accomplish this). There would also emerge (at first) an emphasis on leaders operating in pairs by generation: two senior leaders (the actual princeps always dominant) and two junior ones still being groomed, a wise policy which assisted administrative efficiency, strengthened the family brand, and bolstered political stability. AUGUSTUS Blood relatives of Augustus were always favored. Thus in 25 bce, Marcellus, the son of Augustus’ sister, was preferred to his coeval Tiberius and married his own cousin Julia the Elder. His career was fast-tracked by the Senate, yet in the end, Marcellus succumbed to the same illness that almost took Augustus, in 23. In the reconfiguration of power that occurred in the so-called second settlement in this year, Augustus surrendered his hold on a yearly consulship in return for a special grant of consular imperium over the military provinces, renewed on a five- or ten-year basis. In addition, he received the tribunicia potestas that enabled him to interfere decisively in the Roman political framework. Agrippa, now clearly in second position, received a similar grant of imperium,

28-04-2023 18:03:37

614

  J ulio - C laudian dynasty

and divorced Augustus’ niece Marcella the Elder (whom he married in 26), producing at least one daughter (who married Quintus Haterius, the suffect consul of 5 bce). Agrippa now married Augustus’ daughter, Julia the Elder, recently widowed by the death of Marcellus. The son of Marcus Antonius and Fulvia, Iullus Antonius, now married Agrippa’s ex-wife Marcella the Elder. In the meantime, Tiberius accompanied Agrippa to the East in 20 bce and facilitated the recovery of the standards lost to Parthia at the battle of Cannae. In 19, Agrippa put the capstone on the Cantabrian wars (in Spain), after which his power was augmented again with a grant of tribunicia potestas, which, as the defining office of the princeps, would henceforth be shared only with the heir designate. He began conquering the Danube area but died in 12 bce (age 51), having produced, with Julia the Elder, five offspring: Gaius Caesar (20 bce–4 ce), Julia the Younger (19 bce–29 ce), Lucius Caesar (17 bce–2 ce), Agrippina the Elder (14 bce–33 ce), and Agrippa Postumus (12 bce–14 ce). While Gaius and Lucius were coming of age (Augustus, their grandfather, adopted them soon after birth), the children of Livia (grown men but stepsons not favored by blood) were promoted with the offices and generalships worthy of “princes” of the ruling house. Drusus the Elder married the daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia, Antonia the Younger. The couple would have three children, Germanicus Iulius Caesar (Germanicus, 15 bce–19 ce), Claudia Livia Julia (Livia Iulia, 13 bce–31 ce), and the future emperor Claudius (10 bce–54 ce). The brothers Drusus the Elder and Tiberius cooperated in a successful military campaign to conquer the Alps, after which Drusus became governor of the three Gallic provinces as legatus Augusti pro praetore. He also was acclaimed imperator for operations in Germany, earning him an ovation at Rome and a proconsulship. After another brief campaign, he won the consulship for 9 bce and again invaded Germany in an illustrious campaign. A fall from his horse on his return (9 bce) prematurely ended, at age twenty-nine, an already outstanding career. In the meantime, Tiberius had been appointed consul (13 bce), and his wife Vipsania gave birth to their only child, Drusus the Younger (named after Tiberius’ brother). The death of Agrippa in

c10_Vol2.indd 614

12 left Julia the Elder a widow. At the request of Augustus, Tiberius reluctantly divorced Vipsania to marry her in 11, but the union proved unhappy and barren (Vipsania would marry Gaius Asinius Gallus, the son of the triumviral general and consul of 40 bce and have many children). Tiberius took up Agrippa’s Danube campaign and conquered the area by 9 bce. Upon the death of his brother he then took over his campaign in Germany, pacifying the area by 7 bce (when he held his second consulship), for which he was awarded a triumph. He was clearly designated, at least for the time being, as heir apparent with a grant of tribunicia potestas for five years. However, Agrippa and Julia’s sons Gaius and Lucius were coming of age. For ultimately unknown reasons Tiberius abruptly withdrew from politics to live in retirement at Rhodes, whether because he resented his crucial yet merely supporting role, was exasperated with Julia’s scandalous misbehavior, or simply not to upstage the budding careers of the princes, who were titled “principes of the youth,” indicating that their political future was to lead. He remained there for seven years (6 bce–2 ce), at first voluntarily. In 5 and 2 bce, Augustus assumed the consulship to present Gaius and Lucius to the Senate when they adopted the toga virilis. They were politically fast-tracked to an embarrassing degree because a clear political heir was needed. In 1 bce, Gaius married Claudia Livia Iulia (the daughter of Antonia the Younger and Drusus the Elder). Sent east with imperium proconsulare, he successfully negotiated an end to the Parthian claim to Armenia but died in 4 ce from the effects of a debilitating wound received in a parley. Lucius Caesar was betrothed to Aemilia Lepida (1) (the granddaughter of the triumvir, later accused in the Senate and unsuccessfully defended by her brother, the consul ordinarius of 11 ce, A. 3.22), but died in 2 ce, en voyage to Spain to be introduced to the armies there. In the meantime, Augustus’ banished his daughter Julia the Elder, Tiberius’ wife, for adultery (in the face of his moral legislation). There were political reasons for this as several important Romans were implicated, most notably Iullus Antonius, the son of Antonius and Fulvia, who was executed or forced to suicide. Her eldest daughter, Julia the Younger, who married the

28-04-2023 18:03:37

J ulio - C laudian dynasty  

noble Lucius Aemilius Paullus, (consul 1 ce with Gaius Caesar), would likewise be exiled for a marital affair with a senator in 8 ce, and her husband, too, exiled or executed for treason. They produced one certain child, Aemilia Lepida (not mentioned by Tacitus), who would marry Marcus Iunius Silanus (1), the noble grandson of the coconsul of Augustus in 25 bce, who would himself hold the consulship of 19 ce. They would produce five children (Marcus Iunius Silanus (2); Decimus Iunius Silanus Torquatus; Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1); Iunia Lepida; Iunia Calvina), direct descendants of Augustus, all but one of whom would meet their demise under the emperors Claudius or Nero. The death of his grandsons Gaius and Lucius forced Augustus (in his own words) to adopt Tiberius (bringing him into the gens Iulia); Tiberius had to adopt his nephew Germanicus first in order to do so legally as the paterfamilias of his own family (after Tiberius’ adoption Germanicus and Tiberius’ son Drusus the Younger both entered into the gens through Tiberius). Augustus also adopted Agrippa Postumus. Soon thereafter, Germanicus married Agrippina the Elder, youngest daughter of Agrippa and Julia the Elder. The pair would have six surviving children (including Gaius Caligula) whose fates comprise much of the Annals. Tiberius’ natural son Drusus the Younger married Gaius Caesar’s widow, Germanicus’ sister Livia Iulia. Tiberius, the new heir apparent, spent the next ten years providing Rome with crucial generalship in Germany and Pannonia, competently managing two enormous military crises, a Pannonian uprising (6–9 ce) and the aftermath of the Varian disaster (9 ce), accompanied and assisted by Germanicus, who earned ornamenta triumphalia in the former, and was consul in 12 ce, after which he was granted command in Germany. Somewhat earlier (6–8 ce) Agrippa Postumus and his sister Julia the Younger were exiled (see above). Tiberius’ powers were renewed in 13, to put him on par with Augustus himself, who died the next year. In the meantime, Germanicus’ politically irrelevant brother Claudius married Plautia Urgulania in 9 ce, the daughter of an important Augustan general Marcus Plautius Silvanus, consular colleague of Augustus (2 bce). He would divorce her in 24 on grounds of adultery.

c10_Vol2.indd 615

615

TIBERIUS This sets the stage of the Annals, where the dynasty along with the empire appear to be in good shape, despite the misfortunes of the previous decades. Upon the death of Augustus, the truculent Agrippa Postumus was immediately put to death: as sole surviving grandson of Augustus he was too politically dangerous. At center stage was the emperor Tiberius, politically awkward though commanding respect with the army. His mother Livia, Augustus’ widow, cast a long shadow until she died in 29 ce, in her mid-eighties. The “princes” Germanicus and Drusus the Younger, cousins and stepbrothers, continued the principle of leadership through dynastic pairs, though Augustus had clearly preferred the former for succession. Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder were especially popular due to their lineage, winning temperament, and large family. Drusus and Germanicus enjoyed good relations and resisted attempts to play the one off the other. When Augustus died, the Rhine and Danube legions mutinied over low pay and harsh terms. Germanicus, already in Belgium conducting a census, dealt with the Rhine; Drusus, sent with the praetorian prefect Sejanus, the Danube. Germanicus then led an expedition against the Germans, returning to Rome to triumph (17 ce). Tacitus supposes (unfairly and inconsistently) that jealousy over his popularity inspired Tiberius to send him on a mission to the East, furnished with wide ranging imperium, and the two shared the consulship in 18. In the course of his travels Germanicus violated political protocol by entering Egypt without permission and came into open conflict with the governor of Syria Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (who may have been acting under the instructions of Tiberius). He fell ill shortly later and died after declaring Piso poisoned him. Agrippina the Elder conveyed his ashes from Antioch to Rome, where the news made the population unhappy for months—there being rumors that Tiberius had acted to secure the succession of his natural son Drusus. Germanicus was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus (20 ce); Piso committed suicide before he could be condemned for inciting civil war. Meanwhile, Drusus held the consulship at Rome and fell out with Sejanus (15 ce), exercising

28-04-2023 18:03:37

616

  J ulio - C laudian dynasty

command in Illyricum before returning for the funeral of Germanicus and to celebrate an ovatio. He held the consulship again with Tiberius in 21, and received the tribunicia potestas the next year, but died in 23, supposedly poisoned by Sejanus, who had been having an affair with his wife, Livia Iulia. He left behind only one son, the three-year old Tiberius Gemellus (19–37/8 ce) and a daughter, Iulia Livia, who married Germanicus’ and Agrippina’s son Nero Iulius Caesar (d. 31 ce). Nero Iulius Caesar’s brother Drusus Caesar (8–33 ce), would marry Aemilia Lepida (2), the daughter of a distinguished consular of noble republican lineage, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4). Nero and Drusus, sons of Germanicus, now in their mid-to-late teens, were duly adopted by their great-uncle Tiberius on the death of their uncle Drusus. Both had been or were being fast-tracked in their careers, but a political rift had formed between the supporters of Agrippina the Elder and those of Sejanus. The latter exploited Tiberius’ trust and the fact that there were no experienced members of the dynasty left who could assist in managing the government and mentoring the princes. Tiberius’ retirement to Capri in 26 ce exacerbated this greatly—now Sejanus controlled communication between the princeps and Senate, which he abused to undermine Agrippina the Elder, though this was not fully possible until the death of Livia (Augustus’ widow) in 29 (A. 5.1). Thereafter, following Sejanus’ lead, Tiberius had Agrippina, along with Nero and Drusus Caesar, declared public enemies and exiled or imprisoned, then killed or driven to suicide. By this point the dynasty had lost nearly every trace of its former dynamism. The only princes left were the ten-year-old Tiberius Gemellus (Tiberius’ grandson) and the eighteen-year-old Gaius “Caligula” (his great-nephew). From the family of Drusus the Elder, there was still Germanicus’ brother, Caligula’s uncle and Gemellus’ great-uncle, Claudius. Gemellus was too young to fall victim to Sejanus, Caligula was safe at first with his grandmother Livia, then with his uncle Tiberius on Capri, while Claudius, long mocked for being physically challenged, found safety by feigning mental debility. His young son with Urgulania had been betrothed to Sejanus’ daughter, but died in 20 ce. Claudius himself

c10_Vol2.indd 616

would later marry a relative of Sejanus (possibly his sister) Aelia Paetina. They would produce one daughter, Claudia Antonia, raised by her grandmother Antonia the Younger (widow of Drusus the Elder) until she died in 37. Sejanus then purged the Senate of opponents and gradually worked to establish himself the heir apparent, when a letter from the unimpeachable Antonia the Elder reached Capri warning Tiberius of what was happening. Tiberius lured Sejanus into the Senate in the expectation of receiving the tribunicia potestas, where he was denounced and immediately executed along with his family, while Livia Iulia (to whom Sejanus had finally been betrothed as a way of joining the dynasty) was accused of poisoning Drusus and was killed or driven to suicide (31 ce), possibly by her mother Antonia the Younger. Another reign of terror occurred in the Senate to remove the supporters of Sejanus. It is illustrative of the extent to which loyalty to the lineage had merged with the loyalty of the state, that one of the accused successfully defended himself by claiming that though he was an ardent partisan of Sejanus, at the time, loyalty to him was loyalty to the Julio-Claudian house (A. 6.8).

CALIGULA AND CLAUDIUS Tiberius would live for nearly six more years but did very little to groom Caligula or Gemellus as princes. The pair were made joint heirs in 35, and Tiberius died in 37. He was possibly assassinated by Caligula, who convinced the praetorian prefect Macro and the consuls of 37 to make him emperor by nullifying Tiberius’ will. The first half year of his reign went smoothly. The charisma of his family, deriving from Germanicus, was still brilliant in a public eye long eyesore with the drab Tiberius. Gemellus, at first adopted by the new princeps, was put to death within a year (he may have suffered a mental disability). Caligula had three sisters, great-grandaughters of Augustus. The eldest, Agrippina the Younger (15–59 ce), married Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2), the only son of Antonia the Elder, in 28. The pair would birth Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, later known as Nero (37–68). Julia Drusilla (16–38),

28-04-2023 18:03:37

J ulio - C laudian dynasty  

to whom Caligula was most attached, married the consular nobleman Lucius Cassius Longinus (2) in 33, though he was forced to divorce her so she could marry another nobleman, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, of unknown descent but likely either the son of Julia the Younger and a consul of 1 ce (making him great-grandson of Augustus), or the son of his brother, a consul of 6 ce, still making him the great-grandson of Scribonia (from her second husband). In this case his own sister Aemilia Lepida (2) married Caligula’s elder brother Drusus just before he was purged by Sejanus. Drusilla would die in 38, while Lepidus (the last representative of the noble Aemilii) would be executed for plotting with the remaining sisters (also supposedly his lovers) who were exiled but later recalled under Claudius, in 39. The remaining daughter of Germanicus, Iulia Livilla (19–42), married Marcus Vinicius (5 bce–46 ce, consul 30), the son of a prominent Augustan general. She was later exiled after running afoul of the emperor Claudius’ wife third wife Messalina and killed not long after. Claudius married his relative Valeria Messalina, after divorcing his second wife Aelia Paetina, during the reign of Caligula. Messalina was the daughter of Antonia the Elder’s daughter Domitia Lepida and her cousin Valerius Messala Barbatus (son of Marcella the Younger). Thus she was Claudius’ first cousin once removed, the future emperor Nero’s cousin, and the granddaughter of both Antonia the Elder and Marcella the Elder, making her the great-granddaughter of Octavia and both of her husbands, Mark Antony and Claudius Marcellus. Messalina and Claudius would have two children, Claudia Octavia (2) (39–62 ce) and Tiberius Claudius (41–55 ce)—later named Britannicus after his father’s conquest of the island, born shortly after Caligula’s death. The sponsorship of the praetorians after the assassination of Caligula (along with his wife and infant daughter) thrust the fifty-year old Claudius, long politically irrelevant and not a member of the gens Iulia (though a descendant of Octavia), into supreme power (41–54 ce). The remnants of the “dynasty” looked to consolidate what remained. His daughter Octavia was betrothed to Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1) (a descendant of Augustus through Aemilia Lepida, daughter of Julia the Younger) who would hold a praetorship in 48.

c10_Vol2.indd 617

617

Messalina had a notorious reputation for wantonness and was suspicious of the ambition of Agrippina the Younger (the remaining child of the ever-popular Germanicus) and her son Lucius (soon Nero). Eventually she played Claudius for a fool too long, and he executed her (48 ce) after discovering she had secretly married the noble Gaius Silius and plotted his overthrow. Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1) (grandson of Julia the Younger) was forced to suicide by Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.8.1), looking to secure the succession of Lucius after the fall of Messalina. Then, in a shocking breach of social taboo that consolidated power and the bloodline, Claudius married his niece Agrippina the Younger (a widow since January 41 ce) on 1 January 49, and Claudius adopted her son, now known as Nero.

NERO AND THE END OF THE DYNASTY Nero’s stepsister Octavia eventually married him in 53, shortly before he became emperor at the age of sixteen. Claudius was poisoned by Agrippina in 54, and she poisoned Lucius Silanus’ brother Marcus Iunius Silanus (2) to eliminate another potential rival. Her stepson Britannicus was poisoned not long after, while Marcus Silanus’ son, Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2) (raised by Iunia Lepida, the maternal granddaughter of Julia the Younger), was forced to exile and executed around a decade later in 65 (A. 16.7–9). Another potential rival to Nero from the family had been removed earlier, namely his cousin Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix, a direct descendant of Antonia the Elder through her youngest daughter Domitia Lepida (the sister of Nero’s father) and of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) through Domitia’s second husband (her first marriage producing Messalina, the third wife of Claudius and mother of Britannicus). Faustus had married Claudia Antonia, the daughter of Claudius and his second wife Aelia Paetina (they had no surviving children). His lineage made him the beneficiary of two alleged plots to remove Nero. Though harmless, he was eventually exiled and killed in 62 (A. 14.57). After the fall of Nero’s second wife Poppaea Sabina the Younger,

28-04-2023 18:03:37

618

  J ulio - C laudian dynasty

Claudia Antonia was killed after refusing her stepbrother Nero’s proposal to marry her (Suet. Ner. 35.4). Nero’s first wife Octavia had a reputation for uprightness, yet he divorced her to marry his mistress Poppaea Sabina the Younger (who had been married to the future emperor Otho), and she was banished to Pandateria and later killed in 62. In 59, Nero assassinated Agrippina, his very domineering mother who expected to rule through her son. With the death of Nero, the lineage lapsed into political irrelevancy (with a few highly diluted remnants identifiable into the second century). As a whole, the brand of the family was heavily vested in three main areas: (1) state mythology (Augustus was deified upon his death, as were Livia and Claudius); (2) popularity among the lower classes beginning with Iulius Caesar that reached its zenith through Germanicus and his descendants (witness the popular demonstrations in favor of Caligula and Octavia, as well as the popularity Nero enjoyed among the plebs); and finally (3) the popularity of the family with the army (again, deriving ultimately from Iulius Caesar, though refreshed through the Claudian princes and Germanicus). There was a constant and appreciable insecurity, however, vis-à-vis the charisma of other noble families which still carried weight in the eyes of the citizenry. This can be seen through the numerous plots that formed and the way in which Galba chose Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus, a descendant of Pompey the Great and Marcus Crassus as his successor—Galba’s own considerable republican pedigree made him a prime candidate in the first place. Moreover, from the time of Caligula onwards the Julio-Claudians had very little direct experience leading the army, and this weakened a once strong bond. In the end, the constant pruning of the branches left only Nero. His lack of offspring created political insecurity and vulnerability, exacerbated by the suppression of a serious conspiracy (under Piso). In the end his antics led to the increasing alienation of and eventual abandonment by all significant avenues of support. The praetorian prefect who had abandoned him, Nymphidius Sabinus, still tried (unsuccessfully) to capitalize on the lineage by claiming to be Caligula’s illegitimate child, while the appearance

c10_Vol2.indd 618

of pseudo-Neros afterward attests at least somewhat to the lingering effects of the family halo. see also: impostors; Iulii; Iunii; marriage; Pisonian Conspiracy; Rome, myth and history REFERENCES Levick, B. 1975. “Julians and Claudians.” Greece and Rome 22.1: 29–38. Osgood, Josiah. 2013. “Suetonius and the Succession to Augustus.” In The Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the “Augustan Model,” edited by A. G. G. Gibson, 19–40. Leiden: Brill. Simpson, Christopher J. 2008. “The Julian Succession and Its Claudian Coda: A Different Perspective on the So-Called Julio-Claudian Dynasty.” Latomus 67.2: 353–365. FURTHER READING Barrett, Anthony A. 1996. Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Bellemore, Jane. 2013. “The Identity of Drusus: The Making of a Princeps.” In the Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the “Augustan Model,” edited by A. G. G. Gibson, 79–94. Leiden: Brill. Benario, Herbert. 2012. “The Annals.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Emma Pagán, 101–122. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Champlin, E. 2013. Nero. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Corbett, John. 1974. “The Succession Policy of Augustus.” Latomus 33.1: 87–97. Crook, J. A. 1996. “Political History, 30 B.C. to A.D. 14.” In The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C. – A.D. 69, edited by Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott, 70–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Milnor, Kristina. 2012. “Women and Domesticity.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Emma Pagán, 458–475. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Kuttner, Anne. 1995. Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus: The Case of the Boscoreale Cups. Berkeley: University of California Press. Levick, B. 1999. Tiberius the Politician. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Osgood, Josiah. 2010. Claudius Caesar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rose, Charles Brian. 1997. Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the Julio-Claudian Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 18:03:37

J ulio - C laudian dynasty  

Rowe, Gregory. 2002. Princes and Political Culture: The New Tiberian Senatorial Decrees. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Seager, Robin. 2013. “Perceptions of the Domus Augustea, AD 4–24.” In The Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the “Augustan Model,” edited by A. G. G. Gibson, 41–57. Leiden: Brill. Syme, R. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Vout, Caroline. 2013. “Tiberius and the Invention of Succession.” In The Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the “Augustan Model,” edited by A. G. G. Gibson, 59–77. Leiden: Brill.

c10_Vol2.indd 619

619

Wiedemann, T. E. J. 1996. “Tiberius to Nero.” In The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C. – A.D. 69, edited by Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott, 198–255. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, Susan. 2001. Imperial Women: A Study in Public Images, 40 B.C. – A.D. 68. Leiden: Brill. Zanker, Paul. 1988. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Translated by A. Shapiro. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

JUNO, see ROMAN GODS JUPITER, see ROMAN GODS

28-04-2023 18:03:37

L LACO, see POMPEIA MACRINA LACUS CURTII, see GALBA LAECANIUS, see GALBA

LAECANIUS BASSUS, GAIUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Gaius Laecanius Bassus (d. 77–78 ce) was ordinary consul in 64 ce (A. 15.33.1) with Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (2) as his colleague. He is mentioned only here in Tacitus. According to Pliny the Elder (HN 26.5), in the year in which he composed his work (which was dedicated in 77–78 ce), Laecanius Bassus died of an infection caused by a carbuncle, as did Iulius Rufus, ordinary consul in 67 with a colleague named Fonteius Capito. Iulius Rufus would have therefore been mentioned by Tacitus in the Annals, presumably Book 16. Laecanius is one of the names transmitted by Tacitus and Plutarch as the possible assassin of Galba (H. 1.41, Plut. Galb. 27). Both authors deny certainty. see also: Fire of 64 ce Reference work: PIR2 L 31 LAELIA, see VESTAL VIRGINS

LAELIUS BALBUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Laelius Balbus (c. 10 bce–after 46 ce) was a delator active under Tiberius most notorious for his prosecution for a woman named Acutia for maiestas and another named Albucilla (former wife of Publius Vitellius) for adultery, both in 37 ce. The last prosecution may have resulted in his exile, but he likely returned later and his family went on to some continued prominence in the imperial administration. Laelius Balbus may have been the son of the consul of 6 ce, and if that is the case, he would have come from a family with a well-attested history already during the republic. Laelius himself entered history in 37 ce when he accused a woman named Acutia of maiestas before the Senate, who was also condemned (Acutia and the reason for the charge are otherwise unknown). Laelius may not have benefited from the prosecution: after he was voted a reward, the tribune, Iunius Otho (2) (possibly the son of the delator) interceded to prevent it, although Tacitus does not say whether Otho succeeded in his attempt. In that same year Laelius was accused of an uncertain charge (possibly involving his prosecution of a woman named Albucilla for adultery, A. 6.47–8), condemned, and stripped of senatorial rank to the delight of all, since Tacitus says he was a man of savage eloquence and “ready against the innocent” (promptum adversum insontes, A. 6.48.6). Laelius was subsequently restored to his senatorial rank, and it is entirely possible that he also went on to hold the office of suffect consul

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume II, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c11_Vol2.indd 620

28-04-2023 18:25:28

L aodicea ( 1 )  

from July until September 46, although the possibility must remain open that the Decimus Laelius Balbus mentioned in the fasti is the son of our Tiberian delator. In addition to the possibility of a son, he may have had a daughter, Laelia, who was a Vestal Virgin, an office that will have given distinction to his house (A. 15.22.4). At some point in his career Laelius, along with Gnaeus Domitius Afer and Gaius Passienus Crispus, defended a consular named Lucius Volusenus Catulus, and the oratory in that case was well-esteemed (Quint. Inst. 10.1.23). Laelius was also a curator with Catulus of a public restoration project (whose date and nature are uncertain, see CIL 6.31573). see also: Delator; Iunius Otho (1 and 2); Vibius Marsus Reference works: PIR2 L 48; RE 12.415–16 = Laelius 16 (Miltner); CIL 6.1267a–b; 6.31543; 6.31573 FURTHER READING Gallivan, P. 1978. “The Fasti of the Reign of Claudius.” Classical Quarterly 28: 408, 414, 425. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 42, 101–102, 222, 242–243, 296.

621

followers of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (1) in 132 bce and, in the following year, opposed Gaius Papirius Carbo’s motion on consecutive candidacies to the tribunate (Cic. Amic. 96). Cicero admired Laelius, featuring him as interlocutor in several dialogues (Amic., Rep., Sen.), but offered mild criticism of his oratorical style, calling it elegant (Cic. Brut. 89), but preferring Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus because Laelius was rougher and deployed archaism too frequently (Brut. 83). Laelius handed his defense of Roman tenant associations over to Servius Sulpicius Galba, by whom he believed they would be more forcefully defended “because in terms of oratory Galba was more fiery and fierce” (Cic. Brut. 86). Tacitus maintains this general criticism in the Dialogus de Oratoribus. In his periodization of oratory, Marcus Aper refers to Laelius’ colleague, Servius Galba, and opponent, Gaius Carbo, as truly ancient (D. 18.1), but omits Laelius. In his reply to Aper, Vipstanus Messalla pairs Laelius with Galba, admitting that “there was a certain deficiency in their eloquence, as to one still growing and not yet fully matured” (D. 25.7). see also: Gracchi; Roman orators Reference works: ORF 14, 115–122; RE Laelius 12 FURTHER READING

LAELIUS SAPIENS, GAIUS BRANDON JONES

Boston University

Son of Gaius Laelius (consul 190 bce, Cic. Amic.), Gaius Laelius Sapiens (c. 190–129 bce; consul 140 bce) was a patron of poets and philosophers, an orator, a politician, and a legate in the Third Punic War. His position within the so-called Scipionic Circle and his friendship with the younger Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus was celebrated. Laelius supported the playwright Terence (Cic. Att. 7.3.10; Suet. Vita Terentii 2) and was a follower of the Stoic Panaetius (Cic. Rep. 1.34; De Fin. 2.24, 4.23; Brut. 101). His cognomen, however, may refer to his maintenance of moderate conservative politics (Plut. Ti. Gracch. 8), to which he turned later in life, serving as praetor in 145 and consul in 140 bce. He investigated the

c11_Vol2.indd 621

Astin, A. E. 1967. Scipio Aemilianus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kennedy, George. 1972. The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, 300 bc–ad 300. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 60–71. van den Berg, Christopher. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 180.

LANGOBARDI, see SUEBI

LAODICEA (1) LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

Laodicea (1) is the name of more than one locale in the ancient world (of which the most famous was the key port in Syria). At A. 4.55, “Laodicea”

28-04-2023 18:25:28

622

  L atiarus

is named among those eleven Asian cities in contention for the location of a temple to Tiberius in 26 ce. Laodicea was soon dismissed from consideration on the grounds of having too weak a case for the honor (Smyrna was the ultimate victor). The Laodicea in question is probably the Phrygian one, near the Meander river, a town of mixed fortune in antiquity; in 60 ce it suffered a catastrophic earthquake (cf. A. 14.27), from which it recovered with no assistance from Rome. Commonly known as “Laodicea on the Lycus” (near the modern Turkish Denizli), it was celebrated as one of the seven Asian cities named in the Book of Revelation. Today there are substantial archaeological remains of the city; in March of 2019 the site was noted in media reports for the discovery of a well-preserved statue of Trajan.

with Porcius Cato, Petilius Rufus, and Marcus Opsius, was involved in the entrapment and accusation of Titius Sabinus in 28 ce (A. 4.68–70). At the time Latiaris had already held the praetorship and was now aiming for the consulship (likely putting him in his early forties, A. 4.68.2). In 32 ce, Latiaris was to receive his “just reward” for his treacherous entrapment of Sabinus when Sextius Paconianus, one of Sejanus’ clients, denounced him to save himself (A. 4.71.1; 6.4.1); execution was Latiaris’ likely end. Reference works: PIR2 L 346; RE 12.925–6 = Latinius 2 (Fluss); CIL 15.1245 REFERENCE

Reference work: Barrington 65 B2

Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

FURTHER READING

FURTHER READING

“Statue of Trajan Uncovered in Turkey.” Archaeology. Wednesday, April 3, 2019. Accessed March 30, 2020. https://www.archaeology.org/ news/7522-190403-turkey-trajan-statue.

Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 144–145, 244–245.

LAODICEA (2), see SYRIA LARS PORSENNA, see CAPITOLIUM

LATINIUS PANDUSA VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

LATIARUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Latiaris (c. 10 bce–32 ce), whose name is problematic, was involved in one of the most notorious prosecutions of Tiberius’ reign, when he helped to entrap Titius Sabinus, who was lured into an indiscrete conversation concerning the princeps. Little is known of Latiaris beyond this case, but he likely perished in the wake of Sejanus’ fall. There is some difficulty with Latiaris’ name, and we are uncertain as to whether his gentilicium was Lucanius or Latinius (see Syme 1958, 747). He may have had a brother, Quintus Lucanius Latinus, who was praetor of the treasury of Saturn (aerarium Saturni) in 19 ce, and was possibly the son of Quintus Lucanius Proculus, proconsul of Crete and Cyrene under Augustus. Latiaris, along

c11_Vol2.indd 622

Latinius Pandusa was a legatus pro praetore (legate with praetorian authority) of Moesia under Tiberius (A. 2.66). He served under the governor of Moesia Poppaeus Sabinus, as did Pomponius Flaccus, Pomponius Labeo, and possibly Publius Vellaeus. In 19 C.E., Pandusa carried a letter from Tiberius to Rhescuporis in Thrace, in which Tiberius asked for the surrender of Cotys. Rhescuporis instead ordered the death of Cotys but reported it as suicide. Tacitus then reports the death of Pandusa, “whom Rhescuporis accused of being hostile” (A. 2.66.2). Reference work: PIR2 L 125 FURTHER READING Syme, R. 1949. “Personal Names in Annals I–VI.” Journal of Roman Studies 39: 6–18.

28-04-2023 18:25:29

laughter  

LATIUM ROSEMARY MOORE

University of Iowa

Latium (modern Lazio) is a region of Italy in which Rome is located. It and Campania formed regio I in Augustus’ organization of Italy. Its inhabitants were Latini, and the language they spoke was Latin. Many types of crops were produced in this area; other resources were also abundant. The Tiber River, though prone to flooding, facilitated local and overseas trade. As Rome’s need for imports grew, it improved facilities at Ostia and later at Portus to make up for the Tiber’s inadequate harborage. Latium and its communities were deeply intertwined with Rome in its early history, both according to legend and archaeological findings. Rome’s foundation myths attribute outsiders with the establishment of the city; archaeological shifts in cultural practices are observed but rather than immigration these instead suggest growth in population and prosperity. Claudius draws on the theme of Rome being founded by immigrants as justification for his proposal that Gallic nobles (see Gaul) be admitted to the Roman Senate (A. 11.23–24; see Tabula Lugdunensis). Marcus Aper, taking the position that there has not been a decline in Roman oratory during the principate, transitions from Greek to Latin oratory at Dialogus 17.1. By using Menenius Agrippa, consul in 503 bce as a foil, Aper makes the case for categorizing Cicero and his contemporary orators as modern and not ancient, therefore complicating any claim of decline. During the monarchic and early republican period, Rome was no more powerful than any other Latin community. This status is reflected in the foedus Cassianum of 493 bce, a treaty drawn up between Rome and other Latin communities after Rome’s defeat at Lake Regillus in that year. This treaty defined the Latin League, an organization that included Rome, as well as laws addressing relations between league members, the ius Latii or “Latin rights.” These mutual rights consisted of commercium (the right to conduct business), conubium (the right to intermarry), and comigratio (the right to reside). As Roman power eclipsed that of other Latin communities, Rome

c11_Vol2.indd 623

623

conferred ius Latii as a privilege to favored allies. Roman citizenship, with or without the right to vote in Roman elections, could also be given, either to communities or (more commonly) to individuals or groups within an allied community. Those elected to magistracies in communities that held the ius Latii were granted citizenship. Tacitus notes the ius Latii being given to inhabitants of the province Alpes Maritimae in 63 ce (A. 15.32) and that Vitellius gave many communities the ius Latii in order to win support (H. 3.55). Latium, in particular “old” Latium (Latium vetus) is listed as an area of recruitment for the praetorian cohorts and urbanae cohortes at A. 4.5. This designation refers to the northern and central areas of Latium, and referred to that portion of the region that, generally speaking, made up the Latin League. Rome annexed the territories of the Hernici, Aurunci, and Volsci at the end of the Latin War in 338 bce; these regions were referred to as Latium novum or Latium adiectum. see also: Rome, myth and history Reference work: Barrington 44 C2; 1 F2 FURTHER READING Furneaux, Henry. 1896. The Annals of Tacitus. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mayer, R., ed. 2001. Tacitus Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weidemann, T. E. J. 1996. “From Nero to Vespasian.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume X: The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C.–A.D. 69, edited by Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

LAUGHTER ANTHONY CORBEILL

University of Virginia

Tacitus explicitly calls attention to the laughter of his characters on numerous occasions (as distinct from his far more frequent employment of narrative irony). References occur at key points in his narrative: in contrast with his Ciceronian models,

28-04-2023 18:25:29

624

  L E G E S ( L AWS )

Tacitus the narrator closes Dialogue on Orators with group laughter from which he, as interlocutor, conspicuously excludes himself (D. 42.2: cum arrisissent, discessimus); elsewhere he suggests that understanding “the mockery of human affairs” underlies his historiographical enterprise (A. 3.18.4). Characters in Tacitus’ narratives sometimes employ categories of humor familiar from republican practice. Abusive humor among soldiers, for example, seems to be a Roman universal (A. 1.20.1; H. 2.22.3, 2.30.3, 2.74.1; to which compare, e.g., Caes. BGall. 2.30.3, 7.73; BCiv. 1.69.1, 2.15.1). Mockery of physical peculiarities also remains a favored source of laughter: Iulius Paelignus is one of a number of figures scorned by contemporaries for a risible physique (A. 12.49.1: deridiculo corporis … despiciendus; cf. 14.57.4, 15.34.2; H. 1.7.3). Similar biases seem to inform audience reactions to Nero’s funeral oration for Claudius. In response to Nero’s encomium of the prudent wisdom of his physically compromised predecessor, no one in the audience could refrain from laughter (A. 13.3.1). Tacitus explicitly contrasts this trope of abusive humor against physical peculiarities with the practice of the Germani. Amidst a list of areas in which the Germans surpass the Romans in moral behavior (sexual restraint, marital fidelity), Tacitus attributes the difference in part to different senses of humor: “For no one there [sc. as opposed to at Rome] laughs at vices” (G. 19.1: nemo enim illic vitia ridet). In accordance with this characterization of Roman humor, open laughter at moral and physical failings characterizes passages where Tacitus represents an imperial decline from an imagined earlier time of honest politics under the republic. The new political context, for example, causes jokes to fall short of their republican analogues: while a joke about the one-day consulship of Rosius Regulus under Vitellius recall the attacks on analogous moves of the dictator Iulius Caesar, Tacitus is careful to note that the later act is more autocratic (H. 3.37.2). The sight of Romans being subject to the authority of a freed slave makes Polyclitus a “laughingstock” in the eyes of the Britanni (A. 14.39.2: hostibus inrisui fuit), who cannot understand why a free people would put “slaves” in positions of power.

c11_Vol2.indd 624

As these examples show, Tacitean laughter rarely arises from joy, but rather from mockery, in particular in relation to the behavior of those in power. Emperors laugh at the powerlessness of their subjects (A. 15.69.3; cf. 13.15.2) nearly as often as they are themselves derided by members of the elite (H. 2.91.3), an act that can lead to death (A. 5.2.2). Indeed, under Tiberius even the notion that the Roman state could revert to the earlier republican style of government provokes laughter (A. 4.9.1). These isolating tendencies of laughter allow Tacitus to expose the moral and political hypocrisy of the principate (see Meister 2014). see also: Caecina Alienus; emotions REFERENCE Meister, Jan B. 2014. “Lachen und Politik. Zur Funktion von Humor in der politischen Kommunikation.” Klio 96: 26–48. FURTHER READING Corbeill, Anthony. 1996. Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Haynes, Holly. 2014. “The In- and Outside of History: Tacitus with Groucho Marx.” In Les opera minora et le développement de l’historiographie tacitéenne, edited by Olivier Devillers, 31–44. Bordeaux: Ausonius. Plass, Paul. 1988. Wit and the Writing of History. The Rhetoric of Historiography in Imperial Rome. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

LEGES (LAWS) BRUCE W. FRIER

University of Michigan

The primary meaning of lex is “statute”: in the definition of the Augustan jurist Ateius Capito (Gellius 10.20.2), “a general order (iussum) of the people or of the plebs, passed on a magistrate’s proposal.” This definition stresses two essential elements: the role of a magistrate—usually a consul or both consuls—in drafting and putting a

28-04-2023 18:25:29

L E G E S ( L AWS )  

proposal to a legislative body consisting of all or most of Roman adult male citizens (the rogatio), and the subsequent action of that body in adopting the proposal. Capito’s definition reflects the Lex Hortensia of c. 286 bce, which had equated statutes of the plebeian assembly (passed on a tribune’s proposal to the Concilium Plebis) with those of the popular legislative assembly (the Comitia Centuriata), as equally binding on all Romans (Gai. Inst. 1.3). Statutes are usually named after their proposers. (In the Roman Empire, after the assemblies became obsolete, both decrees of the Senate and imperial orders came to have the force of leges: Gai. Inst. 1.4–5.) Although Rome had nothing resembling a written constitution, statutes played a large role in the development of Roman law (ius) more broadly, particularly after the foundation of the republic in 509 bce. In a lengthy digression that begins from a Senate debate in 20 ce about moderating the Augustan marriage legislation (A. 3.25–28), Tacitus analyzes the impact of statutes on Roman history, starting from a hypothetical Golden Age in which people, because they lacked vicious motives, needed no legislative direction (cf. Verg., Aen. 7.202–204, on early Latium). This age comes to an end with the emergence of political and economic inequality. Resulting conflicts are, in Tacitus’ opinion, often regulated through statutes, first by the kings and then later under the republic, culminating in the Twelve Tables of 449 bce, “the last instance of equitable law” (A. 3.27.1: finis aequi iuris), with a general aim of safeguarding liberty while strengthening concord. Thereafter, however, legislation became increasingly partisan and venal, frequently adopted through coercion and used, with occasional exceptions, either to attack political enemies or to entrench one’s friends. Tacitus treats all sides as blameworthy, and the proliferation of such laws as betokening an ever-deepening political degradation (A. 3.27.3). His analysis, while skimping on examples of beneficial or detrimental statutes, might be supported by laws he mentions elsewhere: the Lex Oppia, a sumptuary law of 215 (pro and con: A. 3.33.4, 34.4); the Lex Cincia, a law of 204 disallowing payments for courtroom advocates (A. 11.5.3, 13.42.1); the Lex Servilia of 106 placing equestrians in control of criminal juries (A. 12.60.3: “an issue so

c11_Vol2.indd 625

625

often contested through conspiracy or armed force”); the Lex Roscia of 67 granting social privileges to equestrians (A. 15.32); and the Leges Cassia of 45 and Saenia of 30 bce, both allowing expansion of the ranks of Roman patricians (A. 11.25.2). Tacitus initially blames this surfeit of legislation on tempestuous tribunes—he specifically names the Gracchi, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, and Marcus Livius Drusus—and they, in turn, are impliedly held responsible for the outbreak of the Social and civil wars of the Late Republic (A. 3.27.2–3). The dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1), by contrast, he considers favorably as having stayed the decline by repealing much of this legislation and replacing it with his own (elsewhere Tacitus mentions the Leges Corneliae on murder and on fraud, A. 13.44.5, 14.40.3), although Sulla’s further attempts to muzzle the tribunes were quickly undone. The last days of the republic saw the final stage of decline, as statutes actually become subversive of themselves, with “remedies grimmer than the misdeeds.” Tacitus singles out Pompey’s third consulship in 52 bce, with particular scorn for the laws that Pompey himself subverted, leading, so he says, to twenty years of continual discord, without custom or law (A. 3.28.1: non mos, non ius). Curiously, Tacitus omits to mention Iulius Caesar’s reform legislation. This period ends with the “peace and principate” (pax et princeps) of Augustus in 28 bce; but the new emperor, rather than cutting back on the thicket of legislation, instead introduced still tighter fetters (acriora vincla) especially through a series of marriage laws: the Lex Julia of 18 bce and the Lex Papia Poppaea of 9 ce, plus the Lex Julia on adultery of 18 or 17 bce (A. 3.28.2–4; cf. 2.50.1 and 4.42.3). These statutes generated a whole new class of informants (delators; Tacitus ironically calls them “guardians,” custodes) who spied on and accused others of infractions, thereby causing widespread ruin and terror until Tiberius finally tried to rein in their malpractice (A. 3.28.4). Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges (A. 3.27.3): “Laws were most numerous when the State was most morally debased.” The import of this famous apothegm is less than apparent. Although often praised as “wise” or “profound,”

28-04-2023 18:25:29

626

  libertas

Tacitus’ apothegm is, like the digression in general, undertheorized and unsupported by any real evidence: incoherent, in short. Obviously, as states become larger in population and size, they increase in diversity and internal division, and social control will become more urgent; one predictable result is an increase in legislation. Some of these laws will most probably have unintended and highly undesirable consequences, and the Augustan marriage legislation could well serve as an illustration. But whether any of this has much to do with the relative corruption of the commonwealth is a moot question. Nonetheless, Tacitus’ digression suggests he did posit some degree of correlation. Other passages, such as A. 15.20.3 (in a speech of Thrasea Paetus), argue that “good laws” (leges egregiae) originate from an attempt to deter social or political misconduct, and not, presumably, from narrow partisanship or personal avarice, where the onus falls primarily on the motives of legislators. The problems in the digression stem mainly, as it seems, from Tacitus’ further step, a distaste for legislation itself that he has not fully justified. FURTHER READING Wieacker, Franz. 1988. Römische Rechtsgeschichte: Quellenkunde, Rechtsbildung, Jurisprudenz und Rechtsliteratur. Vol. I. München: Beck. 388–428. Woodman, A. J., and R. M. Martin. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus, Book 3. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press. 233–261.

LEGES CORNELIAE, see LEGES (LAWS) LEGIONS, see ARMY LEMOVII, see GOTONES LEPTITANI, see AFRICA LESBOS, see GREECE LEX CASSIA, see LEGES (LAWS) LEX CINCIA, see LEGES (LAWS) LEX JULIA ON ADULTERY, see LEGES (LAWS) LEX OPPIA, see LEGES (LAWS) LEX PAPIA POPPAEA, see LEGES (LAWS) LEX ROSCIA, see LEGES (LAWS) LEX SAENIA, see LEGES (LAWS) LEX SERVILIA, see LEGES (LAWS) LIBANUS, see SYRIA LIBER, see ROMAN GODS

c11_Vol2.indd 626

LIBERTAS THOMAS E. STRUNK

Xavier University

Libertas (freedom, liberty), essentially the status possessed by a liber, a free person (Wirszubski 1960, 1), is a primary concern throughout all of Tacitus’ works. He is most interested in its metaphorical political meaning, that is, how libertas functions in an autocratic society, a dominatio, in which the citizens are ostensibly free but are greatly constrained by someone who aspires to be their master, as if they were slaves. From his earliest writings, Tacitus stresses the conflict between libertas and autocratic forms of government. At Ag. 3.1, Tacitus famously writes that although Nerva has reconciled liberty and the principate, things for a long time disparate (res olim dissociabiles miscuerit principatum ac libertatem), civic life is slow to recover, and talent and intellectual pursuits are more easily crushed than revived. Tacitus also lays out this distinction at the outset of the Annals when he writes that after the kings, Lucius Iunius Brutus established liberty and the republic, i.e., the free republic (A. 1.1.1, libertatem et consulatum L. Brutus instituit). Despite Nerva’s accomplishment, the question of the compatibility of liberty and the principate is frequently on the surface of Tacitus’ text. At A. 1.3.1, Tacitus writes of Augustus that in seeking a successor he was looking for a bulwark for his autocracy (subsidia dominationi), thus suggesting that from the outset the principate was inimical to liberty. Throughout his writings Tacitus stresses continuity in this regard across the successive principes. In the Histories, he acknowledges that only Vespasian changed for the better after becoming princeps (H. 1.50.4), but even the Flavians were merely different men not different in habits (H. 2.95.3), and later Tacitus expressed through Curtius Montanus that the best day after a bad princeps is the first day, suggesting that they all declined thereafter (H. 4.42.6). In all his prefaces, save the Germania, Tacitus reflects on how free speech had deteriorated under the principate and only presently showed any possibility of reviving (Ag. 1–2, D. 1.1, H. 1.1.1; A. 1.1.2). Tacitus often associates free speech with

28-04-2023 18:25:29

627

libertas  

eloquentia and contrasts it with the opposite extremes of adulatio and odium and licentia (Ag. 2.1, 39.2; D. 27.3, H. 1.1.2, A. 1.7.1). In the preface to the Histories, Tacitus explains the difficult task facing those who wished to exercise free speech and to speak the truth while avoiding both flattery and malice, which gave the false appearance of freedom (H. 1.1.2 falsa species libertatis). Tacitus highlights moments, frequently meetings of the Senate, that had the mere appearance of freedom, the simulacra libertatis (A. 1.77.3). He also reflects how such moments had the tendency to intensify adulation (A. 1.81.2, quantoque maiore libertatis imagine tegebantur, tanto eruptura ad infensius servitium). Thus, Tacitus is quick to remind his readers that servitude was not simply the result of an oppressive princeps, and he frequently places blame on the servility of Rome’s leading citizens. He recounts how even Tiberius, who did not like public liberty, was accustomed upon leaving the Senate to cry out, “O men prepared for servitude!” (A. 3.65.3). There is no more famous case in Tacitus regarding free expression than the trial of the historian Cremutius Cordus, who was accused of praising Marcus Iunius Brutus and calling Gaius Cassius Longinus the last of the Romans in his writings (A. 4.34–35). Although Cremutius delivered an inspiring defense of the freedom of speech, he was nonetheless condemned and his books were burned. This is not the only instance of book burning under the principate that Tacitus records. At. Ag. 2.1 he notes that the writings of Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio were burned after their execution; in the Annals, he records the burning of Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus’ books after his condemnation for treason (A. 6.9.3–4, 6.29.3–4) and Fabricius Veiento’s following his exile (A. 14.50.2). Such actions surely had a dampening effect on free speech in all its forms whether literary or political. Nonetheless, there were those who persisted in speaking and acting with a spirit of freedom. Foremost among those Tacitus writes about is Thrasea Paetus, who is described as striving to create libertas senatoria (A. 13.49.2), a rephrasing of one of Tacitus’ own expressions (Ag. 2.2, libertatem senatus). Tacitus records how Thrasea’s words and actions were able to break through the servitude of the Senate (A. 14.49.1). These words and actions were remembered, however, by

c11_Vol2.indd 627

delators, who frequently informed against those acting with a sense of freedom, and Thrasea was found guilty of treason, maiestas, and was forced to commit suicide, a common consequence of exercising libertas (A. 16.21–35). Still Tacitus deems it necessary to record the words and actions of such individuals. Libertas is also a quality Tacitus frequently attributes to non-Romans or other individuals who possess the unexpected capability of expressing eloquent statements on freedom (Pagán 2000). Thus, the Tencteri delegate to the citizens of Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne) reminds them that liberty and tyrants do not easily mix (H. 4.64.2, haud facile libertas et domini miscentur), a sentiment similar to Tacitus’ statement at Ag. 3.1. Tacitus critiques Roman imperialism and the loss of Roman freedom through his reflections on non-Romans frequently using their own voices (Ag. 11.4, 30.3 Calgacus; H. 4.73.3 Petilius Cerialis; A. 2.88 Arminius; A. 14.35 Boudicca). see also: empire Reference works: Lexikon Taciteum 767–769; RE Libertas; BNP Freedom I.B REFERENCES Pagán, Victoria E. 2000. “Distant Voices of Freedom in the Annales of Tacitus.” Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 10: 358–369. Wirszubski, C. 1960. Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Benario, H. W. 1964. “Tacitus and the Principate.” Classical Journal 60: 97–106. Cogitore, Isabelle. 2011. Le doux nom de liberté. Bordeaux: Ausonius. Kapust, Daniel J. 2011. Republicanism, Rhetoric, and Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raaflaub, Kurt. 1984. “Freiheit in Athen und Rom: Ein Beispiel divergierender politischer begriffsentwicklung in der Antike.” Historische Zeitschrift 238.3: 529–567. Sailor, Dylan. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 18:25:29

628

  L icinius C rassus F rugi , M arcus ( 1 )

Strunk, Thomas E. 2017. History after Liberty: Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants, and Republicans. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

LIBYA, see AFRICA LICINIUS ARCHIAS, AULUS, see CICERO LICINIUS CAECINA, see EPRIUS MARCELLUS

LICINIUS CRASSUS FRUGI, MARCUS (1) BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (1), consul 27 ce, descended via adoption from the triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus. His father (who shared his name) was consul in 14 bce; his mother is unknown. He died in early 47 ce. From a noble family (nobilis, H. 1.14), Frugi is mentioned as one of the two consuls for the year 27 ce as Tacitus describes the famous collapse of the theater at Fidenae (A. 4.62). References in other sources suggest that he may have played a larger role in the lost books of the Annals. He was a member of the college of pontiffs, a praetor urbanus (probably in 24 ce), and a legate of Claudius’ (and perhaps Caligula’s) in Mauretania around 41 ce (ILS 954). He also served as one of the curatores locorum publicorum iudicandorum, probably in the early 20s ce (ILS 5939). He was twice awarded the ornamenta triumphalia, once for service in Mauretania and once for service in Britain (Suet. Claud. 17). Seneca (Apocol. 11), comparing him to Claudius, called him a simpleton (fatuus) who might even rule. He was married to Scribonia (2), a descendant of Pompey the Great (H. 1.14). They had at least five children (see Syme 1989, Table XVII): Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus, adopted by the emperor Galba in 69 ce and subsequently killed; Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (2), consul in 64 ce; Licinia Magna married Lucius Calpurnius Piso (3); Marcus Licinius Crassus Scribonianus was offered the empire in 70 ce (H. 4.39); Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, who had his cognomen removed by Caligula and restored by Claudius, whose

c11_Vol2.indd 628

daughter (Antonia) he married (Suet. Calig. 35; Cass. Dio 60.5.8; Senec. Apocol. 11). Frugi, his wife, and Pompeius were executed in early 47 ce, perhaps at the influence of Messalina (Senec. Apocol. 11). see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference works: BNP “Licinius” II 9; PIR2 L 190; ILS 954, 5939 REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1989. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING O’Gorman, E. 2006. “Alternative Empires: Tacitus’ Virtual History of the Pisonian Principate.” Arethusa 39: 281–301.

LICINIUS CRASSUS FRUGI, MARCUS (2) ANDREW GALLIA

University of Minnesota

Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (2) was ordinary consul in 64 ce (A. 15.33.1, cf. Front. Aq. 102) with Gaius Laecanius Bassus as his colleague. He was scion of a famous lineage that went back, via adoption, to Marcus Crassus the triumvir; his father was Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (1). Subsequently condemned under Nero, he was one of the brothers who predeceased Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus (H. 1.48.1). His wife Sulpicia Praetextata (mentioned only by Tacitus, at H. 4.42.1) and their four children were on hand when his accuser Aquilius Regulus was denounced in the Senate by Curtius Montanus early in Vespasian’s reign (H. 4.42.1; Plin. Ep. 1.5.3). One of those children was probably Scribonianus Camerinus. Another son, Gaius Calpurnius Piso Crassus Frugi Licinianus (consul 87) would eventually be exiled for conspiring against Nerva and Trajan (Cass. Dio 68.3.2, 68.16.2).

28-04-2023 18:25:29

L icinius C rassus , M arcus  

see also: delators; Fire of 64 ce; Galba Reference works: CIL X 1063; XVI 5; PIR2 L 191; RE Licinius (74); DNP Licinius [II 10] FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter XX, 270–283.

LICINIUS CRASSUS, LUCIUS

629

over the crimping of Maecenas or the jingling of Gallio” (D. 26.1; see Iunius Gallio). Messalla also uses Crassus as an example in his argument that the practical rhetorical training of the republic far excelled contemporary school exercises, stating, incorrectly, that Crassus prosecuted Carbo at the age of nineteen (D. 34.7) and that he (together with his colleague Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus) closed the rhetorical “school of impudence” (D. 35.1), which, in fact, he had only discouraged (see Mayer 2001, 196). see also: centumvirales; Greek orators Reference works: ORF4 237–59; RE Licinius 55

BRANDON JONES

Boston University

Premier orator of his time, Lucius Licinius Crassus (140–91 bce) was consul in 95 bce, censor in 92 bce, and a student of Coelius Antipater and Charmadas and a teacher of Cicero, who made him the featured interlocutor in De Oratore. His speeches, which display moderate Asiatic style, were still read during Tacitus’ lifetime (D. 34.7). In 119 bce at the age of twenty-one, Crassus successfully prosecuted Gaius Papirius Carbo (D. 34.7). Other notable speeches include a defense of the Vestal Virgin Licinia (Cic. Brut. 160) and a speech (Causa Curiana) on behalf of Manius Curius in the centumviral court (Cic. Brut. 194–99). As consul with Quintus Mucius Scaevola, he put forth a controversial law concerning non-Roman Italians (lex Lucinia Mucia) (Cic. De Off. 3.47). As censor with Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (1), he issued an edict stating disapproval of Latin schools of rhetoric (Gell. NA 15.11.2; Suet. Gram. 25.2; D. 35.1). Cicero presented Crassus as a moderate Asiatic orator (Brut.; De Or.), a characterization borne out by both Marcus Aper and Vipstanus Messalla in the Dialogus de Oratoribus. In discussing changes in oratorical tastes, Aper claims that “Crassus was more polished and ornate than Gracchus, Cicero more methodical and urbane and lofty than each of the previous” (D. 18.2). In promoting republican oratory, Messalla expresses his preference for the “ripeness of Lucius Crassus

c11_Vol2.indd 629

REFERENCE Mayer, Roland. 2001. Tacitus. Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Kennedy, George. 1972. The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, 300 BC-AD 300. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 84–90. Whitton, Christopher. 2019. The Arts of Imitation in Latin Prose: Pliny’s Epistles/Quintilian in Brief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

LICINIUS CRASSUS, MARCUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Marcus Licinius Crassus, the triumvir (115/4–53 bce) was the second son of Publius Licinius Crassus (consul 97) and Venuleia (Cic. Att. 12.24). At the end of 87, Crassus’ father and younger brother, Gaius, were executed or committed suicide for opposing Gaius Marius and Lucius Cinna (Livy Per. 80.7; Plut. Crass. 4.1). Crassus escaped to Iberia in 85, where he raised a private army. He joined Quintus Metellus Pius (consul 80) in Africa, before supporting Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) in the ensuing civil war. In 82, he was decisive in Sulla’s victory in the battle

28-04-2023 18:25:29

630

  L icinius Lucullus , Lucius

of Porta Collina. Crassus greatly profited from the subsequent proscriptions, becoming immensely rich as a real estate speculator (Plut. Crass. 2.3–6): his property was worth 200 million sestertii (Plin., HN 33.134). He became a praetor probably in 73. In 72, he was given the task of quelling Spartacus’ revolt. Spartacus fell in battle in the spring of 71, and Crassus sent 6,000 rebellious slaves to be crucified along the Via Appia. However, his victory was overshadowed by Pompey the Great, who also claimed the victory over Spartacus. From then on, their relationship was always one of rivalry. They both successfully ran for the consulate of 70 and supported the reversal of Sulla’s reforms. In 65, Crassus became censor, but the quarrels with his colleague, Quintus Lutatius Catulus (consul in 78), forced both to resign. He may have been involved in the so-called first conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catilina (in 66-65) (Suet. Iul. 9). Crassus funded Iulius Caesar’s campaign to become pontifex maximus in 63 and enabled Caesar to go to Iberia in 62 as proconsul, paying some of his creditors (Plut. Caes. 11.2). At the end of 60, Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar made the secret alliance known as the first triumvirate, to ensure Caesar’s election to the consulate. In return, the following year, already as consul, Caesar proposed the lex Iulia de publicanis that reduced by one third the amount contracted for tax-collection in the province of Asia by the private firms of tax collectors, in which Crassus is likely to have had an interest. In 56, in Lucca, the agreement was renewed: Crassus and Pompey became consuls again in 55 and Crassus earned a proconsulate in Syria for five years, which would allow him to conquer Mesopotamia and equal his colleagues in military prestige. Crassus crossed the Euphrates in April 53 but was defeated and slain (A. 2.2.2) at the Battle of Carrhae in May. He had married Tertulla, widow of his elder brother (Plut. Crass. 1.1). They had two sons, Marcus and Publius. The latter died at Carrhae too. see also: Artaxiad dynasty; Parthia Reference works: MRR 2.71; 2.110; 2.118; 2.121n2; 2.123; 2.126; 2.157; 2.214–215; 2.224; 2.230; RE XIII.1, 295–331, Licinius 68 (Gelzer)

c11_Vol2.indd 630

FURTHER READING Marshall, B. A. 1976. Crassus: A Political Biography. Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert. Ward, A. M. 1977. Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

LICINIUS GABOLUS, see IUNIA CALVINA

LICINIUS LUCULLUS, LUCIUS LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

Lucius Licinius Lucullus (118–57/56 bce) was a Late Roman republican politician and military hero, an optimate partisan of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and major figure in the Roman settlement of the East and the prosecution of wars against both Mithridates Eupator of Pontus and his son-in-law Tigranes of Armenia. Pliny the Elder memorably referred to Lucullus as “Xerxes in a toga” (HN 9.171). He was famous for his lavish gardens and impressive library, as well as his extensive travels on military and political expeditions through Greece, North Africa, and Asia Minor. Lucullus’ career as a military officer commenced during the Social War; by the end of his service, he would be practiced in both naval and ground warfare. His brother Marcus was noted for his own achievements in military and political life, including assisting Marcus Licinius Crassus and Pompey the Great in the final engagement of the war against Spartacus. Notwithstanding his impressive résumé, Lucullus’ accomplishments were largely eclipsed by the more celebrated deeds of both Pompey and Iulius Caesar. Tacitus mentions Lucullus in passing several times in the Annals (nowhere else in his extant works): at 4.36, with reference to his military assistance to the inhabitants of Cyzicus when they were under siege from Mithridates; at 6.50, in noting that the dying Tiberius settled in a villa on the promontory of Misenum that had once been owned by Lucullus; at 12.62, where the citizens of Byzantium recall their services to the Roman people, including the offers of assistance they had made to Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey during the

28-04-2023 18:25:29

L icinius M ucianus , G aius  

prosecution of the eastern wars; at 13.34, where Domitius Corbulo is noted as being desirous to recover the territory won by Lucullus and Pompey during the Third Mithridatic War; at 15.14, where Thrasea Paetus refers to the achievements of Lucullus and Pompey in Armenia; and at 15.27, where Corbulo uses a road that had once been opened by Lucullus during his advance on the king’s fortress at Tigranocerta. Lucullus was a highly celebrated figure in the seemingly interminable wars with Mithridates and, later, Tigranes; despite his appreciable achievements and victories in the Mithridatic Wars, he failed to impose a lasting peace in the East and was supplanted by Pompey in command of Roman forces in Asia before fading into a more or less obscure dotage (Plutarch records that he suffered from bouts of insanity, though he does not put much credence in the story that Lucullus had been poisoned by a love philter). His name became a byword for luxury and decadence, especially as a gourmand; there is no reference to this reputation in Tacitus, unless Tacitus meant to associate the Lucullan locus of the final days of Tiberius with the excesses for which the republican patrician had been notorious, with the last banquet of Tiberius being immortalized for its Lucullan setting and the evocation of the memory of the gluttonous Sullan. Plutarch pairs Lucullus with the aristocratic Athenian Cimon, the son of Miltiades and veteran of the Battle of Salamis; there is also an extant biography in the late Liber de viris illustribus. see also: Messalina FURTHER READING Keaveney, Arthur. 1992. Lucullus: A Life. New York: Routledge.

LICINIUS MUCIANUS, GAIUS NICHOLAS DEE

Bowling Green State University

Gaius Licinius Mucianus (c. 22 ce–c. 77 ce; Mucianus hereafter) was governor of Lycia-Pamphilia under

c11_Vol2.indd 631

631

Nero c. 58–60 (Plin. HN 12.10, 13.88); legionary legate(?) in Armenia under Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo; consular governor of Syria (67–69 ce); and thrice suffect consul (under Nero in c. 64 ce; under Vespasian in 70 ce and 72 ce). Mucianus was a subtle strategist and ambitious political operator (H. 1.10.1) in the FlavianVitellian war of 69 ce and later under the Flavian regime. His eloquence (H. 2.76–77, 80), learning (he authored several books; see D. 37.2; Plin. HN 32.62), and taste for leisure (other sources charge sexual misconduct, Suet. Ves. 13) made him a foil for the more soldierly Vespasian (H. 2.5.1), whose imperial acclamation he helped orchestrate. During the latter stages of the civil wars of 69 (late 69–70 ce), Mucianus was ruthless and effective as the de facto ruler of Rome in Vespasian’s absence and remained favored by the Flavian regime until his death. A novus homo (see Syme 1958, 791, for his possible family background), Mucianus spent his early career grasping for advancement and status (H. 1.10.2). After achieving it, in 68 ce he was appointed governor of Syria and its four legions, which remained inactive while Vespasian’s Judaean legions waged a successful war in that province (H. 2.4.4). As commanders of neighboring provinces, Vespasian and Mucianus were initially at odds (H. 2.5.2; Suet. Ves. 6.4). Yet they came together in friendship and mutual interest upon Nero’s death, helped along by young Titus playing peacemaker (H. 2.5.2). The two governors had imperial aspirations already during the Vitellius-Otho war (H. 2.1.3; Joseph. BJ 4.588), but rather than commit forces of their own to either side, they saw fit to bide their time before entering into any armed conflict (H. 2.7.1; Suet. Ves. 5; Cass. Dio 65.8.3): Mucianus had the legions of Syria swear allegiance to the emperor Otho (H. 1.76.2, 2.6.1), whom he supported (Plut. Otho 4.2). Later, upon word of Vitellius’ victory—but before Vespasian’s imperial acclamation—Syria and Iudaea were even sworn into that emperor’s allegiance (H. 2.73). While one ancient tradition (perhaps taking its cue from the Flavians themselves) seems to have conceived of Vespasian’s imperial acclamation by the Eastern legions as purely spontaneous (e.g., Joseph. BJ 4.592–600; see Nicols 1978, 63, 94), Mucianus skillfully oversaw the developing

28-04-2023 18:25:29

632

  L icinius M ucianus , G aius

proceedings (H. 2.79, 80.1; Suet. Ves. 6.3) with rhetorical displays (H. 2.76.2–78.1) and the administration of loyalty oaths to Vespasian in Antioch (H. 2.80.2). Before Vespasian’s acclamation, Mucianus had been prepared to support a claim by Titus (H. 2.74.1); afterward, he consistently served Vespasian’s interests (H. 3.66.3, 75.1– 2), beginning with rapaciously securing the funding needed for the coming campaign against Vitellius (H. 2.84); nevertheless, his pride and ambition occasionally caused him to overplay his hand, though never to the point of disgrace (H. 2.83.1; 4.4). Vespasian’s war to claim the empire from Vitellius was waged without Mucianus, who was unable to overtake the rapid and successful advance of Antonius Primus’ legions (many, including Vespasian himself, had in vain urged Primus to allow Mucianus to catch up; H. 3.1–2, 8.2). Mucianus, whose objections to Primus’ fast pace were rooted in competition for glory and status (H. 3.8.3), pursued a sophisticated letterwriting campaign designed to diminish Primus’ military effectiveness and reputation in Vespasian’s eyes (H. 3.52, 78.3). As a result, the two became bitter rivals (H. 3.53.1): Primus’ blunt retaliations proved less than effective, and his career ultimately faded into obscurity in part due to Mucianus’ schemes (H. 4.80.3). In late December 69 ce, Mucianus arrived in Rome and quickly wrested power from Primus (H. 4.39.3); by the start of 70 ce, he had secured de facto control of the government, while remaining loyal to the absent Vespasian and officially serving under praetor urbanus Domitian (H. 4.11, 39.1; Cass. Dio 66.2.1–3; cf. Suet. Dom. 1.3). Mucianus’ civil authority was enhanced by removing from the city the legions most loyal to rivals Antonius Primus and Arrius Varus (H. 4.39.3, 68.1–2). He executed perceived threats to the Flavian regime Calpurnius Galerianus (H. 4.11.2) and Vitellius’ six-year-old son Germanicus (H. 4.80.1; cf. Suet. Vit. 6) and played a role in the murder of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (3) (H. 4.48–50). Over this period, Mucianus also asserted his power over the Senate by defending the professional prosecutors under Nero (H. 4.42–45); he also skillfully deescalated a mutiny in the praetorian camp (H. 4.46). Mucianus—who had initially responded to the Batavian Revolt by sending a force of several

c11_Vol2.indd 632

legions north, led by Annius Gallus and Petilius Cerialis—eventually joined the campaign himself alongside Domitian (H. 4.68.1– 3). Fearing the young man’s reckless ambition (H. 4.80), he used the news of Cerialis’ early success as pretext to diminish Domitian’s involvement and confine him to Lugdunum (H. 4.85–86). Mucianus was wont to behave arrogantly and disrespectfully toward Vespasian even after the latter’s arrival in Rome; nevertheless, his special status and influence with the emperor persisted (he was suffect consul in 70 and 72 ce; he seems to have owned a house on the Palatine: see De Kleijn 2013, 437), in part due to their long-standing friendship (Suet. Ves. 13). This gave Mucianus license to continue settling personal grudges—against certain philosophers, for instance (Cass. Dio 66.13). As an author, Mucianus penned at least three works, most likely in the 70s ce: three books of Acta; eleven books of Epistulae, which seem to have recorded the eloquence of eminent figures from the republic (D. 37.2); and at least one other work of geographical and other natural marvels, cited frequently in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History as a source (see Ash 2007 n. 3 for a list of citations). see also: Flavian dynasty; mutinies Reference work: PIR2 L 216 REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2007. “The Wonderful World of Mucianus.” In Vita Vigilia Est: Essays in Honour of Barbara Levick, edited by E. Bispham, 1–18. London: Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 100. De Kleijn, Gerda. 2013. “C. Licinius Mucianus, Vespasian’s Co-ruler in Rome.” Mnemosyne 66: 433–459. Nicols, J. 1978. Vespasian and the Partes Flavianae. Historia Einzelschriften 28. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING De Kleijn, Gerda. 2009. “C. Licinius Mucianus, Leader in Time of Crisis.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 58: 311–324.

28-04-2023 18:25:29

633

L iguria  

Rodgers, Perry M. 1980. “Titus, Berenice and Mucianus.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 29: 86–95. Syme, Ronald. 1977. “The March of Mucianus.” Antichthon 11: 78–92.

LICINIUS NERVA SILIUS LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

Aulus Licinius Nerva Silius (“Silius Nerva,” A. 15.48) was consul in 65 together with Marcus Iulius Vestinus Atticus, who assumed office at the commencement the notorious Pisonian conspiracy. He is mentioned only once in Tacitus (and with no comment on his character or deeds); his name is cited by Phlegon of Tralles (De mirabilibus 23) as Silianus and not Silius. His family is celebrated and well-known for consular dignity, though precious little is known of the consul of 65 (this despite the significance of the events of his consular year). He is almost certainly related to the consul Publius Silius Nerva of 28 (A. 4.68: PIR2 S 727), himself the son of the suffect consul of 3. Reference work: PIR2 L 225

LICINIUS PROCULUS

During a meeting at Bedriacum on 12 April 69 ce, the emperor, Licinius Proculus, Titianus, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, and Aulus Marius Celsus discussed the further military procedure against the Vitellians. Celsus and Paulinus refused to expose the soldiers due to their exhaustion as a result of long marches and heavy baggage, a reasonable advice according to Tacitus. Licinius Proculus and Titianus, however, called for an attack (H. 2.40; Plut. O. 8), a decision that presumably led to a defeat two days later. Plutarch additionally reports that Proculus pitched a camp without water supply after a march of fifty furlongs from where he planned to attack the enemy the day after, an action he calls ignorant and ridiculous and which lead to a dispute with Paulinus (Plut. O. 11). After the defeat of the Othonians at Bedriacum and the suicide of Otho on 16 April 69 ce, Proculus and Paulinus avoided returning to the camp, fearing that the troops would kill them in their rage and frustration (H. 2.44; Plut. O. 13). Thereupon, Proculus presumably lost his post as he and Paulinus were captured by the victors and charged by Vitellius. However, he was spared by the new emperor when he pretended that they deliberately sabotaged the march toward battle in order to help him (H. 2.60.1). Reference works: PIR2 L 233; Eck, Werder. 1997. “Licinius Proculus.” In DNP Vol. 2, 1207;

Stein, Arthur. 1924. “Licinius Proculus.” RE 23: 457.

FRIDERIKE SENKBEIL

Berlin

Licinius Proculus (died 69 ce) was a close associate of Otho, under whom he was, together with Plotius Firmus, chosen praetorian prefect (H. 1.46.82) by the troops. Nothing is reported about his prior career in the sources. According to Tacitus Otho trusted most in him (H. 1.87.2: plurima fides Licinio Proculo). Although Licinius Proculus was tireless in domestic service, he was inexperienced in war (H. 1.87.2: bellorum insolens), a trait that is mentioned in several passages in Tacitus and Plutarch (H. 2.33.1; 2.40; Plut. O. 11); nevertheless he was entrusted with the command against Vitellius (Cass. Dio 64.10.2). Although the overall command was vested nominally in Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus, Otho’s brother, the real power lay in his hands (H. 2.39.1).

c11_Vol2.indd 633

FURTHER READING Damon, Cynthia. 2003. Tacitus Histories Book 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haynes, Holly. 2003. The History of Make-believe. Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Morgan, Gwyn. 2007. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

LIGURIA WILLIAM STOVER

University of Virginia

Liguria was a region in the northwest of Italy. By the third century bce, it reached inland from the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Po River.

28-04-2023 18:25:29

634

  L ingones

The region stretched from the Maritime Alps in the west to the Arno River (Pol. 2.16). The Ligures were not socially or politically unified but consisted in many smaller groups, with different names and customs (Plin. HN 3.5.47). Although they are clearly distinguished from Celts, Gauls, and Iberians, the ethnic identity of the Ligures remains a point of scholarly debate (de Marinis and Spadea 2004). The geographic extent of the area inhabited by the Ligures in pre-Roman times was significantly larger than the region defined by Polybius. Hecataeus of Miletus (FGrH 1 F 55), and Herodotus (5.9) describe the region surrounding Massalia (modern Marseille) as Ligurian territory, while Pseudo-Skylax identifies the mouth of the Rhône as the western boundary of Ligurian habitation (Ps. Sky. 2). During the first and second Punic Wars, Ligurian mercenaries served in the Carthaginian army, campaigning in both Italy and Sicily (Pol. 1.17.4; 7.9.5; 15.11.1). Between 238 and 117 bce, the Roman Republic fought a series of wars against Ligurian nations, including successful campaigns against the Apuani in 236 bce (Inscr. It. 13.1.549), the Celieiates, Cerdicaiates, and Ilvates in 197 bce (Livy 32.29.7), and the Oxybi and Deciates in 154 bce (Pol. 33.9.9). The Roman conquest culminated in the defeat of the Ligurian Stoeni in 117 bce (Inscr. It. 13.1.560) resulting in the subjugation of the region as far as the Maritime Alps. The mountains continued to shelter independent Ligurian communities until their final defeat and enslavement by the Romans in 14 bce (Cass. Dio 54.24.3). As the Romans expanded their dominion into Liguria, they incorporated the region into the road system (Str. 5.1.11). During the Augustan reorganization, Liguria was incorporated into Italy and designated as administrative region IX (Plin. HN 3.5.48). During the reign of Nero, the former consul Marcus Ostorius Scapula, a distinguished statesman and military hero, lived in retirement in Liguria. Acting on Nero’s orders, Ostorius took his own life in 65 ce, after being falsely accused of imperial ambitions (A. 16.15.1). In 69 ce, Otho’s forces in Liguria ravaged the town of Albintemilium in the district of the Intimilii (H. 2.13), and Agricola’s mother was murdered on her estate (Ag. 7.2). Following these depredations, Vitellius’ soldiers, reinforced by Ligurian

c11_Vol2.indd 634

auxiliaries (H. 2.14.1) attacked Otho’s forces, but were repulsed in an indecisive battle. Following the engagement, Otho’s army took up a position in the Ligurian coastal town of Albigaunum (H. 2.15.2). see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference work: Barrington 39 D4 REFERENCE De Marinis, Raffaele, and Giuseppina Spadea. 2004. I Liguri: un antico popolo europeo tra Alpi e Mediterraneo. Milano: Skira. FURTHER READING Patterson, John, and Filippo Pengue. 1988. Sanniti, Liguri e Romani. Circello: Comune di Circello.

LINGONES JULIA WETZEL

University of North Texas

The Lingones were one of the tribes of Gaul that migrated to Cisalpine Gaul, now modern-day France and Northern Italy, in the first century bce. Iulius Caesar mentions the Lingones in his Gallic Wars, when they supported his forces and supplied him with troops in their territory of Northern Italy (Caes. B Gall. 8.11). The Lingones remained loyal to Rome until 69 ce when Galba enacted severe punishment (H. 1.54). According to Tacitus the Lingones and Treveri wished to capitalize on the disarray in Rome and the empire during 69 ce and free Gaul from Rome (H. 4.55). Iulius Classicus along with Iulius Tutor and Iulius Sabinus were Gallic noblemen who led the Treveri and Lingones to revolt. These men joined Iulius Civilis, leader of the Germanic tribes, in what would be known as the Batavian Revolt. Ultimately the revolt failed due to disunion. Fighting broke out among the tribes over the location of the headquarters for the war effort and future capital (H. 4.69). Continual defeats at the hands of the Romans and other tribes scattered the revolutionaries, and a separate rising

28-04-2023 18:25:29

L ipsius , J ustus  

split the tribes further. Tacitus credits Petilius Cerialis, a Roman general, with a speech and end to the Gallic revolt (H. 4.73). see also: Caecina Alienus; Colonia Agrippinensis; Fabius Valens; Hordeonius Flaccus; Iulius Vindex; Sariolenus Vocula FURTHER READING Benario, Herbert W. 1988. “Tacitus, Trier and the Treveri.” Classical Journal 83: 233–239.

LINUS, see ALPHABET

LIPSIUS, JUSTUS JEANINE DE LANDTSHEER

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

During his sojourn in Rome (1568–1570) Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) found his way into the rich humanist libraries thanks to Marc-Antoine Muret. Conversations with the French humanist stimulated him in his plans to publish an annotated edition of the Opera omnia of Tacitus. He collated a Venetian edition (1494) probably by Francesco Puzeolano with three Roman manuscripts, one belonging to the Cardinals Farnese (now Neapolitanus IV C 21 in Naples), and two from the Vatican collection, ms. lat. 1864 and 1863, the latter often referred to as optimus Vaticanus. Back home, he acquired a copy of Aemylius Ferretus’ edition (Lyons: S. Grypius, 1542), an extended version of Beatus Rhenanus’ edition (Basel: J. Froben, 1533). This copy, interspersed with marginal annotations by Lipsius, is preserved at Leiden University Library (760 F 10). In 1574 the editio princeps of Lipsius’ edition was published by Christopher Plantin in Antwerp, an in-octavo of almost 800 pages. Lipsius was the first editor to make a distinction between the Histories and the Annals and put them in this order, since this was how Tacitus had written them. These opera maiora were dedicated to Emperor Maximilian II; the opera minora to the humanist Johannes Sambucus. Although Lipsius shared the opinion of his contemporaries that

c11_Vol2.indd 635

635

Dialogus de Oratoribus was not from Tacitus, it was included as the last of the opera minora with Quintilian named as its possible author. Because Plantin urged him to have his edition available at the Frankfurt book fair, Lipsius had limited his commentary to mainly philological remarks: variant readings, emendations, and attempts to interpret cruces—about 100 pages of Notae, following nearly 700 pages of text. The edition was applauded in humanist circles, with the exception of Muret, who accused the young scholar of plagiarism. A few years later, however, he acknowledged that their discussions may have led them toward the same solutions. In his dedicatory letter to Maximilian, Lipsius explained his admiration for Tacitus whom he considered the equal of his illustrious predecessors; an astute man with a lot of vision who would certainly be useful when analyzing the contemporary political scene because of its obvious parallels with the early Roman Empire. And indeed, Tacitus would play an important part in Politica some fifteen years later. Lipsius also referred to Tacitus’ style: still following the common opinion that good Latin had to be modeled on Cicero, he first regretted the “lack of purity” in the historian’s language, while later he underlined that his style, far from being sloppy or vulgar, was notable for the succession of pithy sententiae. In this aspect too, the study of Tacitus had such an impact that Lipsius would more and more imitate his model and find his own typical style. In 1578 Lipsius started to lecture at Leiden University, but he continued to revise his edition, partly with the help of some colleagues who had collated Lipsius’ edition with manuscripts or early editions in their neighborhood. Perhaps the interaction with the students convinced him that having a correct text was not sufficient for a clear understanding of its meaning. Hence, he also focused on a commentary, dwelling not so much on historical events (this information could be found in historians as Suetonius and Cassius Dio), but rather on Roman warfare and army practices, biographical details of influential men, law texts, and other aspects of Roman civilization. He often used the ancient inscriptions he had diligently copied in Rome to prove his point. This second edition, also in-octavo, appeared in 1581 in two almost equal parts of more than 600 pages,

28-04-2023 18:25:29

636

  L ipsius , J ustus

the text in the spring and the Commentarii ad Annales in the autumn. From now on he preferred the chronological order, first the Annals, next the Histories. The commentary part was limited to the Annals, as the title asserts; the Notae to the other works disappeared. The third revised edition was ready by the end of 1584; this time he could use emendations made by Rudolphus Agricola and corrections suggested by Andreas Schott, who had consulted manuscripts in Spain. Each book of Annals and Histories was preceded by a summary and the names of the consuls of the year(s) discussed in that book. The commentary to Annals was now followed by Notae to the other works, more extended compared to the first edition, but still mostly philological. Lipsius would keep this distinction between commentarii and notae in the later editions. Small numerals in superscript before a word in the text referred the reader to the commentary part. This third edition, optimistically called the ultimate, appeared in-folio with Plantin in Leiden. For political and commercial reasons, part of the edition received a title page with the Antwerp address. In 1588 Plantin’s son-in-law in Leiden published a fourth, cheaper edition intended for students. It was again in-octavo, in a smaller font. The books were introduced by summaries and the names of the consuls; lemmas were added in the margin allowing a quick search through the content. The commentary or Notae were cut down to a few short marginal philological remarks. That same year Lipsius also wrote a sequel to the commentary and the Notae, Curae secundae. In the next revised edition, again in folio and available already in 1589, the supplements from Curae secundae were inserted in their right place in the Commentarii or Notae of the previous edition. When Johannes Moretus, Plantin’s successor in Antwerp, decided to reissue all of Lipsius’ works between 1598 and 1600, he insisted on including the Tacitus edition. Lipsius agreed and went over his text again, but he refused the printer’s suggestion to have the text and its annotations printed on the same page instead of in separate parts after the works. The most important change was the incorporation of numerous emendations by the Spanish scholar Antonio Agustín published by Fulvius Ursinus in the appendix to his Fragmenta historicorum (Antwerp: J. Moretus, 1595).

c11_Vol2.indd 636

Lipsius never had consulted the oldest codices in the Laurentiana, ms. 68.1 and 68.2, on which all the other manuscripts depended, but fully trusted the skills of Philippus Beroaldus and Aemylius Ferretus who had seen them. In the autumn of 1600, however, Curtius Pichena, secretary to the Grand Duke of Florence, published his own collection of Notae based on a collation of Lipsius’ Tacitus and the codices in the Laurentiana. The Italian humanist had discovered a number of errors which had escaped Lipsius’ attention. Pichena courteously enhanced the merits of his colleague by continuously underlining the consensus between the Florentine manuscripts and the variant readings or the emendations noted by Lipsius, especially in the many cases where he had merely suggested his corrections without actually changing the text. Of course, the Italian’s Notae incited Lipsius to revise his Tacitus a final time and incorporate part of Pichena’s readings in his text. This revision, including a new preface, was finished in the summer of 1605; Lipsius still saw (and corrected) a number of galleys. This time he approved of the layout with the corresponding commentary in two columns under the text. But he died long before the seventh edition came off the press. Despite the fact that Lipsius never examined the Florentine codices, his edition of Tacitus was very successful, as is proven by the numerous editions of the Officina Plantiniana, but also elsewhere, and many of his emendations have made their way into modern editions. see also: Beroaldus the Younger; commentaries; editions; reception, early modern; reception, Renaissance; Tacitism FURTHER READING De Landtsheer, Jeanine. 2012. “Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius. Their Editing and Printing History.” In The Unfolding of Words: Commentary in the Age of Erasmus, edited by Judith Rice Henderson and P. M. Swan, 188–242. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. De Landtsheer, Jeanine. 2013. “Annotating Tacitus: The Case of Justus Lipsius.” In Transformations of the Classics via Early Modern Commentaries, edited by Karl Enenkel, Intersections 29, 279–326. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

28-04-2023 18:25:29

L ivia Augusta  

IJsewijn, Jozef. 1998. “Marcantonio Mureto.” In The World of Justus Lipsius, edited by Marc Laureys et al., 71–80. Brussels and Rome: Bulletin van het Belgisch Historisch Instituut te Rome 68. Ruysschaert, José. 1947–1948. “Le séjour de Juste Lipse à Rome (1568–1570) d’après ses Antiquae lectiones et sa correspondance.” Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 24: 139–192. Ruysschaert, José. 1949. Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite. Une méthode de critique textuelle au XVIe siècle, Recueil de Travaux d’Histoire et de Philologie, 3e série, fascicule 34. Leuven: Bibliothèque de l’Université.

LIVIA AUGUSTA CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Livia Augusta (58 bce–29 ce) was the daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus and Alfidia; she was the wife of Tiberius Claudius Nero and then Augustus, and mother of Tiberius and Drusus the Elder. In Augustus’ will, she was adopted into the Julian gens and given the title of Augusta. Livia is a central figure in Tacitus’ narrative of the principate of Tiberius, and her authority and domineering spirit shape the future of the imperial household for generations to come. Her obituary at the opening of Annals 5 concludes Tacitus’ complex portrait. Livia was born into the Claudii, a family of ancient nobility. She married another member of the Claudii, Tiberius Claudius Nero, in 43 bce. The couple had two children. Their first son, the future emperor Tiberius, was born 16 November 42 bce (Suet. Tib. 5.1). In 40–39 bce, Livia fled with her proscribed husband and the young Tiberius to Sicily and Greece. She met Octavian (the future Augustus) upon their return to Rome. The two married on 17 January 38 bce, while Livia was pregnant with her second son, Drusus (Suet. Tib. 4.3). Ancient sources suggest that the marriage was concordant and that Livia was a good match, beloved by her husband (A. 5.1.1–3; Suet. Aug. 62.2; Cass. Dio 58.2.5). Octavian honored both Livia and his sister Octavia (1) with public statues in 35 bce, as well as the right of sacrosanctitas

c11_Vol2.indd 637

637

(inviolability, Cass. Dio 49.38.1). When he became emperor, Livia traveled with her husband throughout the empire (A. 3.34.6), provided counsel on his policies (Suet. Aug. 84.2), and even advised him to practice clemency after discovering the conspiracy of Cinna (Cass. Dio 55.14– 22; Sen. Clem. 1.9). The Senate included Livia in state-sponsored monuments, including the Ara Pacis, dedicated in 9 bce. She was given numerous other honors, including the ius trium liberorum (the right of one who has three children), the privileges of the Vestal Virgins, and the right to use the carpentum, a type of carriage reserved for priests and sacred objects (Cass. Dio 60.22.2; Suet. Cal. 15.1; Suet. Claud. 11.2). She contributed to her public image as a model Roman matrona through her own benefactions, including her dedication of a shrine to Concordia (domestic harmony) in the Portico of Livia and her restoration of the temple of the Bona Dea (Ov. Fast. 6.637–38, 5.157–58). Livia demonstrated goodwill by raising numerous imperial family members in her household: she and Augustus welcomed the family of Drusus into the imperial palace after his death in 9 bce and the family of Augustus’ daughter Julia the Elder after her exile in 2 bce (Val. Max. 4.3.3). None of Livia’s honors or benefactions added up to an official political position. However, Augustus does not seem to have established clear boundaries for her authority. Tacitus begins his Annals with the death of the first emperor and thus his characterization of Livia is largely confined to the Tiberian principate. Nevertheless, readers get a sense of Livia’s relationship with Augustus and the differences in her level of authority and public presence under Tiberius through references throughout his text. Livia is introduced in the opening of the Annals for her involvement in promoting Tiberius as Augustus’ successor (cf. Suet. Tib. 21.2). Tacitus’ opening is full of innuendo. He implicates Livia in the death of Gaius Caesar and the banishment of Agrippa Postumus (A. 1.3.3–4), and records that some suspected she was involved in the death of Augustus himself (A. 1.5.1; cf. A. 1.6.3; Cass. Dio 56.30.1–2). She remains at Augustus’ deathbed and closes the imperial palace until Tiberius arrives from Illyricum and the death of Augustus and accession of Tiberius can be announced together (A. 1.5.3). After Tiberius’

28-04-2023 18:25:29

638

  L ivia Augusta

accession, she hastens the death of Agrippa Postumus (A. 1.6.2). When Augustus’ will is read in the Senate, Tiberius and Livia are announced as joint heirs, and Livia is adopted into the Julian family and given the honorific title of Augusta (A. 1.8.1; Suet. Aug. 101.2; Cass. Dio 56.46.1). Augustus was interred in his mausoleum in Rome and given divine honors, and Livia became priestess of his cult (Vell. Pat. 2.75.3) (see Figure L.1) Tacitus refers to Livia as Augusta or Iulia Augusta from this point onward. In the final assessment of Augustus, detractors criticize his domestic affairs, including his

Figure L.1  Statue of Livia veiled in her role as priestess of the cult of the deified Augustus, 14–29 ce. Marble statue from Paestum, Italy. National Archaeological Museum, Madrid. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

c11_Vol2.indd 638

marriage to Livia while she was pregnant with Drusus, his association with the extravagant Vedius Pollio, on whose land the Portico of Livia was built, and Livia herself, “burdensome mother towards the state, burdensome stepmother towards the household of the Caesars” (gravis in rem publicam mater, gravis domui Caesarum noverca, A. 1.10.5). By contrast with the detractors, the Senate demonstrates their obsequiousness toward both Tiberius and Livia, suggesting that Livia should be called either “parent of the fatherland” or “mother of the fatherland,” and that the title, “son of Livia” might be added to Tiberius’ name; Tiberius limits these and other honors, considering them as markers of female prominence and slights to his own authority (A. 1.14.1–2; Suet. Tib. 50.2–3; Cass. Dio 57.12.3–4). During the reign of Tiberius, Livia has exceptional clout (auctoritas), even if she does not have official political power (potentia). She hosts celebrations on the Palatine in honor of Augustus (A. 1.73.3) and uses her authority to defend friends and allies from punishment. She protects Quintus Haterius from Tiberius’ anger (A. 1.13.6) and houses Urgulania when she is summoned to court by Lucius Calpurnius Piso (“augur”) (A. 2.34.2–3, 4.21.1). She is influenced by her friends, including Mutilia Prisca (A. 4.12.4), and has influence over them as well, especially Munatia Plancina, wife of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso. Livia’s friendship with Plancina revolves around her dislike of Agrippina the Elder, wife of Germanicus. She may have advised Plancina to harass Agrippina (A. 2.43.4). Plancina may have been complicit in her husband Piso’s murder of Germanicus (A. 2.77.3, 2.82.1). Livia has an active role in the trial of Piso, the longest trial narrative in the Annals (A. 3.10–19). Livia protects Plancina, allowing her to separate her punishment from that of Piso: Piso is condemned, while Plancina is pardoned (A. 3.15.1). Although criticized for defending Plancina, Livia was voted thanks along with other members of the imperial family after the trial and condemnation of Piso’s family (A. 3.17.1–2, 3.18.3; SC Pisone 109–120, 132–151). Plancina eventually paid for her crimes (A. 6.26.3). As the materfamilias of the imperial family, Livia had a direct impact on the fortunes of the

28-04-2023 18:25:30

L ivia Augusta  

members of her household (see Figure L.2). Tacitus focuses on her relationship with the family of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder. Livia displays typical female grievances and stepmotherly hatred of Agrippina (A. 1.33.3). She and Tiberius prefer the family of Drusus the Younger and Livia Iulia to Germanicus and Agrippina. Livia is not wholly negative: when she appears in a dream to Germanicus and presents him with a sacrifice, the vision is interpreted as a fortuitous portent for the battle ahead (A. 2.14.1). After the death of Germanicus, the fortunes of this family change. Livia and Tiberius do not attend the funeral and keep Germanicus’ mother Antonia the Younger at home as well (A. 3.3.3). Tacitus suggests either that it was beneath their position to mourn in public or that they would have been mourning falsely (A. 3.3.1). After the death of Tiberius’ son Drusus the Younger in 23 ce, Tiberius bemoans the situation of the entire household in the Senate, including Livia’s old age, his own decline, and the youth of his grandchildren; he hopes Germanicus’ children will provide balm for his present ills (A. 4.8.3). Sejanus, desirous of imperial power himself, tries to oust Germanicus’ children from the

Figure L.2  Grand Camée de France portraying Tiberius and Livia seated at center with other members of the imperial family, sardonyx cameo, c. 23 ce or 50–54 ce. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Source: Janmad/Wikimedia Commons.

c11_Vol2.indd 639

639

line of succession and uses Livia’s hatred for the family and Livia Iulia’s complicity to do so (A. 4.12.3). When Sejanus asks Tiberius for permission to marry Livia Iulia, Tiberius advises her to seek Livia’s advice (A. 4.40.3). Livia’s family rivalries are perhaps best summed up by her treatment of Julia the Younger. Livia supported Julia throughout her twenty-year exile; when reporting Julia’s death, Tacitus notes that Livia overturned her flourishing stepfamily through secrecy and afterward showed pity for the downcast (A. 4.71.4). Livia’s relationship with Tiberius deteriorates over the course of Tacitus’ narrative, transitioning from harmony (concordia) to its dissimulation. Tacitus narrates the shifts in the relationship between mother and son through recording public actions and suggesting private discord. In Annals 1, Tiberius revives the treason law (maiestas) to investigate written slander, which included accusations of Tiberius’ cruelty, haughtiness, and discord with his mother; the content of the pasquinades suggests that Tiberius’ contemporaries were aware of the strained relationship (A. 1.71.3, 1.72.4). When the treason law matures and Appuleia Varilla is accused of mocking Augustus, Tiberius, and Livia, Tiberius decides that only irreverence toward Augustus should be considered treason (A. 2.50.1–3). When Livia suffers from a grievous illness in 22 ce, Tiberius swiftly returns to Rome; his return gives the impression of concord between mother and son, although Tacitus suggests hatred may have existed beneath the surface (A. 3.64.1). Tiberius is insulted when Livia dedicates a statue to Augustus and inscribes his name beneath her own (A. 3.64.2). After her recovery from illness, coins are minted with the legend Salus Augusta (see Figure L.3); thanks and a festival are decreed, but Tiberius limits the priesthoods allowed to participate (A. 3.64.3). Livia’s public authority is confirmed by the various monumental honors that are vowed to her, sometimes in conjunction with Tiberius. The equestrian order vows a gift to Equestrian Fortune on behalf of Livia’s health, and the gift is dedicated in Antium (A. 3.71.1). The cities of Asia request permission to build a temple to Tiberius, Livia, and the Senate, which is granted; a similar request made by Spain is refused (A. 4.15.3, 4.37.1,

28-04-2023 18:25:30

640

  L ivia Augusta

Figure L.3  Dupondius of Tiberius, 22–23 ce, Obverse with portrait features of Livia and legend Salus Augusta. Source: VRoma.org.

4.55.1–56.3). As of 23 ce, Livia was allowed to be seated amongst the Vestal Virgins in the theater (A. 4.16.4). Livia’s relationship with Tiberius eventually falls apart. When Tiberius goes to Campania on the pretext of dedicating temples to Jupiter at Capua and Augustus at Nola, Tacitus notes that he had actually decided to leave Rome and relocate to Capri. While Tacitus’ sources suggest this was Sejanus’ influence, Tacitus is unsure. He explains that Tiberius may have been ashamed of his aging body or that he was muscled out by his mother, whom he rejected as a partner in power but could not eliminate, since she had given him imperial power (A. 4.57.3). Tacitus represents Tiberius’ reign as a gift from Livia, who convinced Augustus to adopt Tiberius and Tiberius to adopt Germanicus, thereby creating a potentially smooth line of succession. She reproaches Tiberius with this information and demands a return on her investment. Instead, Tiberius departs from Rome (cf. Suet. Tib. 51.1; Cass. Dio 57.12.5–6). Tacitus’ balanced obituary for Livia concludes his characterization. She dies in 29 ce at the age of 86, and Tacitus spends the opening of Annals 5 reviewing her life, death, and its aftermath. He celebrates her illustrious nobility and recounts her marriages and children, including the questionable ethics of Augustus’ taking her as his wife while she was pregnant (A. 5.1.2). He reminds

c11_Vol2.indd 640

readers that the marriage was happy but childless, and that the couple shared descendants through Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder. Livia kept an old-fashioned purity in her household, although she was more affable (comis) than was required of upstanding women of the republic. She was an unruly mother and accommodating wife, who matched her character to her husband’s skills and son’s pretense (A. 5.1.3). She is given a modest funeral and eulogized from the rostra by her great-grandson Gaius, the future emperor Caligula. Tiberius does not return for the funeral and limits the abundant honors decreed in Livia’s memory, including the offer of divine cult (A. 5.2.1; Suet. Tib. 51.2). This refusal is alluded to later by Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messalinus, who labels dinner on the day of Livia’s birth as a funeral feast (A. 6.5.1). Livia is buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus and honored with divinization and cult worship by Claudius in 42 ce (Cass. Dio 58.2.3, 60.5.2). Shortly after Livia’s death, Tiberius berates some of her friends in a letter, including the consul Fufius Geminus, and thus begins a new era in Tiberius’ reign (A. 5.2.2). Although Tiberius had shown deference to his mother while alive, his true character emerges after her death. He begins to persecute members of his own family, including Agrippina the Elder and her son Nero (A. 5.3.1). Tacitus reminds readers of Livia in his obituary for Tiberius after the emperor’s death in 37 ce. While she was alive, he was a mixture of good and evil; after Livia’s death and the downfall of Sejanus, crime and disgrace replaced shame and fear (A. 6.51.3). Livia’s legacy emerges in other moments in Tacitus’ Annals. During her life and long after her death, Livia provided a role model for other members of the imperial family. Drusus cites Livia’s travels with Augustus as precedent for his desire to bring his beloved wife Livia Iulia with him (A. 3.34.6). Agrippina the Younger consistently models her actions on those of her imperial precedent (O’Gorman 2000, 122–143). In supporting Agrippina’s marriage to her uncle Claudius, Vitellius reminds the Senate that other Caesars abducted wives from their husbands; his implicit reference to Augustus’ marriage to Livia suggests that the union was remembered as questionable if not outright immoral. As empresses, both Livia

28-04-2023 18:25:30

L ivia I ulia  

and Agrippina are unruly mothers (mater impotens, A. 5.1.3) and have a female lust for power (impotentia muliebris, A. 1.4.5, 4.57.3, A. 12.57.2; see L’hoir 2006, 111–157; see gender). After murdering her husband, Agrippina models the funeral for Claudius on Livia’s magnificent funeral for Augustus (A. 12.69.3), and her presentation of her son Nero to the troops echoes Livia’s presentation of Tiberius (A. 1.3.3, 12.69.1–2). While Livia was honored with the title of Augusta in Augustus’ will (A. 1.8.1), Agrippina receives this title on Claudius’ adoption of Nero, indicating her position as mother of the future emperor (A. 12.26.1). Parallels between Agrippina the Younger and Livia suggest that larger comparisons are possible between Augustus and Claudius, Tiberius and Nero, and Tacitus’ representation of their respective principates. Livia’s memory persists in the characterizations and actions of her descendants, and her public prominence has a long-lasting impact on the women of Rome. see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; marriage; mothers; Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone

641

Transactions of the American Philological Association 123: 287–308. DOI: 10.2307/284333. Edwards, Catharine. 1993. The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. L’hoir, Francesca Santoro. 1994. “Tacitus and Women’s Usurpation of Power.” Classical World 88: 5–25. DOI: 10.2307/4351613. Milnor, Kristina. 2005. Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Perkounig, Claudia-Martina. 1995. Livia Drusilla – Iulia Augusta: das politische Porträt der ersten Kaiserin Roms. Vienna: Bölau. Purcell, Nicholas. 1986. “Livia and the Womanhood of Rome.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 32: 78–105. Rose, Charles Brian. 1997. Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the Julio-Claudian Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rutland, Linda W. 1978. “Women as Makers of Kings in Tacitus’ Annals.” Classical World 72: 15–29. DOI: 10.2307/4348970. Severy, Beth. 2003. Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire. London and New York: Routledge. Wood, Susan E. 1999. Imperial Women: A Study of Public Images, 40 B.C. – A.D. 68. Leiden: Brill.

Reference works: PIR2 L 301; Barrett 2002, 265–302 REFERENCES Barrett, Anthony A. 2002. Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. L’hoir, Francesca Santoro. 2006. Tragedy, Rhetoric, and the Historiography of Tacitus’ Annales. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. O’Gorman, Ellen. 2000. Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Barrett, Anthony A. 2003. “Damned with Faint Praise: Tacitus’ Obituary of Livia.” In Laurea internationalis: Festschrift für Jochen Bleicken zum 75. Geburtstag, edited by Theodora Hantos, 45–60. Stuttgart: Steiner. Bartman, Elizabeth. 1999. Portraits of Livia: Imaging the Imperial Woman in Augustan Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Damon, Cynthia, and Sarolta Takács. 1999. “The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre.” Special issue, American Journal of Philology 120. Flory, Marleen B. 1993. “Livia and the History of Public Honorific Statues for Women in Rome.”

c11_Vol2.indd 641

LIVIA IULIA CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Livia Iulia (c. 13 bce–31 ce) was the only daughter of Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus) and Antonia the Younger, and sister of Claudius and Germanicus. She was raised in her grandmother Livia Augusta’s house after 9 bce and married to Gaius Caesar from 1 bce until his death in 4 ce (A. 4.40.4). She then married Drusus the younger, son of Tiberius, and bore him three children, Iulia Livia and the twins Tiberius Gemellus and Germanicus Iulius Caesar (not named by Tacitus). The rare birth of twins is a cause for celebration (A. 2.84.1). Livia Iulia was beautiful (A. 4.3.3) but outstripped in fecundity and reputation by Agrippina the Elder, who produced six children who survived infancy (A. 2.43.6). Livia Iulia provides a moral foil to Agrippina, whose sexual chastity (pudicitia) is unassailable (A. 4.12.2). The children of

28-04-2023 18:25:30

642

  L ivia I ulia

both couples were potential imperial heirs; the imperial ambitions of both women led to their downfalls. Suetonius notes that she mocked her brother Claudius for his imperial prospects (Suet. Claud. 3.2). Tiberius and his mother Livia Augusta prefer Livia Iulia and Drusus the Younger to Agrippina the Elder and Germanicus. The rivalries surrounding the question of Tiberius’ successor are central to Livia Iulia’s portrait. Tacitus refers to Livia Iulia as Livia, connecting her to the first empress. Her husband Drusus draws a direct parallel between the two women during a debate in the Senate concerning whether wives should be allowed to accompany their husbands on provincial governorships (A. 3.33–34). Drusus ends the debate through citing Livia Augusta as his model, who traveled with Augustus throughout the empire; he adds a few words about his own marriage, stating that his spirit would rarely be calm if he had to travel without his beloved wife, mother of their numerous children (A. 3.34.6). Drusus gravely misreads his own domestic situation and the affections of his wife. Livia Iulia’s imperial ambitions are evident from her role in the death of her husband Drusus the Younger. In Annals 4, the praetorian prefect Sejanus seduces her, and she enters into a lengthy affair. Tacitus finds the adultery insulting to Livia Iulia’s ancestry as well as to posterity (A. 4.3.3–4). Without her sexual purity, she is unlikely to refuse other things, and Sejanus raises her hopes of marriage and joint imperial rule (A. 4.3.3). The affair becomes known to Drusus and others, and Sejanus has the eunuch Lygdus poison Drusus soon thereafter (A. 4.7.3–8.1). Tiberius had placed his greatest hopes in Drusus; after his death, Tiberius never decides on a new successor (A. 6.46.1–3). His grief is renewed by the death of the child Germanicus, one of Livia Iulia’s and Drusus’ twins, in the same year (A. 4.15.1). Although Drusus dies in 23 ce, the murder has the appearance of a deathly illness and is not discovered for eight years. Ancient authors agree that Livia Iulia served as Sejanus’ accomplice, although her exact role is unclear (A. 4.10.2, Suet. Tib. 62.1, Cass. Dio 58.11.6). From this time, she is entangled in Sejanus’ rise and fall from power. In order to increase his imperial prospects, Sejanus needed to keep Agrippina the Elder’s sons

c11_Vol2.indd 642

from the succession (A. 2.43.6). Sejanus uses Livia Augusta’s hatred and Livia Iulia’s complicity to bring about the downfall of Agrippina the Elder and her sons Nero Iulius Caesar and Drusus Caesar, first by accusing Agrippina of defiance towards the emperor (A. 4.12.3). Livia Iulia assists by providing information. Livia Iulia’s daughter Iulia Livia, who married Nero Iulius Caesar, informs her mother of Nero’s anxieties. Livia Iulia tells Sejanus, who recruits Drusus Caesar to assist in Nero’s fall (A. 4.60.2). Marriage to Livia Iulia would increase Sejanus’ authority and legitimize their relationship. Sejanus requests to marry her in a letter to Tiberius of 25 ce, and Tacitus suggests that she was the one demanding the marriage (A. 4.39.1). In Tacitus’ version of the letter, Sejanus emphasizes that he will not use the relationship for his own political advantage (A. 4.39.2–4). In his reply, Tiberius gives neither refusal nor approval of the match (A. 4.40.1–7). He guides Livia Iulia to look to her mother and grandmother for advice but notes that the match would increase the antipathy of Agrippina the Elder and potentially split the imperial household into factions: the rivalry between Agrippina and Livia Iulia had already divided their children and should not be intensified. Tiberius suggests that Livia Iulia would not be content with a marriage to a man of equestrian status. It is unclear whether Sejanus and Livia Iulia were ever married, although Tacitus calls Sejanus the son-in-law of Tiberius, suggesting that they were at least engaged (A. 3.29.4). In 31 ce, after discovering that they had murdered Drusus Caesar, Tiberius spared no one from cruel torment (Suet. Tib. 62.1). Sejanus was put to death, as were his children (Cass. Dio 58.11.5). Sejanus’ wife Apicata accused Livia Iulia in a letter to Tiberius and committed suicide; some sources say Tiberius handed Livia Iulia over to her mother Antonia the Younger for punishment, and Antonia starved her to death (Cass. Dio 58.11.6–7). These deaths are not part of the extant Annals, although Tacitus records that forty-four speeches were delivered in the Senate denouncing Livia Iulia (A. 5.6.1). In the beginning of 32 ce, both Sejanus and Livia Iulia were erased from memory in an official declaration of damnatio memoriae, and “ruthless proposals” (atroces sententiae) were made against her likeness and memory (A. 6.2.1; Varner 2001,

28-04-2023 18:25:30

L ivius D rusus , M arcus  

62–64). In the years that followed, other men were charged with adultery with Livia Iulia and punished on that account, hiding the true nature of their crimes (Cass. Dio 58.24.5); these included Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, whose play, Atreus, Tiberius considered an indirect reference to himself (Cass. Dio 58.24.3–5). In 34 ce, when Scaurus was accused of adultery with Livia Iulia and of magic, he and his wife Sextia (1) committed suicide together (A. 6.29.1). Although Livia Iulia’s name had been erased from monuments, her memory continued to cause others pain. see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference work: PIR2 L 303 REFERENCE Varner, Eric R. 2001. “Portraits, Plots, and Politics: Damnatio memoriae and the Images of Imperial Women.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 46: 41–93. FURTHER READING Flower, Harriet. 2011. The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture. Chapel Hill, NC. Sinclair, Patrick. 1990. “Tacitus’ Presentation of Livia Julia, Wife of Tiberius’ son Drusus.” American Journal of Philology 111: 238–256. DOI: 10.2307/294977.

LIVINEIUS REGULUS (1 AND 2) JULIA MEBANE

643

Livineius Regulus (2) was a senator whose expulsion Tacitus recounts in a now lost section of the Annals (A. 14.17). Retiring to Pompeii, he gained notoriety in 59 ce for a gladiatorial spectacle that he funded in the amphitheater. Tacitus reports that a conflict broke out at the show between local Pompeiians and neighboring Nucerians (A. 14.17). In the aftermath, the Nucerians sent an embassy to Nero to report on the riot. Nero referred the case to the judgment of the Senate, which decided to ban the Pompeiians from holding games for ten years and dissolve their collegia. Livineius Regulus was sent into exile on the basis of initiating the disturbance and does not appear again in the historical record. see also: Campania; games Reference work: PIR2 L 290, 291 REFERENCE Syme, Ronald. 1981. “The Early Tiberian Consuls.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 30.2: 189–202. FURTHER READING Moeller, Walter. 1970. “The Riot of A.D. 59 at Pompeii.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 19.1: 84–95. Murgatroyd, Paul. 2006. “Tacitus, Annals 14, 17–19.” Latomus 65.1: 115–118.

LIVIUS DRUSUS, MARCUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Indiana University, Bloomington

Livineius Regulus (1) was a senator during the reign of Tiberius and suffect consul in 18 ce. In 20 ce, he was one of only three men who came to the defense of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, the legate of Syria, on charges related to the death of Germanicus (A. 3.11). Little else is known about Livineius Regulus, who was the first and last consul of an otherwise undistinguished family (Syme 1981, 191).

c11_Vol2.indd 643

Marcus Livius Drusus (c. 124–91 bce) was tribune of the plebs in 91 bce. He was a Roman politician, close to the optimates, but credited with using popular methods. His murder was a pretext for the Social War. He was the son of the homonymous consul of 112 bce, and brother by birth of Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus (consul in 77 bce) and of Livia, mother of Servilia and of Cato the Younger. He became quaestor in 94, aedile

28-04-2023 18:25:30

644

  L ivy

shortly thereafter, and eventually tribune of the plebs. Tacitus characterizes him as a “briber” (largitor) of the Roman plebs in the Senate’s name, referring to Drusus’ use of “popular” strategies for “optimate” aims (A. 3.27.2). Drusus revived his father’s proposal of creating new colonies as a means of gaining the plebs’ support. He also proposed a new grain law and the distribution of land. He sought the support of the Italic allies by offering them citizenship. However, he is said to have been elected to support the Senate (Asc. 21C): he proposed the rise of 300 equites into the Senate, in return for the regaining of the senatorial control of the courts. However, he forced the approval of his proposals with violence and against the omens, leading to their rejection by the Senate. Drusus was murdered at home in unknown circumstances, his death being a pretext for the beginning of the Social War. He had married Servilia, sister of Quintus Servilius Caepio (praet. 91). He adopted a Claudius Pulcher, who changed the name to Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus (pr. 50) and was the father of Livia Augusta, wife of Augustus. Reference works: MRR 2.21–22; RE XIII.1, 859–881, Livius 18 FURTHER READING Dart, Christopher J. 2014. The Social War, 91 to 88 BCE: A History of the Italian Insurgency against the Roman Republic. Farnham: Ashgate. 69–98. Mouritsen, Henrik. 1998. Italian Unification. A Study in Ancient and Modern Historiography. London: Institute of Classical Studies-School of Advanced Studies. 120–127.

LIVY S. P. OAKLEY

University of Cambridge

Livy, whose Latin name was Titus Livius, was born in Padua in 59 bce and died in ce 17, if the dates given by Jerome may be trusted. He wrote a history of Rome from its foundation (hence often called Ab Vrbe Condita “from the foundation of the city”) until his own day in 142 books. Of these

c11_Vol2.indd 644

Books 1–10 (which cover from the foundation of the city to 293 bce) and 21–45 (218–167 bce) survive largely intact. The contents of the rest are known from summaries (Periochae) made in later antiquity. Livy is our most important surviving source for the history of the early and middle Roman Republic; in Tacitus’ day he was probably the most-read historian of republican Rome. Tacitus refers to Livy twice. The context of Ag. 10.3 formam totius Britanniae Liuius ueterum, Fabius Rusticus recentium eloquentissimi auctores oblongae scutulae (Lacey’s conjecture for the transmitted oblongae scutulae; see Woodman and Kraus 2014, 133–135) uel bipenni adsimulauere: “The authorities who write best, Livy among the older and Fabius Rusticus the more recent, likened the shape of Britain to a little rectangular shield or an axe” (fragment 33 of Livy, ed. Weissenborn-Müller) must be Iulius Caesar’s invasion of Britannia in 55 bce, which Livy described in Book 105. The passage illustrates Livy’s fame and shows that he incorporated ethnographical descriptions into his work. His second reference at A. 4.34.3 (in a speech given to the historian Cremutius Cordus) Titus Livius, eloquentiae ac fidei praeclarus in primis, Cn. Pompeium tantis laudibus tulit, ut Pompeianum eum Augustus appellaret: “Titus Livius, especially famous for his good writing and trustworthiness, showered Pompey with such praise, that Augustus called him a follower of Pompey” gives us a tantalizingly brief glimpse of Livy’s political views. Both Livy and Tacitus made use of the traditional annalistic format in their historical works; for Tacitus’ adaption of this, see Ginsburg (1981). After Sallust, Livy was probably the most important influence on the language and style of Tacitus’ historical works. Because so much Latin historiography is lost, it is sometimes uncertain whether unusual expressions shared by Tacitus and Livy derive from the common stock of historiography or from Tacitus’ being influenced by Livy. For example, the expression silentium uastum “a widespread and eerie silence” occurs in extant Latin first at Livy 10.34.6 to describe the deserted streets of Feritrum, next in the geographer Mela (3.95), the poets Lucan (5.508) and Silius Italicus (1.67), and then in Tacitus at Ag. 38.2, H. 3.13.2, and A. 4.50.4. That Tacitus liked the expression is clear, that he derived it consciously or

28-04-2023 18:25:30

L ivy  

unconsciously from Livy rather less so, not least because the contexts in which he used it are rather different. Many similar parallels to the language of Livy are noted in Andresen (1916), Fletcher (1964), and in commentaries on Tacitus. But sometimes Tacitus both echoes Livy in his phrasing and alludes more widely to a Livian episode. He thereby adds depth to his readers’ understanding of the events by inviting them to compare and contrast these events with those narrated by Livy. At A. 1.3.4 Tacitus writes about Augustus’ grandson Agrippa Postumus: nepotem unicum, Agrippam Postumum, in insulam Planasiam proiecerit, rudem sane bonarum artium et robore corporis stolide ferocem, nullius tamen flagitii compertum: “He cast out his only grandson, Agrippa Postumus, onto the island of Planasia, a man with no aptitude for worthwhile skills and stupidly aggressive because of the strength of his body (robore corporis stolide ferocem), but not proved to have committed any wrong.” Stolide ferocem recalls Livy 7.5.6 (the identical words), of Manlius Torquatus. Both Manlius and Agrippa Postumus had been relegated by their fathers (adoptive in Agrippa’s case) for brutish behaviour. Later in Livy (7.5.1–9, 8.7.1–22) Manlius threatens a tribune of the plebs with death if he does not do what Manlius wants and kills his own son for fighting against orders. Well might Tacitus’ readers wonder how Agrippa would have behaved had he lived. At A. 1.67.1 Tacitus alludes to Livy 7.35.1–9, placing Caecina Severus’ plight and escape in 15 ce in the light of those of Publius Decius Mus in 343 bce; for details see Goodyear (1981, 119). At A. 2.53.1–54.4, 60.1–61.2 Tacitus’ account of Germanicus’ touring of the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt in 18 and 19 ce has many echoes of Livy 45.27.1–28.6, his description of Aemilius Paullus’ tour of Greece in 167 bce, although it is not clear that Tacitus intended to do any more than evoke a famous earlier tour; for details see Woodman (2015, 256–262). A more sustained allusion is to Livy’s famous account (9.1.1–16.10) of the Roman surrender in the Caudine Forks in 321 bce, of which Tacitus makes most use in his account of the Batavian Revolt in 70 ce, especially between chapters 58 and 72 of H. Book 4, but he evokes it also at H. 3.31.3 (on the surrender of Cremona) and A. 15.15–16 (the surrender of Caesennius Paetus

c11_Vol2.indd 645

645

in 62 ce); see in detail Ash (1998) and Oakley (1997–2005, 3, 89–91). Likewise, Tacitus’ account of the mutinies of the legions in Germany and Pannonia (A. 1.16.1–47.3) draws heavily on Livy’s description of the mutiny of the Roman legions in Spain commanded by Publius Scipio, the future Africanus (Livy 28.24.5–29.12); see in detail Woodman (2006, 312–319). Sometimes allusion to Livy is provided only by context without echoes in phrasing. In A. 1.5.1– 6.3 Tacitus gives a graphic description of how Tiberius’ mother, Livia Augusta, does not release news of Augustus’ death until Tiberius has been put in place as his successor. The whole scene is modeled on Livy’s Tanaquil (1.41.1–6), who had not released news of the death of the king Tarquinius Priscus until their protegé, Servius Tullius, had been installed: the circumstances of Tiberius’ accession put Tacitus in mind of these earlier events, and he reshaped his telling of them accordingly. see also: epic poetry; historiography; intertextuality; German Revolt; mutinies; Pannonian Revolt; sources REFERENCES Andresen, G. 1916. “Tacitus und Livius.” Wochenschrift für klassische Philologie 33: 210–214, 401–406, 758–766. Ash, R. 1998. “Waving the White Flag: Surrender Scenes at Livy 9. 5–6 and Tacitus, Histories 3. 31 and 4. 62.” Greece and Rome 45: 27–44. Fletcher, G. B. A. 1964. Annotations on Tacitus (Collection Latomus LXXI). Brussels and Berchem. Ginsburg, J. 1981. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. New York: Arno Press. Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus. Vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oakley, S. P. 1997–2005. A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2006. “Mutiny and Madness: Tacitus Annals 1.16–49.” Arethusa 39: 303–329. DOI: 10.1353/are.2006.0019. Woodman, A. J. 2015. “Tacitus and Germanicus. Monuments and Models.” In Fame and Infamy: Essays on Characterization in Greek and Roman Biography and Historiography, edited by R. Ash, J. Mossman, and F. B. Tichener, 255–268. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof: oso/9780199662326.001.0001.

28-04-2023 18:25:30

646

  L ollia Paulina

Woodman, A. J., and C. S. Kraus. 2014. Tacitus Agricola. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Ginsburg, J. 1993. “In maiores certamina: Past and Present in the Annals.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 86–103. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mineo, B., ed. 2015. A Companion to Livy. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press (especially pp. 733–734). Walsh, P. G. 1961. Livy: His Historical Aims and Methods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

LOCUSTA, see POISON

LOLLIA PAULINA PHILIP WADDELL

University of Arizona

Lollia Paulina (often simply Lollia) was Caligula’s second wife and Agrippina the Younger’s main rival for a marriage with Claudius. She was accused by Agrippina of treason and was killed in exile in 48 ce. She was the granddaughter of Marcus Lollius (1) of the Lollian disaster referred to at A. 1.10.4 and sister of Lucius Volusius Saturninus (consul 3 ce; A. 12.22.2). She was married to Publius Memmius Regulus (consul 31 ce). Caligula forced her to divorce Memmius so that he could marry her, divorcing her soon after (Suet. Cal. 25.2; Plin. HN 9.117). After the execution of Valeria Messalina in 48 ce, Claudius took council with his powerful freedmen about his next marriage. Narcissus supported Aelia Paetina, Claudius’ divorced second wife; Callistus supported Lollia; Pallas supported Agrippina. Lollia’s childlessness was praised as a guarantee of affection for Claudius’ children (A. 12.1.1–2). Because of this rivalry as well as Lollia’s enormous wealth, Agrippina denounced her to Claudius on charges of consulting Chaldeans, magicians, and Apollo Clarius concerning Claudius’ wedding (A. 12.22.1 see Barrett 1996, 107–108). Claudius condemned her, unheard, to exile after mentioning

c11_Vol2.indd 646

her illustrious familial connections and stipulating that her vast fortune would be confiscated, except for five million sesterces (A. 12.22.2). Agrippina then sent a tribune to force her to commit suicide shortly afterward (A. 12.22.3). After the death of Agrippina, Nero allowed Lollia’s ashes to be returned to Italy and a tomb erected (A. 14.12.4). Cassius Dio preserves an anecdote that, after her execution, her head was brought to Agrippina, who pried open the jaws with her hands to examine the teeth for a positive identification (Dio-Xiph. 61.32.4). Barrett compares this anecdote to another, also found in Dio, of Fulvia prying Cicero’s tongue from his head after his death and stabbing it with hairpins (Cass. Dio 47.8.4) but points out that the story about Lollia is still plausible, due to Agrippina’s interest in her own teeth (Barrett 1996, 11, 108). Pliny the Elder was a witness to her immense wealth when he saw her at a wedding reception, wearing elaborate multilayered pearl and emerald jewelry valued at 40 million sesterces, in proof of which Lollia was prepared to present her receipts which she carried with her (Plin. HN 9.117). see also: Chaldaei; freedmen of Claudius; magic Reference work: PIR2 L 328 REFERENCE Barrett, Anthony. 1996. Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 176–177, 184–186.

LOLLIUS, MARCUS (1 AND 2) JOSEPH R. O’NEILL

Arizona State University

Marcus Lollius (1) (d. 2 ce) was an early supporter of Augustus. He attained the consulship in 21

28-04-2023 18:25:30

647

L ouw, N ikolaas P etrus Van W yk  

bce, later serving as imperial legate in Gaul, where he suffered a stunning military defeat. Lollius was an adviser to Gaius Caesar on his mission to the East but was later disgraced. His son of the same name was the father of Lollia Paulina, a prominent figure during the reigns of Caligula and Claudius. Marcus Lollius was the son of a Marcus Lollius, who is otherwise unknown (CIL VI 1305  =  ILS 5892). Lollius was a supporter of Octavian (Augustus) from at least the triumviral period. He is first attested as imperial legate of Galatia, which Augustus organized into a province (Eut. 7.10.2; Cass. Dio 53.26.3). Lollius became consul in 21 bce (Hor. Epist. 1.20.28). Lollius’ colleague was to have been Augustus himself, but since the princeps was absent from the city and refused the honor, Quintus Aemilius Lepidus assumed the office (Cass. Dio 54.6.2). Sometime after his consulship, Lollius was credited with subduing the Thracian Bessi (Cass. Dio 54.20.3). Lollius was a member of the college of the quindecimviri sacris faciundis for the celebration of the secular games in 17 bce (CIL VI 32323 = ILS 5050). The next year, Lollius is found serving as legate in Gaul. The legion he was commanding was defeated by German tribes, and its standards were captured (Vell. Pat. 2.97.1; Cass. Dio 54.20.6). This Tacitus refers to as the “Lollian disaster” (A. 1.10.4). Despite the loss, Lollius still enjoyed Augustus’ support. In 1 bce, Augustus sent his grandson Gaius Caesar on a mission to settle the disputed kingship of Armenia and appointed Lollius as his adviser and mentor (Vell. Pat. 2.102.1; Suet. Tib. 12.2; A. 3.48.2). During the mission, Lollius and Gaius had a falling out. The reasons are unclear, although later writers claimed that Lollius had taken bribes from Eastern kings (Plin. HN 9.118). Velleius Paterculus claims that Lollius was involved in treasonous activities (2.102.1). Lollius died in 2 ce while still in Syria. Pliny claims that Lollius had committed suicide by ingesting poison (HN 9.118) after having been cut out of Caesar’s inner circle. Horace praised Lollius’ integrity and incorruptibility (Carm. 4.9), a characterization quite at odds with how he is remembered by later writers, who characterize him as avaricious and perfidious. It is possible that Lollius owes his bad reputation to Tiberius, who was openly hostile toward Lollius even years after his death, resenting ill treatment by Gaius,

c11_Vol2.indd 647

presumably at Lollius’ instigation (A. 3.48.2; Suet. Tib. 12.2, 13.2). Pliny’s hostile remarks may have less to do with Lollius himself than with his granddaughter, Lollia Paulina—consort of Caligula and candidate for Claudius’ hand after the death of Valeria Messalina—whom Pliny reports as having appeared at a banquet wearing 40,000,000 sesterces worth of jewelry (HN 9.118). Lollia was the daughter of Marcus Lollius (2), about whom nothing else is known (A. 12.1; Syme 1986, 177). see also: poison; suicide Reference works: CIL VI 1305=ILS 5892; CIL VI 32323=ILS 5050; RE 13.2 Lollius 11–12 FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

LONDINIUM, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI

LOUW, NIKOLAAS PETRUS VAN WYK JO-MARIE CLAASSEN

Stellenbosch University

The South African poet and essayist N. P. Van Wyk Louw (1906–1970) was the most prominent of the so-called dertigers (“writers of the thirties”), innovating poets who broke new ground in Afrikaans literature. Louw in 1960 achieved the most prestigious Afrikaans literary award, the Herzog Prize, for his verse drama Germanicus (1956, English version by J. M. Claassen 2013), which is closely based on Annals 1–3. Louw’s views on contemporary South African politics and his ideal of a political nationalism grounded in justice and equity are sometimes read into all aspects of his extensive oeuvre. Critics differ on whether Germanicus is a political document, yet this drama appears as both contemporary and timeless: Louw’s quasi-Tacitean ideas about power and powerlessness are as much applicable to modern politics worldwide as they were to the South African political circumstances of his own era.

28-04-2023 18:25:30

648

  L ouw, N ikolaas P etrus Van W yk

Louw’s terse, concise verse both complements and reflects Tacitus’ equally succinct prose. He reworked Tacitus’ material, giving his own interpretation of the interaction between figures such as Tiberius, his mother Livia Augusta, Germanicus, his nephew and designated heir and his wife Agrippina the Elder, and their major dramatic foils, and the republican-minded Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso and his wife Munatia Plancina. Louw’s reinterpretation of aspects of historical events portrayed by Tacitus is in one case vindicated by the discovery in Spain of the fragmentary inscriptions commemorating the trial and condemnation of Piso (Senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre), which rehabilitated Plancina, justifying Louw’s portrayal, contra Tacitus, of the couple’s fractured relationship. The events of the years 14 to 19 ce (from Augustus’ demise to the death of his adoptive grandson) are condensed into a unit of some eight months. Four scenes are set on the Germanic front, where the general has been sent to quell the soldiers’ revolt. Germanicus, as in Tacitus, appears more interested in literature than in taking over imperial power, as Piso urges him to do. For Piso, Germanicus’ loyalty to Tiberius is weakness. Next, two scenes in the imperial palace in Rome portray events a few weeks after the hero’s return. Consecutive confrontations between the main protagonists and a series of minor characters illustrate the theme of the corruption inherent in power, reflecting the facets of power and powerlessness that for Tacitus marked the first years of Tiberius’ rule. Louw’s Tiberius has taken to drink to escape from his awareness of the harshness needed to maintain power. His Germanicus, rejecting the evils of absolutism discernible around him, wants to remain pure, but factors preventing this ideal overwhelm him. In Scene Six Livia is portrayed as planning the death of her own grandson, a task she delegates to her personal physician (a character invented, plausibly enough, by Louw) and Plancina. The final two scenes are set in turn in Petra, the capital of Nabatea, and further East, before the temple of Apollo at Daphne. Scene Seven features a final break in the friendship between an already ailing Germanicus and Piso, but in the last of eight scenes, Piso appears in disguise and attempts reconciliation, which the dying Germanicus is too apathetic to accept. Louw adapted these incidents from Tacitus’ narrative as vehicles for the innovative portrayal

c11_Vol2.indd 648

of three main themes. Of these, the first is strongly Tacitean: the idea of corruption of the powerful by their hold on power, with cruelty as an inevitable, inescapable concomitant. The powerlessness of the subjugated, Louw’s second theme, is revealed in passionate monologues in the mouths of various minor characters, helplessly railing against their Roman overlords. Such confrontations are historically unlikely but are dramatically appropriate to Louw’s message. The hapless Roman soldiers on the German front ascribe their mutiny to their powerlessness under the heels of their military overseers, their meager pay, and bleak prospects. In Rome, Thusnelda, the captive pregnant wife of the Germanic rebel Arminius (for Louw, “Herman”), spells out her hatred of the unjust Roman rule. Next, the blinded slave Clemens appears, horribly mutilated for attempting to pose as Agrippa Postumus, liquidated soon after the death of his grandfather. Clemens pours out a vitriolic account of the excesses of the Caesars’ absolutism before the horrified young prince, who still idealizes purity and justice. Against these, two apparently subservient client kings, Thusnelda’s father Segestes in Rome and the Nabatean king in Petra, show up Rome’s ostensible friendship as merely obscuring an iron fist. In the last two scenes, Roman officers in their turn fear the silent Syrian masses mourning the imminent death of Germanicus. Their apparent hero-worship might at any moment boil over into destructive, anarchic violence. Louw’s third, completely un-Tacitean, theme is put in the mouth of the dying Germanicus: an anachronistic prophecy of the dawn of a new dispensation, Christianity. In the light of the historic realities of the then still ascendant Roman rule and Louw’s characters’ obvious unawareness of a still unknown lad in Roman Judaea, this is historically unlikely; yet, with his twentieth-century hindsight, Louw clearly considered it to be dramatically justifiable. see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; reception; twentieth century REFERENCES Claassen, Jo-Marie. 2013. N.P. Van Wyk Louw: Germanicus Translated and with an Introduction.

28-04-2023 18:25:30

Lucan  

London: Dragonfly eBooks. Accessed June 5, 2020. https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/314998; https://www.smashwords.com/extreader/ read/314998/1/germanicus. Louw, N. P. Van Wyk. 1956. [Frequent reprints 1957–1975]. Germanicus. Cape Town: Tafelberg. FURTHER READING Claassen, Jo-Marie. 2017. “’n Klassikus se ontleding van N.P. Van Wyk Louw se Germanicus: 'n Beeld van Mag en Onmag” (= “A Classicist’s analyis of the verse drama Germanicus by Afrikaans poet N.P. Van Wyk Louw: An Image of Power and Powerlessness,” with a 3-page English summary). Litnet Akademies 14.3: 417–455. Accessed June 5, 2020. https://www.litnet. co.za/n-klassikus-se-ontleding-van-n-p-van-wyklouw-se-germanicus-n-beeld-van-mag-en-onmag. Steyn, J. C. 1998. Van Wyk Louw: 'n Lewensverhaal (= “Van Wyk Louw a Life Story”). Vols. 1 & 2. Cape Town: Tafelberg.

LUCAN ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, 3 November 39 ce–30 April 65 ce) was a Roman poet, one of the most significant authors of the Neronian Age along with his uncle Seneca. At first a close friend of the emperor Nero, Lucan progressively moved away from Nero’s intimates and later joined the Pisonian Conspiracy; when the conspiracy was exposed, he was forced to commit suicide. Lucan’s epic poem entitled Bellum Civile (“The Civil War”), which deals with the conflict between Iulius Caesar and Pompey the Great, had a wide influence on later literature including Tacitus. Our main sources on Lucan’s life are, besides Tacitus’ Annals, Statius’ Silvae 2.7, dedicated to Lucan’s widow Polla Argentaria on the occasion of the husband’s birthday, and two ancient biographies. One is traced to Suetonius’ Lives of Poets and is generally closer to the information given by Tacitus, while the other, apologetic in tone, is ascribed to a late antique scholar named Vacca (see Hosius 1913, 332–336; Rostagni 1944, 141–149; 176–186). Lucan was born in Corduba, Baetica. His parents were Acilia and Annaeus Mela: he was therefore the nephew of the philosopher Seneca

c11_Vol2.indd 649

649

and of Iunius Gallio Annaeanus. Lucan moved to Rome with his family when he was a newborn and received there his education under Annaeus Cornutus, together with the poet Aulus Persius Flaccus (Vita Persi, 42.16–20 Kissel). At around seventeen he moved to Athens, according to Suetonius because of the separation between his parents (Vita Luc. 50.10–51.2 Reifferscheid). Some time later Lucan was called back to Rome by Nero, who admitted him to the circle of his close friends and appointed him quaestor before the legal age (Rostagni 1944, 146; 181–182; the exact year of Lucan’s quaestorship is debated, see Fantham 2011, 12–13). The first period at Nero’s court was full of honors for the young poet: during the Neronia festival held in 60 ce Lucan recited a praise for the emperor (Laudes Neronis) with which he won the poetry competition, gaining his first public success (Rostagni 1944, 143; 183; Stat. Silv. 2.7.58–59). The growing reputation of Lucan, however, soon aroused jealousy among Nero’s intimates and a sharp rivalry between him and the emperor, who, for his part, had strong artistic ambitions. Our sources report several mutual discourtesies and offenses (Rostagni 1944, 146–147; 182–183) that culminated with the interdiction of Lucan from poetry (Rostagni 1944, 183; A. 15.49.3; Cass. Dio 62.29.4). According to the ancient sources it is because of this personal hostility against Nero that in 65 ce Lucan joined the Pisonian Conspiracy, while they attribute no role to the poet’s anti-monarchical and republican political position that is widely displayed in his epic poem (on which see Fantham 2011, 14–17; Rudich 1997, 108–185). Suetonius calls Lucan “almost the standard-bearer of the conspiracy” (Vita Luc. 51.12–13 Reifferscheid; see also Rostagni 1944, 147, 23–24). Even if such statement is perhaps exaggerated, Lucan holds a distinguished position in Tacitus’ narrative of the plot too, where he is mentioned as the first civilian joining the conspiracy together with Plautius Lateranus and immediately after the two soldiers Subrius Flavus and Sulpicius Asper (A. 15.49.1–3). After the detection of the plot and the subsequent questioning of the suspects, Lucan’s involvement was revealed by Flavius Scaevinus (A. 15.56.2): the poet was therefore arrested and, after promise of impunity, he named his own mother Acilia as a partner in crime (A. 15.56.4; Suet. Vita Luc. 51.17–19 Reifferscheid). Suetonius

28-04-2023 18:25:30

650

  Lucania

adds that such infamous allegation was meant to please the matricide Nero; in any case, Acilia’s life was spared (A. 15.71.5). Nero commanded Lucan’s death shortly after those of Lateranus and Seneca. The poet committed suicide by cutting his veins, and according to Tacitus, he died declaiming some of his own verses in which a soldier dies in that same way (A. 15.70.1). Scholars have long tried to identify a passage in Lucan’s surviving poem that fits with Tacitus’ description (see Ash 2018, 307–308; Hunink 1992). Lucan is not only a memorable character of Tacitus’ narrative of the Neronian principate, but also an important literary model for Tacitus as a writer: his Bellum Civile had a strong influence especially on the Histories, where the civil wars are—at least in their extant portion—a fundamental topic (see Joseph 2012; O’Gorman 1995). Moreover, Lucan is explicitly mentioned by Tacitus in the Dialogue on Orators together with Vergil and Horace as a suitable model for orators (D. 20.5), a judgment that is shared by Quintilian too (Inst. 10.1.90). see also: epic poetry Reference work: PIR2 A 611 REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus, Annals. Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fantham, Elaine. 2011. “A Controversial Life.” In Brill’s Companion to Lucan, edited by Paolo Asso, 3–20. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Hosius, Carolus. 1913. M. Annaei Lucani De Bello Civili libri decem. Lipsiae: Teubner. Hunink, Vincent Jan Christian. 1992. “Lucan’s Last Words, VI.” In Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, edited by Carl Deroux, 390–407. Brussels: Latomus. Joseph, Timothy A. 2012. Tacitus the Epic Successor: Virgil, Lucan and the Narrative of Civil War in the Histories. Leiden and Boston: Brill. O’Gorman, Ellen. 1995. “Shifting Ground: Lucan, Tacitus and the Landscape of Civil War.” Hermathena: A Trinity College Dublin Review 158: 117–131. Rostagni, Augusto. 1944. Svetonio, De Poetis e biografi minori. Torino: Chiantore. Rudich, Vasily. 1997. Dissidence and Literature under Nero: The Price of Rhetoricization. London: Routledge.

c11_Vol2.indd 650

FURTHER READING Daly, Megan M. 2020. “Seeing the Caesar in Germanicus: Reading Tacitus’ Annals with Lucan’s Bellum Civile.” Journal of Ancient History 8.1: 103–126. Narducci, Emanuele. 2002. Lucano. Un’epica contro l’impero. Roma and Bari: Laterza. Wilson, Joseph P. 1990. “The Death of Lucan: Suicide and Execution in Tacitus.” Latomus 49: 458–463.

LUCANIA SHAWN DANIELS

Ancient Lucania (modern Basilicata) occupies a mountainous region of south-central Italy, lying south of Samnium and Capua and north of Calabria and Bruttium. The earliest Greek records of the area call the entire southern part of Italy “Oenotria,” including Lucania. The meaning of this name is unclear, but it may refer to the region’s excellent conditions for growing wine grapes. Little is known of the original inhabitants of the region, except that they were driven out or assimilated around the fifth century bce by Oscan-speaking peoples known as the Lucanians. The Lucanians shared a language and similar culture with other Oscan peoples, but the extent of overlap is unclear. Like the Capuans and the Samnites, the chief magistrate in a Lucanian city was known as a meddix (cognate with Latin iudex), but the leader’s role and the exact nature of urban government in the region uncertain. The Lucanians spent centuries in conflict, first with the Greeks to their south, and eventually with Rome. They sided against Rome and lost frequently, although several cities were brought into the empire after the Social Wars. Colonies established by the Gracchi gave some life to the region, but by the time of the Roman principate, Lucania was largely a backwater. Claudius cites Lucania as among the places outside Rome that have furnished senators, in rebuke against those who wanted to deny political office to the Gauls (A. 11.24). During the civil wars of 69, Lucania is mentioned as one of the regions in southern Italy that were under threat from Vespasian’s fleet, leaving the emperor Vitellius unsure from where an attack might come (H. 83).

28-04-2023 18:25:30

Lucceius A lbinus  

see also: Campania; Tabula Lugdunensis Reference work: Barrington 45 C3, 101 K3 FURTHER READING Bradley, G., and G. Farney 2017. The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Boston: De Gruyter. Convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia. 1974. Le genti non greche della Magna Grecia: atti dell’undicesimo Convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia: Taranto, 10–15 ottobre 1971. Naples: L’arte tipografica.

LUCCEIUS ALBINUS ARTHUR J. POMEROY

Victoria University of Wellington

Lucceius Albinus (d. 69 ce) was governor of Iudaea (62–64 ce), then governor of Mauretania Caesariensis (66–69 ce) and Mauretania Tingitana (68–69 ce). A supporter of Otho, he sought to raise local forces to invade Spain in response to Cluvius Rufus, the governor of Nearer Spain’s declaring for Vitellius. Cluvius responded by moving his forces close to the straits of Gibraltar and negotiating with the Moors to desert their leader. After a number of his associates were killed, Lucceius sought to escape Tingitana by ship but was executed when he made landfall. Albinus first appears in the historical record by Josephus as the successor to Porcius Festus as procurator of Iudaea in 62 ce (AJ 20.197). While Festus had taken vigorous action against rebellious elements in Iudaea (whom the Jewish historian calls generically “bandits,” Greek lêstai), Albinus is accused by Josephus of turning a blind eye to “the revolutionary party” in Jerusalem and allowing those previously imprisoned to be freed. Josephus suggests that all this was designed to increase Albinus’ own wealth, a charge that is difficult to assess given that Roman governors regularly enriched themselves with gifts from the local communities while seeking not to become entangled in local animosities. At any rate, Josephus suggests (AJ 2.272–6) that the corruption of Albinus’ term as governor (62–64 ce), together with the concomitant rise of Jewish factionalism,

c11_Vol2.indd 651

651

was to lead to the disastrous rebellion of the Bellum Iudaicum. The emperor Nero and his staff certainly found nothing amiss with Albinus’ behavior in Iudaea and in 66, or shortly thereafter, appointed him equestrian governor (procurator) of the province of Mauretania Caesariensis (approximately modern Algeria). He presumably supported Galba in his rebellion against Nero, as the new emperor rewarded him with control over Mauretania Tingitana (Morocco) as well (H. 2.58.1). After Galba’s assassination, Albinus was happy to support Otho with whom he may have been in contact when the latter was governor of Lusitania. However, Cluvius Rufus, the imperial governor (legatus) of Nearer Spain (Hispania Citerior), after initially promoting an oath of loyalty to Otho in his province, had changed his allegiance and declared for Vitellius (H. 1.76.1). Albinus had substantial military forces at his disposal: nineteen cohorts of infantry, five cavalry cohorts, and “a huge number of Moors, trained for war through banditry and raiding” (per latrocinia et raptus). These he assembled at Tingi (Tangiers), the crossing point to Spain, with the intention of invading while Vitellius’ forces were engaged in Italy (H. 2.58.1). Although Cluvius Rufus had a reputation as an orator, rather than as a military commander (H. 1.8.1), which may have led Galba to entrust Spain into what he regarded as his safe hands, the Spanish governor reacted quickly and sent legion X Gemina to forestall Albinus by threatening to cross into Africa instead. Officers (centuriones) who had gone on ahead successfully negotiated with the locals to change their allegiance to the Vitellian side (H. 2.58.2). This, Tacitus suggests, was easy enough as no one wished to tangle with the German legions (although, to be pedantic, the Tenth Legion had been stationed in Pannonia from 63–68 after earlier service in Spain, and thus was technically a Danubian rather than Rhine legion before its move to Lower Germany in 70). In addition, a rumor was spread around that Albinus no longer wished to be styled “equestrian governor” (procurator) but had taken the royal title of “Iuba” and was acting as king. For Romans this would invoke the memory of Sertorius, who launched a major civil war in Spain in the 70s after invading from

28-04-2023 18:25:30

652

  Luccius T elesinus , G aius

Mauretania in 80 bce, while the local tribes presumably took this as a threat to their semi-independence and turned on Albinus and his associates. The cavalry commander (alae praefectus) Asinius Pollio (possibly a descendant of the famous orator, Gaius Asinius Pollio (1)), who had been a loyal aide to Albinus, and two (otherwise unknown) infantry commanders (cohortium praefecti), Festus and Scipio, were subsequently assassinated. Albinus tried to flee by ship to Mauretania Caesariensis (there was no land route connecting the two provinces), but when he put ashore, he was immediately cut down along with his wife who had tried to protect him (H. 2.59). These events were reported to Vitellius in Gaul around the same time as his armies’ success at the battle of Bedriacum became known. Tacitus declares he was happy to accept what had happened without further inquiry. Tacitus further editorializes that the emperor was content simply to be notified of major occurrences as he was incapable of dealing with matters of serious concern. As in the case of Picarius Decumus, governor of Corsica (H. 2.16), the murder of a Roman governor would normally attract serious reprisals, but the brief reign of Vitellius and the confusion of the year 69 meant that this did not happen. Cluvius Rufus, who had occupied southern Spain (Baetica) to oppose Albinus, was initially accused by Vitellius’ freedman Hilarus of attempting to assert his control over all Spain but was acquitted of these charges and became a close imperial adviser (H. 2.65). He is likely to be a major source for Tacitus’ account of these events. It is probable that the senator and perhaps exconsul Lucceius Albinus, a significant orator and friend of Pliny the Younger who spoke together with him in the Senate on behalf of province of Baetica (Plin., Ep. 3.9.7–8; cf. 4.9.13), was the son of our provincial governor. Reference works: PIR2 L 354 FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon, ed. 2007. Tacitus, Histories II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ad 2.58–9. Chilver, Guy E. F., ed. 1979. A Historical Commentary on Tacitus’ Histories I and II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ad 2.58–9.

c11_Vol2.indd 652

Mason, Steve, ed. 2008. Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, Volume 1B: Judean War 2. Leiden: Brill. ad 2.272–6.

LUCCIUS TELESINUS, GAIUS SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Gaius Luccius Telesinus was one of the consuls (ordinarius) (the other was Gaius Suetonius Paulinus) for the year 66 ce (A. 16.14.1; cf. Frontin. Aq. 102). His nomen, which is given as “L.” in the second Medicean (see Manuscripts), has been restored by scholars from inscriptions. His full name was Gaius Luccius Telesinus (his praenomen is given as Γάϊος at Cass. Dio 63.1.1). He was a novus homo. Telesinus was well trained in philosophy and was an admirer and friend of Apollonius of Tyana, to whom he granted protection when the latter visited Rome during his consulate (Philostr., VA 4.40.1–3, 43.1, 5.7.1). Apollonius refers to him as a “philosopher” (φιλόσοφος). For this reason, he was exiled under Domitian (Philostr., VA 7.11.3–4, 8.7.42, 12.3–4). The cognomen Telesinus is very rare (Kajanto 1982, 187), although a Pontius Telesinus, an ally of Gaius Marius, was defeated and killed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) in 82 bce (cf., e.g., Vell. Pat. 2.27). A usurer named Telesinus appears in several poems of Martial (cf. 3.41.3, 6.50.1, 12.25.3), but the references to this man are very generic and, except for 12.25, where there is an allusion to his exile, there are no elements to connect any of these men with the consul of 66. The same is true of a Telesinus mentioned at Juvenal 7.25. An inscription found on a sepulchral stone mentions a “Luccia C. f. Telesina”: she could be the sister or the daughter of our Telesinus. An adulteress named Telesina is mentioned at Martial 2.49.2 (cf. also 6.7.4, 7.87.8, 11.97.2). In the manuscripts of Martial, however, the name appears also with the variant Telesilla, although most modern editors print Telesina in all cases. Reference works: PIR2 L 366; PIR2 L 367; RE Suppl. 5.607 = ‘C. Luccius Telesinus’ 2a (Fluss); RE

28-04-2023 18:25:30

Lucilius Bassus , Sextus  

13.1562–3 ‘Luccius’ 3 (Fluss); CIL 6.8639 (= 10.6637), 11.395 (ILS 2648), CIL 6.21563; Fasti Sacerdotum, N. 2288 REFERENCE Kajanto, Iiro. 1982. The Latin Cognomina. Rome: G. Bretschneider Editore.

LUCILIUS (1), see ROMAN POETS LUCILIUS (2), see PANNONIAN REVOLT

LUCILIUS BASSUS, SEXTUS ANTONINO PITTÀ

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan)

Sextus Lucilius Bassus (d. 72–73 ce) was an equestrian, formerly praefectus alae, then nominated prefect of the fleets at Ravenna and Misenum by Vitellius. Disappointed by this assignment, as he expected to be appointed prefect of the Praetorian Guard, he began to make contact with the Flavian party (probably, through Vespasian’s freedman Hormus; see Cosme 2015, 192–194). He planned his treason primarily with Caecina Alienus, although it was uncertain which of the two made the first move (H. 2.100). Since the fleet had been attached to Otho, it was quite easy to induce it to defection (H. 2.101). Bassus’ treason might have taken place around 18 October 69, when Caecina wrote to Antonius Primus that he joined the Flavian party. Bassus’ plan to defect looks quite ambiguous. Probably he pretended to be forced, so that the responsibility would not rest with him; on the other hand, it seems that the troops did not fully trust their commander. As a consequence, some aspects of Tacitus’ account (H. 3.12) remain unclear. According to Tacitus, Bassus delegated some officers to start the revolt and styled himself as its promoter only when he was sure that the attempt had succeeded. Anyway, the fleet asked for a new commander and sent for Cornelius Fuscus. Bassus apparently was removed and taken into custody, but Hormus interceded for him. However, it is difficult to justify, according to the

c11_Vol2.indd 653

653

legal practice, the steady election of a new prefect by the troops, and the choice looks even stranger if one considers that Fuscus was quite unknown to the soldiers who (allegedly) chose him. Furthermore, the epigraphical sources (Roxan 1996) prove that Bassus actually was in charge without interruption, so that Fuscus’ election proves ineffective. Several answers to the question have been suggested (Cosme 2015, 192– 197). The soldiers may have tried to replace the unreliable Bassus with a commander surely loyal to Vespasian, but their plan was not accomplished due to the evolution of the war. Alternatively, Fuscus may have aspired to obtain the command of the fleet after defeating Bassus: when the latter passed to the Flavian party, a strange compromise was needed. Nor we can exclude the hypothesis that Bassus’ dismissal was just a bluff, an excuse to draw Fuscus into Italy and have him as a counterpart to Antonius Primus. The loss of fleet at Ravenna was a blow to Vitellius (on his and Fabius Valens’ reaction, see H. 3.36; 40), who tried to take control at least of the fleet at Misenum by appointing as prefect Claudius Apollinaris (H. 3.57); as a consequence of the latter’s about-face, the fleet was entrusted to Lucius Vitellius (2). After that, Vespasian achieved his final victory, and Bassus was instructed to restore order in Campania (H. 4.3) and take possession of the war ships previously controlled by Lucius Vitellius. He may have been appointed again prefect of the fleet at Misenum, replacing Apollinaris. Vespasian adlected Bassus to the Senate with the rank of praetor (Houston 1977, 54). In 71, he was appointed governor of Iudaea, where he conducted several military operations (Joseph. BJ 7.163–164; 190–218, on the siege of Herodium and Machaerus). He died in 72–73, while still in office. He was succeeded by Flavius Silva. Tacitus’ judgment on Bassus is plainly negative: he labels him as malus and adds that he acted just out of envy and selfishness (H. 2.100–101). Reference works: PIR2 L 379 REFERENCES Cosme, Pierre. 2015. L’anno dei quattro imperatori. Palermo: 21 Editore. Houston, George W. 1977. “Vespasian’s Adlection of Men in the Senate.” American Journal of Philology 98: 35–63.

28-04-2023 18:25:30

654

  Lucilius L ongus

Roxan, Margaret M. 1996. “An Emperor Rewards His Supporters: The Earliest Extant Diploma Issued by Vespasian.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 9: 247–256. FURTHER READING Demougin, Ségolène. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens. Rome: Publications de l’École Française de Rome (especially pp. 590–592).

LUCILIUS CAPITO, see LUCILIUS LONGUS

LUCILIUS LONGUS DEVILLERS OLIVIER

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

Lucilius Longus, suffect consul in 7 ce, was an homo nouus. Among the senators, he had been, according to Tacitus, the only companion of Tiberius in his retirement on the island of Rhodes. There is no reference to any particular power of this man, nor to any difficulties to which he had been exposed. However, the expression “partner of griefs and joys” (tristium laetorumque socius) could refer to the instability of a fortune dependent on a protector. Tacitus mentions Longus only when he announces his death at the end of the narrative of 33 ce, after he reported the decease of a grandson of Tiberius (A. 4.15.1). Such location is usual for obituaries, which are traditional notices in annales (this one is typically introduced by the words idem annus). However, neither the grandson of the princeps nor Longus had the same illustriousness as the consulars portrayed in republican annales. The grandson is mentioned because he was a member of the dynasty; Longus because he had been an intimate of the emperor (cf. also Sulpicius Quirinius; A. 3.48). Consequently, these mentions suggest the “imperialization” of the obituaries and more largely of annalistic historiography. Moreover, the senators decreed that an honorary statue of Longus be erected on the Forum of Augustus at the public expense.

c11_Vol2.indd 654

Tacitus adds that at that time all questions were still dealt by the Senate: patres decreuere apud quos etiam tum cuncta tractabantur. There is a double restriction here. On the one hand, senators seem to be longing for the emperor’s assent. On the other hand, it is suggested that these conditions will not last (etiam tum). Tacitus connects the death of Lucilius Longus with another piece information which, like the previous one, probably comes from the acta senatus: Gnaeus Lucilius Capito, who had been procurator patrimonii of the princeps in Asia was convicted for usurping rights that belonged to a senatorial governor (A. 4.15.2). That the case of an equestrian procurator (namely an imperial commissioner) was brought before the Senate and that Tiberius demonstrates his strictness in such a context could have been valuable. In this sense, Cassius Dio mentions the affair as indicating that Tiberius was competent (Cass. Dio 57.23.4). As for Tacitus, some have seen an implied approval in his text. But, firstly, in the Annals, the intervention which is attributed to Tiberius ends with an instruction given to the senators (audirent socios), so that the consultation of the Senate looks purely formal. Secondly, after this case, the Asiatic cities decreed a temple to Tiberius, his mother, and the Senate (A. 4.15.3; cf. also 3.66–69). Again, the fact that the princeps and Livia Augusta are honored alongside the Senate shows the greater place that the emperor occupies. see also: obituary Reference works: PIR2 L 389 (Lucilius Longus); PIR2 L 381 (Lucilius Capito); Pflaum, H.-G. 1960–1961. Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le HautEmpire romain. Paris: P. Geuthner, 1072 (Capito). FURTHER READING Dalla Rosa, Alberto. 2017. “Propriété familiale, pouvoir impérial: origine et gestion du patrimonium d’Auguste en Asie mineure.” In Auguste et l’Asie mineure, edited by Laurence Cavalier, Marie-Claire Ferriès, and Fabrice Delrieux, 101–116. Bordeaux: Ausonius Éditions. Syme, Ronald. 1958. “Obituaries in Tacitus.” American Journal of Philology 79: 18–31.

28-04-2023 18:25:30

Lugdunum  

LUCIUS CAESAR TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Lucius Iulius Caesar (17 bce–2 bce) was born Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa, the second son of Marcus Vipsania Agrippa and Julia the Elder. He was adopted by Augustus in 17 bce (Cass. Dio 54.18.1), whereupon he assumed the name Lucius Caesar, together with his elder brother Gaius Caesar. Lucius entered Augustus’ household and was placed under his care (Suet. Aug. 64.1). The careers of the two young Caesars follow parallel paths with allowances made for the difference in their ages. As the younger son (and implied second heir), Lucius’ career is not granted as much attention in the sources. The honors granted to Lucius can often be inferred from the descriptions of those voted to Gaius. The sources will often describe a series of honours granted to Gaius, and then simply say “similar honours as had been granted to his brother,” rather than describing Lucius’ advancement specifically. Lucius’ early life is obscure; however, Cassius Dio emphasises the corrupting influence of being born into the imperial family. In 4 bce Lucius was voted the title leader of the youth (princeps iuventutis), and Augustus assumed the consulship in 2 bce to mark his grandson’s coming of age, signified by the attainment of the gown of manhood (toga virilis). A few years later, possibly in 1 ce, Lucius was sent into the field to observe as what Dio calls “training for command.” (Cass. Dio 55.10a.9) On this mission, Lucius died in 2 ce as a result of an illness. Both Dio and Tacitus cast suspicion on Livia Augusta for the death of Lucius (A. 1.3). The death of Lucius, along with that of Gaius two years later, shattered Augustus’ plans for the future of the regime. For other evidence see Suet. Aug. 26.2, 29.4, 64, 65.1–2, Tib. 11.5, 15.2, 23, 70.2, Cass. Dio 54.18.1, 55.9.1–5, 10, 10.6, 18, 10a.9, 11.1, 12.1. see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference work: PIR2 I 222

c11_Vol2.indd 655

655

FURTHER READING Jones, T. 2018. A Mere Equestrian? Sejanus and The Succession to Tiberius in Its Augustan Context. (Doctor of Philosophy). Macquarie University. Levick, B. 2010. Augustus: Image and Substance. Harlow: Longman. Swan, P. M. 2004. The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History, Books 55–56 (9 B.C.-A.D. 14). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wardle, D., ed. 2014. Life of Augustus = Vita divi Augusti. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

LUCRETIUS, see ROMAN POETS LUDI, see GAMES

LUGDUNUM TRUDY HARRINGTON BECKER

Virginia Tech

The colony of Lugdunum (modern Lyon, France) was founded by Lucius Munatius Plancus in 43 bce at the confluence of the Rhodanus (modern Rhone) and Arar (modern Saone) Rivers. When Augustus divided Gallia Comata in three provinces in 27 bce, Lugdunum became the capital of Gallia Lugdunensis. Lugdunum’s strong commerce derived from its position on the rivers. The future emperor Claudius was born there, hence his request in 48 ce before the Roman Senate for citizens of Lugdunum to be admitted to the senatorial class. A bronze tablet with Claudius’ speech resides in the Gallo-Roman Museum of Lyon-Fourviére. Appearing primarily in Histories with only one mention in the Annals 3.41, in which an unnamed cohort garrisoned in Lugdunum was used by the legate Acilius Aviola to quell a revolt by the Andecavi (in 21 ce), Lugdunum features in Tacitus for its support of Vitellius during the civil wars of 69 ce and for Lugdunum’s rivalry with the neighboring city of Vienna. In H. 2.59, Vitellius, recently proclaimed imperator, receives the backing of Iunius Blaesus, rector of Gallia Lugdunensis, along with the Italic legion and the Taurian cavalry based at Lugdunum.

28-04-2023 18:25:30

656

  Lupia ( L ippe )

The bulk of H. 1.65–66 recounts an episode in the enduring hostility between Lugdunum and Vienna. Tacitus posits that their long-term squabbling was not entirely due to their support for either Nero or Galba but indeed rooted deeper than that. The border they shared on the river, Tacitus commented, “only formed a bond of hatred.” Galba had earlier confiscated revenues from Lugdunum and conferred praises on Vienna because Lugdunum had been less enthusiastic about him than the Viennese. Now the people of Lugdunum respond by seeking redress from the Vitellian army. In H. 1.65, the people of Lugdunum urged the soldiers to destroy Vienna, pointing out that Vienna had once laid siege to Lugdunum, had backed Iulius Vindex, and further, had levied troops to defend Galba. The people of Lugdunum described Vienna as un-Roman and hostile. Afraid of the emboldened army, Vienna sought peace, was forced to provision the army, and Valens, general of Vitellian army, paid off his men to calm them down. Histories 2.59 sees the arrival of Vitellius who traveled down the Arar to Lugdunum, where Iunius Blaesus met him and escorted him in a lavish style. In Lugdunum, Vitellius received both victorious and defeated generals, handed out distinctions, and had his son greeted by the army. In H. 2.65, Vitellius departed Lugdunum. In H. 2.85–86, Domitian was persuaded to set up shop in Lugdunum, from where he would later test the loyalty of Petilius Cerialis and disguise his “real self ” as he considered steps against his father and brother, from whom he allegedly withdrew his rivalry. see also: Munatius Plancus; Tabula Lugdunensis Reference work: Barrington 17 D2, 18 B4 FURTHER READING Cleary, Simon Esmonde. 2008. Rome in the Pyrenees: Lugdunum (Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges) and the Convenae from the First Century B.C. to the Seventh Century A.D. New York and Oxford: Routledge Press. Morgan, M. Gwyn. 2006. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 149–151.

c11_Vol2.indd 656

LUGII, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST

LUPIA (LIPPE) BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

The Lupia River (modern Lippe, Barrington 11 H1; Strab. 7.1.3  =  Λουπίας) rises near the Teutoburg Forest. Pomponius Mela (3.25) identifies it, along with the Moenis (also spelled Moenus, modern Main), as a tributary of the Rhenus (Rhine); their confluence being just north of the Roman fortress at Vetera (modern Xanten). The Lupia was an important Roman logistical route east of the Rhine. Several forts have been excavated (including Dorsten-Holsterhausen, Haltern, Beckinghausen, Oberaden, and Anreppen). Drusus the Elder, Augustus’ stepson, built fortifications along the river while campaigning there in 11 bce (Cass. Dio 54.33.1– 4). For Tacitus the Lupia serves as a geographical boundary, along with the Amisia, defining territory laid to waste by Germanicus in 15 ce (A. 1.60). In the following year, Germanicus led six legions up the Lupia to relieve an unnamed fort which was under blockade. No battle occurred as the enemy fled upon hearing news of his arrival (A. 2.7). Tacitus’ final (surviving) reference to the river occurs in the Histories when Petilius Cerialis’ Rhenish fleet was ambushed. Surprising the Romans, German insurgents commandeered his flagship—although Cerialis was not on it at the time. The prize was ultimately conveyed up the Lupia in order to be given as a gift to the Bructerian prophetess Veleda (H. 5.22). see also: Bructeri; geography; Germania Reference works: BNP “Lupia”; Barrington 11 H1 FURTHER READING Poignault, R. 2001. “Les fleuves dans le récit militaire tacitéen.” Latomus 60.2: 414–432.

28-04-2023 18:25:31

657

Lusitania  

LURIUS VARUS EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

The senator Lurius Varus’ name is attested by no inscription, and in literature only at A. 13.32.2; the primary manuscript’s Lurius Varius (no praenomen is given) was corrected to Lurius Varus by the original scribe. The form Lucius Varius, read by early editions, is a banalisation; Lurius is an attested (if uncommon) gentile name (Vell. Pat. 2.85.2). Of his career nothing is known, except that he was of consular rank and restored to the Senate by Nero (as a gesture of clemency) in 57 ce, following his expulsion in an unknown year, on conviction of extortion in an unknown province while he was governor (A. 13.32.2). His rank perhaps suggests that he was proconsul of Africa or Asia and charged with extortion either under Caligula or during the first six years of Claudius’ reign (Gallivan 1974, 300–301); his impeachment and subsequent conviction would therefore have been narrated in a lost part of the Annals. This may explain why Tacitus, at A. 13.32.2, does not specify which province he had misgoverned. Since a ten-year interval between the consulship and the governorship of Africa or Asia was typical (Gallivan 1974, 300), he was plausibly a suffect consul during the last decade of Tiberius’ reign. Bleicken’s (1962, 160) suggestion that Lurius is the unnamed ex-consul at Suet. Otho 2.2, whose restoration to the Senate by Nero is secured by Otho through bribery, is possible, but speculative. see also: Cossutianus Capito; Pedius Blaesus; Plautius Lateranus; Vipsanius Laenas Reference works: PIR2 L 428; RE 13.2.1853 REFERENCES Bleicken, Jochen. 1962. Senatsgericht und Kaisergericht. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. Gallivan, Paul. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24: 290–311.

c11_Vol2.indd 657

FURTHER READING Brunt, Peter. 1961. “Charges of Provincial Maladministration under the Early Principate.” Historia 10: 189–227.

LUSITANIA JULIANA BASTOS MARQUES

Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Lusitania was one of the three provinces of the Iberian Peninsula, established under Augustus. Its main presence in Tacitus is due to the role of Otho as its governor, between 59 and 69 ce. The name of the province derives from one of its tribes, the Lusitani, although other tribes also lived in the area. The annexation of the territory started in 198 bce (Livy 32.27.6). After a major rebellion between 147 and 139 bce (App. Hisp. 10.56–12.75), Rome established the provinces of Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. Augustus assured the final conquest of the region and organized its administration, in a format in use until 411. He divided Hispania Ulterior into Baetica and Lusitania, with the new colony of Emerita Augusta as the capital (Plin. HN, 4.35). The borders of Lusitania followed the river Durius (Douro) in the north, thus excluding the current northern part of Portugal, and the river Anas (Guadiana) in the south, extending to the east until what are today the Spanish regions of Extremadura and a part of the province of Salamanca. Augustus left three legions in the whole of the peninsula, but by the time of Tacitus only legion VI Victrix remained in Hispania Citerior, and there were no legions stationed in Lusitania. The province provided gold, tin, and garum for the rest of the Roman Empire. Lusitania is mentioned in Histories 1.13 and Annals 13.46, both instances where Tacitus mentions Otho’s background role in the marriage of Nero and Poppaea Sabina the Younger. The accounts differ in some details, pointing to the use of different sources. However, in both accounts, Otho is sent as a governor to Lusitania, after divorcing Poppaea in order for Nero to

28-04-2023 18:25:31

658

  Lusius G eta

marry her. Tacitus clearly characterizes the move as some sort of extreme measure or punishment, due to the fact that Lusitania was far away from Rome and politically considered of minor importance. Otho remained as governor of Lusitania for ten years, in what Tacitus agrees with other sources to have been a positive and balanced governorship, despite criticisms of his personality. In 68 ce, Otho joined the neighboring governor Galba in the rebellion that overthrew Nero and started the civil wars of 69. As a peaceful and remote imperial province without legions, Lusitania was administered by a legatus Augusti of praetorian rank. Otho, however, was not strictly qualified for the job, being only twenty six years old and only a quaestor. For Tacitus, this may have revealed Nero’s haste in getting rid of him in the court: the use of specie legationis, “ostensibly as governor,” in H. 1.13 highlights the discrepancy between an apparently prestigious appointment and Nero’s motives. see also: army; Hispania; provinces Reference work: Barrington 26, 100 E3–4, 101 E3–4 FURTHER READING Alarcão, Jorge de. 1988. Roman Portugal. 3 vols. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Edmondson, J. C. 1990. “Romanization and Urban Development in Lusitania.” In The Early Roman Empire in the West, edited by T. Blagg and M. Millett, 151–178. Oxford: Oxbow. Mantas, Vasco Gil. 2004. “A Lusitânia e o Mediterrâneo: identidade e diversidade numa província romana.” Conimbriga 43: 63–83. DOI: 10.14195/1647-8657_43_3.

LUSIUS GETA LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Lucius Lusius Geta was a Roman equestrian under Claudius (Demougin 1992, 394–395, n. 484). He was one of the praetorian prefects when

c11_Vol2.indd 658

Messalina, Claudius’ wife, committed bigamy secretly marrying her lover Gaius Silius. Along with the prefect of the grain, Gaius Turranius, he was among the closest friends of the emperor who were asked to confirm the words about Messalina’s behavior in Rome (A. 11.31.1). Not trusting Geta entirely because, Tacitus says, he was a man equally inclined towards evil and good, Claudius remained hesitant about what to do until Narcissus, his powerful freedman and Messalina’s enemy, urged him to intervene (A. 11.33.1). In 51 ce Claudius new wife, Agrippina the Younger, fearing that Geta and his colleague Rufrius Crispinus, loyal to Messalina’s children Octavia (2) and Britannicus, would have supported them against her own son Nero, persuaded Claudius to dismiss them. With the excuse that two commanders were the cause of tensions among the praetorian soldiers, she had them replaced by a sole commander: Afranius Burrus (A. 12.42.1). Lusius Geta was appointed prefect of Egypt in March 54 by Claudius and governed that province until November of the same year when Nero arose to the imperial power (Cass. Dio 61.32.6). Reference works: PIR2 L 435; OGI 664 = IGRom 1, 1118; CIL XI 6343 = ILS 2073 REFERENCE Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. - 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. FURTHER READING Bastianini, G. 1975. “Lista dei prefetti d’Egitto da 30a- al 299p.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 17: 263–328. Malfugeon, M. 2008. “Les impératrices et les préfets du prétoire: un partage du pouvoir?” Latomus 67: 399–413.

LUSIUS SATURNINUS, see VALERIUS ASIATICUS, DECIMUS (1) LUTATIUS CATULUS, QUINTUS, see CAPITOLIUM

28-04-2023 18:25:31

Lycia  

LUXURY VERENA SCHULZ

KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Luxury, in Latin luxus or luxuria, and more rarely luxuries, means excess, debauchery, wantonness, excessive spending or wasting for food, house­ hold, servants, clothes, jewelry, personal possessions, buildings, and also the organization of parties. The opposites are parsimonia and temperantia. While public luxury in Rome is partly approved, the general population hates private luxury (odit populus Romanus privatam luxuriam, publicam magnificentiam diligit, Cic. Mur. 76). Luxury is considered effeminate and proper of the East, and therefore genuinely un-Roman. It is rejected because too many comforts lead to laziness and idleness (see the arguments against seats in the theater in A. 14.20.2, and Ag. 21 on the Britons who become accustomed to Roman luxury). Tacitus dedicates a short, often studied excursus to the history of Roman luxury (A. 3.55): luxury has been rampant for about 100  years from the battle of Actium to Galba in spite of the anti-luxury laws of Augustus. Only gradually was the problem alleviated, inter alia, thanks to the influence of men coming to Rome from rural towns and colonies, who distinguished themselves for their frugality (domesticam parsimoniam intulerunt, A. 3.55.3). Which times Tacitus is referring to is not clear and has been variously interpreted (Biesinger 2016, 326–331). In any case, the character of the frugal Vespasian assumes a key role in this positive development (praecipuus adstricti moris auctor Vespasianus fuit, A. 3.55.4). The luxury of Nero and Vitellius has often been subject of scholarly study. Nero’s luxury (gliscebat… luxuria, A. 16.3.1; aulam Neronis et luxus, H. 1.22.1) appears in Tacitus as one of the factors that led to his downfall (nimia luxus cupido infamiam et periculum Neroni tulit, A. 14.22.4; sua immanitas, sua luxuria cervicibus publicis depulerunt, H. 1.16.2). Otho is also portrayed in his luxury as an imitator of Nero (gratus Neroni aemulatione luxus, H. 1.13.3). Vitellius prefers

c11_Vol2.indd 659

659

luxury over the imperial responsibilities (torpebat Vitellius et fortunam principatus inerti luxu ac prodigis epulis praesumebat, H. 1.62.2; curis luxum obtendebat, H. 3.36.1). Tiberius is at times characterized by traditional austerity (princeps antiquae parsimoniae, A. 3.52.1), at others—in Capri—portrayed as voluptuous (in luxus et malum otium resolutus, A. 4.67.3). see also: sexual deviance; virtus REFERENCE Biesinger, Benjamin. 2016. Römische Dekadenzdiskurse: Untersuchungen zur römischen Geschichtsschreibung und ihren Kontexten (2. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr.). Stuttgart: Steiner. FURTHER READING Boatwright, Mary T. 1980. Tacitus and the Wealth, Enrichment, and Impoverishment of the Roman Upper Class. PhD, University of Michigan. Marshall, Adam R. 2008. “Law and Luxury in Augustan Rome (Tacitus, Annals 3.53–4).” Journal of Ancient Civilizations 23: 97–117.

LYCIA LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

Lycia and its inhabitants were located in the southcentral area of modern Turkey. The geographic area is cited in Tacitus at Annals 2.60 (where the Lycian Sea is one of the delineators of Rhamses’ empire) and Annals 2.79 (where Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso’s vessels encounter those of Agrippina the Elder off Lycia) in connection with the ill-fated tenure of Germanicus in the East; at Annals 13.33 the Lycians are noted for having sought damages against Eprius Marcellus in 58 ce. The annexing of Lycia by Claudius in 43 (cited in Cassius Dio and attested inscriptionally; see Bennett 2011) would have been covered in the lost books of the Annals; Vespasian joined the provinces of Lycia and Pamphylia into one jurisdiction for administrative purposes in 74 (another event presumably treated in the lost Histories).

28-04-2023 18:25:31

660

  Lydia

see also: Galatia; provinces Reference work: Barrington 65 B4 FURTHER READING Bennett, Julian. 2011. “Why Did Claudius Annex Lycia?” Adalya XIV: 119–134.

