The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays

THE FALL OF THE ROM AJ\IREPUBLIC andRelatedEssays P.A. BRUNT C L A R E N D O N P R E S S. O X F O R D r 989 f' 1,, ...

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THE FALL OF THE

ROM AJ\IREPUBLIC andRelatedEssays

P.A. BRUNT

C L A R E N D O N P R E S S. O X F O R D r 989

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l l ü r A l t l r l u r n i u n r i. r,

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THE FALL OF THE

ROM AJ\IREPUBLIC andRelatedEssays

P.A. BRUNT

C L A R E N D O N P R E S S. O X F O R D r 989

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l l ü r A l t l r l u r n i u n r i. r,

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P R EF A C E

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Walton Suotf, Oxloil tr.r't 6trt' 'I OxJord Ncw foil oronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madrcs Karachi Petaling JaTa Singapore Hong Kong 7'ok1o Nairobi Dar es Salaam Capc Town Melboume Auekland and associatedcompaniesin Berlin Ibadan

Oxford is a trademark of Oxford UnfuersiQtPress Publishedin the Unired States b1 Oxford Uniursitl Press,Ncu Tork @ P. A. Brunt tg88 All righx reseraed.No part of this publication ma2 be reproduced, sloredin a retrieaal s2stem,or transmitted, in anltform or b1 an1 means, photocopling,recording,or otherwise,without electronic,mechanical, theprior pcrmission of Oxford UniuersiE Prus British Librarlt Calaloguingin PublicationData Brunt, P. A. Thcfall of thc RomanRepublic:and related t. Rome

Hir:t:":,f,' Repubtic,26570 B.C. I. Title 937'.o5 DGz54

ISBN o-tg-9t4849-6

Set b7 H Charlesuorth (d Co Ltd Prinled in Great Britain at the UniaersityPrinting House, Oxford fu Daaid Stanfoil Printer lo the Uniaersi!1

'l'hc

title essayin the volume complementsand occasionallyrevisesthe interpretation of the fall of the Republic offeredinmy SocialCofficß in the RomanRepublic,r97r. Some of the more controversial views expressed tlrr:re rested on my Italian Manpower,rg7r, and on various articles, including thoseon the Equiteswhich appearedin Proceedings 0f theSecond International of Economic Historl, r962, published in r965, and Conference on TheRomanMob (PastandPresent,r966, reprinted with somechanges rg7ü; both were further revised in M. I. Finley, Studiesin RomanSociet2, lirr the German translations in .(ur So
CONTEI{TS Abbreuiations r. 2.

3. +. 5. '

(t. 7. B. ().

The Fall of the Roman Republic Italian Aims at the Time of the Social War Appendixes I. Roman Politicsand the Italian Question II. The Enfranchisement of the Allies IIL The End of CiuitassineSffiagio IV. The TabulaBantina The Equites in the Late Republic .|udiciary Rights in the Republic Tlre Army and the Land in the Roman Revolution App.ndixes I. Areasof Recruitmentfor the RepublicanArmy II. The Settlementof Marian Veterans Libertasin the Republic Amicitiain the Roman Republic Clientela Factions

F)ndnotes Addendum Indexof Persons,Peoples,and Places Index af Subjecß

viii I

93 I3I

r32 r36 r39 r44 r94 240

276 278 zBr 35r gBz 443 503 526 53r 538

ABBR}:\'IA'I'IONS l')arl, r tli r

A B B R E V IA T I O N S

1", I Ii,\AR

Familiar abbreviations are used for standard works of reference,including epigraphic collections.For classicaltexts the practice of Liddell and Scotr or the OxfordLatin Dictionarlis normally adopted, but it should be explained that 'App(ian)' without adjunct refers to his Ciuil Wars, and that the sectionsin chaptersof Plutarch's Liaesare thoseusedin the Loeb edition. A list follows of those modern works cited by the name of the author alone (with date of publication where necessary)or by other abbreviations. ANRW Astin, r967 Badian, r95B or FC 1964 1967 1972 Beloch, r886 Bleicken,rg55 -

t972

1975 Botermann, r968

B r u h n s ,r g T B Brunt, IM Laus Imperii Social Corfricts Buckland, rgo8 Cherubini, rgB3 Clementi, rg74 Conway, rB97 D'Arms, rg8r De Laet, rg4g de Neeve, IgB4 de Ste Croix, rg8r

AufstiegundNiedergangin der römischen Welt, ed,. H. Temporini A. E. Astin, ScipioAemilianus E. Badian, ForeignClientelae Studiesin Greekand RomanHistorl RomanImperialismin the Late Republic Publicansand Sinners dergriechisch-römischm J. Beloch, Die Beaälkerung Welt J. Bleicken, Das Volkstribunatder klassischen Republik StaatlicheOrdnung und Freiheit in der römischen Republik Lex Publica H. Botermann, Die Soldatenund die römische Politik in der,leit uonCaesarsTod bis
L\,' [inlcy, r974 r 98o r98r r9 8 3 r9 8 5 I,'IRA |rier, r qSo ( i ; r l r b a ,I 9 7 3 .

1976

( i : r l s t e r e r r, 9 7 6 ( i a r n s e y ,r 9 7 o (;(:

()clzer, Caesar r 969 ( , l r u e n ,r 9 6 8 r974 llarmand,rg57 r967 | | irrris, r 97 r r979 I l a t z f e l d ,r g r g llitug, r947 l l t ' l l e g o u a r c ' h r, 9 6 3 llcrrmann, r968 I l o p k i n s ,r g 7 8 r 983

iX

D. C. Earl, The Political Thoughtof Sallust V. Ehrenbergand A. H. M. Jones,Documents illustrating in the ReignsoJAugustusand Tiberiust ( z n d e d . e n l a r g e d ) ,r 9 7 5 T. Frank el al., Economic Surue2 of AncientRome, r 933-40 SeeBadian M. I. Finley (ed.), Studiesin AncientSociety AncientSlauerjtand Modern ldeologt Economltand SocieQin AncientGreece Politics in the AncientWorld The AncientEconoml2 Fontees luris RomaniAnteiustiniani, ed. S. Riccobono et al. B. W. Frier, Landlordsand Tenantsin Imperial Rome E. Gabba, Esercitoe societänella tarda repubblica romana Republican Rome:theArmltandtheAllies (tr. P. J.

cuO

H. Galsterer, Herrschaftund Verwaltungim republikanischen ltalien P. Garnsey, SocialStatusand Legal Priuilegein the RomanEmpire A. H.J.Greenidge and A. M. Clay, SourcesJor RomanHistor2 r3S-Zo nc2, revised by E. W. Gray, r96o M. Gelzer, Caesar,Politician and Statesman(tr. by P. Needham), r968 The RomanNobilitl (tr. by R. Seager) E. Gruen, RomanPoliticsand theCriminal Courts, r49-78 sc The Last Generationof the RomanRepublic L. Harmand, Le Patronat sur les collectiuitös publiques L'Armöeet le soldatd Romedeto7 d 5o auantnotreöre W. V. Harris, Romein Etruria and Umbria War and Imperialismin RepublicanRome J. Hatzfeld, Les Trafquants italiensdansI'orient hellönique I. Haug, Das römischeBundrsgenossenkrieg, in WürlburgerJ ahrbücher für dieAltertumswissenschdt latin desrelaJ. Hellegouarc'h, Le Vocabulaire tionset despartis politiquessousla Rlpublique P. Herrmann, Der römische Eid K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaues Death and Reneual

ABBREVIA'I'tOn\S Humbert, r97B Ilari, t974 IM Jolowicz-Nicholas, t 9 7 2 Jones, r94o Kelly, r966 Keppie, r9B3 Kloesel, rg35 Kunkel, r96z Latte, r96o Liebeschutz,r979 Lintott, r968 Magie, rg5o Meier, r966 Michel, r96z Mommsen, Sl.R MRR Münzer, rgeo N i c o l e t ,r 9 6 6 , r 9 7 4 OI,D O p p e r m a n n ,r 9 6 7 ORF Pohlenz,r966 Premerstein,rgoo 1937 Raaflaub, rg74 RC Rice Holmes, rgz3 Richard, r97B Rickman, rgSo Rostovtzeff, SEHRE -

SEHHW

Rouland, r979 AA RRC S a l m o n ,r 9 6 7

M. Humbert. Municipiumct CiuirassineSufragio V. Ilari, Gli itatici nille strutturemilitareär,in, SeeBrunt !. F. Jolowicz and B. Nicholas, Historical Introductionto the Studyof RomanLaw3 H. M.Jones, TheGriekCityfromAlexander to 1. Justinian J. M. Kelly, RomanLitigation Keppie, Colonisationoni Vetrron Settlementm Itaj, 47-t4 nc H. K_loesel,Libertas(diss.,Breslau) W. Kunkel, [Jntersuchungen zur Eniwickluupdcr rtimischen Kriminaluerfahrens in aorsu Ilanischei?eit K. Latre, RömischeReligionsgeschichre W. Liebeschutz, Continuit2ind Changein Roman Religion A. Lintott, Violence in Rebublican Rome D. Ilagie, RomanRuleii Asia Minor C. Meier, ResPublicaAmissa J. Michel, Gratuiti en droit rornain T. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht3 S Broughton, The Magistrates of the T \ RomanRepublic,tg5r F. Münzer, Römische Adelsparteien undAdetsfam_ ilien C. Nicolet, Z'Ordreiquestre d l'öpoque röpubli.caine O4ford Latin Dictionary H. Oppermann,(ed.j, Römische lhertbegrijb H. Malcovati, OralorumRomanorum FÄgircnta M. Pohlenz, Freedomin GreekLife and Thousht A. von Premerstein,RE iv. 23 ff., s.ü. Ctieäes Vom Werdenund Wesendesprii
A B B R H V I IAI ( ) N S S c h n e i d e r r, 9 7 4

I976 S c h u l z ,r 9 3 6 I 9 5I - 1953 S c u l l a r d ,I 9 7 3 Seager,r969 PompeT S h a t z m a n ,r g 7 5 S h e r k ,r 9 6 9 Sherwin-White, rg73 or.RC rg84 Simshäuser,r973 Smith, r95B Staveley,r97z Stockton, r979 SlrR Suolahti, rg55 S y d e n h a m ,r 9 5 z Syme,.RR 'l'aylor, r949 - 196o r 966 'l'reggiari, r969 Vetter, r953 Ward, r977 Weinstock,r97 r Whatmough, r937 Wilson, I966 Wirszubski,r95o W i s e m a n ,r 9 7 t W i s s o w a ,t g t z

xi

H. Schrreider, Wirtschaft und Politik: LlnterReder spritenrömischen suchungen
I THE FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLICl

l.'lhe respublira;establishmentofa monarchy by Augustus,for which the support ()l'senateand Equiteswas indispensable;the changeentailed no modification of the Republican classstructure, but though merely political, can properly be II. The 'mixed' r:alled a revolution, and had momentous consequences. monarchic nature of the t'onstitution of the Republic not purely oligarchical; imperium;the powers of the people.III. The people not representeddemocrati<:allyin the assemblies.Limits on their competence.The great influenceof the and *robility, not entirely explained by clientship. IV. The conflictsof populares optimatesfrom which the Principateissued.They were not partiesin the modern sense.No such parties could be formed at Rome; so too there were no large, durable factionswithin the nobility, basedon the ties of kinship and friendship (ties morally less binding than the claims of the patria and in practice often subordinatedtoindividual self-interest)and supportedbyfaithful clients.V. The and pamphletsappealing importanceofpublic opinion and thereforeofspeeches to public or sectionalinterests.VI. The nature of theseinterestsand correspond'fundamenta otiosae ing ideals. Libertas. Otium cum dignitate.VII. Cicero's dignitatis' expressgenerally acceptedobjectives;by realizing them Augustus irssuredthe stability of his new regime. VIII. The failure of the senateto solve problems arising from imperial expansion in such a way as to ensureenough t'ontinuingand activesupportfor its supremacy.The discontentsof the Italian ;rlliesand the Equites,which generatedthe great crisisof gr-82, memoriesof which were potent on the minds ofthe next decades.The discontentsofpeasants, rrrbanplebs,and soldiers,and the solutionsdevisedby Augustus.Relianceofthe senateon repression;the growth of violence;the overwhelming desirefor otium. IX. The effectson the courseof eventsat Rome ofindividual personalitiesand of rlevelopments outsidetheempire;the elementofcontingency;theimpossibilityof lilrnishing completehistoricalexplanations,especiallyfor a period of history for which adequateevidenceis lacking.

t l'or vr.rilicarion o1'rnanystatcmcnts in this cssaythe rcader is rclerred to'standard accounts of I t o r r r a n h i s t o r v : r t t d t h c R o m a t t < ' o l r s t i t u t i o t r .a l r d f o r d : l t e d c v c l l t s t o M R r R .

't'HE t A L l . ( ) r " t ' H t : R O M A NR l : , p u 8 t . t ( : I

N r04 Bc Rome madeor reneweda treatywith the little Greekcity of Astypalaea.The extant documentdesignates the High cont.u.ii.,g as the people."f and_"the people äf ertypuiu.u. lll,t:l Treaties,-like laws,were onry ofl?-.: binding effectoä i;;. iiupi.ou.a uy an assemblyof the citizens (n. g+). Howiver, in accordan.. ,.iiLnnormar usage the treaty had also been sanction.d by a decree oi it. senate (senat.us consultum), and appropriate executivä action, *fri.t, neither people nor senatecourd take, was committed to -ugit,.u,.r. Magistrateswere expectedto act 'e re publica fidequesua', inäccordance with the_interest.gf ,h. peopleand ihe trust repäsedin'them.i 'Res publica', as.Cicero observed,was literally the same as .res populi', and denoted primarily 'the property or concern of the peopre,; by an extensionof meaning it referräa ä the whole community, and is then best renderedas 'commonwealth';in somecontexts it -.y s.em convenient to translate it as, ,state', but it was orrly ,"ith ,ome embarrassmentthat cice ro could write ofa monarchical rispublica: with a single ruler, there could hardly be the participatio. ortt'e citizensin affairs of common concern which the teim naturally suggested.3 in th.e5osand 4osthe dominanceof pompei .;;-c;;r.r made ^.Already cicero complain that thi respubricawas lost: ciiizäns and above all senatorshad beendeprived of effectivepolitical rights. officiaiiy the res publicacontinued to exist as late asJustinian, who declared that he was upholding it (DeoAuctorer ), no dou6t becausehis imperial u.rlhority *u, still deemedto derivefrom agrant by the people (Dig.'i.3. ;). B;, under the PrinciFate men often thought'of the ,ä pitt;io ur" t. ,ir. ,yrt.- tt ut Augustushad finally overthrowi: it had come to mean the riepubric in contrastwith the imperial autocracy.whatever his success in ve'ilingthis autocracy from his contemporariesand making out that he *as siäply Rome's-leadingman (princeps),later generations"had no illusions.He had founded a. monarchy. As Tacitus pirt it, 'the politicar ori.. hud b.e' overturned (uerso ciaitatisstatu);.nothingremaineä of the sound practice of old times; abandoning equality, .uäyorr. awaited the orders of the Princeps'(Ann.i.4). 11 wäs chäracte.isticthat among Atrgustus'regar prerogativeswas that of corrcludingtreatieson behalf-of Räme. Of course,no single.mancould g"orr.r' an empire unaided. Senators, who in the Republi. no.-ail], ai*.i.a päf.y i; ;h; Jollective .h3d capacity, and executed it as individual magistätes u.ra p.o-ugistrates, werenow among the principal agentsand advisersof the emperoi tt ough

2 Sherk no. ß: FIRA i2. gt. t, 32. ' dr rep't' 39, ß' 48' Latin lacked a word to denote constitution or form ofgovernmen t (Art. vä. g. 4 used the Grcek politeia);hence makes do *rth ,e, priiira or rd p. status,which uneasiry embrace monarchy' on the meaning of^cicero respubrieastark, r 967, is' best; cr Brunt, Bibrioteca di Labeo,r ggr, z3g.

'HE,ALL

O F T H E R , O M A NR D P U B L I C

continuingrole as the great councilof statewasof dwindling tlrc senate's importance.Increasinglythe emperorsalsomade more useof Equitesin administrationand commandand in their own councils;in the Republic this order, secondin wealth and dignity to the senatorial,had already s()me,though a much smaller,sharein the work of government,holding junior commissionsin the army, judging cases,often political, at Rome, and undertaking public contracts,especiallyfor the collection of taxes. There was no sharp socialor economicdivision betweensenatorsand Equiteseither in the Republic or in the Principate.Senatorswere indeed excludedby law from participating in the public contracts,and this form of investmenthad attracted the most aflluent and best organizedof the Equites and had involved them in somedisputeswith the senate.It is, however,a fallacy to think that the entire equestrianorder constituteda 'business'class opposed to the 'landed interest' representedby the senators.The latter could also be involved in commerce,banking, and industry, but asland was the chiefsourceofwealth in what we may regard asthe'under-developed'economyof the ancientworld, it can be assumed rhat most members of both orders were primarily landowners. Most who ruled the Equiteswere probably municipal gentry, the dominobiles, peoplesof Italy, and whosenumber was swollenby the enfranchisement o[the former Italian alliesin the Bosand of the inhabitantsbeyond the Po in 49. They sharedthe sameeducation,culture, and aristocraticoutlook as the old Roman nobility; they mixed socially and intermarried with senators;they had the sameinterest in resistingany attack on property rights and in maintaining law and order. The conflicts that had arisen betweenthe ordersoverjudicial rights had beensettledby compromisein 7o. At all times,as senatorialfamiliesdied out, or disappeared,probably Iiom impoverishment,they were replacedby men of equestrianorigin, but at any given point, in the Principate as in the Republic, men of this type were in a minority, and were soonassimilated.In the Principate,it is true, humble citizenscould risethrough the army to equestrianposts,but they too acquired wealth in their rise, and their advancementdid not materially alter the character of the equestrianorder. The cruelty and greedof someemperorswere to alienatethe senate,but it can be shown that in suchcasesequestrianofficialswere no more reliable than senators as instruments of tyranny. Even the gradual introduction of provincials into both orders after Augustus' time did not transform the attitudes prevalent in either, since they were recruited from the upper class overseas, whoseideasand economicinterestsdid not divergefrom thoseof their Italian counterpartsand who readily absorbedthe traditionswhich thesehad passeddown.a a C f . c h . 3 a n d o n t h e E q u i t e si n t h e P r i n c i p a t eB r u n t , JRS t983,4t ff.

4

'l'Hl: ' l ' H t :R O M A NR l : P l j B l . l ( : fALl, ()l

W e c a n t h u s f a i r l y s a y t h a t a r u l i n g c l a s ss t i l l e x i s t c d , c o n t i t r u o u s with that which had operated in the Republic, though distinctly enlarged. 'whatever According to Syme, the form and name of government, an oligarchy lurks behind the faqade, and Roman history, Republican or Imperial, is the history of the governing class'.'The truth of the first of these statements is somewhat banal. It depends on defining oligarchy quite literally as the rule of the few. In any system relatively few men direct the affairs of state; in our own, fif,r instance, the leading members of the ruling party and the principal permanent officials, civil and military. None the less we call our system democratic, because these men are ultimately responsible to the representatives of the people and through them to the .electorate. Oligarchy naturally denotes government by a set of men, privileged by birth or wealth, who are responsible to themselves alone. In this sensethe senatorial order of the Republic is often thought to constitute an oligarchy; but this is to ignore or depreciate the powers of the people, which elected the magistrates, could occasionally bring them to accouni, and which at times was able to overrule the majority of the senate on issuesof policy. Syme's second statement is gravely exaggerated for the Republic. In the Principate substantial property was still requisite for both senators and Equites, and a high proportion of senators still consisted of men of hereditary status. However, they now depended not at all on the people, but wholly on the emperor. The senate as a body did little more than acquiesce in his decisions; individuals owed rank and promotion to his favour, and it was in his council that they might influence policy. There was no public decision, however trivial, that he was not free to make as he chose, and none of importance could be taken without disloyalty by anyone else, unless it had his sanction or was supposedly in accord with his wishes. In form each emperor was chosen by senate and people; in fact each could in one way or another determine the successionor, if he failed, a military coup was decisive. Some proclaimed their obedience to the laws, but they were not bound by existing laws and could themselves enact new ones. Prudence or principle might dictate respect for public opinion, .or at any rate for that of the ruling class, and most emperors, those whose formative years had been passed in a private station within that class,6 understood and commonly shared opinions prevalent among men who had once been their peers. However, so long as the emperor retained his lifelong power, he could not either in law or practice be brought to 'the Roman Revolution'differs altogether from Syme's, whose t RR 7. My interpretation of book none the lessfurnishesan unsurpassednarrative of events during Augustus' career. 6 A l l b e t w e e n6 8 a n d z r r e x c e p t D o m i t i a n , M a r c u s A u r e l i u s ,a n d C o m m o d u s .

't'Ht: t A L l . ( ) r ' l ' H l : R ( ) M A NR U P U B I . T ( :

5

account; at most hc might bc colrdcmncd and his acts reversed after 'l'he death, i{' his successor consentcd. property and lives of every individual subject, especially the most eminent, were exposed to the rapacity and suspicion of any ruler who was at once ready to exploit autocracy to the full and feared the effects of the hatred that he inspired. Only revolt or assassination could then give relief from oppresslon. Although Syme himself acknowledges that Augustus founded a monarchyT, he seems to see what he calls the Roman revolution as a transformation of the ruling class through the selection of Augustus' partisans at the expense of the old nobility. This may be questioned. 'noble' The term is reserved by Syme and most scholars to men whose ancestors in the direct male line had held the consulship (or magistracies of an early period equal or higher in dignity); in my view it can also be applied to the descendantsof praetors and curule aediles. Between eoo and {g four out of five consuls belonged to the former category and most of the rest were probably or certainly noble in the wider sense; men such as Marius and Cicero, who could boast of no senatorial forebears, could very seldom reach the highest office. It was ex-consuls, or rather those of most talent and industry, who as principes normally guided the deliberations of the senate. At all times the nobility, however it be defined, was, like the senate itself, gradually recruited from below, as old families were extinguished or fell into oblivion. The disappearance of these lamilies was quickened by the wars and proscriptions of the first century. It was therefore inevitable that from 49 the senate was composed to a greater degree than before of men of non-consular lineage and indeed of mere parvenus. Moreover, the greater part of the nobility espoused the losing side with Pompey or with Brutus and Cassius. They were naturally most attached to a system in which the senate had normally directed affairs, seeing that they dominated the senate. Men of equestrian and municipal origin were no doubt in general lessdevoted to a regime in which they had enjoyed much less power. It was in their number that Caesar, the triumvirs, and Augustus (initially at least) had to find most of their assistants, whom they were bound to reward. New men therefore had a much better chance of rising to the consulship and to the command of great armies after 49. However, once the generation of nobles who had fought to the last for the Republic had died out, Augustus allowed the names of ancient families to emblazon the roll of consuls almost as in the past; if he continued to use them lessthan new men in positions of high trust, it was perhaps becausehe was anxious to 7 RR, ch. xxxrn

,I'HH T A L I ,o I , I . H ER o M A NR I ] P I ] B L I ( :

I ' H T ]T A L L O F " I ' H } :R ( ) M A N R T ] P U B L I C

award thesepositionsto talent rather than birth. In the senateat large, scionsof families already consular by +g BC actually appear to be proportionately as numerous as in 55 nc; however, the data are äefective.Even if Augustushad to rely chiefly on new men in his ascent to dominance, he seemseventually to have been confident that his regime was acceptedby virtually the whole senatorial order.s We must not supposethat even men of equestrianand municipal origin were not affectedby the force of tradition, and by veneration for 'the ancestralinstitutions what Cicero could quite casuallydesignateas which the long duration of our empire validates' (Mur. 75)' Both Equites and numerous senatorsof undistinguished housesare found of Caesar,and those who subseamong the Pompeians,the assassins quentlyjoined their cause(ch. g n. I I7). In 44-+3 the senate,full as it was of Caesar's nominees, stood for the Republic against Antony, albeit hesitantly.Cicero has doubtlessexaggerated,but not entirely 'liberty' evoked in the towns of invented, the ardour that the causeof Italy, even in remote Cisalpina, where many owed their citizenship to Caesar.eWhole communitiesand hundredsof individualswere penalized by the triumvirs. Few of the proscribedwhosenamesare recorded were of noble families (ch. g n. IIB). Of coursethe triumvirs needed lands and cash for their troops, but it is a reasonableassumption that they selectedas the victims of sequestrationand proscription those prominent in the resistanceto Antony. After Philippi, for his own ends,L. Antonius proclaimed his intent to restorethe Republic (App.v. 30, 39, 4g,5d. The triumvirs themselves had assumedthe commission'reipublicaeconstituendae';in fact they ruled autocratically without performing their task, but both Octavian (v. r3z) and Antony (Dio xlix. 4r. 6, 5o. 7. r, 22.4) hopedto conciliate public opinion and gain an advantage in their contest for personal supremacy by promising to lay down their extraordinary powers. Octavian could also presenthimself as the champion of the old Roman

'mos maiorum' way of life against an orientalizing renegade,and included the Republican institutions.Moreover, even new men who had advanced by his patronage, once they had risen high in the ranks of the senate, might hope to see its authority revived rather than diminished. Hence Augustus thought fit belatedly to fulfil his earlier 'to undertaking, and in January 27 surrenderedthe commonwealth the free disposalof senateand people' (RG 34). Thereafter he was careful to observe as much of the forms of the old system as was compatible with his retention of ultimate control. The forms might seemmore important than they really were not only to the new men but to a new generation of the nobility: none knew from their own experiencewhat it had been to sit in the senatewhen the senatetruly directed affairs. The parvenu Velleius could actually eulogize Augustus for restoring 'that renowned ancient form of the commonwealth', noticing only one change-the creation of two new praetors h i p s( i i . B g . + ) ! There seems to be no reason to suppose that Caesar and his could put themselvesat the head of any party opposedto the successors Republic. Caesar'sadherentsin 49 included many who so bitterly detestedhis autocracy that they were to plot against his life or back the conspiratorslater. Some of the new men advanced by him or by the triumvirs and Augustus came from peopleswhich had rebelledin go or at any rate only been enfranchisedas a result of the rebellion. Syme supposesthat the former rebels continued to llurture resentment against Rome, or that this resentmentwas transmuted into animosity against the senate, which could have been held re.sponsiblefor oppressingthe Italians and frustrating their aspirations.l0This might not be surprising,but there is no hint of it in our sources.On the contrary newly enfranchisedcommunities, and their individual magnates,were among thosewho sufferedin the Republican cause(n.9). Nor do we find that Caesar, the triumvirs, or Augustus ever proclaimed a policy of promoting men of the type whose political

6

" Nobilitot:n. 54. Augustan consuls:Brunt, JitS I96r, 7I ff. My remarks on the composition of the senate are based on an analysis of the list of senatorsin 55 (not up to date) given by G. rom.,z1885,vol. ii, and that of Augustan senatorsin S.J. De Lae t' dela röpublique Willems, Le Sönat uandenRom. Senaat,rg4r. But the latter list has only 435 names, Presumably under De samenstelling halfof the true total, and the namesof men of high birth were probably most apt to survive. RR is a mine of information on the new men. In eo r4 the consular legatesof Nearer Spain, Dalmatia, and Syria were nobles; those of Pannonia and Moesia and the two-commanders on the Rhine under Germanicus were new men. In Syria, if we adopt Syme's list in RomanPapers,üi' 869ff., and include C. Caesar'sconsular advisers,there were 3 nobles out of8 between l3 oc and eo t4 (or 4 on my definition of nobilis,which would apply to C. Sentius Saturninus). The provincial Fastifor the reign are in generalvery incomplete, and it may well be that earlier the proportion of n o b i l e s w assm a l l e r .B u t i t w a s p e r h a p sa s y m p t o m o f t h e i r r e c o n c i l i a t i o n( T a c . , A n n .i . r ) t h a t M . Valerius Messala,who had fought with Brutus at Philippi, was Augustus' colleagueas consul in the year of Actium and moved the conferment on him in z nc of the title of paterpatriac. 9 S e ee n d n o t e r .

t0 R.R 86-94, 286 ff., 339, etc. Syme implies an interpretation of Italian aims in 9o incompatible with that given in ch. z below. Bruhns ch. vr demonstratesthat there is no reasonto believe that Italians initially favoured Caesarin 49. On their attitude in 43 seeendnote r. Ifthe municipalities marked out for veteran coloniesby the triumvirs had been among thoseprominent in opposition to Antony, we may note that of the IB first named the 7 identified by Appian were, except for Capua, all cities enfranchisedin or after 9o; similarly most of the placesin which the triumvirs are recorded to have settledsoldiersand thereforeresortedto confiscationsbelong to the same class.It is not significant that numerous individuals from formerly allied communities rose to eminenceunder Augustus, sincewe naturally do not know the namesofthose who were ruined by having taken the losing side, apart from a few personslike Staius Murcus already prominent enough to be mentioned among Republicans in the conflicts that followed Caesar'sdeath; cL ch. g nn. r r8 f. The most famous ofthose presumably connectedwith an insurgent leader ofgo, who rose in the service of Caesar and thc triumvirs, Asinius Pollio, seems to have had no idcological commitment to the anti-senatorial cause.

t ' H t :r A t . t ,( ) r ' t ' H r :R ( ) M A NR l : P U 8 l , l ( : ambitions had been thwarted earlicr by the arrogant cxclusivenessol' the nobility. If this was what they did, it was surely because it was in their ranks rather than in those of the nobility that they could discover the capacities and pliability that they required. We may think that these men gave their services not as members of a party, acting together for the deliberate transformation of Roman institutions, but as individuals who found themselves in a situation in which they could neither realize their own ambitions for some limited share in power nor render the state some service except by conforming to the will of a monarch. By adopting this course they did more than satisfy their own selfish desires for office, rank, influence, and riches; they responded to the common interests of the propertied class, and indeed of the entire free population of Italy. The Republican liberty which had enabled each section cf the community to contend for its own advantage had issued 'twenty in years of strife with no regard for custom and law' (Tac. Ann. iii. zB). Tacitus thought that Augustus won over everyone with'the sweetnessof tranquillity' (i. z). But this might not have been enough to ensure the stability of the new order, as memories of the miseries of internal conflicts faded; sentimental attachment to the Republic might have revived. It was stability that Augustus sought to achieve. He 'he expressed his wish in a proclamation that might be permitted to establish the commonwealth firmly and securely in its settled state and to reap thereby the fruit he desired, of being called the author of the best system, and of bearing with him in death the hope that the loundations of the commonwealth he had laid would remain unshaken'(Suet.,4zg. zB). For this purpose he had to contrive that his personal powers should be peacefully transmitted to a successor, but also to reconcile all those elements in the state whose disloyalty might shake it. He had to keep the urban plebs and the soldiery content, but above all to satisfy the interests and sentiments of the class whose collaboration was essential to the work of government: the armies themselves would remain loyal, if their generals and officers would, as in the mutinies of eo r4, preserve their fidelity. It was on this account that he observed Republicaa forms, so far as they were consonant with his ultimate control, making out that he had modified rather than overturned the old order. But every aspect ofhis policy is relevant to his general objective. As we shall see (section VII), he proved himself better able than the senate not only to secure internal peace and order but to fulfil all the ideals and aspirations which in the Republic had commanded the general assent of those who gave any thought to public affairs. The new regime was to be based not on the mere support of a faction of partisans whom he favoured, but on the more or

' l ' H l : r A l . l . ( ) t " r H l : R ( ) M A N R l : P t )B l . l ( :

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It:ssuniversal consent of all wltosc dis<'otttt:ntmight have jeopardized the settlement. Thus the establishment of the Principate entailed no radical change in the composition of the ruling 6lite, nor indeed any in the class structure , in a Marxist sensecrf class, for instance (to take one recent 'a group of persons in a community identified by their definition) position in the whole system of social production, defined above all according to their relationship (primarily in terms of the degree of ownership or control) to the conditions of production (that is to say, the means and labour of production) and to other classes'." Roman private law was developed in the Principate on thelasis of Republican institutions in the inteiest of the propertied class.l2 Senators, Equites, and municipal oligarchs formed a single class, preponderantly landowners, and in any case dependent largely, though not exclusively, on slave labour. In the century before Augustus many families of this class were exterminated or at least expropriated, but others took their place. Some large estates were broken up to make way for smallholders including veterans, but land was also found for the new settlers at the expense of other peasants; at other times the accumulation of acres by the rich had continued, as it was to do in the Principate. It is impfobable that there was any net increase in the number of srnall faÄers.13 The great slave revolt in Italy of the 7os did not for long reduce the extent to which slaves were employed. Under the new regime, though a few individual magnates were unjustly victimized by tyrannical emperors, property rights were on the whole safer than in the civil wars of the Republic. If the use of slave labour declined, this was a later and gradual process, commonly explained on the assumption that slaves became dearer as imperial expansion almost ceased and the supply of those enslaved in Rome's foreign wars dwindled; whether or not this hypothesis is well founded, juristic texts suggest that the economy still rested on slave labour as late as the early third century. To understand what the Roman revolution was not is important. But was there any revolution at all? This question has been recently debated in a waste of learned words best left in oblivion. In a Marxist sense there was none. But Marxists are no more entitled to dictate the usages of our language than the ficrms of our government. The word tt De Ste Croix, r9BI, 43. 12 WhatSchulz,r95r,544L,writesonthelawofhireisgenerallyapplicable.Cf.ch'rendnote 5 on execution for debt. 13 IM, ch. xtx. The huge estates of the late empire (massae)were surely the product of the continuing concenrration of landed property in a few hands, hidden from us in a period when political protest was impossible.My view of developmentsin the Principate and of the persistent importance of slavery is sketchedin Cherubini et al., rgBg, ii. 95 tr

ro

l Hl: lAl,l, ()l. l lll: R()NIAN Rl:Pl.iBl.l(:

'revolution'

is customarily cnrployed in Dnglish, As arc its equivalents i n o t h e r m o d e r n l a n g u a g c s ,t o d c n o t c a n y m o m c n t o u s c h a n g e , e v e n one accomplished gradually like the Industrial Revolution, and particularly any violent constitutional change. Thus we speak of the French 'Glorious Revolution of rB3o and of our own Revolution of r688'. Neither involved any modification in the social and economic structure. The latter, however, in setting bounds to the royal prerogative, secured a parliamentary government which, though for long aristocratic, peacefully evolved into democracy and the welfare state . Freedom broadened from precedent to precedent. The revolution consummated by Augustus was no less pregnant in consequences,as distant and as little imagined by anyone at the time as were those of the revolution of r688, but precisely opposite in their tendency. Mommsen, who attributed it to Caesar and who wrote as a nineteenth-century liberal, declared that an absolutist constitution 'give which did not play to the free self-determination of a majority of 'therefore citizens was incapable of development' and dead', only to 'the contradict himself by continuing that Roman absolute military monarchy . . . under the impulse of the creator's genius and in the absence of all material extraneous complications deuelopeditself more purely and freely than any similar state'. For proof he referred to Gibbon; perhaps he had chiefly in mind the epilogue to the third chapter, where Gibbon reflects that the happiness of Rome's subjects, secured (as he held) by the beneficenceofher rulers from eo 96 to rBo, 'depended was unstable, since it on the character of a single man'; there was no guarantee against the recurrence of an oppressive tyranny, and in fact (as the sequel showed) it did often recur. In Gibbon's view the misery resulting was exacerbated in two ways. Unlike the subjects of an oriental despot, the victims were still imbued with ideals of liberty and felt its loss 'with exquisite sensibility'. 'the Moreover, empire of the Romans filled the world', and its ruler experienced no restraint, unlike autocrats in Gibbon's time, 'from the example of his equals, the dread of present censure, the advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies', and there was no escape in foreign realms. It was no doubt in this sensethat the Roman monarchy 'extraneous was for Mommsen not fettered by complications'.14 To Romans of high station like Tacitus liberty had long proved incompatible with the Principate; if Nerva and Tiajan had reconciled them, the liberty they allowed was in reality precarious, as he surely perceived. Of course the liberty whose loss he deplored was chiefly or exclusively the right of men of high station to speak and write freely t a l l i i l . o l R o m cv , c h , x r ( E v c r y m a n e d n . i v . 4ro f).

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and to take an independent part in public affairs. But it was not only this kind of liberty that was eroded as the system developed. Liberty in Roman conceptions could also include the citizen's right to personal protection under the law and indeed to equal treatment in the courts. To say nothing o{'arbitrary punishments inflicted by emperors, mostly indeed on the eminent, these rights were extinguished when citizens were subjected to penalties varying with their social status, or finally reduced to serfdom. In principle there were no limits to. the exercise of absolute power, even though in practice the inefficiency of administration might frustrate enforcement of the emperor's decrees. It was not only in the centre that self-government was to vanish. The Republic left the cities of Italy and the provinces to manage their own affairs with little interference, and though from the first the cities were largely controlled by local oligarchies of birth and wealth, the common people often retained some political rights; gradually these disappeared, and ultimately the local oligarchies themselves were, in the general interests of the state as perceived by its master, reduced to being mere instruments of imperial will.15 How much restrictions on individual initiative and responsibility contributed to the marked absence of active patriotism in and after the third century, when it was once again needed to repel foreign attacks, must be a matter of speculation. The remedy that despotism devised to meet that crisis was ever more compulsion and regimentation, binding men and their children after them to any occupation which appeared vital for the survival of the empire. It is obviously still more hazardous to trace a connection between the disappearance of political freedom and thö dearth of novelty and inventiveness in literature, science, and technology; this was an age in which the knowledge of past achievements was ever more widely diffused, yet little augmented. Even in lawl6 and public administration there was little originality after the time of Augustus, and he and his contemporaries had themselves been formed in the Republic. Men were taught that the welfare of the state was safe in the hands of an all-wise monarch, and discovered that none the lesshis peace did not fulfil their search for spiritual peace (Epictetus iii. r3. g tr). They might seek consolation in philosophic creeds which depreciated all material blessings or in the hopes infused by irrational religions of perpetual sabbaths in another world; this turn of mind was surely prejudicial to secular progress. l5 See e.g. Jones, r94o, chs. vrrr and xr. There is no comparable account ofcities in the west (and relatively lessevidence), but thejuristic texts cited byJones are ofuniversal application. There had never been much local democracy in the west. l6 Cf. Schulz, rg53, gg, on jurisprudence under the Principate: 'the heroic age of creative genius and daring pioneers had passedaway with the Republic. Now their ideas were to be developed to the full and elaborated down to the last detail.' (cf. tz5).

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u l t i m a t c t r c n e l i c i a r yw a s ( l h r i s t i a n i t y . I t s f i r r a ls u ( ' c e s w s as alsoa b y - p r o d u c t o l ' t h e d e s p o t i c s y s t e m .B y c a p t u r i n g C o n s t a n t i n e a n d h i s successors,the faith of a minority conquered the western world, and this despite prolonged opposition in aristocratic circles. Guided by an intolerant Church, the emperors would now use their absolute powers to deny freedom of worship and to dictate the creed of their subjects. 'Cuius regio eius religio' was a principle that went back from the Treaty of Westphalia to the fourth century. At the same time the Church itself adopted internally the principle of monarchy; as Hobbes remarked,lT'the Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof'. Only in the continual conflicts of secular and ecclesiasticalauthority going back to Athanasius and Ambrose could freedom of a kind here and there emerge once more. But if the Principate progressively eroded freedom, it ended and assuaged the fearful wounds of civil war, which at one time or another gravely affected most of the provinces as much as or more than Italy itself, and which was to recur in only two brief periods (68-9, r%-7) in the next two and a half centuries. Contemporaries ofAugustus could visualize the collapse of state and empire, if internal concord were not to be re-established. In the event Roman dominion was also secure during the same stretch of time from serious foreign attack (except under Marcus Aurelius), and when such attacks came at last, accompanied by civil wars, it had the strength to hold out for many more 'immensa generations. The pacis Romanae maiestas' sheltered the continuance and diffusion of Graeco-Roman culture throughout its confines: in some parts of the west it was implanted so deeply that it could not be wholly uprooted even when the empire disintegrated. It may well be that this achievement was conditional on the readiness of local 6lites not so much to submit to Roman rule as to identify themselves with the rulers: they no longer had cause to consider themselves, as under the Republic, the subjects of an alien and oppressive power. As in other historical processes, gains offset losses. However we may strike the balance, the Roman revolution, though merely political, not touching.the social and economic structure of the empire, had momentous consequences both for good and ill.

II

If the Principate was a monarchy which upheld the existing social and economicstructure in the interest of the classfrom which the ruler t1

L e a i a l h a n ,< ' h . 4 7

't'HH l A l . L ( ) t " l ' H E R O M A NR t : P U B l , l ( : drew his advisers and assistants in the government, what was the regime it supplanted?

The Republic had no written constitution. Only the civil and criminal law had been codified in the fifth century BC; the extant fragmentsof the code show that it took existing political institutions for granted. One provision declared that whatever the people last com'entrenched' manded was binding; this meant that there were no constitutionalrules which the people could not change by statute.l8 by people, senate,or magistrateshad But few of the rights possessed been establishedor modified by statute: most rested on custom or 'constitution'isindeedbestrenderedby Cicero's tradition.le Our term 'the periphrasis: political order most wiselyinstitutedby our ancestors' (Sest.tg7), The Romans venerated tradition, but it was always evolving; it could actually be contendedthat changewas characteristicof it. When Pompey's opponents in 66 argued that the conferment of a great command on him would be an innovation contrary to ancestral practices, Cicero could reply that it was traditional to adopt new äxpedientsto meet ,r.* .-ätg.ncies.2o Hence what was constitutional could be a matter of controversy. The most recent practice could be challenged by resurrecting ancient precedents,and vice versa. This kind of uncertainty no doubt made it easierfor Augustus to represent his own innovations as a modification rather than the subversionof the old order. The system was, moreover, finely balanced: the rights of people, magistrates, and senate, if pressed to the uttermost, would lead to breakdown; and the balance depended on some degree of social harmony, which was dissipatedin the late Republic. In tlrt hundred and fifty years before r33 the direction of affairs ordinarily belongedto the senate.Cicero could claim that constitutionally the senate had been placed in charge of the state with the magistratesas its virtual ministers; the senateought indeed to respect 1 8 X I I T a b l e s ( F I R A i 2 .p p . 2 3 t r ) , x r r . 5 ( = L i v y v i i . r 7 . r z ) , c f . n . 5 : ; c h . 6 n n . 9 ; 1 6 6 . T h e only other surviving references to political institutions are tx. I and 4. 1 e E v e n t h e c i v i l l a w o f t h eX l l T a b l e s w a s b r o u g h t u p t o d a t e n o t s o m u c h b y n e w s t a t u t e s a s by the actions taken by the praetors in virtue of their impcrium;by creating new remedies they in fact made new law, supplementing and even setting aside that ofthe code (seeJolowicz-Nicholas, rg72, g'i ff ) . No doubt they acted by the advice of a consilium(Schulz, t 946, 5z) of notables,and they could have been restrained by consulsor tribunes iftheir innovations had not accordedwith the public interest (as seen by their own class).Normally innovations were incorporated in the praetor's largely tralatician edict. Many provisionsin the XII Tables had without being repealed fallen by custom into abeyancein later times (e.g. rrr. 5 f., vur. t, 18, zr, z3 f.); other legescould a l s o f a l l i n t o d e s u e t u d e( e . g .c h . 6 n . 6 o ) . 20 Livy iv.4; Cic. deinp. Cn. Ponp.6o. Cf. dc rep.ii. z (citing Cato), 3o, 37; Polyb. vi. ro. r3 on the long constitutional evolution at Rome.

t4

l H l : F A t . t . ( ) t " t ' H t : R ( ) M A N R t : P t .Bi t . t ( :

the freedomand interestsol'the commons,but he allots them no more than a passiverole.Nominally this body of ex-magistrates sittingfor life and incorporating political experiencewas a council summoned by magistratesto tenderadvice,and its decreestook the form of recommendations; in reality the magistratescould be expectedto comply with their will. It is not necessary to enumeratethe specificpowerswhich it had acquiredby custom,someof which will appearlater: therewas no matter of stateon which it could not claim to be consulted,and as the peoplecould act only on the initiative of magistrates,it could through them exert its influenceon popular decisions.As we have seen,it was itselfdominatedby the nobility. Sallustviewedthe regimeasoligarchical: a few men, whom he more or lessidentified with the senateaswell as with the nobility, monopolized power for their own advantage; the commonswere too little organizedto resist.2rModern writers usually accepthis conceptionof the systemas oligarchical,whether or not they are so ready to condemn the policies pursued. Polybius, however, who lived at Rome in the heyday of senatorial ascendancy,did not agree. He was well aware of the great power the senateenjoyed. He emphasizesits supervisionof public finance and of affairsin Italy, and its responsibilityfor Rome'sdiplomatic relations (vi. r 3), which his narrative continually brings out. He points to certain ways in which the senatecould bring magistratesand peopleinto conformity with its will (vi. r5, r7).He admits that Greeksin generalregardedit as supreme(vi. r 3. 9) . But he contendsin effectthat this conceptionwasonesidedand that his own familiarity with Roman institutionsenableshim to correct it. He adopted the view long ago propounded by Greek theorists that the bestattainableconstitution,howeverit fell short of the ideal, was one in which monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic elementswere mixed or balanced.Such systemswere characterizedby complexity and durability, both featuresmanifestin the Roman. Polybiusconcludedthat the Roman constitutionwas mixed.22The senateformed the aristocratic element,aristocraticand not oligarchic,sincefor Polybiusoligarchswere men ofbirth and wealth who abusedpower for their own advantage(vi. 4. 3, 6. 8), whereasthe senatorsowed their positionto having beenelectedto magistraciesfor their servicesto the state ( r +, g) . The monarchicelement was suppliedby the consuls,the democraticby the assemblies (rr, rz). Cicero was to adopt a somewhatsimilar view. Without analysing 21 Cic. ,Sesr.r37; Sall. BJ 4z f., etc. 22 Complexity:vi. 3 . 3 , r r . r r - r 3 . L o n g e v o l u t i o n : n . z o . O n t h e t h e o r i e so f P o l y b i u s a n d Cicero see most recently W. Nippel, Mi.schaerJassungslheorie u. Verfassungsrealität in Antikc u. lrüher Neu4il, tg&
,I'HH,ALL

OT

'I'HT] ROMAN REPUBLIC

r5

the functionsof the different organsof government,as Polybiusdid, in order to show how one operatedas a check on another, he detecteda balance between the potestasof the magistrates, the auctoritasof the senate or leading men, and the libertasof the people, by which he certainly meant not only the protection of their personsbut some degreeof participationin political decisions(derep.ii. SZ);still, the duty of the magistrates was to conform to the will of the senate, and the system could work only if the people's share in power was largely specious(pp.gz+ff). In fact Polybius too recognizedthat the aristocratic elementpredominated(vi.5r, xxiii. r+.r). Was not the mixed constitution then essentially a sham? So Tacitus presumably conceived, in writing that 'All nations or cities are governed either by the people or the chief men or a monarch; a political system based on a selection and combination of these elements can more readily be commended than come into existence,or then long endure.' (Ann.iv. gg.) By contrast Polybius and Cicero evidently held that the balancethey discernedin the systemcontributed to that harmony, ensuring stability, which in Polybius' view had assistedRome to come through the crisisof the Hannibalic war, and which Cicero'sideal statesmanwould contrive to restoreand maintain (derep.ii. 69). In the late Republic the consensuswas indeed dissolved;none the less,an examination of the institutions in which Polybius and Cicero had seen monarchic and democratic factors at work may help us to understand the constitutional preconditions for revolutionary change. It must seem paradoxical that Polybius viewed the consulshipas a monarchic element. True, the Romans themselvessupposedthat the imperiumwhich the consuls(and someother magistratesand promagistrates) possessed, essentiallya discretionary power to do whatever the publiC welfare required, had been transmitted to them without restriction from the kings.23 Polybius noted (vi. rz. z) that they were supreme over all other magistrateswith the important exception of the tribunes. This was a half-truth. In practice the multiplicity of public businessat Rome precluded them from regular interference in the functions of inferior magistrates,and in particular with the jurisdiction of the praetors,and if they had a theoretical right to give directions to promagistrates governing provincesand commanding armies, which somedeny, it fell into desuetude.Moreover, as the office was collegiate,each consul was subject to the veto of the other, as well as to that of any of the ten tribunes. They were bound by oath to obey the laws, which included 23 Cic. de rep.ü. 56; Livy ii. r. 7 f (accepted by Mommsen, dogmatically rejected by Ogilvie ad loc.).

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restrictionson their powcr to condcmn citiztns trr dt:ath and other 'I'hough hglyv penalties,2a thcy c'uld '.r be arraigned for iltegatity while they held imperiun,their renurewas for on" y.ui only, unlesithey were proroguedin military command or civil governmentoutsidethe city by the people, or from the time of the Hannibalic war by the senatealone; and once they had demitted imperium,they couid be brought to account before the people or a court constituted by the people (p.zo). For the resr of their lives thev would mostlv hoid no further office. But they continued to sit in the senate. Tireir most permanentinterestwas thereforeto exalt the authority of that body, in which they could hope to exerciselong-lastinginfluence.This consideration would surely have enhancedthe deferencewhich a consul might generally be expectedto feel for the opinion of his peers,but if he wäre recalcitrant, the senatecould often restrain him thiough the agency of his colleagueor of the tribunes. However, the senatehad no executivepower; it could exert its will only through the magistrates,especiallythe consulswhen they were in Rome. Thus in timesof turbulence from l z r the senatewould call on the magistratesto seeto it that the commonwealth came to no harm. Though this decreecannot have had any force in strict law, it gave the magistratesthe strongestmoral support, if in coercing and pünishing 'seditious' citizens they paid no regard to the right-of triil by auä processof law or to tribunician vetoes. Impeached for such action, opimius, the consulof r 2 r, was acquitted by the centuriateasse mbly in which the well-to-do, attached to the maintenance of ordei, preponderated. This was a precedent of moment. Thereafter no one denied in principle that the magistrateshad extraordinary powers in a state of emergency declared by the senate, though it coüld still be argug$ that particular circumstancesdid not justify such a declaration.25 But ii was uselessto declare it, if the ä.rr,rtr were present in Rome but not in accord with it; or rather it was impossible,as the senatecould not even frame a decreewithout their consent.26Thus 'sedition' could not be repressedir 59, when the consul caesar was its 2a An oath to obey the laws was a precondition of assumingoffice (Livy xxxi. 5o. 6 f.); at the e n d o f t h e i r t e r m m a g i s t r a t e s s w o r e t h a t t h 6 y h a d d o n e s o( C i c . F a n . " . z . 7 i , ^ r i t u J l s t i l l o b s e r v e d by Trajan (Pliny, Paneg.65).For laws oflate Republic that required an oäth ofcompliance fnrm senatorsas well as magistratessee ch. z App. rv; cf. Cic. Att. ii. r8. z. " caes.8ci.7; salt.car.z9; opimius,GCrzo.ciceroarguedthatacitizeninarmsagainst the state had forfeited citizen rights (Cat. lv. to). Popularescoull hold that persons in custody werc entitled to trial. This was the basis of the charge against Rabirius in 63 and of ciodius' persecutionofCicero: neither the .9Cz/1.nor the decreeprocured by Cicero froÄ the senatefor the execution ofthe Catilinarian conspirators (the senatenot being a court oflaw) was a defenceof his procedure. All the evidence is discussedby Baron ungern-sternberg von pürkrl, urtrrr. 1u, spätrepublikanischm Notstandsreeht, r c17 o. 26 See endnote z.

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b'ALL()l"l'Htl R()MAN RIPUBL|C

t7

author, or in 58, when the consulshad made a pact with the tribune Clodius. In any event the assumptionof unrestrictedpower by the consuls in emergenciesdoes not mean that the consular prerogative was normally monarchical. Polybius' view was no doubt based on the position of the consul or proconsul as army commander or provincial governor. He then had life-and-death authority over soldiersand most subjects.There was no colleagueor tribune to interfere. He was hardly accountable to public opinion at Rome, or to be restrained except by his own conscience.2T He might on his return be impeached for violations of law, but the chances that charges would be both preferred and successfulwere probably not high, unless his misdeeds were peculiarly heinous. Polybius notes that he was still subject to control by the senate, in that it could grant or withhold money and supplies,and approve or refuseprolongation of his tenure and the coveted honour of a triumph (vi. r5). But spaceand time foiled closesupervision. Only the people in theory could make war and treaties.In practice the senateusually decided issuesof foreign policy which were referred to Rome. Yet the commander in the field had a wide discretion. He might destroy a hostile community or receiveits surrender on terms of his choosing.2sHe could admit a neutral people to the friendship of Rome,2e and Rome, or her generals,*herr it seemed expedient, would then construe an attack on her friend's interests as an attack on her own. He could also negotiate a peace treaty: it required ratification at Rome, and if it were humiliating, it might be repudiated; but the authority of a victorious general was usually potent enough to secure acceptanceof the provisions he had agreed to.3o The senate would appoint ten legates to assistand guide him in the settlementof an area which Rome had taken under her administration or protectorate, but the victorious general commonly had his 21 Cic. qr.7r. i. r. zz: in Asia'tanta multitudo civium, tanta sociorum, tot urbes, tot civitates unius hominis nutum intuentur, ubi nullum auxilium Isc. oftribunes] est, nulla conquestio,nullus senatus,nulla contio'; A."fr.i.z. illustratesthe arbitrary conduct of Q. Cicero, which did indeed generateprotestsat Rome from thosewho had accessto personsofinfluence there. Verres, whose conduct was incomparably more outrägeous,disregarded,allsuch representations,yet was twice prorogued. Ofcourse governors could be charged on return with repetundae, maiestas, or peculatus, but the courts were often biased or venal; and the chance of conviction might depend on extraneouspolitical circumsrances. 28 When- the senate rejected the treaty that M. Marcellus (ros. r5r) had negotiated with Celtiberians (the people, as usual, was not consulted), he accepted their dzditioon terms similar to the treaty, and his successor,though avid for war, could not undo his action. (App. Iber. 4B-5o; Polyb. xx. 9. ro f.). 2e E. Badian, JR.S 1952, 76 ff., for the Achaeans in r98. 'u eg.treatieswithcarthageinzozandzor,withPhilipVinrgT,andwithAntiochusinrsg. The casein n. z8 is exceptional; pacts with Numantia in r37 and withJugurtha in r rz and r r r were d isavowed as shameful

18

T H EI . A L Lo r T H E n , o M A NR T P U I L I C

way in the end, if there were dissensionbetweenhim and any of the I legates.3 Most wars were undeclared,resulting lrom what were taken to be acts of aggressionby a foreign ruler or people against Rome or her alliesor friends.Many were initiated on such pretextsby commanders in the field. The governor was not to make war or lead his forces beyond his province without the prior sanction of senateand people, but theserestrictions,reaffirmed by a law moved by Caesarin 59, were often violated and hardly practical. Roman frontiers were not always clearly marked, and beyond them there were often predatory barbarian tribes. A governor might well be justified in conducting 'hot pursuit' of such tribes after an incursion, nor was it easy for those at Rome to seewhether he had invented pretexts for a war, and really provoked it out of desire for booty and a triumph. In Spain, north Italy, and Macedon, new wars and extensionsof Roman territory often came about in this way. Caesar'sconquest of Gaul is only the most salientinstance.32It was in the processthat the army which enabled him to make himself master of the state had been hardened, and its allegiancesecuredby his liberality and charismatic prestige. Of courseCaesarwas lessinhibited in violating his own law because he and his political associateswere dominant at Rome. Moreover, like Pompey in 67 and 66 he had received an extraordinary long-term command from the people. The holders of such commands were independent of the senate.It was in this capacity too that they could build up a military power of their own with which to put pressureon the senate or to defeat it in armed conflict. The extraordinary commands of the Republic furnished the precedentsfor the grant to Augustus of the provincesin which most of the legionswere stationed. His consular imperiumwas the legal basis for his continuing military might (though it was also by military might that he had first obtained it), and as he kept it for life and had no colleague,imperiumonce again came to be truly monarchical, irresponsible,and unchecked. Thus Polybius was percipient and prophetic in detecting a monarchic element inherent in the consulship,or rather, in the consular imperium. This is no lesstrue of his valuation of the powersof the people, which in his own day was geherallyacquiescentin senatorialrule.33 3r SeePolyb.xviii.45,47;Livyxxxviii.44-5ofordisputesofFlamininusandManliusVulsowith his legates.Flamininus'policy was adopted in the end, and Vulso's retroactively endorsedby his triumph. 32 Aggressions by generals: Livy *lii. GC 63L, 86. 7-9, 2t f.; App. Iber. 48-55,59f, Restraining laws: J.RS t974,2o2; Cic. Pri. 5o. Caesar: Brunt, Zazs Inperii, r78ff. " For what follows on the powers of the people cf. Finley, 1983, chs. 4 and 5; F. Millar, JRS 1984, I ff.; both question if the Roman systemwas narrowly oligarchical. Millar, with whom I agree in general, is rather too much impressed by forms, and fails to bring out how little the people affected foreign policy and imperial administration in Polybius' time.

, I ' H }}:' A L LO T ' T H IR : O M A NR H P U B L I C

19

His analysisis no doubt very delbctive. He concentrateson formal rightsexercised,as all his readerswould assume,by assemblies meeting at Rome in which all citizens could vote. They alone could elect magistrates, decideon peaceand war, try political offenders,and enact new laws (vi. r4). What did theserights really amount to? At elections,though it could be claimed that the peoplewas free to choosewhom it would (ch. 6 n. r r4), candidateshad to be men of wealth. Most of those returned to the highest officeswere nobles; the reasonsfor this will be examined later. Nearly all were ready to defer to the senate'scollective will. Still, in times of popular discontent the electorswould return men prepared to defy the senate.The allocation of provinces to those elected was ordinarily a matter in part for the senate,in part for agreementamong the magistrates.But the people would at times insist by clamour or through legislation that a particular magistrateof its own designationshould be appointed to a particular command. It wasin this way that ScipioAemilianussecured commands against Carthage and Numantia, and Marius in the Jugurthine and Cimbric wars.Even in suchmattersthe peopleretained sovereigntyin the last resort. Questionsof war and peace were often referred to the people, and even debatedbeforethem, but there is no casein which the peoplein Polybius' time effectively overruled the will of the senate;indeed once a war had begun, a proposal for peace,so far as we know, was never submittedto the assemblywithout the senate'sprior sanction.A treaty not approvedby the peoplewas not binding on it; none the lessthe socalled treaty with Gades, made by an officer in the field and later confirmed by the senate but not by the people, was not the only instance of its kind.3n It was the senate too that most commonly granted privileges such as 'freedom' to provincial cities, and Polybius atteststhat it handled relationswith the Italian allies.Not indeed that the senäteitself was in full control of all affairs overseas;as we have seen,generalscould on their own initiative launch wars, end hostilities, and accept obligations to new 'friends' of Rome, which might thereafter be treated as commitments of the state. None the less,the formal sovereigntyof the people in foreign relations was frequently observed, and from the time of the Gracchi onwards the people could therefore be invited to exerciseit againstthe will of the senate.Whereasit was in the senatethat the policy of destroying Carthage'slast remnant of power was discussedand decided,it was popular initiatives that forced on war ä outrance againstJugurtha. The Gracchan agrarian law also 34 Cic. Balb.37; cf. Brunt, CQrg\c, rg7 tr.