LYCURGUS (1), see SPARTA LYCURGUS (2), see GREEK ORATORS

LYDIA SHAWN DANIELS

Lydia is an ancient name for the westernmost part of Anatolia (modern Turkey). The independent kingdom of Lydia boasted almost mythical wealth in the early first millennium bce—it is said to have been the first kingdom to mint its own coinage, and the capital Sardis was home to the proverbially rich king Croesus. He attacked Persia, misinterpreting a Delphic prophecy that doing so would result in the fall of a great kingdom; when Cyrus the Great unexpectedly followed Croesus back to Sardis after the campaign season had ended and took the city, Lydia became a Persian possession, until Alexander the Great took it early in his eastward expansion. After Alexander’s death, Lydia was claimed by various of his successors, until the king of Pergamum, Attalus III, bequeathed it to Rome upon his death in 133 bce. It became the largest share of the new province of Asia (not to be confused with Asia Minor, a medieval name for the Anatolian peninsula, to distinguish it from the rest of the Asian continent). In the early decades of the empire, the territory of Lydia was wealthy, prestigious, and strategically important to Rome’s ambitions, so Tacitus highlights events there—the region was rocked by earthquakes in 17 ce, which particularly devastated Sardis (A. 2.47); Germanicus’ last command was the maius imperium he held over Rome’s eastern territories (2.53–72), of which Asia was a major part. The term “Lydia” appears only twice, both times emphasizing the region’s antiquity. Tiberius, attempting to distract from his own iniquities, granted the Senate the right to

c11_Vol2.indd 660

judge on provincial matters of a religious nature. In the first instance (A. 3.60–61), the Senate was permitted to judge which cities and which sanctuaries were fit for religious asylum. The delegates from Ephesus, a city in what had been Lydian territory, claimed that Apollo and Diana were not born on Delos, but in an Ephesian grove named Ortygia (which is also a poetical name for Delos). They further argued that this grove had been blessed by many mythical figures, including Hercules while he was in control of Lydia. Sardis had also received a grant from Alexander confirming the sanctity of a temple of Diana. The Senate eventually grew weary of this duty and turned it over to the consuls. It seems that the Ephesians and Sardians were confirmed in their sanctuaries, although the Senate ordered all places of asylum to post brass plaques attesting to their sanctity to avoid such confusion in the future. The second mention of Lydia comes when the Senate (this time under Tiberius’ direct supervision) hears petitions from eastern cities for the right to build a temple to the emperor. The final contest was between Sardis and Smyrna. The citizens of Sardis claimed an ancient bond of kinship with the Etruscans, but the Smyrniots won—during the republic, they had literally given Sulla’s troops the clothes off their backs (A. 4.55–56). see also: Cornelius Sulla, Lucius (1); Earthquake of 17 ce; Roman gods Reference work: Barrington 101 M4 FURTHER READING Payne, Annick, and Jorit Wintjes. 2016. Lords of Asia Minor: An Introduction to the Lydians. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

LYDUS, see SARDIS

LYGDUS ELIZABETH ANN POLLARD

San Diego State University

Lygdus (d. 31 ce) was a eunuch (spado) who administered the poison that killed Drusus the

28-04-2023 18:25:31

Lygdus  

Younger in 23 ce (A. 4.8), a role revealed eight years later when he was tortured along with Eudemus to uncover the full plot (A. 4.11). Tacitus’s official report was that Sejanus and Livia Iulia developed the plan to assassinate Tiberius’ son, Drusus the Younger, and that Eudemus the physician likely concocted the poison (uenenum); Lygdus, however, had the necessary access to Drusus since he was one of Drusus’s principal attendants (primores ministros) and dear to his master (dominus) thanks to his youthful appearance (aetate atque forma; A. 4.10). The slow-acting nature of the poison and Lygdus’ explicit role in administering it suggest that Lygdus was Drusus’ cupbearer and taster and that this poisoning may not have been a one-shot but a gradual process. Unlike Tacitus, Suetonius does not mention Lygdus’ role in the plot, but does refer to Tiberius’ frustration with Drusus’ vices (Suet. Tib. 52), his attachment to Lygdus perhaps being one aspect of that loose living. Cassius Dio likewise does not mention Lygdus by name, but he reports that Sejanus administered the poison through those who attended Drusus. Tacitus omits details of Lygdus’

c11_Vol2.indd 661

661

involvement in the account that he attributes to reliable historians, but he reports as a strong rumor that after seducing Livia Iulia, Sejanus ensnared Lygdus into the plot via illicit sex (stupro uinxisse). Such tawdry details about the eunuch’s involvement and Sejanus’ alleged stuprum with Lygdus heighten the drama of the assassination plot and further vilify Sejanus. Eight years after Drusus’ death, Sejanus’ ex-wife Apicata sent a statement to Tiberius reporting on the assassination, on account of which Lygdus was tortured along with Eudemus (A. 4.11 for the torture; Cass. Dio 58.11, for Apicata’s statement leading to the execution of those involved, Lygdus not named). Reference work: PIR2 L 465 FURTHER READING Woodman, A. J. 2018. Annals of Tacitus Book 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 100–115.

LYON TABLET, see TABULA LUGDUNENSIS LYSIAS, see GREEK ORATORS

28-04-2023 18:25:31

M MACEDONIA JULIANA BASTOS MARQUES

Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Macedonia was one of the first provinces of the Roman Empire, annexed in 148 bce. Tacitus briefly mentions it twice under the administrative affairs of Tiberius: first regarding taxes, and soon afterward mentioning the addition to Moesia, together with Achaia (see Greece). The kingdom of Macedonia was defeated by the Romans in 148 bce and annexed as a province two years after. Further administration of the territory proceeded without much trouble, but the borders were not formally fixed during the republic, fluctuating under circumstantial actions of military control of the frontiers to avoid invasions of northern tribes (Cic., Pis. 38). When Augustus created the province of Achaia in 27 bce, this consolidated the southern border of Macedonia. Later, the northern borders were also definitely set through the creation of the provinces of Illyricum (under Augustus), Moesia (under Tiberius), and Thrace (under Claudius); east and west borders followed both sides of the sea. Under Augustus, Macedonia was declared a senatorial province and left with no legions. Its capital was Thessalonica; other Roman colonies were founded between the civil wars of the Late Republic and the Augustan era, such as the cities of Pella, Dion, and Philippi. The province is cited in Tacitus in A. 1.76 and 1.80, in the context of several internal and external policies adopted by Tiberius in 15 ce. The first

mention deals with a request from Achaia and Macedonia to be exempt from taxes, which leads the emperor to transfer them from senatorial to imperial status. A few paragraphs later, Tacitus mentions that Macedonia and Achaia were added to Moesia. Goodyear (1981, 172) discusses whether this measure would have lessened administrative costs, although this arrangement lasted only until 44 ce (Suet. Claud. 25.3 and Cass. Dio 60.24.1). Tacitus then notices that Tiberius was inclined to keeping commanders and administrators for longer than the usual period, which prompts the historian to make some comments on the emperor’s character traits (Karge 1973, 57–60). There is also a mention of the Macedonians in A. 2.55, where Tacitus cites a small, “raging” (saeva) speech in oratio obliqua by Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso criticizing the Athenians, who had acted in the past against both the Macedonians and the Romans. This description is directly paired with a more favorable treatment of Germanicus’ travel to Greece, in the previous two paragraphs. see also: Alexander the Great; Philip II Reference work: Barrington 49–51, 100 L3, 101 L3 REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus, Books 1-6, Volume II: Annals 1. 55-81 and Annals 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Karge, Ellen. 1973. “Aspects of Tacitus’ Presentation of Tiberius as Princeps and Proconsul.” PhD diss., The Ohio State University.

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume II, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c12_vol2.indd 662

28-04-2023 18:02:56

M acro ( Q uintus Naev ius C ordus Sutorius M acro )  

FURTHER READING Papazoglou, Fanoula. 1988. Les villes de Macédoine à l’époque romaine. Paris: École Française d’Athènes. Vanderspoel, John. 2010. “Provincia Macedonia.” In A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, edited by Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington, 251–275. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

MACRO (QUINTUS NAEVIUS CORDUS SUTORIUS MACRO) DONNA W. HURLEY

New York, New York

Quintus Naevius Cordus Sutorius Macro (d.38 ce) was from an equestrian family in Alba Fucens, a Roman colony about fifty miles east of Rome. He first appears in history as prefect of the vigiles or night watch, a force fourteen cohorts strong, that was responsible for protecting the city from fires and civil disturbance. It was a senior position in an equestrian career. The emperor Tiberius had given Macro this important command and then used him as his agent to overthrow the current praetorian prefect, Sejanus. In 31 ce Tiberius, in self-imposed exile on Capri, secretly appointed Macro to Sejanus’ position and sent him to Rome with detailed instructions. Macro entered the city at night and prepared one of the consuls and the new commander of the vigiles for what was ahead. He then reassured Sejanus, who was waiting to enter the Senate, that Tiberius was about to grant him the tribunician power that he wanted, and Sejanus eagerly entered the meeting. Macro then finished securing the scene: He confirmed his new command with the praetorians on hand, claimed that he had a letter from Tiberius promising a cash bonus, and sent them back to their camp; he stationed the night watch in their place to guard the Senate; he delivered a letter from Tiberius to the consuls and then went to the praetorian camp himself to keep all quiet. When the letter was read, it revealed, not Sejanus’ reward, but Tiberius’ displeasure with him, and it ordered his immediate arrest (Cass. Dio 58.9.2– 10.1). In the event of an uprising, Macro was to bring forward Drusus Caesar, the son of Germanicus,

c12_vol2.indd 663

663

and declare him emperor (Cass. Dio 58.13.1). Macro clearly played an important role in this risky manipulation of the power structure. He was rewarded with money and with the rank of praetor and other honors; these he refused, warned by the example of Sejanus, who had overreached (Cass. Dio 58.12.7–8). The next years saw scores settled in the aftermath of Sejanus’ fall, and as praetorian prefect Macro was Tiberius’ trusted aide and factotum. The emperor’s reliance on him was manifest when Macro and a select few officers of the guard were elected to accompany him should he choose to enter the Senate (A. 6.15.2; Cass. Dio 58.18.5). Macro’s special talent was obtaining confessions under torture (A. 6.47.3; Cass. Dio 58.21.3, 24.2). As Tiberius aged, Macro was said to “desert the setting sun and look to the rising” (A. 6.46.4; Cass. Dio 58.28.4). That is, he saw that his future lay not with the old emperor but with the emperor who would follow. He was on hand at court on Capri to witness the rivalry between Caligula and Tiberius Gemellus for the succession. His wife Ennia and Gaius were in a relationship that could lead to marriage when Gaius became emperor (A. 6.45.3; Suet. Cal. 12.2; Cass. Dio 58.28.4; Philo Leg. 39). In one account Macro assures Tiberius that he can control the young man, who is already showing signs of wild behavior (Philo Leg. 37–38). When Tiberius died, Macro was inevitably accused of hastening his end; either he helped Gaius smother the sick old man, or Gaius helped him (A. 6.50.4–5; Cass. Dio 58.28.3). Macro’s activity when Sejanus was being forced out of power was a rehearsal for his manipulation of the groups that would confirm Gaius as the new emperor. As soon as Tiberius was dead, he evidently arranged for the praetorians to salute Gaius as imperator (commander) on the spot. He then headed for Rome where he prepared the Senate for the arrival of Gaius with the emperor’s body ten days later (Docs. no. 3, p. 10). The Senate, responding to the pressure of a mob trying to break into the Senate house, bestowed on Gaius all the titles that Tiberius had held. Macro also carried to Rome Tiberius’ will, a document that made Gaius and Tiberius Gemellus joint heirs. The Senate would declare it invalid. Macro was Gaius’ agent behind the scenes during this transition (Suet Cal. 14.1; Cass. Dio 59.1.2–3; Philo Leg. 58; Barrett 2015, 72–77).

28-04-2023 18:02:56

664

  M aecenas

In the early months of Gaius’ reign (37 ce), Macro filled the role that he had with Tiberius, that of advisor and close aide. One anecdote has Gaius refusing an interview even with his grandmother Antonia the Younger without Macro present (Suet. Cal. 23.2.). This dependence did not, however, last. The following year (38 ce) Gaius appointed Macro prefect of Egypt, another senior equestrian position, but before he could assume responsibility, both he and his wife were made to take their own lives (Suet. Cal. 26.1; Cass. Dio 59.10.6; Philo Leg. 59–61). The Egyptian appointment may, in fact, have been a means of separating him from his powerful praetorian base and thus making his removal possible (Winterling 2003, 62). When Gaius was suffering from a supposedly life-threatening illness in the autumn of 37 ce, Macro plausibly had begun looking to his own interests in case Gaius did not survive. But Gaius did survive and turned on Macro and others when he recovered (Barrett 2015, 113; Winterling 2003, 62–63). Macro’s will provided for an amphitheater in his home town of Alba Fucens. He may have ended his life before he was condemned since his will remained valid (Docs. no. 254, p. 72; de Visscher 1957). see also: praetorian cohorts Reference works: PIR2 N 12; Smallwood, Elizabeth Mary. 1967. Documents Illustrating the Principates of Gaius, Claudius and Nero. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. no. 3, p. 10; no. 254, p. 72. REFERENCES Barrett, Anthony A. 2015. Caligula: The Abuse of Power. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. de Visscher, F. 1957. “L’Amphithéātre d’Alba Fucens et son Fondéteur Q. Naevius Macro, Préfet du Prétoire de Tibère.” RAL 12: 39–49. Winterling, Aloys. 2003. Caligula: eine Biographie. Munich: Beck. FURTHER READING Levick, Barbara. 1999. Tiberius the Politician. Rev. ed. London: Routledge. Seager, Robin. 2005. Tiberius. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

c12_vol2.indd 664

MAECENAS ANTONINO PITTÀ

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan)

Gaius Cilnius Maecenas (c. 68–8 bce), hereafter Maecenas, was a Roman statesman, literary patron and writer, one of Octavian’s (Augustus) most influential counselors (the complete list of testimonies about him in Mountford 2019, Appendix A). A member of the highest and wealthiest Etruscan aristocracy (Hor. Carm. 1.1.1; Prop. 3.9.1), he is normally mentioned as Gaius Maecenas, while Tacitus (A. 6.11.2) names him Cilnius Maecenas (both Cilnius and Maecenas were Etruscan family names, belonging to his mother’s and father’s families, respectively— contra Simpson 1996). He was born on 13 April (Hor. Carm. 4.11.14ff.), some years before 65 bce (Horace’s year of birth), probably in Arretium, a town ruled by the Cilnii from ancient times (Livy 10.3). By the mediation of his father, Maecenas may have met the young Octavian in the beginning of his ascent, to become quite soon one of his trusted men and political advisors. According to a controversial account (El. in Maec. 1.43) he was with Octavian at Philippi; in any case, after the late 40s he would have assisted the ruler with his advice, espionage, and diplomacy. In 40 he arranged the marriage between Octavian and Scribonia (1), in order to have a truce with Sextus Pompeius Magnus (who was related to Scribonia’s mother). In the same year, he was the mind behind the Treaty of Brundisium: on this occasion, he arranged a new marriage, between Octavian’s sister Octavia (1) and Mark Antony. In 37 he contributed to a new agreement between the brothers-in-law, who met at Tarentum (part of Maecenas voyage to join the meeting is the subject of Hor. Sat. 1.5). He might have been present at the battle of Actium (Hor. Epod. 1.1). During the civil wars and the first decade of Augustus’ reign, Maecenas was an essential patron for literature. He promoted, supported, and directed authors such as Vergil, Horace, Varius, and later Propertius; by his mediation, the most promising and successful writers of the new generation gradually came to celebrate the moral values and political achievements of the Augustan regime, until they defined a coherent Augustan style and aesthetics. Part of the activities of

28-04-2023 18:02:56

M aecenas  

Maecenas’ literary circle probably took place in his enchanting park, the Horti Maecenatiani, a complex of gardens, pavilions, and luxury buildings on the Esquiline Hill (mainly modeled on the plan of the Museum in Alexandria). Maecenas’ renown made his name the title par excellence for a generous patron of culture and arts (so already in Mart. 7.55.5; however, Tacitus never hints at Maecenas’ literary patronage). In these years, Maecenas acquired increasing power, even if he refused a senatorial career and limited himself to the status of an equestrian, resting on his own influence (which did not need an official designation: cf. A. 3.30). When he was away from the capital to fight Sextus Pompeius and Antony, Octavian trusted him the administration of Rome and Italy: dealing with this delicate charge (which included the task of collecting incomes: Plin. HN 37.10), Maecenas assumed duties similar to those of a praefectus urbi (cf. A. 6.11, where Maecenas’ watch on Rome foreshadows this praefectura: Byrne 1999, 342– 343). As a master of spying, in 30 he discovered a plot against Octavian led by the son of the triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3) (Sen. Clem. 1.9.6). It is normally assumed that in 23, when another plot (led by Varro Murena and Fannius Caepio) was discovered, Maecenas leaked confidential information to his wife Terentia, and after then his influence began to decline; however, Maecenas’ power seems to have been steady at least in 20–19 (White 1991, 132–133). Maecenas died in 8 bce, a few days before his friend Horace. His last years were saddened by private frustrations, due to a partial loss of Augustus’ favor (A. 3.30, but see the remarks of White 1991, 133–134), talked-about affairs between his wife Terentia and the emperor, and poor health. At his death, the Horti Maecenatiani were forfeited to Augustus’ possessions and became part of the imperial estate; a portion of them was included in Nero’s Domus Transitoria and was gravely damaged by the Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.39). A tradition, dismissed by Tacitus, tells how Nero enjoyed the spectacle of the burning Rome from a tower, built as a viewpoint on the highest hill of the Horti Maecenatiani (Suet. Ner. 38). In Tacitus’ work, Maecenas is more regarded as a “type” than a real historical character. He is regularly quoted as an exemplum, both in comparison

c12_vol2.indd 665

665

with the characters who play an active role in Tacitus’ account and as a symbol of a peculiar way of life. In Maecenas’ lifetime, or quite soon after his death, the morality of his figure was a matter of debate, as he was a model of a paradoxical character. In fact, his ability as a statesman seemed to be in contradiction with his voluptuous lifestyle and provocative sexual habits (Sen. Prov. 1.3.10–11; Ep. 120.19; in Tacitus, A. 1.54), while Maecenas’ taste in judging poetry and organizing cultural enterprises was paradoxically paired with his own flamboyant baroque style, both in poetry and in prose, which was regarded by Seneca (Ep. 19.9), Quintilian (9.4.28), Juvenal (1.66; 12.37– 38), and Tacitus himself (D. 26.1) as an example of “corrupt” eloquence. The preexistence of such a debate on Maecenas (cf. Vell. Pat. 2.88.2; Sen. Ep. 92.35; 101.10–12; 114.4–8; 21) induced Tacitus to employ him as a prototype for the paradoxical characters who dominate his narrative: just to quote a major case, the unforgettable Tacitean Petronius is heavily indebted to Maecenas. Tacitus provides the indirect portrait of a figure very similar to Maecenas at A. 3.30, where he summarizes the career and moral attitude of Sallustius Crispus, adopted son of the historian Sallust and Maecenas’ pupil: again a paradoxical character who was devoted to luxury but was also strong of resolution and ready to simulate idleness, while gaining influence covertly. Just like his mentor, Sallustius refused an easy access to the senatorial rank and preferred to enjoy a wider personal power; second only to Maecenas in keeping the emperor’s secrets, he shared with his master the fate of losing credit and the emperor’s favor in his last years. Therefore, through Sallustius’ portrait Tacitus displays the fullest description of Maecenas to be found in his work (Byrne 1999, 343–345). The exemplary dimension of the figure of Maecenas in Tacitus is confirmed by the way other characters refer to him. At A. 14.53 he is mentioned by Seneca as an illustrious case of trusted assistant who was allowed to retire by his emperor (see White 1991, 134–136): definitely, Maecenas is thus reduced to a standard exemplum to be quoted in a suasoria. In the same way, Nero’s reply at A.14.55 uses Maecenas’ case as a rhetorical device to cause Seneca’s argument to backfire on Seneca himself.

28-04-2023 18:02:56

666

  magic

see also: civil wars of the Late Republic; eloquentia; equestrians; exemplarity; gardens; Seneca; sexual deviance Reference work: PIR2 M 37 REFERENCES Byrne, Shannon. 1999. “Pointed Allusions: Maecenas and Sallustius in the Annals of Tacitus.” Rheinisches Museum 142: 339–345. Mountford, Peter. 2019. Maecenas. London: Routledge. Simpson, Chris J. 1996. “Two Small Thoughts on Cilnius Maecenas.” Latomus 55: 394–398. White, Peter. 1991. “Maecenas’ Retirement.” Classical Philology 86: 130–138. FURTHER READING Byrne, Shannon. 1999. “Maecenas in Seneca and Other Post-Augustan Authors.” In Veritatis amicitiaeque causa: Essays in Honor of Anna Lydia Motto and John R. Clark, edited by Shannon N. Byrne and Edmund P. Cueva, 21–40. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. Graverini, L. 1997. “Un secolo di studi su Mecenate.” Rivista storica dell’Antichità 27: 231–289. La Penna, A. 1987. “Mecenate.” In Enciclopedia Virgiliana, III, 410–414. Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. La Penna, A. 1996. “Mecenate.” In Enciclopedia Oraziana, I, 792–803. Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.

MAEVIUS PUDENS, see SPECULATORES

MAGIC ELIZABETH ANN POLLARD

San Diego State University

Magic, or more specifically accusations of its use, could take many forms in Tacitus: carmina and devotiones (spells/incantations), consultations with Chaldaei or mathematici (astrologers; astrology), and occasionally venena (poison) and veneficium (poison-doing/making). Perhaps Tacitus’ most memorable allegation of potential magic-use comprises a litany of these elements in the description of the scene of Germanicus’

c12_vol2.indd 666

suspicious death: remains of human bodies in the walls and under the floors, spells and incantations with Germanicus’ name written on lead tablets, blood-smeared ashes, and malefica (A. 2.69). While many other formal charges are leveled against Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso when he is tried in the aftermath of Germanicus’ death, echoes of this magic-imbued death scene are found in the last charge: namely, that Piso and his wife Munatia Plancina had killed Germanicus with spells and poison (devotionibus et veneno) and impious sacrifices (immolationes nefandas) (A. 3.13). In addition to Munatia Plancina’s role in Gnaeus Piso’s assassination of Germanicus (as well as their likely employment of the infamous poisoner Martina to achieve it), women are frequently the targets of magic-related accusation in Tacitus’ writing. These magic-related charges are usually treason-related, as well. Aemilia Lepida (1) was charged in 20 ce with a mix of offenses, including faking having a child with Sulpicius Quirinius, adultery, poison (venena), and seeking information through Chaldaei about the house of Caesar (A. 3.22–23). Her exile, despite her desperate, public, and sympathy-inspiring pleas at the games that took place during her trial, shows the seriousness of the slate of magic-related charges leveled against her. Fabia Numantina was accused in 24 ce of using spells and poisons (carminibus et veneficiis) to drive to insanity her former husband, the praetor Plautius Silvanus, to the point that he threw his current wife out of a window (A. 4.22). Claudia Pulchra, second cousin of Agrippina the Elder and widow of Publius Quintilius Varus of Teutoberg Forest infamy, was accused and condemned in 26 ce for adultery and attempting to poison the emperor (veneficium in principem) and using spells (devotiones), although Tacitus writes that Agrippina took this accusation to be an attack on herself (A. 4.52). Domitia Lepida—due, Tacitus tells the reader, to Agrippina the Younger’s jealousy over Domitia’s family connections and influence over Nero—was charged, in 54 ce, with attempted murder of the consort of the emperor Claudius (i.e., Agrippina the Younger) via spells (devotionibus) and with not controlling her peace-threatening slaves in Calabria (A. 12.64– 65). Iunia Lepida, the aunt of Silanus targeted by Nero, was accused in 65 ce of incest and awful rites (diros sacrorum ritus; A. 16.8). Marcia Servilia

28-04-2023 18:02:56

M agnetes  

was convicted and executed in 66 ce for paying magicians to conduct magical rites to determine how her father’s trial would turn out (A. 16.30–33). Pollard argues that through these episodes Tacitus constructs a scenario in the first century ce whereby magical “charges are flung at women, by women and by men, in order to gain leverage within the ranks of the aristocracy,” in such a way that social tensions among families (especially women) rising and falling in power could be diffused (Pollard 2014, 201–202). Apart from these magic-related charges against women, Tacitus folds magic-related activities into many, but not all, instances of men and women consulting astrologers (Chaldaei). For instance, when Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus consults Chaldaei and dream interpreters, Tacitus notes that Libo also dabbled in the rites of mages (magorum sacra) in an episode that leads to the expulsion per a senatus consultum in 17 ce of magi and mathematici from Italy (A. 2.27 and 2.32). Tacitus reports that Agrippina the Younger removed a former rival for Claudius’ affections when in 49 ce she used an informer to charge Lollia Paulina with consulting Chaldaei and magi about the imperial marriage (A. 12.22). Lollia was found guilty, her considerable property was confiscated, and she was forced to commit suicide. Pharr (1932, 273–274) points to the difficulty in discerning a difference between magic and poison: “After all, the two ideas were not so clearly distinguished in the ancient popular mind as they would be among modern scientists.” Although Pharr was writing almost a century ago and although the past twenty-five years have seen a wealth of scholarship attempting to refine a definition of magic in the ancient world, there is still no clear line between the two. That said, poisoning in Tacitus seems to be largely a means to an end (usually political assassination). Fueled by contemporary depictions of witches in literary narrative and even the recipes in the Greek magical papyri (e.g., PGM 4, 7, 12, and 36, which were compiled in the third and fourth century ce or later and would likely have been unknown to a reader of Tacitus; see Betz 1986), one can imagine the workshops and creepy activities of poisoners like Plancina’s Martina and Agrippina’s Locusta. Except for the Syrian Martina’s poison-knotted hair (A. 3.7) and Locusta’s poison laboratory in

c12_vol2.indd 667

667

Nero’s palace (A. 13.15; described in greater detail in Suet. Nero 33), Tacitus does not offer much content to conjure an image of these poisonworking women as witches, along the lines of Erictho (Lucan 6.413–587), Canidia (Hor. Sat. 1.8 and Epod. 5 and 17), and Meroe and Pamphile (Apul. Met. 1.5–19 and 3.15–25) in Roman literature (Ogden 2009, 115–145). Rives (2003) points out that Sulla’s lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis (81 bce) in its outlawing of veneficium (poisoning) was articulating a Roman mindset that conceived of “veneficium as dealing not with both magic and poisoning, but rather with wrongful death effected through occult and uncanny means” (Rives 2003, 320). In other words, in the preparation of poisons to affect a murder—as with the death of Germanicus—something uncanny, even maliciously magical, was brewing. REFERENCES Betz, Hans Dieter. 1986. Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ogden, Daniel. 2009. Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Pharr, Clyde 1932. “The Interdiction of Magic in Roman Law.” TAPA 63: 269–295. Pollard, E. A. 2014. “Magic Accusations against Women in Tacitus’s Annals.” In Daughters of Hecate: Women & Magic Accusation in the Ancient World, edited by Kimberly B. Stratton and Dayna Kalleres, 183–218. New York: Oxford University Press. Rives, James B. 2003. “Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime.” Classical Antiquity 22.2: 313–339.

MAGIUS CAECILIANUS, see ANCHARIUS PRISCUS MAGNESIA AD SIPYLUM, see EARTHQUAKE OF 17 ce

MAGNETES UIRAN GEBARA DA SILVA

Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco

Magnetes or Magnesians is the name of the people originally from the Magnesian Peninsula, a region in the Thessalian coast. Tacitus mentions

28-04-2023 18:02:56

668

  maiestas ( le x maiestatis )

some cities founded by that people in Asia minor: Magnesia on Sipylus (Barrington 56 E4), a city close to the mount Sipylus and the river Hermus, modern Gediz, and Magnesia on the Meander (Barrington 61 F2), next to the homonymous river. In the Thessalian coast, the Magnesian settlements worthy of mention are Iolcus (in the site of the modern Kastro of Volo) and Corope (with a sanctuary of Apollo Koropaios) (Helly 2013). The Magnesians appear in Homer’s catalogue of ships, but no city is mentioned (Hom. Il. 2. 756). During the Classical and Hellenistic times they were under the dominion either of the Thessalians or the Macedonians, even after the foundation of Demetrias, which unified most of their older settlements. In the late Hellenistic period, Demetrias finally became an independent city with Roman military help. The city Magnesia on Sipylus was disputed by several Hellenistic kingdoms, until it finally became free through the actions of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) in the first century bce. Tacitus mentions that in 17 ce, after a nocturnal earthquake, twelve important cities in Asia were destroyed. With Magnesia on Sipylus being the second most affected city, Tiberius granted it indemnities and temporary tax exemptions (A. 2.47). When Tacitus describes Tiberius instructing the Senate to address the confusing rules and rights for asylum previously created by many Greek cities, Tacitus presents Magnesia on the Meander claiming that Scipio and Sulla had rewarded the loyalty and courage of the Magnesians by recognizing the shrine of Leucophryne Diana as an inviolable sanctuary (A. 3.62). see also: Earthquake of 17 ce Reference work: Barrington 55 D1; 57 A2 REFERENCE Helly, Bruno. 2013. Géographie et histoire des Magnètes de Thessalie. 1, De la plaine thessalienne aux cités de la côte égéenne, c.750-300 av. J.-C. Sciences et Humanités; 1. Sainte-Colombe-sur-Gand: La Rumeur Libre.

c12_vol2.indd 668

MAIESTAS (LEX MAIESTATIS) LEANNE BABLITZ

University of British Columbia

Maiestas, used as a shortened version of lex maiestatis minutae populi Romani, was a law that criminalized offences that “diminished the majesty of the Roman people” thus expanding what was defined as treasonous behavior beyond the republican crime of perduellio—providing aid to the enemy; the term maiestas refers to the charge in general terms. In the last one hundred years of the republican period a series of statutes (particularly lex Appuleia, c. 100 bce; lex Varia, 90 bce; lex Cornelia, 80 bce; lex Iulia, Julius Caesar c. 46 bce or Augustus c. 19–18 bce) addressed occasions when magistrates interfered with lawmaking procedures or disregarded the commands of the people and provincial governors undertook action without state authorization. The natural vagueness of the contents of these laws made a charge of maiestas a particularly flexible weapon in the hands of rival politicians maneuvering for influence. Details of the exact contents of these laws is sparse (best description, though late in date, Dig. 48.4). Under the lex Iulia it seems trials were heard by a quaestio and the penalty was death (which could be avoided by going into exile) and possibly confiscation of property. During Augustus’ reign, as the interest and safety of the emperor became intertwined with those of the state, the scope of the lex maiestatis gradually expanded still further, through a series of legal cases, to include as actionable offences words or actions (defamation) against the emperor or his family. Once this link was forged between the emperor and defamation, the types of activities classified as treasonous were limited only by the creativity of those attempting to entrap their enemies and the judiciousness of the emperor to determine the seriousness of the supposed threat and either dismiss or approve the prosecution (see recently Peachin 2015; Williamson 2016). The Senate, as the protector of the safety of the state and under Augustus recently empowered to act as a court, began to hear these cases depending perhaps on the seriousness of the charges or

28-04-2023 18:02:56

maiestas ( le x maiestatis )  

the status of those involved. The irregularities regarding procedures found within these trials are a result of this transference. Not bound by the procedural rules governing the quaestio, the Senate was able to proceed as it deemed appropriate. This freedom also accounted for the frequency with which the prosecutors bolstered a charge they felt to be weak by tacking on the charge of maiestas. Such compounding of charges could only happen in the senatorial court. Considering the evidence of the main ancient authors (Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio) it seems that Tiberius began his reign very much resistant to hearing charges under this statute and maintained a high degree of impartiality. However, subsequently he came to see those charged more and more as threats, real or otherwise, even perhaps initiating some cases himself (e.g., in 32 ce, Quintus Servaeus and Minucius Thermus, A. 6.7.2f). Trials continued during Caligula’s short reign and by the reigns of Claudius and Nero, it seems that such charges became so commonplace that individuals were being heard in the emperor’s bedroom on occasion, it seems without formal charges even being laid (Valerius Asiaticus, in 47 ce, A. 11.1f). The penalties varied over the Julio-Claudian period. During Tiberius’ reign the death penalty came to be enforced more frequently which led more defendants to premature suicides before the trial’s end. If the death penalty was not exacted, the Senate had a handful of punishments to choose from depending upon the severity of the offense—banishment to an island, exile, relegation, and confiscation of property. Under the lex Iulia those individuals who undertook the prosecution were rewarded with one quarter of the confiscated property of the person convicted. The Senate typically seems to have rewarded prosecutors more liberally (with a greater share of the confiscated estate or political offices) depending again on the level of threat substantiated. Some individuals who made a career of initiating such cases came to be labelled delators. Tacitus presents the development of the lex maiestatis as a recurring theme within the Annals by means of accounts of the trials, or lack thereof, of those accused under the lex. As an advocate and senator of the late first century, Tacitus had been complicit in the condemnation of various defendants under this law. His feelings of guilt are

c12_vol2.indd 669

669

clearly revealed in Ag. 45.1. His personal relationship with this law, therefore, was complex. The result is a complicated narrative of the JulioClaudian period in which Tacitus seeks to lay blame both on Tiberius for allowing politicians, advocates, and informers to manipulate and expand the originally narrow mandate of this law to attack their enemies and sow fear and distrust among everyone, and on the Senate as a collective body for not resisting this process, and to record for posterity those who unfairly fell victim to prosecution under this law. A paucity of information from other sources coupled with Tacitus’ highly curated presentation of the (ab)use of this law, makes the modern historian’s exploration of the lex maiestatis in the first century ce a challenging exercise that demands a healthy degree of caution and care. The lacuna in the Annals makes it still more difficult to compare the use of this law under Caligula and Claudius with its use during the reigns of Tiberius and Nero. Cassius Dio’s account fills the gap, but he was a historian with a different agenda than Tacitus. The discovery of the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone, published in 1996, provided an unprecedented opportunity for the fresh consideration of Tacitus’ historical narrative by means of two very different ancient accounts concerning the same trial involving the lex maiestatis; a complete official state document, specifically a senatus consultum, and Tacitus’ narrative account of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso’s trial (which appears in Books 2 and 3). Tacitus, like any skilled advocate, presents the information that best makes his argument and avoids drawing attention to anything that would undermine it. Tacitus suggests that he is providing detailed accounts of these trials, full of dramatic revelations and charged familial angst. However, as soon as the reader pauses and asks for some basic information regarding the trials (e.g., frequency, the exact nature of the charges, the names of the accuser, the names of the defendants, the verdicts—work that scholars including Rogers 1953, Koestermann 1955, Shotter 1966, 1969, 1972, Bablitz 2015 have undertaken), it becomes clear that Tacitus has either not provided crucial pieces of information or has presented information in such a way as to mislead or obfuscate (see, e.g., Griffin 2009; Levick 1999, 2011; O’Gorman 2000; Pelling 2009). Caution is warranted.

28-04-2023 18:02:56

670

  M allius M a x imus , G naeus

see also: leges (laws) REFERENCES Bablitz, L. 2015. “Tacitus on Trial(s).” In Aspects of Ancient Institutions and Geography: Studies in Honor of Richard J.A. Talbert, edited by L. L. Brice and D. Slootjes, 65–83. Leiden: Brill. Griffin, M. T. 2009. “Tacitus as a Historian.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 168–183. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Koestermann, E. 1955. “Die Majestätprozesse unter Tiberius.” Historia 4: 72–106. Levick, B. 1999 (revised edition). Tiberius the Politician. London: Routledge Levick, B. 2011. “Tacitus in the Twenty-First Century: The Struggle for Truth in Annals 1–6.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by V.E. Pagán, 260–281. Malden, Oxford and Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. O’Gorman, E. 2000. Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peachin, M. 2015. “Augustus’ Emergent Judicial Powers, the ‘crimen maiestatis’, and the Second Cyrene Edict.” In Il princeps romano: autocrate o magistrato? Fattori giuridici e fattori sociali del potere imperial da Augusto a Commodo, edited by J.-L. Ferrary and J. Scheid, 3–59. Pavia: IUSS Press. Pelling, C. 2009. “Tacitus’ Personal Voice.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 147–167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rogers, R. S. 1935. Criminal Trials and Criminal Legislation under Tiberius. Middletown, CT: American Philological Association. Shotter, D. C. A. 1966. “Tiberius Part in the Trial of Aemilia Lepida.” Historia 15: 312–317. Shotter, D. C. A. 1969. “The Trial of Clutorius Priscus.” Greece & Rome 16: 14–18. Shotter, D. C. A. 1972. “The Trial of M. Scribonius Libo Drusus.” Historia 21: 88–98. Williamson, C. 2016. “Crimes against the State.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society, edited by P. J. du Plessis, C. Ando, and K. Tuori, 333–344. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Bauman, R. A. 1974. Impietas in Principem. A Study of Treason against the Roman Emperor with Special Reference to the First Century ad. Munich: Beck.

c12_vol2.indd 670

Camodeca, G. 2009. “Delatores, praemia e processo senatorio de maiestate in una inedita Tabula Herculanensis di età neroniana.” Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iuris 75: 381–402. Corbier, M. 2002. “Maiestas domus Augustœ.” Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France 1999: 261–274. Goodyear, F. R. D. 1972. The Annals of Tacitus Vol 1: Annals 1.1–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus Vol 2: Annals 1. 55-81 and Annals 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levick, B. 1979. “Poena legis maiestatis.” Historia 28.3: 358–379. Maiuri, A. 2012. La giurisdizione criminale in Tacito: aspetti letterari e implicazioni politiche. Rome: Alpes. Tuori, K. 2016. The Emperor of Law: The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2018. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J., and R. H. Martin. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MALLIUS MAXIMUS, GNAEUS CHRISTOPHER J. DART

University of Melbourne

Gnaeus Mallius Maximus (consul 105) conducted a campaign which ended in disaster against the Cimbri in 105 bce in conjunction with the legate Marcus Aurelius Scaurus (suffect consul 108) and the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio (consul 106). A novus homo and the only member of the gens Mallia to reach the consulship, he is incorrectly referred to as Manlius in many literary sources. Mallius, Scaurus and Caepio are named in Tacitus’ list of Roman commanders routed or taken prisoner by the Cimbri (G. 37). As consul in 106, Caepio had modest successes in Transalpine Gaul, sacking Tolosa and taking its sacred treasure, for which he was supposedly cursed (Gell. 3.9) and then suspected of orchestrating its disappearance during transportation to Rome (Cic. De Nat. Deo. 3.30; Oros. 5.15.25). Caepio was prorogued for 105 and the newly

28-04-2023 18:02:56

M anlius Patruitus  

elected Mallius sent to join him in Gaul, but the two men were repeatedly unable to cooperate (Cass. Dio 27, fr. 91), possibly stemming from Caepio’s resentment at being subordinate to a new man. Following a battle with the Cimbri, Mallius’ legate Scaurus was taken prisoner. When he attempted to dissuade them from marching on Italy, claiming the Romans could not be defeated, Scaurus was executed (Livy Per. 67). This prompted Mallius to request Caepio join him and unite their forces. Initially refusing, Caepio reluctantly moved his camp out of fear Mallius might receive sole credit for any victory won over the Cimbri (Cass. Dio 27, fr. 91). As the ranking commander, Mallius received envoys from the Cimbri, further enraging Caepio. Subsequently, near Arausio (modern Orange, France) on 6 October 105 Caepio engaged the enemy and Mallius’ army came to their assistance. Both were gravely defeated and their camps sacked. Ancient accounts claim as many as 80,000 soldiers and many thousands of camp followers were killed, including two of Mallius’ sons. The conflict between the commanders and the disaster which followed had a marked similarity to the Roman defeat at Cannae in 216 bce and led to an extraordinary series of consulships held by Gaius Marius. In 103 the tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus proposed a plebiscite to send Mallius into exile, a fate also suffered by Caepio. see also: Germani; Germania; Germania; Roman Republic MALLOVENDUS, see MARSI MALORIX, see FRISII

MAMMIUS POLLIO, LUCIUS

671

erected in Fanum Fortnunae (Fano) in May of 49 preserves the names of the consuls Lucius Mammius Pollio and Quintus Allius Maximus (CIL IX 6236). According to Tacitus (A. 12.9.1), Pollio was induced by bribery to move that the Senate pass a resolution asking the emperor Claudius to betroth his daughter Octavia (2) to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (the future emperor Nero). Octavia was Claudius’ only daughter by his third wife, Valeria Messalina. Octavia had been betrothed to Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1), but Claudius annulled the compact in order to marry her to Lucius Domitius, the son of Agrippina the Younger, his fourth wife and niece. The annulment, Tacitus claims, could not happen without crime because it had been confirmed in public by conferring on Silanus the triumphal insignia and other public honors (A. 12.3.2). Therefore, Pollio appealed to the Senate, using language similar to that used by Lucius Vitellius, facilitator of Claudius’ incestuous marriage to Agrippina, concerning the same matter (A. 12.9.2). see also: marriage Reference works: PIR2 M 126; CIL IX 6236; RE 14.1 FURTHER READING Andresen, G. 1913. P. Corn. Taciti libri qui supersunt. Vol. 2. 5th ed. Leipzig: Teubner. Barrett, Anthony. 1996. Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

MANIMI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST MANLIUS, see APPULEIA VARILLA

JOSEPH R. O’NEILL

MANLIUS PATRUITUS

Arizona State University

JULIA MEBANE

Indiana University, Bloomington

Lucius Mammius Pollio was one of the suffect consuls for 49 ce. The second Medicean manuscript records Pollio’s name as Memmius (A. 12.9.1), but the text was amended by Andresen (1913) on epigraphic evidence. An inscription

c12_vol2.indd 671

Manlius Patruitus was a Roman senator who reported to the Senate that he had been attacked by a mob in the colony of Sena (modern Siena) around 70 ce (H. 4.45). At the command of local

28-04-2023 18:02:56

672

  M anlius Valens

magistrates, a crowd had surrounded him, beaten him, and then proceeded to wail, mourn, and stage a mock funeral. Those participating also hurled insults at him and the whole Senate. Upon hearing Patruitus’ complaint, the Senate summoned the accused, heard the case, and punished those convicted. In addition, it passed a vote warning Sena’s population to behave in a more orderly fashion. This incident is one of several documented cases in which elites experienced reversals of fortune on the street (Hartnett 2017, 108–109). It may also be viewed in relation to the tradition of holding mock funerals at banquets (Sen. Ep. 12.8; Brev. Vit. 20.3; Petron. Sat. 78). Reference work: PIR2 M 156 REFERENCE Hartnett, Jeremy. 2017. The Roman Street: Urban Life and Society in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Edwards, Catharine. 2007. “Tasting Death.” In Death in Ancient Rome, 161–178. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

MANLIUS VALENS

party along with his provincial governor (H. 1.59). Despite his enthusiasm, Vitellius did not give him any consideration, because Fabius Valens, Vitellius’ general, had secretly defamed him while praising him in public. He probably fought with his legion in both battles of Bedriacum. In 96 ce, at the age of ninety, Domitian chose him as eponymous consul of the year with Gaius Antistius. Cassius Dio says he died just after entering the consulship (Cass. Dio, 67.14.5). Reference works: PIR2 M 163; CIL VI 17707; 39837; XIV 2012; AE 1961, 236 REFERENCE Birley, A. 1981. The Fasti of Roman Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Birley, E. 1957. “Beförderungen und Versetzungen im römischen Heere.” In Carnuntum Jahrbuch: 1–30 = Id. The Roman Army Papers 1929–1986, 93–114. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Gallivan, P. A. 1981. “The Fasti for A. D. 70–96.” Classical Quarterly 31.1: 186–220.

MANNUS TRIBES

LEONARDO GREGORATTI

KATIE LOW

University of Durham

Brussels

Gaius Manlius Valens was probably born around 6 ce. Despite one inscription giving the praenomen Titus, other epigraphical texts and Cassius Dio (Cass. Dio 67.14.5) give the more likely Gaius. In 51/52 ce when Didius Gallus took the place of Ostorius Scapula as governor of Britain, T. Manlius Valens commanded one of the Britannic legions (A. 12.40.1), the II Augusta according to Edmund Groag (RE, XIV, Manlius 88) the XX Valeria Victrix according to Birley (1981, 230). Defeated in battle by the Silures he was replaced by a new legatus. Several years later, in 69 ce at the age of sixty-three, he was still a legionary commander. At the head of the I Italica (H. 1.64) at Lugdunum, he joined Vitellius’

Tacitus opens the Germania with information about the location and borders of the territory inhabited by the Germani, before adding that he believes they are an indigenous people who have remained untouched by immigration: the remote, unwelcoming nature of Germania, especially compared with the temperate Mediterranean, is further evidence for outsiders’ lack of interest (G. 1.1–2.1). He then reports the stories told by the Germani about their own origins in old songs (G. 2.1–2). According to them, Tuisto, a god who came forth from the earth itself, had a son, Mannus, “the origin and founder of the people” (originem gentis conditoremque, G. 2.2). He had three sons, who gave their names to three

c12_vol2.indd 672

28-04-2023 18:02:56

M annus tribes  

Germanic tribal groups: the Ingvaeones, living nearest the Oceanus, the Istvaeones, furthest from the coast, and the Herminones, situated between the two. Some sources, Tacitus adds, also refer to further groups, the Marsi, Gambrivii, Suebi, and Vandilii (Barrington 2 G3). In ethnography, it was conventional to begin an account of a foreign people with theories about their origins, although Tacitus does not say whether he actually heard the songs in question (it appears there was indeed a flourishing tradition of oral poetry among the early Germanic tribes). In fact, nowhere in the Germania does he disclose any personal contact he may have had with the Germani. However, the story of Tuisto and his descendants, which is mentioned in no other surviving text but “provides clear evidence for ethnic self-consciousness on the part of at least some Germanic tribes” (Rives 1999, 109) and appears to have been Germanic, not Greek or Roman, in origin, was probably told to Romans by Germanic informants toward the end of the first century bce. It was then used by Roman authors to organize their own presentations of the Germani. Variant versions seem to have developed: when surveying the Germanic peoples, Pliny the Elder (HN 4.99–100) refers to the Ingvaeones, Herminones, and Istvaeones but also names two other groups (Rives 1999, 110–111). There is very little evidence that Germanic tribes were historically divided this way, and Tacitus does not refer back to them later in the Germania: the pattern of a founder figure’s three sons being the ancestors of tribal groups finds parallels in other mythologies. Some scholars have proposed that they were linked to the worship of particular cults, but there is no concrete evidence for this. The name Mannus is related to the Germanic word for man, and here refers to a generic ancestor figure, suggesting that the Germani equated their earliest origins with those of the human race itself (Rives 1999, 112). Of the three filial tribal groups, the name of the Ingvaeones, spelled “Ingaevones” in the manuscripts (see Rives 1999, 113; “Ingvaeones” is found at Plin. HN 4.96 and 99 and Solin. 20.1) appears to be linked to that of a god. Pliny terms them the first Germanic tribe that a traveler coming from the North Sea will meet (HN 4.96) and reports that they included the Cimbri, Teutones, and Chauci (HN 4.99).

c12_vol2.indd 673

673

Although there has been some speculation that the names of the Herminones and the Istvaeones were also associated with gods, no certain evidence for this has been discovered. Contrary to what Tacitus says about their location, Pliny says that the Herminones were the group dwelling furthest to the east (HN 4.99; see also Pompon. 3.32) and adds that among them were the Suebi, Hermunduri, Chatti, and Cherusci. He also mentions the Istvaeones, but a gap in the manuscript of the HN obscures their constituent tribes. After setting out this genealogy, Tacitus then— as he often does in his historical narratives—complicates what he has just said by offering an alternative. He mentions that some people allege that the god (the text does not specify if this is Tuisto or Mannus: the latter seems more logical, although he is not explicitly called divine) had further sons, who gave their names to the Marsi, Gambrivii, Suebi, and Vandilii. Of these, there are very few references to the Gambrivii and Vandilii in other extant classical works. For the first, see Str. 7.1.3, and for the second Plin. HN 4.99, where the text has “Vandili”: some scholars identify this tribe with the Lugii mentioned at G. 43.2 and suggest they were both forerunners of the Vandals, who came to prominence later in antiquity. Conversely, the Marsi and Suebi are well attested in Tacitus’ works and elsewhere. The sources for this variant genealogy must have been Greek or Roman scholars rather than Germanic accounts, and it has been argued that it was not merely a supplement to the tripartite division but rather a distinct alternative (Lund 1991, 1873–1874, 1977–1981). However, this seems unlikely for several reasons, not least the links between Tacitus’ and Pliny’s versions (Rives 1999, 115). Moreover, Tacitus’ somewhat skeptical presentation of this additional theory as the fruit of “the unbounded freedom permitted by antiquity” (licentia vetustatis, G. 2.2) does not suggest that he sets great store by it. see also: Germanic peoples of the northeast REFERENCES Lund, Allan A. 1991. “Versuch einer Gesamtinterpretation der ‘Germania’ des Tacitus, mit einem Anhang: Zu Entstehung und Geschichte

28-04-2023 18:02:56

674

  manuscripts

des Namens und Begriffs Germani.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.33.3: 1858–1988, 2347–2382. Rives, James B., ed. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Timpe, Dieter. 1991. “Die Söhne des Mannus.” Chiron 21: 69–124.

MANUSCRIPTS ARTHUR J. POMEROY

Victoria University of Wellington

The surviving texts of Tacitus are dependent on a small number of copies that survived into the early Middle Ages in monastic libraries in Germany and Italy and were then copied in Italy in the Renaissance. The surviving books of the Annals and the Histories are compiled from two successive manuscripts now in the Laurentian Library in Florence. The history of the minor works is more complex, since the text of the Agricola, in a copy made by Stefano Guarnieri, preserves a section of an original Carolingian codex of the ninth century. The text of the Germania and Dialogus is derived from a now lost codex of a similar date known to have come from Hersfeld Abbey. The relationship between the two original sources remains unclear. Because the Hersfeld codex does not survive, editions of the Germania and Dialogus need to be reconstructed from a number of later Renaissance copies. As Tacitus completed each book of his works, this was transferred to a papyrus roll with an indication of its contents at the top (for instance, “P. Cornelius [Tacitus]’s Book I, ‘From the Death of Augustus’” begins the Annals; “Cornelius Tacitus” “‘Dialogue On Orators’ starts here” is the heading in the Vatican codex where it follows the Germania). This original text, possibly including some errors from the original scribe, would then be reproduced by hand to produce as many copies as required. Even with quality control (checking against the version being copied), which was definitely not guaranteed once a manuscript became public, further errors occurred. Some obvious

c12_vol2.indd 674

mistakes could simply be corrected by the scribe or a later reader; other discrepancies might be noted if two manuscripts were compared to one another. There was never a “clean” text such as we see in the Loeb Classical Library Latin text or the Teubner (Heubner 1994) editions (which, it must be noted, are not entirely error free, despite the best efforts of modern editors and proofreaders). Because papyrus is a perishable material, if rolls were not transferred to the longer lasting medium of parchment, works would simply disappear. Any speeches of Tacitus, for instance, that were in public circulation have suffered that fate. The copies of his works that did survive were also open to destruction by human intervention or the ravages of time. Rolling and unrolling papyrus rolls could lead to tearing or damage might occur from insects and vermin. The beginnings of manuscripts and their endings were particularly exposed to harm after they had been transferred to codices. This can be seen in the loss of the first part of Annals 11, the rest of the Annals after 16.35 (which ends in mid-sentence) or the Histories after 5.26 (also mid-sentence). However, even inside a codex, bound in groups of pages like a modern book, sections could fall out. There is a gap in the Dialogus between Chapters 35 and 36 which is marked in the manuscripts with different estimations: “six small pages” (B), “four small pages” (Q), “a folium and a half ” (V), and even “six folia” (Decembrio). Scholars now generally accept that the missing text (lacuna) is quite small and that Decembrio was in error, but there is no definitive way of proving this. Another insoluble problem is that of the loss of most of Book 5 after Annals 5.5. The text resumes with an account of forty-four speeches delivered in the Senate, another break in the text, and then the final words of a senator before committing suicide. This leaves the question of whether the resumed text is part of Book 5 and Book 6 begins with the consular dating of 32 ce (“Gnaeus Domitius and Camillius Scribonianus had taken up their consulships, when …,” Woodman 2017) or whether the start of Book 6 has been lost and the resumed text, starting with the forty-four speeches, is part of Annals 6 (as in Heubner’s Teubner text). Tacitus’ works were never school texts, unlike the early books of Livy’s history of Rome, and are rarely mentioned after his death through to late

28-04-2023 18:02:56

manuscripts  

antiquity. A tale in the Historia Augusta (Vopiscus, Tacitus 10.3) that the emperor Marcus Claudius Tacitus (275–276; no relation to the historian) ordered that the historian’s works be copied ten times every year is almost certainly a joke, but seems to indicate that editions of Tacitus were rare by the fourth century. If mentioned, Tacitus is most commonly referenced for Nero’s persecution of the Christians (A. 15.44; see Christianity), but other citations may be secondhand. Jerome (Commentary on Zacharias 3.14.1–2) describes Tacitus as writing “Lives of the Caesars from after Augustus to the death of Domitian in thirty books,” perhaps imagining that he was a biographer like Suetonius. The number of books, if correct, then brings up the question of how many were in the Histories and in the Annals. Twelve for the Histories and eighteen for the Annals is a popular solution, suggesting the historian conceived his work in groups of six books (hexads). That Ammianus Marcellinus began his history of Rome from the death of Domitian suggests that there was at least a complete edition of the Histories in circulation in the fourth century. After this, there is silence, but a few copies, whether from public libraries or private sources did survive, perhaps initially in Italy at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino (founded in 529) and later in Germany at the Benedictine monasteries of Fulda (founded 744) and Hersfeld (founded 769). By a process of deduction, we can trace the history of the transmission of Tacitus’ works as we possess them today. Around the middle of the ninth century, Annals 1–6 were copied into a codex at Fulda in a clear cursive script known as Caroline minuscule whose style indicates the approximate date of reproduction. Some errors indicate that, at an earlier stage, this is descended from a version that was written in capitals without word division and then at least another minuscule version. Book divisions (but not modern chapter divisions) are indicated for Books 1–5, but not for Annals 6— hence the uncertainty about where this book begins. By the fifteenth century the existence of this manuscript, by this time transferred to Corvey Abbey, became more widely known and, early in his reign, Pope Leo X (1513–1521) requested that it be brought to Rome on loan.

c12_vol2.indd 675

675

This is the text that Beroaldus the Younger (Filippo Beroaldo) used to produce his print edition in 1515. The manuscript was never returned to Corvey, ending up in the Laurentian Library in Florence. Hence, this manuscript is known as the First Medicean (M or M1) to avoid confusion with another codex which contains Annals 11–16 and Histories 1–5. The Second Medicean (M2) was produced at Monte Cassino in the middle of the eleventh century. By the early fifteenth century it had arrived in Florence and passed into the hands of the famous collector, Niccolò de’ Niccoli. After his death, Niccoli’s manuscripts were acquired by Cosimo de Medici, and so the Second Medicean also entered the Laurentian Library. Because the codex was written in Beneventan script, a type of handwriting which was difficult to read for scholars of this time, it was copied and recopied numerous times in a more modern style. This process introduced both errors and corrections. Some of the extant manuscripts (such as L, held in Leiden) are in fact corrected copies of the first printed edition, which was itself based on copies of the Medicean. Such derived manuscripts are useful where the original has lost pages in the years after it was copied (e.g., H. 1.69–75, 1.86– 2.2), but despite earlier suggestions that they possessed independent value, it is now recognized that they are best seen simply as showing the emendations of M2 by fifteenth century scholars. While the Annals and the Histories are thus derived from unique sources, the history of the minor works is substantially more complicated. We know that there was a ninth century manuscript of the Germania, Agricola, and Dialogus that was acquired before 1431 by Niccolò de’ Niccoli from a monk from the Hersfeld monastery. This manuscript, labelled the codex Hersfeldensis, now only exists in various copies made of it in the fifteenth century. Matters are complicated by the existence of another codex (the codex Aesinas), formerly owned by the Count of Jesi, that is now in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Rome. In this manuscript, the section containing the Agricola is a copy made by Stefano Guarnieri, but this copy retains one quire (four sheets of paper folded to make eight leaves) for Agricola 13–40 that was part of an original ninth century manuscript. The Carolingian manuscript section

28-04-2023 18:02:57

676

  manuscripts

of the Agricola has numerous corrections written in the margins that are often so striking that they appear to be from comparison with another, now lost manuscript. Debate continues as to whether this section is in fact a remnant of the Hersfeld manuscript. If not, we need to imagine that there were two similar ninth century manuscripts that survived into the fifteenth century, one with the Agricola, the other with the Germania and Dialogus, each of which had at times been bound with other short Latin texts (Schaps 1979). For the Agricola, the only significant text is that of the codex Aesinas. For the Germania and Dialogus, however, Guarnieri used an earlier reproduction of the Hersfeld text which appears to have been lost or destroyed after it was copied in the fifteenth century. Indeed, a number of such copies were in circulation. This complicates matters when scholars attempt to reconstruct how copies of the original and then copies of these copies are related to one another. We know from the Aesinas text of Agricola that the copyists were offered a choice of readings through corrections written in the margins. The same was apparently the case for the Germania and Dialogus: copyists made their own choices and corrections rather than simply reproduce the main text. For instance, in the Dialogus it is clear that all manuscripts stem from a Renaissance copy of a Carolingian codex. At Dial. 31.7 cītem (a Carolingian abbreviation for comitem, “companion”) is mistakenly expanded into civitatem (“state”) in a group of manuscripts as this would be the meaning of the very similar Renaissance abbreviation. In another manuscript, the copyist simply copies cītem. Such behavior by the scribes makes it difficult to draw up a family tree (stemma) of the manuscripts. In their textual notes (the apparatus criticus at the bottom of modern printed texts), editors will indicate readings from important surviving manuscripts using Roman letter symbols for extant copies (e.g., B for Vaticanus Latinus 1862). However, by grouping similar manuscripts together, the editor can reduce the number of different readings that need to be reported. These will be indicated by a Greek symbol to indicate a lost forerunner of a group: for example, in the Oxford Classical Text of the Dialogus, Winterbottom uses the Greek symbol ψ to

c12_vol2.indd 676

indicate a class of manuscripts that include surviving examples from collections in Naples (S) and Florence (U) (see Winterbottom 1975 for full discussion). He assumes that there are three main strands of copies derived from the Hersfeld manuscript, while Robinson (1935) followed by Murgia and Rodgers (1984) and Kaster (1992), believed that there were only two significant copies from which all surviving manuscripts are derived. Whatever the case, given the number of errors in the manuscripts of the Germania and Dialogus, it is finally up to the editor to evaluate the text and to decide whether to accept or reject the marginal corrections. Hence the importance of editions of Tacitus from the time of the first printed versions. It may also be noted that the Aesinas manuscript as an object has had its own peculiar history. Rediscovered in 1902 at Jesi, it was the target of a special SS operation in 1943, authorized by Heinrich Himmler himself, to secure the codex. Fortunately, it had been hidden by the Duke of Jesi and so survived the war (Krebs 2011, 15–17; Schama 1995, 75–81). see also: reception, antiquity; reception, Middle Ages REFERENCES Heubner, Heinz, ed. 1994. Ab excessu divi Augusti, editio correctior. Leipzig: Teubner. Kaster, Robert A. 1992. Studies on the Text of Suetonius De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Krebs, Christopher. 2011. A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. New York: W. W. Norton. Murgia, Charles E., and Robert H. Rodgers. 1984. “A Tale of Two Manuscripts.” Classical Philology 79: 145–153. Robinson, Rodney P. 1935. The Germania of Tacitus. Middletown, CT: American Philological Association. Schama, Simon. 1995. Landscape and Memory. New York: A. A. Knopf. Schaps, David. 1979. “The Found and Lost Manuscripts of Tacitus’ Agricola.” Classical Philology 74: 221–240. Winterbottom, Michael. 1975. “The Manuscript Tradition of Tacitus’ Germania.” Classical Philology 70: 1–7.

28-04-2023 18:02:57

M arcomani  

Woodman, Anthony J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Reynolds, Leighton D., and Nigel G. Wilson 1991. Scribes and Scholars. A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press is the best introduction to the history of texts from the classical world to the present day. Reynolds Leighton, D., ed. 1983. Texts and Transmission. A Survey of the Latin Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, offers a concise guide to all major Latin texts, including Tacitus (pages 406–411).

MARCIA, see FABIUS MAXIMIUS MARCIUS FESTUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY

MARCIUS PHILIPPUS

677

years. For his military successes there, he was awarded a triumph he celebrated in Rome in 33 bce. After the conclusion of the civil war with the spoils of his victories in Spain, he restored the Temple of Hercules and the Muses in the Circus Flaminius. Tacitus refers to his building activity when narrating the intention of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4) to restore Paulus’ basilica under Tiberius. Lepidus’ initiative is said to have been inspired by similar ones from Augustus’ time, by Titus Statilius Taurus (1), Lucius Cornelius Balbus, and Philippus (A. 3.72.1; Suet. Aug. 29.5). see also: civil wars of the Late Republic Reference work: PIR2 M 241a REFERENCE Van Ooteghem, J. 1961. Lucius Marcius Philippus et sa famille. Bruxelles: Palais des Académies.

LEONARDO GREGORATTI

FURTHER READING

University of Durham

Syme, R. 1939. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lucius Marcius Philippus was a senator of the Late Republic and member of the gens Marcia (descendant from Ancus Martius, Ov. Fast. 6.802; Van Ooteghem 1961, 181–183). As the son of a consul (Lucius Marcius Philippus, 56 bce) he undertook a political career. He was responsible for the mint during his father’s consulship. Later, in 49 bce he was tribune of the plebs and favored Iulius Caesar in opposing the decision to send Pompey’s son-in-law to Mauretania in order to persuade king Bocchus II to abandon Caesar’s side (Caes. BCiv. 1.6.4). When Caesar came to power, Philippus was rewarded with the praetorship (44 bce, Cic. Phil. 3.10.25). His father’s marriage to Atia Balba Caesonia made him the stepbrother of the young Octavian (see Augustus). Thanks to his family ties and his father’s influence, he was appointed suffect consul in 38 bce. During his office, he never declared himself openly for his brother against Mark Antony. In 35 bce he was proconsular governor in Hispania for two

c12_vol2.indd 677

MARCIUS, Publius, see ASTROLOGY

MARCOMANI JAMES MCNAMARA

Universität Potsdam

The Marcomani were a Germanic tribe first mentioned by Iulius Caesar (BGall. 1.51.2) among the tribal units of the Suebi. The name is thought to represent “border men/ people” (RGA, Markomannen). The spelling Marcomani is mostly attested from time of Tacitus onwards; in Greek usually Μαρκόμανοι, in Stat. Silv. 3.3.170, Marcŏmăni with stress on o. Marcomani are first are mentioned by Caesar (BGall. 1.51.2) among the tribal units of Ariovistus; for Strabo and Tacitus, the Marcomani are a subgroup of the Suebi. They are next traceable being heavily beaten in the offensive of Drusus the

28-04-2023 18:02:57

678

  M arcomani

Elder in10 bce (Orosius 6.21.15). Augustus proclaims their subjugation in the Res Gestae (Mon. Anc. 6.3). Under Maroboduus they invaded Bohemia, driving out the Boii (G. 42.1). During Maroboduus’ reign the Marcomani became more powerful and took a hegemonic position over numerous neighboring tribes including the Lugii, Semnones, Hermunduri and, by 5 ce, the Langobardi (Vell. Pat. 2.106f; A. 2.45.1). A huge invasion led by Sentius Saturninus from Mogontiacum (Mainz) and Tiberius from Carnuntum (6 ce) was cut short by the Illyrian revolt, and the treaty secured a period of stability; by the time of Maroboduus’ downfall in 18 ce, his capital was filled with Roman traders and showed some degree of urbanization (A. 2.62.3). The Marcomani played no active role in the Pannonian war (6–9 ce), Arminius’ destruction of Quintilius Varus (9 ce) or the offensives of Germanicus (14–16 ce). In 17 ce, Maroboduus, aided by Inguiomerus the uncle of Arminius, called on Roman aid in his struggle for hegemony against Arminius but was rebuffed (A. 2.44.2; 2.46.5). The Langobardi and Semnones defected to Arminius, and after an indecisive battle Maroboduus’ support waned; Drusus the Younger, enacting Tiberius’ policy of sowing discord among the Germani, contributed to weakening Maroboduus’ position. Finally, in 18 ce a returned exile, Catualda, brought about Maroboduus’ downfall through bribery among the Marcomanic nobility (A. 2.62–3). Maroboduus appealed to Tiberius, who granted him refuge in Ravenna. Catualda was soon expelled by the Hermunduri, and Vannius of the Quadi was installed as king of the Marcomani with Roman help. The Marcomani slip from prominence until the time of Domitian: in 89 ce the Marcomani and Quadi refused Domitian’s demand for assistance against the Dacians (Cass. Dio 67.7.1); the punitive response began a war that was only settled by Trajan in 97 or 98; Trajan’s arch in Beneventum may represent these events in relief (reproduced RGA 11. fig. 15b). While the wars are poorly attested, they were lengthy and geographically extensive, involving also Sarmatians (cf. ILS 1017, 2719, 9200). At G. 42.2 Tacitus recalls that the Marcomani and Quadi used to be ruled by their own kings descended from Maroboduus and (the

c12_vol2.indd 678

otherwise unattested, presumably Quadian) Tudrus, but are now subjected to foreign kings, perhaps one of the few references to a near-contemporary event, Trajan’s settlement of Domitian’s Suebian war. The Naristi (elsewhere Varisti) are a neighboring tribe first named in this passage. Archaeological finds attest to active trade between Romans and Marcomani for the next seven decades, though the tribe only rises to prominence again in historical sources after Tacitus’ time in the wars waged by Marcus Aurelius and Commodus (in two main phases from 166/7–175 and 177/8–180); for a catalog of the tribes at war see HA Aur. 22.1. Movements by the Goths into the territory of tribes bordering on Rome are likely to have sparked the start of these conflicts, in which the Marcomani were devastated, never to retain their former power. Depictions of the wars may still be seen on the column of Marcus Aurelius in Piazza Colonna, Rome. The name appears occasionally up to Paulus Diaconus, Historia Romana 14.2, where it may be a historical relic; there is no evidence for a continued Marcomanic identity after the mid-fifth century. The Quadi appear mostly in close connection with the Marcomani, first appearing at A. 2.63.6 and being named in Domitian’s Marcomanic wars (ILS 9200; Cass. Dio 67.7.1). They were involved in the Marcomanic wars of the second century ce (Cass. Dio 71.8.11, 13–14). see also: Germania; Germanic peoples of the northeast; Gotones Reference works: Barrington, 12 G2-I2 (Marcomani); 13 B4-C4 (Quadi); Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA), vol. 11. fig. 15b, vol. 19 Markomannen, vol. 23 Quaden FURTHER READING Pitts, Lynn. 1989. “Relations between Rome and the German ‘Kings’ on the Middle Danube in the First to Fourth Centuries AD.” Journal of Roman Studies 79: 45–58. DOI: 10.2307/301180. Rives, J. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

MARICCUS, see BOII

28-04-2023 18:02:57

M arius , G aius  

MARIUS CELSUS LEE FRANTANTUONO

Maynooth University

Aulus Marius Celsus was consul in 69 ce with Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus (the maternal grandfather of the future emperor Antoninus Pius and correspondent of Pliny the Younger). He is cited by Tacitus at A. 15.25 for having brought the Fifteenth Legion (XV Apollinaris) from Pannonia to Syria at the time when Gaius Cestius Gallus (2) took over the civil administration and Domitius Corbulo the military management of the province (63 or 65). This is the only mention of Celsus in the Annals; his consulship is noted at H. 1.14, where he is summoned as consul-elect by Galba in the wake of the news of Vitellius’ German revolt; at H. 1.90, he is cited with Suetonius Paulinus as a trusted counselor of Otho. He survived the travails and intrigues of the Long Year with aplomb, displaying loyalty toward each new emperor in succession and an admirable restraint from any treacherous dealings; after having served on the Lower Rhine in 71 (where he succeeded Petilius Cerialis) he became governor of Syria in 73, where our evidence for his career ends. It is possible that he is the same Celsus was is cited by Lydus (De magistratibus Populi Romani 3.33) as having written about military tactics, with mention of his colleague Corbulo, in which case he may have been employed as a source by Tacitus. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; sources Reference work: PIR2 M 296

MARIUS, GAIUS CHRISTOPHER J. DART

University of Melbourne

Gaius Marius (157 bce–86 bce, consul 107, 104– 100, 86) was an innovative military commander and politician. He was born to an obscure family from Caprenae, near Arpinum. Although not wealthy, Marius’ family was well connected.

c12_vol2.indd 679

679

Stories of his impoverished upbringing are embellished and were likely originally propagated by his political enemies. This is reflected in much of the surviving literary tradition; thus Tacitus describes Marius as having been “sprung from the very dregs of the populace” (H. 2.38). Marius served in the army of Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus at the siege of Numantia in 134/3 bce, where Plutarch reports a story in which Scipio prophesized Marius’ future successes (Mar. 3). He was elected tribune of the plebs in 119 at the age of thirty-eight, reportedly with the assistance of the Metelli. Failing to be elected aedile, he secured election as praetor in 115. The following year he was sent to Further Spain. Upon his return he married Julia (aunt of the future dictator Iulius Caesar). In 109 he served as legatus to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus in the war against Jugurtha. Already well-known as a skilled soldier, he leveraged his connections among the equestrians and within the army to make a bid for the consulship. Although delayed from leaving Africa by Metellus, Marius returned to Rome in 107, was elected consul, and secured appointment to replace Metellus in command. Marius returned to Africa expecting to conclude the war, however, he was unable to capture Jugurtha. The war finally ended when his quaestor, Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) peacefully secured the surrender of Jugurtha. Feeling he had been undermined, Marius harbored a grave resentment of Sulla thereafter. In 104, Marius was elected to his second consulship to deal with a German invasion. Overseeing reforms to the organization and provisioning of the army that would be of enduring impact, he was repeatedly reelected in successive years contrary to traditional practice. In 102, he defeated the Teutones and Ambrones at Aqua Sextiae and then in 101, the Cimbri at Vercellae with his colleague Quintus Lutatius Catulus. From 103, Marius benefited from the populist policies of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus and Servilius Glaucia, who facilitated the settlement of Marius’ veterans and drove his rival Metellus into exile. When Glaucia sought to run for the consulship of 99 the Senate sought to take action, and Marius turned against them.

28-04-2023 18:02:57

680

  M arius M aturus

In the Social War (91–88) Marius took command of an army in central Italy but achieved little of note. When Sulla was elected consul in 88 and assigned command in the east, the tribune Sulpicius had the plebs transfer the command to Marius. Forced to flee by Sulla, he allied himself with Lucius Cornelius Cinna and took Ostia and Rome by force. Made consul for 86, Marius embarked on a murderous purge of his enemies but died before he was able to take up the command. Marius’ career was remembered as extraordinary, thus Tacitus (A. 1.9) describes Augustus as having equaled the combined total consulships of Valerius Corvus and Marius. This equals Augustus’ thirteen consulships: Corvus was consul six times, Marius consul seven. Similarly, his career was marked by his bitter rivalries, in particular with Sulla (see A. 12.60), and with his willingness to turn upon his former allies. see also: Numidia; Roman Republic

MARIUS MATURUS YASMINA BENFERHAT

Université de Lorraine

Born of equestrian status, Marius Maturus was procurator of the province of Alpes Maritimae in 69 ce (H. 2.12) and might have been the first equestrian to hold this office: at least he is the first procurator attested for this province (see Arnaud 1997, 166–167). This province was first under the rule of a prefect (prafectus ciuitatium), then a procurator, maybe under Claudius’ reign (see Arnaud 1997, 166) or under Nero’s reign (see Morabito 2010). Marius Maturus played an important part in spring 69 ce when Otho decided to open a new front behind Vitellius’ armies upon arrival in north Italy (H. 2.12.1). He sent the navy under the rule of three men: Aemilius Pacensis, Antonius Novellus, and Suedius Clemens. They launched an attack in the province of Alpes Maritimae, but Marius Maturus was able to mobilize people there and the Othonians had to withdraw to Albintimillium (in Liguria; Cosme 2012, 120–121).

c12_vol2.indd 680

Maturus appears again when the legate Fabius Valens hoped to use the same tactics (opening a new front in the back of Vespasian’s army) and came in the province to fix it (H. 3.42). Maturus convinced him to give up this idea, explaining that Narbonnensis was under the rule of Valerius Paulinus, a trusted friend of Vespasian. Valens was later caught in the Stoechades, islands near Massilia. Maturus might have been later procurator in Spain: some inscriptions (tabellae defixionis) found in Ampurias mention a Maturus but the date is uncertain, possibly 78 (see Arnaud 1997, 167), possibly earlier in 70. He might have been in charge of finances in the province of Hispania Tarraconensis in 78 ce. This identification has been considered doubtful (Syme 1985, 269–270). see also: Alps; civil wars of 69 ce; Gaul Reference works: AE 1952, 122; RE 47; NP 8, Marius II8; PIR2 M 306 REFERENCES Arnaud, Annie. 1997. “Onze procurateurs équestres des Alpes-Maritimes.” Cahiers de la Méditerranée 55. Destins niçois [Actes du colloque de Nice, 13–14 décembre 1996], 165–174. Cosme, Pierre. 2012. L’année des quatre empereurs. Paris: Fayard. Morabito, Stéphane. 2010. “Entre Narbonnaise et Italie: le territoire de la province des Alpes Maritimae pendant l’Antiquité romaine (Ier s. avt. J.C.-5e apr. J.C.).” Gallia 67: 99–124. Syme, Ronald. 1985. “Certain Tenures of Consular Legates.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 59: 265–279. FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 2007. Tacitus, Histories II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pflaum, Hans Georg. 1960. Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut-Empire romain. Damas: P. Geuthner.

MARIUS NEPOS, see VITELLIUS, QUINTUS MARIUS, Publius, see AFINIUS GALLUS, LUCIUS

28-04-2023 18:02:57

681

M ark A ntony  

MARIUS, SEXTUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Sextus Marius flourished under Tiberius. A rich man of Spanish background, he survived an accusation by Calpurnius Salvianus (mentioned only at A. 4.36) in 25 ce, only to face destruction in 33, charged ostensibly for incest with his daughter. The accusation’s real cause, Tacitus asserts, was that Tiberius was covetous of his wealth. Little can be adduced concerning Sextus Marius’ family, career, and background, apart from that he was powerful, a friend to Tiberius, extremely rich, and from the province of Baetica. He makes his first appearance in Tacitus when Calpurnius Salvianus attempted to prosecute him in 25 ce. Calpurnius approached Drusus the Younger, Germanicus’ son, who was just entering the office of praefectus urbanus (city prefect) during the feriae Latinae; indeed, Tacitus states that he approached him just when he was about to take the auspices, in order to accuse Marius, though for what we are not told (A. 4.36.1). Tiberius stepped in to prevent the charge, openly rebuked Calpurnius for entering an accusation during a sacred festival, and then sent Calpurnius into exile. It is almost impossible to reconstruct the motives Calpurnius had for his accusation, let alone the charge, and we hear nothing more about him. A friend of the emperor, wealthy, corrupt, and a gross voluptuary, Marius embarrassed Tiberius; in the end he was cast from the Tarpeian Rock after being charged for incest with his daughter (though Cassius Dio discounts the charge as a malicious lie, and states that he was merely trying to keep his daughter away from the sexually predacious Tiberius) in 33 ce; Dio adds that he was executed along with his daughter (for the whole episode see Cass. Dio 58.22.3). Tacitus says that he was the richest man in all of Spain, and Dio also notes his wealth anecdotally (Cass. Dio 58.22.1–2). He apparently had interests in copper and gold mines there, and although they were made public upon his condemnation, Tiberius set them aside for his own use (A. 6.19.1). Tacitus ascribes the real reason for his destruction to his wealth.

c12_vol2.indd 681

Reference works: PIR2 M 295 (for Sextus Marius); PIR2 C 315; RE 3.1401 = Calpurnius 114 (Stein); CIL 2.2256 (for Calpurnius Salvianus) FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 94–95, 207–208.

MARK ANTONY DYLAN SAILOR

University of California, Berkeley

Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius, 83–30 bce) was a Roman politician and general, a close ally and supporter of Iulius Caesar, a competitor for Caesar’s legacy against Octavian, a triumvir, and an opponent of Octavian in civil war. Born to Marcus Antonius “Creticus,” (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 12.62) he served from 57-54 as praefectus equitum in the east; in 54, he joined Caesar in Gaul and with his support was made quaestor for 51. In 49 Antony was tribune and supported Caesar’s interests at Rome before fleeing to Caesar. He was in command of Italy as propraetor during Caesar’s Spanish campaign; he fought at Pharsalus (48); in 48–47, he was in Italy as Caesar’s magister equitum but struggled to impose order. Consul with Caesar in 44, at the Lupercalia he offered him a royal diadem, which Caesar refused. After Caesar’s assassination, Antony’s approach was to seek popular favor and present himself as the natural next repository of the allegiances of Caesar’s supporters, while attempting to preserve relations with his assassins. Wrong-footed by the emergence of Octavian, Caesar’s adopted heir, and by senatorial resistance, Antony suffered defeats at Forum Gallorum and Mutina at the hands of forces aligned with the senatorial cause and Octavian before withdrawing in April 43 to Gallia Narbonensis; there several provincial governors pledged their support, including Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3), who in November 43 was joined with Antony and Octavian in the “Triumvirate for Restoration of the State.” The triumvirs proscribed prominent citizens; Cicero

28-04-2023 18:02:57

682

  M aroboduus

was one victim, at the insistence of Antony, reputedly in retribution for the orator’s attacks in his Philippics. In 42 forces of the triumvirs under Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi. Thereafter the triumvirs carved up the Roman sphere, Antony receiving Gallia Transalpina and Gallia Narbonensis as well as the task of reordering Rome’s arrangements in the east. At Tarsus in 41 he met and began a relationship with Cleopatra VII (mentioned by Tacitus only at H. 5.9), and in 40 she gave birth to twins by him. He was summoned back to Italy by the Perusine War of Octavian against Antony’s brother, Lucius Antonius, and wife, Fulvia. Tensions were temporarily relieved in 39 by the pact of Brundisium, by which Antony married Octavian’s sister Octavia (1) and the triumvirs’ spheres of command were readjusted, Octavian now governing the west and Antony the east, with Lepidus holding Africa. In 37 at Tarentum he and Octavian renewed their agreement for five years, and in 36 Lepidus was shunted aside; the stage was set for a showdown between the two remaining triumvirs. Having returned to the east without Octavia, he pursued his relationship with Cleopatra, who gave birth in 36 to a son by him. From 36 Antony was making war on Parthia, suffering a serious reverse in that year but in 34 annexing Armenia, a success he commemorated in a controversial ceremony at Alexandria; at this event, Cleopatra and her children were accorded high honors. Octavian’s propaganda emphasized Antony’s ties to Cleopatra, presenting him as having abandoned Roman ways and allegiances; support for this case was supplied when Octavian seized and published Antony’s will, which supposedly expressed his desire to be buried in Egypt and assigned portions to his children by Cleopatra. The Senate voted to strip Antony of his powers and declared war on Cleopatra. On 2 September 31, a naval defeat at Actium ended Antony’s hopes, although he and Cleopatra survived and fled to Egypt. In August of 30, Antony committed suicide. His memory was subjected to sanctions, and the historical tradition about him has been strongly influenced by the hostile representation of him in Augustan literature and in Cicero’s Philippics.

c12_vol2.indd 682

Antony appears, always briefly, with some frequency in Tacitus’ work, e.g., as one of the figures whose power was absorbed by Augustus (A. 1.1.1); as Octavian’s partner in a decision assigning rights to a temple in Greece (A. 4.43.1); as grandfather by Cleopatra of a Drusilla (Hist. 5.9.3) and by Octavia of Germanicus (A. 2.43.5, 2.53.2). Two moments involving Antony are watersheds in the historical vision of Tacitus’ corpus. One, Actium, marks the end of an alternative to Octavian and monarchy (H. 1.1.1; A. 1.2.1, 1.3.7) and the beginning of a new era in morality (A. 3.55) and in the history of historiography (H. 1.1.1). The other, the death of Cicero, figures in the Dialogus in attempts of the interlocutors to articulate periods in the history of Roman oratory (D. 17.2–3, 24.3, 40.4; at 37.6, Curiatius Maternus mentions the Philippics as a reason for Cicero’s fame). see also: Antonius Felix; civil wars of the Late Republic; Roman Republic Reference works: BNP Antonius B I 9; RE Antonius 30 FURTHER READING Huzar, E. G. 1978. Mark Antony, A Biography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

MAROBODUUS ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

Maroboduus (c. 30 bce–36/37 ce) was a nobleman and king of the Marcomani (a sub-tribe of the Suebi). Having spent his youth in Rome during the reign of Augustus, Maroboduus returned home around 9 bce and led his people—probably from the upper Main valley and possibly with Roman backing (Erdrich 2016)—to present-day Bohemia (Barrington 12 G2, I2). Here he united a range of tribes under his dominion and created a powerful and remarkably well-organized kingdom, posing a significant threat to Rome’s northern frontier. A planned Roman invasion in 6 ce was averted by the outbreak of the Pannonian

28-04-2023 18:02:57

M aroboduus  

revolt. While never trusted, Maroboduus remained on fairly good terms with the Romans for most of his reign, as evidenced by extensive trade relations. He remained neutral during the Varian disaster (see Teutoburg Forest) in 9 ce, despite being invited by Arminius to join the revolt and even receiving from him the head of Quintilius Varus as a gift. After a failed attempt to challenge Arminius’ Cherusci in 17 ce, he was driven out of his kingdom in 18 ce and spent the remaining eighteen years of his life as a Roman guest/captive in Ravenna. Maroboduus’ first appearance in ancient literature is in the Geography of Strabo (7.1.3), who mentions his early life in Rome, the migration of the Marcomani to Bohemia (Βουίαιμον), and his unification of the tribes in the area. Velleius Paterculus, noting the migration, his creation of a well-organized kingdom and strong army, the planned Roman invasion in 6 ce, his refusal to support Arminius, and his detention in Ravenna, elevates him to Tiberius’ main Germanic opponent (2.108–109, 119, 129). His detention (along with those of other foreign kings) is mentioned also by Suetonius as part of Tiberius’ foreign policy (Tib. 37.4). The geographer Ptolemy mentions a town called Marobudum/Marobunum (2.11.29: μαρόβουδον/μαρόβουνον), possibly the old capital of Maroboduus’ kingdom. In the Tacitean corpus, Maroboduus is mentioned briefly in Germania, plays a key role in the intra-Germanic conflicts in Annals 2, and is again mentioned briefly in Annals 3. At G. 42.2, Tacitus notes that the Marcomani and Quadi, although they now also obey foreigners, used to draw their kings from the noble houses of Maroboduus and Tudrus (otherwise unknown) respectively. At A. 2.26, Tiberius, in his letter ordering Germanicus to abandon his war and return to Rome, reminds him of his success in binding Maroboduus and the Suebi through (the imposition of) peace. At A. 2.44–46, Tacitus narrates the struggle between Maroboduus and Arminius. The account is introduced by Tiberius’ dispatch of Drusus the Younger to the north on the pretext of an appeal for help from the Suebi and Maroboduus against the rising power of Arminius’ Cherusci. Drusus, however, is absent from the subsequent narrative until he

c12_vol2.indd 683

683

reappears at its very end. Although well matched in terms of the strength of their tribes and their personal bravery, Arminius is favored because of his role as freedom fighter, while Maroboduus loses popularity because of his kingly title. The Semnones and Langobardi, two subtribes of the Suebi, defect to Arminius, and parity is only restored when Inguiomerus, Arminius’ uncle, deserts to Maroboduus for personal reasons. The armies deploy in a disciplined manner, and the leaders deliver pre-battle speeches. Arminius praises his own leadership credentials, undermines those of Maroboduus (portraying him as traitorous, cowardly, and inexperienced), and encourages his men to take confidence from the remembrance of previous victories. Maroboduus replies by boasting of his own achievements, portraying Arminius as a perfidious madman, and claiming that a fair peace with Rome is possible. In short, each tries to present himself as better qualified to lead the Germani. Although the battle ends in a draw, Maroboduus concedes defeat, withdraws to the Marcomani, and sends legates to Tiberius to ask for help. Tiberius refuses and sends Drusus to consolidate a peace advantageous for Rome. Maroboduus reappears at A. 2.62–2.63, where he is driven out of the lands of the Marcomani by Catualda, a young nobleman of the Gotones. Deserted by everyone, Maroboduus crosses the Danube (Danuvius) into the province of Noricum and writes a letter to Tiberius, asking for refuge within the Roman Empire. Tiberius accepts, promising a safe and honored seat in Italy. In the Senate, Tiberius claims that Rome had never faced an adversary so dangerous (cf. Vell. Pat. 2.108–109, 129). Maroboduus is kept at Ravenna as a political tool, the potential of his return held out every time the Suebi become unruly. He lives out the remaining eighteen years of his life with his reputation much diminished by his too great desire to live (A. 2.63.4: multum imminuta claritate ob nimiam uiuendi cupidinem; cf. Suet. Tib. 37.4). His expulsion is mentioned also in the book-end account of Arminius’ failed push for kingship at A. 2.88.2. The final mention of Maroboduus in the Tacitean corpus occurs at A. 3.11.1, where Drusus postpones the ovation decreed to him by the Senate for his submission of Maroboduus, in order to enter the

28-04-2023 18:02:57

684

  marriage

city and attend the trial against Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso. Maroboduus’ afterlife is mostly contained within the German-speaking world. He makes sporadic appearances in historical novels, e.g., Daniel Casper von Lohenstein’s Großmütiger Feldherr Arminius (1689–1690) and Jörg Kastner’s Marbod: Die Zwietracht der Germanen (1998), and films, e.g., Die Hermannschlacht (1924) and Il massacro della foresta nera/Hermann der Cherusker: Die Schlacht in Teutoburger Wald (1967). In visual arts, Maroboduus’ name appears on the Walhalla memorial (conceived 1807, constructed 1830–1842) east of Regensburg, and his detention in Ravenna is the motif of one of Peter Janssen’s murals (1871–1874) in the Krefeld Town Hall. REFERENCE Erdrich, Michael. 2016. “Maroboduus and the Consolidation of Roman Authority in the Middle Danube Region.” Österreisches Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophisch-historische Klasse – Mitteilungen der Prähistorisches Kommision 85: 237–251. FURTHER READING Dobesch, Gerhard. 2009. “Politik zwischen Marbod und Rom.” In Mitteleuropa zur Zeit Marbods, edited by Jan Bemmann and Vladimir Salač, 7–52. Prague and Bonn: Archeologicky ústav Akademie věd České republiky / Vor- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität. Dobiáš, Josef. 1960. “King Maroboduus as a Politician.” Klio 38: 155–166. DOI: 10.1524/ klio.1960.38.jg.155. Gowing, Alain M. 1990. “Tacitus and the Client Kings.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 120: 315–331. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/283994. Kehne, Peter. 2009. “Das Reich der Markomannen und seine auswärtigen Beziehungen unter König Marbod (Maroboduus) ca. 3 v. – 18 n. Chr.” In Mitteleuropa zur Zeit Marbods, edited by Jan Bemmann and Vladimir Salač, 53–66. Prague and Bonn: Archeologicky ústav Akademie věd České republiky / Vor- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität.

c12_vol2.indd 684

MARRIAGE CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Marriage is presented in Roman sources as a social institution undertaken for the production of legitimate children (Val. Max. 7.7.4; Treggiari 1991, 8). An elite woman’s marriage was normally arranged between her father and future father-in-law, or between her father and future husband. Marriage formed a bond between these men and their families, which could lead to social or political advancement. The consent of the bride was needed, although her mother’s consent was not. Marriage did not require a dowry, although one was often supplied, nor did marriage require a ceremony, although many performed one. Augustus passed social legislation known as the leges Iuliae (Julian Laws) in 18 bce, a section of which prohibited marriage between certain classes, and revised the age requirements for betrothal and marriage. These laws were revised in 9 ce as the lex Papia Poppaea, and further revised up to and beyond Tacitus’ lifetime (Severy 2003, 50–56; Treggiari 1991, 60–80). Parents of three or more children received special privileges under the ius trium liberorum (the right of three children). Livia Augusta received this honor after the death of her son Drusus the Elder in 9 bce (Cass. Dio 55.2.5). Sejanus represents a perversion of law: he abandons his wife Apicata and their three children to begin an affair with Livia Iulia, the wife of Tiberius’ son Drusus the Younger (A. 4.3.5). Tacitus presents his in-laws as the model of concordia (harmony) and pietas (dutifulness) in marriage. Agricola’s marriage to Domitia Decidiana, a woman of illustrious birth, gave him distinction and support in his political advancement; the couple also enjoyed mutual affection and singular harmony (Ag. 6.1). Tacitus married their daughter in 77 ce (Ag. 9.6). Tacitus was in his early twenties and his wife in her early teens, the expected ages for a first marriage (Treggiari 1981, 398–403). Both Domitia and her daughter accompanied their husbands on their imperial magistracies (this prospect is debated at A. 3.33– 34). Both women are inheritors in Agricola’s will (Ag. 43.4).

28-04-2023 18:02:57

marriage  

The possibility of intermarriage or concubinage is a source of fear among non-Romans. In the Agricola, the rebel Briton Calgacus fears that native women will be taken by Roman soldiers; after losing the Battle of Mons Graupius, many Britons kill their wives and children rather than have them captured (Ag. 32.1, 38.1). Germanicus’ soldiers brag that they will take wives as their spoils in a battle against Arminius (A. 2.13.3). Germanic peoples are a race unpolluted by intermarriage (G. 4.1). Their wives and mothers give them encouragement on the battlefield (G. 7.2–8.1). Tacitus finds their strict model of marriage worthy of praise (G. 18.1–3). They marry late (G. 20.2) and take ­counsel concerning entering into a marri­ age (G. 22.2). Intermarriage complicates the identification of Romans and non-Romans in the battle of Cremona (H. 3.34.1), and the capture of Colonia Agrippinensis (H. 4.65.3). Among the imperial family, marriage is political and impacts the imperial succession (see Figure M.1). Livia Augusta and Augustus stood out because of their concordant marriage (A. 5.1.3), and Drusus the Younger uses them as a model (A. 3.34.6). Augustus celebrated the family of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder as the marital ideal (Suet. Aug. 34.2). Agrippina represents the traditional ideal of the univira (one-man woman). Her marriage earns the people’s admiration while Germanicus is alive, and pity upon his death (A. 2.73.2–3, 2.75.1). Marriage is also a political strategy. Tiberius marries his granddaughters Drusilla to Lucius Cassius Longinus (2) and Iulia Livilla to Marcus Vinicius, men without senatorial status (A. 6.15.1); he refuses Agrippina the Elder’s request for a new husband (A. 4.53.1–2) and criticizes Sejanus’ request to marry Livia Iulia (A. 4.40.1–7). Agrippina the Younger plots her son Nero’s marriage to Octavia (2) (A. 12.3.2). Iunia Silana accuses Agrippina of planning to marry Rubellius Plautus and begin a civil war (A. 13.19.3). Poppaea the Younger suggests to Nero that Octavia will be given a new husband and that civil war will ensue (A. 14.61.4). Some imperial marriages invert the norm. Octavian (Augustus) married Livia while she was pregnant with Drusus the Elder (A. 1.10.5, 5.1.2).

c12_vol2.indd 685

685

Figure M.1  Gemma Claudia with jugate portraits of Claudius and Agrippina the Younger on the left and Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder on the right, 49 ce, sardonyx cameo. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum inv. IX.A.63. Source: Gryffindor / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.5

Messalina’s adulterous marriage to Gaius Silius is an unbelievable dramatization of a marriage ceremony: the day is announced, witnesses are present, a priest speaks, they undertake vows, sacrifice to the gods, and celebrate a banquet (A. 11.27.1). After Messalina’s death, Claudius had to change the law to permit him to marry his niece, Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.7.2). Although unconventional, Agrippina’s marriage elicits the qualities sought in an ideal wife for the emperor: aside from nobility, beauty, wealth, youth, and proven fecundity, she should be the emperor’s ally in prosperity and uncertainty, to whom his intimate thoughts and children can be entrusted, such that he can serve the state freed from domestic worries (A. 12.1.1, 12.2.3, 12.5.3). Nero was encouraged into an affair with Poppaea Sabina the Younger by her husband, Otho, and later married her (A. 12.58.1, 13.46.1–2, 14.60.1). Nero’s perverse union with Pythagoras, in which Nero plays the part of the bride, follows the formula of a marriage ceremony, although every aspect is performed in public view (A. 15.37.2–4). Positive models of marriage are rare in times of civil discord. Tacitus praises wives who accompany husbands into exile (H. 1.3.1), especially Epponina, wife of Iulius Sabinus (H. 4.67.2). Spouses receive honor in death when they commit

28-04-2023 18:02:57

686

  M ars U ltor

suicide together (A. 6.29.1, 6.29.4). Munatia Plancina, partner in her husband Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso’s murder of Germanicus, is criticized for receiving pardon while Piso commits suicide (A. 3.15.1–3). Seneca’s wife Pompeia Paulina attempts to commit suicide as Seneca’s companion in death and is praised for her fidelity (A. 15.63.1–64.2; Cass. Dio 62.25.1–2). When Arria offers to die with her husband, Thrasea Paetus, he convinces her to survive and support their daughter (A. 16.34.2). see also: gender; morality; mothers REFERENCES Severy, Beth. 2003. Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire. New York: Routledge. Treggiari, Susan. 1981. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Ciero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford: Clarendon. Treggiari, Susan. 1991. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpiavn. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Hersch, Karen. 2010. The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Milnor, Kristina. 2005. Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

many recaptured standards there (Mon. Anc. 29); games for Mars Ultor were held annually on 12 May. The object of Mars’ vengeance varied over time; originally the Parthians were the target, later other enemies both foreign and domestic. The murderers of Iulius Caesar are cited as objects of Mars’ vengeance by Ovid (Fasti 5.577) and Suetonius (Augustus 29.2), but this may be apocryphal (Beckmann 2016). Tacitus records arches by the Temple of Mars Ultor to honor Germanicus and Drusus the Younger (A. 2.64), the rejection by Tiberius of a proposed statue in the same temple (A. 3.18), and a similar honor to Nero (A. 13.8). Mars Ultor was prominent on the coinage struck by Iulius Vindex and Galba in the civil wars of 69 ce. Trajan dedicated the Tropaeum Traiani to Mars Ultor, marking his victories over the Dacians. Trajan may also have engineered the dedication of his Column on 12 May 113 to coincide with the beginning of his new war against Parthia. The earliest iconography of Mars Ultor (on the coinage of Augustus) depicts him as a young man with no beard, holding the recovered standards; the statue of the god that was eventually dedicated in his temple was of an older, bearded, and armored Mars. see also: Dacia; Parthia REFERENCE Beckmann, Martin. 2016. “Trajan’s Column and Mars Ultor.” Journal of Roman Studies 106: 124–146.

MARS, see ROMAN GODS FURTHER READING

MARS ULTOR MARTIN BECKMANN

McMaster University

Mars Ultor was invoked by the Romans in situations where vengeance had been achieved, or was hoped to be achieved, against an enemy. Mars’ epithet Ultor (Avenger) is first attested on the coinage of Augustus in 19/18 bce, where it is paired with images showing Roman standards recovered from the Parthians. Augustus dedicated a temple to Mars Ultor in his forum in 2 bce and deposited

c12_vol2.indd 686

Croon, Johan H. 1981: “Ideologie des Marskultes.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 17.1: 246–275.

MARSACI, see CANNINEFATES

MARSI BENJAMIN E. NIKOTA

New York University

The Marsi were two identically named, but different, peoples found in the Tacitean corpus.

28-04-2023 18:02:57

687

M artius M acer  

One was a tribe of Germans called the Marsi who played a significant role in the wars of Germanicus, while the other was an Italian tribe of Marsi who played a small role in the civil wars of 69 ce. The Germanic Marsi were a tribe of moderate significance in Tacitus’ works, being named in the Germania (G. 2), forming part of the confederation under Arminius, as well as participating the retaliatory wars of Germanicus. Today, several towns in the eastern North-Rhine Westphalia and northern Hesse have names that are related to their ancient inhabitants, the Marsi (e.g., Marsberg, Obermarsberg, and Volkmarsen). Tacitus mentions that they worshipped a goddess Tamfana whose temple the Romans leveled to the ground in their campaigns against them (A. 1.51). The Germanic Marsi were targets for retaliation by the Romans for having taken part in the battle of Teutoberg Forest in 9 ce In 14 ce, when Germanicus invaded Germany to recover Quintilius Varus’ legions, the area occupied by the Marsi was devastated with “no sex, no age find[ing] pity” (A. 1.51). Two years after this massacre, Mallovendus—a chieftain of the Marsi— showed Germanicus where to find one of the lost eagles of Varus. After the military engagement to recover this eagle, Tacitus has one of the Marsi declare that the Romans are invincible (A. 2.25). The Germanic Marsi are not mentioned again in extant Roman literature after 41 ce. The Italian Marsi inhabited the area today known as Marsica in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. They seem to have spoken a language in the Umbrian group, as attested by the epigraphic record. They are first mentioned by Polybius as he catalogues Italian forces available to the Romans (Polyb. 2.24) and Livy mentions them as having been part of a Samnite confederacy along with the Paeligni and the Marrucini (Livy 8.29). Strabo asserts that they are particularly formidable soldiers, having fought against the Romans, alongside them as allies, and finally in the Social War, which he refers to as the Marsic War (Strab. 5.4.2). In the course of the Social War, they rename the capital city of the Paeligni to Italica. In the civil wars of 69 ce, the Samnites, Paeligni, and Marsi switch sides from the Vitellians to the Flavians (H. 3.59) see also: Germani, Germania

c12_vol2.indd 687

Reference work: Barrington 11 H1; 12B1; 42 F4; 44E2 FURTHER READING Letta, C. 1972. I Marsi et il Fucino nell’antichitá. Milano: Cisalpino-Goliardica. O’Gorman, E. 1993. “No Place Like Rome: Identity and Difference in the Germania of Tacitus.” Ramus 22: 135–154. Whittaker, C. R. 1994. Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

MARSIGNI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST MARTINA, see POISON

MARTIUS MACER HOLLY HAYNES

The College of New Jersey

Martius Macer was an Othonian leader whom Otho had planned to make consul for the last two months of 69 ce (H. 2.71.2). In the early part of April 69, after Caecina Alienus’ unsuccessful attempt on Placentia, Macer and a contingent of gladiators won a small victory against some Vitellian auxiliaries on the north bank of the Po (Padus; H. 2.23). Despite his success Macer did not pursue the routed Vitellians, a decision that led to suspicion among Otho’s troops against his generals. Otho then sends his brother, Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus, to take command. Tacitus’ chronology of Macer’s raid is uncertain (he locates it temporally with the vague expression isdem diebus, “during this time,” among other troops’ movements as Caecina marches toward Bedriacum), and his sequence of thought difficult to follow. By contrast Plutarch (Otho 7.4–7) narrates a similar incident but ascribes to Suetonius Paulinus the failure to follow up a military success, and during the battle at Ad Castores, which followed shortly after Caecina’s failure at Placentia. These problems have reinforced some interpretations of Tacitus as an unreliable reporter of military maneuvers. However, Tacitus’ account can be salvaged on two

28-04-2023 18:02:57

688

  martyrs

fronts: first, Titianus cannot reasonably have made the journey from Rome and reached the troops in the time frame allowed by Plutarch’s account. Second, as Gwyn Morgan (2005) argues in his review of the scholarship on this event, Tacitus’ emphasis is the connection between Otho and his troops, who are both implicated the murder of Galba, whereas Otho’s three generals are not. Tacitus’ narrative juxtaposes the gladiators’ suspicion of Macer with the mutiny of the troops led by Otho’s general Annius Gallus, whose discontent arises because Gallus halts them at Bedriacum rather than allowing them to march toward Cremona and the Vitellian legions. Tacitus portrays the overall scene as one in which Otho, trusting to his men more than his generals, replaces the latter with his brother in order to restore his army’s confidence. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Cremona; Vitellius, rise to power Reference work: PIR2 M 344 REFERENCE Morgan, G. 2005. “Martius Macer’s Raid and Its Consequences: Tacitus, Histories 2.23.” Classical Quarterly 55: 572–581.

MARTYRS DYLAN SAILOR

University of California, Berkeley

“The martyrs” is one modern term describing an interconnected group of elite Romans who were executed under Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian for behavior found politically provocative by the emperor and who were celebrated after their deaths for their commitment to senatorial tradition and prerogative and their courage and constancy in the face of tyranny. They were broadly characterized by an interest in Stoic philosophy and senatorial independence and linked by ties of friendship, marriage, and commemoration. The key figures are Thrasea Paetus, the elder and the younger Helvidius Priscus, Arulenus Rusticus, and Herennius Senecio.

c12_vol2.indd 688

The nature of this group can be seen in the associations they contracted. Thrasea wrote a life of Cato the Younger. Juvenal (5.36) has Thrasea and the elder Helvidius toasting Brutus and the Cassii on their birthdays. The elder Helvidius married Thrasea’s daughter Fannia, who was present during Thrasea’s death (A. 16.35.1) and attacked Thrasea’s accuser Eprius Marcellus. Arulenus Rusticus desired to block the Senate’s condemnation of Thrasea, who dissuaded him from doing so, and later wrote a work in praise of him. The elder Helvidius’ life in turn was celebrated in a biography by Herennius Senecio, who was a friend of Fannia (and so likely of Helvidius during his lifetime). These figures interest Tacitus in the Agricola and Pliny in his Letters, and later Marcus Aurelius groups Thrasea and Helvidius with Cato, Brutus, and a Dio (likely Chrysostomus) as touchstones of Stoic political philosophy (Med. 1.14). Members of this group linked to Thrasea will have been celebrated in one or both of “Deaths of Famous Men” of Titinius Capito (Plin. Ep. 8.12.4) and the “Deaths of those Slain or Relegated by Nero” of Gaius Fannius (Ep. 5.5.3). Those works will perhaps have commemorated other, comparable figures, like Rubellius Plautus and Barea Soranus, Neronian victims linked by mutual friendship and ties to the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, or even figures killed for their military glory, like Ostorius Scapula and Domitius Corbulo. The conduct of the martyrs that brought them afoul of their emperors was not identical from case to case but can be characterized in broad outlines: (1) it included deliberate and conspicuous noncompliance with the preferences and public messaging of the emperor and his regime; (2) the noncompliance reflected a sense that the Senate ought to play a greater role in the government of Rome and its empire and that senators ought to be able to display independence and use candor; and (3) insofar as that noncompliance and the attitude it reflected seemed nostalgically republican, their behavior could be colored, by an anxious emperor and by enterprising accusers alike, as positively hostile to the emperor and so treasonous. Thrasea’s perilous conduct seems mainly to have been a matter of abstention from endorsement of Nero’s conduct, although he also drew Nero’s ire by his way of participating: in 62 he rallied support in the Senate for a more lenient sentence for Antistius

28-04-2023 18:02:57

M assilia  

Sosianus and thus ruined Nero’s opportunity to exercise magnanimous clemency. The elder Helvidius was more aggressive: in the Histories we see him pressing for a strong senatorial role in the early days of Vespasian; Suetonius and Cassius Dio view him as behaving disrespectfully toward the emperor; Epictetus has him insisting that his duties as a senator come before Vespasian’s instructions; and a significant anecdote in Cassius Dio suggests that he spoke or acted against Vespasian’s plan to be succeeded by Titus. What the younger Helvidius’ offense was is unclear, as he had made it to the consulship in 93 ce; perhaps his descent from his father and tacit condonation of Herennius Senecio’s biography of him were adequate. The works of Arulenus and Herennius were clearly a part of their offense, as celebration of Thrasea and the elder Helvidius at once endorsed their conduct and principles and encouraged imitation of them, but Arulenus’ attempt to block the Senate’s decree against Thrasea and Herennius’ refusal to seek office beyond the consulship suggest a degree of imitation of Thrasea’s and Helvidius’ ways as well. Enthusiasm for these figures is attested by the works of Arulenus and Herennius themselves, the works of Titinius Capito and Gaius Fannius, the letters of Pliny, the appreciations of Epictetus (of the elder Helvidius) and of Marcus Aurelius (of Thrasea and of the elder Helvidius). The stance of Tacitus’ work is more complicated. In the Agricola, Tacitus deplores the monstrousness of the punishment inflicted on Arulenus, Herennius, and the younger Helvidius (Priscus) (Ag. 2.1–2, 45.1). He also however points out that Agricola “did not in defiance and groundless vaunts of liberty seek to occasion fame and fate for himself ” and he decries “people who marvel at forbidden conduct” and enjoins them to perceive that Agricola has attained an equal degree of praise as “those who have followed a perilous course that was nonetheless no benefit to the public and become famed by an ostentatious death” (A. 42.3–4). Tacitus here constructs the stories of the martyrs as instances of a model of one type of career and contrasts it with that exemplified by Agricola’s story, in which avoidance of conflict with the emperor had left space for him to pursue the publicly beneficial aim of expansion of Rome’s empire. In the Agricola and Histories, in which Thrasea and the elder Helvidius appear in the narrative, Tacitus is respectful toward

c12_vol2.indd 689

689

both. The elements of the critique advanced in the Agricola nonetheless remain. Tacitus is ready to observe that Thrasea’s walking out of the Senate endangered himself without leaving an opening for liberty for the other senators (A. 14.12.1) and that some thought Helvidius was “too covetous of glory” (H. 4.6.1); he also contrasts the executions of Nero’s victims with battlefield deaths “met on behalf of the public” and singles out for praise the moderate figure Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4), who prompts the historian to wonder “whether it is possible to walk a path between perilous defiance and degrading compliance that is devoid of ostentation and danger” (A. 4.20.2–3). see also: death; exemplarity; libertas; Pliny the Younger; Senate; survival FURTHER READING Brunt, P. A. 1975. “Stoicism and the Principate.” Papers of the British School at Rome 43: 7–35.

MARUS, see DANUVIUS

MASSILIA UIRAN GEBARA DA SILVA

Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco

Massilia (modern Marseilles) is the Roman name for the city located in the southern coast of Gaul, near the river Rhodanus (modern Rhône). Phocaeans, a Greek people from Ionia, founded the city as Massilía in 600 bce. As a merchant city, its place near the Rhône and its rich hinterland enabled Massilia to become an important economic hub, controlling the trade between the Iberian Peninsula, the Greek settlements and the Celtic people in Gaul. Massilia had an enduring relationship with Rome, often asking for help from the Romans to deal with its neighbors and supporting, in return, Rome’s military and diplomatic endeavors in southern Gaul. Massilia kept its status when the area became the Gallia Transalpina province, but lost it after the conflict between Pompey the Great and Iulius Caesar (Goudineau 1983).

28-04-2023 18:02:57

690

  M attiaci

Tacitus’ father-in-law Gnaeus Iulius Agricola was raised in Massilia. Tacitus describes the city as a combination of Greek sophistication and provincial frugality, which protected Agricola from transgressions and guided his studies (Ag. 4). In the Annals, Massilia is an important place of exile. Tacitus reports the exile Volcacius Moschus receiving the Massilian citizenship (A. 4.43); Augustus sending Lucius Antonius there as a boy, in response to his father’s crime of adultery (A. 4.44); and Nero sending Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix there because of a rumor spread by the freedman Graptus (A. 13.47). The same Sulla was later murdered at his dining table and had his head carried to Rome by Nero’s orders (A. 14.57). The Stoechades was a group of islands located 70 km east of Massilia, whose modern name are Îles d’Hyères. Tacitus says Fabius Valens, disputing the command of the empire with Vespasian, tried to avoid Narbone by sailing to the Stoechades, but ended up being captured there eventually (H. 3.43). see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference work: Barrington 15 E3; 1 E2; (Stoechades)16 B3 REFERENCE Goudineau, Christian. 1983. “Marseilles, Rome and Gaul in the Third to the First Century B.C.” In Trade in the Ancient Economy, edited by Peter Garnsey, Keith Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker, 76–86. London: Chatto & Windus. FURTHER READING Gärtner, Hans Armin. 1983. “Massilia et l’Agricola de Tacite.” In La patrie gauloise d’Agrippa au VIe siècle. Actes du Colloque (Lyon 1981), 89–97. Lyon: L’Hermès.

MATTIACI ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

The Mattiaci were a Germanic (probably CelticGermanic; cf. Rübekeil 2002, 86) tribe situated

c12_vol2.indd 690

east of the Rhine (Rhenus) and north of the Main in the southwestern part of present-day Hessen, probably in the area between Wiesbaden and Marburg. It remains disputed whether they were a Celtic-speaking tribe driven out of their ancestral homeland and partly subsumed by the Germanic Chatti at the beginning of the first century ce (Wells 1972, 19–21, 155)—in this case Mattium, according to Tacitus an important political and/or religious center of the Chatti (A. 1.56.4: caput gentis) that probably belonged originally to the Mattiaci, or, as claimed by Tacitus (G. 29.3), a Celticized a subtribe of the Chatti (Anderson 1938, 146–147; cf. Rübekeil 2002, 63–66). Ptolemy (Geo. 2.11.29) mentions a city called “Mattiakon” (Ματτιακόν), either equated with Aquae Mattiacum (cf. Plin. HN 31.20, CIL 13.9124, Amm. 29.4.3), modern Wiesbaden (Rives 1999; Stückelberger and Graßhoff 2006), or located near the Roman fortress of Lahnau-Waldgirmes (Nüsse, Marx, and Lelgemann 2011). The wooden Roman forts at Wiesbaden and Hofheim are dated to the mid-first century ce, of which the latter was rebuilt in stone in 75 ce when new fortresses were constructed at Frankfurt and Okarben. Under Domitian, the land of the Mattiaci was incorporated into the new province of Germania Superior. While the Mattiaci disappear from the ancient literary sources after Tacitus, inscriptions from Moesia attest to the presence of Mattiaci in the Roman army, including a cohors II Mattiacorum, as late as the end of the second century ce (CIL. 3.7620, 3.12449, 3.14428, 16.22, 16.44). In the literary tradition prior to Tacitus, the Mattiaci occur only in Pliny the Elder’s reference to the hot springs of Mattiacum (Plin. HN 31.20) and in Martial’s reference to “Mattiacic balls” (14.27.2: mattiacas pilas), i.e., soap balls used to dye hair. The Mattiaci appear thrice in the Tacitean corpus. At G. 29.3, after noting that the Batavi are the most courageous of the Rhineland tribes and that, although they inhabit the western side of the river and are part of the Roman Empire, they are exempt from taxes and set apart for fighting purposes only, Tacitus adds that the Mattiaci share the same allegiance/submission (obsequio), since the greatness of the Roman people, he continues, has carried the awe of the empire beyond the

28-04-2023 18:02:57

M auritania  

Rhine and beyond the ancient frontiers. So, while geographically the Mattiaci belong to the Germanic world, in sentiment and thought they belong to the Romans. They are, in fact, similar to the Batavi in every other way than that they are vigorously animated by their geographical proximity to the Germani of the eastern bank of the Rhine. At H. 4.37.3, having been caught up in the Batavian Revolt (69–70 ce), the Mattiaci (along with the Chatti and Usipi) withdraw, laden with booty, from the siege of the legionary fortress at Mogontiacum (Mainz) and suffer casualties when attacked by a Roman force. At A. 11.20.3, the Roman general Curtius Rufus opens up silver mines in their territory. Reference work: Barrington 12 B2 REFERENCES Anderson, J. G. C. 1938. Cornelii Taciti: De Origine et Situ Germanorum. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nüsse, Hans-Jörg, Christian Marx, and Dieter Lelgemann. 2011. “Germania magna: Ein neuer Blick auf eine alte Karte – Entzerrte geographische Daten des Ptolemaios für die antiken Orte zwischen Rhein und Weichsel.” Germania 89: 115–155. Rives, James B. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rübekeil, Ludwig. 2002. Diachrone Studien zur Kontaktzone zwischen Kelten und Germanen. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademi eder Wissenschaften. Stückelberger, Alfred, and Gerd Graßhoff, eds. 2006. Ptolemaios–Handbuch der Geographie – 1. Teilband: Einleitung und Buch 1–4. Basel: Schwabe Verlag. Wells, Colin M. 1972. The German Policy of Augustus: An Examination of the Archaeological Evidence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

MATTIUM, see MATTIACI

MAURITANIA ROBYN LE BLANC

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Mauritania was a region and kingdom in North Africa, stretching from the Atlantic African coast to the Ampsaga River (modern el-Kebir) in the

c12_vol2.indd 691

691

west, and extending south to the Atlas Mountain range and the predesert of the Sahara, covering northern Algeria and Morocco today, and inhabited by the Mauri (A .2.52; H. 2.58; Livy 29.30; Plin. HN 13.29) and other Numidian tribes. The local dynasty was replaced by the Roman client king Iuba II in 25 bce, but the new kingdom was annexed in 42 ce and became two new Roman provinces, Mauritania Caeseriensis to the east, and Mauritania Tingitana to the west, divided by the Muluccha (modern Moulouya) River. The local Mauritanian dynasty, known in Roman sources from the third century bce, ruled until the death of Bocchus II in 33 bce (Roller 2003, 266). By 25 bce Mauretania became a client kingdom of Rome, ruled by Iuba II (son of the former Numidian king Iuba I), who had been installed by Augustus (A. 4.5). Although the capital was at Iol (Caesarea), near the coast, Iuba II and his wife, Cleopatra-Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony, established their second capital at Volubilis, which was the traditional capital of Mauritania. Iuba II was a keen scholar and maintained an interest in local geography, which resulted in the Libyka, a treatise on the geography and landscapes of North Africa. Only fragments of the work remain today, but in antiquity it was one of the most important texts concerning the geography of the region (Roller 2003, 183–211). Iuba II’s reign was often interrupted by local tensions, among them the revolt of Tacfarinas in 17–24 ce, for which Tacitus is our best source (A. 2.52; 3.32; 3.73–74; 4.23–26). Although the revolt involved Mauritania only in part, stakeholders in the kingdom joined opposing sides. A certain Mazippa is identified as a leader of the Mauri and an early supporter of Tacfarinas and the Musulamii in their revolt, leading lightly armored troops to conduct a series of guerilla raids across the region (A. 2.52). Iuba II, on the other hand, supported Rome. Tacitus reports that Ptolemaeus (1) succeeded his father in the last year (23/24 ce) of the revolt as king of Mauritania, and although the change in power spurred some Mauritanians to join Tacfarinas, Ptolemaeus was ultimately instrumental in helping the Romans defeat Tacfarinas. (A. 4.23–25). In spite of Ptolemaeus’ aid, his good relations with the

28-04-2023 18:02:57

692

  M edes

Roman emperor did not persist; he was called away from Mauritania by Caligula and killed in 40 ce (Suet. Calig. 26, 55; Fishwick 1971). A period of unrest followed, involving a poorly understood revolt led by Aedemon, a freedman of Ptolemaeus (Plin. HN 5.1.11; Coltelloni-Trannoy 2014), but the resistance was put down and the client-kingdom of Mauritania was split into Mauritania Caesariensis and Mauritania Tingitana in 42 ce. Thereafter, the newly created provinces appear infrequently in Tacitus’ preserved narrative. During Nero’s reign, the Mauritanians appear again, prosecuting Vibius Secundus for extortion, resulting in his expulsion from Italy (A. 14.28). Otho transferred control of certain northern Mauritanian towns to the province of Baetica (H. 1.78). Both Mauritanian provinces eventually supported Vitellius during the civil wars of 69 ce (H. 1.11, 2.58–59). Previously, Lucceius Albinus, governor of both Mauritanian provinces under Galba, was rumored to have desired to support Otho after the death of Galba and perhaps to have flirted with using the civil wars as an opportunity to gain power as a petty king in the region, with Tacitus even identifying “Iuba” as the would-be king’s possible regal name before his assassination upon arrival in Mauritania Caesariensis from Tingitana (H. 2.58–59). see also: civil wars of Late Republic; provinces Reference work: Barrington 100 E5 Mauretania Tingitana; Barrington 100 G4 Mauretania Caesariensis; Barrington 31 E3 Am(p)saga fl; Barrington 30 D3 Iol Caesarea; Barrington 28 C5 Volubilis REFERENCES Coltelloni-Trannoy, Michèle. 2014. “Notes sur la guerre d’Aedemon: système d’alliance et composition de l’armée royale.” In La guerre dans l’Afrique romaine sous le Haut-Empire, edited by M. ColtelloniTrannoy and Y. Le Bohec, 85–99. Paris: Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques. Fishwick, Duncan. 1971. “The Annexation of Mauretania.” Historia 20: 467–487. Roller, Duane W. 2003. World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene: Royal Scholarship on Rome’s African Frontier. London: Routledge.

c12_vol2.indd 692

FURTHER READING Brett, Michael, and Elizabeth W. B. Fentress 1996. The Berbers. Oxford: Blackwell. Cherry, David. 1998. Frontier and Society in Roman North Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coltelloni-Trannoy, Michèle. 1997. Le Royaume de Maurétanie sous Juba II et Ptolémée (25 av. J.-C. – 40 ap. J.-C.). Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Études d’antiquités africaines). Gsell, Stéphane. 1914–1930. L’Histoire ancienne de l’Afrique du Nord. Paris: Hachette.

MAURITANIA CAESERIENSIS, see MAURITANIA MAURITANIA TINGITANA, see MAURITANIA MAXIMUS SCAURUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY MAZIPPA, see MAURITANIA MEDEA, see ALBANI

MEDES TIMOTHY CLARK

Boston University

The Medes were a people living in western Iran. Their territory lay south and west of modern Tehran, east of the Zagros mountains (Strab. 2.13.1–2, 2.13.6). Most scholarship on the Medes focuses on the Median Empire (ninth–sixth centuries bce) as described by Herodotus (Hdt. 1.96–107). Classical writers thought Media’s apex between the Assyrian and Persian empires fit their idea of the cycle of empires. Media was assumed to be another eastern, centralized imperial state (Liverani 2003, 1–2). Tacitus (H. 5.8) appears to follow this line of thought. More recent accounts, suspicious of Herodotus’ methodology, focus on Assyrian and Babylonian texts and Median archaeology for this period. The Assyrian sources describe how the Medes paid Assyria tribute from the eighth century (“Media”; Radner 2003, 65–66). Assyrian tribute-lists suggest the Medes were pastoralists and horse and camel breeders. The Medes’ economic livelihood was dependent on trade with Assyria along the Khorasan road, which linked Mesopotamia to

28-04-2023 18:02:57

M edes  

central Asia, until the Median conquest of Assyria in the eighth century (“Media”; Liverani 2003, 1–2, 5–7). Excavations show major growth in Median sites in the later eighth and seventh centuries bce, but subsequent abandonment by the early sixth century bce, precisely at the time of Herodotus’ Median empire (Liverani 2003, 1–7). This new evidence hints at Median political decentralization under smaller, local officials (Radner 2003, 65–66). Assyrian sources and Herodotus refer to Ecbatana (modern-day Hamadān), which would remain a key center for the region throughout antiquity (Bivar 1983, 31). Following Alexander the Great’s death, Media came under Seleucid control until Parthian conquest in the mid-second century bce (Bickerman 1983, 85; Bivar 1983, 33). Media was divided into Greater Media and Media Atropatene (Strab. 2.13.1). The later was named after Atropates, a satrap of Media who initially opposed Alexander but then switched sides. He was rewarded with part of northwestern Media, which he eventually declared a separate kingdom (Strab. 2.13.1; “Atropates”). Media Atropatene, corresponding to modern-day Azerbaijan, remained a semi-autonomous kingdom under the Parthians, with some power to make its own foreign policy. However, in 19/20 ce, Artabanus II of Parthia replaced the native dynasty with members of Parthian Arsacid Dynasty (the modern name Azerbaijan is said to derive from Artabanus). In the Annals, Tacitus refers to the Medes when discussing Roman-Parthian/Armenian relations. Caligula places the Median Ariobarzanes on the Armenian throne, while a king of Media Atropatane emerges as king of Parthia (A. 2.4, 12.14). At other times, Media is used to indicate where troops enter and exit Armenia (A. 13.31, 14.26). During Tacitus’ description of Nero’s war with Parthia and Armenia, the Medes appear high in the Parthian hierarchy. At A. 15.2, Vologaeses I explains to an assembly of Parthian nobles how he gave his brother, Tiridates, Armenia, “which is regarded as the third grade of power” (qui tertius potentiae gradus habetur), since Pacorus, another royal brother, was ruling the Medes already. At other times, the Medes are noted as stereotypical easterners, renowned for

c12_vol2.indd 693

693

their luxury (A. 6.34), suggesting that Tacitus saw them in the same light as Greco-Roman authors saw most eastern empires. Whether Tacitus refers with Medi to inhabitants of Greater Media, Media Atropatene, or the Medes in general is often unclear. see also: Albani; Domitius Corbulo Reference work: Barrington 92 D2 REFERENCES Bickerman, Elias J. 1983. “Chapter 1: The Seleucid Period.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 3: The Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanid Periods (Part I), edited by Ehsan Yarshater, 3–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bivar, A. D. H. 1983. “Chapter 2: The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 3: The Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanid Periods (Part I), edited by Ehsan Yarshater, 21–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Liverani, Mario. 2003. “The Rise and Fall of Media.” In Continuity of Empire (?): Assyria, Media, Persia, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, Michael Roaf, and Robert Rollinger, 1–12. Padova: S.a.r.g.o.n. Editrice e Libreria. Radner, Karen. 2003. “An Assyrian View on the Medes.” In Continuity of Empire (?): Assyria, Media, Persia, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, Michael Roaf, and Robert Rollinger, 37–65. Padova: S.a.r.g.o.n. Editrice e Libreria. FURTHER READING Brown, S. C. 1990. “Media in the Achaemenid Period: The Late Iron Age in Central West Iran.” In Achaemenid History Workshop IV: Centre and Periphery: Proceedings of the Groningen 1986 Achaemenid History Workshop, edited by Amelie Kuhrt and Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, 63–76. Leiden: Nederlands Institut voor het Nabije Oosten. Brown, S. C. 1985. “Media.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume II: The Median and Achaemenian Perods, edited by Ilya Gershevitch, 36–148. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Canepa, Mathew P. 2018. The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment, 550 bce–642 ce. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

28-04-2023 18:02:57

694

  medicine

Encyclopedia Iranica. 1987/2011. “Atropates.” Accessed June 26, 2020. http://www.iranicaonline. org/articles/atropates-aturpat-lit. Encyclopedia Iranica. 1987/2014. “Azerbaijan iii. Pre-Islamic History.” Accessed June 26, 2020. http:// www.iranicaonline.org/articles/azerbaijan-iii. Encyclopedia Iranica. 2006. “Media.” Accessed June 22, 2020. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ media. Genito, Bruno. 1986. “The Medes: A Reassessment of the Archaeological Evidence.” East and West 36.1–3: 11–81. Frye, Richard N. 1984. The History of Ancient Iran. Munich: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Scurlock, J. A. 1990. “Herodotos’ Median Chronology Again?! (συν ‘Including or Excluding’).” Iranica Antiqua 25: 149–163.

MEDICINE SARA AGNELLI

University of Florida

Considering that Tacitus died just before Galen of Pergamum (129–216 ce), the medical advisor to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, all the information about medicine within Tacitus’ corpus of works date before the medical revolution of Galen’s medicine and writings. When Tacitus was writing his Annals, prejudice against Greek doctors was still held by Roman society, despite the fact that all foreign physicians practicing in Rome had been granted Roman citizenship (Suet. Aug. 42.3). From the second half of the first century ce, amid the flood of immigrants who came to Rome from all over the eastern Mediterranean, there were Greek doctors. Particularly in the first century ce, at the very apex of the ambitions of medical practitioners was the imperial household. Becoming the personal physician to the emperor, his family, their friends, advisors, and imperial secretaries was a sure path to wealth and influence. In A. 6.46.5, Tacitus reported that Tiberius used to mock medicine (eludere medicorum artes) and those men who, after thirty years of life, needed the counsel of a stranger in order to distinguish things healthy to their body from things unhealthy (ad internoscenda corpori suo utilia vel noxia). Tacitus relates that antidotes such as mithridatium or theriaca (A. 14.3.2–3) became popular

c12_vol2.indd 694

substances which can also be used as medicines, especially among the Roman emperors. Tacitus claimed to have written his history sine ira et studio (A. 1.1.3), so one would expect him to portray physicians without prejudice. However, the passages dealing with Eudemus (A. 4.3.4), Charicles (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 6.50.2–3), and Stertinius Xenophon (A. 12.61.1; 12.67.2) seem to imply a certain awareness of, and agreement with, the public’s adverse view of doctors. In Tacitus, doctors appear regularly in the same poisoning cases (cf. A. 6.50.1–3) that were mentioned by rhetorical writers (Quint. Inst. 7.2.17, 7.2.25, [Quint.] Decl. 321, Calp. Decl. 13; cf. Mart. 6.31). The three aforementioned doctors are sketched in a very negative way through their participation in plots and conspiracies against Drusus the Younger, Tiberius and Claudius, respectively. The doctor Xenophon, for example, was accused of having poisoned Claudius on the instructions of his wife, Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.67.2). Eudemus, who according to Pliny the Elder (HN 29.20) had an adulterous affair with Livia Julia, was presumably a Greek and a freedman. Tacitus, however, depicts the physician Statius Annaeus (otherwise unattested) without any negative comments (A. 15.64.3: Statium Annaeum, diu sibi amicitiae fide et arte medicinae probatum). By comparing the depictions of Eudemus, Xenophon, Charicles with that of Statius Annaeus, it appears that the critical stance of Tacitus is not directed at the profession of medicine per se. Instead, it reveals some form of Tacitean bias against Greek doctors (cf. Plin. HN 29.17–18). The expansion of the early empire took the legions far away from Rome and, as a consequence, the medical corps was established. Tacitus also noted that all medical personnel were well trained, with even the soldiers being taught first aid (H. 2.45). In A. 4.63.2 Tacitus narrated that under Augustus some kind of health care system for the military was created together with the general army reforms. This health care was rather ad hoc with tents erected where and when they were needed. With regard to childbirth, according to Tacitus, upper-class Roman matrons often delegated breastfeeding to slave wet-nurses (D. 28.4; G. 20.1). In Tacitus’ account, it seems also that the

28-04-2023 18:02:57

M eherdates  

child’s health and other similar duties were also handed over. Beyond the references to medicine and medical practices, Tacitus recounts an epidemic in autumn 65 ce, which killed 30,000 within Rome, including members of the Senate and nobility, but whether there was any link with the epidemics that a few years later raged north of the Alps is unclear (A. 16.13). see also: Aesculapius; army; mothers; slaves FURTHER READING Adams, J. N., M. Janse, and S. Swain. 2005. Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Healy, John F. 2005. Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horstmanshoff, M. 1999. “Ancient Medicine between Hope and Fear: Medicament, Magic and Poison in the Roman Empire.” European Review 7.1: 37–51. Nutton, V. 1992. “Healers in the Medical Market Place: Towards a Social History of GraecoRoman Medicine.” In Medicine in Society: Historical Essays, edited by A. Wear. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nutton, V. 2012. “Galen and Roman Medicine: Or Can a Greek Become a Latin?” European Review 20.4: 534–542. DOI: 10.1017/S1062798712000105. Sailor, D. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scarborough, J. 1970. “Romans and Physicians.” Classical Journal 65.7: 296–306.

MEDIOLANUM, see PETRONIUS URBICUS

MEDIOMATRICI

695

by the time of the Roman conquest, it was only recognized as a city in the time of Nero, when the town was given the name Divodurum. After the military conflicts of the third century ce, the city was renamed civitas Mediomatrici (Demougin 1995). Tacitus mentions the city of Divodurum in the context of the advance of the army led by Fabius Valens (H. 1.63). The soldiers, after being pacified and well received in the city, enter some sort of unexplained and panicked frenzy and almost destroy the city. It results in some 4,000 people from the city being killed; an extreme intervention from the commander stopped the massacre. After the incident, terror spread through Gaul and no community dared to challenge Valens’ army for the rest of the campaign. Tacitus also refers to the Mediomatrici in the context of the Roman actions against the Treveri (H. 4.70–72). He relates that the legions LV and I, after pleading alliance to Vespasian, evaded Iulius Valentinus and Iulius Tutor, two Treveran commanders and their armies, by withdrawing among the Mediomatrici. However, the Treveri managed to kill the commanders of both Roman legions. After that, those legions joined with the troops under the command of Petilius Cerealis and helped to defeat Valentinus and the Treveri under his orders. see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference work: Barrington 11 G3, B4 REFERENCE Demougin, Ségolène. 1995. “À propos des Médiomatriques.” Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz 6: 183–194.

UIRAN GEBARA DA SILVA

Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco

The Mediomatrici are tribe from Gallia Belgica, whose town was located near the river Mosella (modern Moselle in the area of the modern Metz; see Rhodanus). The settlement dates back to the sixth century bce and seems to have passed through different phases of development and growth. Although it was a fully developed oppida

c12_vol2.indd 695

MEHERDATES LEE E. PATTERSON

Eastern Illinois University

Meherdates (in Parthian: Mhrdad) was an Arsacid (see Arsacid dynasty) prince and aspirant to the throne of the Great Kings. He was the son of Vonones and grandson of Phraates IV, both

28-04-2023 18:02:58

696

  M emmius R egulus

previous kings. In 49 ce, in the aftermath of a civil war that had seen Gotarzes II prevail over his brother Vardanes, a portion of the Parthian nobility (see Parthia), distressed by the cruelty and ruthlessness of the new king, sent a secret embassy to Rome, where Vonones’ son was being held in custody. Tacitus’ account of the arguments the envoys made in the Senate includes a call for Claudius to stop the tyranny of Gotarzes that had ended the lives of many Parthians, including pregnant women and little children (A. 11.10.4, 12.10.1–2). In agreeing to their request, Claudius likened himself to Augustus, both in reinforcing the Augustan ideology of Roman superiority over the Arsacid and in acknowledging earlier requests made of the first emperor for a new king. Claudius further advised Meherdates to govern the Arsacid state more as a Roman rather than a king who ruled slaves. Thus, he should introduce the otherwise unknown (to barbarians) concepts of justice and clemency. So advised, Meherdates was sent on his way (A. 12.11.1–3). Escorting Meherdates to the Roman-Arsacid border along the Euphrates was Gaius Cassius, governor of Syria (see Cassius Longinus, Gaius (2)). Before parting ways at Zeugma, Cassius advised Meherdates not to delay, lest the zeal of his supporters wane (as was the way of barbarians). Meherdates, however, young and inexperienced as he was, seems to have decided on a more cautious approach and further suffered several bad turns of fortune that exacerbated his delay. Escorting him from Zeugma were his Arsacid supporters and Acbarus, an Arabian king who detained him for a few days at Edessa. Despite a new call for urgency from Carenes, the Arsacid governor of Mesopotamia, Meherdates instead moved into Armenia, where the winter snows bogged him down. Finally, Meherdates joined forces with Carenes and crossed the Tigris, entering Adiabene (see Adiabeni), whose king Izates publicly supported him (A. 12.11.3–13.1). With his army still not yet at full strength, Gotarzes decided to take position on the river Corma (possibly the modern Lesser Zab: Bivar 1983, 78). Moreover, Gotarzes undermined Meherdates’ support base by turning some Arsacid nobles against him through bribes. He likewise bought off Acbarus and Izates, who removed their forces. With a much-reduced army,

c12_vol2.indd 696

Meherdates decided to trust to luck and engage the Great King. Gotarzes’ position was greatly strengthened when Carenes’ army was cut off from the rest of Meherdates’. In despair, the young prince put his trust in Parraces, who had been a supporter of his father. Parraces, however, proved faithless to Vonones’ son and delivered him to Gotarzes. Rather than kill him, Gotarzes ordered Meherdates’ ears to be cut off, a sign of his own clemency and, no doubt, an application of Tacitean irony stemming from the advice given by Claudius (Gowing 1990, 321). Reference work: PIR2 M 443 REFERENCES Bivar, A. D. H. 1983. “The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids.” In Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3.1, edited by E. Yarshater, 21–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gowing, A. M. 1990. “Tacitus and the Client Kings.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 120: 315–331. FURTHER READING Dąbrowa, E. 2017. “Tacitus on the Parthians.” Electrum 24: 171–189.

MEMMIUS REGULUS JOSEPH R. O’NEILL

Arizona State University

Publius Memmius Regulus (d. 61 ce) was a novus homo who rose quickly under Tiberius, reaching the consulship in 31 ce. He was a favorite of Tiberius and instrumental in the overthrow of Sejanus. Memmius served as imperial legate for Moesia, Achaia, and Macedonia, and later as proconsular governor of Asia. He remained in Rome in retirement until his death in 61 ce. Memmius Regulus (CIL XV 4533) was born at about the turn of the era, perhaps either in Italy or Gallia Narbonensis (Syme 1958, 787). Nothing is known about his father, except that his praenomen was Publius (IG IV 1139). It is not known when or by what means Memmius was admitted into the

28-04-2023 18:02:58

memory  

Senate, or how he gained Tiberius’ favor. A statue base found at Colonia Iulia Ruscino (modern Château-Roussillon), whose patron Memmius was, lists his offices prior to his appointment as legate of Moesia. It attests to Memmius’ meteoric rise, as he appears to have been made quaestor, praetor, and consul in quick succession (Espérandieu 1929). Tiberius designated Memmius as suffect consul for 31, and he occupied the office from July to October. His colleague was the infamous delator and friend of Sejanus, Lucius Fulcinius Trio (Cass. Dio 58.9.3). The two consuls were openly hostile toward one another (A. 5.11; 6.4.3). As a loyal supporter of Tiberius, Memmius was entrusted with the overthrow of Sejanus. Memmius read to the Senate the letter Tiberius sent denouncing Sejanus (Cass. Dio 58.9.3; 10.1), then ordered that Sejanus be imprisoned (Cass. Dio 58.10.6–8). Afterward, Memmius led a delegation to Capri to report to Tiberius that Sejanus had been executed, but for reasons unknown he was not admitted (Cass. Dio 58.13.3). Tiberius appointed Memmius legate for Moesia, Macedonia, and Achaia in 35 (Cass. Dio 58.25.5). He was briefly recalled by Caligula in 38 and ordered to divorce his wife Lollia Paulina so that Caligula could marry her (Cass. Dio 59.12; Suet. Gai. 25.2). Caligula cast aside his new bride shortly thereafter. Memmius returned to his provinces where he served until Claudius restored them to the Senate in 44 (Cass. Dio 60.24.1). Memmius is credited with saving Pheidias’ statue of Zeus at Olympia. Caligula had ordered the statue removed to Rome where it was to have been refashioned to resemble himself (Suet. Gai. 22, 57; Cass. Dio 59.28.3–4). But Memmius kept forestalling its deconstruction at great risk to himself (Joseph AJ 19.8). Caligula’s assassination preserved both the statue and Memmius’ life. Epigraphic evidence indicates that Claudius made Memmius proconsular governor of Asia (CIL III 7090), though the dates are insecure. Memmius held a number of important priesthoods. He was a member of the College of the Epulones, the sodales Augustales, and the Arval Brethren. After his return from Asia sometime toward the end of Claudius’ reign, Memmius retired to a life of quiet. He was admired by Nero,

c12_vol2.indd 697

697

who considered him a bulwark of the state (A. 14.47). Memmius died in 61 ce. He left a son by Lollia Paulina, Gaius Memmius Regulus, who would attain the consulship in 63 (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 15.23). Reference works: CIL XV 4533; IG IV 1139; CIL III 7090; PIR2 M 468; RE 15.1 29 REFERENCES Espérandieu, Émile, ed. 1929. Inscriptions Latines de Gaule (Narbonnaise). Paris: Ernst Leroux. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

MEMMIUS REGULUS, Gaius, see MEMMIUS REGULUS

MEMORY ANDREW GALLIA

University of Minnesota

The recollection of the past can be approached as an individualized function of the mind or a discursive process embedded in communal traditions and norms. In contemporary scholarship, the study of “social” memory refers to a broad array of cultural practices through which public understandings of the past are transmitted within communities. This approach to memory as a fluid and socially contingent product of tradition is sometimes set in opposition to the critical standards of (modern) historiography. Tacitus, on the other hand, does not admit an easy distinction between history and other forms of memory. Fundamental to memory’s importance as an object of historical analysis is its role in shaping mental dispositions that lead to future action. As an aspect of what we might call individual psychology, Tacitus frequently invokes memory in conjunction with other affective states, as when it

28-04-2023 18:02:58

698

  memory

prompts shame (A. 1.41.2), grief (A. 1.61.1), confidence (A. 1.57.5), longing (H. 1.25.2), pride (A. 2.63.1), hostility (A. 2.3.2, 4.25.3), camaraderie (H. 1.23.1) or joy (A. 14.5.1, 15.28.2) in various contexts. Applied in the negative, this logic informs Claudius’ failure to register any emotion after the execution of Messalina, which Tacitus says was abetted by the removal of all memorials of the disgraced empress (A. 11.38.3, cf. H. 3.63.2, where Vitellius would have forgotten he was emperor if others did not remind him). This connection with motivations acquires a sinister edge in the personality of Tiberius, who had a long memory for slights (A. 4.21.1, 5.2.2; Gowing 2016, cf. A. 15.68.3 of Nero). Memory facilitates the holding of grudges in other contexts, as it attaches to the conduct of delators in the minds of other senators (H. 2.10.3, 2.53.1, 4.7.1, A. 14.46.1) or when the fate of Helvidius Priscus is foreshadowed by the observation that “there were also those who remembered” (H. 4.9.2 fuere qui et meminissent) certain proposals made by him in 70 ce. Memory cements bonds of obligation, such as those the freedman Milichus owed to his patron (A. 15.54.4). The loyalty of troops is thus repeatedly tied to the memory of their former commanders (H. 1.56.1, 2.101.2, 3.44.1, A. 2.76.3, 2.79.3). In the Annals, this connection weighs heavily on the soldiers’ disposition toward the descendants of Augustus (A. 1.41.2), Drusus the Elder (A. 1.43.3, 2.8.1), and Germanicus (A. 14.7.4) in particular. The Roman people also participate in this conjunction of memory and devotion along genealogical lines (A. 1.33.2, 4.15.3, 11.12.1). The importance of memory for aristocratic families, manifested most powerfully in the ritual of the public funeral and its associated ancestral masks (imagines), was a staple topos of Roman historiography going back to Polybius (6.53–54, cf. Sall. Jug. 4.5–6, Tac. Ag. 46.3; see Flower 1996). Tacitus is duly attentive to the manipulation of these symbols under the emperors. He notes the conspicuous absence of imagines of Marcus Iunius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus (1) from the funeral of Iunia Tertia (A. 3.76.2) as well as the inclusion of Aeneas and Attus Clausus among Drusus’ ancestors (A. 4.9.2). The absence of masks from the funeral of Germanicus did not impede the memory of his virtues (A.

c12_vol2.indd 698

2.73.1). It did reveal Tiberius’ animosity (A. 3.5.1– 2), however, as did the modest funeral of Livia Augusta (A. 5.2.1). Tacitus’ comment on the absence of funerary monuments among the Germani is pertinent: “it is proper for women to weep and men to remember” (G. 27.1, feminis lugere honestum est, viris meminisse). The memory of prestigious ancestors could be a mixed blessing for aristocrats under the principate. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (4) stood out for receiving permission to perpetuate his family’s honor by restoring the Aemilian Basilica Pauli (A. 3.72.1). Tacitus forbears to name those whom poverty compelled to join Nero on the stage out of deference for their ancestors (A. 14.14.3) and notes that “the memory of ancestors” helped Asinius Marcellus escape punishment in a case of forgery (A. 14.40.3 memoria maiorum). Noble lineage could also mark someone out as a potential candidate for the principate, as it did Gaius Calpurnius Piso in 64 ce (A. 15.48.2, see Pisonian Conspiracy), Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus in 69 (H. 1.14.2–15.1) and his brother Scribonianus Crassus the following year (H. 4.39.3). Under Nero, family distinction contributed to the destruction of Rubellius Plautus (A. 14.22.1), Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix (consul 52, A. 14.57.1, cf. 13.23.1), Gaius Cassius Longinus (2) and Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2) (A. 16.7.1–2). Memory was essential to the continuity of other institutions of Roman culture besides the aristocratic family. The discussions of precedent that accompany even minor changes in religious practice attest the importance of memory for the stability of these traditions as well (A. 3.71.2–3, 4.16.1–3, 6.12.2–3, 11.15.1–2; ShannonHenderson 2019). Emperors typically play a prominent role in these debates; Vitellius’ egregious ignorance of pontifical lore is thus emblematic of his incompetence as princeps (H. 2.91.1). Often Tacitus provides the relevant background himself, inserting digressions on the history of an institution (e.g., the urban prefecture, A. 6.11, theatrical games, A. 14.20.2–21.3), a monument (e.g., the Capitolium, H. 3.72), or even a people (H. 5.2–9, Judaism) when relevant. Applied in this way, memory can offer context for the breakdown of institutions, as when the looming conflict between Otho and Vitellius is said to

28-04-2023 18:02:58

memory  

prompt unfavorable comparisons with the civil wars of the Late Republic (H. 1.50.2), or when the outrageousness of the exile of Octavia (2) is measured against the precedents of Agrippina the Elder and Iulia Livilla (A. 14.63.1–2). Such applications of memory are rarely simple, however, and Tacitus also calls attention to the contestation of the past by competing interests. Greek cities make divergent claims regarding the history of their sacred sites (A. 4.43.1–3, cf. 3.61.1–63.3, H. 4.84.4). Senatorial debates about decorum and propriety often rest on contradictory exempla (A. 3.31.4, 11.6.2, 11.7.2). Even Nero could invoke ancient precedents for his decision to compete as a charioteer (A. 14.14.1). Much of the debate in the Dialogus turns on disagreements about which models of oratory are worthy of preservation (D. 18, 20.1–23.4, 25.3– 26.8). Curiatius Maternus, however, raises the possibility that the great forensic oratory of the Roman Republic had outlived its usefulness (D. 41.1–4). Tacitus elsewhere implies that too rigid adherence to the memory of the past can leave one out of sync with the times (H. 1.18.3, A. 3.21.1, 14.43.1). Memory can perpetuate illusions: the name of Bohemia preserves the memory of the Boii although the inhabitants had changed (G. 28.2) and the fame of the Helvetii, once a consequence of military might (armis virisque), subsequently rests on memoria alone (H. 1.67.1, cf. A. 3.45.2). Tacitus calls special attention to the efforts of emperors to exercise control over the operation of memory. Changing fortunes in the civil wars of 69 ce produce instability in the commemoration of various imperial predecessors (H. 1.78.2, 4.40.1). Tiberius prevented Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso’s name from being erased from the records of the fasti (A. 3.18.1), but also endeavored to tarnish Agrippina the Elder’s memory by noting that she died on the anniversary of Sejanus’ execution (A. 6.25.3). Claudius is faulted for omitting Tiberius from the list of predecessors invoked when bestowing a king to Parthia (A. 12.11.1). The most spectacular attempts to control public memory involve the destruction of literary texts: the burning of the works of Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio mentioned in the preface of the Agricola (Ag. 2.1) and of Cremutius Cordus’ histories under Tiberius (A. 4.35.4). In both cases, Tacitus distinguishes the oppressive climate of the

c12_vol2.indd 699

699

principate with the libertas of previous eras (Ag. 1.1–4, A. 4.34.3–5, cf. H. 1.1.1; McHugh 2004). He also notes the futility of such measures: Domitian’s efforts fail because silence is not the same as forgetting (Ag. 2.3) and copies of Cordus’ works continued to circulate in secret (A. 4.35.4–5). In its power to preserve what is outwardly lost, memory provides a potential form of resistance (Ag. 46.3–4, cf. A. 15.41.1 on the elders who remember the monuments destroyed in the Fire of 64 ce). In this vein, concerns with memory are central to Tacitus’ identity as a writer of historical literature (see Sailor 2008). Tacitus frequently uses the verb memorare in the sense of “to record” in reference to his own work (e.g., Ag. 18.3 supra memoravi; A. 1.58.6 in tempore memorabo) or the works of other writers (Ag. 10.1, H. 1.1.1, 3.51.2, A. 1.1.2, 4.10.1, 4.53.2, 14.2.2). He notes that the Germani have no written annales but rely on “ancient songs” as their only form of memory (G. 2.2 carminibus antiquis). He also invokes his own memory of things he had heard as warrant for details about the early life of Agricola (Ag. 4.3) and as the basis for the whole of the Dialogus (D. 1.3). Tacitus’ approach to the writing of history is likewise justified in terms of memory. In the Annals, he acknowledges that aspects of his narrative may seem “minor perhaps and trivial to record” (parva fortisan et levia memoratu, A. 4.32.1, cf. 14.64.3), but he attributes this impression to the altered political realities of the principate. The inclusion of material that others might pass over as unpleasant, such as the depressing litany of suicides that follows the discovery of the Pisonian Conspiracy (see Pisonian Conspiracy, victims), comes down to an obligation to provide famous men with their “appropriate memory” (A. 16.16.2, propriam memoriam, cf. 6.7.5, digna cognitu). The exemplary and admonitory functions that Tacitus, following Livy (praef. 10), identifies as the “primary obligation of annals” (A. 3.65.1, praecipuum munus annalium) imparts an ethical dimension to memory, centered on the moral evaluation of individuals. In the Histories, invocations of the “old memory” of the republican past are justified as a means of obtaining exempla of correct behavior or consolation for evil (H. 3.51.2). The memory of persons generally corresponds with their virtue (A. 1.32.2, 14.51.2) or lack thereof (H. 2.91.2, A. 6.2.1). Memory and moral assessment

28-04-2023 18:02:58

700

  M esopotamia

are similarly linked in the imperial cult (A. 1.73.3, 4.38.1), which is why Tiberius’ refusal of divine honors could be regarded as a deviation from the proper ambition of a princeps (A. 4.38.5 nam contemptu famae contemi virtutes). Deposed emperors (H. 3.68.2) and dying men (A. 2.72.1, 5.6.3, 15.63.2–3, 16.25.2, 16.35.1) are especially attentive to memory and/or the exempla they leave behind. see also: emotions; exemplarity; martyrs; religion REFERENCES Flower, Harriet I. 1996. Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gowing, Alain M. 2016. “Memory as Motive in Tacitus.” In Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity, edited by Karl Galinsky, 43–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McHugh, Mary R. 2004. “Historiography and Freedom of Speech: The Case of Cremutius Cordus.” In Free Speech in Classical Antiquity, edited by Ineke Sluiter and Ralph Rosen, 391–408. Leiden: Brill. Sailor, Dylan. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shannon-Henderson, Kelly E. 2019. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Gallia, Andrew. 2013. Remembering the Roman Republic: Culture, Politics, and History under the Principate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MEMPHIS, see SARAPIS MENAPII, see IULIUS CIVILIS MENELAUS, see GREECE MENENIUS AGRIPPA LANATUS, see ROMAN ORATORS MERCURY, see ROMAN GODS

MESOPOTAMIA LEONARDO GREGORATTI

Durham University

Mesopotamia is an historical region of western Asia roughly delimitated by the major rivers

c12_vol2.indd 700

Euphrates and Tigris to the west and the east respectively and by the Taurus mountains to the north. It covers vast areas of modern Iraq, northeast Syria, and southeast Turkey. The term appears a few times in Tacitus’ works as the region between the two mentioned rivers. Several cities and other geographical features of Mesopotamia are mentioned by the author. In 35 ce, Tiberius gave the Armenian throne to Mithridates Hiberus, the brother of Pharasmanes, king of Caucasian Iberia (A. 6.32–33). The reaction of Artabanus II, king of Parthia (12–41 ce) consisted in sending an army to Armenia led by his son Orodes. Orodes was defeated and only the intervention of Lucius Vitellius the Elder, governor of Syria (35–39 ce), who having gathered the legions, managed to cross the Euphrates and therefore invade Mesopotamia, forced him to withdraw from Armenia (A. 6.36). Following these events, a delegation made of Parthian nobles and opponents of Artabanus went to Rome to ask for a new king among the several Arsacids living there since Augustus’ reign. Tiridates was chosen (A. 6.32). Vitellius escorted the candidate as far as the Euphrates. There Ornospades, the praefectus, a title Tacitus uses to indicate the Parthian governor, of “the plains bordered all around by the Tigris and the Euphrates,” that is to say of Mesopotamia, joined him with thousands of horsemen (A. 6.37). Abdagaeses the leader of the revolt having pursued the defeated Artabanus east of the Tigris, ignoring the advice of the other leaders to haste eastwards and look for a decisive confrontation, preferred to cross the Tigris and withdraw again into Mesopotamia where his army quickly dissolved (A. 6.44). In 49 ce, another Arsacid born in Rome, Meherdates, was given the same support and the same task already given to Vonones (A. 12.10–11). The opposition to the ruling great King Gotarzes was led by one of the most powerful aristocratic families of Parthia, the Carenes, one of the seven traditional noble households that could claim to descend from one of the companions of the Arsaces, the founder of the Parthian royal dynasty (third century bce). Tacitus refers to this character using only his family name without reporting his proper name.

28-04-2023 18:02:58

M essalina  

After crossing the Euphrates at Zeugma Meherdates was welcomed by Abgar V of Osrhoene, who ruled a Parthian vassal kingdom placed on the other bank of the river and therefore facing directly the attempt of invasion. Its capital was Edessa, a city founded by Seleucus Nicator in 302 bce, originally called Antiochia on the Callirhoe and from 132 bce, the seat of a local Arab dynasty, the Abgarids. These kings were loyal to the Parthians until the campaign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (165 ce); they were then loyal to Rome before being deprived of their royal authority after the annexation of the city to the empire in the third century ce. The city was to be came one of the most important centers of Christianity in the East in late antiquity developing a peculiar cultural milieu whose characteristic language was Syriac Aramaic. King Abgar secretly allied with Gotarzes, convinced the young Arsacid to waste time in Edessa among the pleasures thus ignoring the calls of the head of the Carenes family who urged him to move southwards and enter Mesopotamia as soon as possible (A. 12.12). Finally, Meherdates joined with his supporters before crossing the Tigris, the eastern border of Mesopotamia and invading the nearby kingdom of Adiabene (A. 12.13). In the battle which followed for the Parthian throne, Meherdates was taken prisoner by Gotarzes and the Carenes family leader was killed (A. 12.14). This did not imply the end of the family that almost two centuries later joined Shapur’s side and found a place in the new empire founded by the Sassanids (Shapur I’s Ka’ba-ye Zartosht Inscription, § 23–26). Among the many place names Tacitus refers to, a river in northern Mesopotamia deserves a mention, the Arsanias (Greek, Ἀρσανίας) today’s Murat, in Turkey, an eastern tributary river of the Euphrates. It marked the northern border of the Roman dependent kingdom of Sophene. After the defeat suffered in 63 ce by Caesennius Paetus at Rhandeia on the river, the Parthians ordered the demoralized Roman legionaries to build a bridge to facilitate their coming home. Convinced by the rumor that the Romans had on purpose built a flawed bridge, not able to sustain the weight of his troops, Vologases, the Parthian king preferred to cross the Arsanias on an elephant while his soldiers followed on their horses (A. 15.15). see also: Arsacid dynasty

c12_vol2.indd 701

701

Reference work: Barrington, Mesopotamia: 100 P4, 101 P4, 102 G4, 89 B3, 3 C2; Edessa: 67 H2, 1 K3, 3 C2; Arsanias: 89 B2, 1 L3, 3 D2, 64 H3; Tigris: 93 C1, 1 L3, 3 D2, 89 C2/F4, 91 E1, 92 B4 FURTHER READING Dąbrowa, Edward. 2017. “Tacitus on the Parthians.” Electrum 24: 171–189. Ehrhardt, Norbert. 1998. “Parther und partische Geschichte bei Tacitus.” In Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse, Beiträge des internationalen Colloquiums. Eutin (27.-30. Juni 1996), edited by Josef Wiesehöfer, 295–307. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag. Gregoratti, Leonardo. 2017a. “Corbulo versus Vologaeses: A Game of Chess for Armenia.” Electrum 24: 107–121. Gregoratti, Leonardo. 2017b. “Tacitus and the Great Kings.” In Iran and the West: Cultural Perceptions from the Sasanian Empire to the Islamic Republic, edited by Maragaux Whiskin and David Bagot, 21–34. New York: I.B. Tauris.

MESSALINA PETER KEEGAN

Macquarie University

Born in c. 25 ce, Valeria Messalina was in all likelihood the only child of Domitia Lepida the Younger, related by birth or associated through marriage to every Julio-Claudian ruler but Tiberius, and Marcus Valerius Messala Barbatus (consul 20 ce), Domitia Lepida’s first cousin, who also had dynastic connections (Suet. Claud. 26.2; PIR2 V 141). Ancient sources depict Messalina in terms of her familial or personal relationships—namely, according to her role as daughter, wife, mother, and lover (e.g., A. 11.12.2, 26–38; Suet. Claud. 26.2, 27.1–4; Plin. HN 10.171–2; Cass. Dio 60.14.3, 18.1–2; Juv. Sat. 6.118). In most instances, she is seen to possess three vices characteristic of a tyrannical nature: avaritia (greed), saevitia (cruelty), and libido (sexual profligacy) (A. 11.12.1, 26.1, 30.2, 31.2, 36.4; 12.7.3; 13.32.3, 43.4; Cass. Dio 60.18.1–2, 31; Juv. Sat. 6.120–32; Plin. HN 10.172). References to Messalina in the literary tradition relate to a single decade (c. 37–48 ce),

28-04-2023 18:02:58

702

  M essalina

commencing at her marriage to Claudius—dated variously between 37 and 41 ce (Wyke 2002, 324 with n. 2)—and only appearing incidentally after her execution in 48 for adultery and treason. According to modern scholarship, Messalina married when she was either fourteen or eighteen years of age (Suet. Claud. 26.2; Barrett 1996, 270 n. 29) to a man at least thirty years her senior; the Emperor Claudius, her husband, was born on 1 August 10 bce. She gave birth to a daughter Octavia (2), later the wife of Nero, in 39 or early 40 ce, and a son and potential heir (A. 13.15.1; Suet. Claud. 27.2; Cass. Dio 60.12.5). The latter, originally named Tiberius Claudius Caesar Germanicus, but later Britannicus, was born in 41, the year of Claudius’ accession to power (Suet. Claud. 26.2, 27.1–4; RIC2 Claudius 124). On the birth of his son, Claudius declined the request to give the title Augustus to Britannicus or Augusta to Messalina (Cass. Dio 60.12.5). Since Claudius could not trace his genealogy to the line of Augustus, and so was unable to make an exclusive claim to the principate on the basis of descent, he faced a number of threats from various quarters. In dealing with these, Claudius and Messalina (and, in turn, Agrippina the Younger) sought to shore up support through the development of complex networks of alliances. Individuals associated with Messalina included amicable senators and, at least for a time, imperial freedmen. One of the most prominent of the senators positively disposed to Messalina, Lucius Vitellius (1) (consul 34, 43, 47 ce) used his particular talents as mediator and negotiator on her behalf from 41 ce on (A. 6.32.4, 37.4; Suet, Vit. 2.4; Cass. Dio 59.27.2–6). He reportedly begged her to allow him to take off her slippers, the right one of which he thereafter carried with him between his toga and tunic, occasionally kissing it (Suet. Vit. 2.5). Another senatorial ally, Publius Suillius Rufus, son of Vistilia and halfbrother of Caesonia, last wife of Gaius Caligula, acted as an effective and hard-hearted delator (accuser) in service to Claudius and, commencing in 41, to Messalina (A. 13.43.2). Although he is known to have brought her down, the imperial freedman Narcissus was clearly in a position to provide for Messalina, given his close relationship with Claudius (A. 11.29.1, 3, 37.4; Suet. Vesp. 4.1).

c12_vol2.indd 702

For the period 41 to 48, Claudius’ rule is marked by reports of Messalina’s purges of her enemies. The list is long (cf. A. 13.43.2–4) and includes the following instances. Purportedly due to her beauty, repeated failure to show due deference, and spending too much time alone with Claudius, in 41 Messalina arranged for Caligula’s sister Iulia Livilla to be accused of adultery with the philosopher Seneca the Younger; both were found guilty and sent into exile (Cass. Dio 60.8.5). Apparently as a consequence of refusing to sleep with her, a slight which in turn alienated Narcissus, the powerful imperial freedman and her ally in the domus Caesaris, Messalina engineered the conviction and death of Gaius Appius Iunius Silanus, the governor of Eastern Spain, on the basis of a treasonous vision (A. 11.29.1; Suet, Claud. 37.2; Cass. Dio 60.14.2–4). In 43, Catonius Iustus, the Praetorian Prefect, was executed, ostensibly to prevent him from revealing to Claudius his wife’s sexual proclivities (Cass. Dio 60.18.3). In the same year, Iulia Livia (daughter of Drusus the Younger), Tiberius’ granddaughter, was falsely accused of incest and immorality, anticipating execution by taking her own life (Sen. Apocol. 10.4, 13.5; Octavia 944–96; A. 13.32.3, 43.2; Suet. Cal. 29.1; Cass. Dio 60.18.4). In 46, Messalina is thought to have poisoned Marcus Vinicius, the ex-consul and ex-husband of Iulia Livilla, for contradictory reasons: refusing to have sexual intercourse with her and for killing his wife (Cass. Dio 60.27.4). Gaius Pompeius Magnus (see Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus), Claudius’ son-in-law and husband of his daughter Antonia, was executed for reputedly being apprehended in flagrante delicto with a male lover, although more probably because of his family and his relationship to the princeps; so, too, were his mother Scribonia (2) and his father Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus (Sen. Apocol. 11.2.5; H. 1.48.1; Suet. Claud. 27.2, 29.1–2; Cass. Dio 61.29.6a, 31.8). In 47, Messalina engineered the downfall of the distinguished provincial Decimus Valerius Asiaticus (1), senator and ex-consul, on the grounds that she desired the gardens of Lucullus, a property Asiaticus had acquired, and was jealous of his adulterous relationship with Poppaea Sabina the Elder, mother of the future princeps Nero’s second wife and Messalina’s rival for the

28-04-2023 18:02:58

M essalina  

actor Mnester (Joseph. AJ 13.23.1; A. 11.1.1, 3.1; Cass. Dio 60.27.1–3, 29.4–6b). Messalina is also reported to have organized the execution of Polybius, the imperial freedman who held the position of a libellis in the imperial household, looking after petitions directed to Claudius, once more due to his being one of Messalina’s supposed lovers (Cass. Dio 61.31.2). Beyond the narrative of personal rivalries and political intrigues endemic to the imperial household during Claudius’ principate, Messalina’s portrayal in the ancient literature is also driven by her rumored sexual profligacy. Salacious allegations and voyeuristic stories relating to her private and public behavior are numerous. Juvenal famously positions Messalina as the culminating exemplum of his satirical catalog of wives displaying impudicitia, that is, traits denoting a shameless and unchaste nature (Juv. Sat. 6.114–32). Notoriously, the poet depicts Messalina, hooded and wearing a blonde wig, seeking out sex-work at night when Claudius slept. Adopting the pseudonym Lycisca (suggestive, via a Greek cognate, of the Latin slang for prostitute), she is labeled meretrix Augusta (“empress whore”) and said to prefer a mat in a brothel to her bed on the Palatine (Juv. Sat. 6.118, 122–30). The elder Pliny complements this portrait by identifying Messalina’s sexual desire to illustrate the principle of human depravity (Plin. HN 10.171–2). Cassius Dio depicts Messalina as motivated by insatiable lascivious passion, as requiring others to exhibit the same traits, as compelling many elite married women to commit adultery, often in the imperial palace, with their husbands present and watching (Cass. Dio 60.18.1–2). In 47, Messalina conceived of a desire—driven by a “new and almost insane passion” (novo et furori proximo amore)—to have many husbands and, in particular, fixed her attention on a certain Gaius Silius, consul-designate for the following year (A. 11.12, 26). This episode echoed earlier accounts in A. of the relationship between Livia Iulia (sister of Germanicus and wife of Drusus the Younger) and Sejanus, as well as Macro’s encouragement of the relationship between his wife Ennia and the emperor Caligula (A. 4.3, 10, 39, 60; 5.3–5; 6.45). Messalina’s fascination for this handsome member of the Roman elite is depicted as

c12_vol2.indd 703

703

“inflamed” (exarserat), drawn to “unknown passions” (incognitas libidines), and subject to the most extreme and prodigal of desires (apud prodigos novissima voluptas est)—namely infamia. This was an extraordinary desire in social and legal terms, since ultimately acquiring such a status meant the loss of one’s reputation leading to official exclusion from the legal protections enjoyed by a Roman citizen. Nonetheless Messalina became fixated on Silius to the exclusion of the most fundamental proprieties: she was “careless of concealment” and “at no other time more wanton in passion” and even of satisfying her basic instincts, her “cruelty,” “more aroused than ever” (A. 11.12, 26). Unsuccessful in evading the danger incumbent on her choices, Messalina is depicted by Tacitus as prone to explicitly un-Roman behavior, adept at deploying a range of strategies to avoid recompense. In the first instance, she drove Silius’ wife away, then showered him with wealth and honors, and made no attempt to conceal her adultery (A. 11.12). In what seems an uncharacteristic response—given his depiction as intelligent and principled, a newly inducted senator (and consuldesignate) who demanded that the law forbidding acceptance of money or gifts in exchange for legal services be enforced (A. 11.6)—Silius declared himself single and without children, ready to marry Messalina and adopt Britannicus. Even Tacitus construes this as “incredible” (fabulosus). While Claudius was at Ostia performing a sacrifice, the adulterous couple engaged in the complete ritual of a marriage ceremony (A. 11.26–27). Finally, they celebrate the Greek mysteries (orgia) associated with Bacchanalian ritual, Messalina with flowing hair shaking the thyrsus, and Silius at her side, crowned with ivy and wearing the buskin (A. 11.31). Tacitus claims that, in the face of Claudius learning about her marriage to Silius, Messalina reacted as if her capacity to form a purpose had been excised (A. 11.32). Yet she was sufficiently in control of her faculties to assess her situation accurately and arrange a series of responses designed to best represent her cause to Claudius. Messalina resolved to meet her husband face-to-face and asked her children Britannicus and Octavia to accompany her and embrace their father, thereby accentuating her emotional control over Claudius.

28-04-2023 18:02:58

704

  metahistory

She then requested the senior Vestal Vibidia to demand an audience with the princeps (also pontifex maximus) and to beg for mercy; and, when her access to Claudius was blocked, she composed letters of entreaty (A. 11.32, 37). That Messalina failed—in large part due to the interventions of Vitellius and the freedman Narcissus—should not diminish the potential efficacy of her responses (A. 11.33–34; Wood 2000, 254). Eventually, Messalina finds herself effectively alone. In order to meet with her husband, she must use whatever means of transport is available to her. “[W]ith just three companions—there was such desolation unexpectedly—traversing the length of the city on foot, by means of a vehicle in which garden refuse was taken away, she proceeded along the road to Ostia; not pitied by anyone, because the baseness of her shameful acts were stronger” (A. 11.32). Tacitus’ representation of the ignominy of Messalina’s journey and the extent of her social isolation accords with her rhetorical status. She was not the victim of depredation; rather, she was the source. She was discarded—like the offscourings of Roman gardens (including, one is tempted to consider, those gardens of Asiaticus she coveted so much)— because her actions brought shame, on herself as a Roman and on her condition as a woman of the imperial household. Messalina may have been powerful and influential, but the vileness of her deeds was stronger. Here, Tacitus embodies (literally and semantically) Messalina’s perversity. In the same way that the ancients believed that inferences could be made about a person from physical features of the body, Tacitus renders Messalina’s crimes as a distortion of the mind, an ugliness of character susceptible to observation and understanding (Joshel 1995, 65). In the end, Claudius ordered that Silius and other associates of Messalina—Vettius Valens; Mnester; the otherwise unattested Titius Proculus; Pompeius Urbicus; Decrius Calpurnianus, prefect of the vigiles; Sulpicius Rufus, procurator of a school; Saufelus (Saufeius) Trogus; Iuncus Vergilianus, a senator; and Sextus Traulus Montanus, an equestrian (these latter three attested only at A. 11.36 and Sen. Apoc. 13)—be executed; but, after too much wine, conceded that his wife might plead her case the next day. To avert any possibility that Claudius might

c12_vol2.indd 704

be swayed by Messalina’s appeals, that night Narcissus arranged for centurions and tribunes, under the watchful eye of the freedman Euodus, to ensure that she be put to death immediately. Those charged with Messalina’s execution found her in the gardens of Lucullus. Corrupted by profligacy and bereft of honor, Messalina was unable to take her own life, and so a tribune drove the dagger she could not wield through her (11.35–37). Soon thereafter the Senate voted that her name and likenesses be removed from public and private places (damnatio memoriae). Later in 48, Claudius would marry his niece, daughter of his brother Germanicus–Agrippina the Younger (A. 11.38; 12.3). see also: adultery; delators; freedmen of Claudius; gardens; marriage; Julio-Claudian dynasty; Plautius Lateranus; sexual deviance; Suillius Rufus; Vestal Virgins Reference works: PIR2 V 241; RIC2 Claudius 124 REFERENCES Barrett, A. A. 1996. Agrippina. Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Joshel, S. R. 1995. “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire: Tacitus’ Messalina.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 21.1: 50–82. Wood, Susan E. 2000. Imperial Women: A Study in Public Images, 40 bc–ad 68. Leiden: Brill. Wyke, M. 2002. The Roman Mistress. Ancient and Modern Representations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Levick, B. 1990. Claudius. London: B. T. Batsford.

METAHISTORY HOLLY HAYNES

The College of New Jersey

Metahistory is a term that gained currency in historical and literary studies after Hayden White’s extensive 1975 study of the contribution made by

28-04-2023 18:02:58

metahistory  

narrative form to shaping the interpretation of the past. It refers to the historian’s philosophical or theoretical reflection on the nature of history, detectable through his or her narrative choices. White argued that all historians, not just philosophers of history, engage in such reflection through their “emplotment” of the facts that form the object of their narratives. Four major plot types of historical thinking emerge: Romance, Comedy, Tragedy, and Satire. Each of these delivers a particular view of the structure of history, bears ideological implications, and corresponds to a poetic trope. According to White’s schematic (though White does not directly discuss Tacitus), Tacitus’ historical works might be interpreted as satirically emplotted, “contextualist” in their explanation of historical events (locating the significance of an event in its function as a unit within a larger context), ideologically liberal, and having irony as a dominant trope. Here irony not only refers to a momentary effect in the text where the language appears to mean something different from what it says, often generating a kind of humor; it also signifies an overarching skepticism that the historian can discover any stable connections between units in the historical field, and therefore plot a narrative that generates a positive meaning for historical events. White’s theory provides a lexicon for analyzing the inseparable connections between Tacitus’ style and view of history that previous analyses sometimes suggested but did not develop in any systematic way. We can clearly apprehend the affinity between what is often recognized as Tacitus’ cynicism and White’s description of irony: “In its apprehension of the essential folly or absurdity of the human condition, [irony] tends to engender belief in the ‘madness’ of civilization itself and to inspire a Mandarin-like disdain for those seeking to grasp the nature of social reality in either science or art” (1975, 38). White argues that facts cannot be known independently of their narrative context, thus undoing a major premise of the source-based historiographical method introduced by Leopold von Ranke. In Classics, Arnaldo Momigliano (1981) took early and critical note of White’s theory, arguing that it is too cavalier about historical evidence such as inscriptions. But defenders of White argue that a narrative context is not necessarily

c12_vol2.indd 705

705

literary: “narrative” can be taken to mean the broader discursive situation (e.g., political, social, familial) in which the “fact” emerges. White has also been critiqued for opening up moral questions about the reception of testimony from events such as the Holocaust: if fact cannot be separated from fiction, does this not usher in the possibility of denying the truth of survivors’ narratives? White mounts a serious, though not entirely convincing, defense of separating such questions from truth claims about the objective reality of the past (for the problems with White’s argument, Trezise 2013, 237 n. 32). A. J. Woodman’s pivotal study of rhetoric in classical historiography (1988) acknowledges the interest White’s theory holds for the study of ancient history. He argues that ancient historiography should not be judged according to contemporary standards for “scientific” historiography but rather as a form of literary discourse. For Woodman rhetoric forms an essential part of ancient historians’ understanding and communication of events, and their historical vision should not be found wanting because it does not conform to contemporary scientific standards for historiography. Woodman’s analysis proved critical to interrupting the stalemate between “historical” and “literary” studies of ancient historiography and pointed the way for work interested in the ideologies latent in historians’ modes of discourse (Haynes 2003; O’Gorman 2000). More generally, any gesture, often but not always self-reflexive, that points to the historian’s broader view of historical causation can be called “metahistorical.” Irony becomes a kind of master trope, in White’s analysis, for the inherent reflexivity of historical (or any) narrative. In his view both historiography and philosophy of history in the late nineteenth century arrive at a similar crisis that only admits investigation through the mode of irony; and we may readily recognize irony as a dominant mode in three ancient historians of crisis whose styles are often assimilated to one another: Thucydides, Sallust, and Tacitus. The concept of metahistory provides a particularly useful tool for analyzing Tacitean narrative, whose systemic irony intuits a theory of history developed self-consciously through literary style. Thus the opening line of the Annals—urbem Romam a principio reges habuere; libertatem et

28-04-2023 18:02:58

706

  M ettius C arus

consulatum L. Brutus instituit (“From the beginning kings held the city of Rome; L. Brutus instituted liberty and the consulship”)—not only narrates diachronically the historical transition from monarchy to res publica; the phrasing also stylistically gives a synchronic view of Rome as the product of the opposing forces of greatness (reges) and freedom (libertatem et consulatum), an oxymoron that tropes the history of Rome as tragic irony. The asyndeton that divides the sentence between reges and libertas, eliding any marker that would indicate the temporal relationship of the two, positionally emphasizes the togetherness of these two institutions that are semantically divided. The only temporal marker is a principio. This implies that despite the acknowledgment of libertas and consulatus that follows, Rome has always been caught between the freedom embodied in the desire to be great, and the necessity of one-person rule that empire entails. The echo of princeps and principatus in principio, juxtaposed with reges, further tightens this bond. Tacitus’ style in this line therefore simultaneously conveys a historical fact (the transition from monarchy to res publica) and a theory of its significance (the irony that Rome’s development entailed its own embrace of kingship under the name of res publica). Thus, more than simply employing rhetorical tactics to enliven his narrative or persuade his audience, Tacitus instantiates White’s concept of metahistory as narrative’s sense-making capacity. In the case of historiography, this means the unavoidable theory of history that the narrative form inherently implies. White’s major contribution was to force the discipline of history to recognize its own method; Tacitus’ irony shows his awareness of and methodological approach to the problems White articulates. see also: historiography; ideology; libertas REFERENCES Haynes, Holly. 2003. The History of Make-Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1981. “The Rhetoric of History and the History of Rhetoric: On Hayden White’s Tropes.” Comparative Criticism 3: 260–261.

c12_vol2.indd 706

O’Gorman, Ellen. 2000. Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trezise, Thomas. 2013. Witnessing Witnessing: On the Reception of Holocaust Survivor Testimony. New York: Fordham. White, Hayden. 1975. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. Woodman, A. J. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies. New York: Routledge. FURTHER READING Hillis Miller, J. 1995. “Narrative.” In Critical Terms for Literary Study, edited by Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin, 66–80. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

METELLUS, Lucius, see FLAMEN DIALIS METRODORUS, see PHILOSOPHY

METTIUS CARUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Mettius Carus, mentioned at Ag. 45.1 where Tacitus inverts the name, was a notorious prosecutor in the reign of Domitian (see Mart. 12.25.5, where Carus brings charges). At Juv. 1.35–36 Carus is mentioned together with Baebius Massa, who despite their infamous reputations, stand in fear of an even more destructive informant. Carus was the prosecutor of Herennius Senecio in the year 93 ce (Plin. Ep. 1.5.3), then of Fannia, wife of Helvidius Priscus and daughter of Thrasea Paetus (Plin. Ep. 7.19.5). Tacitus refers to Carus’ “one victory,” which may have been the trial of a Vestal Virgin by the name of Cornelia (Plin. Ep. 4.11.6–9). The scholia to Juvenal says that Carus was a dwarf, one of Nero’s freedmen, and a most worthless informant. The scholiast also records that Carus was executed when Heliodorus denounced him and that he tried to bribe his way out of the sentence. see also: delatores

28-04-2023 18:02:58

707

M iletus  

Reference work: PIR2 M 562 FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge.

MEVANIA LEE FRANTANTUONO

Maynooth University

Mevania is the ancient name for the modern Bevagna; the Umbrian Mevania was a municipium in the Augustan Regio VI, a locale known for its marshlands, dew, and fog, of greater relative importance in the first century ce than the modern environs would seem to indicate. It is mentioned twice in Tacitus (H. 3.55 and 3.59), as Vitellius finally departs from Rome and joins his military forces at their camp at Mevania in preparation for the arrival of Vespasian’s forces during the civil wars of 69 ce; Mevania is soon enough abandoned as the Vitellians lose heart. Propertius mentions the same locale at 4.1b.123– 124, with reference to his native land (and cf. 2.19.25–6, where the same region is described); the poets Lucan, Statius, and Silius Italicus also refer to it. The remains of a temple and of what may be an amphitheater can be found at the site. The Romans defeated an uprising of Umbrians and Etruscans at Mevania in 308 bce (Livy 9.41); apart from this and the Vitellian encampment it is not famous for any historical occurrences. see also: Umbria Reference work: Barrington 42 D3

MILETUS PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Miletus was a prominent city on the coast of western Asia Minor (modern Turkey; Barrington 61 E

c12_vol2.indd 707

2), near the Maeander River, and in modern times is found 9 miles inland due to deposits from the silting of Miletus’ harbors. In the imperial period, Miletus was in the province of Asia, and a part of its koinon, which interacted on political, diplomatic, and religious grounds with Rome, particularly with respect to the imperial cult. As with other cities in the Greek East, it is within this context that Miletus appears in Tacitus: At A. 3.63.3, in the context of Greek cities petitioning for the retention of the asylum rights of their temples, Miletus cites that the asylum at the Temple of Apollo at Didyma went back to King Darius I (see Persia; for comment, see Rigsby 1996, 172–176). An important passage appears at A. 4.55–6 (cf. A.4.15.3), where eleven cities from Asia Minor were arguing over which city would build a temple to Tiberius, Livia Augusta and the Senate, after voting these honors to them for the successful prosecutions against Gaius Iunius Silanus and Lucilius Capito. The winner would gain the coveted title of neokoros, which means “temple-warden,” but designates the honor of maintaining a temple to the Roman emperor (Burrell 2004, 4–5, 38–39, 55). The representatives of these communities presented their arguments, though Miletus falls out of contention for being too occupied with the Temple of Apollo at Didyma. The honor went to Smyrna in the end. One final passing mention happens to be a detail about the priesthood of Apollo at Claros (A. 2.54.3), which provides an oracle for Germanicus in his ill-fated trip east. Tacitus notes that the priest is normally appointed from Miletus, rather than Colophon, the city to which the oracle belonged. This activity of bringing in a foreigner as a priest is corroborated by a Hellenistic inscription (OCD3 Claros; SEG 42.1065, with bibliography). see also: Lucilius Longus; religion Reference works: Barrington 61 E 2; RE Miletus 1615.15–50; OCD3 Claros; SEG 42.1065 REFERENCES Burrell, Barbara. 2004. Neokoroi: Greek Cities and the Roman Emperor. Leiden: Brill. Rigsby, Kent J. 1996. Asylia. Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World. Berkeley: University of California Press.

28-04-2023 18:02:58

708

  M ilichus

FURTHER READING Price, Simon. 1984. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MILICHUS ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Flavius Milichus was a freedman of Flavius Scaevinus, a member of the senatorial order who had joined the Pisonian Conspiracy at its beginnings. Milichus was the first to successfully inform the emperor Nero about the existence of a plot to kill him, and he consequently had a crucial role in crushing it. Milichus (in Greek meilichos, i.e., “mild, gentle”: a typical slave-name, see Ash 2018, 249; Koestermann 1968, 282) was systematically involved by Scaevinus in the preparations for the murder of Nero: he was asked to sharpen the dagger chosen for the task and to prepare bandages and medications. Tacitus does not state whether such involvement was the proof of Milichus’ antecedent awareness of the conspiracy or the reason of his suspicions about its existence, even if the historian specifies that the latter hypothesis was the common opinion (A. 15.54.1–3). In any case, Tacitus’ judgment about Milichus’ subsequent conduct is extremely harsh: the freedman was led to betray his patron by his “slavish soul” (servilis animus) and by the thought of the immense wealth and power he could gain thanks to the betrayal, as well as by his wife’s advice (A. 15.54.4). The day after he was entrusted with the dagger, Milichus went to the horti Serviliani, one of the imperial residences, where he was admitted first to Nero’s freedman Epaphroditus and then to Nero himself; there he informed the emperor about what he had seen or conjectured, showing the weapon as a proof of his charges (A. 15.55.1). Scaevinus was consequently arrested and interrogated, but he artfully managed to refute all the allegations and to show his freedman in a bad light; when the charge was about to fall, Milichus’ wife reminded him that she had seen Scaevinus and Antonius Natalis having a long and secret conversation and that they were

c12_vol2.indd 708

both close friends of Gaius Calpurnius Piso (A. 15.55.2–4). Such information brought to the arrest of Natalis and the consequent discovery of the conspiracy. Milichus achieved the goal of his treachery: he became rich and assumed the Greek title of Sôtêr, i.e., “savior,” that Tacitus (avoiding, as commonly in Latin historiography, the direct use of Greek words: see Townend 1960, 99) translates with conservator (A. 15.71.1). Martial (2.63) mentions a Milichus who is in financial troubles, but there is no clue that allows to identify him with the Tacitean character. see also: delators; freedmen of Nero; gardens Reference work: PIR2 M 587 REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus, Annals. Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Koestermann, Erich. 1968. Cornelius Tacitus. Annalen. Band IV Buch 14–16. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Townend, Gavin Bernard. 1960. “The Sources of Greek in Suetonius.” Hermes 88: 98–120. FURTHER READING Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge. 103–104. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions. Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. 168–169; 232–233.

MINERVA, see ROMAN GODS

MINICIUS IUSTUS JACQUELINE CARLON

University of Massachusetts, Boston

Minicius Iustus was camp prefect of legion VII Galbiana in 69 ce and an early supporter of Vespasian, having been relieved of his post because he was overly strict and sent to the future

28-04-2023 18:02:58

M isenum  

emperor by Vedius Aquila, the legionary commander (H. 3.7.1). Assumed to be of equestrian rank, Minicius Iustus was the husband of Corellia, the sister of Quintus Corellius Rufus (Plin. Ep. 7.2.4). The Minicii were likely from Laus Pompeia, a town in northern Italy also associated with the Corellii (see Syme 66 n.4 and Alföldy 355). The only epigraphical evidence extant for Minicius Iustus is the Testamentum Dasumii on which his name is thought to appear (see Syme 1958, 177 and Stein). Lucius Minicius Rufus, consul ordinarius of 88 ce, may be identified as the son of Minicius Iustus and Corellia, possibly taking his cognomen from his mother’s family, because her brother was of consular rank (serving as suffect consul in 78 ce). 2

Reference works: PIR M 615; RE XV Minicius 16 (Stein); CIL VI 10229 REFERENCE Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Alföldy, Géza. 1982. “Senatoren aus Norditalien.” In Epigrafia e Ordine Senatorio II. Edizione di Storia e Letteratura, Tituli 5. 309–368. Carlon, Jacqueline. 2009. Pliny’s Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 75–76. Shelton, Jo-Ann. 2013. The Women of Pliny’s Letters. London: Routledge. 200–201.

MINOS, see CRETE

MINUCIUS THERMUS SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Minucius Thermus is mentioned only at A. 16.20.2, in connection with the accusations against Silia (see Petronius). Tacitus says that Minucius had been a praetor and that the cause of his undeserved death was that one of his freedmen had laid charges against Ofonius Tigellinus. A man of the same name, of equestrian status, is mentioned at A. 6.7.2, where Tacitus says that he was condemned

c12_vol2.indd 709

709

because of his friendship with Sejanus. He may be the father of our Minucius. The Minucii Thermi were a renowned family in the republican period. see also: freedmen Reference work: PIR2 M 629 FURTHER READING Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge.

MISENUM ROSEMARY MOORE

University of Iowa

Misenum (modern Miseno) was a naval base located at Cape Misenum at the western and northern tip of the Bay of Naples. It was the most important naval base for Rome from the early Augustan period onward. This area had been significant for overseas trade for centuries; the Greek community Cumae also made use of the excellent natural harbors later used by the Roman navy. Misenum was founded as a colonia by Augustus in 27 ce. The previous year, he had sent ships captured at Actium to Forum Iulii to serve as the Gallic fleet. Misenum and Ravenna were the locations the navy’s two fleets (duae classes, A. 4.5). Earlier Roman warships had been stationed at various locations, including nearby Portus Iulius and Ostia. The navy at Misenum was used for various purposes, notably maintaining the sea safe for merchant traffic, particularly important for the city of Rome. A detachment of sailors from Misenum was present in Rome from the early imperial period, both as a ready source of military power for the emperor, as well as providing support for imperial entertainments. The Bay of Naples was an area known for villas and resorts for the aristocratic and well-to-do. At A. 6.50, Tiberius moved to a villa at the Cape of Misenum to spend his last days. This villa had previously been owned by Lucius Licinius Lucullus, implying Lucullan standards of luxury (see also Plut. Luc. 39). Other imperial residences

28-04-2023 18:02:58

710

  M ithridates B osporus

were built in the general area, owned by Iulius Caesar (near Misenum) and Agrippina the Younger (Baul, near Baiae, A. 14.3–9). Nero also spent time in the area (A. 15.51). During Nero’s reign sailors and officers stationed there assisted in the emperor’s plots to murder his mother Agrippina the Younger (A. 14.3–9). At A. 14.3, the freedman Anicetus (1), former commander of the fleet at Misenum as well as Nero’s former tutor, suggested rigging an accident at sea. Anicetus’ social origins and career reflect the greater role afforded to freedmen in the early imperial period, in addition to confirming the lower status of the Roman navy compared to branches that required citizenship and free status at birth, such as the legions. This passage also demonstrates the close connection between personal and institutional loyalty characteristic of Roman rule, such as Nero’s use of naval personnel and resources to murder his mother. She was buried in a small mound on the road to Misenum (A. 14.9). Nero’s imprudent command that the fleet return to Misenum, regardless of weather or operational demands, resulted in the loss of many triremes and smaller vessels, helping explain the plot to assassinate Nero. This plot involved many conspirators, including naval officers at Misenum as well as the navarchus Volusius Proculus, who was dissatisfied with the promotion he received after helping with Agrippina’s murder (A. 15.51). Pliny the Younger describes the eruption of Vesuvius (79 ce) and the death of Pliny the Elder, then commander of the fleet at Misenum, in a letter written to Tacitus (Ep. 2.16). see also: army; Campania; civil wars of the Late Republic; Pisonian Conspiracy Reference work: Barrington 44 F4 FURTHER READING Furneaux, Henry. 1896. The Annals of Tacitus. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keppie, L. 2011. “‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner:’ The Murder of Nero’s Mother Agrippina in its Topographical Setting.” Greece and Rome 58: 33–47. DOI: 10.1017/S0017383510000513. Weidemann, T. E. J. 1996. “From Nero to Vespasian.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume X: The Augustan Empire, 43 bc – ad 69, edited by Alan K.

c12_vol2.indd 710

Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MITHRIDATES BOSPORUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Mithridates VIII was installed as King of Bosporus by Claudius in 41 ce (Cass. Dio 60.8.2). In 49 ce he was denounced by his brother Cotys. After an unsuccessful rebellion, Mithridates was brought as a captive and displayed at Rome (A. 12.15–21). He lived at Rome until the time of Galba (Plut. Galb. 13). Pliny the Elder cites him as a source for the regions and peoples of Asia (HN 6.15). Tacitus narrates the rebellion in some detail. Mithridates first invaded the territory of the Dandaridae. Iulius Aquila and Cotys allied with Eunones, leader of the Aorsi, and they succeeded in driving out Mithridates, who surrendered himself to Eunones (A. 12.17–18). Eunones then intervened on Mithridates’ behalf, asking Claudius to spare his life. Claudius wavered but decided to let Mithridates live. He was conveyed to Rome by Iunius Cilo. Tacitus records his defiant words before Claudius, inviting comparison with Caratacus. Mithridates appears nowhere else in the Tacitean corpus. see also: Athens; Bithynia Pontus; Cingonius Varro; Didius Gallus; Zorsones Reference work: PIR2 M 635

MITHRIDATES EUPATOR ANDREW NICHOLS

University of Florida

Mithridates VI Eupator Dionysus (r. 120–63 bce) was king of Pontus in northern Anatolia along the southern coast of the Black Sea. His family claimed descent from the Achaemenid Persians through both Cyrus and Darius, and through Alexander the Great’s general Antipater, as well as the Hellenistic monarchs Seleucus I and Antigonus

28-04-2023 18:02:58

M ithridates E upator  

Monophthalmos. As his empire expanded, Mithridates came into conflict with Nicomedes IV, king of neighboring Bithynia. After initially routing Nicomedes, who was supported by two Roman legions under Manius Aquillius, he subjugated Anatolia and large parts of Greece. Soon after (88 bce), he initiated a massacre of the Roman inhabitants throughout Anatolia and the Aegean islands in an event now known as the Asian Vespers (App. Mith. 22–23). This event was cemented in Roman memory as a century later during the reign of Tiberius, the people of Cos, appealing for the right of sanctuary to be granted to their temple of Aesculapius, made their case by reminding the emperor that they had sheltered Romans in the temple during Mithridates’ persecution (A. 4.14). Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) had granted similar honors to the Magnetes, who assisted him against Mithridates, for their Temple of Diana Leucophryna (A. 3.62). Following the Asian Vespers, the first of the three Mithridatic Wars erupted (89–85 bce) during which Mithridates subjugated most of Asia Minor and the Greek islands (except Rhodes). He also conquered many cities of the mainland, most of whom voluntarily joined his cause, including Athens. He was ultimately besieged at Athens, defeated at Chaeronea, and driven from the mainland by Sulla (86 bce). Although emerging as the clear victor, Sulla offered Mithridates generous terms in the Peace of Dardanos (85 bce) that concluded the first war. The Second Mithridatic War (83–82 bce) was a brief conflict that began when Sulla’s legate Lucius Murena, who was left in charge of the two legions in Asia, invaded Pontus and was summarily defeated. Before the conflict could escalate, Sulla ordered Murena to withdraw and Mithridates agreed to stand down, thus ending the episode without further bloodshed. In the subsequent years, Mithridates forged alliances with Tigranes II of Armenia, Ptolemy XII Auletes (who may have spent part of his youth at Mithridates’ court, App. Mithr. 4.23; 16.111), and the Cilician Pirates. In 74 bce, Nicomedes died and bequeathed Bithynia to Rome (Eutr. 6.6). Mithridates, no doubt emboldened by the death of Sulla and the preoccupation of Rome with the rebellion of Sertorius in Spain and the slave rebellion of

c12_vol2.indd 711

711

Spartacus in Italy, made his aggressive intentions known by entering into an alliance with Sertorius (Plut. Sert. 23–25). He quickly subjugated Bithynia and made incursions into the province of Asia, essentially declaring war on Rome. Rome responded by dispatching the consuls Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Marcus Aurelius Cotta to the region. Mithridates defeated and besieged Cotta at Chalcedon (74 bce) but was soon after routed at Cyzicus (73 bce), losing much of his army and was forced to retreat eastwards. He fled to Armenia where Tigranes received him and, after refusing Lucullus’ demands to hand over Mithridates, entered into war with Rome (see Artaxiad dynasty). Although Lucullus was the decisive victor in Armenia, he was unable to capitalize and fully subjugate the kingdom, allowing Mithridates to reenter Pontus and rebuild his forces. Lucullus was ultimately recalled and replaced by Pompey the Great (66 bce), upon whose arrival Mithridates fled eastwards. Tigranes this time refused to accept him, and the Armenian king made an alliance with Rome. Mithridates fled to Crimea where his son, Machares, was king and allied to Rome. When his son refused to assist him, Mithridates murdered him. His other son, Pharnaces, then plotted against his father. Mithridates, seeing the end at hand, attempted to poison himself but it had little effect since in his younger years he had built up an immunity to poison by taking small doses for fear of being the assassinated in such a way. He then persuaded one of his officers to kill him, allowing him to avoid being paraded in a Roman triumph (App. Mithr. 16.111). see also: Bithynia Pontus; Cilicia; Paphian Venus, temple; Persia FURTHER READING Badian, E. 1976. “Rome, Athens and Mithridates.” American Journal of Ancient History 1: 105–128. Glew, D. 1977. “Mithridates Eupator and Rome: A Study of the Background of the First Mithridatic War.” Athenaeum 55: 380–405. Glew, D. 1981. “Between the Wars: Mithridates Eupator and Rome, 87–73 BC.” Chiron 11: 467–495. Madsen, Jesper Majbom. 2010. “Mithradates VI: Rome’s Perfect Enemy.” Proceedings of the Danish Institute in Athens 6: 223–237.

28-04-2023 18:02:58

712

  M ithridates H iberus

Matyzak, Philip. 2009. Mithridates the Great, Rome’s Indomitable Enemy. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military. Mayor, A. 2011. The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McGing, Brian C. 1986. The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator King of Pontos (Mnemosyne, Supplements: 89). Leiden: Brill. Rubinsohn, W. Z. 1993. “Mithradates VI Eupator Dionysos and Rome’s Conquest of the Hellenistic East.” Mediterranean Historical Review 8: 5–54. Strobel, K. 1996. “Mithradates VI. Eupator von Pontos: Der letzte große Monarch der hellenistischen Welt und sein Scheitern an der römischen Macht.” Ktema 21: 55–94.

MITHRIDATES HIBERUS EDWARD DĄBROWA

Jagiellonian University in Kraków

Mithridates Hiberus (d. 51 ce), king of Armenia (35–51 ce), was son of Mithridates, ruler of Caucasian Iberia, younger brother of Pharasmanes, king of Caucasian Iberia (A. 6.32.3; Cass. Dio 58.26.4). His wife was a daughter—name unknown—of Pharasmanes (cf. A. 12.47.5), and his daughter was Zenobia, the wife of Pharasmanes’ son Radamistus (cf. A. 12.46.1; 47.1; 51.4). He was an important participant in the Roman-Parthian conflict over Armenia during the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius. In 34 ce, after the death of King Artaxias III of Armenia (18–34 ce), who was friendly to Rome, Rome was threatened by the loss of influences in Armenia as a result of the Parthian king Artabanus III placing his son Orodes on its throne. Tiberius then prompted Pharasmanes, the ruler of Armenia’s neighbor Caucasian Iberia, to make a pact to end the conflict with his younger brother Mithridates to allow him to join the battle for Armenia (A. 6.32.3). The conflict between the brothers resulted from unspecified earlier events (cf. A. 12.45.1). With Pharasmanes’ help, Mithridates took control of part of the territory of Armenia including Artaxata (A. 6.33.1). Surprised by the actions of the Iberians, Artabanus III wanted to provide military support to Orodes, but his plans were thwarted by Pharasmanes, who,

c12_vol2.indd 712

with the help of the Sarmatians and Albani, was victorious in a battle with Orodes’ forces (A. 6.33.1–35.2). Artabanus III’s expedition to Armenia which followed shortly afterward did not change the situation, as the king withdrew from the battles upon the arrival in Mesopotamia of Tiridates, the Rome-backed pretender to the Arsacid throne. The complicated domestic situation in Parthia resulted in Mithridates ruling in Armenia until as late as 41 ce (A. 6.36.1; Cass. Dio 58.26.3–4), when he was summoned to Rome by Caligula and imprisoned (Sen. Tranq. 9.11.12; A. 11.8.1; Cass. Dio 60.8.1). He regained freedom and the Armenian throne thanks to Claudius in 47 ce (A. 11.8.1; Cass. Dio 60.8.1). The next phase of war between the pretenders to the Parthian throne enabled him, with the military support of Pharasmanes and the Romans, to significantly expand his dominion in Armenia (A. 11.8.1–9.2). Yet his harsh rule soon led to dissatisfaction among his subjects (A. 11.9.2; cf. 12.47.4). In 51 ce Armenia unexpectedly became the arena of battles between Mithridates and Radamistus, son of Pharasmanes. This resulted from a conflict, growing for some time, between the aging Pharasmanes and his son, over rule in Iberia (A. 12.44.3–4). Hoping to stave off the conflict, the father-king directed Radamistus’ attention toward Armenia, and the pair hatched a treacherous plan together to overthrow Mithridates and seize the throne there. In agreement with Pharasmanes, Radamistus went to the Armenian court, supposedly seeking refuge from his father’s wrath. Despite the welcome from his uncle, he did not hesitate to use his stay in Armenia to bring him down. When Radamistus’ actions achieved the anticipated outcome, Pharasmanes declared war on Mithridates under a flimsy pretext (A. 12.44.4– 45.1). The attack of the Iberian army commanded by Radamistus took the Armenian king by surprise. He left the capital and took refuge in Gorneae, an inaccessible fortress garrisoned by Roman soldiers (A. 12.45.2). Unable to take it by storm, Radamistus bribed the prefect Caelius Pollio, commander of the Roman unit, to persuade Mithridates to form a pact with his son-in-law. Under pressure, the Armenian king agreed to direct talks with Radamistus (A. 12.45.3–46.3), who took advantage of them to capture and imprison him (A. 12.47.1–4).

28-04-2023 18:02:58

713

M nester  

Pharasmanes had no intention to spare his brother, so Radamistus ordered the murder of the prisoner and his wife and sons (A. 12.47.5). see also: Arsacid dynasty; Artaxiad dynasty Reference work: PIR2 M 644 FURTHER READING Chaumont, Marie-Louise. 1976. “L’Arménie entre Rome et l’Iran. De l’avènement d’Auguste à l’avènement de Dioclétien.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Reihe II, 9.1: 71–194, esp. 85–97. Dąbrowa, Edward. 2017. “Tacitus on the Parthians.” Electrum 24: 171–189, esp. 175–180. DOI: 10.4467/20800909EL.17.026.7508. Geyer, Franz. 1932. RE XV, 2214–2215 no. 33. Traina, Giusto. 2007. “Les Arméniens entre l’Iran et le monde gréco-romain (Ve siècle av. J.-C. – vers 300 ap. J.-C.).” In Gérard Dédéyan, Histoire du peuple arménien, 101–162, esp. 138–139. Toulouse: private print.

MNESTER FÁBIO DUARTE JOLY

Federal University of Ouro Preto

Mnester was a pantomime actor (pantomimus) who was close to Caligula and, during the reign of Claudius, was connected to Messalina and Poppaea Sabina the Elder, the mother of Poppaea Sabina the Younger, who married Nero in 62 ce. According to Weaver (2005, 35), Mnester was “possibly a libertus of Tiberius or Gaius, but unlikely: there is no reference at all in the sources to his formal status” and neither should he be identified with the imperial freedman Ti. Iulius Aug. l. Mnester (CIL VI 20139). Tacitus makes reference to another Mnester, a freedman of Agrippina the Younger who, during his mistress’ funeral pyre, killed himself by running a sword through his own body in 59 ce (A. 14.9.2: accenso rogo libertus eius cognomen to Mnester [se] ipse ferro transegit, incertum caritate in patronam an metu exitii). The court of the emperors was usually composed by pantomimes such as Mnester and other people gifted with technical skills or talents of

c12_vol2.indd 713

different sorts. Caligula’s interest for pantomime performances is notorious, and he even danced himself, as is attested in the sources. When Suetonius cites Mnester it is to emphasize this facet of the emperor. He mentions the rumors that Caligula would have had intercourse with Mnester (Suet. Calig. 36.1) and even kissed him in public at the theater, subverting “the traditions of the social hierarchy by offering the honor of his kiss in public to favorites whose official rank was far below the senators” (Winterling 2011, 146). Furthermore, if anyone would make any noise during Mnester’s presentation, he would order to have him “dragged from his seat and scourged him with his own hand” (Suet. Calig. 55.1; trans. Loeb). Suetonius also considered an ominous sign the fact that Mnester had danced the day before Caligula’s assassination in 41 ce the same tragedy that was played during the games when the Macedonian king Philip was murdered (Suet. Calig. 57.4; Joseph. AJ 19.94). During the reign of Claudius, Mnester remained close to the imperial court, and he is referred to as the lover of Poppaea Sabina the Elder (A. 11.4.1–2) and Messalina (A. 11.28.1). Mnester was executed during the repression that followed the supposed marriage of Messalina to Gaius Silius in 48 ce (A. 11.36.1; Sen. Apocol. 13). The image of the pantomime in Tacitus is drawn to emphasize Claudius as a vacillating emperor, submissive to women, and controlled by his freedmen. The historian describes Mnester justifying himself to Claudius—who would have told him to submit to Messalina in order to obtain forgiveness (A. 11.36.1; Cass. Dio 60.22.5). When the emperor was almost showing himself merciful, the imperial freedman Narcissus—who leads all the action in the Tacitean narrative— calls attention to the fact that it would not be appropriate to spare the life of an actor while notorious men were being killed (A. 11.36.2). see also: actors; freedmen; freedmen of Agrippina the Younger; freedmen of Claudius Reference works: PIR2 M 646; CIL VI 20139 REFERENCES Weaver, Paul R. C. 2005. Repertorium Familiae Caesarum et Libertorum Augustorum. Edited by

28-04-2023 18:02:58

714

  M oesia

Werner Eck, 101–102. Accessed December 01, 2018. http://alte-geschichte.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/500. html. Winterling, Aloys. 2011. Caligula. A Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press. FURTHER READING Michel, Anne-Claire. 2015. La cour sous l’empereur Claude: les enjeux d’un lieu de pouvoir. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, esp. 162–165.

MOESIA STEPHEN CHAPPELL

James Madison University

Moesia was one, later two, provinces on the south bank of the river Danube from modern Serbia to the Black Sea, incorporating northern Bulgaria and the Dobrogea region of Romania. The Thracian tribe of the Moesi inspired the province’s name. It was, however, not a natural entity ethnically, culturally or politically, but the product of imperial military and administrative convenience (Mócsy 1974, 4). Marcus Licinius Crassus (consul 30 bce), the governor of Macedonia, subdued the Moesi in 29 bce and incorporated them into his province. Moesia became its own province by the reign of Augustus with consular governors and in 85–86 ce was divided into Moesia Superior (western) and Inferior (eastern) by the emperor Domitian. The immediate context was the war with the kingdom of the Dacians, just to the north of the Danube, and, in general, the Flavian shift of legions from the Rhine to the Danube frontier. Moesia Superior was oriented along the Danube in the north and extended southward through the Morava river valley as far as Scupi (modern Skopje). Moesia Inferior had a much narrower hinterland, focused north of the Balkan Mountains, but a very long ripine littoral along the Danube, ending in the Danube Delta and the Black Sea. Moesia was very much militarized throughout its history though Superior ceased to be on the frontier after the conquest of Dacia in 106 ce. The legionary forts were situated on the river

c12_vol2.indd 714

Danube. There were seven at various points: Singidunum (modern Belgrade), Viminacium and Ratiaria in Superior and Oescus, Novae, Durostorum and Troesmis in Inferior. By the mid second century ce, Moesia had a total of five legions as garrison, up from two in the reign of Tiberius (A. 4.5). The provinces’ strategic importance lay in their long frontier with the Sarmatians and, before 106 ce, the Dacians, and as a land route from Asian provinces to Italy. Tacitus’ own interest in Moesia was almost exclusively military or related to court politics. He does not comment at all on matters internal to the provinces. He pays particular attention to the legions’ role as partisans in the civil wars of 69 ce, first of Otho, then of Vespasian (H. 1.76; 2.84, 86; 3.2, 24). Otherwise, he tends to address either the governors (A. 1.80, 2.66, 4.47, 6.29; H. 2.85, 3.75) or military operations against imperial enemies (A. 2.66, 15.6; H. 1.79, 3.46, 4.54). Moesia Superior was a mixture of different ethnicities, principally Illyrian, Celtic, and Thracian. Its administrative language was Latin. Moesia Inferior, on the other hand, was more solidly Thracian, but for the presence of the Greek colonies of Histria, Tomis, and Callatis on the Black Sea coast. Its administrative language and cultural orbit were Greek. Urbanism spread slowly in the Moesias. While the cities of Pannonia gained civic status under the Flavians, the Moesias did not attain that status generally until Marcus Aurelius and the Severi from the midsecond to the early third century ce (Mócsy 1974, 213–214). The spread of citizenship followed a similar pattern. see also: Danuvius; Thrace Reference work: Barrington 100 L4 REFERENCE Mócsy, Andras. 1974. Pannonia and Upper Moesia. London and Boston: Routledge. FURTHER READING Hoddinnot, R. F. 1975. Bulgaria in Antiquity: An Archaeological Introduction. London: Ernest Benn.

28-04-2023 18:02:58

715

M onaeses  

MOGONTIACUM STEPHEN CHAPPELL

James Madison University

Mogontiacum (also Moguntiacum) modern Mainz in the Rhineland, mirrored the history of the Empire on the northern frontier. Though initially a military camp with legionary garrisons, it was also capital of the province of Germania Superior and became a significant urban center. It owed both its strategic significance and its prosperity to its position on the River Rhine (Rhenus) at the confluence of the Main. Mogontiacum was a major legionary center in the first century ce. Its initial development stemmed from this role, originating by 10 bce as a legionary base for Drusus the Elder’s campaigns in Germany. His cenotaph was built there. The legionary fortress was built in wood but then reconstructed in stone in the mid first century in line with trends across the northern frontier (MacKendrick 1970, 69–70). It housed two legions until the Flavian restructuring of the frontier armies in the late first century reduced it to one. The camp enjoyed an aqueduct and its own baths (Carroll 2001, 51; MacKendrick 1970, 70). The canabae were located between its walls and the Rhine. A wooden bridge linked the camp to a fort on the right bank of the Rhine. Mogontiacum secured the north of the province even as the camp at Vindonissa secured the south. The road along the Rhine ran through both cities. Petilius Cerealis’ successful reconquest in the Batavian Revolt followed this crucial military artery (H. 4.70–71). Mogontiacum played a significant role in imperial politics. The legions housed there changed frequently, partly because of changing military needs and partly because they were politically active. Tacitus’ interest focuses almost entirely on the involvement of the legions in politics, especially the civil wars of 69 ce and the Batavian Revolt of Iulius Vindex. The legions could withhold support to a new emperor or grant it reluctantly, as in the Rhine mutiny of 14 ce (A. 1.37) and the revolt of Vitellius against Galba (H. 1.55–57). Large detachments of legions IV Macedonica and XXII Primigenia accompanied Vitellius to Italy and fought against Vespasian. Even after Vitellius’ death, the same legions swore allegiance to Vespasian very reluctantly (H. 4. 31,

c12_vol2.indd 715

37). They contested the authority of Hordeonius Flaccus, governor of Germania Superior, (H. 4.24–25) and played a part in his later murder. Later the garrison supported Antonius Saturninus in his revolt against Domitian. These political tendencies were a significant factor in the Flavian restructuring of the garrisons. Though a military center initially, Mogontiacum developed a substantial civilian population and became an important economic hub. There was a theater. It was a major market and port with epigraphic evidence of prosperous merchants. The sculptors’ workshop for funerary stele served both soldiers and civilians, as nearly 400 epitaphs from the town attest. Votive inscriptions were fewer (under 150). But there was a culture of public benefaction which yielded porticoes and an arch. In the late third century, Mogontiacum became a municipium (Carroll 2001, 43, 44, 53, 58, 60, 95, 97). Mogontiacum atrophied after the invasions of the fifth century. see also: German Revolt Reference work: Barrington 11 I2, 2 E3, 12 B2 REFERENCES Carroll, Maureen. 2001. Romans, Celts and Germans: The German Provinces of Rome. Stroud: Tempus Publishing. MacKendrick, Paul. 1970. Romans on the Rhine. New York: Funk and Wagnalls. FURTHER READING King, Anthony. 1990. Roman Gaul and Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wells, Colin 1972. The German Policy of Augustus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

MONA, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI

MONAESES ARNOLDUS VAN ROESSEL

University of Toronto

Monaeses (fl. 1st century ce; PIR2 M 676) was a Parthian noble and cavalry commander for

28-04-2023 18:02:58

716

  morality

Vologaeses, king of Parthia, during the RomanParthian conflict for Armenia (62 ce). He commanded the failed siege of Tigranocerta against Tigranes and Roman forces (A. 15.2.4–5.3; Cass. Dio 62.20.2–4) and was sent to negotiate peace terms with Domitius Corbulo on the Euphrates (Cass. Dio 62.22.2). Manaeses is only known for his role during the conflict in 62 ce. The previous year Nero had installed Tigranes on the throne of Armenia, expelling Tiridates, brother of Vologaeses (A. 14.26). Tigranes began raiding the neighboring kingdom of Adiabene (A. 15.1.2; Cass. Dio 62.20.1). Monobazus, king of Adiabeni complained to Vologaeses, who placed Monaeses in command of the cavalry and Adiabene auxiliaries to expel Tigranes from Armenia while the king led a force to Syria (A. 15.2.4). Cassius Dio states that Monaeses commanded alongside Monobazus in the incursion, but Tacitus names Monaeses the sole commander (Cass. Dio 62.20.2). When Monaeses entered Armenia, Tigranes immediately fortified himself in Tigranocerta with supplies and a combined force of his own and Roman soldiers (A. 15.4.2; Cass. Dio 62.20.3). At the start of the siege, Monaeses had some initial success and captured some soldiers ranging for supplies; however, he was unable to breach the city’s defenses, for which Tacitus faults the Parthian forces’ lack of siege proficiency (A. 15.4.3; Gilmartin 1973, 607). Additional Roman forces began moving to Armenia, and Volosgaeses also had not been able to make any advance in Syria. The king ordered Monaeses to abandon the siege (A. 15.5.2–4; Cass. Dio 62.20.3). Hostilities on both sides paused with Roman forces retreating from Tigranocerta (A. 15.6.1–2) In 62 ce Caesenius Petus arrived in Cappadocia, marched his legions into Armenia, and attacked Parthian forces at Tigranocerta while Corbulo bridged the Euphrates and garrisoned the territory beyond the river. Vologaeses retreated from Syria and focused his strength on Armenia, where he quickly overwhelmed Paetus’ dispersed troops. Paetus retreated to his camp near Rhandeia, where he was besieged. Paetus called upon Corbulo for reinforcement, but shortly surrendered to Vologaeses and marched to the Euphrates where Corbulo awaited him (A. 15.7.1–17.2; Cass. Dio 62.20.4–22.1). Monaeses’ role during these engagements is not clear. While

c12_vol2.indd 716

he was probably present in aiding the Parthian king, Tacitus only identifies Vasaces as a cavalry commander present during the battles and the envoy sent to the defeated Paetus (A. 15.14.2). Volosgaeses then sent Monaeses as envoy to negotiate terms with Corbulo on the bridge spanning the Euphrates (Cass. Dio 62.22.2). They agreed, pending Nero’s endorsement, that Rome would withdraw from beyond the Euphrates if Parthia withdrew from Armenia (A. 15.17.3). see also: Arsacid dynasty REFERENCE Gilmartin, K. 1973. “Corbulo’s Campaigns in the East: An Analysis of Tacitus’ Account.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschicte 22.4: 583–626. FURTHER READING Campbell, B. 1993. “War and Diplomacy: Rome and Parthia, 31 BC–AD 235.” In War and Society in the Roman World, edited by J. Rich and S. Graham, 213–240. London: Routledge. Dąbrowa, E. 2017. “Tacitus on the Parthians.” Electrum 24: 171–189.

MONOBAZUS II, see ADIABENE

MORALITY MATT MYERS

University of Nottingham

Unlike many other cultures and time periods, morality in ancient Rome was mostly defined not in relation to religion or philosophy, but via reference to the customs and deeds of previous generations. The mos maiorum—literally “the way of the ancestors”—encompassed the guiding principles of Roman morality, and it was widely understood that the best way to live a moral life in the present was to emulate the great deeds and achievements of the past. This idealized view of the past was a constant throughout Roman history, regardless of the particular time period (Edwards 1993, 1) and was true of all levels of society, from the aristocracy—who sought to

28-04-2023 18:02:58

morality  

emulate the great deeds of the legendary heroes of early Rome—to the lowest of citizens—who preserved the memory of their ancestors’ deeds through oral tradition and domestic religion. Immorality was defined as that which went against the mos maiorum and thereby disrupted the status quo. Early in Rome’s history immorality became associated with Eastern, and particularly Greek, influences in the form of theater, dancing, astrology, and homosexuality. From the period of the mid-republic, when Rome had first begun to expand beyond the borders of Italy, these cultural imports had accompanied the vast wealth brought back to the city by conquering generals, leading prominent writers to decry the shameful indulgences of the Greek stage (see for example, Nepos pr. 5). The wealth of conquest itself also posed a problem for Roman moralists, who saw it as resulting in a tendency toward extravagance, excess, and sloth, in contrast to the austere virtue of the past. Traditional morality had driven Rome to conquest but was in turn threatened by the results of said conquest. Morality was of particular concern to the historians of Rome, who saw their primary purpose as documenting the past in such a way that it could be learned from in the present and future. Tacitus himself sees the chief function of history as the preservation of noble deeds and the exposure of immorality to posterity’s condemnation (A. 3.65.1). Yet while earlier writers such as Livy had dwelled on the heroic battles and great deeds of early Rome, Tacitus finds little worthy of praise in his period of study and laments that he is confined to recording the immorality of the age (A. 4.32). A key feature of Tacitus’ conception of morality is the link between moral and political decline. He is not concerned with a decline in private morality for its own sake, but because this decline is intrinsically linked to political changes and the loss of libertas at Rome. The link is made explicit at A. 1.3.7–4.1 when Tacitus laments “how few were left that had seen the republic! The state was transformed and nothing remained of the old untouched morality.” This link between moral and political decline was by no means new (see for example Cicero’s famous denunciation of the conspiracy of Catiline: o tempora, o mores [Cat. 1.2]). However, where Tacitus differs is in ascribing the cause of moral decline to the centralization of power in the hands of the princeps,

c12_vol2.indd 717

717

and in his idealization of the republican past in particular as the counterpoint to this. Tacitus, like most ancient writers, saw moral character as essentially fixed at birth and not subject to change over the subject’s lifetime. This view is best encapsulated in his famous final judgment of Tiberius, in which he acknowledges the various changes to the princeps’ behavior over the course of his reign, but ascribes these changes simply to the gradual revelation of his true character, which he had previously worked hard to conceal (A. 6.51.3; cf. Suet. Tib. 42.1). For Tacitus, imperial power did not change Tiberius, but simply gave him the freedom to be himself. In depicting the moral character of elites, and particularly emperors, Tacitus draws upon several literary and rhetorical tropes, one of the most prominent of which is their frequent excess and lack of moderation. Nero’s sexual excess is memorably depicted during his floating orgy and wedding to his freedman Pythagoras at A. 15.37, and Tiberius’ debauchery while in retirement on Capri is considered at A. 6.1. What is interesting about examples of sexual excess in particular, however, is the restraint shown by Tacitus in comparison to other sources. For example, Suetonius’ account of Tiberius’ retirement (Tib. 43–5) is notoriously graphic and specific in detail, while Tacitus’ is more selective and euphemistic. This is because for Tacitus, the immorality of Tiberius’ depravities lies not in the acts themselves but in the fact that by engaging in such acts he is acting in “the manner of a king” (more regio—A. 6.1.1). Once again it is the political implications of immorality that most concern the historian. More so than his contemporaries, the morality of the common people of Rome is also of concern to Tacitus. While a general disdain for the morality of the mob is common in Roman aristocratic sources, for Tacitus, this immorality is intrinsically linked with the political system in which they live. Just as the centralization of power in the hands of the princeps led to the excesses and lack of moderation on the part of the holders of that office, so too does it corrupt the common people. The immoral tendencies of the ruler are thus reflected in his subjects, and we see examples such as Vitellius’ famous exulting in the violence of civil war after the second battle of Cremona (H. 2.70) reflected in the similar actions of his citizens in observing

28-04-2023 18:02:58

718

  M osa

the carnage caused by the battle for Rome between the Flavians and Vitellians at H. 3.83. While much of Tacitus’ historical narrative concerns the subversion of traditional Roman morality, he does take care to record the rare bona exempla that exist even in times of extreme moral decline. Even during the tumultuous civil wars of 69 ce there were rare examples of loyalty as mothers and wives followed sons and husbands into exile, slaves refused to betray their masters, and brave men met death with dignity (H. 1.3). One such example can be seen in the case of Sempronius Densus, the centurion who distracts the murderers of Galba and allows Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus to escape. Yet even this sacrifice is ultimately futile. Densus’ actions may be heroic, but by the end of the chapter Piso is still dead, along with his would-be savior. The moral character of a few good men counts for little in an age characterized by immorality. see also: actors; exemplarity; luxury; sexual deviance; women REFERENCE Edwards, Catharine. 1993. The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Biesinger, Benjamin. 2016. Römische Dekadenzdiskurse: Untersuchungen zur römischen Geschichtsschreibung und ihren Kontexten (2. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr.). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. 312–349. Mellor, Ronald. 1993. Tacitus. New York: Routledge. Chapter 4.

MORINI, see IULIUS CIVILIS

MOSA ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

Mosa (modern Meuse, Maas) is a river in present-day France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. It

c12_vol2.indd 718

rises in the lands of the Lingones, strikes a northward course through (and drawing water) from the western Ardennes mountains, arrives at the island of the Batavi, and finally runs parallel to— in antiquity occasionally merging with—the Rhenic distributary Waal (Vahalis), before emptying into the North Sea. While Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy seem to suggest that the Mosa remains within its own riverbed (HN 4.100–1, Geo. 2.9.3), Julius Caesar and Tacitus write that it merges with the Waal, forming the “Batavian island” (A. 2.6.4, cf. H. 5.23.1; Caes. B Gal. 4.10.1– 2; cf. 15.2; note that Caesar, perhaps confusing the Mosa with the Mosella, modern Moselle, places its source in the Vosges mountains). Caesar seemingly (and in that case probably erroneously) maintains that the Mosa afterward merges also with the Rhine (Rhenus) itself (on the potential corruption or interpolation of the Caesarian text, see Holmes 1911, 692–706; cf. Pelling 1981, 749– 751). These contradictory assertions among the ancients may be attributed to the fact that the Mosa and Vahalis appear to have merged occasionally near present-day Heerewarden in the Dutch province of Gelderland (Roymans 2004, 131–132; cf. Schön 2000). Pre-Roman archaeological remains along the Mosa belong mainly to the Celtic La Tène culture, also in the lower reaches near the Rhine. A sizable settlement seems to have been located at the confluence of the Mosa and Vahalis (Roymans 2004). The Mosa became a Roman waterway after Caesar’s conquest of Gaul (58-50 bce). The organization of its lower reaches (the Waal-Meuse delta) into the boundary between the Empire and the Germanic tribes beyond—e.g., through Drusus the Elder’s construction of fortifications along the Mosa (and other northern rivers, Albis and Rhenus) in 14-9 bce (Flor. Epit. 2.30.26) and Domitius Corbulo’s construction of a canal between the Mosa and Rhine in 47 ce as part of the Roman effort to modify and control the northern waterways (A. 11.20.2, Cass. Dio 60.30.6)—brought significant political change to the area, e.g., the formation of the Batavian polity. The area was contested during the Batavian Revolt (69–70 ce), with several of the tribes living near the river participating on either the Batavian or the Roman (or both) side(s) (Lingones, Menapii, Nervii, Remi, Treveri).

28-04-2023 18:02:58

M oses  

The Mosa enters extant Latin literature with seven occurrences in Caesar’s Gallic Wars (4.9.3, 10.1, 12.1, 15.2, 16.2, 5.24.4, 6.33.3), reappears twice in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (4.100–1), and is then mentioned five times in the Tacitean corpus. In Histories, it appears thrice during the Batavian Revolt in Books 4–5: the Batavian leader Iulius Civilis orders an attack across the Mosa against the Morini and Menapii (H. 4.28.1); Claudius Labeo tries to defend a bridge across the Mosa against Civilis but is forced to flee when his hastily assembled force of Baetasii, Tungri, and Nervii change sides (H. 4.66.1); and the mouth of the Mosa is the scene of a naval engagement between the fleets of Civilis and the Roman commander Petilius Cerialis (H. 5.23.1). In Annals, its confluence with the Waal at the Batavian island and subsequent emptying into Oceanus are noted during the preparations for Germanicus’ final campaign (A. 2.6.4); and Corbulo constructs a canal between the Mosa and Rhine in order to improve communications and keep his soldiers active in the absence of the possibility for offensive military operations (A. 11.20.2). The Mosa is also mentioned once in Florus’ Epitome of Roman History (2.30.26). see also: Belgae; Belgica; Rhodanus Reference work: Barrington 11 E1, 2 E3, 10 A5 REFERENCES Holmes, Thomas R. 1911. Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pelling, Christopher B. R. 1981. “Caesar’s BattleDescriptions and the Defeat of Ariovistus.” Latomus 40: 741–766. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/41532394. Roymans, Nico. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press. Schön, Franz. 2000. “Mosa.” In Der neue Pauly – Band 8: Mer-Op, edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmut Schneider, 404. Stuttgart and Weimar: Brill. DOI: 10.1163/1574-9347_dnp_e810130.

MOSCHUS, see OTHO MOSELLA, see RHODANUS

c12_vol2.indd 719

719

MOSES ROBERT CAMPBELL

University of Nebraska at Omaha

Moses, also spelled Moyses, was born during the reigns of Saphrus in Assyria, Orthopolis over the Sucyonians, and Criasus over the Argives (birth year between 1637–1533 bce; Aug. De Civ. 18.8). Moses’ birthplace was in Heliopolis, Egypt, by the record of Manetho (Man. Hist. 252–253). The death of Moses is unclear, and the location is still up for debate as primary sources are limited on his death. Moses was born into a Jewish family of Amram and Jochebed. The account of Moses by Tacitus is very concise and brief. Moses was Jewish and was raised in Egypt. The Egyptian Pharaoh had all the Hebrews collected and mandated an involuntary exile into the desert, including Moses (H. 5.3). Moses speaks to the Jews of the exodus, pleading that they not wait for any divine aid but to trust his leadership (H. 5.3). As the leader, he began to create new religious practices, which opposed those of all other religions (H. 5.4). Tacitus indicated Moses’ motives were for vanity and personal ambition, not for his people (Feldherr 2009, 312). This view is partially constructed by the epistemological approach to Jewish interpretation by Romans. The Romans consistently saw these individuals as infamous and contemptible strangers (Feldherr 2009, 311). Tacitus provides a surveyed account of Jewish origins through Moses but does not directly show a Jewish account, as it is unclear whether he was in contact with original sources. Tacitus excludes any account of the Jewish deity. Instead, he implies the creation of the deity being of Moses’ design (Feldherr 2009, 313). The overall account indicates leadership by Moses and the possible origin of the Jews but also demonstrates the biased views of the Romans on Jewish culture. see also: Bellum Iudaicum; bias; religion REFERENCE Feldherr, Andrew. 2009. “Barbarians II: Tacitus’ Jews.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by Andrew Feldherr, 301–316. New York: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 18:02:58

720

  mothers

MOSTENE, see EARTHQUAKE OF 17 ce

MOTHERS CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Mothers in Tacitus are central figures in the moral education of their children and responsible for the management of their household. Augustus introduced legislation that gave certain privileges to members of the elite who had multiple children (Treggiari 1991, 60–80). Successful mothers brought honor to themselves and their family; those who shirked the responsibilities of parenthood could see their status diminished (A. 3.28.3). Imperial mothers were invested in the fortunes of their children, particularly those that might succeed the emperor; this led to rivalries and hatred within the imperial household. Tacitus’ own family provided positive models of motherhood. Iulia Procilla, the mother of Agricola, was a woman of singular virtue, who raised Agricola and ensured his education in every respectable skill (Ag. 4.2). She checked Agricola’s spirit and limited his study of philosophy, a subject he desired to pursue more than was appropriate for a Roman senator (Ag. 4.3). Agricola and his wife, Domitia Decidiana, had three children, although only their daughter survived past infancy; this daughter showed promise as a girl, and was betrothed and married to Tacitus in her early teens (Ag. 9.6). In the Germania, Tacitus implicitly compares non-Romans to Romans (O’Gorman 1993). Germanic peoples value chastity and the univira (one-man woman), a woman who only marries once (G. 19.1–2). They consider it a crime to limit the number of children born to a couple (G. 19.2), and there are no rewards for childlessness (G. 20.3). Children are brought up by their mothers, and the duties of a wife include taking care of the children and the home (G. 20.1, 25.1). Some Germanic peoples worship Mother Earth above all other gods (G. 40.2–4), while others worship the mother of the gods (G. 45.2). Tacitus praises Roman mothers of the republic who raised their children without wet nurses or nannies in his Dialogus. Tacitus’ Vipstanus Messalla recognizes mothers who protected the

c12_vol2.indd 720

home and devoted themselves to their children (D. 28.4). Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, Iulius Caesar’s mother Aurelia, and Augustus’ mother Atia raised their sons and regulated their studies as well as games with dutifulness and modesty: this regulation led to their virtuous, incorruptible natures (D. 28.5–6). The vices of the city and the pursuits of actors, gladiators, and horse-racing are encouraged by slaves and Greek servant women, to whom children are entrusted in Tacitus’ time (D. 29.1–3). In his historical works, Tacitus praises mothers who followed their sons into exile (H. 1.3.1) and those who displayed exemplary bravery. An unnamed Ligurian woman hid her son from Otho’s soldiers and was not induced to betray his location by torture or any other means of terror (H. 2.13.2). Galeria Fundana, wife of Vitellius, and Sextilia, mother of the two Vitellii, are blameless in the horrors of his reign (H. 2.64.2). The image of an expectant mother is especially powerful: the pregnant Agrippina the Elder evokes pity from her husband Germanicus’ mutinous soldiers (A. 1.40.4), as does Arminius’ wife Thusnelda, led into captivity to give birth in Ravenna (A. 1.57.4), and the pregnant Zenobia, the wife of Radamistus (A. 12.51.1–4). Imperial mothers impact history. Mothers promote their sons to become emperors and test the boundaries of their authority. The title “Augusta” honored mothers of emperors including Livia Augusta (A. 1.8.1) and Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.26.1). Imperial mothers control their sons even after they become emperors. After the death of Livia, Tiberius unleashes his cruelty, repressed while she was alive (A. 5.3.1, 6.51.3); after the murder of Agrippina the Younger, Nero engages in every immoral activity that respect for his mother had delayed (A. 14.13.2). As materfamilias of the imperial household, Livia was responsible for the upbringing of many members of the imperial family; she focused on ensuring the accession of her son, Tiberius (A. 1.3.3, 1.4.5) (see Figure M.2) Critics of Augustus characterized Livia as, “burdensome mother towards the state, burdensome stepmother towards the household of the Caesars” (gravis in rem publicam mater, gravis domui Caesarum noverca, A. 1.10.5). Livia’s desire for power may have been one of the reasons that Tiberius left Rome for Capri (A. 4.57.3).

28-04-2023 18:02:59

mothers  

Figure M.2  Sardonyx Cameo with jugate portraits of Tiberius wearing laurel crown and Livia as Ceres Augusta, 14–29 ce. Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, Florence.

Agrippina the Elder is notable for her motherhood: six of her nine children survived to adulthood, and Tacitus recognizes her exceptional fecundity (A. 1.41.2, 2.43.6, 2.75.1, 4.12.3). Agrippina accompanied her husband Germanicus on his military expeditions and travels, giving birth twice while abroad (A. 1.44.1, 2.54.1). Five of their children appeared in Germanicus’ triumph in Rome (A. 2.41.3), and Caligula and Iulia Livilla journeyed homeward with their mother with the ashes of Germanicus (A. 3.1.4). At Germanicus’ funeral, the display of her children increases the favor of the Roman people, who pray for her and her children’s safety (A. 3.4.2). Drusus the Younger’s wife Livia Iulia is also noteworthy for her motherhood: she gives birth to twin boys, Tiberius Gemellus and Germanicus Iulius Caesar (not named by Tacitus), which provides Tiberius with a cause for celebration (A. 2.84.1; 4.15) (see Figure M.3). Failed motherhood causes a crisis in the imperial succession. When Poppaea Sabina the Younger gives birth to a daughter, Claudia Augusta, Nero has exceptional honors voted, including the title Augusta given to mother and daughter, and the consecration of a temple to

c12_vol2.indd 721

721

Figure M.3  Livia Iulia and her twin sons Tiberius Gemellus and Germanicus, 19–23 ce, sardonyx cameo, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Source: Marcus Cyron / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Fecundity; unfortunately, the infant dies within four months (A. 15.23.1–3). Poppaea dies during another pregnancy after being kicked by Nero, and Nero is left without an heir (A. 16.6.1). see also: gender; marriage; morality REFERENCES O’Gorman, Ellen. 1993. “No Place Like Rome: Identity and Difference in the Germania of Tacitus.” Ramus 22: 135–154. DOI: 10.1017/S0048671X00002484. Treggiari, Susan. 1991. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Corbier, Mireille. 1997. “Male Power and Legitimacy through Women: The domus Augusta under the Julio-Claudians.” In Women in Antiquity: New Assessments, edited by Richard Hawley and Barbara Levick, 178–193. London: Routledge. Milnor, Kristina. 2005. Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Severy, Beth. 2003. Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire. New York: Routledge.

28-04-2023 18:02:59

722

  M ummius , Lucius

MUCIUS SCAEVOLA, Quintus, see CICERO MULVIAN BRIDGE, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY

Walbank, Frank. 1979. A Historical Commentary on Polybius: Volume III: Books XIX–XL. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

MUMMIUS, LUCIUS

FURTHER READING

EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

Lucius Mummius (praetor 153 bce, consul 146 bce, censor 142 bce) commanded Roman forces against the rebel city-states of the Achaean League while consul. His campaign ended with the capture of Corinth and its subsequent sacking by senatorial decree (Polyb. 39.2–3, Cic. Manil. 11, Flor. Epit. 1.32.5); thereafter, as proconsul, he oversaw Rome’s annexation of the entire Greek mainland (Walbank 1979, 728–729). Tacitus first refers to him in the context of a dispute between Sparta and Messenia in 25 ce (A. 4.43.1–3) over the ownership of the Denthalias (an area of the western slope of Mount Taygetus containing the sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis), for whose arbitration representatives from both municipalities came before Tiberius, who ruled that Denthalias belonged to the Messenians, as Mummius allegedly did (A. 4.43.3) when the same dispute arose in 145 bce. However, inscriptional evidence (I.Olymp. 52) for this dispute suggests that Mummius played no active role in its arbitration; rather, the Senate demanded that the Milesians arbitrate it and grant the Denthalias to whomever it had belonged while Mummius was proconsul (Luraghi 2008, 20). At A. 14.21.1, Tacitus records that theatrical spectacles, modeled on a Greek exemplar, were first introduced to Rome in 145 bce, to commemorate Mummius’ triumph over the Achaean League during the previous year; however, it was not until 60 ce that Romans of noble birth themselves took to the stage in such spectacles (A. 14.21.1). see also: actors; Greece; provinces; Miletus; Roman Republic Reference works: RE 7a.16.1192; I.Olymp. 52 REFERENCES Luraghi, Nino. 2008. The Ancient Messenians: Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

c12_vol2.indd 722

Ager, Sheila. 1996. Interstate Arbitrations in the Greek World, 337–90 bc. Berkeley: University of California Press.

MUNATIA PLANCINA JUAN LUIS POSADAS

Centro Universitario U-TAD, Madrid, Spain TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Munatia Plancina was the daughter of Lucius Munatius Plancus, consul 42 bce, who was one of the leaders of the Roman revolution that marked the end of the republic and the beginning of the principate. He supported first Caesar, then Brutus, Mark Antony, and finally Octavian. It was he who proposed the name Augustus to his leader. This origin gave great popularity to his daughter, who became friends with Livia Augusta. Plancina married Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, head of the aristocratic family closest to Augustus (along with the Claudii). In 17 ce, she accompanied her husband during his tenure as governor of Syria in one of the first documented cases of a governor’s spouse traveling to the provinces (A. 2.43). This fact spurred a debate, started in the Senate during the principate of Tiberius, because in this case, like in others, the spouses were organizing actual provincial courts at their presence with their retinue. In 18 ce, Tiberius sent Germanicus to Syria as consul, with proconsular mandate over all the East. Agrippina the Elder and her sons went with him, following Plancina’s example. But apparently, Tiberius was not much supportive of an aggressive policy against the Parthians like the one Germanicus was advocating for, therefore he advised his friend Calpurnius Piso, governor of Syria, to placate that policy. Piso’s wife, Munacia Plancina, was as ambitious and brave as Agrippina. She considered herself equal to Agrippina (in fact, they were both daughters of generals of Augustus).

28-04-2023 18:02:59

M unatius P lancus  

Frictions among them started right away. As an example, Tacitus reports in a very negative light the fact that both women attended military exercises of the troops (A. 2.55, something contrary to the mos maiorum). Plancina’s criticism of Agrippina, and the latter’s of her enemy, were made in public. This also provoked the enmity among the two husbands (A. 2.57). When Piso disobeyed the orders of Germanicus to attack Armenia and add it to the empire, Germanicus expelled Piso and his wife from Syria. Both headed to the island of Cos, maybe in order to wait for the events to unfold or for orders from Tiberius. Shortly after, Germanicus was poisoned and died in Antioch. Before his death, he accused Piso and Plancina of being responsible for the poisoning (A. 2.71). While they were relieved at the news and were returning to Syria to reassume the command of the province, they discovered that the officials of Germanicus’ army had named another temporary governor, Volusius Saturninus. The troops loyal to the new governor defeated Piso’s retinue, and he and Plancina were apprehended and sent to Rome to face trial for rebellion and treason. All the while, Agrippina and her sons returned to Rome with the ashes of Germanicus, seeking revenge. Tacitus describes the dramatic scene of Agrippina’s retinue coming on foot from Ostia to Rome with the ashes of Germanicus, and with a multitude of mourning citizens following. Despite the public opinion so favorable to the widow and her sons, neither Tiberius, Livia, nor the mother of Germanicus, Antonia the Younger, attended the funeral of the man who, in the end, was the heir to the imperial throne. This confirmed the rumors that Tiberius had ordered Piso to poison Germanicus. Tiberius was forced by Agrippina and her influential friends to preside over Piso’s trial in the Senate. The trial was for treason in attempting to retake the province by force, but soon Plancina— advised by Livia (A. 2.82)—was able to separate her own trial from her husband’s (A. 3.15). Piso committed suicide before the conclusion of the trial (in which he was convicted of treason but not of poisoning Germanicus) to avoid the confiscation of his properties, and Livia interceded with Tiberius to avoid any punishment for her friend Plancina. In Agrippina’s eyes, this confirmed that

c12_vol2.indd 723

723

Livia had in fact ordered the poisoning of her husband. According to Tacitus, the murder of her grandson (Germanicus was son of Drusus the Elder, brother of Tiberius) was due to the fact that he was casting a shadow on the popularity of Tiberius, and that his offspring were for the most part of Julian blood (since Agrippina was direct granddaughter of Augustus). Munatia Plancina survived her husband’s death. During the 20s and at the beginning of the 30s, Plancina saw how her enemy Agrippina fell in disgrace and was exiled, and how her two elder sons were captured and executed or forced to commit suicide. After the death of Livia in 29 ce, Plancina found herself without protection and was accused a second time in 33, when she committed suicide to avoid conviction and confiscation of her property. see also: Munatius Plancus; poison Reference work: PIR2 M 737 FURTHER READING McDougall, J. I. 1981. “Tacitus and the Portrayal of the Elder Agrippina.” Echos du Monde Classique 25: 104–108. Posadas, Juan Luis. 2008. Emperatrices y princesas de Roma. Madrid: Raíces.

MUNATIUS GRATUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY

MUNATIUS PLANCUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Lucius Munatius Plancus was consul in 13 ce with Gaius Silius [Aulus Caecina Largus]. In the year 14 ce he was chief of a delegation sent from the Senate to Germanicus during the German Revolt. He is mentioned at A. 1.39, and possibly at A. 2.32.2, among a list of senators who proposed decrees after the prosecution and death of Scribonius Libo Drusus (so Syme 1956, 19, although Goodyear 1981, 283 is not convinced).

28-04-2023 18:02:59

724

  M unius Lupercus

When Munatius Plancus and the envoys arrived in Germany with orders from the Senate, the rebellious soldiers believed he had come to cancel the concessions they had won earlier by their mutiny. They violently apprehended the envoys and would have murdered Plancus, but he found safety in the camp of the first legion. He was saved by Calpurnius, the standard-bearer. Germanicus demanded that Plancus be returned to him and upbraided the soldiers for violating the conventions of diplomacy (A. 1.39). The Capitoline Fasti for 13 ce provides the full name: L. Munatius L. f. Plancus. He is therefore likely the son of Lucius Munatius Plancus, a distinguished general and astute politician who survived the turmoil of the civil wars of the Late Republic. He was consul in 42 bce and an officer of Iulius Caesar during the conquest of Gaul and the civil war against Pompey; he proposed the title of “Augustus” in 27 bce (Suet. Aug. 7.5). His daughter was Munatia Plancina. This homonymous father, Lucius Munatius Plancus, was the consul in 42 bce who founded the colony of Lugdunum. Reference work: PIR2 M 729 REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 1–6, Volume II: Annals 1.55–81 and Annals 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1956. “Some Pisones in Tacitus.” Journal of Roman Studies 46: 17–21, esp. 19.

commanded two legions in winter quarters (H. 4.18), probably the XV Primigenia and possibly the XVI Primigenia (Morgan 2006, 248). Both legions were created by Caligula around 39 ce to aid in the Germanic campaigns. In the civil wars of 69 ce, XV Primigenia followed other German legions in supporting Vitellius’ claim to the throne. Faced with the uprising of Iulius Civilis, the Roman commander Hordeonius Flaccus ordered Lupercus to lead two legions into battle against him. Lupercus’ legions were joined by Ubii auxiliary units, Treveri cavalry, and a Batavian cavalry unit that had secretly joined Civilis’ rebellion (H. 4.18). When the battle commenced, the Batavian cavalry deserted the Roman forces, leaving them exposed. Lupercus’ legions were able to retreat to Vetera, where they attempted to strengthen the palisade and rampart of their camp. Tacitus reports that Lupercus’ troops numbered barely 5,000, and the fortifications at Vetera were insufficient (H. 4.22). The Batavians laid siege to Vetera in September 69, starving out the Roman troops until they decided to surrender in early 70 (H. 4.60). Although promised safety upon leaving the camp, the Romans were subsequently ambushed on the road. Munius Lupercus was sent as a prize to Veleda, a prophetess of the Bructeri tribe, but was murdered on the way there (H. 4.61). Reference work: PIR2 M 741 REFERENCE Morgan, Gwyn. 2006. 69 AD: The Year of the Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1939. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

FURTHER READING

MUNERA, see GAMES

Allison, Penelope. 2013. People and Spaces in Roman Military Bases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MUNIUS LUPERCUS

MURET, MARC-ANTOINE

JULIA MEBANE

CLAUDIO BUONGIOVANNI

Indiana University, Bloomington

Università della Campania “L. Vanvitelli”

Munius Lupercus (d. 70 ce) was a legionary legate stationed at the Roman camp of Vetera (modern Xanten) on the Lower Rhine at the outbreak of the Batavian Revolt in 69 ce Tacitus reports that he

The French humanist Marc-Antoine Muret (Muret, Limoges 1526–Rome 1585) was not only a prominent representative of modern Tacitean philology but also one of the most authoritative faces

c12_vol2.indd 724

28-04-2023 18:02:59

M uret, M arc - A ntoine  

of culture between France and Italy in the sixteenth century. During his lasting career he was a teacher, a poet, and a fine interpreter of classical authors. The most important centers of French and Italian Humanism competed for Muret, due to his impressive mastery of ancient literature, history, philosophy, and law, as well as of Latin and Greek languages. He taught about ten years (1544–1554) first in the city of Auch, lecturing on Cicero and Terence, then in Bordeaux, possibly with Michel de Montaigne among his pupils, and in Paris, where he stayed for a long time gaining fame and success as teacher of Greek and Latin literature, until 1553, when he suffered a trial for sexual crimes and atheism in Toulouse and was forced to take refuge in Italy (1554), first in Venice, then Padua, Ferrara, and finally in Rome, called by Pope Gregory XIII. Despite some unfavorable rumors after his judicial troubles in France, once arrived in Rome Muret entered the ecclesiastical life, developing a special relationship with Jesuits. At Muret’s death, the young nephew Marc-Antoine Muret inherited the huge library of the uncle, but, unfortunately, he died soon after (1586); therefore, the invaluable library of Muret was given to the Roman College (Collegium Romanum). Most of the manuscripts and printed editions that belonged to Muret are now preserved at the National Library in Rome and at the Vatican Library; the sign ex bibliotheca Mureti clarifies the origin from the library of the French humanist. Just like Beroaldus the Younger, Muret also was a poet equally inspired by ancient Latin poets (Horace and Catullus) and aware of contemporary literary experience, especially of the so-called “Pleiade” French poets. As a result of these exceptional turns Muret is the author of works like the “Youthful Matters” (Iuvenilia), the “Sacred Hymns” (Hymni sacri), the “Speeches” (Orationes), the “Letters” (Epistulae), a commentary on Pierre Ronsard’s Amours, and a tragedy, Iulius Caesar. At any rate, the name of Muret is celebrated, above all, for his lecturing and commentaries on Latin and Greek authors: not only Tacitus, but also Terence, Cicero, Catullus, Horace, Seneca, Aristotle, and Plato. The philological work on Tacitus follows the whole teaching career of Muret in Italy and passes through the commentaries on Annals’ Books 1–2 in 1580–1581 for his lessons in Rome; the collection of the “Various Readings”

c12_vol2.indd 725

725

(Variae Lectiones) that includes chapters on Tacitus and that had different editions (first in 1559, revised in 1580, posthumous and with new unpublished sections in 1600); and finally the “Notes on Tacitus” (Adnotationes in Tacitum), published posthumously in 1604. Muret was interested in Tacitus even before the publication of his commentaries, as shown by the polemics with Justus Lipsius, due to possible questions of plagiarism. Between 1567 and 1569 Muret had warmly welcomed Lipsius to Rome, also sharing with him some thoughts and explanations on the text of Tacitus. Nevertheless, after the publication of Lipsius’ first edition of Tacitus (Antwerp, 1574), Muret found several of those thoughts and explanations he had discussed in private with Lipsius some year before. Muret was disappointed and there erupted a controversy that involved other eminent philologists of the time, including Joseph Scaliger, who openly said Lipsius was guilty of plagiarism against Muret. Muret has the great merit of having been one of the main advocates of the quality of Tacitus’ style, whose obscurity, he said, gives greater majesty; Muret’s “avant-garde” position and his extraordinary foresight are confirmed by the favorable judgment on the prose of Tacitus and more generally of the so-called Silver Age; to those who reproached Tacitus for having narrated some of the darkest periods of ancient history and for having charged the Christians, Muret replied that Tacitus’ works were useful and instructive precisely because they related to periods very similar to the political framework of Europe in the sixteenth century, while he considered ridiculous the charge involving the Christians, because if Tacitus deserved to be condemned, many other ancient authors should be condemned too. Muret’s exegetical method stands out for the impressive richness of information the reader is given, as can easily be seen from the commentaries on Tacitus—but also from those on other ancient Latin authors, especially on Catullus, another classic on which Muret gave a significant exegetical and textual-critic contribution. The French humanist follows an interpretative scheme that provides first a historical, antiquarian, and juridical reading of the text, then a philological and literary analysis in a wider sense. Muret

28-04-2023 18:02:59

726

  M usonius Rufus

demonstrated knowledge and appreciation for the philological work of his Tacitean predecessors, in particular of Philippus Beroaldus the Younger and Beatus Rhenanus; he was also a decisive stepping-stone for the monumental philological work of Lipsius, who maintains an undoubted primacy, although he is not always grateful to those who before him measured their ingenium on the text of the ancient historian. For some years, the attention of the scholars on Muret’s philological work on Tacitus’ text has grown thanks to the rediscovery of the copy of Beroaldus’ printed edition of Tacitus almost certainly belonging to Muret, that was subsequently transferred to the library of the Collegium Romanum and now is preserved in the Vatican Library (see Buongiovanni 2007, 2016). This private copy of Tacitus, probably used by the French humanist for his Roman lessons on the ancient historian, is a precious document both of Muret’s philological method and of the exegetical stratification that is peculiar to the interpretation and the reconstruction of the text of Tacitus (but also of several ancient authors). Muret, indeed, through his annotations to single passages of the text, not only helps us in recognizing the stages of modern Tacitean philology, locating and pointing out the interventions of his predecessors, but also confirms the extraordinary breadth and depth of his interpretation, that allow him to read and compare Tacitus—and especially the A.—to other Latin and Greek sources (in particular Cassius Dio). see also: reception, early modern to the eighteenth century; reception, Renaissance REFERENCES Buongiovanni, Claudio. 2007. “Ope ingeniorum: la prima attività filologica sui libri I-VI degli Annales di Tacito.” Paideia 62: 115–144. Buongiovanni, Claudio. 2016. “I libri I-VI degli Annales di Tacito tra ecdotica ed esegesi umanistica. Il caso di Filippo Beroaldo il Giovane.” Incidenza dell’Antico 14: 109–126. FURTHER READING Dejob, Charles. 1881. Marc-Antoine Muret, un professeur français en Italie dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle. Paris: E. Thorin.

c12_vol2.indd 726

Girot, Jean-Eudes. 2012. Marc-Antoine Muret des «Isles fortunées» au rivage romain. Genève: Droz. Renzi, Paolo. 1993. I libri del mestiere. La Bibliotheca Mureti del Collegio Romano. Firenze: La Nuova Italia.

MUSONIUS RUFUS KATHRYN WILLIAMS

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Musonius Rufus, c. 30–before 101/2 ce, was a Roman Stoic philosopher and teacher, and a minor political figure. In 62 ce, he counseled his exiled friend, Rubellius Plautus, to choose death over a life of fear, and in 70 he successfully brought charges against the Stoic turncoat Egnatius Celer. He was twice exiled, by Nero in 65 and again by Vespasian. Titus allowed his return to Rome, where he lived his last twenty years. Extensive fragments of his lectures and sayings reveal his concern with the practical challenges of living a virtuous life. Gaius Musonius Rufus (praenomen known only from Plin. Ep. 3.11.5), was the son of Musonius Capito (Suda M 1305) and father-in-law of Artemidorus (Plin. Ep. 3.11.5), an equestrian (H. 3.81.1) and Tuscan (A. 14.59.1; Philostr. VA 7.16) from Volsinii (Suda M 1305). He was a friend to Rubellius Plautus, a Stoic whom he advised to face death steadfastly rather than live in fear, as Plautus contemplated death or escape from Nero’s approaching henchmen (A. 14.59.1, where Musonius urged Plautus together with the otherwise unknown Coeranus). Musonius himself was exiled to the island of Gyaros (Philostr. VA 7.16) after the Pisonian Conspiracy failed in 65 (Cass. Dio 62.27.4). Tacitus claims that his renown and philosophical influence on youth were factors in Nero’s decision to exile him (A. 15.71.4). Musonius returned to Rome after Nero died, likely under Galba. In 69 he served as a member of the delegation sent by Vitellius to negotiate with the Flavian general, Antonius Primus. Tacitus highlights the Stoic’s ineffectiveness as he lectured on the advantages of peace and dangers of war to soldiers who openly displayed their irritation and disdain (H. 3.81.1). After Vespasian became princeps, Musonius and other Stoics successfully brought charges against Egnatius Celer (H. 4.10,

28-04-2023 18:02:59

727

M usulamii  

40.3) for his treacherous betrayal in 66 of his fellow-Stoic and former student Barea Soranus. When Vespasian expelled all philosophers from Rome in 70, he made an exception for Musonius (Cass. Dio. 66.13.2), although he later exiled him, too. During Titus’ reign, Musonius was permitted to return to Rome, where he lived until his death sometime before 101/2, when Pliny wrote admiringly of him in the past tense (Ep. 3.11.5). Musonius Rufus left no writings of his own. What remains are twenty-one longer lectures preserved by Stobaeus and one papyrus fragment and thirty-two brief sayings, including six from Epictetus, Musonius’ student (Lutz 1947, 20 n. 79). These writings display the concerns of a philosopher interested in practical ethics. Many later writers, including Fronto, Jerome, and Origen, refer to Musonius. Current scholarly interest in Musonius focuses primarily on the role of women in his philosophy or on his influence during the Second Sophistic (Bryan 2013, 139–142). see also: Pisonian Conspiracy, victims Reference works: PIR2 M 753; RE 16.1 (1933) 893–897; Suda M 1305 REFERENCES Bryan, J. 2013. “Neronian Philosophy.” In A Companion to the Neronian Age, edited by E. Buckley and M. T. Dinter, 134–148. Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Lutz, C. 1947. “Musonius Rufus: ‘The Roman Socrates’.” Yale Classical Studies 10: 32–147. FURTHER READING Laurenti, R. 1989. “Musonio, maestro di Epitteto.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 2.36.3: 2105–2146

MUSULAMII ROBYN LE BLANC

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

The Musulamii were a subgroup of the Gaetulian peoples of North Africa who lived along the

c12_vol2.indd 727

southern boundary of the Roman provinces of Africa Proconsularis and Mauretania Caesariensis (modern Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya), and who participated in at least two wars or revolts against the Romans in the first century ce, the Gaetulian Wars (c. 3–6 ce) and the revolt of Tacfarinas (17–24 ce), a Musulamii chief. In 17–24 ce some of the Musulamii supported Tacfarinas, and he became a leader of at least one Musulamii subgrouping, although the Romans later negotiated with other Musulamii chiefs who were still debating their support (A. 2.52, 4.24). The motivation for revolt may have stemmed from Roman encroachment on Musulamii land, either through the construction of roads which interrupted transhumance routes, or an increase in Roman settlement and land use in the area. These issues had already caused previous tensions in the area during the Gaetulian War in c. 3–6 ce, a period in which at least some Musulamian lands were governed by Iuba II of Mauretania (Cass. Dio 53.26). The origin of the conflict was presumably over similar issues as led to the revolt of Tacfarinas. The revolt was put down by the Roman general Cornelius Cossus, later called Gaetulicus (Flor. 2.31; father of Cossus Cornelius Lentulus (1) and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus) and ended with the annexation of portions of Gaetulian lands (EJ 43; Mattingly 1994, 70). Subgroups of the Musulamii might be sedentary or semi-nomadic, depending on local conditions and preferences, in contrast to Tacitus’ assertion that they were not an urban people (A. 2.52; Mattingly 1994, 38). see also: provinces Reference work: EJ 43; Barrington 35 B1 Gaetuli REFERENCE Mattingly, David J. 1994. Tripolitania. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. FURTHER READING Bénabou, Marcel. 1976. La résistance africaine à la romanisation. Paris: F. Maspero. Brett, Michael, and Elizabeth W. B. Fentress 1996. The Berbers. Oxford: Blackwell.

28-04-2023 18:02:59

728

  mutinies

MUTILIA PRISCA, see FUFIUS GEMINUS MUTINA, see CIVIL WARS OF THE LATE REPUBLIC

MUTINIES ELENI HALL MANOLARAKI

University of South Florida

The study of Greek and Roman mutiny narratives is challenged by three epistemological concerns. First, because ancient writers are largely biased against the lower classes, they typecast them as irrational or debased; consequently, the logic (however misguided) behind their grievances is obscured by moralizing simplifications. Second, authors of mutinies intentionally or otherwise allude to similar outbreaks in other authors; the resultant verbal parallels between unrelated mutinies destabilize the historicity of each episode (Low 2016). Third, common synonyms for mutiny used in modern criticism, such as “insurgency,” “insurrection,” “rebellion,” or “uprising” signify assumptions on the organization and morality of mutinies unfitting their ancient contexts (Turner 2015). With these provisos in mind, discussions of mutinies within individual works and across authors illuminate the basic principles and purposes of such episodes. Greek and Roman authors from Homer to Ammianus Marcellinus recount mutinies crushed by great men to demonstrate their personal charisma and the loyalty or fear they command. In the Iliad, the opinionated soldier Thersites speaks out against the Greek leaders at Troy, but he is instantly thrashed into silence by Odysseus (Il. 2.211–277). A highlight in the legend of Alexander the Great is his handling of two mutinies during his campaigns in Persia (Carney 1996; Olbrycht 2008). From legendary Rome to the civil wars of the Late Republic, Roman soldiers suspend their duties and flout authority; their most common complaints include shortage of food and supplies, overdue pay, lack of promised bonuses, prohibitions from plundering, prolongation of service, rank depletion from casualties and disease, exceeded service, and demand for discharge. In Polybius, Livy, Appian,

c12_vol2.indd 728

Lucan, Suetonius Tranquillus, Cassius Dio, and other authors, troublemakers eventually cave to luminaries of Roman statesmanship and prominently to Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Iulius Caesar (Chrissanthos 2001; Fantham 1985; Kemezis 2016; Williams 2001). In his epic Aeneid, Vergil obliquely extols Augustus with a novel simile equating Neptune quelling a storm to a strong leader defusing a riot (Beck 2014). The most developed mutinies of Greek and Roman literature in terms of volume, detail, and narrative sophistication are found in Tacitus. His Agricola, Histories, and Annals (published respectively in 98, 105, and 117 ce) contain dozens of mutinies between 14 ce and 85 ce in Rome, Italy, and the provinces. The earliest of these works introduces Agricola’s governorship of Britannia with his restoration of discipline to a legion mismanaged by his predecessor (Ag. 7). Tacitus also relates a desertion in one of Agricola’s legions by an auxiliary cohort of native Usipi, but he does not revile the mutineers (Ag. 28). Their deed is instead portrayed dispassionately as a sensible reaction to Roman conscription and a yearning for indigenous freedom (Ash 2010). Mutiny stereotypes are similarly challenged in the Histories. Tacitus rationalizes numerous such outbreaks during the civil wars of 69 ce (H. 1–3) by variously connecting them to the soldiery’s distrust in the leadership and allegiance of the superiors (Ash 1999; Master 2016). Additionally, he discerns between deep causes, precipitants, and pretexts of mutinies, and he stratifies distinct incentives within a mutinous group. Mutineers are further credited with a range of emotions including fear and grief, and their protests are voiced through reported speeches. Tacitus even excuses some mutinies as radical gestures of loyalty to emperors forfeited by their commanders (Connal 2012). Even the Annals, which covers the stable period between the reigns of Tiberius and Nero (14 ce–c. 66 ce), features two major mutinies: the Pannonian Revolt and the German Revolt. Both occur in the weeks following Tiberius’ hesitant yet de facto succession after Augustus’ death, and they occupy much of the first book of the Annals (A. 16–30, 31–49). These episodes programmatically outline Tiberius’ character, his ambivalent view of his power, and his rapport

28-04-2023 18:02:59

mutinies  

with the heirs apparent, Drusus the Younger and Germanicus. The mutineers’ motives and conduct also signal the peril of imperial dependence on the military, a threat fully realized at the death of Nero (Pagán 2005; Pigoń 2009; Woodman 2006). Indeed, Tacitus’ self-allusions to the Histories guide readers to diagnose patterns and to anticipate mutinies in the power vacuum between future successions (Low 2016). see also: army; digression; historiography; imperium REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 1999. Ordering Anarchy: Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ Histories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ash, Rhiannon. 2010. “The Great Escape: Tacitus on the Mutiny of the Usipi (Agricola 28).” In Ancient Historiography and Its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A. J. Woodman, edited by Christina S. Kraus, John Marincola, and Christopher Pelling, 275–293. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beck, Deborah. 2014. “The First Simile of the Aeneid.” Vergilius 60: 67–83. www.jstor.org/ stable/43185986. Carney, Elizabeth. 1996. “Macedonians and Mutiny: Discipline and Indiscipline in the Army of Philip and Alexander.” Classical Philology 91: 19–44. www. jstor.org/stable/270675. Chrissanthos, Stefan. 2001. “Caesar and the Mutiny of 47 B.C.” Journal of Roman Studies 91: 63–75. DOI: 10.2307/3184770. Connal, Robert. 2012. “Rational Mutiny in the Year of Four Emperors.” Arctos 46: 33–52. https://journal.fi/ arctos/article/view/85094/44065. Fantham, Elaine.1985. “Caesar and the Mutiny: Lucan’s Reshaping of the Historical Tradition in De Bello Civili 5. 237–373.” Classical Philology 80: 119–131. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/ pdfplus/10.1086/366909.

c12_vol2.indd 729

729

Kemezis, A. 2016. “Dio, Caesar and the Vesontio Mutineers (38.34–47): A Rhetoric of Lies.” In Cassius Dio: Greek Intellectual and Roman Politician, edited by Carsten Hjort Lange and Jesper M. Madsen, 238–257. Leiden: Brill. Low, Katie. 2016. “Histories Repeated? The Mutinies in Annals 1 and Tacitean Self-Allusion.” In The Art of History: Literary Perspectives on Greek and Roman Historiography, edited by Vasileios Liotsakis and Scott Farrington, 253–269. Berlin: DeGruyter. Master, Jonathan. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the “Histories” of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Olbrycht, Marek Jan. 2008. “Curtius Rufus, the Macedonian Mutiny at Opis and Alexander’s Iranian Policy in 324 B.C.” In The Children of Herodotus: Greek and Roman Historiography and Related Genres, edited by Jakub Pigoń, 231–252. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. Pagán, Victoria Emma 2005. “The Pannonian Revolt in the Annals of Tacitus.” Latomus 12: 414–422. Pigoń, Jakub. 2009. “The Passive Voice of the Hero: Some Peculiarities of Tacitus’ Portrayal of Germanicus in Annals 1.31–49.” In The Children of Herodotus: Greek and Roman Historiography and Related Genres, edited by Jakub Pigoń, 287–303. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. Turner, Brian. 2015. “From Batavian Revolt to Rhenish Insurgency.” In Brill’s Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by Timothy Howe and Lee L. Brice, 282–311. Leiden: Brill. Williams, Mary Frances. 2001. “Shouldn’t You Have Come and Talked to Me About It? Democracy and a Mutiny in Scipio’s Army (Polybius 11. 25–30).” Ancient History Bulletin 15: 143–153. Woodman, Anthony John. 2006. “Mutiny and Madness: Tacitus ‘Annals’ 1.16–49.” Arethusa 39: 303–329. www.jstor.org/stable/44578922.

MYRINA, see Earthquake of 17 ce MYTILENE, see Greece

28-04-2023 18:02:59

N NABATAEA, see ARABIA NAHANARVALI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST

NAR YASMINA BENFERHAT

Université de L ­ orraine

The Nar (modern Nera) is the largest tributary of the Tiber River in Italy. It appears only in the Annals. It is 116 km (72 miles) long (Campbell 2012, 309). It crosses three regions, since its source is in the Marches (Porche del Vallinfanto, Mons Tetrica), and it flows in Umbria until it joins the Tiber in the Latium near Orte (province of Viterbo), at about 60 km (37 miles) north of Rome. Its name is an allusion to the color of the water which was sulfurous (Philipp 1935). The Nar was also useful as a fluvial route to Umbria for the Romans, as a complement to the Via Flaminia, since it was possible to sail on its last part: Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso comes back this way from Narnia to Rome (A. 3.9). But Tacitus mentions the Nar especially for some projects of canalization because the river was a main cause of floods in Rome (A. 1.79.2–3). Curius Dentatus had already diverted the Velinus in the Nar in the years 275–272 bce to dry the swamps around Reate. After the big flood of 15 ce, Tiberius considered some ways to prevent such a catastrophe (Aldrete 2007), and one

solution was to channel the river Nar into several streams and some artificial lakes. But the inhabitants of the area refused because it was one of the most fertile areas in the center of Italy and the fields would be lost. Another previous project in the third century bce had been to dig a canal between the river and the lake Velinus (see Campbell 2012, 220). Augustus seems to have tried to strengthen the banks near Crustumerium (32 km north of Rome). see also: Roman roads Reference work: Barrington 1, Map 42 ArretiumAsculum, 610 REFERENCES Aldrete, George. 2007. Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Campbell, Brian. 2012. Rivers and the Power of Ancient Rome. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Philipp, Hans. 1935. “Nar.” RE XVI2, col. 1696–1697. FURTHER READING Stoddard, Simon. 2006. “The Physical Geography and Environment of Republican Italy.” In A Companion to the Roman Republic, edited by Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein-Marx, 102–121. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Traina, Giusto. 1990. Ambiente e paesaggi di Roma antica. Roma: Carocci. Walker, Donald S. 1967. A Geography of Italy. London: Methuen.

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume II, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c13_Vol2.indd 730

28-04-2023 18:02:40

Narcissus  

NARCISSUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Tiberius Claudius Narcissus (d. 54 ce) was one of the most powerful freedmen at Claudius’ court. Involved in the fall of Messalina, he helped Claudius keep his throne in a carefully orchestrated denunciation of the empress that resulted in her execution. Afterward he argued for Claudius’ marriage to Aelia Paetina; however Claudius chose his niece Agrippina the Younger, and Narcissus’ power waned after that. He threw his support behind Claudius’ son, Britannicus, to no avail, and was forced to suicide at Nero’s objection soon after Claudius’ death. Few freedmen of the empire are better known than Narcissus, Claudius’ notorious courtier and ab epistulis (secretary). Early in Claudius’ reign he colluded with Messalina in the destruction of Gaius Appius Iunius Silanus in 42 ce. Again in 42, in the wake of the revolt of Furius Camillus, Narcissus assisted in prosecuting those involved (Cass. Dio 60.16.4–5). It is not past thinking that he was also involved in the prosecution of Umbonius Silio, governor of Baetica in 44 ce (Cass. Dio 60.24.5). Narcissus accompanied Claudius’ general Aulus Plautius in the invasion of Britain in 43 ce (Cass. Dio 60.19.2–3). He was the chief mover in the fall of Messalina in 47 according to Tacitus, although both had been in league together in a number of prosecutions (A. 11.33–35; 37–38; cf. Cass. Dio 60.31.4; for his relationship with Messalina see Sen. QNat. 4 pr. 15). Initially Narcissus, along with other freedmen, tried to dissuade her from her connection with Gaius Silius, the consul and her fellow conspirator in the attempted coup against Claudius, with threats of exposure (A. 11.29.1). He alone among Claudius’ powerful freedmen carried out his threat against Messalina, while Pallas and Callistus, fearful of failure, held back and famously persuaded a pair of imperial concubines, Calpurnia (1) and Cleopatra, to denounce Messalina’s adulteries to Claudius; Narcissus then corroborated their story, confirming to Claudius that he was in fact divorced (A. 11.30.1–2). During Messalina’s and Silius’ arrests Claudius temporarily gave command of the Praetorian Guard to Narcissus,

c13_Vol2.indd 731

731

who then moved to keep Messalina away from Claudius and to maintain a close watch on those advisors around Claudius who were sympathetic to Messalina; in addition he ensured that Messalina and her children were kept from gaining an audience with Claudius, though Messalina’s mother did obtain a hearing (A. 11.33–11.34.5). From this point on, according to Tacitus, Narcissus and the freedmen controlled everything (A. 11.35). There was a short, sharp day of executions, suicides, and trials, the climax of which was Messalina’s demise, closely overseen by Narcissus (Juvenal in fact says that he ordered Claudius to execute her, 14.327– 31) whose own safety depended on her death (A. 11.29.2). When Claudius wavered, Narcissus ordered a centurion to execute Messalina—the instructions, he said, came from Claudius. After her execution and that of her followers, Narcissus was voted the quaestoria insignia (A. 11.38.5). However, his role in the fall of Messalina did him more harm than good and brought the imperial house into disrepute (see Levick 1990, 75 for discussion). Casting about for a new wife, Narcissus supported Aelia Paetina (A. 12.1.3– 12.2.1) due to her previous connection to Claudius (they had been married to one another before and had a child named Antonia). Narcissus’ choice lost out to Claudius’ niece, Agrippina the Younger, a woman with whom Narcissus’ relationship was always strained. In the wake of the Fucine Lake debacle in 52 (when the lake, designed as a naumachia, collapsed and flooded due to the spillway’s shoddy construction after a mock naval battle), Agrippina accused Narcissus of embezzlement, and he is not heard from again until 54 ce (A. 12.57.4–5; cf. Cass. Dio 60.33.5). It was then that he opposed Agrippina’s attempt to destroy Domitia Lepida, Nero’s aunt, on charges of, among other things, magic, for which she was sentenced to death (A. 12.64–65). By this time, Narcissus’ power had waned, and his own fate, by his own admission, was sealed, as Agrippina’s power—and the favor shown to Nero, her son—increased; in the meantime, Narcissus put his hopes in Britannicus (A. 12.65; also see Suet. Tit. 2). He may also have approached Seneca, in an effort to find some allies at the imperial court (Sen. Nat. 4 pr. 15). As the walls closed in, Narcissus retired to his estate in Sinuessa, a move Agrippina may have forced him to make, since Cassius Dio states (60.34.4) that she

28-04-2023 18:02:40

732

  Narnia

was displeased at how closely Narcissus guarded access to Claudius. Narcissus’ departure made Claudius vulnerable to Agrippina’s designs (A. 12.66.1–3). After Claudius’ death he was arrested, put under close confinement, and forced to suicide at Nero’s protest (A. 13.1.4). Just prior to his death he burned some incriminating letters, before ironically perishing next to Messalina’s tomb (Cass. Dio 60.34.5). Other sources concerning his life attest to his wealth, his power at court, and his morally dubious reputation (see Rutledge 2001, 249). see also: freedmen of Claudius Reference works: PIR2 N 23; RE 1621701–5 = Narcissus 1 (Stein); CIL 5.6641; 15.7500 = ILS 1666 REFERENCES Levick, B. 1990. The Emperor Claudius. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. FURTHER READING Weaver, P. C. 1972. Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 259–264.

NARISTI, see MARCOMANI

sent a colony to secure their new conquests (Livy 10.10). So in the republican period, it had military importance for the defense of Latium, as the gateway from the Tiber River valley into Umbria. Afterward, in the imperial period it served as a flourishing municipium on the Via Flaminia with a well-known bridge over the Nar. Its strategic importance can be seen in the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian in 69 ce. When the two opposing adherents were in struggle, Vitellius left part of his troops at Narnia with the prefects of the Praetorian Guard against arising power and popularity of Vespasian (H. 3.58). When the fleet at Misenum and the district of Campania deserted Vitellius, he had nothing left except the land that lies between Tarracina and Narnia (H. 3.60). However, when every possible hope from any source was lost, the troops of Vitellius were ready to come over to Vespasian’s side with honor, and so they descended into the plain below Narnia with their ensigns and standards. On 18 December, when Vitellius heard of the defeat of the legion and cohorts that had given themselves up at Narnia, he was disappointed by this defection, and his household drowned in tears (H. 3.67). Toward end of the December, Vespasian’s forces left Narnia and quietly celebrated the Saturnalia at Ocriculum, a city on the Via Flaminia (H. 3.78). Narnia is mentioned as a station along Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso’s route (A. 3.9), this only reference in the Annals. see also: civil wars of 69 ce

NARNIA

Reference work: Barrington 42 D3

C. CENGIZ ÇEVIK

independent scholar

Narnia (modern Narni) was an important site in Umbria, situated high above the gorge of the river Nar, which rises in the Apennines and flows through a part of the Sabine territory and Umbria. Its name was Nequinum before the Romans took and changed it to Narnia, derived Nar (Plin. HN 3.14; Livy 10.9). Although in 300 bce it was besieged by the Roman consul Appuleius, its natural location didn’t allow its capture until the next year (Smith 1854, 399). After the consul Marcus Fulvius captured it, the Roman Senate

c13_Vol2.indd 732

REFERENCE Smith, William. 1854. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Vol. II. London: Spottiswoode & Co.

NARRATIVE PHILIP WADDELL

University of Arizona

Narrative is the often highly rhetorical method of telling a story. According to narratological theory (Bal 2009, 3–19) and building on Aristotelian ideas

28-04-2023 18:02:40

narrative  

of diegesis and mimesis, all narrative occurs at three levels simultaneously: fabula (the basic level of events accomplished by actors), story (wherein events and actors are described and given specificity), and text (including narrative medium and authorial nuance). Tacitus adds layers of subjective narrative to his historiography using subtle devices that alter reader perception at the level of story and text to guide specific readings. Some of these devices include structure (e.g., temporal order and book organization), focalization, and characterization via (implied) indirect and direct speech. These devices add suspense and dramatic value to Tacitus’ works and can suggest causality and intention. In terms of broad structure, it is generally accepted that Tacitus’ historiographical works were written in groupings of six books, or hexads. For example, we assume the complete Annals would have devoted six books each to the reigns of Tiberius (1–6), Caligula and Claudius (7–12), and Nero (13–18). Tacitus also divides these hexads into halves, creating triads. For example, the first three books take the reader through Tiberius’ early years, while the latter three are dominated by Sejanus. In the Histories, the events of 69 ce comprise a triad of Books 1–3 with Book 4 returning to earlier events in the East, although given the state of preservation, any structure for the Histories must remain conjectural. At the level of the individual book, internal structure creates a literary and thematic whole, often composed in ring structure with a digression or other interlude as the central piece. Tacitus also follows this structure in the Agricola centering on the Battle of Mons Graupius (Ag. 29–38). Tacitus tends to follow the annalistic tradition, beginning each year with a list of elected officials, then a mixture of events subdivided by domestic and foreign matters, and closing the year with portents and the deaths of famous citizens (Ginsburg 1981, 96–100; Walker 1952, 13–15). Tacitus generally adheres to this framework in the Annals and Histories, with some notable exceptions (e.g., A. 12.31–40; Walker 1952, 13–32). Tacitus’ overall structural cohesion is often punctuated by digressions, included to provide pleasure, variation, to underscore larger thematic points, and to provide necessary information for the coming narrative (Woodman 1988, 180–185). His digressions are ethnographic (e.g., Ag. 10–12; H.

c13_Vol2.indd 733

733

5.1–13; A. 4.67), thematic (e.g., A. 4.32–33 on historiography, and A. 11.14 on the history of the alphabet), and thaumatological (e.g., H. 4.81; A. 6.28, 13.58). Tacitus’ adherence to chronology is interrupted by alterations in time to suggest what will happen in the future (foreshadowing, e.g., A. 4.75 where Nero’s parents-to-be are married; A. 6.20.2 where Tiberius prophesies Galba’s ascension) or to recall what has already passed (backshadowing, e.g., H. 3.85, Vitellius’ death recalls Galba’s; A. 1.60–61, Germanicus’ legions almost reenact the Varian disaster; A. 13.1.1, the outset of Nero’s principate echoes Tiberius’). For more on temporal suggestion, see Pagán (1999, 302–320). A person’s character, when not revealed at the level of text through adjectives, is usually presented in a short biographical sketch either at that figure’s introduction to the narrative (e.g., A. 1.4.3–4 Tiberius; A. 4.1.1–2.3 Sejanus; H. 1.22.1–3 Otho; Walker 1952, 204–243) or at that person’s death (e.g., A. 6.51.1–3 Tiberius; A. 16.18.1–3 Petronius). This latter phenomenon might owe its use in Tacitus both to the annalistic framework and to the popularity of so-called exitus (death) literature (Sailor 2008). In narrative, the author can alter perspective by assuming the point-of-view of a character or group. Tacitus often uses this technique to describe events/plans from a character’s viewpoint or thought process at the level of story. Usually, Tacitus focalizes through villainous characters (e.g., Otho at H. 21–22; Agrippina the Younger at A. 12.66) to give the reader insider access and thereby increase suspense (Damon 2012, lii–liii; O’Gorman 2000, 74–76). Ancient historiography frequently employs speeches, either direct or reported (Miller 1975; Pagán 2017, 51–76). These serve to display the oratorical skill of the historiographer and to characterize the speaker/thinker within the narrative (e.g., H. 1.15–16). Often, speech in Tacitus moves from oratio obliqua to oratio recta, or vice versa, at a dramatic point (e.g., A. 4.8.3–5) and is rarely paired, with the notable exception of the letter exchange between Tiberius and Sejanus at A. 4.39–40. Tacitus also delays or elides altogether the introductory verb of speaking or thinking, in a masterful use of free indirect discourse. The overall effect is a sudden shift to the speech or thought of character(s) in the narrative (e.g., A. 4.4.1).

28-04-2023 18:02:40

734

  N eapolis

Thus, an examination of Tacitus’ narrative technique in the historiographical works highlights his ability to tell multiple stories simultaneously, transmitting both facts and (sometimes contradictory) emotional impressions, thus influencing and enriching our understanding. see also: annales; battle narrative; bias; ethnography; historiography; obituary; paradoxography REFERENCES Bal, Mieke. 2009. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Damon, Cynthia. 2012. Tacitus: Annals. London: Penguin Books. Ginsburg, Judith. 1981. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. Salem, NH: Arno Press. Miller, Norma. 1975. “Dramatic Speech in the Roman Historians.” Greece and Rome 22: 45–57. O’Gorman, Ellen. 2000. Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pagán, Victoria. 1999. “Beyond Teutoburg: Transgression and Transformation in Tacitus Annales 1.61–62.” Classical Philology 94: 302–320. Pagán, Victoria. 2017. Tacitus. London: I.B. Tauris. Sailor, D. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walker, B. 1952. The Annals of Tacitus: A Study in the Writing of History. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Woodman, A. J. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies. London: Routledge.

NASAMONES, see AFRICA NAUMACHIAE, see GAMES NAXOS, see CYCLADES

NEAPOLIS BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

Neapolis, modern Naples (Italian Napoli) was one of the most important Italian cities and one of the most influential cultural and commercial centers of the Mediterranean world throughout antiquity. Its region, Campania, was reached

c13_Vol2.indd 734

by Greek colonizers in the eighth century bce. Settlers from Cumae (a Greek colony itself) founded an earlier settlement, referred to by the sources either as Parthenope (from the name of a siren that was allegedly buried there) or just as Palaepolis (“the old city”). By the sixth century bce, perhaps after internal political turmoil, citizens of Parthenope established a new settlement with the name of Neapolis (“the new city”), which eventually incorporated the older city (Mele 2009, 183– 185). In the fifth century Neapolis fell under the hegemony of the Samnites, who took control of the whole Campania and Lucania. The city was conquered by the Romans in 326 bce but was able to maintain its Greek culture throughout the Roman age. In the first century bce, in the war between Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1), Neapolis sided with Marius, and this resulted in its complete destruction and the requisition of its fleet in 82 bce at the hands of Sulla. Since the first century bce, and for the entire imperial age, Neapolis became a retreat for the richest Roman citizens, who built here their villas: among others, Lucius Licinius Lucullus had a grandiose villa built on the site of the old Palaepolis; and Augustus and his successors often resided at the imperial Villa of Pausilypon (the modern Posillipo). Neapolis was elected as the venue for the Isolympic games, which were organized in the likeness of the Olympic ones, starting from 2 ce. The city was one of the most active centers of diffusion of Greek literature and philosophies; Vergil attended here the school of the Epicurean philosopher Siro, whom he later mentioned in his poems (Gigante 1991). According to the tradition, Vergil was buried in Neapolis, where his alleged tomb can still be seen. The poet Papinius Statius was born, and perhaps died, here; Neapolis was also the place were the last Western Roman emperor‑, Romulus Augustulus, was imprisoned after his deposition and died in 476 ce. Tacitus records that Nero went to Neapolis after the murder of his mother Agrippina the Younger (A.14.10); later, Nero chose Neapolis as the venue for his own debut on stage, for the intrinsically Greek character of the city (A. 15.3).

28-04-2023 18:02:40

N ero  

735

see also: Italia

RISE TO THE PRINCIPATE

Reference work: Barrington 44 F 2

While the chapters that would have contained Nero’s birth in Tacitus’ Annals are lost (Book 7), the other two major historical accounts of his life and reign, Suetonius’ Nero and Cassius Dio’s Roman History, illustrate the future emperor’s early life using omens which presage later events. Before dawn on the day of his birth, rays from the sun surrounded Nero (Suet. Ner. 6; Cass. Dio 61[61].2.1), foreshadowing his accession to the principate. Even more strikingly, an astrologer who also predicted that Nero would be emperor foretold the murder of his mother, suggesting that the two events should be seen in relation to each other (Cass. Dio 61[61].2.1–2; see also ShannonHenderson 2019, 285–349). Nero was brought into the immediate imperial family in 49 ce when his mother Agrippina married her uncle Claudius (the ruling emperor). Tacitus emphasizes the legal wrangling required to make this marriage possible; however, this was ultimately considered worthwhile in order to keep the “brilliancy of the Caesars” (Agrippina’s stock, her proven fertility, and her son Domitius) within the household of Claudius (A. 12.2.3, trans. Woodman). The following year, Claudius (at Agrippina’s behest) delivered a speech in the curia which gave precedence to Domitius over his natural son Britannicus as his chosen successor. Domitius then adopted the name of Nero and, because this scenario plays out in the Senate, Tacitus takes the opportunity to register his first objections to the sycophancy of some of its members (A. 12.26.1). In 51 ce, Nero was (prematurely) granted his toga virilis, so that his political career could commence. Once again, Tacitus highlights the servility of the Senate (A. 12.41.1), but also emphasizes the unfair marginalization (and infantilization) of Britannicus in front of the soldiers and the people: “Britannicus rode past in the praetexta, Nero in triumphal clothing” (A. 12.41.2, trans. Woodman). Far more than Suetonius (Ner. 7.2) or Cassius Dio (61[60].32.5), Tacitus expands upon the injustice done to Claudius’ natural son (an action in which the Senate is implicated); this provides vital context for Britannicus’ death a few years later and sets the scene for the agitated relationship between the two adopted brothers.

REFERENCES Gigante, Marcello. 1991. “Virgilio e i suoi amici tra Napoli e Ercolano.” Atti e memorie della Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 59: 87–125. Mele, Alfonso. 2009. “Tra sub-colonia ed epoikia: il caso di Neapolis.” In Colonie di colonie: le fondazioni sub-coloniali greche tra colonizzazione e colonialismo, edited by Mario Lombardo and Flavia Frisone, 183–201. Galatina: Edizioni Pugliesi. FURTHER READING Hughes, Jessica, and Claudio Buongiovanni, eds. 2015. Remembering Parthenope: The Reception of Classical Naples from Antiquity to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

NEMETES, see VANGIONES

NERO SHUSHMA MALIK

University of Cambridge

Nero (born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus) was born on 15 December 37 ce and died on 9 June 68 ce. He was emperor from 13 October 54 ce until his death. His parents were Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2) and Agrippina the Younger. He was consul five times (55, 57, 58, 60, and 68 ce). Nero was the last of the JulioClaudians, Rome’s first dynasty of emperors, founded by Augustus. While not necessarily the worst emperor in Roman history, his reign would become a model for describing imperial tyranny and the standard against which to measure the iniquity of future emperors. Central to this model was the account of Tacitus, the authoritative historian to whom Pliny entrusted the task of writing the account of his uncle’s final days at the base of Vesuvius in 79 ce (Plin. Ep. 6.16 and 6.20).

c13_Vol2.indd 735

28-04-2023 18:02:40

736

  N ero

The final assurance that Nero would succeed Claudius came in 53 ce, when Nero married his adopted sister, Claudius’ daughter Octavia (2) (A. 12.58.1; Suet. Ner. 7.2; Cass. Dio 61[60].33.11). Even though, as the jurist Gaius indicates, marriage between adopted siblings was illegal (Gai. Inst. 59–63; Gardner 1998, 119), all three historical commentators on Nero pass over the event quickly and without comment; perhaps because Claudius and Agrippina’s relationship set new marriage standards within the imperial family. Tacitus, at this stage of the Annals at least, is less concerned with the potential suffering of Octavia than he is with the fate of Britannicus (see Barrett 2017, 65). With this, the path was clear for Nero’s accession. Wishing that day to come sooner rather than later, Agrippina poisoned Claudius, first with mushrooms and then with a poisondipped feather (A. 12.67.2–3). When Nero emerged from the palace, he was welcomed by the praetorian cohort, carried to the camp, and hailed Imperator (A. 12.69.1–2). THE SENATE, THE ARMY, AND THE PEOPLE Upon Nero’s accession, Tacitus describes a debate among the people of Rome on the subject of the young emperor’s capacity to be a military commander (A. 13.6.2). The consensus is optimistic—had not Octavian been a similar age when embarking upon the civil wars, and is not a young Nero far preferable to an aged Claudius? Nero justified their confidence in him by appointing Domitius Corbulo as the general in charge of defending Armenia from the Parthians (A. 13.8). In those first years Nero also showed himself sensible in his dealings with the Senate, seeking a likeness in honor of his father and consular insignia for his tutor Asconius Labeo (A. 13.10, otherwise unattested), forbidding them to build gold and silver statues of him, preventing them from changing the start of the year to the month he was born, and restoring to his position a senator who had been expelled for an affair with Messalina (A. 13.10–11). This relative praise is tempered by Tacitus, however, with references to the influence of those around Nero on the young emperor. Speeches pardoning senators were

c13_Vol2.indd 736

written by Seneca, and the lapse in Agrippina’s influence allowed Nero to give way more fully to his innate luxurious and lustful desires (A. 13.11.2–12.2). Nero’s relationship with the people of Rome is characterized by Tacitus as rocky almost from the start. The historian does not mention the people explicitly when outlining Nero’s first speech in the curia (A. 13.4–5) and, in 56 ce, Nero took to walking the city’s streets dressed up “in servile apparel, accoutered to dissemble his identity,” with his violent behavior causing the people of Rome to endure their nights “as if in a state of captivity” (A. 13.25.1–2, trans. Woodman). In contrast, Suetonius sets up Nero’s relationship with the people as beginning on more unambiguously positive terms, with the emperor reducing or abolishing onerous taxes and inviting the people to watch him exercise on the Campus Martius (Suet. Ner. 10). Tacitus’ Nero goes in and out of the people’s affections. While they greeted him warmly following the death of his mother (whom our sources believe was murdered by Nero), when Nero exiled Octavia in 62 ce, protests by the public brought her back, if only for a short time (A. 14.13.2, 60.5). The people appear to be back on Nero’s side again by 64, however, when the emperor canceled a visit to Achaea so that he could stay in Rome to ensure a steady grain supply. With this, Nero turned the “sorrowful looks of the citizens” into welcome praise (A. 15.36). Like his relationship with the people, Nero’s leadership of the Senate and (through Corbulo) the army was also volatile as his principate progressed. However, these roles had a clearer downward trajectory. While Corbulo is ultimately successful in his defense of Armenia, Nero is only in the background of the campaigns, making decisions in Rome (often in consultation with others) that are then interpreted by Corbulo (e.g., A. 15.24.5). Tacitus provides a much more detailed account of the military activity that took place during Nero’s reign than our other extant sources, giving us vital information about military policy in this period that would not otherwise be available (see Levene 2010). This furnishes us as readers with useful evidence about imperial undertakings that were conducted away from the intrigues of the imperial

28-04-2023 18:02:40

N ero  

court at Rome. However, in the Senate, Nero’s influence was more keenly felt. While many of its members were seen by Tacitus as to some extent to blame for their own fate (e.g., the Senate’s show of sycophancy upon the death of Octavia, A. 14.64.3), there were important opponents who acted as foils to other senators’ actions. Chief among them was Thrasea Paetus, whose objections played a key role in tempering some of the sycophants’ more extreme policies (e.g., A. 14.48–9). For Tacitus, the Neronian Senate at large was complicit in Nero’s behavior, making characters such as Thrasea the moral protagonists of his Neronian annals. THEATRICALITY AND FAMILIAL VIOLENCE From the second year of his principate (55 ce), Nero is identified as a willing murderer of his close family. Although Tacitus does not implicate him in the murder of Claudius (as Suetonius does, see Ner. 33), resentment led Nero to poison Britannicus early in his reign. Other close family members to die at Nero’s command were his mother Agrippina (59 ce), his first wife Octavia (62 ce), and his second wife Poppaea Sabina the Younger (65 ce). Alongside the violent part of Nero’s character goes his theatrical nature; in 59 ce Nero celebrated his Youth Games, and the Quinquennium Neronis was established a year later. In 64 ce, Nero himself performed on stage for the first time in Naples. Tacitus forges a link between familial violence and theatricality; the reason given for Britannicus’ murder is that he recited expertly a poem that openly confronted the injustice of Nero’s succession after the death of Claudius. At this point, Britannicus stopped “dissimulating” (dissimulationem)—he broke the pretense that Nero’s accession had been right and proper (A. 13.15.2; see also Bartsch 1994, 12–16). However, after Britannicus has died, theatricality returned to the Neronian court. Britannicus was murdered for his dissent, but Agrippina and Octavia were more prudent. When Nero casually ascribed Britannicus’ death to an epileptic fit, both women suppressed their real feelings and

c13_Vol2.indd 737

737

pretended to go along with Nero’s interpretation of events (A. 13.16.3–4). Tacitus’ accounts of Agrippina and Poppaea’s deaths are also infused with theatrical overtones. For Agrippina, Nero, through the freedman Anicetus (1), arranged for a collapsible ship to be engineered for his mother’s travel from Baiae. When she survived the resulting shipwreck, Agrippina pretended not to know that Nero had tried to kill her. She eventually met her end at the hands of assailants sent by Nero later that same night (A. 14.3.3–8.5). Poppaea’s death comes after the end of the second of Nero’s five-yearly games, when the emperor, in a sudden rage, killed her with a kick to the belly. Owing to his extreme guilt, Nero honored her with a funeral that was theatrical spectacle in and of itself. Her body was not cremated according to Roman customs but embalmed using perfumes and preserving materials. Nero conducted her eulogy from the rostra (A. 16.6). The relationship between theatricality and violence that Tacitus embedded into his account was influential. When Jean Racine wrote his play Britannicus in the seventeenth century, his Nero directed a devastating conversation between Britannicus and his (fictional) love interest Junia, during which the emperor watched the young Junia’s reactions from a concealed position (Act 2, Scene 3). In the play’s preface, Racine cites Tacitus as his primary inspiration. THE FIRE OF ROME AND THE PUNISHMENT OF THE CHRISTIANS Perhaps the most important contribution Tacitus has made in terms of Nero’s reception is his description of the punishment meted out to a group of Christians following the fire of 64 ce. Out of our surviving historical sources from this period, only Tacitus talks about this event in any detail. The fire itself broke out in July, when Nero was at Antium. Tacitus tells us that ten out of Rome’s fourteen districts were affected, with three leveled to the ground (A. 15.40.2). Tacitus is skeptical about the rumors that Nero gave an order to set the fire, but he does implicate both Nero and his Praetorian

28-04-2023 18:02:40

738

  N ero

Prefect Ofonius Tigellinus in facilitating its continuity beyond the sixth day (A. 15.38.1, 40.2). The fire restarted at the estates of Tigellinus, and Nero took too much pleasure in rebuilding the city following the disaster’s conclusion. Nevertheless, Tacitus also concedes that Nero, in some respects, responded well to the crisis; although stories spread that Nero sang about the fall of Troy as the city burned, the emperor in fact opened his palace to fleeing citizens and put in place (initially at least) a sensible building program that saw the streets of Rome widened to protect against future conflagrations (A. 15.43). Because some people in the city believed that Nero had set the fire, the emperor needed a scapegoat to take the blame. He chose a group known as Christians because they were already unpopular in the city. However, Tacitus characterizes their punishment as grossly disproportionate, suggesting that the Christians were prey to “one man’s savagery” (A. 15.44.5, trans. Woodman). Tacitus’ description of the punishment is vivid: Christians were mutilated and killed by dogs or fixed to crucifixes and set on fire to serve as night lights (A. 15.44.4–5). When the Christian writer Sulpicius Severus came to write his own account of Nero’s punishment in the fifth century, he took Tacitus’ words almost verbatim (Sulp. Sev. Chron. 2.29.2). Sulpicius uses this as part of his argument for understanding Nero as an antichrist figure (see Malik 2020, 84, 116–117). THE PISONIAN CONSPIRACY AND ITS AFTERMATH Following on from the punishment of the Christians, the Pisonian Conspiracy is given extensive treatment by Tacitus. He begins to foreground the reasons for the conspiracy after recounting the events of 62 ce, the year in which Octavia was exiled and her suicide enforced, and other people close to Nero were believed to have been killed. However, the conspiracy itself does not gain ground until 65 ce, when a cross-section of society, including a praetorian prefect (Faenius Rufus), a centurion (Sulpicius Asper), Seneca’s

c13_Vol2.indd 738

nephew Lucan, a consul designate (Plautius Lateranus), and a freedwoman (Epicharis), decided that Nero had become too serious a threat either to the state or to themselves personally (A. 15.48–50). The conspiracy was named for the man earmarked to take Nero’s place, Gaius Calpurnius Piso (on Tacitus’ use of the Pisones as alternative emperors, see O’Gorman 2006, 284–293). After deciding that the execution must transpire in Rome, the attack was planned to take place at the games associated with the festival of Ceres in April. However, Milichus, the freedman of the conspirator Flavius Scaevinus, informed Nero of the plot (A. 15.54–5), and the punishments that ensued were devastating. Epicharis was tortured but refused to give up any names. On the second day, she fashioned a noose and killed herself (A. 15.57). Lucan and Seneca, although the latter probably was not involved in the conspiracy, also committed suicide, with Seneca’s death scene being the longest of the section (A. 15.60.2–64.4). Piso himself was encouraged to test the favor of the soldiers and the people by going to the praetorian camp or mounting the rostra. However, Piso was unconvinced by this strategy; instead, he withdrew to his house and opened his veins as a unit of Nero’s soldiers arrived at his door (A. 15.59). As the city filled with funerals, the Senate once again succumbed to their sycophancy and voted honors and gifts to Nero, including renaming the month of April after the emperor (A. 15.74). After the Pisonian Conspiracy, Tacitus’ Rome had very few good and worthy people left. One notable opponent to Nero, however, remained— Thrasea Paetus. When the city was distracted by a visit of the Parthian Tiridates, who was crowned in Rome as king of Armenia by Nero, charges were brought against Thrasea by his enemy Cossutianus Capito (A. 16.21–4). At the trial, Thrasea and five others like him were found guilty, albeit by a Senate terrified by the soldiers in their midst who had their hands on their weapons (A. 16.29.1). The extant Annals concludes with Thrasea’s suicide—the example of the ideal philosophical death in which the senator used his own blood to make a libation to Jupiter the Liberator (A. 16.35).

28-04-2023 18:02:40

N ero I ulius C aesar  

THE LOST YEARS: 66–68 ce Copies of the final books of Tacitus’ Annals are now lost. As such we do not have Tacitus’ account of Nero’s visit to Greece (66–68 ce), nor of the emperor’s death by suicide in 68 (for these, see Suet. Ner. 19, 22–24, 40–49; Cass. Dio 62[63].8– 63[63].29). However, Tacitus did write in his Histories about various responses to Nero’s death by the people and the soldiers. The better part of the Roman people rejoiced at Nero’s death, but the lower part, the plebs sordida who enjoyed Nero’s entertainments, were downcast (H. 1.4). The city’s soldiers were ready to switch their allegiance to Galba (Nero’s successor), but when the new emperor did not pay them the expected donative, they rebelled against him, remembering the generosity of Nero (H. 1.5). In the provinces, too, Nero still had followers; Tacitus mentions that the German troops had been slow to abandon Nero (H. 1.8), and in Asia a potential usurper, Calpurnius Asprenas (mentioned by Tacitus only at H. 2.9) won support by pretending to be Nero, insisting that he (as Nero) had not died but had instead fled to the east (H. 2.8–9). Thus, even though the emperor was dead, his presence was felt in Rome and the empire for years after. see also: Christianity; crucifixion; Julio-Claudian dynasty; Pisonian Conspiracy, victims; poison REFERENCES Barrett, A. A. 2017. “Nero’s Women.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero, edited by S. Bartsch, K. Freudenburg, and C. Littlewood, 63–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bartsch, S. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gardner, J. F. 1998. Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levene, D. S. 2010. “Warfare in the Annals.” In A. J. Woodman ed. The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 225–238. Malik, S. 2020. The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Gorman, E. 2006. “Alternative Empires: Tacitus’s Virtual History of the Pisonian Principate.” Arethusa 39.2: 281–301.

c13_Vol2.indd 739

739

Shannon-Henderson, K. 2019. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Barrett, A. A., E. Fantham, and J. C. Yardley. 2016. The Emperor Nero: A Guide to the Ancient Sources. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bartsch, S., K. Freudenburg, and C. Littlewood, eds. 2017. The Cambridge Companion to the Neronian Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buckley, E., and M. Dinter, eds. 2013. The Blackwell Companion to the Neronian Age. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Champlin, E. 2003. Nero. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Drinkwater, J. 2019. Nero: Emperor and Court. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elsner, J., and J. Masters, eds. 1994. Reflections of Nero: Culture, History, and Representation. London: Duckworth. Griffin, M. 1984. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. London: Batsford. Jones, C. P. 2017. “The Historicity of the Neronian Persecution: A Response to Brent Shaw.” New Testament Studies 63: 146–152. Rudich, V. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London: Routledge. Rudich, V. 1997. Dissidence and Literature under Nero: The Price of Rhetoricization. London: Routledge. Rudich, V. 2015. Religious Dissent in the Roman Empire: Violence in Judaea at the Time of Nero. Oxford: Routledge. Shaw, B. D. 2015. “The Myth of the Neronian Persecution.’ Journal of Roman Studies 105: 73–100. Shaw, B. D. 2018. “Response to Christopher Jones: The Historicity of the Neronian Persecution.” New Testament Studies 64: 231–242.

NERO IULIUS CAESAR OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

Nero Iulius Caesar (6–31 ce), son of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, is mentioned a dozen times in the Annals. In a number of these mentions he is cited in association with the dynastic policy led by Tiberius. In A. 2.43.2, it is reported that Caecilius Metellus Creticus Silanus’ eldest daughter is engaged to him. This betrothal was

28-04-2023 18:02:40

740

  N ero I ulius C aesar

certainly broken off, unless the daughter of Creticus died, because in Annals 3.29.3 (20 ce), the marriage of Nero to Iulia Livia, the daughter of Drusus the Younger and granddaughter of Tiberius, is mentioned. The marriage with Iulia corresponds to a favorable moment for Nero; at the same time Tiberius accelerates his career by asking that he be exempt from the vigintivirate and allowed to run for quaestorship before the legal age (A. 3.29.1; on 3.29, see Woodman and Martin 1996, 261–268, ad loc.). He also obtained the pontificatus; during his career, and he held various priestly offices, which are listed in ILS 282 (= EJ, 96), but without reference to a pontificatus. After the death of Drusus, the son of the emperor, Nero and his younger brother are recommended by Tiberius to the patres (A. 4.8.3–5; cf. Suet. Tib. 54.1; Cal. 7); Nero then appeared as the obvious successor of Tiberius, delivering a eulogy on Drusus at his funerals (Cass. Dio 57.22.4a). After the Asian cities were allowed to build a temple to Tiberius, Livia Augusta, and the Senate, Nero granted thanks to the Senate and his grandfather (A. 4.15.3). The second great theme with which Nero is associated is the fate of Germanicus’ domus, which Germanicus himself is believed to have evoked on his deathbed (A. 2.72) and which is alluded to immediately after his death (cf. A. 2.75.1: infelici fecunditate fortunae totiens obnoxia). Specifically, the opposition between Sejanus and the house of Germanicus appears at the end of the passage concerning the marriage with Iulia (A. 3.29.4) and in A. 4.15.3 (notis in eum Seiani odiis). Soon Sejanus frequently criticizes the arrogance of Nero who was encouraged by his freedmen and clients to push himself forward (A. 4.59.3–4). Watches were posted around him and amplified when they reported to the emperor some of his misguided comments (A. 4.60.1). The young man could trust no one: the emperor was hostile, his own wife was the daughter of Sejanus’ lover, and Sejanus had stirred up the jealousy and ambition of Nero’s brother Drusus Caesar (A. 4.60.2–3). After Tiberius retired to Capri, Sejanus intensified his attacks, hinting that Nero and his mother wanted to start a civil war (A. 4.67.4). Hence, when Tiberius wrote to the Senate that he had to fear the snares of his enemies, there was no doubt that he was referring to Nero and Agrippina (A. 4.70.4).

c13_Vol2.indd 740

After the death of Livia, a letter denouncing Nero and his mother was forwarded to Rome, containing allegations of immorality against Nero (A. 5.3). The first reaction of the people was favorable to the son and the widow of Germanicus; their portraits were carried, the curia was surrounded, it was claimed that the letter had been forged by Sejanus; Tiberius, however, reiterated his allegations (A. 5.4–5). Tacitus’ account breaks off at this point, and there is a lacuna that spans nearly three whole years. The fate of Nero is known from other sources. He was apparently declared a public enemy and exiled to the island of Pontia without trial (cf. Suet. Tib. 54.2; 64; Cal. 7; Plin. HN 8.145); his marriage with Iulia was also dissolved. He died sometime after the end of Sejanus’ consulship (Cass. Dio 58.8.4). According to Suetonius, Tiberius had him killed (Tib. 61.1) or he committed suicide because Tiberius had ordered his execution (Tib. 54.2). Years later, Caligula brought back to Rome the ashes of Nero and Agrippina (Cal. 15.1). The earliest information concerning Nero (dynastic policy, appearances in the Senate), could have been taken from the Acta Senatus (A. 2.43; 3.29; 4.8; 15.3). Other traits imply some intimacy with Nero and his relatives (A. 4.59–60). The memoirs of Agrippina the Younger could have been at the origin of these passages. Some sources imply that the condemnation of Nero (and his mother) preceded Livia’s death (Vell. 2.130.4–5; Plin. HN 8.145; Suet. Cal. 10.1), while according to Tacitus, he was not indicted before her death in 29 ce (cf. Charlesworth 1922). Deline argues that Tacitus reversed the order of events: Nero would have been accused of immorality in 27 ce (only in 29 according to Tacitus), then placed under guard, and only after 29 ce charged with treason in connection with his links with the German legions (in 27 according to Tacitus) and exiled (Deline 2015). Such confusion could be indicative of Tacitus’ use of more than one secondary source for this part of his narrative (cf. the two somewhat different presentations of Nero’s death by Suetonius). Chapters and 3.29 and 4.60 are the longest passages devoted to Nero in the Annals, at least in the books that have survived; they sketch a character who is not exempt from virtues but has to face, alone or with the sole help of his mother, a difficult

28-04-2023 18:02:40

N erthus tribes  

context and dynastic intrigues. By evoking his arrogance devoid of malice (A. 4.60.1: nihil […] prauae cogitationis), Tacitus seeks to combine the reserve that he sometimes attributes to Nero with the haughtiness for which he was reproached. However, beyond any personality of his own, Nero is considered through his link with Germanicus. In 4.15.3, he appears almost “as an impersonator of his father” (O’Gorman 2000, 61). In this sense, the representation of the character appears to be instrumentalized to serve the dramatic progression that dominates Books 4–6, in which the opposition between Sejanus and the house of Germanicus succeeds to the antagonism the historian has suggested between Tiberius and Germanicus himself. The last mention of Nero in the Annals is along the same lines: when he mentions that Iulia, who had been the wife of Nero, married Rubellius Blandus, whose grandfather had been a knight, the historian sees it as a cause for sorrow (A. 6.27.1: pars maeroris fled quod Iulia); this sadness responds to the joy that the marriage of Nero and Iulia had once aroused (A. 3.29.3: auctum dehinc gaudium nuptiis Neronis and Iuliae). From one marriage that brought joy to the other, that nourished desolation, the reader can measure the fateful evolution of the reign of Tiberius. see also: sources Reference work: PIR2 I 223 REFERENCES Charlesworth, Martin P. 1922. “The Banishment of the Elder Agrippina.” Classical Philology 117.3: 260–261. Deline, Tracy. 2015. “The Criminal Charges against Agrippina the Elder in ad 27 and 29.” The Classical Quarterly 65.2: 266–272 O’Gorman, Ellen. 2000. Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, Anthony J., and Ronald H. Martin. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus. Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Gillespie, Caitlin. 2020. “Agrippina the Elder and the Memory of Augustus in Tacitus’ Annals.” Classical World 114.1: 59–84.

c13_Vol2.indd 741

741

NERTHUS TRIBES JAMES MCNAMARA

Universität Potsdam

Tacitus is the only source to group these seven tribes (G. 40.2–4) according to their shared worship of Nerthus, named only here, whom he interprets as the Earth Mother (Terra Mater). They belong to the Suebi and are located north of the Langobardi, probably on Jutland, in lands fortified by woods and rivers. The Aviones, Nuitones, Reudigni, and Suarines/Suardones are known only from Germania 40.2. The Eudoses may be traceable in corrupted passages elsewhere: first, Caesar BGall. 1.51 among Ariovistus’ troops; later, Orosius Hist. adv. Pag. 6.7; perhaps Ptol. Geog. 2.11.7. Little is known of the Varini, who may coincide with the Varinnae, one of the elder Pliny’s five main divisions of the Germani (Plin. HN 3.1.109); the name Varni or Οὐάρνοι appears in the sixth and seventh centuries ce, but the connection with Tacitus’ Varini, if any, is obscure. Tacitus provides the first surviving reference to the Angles (Anglii). Ptol. Geog. 2.11.8 places the Συήβοι Ἀγγείλοι east of the Langobardi on the middle Elbe (Albis): for difficulties cf. RGA, Angeln §5. Bede’s account of the Anglo-Saxon migrations (Hist. 1.15) traces the Angles back to Angeln on the east side of Jutland, a location that accords with Tacitus’ account and has some support from ceramic finds (RGA, Angeln §8; Barrington 10 E2-F2). Like other Germanic deities, Nerthus is associated with a grove; hers lies on an island in the Ocean, on either the North Sea or Baltic coast of the Jutland peninsula. The goddess’s immanence is announced annually by a priest, who takes a cultic chariot drawn by cows on a ritual journey. The deity is hidden beneath a cloth, and there is no indication of the presence of an effigy. The journey marks a time of peace and celebration when wars cease and iron is shut away. Finally the chariot and the goddess are submerged in a remote lake, and all the slave attendants of the ritual are drowned. Comparative studies of Germanic cult have produced interpretations of the Nerthus ritual as, for instance, an agrarian fertility festival, a divinatory ritual, or a ritual tracing a cycle of death and rebirth reflecting the immersion of the sun, but

28-04-2023 18:02:40

742

  N erva

Tacitus’ account of Nerthus’ rites is most likely heavily colored by interpretation in light of Roman religious concepts (Timpe 1995; Woolf 2013). Tacitus glosses Nerthus as Mother Earth (Terra Mater). Nerthus cannot easily be paralleled by deities from later Germanic mythology. An etymological connection has been suggested with the Scandinavian god Njörðr, derived from an Indo-European root signifying “to be strong, to possess vital force” (Rives 1999, 292–294). The Mediterranean world offers parallels for cultic journeys, such as the journey of an effigy of Hera accompanied by a priestess (Paus. 9.3.1–9 and Plutarch in Eusebius Praep. Evang. 3.1.1–7). The cult of Cybele/Magna Mater at Rome offers several parallels with Tacitus’ account, including the motherly identity of the goddess, the festival atmosphere associated with the goddess’s progress, and the washing ritual (Timpe 1995, 120–121). Tacitus, as one of the Quindecimviri sacris faciundis, was himself among the priests at Rome responsible for the cult of Cybele, who carried out the ritual washing of the goddess’s image. The account of Nerthus is Tacitus’ most detailed description of a Germanic cult, comparable within Germania with his description of the sacred grove of the Semnones; in the case of Nerthus, however, Tacitus’ interest is out of proportion with the wider political significance of the tribes. Beatus Rhenanus’ 1519 edition emended the manuscript reading herthum at G. 40.2 to Hertham. By the nineteenth century the earth goddess Hertha had become an identity in Scandinavian and German culture. Swedish author Fredrika Bremer made Hertha the title of a novel exploring contemporary women’s lives (1854 in Swedish, translated into English 1856); the name persists most famously in the football club Hertha BSC (Berliner Sport-Club). see also: religion; ethnicity; ethnography; Germania Reference works: Barrington 10 E2-F2 (Anglii), 10 E1 (Aviones), 10 G3 (Reudigni); 10 G3 (Suari(do)nes); 10 I3 (Varini) RE XVII.1 50–54 Nerthus. Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA), vol. 1 Angeln; vol. 7 Eudusii; vol. 21 Nerthus und Nerthuskult; vol. 21 Nerthusstämme; vol. 30 Suarines/Suardones; vol. 33 Warnen

c13_Vol2.indd 742

REFERENCES Rives, J. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Timpe, Dieter. 1995. “Tacitus’ Germania als religionsgeschichtliche Quelle.” In RomanoGermanica: Gesammelte Studien zur Germania des Tacitus, edited by Dieter Timpe, 93–144. Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner. Woolf, Greg. 2013. “Ethnography and the Gods in Tacitus’ Germania.” In Ancient Ethnography: New Approaches, edited by Eran Almagor and Joseph Skinner, 133–152. London: Bloomsbury.

NERVA NATHAN T. ELKINS

Baylor University

Nerva (Marcus Cocceius Nerva) was born on 8 November 35 ce in Narnia. He was emperor from 18 September 96 to 27 January 98 ce, dying of natural causes at the age of sixty-seven (Figure N.1). Upon his accession, he became Imperator Nerva Caesar Augustus, assumed the tribunician power (renewed the subsequent September), and took the titles of pontifex maximus and Pater Patriae. Each year he held the consulship (consul III, January 97; consul IIII, January 98). Before becoming emperor upon Domitian’s assassination, he was a prominent senator and had served Nero and the Flavian Dynasty as an advisor (Garzetti 1950, 17–30; Grainger 2003, 28–31; Murison 2003). He held his first consulship in 71, early in Vespasian’s reign, and his second in 90 alongside Domitian. He rose to prominence after he helped foil the Pisonian Conspiracy in 65, for which Tacitus says that Nero gave him triumphal honors and placed a bust of him in the palace and a statue in the forum (A. 15.72). Martial records that Nerva was a talented poet and praised by Nero, who called him the “Tibullus of our day” (Mart. 8.70; 9.26). There are few literary and epigraphic sources for Nerva’s principate and prior career (Garzetti 1950, 4–13; Smallwood 1966). Other mentions by Tacitus are in the Agricola (3.1): “Nerva Caesar mingled things formerly incompatible: the principate and liberty;” and in the Histories (1.1), where owing to the new age of liberty (see libertas)

28-04-2023 18:02:40

N erva  

743

Figure N.2  Silver denarius of Nerva from January 97 ce. The obverse depicts a portrait of Nerva with his titles and the reverse depicts Libertas standing holding the cap of a freed slave and a rod, and the accompanying legend LIBERTAS PVBLICA (American Numismatic Society 1905.57.332). Source: The American Numismatic Society 1905.57.332 / Public Domain.

Figure N.1  Portrait head of Nerva (Image Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California). Source: The Getty’s Open Content Program, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California / Public Domain.

Tacitus promises to write a future history of the reigns of Nerva and Trajan, which never came to fruition. An inscription dedicated to Liberty and coins from Nerva’s reign also suggest libertas was an important part of rhetoric in Nerva’s reign (CIL 6.472; Figure N.2). We may expect that the lost books of the Histories, especially those on Domitian, provided more information on Nerva. Iulius Frontinus refers to Nerva in his De Aquae Ductu Urbis Romae, and he comes up in Pliny the Younger’s Panegyricus and Epistulae; Cassius Dio 68.1–3 summarizes his principate. The fourth-century ce Epitome also provides some potential details on Nerva’s principate, although it is a very late source. The only surviving literary sources written during Nerva’s reign are some of Martial’s epigrams; Book 11 was written around December 96 for the Saturnalia, and some of the epigrams in Book 12 address Nerva. There is no evidence that Nerva had knowledge of, or involvement in, the well-organized conspiracy to assassinate Domitian.

c13_Vol2.indd 743

Although scholars often consider Nerva to be the Senate’s choice, several constituencies probably settled on him, including the leadership of the army and the praetorian cohorts, for Domitian was popular with the soldiery (Collins 2009). As a Flavian loyalist, Nerva may have been agreeable to many factions. Anxiety about potential civil war marked his reign (e.g., Suet. Dom. 23; Philostr. V S 1.7.2). Aware of the problem, Nerva keenly selected the decorated patriot Verginius Rufus to hold his third consulship alongside Nerva, who held his third consulship also in 97, although Rufus broke his hip while rehearsing a thanksgiving speech and died thereafter; Tacitus, as suffect consul later that year, gave the funeral oration. The praetorians surrounded Nerva in his palace in the summer of 97 and demanded that he deliver up the conspirators in Domitian’s murder (Plin. Pan. 6.1; Cass. Dio 68.3.3; Epit. 12.6–8). This episode signaled Nerva’s vulnerability to armed rebellion and prompted him to select a well-respected general as his heir to secure his rule. As governor of Upper Germany, Trajan had command of legions that would protect the emperor in the event of a rebellion, for Trajan now had a personal investment in Nerva’s continued principate. Nerva announced Trajan’s adoption upon news of victories in the North against the Suebi, when he and Trajan both received the title of Germanicus (Plin. Pan. 8.2; Cass. Dio 68.3.4) Since he ruled only sixteen months and had no children, modern scholars tend to characterize his reign as an interlude between Domitian and Trajan. Nevertheless, for such a short reign, Nerva

28-04-2023 18:02:40

744

  N ervii

initiated many new policies and reforms. For ­instance, he reformed the inheritance tax (Plin. Pan. 38); transferred disputes with the fiscus from procuratorial courts to a praetor (Dig. 1.2.2.32), which facilitated fairness; ended false accusations under the fiscus Iudaicus by informers (see delators), under which senators had especially suffered; remitted the obligations of Italian cities to subsidize the imperial courier (vehiculatio); granted lands worth 60 million sestertii to the poor in Italy (Cass. Dio 68.1–2); and he reduced tribute from the provinces. He also instituted the alimenta, a government program to support the poor children of Italy (Epit. 12.4), for which Trajan took credit. There is little building and monumental art from Nerva’s brief principate. He dedicated the forum that Domitian began as the Forum of Nerva (Suet. Dom. 5), built a granary (CIL 6.8681), and was responsible for some work on the Colosseum (CIL 6.32254). There are seventeen surviving portraits of Nerva, fourteen of which are reworked portraits of Domitian. The Flavian Cancelleria reliefs bear a figure of Domitian, whose likeness was recut as Nerva. Coins are an important source for Nerva’s reign and attest many of his policies in the absence of other evidence (e.g., reforms of the fiscus Iudaicus and vehiculatio); they also visualize the same qualities, such as libertas, iustitia, and aequitas, for which Martial, Pliny, Frontinus, and Tacitus praised Nerva (Figure N.2) (Elkins 2017). REFERENCES Collins, Andrew W. 2009. “The Palace Revolution: The Assassination of Domitian and the Accession of Nerva.” Phoenix 63: 73–106. Elkins, Nathan T. 2017. The Image of Political Power in the Reign of Nerva, ad 96–98. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Garzetti, Albino. 1950. Nerva. Rome: Angelo Signorelli Editore. Grainger, John D. 2003. Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis of ad 96–99. London and New York: Routledge. Murison, Charles L. 2003. “M. Cocceius Nerva and the Flavians.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 133: 147–157.

c13_Vol2.indd 744

Smallwood, Mary E. 1966. Documents Illustrating the Principates of Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

NERVII ROBERT CAMPBELL

University of Nebraska at Omaha

The Nervii were a Belgic tribe of northern Gaul who were considered one of the most powerful during the first century bce. Their tribe’s location is in modern Belgium and the Netherlands. Tacitus described them as being very eager in their claims of a German origin to separate themselves from the more uniform view of Gallic effeminacy (G. 28). This view was in relation to other tribes succumbing to Roman control and creating trade between the two cultures. Iulius Caesar describes the Nervii as being the fiercest among the Belgae (B Gall. 2.4). During Caesar’s Gallic War, the Nervii were one of the Belgic tribes who stood in the way of Roman expansion. At the Battle of Sabis, the Nervii devised an ambush against Caesar’s army. As the Roman troops traveled through two hills, the Nervii leaped from the forest but were unsuccessful at catching the Romans off guard. The Romans were able to fend off the Nervii and kill most of the troops. Julius Caesar detailed the encounter as an engagement that brought the name and nation of the Nervii almost to utter destruction (B Gall. 2.28). The now smaller territory of Nervii joined the forces of Iulius Civilis during the Batavian Revolt (H. 4.66). Tacitus recounts the surrender of Nervii forces to Iulius Classicus as his legion worked inward against Civilis’ move toward Cologne (Colonia Agrippinensis, H. 4.79). The Canninefates also halted other Nervii forces who volunteered to fight for Rome (H. 4.79). see also: Belgae; Belgica NICEPHORIUM, see PARTHIA NICOPOLIS, see GREECE

28-04-2023 18:02:40

N ile  

NICOSTRATUS BRANDON JONES

Boston University

Nicostratus was one of seven athletes who won the olive-branch for the pancration and wrestling in the same Olympic games (Paus. 5.21.10). He was, according to Pausanias, called Nicostratus of Cilicia, though he had originally been from Phrygia and was captured by Cilician pirates (Paus. 5.21.11). Quintilian reports that as a boy he had seen Nicostratus wrestle in old age, taking him as an example of an athlete trained equally in all skills and suggesting that the orator must be trained universally in like suit (Quint. Inst. 2.8.14). Tacitus pursues Quintilian’s reference and analogy in the Dialogue on Orators when he has Marcus Aper complain to Curiatius Maternus: “If the gods had given the brawn and strength of Nicostratus to you, I would not allow those massive arms, born for fighting, to dwindle in javelin tossing or discus throwing” (D. 10.5). According to Aper, a similar such waste occurs when Maternus devotes himself to lecture halls and poetry instead of the forum and oratory. see also: Roman orators Reference works: PIR2 N 91; RE Nicostratus 11

NILE KONSTANTINOS ARAMPAPASLIS

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Nile, the north-flowing river of Egypt, was considered the largest river of the ancient world with its streaming stretching over 6,500 km. It was known to Homer as Αἴγυπτος (Hom. Od. 4.477; 581) while the name Νεῖλος is attested for the first time in Hesiod (Theog. 338). The Nile has two major tributaries, the Blue Nile which originates in Lake Tana in Ethiopia, and the White Nile which springs from Lake Victoria in Uganda. As their streams joined outside Khartoum, the capital

c13_Vol2.indd 745

745

of modern Sudan, the river gathered massive force until forming two major branches which delimited its delta: the Kanobikos river on the west and the Pelousiakos on the east, both of which have disappeared since the fifth century ce. The Nile’s annual flooding provided farmers with the necessary irrigation water and fertile land for agricultural production, thus justifying Egypt’s colloquial name “the gift of the Nile.” The river functioned regionally also as a trade artery for merchants, and after the foundation of Alexandria with its important port, the Nile played a central role in Mediterranean trade throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods (Charlesworth 1926, 18–20). Tacitus mentions Nile in his narrative of Germanicus’ journey to Egypt which took place in January 19 ce. While on a political mission in the eastern provinces, Tiberius’ adopted son decided to visit Egypt to become acquainted with its ancient past under the pretext of concern about the province (A. 2.59.1). Starting from the city of Canopus in the river’s Delta (A. 2.60.1), he went to the city of Heracleion (Egyptian name Thonis) and then traveled up the Nile to see the ruins of Thebes with the colossal statues of Memnon, the pyramids near Memphis, Lake Moeris, and finally Elephantine and Syene (A. 2.60–61). see also: Nero; Rubrum Mare; Sarapis Reference works: Barrington 74 E4, 1 J5, 3 B4, 75 D4, 77 D1, 78 B5, 79 G1, 80 B2, 81 A5, 82 A3; RE Nil REFERENCE Charlesworth, Martin P. 1926. Trade-Routes and Commerce of the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Merrils, Andy. 2017. Roman Geographies of the Nile: From the Late Republic to the Early Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

NINOS, see ASSYRIA NISIBIS, see ARMENIA NOLA, see CAMPANIA

28-04-2023 18:02:40

746

  N onius A sprenas , Lucius

NONIUS ASPRENAS, LUCIUS DEL A. MATICIC

Vassar College

Lucius Nonius Asprenas (suffect consul 6 ce; governor of Africa 14/15 ce) was a Roman statesman and the eldest son of Lucius Nonius Asprenas (RE Nonius 15/ PIR2 N 117) and Quinctilia Sexta, sister of Publius Quintilius Varus. His younger brother, Nonius Quinctilianus, was consul in 8 ce. He is not to be equated with the Lucius Asprenas mentioned by the Seneca the Elder (Controv. 10. pref. 2). After his consulship Asprenas followed his uncle Varus to Germania, where he served as legate (Vell. Pat. 2.120.3). Asprenas was responsible for bringing Lower Germany back under control after the disastrous defeat of his uncle at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 ce) and his ensuing suicide. Velleius Paterculus praises Asprenas’ “energetic and courageous actions” (2.120.3) but also records that some criticized him for appropriating for his own use the belongings of the Romans who died with Varus. Despite this rumor, Asprenas’ political career continued, and in 14–15 ce he was chosen by lot to become governor of Africa. During this time, according to Tacitus (A. 1.53), a rumor was circulated that his troops assassinated Sempronius Gracchus (2), the adulterer of Julia the Elder (daughter of Augustus), in order to deflect scandal from Tiberius, who was actually responsible for the assassination. Soon after his return from Africa, between 15–20 ce, he served as head of the college of curatores locorum publicorum iudicandorum, which was tasked with settling legal disputes concerning the use public land (cf. RE locus 961.35–36; Talbert 1987, 373). In 20 ce, Tacitus (A. 3.18) records that Asprenas attacked Valerius Messalla for omitting Claudius from a list of people who should be thanked for avenging Germanicus. Reference works: PIR2 N 118; RE Nonius 15, 16

c13_Vol2.indd 746

REFERENCE Talbert, Richard. 1987. The Senate of Imperial Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

NONIUS ATTIANUS, see SARIOLENUS VOCULA

NONIUS, GNAEUS JOSEPH R. O’NEILL

Arizona State University

Gnaeus Nonius (PIR2 N 112), member of the equestrian order, was arrested in 47 ce after he was discovered girt with a sword among a crowd of people greeting Claudius. Tacitus claims that it was not known at the time, nor in his own day why Nonius was armed. Nonius was questioned under torture, but did not reveal the names of any accomplices, presumably because he was acting alone (A. 11.22.1). He is otherwise unattested. NONIUS RECEPTUS, see VITELLIUS

NORBANUS BALBUS, LUCIUS WESLEY J. HANSON

University of Pennsylvania

Lucius Norbanus Balbus, consul in 19 ce with Marcus Iunius Silanus (1) (A. 2.59.1), was the brother of Gaius Norbanus Flaccus (PIR2 N 168; RE 17.1.934–935), consul in 15 ce with Drusus the Younger (A. 1.55.1). Both Balbus and Flaccus appear only in annalistic notices that lead to narratives about Germanicus. Balbus was the son of Gaius Norbanus Flaccus (consul 24 bce) and Cornelia, whose father Lucius Cornelius Balbus may have given Balbus his cognomen. Inscriptional evidence shows that he was called Balbus (see CIL VI 1437, IX 2827, and X 1964; for further discussion of his name and the weight of the evidence, see the PIR and the RE

28-04-2023 18:02:40

747

N ovaesium  

cited below). The index to Cass. Dio 57 gives him the alternative cognomina of Balbus or Flaccus (Γ. Νωρβανὸς Γ. υἱ. Φλάκκος ἢ Βάλβος), but this attribution appears to be in error (Goodyear 1981, 372). Balbus had an amusing predilection for playing the trumpet, and his decision to play it on the morning that he took consular office startled people nearby and was later interpreted as an ill omen for Germanicus (Cass. Dio 57.18.3–4). It is possible that he was killed by a guard in 41 ce (Joseph. AJ 19.123), although this may have been his brother Flaccus or an unknown third person (Goodyear 1981, 68). Flaccus was a praetor in 11 ce before ascending to the consulship in 15 (A. 1.55 and Suet. Vit. 3.2). The Tabula Siarensis (lines 10–11) mentions that Flaccus had set up statues for Augustus and the Augustan household in the circus Flaminius. Reference works: PIR2 N 165; RE 17.1.931–932 REFERENCE Goodyear, F.R.D. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 1–6. Volume II: Annals 1.55–81 and Annals 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

NORBANUS FLACCUS, GAIUS, see NORBANUS BALBUS, LUCIUS NORBANUS, GAIUS, see CAPITOLIUM

especially with Rome, which came to rely on Noric steel to produce armaments (cf. Hor. Odes 1.16.9–10). The confederation enjoyed a diplomatic relationship with Rome as early as 170 bce (Livy 43.5), and in 113 bce, a Roman army under Papirius Carbo was dispatched for the defense of Noricum against aggressions from the Cimbri (Livy 63. 5–6; App. Gall. 13). Noricum fell under Roman control in 15 bce, during the alpine campaigns of Tiberius and Drusus the Elder against the Raetians (Vell. 2.39.3). Although it was titled a province, the Regnum Noricum was allowed to maintain its own kingship and operate as a client state under the supervision of a Roman procurator (Kneissl 1979). During or before the reign of Claudius, local autonomy was supplanted, and a full Roman administrative structure was in place for the province. During the civil wars of 69 ce the province was held initially by forces supporting Otho, led by the procurator Petronius Urbicus (H. 1.70). Later in that year, troops were levied in Noricum by Vespasian’s faction to hold the border with neighboring Raetia, which was loyal to Vitellius (H. 3.5.2). see also: provinces Reference work: Barrington 100, 101 REFERENCE

NORICUM

Kneissl, Peter. 1979. “Zur Entstehung der Provinz Noricum.” Chiron 9: 261–274.

WILLIAM STOVER

University of Virginia

Noricum was a Roman province encompassing the area directly south of Germania (G. 5.1.1), in what is now western Austria, northeastern Slovenia, and southern Bavaria. Although the region’s inhabitants included multiple ethnic groups, including Illyrians, its population was predominantly Celtic. In the second century bce, a confederation of Celtic tribes established a kingdom known to Roman sources as the Regnum Noricum (cf. Suet. Tib. 16. 2; Vell. 2.109.5), after its capital at Noreia (modern location unknown). Gold and iron deposits in the region allowed for vigorous trading activity,

c13_Vol2.indd 747

FURTHER READING Alföldy, Géza. 1974. Noricum. London: Routledge.

NOVAESIUM BENJAMIN E. NIKOTA

New York University

Novaesium, modern Neuss in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, was a city on the Rhine frontier which played a small role in the Batavian Revolt.

28-04-2023 18:02:40

748

  N umidia

Founded as a castrum for an auxiliary-sized force circa 20/10 bce, the site’s strategic significance was that it was situated at the confluence of the Rhine (Rhenus) and Elft rivers. This settlement pattern can be seen in other Roman castra on the German frontier, with Mogontiacum opposite the Rhine-Mainz and Vetera opposite the LippeRhine confluences, respectively. Before the construction of the castrum, the area appears to have been inhabited by the Germanic Eburones, before being wiped out in the course of Iulius Caesar’s conquests (Caes. B Gall. 6.35–36). Novaesium was a base of some significance for the Romans’ response to the Batavian Revolt. As Vetera was besieged by Iulius Civilis, the main Roman force assembled at Novaesium. Tacitus describes a mutiny as supplies dwindled due to attacks on the grain supplies by the Batavian forces (H. 4.36). This particular mob of mutineers declared for Vitellius—who was dead at this juncture—and when they returned to the fold were made to swear a second oath to Vespasian. There was another mutiny in the camp at the beginning of the following year in which the commander Dillius Vocula was killed and many soldiers defected to fight against the Romans (H. 4.59). The remaining Romans were ordered to retreat, and the passage in Tacitus (H. 4.62) is reminiscent of Livy’s description of the Romans’ retreat from the Caudine Forks (Levene 2008). see also: mutinies Reference works: Barrington 11 G1; 2 E3; NE Novaesium REFERENCE Tacitus. The Histories. 2008. Revised and edited by D. S. Levene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Chantraine, Heinrich, et al. 1984. Das römische Neuss. Stuttgart: Theiss.

NOVARIA, see PETRONIUS URBICUS NOVIUS PRISCUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS NUCERIA, see CAMPANIA

c13_Vol2.indd 748

NUITONES, see NERTHUS TRIBES NUMA MARCIUS, see ROME, MYTH AND HISTORY NUMA POMPILIUS, see ROME, MYTH AND HISTORY

NUMIDIA ROBYN LE BLANC

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Numidia refers to both the coastal region of North Africa east of Mauritania and west of Tripolitania (i.e., coastal Algeria) and to the kingdom which controlled this area from at least the mid-second century bce. The boundaries of Numidia at times overlapped with the territories of Carthage in the east and Mauritania in the west (e.g., Livy 34.62). The region was split into dual kingdoms at the time of the deaths of the Numidian kings Iuba I and Arabion in the 40s bce, whereupon the region was annexed to Rome and ultimately integrated into Africa Proconsularis. The kingdom of Numidia is known from Roman sources since at least the late third century bce, although it is mentioned alongside Tacitus’ narrative concerning the earlier foundation of Carthage by Dido and the Phoenicians (A. 16.1). At times the region was split into two kingdoms, roughly divided according to tribal lines, with the Maesaeyli in the west and the Massylii in the east, although after the reign of Massinissa in the second century bce, the kings were identified as ruling over the Numidae rather than tribal groups (Brett and Fentress 1996, 26–27). Numidia’s most prominent kings included: Syphax, who fought against the Romans in the Second Punic War and was defeated by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus at Cirta in 201 bce (A. 12.38); Massinissa (an ally of Rome, ruled 205–148 bce; Sil. Pun. 16.135–169); his grandson, Iugurtha, who waged war against Rome from 112–106 bce (Sall. Iug); and Iuba I (ruled beginning 62 bce), an ally of Pompey the Great. After the death of Iuba I in 46 bce, Eastern Numidia was annexed by Rome, becoming Africa Nova. The king of Western Numidia, Arabion (ruled 46–c. 41 bce) about whom little is known, died soon after,

28-04-2023 18:02:40

N umisius Rufus  

and both portions of the former kingdom were later incorporated, along with Tripolitania, into the province of Africa Proconsularis, with a capital at Utica and then Carthage and the legion III Augusta later stationed within the provincial boundaries. Iuba II, the one-time heir to the throne of Numidia under his father, Iuba I, was appointed ruler of the nearby client kingdom of Mauritania in 25 bce and ruled until 23–24 ce (Roller 2003). The revolt of the Numidian Tacfarinas (A. 3.20–21, 3.32, 3.73– 3.74; 4.23–25) from 17–24 ce caused significant problems for the proconsular authorities of the province but did not seriously threaten Roman power in the region. Major exports from Roman-controlled Numidia included grain (Livy 36.3.1), marble, and animals for use in the amphitheater and in other spectacles (Plin. HN 5.2). see also: Phoenicia; provinces Reference work: Barrington 100 H4 Numidia

749

colleagues, the commanders of the legions III Gallica (Aurelius Fulvus) and VII Claudia (Tettius Iulianus), he repelled and defeated a raiding horde of 9,000 Sarmatian Rhoxolani that, after crushing two Roman auxiliary cohorts, invaded the province. When the news reached Rome Numisius Lupus and the other officers were granted by the emperor the ornamenta consularia (H. 1.79). After Otho’s defeat and suicide Lupus chose to join the Flavian party against Vitellius. Between September and October 69 ce, he led his legion into northern Italy and joined the army of Antonius Primus at the siege of Verona (H. 3.10). When both the consular legati of Pannonia (Tampius Flavianus) and Moesia (Aponius Saturninus) were contested by the troops and forced to leave the army for fear of their life, Lupus was one of the officers who let Antonius Primus to gain the supreme command of the legions in the two provinces. His authority was based on the great popularity he enjoyed among the soldiers (H. 3.11). see also: Danuvius; Sarmatians

REFERENCES Brett, Michael, and Elizabeth W.B. Fentress. 1996. The Berbers. Oxford: Blackwell. Roller, Duane W. 2003. World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene: Royal scholarship on Rome’s African Frontier. London: Routledge. FURTHER READING Fentress, Elizabeth W. B. 1979. Numidia and the Roman Army: Social, Military, and Economic Aspects of the Frontier Zone. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series. Gsell, Stéphane. 1914–1930. Histoire ancienne de l’Afrique du Nord. Paris: Hachette.

NUMISIUS LUPUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Numisius Lupus (attested only by Tacitus) was the legate of legion VIII Augusta based at Novae on the lower Danube, in the province of Moesia, at the time of Otho’s rule (69 ce). Along with his

c13_Vol2.indd 749

Reference work: PIR2 N 210 FURTHER READING Morgan, G. 2006. 69 AD: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

NUMISIUS RUFUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Numisius Rufus (attested only by Tacitus) was a Roman legionary commander in the Batavian Revolt. As demonstrated by M. E. Carbone, Numisius Rufus was the legate of the legion XVI located in Novalesium during the first phase of the Batavian Revolt in 69 ce. He is mentioned by Tacitus as one of the two legionary commanders besieged by the rebels in Castra Vetera along with Munius Lupercus, commander of the XV. Since the besieged legions were the XV and the V Alaudae, it is not clear why Tacitus mentions the commander of the XVI among the high officers

28-04-2023 18:02:40

750

  numismatics

enforcing the defenses of Castra Vetera against the besieging rebels (H. 4.22). After the defections and the surrender of the German legions including his XVI and after the assassination of Dillius Vocula, the supreme military commander, Rufus was taken prisoner by the rebel leader Iulius Classicus (H. 4.59). After that, the rebel army suffered some minor defeats; the defected legions, and the XVI among them, pledged allegiance to Vespasian before deserting the rebel army and fleeing to the territory of the Mediomatrici. Iulius Valentinus and Iulius Tutor, rebel leaders of the Treveri, killed Rufus and his colleague Herennius Gallus to bind those soldiers in the crime and worsen their condition in the eye of the Romans (H. 4.70). The fate of the legionary commander is mentioned by Petilius Cerialis, commander of the army in charge of quashing the revolt, to his former soldiers who joined his troops to remind them the consequences of their betrayal, and to urge them to rally again and resist to the attacks of the rebels (H. 4.77). Reference work: PIR2 N 213 FURTHER READING Carbone, M. E. 1967. “The First Relief of Castra Vetera in the Revolt of Civilis (A Note on Tacitus “H.” 4.26.3).” Phoenix 21: 296–298. Schmitz, D. 2008. “Der Bataveraufstand im Kontext des römischen Bürgerkrieges 68–70 n. Chr.” In Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten und sein Umland in römischer Zeit, edited by Martin Müller, HansJoachim Schalles, and Norbert Zieling, 117–140. Mainz: von Zabern. Timpe, D. 2005. “Tacitus und der Bataveraufstand.” In Gegenwärtige Antike—antike Gegenwarten. Kolloquium zum 60. Geburtstag von Rolf Rilinger, edited by Tassilo Schmitt, Winfried Schmitz, and Aloys Winterling, 151–187. München: Oldenbourg.

NUMISMATICS SVEN GÜNTHER

Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations (IHAC), Northeast Normal University Changchun ELISABETH GÜNTHER

Institute for Digital Humanities, University of Göttingen

c13_Vol2.indd 750

Money and coins appear regularly in Tacitus’ work and the world he presents. However, not everything he refers to as “money” is indeed coin(ed) money. This may be somewhat surprising since we are used to thinking of Greek and Roman money as coins, issued in different metals and denominations; mainly according to a certain weight standard, by a respective (state) authority. However, recent research has shown that financial operations and economic transactions were not limited to coin-money but included various kinds of credit-money, even if the extent of the latter is still under discussion (current summary of the debate in Harris 2019). Hence, the ancient terminology used is important. With regard to Tacitus, money is linked to socioeconomic and political interactions, and thus there is a variety of terms relating to money, and coin-money in particular (categories and chronological inventory of concrete sums in ancient literature concerning Rome in Szaivert and Wolters 2005). Most frequently, the term pecunia appears, partly meaning “wealth/fortune” in a more general sense, partly a sum of money (e.g., H. 2.48.1: Otho distributes only little money though he dies shortly afterward). The latter is sometimes accompanied by either a concrete figure and the counting unit (mainly sestertii  =  HS) (e.g., A. 16.13.3) or other terms describing the specific action, for instance military donativa (e.g., H. 2.94.2–3). Opes (in the meaning of “wealth”) can also be signified by a concrete sum (D. 8.2; A. 12.22.2) but usually, like bona, is used to illustrate the (immense) wealth of a person, family, or institution (e.g., opes Cremonensium: H. 3.19.2; bona Seiani: A. 6.2.1). Moreover, there is one instance of the term res signifying the minimum census of the ordo equester, 400,000 HS (A. 4.63.1: regulations applied after the collapse of the amphitheater at Fidenae in 27 ce). The term gaza is used for the treasure of Vonones I (A. 6.31.1) and of the legendary Dido queen of Carthage (A. 16.3.2); however, a concrete sum is not mentioned. Yet, even if specific denominations are used by Tacitus (and other authors), it is often questionable whether they are referring to actual coin(ed) money, since the terms sestertius and nummus (mostly equated with sestertius) served as

28-04-2023 18:02:40

numismatics  

accounting units (see Mrozek 2001, 59). This is particularly obvious in case of larger sums of money appearing, for example, in financial contributions of the emperor to the public treasury (A. 13.31.2; 15.18.3); to support or honor senators and elite families (D. 9.5; A. 1.75.2f.; 2.37.1; 38.4; 86.2; 3.17.3f.; 4.16.4; 11.4.3; 13.34.1); to the freedman Pallas (A. 12.53.2f.: he refused 15 million HS, having already accumulated 300 million HS); or to help in the credit crisis of 33 ce (A. 6.16f.; see Harris 2019, 176; Schartmann 2012; cf. the planned but not realized bond loan in 70 ce, H. 4.47.1) and other catastrophes (A. 2.47.2f.; 6.45.1; 12.58.1; 16.13.3); also vast donations (largitiones etc.) and expenses, for example, of Nero, criticized and sought back under Galba (H. 1.20.1f.); or of Vitellius (H. 2.95.3). All those sums are unlikely to have (only) existed in physical form, especially in the quite small denomination of sestertius. The price stabilization of grain by Tiberius in the form of a public subvention of 2 nummi per modius was likely added periodically to the accounts of the grain sellers (A. 2.87; reduction of grain price in Rome to 3 HS: A. 15.39.2; fear of high price: H. 4.38.2). Donativa and congiaria, on the other hand, were usually paid out to each person separately (viritim) and thus in physical coins (H. 1.66.1; 82.3; A. 2.42.1; 13.31.2; 15.72.1; see also the legata in the Augustan testament, amounting to 43.5 million HS: A. 1.8.2); the stipes distributed at the Juvenalia of 59 ce could be coins or tokens (A. 14.15.2). However, since the sums mentioned can be regularly divided by 100 it has been made likely that they were at least partly distributed in aurei (1 aureus  =  25 denarii = 100 HS; cf. Szaivert and Wolters 2005, 12f.). Given this form of payment, it is interesting to note that aurei do not appear in Tacitus’ works. Military stipendia were also calculated per person and per day (A. 2.13.2); however, they were accumulated in a military treasure, and the accounts of each soldier were balanced (deduction of costs; withdrawals for personal use etc.). Hence, the Pannonian soldiers in the mutiny of 14 ce requested 1 denarius per day instead of 10 asses and honesta missio after sixteen years, comparing themselves with the much betterpaid and better-treated Praetorian Guards (2 denarii per day, sixteen years’ service time; A.

c13_Vol2.indd 751

751

1.17.4–6; cf. 26.1). Eventually, privileges granted through a tricky move by Germanicus to soldiers in Germania (A. 1.36–37) were also applied to the Pannonian ones by Tiberius (A. 1.52.3). Besides these denominations of the imperial currency system, Tacitus mentions two older, republican coin denominations (bigati, serrati) as being preferred by German tribes (G. 5.3). The whole passage discusses the economic behavior of German tribes in the typical civilization-barbarian scheme: while the tribes close to the frontier (proximi) recognize gold and silver as precious metals and accept, as well as prefer, certain forms of Roman money for trade, more remote ones still use simple barter. They approve of older denominations (pecuniam probant veterem et diu notam, serratos bigatosque) and prefer silver to gold since they make only small purchase transactions. Whether the heavily loaded passage is of any use for the reconstruction of the money economy at the Roman frontier to Germania, which is mainly depending on the complex interpretation of coin hoards and findings, is a muchdiscussed topic in numismatic research (Wolters 1999, 381–389). Precious metals as supply or ready for striking money are also mentioned (cf. A. 15.45.1f; H. 4.53.4): Gold (and silver?) mines (aurarias  que) are taken over by Tiberius from Sextus Marius after the latter’s death penalty in 33 ce (A. 6.19.1); whether it really came into the private property of the emperor (patrimonium) is under discussion (Wolters 1999, 191f.). Nero is deceived by Caesellius Bassus’ story about Dido’s cave where uncoined gold is said to be abundant (A. 16.1–3). After the acclamation of Vespasian as emperor striking coins from gold and silver at Antioch is one of the measures taken to prepare for the campaign against Vitellius (H. 2.82.1). However, concrete coin types issued either in imperial or provincial coins are not mentioned in Tacitus though events described by him and other authors can sometimes be linked to certain coin issues (detailed discussion in Wolters 1999, 290–320). The large sums spent on social interactions and performances, the confiscation of property in trials of maiestas (e.g., A. 4.20.1: liberalitas of Tiberius is sought back; 15.54.2, cf. 55.2; 16.11.1),

28-04-2023 18:02:41

752

  N ymphidius S abinus

and the military expenses as well as lootings during the civil wars of 69 ce (cf. H. 2.84.1f.) are often discussed within discourses about proper (imperial) behavior, luxury, and moral decline. This is particularly present in the description of Tiberius’ rule (A. 1.2.2; 2.33; 57.4; 3.52–55). A frequent topic in the Histories is that money buys power and everything has its price (pretium). The bon mot virtute quam pecunia res Romana melius stetit (H. 2.69.2) expresses that framing strategy of Tacitus in a nutshell. see also: economy; Pannonian Revolt REFERENCES Harris, W. V. 2019. “Credit-Money in the Roman Economy.” Klio 101.1: 158–189. Mrozek, S. 2001. Faenus. Studien zu Zinsproblemen zur Zeit des Prinzipats. Historia Einzelschriften 139. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag. Schartmann, G. 2012. “Die Krise des Jahres 33 n.Chr.” In Ordnungsrahmen antiker Ökonomien. Ordnungskonzepte und Steuerungsmechanismen antiker Wirtschaftssysteme im Vergleich. Philippika 53, edited by S. Günther, 145–164. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Szaivert, W., and R. Wolters. 2005. Löhne, Preise, Werte. Quellen zur römischen Geldwirtschaft. Darmstadt: WBG. Wolters, R. 1999. Nummi Signati. Untersuchungen zur römischen Münzprägung und Geldwirtschaft. Vestigia 49. Munich: C.H. Beck. FURTHER READING Günther, Sven. 2020. “Die Germanen und das Geld: Anmerkungen zu Tac. Germ. 5,3.” Gymnasium 127: 569–580.