2()

. I ' H ET A L L( ) T ' T H C R O M A NR S P U I L I ( :

disturbed relationswith the Italian allies and rhercby led on ro the movesof Fulvius Flaccusand Gaius Gracchus to extend the Roman citizenshipby popular legislation. The peoplehad important powersofjurisdiction. In Polybius' time it was the law that every citizen (unlesson military service)could appeal to the centuriate assemblyagainst capital sentencesimposed by a magistrate. Within the city the tribunes could enforce this right by interposing againsta magistratewho sought to disregard it. Moreover, the tribunes had acquired the competence to bring capital charges themselvesbefore the centuries,and chargeson which the penalty was a fine beforethe tribes. Once they were out of office,(ormer magistrates who had violated the citizen's right of appeal or to whom any other offence could be imputed were thus liable to impeachment before the people. It seemsto me virtually certain that in practice, before Gaius Gracchusreinforced the right of appeal, it was not available to persons prosecuted for common crimes, who were given a fair trial by a magistrate with his consilium: on the other hand it was normally unsafe for magistrateseven to attempt to try and sentencemen accusedof political offenceswhich carried a capital penalty. These were brought not on appeal but in the first instance, before the people (cf. ch. 4, section VI and ch.6, section XI). When Polybius assertsthat the people determines all casesinvolving a heavy fine, especially those brought against men who had held high office, and can alone impose the death sentence(vi. r4), it is political trials that he must have in mind, as is only natural, given that his theme is the political balance of the constitution. But the people'spower of jurisdiction meant that magistrateswere accountable to the people. Even if prosecutionswere brought or procured by aristocratic enemiesof the defendants,it was the peoplethat sat in judgment. This was not simply a guaranteeof the private rights of citizens,who were in consequencelesslikely to suffer from wrongdoing by magistratesthan Italian allies or other subjects:it was a weapon by which the people might make the magistrates attentive to its will. The constitutionby the peopleof ad hoccourts to try men accusedof bringing dishonouror disasteron the state,as under the Mamilian law of ro8, servedthe same purpose,when they were composedof Equitesand not of senators,who tended to be partial to their peers.From the late secondcentury it became the practice to set up standing courts for the trial of certain statutory offences,and once theseexisted trials before the people went out of vogue. But except in the decadeafter Sulla'sdictatorshipthesecourts, to which the people delegatedits capital jurisdiction, also consistedentirely or mainly of jurors; senatorswere not to be accountableto members non-senatorial of their own order alone.

'l'H[,

I'ALL Or

'l'H

]: R()MAN R[:Pr.i8Lt(]

2l

Legislation was relatively infrequent. In the century before the Gracchi most of it was probably promoted at the desireof the senate, where debate, if it were controversial,would have taken place. Still, Flaminius' agrarian law of z3z, which Polybius, no doubt reflecting aristocratic recollectionsin his own time, regarded as ominous of future demagogiccorruption of the people (ii. zr. B), and the Claudian law of zrB (p. r73), restricting the commercial activity of senators,passed against the will of the senate.These may not be the only cases.Livy's narrative of internal eventsbetweenzlB and r67 is very defective;he records some laws which must have been more controversial than he reveals,and ignores altogether others like the Cincian law of zo4 (ch. B n. ro9) and the Porcian laws on appeal to the people (pp.ggr f.), almost certainly of this period, which served the interestsof common folk and cannot have been pleasing to the rich and noble. He says nothing too of the law restricting holdings of public domain land (App. i. B), which Tiberius Gracchus was to implement by distributing it among the poor; most scholarsassumethat it had been enacted after the Hannibalic war, and certainly Livy's failure to record it is no proof that it can be identified only with the attestedbut perhapsunhistoric Licinio-Sextian law of 367." The Gracchi had their immediate precursors in tribunician agitators against conscription and in the authorsof ballot laws, two of which precededTiberius' tribunate.36If the people had been for the most part quiescent in the previous century, it was perhaps partly becausethey were absorbed in foreign wars,"' partly becausethe discontentsexpressedby the Gracchi were the result of a gradual process,and partly, as Sallust says (BJ 4r), because their strength was unorganized until determined leaders emerged from the ruling class. In any event the legislativeprerogative of the people was undiminished.Most laws were proposedby tribunes.The tribunate had been instituted in the early Republic to protect the commons against the senate, then dominated by the patricians, of whom the nobility, includirts great plebeian families, were the successors in power. It was to perform this function that the tribunes had acquired both legislative initiative and a veto on the official acts of magistrateswithin Rome, and even on decreesof the senate (which magistratesmight otherwise 3s For non-controversiallegislation seen. 38: it included the measuresfor land settlementfrom 2oo to r73, which Livy sometimesrefersto a /rx, sometimesto a SC, sometimesto both; like other ancient historians he cared little for formalities: both were surely required (Millar, JR.9 r984, 7 f., needsmodification). Finley, r983,98, lists some possibly controversial measuresmentioned by Livy. :'': L R . T a y l o r , J . R S 1 9 6 z , 1 9 f f . ; c f . c h . 6 n . r o 3 . Sall. ilrot. i. Iz; it was a commonplace in annalistic accounts of the conflicts between patrir:iansand plebeians that they flared up in times ofrelative peace.

22

.I'HD

IALI. OI..I'HI: ROMAN RDPT]EI.I(:

have been expectedto carry out).'l'he tribunate thus becametraditionally a bastionof popular liberty, that is to say not only the freedom of ordinary citizenslrom arbitrary oppression,but their right to share in the control of the state. In Polybius'time indeed the tribunes,often themselvesnobles,commonly acted as convenientinstrumentsof the senatein promoting legislationit desired-orimpeding magistrateswho did not render it customaryobedience.38 But their original role was not forgotten. Polybius said that in exercisingtheir veto they were 'to aim at doing what the peoplewished'(vi. 16.5).On such occasions, when they could not consult the people, they were to judge for themselveswhat the people'swish was. Their negative voice was decisivejust because they were deemed to personify the people. It would then be a constitutional solecismif they were to use the veto actually to deny the people an opportunity to express its will in legislation when the opportunity was offered.Hence in 195 under strong popular pressure, two tribunes abandoned the intention of vetoing the abrogation of the Oppian law (Livy xxxiv. 5. r ), and in r BBother tribuneswere induced to withdraw a veto on the bill to enfranchisethe citizens of Arpinum, Fundi, and Formiae,on the ground that it was for the people,not the senate(which presumablydisapproved),to grant voting rights as it pleased(Livy xxxviii. 36). ln tg7 a veto on a ballot law was similarly withdrawn (Cic. Brut. gZ). In r33 Tiberius Gracchus had probably departedfrom constitutionalpracticein proposingthe distribution of public land without consultingthe senate,but Octaviuswas guilty of a graver impropriety in seekingto hinder the tribes from voting on the proposal. Gracchus is said to have implored him 'not to frustrate the earnestwishesof the people, to which as a tribune he should properly yield'. Gracchus'depositionof Octaviuscould be assailedasa violation of tribunician sacrosanctity,but he could reply that a tribune who maimed the assemblyby robbing it of its freedom to vote was no true tribune . Few attempts were made later to veto bills which manifestly had overwhelming popular support. In ro3 (?) the tribune Norbanus overrodea veto by mob violence (a coursethat otherswould follow): years later he was prosecuted for maiestas,and M. Antonius as his counselassertedthat all magistrates'ought to be in the power of the Roman people' and that Norbanus was justifitd in adopting any means to enforcethe will of the whole citizen body. In 67 Gabinius threateneda colleaguewho sought to veto the bill investing Pompey with command against the pirates with thc fate of Octavius; Cicero, 3 8 B l e i t : k c n ,r q . r r r ,i s c x h a r r s l i v ro r r t r i l r r r r r i c i i r rl cr g i s l ; r t i o na r r < o l l l r r . ri r l t i v i t v ' z { 1 7 1 3 . t .

'I'HE

FALL OF'l'Hll ROMAN REPUBLIC

23

who like Antonius could fior fiorensicpurposesflout his own principles, upheld his action on the ground that the voice and will of a singleman should not prevail againstthat of the entire people (ch. 6 n. r57). Like Antonius he too could recall the early secessions of the plebs to show that force was warranted in the cause of popular freedom or sovereignty. It was a consummationof popular ideologywhen Clodiusby a law of 58 remo-v-ed virtually all the legal limitations on that sovereignty ( c h .6 n . r 5 8 ) . 3 ' The legislative proposals made by the Gracchi as tribunes set the revolutionary processin train. From their time to Sulla's, tribunes continuedintermittently to challengesenatorialcontrol of the statein the name of the people. Having becomemasterof Rome by force, Sulla thought it a sufficient check on the people's power to deprive the tribunes of their right to introduce bills, at least without the prior sanctionof the senate,to curtail their right of veto, and perhaps to debar them from bringing impeachments before the assembly (ch. 6 n. r34). But hc did not strike at the legislativeinitiative of consuls,and in 7o Pompey and Crassusin that capacity could carry a law that restored the full tribunician power. Once again tribunes became the instruments for asserting the people's sovereignty. A chain of events connectsthe law of the tribune Gabinius in 67 with the civil wars in which the Republic finally collapsed.Of coursethe Gabinian law was among those which in reality built up the power of dynasts like Pompey. None the less it was not enacted just to satisfy Pompey's inordinate ambition. It was demanded by the people, and was necessary in the public interest. III

It is then a mistake to depreciate the constitutional rights of the people. It is far more debatable whether, as Polybius held, there was a truly democratic element in the Roman polity. What is meant by 'the people'? Even in Polybius' day there were some 4oo,ooo adult male citizens, who could not possibly have been bro^ught together in a single voting place nor accommodated in the city.4u Many of them already livcd at a considerable distance. In order that they should have an opportunity of attending assemblies,three weeks' notice of meetings ;rnd their agenda had, very properly, to be given; this meant in itself to (:ic.deoral.ü. 1 6 7 ,r 9 9 ;A s c o n .7 2 , 7 6 C . , t e x t s w h i c h m a k e i t p l a u s i b l e t h a t P l u tT. i . G r . r 5 .rrrrI App. i. r z preserveauthentic reports of Gracchus' case. Livy v. zg. 6 f. probably reflectsthe ' l)ntr()vcrsy(conlraOgilvie ad hoc.). '" IM ch. v; L. R.'Iaylor, r966, ch. rrr, estimatesthat there was room for at most 7o,oooin the ( l . r r r r p uM s artius.

2+

' l ' H l :r A L L O l " l ' H l : R ( ) M A NR t : P l . , B L l ( :

that the peoplecould nevertake emergcncydecisions.alMeetingswerc rare, and the peoplewas never able to exercisethat superintendence of everyday affairs which was vested in the assembly of democratic Athens. Nor could poor men afford to travel many days' journey to Rome, leaving their farms or shops. The ertfranchisementof Italy made it only marginally more ludicrous to regard a primary assembly at Rome in which theoretically all citizenswere entitled to vote as the true voice of the people. The Roman practiceofdividing the citizensinto groupswith the effect that a majority was composednot of heads but of thesegroups might conceivablyhave provided a remedy. In fact it did not.a2For the tribal assemblywhich elected the tribunes and enacted nearly all laws, the citizenswereregisteredin thirty-five local constituencies calledtribes,four within the city of Rome, and thirty-one without. Probably in early times the urban voterswereunder-represented, while the'rural' tribes,ofwhich there were originally only seventeen,with areascloselysurrounding the city, were more or lessequal. But as Roman territory extended,even to very remote parts of Italy, some but not all of these tribes received exclaves,and fourteen additional tribes were progressivelycreated, the last two in z4t, with areasmuch larger and a far greaterpopulation than thosestill purely suburban.After 9o the new Italian citizenswere more or lessarbitrarily distributed among the existingtribes, with no attempt to introducea greaterequality betweenthem. Hencea majority of tribeswas by no meansidentical with a majority of citizens. Electionsto the higher magistracies,questionsof war and peace,and capital trials were for the centuriate assembly.Here the people were divided into voting units, centuries,on the basisof property and age as well as tribal registrations.There were rg3 centuries.Of these rB belonged to those Equites to whom the censorshad given a public horse, 70 to the first property class,one for iuniores(aged rB to 44), and (aged 45 and over) for each tribe. The second class one for seniores contained 20 or 25 centuries.If among thesecenturies97 concurred, they constituted an absolute majority, and no other classeswould be called to vote. This was true even in elections:a candidate was returned once he had an. absolute majority. The very poor, who probably composed almost half the citizen body as early as the Hannibalic war, still more later,43voted last and thereforein practice not at all, unlessthe issuewere to be decidedby a singlecentury. 4 r A . W . L i n t o t t , C Q 1 9 6 5 ,z 8 r f f . a2 I ignore the curiate asemblywith its purely lormal functions and the distinction between the tribal conciliumplebis,from which thr ft'w patricians were excluded, and the eomitiatributa, in which they could vote. For thc tribcs stc <'h.6 n. r6q; on thc ccnturiate assemblyibid. nn. r6z-4 with "*t; , 1 6 4 8 . N . r D i , n y s i u s i r ' . r 8 . , . r ,v i l . r r r 1(.i .

' l H H r A t , l ,( ) r ' t ' H FR: ( ) M A NR I ; P U B L I ( '

25

'l'hcrc

is some reason to believe that the well-to-do would attend rnet:tingsof this assemblyfrom all parts of Italy, at any rate for the irnnual elections:aa hence,if we ignore the distortionsproducedby the inequality of tribes and the disproportionatevoting power of older citizens, commonly no doubt the most conservativeof their own class, it was not wholly unrepresentativeof men of property. Equally it was not in the least democratic.It is no doubt the peoplein this senseof which Polybius was thinking when he suggeststhat the senatecould keep it under control by its right to vary the terms of public contracts in which 'nearly everyone'had an interestand becausesenatorshad a monopoly of deciding the most important civil suits in the courts (vi. r 7). Poor men have no money to investand no resources for litigation. 'lhe timocratic characterof the centuriateassemblymakesit easierto understandwhy it was ready to acquit Opimius (p.t6) and why the proposal to restoreCicero from exile was submitted to it (postred.fuir. r 7) and not to the tribal assemblywhich normally enactedlaws and which had approvedhis banishment;Opimius could claim that he had been the champion of order, and Cicero stood for property interests. None the lessthe centurieswere capable of electing to the highestoffice men inimical to the nobility such as Marius in IoB, Cinna in BB,and Caesar in 6o. They were not always docile tools of the great houses. However, the chief danger came from the tribal assembly. Some meetings were thinly attended, no doubt when legislation was a filrmality.4s A lew voters might then represent a rural tribe. At one time they would perhaps be its richer members, men who had an urban residenceor the means to absent themselvesfrom their country property and travel to Rome. However, there was always some immigration to Rome. When citizenschanged their domicile, it was the duty of the censorsto register them in a different tribe, but in the intervals between censusesthey retained their existing registration. Moreover, we cannot be sure that all censorswere diligent in their work. Between 70 and zB no censorsformally completed their tasks, :tnd it is sometimesheld (though it seemsto me unlikely)46that the ('('nsusrolls came to be wholly out of date. At any rate, it seemsthat in the late Republic the tribal assembly was dominated by urban rlwellers,who must have commonly controlled the votesof nominally lrrral tribes. Hence, for instance, the importance of corn doles for winning popular support, and the clamour in 67 on Rome's food srrpply.In r 33 Tiberius Gracchus'agrarian bill brought in a concourse n 4 c h . z . n n . t o 8 - r o , n . r 1 6 ,c h . 8 , v . {t 'l'aylor, rg49, 6o, is, I think, mistaken in treating S/rr. r05 as applicable to controversial I'rlls. tn Itr! ro",,7ot>-,.t.

. T H EI A I . LO T. I " H E R O M A NR E P U E I . I ( :

, I ' H TT:A L LO T ' I ' H }R: O M A NR I P U B L I ( ;

of country voters,and this recurred in Ioo and perhapswheneverthe distribution of lands to peasantsor veteranswas broached.But these Tiberius Gracchushimsell,when seekinga were exceptionaloccasions. secondterm as tribune, found that his rural supporterswere busy with harvestingoperations(probably the vintage),and he beganto woo the urban proletariate.This could have been of little advantageif they had all been confined within four of the thirty-five tribes.aT In any event the assemblies,even though never truly representative of the whole citizen body, could expressthe will of sectionsof that body, which had interestsdistinct from those of the senatorial oligarchy and which were not always compliant to its will. It is true that their independence was limited in variousways,but the checksthat the senate could employ were not effective when sectionsof the people were thoroughly aroused, had resolute leadership, and could command a majority in one of the assemblies. The assemblies could do nothing except on the initiative of presiding magistrates.asThey alone could admit men to stand for office, propose laws (which the people could accept or reject but not amend), and impeach political offenders. (It may incidentally be observedthat the senatetoo could meet only on the summons of a magistrate and pass decreesonly with his assent,and that in our own Parliament bills normally emanate from ministers of the Crown and are never carried against their will.) However, legally qualified candidateswere never or hardly ever barred from standing (ch.9 n.r4), and for legislationor impeachments there were ten tribunes, to say nothing of other magistrates,who could each take the initiative. It is also alleged that there was little debate on questionslaid before the people. This restson a misunderstanding.There was no discussion in the formal meetings (comitia)at which the votes were taken, but on any controversial issue they were preceded by meetings (contiones), which could indeed be summoned only by a magistrate and addressed only by him or by personshe invited to speak; but as any magistrate could summon a contio,and not only he who would preside over the comitia,rival views on controversial questions would be fully presented.aeNo doubt the speakerswere almost invariably senators,but they could include those who had defected from the senate'scause.

Even ilr democratic Athens, where every citizen had a right to be heard, the 'orators' lormed a class of more or less professional politicians, men who had the leisure to acquaint themselveswith public affairssoand to cultivate the arts of persuasion;there too they must generallyhave been personsof someproperty and socialstanding. Attempts could be made to obstruct the popular will in various ways. No more need be said of the tribunician veto, which proved ineffectiveas a barrier to proposalsthat had overwhelmingpopular support.Religiousimpedimentsmight be discoveredby magistratesor by the colleges of priests, composed mainly of aristocrats with the greatestpolitical influence (Cic. de dom. t). Cicero alleged that they had often been used to defeat seditious movements.But instancesare hard to find. Bibulus' attempt in 59 to invalidate by one of these devicesthe legislationof Caesarand Vatinius had no success, though in 58 Clodius thought it well to bar similar action for the future.sr A law of 98 oc empowered the senateto annul statutespassedin violation of specifiedconditions for their validity. It actually quashed the laws of Titius (tribune i" gg) and Drusus (tribune in 9r) by this authority, but it never ventured on this courseagainst laws that retained widespread popular support.s2Statutesmight, indeed,be inoperative(like decrees of the senate)from the unwillingnessof the magistratesto carry them out. In this way, for instance,the legal restrictionon the amount of public land an individual might occupy had in r33 fallen into abeyance.The Plotian law of c.7o, providing for the allotmentof lands to veterans,seemsnever to have beenput into effect(ch. 5 n. 3). It was prudent for the authorsof agrarian laws,like Tiberius Gracchusin I33 and Caesarin 59, to securethe appointment of commissionerswith the power and will to executethem. In any event, the last century of the Republic is replete with examples of laws proposed or carried in conformity with popular demands against the will of the senate. No doubt the magnates sought to apply pressureto voters by the t'xerciseof political and economicpower or by the claims of patronage. ln modern accounts of Roman society the place of patronage has lussumedenormous proportions.s3 It is often supposedthat the great

16

n t A p p . i . r o , r 4 , z g f . , g z . C i c . d c l e g . a g r . ü . 7 tp r e s u p p o s e s t h a t t h e r e w e r e u r b a n d w e l l e r s i n rural tribes. Cf. 1ZS r68 (eo z3):'plebs urbana quinque et trigint-a tribuum'and Taylor, rg4g, 2oo n. r2, on.IIS 6o46: Mommsen, whom she cites, held that the figures related to new entrants on the registerofdole-recipients;they would then suggestthat in the Principate the great majority ofurban dwellers were still in the urban tribes. aE Polybius did not note this; he could expect his readers to assumeit from current Greek practice (Jones, r94o, 166 ff.). ae Taylor, 1966, ch. rr.

27

so In this connection Arist. Rhet.i. is too little pondered. 4 s t C i c . d e l e g . ä i . 2 7 ( c f i i . 3 o f . ) a n d h i s a t t a c k s o n V a t i n i u s ' d i s r e g a r d o fo b n u n t i a t i o a n d o n ( llodius' law restricting its use,e.g.pd.rtred.sen.t r, Sesl.33 f., Vat. r4, t8. ln dedia. ü. 28, 43, 75 he \ußgcsrs,agreeing with his fellow-augur C. Marcellus (ros.5o), that some practicesof divination lr;ul been invented for political expediency.Taylor, I949, ch. Iv, revealswithout stating how little rlrt sc devicesserved to obstruct popular legislation. 12 l-intott, r968, ch. x. The law was perhaps declaratory of traditional rules. 1r My discussionof clientelahere is based on ch. 8 (sectionv for elections).Ballot laws: ch.6 rr ro,.;;cf. p.423. On electionsTaylor, rg49, ch. m, probably has the best account (to be read r r irically), with too much stresson clientela,though lessthan Staveley, I972.

e8

t H ] : ! ' A t , t (, ) l " t ' H l :R O M A NR t : p t r n t , t ( :

familieshad hordesol'clients who would vorc ar their behest.Yet assemblies in and alier the time of the Gracchi,and occasionallybefore then, passedlaws,and more rarely electedmagistrates,contrary to the wishesof almost all the nobility. It followsthat their clientswere in a minority, or were not dependable.Patrons could most easily exert pressurewhen voting was open, but the ballot was introduced against the oppositionof the nobility for electionsin r 39, most popular trials in r3T,legislationin r3r, and treasontrials in ro7. The first threeof these laws,like the measuresof Tiberius Gracchus,were actually carried by open voting. Cicero remarks that after the second of these laws defendants had to rely more on the effectivenessof their advocates (Brut. ro6): there was lessroom for pressure,more for persuasion. The importance of patronage is most plausibly used to explain the success of the nobility in electionsto the higher magistracies(p.5).t* But it need not be the sole,nor even the chief, explanation. We must not neglectthe 6clat of a splendidlineage.The namesof aristocratic familieswere inseparably linked with the glories of Rome's past in which Romans of all sorts could take pride. Cicero himself could say, when addressinga mainly equestrianjury, that at elections 'all we good men always lavour the nobility'(Sest. er). This way of thinking persistedin the Principate. Tacitus (Ann. iv. 6) and the younger Pliny (Paneg.69) approved when emperorsadvanced men for birth as well as for ability, and Seneca held that it was not unreasonable that even the most worthless aristocrats should be preferred to new men, however energetic: 'the recollection of great virtues is sacred,and there are more who delight in being virtuous, if the credit they gain doesnot expire with their own lives' (debend.iv. 3o); glory, like property, could be inherited. Yet Cicero, Tacitus, Pliny, and Senecawere all parvenus themselves.In the speechthat Sallustputs into Marius' mouth (BJ BS.4) we read that nobleswould boastoftheir lineageand'ofthe brave deedsoftheir ancestors'.Servius Sulpiciusand Manius Iuventius thought it a plausiblecontention to argue that Murena and Plancius, candidatesof less distinguished descent,could not have been preferred to themselvesby the electors, unlessthey had resortedto coiruptio" (p.+zg). It might be hoped that like the emperor Tiberius (Ann. iv.3B), or such heroesof the past as FabiusCunctator and ScipioAfricanus,accordingio the tradition that Sallust reports (BJ +. 5), nobles would strive to 'be worthy of their ancestors';Marius and others could denounce them, precisely for degeneratingfrom this standard (BS.gZ). Great wealth was alsoan advantagein a political career.55Office as 5 a B r u n t , . / ß . ! r o 8 , : , r f l ' , ;H o p k i n s a n r l ( i . I l u r r o n a y ' .H o p k i n s , r q { 1 3 c, h . u . 5 5 S c c g r n c r a l l y S l r a t z n r i r n ,r r ; 7 ' r .

,I'HI] T A L L O T ' I ' H } :R O I , I A NR I ] P I . J B L I C

29

such alrd membership of the senate were unpaid. Ostentatious consumJrtion, the gratification of the electorate with costly shows and li'asts,and even outright bribery, enhanced the chances of competitors. (landidates were required by law to possessthe equestrian census of roo,ooo denarii (ch.3 n.3), but in fact most of them needed and f,argreater resources.L. Aemilius Paullus (cos.r9z, r68), who 1r
llo

' t ' H l :r A t . l .( ) f ' t ' H t :R ( ) M A N Rl:ptißt.t(:

' I H Ht A l . l .O l ' l ' H tR: ( ) M A NR U P [ : B L I ( ;

3l

man should seekvotes by his uirlus,not by his partisans(fauitores); in fact it was one task of thefaaitoresto commendhis uirtus.Distinction in war countedfor most. Marius boastedof his military prowesssurpassing that displayedby nobles.But probably few parvenuscould have outmatchedaristocratsin this way. GnaeusPlancius,for instance,had done nothing of much note (Cic. Planc.6o-z). We may guessthat aristocraticgeneralstendedto entrustcommissions in which men could make their mark to officersof their own socialstanding.5eEloquencein the courts and juristic expertisewere also of advantage.But at least until Cicero's time most eminent orators and lawyers were of high birth. No doubt numerous nobles succeeded,as Marius is made to allege,on the basisofthe great deedsoftheir ancestors,the resourcesof their kin, and the number of their clients (BJ BS.4), and not for any personalmerits;but probably few parvenushad had much opportunity to prove their greater capacity for office. This referenceto patronage shows,of course,that it was one factor in the ascendancyof the nobility. Clients, who could include not only individuals, sometimesof standing, but entire communities, were under a hereditary moral obligation of fdes to aid their patrons in various ways, and notably in voting for them at elections.Patronage did not belongexclusivelyto noble houses,but given the economicand political power they had enjoyed for generations,theirs must have been the most extensive.Thus a noblehad a head start againsta new man in competing for office, though not against all of his peers. But no less obviously none could thus command a majority of the electors.It is supposed,however,that familiesenteredinto alliancesand that all the allies mobilized their own clients in a common cause. It does not matter for the present purpose whether these alliances were longlasting, a question I shall discusslater; temporary combinations,at least between prominent individuals if not between whole families, there certainly were. We are not indeed told either that clientshad a duty to vote not merely for a patron but at his behest,but it may well be that if they felt a genuine loyalty and respectfor him, they would have voted on his recommendation.However, clients might have more than one patron and be faced with conflicting obligations; they were morally entitled to set what they saw as rhe public good abovc any duty to patrons (pp.+of.); they might find that patrons did little for them, and consequentlyfollow their own interest.There is in fact no

and the tt'stirlonythat clicntswerc mobilizcdin the way suggested, only dctailcd evidence we have for elections,which comes from (licero'stime and chiefly from his writings,hardly doesmore than hint at the value of patronage,whereasit clearly showsthat candidateshad to solicit the support of countlessindependentvoters,and that birth, personaldistinction, gratitude for servicespreviously rendered, larIt is to be gesse,and outright bribery could all contribute to success. noted that admittedly in exceptional circumstancesthe electorate preferredboth Marius against the united opposition of the nobility, and other new men about the sametime, and that very few aristocratic familiesproduced consulsin every generation(".S+) . Somesank into prolongedobscurity, and but for the successof some later scions,we might have supposedthat they had died out; we can then assumethat been extinguished someof which we hear no more had not necessarily but had passedinto permanentoblivion, perhapsby impoverishment. They were not sustainedby the loyalty of their dependants. The importance of patronage has been exaggeratedin many other ways. Somehave thought that armed gangsand entire armiescould be recruited from clients. But we hardly hear of their participation in the gang warfare of the 6osand 5osin the city: it reflectedpopular unrest. On very few occasionspatrons are known to have enlisted their clients as soldiers; but in general it was material rewards rather than hereditary or personal fealty that bound some armies to their commanders,in civil wars; they behaved rather like the mercenariesof condottieri.6o No man, said Crassus,could be accountedrich enough to be princepsin the commonwealth who could not support an army with lris own money (Cic. deofrt.i. z5). It has even been suggestedthat the relationship under which patrons and clients were expected to afford cach other mutual aid divided Roman societyvertically rather than horizontally and thus averted or mitigated the conflict of classesor scctions.This is patently false. Patronage, often veiled under the :rppellationsof friendship or guest-friendship (hospitizm),extended to rnen of somesocialrank such as Equites and to foreign communities, among which we must count thosein Italy beforethe Socialwar. But it is clear that it did not prevent the conflictsbetweensenateand Equites or allay the Italian discontents,which ultimately broke out in insurrection. Patrons did not protect numerous peasantsfrom expropriation rror sufficiently relieve socialdistressat Rome. Either they did not fulfil

5e Thus:g military tribunes killed at Cannae were said to be ofconsular, praetorian, and aedilician rank (Livy xxii.49. r6). In Cir:ero'stime senatorswere seldom military tribunes (but note I Verr.3o): they were more commonly legates or prefects. Young nobles might secure commissionsas legates or pref(a'tswith littlc or no cxpcrience. Of z5 attested in 67, mostly u n d e r P o m p e y ,p r o b a b l y l 7 w c r c o f ' c o n s u l a rf t r n r i l y ;o f ' , : l i n q o p r o b a b l y r z ( M R R i i . t 4 7 f f . ; c f ,r8 ff.).

n" Sall. 8.7 Bti. 'la1 note IM ' h o m i n i p o t e n t i a m q u a e r e n t i e g e n t i s s i m uqs u i s q u e 4o6 ff.;: 3 "l)lx)rlullissimus, cui neque sua cara, quippe quae nulla sunt, et omnia cum pretio honesta r rk'rrlur'i App. v. r 7, a brilliant analysisofthe behaviour oftroops in 4r (Pollio's?),applicable in \f ,tfr('rr)casur('tor:arlier civil wars. Nepos,EumenesS, writes of Roman veteranscommonly giving , ' r r l c r s ,r r o l o b < ' d i t ' n c ct,o t h e i r g e n e r a l s C , f. ch.5, III-Iv.

'l'Hl: r A t . L ( ) r ' t ' H ER ( ) M A NR l : p t ' B t . t ( :

'I'HN TALL OT'I'H}: R()MAN RT:PUBI,I(:

their obligationsto their dependants or there were massesof citizens with no attachmentto them. There are someindicationsthat the ties that bound patrons and clients had been stronger in earlier times, though even then they had not prevented grave social conflicts persistingdown to eB7,and that they were weakeningin the late third and second centuries, partly because the claims of patrons were resented.The independenceof the assemblies, especiallyin the last century of the Republic, is decisiveproof either that clients of the nobility were a minority, perhapssmall, of the citizen body, or that the loyalty of clientscould not be counted on.

responsiblefor though not dcmocratsintent on making the assemblies state, they of the business all the day-to-day systcmaticallydirecting 'proceeding they saw, whenever people" the through in had no scruple on intervene._Thus, people to for the need a to see, or professed Pergamum of kingdom the had bequeathed Attalus King learningthat to Rome, Tiberius Gracchus is said at once to have invited the people to apply the royal treasureto equipping the settlersunder his agrarian bill, ind to have announcedthat he would make proposalsconcerning the cities of the kingdom, taking the matter out of the hands of the senate(Plut. Zi. Gr. r4); if this account is correct, he precluded the senatefrom deciding whether or not to accept the legacy, with its implications of closer involvement in Anatolian affairs, and thereby entrenchedon the senate'straditional responsibilityfor finance, foreign policy, and defence. His brother promoted bills not only for the distribution of land allotmentsand cheap grain but on public works and taxes,the terms of military service,the mode of allotting consular provinces,judicial organization, and the enfranchisementof Italian äl[es. Hence he was'unus maxime popularis' (Cic. de dom.z4). 'popular' activity. The Gracchi set precedentsfor almost all later There was one notable post-Gracchandevelopment'The people not only elected Marius as consul for Io7 against the opposition of the nobility but gave him the command agäinstJugurtha (Sall. BJ 71, setting aside the tradition that the senate assigned consular provinces.63In BB a law (undoneby Sulla'scoup) transferredto Marius as a private individual the command against Mithridates. The comminds granted to Pompey in 67 against the pirates and in 66 against Mithridates, to Caesarit 59, and to Pompey and Crassusin 55, were carried through the assembly.These grants were also made for more than one year, the traditional period which it was for the senate to extend, and someof them gave the beneficiariesextraordinary powers.

32

IV

The modern tendency to overestimate the political importance of clientship is also a basisfor the conception that politics at Rome can be interpreted chiefly in terms of strugglesfor power within the ruling 6lite. It makes it possibleto supposethat by entering into suitable combinations its members could simply manipulate enough voters to gain their ends, without appealing to distirrct sectional interests and sentiments.We may then concentrate our attention on contests between aristocratic factions and neglect the attitudes of other classes or sections.This is a preconceptionnot justified by the sources,and it bars comprehensionof the real divisions in the citizen body, which in part decided the courseof the revolution. In Sallust'sjudgement the unbounded passionof the nobility for their dignitasand of the people for their libertas(both terms connoting political power) tore the commonwealthinto two parts.6rTo use the terminology of the time, the politicians on one side, who upheld the authority of the senate, were the boni or optimates, the good or best citizensl their opponentspopulares.The latter term is also applied to measures,notably those proposed to alleviate social distress,which were carried against the will of the senate.The popularerwere indeed not simply social reformers, real or professed;more fundamentally, they assertedthe sovereignright of the people to take decisionswithout prior sanction of the senate,but in the public interest, as they saw it. Cicero choseto definepopulates as thosewho merely said and did what would please the masses(Sest.96), but politicians like Caesar who acceptedthe denominationcould not have admitted that, and doubtlessclaimed that they were acting for the good of the people.62And ut BJ 4t f.; Cat. 37 f., Hüt. i. rz; see endnote 3. 62 Szst. 96-ro5, r36 f., idealizing the optimatei (contrast de rep.i.'5r, iii. z3), and numerous pejorative allusionsin intimate letters both to the self-styledboni and denigrating the populares as demagoguescarefessofthcstatc'sgood;assomepoliticiansavowedthe n iacm (C . dee l e g . a g r . ü .

33

rr>eIc., Rab.perd. t t ff., Cat. iv. g), they cannot have acceptedthis description. Popular measures include agraiian, frumentary, and ballot laws (cf. Sesl.r o3, deleg.agr.ä. ro, z7 , fi' delg' üi' 34-7 ct..; , and"in general delenceof the people'srights or liberty, comprising both personalprotection ( e . g . R a bp. e r d .r 3 f f . , C a t . i v . r o , d ed o m . 8 o )a n d p o l i t i c a l p o w e r s( d r l e g .a g r ' ü . r 7 f . , z o , z 7 ' d e l e g ' control ofsenate over the treasury, the subjects,the laws and courts, and iii.'r7); the.o-pl.t. ftrreign policy infringes libertas('Memmius' ap. BJ 3I), and the tribunician power is a'telum f i b e r i a t i i ' ( S a l l . O rM . a c r i r z ) , b e c a u s e i t e n a b l e s t h e p l e b s t o e x e r c i s e s o v e r e i IgnnLt iyv.y i i i . 3 9 . "per senatum"] agere', e.g. to confer extraordinary commands 1yit is populare'perpopulum [not lry plebiscite (Phit. xi. r7); this is not sumciently stressedin Seager'sexcellent essayon p\pulares (C(l r97z). See also ÄE xviii. 773ff. (Strasburger on optimates); Suppl. x 55off (Meier on Wirzsubski, I95o, ch. z. 'ltoltularu); -63 which charged the senate with deciding which C. Gracchus'law deproaincüsconsularibus, pr6vinces should be consular in the following year but before the elections,so that the people irright clect rhc men for the posts,is significant. The senatealone could bestjudge ofmilitary or rr
34

't'Hl: l ' A L t .o ! " t ' H U R O M A NR H P U B L I C

Each of these laws was of course defended by appeals to the interest of the sta-te:but for the people's intervention the right man would not have been appointed or given the necessary resources; thus in 67 it could be argued that the senate had done nothing to meet a pressing crisis. Repugnant to the senate, they ranked as 'popular' because they were emanations of popular sovereignty. This antinomy between the authority of the senate and the rights of the people would issue in civil wars. Of course the causes of these wars were complex, and the reasons that led individuals to take one side or the other various. Still, the opposed principles were proclaimed in propaganda and surely had some effect on men's minds. The matter is clearest in 49. Caesar defied the senate's expressed will in clinging to his command in Gaul; ultimately he marched on Rome rather than obey its decrees. The Pompeians stood for the authority of the senate: Caesar claimed that the senate was illegitimately overriding the vetoes of tribunes, the representatives of popular rights, and setting aside the people's enactment, which entitled him to stand in absence for a second consulship, and on his interpretation to retain his command until he could avail himself of that privilege. (He also alleged that the senate itself had been terrorized, but it is plain that even if the majority of the senate had no wish to precipitate armed conflict, it had ,a.tleast freely pronounced that Caesar should give up his command.)64 Let us turn back to the Bos, where our evidence is scanty. In BB Sulla marched on Rome when the people had passed a law depriving him of the Asian command allotted to him by senatorial decree. It was one of several laws carried by violence, and no doubt Sulla urged that they did not even represent the genuine will of the people ; he professed that he was rescuing Rome from tyranny.65 Ho*ever, after oäcupying the city, he not only had these laws annulled on the ground thai they had been illegally passed, but had it enacted that future legislation must receive the prior sanction of the senate. It would seem that this safeguard affected only legislation initiated by tribunes, for Cinna as consul in 87 was not precluded from proposing measures, perhaps to the centuriate assembly, which the senate did not approve. Cinna was expelled from the city by force and deprived of his magistracy by 6a Caes. BC i. r-g, zz, 3e. The view ofhis opponents had alreacly been stated by pompey in ^ S e p t e m b e r5 r : ' d i x i t h o c n i h i l i n t c r c s s eu t r u m C . C a t ' s a rs e n a t u id i c t o a u d i e n sf u t u r u s n o n e s s e r a n p a r a r e t q u i s e n a t u md e c c r n e r cn o n p a t r r c t u r ' ( C k . t ' a n . v i i i . B . q ) . I ' o r t h e s e n a t e , sa t t i t u d e see App. ii. 3tl. Caesar was of trturst' dernanding that hc should retain his provinces after the expiry of thc tt'rm granrcd by tht'/zr l\mpcia I.itiia 1vlr,5, t.r'r.nil rhar ht'as laic as March 49 and n o t , a s I b c l i e v e ,i n . , o . I h a v c s r l t c ( l n l v v i c w r a t h r . rn r o r cI ' u l l yi n . / R . \ ' r q l l 6 . c { l p p . rf. üilow. 4 g q 65 App ;. ',7. l h i s w a s t h t ' i n t r i t : r l r l r p' l t ' ; rt o j u s t i l \ ; r p y x . : r rl s, , i n i l i r a i v l i , r , . r ;i i ( i r r l s .B ( , ' i . . . 2 r . 5 yA : u g r r s t r r isr r R ( , r .

,I'HT] T ' A L LO T ' I ' H } : R O I ' A N R E , P U B L I C

35

senarorialauthority. This gave him the ground for claiming that the senatehad inlringed the sovereigntyof the people,which had elected him consul.66He and Marius fought their way back to power. Thereafterthe senateitselfwas not a free agent.Sulla would certainly have been justified in assertingthat he was bent on restoring its authority, although it was unable to give him its formal endorsement. And that was just what he did when victory had made him absolute masterof the state. The samekind of constitutionalconflict did not persistin the years after Philippi. It needsno proof that Brutus and Cassius,and Ciceroin a free 43, had iought to preserve or restore what they saw as under the direction of the senate.They surely saw iö--o.-.alth as optimates.It is lessclear that their adversariesappeared themselves though in his initial struggle with the senate)then backed aspopulares, loi personalmotivesby Octavian, Antony could claim to be exercising powers under legislation passedby the people; not that there is reason io think that it expressedany solid popular support. But once he had combined with Octavian and Lepidus and they had eliminated the Republicans,each was patently seekingpersonalsupremacy,and all depended on force supplied by troops whose fidelity they had to purchase.In this rivalry both Antony and Octavian would vaguely profess to be champions of liberty and promise to reconstitute the In the end Octavian (or Augustus) would pretend io--o.t*ealth. that he had fulfilled his promise.ut Itt appearancehis regime was to allow more to the authority of the senate than to the rights of the people;in fact everythingwas subordinatedto his will. The old conflict of optimates and populareshad changed first into one between Republicanismand autocracy and then into a contestbetweenrivals by any non-violent ficra positionin the statewhich was not responsible processto either senateor people. nor optimates constiEveryone now recognizesthat neitherpopulares tuted parties of the modern type with a continuous existenceand 'Ihe populareswere individual politicians, or groups of rrrganiiation. politicians, who came forward only at intervals with particular ilroposals which they were ready to force through, if necessary,in clefianceof the senate; on such occasionsmost senatorsunited as could optimatesto resistthe assaulton the senate'sauthority. There ^Ihe raison in Rome. know them irrdeedbe no partiesof any kind as we which determine elections, tl'ätrewaslacking. Today they exist to win tht'compositionof the governmentfor perhapsyearsto come;menjoin ()r support a party becauseon the whole they have more confidencein ou App. i. 59 with Gabba ad loc., 65. ot App. r'. ri':: I)io xlix. 4r, r. 7; RG 34; cf. Vell. ii. 89.

36

't'Ht:

tAt,t. ot"l HH R()MAN Rt;ptiBLt(j

the ability and policy of its leadersthan in thoseof their rivals, though the necessaryprice may be compromising or surrenderingsomeof their own interestsor convictions.Electionsat Rome did not servea similar purpose.They decided only who should perform duties of administration and jurisdiction, command armies, and carry out policiesproperly prescribed by people or senate. Candidates seldom propounded a programme of legislation, and in any case by returning them the electorswere not committed to voting for bills they might subsequently bring forward. They could and did choose as colleagues in the consulshipmen, like Caesarand Bibulus, deeply divided by personal and public differences. The tribunes roo might be adverse to the consulsand not agreedamong themselves.The magistratescollectively did not form a government in the modern sense.In normal times the senateapproximates more closely to that conception, though it could be overruled by the people and could make its will effective only through the magistrates. But the composition of the senate, even though it consistedof ex-magistrates,was not affected by the elections of any one year. The senatorssat for life; on every particular issuethey could follow their own individual judgements, and even if many of them would tend to vote together and perhaps commonly accept the advice of some leading figure, they were not amenable to party discipline,or obligedto concurin a measureof which they disapproved as the price of retaining power. As for the assemblies,whose composition must have varied with the specialcircumstancesthat might induce citizensto attend, there was obviously no reasonwhy men should vote lor a party line rather than for what reasonor passionprompted on the particular matter that was laid beforethem. Thus optimates andpopulares did not and could not constitute parties as we know them. It is, however, curious that modern scholars who insist on this often proceed to construct groups or factions within the nobility hardly lesscohesiveand durable in their imagination than suchparties.6sIn pre-Gracchanor pre-sullan times,it is*supposed, the aristocracy was divided between rival groups or factions, perhaps no more than two or three, consistingof whole families, allied by kinship and friendshipsometimesfdr generations,which not only contended with each other for office, backed by their obedient clients, but were in 68 The views on factions and lriendship expressedhere summarize those in chs.7 and g. Gelzer, who never subscribedto the theoriesof Münzer, scullard, etc., provided powerfui uppoit for them by the importance he save to clientship in his early monograph on the Roman n"biiity. It is only on the assumptionthat members of the rival factions could mobilize all their clients at electionsand perhaps at some oth('r meetinss of the asst:mbliesthat they could have enjoyed the d o m i n a n c e ,f l u c t u a t i n gb c t w c e nt h r m , t h a t i s a l l e e t : d .I n h i sd c t a i l c d a c c o u n t so f e v e n t ri n i h " l o , . R e p u b l i c ,t h e b e s to f ' t h o s tw r i t t t n i n t h i s ( ( ' n t u r y ,t h t m : r t u r eG t l z c r m a d e n o t h i n s o f t h i s :h e h a d too scrupulous a regard lirr r.vidt'ntr..

'I

H l : ! ' A l , l ,( ) r ' l l l l : R ( ) l t A N R E I ' t : l i l . l ( :

'.t7

1 x : r p c t u a lo p p o s i t i o n o n i s s u e so l ' p o l i c y , a n d w h i c h w o u l d s e e k t o r u i n thcir antagonists by criminal prosecutions. 'l'hc existence of these lactions is not attested in the sources but is inlbrred by a process of induction based on a number of assumptions. (r ) It is premised that the solidarity between not only agnates but also kinsmen by marriage was such that all normally took the same line in politics. (z) Friendship is taken to mean political co-operation, and any relerence to friendship or instance of co-operation is regarded as evidence of enduring alliance. (3) Some suppose that the magistrates conducting elections had great influence on the results, and that therefore men who were colleagues in office or succeeded each other tended to belong to the same group. Exceptions to this rule are so numerous, however, even on the reconstructions offered by advocates 'family factions' discard this of the theory, that other believers in method of ascertaining their composition. (4) Prosecutionsunquestionably presupposed enmity or produced it; on the theory under consideration the former explanation is generally preferred; they imply not so much that the accused was thought to deserve condemnation for his crimes, but that it was desired to eliminate or discredit a political adversary. Naturally this cannot be proved. It is no doubt in the first two premisses that the strength of this interpretation of Roman politics resides.Yet neither seemsto be valid lor the period for which we first have lairly copious testimony on the conduct of individual aristocrats, the time of Cicero. Kinsmen by blood and marriage were then often divided, and friendship was still more frequently transient and little more than nominal; moreover, men had so many intricate connections both of kinship and friendship with persons who came into conflict with each other that they were unable to oblige them all alike. Similar instances are on record from earlier times, but they are taken to be mere exceptions that do not invalidate the rule, without any systematic attempt to prove the rule, by showing how many more cases are actually known of longcnduring co-operation between either kinsmen or friends. Indeed men are assigned to a particular faction without any evidence at all of cooperation; if A is known to have worked with B, C, and D, then E as the kinsman of A by marriage must belong to the same faction, and so must F, who is identified as a friend of E, together with the entire fämilies of E and F. If the same conjectural reasoning is applied to the rr:construction of political affiliations in the age of Cicero, when it can rut last be tested, it yields conclusions that are ludicrously false. The cvidence fbr that age shows that there were then no long-lasting, lirrgc cr-ralitionsof families as postulated for the second century. In r l c l i r u l t o l ' < : o m p a r a b l ee v i d e n c e f o r t h a t t i m e , w e s h o u l d i n d e e d h a v e

38

't'HH t A t , t . o t " t ' H t : R ( ) M A NR t : p u B l , l ( :

to concede that there were such coalitions if their existencc were recorded. But it is not, and we are simply asked to assume that the behaviour of politicians was quite different then lrom what we know it to have been later. This too is obviously conceivable, and if the prolonged collaboration of allied families were clearly attested, we could doubtless think up reasons why politicians later acted in a different way. However, the evidence cannot supply this proof. As already observed, coalitions of the kind envisaged could not have been kept in being by party discipline, but only by community of sentiments and interests and a senseof mutual obligation. They must therefore always have been exposed to continual disintegration as a result of the divergencies of individual advantage, of personal discords between kinsmen and erstwhile friends, and of considerations of the public good, which had a moral claim transcending all private obligations (see below). Even advocates of the theory are firrced to acknowledge that in Cicero's time factions are no longer composed of alliances of whole families. On one view they are now formed of the adherents of powerful individuals, to whom once again men are supposedly bound by ties of blood or marriage, or of friendship derived from benefits received. It is certainly true that in civil wars, when the state was split in two, the antagonists are labelled by ancient writers as Marians, Cinnans, Sullans, Pompeians, and Caesarians. But these appellations are used almost only of men who were fighting or had fought under the command of Marius etc. They were not members offactions which had previously supported their leader in peace or were bound to support him after victory. Pompey, for instance, had had very few consistent adherents. Many of his principal allies in 49 had long been in opposition to hirn and joined him only to resist the greater danger to the commonwealth which in their view Caesar presented. They included most of a coterie round Cato which had generally acted in collaboration. Similar coteries had probably existed at all times. Scipio Aemilianus and Lucius Crassus (cos.95) seem to have had small groups of like-minded individual friends. More generally in Cicero's age politicians enter into shifting.combinations, to promote their preferred personal or public ends at a given moment. I see no reason why this should not always have been true. It may alsö be noted that when issues arose, affecting the authority of the senate, men divided by private enmity or jealousy could unite in the common cause, as some did against the Gracchi. For the understanding of the political trends that led to the fall of the Republic, the differences between factions, even when this term is taken to reler to small and transient groupings, and not to ihe large, cohesive, and long-lasting alliances of modern

'l'HE

FALL OF THI: R()MAN RIPUBI. l(]

39

invention, are of far lesssignificancethan conflictsof principle and interestswhich divided optimates and populares. I do not deny that in Cicero'sday closekinsmen and friends cooperated with each other in temporary competitions for office and on all sorts of minor questions which Christian Meier categorizes as 'routine politics'. In this collaboration mutual affection may sometimes have had its effect; more important is the fact that social morality inculcated a senseof moral obligation towards thosewith whom special connectionssubsisted. Cicero recognizesthat men have a duty to render each other services in proportion to their propinquity by blood or marriage, and to others in requital for services already received from them. (Patrons and clients might come in the last category, though he doesnot specifically mention them.) He givesa high place to obligations to friends. He was following the teaching of the Stoic Panaetius, but though very few Romans are likely to have been guided by Greek ethical theories as such, in this and in many other instancesPanaetius'doctrine only reinforced customary morality.6e Thus the stress Cicero lays on reciprocity is very Roman: the conception is embedded in the diverse connotationsof the word gratia (p. SBg).It is remarkablethat in their wills Romans would give concrete expressionto their senseof obligation to requite benefits.Advocates like Cicero charged no fees,but he averred in 4+ that he had been bequeathed over twenty million sesterces by grateful clients (Phil. ä.4o). The tie betweenfriends,like that between patrons and clients, was one offdes. Cicero could suggest thatfdes reposedon respectfor the ancestralreligion (denat.deor.i. r4); a cult of Fidesgoesback at leastto the third century. Its importancein Roman life is reflected in various legal institutions which restedon it. None the less, the modern reconstructions of political factions exaggeratethe extent or solidarity of connectionsderived from kinship andfdes.It was only to the closestkin, to the degreeof secondcousins, that social morality and various prescriptions of the law recognized any specialobligations(ch. 9 endnote r ). The web of intermarriagesof the Roman aristocracy was probably so intricate that relationships among the nobles may have been all but universally embracing. Friendship was sometimesno more than a term for the observanceof outward courtesies;and it could connecta man with otherswho were mutually opposedto eachother. The most conscientious Roman might have to strike a balance between conflictirrg private obligations. Friendshipsin the senseof political allianceswere easilydissolved.The t'losestkinsmentoo may be found on differentsideswhen large political 6e de ofic. i. 53 o (similar grades of obligation appear in a treatise of the Stoic Hierocles ap. S t r r l r . ,c <.f H c n s t ' , i v . 6 7 r f f . ) . R e c i p r o c i t y : i b i d . 4 7 - g ; c f . i i . 6 3 , 6 9 f . C l p p . 415f., 44gff.

'l 40

Hll t'ALl. ()t"l

Hll ROIIIAN RFIPUBLIC

issues were at stake. In civil wars some families were divided. Cooperation in'routine politics'does not imply common membership of a_ faction that would iontinue to act together, once a divergence of personal interests or in views on the public good had appeared' It need hardly be said that men do not always obey the dictates of conscienceor honour. No one will doubt that in Cicero's time many of the most eminent figures in Roman public life acted unscrupulously for their own personal advantage. It would be an assumption without warrant thit this had not always been true. However, in so far as men were influenced by a senseof duty, it must never be forgotten that in the Roman way of thinking duty to the fatherland was higher than duty to family and friends. This is clearly acknowledged by cicero in the very context in which he sets out the order of private obligations (n.69).'In his treatise de amicitia he is particularly conc€rned to lay äown'that it is right to subordinate the claims of friendship to those of the state. This is no doubt in part a polemic against Caesarians, who had defended their conduct by their private obligations to Caesar. One of them was Matius, who admitted that he had adhered to Caesar in he could very -added of his cause (Fam. xi. zB. z); 49, while disapproving that it had not been plain to _him that the piobably have i"ompeians were acting any more than Caesar in that of the common*ealih. He maintains that his conduct after Caesar's death is in keeping with the whole tenor of his life (ibid. 4), that of a true patriot; the acJusation that he is putting friendship before the fatherland rests on the premises,which he cannot accept, that the killing of Caesar had served ihe public interesr (ibid. z), and the serviceshe has rendered to Caesar's heir fulfilled his private duty without any implication that he is neglecting those of a citizen (ibid. 6)' In fact the primacy of the fatherland's claims was a traditional conception, voiced by Lucilius,To and enshrined in the legends of the patrioiic devotion of Horatius on the bridge, Gaius Mucius, Cloelia, Mut.,rt Curtius, the Decii, and Regulus. More strikingly still, an 'for forgetting her earlier Horatius had struck down his own sister fatherland'; L. Iunius Brutus had expelled the Tarquins, though his wife was of the royal house, and had executed his own sons as traitors to the Republic; a Postumius and a Manlius had also put to death a son for breach of military discipline; Spurius Cassius had by one ,o r rq6 r2oB Locb (r3,:6 fl. Marxl: it is the mark of a qood man'commoda praetcrea patriai p r i m n p ü r n . . , d c i r r c l t .p a r c r r r u r n , t c r t i a i a r n p o s t r c m a q u r . n o s t r a ' . F o r t h c r e s t , h e w i l l b c h o s t i l e t o (llients. No doubt the vtrses L,,,1-i',, arrrl lrclplitl r,, q,uul: rro ;rllrrsion to kilt, liiends, patrons! or 'thc bond established by arl irllilrtrl lrr. (irt.t.k t.rhits. llrrt tlr( (li( tllnr ol strtvelcv, I()72, I()4, that t r r d e 'is patcntly lalsc;many R o t t r a l t o l l r t r s i t t l l t c r r l l , r l ; r l t L r u l i i u r n t r ; r r r s r c r r r l c t l tlr,.,.,,rrli.rrrr,.rrt . t l 1 . r s r . l r o l l r r st i r r i t l r ' p r r . s r r g r p r l s r ' \ o r n sc t t c l t l l r t ' r t r i s si r r c x y l l i r i r r i l t gt h c c o n d u c t o { ' R r l m a n . u i r t r xt , t t r . 5 r ' t . t l s oI t l ) l i i , 1 7 7 l l l . 1 t l r w i t l t t t o l r s

' l H t :l A L l . ( ) r ' l H t : R ( ) l l A NR I I P L ; B I ' I ( :

+l

accountbeenr:ondemnedby his own fäther lbr seekingto make himself tyranr; and the Manlii had shown their abhorrenceof M. Manlius' similu. designby ruling rhat none of their clan should again bear his I praenomen.l ' We neednot considerwhether any of thesestorieshas a basisin fact, and we cannot evendeterminethe antiquity of the legends,sincethere ur. ro f.., surviving fragmentsof early annalisticor oratory: they were of coursecited over und o'u.. again in Cicero'stime, told in different forms with various embellish*.rrir, and thus mirror the moral views then accepted.some of them at leastare known to have beencurrent in the Brutus and of ,..orrd century. Acciuswrote tragedieson the legends-of characteristic specially to be devotion the Decii. Polybiustook patriotic to men who references vague by his thesis of the Romani, and illustrated that they proved hador country, their for had fought in singlecombat death; son-s.to their putting by ties natural above settheir"country'sgood held that and bridge, the on Horatius of tale the he cited i., pa.iicrr"lar of tradition the strengthen to served time own his the funeral ärations of and Cunctator Fabius that read had too Sallust f.). public 'scipio service(rri.S+ Africanus nää Ueenaccustomedto say that ancestralbustsincited new generationsto valour (BJ ü;i1the-good old daysmenhad pursued gtory"byservingthe state(Cal.6). The Horatii, Cloelii,and Curtii were ä-iti.r which ,-r.rr.r.attained eminenceat Rome or disappearedearly from the Fasti;itseemsunlikely that it was at a late date that they could obtain a general acceptanceof legendsthat made membersof their housesnaiio.,al heroei; and I think it improbable that the plebeian Iunii, who reached the consulship in the fourth century, could have induced everyoneto believethat an invented patrician ancesto.rwas the father of the Republic. But however ancient the tales were' they were of Romans in historic times; it is deeply implanteä in the consciousness rignifi.uni that it was thought to be a usefuldevicein arousing Marcus Biutus against Caesarto rämind him of the liberation of Rome by his forefather(Plut. ,Bral.9). In the historic periäd it is notable that after Cannae the senate declined to ransom Hannibal's prisoners (and so fill his coffers): Roman soldiers must learn to conquer or die; and yet the prisoners included many from the first families at Rome with numerous kin in rhe senare(Poiyb. vi. 58). Similarly in 63 the Catilinarian conspirators were condemned to aäuitt by the senate,and none of their friends and kinsmen pleaded for mercy (cf. cic. cat. iv. r3)._one man is said to have beenexecutedby his own father.T. Manlius Torquatus (cos.r65) 7r On tht antiquity or historicity ofthe storiesseeRE szänominibus. Cicero expectedhis hearers the hope of 0r rt'a(icrstO findlt piausible that public men like himself were motivated chiefly by gfrrry dcrivcd liom scrvice to the stat(' (Arth' z6--3o)

'l'Ht:

42

t'Al.l, ()l l H[ R()MAN R]:PtiBt.t(:

and M. Scaurus(cos.r r5) banishedsonslrom their sight,for provincial misrule and cowardicerespectively;both committed suicide.T2 Conceptionsof the public good are inevitably subjective . It was no doubt easyfor Romans to convincethemselves, or to assumewithout reflection,that a coursethat suited their private interestsor enabled them to satisfy their private obligations also conformed with patriotic duty. But this was not alwaysso, even when the issuewas merely who should be chosento hold office.I seeno reasonto doubt that Fabius Cunctator sincerelydissuadedthe centuriesfrom returning as consul T. Otacilius,who was his niece'shusband,on the ground that he was unfit to command against Hannibal (Livy xxiv. B). It seemsto me arbitrary to suppose that both Cicero and other advocates of the Manilian law were not influenced by the strong arguments which he usedto persuadethe peoplethat Pompey'sappointmentwas necessary to finish the war with Mithridates. In any casehis speechexhibits the patent truth that in contestsfor any kind of public preferment it was necessaryto show (if this could not be assumed)that the task to be performed was required for the public good and that the man proposed to perform it had the capacity to do so; no one could have come forward to say merely 'He is my sister'sson'! Equally, as spokesmanfor the triumvirs, Cicero would urge in 56 that on public groundsCaesarmust be left to completethe conquestof Gaul. It must have been supposedthat some senatorswould be impressedby this plea. No doubt there were somequestionsnot ofwide concern and not coming up for debate on which factions, however small or transitory, could gain their ends by covert intrigue, for instancein grantsof priuilegiavoted in small houses(Ascon.57 C.); but when a controversialmatter evokeddiscussionin senateor assembly, politicians had to find means of persuading those who were not committed to their support, just as they neededthe votes of more than their own friends and clients to securethe election of candidates they preferred. It was surely inevitable that they should then appeal to the public interest;they had to make out that their candidatewas the man best fitted for a post, or that the senatorial decree or law they were advocating or resistingwas conducive or prejudicial to the interestsof the state.Of coursethey might representin this lightwhat best suited their own advantage,or that of the sectionof the community for which they spoke,and it would also have been natural enough if, asjudges in their own cause,they had often too easily convinced themselvesthat what they told others was the truth. In negotiationswith Caesar,Pompey averred in 49 that he had acted 72

Val. Max. v. 8. 3 5; there are other versions ofthese anecdotes.