NYMPHIDIUS SABINUS THEODORE ANTONIADIS

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Nymphidius Sabinus (c. 35 ce–68 ce) was a prefect of the praetorian cohorts together with Ofonius Tigellinus in the last period of Nero’s rule 65 ce–68 ce. He took part in the final conspiracy against Nero inducing the

c13_Vol2.indd 752

praetorians to desert him for Galba, but when he attempted to promote his personal agenda by having himself declared emperor, he was murdered by his own soldiers (Menzel 2012, 63). He was the son of a court freedwoman, Nymphidia. Her father was Gaius Julius Callistus, an imperial freedman who was given great authority under Caligula (A. 15.72). This seemed enough for Nymphidius to claim to be the illegitimate son of Gaius (Plut. Vit. Galb. 9, 14). According to another version, however, his father was a gladiator named Martianus (Menzel 2012, 64). Even in this case, his lowly status did not pose an obstacle to his public career. Taking advantage of his critical role in the suppression of the Pisonian Conspiracy against Nero in 65 ce, Nymphidius was among those who advanced for their loyalty to the throne. He was first assigned the command of an auxiliary regiment in Pannonia (ILS 1322) and then became a tribune in the guard (A. 15.72). His authority was far more consolidated, though, when he shared the post of praetorian prefect with Tigellinus, after the execution of the latter’s previous partner Faenius Rufus (H. 1.5, Suet. Galb. 11). The two men served as the emperor’s delegates during his long absence in Greece in 67–68 ce (Joseph. BJ 4.9.2). His implication in the final conspiracy against Nero exposed his further ambitions. When Galba declared himself “Legate of the Senate and Roman People” and rumors spread in the capital that Nero had fled away to Egypt, he bribed the praetorians to declare for him by promising them an immense donatiuum (H. 1.5.25, cf. Plut. Vit. Galb. 2). In order to ingratiate himself with the new emperor, he orchestrated the removal of Tigellinus. However, he was soon informed that his services were not much appreciated by Galba, who replaced him with Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco (Plut. Vit. Galb. 11). In a last-ditch attempt to regain his influence among the Praetorian Guard, he presented himself as the only legitimate successor to Nero (Plut. Vit. Galb. 9, A. 15.72), while he even took Sporus as his own “wife” (Plut. Vit. Galb. 8.9, see Menzel 2012, 63). The praetorians either did not give much credit to his allegations or, evaluating the circumstances more practically, opted for Galba and killed the would-be usurper before their new emperor

28-04-2023 18:02:41

N ymphidius S abinus  

arrived at Rome (H. 1.5, 1.37, Suet. Galb. 11, Plut. Vit. Galb. 14). see also: freedmen; freedmen of Claudius; freedmen of Nero Reference works: PIR2 N 250; RE Nymphidius 5; CIL VI 6621; ΙΙΙ 4269; ILS 1322

c13_Vol2.indd 753

753

REFERENCE Menzel, Gerhard. 2012. Falsche Könige zwischen Thron und Galgen: Politische Hochstapelei von der Antike zur Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. FURTHER READING Charles, Michael B. 2014. “Nero and Sporus Again.” Latomus 73: 667–685.AQ1

28-04-2023 18:02:41

O OBARITUS, see AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER

OBITUARY ARTHUR J. POMEROY

Victoria University of Wellington

Although Greek historical writers such as Herodotus and Thucydides will sometimes add a comment after the death of important figures, the Hellenistic historians seem to have passed moral judgments on the deceased as a regular practice. Polybius, in particular, uses his death notices for didactic purposes, comparing the lives and deaths of Philopoemen, Hannibal, and Scipio Africanus in 183 bce to illustrate their achievements under differing political systems (Pomeroy 1991, 96–98). In Roman historiography, Seneca the Elder informs us that Sallust had provided “a summary of an individual’s life and a virtual funeral eulogy” only in a very few cases, but Livy was much more generous in his use of the form, while his successors were even freer with their favors (Sen. Suas. 6.21). Tacitus follows this tradition with death notices for all the deceased emperors of 69 ce in his Histories and also Tiberius in the Annals. The evaluation of the dead Augustus (A. 1.9) is slightly different as it is not made by the historian in his own voice but attributed to sensible commentators (prudentes) who are split between those who excuse his deeds as his acting out of necessity and those who regard such a defense as mere self-justification. Claudius, however, is not

shown such respect at his demise, while the loss of the text makes it impossible to know how Caligula or Nero were treated at the end. It may be that the well-established system for evaluating Hellenistic rulers (Pomeroy 1991, 99–106) offered a historiographical precedent. However, Tacitus extends the form to include emperors-in-waiting (Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus: H. 1.48.1), generals serving the emperors (e.g., Fabius Valens: H. 3.62), and significant courtiers (Titus Vinius: H. 1.48.2–4; Gaius Sallustius Crispus: A. 3.30.2). In the Annals, a remarkable number of figures are listed as passing away during the frequent summaries of the year’s events, allowing the historian to offer an evaluation of their conduct in the face of imperial power and their personal achievements in terms of Roman culture. Others deserve attention because of their enforced deaths, such as Petronius (A. 16.18). In these cases, it is likely that the popular genre of recording senatorial martyrs (the exitus illustrium virorum, “deaths of notable men”) had some influence on Tacitus’ depiction. The historian’s treatment of the death of Agricola, mixing consolation and exhortation along with political advice on how to survive honorably under bad emperors (Ag. 44–46), reflects the various genres that could be employed to commemorate significant individuals at Rome. As Syme (1958) observes, the death notices in the Annals are most frequent in the Tiberian books, perhaps as they give the opportunity to contrast republican and imperial values. They are often placed at the end of the year’s events, where stray material that has not been covered in the narrative is often placed (Ginsburg 1981, 32). Still, there is no fixed pattern, and some

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume II, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c14_Vol2.indd 754

28-04-2023 18:29:00

o b ituary  

notables whom we might expect to be recorded as having been awarded state funerals are not mentioned. Some senators may be mentioned because of their close connection to the emperor. Sulpicius Quirinius, although unconnected to the great republican family of the Sulpicii, had risen through his military exploits to the consulship and won triumphal honors, but it was his respectful attitude to Tiberius on Rhodes when escorting Augustus’ grandson, Gaius Caesar, that gained him a public funeral (A. 3.48). Likewise, the definitely obscure Lucilius Longus is granted the same honor and a public statue in the Forum because he was the only senator to accompany the future emperor into his exile (A. 4.15.2). Sometimes obituaries are paired, as in the case of Lucius Volusius Saturninus, who had founded the wealth of his family line, and Sallustius Crispus, the influential imperial advisor and adopted nephew of the historian Sallust. Both clearly indicate the importance of service to the emperor over individual ability (Gingras 1992, 250). With an abundance of material available in the Acta Senatus, Tacitus can use his death notices as interesting digressions, as when he records the deaths of Domitius Afer and Marcus Servilius Nonianus in 59 ce (A. 14.19): both were fine orators, but Nonianus was also famous as a historian and, most importantly, was a better human being (Tacitus refrains from recalling the scandals of Afer’s old age which he had already alluded to in A. 4.52.3). Tacitus does not, however, restrict himself to male Roman notables. The hero of the German rebellion, Arminius, is given his full due in the Annals 2.88, with the aside that Greek writers had ignored him in favor of their own heroes, while Roman historians tended to look to the republican past for their exemplars and overlook more recent events of the imperial period. Indeed, Tiberius’ rejection of an offer to poison Rome’s enemy is regarded as a modern example of Roman self-control to match earlier generals (described as imperatores, the word now used for “emperor”) who had not only rejected such offers against Pyrrhus but warned the king of this treachery. Unlike Arminius, who had stayed in Germany and perished in the factional infighting among his tribesmen, Maroboduus,

c14_Vol2.indd 755

755

king of the Chatti, had eventually taken refuge with his Roman enemy, ensuring a natural death, but lessening his fame (A. 2.63.4). Following the precedent set for recording the deaths of important women in Hellenistic kingdoms, Tacitus also pauses at the ends of the women of Augustus’ household: Julia the Elder whose death in the first year of Tiberius’ reign is blamed on the emperor’s enduring hatred (A. 1.53.1–2), Julia the Younger (A. 4.71.4), and finally Augustus’ widow, Livia Augusta. The dowager empress herself follows soon after, her death being recorded in the prominent place of the first chapter of Annals 5. This looks like a traditional evaluation for a woman, concentrating on her family origins, marriage, children, and significant female attributes (virtutes). However, Tacitus also notes her hastily arranged marriage to Augustus (she was pregnant at the time), and while she was compliant to her husband as a traditional Roman wife should be, this was because she matched him in his wiles, just as she was equal to her son in duplicity. Tacitus has given her passing such prominence not only because of Livia’s significance as matriarch of the Julio-Claudian clan, but also because he believes that her death removes the last restraining influence on her son, Tiberius, and thus inaugurates the worst period of treason trials during the last nine years of Tiberius’ reign. The longest and most debated of the obituaries is that of Tiberius himself (A. 6.51) which emphatically ends the first six books of the Annals. In particular, the division of Tiberius’ life into periods dependent on the restraining influences (Augustus, Germanicus and Drusus, Livia Augusta, and Sejanus), which may suggest an inherently vicious character that gradually became public, presents interesting questions about the nature of personal psychology in ancient historiography (Gill 1983; Luce 1986; Woodman 1989, 2017, 290–301 with extensive bibliography). REFERENCES Gill, Christopher. 1983. “The Question of Character Development: Plutarch and Tacitus.” Classical Quarterly 33: 469–487.

28-04-2023 18:29:00

756

  O bultronius S a b inus

Gingras, Marie T. 1992. “Tacitean Themes and the Obituaries of Annals 3.” Classical Journal 87: 241–256. Ginsburg, Judith. 1981. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. New York: Arno. Luce, T. James. 1986. “Tacitus’ Conception of Historical Change.” In Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing, edited by I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, 152–158. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pomeroy, Arthur J. 1991. The Appropriate Comment. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Syme, Ronald. 1958. “Obituaries in Tacitus.” American Journal of Philology 79: 18–31. Reprinted in 1970, Ten Studies in Tacitus, 79–91. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Also in 2012, Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Tacitus edited by Rhiannon Ash, 245–258. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, Anthony J. 1989. “Tacitus’ Obituary of Tiberius.” Classical Quarterly 39: 197–205. Reprinted in ibid. 1998, Tacitus Reviewed, 155–167. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woodman, Anthony J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus, Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

FURTHER READING Woodman, A. J. 2017. “Appendix: The Tacitean Tiberius.” In The Annals of Tacitus, Books 5 and 6, 302–315. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

OBULTRONIUS SABINUS LÁSZLÓ TAKÁCS

Pázmány Péter Catholic University

Obultronius Sabinus was the quaestor aerarii in 56 or 57 ce, who was removed from his office after an attack by the tribune of the plebs, Helvidius Priscus. He is mentioned at A. 13.28. According to Tacitus, Obultronius Sabinus was accused by Helvidius Priscus of “carrying his right of sale to merciless lengths against the poor” (ius hastae adversus inopes inclementer ageret, A. 13.28). As a result of the accusation of Obultronius Sabinus, Nero “transferred the charge of the public accounts from the quaestors to the prefects.” Giving a summary of the history of this office Tacitus describes that praefecti held this

c14_Vol2.indd 756

office under Augustus, but during the reign of Claudius the system was changed and minor officers, quaestores, held it. If Obultronius Sabinus worked as a quaestor in the middle of the 50s, he might have been born in the 30s, and he was still a young man. Helvidius Priscus, the Stoic philosopher, politician, and Thrasea Paetus’ son-in-law was a well-known republican. Tacitus claims that Helvidius Priscus was acting for “a private quarrel” (contentiones proprias). It is unclear whether Helvidius Priscus acted of his own volition, by public pressure, or by the intention of political leadership (on his temperament see H. 2.91.) Nero at the beginning of his reign was aware of the unjust nature of taxation, and he started to levy the tax burdens to win the favor of the public. At the end of Nero’s reign Obultronius Sabinus became the proconsul of Baetica, and he was executed together with Cornelius Marcellus and Betuus Chilo (mentioned only by Tacitus at H. 1.37) by Galba. Tacitus mentions that other proconsuls were killed according to the command of the new emperor (H. 1.37). It would also be important to say that Helvidius Priscus, who probably remained Obultronius Sabinus’ enemy, had been banished in year 66 ce and was later recalled to Rome by Galba in the same year. It is also unclear whether the return of Helvidius Priscus and the execution of Obultronius Sabinus could be connected. Reference work: PIR2 O 4 FURTHER READING Carter, T. L. 2004. “The Irony of Romans 13.” Novum Testamentum 46.3: 209–228, esp. 224. Graßl, Herbert. 1976. “War Obultronius Sabinus Proconsul der Baetica und L. Cornelius Marcellus sein Legat?” Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte 25.4: 496–498, esp. 496–497. Syme, Ronald. 1937. “The Colony of Cornelius Fuscus: An Episode in the Bellum Neronis.” American Journal of Philology 58.1: 7–18. Syme, Ronald. 1982. “Partisans of Galba.” Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte 31.4: 460–483.

OCCIA, see VESTAL VIRGINS

28-04-2023 18:29:00

O C TAV IA  

OCEANUS BENJAMIN E. NIKOTA

New York University

Tacitus only used the term Oceanus to refer to the Atlantic Ocean, almost always the North Sea between Britain and Germany, and never to the Mediterranean or Red Seas. Oceanus was never used by Tacitus in any mythological sense. Tacitus stressed how unknown, temperamental, and dangerous Oceanus was, especially compared to the Mediterranean (G. 2). He was in no way concerned with scientific knowledge of the ocean, as Pliny the Elder or Eratosthenes were. In the Agricola, he explicitly stated that he was not concerned with the physical workings of Oceanus and the unique tidal movements that affected the British Isles, since this topic had already been covered by many writers (Ag. 10). In the Annals, Tacitus described Germanicus and a Roman army being trapped in a storm and the ensuing naval disaster (A. 2.23–24). Seneca the Elder in his Suasoria preserved a fragment of a poem by Albinovanus Pedo concerning Germanicus’ sailing of Oceanus (Sen. Suas. 1.15). Oceanus remained mysterious, exotic, and temperamental to the Romans. Tacitus preserved a story of a particularly lavish and Neronian party, put on by Ofonius Tigellinus, who is said to have imported sea animals from “far-flung Ocean” to be placed in the baths of Agrippa (A. 15.37). Reference work: RE Okeanus FURTHER READING Romm, James S. 1992. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, Fiction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

OCRICULUM, see NARNIA

OCTAVIA PATRICK KRAGELUND

former director, Danish National Art Library

This entry examines the links between Tacitus and the sole surviving Roman historical drama,

c14_Vol2.indd 757

757

the Octavia, a play focusing on the murder of Nero’s first wife Claudia Octavia (2) and his wedding to Poppaea Sabina the Younger in 62 ce. The Octavia (hereafter Oct.) is normally taken to be pre-Tacitean; slogans, prosopography, and the Senecan style suggest a date very soon after Nero’s death (68 ce; discussion surveyed by Wilson 2003, 5–7; very early Flavian: Manuwald 2001, 337; Boyle 2008, xvi; Ginsberg 2017, 20; Galban: Wiseman 2004, 265; Flower 2006, 202– 203; Kragelund 2015, 306–360). What matters here are the intriguing overlaps of subject between the play and Tacitus’ narrative of Nero’s “dismissal” of Seneca and murder of his cousins Rubellius Plautus, Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix, and his wife Octavia, that, in mid-year 62, dramatically bookend Annals 14. Some overlaps are predictable: the murders of Agrippina the Younger and the three others, and the fire of 64 ce (brought in as a prophetic threat by the arsonist Nero himself, Oct. 831– 843). This is what all contemporaries knew about; unnecessary, therefore, to postulate a Flavian “source” (thus Schubert 1998, 287 ff.; 424; 442; Ferri 2003, 9; contra, Kragelund 2015, 298–306). The differences are more interesting: What in Tacitus takes months of continuous narrative is by the unknown dramatist telescoped into three compact days, the first before, the third after the central day of Nero’s divorce from Octavia and marriage to Poppaea; the latter were events eleven days apart (Suet. Ner. 35.3) that for dramatic effect here are squeezed together into a single day (Kragelund 2015, Chapters 8–10). Attitudes to events are also very different and even opposed, Tacitus seemingly challenging the tradition represented by the dramatist, be it directly or at an unknown number of removes. The dramatist’s subject is very akin to that of the so-called exitus literature, also otherwise of major inspiration for Tacitus (Marx 1937). But in the drama the victim is, quite unusually, cast as the darling of the Roman people, which in nostalgic memory of its former greatness rises in revolt against the ascendancy of Poppaea and overturns her statues (one of the earliest descriptions of such spontaneous damnatio memoriae to survive). In extant imperial literature, the dramatist’s positive view of the populus Romanus is

28-04-2023 18:29:00

758

  O C TAV IA

singular (Boyle 2008, ad 882–890; Kragelund 2015, 286–287; Wiseman 2008, 204). Tacitus is, given his political views, predictably averse: there were riots and overturning of statues, but riots were with force summarily put down, such lowborn people having “little wisdom and with their modest belongings little to lose”—apart from their lives, one might add (minor sapientia ex mediocritate fortunae pauciora pericula, A. 14.60.5); in reported speech, Poppaea dismisses the rioters as “freedmen and slaves of Octavia, who paraded under the banner of the people” (clientelis et servitiis Octaviae, quae plebis sibi nomen indiderint, A. 14.61.2)—items affirming that Tacitus knew the tradition represented by the Octavia, perhaps even directly. The riots are quelled by force and the exiled Octavia sent to her island of death. Here we get a second remarkable parallel between dramatist and historian. In the tragedy’s final scene, the longest anapestic dirge in surviving ancient drama (Boyle 2008, 277–278), the people see (cernere possunt, Oct. 895) the shackled Octavia and commiserate her fate by enumerating murdered princesses: Agrippina the Elder, then three empresses, Messalina, Agrippina the Younger, and, as Octavia pointedly adds, now herself, the catalog thus beginning and concluding with an imperial exile sent to the island of death, Pandateria. Tacitus is briefer, but, notably, also has sympathetic witnesses seeing (visentium, A. 14.63.1) the exiled captive, they too drawing parallels with princesses sent to Pandateria, Agrippina the Elder and her daughter Iulia Livilla. As opposed to what is sometimes asserted, the latter is not included in the dramatist’s list (Kragelund 2015, 309), but still, this remarkably close parallel of people (1) seeing (2) an imperial exile (3) en route to Pandateria and (4) comparing with her exiled and murdered Julio-Claudian forerunners seems unlikely to be fortuitous. Then follows the death scene: the dramatist lets the chained empress embrace her death with Stoic heroism, ordering her captors to finish their job, her final curse confirming the fatal same-day parallelism of her murder and, six years later, of his suicide (Oct. 960–971; the date: Suet. Ner. 57.1). Tellingly (but unknown why), Tacitus disagrees with this tradition. His report is of pathetic

c14_Vol2.indd 758

and abject panic before death, with no trace of famous last words foreshadowing Nero’s end (as did also Agrippina’s: Oct. 371–372; cf. Suet. Ner. 40.4). One of the finest scenes in the play is the confrontation between Seneca and Nero (Oct. 376– 592). With the emperor and his advisor at loggerheads, it brilliantly emblazons the issues of clementia and consensus that to a post-Neronian audience would have glorified the stance of Seneca vis-à-vis the tyrant. It is hardly coincidental (Ker 2012, 327) that at the one point in his extant oeuvre, where Tacitus joins an emperor and his advisor in a rhetorical confrontation (A. 14.53–57), it is in the very year and with the very pair, whom the unknown dramatist decades earlier had confronted in such a memorable, dialogic tour de force. As in the dramatist (Boyle 2008 ad Oct. 435–592; Kragelund 2015, 213–236), Seneca’s oratory in Tacitus is at points a precise evocation of his actual style (Koestermann 1968 ad 14.52.2–54.3). The Octavia’s chance and frequently discarded (see e.g., Fabia 1893; Grau 2015) survival allows us to see how Tacitus’ narrative in a brief, but crucial sequel both follows, subverts, improves, and challenges an earlier and clearly influential narrative, be it at unknown removes, be it, as seems likely, at significant points directly. In the portrayal of Curiatius Maternus in the Dialogus one intuits Tacitus’ admiration for historical drama—here it stands exemplified. see also: intertextuality REFERENCES Boyle, A. J. 2008. Octavia Attributed to Seneca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fabia, P. 1893. Les sources de Tacite dans les Histoires et les Annales. Paris: Imprimerie nationale. Ferri, R. 2003. Octavia: A Play Attributed to Seneca. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flower, H. 2006. The Art of Forgetting. Disgrace & Oblivion in Roman Political Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Ginsberg, L. D. 2017. Staging Memory, Staging Strife. Empire and Civil War in the Octavia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grau, D. 2015. Néron en Occident. Une figure de l’histoire. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.

28-04-2023 18:29:00

O ctavia ( 1 )  

Ker, J. 2012. “Seneca in Tacitus.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 305–331. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Press. Koestermann, E. 1968. Cornelius Tacitus Annalen. Vol. IV. Heidelberg: C. Winter Verlag. Kragelund, P. 2015. Roman Historical Drama: The Octavia in Antiquity and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Manuwald, G. 2001. Fabulae Praetextae. Spuren einer literarischen Gattung. Munich: C.H. Beck. Marx, F. A. 1937. “Tacitus und die Literatur der exitus illustrium virorum.” Philologus 92: 83–103. Schubert, C. 1998. Studien zum Nerobild in der lateinischen Dichtung der Antike. Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner. Wilson, M. 2003. “The Importance of the Octavia.” In The Tragedy of Nero’s Wife, edited by M. Wilson. Prudentia 35.1: 1–12. Wiseman, T. P. 2004. The Myths of Rome. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Wiseman, T. P. 2008. Unwritten Rome. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. FURTHER READING Champlin, E. 2004. Nero. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Griffin, M. 2018. “Nero: From Zero to Hero.” In Politics and Philosophy at Rome. Collected Papers of Miriam T. Griffin, edited by C. Balmaceda, 296–302. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kragelund, P. 2000. “Nero’s luxuria, in Tacitus and in the Octavia.” Classical Quarterly 50: 494–515.

OCTAVIA (1) JUAN LUIS POSADAS

Centro Universitario U-TAD, Madrid, Spain TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Octavia (1) (69–11 bce), Augustus’ sister, daughter of Gaius Octavius and Atia the niece of Iulius Caesar, was born in 69 bce. In 54, she married Gaius Claudius Marcellus, twenty years older than her. Marcellus was consul in 50 bce, supported Pompey against the great-uncle of his wife, and Caesar later sent him into exile. Marcellus and Octavia had three children: Claudia Marcella the Elder born in 43, Marcus Claudius

c14_Vol2.indd 759

759

Marcellus in 42, and Claudia Marcella the Younger, born in 39 shortly after the death of her father. Pregnant with her third daughter, Octavia married Mark Antony in the fall of the year 40, thus sealing the treaty of Brundisium between the latter and Augustus. Mark Antony obtained control over the East and, during the years 39–37, Octavia lived with him in Athens. In that year, Octavia arranged the treaty of Tarentum according to which Antony agreed to withdraw his support to the Sicilian property owner Sextus Pompeius Magnus and to send Octavian a fleet of ships to help him defeat the last Pompeians. Octavia obtained extra ships and men for her brother. Mark Antony then went to the East to negotiate with the nations clients of Rome and to prepare the campaign against the Parthians. Although in the beginning, Octavia accompanied Mark Antony, on the journey over the sea she fell sick and returned to Rome. During the preparations of the campaign in the East, Mark Antony encountered Cleopatra VII, mother of Caesar’s son and ally of Rome, in Antioch. Octavia kept supporting her husband regardless, and in 35 persuaded her brother Octavian to send additional troops and equipment to him. However, Octavia, following the bad news that Octavian had agreed only to send a small part of the requested troops, was unable to go further than Athens, because Antony sent her a message not to come to Egypt. It seems that Cleopatra herself did not want for her rival to live in Alexandria. Sad and rejected, Octavia returned to Rome but refused to divorce Antony. At this time, Octavia is accorded, along with Livia Augusta, the status of tribunica sanctissima, that is, inviolable under the protection of the Roman state, and fully emancipated as far as her house and wealth were concerned. In this way, Octavian wanted to protect his sister from any offense incurred by Antony and certainly also set the ground for a future casus belli for the war against him. Meanwhile, Octavia continued to be the legal spouse of Antony, caring for her children: the two Marcellas and Marcellus, and the two Antonias, her daughters by Antony. She was the living symbol of the treaty of Brundisium, and therefore an ephemeral peace was established between the two powerful men. The peace lasted

28-04-2023 18:29:00

760

  O ctavia ( 2 )

until Antony, with an act as absurd as it was unnecessary, divorced Octavia and married Cleopatra. The war was ready. Octavian declared war only against Cleopatra, although it was clear that Antony supported his lover. After the battle of Actium in 31, the two male sons of Cleopatra, Caesarion from Caesar and Alexander Helios from Antony, were executed at the order of Octavian. As for the other sons of Antony, Iullus Antonius, born from his first marriage with Fulvia, and Cleopatra Selene, they moved into the house of Octavia and her other children. Octavia arranged excellent marriages for all her children and those of Antony. Marcella the Elder married Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in 28 bce. Marcella the Younger married Marcus Valerius Messalla Barbatus Appianus, consul 12 bce. Antonia the Elder married Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (2). Antonia the Younger married the second son of Livia, Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus, consul 9 bce). Octavia’s older son, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, considered as a possible successor of Augustus, married Julia the Elder, daughter of Augustus. However, two years later, Marcellus died. Octavia never recovered from the loss. In 20 bce, Augustus fell ill, and Octavia convinced him to betroth his daughter Julia to the only man that could guarantee the imperial succession in Rome: Vipsanius Agrippa. Shortly after, in the year 11, Octavia died at the peak of her popularity. Her funerals, with all the honors of an official act of the state, were presided by her brother Augustus and her son-in-law Nero Claudius Drusus, and both delivered their eulogies. In her honor, Augustus built the portico of Octavia and the library with the same name. In Tacitus, Octavia only appears as a reference for her descendants. see also: civil wars of the Late Republic; JulioClaudian dynasty; women Reference work: PIR2 O 66 FURTHER READING Posadas, Juan Luis. 2008. Emperatrices y princesas de Roma. Madrid: Raíces.

c14_Vol2.indd 760

Winkes, Rolf. 1995. Livia, Octavia, Julia, Portraits und Darstellungen. Lovaina: Université de Louvain.

OCTAVIA (2) CAITLIN GILLESPIE

Brandeis University

Claudia Octavia (2) (c. 40 ce–62 ce) was the daughter of the emperor Claudius and Messalina, and elder sister of Britannicus. She enters Tacitus’ narrative during the fall of Messalina in 48 ce, as her mother frantically tries to see Claudius and convince him to forgive her crimes by reminding him of their children (A. 11.32.2, 11.34.1). After Messalina’s death, the freedmen looking for a new wife for Claudius warn him not to marry someone who will treat his children with the hatred typical of stepmothers (A. 12.2.1). After Claudius’ marriage to Agrippina the Younger in 49 ce, Octavia becomes a pawn in the game of imperial succession and one of its victims. Agrippina contrives an engagement between her son Nero and Octavia, which requires breaking the bond between Octavia and Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1) (A. 12.3.2). Octavia was betrothed as a child to Silanus (Suet. Claud. 27.2, Cass. Dio 60.5.7), but Claudius severs ties after Silanus is accused of incest with his sister (A. 12.4.3). Silanus commits suicide on the day of Agrippina’s wedding to Claudius (A. 12.8.1). Octavia’s engagement to Nero is confirmed with the help of the consul-elect Mammius Pollio (A. 12.9.1–2), and she is joined to Nero in 53 ce (A. 12.58.1, Suet. Ner. 7.2). The marriage is not a happy one, nor productive of heirs. Octavia’s fortunes change during Nero’s reign. Octavia seems repulsive to Nero, despite her nobility and proven modesty (nobili quidem et probitatis spectatae, A. 13.12.1), and Nero finds another partner in the freedwoman Claudia Acte. When Britannicus is poisoned at the dinner table, Octavia and Agrippina remain mute, recognizing the precedent of family murder (A. 13.16.4). Agrippina then aligns her interests with Octavia (A. 13.18.2, 13.19.3). Nero replaces Acte with the noblewoman Poppaea Sabina the Younger, whose shameless affair with Nero is heralded as, “the beginning of great calamities for the state”

28-04-2023 18:29:00

O ctavius S agitta  

(magnorum rei publicae malorum initium, A. 13.45.1). In the Annals, Otho introduces Poppaea, his wife, to the emperor (A. 13.46.1–3); in the Histories, Nero gave Poppaea to Otho until he could get rid of Octavia (H. 1.13.3). Poppaea realizes Agrippina must die before she can convince Nero to divorce Octavia and marry her (A. 14.1.1). Annals 14 opens with the death sequence of Agrippina (A. 14.1–12) and closes with the downfall of Octavia (A. 14.59–63). Poppaea is responsible for Octavia’s tragic end (Suet. Ner. 35.3; Cass. Dio 62.13.1). She convinces Nero to divorce Octavia, casting her out on a charge of barrenness (A. 14.59.3–60.1). Poppaea encourages one of Octavia’s attendants to accuse her of adultery with the Alexandrian flute-player Eucaerus; the slavewomen are tortured by Ofonius Tigellinus for evidence, but the majority protect Octavia (A. 14.60.3). Octavia is sent to Campania under military guard but recalled at the protestations of the populace (A. 14.60.5). The populace celebrates Octavia’s return, casting statues of Poppaea to the ground and replacing them with Octavia’s image (A. 14.61.1). After Poppaea suggests that Octavia is capable of rousing civil conflict, Nero bribes Anicetus (1) to admit to a charge of adultery (A. 14.61.2–63.4; Suet. Ner. 35.2). Octavia is exiled to Pandateria (A. 14.63.1). Her departure arouses pity from the crowd: Octavia’s wedding day was tantamount to a funeral (A. 14.63.3), and she suffered the worst charge possible for a woman of upstanding morality (A. 14.63.3). The tragic overtones of her departure are reminiscent of Sophocles’ Antigone (Keitel 2010, 131– 132). Her entire downfall is the subject of the pseudo-Senecan Octavia. After the orders come to die, Octavia speaks her only words in Tacitus’ text, defending herself and invoking her ancestry (A. 14.64.1). Her veins are opened, but when she bleeds too slowly, she is suffocated. One final act of brutality: her severed head is brought to Rome for Poppaea to view (A. 14.64.2). see also: Julio-Claudian dynasty; Octavia Reference work: PIR2 C 1110 REFERENCE Keitel, Elizabeth E. 2010. “‘Is Dying so Very Terrible?’ The Neronian Annals.” In The Cambridge

c14_Vol2.indd 761

761

Companion to Tacitus, edited by Anthony J. Woodman, 127–144. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Ferri, Rolando. 2003. Octavia: A Play Attributed to Seneca. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gillespie, Caitlin. 2019. “Class and Gender in the Opposition to Nero.” Helios 45.2: 141–161. DOI: 10.1353/hel.2019.0008. Ginsberg, Lauren Donovan. 2017. Staging Memory, Staging Strife: Empire and Civil War in the Octavia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tresch, Jolanda. 1965. Die Nerobücher in den Annalen des Tacitus: Tradition und Leistung. Heidelberg: Winter. Wood, Susan E. 1999. Imperial Women: A Study of Public Images, 40 bc–ad 68. Leiden: Brill.

OCTAVIUS, see AUGUSTUS OCTAVIUS FRONTO, see HATERIUS, QUINTUS

OCTAVIUS SAGITTA DANIELLE CHAGAS DE LIMA

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Octavius Sagitta was a tribune of plebs (58 ce) who murdered his lover Pontia Postumia. For this reason, he was banished from Rome. In 58 ce Octavius Sagitta was punished by the lex Cornelia because he was found guilty of the murder of Pontia Postumia (A. 13.44.5). Sagitta had a love affair with this married woman, and he tried to buy her love with gifts as he was in love with her. Pontia promised Octavius that she would leave her husband to marry him; but when she was free, she changed her mind, hoping to find a better marriage (A. 13.44.1). When Octavius Sagitta found out about her decision, he became furious, blaming her for ruining his life and saying he had lost his money and his honor because of her. Then, in a moment of despair, Sagitta begged Pontia for one last night together. When they met, Pontia was with a slave girl, waiting for Octavius. He came to the room with a dagger, which he used to stab his beloved to death, wounding also

28-04-2023 18:29:00

762

  O fonius T igellinus

her slave girl. Although everybody knew who perpetrated the murder, Sagitta’s freedman assumed responsibility. When the slave girl healed, she told the truth about the murder (A. 13.44.2–4; H. 4.44.2). After finishing his office, Octavius Sagitta was prosecuted and condemned with banishment. Later, in 70 ce he returned to Rome, but the Senate convicted him of his former sentence, and he was banished once again by Nero (H. 4.44.3). The poet Lucan would have written a speech about Octavius Sagitta, as set out in Vacca’s Vita Lucani, but they are usually assumed to be declamation pieces. see also: adultery; Lucan; marriage Reference works: PIR2 O 57; P 834; RE XVII.2 (1937), 1852 84 FURTHER READING Baldwin, Barry. 1999. “One for Falco: The Tribune and His Lady.” Acta Classica: Proceedings of the Classical Association of South Africa 42: 15–22. Tesoriero, Charles, Frances Muecke, and Tamara Neal, eds. 2010. Lucan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ODRUSAE, see THRACE OEENSES, see AFRICA

OFONIUS TIGELLINUS DONNA W. HURLEY

New York New York

Ofonius Tigellinus (d. 69 ce) was born into an insignificant family but rose to become praetorian prefect under Nero and allegedly Nero’s chief advisor and assistant. Literary sources portray him without exception as morally corrupt throughout his life, greedy and debauched and Nero’s tutor in prodigality. The father of Ofonius Tigellinus came from Agrigentum in Sicily and was relegated to southern Italy (H. 1.72). Despite this unpromising background Tigellinus was able to make himself a familiar in the households of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (2), the first husband of Agrippina

c14_Vol2.indd 762

the Younger, and of Marcus Vinicius, the husband of her sister Iulia Livilla, both women the sisters of the emperor Gaius (Caligula). Tigellinus was accused of having sexual relations with both men and of committing adultery with both of their wives. Skepticism is permitted since the ancient scholia on Juvenal are the source of most of the information about Tigellinus’ early life. They also name him a prostitute, adulterer, forger, and poisoner (Scholia in Iuvenalem vetustiora 1.155). This was the role that he was assigned in the Nero narrative, totally deserved or not (Roper 1979). Tigellinus was exiled for adultery with Agrippina in 39 ce (Cass. Dio 59.23.9; Griffin 1984, 103–104). The emperor Claudius allowed him to return—provided he stay out of sight. Tigellinus was somehow able to acquire property in Apulia and Calabria where he raised racehorses and may have become acquainted with a very young Nero. He had presumably achieved equestrian status by the time he was appointed master of the night watch (praefectus vigilium) early in Nero’s reign (Roper 1979, 348). When the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus died in 62 ce, Nero replaced him with Tigellinus. He shared the prefecture with Faenius Rufus, who was popular with the citizenry because of his fair dealing. According to Tacitus, Nero appointed Tigellinus because he shared his immoral character and served as his tutor in villainy (A. 14.51.2–3). The position gave Tigellinus a great deal of power. It became necessary to write him into wills in order for them to be valid, and he took bribes to spare lives. He helped his son-in-law recover the senatorial rank that he had lost. He maneuvered to diminish the influence of his co-prefect Faenius (A. 14.48, 57.1) and was a party to the denunciation of Nero’s wife Octavia (2) and her replacement with Poppaea Sabina the Younger. It was said of Octavia that “her female parts were more chaste than Tigellinus’ mouth” (A. 14.60.3; Cass. Dio 62.13.4). Tigellinus is credited with feeding Nero’s addiction to luxury by arranging an outsized banquet for him in 64 ce, an entertainment more extravagant even than banquets that Nero engineered for himself. It took place on a flooded area in the city. Guests moved about on barges of gold and ivory,

28-04-2023 18:29:00

O psius  

and alcoves on the shore were arranged for sexual play (A.15.37; Cass. Dio 62.15.2–6). A second outbreak of the devastating Fire of 64 ce originated on property owned by Tigellinus, and this supported the rumor that the fire itself was Nero’s idea (A. 15.40.2). The following year a plot against Nero’s life (the Pisonian Conspiracy) was discovered with Faenius Rufus among those taking part. Faenius was replaced by Nymphidius Sabinus. Tigellinus not only remained loyal to Nero but helped punish the alleged perpetrators. The notorious torture of the resisting freedwoman Epicharis is referred to him (A. 15.57.1– 2; Cass. Dio 62.27.3). Nero rewarded him with honors that included his triumphal image in the forum and another statue on the Palatine (A. 15.72.1). Tigellinus and Poppaea became the emperor’s closest confederates (A. 15.61.2). When Nero left Rome on his artistic tour of Greece in 66 ce, it was Tigellinus who commanded the segment of the guard that accompanied him. On this excursion Nero married the boy Sporus; the task of giving the bride away fell to Tigellinus (Cass. Dio 62.13.1). The inference is that he and Nero were partners, even in the most outrageous behaviors. Nymphidius, who had remained in Rome with the bulk of the praetorians, was in the better position to control events when Nero’s fortunes began to fall apart. He turned the guard’s loyalty from Nero to Galba, whose legions were approaching from Spain. Tigellinus followed his lead, but his influence was decreased, and Nymphidius asked him to “lay down his sword,” that is, to resign (Plut. Gal. 2.1–2, 8.2). With Nero gone, the memory of Tigellinus’ nasty career put him in danger. He tried to protect himself in the turbulent period that followed by bribing Titus Vinius, a member of Galba’s party who became consul briefly in the first days of 68 ce (Plut. Gal. 17.2). This was successful for a time. Tigellinus was reported to be terminally ill, and this may also have provided protection. But he mocked the mercy that was extended to him by holding an elaborate celebratory party and rewarding Vinius even more generously (Plut. Gal. 17.4–5). The end came in 69 ce under Otho. Tigellinus received word at his country estate that he was to come to Rome, a command that was a death sentence. After trying unsuccessfully to bribe the

c14_Vol2.indd 763

763

messenger to let him escape by sea, he cut his throat with a razor. He died surrounded by prostitutes and with a body riddled with disease, details appropriate for a figure accused of venality and debauchery from beginning to end (Plut. Oth. 2). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; morality; praetorian cohorts; sexual deviance; suicide Reference work: PIR2 O 91 REFERENCES Griffin, Miriam T. 1984. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Roper, Theresa K. 1979. “Nero, Seneca and Tigellinus.” Historia 28: 346–357. Wessner, Paul, ed. 1931. Scholia in Iuvenalem vetustiora collegit. Leipzig: Teubner. FURTHER READING Elsner, Jas, and Jamie Masters, eds. 1994. “Introduction.” In Reflections of Nero: Culture, History, and Representation, 1–8. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press. Kleijwegt, Marc. 2000. “Nero’s Helpers: The Role of the Neronian Courtier in Tacitus’ ‘Annals.’” Classical Ireland 7: 72–98. Malfugeon, Magali. 2008. “Les impératrices et les préfets du prétoire: un partage du pouvoir?” Latomus 7: 399–413.

OLENNIUS, see FRESII OLLIUS, TITUS, see POPPAEA SABINA THE ELDER OMENS, see PORTENTS ONOMASTUS, see ASTROLOGY OPITERGUM, see AQUILEIA OPPIUS, GAIUS, see CORNELIUS BALBUS

OPSIUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Marcus Opsius was a former praetor in the year 28 ce and one of the prosecutors of Titius Sabinus. His name appears at A. 4.68.2 and A. 4.71.1. Opsius, together with former praetors Latiaris, Porcius Cato, and Petilius Rufus, men whose

28-04-2023 18:29:00

764

  oracles

only access to the consulship was through the favor of Sejanus, prosecuted the equestrian Titius Sabinus because of his friendship with Germanicus and his kindness toward Agrippina the Elder and her children after Germanicus’ death. To gather evidence against their victim, the prosecutors agreed that Latiaris should lure Sabinus into an incriminating conversation. Having gained Sabinus’ confidence, Latiaris brought him to a private room, above which the other prosecutors hid in the space between the roof and ceiling. Tacitus soundly scorns such eavesdropping as beneath the dignity of Roman nobility (A. 4.68). Based on the evidence provided by the four prosecutors, Tiberius condemned Sabinus without a trial to summary execution. Tacitus alludes to the deaths of Opsius and his fellow prosecutors, some under Tiberius, others under Caligula (A. 4.71.1). They must have been noteworthy to warrant the historian’s notice out of chronological order. The deaths of Opsius, Porcius Cato, and Petilius Rufus would have been related in the now missing books of the Annals. A Marcus Opsius Naevius Fanninus recorded in an inscription from Naples (IG 14.719) was a member of the decimviri, a tribune of the soldiers in Macedonia, an acting quaestor in Bithynia Pontus, and held the offices of aedile, prefect of the grain, and praetor; however, it is unlikely that he is the same Opsius as mentioned by Tacitus. see also: delators Reference work: PIR2 O 126 FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge.

ORACLES PAULINE RIPAT

University of Winnipeg

Oracles were communications from the gods. They differ from other divine messages such as portents and omens in that an oracle was

c14_Vol2.indd 764

generally understood as a divine response to a question posed or implied by a suppliant. People in the Roman world had many means of soliciting information from a deity, but responses gained from the fixed oracle sites of the eastern empire had enduring popular authority in the Roman world (for Tacitean descriptions of eastern oracle sites, see, e.g., A. 2.54, cf. 12.22; H. 2.2– 4, 2.78, 4.83, 5.3; for Germanic oracular practice, see G. 10.1). Responses from these ancient sites were often purported to be the reason for a city’s foundation (see, e.g., A. 12.63 on Pythian Apollo’s role in the foundation of Byzantium). Although the Roman Senate adjudicated the validity of distant communities’ claims to maintain ritual space based on alleged ancient oracular advice (A. 3.63), it seems it was the alleged nature of the consultation that brought doubt, not the authority of the oracles. Tacitus, although scornful of popular lack of discernment when it came to the identification of portents, was willing to repeat popular convictions about oracular responses. Germanicus, for example, was said to have been warned of his early death when he visited the oracle of Clarian Apollo in Asia Minor, but misunderstood the response’s import because the language was insufficiently clear (A. 2.54; cf. D. 12.2, where poetry is said to be the original oracular language). Tacitus leaves no doubt of the support to be gained by the circulation of the favorable oracle delivered to Vespasian by the priest Basilides (2) at Mount Carmel (H. 2.78, see Sarapis; cf. Titus’ inquiry of Paphian Venus in Cyprus, H. 2.4, see Paphian Venus, Temple). An individual’s solicitation of divine advice through oracles is in its purpose akin to the use of astrology in Tacitus’ works. This comparison is made explicit through his description of Tiberius’ acceptance of Thrasyllus’ advice as though it were oracular (A. 6.21) and Agrippina the Younger’s accusation of Lollia Paulina on the charges of consulting astrologers and the image of Clarian Apollo about Claudius’ marriage (A. 12.22). Yet Tacitus’ criticism of the purveyors of astrology as “untrustworthy to the powerful and false to the hopeful” (H. 1.22) is not cast upon the ritual specialists who channeled or interpreted oracular responses. Nonetheless, the report of positive oracular predictions in concert with other positive omens (H. 2.78, cf. 1.10 and 2.1; Morgan

28-04-2023 18:29:00

O stia  

765

1996) suggests that even oracular responses delivered to ambitious men were best corroborated by other divine signs.

grandson, who fled to Greece after Otho’s defeat, but the reading of the gens name is far from being certain (Kent 1966, n. 196, 87–88).

see also: religion

Reference work: PIR2 O 136

REFERENCE

REFERENCES

Morgan, M. G. 1996. “Vespasian and the Omens in Tacitus Histories 2.78.” Phoenix 50.1: 41–55.

Bugh, G. R. 1979. “An Emendation to the Prosopography of Roman Corinth.” Hesperia 48: 45–53. Kent, J. H. 1966. Corinth, Vol. 8, No. 3, The Inscriptions, 1926–1950. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

FURTHER READING Potter, D. 1994. Prophets and Emperors: Human and Divine Authority from Augustus to Theodosius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

FURTHER READING

ORCADES, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI ORDOVICES, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI

Morgan, G. 2006. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ORFIDIUS BENIGNUS

ORODES, see ARSACID DYNASTY ORONOSPADES, see PARTHIA OSI, see GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE NORTHEAST OSIRIS, see SARAPIS

LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of  Durham

Orfidius Benignus was a Roman commander during the civil wars of 69 ce. He was the legate of legion I Adiutrix, a unit recruited by Galba among the sailors of the Misenian fleet in 68 ce. The legion took part to the first battle of Bedriacum and fought on Otho’s side. That was its first combat. It faced by chance, as Tacitus says, between the river Padus and the main road, the much more experienced and famous legion XXI Rapax fighting for Vitellius. Eager to gain their first glory the soldiers of the Adiutrix crushed their opponents managing to take their eagle. The ferocious counterattack of the German veterans, who were driven by anger and shame for the lost standard, broke the enemy line. The legate Orfidius Benignus fell in battle and the Adiutrix lost several signa and vexilla (H. 2.43: Plut. Otho. 12.3–4). After the battle and the successful negotiations for a truce, Benignus’ body was found on the battlefield and cremated with the usual honors (H. 2.45). According to J. Kent, G. O[rfidius] Benignus Iuventianus, son of Gaius, priest of Jupiter Capitolinus at Corinth was his adopted son or

c14_Vol2.indd 765

OSTIA ROSEMARY MOORE

University of Iowa

Ostia (modern Ostia Antica) was an Italian port city located at the mouth of the Tiber River, approximately 16 miles from Rome. It was Rome’s major port, although due to the size and shallowness of its harbor it was insufficient to support the amount of goods, particularly grain, that Rome imported as it grew. For this reason, Rome also relied on Puteoli, near Misenum, to import goods that were transported over land to Rome. Beginning in 46 ce, Claudius established, and Trajan later improved and expanded, the artificial harbor and transportation center Portus, about 2 miles north of Ostia. Ostia itself is notable for its infrastructure, especially its warehouses and administrative buildings, which provide ample evidence for the organization of trade as well as of everyday life in the imperial period. The importance of Ostia to

28-04-2023 18:29:00

766

  O storius S a b inus

Rome’s grain supply is demonstrated by the praefectus annonae, the overseer of the Roman grain supply, having his headquarters there from Augustus’ reign onward. The earliest construction suggests a defensive purpose; this continued over time. From the Punic Wars onwards a quaestor classicus oversaw a small naval detachment to ensure security for shipping, and during the reign of Claudius a fifth cohort of the urbanae cohorts was stationed there; the original three were based at Rome (H. 1.80, H. 2.63), and a fourth at Lugdunum (H. 1.64.2). Travelers to Rome often sailed to Ostia and then continued to Rome on the via Ostiensis. Clemens, the slave of Agrippa Postumus who first plotted to transport him to Germania and then disguised himself as Postumus, sailed to Ostia (A. 2.40), where he was greeted by enthusiastic crowds. Tiberius, responsible for Postumus’ death, initially tolerated Clemens’ presence but secretly had him executed to prevent a potential challenge to his rule. It was during one of Claudius’ many visits to Ostia, presumably to conduct a sacrifice, that Messalina married Gaius Silius at Rome in 48 ce (A. 11.26). During this prolonged visit (A. 11.29), Callistus and Narcissus schemed to inform Claudius of her adultery, and her imminent downfall was indicated by a casual remark that later seemed prophetic: “a terrible storm from Ostia” (tempestatem ab Ostia atrocem, A. 11.31). After Messalina learned that Claudius knew of her adultery, she met him on the via Ostiensis to beg him for forgiveness (A. 11.32) with no success. After the great Fire of 64 ce, Nero increased the amount of grain at Rome by importing it not only from Ostia but from surrounding communities (A. 15.39). The marshy area around Ostia was used as a dumping ground for rubbish removed from fire-damaged buildings by the small ships used to transport grain to Rome from Ostia. Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (2), a descendant of Augustus, and his uncle, Gaius Cassius Longinus, were accused by Nero of treason out of jealousy (A. 16.7). Both were descendants of Augustus. Both were exiled; Silanus was imprisoned at Ostia prior to being sent to Barium, where a centurion killed him on orders (A. 16.9–10).

c14_Vol2.indd 766

see also: Campania; economy; Roman roads Reference work: Barrington 43 B2 FURTHER READING Furneaux, Henry. 1896. The Annals of Tacitus. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weidemann, T. E. J. 1996. “From Nero to Vespasian.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume X: The Augustan Empire, 43 bc–ad 69, edited by Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

OSTORIUS SABINUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Ostorius Sabinus was an equestrian and the prosecutor of Barea Soranus and his daughter, Servilia in 66 ce. He was handsomely rewarded for his prosecution and likely remained in the Senate into Vespasian’s reign. Little is known of Ostorius Sabinus beyond that he was of equestrian status and one of the accusers of Barea Soranus in 66 ce; Soranus stood accused of fomenting rebellion in the province of Asia with the help of Rubellius Plautus, with whom he had ties of friendship (A. 16.23.1, 16.30–31). Sabinus was probably a young man when he conducted the prosecution (which took place at the same time Eprius Marcellus and Cossutianus Capito were prosecuting their equally notorious case against Thraesea Paetus and his circle)—or a young man who had yet to make a name for himself—for he was honored with the quaestoria insignia (which would put him in his mid-twenties, if we suppose that he was following a normal career path), and awarded 1.2 million sesterces for his efforts (A. 16.33.4). In the course of prosecuting the case against Soranus, Sabinus exhibited one of the most shocking and vindictive instances of court room behavior in all of Tacitus: he relentlessly and mercilessly interrogated Servilia, Soranus’ young daughter (who was not yet twenty), about her consultation of magicians, reducing her to a sobbing heap on the floor of the Senate; while she

28-04-2023 18:29:00

O storius S capula , P u b lius  

admitted the charge, she further insisted that she merely was consulting about the outcome of her father’s case. In a further stunning instance of bad faith, he produced as witness against Servilia, a client of her father’s, Publius Egnatius Celer, who had entrapped Servilia by advising her to consult magicians in the first place (she had apparently sold a necklace in order to compensate the magicians). Servilia and her father were ultimately condemned and executed. We hear nothing more of Sabinus after this case, but it is more than likely that he survived Nero and remained in the Senate, since Helvidius Priscus, in the bitter debates of 70 following Nero’s death,  stated that if the accusers of Thrasea Paetus, Barea Soranus, and Sentius were not to be punished, they at least ought not to be paraded before Vespasian (H. 4.7.2). see also: delators; magic Reference works: PIR2 O 110; RE 182 1670 = Ostorius 2 (Stein) FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 119–121, 251, 296–297.

OSTORIUS SCAPULA, MARCUS SALVADOR BARTERA

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Marcus Ostorius Scapula was the son of Publius Ostorius Scapula, governor of Britain in 47–52 ce (A. 12.31.1–40.1, Ag. 14.1; Birley 2005). Marcus Ostorius perhaps became imperial legate (legatus Augusti pro praetore Galatiae) under Nero and was suffect consul in 59. Along with Gaius Cassius Longinus (2) and Lucius Antistius Vetus, he is the third important man of consular rank to be targeted by Nero between the end of the Pisonian Conspiracy and the fall of Thrasea Paetus. Scapula was killed in 66 ce, following the machinations of the famous informer Antistius

c14_Vol2.indd 767

767

Sosianus, who, while in exile, had won over the astrologer Pammenes, also in exile (A. 16.14–15). Sosianus had learned that Publius Anteius Rufus was supplying Pammenes with money and had intercepted a letter from Anteius to Pammenes in which the former inquired about his horoscope from the latter. At the same time, Sosianus also discovered Ostorius Scapula’s horoscope. Both Anteius and Scapula were denounced to Nero, who quickly sentenced them to death. Scapula was killed on his estate in Liguria. If, as some argue, Marcus Ostorius, suffect consul in 97 or 98 and proconsul of Asia in 113–114, was Scapula’s son, Tacitus, who was suffect consul in the autumn of 97, must have certainly known him. It was at Ostorius Scapula’s party that Antistius Sosianus, then praetor (A. 14.48: 62 ce), had recited scurrilous verses against Nero. When Sosianus was accused of treason, Scapula protected him. see also: astrology; Britannia; Cornelius Tacitus; delators Reference works: RE 18.1670 = ‘Ostorius’ 3 (Hoffmann); PIR2 O 162; BNP 10.282 ‘Ostorius’ [2]; CIL 6.2042 REFERENCE Birley, Anthony Richard. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Cramer, Frederick H. 1954. Astrology in Roman Law and Politics. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge.

OSTORIUS SCAPULA, PUBLIUS KYLE KHELLAF

University of California, Riverside

Publius Ostorius Scapula (died c. 52 ce) was a Roman suffect consul under the emperor Claudius (before 47 ce). Later in Claudius’ reign,

28-04-2023 18:29:00

768

  O tho

Scapula served as provincial governor of Britannia (47–52 ce). He was probably the son of either Publius Ostorius Scapula, who served as prefect of Egypt (in office c. 3–10 ce, Christol and Demougin 1984, 171–178; Hanson 1997; see PMich. inv. 1440  =  SB 16.12713  =  TM 14651 and PSI 10.1149  =  SB 16.12531; cf. Hanson 1984), or Quintus Ostorius Scapula, one of the earliest praetorian prefects (appointed in 2 bce; Cass. Dio 55.10.10). He was also the father of Marcus Ostorius Scapula. The family rose to prominence as part of the new Augustan aristocracy, owing to connections with the Sallustii Crispi (one of the Publii married Sallustia Calvina, the daughter of Sallustius Crispus; see Hanson 1982, 246–247; Syme 1968, 79). Although best known for his campaigns against the Silures and other Britons in the Annals, Scapula first appears in the Agricola during the ethnohistoric digression on Britain (Ag. 10–17). There, he is mentioned along with Aulus Plautius as one of its first provincial governors following the invasion by Claudius. Tacitus remarks that both men were distinguished commanders, who slowly subjugated the southern part of Britain into a Roman provincial territory and established a colony of veterans there (14.1), generally inferred to be Camulodunum, or present-day Colchester (A. 12.32.2). In the Annals, Tacitus recounts at length the campaigns Scapula waged in Britain against the Silures, the Iceni, the Deceangi, and feuding groups from among the Brigantes and Ordovices (A. 12.31–40). After quelling several minor rebellions among these peoples (A. 12.31–2), Scapula marches against the Silures and their leader Caratacus, defeating the latter’s armies decisively in a formal military engagement (A. 12.33– 5). This in turn leads to the capture of Caratacus’ family and eventually Caratacus himself. Subsequently, Scapula is awarded “the ornaments of a triumph” (triumphi insignia, A. 12.38.2). Although not a formal triumph, this was nevertheless a significant honor (cf. Ag. 40.1), since triumphs were awarded only to members of the imperial family after that of Cornelius Balbus in 19 bce. Indeed, a dedicatory inscription from Claudius’ triumphal arch above the Via Lata (now in the Capitoline Museums) credits the emperor,

c14_Vol2.indd 768

under whose auspices Scapula fought, with victory over Britain and its kings (CIL VI 920, ILS 216). Tacitus’ account of the events in Britain concludes with Scapula again waging campaigns in the province following another uprising by the Silures (A. 12.38.2–3). After an open battle resulting in the flight of the Silures, Roman tactics shift to less organized skirmishes and raids (A. 12.39.1– 2). Here, Tacitus notes, “Ostorius departed from life, tired from the weariness of his administrative troubles” (A. 12.39.3). His death certainly encouraged the enemy, who had come to see him as “a general not to be viewed lightly.” Reference work: PIR2 O 164 REFERENCES Christol, M., and S. Demougin. 1984. “Notes de prosopographie équestre.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 57: 163–178. Hanson, Ann Ellis. 1982. “Publius Ostorius Scapula: Augustan Prefect of Egypt.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 47: 243–253. Hanson, Ann Ellis. 1984. “The Archive of Isidoros of Psophthis and P. Ostorius Scapula, Praefectus Aegypti.” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 21: 77–87. Hanson, Ann Ellis. 1997. “Isidoros of Psophthis, Augustan Cultivator: An Update.” In Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses: Berlin, 13.-19. 8. 1995. 2 vols., edited by Bärbel Kramer, 413–429. Stuttgart: Teubner. Syme, Ronald. 1968. “The Ummidii.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 17: 72–105. FURTHER READING Birley, Anthony R. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

OTHO MARSHALL C. BUCHANAN

University of Michigan

Of the year 69’s four emperors, Marcus Salvius Otho (32–69 ce) reigned the shortest time, from his predecessor’s, Galba’s, assassination on 15

28-04-2023 18:29:00

O tho  

January to his own suicide, at Brixellum, on the morning of 16 April. He was also the youngest, born 28 April 32 ce (Suet. Otho 2; cf. Plut. Otho 18, 31 ce). Suetonius, our main source on his origins, traces his family to Etruscan nobility in Ferentinum. His grandfather, a praetor, was his first senatorial ancestor (H. 2.50; Suet. Otho 1), under the patronage of the empress Livia Augusta (Suet. Otho 1). His father, Lucius Salvius Otho, was suffect consul in 33 ce (in whose first half Galba was consul ordinarius, A. 6.15) and was later adlected to patrician status by the emperor Claudius. His mother, Albia Terentia, was from a distinguished equestrian family. He had an older brother, Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus, powerful later in his administration. Otho’s only prior office appears to have been quaestor (Suet. Otho 3). He was also adlected among the twelve members of the priestly college, the Arval Brethren, in 57 ce, by Nero. Most unusually for a mere former quaestor, who would have minimal administrative experience, he governed Lusitania from late 58 as a legatus Augusti pro praetore. His occupancy of this position resulted from a scandal involving Nero and Poppaea Sabina the Younger, wife of the former praetorian prefect Rufrius Crispinus. The surviving accounts are those of Plutarch (Galb. 19.2–20.1), Suetonius (Otho 3), and Tacitus (H.1.13 and A. 13.45–46), which may be based on the lost accounts of Pliny the Elder, Cluvius Rufus, and Fabius Rusticus (see also sources). No two versions agree even on major points. What is clear is that Poppaea was seduced from her husband by either Otho or Nero, that Nero grew possessive of her and suspicious of Otho, and that Otho was removed from Rome to the aforementioned governorship of Lusitania. Tacitus’ two accounts of the scandal are contradictory. In the two-sentence version at Histories 1.13, Nero seduces Poppaea, then deposits her with Otho, apparently without marriage, until Nero’s wife, Octavia (2), should be disposed of. In the two-chapter account at Annals 13.45–46, Otho, apparently of himself, seduces and marries Poppaea. He may, says Tacitus, have considered sharing her with Nero to strengthen his position at court, but anyhow his amorous jactations

c14_Vol2.indd 769

769

arouse Nero’s jealousy. Poppaea encourages their rivalry, nettling Nero not about Octavia, but about his wealthy freedwoman mistress Acte, until Nero dismisses Otho to the governorship of Lusitania. Henceforward Poppaea redirects her insinuations against Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger (A. 14.1). Otho’s nearly ten-year governorship of Lusitania, the surviving accounts agree, was honest, restrained, and industrious (Plut. Galb. 20.1; Suet. Otho 3.2; H. 1.13.4, A. 13.46.3). When after Nero’s suicide the elderly Galba, governor of neighboring Hispania, received imperial honors, in June 68, Otho was the first to declare in his favor (Plut. Galb. 20.3–4; Suet. Otho 4.1; H. 1.13). He accompanied Galba to Rome, sharing his carriage, and befriended Galba’s lieutenants, chiefly Titus Vinius, a legionary legate in Hispania Terraconensis and the consul ordinarius for 69. Vinius then agitated in favor of Galba’s adopting Otho as his successor. Meanwhile, Otho cultivated his popularity among the soldiers and the praetorians through blandishment and bribery (Plut. Galb. 20.3; Suet. Otho 4–5; H. 1.23). But Galba, fearful at word of Vitellius’ revolt in Lower Germany, adopted Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus on 10 January, to the astonishment of all and to the especial dismay of Otho. Within five days, Otho decided to revolt and hatched a plan, executed on 15 January: having bribed the Praetorian Guard to declare him emperor, he lured Galba and Piso out of the Palatium and into the Forum, where Galba was murdered, then Piso was murdered nearby. Tacitus reports that the Senate conferred imperial honors upon Otho that very day (H. 1.47); the Acta Fratrum Arvalium indicate that the conferrals were belated and gradual. Otho’s acclamation was widely accepted, including by the future emperor Vespasian, in Iudaea; by Licinius Mucianus, in Syria; and by the Pannonian, Dalmatian, and Moesian legions (H. 1.76). On the other hand, Germany, Gaul, and Britain followed Vitellius. Otho ingratiated himself with the Senate with only minor changes to the consuls in the year’s first half while retaining Nero’s and Galba’s arrangement for the year’s remainder, and otherwise bestowing honors widely (H. 1.77). Further to secure the soldiery,

28-04-2023 18:29:00

770

  O tho

with whom he was already popular, he styled himself after Nero, permitting himself to be addressed “Nero Otho” (H. 1.78), though the only numismatic nomenclature is IMP M OTHO CAESAR AVG TR P. One lasting policy he enacted was using the imperial purse to fund soldiers’ vacationes munerum, for which previously the soldiers themselves would pay through plunder and crime (H. 1.46). With promises of pardon and luxury Otho sought to conciliate Vitellius; Vitellius made similar promises in return (Plut. Otho 4.2–3; H. 1.74–75) while his generals, Fabius Valens and Caecina Alienus, advanced swiftly upon the Alps, bottling Otho’s forces south of the Po River. With the fleet under a freedman Moschus (otherwise unknown, H. 1.87), Otho dispatched a diversionary force to Narbonese Gaul and sent his main forces to Bedriacum under Suetonius Paulinus, Annius Gallus, and Marius Celsus. Leaving his brother Titianus in charge at Rome, he and most of the Senate quartered at Brixellum in early April. After a skirmish victory, Otho’s forces advanced toward Cremona from Bedriacum, possibly to cut Vitellius off and avert a major engagement, but on 14 April Otho’s units were ambushed near Cremona and bested by Caecina and Valens in what is known as the First Battle of Bedriacum. Sailors from Otho’s fleet also ravaged the Ligurian coast, killing the mother of Tacitus’ future father-in-law, Agricola, and plundering her estate (Ag. 7) Otho’s character is a paradox. All sources, attesting to his youthful license and depravity, are surprised by his sudden restraint and competence

c14_Vol2.indd 770

in Lusitania. For Tacitus, Otho’s mind was, unlike his soft person, brutal (H. 1.22; cf. Suet. Otho 12); he was a master of dissimulation who ably concealed his intense desires (H. 1.71). The crowning moment of Otho’s life was its conclusion: to avert protracted civil war after his defeat, Otho committed suicide with dignity, having also taken care to destroy evidence of his followers’ allegiance to him. He was buried near Brixellum under a modest tomb (Plut. Otho 18; H. 2.49). see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference works: PIR2 S 143; Mattingly–Syndenham, RIC, p. 260, no. 29 FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 1999. Ordering Anarchy: Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ History. London: Duckworth. Heubner, Heinz. 1963–82. P. Cornelius Tacitus. Die Historien, Kommentar. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Morgan, Gwyn. 2006. 69 AD: The Year of the Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murison, Charles L. 1993. Galba, Otho and Vitellius: Careers and Controversies. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. Roche, Paul. 2008. “The Public Imagery of the Emperor Otho.” Historia 57.1: 108–123. Scheid, John, Paola Tassini, and Jörg Rüpke. 1998. Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium. Rome: École française de Rome; Soprintendenza archeologica di Roma.

OVID, see ROMAN POETS OXIONES, see GERMANI, GERMANIA

28-04-2023 18:29:00

P PACCIUS AFRICANUS, see SARIOLENUS VOCULA

PACCIUS ORFITUS LUCA BELTRAMINI

University of Padua

Paccius Orfitus (before 18 ce–after 62 ce) was a primus pilus (senior centurion) who served under Domitius Corbulo in the RomanParthian War. In 58 ce he was put in charge of some auxiliary garrisons, with orders not to engage the enemy until the arrival of larger forces. Convinced of the feebleness of the enemy troops, he disobeyed these orders, but was ignominiously defeated. Corbulo punished him and his soldiers by forcing them to camp outside the ramparts (A. 13.36). Evidence suggests that the rank of primus pilus was normally held around the age of fifty and no earlier than forty; Paccius’ birth must therefore predate 18 ce. In 62 ce he is mentioned again as primus pilus among the rest of the troops led by Caesennius Paetus in the Taurus region and routed by Vologeses (A. 15.12.1–2). When Corbulo met him, he advised him to commit himself to Paetus’ mercy. This second (apparent) primipilate has been taken as evidence of his demotion after the defeat of 58 ce (see e.g., Furneaux 1907, 201) but it is possible that Tacitus is using the term loosely here (see Dobson 1978, n. 64).

see also: Armenia; Cappadocia; Parthia Reference work: PIR2 P 18 REFERENCES Dobson, Brian. 1978. Die Primipilares. Entwicklung und Bedeutung, Laufbahnen und Persönlichkeiten eines römischen Offiziersranges. Köln: Rheinland Verlag. Furneaux, Henry, ed. 1907. The Annals of Tacitus: Volume II. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PACONIUS AGRIPPINUS LEE FRANTANTUONO

Maynooth University

Quintus Paconius Agrippinus (fl. 66 ce) was a Stoic senator and possible son of Marcus Paconius, a casualty of Tiberius, perhaps in the widespread slaughter after the fall of Sejanus; the father’s fate would likely have appeared in lost portions of the Annals but is alluded to in the account of his son’s fate. Quintus served as proconsul in Crete and Cyrenaica under Claudius. He appears in Annals 16.28–29, 33 among those denounced by Cossutianus Capito; the son is accused of having inherited his father’s disdain for emperors, and he incurs sympathy and respect in the Senate for being charged with nothing beyond his father’s political inclinations under Tiberius. He was ultimately banished from Italy, fortunate only in having avoided an enforced suicide (A. 16.33).

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume II, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c15_Vol2.indd 771

28-04-2023 18:01:41

772  

Paconius , M arcus

Epictetus refers to his calm, untroubled demeanor in the wake of his accusation and trial (Discourses 1.1), and to his response to questions as to whether or not someone should enter a festival of Nero, where he observed that for him, the question would not even occur (1.2). Epictetus also records that Agrippinus was in the habit of composing eulogies on whatever malady currently afflicted him (Stobaeus 3.7.16). see also: delators Reference work: PIR2 P 27

PACONIUS, MARCUS ANDREW GALLIA

University of Minnesota

an innocent victim of Tiberius’ cruelty and therefore not a principled opponent of autocracy (A. 16.29.2). Reference works: PIR2 P 26, RE Paconius (4), DNP Paconius [II 1] FURTHER READING Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero. London and New York: Routledge.

PACORUS I, see PARTHIA PACORUS II, see VOLOGAESES PACUVIUS (1), see ROMAN POETS

PACUVIUS (2) LEONARDO GREGORATTI

Marcus Paconius was a senator put to death for maiestas under Tiberius. The only thing known for certain about his career is that he held the post of legate on the staff of the proconsul of Asia, Gaius Iunius Silanus. Along with Gellius Publicola, who had served as quaestor in the province, Paconius joined in the prosecution through which Silanus was condemned by the Senate in 22 ce. A brief mention of Paconius’ connection with this trial represents his only appearance in what remains of Tacitus’ Tiberian narrative (A. 3.67.1). He later lost the emperor’s favor, however, and ultimately his life. Suetonius (Tib. 61.6) relates an anecdote, attributed to the annales of a consular historian, in which Tiberius was prompted to accelerate the inquest into Paconius’ alleged treason by the impertinent comment of a dwarf jester at one of the emperor’s dinner parties. Paconius’ fate was thought to have shaped the political outlook of his son Quintus Paconius Agrippinus, an adherent of Stoicism banished under Nero. In Tacitus’ account of the accusations leveled against Thrasea Paetus and his circle in 66, Agrippinus is denounced as an “heir of his father’s hatred for principes” (A. 16.28.1 paterni in principes odii heredem). Tacitus goes on to suggest that this sort of guilt by association was unjust, however, because Paconius had been

c15_Vol2.indd 772

University of Durham

In 19 ce after Germanicus’ death, a certain Pacuvius (2) was the commander of the legion VI Ferrata in Laodicea (2), a coastal city of the province of Syria. Loyal to the governor Gnaeus Sentius Saturninus, he prevented Domitius Celer, one of Piso’s followers to take control of that military unit (A. 2.79.2). It is generally thought that the general was the same Pacuvius mentioned by Seneca the Younger (Ep. 1.12). He used to hold a regular burial sacrifice in his honor every day. He used to be carried from the dining room to his chamber while eunuchs applauded, played music, and sang in Greek. This was a custom he took from the province of Syria, where he lived for a long time. Some scholars think in fact that Pacuvius acted as provincial governor during the period between 22 and 33 ce when Lucius Aelius Lamia held the governorship but was never allowed by Tiberius to reach his province (A. 6.27.2; Syme 1956, 1981, 130–131). Reference work: PIR2 P 46 REFERENCES Syme, Ronald. 1956. “Some Pisones in Tacitus.” The Journal of Roman Studies 46: 17–21.

28-04-2023 18:01:41

Paetus  

Syme, Ronald. 1981. “Governors Dying in Syria.” ZPE 41: 125–144. FURTHER READING Birley, A. R. 2000. “Two Unidentified Senators in Josephus, A.J. 19.” Classical Quarterly 50.2: 620–623.

PADUS (PO) CAROLYNN RONCAGLIA

773

see also: Bedriacum; Ravenna Reference work: Barrington 39–40 FURTHER READING Calzolari, Mauro. 2004. Il Po in età romana. Geografia, storia e immagine di un grande fiume europeo. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis.

PAELIGNI, see MARSI

Santa Clara University

The Padus is a river flowing from the Cottian Alps east across northern Italy to the Adriatic Sea. The Padus river is the longest in Italy, and its valley forms Italy’s largest plain. Major tributaries include the Mincius (Mincio), Ollius (Oglio), Addua (Adda), Tanarus (Tanaro), Ticinus (Ticino), Trebia (Trebbia), and Gabellus (Secchia), and through such tributaries, the river receives outflow from northern Italy’s large glacial lakes. This network of waterways made the Padus the main means of transportation and commerce in northern Italy, although the river and its tributaries were prone to flooding in winter. Greek and Roman writers identified the Padus as the mythical Eridanus (Plin. HN 3.117, Strabo 5.1.9). Polybius says that natives of Cisalpine Gaul, which the river bisected, knew the river as the Bodencus (Polyb. 2.16.12). The late third and early second centuries saw the expansion of Roman power into the plain of the Padus; colonies, land schemes, and population transfers were largely concentrated south of the river. In the Late Republic, the Padus formed the southern border of Italia Transpadana. After the Social War, inhabitants south of the river received full Roman citizenship while the population north of the river received partial citizen rights (Asconius 3C). The discrepancy lasted until Augustus incorporated Cisalpine Gaul into Italy (App. B Civ. 5.3, Cass. Dio 48.12.5, A. 11.24.1). The Padus and its banks were a repeated scene of military action during the civil wars of 69 ce, with fighting concentrated along the central Padus near Placentia, Cremona, and Brixellum (H. 2.17–45, 3.18–35).

c15_Vol2.indd 773

PAETUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Paetus was a notorious delator and speculator under Nero. He was exiled after he tried to bring a charge of conspiracy against some of Nero’s courtiers. Known only from Tacitus, Paetus was infamous for profiteering by purchasing debts owed to the treasury on speculation and then collecting the debt from the debtor. He was possibly mentioned as notorious for such activity in other sources (see Tacitus’ comment that he was “notorious for bringing up suits before the treasury,” A. 13.23.2). In 55 ce he inexplicably charged Afranius Burrus and Pallas (Claudius’ notorious freedman) with plotting a palace coup, with the intent of putting Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix (consul 52, who had been Claudius’ son-in-law) on the throne in place of Nero, a case Paetus lost. It is possible that Paetus’ accusation was connected with Pallas’ activities as a rationibus (palace accountant) since the action was connected with the treasury, over which Pallas will have had charge (Oost 1958, 135). There is nothing, however, which plausibly connects Pallas, Burrus, and Sulla to any plot. Paetus had apparently kept records of forgotten debts owed to the treasury that were burned after he lost his case and was exiled. Nothing is known of Paetus beyond this particular case. see also: delators; freedmen of Claudius; Iturius; Iunia Silana Reference works: PIR2 P 60; RE 182.2283 = Paetus 1 (Stein)

28-04-2023 18:01:41

774  

Pallas

REFERENCE Oost, S. I. 1958. “The Career of M. Antonius Pallas.” American Journal of Philology 79: 135. FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 111, 152, 252–253.

PAGYDA RIVER, see AFRICA PALAMEDES, see ALPHABET PALATINE, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY

PALLAS FÁBIO DUARTE JOLY

Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto

Marcus Antonius Pallas (d. 62 ce) was Claudius’ secretary a rationibus (Suet. Claud. 28.1; Cass. Dio 60.30.6b). As such, Pallas, together with other freedmen and slaves, was in charge of the imperial revenues. Tacitus makes no explicit mention of his career. When he refers to the imperial freedmen, he does not indicate their administrative roles, although he acknowledges the offices of a rationibus, a libellis, and ab epistulis as circumscribed to the imperial domus (A. 15.35.2). Pallas was likely born at the beginning of the Christian era, for he was still a slave in 31 ce, owned by Antonia the Younger. Josephus (AJ 18.182) mentions Pallas as the one who delivered the letter from Antonia to her brother-in-law, the emperor Tiberius, who was in Capri at the time, exposing the plot of Sejanus. Antonia died in 37 ce and had probably manumitted Pallas who took the forename of “Marcus Antonius” and came into the patronage of Claudius (Oost 1958, 114–116). The freedman owned possessions in Rome (Frontinus mentions the horti Pallantiani, Aq. 1.9; 2.69), as well as a large estate in Hermupolites, Egypt, which was probably inherited by a descendant of him, also called Marcus Antonius Pallas, as attested in a papyrus from 121 ce (Rostovzeff 1966, 674). Tacitus first mentions Pallas within the context of an alleged conspiracy, in 48 ce, against Claudius, when the emperor’s wife, Messalina, intended to marry a young aristocrat, named

c15_Vol2.indd 774

Gaius Silius. Pallas was then in great favor (flagrantissima gratia, A. 11.29.1) with Claudius, but he had no active role in the suppression of the conspiracy, whereas other imperial freedman, Narcissus, had taken the lead. Upon the death of Messalina, Pallas is portrayed successfully arguing that Claudius should be married to Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.2.3) and later inciting Claudius to adopt her son Nero (A. 12.25.1). Tacitus follows, with Pallas, his pattern of negatively characterizing freedmen, as he emphasizes his arrogance (adrogantia, A. 13.2.2), which discontented Nero, and also his pride (superbia) toward his own slaves (A. 13.23.2). He also criticizes the honors (ornamenta praetoria) given to Pallas by the Senate for the proposition of the senatus consultum Claudianum in 52 ce (A. 12.53; also, Plin. Ep. 7.29, 8.6, Plin. HN 35.201). This senatus consultum stipulated that if a free woman and a slave had cohabited without the owner’s consent, she became his slave, whereas if he did consent, she became his freedwoman (Gai. Inst. 1.84; 1.91; 1.160; see Poma 1982, 166–174; Weaver 1972, 162–169, for a fuller discussion of this law and the role of Pallas). Pallas’ great wealth is mentioned by Tacitus (A. 12.53.3) and other authors (Plin. HN 33.135; Juv. 1.108; Cass. Dio 62.14.3). He was also brother of the imperial freedman Antonius Felix, designated by Claudius as procurator of Iudaea (A. 12.54.1). Pallas died in 62 ce, and Nero is accused of having poisoned him to take his wealth (A. 14.65.1; Suet. Ner. 35.5; Cass. Dio 62.14.3). Nonetheless, although Nero did keep part of it, a remaining part stayed within Pallas’ family, and it certainly provided the means for his homonymous descendant to reach the consulship in 167 ce (PIR2 A 859; Oost 1958, 138). see also: freedmen; freedmen of Claudius Reference work: PIR2 A 858 REFERENCES Oost, Stewart I. 1958. “The Career of M. Antonius Pallas.” American Journal of Philology 79: 113–139. DOI: 10.2307/292103. Poma, Gabriella. 1982. “Provvedimenti legislativi e attività censoria di Claudio verso gli schiavi e i liberti.” Rivista Storica dell’Antichità 12: 143–174.

28-04-2023 18:01:41

Pandateria  

Rostovtzeff, Michael, ed. 1966. The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Weaver, Paul R. C. 1972. Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Heinrichs, Johannes. 2017. “Pallas.” In Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei, edited by Heinz Heinen and Johannes Deissler, 2141. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Weaver, Paul R. C. 2005. “Repertorium Familiae Caesarum et Libertorum Augustorum.” Edited by Werner Eck, 101–102. Accessed December 01, 2018. http://alte-geschichte.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/500.html.

PALPELLIUS HISTER, SEXTUS

775

would offer Vannius protection in the event of his expulsion, and deter the rebels from invading Roman territory (A. 12.29.2). Reference works: PIR2 P 73; RE Palpellius 2 REFERENCE Niccolini, Giovanni. 1934. I Fasti Dei Tribuni Della Plebe. Milano: Antonino Guiffrè. FURTHER READING Alföldy, Géza. 1984. Römische Statuen in Venetia et Histria: Epigraphische Quellen. Heidelberg: Winter.

PAMMENES, see ASTROLOGY PAMPHYLIA, see GALATIA

PANDATERIA

KONSTANTINOS ARAMPAPASLIS

RODRIGO FURTADO

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Universidade de Lisboa

Sextus Palpellius Hister, the son of Publius Palpellius of the Velina tribe, was suffect consul along with Lucius Pedanius Secundus in 43 ce (CIL 14 2241; Plin. HN 10.35). As his cognomen suggests, he was probably from Istria (Niccolini 1934, 453). This assumption is further supported by the discovery location (city of Pula) of an inscription, erected by a certain Gaius Precius Felix Neapolitanus, which recounts Palpellius’ cursus honorum (CIL 5 35): In his youth, he served as a companion of Tiberius in his campaigns (comes Tiberi Caesaris Augusti datus ab divo Augusto), and it is probably under the same emperor that he became tribune of the people (tribunus plebis; Niccolini 1934, 454). Under Claudius, he assumed the office of legate, having served in the past as proconsul, judge (decemvir stlitibus iudicandis), and military tribune of the Fourteenth Twin Legion. When the revolt against the Suebian (see Suebi) chieftain Vannius broke out in 50 ce, he was the legate of Pannonia. Although Claudius was reluctant to send armies to help Vannius, he ordered Palpellius, in his capacity as the ruler of the province, to deploy a legion and a number of auxiliary troops which

Pandateria or Pandatoria, modern Ventotene/ Vientutene, is one of the Pontine islands in the Tyrrhenian sea, about 45 km off the coast SW of Gaeta, Italy. Part of an ancient volcano, it has an area of c. 1.5 km2, with a length of c. 3.2 km and a maximum width of 800 m. It lacks clean drinking water and a natural safe harbor. Hence, the island did not attract the Greek settlers. It was permanently occupied only at the end of the first century bce, when Pandateria must have become part of the formal assets of Augustus, like the neighboring Capri: by that time, the island was equipped with a small villa, a cistern for rainwater storage, an aqueduct, and a port. These facilities were part of the general taste for building coastal villae that was typical of the Julio-Claudian period. They must have been built also because Pandateria became the place of exile for several women of the imperial family: Julia the Elder in 2 bce–4 ce (A. 1.53.1); Agrippina the Elder in 29–33 ce (A. 14.63; Suet. Tib. 53.2; Cal. 15.1); Iulia Livilla, sister of Caligula, in 39–41 ce (A. 14.63; Cass. Dio 59.22.8) and perhaps again at the end of her life (Suet. Claud. 29.1; Sen. Apoc. 10.4; 13.5; Cass. Dio 60.8.5); Octavia (2),

c15_Vol2.indd 775

28-04-2023 18:01:41

776  

panegyric

daughter of Claudius, in 62 ce (A. 14.63.1); and Flavia Domitilla (niece of Domitian) in 95 ce (Cass. Dio 67.14.2). Reference works: Barrington 44 D4; RE XVIII.3, 507 (Scherling) FURTHER READING De Rossi, G. M. 1999. “Ponza e Ventotene. Analisi dello sviluppo topografico.” In La forma della città e del territorio. Esperienze metodologiche e risultati a confronto, edited by S. Quilici Gigli, 147–156. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. De Rossi, G. M. 2000. “L’esilio di Giulia a Ventotene: alcune considerazioni di storia e topografia.” In Studi di storia e di geostoria antica (Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità. Università di Salerno, 24), 167–184. Napoli: Arte tipográfica.

PANEGYRIC PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Panegyric is a form of epideitic (or display) oratory, involving speeches of praise, publicly delivered and often dedicated to an addressee. Originally Greek in origin (panegyric refers to an oration delivered at assemblies at prominent festivals in the Greek world), panegyrics came to represent exercises, treatises and speeches that involved praise, whether light-hearted or serious, particularly of prominent individuals. Given their origins in the Greek world, panegyric comes to take pejorative connotations due to impressions of rhetorical embellishment and display with little practical application, thus speaking to stereotypes of difference between Greek and Roman culture and rhetoric (see Rees 2007 for a short introduction and history of the genre). Panegyric as a particular genre of oratory flourished in late antiquity, prominently taking the form of praise of emperors, and occurred on occasions of significance, including imperial accessions, birthdays, weddings, victories, anniversaries, and part of actiones gratiarum (speeches of thanksgiving; cf. Quint. Inst. 3.7.10– 18; cf. Radice 1968). Several speeches in various

c15_Vol2.indd 776

levels of transmission survive from the third century onward, in both Greek and Latin, and in verse and prose. As for subject matter, panegyric would concentrate on the subject’s biography and virtues, with ethical conduct illustrated through examples of conduct through the addressee’s life. However, the first surviving panegyric relevant to our context is Pliny the Younger’s, which grew out of his actio gratiarum on the assumption of his suffect consulship, delivered in 100 ce at Rome and dedicated to Trajan. Such speeches were seemingly a regular occurrence, delivered in gratitude upon entry into a magistracy in the imperial period, though Pliny’s version is the first of its kind to survive. As Pliny stated himself in Ep. 3.18.1–2, he expanded and elaborated his speech for publication, with a mind toward posterity in exhibiting Trajan’s virtues as an example for future principes; a care for posterity mirrored in Tacitus’ works (e.g., H.1.1; Ag.1–3; A. 3.65.1–2; 4.32–3) Thus, Pliny’s contribution to this genre and oratory is significant, not least given the impact his speech had on the future of the genre in late antiquity, and can be contrasted to the opinions of Tacitus, his contemporary. In short, the growth of panegyric as a form of oratory reveals an important tension as the imperial period developed; namely the role of oratory and eloquence (eloquentia) under an emperor, revealing questions of free speech and obsequiousness from the perspective of Roman political actors. This topic has generated a great deal of scholarly interest, generally on libertas in the Roman empire, specifically on Tacitus’ presentation of the dynamics between emperors and senators, and even more specifically on intertextuality and response between Pliny’s Panegyricus and Tacitus in their works (Bruère 1954; Flower 2006, 262–270; Whitton 2019, 413–419). More specifically, all these themes are evident across Tacitus’ works and, where they coincide with and respond to Pliny, have been the subjects of scholarship cited in this entry. The Dialogue on Orators, concerning the state of oratory under the empire, includes questions of praise under an emperor (Bartsch 1994; Bruère 1954, 164–167; Whitton 2019, 418, n. 52; van den Berg 2014, 204–205); the Agricola, a generically mixed work

28-04-2023 18:01:41

Pannonian R evolt  

that is in part a panegyric to his father-in-law for his deeds and example as a Roman citizen and general, shows various similarities with the Panegyricus (Bruère 1954, 162–164; Whitton 2019, 418). This is not least due to the hazy lines between the genres of biography, encomium, laudatio and panegyric, as they deal with similar subject matter. The laudatio funebris becomes relevant here, which was a funerary oration for prominent Romans, though these were recommended to be demure in flourish and style, due to their differences in function (Cic. De or.2.340–1; Quint. Inst. 11.3.153; Flower 1996, 128–158). Tacitus is known to have delivered one for Verginius Rufus during his suffect consulship in 97 ce, though this is now lost; one can only speculate as to its content and contribution to panegyrical oratory (Plin. Ep.2.1; see Whitton 2013, 65–75). see also: Cremutius Cordus Reference work: OCD3 panegyric REFERENCES Bartsch, Shadi. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruère, Richard. T. 1954. “Tacitus and Pliny’s Panegyricus.” Classical Philology 49: 161–179. Flower, Harriet I. 1996. Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Flower, Harriet I. 2006. The Art of Forgetting. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Radice, Betty. 1968. “Pliny and the ‘Panegyricus.’” Greece & Rome 15: 116–172. Rees, Roger. 2007. “Panegyric.” In A Companion to Roman Rhetoric, edited by William Dominik and Jon Hall, 136–148. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell. van den Berg, Christopher. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitton, Christopher. 2013. The Younger Pliny: Epistles Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitton, Christopher. 2019. The Arts of Imitation in Latin Prose: Pliny’s Epistles/Quintilian in Brief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

c15_Vol2.indd 777

777

PANNONIAN REVOLT JAKUB PIGOŃ

University of Wrocław

The Pannonian Revolt broke out in the Roman province of Pannonia shortly after the death of Augustus on 19 August 14 ce, and involved three legions (VIII, IX, and XV). The extensive account of the revolt is placed almost at the beginning of the Annals (1.16–30); Tacitus presents it, together with the almost simultaneous German Revolt, as a major threat to the principate of Tiberius—although the historical importance of these events was rather limited. But his main motive for emphasizing the mutinies was, perhaps, literary rather than historical: they gave him an opportunity to produce a vivid, dramatic narrative. According to Tacitus, some responsibility for the outbreak of the mutiny rested with the Pannonian governor Quintus Iunius Blaesus, who, having received news about Augustus’ death and Tiberius’ succession, kept the legions free from ordinary duties in the joint summer camp. Tacitus underlines the soldiers’ wantonness and lack of discipline (his standard view of the military, see Kajanto 1970) as the grounds on which the unrest was growing, and singles out Percennius as its instigator. Percennius had once been a leader of a theater claque (A. 1.16.3), and his associations with theater are important for his presentation: when delivering his speech, he was like an actor playing a popularis politician (velut contionabundus, “as though haranguing in a public assembly,” A. 1.17.1). However, apart from some rhetoric of the oppressed which he employed, he also formulated concrete, and rather moderate, proposals for change— enhancement of pay (from 10 to 16 asses per day); curtailment of service (from twenty to sixteen years); no prolongation of service beyond this limit; and cash on discharge rather than allotment of land (A. 1.17.5, see also 19.4; 26.1; cf. Cass. Dio 57.4.2). There is no reason to believe that Tacitus regarded these demands as justified; for instance, he does not mention that the shorter period of service was initially fixed by Augustus and only later extended to twenty years (Cass. Dio 54.25.6; 55.23.1).

28-04-2023 18:01:41

778  

Pannonian R evolt

Blaesus intervened in a dramatic manner, managing to calm down, to some degree, the mood of the soldiers: they agreed for a delegation to be sent to Tiberius, led by Blaesus’ son. However, the unrest broke out anew with the arrival of some detachments which had been on service elsewhere; even before their return, they attacked (both verbally and physically) some of their centurions and other officers, including the camp prefect Aufidienus Rufus (A. 1.20, otherwise unknown). Blaesus intervened once again, trying to punish some of the most troublesome mutineers, but his attempts failed. An ordinary soldier (otherwise unknown) Vibulenus claimed (in a speech given in direct discourse, A. 1.22) that his (nonexistent) brother had been killed by Blaesus. (For Percennius and Vibulenus, see the classic discussion by Auerbach 1953, 36–40.) A major disturbance followed in which, Tacitus says, Blaesus himself would have been killed, had it not become known that Vibulenus’ story was bogus. However, a centurion Lucilius (otherwise unknown), hated by his men for cruelty, was killed. Another centurion, Sirpicus (otherwise unknown), was more fortunate—two legions could not agree as to whether he should be punished or not. Another one, Iulius Clemens, was even deliberately saved by the soldiers who believed that this oratorically skilled officer would act as their spokesman (A. 1.23.3–5). Tiberius’ reaction comes at this juncture: a delegation led by his son Drusus the Younger and accompanied by two praetorian cohorts (with Sejanus) and other soldiers was dispatched, although with no particular orders; they were expected to act according to the situation. The mutineers showed some respect to Drusus, but his speech, in which he insisted on the Senate’s role as considering their demands, was badly received, and there were new disturbances, in which the senator Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Augur was wounded. A lunar eclipse (on 26/27 September) produced a sudden change of mood: it was taken as an indication of the gods’ anger at the soldiers’ actions (Tacitus dwells on their superstition, A. 1.28.1–2; cf. Cass. Dio 57.4.4). Drusus decided to take advantage of this; some officers, including Clemens, were sent to work psychologically with the soldiers and by

c15_Vol2.indd 778

the end of the night order was restored. On the following day, Drusus addressed the calmed soldiers and a new delegation to Rome (including Blaesus’ son and an equestrian named Lucius Aponius) was dispatched. There followed some consultation in Drusus’ circle to decide whether to wait quietly for their return or whether to punish the ringleaders; Drusus opted for the harsh course of action and several executions, among them those of Percennius and Vibulenus, were carried out, some on the soldiers’ own initiative. The torrential rains which began were interpreted as another sign of the gods’ displeasure; the legions decided not to wait for the delegation, but to retire to their winter camps. Drusus also returned to Rome. Tacitus’ narrative is highly dramatic, but also somewhat disquieting for the modern reader. We are not told the locality of the summer camp (Emona?), although Tacitus gives the whereabouts of the detachments, A. 1.20.1. It is not clear whether Tiberius’ response came after the Pannonian delegation’s arrival in Rome or earlier (Blaesus’ son left the camp at A. 1.19.1 and was there again at A. 1.29.2: did he come back from Rome with Drusus?). The timing is rather tight, thirty-eight days between Augustus’ death and the eclipse, but probably there is no reason to suspect that Tacitus’ chronology (first Augustus’ death, then the revolt) is wrong; see Sage (1982– 1983). For problems raised by the eclipse, see Goodyear (1972, 229). Other accounts of the mutiny are much less detailed: see Vell. 2.125.1–5; Suet. Tib. 25.1–2; Cass. Dio 57.4. see also: army; emotions; enargeia; numismatics Reference work: CAH2 10, 207–209 (T.E.J. Wiedemann) REFERENCES Auerbach, Erich. 1953. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Translated by Williard Trask. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Goodyear, F. R. D. 1972. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 1–6. Vol. 1: Annals 1.1–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kajanto, Iiro. 1970. “Tacitus’ Attitude to War and the Soldier.” Latomus 29: 699–718.

28-04-2023 18:01:41

Paphian V enus , T emple of  

Sage, Michael M. 1982–1983. “Tacitus and the Accession of Tiberius.” Ancient Society 13–14: 293–321. FURTHER READING Levick, Barbara. 1976. Tiberius the Politician. London: Thames and Hudson. Williams, Mary Frances. 1997. “Four Mutinies: Tacitus Annals 1.16–30; 1.31–49 and Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 20.4.9–20.5.7; 24.3.1–8.” Phoenix 51: 44–74. DOI: 10.2307/1192585.

PANTULEIUS, see SERVILIUS NONIANUS, MARCUS

PAPHIAN VENUS, TEMPLE OF KELLY E. SHANNON-HENDERSON

University of Cincinnati

An Aphrodite sanctuary at Paphos is attested as early as Homer (Od. 8.363), and archaeological evidence indicates it was continuously in use from the Mycenaean period (Maier 1975). Tacitus devotes a short digression (H. 2.3) to the cult’s history. He ascribes the building of the sanctuary to one of two kings: Aerias (not mentioned outside Tacitus; also given as the sanctuary’s founder at A. 3.62.4) or Cinyras. Cinyras is amply attested in Greek and Latin literature as the father of Myrrha, upon whom he fathered Adonis (in myth a lover of Aphrodite) in an act of incest (e.g., Ovid Met. 10.298–502). Tacitus does not mention this famous event, focusing instead on Cinyras’ role as the progenitor of the Cinyrades, who held the ancestral priesthood of Venus, thereby maintaining the royal family’s prominence in the cult despite the importance of the practitioners of divination (haruspicum, H. 2.3.1) at the sanctuary, which was allegedly imported from Cilicia by Tamiras (also not otherwise attested). It is curious that Cinyras is not mentioned in the Annals, while in the Histories Tacitus seems to favor him as the founder, given that he devotes much more space to his story, which he acknowledges as a “more recent report” (H. 2.3.1 fama recentior).

c15_Vol2.indd 779

779

Tacitus gives several details of the cult, including its mysterious altar, upon which blood must not be shed and which never gets wet in the rain despite not being covered by any roof; and the goddess’ aniconic cult statue, said to be similar in shape to a Roman meta or turning-post, a detail which Tacitus cannot explain (H. 2.3.2 ratio in obscuro). The unusual properties and appearance of this stone were frequently remarked upon in antiquity (e.g., Plin. HN 2.210; Serv. Aen. 1.415) and appear in the material record. Depictions of the sanctuary on coins show the stone housed in a flat-roofed structure (possibly a temporary canopy) within an open-air court, and a conical stone that has been (perhaps erroneously) identified with the aniconic statue is displayed as such at the Paphos Archaeological Museum (Gaifman 2012, 170–175, 178–180; Young 2005 25–26). The site suffered damage from an earthquake in 76–77 ce. Tacitus’ reason for mentioning the sanctuary is a visit to Paphos by Titus, a detour made out of “a desire to go and see the temple of Paphian Venus” (H. 2.2.2) on his way back to the war in Iudaea after an abortive journey to Rome to pay respects to Galba, interrupted by Galba’s assassination. Tacitus portrays this as a crucial time for Vespasian, who had to calculate whether he would throw in his lot with Otho or Vitellius or make his own bid for the emperorship (H. 2.1); it is therefore with matters of empire in mind that Titus chooses to consult the oracle of the goddess (H. 2.4). In response to Titus’ “ambiguous” questions “about himself,” the priest Sostratus (otherwise unattested) inspects the entrails of his sacrificial victim and responds that he has the goddess’ favor, whereupon “Titus, returning to his father with heightened spirits, was a great source of confidence in affairs at a time when the minds of the provinces and the armies were in suspense” (H. 2.4.2). The episode therefore plays a large role in Tacitus’ depiction of the support of the divine for the Flavian cause (Kantiréa 2007, 449–453; Shannon 2014). REFERENCES Gaifman, M. 2012. Aniconism in Greek Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:41

780  

Papinius A llenius

Kantiréa, M. 2007. “L’oracle d’Aphrodite à Paphos et l’ascension des Flaviens à l’Empire.” Mediterraneo Antico: Economie, Società, Culture 10: 447–460. Maier, F. G. 1975. “The Temple of Aphrodite at Old Paphos.” Report of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus: 69–90. Shannon, K. E. 2014. “Aetiology of the Other: Foreign Religions in Tacitus’ Histories.” In Von Ursachen Sprechen. Eine aitiologische Spurensuche/Telling Origins. On the Lookout for Aetiology, edited by Christiane Reitz and Anke Walter, 271–300. Zurich: Georg Olms Verlag. Young, P. H. 2005. “The Cypriot Aphrodite Cult: Paphos, Rantidi, and Saint Barnabas.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 64: 23–44.

PAPINIUS ALLENIUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

Reference works: PIR2 P 102; CIL V 2823 = ILS 945; VI 10409; 32342; XII 4407; XV 4573:4582 REFERENCE Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. FURTHER READING McAlindon, D. 1957. “Entry to the Senate in the Early Empire.” Journal of Roman Studies 47: 191–195. Syme, R. 1983. “Eight Consuls from Patavium.” Papers of the British School at Rome 51: 102–124.

PAPINIUS, SEXTUS, see PAPINIUS ALLENIUS PAPIRIUS, see CLODIUS MACER

University of Durham

Sextus Papinius Allenius was ordinary consul in 36 ce with Quintus Plautius (A. 6.40.1). Allenius was probably a member of the equestrian order before being co-opted into the senatorial class early in the reign of Tiberius (Demougin 1992, no. 236, 207–208). His career is known from an inscription from Patavium, his hometown. In the text the offices held by Allenius are rather sparse, a typical characteristic of the early principate. He was commander of an unnamed legion under Tiberius, then governor of a praetorian province before his consulship, that is, between 27 and 36 ce according to Syme. He also held the office of priest of the Quindecimviri sacris faciundis. Allenius had a son, Sextus Papinius, who committed suicide, says Tacitus, in 37 ce to avoid the sexual harassment of his mother. The woman was later brought on trial and condemned to a ten years’ exile (A. 6.49). A second son was put to death by Caligula (Cass. Dio 59.25.5; PIR2 P 100–101). According to Pliny the Elder, Allenius was responsible for introducing into Italy two exotic fruits: the jujube (zizipha) from Syria and the tuber, from Africa, that he grew from slips in his camp (Plin. HN 15.47). see also: sexual deviance

c15_Vol2.indd 780

PAPIRIUS CARBO CHRISTOPHER J. DART

University of Melbourne

Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, consul in 113 bce, was badly defeated by the Cimbri. He was praetor no later than 116 and served as governor of Asia prior to being elected consul. He was the brother of Gaius Papirius Carbo (consul 120) who had been a supporter of the Gracchi and the father of Gnaeus Papirius Carbo (consul 85, 84, 82). By his consulship in 113, the Cimbri, Teutones, and other north European peoples had migrated southward into Illyricum and were plundering the region. Concerned that the Cimbri might attempt a march into Italy, Carbo was sent with an army to guard the passes into the peninsula. When they showed no interest in offering battle, Carbo marched northward to intercept a large body in Noricum and asserted that the people of the area were Roman amici. The Cimbri sent ambassadors seeking to negotiate in good faith and agreed to move on, accepting Carbo’s offer of Roman guides. Secretly instructing the guides to take the Cimbri by a long route, Carbo marched his army ahead and ambushed the Cimbri near the city of Noreia. The attack proved disastrous and suffering heavy losses, the Roman survivors were only able

28-04-2023 18:01:41

paradoxography  

to disperse into the forests with the onset of a storm late in the day (Strab. 5.1.8; App. Gall. 13). The principal source for this campaign is Appian (Gall. 13), though he incorrectly claims it only involved the Teutones. This was the first of a series of defeats suffered by the Romans at the hands of the Cimbri and other Germanic peoples which are cited by Tacitus as examples of the military prowess of the Cimbri (G. 37). Sometime after his return to Rome, Carbo was put on trial by Marcus Antonius (consul 99) and was either acquitted or committed suicide to avoid conviction (Cic. Fam. 9.21.3). see also: Cassius Longinus, Lucius (1); Malleius Maximus; Marius, Gaius PAPIUS MUTILUS, see SCRIBONIUS LIBO DRUSUS, MARCUS

PARADOXOGRAPHY KELLY E. SHANNON-HENDERSON

University of Cincinnati

Paradoxa, “paradoxes,” and thaumata, “marvels,” were traditional in a wide range of genres of Greek literature, particularly geography and historiography (e.g., Herodotus), but in the Hellenistic period paradoxographical stories first began to be excerpted, collected, and made to stand on their own in specialist collections. The first such work (entitled Thaumasia, “Marvellous Things,” or Eklogê tôn paradoxôn, “Collection of Paradoxes”) is by Callimachus, who in his capacity as librarian at Alexandria had access to a host of literature from which to select examples. Paradoxography is characterized by its derivative nature, as all paradoxa are typically excerpted from other written sources, and by its unadorned style (Schepens and Delcroix 1996). Callimachus’ work focused on the natural world, and this would continue to dominate subsequent paradoxography: certain topoi emerged (see Giannini 1966: 427–430 for a list), especially marvelous rivers and springs, animals, and plants. Paradoxography flourished well into the Roman imperial period. Other categories of marvels emerged later in the genre’s history and

c15_Vol2.indd 781

781

focused on humans: marvelous customs of foreign peoples, oddities of human physiology, and the ability to perform miracles. Notable authors include Apollonius (see Spittler 2016), whose work was interested more than most in human physiology and wonderworkers; and Phlegon of Tralles (see Shannon-Henderson 2019), a freedman of Hadrian active in roughly the same era as Tacitus, who devoted his work Peri Thaumasiôn exclusively to marvels of human physiology. While paradoxography is generally thought of as a Greek genre, there are indications of a Latin paradoxographical tradition; Roman writers like Licinius Mucianus and Pliny the Elder treated similar material. While it is difficult to assess the influence or popularity of paradoxography in antiquity in a way that would allow us to posit direct influence of paradoxography on the works of Tacitus, his writings include a variety of miracula that overlap with the topoi of the paradoxographers. Geographical digressions on far-flung provinces of the empire offer opportunities for material similar to the paradoxographers’ mirabilia de aquis, such as the curiously immovable character of the Ocean in far northern locales (Ag. 10.5–6, G. 45.1), the marvelous properties of the Dead Sea (H. 5.6.2–3), and the artificial channels for the Nile among the miracula Germanicus observes on his trip to Egypt (A. 2.61.1–2). Tacitus also treats mirabilia de animalibus, e.g., the fabulous human-animal hybrids rumored to exist in the remotest reaches of Germany (G. 46.4, A. 2.24.4), the snakes rumored to have attended the infant Nero (A. 11.11.3), and the phoenix appearing in the reign of Tiberius (A. 6.28). The whole of the Germania might be classified as mirabilia de gentium moribus. Mirabilia de plantis are rarer (e.g., amber from Northern Europe, correctly classified by Tacitus as the sap of trees, G. 45.4– 5; the marvelous properties of the plant balsamum, H. 5.6.1). Tacitus also includes examples of the humanbased marvels characteristic of imperial paradoxography. Vespasian’s miracles in Alexandria are one example; seeing Basilides (1) in the temple there although he knew him to be lying ill miles away is an example of bilocation (the ability to be in two places at once) that also

28-04-2023 18:01:41

782  

Parthia

characterizes Apollonius’ stories of remarkable individuals (Mir. 1–6). Impostor stories, e.g., the false Drusus the Younger seen in the East (A. 6[5].10) or the false Nero seen after the emperor’s death (H. 2.8), are also examples of bilocation and (in the latter case) resurrection, a motif that was also of interest to Phlegon (Mir. 1–3). Tacitus is dismissive of these impostor stories, but in his treatments of other mirabilia, like the paradoxographers, Tacitus views the marvels he reports as basically true (the phoenix and Vespasian’s healings are excellent examples of this); they are strange but also real, and therefore worth including. see also: historiography; impostors REFERENCES Giannini, A. 1966. Paradoxographorum Graecorum Reliqiuae. Milan: Istituto Editoriale Italiano. Schepens, G., and K. Delcroix. 1996. “Ancient Paradoxography: Origin, Evolution, Production and Reception.” In La letteratura di consumo nel mondo greco-latino, edited by O. Pecere and A. Stramaglia, 373–460. Cassino: Università degli studi di Cassino. Shannon-Henderson, Kelly E. 2019. “Phlegon of Tralles (1667).” In Fragmente der griechischen Historiker Part IV. Leiden: Brill. DOI: 10.1163/1873-5363_jciv_a1667. Spittler, Janet. 2016. “Apollonios (Uncertain Date) (1672).” In Fragmente der griechischen Historiker Part IV. Leiden: Brill. http://referenceworks. brillonline.com/entries/fragmente-dergriechischen-historiker-iv/ apollonios-uncertain-date-1672-a167. FURTHER READING Giannini, A. 1963. “Studi sulla paradossografia greca I: Da Omero a Callimaco, motivi e forme del meraviglioso.” Rendiconti / Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, Classe di Lettere, Scienze morali e storiche 97: 247–266. Giannini, A. 1964. “Studi sulla paradossografia greca II.” Acme 17: 99–140.

PARIS, see ACTORS PARRACES, see MEHERDATES

c15_Vol2.indd 782

PARTHIA EDWARD DĄBROWA

Jagiellonian University in Kraków

Parthia, Iranian state (c. 247 bce–c. 228 ce), was governed by the Arsacid dynasty. At the peak of its power, it encompassed Mesopotamia, Iran, and many regions of Central Asia. It neighbored the Roman Empire from the first century bce onward and vied with it for supremacy over Armenia and the Middle East. As a result of the lack of Parthian historiography, we know of the history of the Parthian state from its foundation until its decline solely from the writings of Greek and Latin authors. Although many of them wrote about the Parthians or their relations with Rome, these works either did not survive, or did so only in fragments or in epitome form. We owe the most important and extensive surviving sources concerning the early history of the Parthians to Strabo and Pompeius Trogus. The latter is known mostly from the surviving introductions to various books and the comprehensive epitome by Marcus Junianus Justinus. The most important works for the history of Roman-Parthian relations in the first century ce are those of Tacitus and Josephus. Their later works are reconstructed on the basis of references made by various authors. The creator of the Parthian state, its first ruler and the founder of the dynasty was Arsaces I (247–211 bce). His successors took his name as the title of the ruler. Arsaces was the chief of the nomadic Parni/Aparni tribe, part of the group of Iranian peoples known as the Dahae. In the midfourth century bce, the Parni encroached into Central Asia, to the territory of the Seleucid state, where, taking advantage of the dynastic battles between the pretenders to the throne, they took control of the Parthyene satrapy—hence the name of their state. The beginning of the history of the Parthian state is usually dated to 247 bce, the date of the coronation of Arsaces I. The first few decades of the existence of the Parthian state were consumed with battles for its survival with the Seleucids. It began to grow in strength only during the rule of King Mithridates I (c. 171–132 bce). The successes of his expansive policies turned Parthia into an empire. During his rule, he

28-04-2023 18:01:41

Parthia  

took control of Bactria, Hyrcania (Hyrcani), Media (Medes) (c. 148 bce), and Mesopotamia (141 bce). Southern Mesopotamia, the neighboring state of Elymais, and Characene were conquered definitively only by his successors. The fundamental elements of the Arsacids’ dynastic ideology were formulated during Mithridates I’s rule. They emphasized the existence of ties between the Arsacids and Achaemenids, as well as the religious nature of the ruler’s position. Mithridates I’s heirs had to face up to invasions from nomadic peoples into Central Asia and Eastern Iran. Several Parthian rulers lost their lives in these battles, and the Parthians lost control over the provinces. Parthia’s political power was revived during the rule of Mithridates II (122–91 bce). Not only did he restore the Parthian influences in the areas lost by his predecessors, but he also expanded them to northern Mesopotamia by gaining control over Adiabene (Adiabeni), Gordyene, and Osrhoene, as well as Armenia (c. 111 bce). His great power was expressed by his adoption of the title “king of kings” (109 bce). In 96 bce, Mithridates II’s efforts to establish a sphere of influences on the border of Euphrates led to the first official contact of the Parthians with the representative of Rome, Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1), the then governor of Cilicia. The mutual contacts were intensified only in 74–63 bce, during the war of Rome with the coalition of the ruler of Pontus, Mithridates VI Eupator (Mithridates Eupator), and the king of Armenia, Tigranes II (see Tigranes). At the time, the Roman commanders Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Pompey the Great were endeavoring to prevent the Parthian king, Phraates II (c. 71/70–58/57 bce), from joining the conflict, or to secure his support. Yet Phraates II stayed out of the war, since he had to strengthen his position in his own state. After the death of Mithridates II, the Parthian state endured a major political crisis caused by the rivalry of several pretenders to the throne, which was ended only by Phraates III. The next crisis took place in 58/57 bce. Phraates III was murdered by his sons, Mithridates (III) (57–54 bce) and Orodes (II) (57–38 bce), who in turn waged a war for the throne between themselves. Orodes emerged

c15_Vol2.indd 783

783

as the victor and upon becoming king immediately had to deal with an invasion from Marcus Crassus (54 bce). The Roman commander’s military plans were dashed by his defeat in the Battle of Carrhae (53 bce). The battle with the opposition prevented the king from taking full advantage of the fruits of the victory. This became possible only in 51 bce, when the Parthian army entered Syria. However, the conflict with the aristocratic opposition soon forced Orodes II to retreat. He was given a further opportunity to conquer Syria and other areas belonging to Rome by the civil war that took place in the Roman state after the death of Iulius Caesar between his supporters and the defenders of the republic. Some of the republicans sought refuge in the court of the Parthian ruler. One of them was Quintus Labienus, who in 40 bce commanded a corps of the Parthian army that invaded Asia Minor. Another corps, commanded by the king’s son, Pacorus I, entered Syria and Iudaea. The Roman counteroffensive undertaken in 39 bce by Mark Antony forced the Parthian army out from the territories they had occupied. This culminated in 38 bce with the Battle of Gindaros, in which Pacorus was killed. This event led to a change on the Arsacid throne, which Orodes II yielded to his son Phraates IV (38–3/2 bce). Facing repression, the aristocrats who opposed him were willing to request Roman intervention against their own monarch, which led him to reach an agreement with his opponents. As a result, he was able to thwart Mark Antony’s plans regarding Media Atropatene, since if the Romans gained control of this kingdom both Parthia and Armenia would be under threat. Mark Antony was occupied with preparations for war with Octavian (Augustus), which permitted Phraates to subject both states to Parthian influence (32 bce) by placing his own candidates on their thrones. As a result of the internal conflicts caused by the appearance of the usurper Tiridates (I) (31 bce), as well as the fears of a possible Roman attack, in 20 bce Phraates presented Rome with the legionary eagles that the Parthians had obtained following Crassus’ defeat at Carrhae and during Mark Antony’s unsuccessful campaign in Media Atropatene (36 bce), along with Roman

28-04-2023 18:01:41

784  

Parthia

prisoners. This decision contributed to improved relations with Rome. Around 10 bce, the conflicts in the family of Phraates IV over the succession resulted in the king placing several of his sons and their families in Augustus’ care. Phraates’ actions had a major impact on the situation in Armenia. His concessions to Rome led the Armenian aristocracy to ask Rome for help in placing a new ruler on the Armenian throne. This request ushered in a long period of rivalry between the two empires over influences in the country. The course of this rivalry in the first half of the first century ce is well known to us thanks to Tacitus (see below). The first phase came during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, who made a series of attempts, not always successful, to insert their candidates on the throne of Armenia. They also supported the Parthian aristocrats in their struggle with their rulers, upon their request sending the sons of Phraates IV or their offspring from Rome. The situation between Rome and the Parthians became stabilized in 18 ce. The mission of Germanicus, sent to the East by Tiberius, resulted in an agreement over Armenia with the then king of Parthia, Artabanus III (10–38 ce), who endorsed Artaxias (III), enthroned by Germanicus. The death of Artaxias in 34 ce led Artabanus to replace him with his own candidate. This became the cause of several decades of conflict and a series of political and military events in Parthia, Armenia, Caucasia, and Anatolia. The conclusion to this situation came with the agreement of Rhandeia (63 ce), on whose power Nero and Vologases I, king of Parthia, established common rules for appointing the rulers of Armenia: the king of the Parthians proposed a candidate, who was formally named by the Roman emperor. In the early second century ce, during the rule of Trajan, the Parthian side violated these rules. Osroes (108/109–127/128 ce), a usurper battling the legal ruler Vologases III (c. 105–147 ce), placed his own candidate on the Armenian throne without Roman approval. Trajan used this as a pretext to start a war against Parthia. During the expedition beginning in 113 ce, he initially enjoyed a number of successes, certainly including the conquest of Armenia, territorial acquisitions in northern Mesopotamia, gaining control over

c15_Vol2.indd 784

Mesopotamia (together with Seleucia on Tigris and Ctesiphon as far as the Persian Gulf), and inserting his own candidate on the Arsacid throne. Ultimately, however, an uprising of the population to the Roman army’s rear forced Trajan to retreat (117 ce). Hadrian relinquished his predecessor’s territorial acquisitions and settled relations with Vologases III. This considerably strengthened the position of the king of the Parthians, weakened by Osroes’ control of part of the territory of his state. In the final years of Vologases III’s rule, problems emerged on the northern and eastern borders of his state, connected to the invasion of the Alani into Parthian territory (c. 135 ce) provoked by Pharasmanes, king of Iberia, as well as the growing strength and expansion of the Kushan state. Vologases III’s successor, Vologases IV (147–191/192 ce), pursued an active and aggressive foreign policy. In around 150/151 ce, he gained control over Characene, which had previously thrown off Arsacid authority. In 161 ce he unexpectedly commenced a war with Rome. The element of surprise led to significant successes in the first phase, yet Rome’s offensive of 163 ce reversed the course of events. In 165– 166 ce, the Roman army captured Seleucia on Tigris and Ctesiphon as well as Adiabene and Media Atropatene. Having lost the war, Vologases IV was forced to surrender northern Mesopotamia to Rome. Nonetheless, the king attempted to strengthen his influences in Armenia, albeit unsuccessfully. The final decade of the second century ce was filled with further conflicts between the two states. Vologases V (191/192–c. 208 ce) twice experienced the effects of the military actions of Septimius Severus. In 195 the emperor invaded the Parthians’ vassal state Oshroene, turning it into a Roman province. In 198 the Roman army attacked Mesopotamia and occupied Ctesiphon, although they did not conquer Hatra. Septimius Severus’ successes stripped the Parthian ruler of economically and strategically important areas in northern Mesopotamia and caused him to lose influence in Armenia. In 217, as a result of the battle for power between Vologases VI (c. 208–c. 228 ce) and his brother Artabanus IV (c. 208– 224 ce), which resulted in the state being divided between them, Emperor Caracalla became

28-04-2023 18:01:41

Parthia  

involved in Arsacid issues. The emperor’s unexpected death during his expedition and the Romans’ loss in the Battle of Nisibis condemned this venture to failure. The peace agreed in 218 was very favorable for the Parthians but did not avert internal crisis in their state. The rebellion of the ruler of Persis, Ardashir (c. 220 ce), initiated a rapid disintegration of the Parthian Empire, since he was joined by rulers of other kingdoms dependent on the Arsacids—Adiabene, Media— as well as certain tribal chiefs. At first, Artabanus IV, who held power in the western provinces of the state, underestimated Ardashir’s actions. The fate of Artabanus IV and the Parthian state was decided by a battle that took place in September 224, which concluded with defeat of the Parthian army and the death of the king. The path to conquest of the remaining Parthian lands lay open to Adashir: in 226 he captured Ctesiphon and adopted the title “king of kings.” For some time, the unconquered remnants of the Arsacid state were ruled by Vologases VI. Issues of coins with the name of this ruler dated to 228 ce are regarded as the last evidence of the existence of Parthian statehood. The Parthian state was an absolute monarchy with no fixed rules to determine the succession of power. The lack of such principles was a frequent cause of conflicts in the ruling family. The throne could be passed on to the king’s brother, his eldest son, or a person that he nominated. Royalty was sacred, but the ruler was not the object of religious cult. The Arsacids created a political ideology whose contents changed over time. Among its important elements were emphasis of their (fictional) links with the Achaemenids, references to their political tradition, and a stress on regaining the lands comprising their empire (cf. A. 6.31.1). The administrative organization of the Parthian state was based on models inherited from the Seleucids. Owing to a lack of sources, we know little about the political system. What is known is that, alongside the king, the Senate or aristocratic council was an important organ. The kingdoms constituting the empire were initially administered by officials deriving from local social and ethnic representatives, as well as the members of the Arsacid family. Starting in the first century ce, this was done by the dynasties of rulers closely related to the Parthian ruling house.

c15_Vol2.indd 785

785

In his Annals, Tacitus devoted much space and attention to Roman-Parthian relations in the period from the beginning of Tiberius’ rule to Nero’s death. He included passages on Parthian affairs in the description of events from specific years. These references form an extensive narrative full of details unknown from other sources on internal events in Parthia, its involvement in Armenian affairs, and Rome’s policy toward its eastern neighbor. References to the Parthians first appear in the Annals in the context of the events from the first years of Tiberius’ reign. Their protagonist was Vonones (I) (8–12 ce), son of Phraates IV. He was one of several members of Phraates IV’s family who, following his decision (c. 10 bce), arrived in Rome (A. 2.1.1–2; cf. Strabo 16.1.28 (748); Mon. Anc. 32; Joseph. AJ 18.39–42). Later, upon the request of certain aristocrats indisposed to the rule of Phraates IV’s successor Phraataces (2–4 ce), he was dispatched to his homeland to assume the Arsacid throne (A. 2.2.1). A separate group of Parthian aristocrats bestowed power upon Artabanus III (10–38 ce) (A. 2.3.2) at this time. The defeated Vonones took refuge in Armenia, where he came to power as a result of the internal situation there (A. 2.4.1). Vonones’ potential support would place Rome in danger of a conflict with Artabanus. In an effort to avoid such a situation, the governor of Syria, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus Silanus, lured Vonones to his province, where he kept him under guard, albeit providing royal living conditions (A. 2.4.3). In 18 ce Tiberius sent Germanicus to the East. He placed Zeno, son of Polemo I, king of Pontus, a popular figure among the inhabitants of Armenia, on the throne of the kingdom, where he took the name Artaxias (III) (18–34 ce) (A. 2.56.2–3). Not only did Artabanus accept this decision, but he was also willing to meet Germanicus in order to negotiate amicable relations with Rome. He also requested that Vonones be removed from Syria, since enemies of the Parthian monarch had assembled around him (A. 2.58.1–2). Soon afterward, on Germanicus’ bidding, Vonones was sent to Pompeiopolis in Cilicia. From this point onward, relations between the two states continued without major problems.

28-04-2023 18:01:41

786  

Parthia

This situation changed after the death of Artaxias in 34 ce. Tacitus writes at length about the ensuring events (A. 6.31.1–37.4; 41.2–44.5). Artabanus, confident of his power and successes, decided to take the opportunity to insert his son Arsaces on the throne of Armenia, as well as approaching Tiberius with claims to certain territories possessed by Rome (A. 6.31.1). It was then that the aristocrats and dignitaries hostile to Artabanus (Tacitus names Abdus and Sinnaces, otherwise unknown) asked the emperor to send Phraates, the next son of Phraates IV, from Rome as their candidate to the throne (A. 6.31.1–2). On account of Rome’s essential interests, Tiberius agreed to the aristocrats’ request, but was unwilling to become embroiled in military conflict with Artabanus, and therefore only provided appropriate equipment to Phraates, who died on his way to his homeland. The emperor then sent the next member of Phraates IV’s family, Tiridates, of his own accord. Tiridates was to contain Artabanus’ forces to prevent his engagement in Armenia on the side of Arsaces, against whom the Roman rulers had sent Mithridates Hiberus, the king of Iberia (A. 6.32.3). He secured the support of influential aristocrats: Oronospades (otherwise unknown), Sinnaces, and Abdagaeses (A. 6.37.3). Artabanus attempted to regain Armenia by dispatching his son Orodes there, but was defeated by Pharasmenes, brother of the king of Iberia (A. 6.33.1–35.2). Facing the threat of a Roman attack on Mesopotamia, Artabanus pulled out of the expedition to Armenia (A. 6.36.1). Lacking popular support, he was forced to withdraw into his state (A. 6.36.2–4). The resulting situation gave Tiridates easy control over the most important cities of Mesopotamia: Nicephorium, Anthemusias, Halus, and Artemita (A. 6.41.2). Enthusiasm for Tiridates’ rule soon evaporated among his Parthian allies. His supporters turned against him and restored the throne to Artabanus (A. 6.43.1–3), and Tiridates was forced to flee (A. 6.44.5). Describing the events of 47 ce, Tacitus presented a series of battles for the Parthian throne between two brothers, Gotarzes (40–51 ce) and Vardanes (40–47 ce, A. 11.8.1–10.4), although these did not have a direct effect on the state of Parthian-Roman relations until Vardanes decided to get involved in Armenian affairs. At this point,

c15_Vol2.indd 786

Vibius Marsus, the Roman governor of Syria, forced him to relinquish these intentions (A. 11.10.1). Vardanes’ strong position aroused concerns among the opposition, resulting in assassination (A. 11.10.3) and power switching hands to Gotarzes (A. 11.10.4). His authoritarian rule led the aristocrats to approach Claudius with a request to send the Phraates IV’s grandson Meherdates from Rome (A. 11.10.4). Tacitus relates the fate of Meherdates’ expedition at A. 12.10.1–14.1. Despite Roman support (A. 12.11.3– 12.2), the journey failed, as Meherdates’ Parthian supporters soon abandoned him (A. 12.12.3–14.2). Gotarzes spared his life, but also disfigured him permanently to eliminate him from future competition for the throne (A. 12.12.3). Gotarzes’ illness meant that his rule was brief, as was that of Vonones (II) (51 ce), who succeeded him as king. Vonones was followed by his son Vologases I (51– c. 79/80 ce) (A. 12.12.4). Vologases’ assumption of power opened a new chapter in Roman-Parthian relations. This was characterized by competition for rule over Armenia between the Iberians, Parthians, and Rome, and a lengthy war between Rome and the king of Parthia (A. 12.44.1). Tacitus presents an extensive and detailed description of the course of these events in Annals 12–15. The beginning of these events was marked by an attempt by Pharasmanes, ruler of Caucasian Iberia, to take control of Armenia and place his son Radamistus on the throne. In this way, Pharasmanes hoped to counteract any attempts by his own heir to remove him from power. Encouraged by his father, Radamistus removed his uncle Mithridates from the Armenian throne. The deposed monarch sought support from the Romans stationed in the fortress of Gorneae, but their commander, bribed by Radamistus, did not intervene even when Mithridates was captured by his nephew and murdered along with his family (A. 12.47.1–48.5). Ummidius Quadratus, the governor of Syria at that time, was unsuccessful in his diplomatic efforts to expel Radamistus from Armenia. He did not undertake armed intervention in Armenia, fearing that he would provoke conflict with the Parthians (A. 12.48.1–49.1). Yet King Vologases took advantage of the situation in Armenia, making his brother Tiridates king (A. 12.50.1).

28-04-2023 18:01:41

Parthia  

Radamistus did not abandon his ambitions, and briefly regained Armenia, but he soon lost power as a result of a rebellion among his subjects, who forced him to flee and return to Iberia (A. 12.50.2–51.2). The  result was that Vologases reasserted control over Armenia (A. 13.6.1). News of these events reached Rome shortly after Nero came to power (A. 13.6.2). They led the new emperor to make a string of decisions leading to military confrontation with the Parthians. Yet this was put on hold, since Vologases was busy fighting the usurper and withdrew his army from Armenia (A. 13.7.2). Rome, however, had no intentions of giving up its claims to the kingdom. In 54/55 ce, Domitius Corbulo was appointed commander-in-chief of the Roman army. Under pressure from him and from Ummidius Quadratus, Vologases attempted to buy time by giving up the hostages to the Romans (A. 13.9.1). This gesture reduced the tension between the two states for a time. In 58 ce, Tiridates, supported by Vologases’ army, again invaded Armenia (A. 13.37.1). He sent envoys to Corbulo to present the arguments in favor of his claim to the Armenian crown, emphasizing Vologeses’ readiness to provide military support to his brother (A. 13.37.4). Corbulo, who knew about Vologases’ engagement on another front, dispatched Tiridates with his claims to Nero. Since it seemed impossible to achieve lasting peace through negotiations by emissaries, a personal meeting between the Roman leader and Tiridates was sought (A. 13.38.1). Tiridates, however, feared subterfuge, and did not appear at the appointed place (A. 13.38.4–39.1). In the light of the failure of the talks, Corbulo undertook an offensive in Armenia, capturing the capital, Artaxata (A. 13.40.1–41.4). He continued these activities in the following years. In 59 ce, he conquered Tigranocerta and gained control over a large part of Armenia (A. 14.23.1–25.1). Tiridates attempted to resist and return to Armenia, but without success (A. 14.26.1). Corbulo, meanwhile, reinforced the Roman presence in Armenia and placed Tigranes VI on the throne (A. 14.26.1). He did this in the knowledge that Vologases, occupied with his battles in Hyrcania, was unable to provide support to his brother (A. 14.25.2; 15.1.1). The situation changed only in

c15_Vol2.indd 787

787

62 ce, when Tigranes attacked the ruler of Adiabene, the vassal of the Parthians. Vologases again asserted Tiridates’ claim to the throne of Armenia and even sent an army to remove Tigranes (A. 15.1.2–2.4). Fearing the Parthians, Corbulo strengthened Syria’s borders and demanded that Vologases bring a halt to his actions against Tigranes, threatening him with a revenge attack (A. 15.3.1–4, 3). Seeking to avoid a direct clash with Roman forces, Vologases announced a special legation to Nero (A. 15.5.4) in order to assert his brother’s rights to Armenia and withdrew from the territory (A. 15.5.1–4). News of regaining Armenia was greeted as a success in Rome (A. 15.6.1). At this point too, Nero, upon Corbulo’s suggestion, entrusted further continuation of military operations solely in Armenia to Lucius Caesennius Paetus (A. 15.6.3). Vologases’ mission to Rome ended in failure, which led him to embark on military action (A. 15.7.1). The culmination of these operations came with capitulation in late autumn 62 ce of the Roman corps commanded by Paetus, defending the fortress in Rhandeia (A. 15.8.1– 14.3). Discussions in the king’s name were led by Vasaces (otherwise unknown, A. 15.14.2–3), commander of the cavalry. Vologases received the Romans’ submission in the company of his brothers Pacorus and Tiridates (A. 15.14.1), using the fact for propaganda purposes to demonstrate the Parthians’ power. Soon afterward, Vologases concluded an agreement with Corbulo resolving an act of capitulation foreseeing the withdrawal of Roman troops from Armenia until Nero reached a decision on acceptance of his conditions (A. 15.16.2). After some time, both sides withdrew their armies from the positions they were occupying (A. 15.17.3). Vologases sent another delegation to Nero demanding recognition of Tiridates’ claim to the throne of Armenia and declaring his brother’s readiness to accept the diadem from the emperor. He also suggested that this ceremony should take place in the presence of Roman legions (A. 15.24.1–2). The king’s demands came as a complete surprise to the emperor, who had not been informed of the true state of affairs in the East. He did not give any answer to Vologases’ messengers, although they were convinced that their mission had been a success (A. 15.2.3). At the same time, he instructed Corbulo to resume

28-04-2023 18:01:41

788  

Passienus C rispus

the war (A. 15.25.2–4). During preparations, envoys came to Corbulo from Tiridates and Vologases with the aim of securing peace. A meeting between the Roman commander and Tiridates took place near Rhandeia, where Tiridates laid down his diadem before the Roman soldiers (A. 15.27.1–29.3). It was agreed that he would collect it from Nero in Rome. The guarantee that the conditions of the agreement would be adhered to was Tiridates’ daughter, whom he handed over to the commander with a letter to Nero (A. 15.30.1– 2). Vologases accepted the conditions yet asked of Corbulo that his brother be treated in a manner fit for a king during the journey to Rome (A. 15.31). The final matter associated with the war in Armenia mentioned by Tacitus is a reference to the presence of Tiridates in Rome in 66 ce (A. 16.23.2). Tacitus’ previous work, Histories, which describes the events of 69–96 ce, has not survived in full. Only the first few books, or lengthy passages from them, presenting the events of 68–69 ce, are available. In this context, Tacitus only mentions the role of the Parthians in supporting the Pseudo-Nero (H. 1.2.1) and Vespasian’s efforts to prevent Vologases and Tiridates from becoming embroiled in the civil war in Rome (H. 2.83.2). He also mentions the fact that, after the Second Battle of Bedriacum, the Parthian king offered Vespasian military support in the struggle for the throne. Vespasian rejected this proposal, claiming that the war was over (H. 4.51.1–2). Although Tacitus mainly focuses on political and military events, in the passages concerning the Parthians he also gives much information on their customs, political ideology, social and political relations, state institutions, and warfare, and we owe our knowledge of these subjects entirely to him. FURTHER READING Bivar, Adrian D. H. 1983. “The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3.1: The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods, edited by Ehsan Yarshater, 21–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dąbrowa, Edward. 2012. “The Arsacid Empire, 164–186.” In The Oxford Handbook of Iranian

c15_Vol2.indd 788

History, edited by Touraj Daryaee. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Dąbrowa, Edward. 2017. “Tacitus on the Parthians.” Electrum 24: 171–189. DOI: 10.4467/20800909EL.17.026.7508. Debevoise, Neilson C. 1938. A Political History of Parthia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ehrhardt, Norbert. 1998. “Parther und parthische Geschichte bei Tacitus, 295–307.” In Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse. Beiträge des Internationalen Colloquiums, Eutin (27.-30. Juni 1996), edited by Josef Wiesehöfer. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Gregoratti, Leonardo. 2020. “The Need for a Third Space, Geographical and Political Spaces at the Periphery of the Parthian and Roman Empires: Some Preliminary Remarks.” In Methods and Models in Ancient History, Essays in Honor of Jørgen Christian Meyer, edited by I. Maehle, P. B. Ravnå, and E. H. Seland, 221–230. Athens: Norwegian Institute at Athens. Keitel, Elizabeth. 1978. “The Role of Parthia and Armenia in Tacitus Annals 11 and 12.” American Journal of Philology 99: 462–473. Schippmann, Klaus. 1980. Grundzüge der parthischen Geschichte. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Wolski, Józef. 1993. L’Empire des Arsacides. Leuven: Peeters.

PASSIENUS CRISPUS ISABELLE COGITORE

Université Grenoble Alpes TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Passienus Crispus (d. 47 ce; suffect consul in 27; consul in 44) was an influential orator and senator close to Caligula, and husband of Agrippina the Younger before her marriage with Claudius. His name appears in epigraphic documents (see PIR2 P 146) and in scattered and often elliptical literary sources in different forms: Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus; Sallustius Crispus; Passienus Crispus; and finally, in Tacitus, Passienus (A. 6.20). Son of L. Passienus Rufus (consul in 4 bce), he is adopted by the wealthy and powerful Sallustius Crispus (who in turn was the adopted son of the historian Sallust) from whom he

28-04-2023 18:01:41

Patavium  

inherits immense riches. He becomes quaestor, certainly in 18 ce (Cébeillac 1972, 27 n.10), then suffect consul in 27 ce. His career is also enriched by the titles of VIIvir epulonum, sodalis Augustalis, and sodalis Titius; he obtains the proconsulship of Asia in 42/43 ce, then the consulship in 44 ce. His career does not evolve quickly in the beginning, since the consulship in 27 is only suffect, but it gains momentum later under the reign of Caligula, with whom he is in friendly terms; a scholium to Juvenal (4.81) places him alongside Caligula in 39 ce while the latter crosses the Alps and shows his rage against his sisters Agrippina the Younger and Iulia Livilla by exiling them in Pontia. If a marriage with a descendant of Gnaus Domitius Calvinus (PIR2 D 139) is uncertain (Syme 1979, 666), the marriage with Domitia, daughter of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (2) and Antonia the Elder, undoubtedly happened, although the date cannot be established with certainty. This marriage ends in a divorce, maybe provoked by Agrippina who, being widow of the brother of Domitia and mother of the young Nero, was seeking to remarry; Tacitus (A. 13.19–21) emphasizes the rivalry between the two women, but does not stress the fact that Passienus Crispus then marries Agrippina, certainly after 41, after she came back from exile, and before 42/43. An allusion to that marriage appears in Tacitus A. 12.6, where he affirms that Agrippina is a widow prouisu deum, a fact that makes her remarriage with Claudius possible. The scholium to Juvenal accuses more explicitly Agrippina of having provoked the death of her cumbersome but wealthy husband. His death probably dates before 47 ce, or at the beginning of that year, because he is not mentioned in the extant passages of Tacitus. Passienus Crispus is celebrated for his rhetorical talent, frequently mentioned by Seneca the Elder, but also by Quintilian (Inst. 6.1.50); he is also known for his talent in adulation (Sen. Nat. 4. Praef.6), and his spirit is apparent also in a witticism preserved by Seneca (Ben. 1.15.5). Reference work: PIR2 P 146

c15_Vol2.indd 789

789

REFERENCES Cébeillac, Mireille.1972. Les “quaestores principis et candidati” aux Ier et IIème siècles de l’Empire. Milano: Cisalpino Goliardica. Syme, Ronald. 1979. Roman Papers, II. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

PATAVIUM JAKUB PIGOŃ

University of Wrocław

Patavium (modern Padova) was a major city in Transpadane Italy (in the Augustan Regio X), a Roman municipium from 49 bce, and an important commercial and economic center with a long history going back well before the Roman period. (For its mythical foundation by the Trojan Antenor, see Verg. Aen. 1.242–249.) Its four mentions in Tacitus include one relating to its famous son, Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus. In the Histories, Patavium appears in the narrative of the civil wars of 69 ce as one of the towns which went over to the Flavians as they were marching westward into the Transpadana in the late summer (H. 3.6.2; 3.7.1; 3.11.3; but not 2.100.3, where the emendation Patavii for the transmitted patui should be rejected; see Wellesley 1975, 134–139). The city does not seem to have suffered much during the civil wars. There is no evidence to substantiate Koestermann’s theory (1965) that Tacitus was a native of Patavium (as his fellow-historian Livy certainly was). However, he seems to have been well informed about its institutions and traditions, since he is our only authority for the name of an obscure festival held in the town every thirty years (cf. Cass. Dio 62.26.4) and said to have been introduced by Antenor, ludi cetasti (A. 16.21.1; the manuscript reading may by correct; for a full discussion, see Linderski 2007). Among accusations levelled against Thrasea Paetus in preparation for his trial in 66 ce there was also the complaint that he had taken no significant part in the Neronian Juvenalia, although he had sung (probably two years earlier, in 57) “in tragic attire” during the ludi cetasti. It is important to remember, in connection with the stern Thrasea, that the Patavians had a

28-04-2023 18:01:42

790  

P edanius Secundus

widespread reputation for their strict morality and conservatism, also in the political sphere; see Plin. Ep. 1.14.6; Mart. 11.16.8. For an account of Patavium, see Strabo 5.1.7; for its inscriptions, CIL V. see also: geography; morality Reference works: Barrington 40 B2; RE XVIII 2 (1949), 2114–2119 (H. Philipp) REFERENCES Koestermann, Erich. 1965. “Tacitus und die Transpadana.” Athenaeum 43: 167–208. Linderski, Jerzy. 2007. “Games in Patavium.” In Roman Questions II. Selected Papers, 463–491. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Wellesley, Kenneth. 1975. The Long Year: A.D. 69. London: Paul Elek. FURTHER READING Sartori, Franco. 1981. “Padova nello stato romano dal sec. III A.C. all’età dioclezianea.” In Padova antica: Da communità paleoveneta a città romano-cristiana, edited by Luciano Bosio et al., 97–189. Padova– Trieste: Edizioni Lint.

PATROBIUS, see GALBA PAXAEA, see POMPONIUS LABEO PEDANIUS COSTA, see VERGINIUS RUFUS

PEDANIUS SECUNDUS FÁBIO DUARTE JOLY

Federal University of Ouro Preto

Lucius Pedanius Secundus was suffect consul in 43 ce (CIL VI 2015; Plin. HN 10.35), proconsul of Asia c. 51/52 ce (BMC Lydia 162.7) and prefect of the city of Rome (praefectus urbi), between 56 and 61 ce, when he died in his residence in Rome by the hands of one of his domestic slaves (A. 14.42.1). Although Pedanius is the most representative name from Barcino (Barcelona), in Tarraconensis, there is no consensus as to the origin of this family (in spite of the choice for Barcino by Syme

c15_Vol2.indd 790

1967, 480; 785). According to Navarro (2003, 674) it is possible that their members were divided in two distinct families, the Pedanii Secundi, whose first name was always Lucius, and the Pedanii Salinatores, whose first name was always Gnaeus. It could be that Lucius Pedanius Secundus Iulius Persicus, attested by the inscription of Barcino (IRC 4.37), had an italic origin and descended from Lucius Pedanius Secundus or was adopted by him. Although Tacitus does not give details about Pedanius Secundus, the episode of his death (A. 14.42–45) has an important role in his narrative, since it allowed him to explore the personality of the senator and jurist Gaius Cassius Longinus (2). After the death of Pedanius, the Senate readily considered the application of the senatus consultum Silanianum, which predicted torture and execution of all the slaves in the house (sub eodem tecto)—four hundred, in the case of Pedanius’ household. Some senators were uncertain about applying the law, due to the very large number of slaves involved, but the prevailing arguments were the ones laid out by Cassius, of an excessive severity (nimia severitas, A. 14.42.2). The sentence, supported by Nero, was carried out under protests of the Roman plebs. The fact that the execution of the slaves was defended by a senator such as Cassius Longinus is significant. Tacitus had already praised his conduct as governor of Syria, between 45 and 49 ce, when he had restored the ancient ­c ustoms within the troops (A. 12.12.1), as well as his severitas (A. 13.48). Thus, Tacitus represents him as the personification of the ancient virtues and connected to the concept of mos maiorum. Ginsburg (1993, 96–103) even compares Cassius’ speech with the Sallustian speech of Cato the Younger in the Senate, when he defended the death penalty for those who participated in the conspiracy of Catiline in 63 bce. see also: slaves Reference works: PIR2 P 202; CIL VI 2015; BMC Lydia 162.7; Inscriptions romaines de Catalogne (IRC) 4.37

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P edius B laesus  

REFERENCES Ginsburg, Judith. 1993. “In maiores certamina: Past and Present in the Annals.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 86–103. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Navarro, Francisco J. 2003. “Un anónimo senador procedente de Barcino.” In Urbs aeterna. Actas y colaboraciones del Coloquio Internacional Roma entre la literatura y la historia. Homenaje a la profesora Carmen Castillo, edited by C. Alonso del Real et al., 663–677. Pamplona: Eunsa. Syme, Ronald, ed. 1967. Tacitus. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Bellen, Heinz. 1982. “Antike Staatsräson: Die Hinrichtung der 400 Sklaven des römischen Stadtpräfekten L. Pedanius Secundus im Jahre 61 n. Chr.” Gymnasium 89: 449–467.

PEDIUS BLAESUS EDWARD MILLBAND

University of Cambridge

The senator Pedius Blaesus, whose praenomen is unknown, was probably an ex-praetor (although the date of his praetorship is uncertain) at the time when he faced trial before the Senate late in 59 ce, on a charge of extortion in the senatorial province of Crete and Cyrene (which had been administered jointly, as one province, since 27 bce), of which he was governor during the previous year (A. 14.18.1, Schol. Pers. 1.85, Kißel 1990, 223–224). A minor senatorial province of this kind, in which no legions were stationed, was more likely to be governed by an ex-praetor than by an ex-consul (Talbert 1984, 393). The citizens of Cyrene impeached him and denounced him to the Senate, on the grounds that he had plundered the treasury of Aesculapius in that city and manipulated the military levies in the province by permitting provincials to bribe him, in order that they might avoid conscription (A. 14.18.1). The Pedius of Pers. 1.85, lampooned as the archetypal thief, was first identified with Pedius Blaesus by the scholiast

c15_Vol2.indd 791

791

(Schol. Pers. 1.85); this identification is supported by Scivoleto (1961, 22) and Kißel (1990, 223–224), who both argue that such a reference would have been highly topical among the Roman elite at the time of the satire’s publication (around, or just after, 60 ce). Following his conviction by the Senate under the lex repetundarum, he was sentenced to relegatio, which entailed loss of rank (but not property or citizenship) and banishment from Rome (Talbert 1984, 28–29). Almost a decade later, in the spring of 69 ce, he was recalled to Rome by the new emperor Otho and regained both his membership of the Senate and his rank of expraetor (H. 1.77.3); his recall was part of a policy of clemency, whereby Otho, like his predecessor Galba and his successors Vitellius and Vespasian, sought to garner widespread senatorial support by recalling members expelled under Claudius and Nero, thereby being seen to correct the excesses of the previous regimes (Talbert 1984, 29). Nothing else is known of his career; Jagentufel’s (1958, 110–111) attempt to identify a legate of Dalmatia known only by the cognomen Blaesus, as recorded by the inscription CIL 3.6407, of uncertain date, with Pedius Blaesus is too speculative to be convincing. see also: Cossutianus Capito; Crete; Lurius Varus; Plautius Lateranus; provinces Reference work: PIR2 P 212 REFERENCES Jagentufel, Adolf. 1958. Die Statthalter der römischen Provinz Dalmatia von Augustus bis Diokletian. Wien: R.M. Rohrer. Kißel, Walter. 1990. Aulus Persius Flaccus: Satiren. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag. Scivoleto, Nino. 1961. Auli Persi Flacci: Saturae. Florence: La Nuova Italia. Talbert, Richard. 1984. The Senate of Imperial Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. FURTHER READING Garnsey, Peter. 1970. Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:42

792  

P ercennius

PEDIUS, QUINTUS, see HIRTIUS, AULUS PELAGO, see RUBELLIUS PLAUTUS PELOPS, see SARDIS

PERCENNIUS SHREYAA BHATT

Newcastle University

Percennius (PIR2 P 230) was a soldier of the Pannonian legions stationed on the Danube (VIII, IX and XV) in 14 ce which mutinied during the iustitium (suspension of business) declared upon the death of Augustus. Tacitus describes him as having experience in “stirring up crowds” due to a prior occupation leading a theatrical claque (a group of men hired to incite audience emotions at the theater). Percennius is given a prime role in the Pannonian Revolt through the form of indirect speech which provocatively details the oppressive and exploitative conditions of military service and concludes with a list of improved conditions such as a fixed sixteen-year term and the pay of a denarius a day (A. 1.16.3–1.17.6). Of the four extant accounts of the mutinies in 14 ce (Vell. Pat. 2.125.1–2; Cass. Dio 57.4–6; Suet. Tib. 25; and Tacitus, A. 1.16.44–49), Tacitus is the only author to mention Percennius, thereby presenting an account of the motives behind the Pannonian rebellion from the perspective of the miles gregarius (common soldier). Tacitus’ Percennius has been the subject of two instances of reception in twentieth century literary criticism: the first is by Erich Auerbach in his work Mimesis (2003), and the second is by Jacques Rancière in The Names of History (1994). Both Auerbach and Rancière assess the extent to which Tacitus’ practice of writing history captures, or indeed fails to capture, the voice and perspective of the common, everyday person, in this case Percennius. For Auerbach, the speech Tacitus ascribes to Percennius, though persuasively argued and realistic in terms of content, remains flawed due to an “excess of rhetorical devices” which render Percennius and his fellow insurgent Vibulenus as “mere scoundrels and swindlers.” For Auerbach, though Percennius speaks, he

c15_Vol2.indd 792

speaks “Tacitean”: he is an invention of an elite historian and marks the mimetic limit of Tacitean historiography (Auerbach 2003, 39). Jacques Rancière, on the other hand, uses Tacitus’ inclusion of Percennius’ speech to suggest the crucial role played by rhetoric in mimetic representation: by including Percennius’ voice in the form of oratio obliqua, Rancière argues that Tacitus cancels the opposition between legitimate and illegitimate speakers, thereby establishing parity between the voice of the privileged historian and that of the common person. For Rancière, then, Tacitus’ particular use of rhetoric does not preclude mimesis; rather, by “lending” Percennius a tongue (Rancière 1994, 27), Tacitus’ narrative asserts the inclusive power of language. The commentaries of Auerbach and Rancière raise key questions concerning the tension between the presentation of history and history itself. Of note, however, is that both commentators risk a certain anachronism in their considerations of ancient rhetoric by aligning it too strictly with what a modern reader might term “fiction.” So, too, in their presumptions of Tacitus’ elitism, they ascribe a certain homogeneity to his views, missing the nuances of Tacitus’ history writing with respect to his presentation of the common soldier, Rome’s “others,” and imperial policy more widely. This ambivalence is, perhaps, one of the more intriguing aspects of Tacitus’ writing of enemy speeches, which certainly varies across his works in terms of content, tone, and mode. see also: historiography; reception, twentieth century; speeches REFERENCES Auerbach, Erich. 2003. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Translated by Willard Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rancière, Jacques. 1994. The Names of History: On the Poetics of Knowledge. Translated by Hassan Melehy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. FURTHER READING Adler, Eric. 2011. Valorizing the Barbarians: Enemy Speeches in Roman Historiography. Austin: University of Texas Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P ergamum ( P ergamon )  

Bhatt, Shreyaa. 2016. “Rhetoric and Truth: Tacitus’s Percennius and Democratic Historiography.” Helios 43: 163–189. DOI: doi:10.1353/ hel.2016.0007.

PERGAMUM (PERGAMON) CARSON BAY

Institut für Judaistik, Universität Bern

Pergamum (also spelled Pergamon, modern Bergama) was a city in the Roman province of Asia. Tacitus’ references to Pergamum are restricted to the Annals. This is to be expected because the province of Asia had become particularly important to the empire during the reign of Augustus. Under Augustus Asia became an interconnected complex of self-sustained cities with architectural-religious links to Rome through the establishment of the imperial cult. Pergamum was distinguished within Asia as the first city to enjoy the establishment of the imperial cult in a neocorate temple dedicated to Augustus and Rome in 19 bce (Cass. Dio 51.20.6); it would later become the first city to possess two neocorates under Trajan c. 114/115 ce (Friesen 1993, 8–15). It is understandable why Pliny dubbed Pergamum longeque clarissimum Asiae (HN 5.126). Tacitus first mentions Pergamum at A. 3.63, where the consuls, on behalf of the Senate, are determining which Greek states’ temples have legitimate claim to asylum status. The consuls report confirming the asylum of the Asclepieion at Pergamum (A. 3.63.2). This may have had to do with the temple’s connection to Iulius Caesar (see IK Smyrna 590.13). Whatever the reason for the consuls’ positive response, here Pergamum plays a role in “Tacitus’ tracing of a downward trajectory of religion and memory in Rome” (Shannon-Henderson 2018, 155). At A. 4.37 Tacitus records a speech of Tiberius to the Senate concerning the relative merits of the imperial cult’s perpetuation. Tiberius posits that Divine Augustus did not forbid a temple dedicated to himself and Rome

c15_Vol2.indd 793

793

to be erected at Pergamum (A. 4.37.3). Thus, in 23 ce the Senate granted the cities of Asia permission to build a temple to Tiberius and his mother. In 26 ce, the Senate received delegations from eleven Asian cities to decide which city would be given the honor. Tacitus records the debate in A. 4. 55 and mentions that, while Pergamum thought itself likely to be chosen due to its already-existing temple to Augustus, it was for that very reason considered already to have been sufficiently honored (satis adeptos creditum; A. 4.55.2). Tacitus’ final mention of Pergamum at A. 16.23.1 implicates the civitas Pergamenus in attacking Nero’s freedman Acratus, who was ordered in 64 ce to plunder Asian and Achaean temples and remove the statues of their gods. Tacitus maintains that Pergamum went unpunished. Tacitus would have known Pergamum well given his proconsulate in Asia sometime after 110 ce. For him, Pergamum was important for its political and religious ties, through temples, to Rome and the emperor. His emphasis upon Pergamum’s religious significance may correspond to its identification as a place “where Satan dwells” by the early Christian author of the Book of Revelation (2.14). see also: Aesculapius; Cornelius Tacitus Reference works: Barrington 56 E3; 1 I3; 57 F2; IK Smyrna 590.13 = RDGE 54.13 (RGE 80A) REFERENCES Friesen, Steven J. 1993. Twice Neokoros: Ephesus, Asia & the Cult of the Flavian Imperial Family. Leiden: Brill. Shannon-Henderson, Kelly E. 2018. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. New York: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Evans, Richard. 2012. A History of Pergamum: Beyond Hellenistic Kingship. New York: Bloomsbury.

PERINTHUS, see THRACE PERIPATETICS, see PHILOSOPHY PERPENNA, see HIEROCAESARIA

28-04-2023 18:01:42

794  

P erseus

PERSEUS

PERSIA

LEE E. PATTERSON

ANDREW NICHOLS

Eastern Illinois University

University of Florida

Perseus, son of Philip V, was king of Macedonia (ruled 179–168 bce). Despite amicable relations with Rome early in his reign, hostilities eventually broke out in the Third Macedonian War (171– 168), although allegations of the king’s barefaced imperialistic aggressions, made especially by Eumenes II of Pergamum, become difficult to sustain upon closer inspection of the sources, mainly Livy and Polybius (Burton 2017, 78–123; Gruen 1984, 403–419). Nonetheless, the conflict culminated in the Battle of Pydna (168), of which the victor was Lucius Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus (Livy 44.40–42; Plut. Aem. 18–22). By losing this battle, Perseus in turn lost his kingdom and his freedom, bringing an end to the Antigonid dynasty of Macedonia. Tacitus mentions Perseus three times, always in the context of other defeated kings. In two instances, certain eastern cities seek the Senate’s favor and remind it of their assistance in the defeat of Rome’s past enemies, including Perseus. The first reference comes in Tacitus’ account of the competition of eleven cities in Asia Minor to be chosen as the location of a new temple to Tiberius, Livia Augusta, and the Senate in 26 (A. 4.55.1). In the second, Byzantium seeks relief of its heavy tax-burden in 53, listing for the Senate centuries of services rendered to the Roman state (A. 12.62). Elsewhere Tacitus refers to speeches delivered in the Senate in the year 51 in praise of Ostorius Scapula, whose recent capture of the Briton chieftain Caratacus is compared to the capture of the Numidian king Syphax by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and of Perseus by Paulus (A. 12.38.1).

Persia was a region in modern Iran with its epicenter in Persis in the southwestern Iranian Plateau. Until the sixth century, the region was inhabited by various nomadic tribes and petty kingdoms of Iranian peoples who were, in part, incorporated into the Assyrian Empire (tenth– seventh centuries bce). After the Median Sack of Nineveh (612 bce) and the eventual collapse of the Assyrian Empire soon after (609 bce), the Medes, an Iranian tribe from northwestern Iran under Cyaxares, formed their own independent kingdom and subjugated much of the surrounding tribes east of the Tigris, including the Elamites to the south and the Persians to the southeast. During the reign of Astyages, son of Cyaxares, the Median Empire was conquered by Cyrus, at the time a petty king from Anshan in Elamite territory. After toppling the Medes and overtaking their empire, Cyrus began a series of successful conquests of neighboring kingdoms, including Babylonia and Lydia in Anatolia, establishing what would come to be known as the Achaemenid dynasty. At the time of his death (539 bce), his kingdom stretched from Anatolia and Asia Minor in the west to Bactria and Sogdiana in the east, encompassing most of the modern Middle East. Under Cambyses, the son and successor of Cyrus, the Persians annexed Egypt to their empire. Upon Cambyses’ death (519 bce), there was a succession crisis in which it was alleged that Bardiya (Herodotus calls him “Smerdis”), Cambyses’ brother and heir, had been assassinated by a Magus and replaced with an imposter who resembled him. Darius, along with six other Persian noblemen, overthrew the Magus and the false Bardiya, and ascended the throne himself. Under Darius, the empire reached its zenith with borders stretching from Northern Greece and Thrace in the West to the Indus Valley, the edge of the known world at the time, in the east, in what was the largest empire the world had seen to that time. Although his successors would relinquish their influence in Europe and the Indus

see also: Aristonicus; memory; Roman Republic REFERENCES Burton, Paul J. 2017. Rome and the Third Macedonian War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gruen, Erich S. 1984. The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press.

c15_Vol2.indd 794

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P ersia  

Valley, the bulk of the empire would, for the most part, remain intact until the conquests of Alexander the Great. After Xerxes’ aborted attempt to subdue Greece (480 bce), the remainder of the Achaemenid kings would be more focused on retaining their empire rather than expanding it, a task that would become increasingly difficult. During the fourth century toward the end of the lengthy reign of Artaxerxes II (404–358 bce), growing internal discord within the empire would hasten its demise. Soon after taking the throne, Artaxerxes lost control of Egypt who revolted under Amyrtaeus; however, he was able to stabilize the empire for much of his reign. In 366, several satraps from the western provinces revolted against the aging king in what came to be known as the Great Satraps’ Revolt. Within a few years the revolt was quashed and any threat to the empire was mitigated for the time being. Upon Artaxerxes’ death (358 bce), he was succeeded by his son, Artaxerxes III, who would be the last great king of the Achaemenid line. Upon his ascension, Artaxerxes purged the royal family, killing eighty of his closest relatives to avoid any challenges to the throne. Facing remaining tensions and hostilities in the west, the new king campaigned to restore order and solidify his control over the regions of Anatolia and the Levant. He also set his sights on reconquering Egypt. After an initial failure and forced retreat, he eventually succeeded in restoring Egypt to the empire (343 bce). By this time, tensions began growing with a new emerging power in Greece, the Macedonians under Philip II. Artaxerxes began sending aid to Philip’s enemies in Thrace and forced him to abandon his siege at Perinthus (340 bce). Before his death, Philip was planning a full-scale invasion of Persia, a plan his son would see to fruition. Artaxerxes died in 338, possibly being poisoned by the eunuch Bagoas, who then proceeded to murder the remaining children of Artaxerxes except the young Arses, whom he elevated to the throne as Artaxerxes IV. Within two years, Bagoas assassinated Artaxerxes IV, leaving a decimated family line with no clear heir. Ultimately a distant relative was made king

c15_Vol2.indd 795

795

under the name Darius III, who was to be the last of the Achaemenids. In 334 bce, Alexander the Great invaded the Persian Empire and by 331 bce was in control of all but the easternmost provinces. While conquering the empire, Alexander kept it intact, often reappointing satraps and local officials who were now to answer to him rather than Darius. After Darius’ death, he was able to subdue, with much bloodshed and many casualties, the eastern provinces of Bactria and Sogdiana, before reaching the Indus. He annexed the Indus Valley, restoring the empire to its greatest extent under Darius I. He made it as far east as the Hydaspes, thus creating an empire even larger than any ruled by an Achaemenid king. It was only upon his death that the empire was fractured and dismantled by his predecessors, with Seleucus eventually becoming king of Persia and Mesopotamia. Governing such a large empire proved to be a formidable task. There were four capitals between which the king divided his residence: Persepolis, Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana. The empire was divided into provinces called satrapies, each ruled by an individual satrap who responded directly to the king. Satraps were appointed by the king alone and were forbidden from contacting each other without the king’s knowledge. A spy network of some sort was established, referred to in the sources as the King’s Eye (or the King’s Eyes and Ears). A vast network of roads with periodic guard posts and stations were constructed throughout the empire to facilitate communication and travel while a network of tunnels and canals (qanats) were built to aid in irrigation. The Persian monarchs, following the example of Cyrus, showed great tolerance toward their loyal subjects while inflicting harsh and cruel punishments on the rebellious and seditious. The Persian kings, at least from Darius, were adherents of Ahura Mazda and Zoroastrianism; however, local customs and religions were respected, with the king himself sometimes participating in important ceremonies to local deities for ceremonial (and political) purposes. While satraps were usually from the ruling family and Persian nobility, lesser magistrates

28-04-2023 18:01:42

796  

P etilius C erialis C aesius Rufus , Q uintus

were often chosen from the local populace. Local languages were respected with no attempt to force Persian on the populace; the Persians rather chose to employ the lingua franca (Elamite in the east and Aramaic in the west) for official purposes (though it has recently been shown that Persian was on occasion used as well). Alexander, after taking over the empire, chose to adhere to most of these policies, causing friction with his Greek and Macedonian soldiers. The Achaemenids had a profound influence on later monarchs and rulers. The Arsacid dynasty claimed descendance from the Achaemenids and promoted themselves as their successors with a goal to reestablish supremacy over all lands of the earlier Persian Empire, even adopting their iconography and royal titles. The related Artaxiad dynasty in Armenia adopted similar practices. The Armenian Orontid dynasty of Commegene were descended from the Achaemenids and retained many of their Persian traditions while adopting Greek language and customs as well. In being Hellenized Iranians, they served as a bridge between East and West. Mithridates Eupator of Pontus, claiming decent from both the Achaemenids and Seleucids, likewise bridged the two cultures, though he emphasized his Persian heritage in an effort to add prestige to his name and legitimize his rule. see also: Assyria; Bithynia Pontus Reference work: Barrington 94 C4 FURTHER READING Briant, Pierre. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. State College: Pennsylvania State University Press. Brosius, Maria. 2006. The Persians. London and New York: Routledge. Dandamaev, M. A. 1989. A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire. Leiden: Brill. Graf, David F. 1994. “The Persian Royal Road System.” Continuity & Change: Proceedings of the Last Achaemenid History Workshop 1990. Achaemenid History 8: 167–189. Kuhrt, Amélie, and Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, eds. 1988. Method and Theory: Proceedings of the

c15_Vol2.indd 796

London 1985 Achaemenid History Workshop. Achaemenid History 3. Lecoq, Pierre. 1997. Les inscriptions de la Perse achéménide. Paris: Gallimard. Lincoln, Bruce. 2005. “Rebellion and Treatment of Rebels in the Achaemenid Empire.” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 7: 167–179. Schmitt, Rüdiger. 1976. “Der Titel ‘Satrap.’” In Studies in Greek, Italic and Indo-European Linguistics: Offered to Leonard R. Palmer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, June 5, 1976, edited by A. Morpurgo and W. Meid. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 16: 373–390. Wiesehöfer, Josef. 2001. Ancient Persia. Translated by Azizeh Azodi. London: I. B. Tauris.

PERUSIA, see CIVIL WARS OF THE LATE REPUBLIC

PETILIUS CERIALIS CAESIUS RUFUS, QUINTUS KATHRYN WILLIAMS

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Quintus Petil[l]ius Cerialis Caesius Rufus was a Roman general, consul at least twice (first possibly in 70 ce, Joseph. BJ 7.82, perhaps in absentia, PIR2 P 260; suffect consul in 74; unlikely again in 83), governor of Britannia (71–73/4). An inscription from Nicaea may offer evidence of a proconsulship in Bithynia Pontus (Birley 2005, 66 n. 16). As legate of the Ninth Legion in 60 (possibly 61, A. 14.29.1, 39.3; Syme 391, 765), Cerialis suffered ignominious defeat at the hands of Boudicca’s troops. He found greater success in 70 against Iulius Civilis and the Batavians in the Rhineland and during his governorship in Britain against the Brigantes. For the spelling of the name with a double “L” see F. Münzer, RE 19.1 (1937) 1136. Cerialis’ full name is attested on his military diploma of 74 (CIL XVI.20 = ILS 1992), which also confirms his second consulship, beginning on 21 May with Eprius Marcellus. That this Petillius Cerialis was the Quintus Petillius Rufus, ordinary consul in 83, is doubtful (PIR2 P 260; BNJ 257 F 36.24).

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P etilius C erialis C aesius Rufus , Q uintus  

Early history of Cerialis is uncertain. He was the son, possibly adopted, of Petillius Rufus (A. 4.68.2; PIR2 P 260 and Stemma 9) and likely born in Umbria, with which he seemed familiar (H. 3.59.2, 78.3, Birley 2005, 63–64). Cerialis had a close relationship with Vespasian (H. 3.59.2), possibly his son-in-law (Cass. Dio 65.18.1), married to the sister of Titus and Domitian, Flavia Domitilla, who had one daughter of the same name. Domitilla died prior to 69. Gaius Petillius Firmus (PIR2 P 261) may have been a son from a previous marriage. Cerialis’ earliest activity on record is his tardy, careless effort in 60 to thwart Boudicca and her troops, when he saved only himself and his cavalry in a humiliating disaster near Camulodunum that annihilated his infantry (A. 14.32.3–33.1). In 69, his “close kinship” (propinqua adfinitas) with Vespasian and his military reputation (nec inglorius H. 3.59.2), led to his being chosen one of the Flavian generals in Vespasian’s bid to overcome Vitellius. As the Flavians headed toward Rome, at the time Flavius Sabinus was under siege on the Capitolium, Cerialis’ disorganized troops were caught off guard and routed on the outskirts of Rome (H. 3.78.3–79; cf. Cass. Dio 65.18.3). When Vitellius finally deemed it necessary to send envoys to the camps of Antonius Primus and Cerialis, Cerialis’ lack of discipline led to his troops’ gross mistreatment of the envoys (H. 3.80.2; Cass. Dio 65.18.3–19.1). Despite these missteps, Cerialis may have gained his first suffect consulship in 70 (Joseph. BJ 7.82). It was certainly during that year that he took up arms against the rebellious Civilis and his Batavians, along with Gauls, led by the Treveran Iulius Classicus, and Germans who soon joined the revolt (H. 4.68–79, 86; 5.14–25; Cass. Dio 66.3.3; cf. Joseph. BJ 7.82–88). Cerialis defeated enemy troops at Rigodulum and then occupied Augusta Treverorum (H. 4.68, 71–72). Tacitus there has Cerialis deliver a lengthy speech to defeated Treveri and Lingones outlining the benefits to Gallic provincials of Roman imperial rule (H. 4.73–74). The self-contradictions within this famous speech, however, expose a powerful critique against Roman imperialism (Haynes 2003, 163–171; Keitel 1993, 51–57). Immediately after this speech, Tacitus reports that Civilis and

c15_Vol2.indd 797

797

Classicus offered Cerialis a choice of sharing power or continuing the conflict. Cerialis’ response was to send their messenger and proposal to Domitian (H. 4.75.1). They subsequently renewed hostilities with a surprise attack on Augusta Treverorum. Cerialis managed to turn disaster into success by his fortunate recklessness (felix temeritas, H. 4.77.1) which enabled him to capture and destroy Civilis’ camp (H. 4.78.2). Cerialis was said to have deftly parried a request from the young Domitian to hand over his army and command soon after (H. 4.86.1). His pattern of recklessness and success continued at Vetera and again after Civilis withdrew his troops to the Island of the Batavians (5.14–23). Amid this last encounter Tacitus offers a succinct character sketch of Cerialis: subitus consiliis set eventu clarus: aderat fortuna, etiam ubi artes defuissent; hinc ipsi exercituique minor cura disciplinae (“impulsive, but with brilliant results: luck was with him, even when skills were lacking. Consequently, he and his troops had little concern for discipline,” H. 5.21.3). When Civilis finally retreated across the Rhine, Cerialis ravaged the island. Tacitus’ Histories breaks off during the subsequent peace negotiations between the two (H. 5.24–25). After Cerialis suppressed the Batavian Revolt, he assumed the governorship of Britain (Ag. 8.2). There he dominated the Brigantes (Ag. 17.1–2) and then moved his army northward through the Pennines as far as southern Scotland (Birley 2005, 67). Despite these successes during his return to Britain, Tacitus never offers him unequivocal praise. The historian’s father-in-law, Agricola, gained his first opportunities to display his talents and share glory under Cerialis’ command, but not before he first shared only work and danger, ever mindful not to elicit Cerialis’ envy (Ag. 8.2–3). Among Vespasian’s governors in Britain, Tacitus does mention “great generals and excellent armies” (Ag. 17.1), but then describes Cerialis’ attacks on the Brigantes as numerous and bloody and his accomplishments eclipsed by those of his successor, Iulius Frontinus (Ag. 17). His tenure as governor lasted until 73 or possibly early 74, in which year he returned to Rome and assumed his second suffect consulship. No definite references to him later exist.

28-04-2023 18:01:42

798  

P etilius Rufus

see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Gaul; Germania; Suetonius Paulinus, Gaius Reference works: BNJ 257 F36; CIL XVI.20; ILS 1992; PIR2 P 260, P 261; RE 19.1 (1937) 1138–50 REFERENCES Birley, A. R. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haynes, H. 2003. The History of Make-Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Keitel, E. 1993. “Speech and Narrative in Histories 4.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by T. J. Luce and A. J. Woodman, 39–58. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Münzer, F. RE 19.1 (1937) 1136. FURTHER READING Birley, A. R. 1973. “Petillius Cerialis and the Conquest of Brigantia.” Britannia 4: 179–190.

should lure Sabinus into an incriminating conversation. Having gained Sabinus’ confidence, Latiaris brought him to a private room, above which the other prosecutors hid in the space between the roof and ceiling. Tacitus soundly scorns such eavesdropping as beneath the dignity of Roman nobility (A. 4.68). Based on the evidence provided by the four prosecutors, Tiberius condemned Sabinus without a trial to summary execution. The contrast in level of detail—the specificity of the hiding place of the prosecutors as opposed to the lack of detail about the judicial proceedings—contributes to the heightened pathos of the episode. If the Flavian Quintus Petilius Rufus was still alive when Tacitus was composing the Annals, then his grandfather’s role in the prosecution of Sabinus may have been an embarrassment of the sort described at A. 4.33.4, just a few paragraphs before this episode, where Tacitus remarks that often descendants of persons mentioned in history perceive the evil deeds of their forefathers as a reproach to themselves.

PETILIUS RUFUS

see also: delators

VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

Reference work: PIR2 P 262

University of Florida

Petilius Rufus was a former praetor in the year 28 ce, and one of the prosecutors of Titius Sabinus. His name appears only at A. 4.68.2. The manuscripts transmit Petitius, but this unfamiliar name was Romanized to Petilius by Justus Lipsius. Petilius Rufus was apparently the father of the eminent general Petilius Cerialis, the suffect consul in 74, who in the year 70 quashed the rebellion of Iulius Civilis (A.14.32.3) and grandfather of Quintus Petilius Rufus, consul in 83 together with Domitian. Petilius Rufus, together with former praetors Latiaris, Porcius Cato, and Opsius, men whose only access to the consulship was through the favor of Sejanus, prosecuted the equestrian Titius Sabinus because of his friendship with Germanicus and his kindness toward Agrippina the Elder and her children after Germanicus’ death. To gather evidence against their victim, the prosecutors agreed that Latiaris

c15_Vol2.indd 798

FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge.

PETRAE, see SUILLIUS RUFUS PETRONIA, see CORNELIUS DOLABELLA, GNAEUS

PETRONIUS BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

Petronius is the name of a courtier of Nero, who gained the esteem of the emperor for his eccentric lifestyle and reached the consulship; he fell victim to the envy of Ofonius Tigellinus and committed suicide anticipating the emperor’s order. He is

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P etronius  

traditionally thought to be the author of the Satyricon. According to Tacitus (A. 16.18–19), Petronius was a man of a complex and contradictory personality (Schmeling 2011, xvi): he would spend his days in sleep and his nights attending to his social duties and enjoying the amenities of life; he had a refined way of spending his time in idleness, which gained him the reputation of a man who had made luxury a fine art (A. 16.18.1). In years that Tacitus does not specify, he served as proconsul in Bithynia, and then as consul; while in office he proved to be fit to this position, but afterward he fell back into his old habits. He was later admitted to Nero’s inner circle, where he earned the fame of arbiter of elegance (arbiter elegantiae)—which probably implies that he would advise the emperor on refinement of his luxury and excess (Völker and Rohmann 2011, 669). Petronius’ influence aroused the jealousy of the prefect of the praetorian guard Tigellinus, “who looked on him as a rival and even his superior in the science of pleasure” (A. 16.18.3). Due to Tigellinus’ schemes, in the aftermath of the Pisonian Conspiracy of 65 ce, Petronius fell out of Nero’s favor. In the spring of 66 ce, while Nero was in Campania, Petronius reached Cumae, where he was arrested. Rather than waiting for the emperor’s sentence, he decided to kill himself with an originality worthy of his way of life: he had his veins opened, then bound them up, then opened them again; meanwhile he would talk to his friends on frivolous matters, administer punishments and rewards to his slaves, and even took his place at dinner. Finally, he took a nap, so as to make his death appear natural (A. 16.19.2). Contrary to the most usual practice, he did not add to his will any praise for Nero, Tigellinus, or any of the mighty of the court; indeed, he wrote a detailed description of Nero’s excesses, mentioning the names of his companions in lust, and sent it under seal to the emperor. As Nero searched for the person responsible for disclosing his secrets, the blame fell on Silia, the wife of a senator who had been privy to Nero’s debauchery and was also an intimate of Petronius; she was sentenced to exile. Plutarch (Plut. Mor. 60E = Adul. 19) refers to a Petronius who accused Nero of stinginess; Pliny

c15_Vol2.indd 799

799

the Elder mentions a Petronius of consular rank who, when he was about to die because of Nero’s jealousy and envy, broke a fluorspar wine-dipper that had costed him 300,000 sesterces, to prevent it from being inherited by the imperial table (Plin. HN 37.2.20). It is widely accepted that both Plutarch and Pliny refer to the same Petronius of Tacitus; yet, they both give his praenomen as Titus (only the abbreviation T. in Pliny, the full name Τίτος in Plutarch), whereas Tacitus records the abbreviated praenomen C. (for Gaius): this may easily be explained as a confusion in Tacitus’ manuscript tradition, due to the similarity of T and C in some scripts (Rose 1971, 48–49). A further identification of this character with a Titus Petronius Niger, suffect consul in 62 ce, held wide acceptance until recent years; yet, new evidence has shown that the praenomen of the suffect consul of 62 should be read as Publius, which casts serious doubts on the possible identification of this figure with the character of Tacitus, Pliny, and Plutarch (Völker and Rohmann 2011, 675). The manuscript tradition of the Satyricon names as its author a Petronius Arbiter; although none of our sources mention a literary activity by Nero’s courtier, this identification has been largely accepted ever since the late sixteenth century, when it was suggested by the humanist Joseph Justus Scaliger. The Satyricon is the earliest extant example of Roman novel, written in a mixture of prose and verse (prosimetron) and based on a striking commingling of serious and parodic elements. Originally written in at least sixteen books (with scholars speculating on a figure of twenty-four books: Schmeling 2011, xxii), the work has been preserved only in fragments: the largest section, from Books 14–16, features the adventures of three men, Encolpius, Ascyltus, and the young Gyton, with the first two characters competing for the love of the third one; the account of their adventures seems to be based on a parody of the traditional plot of the Greek novel (normally featuring the adventures of a couple of heterosexual lovers). The opening chapters of the surviving section of the novel deal with the debate on the corruption of eloquence, voicing a criticism of the school practices based on declamation (Petron. 1–5); the

28-04-2023 18:01:42

800  

P etronius , P ublius

larger and most famous surviving section of the novel (Petron. 26–78) portrays the Cena Trimalchionis, a dinner feast hosted by the wealthy and eccentric freedman Trimalchio. see also: Anicius Cerialis; Annaeus Mela; Dialogus de Oratoribus; eloquentia; Rufrius Crispus; suicide Reference work: PIR2 P 294 REFERENCES Rose, Kenneth F.C. 1971. The Date and Author of the Satyricon. Leiden: J. E. Brill. Schmeling, Gareth. 2011. A Commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius, with the collaboration of Aldo Setaioli. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Völker, Thomas, and Dirk Rohmann. 2011. “Praenomen Petronii. The Date and Author of the Satyricon Reconsidered.” Classical Quarterly 61: 660–676. FURTHER READING Conte, Gian Biagio. 1997. The Hidden Author: An Interpretation of Petronius’ Satyricon. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sullivan, John P. 1985. “Petronius’ Satyricon and its Neronian Context.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neuren Forschung, Vol. II, Part 32.3, edited by Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase, 1666–1686. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Vannini, Giulio. 2007. “Petronius 1975–2005: bilancio critico e nuove proposte.” Lustrum 49: 7–511.

PETRONIUS PRISCUS, see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS

PETRONIUS, PUBLIUS ELEANOR COWAN

University of Sydney

Publius Petronius was augur in 7 ce, suffect consul in 19, and proconsul in Asia (29–35) and subsequently in Syria (39–42). He was the father-in-law of the future emperor Aulus

c15_Vol2.indd 800

Vitellius (Suet. Vit. 6). He gave his name to the lex Iunia Petronia (Dig. 40.1.24) which stipulated that, in cases of manumission where there were conflicting decisions, judgment should be given in favor of freedom. Philo (Leg. 31 [207]–35 [261]) and Josephus (AJ 18.8.2–9; 19.6.3–4) depict his dealings with the Jewish communities of the eastern empire and note the difficulties of his position after the emperor Gaius demanded that a statue of himself be placed in the Temple of Jerusalem—a demand which the community opposed and which Petronius was unwilling to carry through. Publius Petronius appears twice in Tacitus’ Annals. At 3.49.1–2 Tacitus describes the downfall of the poet Clutorius Priscus who was accused of having composed a poem on the death of Drusus the Younger when Drusus had recovered from his illness. The poem was performed at the home of Publius Petronius before an audience of Roman matrons, which included Petronius’ mother-in-law Vitellia. Vitellia herself refused to give evidence but other witnesses were intimidated, and the trial proceeded. At A. 6.45.2 Tacitus reports that Publius Petronius was nominated by the consuls of 36 ce as a member of the board to assess damages and losses in the fire which burned properties on the Aventine and nearby circus. see also: Caligula; Judaism; Tiberius Reference works: PIR2 P 269; RE 24; OCD3 “Petronius” (RE 24) FURTHER READING Barrett, A. A. 2015. Caligula. The Abuse of Power. London: Routledge. Goodman, Martin. 1996. “Judea.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, edited by A. K. Bowman, E. Champlin, and A. Lintott, Vol. 10, 737–781. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

PETRONIUS TURPILIANUS, PUBLIUS THEODORE ANTONIADIS

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P etronius U rbicus  

Publius Petronius Turpilianus (25 ce–68 ce) was a Roman senator and a consular under Nero. He shared the consulship of 61 ce with Caesennius Paetus, but in the wake of the rebellion of Boudicca in Britannia he was ordered by the emperor to substitute Suetonius Paulinus as a governor in order to restore harmony in the province (A. 14.39; Ag. 16). He was among the first of Nero’s generals to be summarily executed at Galba’s behest. Seneca (Apocol. 14.2) mentions Turpilianus’ father as an old friend of Claudius who married to the sister of Britain’s first governor, Aulus Plautius, Plautia. Birley (1981, 58) suggests that the appointment of a kinsman of Plautius could have had a relieving effect on the restless Boudiccans and, thus, may have influenced Nero in his decision to entrust him the command of Britain. At any rate, in contrast to the avenging tactics of his predecessor, Turpilianus advocated a more conciliatory approach toward the subdued rebels, avoiding oppressive measures, cruel punishments, and extensive military operations (Ag. 16). Initiating a milder rule that must have been prescribed by the emperor himself, Turpilianus managed to improve relations with the natives and restore peace in less than two years before handing the province over to Trebellius Maximus. Though Tacitus characterizes his policy as “indolent inaction” (segni otio, A. 14.39), Gambash (2012, 3) notes that the historian is rather biased regarding the Roman governors of Britain since each one’s achievements are compared to that of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Iulius Agricola. On his return to Rome in 63 ce Turpilianus was appointed curator aquarum (Frontin. Aq. 102.10–11.), whereas in 65 ce he was awarded triumphal honors by Nero for his loyalty to the court (A. 15.72) which, according to Cassius Dio (63.27), was further exhibited through his contribution to the repression of the Pisonian Conspiracy. Nevertheless, he did not escape the fate of most of Nero’s consulars. Soon after he was named emperor by the Senate, and before his arrival to Rome, Galba had Turpilianus put to death, without giving him the right of hearing or defense (H. 1.6, 1.37). Plutarch (Vit. Galb. 15.2) describes him as a helpless old man and

c15_Vol2.indd 801

801

unarmed (γέροντα γυμνὸν καὶ ἄνοπλον) who deserved the chance to defend himself, should Galba have kept his promise to show moderation in his dealings with his political opponents. Reference works: PIR2 P 315; RE Petronius 75 REFERENCES Birley, Anthony R. 1981. The Fasti of Roman Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gambash, Gil. 2012. “To Rule a Ferocious Province: Roman Policy and the Aftermath of the Boudican Revolt.” Britannia 43: 1–15.

PETRONIUS URBICUS JOHN NICOLS

University of Oregon

Petronius Urbicus was procurator of Noricum during the winter of 69 (H. 1.70). He is not otherwise attested in Tacitus and no certain details survive about his career. H. 1.70 narrates the movements of the forces of Vitellius in Noricum and in the Transpadane region (north of the Padus) during the winter of 69. The ala Siliana (whose movements remain somewhat obscure during these years; see the commentaries ad loc., in Heubner and Chilver) was in the region and disposed to Vitellius. In declaring for Vitellius, the soldiers also brought with them as a gift to the new emperor, the most secure (firmissima) of the cities in the region, Mediolanum, Novaria, Eporedia, and Vercellae. Caecina Alienus learned of these events and sent additional units in support. He was, however, conflicted, for he contemplated also sending troops to oppose the pro-Othonian procurator of Noricum, Petronius Urbicus. In the end, Caecina opted to ignore Urbicus, and instead he proceeded directly to Italy via the Great St. Bernard Pass. Urbicus appears to have a adopted a strategy of passive defense in that he broke up bridges between himself and Caecina. Neither he nor his forces were relevant to subsequent events. Urbicus is mentioned on an inscription from Noricum, CIL III, 11557. He may also be related to a Q. Petronius Q.f.

28-04-2023 18:01:42

802  

P harasmanes

Urbicus, prefect of the fourth cohort of Gauls and whose home was Brixia (CIL VII, 704). see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference works: PIR2 P 322; CIL III, 11557; CIL VII, 704 FURTHER READING Alföldy, Géza. 1974. Noricum. London: Routledge & K. Paul. English Edition, 2014, London: Routledge Revivals. Pflaum, H.-G. 1950. Les procurateurs équestres sous le Haut-Empire Romain. Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve.

PEUCINI, see BASTARNAE

PHARASMANES LEE E. PATTERSON

Eastern Illinois University

Pharasmanes (Georgian “Parsman”) was king of Iberia (called Hiberia by Tacitus), a region north of Armenia. As with the latter, the Romans were strategically invested in Iberia. With a friendly king Iberia could afford them leverage in the recurring frontier contests with the Arsacids (see Arsacid dynasty). The Iberian kings in their turn looked to use their Roman connections to enhance their position in the Caucasus and beyond. This dynamic frames the relationship Pharasmanes had with Rome from at least the 30s to the 50s ce. The first opportunity for Pharasmanes of which we know came when Tiberius sought his help after the Arsacid Great King Artabanus II had placed son Arsaces on the Armenian throne. Tiberius needed a pro-Roman king, and he selected Pharasmanes’ brother Mithridates Hiberus. This plan required the brothers to reconcile their differences, and Pharasmanes invaded Armenia on Mithridates’ behalf. As a result, Arsaces was poisoned, and Pharasmanes blunted the efforts of another Arsacid prince, Orodes, to secure Armenia. In 36 ce, Artabanus initiated another invasion but soon withdrew when the Roman general Lucius Vitellius (1), coordinating with Pharasmanes,

c15_Vol2.indd 802

threatened to invade Mesopotamia and supported Tiridates, who achieved significant but short-lived success in ousting Artabanus (A. 6.32.3–35.2; Cass. Dio 58.26.3–4; Joseph. AJ 18.97–100). Mithridates’ reign in Armenia (37–51 ce) was troubled by a despotism that made him exceedingly unpopular among his subjects, as well as a temporary removal by Caligula and restoration by Claudius (A. 11.8.1, 11.9.1; Cass. Dio 60.8.1). His unpopularity created a political environment of which Pharasmanes’ son Radamistus took advantage in his bid for the throne in 51. Pharasmanes, now elderly, worried about the ambitions of his son and sought to channel them in Armenia. Tacitus gives an elaborate account of how Pharasmanes worked with Radamistus to oust Mithridates by a combination of trickery and violence. Feigning a rift with his father, Radamistus won over his uncle and then openly turned on him, fomenting unrest among the Armenian nobles and using troops supplied by Pharasmanes. The king fled to the Roman fortress at Gorneae, but ultimately the Romans proved of little help in preventing his murder at the hands of Radamistus (ruled 51–c. 54), who promptly became Armenia’s next ruler (A. 12.44–47). We next hear of Pharasmanes in the context of Domitius Corbulo’s Armenian War in the late 50s. By this point Radamistus had been driven out of Armenia, and a new Arsacid Great King, Vologaeses I, had placed his brother Tiridates on the Armenian throne. Sent to restore Roman authority by Nero, Corbulo employed the assistance of several allied kings, Pharasmanes among them. Tacitus suggests that Pharasmanes had fallen into disfavor with Rome after Radamistus’ problematic reign, and now he went so far as to execute his son to get back into the Romans’ good graces (A. 13.37.3). After these initial actions, which saw the temporary expulsion of Tiridates, Pharasmanes was commissioned to help protect the northern borders of Armenia under its new pro-Roman vassal Tigranes VI (A. 14.26.2). This marks the final notation of Pharasmanes in the historical record. Reference work: PIR2 P 341

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P hilip I I  

FURTHER READING Braund, D. 1994. Georgia in Antiquity: A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia, 550 bc – ad 562. Oxford: Clarendon. Dąbrowa, E. 1989. “Roman Policy in Transcaucasia from Pompey to Domitian.” In The Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire, edited by D. H. French and C. S. Lightfoot, 67–76. BAR 553. Part 1. Oxford: British Institute of Archaeology.

PHARSALUS, see CIVIL WARS OF THE LATE REPUBLIC PHILADELPHEIA, see EARTHQUAKE OF 17 ce

PHILIP II JULIANA BASTOS MARQUES

Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Philip II (382–336 bce), father of Alexander the Great, was the first king of Macedonia to engage in a series of territorial conquests in Greece, prevailing over Greek city-states and establishing the League of Corinth. He is directly mentioned only once in Tacitus, in a comparison with king Maroboduus of the Suebi, and indirectly in a mention of a speech by Tiberius. Before Philip, the kingdom of Macedonia remained mostly isolated from the politics of the Greek city-states to the south. Rising to the throne in 359 bce, Philip had territorial ambitions unlike all his former predecessors. He reorganized the Macedonian army and created distinctive phalanx troops, which used a longer spear (the sarissa) and proved very effective against both northern tribes and traditional Greek armies. He also focused in the urbanization of a mostly rural, archaic country, notably by setting the city of Pella as the capital and inviting scholars like Aristotle, who taught his son Alexander. Defeating the Greeks in the Battle of Chaeronea, in 338 bce, he established himself as undisputed leader of the newly founded League of Corinth, containing both the Macedonian kingdom and the defeated Greek cities. His aim was to establish protection, or control, of the Greek cities in Ionia, also making plans to invade Persia. He was murdered in

c15_Vol2.indd 803

803

336 bce in the former capital of Aegae, by one of his bodyguards. Philip is mentioned only once in Tacitus, in A., 2.63. The context is the dealings of Drusus the Younger with the Germanic tribes, paired with Germanicus’ actions. Maroboduus, a former king of the Suebi, had been an enemy of Arminius, the Germanic leader who inflicted the defeat of Quintilius Varus and his Roman troops at the Teutoburg forest in 9 ce. Later losing favor in his tribe, Maroboduus looks for help from the Romans, to which Tiberius replies that he would be welcome in Italy if he wished to stay there (cf. Vell. Pat. 1.129). However, highlighting the contrast between this attitude of Tiberius toward Maroboduus, characterized with fides (trust) and clementia (mercy), the emperor’s speech to the Senate reveals that he considers the Germanic leader even more dreadful than either Philip to the Athenians, or Pyrrhus or Antiochus to the Romans, a citation at least for rhetorical effect. Of particular note in this passage is the remark that Tacitus had consulted the actual speech of Tiberius (“extat oratio,” cf. Woodman 2009, 3–4). There is also in A. 2.55 an indirect reference to the relations between Athenians and Macedonians under Philip II, in a speech where Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso criticizes the Athenians. REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 2009. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 1–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Borza, E. N. 1990. In the Shadow of Olympus. The Emergence of Macedon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Worthington, Ian. 2008. Philip II of Macedonia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

PHILIPPI, see CIVIL WARS OF THE LATE REPUBLIC PHILIPPOPOLIS, see THRACE PHILO, see PHILOSOPHY PHILOPATOR, see CILICIA

28-04-2023 18:01:42

804  

philosophy

PHILOSOPHY GEORGE BAROUD

Emerson College

Tacitus’ entire oeuvre, regardless of genre, is underpinned by a deep engagement with philosophy, especially ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of history, but also aesthetics, epistemology, fate and free will, and metaphysics. Indeed, Tacitus has a strong claim on being a philosopher himself. Although the Dialogus is a treatise on oratory, both its format and its content (particularly the long-standing debates about the relationship between rhetoric and morality) evoke the dialogues of Cicero and Plato, and place Tacitus firmly in the classical philosophical tradition. The Dialogus itself is instructive for understanding Tacitus’ method: concealing himself behind the speakers that he animates, Tacitus ventriloquizes through them the various ideas and beliefs he wishes to explore. But his own authorial silence and aporetic conclusion burdens us with judging the persuasiveness and interpreting the broader significance of these viewpoints and encourages us to evaluate them in light of the behavior and ethos of the speaker who articulates them. Tacitus’ historical works are themselves framed in philosophical language that affirms the close kinship between history and philosophy (and science, philosophy’s twin in antiquity). In his programmatic passages, he claims that his work explains the logic, causes, and beginnings of affairs, all loaded terms reminiscent of the language of natural philosophy or physics (e.g., ratio…causaeque noscantur, H. 1.4; initia causasque motus…expediam, H. 1.51; struebat… initia causasque imperio, H. 2.1; introspicere illa … ex quis … motus oriuntur, A. 4.32). Moreover, because Tacitus’ works insist on scrutinizing surfaces and examining appearances to discover and unveil hidden, underlying, truths—the true rather than the imagined or superficial origins and nature of things—Tacitus’ work is fundamentally metaphysical in its committed interrogation of the nature of reality. Similarly, because his work self-reflexively explores how we can know what we know about the past, it is also committed to

c15_Vol2.indd 804

developing a historical epistemology. Tacitus’ metahistorical digression on the phoenix is one instance of how these multiple threads are weaved together (A. 6.28). All of his writings are characterized by an implicit or explicit exploration of moral behavior, especially in the context of a novel political system which on his own evaluation is founded on deceitful fabrications and the reversal of normative values, and which consequently encourages, if not necessitates, moral corruption, decay, and vice. Tacitus’ work is thus invested in illuminating the challenges individuals face in identifying and successfully navigating an ethically just path, and illustrates the sometimes fatal consequences of doing so. Thus, for example, the Agricola examines how “it is possible to be great men under bad emperors” (Ag. 42.4), while the representation of the Britons and Germanic tribes in the Agricola and Germania as possessing old-fashioned virtues such as liberty (e.g., Ag. 13.1; 21.2) and sexual restraint (G. 18–19) pointedly serves as a foil to Roman senatorial servility and sexual degeneracy. The centrality of moral thinking to Tacitus’ historiography is emphatically summed up at Annals 3.65 (a much-debated passage; Woodman 1995), where he argues that one of the chief purposes of historical writing is exemplary: to immortalize both honorable and dishonorable deeds so that the former are not silenced and that the latter are prevented by fear of subsequent infamy. Tacitus is also a thinker profoundly concerned with political philosophy. Whether his focus is on Romans or “barbarian” others, he asks questions about authority, citizenship, class (especially the waxing power of the non-elite such as freedmen and the debasement of the old aristocracy), colonialism, gender (the role and competence of women like Boudicca or Livia Augusta in statecraft), imperialism, legitimacy, liberty, monarchy, republicanism, and succession. Above all, his work is interested in the nature of power and in analyzing its effects on those who hold it or aspire to it. Because his work crucially documents the transition of Rome from a republican to a monarchical (and increasingly despotic) form of government, Tacitus tracks how the transformation of political systems effect changes not only in morality, but also in language (a major theme of

28-04-2023 18:01:42

philosophy  

the Dialogus), political and legal institutions, social relationships, and culture at large. Scholars have long debated what Tacitus himself thought was the ideal form of government and whether (or to what extent) he endorsed the principate. A digression at Annals 4.33 reflects his engagement with a long tradition of constitutional theory in philosophical and historical texts (e.g., Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, and Cicero’s de re publica; Herodotus Histories 3.80.2 and Polybius Histories 6.3.10) and contemporary interest in kingship (e.g., Dio Chrysostom’s Kingship Orations or Plutarch’s de Monarchia), while Galba’s speech to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus in Histories 1.15–16 highlights an interest in adoption, succession, and the possibility of restoring the republic. Neither reveals anything definitive about Tacitus’ views, and the scholarly consensus today is that he held republican sympathies but believed the principate was by his time a necessary, inevitable, and irreversible system, the only effective check on unlimited brutal civil war and vicious political instability. In both Histories and Annals Tacitus makes a handful of passing references to fate, fortuna, free will, and the role of the gods in human affairs. These views are not always consistent and must be treated cautiously, with sensitivity to their generic conventions, rhetorical aims, and substantive context. At H. 1.3, Tacitus claims that the gods do not care about our tranquility, but about vengeance; at 1.4, he seems to suggest that events are governed by chance (fortuiti sunt), but at 1.10 he claims that imperial power was destined (destinatum) to Vespasian and his children. In Annals Tacitus reflects on the irony that everyone else was marked out (destinabatur) for the principate except Claudius, whom fortune was concealing for future rulership (fortuna in occulta tenebat, 3.18.4). But the longest such passage occurs at 6.22, where Tacitus admits, after relating the astrologer Thrasyllus’ correct prediction of his own death to Tiberius, that such stories make him uncertain whether human affairs are governed by fate or chance. Tacitus’ extended digression here outlines Stoic and Epicurean positions, but he himself predictably does not articulate a commitment to either. It is one of several passages (e.g., Ag. 46.1) that display

c15_Vol2.indd 805

805

his knowledge of, and engagement with, classical philosophy. Indeed, Tacitus’ writings are an important source for their representation of philosophers. Besides evoking Greek philosophers and philosophical schools of thought in the training of orators (Epicurus, Metrodorus, Plato, Xenophon, Philo, Diodotus; the Academy, peripatetics, all mentioned by Tacitus only at D. 30, 31), his writings represent the Stoics and illustrate their relationship to the principate. The Agricola begins with the executions under Domitian of the Stoics Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio for writing biographies of Thrasea Paetus and Helvidius Priscus. Priscus himself figures in the Dialogus and prominently in Histories, while the death scene of Paetus is where our extant text of Annals breaks off. In Annals, Seneca plays a large role in the Neronian books as the princeps’ tutor, advisor, and sometime speechwriter, but he too commits an enforced suicide after his implication in the Pisonian Conspiracy. Although some scholars have found in Tacitus evidence of a Stoic opposition to the principate, this phrase advances a false notion of a formal, collective platform and wrongly suggests that Stoic doctrine is itself anti-monarchic. In fact, Tacitus’ portraits of these individuals is complex and reflects their unique character, but his attitude to them is often ambivalent: on the one hand, he speaks of them with respect and even admiration for their outspokenness and commitment to liberty (e.g., Ag. 2; A. 14.49.1); on the other, he seems to scorn what he describes as the hypocritical disjunct between their words and deeds; their anachronistic, glory-hungry opposition (e.g., of Thrasea, A. 14.12.1); or theatrical, ostentatious deaths (Ag. 42.4; Seneca at A. 15.62–64), which in Tacitus’ view do not serve the interests of liberty. see also: Dialogus de Oratoribus; empire; ethnicity; exemplarity; libertas; metahistory; religion; sexual deviance REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 1995. “Praecipuum munus annalium: The Construction, Convention and Context of Tacitus, Annals 3.65.1.” Museum Helveticum 52: 111–126.

28-04-2023 18:01:42

806  

P hoebus

FURTHER READING Brunt, P. 1975. “Stoicism and the Principate.” Papers of the British School at Rome 43: 7–35. Davies, J. 2004. Rome’s Religious History: Livy, Tacitus and Ammianus on their Gods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

PHOEBUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Phoebus was the freedman of Nero who chastised Vespasian for falling asleep during Nero’s theatrical performance in Greece in the year 65 ce. Phoebus’ name appears only at A. 16.5, which is, incidentally, the only time Vespasian appears in his proper temporal place in the Annals; at A. 3.55 in the narrative of the year 22 ce, Vespasian is invoked in the digression on luxury. According to Cassius Dio (65.11), Phoebus later apologized to Vespasian for the incident, which Vespasian readily forgave (Suet. Vesp. 19.1). see also: actors; freedmen of Nero Reference work: PIR2 P 391 FURTHER READING Acton, Karen. 2011. “Vespasian and the Social World of Roman Court.” American Journal of Philology 132.1: 103–124. Bartsch, Shadi. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bradley, K. R. 1979. “Nero’s Retinue in Greece, A.D. 66/67.” Illinois Classical Studies 4: 152–157.

PHOENICIA ROBYN LE BLANC

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Phoenicia consisted in the first century ce of the northern coast of Roman Iudaea and the southern Syrian coast and was home to the Phoenicians

c15_Vol2.indd 806

(Φοĩνιξ, in Greek), famous for their far-flung trade networks and colonies in southern Spain and North Africa. Greek myths had a local king Phoinix give his name to the region and identified it as the birthplace of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes (e.g., A. 11.14). Phoenicia was famous for its Iron Age seafaring traders (A. 11.14) and as the origin of several North African colonies, including Carthage (e.g., Verg. Aen. 1.338– 366). The contribution of the Phoenician alphabet to Greek is also highlighted by Tacitus (A. 11.14). In the sixth century bce Phoenicia was controlled by the Persian Empire, and then by various Hellenistic kingdoms before being annexed to Rome in 64 bce (Markoe 2005). Tacitus’ description of the geographical extent of Phoenicia as occupying the western coastal strip of Iudaea (H. 5.6) does not reflect the frequent confusion among Roman writers over the boundaries of Syria, Phoenicia, and Coele Syria (Quinn 2017, 56). The regional term for Phoenicia is widely used, but studies of the peoples to which the region gives its name (the Phoenicians) stresses a lack of cultural, ethnic, political, and religious homogeneity. There is little evidence for the self-definition of people from Phoenicia as “Phoenician,” with a greater emphasis instead on using city-ethnics or patronymics (Prag 2006, 21–24; Quinn 2017, 25–43). In 69 ce, the Hellenized Phoenician city of Berytus (modern Beirut) was the site of a conference between Vespasian and Gaius Licinius Mucianus (H. 2.81.3). Reference work: Barrington 69 B3 Phoenice; Barrington 32 F3 Carthago REFERENCES Markoe, Glenn. 2005. The Phoenicians. London: Folio Society. Prag, Jonathan R. W. 2006. “Poenus Plane Est–But who were the ‘Punickes’?” Papers of the British School at Rome 47: 1–37. Quinn, Josephine C. 2017. In Search of the Phoenicians. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P hraates  

807

FURTHER READING

REFERENCES

Elayi, Josette. 2018. The History of Phoenicia. Atlanta, GA: Lockwood Press. Sommer, Michael. 2005. Die Phönizier: Handelsherren zwischen Orient und Okzident. Stuttgart: A. Kröner.

Devillers, O. 1994. Le art de la persuasion dans les Annales de Tacite. Brussels: Latomus. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

PHOENIX ELIZABETH KEITEL

University of Massachusetts Amherst

In a digression, Tacitus discussed the appearance of the phoenix, a fabulous bird which appeared in Egypt at long intervals (A. 6.28). Unlike other ancient writers, Tacitus dated the appearance of the bird to 34 ce, not 36 ce. Tacitus stated that the phoenix visited Egypt in 34 ce. When the bird’s life was drawing to a close, it built a nest in its native Arabia and shed on it its vim genitalem (“procreative force”) from which a new phoenix would arise (A. 6.28.5). The offspring, when mature, carried the remains of its parent to the Altar of the Sun in Egypt and burned them ritually (A. 6.28.5). Some believed that the phoenix of 28 ce was spurious, since it appeared only 250 years after the birth of its parent instead of the commonly accepted interval of 500 years (A. 6.28.4). Scholars differ on why Tacitus placed this digression in the year 34 and not 36, as did Pliny the Elder (Plin. HN 10.5) and Cassius Dio (58.26.5). Perhaps Tacitus drew on a different source. Perhaps it offered relief “in the middle of a chronicle of murders” (Syme 1958, 473 n. 2) or created an ironic juxtaposition of the phoenix, a symbol of renewal, with the continuous slaughter in Rome (Devillers 1994). Perhaps Tacitus simply moved the phoenix to 34 because he had so little other material for that year. Or perhaps he bracketed the events of 34 with two stories that defied belief yet were true—the phoenix and the survival of Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, the only associate of Sejanus who was not purged after his execution (A. 6.30.2–4; Woodman 2017). see also: ethnography; geography; historiography; paradoxography; portents

c15_Vol2.indd 807

FURTHER READING Broek, R. van den. 1972. The Myth of the Phoenix According to Classical and Early Christian Traditions Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l’Empire Romain. Vol. xxiv. Leiden: Brill. Keitel, E. 1999. “The Non-Appearance of the Phoenix at Tacitus, Annals 6.28.” American Journal of Philology 129: 429–442. Shannon-Henderson, K. 2019. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PHRAATES LEE E. PATTERSON

Eastern Illinois University

Tacitus mentions three individuals named Phraates (Parthian “Frahāt”): an Arsacid Great King (see Arsacid dynasty), his son, and a Parthian nobleman. The life and reign of the Arsacid King of Kings Phraates IV (ruled 38–2 bce) largely precedes Tacitus’ narrative, and yet his presence is felt through the actions of his descendants. Phraates began his reign as an adversary of the Romans, especially when he blunted Mark Antony’s invasion of Arsacid territory in 36 bce, to which Tacitus’ vague allusion to military victories likely refers (A. 2.1.2; Plut. Ant. 38.1–49.4; Cass. Dio 49.25.2–29.4). But relations in his later years can be characterized as a détente, if forced by internal exigencies, as symbolized in part by the return of captured Roman standards to Augustus in 20 bce (Mon. Anc. 29; Suet. Aug. 21.3, Tib. 9.1; Cass. Dio 54.8.1). So acute were the domestic threats he faced that he even sent four of his sons, Seraspadanes, Rhodaspes, Phraates, and Vonones (as listed by Strabo 16.1.28), to Rome, perhaps around 10 bce. Augustan propaganda referred to them as “hostages” (or more accurately “pledges”)

28-04-2023 18:01:42

808  

P icarius D ecumus

submitted as an acknowledgment of Arsacid supplication, but in fact, as Tacitus and Strabo acknowledge, Phraates wanted them removed from the Arsacid political scene to forestall their use in any attempted coup (A. 2.1.2; Str. 16.1.28; Mon. Anc. 32). All of Tacitus’ further references to Phraates IV are in the context of two of these sons, Vonones (A. 2.1–2) and Phraates (A. 6.31), as well as two grandsons, Tiridates (A. 6.37) and Meherdates, son of Vonones (A. 11.10, 12.10). Almost nothing is known about the homonymous son of Phraates IV. We know that he spent almost fifty years in Rome and was finally employed as a political pawn when, in 34 ce, Tiberius dispatched him to challenge the Arsacid king Artabanus II at the invitation of an opposition party among the Parthian nobility. The old contender, however, died in Syria en route to claiming his inheritance. Tiberius then, in 35, sent Tiridates, grandson of Phraates IV, to challenge Artabanus (A. 6.31.1–32.3; Cass. Dio 58.26.1–2). The nobleman Phraates was likely satrap of Susa (Cumont 1932, 249–250). When Phraates IV’s grandson Tiridates temporarily drove Artabanus out of Mesopotamia and claimed the title of King of Kings, he received nominal support from Phraates and Hiero, satrap of Carmania. The satraps, however, failed to attend his coronation and instead joined the side of Artabanus (A. 6.42.4–43.3). Reference work: PIR2 P 395, 396, 397 REFERENCE Cumont, F. 1932. “Une lettre du roi Artaban III à la ville de Suse.” CRAI 76: 232–260. FURTHER READING Gregoratti, L. 2015. “In the Land West of the Euphrates: The Parthians in the Roman Empire.” In SOMA 11: Proceedings of the 15th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology, held at the University of Catania, 3–5 March 2011, edited by P. M. Militello and H. Öniz, Vol. 2, 731–735. BAR 2695. Oxford: Archaeopress. Kahrstedt, U. 1950. Artabanos III. und seine Erben. Bern: Bernae Aedibus a. Francke.

c15_Vol2.indd 808

Olbrycht, M. J. 2012. “The Political-Military Strategy of Artabanos/Ardawān II in AD 34–37.” Anabasis: Studia Classica et Orientalia 3: 215–238.

PICARIUS DECUMUS ARTHUR J. POMEROY

Victoria University of ­Wellington

Picarius Decumus (given once as Pacarius in manuscript L) was the governor (procurator) of the senatorial province of Corsica in 69 ce. The island was known for its independent mountain tribes, against whom the Romans based at the port of Aleria would occasionally mount expeditions (Strabo 5.2.7). The lowlands were inhabited by a mixture of Greek settlers, Roman colonists, and migrants from Liguria and Spain (Sen., Helv. 7.8–10). In early 69 (possibly in late February or early March, if Tacitus’ placing of events after the Othonian raids on Gaul is temporally accurate), Picarius called a meeting of Corsica’s leaders and announced his intention to assist Vitellius in his struggle with Otho, against whom he held a personal grudge. Claudius Pyrrichus (otherwise unknown), the trierarch in command of the rapid response ships (Liburnae) stationed at the island, and a Roman knight, Quintius Certus (otherwise unknown), expressed their opposition to this plan, probably because the Roman fleet in the west Mediterranean was strongly supportive of Otho and had recently been raiding southern Gaul (H. 2.14–15; this same fleet was quick to mutiny against Vitellius in the last stages of the civil war: H. 3.57). By ordering the summary execution of these two, Picarius terrified the other participants into agreement and induced the general populace to swear allegiance to Vitellius. However, the process of conscription and the basic military training that followed, activities that suggest Picarius was now treating the largely independent Corsicans as if they were recruitable auxiliaries, turned the locals against him. Realizing that the island was open to naval reprisals, while Vitellius’ armies could offer no assistance, they conspired against their governor. Choosing a time when Picarius was unarmed and separated from his bodyguard

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P inarius Natta  

809

at the baths, a group of Corsicans murdered him and also dispatched his companions (comites— presumably Picarius’ entourage as governor). The killers sent their heads to Otho as a sign of their loyalty and almost certainly in expectation of a reward. Tacitus records these events in H. 2.16 as an example of an individual’s rash choices causing harm to those around him, yet finally having almost no effect on the course of events. It is likely that the original source for his account was the petition that accompanied the heads to Rome, indicating why a Roman governor and his staff had been slaughtered by the provincials as enemies of the state (hostes). This is also probably the historian’s source for the specific names of Pyrrichus and Certus as victims of Picarius. While Tacitus records that more than 120 petitioners had sought rewards for the killing of Galba and his advisors, all of whom Vitellius later ordered to be tracked down and executed (H. 1.44.2), he observes that in this case neither Otho nor Vitellius paid any attention to the murders. In the historian’s sardonic final judgment, not only were Picarius’ actions futile, but amid the utter confusion of the period, his assassins too had committed only trivial crimes.

river Aesis (Esino), its southern one the city of Castrum Novum (Giulianova). Under Augustus the toponym came to designate the fifth region in the administrative subdivision of Italy, which stretched both further south (down to the river Aternus, modern Pescara) and further inland, encompassing the territory of the Praetutii. Tacitus devotes only cursory references to it. In late 19 ce, when Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso is suspected of having poisoned Germanicus and is summoned back to Rome, he travels through Picenum, having docked at Ancona on his way back from the East. He then continues his journey south, first on the Flaminian Road, then on the Tiber (A. 3.9.1–2): the slow pace of his return prompts further suspicion and hostility in Rome. Picenum (Picenus ager) is also mentioned in the narrative of the civil wars of 69 ce as an area whose loyalty is split between Vespasian, who has wide support in the coastal communities, and Vitellius, whose supporters are quartered inland. When Cornelius Fuscus mounts a siege of Ariminum (Rimini), the Apennines become the dividing line between the areas controlled by the two factions (H. 3.42.1–2). The region thus reproduces dynamics that are playing up on a wider scale.

see also: Ravenna

see also: Roman roads

Reference work: PIR2 P 404

Reference work: Barrington 42 E2, 1 F2

FURTHER READING

FURTHER READING

Ash, Rhiannon, ed. 2007. Tacitus, Histories II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ad 2.16.1. Chilver, Guy E. F., ed. 1979. A Historical Commentary on Tacitus’ Histories I and II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ad 2.16.1.

Antonelli, L. 2003. I Piceni. Corpus delle fonti. La documentazione letteraria. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. 167–168. Paci, G. 2011. Ricerche di storia e di epigrafia romana delle Marche. Tivoli: Edizioni Tored.

PICENUM

PINARIUS NATTA

FEDERICO SANTANGELO

Picenum was a region in central Italy, broadly defined as the area to the east of the Apennines and up to the mid-Adriatic coast; according to Strabo (5.4.2), its northern boundary was the

c15_Vol2.indd 809

STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Pinarius Natta (c. 10 bce–31 (?) ce) was possibly a municipalis who rose through the ranks under

28-04-2023 18:01:42

810  

P isonian C onspiracy

Tiberius. A client of Sejanus, in 25 ce he was one of the prosecutors against Cremutius Cordus. Little is known about Natta outside of the case of Cremutius Cordus. Demougin (1992) tentatively identifies him as the Pinarius Natta in CIL 10.1129. It appears that the Pinarius in that inscription was from a municipium and had followed a normal career path; he had served as military tribune in the third legion in Egypt and there had been appointed prefect of the district of Bernicis. He also served as aedile, as one of the duoviri, and quaestor. If he was indeed a municipalis, Sejanus, also a municipalis, might have had some sympathy in helping to advance his career. His family is therefore likely not to be identified with the old and noble one mentioned by Cicero (see e.g., Div. 2.47); moreover Tacitus would likely have mentioned it had Natta besmirched his status and ancestry (as T. was inclined to do when men of good birth besmirched their family name by turning delator; see, e.g., the case of Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus). Tacitus calls him Sejanus’ client, and he was one of the accusers, along with Satrius Secundus, in the case against Cremutius Cordus in 25 ce (A. 4.34.2). Most likely born in the final decade bce, he is only known outside of Tacitus from Seneca, who mentions him for a noted witticism (Ep. 122.11). He may also have been the father of the consul of 83 ce; hence the family possibly continued to flourish despite the connection with Sejanus. see also: delators Reference works: PIR2 P 40; RE 202.1401–2 = Pinarius 17 (Stein); CIL 10.1129 = ILS 2698; cf. CIL 5.275 (suppl.) REFERENCE Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains Julio-Claudiens (43 av. J. C. – 70 ap. J.C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. 261. FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 95–96, 254–255.

c15_Vol2.indd 810

PISONIAN CONSPIRACY ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

The Pisonian conspiracy was a plot organized in 65 ce by a heterogeneous group of soldiers, senators, and equestrians to kill the emperor Nero and replace him with Gaius Calpurnius Piso (hence its name). The conspiracy was detected before its very start and brutally suppressed: several conspirators were executed or exiled, while others— including Piso himself—committed suicide. The plot was also an excuse for Nero to get rid of opponents and foes who had little or nothing to do with it, and for this reason its factual existence was put into question by contemporaries. Tacitus starts the narrative of the conspiracy at the beginning of the year 65 ce, with the description of Piso (A. 15.48.2–3) and a list of the adherents to the plot, who are mentioned in a recognizable hierarchy: military men (Subrius Flavus and Sulpicius Asper, A. 15.49.1–2), senators (Lucan, Plautius Lateranus, Flavius Scaevinus, and Afranius Quintianus, A. 15.49.3–4), equestrians (Claudius Senecio, Cervarius Proculus, Antonius Natalis, Vulcacius Araricus, Iulius Augurinus, Munatius Gratus, and Marcius Festus, A. 15.50.1–2, the last four otherwise unknown), and other soldiers, including the praetorian prefect Faenius Rufus and the centurions Maximus Scaurus and Venetus Paulus (A. 15.50.3, otherwise unknown). Both the description of the leader and the catalog of the conspirators are typical elements of conspiracy narratives (Ash 2018, 229; Pagán 2004, 87). The plot was in danger of being discovered a first time when the freedwoman Epicharis tried to involve the mariner Volusius Proculus, who reported everything to Nero; but because Epicharis had not mentioned any of the conspirators to Proculus, the accusation was considered groundless (A. 15.51). The risk of a betrayal, however, forced the members of the conspiracy to hasten: they decided to murder Nero at the circus during Ceres’ festival and arranged a plan that was clearly modeled on the assassination of Iulius Caesar (Woodman 1993, 107). After the murder, Piso would have been brought to the praetorian camp by Rufus and Claudius’

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P isonian C onspiracy  

daughter Antonia, so that he could be acknowledged by the troops as the new emperor (A. 15.52–53). Nonetheless, this plan did not even start. Milichus, a freedman of Scaevinus, who was either aware of the plot or made suspicious by his master’s bizarre behavior and intense conversations with Natalis, was induced by his wife to reveal to Nero everything he had seen or conjectured. Scaevinus was consequently arrested and interrogated, but he managed at first to refute all the allegations against him; when his declarations were compared with those of Natalis, however, they were found inconsistent, and under the threat of torture the two started to expose the names of the other plotters (A. 15.54–56). Scaevinus’ and Natalis’ confessions caused a chain reaction: Lucan, Quintianus, and Senecio were arrested and, after promise of impunity, betrayed several other conspirators. The only one who stayed faithful until the very end was Epicharis: the freedwoman, though brutally tortured, did not reveal the names of her accomplices and hanged herself in prison (A. 15.56–58). A systematic repression followed this wave of revelations. Piso committed suicide just before being captured, while Lateranus was executed (A. 15.59–60). Seneca, whose involvement in the conspiracy was uncertain, was forced to death by Nero, who took the opportunity to get rid of his detested tutor; Tacitus describes the gallant suicide of the philosopher with an abundance of detail and significant parallels with the death of Socrates (A. 15.60.2–65; Ash 2018, 291; Woodman 1993, 117–118). The repression did not spare the military men: Faenius Rufus, who at first had taken part to the interrogations against his own accomplices, was accused by Scaevinus and Proculus and apprehended by the soldier Cassius (2) (otherwise unknown) by order of Nero (A. 15.66); the same happened to Subrius Flavus who, when asked by Nero about the reasons of his treachery, revealed that he started hating the emperor when he became a parricide, a charioteer, and an actor (A. 15.67.2–3; Cass. Dio 62.24.2). Flavus showed later an exceptional firmness when he was executed by the tribune Veianius Niger (A. 15.67.4, otherwise unknown). A similar example of steadiness was offered by the centurion Sulpicius Asper, who answered to the

c15_Vol2.indd 811

811

same question saying that he could not help Nero otherwise than by killing him (A. 15.68.1; Suet. Ner. 36.2; Cass. Dio 62.24.2). In addition to Seneca, a second innocent victim was the consul of 65 ce Iulius Vestinus Atticus, who had no part in the plot because the conspirers did not trust him (A. 15.52.3; 15.68.2). Nero wildly hated Vestinus, and even though he could not find any valid accusation, decided to get rid of him: Vestinus’ mansion was surrounded by a group of soldiers under the command of the tribune Gerellanus (otherwise unknown), and the consul committed suicide (A. 15.68.3–69). Shortly afterward, Lucan, Senecio, Quintianus, and Scaevinus were forced to die, while Natalis and Proculus were spared (A. 15.70–71; for the fate of other people involved in the repression see the entry Pisonian Conspiracy, victims). Nero celebrated the suppression of the plot as a military triumph and rewarded richly his henchmen (A. 15.72). The real existence of a conspiracy was called into question by people who suspected that it was only an artifice to eliminate opponents and suspects; Tacitus, however, strongly supports its factuality (A. 15.73.1–2). It is undoubted in any case that the accusation of complicity or simple awareness of the conspiracy was later instrumentally used by Nero and his minions against personalities such as Seneca’s brother Annaeus Mela (A. 16.17) and Petronius (A. 16.18). The narrative of the Pisonian Conspiracy is the longest episode in the whole Annals (A. 15.48–74), presented with a coherence that it probably did not possess in real life (so Woodman 1993, 104). It has been called “a non-event” (Ash 2018, 21), that Tacitus describes by making extensive use of the literary model of Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae (Ash 2018, 21 and 220) and with a strong dramatic characterization (on this aspect see again Woodman 1993). Such a broad and vivid account of an attempt that did not even start because of the indecision and the weakness of its promoters has perhaps the goal to illustrate an exemplary case of failed conspiracy, so to show “how not to assassinate an emperor” (Ash 2018, 22). REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus, Annals. Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:42

812  

P isonian C onspiracy, victims

Pagán, Victoria Emma. 2004. Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History. Austin: University of Texas Press. 68–90. Woodman, Anthony J. 1993. “Amateur Dramatics at the Court of Nero: Annals 15.48–74.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by Torrey J. Luce and Anthony J. Woodman, 104–128. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. FURTHER READINGS Griffin, Miriam. 1984. Nero. The End of a Dynasty. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 166–170. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge. 87–131. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions. Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. 166–170.

PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Tacitus’ narrative of the Pisonian Conspiracy is closed by a chapter in which are listed in detail the fates of several people who played only a minor role in the plot or were punished speciously because they were suspect to some extent by the emperor Nero (A. 15.71). While many of these characters are mentioned exclusively in this chapter of the Annals, some of them are better known thanks to the contribution of other sources. Tacitus starts his survey remembering the names of those who, thanks to their betrayal, were spared by the brutal repression of the conspiracy: the equestrians Antonius Natalis and Cervarius Proculus, and Milichus, a freedman of Flavius Scaevinus (A. 15.71.1). Also the military tribunes Gavius Silvanus and Statius Proxumus were pardoned, while four of their colleagues (Pompeius (2), Cornelius Martialis, Flavius Nepos, and Statius Domitius) were deprived of their rank “not because they really hated the

c15_Vol2.indd 812

emperor, but because they were thought to” (A. 15.71.2). The full name of Pompeius is lost because of a lacuna (see Ash 2018, 311), while Cornelius Martialis has been (not unanimously) identified with the homonymous primipilaris mentioned in H. 3.70–71; 73 (see RE IV, 1406 40–52; Heubner 1972, 167). Novius Priscus was exiled because of his friendship with Seneca; the same penalty was also imposed on Glitius Gallus and Annius Pollio (2). Priscus (who could be either the homonymous consul of 78 ce or his father: see RE XVII, 1219 11–17; CIL VI.1 2056) and Gallus were accompanied in their banishment by their wives, Artoria Flaccilla and Egnatia Maximilla (A. 15.71.3). Some inscriptions give more detailed information about the later fate of Gallus and Egnatia: they spent their exile on the island of Andros and were called back after Nero’s death by Otho, who probably restored their confiscated properties (Ash 2018, 312). Rufrius Crispinus was banished under the cover of the conspiracy, whereas Nero hated him because of jealousy, as Crispinus was the former husband of Nero’s second wife Poppaea Sabina the Younger. The rhetorician Verginius Flavus and the stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus were sent away too because their teaching was considered to have a too provocative effect on youth (A. 15.71.4). Verginius Flavus was the master of rhetoric of the poet Persius (Vita Persi, 41.11–12 Kissel), and Quintilian quotes him several times with admiration (Inst. 3.1.21.; 3.6.45.; 7.4.24; 7.4.40; 11.3.126; see Ash 2018, 313). The list of people exiled ends with a quintet, “mere rank-and-files” as Tacitus explicitly says: Cluvidienus Quietus, Iulius Agrippa, Blitius Catulinus, Petronius Priscus, and Iulius Altinus were all sent to islands in the Aegean Sea (A. 15.71.4). They are otherwise unknown. Caedicia, the wife of Scaevinus, and Caesennius Maximus were forbidden to live in Italy, without even knowing the accusation against them (A. 15.71.5). Caedicia was probably rehabilitated after Nero’s death, as some inscriptions suggest (Ash 2018, 314); Caesennius Maximus, who is mentioned only here in Tacitus, was a close friend of Seneca (who calls him “my Maximus” at Ep. 87.2) and is celebrated for his

28-04-2023 18:01:42

P lanasia  

813

Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge. 123–127.

the enemy, Spurinna returned to Placentia where his forces prepared to defend a siege (H. 2.19). Failing to negotiate a surrender, Caecina Alienus ordered his troops to advance (H. 2.20). During the siege’s first day, Placentia’s amphitheater— which Tacitus praised (H. 2.21)—was burned to the ground. According to Tacitus (H. 2.21), some believed that it had been caught in the crossfire of flaming missiles, while others claimed arson by neighbors envious of Italy’s largest building. Ultimately, and even without reinforcements, the siege failed, much to Caecina’s disappointment (H. 2.21–24). Suetonius Paulinus later invoked Placentia as an illustration of support for Otho (H. 2.32). Eager to fight, Otho ordered most of Placentia’s garrison to join him on the battlefield (H. 2.36). After their defeat, many of Otho’s supporters in Placentia committed suicide (H. 2.49). Also in the territory of Placentia, Tacitus claims that a deformed calf was born at the end of 64 ce (A. 15.47), which was interpreted to be a portent of an upcoming disaster. Perhaps the location was meant to illustrate dissatisfaction in the region with Nero’s reign.

PITUANIUS, see ASTROLOGY

see also: portents; Roman roads; suicide

PLACENTIA

Reference works: BNP “Placentia”; PECS “Placentia”; Barrington 39 F3

loyalty toward the philosopher in two epigrams of Martial (7.44–45; see Galàn Vioque 2002, 278–288). The last character mentioned by Tacitus in the chapter is Lucan’s mother Acilia, who had been accused by her own son; the woman was neither condemned nor acquitted (A. 15.71.5). Reference work: PIR2 C 116; C 277; C 1404–1405; E 40; N 183–184; V 283 REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus, Annals. Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Galàn Vioque, Guillermo. 2002. Martial, Book VII. A Commentary. Leiden, Boston, and Köln: Brill. Heubner, Heinz. 1972. P. Cornelius Tacitus. Die Historien: Kommentar. Heidelberg: Winter Verlag. FURTHER READINGS

BRIAN TURNER

Portland State University

Placentia (modern Piacenza; Barrington 39 F3) was a Roman colony (Plin. HN 3.115, Strab. 5.1.111, Ptol. 3.1.46) with ancient roots (Vell. Pat. 1.18) located on the southern bank of the Padus (Po) river, near the convergence of the via Aemila and the via Postumia. It is most famous in Tacitus as the site of a great siege during the civil wars of 69 ce. Considered to be naturally fortified and wellresourced (H. 2.19), Placentia was held by a supporter of Otho, Vestricius Spurinna, three praetorian cohorts, a thousand veterans (vexillarii), and a few cavalry (H. 2.18). Vitellian forces initially raided the inhabitants of the region (H. 2.17). After first marching out his troops to meet

c15_Vol2.indd 813

FURTHER READING Morgan, Gwyn. 1997. “Caecina’s Assault on Placentia: Tacitus, Histories 2.20.2–22.3.” Philologus 141.2: 338–361.

PLANASIA VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Planasia (modern Pianosa) is a small island (approximately 4 square miles in area) near Elba in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Agrippa Postumus was sent into exile by Augustus to Planasia in 6 or 7 ce. Postumus was then murdered there by an assassin sent by Tiberius in 14 ce (A. 1.3.4;

28-04-2023 18:01:43

814  

P lautius A elianus

1.5.1). In the year 16 ce, Clemens, a slave of Agrippa Postumus, plotted to rescue his master and set sail for Planasia, but his vessel was delayed, and Agrippa Postumus was murdered before he could reach the island. Clemens thereupon impersonated Agrippa Postumus and stirred up public sentiment until he was apprehended and executed on Tiberius’ orders (A. 2.39–40). see also: impostors Reference work: Barrington 41 C4 PLANCIUS VARUS, see CORNELIUS DOLABELLA, GNAEUS PLATO, see PHILOSOPHY

PLAUTIUS AELIANUS KONSTANTINOS ARAMPAPASLIS

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus (c.12 ce– before 79 ce) was a prominent member of the family of the Plautii who became suffect consul in 45 ce (CIL 10 825), and consul for a second time in 74 ce (CIL 1 774). Likely the son of Lucius Aelius Lamia (Syme 1986, 52 n. 24), he was adopted by Marcus Plautius Silvanus (CIL 14 3608), one of the siblings of Plautia Urgulanilla, Claudius’ first wife (Griffin 1984, 194). Though an important figure in the politics of the first century ce, he is mentioned only once by Tacitus as the pontifex who uttered the prayer when the foundations of the new Capitolium were laid in 70 ce (H. 4.53.3). Fortunately, his epitaph from the Mausoleum of the Plautii in Tivoli provides information about his life and deeds (CIL 14 3608). It begins with the priestly offices he held, namely that of pontifex and Augustan priest (sodalis Augustalis), followed by the cursus honorum in chronological order: he was one of the mint magistrates (triumvir monetalis) and quaestor under Tiberius; he assumed command of the Fifth Legion in

c15_Vol2.indd 814

Germania, most probably under Caligula (c. 39 ce); during the reign of Claudius he occupied the position of praetor (c. 42 ce), and accompanied the emperor (comes) in his campaign to Britannia (c. 43 ce); immediately after his return, he attained the consulship of the year 45, along with Titus Statilius Taurus Corvinus (PIR2 S 822; CIL 10 825); he became proconsul of Asia before replacing Flavius Sabinus (2),the brother of the future emperor Vespasian, as legate of Moesia (c. 60–66/7 ce). While in office, he brought peace and prosperity in the province by transplanting natives, until then hostile, south of the Danube and preventing the attacks of the Sarmatians. He also secured the loyalty of the Rhoxolani, the Bastarnae, and the Dacians by saving members of their royal families or taking them hostages. He was the first to alleviate the shortage of grain in Rome by supplying wheat from the provincial production. Subsequently, he became governor of Hispania, but was soon recalled to Rome to assume the office of prefect. He was honored with a triumph by special decree of the Senate under recommendation from Vespasian, and during his prefectorship he was named consul in 74 ce along with the future emperor Titus. His death occurred sometime before that of Vespasian. see also: Dacia; sodales Augustales; Statilius Taurus, Titus (1) Reference works: PIR2 P 480; RE Plautius 47 REFERENCES Griffin, Miriam T. 1984. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Halkin, Leon. 1934. “Tiberius Plautius Aelianus, légat de Mésie sous Néron.” L’ Antiquité Classique 3: 121–160. Zawadzki, Tadeusz. 1975. “La légation de Ti. Plautius Silvanus Aelianus en Mésie et la politique frumentaire de Néron.” La Parola del Passato: Rivista di Studi Antichi 30: 59–73.

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P lautius L ateranus  

PLAUTIUS, AULUS KATHRYN WILLIAMS

University of Illinois

Aulus Plautius (c. 5 bce–c. 65 ce) was quaestor (20/1 ce), praetor urbanus (26 ce), suffect consul (29 ce), and governor (c. 39–42, Pannonia, probably; 43–47, Britannia). The Roman general led the invasion of Britain in 43 which enabled emperor Claudius to accept in person the surrender of Camulodunum and establish the Roman province of Britannia. Plautius served as the province’s first governor (Ag. 14.1). The family of Aulus Plautius, members of the Aniensis tribe, came from Trebula Suffenas (Birley 2005, 19–20). Plautius’ father, Aulus Plautius (suffect consul 1 bce), was a cousin of M. Plautius Silvanus (consul 2 bce), whose daughter, Urgulanilla (Urgulania), was the first wife of the emperor Claudius. Inscriptional evidence (PIR2 P 457; Birley 2005, 21–22 with notes) places his quaestorship in 20/1 and praetorship in 26. He was governor, probably of Pannonia, early in Claudius’ reign, c. 39–42 (Birley 2005, 22). Plautius stayed loyal to Claudius during Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus’ abortive coup in Dalmatia. In 43 Plautius commanded the Roman invasion of Britain. Cassius Dio, 60.19–21, is the major textual source; the relevant account in Tacitus’ Annals is lost. Debate continues over Plautius’ landing site(s) and other details of Dio’s account (Hind 2007 includes pertinent bibliography). There is consensus that Plautius defeated Caratacus and Togodumnus, subdued part of the Dobunni (Bodunni, Cass. Dio 60.20.2), and then summoned Claudius from Rome to oversee the surrender of Camulodonum and neighboring tribes. Claudius remained in Britain only sixteen days before returning to Rome to celebrate a triumph (Cass. Dio 60.22.1, Suet. Claud. 17.2, Eutr. 7.13.2). As Britain’s first governor, Plautius, bello egregius (“distinguished in war” Ag. 14.1), brought much of southeast England under Rome’s control. Suetonius (Vesp. 4.1) states that Vespasian defeated two tribes, more than twenty oppida, and the Isle of Wight under the command of Plautius and Claudius. When

c15_Vol2.indd 815

815

Plautius returned to Rome in 47, Claudius honored him with an ouatio (A. 13.32.2, Suet. Claud. 24.3), incorrectly reported as a triumph by Dio (60.30.2) and Eutropius (7.13.3). This was the last ouatio celebrated by someone outside the imperial family. Pomponia Graecina, Plautius’ wife, accompanied him to Britain. She famously challenged Roman authority by permanently dressing in mourning after the death of Iulia Livia (A. 13.32.3), her close friend and the granddaughter of Tiberius. In 57, Plautius acquitted his wife of the charge of practicing “a foreign superstition” (A. 13.32.2). Plautius’ influence with Claudius saved his nephew, Plautius Lateranus, from punishment for his adultery with Messalina in 48 (A. 11.36.4); the same nephew’s death during the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.60.1) suggests Plautius’ own death by 65. Reference works: PIR2 P 457, Stemma 20: Plautii, opposite p. 196; RE 21.1 (1951) 27–30 REFERENCES Birley, A. R. 2005. The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hind, J. G. F. 2007. “A. Plautius’ Campaign in Britain: An Alternative Reading of the Narrative in Cassius Dio (60.19.5–21.2).” Britannia 38: 93–106. FURTHER READING Webster, G. (1993) 1999. The Roman Invasion of Britain. Rev. ed. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. Reprint. New York–Abingdon: Routledge.

PLAUTIUS LATERANUS ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Plautius Lateranus (died 65 ce) was a Roman senator, consul designate in 65 ce. Lateranus was one of Messalina’s lovers, and for this reason in 48 ce he was expelled from the Senate by Claudius; he was restored to his position in 55 ce by Nero. Ten years later Lateranus was among the first to join the Pisonian Conspiracy, and

28-04-2023 18:01:43

816  

P lautius L ateranus

he was executed after its detection in 65 ce. The family estate of Lateranus in Rome was allegedly the original site of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran. The earliest details of Lateranus’ life are unknown. He was a member of the gens Plautia, a distinguished plebeian family whose political activity is attested from the middle of the fourth century bce (NP Ant 9, 1112–1113); his uncle was Aulus Plautius, suffect consul in 29 ce, and his father perhaps the Quintus Plautius mentioned by Tacitus at A. 6.40.1 as the consul for 36 ce. Lateranus enters Tacitus’ narrative at A. 11.30.2, when he is accused by Claudius’ freedman Narcissus of being one of Messalina’s lovers, together with Titius Proculus and Vettius Valens. While they were executed, Claudius spared Lateranus’ life, as an act of gratitude to Aulus Plautius and his high military merits (A. 11.36.4). On that occasion, however, Lateranus lost his senatorial rank, and he was readmitted to the Senate only at the beginning of 55 ce thanks to the new emperor Nero, who was eager to demonstrate his clemency (A. 13.11.2). Lateranus reappears in 65 ce, at the beginning of Tacitus’ report of the Pisonian Conspiracy against Nero, which opens with a detailed presentation of the conspirators and their motivations. Tacitus links Plautius Lateranus and the poet Lucan because of their intense hatred toward the emperor but specifies that while the latter was led by personal reasons the former had suffered no offense by Nero and his only motivation was the love for the res publica (A. 15.49.3). Such assertion has aroused a debate about the alleged “republicanism” of Lateranus (see Rudich 1993, 96–97). The plan arranged by the conspirers to kill Nero, clearly inspired by Iulius Caesar’s assassination, called for Lateranus, “of strong heart and large physique,” to hug the emperor’s knees, in order to immobilize him and expose him to the others’ stabs (A. 15.53.1–2); therefore, Lateranus would have impersonated Tillius Cimber (so Woodman 1993, 107). After the detection of the conspiracy, Lateranus fell victim to the subsequent repression. According to Tacitus he was executed with such a

c15_Vol2.indd 816

hurry that he wasn’t even given the time to take leave from his sons or to commit suicide, keeping nonetheless the silence about the complicity in the plot of his slayer, the tribune Statius Proxumus (A. 15.60.1). Lateranus’ steadiness in facing death is recorded also by Arr. Epict. diss. 1.1.19. For the date of his planned consulship see Gallivan 1974, 309. Juvenal mentions a “Lateranus” in two of his satires, at 8.146 ff. and 10.17–18: while in the second case the identification with Tacitus’ character is clear, in the first the poet must either refer to another Lateranus who was consul at some time during Nero’s reign or have made an historical mistake (Courtney 1980, 406; Syme 1958, 628 n. 2). In addition to this, in his tenth satire Juvenal refers to the egregias… Lateranorum sedes, “the splendid house of the Laterani,” that was confiscated by Nero after Plautius’ execution: the equivalence between this building and the site of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran is intensely debated, as there is not consistency about these estates among the sources (for a full discussion see Gnilka 2014; Liverani 1999). Reference works: PIR2 P 468; NP Ant 9, 1117 (Eck) REFERENCES Courtney, Edward. 1980. A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal. London: The Athlone Press. Gallivan, Paul A. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24: 290–311. Gnilka, Christian. 2014. “Aedes Laterani.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 188: 70–80. Liverani, Paolo. 1999. “Dalle Aedes Laterani al patriarchio lateranense.” Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 75: 521–549. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Woodman, Anthony J. 1993. “Amateur Dramatics at the Court of Nero: Annals 15.48–74.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by Torrey J. Luce and Anthony J. Woodman, 104–128. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P lautius Silvanus  

PLAUTIUS, QUINTUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Quintus Plautius was a Roman senator in the first half of the first century ce. Not much is known of his career. He was ordinary consul in 36 ce and his colleague was Sextus Papinius Allenius (A. 6.40.1). He was probably the son of Aulus Plautius consul in 1 bce and the brother of Aulus Plautius, consul in 29 ce, the conqueror of Britannia under Claudius (A. 13.32. 2; Ag. 14.1; PIR2 P 456–457). Reference works: PIR2 P 459; CIL VI 10409; 32342; XII 4407; XV 4573; 4582 FURTHER READING Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

PLAUTIUS SILVANUS OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

Marcus Plautius Silvanus (bce 7–ce 14) was the member of one of Rome’s most celebrated families; he was a son of Marcus Plautius Silvanus, consul 2 bce and the father of Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus, suffect consul 45 and 74 ce. In 24 ce, when he was praetor, he hurled his wife Apronia headlong from a window; his father-in-law Lucius Apronius brought the matter before Tiberius. Plautius firstly claimed his innocence, but Tiberius proceeded to the house and saw the bedroom in which signs of a struggle were obvious. The princeps referred the affair to the Senate, and after judges had been appointed, Urgulania, Plautius’ grandmother, sent a dagger to her grandson; some thought that she was acting on the advice of Tiberius; Urgulania was indeed a close friend of Livia Augusta. Plautius tried to stab himself; he failed and had his veins opened. His former wife Fabia Numantina, who was maybe also a distant relative of Augustus, was charged

c15_Vol2.indd 817

817

with having caused Plautius’ insanity by spells and potions; she was acquitted (A. 4.22). Many discussions of the Tacitean narrative of this affair have been concerned with some procedural issues (Hicks 2013). In this respect, some scholars have identified Plautius Silvanus with a man named Saevius Plautus who, according to the Chronicon of Jerome (Helm 172), was accused of sexually abusing his son and committed suicide (Maggiuli 1978). Plautius’ gens was closely linked to the imperial domus. His sister, Urganilla, was married to Claudius at that time; the divorce (ob libidinum probra et homicidii suspicio according to Suet. Claud., 27.1) could have been related to this case. Anyway, this link with the imperial house would explain that the emperor intervened. It should also be noted that after 24 ce Urgulania is no longer mentioned in the Annals; this could be a clue that her influence decreased after the scandal in which her grandson was involved. However, no downfall of Urgulania and her house is mentioned by Tacitus; on the contrary, the historian refers to her closeness with the emperor and his mother. That fact may be in contrast with the accusations, reported by Tacitus in the preceding chapter, against Lucius Calpurnius Piso who, a few years before, had opposed Urgulania (A. 2.34.2–3). see also: magic; Plautius Aelianus Reference works: PIR2 P 479; PIR2 A 975; PIR2 F 78; Raepsaet-Charlier 1987, n° 353, stemma IV and XIII (Numantina) REFERENCES Hicks, Benjamin W. 2013. “The Prosecution of M. Plautius Silvanus (pr. 24).” Ancient History Bulletin 27: 55–64. Maggiuli, Gigliola. 1978. “‘Saevius Plautius’ o ‘Plautius Silvanus’.” Giornale italiano di filologia 30: 73–78. FURTHER READING Taylor, Lily Ross. 1956. “Trebula Suffenas and the Plautii Silvani.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 24: 9–30.

28-04-2023 18:01:43

818  

P liny the E lder

Vogel-Weidemann, Ursula. 1976. “M. Plautius M.F.M.N., praetor AD 24: A Note on Inscription AE 1972, 162.” Acta Classica 19: 135–138.

PLINY THE ELDER ELENI HALL MANOLARAKI

University of South Florida

Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus 23 ce–79 ce; hereafter “Pliny”) was a Roman naturalist, historian, and friend of the emperor Vespasian. Born to a wealthy equestrian family in Comum (modern Como in Lombardy), he served as cavalry officer in Upper and Lower Germania, as provincial administrator in Gaul, Hispania, and Africa, and as admiral of Vespasian’s fleet stationed at Cape Misenum (Syme 1969). Our main sources for him are his autobiographical mentions in his writings, the letters of his nephew and adopted son Pliny the Younger, citations of his historical works in Tacitus, and inscriptions associated with his family and career. Pliny died by suffocation while attempting to rescue a friend and his family from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in August 79 ce. His only surviving work is the Natural History, a thirty-seven-book treatise on various features and phenomena of nature. Pliny’s lost works are known from a letter of Pliny the Younger (Ep. 3.5), which lists their titles in chronological order. From this letter we learn that Pliny completed seven multivolume disquisitions on subjects as diverse as cavalry training, rhetorical practices, and semantic ambiguity. Among these are “The German Wars,” a comprehensive survey of Rome’s wars with the Germani, and “The Continuation of Aufidius Bassus,” also a historical work. Since both Aufidius’ history and Pliny’s “Continuation” are lost, their respective timelines are unclear; yet it is fairly certain that Pliny covered events from the reign of Nero to his contemporary times. Pliny’s historical accounts are cited by Tacitus, who alternatively endorses or rejects his predecessor’s version (H. 3.28; A. 1.69, 13.20, 15.53). Around 106 or 107 ce, Tacitus requested the story of Pliny’s death from the Younger Pliny for inclusion in (the now lost portion of) his Histories. In response the Younger narrates his uncle’s courageous deeds during the

c15_Vol2.indd 818

Vesuvius eruption (Ep. 6.16) adding details valuable to volcanologists (Berry 2008). Emblematized by his death, Pliny’s commitment to public service undergirds his Natural History. In his dedicatory preface to Titus, he proudly contends that he has excerpted hundreds of authors to create a practical handbook on nature and life itself (HN Praef. 13). To this end, he interweaves subjects from different (modern) disciplines including astronomy, philosophy, ethnography, geography, anthropology, zoology, botany, mineralogy, art history, magic, and medicine. He frequently portrays aspects of nature as astonishing and wondrous, and he urges readers to appreciate Rome’s ecumenical containment of these marvels (Naas 2011). The sheer volume, thematic variety, and technical language of the Natural History have always encouraged audiences to see it as a reference book, and to consult it piecemeal rather than read it as a whole; already in the fourth century, individual books circulated as specialist treatises (Doody 2010). As scientific education evolved the work lost its credibility, and readers from the Renaissance onward dismissed it as a compilation of pseudo-scientific miscellanea. In the past thirty years, however, the Natural History has been rehabilitated as a literary composition informed by ancient cultural assumptions on taxonomies of knowledge (Lao 2016). Furthermore, Pliny’s seemingly unrelated discussions are shown to be unified by two mutually reinforcing ideals: a largely Stoic conception of natura as conscious, benevolent, and anthropocentric, and the conviction that Rome is “naturally” ordained to civilize the world (Manolaraki 2015, 2018). see also: paradoxography; sources REFERENCES Berry, Dominic. 2008. “Letters from an Advocate: Pliny’s ‘Vesuvius’ Narratives (Epistles 6.16, 6.20).” In Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar: Hellenistic Greek and Augustan Latin Poetry. Flavian and Post-Flavian Latin Poetry. Greek and Roman Prose, edited by Francis Cairns, 297–313. Prenton: Francis Cairns. Doody, Aude. 2010. Pliny’s Encyclopedia: The Reception of the Natural History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P liny the Younger  

Lao, Eugenia. 2016. “Taxonomic Organization in Pliny’s Natural History.” In Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar: Greek and Roman Poetry; the Elder Pliny, edited by Roy K. Gibson and Francis Cairns, 209–246. Prenton: Francis Cairns. Manolaraki, Eleni Hall. 2015. “Hebraei Liquores: The Balsam of Judaea in Pliny’s Natural History.” American Journal of Philology 136: 633–667. DOI: 10.1353/ajp.2015.0035. Manolaraki, Eleni Hall. 2018. “Senses and the Sacred in Pliny’s Natural History.” Illinois Classical Studies 43: 207–233. DOI: 10.5406/illiclasstud.43.1.0207. Naas, Valérie. 2011. “Imperialism, Mirabilia and Knowledge: Some Paradoxes in the Naturalis Historia.” In Pliny the Elder: Themes and Contexts, edited by Roy K. Gibson and Ruth Morello, 57–70. Leiden: Brill. Syme, Ronald.1969. “Pliny the Procurator.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 73: 201–236. DOI: 10.2307/311156.

PLINY THE YOUNGER CHRISTOPHER WHITTON

University of Cambridge

Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) was born in 61 or 62 ce as the son of a local magistrate in Comum. When his father died, he became the ward of the senator Verginius Rufus; in 79 he inherited the name and presumably the fortune of his uncle Pliny the Elder. He studied with Quintilian in Rome, where he made an early debut in the courts before being posted to Syria as military tribune. Pliny entered the Senate as quaestor in 89 or 90 as a personal candidate of Domitian, progressing to tribune of the plebs and, in 93 or 94, praetor. His senatorial career continued under Trajan, who made him suffect consul for September–October 100; he was Curator of the Tiber c. 104–106 and governor of Bithynia Pontus c. 110–112; he also served on Trajan’s consilium (informal cabinet) and in c. 104 became an augur. Pliny predeceased Trajan and may have died in post in Bithynia Pontus (for details and dates see Birley 2000, 1–17, modified by Whitton 2015). He thus rose like Tacitus from relatively humble beginnings to a single suffect consulship, a senior priesthood, and a successful consular career.

c15_Vol2.indd 819

819

Pliny is the other Trajanic author of Latin prose whose works we substantially possess; like Tacitus, he had the wit or good fortune to begin publishing only after Domitian’s death. His principal work is the Epistles, a nine-book collection of 247 letters addressed to around a hundred friends and family members, written c. 96–109 and perhaps first published in installments. The prefatory letter claims that they are put together at random and says nothing about editing. That is clearly disingenuous on both counts, but views differ over how carefully organized the collection is, and how far it represents real correspondence. The individual letters range in length from a few lines to a few pages and cover a wide range of topics, making them a lively witness to contemporary Rome and the social milieu of which Tacitus was a part. Tacitus himself gets a special place, addressed in eleven letters (more than anyone else) and mentioned in four more. Above all, though, the Epistles is a fragmented autobiography of Pliny himself as orator and senator, family man and friend, protégé and patron, and especially as man of letters. Sherwin-White (1966) is the standard commentary, tuned to history and prosopography; Whitton (2013) and Gibson (Forthcoming) are literary commentaries on single books; Whitton and Gibson (2016) surveys modern scholarship. Pliny’s other work is the Panegyricus, the only surviving Latin oration from the early empire. A consular speech of thanks to Trajan, it was delivered in autumn 100 and later revised for publication. Pliny celebrates at length Trajan’s adoption by Nerva, his military conquests, and his first two years as emperor, repeatedly insisting on a contrast between Domitian, the “worst” (pessimus) emperor, and Trajan, the “best” (optimus). Much admired in later antiquity, it has been scorned in modernity as a tedious parade of flattery; more recently it has been defended as a dynamic text which powerfully deploys the imposed medium of panegyric for political negotiation and selffashioning (Roche 2011), rich in aesthetic as well as ideological terms (Feldherr et al. 2019). The standard commentary remains Durry (1938). We have in addition a long book of correspondence with Trajan, mostly dating from Pliny’s stint in Bithynia Pontus. Known as Epistles 10, it was probably compiled posthumously,

28-04-2023 18:01:43

820  

P liny the Younger

though some believe that Pliny edited it himself, and added to Books 1–9 in late antiquity (Whitton and Gibson 2016, 43–47). The Epistles implies that he also published several court speeches, now lost. The standard Latin texts of Pliny are Mynors (1963) and Mynors (1964, 1–81). Radice (1969) is a widely used text and translation. Pliny’s works are important for readers of Tacitus in at least three ways: (1) as evidence for Tacitus’ biography; (2) as contemporary comparanda for his writings and thought; (3) as the first witness to his reception, and the object of imitation by Tacitus in turn. To Pliny we owe our knowledge of Tacitus’ oratorical career. As consul in late 97 Tacitus gave the public funeral oration for Verginius Rufus (Ep. 2.1.6, the basis for dating his consulship), and in 100 he shared the prosecution brief with Pliny in the senatorial trial of Marius Priscus (Ep. 2.11.2, 17). Pliny calls him eloquentissimus (“most eloquent”, Ep. 2.1.6) and reports that he pleaded eloquentissime et, quod eximium orationi eius inest, semnôs (“most eloquently and—this the outstanding feature of his style—solemnly”, Ep. 2.11.17). Ep. 4.13.10 implies his celebrity, probably as an orator; Ep. 9.23 retails an anecdote from the Circus which suggests that Tacitus and Pliny are the two most famous men of studia (oratory and/or literary pursuits) in Rome. Through Pliny we also glimpse the composition of the Histories, whose immortality he predicts (Ep. 7.33.1; cf. 6.16.2), and for which he offers material—some of it purportedly at Tacitus’ request—on Pliny the Elder’s death in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 and his own experience of that event (Ep. 6.16, 6.20), and his role in the trial of Baebius Massa in 93/94 (Ep. 7.33): this suggests that Tacitus was well past the extant books by c. 106–107 (the conventional dating of those letters). The existence of, or plans for, the Histories may also be implied in Ep. 5.8, where Pliny equivocates over writing history himself, and Ep. 9.27, on the recital of a historical work which embarrassed someone in the audience; the historian is unnamed but is easily taken to be Tacitus, reading one of the Domitianic books of the Histories. Other pieces style Tacitus as a friend, senatorial colleague, and fellow man of letters: Ep. 1.6 jokes about Pliny’s idiosyncratic combination of writing

c15_Vol2.indd 820

and hunting; Ep. 1.20 argues that length is preferable to brevity in court; Ep. 4.13 enlists Tacitus’ help with finding a schoolteacher for Comum and portrays him as a magnet for studiosi (enthusiasts for oratory and/or literature); Ep. 4.15.2 makes him a character witness in a letter of recommendation; Ep. 6.9 concerns canvassing in a senatorial election; Ep. 7.20 and 8.7 portray Pliny and Tacitus commenting on each other’s literary drafts (and insist on Pliny’s inferiority); Ep. 9.10 laments a lack of inspiration; the brief Ep. 9.14 urges Tacitus toward their common goal of fame through studia—implying, at the last, an equal partnership in that endeavor. Together these letters sketch a portrait of rare depth and detail and present a more human face than Tacitus’ austere works reveal: here is a man who laughs (Ep. 1.6), banters (Ep. 8.7), and boasts (Ep. 9.23). It is a portrait whose accuracy we cannot test, since no others survive; Tacitus for his part never mentions Pliny (though he has scant occasion to). Whether the two men were as intimate as Pliny claims is debated: Syme (1958, 110–20 et passim) doubted it, an influential view variously challenged by Griffin (1999), Marchesi (2008, 97–143), and Whitton (2012). Pliny had a similar rhetorical training to Tacitus and grew up in the same culture of declamation and literary production. It is conventional to contrast their prose styles, despite the difficulty of generalizing across seven disparate works; certainly there are differences but there is much similarity too (see style and, for Pliny, Whitton 2013, 20–32). Both avoid periodicity and favor short clauses (less so in D. and Pan.); both like balanced antitheses offset by uariatio (“variation,” often subtle in Pliny, pronounced in Tacitus); both attend minutely to detail and novelty in lexis (but Tacitus is more prone to archaism), syntax, and metaphor; both like “point” and pithy or paradoxical one-liners (see sententiae; but these are less frequent in A.); both frequently and productively imitate earlier prose and verse (see intertextuality), and each other. One striking difference concerns rhythm: Pliny makes highly rhythmic prose—that is, the frequent use of certain clausulae—the default; Tacitus (outside D.) joins earlier historians in tending to avoid it. Another concerns the formal language of imperial discourse, embraced by

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P liny the Younger  

Pliny in the Panegyricus and at times in the Epistles, routinely avoided or ironized by Tacitus. How far this reflects differing political outlooks, how far different genres and constraints, is a complex question, and part of a larger one about how imperial Rome is refracted in their various works. Though revised, the Panegyricus is a rare witness to the public language of which the Histories and Annals are so suspicious, but which Tacitus himself conceivably used too in the Senate and elsewhere. More broadly, the often sunny Epistles (though it is not free of shadows) makes a strong contrast to the darker world of Tacitus’ prose, above all the Annals. Pliny writes mostly about the imperial present, Tacitus mostly about the past; how far their worldviews complement each other, how far they clash, is another ticklish question. Any reception history of Tacitus begins with Pliny, who not only mentions the Histories, he imitates it, along with all three minor works. The Panegyricus draws on the Agricola for its vilification of Domitian and heroizing of Trajan (Bruère 1954, 162–164), the Dialogue on Orators for several details (Güngerich 1956), and the Germania in some surprising ways (Whitton Forthcoming). Similarly, the Epistles reworks the Agricola at several points, and the Germania from time to time (Whitton 2019, index s. vv.); it also imitates the Histories often (Whitton Forthcoming). Intertextuality between the Epistles and the Dialogue has been controversial, bound up in uncertainty over the dating of Tacitus’ work. That Ep. 9.10.2 quotes D. 9.6 is agreed by most but not all; whether there are echoes earlier in the collection is debated (e.g., Murgia 1985; Woodman 2009, 32–35). Whitton (2019, 436– 472) argues that Pliny is imitating Tacitus throughout. Numerous close similarities between the Panegyricus and Histories (famously involving Galba’s speech of adoption, H. 1.15–16, but by no means confined to it) show further imitation; again doubts over dating have occasioned long controversy, but Pliny is surely the imitator (Woytek 2006), insistently and wittily making Tacitus a fil rouge of the published speech (Whitton Forthcoming). Echoes between Pliny and the Annals, by contrast, almost certainly show Tacitus

c15_Vol2.indd 821

821

imitating, since on most estimates that work was written after Pliny’s death (Bruère 1954, 174–176). The imitations are both minute and numerous (Whitton Forthcoming): the Panegyricus supplies abundant touches, often with irony, as Tacitus incorporates its officialese in the hypocrisies of emperors and others; delicate echoes of the Epistles (scarcely noticed) extend to cardinal moments, including the famous digression of A. 4.32 (Whitton 2019, 422–427). Having folded Tacitus and his works so assiduously into his own text, Pliny might have been quietly pleased. REFERENCES Birley, Anthony. 2000. Onomasticon to the Younger Pliny. Letters and Panegyric. Munich: K. G. Saur. Bruère, Richard. 1954. “Tacitus and Pliny’s Panegyricus.” Classical Philology 49: 161–179. Durry, Marcel. 1938. Pline le Jeune. Panégyrique de Trajan. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Feldherr, Andrew, Gianpiero Rosati, and Alessandro Schiesaro, eds. 2019. Il Panegirico a Traiano di Plinio. “Costrizione alla libertà” e retorica dell’encomio (= Maia 71.2). Brescia: Editrice Morcelliana. Gibson, Roy. Forthcoming. Pliny. Epistles Book VI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Griffin, Miriam. 1999. “Pliny and Tacitus.” Scripta Classica Israelica 18: 139–158. Reprinted in The Epistles of Pliny. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies, edited by Roy Gibson and Christopher Whitton, 355–377. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Güngerich, Rudolf. 1956. “Tacitus’ Dialogus und der Panegyricus des Plinius.” Festschrift Bruno Snell (Munich) 145–152. Marchesi, Ilaria. 2008. The Art of Pliny’s Letters: A Poetics of Allusion in the Private Correspondence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murgia, Charles. 1985. “Pliny’s Letters and the Dialogus.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 89: 171–206. Partly reprinted in The Epistles of Pliny. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies, edited by Roy Gibson and Christopher Whitton, 146–158. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mynors, Roger. 1963. C. Plini Caecili Secundi Epistularum Libri Decem. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mynors, Roger. 1964. XII Panegyrici Latini. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Radice, Betty. 1969. Pliny. Letters and Panegyricus. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:43

822  

P lotius F irmus

Roche, Paul, ed. 2011. Pliny’s Praise: The Panegyricus in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sherwin-White, Nicholas. 1966. The Letters of Pliny. A Historical and Social Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Whitton, Christopher. 2012. “‘Let us Tread our Path Together’: Tacitus and the Younger Pliny.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Pagán, 345–368. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Whitton, Christopher. 2013. Pliny. Epistles Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitton, Christopher. 2015. “Pliny’s Progress: On a Troublesome Domitianic Career.” Chiron, 45: 1–22. Whitton, Christopher. 2019. The Arts of Imitation in Latin Prose: Pliny’s Epistles/Quintilian in Brief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitton, Christopher. Forthcoming. Tacitus Revoiced: Reading the Histories with Pliny the Younger. Whitton, Christopher, and Roy Gibson. 2016. “Readers and Readings of Pliny.” In The Epistles of Pliny. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies, edited by Roy Gibson and Christopher Whitton, 1–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodman, Anthony. 2009. “Tacitus and the Contemporary Scene.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by Anthony Woodman, 31–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woytek, Erich. 2006. “Der Panegyricus des Plinius. Sein Verhältnis zum Dialogus und den Historiae des Tacitus und seine absolute Datierung.” Wiener Studien 119: 115–156.

soldier, then commander of the vigiles, whom the praetorian soldiers chose as their commander along with Licinius Proculus, after Galba’s fall and Otho’s takeover in January 69 ce. Tacitus says that he had been swift to pass on Otho’s side at the right moment when Galba was still alive (H. 1.46). After that, the praetorians broke into the palace in the middle of the night demanding to speak with Otho; they wounded the tribune Iulius Martialis and the prefect Vitellius Saturninus (both otherwise unknown; on the odd collocation of a legionary and a praetorian, see Damon 2003, 264–265). Fearing a plot, Plotius and his colleague had to persuade them the following day to calm down and accept a reward of 5,000 sesterces for each soldier (H. 1.82). After the disastrous defeat at Bedriacum, while reinforcements from Moesia were approaching, Plotius Firmus was among those who more passionately tried to persuade a discouraged Otho to keep on fighting. Holding the emperor’s knees, he implored him not to abandon such a loyal army and deserving soldiers: strong men face adversities and keep their hopes alive; the weak and the indolent, according to his words, fall prey to fear and desperation (H. 2.46). Upon hearing a moan from the dying emperor, Plotius rushed with other slaves into Otho’s lodging; they found him dead and spotted only a single wound (H. 2.49). After Otho’s death, Plotius ordered his soldiers to pledge loyalty to Vitellius (Plut. Otho 18.3).

FURTHER READING

Reference work: PIR2 P 503

Gibson, Roy. 2020. Man of High Empire: The Life of Pliny the Younger. New York: Oxford University Press. Gibson, Roy, and Ruth Morello. 2012. Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

PLOTIUS FIRMUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Plotius Firmus was a Roman officer (Demougin 1992, no. 660, 556–557). Plotius was a former

c15_Vol2.indd 822

see also: civil wars of 69 ce

REFERENCES Damon, C. 2003. Tacitus: Histories I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. FURTHER READING Daugherty, G. N. 1992. “The Cohortes Vigilum and the Great Fire of 64 AD.” Classical Journal 87: 229–240. Morgan, G. 2006. 69 AD: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P lutarch  

PLOTIUS GRYPUS DANIELLE CHAGAS DE LIMA

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Decimus Plotius Grypus (for the spelling, see Bérard 1984) was a partisan of Vespasian, and in the year 69 ce he was adlected into the Senate. After the battle of Cremona (H. 3.52.3), he took charge of legion VII Claudia legion in Moesia. Plotius was one of the few people with whom Licinius Mucianus openly talked about his plans when he wished to hinder Antonius Primus and his troops. In January 70 ce Grypus received the praetorship because Tettius Iulianus was said to have abandoned his legions, which had already acknowledged Vespasian as emperor. Tettius had his praetorship reestablished after a while, however, Plotius Grypus kept his rank (H. 4.39.1; 40.3). He was suffect consul in 88 ce, the same year when Domitian quitted this office. He probably had a homonymous son, who figures in Statius’ Silvae (Stat. Silv. 4.9) and a brother named Plotius Pegasus. see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference works: CIL VI 2065b, 1, 65; PIR2 P 506; RE XXI.1 (1951), 594 4 REFERENCE Bérard, François. 1984. “La carrière de Plotius Grypus et le ravitaillement de l’armée impériale en campagne.” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 96: 259–324. FURTHER READING Champlin, Edward. 1978. “Pegasus.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 32: 269–278.

PLUTARCH ADAM M. KEMEZIS

University of Alberta

Plutarch of Chaeronea (Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, c. 40 ce–c. 120 ce) was the author of a

c15_Vol2.indd 823

823

massive extant corpus of biographical and philosophical works in Greek. He was an older contemporary of Tacitus, and the two can be usefully compared both in content and social-cultural background. Although Plutarch spent most of his life in or near his Boeotian patris, he made several visits to Rome and Italy during the reigns of the Flavian emperors. He had friends among the Roman political elite, notably Sosius Senecio, Mestrius Florus, and Minicius Fundanus, all consulars (Jones 1971, 48–64). His social circle must thus have overlapped with Tacitus’, but neither author mentions the other. Although Plutarch began his career earlier, the bulk of his works (including the Parallel Lives) seem to date to the same years after 96 in which Tacitus was writing. The most extensive point of contact between the two is that Plutarch’s surviving lives of Galba and Otho cover (at somewhat under half the length) the same events as the first two books of Tacitus’ Histories. The two authors evidently drew heavily on a common source, presumably in Latin (see Damon 2003, 24–30, 305–307 for extended demonstration with H. 1). This source, also shared with Suetonius, cannot be certainly identified, but Cluvius Rufus and Pliny the Elder are the favored candidates. Plutarch’s parallel narrative is thus useful in illuminating Tacitus’ use of (and departure from) his principal sources. In spite of the ostensible generic gulf, the Galba and Otho have more in common with narrative historiography than do the Parallel Lives that Plutarch wrote some years later. They were part of an otherwise lost set of Lives of the Caesars that ran from Augustus to Vitellius and was written earlier than the Histories, under the Flavians or perhaps Nerva (suggested dates fall anywhere in the range 75–97 ce). It is quite possible Tacitus was aware of the project, though there is no reason to suppose it was among his major sources. Plutarch’s account of 68–69 draws on a contemporary Latin account, but by no means exclusively. It contains recollections of contemporaries, including a highly placed eyewitness with whom Plutarch visited the Bedriacum battlefield (Otho 14). Plutarch shares with Tacitus (and presumably their common source) a fascination with the pathology of military

28-04-2023 18:01:43

824  

P oeni

disorder, and their opinions of the major players typically coincide, but differences of emphasis and interpretation are many (Pelling 2010). Plutarch’s Galba represents not the obsolescence of republican-style virtus but a more generalized failure of ethical leadership in a Platonic mold. He is often overshadowed by figures such as Nymphidius and Vinius, who bear much blame both for corrupting the soldiers and turning their emperor toward cruelty. The two authors differ on how seriously to take the idea that the opposing armies hesitated before committing to the first battle at Bedriacum (Otho 9  ≈  Hist. 2.37–38): Plutarch believes it might be true, in part because of how mediocre the rival emperors seemed compared to such earlier civil-war leaders as Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1), Marius, Caesar, and Pompey. Tacitus uses a very similar comparison as a reason for disbelieving the story. Plutarch does, however, give much favorable description of Otho’s final self-sacrifice (roughly 20 percent of the whole text). The two authors have many significant points of comparison beyond their shared narrative of 69, however. Their careers represent distinct but contemporaneous aspects of the same social process by which the imperial power structure broadened to incorporate provincial elites. Plutarch’s characteristic stance of humane, if somewhat complacent, benevolence is rather un-Tacitean, and his irenic view of Greek-Roman relationships contrasts with Tacitus’ occasional anti-Hellenic chauvinism. Nonetheless, Plutarch’s corpus does sound in a quieter register themes that are more emphatically expressed in Tacitus, including support for philosophical dissenters under the Flavians (On Curiosity 522E). The two authors are, each in his different way, moralists who explore how the traditional ethical roles of elite males in their respective societies can function in a constrained modern world that does not offer the scope for glory available to citizens of a classical polis (see e.g., Precepts of Statecraft 813E-F) or the Roman elite under the republic. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; empire; morality; sources

c15_Vol2.indd 824

REFERENCES Damon, Cynthia, ed. 2003. Tacitus: Histories, Book I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jones, Christopher P. 1971. Plutarch and Rome. Oxford: Clarendon. Pelling, Christopher B. R. 2010. “Introduction to Galba and Otho.” In Rome in Crisis: Nine Lives by Plutarch, edited by Ian Scott-Kilvert and Christopher B. R. Pelling, 415–428. London: Penguin. FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 1997. “Severed Heads: Individual Portraits and Irrational Forces in Plutarch’s Galba and Otho.” In Plutarch and his Intellectual World: Essays on Plutarch, edited by Judith M. Mossman, 189–214. London: Duckworth. Georgiadou, Aristoula. 2014. “The Lives of the Caesars.” In A Companion to Plutarch, edited by Mark Beck, 251–266. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Gill, Christopher. 1983 “The Question of CharacterDevelopment: Plutarch and Tacitus.” Classical Quarterly 33: 469–487. Keitel, Elizabeth. 1995 “Plutarch’s Tragedy Tyrants: Galba and Otho.” Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 8: 275–288. Kemezis, Adam M. 2016 “Inglorius labor? The Rhetoric of Glory and Utility in Plutarch’s Precepts and Tacitus’ Agricola.” Classical World 110: 87–117. Stadter, Philip A. 2005. “Revisiting Plutarch’s Lives of the Caesars.” In Valori letterari delle opere di Plutarco, edited by Aurelio Pérez Jiménez and Frances B. Titchener, 419–435. Logan, Utah and Málaga: International Plutarch Society. Trapp, Michael. 2004. “Statesmanship in a Minor Key?” In The Statesman in Plutarch’s works, edited by Lukas de Blois, Jeroen A. E. Bons, Ton Kessels, and Dirk M. Schenkeveld, 189–200. Leiden: Brill.

POENI ROBYN LE BLANC

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Poeni, and the related adjectival forms poenicus/punicus (“Punic”), are Latin terms derived from the Greek Φοĩνιξ (“Phoenician”)

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P oeni  

and were used by Latin authors to describe the peoples of Carthage and /or Phoenicia. Introduced into Latin literature by the third century bce, poenus appears in the fragments of Naevius’ Bellum Punicum (6.40) and Ennius’ Annales (e.g., fr.214, 215, 287, and 310), while the diminutive is employed for the title of Plautus’ Poenulus. In these cases, poenus appears contextually to refer to Carthaginians in particular, a form followed by Late Republican writers, especially Cicero (e.g., Div. 2.28, 2.131, 2.137; Rep. 2.17.67; Phil. 11.4.9). By the Late Republic, phoenix (Phoenician) was in use by Varro and sometimes used to refer to the Phoenicians as a distinct group from the Poeni (Plin. HN 3.1.8; Cic. Scaur. 19.42), but this is not consistently done thereafter (Prag 2006, 11–17, but cf. Bunnens 1983, 235–237). Prag (2006, 14) notes that the overlap seems to follow a general rule through the Late Republic: “All Carthaginians are Poeni and not vice versa.” Although poenus and punicus were undoubtedly sometimes used in a pejorative sense (particularly after the Punic Wars, but also beyond; Franko 1994; Starks 1999), the connotations asserted by each use display considerable range depending on author and context. For example, Livy’s frequently employs punica pejoratively, and in contexts where it is difficult to mistake a negative shading to the word, e.g., as Prag (2006, 2) notes, the use of perfidia plus quam punica (“unreliability worse than Punic”) when describing Hannibal (Livy 21.4.9). The Latin saying fides Punica (“Punic reliability”) is another example of negative usage (Gruen 2011, 115–140). On the other hand, Cato uses it as an adjective to describe a type of porridge (Agr. 85) and a construction method (Agr. 18.9), while the first century bce/ce poet Silvius Italicus titled his epic poem on Hannibal and the Punic War, Punica. Tacitus uses punica only to refer to Carthage (A. 4.56) and to Carthaginian weapons (A. 4.33). Tacitus employs poenus twice. Poeni appears in a list alongside samnis, hispaniae, galliae, and parthi as peoples with whom the Romans fought (G. 37.3) and must be a reference to the Carthaginians. Poenus is a description of a certain Caesellius Bassus, a man who arrives

c15_Vol2.indd 825

825

in Rome to inform Nero of a treasure on the grounds of his estate, revealed to him in a dream (A. 16.1–3). Bassus’ claims that this treasure was originally buried by Dido en route to the foundation of Carthage, suggesting that Bassus’ lands are likewise located in the region, but it is not clear if the use of poenus was intended here to indicate Carthage or the region more generally. Although Bassus is also described as mente turbida (“mentally troubled”), it is not at all clear that the two descriptors are linked. Bassus’ primary failure appears to be incorrectly interpreting his dreams— which he claims have been correct in the past— rather than a negative feature inherent in his description as poenus. It is worth noting that there is very little evidence that anyone from either North Africa or Phoenicia self-identified as either poenus, punicus, or phoenix, and thus the word is more correctly understood as an identifier for an ethnic group based on the perspective of the Greeks and Romans rather than founded in a sense of collective identity manifested by those to whom the label was applied (Prag 2006). see also: dreams; ethnicity; identity Reference work: Barrington 69 B3 Phoenice; Barrington 32 F3 Carthago REFERENCES Bunnens, Guy. 1983. “La distinction entre phéniciens et puniques chez les auteurs classiques.” In Atti del I congresso internazionale di studi fenici e punici I, 233–238. Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche. Franko, George Frederic. 1994. “The Use of Poenus and Carthaginiensis in Early Latin Literature.” Classical Philology 89: 153–158. Gruen, Erich S. 2011. Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Prag, Jonathan R. W. 2006. “Poenus Plane Est–But who were the ‘Punickes’?” Papers of the British School at Rome 47: 1–37. Starks, John H. Jr. 1999. “Fides Aeneia: The Transference of Punic Stereotypes in the Aeneid.” Classical Journal 94: 255–283.

28-04-2023 18:01:43

826  

poison

FURTHER READING Markoe, Glenn. 2005. The Phoenicians. London: Folio Society. Prag, Jonathan R. W. 2014. “Phoinix and poenus: Usage in antiquity.” In The Punic Mediterranean: Identities and Identification from Phoenician Settlement to Roman Rule, edited by Josephine C. Quinn and Nicholas C. Vella, 11–23. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quinn, Josephine C. 2017. In Search of the Phoenicians. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

POENIUS POSTUMIUS, see ARMY

POISON ELIZABETH ANN POLLARD

San Diego State University

Poison (uenenum) is an integral part of the political intrigue in Tacitus’ writings, particularly in his Annals. Tacitus carefully frames some instances of poisoning as rumor and directly reports other cases as undisputed. He describes poisons that act quickly and others that are slow. Women-poisoners play an active role in preparing poisons, while freedmen and eunuchs often administer the poison. Outlawed by Sulla’s lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis in 81 bce with the goal of limiting or at least prosecuting political murder, poisoning over time became a magic-adjacent crime and there are hints of that change in Tacitean narrative, especially at Germanicus’ death (carmina et deuotiones, A. 2.69) and in charges that couple poison with sorcery/deuotiones (e.g., charges against Claudia Pulchra in 26 ce, A. 4.52). For the most part, however, poison/uenenum in Tacitus is a practical means to a political end. Poison, suspected or confirmed, is at the heart of many of Tacitus’ reports of political treachery. From the start of the Annals, Tacitus leaves it ambiguous as to whether Vibius Pansa (see Aulus Hirtius) was killed by the enemy or by a poisoninfused wound (A. 1.10); but either way, the death of consuls Hirtius and Pansa at the Battle of Mutina cleared the way for Octavian’s eventual rise to power. The primary charges in 20 ce against Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso were grounded

c15_Vol2.indd 826

in his intense rivalry with Germanicus during Piso’s governorship of Syria. Nevertheless, Tacitus weaves throughout his account of Germanicus’ death and Piso’s subsequent trial multiple insinuations that Piso poisoned Germanicus: a statement about the general belief that Germanicus was poisoned, coupled with the creepy description of Germanicus’ home, with body bits, spells, and curse tablets in the walls (A. 2.69); the suspicious death of the famous Syrian poisoner Martina on her way to Rome to serve as witness in the trial of Piso (A. 3.7); in Tiberius’ speech about the trial (A. 3.12); in the formal statement of the charges (A. 3.13); and as the only aspect of the charges of which Piso successfully cleared himself (A. 3.14). In 23 ce, the nefarious praetorian prefect Sejanus chose a slow-acting poison for Lygdus and Eudemus to administer in his assassination of Tiberius’ son Drusus the Younger (A. 4.8–10); but Sejanus dismissed poison as a means to kill Germanicus’ heirs, because their guardians were too vigilant against its use (A. 4.12). Sejanus also craftily sowed suspicion by warning Agrippina the Elder that Tiberius might try to poison her (A. 4.54). Tacitus reports the rumor that Furius Scribonianus, exiled in 52 ce for his consultation of astrologers against Claudius, died shortly into that exile by means of poison (A. 12.52). Tacitus offers conflicting testimony that Nero may have ordered the poisoning of his former advisor Afranius Burrus in 62 ce (A. 14.51; Suet. Nero 35.5 says Nero sent a poison disguised as a throat medicine); but is more direct about Nero’s role in the poisoning of freedmen Doryphorus and Pallas (A. 14.65). And it was on Nero’s orders that Seneca’s freedman Cleonicus prepared a poison for the philosopher, although Tacitus says it’s unclear if Seneca escaped that attempt because of a warning from Cleonicus or from his own suspicion (A. 15.45). And in 69 ce, Vitellius had rival Iunius Blaesus killed by means of poison (H. 3.39). So often was poison the tool of choice to remove a political opponent, that Tacitus clarified moments when poison was not used; for example, when Tacitus clarifies that Vipsania was the only child of Agrippa to have escaped a violent death (A. 3.19) and that, contrary to other writers’ reports, Nero’s wife Poppaea Sabina the Younger was not poisoned (A. 16.6).

28-04-2023 18:01:43

poison  

Women feature prominently in poisoning episodes as depicted by Tacitus. Apart from famed Syrian poisoner Martina’s implicated role in the poisoning of Germanicus, Piso’s wife Munatia Plancina is alleged by Tacitus to have been the real poison mastermind, free to turn her poison against Agrippina the Elder and her children after the trial against Piso concluded with his suicide (A. 3.17). Aemilia Lepida (1) was charged in 20 ce with attempting to use poison against her former husband, Sulpicius Quirinius (A. 3.22–23). Tacitus describes Agrippina the Younger, wife of Claudius and mother of Nero, as well-versed in poisoning thanks to the expert Locusta. Tacitus reports Agrippina’s careful deliberations on the type of poison (instantaneous, slow acting, mind-confusing) by means of which to kill Claudius in 54 ce, as well as its preparation by Locusta (already a convicted poisoner when Agrippina employs her) and delivery by the eunuch/taster Halotus (A. 12.66–67). In the same year, Tacitus describes Agrippina’s poisoning of Marcus Iunius Silanus (2), with the help of Publius Celer and the freedman Helius (A. 13.1). Tacitus describes Agrippina as so wary of poison, taking prophylactic antidotes against it, that Nero realized he’d have to kill her some other way (A. 14.3). Agrippina’s chief poisoner Locusta is employed by Nero, as well. Tacitus describes in great detail how Nero in 54/55 ce consorts with Iulius Pollio, a tribune of the praetorian cohort who has Locusta in custody at the time, to bring about the assassination of Claudius’ son Britannicus (A. 13.15–17). Locusta tests the fast-acting poison in the imperial palace (near the emperor’s own chamber, a detail surely added by Tacitus to underscore Nero’s complicity). While Tacitus does not report what ultimately happens to Locusta, Suetonius says she got as reward a pardon for her earlier crimes, estates, and even students (Nero 33.3). Juvenal hints at her continued fame as poisoner-extraordinaire (Sat. 1.71), and Cassius Dio reports that in 68 ce Galba had her marched through the city of Rome in chains and then executed, along with Helius and others (64.3). Tacitus hints a few times at the un-Roman nature of poison. While poison is readily deployed by Roman aristocrats in their political

c15_Vol2.indd 827

827

machinations, Tacitus attributes actual knowledge of poison to the Syrian Martina and to Locusta, possibly from Gaul. When Adgandestrius, chief of the Chatti, asks for poison to be sent to him to kill Arminius (the Germanic chief responsible for the rout of Augustus’ three legions in 9 ce), the Senate replies that the people of Rome avenge their enemies openly and not by hidden treachery (A. 2.88). Poison makes its way into Armenian royal affairs in 35 ce, with Artabanus poisoning a powerful eunuch Abdus (A. 6.32), and in 51 ce when Radamistus swears he will not kill by sword or poison his uncle Mithridates Hiberus, king of Armenia, but then smothers him under heavy clothes (A. 12.47). Tacitus offers many examples of the use of poison in politically related suicide. Perhaps the most dramatic example is Vibulenus Agrippa’s suicide by poison in the Senate house itself in 36 ce (A. 6.40). Tacitus reports that he pulled the poison from his robe after the accusers finished speaking, while Cassius Dio tells an even more dramatic version in which Vibulenus (called Vibullius in Cassius Dio) gulps down poison from a finger ring (58.21.4). Clodius Quirinalis, the prefect of the crews at Ravenna, took poison in 56 ce when it was clear he’d be punished for misuse of the post (A. 13.30). The Iceni warrior queen Boudicca ended her life, and with it her rebellion against Roman rule in Britannia, taking poison in 60/61 ce (A. 14.37). In his detailed account of Seneca’s suicide in 65 ce, Tacitus describes how Seneca, having escaped an earlier poisoning attempt by Nero, consumes poison—the poison used by the publicly condemned in ancient Athens (likely hemlock)—to speed up his death but that his body was too cold and closed off to allow the poison to take effect (A. 15.64). And Publius Anteius Rufus (d. 67 ce), whose connection with an astrologer raised suspicion but whose wealth and affinity for Agrippina was enough to make him an enemy of Nero, took poison but was frustrated by its slowness and so sliced open his veins (A. 16.14). Tacitus writes that his father-in-law Agricola may have fallen victim to poison (Ag. 43.2). Tacitus frames the possibility of poison’s role as an unsubstantiated report (rumor), but then sprinkles in a hint of suspicion through

28-04-2023 18:01:43

828  

P olemo

the types of visitors who called on Agricola (favored freedmen and imperial physicians) and their frequent reports to Domitian about Agricola’s status. Cassius Dio certainly believes the charge, when he writes that Domitian killed Agricola out of spite and jealousy (66.20). Taken out of the larger Tacitean context, one might see the poisoning is part of a general pattern of distortion at the conclusion of Agricola. The many nuanced treatments of poison in Tacitus’ writing, however, would suggest that he did not intimate poisoning rumors indiscriminately and might have expected his readers to interpret this insinuation in the context of his corpus. see also: astrology; freedmen of Claudius; freedmen of Nero; magic; medicine; women FURTHER READING Cilliers, L., and F. P. Retief. 2000. “Poisons, Poisoning, and the Drug Trade in Ancient Rome.” Akroterion 45: 88–100. Dorey, T. A. 1960. “Agricola and Domitian.” Greece and Rome 7: 66–71. Kaufman, D. 1932. “Poisons and Poisoning among the Romans.” Classical Philology 27.2: 156–167. Kippenberg, Hans G. 1997. “Magic in Roman Civil Discourse: Why Rituals Could be Illegal.” In Envisioning Magic, edited by P. Shäfer and H. G. Kippenberg, 137–163, Leiden: Brill. Rives, J. B. 2003. “Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime.” Classical Antiquity 22.2: 313–339.

POLEMO IVAYLO LOZANOV

Sofia University

Polemo (Πολέμων) is the name of kings of Pontus and Bosporus. Tacitus mentions Polemo II, king of Pontus, r. 38–64 C.E., at A. 2.67.2., 14.26.2.; H. 3.47.1. Polemo I (PIR2 P 531), son of Zeno, was a local aristocrat and rhetor from Laodicea (1) who repelled a Parthian attack against his home city in 40 bce. With Mark Antony’s larger rearrangements in the East, Polemo was first installed

c15_Vol2.indd 828

as king ruling a portion of Cilicia (perhaps Tracheia; cf. Strab. 12.6.1; App. BCiv. 5.75; Primo 2010, 163, 174). Claiming no royal descent, Polemo was part of the triumvir’s personal network of client kings and allies (Braund 1984, 41 suggesting an Antonian grant of citizenship to Polemo; Raggi 2010, 89, to his father Zeno). Intellectual power, wealth, and influence made him a salient political figure. Polemo’s accession as “king of Pontus” probably took place late in 37 or 36 bce. following Antony’s return from Italy and the preparations for the Parthian campaign. Having been taken captive and released, Polemo was instrumental in negotiating an alliance between Antony and King Artavasdes of Media Atropatene against Parthia. As a reward he was allowed to expand his domain over Lesser Armenia (Cass. Dio 49.25.4, 33.1–2, 44.3; Plut. Ant. 38.3, 61.2). After Actium, Octavian retracted this gain in favor of the same Artavasdes. In the beginning of the Augustan principate Polemo was reconfirmed as Roman friend and ally (Cass. Dio 53.25.1, and probably SEG 58.1472). In 15–14 bce he was sent by Agrippa, at that time on a mission in the East, to the Cimmerian Bosporus to quell a local revolt against the Romans. Upon completing the task Polemo married the widowed queen Dynamis, granddaughter of Mithridates Eupator, allegedly on Augustus’ demand (Cass. Dio 54.24.5– 6). The marriage and the grant of the Bosporan throne eventually supplied Polemo with a legitimate claim to the former Mithridatic “empire” under the aegis of Rome. Being formal and political, this union didn’t last long, and soon Dynamis was forced to take refuge and seek help from the natives against her ex-husband (see generally Sullivan 1980, 1990, 161–163; Saprykin 2002, 115–116; Primo 2010, 162–168). Around 12 bce Polemo married Pythodoris, daughter of Pythodorus from Nysa and Antonia, a daughter of Antony (doubts in Braund 1984, 48), with whom he had three children (Antonia Tryphaena: Strabo 12.3.29, IGRom. IV.144–148; Zeno: IGRom. IV.1407; and Marcus Antonius Polemo). His activities in the North Black Sea region escape detailed context. Inscriptions from the Crimean Chersonese honoring “king Polemo Saviour of the Chersonesitae” are taken to refer to Polemo’s I successful attempts in expanding

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P olemo  

his sway westward between 14–9 bce (IOSPE I2 354, 704, SEG 42.697; Vinogradov 1992, 130– 132). Strabo’s brief remarks on the murder of Polemo while campaigning against Tanais and the unruly Maeotic tribes east of the Bosporus (Strab. 11.2.3.; 11.2.11; 12.3.29) are chronologically elusive. The accepted date of Polemo’s campaign (9/8 bce) is now reattributed only after Dynamis’ death (between 7/8–10/11 ce), attempting to reestablish the Pontic authority in the North Black Sea against Aspurgus (Primo 2010, 169). Polemo II (PIR2 I 472) is a grandson of Polemo I. Polemo II is the son of the Thracian king Cotys (VIII), descendant of the triumvir Mark Antony through his mother Antonia Tryphaena. After the murder of their father in 19 ce, Polemo II and his brothers Rhoemetalces and Cotys (IX) were taken under Roman protection and brought up with the future emperor Caligula (A. 2. 64–67; Syll.3 798). With the accession of Caligula all three capitalized from this acquaintance and were granted royal appointments. According to Cassius Dio (59.12.2) Polemo II was given his ancestral domain “τὴν πατρῴαν ἀρχήν” (sc. Pontus and perhaps Bosporus, see below). His nomen Iulius suggests grant of citizenship through paternal line (cf. Cotys VIII) or through his imperial patron (discussion in Braund 1984, 42; Dmitriev 2003, 287–288 following PIR2 I 516–517 refers (wrongly) to Polemo’s grandfather as Tiberius Iulius Rhoemetalcus). In 41 ce Claudius canceled all acts of Caligula (Suet. Claud. 11.3), and this is usually combined with Dio’s account that the new emperor took Bosporus from a certain Polemo (II?) compensating him with a part of Cilicia (Cass. Dio 60.8.2). However, here and elsewhere (59.12.2) Dio could have caused confusion by mingling information about two different Polemos (see below). Modern debate on the incongruities of the ancient sources and the extant epigraphical record focuses on two main issues: Polemo II’s actual hold of Bosporus (cf. polarizing opinions of Vinogradov 1992, 132–138 and Saprykin 2002, 238–243) and the difficulties in identifying at least two existing branches of Polemos: (1) Iulius Polemo II and a son; and (2) the son and the grandson of Polemo I, both called Marcus

c15_Vol2.indd 829

829

Antonius Polemo, dynasts and high priests at Olba, ruling over parts of Cilicia from the time of Tiberius until c. 70 ce (Sullivan 1979, 1980; Braund 1984, 41–42; Dmitriev 2003, 286  ff;  Thonemann 2004, 146–148, 150 with stemma; Primo 2010, 173ff; Nigdelis 2017 with important restoration of an inscription from Amphipolis and a stemma). Silver coins (drachms and didrachms) show the portrait of the king and his mother Tryphaena on the obverses and the imperial family (Claudius with Britannicus and Nero) on the reverses (RPC I.3810–38; Dahmen 2010, 103–104). Polemo II reigned with his mother probably until 55/56 ce. After the absorption of Pontus into the province of Galatia in 63/64 ce (Suet. Nero 18), there is no secure information on Polemo II (year of his death unknown). He seems to have died before 69, since Tacitus mentions him at H. 3.47. Also, Polemo referred to at A. 14.26.2 is most likely the same king of Pontus called on to assist the campaign of Domitius Corbulo of 58–59 ce against the Parthians and to put concerted pressure on the borders of Armenia along with the fellow client kings of Cappadocia, Commagene, and Iberia. see also: Anicetus (2); Bithynia Pontus Reference works: PIR2 P 531; I 472; RPC I = Burnett, A., Amandry, M., Ripollès, P. Roman Provincial Coinage. Vol. I. From the death of Caesar to the death of Vitellius (44 BC–AD 69). London-Paris, 1992. IOSPE = Inscriptiones Antiquae Orae Septentrionalis Ponti Euxini Graecae et Latinae. ed. Basilius [Vasilii] Latyshev. Vol. I-III, St. Petersburg 1885–1901. Vol. I2, Inscriptiones Tyriae, Olbiae, Chersonesi Tauricae. St. Petersburg 1916. REFERENCES Braund, D. 1984. Rome and the Friendly King: The Character of the Client Kingship. London: Croom Helm. Dahmen, K. 2010. “With Rome in Mind? Case Studies in the Coinage of Client Kings.” In Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East, edited by T. Kaiser and M. Facella, 99–112. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Dmitriev, S. 2003. “Claudius’ Grant of Cilicia to Polemo.” Classical Quarterly 53.1: 286–291.

28-04-2023 18:01:43

830  

P olyclitus

Nigdelis, P. 2017. “A Honorific Inscription from Amphipolis for the Sappaean King Sextus Iulius Cotys.” Tyche 32: 139–149, Taf. 21–22. Primo, A. 2010. “The Client Kingdom of Pontus between Mithridatism and Philoromanism.” In Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East, edited by T. Kaiser and M. Facella, 159–179. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Raggi, A. 2010. “The First Roman Citizens among Eastern Dynasts and Kings.” In Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East, edited by T. Kaiser and M. Facella, 81–97. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Saprykin, S. Yu. 2002. The Kingdom of Bosporus on the Verge of Two Epochs. Moscow: Nauka (in Russian). Sullivan, R. D. 1980. “Dynasts in Pontus.” ANRW II 7.2: 913–930. Sullivan, R. D. 1990. Near East Royalty and Rome, 100–30 BC (Phoenix Suppl. Vol. 24.). Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press. Thonemann, P. 2004. “Polemo, Son of Polemo (Dio, 59.12.2).” Epigraphica Anatolica: Zeitschrift für Epigraphik und historische Geographie Anatoliens 37: 144–150. Vinogradov, Yu. G. 1992. “Polemon, Chersonesus and Rome.” Vestnik Drevnej Istorii (Journal of Ancient History) 202.3: 130–139 (in Russian). FURTHER READING Sullivan, R. D. 1979. “King Marcus Antonius Polemo.” Numismatic Chronicle 19.139: 6–20.

POLYCLITUS BEDIA DEMIRIŞ

Istanbul University

Polyclitus, who inherited the nomen Titus Claudius from his former owner, the emperor Nero, was among the powerful freedmen of Nero and was employed by him as his personal legate with the three other freedmen, Helius, Acratus, and Patrobius. Polyclitus was a powerful but despised freedman (Rudich 2005, 263). In 61 ce he was sent to Britannia by Nero to investigate the situation there and to appease the conflict between the governor Suetonıus Paulınus and procurator

c15_Vol2.indd 830

Iulıus Classıcıanus, and also to conciliate the rebellious attitudes and behavior of the tribes. While sending him, Nero expected successful results from his performance there. Polyclitus caused a lot of worry and trouble to Italy and Gaul as he advanced with his immense escort. He crossed the seas and even managed to scare the Roman army with his march. But he became a subject of derision in the eyes of the enemies. They had never met the power of freedmen before, so they were astonished that a general and an army, who had completed such a difficult and challenging war, should obey slaves (A. 14.39.1–2). Pliny the Younger also mentions Polyclitus’ fame as one of the freedmen of Nero (Plin. Ep. 6.31.9). Like Vatinius and Aegialius, Polyclitus too was an extravagant (H. 1.37.5) and detested man (H. 2.95.2). During Nero’s last years, Polyclitus was associated with Helius, and together they caused great harm and despoiled everything in Rome in 67 ce (Cass. Dio 63.12.3). Nero’s successor Galba had Polyclitus killed together with the other adherents of Nero, among whom were Helius, Petinus, and Patrobius, in 68 ce (Plut. Galb. 17.2). see also: Boudicca; freedmen of Nero Reference works: PIR2 P 561; RE (Polykleitos) 5 REFERENCE Rudich, Vasily. 2005. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. Taylor & Francis e-Library. FURTHER READING Roberts, Michael. 1998. “The Revolt of Boudicca (Tacitus, Annals 14.29–39) and the Assertion of Libertas in Neronian Rome.” The American Journal of Philology 109: 118–132. DOI: 10.2307/294766. Carroll, Kevin K. 1979. “The Date of Boudicca’s Revolt.” Britannia 10: 197–202. DOI: 10.2307/526056.

POMERIUM, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY

28-04-2023 18:01:43

831

P ompeia Paulina  

POMPEIA MACRINA OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

At A. 6.18.2 (33 ce), Tacitus reports that Pompeia Macrina was sentenced to exile; her husband Argolicus and father-in-law Laco had been ruined by Tiberius. Her father and brother, faced with the imminence of a sentence, committed suicide. According to Tacitus, their crime was that their great-grandfather, Theophanes of Mytilene, had been among the close friends of Pompey the Great and that, after his death, Greeks had paid him divine honors (Syme 1958, 748-749). Nonetheless, it has been suggested that the fall of this family under Tiberius could be linked to the fall of Sejanus in 31 ce. Tacitus calls Argolicus and Laco “high-ranking men of Achaia” (e primoribus Achaeorum); they were the son and the grandson of the ruler of Sparta Eurycles; by the reign of Claudius, Laco was reinstated at Sparta. As for the brother and the father of Pompeia, the family ties evoked by Tacitus have been discussed (White 1992). The brother was probably Pompeius Macer, praetor in 15 and mentioned by Tacitus at A. 1.72.3 (see maiestas). The father could have been a son of Theophanes, whom Augustus, according to Strabo (13.2.3), appointed to be equestrian procurator of Asia. In that case, however, Theophanes would be the grandfather of Pompeia and of her brother, and not their great-grandfather, as Tacitus says (proauus). Three possibilities can be suggested: Tacitus made a mistake, or the text of the Annals (or of Strabo) has been corrupted, or proauus is used in the loose sense of “ancestor.” It should be noted that a descendant of Theophanes, Marcus Pompeius Macrinus Theophanes (suffect consul 100 or 101), is a contemporary of Tacitus. He may have been informed by this descendant. In any case, the use of a source independent of the historiographical tradition could explain why Cassius Dio does not report these events. In the Annals, the year 33 ce is a high point in the so-called reign of terror of Tiberius. The narrative of the year is filled only with internal affairs.

c15_Vol2.indd 831

The trials and deaths of eminent men alternate with notices relating to the marriage of members of the imperial house (A. 6.15: Germanicus’ daughter; 20.1: Caligula; 27.1: Tiberius’ granddaughter). The calamities suffered by the descendants of Theophanes show in contrast to the Julio-Claudian dynasty an example of a family devastated by the lawsuits and the judicial repression. Reference works: PIR2 P 674 (and stemma ad Pompeius Macrinus, p. 274)

Woodman, Anthony J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus. Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ad 6.18.2 (pp. 161–162). REFERENCES Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Appendix 62 (pp. 748–749). White, Peter. 1992. “‘Pompeius Macer’ and Ovid.” Classical Quarterly 42: 210–218. FURTHER READING Syme, Ronald. 1983. “The Year 33 in Tacitus and Dio.” Athenaeum 61: 3–23. Woodman, A. J. 2006. “Tiberius and the Taste of Power: The Year 33 in Tacitus.” Classical Quarterly 56.1: 175–189. Cartledge, Paul, and Antony Spawforth. 1989. Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities. London and New York: Routledge.

POMPEIA PAULINA ARNOLDUS VAN ROESSEL

University of Toronto

Pompeia Paulina (fl. first century ce, d. c. 70 ce) was the wife of Seneca (A. 15.60.4; Sen. Ep. 104.1) with whom she attempted to commit suicide. She was probably the sister of Pompeius Paulinus, the legate of Upper Germany in 56–8 ce, and the daughter of Pompeius Paulinus, an equestrian from Arelate (Plin. HN 33.143). This may be the same Paulinus that served as prefect of the grain and is addressee of Seneca’s De

28-04-2023 18:01:43

832  

P ompeii

brevitate vitae or another close relative (Sen. Dial. 18–19). Sometimes identified as Seneca’s second wife, evidence of a previous marriage is indeterminate (Giancotti 1957, 111). If Seneca’s only wife, they were married by 40 ce and had one son who died in 41 ce a month before Seneca’s exile to Corsica (Sen. Helv. 2.4–5). If Seneca’s second wife, his first may have died with the child in birth, and he married Paulina after his return from exile in 49 ce. Seneca mentions Paulina only once in his extant work in the Epistulae. She was concerned for her husband’s deteriorating health and advised rest. Seneca had begun to heed her advice in consideration of her unease (Ep. 104.2). When the Pisonian Conspiracy was discovered and Nero ordered Seneca’s death, she voluntarily attempted suicide alongside her husband in 65 ce but survived. The suicide attempt is recorded in varying accounts by Tacitus and Cassius Dio. Tacitus’ narrative echoes Seneca’s description of his wife’s devotion. When Seneca resolved to follow the emperor’s command, Tacitus reports that Paulina vowed to kill herself alongside her husband despite his request that she live and honor his memory (A. 15.63.1). The two slit the veins in their arms together, but Seneca then had Paulina moved to another room in order that she could not watch him suffer the pain caused by the additional incision points required on his legs. Nero commanded the soldiers to save Paulina. Freedmen and slaves bandaged her arms possibly while she lay unconscious due to blood loss (A. 15.64.1). She lived a few years longer with a pallid countenance (A. 15.64.2). Cassius Dio provides a more negative portrayal of the marriage and suicide with reports of Seneca’s hypocrisy and preference for affairs with boys (61.10.3). Furthermore, Cassius Dio narrates that Seneca wanted his wife to perish alongside him in suicide and had taught her to want the same. He forcefully opened her veins, but the soldiers hastened Seneca’s death so that he perished first and Paulina could survive (62.25.1–2). Tacitus’ sources for the incident include the history by Fabius Rusticus, Seneca’s friend, and so his version of the events is better attested (Griffin 1976, 371). Tacitus’ account made Paulina a model of a courageous and devout wife alongside Arria. Giovanni Boccaccio provides a biography of

c15_Vol2.indd 832

Paulina in his On Famous Women (1361–1362). She is a model of loyalty in Christine de Pizan’s, Cité des dammes (1405), and her death is eulogized in Michel de Montaigne’s Essais (1580). Her presence at the suicide of Seneca is also a frequent subject in French painting of the eighteenth century and was the subject of the Académie Royale’s Grand Prix in 1773 (Ker 2012, 230–233). Paulina is typically depicted dying or being resuscitated beside the already or nearly dead Seneca. Jean-Joseph Taillasson’s Pauline, femme de Sénèque, rappelée à la vie (1791) is unique in adapting Tacitus’ account and depicts Paulina dying without her husband as a soldier rushes in to prevent her death. see also: marriage; reception, eighteenth century; reception, visual arts; women Reference work: PIR2 P 678 REFERENCES Giancotti, F. 1957. Cronologia dei ‘Dialoghi’ di Seneca. Torino: Loescher. Griffin, M. T. 1976. Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ker, J. 2012. The Deaths of Seneca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Kamp, H. W. 1937. “Seneca’s Marriage.” Classical Journal 32.9: 529–533.

POMPEII BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

Pompeii (now Pompei) was a city in Campania, destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The earliest inhabitants on the site of Pompeii were the Oscans, who founded there five small villages in the 8th century bce; these settlements were subjected to Greek influence by the end of the same century, as the Greek settlers reached Campania. By the sixth century, the five villages merged in a single city, which began to flourish

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P ompeius L onginus  

and was endowed with defensive walls and a port; when the Etruscans settled in the region, around 524 bce Pompeii came under their control, although remaining politically independent. In the late fifth bce Pompeii was taken by the Samnites; at the end of the Samnite wars, the citizens of Pompeii received the status of socii (“allies”) of Rome. In the Social War (91–88 bce) Pompeii fought against Rome but was forced to surrender in 89, at the end of a siege lead by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1): after the conflict, Pompeian citizens were granted Roman citizenship. In 59 ce a violent commotion took place at the amphitheater of Pompeii, among local citizens and people from Nuceria: the event held a wide appeal in Rome, leading the consuls to order the closing of the amphitheater and to forbid any gladiatorial show for ten years (A. 14.17). In 62 ce the city was severely damaged by an earthquake, which destroyed most of its houses and public buildings; the subsequent years were devoted to an impressive work of restoration and reconstruction (Leach 2016). Pompeii was destroyed in 79 ce by a catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The date of the eruption was traditionally set on 24 August, but recent evidence leads now to postpone the event to the autumn of the same year. The eruption is accounted for by Pliny the younger in two letters to Tacitus, describing the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder (Plin. Ep. 6.16 and 20). The latter was at the head of the fleet at Misenum: at the first signs of volcanic activity, he took the fleet to rescue the inhabitants of the affected cities and went himself to observe that extraordinary natural phenomenon, to the cost of his life (Jones 2001–2002). The city was buried under layers of pulverized pumice, molten rock, and hot ashes. The archeological excavations on the site of Pompeii begun in 1748 and are still ongoing. Due to the high variety of the finds recovered, the site is one of the richest sources for our knowledge of the daily life of a Roman city.

REFERENCES Jones, Nicholas F. 2001–2002. “Pliny the Younger’s ‘Vesuvius’ letters (6. 16 and 6. 20).” Classical World 59: 31–48. Leach, Eleanor Winsor. 2016. “Flavian Pompeii: Restoration and Renewal.” In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome edited by Andrew Zissos, 327–343. Chichester and Malden, MA: John Wiley. FURTHER READING Zanker, Paul. 1998. Pompeii: Public and Private Life. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.

POMPEIOPOLIS, see VONONES POMPEIUS (1), see IULIUS CELSUS POMPEIUS (2), see PISONIAN CONSPIRACY, VICTIMS POMPEIUS AELIANUS, see VALERIUS FABIANUS

POMPEIUS LONGINUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Pompeius Longinus (attested only by Tacitus) was a military tribune, friend of Galba. He was sent to the praetorian barracks in Rome with two other colleagues Subrius Dexter and Cetrius Severus to suppress the growing sedition among those soldiers. The former two officers were verbally threatened while Longinus was forcibly disarmed because being a close friend of Galba, he was considered loyal to his emperor (H. 1.31). Due to his relations with the old princeps, it is probable that he came from Hispania Tarraconensis, a province Galba ruled before taking the imperial title. Syme identifies him with the birth father of the more famous and illustrious Gnaeus Pinarius Aemilius Cicatricula Pompeius Longinus, legatus of Iudaea, commander of legion X Fretensis, consul in 90 ce, then governor of Moesia Superior and Pannonia (PIR2 P 623).

see also: games; Italia; Roman roads

see also: civil wars of 69 ce

Reference work: Barrington 44 F 4

Reference work: PIR2 P 622

c15_Vol2.indd 833

833

28-04-2023 18:01:43

834  

P ompeius L ongus G allus

FURTHER READING Morgan, G. 2006. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme, R. 1969. “Pliny the Procurator.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 73: 201–236.

POMPEIUS LONGUS GALLUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Gaius Pompeius Longus Gallus (mentioned only at A. 12.5.1) was consul in 49 ce with Quintus Veranius. The name Longus is provided by Frontin. Aq. 102; Gallus is provided by CIL II 1438 (see also Phlegon. Mir. FGrH 256 F 36). Not much is known about him. Recent scholarship excludes him as the governor of Asia mentioned in an inscription from Ephesus. He may be the grandson of Sextus Pompeius, consul in 14 ce. During his consulship and with the enthusiastic approval of the Senate, promoted by Lucius Vitellius (1), Claudius married his niece Agrippina the Younger, who began to exert her influence on the emperor and the city (A. 12.5–8). Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1), the former fiancé of Claudius’ daughter Octavia (2), committed suicide the day of the marriage. Agrippina, who aimed at gathering supporters for her son Domitius, the future Nero (A. 12.8.2), recalled Seneca from exile. Soon thereafter Octavia was promised to Nero (A. 12.9.2). Also in that year, the Parthians asked for a king from Rome. Meherdates was sent by Claudius against Gotarzes, but his allies soon defected, and he was defeated. After Gotarzes’ death, Vonones, father of the future Great King Vologaeses I, came to the throne and ruled for a short time (A. 12. 10–14). Mithridates, king of Bosphorus, made an alliance with local tribes and tried to regain his kingdom without success (A. 12. 15–21). Agrippina’s rivals Lollia Paulina and Calpurnia (2) were sent into exile, the former was later

c15_Vol2.indd 834

murdered (A. 12. 22). After the death of their monarchs, the kingdoms of Iturea and Iudea were annexed to the province of Syria (A. 12. 23.1). see also: annales; Parthia Reference works: PIR2 P 624; CIL II 1438; VI 8639; X 6638; I. Ephesus 800; AE 1978, 127 FURTHER READING Gallivan, P. A. 1978. “The Fasti for the Reign of Claudius.” Classical Quarterly 28: 407–426. Syme, R. 1986. “More Narbonensian Senators.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 65: 1–14.

POMPEIUS MACER VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

At A. 1.72–73, Tacitus narrates Tiberius’ revival of the law of maiestas. Pompeius Macer, praetor in 15 ce, questioned the procedures (A. 1.72). He may be a descendant of Theophanes, the confidant of Pompey the Great; if so, then he has been presumed by scholars to be the unnamed brother brought to ruin with Pompeia Macrina in 33 ce (A. 6.18.2). However, caution is warranted (Syme 1958, 748–749; White 1992). Equestrians Faianius and Rubrius (otherwise unknown) served as test cases for the new procedure. Faianius was accused of including among his home’s worshippers of Augustus a mime named Cassius (see actors) and of disposing of a statue of Augustus when selling his garden. Rubrius was accused of violating the divinity of Augustus by perjury. Tiberius, reluctant to engage in such seemingly paltry litigation, exercised impartiality. While Tacitus’ narrative makes it seem as though Tiberius was acquitting the men, in fact he was merely providing his opinion to the consuls (A. 1.73). The episode brings into sharp relief the more pernicious prosecutions that characterized the latter part of Tiberius’ reign. see also: gardens; statues

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P ompeius M agnus , Sextus  

Reference works: PIR2 P 626; ILS 9349 REFERENCES Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. White, Peter. 1992. “‘Pompeius Macer’ and Ovid.” Classical Quarterly 42.1: 210–218.

POMPEIUS MAGNUS, GNAEUS, see CALPURNIUS PISO FRUGI LICINIANUS, LUCIUS

POMPEIUS MAGNUS, SEXTUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius (76/75–35 bce) was the younger son of Pompey the Great and Mucia Tertia. Sextus Pompeius fled to Greece in 49 bce but remained in Lesbos with his stepmother Cornelia during the campaign of Pharsalia (in 48). He escaped to Alexandria with Pompey and, when the latter was assassinated, he fled to Africa. After the defeat of the optimates in Thapsus (April 6, 46), he and his brother Gnaeus Pompeius escaped again to southern Hispania to continue the war. They were defeated at Munda (March 17, 45) and at Lauro (early April, 45), where his brother was killed. Nonetheless, Pompeius managed to recruit seven legions and defeat Caesar’s representatives, Gaius Carrinas (suffect consul in 43) and Gaius Asinius Pollio (1), being acclaimed imperator in 45. After Caesar’s death, Pompeius agreed terms with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3). Cicero tried to rehabilitate him and proposed his name as augur. In April 43, he was appointed prefect of the fleet during the war of Mutina against Mark Antony. Hence, later that year when Antony recovered his preeminence, the triumvirs included Pompeius among the proscribed. At the head of his fleet, he left Massalia and seized Sicily, becoming the main opponent to the triumvirs after Philippi. He supported

c15_Vol2.indd 835

835

Lucius Antonius in the war of Perusia (41–40), seized Corsica and Sardinia, and raided southern Italy several times. After the agreement of Brundisium (September, 40), he cut off Italy’s grain supply, eventually forcing the triumvirs to negotiate in Misenum in 39: Pompeius was recognized as proconsul in Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Achaea, was designated consul for 33, and his supporters were granted amnesty (including Tiberius Claudius Nero: cf. A. 5.1.1). Tacitus called this pact a “fake peace” (A. 1.10.3) because conflicts soon arose again. Pompeius lost Corsica and Sardinia in 38, but remained in Sicily until 36, when the triumvirs launched a successful final attack against him: after his defeat at Naulochus (September 3), Pompeius fled to Lesbos, where he tried to negotiate with Antony, unsuccessfully. He therefore continued to seek support from his father’s clients. At the same time, he raided several cities in the Troad and in Bithynia and planned an alliance with Parthia. When he was fleeing to Armenia, he was betrayed by his half-brother, Aemilius Scaurus, and was captured at Midaeum in Phrygia by Marcus Titius (suffect consul in 31 bce). Pompeius was executed in Miletus (summer 35). He had married Scribonia, daughter of Lucius Scribonius Libo (consul in 34 bce). They had a daughter, Pompeia, who was with Pompeius in the East in 35. see also: civil wars of Late Republic Reference works: MRR 2.312; 2.329; 2.348; 2.362; 2.374; 2.382–383; 2.388; 2.390; 2.392, 2.397; 2.402; 2.408; RE XXI.2, 2213–2250, Pompeius 33 FURTHER READING Powell, Anton, and Kathryn Welch, eds. 2002. Sextus Pompeius. Swansea, London: Classical Press of Wales, Duckworth. Senatore, F. 1991. “Sesto Pompeo tra Antonio e Ottaviano nella tradizione storiografica antica.” Athenaeum 69: 103–139. Welch, Kathryn. 2012. Magnus Pius: Sextus Pompeius and the Transformation of the Roman Republic. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.

28-04-2023 18:01:43

836  

P ompeius Paulinus

POMPEIUS PAULINUS

POMPEIUS PROPINQUUS

BEDIA DEMIRIŞ

LEONARDO GREGORATTI

Istanbul University

University of Durham

Pompeius Paulinus was the son of Pompeius Paulinus, who was a knight of Rome from Arles. On his father’s side he descended from a tribe that wandered about clad in skins (Plin. HN 33.143). His sister Pompeıa Paulına was the second wife of the philosopher Seneca. Eck asserts that Pompeius Paulinus’ first name was Aulus (Eck 1981, 227–228). Pompeius Paulinus was the legate of Lower Germany, with Lucius Antıstıus Vetus in 55 ce (A. 13.53.1–2). While he was serving in the army against the German tribes, he possessed 12,000 pounds weight of silver plates (Plin. HN 33.143). In order to control the overflow of the Rhine (Rhenus), he had an embankment completed in 58 ce, and thus he kept the troops active. The construction of this bank had been started by Drusus the Elder sixty-three years before but had not been finished (A. 13.53.2). Pompeius Paulinus was the suffect consul before 56 ce (Vogel-Weidemann 1982, 291) and was succeeded by Dubıus Avıtus in 58 ce (A. 13.54.2). Pompeius Paulinus was appointed, together with two other ex-consuls, Lucius Calpurnıus Pıso (consul 57) and DuCEnıus Gemınus, by Nero to a commission of three consulars to control the public revenue in 62 ce (A. 15.18.3).

Pompeius Propinquus (only attested by Tacitus) was politician (Demougin 1992, no. 660, 556– 557; Pflaum 1960, 1056). He was the Roman the procurator of Gallia Belgica. He sent dispatches to Galba in Rome informing the emperor that the legions of Upper Germany had broken the oath and were looking for another emperor (H. 1.12). In January 69 ce, when Vitellius took control of the German army and was chosen as new emperor, Pompeius Propinquus was immediately assassinated (H. 1.58).

see also: Germania 2

Reference works: PIR P 633; RE (Pompeius) 100

see also: civil wars of 69; Gaul; Germania Reference work: PIR2 P 643 REFERENCES Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains julio-claudiens (43 av. J.-C. – 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. Pflaum, H.-G. 1960. Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut-Empire Romain. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique; T. 57). Paris: P. Geuthner. FURTHER READING Fabia, P. 1904. “La lettre de Pompeius Propinquus à Galba et l’avènement de Vitellius en Germanie.” Klio 4: 42–67.

REFERENCES Eck, Werner. 1981. “Miscellanea Prosopographica.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 42: 227–256. Vogel-Weidemann, U. 1982. “Miscellanea zu den Proconsules von Africa und Asia zwischen 14 und 68 n. Chr.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 46: 271–294. FURTHER READING Gallivan, Paul A. 1974. “Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero.” Classical Quarterly 24: 290–311.

c15_Vol2.indd 836

POMPEIUS, SEXTUS DEL A. MATICIC

Vassar College

Sextus Pompeius (consul 14 ce; died c. 33 ce) was consul at the time of Augustus’ death. As such, he was among the first of the Roman nobles (along with his co-consul Sextus Appuleius, praetorian prefect Lucius Seius Strabo, and prefect of the grain Gaius Turranius) to swear

28-04-2023 18:01:43

P ompeius Silvanus  

allegiance to Tiberius (A. 1.7). As a consul, he presided over Tiberius’ assumption of the principate and saw that Augustus’ intentions concerning the succession were carried out (A. 1.13). In 21 ce, Pompeius, along with Lucius Arruntius, Publius Vinicius, Asinius Gallus, and Marcus Claudius Marcellus Aeserninus turned down Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso’s request to advocate on his behalf (A. 3.11), though Pompeius appears in the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone among the witnesses (line 3). In 22 bce, during the debate about whom to send to combat Tacfarinas in Africa as proconsular governor, Pompeius criticized Manius Aemilius Lepidus (A. 3.32.2), whom Tiberius would later propose to take the position. It was once commonly held that in 27 ce Pompeius became proconsular governor of Asia, though Syme (1978, 197–198) doubts this, suggesting instead that Pompeius’ connection to Macedonia was as property holder and not as governor. Pompeius was a patron of Valerius Maximus (cf. 4.7. ext. 2), and he financially supported Ovid’s trip to Tomis, from whence the poet addressed four poems to him (Pont. 4.1, 4.4, 4.5, 4.15). Pompeius was related to Augustus (Cass. Dio 56.29) and was a close friend of Germanicus (Ovid, Pont. 4.25.5–6). He died childless in 33 ce or shortly after when, according to a Senecan anecdote, Caligula starved him to death in his home (Tranq. 11.10). Pompeius Longus Gallus, consul in 49 ce, may be his grandson. see also: Aemilia Lepida (1) Reference works: PIR2 P 584; RE s.v. “Pompeius,” 62 REFERENCE Syme, R. 1978. History in Ovid. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

POMPEIUS SILVANUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Pompeius Silvanus (3 ce–82 or before 93 ce) is notable for his long, illustrious career that

c15_Vol2.indd 837

837

stretched from Tiberius’ reign to that of Domitian. Accused under Nero of provincial maladministration, he survived to become an important official not only under Nero, but under his successors as well. His identification as one of the nefarious members of Domitian’s concilium in Juvenal is not without its difficulties. Pompeius’ full name (Marcus Pompeius Silvanus Stabirius Flavinus) is known from AE 68.549, and his birth is generally put at around 3 ce in light of his first consulship in 45 ce. He was one of the first men from his province of Gallia Narbonensis to enter the Senate, probably adlected by Tiberius. He was suffect consul with Antonius Rufus in 45 between 28 June and 3 October and was proconsul of Africa from 53/54–55/56, an exceptionally long period of time. He was a member of the quindecemviri sacris faciundis already in 53, but probably before. In 58, when he was accused before Nero (on what charge is unknown, but probably provincial maladministration, A. 13.52.2), he was already a relatively old man who was, nonetheless, destined to outlive his accusers and maintain his influence into Domitian’s regime; Nero acquitted him. He was also magister sodalium Augustalium Claudialium in 64/65 and sodalis Flavialis Titialis. In 69 ce he was legatus Augusti pro praetore for the province of Dalmatia (H. 2.86.3, where he is called a rich old man) and given the appointment either by Nero or Galba. He joined the Flavian cause in 69, although his leadership was lackluster, and in the hands primarily of Annius Bassus, a legionary legate (H. 3.50.2). In the next year he was in charge of repairing the state’s financial situation and was ordered by the Senate to raise 60 million sesterces in loans from private individuals (H. 4.47.1). He was also in charge of aqueducts (curator aquarum) from 71 until 73, and in 76 was suffect consul for a second time with Tampius Flavianus. He possibly acted as a delator under Domitian as indicated by two lines in Juv. 4.109–10, where Juvenal refers to him as “Pompeius [who could] open throats at a slight whisper;” the identification of this Pompeius with our own is largely accepted but not entirely unanimous (Rutledge 2001, 258– 259 for a brief summary of the arguments),

28-04-2023 18:01:44

838  

P ompey the G reat

making his identification and date of death uncertain. If he did survive to Domitian’s reign, he almost certainly died before the so-called reign of terror that commenced in 93 ce, raising questions about his identification as a delator in the period, since no specific cases of prosecution can be laid at his feet. It is possible he is to be identified with the Pompeius who appears to have been designated for a third consulship in 82 ce and who died at about the same time. If this is the same individual, he was buried in Aurelate (AE 52.168; 79.399), his place of origin. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; delators; Sodales Augustales Reference works: PIR2 P 654; RE suppl. 9.862 = Pompeius (Thomasson); AE 46.124; 48.17; 52.168; 68.549; 74.274; 90.173; CIL 3.9938; 4.2560; 8.11006 REFERENCE Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. FURTHER READING Goetz, R. 1978. Freunde und Feinde des Kaisers Domitian: Eine prosopographische Untersuchung. Diss. Munich. 35–40.

POMPEIUS URBICUS, see MESSALINA POMPEIUS VOPISCUS, see VERGINIUS RUFUS

POMPEY THE GREAT FREDERIK JULIAAN VERVAET

University of Melbourne

Born Gnaeus Pompeius in 106 bce, Pompey served in the Social War (91–88 bce) under his father Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, who held the consulship in 89. In December of that year, Strabo celebrated the only triumph of this war, over Asculum and the Picentes, long-standing Italian allies who were ironically soon to be enfranchised

c15_Vol2.indd 838

as Roman citizens, failing to bring the booty to the treasury. As consul, he carried a law confirming citizenship for communities south of the river Po (Padus) and Latin rights for those north of the Po. After a fruitless bid to get reelected to the consulship, he as proconsul in 88 possibly instigated the murder of the consul Quintus Pompeius Rufus, sent by the Senate to relieve him of his command. As he continued to intrigue for a second consulship, he in 87 halfheartedly supported the consul Gnaeus Octavius against his renegade colleague, Lucius Cornelius Cinna (consul 87, 85, 84) while maintaining secret negotiations with the latter. Eventually, his ambitions were cut short by his rather remarkable end, being killed by lightning while ill with a pestilence. Early in 86, a group of Asculani brought legal proceedings against Pompey for his continued possession of their personal belongings, looted from the city under the auspices of his late father in 89 (Plut. Pomp. 4.1–4). It was probably on this occasion that Pompey’s life as well as his father’s property were saved by Cinna’s foremost ally, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo (consul 85, 84, and 82), quite ironically in the light of subsequent events, as Pompey would go on to have Carbo executed late in 82 (Cic. Brut. 230; Val. Max. 6.2.8). In 83, probably following the landing of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) in Italy and his first major successes against the consuls Gaius Norbanus and Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus (2) (whose army Sulla won over without bloodshed), Pompey usurped the title of pro praetore and joined the cause of Sulla at the helm of an army of three legions of volunteers raised from his vast clientele in Picenum, where he had inherited sizable estates from his father. Saluted imperator by Sulla, the latter also had the Senate regularize his position and send him to destroy the remnants of the opposition in Sicily, where he earned a reputation for cruelty, and next Africa. Early in 81, however, Pompey returned to Italy at the helm of his entire army in defiance of Sulla’s order for him to remain in Africa with only one legion and forced the dictator Sulla and the Senate to award him with the first equestrian curule triumph in Roman history (12 March 81). Persona non grata with Sulla, he actively canvassed on behalf Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3), who ran on an anti-Sullan platform and as consul in 78 promptly instigated

28-04-2023 18:01:44

P ompey the G reat  

a rebellion in Etruria. Reappointed propraetor by the Senate, Pompey crushed the rebellion under the auspices of the proconsul Quintus Lutatius Catulus (consul 78). In 77, he flatly ignored direct orders to disband his army and so leveraged the vote of a consular law investing him an extraordinary proconsular command against Sertorius in Hispania, where he was moreover to command on a footing of equality with the senior proconsul Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius (consul 80). According to Plutarch (Pomp. 13.5), it was at this time that he adopted the habit of naming himself Magnus, “the Great,” although he had taken the cognomen at some point in the late eighties bce. Unable to defeat Sertorius in the field, he eventually had him assassinated by one of his confidants in 72. In 71, after crushing the remnants of the Spartacus revolt in northern Italy at the behest of the Senate, he struck a deal with his rival Marcus Licinius Crassus, then praetor pro consule: running on a popular platform and backed by their powerful armies, they forced a hapless Senate to clear the path for their joint consulship by virtue of a series of dispensations from the Cornelian Law on the Magistracies. After celebrating his second equestrian triumph—yet again secured through intimidation—on 29 December 71, he as consul with Crassus further dismantled the so-called Sullan constitution, for example restoring the full force of the power of the tribunes of the plebs. Nonetheless, their first joint consulship proved tense, as formal reconciliation and mutual disarmament only followed late in the year (App. B.C. 1.121). Further pursuing this popularis course of action, Pompey in 67 secured a plebiscite that invested him with an extraordinary triennial proconsulship to combat piracy across the Mediterranean on a footing of equality with the proconsuls of the respective provinces, authorized to appoint no less than fifteen legati pro praetore, and equipped with vast forces and significant public funds, a measure that almost sparked another civil war. The ensuing year, the Manilian Law also added the provinces of Bithynia Pontus and Cilicia and charged him  with the war against Mithradates VI (Mithridates Eupator) and Tigranes the Great. Reaping the fruits of the victories of Lucius Licinius Lucullus (consul 74), he easily defeated

c15_Vol2.indd 839

839

both kings and added three new provinces in 64/63: Bithynia Pontus, Cilicia, and Syria. His victories as well as comprehensive reorganization of the Eastern Mediterranean easily made him one of the richest men in the Roman world. Amongst Pompey’s closest entourage was Theophanes of Mytilene, scion of a politically prominent family of Mytilene on the isle of Lesbos, whom he had met in 67 while he operated against the pirates from this city. In this capacity, he wrote a History of Pompey’s military campaigns in the East and may have advised him in the administrative reorganization of Asia Minor. Resultantly, he received Roman citizenship from Pompey—granted in the presence of his army—and secured the restoration of Mytilene’s political independence, which earned him (and his descendants) high honors and ongoing prominence in the city (e.g., posthumous consecration; see A. 6.18.2). His History probably favorably compared Pompey to Alexander the Great and influenced both Plutarch’s positive appraisal of his conduct during the so-called Third Mithradatic War and Strabo’s Geography. He continued to be an important influence on Pompey, whom he also accompanied during the civil war of 49/48. He was still in touch with Cicero as late as 44 bce but certainly passed before 36. Much to the surprise of many in Rome, Pompey disbanded his army following his landing in Brundisium in December 62, after which he celebrated his third and most magnificent triumph on 28 and 29 September 61, the first such celebration to have been awarded in absentia, before the return of the victorious commander. As his enemies in the Senate (especially Marcus Porcius Cato, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus) consistently blocked the ratification of his eastern acta and his attempts to secure land for his veterans, Pompey in 60 struck a fateful deal (cf. Plut. Caes. 13.6, Pomp. 47.2f.) with Gaius Iulius Caesar and Marcus Crassus to form an informal if formidable alliance. Their pooled resources easily won Caesar the consulship of 59, following which the latter swiftly passed legislation securing the interests of his associates. In return, Pompey also supported the measures investing Caesar with a powerful quinquennial command in the Gauls

28-04-2023 18:01:44

840  

P ompey the G reat

(Cisalpina and next also Transalpina) and Illyricum, enabling the latter to amass glory and influence. In April of the same year, Pompey’s marriage to Caesar’s daughter Julia further consolidated their alliance. In an attempt to counter the growing popularity of Caesar and Publius Clodius Pulcher, Pompey and his supporters in September of 57 engineered a food scarcity in Rome, forcing a reluctant Senate to have the consuls carry a law investing him with his third extraordinary proconsulship and universal supreme authority in all matters pertaining to the provisioning of Rome, for five years and with conditional authorization to operate within the city, a number of historic firsts. After the renewal of the triple entente between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus in the spring 56, Caesar’s furloughed legionaries helped Pompey and Crassus to secure their second joint consulship in 55. By virtue of the Trebonian Law, they respectively received fiveyear commands in Hispania and Syria, complete with huge armies and a battery of special powers. For the sake of his cura annonae, Pompey was, moreover, authorized to exercise his command in absentia, through legati pro praetore of his choosing, enabling continued control of political affairs in Rome. In return, Pompey and Crassus secured passage of a law that extended Caesar’s provincial command by another five years, up to 1 March 49. The untimely deaths of Julia and Crassus in 54 and 53 successively inevitably affected the alliance between Pompey and Caesar. After prematurely abandoning his grain commission in the winter of 54/53 for political reasons, Pompey had a significant hand in the rapid deterioration of political life in Rome, both 53 and 52 commencing without consuls. Though really aiming for a plenipotentiary if limited dictatorship, he eventually accepted Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus’ (consul 59 and sworn enemy of Caesar since 65) compromise solution of election to a third consulship in the intercalary month of 52. By decree of the Senate, he was exceptionally authorized to hold this office without a colleague and keep troops within the city, strengthening his grip on Rome’s political and judicial machinery. In this capacity, he pushed through an impressive raft of laws

c15_Vol2.indd 840

curbing corruption, strengthening senatorial control of (pro)magistrates, and, last but not least, potentially weakening the position of Caesar. Ignoring the provisions of his own lex Pompeia de iure magistratuum, which mandated a five-year interval between magistracy and promagistracy, he had one of the tribunes of the plebs enact a five-year extension of his privileged command in absentia, allowing him to retain both the Hispanian provinces and their powerful garrison until sometime in the spring of 45 (Cass. Dio 40.56.1f.). Shortly after assuming his third consulship, he married Cornelia Metella, widow of Crassus’ oldest son Publius Crassus and daughter of Caesar’s bitter enemy Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica, whom he then had elected his colleague for the final five months of the year. As such, Pompey was now closely aligned with Caesar’s optimate opponents in the Senate. Throughout 51 and much of 50, Pompey, like a vast majority of senators, wavered in the face of growing optimate pressure to bring down Caesar. In December of 50, however, the consul Gaius Claudius Marcellus, another irreconcilable enemy of Caesar, forced the issue by taking matters into his own hands, ordering Pompey to take control of all troops in Italy and confront Caesar. On 7 January 49, after Pompey had already stationed soldiers around the curia, the new consuls, Gaius Claudius Marcellus and Lucius Cornelius Lentulus, rammed through a decree calling for a general mobilization against Caesar. As the latter, unwilling to abandon his designs on a second consulship (intended for 48) and a Gallic triumph, surprised his opponents by crossing the Rubicon with a relatively small force. The consuls and next also Pompey evacuated Italy and crossed over into Greece, intent on gathering an enormous army and using their command of the seas to starve Rome and Italy into surrender (Cic. Att. 9.7.3f., March 49). Appointed commander-in-chief of all forces opposing Caesar early in 48 though unable to rein in his noble fellow proconsuls, who accused him of prolonging the war for lust of power, Pompey eventually gave battle at Pharsalia (9 August 48) against his own better judgment, suffering a historic defeat. With Caesar in hot pursuit, he fled to Egypt, hopeful to continue the war effort from there, only to be murdered on the

28-04-2023 18:01:44

P omponia G raecina  

beach by Lucius Septimius, one of his former officers, on the orders of Ptolemy XIII. His sons Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius perished following their defeats against respectively Caesar (Munda, Hispania, 14 March 45) and Octavianus (off the coast of Naulochus in northeast Sicily, 3 September 36). Pompey’s political and military career was marked by irregularities, usurpations, subversion: see, e.g., Vell. 2.30.2, Val. Max. 8.15.8, Lucan 1.316f., and Tacitus’ own damning appraisal in A. 3.28.1: suarumque legumque auctor idem ac subversor (“the maker and breaker of his own laws”). As Cicero compared him and his rival Caesar in the early days of the civil war (Att. 8.11.2, 27 February 49 bce), he was adamant that both aimed at personal domination, and both wanted to reign: Dominiatio quaesita ab utroque est (…) uterque regnare vult (echoed in Flor. 1.47.13). While the famous saying that Caesar suffered no superior, but Pompey no equal (attested in Flor. 2.13.14, Vell. 2.33.3 and Lucan. 1.125f.) should probably be traced back to Livy, Tacitus’ verdict in H. 2.38.1 was even more crushing: “Later Gaius Marius, who had sprung from the dregs of the people, and that most cruel of nobles, L. Sulla, defeated liberty with arms and turned it into tyranny. After them came Gnaeus Pompeius, no better man, but one who concealed his purpose more cleverly: occultior, non melior.” FURTHER READING Christ, Karl. 2004. Pompeius. Der Feldherr Roms: eine Biographie. München: Beck. Gelzer, Matthias. 1959. Pompeius. München: Bruckmann Verlag. Gold, Barbara K. 1985. “Pompey and Theophanes of Mytilene.” American Journal of Philology 106: 321–327. Morrell, Kit. 2017. Pompey, Cato, and the Governance of the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Muñiz Coello, J. 2020. “Teofanes de Mitilene y Cn. Pompeyo. Aspectos de una relación desafortunada.” Revista Onoba 8: 101–116. Ramsay, John T. 2016. “How and Why Was Pompey Made Sole Consul in 52 bc?” Historia. Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 65: 298–324. Schietinger, Georg-Philipp, ed. 2019. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. Ausnahmekarrierist, Netzwerker und

c15_Vol2.indd 841

841

Machtstratege. Beiträge zur Heidelberger PompeiusTagung am 24. September 2014. Rahden: Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH. Schmitt, T. 2014. “Suarum legum idem auctor ac subversor: Tacitus über Pompeius als Gesetzgeber 52 v. Chr.” In Gesetzgebung und politische Kultur in der römischen Republik, edited by U. Walter, 227–284. Heidelberg. Seager, Robin. 2002. Pompey the Great: A Political Biography. 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2006. “The Official Position of Cn. Pompeius in 49 and 48 bce.” Latomus. Revue d’études latines 65: 928–953. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2009. “Pompeius’ Career from 79 to 70 bce: Constitutional, Political and Historical Considerations.” Klio. Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte 91: 406–434. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2010. “Arrogating Despotic Power through Deceit: The Pompeian Model for Augustan dissimulatio.” In Private and Public Lies: The Discourse of Despotism and Deceit in the Ancient World, edited by Andrew J. Turner, James Harvey K.O. Chong-Gossard, and Frederik Juliaan Vervaet, 133–166. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2014. “Si neque leges nec mores cogunt. Beyond the Spectacle of Pompeius Magnus’ Public Triumphs.” In The Roman Republican Triumph. Beyond the Spectacle, edited by Carsten H. Lange and Frederik Juliaan Vervaet, 131–148. Roma: Edizioni Quasar. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2015. “Crassus’ Command in the War against Spartacus (73–71 bce): His Official Position, Forces and Political Spoils.” Klio. Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte 96: 605–642. Vervaet, Frederik Juliaan. 2020. “No Grain of Salt. Casting a New Light on Pompeius’ cura annonae.” Hermes. Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie 148: 149–172.

POMPONIA GRAECINA JUAN LUIS POSADAS

Centro Universitario U-Tad, Madrid, Spain TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Pomponia Graecina (d. 83 ce) was the wife of Aulus Plautius, consul 29 ce, the conqueror of southern Britain.

28-04-2023 18:01:44

842  

P omponius Atticus

She was friend of Iulia Livia, daughter of Livia Iulia and therefore niece of the emperor Claudius. When Iulia Livia was executed by order of the empress Valeria Messalina, Pomponia donned mourning clothes and kept them on until her death forty years later. In 57 ce she was accused of foreign superstition, probably Christianity, and remanded to the judgment of her husband and family, who found her innocent. Tacitus presents a brief but substantial portrait only in one particular moment of a character’s life, generally that of her death (Tacitus describes only six women in this way): “Pomponia Graecina, an illustrious woman married to Plautius, of whom I have already recounted that he had obtained the triumph for his campaign against the Britanni, accused of foreign superstition, was remanded to her husband’s judgment. He, following an ancient custom, conducted an investigation in the presence of her parents in which he investigated the life and reputation of his wife and found her innocent. Pomponia led a long and sad life… She lived for forty years with no other attire than that of mourning, with no state of mind other than that of the suffering; under the reign of Claudius she was not punished by him, which later became a title of glory” (A. 13.32.3 see obituary). These details, in addition to the connection of Pomponia’s husband with Tacitus’ father-in-law Agricola in Britannia and the evidence for the woman’s death in 83 ce (if we count forty years since the beginning of the mourning), prove that Tacitus was able to know her personally. Reference work: PIR2 P 775 FURTHER READING McDougall, J. I. 1981. “Tacitus and the Portrayal of the Elder Agrippina.” Echos du Monde Classique 25: 104–108. Posadas, Juan Luis. 2008. Emperatrices y princesas de Roma. Madrid: Raíces.

POMPONIUS, see SATRIUS SECUNDUS

c15_Vol2.indd 842

POMPONIUS ATTICUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Titus Pomponius Atticus (110–32 bce) is the well-known, long-time correspondent of Cicero. Atticus was born into a wealthy equestrian family. His father died when he was young (perhaps in the year 86 bce). He was then adopted by his uncle Quintus Caecilius. From 85 to the mid60s bce, Atticus lived in Athens (hence the cognomen) to avoid the political turmoil of the civil wars of the late Republic; there he met Cicero in 79 bce. His sister married Cicero’s brother Quintus. The correspondence beginning in 68 and continuing to the end of 44 bce provides invaluable information, in part because Cicero was more candid in his letters to Atticus than to any others but his brother Quintus. Atticus advised Cicero on literary matters and was himself an author of Roman history (not extant). Cornelius Nepos wrote an encomiastic biography of Atticus. Atticus’ daughter Pomponia Caecilia Attica was the first wife of Vipsanius Agrippa. Their daughter Vipsania, was the first wife of Tiberius; their only son was Drusus the Younger, who rivalled Germanicus as Tiberius’ successor. When Tacitus compares the standing of Drusus and Germanicus in the year 17 ce, Drusus’ case is weakened by the fact that his great-grandfather was Atticus, while Germanicus was descended from Mark Antony (A. 2.43.6). FURTHER READING Shackleton Bailey, D. R. 1965. Cicero’s Letters to Atticus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

POMPONIUS FLACCUS, LUCIUS EDWARD DĄBROWA

Jagiellonian University in Kraków

Lucius Pomponius Flaccus (?–c. 33 ce), Roman senator and consul in 17 ce, was a trusted associate

28-04-2023 18:01:44

P omponius L abeo  

of Tiberius. He probably originated from Iguvium or Perusia, the son of the little-known senator Lucius Pomponius. Lucius Pomponius Flaccus and his brother Gaius Pomponius Graecinus (suffect consul 16 ce) enjoyed great political careers in Tiberius’ inner circle. Pomponius Flaccus’ wife was Memmia (AE 1971.438). Before being made consul, Pomponius Flaccus was in Moesia (c. 15 ce), probably as legate of one of the legions stationed there (Ov. Pont. 4.9.119; 120). Ovid mentions that he led successful military campaigns against the tribes living in Moesia and the Getae, as well as reasserting Roman control over Troesmis (Ov. Pont. 4.9.75– 80). In the first half of 17 ce, he was joint consul with Gaius Caelius. An important event in the course of this consulship was the triumph of Germanicus following victories over the Germans (A. 2.41.2). The next stage in Pomponius Flaccus’ career was the governorship of Moesia in 18–19 ce. He received this position not only thanks to his grasp of the province’s affairs, but also his friendship with Rhescuporis, the king of Thrace (A. 2.66.2). In around 12 ce, after the death of Rhoemetalces, vassal ruler of Thrace, Augustus divided his kingdom in two—he entrusted the western, mountainous section, which needed to be defended from its hostile neighbors, to Rhescuporis, brother of Rhoemetalces; and the eastern part, urbanized and with developed agriculture, to the son of the deceased Cotys. After Augustus’ death, Rhescuporis deceitfully stripped Cotys of his power, before taking advantage of the lack of a decisive reaction from Rome in the first few months of Tiberius’ rule to murder him and assume power over the whole of Thrace. The emperor did not accept the changes, but also eschewed open war with Rhescuporis, instead choosing to resolve the matter by subterfuge by sending Pomponius Flaccus to Moesia (A. 2.64.2–66.2). Pomponius Flaccus lured Rhescuporis to Roman territory, where he was captured and then sent to Rome and placed on trial. In Thrace, the order established by Augustus was restored, yet its new rulers were placed in Roman care (A. 2.67.1–2). The last position in Pomponius Flaccus’ career that we know of was as governor of Syria. He was

c15_Vol2.indd 843

843

appointed to this post in 32 ce but died while serving it the following year (A. 6.27.3). Tiberius probably honored him with a state funeral (cf. A. 6.27.3; Cass. Dio 58.19.5). Velleius Paterculus’ history praises Pomponius Flaccus as a competent, modest man who abided by the rules (2.129.1). The good relationship between Pomponius Flaccus and Tiberius was demonstrated by the former’s motion at a session of the Senate in 16 ce for prayers of thanks for the emperor on the occasion of the discovery of the plot on his life organized by Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus, and punishment of the participants (A. 2.32.2). The emperor’s friendship to Pomponius Flaccus is proved by his inviting him and Lucius Calpurnius Piso (pontifex) in 32 ce for a banquet, which was to last several days. Shortly afterward, both men received nominations for high positions: Pomponius Flaccus as governor of Syria, and Piso as praefectus urbi (Suet. Tib. 42.1). His stay in Syria is known for an incident whose protagonists were the conflicted members of Herod’s family: Agrippa and Aristobulus. Flaccus had become friends with Agrippa many years previously, when the latter was in Rome (Joseph. AJ 18.150). When Agrippa backed the interests of Damascus in a dispute with Sidon over the course of a border, which Pomponius Flaccus was to resolve, Aristobulus accused him of paid protection. The governor’s investigation confirmed these accusations, thereby severing his friendship with Agrippa (Joseph. AJ 18.151–154). Reference work: PIR2 P 715 FURTHER READING Dąbrowa, Edward. 1998. The Governors of Roman Syria from Augustus to Septimius Severus. Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt. 37–38. Eck, Werner. 1974. L. Pomponius Flaccus, RE S. XIV, 439–440, no 46a.

POMPONIUS LABEO FABRICE GALTIER

Université Clermont Auvergne TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

28-04-2023 18:01:44

844  

P omponius Secundus

Pomponius Labeo, whose birthdate is unknown, died in 34 ce. He was praetor, then legate of Moesia for eight years under the reign of Tiberius. He contributed to the victory over the Thracian revolt, for which Poppaeus Sabinus obtained the triumphal ornaments (ornamenta triumphalia) in 26 ce (A. 4.47.1). He had brought in reinforcement a legion, either the IV Scythica or the V Macedonica (Martin and Woodman 2006, 209). In 34 ce, Pomponius Labeo was accused with his wife Paxaea (named only by Tacitus, A. 6.29) of mismanagement and corruption during his administration of the province. There may have been other charges, whose exact nature remain unknown (Levick 1999, 170– 171). Tacitus (A. 6.29.1–2) and Cassius Dio (58.24.3) report that Pomponius committed suicide by slitting his wrists and that he was imitated by his wife. According the Roman historian, they would have done that in order to avoid a death sentence they considered inevitable out of fear of the executioner, and because after the execution their bodies would have been deprived of burial and their properties confiscated. Their common suicide caused a reaction in Tiberius, who at the time was in Capri. In a letter addressed to the Senate, the emperor confessed that he had simply revoked his friendship with Pomponius Labeo, who in turn had tried to conceal his mistakes by inflicting upon himself a death that would impute hatred to the emperor. The reason of this renuntiatio amicitiae has not been clearly established (Rogers 1959, 232–233). In the same letter, Tiberius adds that Paxaea let herself be scared in vain, since even if she had been found guilty, she would have never been pursued by justice. see also: Aemilius Scaurus, Mamercus; suicide; Thrace Reference works: PIR2 P 726; RE 21–2 2340: Pomponius 51 REFERENCES Levick, Barbara. 1999. Tiberius the Politician. London and New York: Routledge.

c15_Vol2.indd 844

Martin, R. H., and A. J. Woodman. 2006. Tacitus. Annals, Book IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rogers, Robert Samuel. 1959. “The Emperor’s Displeasure – Amicitiam renuntiare.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 90: 224–237. FURTHER READING Shotter, David Colin Arthur. 1969. “The Case of Pomponius Labeo.” Latomus 28: 654–656.

POMPONIUS SECUNDUS JOSEPH R. O’NEILL

Arizona State University

Publius Pomponius Secundus was a statesman of the first century ce, advancing to the consulship and serving as imperial legate in Germania Superior during the reign of Claudius. He was the leading dramatist of his day, and a friend and early patron of Pliny the Elder. P. [? Calv]isius Sabinus Pomponius Secundus (CIL XIII 5201  +  5237, PIR2 P 754) was born around the year 12 ce. He was the younger brother of Quintus Pomponius Secundus, suffect consul in 41 ce. Their mother was Vistilia, who was renowned for her six m ­ arriages which produced seven children, among whom were Milonia Caesonia, lover, then fourth wife of the emperor Caligula, and Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, famed general under Claudius and Nero, ordered to commit suicide by the latter in 67 ce. The father’s ­identity is uncertain. Pliny the Elder refers to him simply as Pomponius (HN 7.39). A likely ­candidate is the consul for 23 ce (Syme 1970, 31). Pomponius Secundus had a distinguished, if turbulent career as a statesman. He was praetor in 30 ce, under Tiberius. In 31, the praetorian Considius accused Pomponius of providing refuge for Aelius Gallus, a friend of Sejanus (A. 5.8) and was imprisoned until the ascension of Caligula in 37. Pomponius enjoyed Claudius’ support—Pomponius’ half-brother, Publius Suillius Rufus, was a notorious informer under

28-04-2023 18:01:44

P omponius Secundus , Q uintus  

Claudius and agent of Valeria Messalina. Pomponius was suffect consul in 44. He later served as imperial legate for Germania Superior in 50/51, where he was credited with expelling the Chatti who had been plundering the region (A. 12.27.2). For his victories, Pomponius was awarded triumphal ornamenta (A. 12.28.2). He likely died a short time afterward, perhaps while still in Germany. Pomponius Secundus was highly regarded in antiquity as a composer of dramas. An anecdote of Pliny the Younger, in which Pomponius defends his style from his friends’ criticisms by appealing to popular sentiment, suggests that Pomponius enjoyed public renown (Ep. 7.17). However, Tacitus reports that Claudius rebuked the public for their abuse of Pomponius, presumably during the production of one of his plays (A. 11.13.1). Pomponius was said to have debated Seneca the Younger about tragic diction (Quint. Inst. 8.3.31). Quintilian considered Pomponius to be the leading dramatist of his day by far, praising his literary sophistication despite earlier critics considering his work lacking in pathos (Inst. 10.1.98). Tacitus remarks that Pomponius’ fame for his poetry would outshine his political and military accomplishments (A. 12.28.2, cf. D. 13.3). Nothing of Pomponius’ work survives apart from a few fragments, including a quotation by Seneca (Ep. 3.6). The only title of a drama that is secure is that of the praetexta Aeneas. Pomponius was a friend and early patron of Pliny the Elder, who served under him in Germany. Pliny wrote a two-volume biography of his friend out of a debt of immense gratitude (Plin. HN 14.56; Plin. Ep. 3.5.3) which does not survive. see also: Dialogus de Oratoribus; Roman poets Reference works: CIL XIII 5201 + 5237; PIR2 P 754; TRF 1953, 312 f. REFERENCE Syme, R. 1970. “Domitius Corbulo.” Journal of Roman Studies 60: 27–39.

c15_Vol2.indd 845

845

FURTHER READING Boyle, A. J. 2006. Roman Tragedy. New York: Routledge.

POMPONIUS SECUNDUS, QUINTUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Quintus Pomponius Secundus (1 ce–42 ce) was active in the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula; his brother Publius Pomponius Secundus was prosecuted for ties to Sejanus after his fall, yet he not only managed to protect but even to avenge him. He was consul when Caligula was assassinated and opposed Claudius’ succession. He later joined the revolt of Camillus against Claudius, after which he was presumably executed. Quintus Pomponius Secundus was born sometime around 1 ce (or sometime in the decade before), since he was suffect consul in 41 with Gnaeus Sentius Saturninus (in May and June, see both CIL references below). He may have been appointed by Caligula, since he was consul upon his death. He first appears in Tacitus in the year 33 ce, in the case of Considius and his sister, Sancia, who is only known from this prosecution (she was charged with maiestas, but the specific details of the charges are lost). Considius was executed, while Sancia received the relatively more lenient penalty of interdiction from fire and water (A. 6.18.2). For Tacitus, Pomponius is a typical delator; “of restless manner,” he was involved in more than one accusation under Tiberius. The prosecution was a vendetta on the part of Pomponius for Considius’ attempt through prosecution to destroy his brother, Publius Pomponius Secundus, for ties of friendship with Sejanus (and his son, Aelius Gallus) after the prefect’s fall from grace (so Seager 1972, 232; cf. Rutledge 2001, 98). Under Caligula he was noted for the basest of flattery, kissing the emperor’s feet at a banquet (Cass. Dio 59.29.5). His sycophancy may have been duly rewarded, for he is next heard from in

28-04-2023 18:01:44

846  

P ontia P ostumia

41 ce as suffect consul, when he appears as a vigorous opponent against the accession of Claudius during a Senate meeting on the Capitoline (Joseph. BJ 2.205) and oversaw a vote to take military action against him. His colleague, Sentius Saturninus, supported his opposition, and the two went so far as to take over command of three cohorts and declare war on Claudius. Josephus tells us that the soldiery supporting Claudius drew their swords and threatened Pomponius during negotiations, but that Claudius moved to protect him (AJ 19.263). It was Pomponius’ quick action upon Caligula’s assassination that helped to protect the state treasury, when he had monies transferred to the Capitoline and placed a guard of senators and soldiers around it (Cass. Dio 59.30.3). It is probably for his actions during the fraught succession of Claudius that Publius Suillius Rufus undertook his prosecution against him, a prosecution so harsh that it was one of the accusations against Suillius in 58 that Suillius’ accusation had driven Pomponius into the arms of Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus who had rebelled against Claudius (A. 13.43.3); the end result was surely Pomponius’ destruction. What made the accusation particularly reprehensible was that Suillius was Pomponius’ half-brother (see Rutledge 2001, 270). He came from a prominent and well-placed family, and his opposition to Claudius does not seem to have hindered its later advancement, (though Pomponius Secundus himself appears to have suffered a damnatio memoriae, hence apparent erasure of his name on CIL 6.2015); already in 44 his younger brother was promoted to the consulship, and later was legate of Germania Superior. Moreover, his son, Gaius Pomponius Pius, was suffect consul in 65 ce.