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43

only lirr tlrt' pulllic good, ancl had always set the interests of the comrnonwcalth belbre private tics. He implied that Caesar was not conlbrming to this standard; the charge was repudiated; Caesar replied that he was ready to submit to anything for the sake of the commonwealth (BC i. 7 f.). This exchange was surely typical at least of the language that all Roman politicians would employ. Nor need we assume with Sallust that the entire political class was corrupted by ambition, luxury, and greed and had no scruple in pursuing their personal ends. Aristocratic ambition was in fact itself an obstacle to the formation of a party consisting of the adherents of some outstanding individual. Lucretius bewailed the infatuation of the ceaselessefforts of the nobility 'ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri' ('to rise to the height of power and be masters of affairs', ii. 9tr). But such dominance was beyond the mark of any but the most exceptional figures favoured by the conjuncture of events, like Sulla and Pompey. In normal circumstancesthe most that a noble could hope to attain was that respect and deference to his judgement which the Romans called auctoritas and which derived from the offices he had held, his achievements, and his distinction in the arts of war and peace; such men ranked_asprincipes, and their opinions tended to sway the senate and people.73 But each was apt to incur the emulation and envy of those who would not concede his superiority; Scipio Aemilianus, for example, had his opponents and detractors (pp. a66 tr); nor would ordinary senators readily tolerate any degree of eminence that jeopardized their own independence and dignity (pp. gz7 ff.), much less dominance by any single man. Most of them could do no more than rise from office to office, augmenting their resources from the perquisites of war and sovernment, and share in the general authority of the senate. The ladder of advancement narrowed at every stage. Under half the quaestors could reach the praetorship. No more than two of every six or eight praetors could become consuls. Not many consuls had the opportunity to gain glory and exceptional riches in a great military command, with the prospect of a triumph, and at most one in ten might later hold the censorship. The ambition of every individual demanded that the successof others should be restricted. This was perhaps one reason for the numerous, though ineffective, laws that limited both ostentatious consumption and largesse,'* and electoral corruption, which might give an unfair advantage to wealthier rivals. ?3 See endnote a. ?a We should alio take seriouslythe professedpurpose ofpreserving or reviving moresanliquos, r.f J. Sauerwein, Die LegesSumptuariaeals riim. Massnahmengegenden Sittenaerfoll;cf. ch. 6 n. 52. Claesarand Augustus musr have had this in view in enacting such laws. Tiberius thought them l i r t i l c( ' l a c . , l n n .i t i . 5 z 4 ) .

q4

' T H } }: ' A L I O . F ' T H FR: O M A NR } : P U B I , I ( ]

'1 H H l , ' A l . l (. ) r ' l ' l l l l R ( ) M A N R l : P t : B l . l ( :

More obvi<-rusly it promptcd the rulesprescribedin rBo,and a little modified by Sulla, that men must hold officesin strictly ascending order with minimum ages,and that they should be re-eligiblefor the consulshiponly after an interval of ten years,or (betweenr5r and Br) not at all. Though it was unavoidableto prorogue someconsulsand praetors beyond their single year of office, since there were usually too many posts to be filled by eight or ten of these magistrates,the prorogationof consulswas rare in the secondcentury.T5Commanders were usually replaced after a year in the field with small regard to the exigenciesof warfare. Hence frequent incompetencewhich damaged the interestsof Rome and diminishedthe authority of the senate.Thus the bungling or corruption of senatorialgeneralsand ambassadors in the Jugurthine war, and the disastersthat generals brought on themselves in provoking or repelling the Cimbri and Teutones,led to the extraordinaryadvancementof Marius by the people'swill. After Sulla'sdictatorshipthere was somethingof a change.He had perhapsintendedeachconsuland praetor to hold a command for only one year after the expiry of his annual term at Rome. But a third at leastof all consulsbetween78 and 52 neverwent out to a province;the bloodlettingof the Boshad resultedin a dearth of military experience and talent (Cic. Font. +z f.); apart from operations in Gaul and Macedon, there were in the decadeafter his dictatorshipseriouswars in Spain,Asia Minor, and Italy itself;and severalconsularsheld great commandsfor threeyears,Metellus Piusfor nine, and Lucius Lucullus for eight. It was in thesecircumstancesthat the senatehad to employ the young Pompey in repressingLepidus and Sertorius. His success, cumulating his great contribution to Sulla'svictory, made him already the first man in the state,when he becameconsulin 7o. But that must in itself have provoked the jealousy of other senators,which made it unlikely that he would obtain further opportunitiesfor adding to his distinctionsfrom the senate.In 7o he perhapsdeliberatelyprepared the way for securing new commands from the people by restoring to the tribunes their right to initiate legislation;it was the people that appointed him with wide powers to deal with the pirates and Mithridates. He now counted as a populares; optimate distrust aggravated the envy that his earlier careerhad aroused.The conceptionof some modern scholarsthat he could ever form a powerlul fattion of adherentswithin the senateseemsto be quite erroneous.The resentments of his peers drove him into the coalition with Caesar and 7s In the Hannibalic war a few men held commands ficr many years continuously;from zoo to I67 only 7 kept commands z or more years after their consulships;the incomplete Farli from r66 to go yield tg examples,but in most tht'cx-r'onsul was only in the field ficr z full years.

45

Crassus.None o{'them ever seemsto have had a numerous band of 'Iheir dominance rested on the devoted partisans in the senate. backingof the plebs,in particular of Pompey'sveterans,and finally on armed force.When at last Pompey broke with Caesar,his chief allies were men who had long beenengagedin his obstruction,but who had come to fear Caesarstill more and would take advantage of Pompey's own jealousy of his erstwhilepartner. The developmentsbetween Jo and 49 cannot be understood in terms of factions within the political 6lite as distinct from the ambitions of thesefew individuals, who found adherentsprimarily outsidethat 6lite (pp.+lz tr.). v Whatever machinations self-seekingpoliticians conducted behind the scenes,they commonly needed support beyond their own coteries within or outsidethe senate;and, as we have already seen,they then had to contend that the courses that suited their own interests conduced to the good of the state, which in their presentation of genuine belief might be coterminous with that of some section of the community, but which could hardly be overtly identified with the mere advantage of an individual or small faction. This explains why oratory, which was indispensable in the courts, where it certainly furnished means by which the advocate could extend his personal influence, also assumedgreat importance in the deliberationsof senate and assemblies,and why pamphleteering was employed with rhetorical art to touch a wider audience.Rhetoric, which elicited its precepts from experience,much of it Greek, of the deviceswhich were found to be persuasive,became a large element in the higher education that every Roman of rank received. Cicero could assert that the ideal princepswho would guide public deliberations would be a master of eloquencein the senate,the peopleand the courts (deorat.iii. 83), and that eloquenceruled the state (ibid. 76). There was someexaggeration here; knowledgeof affairs carried no lessweight in the senatethan gifts of speech(i.6o, ii. 337), and men of experienceand reputedjudgement could swaythat body without the gracesof eloquence(i. 33, 38,zr4 f.); but even a critic of the largest claims made for oratory could be representedas admitting that it was a valuable assetto a politician

(i.++)' In his Brutus Cicero unrolls a long catalogue of past notables distinguished for their eloquence; scrutiny indicates that they had displayed their talent mainly in forensic practice (which enhanced their gratia), but also in addressing the people on judicial and leeislativebusiness.It was perhaps a popular audience which the

46

'r'Hn

lAl,t. ()l"t'Hu R()MAN Rl:Pt:Bl.l(l

orator could most readily stir with the passionsthat suitedhis purpose (de orat. ii. 334, ß7 f.); he had lessscopein the senate,where tact compelled brevity, with so many others impatient to be heard themselves(ii. :gg); still at least four of the orations that old Cato published(ORF2xLII, xLVIII-I) had beendeliveredto the senate,and L. Crassusexcelledhimself on his last appearancethere (deorat. üi. g). The Roman tradition of oratory, nurtured in part by the practice of funeral panegyrics,antedated the penetration of Greek rhetoric, and there is evidenceindependentof Cicero, who might be suspectedof magnifying his own art, for the esteemin which it was held. Lucius Metellus (cos.z5r) had been eulogizedby his son for having attained his ambition to be the best orator as well as to be supremelysuccessful in war, and P. CrassusMucianus (cos.rgr ) had boastedof his eloquence as well as of his legal expertise(n.73). Ennius praisedM. Cornelius Cethegus(cos.zo4) for his'lips flowing with sweetwords' (Brut.58). Cicero himselfconcededthat prowessin war earned more prestigethan fine oratory; none the less,his list of great orators included such men as the elder Cato and Scipio Aemilianus, who had triumphed for their victories. Caesar was an orator before he ever commanded an army, and owed to oratory his advancementto the point at which he could be vestedwith such a command.T6 Eloquencein the courts explains the rise of the parvenu Cicero, but 'saving the state' from in 63 he applied his gift with great effect to sedition. We tend to be so consciousof the danger of seeingRoman politics in his time through his eyes,or to be so repelled by his conceit, that we can easily underestimate the influence that he attained by oratory. Dominant as they were in the 5os when in alliance,Pompey and Caesar did their best to attract his support or neutrality in 59; when they failed, they thought it prudent to connive in his banishment; and after his return from exile, they coercedhim into acting as their spokesman. The importance of the arts of persuasioncan readily be illustrated in the prolonged discussions(c. r5o nc) on Roman policy towards Carthage,TTin the effectsof the eloquenceof the Gracchi (Gaius' speecheiwere still admired nearly three centurieslater) ,78in the clever demagogywith which C. Fannius (cos.tzz) discreditedGaius' proposal to enfranchisethe Latins (GC 4r), paralleledin 63 by Cicero's skilful sophistriesin defeatingRullus' agrarian bill, and not leastin the great debate of 5 December 63, in which the senatewas swayed first '6 Mur.2o-5, 3 0 . d c o f i r . ü . 4 4 - 5 I . 6 5 ( r a n k i n gj u r i s p r u d . n . . b . l o * o r a t o r y ) . C a e s a r :O R F 2

tr 383 7?

Astin, r967, ch. v and App. nr with bibliography. 1 8 T a c . D i a l . 1 8 .z , 2 6 . r ; F r o n t o 5 6 N . e t c ;G e l l .x . 3 . r .

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one way and then another by the argumentsof Caesarand Cato, to both of whom Cicero allowed great eloquence(Brut. t rB f., z5z ff.). In 56 it would hardly have been possibleto frustrate the will of Pompey and Caesar, nor therefore to refuse Caesar an extension of his command in Gaul, yet the dynastswere not content simply to rely on fiorce: they put up Cicero to convince the senate in his de proainciis that this extension was required by the interest of Rome. consularibus They surely supposedthat there were many senatorsopen to persuasion. In my judgement this was frequently the case;neither senators nor citizenswere necessarilyor perhaps often committed to a decision in advance of discussion,as are most membersof legislativeassemblies and most voters today. Speechescould affect only the relatively small audiences.However, as early as the secondcentury some politicians, among them Cato, Scipio Aemilianus, and the Gracchi, published versionsof someof their speeches.So of coursedid Cicero. As in his case,the orator might wish to passdown to posterity a memorial of his art and to immortalize his could also influenceopinion name.TeBut written versionsof speeches beyond the original audience, though they could reach directly only the reading public, persons of education and therefore of some affluence.This was surely the purpose for which Cicero circulated his He published only a small proportion of all the deprouincäsconsularibus. speecheshe actually delivered, and we have to ask ourselveswhy he a selectedsome and not others. This particular speech,represented political volte-face of which he was piivately ashämed;80no doubt in publishing as in delivering the speech,he acted under pressurefrom Caesar, whose achievements it glorified. Similarly, Caesar's own Commentarier were clearly designed in part to demonstrate to public opinion the greatnessof his servicesto Rome in Gaul and to justify his conduct in the civil war. Publicity could affect opinion far from the city. The excitement that political strugglescould arouse among the citizenry in Rome itself was manifestedat times by acclamationsat the games,which Cicero could treat, when it suited him, as indications of iheir trne feelings(Sesl.ro6).81It is more difficult to gaugethe impact that they had outside the city, at least among the local gentry; presumably the peasantry knew and cared little about them. Early in 59 Cicero seemsto imply that people round Antium did not bother their headsabout the legislationof Caesarand Vatinius (Att. ii.6. z), ?e Apparently the reasonwhy Cicero wished to perpetuate his consular speeches(Att. ä. t. l; his earlier publication of some forensic speecheswas no doubt intended partly to enhance his practice at the bar. 80 This must be true, whether or not it is the palinode ol Att.'w. 5. r. 8r A. Cameron, CircusFactions,r976, I58 ff., collects the evidence.

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but a few weekslater there was a ferment of indignation among the respectable peoplewith whom he consortedat Formiae (ii. r 3. z; cf. r 4. and z). He himselfwas dependentfor newson private correspondence, information may have been relatively sparse for others. At the beginning of 59 Caesarthought it advantageousto disseminatemore widely proceedingsin the senateand ordered their publication (Suet. 'out of doors';perhapshe Caes.zo. r ); he was thus appealingto opinion hoped to make senatorswary of advocating unpopular courses.In the ensuing years the proceedingswould have contained records of the victoriesreported in his despatchesand ofthe thanksgivingsdecreedon their account(BGä.35, iv. 38, vii.5o). We can only guesshow much the prestigehe gained in this way contributed to the feeblenessof the resistanceoffered by the Italian towns) when he marched on Rome in

+9.

Cicero'slettersof that time are full of allusionsto the reactionsof the better sort to the progress of the campaign. Of course, given the possibilitiesof cancellation of debts and redistribution of property, of which there was much talk, they were deeply affectedby the war. And it must never be forgotten that their attitudes might be of great importance, sincethe co-operation of local magistrateswas vital in the levy of troops (ch. 5, App. I). A letter suchas that which Caesarwrote 'omnium voluntates to Oppius (Au. ix. 7c) advertising his aim reciperare' and to avoid the harshnessof Sulla was probably intended to be shown around, and exemplifies the widespread propaganda in and open lettersby which he commendedhis cause.Caesar's speeches enemiescounteredwith publicationsto defamehim.82 Even when he had made himself master of the state by blood and iron, appeals to public opinion still went on; freedom of speechhad not been extinguished. Eulogies of the dead Cato were matched by attacks on his memory, in which Caesarjoined himself,83The best-known political pamphlet is of course Cicero's second Philippic, an invective against Antony, written to be read in the form of a speech that was never delivered.But all the Philippics,though the others correspondto actual should be seenin this light. This collection of written versions speeches, a series of speecheson the samepolitical issue,which must have been of disseminatedat the time, is unique in Cicero's corpus. Copies were perhaps circulated to leading men in the Italian towns to strengthen their adherenceto the Republican cause,partly by suggestingthat it 8 2 C i c . B r u t . z r 8 ; S u e t . C a e s .g , 4 9 , 5 2 . D e s p i t e h i s u s e o f O p p i u s ' l i f e o f C a e s a r ( 5 2 f . ) , Suetoniusretails much ofthe (unreliable) propaganda ofhis enemies(e.g.8, Ia, 24.3,49-52,54; treating him as the first emperor, he plainly rcgards him as beneficent in that role, but disapprovesof his having usurped it (76). 83 Gelzer, Caesar, 3r>r ll-.

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was alrcady more strongly and enthusiasticallysupported,and therelbrc safbrto join, than it really was (cf. ch. I endnoteI ). A war of words also preceded the decisivestruggle between Octavian and Antony, whosä conduct was convincingly maligned as a betrayal of Rome; his 'createdbelief causewas lost beforeActium, becausein Syme'sphrase turned the scaleof history'. VI Orators and pamphleteersobviously had to play on the sentimentsand perceived neädsof the public to which they appealed, even if it was lheir p,r.pose to practise deception for their own ends. The very distortions and sophistries which Cicero for instance employs in resisting Rullus' agrarian bill or defending Rabirius in 63 are thus indicative of the attitudes of his audiences,sincehe was a master of the arts of persuasion,rather than of his own opinions; though in these caseshe was perfectly sincere in desiring rejection of the bill and Rabirius' acquittal, the arguments to which he resorted were merely designed to sway the public. It was always necessary to profess attaahmentto the interestof the respublica.It cannot be doubted that jealousy and mistrust of Pompey inspired the opposition of the optimates to the grant of extraordinary commandsto him in 67 and 66, but it appears that Catulus and Hortensius in resisting the proposals spoke of him in terms of the highest honour, and argued that it was inexpedient for military reasons to create the unitary commands proposed,and contrary to constitutionalpracticethat so much power should be vested in a single man, in derogation of the rights that properly belonged to the annual magistratesentrusted with them by the people(Cic. deimp.Cn.Pomp.5r-63; Dio xxxvi. 3I-5).There was a stock of ideals which commanded almost universal assent,though they could be interpreted in widely divergent ways and brought forward to justify the most diverse policies, by advocateswho hoped to persuade their hearers (and had sometimes persuaded themselves)that they were embodied in the courseof action recommended. In this way measuresof manifest and direct benefit to substantial sectionsof the peopleof Italy, land allotmentsfor peasantsincluding veterans,food distributions at Rome, citizenship for the allies,judicial rights for the Equites, and so forth could be both promoted and opposedby appealsto the welfare of the state and to recognizedideals, such as liberty, equity, tradition, and law. Thus the distribution of public lands to peasantswas an ancient practice, and Tiberius to resumeit, in order to ensurean Gracchusurged that it was necessary future, that the rich were holding for the adequatesupply of soldiers

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larger tractsof the public domain than the law allowed,and that it was just to assistcitizensimpoverishedin Rome's wars. Indeed any public assistanceto citizens could be justified, on the basis that public property and funds could be said to belong to the people; the srate was not regarded as an abstraction distinguishable from the citizens (p.zgg). In reply it could be urged that it was inequitable to eject possessors of public land to which they had acquired a kind of title by the passageof time, or that it was unwise to deplete the treasury; it must be rememberedthat prudence required Rome, like other ancient states,to pile up reservesto meet heavy expenditure imperative in an emergency, since the modern practice of public borrowing in such contingencieswas hardly thought of. Liberality with the citizenship again was part of the old Roman tradition, and the enfranchisementof the allies could be treated as just recompensefor their loyalty and contribution to Rome's military strength (Vell. ii. r5). Of the case against it we know only that in rzz Fannius suggestedthat Latins would displacethe old citizensfrom their placesin public meetingsand festivalsat Rome (GC ar). The extensionofjudicial functions to the Equites in r z3 could be represented not only as justified by the corruption of senatorialcourts (App. i. 22), the argument endlessly repeated in /o, but as a mode of 'making liberty more equal' by enlarging the number of thosewho shared in political power; senators could object that by 'enslaving' them to the Equites it detracted from their proper responsibilityto the people at large. It is easy to write off idealslike liberty as mere 'catchwords'; in fact they often corresponded to real interests, and also had a resonance of their own, vaguely associatingsome particular causewith others for which Romans had striven in the past.sa Liberty was often on the lips of politicians. It meant different things to different people (Chapter 6). For the ordinary citizen it comprised not only his safeguardsfor personal protection under the law but also his capacity as a voter, which the ballot enabled him to use with more independence;for the senator his right to speak freely on matters of state, and to have an effective voice in decisions;to both alike it was thus equivalent to a share in political power. The citizen could use his vote to securematerial advantages,and the power of senatorsbrought them lucrative perquisites.It is, however, unlikely that men consciously prized liberty as no more than an instrument for thesepurposes. 8a Plut. Ti. Gr. g, 15; App.i. g, rr; C i c . S z s l . r o 3 ; F l o r u s i i . - r e n c a p s u l a t eG r a c c h a n controversies;cf. also n. 39; GC 78 for L. Crassus'speech.Cic. deleg.agr. ii is the fullest specimen ofthe kind ofarguments that could be put beforethe assembly;probably he published it to exhibit to his upper-classreadersthe skill with which he could appeal to'popular'slogans and arguments to defeat a 'popular' bill.

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The liberty of the senator was inseparable from his share in the collective authority of the senate and from his individual dignity, his social rank, and esteem. Caesar was not alone in holding dignity dearer than life (BC i. g. 4); his assassinswere of just the same mind. In a hierarchic society everyone might value a place in the social scale that set him above others and desire to improve his status. Thus the Equites 'splendour' strove for control of the courts partly because it conferred on their order, freed them from subordination to the senators, and actually compelled senators to court their goodwill (Chapter 3). It is characteristic of this way of thinking that persons of respectable station resented the appellation of clients, with its connotation of inferiority and dependence (ch. B n. 3 r ). The suffrage surely had something of the same consequence to a citizen. It set him above subjects and slaves. Every year at the elections grandees had to supplicate for his favour. He could feel himself to be one of the masters of a world empire, 'Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam'. All this combined with the force of tradition to sanctify in men's 'the ancestral institutions which the long duration of our rule minds validates' (p. 6), which Polybius had seen as the source of imperial greatness (vi. I), and which guaranteed to all their particular rights' Certainly this sentiment was strong among the senators' who had long in effect directed the state. On the reasonable view that the people was incompetent to take over this function, monarchy was the only practicable alternative, and any abridgement of the senate's authority was a step in that direction. Roman tradition, and the experience of the Greek and oriental world, taught them that monarchl, w45 incompatible with freedom of any kind and with the rule of law; a king is'one free to do as he pleaseswith impunity' (Sall. BJ Zt. z6). We need not doubt that it was deeply abhorrent to them. It would be only natural that the masses should have simply accepted this aristocratic ideology; if they had been capable of political or historical reflection, they might have concluded that though the expulsion of Tarquin had in the first place only substituted the arbitrary government of the few for that of a single man, this change had proved to establish a basis on which their own rights could later be founded. In the no doubt largely invented stories of Spurius Cassius, Spurius Maelius, and Marcus Manlius, it was made out that these professedchampions of the people had really aimed at tyranny, and had been discredited with the people on that account. These fictions at least presupposethat popular feeling could be aroused against anyone suspected of monarchic aspirations. So Tiberius Gracchus' opponents professed to see his encroachments on the senate's prerogatives as proof that he aimed at making himself 'king'. It was clearly hoped in this way to undermine his support.

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Accordingto Sallust(ibid. 3r. B), it was c'nrended that'the resroration of rights to rhe peoplepreparedthe way for kingship';he puts the words into the mouth of a popular tribune, *ho tieats the Claim as partisanclaptrap. Gracchuswas hardly fool enough to entertain such an ambition, dependentas he was on the volatile favour of the masses and destitute of military force. But the autocracy of caesar, who had previously adopted the same popular stance, had retrospectively justified such fearsby the time when sallust wrote. Not long before his death Antony publicly offered him the title of kine. on the best evidencethis provoked a popular outcry.ss If that bä true, even the masseswere against the outward form and style of monarchy. They lould perhaps be lessconsciousthan senatorsthat caesar was'already absolute as dictator. once he was dead, it was enacted that no one should ever again be vestedwith this office.Augustus was to be careful to avoid this or any other formal appellation of supreme power. still, the riots at Rome in 44, which made it unsafefor caesar's assassins to remain there, and the popular clamour, which forced the senateitself in zz toofferAugustus the dictatorship,show that the urban plebs at leastno longerhad any deep attachmentto the Republic.s6Giatitude to the monarch prevailed, though there is nothing io snggestthat they or any other section of the people had deliberately worked for monarchy, or welcomed it before it had been in all but name establishedand brought them solid benefits.87 Sallust allegesthat under the guise of the public good all politicians were striving only for their own power. He himsilf admiited some exceptions to his cynical generalizations;88in any event he was no better able than we are to read men's minds. As a spokesmanof the optimates Cicero naturally implies that they acted in the interest of the whole commonwealth, whereas thepopulares wereunprincipled demagogues (sest.96). In theoretical vein he could admit that män of wealth and high-birth might arrogate to themselvesthe pretensionof being the best, without possessingvirtue or the art of görre..r-errt, and cäuld Gelzer, caesar,gzt, cites the texts; only Nicolaus reported that the people approved ofthe -85 oner86.Antony (to 'dictaturam please the senate, App. quae iam vim regiae potesratrs . ]lii. 25) obsederat,funditus ex re publica sustulit' (cic. phit. i. 3). cf. ,RG5 wlttr Gag6's noies. In fact the triumvirate was a dictatorship in commission. 87 caesar's desire for divine honours (J. A. North, JRS ry75, r7r ff), the usual attribute of kings, is ofcourse relevant; and such honours were freely to b. giue" io Augustus in all parts ofthe empire and even in Italian towns. But he was careful not to seekofficial deffication at Rome in his own lifetime, and even there-thecult ofhis numenor genius,to which as a distinct entity sacrifices and prayers could be offered on his behalf (EJ roo Ä;, so far as it was not merely piiuut., *u. entrusted to freedmenand slaves_(L._R. Taylor, DiainitLof theRomanEmperor,ch. vir;; here again we can discern a differenceofattitude between the massesand the poliiical class.some ofwhom are said to have resentedhis aspirations to apotheosis(Tac. Ann. t. ro). 88 Cat. gB;Hist. i. tz; cf. n. 6r.

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properly be called a faction (derep.i. 5r, iii. z3). High moral standards certainlynot qualities änddevotion to the welfareof the governed.were commonly conspicuousamong the Roman optimates.Many of them seem at times to have been motivated by purely egoistic aims of personalprofit and advancement.None the less,it seemsimplausible to irrppos. that in general they did not believe that it was best fior Rome to be directed by the senate,or were lesssincerein this belief because the supremacy of the senatewas identical with their own interest in retaining collective power. Classinterest and constitutional convictions could coincide.The only optimate who attained personaldominance was Sulla, and he laid it down when he had re-establishedand fortified the authority of his order. they would naturally have repudiated Cicero's As for the populares, not necessarily confirmed by the fact that they were imputation. It is rank and sometimes,like the Gracchi, of high themselvesof senatorial members of the privileged 6lite conflict social times of lineage. In all the unprivileged on principle. cause of up the to take have been found measuresthey proposed populares thought genuinely some Conceivably lesslikely that they It is rather to the state. necessary or beneficial to be which they had to sovereignty, popular to the attached were truly Marians The assembly' the measures through those in carrying defend in the Bos,and Caesar,once in power both demonstratedcontempt for it. But even if we take them to have been entirely unscrupulous,bent only on advancing their own careersor securing personal dominance, it is more significant that they found the means to their ends in giving effect to sectional grievanceswhich the senateneglected. The division between senateand people, or optimates and populares, is not to be explained in purely political terms. Men were accounted 'good', Sallust remarks, on the basis that they were defending the status quo 'in proportion to their wealth and capacity for inflicting wrongs' (Hist. i. rz). It was the use they made of this power that engenderedthe social discontentsof the poor whom the Gracchi and later populareschampioned (,BJ 4z). In his revolutionary schemes 'wretched' and 'needy' (Cic. Catiline could look to the support of the 'invariably men without substance of their own are Mur. 4g-5r) : envious of the good [!] and raise up the bad; in hatred of their own condition they strive to turn everything upside down; they are sustainedwithout anxiety by confusionand riots, sincedestitutioncan hardly suffer any loss' (Sall. Cat.37). Cicero was no lessconsciousof classconflict, and more openly prejudiced.In his eyesthe urban plebs 'the are 'wretched and half-starved,ready to suck the treasury dry', 'who have never appreciated dregsof the city'. Disloyal peasantstoo, this commonwealth nor wished to see it stabilized',were for Cicero

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cattle rather than human beings.In the total breakdownof order after Clodius' murder rioters would kill anyone they met who wore fine clothesand gold rings (Appian ii. zz). Clodius'gangswere composed of slaves,criminals, at best hirelings, or so Cicero tells us; in reality many were probably craftsmenand shopkeepers. But that would not have commended them to Cicero; manual work, retailing, trade (unlesscarried on by rich men in a big way) were sordid occuparions, and he could speakof 'artisans,shopkeepers, and all that scum'. No wonder if such people reciprocatedwith hatred the contempt of Cicero and his like. By contrast 'good men are made in the first place by nature, but fortune helps;the safetyof the stateis to the advantageof all good men but most clearly benefitsthoseof fortune', which has been 'augmentedand accumulatedby divine favour'.8e For Cicero it was a primary function of the state to maintain property rightseo, and property owners were therefore its natural defenders,whom it was wrong to despoil;in gratifying the people at their expense,populares injured the welfare of the state (Sert.ro3). Since the senatorswere in general exceedinglyrich, they could be expected to protect the interestsof the whole classto which they belonged;even if individual memberswere led astray by unscrupulousambition or ruinous debts,the senateas a body would maintain the economicand social status quo. In Cicero'sview it would deserveand obtain the consensusof all good men, a designation which like that of optimates he extendedto all thosecitizens,even freedmen,whosepersonalaffairs were sound and unembarrassed. By birth of equestrianstatus,and a scion of the municipal nobility of Arpinum, he saw his role as that of consolidating a unionsacröe of men of property, 'our army of the rich' (Att.i. rg.4).At first he aimed specifically at concordbetweensenate and Equites,later at the consensus of all ltaly, by which of coursehe meant that of the ruling classin the municipalities, to whom he often refersin lettersas the'boni'. It was the will, interests, and opinionsof all such men that the true optimate leaderswould serve (Sasl.97).e, E e P h i t . x ä i . 1 6 ; C a t . i v r. g . C i c e r o o n t h e u r b a n

p l e b s : A u . i .r 6 . r r , r g . 4 , v i i . g , 5 @ f . F t a c c . r g , de ofic. i. r5of.). Clodius'gangs: Brunt ap. Finley, rg74, g7ff.; Lintott, ch.vr. Cicero's unpopularity: ch. 9 n. 8o. In philosophic mood Cicero could recognizethat the noble or rich were not necessarily the best, i.e. the most virtuous, and that their misrule could bring down aristocratic regimes (de rep.i. 5t; cf. 48); self-styledoptimates might be a mere faction [iii. z3); class conflict could ensue when politicians acted for sectional interests 'ut alii populares, alii studiosi optimi cuiusque videantur, pauci universorum' (de0fu. i. 85 f.); and in private he often expresseddisgust at the conduct ofthe so-called'boni', whether aristocratic politicians or men of property in general, when they failed to seek the general good as he saw it. '" deofic, i. r5, ro f. (with a curious disquisition on the origins ofprivate property), ä. 7g,derep. . iii' 24. In Top. ghe remarks that iuseiailehadbeen established'eisqui eiusdemcivitatis sunt ad res suasobtinendas'. All Roman iurists would have concurred. el Sasl. f.The b o n i( e . g .Ö a t .i . 3 2 , i v . r 4 - 1 7 , F a m .i . 9 . r 3 , v . : . 8 a n d o f t e n ) a r e t h e , l a u t i e t 96 locupletes'of Att. vüi. r . 3, contrastedwith 'multitudo et infimus quisque, (3. 4); they included in

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'otium cum dignitate',e2of What they demand is in his judgemcnt 'religiones, auspicia,potestatesmagistrawhich the 'fundamenta' are Iuum, senatusauctoritas, leges,mos maiorum, iudicia, iuris dictio, lides, provinciae, socii, imperi laus, res militaris, aerarium'. In 63, when he was professingto be 'vere popularis', that is to say one who genuinely cared for the people'sgood and not the kind of demagogue 'otium, päx, tranqillitas, fides, who commonly usurped the title, 'libertas' had appeared in a similar iudicia, aerarium' but also with his recall from exile there in he had claimed that catalogue; 57 'ubertasagrorum, frugum copia returned also [!], spesotii, tranquilli-leges, concordia populi, senatusauctoritas'.er iudicia, tas animorum, Otium in this sort of context is clearly public order and internal tranquillity securedby the rule of law. But it is not enoughif dignitasis wanting; indeedwithout dignitasit will vanish (Sesl.roo). The'dignitas rei publicae' certainly consistspartly in Rome's imperial grandeur, 'fundamenta' Cicero lists,but he surelyhas in inherent in someof the mind alsothe conceptionthat there can be no stability in a stateexcept when every man is firmly fixed in his own social and political grade (de rep.i. 69); such gradationsare required by equity (ibt4. +g, 53) and characterizethe traditional systemat Rome (ä. 4z).'" At the apex stand magistratesand senate,or most specificallythe senate,sincethe magistratesought to be its servants,though the senateshould ensure the 'splendour' of the orders next in rank (,9erl.I37), above all the Equites (dedom.74).The peopleshould delight in its own tranquillity (otium),in the dignity of all the best men, and in the glory of the entire (:ommonwealth(Sesl.ro4). Neither liberty nor the 'rights of the people'figure in the catalogue of 'fundamenta'.The liberty Cicero prized was that of a senator,and it he would concede was implicit in 'senatusauctoritas'.In the derepublica to the people only a sufficient appearanceof liberty to keep them content)not a sharein real power (pp.gz+ff.). Admittedly the true grncral the Equites and municipal gentry. The concept of'concordia ordinum', adumbrated in ( : l u . n t . t 5 2a n d r e a l i z e d i n 6 g ( C a t . i v , r 5 , A t t . i . r 4 . 4 , r 7 . r o ) - t h e p h r a s e o c c u r s i n e . g . . 4 t l . i . r 8 . 3 in which agreement between senateand Equites was taken to be crucial, was enlarged later irrto'consensusbonorum'. As already inl Verr,54, Cicero could appeal to the common sentiments r r f ' a l l I t a l y , i . e . o f t h e l o c a l r u l i n g c l a s s e s( e . g .C a t .i . r z , z 7 ; ü . z 5 ; i v . z , r 3 ) w h i c h h a d r e t u r n e d him as consul (Pdr.3), which would (he hoped) protect him against Clodius (Qrz.y'.i. e. tG), and which did in fact ensurehis recall from exile (Att. iv. t.4 and often); cf. endnote l for its alleged Ordinum,r 93 r, reprinted in St.zur allen Rcpublican fervour in 43 ac. SeeH. Strasburger,Concordia (ilyh. i. .t ff. "2 .iasi 98. Wirszubski, J.QS rg54, r ff., is best on this phrase, though he doesnot examine the 'lirndamenta'. ur dcleg.agr.ü.8-ro,dedom.r7;cf.dehar.rasp.6o:'aerarium,vectigalia,auctoritasprincipum, r . n r c n s u so r d i n u m , i u d i c i a ' , b u t v o t i n g r i g h t s a l s o a p p e a r h e r e . ut Under the Marian regime'sine iure fuit et sine ulla dignitate respublica' (Brut. zz7), lrcrlraps in part becauscmen of rank were mostly opposed to it (itosr. Amer. t36).

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statesmanwould aim at harmony betweenall orders for the sake of political stability (ii.69), and in pro Sestio (r37) he declaresit to be the senate'sduty to conserveand augment the liberty and interestsof the people, but this is a task to be fulfilled at the senate'sown discretion. The magistratestoo are to be simply its executiveagents(ibid.). If he elsewhereassertstheir right to treat 'the safety of the state as the highestlaw', he surelyhas it in mind that they must still interpret this right in accordancewith the will of the senate.e5By contrastpopulares would leave to the senatethe direction of affairs in normal conditions, without fettering the right of magistrates (including tribunes) to submit matters to the sovereignpeople when the senatehad failed to take action which could be representedas required for the general good. Cicero'sstandpoint is here thoroughly optimate in the narrowest senseof that term. VII

However, in the same context he has given optimates a much wider connotation, that embracesall the respectableelementsof society. He hoped that senatorial government could be securelyfounded on their consent.This consentAugustuswas to realize.He did so by fulfilling to a far greater extent than the senatehad done the programme implicit in Cicero'scatalogueof the 'fundamentaotiosaedignitatis'. Of course Augustus reservedultimate control to himself, though careful to show an outward deferenceto the authority of the senate.e6This deference would not have deceived or contented Cicero and his senatorial contemporaries,who knew what it was to sharein real political power. Some indeed have suggestedthat in his de republicaCicero himself had acknowledgedthat the state neededa singlewise statesmanto guide its affairs, but this is a misconception(seeEndnote B); he never departed from his principle, stated in 46, that 'no one man should have more power than the whole commonwealth'(Fam.vii. 3. 5). But in all other respectsAugustus' policies conformed with those which Cicero commended. That is not surprising. Analysis of the 'fundamenta' shows that they would have been 4t least in general terms acceptableeven to populares, as to all who seriously concerned themselveswith affairs of state. From this standpoint they merit further examination. Of all the 'fundamenta' the most basic is 'mos maiorum'. This e 5 d e l e g , i i i . B ;c f , P h i t . x i . z B d e f e n d i n g C a s s i u s ' i l l e g a l s e i z u r e o f s y r i a : h e h a d a c t e d , E o ( i u r e ) quod Iuppiter ipse sanxit, ut omnia quae rei publicae salutaria essent legitima er iusra haberentur.' D. Brutus was no lessjustified in similarly illegal action, as it accorded with the unexpressedwill of the senate: 'voluntas senatuspro auctoritate haberi debet. cum auctoritas e6 Brunt, CQrg\4, impeditur metu' (Fam. xi. 7. z). 42gff.

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plrrlsc irnd thc like arc ever on (liccro'slips; again he could count on rcspectlbr traditi
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also be sure that Clodius invcighed against the suppressionby the senateof the rights of associationwhich Numa was supposedto have established (ch. 6 n. 57). 'Ihe same respect for tradition was paraded and perhaps felt by Augustus.He was personallyconservativein language (quint. Inst. i. 7. zz) and dress(Suet.Aug. 4o.S). He restoredtemples(RG zo. 4;Livy iv. zo) and statues(Suet.3r), and revivedancientceremonies (ibid.;cf. was in accordance with ancestral practices, as he asserts, that ß.2).It he closed the temple of Janus (ibid. r3), refused unconstitutional powers (ibid. 6), and preferred to hand over Armenia to a vassalprince rather than annex the country (ibid. z7). Suetoniusprobably reflects his own presentation of various measures when he writes of his 'restoring the senateto its old proportions and splendour' by lectiones, which reduced its inflated number and removed men of low status (35), and of his reviving the censorship, a magisrracylong discontinued (37), and the people'sformer electoralrights (4o). He justified social and moral legislationby invoking past laws and senatorialdecrees(Dio lvi. 6. 4), evenciting the speeches of Republican worthiesof an earlier century (Suet.89). He himselfsaysthat 'by the new laws I promoted I brought back into use many exemplary practices of our ancestors which were disappearingin our time' (rtG B). If he rhen proceedsthat he himself had transmitted many exemplary practicesfor posterity to follow, and thus admits to inrrovations, he conveys the impression, which was not falsein regard to his legislation, that he was as it were continuinga path in the samedirectionas that laid out in the past; this sort of evolution was itself traditional at Rome. In Cicero'slist 'religiones,auspicia'have a conventionalprecedence . Religiousobservances traditionally accompaniedevery public act. It was a Roman conceptionattestedfrom r93 nc (but doubtlessmuch earlier in origin) to the time of Augustine that Rome owed her greatnessto her peculiar piety and skill in winning the favour of the gods; Cicero himself voiced it with impressiveeloquence.e8prayers, sacrifices,and divination presupposedthe beließ that the godsinvoked existed,intervened in human affairs, could be placated by appropriate rituals, and gave signsof their will which, correctly interpreted, would avert evil from the state and the family. Among the highly educated 6lite theoretical scepticism, or at least indifference in practice, was perhapsnot uncommon.Cicerohimselfwasin my judgement devoid of personalpiety, and as a philosopherhe would adopt the agnosticismof Carneades.It was the 6lite who were responsiblefor maintaining the eB de har. resp. tg; S1G3 6or; Hor. Odesiii. 6. r-8. Belief in divine favour may well have strengthenedRoman morale, and consequentsuccesshave fortified the belief. Augustine was to polemize endlesslyagainst it.

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p r r b l i < 't ' u l t s , : r n d t h e i r d i s b e l i c l ' o r d < l u b t s o r m e r e i n d i f f e r e n c e m a y havc lrt'en reflected in the neglect of some, certainly not of all, the traditi
6o

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At his mostsccptical(liccrostill insistedrhar thc public religionmust kept up. Apart lrom all other considerations, be sedulously it was part of the mosmaiorum, whosehold on men's minds might be weakenedin general, if impaired at any point. But we have no warrant for supposing that populares,like Clodius, ever sought to impugn the authority of religionesand auspicia,as distinguished from what they surely argued was an improper resort to them. Of such overt impiety there is no evidence;and it is improbable that if the masseswere superstitious,their avowed champions treated their beließ with unveiled contempt. Clodius himself had consecratedCicero's house to Libertas,and could contend before the pontiffs that on that ground its restitution to Cicero should be refused(dedom. ro+-27).As dictator Caesar himself was active in the institution or renovation of cults (". gg). How much this policy might have assisted in fortifying his hold over the massescan only be guessed.It is hard to see religion as a significant force in the coursethat eventstook down to Caesar'sdeath, even though everyone probably paid it lip-service; thereafter it may well be that there arosesomegenuine feeling that the continuing strife, apparently endless,betokeneddivine anger, and Augustus' care in restoring temples, priesthoods,and cults very probably corresponded to such apprehensions. Legesin Cicero's own theoretical writings must accord with the divine law of nature: statuteswhich do not fulfil this condition are not properly laws at all.lo2 However, the Roman ius ciuileis superior to every other system(deorat.i. r96 f.); even the Twelve Tables,obsolete as they were, had instructedRomans in moral duty, and in particular taught them to distinguishmeumand tuum(ibid. rBr). But more recent statuteshad been enacted which not only contravened moral criteria but had not been passedby due procedure; some had rightly been annulled by the senateon this ground; and the courts had refused to enforce a statute of Sulla's which infringed the principle that no Roman could be deprived of freedom or citizenshipby mere enactment.ro3Laws of 59 änd 58, which had beenpassedin dis.egardof the auspicesand of previous statutes that prescribed the procedures for legislation,should equally have been regarded as void. Subject to these qualifications, legesform pari of Roman iers,though much ins derived from immemorial or more recently developedpractice (n. r9). The very term ius of course assimilated what was legally enforceable to what was morally right. 1nsis sustainedby the verdicts of the courts, and, as Ciceromight have added,by magisterial'iuris dictio'. The only r o 2 d e r e p . ü i . 3 g , d e l e g . i . p a s s i m , ri i3. . C i c e r o c o u l d n o t h a v e s u s t a i n e d t h i s p o s i t i o n a f t e r h e had reverted to Academic sceoticism. r o 3 d c l e g .i i . l 4 : c f . c h . 6 e n d n o r e r .

' t H u f A l . l . ( ) l l ' i l ! : R ( ) M A NR l : P l . ; B l . l ( ;

6r

altcrrrativeto legal processis the rule ol'force (Sesl.9z). Stability is dcstroycd il' court decisionsare not upheld (Sulla fu). The courts guided by jurisconsultsmust respectthe 'ius civile', which is the bond ol'lilc in society,the guaranteeof property, and the sourceof impartial justice (Caec.7o).Law, duly administeredby the courts)safeguards the liberty, rank, and possessions of the citizens(Cluent.r46, dedom.33, 46). Populares would hardly have dissentedfrom any of this in principle. In assertingthe people'sunlimited right to legislate,they could have cited the Twelve Tables (ch.6 n. 34). It was they who could claim to be upholding the rule of law in protesting against the arbitrary punishmentof citizens,or in r33 againstdisregardof the legal limit on holdings of public land, and in 58 against the senate'sabrogationof legal rights of association.It was also in the name of purity of justice that they could demand in r zg and 7o the termination of senatorial control of the courts, and that Cornelius in 67 required praetorsto give juridical decisionsin conformity with their own edicts; Cornelius also limited the senate'sfreedom to grant exemptionsfrom the law, which had obviouslybeenimproperly exercised(Ascon.57-g C.).Despitethe anarchicactivitiesof a Clodius,it cannot be supposedthat they would have contradicted Cicero's resounding assertions that men's life, freedom, and property rested on the rule of law. of order in Of Augustusit is enough to say that his re-establishment itself reinforced the rule of law. In the course of that abdication of unconcealedautocracywhich he datesto zB z7 (RG Sü, he fixed the last day of zB as the term after which 'the illegal and unjust regulations'of the triumvirate should ceaseto be valid (Dio liii. 2.5). Thereafter he was so careful to observeproperty rights that he made his forum lessspaciousthan he had planned rather than sequesterland on which adjoining housesstood (Suet. Aug. 56). Tiberius was to avow that he had beenentrustedwith power that he might servenot only the state but private personstoo (Suet. Tib. zg). 'Fides', which Cicero collocatesin his list with 'iudicia' and 'iuris 'fidelity to promises and dictio', is in its most general meaning it can be seenas the basisof all just conduct (deofic.i. tg); agreements', and it has a wide range in Roman sociallife and legal institutions;but here perhaps it refers most specifically to 'credit'. Just as Cicero in 56 probably had in mind under iurisdictiothe disruption of legal processes which had occurredin recentyears,104 so he was thinking principally when he spokeof fdes here, of the insecurity of the money market at Rome that had resulted from the Mithridatic wars, and still more of the hopesthat Catiline had held out to the 'wretched',as well as to the r0a Especially in 58-57; cf. Brunt, LiaerpoolClass.Monthl, rg8r, zz7 ff.

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of remissionof debts ruined men of high degreeamong his accomplices, and redistributionof property.ros 1tr retrospectCicero would write: 'What doesrelief of debts mean but this?You buy an estatewith my money; you have it, and I lose the money . . . Nothing holds the commonwealth together more strongly than fdes, which cannot possibly subsist,unlessmen are obliged to pay what they owe. Never was there a strongermovement to prevent this than in my consulship. . . Never was the burden of debt greater,yet never was it better or more speedilydischarged;once hope of fraud had been dissipated,men had who bring no choicebut to pay up' (deffic. ii. Ba).'Would-be/opulares out of their to driving possessors up the agrarianquestion,with a view be presented to the moneys borrowed should seats, or think that justice and too commonwealth; foundations of the debtors,subvertthe (ibid. keep his own' man is not allowed to if every is totally abolished of the commonwealthwill exert ZB); by contrast,the true guardians 'that every man keepshis own by the above all to ensure themselves justice (aequitas)of law and court decisionsin such a way that the weaker sort are not defrauded on account of their humble status and that envy doesnot hamper the wealthier sort in retaining or recovering what belongsto them' (ibid. 85). In order to resettle the In all this Cicero is unfair to the populares. poor on the land, Tiberius Gracchus merely resumed public domains which the rich had occupied in contravention of an old law; admittedly so long and with such a senseof security they had been in possession that they had treated their holdings as private property, using it for dowries and family tombs, but strictly they were not being evicted from lands they owned (App. Z- r o). Most subsequentagrarianschemesalso involved redistribution of state lands or purchasefrom willing sellers. The only large expropriations before 4F+o were those of Sulla, reprobatedby Cicerb @effic. i. 43, ii. zg);t06Catiline who proposedto follow his example was one of his old partisans. The conception of equalizingwealth Cicerohimselfmentionsas an absurdity that no one would entertain (derep.i.+g).The Marian regimein 86 did enact that three-quarters of all debts should be remitted; this was a measure probably made necessaryby the shortage of cash consequenton the Social war and the lossof Asia to Mithridates, and was perhaps partly designedfor the benefit of an insolvent treasury (p.tSg). In general populares hardly ever sought to relieve the poor of the burden of debt; Catiline is again the exception.Caesar'senemiesexpectedin 49 that he would effecta remissionof debts,but thesefearswere hardly justified. t o 5 d e i m p . C n . P o m p . t g , d e l e g . a g r . i . z 4 , i i . S . C aM t i ul i rn. e4 :9 5 r , C a l . ü . 8 , r 7 - z z , F a m . v . 6 . z, de ffic. ii. 84; Sall. Cat. 16. 4, zr. z, 28. 4, 39. to6 /ry', ch. xrx.

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63

trritially hc clid lto more tltalr crt:rblc landed proprietors who were slrort ol't'ash to satisfy their creditors by making over real estate to ttrcm at pre-war valuations (.BCiii. r); after prolonged agitation he was rrltimately obliged to remit some arrears of rent due from urban rlwcllers in Rome and Italian towns, proof for Cicero of his inborn wickedness.The property of a debtor could be sold up bv court order lirr the benefit of his creditors, with the result that he incurred through irt/hmiathe loss of many valuable civic rights; it may have been Caesar t<xr who enabled him to escape this penalty by a voluntary cessionof asscts to meet his liability. But personal execution was open to the crcditor where the debtor had insufficient assetsfor the purpose' or had r'jectsand vassals; perhapsfdes, besides its more specific meaning as 'r'rcdit', by its collocation with what follows also suggeststhe idea that Rome was to regard her empire as a trust) and as in the good old days, 'patrocinium orbis terrae' rather than 'imperium' (de ofic- ä. cxcrcise a ':7); the empire should be sustained by their goodwill (iii. BB)' All this r.rrlranced the dignitas rei publicae; for we must recall that dignitas had 'rank'; imperial 'worth' as well as rrroral overtones and connotes (r'andeur is both glorious and deserved. Again, there was nothing here thü populareswould have repudiated. I n principle everyone acknowledged that Rome had a duty to rllli'nd her allies and subjects and give them just government. ;\rrsustus' declaration that he wished all the provincials to know the r;rrt' that the senate and he took that they should not incur wrongful cxirctions (EJ arr v. Bo) implied no new recognition of this duty; it rr;rs cmbodied in the repetundaelaws designed for their protection lot

Sce endnote 5.

ro8 For what follows see Brunt. Laus Imbeü

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(Cic. Diu. Caec.t7), each allegedlyof'grcater rigour than thc last (de ofic.ä. 75);populares, C. Gracchus,Glaucia,and Caesar,all introduced improvements,but Sulla too recodified the law. Gracchus,like the elder Cato, had denounced the oppressionof the Italian allies before the people (Gell. x. 3), and Pompeyin 7o that of the subjectsoverseas (I Verr.45); Cicero in popular vein could expect to work up indignation on the samesubject (Il Verr.äi. zo7, de imp. Cn. Pomp.65).The mild and just principles on which he exhorted his brother to rule Asia Qr._fr. i. r) and on which he tried to act himselfin Cilicia accorded with thoseof that most intransigentof optimates,the younger Cato (AU. vi. r. 13, vi. 2.8, Fam. xv. 5). It is another matter that the partiality and corruption of the courts made it hard for the subjectsto obtain redress;still we must not conclude that most governors resembled Verres rather than Cicero. There was someimprovement in the Principate, often exaggerated. Even more obviously, all were agreed on maintaining Rome's imperial strength and prestige.In fact populares were most zealousfor Rome's honour in the Jugurthine war, and brought to account commanders who culpably disgraced Roman arms in the north and imperilled the security of Italy during the next few years. None did so much to enhanceRome's power and glory as Pompey and Caesar,who owed their extraordinary commands to the people; 'imperii laus' is Cicero's chief theme in extolling the achievementsof the former in 66 (addressingthe people) and of the latter in 56 (speaking before the senate).Tiberius Gracchusjustified his agrarian schemeat leastin part by considerationsof 'res militaris'; it would keep up the supply of citizens qualified for servicein the legions. Like later proposals for the distribution of land or grain, it was assailedas a'largitio' that the treasury could ill afford. It is hard to see how these optimate criticisms could have been validated except perhaps in the period between go and the conquests of Pompey; imperial revenueswere flowing in ample measure.loeAlthough Cicero was perhaps not alone in arguing that Rome was entitled to tax the subjectsin order to pay the armiesneededfor their protection(A.rt.i. r.Z4), Romans felt no compunctionin treating the provincesas their possessions, producing income that they could apply to their own purposes. Probably no one saw any moral objection to Tiberius Gracchus' appropriation of the moneys available from Attalus III's bequest of the kingdom of Pergamum to fitting out the allotments under his agrarian bill. In a speechto the people,of which the context is mysterious,his brother claimed that his proposalswere directed to l o e S e ee n d n o t e6 , C h . 3 n . r z 3 .

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'increasingyour revenues,so that you may more easily serve your ilterestsand the commonwealth'(Gell. xi. lo. l). Cicero remarksthat that squanderedthe treasury,he rhough responsiblefor huge largesses (Tusc. Disp' äi. +B)..Il may.well be its champion spoköas ilhe were his reform of the Asian taxfrom accruing tirat additional income of social relief. So his schemes covered dues harbour new systemand found frorn the been have must grain doles free Clodius' of too the cost to which settlement, eastern Pompey's through obtained revenues new Clodius added a bonus, by providing for the annexation of Cyprus. Moreover, popularescould retort to charges of extravagance with allegations ttrat the ruling class lined their own pockets from the treaiury. This was surely what many of them did, though the mechanismsby which they appropriated public funds without actually violating the law againstpeculationare somewhatobscure.Certainly it seemsto have been within a general'sdiscretion to decide what part, if any, of the spoilsof war he would reservefor the treasury, or donate for public buildings and the like; and how much he would distribute to his äfficersand men; the former would get much larger shares,and he could retain for himselfa proportionatesum.11o Once again it was Augustus whose reorganization of the armed Ibrces,financial measures,and military and diplomatic triumphs did most to realize this part of Cicero's programme; the enhanced splenCourof the city of Rome, which resulted from his munificence in building, symbolized her imperial greatness.These achievementswere the more impressive becausefor contemporaries that greatnesshad seemedto be in jeopardy. At a time when it seemedthat civil wars might never cease,Horace was to lament that Rome was destroying herself by her own strength and expressthe fear that one day the clatter of barbarian horse would ..ro,r.rä on the city's streets (Epodesvii and xvi), and Virgil would pray, with no firm confidence, that Octavian would prove a saviour not only from internal anarchy but from foreign dangers (Georg.i. 4oBff.): Hinc movetEuphrates,illinc Germaniabellum Livy thought Rome strong enough to overcomeall external foesonly if the harmony that Augustushad then restoredwere perpetual (ix. r9' | 7). No one of coursecould yet know that the capacityand impulsefor (.onquestthat had carried the Parthiansfrom the Caspianto the Syrian lrorder had now expired, or that there would not for centuriesbe a pcrilous revival of those German migratory movements which had llo

See endnote 7.