Domitian. London: Routledge. 98, 112, 165, 259–260. Seager, R. 1972. Tiberius. London: Methuen. 232.

see also: delators; Vistilia

see also: marriage; women

Reference works: PIR2 P 757; RE 212.2349– 50 = Pomponius 22 (Hanslik); AE 78.137; 84.228; CIL 6.2015; 6.20141

Reference works: PIR2 P 834; O 57; RE XVII.2 (1937), 1852 84

REFERENCES Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to

c15_Vol2.indd 846

PONTIA POSTUMIA DANIELLE CHAGAS DE LIMA

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Pontia Postumia was a married woman, who became involved in a love affair with the tribune of the plebs Octavius Sagitta (trib. pleb. 58 ce). He was so in love with Pontia that he tried to ply her with gifts so that she would abandon her husband (A. 13.44.1) and marry him. However, hoping for a better opportunity with a richer man, she changed her mind, thus infuriating the tribune. Octavius Sagitta, after alleging that he had spent all his money and lost his reputation because of her, begged Pontia for one last night together. On this fateful night, Octavius Sagitta was escorted by his freedman and went to meet her with a dagger. He stabbed Pontia Postumia to death and wounded her slave girl, who was taking care of the bedroom (A. 13.44.4; H. 4.44.2). Although there was no doubt that he was the criminal, when the murder became public, Sagitta’s freedman declared himself guilty of the woman’s death. Later, when Pontia’s slave girl healed, she reported the truth about the murder. Octavius Sagitta, after finishing his tribunate, was brought to the consuls by Pontia Postumia’s father. Octavius was convicted of Pontia’s murder and banished by the Senate accordingly to the lex Cornelia (A. 13.44.5). In the year 70 ce Octavius Sagitta came back to Rome and was once again exiled by Nero (H. 4.44.3).

FURTHER READING Langlands, Rebecca. 2006. Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome. New York: Cambridge University Press.

28-04-2023 18:01:44

P ontius , G aius  

PONTIFEX MAXIMUS TREVOR S. LUKE

Florida State University

The pontifex maximus was the chief priest of Rome’s college of pontiffs, which oversaw religious tradition and law, and advised magistrates, the Senate, and other priestly colleges on issues pertaining thereto. Within the college, the pontifex maximus had authority over the rex sacrorum and his wife, the regina sacrorum, the flamines maiores, and the Vestal Virgins. The lex Ogulnia of 300 bce opened the pontificate to plebeians and, hence, created the opportunity for a plebeian to become pontifex maximus. Tiberius Coruncanius became the first plebeian pontifex maximus in 254 (Livy Per. 18). The lex Domitia of 104 bce changed the system of selecting pontiffs from co-optation to election by the Tribal Assembly. In 63 bce, the tribune Titus Labienus passed a law reviving provisions of the lex Domitia, including the election of the pontifex maximus, thus allowing Iulius Caesar to bribe his way to electoral victory over more seasoned and illustrious candidates to become pontifex maximus the same year. After Caesar’s assassination in 44, Mark Antony, ignoring the senatorial decree that made Caesar’s son his successor in the priesthood (Cass. Dio 44.5.3), helped Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (3) become pontifex maximus (Cass. Dio 44.53.6–7), which he remained until he died an exile at Circeii in 12. Augustus was subsequently elected pontifex maximus, and thereafter every emperor held the same position, well into the period of Christian emperors. Tacitean historiography accurately reflects the importance of the supreme pontificate to the emperor, although explicit reference to it is rare. Tiberius, having assumed the supreme pontificate 10 March 15 ce (ILS 154), presided over the selection of a new Vestal Virgin (A. 2.86). In the same year, Tiberius corrected Germanicus for burying the remains of Quintilius Varus’ soldiers on the grounds that funeral rites polluted Germanicus’ augural

c15_Vol2.indd 847

847

priesthood, despite the fact that, prior to Tiberius’ assertion of his pontifical authority in this instance, this restriction likely did not apply to augurs (A. 1.62; Shannon-Henderson 2019, 85–89). By his pontifical authority Tiberius denied the flamen Dialis Servius Cornelius Lentulus Maluginensis’ request for a proconsular governorship of Asia (A. 3.58, 71) in 22 ce. In 48 ce, Messalina, her mock marriage to Gaius Silius having come to light, sent Vibidia, the senior Vestal, to Claudius to beg for mercy, assuming that, as pontifex maximus, Claudius would naturally respect the Vestal and assent to her request (A. 11.32). Vibidia, however, spoke directly to the powerful freedman Narcissus, although Claudius may have been present (A. 11.34). Tacitus also reports that Vitellius issued a pontifical proclamation about public ceremonies on the dies Alliensis, a most inauspicious time (H. 2.91). see also: religion REFERENCE Shannon-Henderson, Kelly. 2019. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Van Haeperen, Françoise. 2002. Le collège pontifical (3ème s. a. C.-4ème s. p. C.). Contribution à l’étude de la religion publique romaine. L’Institut historique belge de Rome 39.

PONTIUS FREGALLANUS, see ARRUNTIUS, LUCIUS

PONTIUS, GAIUS OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

Gaius Petronius Pontius Nigrinus and Gnaeus Acerronius Proculus were the ordinary consuls of the year 37 ce, namely the last year of the reign of

28-04-2023 18:01:44

848  

P ontius P ilatus

Tiberius (A. 6.45.3; also Suet. Tib. 73.1; Cass. Dio 58.27.1). They remained in charge for six months until the kalends of July (Cass. Dio 59.6.5); then they were replaced by Caligula and his uncle Claudius. Pontius, maybe son of Lucius Pontius Nigrinus (praet. 20 ce), would have been adopted by a Petronius (either Lucius Petronius, consul 25 ce, or Publius Petronius, suffect consul 19 ce). Acerronius might be the father of Acerronia who was drowned in 59 ce during the attempted assassination of Agrippina the Younger in a shipwreck (A. 14.5–6; Cass. Dio 61.13). In the Annals, the narrative of the year 37 is filled only with internal affairs. The imminence of the death of the prince is a recurring theme. It appears from the unconventional way in which consuls are introduced. Tacitus says plainly that they are the last consuls of Tiberius: Neque enim multo post supremi Tiberio consules, Cn. Acerronius, C. Pontius, magistratum occepere. Suetonius and Cassius Dio also mention these consuls in relation to the death of Tiberius. In Book 6 of the Annals, the narrative of their consulship can be divided in three parts (Woodman 2017, 269): firstly at Capri, where the court was preparing Tiberius’ succession (6.45.3–46); then at Rome where occurred various events concerning senators (6.47–49); finally, at Misenum where the emperor died, a section that includes the famous obituary of Tiberius (6.50– 51). However, as Tiberius died on 16 March 16, Accerronius and Pontius remained in charge until July. The evocation of their consulship was to continue into the lost Book 7 of the Annals. see also: freedmen of Agrippina the Younger Reference work: PIR2 A 32; PIR2 P 812 REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus. Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Devillers, Olivier. 2021. “La dernière année du règne de Tibère dans les Annales de Tacite (6.45.3-51).” In Veni, vidi, scripsi : écrire l’histoire dans l’Antiquité, Actes du séminaire Historiographies antiques

c15_Vol2.indd 848

2014–2019, edited by Pauline Duchêne and Marion Bellissime, 73–90. Pessac: Ausonius éditions.

PONTIUS PILATUS JOHN GRANGER COOK

LaGrange College

Pontius Pilate was prefect of Iudaea from 26–36 ce (Schürer 1973, 382–383). Tacitus does not mention Pilate’s crucifixion of Jesus—merely stating that “Christ, during the imperium of Tiberius, was executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate” (A. 15.44.3). It is possible that he went into the episode in more detail in a missing portion of the Annals (the years 29–31 and 37–47 are absent). Although the Gospels are not consistent in their portrayal of the trial of Jesus before Pilate, it is likely that Pilate had Jesus crucified for sedition (seditio) and not maiestas, since Jesus was a peregrinus (non-citizen) and of humble origin. There are no records of trials of noncitizens for maiestas. All the Gospels agree that the written charge at the crucifixion was “king of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38, John 19:19). Although the passage about Jesus in Josephus has been corrupted by Christian scribes, it is probable that the Jewish historian referred to his crucifixion by Pilate (AJ 18.64). Pilate’s relationship with the Jews was difficult (see Luke 13:1–5). His placement of shields (associated with the emperor cult; Taylor 2006, 575–582) dedicated to Tiberius in Jerusalem offended the Jews, and Tiberius forced him to transfer them to the Augusteum (temple of Augustus) in Caesarea Maritima (Philo, Leg. 299–306). When he introduced military standards bearing the image of Tiberius into Jerusalem, the Jews successfully entreated him to remove them (Joseph. AJ 18.55–59; BJ 2.169– 174). The Jews protested Pilate’s decision to use temple treasure to construct an aqueduct into Jerusalem, and many perished by Pilate’s order during the ensuing riot (AJ 18.60–62; BJ 2.175– 177). When Pilate executed many Samaritans who were attempting to gather on Mt. Gerizim, the legate of Syria, Lucius Vitellius (1) ordered him to Rome in 36 (Joseph. AJ 18.85–89). Christian legends about Pilate’s death abound (Schürer 1973, 387).

28-04-2023 18:01:44

P oppaea S abina the Younger  

Pilate’s issue of two types of bronze coins both depict items used in the imperial cult on the obverse with the legend “Tiberius Caesar”: the lituus or wooden staff used by augurs in coins of 29–31 ce; and the simpulum, a utensil “shaped like a ladle with handle and shaft,” used for libations by priests in coins of 29 ce (Taylor 2006, 556–563). The inscription found in Caesarea (CIIP 2, 1277) states that “Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judaea rebuilt (or dedicated) the Tiberieum.” Tiberius had a priest in Gerasa named Zabdiōn (Gerasa 2). The Tiberieum may have been part of the Augusteum, a separate temple, or something else such as a lighthouse. Until it is found, the question is insoluble. see also: Christianity REFERENCES Schürer, Emil. 1973. The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C. – A.D. 135). Vol. 1. Revised and Edited by Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 382–387. Taylor, Joan E. 2006. “Pontius Pilate and the Imperial Cult in Roman Judaea.” New Testament Studies 52: 555–582. DOI: 10.1017/S0028688506000300.

POPPAEA SABINA THE ELDER ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Poppaea Sabina the Elder (d. 47 ce) was a Roman noblewoman, daughter of Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus and mother of Poppaea Sabina the Younger, the second wife of the emperor Nero. Poppaea, who was the most beautiful woman of her generation (a quality that she handed down to her daughter: A. 13.45.2), married twice: first to Titus Ollius (only at A. 13.45 and unnamed in Suet. Ner. 35), with whom she had Poppaea the Younger, and a second time, after Ollius was involved in the fall of Aelius Seianus (A. 13.45.1; Suet. Vit. Ner. 35.1), to Publius Cornelius Lentulus Scipio. Syme (1982, 475) argued that the cognomen of the son of Poppaea and Scipio,

c15_Vol2.indd 849

849

Asiaticus, indicated his birth in that province; if so, then Poppaea must have followed her second husband when Scipio became proconsul of Asia, probably in 41/42 ce. Such a reconstruction, however, is now dismissed for chronological reasons (PIR2 C 1440; NP Ant 3, 195–196). Poppaea was ruined by Messalina’s hostility. In 47 ce the delators Publius Suillius Rufus and Sosibius were instigated to accuse her of adultery with Decimus Valerius Asiaticus, and soon after Messalina herself intrigued to hasten Poppaea’s end by inducing her to voluntary death through the menace of the dungeon (A. 11.1–2). Poppaea did commit suicide in that same year, as emerges from the later trial against Suillius (A. 13.43.2). Messalina must have seen Poppaea as a rival both for her distinguished beauty and for her sexual relationship with the pantomime Mnester, one of Messalina’s favorites (A. 11.4.1– 3); the charge against Valerius Asiaticus was the perfect chance to get rid of Poppaea without involving Mnester (so Malloch 2013, 51–53). Reference works: PIR2 P 849; NP Ant 10, 149 (Eder) REFERENCES Malloch, Simon J. V. 2013. The Annals of Tacitus. Book 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Syme, Ronald. 1982. “Partisans of Galba.” Historia. Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte 31: 460–483.

POPPAEA SABINA THE YOUNGER ALESSIO MANCINI

University of Pisa

Poppaea Sabina the Younger (32 ce–65 ce), known as Poppaea Sabina Augusta after 63 ce, was a Roman noblewoman, wife of the emperors Otho (long before his principate) and Nero (from 62 ce till her death). Poppaea, famed for her extraordinary beauty and eccentricity, was the most influential woman at court during the second half of Nero’s reign, and allegedly played a significant role in the murders of Agrippina the Younger and Octavia.

28-04-2023 18:01:44

850  

P oppaea S abina the Younger

Poppaea was the daughter of Titus Ollius and Poppaea Sabina the Elder; her origin from Pompeii, supported by inscriptions, is debated (CIL IV 259; IV 6682; see Loś 1991). She decided to take the name of her maternal grandfather Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus, both because of Sabinus’ renowned glory and of Ollius’ infamous end (A. 13.45.1). Tacitus introduces Poppaea in his narrative through a memorable characterization: she inherited beauty from her mother, the most beautiful woman of her generation, and was gifted with everything but a decent mind; of a sharp intelligence, apparently humble but prone to lechery, she did not distinguish between husbands and lovers and was able to direct her lust according to the advantage of the moment (A. 13.45.2–3). Poppaea married twice before starting her relationship with Nero. Her first husband was Rufrius Crispinus, praetorian prefect under Claudius, who was later involved in the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 13.45.4; 15.71.4); the two had a son, who was later killed by Nero (Suet. Vit. Ner. 35.5). Secondly Poppaea married Otho, though our sources diverge about the nature of their marriage. According to A. 13.45.4–13.46.1 Otho seduced and married Poppaea, and only later introduced her to Nero; in his Histories, however, Tacitus suggests, in agreement with other authors, that Nero had fallen in love for Poppaea when she was still married to Crispinus, and consequently arranged a mock-wedding between his friend Otho and the woman so as to cover the liaison (H. 1.13.3; Suet. Vit. Oth. 3.1–2; Plut. Vit. Galb. 19.2– 5; Cass. Dio 61.11.2–4; for a full discussion see Townend 1961, 242–248). The amorous relationship between Poppaea and Nero started in 58 ce. She resorted to her beauty and charm to seduce the emperor, who for his part avoided Otho’s friendship and finally sent him to Lusitania out of jealousy (A. 13.46.2– 3; H. 1.13.3; Suet. Vit. Oth. 3.2). In a short time Poppaea climbed the hierarchy among the imperial women, but she had to deal with two significant obstacles, namely Agrippina, the emperor’s intrusive mother, and Octavia, whom Nero had married in 51 ce. Tacitus stresses Poppaea’s role in the ruin of the two women: at the beginning of 59 ce Poppaea, knowing that marriage to Nero was impossible as long as Agrippina was alive, accelerated (though not

c15_Vol2.indd 850

suggesting it explicitly) Nero’s long-meditated decision to kill his mother (A. 14.1.1–3). Similarly, in 62 ce she instigated and piloted the series of events that brought about Octavia’s repudiation, exile, and assassination, staging a false accusation of adultery between her and the Egyptian flutist Eucaerus (A. 14.59–64; see also Cass. Dio 62.13.1). Suetonius records that Nero married Poppaea just twelve days after he repudiated Octavia (Vit. Ner. 35.3). In January 63 ce, in Antium, Poppaea gave birth to Nero’s first daughter Claudia Augusta, who was immediately awarded with the title of Augusta together with her mother. The baby, however, died after only three months (A. 15.23.1–3; Suet. Vit. Ner. 35.3). Poppaea died in 65 ce, while she was pregnant again, due to a kick from Nero. The dynamics of the event are uncertain: Tacitus credits a fortuitous outburst of anger and records also a concurrent version about a poisoning, which he rejects (A. 16.6.1); Suetonius presents the kick as a deliberate act of violence, inflicted at the climax of a quarrel (Vit. Ner. 35.3); Cassius Dio does not resolve whether the action was accidental and intentional (62.27.4). The case of the pregnant wife of a tyrant killed by a kick is by itself suspicious, because it has been noted that it closely resembles similar accounts regarding Cambyses and Periander: it is therefore possible that Poppaea died because of a miscarriage, and that the later tradition forged the event so as to impute to Nero a typical tyrannical crime (so Mayer 1982). Her body was not cremated, as was common in Rome, but embalmed and buried in the family grave of the gens Iulia (A. 16.6.2). According to Cassius Dio, Nero dedicated a temple to her in the spring of 68 ce (63.26.3; see Kragelund 2010). Poppaea is famous because of her extravagant beauty treatments, the most famous of which was the custom of taking baths in asses’ milk (Plin. HN 11.238; 28.183; Cass. Dio 62.28.1; Schol. Iuv. 6.462). Flavius Josephus attests (AJ 20.195) a specific favor of Poppaea toward the Jewish religion, whose interpretation is debated (Grüll and Benke 2011; Smallwood 1959; Williams 1988). Poppaea owes a distinguished position in Tacitus’ reception thanks to Claudio Monteverdi’s work L’incoronazione di Poppea, with a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, first performed in

28-04-2023 18:01:44

P oppaeus S abinus , G aius  

1643 (see Manuwald 2013, 37–45; see reception, opera). Reference work: PIR2 P 850 REFERENCES Grüll, Tibor, and László Benke. 2011. “A Hebrew/ Aramaic Graffito and Poppaea’s Alleged Jewish Sympathy.” Journal of Jewish Studies 62: 37–55. Kragelund, Patrick. 2010. “The Temple and Birthplace of Diva Poppaea.” Classical Quarterly 60: 559–568. Loś, Andrzej. 1991. “Les intérêts de Poppée à Pompéi.” Eos 79: 63–70. Manuwald, Gesine. 2013. Nero in Opera. Librettos as Transformations of Ancient Sources. Berlin–Boston. Walter de Gruyter. Mayer, Roland. 1982. “What Caused Poppaea’s Death?” Historia. Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte 31: 248–249. Smallwood, Mary E. 1959. “The Alleged Jewish Tendencies of Poppaea Sabina.” Journal of Theological Studies 10: 329–335. Townend, Gavin B. 1961. “Traces in Dio Cassius of Cluvius, Aufidius and Pliny.” Hermes 89: 227–248. Williams, Margaret H. 1988. “Θεοσεβὴς γὰρ ἦν. The Jewish Tendencies of Poppaea Sabina.” Journal of Theological Studies 39: 97–111. FURTHER READING Holztrattner, Franz. 1995. Poppaea Neronis potens. Studien zu Poppaea Sabina. Die Gestalt der Poppaea Sabina in der Nerobüchern des Tacitus mit einem Anhang zu Claudia Acte. Graz–Horn. F. Bergere & Söhne Verlag.

POPPAEUS SABINUS, GAIUS BRAM L. H. TEN BERGE

Hope College

Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus (d. 35 ce) was ordinary consul (9 ce), legate of Moesia (11/12–35 ce), father of Poppaea Sabina the Elder, father-in-law of Titus Ollius, grandfather of Nero’s mistress and wife Poppaea Sabina the Younger. A homo novus, Sabinus entered the Senate under Augustus and was awarded an ordinary

c15_Vol2.indd 851

851

consulship in 9 ce, highly unusual for a man of his origins. In 11/12 ce, he was appointed governor of Moesia, which he was the first to organize as an independent province. Under Tiberius, in 15 ce, his governorship was extended, and he was appointed to Achaia and Macedonia in addition, giving him overarching command of three provinces simultaneously (A. 1.80.1, 5.10.2). In this framework, he was represented and assisted by other legates (e.g., Pomponius Flaccus, Latinius Pandusa, Pomponius Labeo, and possibly Publius Vellaeus). We know about two events during his governorship. In 26 ce, he put down of a revolt of allied tribes in Thrace (A. 4.46–51), for which he received triumphal recognition (A. 4.46.1, 6.39.3, 13.45.1). In 31 ce, he contained the rise of a pseudo-Drusus Caesar, a young man pretending to be the then imprisoned son of Germanicus and said to have aimed to use his father’s German legions to invade Egypt or Syria (A. 5.10; cf. Cass. Dio 58.28.1). Sabinus died in 35 ce in his province. Cassius Dio writes that he was happy to die before being charged (58.25.2), but there is no indication, as Tacitus shows, that he was at risk (A. 6.39.3). Sabinus governed Moesia for an unprecedented twenty-four years and so is a striking example of Tiberius’ innovative policy (discarded by subsequent emperors) to “extend commands and often keep men in the same armies or jurisdictions to the end of their life” (A. 1.80.1; cf. Suet. Tib. 41). Such extended tenures had mixed results, with officials using their accumulated experience either to maintain stability and implement long-term policy or to engage in corrupt practices (for a list of extended tenures under Tiberius and discussion, see Brunt 1990, 75–77). Sabinus firmly belongs in the first group (A. 6.39.3) and, along with men like Agricola (whose seven-year tenure in Britannia Tacitus describes favorably in the Agricola), serves to demonstrate the potential benefits of prolonged governorships. Sabinus also is an important figure in explicating Tiberius’ motivations for extended tenures. According to Tacitus, Sabinus’ prolonged tenure was “not due to any outstanding skill but because he was equal to the task and no more” (nullam ob eximiam artem sed quod par negotiis neque supra erat, A. 6.39.3). That is, he was competent but not

28-04-2023 18:01:44

852  

P orcius C ato

so much as to be a threat to his emperor. These are important words, reflecting what Tacitus sees as one of the great vices of the principate: conspicuous talent and excellence are not only stifled by envious emperors but are met with active hostility (and at times death). Sabinus fits in a list of Roman officials singled out by Tacitus for executing their duties without drawing conspicuous attention to themselves (i.e., the middle path between the extremes of outright opposition and gross inactivity): Marcus Lepidus (A. 4.20), Lucius Calpurnius Piso “pontifex” (A. 6.10.3), Publius Memmius Regulus (A. 14.47), Agricola (esp. Ag. 42.2), and Tacitus himself (see Strunk 2017, 8 ff.). Indeed, Tacitus connects Sabinus and Agricola intertextually, with A. 6.39.3 (par negotiis) recalling Ag. 9.5 (sed quia par videbatur, on Agricola’s suitability for the governorship of Britain). The idea recurs in the final book of the Annals, in the portrait of Petronius (proconsul tamen Bithyniae et mox consul vigentem se ac parem negotiis ostendit, A. 16.18.2). Tacitus signals Sabinus’ importance in several ways: (1) by granting him the rare honor of an obituary (there are only twelve in the extant Annals, covering twenty men: Syme 1958) and a positive one at that (Martin 1981, 139); (2) by expanding on and stylizing the two events from Sabinus’ governorship recorded in the work. The account of the first—the campaign against the rebellious Thracian tribes—is modeled on the description of military campaigns in Sallust (that against the Isaurians at Hist. 2.87) and Caesar (the Battle of Alesia at BGall. 7.69–90; Woodman 2018, 240–241; see intertextuality). The length and elaboration of the episode are notable, for the campaign is not recorded elsewhere. The account of the second episode—the rise and removal of the fake Drusus Caesar—is part of a series of stories of impostors that have noticeable narrative similarities (Woodman 2017, 75–76): the slave Clemens, who impersonated his dead master Agrippa Postumus in 16 ce (A. 2.39–40); the rumor that the dead Germanicus was still alive (19 ce, A. 2.82.4–5); and the emergence of a pseudo-Nero in the East in 69 ce (H. 2.8–9). Tacitus’ account of Sabinus’ travels through the Aegean in pursuit of the fake Drusus likewise is stylistically rich and underscores the governor’s virtue (Woodman 2017, 79–80). Reference work: PIR2 P 847

c15_Vol2.indd 852

REFERENCES Brunt, Peter. 1990. Roman Imperial Themes. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Martin, Ronald. 1981. Tacitus. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Strunk, Thomas. 2017. History After Liberty: Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants, and Republicans. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Syme, Ronald. 1958. “Obituaries in Tacitus.” American Journal of Philology 79.1: 18–31. Woodman, Anthony, ed. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 5 and 6. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, Anthony, ed. 2018. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 4. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Griffin, Miriam. 1995. “Tacitus, Tiberius and the Principate.” In Leaders and Masses in the Roman World: Studies in Honor of Zvi Yavetz, edited by Irad Malkin and Zeev Rubinsohn, 33–57. Leiden, New York, and Cologne: Brill Publishers. Levick, Barbara. 1976 (rev. 1999). Tiberius the Politician. London and New York: Routledge. See index.

PORCII, see TABULA LUGDUNENSIS

PORCIUS CATO VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Marcus Porcius Cato was a former praetor in the year 28 ce, and one of the prosecutors of Titius Sabinus. His name appears at A. 4.68.2. Porcius Cato, together with other former praetors Latinius Latiaris, Petilius Rufus, and Opsius, men whose only access to the consulship was through the favor of Sejanus, prosecuted the equestrian Titius Sabinus because of his friendship with Germanicus and his kindness toward Agrippina the Elder and her children after Germanicus’ death. In fact, Porcius Cato achieved the suffect consulship eight years later in 36 ce. To gather evidence against their victim, the prosecutors agreed that Latiaris should lure Sabinus into an incriminating conversation.

28-04-2023 18:01:44

portents  

Having gained Sabinus’ confidence, Latiaris brought him to a private room, above which the other prosecutors hid in the space between the roof and ceiling. Tacitus soundly scorns such eavesdropping as beneath the dignity of Roman nobility. Based on the evidence provided by the four prosecutors, Tiberius condemned Sabinus without a trial to summary execution. According to Front. Aqu. 102, Porcius Cato was curator aquarum, a minor magistrate in charge of water, in 38 ce, for only a few months, likely because he died under uneasy circumstances under Caligula, as Tacitus hints at A. 4.71.1. see also: delators Reference work: PIR2 P 856 FURTHER READING Rodgers, R. H. 1982. “Curatores Aquarum.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 86: 171–180. DOI: 10.2307/311193. Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge.

PORCIUS SEPTIMINUS, see RAETIA

PORTENTS PAULINE RIPAT

University of Winnipeg

Portents, prodigies, and omens were self-offering messages expressing divine temperament or intent. Portents and prodigies were generally identified as occurrences that were out of the natural or “correct” order, such as the birth of animals with unusual appendages or multiple lightning strikes within the city of Rome (e.g., A. 12.64; H. 1.86). Omens, in contrast, were spoken words that had a second, deeper, and truth-bearing significance than their obvious surface meaning (e.g., A. 2.13). The Romans, including Tacitus, did not always keep to strict distinctions; nonverbal unusual events or significant sightings could be considered either positively or negatively “ominous” (e.g., A. 4.64, 6.37; H. 1.86, 4.24). Though the majority of prodigies and omens reported by

c15_Vol2.indd 853

853

Tacitus were identified by waking observers, on occasion he reports dreams that were invested by the dreamers with divinatory significance (e.g., A. 2.14; cf. 11.4, 16.1). Portents and prodigies generally rendered meanings relevant to the larger Roman community. Prior to the late republic, they were recorded in the public chronicles of the annales maximi, and they were always regular features of ancient Roman historiographical narratives. Tacitus, who is often noted to have included fewer reports of portents, prodigies, and omens than his predecessor Livy, nonetheless mentions potential divine messages and their interpretation(s) in almost every extant book of his works. Divination, the identification of an event as a portent and thus as a “real” divine message of significance for the Roman people (as opposed to a mere coincidence or function of nature), the event’s interpretation, and, if necessary, its expiation, were ideally the responsibility of the Senate through the invocation of the appropriate priestly colleges. It is clear, however, not least of all from Tacitus’ works, that popular identification of prodigies and omens and their casual interpretation was very common. Portents in Tacitean narrative offer two different kinds of information. First, they function as a narrative device that Tacitus uses to pursue the larger agenda of his works. Thus, as Davies (2004, 143) has observed, Tacitus’ religious inclusions are generally “pertinent and combine to create a picture of what is usually best described as incompetence.” Individuals who seize upon divine signs to interpret them precipitously, selfishly, or ambitiously, and so incorrectly, nourish the attendant political instabilities that plague the Romans (e.g., A. 11.4, 16.1–3; H. 1.27). No better are generals who ignore significant events as part of their ill preparation for vainglorious pursuits (e.g., Caesennius Paetus at A. 15.7–8), or emperors such as Tiberius who circumvent traditional processes to deny divine significance to portentous events at all (e.g., A. 1.76). Vitellius, in his failure to embody necessary talents and traditional characteristics, is deemed to be a terrible portent himself (H. 3.56; cf. the soldiers’ opinions of Hordeonius Flaccus at H. 4.24). The Druids, who interpret Roman misfortunes as portentous statements of waning Roman influence (H. 4.54; see Britannia), and the population of Iudaea, who misconstrue signs in

28-04-2023 18:01:44

854  

P ostumius A lbus R egillensis , Aulus

their own favor, are presented as foolish fanatics (H. 5.13). In contrast, Germanicus’ handling of divine messages with cautious prudence underscores his predisposition to attend to the health and success of the Roman people (A. 2.14), while Vespasian’s careful ambitions develop upon measured assessment of the nature of his rivals, his supporters, his family, and reflection upon a personal history of positive omens and responses from oracles (H. 2.78, cf. 1.10, 2.1 and 4.81–82). The gods, in Tacitean formulation, deserve attention if the state is to be healthy. Problems such as civil war (H. 1.3) are the result of willful neglect of the gods or selfish manipulation of their communications (see especially A. 14.12, where the continued reign of Nero after “frequent and useless signs” occurred sine cura deum, which may be rendered with an objective genitive, “without care for the gods”). Second, Tacitus’ inclusion of prodigies in his narrative provides information about the continued presence of divine messages in political discourse of the imperial age. Authorial agenda surely influenced which prodigies were included and the presentation of their interpretation; yet in Tacitus’ impatience with popular tendencies to construe natural coincidences fatalistically it is possible to discern the persistent use of divination as a means to express anxiety about present circumstances and doubt about the legitimacy of current leaders (e.g., A. 4.64, 15.47; H. 2.1, 2.50, 4.26). Equally, popular conviction that the gods communicated their displeasure continued to provide a believable explanation for the successful exertion of authority in unsettled circumstances. Tacitus tells us that Tiberius’ son Tiberius’ son Drusus the Younger, for example, regained control over mutinous soldiers by taking advantage of their worries over a lunar eclipse which he knew to be a simple function of nature (A. 1.28; see Pannonian Revolt). It is also possible to observe in Tacitean discussion of religious process imperial desire to control popular discourse through the rejection of events as prodigies, and also to note, somewhat paradoxically, the continued functioning of the traditional priesthoods and mechanisms (e.g., A. 1.76, 15.74). see also: annales; historiography; quindecimviri sacris faciundis; religion

c15_Vol2.indd 854

REFERENCE Davies, J. 2004. Rome’s Religious History: Livy, Tacitus, and Ammianus on their Gods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Drews, R. 1988. “Pontiffs, Prodigies, and the Disappearance of the ‘Annales Maximi.’” Classical Philology 834: 289–299. Sant’Angelo, F. 2016. “Enduring Arguments: Priestly Expertise in the Early Principate.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 146: 349–376. Waddell, P. 2013. “Eloquent Collisions: The Annales of Tacitus, the Column of Trajan, and the Cinematic Quick-Cut.” Arethusa 46: 471–497.

POSTUMIUS ALBUS REGILLENSIS, AULUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis was appointed dictator in 499 bce, in response to the threat of Latin forces lead by the Tarquins who were defeated at the Battle of Lake Regillus, after which Postumius vowed a temple to Ceres, Liber, and Libera, which was dedicated by Spurius Cassius in 493 bce (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 6.17.2, 6.94.3; see also Livy 2.19, 2.41). He is mentioned in Tacitus only at A. 2.49.1, where the temple is restored under Tiberius. see also: Roman Republic POSTUMIUS, AULUS, see FLAMEN DIALIS PRAENESTE, see SPARTACUS

PRAETORIAN COHORTS JOHN ALEXANDER LOBUR

University of Mississippi

The praetorian cohorts (cohortes praetoriae), collectively known as the Praetorian Guard,

28-04-2023 18:01:44

praetorian cohorts  

comprised the emperor’s personal military unit. Inaugurated as a permanent force at the dawn of the principate in 27 bce, it initially included nine cohorts, most likely double strength, i.e., 1,000 men each, rendering the whole as strong as two regular legions (without auxiliaries). Guardsmen earned 3.33 times the amount of an ordinary legionnaire, received two-thirds more at discharge, had shorter terms of enlistment (16– 18  years vs. 20–25), enjoyed urban accommodations at Rome freed from field duties, and benefited from donatives (sometimes scandalously lavish) at politically sensitive times to secure their loyalty. Until the reign of Vitellius they were recruited almost exclusively from Italy. Though they were surely the best available recruits, they were not “special forces” nor did their status mean they were more valorous than regular legions, especially seasoned frontier veterans. The guard (named after the praetorium, or commander’s tent, which they guarded) evolved from the personal bodyguard of generals attested infrequently during the republic, and became more prevalent as units serving the leaders of the second triumvirate, in particular Caesar Octavian (Augustus) and Mark Antony (recruited from legionnaires who declined discharge after Philippi). Their most important function was to provide security for the emperor and the imperial household, but they were not, initially, his close personal bodyguard, who were German, mostly Batavian, soldiers known for their size and valor (Germani corporis cusotodes, permanently disbanded by Galba in 69 ce). Augustus personally commanded the guard until 2 bce, when he delegated leadership to two prefects of equestrian rank (like the governor of Egypt) in order to sequester it from more politically potent senators. The use of two prefects (a practice not always observed) eased the responsibility and also meant that each could serve as a check on the other. A military tribune commanded each cohort, each of which included a small cavalry unit. Little is known about the guard prior to the reign of Tiberius. Originally, since the presence of troops within the city limits (pomerium) was contrary to republican tradition, Augustus only kept three cohorts in Rome at a time, lodging the

c15_Vol2.indd 855

855

rest in outlying communities. The guardsmen may have normally attended the emperor dressed in a toga to mute the uncivil aspects of their duty. The presence of a permanent force at Rome loyal to the princeps alone was an unmistakable hallmark of a new era. On the death of Augustus, they helped engineer the accession of Tiberius, suppressing news until he was securely apprised. The fact that he thereafter gave them the watchword (the prerogative of the emperor as commander) was seen by Tacitus as an indication of realities despite Tiberius’ show of reluctance to step into the role of princeps. When the tribune Cassius Chaerea asked the Senate for the watchword after the assassination of Caligula (before Claudius secured their loyalty) it encouraged those members who vainly hoped for the restoration of republican liberty. The guard’s role in imperial politics became pronounced after Aelius Sejanus became sole prefect in 15 ce. At some point, probably in the early 20s, he convinced Tiberius to concentrate the guard into one barracks built on the Viminal hill, the castra praetoria, on the outskirts of the city, about 2  km from the city center. This increased their visibility and enabled a more organized and intimidating presence. Sometime before Nero, the guard was probably increased to twelve cohorts, and again to sixteen under Vitellius, to fall to ten under Domitian. The praetorians also enforced internal security in Rome and Italy and provided impressive military escorts to family members on official missions, e.g., for Drusus the Younger confronting the mutinous legions at the beginning of Tiberius’ reign, or for Agrippina the Elder conveying the ashes of Germanicus to Rome. A disciplined body of substantial and versatile manpower, they could suppress disorder in Italy or supplement the urban cohorts (urbanae cohortes) in subduing riots at Rome, or the fire brigades (vigiles) in firefighting. Moreover, the guards and a specialized subunit known as speculatores (“spies” or “scouts”) furnished the emperor with unmatched communication and intelligence capabilities, and were the primary enforcers of imperial authority, supervising the arrest and detention of important individuals, as well as, if necessary, their exiles, confinements, suicides, or executions.

28-04-2023 18:01:44

856  

prefaces

Such an important body had great political consequence, as the career of Sejanus amply shows. The cooperation of the prefects and officers was vital in dynastic matters, as can be seen by their role in the fall of Sejanus and the succession of Caligula, his assassination, and the numerous plots implicating centurions, tribunes, and prefects. At times lavish donatives were granted to secure the loyalty of the guard, for example upon the fall of Sejanus, the succession of Caligula and Claudius, or after the assassinations of Britannicus and Agrippina the Younger. Galba’s refusal to give the guard anything when he became emperor (though the former prefect Nymphidius Sabinus promised them he would) was fatal, and they were quickly corrupted by Otho. Vitellius replaced Otho’s guard with recruits from the legions of Germany, and remnants of this force fought to the last man defending the castra praetoria when Flavian troops, many of whom had belonged to Otho’s guard, finally captured Rome. As emperor Vespasian appointed his son Titus as prefect, a post he held until he succeeded his father.

PREFACES LYDIA SPIELBERG

University of California, Los Angeles

see also: army; Afranius Burrus, Sextus; Cornelius Laco; Macro, Quintus Naevius Cordus Sutorius; Ofonius Tigellinus

Tacitus equipped each of his works with a genreappropriate preface. Although they employ common prefatory tropes such as the historian’s competence and dedication, the utility of history and historiography, and the exciting events that will be related, particularly Tacitean themes recur: the contrast between the Roman Republic and the principate and the challenge of allocating praise and blame. Rhetorical theory dictated that the opening of a speech or prose work of literature should render the audience benevolus, docilis, attentus: well-disposed toward the speaker or author, equipped with the necessary background, and eager to hear more. The prefaces to expository works could admit considerable variation (Quint. Inst. 3.8.8– 9), but these three objectives underlie many of the tropes Tacitus employs. The Germania alone has no formal preface, apparently on the model of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Nor are programmatic statements limited to the prefaces; some of Tacitus’ most famous pronouncements on history and historiography come in digressions in the later books of the Histories and Annals.

FURTHER READING

COMMON TOPICS

Bingham, S. 2013. The Praetorian Guard: A History of Rome’s Elite Special Forces. London: Baylor University Press. Cowan, R. 2014. Roman Guardsman 62 bc–ad 324. Great Britain: Osprey. de la Bédoyère, Guy. 2017. Praetorian: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Imperial Bodyguard. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Keppie, L. 1996. “The Army and the Navy.” In The Cambridge Ancient History X2: The Augustan Empire, edited by Alan Bowmen, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott, 371–396. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rankov, B. 1994. The Praetorian Guard. Great Britain: Osprey.

Information about the historian and his competence to write (Ag. 2.3–3.3; H. 1.1.3, cf. Sall. Cat. 3.3–4.2), evidence of dedication to the duties of a historian (H. 1.1.1–2; A. 1.1.3), and deprecation of the difficulty of his task (Ag. 1.1–4, cf. Sall. Cat. 3.2; Livy pref.1–4) serve to dispose readers favorably. Textbook captationes benevolentiae can be found in the Dialogue on Orators’s fictions of obeying a friend’s request and reporting a debate overheard as a young man (D. 1.1–4), and in the Agricola’s apology for a rude style with the excuse of a work motivated by piety (Ag. 3.3). Self-deprecation is absent from the Histories and Annals, where Tacitus instead emphasizes his political experience (H. 1.1.3, cf. Polyb. 12.25g.1–4) and, above all, impartiality (H. 1.1.3; A. 1.1.3, cf. Sall. H. fr. 6; Livy pref.5).

PRASUTAGUS, see BRITANNIA, BRITANNI

c15_Vol2.indd 856

28-04-2023 18:01:44

prefaces  

857

A précis of the history’s scope (H. 1.2.1–3.2; A. 1.1.1–3, 1.2.1–3.7, cf. Sall. Cat. 4.3–4, Iug. 5.1–2, Livy pref.1, 6–9) gives readers the necessary background information to understand what follows, and their interest is aroused by comments on the utility of history (Ag. 1.1; H. 1.3.1; cf. Thuc. 1.22.4, Polyb. 1.1–2, Cato Orig. fr. 3, Sall. Iug. 4.1– 6, Livy pref.10), the importance and greatness of the subject matter (H. 2.1–3.3, cf. Hdt. pref.1, Thuc. 1.1–2, Livy pref.4, 11–12), criticism of predecessors (H. 1.1.1–2; A. 1.1.2, cf. Sall. H. fr. 5), and promises of future works (Ag. 3.3; H. 1.1.4). The didactic function of historiography invites comments on the morality of the age (or lack thereof). In the Agricola, Tacitus complains that the era is “hostile to virtue” (Ag. 1.4, cf. Sall. Cat. 3.3–5, Iug. 4.7–8, Livy pref.4–5, 9–11) but situates his work in the literary and moral renewal of Nerva’s and Trajan’s reigns (Ag. 3.1, cf. Val. Max. 1.pref., Florus pref.8). The Histories have similar panegyric of the libertas permitted by the ruling dynasty (H. 1.3). The Annals do not mention the present day.

decline in imperial historiography, reviews his own career under the emperors about whom he will write, asserts the necessity of remaining impartial, and praises the current ruler (H. 1.1.1– 4). A “table of contents” advertises the novelties and exciting topics to come (H. 1.2.1–3.2, cf. Thuc. 1.23.2–3, Polyb. 2.1–8, Sall. Iug. 5.1–2, Livy pref.4, 11–12). Finally, a brief backward digression sets the stage for the opening of the work proper (1.4.1–11.3, cf. Thuc. 1.23.4–2.1.1, Sall. Hist. fr.8–13). The Annals begin with a hexameter (cf. Cato Orig. 1.1, Livy pref. 1.1, Sall. Iug. 5.1) that commences a capsule history of political power at Rome from the kings to Actium (A. 1.1.1). Historiographical reflections on bias in imperial historiography and Tacitus’ independence follow (1.1.2–3), then a statement of the work’s scope (A. 1.1.3). As in the Histories, a short digression surveys the state of Rome and the succession from the beginning of Augustus’ reign up to his deathbed and the beginning of the work proper (A. 1.2.1–3.7).

TACITUS’ PREFACES

TACITEAN THEMES

The Agricola has Tacitus’ most elaborate prologue, employing a double contrast between attitudes toward biography in the Roman Republic and Tacitus’ present (Ag. 1.1–4) and the dark years of Domitian’s reign and the nascent revival of intellectual life under Nerva and Trajan (Ag. 2.1–3.2). The censorship of biography under Domitian hinges the two halves. The Dialogue on Orators is the only work addressed to an individual, the consular Fabius Iustus, whom Tacitus claims has asked for his opinion on why eloquentia is no longer honored. Both the dedication and the fiction of reporting a conversation overheard in one’s youth in response to a friend’s inquiry (D. 1.1–2) follow the model established by Cicero (cf. De Orat. 1.1–6). Tacitus then summarizes the approach of the work to come, emphasizing the variety of positions and outright disagreement among the speakers (D. 1.3–4). The Histories follow a common practice of contemporary historiography in commencing with the year the history begins (H. 1.1.1, cf. Sall. Hist. fr.1). Tacitus then identifies the causes of the

The contrast between republican past and imperial present runs through Tacitus’ prefaces. Tacitus situates each work against a purported decline of its subject matter from exalted status in the republican past: the Agricola begins with the observation that modern readers are hostile and suspicious of the biographies of great men (Ag. 1.1–4, cf. Sall. Cat. 3.2), the Dialogue on Orators asks why oratory no longer commands its former respect (D. 1.1), and the Histories (H. 1.1.1) and Annals (A. 1.1.2) juxtapose the free and eloquent historiography of the republic with the historiography of the principate, corrupted by political ignorance, personal hatreds, and the desire to curry favor. A second common thread is the difficulty, both intellectual and social, of truthfully rendering judgments of praise and blame. It would be presumptuous to venture a definitive answer on the question of oratory, Tacitus claims (D. 1.1–2), and he faces readers who prefer invective to praise (Ag. 1.4; H. 1.1.2). The historian must write “without anger or partiality,” whether he has personal ties to his subject or not

c15_Vol2.indd 857

28-04-2023 18:01:44

858  

P riscus

(A. 1.1.3; H. 1.1.3). Impartiality was the historian’s chief duty, and contemporary historians were especially liable to the charge of bias arising from hatred or obligation toward the figures about whom they wrote (cf. Sall. Cat. 4.2, H. fr.1.6; Livy pref.5). Impartiality does not, however, mean suspension of judgment, and Tacitus’ actively moralizing stance is already apparent in his prefatory remarks on Roman history and historiography (Ag. 1. 4, 2.2; H. 1.1.1; A. 1.1.1, 1.2.1). see also: Cornelius Tacitus; intertextuality; Livy; Sallust FURTHER READING Herkommer, Elmar. 1968. Die Topoi in den Proömien der römischen Geschichtswerke. Dissertation. Tübingen. Janson, Tore. 1964. Latin Prose Prefaces. Studies in Literary Conventions. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell. Luce, T. J. 1989. “Ancient Views on the Causes of Bias in Historical Writing.” Classical Philology 84: 16–31. Marincola, John. 1997. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marincola, John. 1999. “Tacitus’ Prefaces and the Decline of Imperial Historiography.” Latomus 58: 391–404. Sailor, Dylan. 2004. “Becoming Tacitus: Significance and Inconsequentiality in the Prologue of Agricola.” Classical Antiquity 23.1: 139–177.

PRISCUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

PROCULEIUS, GAIUS DANIELLE CHAGAS DE LIMA

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

From the gens Proculeia, Gaius Proculeius was an equestrian and an intimate friend of Augustus. After the death of his son-in-law, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Augustus considered marrying his daughter Julia the Elder to Proculeius, even though he was a member of the equestrian order (A. 4.40.6) and not involved in political affairs. In 31 ce, due to the death of Mark Antony, Augustus sent Proculeius to Egypt to protect Cleopatra and to secure her tomb (Plut. Vit. Ant. 77–79). Proculeius was the brother-in-law of Lucius Licinius Varro Murena (who conspired against Augustus) and of Terentia, the wife of Maecenas (Cass. Dio 54.2.5). Horace wrote an ode in his honor, praising Proculeius’ generosity to his brothers (Hor. Carm. 2.2.5–8). Gaius Proculeius killed himself after swallowing gypsum (a plaster of Paris) due to a strong stomach pain (Plin. HN 36.59). see also: equestrians; Roman poets Reference works: PIR2 P 985; RE XXIII.1 (1957), 71 2 FURTHER READING Bastomsky, Saul J. 1977. “Proculeius and Augustus: A Note on a Friendship Turned Sour.” Latomus 36: 129–131. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. New York: Oxford University Press.

PROPERTIUS CELER, see TIBERIUS PROSERPINA, see ROMAN GODS

University of Florida

Priscus was consul in 93 ce with Collega. He is mentioned at Ag. 44.1. The manuscripts transmit Priscus, but this cognomen is doubtful. It is assumed that his full name is Quintus Peducaeus Priscinus, as found in an inscription in which he is paired with Collega as consuls. Nothing else can be ascertained about him. Reference works: ILS 9059; PIR2 P 225

c15_Vol2.indd 858

PROSTITUTION KONSTANTINOS KAPPARIS

University of Florida

Prostitution was practiced in the Roman world in a wide variety of forms since early times unhindered by the laws of the state. Early references suggest an already diversified market

28-04-2023 18:01:44

prostitution  

including upper-end hetairai, common prostitutes, and lowly sex workers (e.g., Caecilius Palliatae 110; Lucil. 9.334). From the earliest days of extant Roman literature, the influence of Greek concepts of venal sexuality, especially at the higher end of the market, is easily detectable. The women parading through the plays of Plautus and Terence are Greek-style hetaerae, haughty, self-assured and often devious, cunning, and ruthless women who impose their wishes upon their captive lovers, while some authors (e.g., Turpilius and Laberius) even use a Latinized form of the Greek word (hetaera). The hetaera/meretrix is a stock character playing an important role in the advancement of the plot, as male characters vying for her affection engage with each other and with the woman in acts of competition, collaboration, friendship, or enmity. Rarely we get glimpses into the lower end of prostitution in New Comedy and its Roman heirs (e.g., Balio’s brothel in Plautus Pseudolus), one would think because the lowly slaves who for the most part staffed the numerous brothels of the Roman world were not deemed to be a worthy subject of literature, and no man would have any anxiety over their feelings, fears, aspirations, or expectations. In several plays a pseudo-hetaera is the central figure in the plot, a woman of good character who is reluctantly coerced into prostitution, but in the end, she is recognized as a citizen and can marry her beloved. Somewhere in between the ruthless hetaera and the pseudo-hetaera we have the character of the bona meretrix, a woman who is a true hetaera, but she is of good character and liked by the audience, and in the end, she is reconciled with her lover. These images of prostitution are to a large extent transplanted from the Greek world, but also infused with Roman elements. Beyond the world of comedy, references to prostitution in the authors of the republican period are sporadic and largely peripheral, but sufficient in number and frequency to prove that prostitution was practiced in the Roman world extensively and in a broad variety of settings, designed to match the financial capacity and tastes of clients. A major change to the status of prostitution occurred during the reign of Augustus as a result of his legislation intended to strengthen the

c15_Vol2.indd 859

859

Roman family and the numbers of properly born Romans who were destined to lead his principate. The Augustan legislation did not introduce any radical changes to the prostitution markets of the empire, but by prohibiting marriages between the upper classes of Roman society and sex workers it contributed to gradual changes in attitudes. Its importance should not be underestimated as it generated a slow-burning conservative turn, which eventually would influence Christian family values, and through this avenue it still influences our politics, laws, and sexual morality. The Augustan legislation may not have immediately changed the sexual morality and habits of the Romans, but in the long run it changed the rhetoric surrounding such matters, preparing the ground for the high-pitched rhetoric of early Christian authors against the sexual habits of the pagans. In addition to policy driven from the top, it seems that cultural factors were also at work: while the predominant influence upon Roman ideology came from the Greek world, attitudes toward prostitution were more tolerant and open-minded, but when more conservative eastern cultures started exerting a heavier influence after the first century of the Christian era, the views of the Romans gradually became more intolerant. One of the most memorable images of prostitution from the literature of the imperial era is that of a low-end brothel, where Messalina, the meretrix Augusta, delights in being treated as a common prostitute. References to prostitution in Tacitus are few and rather marginal. With the exception of Epicharis, a woman at the center of the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.51–57) who may have been a prostitute, no other sex worker receives any attention in his extant works. Tacitus does not explicitly say that Epicharis had been a prostitute, but he alludes to it by saying that she never cared about noble matters before (neque illi ante ulla rerum honestarum cura fuerat) and that she had sufficient familiarity with the men of the fleet at Misenum to persuade them to get involved in the conspiracy. In the end of the episode the courage of Epicharis in the face of torture is contrasted with the cowardice of her male co-conspirators. The reference to Poppaea Sabina the Younger as an “arch-whore” (principale scortum: H. 1.13) is not to be taken literally.

28-04-2023 18:01:44

860  

provinces

The information that Nymphidia, the mother of Nymphidius, the strongman of Nero, was a lowly prostitute who had offered her good looks to slaves and freedmen is of suspect credibility. In addition, there are a few derogatory references to unnamed prostitutes in the margins of tumultuous historical episodes. The most dramatic among these is during the bloody battle of Rome between the troops of Vespasian and those loyal to Vitellius, where we are told that while the streets there were filled with lakes of blood and piles of corpses, life in the brothels of Rome went on as if nothing had happened, and in all this chaos some spent their time in the luxury of libidinous pleasures (H. 3.83). A vague reference to brothels which Nero visited in disguise is mentioned in the Annals (13.25). Another remarkable reference is the presence of brothels and prostitutes in a theme park of Nero at the marsh of Agrippa (A. 15.37). For Tacitus prostitution was nothing more than an infamous trade practiced by lowly women and men, serving the needs of a worthless clientele, and certainly not worthy of the attention of honorable leading men. see also: Christianity; leges (laws); marriage; morality; sexual deviance; women FURTHER READING Adams, J. N. 1983. “Words for Prostitute in Latin.” Rheinisches Museum 126: 321–358. Gilula, D. 1980. “The Concept of the ‘bona meretrix.’ A Study of Terence’s Courtesans.” Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica 108: 142–165. Hallett, Judith P. 2011. “Ballio’s brothel, Phoenicium’s Letter, and the Literary Education of Greco-Roman Prostitutes.” In Greek Prostitutes in the Ancient Mediterranean, 800 BCE–200 CE, edited by Allison Glazebrook and Madeleine Henry, 172–196. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Henry, Madeleine, M. 1985. Menander’s Courtesans and the Greek Comic Tradition. Frankfurt am Main, New York: Peter Lang. McGinn, Thomas A. J. 1998. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGinn, Thomas A. J. 2004. The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Study of Social History and the Brothel. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

c15_Vol2.indd 860

McGinn, Thomas A. J. 2014. “Prostitution: Controversies and New Approaches.” In A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities, edited by Thomas Hubbard, 83–101. Oxford: Blackwell. Rosivach, V. J. 2012. When a Young Man Falls in Love: The Sexual Exploitation of Women in New Comedy. London: Routledge.

PROVINCES CARLOS F. NOREÑA

University of California, Berkeley

Tacitus’ works can be read as an extended meditation on the dynamics of power within the sociopolitical system that we call “the early Roman empire.” Though his focus is trained primarily on emperor, court, and high politics in the city of Rome, the world of the provinces is nevertheless intrinsic to his vision of this sociopolitical system, both as symbolic counterpoint to Rome and Italy and as constituent element of the system as a unified whole. Sometimes Tacitus sketches the provinces in general in broad brushstrokes; other times he characterizes individual provinces as unique sites with their own distinctive politics and cultures. Provinces provide a setting for a number of extended set pieces throughout the corpus and a context for Tacitus’ descriptions and judgments of imperial administration. They also figure prominently in the economy of favors between center and periphery that is a key theme of the Annals in particular. Writing in the late first and early second century ce—when the Roman elite had long since come to imagine the far-flung territories under Roman military and administrative control as forming a unitary empire—Tacitus can think of the provinces in the abstract and generalize about their collective nature and functions. At the beginning of the Annals, for example, he suggests that “the provinces” did not dislike the rule of Augustus (A. 1.2.2: neque provinciae illum rerum statum abnuebant) and proposes that they were “bound together” with legions and fleets as one of its foundations (A. 1.9.5: legiones, provincias, classes, cuncta inter se conexa). Those controlled by Vespasian “rumble” (strepere) in preparing for war against Vitellius (H. 2.84.1). He also provides empire-wide overviews of the distribution

28-04-2023 18:01:45

provinces  

of military force in the provinces (H. 1.8–11, 2.32; A. 4.5), reflecting a high-ranking senator’s capacity to conceive of the provinces, in general, as interlocking pieces in the larger structure of empire. Provinces (again, in general) can serve as a counterpoint to Rome, most famously in the “secret of empire” (arcanum imperii) divulged by the civil wars of 69 ce, i.e., that emperors could be made “elsewhere than Rome” (H. 1.4.2: alibi quam Romae). Evaluative contrasts between center and periphery are drawn, too, for example in Tacitus’ contrast between the sloth of Vitellius in Italy and the energy of Vespasian in the provinces (H. 2.87; cf. A. 13.25) or between an honorable past when Rome sent supplies to distant provinces and a decadent present in which it depends on provisions from them (A. 12.43). Celebration of Massilia, the birthplace of Agricola, for its combination of “friendliness” (comitas) and “provincial frugality” (provincialis parsimonia) also belongs to this normative discourse about life in the provinces (Ag. 4.2). Tacitus occasionally remarks the transformation of conquered territory into a Roman province, usually with the set phrase “reduced to the shape of a province” (redacta in formam provinciae) (e.g., Ag. 14.1 on Britannia; A. 2.42, 56 on Cappadocia). He can also hint at provincialization as process—sometimes a failed one—as when he notes, “so long have we been conquering Germany” (G. 37.2). For Tacitus the provinces can also be a flexible category. When it suits his narrative and literary purposes, he can not only dissolve the coherence of the provinces as an administrative unit, lumping them in with eastern kingdoms (A. 2.1.1), for example, but can also imply the provincialization of Italy, as when Vitellius rambled through the peninsula “as if it had been conquered” (H. 3.49.1: ut captam Italiam; cf. 2.56). Tacitus also draws upon long-standing associations of individual provinces to frame them in particular ways. In Asia, for example, we find ambitious and competitive local elites, high urban culture, and wealth (e.g., A. 3.60–3, 4.15, 4.55–6, 14.21). That this province did not corrupt Agricola, who served there as quaestor, is therefore significant (Ag. 6.2). Spain (Hispania) is a place of peace and leisure (pax et otium), an ideal

c15_Vol2.indd 861

861

province for sending a volatile legion to cool off (H. 2.67.2). Africa, Britain, and Gaul are restless provinces and sites of revolt against the Roman order (see below). Two of the more consequential provinces in Tacitus’ works are Syria and Egypt. Syria, with its concentration of Roman military force, was the critical strategic area for the defense of the eastern frontier. As such, the governorship was reserved for men of high rank and social standing (cf. Ag. 40.1) and a magnet for men of ambition, such as Licinius Mucianus, who effectively mobilized the resources of the province to play “king maker” in Vespasian’s bid for imperial power in 69 (H. 1.10, 2.6–7, 76–78). In the Annals it is the tense backdrop to the highstakes conflict between Germanicus and Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (A. 2.43, 55, 69 ff.). Egypt stands apart from the other provinces, exoticized in various ways in the Annals. Germanicus’ (unauthorized) visit provides an opportunity for a learned treatment of Egyptian history and topography (A. 2.59–61). The appearance of the phoenix in 34 (on Tacitus’ dating) occasions a colorful report on this mysterious creature (A. 6.28). And when Nero daydreams in secret about Egypt (A. 15.36), in a passage that precedes the vivid account of the great Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.38–41), the reader can hardly miss the point that the emperor’s attentions are decentered in a dangerous way. In the main historical works, the provinces serve as the setting for a number of the extended set pieces that balance the central accounts of imperial politics and events in the city of Rome. These narratives do not always fit neatly into the calendar year, however, and more than once Tacitus acknowledges a departure from his annalistic structure in order to present them in a coherent way (e.g., A. 4.71, 6.38, 12.40). The leitmotif of these provincial narratives is subversion of the Roman imperial order. This can take various forms. Sometimes it constitutes an uprising against the reigning emperor, as in the revolt of Vitellius against Otho (H. 1.51–70). The Pannonian Revolt and the German Revolt of the legions in the first book of the Annals, by contrast, were violent protests over pay and service conditions, rather than attempts to overthrow Tiberius (A. 1.16–51). Rebellions against Roman imperial rule are also duly reported. One of the

28-04-2023 18:01:45

862  

provinces

richest such narratives concerns the uprising of Tacfarinas in Africa (A. 3.20–1, 32, 73–4, 4.23– 6), in which Tacitus draws inspiration from Sallust’s monograph on the Jugurthine war. There is regular unrest in the province of Britain, too, with lively characterizations of rebel leaders such as Caratacus and Boudicca (A. 12.31–40, 14.29–39; cf. 2.64–7, 4.46–51 for smaller-scale uprisings in Thrace). Somewhere on this spectrum of provincial subversion between civil and separatist violence is the Batavian Revolt, led by Iulius Civilis, a Batavian chieftain, which Tacitus presents in an ambiguous way that thematizes the complexity of the conflict (H. 4.12–39, 54–79, 5.14–26). The provincial settings of these narratives are often a secondary focus for Tacitus, for what he really wants to draw out in reporting these violent conflicts is the instability of the imperial system, centered in Rome or in the person of the emperor. He is less concerned, in other words, with the textures of provincial life as such, but he does note when civil war compromises the integrity of imperial borders or intensifies violence within the provinces, a recurrent theme of the Histories in particular (e.g., H. 1.79, 2.16, 84, 3.5, 44–6, 4.3). Provincial administration is one of the principal lenses through which Tacitus investigates the Roman empire as a particular configuration of power. Occasionally he notes routine imperial appointments to the governorship of this or that province (e.g., A. 13.22). Sometimes he explains imperial policy in a given province, such as Augustus’ regulations concerning the governorship of Egypt, restricted to equestrians (A. 2.59), or reports an emperor’s adjudication of a policy dispute, such as Tiberius’ judgment (citing a decree of Augustus) that the flamen Dialis could not be absent from Italy for more than two successive days twice in one year and was therefore ineligible to serve as governor of Asia (A. 3.58–59, 71). Tacitus also takes an interest in senatorial debate about appropriate protocols for provincial governance, such as the question of whether or not governors’ wives should accompany them during their terms of office (A. 3.33–34). He is especially interested in anomalous cases of provincial administration, which proliferate in the Tiberian hexad of the Annals. These include the protracted,

c15_Vol2.indd 862

multiyear appointments of many of Tiberius’ provincial governors, with a range of explanations given for this unparalleled policy (1.80; cf. 4.18); the enforced retention in the city of Rome of two long-term provincial governors, Aelius Lamia (Syria) and Lucius Arruntius (Spain) (A. 6.27); the high-stakes assignment of all of the eastern provinces (“the overseas provinces,” provinciae quae mari dividuntur) to Germanicus (A. 2.43; cf. 6.32 for a similar command entrusted to Lucius Vitellius (1), father of the future emperor); or the quid pro quo through which Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus secured continued command over the legions of Upper Germany (A. 6.30). These notable cases of provincial administrative policy under Tiberius help Tacitus to illustrate the idiosyncratic nature of this emperor’s reign by fleshing out a picture otherwise focused on Rome and the imperial court. Tacitus furnishes several examples of both “good” and “bad” provincial governance, assessed in practical and moral terms and drawing on a Roman senatorial value system that can be traced back (at least) to Cicero. The exemplar of the successful provincial governor is Agricola, and it is in Tacitus’ description of his father-in-law’s actions as imperial legate in Britain that we find the clearest expression of the historian’s views on governmentality in the Roman Empire. In Tacitus’ telling, Agricola’s successful tenure as governor of Britain (78–84 ce) was based, ultimately, on his military successes. Agricola wins back-to-back victories immediately upon arrival in the province (Ag. 18); leads his troops in person (Ag. 20); and conducts a complex, multiyear campaign to reassert Roman domination of much of the island (Ag. 22 ff.). The governor’s actions in peacetime are also carefully singled out for praise (Ag. 19): he keeps his household (including slaves and freedpersons) in check; makes appointments based on merit and not personal favor; is fair and responsive as a judge; institutes a more equitable distribution of the tax burden; and repairs several key roads. This is the background to a much-discussed section of Agricola, chapter 21, in which Agricola employs the winter to turn the Britons away from warfare and toward peace through a process of acculturation (usually called “Romanization”) and competitive emulation, leading to the spread of togas, baths, and banquets. The vignette concludes with

28-04-2023 18:01:45

provinces  

one of Tacitus’ most quoted lines: “And this amongst the uninformed was called ‘civilization’ even though it was just a function of their servitude” (Ag. 21.2: idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset). Nowhere in his writings does Tacitus produce a parallel account of a “bad” provincial governor to match the heroic portrait of the “good” Agricola. What he does provide, instead, is a steady stream of notices about the convictions of provincial governors (both proconsuls, chosen by the Senate for one-year terms, and legates, appointed by the emperor for indefinite terms) and other imperial administrators formally tried for official misconduct of various sorts (sometimes unspecified: A. 4.29, 13.33). These notices are a regular feature of the Annals, increasing in frequency in the Neronian books. The most common pattern is (1) a proconsul who is (2) charged with “extortion” (repetundae) and (3) convicted (A. 3.38, 66–69, 70, 12.22, 13.32, 14.18, 46; cf. H. 4.45). All of these standard elements are present in the trial of Gaius Iunius Silanus (consul 10 ce) proconsul of Asia, charged with extortion (and later, treason) and not only prosecuted in court by the leading orators of the province, but also publicly harried by the emperor Tiberius and ultimately convicted and sentenced to “relegation” (a milder form of exile, A. 3.66–69). In additional to proconsuls, other administrators charged with provincial misconduct include legates (A. 3.10, 13, 4.19–20, 6.29, 13.33, 14.18) and procurators (A. 4.15, 13.30, 13.33, 14.28). Another charge was “violence” (vis publica, A. 4.13, 28–30), but the most common charge, after extortion, was “treason” (maiestas)— a more serious threat to the position of the emperor himself (A. 1.74, 3.10, 3.38, 3.66–9, 4.19– 20, 12.59). The paradigmatic case here, narrated in unparalleled detail, is that of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, formally charged with treason (and other forms of misconduct) but in fact, as Tacitus insinuates, condemned for the murder of Germanicus (A. 3.7–19). Comparison of Tacitus’ account with the senatorial decree recording the punishment meted out to Piso, which survives in an inscribed copy (AE 1996.885 = CIL 22/5.900; senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone; Tabula Hebana, Tabula Siarensis), reveals that Tacitus opted for a narrative that cast Tiberius in an insidious light by hinting at his involvement in Germanicus’ death.

c15_Vol2.indd 863

863

Finally, in addition to the convictions, there are a number of acquittals on record, especially under Nero (A. 13.30, 33, 52, 14.48; cf. 3.38)—evidence, Tacitus implies (especially at 13.52), of that emperor’s corruption. Official misconduct by provincial administrators, and the trials in Rome that resulted when a charge was brought successfully, represent a formalized process for the maintenance of what was always a delicate balance of interests between center (emperor, Senate, and imperial officials) and periphery (provinces, cities, and local elites). As a senator and provincial governor himself (serving as proconsul of Asia, 112/3), Tacitus knew this world intimately and could report on it with authority. He was also well placed to observe another dimension of this imperial balancing act: the “economy of favors” that operated through provincial requests to the emperor and imperial benefactions to the provinces. It is in the Annals, again, that we see this dynamic most clearly. Provincial embassies to the emperor could request material privileges, such as a reduction in tribute (e.g., A. 2.42), or more mundane favors, such as permission to invest in urban infrastructure (A. 4.43). The tedium of such petitions emerges in the series of requests that Tiberius directed to the Senate, concerning temples in the province of Asia and the rights of asylum there (A. 3.60–4). There is also some tedium—explicitly flagged as such (A. 4.55.1)— in the conventional arguments employed by ambassadors speaking to the Senate on the question of which city in Asia should be awarded the temple of Tiberius which the cities of the province, collectively, had voted to the emperor in gratitude for the prosecution of Gaius Iunius Silanus (A. 4.55–56; cf. 3.66–69, 4.15). Temples to the Roman emperor (whether living or deceased) were, of course, an important form of symbolic acceptance of the imperial regime and are duly reported by Tacitus. The Spaniards, for example, request permission to erect a temple to the deified Augustus (A. 1.78), and later the province of Further Spain, following the example of Asia, petitions to erect their own temple to Tiberius (and Livia Augusta)—a request that the emperor, whether through modesty, diffidence, or vice, denies (A. 4.37–8).

28-04-2023 18:01:45

864  

P tolemaeus E piphanes

The other side of this exchange took the form of imperial benefactions to the provinces. Sometimes these favors were material in nature, such as remissions of tax (e.g., A. 12.61, 63) or financial relief following natural disasters, including fires (A. 12.58) and earthquakes (A. 4.13, 12.58). Sometimes they concerned formal status, such as the grant to the province of the Maritime Alps of the “Latin right” (ius Latii), which conferred Roman citizenship on local magistrates and other rights on the rest of the citizens of a municipality (A. 15.32), or bestowed a particular privilege, such as the permission granted to senators from (Narbonese) Gaul to travel to their estates without imperial authorization, a privilege previously enjoyed only by senators from Sicily (A. 12.23). The fullest account of such an imperial benefaction is Tacitus’ set piece on the debate over the admission of leading men from (transalpine) Gaul to the Roman Senate, including a long speech by the emperor Claudius (A. 11.23–5). From an inscribed copy of the speech (CIL 13.1668 = ILS 212; Tabula Lugdunensis) we may conclude both that Tacitus had firsthand knowledge of it and that he reworked it as he saw fit (a stylistic choice approved by Syme, who wrote, “the ineptitude with which a Roman Emperor in a speech to the Senate mutilated a splendid theme was grotesque and unpardonable,” 1958, 436). That Tacitus chose this particular episode for extended treatment, highlighted by a speech from the emperor himself, shows that he appreciated the importance of provincial integration, broadly understood, as an instrument of empire. For Tacitus, then, the provinces represent the world outside of Rome and Italy, in an almost abstract way, while also serving as very real sites, individually, for specific events and processes. Bound to the center by both material and symbolic ties, both of which are explored by Tacitus, they can be seen in his works as essential components of the whole system of social power upon which the Roman empire was based. What Tacitus really provides, in other words, is a traditional senatorial vision of the provinces, one that is less attuned to provincial cultures and daily life than it is to imperial mechanisms of governance, politics, and

c15_Vol2.indd 864

authority. Recent scholarship on the provinces of the early Roman empire has examined the operations of religious and legal pluralism there; the dynamics of cultural change, with increasing emphasis on local agency; and the reciprocal, mutually beneficial relationship between emperors and local elites. These are all questions on which the testimony of Tacitus can and should be brought to bear. see also: army; Earthquake of 17 ce; ethnicity; ethnography; imperium; Paphian Venus, temple FURTHER READING Ash, Rhiannon. 1999. Ordering Anarchy: Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ Histories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Brunt, P. A. 1990. Roman Imperial Themes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 9–95, 481–487. Eck, Werner. 1995–1998. Die Verwaltung des römischen Reiches in der hohen Kaiserzeit. 2 vols. Basil: Reinhardt. Ginsburg, Judith. 1981. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. New York: Arno. Lavan, Miles. 2013. Slaves to Rome: Paradigms of Empire in Roman Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 124–155. Master, Jonathan. 2016. Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 439–450, 631–633, 648–649, 762–767. Talbert, Richard. 2004. “Rome’s Provinces as Framework for World View.” In Roman Rule and Civic Life: Local and Regional Perspectives, edited by L. de Ligt, E. A. Hemelrijk, and H. W. Signor, 21–37. Leiden: Brill.

PSEUDO-PHILIP, see BYZANTIUM PTOLEMAEUS (1), see TACFARINAS PTOLEMAEUS (2), see ASTROLOGY

PTOLEMAEUS EPIPHANES RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Ptolemaeus V Epiphanes (“made-manifest”) (210–180 bce) was king of Egypt (205–180) and

28-04-2023 18:01:45

P tolemaeus E uergetes  

son of Ptolemaeus IV Philopator and Arsinoe III. He had a turbulent reign, facing internal revolts and external conflicts with Macedonia and the Seleucids, during which he lost most of the lands held by Egypt in the Aegean and in Iudaea. According to Justin, the Roman Senate sent Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (1) (consul in 187 and again in 175 bce) to Egypt as tutor, that is, legal guardian to Ptolemaeus V (Epit. 30.2.8– 30.3.4). Tacitus confirms that Lepidus was sent to Egypt as tutor to the children of an unidentified king Ptolemaeus (A. 2.67.2). However, this guardianship is controversial (Otto 1934): it is not mentioned by Polybius or Livy, and Valerius Maximus states that it occurred only after Lepidus’ second consulship in 175 (6.6.1). If Valerius Maximus is right, Lepidus would have been tutor to Ptolemaeus VI Philometor (186– 145) or perhaps to Ptolemaeus Eupator, king of Cyprus in 152, the year of Lepidus’ death. However, this guardianship may have been suggested by overinterpretation of Lepidus’ continuous interest in Egypt (Polyb. 28.1.8) or of his early embassy to the region in 201–200 (Livy 31.2.3), when Ptolemaeus Epiphanes was still a child. If so, this is probably a later narrative, accepted by Lepidus’ family in order to glorify its ancestor (see Crawford 1974 for a coin issued around 61–60 by the future triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus). Reference works: Crawford, Michael. 1974. Roman Republican Coinage. London: Cambridge University Press, n.º 419/2; RE XXIII.2, 1691– 1702, Ptolemaios 23 REFERENCE Otto, Walter. 1934. Zur Geschichte der Zeit des 6. Ptolemäers: ein Beitrag zur Politik und zum Staatsrecht des Hellenismus. München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 27–29. FURTHER READING Gera, Dov. 1989. Judea and Mediterranean Politics. 219 to 161 BCE. Leiden, New York, and Köln: Brill. 69–70.

c15_Vol2.indd 865

865

PTOLEMAEUS EUERGETES DR.LEONARDO GREGORATTI

Durham University

Ptolemaeus Euergetes or Ptolemaeus III (284/281–222 bce), Πτολεμαῖος Εὐεργέτης in Greek, ptwlmys, ptolemys in Egyptian, was an Egyptian pharaoh, third monarch of the Ptolemaic dynasty, who ruled from 246 bce until his death. He was educated by Apollonius of Rhodes, head of the library of Alexandria and succeeded to his father Ptolemaeus II Philadelphos on the throne. Through his marriage with Berenice II he added Cyrenaica to his domains. Just after the coronation, he intervened in the dispute for the throne of Syria between his sister and a former wife of the Seleucid dead king Antiochus II (Third Syrian War, 246– 241 bce, Justin. 27.1.1). He managed to conquer vast territories of the Seleucid kingdom including Mesopotamia, Cilicia, and several cities of Asia Minor. Mesopotamia was reconquered by the new king Seleucus II while the other conquests, including Coele-Syria, Pamphylia, Samothrace, and the city of Seleucia Pieria remained under Ptolemaeus’ control. He meddled in the conflicts of Greece, supporting Athens, Sparta, the Aetolian, and Aechean league against the king of Macedonia (Polyb. 2.51.1, 2.63). In Egypt he established a decentralized administration giving more responsibility to the strategoi in charge of their nomoi. Facing a period of draughts and famines, he decided to reduce the expenses for the army and the agricultural investments. This policy laid the foundations for the later political and economic crisis of the kingdom. His reign was reputed as a period of prosperity and good rule by his contemporaries and his subjects. Under him many monumental buildings were erected: the Serapeum of Alexandria, the temple of Isis at Philae, that of Osiris at Canopus, and the imposing gates of Khonsu’s and Montu’s temples at Karnak. The first sanctuary was visited by Vespasian while in Alexandria waiting for the favorable winds to set sail. Discussing the origins of the god Serapis, Tacitus mentions a tradition

28-04-2023 18:01:45

866  

P ublicius , Lucius and M arcus

according to which king Ptolemaeus III brought the god with him from Seleucia in Syria on his return from the Syrian War; others think that the same king brought the cult of the god to Alexandria from Memphis (H. 4.84.9). At A. 6.28, Ptolemaeus III is mentioned in connection with the appearance of the phoenix. In 34 ce, the mythological creature was said to have appeared in Egypt. Its previous appearance was dated to the reign of Ptolemaeus III when the bird flew to the city of Heliopolis. The limited number of years between the third and last appearance of the creature respectively in Ptolemaeus’ and Tiberius’ time induces Tacitus to doubt the authenticity of the former phoenix. FURTHER READING Bowman, Alan. 1986. Egypt after the Pharaohs 332 BC–AD 642. From Alexander to the Arab Conquest. London: British Museum Publications. Hazzard, Richard. 2000. Imagination of a Monarchy: Studies in Ptolemaic Propaganda. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hölbl, Günther. 2001. History of the Ptolemaic Empire. New York: Routledge.

PTOLEMAEUS SOTER, see SARAPIS

PUBLICIUS, LUCIUS AND MARCUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

Mignone, Lisa Marie. 2016. The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

PUBLILIUS SABINUS NATHAN KATKIN

University of Chicago

Publilius Sabinus served as one of Vitellius’ praetorian prefects in 69 ce but soon fell out of favor and suffered imprisonment. In his first appearance in the Histories, Publilius Sabinus becomes praetorian prefect through his friendship with Caecina Alienus, one of the two most important Vitellian generals and a major player in Vitellius’ administration (H. 2.92). When Caecina makes a failed attempt to defect to the Flavians at Cremona, Vitellius removes Publilius from office and has him thrown in chains (H. 3.36). His colleague in the prefecture is Iulius Priscus; his successor, Alfenus Varus. His fate under the Flavians is uncertain. Publilius is not know from any source beyond the Histories, in whose manuscripts his name is confused. M has “Publius” at 2.92 and “Publilius” at 3.36. Halm first corrected both to “Publilius” in his Teubner edition of Tacitus’ complete works, published from 1869–77; later editors have unanimously followed suit. see also: civil wars of 69 ce; Vitellius, rise to power

University of Florida

Reference work: PIR2 P 1056

Lucius and Marcus Publicius Malleolus were aediles in 241 bce. After the First Punic War, they built the Clivus Publicius (the road running from the Forum Bovarium to the top of the Aventine) and a temple of Flora near the Circus Maximus and instituted the Floralia. The temple was renovated by Tiberius in 17 ce (A. 2.49.1).

PUTEOLI, see CAMPANIA PYRAMUS, see CILICIA

see also: Rome, topography FURTHER READING Lazenby, J. F. 1996. The First Punic War. New York: Routledge.

c15_Vol2.indd 866

PYRRHUS CHRISTOPHER S.VAN DEN BERG

Amherst College

King Pyrrhus of Epirus (319–272 bce) was a descendent of Alexander of Molossia. He appears only as a point of reference in A. and only once (A. 2.63.3), in Tiberius’ reported address to the Senate concerning the threat posed by

28-04-2023 18:01:45

P yrrhus  

Maroboduus. Pyrrhus posed a major threat to Rome at the beginning of the third century bce. When the citizens of Tarentum appealed to him for help, Pyrrhus saw an opportunity to assist Greek allies and to expand his sphere of influence. He first defeated the Romans at the battle of Heraclea in 280. Several Italian peoples and Greek cities of southern Italy offered Pyrrhus their support. He then marched toward Rome and sought to negotiate. The negotiations for peace were unsuccessful. It was in this this context that Appius Claudius Caecus is reported to have delivered his famous Speech Against the Peace with Pyrrhus. A second victory at Ausculum followed in 279. After his diversion to Sicily and return to Italy, the Romans defeated him handily in 275 at Malventum (later renamed Beneventum).

c15_Vol2.indd 867

867

He soon headed home and died shortly thereafter in battle. see also: Alexander the Great; Roman orators Reference work: Barrington 54 C3 (Epirus) FURTHER READING Franke, P. R. 1989. “Pyrrhus.” Cambridge Ancient History VII.2: 456–485. Lefkowitz, Mary. 1959. “Pyrrhus’ Negotiations with the Romans, 280–278 B.C.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 64: 147–177. Leveque, Pierre. 1957. Pyrrhos. Paris: E. de Boccard.

PYTHAGORAS, see FREEDMEN OF NERO

28-04-2023 18:01:45

Q QUADI, see MARCOMANI QUERQUETULANUM, see ROME, TOPOGRAPHY

QUINCTIUS ATTICUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Quinctius Atticus was suffect consul with Caecilius Simplex for the last two months of 69 ce (Cass. Dio 65.17.1). He was therefore in charge when, after the victories of Vespasian’s generals in northern Italy, the negotiations in Rome failed, and civic strife exploded between Vitellians and Flavians. He was with Vespasian’s brother Flavius Sabinus (2) when he was besieged in the Capitolium; surrounded, he was taken prisoner. Tacitus defines him as an umbra honoris, “a shadow of an office,” that is, a consul without authority, who distinguished himself merely because of his vanity and his proclamations addressed to the people where he exalted Vespasian and insulted Vitellius (H. 3.73). Brought in chains in front of the latter, he was spared, while Sabinus met his fate by the hands of the crowd. Tacitus says that Vitellius spared his life, despite the people wanting him dead, because Vespasian’s brother satisfied his death or because Atticus took the whole responsibility for the fire of the Capitolium, thus exculpating himself from the terrible mischief of Vitellius and his followers (H. 3.74–75). see also: civil wars of 69 ce

Reference work: PIR2 Q 39 FURTHER READING Morgan, G. 2006. 69 ad: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Townend, G. B. 1962. “The Consuls of ad. 69–70.” American Journal of Philology 83: 113–129.

QUINCTIUS, PUBLIUS, see CICERO

QUINDECIMVIRI SACRIS FACIUNDIS FEDERICO SANTANGELO

Newcastle University

The quindecimviri sacris faciundis (literally “fifteen men for sacred actions”) were a Roman priestly college that was in charge of the consultation and interpretation of the Sibylline Books, a collection of Greek prophetic texts that notionally dated back to the regal period and were usually accessed on the Senate’s instructions to seek advice on the interpretation and expiation of a prodigy, or on matters of religious significance. Originally a board of ten members, increased to fifteen by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1), it was formally an elective office, although under the principate access to it was largely determined by imperial favor. Tacitus himself was a quindecimvir, and in that capacity took part in the Secular Games presided over by Domitian in 88 ce (A. 11.11.1). Proximity with imperial power does not necessarily entail unqualified support or straightforward

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume II, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c16_Vol2.indd 868

28-04-2023 18:09:19

Q uintilian  

acquiescence. In 15 ce, when a flooding of the Tiber prompts Gaius Asinius Gallus (himself a quindecimvir) to commend to the Senate the consultation of the Sibylline Books, Tiberius rules against it, and entrusts the management of the river bed to two distinguished senators; the implication is that he felt that the consultation of the Books might yield messages that could prove difficult for him to control (A. 1.76.1). Tiberius makes another authoritative ruling on a quindecimviral matter in 32 ce, when the quindecimvir Lucius Caninius Gallus (mentioned by Tacitus only once; see Woodman 2017, 141) proposes the inclusion of a new book in the Sibylline corpus: again, the proposal is put forward to the Senate, which acts as the main body of religious authority (A. 6.12). Tiberius intervenes remotely, by letter, chastising Caninius for taking action without consulting the college and recalling the precedent of Augustus, who had ruled that unsanctioned Sibylline texts be handed to the urban praetor and destroyed. The new book is therefore put under the scrutiny of the quindecimviri, who will in due course rule on its suitability for inclusion in the corpus: in this case, priestly authority is played out against senatorial action, and the emperor is ostensibly more confident in his ability to control the workings of the college than he was early on in his reign. In other instances, though, the quindecimviri come across as a distinguished and widely recognized part of the fabric of public ritual, and that level of their involvement in public affairs largely goes unnoticed in Tacitus’ narrative, unless other concurrent factors also happen to come to prominence: cf. A. 3.64.2 on their participation in the Ludi Magni of 22 ce, where the contentious issue is the role of the fetiales in the festival, and A. 15.44.1, where a set of expiation rituals are carried out after the Fire of 64 ce, in compliance with the instructions of the Sibylline Books—yet suspicion of Nero’s involvement lingers on. see also: Cornelius Tacitus; games; Quintilianus; religion REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres. FURTHER READING Rüpke, J. 2008. Fasti sacerdotum. A Prosopography of Pagan, Jewish and Christian Religious Officials in the

c16_Vol2.indd 869

869

City of Rome, 300 bc to ad 499. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Santangelo, F. 2016. “Enduring Arguments: Priestly Expertise in the Early Principate.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 146: 349–376.

QUINTILIAN BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was one of the most important masters of rhetoric of all time. An orator, theorist of education, and literary critic, he was the first teacher appointed to hold a chair funded by the imperial treasury. Quintilian was born in Calagurris, in Hispania Tarraconensis (modern Calahorra, Spain), around 35 ce. He must have studied in Rome during the early reign of Nero: according to the scholiast of Juvenal (6.452), he attended the school of grammar of Remmius Palaemon; he certainly heard, and highly admired, the orator Domitius Afer (Plin. Epist. 2.14.10), whom he mentions as one of the greatest orators of his time (Quint. Inst. 10.1.118) and who is believed to have been the source of Quintilian’s profound admiration for Cicero (Too 2016, 315). After Afer’s death, occurred in 59 ce, Quintilian must have returned to Spain, where he perhaps practiced law and was probably noted by the governor of the province, Servius Sulpicius Galba. In 68 ce Galba was proclaimed emperor by the Senate and marched on Rome, taking Quintilian with him. In Rome Quintilian practiced as an advocate, although he never published his speeches, and devoted himself to the teaching of rhetoric. In a twenty-year career (Quint. Inst. 1.praef.1), he earned an exceptional reputation (cf. e.g., Mart. 2.90) and accumulated an unusual wealth for a rhetorician (Juv. 7.186–198), enjoying the favor of the Flavian dynasty: Vespasian established an official chair of Greek and Latin rhetoric and appointed Quintilian to this position at an annual salary of 100,000 sesterces (Suet. Vesp. 18). Pliny the Younger was among his disciples. Quintilian retired from teaching around 88 ce; sometime later, the new emperor Domitian appointed him as tutor of the two great-nephews he had

28-04-2023 18:09:19

870  

Quintilian

designated as his heirs (Quint. Inst. 4.praef.1). This earned him the honorary title of consul (ornamenta consularia; Auson. Grat. act. 7.31). His death probably occurred soon after the assassination of Domitian in 96 ce. Quintilian devoted the years of his retirement to the composition of the Institutio Oratoria (“The Orator’s Education”), a fruit of his long direct experience as a teacher: the purpose of this work is to assess, organize, and amend the main principles of the rhetorical education as theorized in the Greek and Roman tradition. Quintilian embraces the whole training of an orator, following his career from his infancy to the moment of his retirement (Reinhardt and Winterbottom 2006, xxiii). Thus, Quintilian opens his treatise focusing on the earliest stages of the boy’s education (Book I): the young student shall learn both Greek and Latin languages, will exercise his memory, and cure orthography and style from the very beginning; such initial education was normally given at home, yet Quintilian explicitly supports public instruction as a better environment for the boy’s growth (1.2.1–31). After the initial training of the school of rhetoric (Book II), Quintilian treats in great detail the traditional five components of rhetoric: invention (inventio), arrangement (dispositio), style (elocutio), memory (memoria), and delivery (action) (Books III through XI). Book X offers a famous survey of Greek and Roman literatures, outlining the canons of the best authors for each literary genre (Raschieri 2017). Finally, Book XII presents the reader with the profile of the accomplished orator, both on a technical and a moral level: in the wake of the well-established Roman tradition, Quintilian recommends that the orator be endowed not only with a sound technical preparation, but also with an outstanding moral profile; echoing Cato the Censor’s words, he describes the perfect orator as “a good man, skilled in speaking” (Quint. Inst. 12.1.1). Quintilian gave a crucial contribution to the history of education in the whole Western tradition up to our days. Regarded as the most authoritative master of rhetoric of his time by his contemporaries (see again Martial and Juvenal quoted above), Quintilian was rediscovered by the humanist Poggio Bracciolini in 1418. His model of education, combining technical instruction and moral advancement of the student, became the

c16_Vol2.indd 870

foundation of the humanistic educational model in the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, and then entered the Ratio studiorum of the Jesuits; our current conception of education is still indebted to the Quintilianic precepts (see Zissos 2016). Before the Institutio Oratoria, Quintilian published a treatise on the causes of the corruption of eloquence (De causis corruptae eloquentiae: see Quint. Inst. 6.1.3), dealing with the same topic addressed by Tacitus in the Dialogus de Oratoribus. The treatise has not been preserved to us; based on the opinions stated in the Institutio, we can assume that Quintilian focused on the decadence of the educational practices of his time, deemed unfit to provide young students with the preparation needed to compete with the masters of the past (Brink 1989). Two collections of declamations have been handed down to us under the name of Quin­ tilian,  known as Declamationes minores and Declamationes maiores, most certainly spurious. The former is a collection of short sketches of controversiae interspersed with theoretical comments, which show a proximity to Quintilian’s positions and may derive from his own school; the latter is a collection of nineteen fully developed controversiae, which modern scholarship agrees to ascribe to a variety of authors from the second–third century ce (see declamation). see also: eloquentia; Roman orators Reference work: PIR2 F 59 REFERENCES Brink, Charles O. 1989. “Quintilian’s De Causis Corruptae Eloquentiae and Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus.” Classical Quarterly 39: 472–503. Raschieri, Amedeo A. 2017. “Alla ricerca del lettore ideale: insegnamento retorico e modelli letterari tra Quintiliano e Dione di Prusa.” Lexis 25: 335–353. Reinhardt, Tobias, and Michael Winterbottom. 2006. Quintilian: Institutio Oratoria, Book 2. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Too, Yun Lee. 2016. “Education in the Flavian Age.” In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, edited by Andrew Zissos, 313–326. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Zissos, Andrew. 2016. “Reception of Flavian Literature.” In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, edited by Andrew Zissos, 535–559. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

28-04-2023 18:09:19

Q uintilius Varus , P ublius  

FURTHER READING Kennedy, George. 1969. Quintilian. New York: Twayne.

QUINTILIANUS DAVID WELCH

University of Texas, Austin

Sextus Nonius Quintilianus was a Roman statesman who lived during the principate of Tiberius. He held the office of tribune of the plebs (32 ce) and has been identified with the Sextus Nonius Quintilianus who held the office of suffect consul (38 ce). In the year 32 ce, as tribune of the plebs, Quintilianus put forth a motion to the Senate that a new book be officially added to the Sibylline Books, at the request of one of the quindecimviri sacris faciundis, Canininus Gallus. The vote on this matter, though, was taken without any formal polling of opinions among the senators, for which Tiberius lightly chastised Quintilianus, blaming only his youth for his ignorance of ancient custom, while he rebuked Gallus more harshly (A. 6.12.1–2). Reference works: PIR2 N 153; RE 17.899, no. 47 FURTHER READING Parke, H.W. 1988. Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity. New York: Routledge.

QUINTILIUS VARUS, PUBLIUS MEGAN M. DALY

University of Florida

Publius Quintilius Varus (consul 13 bce, d. 9 ce) was the commander of the three Roman legions destroyed during the Varian disaster in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 ce . His father, Sextus Quintilius Varus (quaestor 49 bce, d. 42 bce), had been pardoned by Iulius Caesar at Corfinium (Caes. B Civ. 1.23) but afterward traveled to Africa to try to get back troops that

c16_Vol2.indd 871

871

had gone over to Caesar’s side (Caes. B Civ. 2.28). He died after the Battle of Philippi, having one of his freedmen take his life (Vell. Pat. 2.71.3). Varus first comes to light as a quaestor around 23 bce (ILS 8812; Syme 1986, 313). At this time he accompanied Augustus as he traveled in the eastern empire. Varus secured politically advantageous marriages (as did his sisters, one of whom was married to Augustus’ nephew Sextus Appuleius, see Syme 1986, 315–317) which connected him to the imperial circle (Reinhold 1972). A papyrus of the funeral oration for Agrippa indicates that Varus was married to a daughter of Agrippa (Syme 1986, 313–314). Years later he married Claudia Pulchra, by whom he had a son, Quintilius Varus. This son was engaged to a daughter of Germanicus (Sen. Controv. 1.3.10) and was attacked with an accusation by Domitius Afer (A. 4.66). At some point he secured a priesthood (as pontifex or augur, ILS 88; Syme 1986, 318), then a consulship in 13 bce alongside Tiberius. Around 8 or 7 bce he was proconsul of Africa, then around 7–4 bce he was legate of Syria. Tacitus mentions the latter position briefly at H. 5.9. In this position he participated in the judgment of Antipater, son of Herod the Great, for plotting against his father (Joseph. AJ 17.89–93 AJ 17.131– 133, BJ 1.620). After the death of Herod, Varus became involved in the affairs of another son, Archelaus, and the succession of Herod’s kingdom (Joseph. AJ 17.221–222, AJ 17.303, BJ 2.16–18, BJ 2.80–83). Part of his forces put down an insurrection at Sepphoris, enslaving the inhabitants (Joseph. AJ 17.289, BJ 2.68), and he also burnt Emmaus (Joseph. AJ 17.291, BJ 2.71). He used legionary presence to calm the unrest in Jerusalem which had been exacerbated by the procurator Sabinus (Joseph. AJ 17.250–253, AJ 17.292–293, BJ 2.39–41, BJ 2.72–75), and around two thousand of those responsible for the disturbance were crucified (Joseph. AJ 17.295–296, BJ 2.75). This military activity is referred to as “the war of Varus” (Smallwood 1976, 113). Smallwood (1976, 113) praises Varus’ “military skill and efficiency” and Syme (1986, 323) his “promptitude and energy” during this time. Velleius writes that he left his legateship in Syria a richer man (Vell. Pat. 2.117.2).

28-04-2023 18:09:19

872  

Quirinus , Quirites

In 6 or 7 ce Varus was appointed consular legate in Germania. In his description Velleius downplays Varus’ military experience and implies that Varus busied himself in Germania with legislating rather than campaigning (Vell. Pat. 2.117.2– 4). Cassius Dio writes that Varus tried to change the customs of the Germans to the Roman ways too quickly and also exacted too much money from them (Cass. Dio 56.18.3–4). In 9 ce Varus and his three legions were attacked by Arminius and a force of German fighters. The three legions suffered heavy losses and Varus killed himself. Velleius Paterculus attributes this disaster to Varus’ negligence and bad fate, as well as the treachery of the Germans (Vell. Pat. 2.119.2). Suetonius (Aug. 23) and Cassius Dio (56.23.1– 56.24.5) report Augustus’ reaction and great distress to the disaster. In the works of Tacitus Varus is usually mentioned in the context of Germanicus’ campaigns. At A. 1.61–62, Germanicus and his troops come across the battlefield and bury remains of the slain soldiers of Varus. At A. 1.65 Caecina Severus dreams about a bloody Varus calling out from the swamps the night before a battle, and during that battle, Arminius uses Varus’ name to inspire his men to attack. Throughout his campaigns Germanicus comes across spoils and standards that were lost by Varus (A. 1.57, A. 1.60, A. 2.25), which is celebrated with the dedication of an arch located near the Temple of Saturn (A. 2.41). Reference works: PIR2 Q 29; PIR2 Q 30; ILS 88; ILS 8812; BNP Q. Varus, Sex. [I 3]; BNP P. Q. Varus [II 7]; BNP Q. Varus [II 8]

QUIRINUS, QUIRITES JULIA MEBANE

Indiana University, Bloomington

Quirinus is a god that the Romans believed to be Sabine in origin and to whom Romulus was assimilated. Often appearing as part of a triad with Jupiter and Mars, he had a flamen appointed for his worship and a festival, the Quirinalia, celebrated on 17 February (Ov. Fast. 2.475–80). Quirinus’ religious function is debated, but his rites approximate those of Mars. According to the influential interpretation of Dumézil, he represents a god of “organized social totality” and stands for the Roman citizenry as a whole. Quirinus appears three times in Tacitus’ works: as an alternative name for Romulus (A. 4.38), in a dispute over whether flamines could leave Italy (A. 3.58), and in a prayer delivered by Gaius Dillius Vocula during the Batavian Revolt (H. 4.58). Quirites is a term that designates the Roman citizenry. Kretschmer (1919) argues that its etymology derives from co-uiri-um, “assembly of men,” though this derivation is not certain. Initially used to refer to Sabines from the town of Cures, Quirites became a signifier of Roman citizenship more generally (Ov. Fast. 2.475–80). It was often used to distinguish the civil community (Quirites) from the army (milites). This is how the term appears in its sole usage in Tacitus. Speaking to his troops, Germanicus recalls how Iulius Caesar put down a mutiny by addressing his soldiers as Quirites (A. 1.41). see also: Flamen Dialis

REFERENCES

REFERENCES

Reinhold, Meyer. 1972. “Marcus Agrippa’s Son-in-Law P. Quinctilius Varus.” Classical Philology 67: 119–121. Smallwood, E. Mary. 1976. The Jews under Roman Rule. Leiden: Brill. Syme, Ronald. 1986. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kretschmer, Paul. 1919. “Lat. quirites und quiritare.” Glotta 10.3: 147–157.

QUINTILIUS VARUS, see QUINTILIUS VARUS, PUBLIUS QUINTIUS CERTUS, see PICARIUS DECUMUS

c16_Vol2.indd 872

FURTHER READING Dumézil, Georges. 1941. Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus: essai sur la conception indo-européene de la souveraineté et sur les origins de Rome. Paris: Gallimard. Scott, Kenneth. 1925. “The Identification of Augustus with Romulus-Quirinus.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 56: 82–105.

28-04-2023 18:09:19

R RADAMISTUS VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Radamistus (d. 58 ce) was the son of Pharas­ manes king of Iberia and nephew of Mithri­ dates Hiberus. Radamistus invaded Armenia and briefly ruled from 51–53, 54–55 ce (A. 12.44– 51). Driven back to Iberia (A. 13.6), he was put to death as a traitor in 58 ce (A. 13.37). His wife Zenobia survived him. According to Tacitus, because Pharasmanes suspected his son Radamistus of having designs on the throne, he sent Radamistus to the court of his uncle Mithridates, a despot already unpopular with his subjects, on a ruse. Radamistus was to feign disaffection with his father and convince his uncle to revolt against Iberia (A. 12.44). Radamistus returned to his father, who provided him forces to invade. Mithridates was besieged at Gorneae, defended by Roman forces under the command of Caelius Pollio and Casperius, who, refusing a bribe from Radamistus, arranged for a truce (A. 12.45). Mithridates met Radamistus in a grove where they were to perform a ritual for alliance, but Radamistus tricked Mithridates and had him killed (A. 12.46–47). Claudius ordered Pharasmanes and Radamis­ tus to quit Armenia. Iulius Paelignus, governor of nearby Cappadocia, assembled forces to assist, but in fact plundered allies more than enemies and urged Radamistus to stay in Armenia. Helvidius Priscus was sent to restore  order; he  returned

immediately to Syria to avert e­ scalating conflict with Parthia (A. 12.48–49). Vologaeses, King of Parthia, saw an opportu­ nity to invade Armenia, but he abandoned the attempt due to inadequate provisions. Radamistus thus invaded again, but the Armenians defended themselves and drove him off with his wife Zenobia. Vologaeses established his brother Tiridates as king of Armenia (A. 12.51, 50). Radamistus’ usurpation and demise is but one episode in the protracted struggle for power bet­ ween Parthia and Rome, in which Armenia is a buffer state, subject to proxy wars. Tacitus also suggests the intrigues of the Artaxiad dynasty parallel those of the Julio-Claudians, especially in the relationship between uncle and nephew. The corruption of lower ranking Roman military offi­ cers contrasts with the behavior of Helvidius, whose presence spans the works of Tacitus, from the beginning of the Agricola to the final para­ graph of the extant Annals. Radamistus and Zenobia are the subjects of operas of the seventeenth and eighteenth ­centuries; Handel’s Radamisto was an immediate success on its premiere in 1720 and enjoyed nine more per­ formances. Radamistus and Zenobia also inspired oil paintings of the nineteenth century by Italian and French painters. Given that Tacitus is our only extant Greco-Roman source, we can only assume that these artists read the Annals. see also: Arsacid dynasty; reception, opera; reception, visual arts; Ummidius Quadratus Reference work: PIR2 R 7

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume II, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c17_Vol2.indd 873

28­04­2023 18:08:58

874

  R aetia

FURTHER READING Braund, D. 1994. Georgia in Antiquity. A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia 550 bc–ad 562. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bucciarelli, Melania. 1998. “Radamisto’s Theatrical Sources and their Influence on Handel’s Creative Process.” Göttinger Händel-Beiträge 7: 119–142. Dąbrowa, E. 1989. “Roman Policy in Transcaucasia from Pompey to Domitian.” In The Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire, edited by D. H. French and C. S. Lightfoot, 67–76. BAR 553. Part 1. Oxford: British Institute of Archaeology. Dean, Winton, and John Merrill Knapp. 1987. Handel’s Operas, 1704–1726. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 324–367. Keitel, E. 1978. “The Role of Parthia and Armenia in Tacitus Annals 11 and 12.” American Journal of Philology 99.4: 462–473. Landgraf, Annette and David Vickers. 2009. The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 517–519. Suerbaum, Werner. 2014. “Das Schicksal der armenischen Prinzessin Zenobia um 54 n. Chr.: Tötung auf Verlangen durch den Gatten Radamistus, Rettung durch den edlen Feind.” Antike und Abendland 60.1: 152–174.

RAETIA TRUDY HARRINGTON BECKER

Virginia Tech

Raetia became a Roman province in 15 bce after its conquest by Drusus the Elder and Tiberius. Encompassing roughly modern central and east­ ern Switzerland, southern Bavaria, and parts of Tyrol, Raetia’s ancient capital was Augusta Vindelicorum (modern Augsburg, Germany), likely the “most splendid colony” mentioned at G. 41. The Rhine (Rhenus) and Danube (Danuvius) served as borders, at least to separate Raetians from Germany (G. 1.1), and the limes, a long line of manmade fortifications, bridged the gaps bet­ ween these rivers. Indeed, Tacitus posits the source of the Rhine in a “remote and precipitous peak” (G. 1) in the Raetian Alps. Tacitus notes the possible presence of monuments and funerary barrows with Greek lettering along the Raetian borders, though he declined to support or refute such assertations (G. 3.3).

c17_Vol2.indd 874

In the Histories, the Raetians appear in engage­ ments chiefly on the side of Vitellius. They defeated the Helvetii alongside the army of Caecina Alienus in H. 1.68 when the Helvetii had refused to acknowledge Vitellius, shortly after the death of Galba. Later, when Antonius Primus sought to move his Flavian army through Italy, he was forced to divert troops to the Raetian border because Porcius Septiminus (H. 3.5, oth­ erwise unattested), the governor of Raetia, remained loyal to Vitellius. Elsewhere in the Histories, the Raetians primarily feature as a threat to Antonius’ army (e.g., H. 3.15 and 3.53). Lastly, in H. 5.25, the Raetians serve, in the mouths of the Batavians, as an example of the burdens that Roman allies bear. In few appearances in the Annals the Raetians appear as Roman allies. After unrest in Germanicus’ camp and the departure of Agrippina the Elder in 14 ce, veteran soldiers are sent away to Raetia, ostensibly for defense of the province against the threat of Suebi but also to remove them from a camp that still inspired horror (A. 1.44). Later, in 16 ce Raetian cohorts band together with Vindeli­ can and Gallic cohorts against Arminius and the Cherusci (A. 2.17). see also: Batavian Revolt; civil wars of 69 ce; provinces RAMSES, see EGYPT

RAVENNA VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

Ravenna (modern Ravenna) was a city of the Padus delta on the Adriatic Sea. Etruscan in origin, it became an allied community (civitas foederata, Cic. Balb. 50) in the late third century bce and an important port in Cisalpine Gaul. Ravenna obtained citizenship from Iulius Caesar in 49 bce. Augustus built the Fossa Augusta to connect Ravenna to the port of Classis (modern Classe); Ravenna thus became the base of the Roman Adriatic fleet. Claudius built a lav­ ish gate and Nero further invested in public

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , antiquity  

works in Ravenna. In his overview of the empire at A. 4.5, Tacitus states that “Italy on both seas was guarded by fleets, at Misenum and at Ravenna.” Upon the death of Nero, the fleet at Ravenna declared for Vitellius, who named Lucilius Bassus commander (H. 2.100), succeeded briefly by Cornelius Fuscus, who was chosen by the marines of the fleet in preference to Bassus, who eventually led a defection of the fleet to Vespasian (H. 3.6). The loss of the fleet at Ravenna was a blow to Vitellius and a turning point in Vespasian’s victory. Reference work: Barrington 40 C4; 1 F2 FURTHER READING David, Massimiliano. 2013. Eternal Ravenna: From the Etruscans to the Venetians. Turnhout: Brepols.

RECEPTION, ANTIQUITY CLAUDIO BUONGIOVANNI

Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”

Tacitus’ reception in antiquity stands out as an enlightening example of changes in judgment and authoritativeness of classical authors caused by the different tastes and cultural trends of different historical eras with their peculiar political, insti­ tutional, and social features. It is known, indeed, that Tacitus did not enjoy an extraordinary suc­ cess in the ancient world and above all that his works hadn’t a circulation comparable to those of other authors, such as Virgil, Cicero, Livy, or Sallust. Concrete evidence of this particular unfortunate condition can be inferred from the Tacitean manuscript tradition, that, both for major and minor works, despite some difference, is mainly a codex unicus (“single manuscript”) tra­ dition. The main reason why Tacitus, apart from occasional traces in pagan and Christian litera­ ture, actually disappeared during late antiquity (and even more throughout the Middle Ages up to beginnings of the Renaissance) is that he was not a school author, therefore he was summarily known to the well-educated intellectual groups and almost totally unknown to a wider reader­ ship. So, it’s no wonder if Tacitus is absent from

c17_Vol2.indd 875

875

the grammarians’ works and the late-antique commentaries (except for a quotation in Servius’ commentary on Aeneid 3. 399) and if his language and style never became a model of Latin prose. Furthermore, several factors did not allow Tacitus and his work to gain a great success in antiquity: the biographical path followed by Latin historiography during the imperial age, due to the influence of Suetonius’ Life of Caesars; the reli­ gious conviction, if not a kind of anathema, that Tacitus received from Tertullian because of the excursus on the Jews in the fifth book of the Histories (see below). Moreover, it is possible that Tacitus’ hard criticism of the principate and imperial court didn’t arouse the favor or the approval of the emperors and of the imperial leadership, with unfavorable consequences on the circulation of Tacitus’ work. It is very unlikely that the work of the historian had not a wide reader­ ship due to the language and style complexity; Sallust and Livy were not much easier to under­ stand than Tacitus, yet their works were read and had a wide circulation, especially because Sallust and Livy were school models. At any rate, despite such misfortune in the fol­ lowing centuries, Tacitus had a social, political, and intellectual prestige among his contempo­ raries. He was indeed a very famous orator and historian, as testified by the words of praise of his friend Pliny the Younger, probably the first traces of Tacitus’ ancient reception (it is not sure indeed, even though most likely, that Juvenal’s lines 7, 98–104 and 2, 99–109 also referred to Tacitus’ work, especially to the Histories; see Keane). In Ep. 9.23 Pliny shows his pleasure (voluptas) at being compared to Tacitus’ literary renown by his contemporaries, while in Ep. 7.33 he feels confident that Tacitus’ Histories will be immortal. Pliny’s words, although shaped with a flattering tone, seem to be sincere and indicative of a real and widespread opinion. The same judg­ ment on the Histories’ immortality appears in the first of the two famous epistles (6.16; 6.20) that Pliny wrote to Tacitus to satisfy the request of a precious source on the eruption of Vesuvius and the death of Pliny the Elder in 79 ce. Nevertheless, the favorable stream did not last very long for Tacitus’ work after his lifetime; thus, despite some possible presence of Tacitus as a

28­04­2023 18:08:58

876

  reception , early modern to the eighteenth century

source of Greek and Latin authors such as Cassius Dio, Plutarch, and Florus, the next explicit, and heavily negative mention of Tacitus is recorded at the end of the second century ce in Tertullian’s Apologeticum, where the historian is defined with certain contempt as mendaciorum loquacissimus (“a very loquacious liar”), since he was, according to Tertullian, responsible for a religious misunderstanding and for an inappropriate attri­ bution to Christians of a Jewish cultural belief (see Tertullian, Apologeticum 16). The heavy condem­ nation of Tertullian seems to fix a turning point for a quick and progressive decline of Tacitus’ success. According to the words of Flavius Vopiscus in the Historia Augusta (Tacitus, 10.3), the emperor Claudius Tacitus (275–276 ce) not only “ordered to place in all the libraries Cornelius Tacitus, the historian of the imperial age, since he said the historian was his relative,” but also forced to commission at public expense ten copies of Tacitus’ works. Apart from the meaning of the expression Cornelium Tacitum… in omnibus bibliothecis conlocari iussit (“he ordered to place in all the libraries the work” or “the statue of Cornelius Tacitus”), these words seem to testify the need to encourage a wider knowledge and dissemination of Tacitus’ work in the second half of the third century ce. Between the fourth and the beginnings of the fifth centuries ce, Tacitus had an ephemeral, but significant renaissance as shown by Jerome (In Zachariam 3, 14), who refers to the A. and the H. as a corpus of triginta volumina (“thirty books,” eighteen for the A. and twelve for the H.), in which Tacitus described “the lives of the Caesars after Augustus up to Domitian’s death” (post Augustum usque ad mortem Domitiani vitas Caesarum triginta voluminibus exaravit). Thus, during late antiquity an edition of Tacitus including the two major works circulated. Therefore, for a brief period before the sunset of the ancient world and with an attention paid above all to the H., Tacitus became a source as well as a model of historio­ graphical theory both for Christian and pagan historians, such as Orosius, Sulpicius Severus, Aurelius Victor, and Ammianus Marcellinus, the so-called continuer of Tacitus’ historiography, or even for a poet like Ausonius (see his Tetrasticha, especially the lines on Galba). The

c17_Vol2.indd 876

presence of Tacitus in other authors of this time is possible, but not so sure. In fifth and sixth cen­ turies Sidonius Apollinaris knows Tacitus’ works, even the minor ones, although he calls him Gaius Tacitus, a mistake that prepares for the quidam Cornelius (“some Cornelius”) used by Cassiodorus referring to the author of the Germania, of which he quoted a famous passage on amber (G. 45). These are the early and explicit evidences of the lasting oblivion of Tacitus’ works throughout the whole Middle Ages, somehow announced by Ammianus’ failure to revive a Tacitean historio­ graphical tradition and by the favor gained by a more “Suetonian” and biographical historiog­ raphy, as clearly shown by the Historia Augusta and also by the pregnant definition of “Lives of Caesars” (vitae Caesarum) used by Jerome for the major works of Tacitus. see also: Christianity; scholarship, antiquity; manuscripts; reception, Renaissance FURTHER READING Cornelius, Emmerich. 1888. Quomodo Tacitus, historiarum scriptor, in hominum memoria versatus sit usque ad renascentes literas saeculis XIV et XV. Wetzlar: Ferd. Schnitzler. Keane, Catherine. 2012. “Historian and Satirist: Tacitus and Juvenal.” In Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 403–428. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Press. Ulery, Robert. W. 1986. “Tacitus.” In Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum, edited by E. Cranz and P. O. Kristeller, vol. 6, 89–120. Washington: Catholic University of America Press. Zecchini, Giuseppe. 1993. Ricerche di storiografia latina tardoantica. Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

RECEPTION, EARLY MODERN TO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MALI SKOTHEIM

Ashoka University

Tacitus was considered a minor author in the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. His

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , early modern to the eighteenth century  

works grew in popularity and influence in the late sixteenth century. Early modern interpreta­ tions of Tacitus revolved around two main ques­ tions. The first was whether or not Tacitus should be read as a proponent or a critic of monarchy. The second question concerned the perceived similitudo temporum (“similarity of the times”) between imperial Rome and early modern England and Continental Europe. Many political theorists in early modern Europe, particularly in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, read Tacitus’ Annals and Histories for advice for how monarchs should behave prudently, rather than as a critique of monarchy as a political system. In 1360, a partial copy of the Annals made its way to Florence, paving the way for a renewed interest in his work among Italian humanists, influencing works such as Leonardo Bruni’s Laudatio florentinae urbis (“Panegyric to the City of Florence” c. 1403–1404). Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) adopted Tacitus’ advice that men should want good princes, but tolerate bad ones (Discourses on Livy, 3.6, referring to H. 4.8). Similarly, rather than rejecting tyranny outright, Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540), in the Storia d’Italia (1530), adopted from Tacitus an understanding of ways in which subjects could live ethically under tyranny, such as by guiding the prudent tyrant to rule well (Gadja 2009, 257). Tacitus informed the early modern concept of the “reason of state,” referring to the reasoning by which rulers created stable governments. This became a defining feature of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Continental political thought. Giovanni Botero (1544–1617), in his Della Ragion di Stato (“The Reason of State,” 1589), suggested that Tacitus and Machiavelli offer similar advice to rulers about the ways in which they might gain and retain power. Traiano Boccalini (1556–1613) made Tacitus a character in his political satire Ragguagli di Parnasso (“News from Parnassus”). While Boccalini read Tacitus’ Annals as a critique of tyranny, he por­ trayed the character of Tacitus ruling the nation of Lesbos tyrannically, according to the “reason of state.” Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), whose 1574 edition of Tacitus sparked interest in his works,

c17_Vol2.indd 877

877

used Tacitean sententiae in his Politicorum sive civilis doctrinae libri sex (“Six Books of Politics or Civil Doctrine,” 1589). Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) saw parallels between the corruption of the Roman state in Tacitus and that of sixteenth century France (Kapust 2012, 510). Not everyone agreed on the applicability of Tacitus to the modern state. In 1580, MarcAntoine Muret (1526–1585) argued that con­ temporary monarchies were not the same as those to be found in Tacitus in series of lectures on Tacitus, delivered in Rome. In the preface of his edition of Polybius (1609), Isaac Casaubon (1559– 1614) argued against reading Tacitus as relevant to contemporary life under monarchs (Salmon 1989, 201). In late sixteenth and early seventeenth century England, Tacitus, along with other Roman histo­ rians, informed a discussion about freedom and slavery under monarchy. English readers often encountered Tacitus through the translations of Continental political theorists, such as Guicciardini, Lipsius, Boccalini, and Montaigne (Tenney 1941). In Jacobean England, Tacitus and Seneca became popular as proponents of Stoicism, influenced by Justus Lipsius’ works. Francis Bacon relied on Tacitus and Guicciardini for the composition of History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh. Robert Devereux (1565–1601), 2nd Earl of Essex, encouraged the study of Tacitus among the scholars in his circle, including Sir Henry Savile (1549–1622) and Francis Bacon (1561–1626). In Renaissance Germany, Tacitus’ Germania became central to the construction of German ethnic identity, as the simplicity of the ancient German peoples described in Tacitus was cham­ pioned over the corruption exhibited by the ancient Romans (Johnson 2009; Krebs 2011). In the eighteenth century, Tacitus was influen­ tial in the Scottish and French Enlightenment, and in the work of Gibbon. David Hume (1711– 1776) used Tacitus to critique arbitrary power (Kapust 2012, 515). Tacitus was much read and referred to by thinkers during the French Revolution, including Montesquieu (1689–1755) and Rousseau (1712–1788). In his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1789), Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) used Tacitus’ analysis of the

28­04­2023 18:08:58

878

  reception , eighteenth century

flaws of Roman imperial government to advise English and European leaders on how to avoid the decline and fall that Rome had experienced (Quinn 1984). Tacitus also made his mark on the arts in the early modern period. The great English play­ wright Ben Jonson (1572–1637) drew upon Tacitus’ portrayal of Sejanus’ character for his play Sejanus His Fall (1603). After being accused of referring to contemporary English political affairs in the play, Jonson published an edition with citations of the ancient authors he had drawn upon for its composition, including Tacitus (Salmon 1989, 219). Political theory formed in response to Tacitus, as well as Tacitus’ Dialogue on Oratory, also influenced late sixteenth- and seven­ teenth-century Italian opera (Cohen 2017, 26–32). see also: manuscripts; reception, opera; Tacitism; translations REFERENCES Cohen, Mitchell. 2017. The Politics of Opera: A History from Monteverdi to Mozart. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gadja, Alexandra. 2009. “Tacitus and Political Thought in Early Modern Europe, c. 1530-c. 1640.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 253–268. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson, Christine R. 2009. “Creating a Usable Past: Vernacular Roman Histories in Renaissance Germany.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 40: 1069–1090. Kapust, Daniel. 2012. “Tacitus and Political Thought.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Emma Pagán, 504–528. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Krebs, Christopher. 2011. A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. New York: Norton. Quinn, Arthur. 1984. “‘Mediating Tacitus’: Gibbon’s Adaptation to an Eighteenth-Century Audience.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70: 53–68. Salmon, J. H. M. 1989. “Stoicism and Roman Example: Seneca and Tacitus in Jacobean England.” Journal of the History of Ideas 50: 199–225. DOI: 10.2307/2709732. Tenney, Mary F. 1941. “Tacitus in the Politics of Early Stuart England.” Classical Journal 37: 151–163.

c17_Vol2.indd 878

FURTHER READING Burke, Peter. 1969. “Tacitism.” In Tacitus, edited by T. A. Dorey, 149–171. London: Routledge. Schellhase, Kenneth C. 1976. Tacitus in Renaissance Political Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

RECEPTION, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY RONALD MELLOR

University of California, Los Angeles

Eighteenth century France is commonly regarded as the height of European rationalism as histo­ rians and philosophers created what we now call the “Enlightenment.” Then too the opinion of Tacitus varied—distrust of his historical inaccu­ racies combined with admiration for his wit, political acumen, and moral passion. The ratio­ nalist philosopher Pierre Bayle (1647–1708) in his Dictionnaire Historique called the Annals “one of the greatest efforts of the Humane Mind” in which Tacitus reveals the disguises and decep­ tions of politicians. But elsewhere Bayle com­ plains about the obscurity of Tacitus’ prose style (Bayle 1697). Voltaire (1694–1778) is likewise conflicted about Tacitus; he disliked his praise of the Germans yet regarded him as “a satirist sparkling with wit.” He claimed to have learned little from him: “Tacitus, he amuses me, and Livy instructs me” (Voltaire’s Correspondence no. 14202). Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (1689–1755) studied Tacitus in his quest for an understanding of natural law and political morality. In his Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline (1734), he followed Tacitus in seeking moral causes for social and political change. With failing eyesight Montesquieu used teams of secretaries for the prodigious research required for his mas­ terpiece, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), which cited Tacitus more than any other author: “Tacitus summarized everything because he saw every­ thing” (Montesquieu 1989, 30.2). He analyzed the forms of government (republic, based on virtue; Monarchy, based on honor; Tyranny, based on fear), and using Tacitus developed his theory of

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , eighteenth century  

the separation of powers which had so much influence on his readers in colonial America. Montesquieu condemned tyranny, slavery, and intolerance, while championing the inherent dig­ nity of man. He drew his idea of the English constitution from Tacitus’ portrait of popular freedom in the forests of Germany. The Spirit of the Laws became the central philosophical text of the French Enlightenment and was unsurpris­ ingly placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books. Tacitus wished to make history the conscience of mankind, and his writings became paramount in the pre-revolutionary climate of late eighteenth century France. Children, taught to believe that history was a teacher, read Tacitus’ histories at school. The great thinkers of the Enlightenment even devoted much time to translating him into French. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) translated the first book of the Histories; he admired the historian as an oratorical stylist, and he and his contemporaries regarded both Tacitus and Machiavelli as republicans. The Encyclopédie made considerable use of Tacitus, either directly or indirectly, as in the article “Lèse Majesté” which virtually copies Montesquieu’s Tacitean pages. Denis Diderot (1713–1787), the co-editor of the Encyclopédie with Jean D’Alembert (1717–1783), valued the Roman as a political thinker and a hater of tyrants, though his translation empha­ sized Tacitean drama. But Diderot was also aware of the danger inherent in these texts; they could be used by tyrants as well: “Distrust a ruler who knows by heart Aristotle, Tacitus, Machiavelli and Montesquieu”(Von Stackelberg 1960, 233). If Rousseau showed Tacitus the orator and Diderot Tacitus the dramatist, D’Alembert’s Morceaux Choisis from Histories Book 1 smoothed the roughness of Tacitean style to make him more appealing to the wider reading public. But the asperity of the historian’s style did not easily fit into the language of the eighteenth century salon (Von Stackelberg 1958). The French Revolution was a Tacitean moment: a passion for freedom acted out in great dramatic tableaux. The revolutionaries conveniently forgot Tacitus’ equal contempt for rampaging mobs as for cruel emperors; he became one of the authors most cited in debates and the revolutionary press

c17_Vol2.indd 879

879

(Parker 1937, 18). The mood is expressed by the poet Marie-Joseph Chenier—not his more famous brother André—in a letter to Voltaire where he says that Tacitus’ very name “makes tyrants grow pale.” He wrote a play Tibère and called the historian “the conscience of the human race.” When Madame Roland read the Annals in prison during the Terror, she wrote in her Memoires that the reign of Tiberius with its informers had returned (Von Stackelberg 1960, 238). As she was led to the guillotine, she bowed to the stature of Liberty and uttered her most famous line: “Oh Liberty, what crimes are com­ mitted in your name!” Camille Desmoulins, a radical antimonarchist journalist who had led the storming of the Bastille, used Tacitus again and again to protest the Terror (Parker 1937, 148). His journal printed transla­ tions of Tacitus as an attack on the Committee of Public Safety and he found Tiberius and Nero more merciful than the Jacobin faction of Robespierre. Desmoulins’ journal was burned and he was executed, presumably to teach men not to go searching in ancient historians for lessons of mercy. The men and women of the Revolution, like Tacitus, trusted to history to vin­ dicate them and indict their adversaries, be they Bourbons, Jacobins, or Bonapartists. At least two absolute rulers of the late eigh­ teenth century had indeed read Tacitus— Catherine of Russia and Napoleon Bonaparte. During her confinement after childbirth in 1754, the Russian empress Catherine the Great (ruled 1762–1793) read and reread Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Tacitus (probably in French) and as a result, spent weeks in bed in depression. She confided to her diary: “I read through the Annals of Tacitus, which brought about a most uncommon disturbance in my head, which was in no small measure aggravated by my downcast disposition at the time. I began to view many things in a black light and began to scrutinize whatever met my gaze for deeper, underlying causes” (Kahn 1993, 758).

Two decades later she advised her estranged lover Peter Zavadovskii to remain at his Ukranian estate and “translate Tacitus or read Russian his­ tory,” though she prudently prevented any

28­04­2023 18:08:58

880

  reception , eighteenth century

published translations of Tacitus from reaching the wider Russian public. In England the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 found both the more liberal Whigs (who promoted that “revolution” to consti­ tutional monarchy) and the conservative Tories using Tacitus in the struggle to find a constitu­ tional balance between the crown, the lords, and the commons. The Tory John Dryden (1631– 1700) served as Poet Laureate under the Stuart James II, but after he lost court patronage in 1688, he earned a living by translating Chaucer, Boccaccio, and most famously Vergil. His transla­ tion of Book I of the Annals was accompanied by historical notes and a commentary which were criticized by the Whigs (Dryden 1698). The Whigs admired Tacitus as an enemy of tyr­ anny; “a penetrating genius” in the words of the Scottish philosopher David Hume. The barrister Thomas Gordon (1695–1750) produced a Whig version of Tacitus with accompanying essays; it became the standard translation in the eighteenth century and was popular in the American col­ onies for its sharp criticism of monarchy in Gordon’s accompanying essays. Tacitus was seen as more overtly hostile to Augustus. Gordon criti­ cized Horace and Vergil as men born under the free Roman Republic who had sold their integrity for Augustus’ patronage. Whigs, like Tacitus (H. 1.1), believed that the arts could only flourish in a free state. In the “newspaper wars” between the sup­ porters of the Whig prime minister Robert Walpole and the Tory leader Lord Bolingbroke, both sides tried to appropriate Tacitus. The Tories compared Walpole’s Licensing Act of 1737 (which imposed theatrical censorship to prevent satirical performances) to the Roman lex maiestatis, which Tiberius used in his suppression of the historian Cremutius Cordus in A. 4.34–35. The Prime Minister was cast as an autocratic tyrant. Thus Bolingbroke, in one of the most quoted epigrams of the eighteenth century said that “History is phi­ losophy teaching by examples” (Weinbrot 1980, 181). In their turn, Whig writers had found in the Germania indications that the Saxon “witan” was a prototype of the English Parliament and thus gave additional ancient authority for a restricted monarchy. The English liked to oppose this

c17_Vol2.indd 880

“northern” political freedom found in Tacitus’ Germania and England after 1688 to the tyranny of Bourbon France, papal Italy, or Julio-Claudian Rome. The London theater saw an Arminius and a Boadicea appear on stage using the words Tacitus originally gave to the heroic Scot Calgacus in the Agricola where he delivered a splendid indict­ ment of imperialism and tyranny. Such speeches cast no aspersions, of course, on Britain’s own Empire; Tacitus had been domesticated as an Englishman, and a Whig at that. In contrast, the Tory Thomas Hunter (1712–1777) wrote in his Observations on Tacitus (1752) that “Tacitus is not a just Writer, though we allow him a great Wit. He is void of Candour, wants Judgment, exceeds Nature, and violates Truth.” Hunter criticized Tacitus for his style, his political irreverence, and especially for his hostility to religion. He com­ pared him unfavorably to Livy. The greatest historian of the age was a Whig whose model of a philosophical historian was Tacitus. Though Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in elegant periodic prose rather than Tacitus’ harsh brevity, the pithy maxims, and his mordant irony give a Tacitean tone to this 3,000-page his­ tory. His admiration and regard—as when he says, “it would require the pen of a Tacitus…”— went far beyond matters of style, for they shared a determination to explain the reality beneath superficial appearances (Gibbon, volume 1, page 61 in Bury edition). Tacitus had earlier excited the genius of Montesquieu, and both remained Gibbon’s great heroes. These philosophical histo­ rians had sought to discover moral causes just as Gibbon sought to describe the hidden corruption both in the Roman and Byzantine Empires and in the Christian Church. Gibbon began his history with the “Good Emperors” of the second century ce in order to introduce his readers to the greatness of Rome and deepen the horror of its corruption and decline. Though Gibbon thus does not overlap Tacitus’ account of the first century emperors, he did paraphrase and adapt Tacitus’ thumbnail sketch of the fall of the republic (A. 1.2) in the third chapter of Decline and Fall. Even Gibbon’s erstwhile fiancée, Suzanne Curchod—later the

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , eighteenth century  

mother of Mme. de Staël—called Tacitus the model and perhaps the source of much of Gibbon’s book. Later in life Gibbon regretted hav­ ing begun his history in the “happiest age”; the evils of the empire would have been clearer if he had begun where Tacitus had, with the tyranny of Tiberius or the civil wars of 69 ce. Despite Gibbon’s usual Olympian detachment, he dis­ plays burning Tacitean anger in his blistering cri­ tique of the Christian Church in chapters XV–XVI. He shared with his Roman master the ability to draw scathing portraits of his charac­ ters—actors might be a better word for the theatrical personalities created by both these his­ torians. The first volume was published in 1776, an extraordinary year for rational discourse which saw the appearance of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. All three authors were careful readers of Tacitus. Far from London in the seemingly intellectual backwater of Naples, the philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) drew on local traditions of jurisprudence and philosophy to examine natural law in his quest for a New Science of politics. Through his study of Francis Bacon, Vico redis­ covered Tacitus who was by then ignored in Italy. He found in Tacitus (whom he cited over sixty times) the empirical basis for his New Science (1725), and his work attempts a synthesis of Plato and Tacitus: “With an incomparable metaphysical mind, Tacitus contemplates man as he is, Plato as he should be” (Vico 1984). Vico saw in Tacitus’ account of the last days of Augustus and of the transfer of power to Tiberius a warning: how free republics can become kingdoms. The philosopher used Tacitus and the scholarship on him to for­ mulate his large generalizations on the nature of history, as when he saw that Tacitus could lead the reader from the “Culture” of civilized Rome to the “Nature” of the Germanic tribes. Vico was, and remains, an obscure and difficult genius, but he (along with Montesquieu) reinvested Tacitus with political importance. Revolutionaries across the Atlantic looked to Tacitus for inspiration, especially using the trans­ lation of Thomas Gordon. In America young Benjamin Franklin had little Latin before he began, at age sixteen, his discussion of free speech

c17_Vol2.indd 881

881

in his Dogwood Papers, for which he had probably read Tacitus in English translation. Franklin did master Latin later in life so that he could teach it to his son. Much later, on 4 July 1776, at the sign­ ing of the Declaration of Independence, Franklin drew on Tacitus in his famous bon mot made to John Hancock: “We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately” (Ag. 12: “As long as they fought separately, they were conquered together”). Tacitus’ hostility to tyranny, his irreverent wit, and his moral outrage appealed to the colonists in their struggle against the British crown. see also: reception, early modern to the eighteenth century; translations REFERENCES Bayle, P. 1697. Dictionnaire historique et critique. Translated into English in 1710. London. Besterman, T., ed. 1961. Voltaire’s Correspondence. Vol. 69. Geneva: University of Toronto Press. p. 286. Dryden, John. 1698. The Annals and History of Cornelius Tacitus, Translated by Different Hands. Tacitus Book I by John Dryden. London: Matthew Gillyflower. Gibbon, Edward. 1897–1900. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edited by J. B. Bury in seven volumes. London: Methuen & Co. Kahn, A. 1993. “Readings of Imperial Rome from Lomonsov to Pushkin.” Slavic Review 52: 745–768. Montesquieu, C. de. 1989. The Spirit of the Laws. Translated and edited by A. Cohler, B. Miller, and H. Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker, H. 1937. The Cult of Antiquity and the French Révolutionaires. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Von Stackelberg, J. 1958. “Rousseau, d’Alembert et Diderot, traducteurs do Tacite.” Studi francesi II: 395–407. Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale. Von Stackelberg, J. 1960. Tacitus in der Romania. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Vico, Giambattista. 1984. The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Translated by T. Bergin and M. Frisch. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Weinbrot, H. 1980. Augustus Caesar in Augustan England. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

28­04­2023 18:08:58

882

  reception , film

FURTHER READING Bowersock, G. W., J. Clive, and S. Graubard, eds. 1977. Edward Gibbon and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mellor, Ronald. 1995. Tacitus: The Classical Heritage. New York: Garland Publishing. This volume contains excerpts in English of all eighteenthcentury authors in the essay. Ranum, O. 1980 “D’Alembert, Tacitus, and the Political Sociology of Despotism.” Transactions of the Fifth International Congress of the Enlightenment, vol. II: Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. Volpilhac-Auger, C. 1985. Tacitus et Montesquieu. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.

RECEPTION, FILM JONATHAN SCOTT PERRY

University of South Florida

Tacitus could be described as a distinctly and nat­ urally “cinematic” writer. His narrative offers composed shots of carefully arranged faces in close-up (e.g., the senators whose visages “blend tears and joy, grief and groveling” at Augustus’ death, A. 1.7), as well as framed scenes that reveal the reality behind the appearance of things (e.g., Agrippina the Younger’s being stationed behind a curtain when Claudius receives a dip­ lomatic delegation, A. 13.5). The full sequence of Nero’s murder of his mother (A. 14.2–8) provides a wealth of suggested views, centered upon Nero’s own sightline from the shore: watching his moth­ er’s barge collapse in long-shot, perhaps a solitary tear would trickle down his cheek? None of these scenes has yet been filmed in the past century of the medium, but many others have. No films have yet featured scenes derived from the Agricola, Germania, Dialogus, or Histories, but the made-for-television mini-series Masada (1981) does include a brief appearance by Timothy West as Vespasian. The main source for this film, retelling the story of mass suicide by Jewish rebels atop an impenetrable fortress in 73 ce, is Josephus’ The Jewish War (7.389–406). Nevertheless, Vespasian’s calm and comprehensive

c17_Vol2.indd 882

view of the situation seems to justify a Roman general’s claim that “he is the best man to hold the position [of emperor] in a hundred years.” The situation for the Annals is rather different, since several films—generally of a very high quality—have clearly drawn inspiration from Tacitus’ narrative, especially from his coverage of Nero’s reign. Pride of place in this regard must go to the brilliant BBC adaptation of Robert Graves’ novels I, Claudius (1934) and Claudius the God (1935) for television in 1976. An immediate hit in both the UK and the US, I, Claudius boasted an acerbic and lively script composed by Jack Pulman and a host of scene-stealing acting performances by a bevy of accomplished theater actors, the most wonderful of which was the villainess in the piece,  Siân Phillips, as the (multiple) murderess Livia  Augusta. Phillips later admitted that she channeled the sensibilities of a Mafia family, or at least what one would imagine a Mafia family to be, in the wake of the Godfather films. The film, spread over twelve hour-long epi­ sodes, covers the history of the Julio-Claudian dynasty—or rather the history that “Claudius” could have witnessed, or worked out on his own, as per the novels’ premise—from the 20s bce through Claudius’ death in 54 ce. Suetonius’ biographies (particularly of Caligula) stand behind significant portions of both the novels and the film, but there are several scenes, scattered throughout the series, that could only have been derived from Tacitus. Among these are, from Episode 4 the swirling rumors (or Tacitean innu­ endo) concerning Livia’s role in Augustus’ death and “the first crime of the new regime” with the murder of Agrippa Postumus (A. 1.6). While the details of Sejanus’ fall are lost in the extant por­ tions of the Annals, its aftermath—and the brutal treatment of his children—owe much to A. [5] 6–9. (Episodes 6 and 7 also feature a hirsute Patrick Stewart as Sejanus—years before he would take on his most famous role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise.) Nonetheless, it is probably in Episodes 11 and 12 (“A God in Colchester” and “Old King Log”) that the debt to Tacitus is most detectable. As in Tacitus, Messalina and Agrippina the Younger are here depicted as very different types of women: the former driven by sensual lust and

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , film  

unquenchable desire for the newest thrill, while Agrippina is motivated solely by power and ambi­ tion for her equally loathsome son Nero. Tacitus developed this contrast in A. 12.7, and the film indicates that Claudius had learned from the death of Messalina (and his betrayal by Herod Agrippa) to trust no one, no matter how beloved they may be. In the film as in A. 12.33–38, the Briton Caratacus demonstrates nobility of purpose and concern for his people, a fact that is contrasted, as often in Tacitus, with the decadent, amoral senatorial aristocracy. Tacitus’ account of Nero’s reign, and especially his narrative of the Fire of 64 ce and the con­ comitant persecution of Christians, provided a sufficiently dramatic story for a host of novels, stage plays, and, eventually, films. Around 1894, the strongly nationalistic and Catholic Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz turned his hand to a lengthy treatment of Christians and non-Chris­ tians in Rome in the 60s, serialized his book in a Polish magazine, and then published it in book form in 1896. The Polish origin of the book is reflected in the name of its central female character, Lygia, the Latin term for those who lived in what would become Poland. However, as copyright laws were virtually nonexistent in the late nineteenth century, several unauthorized (one might even call them plagiarized or boot­ legged) translations of the Polish original appeared in Western Europe and North America. The author’s work would eventually be recog­ nized, in the form of a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905 and, perhaps more significantly, in a plethora of adaptations and imitations. Among these was Wilson Barrett’s 1896 stage play The Sign of the Cross, and it is remarkable that, at roughly the same time Oscar Wilde’s com­ edies were scandalizing and yet entertaining great numbers of London’s theater goers, this melo­ drama attacked the cynicism and “corrupt” values of contemporary society. Barrett contrasted the simple faith of the Christians with the decadent values of Rome’s aristocrats, particularly Nero and his wife Poppaea Sabina the Younger, but the (fictitious) Roman general Marcus Superbus eventually chooses to die in the arena with Mercia, the Christian woman he has come to love. While the play had been filmed once before

c17_Vol2.indd 883

883

in the silent era (in 1914), Cecil B. DeMille hoped to offer a lavish historical epic in a sound version. The Depression had hit its nadir in the early 1930s, and DeMille later wrote that The Sign of the Cross (1932) was perfectly suited to its era, since in recent years, “The gods of materialism had failed.” Driven along by a witty and lively script, the film contains sly allusions to the current sports and entertainment culture, with arena attendees complaining about their seats and expecting ever more sumptuous spectacles for their amusement. As portrayed by Charles Laughton, Nero is a delightfully debauched mad­ man, and his conniving wife, played with wide-eyed seductiveness by Claudette Colbert, takes her famous asses’ milk bath with her breasts just covered by the “milk.” The drama opens with the burning of Rome, and with Charles Laughton’s delight in the progress of the flames, but the idea of blaming the fire on the Christians comes from Ofonius Tigellinus, the praetorian prefect who was rumored to have helped set and accelerate the fire (A. 15.38–40). Scenes from Quo Vadis? itself were filmed as silent productions in 1912 and 1925, and there were several aborted efforts to film it again in the late 1940s. When it appeared in 1951, Quo Vadis (shed of its question mark in the official title) would establish the entire genre of the epic Roman film for the next fifteen years. Best known today as the producer of The Wizard of Oz (1939), Mervyn LeRoy, a cousin of Cecil B. DeMille’s original business partner Jesse Lasky, directed, and he was given an enormous budget and per­ mission to film at Cinecittà, the studios once con­ trolled by the government of Fascist Italy. The most inspired piece of casting was Peter Ustinov, who, at twenty-nine years of age, was nearly the same age as the historical Nero in 64, and also resembled Nero’s coin portraits and statues. In his tantrums and rages—and in his deliberately poor singing—Ustinov captures the essence of Tacitus’ (and Suetonius’) image of the emperor. Nevertheless, the employment of an Oxford University–trained historical advisor also secured some degree of historical accuracy for the script. Hugh Gray reflected on his experiences in a delightful essay entitled “When in Rome…,” pub­ lished in a 1956 Hollywood Quarterly, although

28­04­2023 18:08:58

884

  reception , film

he focused more on the work habits and linguistic semantics of the Italian crew than on specific instances of his “advice.” Substantial portions of Sienkiewicz’s novel were cut for the screen adaptation, and specific elements were added from Tacitus to enhance the “authenticity” of the piece. Moreover, the film makes subtle and sophisticated allusions to the recent past, particu­ larly by linking Nero’s despotic regime to contem­ porary totalitarian regimes. Whether specifically alluding to Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and/or the Stalinist Soviet Union, Quo Vadis draws attention to the dangers of all megalomaniacal dictators. The pivotal series of scenes in the film chroni­ cles the great fire, and the sequence culminates in Nero’s quest for a suitable scapegoat, in order to deflect the rumor that he has set fire to the city to replace it with his own Neropolis. In a chilling moment, Nero declares that, when he is done with these Christians, “history will not be sure that they ever existed.” As the full horror of the Holocaust was beginning to be appreciated in the late 1940s, audiences would surely have recog­ nized the parallels between the persecution of Christians and the Nazi attempt to exterminate all of Europe’s Jews during the War. As the Christians are transformed into illuminated torches (A. 15.44), they continue to sing—providing an effec­ tive contrast with the execrable performances to which Nero has been subjecting the members of his inner circle. The revolt against Nero and his ignominious end are improperly placed at the film’s conclusion, instead of four years after the fire. However, his murder of Poppaea (in 65 ce, according to A. 16.6) and the presence of his former lover Acte at his death (Suetonius, Nero 50) have some histor­ ical basis. Nevertheless, the most effective use of Tacitus in Quo Vadis (1951) concerns the character of Gaius (not Titus, as in Tacitus) Petronius, Nero’s cynical Arbiter of Elegance, who plays a crucial part. Freely adapted from A. 16.18–19, a hilarious scene dramatizes Petronius’ suicide and his satirical farewell to Nero—though the insertion of a “weeping vase” in Nero’s reac­ tion to the event is something unique to this spectacle. The most successful of all the film adaptations of Tacitus—mainly because Annals 14.31–37

c17_Vol2.indd 884

provides the entirety of its source material—may be Warrior Queen (2003), a narrative of the life of the British rebel Boudicca. Created in the shadow of 9/11 and during the preparation and rapid implementation of the invasion plan for Iraq by the “Coalition of the Willing” in early 2003, Warrior Queen is, ultimately, a film about the consequences of imperialism and how one nation’s “terrorists” (a word used repeatedly in the script) can also be considered “defenders of their land.” According to Tacitus, Boudicca took command of her people, the Iceni, after the death of her husband Prasutagus and then, assisted by her two daughters, launched a revolt against Roman authority in 61 ce. The image of Boudicca in her war chariot has been and remains instantly recognizable in today’s UK, chiefly due to a remarkable statue alongside the Thames that was designed by the artist Thomas Thornycroft and installed in 1902. The statue appears at the conclusion of Warrior Queen, together with the suggestion that one of Boudicca’s daughters has now been resurrected and walks beside it in con­ temporary London, greeting the viewer with an enigmatic smile. According to Tacitus—whose father-in-law Agricola was later, of course, a governor in Britannia—the various peoples of Britain were reacting individually and resentfully to the inva­ sion of their island by Roman forces under Claudius in 43 ce. After a final battle against Boudicca—the general consensus of archaeolo­ gists is that it took place near Mancetter in the English Midlands—the Romans re-established control. They were now, however, forced to acknowledge that subduing an occupied enemy would be far more difficult than simply invading and declaring victory. The film begins with a voice-over prologue spoken by Boudicca, insisting that the Romans have come “to our land;” the next scene shows an attack on Roman forces (and specifically on the historically appropriate Fourteenth Legion) by British children. In negotiation with Prasutagus, a Roman diplomat labels the Britons’ resistance “cowardly terrorism,” which Prasutagus counters with, “We call it defending our home.” When, after her husband’s death, Boudicca travels to the Roman camp to implement the terms of his will, this same administrator emphasizes that hers is a

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , nineteenth century  

“subject people” whose “acts of terrorism” can no longer be tolerated. When she continues to defy him, he orders Boudicca to be whipped while wit­ nessing the rape of her daughters by a host of Roman soldiers. In the first stage of her revolt against the Romans, Boudicca launches the destruction of the Roman town Camulodunum, and her calm, effective leadership is contrasted with that of the rash youth Nero in Rome. In one of the few glimpses the film offers of the Romans’ side of the conflict—beyond the erratic megalomania of Nero—the governor Suetonius Paulinus asks, “Why are we here?” Eventually acknowledging that Boudicca is “a worthy opponent,” Suetonius and his Romans seem to find the Britons’ resistance heroic, if futile, and thus begin to doubt the wisdom of their occupation effort. A contrast of speeches by Boudicca and Suetonius is offered before the final battle. One might think this was inspired by Braveheart (1995) or Gladiator (2000), but the notion of dueling speeches is actually derived from A. 14.35–36. see also: Britannia; Christianity; De Vita Agricolae; empire; reception, nineteenth century; reception, twentieth century; reception, visual arts FURTHER READING Joshel, Sandra R. 2001. “I, Claudius: Projection and Imperial Soap Opera.” In Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture, edited by S. R. Joshel, M. Malamud, and D. T. McGuire Jr., 119–161. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Malamud, Margaret. 2009. Ancient Rome and Modern America. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, esp. 187–193. Perry, Jonathan S. 2014. Now Playing: Studying the History of Ancient Greece and Rome through Film. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Scodel, Ruth, and Anja Bettenworth. 2009. Whither Quo Vadis? Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Waddell, Philip. 2020. Tacitean Visual Narrative. London: Bloomsbury Academic, esp. Chapter 5: “Eloquent Collisions: The Quick-Cut.” Wyke, Maria. 1994. “Make like Nero! The Appeal of a Cinematic Emperor.” In Reflections of Nero: Culture, History, and Representation, edited by J. Elsner and J. Masters, 11–28. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

c17_Vol2.indd 885

885

RECEPTION, NINETEENTH CENTURY RONALD MELLOR

University of California, Los Angeles

After the use, and abuse, of Tacitus in the after­ math of the age of revolutions, the historian no longer played a significant role in political debates. In the nineteenth century Tacitus and other Romans primarily became a focus of scholarship rather than an inspiration for creative writers. This essay approaches receptions of Tacitus in France, America, England, Russia, and Central Europe. FRANCE Tacitus provided inspiration to the philosophers and political theorists of the French Enlightenment in their arguments against absolutism, but he was also cited during the Revolution against the zeal­ ous idealists like Robespierre who became tyrants. The greatest product of the revolution, the Corsican general Napoléon Bonaparte (1769– 1821), received an education in the Classics. He especially admired the great men of Roman his­ tory whom he first encountered in the works of Julius Caesar and the biographer Plutarch. After a coup d’état in 1799, the general used Roman nomenclature when he made himself first consul to great popular acclaim. In 1804, less than a decade after the republic’s murder of King Louis XVI, autocracy returned as Napoléon crowned himself as emperor. The new emperor employed other Roman tra­ ditions: arches of triumph, imperial titulature, churches (temples) in Roman style and the extraordinary new legal code—the Code Napoléon—based on the Corpus of Roman Law to replace the French feudal code. But Napoléon detested Tacitus—both for his politics and the “obscurity” of his style. He called him a partisan historian against the interests of the Roman peo­ ple. “They loved the emperors whom Tacitus wanted to make perverse, and no one loves mon­ sters.” This one-time general of the revolution was adopting the anti-Tacitean discourse of seven­ teenth-century absolutism.

28­04­2023 18:08:58

886

  reception , nineteenth century

François de Chateaubriand had supported Napoléon until he broke with him over political violence. In 1807 he wrote: When everyone trembles before the tyrant and it is as dangerous to risk his favor as to earn his disgrace, the historian appears charged with the vengeance of the people. It is in vain that Nero prospers, Tacitus was already born in the Empire. (570)

This comparison to Nero was too much; Chateaubriand’s newspaper was banned and the writer was exiled from Paris (Chateaubriand 1962). The next year, in a colorful sequence preserved in the Memoires of Talleyrand, Napoléon again denounced Tacitus to Goethe and Wieland. The emperor sought out the German poets at a conference at Weimar attended by both monarchs and writers, and Napoleon turned the discussion to Tacitus: Do you know a greater and less just detractor of mankind? He finds criminal intention in the simplest acts; he makes complete scoun­ drels out of all the emperors to make us admire his genius in exposing them.

Napoleon further complained, as he did on other occasions, about the obscure and difficult style of the historian which wishes “to paint everything in black.” Wieland engaged in a debate with the emperor over the historian’s impartiality but Napoleon would have none of it. “We are not here to talk about Tacitus; look how well Tsar Alexander dances” (Talleyrand I, 442–446). Much of the debate over “Caesarism” in nineteenthcentury Europe grew out of Napoleon’s views on Tacitus. In nineteenth-century France, many still read and revered Tacitus, some for his politics, and others for his literary power. The novelist Stendhal (1783–1842), a devotee of psychological analysis, refers over fifty times to Tacitus, carried a volume of Tacitus on his travels, and even read the historian on his deathbed. Julien Sorel, the hero of The Red and the Black, prized his edition of the histories. Even Victor Hugo (1802–1885), in exile under Napoleon III, favored the anti-imperial Tacitus. In Notre Dame de Paris Hugo muses on the greatness of Tacitus with the judgment: “The

c17_Vol2.indd 886

honesty of a great heart condensed in justice and truth is annihilating.” AMERICA If the primitive republicanism of Tacitus was subverted in France by Napoléon’s Empire, it survived and flourished in the New World. The second and third American presidents, John Adams (1735–1826) and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), were both intellectuals and once bitter political antagonists. The conservative Adams was suspicious of French revolutionary ideas, while the Francophile Jefferson, devoted to Gordon’s Whiggish edition of Tacitus, was in his turn suspicious of strong central government and advocated the Bill of Rights. But they recon­ ciled in the learned correspondence of their old age, and their letters express their love of Tacitus above all the other ancients (Cappon 1959). Adams and Jefferson found much in the Annals to support their opposing positions in their lifelong argument about the role of an aristocratic senate, but both agreed that autocratic rule must be avoided. Jefferson, who argued for the place of Tacitus and ancient history in the curriculum of the University of Virginia, wrote to his grand­ daughter: “Tacitus I consider the first writer in the world without a single exception. His book is a compound of history and morality of which we have no other example” (Colbourn 1965, 26). As an agrarian democrat, he admired Tacitus’ Germans who lived on the boundary of an Empire in native freedom while resisting Roman domination. In his first letter to Adams in 1812 after a twelve-year silence, Jefferson wrote that he had given up newspapers for the classics, while Adams wrote back in 1816, “The Morality of Tacitus is the Morality of Patriotism.” They had absorbed their classics fully; their letters are unselfconsciously sprinkled with allusions to their wide reading and the tone is often as classical as the quotations. Neither had much use for Plato and his ideal states; these were practical political philosophers who had seen the French struggle for freedom turn into a Bonapartist tyranny. The realism, the courage, and even the weariness, echo the tone of Tacitus’ histories.

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , nineteenth century  

John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, became the sixth US president in the contested election of 1824. He was educated in the classical languages at Harvard and in Europe and claimed that he read Tacitus every day. When he delivered an oration at Plymouth to commemorate the landing of the Mayflower there, he recalled that the Romans celebrated anniversary festivals and chose as his inspiration a passage from Tacitus: “Think of your ancestors and your descendants” (Ag. 32). ENGLAND Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) achieved fame as a member of Parliament with his brilliant orations against slavery and in favor of reform. Though he held office in Whig govern­ ments, his lasting renown derived from his poetic Lays of Ancient Rome and his collected critical and historical essays. He worked for a decade on his History of England which provided a Whig interpretation of 1685 to 1702—the period of the “Glorious Revolution” which replaced royal abso­ lutism with the authority of parliament. It was the greatest work of English history of the nineteenth century and Macaulay was elevated to the peerage on that basis. As a narrative historian attracted to personal­ ities, Macaulay greatly admired Tacitus’ focus on the individual actors in history. In his “Essay on History,” he called Tacitus unrivalled among his­ torians in the delineation of character with very few superiors among dramatists and novelists. He gives to his characters an individuality: “We know them as if we had lived with them.” Above all Macaulay admired Tacitus’ depiction of Tiberius as a dark and inscrutable tyrant, showing him to be “the keenest of observers, the most artful of dissemblers, and the most terrible of masters.” Macaulay regarded it as a perfect execution of the strength, wiliness, cruelty, and eventually the dot­ age of the emperor. He compared Tacitus’ Tiberius to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. If Macaulay was the most famous historian of his age, it is not surprising that Lucy Aikin (1781– 1864) was slower to achieve renown. As a feminist poet in the male-dominated Romantic age when women writers were known primarily as

c17_Vol2.indd 887

887

novelists, she began an extraordinary project. Her Epistles on the Character and Condition of Women, in Various Ages and Nations (1810) is nothing less than a rewriting of western civilization from the Hebrews to her own day from a feminist perspec­ tive. This 1,200-line poem was remarkable, both for its originality and its learning. (Aikin, though educated at home, read Latin, French and Italian from an early age.) Epistles III and IV reach the time of the Romans and Aikin is especially attracted to the “Goths” (or Germans) whose courage and her­ oism she attributes to the “barbarian” women. Her principal source was Tacitus’ Germania (7–8), where the German women drive on their men by their cries and witness of their glory. She writes how the energized German “lives along the warning page of piercing Tacitus… Prophetic Sage!” Not unlike the noble savage of Rousseau, the barbarian was inspired by the “chaste virtues of his frugal home” to over­ whelm the “destinies of stooping Rome” (IV 99–106). Aikin’s innovative historical poem demonstrates that Tacitus remained a source for anti-imperial sentiment. In both the eighteenth and nineteenth ­centuries it was Whig writers who were most attracted to Tacitus for his aversion to absolutism and his skeptical attitudes toward political power. In a political speech in 1859 between his terms as Prime Minister, Lord John Russell first used the now common phrase “conspicuous by their absence,” and admitted he had taken it from Tacitus (A. 3.76) who noted that the missing busts of Brutus and Cassius at the funeral of their sister/ wife Junia in 22 ce outshone all who were present. Tiberius enforced their absence, even sixty-four years after their deaths at Philippi. RUSSIA Though a Russian translation of Tacitus did not appear until 1803, he was hardly unknown. Catherine the Great recorded in her diary of 1755 that she had read him (presumably in French) with disturbance, and some translations appeared in journals. Nicholas Karamazin (1766–1826) read Tacitus and Livy in preparing to write his great eleven-volume History of the Russian State.

28­04­2023 18:08:58

888

  reception , nineteenth century

Karamazin, who brought polished elegance to literary Russian, mentioned Tacitus, along with Hume and Gibbon, as his historiographic models, and in the forward to his History remarked that “Nobody has surpassed Livy for beauty of narra­ tive, or Tacitus in strength—those are the chief things!” Yet the monarchist Karamazin distrusted the “republican” Tacitus promulgated by French thinkers and writes “Do not imitate Tacitus, but to write as he would have written in your place—that is the rule of genius.” This ambivalence resulted in his poem: Tacitus is great; but is Rome, as described by Tacitus, worthy of his pen? In this famous Rome, once famous for its heroism, I see nothing at all apart from murderers and vic­ tims. One should not feel pity about this. It [Rome] deserved the fierce calamities of its misfortune in tolerating that which cannot be tolerated without turpitude (Kahn 1993, 759).

Some Russian liberals influenced by cosmopol­ itan ideas yearned for a Tacitus and scornfully regarded Karamazin as a Russian Livy. But the last volumes of Karamazin, dealing with Boris Godunov (1598–1605) and the Time of Troubles and written after the deposition of Napoleon, provided psychological analysis and vivid duplic­ itous characters that led to him being called by one contemporary “our Tacitus.” Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) is regarded as the greatest Russian poet; his epics, dramas, folk­ tales, and verse novel (Eugene Onegin) are the sources of most nineteenth-century Russian operas whose nationalist composers were trying to avoid western European sources. When he used Karamazin’s history in creating his historical drama Boris Godunov, he saw in both Karamazin and Tacitus the difficulty in writing about despots and so produced his own Notes on the Annals of Tacitus (1825; in English in Mellor 1995, 205– 208). The surviving excerpts are somewhere bet­ ween translation or paraphrase into Russian of some passages from the Annals; Pushkin is thought to have himself destroyed most of the text. His epigraph, “Karamazin Roma,” shows the linkage he saw between the late Karamazin and the cynicism of Tacitus.

c17_Vol2.indd 888

CENTRAL EUROPE In nineteenth century Germany the writing of ­history gradually became professionalized and universities used the scientific model for historical seminars and research. Though the Germania remained a central text for early anthropologists and ethnologists, Tacitus’ passionate approach to history was scorned by a new breed of academic, “scientific” historians like Leopold von Ranke who professed to write history “as it actually happened.” The great Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903), who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1902, himself found Tacitus wanting. He failed as a military historian and his account of Tiberius was unbelievable. Tacitus’ obvious bias was unpalatable to positivist historians who did not realize how culturally bound their own histories were. But there was another powerful reason for the decline of Tacitus’ influence in nineteenth-century Europe. With a growing belief in progress and the betterment of mankind, Tacitus was eliminated from practical politics and swept to the remote margins of intellec­ tual life: doctoral dissertations; lexica; and philolog­ ical commentaries. Only a renegade philologist like Friedrich Nietzsche (who used Tacitus to defame the Jews) or a gentleman historian like Henry Adams would refer enthusiastically to Tacitus. The romanti­ cism of disillusionment survived not in historians, but in the great nineteenth-century novels of England, France, and Russia, where men and women struggled futilely to transcend their allotted destiny. The greatest nineteenth-century novel to explic­ itly use Tacitus was Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916), first serialized in Polish in 1895–1896. It was translated into over fifty languages and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1905. The book follows the life and love of the Roman tribune Vicinius and his love for the Christian captive Lygia. Set in the reign of Nero, elements of Tacitus are included in the narrative, especially the suicide of Petronius, but with fictionized appearance by saints Peter and Paul (Sienkiewicz 1896). An uplifting un-Tacitean ending sees Vicinius and Lygia living happily ever after in Sicily which made the book an enormously popular source for plays, operas, and a succession of films from 1901 to recent times. see also: reception, film; translations

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , opera  

REFERENCES Aikin, Lucy. 1810. Epistles on Women and Other Works. Edited by Anne K. Mellor and Michelle Levy. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press. Cappon, L. J. 1959. Adams-Jefferson Letters. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. II 291 (January 21, 1812); II 462 (February 2, 1816). Chateaubriand, F. de. 1962. Mémoires de l’outre-tombe. XVI 10. Paris: Pléiade. I. Colbourn, H. T. 1965. The Lamp of Experience. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Kahn, A. 1993. “Readings of Imperial Rome from Lomonsov to Pushkin.” Slavic Review 52: 745–768. Mellor, Ronald. 1995. Tacitus: The Classical Heritage. New York: Garland Publishing. Mémoires du Prince de Talleyrand publiés par le Duc de Broglie (Paris, 1891) I 442–446. Translated into English by Ronald Mellor in Mellor 1995: 194–199. Pushkin, A. S. 1825. “Notes on the Annals of Tacitus.” In Tacitus: The Classical Heritage, edited by R. Mellor, editor, 206–208. New York: Garland Publishing. Sienkiewicz, Henryk. 1896. Quo Vadis: A Novel of the Age of Nero. Translated by Jeremiah Curtin. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. FURTHER READING Janssens, E. 1946. “Stendhal et Tacite.” Latomus 5: 311–319. Reinhold, Meyer. 1984. Classica Americana: The Greek and Roman Heritage in the United States. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Richard, Carl. 1994. The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

RECEPTION, OPERA ROBERT C. KETTERER

University of Iowa

Tacitus is one of a cluster of ancient historiogra­ phers whose work influenced opera librettos, a group that also includes Suetonius, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio, along with contributions from the poetry of Lucan and the philosophy of Seneca the Younger. Tacitus’ incisive accounts in Annals and Histories of the violence, immorality, and even occasional heroism of first-century imperial Rome has attracted librettists to specific episodes

c17_Vol2.indd 889

889

in Julio-Claudian history. His vivid portraits of key participants like Messalina or Nero, as well as minor characters such as Tiridates I of Armenia or the freedwoman Epicharis, proved irresistible to the creators of opera who were attracted by Tacitus’ cynicism about the corrupt­ ing influence of power. The fascination with the female voice that is an essential part of opera made strong female characters from Tacitus into dramatically attractive prima donnas. The eth­ nology and history in Germania and Agricola also influenced operatic depictions of northern nonRomans like Boudicca or Arminius. Tacitus’ theme of liberty in opposition to imperial tyranny provided effective dramatic polarizations for operas that have been produced in monarchies and republics alike. Julio-Claudian history also provided steamily erotic topics that were ideal for opera’s fascination with love, self-sacrifice, and death. The impact of the works of Tacitus on operatic librettos, if measured by the number of operas produced on subjects taken directly from his works, rose and fell over time along with the more general popularity of the author. Operatic interest in Tacitean subjects reached a peak in the second half of the seventeenth century when Italian opera’s search for new plot subjects correlated with an intense early-modern fascination with Tacitus as a moralist and political writer who was a useful model to critique monarchy and mock its flaws. Tacitus’ subject matter, if not his political import, remained of interest in the eighteenth century. There were adaptations of older, seven­ teenth-century librettos and production of new ones, frequently based on French spoken dramas by Corneille, Racine, Campistron, and others. Tacitus’ work had brief relevance again at the end of the eighteenth century during the age of revo­ lution, but interest in him receded in the nineteenth, when his work was reviewed more critically and gradually fell out of favor. As a result, only two or three topics from Tacitus continued to be treated in opera. Opera had been invented in the north Italian courts of the early seventeenth century in part as a celebration of ducal power. In the 1630s and 1640s, Venice turned musical dramas into public carnival entertainments that nonetheless retained political import as assertions of Venetian state

28­04­2023 18:08:58

890

  reception , opera

identity. Several of the early librettists were mem­ bers of an intellectual academy known as the Accademia degli Incogniti. For this group, Tacitus was an important political and moral authority on the relationships between individuals and power, an aspect of the more general European Tacitism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The earliest opera plots from north Italy had been taken mostly from Ovidian and Vergilian myth and legend (e.g., Orpheus, Ariadne, the marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia) but in Venice in 1643 Claudio Monteverdi composed L’incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppaea) on a libretto by the Incognito G. F. Busenello. Busenello’s brief plot summary mentions Tacitus directly: “Cornelius Tacitus tells the story that way; but here the action is presented differently” (così rappresenta Cornelio Tacito. Ma qui si rappresenta il fatto diverso). Therein, from the very first, lies the tale: operatic plots, characters, and ideas originate in Tacitus’ accounts, but operas are not intended to be documentaries. Busenello’s and Monteverdi’s Poppea narrates with considerable irony the suicide of Seneca, the removal of Otho and Octavia (2), and the coronation of Poppaea Sabina (in that order), but without the participa­ tion of Agrippina the Younger or the intrusion of the Pisonian conspiracy. Minerva and Venus get scenes; Lucan makes a brief but important cameo appearance; wry commentary comes from invented comic servants, soldiers, and students of  Seneca. Observing, and to some degree, controlling the action is the boy-god Amore, who celebrates himself in Dantesque terms as “the Love that moves the sun and other stars.” The whole cynical narrative often feels like Tacitean history, but the events and mechanics of presenta­ tion are brilliantly adapted inventions. To a greater or lesser extent, most subsequent operas with material from Tacitus effect equally radical changes to their source. Busenello’s Poppea started a trend that lasted for the next century: In the interest of creating novelty, Julio-Claudian and Flavian history was plumbed for dramatic stories and characters. The long list includes, for example, operas on the pros­ perity and fall of Aelius Sejanus, the repudiation of Octavia, the raving Caligula, Agrippina  in Baia, Iulius Sabinus, Britannicus, Vespasian,

c17_Vol2.indd 890

and Domitian. However, among Tacitist sub­ jects, three figures that persisted from the seven­ teenth century to the twentieth may serve to illustrate the trends: Nero, Messalina, and Arminius. Nero is the Tacitean figure most frequently depicted in opera. He is an anti-Orpheus, a musician who is an emblem of political and moral corruption, a representative of the sins of city and empire, rather than of the purity of the pastoral world. The seventeenth-century com­ posers followed Monteverdi with carnivalesque romps or near-tragedies that reflected contem­ porary vices in the guise of Roman imperial abuse of power. Venice saw, for example, Nerone (1678/9), Nerone fatto Cesare (Nero becomes Caesar, 1692/3), Il ripudio d’Ottavia (The Repudiation of Octavia, 1699), and two new Nerone operas (1721 and 1727). Several Nero operas appeared in late seventeenth-century including Handel’s early composition titled Nero, which was followed by his 1709/10 Agrippina in Italian for Venice. Interest in an operatic Nero waned in the mid-eighteenth century but returned to Napoleonic Milan with La congiura pisoniana (The Pisonian Conspiracy), in which Piso and Epicharis appear as t­ riumphant male and female representatives of revolution against the monarch. The later nineteenth and early twentieth century took a renewed interest in Nero operas, often to address the Christian persecution. These included Barbier’s Néron for Artur Rubenstein (1879), Arigo Boito’s Nerone (1901/1924), and Mascagni’s Nerone (1935), based on a five-act comedy by Cossa. There were also several operas based on Sienkewicz’s 1895 novel Quo Vadis. Messalina, the erotically adventuresome wife of Claudius who betrayed him with Gaius Silius and supported a failed coup, becomes an operatic femme fatale whose allure challenges right behavior among the male cast. A Messalina in Venice (1679) featured both heterosexual attraction and female homoeroticism. That libretto was adapted in Vivaldi’s Ottone in villa (1713) with the role of Otho replacing Claudius. Messalina enjoyed renewed interest as title role in three different operas performed in Paris, Florence, and Rome between 1876 and 1878.

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , R enaissance  

De Lara’s 1899 Messaline exhibited “all the char­ acteristics of fin de siècle decadence,” and played successfully in London, New York, Paris, Warsaw, Cairo, and Milan (Grove Music Online 2002). From Tacitus’ Annals and Germania comes a tradition of noble barbarians whose behavior acts as a foil to decadent Romans. Eastern fig­ ures like Tiridates of Armenia and Mithridates Eupator of Pontus appear, especially in the sev­ enteenth-century librettos. Arminius begins as a secondary role in Corradi’s Germanico sul Reno (Germanicus at the Rhine, 1676). In the eigh­ teenth century, with adaptations of Scudéry’s 1644 play Arminius, ou, Les frères ennemis (Arminius, or, the Enemy Brothers), he becomes a central figure, first representing European resis­ tance to other invading imperial powers, and then specifically a hero of German unity. Examples include compositions by Albinoni (Le  gare generose [Gallant Rivalries], 1712), Handel, Arminio (1737), Stephani, Arminio, l’eroe Cherusco (1886), and Arminius, an oratorio by Bruch (1875). In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries these and other figures from Tacitus have again been represented as a result of the revival of interest in Baroque operas, especially Monteverdi’s Poppea and Handel’s Agrippina and Radamisto. Rock operas on Tacitist themes have also appeared. Queen Boudicca: A Metal Opera (2015) is a feminist take on ancient British history. A controversial rock opera, Divo Nerone (Divine Nero, 2017), performed on the Palatine Hill in Rome, took a critical stance toward the negative portrait of Nero in Tacitus and Suetonius, and presented him as a complicated antihero. The New York Times described it as “a mishmash — think Disney meets ‘House of Cards’ meets History Channel” (Povoledo 2017). The flexible approach to Tacitus invented by Busenello for Monteverdi has endured. see also: Epponina; Poppaea Sabina the Younger; reception, early modern-eighteenth century; reception, film; reception, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth centuries; reception, Renaissance

c17_Vol2.indd 891

891

REFERENCES Grove Music Online. 2002. “Messaline.” Accessed June 15, 2020. oxfordmusiconline.com. Povoledo, Elisabetta. 2017. “Nero Rock Opera Is a Burning Issue in Rome.” New York Times, June 9. FURTHER READING Heller, Wendy. 1999. “Tacitus Incognito: Opera as History in L’incoronazione di Poppea.” Journal of the American Musicological Society. 52.1: 39–96. Ketterer, Robert C. 2009. Ancient Rome in Early Opera. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Manuwald, Gesine. 2013. Nero in Opera: Librettos as Transformations of Ancient Sources. Berlin and Boston: De Gryuter. Porte, Danielle. 1987. Roma diva. L’inspiration antique dans l’Opéra, I. L’istoire romaine dans le oeuvres de 1800 á nos jours. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

RECEPTION, RENAISSANCE CLAUDIO BUONGIOVANNI

Università della Campania “L. Vanvitelli”

After the oblivion of the Dark Ages and the sporadic or insecure quotations during the whole of the Middle Ages, Tacitus’ reception gradually began to improve thanks to Italian humanism and the Renaissance. The rediscovery of Tacitus (Annals 11–16 and Histories 1–5.26, preserved in the eleventh century codex Laurentianus 68.2, the Second Medicean) at the abbey of Monte Cassino in the first half of fourteenth century encouraged new attention to Tacitus and his works by the so-called Italian pre-humanism, especially by Giovanni Boccaccio, who drew from the ancient historian anecdotes and historical information for his De claris mulieribus (“On famous women”). Although we are not sure about who brought the Monte Cassino manuscript to Florence, most likely Zanobi da Strada, Boccaccio himself did contribute to the circulation of the thus far extant major works of Tacitus in the capital city of European culture at that time. The interest of dis­ tinguished scholars like Coluccio Salutati, Poggio Bracciolini, Niccolò Niccoli as well as the use as

28­04­2023 18:08:58

892

  reception , R enaissance

antiquarian and historical source for the works of Domenico Bandini from Arezzo, Leonardo Bruni, and Flavio Biondo, clearly testify to a significant spread of new attention to the text of Tacitus; it is worth noting the example of Leonardo Bruni, who is likely the first to highlight how useful it was to read Tacitus with political purposes. At any rate, during the fifteenth century, Tacitus still played a secondary role among the auctores (“models”) of the classical historiography, even though he was recognized as one of the highest expressions of ancient literature. It is likely that the incomplete acknowledgement of Tacitus’ authority was due to the lack of a conspicuous portion of his works, especially of the first section of the Annals (Books 1–6), of which the human­ ists were aware thanks to ancient sources, above all to Jerome. Thus, especially in epistolary testi­ monies of the first decades of the fifteenth century, we often read complains about this—and other— serious losses, together with the hope that the hunt for the manuscripts carried out in that period sooner or later would return the desired prey. Thus, Tacitus and his works are often meta­ phorically mentioned as a mutilated statue, deprived of some of its limbs. A definitive boost for a greater diffusion and a more careful interpretation of Tacitean works is due to the first printed editions, above all the one edited by Francesco Dal Pozzo (the so-called editio Puteolana, Milan c. 1476), which in the prefatory epistle praised Tacitean style, proposing it as a potential new reference model and claiming the supremacy of Tacitus over Livy and Sallust in some points (e.g., the quality and effectiveness of speeches). Such innovative judgment—that, fur­ thermore, sounds daring in the midst of the domi­ nation of Ciceronian taste—seems to have an influence on the readers of Tacitus onwards, as shown, by the last years of the century, in the dia­ logue Actius, written by the humanist Giovanni Pontano (1429–1503) and mainly dedicated to the topic “How to Write History.” It should also be noted that until the second half of the fifteenth century, the reception of Tacitus’ works is geo­ graphically oriented, that is to say: Italy shows a wider interest in the major works (Annals 11–16 and Histories 1–5.26), while in middle and northern Europe the focus is on the minor works

c17_Vol2.indd 892

and preferably on the Germania, and from the sixteenth century onwards, the Agricola will repre­ sent a sort of founding book for the British people. The epochal turning point in the reception of Tacitean works occurs with the discovery in Germany of the manuscript containing the Books 1–6 of the Annales (codex Laurentianus 68.1, the so-called First Medicean of the ninth century ce) in the first years of the sixteenth century, their arrival in Italy at the end of 1508, and the subsequent editio princeps (“first printed edition”) published in Rome on 1515 March the first by Beroaldus the Younger during the pontificate of Pope Leo X. With the acquisition of Tiberian hexad, the corpus of Tacitus’ works was almost recovered and was preparing to take a leading position in the hierarchy of ancient historians. The Tacitean work immediately became a fertile ground from a philological and literary perspec­ tive and on the historical, political, and institu­ tional level. Therefore, as well as a master of style, capable of finally questioning and then effectively combating the primacy of Cicero, first in Italy and then in France, Netherlands, Germany, and pro­ gressively throughout Europe, Tacitus became a master of politics, an inextinguishable and invalu­ able source from which to learn the arcana imperii (“the secrets of power”), very often with a tenden­ tious interpretation more suited to the needs of the powerful sovereigns of the time than respectful of the real ideas and the will of the ancient historian. In this sense, Tacitus’ achievement as a political preceptor was partly helped by the ban (i.e., the inclusion in the Index of Forbidden Books) of the works of Niccolò Machiavelli. Several circumstances confirm the desire to know, interpret, and spread the Tacitean text, from the pirate edition of Andrea Alciato (Milan 1517) which, despite the papal ban, republished Beroaldus’ edition just two years after its first appearance, up to the editions and commentaries that follow one another for the entire sixteenth century. From an ecdotic and exegetical point of view, after the seminal, but notable and too long neglected, effort of Philippus Beroaldus the Younger’s textual-critical libellus, this is the time in which Tacitean philology was born, thanks to the work of authentic giants of modern history of

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , seventeenth century  

classical philology, such as Beatus Rhenanus, Marc Antoine Muret, and above all Justus Lipsius, an excellent philologist, an acute interpreter of the historical, political, and institutional significance of Tacitean work, scholar and exceptional thinker to whom are due many of the solutions of the main textual problems offered by the tradition of the text of Tacitus. It should be pointed out, however, that without questioning the supremacy of Lipsius in the history of Tacitean philology, it has been shown that some conjectures or emendations attributed to him even by the most recent critical editions of Tacitus’ text, actually date back to previous moments and interpreters, by whom Lipsius—more or less consciously—would have been inspired or from whom he would have drawn, without declaring the debt owed to his pre­ decessors. In this sense, we find Muret’s disap­ pointment at discovering that some of his emendations to the text of Tacitus appeared in the commentaries of Lipsius but without any explicit attribution to the original author. However, we should not overlook the contributions to Tacitean philology by minor ­figures who are nevertheless worthy of atten­ tion:  Emilio Ferretti, Marcus Vetranius Maurus, Valens Acidalius, Johannes Ferrerius, Claudius Chiffletius, Julius Salinerius, Janus Gruterus. Along the political exegetical way of Tacitus’ work, beside Lipsius, must be men­ tioned at least Hannibal Scotus and Carolus Paschalius, those who Arnaldo Momigliano (1947) considered the “first political commenta­ tors” on Tacitus. This particular political interpre­ tation must be linked to the wider phenomenon of Tacitism and to the discussion on Tacitus on the so-called “Theory of the Reason of State.” see also: scholarship, antiquity to fifteenth century REFERENCE Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1947. “The First Political Commentary on Tacitus.” Journal of Roman Studies 37: 91–95. FURTHER READING Schellhase, Kenneth. 1976. Tacitus in Renaissance Political Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

c17_Vol2.indd 893

893

Von Stackelberg, Jurgen. 1960. Tacitus in der Romania: Studien zur literarischen Rezeption des Tacitus in Italien und Frankreich. Tübingen: Max Niemaeyer Verlag.