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' f H u I ' A L Lo t ' t ' H U R o M A NR E p u B r . r ( i

threatenedRome in Marius' time: the fearsof Maroboduus voiced by Tiberius are significant(Tac. Ann. ä.63). But for Augustus'work continuedanarchy might have exposedthe empire to the samekind of irruptions which were gravely to damagethe imperial structurein the third century e,o. In fact Augustus was to realize Cicero's ideal of enhancing the 'dignitas imperii'. Apart from completing the pacification of regions (especiallyin Spain) long nominally subject to Rome, and restoring Roman prestige in the east, tarnished by the defeats of Crassusand Antony, which might seem to portend greater disasters, by his annexations in the north he added more to Roman territory than anyone beforehim; and if in the end he was frustrated in his design to extend Rome's dominion at least to westernGermany and Bohemia, and was far from fulfilling Virgil's prediction that he would accomplish her mission to conquer the world and thus establish universal peace (Aen.i. 235-7), he did bequeath to his successors an empire 'protected by the Ocean and remote rivers', relatively easy to defend (Ann. i. g).ttt For both offensiveand defensivepurposeshe required larger forces than the Republic had mobilized except in civil wars. There were now permanent squadronsto assurefreedom of navigation on the seas;and the standingarmy numberedprobably some3oo,ooomen, as against about 75,ooo in 6o or r25,ooo ir 53; at the same time the burden of military servicewas lesseningfor Italians, since about half the soldierswere probably provincials, and the proportion of provincials was growing.rt' New financial resourceswere required for these military commitments(and indeedfor increaseddomesticexpenditure, which also tended to magnify the splendour of the city of Rome itselfl; the richer Italians had to make some contribution, and Augustus assistedfrom his vast personal wealth; the rents of his ever increasing estatessupplemented the yield of taxes. But the revenue from the provincesmust also have been buoyant: of the new acquisitionsEgypt at least produced a huge surplus over occupation costs,and everywhere peace must have augmented prosperity, and more efficient methods of taxation must. have enabled the state to take its due rlr It is generallyheld that Augustus sought only to establishdefensiblefrontiers, and failed to advance them in the north to the projected Elbe*Danube line; I argued in JRS r 963, r 7o ff., that he hoped to realize the ideal ofworld-dominion in prudent stages,and that it was only after the Illyrian and German revolts ofeo 6-9 that he (or Tiberius) adopted a purely defensiveposture. However this may be, the great extent of his conquestsand the stresshe himself laid in iRGon the military glory he had won are facts beyond dispute. rr2 Cf. IM, chs. xxv l, for legionary strengtlis. My estimate of the Augustan army includes a highly conjectural figure for the autilia; and it ought to be borne in mind that provincial az.riiia were used in the late Republic, though not on rhe same scale or so sytematically as in the Principate. Conscription in Italy was lessoppressiveunder Augustus and was normally discontinued from Tiberius' time (IM 4r4 [; cf. Snipta Ola"s.LsraeliLa, rg74, go ff.).

b7

Pursuinga o['its dominions'113 proportiotrol'the risinggrossproduct 'Iiberius could lay up a great reserve peaceluland economicalpolicy, (Suct.Gaius97. 3). in reconcilWe can hardly estimatethe effectsof theseachievements But most fruits. ing opinion to the new regime: it was known by its re-established he that patentlyit was vital to Augustus'political success 'otium'. After the miseriesof civil wars, he captivated and maintained everyone'dulcedineotä' (Ann.i. z), prescribinglaws'under which we 'it was in the interest of might live in peacewith a prince' (iii. zB); peice that all power should devolve on one man' (Hist. i. I). Horace äouldsayquite simply that under Augustus'swayhe did not fear to die by violence (Odesäi. r4. r6). Of the most turbulent sectionsof the community in the late Republic, Augustus kept the urban plebs content by better provisionfor the food supply (not to speakof that of water, or of the public works that gave them employmentr'"), and the soldierswith gifts, and above all by guaranteeingthem the meansof livelihood on discharge.Velleius' panegyric on his work (ii. 89) is 'civil wars were extinguished,foreign reminiscentof Cicero's ideals: wars buried, peacewas recalled, armed frenzy everywherelaid to rest' force restored to the laws, authority to the courts,majesty to the senate; the power of magistrateswas reduced to its ancient limits . ' . The famous and traditionalform of the commonwealth, as it had been of old, was brought back to life. Cultivation returned to the fields, respectto religion,security to men; everyone was safely in possessionof his own.'1

15

Velleius chose to say nothing of the variety of devices by which Augustus had assuredhimself of ultimate control of the state. The fundamentally monarchic character of the new settlementprobably dismayedparvenusof his type lessthan the nobility, and lessthan it would have dismayed Cicero, who had shared in the senatorial ascendancyand risen to an eminencenow beyond the reach of any private man. Some have indeed supposedthat Cicero himself had helped to prepare men's minds for the Principate by his account of an 'moderaBut Cicero's ideal 'moderator rei publicae' in his derepublica. tor' is no more than the model statesman;thereis nothing to show that Cicero contemplatedthat he should be vested,except perhaps in a lr3 Caesar had probably substituted collection by local governments of the direct taxes not only in Asia but throughout the east lor collection by publicans, who had probably been little uscd lor this purpose in the west. Augustus'institution ofperiodic provincial censusespermitted thc governmenr ro basetax demands on fairly realistic estimatesof presumably increasingwealth. S c e A . H . M . J o n e s , T h e R o m a nE c o n o m y1,9 7 4 ,c h . 8 ; B r u n t , J R S 1 9 8 I , r 6 t f f . rrn Brunt, J R S r 9 8 o ,B r f f r l 5 V e l l . i i . r z 6 a d u l a t e sT i b e r i u s i n s i m i l a r t e r m s , a s i f A u g u s t u s ' w o r k h a d t o b e d o n e o v e r rgain,

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short emergency, with any extraordinary legal powers such as Augustus possessed(seeendnote B). In any casefor all the adulations of provincials or Roman poets, who could frankly recognize that Augustus was monarch and credit him with divinity or divine aid, there appears to have been no ideological enthusiasm for monarchy among the 6lite, whose collaboration Augustus most needed (Section I). For their attitude the best evidence is his own caution in posing as no more than the first man at Rome and parading his ciailitas.rr6 Tacitus makes his admirers acknowledge that the rule of one man was the only remedy for the discords of the state, but praise him for not assuming the style of king or dictator and affecting to remain merely princeps;like Velleius, they too enlarge on what his measures achieved (Ann.i.9). The new regime was approved by the boni et beati because Augustus did what Cicero's optimates were to have done: he gave 'will, effect to their interests, and opinions' in the matters men of prosperity cared for most.

VIII

Why did the senate fail to achieve that consensuswhich Augustus obtained?Clearly at times it alienatedthe Italian allies,the Equites, the urban plebs,the peasants,and the soldiery.It did so becauseof its inability to solveproblemsthat arosefrom Rome's expansion.ll7 It is a mere dogmatic assertionwhich explainsnothing to say that an aristocracy as such cannot rule an empire. (The Venetian aristocracy did.) At leastin its acquisitionthe Roman aristocracyhad shown the most remarkable sagacity. In the early period of the Republic, when Rome was still struggling first for survival and then for hegemony among her neighbours,the patricians had made prudent concessions to popular grievancesand absorbed the leading plebeian families in a new nobility, more open to talent, and thereby preservedthe degreeof internal harmony necessaryfor external success.The conqueststhat Rome made permitted large distributionsof booty, allotmentsof land, the repayment and from 167 the discontinuanceof direct taxes. Victories enriched the ruling 6lite, but there was enough to satisfy the common people as weli. Very probably the former were the more 116 On citilitas,which was cultivated by all of thosesuccessors of Augustus who sought like him to retain the goodwill of the 6lite, see A. Wallace-Hadrill, JRS rg8z,3z ff.; perhaps it might be added (a) that the emperor who eschewedmonarchic trappings was likely to be more accessibleto their views and (ü) that the pretence that he was 'unus ex nobis', while not detracting from his real power, maintained their dignitas.In my view ciuililasor its absenceis of the first importance for understanding an emperor's relationswith the higher orders, and not only with the senate:it is a prominent theme in the portrayal ofemperors by the Eques Suetonius. ' ' ' C o m p a r ew h a t l o l l o w si n t h i ss e c t i o nw i t h t h e i l l u m i n a r i n ga n a l y s i si n H o p k i n s , r g 7 B ,c h . r .

'l

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t)q

rcady to allow thcm a share irr thc profits l)ccitusc the measures that answcrcd this purp
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Early in the secondcentury north Italy was pacified, apart lrom marauding raids, and whatever apprehensionsthe Hellenistic monarchiesmay at first have arousedwere allayed by a successionof easy victories. Rome's military strength was so overwhelming that the old methodsof sustainingit were allowed to fall into disuse.The processof colonizationwas halted after about I73.r18 Enfranchisementof Italians ceased.No pressing need was apparently felt to keep up the number of citizensqualified by property for military service.Legionaries were recruited mainly by conscription; it was hated, and if the proportion of allies in Roman armies was allowed to increasein the later secondcentury, as was probably the case,this was perhapsone of the reasons.It was also a device that relieved the Roman treasury) which paid legionariesfrom imperial revenues,whereas the Italian communitieshad to pay their own contingents.(It is not really true that Rome exacted from her allies a tribute only of blood and not of cashas well.)11e For reasonsthat I have attemptedto explain in Chapter s the allies came to desire parity of rights with the Romans. The revolt of Fregellaeis proof that this desirewas already latent among the Latins, when the issuewas raisedby M. Fulvius Flaccus;no doubt it had been of stimulatedby the Gracchanagrarian law, imperilling the possession Roman domain land which was held by oligarchs in the Italian communities, though enfranchisementwould hardly have occurred to anyonebut for Rome'searliertradition of extendingher citizenship.It may well be that in the first instance the senaterejected the demand precisely becauseit emanated from populares,and concessionrnight have strengthened their political influence. It was evidently easy enoughto rousethe oppositionof the plebs.In a hierarchicsocietyany order may feel satisfactionin seeingothers lower in the scale.Among the allies themselvesthe demand for enfranchisementcannot as yet have been either universal or deeply felt. No more is heard of it for almost thirty years.But once the idea had been implanted, it must have silently flourished. Senatorial leaders recognized its strength in 9r, but half-heartedlyand temporarily.When Drusus' proposalfoundered, there was a widesprtiadrevolt. Nearly all the Latins (who were mostly of Roman descent)remainedloyal, and someother communities; we can assumethat each people followed the lead of its own principes,who could differ on the prudence of taking arms. But the course of events seems to show not only that the rebels sought r18 Over 4 o , o o or e c e i v e da l l o t m e n t s2 o o - t 7 Z @ S A R i . r z r f f . ) ; t h e r e m a y h a v e b e e n a l i t t l e unrecorded settlementafter r67, when we no longer have Livy's narrative, the sourceofprevious information. r r e C o n s c r i p t i o n I: M , c h . x x r r . I t a l i a n c o n t i n g e n t si:b i d . 6 7 7 f f . , c f . I l a r i , r g 7 4 .

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incorporationin the Roman state,and independenceonly if that were denied,but that the loyalty of the rest could not be assuredunlessthey were given preciselywhat had previously been refused.The senate somecredit for seeingthis, and at last acting accordingly,but deserves it then tried to nullify the benefit by restricting the voting power of the new citizens.Their consequentialdiscontentwas the preconditionof civil wars and of the Marian seizure of power. Amid this turmoil it proved necessaryto extend the citizenship to the former insurgentstoo, but the practical effect was still minimized by the failure to register most of the new citizenson the censusrolls until 7o. The attitude of the senateto Italian aspirationsis not explainedin our sourcesand is hard to understand.It is most unlikely to have been due to a conceptionthat any further increasein the number of citizens and in their geographical distribution would break the bounds of a city-state. This doctrinal thinking was alien to the practical Roman mentality; and in any casewith over 4oo,oooadult male citizens,many already living hundreds of miles from the city, Rome was and had long been a city-stateof a wholly anomalouskind. It may be that some nobles feared that with an enlarged electorate in the centuriate assembly,in which the Italian magnatesat leastcould be expectedto exercisetheir voting rights, their own order would lose control, and perhaps even be confronted with more new competitors. If such apprehensionswere entertained, they were belied by experiencein the post-Sullan generation. Fiscal considerationsmay have counted for something.Perhapswe must simply invoke a mental inertia generated by the conviction that Rome's imperial power was now so great that it was no longer necessaryto take account of allied sentiments. Imperial expansionalso produced the conditions for the intermittent conflictsof senateand Equites (Chapter 3). There was a vast increase in public revenue and expenditure and therefore in the scopeof state contracting, whether on public works, or suppliesfor the armies, or in the collectionboth of rents on public domains such as mines and of provincial taxes. It had already proved necessarythat the contractors for theseenterprises should be organizedin companies,and investment in them was widely spread among the rich. Their interestscould often conflict with those of the treasury and the taxpayers, of which the senatewas the proper custodian,while their organizationand voting strength in the centuriate assembly afforded them some means of of political pressure.The wealth of such men and their consciousness the importance of their public functions enhanced their senseof a dignity which was imperfectly recognizedin the existing structure. by senatorsin They resentedthe monopoly ofjudicial rights possessed all important cases(Chapter 4). Though the senateitselfwas recruited

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from their ranks, as older families died out or were impoverished, those among them who sought a political career may have chafed at the arrogance with which the nobility looked down on newcomers. Gaius Gracchus was to enlarge their opportunities for profit in public contracting, and the splendorof their position in the state by conferring on them judicial rights; in particular they alone were to sit in judgement on senators accused of extortions from the subjects, a privilege extended by later popular legislation to other political offences. The tenacity with which they clung to these rights shows that he had detected ambitions which the senate had ignored and which it now long tried to frustrate. In this case it is easy to comprehend the senate's attitude. Senators wished to be responsible to their peers alone, except in so far as they were bound by constitutional practices, which they could not dream of upsetting, to recognize the electoral, legislative, and judicial rights of the people : they could of course also assert with some reason that it was not for the good of either treasury or subjects that they should be amenable to the new pressure that publicans could exert on them through control of criminal courts. The discord between the senate and the equestrian order, or rather its most affluent members organized in the publican companies, came to a head at the same time as the Italian insurrection. There was intense bitterness within the propertied class at Rome. This was one reason why the Social war issued in civil war. It may, however, appear that these conflicts had little to do with the ultimate collapse of the senate's supremacy. That was restored by Sulla. At latest in 70, when the censors more or less completely registered the new citizens, and certainly those among them who wished to exercise political rights at Rome, and when the long contest for control of the courts was settled by a durable compromise, both Italians and Equites had secured their essential aims. In fact, despite occasional disputes arising from the public contracts and the existence among those Equites who aspired to office of some resentment at aristocratic exclusiveness, there is no evidence of any great cleft dividing the two higher ofders; equally there is none of animosity among the Italian gentry against the senate (p.Z).But recollection of the fearful sufferings of the wars that lasted from 9o to Bz, which did result from the senate'sresistanceto equestrian and Italian ambitions, had an enduring effect on the minds of all who stood to lose from their repetition, and conditioned them to accept any regime that was most l i k e l y t o s e c u r et h e m i n t h e i r l i v e s a n d p r o p e r t y ( p . 6 2 ) . T h e E q u i t e s and the gentry who controlled the Italian peoples and had no more sympathy than senators with the grievances of the poor, were not

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prcpared, as (iicero hopcd, to t:rke a strong stand in defence of the 'dynasts', whose strength senate'sauthority when it was threatened by had its origin in the indifference of the senate to the needs of the MASSES.

The acquisition of empire sharpened the division between rich and poor. Booty from some of the foreign campaigns doubtless enriched the more fortunate of Rome's peasan't soldiärs,r2o but far more of them must have been ruined by service overseas, which could take them away fior years together from their small f;arms. Not indeed that military service was probably the main cause of the decline in the number of peasant owners. At all times the subsistencefarmer must have been unable to survive a series of bad harvests without falling into debt. Many of them must have had holdings too small for the maintenance of a family without benefit of usage of public domain land or of additional plots leased from the larger landowners or of seasonal employment by the latter. The profits of warfare, government, and public contracting now furnished the rich with large sums to invest, which they preferred to put into the aggrandizement of their holdings of land. They would thus have been more ruthless in foreclosing on the farms mortgaged to them as security for credit; we are told that some actually seized by force the properties of their weaker neighbours. At the same time they were occupying and enclosing more and more of the domain land for arable cultivation, besides grazing ever larger herds on the common pastures. They also imported large numbers of slaves, taking the view that slave labour was more economical than free labour on their estates. Hence the peasant who lost his own holding had less chance of leasing a farm, or of getting hired employment except for seasonal work, for which the permanent labour force of slaves was insufficient. The expropriated peasants might migrate to Rome or other towns, but though with the great increase of the 'national income' that we must postulate, there must also have been an increased demand for manufactured goods and services, this demand too could be largely met by slaves and freedmen, who were already possessedof the skills that the peasant lacked, or could be trained at the äost of their owners or patrons; there was little for the peasant but casual unskilled work. In Rome at least the swollen population lived in squalor and on the edge of starvation. It is unlikely that the rural poor, once deprived of their own farms, were less wretched than the underemployed agrarian proletariate of southern ltaly a few generations ugo.t" r20 Harris, Ig7g, 58 ff., roz ff. t21 See e.g. [-. M. Snowden, Violenceand Great Estalesin the SouthoJ ltal2, tg$6, for vivid illustratigns, On the Roman agrarian question cf. ch. 5, I and the further statement of my views

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In some measure the concentration of landed property in lewer hands was a process that must always have been in operation. Until about r7g it was continually counteracted by the creation of new colonies or by viritane allotments of land in Italy which Rome had conquered. It is clear that after r 73 there still remained a considerable stock of such land in public domain. Tiberius Gracchus proposed to resume the traditional policy of distributing it. If it had been intermitted, it was partly perhaps because the senate saw no strategic necessity for it (p. oo), partly because the senators themselves were among the chief beneficiaries of the conversion of domain land into what were in effect private estates. Gracchus was indeed to argue that there was still a military reason for reviving the tradition on the footing that Roman power rested on a sufficient supply of peasant soldiers. It does not seem to have occurred to him that in so far as military service in itself prejudiced the viability of small farming, it must impair the prospects of his new settlers, nor that other factors would still operate against small owners. We are told that in fact the Gracchan colonists ultimately failed to make good, just like the veterans to whom Sulla later gave allotments. Yet land distribution continued to be the panacea for assuaging rural discontent, although the quantity of domain land available must have been severely reduced by the Gracchan measure, so that it later became necessary to resort to purchase with state funds, whether compulsory or from willing sellers, or else to outright confiscations from those who had taken the losing side in civil wars. The opponents of such settlements rested their case on the sanctity of private property or the need to conserve the resources of the treasury. Allotments of land could temporarily increase the number of small owners (though they too were among the victims of Sullan and triumviral sequestrations).l22 No one seems to have discerned that in the long run these measures were doomed to futility. That does not diminish the political importance of the demand for agrarian reform. It is hard to overestimate the significance of Tiberius Gracchus' initiative. In order to carry out his plan, he challenged senatorial authority comprehensively, and set the precedent for all future popular movements.' Moreover, it was in the course of its ap. Cherubini, I983,99ff., with select bibliography. The alienation of small farms no doubt occurred usually by saleorfduciammcreditore(n. ro7). Ti. Gracchus (App. i. ro, z7), Sulla (Cic. deleg.agr. ii. 78), and Caesar (App. iii. z, 7) all made allotments inalienable; they could then not legally be sold or given as security; the settler had only his chattels to pledge in return for a loan. But the threat of personal execution (ch. 6 n. 7) might force him to surrender usulruct to his creditor and, on the creditor's demise,to his successor;alternatively the law was ignored, because no one would challengethe creditor's title in the courts when he took possession. An inalienability clausein the Gracchan law was eventually rescinded,in resard to Sullan allotments not observed. t 2 2 S a l l . O r . L e p i d ir a . e 4 ; H i s t . i . 6 5 , D i o x l v i i i . 9 . g ; l t . t U , c h . x r x ( i i i , ;a n d ( v i ; .

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implcmentation that the protrlems ol' Rome's relationship with the allies first became controversial and the initial stimulus was given to their claim for enfranchisement. It is possible that it was partly or mainly to win further support for the work of the land commission that Gaius Gracchus turned both to the urban plebs in instituting the corn dole, and to the Equites. A generation later, the younger Drusus, bent on granting the citizenship to the Italian allies and restoring control of the courts to the senate, felt it necessary to woo the plebs, which probably cared little for either proposal, with more distributions both of grain and land. We cannot tell how far in the result this demagogy actually estranged some of those who might have sympathized with his main objectives. At any rate all these issues were intertwined, and solutions for any of them may have become all the harder. A great concourse of rural voters came in to Rome to pass Tiberius Gracchus' agrarian bill. We do not hear that this recurred later, except when the primary beneficiaries of land allotments were demobilized soldiers, themselvesof rustic origin. The more recent migrants into the city were doubtless always interested in any opportunity to regain a livelihood on the land, but they do not seem to have constituted an effective pressure group. Widely scattered throughout Italy, most of them remote from Rome and unable to attend the assemblies, the dispossessedpeasants other than the veterans found no determined champions after the Gracchi; the ease with which Rullus' agrarian bill of 63 was defeated is significant. For the mass of the urban plebs the first consideration was the price of grain. The senate showed as little solicitude for them as for the rural poä..123 The cost of the dole instituted by Gaius Gracchus was reduced either by raising the price or by limiting the number of recipients or by both devices. Sulla abolished it altogether. It is true that it was revived on a small scale by a consular law of 73 and greatly extended by a measure that Cato proposed as tribune in 62. These measures were plainly concessions extorted by popular unrest. Before 73 high prices had provoked serious rioting; and it is probable that the constant disorders in the city in the next twenty years were linked with scarcities.At the time of Cato's law Catiline was still in arms, and the senate was bound to be apprehensive that he would be aided by an ourbreak of insurrection in the city. It was left to the popularis Clodius to abolish the charge always made hitherto lor the grain distributed by the state and apparently to make them available to virtually anyone who claimed a share. By organizing the clubs in which the humbler people at Rome had 123 Rickman, r98o, chs. rrr and vrr on measuresto ensure the procurement of sufficient grain, :rs well as those for its cheap or free distribution.

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been accustomed to associate and which the senate had sought to suppress, he also deprived the senate of the means of keeping order there. It is notable that the senate had no troops or police permanently at its disposal for the purpose. No doubt the very concept of a police force was unfamiliar in the ancient city-state, but then the huge agglomeration of inhabitants at Rome was itself almost a unique phenomenon; it must at least be said that the senate lacked the discernment to devise a new remedy for an unparallelled problem. It might well have feared to entrust to any one of its own members power that might have given him dominance. The remedy was found by Augustus, who had thousands of troops stationed in or near the city under officers of his own choice.124 Not that he relied chiefly on repression: he also made far better provision for the material welfare of the Roman poor. In particular he finally created permanent machinery for ensuring the procurement of grain. It was idle to promise the plebs free or cheap rations at the public expense if insufficient supplies reached the city; moreover, especially before Clodius' law, the dole did not meet all the requirements of the population; and later too many still had to buy at market prices. Gaius Gracchus' construction of public granaries shows that he recognized the problem, but it was never solved in the Republic. The prevalence of piracy before 67 interrupted shipments and caused prices to soar; even when Pompey had rooted it out, scarcities could still arise, and in 57 he had to be given a new extraordinary commission to organize procurement. The crisis of 67 had, however, already crucially affected the course of the political revolution. A chain of events connected the Gabinian law with the subsequent grants of great commands to both Pompey and Caesar, from which the civil war of 49 issued and the ultimate overthrow of the senate's supremacy. In 67 the votes, and the violence, of the urban plebs were decisive. By 59, when Caesar in turn received his command in the north, the strong arms of Pompey's veterans had enabled the 'triumvirs' to control the assemblies and to disregard the wishes of the senate. What they wanted above all was land, and it had been Caesar's first task as consul to fulfil their demand..The agrarian question had entered a new phase as early as Saturninus' efforts to settle the veterans of Marius (Chapter 5). Even before Marius enlisted men without any property for the legions, a precedent which seems to have been followed thereafter, many of the legionaries had possessedlittle of their own; and though conscription, which remained the normal mode of recruitment, especially in crises,must still have brought owners and tenants of small r24 (lfl W. Nippcl, ./R.l rg84, zo ff.

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farms under the standards,they were likely, asin the past,to losethem, if retained in servicefor years.The proletariithemselves,volunteersand conscriptsalike, seemto have been drawn almost exclusivelyfrom the 'no stake rural population (including small towns). Thesesoldiershad in the country'; they were ready to take any opportunity of enriching themselves.The prospect of booty induced them to join up with Marius in ro7 and to obey Sulla'sordersto march on Rome in BB;at all times they would seekplunder, donatives,risesin pay; but what they most desired was some assuranceof a livelihood after discharge, and it was natural for them to look for this in the competency of a holding of land. Sulla no doubt promisedallotments,to win recruitsin 83, and he did allot lands to all who servedhim in the civil war, but he failed to provide for similar rewards to legionariesin the future, and the senateinvariably obstructed grants or (?! itt +g) arousedsuspicions that it would not honour promisesmade.125It was only through the dominance of successfulgenerals regardlessof its will that veterans obtainedlands in 59, under Caesar'sdictatorshipand under the rule of the triumvirs. It is indeed evident enough that the senatehad nothing to fear from small armies regularly garrisoning provinces, and even from large armies under the command of men like Metellus Pius and L. Lucullus faithful to senatorialgovernment. We may account for the disloyalty of soldiersto the regime on the basis that they came from a classwhich the senatehad done nothing for, and consequentlywould not feel that they owed it anything. But equally we have no reasonto supposethat they had any positive ideological repugnance to the regime, that they conceived themselves as representatives of the down-trodden peasantry. It was their own material welfare that they cared about, and probably they seldomobjected if other peasantswere expropriated to make way for them.126They threw up no leadersof consequence from their own ranks. They depended on their generalsto provide for their interests.But the generalsin turn depended on them to enforce their own will on the state. Sulla, Pompey, Caesar,the triumvirs' and Augustus himself all owed their power to their troops, and it was primarily by enriching them, and especiallyby promisesand grants of land, that they securedtheir allegiance. The most fatal error that the senatemade was thus its failure to keep the soldiery content. Even the pay was low till Caesardoubled it, and r2s On the senate'spromises see p. 266, IM 325 f. The discontent in Octavian's army was apparently due in part to the exclusion of some from the benefits, in part to failure to make immediate payment in full of a promised donative (App. iii. 86-9o; Dio xlvi.4r-3); but Appian also makes Octavian suggest that the senate could not be trusted to implement undertakings for l a n d a l l o t m e n t s( i i i . 8 7 ) . 126 They could protest at the expropriation oftheir own kin (Dio xlviii. 9. 3).

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no regular provision was made lor veterans alter demobilization. Augustus himself came to see the necessity for this only in r 3 Bc, though he had continually been settling veterans on the land in Italy or overseas, and doubtless his soldiers had come to expect such rewards. Of course it was impossible, without never-ending sequestrations of property, to satisfy their hopes of allotments in Italy; since the time of Caesar it had been necessaryto place some of them in overseas colonies, at the expense of provincials, 'lesserbreeds without the law', rather than of Italian proprietors.LzT 1n r3 it was only (substantial) bounties in cash that were guaranteed after so many years' service.The promises then made were not wholly kept, and it appeared in eo 6 not only that the term of service must be lengthened, but that the richer citizens must be made liable to new taxation, in order to meet the expense. Senators resented the burden, and it is easy to imagine that they would in the Republic have rejected any similar scheme, if they had seen that they would have to bear any part of the cost. It was the price in cash that they had to pay for the benefits of the otium established by the Principate; if they had had the foresight to accept its necessity earlier, they might have preserved their own libertas as w e l l . 1 28 The senate succumbed to force, which it had been the first to employ. Tiberius Gracchus was lynched, his followers later persecuted with a travesty of justice. His brother afforded a pretext for armed suppression; there was no clear justification for the subsequent massacre of his adherents. Sallust observed that these harsh measures 'increased the fears of the nobility more than their future power' (,BJ knew he that the descendantsof those who had taken the sword 42. ü; were to perish by it. The Gracchi were posthumously honoured as martyrs; their fate implanted a longing for retribution, which the Mamilian commission was to satisfy. Popular hatred of the nobility was expressed not only in the election of Marius and other new men as consuls in ro7 and the next few years but also in the condemnation of aristocratic generals about the same time for the disasters they had incurred in the northern wars.12e Saturninus learnt from the example of the optimates to rely on force; in the end it proved that they still had 127 Legionariesofprovincial origin, an ever increasingnumber, would not even want lands in Italy; that might also be true of ltalians long stationed in a province which became a new home f o r t h e m , b u t n o t e T a c . A n n . i . 1 7 .3 . r28 IM, ch. xrx (vii). At the figure fixed in en the cash bounty for a legionary was more than 5 equal to r3 years' annual pay. ln IM g4t I doubted ifit would purchase much land. But we do not know: calculationsofthe averageprice ofland in Italy basedon Colum. iii. 3. 8 (337 n. 3) are unreliable (cf. R. Duncan-Jonesdy'.M. l. Finley, St. in RomanProperQ,1976, rr). On the new taxes see Dio lv. 25, lvi. 28. 1 2 e P l u t . C . G r . 1 8 ;c C 6 8 f . ( c f . S a l l . B J S n .2 , 3 r . z , 6 5 . 5 ) .

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the prcpondcrance, and they would slaughter him and his associates after they had surrendered and might have been brought to trial. Politics became more vindictive. The bitterness evoked by Drusus' proposals was seen in his own assassination and in the vendetta conducted against his friends arraigned on trumped-up charges of treason under the Varian law. In BB Sulpicius copied Saturninus' violent methods. He too miscalculated. Sulla marched on Rome, occupied the city, had the laws of Sulpicius repealed or annulled, and outlawed him and his associates,notably Marius, the saviour of his country. The optimates thus inaugurated military coups and proscriptions. Marius and Cinna were soon able to retaliate; their victims too were not many, but included some of the leading men of the state. A few years later Sulla wrought vengeance on a far larger scale; hundreds of his opponents were proscribed, their sons barred from office, and great tracts of land throughout Italy confiscated and made over to his soldiers and favourites. War, as Thucydides said, is a teacher of violence; civil war was most brutal in its discipline. Appian conceived the Social war as a civil war, and with some justice, so many were the ties linking the Romans and the loyal allies on the one side with the rebels on the other. Probably it induced a temper of mind which made it easier to treat fellow-citizens without compunction as enemies. Be that as it may, one conflict merged into another, and for nine years with only a short interval there was fearful loss of life, sacking of cities, devastation of the land, and disregard for the rights of pröperty.r30 The impact of these miseries must have been the greater as Italy had for a century become accustomed to internal peace. No doubt Sulla claimed to have restored stability and tranquillity; his critics could call it'otium cum servitute'. But his claim was false. He was hardly dead when Lepidus raised a new 'innoxia plebs' whom he had insurrection, relying chiefly on the dispossessedin many parts of Italy to make room for his veterans.l3l This was crushed in 77, but with no troops stationed in Italy to maintain order, Spartacus' slave revolt could gather enough strength to defeat consular armies in 7z; devastations again ensued, and the wealthy must have sustained heavy losses, if only from the defection and eventual slaughter of thousands of slaves;it was not till 7I that the revolt was suppressed. With fighting still in progress in Spain, Macedon, and the east as many as 2oo)ooo Italians, perhaps a sixth of all always, adult males, had been recruited for the legions by 7r.tt'As "o IM, chs. xvrrr, xrx (iii). 131 Sallust's Or. Lepidi antedates his agitation but gives a fair impression of the causesof d i s c o n t e n t( c f . G C 2 3 3 - 5 ) . r32 IM, ch. xxv.

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conscription must have aggravated the economic difficulties of the peasantry,including the Sullan settlers.By 6g debt was rife in all regionsof Italy, and Catiline could hope that rural discontentwould furnish him with the meansfor a new coup; a former officer of Sulla, he looked to new proscriptionsand confiscationsto enrich himself and his partisans.It was a mad enterprisein the sensethat even initial success would have attracted retribution from Pompey with his large and efficient army in the east,but it was the vigilance and energy of Cicero that prevented the insurrection from assuming large proportions. However, broken men from all thesewars and revolts could hold out in the remote uplands. Kidnapping was common, and travel unsafe without an armed escort (Ascon. 3r C). Moreover, violence had become a habit. Rome was infested with armed gangs; in the countryside the proprietors of large estateswould employ their slaves to eject weaker neighbours by force; the adoption of sharper legal remediesindicates the prevalenceof the evil. It was left to Augustus to re-establishr..urity. t t' Though some of the Pompeians in 49 hoped like Catiline to replenishtheir fortunes by a victory of the Sullan type, far more of the propertied classmust have dreaded the renewal of such a 'calamity for the commonwealth'.Sulla'svictims had clearly included not only his committed adversariesbut rich men who had incurred the private enmity or aroused the cupidity of members of his entourage, or who had been simply implicated in resistanceto him through decisions taken in their home towns, perhaps under the coercion of his opponents, if they happened to have military control in the district. In 49 the boni et beatidesired peace on almost any terms; once Caesar had overrun Italy with a rapidity that minimized the destruction of war and had convinced them that he was unlikely to effect a social revolution, they were on his side, especiallyas the Pompeiansmeant to blockade Italy, and perhaps reconquer it by arms, and threatened reprisalseven againstneutrals (pp. ooo ff). Italy sufferedlittle from the civil wars in Caesar'slifetime. But it was otherwise after his death. Already i, 44-49 cities were sacked and farms pillaged in the north. The fact that many of the municipalities had committed themselvesagainstAntony gave the triumvirs a pretext for systematicseverities;and they neededcash and lands to satisfytheir soldiers.Hundreds were proscribed;the territory of sixteenof the most flourishing citieswere set asidefor distribution to veterans;their armies were quartered on the civil population; heavy contributions were levied from the rich, who had borne no direct taxation since 167. r32 1M, App. 8

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it was again outside Italy that the triumvirs defeated their opponents, the assignation of lands to the veterans produced renewed civil war there in 4r-4c.. Nor was there a cessation of sufferings when this fighting ceased. For years Sextus Pompey as master of the seas could cut off imports of food, and he offered a refuge in Sicily to thousands of slaves on the Italian estates. It was after eliminating him that Octavian could boast that he had restored peace by land and sea (App.". r30).t3n But there was no prospectof its permanenceso long as power was divided between him and Antony. The drain on Italian manpower continued till Octavian had established his sole supremacy; in 49 there were probably Bo,ooo m91_in the legions, and 4zo,ooo more *eiä enüsted between then and 32.'3t It was still necessaryto impose taxes on the richer citizens (tt.rg+) . As Octavian was actually in possessionof Italy, it must have been evident, as it had been in 49, that more distress would be caused if victory ultimately went to the party centred in the east; in addition Octavian could represent himself as the champion of Italian traditions against his orientälizing rival.t36 Thus if one man were to be supreme in the state, it would be better that he should be Octavian; and after'twenty years of conflict with no regard to custom and law' (Tac. Ann. iii. zB) the class of men whose conservative instincts would naturally have favoured the preservation of senatorial rule were now content to accept monarchy. It was their consent that did most to ensure the stability of the regime which the revolution had brought to birth,137 but which they had never previously desired or envisaged. IX Thus in the changed conditions created by imperial expansion the senatorial aristocracy, blinded in part at least by short-term views of its own political and economic advantage, failed by timely corlcessionsto satisfy the needs or aspirations of the Italian allies, the best-organized Equites, the urban plebs, the peasantry, and the soldiers. To maintain t ' o I M , c h s .x v t u , x r x ( v i ) , A p p . 8 . , A p p . v . r 5 , 1 8 , 2 5 , 9 4 , 6 1 , l + , l l w r i t e so f f a m i n e i n R o m e and even in Italy. Rome must in fact have been fed chiefly from ltaly, but the disruption of agricultural operations will have diminished the harvests there. Financial exactions in 43-42: A p p . i v . 5 . 3 r f . ; D i o x l v i i . r 4 , 1 6 f . , i n 4 4z o : A p p . v . 2 2 ' 2 4 , 6 7 f D . ;i o x l v i i i . 3 f . , g . 5 , r o ' 1 2 . 4 ' r 3 . 6 , 3 r ; i n 3 8 : A p p . v . g e ; D i o x l v i i i . 4 3 . I , 4 9 . r . T h e r e w e r e s o m er e m i s s i o n isn 3 6 ( A p p . v . I 3 o ; Dio xlix. r5), but more exactions in 3z (Dio l. ro, ro), followed by remissionsand personal liberafitiesof Augustus in z9 (Dio li. r7, zr). Details in Appian and Dio are not all perspicuous. r35 IM, ch. xxvr. 136 Syme, RrR,ch. xx; it is another matter that Antony was to some extent misrepresented ( i b i d .c h . x r x ) . t3t It ir highly significant that the grave mutinies ofeo l4 could not ripen into revolt because lhc gcncrals and ofliccrs were all loyal to Tiberius.

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or reassertits ascendancy,which was not based on unchallengeable legal or customary rights, it turned to coercion and fiorce;but despite the traditions of respect for the senate as such, and for the noble families which preponderated in its ranks, it ceased to possessthat measureof consent,or rather of resolutecommitment to its cause, which was required if it was to retain a superiority of force; in the end it could not assurepeace and order, and forfeited the firm allegiance of the naturally conservativepropertied class,who would otherwisehave had no quarrel on political, social, or economic grounds with its supremacy. Almost everyone would then acquiescein the establishment of a monarchy, which almost no one had ever regarded as intrinsicallydesirable. However, this analysis or any other which is confined to general factors, to political, social, and economic institutions and their development, indispensable as it is to understandingthe Roman revolution, cannot completelyexplain it. The senate'scontrol was underminedby laws the assembliespassed, and destroyed by rebellious armies. However, the assembliescould act only on the initiative of magistrates, and the troops obeyed their disloyal commanders.If the history of the late Republic is too often written as if its coursewas determined merely by the rivalries of great political figures contending for power and drawing their strength from tiesof personalfealty and friendship, while the discontentwith the senatorial regime which gave them a following is ignored or minimized, we must not fall into the opposite error of neglecting the vital role performed by the leaders in promoting the revolution, though none of them before Caesar in his last years designedit. From the time of Marius and Sulla military leadersstruck the most damaging and ultimately fatal blows at the old order. They needednot only exceptionaltalents but also exceptionalopportunities. The Numidian and German wars set l\farius in an unprecedented eminence, which he failed to exploit and which did not quench his thirst for military glory. Mithridates' invasion of Asia appeared to offer him one more chance to satisfy this craving; Sulla's determination not to be deprived of the fame and riches attendant on victory in the east led on to the civil wars of the Bos, and it was Sulla's successes in Asia that ensured him the loyalty of the veteran army without which he could not have reducedItaly to submission.It was in thesewars, and their aftermath in the rising of Lepidus and the suppressionof Sertorius in Spain, that Pompey roseto the foremostposition in the state,which he was to consolidateby extirpating piracy and finishingoff Mithridates, and which evoked the insuperablejealousy and suspicion of the optimates.He was driven into alliancewith Caesar,of which the price

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'he nurtured, was Caesar'sGallic command; as Cicero remarked, aggrandized,and armed Caesaragainstthe commonwealth' (Att- väi3. 3). Caesartoo could never have made himselfmasterof the Roman state if he had not first subdued Gaul, acquiring not only immense richesbut the devotion of an'incomparable army' (Fam. väi. r4.il. And probably Pompey and the optimates would never have ventured to provoke him into marching on Rome, if the Parthians had not eliminated the great army of Syria under Crassus,a rival for whose goodwill Caesar had better reason than Pompey to hope. No doubt it was in part Roman activity or inactivity that made Jugurtha, the Cimbri and Teutones, Mithridates, and the pirates formidable or at least troublesometo the Roman state, and Roman policy may in each case be fundamentally explicable in terms of the political, social,and economicstructureof Roman Italy. But all these enemiesof Rome had their own aims and their own strength which must bc attributable in part to the conditions that obtained in and around their homelands.So too, while Crassus'attack on the Parthians was surely inspired by his personal ambition, dictated by the political developments at Rome, to emulate the military achievements of Pompeyand Caesar,the capacityof the Parthiansalmost to annihilate his forceswas the result of developmentsin Iran entirely extraneousto the factors that operated in Italy or the Roman empire. The Völkerwanderungof the Cimbri and Teutonesfrom the Baltic coastof Germany far beyond Roman horizons must have been stimulated by causes(of which we know little or nothing) unconnected with affairs in the Mediterranean, even though the ineptitude of Roman generalsin making probably unnecessaryattacks on them and incurring disas' trous defeats first made them a danger to Italy. Caesar clearly embarked on the conquest of Gaul, most of which was altogether outside the sphere of previous Roman influence, with the purpose of making himselfthe first man at Rome, but his ambition and skill as a general, and the valour ofhis troops, are not enough to account for his success;to say nothing of the fertility of the land and the facility of communicationswithin it, which made it far easierto subjugatethan westernGermany was to prove in Augustus' time, the Gallic peoples were riven by domesticdiscordsand internecine rivalries' and Caesar's 'vere reputantibus Galliam own account goes far to justify the claim suismetviribus concidisse'(Tac. Hist. iv. I7). Even though we may think that Caesarhimselfdid not destroythe Republic beyond repair, that this was the work of the triumvirs, and that it was Augustuswho first createda monarchicsystem,it is no lessevident that they could do what they did only in a situation which he had brought about, and that Caesar's autocracy, temporary and vulnerable as it was, is

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inconceivablebut for the conquestof Gaul and the conditionswithin Gaul that made the conquestpossible.Hence it is an abstractionfrom the complex historical reality to explain the Roman revolution solely by factors internal to Rome and her empire. On a metaphysical view all historical events are fully determined. The historian as such, who examinesthe evidenceempirically, cannot confirm or refute this thesis;though he assumes,as we all do in daily life, that there are causesfor men's actions as well as for the purely physical phenomenathat affect their lives, his evidencedoes not allow him to demonstrate this, still less to deny the individual agent all freedom of action. In any event historians since Thucydides have all had to allow for the element of chance, or contingency, at least in the sense that there can be intersections of different chains of caused events, which could not be predicted in advance and cannot be explained in retrospect. Thus it may have been inevitable that Jugurtha and the Cimbri and Teutones should come into conflict with Rome, but it must appearto be sheercoincidencethat Roman generals in the north should have incurred by unusual folly a fearful disasterat Arausio, leaving Italy open to invasion, just at the moment when Marius was free after his prestigiouscompletion of the Numidian war to step forward as Rome's saviour from the German peril. It would be easy and needlessto multiply parallels. The very existence of particular individuals of such and such character exemplifiesthe element of apparent contingency in history. We may grant that the mental and corporeal qualities of every man are fully determined, but if this is true it is evident that the factors that make him what he is are not just thoseof his environment and his own past actions (which may at any given moment limit his freedom of choice in the future): they must be in part genetic, and these factors elude investigationby the historian, no matter what the period be that he is studying. To say nothing of a man's talents,desires,and passions, his very capacity to survive presumably depends in pari on his physiologicalmake-up, and in part too on the risks of death to which he is exposed.The incidence of diseaseis relevant, and the history of diseasescan hardly be written for antiquity, nor can the susceptibility of any individual of any era be fully explained. Given that the Ro-a.rtt expectationof life at birth was not more, and probably much less,than thirty,l38 it was statisticallyimprobable thai any of the figures who made a great mark in public affairs should even have survived to the time when they did their most notable work. Augustus himself was over thirty at the time of Actium. It may also be noted that he had 1 3 8H o p k i n s , rg83,rrxrf.

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already been wounded in lllyricum: if the wound was not mortal, that must have been because the assailant'sblow happened to lack the right strength or direction. An illness in z3 nc almost proved fatal; at that time the Principate was not yet stabilized, if only because there was no one who could easily have taken over his powers. In the event his unpredictable longevity helped to habituate men to the new regime. Some would depreciate the effects on the course of history of the unique personality of individuals. We all recognize from contemporary experience that the great majority of men behave in much the same way as others of the same social and economic background. It is on this basis that we can venture on generalizations about the attitudes of Roman senators, Equites, etc. The conduct of any particular representative of a given category may often seem of small consequence. In the 6os Pompey gave great offence to certain prominent nobles, for example to Q, Metellus Creticus and L. Lucullus, but he was almost bound to have estranged many such persons of rank and influence in rising to pre-eminence; perhaps it is of little moment which of them had come to view him with the greatest aversion and distrust. The great figures who apparently contributed decisively to the process of political change, like the Gracchi, Pompey, and Caesar, were themselvesRoman aristocrats, and we can assume and sometimes show that they were imbued with ideas and desires common to their class. However, it is equally clear that it was chiefly in virtue of talents, beließ, and ambitions which set them apart from their peers that they affected the actual course of history. Nor can we be sure that the peculiar characteristics of quite insignificant persons may not in a particular conjuncture determine how events proceed. A riot, or rout, may begin when one man throws a stone, or panics in battle; we cannot aver that but for his impulse it would have occurred at all. In 49 most senators, though hostile to Caesar, desired to avoid war (p. +Bg); they were precipitated into decisionsthat brought it on by the bellicose resolve, among others, of two men otherwise of little consequence, C. Marcellus (cos. 5o) and L. Lentulus (cos. 4g). It is not obvious that the senate would even have been invited, still less pressed, to pass the fatal decrees ofJanuary 49, if the electors had returned as t:onsul Caesar's partisan, Ser. Galba, in place of Lentulus. A Pompeian victory at Pharsalus would have changed the course of history, at least lirr the time. Caesar avows his debt for his successto the outstanding ('ourase of the euocatusCrastinus (BC iii. 9I, gg). Conceivably the cxample he set decided the day. In this connection we must not forget that whatever general instittrtional causesmay be found for the fall of the Republic, it was the ()ut('()rn(' ol' hard fighting, in which the issue, not predictable to

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contemporaries,derived from the skill and valour of the combatants. In the end the battlesat Philippi proved fatal to Republican liberty. Brutus and Cassiushad command of the sea, and though their army was inferior, they had occupied almost impregnable lines; if the triumvirs could not break through, shortageof supplieswould eventually compel them to withdraw. The effect of such a retreat on the morale of their troops might well have been disastrous;on both sides the soldierswere fighting primarily in the hope of rewards, and these hopeswould falter, if the prospectof victory receded.Antony's attempt to breach the enemy'sposition failed, but after an initial success, which Cassiusin premature despair thought complete, he killed himself. Left in sole command, the less-experiencedBrutus lost patience; he launched an atta.ck, and all was lost. It is plausible that betrer generalshipwould have reversedthe issueof the campaign.tt' Brutus too, we are told, had persuadedhis fellow-conspiratorsto kill Caesaralone, and to spare Antony. In hindsight Cicero pronounced this to have been a fatät error.r4o i{. *ur r.rr.'iy right. Afier Caesar's death the executivepower in Italy for some time lay with Antony and Dolabella as consuls;the senatewas virtually impotent, and it was in the tangle of events brought about by Antony's ambitions that the young Octavian found the means and pretexts to lay the basis of his own personal power. It is very hard to suppose that the Republic would not have lasted longer, if Antony had been put out of the way. Counter-factual propositions of this kind, concerning the role of individuals, appear just as legitimate modes of expressinghistorical causation as statementsin the same logical form which relate to more persistentfactors in the historical process,e.g. that senatorial power would have been more enduring, if the senatehad not alienated the affectionsof urban plebsor peasantry;and in somecases,like that just given, their credibility is more directly perspicuousfrom the evidence at our disposal.They do not of course imply that the unfulfilled condition was capable of fulfilment. There may have been necessary reasonswhy the senate,perhapsfor the sakeof the greater profits to be obtained from the employment of slavesrather than free men, should have been carelessof the welfare of the poorer citizens, and equally why Brutus, being the man he was, should have insistedon shedding no blood but the tyrant's. In the latter case,however,the explanation lies in secrets of his personality,which we are bound to presumebut cannot fathom. If in fact hii decisionwas fully determined,what we commonly think of as his freedom of choice meansonly that another man in the samesituation, being differently constituted,might have rre See e.g.'I'. Rice Holmes, Architectof theRomanEmpire, rg28,84tr. r a o P l u t . B r u t . 1 8 ;( ' , i r ' .A i l . x i v . z r . 3 , [ . - a mx. . 2 8 . r .

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chosen, and been bound to choose, differently. This is a problem lor philosophers. On this occasion Brutus, perhaps a man of modest abilities (though, we are told, of strong resolve), failed to turn what we know to have been the course of history. But others, more highly gifted, appear from the evidence to have given an impetus to events which they in some measure designed, as mediocrities could not have done. The outstanding eloquence and passionate determination of the Gracchi, and the comprehensive grasp shown by Gaius at least of the problems of the state, or alternatively of the variety ofmeans for embarrassing the senate,set the revolutionary process in motion. It was consummated and ended by Augustus. Not only did he lbund a stable monarchy; in various degreeshe reorganized or remodelled the armed forces, the finances, the administration of the city, and the empire. Unlike all his successors,at any rate before Diocletian, who (as Fergus Millar has perceived) did little more than react to events and make minor adjustments in the system, he was an innovator on a large scale,and his innovations endured. It is of course perfectly true that the conditions f,avoured his work. The blood-letting since 49 had removed potential opponents. Everyone yearned for peace and order. When he became master of the Roman world, he still had a long life before him, and could proceed step by step. He was able to win general consent for his work. But nothing suggests that anyone without his peculiar gifts could have achieved what he did. Caesar and Antony alienated their own followers. 'Ihe mature and experienced Tiberius) a man of proven ability, who set out to imitate Augustus,141 failed to retain the goodwill of the 6lite whose c:o-operation was essential to the new system. It was surely only because Augustus had built so solid a structure that it could survive the odium which many of his successors,especially in the next hundred years, would provoke. No doubt the empire needed a monarch. But only a Panglosswill erffirm that the hour brings forth the man. If that were true, states would never decline nor empires disintegrate. Contemporaries feared with reason that Roman power would collapse in perpetual anarchy. It was partly due to the genius of Augustus that it did not. That genius eludes cxplanation no lessthan the genius ofVirgil. He too was the product of his age, as all great poets and artists are, but he was able to transcend the conditions by which his coevals were limited; the same can be said of Augustus. Even if a providential dispensation, or mechanistic laws, which rnctaphysicians or sociologistscan discern, inexorably determine that ;rll things happen as they do, even if the chain of events, linking causes irnd effects, is unbreakable and the individual agent is not free to rar Brunt, CQrgB4, 4B4f

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behave in any other way than that in which he does behave, his actions remain among the links in the chain, and they can no more be removed than any other links; if none the lesswe imagine the possibility of their removal, we may not then go on to suppose that the later links would be all unchanged. Obviously the removal of a particular human agent would not alter the effect of non-human forces, such as the conditions of soil and climate or the incidence of disease (unless he were one who actually like Pasteur discovered remedies for it) , but we cannot be confident that it would also not affect 'institutional' factors. We may give them abstract designations like 'the social system' or 'the market', but such terms are themselves convenient shorthand for an infinity of individual human actions, produced by the complex reactions of each man to the behaviour of others, and there is no a priori reason for rejecting the overwhelming impression that we receive both from our daily experience and from historical evidence, that a decisive influence can be exercised on general behaviour by the actions of a particular man; especially one set apart from the rest by a combination of external circumstances giving him power over others and of personal qualities, which furnish him with exceptional ability to effect his aims, and which may also make those aims different in material respects from those that might have been predicted of one with his particular place in society. The successof natural scientists in 'explaining' the infinite variety of the phenomena they study, by showing how their correlation can be expressed in relatively few and highly generalized hypotheses or 'laws', has encouraged the hope that political or social 'scientists' will be able to account for phenomena in a similar fashion. So far this hope does not seem to have been realized. Scientific laws command assent only in so far as they cover all the known phenomena; once it is seen that they fail to do so, they must be discarded or amended. No hypotheses have been formulated with a like combination of simplicity, exactitude, and exhaustiveness to make all the phenomena of human behaviour in society intelligible. For example, suppose that Marxism fully elucidates the transitions from one 'mode of production' to another: it still appears to leave unexplained the grlat variety of 'superstructures', political, social, and cultural, supposedly erected on the economic basis of society, which can coexist and change with an identical 'mode of production'. In the Marxist view the 'slave mode of production' governed the economy both öf democratic Athens and of the Roman world; how then do we account for the innumerable differences between them? The great political change at Rome from Republican to monarchic institutions is equally inexplicable by Marxist theory. Such general theories, like the economic or social models, which

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solrrt' histt.rrians have lcarncd to cmploy, presuppose a degree of rrnilirrmity in human behaviour and in the effects and development of institutions (themselves partly dependent on the physical features of the environment in which particular societies are moulded) which, though founded on empirical observations, they tend to exaggerate. Like the mere use of analogies between conditions in societieswhich rcscmble each other at certain points, analogies which models systematize, they may enable the historian to devise lines of inquiry which the simple inspection of the evidence at his disposal lor the period he studies, and of the interpre tations placed on it by writers within that pcriod, might not have suggested; and closer scrutiny may uncover indications that factors were at work similar to those more amply documented for other ages or lands. Still, conclusions that arise from this procedure must be tested by the whole body of relevant facts that his evidence discloses;they must at least be shown to be congruent with those facts, and they are susceptible, if congruence is lacking or incomplete, of refutation or modification; in the nature of things they 'laws', which can never be entirely verified, any more than scientific are no more than provisional hypotheses that account for the phenomena so far observed. I am of course aware that the very concept of historical facts can be treated with scepticism, but then this scepticism must apply with equal force to all the general theories or models, since they too rest on the premises that there are facts that can be discovered about human behaviour which can also be svstematicallv correlated.1a2 In practice no systematic theory can explain without remainder the complex interweaving of human activities, especially if the course of events can be altered by the apparently contingent influence of individuals. And on this premiss the historian can never provide any complete explanation of the past. The origins of the personality of cvery individual are necessarily hidden from him. Moreover, he can seldom comprehend it as it was. His only direct evidence would be a man's own intimate revelations of his ideas and feelings, and even then doubts would arise whether any man truly understands himself. Such revelations are rarely available, and in the late Republic for none but Cicero, or rather for Cicero only in the last twenty years of his life. In default of direct evidence, what can the historian make do with? In our dealings with those around us, we may start by supposing that they act for much the same reasons as we think from introspection that we ourselves do; when it becomes manifest that their conduct ('annot be so explained in all cases,we take account of what they and la2 See endnote g.

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otherssayof the motivesthat inspirethem, or ol-currentviews,derived from experience,about the generalspringsof action. As we must allow that men in other agesand lands did not necessarilybehavein exactly the sameway as thosein our own society,we must similarly consider how they interpretedtheir own conductor that of their contemporaries and what kinds of desire they supposed to have decisive effects. Thucydides(i. 76 f.) makesAthenian spokesmenplead that the policy of their city was dictated by the three most powerful impulses,honour, fear, and material gain. In this analysis there is nothing 'desperately alien' from our own perceptions, though we might be less ready to accord so large a place in human motivation to 'honour'; certainly to Greeks, and also to Romans, the pursuit of power, status, prestige, fame among living men and in the recollectionsof posterity, seemedto be as dominant as the passionfor economic gain, and just as rational; we must beware of thinking that Greeks or Romans conformed to models of human behaviour constructed by political economists;the value that Romans set both on dignitasand on libertasis significant in this regard. Thucydides ignored here any influence of moral imperatives,which he probably thought irrelevant to inter-state relations, but which he could elsewhererecognize as capable of influencing men's treatment of their fellow-citizens;and we must always allow for the possibility that men felt themselvesbound to fulfil traditional obligations both to the state and to those with whom they had private ties; this too, if they reflectedon it, might be part of their honour. However, any such general identification of possible types of motive hardly enablesus to determine which motive, or what mixture of motives, operated on a particular individual in a particular conjuncture, though it may be more helpful for an understandingof the objectivesof states,or of whole classesor orders within states.If we try to discover why Pompey, for instance, acted as he did, then in default of direct evidence,we have to resort to conjecturesbasedon an estimate of his personality, which we construct, partly from what was said of him by contemporarieswho knew more of him than we do, or by later writers who had read contemporary accountsnow lost, partly by an interpretation of all his recorded overt actions; coherence is the test of plausibility. But contemporaries might be biased or insensitive; and they too had to resort to the same kind of interpretation. Cicero knew Pompey and Caesarwell, but he often found Pompey inscrutable, and certainly misjudged Caesar ir 49. Moreover, we may have too little information about a man's life to be able to use the criterion of coherenceto explain his behaviour on the few occasionson which he stands before us. To take an extreme case, Italian leaders like PoppaediusSilo, who brought about the revolt of gr-9o, are mere

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nanles to us. ()n the availalllc cvidence even the Gracchi can be variously supposed to have been inspired by injured pride, rancour, irrnbition, solicitude for the poor, or zeal for the true interests of the state; though it was enemies who put the worst construction on their actions, enemies are not inevitably mistaken. 'Ihe difficulty in discerning the true personality of an individual and irscertaining the reasons for his actions at any given moment besetsall historians. It is compounded for the historian of Rome by his frequent ignorance about the most important events. Their relative order, not to say their absolute dating, is sometimes uncertain; when the sequence of events is unknown, it is more than usuallyhazardous to trace causes and effects.Little may be recorded of the content of laws which we can none the lesssee to have been pregnant with grave consequences:how can we say what the legislator intended when we cannot be sure what he did? An intelligible account of the great wars from go to Bz can hardly be written. Continually we have to draw on meagre excerpts and summaries of detailed histories now lost, whose identity and reliability cannot be established,made by late writers whose ignorance and carelessnessdistorted what they transmit; comparison with the contemporary evidence supplied by Cicero, especially in his letters, shows how prone to error they were, and they cannot be more trustworthy in those parts of their works which we cannot check in the ,a-e way.1a3 To a surprising extent, because of the gaps in Cicero's 'authorities' still correspondence and its allusive character, these late remain indispensable for Cicero's time, when we must also get what information we can from the ex parte statements in his speeches. Eyewitness accounts are rare, documents few and fragmentary. The personality of a leading figure may not be the most dubious element in any modern reconstruction. For Aristotle history is concerned with what Alcibiades did; poetry, with which we may associatefiction, with what a man like Alcibiades necessarilyor probably would do. But we must sometimes conjecture what Alcibiades did in accord with our picture of what he was likely to have done. The line separating the historian from the novelist becomes faint: it is principally in their intentions that they differ. The novelist aims at a lifelike and coherent plausibility to illustrate universal aspects of human nature; for the historian plausibility is a tool by which he seeksto find what actually happened. I he ideal history in my judgement would combine analysis of r a r ( ) n t h c d e f e c t so f e p i t o m a t o r s c f . B r u n t , C Q 1 9 8 o , 4 7 7 f f ' l t i s p a r t o f m y p u r p o s ei n inr'lruling ch. 4 in this collection to exhibit the kind of problems that the inadequacy of our r.r'ir[,1t.epr('srnts,and to illustrate the methods by which we may reach solutionsthat can hardly lrc rcg;rrded as mort than probably correct.

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enduring physical and institutional factors with a narrative exhibiting the contingent effect of individual actions. For the historian of Rome the former task, to which this volume is largely devoted, is no less difficult than the latter. With the dearth of archival material and the lack of statistics accessible to modern and to a lesserdegree to medieval historians, he has to draw his analysesof political, social, and economic conditions in large part from the same inadequate sources from which a narrative is constructed, supplemented by allusions and anecdotes; he can but seldom turn to contemporary descriptions, such as the Roman writers on agriculture supply; and these are far from being comprehensive and are notably deficient in the numerical data required for economic history. It is easier to establish that the evidence does not justify some modern analyses than to seejust where the truth lies. It may well be that I have asserted my own conclusions at times with undue confidence. It is irksome to present what it seems reasonable on the evidence to believe with reiterated provisos that some degree of probability is the most that can be justly claimed. The historian of Rome can be likened to a man standing at the entrance of a cavern of vast and unmeasured dimensions, much of it impenetrably dark, but here and there illuminated by a few flickering candles.

2 ITALIAN AIMS AT THE TIME OF THE SOCIAL WAR* I. rrtr' DEMAND oF THE ITALIANS FoR cITIzENsHIp must have existed in the (iracchan period, but grew in intensity in the next thirty years until it lrccame almost universal among the Italian principes, including the Etruscirrrs, Umbrians, and Samnites; it was satisfied by the lex lulia enfranchising the loyal Italians and by the later grants of citizenship to dediticii, the exrt:bels. IL rHE coNcEpr oF rrALrAN uNrry: RoMANrzATror.r.Significance of the organization of the rebels in the new state Italia. The concept of Italia. Spread of the Latin language and of Roman institutions. III. rnr vALUE oF (:ITrzENsHIpro rHE ITALIANS.The allies had already lost true independence and were subject to heavy military and financial burdens; on the analogy of Roman municipalities already existing in go, they could expect to preserve, after enfranchisement, substantial local seltgovernment. Events in 88-87 show that what they wanted was political rights at Rome which would cnhance their dignitas and indirectly favour the material interests of the Italians, especially of the principas;without them the ius prouocationtiitself was unlikely to afford much protection. Probably their ambitions and sense of Rome's dependence on them had been stimulated by Marius' career and the Cimbric crisis.

t-ft

ne Social war broke out when Rome refused to grant

the allies'

demand for citizenship. Any explanation of this refusal is I I conjectural (p. Zt ). I am here concerned rather with the .rttitude of the Italians. I shall argue, like Gabba, that they sought a share in political power, though not only, if at all, for the reasonshe ilI'his essayhad its origin in a paper read to the Fourth International Congressof Classical Studiesin Philadelphia in August r964, which was enlarged for publication in JÄS r965, go ff.; thcre I acknowledgedmy debt for suggestionsmade by M. W. Frederiksenand E. T. Salmon, to wh
g+

l ' l A l . l A NA I M S A ' l

'l

. AR l M l l o l S ( ) ( : l A lW

suggested;and that their desire to become Romans reflects the successof Rome in unifying them in sentiment and was stimulated by the Cimbric war and by the career of Marius and other noui hominesof his time .

I, THE

DEMAND

OF THE

ITALIANS

FOR

CITIZENSHIP

In explaining the origins of the Social war Appian went back to the proposal made in r 25 Bc by the consul M. Fulvius Flaccus to enfranchise'all the Italians'; thwarted at that time, he was jointly responsible with C. Gracchusfor similar proposals,which alsofailed,in rzz (i. zr. 86-7, g+. rS2).In fact, as Appian knew (n.6), Gracchus' bill provided for the enfranchisementof the Latins and the conferment of Latin privileges,which included the right to vote at Rome in one tribe chosen by lot (Sr.R3iii.643), on the other Italians. Flaccus himself had offered the iusprouocationis as an alternative for Italians who did not wish for the Roman citizenship.Valerius Maximus, who alone mentionsthis (i*.S. r), writes as if choicelay with individuals, and if this is correct, Flaccus was not proposing the incorporation of whole peoplesasin the past and in the manner of the enfranchisements of the Bosbut the enrolmentas citizensof such membersof the Italian peoplesas applied. Unlesshe simultaneouslyproposedto abrogate the rule under which Roman citizenshipwasincompatiblewith that of any other city (n.5), this would have wrecked the political and military organizationof Italy; somecommunitieswould have been deprived of their ruling 6litesand of manpowerrequired to meet Rome'sdemands for military contingents.It seemsto me more likely that Valerius Maximus has expressedhimself with the carelessness typical of most of our sources,and that it was communitiesthat were to have the option between incorporation and the ius prouocationis for their own citizens. Appian reports that Flaccus' sole or primary aim was to reconcile the Italians to the resumption of Roman public land in their possession,so that the Gracchan triumvirs might make more land allotmentsto the poor. Political gain was to outbalanceeconomicloss. For this purposehe 'incited'.the Italians to demand enfranchisement. And it proved (he says) that they actually preferred citizenship to possession of the land. Moreover, they were inflamed by the failure of Flaccusand Gracchus:they could not bear to be subjectsrather than briefreply to his critics in the initial note to the new version; cf. also ANRW i. 772 tr. I remain unconvinced that commercial motives had much influence either on the policy of Rome or on the a s p i r a t i o n so f t h e I t a l i a n a l l i e s ( c f . n . r l 3 ) , $ u t I f u l l y c o n c u r w i t h h i m t h a t i t w a s a s h a r e i n political power that the principes,who guided the allied peoples,aimed at; this was true both of those who rebelled and those who remained loyal.

l l A l , l A N A I M S A ' l " l l l v l l ' (: ) t s ( ) ( ; l A l , l v A R

95

p l r t n c r s i n c m p i r e . I t s e c m st o b c t ' l e a r o n t h e o n e h a n d t h a t F l a c c u s ( lnnot have conjured up their desire lor citizenship, and that he must lravc had reason to believe that many would regard it as recompense lirr loss of land, and that on the other hand the desire cannot yet have lrcen so strong and widespread as Appian makes out. The alternative oll'er of iusprouocalionisindicate s that Flaccus himse lf was conscious that rurt all might wish to merge their separate civic identities in the Roman, and it is manifest that Italy cannot have been seething with rfiscontent for the whole period from 122 to gr. Appian has retrojected to the Gracchan era sentiments which took time to become so pt:rvasive and powerful that they resulted in a great crisis in the rt:lations between Rome and the allies, but he is probably right in ascribing significance to the abortive proposals of the t zos. By rccognizing aspirations to equality of rights among the allies and treating their satisfaction as a practical issue, Flaccus and Gracchus surely promoted their extension; beneath the surface of apparent tranquillity more and more Italians were fastening their hopes on cnfranchisement until the moment came when they were ready to accept no denial to their claim. Individual Italians had long manifested a wish to change both their domicile and citizenship for Roman. The Latins and perhaps some other Italians enjoyed reciprocal rights of commerciumand conubiumwith the Romans; the former right entitled them to acquire real property in Roman territory; and they might also obtain Roman citizenship by rnigrating to Roman territory. In r95 Hernicans, who had the same rights as Latins, had sought to have their names accepted for new Roman colonies and to be recognized as Roman citizens on that basis; t l r c s e n a t eh a d r e j e c t e d t h e i r c l a i m ( L i v y x x i v . 4 l ) . I n r B 7 , r 7 7 , a n d r 72 measures were taken against Latins who had exercised or abused tlrc aas migrationis, which was not abolished but more restrictively
t ' tA t . t A NA I M SA ' t ' t ' t M l (: ) r s ( ) ( : t A lw. A R

l ' l A l . l A NA l M sA ' l " lt M l :( ) ! ' s ( ) ( : l Awl .A R

c o n t i n g e n t rse q u i r e db y R o m e ( x l i i i . 8 . 7 ) ; t h e i m p l i c a t i o ni s t h a t Rome did not regularlyadjustmilitary demandsto thö number o[men available for service,as in rg3 (xxxiv. 56. 6). It may be noted thar there is no evidencefor Galsterer'sview that hencefo.ih.to individual Italian could exercisethe iusmigrationr"r, even under the conditions laid down, without the formal consentof his home government.lWe do not know if further expulsionsoccurred after r68, when Livy,s record is lacking. In r z6 the tribune M. Iunius Pennuspassedalaw,which c. Gracchus opposed,expelling foreignersfrom Rome. The exact terms of the law and its motive are not attested.It is generallyand plausibly assumed that it was intendedto prevent a swarm of Italians ioming to the citv and exerting pressurein favour of Flaccus' law. In rzz* the sena6 adopteda similarprecautionbeforeGracchus'enfranchisement bill was to be put to the vote.2Flaccus,it is true, wasnot yet in officein r 26, but he might alreadyhave advertisedhis proposals.If this interpretationof the measureis correct,it is confirmationthat the proposalwas thought likely to evokeenthusiasmamong the allies.Galslerörsupposesthat it was actually promoted by the Italian governments,like ih. senatorial measuresof rB7, t77, and r7z. cicero cannot have been aware of this, fo-r pronouncedit to be 'inhumanum'.3In r zz, accordingto plutarch \ (C.-Gr.tz. z), men throngedfrom all partsof Italy to rrppoit Gracchus' enfranchisementbill, and the senate caused an ediif to be issued, pres_rrm_ably by the consul Fannius, requiring them to leave the city (n' 6). Here again we have evidencethat therewas wide desirein Italy for political rights at Rome, even though it had not yet reached the strength which would lead to a general insurrection. The failure of Flaccus' proposal, which seemsnever to have come to a vote, did indeed lead to an isolatedrevolt, that of the Latin colony of Fregellae.It was razedto the ground by the praetor, L. Opimius, who as consul was later to repressc. Gracchus and his trrppoitert. cicero says that on both occasionshe freed the state from t[ö gravest perils (P,r.gS, Planc.To). But the Roman state was not threaienedby the rebellion of a single Latin city. opimius was evidently supposed to '-orä^ have nipped in the bud . what might have been u general insurrection. There are other indications that discontent was not confined to Fregellae.Gracchus was accusedof trying to bring about the revolt of allies as well as of complicity in the aciual defeition of Fregellae (Plut. C. Gr. il.That city had of course no chance of

Roman power by itscll,and mustsurelyhavecountedon withstitrrding sul)lx)rtclscwhere,though wrongly. Although the origins of the revolt irr(' not explicitly recorded,it is natural to assumethat it was sparked by F'laccus'f;ailure. One of the local notables,Q. Numitorius (.RExvii. r4o5), betrayed the town and was evidently rewarded; his daughter was to marry M. Antonius,fr.74, but as he was put on trial (Cic. de rnu.ii. ro5), he must have beenformally party to the revolt, which had naturally been decided by the local senate.Galsterer,who seemsto has no dcny that the insurrectionindicatesdesirefor enfranchisement, alternativeexplanation,and minimizesthe severityof the punishment inflicted, which was surely designedas a deterrent; he even thinks that the inhabitants all received the citizenship in the new town of FabrateriaNova, founded in tz4 (Vell. i. r5) in the former Fregellan tcrritory: of this there is no evidence; it is far more likely that most Fregellanslost their lands as well as their city.4 About this time Rome probably did make a conciliatorygesturein a granting the Latirrs the right to obtain the citizenshipper magistratum) concessiondesigned to secure the loyalty of the aristocraciesin the Latin cities and thereby that of the cities themselves,which could hardly rebel like Fregellaeexcept with leadershipfrom above. For this purpose it was obviously necessary that the local magnates who acquired the Roman citizenship per magistratum,together with their descendants,should remain qualified to direct the affairs of their own communities, and that they should thereforeretain their local political rights. It is then likely, though there is no direct evidence,that the rule by which a Roman citizen could n-ot possessthe citizenshipof any other city was relaxed in their case.) Gracchus,as we have seen,proposedto grant citizenshiponly to the [,atins,and the Latin right to the other allies.oPerhapsas yet the desire

96

I Galsterer rit; contraBrunt, CQ tg8z, t 44_'6.See endnote I . de ofic. äi. 47; Festus388 L.;-dut"''iic. Brut. tog. Cf. FC r77. :' 9ic Galsterer r 78, completely distorting Ctcero'smeaning: he clntrasrs F.rrru.'action with the /ex Licinia Mucia (which elsewherehe could regard as ill-judged, but not barbarous).

97

a S e e a l s oP e r . L i v y l x ; V e l l . i i . 6 ; O b s e q u e n s . g o ; V a l . M a x . i i . B . 4 A ; s c o n .r T C . s a y s t h a t b y /a rir. taking !-regellaeOpimius'ceteros quoque nominis Latini sociosmale animatos repressisse'; i/1.65. e allegesthe revolt of (non-Latin) Asculum; this might betoken that there was an abortive irrsurrectionarymovement there. We do not know the occasionof the speechin the senateby L. l'irpirius ofFregellae'pro Fregellaniscolonisque Latinis' (Brut. r7o); he was a contemporary of 'li. Gracchus, and his speech may belong to a time of agitation before the revolt. The total rlt'struction,even of the temple of Aesculapius,at Fregellae (M. H. Crawford and L.J. Keppie, I'BSR rg94,3z. ff.) suggeststhe lerocity born of fear that the revolt inspired, contraGalsterer 'according to our sourcesastonishinglysmall'. Who r7o fl. He says that the political effectswere (;rr) say, especiallyas our sourcesfor the period are so meagre, that Roman action did not restrain rr.voltsfor thirty years and warn the Italians in gr not to rebel except in organized concert? s (]. 'I'ibilerri, Rend. Istit. Lomb. rg53,43 ff. See endnote r. ö Badian, FC zggf. on App. i. z3; Plut. C. Gr. re,.Badian rgo infers from Appian's version of rlrt.tclict banning lrom the city those with no voting rights that it did not affect Latins, but this rrr;rv ovrrestimate the accuracy of Appian's language. As the Latins were to be the chief lx.rrr.ficiaricsfrom Gracchus'bill, it was their support (more lrom intimidation than from their l i r r r i t r r lv o t i n g p o w e r ) t h a t h i s o p p o n e n t sh a d m o s t t o f e a r .

98

t r A L t A NA I M SA T ' t ' t M Eo r s o c : t A lw A R

for Roman citizenshipwas keenestamong the Latins, who were mainly of Roman descent,Texcept in the old Latin towns, Tibur, Praenesre, and Cora, and in the Hernican communitieswhich enjoyedthe Latin right (Appendix IV), but these too were at least culturally not distinguished from the Romans, and so near to Rome that it was particularly easy for them to take an active part in Roman politics. The ethnic and cultural connections of all Latins to Rome made it easierto advocatetheir enfranchisement.However, the consul Fannius was able to play demagogicallyon the reluctanceof the urban plebs to sharethe advantagesof citizenshipwith Latins (ORnz, p. r+4), and it was safefor the tribune Drususto veto the bill (App.i.z3. roo). Appian thought that the allies were already passionatefor equality with the Romans in political rights. But were they yet ready to surrender their own autonomy? Did they regard the Roman citizenship itself asvaluable, chiefly becauseof the protection it might provide against arbitrary punishmentsby Roman magistrates?8Such treatment was certainly a substantial grievance. C. Gracchus adduced instancesof Roman cruelty and oppressionto them in pleading their cause.Gellius, who preservestheseextracts from his speech,quotes in the samecontext passagesin which Cicero indicts Verres' barbarity to Roman citizens.eThis was by no meansthe only count against Verres, and it would be illegitimate to infer from the fragments of Gracchus' oratory that he had nothing to say of other allied sentiments.H<-rwever, Flaccushad envisagedthat someof the allied peoplesmight prefer the ius prouocationis to absorption in the Roman states, and in rzz the tribune Drusus countered Gracchus' bill by a bill offering prouocatio to Latins; it was never enacted.loUnder the Gracchan and a later law successfulprosecutors for repetundac were offered the right as an alternative reward to citizenship.rl Presumablyit would have been valid not only against Roman magistrates but also against those of 7 See endnote q. 8 In my judgeÄent the iusproaoeationüwas effective in ensuring that political charges were heard in the first instanceby the people and that defendantson other chargeswere at least given a fair trial, and after c. Gracchus by courts constituted by the people'sauthority, only in so far as the magistrateswere eitherconscientiouslyrespectfulof the law, or afraid to violate it becauseof penalties that the people might later visit on them; cf. ch. 4, vr; ch. 6, xr. There was much less danger to them if they infringed the rights of those who had no political rights at Rome. e Gell. *. 3. e ff. Cato had earlier cästigated the unjust treatment of Brittians (ibid. r7 tr). Gracchus cites cases from Latin cities (Cales, Ferentinum, Venusia) and from Teanum Sidicinum. ro Plut. C. Gr. g saysit applied to Latins even on military service.Diod. xxxvii. rc. 3 and Cic. Att. v. rt.2 prove that it never passed;Marcellus flogged a Comensian to show that on his view Caesar'sgrant of citizenshipto the Latins of comum was invalid. Sall. BJ 69. 4 is irrelevant, see n. r r8 with text. r I Seen. In my view the imposition of an oath in the Tarcntum law suggeststhat it is part of 5. G l a u c i a ' sr e p e t u n dlaaew , l i k c t h e l e x . S e r u i l icai t c d i n C i c . R a t b . 1 3 f f . ( c L B r u n t , C e r g 8 z , n . 3 3 ) .

wAR l ' r A L l A NA l M s A ' l " l l M E o r S O C I A L

99

their own communities.It may be observedthat in that caseits grant wasan infractionof local autonomy.This is not an objection:successful prosecutorsalsoobtainedexemptionfrom military service,which must have provoked at least as much discontentamong the alliesas it did a-ong Roman citizens,l2and from other public duties.By an exercise of sovereignpower Rome gave them privilegesas against their fellowcitizens.The autonomy of the allies, which of coursedid not secure them from corrtributing men and money to Rome's wars, was very imperfect. It is easy to see that an indiuidualmight prefer to obtain personal protection and privileges,rather than to accept for himself alone the Roman citizenshipand therebycut himselfofffrom the political life of his native community, if under Roman law he could not retain his old citizenshipalong with the Roman (".S). In zr6 some Praenestine cavalrymen had declined the Roman citizenship,not wishing to forfeit their own (Livy xxii. zo z). However, someother Italians, as we have seen,had been prone to emigrate to Roman territory, in order to change their citizenship,long before Gracchus' time' This kind of infiltration was to give Rome seriousconcernin 95 (seebelow). Even someItalian notablesacquired the franchise,legally or illegally, before 9o.13 Brrt the proposalsof Flaccus and Drusus, which offered the ius proaocationis for whole communities, indicate that in the I zos it was believedat Rome that there was no universal wish among the allies fior absorptionin the Roman state.And certainlyAppian has exaggerated the strength of the Italian demand at this time for full citizenship' Despite his explicit statement, the Italians remained tranquil for a generation after Gracchus' failure. Any explanation of the origin of the Social war must account for the very different reception in Italy of the defeat of Gracchus' bill and of that of the younger Drusus.During this interval the desireof the allies for the citizenship evidently became more widespread and more intense.It was recognizedby Marius, for instancein his enfranchisement of a group of horse from Camerinum, and perhaps by Saturninus, if his agrarian and colonial schemesprovided for the participation of Italians on a large scale (seeAppendix I). Unfortunately the detailsof his proposalscannot be recovered,and though it is possiblethat his ultimate failure aggravated Italian discontent, no authority tellsus that this was so.What we do know is that in 95 it was supposedthat many Italians had crept on to the censusrolls illegally. 'Ihis process the lex Licinia Mucia was designed to check, by r2 1,. R. 'l'aylor, ./.flS 1962, rg ff. r l W i t e m a n 1 6 r q . M o s t o f h i s e x a m p l e sa r e c o n j e c t u r a l .V a l . M a x . i i i . 4 . 5 s a y st h a t M . I t ' 1 1 x ' r n aw a s f t r u n d r ) o t t o b c a c i t i z e na f t e r b e i n g c o n s u li n r 3 o . C f . H a r r i s , I 9 7 I , I 9 2 f f . . 3 r g f f .

roo

I ' I ' A L I A NA I M S A ' l '

'l'lMll ()t S O C | A t ,W A R

establishinga judicial procedureto depriveof the citizenshipthosewho had usurped it. Diodorus may suggest that the status of tens of thousandswas still in question in 9r (n. zo). On this occasionthe Romanswere not acting (asGalstererholdsagainstthe evidence),asin tB7, r77, and r72, at the allies'requestor with their consent.Cicero could call it inexpedient and pernicious to the state, and the learned Asconius,commentingon his words (62 C.), observesthat the Italians were mastered by a passionatedesire for the citizenship, that a great number were posing as citizens, and that the law so provoked the Italian principesthat it was the chief causeof the war that broke out over three years later.ra Here the mention of principesis especiallysignificant. It recurs in the Periocheof Livy's seventy-first book, where the epitomator tells that Livy recorded the conspiraciesand speechesof the Italians late in gr 'in consiliis principum'. The Italian communities were of courseruled oligarchically . by the dominobilesof whom we hear something in the time of Cicero.l5 It was they alonewho could make known their views officially in deputations to the senate or informally in dealings with their patrons and hospitd-r among the Roman aristocrats.l6 It was they who determined, in unison or by the will of a dominant faction, the course their communities were to take. Their ambitions and interests were decisive,and it is their motives in seekingthe citizenship that we must try to discover, not those of Italian peasantswho would for the most part be ready to follow the lead they gave.17 Asconius'statementmay seempuzzlingon two counts.It is not very easyto supposethat many Italians of rank and mark had acquired the citizenship surreptitiously, despite the story of Marcus Perperna (".t9). If the lex Licinia Mucia offended the principes,it was perhaps chiefly becausethe intransigenceit displayed dashed their hopes of a general and legal extension of the franchise. Secondly, it may seem strange that if the law was so provocative the crisis was delayed for more than three years. To this difficulty there are two answers.The ra The legalisticdefence of the law in deofic. iii. 47 doesnot cancel his earlier condemnation of the law ap. Ascon. 67 C. in political terms. The quaestiones under the law (Balb. 48 ff.; Brut. 63) show that it was directed against alleged usurpationsofcitizenship: there is no reasonto suppose that it removed any existing legal right by which foreignerscould properly acquire it, e.g. y'rr migrationem; even if ius'is read in Balb.54 QontraBr'nr,cQrg\z n.33), there is no implication that any right was abrogated. 15 Sall. Cat. r7. 4; many examplesin Syme, RR 8z ff.; Wiseman, 89 ff. For Etruria seeHarris, r g 7 r , c h s .r v a n d v r . r6 e.g' relationsof Poppaedius Silo with Drusus (Plut. CatoMinor z) and Marius (Diod. xxxvii. r5. 3) and of vettius scato with Pompeius Strabo (cic. Phil. xri. z7). cf. Rosc.Amer. t5, cluent. 1 6 5 ,r 7 6 f . , r g 8 , c h . 8 n . 2 8 . 17 Not that the principes need always have represented the views or interests of the local peasants;in rzg, for instance, thcy need not have done so (contraBadian, F'C r75). CL Harris (n. r5); n. 33 below.

L AR ! ] ' A L I A NA I M SA ' l " l ' l M H( ) f S O ( : I A W

lol

late of'Fregellaehad demonstratedthat armed revolt required careful preparation,ls and I doubt if preparation for so widespread and concerted a rebellion as occurred in the winter of 9 r /9o can have been deferred until Drusus' inability to keep his promiseshad becomeplain in the autumn of 9r, the time to which Livy's account of Italian and Appian's of negotiations and exchange of hostages coniurationes relate; of course final meetings to implement earlier and provisional plans must have occurred then.le In any caserevolt was their final recourse.Diodorus has a story that the Marsian leader, Q. Poppaedius Silo, was marching on Rome with ten thousand armed men drawn from those fearing the results of judicial investigations, presumably under the lex Licinia Mucia, to demand citizenship at the point of the sword,when he was persuadedby someDomitius to submit his plea to the senate peaceably, since the senate was already well disposed to grant it (xxxvii. l3). The story, preservedin an excerpt,has no context and is hard to fit into the sequenceof events: it may be fiction,2o or rather a hostile rumour basedon the known fact that large numbers of Italians under Poppaedius' leadership mustered at Rome to put pressureon senate and people; it is indeed attested that there was a plot, revealed by Drusus, to kill the consul L. Marcius Philippus, the chief opponent of enfranchisement,at the Latin festival (deuir. ill. 66. rz). But, whatever truth there may be in Diodorus'tale, it illustrates the fact that the allies preferred to rely at first on pressure and persuasion.In this policy they all but succeeded:Drusus had the backing of the majority of the senateuntil the death of L. Crassusin Septembergr, and it was only when he had failed that a large number of the allies acted on an alternative plan of revolt. Sherwin-White (,RC2r37) has recently toyed with the notion that the author of the work deairisillustribuswas right in stating that Drusus, tB Ad Her. iv. r3 (cf. 16) gives an extract from a speech (real or fictitious) which clearly purports to relate to chargesoftreason under the lex Variaand to be at an early stageofthe revolt, which it attributes to treasonableincitements by Romans (cf. Ascon. zz,73C.); it suggeststhat thc alliesare mostly loyal (doubtlessthe revolt spread,or was reported, gradually), that the rebels lack sufficient men, money and good generals, and should have learned from the example of l'rrqellae. tu i. 38. r69 f. Appian, as often, is indifferent to chronology and misplacesthe outbreak after rh<'lexVariaand the resultant trials. It is clearly dated to (late) gr by Obsequens54 and Oros. v. r[J. r, i.e. by Livy, who recorded scattered operations in winter 9l 9o in lxxii; cf. also Diod. xxxvii. z. z; Ascon. 67 C. Ascon. zz,73C. shows that the lex Varia was the sequel,as implied by Val. Max. viii. 6. 4: the law'iubebat quaeri quorum dolo malo socii ad arma ire coacti essent';he tlrrn adds that it brought the war about! Trials doubtlessbegan early in go; C. Cotta, rejectedin his candidature for the tribunate a lew days after L. Crassus'death in Sept. 9r, was banished somc months later (deorat. üi. tr). 20 l)iod. xxxvii. r3 tells of PoppacdiusSilo marching on Rome and saying that if he could not lx rsuadc the senateto grant citizenship, he would ruin Rome with fire and sword. Haug thinks this liction. It is hard to seewhere it could be fitted in. Who could have been his lo,ooo followers k';tl\rl oI' eulh.ynai? We re trials under the lex Licinia Mucia stlll pending?

Io2

I T A L I A NA I M SA . r ' I . I M E o F s o c I A Lw A R

like GracchusJproposedto enfranchiseonly the Latins; it was they in his accountwho plotted Philippus'murder (ch. 66). Similarly, orosius saysthat Drususwon over all the Latins with the hope of freedom, and after failing-tocarry his proposal,raisedthem to arms (v. rB. z)!Both writers no doubt depend on Livy. This account of Drusus' proposal ca.nnotbe accepted.It is contradictednot only by Appian (i.-35i and Diodorus (xxxxvii. zr.), but by the epitomator of Livy (lxxi)äd by velleius (ii. r4), who is also likely to have drawn on Livv. Tie de uiris illustribusitself has a famous anecdote in which poppaedius, the advocateof 'the causeof the allies', was staying with'Drusus as his guest-friend(ch. Bo; cf, Plut. cato Minor z). In Valerius Maximus, v-ersion(iii. r. z) Poppaediusis made out to be a leading man among the La_tins,preferring their claims. But it is absolutely cärtain that hä was a Marsian.2l Similarly,Floruswritesof the revolt of 'all Latium' (ii. 6. 7), whereas in fact the Latins were almost solidly loyal. It would be uninielligible if Drusus' failure to carry a scheme of primary benefit to the Latins provoked a revolt not among the Latins but among thosepeopleswho had nothing to gain from it, or at most Latin stätus. Häwäver, the errors of theselate epitomators, who doubtlesshardly understood the distinction between Latins and other allies, are most easily explained on the assumption that they read in Livy that the Latins too were agitating for citizenship. If they remainedloyal, venusia excepted(n. 4z),when the insurrection broke out, we may account for this by ttre ties of blood and languagethat bound them to Rome, perhaps ioo by the privilegesthat they, and especiallytheir principer(n.5), alieady enjoyed',and även by the smoulderingof ancient animositiesbetweenthäm and neighbouring Italian peoplesin whoseconfiscatedlands Latin colonistshad been originally settled.In any casethe revolt was not universalamong the allies; elsewheretoo there would be leaderswho were pro-Roman or simply expecteda Roman victory. But the Romans eviäently felt that they could not count on the continuing aid or quiescenceotihe Latins or any other Italians, and realized that thC Latins were not (as sometimessupposed)perfectly content with the rights of acquiring Roman. citizenship by change of domicile, or by horäing local magisl tracies (from which fb-wcguld benefit). Hence afier one yäar of fighäg Rome concededto the loyal Latins and allies the very demand foi citizenship, the refusal of which had caused the rest to .errolt. Diodorus has preserved the terms of an oath in which merr swore allegianceto Drusus on condition that he securedthe citizenshipfor 2r

l)iod. (n. ;,o); I,er.l,ivy lxxvi ctc.; cf. RR qr

!'I'ALIAN AIMS A't'

'l'tMrl

Ot' SO(llAL WAR

ro3

them (xxxvii. rr). Its authenticity is a subject of debate,22 and unfortunatelythe excerptdoesnot tell us who sworeit. It is, however,a natural view that (if genuine)it was to be taken by Italians at large. All our authoritiesare indeed agreed in Justin's words that 'all Italy was now demanding not freedom but a share in government and citizenship'(xxxvii. 4. r3).23The term'freedom'is ambiguous:in this context it is 'independenceof Rome', whereaswhen Orosius (v. rB. z) saysthat the Italians hoped for freedom,he meansexactly whatJustin contrastswith it; at Rome freedom is often synonymouswith political rights. In his accountof the outbreakof the war with the Latins in 34o, which probably owessomethingto experienceof eventsin 9r-go, Livy makes the Latins demand liberty in the senseof equality of power within the Roman state(viii. 4.3-6, 4. rr,5.4). Accordingto Appian, once the insurgents had organized, they made a last appeal to the senateto grant citizenship(i.Sg. r76). During the hostilitiesfurther colloquiesseemto have turned on the samequestion.In 9o Marius and Poppaedius discussed'peace and the desire for citizenship' (Diod. xxxvii. r5). In recordinga meeting betweenPompeiusStrabo and the Marsian Vettius Scato, Cicero indicatesthat the citizenshipwas still demanded (Phil. xä. 27; seep. rog). If Sulla was unable to negotiate peace,presumablyin Bg, it was surely becausehe was not empowered to grant the rebels'terms (Frontinus,Strat.i.5. r7). Sherwin-White,in an effort to minimize this evidence (RC2 146), writes that in 87 the Samnites 'refused an offer of citizenship, becauseit did not entirely restore theft statusqul ante'.The texts (". SS) say nothing of the status quoante,which would have been that position of dependentalliance which the rebels sought to escapefrom: according to Licinianus, the Samniteswould not make peace unlesscitizenshipwere granted to them and to all desertersfrom Roman armies, and unlesstheir own property were restored (zoF.); Dio (fr. ro2. 7) agrees as to the citizenship,but adds that they would not give up their booty and demanded the return of all deserters and captives from their own ranks. By this time the senatewas desperatefor help against Marius and Cinna, and the Samnitescould raise their demandsbecausethey could expectMarius and Cinna to accedeto them all. Citizenshipwas still what the rebels wanted. The undoubted fact that they had seceded,which Sherwin-White stresses(.RC2 14+ff.), by no means implies that their true desire was independenceof Rome, as he supposes. There was no question of the allies being satisfied with ciaitassine 22 Herrmann, 1968, ff. 55 2 r D i o d . x x x v i i . r . r , r 3 , r 5 ; C i c . P h i l . x i i . z 7 ; S t r a b o v . 4 . z ; V e l l . i i . r 5 ; F l o r u si i i . r7.6, r8. 3; l ' l u r o .C a h M i n o r .t ; A p p . i . 3 5 . r 5 r , 3 8 . r 6 9 , 3 9 . r 7 6 , 4 9 . z r z f . , 5 3 . 2 3 r .

r()4

l'l ALlAN AIMS A'l"l tMU ()l'S()(:tAl.WAR

sufragio.I think it probablethar the classof personswho had once had this statusno longerexisted.The iussffiagii had beengranted to some or all'" of the Sabinesin z68, and to the three Volscian towns of Arpinum, Formiae,and Fundi in rBB.Velleius(i. t+) alonerecordsthe first grant, and Livy (xxxviii. 32) the second; it may be that he mentions it only becauseit gave rise to a constitutional wrangle (the senatehad not given its prior consent to the law) . We cannot assume that Livy would have registeredevery similar act of enfranchisement; his narrative of domestic events in the second century is patently incomplete(p.zt).Still lesscan we expectthe wretchedepitomator to mention such grants where the text of Livy is lost: the grants made in z68 and IBB are both absent in the Periochae. In rBB the senateso far relented towards the Capuans as to permit them once more to be enrolledas citizens(Livy, loc. cit.); this did not mean indeed that they were given the vote, and we might conjecture that in view of their earlier disloyalty they would have been among the last ciuessinesufragio to be promoted. Latinization might well have been a criterion for grant of the franchise.Cumae began to use Latin officially instead of Oscan in rBo;25at Capua the firsi datable Latin inscription erectedby the local magistriis of r12 or rrt.26 Caere no doubf clung longest to its native language,Etruscan;and it seemsto me probable that the listsof ciuessinesufragiowere known as tabulaeCaeritum,precisely at a time when Caere was the last community of citizenswho still lacked the vote27 (whether or not the Capuans,who no longer had communal status,alsolackedit) . At any rate, we cannot argue that only thosefew enfranchisementshad occurred of which we happen to be told; on the other hand, it appearsto me unlikely (a) that if the classof citiz enssine sffiagio had still existed (apart perhaps from the Capuans) in the period of agitation among the allies for enfranchisement,there would have been no suggestionthat as a compromisethe allies might be given 'half-citizenship' (to use Mommsen's term), which would have included the iusprouocationis, rather than the Latin right, which did not include it, or (b) that there would have been no trace, particularly during the Social war, of discontent among the half-citizensat the inferiority of their status.It niay also be remarked that even in qo there 2a In my view all (Latomus, 1 9 6 9 ,l z r f f . ) . 25 Lirl x!. 'Cumanis-petentibus permissum, ut publice Latine loquerenrur er +2. r3: praeconibusLatine vendendi ius esset'.The inferencesometimesdrawn that Rome had hitherto lorbidden Cumae the official use of Latin seemsabsurd. Presumably the Cumaeans,to ingratiate themselves,intimated their wishcs and Rome gave a sanction that was not required legally. 26 ILLRP 7o5 ff.; thcse inscriptions are colle'ctedand discusscdby M. w. Fiederiksen. pBS? r 9 5 9 . 8 o .f f . " I M , A p p . r . , , l J ia i / l a : I s c c n o r ( ' : r s ( ' nt o a l t t , r m y v i c w s i r r t h e l i g h t o f H a r r i s , r g 7 r , 45 ff; Sht:rwin-WhiteR . ( , ' 2z r x rl l l

I ' I ' A L I A N A I M S Al l M H ( ) t ' S O C I A L W A R

Io5

is no testimony to their being upgraded, and that the argument a silentio against their earlier promotion applies equally against their promotion at this time too, though it is clear that there were no halfcitizens left in Cicero's time. But if promotions occurred in the second century, they must have raised hopes of enfranchisement elsewhere, which were frustrated only tlecauseRome departed from that liberality with the citizenship which had earlier beett u mark of her policy.2b ( S e eA p p e n d i x I I I . ) To say that the Italians desired citizenship is to generalize. There could have been exceptions,2e though the Samnites were not among them. Sherwin-White supposes that many would still have preferred the ius prouocationis,for which there is no evidence so late as go; he assumesthat they were reluctant to surrender that degree of independence which they enjoyed, and which the rebels actually chose to restrict further in creating the new state of Italia when Rome rejected their initial demands (see below). Certainly, the Romans themselves reckoned with the possibilitlt of this particularism when, at the end of go, they passed the lex lulia and left the loyal allies free to accept or refuse the Roman citizenship (Appendix II). But none refused it. 'foederis At Heraclea and Naples indeed a large number preferred sui libertatem' to Roman citizenship. But even here the objectors must have been in the minority and were overcome. Cicero singles out these cities for their temporary hesitation in accepting the Roman offer; it is a reasonable inference that there were hardly any other instances.Both were Greek cities, and Greeks were more attached (we may think) to preserving their separate identity than the properly Italian peoples' The attitude of a minority of their citizens, however substantial, is therefore f;ar from supporting Sherwin-White's conception: the isolation of these cases a.g...t the very reverse.30 In Appian's account the lex lulia was designed to appease unrest in Etruria and Umbria, where in the winter of 9o/89 the people were being incited to join the revolt. News of the law was hastily sent to Etruria (and presumably to Umbria), where the citizenship was gladly accepted (App.i. 49.2rr f,). The Etrurians and Umbrians had thus been on the point of revolt, and now changed their minds (z16 f.). There had in fact been some fighting in Etruria and Umbria which Appian neglects. He may be corrected from the Livian tradition. Orosius actually says that the Etruscans and Umbrians were reduced 'plurimo sanguine impenso et difficillimo labore' (v. rB. 7). But it is 28 Cic' Balbgap. 3r, ignoring the long te.n-rporal 2e ln App. i. 49. zre no exceptionsare allowed; pdrou should not be changed to pdvovoi; cf. (iabba ad loc. rn (1li., Balr. 'tr; cf. Arch. 5ff., Fam. xäi. 3o.

I l A l . t A n *A l M s A . t ., l . l M t :( ) t . s ( ) ( : l A l , w A R

L AR l'l'ALIAN A I M SA ' l " l l M 1 :( ) l ' S ( ) C I A W

alway.spart of'his purposet' dilate on the magnitude of Rome's past sufferings(praefatio g ff.), and he is surely exaggärating.It is clear from the^Perioche-of Livy lxxiv rhat this fighting took place it the very end of go"^ and that lt was soonover; L. Porciuscato defeatedthe Etruscans while still praetor, and next year, as consul, he was fighting the Marsians (Per.lxxv). The insurrectionwas probably half-häartedand localized (e.g. at Faesulae,which was sackäd,according to Florus ii. rB. r r); for that reasonAppian ignored it.32 . The alacrity with which the Etruscansand Umbrians acceptedthe citizenshipin 9o is relevant to their attitude to Drusus in gr. Appian says-that the very Italians on whose behalf Drusus was acting objäted to the agrarian schemesby which he hoped to win over th]eRoman plebs; they feared to be deprived of Roman agerpublicus,the use of which they enjoyed illegally (i. g6. 16z).33 ]]när. fears operated particularly on the Etruscansand Umbrians, whom Appian cüriously 'not distinguishesfrom the 'Italiotai' here (t6s) but elsewhere (zrz f.).3a.Probablythe Etruscansat leastwere"iuledby a particularly narrow oligarchic class;it is likely enough that their lriicipes, more than any others, ha_dextensiveholdings of agt, pubricui.Appian says that they came to Rope really to murder Dt.rius but nominally io oppose the law, and that at the time when he was killed they were awaiting the day of the dokimasia of a law. It is commonly thouglt that the law is the enfranchisement bill, and that the Etruscans and umbrians were therefore opposed to it. carcopino explains this by supposingthat their magnatesfeared that the giant of the citizenship would introduce a dangerousequality within thäir communities.Ther'e is no certain evidence for this hypothesis or for holding that the abortive revolt of the Etruscansand Umbrians in qo can beäccounted for by any kind of internal revolution.35In fact tii, i.t.rpretation of Appian is mistaken.The contextshowsclearly that the lawbf which he is writing is Drusus' agrarian or colonial law. Now that law had undoubtedly been passed,and long before the autumn of gr, when

to Drusus was killerj. Badian therefbreconcluded that the dokimasia for in assembly the not vote the the which he alludes must be enactment of the law but that in the senate,which resulted in its nullification. Appian's narrative is in any caseradically defectivein that he doesnot mention that Drusus' laws were annulled, and before his death. It has been objected that dokimasianormally refers to an affirmativevote in the comitia(cf. i. ro. 42,2g.t32, iv. 7.27); if this objection is decisivewe ought not to infer that Appian, contrary to his plain meaning, has the enfranchisementbill in mind, but rather that by associatingthe dokimasiawith Drusus' death he has made one of those grossly confusing chronological connectionswhich disfigure his narrative of the 5os (e.g.ii. r4), and that it was much earlierwhen the Etruscansappeared in the city to agitate against the agrarian law. In view of their readinessto accept the citizenshipin 9o/Bg,it is incredible that in gl the Etruscans and Umbrians had opposed their own enfranchisementin principle. At most we can say that they objected to the price that Drusus thought it necessaryfor them to pay, if the Roman plebs was to be won over, a price not demanded under the lex Iulia. Taking Badian's view of the meaning of dokimasia,I previously argued that by the time they appeared in Rome to support the annulment of the agrarian law, they had nothing to lose, since there was no longer any prospect of his carrying the enfranchisementbill. Harris has replied that the consulsmust have organized resistenceto the agrarian distributions at a time before Drusus' cause was manifestlylost. I am not convinced that the timetable is such as to make this contentioncompelling.But dogmatismon such a point is not in place where the evidenceis so defective.'" The lex lulia was the only law that offered the citizenship to Italian communities in general. Many scholarshave, however, supposedthat in 89 the lex Plautia Papiria offered the franchise to individuals in the rebel communitieswho might come over to Rome. But (as Badian observed)nothing is known of the terms of the lexPlautiaPapiriaexcept that it granted citizenship to a probably small class of ascripti of fcderate cities, foreignerswho had received the citizenship of cities like Heraclea, which were enfianchised under the lex lulia, and were domiciled in Italy and registeredat Rome within sixty days (Arch.7). Badian has also shown that the law was passed, if not as late as December Bg, at any rate in the last part of that year. Thus even if the law did grant citizenship to individual insurgents,it came too Iate in the year 89 to change their determination to fight on. And the later it is put in 89, the lesslikely doesit becomethat the Romans then made any

roti

zor ff. showed-that Livy followed a fairly stricr chronological order. "ii l-l^rq H a r r i s , r 9 7 r , z r 6 f . ; S h e r w i n - W h i t e .R C 2 r 4 9 n . r . 'r compare the complaints made in rz9 üy the Italians against the cracchan rand commissioners(App. i. rg; cic. de rep..i-'3r. iii.4r); rhose aggrieved-weresurery rocal magnates who werelossessores of Roman agerpublicuswithin iheir terrii-o=ries,though they could purport to speakfor their cities. For such agerpublicusin Etruria cf. Harris, r97t, tä5 f., iogtr. on relevant evidence of the Liber Coloniarumsee now Keppie, 8 tr; Cf. n. 6g. Probably his sourcefor the first pusug. äiriingrirh.d ,h. Etruscansand Umbrians lrom the -34 other Italians. We are always entitled to assumethit Appian was slipshodlike other eprromarors (Brunt, cQ rg8o,477 ff.) in summarizing his sourcei,'and that üe could be inaccurate and inconsistentin use of terms. 35 ContraL. Piotrowicz, Klio rggo, SZ+tr.;J. Carcopino, Hist. Rom. ii.36S; J. Heurgon, JRJ I959,-43; seenow-Harris r97r, zrB ff.; cf 3r ff against the view that Veglia's prophecy can be u s e df o r e v e n t so f q r .

36 Historia tg6z, zz5 ff.; cf. Harris u rz ff.

to7

ro8

I ' I ' A I - I A NA I M S A ' I " I ' I M T ]o T ' S O ( : I A L W A R

of the kind supposed.By the autumn of 89 mostof the rebels concession had alreadybeenreducedby hard fighting to unconditionalsurrender, and there was no reasonto stimulatedesertionin the rebel ranks.37 Velleius (ii. r6. 4) saysthat the Romans gradually recoveredtheir strength by 'recipiendoin civitatem qui arma aut non ceperant aut maturiis'. The words italicized are taken by Sherwin-White38 deposierant to mean that the citizenship was offered by the lex lulia to rebels who should have laid down their arms by a given date. But if Velleius be interpreted thus, he finds no support in Appian's account of the lexlulia (or in any othertestimony).Accordingto Appian (i.+g.rr2-3), it was only the loyal allieswho were offered the citizenship;he addsindeed that and weakenedtheir the grant made the rebelshope for like concessions resistance,a statement which finds no confirmation from the bloody fighting that went on through 89, but which strictly implies that no had yet beenmade to them. And Velleiussurelymeansthat concession the citizenship was offered to cities that had taken up arms but had 'deposueralready submitted; this is the natural force of the pluperfect ant'. Moreover,his statementcoversboth go and 89, and he might have had in mind extensionsin Bg of the benefitsof the lex lulia to ex-rebel communities, as distinct from those reduced by force, to whose he referswhen rehearsingeventsof BBor later (ii. r 7). enfranchisement In some casesan anti-Roman movement may have been quelled from within. Though Sherwin-White was right to deny that there is evidence from the Social war of divisions on class lines within the Italian peoples,he was not right in claiming that there is no sign of a^n;l internal divisions,that 'a statewas either for [Rome] or againsther'." It would have been extraordinary if this had been so in communities in which hostile factionsare certainly documented,as at Rome itself.aoIn fact we find that Minatius Magius of Aeclanum (Vell. ii. 16) and perhapsPublius Sittius of Nuceriaal took the Roman side against their own compatriots, that several cities were brought over to the insurgents by force or treachery,42that Pinna stood siegesboth from the 37 Badiar, 1964,75 ff. (esp.n. g4); cf. Histoia tg6z, zz9; in JRS rg73, rz5 ff., he clinches the case.But Sherwin-White is misleading in saying on the basis of Cic. Balb. q r that the lex lulia was the only generallaw ofenfranchisement:it was the only law that offered citizenshipto loyal allies, who becamefundi of it; the rebels as dediticüreceived citizenship later by Rome's unilateral grant. 38 RC2 t48. 3e Ibid. r35 ao For local ltalian inimicitiaacf. the Oscan Table of Bantia (App. 1u, cap. r; Cic. Rosc.Amer. 'denique cum variis voluntatibus incerta r7, Cluent.zr ff,; for slasdsin the war Sisenna iv. 78: civitas treoidaret'. 41 Cic.'*uil.58. Nuceria may not have revolted, but cities lederatedwith her did; cf. Gabba on App. i.42. 186. a2 Venafrum, though Roman (l'estusz6z L.), was betrayed,presumablyby local Italian residents ( A p p . i . 4 r . r 8 3 ) ; l i k e w i s eN o l a ( i b i d . 4 2 . I 8 5 ) , w h i c h w a s t o h o l d o u t t i l l 8 8 ( V e l l . i i . I 7 ) . T h e r e b e l s reducedsomeApulian citiesby firrcc;here l,atln Vcnusia camc over of its own accord,but surely not w i t h o u t i n t c r n a l o p l x r s i t i o r (r i b i d . 4 2 , r q o ) . l ) i o , f t g { 1 .f a t m s t sd i v i s i r mi n t h e P i c e n t e s .

I ' I ' A T , t A NA I M S A 1 '

'I'IMI]

OT SOCIALWAR

t09

Italians and the Romans,43and that Vidacilius killed his enemiesat Magius, of whom Asculum in 89, presumablyon chargesof treason.aa grandfather, could Velleius' he was because only know something we not carry the peopleof Aeclanum with him, but elsewherepro-Romans may have crushed an abortive revolt. Our information is far too sparse to reject this e silentio.It is a hypothesisthat is particularly plausiblefor the Etruscansand Umbrians, where the revolt was so brief' Conceivably in such circumstancesthe lex Iulia stlll reservedto the Romans the right to investigatethe facts and determine whether on the whole such a community deservedthe reward of loyalty. This may explain why a special law was necessaryto confer the citizenship on Umbrian fuder.as Finally, it is not at all likely that the Romans held out any hopes of pardon to the rebel leaders.In the Hannibalic war, while sparing the masses,they had been ruthless to the authors of revolt,46 and in the age of Marius and Sulla they had not become more merciful. It is significant that when the Marsians had to submit, PoppaediusSilo evidently fled to the Samnites;and later the Samnite g.Äätut Papius Mutilus had no expectation of amnesty.aTIt was very iatural foithe rebel peoplesmostly to remain loyal to their leaders;if the latter were not offered pardon, they had no choice but to go on 'Quidquid delirant regesplectuntur Achivi.' fighting. -Among the central Italian peoplesthere are signsthat evenduring the war relics of friendly feeling towards the Romans survived. Diodorus (xxxviii. l5) preservesa story of fraternizing between the troops of Marius and Poppaedius in 9o, which ended in fruitless negotiations between the generals. Cicero was an eyewitnessof a meeting in Bg betweenPompeiusStrabo and anotherMarsian general,Vettius Scato, 'voluntate hospitem, necessitatehostem'. He who describeähimself as 'erat in illo colloquioaequitas;nullustimor, nulla suberatsuspicio, adds: mediocreetiam odium. Non enim ut eriperent nobis socii civitatem, sed ut in eam reciperent, petebant' (Phil. xiri. 27). Of coursethis is rather idealized;there had been, and was to be, bitter fighting; and massacres But I do not see occurred,asin later civil wars; war is a BtatosSc$doro)os. a 3 D i o d . x x x v i i . r g f . ( c f .a d H u . ä . 4 5 ) w i t h V a l . M a x . v . 4 ' 7 ' nn App. i. 48. zo7 ff. (chronologically misplaced, see Gabba ad loc')' n, Si..n.ru ir. r rg: 'tamer Tudeitibus senati consulto et populi iussodat civitatem'. Harris r3o suggeststhat a SC ias necessaryto give effect to the lex Iulia in the case of a people still in arms when that law was passed. a6 Livy xxiv.47. ro, xxvi. t5, xxix. 8. r f., 36. to-2. a 7 P o p p a e d i u s , b i o d . * x x v i i . i . g ; P e r . L i v y l x x v i ;P a p i u s , L i c i n . 3 z F ' ; P u ' L i v y l x x x i x ' F e w o f t h e ..corded italiar generals can be conrected with any Italians later eminent at Rome; Asinius Pollio gr ) were presumably (cos.4o),papiusüutilus (ros.eo g), and an officernamed PoppaediusSilo (iRrR ..llaieiuls, if not descendants.But App. iv. z5 says that the rich Samnite senator Statius, proscribed when eighiy in 43 rc, had rendered thi S"-r,it., gr.at servicesin the war; no doubt he was one ofthe Samnircswho went over to Sulla (Diod. xxxvii. z. 14;cf. E. T. Salmon, Athm. t964,67f.).

I ' I ' A L I A NA I M S A ' I " I ' I M L O I S O C I A L W A R

I, AR I ' I ' A L I AA NI M SA ' I ' ' I ' I M(H) } ' S o C I AW

why we should question the essentialtruth of Cicero's picture; the Marsianswere still anxiousto becomeRomans:it was Rome that still obstructedan accommodation.The Romans persisteduntil they had reducedthe peoplesof central Italy to surrender,and it was only when they neededreinforcementagainstthe Marians in B7that the senatewas prepared to enfranchise them (Appendix II). As dediticiithey were probably not given the option of declining incorporation under the lex Iulia (n.37), but it was well known that this was what they desired. It is more plausibleto hold that the Samnitesat leastpreservedsome of their ancient animosity to Rome, which had made most of them, unlike the peoplesof central Italy, go over to Hannibal. Some Italian coinsshow an Italian soldier with his foot placed on a Roman standard or the Italian bull trampling on the Roman wolf.as When the coins bearing thesesymbolsare inscribed, the legendsare in Oscan; someof them have the name of the Samnite general Papius Mutilus. 'Safinium', perhapsequivalent to Samnitium, is written on another of his issues.ae The Samnites,with the Lucanians, held out longestof the rebels; they had not been suppressedwhen the civil war of 87 broke out. -It was they who entered into negotiationswith Mithridates in BB.soIndeed someor all of the coinsmätioned may belons to the last desperatestageof resistance in the south.sl In Bz mbst of tüe Samnites and Lucanians again took up arms against Sulla,s2 and everyone knows the story that their general Pontius Telesinus, 'vir penitus Romano nomini infestissimus', declared that Rome must be totally destroyed, for Italy would never be free until the wolves had been rooted out of their lair (Vell. ii. z7). But who reported thesewords (uttered, if at all, to his own Samnite troops) to a Roman, and how were they transmitted?Very probably they originated in an invention circulated by the memoirs of Sulla,53 who had good reason to

and denigrate the Samnitesat Rome, in order to justify his massacres devastations;Appian tells how he killed all his Samnite prisonersand remarkedthat the Samniteshad alwaysbeendangerousto Rome, and Strabo that he declaredthat Rome would never have peaceso long as they had not been broken up. In fact PontiusTelesinusand his men were now Roman citizens,and were fighting not against Rome but againstone Roman faction. The other evidencedoes not amount to much. Rome had shown from the first, as had to be expected,that she would not recognize the new Italian state; the Italians were therefore committed to a life-and-death struggle, and it is not surprising that they announcedsymbolicallyin their coins that the victory would be theirs, or that Samnitessought to revive memoriesof their own heroic past.saAs for Mithridates, "ir.n Romans in civil wars did not scrupleto seekforeign aid. But there is more solid evidencefor Samnite sentiments.In 87 the senatetried to come to terms with the Samnitesand Lucanians.The negotiationsbroke down becausethey demanded citizenship not only for themselvesbut for those who had desertedto them, together with the restoration of their property and other conditions. Cinna and Marius acceptedall their demands.ssThus, as Appian (i.53. z3r) observes,they too got what they wanted-the citizenship. In 66 Cicero thought that it would assistthe cause of his client, Cluentius, that 'Boviano totoque ex Samnio cum laudationeshonestissimaemissae sunt tum homines amplissimi nobilissimiquevenerunt' (Cluent.rg7) This hardly suggeststhat there was much sensein Rome of Samnite hostility to her power.

I to

a 8 S y d e n h a m ,r g 5 2 , n o s . 6 2 7f . , 6 3 o , 6 4 r . 4e Ibid.639. 5 0 P o s i d .( J a c o b y n o . 8 7 ) F . 4 r ; D i o d . x x x v i i . z . r r . D a t e : G a b b a , r 9 7 3 , 2 4 8 = 1 9 7 6 , 8 8 .S o m e I t a f i a n s e v e n t u a l l yf l e d t o M i t h r i d a t e s ( F r o n t . S t r a t .i i . 3 . r 7 ) . G a b b a , r g 7 3 , 3 z g = 1 9 7 6 , t r g , connectswith all this the negotiations between Sertorius and Mithridates (Plut. Srrt. 23; App. Bell. Mithr.68). Two of the rebel coin issues(Sydenham $2,64g) can be associatedwith their overtures to him. 5r So A. Yoirol, Schwei4rMünglätter, rg1.;,14,64ff. 52 Salmon, 1961,gTTff.,demonstratedthattheSamniteswerenotcontinuouslyinarmsfrom 87 to 83 and that they did not obstruct Sulla's march in 83 lrom Brundisium to Campania. But it seemsto me unwarranted and incredible that Sulla, who neededany support he could get, would not seekit from the Samnites,and actually proclaimed a crusadeagainst them, before they mostly rallied to the Marian side; like many other Italians, they doubtlessdid so becausethey could not trust his promises.esp. in view oftheir role in 87. Cf. n. 47. 5r Haug argued that Velleius drew indirectly on these memoirs. They certainly lie behind Plutarch's description of the Samnitesand Lucanians as peoplesmost hostile to Rome (Sulla zq. 4). Sisenna, if regarded as an alternative source, no doubt adopted Sulla's bias. For Sulla's t r e a t m e n to f t h e S a m n i t e ss e eA p p . i . t | 7 . 4 o o , 9 3 . 4 3 2 i S t r a l x r v . 4 . r r ; S a l m o n , 1 9 6 7 ,3 8 6 f f .

II. THE CONCEPT OF ITALIAN

UNITY:

Of course when in g r the rebels were frustrated

III

ROMANIZATION in their claims to the

citizenship they were obliged to seek a different solution for their problems.This was the creationof a new state,Italia, at Corfinium, 'a common city for all the Italians in place of Rome's6 a sort of antiRome (in the samesenseaswe speakof anti-Popes).It is far from clear, this perhapsit was not clear to the Italians, just what consequences entailed. As Rome would not acknowledgethe new state,Rome had to be defeated.Diodorus saysthat the Italians were now fighting for their own hegemony (xxxvii./xxxviii. zz). The possibilitythat Italy might 5a Gabba, rg73, 27g: r976, rol, concedestoo much in holding that an appeal was made to the desirefor independenceamong the masses,ofwhose sentimentswe naturally know nothing at all. 55 Licin. zo F.; Dio, fr. ro4 7; App. i. 68. 3ogf. 'Itali, T. Laf[renius] 56 Strabo v. 4. 2; more details in Diod. xxxvii. z. 3 ff.; cf. CIL i2 . 848: p r [ a c t o r l ' . ] ' o r n a m c I t a l i a o r V i t e l l i u s e et h e c o i n s .

tt2

I'l'Al,lAN AtMS A l'

'l'lMU

Ot' SOOlAl" WAR

be divided between two states, with momentous effects on the empire overseas,was not one to which they needed to give any consideration, because the Romans were not prepared to contemplate such a compromise. If they could not force the Romans after all to concede their original demands-and the readiness of Poppaedius Silo in go and of Vettius Scato in 89 to enter into pourparlerssuggests that they had to make the Romans surrender. still had this in mind-they Whether they would have decided to incorporate a defeated Rome into the new Italia we shall never know. The rebel state has been variously represented as unitarysT or federal. Our information is meagre, but Diodorus stressesthe imitation of Rome. Even the coins were mostly copied from Roman issues.s8 There was to be a senate of five hundred members, two consuls, twelve praetors, and since a spacious forum as well as a council house were planned (they can hardly have been built), a primary assembly to meet in the forum was surely envisaged. All this favours the first alternative. It is denied by Sherwin-White, only because he is convinced, without good reason, that the rebel peoples were passionate for local autonomy. Since the state was new, the senate could not consist, as the Roman senate did, of ex-magistrates, but must have comprised magnates of the rebel peoples, chosen, naturally enough, on some proportionate basis; similarly, of the first two consuls one was a Marsian and one a Samnite, and doubtless most of the other insurgents were allowed a praetor apiece. No system of representation need have been written into a constitution. There was no machinery to draft a constitution; for immediate needs the senate received 'autocratic power', and enacted a law for the election of the two consuls and twelve praetors. A passagein Strabo (u. +. 2) might be read as meaning that they were elected by the rebel host mustered at Corfinium, but that necessarily unrepresentative body can have done no more than acclaim the names propounded by the senate, from whose ranks, we are told, the persons were to be chosen who were to rule and conduct the war: these persons were probably none other than the magistrates. The differences between the initial arrangements for the government of 57 H. D. Meyer, Histoia rg18, 74 ff. Salmon, tg67, g48 ff; ct. TAPA r 958, 89 ff., holds that App. i. 39. r 75 gives an official Italian list of r z rebel peopleseach entitled to one praetor; in that casethe number ofpraetors was not fixed until the relatively late adherenceofPompeii, Venusia, and some Apulian cities; and further adhesions would presumably have created a claim for more praetors. It is also an objection that the peoplesnamed were ofvery unequal strength. Salmon's assignation of different generals to specific peoples is often highly conjectural; and we cannot (e.g. i.4o. rBr) between local and'federal'commanders. The hypothesisis :l;:nj*,t"*rish 58 This invalidatesCarcopino's hypothesis(f/rrt. Rom.ü.378) founded on the coins ofa league between central and southern rebcls: sce Sydenham's n()tcson the coins and Voirol (n. 5r ).

l'l'At,lAN A l M s A ' l " l ' l M H( ) r s ( ) ( : l A tw, A R

I t3

Italia and the Roman systemcan largely be explainedby the necessity of improvisationin the winter of gr/9o. The rebels had hoped for political unity and equality within the structure of the Roman state. When this was denied, they sought to achieve the same aims without Rome and against her, but they still could not escape Roman influences. There is no trace here of the passionfor freedom and autonomy which had informed the separatist revolts of Athens' subjects,That is not surprising.We need not rely for an explanation merely on an unfathomable difference between the national characteristicsof Greeksand Italians. The long internal peace within Italy, which had lasted for a century since Hannibal's departure, had no precedentin Greek experienceand had demonstratedthe advantages of political unity to peoples of whom many had once struggled hard against Roman domination. It had bound them together in culture and sentiment. And it had made possible the acquisition of a dominion overseaswhich Italians as well as Romans had been able to exploit.5e We should expectJustin to be right when he says that they desired 'consortium imperii'. Even the concept and name of Italia or Vitelia are significant.60To Metternich Italy was no more than a geographicalexpression,and the political unity which the rebels wished to maintain was not to be regained, once Rome had fallen, until the nineteenth century. The name Italia had once stood only for Calabria. It was the Romans who gave it a larger extensionand a political connotation by distinguishing from their allies or subjects overseasthe Italians whose duty and privilege consistedin finding soldiersfor Rome's armies, not money for her treasury, the 'socii nominisve Latini quibus ex formula togatorum militesin terra Italia imperaresolent'.61Here with a common dressas se In distributions of booty to soldiers Italians are recorded to have received the same as Romans on three occasions(Livy xl. 43. 5, xli. 7. r ff., xlv. 43. 4); halfas much on another, but this was evidently thought novel and unfair (xli. r3. 6. ff.), and is unlikely to have been a precedent;however, the proceedsofbooty not distributed went, like indemnities and taxes,to the Roman treasury. ln r73 Latins received smaller viritane allotments than Romans, p.5r3, Ilari r4r n.74. On Italian businessactivity in regions under Roman rule or hegemony cf p. 168. 'Italia' 60 F. Klingner, Rom.Geisleswe lt2 r 3 ff.; Ilari 3 ff., though Galsterer 37 ff has shown that in Italy. On the Romanization of Italy seeesp. G. Devoto, cazalsodenote merely the agerRomanus Scr.Min. i. 287 ff. (who rightly remarks that the view of the Social war as a final protest against Roman rule contradicts the story of Romanization, Samnium perhaps excepted),and some parts of his G/i antichiitalici and St. della lingua rom.;J. Whatmough, I937 discussesit regionally; cf. now S a l m o n , 1 9 6 7 ,c h . g , a n d H a r r i s , r g 7 r , c h . v , o n S a m n i u m , E t r u r i a , a n d U m b r i a . I a m n o t lamiliar with further researcheson this subiect. 6r Lex agraria (FIRA i2. no. B) zI, 5o; on the formula see 1M, App. 6; Ilari, ch. III (largely 'neve nominus Latini neve socrum confirming my views). Cf. FIRA i2. no.3o (186 rc): (ibid. 7) r: '[Qgoi socium no] minisve Latini exterarumve quisquam'; rheGracchanrepetundaelaw nati
t14

I T A L I A NA I M SA T T I M EO FS O C I A L wAR

symbol of a common status62was the germ of the later conceptionof 'Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam'. Officially Italy ended still at the Aesis,but both Cato (n. 83) and Polybius (i. 6, r3, ii. r4) carried it to the Alps, and the lex Pompeiaof 89, by granting Latin statusto the Transpadani, implies a half-recognitionof the larger limit. Only the Alps provided a natural boundary, and the unity discernedin the earlier official terminology was clearly not so much geographicalas cultural, sentimental, or national. If any such senseof unity already existed,it was the work of Rome. To have created it, though without deliberate purpose, was a remarkable achievement. In Italy the mountain ranges are only lessdivisive than in Greece, and in the pre-Roman era the Italians were not bound together by thoseties of common blood, language,religion, and manners of which the Greekswere conscious(Hdt. viii. r44): they were peoplesof diverse origin and tongues.Even the affiliation of Oscan and Latin is more perceptibleto the comparative philogist today than it can have been to Italians living in go; and some of the Italians spoke languages that were not Italic; that of the Etruscanswas not Indo-European. Since language influencesthought, the extension of Latin was not only an outward sign of developing unity but one of the chief f;actorsin its promotion. Pliny (/fFl iii. 39) was to say that it was Italy's achievement'tot populorum discordesferasque linguas sermonis commercio contrahere'. Latinization within Italy prepared Italy to fulfil this task, and followed the same processas can later be observed in the empire at large. Once Rome had become the ruling power, the very diversity of the Italian linguistic pattern gave Latin ttr^eadvantage as a lingua franca. Roman magistrates(it was allegedo")in old days refusedto speak Greek, or doubtlessany alien tongue; and the Italian principes needed Latin to communicate with the senate,or with patrons and hospitesat Rome. In the army Latin was the language of the high command, and perhaps too the only intelligible medium of intercourse in or betweenallied cohorts.(Mommsenplausiblyconjecturedthat the contingents of small cities must have been often amalgamated in a ouppäyovsAanivous.'Socii nominis Latini', where it occurs in our texts ofLivy (e.g. xxxviii. 44. 4), is also probably an error ofLivy or a copyist. 62 llaÄ n. rr. Sallust usesrogatiand Italici as equivalents (BJ zr. z, z6). Cisalpina is already 4 togatail 43 (Cic. Phil. vüi. z7). Strabo (vi. r. z) saysthat the distinctive languages,armour, and dressofthe Lucanians, Samnitesand Bruttians had all disappeared,but though often dependent on earlier sources,he is herc no doubt reporting what he was told and saw on his own travels (v. 3. 6), when Samnium had not recovered lrom Sullan Sehruklichkeit(u. 4. tr), and when the Lucanians (as ofcourse the rest) werc Romans (vi. r . 3). I doubt his testimony as to the language at least of the masses;cf. n. 76. 63 Val. Max. ii. z. l; Harris,rq7r, r7of.