RECEPTION, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY RONALD MELLOR

University of California, Los Angeles

While Tacitus is today regarded as the greatest of all Roman historians, he had his largest impact not in his own time but in Early Modern Europe. He was read not merely for his historical narrative but also for his moral guidance and the political analysis which rivalled that of Machiavelli. He left his mark on poets, philosophers, and political theorists as well as on kings and popes; seven­ teenth century authoritarian rulers and their opponents both used Tacitus to promote their own agendas. The learned James I (James VI of Scotland) ascended the English throne in 1603, and he sparked a wider interest in Tacitus. He included many Tacitean references in the new edition of his Precepts on the Art of Governing. In 1604 he knighted Sir Henry Savile for his first English translation of the Histories. The seventeenth century was an age of wit and pithy moral judg­ ments; courtiers found much in Tacitus to their taste. In 1624 the Dean of Canterbury observed in a sermon that Tacitus had become the politicians’ Bible; more commentaries were written on him than on St. Paul. Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an ambi­ tious politician who supported King James in his struggle to maintain royal privilege. In his 1610 speech to James on behalf of the Commons, Bacon compared the king to Nerva and Trajan in that he, as Tacitus says at the opening of the Agricola, had reconciled freedom and monar­ chy—“a compliment paid by one of the wisest writers to two of the best emperors.” Thus, Bacon brought Tacitus to wider attention and the historian became, in the words of John Donne, the “Oracle of Statesmen.” Bacon’s essay “Of Simulation and Dissimulation” (1612) used

28­04­2023 18:08:58

894

  reception , seventeenth century

Tacitus’ texts to examine secrecy and deception as political qualities (Mellor 1995, 105–109). Though Bacon became Lord Chancellor, his career ended in disgrace for accepting bribes. He then turned his attention to philosophy and was soon regarded as the most important English thinker in several centuries. He called attention to a central idea of both Tacitus and Machiavelli: all men wear masks. Bacon, who rated Tacitus above Plato and Aristotle as a moral thinker, was one of the first to turn from the rich style of Cicero to the concision of Tacitus—a style known as the “plain style” in English prose. Bacon popularized the mordant Tacitean epigram as the popular maxims much in vogue in English prose. The devoted Tacitean, Ben Jonson (1572– 1637), was both a poet and playwright. He drew on an excellent classical education in both his tragedies and his comedies. Jonson’s friend William Shakespeare acted in his Sejanus, pro­ duced in 1603 at the Globe Theater, in which he probably played Tiberius. The playwright saw Tacitus as a guide to the political dissimulation and corruption of his day and his annotations in his own copy (now in the British Library) con­ tains hundreds of allusions to the Annals. In Sejanus Jonson sees a world where the lust for power is the norm and family ties are sacrificed to political advancement. There was more than a passing similarity between the intrigue and fac­ tional politics of the Palatine of Tiberius and Whitehall of James I; as Sejanus says, “Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need” (1, 366). Tiberius’ corrupt courtiers here argue political justification to promote their own ambitions, as when sycophantic Macro justifies his actions in a classic statement of raison d’état: “A prince’s power makes all his action virtue” (3, 717; Barish Sejanus; Mellor 1995, 100–102). Jonson says his play “failed badly”—perhaps the duplicity of the characters and the unremit­ ting bleakness of tone made the play unap­ pealing—yet the themes were topical. The twilight world of spies and informers was well known to the Roman Catholic Jonson who had already served time in prison. Jonson was charged before the Privy Council with treason though, as often was the case, the issue does not seem to have come to trial.

c17_Vol2.indd 894

Though many Stuart partisans thought that Tacitus should be suppressed as seditious, other royal courtiers supported their cases with apho­ risms from Tacitus. They particularly savored the Tacitean comment (Ag. 12) on the ancient Britons, “As long as they fought separately, they were con­ quered together,” which was quoted repeatedly to urge unquestioning loyalty to the crown and to suppress dissenting religious publications. After the fall of the Stuarts in 1649, the poet and political radical John Milton called Tacitus “the greatest possible enemy of tyrants.” In 1627 the poet Fulke Greville founded a Chair of History at Cambridge and appointed a Dutchman Isaac Dorislaus (1595–1649) as the first incumbent. Greville set Tacitus as the topic for the lectures. Dorislaus chose to explicate the first words of the Annals: “The City of Rome from its inception was held by kings.” Complaints were made that Dorislaus spoke “too much for the defense of the Liberties of the People,” and, with the influence of Matthew Wren’s court connec­ tions, the new professor was silenced after only two lectures. Surviving excerpts (sent by Wren to London) of the lectures show that Dorislaus addressed such sensitive subjects as the people’s rights over kings, the differences between abso­ lute monarchy and a monarch subject to law, and the people’s ultimate authority. The anglicized Dorislaus became involved in Puritan politics and later used his legal expertise to draw up the charges against King Charles (Mellor 2004). In 1992 Patricia Osmond identified a manu­ script in a Genoa library that was published in 2017 as Avverunci or The Skowrers: Ponderous and new considerations upon the first six books of the Annals of Cornelius Tacitus concerning Tiberius Caesar. In it, Edmund Bolton (1575– 1633) defended King James against compari­ sons to Tiberius by “scouring” away Tacitean innuendo and rhetorical exaggeration and thus rehabilitating Tiberius. Bolton was trying to ingratiate himself with the Stuart court at a time when there was increasing resistance to monarchy in Scotland, France, and the Netherlands. Bolton provided a politically correct reading of Annals I–VI in his quest for appointment to the Cambridge chair as a safe monarchical voice.

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , seventeenth century  

Interest in Tacitus became an obsession among the political writers of the seventeenth century. The spread of absolutist rule in the CounterReformation imperiled humanist values. Under the papal-inspired Inquisition, authoritarian regimes increasingly resembled Julio-Claudian Rome, and Tacitus seemed especially relevant to the threatened humanist intellectuals who identi­ fied themselves with the Roman senators. The first half of the seventeenth century saw more edi­ tions of Tacitus than of any other Greek or Roman historian, and scholarly commentaries on Tacitus became an important genre of political discourse since a “scholarly” commentary could promote subversive ideas without the political dangers of speaking in one’s own voice. One fascinating republican, Traiano Boccalini (1556–1613), had spent years as a papal adminis­ trator before fleeing to the relative safety of Venice in 1611. His satiric dialogue Ragguagli di Parnasso (1612), used hundreds of Tacitean citations to comment on the princes and courtiers of his own time (Mellor 1995, 55–65). Boccalini admired the moral commitment of an anti-monarchical Tacitus he shows dispensing spectacles to men so they can see the true intentions of their rulers—a very subversive notion. Selections from this satire were first translated into English as News from Parnassus (1626) and influenced other satirists like Addison and Swift. The Venetian Senate sup­ pressed Boccalini’s Commentary on the Annals with the explanation: “It is the teaching of Tacitus that has produced Machiavelli and other bad authors, who would destroy public virtue; we should replace Tacitus by Livy and Polybius, his­ torians of the happier and more virtuous times of the Roman republic.” In an age when assassins hunted down papal critics across Italy, when Boccalini died in Venice he was rumored to be a victim of papal agents. A few years later, also in Venice, Paolo Sarpi (1552–1663) used Tacitus as the model for his History of the Council of Trent (1619)—one of the greatest achievements of European historical writing. He too was unsuccessfully attacked by papal assassins and left for dead; his attackers were feted throughout papal Italy. Paolo saw Trent as the repudiation of reform: his book uses the Tacitean tactic of juxtaposing public speech with private

c17_Vol2.indd 895

895

intrigues and thus penetrates beneath the masks of public theater to the underlying reality: religious “reform” is merely a disguise for secular ambition. Paolo’s History was widely translated and was inev­ itably placed on the Church’s Index. He was admired by Protestants from John Milton (who called him “the great unmasker”) to John Adams who quoted “Father Paul’s” last words in a letter to Thomas Jefferson. Adams hoped that Sarpi’s last wish for Venice—esto perpetua (“may she last for­ ever”) would apply to the American Republic. Tacitean cynicism together with a Tacitean plot appears in Giovanni Busenello’s libretto for Claudio Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppaea (The Coronation of Poppaea), performed in Venice in 1643. After forcing his tutor Seneca to commit suicide and exiling his wife Octavia (2), the emperor Nero triumphantly marries his mistress Poppaea and the opera closes happily with an ecstatic love duet. Yet the opera reeks not only of the cynicism of Tacitus (who would have been appalled by this transformation of his moral view of Nero), but also the neo-Stoicism that had become so popular in seventeenth century Europe (Ketterer 2009, 23–24; 39). Only in Venice could Paolo’s his­ tory and Busenello’s libretto have been published. Though Tacitus was admired in Venice, else­ where counter-Reformation thinkers became more hostile to his ideas. The Jesuits, seen as the shock troops of the papacy, regarded Tacitus as a disloyal subject who undermined government by  revealing its secrets. The Jesuit view of ­history—a common establishment view through the ages—was that the historian should merely narrate, not analyze or criticize. Thus, the Tacitean spirit of inquiry with its epigrammatic sarcasm was a threat to the status quo. The Jesuits preferred a historian to praise established virtue and Livy was their ideal. Thus, we find the fear of the “Red” or revolutionary Tacitus—a menace to established authority, and a source of inspiration to the English Puritans and to republicans of Paris and colonial Boston. But there was also a “Black” Tacitus who provided advice to tyrants and models for syco­ phantic courtiers. Courtiers used Tacitus’ his­ tories as a guide to the art and science of politics, and the proliferating essays on flattery and court life frequently cited his treatment of Tiberius in

28­04­2023 18:08:58

896

  reception , seventeenth century

the Annals. Clerical and secular princes alike regarded Tiberius as a “master of prudence” in an age when dissimulation was ranked with the high­ est princely accomplishments. King Philip II of Spain, known as “the Prudent,” had a Jesuit apologist, Pedro de Ribadeneyra (1527–1611), who wrote an essay extolling the virtues of the Christian prince and attacking Machiavelli. He saves particular venom for Tacitus whom he calls “impious,” “debauched,” and “a pagan, idolater, and enemy of Christ our Redeemer.” Here Ribadeneyra establishes a Jesuit tradition of vilifying Tacitus while continuing to use his work. The most influential Spanish Tacitean was the Jesuit Baltasar Gracián (1601– 1658) whose book of court conduct, The Oracle (1647), became for centuries (along with Cervantes’ Don Quixote) the most widely read of Spanish books. Though he draws on Seneca, Francis Bacon, and other earlier moralists, almost one third of the 300 maxims rely to some degree on Tacitus. This book displays the potent mixture of Tacitean cynicism with Counter-Reformation belief in man’s inclination to evil. The most widely read French Tacitean of the century was without doubt the diplomat and historian Abraham Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaie (1634–1706). His books made enemies: his his­ tory of Venice caused Amelot to be briefly impris­ oned in the Bastille, and his translation of Paolo Sarpi’s history equally offended papal authorities. His greatest success was his translation of Gracian’s The Oracle to which he added parallel passages from Tacitus. Amelot then collected Tacitus’ statements on flattery to which he appended a commentary in the manner so favored by Tacitist scholars. La Morale de Tacite (1686) was presented as a handbook of court behavior, soon translated into English as The Modern Courier (1687). He argues that one must accom­ modate oneself to the whims of princes and says, “were it not for self-interest, there would be no flattery” (excerpts in Mellor 1995, 142–147). During the seventeenth century the greatest French playwrights brought the pages of Tacitus to the Parisian stage. In his old age Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) looked to Tacitus for material for a drama of despair. In the preface to Othon, he says that as much as possible he has translated the characters from “that incomparable author,”

c17_Vol2.indd 896

Tacitus. Jean Racine (1639–1699), educated in austere Jansenist schools, shared much with Tacitus: his seriousness and high moral tone, his dark view of life, his sense of pervasive evil. Racine claimed he prepared more for writing Britannicus (1669) than for any other play. It is a Tacitean story which contains Tacitean characters and Tacitean motifs. Though Racine was a sup­ porter of monarchy, the contemporary contro­ versy over raison d’état lies at the heart of the play. Britannicus follows Tacitus in exposing the political conflict that underlay the personal pas­ sions of Nero’s court: the political ambition of Nero and his jealous mother Agrippina is the driving force of the drama. In his second preface to the play, Racine wrote: “I have copied my char­ acters from the greatest painter of antiquity, I mean from Tacitus.” Racine, like Tacitus, has a grudging admiration for the political skill and courage of Agrippina—“my tragedy is no less the disgrace of Agrippina than the death of Britannicus”—while lavishing nothing but scorn upon the corrupt and corrupting relations bet­ ween weak rulers and their parasitic courtiers. Here the young Nero begins to develop into the monster he would later become. Racine used characters from the Annals, but the core of his drama came from seventeenth century focus of Tacitism on the political justification for immoral action (Racine, translated by Mellor 1995). In the seventeenth century the growing abso­ lutism made Tacitus an especially fertile ground for critics. Figures like Tiberius and Nero could be used as masks for contemporary despots, but the political attitudes of Tacitus were used both by supporters and opponents of authoritarian regimes. His cynical and caustic view of political life was much more congenial to that age than the upbeat Roman history of Livy which had appealed to the Renaissance. see also: reception, opera; reception, early modern to the eighteenth century; translations REFERENCES Barish, J., ed. 1965. Ben Jonson: Sejanus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ketterer, Robert C. 2009. Ancient Rome in Early Opera. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

28­04­2023 18:08:58

reception , twentieth century  

Mellor, Ronald. 1995. Tacitus: The Classical Heritage. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. This volume contains excepts in English of all the seventeenth century authors in this essay. Mellor, Ronald. 2004. “Tacitus, Academic Politics, and Regicide in the Reign of Charles I.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 11: 153–163. Osmond, Patricia J., and Robert W. Ulery. 2017. Averrunci or the Skowrers. Ponderous and New Considerations upon the First Six Books of the Annals of Cornelius Tacitus Concerning Tiberius Caesar. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Racine, Jean. 1982. “Second Preface” Britannicus. In Théâtre Complet, edited by J.-P. Collinet, 305. Paris: Garland. Translated by Ronald Mellor (1995) Tacitus: The Classical Heritage 140–142. FURTHER READING Benjamin, E. J. 1965. “Bacon and Tacitus.” Classical Philology 60: 102–110. Bradford, A. T. 1983. “Stuart Absolutism and the ‘Utility’ of Tacitus.” Huntington Library Quarterly 46: 127–155. Schellhase, K. 1976. Tacitus in Renaissance Political Thought. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Smuts, M. 1994. “Court-Centred Politics and the Uses of Roman Historians, c.1590–1630.” In Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, edited by K. Sharpe and P. Lake, 21–43. London: Macmillan. Spini, G. 1970. “Historiography: The Art of History in the Italian Counter-Reformation.” In The Late Italian Renaissance 1525–1630, edited by E. Cochrane, 91–133. New York: Harper and Row. Syme, R. 1960. “Roman Historians and Renaissance Politics.” In Society and History in the Renaissance, 3–12. Washington, DC: Folger Library. Toffanin, G. 1921. Machiavelli e il tacitismo. Padova. Reprint 1972. Naples: Guida.

RECEPTION, TWENTIETH CENTURY RONALD MELLOR

University of California, Los Angeles

During the nineteenth century the writing of his­ tory gradually became professionalized and the universities, especially in Germany, used the scientific model for historical seminars and

c17_Vol2.indd 897

897

research. The passionate approach to history of the Romantic period was scorned by a new breed of historians who professed to write history “as it actually happened.” Tacitus’ obvious bias was unpalatable to positivist historians, unaware of their own biases. The greatest historian of the age, Theodor Mommsen, found Tacitus wanting: he failed as a military historian and his account of Tiberius was literally unbelievable. Another pow­ erful reason for the decline of Tacitus’ influence was the growing belief in progress, and the dark vision of Tacitus became much less congenial and a more optimistic age refused to accept such an unvarnished view of human evil in its histories. Only a gentleman historian like Henry Adams, in his autobiography (1907, 92), when making his youthful trip to the Capitoline, would link Tacitus, Michelangelo, and Gibbon as men who had vis­ ited this spot and said something original about it. At the turn of the twentieth century, two great scholars argued Tacitus’ case as a preeminent ­stylist and thinker. Friedrich Leo (1851–1914), perhaps the greatest Latinist of his time, deliv­ ered Kaiser Wilhelm’s birthday oration in 1896 on Tacitus. In it, Leo attempted to rescue the his­ torian’s literary and historical reputation from the criticism of nineteenth-century positivist historians; he regarded Tacitus as “one of the few great poets” Rome ever produced, particularly praising his rhetorical skill and comparing his dramatic art to Shakespeare’s history plays. Gaston Boissier wrote on archaeology, history, and a range of literary subjects. His literary gifts brought his learning to a wide audience, and he was elected to the Académie Française, of which he became the permanent secretary. His study of Tacitus (1906) is the first truly modern apprecia­ tion of the historian’s willingness to subject even monarchs and politicians to moral guidelines. Boissier dismisses earlier distrust as rooted in Tacitus’ “minor errors;” rather he saw Tacitus’ greatest value in being a moralist of political life. As he wrote of Roman historians, “They regard history as, before all else, a school of morals” (1906, 145). Though admired by specialist philologists, Tacitus remained on the fringes of early twentieth century intellectual life, though his influence appears in French, Irish, German and English

28­04­2023 18:08:58

898

  reception , twentieth century

novelists. Marcel Proust (1871–1922), the chroni­ cler of fin-de-siècle decadence, was skilled in lan­ guages from his school days and wrote an essay on Tacitus at the age of thirteen. Some have seen a reflection of Tacitus’ Tiberius in the Baron de Charlus, the degenerate protagonist of his Search for Lost Time (1913–1922). James Joyce (1882– 1941) used Tacitus in an example of his manic wordplay in his final novel Finnegans Wake: “Simply because as Taciturn pretells, our wrong­ story-shortener, he dumptied the wholeborrow of rubbages on to soil here” (1939, 17). Tacitus, as all historians in the eyes of Joyce, distorts and sim­ plifies the past by adding irrelevant facts. Perhaps Joyce’s Jesuit education led him to use Tacitus as a paradigm for a historian. The German-Jewish novelist Lion Feuchtwanger (1884–1958) was an admired playwright and ­novelist (Jew Suss) in Weimar Germany and used historical novels to spread his social and political (anti-Nazi) views. During the 1930s while in exile in France and the United States, he began a trilogy on the writer Josephus, a one-time Jewish guerilla leader whose capacity for survival at the court of the Roman emperors who had destroyed Jerusalem infuriated, and sometimes inspired, Jews throughout the ages as a traitor or a survivor. Of course, a deeply assimilated German Jew could appreciate the predicament. The third volume, Josephus and the Emperor (1942), actually uses Tacitus as a character called Cornelius in a debate over how to act under tyranny: silence or speech. Feuchtwanger uses both the character of Tacitus and material from his histories to explore the examples of fortitude under tyrannies—JulioClaudian Rome and Nazi Germany. Robert Graves (1895–1985) wrote among the most widely read popular novels in the twentieth century, I, Claudius (1934) and Claudius the God (1935). Both books were written in the sympathetic voice of the emperor Claudius—the first describing in court intrigues of Julio-Claudian Rome until his accession as emperor in 41 ce and the second describing his reign. Graves was wounded in the Flanders’ trenches and emerged from the First World War psychologically fragile with shell shock and a feeling of betrayal. He clearly felt an affinity with the stuttering and fear­ ful emperor and used both Suetonius’ and Tacitus’

c17_Vol2.indd 898

portrayals—Suetonius more gossipy with graphic detail, Tacitus darker politically and more analyt­ ical. The epigraph of I, Claudius was taken from the description of the death of Germanicus in A. 3.19: “some people hold any rumor as confirmed, others turn truth into its opposite, and each grows among posterity.” Graves’ earlier war memoir, Goodbye to All That (1929), had lashed out at the lies and illusions of the Great War, and this very Tacitean cynicism suffused his Roman novels. The historian’s depiction of paranoia and duplicity of the imperial court is used by Graves as the central themes in his Claudius books. The books regained even greater popularity in the BBC tele­ vised version I, Claudius (1976) which combined both novels. A decade after the fall of the Third Reich, the great Italian-Jewish historian Arnaldo Momigliano called the Germania one of the “hundred most dangerous books ever written.” While Tacitus made it clear that he hoped his histories would deter tyrants and promote the love of liberty, his essay on the ancient Germans had mixed conse­ quences. It was not only a popular source of German pride and nationalism from the Reformation forward, but it also was seen by others as an inspiration for the constitutional English monarchy of 1688 and Montesquieu’s discussion of a balance of powers. While its racial attitudes of German superiority had already been incorporated into the German national conscious­ ness by German humanists, Reformation polemi­ cists, and “scientific” racial theorists, the Germania became a revered text under the National Socialists. Christopher Krebs (2011) has chroni­ cled this misappropriation of Tacitus’ text—writ­ ten to scold the Roman for their corruption and lethargy—as a deadly ideological tool, with the absurd intrigues of Himmler and the SS to track down the manuscript of the Germania as late as 1943 in the hope of bringing it from Italy to Berlin as a propaganda coup! Though the quest failed and the manuscript remains in the National Library in Rome, the Germania became a postwar whipping boy as when Friedrich Meinecke in 1948 traced the German habit of obedience back to Tacitus. The atrocities of our century have swept away the smug attitudes of the Victorian era: rulers can

28­04­2023 18:08:59

reception , twentieth century  

be monsters and something close to pure evil is believable. The Tacitean Tiberius and Nero seem positively benign after Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot who murdered not dozens but millions. Those horrors have opened the eyes of historians to other cruelties which have long waited for our attention. Massacres in the prairie, in the outback, on the veldt, in slave galleys or prison camps, from hunger or neglect, from swords or the high­ est technology—all now lie exposed to us. In the half-century since 1945, Tacitus’ pes­ simistic vision of man’s capacity for evil has naturally found a more receptive audience. His bitter and ironic appraisal of man’s political and moral fate in the greatest age of the Roman Empire marked him as an historian of the dark side of human nature. He resolved contradic­ tions by assuming the worst; where he found unexpected virtue, he attributed it to hypoc­ risy. If only history can punish the wicked, then it is the historian’s sacred duty to preserve memory. In George Orwell’s novel 1984, pub­ lished in postwar 1949, the “Ministry of Truth” cast inconvenient histories into a “memory hole” for destruction. Orwell also followed Tacitus in his fascination with the debasement of language by tyranny, so that decadent lan­ guage leads to the darkness of “doublethink.” In the face of the horror of genocide, writers turned to history to give meaning to the ulti­ mate inhumanity. We see Alexander Solzhenitsyn giving a history to the silent vic­ tims of the gulag, while others historicize African enslavement and the Holocaust. The survivor Tacitus is their precursor in pre­ serving the memory of the persecuted. Not only Orwell saw the dangers inherent in Tacitus. The Russo-American historian Vasily Rudich writes that in pre-Gorbachevian Russia his youthful article on imperial administration in Claudian Rome was rejected “on the grounds that it implied criticism of the Soviet System” (1993, xi). Rudich’s books on dissidence in Neronian Rome deeply combine Tacitus with his experience with as a political dissident. Tacitus’ resonance and relevance appears in T. A. Dorey’s dedication of his 1969 collection of essays on Tacitus “To the People of Czechoslovakia” soon after the repres­ sion of the Prague Spring.

c17_Vol2.indd 899

899

The greatest study of Tacitus was Sir Ronald Syme’s two-volume Tacitus (Syme 1958) which reintegrated the stylist and the historian written with the biting wit of his model. It is not only a work of scholarship, but an extraordinary literary achievement that was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Syme’s massive work of schol­ arship lays bare the links between Rome and the twentieth century. We learn that lies and dissimu­ lation are intertwined with self-deception until the truth of evil is hidden. Power resides in lan­ guage, and the corruption of language leads directly to the corruption of political life. Tacitus the politician was not a hero; he admits that his courage failed him. But his language is unsparing in its exposure of evil and its devotion to truth. That, rather than a political program, is his lasting legacy to our own time. see also: ideology; metahistory; Percennius; reception, film; reception, opera; translations REFERENCES Adams, Henry. 1907. The Education of Henry Adams. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Boissier, Gaston. 1906. Tacitus and Other Roman Studies. Translated by W. G. Hutchison. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons. Dorey, T. A., ed. 1969. Tacitus. London: Routledge. Feuchtwanger, Lion. 1942. Josephus and the Emperor. New York: The Viking Press. Graves, Robert. 1934. I, Claudius. New York: The Modern Library. Graves, Robert. 1935. Claudius the God and his Wife Messalina. New York: A. Barker & R. Haas. Joyce, James. 1939. Finnegans Wake. New York, NY: Viking Press. Krebs, C. 2011. A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. New York: W.W. Norton and Co. Leo, Friedrich. 1896. “Tacitus.” In Tacitus, edited by V. Pöschl. Darmstadt: Wege der Forschung. Translated by G. Dundas in Mellor 1995: 218–229. Proust, Marcel. 1913–1922. Search for Lost Time. Translated by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff. London: Chatto & Windus. Rudich, Vasily. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. London: Routledge. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

28­04­2023 18:08:59

900

  reception , twenty- first century

FURTHER READING Malamud, M. 2009. “Tacitus and the TwentiethCentury Novel.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 300–316. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mellor, R. 1995. Tacitus: The Classical Heritage. New York: Garland Publishing.

RECEPTION, TWENTYFIRST CENTURY VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN

University of Florida

The works of Tacitus continue to provide inspira­ tion from the late twentieth into the twenty-first century. The American poet Frank Bidart draws on Tacitus’ account of Germanicus’ return to the Teutoburg Forest. As part of the 1997 collec­ tion of poems entitled Desire, “The Return” is a five-page quasi-translation of A. 1.60–63. Bidart seizes upon the first words of paragraph 61, igitur cupido, “therefore a desire,” as yet another avenue to explore the theme of the collection. The desire to return is not mere nostalgia; instead, the poem asks the reader to ponder the impossibility of ever returning to a place in time against the persistent longing to do so. Bidart follows Tacitus closely. Three times he calls on the image of the whitening bones scattered or heaped, evidence of men who fled or persisted, but in the penultimate couplet, Bidart enters the poem in the first person. The result is not an intrusion but rather a fusion of his voice with Tacitus and ultimately with his reader. Since the writing of history is a commitment to returning to places and events that are irretrievable but irresistible, Bidart’s poem renders Tacitus a poet too: the final couplet of the poem is a direct translation of A. 1.63.1. Between 2003 and 2007, British novelist Manda Scott published a series of popular fantasy novels, Dreaming the Eagle, Dreaming the Bull, Dreaming the Hound, and Dreaming the Serpent Spear. These four novels recreate the world of Boudicca, the leader of the Iceni who led the rebellion against

c17_Vol2.indd 900

the Romans under Suetonius Paulinus in 61 ce. Then between 2012 and 2103, Scott published four historical novels, spanning the reign of Nero: Rome: The Emperor’s Spy; Rome: The Coming of the King; Rome: The Eagle of the Twelfth; and Rome: The Art of War, which brings the novels’ protagonist Sebastos Pantera into the the­ ater of the civil wars of 69 ce and the rise of the Flavian dynasty. On 5 January 2016 at Trinity Wall Street, New York, American composer Scott Ordway debuted “North Woods,” a ten-minute acapella piece that adapts sentences selected from the Agricola and Germania. Ordway began working on the piece in 2013 when he was living in Maine. “North Woods” draws on parts of the Agricola and Germania that are usually overlooked by scholars more inter­ ested in the history of imperial expansion or colo­ nization. Instead, in Part I Ordway extracts from Ag. twelve sentences that describe the climate of the northern reaches and unfamiliar (if not illog­ ical) astronomical phenomena. The eight voices begin in a discordant chant that almost sounds like beating wings. In Part II, Ordway combines sentences from the Agricola and Germania that express the isolation of the north. Then in Part III, an extract from G. 9.2 suffuses all that preceded with a sense of divinity. Throughout “North Woods,” with its minimalist style and slow pro­ gressions in long arching phrases on an environ­ mental theme, Tacitus’ words seem to caution those who ignore the innate sanctity of the natural world. Since 2016, Tacitus continues to appear with increasing regularity in political commentary, and as we continue to grapple with all of the implica­ tions of the COVID-19 pandemic, his words from the preface of the Agricola are eerily prophetic: “Remedies work less quickly than diseases. As our bodies grow over time but perish in a moment, so it is easier to crush than to revive genius and its pursuits” (Ag. 3). see also: Tacitus Trap; translations FURTHER READING Pagán, V. E. 2017. Tacitus. London: I. B. Tauris.

28­04­2023 18:08:59

reception , visual arts  

RECEPTION, VISUAL ARTS RONALD MELLOR

University of California, Los Angeles

For a millennium Greek and Roman poets, histo­ rians, and biographers created an encyclopedia of images which have been used by visual artists from the ancient world up to modern times. Tacitus provided such powerful literary pictures that he was first called a “painter” by Alamos de Barrientos, the first Spanish translator of Tacitus’ Annals (1614). Soon afterward Jean Racine, in his second preface to his play Britannicus (1676), acknowledged his model to be Tacitus, “the greatest painter of antiquity.” The image of historian as painter continues in unexpected places. Napoleon detested Tacitus’ negative treatment of the Roman emperors, but he grudg­ ingly praised the historian’s skill as a painter, though the emperor criticized his gloomy palette: “It is not right to paint everything in black.” However, Tacitus was not overly concerned with the representation of physical reality. Character is more important than a physical likeness. His cinematic, evocative, quicksilver style was not concerned with ornamental descriptions; he aimed at a psychological, political, and moral truth. We find numerous scenes of considerable dramatic power. Readers through the centuries have recognized in the historian himself an accomplished dramatist who moves his extraordinarily vibrant charac­ ters across the grand stage of the Roman Empire. These characters have been transported into the theater, and so they have been from Ben Jonson and Racine in the seventeenth century to the BBC I, Claudius mini-series in the twentieth century, while many great European artists used Tacitean themes to embody in their art philosophical or political beliefs. Tacitus provided dramatic scenes and intense characters which have been used by modern painters and sculptors, of which seven notable examples are discussed. Germanicus was one of Tacitus’ heroes whom the historian believed was sympathetic to repub­ lican values. Thus, he and his wife Agrippina

c17_Vol2.indd 901

901

the Elder are depicted as the most positive fig­ ures in the first two books of the Annals. In 19 ce, Germanicus was serving as proconsul in the east­ ern Mediterranean and he believed he had been poisoned by an agent of Tiberius. On his deathbed, Germanicus asked his friends to avenge his murder, but he urged his wife Agrippina to endure her sorrow bravely to protect their children (A. 2.71–72). This early masterpiece by Poussin (Figure R.1) presents a moral lesson in stoic heroism, notably in the restraint and dignity of the mourning sol­ diers, though one is swearing to avenge his leader. Lying on the bed and enshrouded in white, Germanicus is immediately recognizable as a victim of poisoning. Poussin is known to have deliberately replicated ancient costumes, furniture, and architecture. This work—Poussin’s first major history painting—became the model for countless deathbed scenes for the next two centuries (Rosenberg 1973). Many powerful human themes figure here: death, suffering, injustice, grief, loyalty, revenge. Poussin drew on Roman antiquity for the form as well as the subject. The composition, with figures crowded together near the front, was based on Roman sarcophagus reliefs. Poussin spent most of his life in Rome, where he developed a classical style that strongly influenced both French and Italian art. This painting was commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Barberini and remained with

Figure R.1  Nicolas Poussin, Death of Germanicus (1627, Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Art). Oil on canvas, 147.96 × 198.12 cm. Source: Minneapolis Institute of Arts / Public Domain.

28­04­2023 18:08:59

902

  reception , visual arts

the Barberini family until 1958, when the Minnesota Institute of Art purchased it. The opening of Book 3 of the Annals describes the moving arrival of Agrippina the Elder in Brundisium with the ashes of her husband Germanicus. Since she was the last surviving grandchild of Augustus, the event is filled with emotion and political meaning. “When Agrippina descended from the vessel with her two children, clasping the funeral urn, with eyes riveted to the earth, there was one universal groan” (A. 3.1). There is little pictorial detail in Tacitus: no description of the mourning garb, the funeral offerings, or the milling mobs. There are virtually no descriptive adjectives. Here, as elsewhere in the Annals, drama, that is, action, is all pervasive. Here the reader needs little graphic detail to set an emotional stage: Agrippina returning to Italy with her children and the ashes of her husband Germanicus with the crowds surging along the dock. This painting (Figure R.2) inspired King George III to become a lifelong patron of Benjamin West, born in Pennsylvania and an American patriot, who nevertheless became president of the Royal Academy and never returned to the United States. In 61, the king of the Iceni in eastern Britannia died leaving his wealthy kingdom to his daughters and to his ally Nero, as was commonly done to protect an inheritance. But, as Tacitus (A. 14.31– 35) tells us, his kingdom was pillaged by

centurions and retired legionaries, the queen Boudicca was whipped, and their daughters raped. Boudicca led a fierce rebellion that destroyed the Roman capital of Colchester, burned Londinium, and killed tens of thousands Roman soldiers and civilians. Tacitus reports that she rode with her daughters in a chariot while raising her troops. After her armies were defeated, the queen is said to have poisoned herself. Tacitus (Ag. 16) says that the ancient Britons did not discriminate against female rulers. This had considerable impact in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I when Boudicca first became a British folk hero. She was also popular under Queen Victoria whose name was linked to Boudicca as “victory”—it was an irony that a rebel against the Roman Empire was so linked to the queenempress of the British Empire at its greatest extent. After Thomas Thornycroft had made an eques­ trian statue of Victoria in 1851, Prince Albert encouraged him to create this statue of Boudicca (Figure R.3), even lending his own horses as models (Warren 2014, 290–300). Thorneycroft died before that statue was cast in bronze, and it took two decades to raise funds for its completion and placement at Westminster Pier. The philosopher Seneca is perhaps the most important non-imperial figure in the Neronian books of the Annals. He was born in Spain but became an important courtier under Caligula. He was exiled for an affair with Caligula’s sister, but brought back by Claudius’ wife Agrippina the

Figure R.2  Benjamin West, Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (1768, New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery). Oil on canvas, 163.8 × 240 cm. Source: Yale University Art Gallery / Public Domain.

Figure R.3  Thomas Thornycroft, Boudicca and Her Daughters (executed 1856–1883; erected 1902, London: Westminster Bridge). Bronze. Source: Paul Walter / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0.

c17_Vol2.indd 902

28­04­2023 18:08:59

903

reception , visual arts  

Younger to become the tutor for her son, Nero. He was one of Tacitus’ favorite character types, the collaborator (Walker 1952, 220–225), who despite his philosophical preaching of austerity became one of the richest civilians in Rome. His former student Nero suspected him of involvement in the Pisonian Conspiracy and ordered the philosopher to commit suicide in 65 ce A generation later Tacitus presented a romanticized picture of Seneca as a moderating force under Nero as emperor, and his death resembles that of an old moralist of the Roman Republic like Cato. He was also much admired by the early Christians and appears in the middle ages in the works of Dante and Chaucer. Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Seneca (1773) (Figure R.4) was submitted in David’s unsuccessful attempt to win the Prix de Rome. It shows the suicide of Seneca as he bids farewell to his wife and friends. A decade later, now success­ fully in Rome, David painted other masterpieces on ancient themes: The Oath of the Horatii (1784, Paris: Louvre) and The Death of Socrates (1787, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art). Tacitus expressed a great admiration for the German chief Arminius, who had once served as a Roman auxiliary before organizing an alliance of Germanic tribes to oppose the Roman occupa­ tion. In 9 ce he defeated three legions under Quintilius Varus, and the remains of some 20,000 Roman troops, were left to decay in the forest. Since the Romans never successfully sub­ dued German lands across the Rhine, Arminius

was called by Tacitus the “liberator of Germany without doubt, who challenged not the early stages of the Roman people like other kings and leaders, but the Empire at its most flourishing” (A. 2.88). He then bemoans the fact that such a great hero was unrecognized in Greek or Roman histories. But these pages of Tacitus were was later regarded by Germans as a turning point in European history. In times of German nationalism Arminius (known as Hermann) was celebrated in histories, poetry, plays and art. Ernst Von Bandel worked for thirty-eight years in trying to fund and build the Hermannsdenkmal (“Hermann Monument”) despite wars, revolutions, changes of location, and financial crises (Warren 2014, 98–119). The 175foot monument (Figure R.5) with Arminius in copper was finally completed in 1875. A replica was built in the 1890s by German immigrants in New Ulm, Minnesota. After Arminius’ defeat of Varus and his Roman legions, Arminius abducted and impregnated Thusnelda, the daughter of his pro-Roman rival, Segestes. In the continuing conflict bet­ ween Rome and the Germanic tribes, Thusnelda was captured by Germanicus, who then com­ manded the invasion of Germania. She was preg­ nant and staying with her father, Segestes, who delivered her to Germanicus, who had saved him by driving off Arminius’ besieging forces. In 17 ce, Thusnelda and her son were displayed as prized trophies of the triumph granted to Germanicus.

Figure R.4  Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Seneca (1773, Paris: Petit Palais). Oil on canvas, 123 × 160 cm.

Figure R.5  Ernst Von Bandel, Hermansdenkmal (executed 1838–1875; erected 1875, Teutoburger Wald, North Rhine-Westphalia). Copper, iron, sandstone, 53.44 m.

Source: David, Jacques-Louis/PARIS MUSEES COLLECTION.

c17_Vol2.indd 903

28­04­2023 18:08:59

904

  reception , visual arts

Tacitus refers several times to the “wife of Arminius,” but her name Thusnelda only appears in the ancient geographer Strabo (7.1.4). But from the rediscovery of the Germania in the sixteenth century, a torrent of German nationalist poets, playwrights, and poets expanded on the passages in Tacitus’ Annals. In his poem “Hermann und Thusnelda” (1752), Friedrich Klopstock exalted the Arminius, as his wife Thusnelda sings in ecstasy: “Let me lift up thy hair; 'tis sinking, Hermann; Proudly thy locks should curl above the crown now!” The poem was later set to music by Franz Schubert. In 1785 the Swiss-born Angelika Kaufmann make use of the expanded Germanic traditions to depict Thusnelda crowning Arminius (Warren 2014, 46–48) (Figure R.6). Kaufmann was a noted history painter of the neo-classical era and, as a protégé of Sir Joshua Reynolds, she was only one of two women among the thirty-four founding members of the Royal Academy. In the Agricola, Tacitus celebrates the triumphs of his father-in-law Agricola during his governorship of Britain (77–85 ce). Agricola’s tri­ umph over the Celtic populations in (present-day) Wales and Scotland is highlighted by his over­ whelming defeat of the Caledonians (Scots) at the Battle of Mons Graupius. The enemy was led by the chieftain Calgacus who is the first “Scot” known to history, but whose name is unknown

outside of Tacitus’ text. His much-quoted denun­ ciation of the Romans is unlikely to have been for­ mulated by a barbarian since it shows familiar Roman rhetorical tropes. Most historians regard it as a creation of Tacitus to give greater stature to the man his hero Agricola defeated: Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To rob­ bery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace (Ag. 30).

These stirring words were co-opted into antiRoman diatribes in the eighteenth century, some­ times attributed on the London stage to other anti-Roman rebels like Boudicca and Arminius. About the same time images of Calgacus began to appear in statues and prints. In 1898, William Hole painted a vast processional frieze for the entrance hall of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, showing over 150 figures or “heroes” from Scotland’s past (Figure R.7). Calgacus is the first Scot (after Stone Age and Bronze Age man) to appear in the procession in which Hole includes his adversary Agricola and Tacitus himself.

Figure R.6  Angelika Kauffman, Thusnelda Crowning Hermann (1785, Innsbruck: Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum). Oil on canvas, 44.8 × 61.9 cm. Source: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo.

c17_Vol2.indd 904

28­04­2023 18:08:59

905

religion  

Figure R.7  William Brassey Hole, Processional Frieze in the Great Hall of the Scottish National Gallery (1900, Edinburgh: Scottish National Portrait Gallery). Site-specific painting. Source: Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

REFERENCES Racine, Jean. 1982. “Second Preface” to Britannicus (1676). In Théâtre Complet, edited by J-P. Collinet, 305–308. Paris. Translated into English by Ronald Mellor (1995) Tacitus: The Classical Heritage. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. pp. 139–142. Rosenberg, Pierre. 1973. “La ‘Mort de Germanicus’ de Poussin, du Musée de Minneapolis.” In Catalogue rédigé par Pierre Rosenberg en collaboration avec Nathalie Butor. Paris: Éditions des Musées nationaux. Walker, B. 1952. The Annals of Tacitus: A Study in the Writing of History. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Warren, Richard. 2014. “Tacitus and Nationalism in 19th Century Art.” PhD, Durham University. e-thesis, http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9502/1/PhD_ Thesis_Richard_Warren.pdf?DDD3+ FURTHER READING Erffa, Helmut von, and Allen Staley. 1986. The Paintings of Benjamin West. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Meier, Burkhard. 2000. Das Hermannsdenkmal und Ernst von Bandel. Detmold: Topp & Möller. Mellor, Ronald. 2010. “Ut Pictura Poesis: The Visual Representation of History.” In Tacitus’ Annals, 63–77. New York: Oxford University Press. Michel, Régis, and Marie-Catherine Sahut. 1988 David, l’art et le politique. Paris: Gallimard.

c17_Vol2.indd 905

National Galleries Scotland. 2018. “Entry on William Hole’s Processional Frieze.” Accessed September 24, 2018. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-andartists/159703/processional-frieze-great-hallscottish-national-portrait-gallery. Rosenthal, Angela. 2006. Angelica Kauffman: Art and Sensibility. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

RELIGION KELLY E. SHANNON-HENDERSON

University of Cincinnati

INTRODUCTION: TACITUS AND ROMAN RELIGION Ancient Roman religious practice, a topic of great significance within Tacitus’ works, was different from most modern Western religions in several key ways. It was polytheistic, recognizing multiple gods and goddesses, which meant that the Romans could easily incorporate the gods of other cultures (e.g., Greek and Egyptian) into their own pantheon if they so chose; peoples who worshipped different gods were not perceived as being of different “religions” in the modern sense of the term. Roman religion was thoroughly

28­04­2023 18:08:59

906

  religion

bound up with the state: certain rituals for the major gods of the Roman pantheon (e.g., Jupiter) were financed by the government and performed by elected priests. The Romans did not recognize anything like a separation between church and state or have any notion of a dichotomy between sacred and secular; rather, religion was thor­ oughly intertwined with politics, as with all other aspects of daily life. Roman religion was heavily based in orthopraxy. The strict observance of rit­ uals, which often involved many rules and small details which had to be performed exactly, was considered crucial to pleasing the gods and thereby maintaining the health of the community. This did not mean that there was no room for individual experience or the notion of personal belief in the gods’ existence, but rather that the espousal of a specific creed about the divine (as, for example, in modern Christianity) was not considered important. For an excellent introduc­ tion to these and other principles of Roman reli­ gion, see Beard, North, and Price (1998). The rituals of the Roman state cult would have played a large role in Tacitus’ life. During the reign of Domitian, he was appointed quindecemvir sacris faciundis, “one of fifteen men for the performance of sacred rites,” a prestigious position he would have held for the remainder of his life. These priests, one of the four major collegia (“colleges”) of priests in the Roman state cult, were the stewards of the Sibylline Books, a set of prophecies written in Greek verse and believed to date back to the earliest days of Rome. The quindecemviri were respon­ sible for consulting the Books whenever instructed to do so by the Senate in response to the appear­ ance of a prodigy (a spontaneous occurrence, such as a lightning strike or a flood, deemed by the Senate to have supernatural significance), and for seeing to the performance of expiation rituals the Books recommended to dispel the divine anger sig­ nified by the prodigies (see MacBain 1982). The quindecemviri were also called upon to celebrate other significant rituals such as the Secular Games. His membership in this priesthood seems to have been important to Tacitus: it would have been an important career stepping-stone that probably was significant enough to list on his tombstone alongside his political positions (Birley 2000, 234– 236), and he even refers proudly to his own partic­ ipation in the Secular Games celebrated by

c17_Vol2.indd 906

Domitian in 88 CE (A. 11.11.1) in a rare reference to himself, as though to bolster his authority as an historian (Shannon-Henderson 2019, 14–15; Woodman 2009, 38–39). Tacitus’ own background, then, might explain his interest in including reli­ gious material in his works and might have provided him with deep background knowledge attained in his role as one of Roman religion’s fore­ most functionaries. Despite this, religion was long thought not to have special significance in the works of Tacitus. Syme (1958, 523) explained the presence of material such as omens and prodigies in solely literary terms, as “a stock device in the old annal­ istic tradition” which Tacitus was bound to include because Livy and other previous Roman historians in the annalistic mode had included them too, but in which he personally put no stock; the “author’s belief or disbelief,” Syme (1958, 397) claimed, “does not come into the question.” Syme’s view, coupled with the common interpretation of Tacitus as an author steeped in sarcasm and irony, has led many scholars to believe that religious material is included occa­ sionally for literary reasons or for the reader’s entertainment, but that Tacitus did not believe any of it himself. This view has now rightly been challenged by more recent scholarship (Davies 2004; Shannon-Henderson 2019), which shows that references to religion in Tacitus’ works, when taken seriously in their own right, are a crucial part of his overall historiographical project, and particularly of his characterization of the emperors who are the subjects of his works. Tacitus discusses several types of items related to religion: the gods’ temples, rituals, and priests as they played a role in the historical events Tacitus describes; omens and prodigies sent by the gods to signify their anger to humans, and the attempts of human actors to interpret and respond appro­ priately to these signs; consideration of larger divine forces like fatum (“fate”), the notion of a fixed destiny, and fortuna (“fortune”), the idea of a force governing the vicissitudes of human life that could be either capricious or providential; the deification of deceased emperors such as Augustus and their worship (called “imperial cult” by modern scholars); and encounters with the gods worshipped by other peoples from across Rome’s vast empire.

28­04­2023 18:08:59

religion  

RELIGION AND CIVIL WAR: HISTORIES In his first major historical work, Tacitus gave a significant role to the gods and other supernatural forces in his description of the civil wars of 69 ce. He explicitly includes signs from the gods in the list of significant topics he provides in the proem of the work: “Beyond the manifold disas­ ters in human affairs, there were prodigies in heaven and on earth, and warnings from thun­ derbolts and predictions of things to come—some happy, some sad, some ambiguous, some clear. For never by more serious disasters for the Roman people or by fuller portents was it proven that the gods do not care about our security, but about vengeance (ultionem)” (H. 1.3.2). This dark out­ look primes the reader to expect that when the gods do communicate with humans in H., it will be primarily negative: these evil omens will sig­ nify either that the gods are taking vengeance on humans for some unspecified failing or will respond to the violent vengeance that dueling contenders for the principate will take on each other in the civil wars (for the ambiguity of ultionem, see Shannon 2014, 273–275). By allowing the narrative to bear out these dire omens, Tacitus shows that the gods are real and powerful, and that humans ignore them at their peril. Galba ignores an ominous thunderstorm (H. 1.18.1) and finds irregular entrails in an animal he sacrifices (H. 1.27.1) on the day of his ill-advised adoption of Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinanus, an affair ending in his murder. Tacitus portrays Otho as more savvy and pious; he is aware of what Galba’s bad omens mean (H. 1.27.1, 1.38.1), and when he receives alarming prodigies of his own—including an ominous flood of the Tiber, a talking cow, and a statue of Julius Caesar that spontaneously turns itself around (H. 1.86)— he behaves appropriately by performing a ritual to expiate them (H. 1.87.1). The moment of his suicide is also marked supernaturally, by the appearance of a miraculous bird (H. 2.50.2). Yet despite his religious acumen, Otho is destined not to be emperor. Tacitus portrays this as the doing of fortuna, which he depicts as capriciously desert­ ing Otho (H. 2.47.1, with Ash 2007a, 204). Vitellius is a much more clear-cut case of reli­ gious ineptitude starkly punished: so ignorant

c17_Vol2.indd 907

907

that he holds an assembly on one of the most illomened days in the Roman calendar (H. 2.91.1), he also receives bad omens during a sacrifice (H. 3.56.1), is involved in the destruction of the Capitolium (see below), and dies wretchedly. The only person who seems to receive positive encouragement from the divine is Vespasian. Throughout H., Tacitus refers to the idea that it was due to fatum or fortuna that he became emperor (e.g., H. 1.10.3, 2.1.1–2), an idea backed up by several communications from the gods. Vespasian’s ascendency is predicted by Eastern oracles (of Venus at Paphos on Cyprus, H. 2.4; and of the god Carmelus located on the mountain of the same name in Syria, H. 2.78.3–4), as well as by a portent on his own estate involving a cypress tree that falls down but rights itself spontaneously the next day (H. 2.78.2). While Vespasian is in Alexandria awaiting favorable winds for a trip to Rome, he experiences several spectacular “mira­ cles” (H. 4.81.1 miracula) which Tacitus says shows “heavenly favor” (caelestis favor) for him: a blind man and a man with an injured arm who say they have been sent by the god Serapis are healed when Vespasian spits on and touches them (H. 4.81). In Serapis’ temple Vespasian also sees an apparition of a man named Basilides (1) (“prince” in Greek) known to be lying ill outside the city at the time, and interprets based on the man’s name that he himself will one day become royalty (H. 4.82; on these passages, see Shannon 2014.) Given that Tacitus clearly sets up in H. 1–5 the idea that Vespasian is favored by the gods, it is dif­ ficult to know how he would have continued this theme in the now-lost remainder of the work, given that Vespasian’s Flavian dynasty ended with the bad emperor Domitian (Shannon-Henderson 2019, 359–360). Certainly Rome’s religious future looks rather bleak, given that during the civil wars of 69 ce the Romans commit what Tacitus refers to as “the foulest and most grievous crime that has happened to the Roman state since the founding of the city” (H. 3.72.1): the burning of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline hill during the fighting between the Vitellians and the Flavians. While Vespasian does have the temple rebuilt (H. 4.53), there is a sense that Rome has irrevocably lost something important in its relationship with the gods (Ash 2007b). The

28­04­2023 18:08:59

908

  religion

Flavians’ piety is also undercut by Tacitus’ descrip­ tion of how during the incident Domitian rode out the fighting in a nearby temple of Isis and later commemorated his survival with overblown monuments to Jupiter the Savior and Jupiter the Guardian (H. 3.74.1, with Shannon-Henderson 2019, 358–360). RELIGION AND THE PRINCIPATE: ANNALS Religious material in A. (which has now received comprehensive treatment in Shannon-Henderson 2019) is somewhat more difficult to understand because Tacitus does not, as in H., include any programmatic statement to guide the reader’s interpretation of it. The same categories of material are present as in H. Prodigies are restricted to the Claudian and Neronian books (e.g., A. 12.64); it is not known whether Tacitus included any in the now-lost section on Caligula. Their absence from the Tiberian books is striking, but this does not mean that Tiberius operates with divine goodwill: Tacitus shows in other ways that the first principate he chronicles was one who had already begun to move dangerously far from Rome’s religious traditions, with potentially severe consequences. Under Tiberius, traditional rituals crucial to Roman religion are changed or neglected (e.g., some of the restrictive ritual pro­ hibitions thought to have existed for centuries governing the conduct of the flamen Dialis, the most important priest of Jupiter, are relaxed: A. 3.58, 4.16), and natural disasters that properly should have been interpreted as signs of divine displeasure are ignored (e.g., a flood of the Tiber, A. 1.76, 1.79). While Tacitus does not show the gods responding to these missteps with bad omens, he nevertheless makes clear divine disap­ proval of the situation by referring to fortuna: the bloody rise of Sejanus is described as “fortune suddenly turn[ing] savage” and is said to happen “due to the gods’ anger at Roman affairs” (A. 4.1.1–2). Questions of fate’s involvement are also raised by astrological predictions related to Tiberius’ final withdrawal from Rome (A. 4.58.2– 3) and his choice of the disastrous Caligula as his successor (A. 6.46.3–5). Divine displeasure becomes more obvious when prodigies begin to be reported in the

c17_Vol2.indd 908

Claudian and Neronian books. It is easy to under­ stand why Nero would merit bad omens (e.g.,  A.  15.47): he impiously murders his own mother, presides over a fire that destroys much of Rome, and is responsible for such crimes as bathing in a sacred spring (A. 14.22.4) and ran­ sacking temples to finance construction of his own palace (A. 15.45). It is perhaps less immedi­ ately obvious why Claudius should also receive dire prodigies (A. 12.43, 12.64), for he of all the emperors in A.  seems the most interested in Rome’s ancient religious traditions: he celebrates the Secular Games (A. 11.11) and attempts to revive rituals and institutions that have fallen into disuse, such as the college of the haruspices (A. 11.15) and the augurium salutis (“augury of safety;” A. 12.23.1). Claudius, however, is unable to stop abuses of ritual by his wives Messalina, who appropriates a festival for Bacchus for her own nefarious purposes (A. 11.31.2–3), and Agrippina the Younger, who begins to use the carpentum, a special type of carriage normally used for priestesses and sacred objects (A. 12.42.2). There is also a sense in which all the emperors of A. are part of a larger arc of divine revenge: the religious problems of the principate which began with Tiberius reverberate through the reigns of Claudius and Nero, conveying the impression that the principate itself is a threat to Rome’s religious traditions regardless of any half­ hearted attempts of any individual emperor to reverse the decline. The other major element of Roman religion in A. is the worship of deified emperors in what is known as imperial cult (on which see Gradel 2002; Price 1984). The official decree of the Senate declaring the deceased Augustus an official god is one of the first events of A., one that is closely connected to Tiberius’ legitimation of his own rule (A. 1.8.10–11.1, with Shannon-Henderson 2019, 30–37), and throughout the rest of the hexad we see Tiberius and his subjects attempting to come to terms with this addition to Rome’s reli­ gious landscape. Augustus’ divinity becomes the basis for accusations of impiety in the first maies­ tas trials (A. 1.73), and there are discussions in the Senate about building temples for Augustus in the provinces (A. 1.78.1), although Tiberius does not make it a priority to complete the one in Rome (A. 6.45.1). There are also extensive

28­04­2023 18:08:59

religion  

discussions about establishing a temple in Asia dedicated during his own lifetime to Tiberius himself, along with Livia Augusta and the Senate (A. 4.37–38), an episode which Tacitus uses to great effect to show the political complex­ ities of emperor worship (Pelling 2010; ShannonHenderson 2019, 184–192). This use of emperor cult for aggrandizement reaches its pinnacle with Nero, who has the Senate deify his short-lived baby daughter (A. 15.23) and his wife Poppaea Sabina the Younger who dies at his own hands (A. 16.6.2, 16.21.2–22), and is only narrowly dis­ suaded from having a temple for himself erected in Rome (A. 15.74.3). Claudius, who is deified (A. 12.69.3), is remarkably absent as a recipient of cult, suggesting once again his ineffectiveness as an emperor. ROMAN RELIGION ENCOUNTERS OTHER GODS Tacitus’ works also include discussion of various non-Roman religious traditions. While Tacitus does not deny the existence of foreign gods, he sometimes refers to them as “superstition” (superstitio), a word that signifies a religious practice as non-normative from the point of view of the tra­ ditional Roman state religion (Gordon 2008; Grodzynski 1974; Scheid 1985). Tacitus expresses some suspicion of the cults of Paphian Venus and Serapis in Alexandria in H. (Shannon 2014) and decries the religious practices of the Germans for their barbarity (G. 9.1, A. 1.61.3) or fatuity (H. 4.61.2). To Jews and Judaism he is more openly hostile: H. 5.2–13 is an excursus on the history and faith of the Jewish people, whom Tacitus, like other Greek and Roman writers before him, con­ siders to harbor “an enemy’s hatred against all other people” and to “despise the gods” (H. 5.5.1– 2), and to be “a people submissive to superstition and hostile to normal religious observances” (H. 5.13.1; see further Bloch 2002; Feldherr 2009). Tacitus is also hostile to Christianity, which he mentions once in his extant works, in the context of the Fire of 64 ce. see also: Paphian Venus, Temple of; portents; Roman gods; Serapis

c17_Vol2.indd 909

909

REFERENCES Ash, R. 2007a. Tacitus Histories Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ash, R. 2007b. “Victim and Voyeur: Rome as a Character in Tacitus’ Histories 3.” In The Sites of Rome: Time, Space, Memory, edited by D. H. J. Larmour and D. Spencer, 211–237. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Birley, A. R. 2000. “The Life and Death of Cornelius Tacitus.” Historia 49: 230–247. Bloch, R. 2002. Antike Vorstellungen vom Judentum: Der Judenexkurs des Tacitus im Rahmen der griechisch-römischen Ethnographie [Ancient Conceptions of Judaism: The Jewish Excursus of Tacitus in the Context of Greco-Roman Ethnography]. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Davies, J. P. 2004. Rome’s Religious History: Livy, Tacitus and Ammianus on Their Gods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feldherr, A. 2009. “Barbarians II: Tacitus’ Jews.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by A. Feldherr, 301–316. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gordon, R. 2008. “Superstitio, Superstition and Religious Repression in the Late Roman Republic and Principate (100 BCE - 300 CE).” In The Religion of Fools? Superstition Past and Present, edited by S. A. Smith and A. Knight, 72–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grodzynski, D. 1974. “Superstitio.” REA 76: 36–60. Pelling, C. B. R. 2010. “The Spur of Fame: Annals 4.37–8.” In Ancient Historiography and Its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A.J. Woodman, edited by C. S. Kraus, J. Marincola, and C. B. R. Pelling, 364–384. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scheid, J. 1985. “Religion et Superstition à l’époque de Tacite: Quelques Reflexions” [“Religion and Superstition in the Era of Tacitus: Some Reflections”]. In Religion, supersticion, y magia en el mundo romano [Religion, Superstition, and Magic in the Roman World], 19–34. Cadiz: Departmento de Historia Antigua, Universidad de Cadiz. Shannon, K. E. 2014. “Aetiology of the Other: Foreign Religions in Tacitus’ Histories.” In Von Ursachen Sprechen. Eine Aitiologische Spurensuche/Telling Origins. On the Lookout for Aetiology, edited by C. Reitz and A. Walter, 271–300. Zurich: Georg Olms Verlag. Shannon-Henderson, K. E 2019. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

28­04­2023 18:08:59

910

  R es G estae D ivi Augusti

Woodman, A. J. 2009. “Tacitus and the Contemporary Scene.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 31–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Beard, M., J. A. North, and S. R. F. Price. 1998. Religions of Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gradel, I. 2002. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. MacBain, B. 1982. Prodigy and Expiation: A Study in Religion and Politics in Republican Rome. Brussels: Latomus. Price, S. R. F. 1984. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

REMI, see BELGICA REMMIUS, see VONONES REMUS, see ROME, MYTH AND HISTORY

RES GESTAE DIVI AUGUSTI GREGORY ROWE

University of Victoria

Res Gestae Divi Augusti (“Deeds of the Divine Augustus”; RG, elsewhere abbreviated Mon. Anc.) is Augustus’ first-person account of his career, running from his emergence at age nineteen in the aftermath of Iulius Caesar’s murder to the weeks before his death at age seventy-five (44 bce–14 ce: RG 1.1, 4.4, 35.2; Cooley 2009, 42–43). RG comprises thirty-five numbered chapters (2,500 words), roughly organized into offices and honors (1–14, 34–35), benefactions (15–25), and military and diplomatic achieve­ ments (26–33). Augustus intended RG to serve as his epitaph, depositing it with the Vestal Virgins along with his will and final papers, which were opened and read aloud at the Senate’s first meeting after Augustus’ death (A. 1.7–8; Suet. Aug. 101; Cass. Dio 56.33). In keeping with Augustus’ wishes, the Senate had RG inscribed in bronze and

c17_Vol2.indd 910

posted in front of Augustus’ Mausoleum in the Campus Martius (RG pref.). The original inscrip­ tion does not survive. We know the text of RG from copies, in Latin and a Greek translation, at three imperial cult sites in Galatia (Ancyra, Pisidian Antioch, Apollonia; for a possible fragment from Sardis see Thonemann 2012; for doubts see Judge 2019, 185–192). Unlike Suetonius and Cassius Dio, Tacitus never men­ tions RG explicitly, but he clearly knew its con­ tents, probably via acta senatus or a compilation of Augustus’ writings. Though outsize in scale, RG belongs in the tradi­ tion of Roman commemorations of the dead, find­ ing its closest equivalents in Augustus’ eulogy for Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (P.Köln 10; 12 bce) and Augustus’ biographies for the statues of Rome’s greatest men in the Forum Augustum, which he said provided a standard by which citizens should judge him and future principes (Suet. Aug. 31.5; cf. RG 8.5: “exempla imitanda tradidi”; on the audi­ ence for RG see Yavetz 1984; for RG as a bid for deification see Bosworth 1999). RG is to be distin­ guished from Augustus’ Autobiography, published in the 20s bce, fragments of which are known through Appian and other sources (Smith and Powell 2009). Throughout his works, Tacitus attacks and undermines Augustus’ central claims in RG, both in his own voice (D. 17.2–3; H. 1.1; A. 1.1–3, 3.28), and in three anonymous evaluations at the time of Augustus’ funeral: those of “the many,” “the insightful who praised Augustus,” and “the insightful who criticized him” (A. 1.9–10; Haverfield 1912). Tacitus attacks Augustus’ claims regarding ●

his rise to power, 44–43 bce. Augustus claimed that he had raised a private army, lib­ erated the republic from the domination of Antony’s faction, and received command from a grateful Senate. After both consuls fell the Roman people made him first consul and then triumvir (RG 1). Recalling Cicero’s murder in D., Tacitus says that Augustus appointed himself consul, then “reigned over the republic” for fifty-six years (D. 17.2–3, rem publicam rexit). In the Annals, Tacitus calls Augustus the leader of the Julian faction

28­04­2023 18:08:59

R es G estae D ivi Augusti  

●

●

●

c17_Vol2.indd 911

(A. 1.2.1) and has Augustus’ critics say that he bribed veterans and consular legions for the sake of his own domination, perhaps mur­ dering the consuls before turning against the republic and extorting the consulship (A. 1.10.1–2). avenging Iulius Caesar’s murder, 42 bce. Augustus claimed that he exiled his father’s murderers by legal means, then defeated them in battle when they made war on the republic (RG 2). In the Annals, even the insightful who praised Augustus apologize for his actions, saying that amid lawlessness, devotion (pietas) toward his father and the needs of the republic had driven him to civil war (A. 1.9.3). Augustus’ critics call pietas and the republic a screen, while moral law demanded that private hatreds yield to public needs (A. 1.10.1). triumviral rivals, 43–30 bce. Augustus sys­ tematically omitted the names of his trium­ viral rivals, calling Antonius a faction and a temple-robber (RG 1.1, 24.1), Brutus and Cassius murderers of his father (2), Lepidus a usurper of the position of pontifex maximus (10.2), and Sextus Pompeius Magnus a pirate and leader of a slave war (25.1). Tacitus pointedly names Augustus’ rivals three times in the opening chapters of the Annals: in his own voice (A. 1.2.1), in the voice of Augustus’ praisers (A. 1.9.4), and in the voice of Augustus’ critics (A. 1.10.3). Tacitus says that Brutus and Cassius had led the last republican army before being slaugh­ tered (A. 1.2.1). resignation of power, 28–27 bce. Augustus claimed that after “extinguishing civil wars” by defeating Antonius, he transferred the republic from his power to the Roman Senate and people, and subsequently had power in no ­ degree greater than colleagues in a magistracy (RG 34). Tacitus says that after Actium “all power was conferred on a single man” and Augustus remained “secure in power” when he annulled his Triumviral acts (H. 1.1: omnem potentiam ad unum conferri; A. 3.28.2: potentiae securus; cf. A. 1.9.4: ab uno regeretur).

●

●

●

●

911

iterations of offices and titles. Augustus enu­ merated his acclamations as imperator (21), consulships (13), and years holding the tribu­ nician power (37; RG 4); Tacitus mocks the many who marveled at such “empty things” (A. 1.9.1–2). rejections of autocratic offices and the title princeps. Augustus listed autocratic offices and powers he refused, preferring only the informal title princeps (RG 5–6). In the Annals the insightful duly praise Augustus for calling his exercise of power neither regnum nor dic­ tatorship but by the name of princeps (A. 1.9.5). But Tacitus opens the Annals with a catalogue of autocrats at Rome, concluding with Augustus, who he says assumed command of everything, exhausted from civil wars, under the name of princeps (A. 1.1.1). benefactions. Augustus boasted of his bene­ factions (RG 5.2, 15–24, 28: grain distributions, veteran bonuses, land for colonies, Roman buildings, and spectacles). Tacitus has the insightful praise Augustus for adorning the city (A. 1.9.3–5), but in his own voice treats Augustus’ benefactions as bribes: Augustus seduced the soldiers with bonuses, the people with grain, and everyone with peace, while usurping the responsibilities of Senate, magis­ trates, and laws (A. 1.2.1; cf. 1.10.2: Augustus’ critics recall the triumviral proscriptions and say even his agents opposed land redistribution). conquest and pacification. Augustus claimed that he extended the empire on all fronts and catalogued his conquests, including con­ quering Germania as far as the Elbe (Albis; RG 26–27). Tacitus notes that the frontier was pushed back to the Rhine after the loss of three legions to Arminius in 9 ce, and says that subsequent German campaigns were under­ taken, not to extend the empire, but to expunge the memory of loss (A. 1.3.6).

Overall, while Augustus presented himself as savior of the republic, Tacitus exposes him as an autocrat, asking how many remained at the time of Augustus’ death who had seen the republic (A. 1.3.7).

28­04­2023 18:08:59

912

  R henus

Tacitus promised a further work on the Augustan age if time allowed (A. 3.24.3; Devillers 2009). This would apparently have contrasted Augustus’ public good fortune and his private misfortunes, a theme pursued by Seneca and the elder Pliny (Brev. Vit. 4; HN 7.45/147–50). see also: Cassius Longinus, Gaius; civil wars of the Late Republic; Iunius Brutus, Lucius; Lepidus, Marcus; Mark Antony; Pompeius, Sextus; sources Reference work: Cooley, Alison. 2009. Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. REFERENCES Bosworth, Brian. 1999. “Augustus, the Res Gestae and Hellenistic Theories of Apotheosis.” Journal of Roman Studies 89: 1–18. DOI: 10.2307/300731. Devillers, Olivier. 2009. “Sed aliorum exitus, simul cetera illius aetatis, memorabo (A., III, 24, 2). Le règne d’Auguste et le projet historiographique de Tacite.” In Le principat d’Auguste : réalités et représentations du pouvoir, edited by Frédéric Hurlet and Bernard Mineo, 309–324. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Haverfield, Francis J. 1912. “Four Notes on Tacitus.” Journal of Roman Studies 2: 195–200. DOI: 10.2307/295956. Judge, Edwin. A. 2019. The Failure of Augustus: Essays on the Interpretation of a Paradox. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Scheid, John. 2007. Res gestae Divi Augusti = Hauts faits du divin Auguste. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Smith, Christopher John, and Anton Powell, eds. 2009. The Lost Memoirs of Augustus and the Development of Roman Autobiography. Swansea, Wales: Classical Press of Wales. Thonemann, Peter. 2012. “A Copy of Augustus’ Res Gestae at Sardis.” Historia 61.3: 282–288. Yavetz, Zvi. 1984. “The Res Gestae and Augustus’ Public Image.” In Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects, edited by Fergus Millar and Erich Segal, 1–36. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Davis, Peter J. 1999. “‘Since My Part Has Been Well Played’: Conflicting Evaluations of Augustus.” Ramus 28.1: 1–15.

c17_Vol2.indd 912

Levick, Barbara M. 2010. Augustus: Image and Substance. Harlow, England; and New York: Longman. Nicolet, Claude. 1991. Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ramage, Edwin S. 1987. The Nature and Purpose of Augustus’ “Res Gestae.” Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag. Ridley, Ronald Tacitus. 2003. The Emperor’s Retrospect: Augustus’ Res Gestae in Epigraphy, Historiography and Commentary. Leuven: Peeters. Schmitt, Hatto H. 1983. “Tacitus und die Nachgelassenen Schriften des Augustus.” In Althistorische Studien. Hermann Bengtson zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by Heinz W. Heine, 178–186. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Urban, Ralf. 1979. “Tacitus und die Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Die Auseinandersetzung des Historikers mit der offiziellen Darstellung.” Gymnasium 86: 59–80. Velaza, Javier. 1993. “Tácito y Augusto (A. 1 9–10).” Emerita 61.2: 335–356. DOI: 10.3989/emerita.1993. v61.i2.448. Wardle, David. 2014. Suetonius: Life of Augustus = Vita divi Augusti. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

REUDIGNI, see NERTHUS TRIBES RHACOTIS, see SARAPIS RHANDEIA, see PARTHIA, ARMENIA

RHENUS ASKE DAMTOFT POULSEN

Aalborg University

The Rhenus, modern Rhine (Ῥῆνος; Celtic Renos = “river”), is a river in present-day Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Although ancient estimations of its length (which vary between 550 and 1,100 km) fall short of its present 1,320 km, the ancient river course was in fact longer (as well as wider and shallower) than the modern Rhine, which has been regulated and partly canalized since the nineteenth century (cf. Campbell 2012, 280). The Rhine is mentioned frequently in ancient geographical treatises, historiography, and poetry. In addition to the actual river, rhenus may designate people(s) living on the banks of or near the Rhine (e.g., Stat. Silv. 1.4.89) as well as

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R henus  

refer specifically to the river god (e.g., H. 5.17.2; Mart. 10.7.1; Plin. Pan. 14.1, 82.4). The Rhine should not be confused with the Reno (also Rhenus) in northern Italy, a tributary of the Po (Plin. HN 3.118, 16.161; Sil. 8.599). The Rhine rises in the Rhaetian Alps in the western part of the present-day canton of Grisons/ Graubünden in Switzerland. The location of its source is a matter of some confusion in the ancient texts: Iulius Caesar places it among the Lepontii (BGall. 4.10.3; Barrington 18 F3), Strabo and Ptolemy near Mt. Adula (Rheinwaldhorn) in the lands of the Helvetii (Str. 4.3.3, 6.6, 5.1.6, Ptol. Geo. 2.9.5, 2.12.1, 5; but note that Mt. Adula at Barrington 19 B3 is located west of the Helvetii at 18 D3-E2), Pliny among the Rhaetian Vennon(et) es and Sarunetes/Suanetes (HN 3.135; Barrington 19 B2-B3), and Tacitus more broadly in the Rhaetian Alps (G. 1.2; Barrington 19 A3-B3). After the confluence of the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein in present-day Rheichenau, the Rhine continues north into Lake Constance (Lacus Brigantinus), before turning west to Colonia Augustua Raurica and north again all the way to Mogontiacum (Mainz). Here it bends sharply to the west before striking a north-­western course via Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne) and Colonia Ulpia Traiana to the insula Batauorum, where it splits into two westbound distributaries, the Waal (Vahalis) and the Old Rhine. From the Old Rhine the Ijssel (Isala) branches off northwards near present-day Arnhem, while the Waal appears to have merged occasionally with the Meuse (Mosa; cf. Caes. BGall. 4.10.1–2). They all empty into the North Sea (cf. G. 34.1; A. 2.6.4; Caes. BGall. 4.10; Str. 4.3.3, 7.1.5; Plin. HN 4.101; Mela 3.24; Ptol. Geo. 2.9.4). Ancient descriptions of the Rhine as twohorned (Verg. Aen. 8.727; cf. Serv. ad Aen. 8.727, Ov. Trist. 4.2.42, Mart. 7.7.3) might refer to its dis­ tributaries (cf. Östenberg 2009, 237–238). The earliest reference to Greco-Roman knowledge of the Rhine goes back to the second century bce geographer Pytheas, whose truthful­ ness is contested by Strabo (1.4.3). The early first century bce Stoic philosopher and polymath Posidonius appears to have remarked on its flood­ ing (F 219, 71–74 Edelstein-Kidd). Caesar, who crossed the Rhine in 55 and 53 bce (Caes. BGall.

c17_Vol2.indd 913

913

4.17–18, 6.9.1–5, 29.2–3; cf. Cat. 1.10–12; Diod. Sic. 5.25.4; Cic. Marc. 9.28–9; Flor. Epit. 1.45.15; App. Gall. frag. 1.5), defines the river as the political frontier between Gaul and Germania (BGall. 1.1–2, 27–8, 31–7, 43–4, 53–4, 2.3–4, 29, 3.11, 4.10, 6.24). While this conception of the Rhine as a boundary between Gauls and Germani is generally accepted by subsequent ancient writers (cf. G. 1.1; Str. 4.4.2, 7.1.2; Ptol. Geo. 2.9.5, 2.11.1, 8.6.2; cf. Östenberg 2009, 233–234; Riggsby 2006, 60, 64–65; Rives 1999, 24–25; Wells 1972, 14–15), the tidy distinction between cisrhenic Gauls and tran­ srhenic Germani is frequently undermined (already by Caesar himself) through mentions of migrations and admissions that those who live near its banks have mixed Gallo-Germanic traits (e.g., G. 28–29; Caes. BGall. 2.3.4, 4.1, 4.3.3, 4.2, 6.24.1–3, Str. 4.1.3, Diod. Sic. 5.25.4; cf. Riggsby 2006, 64–65; Woolf 2011, 101–102). While archaeology has demonstrated the existence of dif­ ferent material cultures in Gaul (Celtic La Tène) and northern Germania (Germanic Jastorf and Harpstedt) in pre-Roman times, the boundary was horizontal—running approximately from the river Lippe (Lupia) to the Carpathian mountains— rather than vertical, and thus does not correspond to the course of the Rhine. In fact, not only was the La Tène culture present on both sides of the upper reaches of the Rhine, the middle and upper reaches (especially after the expansion of the Germanic Rhine-Weser culture north of the Main) appear to have constituted a melting-pot of rather than a boundary between Gauls and Germani (Wells 1972, 14–31; cf. Riggsby 2006, 65; Rives 1999, 6–9, 26; Roymans 2004, 28–29). Caesar’s conquest of Gaul and expeditions across the Rhine laid the groundwork for Roman campaigns into Germania under Augustus. The clades Lolliana in 16 bce (see Lollius) was fol­ lowed by successful transrhenic campaigns (Drusus the Elder 12-9 bce, Tiberius 8-7 bce and 4–5 ce; cf. Mon. Anc. 26.4; Livy Per. 139–142; Vell. 2.97, 105–7; Flor. Epit. 2.30.21–28; Suet. Aug. 21, Tib. 9; Cass. Dio 54.20.4–6, 32–33, 36.3– 4, 55.1–2.3; cf. Whittaker 1994, 39–43). From Augustan times the Rhine was fortified by camps, forts, and bridges, as well as by a fleet stationed at Colonia Agrippinensis. While the aspiration to annex the lands between the Rhine and Elbe

28­04­2023 18:09:00

914

  R henus

(Albis) was severely set back by the Varian disaster in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 Ce (cf. A. 1.10.4; Str. 7.1.3–4; Vell. 2.117–9; Suet. Aug. 23, Tib. 17; Flor. Epit. 2.30.29–39; Cass. Dio 55.18– 24), the Rhine remained a key launch pad for mil­ itary campaigns into Germania during the early principate (Tiberius at Vell. 2.120–1, Suet. Tib. 18–9, Germanicus at A. 1.55–71, 2.5–26). After the death of Germanicus, the Roman presence along the Rhine became increasingly defensive, relying more on diplomacy than force (cf. Claudius’ dispatch of Italicus (1) at A. 11.16– 17). Military operations were needed along the river to suppress the Frisii in 28 ce, Chauci in 47  ce, and Batavi in 69–70 ce (A. 4.72–74, 11.18–9, H. 4–5). The upper and middle reaches were gradually incorporated into the empire dur­ ing the first century ce by the construction of defenses along the Danube (Danuvius) under Claudius and by the occupation of the lands bet­ ween the Danube and Main (agri decumates) under the Flavians. After the cessation of imperial expansion and the stabilization of the northern limes at the end of the first century ce, the Rhine—although noted for its steep incline (A. 2.6.4; Caes. BGall. 4.10.3, 17.2, Str. 4.3.3) and whirlpools (Cic. Pis. 81)—became a crucial artery of communication among the northern prov­ inces, facilitating trade and troop movements via other major rivers: the Danube to Raetia, the Rhone to Gaul, its eastern tributaries to Free Germania, and the North Sea to Britannia. Mogontiacum was situated at the strategically important confluence of the Rhine and Main rivers (Purcell 2012). Several construction pro­ jects were undertaken to modify the course of the river and control its waters: canals were dug to the Ijsselmeer by Drusus the Elder in 12 bce (A. 2.8.1; Suet. Cl. 1.2; cf. Wells 1972, 111–116) and to the Mosa (Meuse) by Domitius Corbulo in 47 ce (A. 11.20.2; Cass. Dio 60.30.6), and embankments begun by Drusus the Elder were finished by Pompeius Paulinus in 58 ce (A. 13.53.2). As a symbolic northern boundary of the empire, the Rhine—along with the Nile, Danube, Tigris, Euphrates, and Oceanus—played a key part in the Romans’ conceptualization of world conquest (A. 1.9.5; cf. Sen. Nat. 1. praef. 9., 6.7.1,

c17_Vol2.indd 914

Dial. 10.4.5, Her. F. 1324; Plin. Pan. 14.2, 63.4; Mart. 4.11.7; Ptol. Geo. 2.9.2, 11.3; Joseph. BJ  3.107; App. praef. 4; Cass. Dio 39.49). Its political and military importance is underlined by its frequent appearances in triumphal processions (e.g., those of Caesar and Augustus) and repre­ sentations thereof, physical (e.g., on a Domitianic sesterce dated 85 ce, RIC 2, p. 187, no. 259) as well as literary (Verg. Aen. 8.727, Ov. Pont. 3.4.88, Trist. 4.2.42, Luc. 3.76–8, Pers. 6.47, Flor. Epit. 2.13.88; cf. Östenberg 2009, 215–245). However, rather than a hard frontier separating cultures, the Rhine remained a broad boundary zone (extending some 200 km into Free Germania) wherein social, political, linguistic, and commercial interaction took place (Campbell 2012, 279–289; Whittaker 1994, 70–78, 99). After the withdrawal from the agri decumates in the middle of the third century ce, the Rhine became once again the boundary line between the Roman world and the unconquered lands beyond. Due to the gradual disintegration of imperial power in the northern provinces, continuous pressure from tribes beyond (especially Huns, Vandals, Alemanni, and Franks), and increasing difficulty in distinguishing between Romans and outsiders, by the middle of the fifth century ce the Rhine had ceased to exist as a border (Whittaker 1994, 156–170, 250–253). The Rhine (58 occurrences) is the most fre­ quently mentioned river in the Tacitean corpus, easily outscoring the Euphrates (18), Tiber (14), Danube/Danuvius (10), Elbe/Albis (7), Meuse/ Mosa (5), Weser/Visurgis (5), Moselle/Mosella (4), Nile (2), Tigris (2), and even Ocean/Oceanus (40). Most occurrences are concentrated in Germania (13), Histories 4–5 (19), and Annals 1–2 (15). As in Caesar’s Gallic Wars, the Rhine in Germania is described as the political frontier between Gaul and Germania (G. 1.1; cf. terminos at G. 29.2, terminus at G. 32.1, praetexuntur at G. 34.1) as well as a boundary zone of migration, interaction, and hybridization (G. 2.3, 3.2, 28–29; cf. Woolf 2011, 101–102; on Caesar’s presence in Germania, see Rives 1999, 230). The course of the river is described at G. 1.2, the assured course of its middle reach noted at G. 32.1 (probably in con­ trast to the lower; cf. Caes. BGall. 4.10.4–5; Mela 3.24; Plin. HN 4.101).

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R henus  

In Histories, after only two appearances in the first three book (H. 1.51.3, 2.32.1), the Rhine is a key term with which Tacitus orders the anarchy of the Batavian Revolt in Books 4–5: occurring thrice at the very beginning of the revolt (H. 4.12)—to describe the earlier history (trans Rhenum), current position (the Batavian island), and military specialty of the Batavi (swimming across the river on horseback)—it is used throughout the narrative as a geographical feature along which key events of the revolt are strung out (H. 4.16.2, 22.2, 26.1, 55.2, 59.3, 64.1; cf. ripa at 4.16.3, 24.1, 27.1, 28.2, 64.3, 70.1, 5.16.3, 5.18.2; see also the frequent occurrences of the adjective transrhenanus). The Rhine also appears in the Roman commander Petilius Cerialis’ speech to the rebellious Gauls, when he—by claiming that the Romans occupied the river to prevent a second Ariovistus (see Suebi) from acquiring the kingship of Gaul (H. 4.73.2)—invokes the idea of the Rhine as the boundary between Gaul and Germania. The importance of the river grows in Book 5, as the Batavian leader Iulius Civilis repeatedly harnesses its power against the Romans: flooding the fields between his own and the Roman army by constructing a dam (H. 5.14.2; cf. 5.18.1), calling on his men to fight in view of the Rhine and the gods of Germania in his pre-battle speech (H. 5.17.2: Rhenum et Germaniae deos in adspectu), strengthening the defenses of the Batavian island by directing more water into the south-western river arm (H. 5.19), and swimming back across the river to safety after a failed attempt to capture a Roman fort (H. 5.21.1– 2). However, after an inconclusive naval engage­ ment at the mouth of the Mosa, Civilis abandons the island and withdraws to the eastern bank (H. 5.23). Before the peace negotiations begin and the text breaks off, Cerialis—in his efforts to restore provincial order and imperial stability—tries to reinstate the Rhine as the proper boundary bet­ ween the Roman Empire and the Germani by per­ suading Veleda and her relatives that the Germani will incur divine wrath if they continue to cross the river (H. 5.24.2). In Annals, the Rhine is briefly mentioned as the location of Augustus’ instalment of Germanicus as commander of eight legions (A. 1.3.5),

c17_Vol2.indd 915

915

reappears thrice during the mutiny in Germania (A. 1.31.2, 32.1, 45.2), and occurs eleven times in the treatment of Germanicus and his Germanic campaigns: it plays a key role not only in the map­ ping of landscapes (A. 2.6.3–4), the provenience of troops (A. 1.56.1), and their movements (A. 1.56.4, 63.3, 2.7.3), but also as a symbolic boundary between the Roman Empire and the Germani. Caecina Severus tells his beleaguered soldiers that they will be able to return and Agrippina the Elder prevents the dismantling of a bridge across the Rhine (1.67.1, 69.1; cf. Arminius harping on the ignominy of seeing Roman symbols of power between the Rhine and Elbe at 1.59.4). Germanicus tries (but fails) to move this symbolic boundary to the Elbe: he tells his men that the Elbe is now closer than the Rhine (A. 2.14.4); he sets up a pile of weapons with an inscription that he has defeated the tribes bet­ ween the Rhine and Elbe (A. 2.22.1; cf. the simulacra … flumina paraded in his triumph at 2.41.2); and his achievements and patriotic end are com­ memorated on an inscribed arch set up on the banks of the Rhine after his death (A. 2.83.2). The importance of the Rhine in Annals decreases after the death of Germanicus. It is mentioned as the principal military hub of the empire in the imperial overview (A. 4.5.1); it is used for troop movements during revolts of the Frisii and Chauci (A. 4.73.1, 11.18.2); it is noted as the boundary of the empire (A. 11.19.3, 12.27.1, 13.56.2); and it serves as the scene of construction works (A. 11.20.2, 13.53.2). see also: empire, ethnography, geography Reference work: Barrington 11 F1, 1 E1, 2 E3, 10 A4, 12 A2, 18 E2, 19 A2 REFERENCES Campbell, J. Brian. 2012. Rivers and the Power of Ancient Rome. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Östenberg, Ida. 2009. Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representations in the Roman Triumphal Procession. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28­04­2023 18:09:00

916

  R hescuporis

Purcell, Nicholas. 2012. “Rivers and the Geography of Power.” Pallas 90: 373–387. DOI: 10.4000/ pallas.1093. Riggsby, Andrew M. 2006. Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words. Austin: University of Texas Press. Rives, James B. 1999. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roymans, Nico. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press. Wells, Colin. M. 1972. The German Policy of Augustus: An Examination of the Archaeological Evidence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whittaker, C. R. 1994. Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Woolf, Greg. 2011. Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West. Chichester / Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. FURTHER READING Bechert, Tilmann. 1982. Römisches Germanien zwischen Rhein und Maas: Die Provinz Germania Inferior. Zürich and Munich: Hirmer Verlag.

RHESCUPORIS OLIVIER DEVILLERS

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, UMR 5607 Ausonius

Rhescuporis (III), king of Thrace, caused disor­ ders in the early reign of Tiberius (14–19 ce; A. 2.64–67; cf. Suet. Tib. 37.4; Vell. Pat. 2.129.1; Strabo 12.3.29). Augustus had divided the Thracian kingdom between this king and his nephew Cotys (VIII). After Augustus died, Rhescuporis began to encroach openly on the areas possessed by Cotys. Tiberius sent a centurion to dissuade the two kings from a war. Rhescuporis, pretending to ratify a peace, proposed a banquet. As Cotys was unsuspi­ cious of the danger, Rhescuporis put him in chains and wrote to Tiberius that Cotys had formed a plot against him and that he should protect himself. Tiberius answered in a conciliatory manner, inviting Rhescuporis to hand Cotys over and then to appear before the princeps and the Senate to prove his innocence. Rhescuporis was then ordered to kill Cotys and to spread the rumor that

c17_Vol2.indd 916

his nephew had committed suicide. At that time Tiberius appointed Pomponius Flaccus to be propraetor of Moesia. Flaccus tricked Rhescuporis who was taken to Rome, accused before the Senate by Antonia Tryphaena, Cotys’ widow, and con­ demned to be kept a prisoner far from his kingdom. Thrace was divided between the son of Rhescuporis and the children of Cotys (also A. 4.5.3). Tryphaena stayed at Rome for some time, where she lived at court with Antonia the Younger, widow of Drusus the Elder (Val. Max. 4.3.3). As he had been taken to Alexandria, Rhescuporis was put to death after he attempted to escape, unless he was falsely accused of such an attempt (A. 2.64–67). After reporting these events, Tacitus records in A. 3.38.2 (21 ce) that Antistius Vetus (otherwise unknown) a high-ranking Macedonian man was tried because he was involved with Rhescuporis’ schemes. The way Tiberius put the unruly Rhescuporis out of the way illustrates to some extent his foreign policy skill; this fact may have been exploited by the emperor to support his self-rep­ resentation (cf. Vell. Pat. 2.129.1). A fragmentary senatus consultum from Ephesus (AE 1998, 1333) also seems to refer to this affair. In the Annals however, it was considered that this episode helps criticize the establishment of client kings (Gowing 1990, 326–327). These events precede the account of Germanicus’ death and one may suspect that the two episodes are implicitly associated. Indeed, like Tiberius and Germanicus, Rhescuporis and Cotys are an uncle and a nephew who were put in a rivalry for power following a decision by Augustus, the uncle appearing the more aggres­ sive, the nephew the more conciliatory (Devillers 2014); this inference is reinforced by echoes to the Jugurtha of Sallust, in which King Micipsa’s dis­ trust of his nephew Jugurtha is recorded (Woodman 2012, 394). Moreover, in Book 2, Tacitus has already mentioned another pair of rival uncle and nephew, Inguiomerus and Arminius (McCulloch 1984, 91–99). In the case of Rhescuporis, an element of this analogy with Germanicus is deception. Rhescuporis eliminated his nephew Cotys by deception (A. 2.65.3: dolum); Tiberius, who gets rid of Rhescuporis himself by cheating (A. 2.64.2: astu), may well be preparing

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R hodes  

to use the same method against his nephew Germanicus. The analogy would thus be part of Tacitus’ narrative strategy to suggest that Germanicus’ death—which is yet to come—may not have been natural. Also, in this sense, Cotys’ widow accusing Rhescuporis of the murder of her husband before the Senate could be a projection of Agrippina the Elder, accusing Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso of the murder of Germanicus. see also: intertextuality; metahistory Reference work: PIR2 R 60 (s.v. Rhascuporis) REFERENCES Gowing, Alan M. 1990. “Tacitus and the Client Kings.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 120: 315–331. Devillers, Olivier. 2014. “Rhescuporis, Cotys, Tibère et Germanicus (Tacite, Annales, 2.64–67).” Revue Africaine des Études Latines 1: 15–24. McCulloch, Harold Y., Jr. 1984. Narrative Cause in the Annals of Tacitus. Königstein/Ts.: A. Hain. Woodman, Anthony J. 2012. From Poetry to History. Selected Papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Sullivan, Richard D. 1979. “Thrace in the Eastern Dynastic Network.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II.7.1, edited by Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase, 186–211. Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter.

RHODANUS (RHONE) TRUDY HARRINGTON BECKER

Virginia Tech

The Rhodanus River (modern Rhone) runs from the Swiss Alps via Lake Geneva southeast to the Mediterranean. The river served as a major trade route for goods shipped to the interior from the Mediterranean throughout Gaul; Roman cities along the river included Lugdunum, Vienna, Aurasio (modern Orange), and Arelate (modern Arles). As the foremost waterway in central and southern

c17_Vol2.indd 917

917

Gaul through Lugdunensis and Narbonnensis, the Rhone figured in many moments in Roman history, including, for example, Hannibal’s crossing of it, including elephants (Livy 21.26– 28) and Iulius Caesar’s blockading of it to pre­ vent Helvetii free passage (Caes. B Gall. 1.8). The subsequent battle with the Helvetii took place at one of its key tributaries, the Arar River (modern Saone). In Tacitus, however, the Rhone appears only once by name, in A. 13.53. The Rhone figures there as the start point in a connected series of waterways intended to facilitate trade. Pompeius Paulinus, commander of Lower Germany, had his men complete the embankment of the Rhone, begun by Drusus the Elder sixty-three years earlier. His counterpart, Lucius Antistius Vetus, commander of Upper Germany, began preparations for a canal to be constructed which would connect the Mosella and the Arar River, which flowed into the Rhone at Lugdunum. Products would then move from the Rhone to the Arar and on to the Mosella via the new canal. The Mosella in turn connected to the Rhine River and then the ocean, allowing for the possibility of transportation of merchandise from west all the way north. Ultimately, however, the canal was not built when Aelius Gracilis, the legate of Belgica, voiced concerns about the presence (and poten­ tial popularity) of Vetus and his army in his province. see also: Germania; Rhenus Reference work: Barrington 15 D1; 17 D2; 18 B4

RHODES PANAYIOTIS CHRISTOFOROU

University College, University of Oxford

Rhodes is an island in the eastern Aegean off the coast of southwest Turkey (Barrington 60 F3). Known as a place of learning and educa­ tion, Rhodes was frequented by Roman aristo­ crats in both the republic and empire, including the emperor Tiberius, and is mentioned thir­ teen times in Tacitus.

28­04­2023 18:09:00

918

  R hoemetalces I and I I

Rhodes’ synoecic political system survived from its foundation in the classical period through to the imperial period (see OCD3 Rhodes), enjoying its status as a free city due to a long alliance with Rome, with a brief hiatus between 44–53 ce. Tacitus mentions that Rhodes’ status would change frequently, though the statement is vague; Rhodes’ freedom was restored by the future emperor Nero in a decla­ mation to Claudius on behalf of Rhodes (A. 12.58.2; cf. Suet. Claud. 25.3; Ner. 7.2; IGRR 4.1123 = IG 12.1.2). Rhodes is mentioned once in the D. 40.3 as a place of origin of rhetoricians, and twice in itiner­ aries: in H. 2.2.2 in Titus’ trip east to join Vespasian, and in A. 2.55.3, as a meeting point bet­ ween Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso and Germanicus in the latter’s ill-fated journey east. However, the majority of allusions to Rhodes are as a leitmotif for Tiberius’ retirement to the island in 6 bce–2 ce (A. 1.4.4; 1.53.1; 2.42.2; 3.48.1; 4.15.1; 4.57.2; 6.10.2; 6.20.2; 6.51.2) This was due to problems of succession under Augustus, with the rise of Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, which created political and diplomatic difficulties and fostered allegiances throughout (for a full treatment, see Levick 1972). Tiberius’ learning of and interest in Astrology was piqued at Rhodes; notable is the story of Thrasyllus at A. 6.20, where Tiberius would test the competencies of sooth­ sayers and order them to be thrown from the roof of his house over a cliff if they proved to be frauds (see further Champlin 2008, 412–418). As such, Rhodes is a place of memory for Tiberius’ ambiguous personality, hidden plea­ sures, and savagery. see also: Capri; Julio-Claudian dynasty Reference works: Barrington 60 F3; OCD3 Rhodes REFERENCES Champlin, Edward. 2008. “Tiberius the Wise.” Historia 57: 408–425. Levick, Barbara M. 1972. “Tiberius’ Retirement to Rhodes in 6 bc.” Latomus 31: 779–813.

c17_Vol2.indd 918

RHOEMETALCES I AND II STEPHEN CHAPPELL

James Madison University

Rhoemetalces I (22 bce–13 ce) and II (19–36 ce) were client kings of Thrace who ruled during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. They aided Roman military efforts and remained obedient even against fellow Thracians. Thrace was turbulent in this era and suffered from consider­ able dynastic strife which ultimately caused the annexation of the kingdom as a province in 46 ce during the reign of Claudius. Rhoemetalces I changed sides to Octavian (see Augustus) in 31 bce during the civil war with Mark Antony and became client king in 22 bce. He supported the Romans against the Thracian Bessi and in the Pannonian Revolt of 6–9 ce. He minted silver and bronze coins, as did Rhoemetalces II (BNP vol. 12 p. 575). At his death, Augustus split the kingdom between Rhoemetalces’ son, Cotys, who inherited the urban south and Rhescuporis II, the son of his predecessor, who gained the “wilder” north (A. 2.64). Rhoemetalces II inherited half of Thrace after the deposition and disgrace of his father Rhescuporis II (13–19 ce). Rhescuporis had cap­ tured and killed Cotys, his fellow king and son of Rhoemetalces I despite his son’s opposition (A 2.64–67). He was killed in Alexandria after the Senate deposed him at Tiberius’ behest. Rhoemetalces II shared the divided kingdom with the children of Cotys whom Tacitus leaves name­ less (A. 2.67; 3.38; 4.5). The kingdom remained turbulent in part because of Roman demands for large-scale conscription into auxiliary regiments (A 4.46). Rhoemetalces II remained obedient to the Romans twice in the face of Thracian revolts c. 21 and 26 ce (A. 3.38; 4.47). In the first revolt by the tribes of the Coelaletae, Odrusae, and Dii, the king successfully defeated the tribesmen in conjunction with Roman reinforcements after being hemmed in Philippopolis (A. 3.38). But Tacitus uses the second revolt to portray Rhoemetalces’ troops as careless, lazy, undisci­ plined and drunken which led to many being

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R oman gods  

killed outside their camp walls by the rebels (A. 4.48). He similarly emphasizes the wildness and bravado of the Thracian rebels (A. 4.46) which contrasts with their ultimate defeat by Roman forces (A. 4.49–51). Given the large number of Thracians in Roman service as auxiliaries, Tacitus’ characterization seems more likely to be a literary trope than strictly accurate. Tiberius desire for the avoidance of instability in Thrace (A. 2.65) was typical of imperial policy toward client kingdoms. The frequent disruption in these kingdoms led to a trend toward annexing them after a few generations which Thrace and, a little earlier, Mauretania typify. see also: Trebellenus Rufus Reference work: PIR2 R 67, 68 FURTHER READING Hoddinott, R. F. 1975. Bulgaria in Antiquity. London and Tonbridge: Ernest Benn.

RHOXOLANI, see SARMATIANS

ROMAN GODS KELLY E. SHANNON-HENDERSON

University of Cincinnati

Tacitus’ mentions of the gods of the Roman pan­ theon revolve mostly around their cult sites in the city of Rome, for example in temple rededi­ cations or acts of cult performed by the emperors, or especially when their safety is threatened by disasters such as the Fire of 64 ce or the civil wars of 69 ce. Tacitus also sometimes engages in syncretistic identifications of Roman gods with those worshipped by foreigners, particu­ larly Germans. Many references to Apollo are to his worship in  the Greek world, for example at Ephesus (A.  3.61.1) and Miletus (A. 3.63.3, 4.55.2). Pronouncements of the famous Pythian Oracle at Delphi are mentioned, but only in digressions or summaries of events in the distant past, e.g., the consultations by Scydrothemis (H. 4.83.4) and Smyrna (A. 3.63.3), or the oracle that provided

c17_Vol2.indd 919

919

the impetus for the foundation of Byzantium (A. 12.63.1). The Pythia is never consulted by the Roman emperors or their contemporaries. The far less famous oracular sanctuary of Apollo at Claros in Ionia, however, is twice consulted by people close to Julio-Claudian emperors. Germanicus visits the sanctuary during his Eastern tour of 18 ce and the god “is said to have prophesied a timely (maturum) departure— ambiguously, as is usual for oracles” (A. 2.54.4, where maturum could mean either “occurring at the proper time” or “occurring before the proper time”; see Shannon-Henderson 2019, 103–106). Tacitus also takes the opportunity here to provide a detailed description of the process for con­ sulting the oracle, which involves the god’s priest descending into a cave and delivering prophecies after drinking from a sacred spring for inspiration (on the cult and its priests, see further Lampinen 2013). In 49 ce, Lollia Paulina is accused by Agrippina the Younger of consulting the same oracle about Claudius’ plans for marriage (A. 12.22.1). In addition to Apollo’s role as the god of prophecy, Tacitus also nods to his relationship with music: Apollo is given as the example par ex­ cellence of a poet at D. 12.4, and Nero cites exam­ ples of Greek and Roman cult statues of Apollo in performers’ dress as justification for his own desire to engage in musical performance (A. 14.14.1). The famous temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill in Rome (Richardson 1992, 14), ­dedicated by Augustus in 28 bce, appears only in the Histories: Galba receives dire omens when sacrificing at the temple (H. 1.27.1), and it serves as the site of a meeting between Flavius Sabinus and Vitellius to come to an agreement about the latter’s surrender (H. 3.65.2). The famous temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera near the Circus Maximus in Rome (on which see Richardson 1992, 80–81), which dated from the fifth century bce and had long been associated with the plebeians, features several times in the Annals. Tacitus describes its restoration by Tiberius in 17 ce (A. 2.49.1). Ceres’ festival, the Cerealia (12–14 April), is the venue chosen for the assassination of Nero by the Pisonian conspir­ ators (A. 15.53.1), and Gaius Calpurnius Piso waits inside the temple for his signal to act (A. 15.53.3). Planning Nero’s murder during a festival seems to be an attempt on the part of the Pisonians

28­04­2023 18:09:00

920

  R oman gods

to secure Ceres’ support for their crime but is in fact a deeply irreligious act that only underscores their impiety (Shannon-Henderson 2019, 326– 327). The only act of cult of Ceres described by Tacitus is the propitiation of the goddess after the Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.44.1), probably because her temple was near the location of the outbreak of the fire (cf. A. 15.38.2), but possibly also because of her “general associations with fruitfulness” (Ash 2018, 203). Hercules’ oldest and most important cult site in Rome, the Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium, is an important landmark for Tacitus, who describes its location in his description of the course of the pomerium (A. 12.24.1; see Richardson 1992, 186–187 for the problem of identifying its remains) and its destruction in the Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.41.1; it was probably rebuilt later). Hercules’ status as a demigod is given a euhemeristic interpretation by the critics of Tiberius’ refusal of a temple of himself: Hercules is cited as an example of men who became gods because of their exceptional achievements (A. 4.38.5). But Tacitus associates Hercules more often with the religious practices of foreigners than with Roman cult: he is worshipped by Germans (G. 3.1 and 9.1, A. 2.12.1; it is unclear which Germanic god Tacitus means by “Hercules,” see Rives 1999, 160) and Parthians (A. 12.13.3; perhaps the Assyrian god Ninip, see Koestermann 1967, 130). Hercules’ peregrinations during the Twelve Labors he performed means that various peoples claim the god once visited their territory: the Germans (G. 3.1 and 34.2, a reference to the so-called “northern pillars of Hercules”), the Egyptians (A. 2.60.2), and the Ephesians (A. 3.61.2). The famous partition of the Peloponnese among his children is also mentioned (A. 4.43.2; cf. Apollod. Bibl. 2.8.4). The temple of Janus in the Forum Boarium at Rome, first dedicated in 260 bce by Gaius Duilius to celebrate a Roman naval victory in the First Punic War, was restored by Tiberius in 17 ce (A. 2.49.1; for the temple, see Richardson 1992, 206– 207). But Tacitus seems also to have mentioned the better-known shrine of Janus Geminus in or near the Forum in Rome (its exact location is unknown), whose doors were opened when Rome was at war and closed to signify times of peace

c17_Vol2.indd 920

(Richardson 1992, 207–208). Two fragments of the Histories refer to the temple being closed by Vespasian in 71 ce (H. F 4 = Oros. 7.3.7), only to be opened one year later (H. F 5 = Oros. 7.19.4). Janus is also alluded to at A. 4.70.1: Titius Sabinus is dragged off for execution on 1 January 28 ce, “shouting over and over that this was how the year began, these were the victims being slaughtered for Sejanus.” Since Janus was typi­ cally associated with new beginnings, there is per­ haps a pun here, with the privative prefix se- likening Sejanus to “un-Janus” and the murder of Sabinus to the more customary sacrifices (see Corrigan 1993; Morgan 1998). Juno is twice the recipient of propitiations in Tacitus: she is one of the deities called upon dur­ ing the rededication of the Capitolium (H. 4.53.3) and again after the Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.44.1). This befits the frequent involvement of Juno Regina in propitiations after public prod­ igies on several occasions in Roman history (e.g., Livy 22.1.17, 27.37.11–15, 31.12.9; Obsequens 48). In the case of the fire, it is relevant that there may also have been a temple of Juno on the Aventine near the site of the fire’s outbreak (see Richardson 1992, 215–216; Shannon 2012, 756). Juno is herself part of a prodigy in 69 ce, when a “larger-than-human phantom” bursts out of her cella in the Capitoline temple (H. 1.86.1; for the cella, see Richardson 1992, 222) as part of the bad omens associated with Otho’s departure from Rome to fight Vitellius’ troops. Jupiter Optimus Maximus, chief god of the Roman state cult whose massive temple on the Capitoline Hill overlooked the city of Rome (see Richardson 1992, 221–224), is of special impor­ tance to Tacitus. The god’s major priest in Rome, the flamen Dialis, is subject to scrutiny in the reign of Tiberius when proposed changes to the restrictive ritual rules governing the flamen’s conduct seem to threaten long-held Roman reli­ gious traditions (A. 3.58–59.1, 3.71.2–3, and 4.16, with Shannon-Henderson 2019, 140–149, 177–181). The temple is struck by lightning in 55 ce (A. 13.24.2), a bad omen which Nero attempts to expiate. But the most significant ref­ erence to Jupiter Optimus Maximus is undoubt­ edly Tacitus’ account of the burning of the Capitoline temple during the fighting between

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R oman gods  

Vespasian’s forces and the Vitellians in 69 ce. This is depicted as an exceptionally traumatic event with serious implications for Rome (H. 3.71–2, with Ash 2007; cf. also the similar destruction of the Temple of Jupiter Stator in the Fire of 64 ce, with Shannon 2012, 751–752), although the temple’s eventual reconstruction (H. 4.53) perhaps points to some possibility of recovery (Shannon-Henderson 2019, 357–358). The emotive power of Jupiter Optimus Maximus is on display when the god is invoked in the 70 ce speech of commander Dillius Vocula to his mutinying troops, which he ends with an appeal to the god, “whom we have worshipped for 820 years with so many triumphs” (H. 4.58.6; see Ash 2010, 224–225). Tacitus also relates that Domitian was able to escape the fighting unscathed by hiding out in the house of the temple’s sacristan (aedituus), on the site of which he later dedicated self-aggran­ dizing shrines to Jupiter Conservator (“Savior”) and Jupiter Custos (“Guardian”). There are sim­ ilar dedications to Jupiter in the Annals, proposed by flatterers to commemorate fatalities consid­ ered to benefit the emperor (the suicide of Scribonius Libo Drusus, A. 2.32.2; the death of Agrippina the Elder, A. 6.25.3) or blessings on his family that nevertheless do not seem worthy of such extravagant commemoration (A. 15.23.2, golden statues of the twin fortunae of Antium to be added to the throne of the cult statue of Jupiter Capitolinus to commemorate the birth of Claudia Augusta, Nero and Poppaea Sabina the Younger’s short-lived baby daughter, in 63 ce). Similarly, the dagger Gaius Calpurnius Piso had planned to use for Nero’s assassination is dedicated to Jupiter Vindex after the plot is foiled (A. 15.74.2). But opponents of the principate can invoke Jupiter on their behalf as well: both Seneca (A. 15.64.4) and Helvidius Priscus (A. 16.35.1) offer libations to Jupiter Liberator at their deaths, the latter with drops of his own blood. Tacitus also records several instances where the traditional worship of Jupiter is brought into comparison with the new cult of Augustus (A. 1.73.4, breaking oaths sworn to divus Augustus compared to those invoking Jupiter; A. 2.22.1, Germanicus’ trophy is dedicated to Augustus

c17_Vol2.indd 921

921

alongside Mars and Jupiter; A. 4.57.1, Tiberius leaves Rome to dedicate a temple to Jupiter at Capua and one to Augustus at Nola). While his focus is mostly on Jupiter as wor­ shipped in Rome/Italy, Tacitus also nods to syn­ cretistic associations of the Roman Jupiter with gods from elsewhere, namely the Greek Zeus (A. 3.61.1, 3.62.2, 4.56.1) and the Egyptian Sarapis, said to be the same as Jupiter Dis (H. 4.83.2, 4.84.5). Jupiter’s expulsion of Saturn is also given as a chronological reference point for the migration of the Jews from their origins in Crete to Libya (H. 5.2.1). Like Hercules, Liber is cited as an example of an exceptional human who earned divinity (A. 4.38.5). The people of Ephesus note his role in pardoning suppliant Amazons in their town (A. 3.61.2). Liber is also given as one possible identity of the Jewish god (H. 5.5.5). In the Roman reli­ gious context, Tacitus tells us of the temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera near the Circus Maximus (see Richardson 1992, 80–81) restored by Tiberius in 17 ce (A. 2.49.1). The only act of cult to Liber described is a twisted one: a celebration of the vindemia festival, complete with Bacchic revels and sacrifice, by Messalina before her demise in 47 ce (A. 11.31.2–3); the god is not explicitly men­ tioned (on the episode see Shannon-Henderson 2019, 254–255; on the festival, Malloch 2013, 434 and evidence there cited). Mars is highlighted with some frequency as a recipient of dedications. On only one occasion, however, is this straightforwardly related to Roman success in warfare: Germanicus’ dedica­ tion of spoils in Germany to Mars, alongside Jupiter and Augustus (A. 2.22.1). Other dedica­ tions to Mars are made for decidedly unwarlike reasons, and part of Tacitus’ point in mentioning these seems to be a desire to draw a contrast bet­ ween the god’s traditional sphere of influence and the sycophantic uses to which his worship is being put during the principate (see ShannonHenderson 2019, 135). The temple of Mars Ultor located in the Forum Augustum in Rome (Richardson 1992, 160–162) is a particular locus for such dedications: a proposal (rejected by Tiberius) for a golden statue commemorating the death of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (A. 3.18.2), and two dedications commemorating settlements

28­04­2023 18:09:00

922

  R oman gods

in Armenia (A. 2.64.1 and 13.8.1, the latter con­ sisting of a statue of Nero as large as that of Mars himself). Offerings to Mars (along with Jupiter and Concordia) are also proposed by flatterers after the suicide of Libo Drusus, also a decidedly nonmilitary affair (A. 2.32.2). Outside Rome, Mars (to be identified with the Germanic Tiw; see Rives 1999, 160–161) is depicted as being a particular favorite of the warlike Germans (G. 9.1, H. 4.64.1, A. 13.57.2). Mercury is referred to by Tacitus only as a god worshipped by Germans. He is described as the most widely worshipped god in Germany (G. 9.1) and is mentioned in the context of a war between the Hermunduri and the Chatti, both of whom vow to sacrifice the enemy army to Mars and Mercury if victorious (A. 13.57.2). Minerva appears in Tacitus primarily as part of the Capitoline Triad (see Richardson 1992, 221– 224): her temple is ominously struck by lightning in 55 ce during the reign of Nero (A. 13.24.2), and she is included in the prayers at the ceremony for the restoration of the Capitoline Temple in 70 ce (H. 4.53.3). Upon the murder of Agrippina the Younger, there is a senatorial proposal to add a golden statue of Minerva beside the portrait of Nero in the Curia (A. 14.12.1), presumably because the Quinquatrus Maiores (19–23 March), during which the plot came to light, was associ­ ated with her (Koestermann 1968, 46). The only mention of cult offered to Proserpina in Rome in Tacitus is at A. 15.44.1, where she, alongside Juno and Vulcan (mentioned nowhere else in Tacitus), appears among the gods propiti­ ated after the Fire of 64 ce; presumably she was chosen because she had a temple on the Aventine near the location of the fire’s outbreak (Shannon 2012, 756; this is the temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera; Richardson 1992, 80–81; for the identification of the latter with the Greek Kore/ Persephone, see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 6.17.3–4). Proserpina’s association with the underworld is relevant to syncretistic activity performed by Timotheus of Athens: when asked by Ptolemy to identify the god in his visions, Timotheus ques­ tions travelers to Pontus, who tell him of a god in Sinope whom they are able to identify as Jupiter Dis, thanks to the presence of a female statue

c17_Vol2.indd 922

identified as Proserpina in his shrine (H. 4.83.2; see Sarapis). Venus for Tacitus is usually the Greek Aphrodite, as worshipped at Aphrodisias (A. 3.62.2), Stratoniceia (A. 3.63.3), or Paphos (H. 2.2.2, A. 3.62.4; see Paphian Venus). There is also a reference to the famous temple of Venus at Mount Eryx in Sicily, said to have been con­ structed by Aeneas (Verg. Aen. 5.759–60), which Tiberius restores because he is “of the same bloodline” (consanguineus) as the goddess due to his adoption into the gens Iulis (A. 4.43.4). In Rome, the famous temple of Venus Genetrix vowed by Iulius Caesar in the Forum Iulium (see Richardson 1992, 166–167) is occupied in 66 ce by the praetorian guard as part of an intimida­ tion campaign directed against the Senate in gen­ eral and Thrasea Paetus in particular (A. 16.27.1). Vesta’s importance in Roman religion is clearly reflected in Tacitus’ mention of her at several key moments in the history of the principate. She ter­ rifies Nero into abandoning his planned trip to Egypt (A. 15.36.2), a striking example of a divinity intervening directly in human affairs. Her temple in the Roman Forum was thought to date back to the time of Numa (for the building see Richardson 1992, 412–413), and its destruc­ tion in the Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.41.1) is a particu­ larly devastating loss because with it, Tacitus says, were also destroyed the Penates, who, like the Palladium also stored in the temple, were thought to be key to guaranteeing Rome’s continued existence and success (Shannon 2012, 752). Vesta’s temple has apparently been rebuilt by 69 ce, when Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus hides there from the Othonian party during its march on Rome; eventually he is dragged out and murdered on the temple’s steps (H. 1.43.2), a gross violation of Roman religious norms related to pollution. The goddess’ priestesses, the Vestal Virgins, are also mentioned frequently (H. 3.81.2, 4.53.2; A. 1.8.1, 2.34.4, 4.16.4, 11.32.2, 15.22.2). see also: religion; Germani, Germania; Pisonian Conspiracy; portents; Rome, myth and history; Rome, topography

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R oman historians  

REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2007. Tacitus: Histories Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ash, Rhiannon. 2010. “Fighting Talk: Dillius Vocula’s Last Stand (Tacitus Histories 4.58).” In Stimmen der Geschichte: Funktionen von Reden in der antiken Historiographie, edited by D. Pausch, 211–232. Berlin: De Gruyter. Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus Annals Book XV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Corrigan, P. L. 1993. “A Literary Reading of Tacitus’ Annals 4,68–70: The Slaying of Titius Sabinus.” Rheinisches Museum 136: 330–342. Koestermann, Erich. 1967. Cornelius Tacitus Annalen. Band III: Buch 11–13. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Koestermann, Erich. 1968. Cornelius Tacitus Annalen. Band IV: Buch 14–16. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Lampinen, A. 2013. “Θεῷ μεμελημένε Φοίβῳ: Oracular Functionaries at Claros and Didyma in the Imperial Period.” In Studies in Ancient Oracles and Divination, edited by M. Kajava, 49–88. Rome: Institutum Romanum Finlandiae. Malloch, S. J. V. 2013. The Annals of Tacitus, Book 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, L. 1998. “Tacitus, Annals 4.70: An Unappreciated Pun.” Classical Quarterly 48: 585–587. Richardson, L., Jr. 1992. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rives, J. 1999. Tacitus Germania. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shannon, Kelly. 2012. “Memory, Religion, and History in Nero’s Great Fire: Tacitus Annals 15.41–7.” Classical Quarterly 62: 749–765. Shannon-Henderson, K. E. 2019. Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Davies, Jason P. 2009. Rome’s Religious History: Livy, Tacitus and Ammianus on their Gods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ROMAN HISTORIANS D. S. LEVENE

New York University

The historical works of Tacitus were created as part of a tradition of Roman historical writing

c17_Vol2.indd 923

923

that went back more than 300 years before his own day, and many of the distinctive features of his writing are influenced by that tradition. Although it is likely that Romans kept some form of historical records from a relatively early period, including chronological lists of the annually elected consuls, and perhaps also of the events that took place in different consular years, it was only at the end of the third century bce that named Romans began to write systematic narra­ tive histories. On the Romans’ own account, the first such historian was the senator Quintus Fabius Pictor, who wrote a history in Greek that began with the origins of the city and extended to the conflicts against the Carthaginians that had taken place within his own lifetime. Fabius’ history does not survive; it is known only through fragments (“fragments” in this case usually meaning nonverbatim citations of his work rather than ver­ batim quotations); the same is true of every other Roman historian until the middle of the first century bce. Some historians are known only by name; with others we have sufficient information to get a limited impression of key aspects of their writing, although we should always be aware of the distortions that may arise when we seek to reconstruct lost works from occasional discon­ nected citations. The fact that Fabius wrote in Greek is note­ worthy; Rome was part of a cultural world which was already deeply integrated with the Greek literary heritage, and Fabius Pictor was drawing on the traditions of Greek historiography that had begun with Herodotus and Thucydides, and had more recently been given a focus on the Western Mediterranean by historians like Timaeus. The Romans were creating the founda­ tions of a Latin literary culture at this time as well, but in poetry rather than prose; Fabius Pictor’s writing in Greek may indicate that he was intending to present Rome to the broader Greekspeaking audience, but it should not be over­ looked that many Romans also knew Greek, and Fabius was offering his own countrymen a record of their history written in the language of the cultural elite of the day. Following Fabius’ lead, other senatorial histo­ rians wrote in Greek, including distinguished fig­ ures such as Lucius Cincius Alimentus and Aulus

28­04­2023 18:09:00

924

  R oman historians

Postumius Albinus; but a generation after him the best known and most influential of all the early Roman historians wrote his work in Latin. Marcus Porcius Cato, known as Cato the Censor, was not only a senior politician, but the most impor­ tant Latin prose writer of his time; and among his many works was a seven-volume Latin history, the Origines. In certain respects, this work did not represent a route that was taken up by later writers, since it had a number of idiosyncratic fea­ tures: it surveyed other Italian states as well as Rome, and it may not have had a strictly chrono­ logical progression. Moreover, Cato, although including a number of his own speeches in his work, giving his own political career and ideas a starring role, all but uniquely did not center his work on the achievements of leading Romans— he did not name commanders when narrating their campaigns. That idiosyncrasy was effectively a dead end in Roman history writing. But for all that, Cato’s work had a remarkably long literary afterlife; not only did he establish historiography as a major genre within Latin literature, but his distinctive ethical and political standpoint became a major point of reference for later writers: cer­ tainly Sallust made extensive use of him, and, via Sallust, Tacitus. The same line of influence, on Tacitus via Sallust, came from another historian, albeit one about whom we have considerably less information. Lucius Cornelius Sisenna wrote in the early first century bce; his history—in at least twenty-three books—covered events of his own time. We have a substantial number of fragments of Sisenna’s history, but almost all of those are sen­ tences and phrases taken out of context by later grammarians; they give us little sense of the content of his work. Nevertheless, the very fact that his work was of such interest to grammarians is revealing: Sisenna’s use of language was innova­ tive and distinctive, and it is often suggested that his influence can be seen in the twisted and spiky Latin used by Sallust. Tacitus clearly knew Sisenna, since at one point he cites him directly (H. 3.51.2 = FRHist 26 F 132), and his own Latin shows something of the same qualities. Another aspect of the tradition of history-writ­ ing certainly influenced Tacitus in a rather differ­ ent fashion. Many, perhaps most, historians of the

c17_Vol2.indd 924

republic wrote history which was not thematic but chronological: not a discussion of a single war or historical episode in the manner of Thucydides or Sallust in his surviving monographs, but rather a comprehensive recounting of Roman history during over a certain period of time. That period of time may have encompassed the entire history of Rome, as with Livy, or it may have involved a shorter period, as with Sallust’s Histories, which covered the period 78–67 bce. It is true that in certain cases the latter form of history will effec­ tively have been the same thing as a monograph: Lucius Coelius Antipater’s history of the Second Punic War, written in the late second century bce, is unlikely to have been substantially more focused than broader “histories of Rome” that covered this period, since the Second Punic War involved the Romans mobilizing all their available resources to confront the Carthaginians. But on the whole such histories will have looked very dif­ ferent from monographs, and they seem to have become popular through the second half of the second century through to the time of Livy. Important examples include the histories of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Claudius Quadrigarius, and Valerius Antias, all of which were used exten­ sively by Livy. The thirty books of Tacitus’ Annals and Histories, between them covering the history of the Roman empire in the eighty-two years from the accession of Tiberius to the death of Domitian, are clearly part of the same pattern. But in some ways the work with the most indirect influence, on Tacitus as on all other histo­ rians, may have been a history about which we know rather less, but where one revealing detail survives: the history written by Gnaeus Gellius in the mid-second century bce. Two fragments from the ninety-seventh book of that history are quoted by a grammarian, suggesting that the history was written on a scale unprecedented in its vastness; Gellius must either have had considerably more information than any of his predecessors, or, more plausibly, massively elaborated and invented narrative details on the basis of the information that he did have. Such invention was not unfa­ miliar within historiography, but Gellius’ approach set a new pattern; henceforward his­ tories, including those of Quadrigarius, Antias, and Livy himself, were sometimes conceived on a

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R oman historians  

similarly grand canvas, although even those cannot have matched Gellius in fullness, given that he was writing earlier, and his history neces­ sarily only went up to his own day. At some point in these chronological writ­ ings—though it is unclear exactly when—a tradi­ tion of so-called “annalistic” history arose, where the narrative was punctuated by detailed annual records of state procedures in the city of Rome. This is found in a highly sophisticated and devel­ oped form in Livy, although he clearly was not its originator; it goes beyond the merely chronolog­ ical to show the events of Roman history against the background of the continuities and repeti­ tions and developments of republican political life. In Livy this is never used inertly but is adapted with flexibility in order to mark the undercur­ rents of political events, and this approach under­ lies Tacitus’ own employment of annalistic material. With the middle of the first century bce our information suddenly becomes much more solid, as for the first time we find works of Latin histori­ ography which still survive intact. First chrono­ logically, although the least influential on Tacitus and on the tradition more broadly, are the war memoirs of Iulius Caesar, supplemented by the works written in a similar manner by his officers, Aulus Hirtius and others, which complete the accounts of his campaigns. Caesar was certainly not the first Roman to narrate his own exploits (as noted above, Cato seems to have done the same as part of his Origines, and several other leading Romans are known to have written memoirs of their careers), but Caesar was unusually success­ ful: his artful plainness and elegance were imme­ diately admired, though rarely successfully imitated. Tacitus (who tends more to self-efface­ ment than self-display, at least in the parts of his oeuvre that survive), shows little affinity with this. Within less than a generation, however, we have the two historians Sallust and Livy, both of whom were demonstrably major influences on Tacitus, as on all other Latin historians, both in their subtle, nuanced, and ambiguous readings of political life, and their gripping narratives of war and conquest; Tacitus’ Latin style owes something to both, although noticeably more to the spiky innovations of Sallust than the smooth

c17_Vol2.indd 925

925

elaborations of Livy. Sallust and Livy were rapidly canonized by the Romans as the central figures in the genre, eclipsing their numerous contempo­ raries and predecessors. Among the younger contemporaries of Livy, however, was a figure who has always been held in far less regard, but whose influence should not be underestimated: Pompeius Trogus, whose 44-volume history survives in an abridgement by the later writer Justin. Its themes and structure are highly innovative in Roman historiography, in as much as the history’s primary focus was not on Rome, but rather on the Hellenistic and other states which were ultimately swallowed up in the Roman conquest. Trogus’ non-Roman focus was later replicated in other writers, including the lost Etruscan and Carthaginian histories written by the emperor Claudius, and the (partially) sur­ viving history of Alexander the Great by Quintus Curtius Rufus. No less importantly, Trogus’ oblique image of Roman power and expansion, constantly set in implicit comparison to its neigh­ bors and rivals, formed an important model upon which historians like Tacitus could draw, both when recounting Rome’s relationships with external powers, and as a way of setting Roman political themes on a wider canvas. The move from republic to empire brought with it a new set of historiographical challenges. Most obviously, historians had to face the poten­ tially fatal danger of offending an autocrat, a danger which Tacitus famously dramatizes in his description of the trial of Cremutius Cordus (A. 4.34–35), whose work was (on Tacitus’ account) deemed offensive not because of any direct criti­ cism of the emperor or his family, but because of his praise of Caesar’s assassins. Tacitus himself, in his prefaces to the Histories and Annals (H. 1.1.1– 3, A. 1.1.2), speaks of the incentives to partiality, both in terms of flattery of the current emperor and hostility to prior ones. It is true that histo­ rians complained about their predecessors’ par­ tiality even under the republic: it is a trope of historical writing at all periods that personal animus is the major hindrance to historical accu­ racy. But the problem was inevitably more acute when the historian was subject to the absolute power of a ruler. We can see something of the issues facing Tacitus in the work of Velleius

28­04­2023 18:09:00

926

  R oman historians

Paterculus, whose summary history of Rome culminates in a lengthy and largely (if not wholly) hagiographic account of the exploits of the then emperor Tiberius; Tacitus’ unfulfilled promise (H. 1.1.4) to write in praiseworthy terms about his own contemporary ruling dynasty, Nerva and Trajan, needs to be seen against that background. A further challenge came in the refocusing of political life at Rome. While some of the trappings of the republic, such as senatorial meetings, continued, far more key decisions no longer took place in the formal arena of Senate and assem­ blies, but were made behind closed doors by the emperor and his advisors. The centrality of the emperor to political life meant that the structure of history itself had to change; while there is cer­ tainly a difference between the biographical sequence of Suetonius’ Caesars and Tacitus’ his­ tory, it is far less marked than a comparable set of biographies focused on the republic would have been: Tacitus’ own work is punctuated above all by the succession of emperors, although he main­ tains the republican formality of the annalistic structure that he inherited from Livy and others. It is a reasonable supposition that other histories of the empire would have done the same, although our information about them is too scanty to be certain: it is generally presumed, for example, that Aufidius Bassus’ history ended with the death of an emperor, and, correspondingly, that Pliny the Elder’s history A fine Aufidi Bassi began with one. Tacitus’ work thus stands as the heir to a varying tradition of Latin historical writing, drawing ele­ ments from different strands of it. But, at least to judge by our evidence, it was a tradition that had few further heirs in subsequent centuries. There is no surviving Latin historian who wrote substan­ tial histories of Rome between Tacitus writing in the early second century ce and Ammianus Marcellinus in the late fourth (with the eccen­ tric exception of Granius Licinianus, discussed below), although the traditions of extended Roman historiography continued in Greek, as the surviving work of (for example) Cassius Dio and (much later) Procopius demonstrates. Ammianus’ work shows considerable influence from Tacitus himself in style and manner, and it began with the reign of Nerva, the point where Tacitus’

c17_Vol2.indd 926

sequential narrative in the Annals and Histories ended. But Ammianus appears to have been an outlier. Not only do no other Latin histories in that form survive, we cannot attest to any that have been lost. It is true that the works of Suetonius, as noted above, have some affinities to imperial historiography in the Tacitean style, and it is likely that the same was true of the imperial biographies of Marius Maximus, which are regu­ larly cited by the strange and controversial set of biographies known as the Historia Augusta. All these, however, were formally biographies, not sequential histories. In a later period, the Gothic History of Cassiodorus (known primarily through the abridgement by Jordanes) offered a multi­ volume history not of Rome, but of Rome’s Gothic conquerors. But, those apart, the traditions of large-scale Latin historiography not only culmi­ nated with Tacitus: they appear to have ended with him. But the (near-)end of Tacitean historiography did not mean the end of Latin historiography. What we primarily find instead are summary his­ tories, sometimes derived explicitly from classic works of history from earlier periods (as in the case of Justin’s abridgement of Pompeius Trogus, or the various epitomes of Livy), but more often presenting themselves as free-standing composi­ tions: short works encompassing hundreds or even thousands of years of history in fewer pages than Livy or Tacitus sometimes allotted to a single year. Such histories were being written before Tacitus’ time—Velleius is the most prominent example—but they became increasingly popular later: notable examples are Florus, Eutropius, Sulpicius Severus, and Orosius. Some of these writers owe something to Tacitus—Orosius cites him repeatedly (1.10.1–5, 7.3.7, 7.9.7, 7.10.4, 7.19.4, 7.27.1, 7.34.5), and it is highly probable that Sulpicius used him as a source. But all of them necessarily show significant differences from the Tacitean (or Livian or Sallustian) style of history: it is rare to find set-piece descriptions, speeches, extended explorations of character or motive, or any of the other features that are typi­ cally associated with the canonical literary histo­ rians of the Greek and Roman world. It would, however, be a mistake to assume from this that such summary histories represent nothing more

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R oman orators  

than an inferior, attenuated version of “real” Roman historiography such as that found in Tacitus. While they tend to be of less interest to readers nowadays, especially given their lack of ethical nuance and dramatic focus, their ability to represent broad sweeps of history, and to contex­ tualize the canonical stories of the Roman past, manifestly struck a chord among readers of their own time and later; and they often reveal distinc­ tive traits of their own, as with Florus’ highly rhe­ torical summaries, weaving a synoptic and nonchronological account of each individual war into the overall chronological development of Roman history. Especially remarkable is the late second century ce historian Granius Licinianus, who found a new way of developing large-scale his­ tory within the tastes of the age. He eschewed the elaborate digressions, descriptions, and speeches with which Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus had filled out their accounts. He thus offered something of the rapid narrative movement through history associated with the summarizers, but at the same time he expanded his text into dozens of books through the inclusion of antiquarian detail that his predecessors had rarely thought fit to include. And, subsequent to Granius, the rise of Christianity offered a new focus for Roman his­ torians like Eusebius, Sozomen, and Socrates to depict historical events on a grand canvas, cen­ tering more on the Church than the Roman state. Most of these wrote in Greek, but an important exception is Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia, who not only adapted Eusebius’ Eccelesiastical History into Latin, but extended it to cover events up to his own day. But on all of these, Tacitus, like other Latin historians of the classical period, appears to have exerted only a limited and indirect influence. see also: annales; bias; historiography; intertextual­ ity; reception, antiquity FURTHER READING Cornell, T. J., et al., eds. 2013. The Fragments of the Roman Historians. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. = FRHist. Dorey, T. A., ed. 1966. Latin Historians. London: Routledge.

c17_Vol2.indd 927

927

Feldherr, Andrew M., ed. 2009. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flach, Dieter. 1998. Römische Geschichtsschreibung. 3rd ed. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Hose, Martin. 1994. Erneuerung der Vergangenheit. Berlin: De Gruyter. Marincola, John. 1997. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marincola, John, ed. 2007. A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Moxon, I. S., J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, eds. 1986. Past Perspectives. Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richardson, James H., and Federico Santangelo, eds. 2014. The Roman Historical Tradition: Regal and Republican Rome. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rohrbacher, David. 2002. The Historians of Late Antiquity. London: Routledge. Wiseman, T. P. 1979. Clio’s Cosmetics. Three Studies in Greco-Roman Literature. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Woodman, A. J. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies. London: Croom Helm. Woodman, A. J. 2015. Lost Histories: Selected Fragments of Roman Historical Writers. Newcastle upon Tyne: Histos. https://research.ncl.ac.uk/histos/ documents/SV02WoodmanLostHistories.pdf

ROMAN ORATORS RICHARD MARSHALL

National University of Ireland, Galway

The Latin term orator (from oro “I beseech, plead a case”) denotes “someone skilled in public speaking, advocacy.” Public speaking was fundamental to the workings of the Roman Republic; as the constitution was remodeled by Augustus and his successors, the nature of oratory was itself trans­ formed. Orators made their reputations by public speaking; some also relied on publishing written speeches. “Roman orators” can also designate, therefore, authors who embody a particular literary tradition. By the time of Tacitus, this tradi­ tion was dominated by Late republican and Augustan orators, Cicero in particular.

28­04­2023 18:09:00

928

  R oman orators

REPUBLIC Ordinary citizens had little opportunity to address their peers: public speaking at Rome was monopo­ lized by the elite, who alone possessed the auctoritas (“authority”) that entitled them to be heard in public. Exclusive and linked with power, eloquence became an aristocratic virtue to rank alongside military prowess (Plin. HN 7.100, 139; Gell. 1.13.10). Public assemblies (contiones) provided the largest audiences. The contio did not make decisions but provided a forum for politicians to inform the public and publicize themselves by debating matters of public interest. This was impor­ tant in an age when magistrates were elected directly by the people. Contiones could only be con­ vened by magistrates, who selected the speakers. Debates in the Senate provided further opportu­ nities for deliberative oratory, though only current or ex-magistrates belonged to this body. Only the most senior members could expect to speak, as opinions were canvassed according to precedence, though in exceptional circumstances those below the rank of praetor also contributed to discussions. During the republic, the Senate was the principle organ of government, responsible for foreign rela­ tions, state finances, and urgent domestic business. Roman courts depended upon private prosecu­ tions and made extensive use of advocacy (in classical Athens, individuals spoke for themselves). By law, Roman advocates could not accept fees (A. 11.5), but advocate-client relationships formed an integral part of the patronage networks that under­ pinned society. Men would embark on a public career by bringing criminal prosecutions to raise their public profile. Criminal cases, held before large juries and crowds of spectators, gave more sensational opportunities for public speaking. By the Late Republic, standing courts existed for crimes such as murder, electoral bribery, and pro­ vincial extortion. After 52 bce, however, advo­ cates’ speaking time was limited (Asc. Mil. 31), forcing changes in oratorical practice (D. 38.2). EMPIRE The monarchy of Augustus preserved the out­ ward forms of republican government, but funda­ mentally altered the realities of Roman oratory.

c17_Vol2.indd 928

Orators now primarily addressed an individual— the princeps—whether or not he was present in the audience and minded what they said. Free speech depended on the whims of the emperors. Senatorial debates continued, but senators now vied for the attention of their v rather than to influence their peers. The important decisions had been taken elsewhere. Opportunities for addressing the assemblies disappeared. The princeps now presided over contiones and was generally the only speaker. The Senate was given the power to elect magistrates by Tiberius (A. 1.15), which removed the politi­ cian’s need for public recognition. Claudius allowed advocates to receive fees (A. 11.6–7); rewards for informers gave rise to the delators, orators who used their skills for immoral prosecutions. Increased use of cognitiones extra ordinem, where an individual investi­ gated and judged the case, removed the need to win over juries, fundamentally altering oratorical strategies. Opportunities for forensic (i.e., legal) oratory arose in the Senate, which began to try crimes involving senators, notably maiestas (“treason”) and repetundae (“embezzlement”). Advocates were often assigned by lot: now junior senators might address the Senate at length on sensitive issues. Whereas the republican Senate was an aristocracy based on office-holding, the evolution of the Imperial Senate into a legislative and judicial body made eloquence even more important. In the republic, besides funerary orations, there was little scope for epideictic (“praise and blame”) oratory. The funerary orations of emperors were expected to be delivered by their successors (Quint. Inst. 3.7.2), but the princeps became a natural focus for panegyric, particu­ larly when new consuls assumed office (Plin. Pan. 4.1). EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP The Greeks first theorized the science of elo­ quence (“rhetoric”). A rhetorical education was available in Rome by 150 bce, though teachers of rhetoric (rhetores) were initially distrusted and occasionally banned from Rome (D. 35.1; Suet. Gramm. 25.2). The wealthy entered the

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R oman orators  

rhetorical schools after an elementary educa­ tion in literacy and language. Pupils studied published speeches and composition, gradu­ ating to the practice of declamation, in which they delivered speeches on imaginary legal cases. This program reached maturity by the Late Republic, but topics for declamation were increasingly chosen from the realm of myth and fantasy in the imperial period (Corbeill 2007). Experience was gained by shadowing established orators; the custom persisted into the empire (Plin. Ep. 2.14.10; Quint. Inst. 10.5.19; D. 20.4, but cf. D. 28.4–32.4). The person of the orator himself was studied in antiquity. Cicero’s works were foundational: De oratore and Orator theorized the ideal orator and established his attributes. Brutus adopted a historical perspective and surveyed Cicero’s oratorical predecessors. Imperial critics, reading Cicero and other early orators, recog­ nized that constitutional changes had altered the status and practice of oratory, and inter­ preted these functional changes in qualitative terms as symptoms of technical and moral decline. However, oratory was no less “impor­ tant” in the imperial period and students continued to learn from republican models. This negative response was partly conditioned by the rise of delators, by changes in fashion, which created a disconnect between Cicero’s language and current practice, and by the impact of the princeps on free expression; Roman cultural pessimism also contributed. Ancient works that address this “decline” include: Vell. Pat. 1.16–18; Sen. Controv. 1.pr.6– 10; Petron. Sat. 1–2, 88; Sen. Ep. 114; Plin. HN 14.1.3–7; Quint. Inst. 8.6.76 (also the lost De causis corruptae eloquentiae); Plin. Ep. 2.14; [Longinus], Subl. 44; and Tacitus’ own Dialogus de Oratoribus. These debates contributed to the qualitative division of Roman Literature into “Golden” and “Silver” periods, which informs much nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship. Recent scholars have also accepted this “decline” at face-value, e.g., Fantham (1978). Modern scholarship has focused upon oratory as a practice rather than a literary tradition, par­ ticularly its role in republican political processes—especially the contio—rejuvenating

c17_Vol2.indd 929

929

debates concerning the degree of popular partic­ ipation in the republic (Jehne 1995; Millar 1998; Morstein-Marx 2004; Mouritsen 2001). This is complimented by renewed interest in the role of oratory in crafting political careers (van der Blom 2016), and the physicality of oratorical performance (Cavarzere 2011; Hall 2004). Declamation, once seen as a decadent, imperial substitute for “real” oratory, has also been sub­ ject to revisionist interpretations. Beard (1993) suggested that the Romans, lacking a mytholog­ ical tradition, used declamation to explore eth­ ical and moral questions. Declamation’s importance in inculcating a Roman “ethos” is highlighted by Bloomer (1997) and Gunderson (2003). The imperial reception of republican oratory is also a new topic of research (Gray et al. 2018; Keeline 2018). Besides Cicero, orators active before Tacitus must be approached through fragments. New edi­ tions of the Augustan and Tiberian orators (Balbo 2004–2007) will facilitate new research on imperial political speech. The forthcoming edition of the fragmentary republican orators (Steel et al.) includes more individuals and orator­ ical situations than its predecessor (Malcovati 19764), and will enable the first comprehensive reassessment of republican oratory since Cicero’s Brutus. INDIVIDUALS Tacitus himself was a distinguished orator whose speeches were read by contemporary students (Plin. Ep. 7.20.5–6, 9.23.2–3 with Goldberg 2009, 79). However, we know only two of these: a funerary oration for Lucius Verginius Rufus and a speech for the prosecution of Marius Priscus before the Senate (Plin. Ep. 2.1.6, 2.11.2, 17). Pliny the Younger was proud to rank alongside Tacitus as a speaker (Ep. 7.20.5–6, 9.23.2–3). Our meager knowledge of their oratorical contempo­ raries comes from Pliny’s letters (Syme 1958, 669–670). Tacitus’ Dialogus evaluates imperial oratory. His observations had contemporary relevance, but he avoided judging his own peers by setting the conversation under Vespasian. Three inter­ locutors, notable orators in their own day, present

28­04­2023 18:09:00

930

  R oman orators

three pairs of arguments: Marcus Aper (cham­ pion of modern oratory), Curiatius Maternus (critic of current oratorical opportunities), and Vipstanus Messalla (critic of contemporary oratorical practice). Contemporary oratory is contrasted with the literary tradition; the focus is accordingly on the formal aspects of oratorical language (particularly style). The debate is incon­ clusive, leaving Tacitus’ own opinions hard to reconstruct. Iulius Secundus is also a minimal presence in the dialogue. He is noted (D. 14.4) as the biogra­ pher of Iulius Africanus (2) (PIR2 I 120), a con­ temporary of Domitius Afer (D. 15.3). Both were leading speakers in the generation prior to the setting of the dialogue (Quint. Inst. 10.1.118, 12.10.11). There was no equivalent of the “ten Attic ora­ tors” in the Roman tradition. The names provided by Cicero’s Brutus formed a basis for subsequent discussions of the early tradition, including that found in the Dialogus (van der Blom 2017). In most cases, Cicero’s judgement proved fundamental, especially for the reception of ora­ tors whose speeches did not survive or were unpublished. In arguing for the primacy of modern oratory, Aper introduces many republican orators as illus­ trations. While his contemporaries claim to prefer “ancient” orators, they actually mean Cicero, Iulius Caesar, Marcus Caelius Rufus, Calvus, Marcus Iunius Brutus, Asinius Pollio (1), or Valerius Messalla Corvinus (1) (D. 17.1), all active in the Late Republic or early years of Augustus (Aper thus avoids a clear distinction between the end of the republic and the mon­ archy, a distinction fundamental to the con­ cluding argument of Maternus). These names are treated as canonical in the Dialogus, frequently occurring together (D. 18.1–5, 21.1–6, 25.3–6, 38.2); some are too late for Cicero’s Brutus, but all are found in lists provided by Velleius Paterculus (2.36.2) and Quintilian (Inst. 10.1.112–15, 10.2.25, 12.10.11–12; see van der Blom 2017, 237. Their speeches were still in circulation (cf. D. 21.6, 38.2). Aper finds much of Calvus disappointing (exemplified by In Asitium and In Drusum): even the best speeches (In Vatinium) lack intellectual

c17_Vol2.indd 930

force (D. 21.2). Caelius is good when he resembles the moderns; his phraseology and arrangement are old-fashioned (D. 21.3–4). The speeches of Caesar (Pro Decio Samnite) and Brutus (Pro Deiotaro) are flat: the former never achieved his potential because of his other activities (cf. Quint. Inst. 10.1.114); the latter was a better philosopher (D. 21.5–6). Asinius Pollio, though more recent, seems old-fashioned (D. 21.7). Corvinus is not criticized for lacking polish because he also lacked imagination and intellect (D. 21.7). Messalla does not answer the criticisms of Aper. Instead, he argues that eloquence has differ­ ent guises in the same epoch and finds character­ istics of each orator praiseworthy. The stylistic epithets he awards (D. 25.3–4) generally agree with received critical opinion (Caesar: Cic. Brut. 261; Caelius: Quint. Inst. 10.2.25; Brutus: Quint. Inst. 12.10.11). Maternus bemoans the fact that the centum­ viral court is now the most prestigious tribunal; the great criminal courts addressed by Cicero, Caesar, Brutus, Caelius, or Calvus no longer exist. No one reads their centumviral speeches because civil cases were the least significant portions of their corpora (D. 38.2). Pollio’s speeches Pro heredibus Vrbiniae are the exception, but these were delivered in the peace­ ful years of Augustus when other oratorical opportunities were lacking. Aper also mentions Menenius Agrippa Lanatus, consul 503 bce (RE 12). He exemplifies extreme antiquity and is an orator whom no one could defend in the present (D. 17.1, 21.7). The suggestion is ironic, as Lanatus antedates the literary tradition by centuries and is ignored by Cicero. Appius Claudius Caecus, consul 307 bce (RE 91) must once have been admired for his antiquity but is now considered too old-fash­ ioned (D. 18.4, 21.7); he authored the earliest surviving speech known to Cicero (Brut. 55, 61). Aper uses the contrasting styles of Cato the Censor (consul 195 bce), Gaius Gracchus (tr. pl. 133, see Gracchi) and Lucius Licinius Crassus (consul 95) to illustrate that change is not always bad (D. 18.2), and argues that it is wrong to call orators of the Late Republic “ancient” when they are closer to his present than to Servius Sulpicius Galba (consul 144

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R oman orators  

bce) or Papirius Carbo, who typify “true” antiquity (D. 18.1). Aper refuses to discuss sec­ ond-rank exponents of the republican school of plain (“Attic”) oratory, though names some examples anyway (D. 21.1). The passage is cor­ rupt, but may include Publius Cannutius (RE 2), said to have passed off his own compositions as the work of the more famous Sulpicius, tr. pl. 88 bce (Cic. Brut. 205), Quintus Arrius, “a secondhand Lucius Crassus” (Cic. Brut. 242), and pos­ sibly Gaius Furnius, though he is otherwise spoken of as an able orator (Plut. Ant. 58.6; Jer. Chron. ab Abr. 1981). The name Toranius in the same passage (D. 21.1, if not corrupt) is not else­ where associated with oratory. Messalla, replying to Aper, acknowledges that speakers like Sulpicius Galba or Gaius Laelius Sapiens (consul 140 bce) cannot be defended: their defects are those of Roman oratory’s infancy (D. 25.7). He still prefers the spirit or mellowness of Gaius Gracchus or Lucius Crassus over the florid speech of Maecenas (Augustus’ favorite) or Iunius Gallio (D. 26.1). Galba and Laelius also appeared antiquated to Cicero even when judged by their contemporaries (Brut. 82–3), while Maecenas was parodied by Augustus (Suet. Aug. 86; Macr. Sat. 2.4.12) and became a conven­ tional target for criticism (Sen. Ep. 114.4; Quint. Inst. 9.24.28). Gallio, however, was apparently admired as a speaker (Sen. Contr. 10.pr.13 and passim; Jer. Comm. in Isaiam 8.pr., but cf. Quint. Inst. 9.2.91). Maternus, arguing that the republic provided greater scope for oratory, cites the excerpts of Licinius Mucianus for revealing that the repub­ lican dynasts Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus were propelled to power not only by strength and military prowess, but also oratory (D. 37.2–3). Their speeches do not seem to have circulated in antiquity, and they are given luke­ warm praise by Cicero (Brut. 233, 239); Quintilian ignores both as Latin orators. No one, Maternus further alleges, could rise in the state without a certain measure of eloquence; even the noblest families, the Lentuli, Metelli, Luculli, or Curiones, all cultivated oratory (D. 37.3). Cicero stands apart from the pre-Augustan orators as the one figure whose (stylistic) great­ ness is agreed upon by all the interlocutors of

c17_Vol2.indd 931

931

the Dialogus. Even Aper defends Cicero as the first to perfect oratorical style, notably in his later speeches (D. 22.1–2); Corvinus is mellower and more engaging (D. 18.2), and some of the criticisms leveled by Cicero’s contemporaries are warranted (D. 18.5–6). Aper alleges that no one yearns to read the In Verrem or can stand the interminable arguments of the Pro M. Tullio or Pro Aulo Caecina (D. 20.1). For Messalla, Cicero outranks all his contemporaries and (challenging Aper) is more forceful and impas­ sioned than any of them; his detractors were simply jealous (D. 25.3–4, 6). Messalla also uses Cicero’s own education, as described in the Brutus, as his ideal (D. 30.3–4). Maternus, finally, argues that great oratory needs great themes: the reputation of Cicero rests not on the Pro Quinctio or Pro Archia, but the political speeches for Milo and against Catiline, Verres, and Antony (D. 37.6). Orators active after Augustus’ consolidation of power are hardly mentioned, even by Aper, who defends modern oratory. Messalla notes this significant silence (D. 25.5). Cassius Severus, exiled from Rome in 12 ce, is the latest orator named by Aper, who claims he is a con­ ventional turning point between ancients and moderns (D. 19.1, without parallel). He is the first to recognize that changed times required new oratorical strategies (D. 21.2). Aper’s argument is weakened, however, by the fact that Cassius Severus was a notorious delator (Sen. Contr. 3.pr.5; Macrob. Sat. 2.4.9). Messalla accepts him as an orator for his learning, wit, and strength, despite his radical innovations and vituperation (D. 26.4–6). Messalla’s judgment broadly agrees with Quintilian (Inst. 10.1.116– 17; cf. Sen. Contr. 3.pr.1–8; Jer. Chron. ab Abr. 2048). Tacitus acknowledges elsewhere his force as a speaker but condemns his low origins and immoral life (A. 4.21.3). His published speeches suffered an uneven fate (Sen. Contr. 3.pr.3–4; Suet. Calig. 16.1). The term delator is not used in the Dialogue on Orators but others who might deserve the label are Domitius Afer (D. 13.3), Vibius Crispus (D. 8.1, 3, 13.4), and Eprius Marcellus (D. 5.7, 6.1, 3, 13.4). Aper does not dare include such men in his stylistic defense of modern oratory (D.

28­04­2023 18:09:00

932

  R oman orators

16.4–23.6) but does name them when extolling the benefits of oratory as a profession (D. 5.3–10.8). Finally, Messalla (D. 26.8) mocks the preten­ tions of contemporaries, who consider them­ selves superior to Cicero but beneath Sextus Iulius Gabinianus (PIR2 I 331). Gabinianus is known only as a teacher of rhetoric active in Gaul ca. 76 ce (Jer. Chron. ab Abr. 2092; Comm. in Isaiam 8.pr.). The term orator is used frequently in the Dialogus, less frequently in the Annals, and never in the Histories. Its absence from the last work can be read as Tacitus’ comment on the relative attain­ ments of recent speakers (the term delator, by contrast, does appear). Besides incidental men­ tions of orators already discussed, orator is used in the Annals in a technical sense for ambassadors (A. 1.19, 13.37), and is applied to several individ­ uals: Hortensius (A. 2.37), Cicero’s chief rival; his speeches were still read by Quintilian, but he does not acknowledge him as a model (Inst. 2.1.11, 8.3.35, 10.1.23). Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, hailed as the most talented orator of his age (A. 3.31, 6.29; cf. Sen. Contr. 10.pr.2–3, rather less complimentary) but a man of infamous character. Passienus Crispus (A. 6.20), generally esteemed as a speaker (cf. Plin. HN 16.242; Quint. Inst. 10.1.23; Schol. ad Iuv. 4.81). Nero (A. 12.58), pointedly called an orator for acting as an advocate for the people of Bononia in his virtuous youth. Tacitus, criticizing Nero’s funerary oration for Claudius, ranks him last of the Julio-Claudians in oratorical skill (A. 13.3): Caesar was truly great, Augustus was fluent, Tiberius poised and some­ times forceful (or intentionally obscure), while Gaius (Caligula) and Claudius have redeeming qualities. Nero, however, applied himself as a boy to other, un-Roman activities. see also: centumvirales; Dialogus de Oratoribus; eloquentia; Greek orators; Iulius Africanus (1) REFERENCES Balbo, Andrea, ed. 2004–2007. I frammenti degli oratori romani dell’età augustea e tiberiana. 2 vols. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Beard, Mary. 1993. “Looking (Harder) for Roman Myth: Dumézil, Declamation and the problems of

c17_Vol2.indd 932

Definition.” In Mythos in mythenloser Gesellschaft: Das Paradigma Roms, edited by Fritz Graf, 44–64. Stuttgart: Teubner. Bloomer, W. Martin. 1997. Latinity and Literary Society at Rome. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 110–153. Cavarzere, Alberto. 2011. Gli Arcani dell’Oratore: Alcuni Appunti sull’Actio dei Romani. Rome and Padua: Antenore. Corbeill, Antony. 2007. “Rhetorical Education and Social Reproduction in the Republic and Early Empire.” In A Companion to Roman Rhetoric, edited by William Dominik and Jon Hall, 69–82. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Fantham, Elaine. 1978. “Imitation and Decline: Rhetorical Theory and Practice in the First Century after Christ.” Classical Philology 73: 102–116. Goldberg, Sander. 2009. “The Faces of Eloquence: The Dialogus de oratoribus.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 73–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gray, Christa, Andrea Balbo, Richard M. A. Marshall, and Catherine E. W. Steel, eds. 2018. Reading Republican Oratory: Reconstructions, Contexts, Receptions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gunderson, Erik. 2003. Declamation, Paternity, and Roman Identity: Authority and the Rhetorical Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, Jon. 2004. “Cicero and Quintilian on the Oratorical Use of Hand Gestures.” Classical Quarterly 54: 143–160. Jehne, Martin, ed. 1995. Demokratie in Rom? Die Rolle des Volkes in der Politik der römischen Republik. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Keeline, Thomas J. 2018. The Reception of Cicero in the Early Roman Empire: The Rhetorical Schoolroom and the Creation of a Cultural Legend. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malcovati, Henrica. 19764. Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta. Turin: Paravia. Millar, Fergus. 1998. The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Morstein-Marx, Robert. 2004. Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mouritsen, H. 2001. Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steel, Catherine E. W., Henriette van der Blom, Christa Gray, and Richard M. A. Marshall, eds. Forthcoming. Fragments of the Republican Roman Orators. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R oman poets  

Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. van der Blom, Henriette. 2016. Oratory and Political Career in the Late Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. van der Blom, Henriette. 2017. “The Reception of Republican Political Communication: Tacitus’ Choice of Exemplary Republican Orators in Context.” In Political Communication in the Roman World, edited by Cristina Rosillo-López, 231–252. Leiden: Brill. FURTHER READING Dominik, William, and Jon Hall, eds. 2007. A Companion to Roman Rhetoric. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Kennedy, George A. 1972. The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World: 300 BC–AD 300. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Steel, Catherine E. W. 2006. Roman Oratory. Greece & Rome. New Surveys in the Classics, 36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ROMAN POETS TIMOTHY JOSEPH

College of the Holy Cross

Tacitus’ works show a great familiarity with the Roman poets of the early empire and the republic. We can observe this familiarity in the critical assessments of poets that Tacitus includes in his works and in the instances of intertextuality with Latin poetry that occur across the corpus. In conjunction with this entry that concentrates on earlier poets mentioned in brief, see the separate entries on epic poetry, Lucan, Silius Italicus, and Vergil. The D. includes the most explicit discussions of the history of poetry, as the interlocutors Curiatius Maternus and Marcus Aper both refer to several poets in their speeches. When making the case at D. 12.6 that poets can attain a greater fame than orators, Maternus singles out Vergil, as well as two specific works, Ovid’s Medea and Varius’ Thyestes; the mention of these tragedies is fitting given Maternus’ own decision to write tragic drama. Lucius Varius Rufus (first century bce; specific dates

c17_Vol2.indd 933

933

unknown) was a contemporary and close friend of Vergil and an esteemed poet in multiple genres. Along with tragic output such as his Thyestes, Varius wrote a hexameter poem on Epicurean themes titled De Morte; only frag­ ments of his poems survive (see Courtney 1993, 271–275; Hollis 2007, 253–281). This is Tacitus’ only mention of both Varius and Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 bce-17 ce), the famed poet from the Augustan era who was prodigious in a variety of genres; much of his oeuvre, though not his Medea, survives. The influence of Ovidian diction in the century after his death was extensive, and Tacitus appears to adapt the poet’s language in early works (e.g., the final words of the Ag., superstes erit at 46.4, recall the same phrase in similar contexts at Am. 1.15.42 and Tr. 3.7.50; see Woodman 2014 ad loc.) and in the historiographical works (see e.g., Bruère 1958; Ash 2007, index s.v. “Ovidian language”). In his speech in defense of contemporary elo­ quence, Aper makes mention of several other Roman poets. At D. 20.5 he advocates for the use of “poetic ornament,” provided that is drawn not from the “filth” (ueterno) of Accius and Pacuvius but from the “shrine” (sacrario) of Horace, Vergil, and Lucan. Later in the same speech (D. 23.2) he similarly critiques those who prefer the older satirist Lucilius to Horace, or the older hexametrical poet Lucretius to Vergil. Lucius Accius (170–c. 86 bce) composed tragedies and fabulae praetextae (dramas on Roman historical topics), as well as a hexametri­ cal Annales; only sparse fragments of his works survive. He was cited frequently and admired by Cicero, still read by the younger Seneca (Ep. 58.5), and (in spite of Aper’s harsh judgment) may have been used for potent effect by Tacitus (see Keitel 2009, 129 n. 8 on A. 14.9.3 and Accius fr. 204 Ribbeck; on Accius see further; Courtney 1993, 56–64). Marcus Pacuvius (1) (220–c. 130 bce), the nephew and student of the influential poet Quintus Ennius (239–169 bce), wrote poetry in multiple genres and was best known as a tragic poet; of Pacuvius too only an assortment of fragments survives (see Ribbeck 1871, 75–136). Quintilian (Inst. 10.1.97) offers a more balanced assessment of Accius’ and Pacuvius’ style than Tacitus’ Aper does. The other objects of Aper’s modernist critiques are

28­04­2023 18:09:00

934

  R oman poets

Gaius Lucilius (1) (180–103 bce), the origi­ nator of Roman verse satire, of which some 1,400 lines of fragments remain; and Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 94–c. 55 bce), author of the De Rerum Natura, a hexameter poem in six books, totaling over 7,200 lines, presenting Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. Many correspondences with Lucretian diction have been noted in Tacitus’ work (e.g., Ash 2018, index s.v. “Lucretius”), and readers have com­ pared Tacitus’ account of the decline of primi­ tive man and need for laws in A. 3.26 with Lucretius’ assessment at 5.1143–1147. The appreciation that Aper shows for Horace in D. 20.5 and 23.2 is in keeping with Tacitus’ own. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 bce) wrote in multiple poetic genres, authoring surviving collections of Epodes, Satires, Odes, and Epistles. Tacitus clearly adapts his imagery on numerous occasions; see, e.g., A. 15.37.4, where he evokes Cleopatra and her band of eunuchs from Carm. 1.37.9–10 when narrating Nero’s marriage to Pythagoras. His understanding of literary his­ tory (as presented chiefly in Epist. 2.1, 2.2, and the Ars Poetica) may also stand as an important model for Tacitus in the D. (van den Berg 2014, 241–293). Cremutius Cordus, in his speech of self-de­ fense against charges that his histories had been overly laudatory of Brutus and Cassius, raises the examples of the poems of Bibaculus and Catullus, poems that had been “packed with insults of the Caesars” (A. 4.34.5) but whose authors had not been punished. Testimonia and fragments indi­ cate that Furius Bibaculus (first century bce; specific dates unknown) composed in many genres, including epigrams and an epic on Iulius Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul (Annales Belli Gallici), along with the lampoons of Octavian (Augustus) to which Tacitus refers here (see Courtney 1993, 192–200; Hollis 2007, 118–145). Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84–c. 54 bce), the most enduring of the “new poets,” left 113 poems (totaling over 2300 lines), in a great variety of meter, form, and content. He insults Iulius Caesar in poems 29, 54, 57, and 93. While each of these poets from the republican and Augustan periods predates Tacitus by a

c17_Vol2.indd 934

century or more, his interest in poets extends into the periods covered in the A. and H. On his assessments of poets such as Clutorius Priscus, Gaius Cominius, Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, Sextius Paconianus, Curtius Montanus, and Antistius Sosianus, see Ash 2016. see also: eloquentia; epic poetry; intertextuality Reference work: OCD4 entries on Accius (H. D. Jocelyn / Gesine Manuwald), Catullus (Elaine Fantham), Bibaculus (C. J. Fordyce / Anthony J. S. Spawforth), Horace (H. P. Syndicus), Lucilius (Michael Coffey / Gesine Manuwald), Lucretius (Peta G. Fowler and Don P. Fowler), Pacuvius (H. D. Jocelyn / Gesine Manuwald), and Varius Rufus (E. Courtney). REFERENCES Ash, Rhiannon. 2016. “Tacitus and the Poets: In Nemora et Lucos … Secedendum est (Dialogus 9.6)?” In Wordplay and Powerplay in Latin Poetry, edited by Phillip Mitsis and Ioannis Ziogas, 13–35. Berlin: De Gruyter. Ash, Rhiannon. 2007. Tacitus, Histories 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ash, Rhiannon. 2018. Tacitus, Annals 15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruère, R. T. 1958. “Ovid, Met. XV, 1–5 and Tacitus, Ann. 1.11.1.” Classical Philology 53: 34. Courtney, Edward, ed. 1993. The Fragmentary Latin Poets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hollis, Adrian S., ed. 2007. Fragments of Roman Poetry, c. 60 bc–ad 20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keitel, Elizabeth. 2009. “’Is dying so very terrible?’ The Neronian Annals.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, edited by A. J. Woodman, 127–143. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ribbeck, Otto. 1871. Tragicorum Romanorum fragmenta. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. van den Berg, Christopher. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, Anthony J. with C. S. Kraus. 2014. Tacitus, Agricola. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Lauletta, Mario. 1998. L’intreccio degli stili in Tacito: Intertestualità prosa-poesia nella letteratura storiografica. Naples: Arte Tipografica.

28­04­2023 18:09:00

R oman R epublic  

ROMAN REPUBLIC JOHN ALEXANDER LOBUR

University of Mississippi

The Roman “Republic” is an expression for the Latin term Res Publica, a difficult concept to render in English. Tacitus uses it in two ways: first, it translates roughly (though awkwardly) to “the public concern,” the polity itself under which the Romans lived, i.e., the “state, “common­ wealth,” or “nation,” as opposed to private affairs (res privata). Second, it refers to the “Republic” (capitalized): the form of government existing prior to the imperial system or principate (principatus), installed under Augustus and in place with informal modifications up to the crisis of the third century ce and the reforms of Diocletian. Compare the usage of the term at A. 1.3.7 with that at 1.4.5, or the ways it is used at A. 1.7.3 and 1.7.7. Thus, the Romans still called their government the res publica during the prin­ cipate, though they also believed there had been an old (as in traditional) res publica that had ended. Our interest lies in the second use of the term, referring to the unwritten constitutional system that evolved over several centuries after the expulsion of the last king of Rome and more or less ended with the demise of republican forces during the conflicts extending from Iulius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon in 49 bce to the battle of Philippi in 42. On the most basic level there is the question of what this system actually was and how it functioned and evolved (Lintott 1999; Mouritsen 2017). Second, there is a later mental construct involved that presented this period as a unified and monolithic system (Flower 2010), a projection that started in the late Republic and reached its definitive version through Livy. Tacitus (A. 1.1) sees it as distinct from the regal period that preceded it, as well as the periods of political autocracy that punctuated its history. For him, it is marked by “freedom” (libertas) and the consulship (i.e., magistrates acting according to traditional guidelines and restrictions), and antithetical to the rule or domination of one man, family or

c17_Vol2.indd 935

935

clique (dominatio), a situation he contends emerged permanently when Augustus became the first emperor, or princeps. The ideological framework of the principate complicates the picture. Romans of the upper classes would not tolerate a government that did not reflect the form and ethos of the mos maiorum, the “customs and ways of the ancestors.” Thus, the language and structure of the old Republic were recycled, the main differences lying in the supreme position of the princeps (con­ firmed by an empire-wide oath of loyalty), sup­ ported by the military, and in the role of the popular legislative and electoral assemblies, which were depoliticized, becoming rubber stamps by the reign of Tiberius (A. 1.15). Nevertheless, to reduce the social and political friction of his dom­ inance, the emperor had to deport himself respectfully toward the people and the Senate, with the latter treated as a partner in government. Princeps, meant “first citizen,” or “leader of the senate,” and was the emperor’s title in civic capacity; imperator, or “commander in chief,” his military one. Official language denied the reality that the Republic had ended, presenting the prin­ ceps as leader of a perfected Republic minus the civil turmoil characterizing its nonfunctional later decades (Gowing 2005); according to the official version, the populace and Senate willingly deferred to his leadership and voted him the con­ stitutional tools to lead. Augustus managed the transition deftly (Eder 1990). In reality, he installed a dynastic monarchy, though this aspect was deemphasized and replaced by meritocratic reasoning. The most defining moment was the succession of Tiberius: in the Republic there could be no hereditary head of state, yet despite the pretense this was precisely what he was. The beginning of the Annals sets this stage with a rudimentary outline laced with cynicism: Augustus, as the last general standing in the Roman civil wars, took a world that craved sta­ bility and peace under his command with the name “princeps,” and slowly usurped the power of the state. The army and people sacrificed free­ dom for money and bread. The proud families of the Republic were either extinct from war or pro­ moted and enriched according to their

28­04­2023 18:09:00

936

  R oman R epublic

willingness to collaborate; the provinces were happy to escape the extortion of corrupt gover­ nors and the instability of constant war (A. 1.1– 2). No one was alive who had seen the actual Republic (A. 1.3.7). On the eve of Tiberius’ succession, all the same old magistracies existed under their proper names, yet there was only “a state turned on its head, without a trace of the decent, old-fashioned way left. Equality was cast aside, and everyone looked to the commands of the princeps” (A. 1.4.1). The contradiction between form and sub­ stance comes to the fore during the succession of Tiberius. The consuls, senators, and knights all “rush into slavery” in their adulations. In ren­ dering the oath to Tiberius, the consuls take the initiative “as if ” the old Republic were in place and Tiberius was undecided whether to accept power, something belied by the fact that he had already given orders to the armies and the watch­ word to the praetorian guard as their commander. The personal loyalty of these forces meant that Rome was a military dictatorship. Tacitus por­ trays senators painfully and sycophantically try­ ing to navigate this reality while both they and Tiberius maintain the pretense that real political freedom exists, and throughout the Annals high­ lights the farcical aspects of republican posturing. He showcases situations antithetical to real republican mos (for example Urgulania’s flip­ pant attitude toward the laws and magistrates at A. 2.34.3–4), and the hypocritical or pathetic evocations of republican constitutional preroga­ tives (e.g., A. 3.21.3, 12.5.2–3). Tiberius, too, becomes weary of the facade, as on occasion he chastises the Senate for its lack of real initiative (A. 3.35.1, 3.65.2). Nevertheless, though Tacitus sees the seeds of tyranny in the principate itself and depicts a pro­ gression to more and more of it during the course of Tiberius’ reign, he almost in spite of himself admits that up until the death of his son Drusus the Younger (23 ce), Tiberius made sure the system ran with a good deal of integrity (A. 4.6). Experiences under the tyrannic Domitian surely conditioned Tacitus’ cynical view. When the prin­ ceps performed his careful balancing act, things ran well, yet Tiberius was ill suited for this exhausting task and finally abdicated this crucial role, withdrawing to Capri.

c17_Vol2.indd 936

Moreover, despite the pretense, Romans of the time knew they were not living in the Republic (e.g., A. 1.4). There was a rumor that Tiberius’ brother Drusus the Elder desired to restore libertas, an inclination he may have passed down to his son Germanicus (A. 1.33.2, 2.82.2–3, cf. 4.9.1, Suet. Cl. 1.4). By Tacitus’ day elite under­ standings of their government had shifted again, dropping even the pretense of continuity (Gowing 2005). Nor was a true restoration seen as possible or even preferable. Tacitus expresses this most clearly at the end of the Dialogus through the speaker Curiatius Maternus (36–41), reasoning consistently and fatalistically that the growth of the empire carried the seeds of its own destruction, and that republican libertas meant civil war and anarchy. Peace required monarchy (A. 1.9.4–5, cf. 1.4.1, 3.28.2; H. 1.1.1). Still, Tacitus and his peers were animated by spirit of the free Republic as expressed in narra­ tives emerging by the end of Augustus’ regime and markedly “Pompeian,” in cast, (i.e., where the Caesarean perspective does not completely domi­ nate the record) even, as the historian Cremutius Cordus did, to the point of praising anti-Caesar­ ean defenders of libertas such as Brutus and Cassius (A. 4.34–5). Consequently, a senator like Tacitus could not help but see his ideal role contex­ tualized by the zenith of senatorial authority dur­ ing the old Republic. Thus, a great contradiction emerged between his understanding that the career of a senator must tactfully take monarchic power into account, and the disappointing reality that it was impossible to exercise true freedom as expressed in the narratives that shaped Roman identity. The subtleties of this paradox have led to three lines of interpretation (Strunk 2017): (1) one that views Tacitus as a radical republican who rejected the validity of anything less than the actual restoration of the Republic; (2) one that sees him as a reluctant monarchist critical of tactless, ultrarepublican senators like Thrasea Paetus and Helvedius Priscus (whose posturing led to their deaths); and finally (3) one positing a middle way between the extremes of servility and defiance, best exemplified by Tacitus’ father-in-law in the eponymous Agricola, or the long-standing city prefect Marcus Aemelius Lepidus, referred to as a “wise man,” who used his influence humanely to palliate tyranny (A. 4.20.2, 6.27.4).