ITALIAN AlMs A'r't'lMlt ot'SOCIAL wAR

I I5

singleunit.6aAccordingto Velleius(ii. rro.5), Pannonianswho rose againstRome in en 6 had learnt from servicein Roman armies to speak and actually to read Latin;6s and if they acquired this facility in one generation,how much more must Italians have done so in two or more centuries.A great block of Roman territory (including that of Latin cities) extended from north Campania to south Etruria and northeastwardsfrom Rome, with the Via Flaminia as its artery' to Picenum and Ariminum.66Within this area Latin displacedthe native speechof Faliscans, Volscians, Aequians, and Sabines6Tand influenced the contiguousItalians. Outside this solidly Latin region there were pockets everywhereof Latin-speakers,the strategicallysituated Latin colonies, lands confiscatedafter the Hannibalic war in the south, where some Gracchan settlerscould find homes,68as earlier Scipio's veteranshad been assignedallotmentsin Samnium and Apulia (Livy xxxi. 4. 2), or simply groups of Roman citizens or Latins living in allied cities, like thosewho were massacredat Asculum or captured at Nola and in some Apulian towns in go (App. i. 38, r74, 42. IB5 and rgo). And Roman roads penetrated allied lands; presumably they w-erekept up by the uiasieiaicani,who were probably Roman (FIRA i'. no. B. ro f.). We should not underrate the actual mixing of populations. Not only were Romans or Latins domiciled in allied towns; Samnitesand Paelignians migratedto Latin Fregellae(Livy xli. B), other Italians to Narnia (xxxii. e, 6); non-Latin forms in early inscriptionsor coinsfrom Luceria (ILLR 5o4), Spoletium (ibid. 5o5), Pisaurum (ibid. z3), and Beneventum (Conway, Italian Dialectsno. I59) suggestthat the colonistswere not all of Roman or Latin stock; to Rome itself of courseItalians were much attracted, despite occasionalexpulsions.6eDiodorus thought that the combatants in the Social war were linked by marriages,owing to the (xxxvii. 15. 2), and though this is clearly custom (voy.6s)of conubium attestedonly between Romans and Latins, it may have becomemore extensive;at least we know that Pacuvius from Latin Brundisium was sister'sson to Ennius from MessapianRudiae (Pliny,.IfIlxxxv. t9).to 64 SrR iii3. 674. The extraordinarii(Ilari r43 ff) were presumably mixed. Livy xliv. 4o. 5 f. records how Marrucinian and Paelignian cohorts were marshalled with Samnite turmae,and a Vestinian cohort with Latin cohorts and,turmae. 65 But M6csy (RE Suppl. ix 767) is probably right to refer this to the officers alone.'qui 66 It is right to speak of Romans and Latins together, cf. Ennius (Vahlen) rem 466: Romanam Latiumque augescerevultis'. In Latin colonies colonior incolaeof alien extraction would tend to be assimilated:cf. Harris, r97I, I58 f. 6t R. S. Conway, Ital. Dialecß i or Vetter under each people named. 6E SeeG 'I'ibiletti, Rel.delx congresso di scien4slor., r955, ii. z6z ff., for enclavesofRoman land in allit'd territories; hence Gracchan cippi at Volcei, Lucanian Atina, and Aeclanum (ILLRP ,1(iry7r,473) and at Ligures Corneliani (?) (A. Russi and M. Valvo, Qtinta Miscellanea,1977, zrr.,ll.). Scc K. J. Bcloch, Rom. Gesch.19z6, 4g4 ff., on Grumentum and Telesia; cf. n.33. ne (ll. rrn. 7 0 B e l o c h ,I t a l . B u n d r 5 3 . 4r (Vcnafrum), 66.

rr6

I'I'ALIAN AIMS A'I''rIME O}' SO(:IAI, WAR

The effectsof all this-arenot easy-to gaugeor date, given the sparsity of early inscriptions.It is clear ihat"Laiinization üad made much progress. the Abruzzi foples who were nearest to the great -am_onq central block of Roman territory. The Latin alphabet was used from the first by the volsci, Marsi, paeligni, vestini, änd Ma.rrrcini; it also appears on Frentanian coins; before the social war it had been adopted in the Um.brian towns of Iguvium, Fulginiae, Aririu-, u.rd i" Apulian Bantia and räate. Asisium-usedLatin officially T*:l':lj a-Irttle belorego." jr Marsian^territorywe find Latin inscriptions of the Gracchan-period,and one of the thirä or even the fourth ..'"i"ry.; Marsians and Asculans could each produce a Latin orator in the ycgnf century (cic. Brut. r69). The fact that the insurgentsof central Italy inscribed their coins with Latin legendssuggestthä they had by now adopted Latin officially. In Etruriä, umbiä, and the sourh the native languageswere still in public use locally.'In the mid-secorrd the comic poet Titinius could refer to men who spokeOscan or ::1t"y volscian and had no Latin.73 yet Latin must have beän understood over a wide area. That would best explain the erection of Latin inscriptions,whether on local initiative or at Roman behest, at Bantia, clusium, and elsewhere,Ta indeed in districtsso remote u, tt. lands of Genua and the Veneti.Ts The ggltry at least (and it was they who counted) must have . becomebilingual' Hence, once they had obtained the citizenship, they were ready at once to adopt Latin. Nearly ail the notables of Apulian Larinum born before 9o, whom cicero mentions in his defence of cluentius, haveLatin praenomina. Even in Etruria, as Harris hu1,ho*rr, Latin had ousted Etruscan on tombstonesby tire time oiÄ.rg.rr,.rr. Most tombstoneswere set up by the relatively afiluent. w.-r."o* r.oother parts of the empire that the epigraphic -onopoty-.rrjoy.a by Latin.(or Greek) is no proof of the extinc"tionof the nativeionjues. The actual disappearanceof the non-Roman languagesin Italf äay have been the result of a processfar more prolJngä than orlr evidence ti co-nway (n.67) or vetter under each people or city named, and cautious remarks on ,, lt: in Harris r84 ff. Devoto, Ant. Int.6o, obr.ri., ihat adaptation of the Latin arphabet in !m.!ri1 Paelignian and Volscian inscriptions sho*s that it rlu. ,rot imposed. '2 ILLRP 7 (late ath c.l Dwoto, srr", t95, put,üi",r,. t h i r d ) ; c f . z g 5 ;c l L i x . 3 8 2 7 . T h e Volsciansseemto have adopted Latin in theilte thrra..n,u.y, conway 266 ff. Seealso conway on the earliest I atin inscripiionsof other peoples.D;r;;;, storia zor,notes Latin influence on the Ot: I ! anus (Conw ay no. 95, mid-iecond century; . ' 'i" ^,!!ry_4! : CRF (Ribbeck) roa. c f . Ä p p .w , c I L i 2 . 5 9 5 - 7 . I d o n o t c i t e h e r e t h e s c d e B a c c h a n a r i b u s ( F I R A i 2 . ,no' " :'*!i2'no.6; 3o), since the a.qerTeuranus where it *ui ,.t up was probably Ror"u" (GJ;;; Ki.\rn . rü. z5g n t5)' The rebclundae law found at Tarentum in.5) provides ior publication in "ü.tI.a .i,i... pIRA.äi. no. 163; ILLRp G. E. F, Cni"{r,Zirapae 476i. Gaut, tg4r,7e, illustrated early ^7s Romanization in nomenclaturc.

l'l ALIAN AIMS A'l'

'l'lMU ()l' SO(:IALWAR

tr7

reveals.Modern parallelsindeedsuggestthat the languageof epilaphs need not be that actually spoken by the deceasedand his kin.'" No doubt the old forms of speechlingered longest in the fields and the market-place,11 and in some views they have left an impress on the evolution of modern Italian.Ts But when all reservationshave been made, their rapid abandonment after 9o and sometimesearlier by men of rank indicates how easily they would assimilate themselvesculturally to the master-people,especiallywhen they had been admitted to membership of it. Contemporary experienceshowsthat the adoption by the subjectsof the language of rulers is not enough to create common sympathies.In 225 the Italians had gladly co-operatedwith Rome againstthe Gauls, not out of loyalty to Rome or Italy, but becausethey saw that their individual interestswere menacedby the invaders (Polyb. ä. 23. rz, y.7).7e By go they had transcendedthis particularism.We can see this processat work in the inscriptions abroad, where they designate themselvesas Italici, perhaps as early as Ig3 in Sicily, and not as members of their particular communities.so A Roman magistrate adopted the same conception in the secondcentury when he claimed 'fugiteivosItalicorum'.81It thaf aspraetorin Sicily lie had rounded up was indeed the Romans who contrasted the Italians with external made it his task to peoples(n.6r). Cato, in particular, in his Oregines trace the origins of every Italian people; and, according to Dionysius, he was not alone in this: C. SemproniusTuditanus and many others did likewise.s2Cato seemsalsoto have had little to sayof Rome'searly wars against the Italians; perhaps he preferred to celebrate the enterprisesin which Rome and the Italians fought side by side.83 Military camaraderie probably played a large part in promoting a national sentiment. The poet Ennius served Rome as a soldier; and 76 Harris, r r r 69 ff. Cf. my remarks in D. M. Pippidi (ed). Assimilationet rösistance d la culture 97 , Gröco-romaine, r976, r 7o ff., on the survival ofvernacular languagesin provinceswhere only Latin or Greek was used officially or commonly attested by inscriptions. ?7 Thus among the Paeligni (Conway, p. 234) and at Pompeii not long before its destruction (ibid. nos. 6o-7). A Vestinian inscription in Latin of 58 ac seemsto preserve Oscan words (ILLRP 5oB). Rudorffnoted the survival in Roman times of Oscan and Umbrian measurements(Grom. VetereszBr\. 78 Whatmough (n. 6o) 3oz f., cf. z7g f. He also dates some Messapian inscriptions to the late Republic (z3z). 1e FC r45 on Polyb. iii.9olz. 80 ltalici: ILLRP 3zo, cf. 343 and many post-go inscriptions; cf. Hatzfeld :38 ff. " ILS rg:111RP +s+. 8 2 D i o n y s .H a l . i . r r . t ( p a c e H a r r i s r, g 7 r , 2 0 n . 3 ) ; N e p o s ,C a t o3 ; S e r v . o n A e n . i x . 6 o o : ' I t a l i a e disciplina et vita [a Vergilio] laudatur, quam et Cato in originibus et Varro in gente populi Romani commemorat'. See Peter, HRF; Cato, frs. 42, 45, 47*5r, 59,56, 58f., 6r f., 69f. 83 Three books were devoted to the origins ofRome and other Italian peoples,and the fourth bcean with the 6rst Punic war.

rT 8

I ] . A L I A NA I M SA ' I ,. I . I M E o ,T S o C t A Lw A R

then this Messapian,the man with three hearts who spoke Greek, Oscan, and Latin, choseto sing the gloriesof Rome inhis Annals.saHe wasone of the many Italians who helpedto make Rome the cultural as well as the political centre of Italy. Plautus and Accius came from Umbria, Naevius and Lucilius from Campania, Pacuviusfrom Brundisium, Caecilius from Cisalpina. The Oscan farces of Atella were naturalizedat Rome.ss Admiration for Rome led some of the Italians to invest their magistrateswith Roman titles or to adopt Roman constitutional and legal forms.86Ignoring Latin citiesand ihe older Roman municipia,sT we find Latin titles adopted at Falerii (senate, praetors, aediles, quaestors),Pompeii (quaestorsand aediles), Abella (senate,quaestors, legati),Potentia in Lucania and Vicus Supinus in Marsian country (quaestors),Alfedenain Samnium (aediles);tribunesare also attested from Teanum Sidicinum and either Nuceria or Pompeii, and a quaestor,_whomay be merely the official of a sacredguild, at Umbrian Iguvium.ss An Oscan law from Bantia in Lucaniä shows that that small and remote place had gone far in imitating Roman institutions. The old Oscan *tädisssehas äeasedto denote thJ chief magistrate and means simply 'magistrate' in the generic sense.The specific offices except for the censor have Latin names; there are even tribunes, perhapsborrowed immediately from the neighbouring Latin colony of Venusia. As in some other Italian cities the use of the Latin term 'senate' is clearly derived from Rome at a time when it had lost its original significanceas a council of elders.Various rules reflect Roman constitutionalpractice.It has recentlybeen contendedthat the law is 84 Cf. Ann.545 (Vahlen): 'nos sumus Romani qui fuimus ante Rudini'. E5 Strabov.3.6saysthattheywereperformedinOscan(inhistimeorthatofhissource?).See W h a t m o u g h ( n . 6 o ) 3 9 o . H a r r i s , r 9 7 r , t B 4 n . z i s d u b i o u so n P l a u t u s ' o r i g i n . oo G. Camporeale, Terninologiamagistratuale nellelingueosco-umbre, r 956; I do not accept all his views. E7 Latin coloniesnaturally were modelled on Rome; so there is nothing'extraordinary' in the archaeologicaldiscovery of group voting at Cosa (eontraM. H. Crawford, JAS r98r, r55); and one would expect the institutions of the older Latin cities to be very similar to Roman. The titles of some chief magistratesin munieipia,three aedilesin the Volscian cities of Arpinum, Fundi, and Formiae (ILLRP 546f.,595 f., 6or-4), praetors at Cumae (576), a dictator and aedile iuri dicundo at Caere (1ZS59IBa), and the Sabine octouiri(seeendnote 4) in my view indicate Latinization of indigenous titles; cf. Humbert 289 ff EEFalerii,Vetter 264, gt7, g2o (:ILLRP 2 3 8 ) ; B a n t i a , A p p . r v ; P o m p e i i ,V e t t e r B f . , r r f . , I6-I8, zo; Abella, ibid. r; Potentia, ibid. r8o, rSra; Vicus Supinus. ibid. zzSd (-ILLRP 286); Alfedena, ibid. r43; Teanum, ILS 6z98; Nuceria (?), ibid. 6445a (: ILLRP tr4l; Iguvium, 7aä. Igur. vaz3b z.U.Laffiin LesBourgeoisies munic.ital. auxn" etr" silcles aa.J.-C., rg83, 59 ff., at 67 cites some further instances.There seemsto be no warrant for holdine that the kustur was the chief m a g i s t r a t e a t l g u v i u m r e p l a c i n gt h e u h t u r( f r o m t h e s a m e r o o t a s a u i t o r ) , c fu r . 7 f . ; t h e u h t u r m a y b e a religious official (Vetter ad loc); see also Harris, r97r, r89 ff. 8e F. Sartori, Problemidi st. clst.italilta, ch. r givesa lucid summary ofevidence and theorieson the meddiss.

LAR I I ' A L I A NA l M s A ' l " t ' l M !(: ) t ' S O C I Aw

I r9

ol'sullan date and revealsthe earliestinstitutionsof Bantia when it had already become a Roman municipiumand that the rules in question tlctray the influence of Sulla's constitutional measures.However, as argued in Appendix IV, they do not correspondat all closelyto Sulla's innovations, but rather to the normal practice of the Roman systemin the second century; everything suggeststhat the Bantians were not Roman citizens,and there is no good reasonto date the law later than about go, or perhapslate in the secondcentury; moreover, wheneverit *u, .rrg.uu.d, the äbbreviationsof the titles of magistratessuggestlong Iämiliarity with the Latin terms' The document also refers to a legis actio, to manusiniectioon the pro iudicato,and (actually using the Latin term) to dolus malus. Thus Bantian civil law had also been in somerespectsassimilatedto Roman. This processis likely to have gone furthest in lessout-of-the-way Italian comÄunities and must have made the full reception of Roman law in rhe new municipalities created after the Social war all the easier.Latin colonies had piobably assistedin its promotion, affording models nearer at hanä than Rome herself. It so happens that an inscription 'manus iniectio'.e0 But even without from Latin Luceria also refers to any such testimony we should have to assumethat the civil law of the coionieswas identical with that of Rome at the moment of their several foundations. No doubt in course of time, as Roman law developed, differenceswould arise. But the fact that in 90 the Latins, or rather some Latin cities,el still allowed an action for damagesfor breach of promise to the disappointed bridegroom which was not available at merely shows that they had preserved an archaic Roman ito-. institution.e2At some points the Latins kept their law in agreement with the Romans by freely adopting Roman statutes such as the lex (Cic. Balb. and the lex Voconiademulierumhereditatibus Furia de testamentis Italians no other that words Cicero's from infer 2 r ). It would be rash to did so.e3 Evidence on thesesubjectsis very meagre. The literary authorities are silent or generally non-technicalon the forms of government or law in the allied iiti.r, and inscriptions are seldominformative. The oscan eo ILRRP stiplo (vt a z; cf. sleplatur b 5o4. In the Iguvine Tables the words afputrati (va ii) and r 3 ) a r e h e l d t ä b e o f L a t i n - o r i g i n b y e . g . V e t t e r , b u t C f . D e v o t o , A n t . I t a l i c i zI 9 5 I , 2 7 3 , o n t h e f i r s t . 'l:üc secondborrowing doesnol imply ädoption of Roman law; there is no analogy bctween the use .l'the last two words and Roman sirpulatio(lJ. Coli, Il dirittopubblüodegliunbri, r958, z5 f.). SeeL. \titteis, Rörn.Prioatrecht,Igo8, 3 ff. sr lus Latü meant that tire ciiizens ofLatin cities enjoyed on a reciprocal basiscertain rights in R.mc and in other Latin cities, not that each Latin city had the same public or private law. '2 Gell. iv. 4; cf. Yarro, LL vi. 7r; M' Kaser, rRÖn.Priaatrecht2,tg7t,75f' ,-r Liuv i*. rä. r o: 'nec arma modo sed iura etiam Romana late pollebant' has typical value; on 'Italia' rlrc r.ircumstancescf. RC2 8o ff. On the extensionof Roman legislation in private law to r . g . ( i a i u s i i i . I z r f f . ) s e eG a l s t e r e r3 7 f f .

I20

I . I A L I A N A I M S A ' I .. T I M I i o T . S o C I A L w A R

law of Bantia is the only document of its kind. But it is plausible to supposethat at leastin citiesmore accessible to Roman influence the extent of borrowing would not be lessthan at Bantia. This is strongly suggestedby what is known of the constitution of Italia itself withlts senate,consuls,and praetors. Even the samnite Papius Mutilus calls himself embraturor imperatorin the manner of a victorious Roman general.ea III. THE VALUE

OF CITIZENSHIP TO THE ITALIANS

The demand of the Italian peoplesfor the Roman citizenshipand their readinesswhen that was denied to merse in the new staie of Italia imply that they were not concerned io p..r..u. their individual statehood.Hence it is unlikely that the infractions, real or supposed,of their internal self-governmentby the senateconstituted an important sourceof their discontent.e5 As municipalitieseither of Rome or Italia the cities would have less and not more autonomy at home. The surrender-oflocal rights was no doubt acceptable,as a necessaryprice to be-paid for the preservation of peace in Italy and empire a-bioad, and for a share in the control of that empire. There was no independence to be surrendered: that belonged to the dim past; ouiside Etruriae6 it had probably left no coheänt native record. For two centuriesRome had decided questionsof foreign policy and fixed the military contributions they had to make. Theseäontributions must have involved them in a financial burden.eTcicero recallsthat the allies and Latins used to meet the costsof pay and food for their soldiers(rr verr. v. 6o), and though Polybiussaysthat no deduction was made from the pay of allied soldiers, as it was from that of legionaries,to cover the cost of grain (rni.gg. r5), this may mean not that it was borne by the Roman treasury but thät the allies were paid proportionately less; he also mentions that the allied cities haä to appo.ilta paymasterfor their troops (vi. zr. 5). certainly the Latins provided stipendium in the Hannibalic war and somecomplained ofit as a-heavyburden(Livy xxvi. 9, xxix. r5.g), no doubt becäusethe ailies, like the Romans themselves'(xxiii.3l; xxiv. rr), were paying a direct tax on property at much more than the usual rates. Indemnities, booty, and provincial revenues enabled Rome in r 86 to repay the ea Sydenham 64o I et Po_1y9 v i.. r 3 . 4 f . w i t h W a l b a n k a d l o c . ; c f . B a d i a n , F C c h . v r ; S a l m o n , 3 r r f f . ; J . G o e h l e r , _ Rom u. Italien, r93g, 53 ff. Rome's interventions were no doubt almost all delisncdio Dreserve g e n e r a lt r a n q u i l l i t y , b u t t h o u g h R o m e w a s p r e p a r e dt o s u p p r e s sa n y l o c a l m o v e ä e n t sr r L u e r s i u e of the authority of the local prrzrfrs (Harris r q7 r , r 2q ff ), ihere was no continuous interl-erencein local administration. e6 Harris, rq7r, e7 C. ch. t. N i r . o l c t ,/ ) g . ! R r q 7 t t , r l l l

|'|'ALIANAIMS A'l

'l

lMt: ()t'SOCIAL WAR

t2l

srrrtaxes on citizensleviedin the past twenty-fiveyears (xxxix. 7.5), and from 167 to remit tributumaltogether(Plut. Aem.Paull.3B); the allieshad no such resources enabling them to act in the sameway. The grant of citizenshipwould have beena substantialfinancialreliefto the they were also Italian cities;if they lost the right of taxing themselves, freed of the need to do so. It is true that we hear nothing of any financial grievance:but we hear so little of the Italians' casethat this argument from silenceis not decisive. How much autonomy could the Latins and Italian allies hope to retain on incorporation in the Roman state, and how much did they actually preserve? It was obviousthat the Roman state,with its limited apparatus of magistrates, was unable to administer local affairs throughout Italy in any highly centralized fashion. The existing municipiaand colonies had certainly enjoyed for the most part a considerabledegree of local self-government.It is true that Capua, after her revolt to Hannibal, had lost her own magistratesand that her former territory was administered by Roman officials, though even here somesort of parochial local government seemsto have sprung up (n. z6). Anagnia too was deprived of self-governmenton incorporation, but these measureswere surely exceptional, and at Anagnia temporary. There is nothing to show that the praefectiiuri dicundosent out to the parts of Italy where citizens were already extensively scattered, to make justice more easily accessibleto them, had any general administrative functions within Roman colonies or municipia, which, unlike Capua, kept their own magistrates.The survival into the Principate of dictators, aediles, and octouirias the chief magistratesin placeswhich were municipia before9o is in my view bestexplained by the hypothesis that Rome had let them keep the magistraciesthat they had had in the period of independence.This indicates that Rome had interfered little in their internal organization when they were incorporated in the Roman state.The Roman coloniestoo had come to enjoy a considerable degree of local self-government.esGiven the extent to which the senatealready intervened in the affairs of allied cities (n. 95), their principescould reasonablyfeel that if their cities becamemunicipia their local powers would not be sensiblydiminished. They could have like Arpinum, where in this very period seenthat an existing municipium proposalsfor a local ballot law engendereda keencontroversy,eedid not lack its own lively political activity. If they made calculations of this kind, they were not wholly disappointed. It is true that in most of the newly enfranchised communesthe magistrateshenceforthhave a uniform titulature, which e8 See cndnote 4

ee Cic. de leg. iii. 36.

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was presumably imposed by Rome, and that Roman legislation prescribedqualifications for membership of local councils a.rd terr,r.e oflocal offices,and defined their rights and duties in somedetail; in the assembliesthe Roman system of group voting probably became universal. In effect power was reservedto men of pioperty; there was nothing new in this, and naturally it suited theprincipis.lo0It was not until the secondcentury eo that the central government attempted any closesupervisionof municipal administration; in the Republii the necessarybureaucracy did not exist. Pompeii was surely not the only placein which local electionswere vigorouslycontested.l0lRome was so far from requiring rigi4 uniformity that the public use of Greek was still toleratedat Nanles.l02 T!. chief magistiates had powers of jurisdiction. In Transpadane ^ Gaul after its enfranchisementin 49 certain types of civil case were reservedto the courts at Rome; and we may assumethat there were similar regulations affecting those communes which received the citizenshipafter the Socialwar (n. loo); we may recall, however,that in classicalRoman law any recognizedcourt, whatever the limits on its competence,could decide civil suits beyond thoselimits, by agreement betweenthe parties (Dig. v. r. r).Justice did not then becomemore remote and inaccessiblebecausethe Italians had obtained the Roman right. Moreover, thepraefectiiuri dicundo, once sent out to various parrs of Italy, disappeared; the local courts were then in the charge of magistrateswho had been chosenlocally.l03 The extent of muniiipal criminal jurisdiction is disputed: I cannot believe that it embraied capitalindictments(ch.4 endnoter). How far were the new citizens bound by the rules of Roman law? criminal law was mainly defined by sullan and post-sullan statutes which were clearly applicable to them. It is often held that the municipia were entitled to retain their own customsand laws, at any rate in ihe private sphere.Gellius (xvi. r3), apparentlysummarizingor elaboratin€f a speech of the emperor Hadrian (ibid. 4), which he perhaps misunderstood,thought that at one time municipes were not bound by any Roman /er unlesstheir own people had adopted it ('fundus factus est'), but he adds that in hisown day the rights of municipiahad falren into oblivion and were no longer in use (ibid. 6, g). Though we may doubt if the antiquarian writers on whom Hadrian a.rd Geilirrs presumably relied had any accurate information on the position of the roo See endnote 01 .lz.t 639g ff.; cf. 5. ch. g n. rz7. "' Sartori (n. 89) 3r ff., seee.g. IGRR i. 42gtr. '"'. annually elected.praefecticapuam cumas probably had no duties long before the office Ilg was abolishedin I3 ac (Dio liv. z6). No doubt the praetors ceasedto appoint ihe other prefects, first in one place, then in another, as they were no longer required. Thccontinued designationof some places aspraefecturae meant only that they had once been the seatsofprefects; seeendnote 4.

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cirrlit'stmunicipia, generallycomposedof ciuessinesffiagio, it may well lrc thought that at first Rome had no motive and no means for irrrp
tz+

! ' I ' A L I A NA t M S A t ' t ' t M t : O l ' S O ( : ! A L W A R

institutions.It seemsro me overwhelminglyprobable that in principle the receptionof Roman law in Italy itselfwent back to the enfranchisement of Latin or allied communes,and in Cisalpine Gaul to the confermentof Latinity by the lexPompeia.roa It was iurery typical that disputes arising over possessionof land in agro Tarquiniensi,formerly allied territory, in which the Volaterran caecina was involved, were settledunder Roman law-in this caseindeed by a court at Rome; both partiesobtained the advice of Roman jurists.l05 Amunicipium was part of the Roman ciaitas, a term which in this sense means the collectivity of (Roman) ciues;no question of the duality of citizenshiparose.In cicero's time it was the generalrule (which some men forgot) that a Roman could not be a citizen of any other ciaitas. and therefore not even of one which was in fact subjäct to Roman control (".s). From the time of the triumvirate this rule was so far abrogated that a foreigner who obtained the Roman franchise could still be required to fulfil his old civic obligations to the city of his origin. In my view this did not mean that he was not in all other respectsas subjectto Roman law as an old Roman. In any event the legal statusof such persons has no bearing on the question of wheiher whole communities could ret_ainthe private law they had previously enjoyed after incorporation.1o6 It was not necessarilya hardship if they could not. We cannot be sure that Roman law was very strange and unfamiliar in the Italy of the social war. In so far as it was administered by local courts, it may at first have been applied with little rigour, not least becausethe courts understoodit imperfectly. It wasofclear economicand socialadvantage that the samesystemshould operate throughout the peninsula,and ill the more becauseit had been developed, and was continually being adjusted,to meet the needsof changing economicand socialconditioni as perceived by the propertied class, to which the Italian principes belonged. t.a Military wills; Drg. xxix. r. r. Kinship relations; priny, paneg.37f. (concerned with consequentialtax liability); cf.Gaius i. 93-5. In Latin cities thepatria potestas and patronal rights of those who secured Roman citizenship pcr honlreswcre therefori specifically consirved, pnÄP. e3 (on which cf. RC2 g78), xxn f. Ibid. xxlx conccrns tutorisdatio. Ii is obvious that in Latin cities there must have been both commarcium änd conubiumbetween those who had alreadv sot Roman citizenship and their fellow-muni.cipes. Flavian charters: See ch. 4 endnote z. The moit common examples of conubiumcumperegrinismulieribusgranted along with citizenship are in the diplomatafor auxiliary soldiers. r05 The case is fully d-iscussedby B. w. Frier, The Riseof the RomanJurists, rgg5, esp. ch. r. 'uo On the questions of dual citizenship and the applicabiliiy of ius ciuile-to.r.* "itiän, seefor a summary treatment Jolowicz-Nicholas 7 r tr, 469 ff.; cf. RCz 295 ff. I concur in the traditional view that it did apply, even though in practice and eventually by official recognition the jzs cra,?was ieelf modified by the partial adoption of institutions prevalent in the east. Aiall times of course Romans could make contracts with foreignersenforceable in forms other than those admitted in Roman law. Romans resident in a privileged city might be required to obey local laws (S1G3 7g5).

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'l'hcy

could then reckon that enfranchisementwould not substantially reducetheir local control, and they could also think that any loss ol'autonomy was well purchasedby a sharein political power at the ccntre. It seemsclear to me that the demand for citizenship was essentiallya demand for the vote and even for the chance to hold office at Rome. The importanceof the vote is shown by the eventsof BBand 87. The attempt of the senateto circumscribethe voting strengthof the new citizens (at this time thosewho had remained faithful to Rome in go) by confining them to eight or ten tribes (App. i. 49) and thus, as Velleius says (ii. 20), preserving the superior rank (dignitas)of the old citizens led to the agitations first of Sulpicius and then of Cinna. Appian reiterates that each enjoyed the support of the new citizens, whom they proposed to enrol in all the thirty-five tribes. Sulpicius carried his measure by force, and Sulla then marched on Rome. No doubt he acted becauseof the transfer to Marius of his command in the east:he could justify his coup only on the ground that all the Sulpician laws had been carried by violence (Cic. Phil. viii. 7). All were annulled (App.i.59). The grievanceof the new citizenswas unremedied.In 87 Cinna took up their cause:according to Velleius (ii. zo), 'ingentem totius Italiae frequentiam in urbem acciverat'; the forum was choked with bodiesand ran with blood (Cic. Cat. äi. z4) becauseof the dispute on the voting rights of the new citizens(Phil. viii. 7). All this was not just 'a scufile over the tribal distribution of the new voters' (RC2 tg$. Cinna, expelledfrom the city, reinstatedhimself in a great civil war for which he won support at first from the new citizensin Latium and then more widely (App. i. 65 f.; Vell. ii. zo); Marius found recruitsamong the Etruscans,who were no lessanxious for full voting rights (App. i. 67.3o6). In 83 Sulla and Lucius Scipio negotiated'de auctoritate senatus, de suffragiis populi, de iure civitatis' (Phil. xi. z7); later, accordingto Appian (i. 86. 3BB),Sulla attemptedto treat with Scipio's colleagueNorbanus, perhaps,so Appian conjectures,from fear that the greater part of Italy would rally to his adversaries.I do not seehow Sherwin-Whiteis entitled to assert(RC2 t44 n. r3) that they were only discussing'the powersof the popular assembliesat Rome', especiallyas Appian atteststhat the Marians relied on the new citizens(i. 76. 3aB) and had initially most supportin Italy (86. 3BB,393). The new citizens could fear that Cinna's legislationwould be annulled by Sulla,just like that of Sulpicius, and he was only able to recruit on a greater equality when he had promised to respecttheir rights.loT All this showsthat the r07 Sulla's promises:App. i. 77. 35e (perhaps put too early; cf. Per. Livy lxxxvi). Supporters ar(: attested at: Brundisium, 79. 264; Suessa,85. 385; among the Marsi (Plut. Cr. 6); more gencrally in App. i. 86. :gg. We do not know whether Pompey'srecruits in Picenum, a region of c;rrly Roman settlement, were old or new citizens.

rz6

l ' l ' r \ L I A N , \ l t r l S, \ ' l l l I l U ( ) t S ( ) ( : l A l . W A R

Italians were content with nothing short ol'l'ull political equality or

' l i b e r t y('p p . S g tZr ) .

It may be objectedthat they could have had little interesrin the vote becausemost of them were too distantfrom Rome to exerciseit often,if at all. But evenif we ignore the allied communitieswhich were nearer to Rome than many previously existing Roman towriships,some indeed like Tibur very close,this is no more than a half-truth. The peasantin allied Samnium or Lucania could no more make frequent visits to Rome than the peasantin Roman Picenum, but the boniet locupletes could and did. 'Routine' politicsrevolvedround the elections to the higher magistracies,and in these elections,conducted in a timocraticassembly,the votesof suchmen-(homines honestiatque in suisvicinitatibus et municipiis gratiosi'-counted heavily. There was nothing very exceptionalin the great concoursefrom all Italy that gathered for the electionsand gamesas well as for the censusin 7o (I Verr. 54). We have numerous referencesto the importance of municipal votesin the Ciceronianage, even to the votes of towns in remote Cisalpina.rosCicerorefersto the value of the support he enjoyedfrom EtruscanVolaterraeand Campanian Atella (Fam.xäi. 4. r, 7. +). On extraordinary occasionsat least even soldiersexercisedinfluence,10e and the local plebsmight turn up to vote.110 Our sourcesinsist on the allies' demand for justice and equality. 'Petebant eam civitatem cuius imperium armis tuebantur' says Velleius (ii. r5); latterly they had contributed perhaps twice as many soldiersto Rome'sarmiesas the citizens(n. ro9); it was by their efforts that Rome had won her empire, and yet the empire permitted the Romans 'homineseiusdemet gentiset sanguinisfastidire'.This sounds like a relic of allied propaganda;ttt it illustratesat once the senseof kinship with the Romans that made the allies wish to be Romans themselvesand the craving for rank and dignity that was always so strongin Roman society.The resentmentof Italians at being unjustly treated asinferiors may be thought a merely emotional motive for their conduct, but men are often guided by passion,and this explanation of Italian discontentdeservesthe strongestemphasis.But this should not disguisethe fact that political rights could bring solid benefits.To hold r0E Cic. Mur, 47;even the votesof the ex-magistratesof the Latin communesin Cisalpina were important for electoral success;cf. Au, i, t. z; Hirtius, BG viii. 5o. r, 5r. z (ofcourse most ofthe communessouth of Po and a few to the north were already Roman). Cf. pp. 4zB ff.; Taylor, r g4g, 57ff.; r96o, egz. 10e Cic. Mur.37 f,; cf. p.419. Probably more than half the legionaries were drawn from the former Latins and allies; it is unlikely that enfranchisementaltered their proportion in Roman armies (IM, App. 26, Ilari r4B ff.). 110 Cic. Planc.zr (communesfairly near Rome). I 11 Cf. Diod. xxxvii. zz; App. i. gg. r76; ad Her. iv. I 3. Livy viii. 4 f. perhapsretrojectsthe ideas of 9o to the time of the Latin war in 34o.

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that the Italians desiredfull citizenshipis not therefore,as Sherwin'narrowly political" White suggests(RC2 r43), to make their motive The vote itself was a marketable commodity in times of electoral corruption, and apart from outright bribes,the richer citizens,whose suffragescounted for most in the centuriateassembly,could doubtless barter their support in return for all sorts of favours. We must always bear in mind that the Italian communities were governed oligarchiwho could expect their cally, and that the interestsof the localprincipes, peoples to follow their lead, were of primary importance. Many of them could expect equestrianstatusalong with the franchise,and to share in the rights ofjurisdiction and social dignity which belonged to the order. At trials the testimony of such men would now carry increasedweight.rr2 Above all everyoneliable to taxes,neededto pay for the cost of allied contingents in the Roman army, would obtain relief, once Italians were entitled to servein the legionsat the expense of the Roman treasury. from the allied communities, who Gabba argued that negotiatores were numerous among the Italian businessmenoverseas,desired the citizenship as the instrument by which they could pressRome into a more expansionist foreign policy required by their commercial interests.The underlying premissthat political rights were indispensable for influence on Rome's policy seemsto me correct. But its particular applicationis doubtful. In my judgement Gabba overratesthe importance of trade in the predominantly agrarian economyof ancient Italy. Certainly he has not establishedthe necessarycorrelation between the rebel leaders and the businessinterests concerned. Moreover, in the past Rome had been ready enough to aflord personal protection to Italian no lessthan Roman businessmenin foreign parts, while neither before nor after the enfranchisement of Italy does it appear that commercial interestsin any other sensepromoted Roman aggrandisement, nor even that businessmensought to urge expansion on a reluctant senate.ll3 It is perhaps more plausible to supposethat Italians hoped as citizensto have a share in lucrative public contracts, though in fact there are only two instances.offirst-century publicans 114 originating from among the new citizens t t2 Ci". Cluent.rg7 f., where the prineipesof formerly rebel peoples are mentioned with as much respect as those of communes that were Roman before 9o in Planc. zt [. r'r3 Gabba, rg73, ch. rv: 1976, ch. ttI. See the revieivs of his earlier versiol by J. P. V. D. Balsdon,Gnomon-lgl4,343f., and A. N. Sherwin-White, JitS I g55, 168 f , (cf. RC2 r4e), and ch. 3, III_IV.

I la Nicolet, 1966, 344 ff., lists known publicans, among whom note P' Ventidius Bassus,but he lists (376 ff.) are known to come from the omits P. Caesius(ib. 4eo). None of the negotiatores rnfranchised peoples.In both lists there are some non-Latin nomina,but as such zornlnacan be borne by pre.go ciaesthey do not determine origins.

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Carcopinosupposedthat the rebelswere inspiredby alarm for their holdings of public land.lrs If this were true, it would be odd that Drusus should have hoped to win Italian support by the franchise at the same time as he redistributed the public land, or that the insurrection should have broken out just when his laws had been annulled and the danger to their holdings had receded.Still, it is beyond questionthat the interestsof Italian landholderswere better protected when Roman politicians had to take account of their votes. Hence the concern Cicero displayed for the lands of the Volaterrans and Arretines (Att. i. tg. 4, Fam xäi. r4). It is likely that the military levy caused as much hardship and discontent among the Italians as we know that it did among the Romans (n. rz)-more, perhaps,if the Italians had to bear an unfair incidenceof the military burden (n. ro9). Landownerswere hardly less affected than small farmers if conscription took their tenants or labourersfrom the plough. Observe then the practice of Murena in 64: 'habuit proficiscens dilectum in Umbria; dedit ei facultatem res publica liberalitatis, eu& usus multas sibi tribus quae municipiis Umbriae conficiunturadiunxit' (Mur.4z). Many tribes:the Umbrians must have controlled Clustumina and been important in at least two others.

II6

Some lay the greateststresson the arbitrary and oppressivebehaviour of Roman magistratesas an allied grievance, and the value of the iusprouocationis as a protection from it. I have already pointed out that in the gos there is no suggestionthat the grant of this right alone was any longer proposedas a compromisesettlementof allied claims. This is not to say the Italian principesmade no appeal to this grievance.The harsh threats of Servilius at Asculum actually sparked off the revolt, and a Latin there savedhimself from death by pleading that he too was subject to the rods.117But what was the value of the iusprouocationis? A magistrate could always override it, if he was not impeded by another magistratewith equal or greater power, or deterred by the fear that he would be prosecutedand condemned after demitting office. It was far more probable that thesecheckswould operate effectively to protect a man whose kin and fellow-townsmen had votes which a Roman politician might need (n. B). In theJugurthine war Turpilius, a citizen of Latin stock, was summarily put to death in a manner unusual for officersprecisely,we may suspect,becausehe did not count politically, rrs Hist. Ron. ä.372 tr. 116 Taylor, 196o, z7r ff. (Lemonia and Pupinia); cf. Harris, rg7r,24o ff Most ofthe first r7 rural tribes had probably had few citizens on their rolls before go, and thereafter newly enfranchised communes fairly near Rome may have a very strong influence in some of the m, e.g. Tibur in Camilia, Sora in Romilia, and a few ex-Latin communes in Papiria. But cf. n. tzo. 117 Diod. xxxvii. 13. r (cf. App. BCi. 38. r73).

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his {bllow-townsmenbeing unenfranchised.ll8In the last resort, as Romans found under the imperial autocracy, the guaranteeof personal and private rights is a sharein political power. All theseconsiderationsof coursehad been valid in the time of Gaius Gracchuswhen the Italians seemto have beenneither so united nor so fervent in the demand for enfranchisement.We must ask what had changedtheir attitude. We may supposethat the questionof enfranchisement,once raised,had to be answeredin the end; that, as years passed,the Italians becamemore consciousof their unity in sentiment, more attracted by the benefitsof the citizenship, more convinced that they had little to loseby surrenderingpart of the attenuatedautonomy still left to them. Perhapswe should not expect lessthan a generationto be required before old prejudiceswere surmounted. But this processof rethinking was probably acceleratedby the Cimbric war. In gI the allies emphasized how much Rome was indebted for her empire to Italian arms. But it could best be seenjust how indispensablethe Italians were, when, for the first time since Hannibal Rome was threatenedby a crisisthat seemedto imperil her very survival, when it became necessaryto forbid all able-bbdied men to leave Italy.lle Marius' readinessto reward some Italians for their valour in the war must have lookedlike recognitionof what was due to all (Appendix I). In this crisisMarius was the saviour of the state and six times consul. No Roman had ever achieved such a distinction in so short a spaceof years; and Marius was not only a new man, but he came from Arpinum, a town that had receivedthe full citizenshipin rBB.And in his generationhe was not the only new man to rise to or aim at the highesthonoursat Rome. Cn. Mallius Maximus (cos.ro5), C. Flavius Fimbria (cos.ro4), C. CoeliusCaldus, (cos.gQ. and C. Billienus,who narrowly missed the consulship, were of the same class, and very Earlier still there had been the Etruscan, M. probably municipales. could hardly expect to vie Perperna (cos.r3o). If the Italian principes with Marius in virtue and fortune, they might more reasonablyhope that they or their descendantscould emulate such Iessermen, if only their communitieshad equal privilegeswith Arpinum. Their communities:for it was an advantageto them not only to have the citizenship lor themselvesas individuals but to be able to call on the support of their townsmen.Even the plebsof a municipality would come to vote Ibr a 'favourite son'. When the young Planciusstood for the aedileship the whole people of Atina was in Rome to support him in the tribal irssembly,not to speak of the equitesand tribuniaerarüwith which that 'Non modo enim tribum Teretinam, prefectureabounded. J)rosperous "" Sall. 8] 6g. +; App. Num. fr.3. "u [.i, in. r4 ]'. Yct Rome seemsto have deployed only 6legions against the Cimbri (IM gr).

r3o

I'I'ALIAN A I M SA 1 '' t ' t M EO t ' S O C T AW L AR

sed dignitatem, sed oculorum coniectum,sed solidam et robustam et adsiduam frequentiam praebuerunt' (Planc.zr). The neighbouring communities too were there in force, Allifae, Casinum, and Venafrum, likewise registeredin Teretina, Arpinum the largest community near Rome enrolledin Cornelia, Sora, which dominated Romilia.l20 It so happensthat most of thesecommunities,though not Sora, already had the citizenship in g r; but can anyone doubt that the newer municipia manifestedthe samekind of enthusiasmwhen one of their own principes sought office at Rome? The Paelignians proudly recorded that Q. Varius Geminus was the first among them to hold senatorial offices (ILS 93z). He lived under Augustus.A long interval had passedsincethe Social war, though no longer than that between the full enfranchisementof Arpinum and the rise of Marius. Many Italian peoples saw their 'favourite sons'advance earlier than the Paelignians.Gabba did good servicein assemblingthe evidencefor their presencein the post-Sullan senate.r2rFrom Caisar onwards they flooäed the curia.If may seem risky to argue from the effectsof enfranchisementto the motives for which it was sought; but only a little imagination is neededto seethat theseeffectscould already be hoped for in the age of Marius, and that what the Italian principesdesired was not only the iussffiagii but the opportunity to hold office in Rome. 120 Taylor, r96o, assignedonly one other commune to this tribe, Ateste, not enfranchisedtill 49. But very many communescannot be assignedto any tribe, or only by hazardousconjectures; cf. Badian, JitS r96z, zo8. 121 See endnote 6.

APPENDIXES

I. Roman

Politics and the Italian

Question

Marius is often held to have been well-disposedto the Italians. This view rests on flimsy evidence. His illegal grant of citizenship to a troop of horse from C a m e r i n u m( V a l . M a x . v . 2 . 8 ; C i c . B a l b . 4 6 . e t c . ) m a y h a v e b e e na m e r e l y imperuousact. Appian (i. zg. r3z) allegesthat the ltaliotai were the chief beneficiariesunder Saturninus' agrarian or colonial legislation,but this text is isolated,and Gelzer's view (Kl. Schr.ä.75, 9I ff, iii. zBBf.) that he often misunderstood referencesin his sources to Roman agrestesis particularly plausiblein this instance(contraGabba ad loc.), sinceelsewhere(zg. r32, 30. backing Saturninus (cf. Galsterer,cited r 34 and r 39) he speaksonly of agrestas in n.6o) . There would be some confirmation for Appian's view, if in Balb. 48 'trecenos' and suppose that Saturninus authorized we amend 'ternos' to Marius to enfranchise 3oo Italians in each of the colonies to be founded; otherwise the number is trivial and the authority given perhaps not unprecedented (cf. Cic. Brut. 7g). But there is no compelling reason for the emendation. The colonies were never founded, but at least one Latin, Matrinius, was enfranchisedby Marius under Saturninus' law' Naturally Marius defendedhim when his title to the franchisewas impugned under the lex Licinia Mucia of 95. This was no doubt a test case for all Italians who purported to have received the citizenship under Saturninus' law, but L' Crassustoo appearedfor the defence(Balb.4B);we must infer that he, asjoint author ofthe law of95, had beenconcernedto annul mere usurpationsofthe franchiseand not the grants Marius had made. Badian conjectures(I958' zrrf.) that infiltration had been favoured by the censorsof97, but the parallel of the expulsionsin tB7, r77, and,t7z suggeststhat it was a gradual p.o..ss, and Badian'sfurther suppositionthat the censorsof 97 were Marius' men restsin part on debatable prosopographicinferencesand still more on a general conception of Roman politics which I give reasonsfor rejecting in Chapter 9 (seeespeciallypp. 459 tr ). But though it follows that we have no grounds for assertingthat Marius was favourable to Italian claims, equally we do not know that he was adverseto them. His political attitude in the year of Drusus'tribunate is not on record. Though he may well have delighted in the condemnation of Rutilius, which prompted Drusus to proposehis judiciary reform, he had been on good terms with some of Drusus' backers, notably L. Crassusand P. Sulpicius Rufus ( p . + 6 o ). H i s F a b i a n s t r a t e g yi n g o ( P I u t . M a r . 3 g ) a n d n e g o t i a t i o n sw i t h to Poppaedius(p. tog) may suggestthat at that time he favouredconcessions of Cinna, both then with and leagued with Sulpicius he was In the rebels. BB-87 whom pressedfor the grant of equal voting rights to the new citizens.Of course it ma1'bethat in BBit wasonly the easterncommandthat he caredfor, and in B7 he naturallyjoined Cinna to effecthis own restorationin the state.His attitude to the alliesmay alwayshave beendecidedby the expediencyof the moment.

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No one doubtsthat Drusus,advisedby L. Crassusand M. Scaurus,acted in gr in the interestsof the senate.Diodorus (xxxvii. e. z with somesupport from -sherwinPer. Livy lxxi) makesthe promisesto the alliescome from the senatC. White's suggestion (RCz r48) that Diodorus (or rather Posidonius?)was simply drawing an inferencefrom Drusus' role aspatronus senatus can hardly be refuted. But it seemsto me implausible that Crassusat least was not fully committed to his programme (as scholarscited by Harris, r97r, zz8, have held), and crassusdominated the senatetill his death in september (deorat. iii. r-B). Hostile to allied claims in rzz and 95, rhe optimates had surely changed their policy. They perhaps needed the help of the Italians to carry the judiciary bill by force (if necessary)even before they had the vote, or hoped that, once enfranchised,they would vote against its repeal. But the success of Fannius'demagogyin rzz and the attitude of the old citizensto the voting rights of the new in BB-87 show that the allied causewas not popular, and the Equites could exploit this unpopularity to the detriment of the judiciary bill; I thereforebelievethat the majority of the senatemust have had other reasonsfor favouring enfranchisement,that they must have held that allied discontentcould only be allayed by concessions, ifthe disastersallegedly foreseenby L. Crassusand others (de orat. i. e6) were to be averted. ,Mors Drusi rampridemttmescensbellum excitavit Italicum' (Vell. ii. r5). with the death of crassusDrusus'influencecrumbled. His lawswere repealed; officerswere sent to keeporder in Italy; the allied ultimatum was rejected;later (n. r9), to establisha'consensusbonorum'in the crisis, the quaestio Variana(by which the Equitesventedtheir animosityon supportersof thejudiciary bill under the pretencethat they had stirred up the war) was authorizedby the senatero sit when all other courts had been suspended(Ascon. :3C; Cic. Brut. 3o4).The changein the senate'sattitude demandsexplanation.We may perhapsfind it in the increasingviolence,or threatsor rumours ofviolence,among the alliesas the year proceeded;we do not know what truth there was behind the storiesof the oath taken to Drusus,of PoppaediusSilo'smarch on Rome (Diod. xxxvii. r r, r3), or of the plot to kill the consulsat the Latin festival (deuir. ill.66). That festival was normally held in early summer (Inscr.Inl. xüi. i. r 43 ff. ), but may have been iterated later in a year full of evil omens (obsequens54). It was an old Roman tradition not to yield to coercion, and probably the more pressurethe allies applied, the more they alienatedthe sympathy of men who had oncebeen ready to follow Drusus and Crassus.

Appian, without naming the measure,clearly describesit and dates it betweenthe major operationsof go and 89, that is to say in the winter (cf. i. 5o. zr7). This is plausiblein itself;the consulL. Iulius Caesar(whom Appian wrongly calls Sextus) had been unable to return for the consular elections (which in ro5 were held after the news of Arausio, fought on 6 October, had reachedRome; cf. Sall. BJ rr4 with Licin. r r F.) at the normal time (App. i. 44. r96). Presumably,then, he was not free to move his law until the very end of the year. Moreover, Appian couples the law with the conscription of freedmen, which is mentioned in Per. Livy lxxiv. The next sentencein the Perioche refers to fighting against the Umbrians and Etruscans,and Appian too at leastrecognizesa disloyal movement in Umbria and Etruria at the time the law was passed.Livy followed a f,airlystrict chronologicalorder (n.3I), immediately afterwards and the eventsof 89 seemto begin in the samePerioche with a referenceto Asian affairs. G. Niccolini (Rend.Acc. Linc. 1946, r ro ff.) put the lexlulia early in 9o, but he confusedLucius with SextusCaesar(misled by App. 48. zro) and assumedthat the consul was not in Rome afterJune 9o; who then conducted the elections? 'milites, ut lex Calpurnia concesserat,virtutis ergo Sisennaiv. fr. r zo reads: civitatis donari'. Since Pompeius Strabo granted citizenship to Spanish troopers 'virtutis causa' under the lex Iulia (1IS BBBB)in November of a year and this implies which must surely be 89 rather than go (he is styled imperator that he had an independent command, and was not legateas in 9o; cf. further C. Cichorius, Rom. St. r8r ff.), it seems to follow that the lex lulia had supersededthe lex Calpurnia,which must belong to go (on the assumptionthat it is not before the war). Presumably it was under the latter law that Caesar himself, as consul commanding in the field, was empowered to enfranchisea Cretan (Diod. xxxvii. rB). An objection arises.Sisennaseemsto have alluded 'Lucium Memmium, to an event of 89 as early as his third book, in fr. 44: M. Livi consiliarium fuisse socerum Gai Scriboni, tribunum plebis, quem callebant, et tunc Curionis oratorem . . .'; fo. the date cf. MRR ii. 38 n. 4. However, fr. r zo (cl. the pluperfect 'concesserat')may well relate to an earlier incident inserted parenthetically. Moreover, there is another possiblerefer'Lucius ence to the author of the lex Calpurniain the third book (fr. I7): Calpurnius Pisoex senaticonsultoduas novastribus . . .'. It was in 9o that this Calpurnius moved, though he need not have passed,some measureto enrol new citizensin two new tribes. (Whether thesetwo tribes along with the eight mentioned by Velleius ii. zo make up the ten tribes in which the new citizens were to be enrolled after the lex lulia, according to Appian 49.2r4, must be left uncertain.) It would seemthat somemeasureof enfranchisementpreceded the lex lulia.We may think that Italian individuals who took the Roman side in defianceof their own communities, like Minatius Magius and his lollowers (Vell. ii. r6), may have been offered the citizenshipeven earlier than the loyal communities. Probably the lex lulia itself restricted the new citizensto eight or ten tribes. L. R. Taylor deniesthat this restrictionapplied to the Latin colonies(rg5o, ro7 ff.). She supposesthat tribes had been assignedto each Latin colony, as probably later to the Latin communities in Transpadana, in rvhich ex-

II. The Enfranchisementof the Allies The lex luliaofferedcitizenshipto all the Latins (Gell. iv.4.3), presumably excepting venusia which was in revolt, or rather to Latins and allies (cic. Balb. zr), sc.to thosewho were loyal (App. i. 49.rrz ff.), including thosewho had laid down their arms (p. roB). It also aurhorizedcommanderi to enfranchise soldiers'virtutis causa' (1zs 8888); otherwiseit made grants only to communities.

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magistrateswho had obtained the citizenship in virtue of holding office were to be enrolled, and that when the Latins in general were enfranchisedin 9o, the people of each colony were to be registeredrespectivelyin the tribes in which such ex-magistrateswere registeredalready. The Latin colonies were certainly distributed in the end among 16 tribes. This, however, tells us nothing about the way in which they may have been distributed in 9o. SupposingTaylor to be mistaken,they would originally have been assignedto newly created tribes, which were abolished in the Bos; and no trace of this original registration could survive. Her view is based (a) on the assumption that Rome could not have treated the Latin coloniesso unfairly; (ä) on the denial that the Latins are named among the new citizens who were discontented with their registration. The first contention can carry little weight. On any view the lex lulia provided primarily for the enfranchisement of loyal allies: so it was they who were unfairly treated at this time. It is another matter if the later distribution of all the new citizens, including exrebels,among all the tribes was so made as to discriminate in favour of Latins and other loyalistsagainstex-rebels(cf. Harris, rg7r,236 ff). Moreover, if in 9o the Latins were already distributed in all the tribes, it would be odd if the not very numerousother loyalistswere assignedto as many as eight or ten new tribes. That would actually have favoured them. The second contention compelsher to draw a distinction between the Latin coloniesand such older Latin towns as Tibur and Praeneste,which certainly adhered to Cinna (App. i. 65. 294). Such a distinction,she thinks, alreadyexistedin that the grant of citizenship to ex-magistrateshad not applied to them. For this view she deploys(ro7 n. rg) two arguments:(a) Asconius3 C. saysthat before90 the right had belonged to the Latin colonies.But the colonieswere so much the larger element in the nomenLatinum that Asconius might well have ignored Tibur etc. (ä) 'Two citizens of Tibur, who from Cicero's description (BalD. 53 f.) should have been in the office-holding classnot long before_theSocial War, were not citizens, for they acquired citizenship through successful prosecutions.'But prosecutorswere often young men, and these Tiburtines need not have been ex-magistratesthemselves,nor sonsof men who had held a magistracy after the ius ciuitatisper magistratumadipiscendae had been devised. The text she cites refers to 'Latinis, id est foederatis'; this does not of course mean that all Latin communities had afoeduswith Rome (the coloniesowed their status to their foundation charters). but showsthat some had: viz Tibur and the other members of the old Latin league, which had not been incorporated in the Roman state on its dissolution in 338, and which were now bound to Rome by individual teaties; though foederati,they were also Latins. Hernican towns like Ferentinum, which were not absorbed by Rome when the Hernican league too was dissolved, also counted as Latin by assimilation(cf. Livy xxxiv. 4z; Mommsen, .SrR.iii. 6ez): so afortiori did Tibur etc. Had this not been the case, the nomenLatinum would have been first obliterated in 338 and then artificially revived with the foundations of Latin colonies.(SeealsoBrunt, IM +l f., 5zB, CQrg\z, r44; Galstererr976, 87 f.) On the lex PlautiaPapiria,probably late in Bg, seepp. ro7f. After recordingthe campaignsof 89, Appian i.53. 23r saysthat the war

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ragcd until all the ltalians got the citizenshipexcept for the Samnitesand L,ucanians,who apparently obtained it later. This might suggestthat the enfranchisementof the rebelshad in the main already been completed by the end of 89. Similarly Velleiusii. r7 recordsthe beginningof the year 88 in the 'finito ex maxima parte . . . Italico bello, quo quidem Romani corrupt words victis adflictisqueipsi exarmati quam integris universiscivitatem dare maluerunt', and however this may be amended, it seems to point to the same conclusion.But the vague language of Appian and Velleius is inaccurate. It was only in the courseof the fighting between the Marians and the senatein 87 that 'dediticiis omnibus civitas data qui polliciti multa milia militum vix XVI cohortesmiserunt',sc.to the senate(Licin. z r F.). Licinianusmakesthis follow the abortive negotiations between the senate and the Samnites and Lucanians and the acceptanceby the Marians of all the terms of theserebels, who were still in arms, including the citizenship (zo F.; cf. App. 68. 3o9 f., Dio of Livy lxxix is confused ('Italicis populis a senatu fr. roz. 7). The Perioche civitas data est. Samnites, qui soli arma recipiebant, Cinnae et Mario se coniunxerunt') but is in rough agreement.The dediticüare clearly the peoples 'Cn. who in 89 had had to surrender unconditionally; cf. Per. Livy lxxv: Pompeius Vestinos in deditionem accepit , . . Compluraque oppida in deditionem acceperunt . . . L. Sulla aliquot populos recepit [sc. in deditionem]'; lxxvi: 'Cn. Pompeius procos.Vestinos et Paelignosin deditionem accepit'' It can be assumedthat all peopleswho were forced to submit were dediticü.This meansthat the new citizenswho backed Sulpicius and Cinna must have been thoseenfranchisedby the lex lulia, and if all Latins were not included among them, we cannot explain how they were so numerous. Slow to reward the loyal allies, the Roman government would naturally have had no inclination to enfranchiserebels but for the emergencyof civil war in 87. As the dediticüdid not respond to any great extent to the senate'sappeal for help, it may reasonablybe held that Marius and Cinna had no party motive for not putting the senate'sgrant to them into effect. Nor would they have wished to dishonour their promise to the Samnitesand Lucanians' who in fact mostly took the Marian side in 83-Bz. It is therefore strange to find in Per. Livy lxxxiv 'novis civibus S.C. suffragium datum est'. This suggeststhat not until 84 did the Marians fulfil their promises. Another entry in the same Perioche runs:'Libertini in quinque et xxx tribus distributi erant'. Again this seemsto imply that a proposalmade by Cinna in 87 $chol. Gronoa.286St.) was only now put into force. The explanation seems to lie in the conduct of the censors of 86-85. According to Eusebius(ap.Jerome,233Froth.), they registeredonly 463,ooo citizens. Figures are easily liable to corruption, and Beloch (1886,352) amended to 963,ooo. This is palaeographically easy, and the figure now standsin an intelligiblerelationwith the gIo,ooo enrolledin 7o-69, considering the enormous lossessustainedin 83-82, which could not yet have been fully made good. None the less,I believe the transmitted figure is sound: if the censorshad failed to register most of the new citizens, and they remained voteless,we can understand the entry in Perolxxxiv. Similarly, the censors doubtless refused to distribute the freedmen among the tribes. When we

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considerthe censorswere L. Philippus,Drusus'old enemy' who was to fight for Sulla in B3-Be, and M. Perperna,who survived the Sullan proscriptions and probably made his peace early with the conqueror, we need not be surprised that they should deliberately have sought to sabotage Cinna's policy. Of the independenceof the senate and senatorsunder the so-called dominatioCinnaethis is not the only specimen.It may be askedwhy Cinna let Philippus and Perperna be chosenas censors;the answer is probably that he had few partisansand that he had to regard all as for him who had not been is elliptic; probably the senatein strongly againsthim, seep. 46I. The Perioche 84 at the insistanceof the Marians promised that a new censusshculd be held in which new citizens and freedmen would be fairly registered;without the appointment of new censorsthere was still no machinery to implement the promises.Naturally no new censorswere appointed, as the civil war was now impending, and the effectiveregistrationof the Italians as citizenswith voting rights must have been deferred until 70-69. Cf. IM, ch. vrr.

III. The End of CiuitasSineSffiagio Sherwin-White found'two direct indications that some municipiasurvived size sufragiodown to the decadesbefore the Social War' (RC2 zr3 f.). He admits that his secondtext is ambiguous:Appian (i. Io.4I) refersto oppositionto Gracchus' agrarian bill coming from men from the colonies and cities with equal civic rights.As Humbert has shown (zg-3r,205-7, etc.), this isopoliteia denotesthe Latin status, not r..r..t,and Appian should have had in mind (a) Latin coloniesand (D)other communitieslike Tibur with Latin status(App. u). Sherwin-White Iays more weight on the referencein the lex agrariaof rrr @IRA i2. no. 8. 3 r f.) to Roman and Latin colonies,municipia,pro-colonies, He assumesthat 'the term municipiamshould refer techniand pro-municipia. cally to a self-governingcommune of ciaess.s,while the pro municipiisshould be either fully enfranchisedmunicipiaand oppidac. .R.,or elsethe category of small communesjust discussedas duoviral prefectures,formed out of mere fragments of former populi and gentes.'In dismissingwhat I said on this in the original version of this essay,he takes no notice of my later suggestionin 1M was never reservedfor communesof c. s.s.,but 527f., that the term municipium also embraced once independent communes like Tusculum, which had been incorporated in the Roman state optimoiure,while retaining some measureof local self-government.This view has since been confirmed by Humbert (cf. esp. Ig2-5, z7r ff.). We must, however,bewareof thinking that all the terms implicit in the law had any precisetechnical significance.The intention of the legislatorwas surely to r.rselanguageso vague and all-embracing that it would cover the enjoyment of Roman public land by any Roman or Latin communities. The Latin were mostly Latin coloniesfounded by Rome, but those non-colonial cities which had survived the dissolution of the old Latin and Hernican leagueswithout being incorporated as municipiain the Roman the samerights, and were for the legislator'spurposeequivastate possessed

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in the Republic Latin lent to l,atin or Roman colottiesor Roman municipia: municipiadid not exist. In I73 both Latins and Romans had been given viritane allotments in Cisalpina, and in this and other areas of scattered settlementurban centreswould developat placeswhere marketswere held or praeJecti administeredjustice; and theseplaceswould gradually acquire local administrative functions with common funds and no doubt comrnunal landholdings, without at once acquiring the status of colonies or municipia. Some of the latter also had such large territories that they were divided into of the pagi or aici,which may well have had parochial functions and possessions same kind. Later lists of Roman communities enumerate praefecturae, fora, and sometimespagi, aici, castella(FIRA i.2 no. I3. 83; cf. no. rz, conciliabula, asin no. zo; later no. rg. xxl etc; in r3. 89 and t4z we have only praefecturae, legal draftsmen too did not achieveuniform completenessand accuracy). On r,lih .o--,rnities seee.g R( I6I; Galsterer24ff.; Humbert (seehis Index s. v.). I suggestthat all are looselycoveredin the formulation of the lexagraria;it protects the enjoyment of public land by any Roman or Latin communities, however designated,just as in v. 3o the relevant powers of any Roman magistrate or 'promagistrate' are defined without specificationof the various titles (consul, proconsul, praetor, propraetor, etc.). There is nothing in the terms of the law to prove or disprove that there were still c. s.s.in r t r. It is also odd for Sherwin-White to argue from another phrase in the law (23: 'id oppidum coloniamve ex lege . . . constituit deduxit conlocavitve') that in rtr 'municipiain the later sensedid not yet exist', meaning (I suppose)that no ciuitaswhich had been absorbedin the Roman statewith full rights was yet The clauserefersto the creation of a new town or colony, called a municipium. and could not refer to places like Tusculum or Arpinum, which already existed as self-governingcommunes when they were incorporated with full rights or raised from half to full citizenship, and which, according to our evidence,representthe original municipia;it was no doubt a later development receivedthe sameappellation. In my aforum, or conciliabulum when an oppidum, including a municipium,with no a for town, is a generic term view oppidum precisejuristic definition (IM 5\). Lalomus,1969, rer ff., I argued for the old view that all the In Collection Sabine r.r.r. were enfranchisedfully in 268, and not only the people of Cures. This is again contestedby Humbert 234 ff. His argument from Polyb. ä. 24. 5 (n. rro) is in my view met by the hypothesis (IM +g) that Polybius distinguishes the Sabines from the Romans because there had been a whether or not I was right in thinking that tumultuary levy in the agerSabinus, notes that the Sabinesare classedas sociiin He also in the legions. e.s.s.served tivy xxvii. 45. r+f. as late as 2o5. Strictly the term doesnot suit any ciaes,with or without the franchise. But Livy can improperly use it of Roman colonists ( x x i i . 1 4 . 3 , x l i i 3 . 3 , c i t e d b y G a l s t e r e r5 4 ) . T h e r e l i a b i l i t yo f x x v i i i . 4 5 i s anyhow questionable(IM 5aBn.3,656 n. r). Humbert rejectsmy view that most of the Sabinesenfranchisedin z68 could have been transferredin z4I to the new tlibe Quirina as'unjustified' (n. rro), but the old citizenswho had receiveciallotments from Manius Curius in what came to be the area of Qyirina must then have been transferredto that tribe (Taylor, t96o,6gtr');

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w h y n o t e n l i a n c h i s e dS a b i n e st o o ? H i s o w n i n t c r p r e t a t i o no l ' l , i v y x l . 5 r . g (below),if I understandit, irnpliesthat such transferscould take place. Humbert dates to the mid-third century the full enfranchisementof Volscian Velitrae (r84 tr); the commune had survived with meddices when Romanswere settledthereuiritim(338) and the tribe Scaptiaconstitutedin its territory (332),but the Octavii of Velitrae obtainedRomarr officesin the late third century (Suet.lzg. r). Sherwin-White (p. zrz) objectsthat the nomen showsthat they were of Roman stock, but as Humbert remarks, the cadet branch of the family continued to hold officesin Velitrae itself, and fusion had presumably taken place. Similarly, Volscian Privernum lay at the centre of trlbus Oufentina,createdfor Roman settlersin 3rB; commenting on the verseof Lucilius iPriu.rrro Oufentina venit fluvioque öufente', Festus"zr e L. remarks that others from different cities were later enrolled by censorsin this tribe, which certainly implies that the people of Privernum were at some date so enrolled. One would indeed expect the Volscians of Velitrae and Privernum to have received the full franchise earlier than the more distant Volscians of Arpinum etc. in IBB. A similar considerationapplies to Volscian Frusino, and still more strongly to Anagnia, in view of the old Hernican connection with Rome. Sherwin-White himself seemsto concedeit as probable that Atina, just beyond Arpinum, had the full franchiseat leastfrom the mid-secondcentury; it was in the Teretine tribe, as were Casinum, Venafrum, and Allifae to the south; it seemsreasonableto supposethat all were promoted together. Here the non-Roman population was probably Samnite, and if men of this stock were given the vote before 9o, we may wonder to whom it would have been denied. As for the Sabines,even if Cures alone benefitedfrom the grant of e6B, Cicero surely implies that all were fully enfranchisedearlier than go (Balb. 32, deffic. i. 35, which alsomentionsthe Aequi), and Livy (x1.46. rz) might seem to put this earlier than r79 (a very insecureinference). Following Taylor (196o, r7f.), Humbert argues from Festus (quoted above) that the censorscould enrol c.s.sin the tribes and thereby give them the vote (Z+l tr.). He has to meet the objection that a speciallex was required for Arpinum etc. He remarks that thesethree communeshad never lost any of their territory by confiscation and that in consequenceno settlement of Roman citizensoptimoiurehad taken place there. On his view the censorswere entitled to act wherever as a result of such settlement fusion had occurred between citizens of the two categories.However, he also suggeststhat the censorsof rB9/Bwere specificallyinstructed by the lex Terentia(Plut. Flam. tB. r ) to act in this way; that the enfranchisementof Arpinum etc. and the registration of Capuans at Rome, both in rBB, were to round offtheir work; that in I79 'somereorganizationof the map of the tribes' was found necessary; and that this explains why the censorsthen 'mutarunt suffragia, regionatimque generibus hominum causisqueet quaestibustribus descripserunt' (Livy xl.5r. g) . All this is highly conjectural(as he admits); the content of the lex Terentia,which Livy ignores,and the meaning of Livy's statement cannot be safelydetermined (but seeL. Grieve, CQ rg85, 4r7 ff.).It seemsto me that a lex would have been necessary,wherever the c.s.s.had still been organized in a self-governingcommune, whether or not that commune had ever had to

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s u r r t . n d c r l a n d s t o R o m a n v i r i t a t t t ' s ( ' t t l ( ' r sa; n d t h a t i l ' H u m b e r t ' s h y p o t h e s i si s basically correct, the lex Terenliu might merely have required the censors to enrol in a tribe all c.s.s. resident within its area, i.e., in Sherwin-White's 'small communes' formed out of mere fragfiormulation, where there were populi Humbert's survey in ch. v of the probable gentes'. or ments of former extent of earlier grants of c.s.s. involves conjectural combinations of evidence for confiscations, formation of prefectures, and anomalies in the later municipal organization, and it is not always easy to determine whether a community had retained such local self-government as Arpinum etc. had. Cumae and Caere at least surely belonged to this category, and Humbert (p. :Sz) does not profess to know when they were promoted (nor when the Capuans received the vote); we cannot, I think, dispense with the hypothesis that there were other laws besides that of r88, of which no record survives. The loss of Livy's narrative from 168, and its deficiencies for domestic events in the period it covers (p. zr), make this easy to accept. In any case the known instances of full enfränchisement seem to presuppose others that are not documented, and Humbert is to my mind right in holding that the category of c.s.s.to which no additions had been made, so far as we are informed or can conjecture, since perhaps z68 (pp. 244ff), was regarded as anomalous and provisional, and is likely to have been progressively eliminated.

IV. The Tabula Bantina The famous bronze tablet of Bantia is inscribed on one side in Latin, on the other in the local Oscan (FIRAi.26, I6; cf' Vetter r3 ff. for Oscan text). It was generally supposed that the Oscan was the earlier text, until a new fragment published by Torelli showed that the tablet was first nailed to the wall whenthe Latin text was engraved. It was then turned and re-usedfor the Oscan text, presumably when the Latin text ceasedto be of concern to the Bantians. That text contains the final clausesof a Roman lex,which has been variouslyand uncertainly identified.Galsterer(ChironI97I, I9I ff., with full bibliography; cf. A. W. Lintott, Hermes1978, Iz5 ff., on the Latin law), who held that this adoptäd ihe view that it was part of the lex Appuleiademaiestate, was supersededby Sulla's law, and that it was only then, as it ceasedto be operative, that the Bantians could re-use the bronze for the set of rules in Cir.un relating to local administration and processesof law. (In fact the lex Varia of gr/o may have already incorporated the terms of the lex Appuleia, though ii dealt specifically with charges of treasonableconspiracy with the Italiins (GC r36 f.). Varius himself was later to be condemnedunder his own law, (ibid. r5I), surely not on any such charge, but perhaps for disregarding the vetoesof his colleagues(App. i. g7;Yal. Max. vii. 6. 4); cf' Ascon.59C. on the charge brought against Cornelius, tr. pl' 67; presumably too that brought against Norbanus under the lex Appuleia,Cic. ii. de orat. r97). Galsterer deducesthat the rules of the Oscan law were in force when Bantia had become a municipiumafter the Social war. This conclusion is surely insupportable.

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I'I'ALIAN AIMS A'I"I'IMH ()} SO(IIAI, WAR

The Oscan text reveals a community with an assembly,senate, and magistratesbearing the titles of censor,praetor, quaestor, and tribune of the plebs.The Latin terms are borrowed for all casesbut 'people' or 'comitia' and censor. In later Roman municipalities we occasionally find a senate, as distinct from the ordo of decuriones, and comitia (1ZS Index 674ff.), and magistrates sometimesbear names of Roman origin, like those at Bantia, which are bestexplained as having been retained from the era when they had had allied or Latin status. Normally Italian municipalities have as chief magistratesnot praetorsbut quattuoruiri or duouiriiuri dicundo, who are dignified with the appellation of quinquennales when at five year intervals they discharge local censorial functions. Bantia itself had duouiri (UL ix. 4rB in Torelli's reading). The regime of the Oscan text was therefore not that which later existed in municipal Bantia. Moreover, there is nothing in the document to suggestthat Bantia was already a municipality. The censorsare to registerthe citizensof Bantia in the Bantian people.They are not required as in the Table of Heraclea to follow the formulae published by the magistratesresponsible for taking the censusat Rome, a requirement which in my judgement goes back to the 8os (IM gB, 5 r g ff.). The Bantian censorsare to sell the persons and property of the citizen who fails to register without due cause. This correspondsto the Roman rule (ibid. 33. n. 3), but once the Bantians had securedthe Roman franchise,the power would hardly have remained with a Iocal magistate; what if the Bantian had removed to some other place in Roman territory, as being a Roman citizen he was entitled to do? Other clausesconcern the procedure for trials by the Bantian comitia;it is modelled on the Roman, except that five and not four hearings are prescribedand the citizens give judgement under oath. On the most favoured but not uncontested interpretation of the Oscan terms, the comitia can impose capital sentences.It seemsto me unlikely that after the Social war the municipalities still possessed any capital jurisdiction (ch. 4 endnote r). Galsterer held that some provisions of the Oscan law reflect Sullan constitutional innovations.The first extant clauseenactsthat in circumstances which were set out in the lost part of the text some magistrate, perhaps a tribune, is entitled to impose a veto on comitial proceedingsonly after taking an oath that he is acting for the public good and in conformity with the views of the majority of the senate.Perhaps the restrictions that Sulla imposed on the tribunician right of veto, which he did not entirely abolish (GC z r z), were of this kind. But in pre-Gracchan days tribunes had commonly been the instruments of senatorial policy, uselul in restraining other recalcitrant magistrates,and Bantia could have borrowed this rule from what was taken to be the proper constitutional practice in second-centuryRome. The Oscan law also provides that no one may be censor without having been praetor, nor praetor without having been quaestor. Whether or not, as Galsterer but not all other scholars thinks (cf. A. E. Astin, CollectionLatomus 1958, for full discussion),such a rigid rule was first imposed at Rome by Sulla; once again it certainly correspondsto normal Roman practice before his time. The Oscan law also forbids anyone to hold the tribunate after other offices.This is very different from the Sullan bar on ex-tribunesholding any higher magistracy. It

I ' | ' A L I A NA l M s A ' l

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t4l

is surely incredible that the tribunate, which was so rooted in Roman tradition that even Sulla venturedonly to removeits clawsand not to destroy it, was actually introduced at Bantia in the time of his ascendancy.It may perhapsbe said that it had been imported when Cinna was dominant and that no stepswere taken under Sulla to abolish it. But the fact that the alien Latin terms for praetors,quaestors,and tribunes were not only borrowed from 'q.' and 'tr. pl.'suggeststhat the Bantianshad Rome but abbreviatedas'pr.' long been familiar with them. It is then best to supposethat they went back to the period of independence and had been adopted from the neighbouring Latin colony ofVenusia, which had tribunes(CILix.43B), though admittedly the titulature of its other magistratesis not documented for the colonial era. Venusia itselfjoined in the allied revolt; and we must assumethat Bantia, like the other Lucanians, took their part. It would have been only natural if it had then turned any Roman law set up there to the wall, as no longer law, we operative. Thus even if the Latin text belongs to Saturninus' maiestas do not need to assume that the bronze tablet was re-used only when and becauseit had been supersededby any other Roman law. Moreover, granted that the Oscan text was engraved as late as go, it by no meansfollows that all or any of the provisions preservedwere then novel. The use of the abbreviaantequem tions mentioned above is againstthis. We should have only a terminus for the borrowings from Roman practice and for the useof Latin terms. These borrowings extend to civil law; we read of a'legis actio', and the Latin legal 'dolus malus' are taken phrases'manum adserere'and in the new fragment into Oscan. The date and nature of the Latin law is probably an insolublepuzzle. It was surely a controversial, probably a popular, measure, since it makes magistrates and senatorswho wilfully violate or neglect it liable to fines (para. z), and requires an oath of obediencefrom present and future magistratesand from senators(paras.3,4). Both theseprovisionsfind closeparallelsin the piracy law of ror (/?S $74, rg5 ff.; cf. zr5 for comparison with our law; the relevant provisionsare in reverseorder, and it looks to me as if the Greek text is in part only an inexact paraphrase of the technicalities of Roman legal drafting), and of course in Saturninus' agrarian law. The literary sources mention the oath to that law only becauseMetellus Numidicus preferred exile to taking it (GC ro5 ff.). Probably he did not dispute the propriety of an oath but only the validity of a statute which had been passedby violence: the imposition of an oath to a particular law was not an innovation; the lexagraria of i r r shows that there were precedents(F1Rl i2. 8. 4o-z). The analogy of the piracy law also shows that a law to which successivemagistrateswere obliged to swear was not necessarilyone which would be of permanent duration (cf. the obscurerelicsof col. v of the Cnidus text of the piracy law) . It appearsfrom w. 7 f. and t4 of our law that it constituted a iudiciumpublicum and that it concerned an offencewhich was not capital but which may have beensubject to a pecuniary penalty; in any event conviction entailed elements of infamia(para. r ) . However, this too is no proof that it was concernedwith a we might recall the courts set up by the Peducaeanand permanent quaestio; Mamilian laws. It is thus possiblethat the law was of quite temporary effect,

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and in that casethe tablet might have been re-usedfor the Oscan text well before go. Traditionally the law was dated between r33 and r rB on the ground that the magistrateswho are to take the oath in future years include agrarian triumvirs; and no such triumvirs are attestedexceptfor thoseappointed under Gracchus' law. If this highly persuasive argument were unanswerable, attribution to Saturninuswould be excluded.But it has beenpointed out that equitum, who were not appointed the list also includesthe dictator and magister annually and who had in fact not been appointed since eoe. The legislator might then have named agrarian triumvirs in casethe officewas revived. (The mention of the triumvirs in the list of the current magistrates is merely a dubious restoration.) The law could not, however, be after too, since Saturninus seemsthen to have constituted a decemvirateof land commissione r s( M R R i . S l l ) . It is hardly credible that Roman laws were normally placed on view, still lessinscribed, in allied towns. Any identification of our law should therefore explain why this was done at Bantia, whether by Roman command or by the wish of the Bantian authorities. It ought to be of some concern to Bantians. Various possibilitiescan be envisaged.It might have afforded protection or laws; cf. n.74), or affected their offered rewards to Bantians (Iike repetundaa interestsin land, as agrarian laws could (cf. n.68). It might have rendered Bantians liable to penalties,or have provided for trials in which they could be required to bear witness.The extant clausesunfortunately fail to indicate its relevanceto an allied community. The first extant paragraph merits a little further consideration for its possible connection with my thesis in Chapter 4. The culprits for some unknown offenceare subjectedto specifieddisabilities (all of which appertain to Roman citizens,not Bantians) by dint of imposing on Roman magistrates the duty not to allow them certain rights; the magistrates themselvesare penalized for contravention in the next paragraph. In the lines that can be of the read the appropriate magistrate is forbidden (a) to ask for the sententia culprit either in the senate or in a publicumiudicium; (ü) to let him give (the restoration here evidence;(c) to appoint him as iudex,arbiteror recuperator is certain); (/) to let him wear in public the senatorialpraetextaand soleae(StR (/) to enrol him or let him iii3. 886tr); (a) to let him vote in the assemblies; remain in the senate(a probable restoration). Some of the rights withheld are exclusivelysenatorial,and all are thosewhich senatorscould exercise,at least if they were not already as such debarred from judication. Let us assume, though this is obviously uncertain, that the culprits under the law can only be senatorsor aspirantsto senatorialstatus.Would it then follow that men of this category were, when the law was passed,still eligible for judicial functions?It in may be noted that two types ofjudication are mentioned. Giving a sententia a iudiciumpublicumis distinguished from acting as a iudex,arbiter,or recuperatlr. Lintott (ANRW l. z. 246 f.) supposesthat the former term here refersto a trial in the assembly,without denying that it can also mean a criminal court of iudices, as in the Gracchanlaw (v. r r), wherein my view'quaestioneiudiciove publico', sometimesamended without reason to 'quaestione iudicioque

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t4Z

publico', is more or lesstautologous,like 'lex plebiscitumve'(in this point I populieachcitizen differ from Kunkel, r962, 5r ff., at n. z r r ). But in a iudicium did not deliver a sententiabut merely cast a vote; and the culprits are disqualified from voting in the assemblyby the separateprohibition in (r) laid on every magistrate who may preside over the assemblyfrorn taking their votes.The prohibition in (a) is directed to the magistrate who presideseither over the senateor over a court. The presidentofa court need not be the same magistrate who enrols men in the album iudicumor appoints a iudex in a particular case;and there is thus no overlap between the provisionsin (a) and (c), just as there is no overlap between the direction to the magistrate presiding over the senatenot to invite the sententia of the culprit and that to the censor not to place him on the roll of senators;the former is not exonerated from his obligation by the failure of the censor to act as directed. It seemsto follow then that the culprits belong to a classeligible for both criminal and civil judication, and that this classmay be senatorial.Yet I do not take this as confirmation, however slender, of my thesis that senators retained rights of judication after rzg, even on the basis that our law is later than Gracchus' judiciary legislation. The author of our law may have wished to provide that senatorialculprits should be excluded from judiciary rights, even if under any subsequentlegislation senatorsshould be qualified to exercisethem. As already observed, it is implicit in the first paragraph that the culprits have not been condemned to a capital penalty. Prima facie it follows that the law cannot be one which imposed such a penalty, as the lex Appuleiamaiestatis surely did. The sameobjection ariseswith Lintott's suggestionthat it is a lexde sicarüs.If our law were one which set up or remodelled a court for a capital crime, we should have to suppose that the first paragraph related only to personsguilty of some ancillary and lessheinousoffence.I doubt if Lintott has provided a solution of this kind. He himself has exposed the difficulties in various other theories,and though I could add to their number, speculations are idle, which it is possiblesometimesto refute but never to prove. In general Republican statutes which modified both criminal and civil law are passed over in narrative sources,and known, if at all, from chanceallusionswhich tell us little of their contents (pp. zIBf.). In this casewe must be content with ignorance. We may then think that the most natural inference from the mention of the agrarian triumvirs is correct, and that the law enactedbetween r 33 and r rB may have ceasedto operate long before go; hence the Oscan text may be a generation earlier than the Social war.

' t ' H ! rt Q U t ' t ' D Sr N ' r ' H r ir . A ' r ' rR , EPUBLTC

3 T H E E Q " U I T E SI N T H E L A T E R E P U B L IC * I. The term Equites may designateeither Equitesequopublicoor all with the samebirth and property qualifications. Interrelations of Equites and senators: they formed a singleclasswith largely identical interests.II. Discord between the two orders arose from (a) conflicts between the senate and equestrian publicans; ( b) competition for rights ofjudication; (c/ perhaps to someextent equesrian resentment at the political exclusivenessof the nobility. The evidenceof Polybius.The work of Gaius Gracchus.The bitter conflicts in and after Drusus' tribunate, which are not to be explained by any contradiction in the economicobjectivesof the two orders. Even then the equestrianorder not united. The judiciary compromise of 7o terminated the division between the orders. ffl. Further consideration of the thesis that the orders embodied conflicting economicinterests.Equites chiefly landowners.The specialimportance of the publicans; their occasionalconflicts with the senate.Negotiatores abroad; among them traders had relatively little influence. Senators also engaged in overseas'business'.Laisse4fairethe norm in public policy. fV. Roman imperialism prompted in part by economic motives, but not by the aim ofincreasing'businessprofits'; nor can it be proved that Equites exercised pressureon the senate for that purpose. V. Summary and epilogue on the Augustan settlementso far as it concerned the Equites.

I IscoRD between senate and Equites has a large place in the struggles that marked the tribunate of Drusus in 9r and the succeeding years, struggles which culminated in civil wars. The

most manifest cause was clearly rivalry for control of the criminal courts. The judicial rights obtained for the Equites by Gaius Gracchus * This essayis basedon the lecture given at the Second International ConferenceofEconomic History, r96e, and published first in its Proceedings in 1965, and then in Seager, 1969, and in a revised German translation in Schneider, r976. I have found it most convenient to rewrite it, although the thesisremains the same. In great measure my conclusionswere confirmed by the independent and exhaustive work by Nicolet, i. r966 (cf. his prosopographic supplement in ii. rg74), and accord with thoseofMeier, r966 (seeIndex s.v. Ritter), and Badian, 1967 and rg7z. The once orthodox interpretation of the role of the Equites is representedmost fully by H. Hill, The Roman Middle Classin lhc RcpublicanPcriod, rg5z.

t45

<:onferredsplendoron the equestrian order, and derogated from the prestigeand independenceof senators.Considerationsof dignitaswere doubtless no more alien to the mentality of the former than of the latter. Moreover, someEquitesaspired to a senatorialcareer,at least of for their sons,and may well have resentedthe arrogant exclusiveness the nobility, dominant in the senate, which tended to limit the advancementof new men. In addition, economic causesof conflict have been discerned.The equestrian iudiceswere chiefly selectedfrom the classof rich Romans who invested in the state contracts, for the supply of armies, for the construction and maintenance of public buildings, and above all for the collection of certain taxes. Senators were debarred by law from participation in thesecontracts,r and it was the duty of senateand magistratesto control the publicans in the cause both of treasury and taxpayers. This was certainly the origin of occasional disputes. The judicial power of Equites. gave them the means of exerting pressureon senatorsto maximize their profits, and thus afforded material advantagesas well as enhancing their honour. In a more general way it is often supposedthat the Equites can be identified with the 'businessmen'of Rome, bankers, money-lenders, merchants, and shipowners,as well as publicans, whereas the senate was composedof landowners,who tended to neglect businessinterests, from which their own might diverge. However, businessmenin general,as distinct from the publicans, were not organized and did not render such manifestly essentialservicesto the state as the publicans; they appear to have enjoyed relatively little influence. Moreover) as will be seen(pp. r63 f.), most Equiteswere alsoin fact landowners,no less than the senators;and the latter too could engage in peripheral businessactivity. Nor is there proof of any contradiction between the landed and commercial interests that would have divided the orders. In a narrow sensethe Equitesconsistedof r,Booor perhapsz,4ooof the richest citizens enrolled by the censorsin the eighteencenturiesof thosewho were given a public horse,with which they were required to servein the army. But as early as 4oo, according to annalistic tradition (Livy v. 7), others with property which enabled them to keep their own horseshad been admitted to the cavalry. ln zz5 the Roman cavalry numbered 23,ooo (Polyb. ä. z4), though at least 4,ooo (the 'senatores 1 Ascon. 93 C; Dio iv. ro. 5, lxix. 16; Paul Sezl.fr. Leyd. z (ed. G. G. Archi al a/.): parentesveeorum, in quorum potestatesunt, vectigalia publica conducere, navem in quaestum habere. . . prohibentur; idque factum repetundarum lege vindicatur'. Cf. comparable municipal regulationsin lex lrnitanaJ and texts cited by the editor, J.RS r 986, t6r , zrz f. SeeBadian, r g7z, r6, for evasionsof the rule in Cicero's time; cf. pp. roo ff.; it seemsto me unlikely that they were common; no sign of them at least in what we read of the dispute in 6l (n.Sg). Cf. also Wiseman r97r.

r46

THE tQUI't'nS IN

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LA'l'E REPUBt.tC

C a m p a n i a n sw ) e r e n o t f u l l c i t i z e n s( L i v y x x i i i . 5 . r 5 ) . B y t h e l a t e Republic military service had ceasedin practice to be obligatory for the wealthy; Equites,however, filled most commissionsas tribunes and prefectsin the army (n.58). Enrolment in the eighteencenturieshad thus come to be a social distinction, which was also of political advantage: it conferred exceptional voting power in the centuriate assembly.In the first century, and on the general view since a law of r2g Bc, the purpose of which is obscure, men had to surrender the public horse and ceasedto be enrolled in the eighteen centuries on elevation to the senate;thus the equestrian order, though comprising men of senatorial families, excluded the senators themselves.The indispensableproperty qualification under the lex Rosciaof 69, which gave privileged seating in the theatre to holders of the public horse, it may have gone back to the Hannibalic war. was 4oo,ooo sesterces; Under the lex Viselliaof to z4 they also had to be men whose paternal grandfatherswere of free birth; this qualification is not attestedin the Republic but may well have been in force. In Cicero's time, if not earlier, all who were possessedof the same qualifications could be describedas Equitesin a wider sense.The lexAureliaof 7o created three panels of iudices,senators,Equites, and,tribuni aerarü;the second class undoubtedly consistedonly of holders of the public horse (Cic. Phil. i. zo), but Cicero himself could describethe third too as Equites (e.g. Flacc.96), and this is only explicable on the basisthat by property and birth they too were of equestrian standing. The term retained this broader range in Augustan and later usage.z Almost certainly senators in the Republic had the same census qualification as Equites, though probably on averagethey were richer, and Augustus would more realistically raise the senatorial censusto a million sesterces.3The equestrian minimum) measured by Roman plutocraticstandards,could be slightedby Cicero (Fam.ix. r 3. 4), and was doubtlessfar exceededby the richer and more influential members of the order, even if none is credited with the immense fortune of a Crassusor a Pompey. Equites were not, however, tempted so readily as senatorsto a life of ostentatious consumption; Atticus could restrict current expenditure in his town house at Rome to 36,ooo a year.4 Many surely lived on their estatesor in country towns, where they constituted the local nobility. After the enfranchisementof Italy the order must have been augmented with many more dominobilesfrom all parts of the peninsula,whoseideasand economicbackground cannot 2 See endnote r. 3 Nicolet, J R S 1 9 7 6 ,z o f f . a Nepos, Att. 13.6. Cicero claims to have saved from an income of roo,ooo from his estates (Parad.49, misunderstoodby Frank, who collectsdata on great fortunes in ESI.R i. zo8 ff., zg5 ff., 3 8 7 n ) . A t 5 p e r c e n t t h e m i n i m u m e q u e s t r i a nc a p i t a l y i e l d e d r o , o o o .

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havedifl'eredessentiallyfrom thoseof the old Roman aristocracy,with whom they might previouslyhave enjoyedrelationsof guest-friendship (hospitium). Such men might visit Rome perhapsonly once a year for the electionsand games.' The more affluent, like Atticus, would also have had their residencesin Rome. It must have been a practical necessityfor active publicans to live in or near the city, and the law confined the choice of equestrian jurors to Gracchan repetundae personsdomiciled there or nearby.6 Equites were often linked with senatorsin social intercourse and might be styled their friends, an appellation sometimesveiling clientship (p.SgS f.). They shared the same kind of education and culture. They might follow the samepursuitsasjurists and advocates. Intermarriage occurred, and the brothers of some senatorsremained mere Equites, probably many more than we happen to know of. The 'seminariumsenatus'(Livy xlii. equestrianorder was at all times the 6r. S); Equitesfilled the gapsleft by the extinctionor impoverishment of old senatorial families; the process was quickened when Sulla doubled the sizeof the senate(p. tSS).Admittedly they could seldom rise in a single generation to the highest offices. But the Equites of higheststanding (and somehad possessed their statusfor generations) milieu to the same social as senators. It is significant that belonged Cicero could assumethat the father of C. Trebonius (ros.suf. 45), a 'splendidusequesRomanus',had beenknown personallyto senatorsin general (Phil. xäi. zg).1 Men of this stamp had no class sympathy with proposals for the allotment of lands to peasantsor veterans,or for doles of cheap or free grain to the urban poor, or for the relief of debtors.They were thus not natural alliesof popular politiciansembroiledwith the senate.It is not surprisingthat they opposedTiberius Gracchus.eHis brother sought their support by giving them judicial rights and enlarging their scope for profiting from public contracts; none the lessthey turned against s Cf. Cic. I Verr. 54 (on which see IM 36): it must have been Equites of this sort who d e m o n s t r a t e da g a i n s tt h e ' t r i u m v i r s ' i n J u l y 5 9 ( A t t . ü . r g . 3 ; c f . p . r 6 r ) . 6 On Mommsen's restoration of FIRA i2. vv. r3, and r7 within a mile, but he admitted that this was uncertain (Ges.Schr.i. 5 r ); zo miles for senatorial iudüeslunder the SC Caltisianun (FIRA i2. no. 68 v. r og, on which seeF. de Visscher,LesEdits d Augustedöcouoerß ä C2rlne,r g4o, r 44 n. z) . 7 Nicolet zr4-84, and on equestrianculture ror n. 73, 44r ff. (cf. L. R. Taylor, TAPA 1968, 469 ff.); Wiseman, Ig7I, esp. 53 ff.; Gelzer (n. z). Note, for instance, equestrian friends of M. A n t o n i u s , r o s . g g , a n d L . C r a s s u s , r o s . 9 5 ( C i c . B r u t . 1 6 8 , d e o r a t . ü . r l ; V a l . M a xI . it x) :. C i c e r o ' s family had noble friends or patrons; the connections of an Atticus or Balbus need no documentation. Jurists: W. Kunkel, Herkunfl u. so1.Stellungder rdm. Jurislen, r952, 50 ff.; cf. F. Schulz,r953,46-8.Advocates:Cic.deorat.ü.z,z6z,Brut.tgt,167f.,zo5,z4rf.,z46,z7r,z8off., Fam. xlä. 12. 2, 22. r. Marriages: e.g. Cic. Sulla 25, Planc.z7 (cf. R. Syme, RomanPaperc,6o5tr ), Pis. fr. 9- r r . I Per. Livy lviii; Vell. ii. 3. z; cf. Cic. Sesl. ro3 (the audience of his speech was mainly c q u e s t r i a n ) ;B a d i a n , r 9 7 2 , 5 5 .

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him.e The sourcesfurnish no explanation.It may be that they disliked his policy of extending the franchise to Italians, perhaps in the apprehension that there would be increased competition for public contracts;later they were to opposeDrusus, though of coursehis attack on their judicial rights is enough in itself to account for this (pp.2o6ff.). Perhaps they were alienated from Gracchus by his eventual readinessto resort to violence.The preservationof order and the sanctity of property must have been their first consideration.Hence they would rally to the senateagainstSaturninusin roo,r0 and against Catiline,rr who (it was feared)designedto remit debtsand redistribute property. Thus in 63 Cicero could realize his ideal of 'concordia ordinum', which he later broadenedinto'consensusItaliae', the union of his 'army of the rich' extending throughout the ruling classof the Italian towns; the programme of 'otium cum dignitate' which he outlined in 56 was indeed calculated to meet the desiresand interestsof all men of .property. The programme included direction of affairs by the senate.r'But thereis no sign that Equitesrejectedthis in principle. If order were maintained, and if the senateacquiescedin their claim to at least a predominant share in judication, as it did under the lex Aureliaof 7o, and was complaisant to the publicans, they were likely to be content. II

On this analysisthere was more to unite the two orders than to divide them. How then should we account for the conflicts which did undoubtedly occur? Their origins can be detected in Polybius' explanation of the dependenceof t_h^. people on the senate;by the people he meansprimarily the Equites." This dependencehe ascribedto two causes. (t ) Almost everyone(he says),i.e. in the upper-classmilieu, of which he had personal acquaintance, was engaged in innumerable public contracts, and thosecontracts, when found disadvantageous,could be cancelled or modified only. by the senate. Among these contracts he specifiesthose let by the censorsfor public buildings in Italy, and e Sall. B7 4z; we may surmisethat the senatemade it clear that it would not attempt to repeal the judiciary legislation (ch.4), and would thus allow the Equites a significant share in government ('spes societatis'). The acquittal of Opimius by the timocratic comitiacenturiatatend,s to confirm Sallust'stestimony; cf. also Plut. C. Gr. 14.4, and E. Skard in Oppermann, 1967, r85, on Opimius' dedication of a temple to Concordia. t . o C i c . R o bp . e r d .z o - 2 7 ; P l u t . M a r . 3 o . 3 l V a l . M a x . i i i . z . r 8 ; O r o s . v . r 7 . g . tt e.g.Cic. Cat. 1 2 S e ep p . iv. 15. 55 f. 13 Pol. ui. r7; cf. Walbank ad loc.; Nicoiet 382 [ Ciccro too virtually cquatcs pcoplc with Equites in I Vcrr. 38, Cluen!.rqr, Päji. iv. r5, viii. 8.

' t ' H El t q u t ' t ' E sI N ' t H t i L A - [ ER t P U B L I C

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collection of revenue from rivers, harbours, gardens,mines, land, and everything under Roman power.ra He does not mention taxes,and there is indeed no evidence that the collection of provincial tribute, as distinct from rents or scripturaon public domains, was farmed to Romans beforethe annexationof Asia in r33. Now there was no legal requirement that public contracts should be leased only to Equites, and we happen to know of a freedman contractor for road repair, probably of the Sullan period (/ZS 5799). Nor was it essentialthat in all casesthe contractors should be organized in companies like those which later collected the Asian tithe. On the other hand, it was only rich men acting together who could undertake contracts for which considerablecapital and organization were required.ls Army suppliesand transport, and in the third century the construction of ships for Rome's great fleets,must have come in this cateeory, though Polybius fails to mention them. We hear of a company, evidently resembling those later attested for tax-farming, that contracted for army suppliesin er5, and in 2r2 the senatewas nervousof punishing the fraud of one such contractor lest it might offend the 'ordo publicanorum', which was influential clearly becauseits operations were indispensableto the state. Contracting for army suppliesis again attestedin 195 and 167, and must always have been in use, exceptin so far as troops could be supported by requisitioning from the subjectsor by plund.f fro- the eneÄy.16 Large sums were also spent on public works, for instance 6 million denarüon the Roman sewagesystem in lB4; the revenue of one year was appropriated to buildings for the quinquennium beginning in r 79, and half a year's revenue to censorial works in 169; the cost of the Marcian aqueduct started in r44 was 45 million denarü.It is not surprisingthat in r84 thoseinterestedin such huge expenditurecould attempt, with initial success,to sabotage the efforts of the censorsto curb profiteering, or that in 168 they secured the impeachment and ra Walbank suppliessome illustrations; add Cato lrs. ro3 M2. ('salinatoresaerarii', farmers of salt tax), ro6 (contract for supply of wine for an unknown public purpose). Though military roads were normally built by consulsor praetors, much ofthe work was surely done by conrract even ifmilitary labour was to some extent employed; the censorscontracted at least for roads in and near Rome (Radke, RE Suppl. xiii. r43r ff.). r5 EvidenceforpublicbuildingsandcostsfromzootoBoisassembledbyFrank, ESARi.r44, r83ff., zz6f., 258ff. In App. r to the original version ofthis essay I refuted his attempt to minimize the importance of these conrracts and those for army supplies (n. r6); Badian, ig7z, chs. r rr, now makes a fuller and better caseasainst it. r6 Livy xxiii.48, xxv. xxxiv. g, x l i v . r 6 . 3 l A d m i t t e d l y H a r m a n d , r 9 6 7 , c h . v , p r o d u c e sn o 3, testimony for public contracting at Rome for the army in the 6rst cenrury, but cf. /?S rg74,2or, Col. II s8 ff.; supplieswere perhaps largely obtained then in the provinces or in enemy territory, though generalsmay still have relied on private entrepreneursfor procurement. Hucksters who f o l l o w e d t h e c a m p , t r a f f i c k i n g w i t h t h e s o l d i e r s ( eA . gp.p . L i b . r r 5 f f . ; S a l l .B J + + . 5 ; C a e s . B G i . l g , I l . 4 f r . 7 5 . 3 ) , a r e i n a n o t h e rc a t e g o r y .

'l'H[, r : q u l l ' l ] S l N ' l ' H H L A ' | ' UR E p U B t . t ( :

' l ' H Er : Q U I ' l ' FllN S ' t H E L A T ER E P U B L I C

almost obtained the conviction in the centuriate assemblv of anothe r censor who had followed a similar course.rT Polybius explicitly refers to mines, and the evidence, which must come from a lost part of his work, that in r68 the senate would not lease the Macedonian mines to Roman publicans for fear of their oppressing the subjects,indicates that it already had experience of the power that could be wielded by lesseesof state mines; this in turn implies that these lesseesmust have been well organized (.t.7t). This experience must have been obtained in Spain, where the large-scale employment of slave labour in the mines, of which Diodorus gives a lurid account (v. 35 f.), presumably derived from Posidonius, shows that the entrepre'a neurs, multitude of Italians attracted by the high returns', must have disposed of great capital. By Strabo's testimony (iii. z. ro), expressly drawn from Polybius, the state's share in the proceeds from the silver mines near New Carthage was 25,ooo drachmae(denarii) a day; that of the contractors can only be surmised. It is true that in the Principate small men could obtain concessionsin a mining area in Spain, but this mode of exploiting public property was hardly feasible without close supervision by the imperial bureaucracy of procurators assisted by the emperor's freedmen and slaves, which had no Republican antecedents.Thus, though it is true that in theory the state could have exploited the Spanish mines without leasing the actual extraction of the ore to publican companies, as distinct, for example, from entrusting publicans with collection of rents from the extractors, and though there is no direct evidence that it did in the Republic adopt the former system, we can plausibly infer from the indications cited that it was that system which it chose.l8 (z) Senators were judges in the most imporrant criminal and civil cases.As to the former, we may recall the trial by the consuls of r 38 with a senatorial consiliumof publicans who had obtained the contract for manufacturing pitch on Sila and their servants for an alleged massacre (Cic. Brut. BS tr ). I shall, however, argue in Chapter 4 that it was more commonly civil jurisdiction that would have produced resentment. Thus Equites were subject to control by a body dominated by the nobility, in which men originating in their order could seldom attain high rank,le and whose rirembers, whatever their origin, were not

cntitled to sharein the public contractsand would hardly representthe peculiar interestsof the publicans. This control must have been a sourcesometimesof economic loss,and often of irritation. In the preGracchan period more than one dispute had occurred between the publicansand the senateor magistrates(nn. r 6 f.). GaiusGracchusdid not createa cleavagebetweenthe orders,as hostilesourcessuggest;20 rather, friction already existed, and he sought equestrian support by enhancing the power, dignity, and profits of membersof the order. His new regulation of the taxesof Asia, which becamethe model for that of eastern provinces acquired later, and also his introduction of 'nova portoria', and his public works, gave the publicans new opportunities lor profit and added to their influence; the state relied heavily on the taxäs they collected.2l He did not touch the senate'scontiol over contracts,22but he made it more likely that it would be responsiveto the claims of the Equites through their monopoly of seats in the repetundae court, where they could sit in judgement on senators themselves.[Seealso Addendum, pp. 526 ff.] According to Diodorus (xxxiv-xxxv. 2. 3r), who surely drew on Posidonius,the governorsof Sicily in the r 3oshad not dared to repress the banditry of slavesfor fear of alienating their masters,landowners who were mostly Roman Equites and who thus belonged to the order which controlled the courts at Rome. This explanation of the governors' pusillanimity is of course anachronistic for that decade, but reflects the subservienceof many governors to equestrian interests which Gracchus' measuresprobably produced later, and which is implicit in Posidonius'assertionthat Gracchussacrificedthe subjectsto the rapacity of the publicans(ibid. z5). Cicerohimself,despitehis close connectionswith the publicans,and his readinessin 7o to eulogizethe

r5o

17 Livy xxxix. 44 (cf. Plut. CatoMaior rg, Flam. r9), xliii. 16. r8 ContraJ.S. Richardson, JRS ry76, r39 ff. (whosegeneral views on the Spanish mines I also reject) at I43 f. Richardson did not dispute my rejection (in App. r to the earlier version of this article) ofFrank's view that until I 79 the state directly exploited the Spanish mines, which it had no means of doing; see now Badian, rq7:, 3r ff., who also attributcs to Cato in rg5 the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f p u b l i c a n s ( t h e b c s t i n t c r p r e t a t i o no f L i v v x x x i v . z l . : ) . 'l:. 1e Among .ä* ."r in t h t . s c n a r t . I ; . R u p i l i u s 1 r , , . i r. 3 ' t ) a n c l Auficlius (pr. 67?) had p r e v i o u s l yb c e nc n g a g c di n r a x t . l l u l i . l r ( V a l . M a x . v i . t t . 7 ) . l ) i . d . x x x i ' x x x v , ] t l . l m a k t ' si t

r5r

fikely that this was also true of Marits; paceT. F. Carney, Biograpfutof C. Marius (Proc.A"fr. Class. ,4.rs. Suppl. r), 23, there is no proofthat he illegitimately retained an interest in public contracting a{ier entry to the senate;nor do we know that the Spanish Mons Marianus and the mines there trxlk their names from him. New men as consuls:Brunt, J.R,Srg8z, r ff. 20 e.g. Cic. dz leg. üi. zo; Varro ap. Non. Marc. 7zB L.; Diod. xxxiv-xxxv 25. r (from l\rsidonius and ultimately Rutilius Rufus); Per. Livy lx. 2 r C i c . d e i m p . C n . P o m rpT. : ' p u b l i c a n i . . . s u a s r a t i o n e s e t c o p i a s i n i l l a m p r o v i n c i a m [ A s i a m ] ( ()ntulerunt, quorum ipsorum per se res et fortunae curae essedebent. Etenim si vectigalia nervos csscrei publicae semper duximus, eum certe ordinem qui exercet illa firmamentum ceterorum rrrdinum recte essedicemus.' Plane. z3:'flos enim equitum Romanorum, ornamentum civitatis, lirmamentum rei publicae publicanorum ordine continetur'. These statementswerc largely true, rrrrtil Rome could adopt a different method of tax collection. Cf. dc proa. Cons. rr, and see R. Rrrwlands,TAPA 1965,369;Badian, t972, 42 ff. Cf. n. 56. Portoria:Vell. ii. 6. 3 (cf. S.J. De Laet, 'l)49, 45-58). Gracchus prolesseda concern for public revenues(Gell. xi. ro; Cic. Tusc.Disp. üi. .lll), which he neededto increase,to pay for his schemesthat involved greater public expenditure. l ) r r l r l i tw o r k s : P l u t . C . G r . 6 : A p p . i . z 3 ; F e s t u s3 g z L . 22 In 6r the Asian publicans petitioned the senate for a modification oftheir liabilities'lege licrrrprorria' (Schol. Bobb. r57 St.); cf. n.53. For the senate adjudicating in disputes between ;rrrlrlicansand provincials scc Nicolet 347 ff.

r52

r ' H E [ , Q U l ' l ' ] :tSN ' t ' H Et , A ' r HR E p U B t . t C

incorruptibility of equestrianiudices(l Verr. 38), could admit that 'wicked and rapacious magistrates'in the provincescurried f,avourwith the publicans(II Verr.äi. 94): Verres still found collusionwith them expedient," though at a time when Equiteshad beendeprivedof their judicial functions,and we may think that this kind of behaviour was still more common when a governor was amenable to conviction by an equestrian court. Even a man of high principle might then think it prudent to conciliate the publicans at the expenseof the taxpayers;this is the course that Cicero in effect recommendshis brother Quintus to pursue as proconsul of Asia in 59; and when governing Cilicia, he was careful to try to satisfytheir claims, though with the leastpossibleinjury to the provincials. At the same time he could pressother governors, perhaps less scrupulous than himself, to concede the demands of publicans or of Equites with other interestsin their provinces.2a It is true that there is little evidence in our meagre records that equestrian iudicesactually used their judicial powers fcjr the unjust conviction of senators who sought to restrain their malpractices. Indeed very few senatorsare known to have been condemned by the equestrian repetundae court. Of courseour records are incomplete; still of rB certain or probable prosecutionslisted by Gruen between rz3 and gr only 4 issuedin convictions.2sPerhapsmost governorswere too apprehensiveof the power of the Equites to stand up to the publicans, and some may have chosen to share in their illicit gains. It may perhapsbe taken asillustrative of their enhancedinfluence that Marius worked through Equites active in Africa to impugn Metellus Numidicus' conduct of theJugurthine war.26As proconsul of Asia, Q,. Mucius Scaevolacurtailed their extortions, and is said to have suffered from equestrianmalice, but we do not know how; perhaps they kept him out of the censorship.Of course they did procure the unjust conviction of his legate P. Rutilius in 9e, and it was this notorious miscarriage of justice that provokedDrususto assailthe order'sjudicial rights.2?In a later period L. Lucullus incurred the hostility of the Equites for protecting the provincials from them (Plut. Luc. zo), but there were certainly other reasons,arising from the public interest and perhaps 23 ll Verr.ii. I69-9I concerning the contractorsfor theportoria;his relationswith the farmers of the grain tithe are irrelevant here, as they were only by accident Romans or Equites. 'n Qr.fr.i.r.3z 5(asheexpresslysays,heandhisbrotherwereunderpeculiarobligationsto the order, sc. for political support; hence his attitude in 6r to the publicans'claims (n. 53), which h e t h o u g h t s h a m e l e s (sA t t . i i . t . 8 ) ) . C i l i c i a : A t t . v . 1 4 . r , v . 2 r . r o , v i . r . 4 , a n d 1 5 f . , z . 5. The Asian tithe-farmerslooked to Cicero lor support (v. r 3. r ), and he put pressureon other governors t o f a v o u r p u b l i c a n sa n d o t h e r n e g l t i a t o r eosn, e o f t h e m a s e n a t o r( F a m . x i ü . g , 5 3 - g , 6 r - 3 , 6 5 ) . 2s Gruen, rq68, 3o4 ff. 26 Vell. ii. rr. z speaksofpublicans and other negotiatores: Sall. ^BJ 65. 4 (cf. 66. 4) specifies 'eqlites Romanos, milites [sc. officersl et negotiatores',a term which can include publicans. 2? Scaevola: Cic. F'am. i. 9. z6; cL Ptanc. 33. Rutilius: GC re5 ff.