28­04­2023 18:09:01

937

R oman R epublic  

Tacitus’ views of the Republic can be further observed through several brief digressions, and they are far from idealized, as he fatalistically sees the first princeps as nothing more than the last of a line of tyrants who emerged during the civil wars of the Late Republic, themselves emerging from the older conflict between the plebs and the Senate, itself a consequence of Roman expansion (H. 2.38). Another digression (A. 3.26-28) traces the development of Roman law, seeing the twelve tables (instituted in the mid-fifth century bce) as the last legitimate Roman statutes, hardly an endorsement of later republican legislation. A discussion of the treason law shows, in the use to which informers put it, a devolution from republican standards (A. 1.72.2–4). Digressions on the quaestorship, tribunicia potestas (the trump card in the consti­ tutional arsenal of imperial power) and the city prefecture show, in the first case, the commer­ cialization of republican office, in the second, the lack of true republican precedent, and in the third, that it is part of a general trend that stripped away senatorial prerogatives in imperial administration to favor knights and freedmen (Dreyer and Smarczyk 2008). Incidents from the Roman Republic also function as contextual benchmarks for behavior, deportment and achievement. For example, when in Egypt, Germanicus imitates Scipio Africanus’ Greek attire (A. 2.59.1) while Domitius Corbulo’s operations in the East recall Lucullus’ campaign against Mithridates (A. 13.34.2, 15.27.1). In a speech to the Senate, Tiberius compares Maroboduus to great Roman enemies of the third and second centuries bce (A. 2.63.3, cf. 12.38.1), and later evokes a famous exemplum from the Pyrrhic war (2.88.1–2). The prosecution reported at A. 3.66.2–3 provides another example of repub­ lican precedent put to uncivil uses. In the Germania, Tacitus catalogues attempts by republican generals to subdue Germanic tribes to provide context for the present state of affairs under Trajan (G. 37.2). For Tacitus, the restoration of “republican” libertas perhaps would have meant allowing the Senate as a body and the magistrates and generals, as individuals, to act and speak, not with the licentiousness that ruined the republic, but with the integrity they could have enjoyed under it to serve the common good—without feeling the

c17_Vol2.indd 937

need to fear or flatter the emperor. The republic could not return, but republicanism was spiritual­ ized into an upper-class ethos, with Marcus Iunius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Cato the Younger its patron saints. A good emperor, perhaps a Trajan, was one secure enough to foster this spirit and tolerate Maternus’ play praising Cato the Younger (Dial. 2–3), or a Cremutius Cordus who praised Brutus and described Cassius as the “last of the Romans” (A. 4.34–5). A tyrant like Domitian and his syco­ phants would not. It is worth noting, too, Tacitus’ close attention to the role and fate of old noble republican fam­ ilies such as the Aemelii Lepidi, the Calpurnii Pisones, and even the family of Brutus, whose half-sister Iunia Tertia, the niece of Cato and wife of Cassius, died in 22 ce (A. 3.76). see also: empire; ideology; imperium; memory; Rome, myth and history REFERENCES Dreyer, B., and B. Smarczyk. 2008. “Res publica ut aliena: Zur Funktion der republikanischen Verfassungsexkurse bei Tacitus.” Gymnasium 115: 135–168. Eder, W. 1990. “Augustus and the Power of Tradition: The Augustan principate as Binding Link between Republic and Empire.” In Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, edited by Kurt Raaflaub and Mark Toher, 71–122. Berkeley: University of California Press. Flower, Harriet. 2010. Roman Republics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gowing, A. 2005. Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lintott, A. 1999. The Constitution of the Roman Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mouritsen, H. 2017. Politics in the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strunk, Thomas E. 2017. History after Liberty: Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants and Republicans. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. FURTHER READING Classen, C. J. 1988. “Tacitus—Historian Between Republic and Principate.” Mnemosyne 41.1–2: 93–116.

28­04­2023 18:09:01

938

  R oman roads

Gallia, Andrew B. 2012. Remembering the Roman Republic: Culture, Politics and History under the Principate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kapust, Daniel. 2011. Republicanism, Rhetoric and Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talbert, R. 1984. The Senate of Imperial Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1982. “Civilis Princeps: Between Citizen and King.” Journal of Roman Studies 72: 32–48.

ROMAN ROADS JARED HUDSON

Harvard University

Tacitus puts Roman roads to a variety of uses in his writing (in Histories and Annals, above all), and reading across the corpus for what is dis­ tinctly Tacitean in the representation of these physical spaces reveals several striking themes and tendencies. There are no roads in Germania. Dialogus features only metaphorical “ways” of eloquence (dicendi via 19.1, eloquentiae itineribus 5). In Agricola, the “march” (iter), can shade into “route,” but the roads themselves are kept abstract. Instead, top-down route planning is glimpsed, as when Agricola streamlines the corruptly mean­ dering grain-transport network in Britain (Ag. 19). That passing scene attests the central impor­ tance of roads and road building to empire—an indispensable ingredient of Roman conquest. It is a theme that runs too deep to be surveyed here, but a glance at the campaigning Germanicus is telling. Faced with a choice of routes when entering Germany, he takes the road less traveled: it is longer and more obstructed, but less obvious—and he manages to cover it faster (A. 1.50.2). Soon after, he sets out against the Chatti, and leaves Lucius Apronius behind to build roads (A.1.56.1). Here, in passing, is a mini-­ parable of Roman roads’ function as a condition, and a process, of empire. The physical conditions of roads convey atmosphere, and influence events, especially in scenes of fighting (narrowness, H. 3.16.2, 17.1; slipperiness, 1.79.2, 2.88.3; both, 3.82.3; windi­ ness, 3.79.2). Antonius Primus orders the

c17_Vol2.indd 938

Thirteenth Legion to draw up on the actual embankment (aggere) of the Via Postumia (H. 3.21.2; cf. 23.1), a road which is earlier said to be too narrow, with its steep ditches on either side, even for peaceful marching (2.41.3). His troops, in a striking image, pursue their routed enemies down the straight line of the same road (Via Postumia) (H. 3.25.1). Roads’ situation and ­features—narrow stretches (H. 4.35.2) and “short­ cuts” (compendiis viarum, A.1.63.4)—are used tactically. Advancing between the road and the Moselle facilitates a surprise attack (H. 4.77.1). Caecina Alienus’ ambush involves hiding auxil­ iaries in the forest above the road (Via Postumia once more, H. 2.24.2), itself a conventional setting. Rome’s own status as preeminent roadhub is used against it, perversely, when, in the Flavian advance on the city, Petilius Cerialis is sent cross-country through the Sabina to enter by the Via Salaria, rather than the more obvious Via Flaminia, which is to be Antonius’ own route of invasion (H. 3.78–9.1). Compare the (dire) signif­ icance of the miliarium aureum as the staging point for Otho’s coup (H. 1.27.2): all roads lead to Roman civil war. Even the emperor’s roadway movements can be made subject to an enemy’s tactics. A trap is (allegedly) set for Nero on the Via Flaminia, his expected route of return from notorious nighttime escapades at the Milvian Bridge (A. 13.47.2). Vitellius, in a vain attempt at abdication, is forced by crowds back to the palace via the only route left open to him, the Via Sacra (H 3.68.3). And roads do make extraordi­ nary execution sites. The killing of Calpurnius Galerianus is carried out on the Via Appia (for­ tieth milestone), for inconspicuousness (H. 4.11.2). Cornelius Dolabella is instructed by Vitellius to turn off the busy Via Flaminia for the road to Interamna, where he can be assassinated more discreetly—in a roadside inn, a degrading end for a noble (H. 2.64.1). Personal conduct on the road is revealing—of motives, or status—and the moralizing portrait of the general on the march (a set piece of Latin his­ toriography) underlies many related portrayals of variously important persons in transit. Otho’s leadership while on the move, especially set off by his griping soldiers, is striking, but suspect (H. 1.23). Gaius Calpurnius Piso’s return to Rome,

28­04­2023 18:09:01

R oman ( i ) us H ispo  

through Picenum and along the Via Flaminia, first accompanying a legion he met on the way, but then making himself conspicuous before them, arouses rumors (A. 3.9.1). A disgraced Messalina makes her lonely way along the Via Ostiensis—in a manure cart (A. 11.32.3). Even the wild notion that Scribonius Libo Drusus looked into whether he could afford to pave the entire length of the Via Appia with money (A. 2.30.1) plays on deep-seated ideas of what Roman roads are for, a discourse that stretches back to the eponymous paver of the regina viarum, Appius Claudius Caecus (cf. Cic. Cael. 34). Relatedly, roads are a concrete indicator of public sentiment. They are practically “paved” (stratis) with women and chil­ dren prostrating themselves in supplication before Fabius Valens’ murderous troops (H. 1.63.2). Senate and people fill the streets after Germanicus’ death (A. 3.2.3, 4.1; cf. another catastrophe, when Rome burns, 15.38.6). But the streets of Rome are all but deserted after a violent seditio just outside the city: an eerie barometer of terror (H. 1.82.2). Dead bodies filling the roads is a grim topos of battle and siege narrative (e.g., H. 2.44.1, an escape route blocked by heaps of dead), but Roman streets clogged with corpses following the defeat of Vitellius (H. 4.1.1) brings civil war unnaturally home. At the threshold of the Principate (the first succession, A. 1.5.4), Livia Augusta inaugurates roads’ function as a marker of imperial control of space and knowledge, cordoning off the streets around Augustus’ deathbed villa at Nola with guards and roadblocks. Although its winding, close-packed streets help feed the fire of Rome (A. 15.38.3), Nero’s seemingly innocent reconstruc­ tion of the city post-blaze ends up doing away with its old (republican) character for good, quirky old alleys replaced by a planned system of open boulevards, which now leave Romans scorched by a harsher heat from above. Road building plays an analogous, though inverted, role when Tiberius grants a subvention to a senator claiming damage to his house from road construction: this act of apparent beneficence both trumps the praetors’ authority and renders generosity as an arbitrary exercise of imperial control (A. 1.75.2).

c17_Vol2.indd 939

939

Roads can even help tell the future (it is rarely bright). The roadside birth of a calf with its head on its leg prophesies an ill-fated coup (the Pisonian Conspiracy)—to be laid bare for all to see (A. 15.47.2). Consulting the oracle about his journey back to Rome, Titus is told, with deli­ cious irony, of smooth sailing and that “the road is clear” (pandi viam, H. 2.4.1). The blocking due to flooding of the Via Flaminia, Otho’s army’s route out of Rome when departing on campaign, is taken to portend imminent disaster (H. 1.86.3). And roads mark the end: Agrippina the Younger’s humble tomb is located alongside the road to Misenum, hard by Caesar’s elevated villa (A. 14.9.1). see also: civil wars of 69 ce; eloquentia; Fire of 64 ce; portents; Rome, topography FURTHER READING Chevallier, Raymond. 1976. Roman Roads. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Coleman, Kathleen. 1988. Statius Silvae Book IV. Oxford: Oxford University Press (on 4. 3.40–55, pp.112–8). Pekáry, Thomas. 1968. Untersuchungen zu den römischen Reichsstraßen. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt. Radke, Gerhard. 1971. Viae Publicae Romanae. Stuttgart: Alfred Druckenmüller. Wiseman, Timothy Peter. 1970. “Roman Republican Road-Building.” Papers of the British School at Rome 38: 122–152.

ROMAN(I)US HISPO BIAGIO SANTORELLI

Università degli Studi di Genova

Roman(i)us Hispo was a rhetorician of the early imperial age. According to Tacitus (A. 1.74), in 15 ce he backed the charges of maiestas brought by the quaestor Caepio Crispinus against the praetor of Bithynia, Granius Marcellus: this was the first instance of a trial brought by informants, a practice that would become sadly widespread throughout the imperial age.

28­04­2023 18:09:01

940

  R ome , myth and history

Seneca the Elder knows Hispo as a rhetori­ cian and quotes him often in his anthology; he is presented as a vehement and combative orator, qualities that made him a good accuser (Contr. 1.2.16). He is also the only declaimer recorded by Seneca who dares to speak against Cicero, in a controversia featuring the fictional trial against Popillius, who killed Cicero despite his having previously defended him from a charge of parricide (Contr. 7.2.20.). This and the other quotations by Seneca show Hispo in a sin­ ister light yet emphasize his ability to devise unexpected and effective rhetorical strategies (Balbo 2007, 336). Quintilian (Inst. 6.3.100) reports that a Hispo was charged with particularly outrageous crimes, and in that occasion made use of a neat insult against his accuser; we do not have further details on this trial, but the short fragment quoted by Quintilian seems consistent with the style of Seneca’s Hispo, and it is possible that both refer to the same person. The exact form of his nomen is uncertain: he is called Romanus by Tacitus, whereas in the ­manuscript tradition of Seneca the Elder there is fluctuation between the forms Romanus and Romanius. see also: delators; Roman orators Reference work: PIR2 R 81 REFERENCE Balbo, Andrea. 20072. I frammenti degli oratori romani dell’età augustea e tiberiana. Parte seconda: Età tiberiana. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. FURTHER READING Chernjak, A. B. 1998. “Prolegomena ad Taciti Annales, libri I-VI. 7: Romanus Hispo; 8: Difficilis appendix (Ann. I, 74, 1–3).” Hyperboreus 4: 95–112. Echavarren, Arturo. 2007. Nombres y Personas en Séneca el Viejo. Navarra: EUNSA. 234–236. Syme, R. 1939. “Personal Names in Annals I-VI.” JRS 39.1: 6–18.

ROMANUS, see SENECA

c17_Vol2.indd 940

ROME, MYTH AND HISTORY JEREMY J. SWIST

Brandeis University

Tacitus’ Histories and Annals occasionally refer to Rome’s founding myths and early history as made familiar to his readers by the historian Livy and the epic poet Vergil. These accounts describe the settlement of the Trojan refugee Aeneas in Italy, whose descendants Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome in 753 bce, inaugurating the rule of seven kings until the overthrow of monarchy and establishment of the republic in 509 bce. Tacitus alludes to primordial Rome through a number of literary devices that invite comparison and contrast between the people, events, and institutions of the regal and imperial periods. These devices include the use of exempla, anti­ quarian digressions, omens, and intertexts. Accounts of the prehistory, founding, and regal period of Rome were malleable and existed in mul­ tiple competing and conflicting versions during the republic. By Tacitus’ day in the imperial period, however, the first book of Livy became, along with Vergil’s Aeneid, the textbook versions of Rome’s founding myths and early history (Quint. Inst. 10.1.32, 39, 101). According to them Aeneas, the Trojan prince and son of Venus, fled the sack of Troy and sailed to Italy to establish a new future for his people. There he encountered Evander, himself an immigrant from Arcadia in Greece, who had founded the first settlement on the site of future Rome. Evander gave the Palatine Hill its name from his native city of Pallanteum and founded the Lupercalia festival (Verg. Aen. 8.51–54; Livy 1.5.1– 2). After a successful war with the native Italians, Aeneas founded Lavinium. His son Ascanius, also called Iulus, founded Alba Longa. Through Iulus the Iulii trace their descent from Venus and Aeneas. Iulus was first of the Alban kings, from whom in the twelfth generation came Numitor, grandfather of Romulus and Remus. These twins were allegedly born of Numitor’s daughter Rhea Silvia and the god Mars. After restoring Numitor to the throne usurped by his brother Amulius,

28­04­2023 18:09:01

R ome , myth and history  

they founded Rome in 753 bce. Remus was soon killed in a power struggle, either in a factional melee or by his brother’s own hand (Livy 1.7.2). As the original city consisted of shepherds and ban­ dits, Romulus, in an attempt to acquire wives, kid­ napped the maidens of neighboring towns at a festival of Neptune. This sparked a number of wars, the fiercest of which was against the Sabines led by Titus Tatius. After the kidnapped Sabine women intervened in the battle, the two kings agreed to unite their peoples and ruled jointly for a short time until Titus Tatius’ death. Romulus’ own reign ended with his mysterious disappear­ ance, and he was proclaimed to have ascended to heaven as the god Quirinus, though some sus­ pected he had been brutally murdered by the Senate (Livy 1.16.1–4). Royal succession, for the most part, was determined by election rather than heredity. Romulus was succeeded by the Sabine Numa Pompilius, the founder of Rome’s state reli­ gion, then the warlike Tullus Hostilius, followed by Ancus Marcius, the founder of Ostia. Then followed a dynasty of kings from Etruria, Tarquinius Priscus (“Tarquin the Elder”), Servius Tullius who was adopted from a captive woman and who conducted the first census, then Tarquinius Superbus (“Tarquin the Proud”) who claimed his grandfather Tarquinius Priscus’ throne as his birthright and assassinated Servius Tullius. Each of these kings contributed to the development of the Roman state through territorial conquest, the erection of temples and other public buildings, and political, religious, and military reforms. After Tarquinius Superbus’ son Sextus raped the noblewoman Lucretia, who then committed suicide, a revolution led by Lucius Iunius Brutus overthrew the monarchy and founded the Roman Republic in 509 bce. Subsequent republican ideology scorned the name of king (rex) and upheld a constitution that pre­ vented any one man becoming too powerful for too long. A senatorial conspiracy murdered Iulius Caesar in 44 bce over fears he would become a rex. After defeating Mark Antony in 31 bce, Augustus permanently restored one-man rule, calling it neither kingship nor dictatorship, but a principate (A. 1.9). Despite this, and in addition to advertising his descent from Aeneas, Augustus invited associations with Romulus and other kings to suggest that his so-called restoration of both the

c17_Vol2.indd 941

941

republic and traditional customs after a century of civil wars constituted a new founding of Rome. Tacitus engages with primordial Rome only in the Histories and Annals. He mentions Aeneas twice: first as the ancestor of the Julian clan among the effigies paraded (along with those of Romulus and the Alban kings) at Drusus the Younger’s funeral (A. 4.9.3), and second when a young Nero pleads to exempt the citizens of Ilium from taxation because the Romans descended from them through Aeneas (A. 12.58.1). The seven kings are referenced more frequently and factu­ ally, often in connection to foundational institu­ tions and monuments of early Rome. Tacitus imports the kings of Rome into his imperial nar­ ratives through a number of devices, especially the use of exempla, antiquarian digressions, omens, and intertextual allusions to Augustan works. Overall, the kings in Tacitus’ texts serve as familiar archetypes of Roman monarchy and founding institutions juxtaposed with the new monarchs and their relationships to Roman tradi­ tions (i.e., mos maiorum). The senatorial historian preserves the memory of regal Rome in a manner useful to readers preparing for a public career in imperial Rome. EXEMPLA Exempla explicitly associate the mythic past with the historical present. These comparative allu­ sions to past figures and deeds serve as touch­ stones of traditional Roman identity, values, and practices, i.e., mos maiorum (see Roller 2009). Exempla in their traditional rhetorical function can be seen in Claudius’ speech justifying the enrollment of Gallic nobles into the Senate (A. 11.24), when he appeals both to Romulus’ policy of making even former enemies into citizens and to the fact that immigrants (advenae) had ruled as kings. A similar appeal to regal precedent is in Claudius’ original speech on the Tabula Lugdunensis (CIL XIII, 1668). Otho likewise aims to legitimize his rule by appealing to Romulus’ establishment of the Senate as the body by whom kings and emperors are made (H. 1.84.4). Beyond speeches, Tacitus inserts exempla into reports of public opinion, such as the reaction to Tiberius’ refusal of a temple to

28­04­2023 18:09:01

942

  R ome , myth and history

himself in Spain: Romulus and Augustus became gods by aspiring to greatness, whereas Tiberius scorned his own fame (A. 4.38.4–6). Tacitus also uses exempla in his own narratives, such as when he compares the sodales Augustales established by Tiberius to the sodales Titii established by either Romulus (H. 2.95.1) or Titus Tatius (A. 1.54.1). ANTIQUARIAN DIGRESSIONS Tacitus treats primordial Rome more extensively in a number of antiquarian digressions (see Syme 1958, 310–312). The lone regal excursus in the Histories follows the climactic burning of the Capitolium as a prosopography of those who helped build, and rebuild, the temple of Jupiter (H. 3.72): Tarquinius Priscus vowed it; then Servius Tullius (this is the only account that credits him with any part in this) and Tarquinius Superbus funded its construction; but its dedica­ tion occurred under the republic. Similarly, in the Annals, Tacitus’ account of the great Fire of 64 Ce features a damage assessment of what physical monuments of the city’s original founding had been lost (A. 15.41), including those explicitly associated with Evander, Romulus, Numa Pompilius, and Servius Tullius. This list immedi­ ately follows the rumor that Nero intended to refound what remained of the city in his own name (A. 15.40.3). The antiquarian digressions in the Annals are much more frequent and often juxtapose the involvement of emperors in a traditional Roman institution with the original context in which that institution had been established. The first such excursus is that on the history of Roman law (A. 3.26-28), sparked by a proposal in the Senate to revise the lex Papia Poppaea. According to this passage, Roman law originated with the kings: Romulus ruled as a law unto himself; then Numa Pompilius brought down laws from the gods, to which Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius added before Servius Tullius, by sanctioning laws “that even kings would obey,” laid the groundwork for constitutional government. Also in the Tiberian books comes a digression on the office of urban prefect (A. 6.11), prompted by the death of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Pontifex, whose exemplary

c17_Vol2.indd 942

service in that office was to Tacitus his crowning achievement. The office, writes the historian, was first conferred by Romulus upon Denter Romulius (otherwise unknown) to run domestic affairs while he himself was on campaign. Then it was conferred by Tullus Hostilius upon Numa Marcius (son of the first pontifex maximus by the same name); and then by Tarquinius Superbus upon Spurius Lucretius (father of Lucretia and first suffect consul; see Livy 1.59.12, 2.8.4, Plut. Publ. 12.4) before the consuls assumed the power of appointment. Antiquarian digressions also feature in narra­ tives of Claudius’ revival of, or meddling with, old Roman traditions. His short-lived addition of three new letters to the alphabet prompts a brief history of the spread and development of alpha­ betic writing, including Evander’s importation of the alphabet to Italy among other elements of Greek culture (A. 11.14.4). Evander is also men­ tioned as part of the Senate’s commendation of the imperial freedman Pallas, whose de facto rule over Claudius is suggestively sanctioned by his Arcadian royal lineage (A. 12.53.3). Claudius’ antiquarian meddling also backfires when he digs up Servius Tullius’ expiation rite for incest in the case of Iunia Calvina and her brother Lucius Iunius Silanus Torquatus (1), this despite mar­ rying his own niece (A. 12.8). Claudius’ expan­ sion of the patrician order prompts a notice on Romulus’ original enrollment of the order and Lucius Iunius Brutus’ first expansion of its mem­ bership (A. 11.25.3). Likewise, Claudius’ expan­ sion of the pomerium leads to a digression on the sacred boundary’s establishment by Romulus and enlargement by Titus Tatius and subsequent dynasts (A. 12.24.1–4). OMENS Tacitus parallels primordial and imperial Rome by subtler means, including through the recount­ ing of omens that portend seismic political shifts. Among these is the destruction by flood of the pons Sublicius, the sacred wooden bridge over the Tiber first built by king Ancus Marcius and site of the heroics of Horatius Cocles, as a portent of Rome’s self-destruction (H. 1.86.2). Another such omen is that of the withering and rejuvenation of the ficus Ruminalis, the fig tree that had sheltered

28­04­2023 18:09:01

943

R ome , topography  

the infant Romulus and Remus (Tacitus’ only mention of Remus; A. 13.58.1). The omen has been read to portend either the death of Agrippina the Younger or the transition from the Julio-Claudian dynasty to the Flavian dynasty (see McCulloch 1980; Segal 1973). INTERTEXTS Finally, scholars have detected a number of inter­ textual allusions to accounts of Roman myth and early history in republican and Augustan litera­ ture. The first sentence of the Annals, “Kings con­ trolled Rome from the beginning” (A. 1.1.1), loudly echoes Sallust’s antiquarian digression in the Bellum Catilinae, “at the beginning, so I have heard, Trojans founded and controlled the city of Rome” (Cat. 6.1). For Tacitus’ intertextuality with the poets Vergil and Ovid, we may highlight the evolution of the phrase tanta moles, i.e., the “burden so great” of founding and ruling Rome, from Vergil’s Aeneas, to Ovid’s Numa Pompilius, to Tacitus’ Tiberius, who pleads incapacity to shoulder it (see Joseph 2008). Parallels have also been identified between Germanicus and Arminius in Annals Books 1–2 and Vergil’s Aeneas and his rival Turnus (see Baxter 1972). Among many Livian intertexts, finally, we may note the resonance between Augustus’ “abduc­ tion” of Livia Augusta from her husband (A. 1.10.4, 5.1.3) with the rape both of the Sabine women by Romulus and of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius (see Strunk 2014). see also: digression; exemplarity; portents REFERENCES Baxter, Robert T. S. 1972. “Virgil’s Influence on Tacitus in Books 1 and 2 of the Annals.” Classical Philology 674: 246–269. Joseph, Timothy A. 2008. “The Metamorphoses of Tanta Moles: Ovid, Met. 15.765 and Tacitus, Ann. 1.11.1.” Vergilius 54: 24–36. McCulloch, Harold Y. 1980. “Literary Augury at the End of Annals XIII.” Phoenix 34: 237–242. Roller, Matthew. 2009. “The Exemplary Past in Roman Historiography and Culture.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, edited by

c17_Vol2.indd 943

Andrew Feldherr, 214–230. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Segal, Charles. 1973. “Tacitus and Poetic History: The End of Annals XIII.” Ramus 2: 107–126. Strunk, Thomas. 2014. “Rape and Revolution: Tacitus on Livia and Augustus.” Latomus 73: 126–148. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Cornell, Timothy J. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome. London: Routledge.

ROME, TOPOGRAPHY FEDERICO SANTANGELO

Newcastle University

Most of Tacitus’ frequent references to features of the urban landscape of the city of Rome are cur­ sory, even casual. However, some recurring fea­ tures of strong thematic interest are discernible. In a body of work that deals with the history of Rome and her empire over several generations it is safe to expect that the city of Rome should play a prominent role, both as a site in which major events unfold and as the focus of the aspirations and machinations of many of the characters in the narrative. The topography of Rome is inextricably tied up with the political and religious history of the city, and any attempt to retell the past should thus engage with it closely. Tacitus’ narrative is mobile and polycentric and is not as strongly committed to the opposition between internal and external affairs that is so central to Livy’s his­ toriographical project. Yet Rome is the one place to which it may safely be expected to revert. Most of Tacitus’ frequent references to features of the urban landscape are cursory, even casual: at one point he explicitly says that delving into detail on the foundations or the beams of the wooden amphitheater built by Nero in the Circus Maximus does not befit the brief of the historian (A. 13.31.1). However, some recurring features of strong thematic interest are discernible. At several junctions of the narrative the emphasis on the site of the Urbs confers a distinctive materiality to the account and sharpens its overall claim. In the

28­04­2023 18:09:01

944

  R ome , topography

early chapters of the Annals the return of Augustus’ body to Rome in the late summer of 14 ce is a major part of a complex and labored phase through which a new political cycle begins. The management of the funeral procession from Nola back to the Urbs receives careful discussion in the Senate, and its topographical arrangement is a central part of the debate. Two crucial decisions are made: the procession is to enter the city from the Porta Triumphalis (A. 1.8.3) hence assimilating an altogether novel ritual to a familiar public ritual that marked the end of a military campaign; and, as Tiberius insists, the body is to be cremated in the Campus Martius, where Augustus had already left instructions to be buried (A. 1.8.5); the Forum, where the funeral of Iulius Caesar had taken place, was not to be affected by the ceremony. The Campus Martius is mentioned again a few chapters later (A. 1.15.1) when Tacitus wryly points out that elections were moved from there to the Senate, putting an end to the long-standing involvement of the comitia. At various points the city is the venue of disturbing events that are regarded as prodigies and may or may not be expiated in public settings. The flood of the Tiber in 15 ce prompts a debate in the Senate on whether it should be regarded as a prodigy in the first place, with Tiberius strongly arguing against that view (A. 1.76). In 16 ce, when the Senate decides to expel from Italy astrologers and sor­ cerers (A. 2.32.2) in the aftermath of the conspiracy of Scribonius Libo Drusus, two familiar landmarks provide the backdrop of the executions of two astrologers: one is thrown from the Tarpeian Rock, another is executed outside the Esquiline Gate, according to an ancient ritual. The Tarpeian Rock is also the site of the execution of Sextus Marius, the wealthiest man of Spain, convicted of incest in 33 (A. 6.19). In other instances, some topographical details convey a pointed sense of wider historical stakes. In 19 ce Germanicus’ funeral is an opportunity for the city as a whole to display its sorrow, well beyond the Campus Martius where the burial was due to take place. A detail proves revealing, though: Tiberius fails to come to welcome his body at the city gates, and his brother Drusus the Elder travels only one day to receive the

c17_Vol2.indd 944

cortege (A. 3.5). The contrast between people and elite could not be starker. In A. 3.16, when the conspiracy of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso is foiled, the populace gathers around the Curia, threat­ ening to take the matter in its own hands should the Senate fail to find him guilty. Not far from there, on the Gemonian Stairs, joining the Forum and the Capitol, they had already started to enforce their revenge by dismembering the statues of Piso in an act of collective violence that stands as an alternative to the official repression (cf. A.6.25.3, where the Gemonian Stairs make another fleeting appearance after Agrippina the Elder’s death: Tiberius provocatively notes that he had not thrown her down the Gemonian Stairs, much as she would have deserved that fate). There is full concord across the city, though, in 27 ce, in recording gratitude to Tiberius for refunding in full those affected by a major fire on the Caelian Hill (cf. A. 2.49 for a list of the temple dedications he carried out); the episode prompts Tacitus to give a brief digression on the etymology of the name of the Hill, its association with Caeles Vibenna, and its early name, Querquetulanum, which was due to the abundance of oak it pro­ duced (A. 4.64–65). Perhaps most strikingly, the apparent death and sudden revival in 58 of the Ruminalis arbor, the fig-tree in the Comitium under which Romulus and Remus had been fed by the she-wolf, is received as a disturbing prodigy, which narrowly precedes Nero’s decision to assas­ sinate his mother (A. 13.58). The most substantial antiquarian digression on topographical matters in what survives of Tacitus deals with Claudius’ decision to extend the pomerium, the sacred boundary of the city, which Tacitus first explains with the recent extension of the empire, and then describes in some detail the main stages in its development, with a special emphasis on the boundaries set by Romulus; he notes that the boundaries set by Claudius are still visible in his time (A. 11.23–24). A brief mention of city boundaries crops up in a vignette on Nero’s debauchery: he chooses the Mulvian Bridge as a venue for his night outings because it is outside the city; that habit of his gives scope to his confi­ dante Graptus to fabricate the story of an attack on his life as he was on the way back into the city (A. 13.47). His unbecoming passion for

28­04­2023 18:09:01

R ome , topography  

horse-riding is also confined out of town, away from public sight: an enclosed space is carved out for that in the Vatican Valley (A. 14.14). Tiberius had the same response in 36 ce after a fire that affected the Aventine Hill and a part of the Circus Maximus. Tacitus comments on the contrast bet­ ween his generosity in situations of emergency and his general reluctance to invest in major building programs; he did not even bother to ded­ icate the buildings that he had brought to comple­ tion (A. 6.45). The Capitolium and its centrality in the Roman landscape emerge to special prominence in a classic passage of Annals 11, when Claudius puts forward the proposal to recruit senators of Aeduan origin; some object that the descendants of those who had tried to seize the Capitol should not be let into the Senate (A. 11.23.5; see Tabula Lugdunensis). This is not an occasional pointer and is echoed in other passages. In 51 ce, Agrippina the Younger takes up the habit of entering the Capitol in a carriage (carpentum), taking up a prerogative that pertained to priests and sacred objects, and which stands out as a symptom of civic and religious disruption (A. 12.42.2). In the following chapter, a brief list of prodigies is given, and is opened by the appear­ ance of ominous birds on the Capitol (A. 12.43); the settling of swarms of bees on the pediment of the Capitol also features in another prodigy list for 54 (A. 12.64). When Nero returns to Rome from Campania after the assassination of Agrippina, he is saluted by a large crowd that wel­ comes him like a triumphator: the endpoint of his route is the Capitol, where he performs some vows (A. 14.13). When the ill-founded news that Nero has recalled Octavia (2) and repudiated Poppaea Sabina the Younger starts spreading, a crowd gathers on Capitol to give thanks to the gods and salute the news in a short-lived celebra­ tion; it is dispersed by soldiers shortly afterward. The Capitol increasingly emerges as the venue in which the contradictions and failures of the Roman polity emerge most sharply. Trophies to celebrate the anticipated victory on the Parthians are put up there by the Senate halfway through the campaign and later abandoned when the war got complicated (A. 15.18.1). When Nero and Poppaea have a baby daughter (Claudia Augusta),

c17_Vol2.indd 945

945

statues of the two Fortunes are placed on the throne of Jupiter Capitolinus: Tacitus does not comment on that decision, and just points out that it was a transitory (and, one may infer, fruit­ less) one, as the baby died four months later (A. 15.23.1). A visit to the Capitol shortly before an intended departure feels Nero with dread of the attitude of his fellow-citizens toward him: his reaction is a set of benefactions, including a huge banquet on raft at the Baths of Agrippa: a brief interlude that precedes the great Fire of 64, to which Tacitus devotes much attention. His account has two main foci: the reach of the fire, which touched the Palatine, the Caelian, and the Esquiline, affecting a number of public buildings, and the relief measures taken by emperor, which were sound but not quite adequate. His later rebuilding program in the city, however, receives a positive assessment (A. 15.38–43). The Capitol returns as the first venue of the expiation rituals that are prescribed by the Sibylline Books (A. 15.44). When the Pisonian Conspiracy is foiled, the Capitol is full of offerings for the victims of its repression (A. 15.71.1): it is a clue to wider divi­ sions in the city. Sometime later, Nero presents an offering on the Capitol, within a wider program of thanksgiving rituals: the inscription on a weapon he devoted across the city, “To Jupiter the Avenger,” was retrospectively seen as a premoni­ tion of his defeat at the hands of Iulius Vindex (A. 15.74). The theme acquires further depth in the Histories when Tacitus embarks on the narrative of the civil wars of 69 ce. Right at the outset of Book 1 he stresses that the Capitol was burnt by the arms of citizens, anticipating a major development of the subsequent narrative. The Capitol is repeatedly framed as a major target of the warring parties. The partisans of Galba say that it is crucial to prevent Otho from entering the city and making it to the Capitol (H. 1.33.2); the emperor later seems uncertain on whether to try and secure his position on the citadel (H. 1.39.2). By that point it is too late, and Otho is ready to launch an offensive in which his men do not show any restraint—not even when they catch sight of the Capitol (H. 1.40.2). Once the attack has been carried through, he is shown the piles of corpses that are lying there and on the Aventine: the

28­04­2023 18:09:01

946

  R ome , topography

civil war has entered the very core of the city. Only then does he give his permission to bury or cre­ mate the dead. The Capitol then becomes the scene of the public act of reconciliation toward the consul elect Marius Celsus, who had supported Galba and was hated by his soldiers (H. 1.71.1): an early, somewhat uncharacteristic sign of clemency and restraint. When some portents begin to show a turn in the divine attitude toward the emperor, the first one to be mentioned is again from the Capitol: in the vestibule of the temple the reins of the chariot in which Victory stood had fallen from the hands of the goddess (H. 1.86.1). A shift is intervening: a flood of the Tiber blocks the Campus Martius and the Via Flaminia, on which Otho’s army is supposed to march on its way to taking on Vitellius’ forces in northern and central Italy (H. 1.86). The core of Histories Book 2 is taken up by Vitellius’ march toward Rome after the demise of Otho, and his arrival in the Urbs is a moment that marks the peak of his trajectory: he makes the conscious decision of entering on foot, rather than as a victorious commander. The Capitol is the pre­ dictable endpoint of his march, and the site where the instauration of his monarchic power comes to completion: there he embraces his mother and bestows upon her the name of Augusta (H. 2.89.2). But it is a short-lived stint: his address to the Senate and the people on the following day has the tone of that of someone who is speaking to a foreign audi­ ence. The disruption caused by the arrival of the victorious army does not just affect the city, but the army itself, which lacks suitable spaces to encamp. The decision to settle in the unhealthy district of the Vatican proves fatal to many sol­ diers; the Gallic and German auxiliary troops have considerable difficulty in adjusting to the warmer climate (2.93). Other aspects of Vitellius’ use of public space prompt dissent: notably the public sacrifice he carries out in honor of Nero, in the Campus Martius (H. 2.95). Rome gains an even more central role when the conflict between Vitellius and Vespasian inten­ sifies. Flavius Sabinus (2) chose the Capitol as the bulwark of his forces against the attack of Vitellius’ men, after the abdication of the latter (H 3.69–72). Tacitus describes in some detail the modalities of the attack, which was attempted

c17_Vol2.indd 946

both from the Asylum and the Tarpeian Rock: the assailants are not suitably armed and try to break their way through by throwing firebrands against the Capitol. Eventually the temple of Jupiter is set to flames, and Tacitus reports conflicting versions on who was to blame for it. The moment is one of periodizing significance and leads him to a full digression on the history of the temple and its inauguration. The consequences of the attack are devastating: Flavius Sabinus is killed and his headless body is chucked down the Gemonian Stairs; Domitian narrowly escapes death and manages to flee to the house of Cornelius Primus (a client of his father) near the Velabrum (H. 3.74). Tacitus mentions his later decision to mark the place of his escape with the construction of a temple to Jupiter Stator. The attack of the Flavians on the city also receives close attention, and the key interest of the historian is in charting the various lines of attack and the strategy of the three contingents to con­ verge near the city, whence they proceed to take on the Vitelliani near the Colline Gate, and through there the praetorian camp. The claim of the victors is to have returned the city to the peo­ ple and the Senate and having restored the temple of the gods. Tacitus wryly comments that this was the third occurrence in which civil war unfolded in the city of Rome, after Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1) and Cinna, with the same degree of cruelty and a greater degree of indifference (cf. H. 3.51 for a passing reference to a striking episode of the clash between Cinna and Pompeius Strabo on the Janiculum). Vitellius first finds shelter on the Aventine, in his wife’s house; he is then cap­ tured and executed at the Gemonian Stairs, at the same site where Flavius Sabinus had been killed (H. 3.84–85). The restoration of the Capitol stands out as prominent theme in the early stages of the reign of Vespasian, as an obvious and necessary step in the restoration of orderly governance. The Senate takes the lead on it (4.4); the praetor Helvidius Priscus invites Vespasian to be involved, and that might be perceived as a slight (4.9). Sometime later the emperor entrusts the task to the equestrian Lucius Vestinus (H. 4.53), who seeks the guidance of the haruspices. The process is described in detail and precisely dated to 21 June 70: religious scruple

28­04­2023 18:09:01

947

Rubellius B landus  

dominates the proceedings, and the only change from the past is greater height (H. 4.53). Most of what survives of the rest of the work is set in provincial contexts: the new inauguration of the Capitol is the last point on the topography of Rome that Tacitus has to offer. see also: astrology; portents; religion; Rome, myth and history; Roman roads FURTHER READING Edwards, C. 1996. Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to the City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 69–82.

ROMILIUS MARCELLUS, see VITELLIUS ROMULUS, see ROME, MYTH AND HISTORY

ROSCIUS COELIUS LEONARDO GREGORATTI

University of Durham

Marcus Roscius Coelius was a Roman general. He commanded the legion XX Valeria Victrix sta­ tioned in Britannia in 68 ce. He was for a long time on bad terms with the governor of that prov­ ince, Trebellius Maximus whom he accused of having impoverished the legions to satiate his immoderate greed. Trebellius accused Coelius of lack of discipline and sedition (Ag. 7.3). During the civil wars of 69 ce Coelius gained control of the soldiers and the other legionary commanders forc­ ing the governor to leave Britannia and seek shelter with Vitellius. After his escape, the legions’ legati administered the province on equal terms among them, though Coelius was the most influent, until Vitellius sent the new governor Marcus Vettius Bolanus in late 69 ce (H. 1.60). Roscius was later appointed suffect consul in 81 ce. Reference works: PIR2 R 94; CIL VI 2060 FURTHER READING Gallivan, P. A. 1981. “The Fasti for AD 70–96.” Classical Quarterly 31: 186–220.

c17_Vol2.indd 947

Morgan, G. 2006. 69 ad: The Year of Four Emperors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ROSCIUS GALLUS, see ACTORS ROSIUS REGULUS, see CAECINA ALIENUS

RUBELLIUS BLANDUS NEIL BARNEY

University of Victoria

Gaius Rubellius Blandus (b. c. 25 bce; Syme 1982) ascended the cursus honorum: triumvir monetalis (c. 4 bce); quaestor of Divus Augustus; tribune of the plebs; praetor; suffect consul (18 ce), pro­ consul of Africa (35 or 36 ce); pontifex. His grandfather was the first eques to teach rhetoric in Rome (Sen. Controv. 2. pr. 5: Rubellius Blandus). His father likely never surpassed the praetorship and was governor of Crete and Cyrene (ILS 3401, Tibur; AE 1930, 62, Gortyn; AE 1974, 667, Cyrene: Gaius Rubellius Blandus; see Weidemann 1964). Tacitus scorned his marriage to Tiberius’ grand­ daughter Iulia Livia in 33 ce (A. 6.27; cf. Cass. Dio 58.21). Tacitus records two acts in the Senate. In 20 ce, Blandus’ motion that Aemilia Lepida (1) be exiled was carried by the Senate (A. 3.23). The fol­ lowing year, he was the only man of consular rank to side with her brother Manius Aemilius Lepidus as he argued for the exile of Clutorius Priscus. In this, however, he was less successful and the man was immediately put to death; an action that, after a rebuff from Tiberius, led the Senate to resolve an appropriate delay of ten days for future actions of this kind (A. 3.51). In 33 ce, Tiberius arranged for Blandus to marry his granddaughter Iulia Livia. Blandus was older than Iulia and lower in station. An explana­ tion for this sudden fortune may be found in familial involvement with the silver mines in Carthago Nova (modern Carthagena); the union allowed the princeps greater control over this important economic resource (CIL II 3530, Murcia; AE 1974, 378, Murcia; see Díaz Ariño 2019). Incorporation into the imperial family brought benefits. Blandus was governor of Africa in 35/6

28­04­2023 18:09:01

948

  Rubellius P lautus

ce (IRT 330). In 36 ce, he was one of the men selected (along with Tiberius’ other grandsonsin-law and Publius Petronius, who had been nominated by the consuls) to assess the damages after a fire ravaged the Aventine and Circus Maximus (A. 6.45). His final appearance is in 38 ce, when he set up the dedication to “Diva Drusilla” (ILS 196, Tibur). His marriage to Iulia produced children: Rubellius Plautus, Rubellia Bassa, Rubellius Drusus (CIL VI 16057) and, perhaps, the G. Rubellius Blandus who appears in Juvenal (8.39 ff.). Reference works: PIR2 R 111; AE 1930, 62; 1974, 378; 1974, 667; CIL II 3530; VI 16057; FO VI; ILS 196; 3401; 3908; IRT (Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania) 330 REFERENCES Díaz Ariño, Borja. 2019. “Was C. Rubellius Blandus Involved in the Exploitation of the Silver Mines of Carthago Nova?” Historia 68.2: 228–232. DOI: 10.25162/historia-2019-0013. Syme, Ronald. 1982. “The Marriage of Rubellius Blandus.” American Journal of Philology 103.1: 62–85. Weidemann, Ursula. 1964. “EINE BEMERKUNG ZU C. RUBELLIUS BLANDUS, CONSUL SUFF. 18, UND DESSEN VATER.” Acta Classica 7: 64–679. FURTHER READING Wiseman, T. P. 1971. New Men in the Roman Senate: 139 BC–14 AD. London: Oxford University Press.

RUBELLIUS GEMINUS, see FUFIUS GEMINUS

RUBELLIUS PLAUTUS BRAM L. H. TEN BERGE

Hope College

Rubellius Plautus (precise dates and political offices unknown) was the son of Gaius Rubellius Blandus and Iulia Livia (daughter of Drusus the Younger and granddaughter of the emperor Tiberius) and by direct descent on his mother’s side was great-great-grandson of the emperor Augustus. Lineage remained an ever-important

c17_Vol2.indd 948

prerequisite for social cachet and political power under the principate, and Plautus’ eminent descent made him (contrary to his character, Stoic leanings, and lack of political ambition) an unwilling rival to his emperor Nero, who like­ wise was a great-great-grandson of Augustus on his mother’s side. Plautus’ lineage also made being connected with him a source of danger to others. The notion that eminent men by virtue of glorious achievements and/or noble descent automatically became (or became seen as) rivals of the sitting emperor (Habinek 2000), and the fact that being connected with distinguished individuals was dangerous after they fell from grace are recurrent concerns throughout the Histories and Annals. Plautus is mentioned once in the extant Histories, at H. 1.14.1, where Tacitus reports that some believed Galba designated Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus as his heir not on his own initiative but through the influence of Cornelius Laco; it was Plautus who had facilitated the friend­ ship between Laco and Piso. In the Annals, we first meet Plautus in the account of the year 55 ce, when Iunia Silana accused Agrippina the Younger of plotting to marry Plautus and of urging him to revolt against Nero (A. 13.19–22). Ultimately, the allegation was suppressed, and Plautus faced no consequences. It is, of course, significant that Silana fixed on Plautus as someone whose lineage could reason­ ably make him seem like an imminent threat to his emperor. Even if no violence was instigated in this case, the episode is part of a pattern in the Annals of “personal vendetta and whispers, empty charges, paranoid ruler” (Damon 2010, 266). Five years later, Plautus was less fortunate: the appearance of a comet (see: astrology) gener­ ated rumors about possible replacements for Nero, and naturally Plautus was mentioned (A. 14.22). Here, Tacitus writes that the man, despite his youth, maintained the comportment of his ancestors (he had a stern expression and kept his household chaste and private) and that the more he hid himself out of fear, the greater his reputa­ tion became. Nero, fearing the man’s lineage and high moral virtue, forced Plautus to withdraw to his ancestral estates in Asia. The notion that extraordinary virtue on the part of other people

28­04­2023 18:09:01

Rubellius P lautus  

was threatening to emperors is ubiquitous in Tacitus. Likewise, the notion that being modest and maintaining a low profile can backfire is one we already see in the fate of Gnaeus Iulius Agricola under the emperor Domitian (Ag. 39–41). Plautus’ compliance with Nero earned him merely two years, for in 62 ce Ofonius Tigellinus (then prefect the Praetorian Guard) capitalized on his ousting Seneca from Nero’s counsels to turn the latter against Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix and Plautus (A. 14.57– 59). Tigellinus used their proximity to the legions of Germany and the East, respectively, as a pretext to falsely accuse them of fomenting rebellion; Plautus allegedly had tried to join forces with Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, and forces in Asia, too, had supposedly joined the wealthy man’s cause. Plautus was further accused of having adopted the dangerous principles of the Stoics. Significantly, as Syme (1958, 555) writes, “such is the earliest notification of that creed in the Annales.” Damon (2010, 267) notes that “the pre­ emptive killing of eminent men on the grounds that they might start a civil war may be a self-ful­ filling prophecy.” Indeed, Plautus’ father-in-law Lucius Antistius Vetus initially urged him to resist Nero’s order and to revolt. In the event, Plautus (thinking of his family) refused and was soon found, killed, and beheaded in the presence of Iulius Pelago, a eunuch whom Nero had put in charge of the deed (A. 14.59). Nero, when gazing upon Plautus’ head, mocked his face (according to Cass. Dio 62.14.1, his nose in particular) as he had done with Faustus Sulla’s head. Tacitus dra­ matizes Plautus’ beheading more fully at A. 16.10, where the man’s wife Antistia Pollitta is described as clinging to his bleeding neck and as keeping his blood-stained clothes with her at all times. Tacitus has a tendency to mark the deaths of major individuals as turning points for the worse in the reigns of their respective emperors (Ag. 44.5, Agricola; A. 5.3.1, Livia Augusta; A. 4.7, Drusus the Younger; A. 14.13–14, Agrippina). Plautus, too, fits this pattern, for, according to Tacitus, Nero now felt relieved and at once has­ tened his marriage to Poppaea Sabina the Younger and his divorce of Octavia (2). To add

c17_Vol2.indd 949

949

insult to injury, Plautus and Sulla were posthu­ mously removed from the Senate. This is not where things end, however, for, as Damon (2003, 135) notes, “friendship with Rubellius Plautus had lasting consequences.” At A. 16.10, Tacitus writes that in 65 ce Nero engineered the destruction of Plautus’ father-in-law Lucius Antistius Vetus, his moth­ er-in-law Sextia Antistia, and his wife Antistia Pollitta “as though they were a living reproach to him for the killing of Rubellius Plautus.” The family was accused (possibly of friendship with Plautus, amicitia Plauti: Rutledge 2001, 120) by Vetus’ freedman Fortunatus and Claudius Demianus, whom Vetus had prosecuted and thrown into chains for crimes in Asia and who thus was eager to serve Nero by turning against his former proconsul. Nero was unforgiving to any pleas, and the family anticipated the impend­ ing judgement of the Senate by taking their own lives. In the prosecution of Barea Soranus in 66 ce, finally, friendship with Plautus was one of the formal charges, alongside that of having fomented rebellion in Asia (A. 16.23, 30, 32). Soranus, too, was condemned to death and committed suicide (for both cases: Rutledge 2001, 119–121, 154– 155). Plautus, in sum, is a significant figure, whose position, actions, and fate form part of a range of Tacitean themes regarding imperial power, the importance of lineage, the hazards of political friendships and alliances, and the real­ ities of the imperial legal system (especially in terms of the practice of delatio; see delators). Reference work: PIR2 R 115 REFERENCES Damon, Cynthia. 2003. Tacitus: Histories Book 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Damon, Cynthia. 2010. “Intestinum Scelus: Preemptive Execution in Tacitus’ Annals.” In Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars, edited by Brian Breed, Cynthia Damon, and Andreola Rossi, 261–272. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Habinek, T. N. 2000. “Seneca’s Renown: ‘Gloria, Claritudo,’ and the Replication of the Roman Elite.” Classical Antiquity 19: 264–303.

28­04­2023 18:09:01

950

  Rubrius Fabatus

Rutledge, Steven. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London and New York: Routledge. Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. FURTHER READING Pagán, Victoria. 2012. Conspiracy Theory in Latin Literature. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. See index. Rudich, Vasily. 2005 [1993]. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation. Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge. See index.

RUBRIUS, see POMPEIUS MACER

RUBRIUS FABATUS DANIELLE CHAGAS DE LIMA

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Rubrius Fabatus, from the gens Rubria, was an equestrian who plotted with Aelius Sejanus against Tiberius. In 32 ce, when other conspira­ tors—like Geminius, Iulius Celsus and Pompeius—were being prosecuted, he was caught near the Straits of Sicily; he was trying to run away from the troubles in Rome and find asylum in Parthia (A. 6.14.1–2). As Fabatus had no excuse to cross the boundaries of Sicily without permission (for this reason it is speculated that he was a senator: see Levick 1998, 168), he was condemned. Yet, due to Tiberius’ oblivion, he was not executed (A. 6.14.2). Rubrius Fabatus, like Geminus and Pompeius, is otherwise unattested. Reference works: PIR2 R 126; C 639; G 122; RE I A.1 (1914), 1171 18 REFERENCE Levick, Barbara. 1998. Tiberius the Politician. New York: Routledge. FURTHER READING Garzetti, Albino. 1974. From Tiberius to Antonines: A History of the Roman Empire from AD 14–192. Routledge Revivals. New York: Routledge.

c17_Vol2.indd 950

RUBRIUS GALLUS ANTONINO PITTÀ

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan)

A minor figure in himself but connected with main characters of the civil wars of 69 ce, Rubrius Gallus was governor of Moesia in 70, which suggests he might have been a consul under Nero. In his last days, Nero sent him against Galba (Cass. Dio 63.27); sometime later, he served under Otho. After Otho’s death, he sur­ rendered to Vitellius’ army. During the subsequent conflict, he is thought to have acted as an intermediary between the Flavians and Caecina Alienus, playing a role in the latter’s treason. In 70 he was appointed by Vespasian as a governor of the province of Moesia (a reward for his secret service in the civil war?): here he fought the final battle against the Roxolani (see Sarmatians), leading the Romans to a resounding victory (Joseph. BJ 7.92–5). He may be the same Rubrius Gallus quoted by Juvenal (4.105) as a member of Domitian’s court. He is mentioned by Tacitus only twice. In the first instance (H. 2.51) he is the commander of the Othonian troops based in Brixellum who begged pardon for himself and his men after Otho’s death, and got it easily, at the same time when the troops led by Titus Flavius Sabinus (2) surrendered to Vitellius. In the second case (H. 2.99), a rumor is reported that Rubrius Gallus mediated between the Flavian party and Caecina Alienus, again on behalf of a Flavius Sabinus (either nephew or brother of Vespasian), contrib­ uting to Caecina’s change of sides. The problem lies in the difficulty of identi­ fying the Flavius Sabinus mentioned in both pas­ sages, and whether they are the same person or two different figures. It seems likely that the Sabinus mentioned at H. 2.51 is Titus Flavius Sabinus who was consul designatus in the year 69 and consul in the year 72 (in the latter case, together with Licinius Mucianus): a member of the gens Flavia (probably the son of Vespasian’s brother Flavius Sabinus: see Gilmartin Wallace 1987; Townend 1961), he was Otho’s general who surrendered to Vitellius, and Rubrius Gallius might have played a role in obtaining the pardon for him. If this is true, Gallus was a trusted man

28­04­2023 18:09:01

Rubrum M are  

for the gens Flavia even before Vespasian was declared emperor by his troops. Then, Gallus’ acting as a Flavian spokesperson is confirmed by his tight connection with the Flavius Sabinus mentioned at H. 2.99, who may be either the same Titus Flavius Sabinus involved at H. 2.51, or his father, the Titus Flavius Sabinus (1), brother of Vespasian, who led the Flavian party in Rome and was put to death by the Vitellians during the siege of the Capitol (Gilmartin Wallace 1987, 350 and n. 35): in fact, in this period both Flavii Sabini, father and son, were together in Rome and fought side by side (cf. H. 3.69; 3.73). Reference work: PIR2 R 127 REFERENCES Gilmartin Wallace, Kristine. 1987. “The Flavii Sabini in Tacitus.” Historia 36: 343–358. Townend, Gavin. 1961. “Some Flavian Connections.” Journal of Roman Studies 51: 54–61. FURTHER READING Jones, Brian W. 1992. The Emperor Domitian. London: Routledge.

RUBRUM MARE ELIZABETH ANN POLLARD

San Diego State University

Rubrum Mare, or the Red Sea, figures into argu­ ments about the date of Tacitus’ Annals, Tacitus’ geographical knowledge (or lack thereof), and the expanding global world in which Tacitus lived. With respect to the date of the Annals, Rubrum Mare appears in A. 2.61 as the extent to which Roman imperium stretches in his own day (quod nunc rubrum ad mare patescit), as contrasted with what was once the claustra (gate, limit) of empire, namely Elephantine and Syene in Egypt—dur­ ing Germanicus’ day (claustra olim Romani imperii). Goodyear highlights the importance of this short passage, calling it “the most disputed passage in the Annals” and the one “upon which any chance of dating the work seems to turn” (Goodyear 1981, 387). Goodyear rejects several

c17_Vol2.indd 951

951

scholars’ arguments that Tacitus’ mention of the Red Sea as the limit of empire in his own day places the writing of the Annals between 115/116 ce (when the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, including the Persian Gulf) and 117/118 ce (by which time Hadrian pulled back from those limits). Instead, Goodyear follows Wellesley in interpreting the mention of the Red Sea to mean Tacitus is writing soon after the annexation of Arabia Petraea in 106 ce (Goodyear 1981, 389–393). Of course, using mention of the Red Sea as the means by which to date the Annals requires resolving the thorny issue of what Tacitus means by the Red Sea. With respect to Tacitus’ geography, Rubrum Mare appears in A. 2.61 (the already-discussed extent of Roman empire) and in A. 14.25.2 (as the route by which Domitius Corbulo sent Hyrcanian ambassadors to avoid Parthian territory as they returned to their home on the shores of the Caspian Sea, c. 60 ce ). From these mentions and other sources, Rubrum Mare has been construed, from narrowest to widest defini­ tion, to refer to: a body of water enclosed by Arabia (assuming Tacitus to be “the most ungeo­ graphical of historians,” Goodyear 1981, 392– 393); what we today think of as the Red Sea, namely the waters bounded by Egypt, Sudan, and Eritrea on the west and the Arabian peninsula (Saudi Arabia and Yemen) on the east; or most likely, the Arabian Sea (or Erythraeaum Mare) running along the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, including extensions into today’s Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and stretching from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of India. Schneider makes a compelling case that Tacitus’ designation of Rubrum Mare as the limit of empire is less about cartographic knowledge and more about political ideology and, like Wellesley and Goodyear, must be taken within the context of Trajan’s annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom (106 ce). Rome’s annexation of a region that reached the Rubrum Mare by Tacitus’ day, argues Schneider, meant Rome had reached a spur of the Outer Ocean, in other words, as far as one could go (Schneider 2015). Beyond what it suggests about the date for the Annals and Tacitean (un)geography, the Red Sea has become an important locus for understanding the Roman empire’s role in the wider

28­04­2023 18:09:01

952

  Rufrius C rispinus

Indomediterranean economy of Tacitus’ day. In fact, Tacitus’ third mention of Rubrum Mare con­ trasts the pearls from England with those of the Red Sea (Ag. 12.6–7), a mention that hints at the trade for which this vital route to eastern goods was so valued. Casson’s close study of the Periplus Maris Erythraei, details the value of this first-cen­ tury ce sailor’s handbook for navigating the ports visited, the people encountered, and the products (including pearls) exchanged along the route from the Red Sea coast of Egypt to the west coast of India just prior to, and no doubt during, Tacitus’ lifetime. Sidebotham has explored the role of the Red Sea in the Roman economy (1986) and uncovered across decades of excavations the archaeological evidence from Berenike, a multi­ lingual trading hub linking the Nile Valley via a road network and the Red Sea via its role as a port, with the broader Indian Ocean exchange network (2011). In his examination of Roman trade with India, Parker has explored ideas about the Red Sea trade (its association with luxury in Latin elegists and Roman trade deficit in Pliny), other evidence for Red Sea trade (including the shipping contract on the Muziris papyrus), and Roman geographic knowledge of the Red Sea. Pollard has traced the role of spices brought to Rome via the Red Sea trade in models for empire (2009) and ideas about magic (2013). For Kelly, the passage in which Tacitus mentions the Red Sea functioned as a meditation on “the rise and fall of tyranny” (Kelly 2010, 236). Reference work: Barrington 4 A1/E2, 3 C5, 78 E3, 80 F2, 81 F2, 83 A4 REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D. 1981. Annals of Tacitus, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries. Vol. 2. 387–393. Kelly, Benjamin. 2010. “Tacitus, Germanicus, and the Kings of Egypt (Tac. Ann. 2.59.61).” Classical Quarterly 60.1: 221–237. Pollard, E. A. 2009. “Pliny’s Natural History and the Flavian Templum Pacis: Botanical Imperialism in First Century CE Rome.” Journal of World History 20.3: 309–338. Pollard, E. A. 2013. “Indian Spices and Roman ‘Magic’ in Imperial and Late Antique Indomediterranea.” Journal of World History 24.1: 1–23.

c17_Vol2.indd 952

Schneider, Pierre. 2015. “Quod nunc Rubrum ad mare patescit: The Rubrum Mare as a Frontier of the Roman Empire.” Klio 97.1: 135–156. Sidebotham, S. E. 1986. Roman Economic Policy in the Erythra Thalassa, 30 BC–AD 21. Leiden: Brill. Sidebotham, S. E. 2011. Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route. Berkeley: University of California Press. FURTHER READING Casson, Lionel. 1989. The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Parker, Grant. 2002. “Ex Oriente Luxuria: Indian Commodities and the Roman Experience.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 45.1: 40–95. Wellesley, K. 1955. “The Date and Composition of Tacitus Annals II.” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 98.2: 135–149.

RUFINUS, see ASIATICUS (2)

RUFRIUS CRISPINUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Rufrius Crispinus (d. 65 ce) was praetorian prefect under Claudius. He was involved in two well-known prosecutions under Claudius but was cashiered under Nero in favor of Afranius Burrus. He was later forced to suicide for sus­ pected involvement in the Pisonian Conspiracy. Crispinus is noted as an equestrian “of senatorial dignity” (A. 16.17.1), but little or nothing is known concerning his life and career prior to 47 ce. He was colleague with Lusius Geta Saturninus as praetorian prefect in 47 when Claudius ordered him to arrest Decimus Valerius Asiaticus (1) at Baiae (A. 11.1.3), and he is heard from again that same year when Suillius Rufus indicts the brothers Petrae (both distinguished equestrians), before the Senate (A. 11.4); for his services (either for his help in the case against Asiaticus, the brothers Petrae, or both) he received the insignia of the praetor and 1.5 million ses­ terces (A. 11.4.5). The only thing we know of

28­04­2023 18:09:01

rumor  

Crispinus’ involvement in the case of Asiaticus is that he was sent to arrest him at Baiae. In 51 ce, Crispinus and Geta were removed from command and replaced by Afranius Burrus; Tacitus says that Crispinus’ removal was the result of his loyalty to Messalina’s children, which was a concern for Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.42.1–2; cf. Cass. Dio 60.32.6). Crispinus’ loy­ alty to Messalina is indicated by the fact that both he and Geta were temporarily replaced as com­ manders by Narcissus on the day Messalina was denounced, arrested, and executed. At some point—it is uncertain when or why— Crispinus was honored with consularia insignia (A. 16.17.2). In light of this honor, Syme (1958, 747) argued that Tacitus was probably in error assigning the insignia praetoria to Crispinus; there would be no need for one already adlected to the Senate and now at the rank of praetorian prefect to be bestowed with insignia praetoria, though Syme’s assertion is not without dispute (Rutledge 2001, 264). After Poppaea Sabina the Elder’s destruction in 47 ce he married her daughter, Poppaea Sabina the Younger (later Nero’s par­ amour) and had a son with her whom Nero later had murdered (Suet. Nero 35.5), but divorced her in 58 after Otho seduced and soon married her (A. 13.45.4; Cass. Dio 61.11.2; Plut. Galba 19.2). Crispinus was banished in 65 ce in the wake of the Pisonian Conspiracy; Tacitus says, however, that this was a mere pretext, and that it was actu­ ally because Nero begrudged him his marriage to Poppaea (A. 15.71.8). He was exiled to Sardinia on a charge of conspiracy, and his enforced suicide followed not long afterward (A. 16.17.2, 7). see also: Pisonian Conspiracy, victims Reference works: PIR2 R 169; RE 2.11.1201–2 = Rufrius 1 (Nagl); AE 92.483 REFERENCES Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

c17_Vol2.indd 953

953

FURTHER READING Demougin, S. 1992. Prosopographie des chevaliers romains Julio-Claudiens (43 av. J. C. - 70 ap. J.-C.). Rome: École Française de Rome. 485–486.

RUGII, see GOTONES

RUMOR LYDIA SPIELBERG

University of California, Los Angeles

Reports without a substantiated source occur fre­ quently in Tacitus’ works. Rumors and the false beliefs that they engender can drive events, but they are also historiographically useful: through rumors, Tacitus slants readers’ perceptions, con­ veys the mood of the times, and meditates on problems of knowledge. Tacitus offers frequent sententiae about rumor’s effects. Rumor customarily exaggerates (A. 3.44.1, 14.58.3; H. 4.50.1), especially concerning the unknown (Ag. 25.3; H. 2.83.1). It grows as it spreads (H. 1.34.2), but occasionally does not miss the mark (Ag. 9.5). Rumors are par­ ticularly fierce concerning the deaths of rulers (A. 4.11.2), and controlling rumor is crucial at the beginning of military campaigns (A. 13.8.3). Attempts to suppress rumors tend to inflame them (H. 2.96.2), but if ignored, they will dissipate in time (A. 2.77.2). Rumor’s active causative force in war and political life is a standard locus of epic poetry and historiography. The Homeric epics show rumor spreading fear and dissension in an army or city (Hom. Il. 2.93–4, cf. H. 1.54.2–3, 2.42.1); in Herodotus, the rumor of the Greek victory at Plataea heartens the army at Mycale and ensures victory (Hdt. 9.100.1–2). Vergil provides the locus classicus in his personification of fama as a winged monster who “terrifies great cities, cling­ ing as fiercely to fictions and perversions as it is a messenger of truth” (Aen. 4.173–197, cf. H. 1.85.2). Livy frequently portrays the effects of rumor on morale (e.g., 28.24–25), while Sallust anticipates Tacitus in the use of unsubstantiated

28­04­2023 18:09:01

954

  rumor

rumors to adumbrate problems of knowledge (e.g. Cat. 22.1–3). “Nero was overthrown by reports and rumors more than by force of arms” (H. 1.89.2). In the Histories, successful generals in the civil wars of 69 ce manipulate report to exaggerate their successes and stun their opponents (H. 2.20.2, 2.58.2, 2.93.2; cf. A. 4.24.1, 6.36.1, 13.37.1), but less competent ones only increase disaffection when they try to squash hostile rumors (H. 1.17.2, 2.96.2, 3.54.1). Rumors can motivate action in domestic politics as well. Both Livia Augusta (A. 1.5.4) and Agrippina the Younger (A. 12.68.3) spread rumors that a dying emperor’s health is improving in order to keep people and army quiet while they arrange the succession to their liking. Tacitus often associates rumor with the ignorant and credulous crowd, “greedy for invention” (H. 2.1.1) and “ready to believe the worst” (A. 15.64.2, H. 1.19.2). Impostors demonstrate particularly well the power of rumor. The false Agrippa Postumus (Clemens, A. 2.39–40), false Drusus (Drusus Caesar, A. 5.10.1–3), and false Nero (H. 2.8.1–9.2) threaten imperial stability with little more than popular belief in their assumed identities. Emperors are neither immune to the allure of rumor nor can they combat it. Rumors of Otho’s death draw out Galba to his doom (H. 1.34–35), and even Nero’s spectacular punishment of Christian scape­ goats cannot quell the rumor that he was respon­ sible for the Fire of 64 ce (A. 15.44.2–5). Handbooks of rhetoric gave standard argu­ ments to use both for and against rumors. They could be refuted as idle talk spread maliciously by enemies and believed by the lowest class of society (Quint. Inst. 5.3.1), and one could argue away even a plausible rumor with recourse to known facts, character, and plausibility (Cic. Inv. 2.46). On the other side, one could say that rumors always have a kernel of truth (Rhet. Her. 2.12), and that they constitute “the populace’s testi­ mony” (Cic. Top. 76). A trained orator, Tacitus uses all of these techniques as needed. At A. 4.10, Tacitus makes a textbook refutation of a lurid rumor about the death of Drusus Caesar and asks his audience to use it as an example of how to approach rumors with skepticism.

c17_Vol2.indd 954

This clear denial of a rumor, however, is unique, and Tacitus has often been accused of using the ambiguity of rumors to slant his readers’ judgment even in the absence of confirmed facts (see Ryberg 1942; Shatzman 1974, 560–570). The constans rumor that Domitian had a hand in Agricola’s death (Ag. 43.2), for example, leaves the impression of foul play, although Tacitus carefully refuses to confirm it, and the swirling rumors around Augustus’ death and Tiberius’ accession (A. 1.4.2–5.2) enhance the sense of an illegitimate assumption of power. But such rumors also index popular sentiment and bear witness to the perception of power. Tacitus uses the conceit of popular talk to present extended indirect-discourse conversations (sermones) that embed contemporary judgments and reactions into anonymous collective or contrast­ ing voices of public opinion (e.g. A. 1.4.2–5.2, 1.9.3–10.7, 4.38.5, 14.20.1–21.3; H. 1.50.1–4). Like historiographical speeches, these sermones may show the historian’s concerns rather than the authentic mood of the times; by presenting them as contemporary rumors, Tacitus creates a vivid atmosphere of suspicion, uncertainty, and covert dissent. The pervasiveness of rumor in Tacitus’ narra­ tives, especially in the Annals, has often been seen as a reflex of the problems of knowledge that the principate engendered (Devillers 2012; Gibson 1998, 124–127). Where power is wielded in secret and raison d’etat calculated behind palace doors, rumor takes the place of reliable knowledge (H. 1.1.1; A. 1.6.3, cf. Cass. Dio 53.19.3–4). Even after the Senate has declared the issue of Germanicus’ death closed, for example, irrepressible rumors abound even into Tacitus’ own day, a proof of “the uncertainty around all the most important affairs, as some accept whatever they hear as proven, while others distort truth into its opposite; both increase with succeeding generations” (A. 3.19.2). see also: bias; metahistory REFERENCES Devillers, Olivier. 2012. “The Concentration of Power and the Writing of History: Forms of Historical Persuasion in the Histories (1.1–49).” In A

28­04­2023 18:09:01

Rutilius Rufus , P ublius  

Companion to Tacitus, edited by V. E. Pagán, 163–186. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Gibson, Bruce J. 1998. “Rumours as Causes of Events in Tacitus.” Materiali e Discussioni per l’Analisi dei Testi Classici 40: 111–129. Ryberg, Inez Scott. 1942. “Tacitus’ Art of Innuendo.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 73: 383–404. Shatzman, Israel. 1974. “Tacitean Rumours.” Latomus 33.3: 549–578. FURTHER READING Adekannbi, Gill Oluwatosin. 2013. “The Use of Rumour in Tacitus’ Annals.” Ibadan Journal of European Studies 13: 249–263. Cogitore, Isabelle. 2013. “Les rumeurs politiques sont-elles des bruits dans les Annales de Tacite?” In Les sons du pouvoir dans les mondes anciens, edited by Maria Teres Schettino and Sylvie Pittia, 399–425. Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté. Hardie, Phillip. 2012. Rumour and Renown: Representations of Fama in Western Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haynes, Holly. 2003. Empire of Make-Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ries, Wolfgang. 1969. Gerücht, Gerede, öffentliche Meinung: Intepretation zur Psychologie und Darstellungskunst des Tacitus. Diss. Heidelberg.

RUTILIUS RUFUS, PUBLIUS WESLEY J. HANSON

University of Pennsylvania

Publius Rutilius Rufus (c. 155 bce–after 78 bce) was a republican politician, attaining the consul­ ship in 105 bce (MRR I 555). He is cited in the Annals twice as a republican example germane to contemporary politics, at 3.66.1 for his bribery (ambitus) case in 116 bce and at 4.43.5 as an example of an exile changing his citizenship to justify Volcacius Moschus’ bequeathal of his estate to the Massilians.

c17_Vol2.indd 955

955

Rutilius was probably born in the mid-150s bce: he ran for the consulship in 115, and he was young enough in the year 138 bce for Cicero to later refer to him as a young man (adulescens, Brut. 85). He contended with Marcus Aemilius Scaurus for the consulship in 115 bce. Rutilius prosecuted Scaurus for ambitus, but Scaurus was acquitted. Scaurus then prosecuted Rutilius for ambitus (Brut. 113, see also Gruen 1968, 120–122 for the political backdrop of the election and trials; Kallet-Marx 1990). The prosecution failed. It is this prosecution that Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus refers to in his prosecution of Gaius Iunius Silanus for extortion of provincials (A. 3.66.1). Mamercus Scaurus’ citation is difficult to understand since ambitus does not appear to be suitable precedent for an extortion case (Woodman and Martin 1996, ad loc.). Badian 1958 explores potential reasons for Mamercus Scaurus’ odd precedent, including the possibility that Mamercus Scaurus meant to cite a different case (cf. A. 4.43.5), fabrication, or even incompe­ tence. That the case was famous and involved Mamercus Scaurus’ ancestor may be sufficient ground for Mamercus Scaurus to cite it (Woodman and Martin 1996, ad loc.). Delegations to Tiberius and the Senate from Massilia in 25 ce sought permission to accept the bequeathal of the estate of Volcacius Moschus. Volcacius Moschus (also spelled Vulcatius or Vulcacius, see Woodman 2018, ad loc.) had been exiled to Massilia for poisoning, where he left his estate to the city as if to his homeland (cf. Sen. Controv. 2.5.13). The Massilians’ petition was accepted based on the precedent set by Rutilius, who became a citizen of Smyrna after being convicted of extortion and exiled in 92 bce (see MRR II 8–9 for over thirty ancient references to the case and Kelly 2006, 181). While in exile Rutilius wrote a memoir that Tacitus mentions in his introduc­ tion to the Agricola (Ag. 1). see also: memory; Roman Republic Reference works: MRR I 555; RE 1A1.1269–1280

28­04­2023 18:09:01

956

  Rutilius Rufus , P ublius

REFERENCES Badian, E. 1958. “Mam. Scaurus Cites Precedent.” Classical Review 8: 216–220. Gruen, Erich S. 1968. Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts, 149–78 bc. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kallet-Marx, R. 1990. “The Trial of Rutilius Rufus.” Phoenix 44: 122–139.

c17_Vol2.indd 956

Kelly, G. P. 2006. A History of Exile in the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J. 2018. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J., and R. H. Martin. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28­04­2023 18:09:01

S SAEVIN(I)US, see CADIUS RUFUS

SALEIUS BASSUS BRANDON JONES

Bassus (D. 9.5). Juvenal also remarked with similar irony on Bassus’ glory and poverty, pairing him with the Flavian poet Serranus (Sat. 7.80). see also: Roman orators; Roman poets

Boston University

Reference works: PIR2 S 72; RE Bassus 34

Epic poet and contemporary of Valerius Flaccus, Saleius Bassus died prematurely and none of his work is extant, the Laus Pisonis having formerly been incorrectly attributed to him. Quintilian characterized his genius as forceful and poetic, but one that never benefitted from the maturity of old age (Quint. Inst. 10.1.90). In the Dialogus de Oratoribus, Iulius Secundus attempts to recuse himself from judging the arguments between Curiatius Maternus and Marcus Aper on poetry and oratory by calling attention to his very close friendship with Saleius Bassus, whom he calls a most excellent man and most complete poet (D. 5.2). Aper, in turn, admits that Bassus is an excellent poet, even a most illustrious bard (D. 9.2), but underscores the lack of opportunity born from Bassus’ inability in the forum (D. 5.3, 9.3) to advance the argument for the preeminence of oratory. Taking Bassus as primary example, Aper argues that after spending a year composing one book of poetry, the poet falls into debt securing an audience and publication (D. 9.3). Yet, Aper continues, Bassus’ poetic glory remains short-lived (D. 9.4) and seldom does any visitor in Rome ask after him (D. 10.2). Vespasian, Aper points out, showed his generosity by donating 500,000 sesterces to the impoverished

FURTHER READING van den Berg, Christopher. 2014. The World of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 84, 135–136. Whitton, Christopher. 2019. The Arts of Imitation in Latin Prose: Pliny’s Epistles/Quintilian in Brief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 439–440.

SALIENUS CLEMENS, see IUNIUS GALLIO ANNAEANUS

SALLUST A. J. WOODMAN

University of Virginia

Gaius Sallustius Crispus is the first Latin historian of whom complete works survive. (Iulius Caesar’s commentarii had appeared earlier but arguably belong to a different genre.) He was born in 86 bce in Amiternum, about fifty miles northeast of Rome (Jer. Chron. 151H) and was thus an exact contemporary of the poet Catullus (b. c. 84 bce). As an aspiring politician he will have migrated to Rome, though we do not know when: he is first recorded in a magistracy in 52,

The Tacitus Encyclopedia: Volume II, First Edition. Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

c18_Vol2.indd 957

28-04-2023 18:31:57

958

  S allust

when he was tribune of the plebs (Ascon. p. 37C). It may be inferred from this that three years previously he will have held the quaestorship, which brought with it membership of the Senate. Since he was the first in his family to become a senator, he was, like Cicero, a “new man” (novus homo); in 50, however, his membership of the Senate lapsed, when he was accused of opprobrious conduct (Cass. Dio 40.63.4). The political turmoil which characterized the Late Republic was exacerbated in the following year when Caesar, by crossing the Rubicon, precipitated the civil wars at Rome which would last for twenty years. Sallust spent 49 in Illyricum, commanding forces for Caesar, of whom he was a supporter; and in 47 he was engaged in the same task in Campania. His support was rewarded in 46, when, thanks to Caesar’s influence, he reentered the Senate as praetor (Cass. Dio 42.52.2), spending his time fighting against the forces of Pompey the Great in Africa (Bell. Afr. 8, 34). After the defeat of the Pompeians at the battle of Thapsus, Caesar appointed him governor of the newly created province of Africa Nova (Bell. Afr. 97); but Sallust allegedly used his appointment to plunder the province and amass a personal fortune (Cass. Dio 43.9.2–3). On his return to Rome in 45 he was charged with extortion and faced expulsion from the Senate for a second time, although he was saved on both counts by Caesar (Cass. Dio 43.47.4), with whom he no doubt shared his ill-gotten gains. He is thought to have died about ten years later, having lived through one of the most violent and conflicted periods of the Roman Republic. Into the preface of the Bellum Catilinae (“War against Catiline”) Sallust inserts a highly selective and generalized account of his career, explaining why he moved from participating in politics to writing about them (Cat. 3.3–4.2): hence scholars infer that this monograph was Sallust’s first work, written perhaps in the very late 40s. Sallust says that he chose the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 bce as his subject on account of its being “especially memorable because of the novelty of the crime and its danger” (Cat. 4.4). Though Cicero, who was consul in 63, played a prominent part in suppressing the conspiracy and afterward regarded himself as savior of the republic, Sallust gives pride of place to Caesar and the younger

c18_Vol2.indd 958

Cato, each of whom makes a lengthy speech (Cat. 51–52) and whose characters are compared with each other (Cat. 53.2–54.6); and, although Catiline is described at the start as being of “a wicked and crooked disposition” (Cat. 5.1), in the final battle he performs admirably and dies heroically (Cat. 60–61). This somewhat perverse work, interrupted by a mid-point digression on the corruption of Roman society (Cat. 36.5–39.4), is introduced by a disproportionately long preface in which Sallust defends the intellectual life and in particular historiography (Cat. 1.1–3.2), provides a famous character sketch of Catiline (Cat. 5.1–8) and summarizes the history of Rome from its exemplary beginnings through the turning point of 146 bce (the defeat of Carthage) to the corrupt present, of which Catiline is symptomatic (Cat. 6–13). In the preface to his second work, the Bellum Iugurthinum (“War against Jugurtha”), the themes of historiography and corruption recur more briefly (Iug. 1–4), although the work itself is almost twice as long as its predecessor. Sallust explains that he chose his subject because he saw in the war against the Numidian ruler (111–104 bce) the origins of the civil disruption which blighted his own day (Iug. 5.1–2); no doubt also relevant was the fact that Numidia formed part of Africa Nova, the province which Sallust had governed for Caesar. Once again there is a sociopolitical digression (Iug. 41–2), and once again the defeat of Carthage is a turning point (Iug. 41.2–3). The latter, a key element in Sallust’s theory of history, returns in the preface to the Historiae (1.12), an annalistic narrative (now sadly fragmentary) of the period from 78 bce (the year of the death of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (1)) to at least 67; perhaps begun in the early 30s, it was his last work. (Other works attributed to Sallust are generally regarded as spurious.) Unlike his predecessors, Sallust met all Cicero’s requirements for full-scale historiography (De or. 2.62–4), with one exception: he took the difficult style of Thucydides for his model, as the ancients recognized (Sen. Controv. 9.1.13–14, Vell. 36.2, Quint. 10.1.101, 10.2.17). Doubtless he identified with a classic historian who had also commanded forces, suffered political expulsion, narrated a contemporary theme of decline and fall, and adopted toward that theme an attitude that was

28-04-2023 18:31:57

S allustius C rispus  

“severe and harsh” (Dion. Hal. Pomp. 3). Thucydidean inconcinnity and uariatio of all types suited both Sallust’s own dissenting attitude and theme of decline; the “sentences which stop short and phrases which end before you expect, and brevity to the point of obscurity” (Sen. Ep. 114.17; cf. Quint. 8.3.82) resemble Thucydides’ “tendency to leave his hearer still expecting to hear something more…a brevity which lacks clarity” (Dion. Hal. Thuc. 24). Sallust’s “brevity” or “speed” was famous (Quint. 4.2.45, 10.1.32, 10.1.102); so too his coinages (Gell. NA 1.15.18, 4.15.1), metaphors, and archaisms, which he was said to have “stolen” from the elder Cato (Suet. Gramm. 10.6, 15.2, Aug. 86.3; cf. Quint. 8.3.29). His style became instantly fashionable (Sen. Ep. 114.17–19). Despite the credibility gap between his moralizing and his life story, he was regarded by Martial as “the first” Roman historian (14.191) and by Quintilian as a “greater” historian than Livy (2.5.19), who was much influenced by him. Sallustian imitation pervades all of Tacitus’ historical works, particularly the Annals, where Sallustian “mottoes” (A. 1.1.1 ~ Sall. Cat. 6.1; A. 4.1.1 ~ Sall. Cat. 10.1) announce that he was the principal model for Rome’s greatest work of dissenting history. see also: Cato the Elder; Cato the Younger; civil wars of Late Republic; Cornelius Tacitus; intertextuality FURTHER READING Batstone, W. W. 2010. Sallust: Catiline’s Conspiracy, The Jugurthine War, Histories. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Earl, D. C. 1961. The Political Thought of Sallust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kraus, C. S., and A. J. Woodman. 1997. Latin Historians, Chapter 2. Greece & Rome. New Surveys in the Classics No. 27. Oxford: Oxford University Press. La Penna, A. 2017. Sallustio e la “rivoluzione” romana. 3rd ed. (cur. A. Marcone, R. Funari). Milan: Mondadori. Perrochat, P. 1949. Les modèles grecs de Salluste. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Ramsey, J. T. 2015. Fragments of the Histories. Letters to Caesar. Loeb Classical Library, vol. 522. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press. Rolfe, J. C. 2013. The War with Catiline. The War with Jugurtha. Revised by J. T. Ramsey. Loeb Classical

c18_Vol2.indd 959

959

Library, vol. 116. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press. Scanlon, T. F. 1980. The Influence of Thucydides on Sallust. Heidelberg: Winter Universitätsverlag. Scanlon, T. F. 1987. Spes Frustrata: A Reading of Sallust. Heidelberg: Winter Universitätsverlag. Syme, R. 2002. Sallust. 2nd ed. (orig. 1964). Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. Woodman, A. J. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography, Chapter 3. London, Sydney, and Portland: Croom Helm/Areopagitica Press. Woodman, A. J. 2007. Sallust: Catiline’s War, The Jugurthine War, Histories. Penguin Classics. London and New York: Penguin Books. Woodman, A. J. 2018. The Annals of Tacitus: Book 4, Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS RODRIGO FURTADO

Universidade de Lisboa

Gaius Sallustius Crispus (d. 20 ce) was the grandson of a sister of the historian Sallust, who adopted him and gave him his name (A. 3.30.2). In his youth he opposed Octavian (see Augustus; Sen. De clem. 1.10.1); later, he changed sides and became friends with Augustus (Plin. HN 34.2.3). As such, Crispus must have had several opportunities to pursue a political career. However, he remained an eques all his life, emulating his contemporary, Maecenas, to whom he was also a close friend (A. 3.30.2–3). He was a rich man: he owned mines in the Alps, from which a renowned type of copper was extracted (Plin. HN 34.2.3). Like Maecenas, Crispus was known for his luxurious and extravagant non-traditional lifestyle (A. 3.30.2). He was also a friend of poets: Horace (carm. 2.2) and Crinagoras of Mytilene (anth. Pal. 16.40) dedicated poems to him. After the loss of Maecenas’ position in the late 20s bce, Crispus maintained his prominence, acquiring more influence than many senators: he knew the “secrets of the emperors” (A. 3.30.3) and was “a partner in those secrets” (A. 1.6.3). At the beginning of the reign of Tiberius, he was involved in the death of Agrippa Postumus on the island of Planasia. Only Tacitus attests that it was Crispus who sent the secret order for the execution of Postumus (A. 1.6.3). When

28-04-2023 18:31:57

960

  S alvius O tho T itianus , Lucius

Tiberius was pressed in the Senate and demanded an investigation into this death, Crispus asked Livia Augusta to intervene so that the emperor did not divulge the secrets of the court (A. 1.6.4; see Kehoe 1985). In the year 16 ce, Tiberius sent him to resolve the rebellion of a certain Clemens, a former slave of Agrippa Postumus who had impersonated him in Gaul, gaining great popular support. Crispus sent two of his clients to arrest and bring Clemens to Tiberius (A. 2.40). In both cases, Crispus acted as an unofficial agent, used for delicate imperial missions. Crispus lived near the Sallustian gardens which had belonged to his adoptive father, in the neighborhood of the temples of the “Three Fortunes” (Anth. Pal. 16.40.1), inside the Porta Collina (see Vitr. 3.2.2). In the reign of Tiberius, he remained close to the emperor, although his influence diminished, as had happened with Maecenas in relation to Augustus (A. 3.30.4). His wife may have been a Domitia Calvina, perhaps the mother of the Sallustia Calvina (CIL VI 23601) who married Publius Ostorius Scapula, prefect of Egypt under Augustus. He adopted Gaius Passienus Crispus, who became Agrippina the Younger’s husband. He died at the end of 20 ce, certainly of old age (A. 3.30.2–4). Reference works: PIR2 S 87 (Heil); RE IA.2, 1955– 1956, Sallustius 11 (Stein) REFERENCE Kehoe, Denis. 1985. “Tacitus and Sallustius Crispus.” Classical Journal 80.3: 247–254.

SALONINA, see CAECINA ALIENUS SALVIUS OTHO COCCEIANUS, LUCIUS, see SALVIUS OTHO TITIANUS

SALVIUS OTHO TITIANUS, LUCIUS JOSEPH R. O’NEILL

Arizona State University

Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus was the elder brother of Otho. Titianus’ rise began sometime during the reign of Claudius. He attained the consulship

c18_Vol2.indd 960

in 52 ce and served as proconsular governor of Asia. He was suffect consul in 69 with his brother as colleague. After the proclamation of Otho as emperor, Titianus was placed in charge of defending Rome against the supporters of Vitellius, later being appointed commander of his brother’s army. After Otho’s defeat and suicide, Vitellius spared Titianus’ life. Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus (CIL VI 2035– 2046 = 32358) was born to a distinguished family of Ferentium in Etruria in the 20s ce. His grandfather, Marcus Salvius Otho, was raised in the household of Livia Augusta and became a senator through her influence, attaining the rank of praetor (H. 2.50; Suet. Otho 1.1). Titianus’ father, Lucius Salvius Otho, was a favorite of Tiberius and so resembled him that it was rumored that he was Tiberius’ illegitimate son (Suet. Otho 1.2). Lucius Salvius was suffect consul in 33, a member of the Arval Brethren from 37, and served as proconsular governor of Africa (ca. 40) and later, imperial legate for Illyricum. Claudius elevated the family to patrician status in 48 ce after Lucius Salvius exposed a conspiracy against him. Titianus’ mother, Albia Terentia, was from a distinguished family (Suet. Otho 1.3). Titianus had a sister who was betrothed at a young age to Drusus Caesar (Suet. Otho 1.3). Nothing is known about Titianus’ career before his consulship in 52. His colleague was Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix, who had the distinction of holding the office for the entire year (A. 12.52). Lucius Salvidienus Rufus Salvianus replaced Titianus for the month of December. Titianus was a member of the Arval brethren. By 57 ce, Titianus had held leadership positions in the priesthood several times and would continue to do so until March of 69. Titianus governed Asia as proconsul from 63/64, with Agricola serving as his quaestor. Tacitus claims that Titianus was himself rapacious and tolerant of corruption in his administration (Ag. 6). The consuls for 69 were Galba and Titus Vinius. However, at Otho’s instigation, Galba was deposed and murdered by soldiers of the Praetorian Guard on 15 January (H. 1.41). Vinius met a similar fate (H. 1.42). Later that day, Otho was proclaimed emperor, and he and Titianus assumed the consulship, which they held jointly until March (H. 1.77). After Vitellius was proclaimed emperor by the

28-04-2023 18:31:57

S anquinius M a x imus  

German legions, Otho set out to meet him, leaving Titianus in charge of affairs at Rome (H. 1.90). In April, Otho summoned Titianus and placed him in charge of his military campaign (H. 2.23), though Tacitus claims that it was purely an honorary appointment, the real power lying with Licinius Proculus, prefect of the Praetorian Guard (H. 2.39). Otho’s army was defeated by Vitellius’ forces near Bedriacum. Two days later, Otho killed himself. Many of Otho’s supporters were put to death, but Titianus was spared. Tacitus claims Titianus’ sense of familial duty and his cowardice saved him (pietas et ignauia, H. 2.60), a reference to a letter Vitellius wrote to Titianus threatening him and his son, Lucius Salvius Otho Cocceianus (whom Domitian would put to death for celebrating his uncle’s birthday, Suet. Dom. 10; mentioned by name only at H. 2.48), lest any harm should come to Vitellius’ mother and children (H. 1.75). see also: civil wars of 69 ce Reference works: PIR2 S 145; CIL VI 2035– 2046 = 32358; RE 25.2 19

961

been captured by Gauls by retorting that the Romans had given hostages to the Etruscans and been sent under the yoke by the Samnites (the implication being that nonetheless, there were senators of Etruscan and Samnite extraction). The consequences of the battle are later cited during the Parthian war under Nero. Roman forces were being besieged by the Parthians, and some Roman troops refused to sally forth against them by reference to the battle of the Caudine Forks (as well as the similar Roman defeat at Numantia in 137 bce), noting that as a mere ethnic group in Italy, the Samnites who had defeated the Romans back then were nothing compared to the Parthian Empire of their own time (A. 15.13). see also: Parthia; Roman Republic; Tabula Lugdunensis SAMOS, see GREECE SANCIA, see POMPONIUS SECUNDUS, QUINTUS SANQUINIUS, see ARRUNTIUS, LUCIUS

FURTHER READING

SANQUINIUS MAXIMUS

Morgan, Gwyn. 2006. 69 ad: The Year of Four Emperors. New York: Oxford University Press.

University of Durham

SAMIUS, see SUILLIUS RUFUS

SAMNITES CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY

University of Alberta

The Samnites were an Oscan people who lived in southcentral Italy. The Romans fought two major wars to subdue them in the late fourth and early third centuries bce, and at the start of the first of these suffered a major defeat at the Battle of the Caudine Forks (321 bce), when a major Roman army was surrounded and forced to surrender and as a token of humiliation was obliged to “march under the yoke” (see Livy 9.2–6). In his speech in support of admitting wealthy Gauls to the Senate, Claudius is portrayed (A. 11.24) as countering the objection that Rome had

c18_Vol2.indd 961

LEONARDO GREGORATTI

Quintus Sanquinius Maximus (d. c. 47 ce) was a Roman senator under Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius. He was consul in 39 ce (Cass. Dio 59.13.2), but Tacitus mentions him in the account of the purges in the Senate that occurred after the death of Sejanus in 32 ce. Because he is described as one of the consulares, this led scholars like Ronald Syme to suggest that Maximus held a previous consulship perhaps under Tiberius. In the climate of terror that followed Sejanus’ fall, many senators accused their colleagues of complicity with the former praetorian prefect to gain prestige in the emperor’s eyes or simply to divert the attention from their own responsibilities. In that occasion, Haterius Agrippa attacked the consuls of the former year Publius Memmius Regulus and Lucius Fulcinius Trio, the latter an ally of Sejanus. Maximus intervened asking the Senate to avoid other causes of conflict, which would have worried the emperor further. The

28-04-2023 18:31:57

962

  S arapis

accusation fell and the hate toward Agrippa grew (A. 6.4.3–4). Later Tacitus mentions among the accusers of Lucius Arruntius a certain Sanquinius (the manuscripts give Sangunnius), who was later condemned. It seems that the delator was a different man from Maximus, because the latter spoke for a general amnesty in the Senate, and he continued his career in the following years including the consulship (A. 6.7.1). He was later governor of Lower Germany for Claudius where he died probably in 47 ce (A. 11.18.1). see also: delators Reference works: PIR2 S 179; CIL X 905 FURTHER READING Gallivan, P. A. 1979. “The Fasti for the Reign of Gaius.” Antichthon 13: 66–69. Syme, R. 1981. “Vibius Rufus and Vibius Rufinus.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 43: 365–375. Syme, R. 1986. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

SARAPIS KELLY E. SHANNON-HENDERSON

University of Cincinnati

Sarapis is a Hellenized version of the Egyptian god Osiris-Apis worshipped in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, but particularly closely associated with Alexandria, where he had an impressive sanctuary. The god appears in the Histories in the context of Tacitus’ description of Vespasian’s performance of healing miracles in the sanctuary, where Tacitus also appends a short history of Sarapis’ cult in Alexandria. Sarapis originated at Memphis as the sacred bull Apis, regarded as an animate version of Osiris (Plut. De Is. et Os. 368C). After death it was embalmed and referred to as Osiris-Apis, whence “Sarapis.” Sarapis was associated with the underworld and the Nile flood, and identified with the Greco-Roman Dionysus, Pluto/Hades, Zeus/ Jupiter, or Aesculapius (H. 4.84.5; cf. Diod. Sic. 1.25.2, Plut. De Is. et Os. 362B). Tacitus equates

c18_Vol2.indd 962

him with Jupiter Dis (H. 4.83.2). Ptolemaeus Soter imported the cult of Sarapis from Memphis to Alexandria (cf. H. 4.84.4). Most of the remains of the sanctuary date from the reign of Ptolemy III (Ptolemaeus Euergetes). The Ptolemaic temple stood until its destruction by fire in 181 ce (McKenzie et al. 2004, 86, 98–99) and so is probably the building Vespasian visited. Remains of underground passageways under the sanctuary may have been connected with an oracle. Tacitus discusses Sarapis extensively (H. 4.81– 84) in describing Vespasian’s sojourn in Alexandria in 69–70 ce before becoming emperor (for the date, see Henrichs 1968, 54 n. 11), where Vespasian is party to “many miracles” (multa miracula, H. 4.81.1). Two men of the Alexandrian plebs, one blind and one with a deformed hand, approach Vespasian for healing “on the advice of the god Serapis” (monitu Serapidis dei, H. 4.81.1); he cures them by applying his saliva to the blind man’s eyes and his foot to the injured hand. Then Vespasian, entering Sarapis’ temple alone “to consult” the god “on matters of empire” (H. 4.82.1), sees a vision of a prestigious Egyptian named Basilides (1) (perhaps identical with the Basilides of H. 2.78.3) who is lying ill 80 miles outside the city. Vespasian interprets this as a good omen based on Basilides’ name (from the Greek basileus, “king”). Slightly different versions of the healing story are told by Suet. Vesp. 7.1 (who also mentions the Basilides miracle) and Cass. Dio 65.8.1– 2. These miraculous stories allow Tacitus to incorporate motifs from paradoxography (e.g., bilocation), and to meditate upon Vespasian’s divine favor (Shannon 2014) or even divinity (Luke 2010). Tacitus’ source for the story may have been, or derived from, an account of Sarapis’ miraculous healings (aretai) preserved in the temple library (Henrichs 1968, 67), or a contemporary pro-Flavian mythology that sought to assimilate Vespasian to Alexander the Great and the Ptolemies (Luke 2010, 81). Tacitus also appends an excursus (H. 4.83–84) explaining the origin of Sarapis’ worship at Alexandria. At the time of the city’s foundation, Ptolemy I is advised by an apparition to fetch a cult statue (effigies) from Pontus. He consults Timotheus, an Athenian priest of the cult at

28-04-2023 18:31:57

S ardinia  

Eleusis, who correctly identifies the unknown god as Jupiter Dis of Sinope. After a three-year embassy, Ptolemy is only able to get Sinope’s king Scydrothemis (not otherwise known) to surrender the statue when the same god sends a threatening vision and plague, and the statue enters the Egyptian ship of its own accord. Ptolemy builds a temple for the new god in Rhacotis, an area of Alexandria, where Tacitus says there was a preexisting shrine of Sarapis (on the problem see Shannon 2014, 288–292). The excursus is noteworthy for its length and detail, which may reflect the personal interest of Tacitus as a quindecemvir in the religious practices of non-Romans, although he describes the Alexandrians’ particular devotion to Sarapis as blameworthy superstitio (H. 4.81.1). The story resembles tales of the importation of “foreign” gods (e.g., Aesclepius, Magna Mater) into Rome. Tacitus’ source for this section was probably imperial; possibilities include Manetho (perhaps also the source of the excursus on the Jews in H. 5) or Apion (Borgeaud and Volokhine 2000, 42–46). see also: portents; religion, Roman gods REFERENCES Borgeaud, Philippe, and Youri Volokhine. 2000. “La formation de la légende de Sarapis: une approche transculturelle.” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 2: 37–76. Henrichs, Albert. 1968. “Vespasian’s Visit to Alexandria.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 3: 51–80. Luke, Trevor S. 2010. “A Healing Touch for Empire: Vespasian’s Wonders in Domitianic Rome.” Greece & Rome 57: 77–106. McKenzie, J. S., S. Gibson, and A. T. Reyes. 2004. “Reconstructing the Serapeum in Alexandria from the Archaeological Evidence.” Journal of Roman Studies 94: 73–121. Shannon, K. E. 2014. “Aetiology of the Other: Foreign Religions in Tacitus’ Histories.” In Von Ursachen sprechen. Eine aitiologische Spurensuche/Telling Origins. On the Lookout for Aetiology, edited by Christiane Reitz and Anke Walter, 271–300. Zurich: Georg Olms Verlag. FURTHER READING Takács, S. A. 1995. Isis and Sarapis in the Roman World. Leiden: Brill.

c18_Vol2.indd 963

963

SARDINIA BENJAMIN E. NIKOTA

New York University

The modern Italian island-region of Sardinia formed half of the Roman province of Corsica et Sardinia. The island possesses a mountainous interior and rich deposits of precious metals. The second largest island in the Mediterranean—after Sicily and before Cyprus—was settled by Phoenicians from the eighth century bce and annexed by the Carthaginians c. 500 bce. The Romans captured the island between the Punic Wars in 238 bce. It took the Romans many years to fully pacify the island, as resistance persisted in the mountainous regions. As a result, the Romans named the upper hill regions of the island Barbaria, a name which persists to this day as this particular region is called Barbagia by Italians. Throughout the republican and imperial periods, the island provided the city of Rome with a great deal of grain. Romans, however, looked down on the island and its inhabitants for its political instability and banditry as well as the prevalence of malaria on the island. Sardinia was primarily known for three traits in the ancient world: its grain production, banditry, and exile. In Tacitus’ works, Sardinia is almost always used as a place of exile. For instance, at Annals 2.85, Tacitus wrote that four thousand of the freedmen class of military age who were practicing Egyptian or Jewish rites were to be exiled to Sardinia, “to quell the brigandage of the place, a cheap sacrifice should they die from the pestilential climate.” Senators, as well as religious minorities, were exiled to Sardinia in the early imperial period (A. 16.9). see also: Cassius Longinus (2); Iunius Silanus Torquatus, Lucius (2) Reference work: Barrington 48 FURTHER READING Meloni, P. 1991. La Sardegna romana (Roman Sardinia). Sassari: Chiarella. Webster, G. S. 1996. A Prehistory of Sardinia. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

28-04-2023 18:31:58

964

  S ardis

SARDIS MALI SKOTHEIM

Ashoka University

Sardis (modern Sart), located in the fertile Hermus River valley, was the capital city of Lydia. Sardis was an economic hub from the Iron Age into the Roman and Byzantine periods, connecting central Anatolia with the major coastal cities of Ephesus and Smyrna. In 17 ce, an earthquake devastated Sardis (A. 2.47–48). The damage from the earthquake, as well as the reconstruction efforts, are visible in the archaeological record. The ex-praetor Marcus Ateius oversaw the reconstruction, which included repairing and upgrading infrastructure, and using new earthquake proof construction techniques for rebuilding and repair (Hanfmann 1983, 142). Cults of Cybele, Kore (Persephone), Artemis, Zeus, Apollo, Dionysus, and Hermes are attested at Sardis. Sardis, along with the other cities of Asia, presented a case to the Roman Senate under Tiberius regarding the legitimacy of their cults, citing Alexander the Great’s grant of a sanctuary (A. 3.63), likely referring to the temple of Olympian Zeus which Alexander ordered to be built on the site of the palace of the Lydian kings (Arr. Anab. 1.17.5). The temple has not been located. In 26 ce, the citizens of Sardis competed with other Asian cities for the right to build a temple of Tiberius (Smyrna won). Tacitus reports their presentation to the Roman Senate, saying that the deliberations turned on Sardis and Smyrna primarily (A. 4.55). The Sardian case rested on a claim of kinship to Etruria going back to the second millennium bce. According to the Sardians, the sons of the Maeonian king Atys divided the kingdom between themselves, Tyrrhenus leaving to found a colony in Etruria, and Lydus ruling the homeland; the wealth of the latter group was increased by colonization of the Peloponnesus (which Tacitus says took its name from the legendary Pelops, A. 4.55). The most prominent sanctuary in Sardis was the temple of Artemis, one of the largest Ionic temples in antiquity. Five colossal portrait heads of the Antonines found at the temple of Artemis attest to the use of the sanctuary for the imperial cult in the second century ce (Cahill 2016).

c18_Vol2.indd 964

The population of Roman Sardis was multicultural, reflected in the use of Greek and Latin in inscriptions, and in the diversity of public spectacles. Sardis celebrated a Greek agonistic festival with musical or dramatic competitions in Hadrian’s time (I. Sardis 13 and 14) and hosted Roman-style spectacles such as gladiatorial shows (I. Sardis 16). see also: Earthquake of 17 ce; games; Roman gods; Sparta Reference work: Barrington 56 G5 REFERENCES Cahill, Nicholas, and Crawford H. Greenwalt, Jr. 2016. “The Sanctuary of Artemis at Sardis: Preliminary Report, 2002–2012.” American Journal of Archaeology 120: 473–509. DOI: 10.3764/aja.120.3.0473. Hanfman, George A., ed. 1983. Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times: Results of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis 1958–1975. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. I. Sardis = Buckler, W. H, and David M. Robinson. 1932. Sardis. Vol. VII: Greek and Latin Inscriptions. Part I. Leiden: Brill. FURTHER READING Pedley, John Griffiths. 1972. Ancient Literary Sources on Sardis. Archaeological Exploration of Sardis. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press.

SARIOLENUS VOCULA STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Little is known of Sariolenus Vocula (fl. under Nero and Vitellius) other than that he was a notorious delator under Nero and continued to act as a prosecutor under Vitellius. He was punished along with several other Neronian delators in early 70 ce. Nothing is known of Vocula’s background or career prior to Nero, except that he was of senatorial status. Tacitus (H. 4.41.2) says that he was infamous for his prosecutions under Nero

28-04-2023 18:31:58

S armatians  

and that he had indulged in the same activity under Vitellius, but we never hear of any specific cases. Vocula was among those delators in early 70 attacked in a rancorous Senate meeting for their activities under Nero, along with Nonius Attianus (otherwise unattested; see Rutledge 2001, 249), Cestius Severus (otherwise unattested; see Rutledge 2001, 214), and Paccius Africanus (only here in Tacitus; see Rutledge 2001, 252), after the death of Vitellius and the reestablishment of order under the Flavians. Although all were notorious delators under Nero, we only know of one specific case that was prosecuted when Paccius Africanus, along with Vibius Crispus, took up a case against the brothers Scribonii late in Nero’s reign, though precise details concerning the charges remain uncertain (see Rutledge 2001, 171–172). Vocula, Cestius, Nonius, and Paccius, upon the oath being administered to the Senate and to individual senators swearing that they had not profited or accepted office as the result of the destruction of any citizen under Nero, gave themselves away as a result of their hesitation in taking the oath and their attempt to change its wording. Vocula, along with his fellow delators, were punished for perjury, and severely censured; particular anger fell on Vocula, however, since he had continued his career as a delator under Vitellius and the memory of his mischief was still fresh. He was menacingly driven from the Senate, after which we hear nothing more of him. Reference works: PIR2 S 189; AE 79.116 REFERENCE Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 122, 125, 265–266.

SARMATIANS STEPHEN CHAPPELL

James Madison University

The Sarmatians were tribes of Iranian horse nomads who dwelt on the plains north of the Danube during Tacitus’ time. These border Sarmatians were divided into two tribes: the

c18_Vol2.indd 965

965

Iazyges between Pannonia and Dacia and the Rhoxolani east of Dacia and north and west of Moesia Inferior. They were formidable heavy cavalry and horse archers who frequently warred with Rome from the late first to the fourth centuries ce. The Sarmatians originated in the steppes of Central Asia and migrated westwards because of military and environmental pressures. By the sixth century, they lived in the Volga Basin east of the Scythians (Sulimirski 1970, 21). Herodotus named them the Sauromatae and described them in his ethnography of the Scythians (Hdt. 4.21). Sarmatians from Central Asia fought in Armenia for Artabanus II of Parthia 35–37 ce (A. 6.33, 6.35). By the first century ce, Hunnic pressures and the collapse of the Scythians brought them into contact with the Roman Empire on either flank of the kingdom of Dacia though some Sarmatians remained in the Pontic colony Tanais and eastwards to Central Asia. Typically, Tacitus’ interest in the Sarmatians was principally military (H. 1.2). Vannius, king of the Quadi, used Iazyges as cavalry mercenaries in the Upper Danube c. 50 ce (A. 12.29–30). Sarmatians invaded the province of Moesia in 69 ce during the brief reign of Otho. After destroying two auxiliary cohorts, they were badly defeated by the third legion and its auxiliaries and driven into marhes (H. 1.79). Later during the civil wars, false rumors spread that they were besieging bases in Pannonia and Moesia (H. 4.54). Aponius Saturninus, the governor of Moesia and recent defector to the Flavians, enrolled some chiefs of the Iazyges with absolute power to safeguard Moesia when its troops marched to Italy to attack Vitellian troops. Tacitus does also relate some ethnographic observations of the Sarmatians with characteristic prejudice. He characterizes them as cowards in infantry combat, but irresistible while ahorse and as more interested in loot than fighting (H. 1.79). In the Germania, he contrasts their free-flowing garb with the tighter dress of the Germans (G. 17) and notes German fear of the Sarmatians (G. 1) and the tribute paid by the Cotini (G. 43). Tacitus observes that the Peucini (Bastarnae), Veneti and Fenni contain both German and Sarmatian cultural elements but characterizes the intermarriage of Bastarnian chiefs as polluting (foedantur)

28-04-2023 18:31:58

966

  S atria G alla

the Germans into Sarmatian appearance (G. 46). This refers to the Sarmatian custom of elongating children’s’ skulls through tight binding. The Sarmatians continued to fight the Romans along the Danube from the Marcomannic wars of Marcus Aurelius (161–180 ce) and throughout the tumultuous third and fourth centuries. Six Roman emperors assumed the title Sarmaticus (Sulimirski 1970, 189). Pressure from the Goths and Huns drove the remaining Sarmatian tribes, including the Alans, from Central Asia and the Ukraine into the Roman Empire. There they fragmented and settled from Hungary to France and Spain, but ultimately lost their identity and were absorbed into other groups, such as the Vandals, during the great period of ethnogenesis in Late Antiquity. see also: Danuvius; ethnography Reference work: Barrington 84 E3, 1 K1, 85 B3

Domitius Silus (otherwise unattested). Galla is reported to have been of low birth, with only her physical attractiveness to recommend her as a wife; Piso was friends with Silus and induced him to give up his wife. In Tacitus’ estimation, Piso’s bad name was made worse by Silus’ willingness to go along with the disreputable plan and also by Galla’s utter lack of shame in the matter. Neither Galla nor Silus is mentioned in any other extant source besides Tacitus. In the historian’s estimation, Piso disgraced himself by conniving to marry a woman who had nothing but ephemeral loveliness to commend her; the narrative of Piso’s end thus draws to a close on a note of scurrilous conduct and tawdry household drama. The manuscript transmits mulieris atria galla, which was corrected in 1892 to mulieri Satria Galla (see Wellesley 1986 app. crit.); hence in the first edition of PIR she is A 1105. see also: women

REFERENCE Sulimirski, Tadeusz. 1970. The Sarmatians. New York and Washington: Praeger. FURTHER READING Istvanovits, Eszter, and Valeria Kulcsar. 2017. The Sarmatians: History and Archaeology of a Forgotten People. Mainz: Romisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum. Batty, Roger. 2008. Rome and the Nomads: The Pontic-Danubian Realm in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

SATRIA GALLA LEE FRATANTUONO

Maynooth University

Satria Galla (fl. 65 ce) was the wife of Gaius Calpurnius Piso, cited by Tacitus in his narrative of the suicide of her husband in the wake of the Pisonian Conspiracy (A. 15.59). She is likely then the mother of Calpurnius Galerianus. Piso’s last will and testament is said to have been marked by deplorable sycophancy toward Nero, an obsequiousness practiced as a concession to his wife Galla, the former spouse of

c18_Vol2.indd 966

Reference work: PIR2 S 203 REFERENCE Wellesley, K., ed. 1986. Cornelius Tacitus I.2 Annales XI–XVI. Leipzig: Teubner.

SATRIUS SECUNDUS STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Satrius Secundus (d. c. 37 ce) was an adherent of Sejanus, best known for his prosecution of the historian Cremutius Cordus. He may have denounced Tiberius’ prefect Sejanus to Antonia the Younger, Tiberius’ sister-in-law. Satrius was Sejanus’ client (A. 4.34.2; cf. 6.8.10; 6.47.2), and, like Sejanus, Satrius himself appears to have been from one of Italy’s municipia, with two inscriptions (CIL 9.3091–2, both grave markers) showing his connections with Sulmo. He was one of the accusers (along with Pinarius Natta) who indicted Cremutius Cordus in 25 ce. Satrius’ relationship with Sejanus may have been particularly close: the speech of the otherwise unknown equestrian Marcus Terentius, one of

28-04-2023 18:31:58

scholarship, antiquity to the fifteenth century  

Sejanus’ allies, indicates that Satrius controlled access to Sejanus (“We were even paying homage to Satrius and Pomponius,” A. 6.8.5), though in the end he may have denounced Sejanus’ conspiracy, a detail which comes out in Tacitus in the case of his wife, Albucilla, who had been charged with adultery (“Albucilla, notorious for numerous amorous liaisons, who was once married to Satrius Secundus, the betrayer of the conspiracy [coniurationis indice], was accused of impiety against the emperor,” A. 6.47.2). By 37 ce, Satrius was possibly dead, since his close involvement with Sejanus speaks against his survival this late in Tiberius’ reign; if Satrius did survive, nothing is heard of him after 37. See Woodman 2017, 125 on the identification of Pomponius: he cannot be any of the Pomponii mentioned elsewhere in the Annals; the name may be a corruption of Pinarius; he may be Pomponius Secundus. see also: delators Reference works: PIR2 S 199; RE 2.21.191 = Satrius 4 (Stein); for possible family connections see CIL 9.2125 (Quintus Satrius Secundus); cf. CIL 9.3091–2 (Gaius Satrius Secundus) REFERENCE Woodman, A. J. 2017. The Annals of Tacitus Books 5 and 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FURTHER READING Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 95–96, 266–267.

SATURNINUS, LUCIUS APPULEIUS

967

because of numerous military defeats suffered by senatorial commanders. This discontent became particularly severe after the military debacle suffered in late 105 bce, and as tribune in the following year, Saturninus was in the forefront of anti-senatorial activities. He was unusually reelected as tribune for 100 bce with the support of the anti-senatorial consul Gaius Marius, who needed a tribune who could pass legislation to reward Marius’ troops despite senatorial opposition. Saturninus gained office through the murder of a competitor and used the necessary violence to pass laws for Marius. At the end of his year in office, however, Saturninus became involved in a scheme to get an associate of his who was praetor elected as consul. When Marius opposed this, murder was used in the consular elections, but Marius responded with military force, and Saturninus was soon murdered after surrendering. In his overview of law making under the republic (A. 3.27), Tacitus mentions Saturninus in conjunction the Gracchi as “stirrers up of the plebs” (turbatores plebis). The name appears in the generalizing plural (“the likes of Saturninus”), which suggests that Tacitus chose Saturninus as the most prominent representative of the “rabble-rousing” tribunes of that decade. Certainly, Tacitus shows no understanding of the actual issues of the period and views Saturninus as simply an anti-senatorial troublemaker. see also: leges (laws); Roman Republic SAUFELUS (SAUFEIUS) TROGUS, see MESSALINA SCANTIA, see VESTAL VIRGINS

SCHOLARSHIP, ANTIQUITY TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY

CLAUDIO BUONGIOVANNI

University of Alberta

Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”

Lucius Appuleius Saturninus (130–100 bce) was one of the most violent anti-senatorial tribunes of the last decade of the second century bce, a period of much popular discontent in Rome

The absence of Tacitus’ works from the school programs is the main cause of the lack of an ancient Tacitean scholarship. Tacitus was never considered a model of Latinity in antiquity; even

c18_Vol2.indd 967

28-04-2023 18:31:58

968

  scholarship, antiquity to the fifteenth century

though the fleeting renaissance between the fourth and the fifth centuries ce revived attention to the historian hitherto rather neglected, his place among the auctores (“models”) of Latin historiography was not prominent at all. During the whole Imperial Age and up until the sixteenth century, within the school circle Sallust and Livy were always preferred to Tacitus, and they represented through the centuries the undisputed reference models for the genre of historiography. Sallust, the main Latin model of Tacitean prose, had a widespread circulation throughout antiquity both in western and even eastern regions of the empire, as testified by the Greek translations of his works in the second century ce. Yet, even for adherents of archaism, the Sallustian style was perhaps more suitable than the Tacitean style, which, as it clearly happens especially in the major works, often takes to extremes the syntactic and rhetorical choices of its model of the Republican Age. It must be added that ancient scholarship, which essentially means ancient commentaries, was more interested in poetry than prose. During the Middle Ages Tacitus’ works experienced a harmful, even if not complete, oblivion. Except for a few occasional and sometimes uncertain references to the Tacitean works in the ecclesiastical sphere, all coming from the area of the abbeys of Fulda, Corvey, and Hersfeld in Germany, the interest in Tacitus and even more in Tacitean scholarship is absent altogether. Thanks to those German ecclesiastical institutions Tacitus’ works avoided utter wreckage; they preserved some of the foundational manuscripts of the Tacitean tradition. The manuscript containing Annals 1–6, Laurentianus 68.1, the so-called First Medicean, came from Fulda or Corvey; the manuscript of the minor works from Hersfeld; the manuscript containing Annals 11–16 and Histories 1–5.26, Laurentianus 68.2, the so-called Second Medicean came from the abbey of Montecassino, but it probably derives from an ancestor of German origin. The beginning of new interest in Tacitus, although still slow and rather small, is due to the transfer to Florence of the Second Medicean manuscript in the fourteenth century. Until some years ago this significant credit was generally attributed to Giovanni Boccaccio, but it is more likely that Zanobi da Strada is responsible. At any

c18_Vol2.indd 968

rate, Boccaccio was a reader of Tacitus, especially of books 11–16 of the Annals, from which he drew some examples of female characters for his works the Amorosa Visione (“Amorous Vision”) and De claris mulieribus (“On Famous Women”). It is unclear if before or immediately after the arrival of the Second Medicean in Florence other copies of Tacitus were in circulation. It is undisputable, instead, that by the last decades of fourteenth and the first half of fifteenth century, between Florence and Rome, Tacitus experienced a new interest among leading humanists of this period, including Poggio Bracciolini, Niccolò Niccoli, Coluccio Salutati, Biondo Flavio, and Pier Candido Decembrio. When Enoch of Ascoli in 1455 brought to Rome the codex Hersfeldensis containing Tacitus’ minor works, another decisive step in the slow and progressive rediscovery of Tacitus was accomplished. It is worth noting some features of Tacitus’ knowledge and interpretation in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. If we exclude some examples, like Leonardo Bruni, who probably first considered Tacitus’ works an historiographical model as well as a political tool for his historical work, and as testified by the works of Biondo Flavio or even by minor representatives of Italian Humanism, like Bernardo Rucellai (Liber de Urbe Roma, “Book on Rome”), Tacitus was often used as a source of antiquarian and urban matters of ancient Rome, especially according to a peculiar policy of Roman Papal court that by the middle of fifteenth century aimed at rebuilding the modern Rome following the path of the ancient Rome traced by Latin sources. Then, as shown by the Letters exchanged between Poggio Bracciolini and Niccolò Niccoli, since the 1420s the desire and the hope of discovering the still unknown books of the Annals (1–6) were almost stronger than the interest in the part of the Tacitean work already known. Although Tacitus’ fame experiences an extraordinary and long-standing season only after 1515, that is, just after the first printed edition of Annals 1–6, the end of fifteenth century signals a further step ahead for Tacitus, thanks to the first printed editions of his works: Germania, Bononia 1472; Annales 11–16, Historiae and Dialogus de oratoribus, Venice c. 1473; and Agricola together with the other works so far discovered, Milan c. 1475. The latter, the so-called editio Puteolana (i.e.,

28-04-2023 18:31:58

S cribonia ( 1 )  

edited by Francesco Dal Pozzo) plays a fundamental role in Tacitean philology, because it was the basis for Tacitus’ subsequent editions until that of Curtius Pichena in 1607, and because in the prefatory epistle to his munificent patron Iacopo Antiquari, Puteolanus for the first time claims Tacitus’ authoritativeness as a model of language and style. see also: Beroaldus the Younger; reception, antiquity; reception, Renaissance FURTHER READING Buongiovanni, Claudio. 2005. Sei studi su Tacito. Naples: Loffredo. Cornelius, Emmerich. 1888. Quomodo Tacitus, historiarum scriptor, in hominum memoria versatus sit usque ad renascentes litteras saeculis XIV et XV. Wetzlar. Haverfield, Francis. 1916. “Tacitus during the Late Roman Period and the Middle Ages.” Journal of Roman Studies 6: 196–201. Luce, T. J., and A. J. Woodman. 1993. Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stok, Fabio. 1984–1986. “Le vicende dei codici Hers­ feldensi.” Memorie dell’Accademia dei Lincei 28: 281–319. Tenney, Marie Frances. 1935. “Tacitus through the Centuries to the Age of Printing.” University of Colorado Studies 22: 341–363. Ulery, Robert W. 1986. Tacitus, in Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum, edited by. E. Cranz and P. O. Kristeller, vol. 6, 89–120. Washington: Catholic University of America Press.

SCIPIO, see LUCCEIUS ALBINUS

SCRIBONIA (1) JUAN LUIS POSADAS

Centro Universitario U-Tad, Madrid, Spain TRANSLATED BY ALBERTO DE SIMONI

University of Florida

Scribonia (1) (70 bce–c. 16 ce) was the first wife of Octavian (see Augustus) and the mother of his only daughter, Julia the Elder. Scribonia was the daughter of Lucius Scribonius Libo and Sentia. Scribonia married at least three

c18_Vol2.indd 969

969

times. The first with Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marellinus, consul 56 bce, with whom she had a son who died during his adolescence. Later she married Publius Cornelius Scipio, suffect consul 35 bce, with whom she had Publius Cornelius and Cornelia, the latter of whom died in her youth and was praised by Propertius (4.55–57). Scribonia divorced Cornelius in 40 bce and married Octavian, in a political union attempting to build a connection between the triumvir and Sextus Pompeius Magnus, who was Scribonia’s nephew. With Octavian she had Julia, on the same day in which her husband divorced her. Apparently, the reason put forth by the triumvir was that Scribonia publicly opposed the adulterous relationship between him and Livia Augusta (a curious reason). During the years in which Julia lived with her mother, they developed a solid relationship which became apparent many years later. In 2 bce, Julia was sent into exile to the island of Pandateria, and later to Rhegium. Scribonia accompanied her daughter of her own volition until her death in 14 ce. Afterward, we know that she supported a grandnephew, Scribonius Libo Drusus, during the trial Tiberius brought against him for conspiracy in 16 ce. Scribonia died shortly after the suicide of Scribonius due to her advanced age (she was eighty-six years old). Scribonia is mentioned by Tacitus only once (A. 2.27), and only with positive traits. Of the 124 women who appear in his works, only 46 appear in a completely positive light without criticism, and Scribonia is one of them. It is possible that Tacitus wanted to contrast the behavior of Augustus’ first wife that of his second and last spouse. Reference work: PIR2 S 274 FURTHER READINGS Posadas, Juan Luis. 2008. Emperatrices y princesas de Roma. Madrid: Raíces. Syme, Sir Ronald. 1981. “Princesses and Others in Tacitus.” Greece & Rome 28: 40–52.

SCRIBONIA (2), see CALPURNIUS PISO FRUGI LICINIANUS, LUCIUS

28-04-2023 18:31:58

970

  S cribonianus C amerinus

SCRIBONIANUS CAMERINUS HOLLY HAYNES

The College of New Jersey

Marcus Licinius Scribonianus Camerinus was the son of Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (2), who was accused by the famous delator Aquilius Regulus and put to death in 67 (cf. Plin. Ep. 1.5). Camerinus’ paternal uncle was Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus, whom Galba had adopted and made his heir, and who was executed on Otho’s orders in 69 (H. 1.43–4). During Nero’s reign of terror Camerinus fled to Histria where the family had estates. In 69, following Vitellius’ victory over Otho at Bedriacum, a slave named Geta impersonated Camerinus and collected a band of supporters in the area where Camerinus was supposed to have taken refuge (H. 2.72). Geta was arrested and put to death by Vitellius before the revolt had progressed very far; nevertheless, the incident is noteworthy as one of three narratives Tacitus devotes to cases of impersonation. These highlight the instability of the Roman state during the civil wars of 69 ce, and Tacitus’ own interest in the degree of pretense involved in imperial Roman politics even before the death of Nero. With the difficulty of Tacitean language itself illustrating the struggle to understand what could count as true, impostors such as Geta paradoxically pin meaning in the narrative where it otherwise would seem to be at its most slippery; that is, meaning inheres in the façade, and not in the attempt to discover what lies behind it. Tacitus describes Vitellius’ own entourage immediately before the Geta incident as a “mixture of actors, flocks of eunuchs, and the rest of the characters that belonged to Nero’s court” (H. 2.71.1), and the impersonation itself as an argumentum fabulae (“plot of a comedy”). This is the single use of the term fabula in the Histories, and the only place Tacitus uses argumentum to mean “plot” rather than “proof ” (cf. Morgan 1993, 778). The case of Geta also recalls the fact that many highly placed individuals in this era could credibly laid claim to power, or by reverse logic the illegitimacy of the principate. Geta is able to initiate his

c18_Vol2.indd 970

fabula because of Camerinus’ noble lineage and the large amount of support he might count on in this area. Tacitus therefore pauses the narrative over this episode in order to emphasize the flaw underlying the imperial system as a whole. Camerinus’ final appearance comes at H. 4.42, where in 70 he is found in the Senate with his mother Sulpicia Praetexta and other three siblings her four children. They come to the Senate hearings against former delators, hoping for vengeance against Regulus, the prosecutor of Camerinus’ father. Regulus is here defended by his brother Vipstanus Messalla and prosecuted by Curtius Montanus. Reference work: PIR2 L 241 REFERENCE Morgan, M. Gwyn. 1993. “The Three Minor Pretenders in Tacitus’ Histories II.” Latomus 52: 769–796. FURTHER READING Haynes, H. 2003. The History of Make-Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. 89–92.

SCRIBONIUS CURIO, GAIUS, see CLODIUS PULCHER SCRIBONIUS LIBO DRUSUS, LUCIUS, see SCRIBONIUS LIBO DRUSUS, MARCUS

SCRIBONIUS LIBO DRUSUS, MARCUS MICHAEL L. KONIECZNY

Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus (d. 13 September 16 ce), praetor in 16 ce, was a Roman aristocrat who committed suicide after being tried for maiestas. Libo’s prosecution was the first highprofile case of maiestas during the reign of Tiberius (Goodyear 1981, 262) and is narrated at length by Tacitus in the Annals (A. 2.27–32). Nothing is known of Libo’s career before his prosecution, but his family connections are

28-04-2023 18:31:58

S cythians  

impressive: on his mother’s side he was descended from Pompey the Great, while his paternal great-aunt was Scribonia (1), the second wife of Augustus. Moreover, after his conjectured adoption by Marcus Livius Drusus Libo (consul 15 bce; cf. PIR2 L 295), he became a member of the Livii, and thus a kinsman of Livia Augusta. His brother Lucius Scribonius Libo Drusus (PIR2 S 266) was consul ordinarius in 16 ce, the year of Libo’s death (Lucius is mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 2.1.1). According to Tacitus, Libo was initially persuaded to consult various occult practitioners by the senator Firmius Catus, who then made the charges known to Tiberius. Wishing to probe Libo’s motives more deeply, Tiberius appointed him to the praetorship and showed him special favor, until finally the case was brought before the Senate. Numerous individuals were involved in the prosecution, including the noted delators Fulcinius Trio and Vibius Serenus. Among the evidence produced during the trial were notebooks in which Libo was supposed to have designated members of the imperial household and other leading citizens for elimination. In addition, Tiberius allegedly ordered Libo’s household slaves to be sold at auction so that they could provide legal testimony against their former master. Despairing of his chances, Libo committed suicide before the conclusion of the trial, which continued after his death. After the trial, Libo’s property was divided among his accusers, who were also rewarded with praetorships. The Ides of September were designated as a state holiday in commemoration of Libo’s suicide; sponsors of the latter measure included Asinius Gallus, Lucius Apronius, and Marcus Papius Mutilus, who had been suffect consul in 9 ce (mentioned by Tacitus only at A. 2.32.2; see PIR2 P 123). In addition, provisions were made for the expulsion of astrologers and magicians from Italy (see astrology; magic; Chaldaei). Tacitus mentions the trial in passing on several occasions later in the Annals (A. 4.29, 4.31, 6.10). The precise nature of the charges brought against Libo is not clear from Tacitus’ account. In general, Tacitus downplays the gravity of Libo’s conduct, portraying him as a foolish young man led astray by vain ambition (cf. Sen. Ep. 70.10). Other sources, however, including Suetonius and

c18_Vol2.indd 971

971

Velleius Paterculus, treat the accusations seriously, and the Fasti Amiternini refer specifically to Libo’s plans to assassinate members of the imperial household (Suet. Tib. 25; Vell. Pat. 2.129–130; CIL I2 p. 244). Libo’s family connections also make him a plausible candidate for revolutionary ambitions. Consequently, some scholars have postulated that Libo was a central figure in a more wide-ranging conspiracy against Tiberius that also included Clemens, the ex-slave of Agrippa Postumus (cf. A. 2.39–40; see Pettinger 2012). see also: Vescularius Flaccus Reference work: PIR2 S 268 REFERENCES Goodyear, F. R. D., ed. 1981. The Annals of Tacitus: Books 1–6. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pettinger, Andrew. 2012. The Republic in Danger: Drusus Libo and the Succession of Tiberius. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Shotter, D. C. A. 1972. “The Trial of M. Scribonius Libo Drusus.” Historia 21: 88–98.

SCYDROTHEMIS, see SARAPIS

SCYTHIANS ANDREW NICHOLS

University of Florida

The Scythians were a nomadic people of Iranian stock who, since at least the seventh century bce, inhabited the Eurasian Steppe, lands north of the Black Sea eastward into the northern Caucasus and the central Asian plateau up to the Hindu Kush. Evidence of Scythian culture as far east as the Atlai Mountains in the ninth century bce suggests a western migration. Beginning with Herodotus (7.64), the term Scythia at times designated only the Pontic Scythians who lived north of the Black Sea (modern Ukraine), while the Persian name for all of their central Asian

28-04-2023 18:31:58

972

  Seius Strabo, Lucius

counterparts was the Sacae (cf. Plin. HN 6.19) These two terms, however, often came to be used interchangeably, even if improperly, since all such designated peoples lived a similar nomadic lifestyle, excelled in horsemanship, used similar weaponry, and spoke dialects of the Scythian language. These peoples were often named by specific tribe, but at other times fell under the umbrella terms Scythian or Sacaean (cf. Strab.11.8.2). Tacitus, who never uses the ethnonym Sacae, employs the term Scythian in a generic sense for the Scythian cultures of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, as well as in reference to the Sacae who live even further east. He gives tribal names for specific peoples, though sometimes referring to them generically as Scythian as well. He describes how Artabanus, the Parthian king, grew up among the Dahae (A. 2.3), while later claiming that the Parthian nobleman was detested by a faction of his people because of his Scythian upbringing (Scythas inter eductum, A. 6.41.2). The region of the Dahae sat along the eastern shore of the Caspian and neighbored the Sacae to the east, with whom they were often associated (cf. Strab. 11.8.2 who refers to the Dahae as a Scythian tribe). Tacitus is also likely referring to the Sacae when he states that Artabanus fled to the border of Scythia and drew on his connections to the Hyrcani, who dwelt on the southeastern shore of the Caspian, to receive assistance after being driven from Parthia (A. 6.36, 44). Elsewhere, Tacitus uses the term Scythia to possibly designate regions even further east when mentioned in connection to Bactria (A. 2.60; cf. Strab.11.8.1 who refers to territory beyond Bactria and Sogdiana [modern Afghanistan] as home to Scythian nomads). Towards the west, in the lands east of the Black Sea near Heniochia (Colchis), he mentions a “king of Scythia” (A. 2.68.1). He refers to European Scythians in connection with the Bastarnae who lived north of the Carpathians near the northwestern shore of the Black Sea (A. 2.65.4; on this connection with Scythians and Bastarnae, see App. Mith. 3.15). Tacitus distinguishes between Pontic Scythians and other Scythian peoples of northern Europe, such as the Sarmatians, the Dandaridae, and the Siraci. The Sarmatians were a Eurasian tribe with close ties to the Scythians, with whom the latter

c18_Vol2.indd 972

became assimilated by the second century ce. According to Herodotus (4.110–117), the Sarmatians were the result of a union between Scythian men and Amazons. Tacitus makes no connection between the two. Likewise, the Dandaridae, who were a Eurasian tribe from the Maeotian Lake (modern Sea of Azov) region are never mentioned in connection with Scythia (on the connection between the Dandaridae and the Scythians, see Plut. Luc.16.1 who describes Olthacus as Dandarian while App. Mith.79. refers to him as a Scythian). According to Tacitus (A. 12.15), their territory was overrun by Mithridates Bosporus, the exiled king. As part of this same episode, Zorsines, king of the Siraci, a Sarmatian tribe from north of the Black Sea near the River Don, fought alongside Mithridates before submitting to the Romans (A. 12.16–17). see also: Albani FURTHER READING Batty, R. 2007. Rome and the Nomads: The PonticDanubian Realm in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cunliffe, B. 2019. The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Melykova, A. I. 1990. “The Scythians and Sarmatians.” In The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, edited by D. Sinor, vol. 1, 97–117. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

SEGESTES, see THUSNELDA SEGIMERUS, see THUSNELDA SEGIMUNDUS, see THUSNELDA SEIUS QUADRATUS, see SERVAEUS, QUINTUS

SEIUS STRABO, LUCIUS DEL A. MATICIC

Vassar College

Lucius Seius Strabo (d. 16 ce), father of Sejanus (A. 4.1) and praetorian prefect under Augustus and Tiberius, briefly served as governor of Egypt. He was identified by a number of sources with different names. His full name is attested by CIL VI 9535; Tacitus (A. 1.7 and 4.1) names him as

28-04-2023 18:31:58

Seius T ubero  

Seius Strabo; Cassius Dio 57.19.5 and Tacitus (A. 1.24) identify him as Strabo; and Pliny (HN 36.187) calls him Seius. Strabo was appointed praetorian prefect by Augustus, and he was chief of that body in 14 ce when Augustus died (A. 1.7). As such, he was among the first of the Roman nobles (along with the consuls Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius, and prefect of the annonae Gaius Turranius) to swear allegiance to Tiberius (A. 1.7). Under Tiberius, he briefly shared the office with his son Sejanus, but in fewer than two years was promoted to the coveted governorship of Egypt (cf. Cass. Dio 57.19.6). As Cantarelli (1904) has shown, Strabo could not have been governor after 16 ce, and nothing certain is known about Strabo after this. It is distinctly possible that he died in office. Reference works: PIR2 S 322; RE Seius 15 REFERENCE Cantarelli, Luigi. 1904. “Un prefetto di Egitto zio di Seneca (A Prefect of Egypt, Uncle of Seneca).” Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts Römische Abteilung 19: 15–22. FURTHER READING Corbier, Mireille. 1983. “La Famille de Séjan à Volsinii: La Dédicace des Seii, Curatores Aquae.” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’École française de Rome 2: 719–756. DOI: 10.3406/mefr.1983.1389.

SEIUS TUBERO DOMINIC MACHADO

College of the Holy Cross

Lucius Seius Tubero (suffect consul 18 ce, PIR2 S 324) was a Roman senator active during the principate of Tiberius. Despite his prominence in the early imperial period, Tubero’s lineage cannot easily be discerned. The lack of clarity is due in part to the fact that he is the only individual outside of the gens Aelia to have the cognomen Tubero (Adams 1955). Though the identification is far from

c18_Vol2.indd 973

973

definitive, most scholars believe Tubero is one of the two consulares fratres of Sejanus mentioned by Velleius (Vell. Pat. 2.127.3). However, the nature of their fraternity remains up for debate. Some have suggested that Sejanus and Tubero were both sons of the praetorian prefect, Seius Strabo, while others have claimed that Tubero was born into the gens Aelia, perhaps to the historian, Quintus Aelius Tubero, and later adopted by Strabo (Syme 1989, 309). Tubero first appears in the Annals as one of Germanicus’ cavalry commanders in 16 ce at the Battle of Idistaviso (A. 2.20.1). He appears to have returned to Rome shortly thereafter, as he served as suffect consul in 18 ce (Fast. Cap. p. 87), though Tacitus makes no mention of his magistracy. Tubero appears next in a more compromising situation in 24 ce. Tacitus claims that Tubero had been accused by Vibius Serenus the Younger of taking part in a conspiracy to kill Tiberius along Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus augur and Vibius Serenus the Elder (A. 4.29.1). While the charges against Tubero were summarily dismissed due to his poor health and the younger Serenus was forced into exile, the validity of the accusation remains unclear. Tacitus only comments that Tiberius was embarrassed by the accusations, as Tubero and Lentulus were not only the foremost men of the state (primores civitatis) but also among his closest friends (intimi ipsius amici). It is unclear what happened to Tubero in the years afterward, as he does not appear among the individuals who were punished after the fall of Sejanus in 31 ce. see also: delators; Stertinius, Lucius Reference works: Fasti Capitolini, p. 87; PIR2 S 324 REFERENCES Adams, Freeman. 1955. “The Consular Brothers of Sejanus.” American Journal of Philology 76: 70–76. Rutledge, Steven. 2002. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. New York: Routledge. Syme, Ronald. 1989. Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 300–312.

28-04-2023 18:31:58

974

  Sejanus

SEJANUS TIMOTHY JONES

University of Newcastle

Lucius Aelius Seianus (“Sejanus,” c. 20 bce–31 ce) was prefect of the Praetorian Guard under Tiberius, 14–31 ce and consul in 31 ce. He eventually fell from favor and was executed. Sejanus was born in Vulsinii, the son Seius Strabo, a Roman knight. The ancient sources are hostile to Sejanus; Tacitus is particularly scathing, describing Sejanus as a small-town adulterer (A. 4.1.2 includes the rumor that Sejanus prostituted himself to Gavius Apicius). However, epigraphic and other literary evidence confirms that Sejanus was of equestrian rank. His family could even count consuls and praetors among its members (Vell. Pat. 2.127.3; ILS 8996; for these family connections, see Adams 1955; Syme 1939, 384). Sejanus’ first entry into public life was as part of Gaius Caesar’s retinue. He may have accompanied Gaius on his Eastern mission in 1 bce, but the evidence is not clear on this point (A. 4.1). The family of Sejanus was clearly trusted by Augustus, since his father, Seius Strabo, was appointed to command the Praetorian Guard (A. 1.7), and the following year he was appointed prefect of Egypt, the highest position an equestrian could attain. These facts contradict Tacitus’ picture of Sejanus and his family as outsiders to the political elite. Strabo was prefect of the Praetorian Guard when Tiberius succeeded Augustus in 14 ce and was one of the first to take the oath of allegiance to the new princeps. In an unusual move, Sejanus had been made his father’s colleague in the prefecture (A. 1.24). Stranger still was Tiberius’ decision not to replace Strabo, which left Sejanus without a colleague when his father was sent to Egypt. Sejanus next appears as a companion to Drusus the Younger in his mission to quell the mutinies that erupted when Tiberius succeeded Augustus in 14 ce. Sejanus’ role was to command the praetorian cohorts sent on the mission to protect Drusus. Tacitus notes that even at this early stage in Tiberius’ reign, Sejanus enjoyed great influence over him (A. 1.24). As prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Sejanus had consistent and direct contact with Tiberius. This proximity, combined with the evident trust between

c18_Vol2.indd 974

the two, resulted in Sejanus becoming a close personal advisor to the princeps. Sejanus’ place as a senior advisor to Tiberius is demonstrated by the case of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, who was governor of Syria when Germanicus went on his fatal Eastern mission and was widely suspected of involvement in his death. During his trial before the Senate in 20 ce for his conduct in the East, Piso was found dead, apparently by suicide. Tacitus alleges that Piso possessed a letter from Tiberius containing secret instructions (occulta mandata) for his governorship of Syria and his interactions with Germanicus. Piso intended to reveal the contents of the letter to the Senate, but Sejanus persuaded him not to, thereby saving Tiberius much embarrassment (A. 3.16). This establishes Sejanus in the role of imperial enforcer, a role that was later to become even more powerful. In 20 ce, Sejanus’ daughter was betrothed to the son of the future emperor Claudius. It was a remote family connection to the imperial house, nonetheless it was a connection. The following year, Sejanus’ uncle, Iunius Blaesus, was appointed governor of Africa. Tacitus exaggerates Sejanus’ importance to the regime (at least at this early date) when he says that once it became known that Blaesus was a candidate for the governorship, the other candidate “thought better of it” and withdrew (A. 3.35). Regardless of Tacitus’ commentary on this appointment, the trust that Sejanus’ family had earned through loyal service to Augustus and Tiberius was clearly being rewarded. In the year 23 ce, Sejanus becomes a central character in Tacitus’ narrative. The beginning of Annals Book 4 represents his formal introduction, despite his appearances in the narrative previously. This introduction is characterized by statements that are embellished to portray Sejanus in a sinister light (for a useful examination see Seager 2005). Sejanus is said to have increased the power of his position as prefect of the Praetorian Guard by concentrating the formerly dispersed troops into a single camp outside the city (A. 4.2). When this was done, Sejanus began to court favor with the soldiers: he addressed them by name, handed out privileges and generally ingratiated himself. In Tacitus’ formulation, this was done to secure the loyalty of the troops to Sejanus, rather than to the princeps.

28-04-2023 18:31:58

Sejanus  

Sejanus’ courting of constituencies did not stop with the soldiers; he also attempted to expand his client base by offering favors to the senators, with the expectation that those favors would be returned. Those who became his clients were rewarded with offices and even provincial commands (with Tiberius’ approval). Tacitus attributes to the year 23 ce, but before the death of Drusus, the quote from Tiberius that Sejanus was his ally in toil (socius laborum, A. 4.2). This line, echoed in Cassius Dio (58.4.3), more likely applies in the context Dio has placed it (31 ce). Drusus was, in 23 ce, clearly the heir apparent to his father, but Tiberius seemed to be increasingly reliant on Sejanus. The death of Drusus, which resulted in two teenage boys (Drusus Caesar and Nero Iulius Caesar, sons of Germanicus) becoming the focal point of the succession, destabilized the regime, and it was this issue that made possible Sejanus’ meteoric rise to power, although his precise goals are debated. By 23 ce, the succession to Tiberius had been settled: his son, Drusus the Younger, was sufficiently empowered to succeed, and Nero Caesar and Drusus Caesar, the two eldest sons of Germanicus, represented the next generation of heirs. Drusus and the two younger Caesars provided what Tacitus calls hindrances to Sejanus’ desires (A. 4.3). Tacitus’ implication is that, as early as 23 ce, Sejanus was pursuing the position of princeps for himself, since the three potential heirs were obstacles to his intentions. This suggestion, analogous to the claim that Sejanus was Tiberius’ ally in toil in 23 ce, surely reflects the situation in 31 ce rather than in 23 ce. Sejanus’ alleged first step in his quest for power was to target the very heart of Tiberius’ succession plan, his son Drusus. Drusus saw Sejanus as a rival in Tiberius’ court and openly complained about Sejanus’ relationship with the princeps. Sejanus saw in this rivalry great danger to himself: given the personal rivalry between the two, if Drusus were to succeed, not only would Sejanus’ position as prefect of the Praetorian Guard be in jeopardy, his very life could be as well. Tacitus reports that Sejanus poisoned Drusus, and that he did so with the aid of Drusus’ wife Livia Iulia with whom Sejanus had forged a relationship (A. 4.7–8). Drusus fell ill and died in summer of 23 ce. At the time, the death

c18_Vol2.indd 975

975

was attributed to natural causes, with poison not suspected. It was not until eight years later, after Sejanus’ fall in 31 ce, when his scorned ex-wife revealed the details to Tiberius in a letter, that there was any suggestion that Drusus had not died of natural causes. It is from the year 24 ce that Sejanus’ political intentions become clearer in Tacitus’ narrative. In this year Nero Caesar and Drusus Caesar, who had both recently entered public life, were dedicated to the same gods as Tiberius himself, the implied equality of which angered the princeps. Sejanus used this displeasure to begin to undermine the relationship between Tiberius and Agrippina the Elder, the mother of the two young Caesars. Relations between Tiberius and Agrippina were already strained following Germanicus’ death. Sejanus warned Tiberius of a court faction around Agrippina, which only worsened Tiberius’ disposition toward his daughter-in-law (A. 4.17). Sejanus then set in motion a series of treason trials, with his clients acting as prosecutors, which were intended to expose and ruin the faction around Agrippina (A. 4.18–38). As much as Tacitus presents these trials as taking place for Sejanus’ benefit, it is surely the case that, at this point, the trials were motivated by a desire to protect Tiberius from a legitimate threat. Marsh (1931) has suggested that Sejanus’ purpose with these treason trials was to participate in court politics for his own benefit. While Sejanus did have followers and clients (recall his courting of various constituencies), this group is best understood as an example of the standard patron-client relationship, rather than as a court faction centered on the succession, since not even Sejanus himself, to say nothing of the less important members of the alleged faction, was a potential candidate for the succession. In 25 ce, Sejanus felt confident enough to make a major move in his quest for power: he wrote to Tiberius and asked for Livia Iulia’s hand in marriage (A. 4.39). Sejanus’ tactics in this letter demonstrate his astuteness as a court politician: he flatters Tiberius, cites Augustan precedent for his request and warns the princeps about the continued threat posed by Agrippina. Tiberius’ reply, as Tacitus has summarized it, shows the princeps being careful and considered, given the enormity of the request. He shows himself acutely

28-04-2023 18:31:58

976

  Sejanus

aware of the consequences of his decision. Tiberius’ chief concern is that a marriage between Sejanus and Livilla would exacerbate the rivalry between her and Agrippina. Rather than denying the request, Tiberius gives various reasons why it should not go ahead, including the stinging rebuke that Livia Iulia would not be content growing old at the side of a mere equestrian. However, Tiberius concludes the letter with the suggestion that a brighter future loomed for Sejanus. Sejanus continued to manipulate the troubles present in the imperial house in the year 26 ce. Agrippina approached Tiberius and asked him to provide her with a husband as social custom dictated. As had been the case with Livia Iulia, Tiberius saw the problems present in Agrippina remarrying and so did not address the issue. Sejanus, however, took Tiberius’ considered approach to a sensitive issue and used it to warn Agrippina, through agents placed in her circle, that Tiberius posed a threat to her. When Agrippina believed that Tiberius was trying to poison her, relations broke down entirely (A. 4.53–54). The breakdown in relations was one of many factors which contributed to Tiberius leaving Rome in 26 ce. He traveled to Campania on the mainland but continued to attend to his duties, specifically dedicating two temples. A consequence of this departure was that Sejanus, in his capacity as prefect, not only accompanied Tiberius on the journey, but Tiberius was even more isolated than he had been in the city, and Sejanus now controlled all access to him. Tacitus says that Tiberius’ implicit trust in Sejanus was confirmed when, during a rock-fall while the two were dining, Sejanus covered Tiberius with his own body to protect him (A. 4.59). Sejanus’ self-sacrifice seems to have confirmed his loyalty in Tiberius’ mind, and he listened even more intently to the prefect’s advice. Sejanus took this new level of trust between himself and Tiberius and used it to provide Tiberius with information, often exaggerated or even false, that would lead to the ruin of Nero Caesar and Drusus Caesar. In the year 26 ce, Sejanus began attacking this wing of the imperial house in the courts. His first target was Nero, Germanicus’ eldest son, who was the heir-presumptive, even if his position was poorly defined. Using the same procedure as he

c18_Vol2.indd 976

had with Agrippina, Sejanus inserted his own agents into Nero’s circle of friends. These people encouraged Nero to show confidence and assert his claim to the succession. Despite receiving this advice, Nero ignored it and did not act. His rare missteps were exaggerated and reported to Sejanus. The reports from Sejanus aroused suspicion in Tiberius, as they were intended to do, and Tacitus says that for Nero there was crime in speech or silence (A. 4.60). Sejanus used both Nero’s wife Iulia Livia and his brother Drusus Caesar as informants against the young man, even offering Drusus Caesar the position of princeps if he joined Sejanus’ scheme against Nero. This exaggerates Sejanus’ influence, since it suggests that the position of princeps was his to give. The Praetorian Guard had not yet taken on the active role in the succession that it would later assume, so the idea that Sejanus could have made Drusus Caesar princeps is overdrawn. Sejanus’ influence over the city was augmented still further in 27 ce when Tiberius departed the mainland altogether and took up residence on the island of Capri (A. 4.67). Tiberius’ absence, combined with Sejanus’ courting of the Senate, meant that by this point he had many willing adherents in pursuit of his goals. Indeed, Tacitus portrays Sejanus as so powerful that achieving high office was only possible with his recommendation. Tacitus uses the opening of Annals Book 5 to mark a turning point in Tiberius’ reign when he notes the death of his mother, Livia Augusta, in 29 ce. She had acted as a check on the regime, both in light of Tiberius’ deference to her as well as Sejanus’ unwillingness to usurp the authority of a parent (A. 5.1). Tiberius’ suspicion about Agrippina and her children now came forth in a letter to the Senate, denouncing Agrippina and Nero by name. The princeps, as was common, gave no specific instructions about what was to be done, but his manifest displeasure seemingly left little doubt about the outcome. It is at this point that the text of Tacitus breaks off and does not resume until the year 31 ce. We are thus compelled to use Cassius Dio and other sources to reconstruct the events leading up Sejanus’ fall. A useful treatment of this section of Cassius Dio’s narrative is found in Edmondson (1992). In 29 ce, Sejanus continued to be honored with public statues and other signs of social prominence.

28-04-2023 18:31:58

977

Seleucia P ieria  

His confidence grew, and his reaction to Tiberius’ denunciation of Nero was to target Drusus Caesar, who had been living on Capri with Tiberius. In 30 ce, the princeps sent Drusus to Rome. Once the boy was in Rome, Sejanus, who had previously made accusations against Drusus, persuaded a senator to initiate charges against him (Cass. Dio 58.3.8). This was intended to remove Drusus from consideration for the succession. In the same year, Sejanus was betrothed to an imperial princess, but her identity is unclear. In the second half of 30 ce, Sejanus was elected consul, with Tiberius himself as his colleague. During his reign, Tiberius had only held the consulship with his apparent successor, so this was a major honor for Sejanus. His prominence became greater still when, following the end of their shared consulship in May of 31 ce, the Senate granted Sejanus proconsular power, one of the two chief powers that defined the position of princeps. Sejanus’ path to the succession was seemingly clear: he was to be married into the imperial family, he had shared the consulship with Tiberius, and he now shared the proconsular power. All he lacked was a grant of tribunician power, the other chief power that defined the position of princeps. In October of 31 ce, Sejanus attended a meeting of the Senate with the expectation that he was to receive a grant of tribunician power, thus officially making him Tiberius’ successor. However, for reasons that remain maddeningly unclear, Tiberius had grown suspicious of Sejanus, was about to replace him as prefect of the Praetorian Guard, and intended to strip him of his powers and permanently remove him from his administrative duties in the regime. A lengthy letter from Tiberius was read in the Senate, with its contents interspersing matters of official business with liberal criticisms of Sejanus. As the senators who were present saw what was happening, they began to distance themselves from Sejanus. Tiberius finally ordered Sejanus to be arrested and placed under guard (Cass. Dio 58.10.1). Later the same day, when the senators saw that the praetorians had taken no action to save Sejanus, they issued a decree ordering him executed. The fall of Sejanus is depicted in Juvenal, Satire 10. The English playwright and poet Ben Jonson found material in Annals 5 and 6 for his play

c18_Vol2.indd 977

Sejanus His Fall, performed at the Globe Theatre in 1603 (Shakespeare played Tiberius). The play was a flop in it is day, but in the autumn of 2005, the Royal Shakespeare Company production found favorable reviews among post-9/11 audiences who perceived a familiar depiction of ruthless, bloodthirsty evil and the pursuit of absolute power. see also: German Revolt; praetorian cohorts; reception, seventeenth century; reception, film; reception, opera REFERENCES Adams, F. 1955. “The Consular Brothers of Sejanus.” American Journal of Philology 76: 70–76. Edmondson, J., ed. 1992. Dio: The Julio-ClaudiansSelections from Books 58–63 of the Roman History of Cassius Dio. London: London Association of Classical Teachers. Marsh, F. B. 1931. The Reign of Tiberius. London: Oxford University Press. Seager, R. 2005. Tiberius. Oxford: Blackwell. Syme, R. 1939. Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Bird, H. W. 1969. “L. Aelius Sejanus and His Political Significance.” Latomus 28: 61–98. Bird, H. W. 1970. “L. Aelius Sejanus: Further Observations.” Latomus 28: 1046–1050. Boddington, A. 1963. “Sejanus: Whose Conspiracy?” American Journal of Philology 84: 1–16. Jones, T. 2017. “Julia, Daughter of Drusus: Sejanus’ Imperial Betrothal.” Classicum 43: 22–27. Shotter, D. C. A. 1974. “The Fall of Sejanus: Two Problems.” Classical Philology 69: 42–46. Tuplin, C. J. 1987. “The False Drusus of ad 31 and the Fall of Sejanus.” Latomus 46: 781–805.

SELEUCIA PIERIA LEONARDO GREGORATTI

Durham University

Seleucia Pieria (Greek, Σελεύκεια ἐν Πιερίᾳ) was a harbor city founded by Seleucos I Nicator around 300 bce on the Syrian coast, close to modern Samandağ in the Hatay Province of Turkey. It was founded approximately 40 stadia north of the

28-04-2023 18:31:58

978

  Seleucia P ieria

mouth of the Orontes, on the slope of the Coryphaeus, a southern spur of the Amanus (Polyb. 5.59, 4–10). The region was called Pieria by the Macedonians, like a similar region in their homeland situated between Mount Olympus and the sea. The site lies between the valleys of two streams and it is surrounded by a 12.5 km long wall. It was founded in connection with the nearby Antioch, which soon became the most important city of the region and the capital of the Seleucid empire. Seleucia Pieria became its sea harbor. For its function and strategic position, it played an important role in the conflict between Lagids and Seleucids. Occupied a first time by Ptolemaeus Euergetes (246 bce) it changed hands several times until it was recaptured in 219 bce by Antioch the Great (App. Syr. 58). It was used in 146 bce as base by Demetrius II against Antiochus VI, the young the pretender to the Seleucid throne and his protector Tryphon. It gained a certain autonomy with the crisis of the Seleucids and manage to resist to the conquest attempts of Tigranes II of Armenia (84/83 bce, Eutrop. 6.14.2). Pompey the Great granted the city autonomy. During Roman times a city council and a popular assembly ruled Seleucia. The city was one of the main ports of the Roman province of Syria. Being distant only twentyseven days’ journey from Brundisium in southern Italy (Cic. Att. 11.20), it constituted the gate to the East from Italy. Emperors like Trajan, Hadrian and Julian visited the city as did most of the Roman officers who landed there to reach their administrative posts. Seleucia was also the point where all the troops and the logistic supplies reached the East during the second century Roman military operations beyond the Euphrates against the Parthian Empire. In consideration of this it is not surprising that in the city necropolis several inscriptions have been found referring to sailors and officers of the Classis Syriaca, the Syrian provincial Roman fleet that patrolled the coast and that was based at Seleucia. Other inscriptions attest to the presence of naval squadrons from the fleets stationed at Ravenna or Misenum as reinforcements or escort units for high dignitaries. The site consists of a lower town to the southwest, an upper town rising on the plateau of the northeast,

c18_Vol2.indd 978

and an acropolis. The main visible remains are the ramparts with walls, bastions, and gates. A Byzantine sanctuary is on the northwest of the city, while the foundations of a large Doric temple of Hellenistic date dominate the town. The temple is a peripteral one with crypt and adyton. The city had a theater, and several luxury Roman villas rich in mosaics were scattered on the mountain slopes. In antiquity Seleucia had two ports: an inner one around a natural lagoon now completely disappeared and a late antique outer one on the coast. In order to prevent the silting of the former and to divert the stream, which crossed it, numerous channels were dug. The so-called Titus Canal runs for more than 1,300  m sometimes open to the sky, sometimes as a tunnel. Inscriptions date the beginning of the work at the second half of the 1st century (CIL III 6702 = IGLS III 1131) and attest to the presence of the legionaries of the X Fretensis employed during Antoninus Pius’ reign to dig the tunnels (CIL III 6045 = IGLS III 1139). Despite the efforts, the inner port, its dock, and shipyards were no longer usable in the fourth century ce. A second port was built, but after the terrible earthquake that struck the region in sixth century the city was abandoned completely. Discussing the origins of the god Sarapis, Tacitus mentions a tradition according to which king Ptolemaeus III brought the god with him from Seleucia in Syria, Seleucia Pieria, on his return from the Syrian War (H. 4.84.9). At A. 2.69 Tacitus informs us that after coming back from Egypt in the summer of 19 ce Germanicus realized that all his arrangements had been ignored by Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, governor of Syria. A conflict between the two arose and the latter was forced to leave Antioch and move to Seleucia, ready to leave the province. Germanicus fell ill and Piso decided to spend some time in the harbor waiting for the results of the disease. see also: Macedonia; Parthia Reference work: Barrington 67 B4 FURTHER READING Chapot, Victor. 1906. “Séleucie de Piérie.” Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France 66: 149–226.

28-04-2023 18:31:58

Sempronius G racchus , T iberius ( 2 )  

Pamir, Hatice. 2015. “Recent Researches and New Discoveries in the Harbors of Seleucia Pieria.” In Harbors and Harbor Cities in the Eastern Mediterranean from Antiquity to the Byzantine Period: Recent Discoveries and Current Approaches, edited by Sabine Ladstatter, Felix Pirson, and Thomas Schmidts, 177–198. Istanbul: German Institute of Archaeology. Uggeri, Giovanni. 2006. “Seleucia Pieria: il porto di Antiochia sull’Oronte.” Journal of Ancient Topography 16: 143–176.

SELEUCUS, see ASTROLOGY SEMNONES, see SUEBI SEMPRONIUS DENSUS, see CALPURNIUS PISO FRUGI LICINIANUS, LUCIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS, TIBERIUS (1), see GRACCHI

SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS, TIBERIUS (2) STEVE RUTLEDGE

Linfield University

Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (2) (d. 14 ce) was condemned for his involvement with Augustus’ daughter, Julia the Elder, in the year 1 ce, and sentenced to exile, which he endured until 14 ce. Tacitus indicates that Tiberius had him executed out of sheer spite not long after his succession. Sempronius Gracchus’ praenomen is not entirely certain, though it may have been Tiberius (based on CIL 6.1515); he may have been a member of the tresviri monetales and a quaestor at some point. He first appears in Tacitus in A. 1.53.4, as a paired obituary entry in 14 ce, in conjunction with the death of Julia the Elder, Augustus’ daughter and Tiberius’ former wife who had been condemned to exile for adultery in 2 bce. Tacitus, in recounting Tiberius’ cruelty against the exiled Julia, notes Tiberius held a similar animus against Gracchus; we are also told in Gracchus’ obituary that he was of noble family, of clever talent, and of debased eloquence, who seduced Julia while she was married to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. The relationship appears to have continued after Julia was married to Tiberius,

c18_Vol2.indd 979

979

and Tacitus tells us that Gracchus in fact tried to exacerbate the feelings of ill will between Julia and Tiberius, going so far as to help her write a letter to her father, which, Tacitus implies, led to his exile to the island of Cercina off the coast of Africa. Gracchus was executed soon after Tiberius’ accession: upon being confronted with his executioners Gracchus requested some time to compose a final letter to his wife, Alliaria (otherwise unattested) to put his affairs in order. Tacitus states that Gracchus’ brave death helped to repair his own dubious reputation and was worthy, unlike his life, of his ancient, noble family name. Tacitus further notes an alternative tradition concerning his death: it was not Tiberius, but Lucius Nonius Asprenas, governor of Africa, who had the execution carried out, although Tacitus dismisses this as a rumor that Tiberius promulgated in order to shift any potential culpability away from himself. Gracchus’ son, Gaius Gracchus (2), grew up in exile with his father and, according to Tacitus, besmirched his family name by turning to trade for a living (A. 4.13.4). He must have been involved in the campaign against Tacfarinas, for he was accused (and acquitted) in 23 ce of fraternizing (actually, conducting commerce) with the enemy (A. 4.13.3). The younger Gracchus also may have gone on to hold a praetorship in 33 (A. 6.16.5) and is possibly to be identified with the accuser of Granius Marcianus in 35 ce (A. 6.38.4). Nothing further is known of the elder Sempronius Gracchus or his career. see also: Gracchi Reference works: PIR2 S 352; RE 2.22 1427–8 = Sempronius 58 (Groag) FURTHER READING Rogers, R. S. 1967 “The Deaths of Julia and Gracchus in 14 ad.” American Journal of Philology 98: 383–390. Rutledge, Steven H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge. 267.

SEMPRONIUS LONGUS, TIBERIUS, see CREMONA

28-04-2023 18:31:58

980

  Senate

SENATE ALBERTO CAFARO

Università di Siena

The term Senate designates the assembly formed by prominent men that assisted Romulus and his successors, then the magistrates, and later the emperors. Tacitus used the same term to identify other prominent assemblies outside Rome (e.g., A. 6.42.1; H. 5.19.3–senatores). The term is often replaced by patres (et conscripti—i.e., its members) and curia (its traditional gathering place). During the early principate, the Senate was a body of 600 men, whose membership (typically for life) depended on having performed at least the lowest senatorial magistracy—the quaestorship—having a net worth of one million sesterces, and having been chosen by the emperor. Both criteria depended on the monarch’s will. Augustus and his successors used to help their favorites to fulfil the census criteria (Mon. Anc. App. 4; see also A. 1.75.3–4), and, from 13 bce, drafted a list of candidates for each position and awarded the Senate the right to vote on them, thus increasing the monarch’s control over the membership of the assembly (A. 1.15.1). According to an established scholarly tradition dating back to Mommsen (Röm. Staatsr. 3, 466–475), Augustus’ reforms had a strong hereditary focus which made senatorial families part of an exclusive order; Weisweiler (2020) has recently questioned this perspective, pointing out that Augustus intended to stimulate the sons of senators (and the other well-to-do individuals) to enter active politics. With a predictable sequence of positions laid open for them, from the vigintivirate to the proconsulship of Asia or Africa (Vogel-Weidemann 1982), Augustus meant to provide the empire with a reliable governing class made of senators and their descendants. Through the lex Iulia of 9 bce, Augustus set periodic sessions for the Senate to be gathered. Attendance became mandatory, thus strengthening the bond between the Senate and Italy. Following some older precedents, senators were forbidden from leaving Italy except for going to Sicily, and then Narbonese Gaul (A. 12.23.1; Cass. Dio 52.42.6–7; Prag 2016, 69–72). Facing a financial crisis in 33 ce, the Senate prescribed that creditors were to invest two-thirds of their credits

c18_Vol2.indd 980

in landed property in Italy (A. 6.17.1; Suet. Tib. 48.1; see also Cass. Dio 58.21.4–5); while under Trajan, senators—even those from the provinces—must invest one-third of their fortune in Italy (Plin. Ep. 6.19.4). Relationships with provincials might prove uneasy, as Thrasea Paetus spoke against “a new form of arrogance at the hands of provincials” (A. 15.20.4), but that did not prevent the Senate from contributing to the integration of the provinces: “New men from the municipalities and colonies, and even from the provinces who were often admitted in the Senate” (A. 3.55.3). Regarding this issue, both Tacitus (A. 11.23–25) and the Tabula Lugdunensis (CIL 13, 1668; Malloch 2020) report the debate on the co-optation of senators from Gallia Comata, with Claudius strongly supporting this measure against vocal senatorial opposition. According to Otho, the Senate was “the head of the empire and the glory of all provinces,” a symbol of the Roman State as a whole (H. 1.84.3–4). Nonetheless, Tacitus condemned this venerable institution as subservient to the emperor on a number of occasions (e.g., A. 1.12.1; 4.74.4; 12.41.1). In fact, this was a consequence of the plain fact that “the monarch concentrated all the legal and political powers on himself ” (A. 11.5.1) and left the Senate no more than the illusion of governing (A. 1.77.3) or “the glory of obedience” (A. 6.8.4). In such a context, opposition was impossible, and even not desirable: Thrasea Paetus’ open challenge to the official version of Agrippina the Younger’s death earned him and the Senate nothing but danger (A. 14.12.1). Even within this political framework, Tacitus declared it was possible to honorably serve the State, avoiding both the shameful servility and scornful defiance (A. 4.20.3) and recognized the role of the Flavian emperors in his successful career, while claiming his own independence (H. 1.1.3; Syme 1970, 59–74). Even if Curiatius Maternus rhetorically asked, “What need there is of long speeches in the Senate, when the best men soon agree?” (D. 41.4), discord was common in the imperial Senate as in the past. In 31 ce the Senate was unable to put an end to the bitter conflict between the consuls (A. 5.11), and on the eve of Licinius Mucianus’ arrival in Rome the patres are described as deeply divided (H. 4.11.1). The assembly debated on a number of different issues. In A. 13.49.2, Tacitus described the most important topics the emperor

28-04-2023 18:31:58

senatus C onsultum de C n . P isone  

might allow senators to discuss: “on war and peace, on taxes and laws, and on other matters regarding the welfare of Rome.” The Senate was still entitled to debate on foreign policy matters (A. 2.42.3; 2.65.5; 3.32) and receive (A. 4.14; 4.43; 4.55; H. 4.51.2) and send embassies (A. 4.26.2). The Senate also gained the right to hear cases concerning its members when they were charged with corruption or misconduct. In Tacitus, a significant part of senatorial activities is represented by these cognitiones, especially those investigating the infamous allegations de maiestate (i.e., acting against the “greaterness” of the Roman people and the emperor; A. 1.72; 14.48.2). The topics debated in the Senate as in the Annals included finance (6.16), sumptuary (2.33) and family laws (15.19), slaves (12.53; 13.26–27), the administration of Italian communities (4.63.1; 14.17.2), religion (2.85.4–86.1; 3.58; 6.12; 11.15), and other moral provisions (2.85.1; 4.14.3). The Senate served the empire as the par excellence political institution: significantly, it was there that Tiberius attended to political affairs to find solace after Drusus the Younger’s death (A. 4.8.3). According to Tacitus, the Senate’s ability to weigh on the political context changed through time. In 31 ce it took advantage of Tiberius’ absence to delay any accusations brought by delators (A. 4.66.2), and in 62 ce, Thrasea persuaded his colleagues to save Antistius Sosianus (A. 14.48–49). On the contrary, in 69 ce the Senate showed its inability to exploit the weaknesses of Galba and Otho (Williams 2012). On that momentous occasion, the Senate realized one of the secrets of power (H. 1.4.2: arcanum imperii): emperors could be made outside Rome, if they were supported by the legions. Whichever its strength, Tacitus made clear the political significance a monarch should grant the Senate and its most prominent members in A. 4.6.2: to freely discuss “public affairs together with private affairs of exceptional relevance.” Pliny (Pan. 1.2; 2.3–4) shared that approach: the emperor who acted as a member of the Senate should be simply considered the best monarch of all (optimus princeps). REFERENCES Malloch, Simon J. V., ed. 2020. The Tabula Lugdunensis: A Critical Edition with Translation and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

c18_Vol2.indd 981

981

Mommsen, Theodor. 1887. Röm. Staatsr. 3. Römisches Staatsrecht: 3. Bürgerschaft und Senat. 1. 3rd ed. Leipzig: S. Herzel. Prag, Jonathan R. W. 2016. “Antiquae sunt istae leges et mortuae: the plebiscitum Claudianum and associated laws.” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Antiquité 128–1: 65–76. Syme, Ronald. 1970. Ten Studies in Tacitus. New York: Oxford University Press. Vogel-Weidemann, Ursula. 1982. Die Statthalter von Africa und Asia in den Jahren 14–68 n. Chr: eine Untersuchung zum Verhältnis Princeps und Senat (Antiquitas 1, 31). Bonn: Rudolf Habelt. Weisweiler, John. 2020. “The Heredity of Senatorial Status in the Principate.” Journal of Roman Studies 110: 1–28. DOI: 10.1017/S0075435820001215. Williams, Kathryn. 2012. “Tacitus’ Senatorial Embassies of 69 ce.” In A Companion to Tacitus, edited by Victoria Emma Pagán, 212–236. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. FURTHER READING Andermahr, Anna M. 1998. Totus in praediis: senatorischer Grundbesitz in Italien in der Frühen und Hohen Kaiserzeit (Antiquitas, 3 – 37). Bonn: Rudolf Habelt. Devillers, Olivier. 2019. Aspects de la représentation de l’activité du Sénat chez Tacite: Remarques autour de l’évocation des sénatus-consultes. In Rappresentazione e uso dei “senatus consulta” nelle fonti letterarie del principato (Acta Senatus, B.6), edited by Pierangelo Buongiorno, and Giusto Traina, 97–115. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Shatzman, Israel. 1975. Senatorial Wealth and Roman Politics. Bruxelles: Collection Latomus. Talbert, Richard J. A. 1984. The Senate of Imperial Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

SENATUS CONSULTUM DE CN. PISONE GREGORY ROWE

University of Victoria

The senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone (also called the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre, abbreviated SCP) records the official verdict and sentence in the show trial of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso before the Roman Senate on charges of poisoning Germanicus and manifold acts of insubordination (20 ce). Tacitus offers a counternarrative,

28-04-2023 18:31:58

982

  senatus C onsultum de C n . P isone

insinuating that Piso had acted with the connivance of Tiberius and Livia Augusta and then was abandoned by them at the trial. Multiple bronze inscriptions of the SCP emerged in the former province of Baetica (southern Spain) and were published in 1996. The concentration of inscriptions from Baetica probably reflects the actions of a zealous governor, Vibius Serenus, whose name is sprawled across the top of Copy A (cf. A. 4.13.2, 4.29.3: Vibius was later exiled for provincial abuses and prosecuted by his own son). After Piso committed suicide during the trial, his case was tried posthumously along with the cases of his family and accomplices. On Tiberius’ motion the Senate compiled decisions in the various cases into a single composite decree, to be published in bronze (1) “wherever seems best to Tiberius Caesar Augustus”; (2) “in the most frequented city of each province and in the most frequented place of that city”; (3) “in the winter quarters of each legion at the standards” (SCP 163–173). Tiberius also approved the text for inclusion in the public archives (SCP 173–176). Copy A, which is complete, contains 176 lines of Latin. Lines 4–173 form a single sentence in indirect discourse governed by the verb censuerunt (“(senators) decreed,” SCP 11, 172–173). The text comprises three main parts: charges against Piso (SCP 23–73); punishments of Piso, his family, and associates (SCP 73–123); and praise of imperial family members, the equestrian order, the plebs, and loyal soldiers for their conduct (SCP 123–163). These are framed by paratext at the beginning (date and place of Senate meeting, drafting committee, Tiberius’ motion) and the end (publication instructions, the vote, Tiberius’ approval of the text; Cooley 2017). There is a discrepancy about the date of Piso’s trial. Tacitus places the trial before an ovatio for Drusus the Younger known to have been celebrated on 28 May 20 ce (A. 3.11, 3.19.3; F.Ost. = EJ p. 41). But SCP is dated 10 December 20 ce. Some have drawn the conclusion that Tacitus does not organize material chronologically and have taken this as an instance of Tacitus’ freedom with historical facts generally (Eck et al. 1996; Mackay 2003; Woodman and Martin 1996, 110–118). Others have sought to reconcile the dates and argued that, while Piso’s trial finished in the spring, trials of the others probably dragged on over the

c18_Vol2.indd 982

summer, and the composite decree was likely intended for provincial publication, to match the commemorations of Germanicus the previous year (Tabulae Siarensis/Hebana; Griffin 1997; Talbert in Damon et al. 1999). Strictly speaking, SCP was not a source for the Annals. Instead, Tacitus follows his characteristic method of going back to acta senatus to discover the raw debate that preceded the decree and supplementing this with authorial commentary (additional detail, rumor, speculation) to produce a counternarrative (Matthews 2010; Woodman and Martin 1996, 117: “T. characteristically converts the monument’s monotonous confidence into discrepancy and doubt”). Salient points of similarity and difference between SCP and the Annals include: ●

●

●

Germanicus and Piso (SCP 29–37; A. 2.43). Piso was appointed governor (legate) of the imperial province of Syria. Both SCP and A. say that Germanicus had s