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t53

liorn the jealousyof his peers,for the gradual limitation and eventual tcrmination o1-hisunusuallylong command in the east.28Gabiniustoo set himselfagainstthe publicansin Syria, and was finally convictedof repelundae, but only after he had beennarrowly acquitted of maiestas (Cic. iii. r which he manifestly of was guilty; we must also recall fu rt 4. ), that in the 5os senatorsformed one third of the courts, and that Gabinius'past activity as a popular tribune and continuing connection with Pompey must have made him many enemiesamong senatorial iudices.2e However, it is not only the decisionsof the repetundae courr we have to take into account.Gracchus'refiormationof that court becamea model for the constitutionof the adhoccourt setup by the Mamilian law of ro9, and for the permanent court created by Saturninus to try chargesof maiestas, which presumably took cognizanceof thosebrought under the Varian law of 9o. There was a heavy toll of distinguishedsenatorial victimsunder the Mamilian and Varian laws.It wasunder the impact of trials on the former occasionthat L. Crassusin ro6 could plead that senatorsshould be rescued'fromthe jaws of thosewhosecruelty can be satiatedonlv bv our blood' and that senatorsshouldhaveno mastersbut the Roman'petple.30As this secondremark implies, though senators could not deny their traditional responsibility to the people on impeachment before the centuriate assembly,they desiredotherwiseto be judged only by their peers;it was demeaningthat they should be made accountable to men of a lower order. In my view Gaius Gracchus did more than give the Equites control of the repetundae court; he also gave them a share in judication in other criminal casesthat came before permanent courts, and in determining thosecivil suits which had hitherto been reservedto senators;thereby he relieved them of that dependenceon senatorsthe importance of which Polybiushad stressed. This is argued in Chapter 4. The value of the Asian tax contract cannot be estimatedwith any precision.According to Plutarch, Pompey'sconquestsadded a revenue of 85 million denariito the existing revenuesof 5o million; the figures probably refer only to the provincial revenuesreceivedin cash.31Asia must have previouslybeen the chief source.t'ln +7 Caesarsubstituted collection there by the city authorities for tax-farming and reduced by 2 8 S e ee n d n o t e z . 2 e C i c . d , p t o a .c o n sg. r r , P i s . 4 r , Q t . f r . i t . r z . ( r r ) z , i i i . z . z ; c f . S h e r w i n - W h i t e ,r g 8 4 , z 7 r f f . I)io xxxix. 59. 2 says that he failed to protect the tax-farmers against brigandage. 30 GC 68 f., 78 (Cic. de orat. i. zz5), t4r (Cic. Brut. go4f.). 3r Plut. Ponp. 45, on which seeBadian, ry67, 7of. 12 Broughton,ESARiv.56zff.(perhapsr5millioncomingintothetreasury:Icannotbelieve, ;rshc infers from Philostr. r. Soph.ü. r. 548, a poor source,that in Hadrian's time it had sunk to 7 rnrllion).

rS+

THE EQUITEStN THE LA'[E REPUBLTC

a third the total sum payable by the subjects.Since he was short of money at the time and was filling his coffersby various impositions,it is unlikely that he intended to reducegovernmentreceipti; rather he was cutting out the takingsof the companies.33 we may thereforeinfer that_thepublicanskept perhapsup to half of what the provincialspaid, partly as a legitimate profit arising from the difference between the sum they guaranteedto the treasuryand that which was legally due from the taxpayers,and partly by illicit exactions.34 Thus Gracchus' measuresfavoured the material interests of the Equites;they alsoassuredthem ofa placeofindependenceand evenof splendourand dignity in the republic.35We should not underrate the importance they attached to this new political standing, nor their craving for gratia,aucloritas, and even honires.36 From two well-known passages in Cicero'sspeeches(Cluent.r5o ff., Rab. Post.r3 ff.) it might be concludedthat the prominent Equitesof the pre-sullan epochwäre men who had abjured the advantages and risks of political life and preferred the quiet and security of private enrichment. But this was only true of some among them. Cicero himself describesthem as men 'qui summum locum civitatis aut nln potueruntascendere aut non petiverunt' (Cluent.l5r). As early as r r r, if we may believeSallust(.BJ 3r), Memmius was declaiming against the nobility's monopoly of office, and in the next decade Marius was not the only new man who rose to high office.37Sallust also says that at this time the plebs preferrednew men (ibid. 65), but in electionsto the consulshipand praetorship the votes of the rich counted for most, and in any casethe electorscould not have shown this preference,unlessthere had been candidatesof equestrianfamilies who sought high office. It was not a meaninglessgesturewhen Drusus proposed,in depriving Equites of their control of the courts, to enrol many of them in an -\Me enlarged senate. are told that some were aggrieved at not being placedon his list.38sulla carriedout his plan. Not only his new recruiti tt Caes.48;Dio xlii. 6; App. v. 4. If the province paid zz.5 million, of which 7.5 went to _ !1y.. the publicans, reduction oftheir liability by one third would leave the treasury no worse ofl; it would gain if the publicans' share was larger. 3a Bioughton.äp. cit.58o. " cic. Rab.perd.zo ('magnam partem rei publicae atque omnem dignitatem iudiciorum'); the optimates could not endure this'equestrem splendorem' (Rosc.Amer. r4o); cf. cluent. r5z;Florus ii. r. 4; Nicolet 5zo. 36 Splendor,Sest.r37; dignitas, Au. i. t7. g, deproa. cons.ro, pis. 4r, Cael. g (,quaectmque in equite Romano dignitas essepossit,quae cerre potesr essemaxima'); Nepos, Afi. i. r, 6. z (cf. last note); Brunt, JRS l96r, 76, on social privilegeswhich illustrated equestrian rank; Nicolet zrz ff. Gralia and auttoritas,seee.g. Planc. 32, Att. i. z. z; Nepos, Au. 6. z. Equestrian dienlelae:p.3g7. Eqrritesclaimed, and optimates objected to, unfettered freedom ofspeech, plane. 93ff. "' Cn. Aufidius, C. Billienus, C. Flavius Fimbria, and Cn. Mallius Maximus happen to be known. " App. i. 95, de air. ilt.66; cl p. zo7.

T H E E Q U I ' I ' D SI N

'l'HE

LATE REPUBLIC

.

I55

but later entrants into a senatenow doubled in numbers must have been chiefly of equestrianfamily. According to Cicero, all but one of the candidatesfor the curule aedileshipof 54 were of this category (Planc.r7), among them Cn. Plancius,son of the leading publican of 'because his day, who had the backing of the whole order of publicans, they reckonedthat his distinction was one for their order, and that they were acting in the interestsof their own sons' (ibid. za). No doubt a high proportion of theseupstarts, like those later adlected by Caesar, also belonged to the municipal aristocracies.Cicero saysthat the postSullan senate was chosen from all ltaly (Sulla z4), and that in 43 almostall senatorscame from the Italian towns (Phil. äi. I5); the elder Plancius himself was a notable from Atina, and one of Caesar'smore distinguished recruits, L. Aelius Lamia, came of an old family at Formiae. Still, Plancius was prominent as a publican, as was Lamiat 'princepsequestrisordinis', who had many oiher businessinterests'3e Evidently many Equites did not share the attachment of Atticus to 'honestum otium'; in fact Atticus, who could certainly have followed a political career, carried his aversion to public life so far as to abstain from any part in judication and public contracting; he is surely of the Roman untypical.ao To some extent the arrogant exclusiveness nobility must have irritated Equites, like Plancius and Lamia, who could harbour political ambitions for themselvesor their sons,and this resentment may well have contributed to breaches between the orders.ar Still, in comparison with the struggle for control of the courts this was at most a secondary source of friction.a2 Caepio's law of ro6 (p. zo4), though not long in force, creating mixed courts for repetundae enraged the Equites against him, and Glaucia won their gratitude by its repeal. The condemnation of Rutilius and Drusus' consequential attempt to restore senatorial monopoly produced the fiercest acrimony. Drusus' proposed enlargement of the senatewas no compensation; the men associatedwith the ruin of Rutilius would hardly be the beneficiaries,and Equites elevated to the senatewould ceasee0ipsoto represent the equestrian order and in particular the publicans, in whosecontracts they would be debarred from sharing. Drusus further inflamed their anger by seekingto make the former equestrian iudices criminally liable for bribes they had taken. If they feared competition in bids for the public contractsfrom the richer of the Italians whom he 3n Plancius and Lamia: Nicolet 98I ff., 762 ff. ao Nepos, Att. 6; cf. Cic. Att.i. I7. 5; Suet, lzg. z; Nicolet 699-722. a r ' l ' h e a t t a c k s m a d eb y C i c e r o o n t h e p a u c i , n o t t h e s e n a t e( l l V e r r . v . I 8 o f f . , C l u e n l . r 5 2 , e t c . ) , :rrrrl by Sallust mirror feelingspresumably common among senatorsof equestrian origin. a2 lor discussionofall laws and proposalsrelating tojudication seech. Most ofthe evidence 4. is rcadily lound in GC.

'tti!: r:etjt't'us .t.Hu IN l . Ar ] : R u p t . ; Bl (l .:

' I ' H l :l : Q t :t ' t l : s t ^ * ' fH E L A ' tE R D p t , ' B L t c

designed t
'l'he irritiative. senate itsel{'subsequentlytook action to check the cxpansion of Mithridates' power. Ultimately Mithridates was provoked into war by the conduct of Roman representatives in the eastin 8q. We are told that they acted without authority from senateand peopfe (App. Bell. Mith. 15, 17, r9).Some have taken them to be associates of Marius, but there is no good reasonto think that even Manius Aquillius, who had been on good termswith him, was merely his tool, or that the other leadingfigureshad any connectionwith him. In any casetheir aim, so f;aras we can tell, was not to extend Roman territory but to build up other vassal kings in Anatolia against Mithridates; nor do they seemto have been preparing the way for an extraordinarycommand to be vestedin Marius, which they could have had no reason to expect: they hoped to win the war themselvesand augment their own richesand distinction.As they had at best a very small force of Roman troops at their disposal, and Rome's military resourceswere still fully employed in subjugating the revolted Italians, their initiative was so recklessthat we must not only believethat it had not been sanctionedby the senate,but alsodoubt if it could have had the prior approval either of Marius, whosemilitary experiencecould scarcelyhave commended such rashness,or of the head officesof the publican companieswith so much to lose, if Rome's possession of the province of Asia were put in jeopardy. Admittedly local Roman negotiatores, who had lent large sums to king Nicomedes of Bithynia, also urged him to attack Mithridates on the footing that they could expect repayment only from the plunder he would obtain (ibid. lr); even if they were local agentsof principals at home, including publican companies, they need not have acted under instructions from them, any more than Aquillius and his associatesproceededon the senate's authority. Naturally, once Mithridates had overrun Asia, the home sovernment had no choice but to dislodgehim as soon as possible;this must alsohave been the principal care of the publicans and anyone else with businessin the province. It is perfectly conceivable that they backedMarius'candidature for the job, not becausethey knew that he would be more responsivethan Sulla to their interests, but out of animosity to the senate,coupled with faith in his capacity as the generalwho would most rapidly defeat Mithridates.aa Another explanation has been propounded for equestrian discord with the senatein and after BB.There was a credit crisis.Debtors who had suffered lossfrom the wars were unable to meet their obligations lirr principal and interest. The praetor Asellio in 89 countenanced :rttcmptsthey made to revive an old and obsoletelaw that barred the

a3 See especially C . M e i e r , 1 9 6 6 ,c h . v r ; A . W . L i n t o t r , C e t g 7 r , 442ff. Cf. also pp.459tr

aa l'or thc unsatisfactoryevidence and some discussionof modern reconstructionsof Rome's r c l a l i o n sw i t h M i t h r i d a t e s , s e en o w A . N . S h e r w i n - W h i t e ,1 g 8 4 ,c h . v .

r56

.

t57

I58

THE EQUITESIN THE LATE REPUBLIC

taking of interest.He was murdered in public; the assassins could not be found; allegedlythe money-lenderscoveredeverything up. In the following year the consulsSulla and Q, Pompeiuspasseda law which may either have scaleddown debtsby a tenth or imposeda maximum of r z per cent a year on the interestrecoverable,a limit that was later to be normal and may alreadyhave corresponded to the usagethought -Bg reasonable.as It is very probable that in the embarrassäddebtors were primarily to be found among not only small farmers but larger landownerswho had been unable to harvesttheir cropsor get in rents in regions which had been theatres of war, though by BB the loss of investmentsin Asia consequenton Mithridates' invasion must have more widely affectedliquidity (".g8).The consularmeasureof BBwas required by conditionssimilar to thosewhich led Caesarin 49 to rescue landowners from the temporary difficulties causedby the outbreak of war.46We can assumeapproval by the senate.Asellio'smore extreme attitude need not have had much support. In any event senatorsas well as Equitescould make loans (p. r73), and equestrianlandowners were just as liable as senatorial to have sustainedlossesin the war. We cannot then safelyinfer a clash between the economic interestsof the two ordersas such. It is true that Sulpicius,though allegedlyin debt himsell,proposed the exclusion from the senate of anyone owing more than the inconsiderablesum of e,ooo denarii(Plut. Sulla B). The purpose of this measureis not recorded,but it need not have beenintended to reduce the supposedlygreat influenceofdebtors as a classin the senaterather than to remove some particular adversariesof Sulpicius or his equestrian allies; it has also been conjectured that he was seeking to force senatoriallandownersto repay loans by selling up land, perhaps at pricesadvantageousto equestrianpurchasers.4T It has also been held that Equites had suffered from a depreciation of the silver coinagewhich, according to Pliny ("MF1xxxiii.46), had been effectedby Drusus, but the extant coins prove that Pliny was in error; somedepreciationdid occur, but not till BB-87, and it was then doubtlessnecessitatedby a shortageof bullion due to the massivenew a s A s e l l i oA : p p . i . S + ; P e r . L i v y l x x i i ' ;V a l . M a x . i x . 7 . 4 . T h e ' o l d l a w ' i s v a r i o u s l y i d e n t i f i e d with the lex Genuciaof 34r and the lex Marcia, which may also be ol the fourth century. In that period the plebs had constantly agitated for reliefofdebts and limitation of usury. In r93 the provisionsof'multae laenebresleges'had been extended to loans made by allies as secretagentsof Roman creditors (Livy xxxv. 7). About this time aedilescollected fines for their violation (e.g. xxxv. 4t). It is uncertain ifthese measuresdid not relate merely to interestexceedinga reasonable rate. See RE vi. zr87 ff. (Klingmüller) for full discussion.Law of 88, Festus5r6 L.: 'unciaria lex appellari coepta esi, quam L. Sulla et Q. Pom(peius Rufus) tulerunt, qua sanctum est ur d e b i t o r e sd e c i m a m p a r t e m . . . ' . A s e n a t o r i a d l e c r e eo f 5 r / 5 o ( n . r r r ) a g a i n i m p o s e dt h e r z p e r cent maximum. All such enactments tended to be ineffective. nu M. W. Frederiksen, a7 Meier, r966,83 n. r r5 JRS 1966, rz6 ff

'rHE

EQUITESlN THE LATE REPUBLIC

r5g

issuesneededto pay the troops,aBA lexPapiriadated by Crawford to 9 r had introduced the semuncialas and apparently resultedin confusion about the value of the bronzecoins usedin petty market transactions, which was ended by a measureof the praetors of 85; M. Marius Gratidianus annexed the credit for the reform and endearedhimself to the populace. The problem was hardly a matter of grave concern to great financiers,but if it had been, and had determinedthe policy of the Marians, they would hardly have deferredremedial action for a year after they had securedpossessionof Rome. The credit crisismust indeed have been exacerbatedsince89, not only by the continuanceof fighting in Italy but by the lossof Rome's dominion in the east, with the consequentialdiminution in public revenuesand in the income that publicans and other negotialores had beenreceiving.It was the Marians who took the most drasticaction for relief of debtors by the lex Valeriaof 86, which reduced all liabilities by three fourths.neThe beneficiariesmust have included not only the ownersof great estatesunable to repay their loans but countlesssmall men as well; the treasury too was presumablyenabled to scaledown any arrears due to public contractors. The losers were just those moneyed men who had not themselvesbeen affectedby the disappearance of their easterninvestments.The measurescan only have been justified by what was taken to be the general good, or by sheer necessity;it affords no support to thosewho seethe Marian party as in leaguewith 'big business'. In f;actnot all Equites were Marians. Many must have sided with Sulla in the civil war or stayedneutral, and it was among them that he must have recruited most of the new senatorsneeded to double the total number; he chosethem, we are told, 'ex equesticordine', or'from the best of the Equites'. Cicero, who took no part in the fighting and was too young for enrolment, was probably typical of the recruits; of hereditary equestrian status and from a ruling family at Arpinum which had enjoyed the patronageof Roman nobles.soIt doesindeed seemprobable that Sulla deprived the Equites of their valued privilege of reservedseatsat the games, since the Roscian law of 67 is said to have restored it; we do not know when it had been first conferred,except that the date must be later than the grant of a similar privilege to senatorsin r94 (ch.6 n. 155), and Cicero speaksof his hatred for the 48 RRC 569 72,616 (cL 78f., 362). Crawford allows that Drusus may have proposed
r60

'l'HE

E Q U I ' l ' l : s l N l ' H t ) t , A ' l ' l :R t : P t . J B l . t ( ;

order, but in the very samebreath he refersto the bitter retribution he visited on the old 'iudices',that is to say on the politically prominent sectionof the order that had beenembroiledwith the senatein the last few decades(Cluent.r5r). As often (nn. 56 f.), Cicero has the publicans primarily in mind. It is true that accordingto Appian (BC i. 95) some r,6oo Equitesas well as 40 senatorsappearedon his first proscription list; Florus (ii. g. z5) says that in all there were 2,ooo senatorsand Equites, most of whom obviously belonged to the secondcategory, among his victims. The number surely exceededthose of the leading publicanswhoserancour againstDrusus and his friends had been so marked in 9r-Bg. But naturally the chief men in communitieswhich had espousedthe Marian side,often of equestriancensus)will also have figured in the proscription lists. For all Sulla's detestationof the publicans he could not disperrse with the tax-farming system.The notion that he abolishedit in Asia is not warranted by the evidence. In 84 he had had no choice but to demand lump sums from the Asian cities, since the head offices at Rome were under the control of his enemies,and the local organization must have beendisruptedby Mithridates.But it is not attestedthat he essayedany permanent changein the system,and we soonfind it in full work oncemore.51Betweenthe time of Polybiusand Strabo (iii. z. ro) the Spanishsilver mines passedinto private ownership;wheneverthe statesold them (and there is nothing to show that it was Sulla who did so), it was presumablyintended not to disobligethe publicansbut to produce a windfall of ready cashfor the treasury;former publicans are likely to have been among the purchasers. To the economicinterestsof Equites Sulla was probably indifferent. He was, however, resolved,in accordancewith his general policy of fortifying the senate'ssupremacy,to give senatorscomplete control of the criminal courts and to satisfythose'qui equestremsplendorempati non potuerunt' (Cic. Rosc. Amer.r4o). The Equites,irrespectiveof their past attitude to Sulla, cannot have been content with this forfeiture of their dignity and influence, and doubtless fomented the general indignation aroused by the corruption of senatorial iudices.In 7o the senatecould not resistthe clamour, but a durable compromisewas at last achieved; senatorswere still to constitute one third of the album iudicum,Equitesin a broad sensetwo thirds (". z). Once this issuehad been resolved,there was no persistentquarrel betweenthe orders.It is significantthat in somesubsequenttrials in which the voting of the different panelsof iudicesis recorded, senators, Equites, and tribuni aerarii were all divided: they did not vote as s r B r u n t . L a t o m u .rst 1 \ 6 , r T f l l ; c f i B a d i a n , r972, gs

'l'HE

EqUl'l't:S IN

'l'HH, LA'I'EREPUBLIC

16r

blocks.s2Sallust, as Nicolet observed (p.6g8), never alludes to the conflict of the orders; it had ceasedwell before he entered public life. Cicerohoped that they would act togetherin the unisonexemplifiedin their common opposition to Catiline. He lamented indeed that this concord was disrupted in 6 r by the refusal of the senate to meet the claim that the Asian publicansmade for a reduction in their contractual liabilities to the treasury, and by a proposal to make equestrian iudicessubject to penalties for corruption. In 59 Caesar satisfied the demandsof the publicans.53However, the importance of the controversy was exaggeratedby Cicero. It was not primarily to gratify the publicans that Pompey, Crassus,and Caesar formed their coalition, and it was not by their aid that they dominated Rome; they came together for their own ends,and relied on sheerforce (pp. 473 ff.)' Nor had they the support of the whole equestrian order, since in Jr.ly Sg Equites, presumably municipal gentry, demonstrated against them (".S).We may also note that the move to penalizethe corruption of equestrian iudiceshaving lapsed, there were suggestionsmade in the but senatein 55 that equestrianofficials should be liable for repetundae, Post. The senate (Cic. Rab. r3). full house in a rejected they were entertainedno strong antipathy to the Equites. In 5o Caeliusassumedthat the iudicesaswell as the senatewould side with Pompey, now allied with the optimates, against Caesarin a civil war (Fam.viii. r4. 3), and Cicero in March 49 could say that they had been Pompey'sspecialadmirers (Att. väi. r6. z); admittedly he had also opined in December that the publicans were most friendly to Caesarand that rich peopleoutside the senatewould settlefor peaceat almostany price (vii. 7. 5). Soon they were increasinglyalienatedfrom Pompey, when they came to think that their lives and property would be safer if Caesar won; they were in general not prepared to make sacrificesin the senatorial cause.54Still, many individual Equites fought for Pompey in 49, and later were hostile to the triumvirs; e,ooo Individuals areiaid to have beenvictims of triumviral proscriptions.ss 5 2 S e ee s p .C i c . f u . f r . i i . 4 . 6 ; A s c o n .5 5 C . ( c f . 2 8 , 5 3 , 5 6 , 6 t ; C i c . A t t . i . r 6 . 5 , i v . , 5 . + , Q r . f r . iii. 4. r ) . We must allow for corruption, pressure,and somerespectfor evidenceand law as well as scctional bias. s! Cic.Att.i.r7.B-ro,r8.3,7andIg.6,ii.I.B,16.z,Planr.35,Rab.Post.13,deofic.rü.88; S u e t . C a z s z. o . 3 ; A p p . i i . 1 3 ; D i o x x x v i i . 7 . 4 ; c f . n . z z . 5a e.g.Att. viii. r3, r6, ix. rz. 4 , t 3 . 4 ; c f . F a m . v ü i . 1 7 . z ( C a e l i u s ) .M e i e r , 1 9 6 6 ,9 z ( e s p . rr. r76), arguesthat their real sympathieslay with Pompey, partly becausemany who remained rrcurraland flattered Caesarthought that Cicero should take Pompey'sside, but on this seeBrunt, .74,t.rq86, rz ff; his rank and past conduct were deemed to place him under a specialobligation. 5s Dio xli. rB. 6 saysthat most senatorsand Equites ultimately joined Pompey, a statementnot t r u ( ( ' v ( ' no f s c n a t o r s ( c f . 4 3 . z ) ; A p p i a n t h a t 4 o l e a d i n g E q u i t e sf e l l i n b a t t l e f o r h i m ( i i . 8 z ) . lir;uircs or scnatorsof probably equestrianorigin are attestedamong Pompeian officers (MRrR ii. r { i l i 7 r , 2 7 9 f l 4 , 2 ( ) 2 ,. 1 o 3 ,3 r z f . ) . P r o s c r i p t i o n sA: p p . i v . 5 .

r6e

't'Hr:

u ' e u t ' t ' t : s t N ' t ' H t : L A ' t ' ] :R ] : p t ; B t . t ( l

decided for themselves; in the last criscs ol' the Rcpublic we cannot detect any conflict between the higher orders as such, lor both were divided, but can at most say that Equites, naturally enough, cared more for their own security than for the preservation or restoration of the senate's supremacy, which those who shared in its privileges were most apt to equate with liberty.

III

So far then it seemsthat the intermittent conflicts of Equites with the senate, though perhaps aggravated by the arrogance displayed by nobles to those Equites who themselves aspired to high office, were primarily due to disputes arising from the public contracts, which (as Polybius may indicate) were more frequent than the few actually recorded, and still more to competition for judiciary rights; by securing theserights Equites could attain a position ofdignity in the srate and free themselves from dependence on the senators, but as a result the authority of the higher order was impaired, and senators themselves became dependent on persons of lower degree. Of course the publicans could also exploit control of the criminal courts to deter magistrates and governors from curtailing the profits of their operations; the contest also affected their material interests. It was the publicans, who could be 'the described as flower of the order',56 who were most active in performing judicial functions, and who as early as r68 dominated the eighteen centuries (Livy xliii. r6); their organization gave them alone among the Equites the means as well as the incentive to intervene continually in politics and they were therefore equated with the order,57 although it certainly comprised other elements. To a large extent the quarrels considered above arose between the senate and the publicans. But was there not a deeper and broader conflict be tween the orders? The Equites have often been conceived as a 'business' class, in contrast with the great landowners who composed the senatorial aristocracy. Is this conception true? And if so, was the landed class indifferent or actually hostile to the 'business' class?Was the senate under pressure from this class to be more attentive to its interests, and in particular to pursue a policy of imperial dxpansion from which it hoped tci derive profit but which the senate was reluctant to undertake? In that case s 6 S e e n . z u c C C i c .l l V c r r . ü . r 7 5 r ' p r i n c i p e s e q r . . t . i r o r d i n i r ' , : R a b . P o s t . 3 : ' C . C u r r i u s , p n n t p s equestrisordinis, fortissimuset maximus publicanus'; cl n. 39 on Plancius and Aelius Lamia. 5 1 l I V e r r .i i . r 7 4 , i i i . 9 4 , r 6 8 ( ' s i p u b l i c a n i ,h o c e s t s i e q u i t i i R o m a n i i u d i c a r e n t ' ) ;c f . n . z 7 o n R u t i l i u s ' c o n d e m n a t i o n . F l o r u s i i . 5 i d e n t i f i e sD r u s u s ' e q u e s t r i a n o p p o n e n t s ( ' r o b o r a p o p u l i Romani', Cic. Cluent.I53) with the publicans. In Cicero's view the senate'sresistanceto their demands in 6r dissolved the concordiaordinum (n.53); he could refer indifferently to the t e r r o r i z a t i o nb y C l o d i u si n 5 8 o f t h e E q u i t e s( 1 ed 0 m . 5 5 , 9 6 )a n d o f t h e p u b l i c a n s( Q r . r t i . + . + 1 .

'l'Hl:

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t . A l ' t : R t : P | .B. :L I ( :

163

was the pressure?And in so f,ar as the senate did in fact how su<:cessful oppose or neglect business interests, must this be explained by the dive rgence of the inte restsof landowners, or can quite diffe rent reasons be supplied? Something has already been said, especially in regard to the conflicts of the Bos, which bears on these questions, but they need further discussion. In the first place, the suggested dichotomy of equestrian and senatorial interests is too sharply cut. Equites as well as senators were 'business'. landowners, and senators could have their hands in I shall begin by considering the different sources of equestrian wealth. There are of course no statistics by which we can determine their relative importance. Among individuals who were certainly or probably holders of the public horse Nicolet finds 16 publicans, 46 (a vague and ambiguous term), and at least 5o landowners; negotiatores but some of them appear in more than one of these categories,and the relative tally of negotiatores is swollen by the disproportionate number of allusions in Cicero's speechesand letters of recommendation to persons with negotiain the provinces as distinguished from municipal gentry; moreover, negotiacould include the ownership of land overseas. These data do not then prove (nor does Nicolet suppose) that a majority of Equites were'businessmen', not landow.re.s.58 General considerations warrant the view that land was the main source of wealth for most Equites, as for senators;in fact, there are few instances to illustrate the thesis,which no one disputes, that the latter drew their income chiefly from Italian estates,apart from their gains in lvar and government.5e Real estate was the safestand, perhaps chiefly on this account, the most respectable investment.60 No doubt urban property for renting was often a valuable source of income,6l but in a largely agricultural society farms, sometimes leased to tenants, must have formed the greater proportion of the assetsof the rich. The publicans themselves had to find security in Italian praedia for the huge sums they might owe the treasury on their contracts.62The leading publican in Cicero's day, 5 8 N i c o l e t ,t 9 6 6 , 2 4 7 468;seethef'ablesatgr2,g44,376(butcf.pp.zg7,34r-3),and4r6for Equites (or senators of equestrian birth) of attested municipal origin or active in local g o v e r n m e n t ; m a n y o f t h e m u n i c i p a l r i o t a b l e s l i s t e d o n 4 z o f f . w e r e a l s o s u r e l y E q uA i t tees7. z f f . he lists attested Equites who were military tribunes or prefects;in my view (cf. JRS r983, 43),J. Suolahti, Junior Oficersof RomanArml in Rep.Period,r955, wasjustified in assumingthe equestrian status of all such officers; this was not an Augustan innovation. te Shutr-u., rg73, has collected and analysed what evidence there is; cf. Wiseman, App. rrr. 60 Cato, de agric.pr.; Cic. de ofic. i. r5r on agricultural property; cf n. 64. or Frier, r98o, esp. ch. rr (which cites the sparseRepublican evidence). 6 2 P o l y b .v i . 1 7 g i o l a s ) ; L i v y x x i i . 6 o . 4 ; C a t o ,f r . r o 6 M . I ' I R A ü 1 . n o . r 5 3 i . 7,üi. t3 @x Puleolana);Cic. lI Verr. i. t4tf.; FIRA i. no. 24, LXXrrrf. (lex Malacitana,based on Roman practice); Ps.-Ascon.z5z St. Praedia(which can include urban property) had to be in Italy; Cic. I'larc. 79 f.; Schol. Bobb. ro6 St.

r64

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I i q U l ' t ' U S l N ' l ' H t ] L A ' l ' F lR U P U B L I ( l

GnaeusPlancius,was a man of hereditarydistinctionin the flourishing merchantdid well to investhis rural district of Atina.63The successful gains in land, a coursethat even freedmenlike the fictional Trimalchio iollowed.6aMost men of equestriancensus,especiallyafter the enfranchisementof Italy, must have been found among the municipal gentry, the domi nobiles,like those who came up from Picenum to help in suppressingSaturninus in too (Rab. perd- ze), from Larinum and .r.i[hbo,rrittg towns to intercede for Cluentius in 66 (Cluent.I97 f.), or froä Atina "nd itr vicinity to support the younger Plancius at his trial (Planc.zr f.). Nicolet lists 49 attestedEquitesof municipal origin and inother 23 personswho held municipal offices,possibly or probably Equites; naiurally his lists are no more than illustrative (".S8)' 'business'activities, who can Though some men in this classalso had doubithat most were men like SextusRosciusof Ameria, worth 16 Amer.?9), or with r3 estatesin the Tiber valley (Roscmillion sesterces his sons?6sThe to in Arpinum lands beiqueathed Cicero's father, who interest for economic a common thus was property security of landed and Equites. both senators Still, landowners who invested large sums in the public contracts may well have obtained therefrom a much higher proportion of their income than from their estates.Certainly they had distinct economic interests.Moreover, whereas municipal gentry played only a limited role in Roman public life, chiefly as voters in the centuriate assembly (unless,like the Cicero brothers, they actually embarked on a senatorial career), the publicans were active -as a pressure group, with influence which it is easy to comprehend.66 They performed functions vital to the state in the absence of a were b.rreurrcä.y (n. 2r). The capital required and profits expected6T so great that the co-operation of many was indispenryrbleand forthco-ing. Cicero could claim that a company farming Bithynian taxes was ,pärs maxima civitatis' and was actually composedof other such compänies;so in this instance at least there was interlocking membership (Fam.xiii. 9. z). For large undertakings the publicans formed joint 61 Cic. Planc. n' 3z; cf. tt f. For his equestrian friends in the neighbourhood see 39' 6a Cic. de of. i. r5r; Petronius 76f. D'Arms, r98r, ch.5, is right that Trimalchio should be treated as typicat oniy with great caution. The great landed wealth of the freedman C. Caecilius Isidorus, .eptrted by pliny, "lfII xxxiii. r35 from his will of 8 nc, perhaps came principally by inheritance from a li{etellus (Bntnt, Latomusrg75,624ff.); he claimed liquid capital, available in part for commercial investment,amounting to 6o milliön HSS, and implied that he had hundreds äf thousandsof acresunder cultivation or pasturage. 65 Cic. de leg. ü. g, de leg.agr. iii. B; other evidencein O. E. Schmidt, CicerosVillen, r8gg, 9 ff. 66 See endnote for what follows. 3 67 The iossesof i publican mentioned inCic. Fam. xiii. Io were no doubt incidental to the civil war; the Pompeiansieized on the funds publicans held locally in Asia and Cyprus (Cacs. 8Ciii. 3r, ro3).

' t ' H u u q t ; l ' t ' 1 . : tsN ' t

H t . ;t . A ' tl : R H p U B t . t ( :

rti:l

stock companies, in which numerous investors could take shares (Polyb. vi. r7). They differed lrom all other partnerships (societates) recognized in Roman law, which were automatically dissolved by the death or withdrawal of any of the partners, subject to discharge of the mutual obligations incurred while the partnership still subsisted, and in which each partner had a personal liability to third parties arising from his actions pursuant to the purposes of the contract) even though he might be able to recover a proportionate share of his liability from his partners. The state could not have tolerated the similar dissolution of companies engaged in performing essential functions as a result of contingencies that could not be foreseen or controlled when it let out the contract. The publican companies must therefore have remained in being until they had completed their contractual obligations, for example for the construction of a building or for the collection of taxes for the prescribed period, commonly five years. Indeed, on the expiry of that period much the same group of socümay usually have obtained a renewal of their rights, as it would have been hard for rivals to have carried on work for which the former contractors had assembled a large and experienced staffof freedmen and slaves.68Tacitus seemsto suggest that some companies that farmed portoria had had a continuous existencein Nero's reign since the Republic (Ann. xiii. 5o. 3). The head offices of such companies were at Rome, where the socii could meet in conclave under magistri and pass decreta,Gesometimes on political questions not directly related to their business.It was the easier to take their views as expressing those of the whole equestrian order (n. 57), in which they tended to be the most notable figures, as the companies alone, not the order, had corporate organization; though a statue was dedicated to L. Antonius as patron of the eighteen centuries, it was perhaps individuals who paid and affected to be their representatives; and there was no precedent (Cic. Phil. vi. r3). Now on occasion the senate or magistrates withstood the publican companies, indispensable as they were, in their current operations or circumscribed the future extension of their operations. But it is hard to detect any economic interests of their own order that can have prompted such actions. They must have been proceeding in what they saw as fulfilment of their responsibility as custodians of the treasury or of the welfare of the subjects (nn. 13, 17, 53).Doubtless they more commonly failed to protect the subjects, partly because they were 6 8 ' F a m i l i a em a x i m a e ' i n A s i a : C i c . d e i m p . C n .P o m p .t 6 ; c f . B r u t . 8 5 ; C a e s .B C i i i . r o 3 . r ; D z g . xxxix. 4. r. However, competition is attested in Livy xliii. r6; Cic. Il l'err. i. r4r (small undertakines),and presumably implicit in the overbidding which would lead the Asian publicans t o s c c ka r e d u c t i o n i n p a y m e n t st o t h e t r e a s u r yi n 6 r ( n . 5 3 ) . 6e ()it. dedom.74, r4z, Sest.32, V a t . I ( o n C i c e r o ' sb a n i s h m e n ta n d r e c a l l ) , l I V e r r . t i . r 7 z ( l r r r r r r r u r i nguo v e r n o r s ) ,F l a c t .3 7 ( l e t t e r st o a l l s e n a t o r s ) .

166

THE EQUITESIN THE LA'rE REPUBLIC

apprehensive of the political Power the publicans possessedor were iliicitly sharing in their profits, partly because the public revenues depended on the work the publicans did. It must have been for fiscal ..äsotrr that some senators actually objected to the abolition of Italian portoria in 6o, which also involved an obvious loss to those who could profit from the contract. No doubt others thought the measure fiscally äefensible after the great accretion of revenues from Pompey's settlement of the east (tt.3t), and there was general relief for ltalians, consumers as well as traders, which probably gratified most Equites among others.ToThere was no clash here of the economic interests of the two orders. In certain cases not so far fully considered the senate denied or restricted opportunities for gain from public contracting. There is no actual record ofprotests from the Potential investors, though this may be due to deficiencies in our sources. In 167 it refused to lease the Macedonian gold and silver mines to Roman companies and closed them altogether, on the ground that it was unsafe to let them to the natives anä that publicaÄ would prove oppressive.Tl There was to be no Roman army of occupation in Macedon, and it was probably realized that publicans could not safely operate there except under its protection. In r 58 the mines were reopened, but not necessarilyleasedto Roman publicans; they may have been worked for the benefit of the local governments, which issued much silver in the next few years.1z Pliny tells us of a lex censoriathat forbade publicans to employ more than 5,ooo men in the gold mines near Vercellae (until 4z within the province of Cisalpine Gaul), and of an old decree of the senate that forbade all mining in Italy, a prohibition that certainly did not affect the iron mines of Elba. The date and reasonsfor these regulations are unknown. Frank conjectured that the companies which mined in Spain desired to restrict competition and that the senate perhaps wished to conserve domestic ores.t3 There is at any rate no ground for supposing that conflict between the orders arose from these enactments. So far as concerns the 70 Dio xxxvii. 3r; Cic. Au. ü. ß- r; cf. fu. rt.i. t.33. Badian, 1972' Io5, remarks that publicans were compensatedby the new contracts for taxes resulting from Pompey's conquests. 71 The agreement between Diod. xxxi. B. 6 and Livy xlv. r8. 5 shows that Livy's specific referenceto the publicans is not his own interpretation anachronisticallyimported from the later influence ofthe publicans,which already in r69 had all but ruined a censor (Livy xliii. I6); both surely drew on a fuller statement in Polybius. ?2 Cassiod.Chron.Min. (ed. Mommsen) ii. r3o. Gaebler (Z J. Num. rgo2' t43L) pointed out that the Macedonian communities minted much silve.rin the succeedingyears. The senatemay have become lessapprehensiveofa local rising. Ifso, Andriscus' revolt was a shock. Annexation followed, with the installation of a Roman garrison (lM 428f.). We know that in 63 the old royal domain in Macedon was leasedby censorsto Roman publicans (n. 75), not whether this was also true of the mines. 73 '!H xxxiii. 7 t 3 ,i i i . r 3 t | , x x x v i i . r o z . I l l b a : S t r a b o v . r . 6 ; c l F r a n k , E S , 4 Ri r 8 o .

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farming of taxes and of rents on public domains, Roman companies farmed theportoria1a and dues on public landsTsin all casesfor which we have any records, but so far as we know it was not until the Gracchan era that they were employed, in the east, to collect tribute. In Spain, for example, and probably in all western provinces except Sicily, the government was content to demand lump-sum payments from the local communities.T6 No doubt in the wilder areas publicans could not have operated safely. But the case of Sicily is striking. The tithes on grain were farmed city by city not to Roman companies but to individuai contractors, who might be Romans but commonly were not, and it was not till 75 that a Roman company was authorized to collect the quotas on fruits. Again we !_o not hear of any equestrian pressure, which the senate had to resist,77to change the Sicilian system. Conceivably the capital available for Roman companies was absorbed in other public contracts, notably tax-farming in the east. The publicans were of course not the only Equites whose capital was employed in'business'. We also hear much of negotiatores, among whom they are only included at times. It is their activity beyond Italy with which I shall primarily be concerned, since it is often thought that it affected imperial policy. Both before and after the Social war Italian negotiatoresare amply attested in the east) not only within Roman provinces but in many other places where Rome exercised a hegemony; much of our evidence comes from inscriptions. In the west there is no comparable epigraphic testimony, but literary allusions suggest, what we should in any case expect, that they were no less numerous, for instance, in Sicily, Spain, and Africa.ts E'u..t Transalpine Gaul, 1 a l t a l y n . 7 o ; S i c i l y , C i c . I l V e r r . i i . r 7 r e t c . ; A s i a , A t t .x i . r o . r ( c f . n . 9 7 ) ; C i l i c i a ,A t t . v . 1 5 . 4 ; Syria, deprot. rozs.ro (note'vectigalis'). The farming ofportoriaattestedunder the Principate also in Gaul, Africa, and Spain (De Laet, r949, 376 ff.) obviously went back to the Republic. ?s e.g. in Bithynia, Chersonese,Macedon, and presumably other public domains listed by Cic. deleg. agr. ii. 5of. Note also allusionsto scriptura,levied on cattle pastured on public domains in Asia (Lucilius 67r M; Att. v. r5. 4), Sicily (II Verr.ri. t6getc.), Afica (FIRA i2. 8. 8z etc.), Cilicia (Att. v. r5. l. FIRA l.c. shows that publicans also collected rents or tithes from cultivable land in Africa, which must have been chiefly public land, since 'plerique Poenorum', like the Spanish communities, paid lump sums as tribute to Rome without intervention by publicans (Il Verr.üi. Iz). IfSherk r2 antedatesC. Gracchus' regulation ofAsian tribute, the publicans already active then and in dispute with the Pergamenesmay have been collecting tithes only from the old royal domain. Cf. n.77 on Sicily. 76 Seelast note for Spain and Africa. Probably the same practice was adopted in Transalpine Gaul; Caesar demanded a fixed sum from the peopleshe subdued (Suet. Cars.15). 71 ll Verr.iii. r8. Seein generalV. Scramuzza, rslÄ iii. 47 ff.,253 ff., 34o f. Agerpublicus,e.g. at Leontini, was subject both to tithes leasedlocally and to a rent leasedat Rome, z5B ff. 7 8 S e ee s p . J . H a t z f e l d , r g r g ; c f B C H t g t z , 5 z r B ( D e l o s ) ,w h e n c em o s t m a t e r i a l i n E ! , 4 . Ri v lor Greeceand Asia. SeeESIR iii. 334 tr for Sicily; iii. r35-7, r43 L for Spain (cf. Gabba, rg73, z 8 q f L : r q 7 6 , r o 5 f f . ) ; i v . z 6 f f . f o r A f r i c a ( c f . S . G s e l l ,H i s t . a n c . d e l ' A f r i q u e d u N o r d v i i . 5 S t r ) ; G . C l c m e n t i ,I r o m a n i n e l l a G a l l i a m e r i d i o n at 9l e7,4 , f o r G a u l ; F r a n k , E S A R i . 3 8 7 - g z s e l e c t s e x a m p l e s . 'l'hc cvidencr for all arcas is also reviewed by Wilson, rq66, and in 1M. ch. xrv.

r6tl

t H t . lt . : e t : l i l i s t N l ' t { 1 .l:, A ' n . :R l . ] ' t ' t i l . t ( :

only fifty years after its
(n. 78) reviews the evidence ront.rr rj.40. 8l Wilson, I966, ch. vnr; Latin nomenclature is of course no proof of Roman citizenship, nor O s c a no f a l l i e d s t a t u s ;c f . p . 5 r 5 ; H a t z , f e l d (, n . Z B ) 2 3 8 f f . ' [ ' h e d e s i g n a t i o n ' I t a l i c i ' i n S a l l . R J e B , 47; Diod. xxxiv/xxxv. 3r for expatriates in Africa, and 1ZS 864; Diod. xxxiv/xxxv. 2. 27 3+ (where the referenceto Roman Equites in 3r is, given the context, unreliable) for those in Sicily, suggeststhat they were not all Roman. 82 FIRA i2. 68, l; r ff. In some provinces, hardly here, there were peasant immigrants I'rom Italy, e.g. veterans,but in my view (1M, ch. xIv) they were not numerous bclore thc 4os, nor would they have been classedas nellliatores. 83 Cf. iVilso., r966, 4-6; Nicotci 35ii ff.1 from both I differ at least in nuance. 8a Fon!. 46; cf. l'am. xiii. 53. z {ör' negotiainland. For substantial Roman estatesabroad seer Wilson, I966, 49 ff. (Africa), 56 (Sicily, where we firrd senatorsamong them, Cic. Il Vnr. üi. 93, 97, I52; the list in Scramuzza,E,SAR337 I'.,is unreliable on the occupationsof Roman residents), r 5 g f f . ( t h e e a s t ) ;c f . 1 M z r j

' I H l : t : Q l . ; l ' l ' t :l N s l H l : l . Al l : R t : l ' L r B t , l ( :

r69

m:tnasemcntol'propcrty ol'evcry kind. But elsewhereCicero differenfrom publicans, landowners,and merchants alike. liates negolialores Evidentlv he is then appropriating the terms to bankersand moneylenders.s3Individuals *hom he mtntions as 'in business'often fall in who clashedwith the this category.On the other hand, the negotiatores Asian publicansin 59 (n. g7) were patently shippers.We know alsoof 'mercatoresqui Alexandri[ai] Asiai Syriai negotiantur' (ILS 727il.In 46 the expatriatecommunity at Utica included 3oo afiluent Romans; it is inconceivablethat they were mostly occupiedin providing credit facilitiesrather than shipping grain.86The sameis surely true of the 'Italici' or 'civesRomani' who were 'in business'at Agrigentum and Panhormus(ILLRP 3Bo,387), ports where their presenceis naturally connectedrn'ith Sicilian grain exports. Many Italians at Delos were probably engaged in the slave-trade, of which Delos was the most notable centre; this particular form of trading, indispensableto the ancienteconomy,was probably despised(asit was by American slaveowners), and is therefore seldom avowed.87Bankers and moneylenderswere often, perhapsinvariably, very rich, as appearsfrom their ability to finance princes, cities, and Roman magnates.Such men cannot have been numerous.Their wealth doubtlessbrought them socialesteem,so that a Cicero could count them among his 'friends'. The various businessactivitiesof Italians overseascould be interlocking. Land was perhaps often acquired by money-lendersto whom it had been offered as security for loans never repaid.88Contractors for army suppliesand the extractionof ore (and within Italy for construction work) necessarily had to buy, sell, and move commodities (including slaves).The tax-farmerswould have huge sumsin cash at the disposalof their local representatives,pending remittances to the stateor to the investors,se which could be employedon any enterprise that promised a lucrative return; they certainly used it on making loans, banking, and trading.eoIn sum, the groups of Italians said to 85 e.g. II Verr. li. r53, r68, r88, Font. rz, Cluent.rg8, Planc.64. "u B. Afr. BB, go. Plut. CatoMinor 59 describesthe 3oo as bankers and merchants.There were also important clnaentus at e.g. Hadrumetum, Thapsus, and.Zama (8. Art.gl). 87 W. V. Harris, Mem. Amer.Acad-Rometg$o, r r ff. (r zg ff. on slave-traders).Delos: Strabo 7 xiv.5. z. 8" Cic. Flact.5r affords one example. 'vectigalium residuis' in Suet. Aug. ror. 8e Caes..BC iii. 3r, ro3; this explains eo Loans: Cic. ll Verr.ii. r86 f. It would seemthat NicomedesIII of Bithynia met his debts on loansfrom publicans by making over to them his subjectsto be sold as slaves(Diod. xxxvi. 3). The indemnity of r zo million denarii imposed by Sulla in 84 on the Asian cities is said to have swollen to a total liability of 7zo million, of which half had actually been met by 7o, when Lucullus scaled it down; the province was oppressedby 'publicans and moneyJenders' (App. BM 6g; Plul Luc. 7, ro). It can be presumed that publicans were among the creditors. Probably Sulla extracted lrom thc r:itiesthe last penny they could pay, and they were so exhausted thereafter that they could mcet arrears of the indemnitv. annual Roman taxes. and their own expenditure onlv bv

r7o

T H r :r : Q u t ' t ' t at N s ' r H EL A T ER E P U B L I C

'be in business'in overseascentrescomprised bankers,landowners, publicans,and their agents,as well as traders.Probably the last class outnumberedthe rest, but were of lessaccount. Moreover,merchantsassuchwere not only personsof relativelylow standing;they were destituteof the organizationwhich the publicans possessed.As already observed, they could not form joint stockcompaniesin which the concentrationand accumulation of capital would give them economicpower, and the corporate capacity to exert political pressureat Rome. In local centresindeed where Romans overseascongregated,they were in Cicero's time often associatedin 'conventuscivium Romanorum', whosemembers(not, of course,all of them merchants),by reasonof their richesor statusas citizensof the imperial state, might dominate the indigenouscommunities.elVery probably governorswere often responsiveto their wishes,if only from prejudice in favour of their co-nationals. Otherwise Roman 'businessmen'could only seek as individuals the intervention of powerful patrons on their behalf. The thirteenth book of Cicero's letters ad Familiarescontains a corpus of letters mostly recommending to men in official positions his friends or clients and their 'affairs' in provinces. Those for whom he solicits assistanceinclude senators, Equites, provincials, and others of unknown status.The 'affairs' are sometimes unspecified;others are explicitly related to landholding or loans, only one mentionstrade (xiii. 75). In Cicero'seyesthe trader was disreputable, unlesshe were engagedin large-scaleimportation and distribution (deofrt.i.r5r); it was surely their wealth that gave merchantsof this kind respectability. It is significant that few Romans called themselvesmerchants.e2They preferred the term negotiator or equivalent phrases,which veiled their true occupation and assimilatedthem to thosewhose'affairs', consistingin public contracts)landowning, and providing credit facilities, were better regarded. Cicero allows that someof thoseat Puteoli, the port where most of Rome's grain imports arrived, were 'honesti'; they were 'homines locupletes'.But overseas traders,who seldomvisited Rome, 'homines tenues,obscuroloco nati', borrowing, especiallyfrom Italians, at rates ofinterest determined by the paucity ofliquid funds and the poor security offered, only after Sulla's pacification of Italy; cf. Sherwin-White, r984, 24?-52.Cic. Att. vi. r. r6, z. 5 shows that publicans in Cilicia debited the cities with arrears, if possibleat usurious rates ofinterest; this was a paper transaction in which no money passedfrom the publicans,who in fact found it hard to collecton theseloans.Banking: Cic. ,Faz.v. zo. g, Att. xi. z. g. Trade: under the lex Antonia de Termessibus (68 ac) publicans are exempt from the local tolls on commodities conveyed by land or sea through their territory. Termessusis not on the seaboard; Magie r I76 f. rightly inferred that this was a standard provision, applying to other 'free' cities. er IM zzoff. e2 Nicolet appear in the Index to ILLRP, and that no Eques is 367 notes that only 3 mercalnres so described. Cf. J. Roug6, Recherthessur I'organisationdu commerce maritime en Miditerranie sous I'empirerom., 1966, 274tr.

' r H EE Q U I T E lSN r H E L A T ER E P U B L I C

t7l

the sort whom Verres thought it safeto [log, castinto the quarries,and execute, Roman citizens though they were, were probably more neither equestrianstatusnor political typical, and obviouslypossessed influence.e3Though Cicero'sclient Rabirius Postumuscertainly engagedin trade on a large scale,it is his more respectableactivitiesas publican and money-lender that Cicero choosesto stress.Specific allusions, literary or epigraphic, to merchants are rare, and no prominent Equesknown to us was primarily a merchant.Atticus, for instance,drew his income from urban property, estatesin Epirus, and banking and money-lending.ea Petitionisillustrates the electoral importance of The Commentariolum the publicans (3, 5o) and of the eighteencenturies(33); there is no mention of traders.et h 49, when Cicero enumeratesthe various categoriesof 'boni' in Italy, i.e. of 'locupletes',he mentions only publicans, money-lenders,and landowners, and in lamenting the hardshipsthat Pompey'sprojectedblockademust inflict on Italy, he has not a word of the lossesthat traders will incur.e6 Cicero adjured his brother as proconsul of Asia to conciliate the publicans and others there whose businesshad enriched them and who thought that they owed the security of their fortunesto his consulship.Since he prided himselfin restoringcredit in6g (deffic.ä. 84), the 'others'hehad in mind were probably money-lenders.It was alsoQuintus' duty to care for the provincials; Cicero admits that it was a hard task to mediate betweenthem and tu: residentRomans;it is plain that he was thinking primarily of the excessiveclaims of the publicans, though he was somewhat perturbed by the arbitrary dealings of Quintus with some other individual Romans, including one Catienus, 'homo levis ac sordidus[perhapsthen a trader] sed tamen equestricensu'.When the farmers of the Asian portoriawere involved in a dispute both with the provincials and the local Roman shippers, Cicero thought that the latter were in the right, but he hoped for a compromiseand in the last resort was prepared for political reasonsto back the publicans.eT e3 II Verr.v. r54 (Puteoli), contrast iii.96, v. r4o-68, esp. 167. Negotiatores ofhigher rank in S i c i l y ( e . g .i i . 6 9 , i i i . t 4 8 , i v . 4 z f . ) n e e d n o t b e m e r c h a n t s . ea Rabirius: Nicolet roooff. (cf. 76eff. on Aelius Lamia); Atticus:.RE Suppl. viii.516ff. (t'ager); Nepos,lll. r4. 3 is incorrect in deriving his wealth almost entirely from his Epirote land, s e ee . g .C i c .A t t . i . 1 3 . r , 1 9 . 9 , z o . 4 , i v . r 5 . 7 , 1 6 . 7 , v . 1 3 . z , v i . r . 2 5 , i x . 9 . 4 . es Note also z9 on 'multi homines urbani industrii, multi libertini in foro gratiosi'. The votes evenoffreedmen,presumablyengagedin trade and industry at Rome itself,were worth canvassing, doubtlessbecausethey controlled the centuriesofthe first classin the four urban tribes.The Tabula Hebana(EJ 94a. 23,33) implies that few, ifany, senatorsor Equites were registeredin two ofthese tribes (Succusanaand Esquilina) in the early Principate. - Au.vr.7. 5. Ix.9. 2, to. 3. n'qu.-fr.i.r.6f,33,i.z.6,Att.ü.16.4(withShackletonBaileyadloc.;textandinterpretation in detail are difficult).

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't'HH l : e t .I:' t U s t N t . H t :t . Al . l :R H p t : B t . t ( :

cicero's speechin favour ol'the Manirian law is of somesignificance . in this connection,not leastbecauseit is necessarily his cue t; dwell on those considerationswhich he expected to have most efibct on a po-pularaudience.I_narguing that pompey was the right man to finish off the war with Mithridates, he natuialiy expatiatä o., his success against-thepirates.Their_depredations had obviouslybeeninjurious to all sea-bornetrade, and cicero refersto this, but he makesmtre of'the lossesof revenue' the difficuljr of transporting troops, the sufferings of Roman socii,the damage to Rome's prestige;äborr"'uil he insistson the danger to the vital corn-supply.es for üithridutes, Rome's honour requireshis elimination;it is in this connectionthat iicero recalls, but in a rather colourlessway, his massacreof Italians in BB, i.e. of negotiatores as well as publicans. Economic interestsalso have a large place in the argument. Cicero reminds his audience that many Romans besidesthe publicanshave property in Asia, and that if this property is put at risk there may be a recurrenceof the credit crisis at Rome itselfwhich had followedMithridates' invasionof Asia in BB. It would seemrhat he was-thinkingchieflyof Italian bankersand moneylenders in the east, though he also-implies that the interests of merchantswere at stak^e, when claiming that in the past Rome had Rome's'dutyto protect fought many wars in defenceof her merc"hants. her subjectsis far more often his theme; and he insistsprincipälly on the necessityof securing the state'srevenuesand of p.ot..ii.rg th. publicanson whom the-treasuryrelied for collection.erthe reraiively low importancethat he layson purely commercialinterestsreflects not merely or chiefly his own attitude, but that which he assumedto be prevalent. If all this be true, negotiatores, traders,and even bankers or moneylendershad no such meansat their disposalas publicansfor operating as political pressuregroups or determining the attitude of the Equitei as an order. There is, however, nothing to show that senatorsevinced any antagonism to their interests.senators too could take part in all sorts of 'business'enterprises.Some owned lands overse;s (rr.s+) . others defied or evaded the ban on their sharing in public contracts (n' r). others again engagedin rrade and money-"t.nairrg.Allthis was compatible with social prejudices against trading or mäney-lending, partly becausethe involvement of senatorsin busiiesscould be effected through intermediaries,partly becausetheir wealth and statusdid not e8 Pirates, ( e i m p . C n P o m p . 3 rf f . ; e f f e c t s o n . 1 r 1 d eg, r f . ; o n s o c i i 3 2 ; o n r e v e n u e s , 3 z ; o n a r m i e s , 3z; on grain imports, 33 f,; It is implicit thit pompey rästored the staie-,s'honour,as e m p h a s i z e d i n t h e l e x G a b i n i{.a c.44. a l p u r n(ibae s t t e x t i n N i c o r e t e t ' a \ . I, n s u r a s a c r a , t g g o ) ; t h a t i s a g a i n involved in the Mithridatic war (6 ff.). Mithridates: massacre, 7 @f. Ftacc.6o7i.r:;;, 4,6, rz, r4, rr;aitigatia,4f., :g:2t,4^;negotiatores,6,r7ff.;creditcrisisofgg,rg;.,u.rfougiiio.-"..hurJr, 6 f , 1 4 f f . , 2 r , 4 5 ;p u b l i c a n sr ,5 - r 7 .

'I

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t73

depend on theseactivities.In any case there could be no objection to the trading that was integral to the management of their own estates. It is true that in 2rB a law proposedby the tribune Q. Claudius enacted that no senator or his son might possessa ship with a capacity of over 3oo amphorar, enough, it was held, for the conveyance of the fruits of his own estates.We do not know why it was passed, but Livy's explanationthat'all commercialgain appearedunbefitting to senators', though it accords with the prejudices expressed by Cicero, cannot have representedaristocratic sentiments at the time, since it is said to have been solidly opposed by the nobility; that suggestsincidentally that it is unlikely to have been enforced. Cicero in prosecuting Verres, who had as governor of Sicily built and operated a ship, concedesHortensius' plea in defence that the old laws Verres had violated were dead. That in turn suggeststhat Verres' conduct, though probably unusual, was not without precedent.eeSenatorswere neceisarilyinterestedin commerce, to the extent that even the Claudian law recognizedas legitimate, in so far as they had to market surplusesof their estates.They might also manufacture wine and oil from their grapes and olives, rather than contract the work out or sell the fruits.loo The produce of their lands might include material for making bricks, tiles, pottery, and fuller's earth, and they might have their own kilns and workshops for these purposes.Their wine and oil might be shipped in their own amphorae. Some amphoraebear the marks of a great noble, Appius Claudius Pulcher, perhaps the consul of 38; and the Sestii of Cosa, who probably first attained senatorial status in the first century, operated in this way on a fairly large scale.lor Senatorsalso did not refrain from money-lending.Though Cato the censor approved the old legal rule that a usurer was to be mulcted fourfold, it was already obsoletein his own day. He himself participated in bottomry loans, which could be distinguished from other loans at interest, since they were in part a form of insurance on ships and cargoes,and almost indispensableto sea-bornecommerce. And even the moral disapprobation of usury still voiced by Cicero did not deter eminent aristocratsof his time. Pompev and Marcus Brutus. from ee Liry xxi. 63. r (modern interpretations are various and all conjectural); Cic. Il Verr,v. 45. Paul (cf. n. r) says that the ban was reimposed by Caesar's law de repetundis of59; cl Dig.xlix. 14. 46.z; l. 5. g. r0o Contrast Cato, de agric. ro-rg with t44-7. 10r D'Arms, rgSr (admirably indexed), chs. z-4, and for the early Principate ch.7, though some of his examples are too speculativeor partly vitiated by his misconception about Roman 'company law' (n.66). CL Wiseman r98 f.

r74

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lending to princesor citiesat ratesof interestexceedingthoseallowed by law. They acted through men of straw who, as it happened,were almost certainly Equites.rö2 The rich, including senators,would naturally have large liquid sums at their disposal,not all of which they would wish to seelying idle in their coffersor on depositwith bankers.Thesemoneysweresurelyused not only to make loans of the kind made by Pompey and Brutus or to supply credit, asMarcus Crassusdid, to other Romansof standing,but also to finance the businessundertakings of their own slavesand freedmen.Slavescould carry on many transactionswith their peculium, money or other assetswhich belongedin law to their masters,but which for certain purposeswas treatedas their own.103Obviously the masterstook a sharein the proceeds.Such slaveswould tend to obtain manumission,and continue in the samebusiness, often still supported by patrons.To judge from inscriptions,in Rome and to a lesserextent in other Italian towns men of servile status or extraction had a large, sometimesa preponderant, share in many trading and industrial enterprises(cf. n.95). They might amassgreat wealth, some part of which their patrons might often have the right to inherit on their decease. But it is unlikely that they could have startedwithout capital provided by their owners or patrons, who may often have had a continuing interestin their ventures.loaC. CaeciliusIsidorus (".6+) may well have laid the basisof his fortune with money that a Metellus placed at his disposal.Somefreedmenin businessin the eastbear the gentilenamesof proud aristocraticfamilies.lo5By thesemeanssenators could, without soiling their own hands,draw profits from sourcesthat they did not need to acknowledgeand that Cicero disparaged.'Multis occullo crescitres faenore' (Hor. ep.i. r. Bo). Very possiblysomeRepublican senatorshad no stakein 'business'; to2 Deagric.pr.r;Cic.deffic.ii.89; cf.i. r5o; Plut. CatoMaiorzr.Brutusandpompey: Cic.AU. v . 2 r . r o - r 2 , v i . r . 3 - 7 , 2 . 7 - 9 , Z . 5 , F a m . x ü i . 5 6 . A s B r u t u s ' a g e n t sh e l d p r e f e c t u r e su n d e r A p . claudius or cicero, I regard them as Equites (cf. n. 5B). cic. Parad. t6 indicts crassus for 'dimissionem libertorum ad defaenerandasdiripiendasque provincias'; by contrast ro eminenr Romans he lent free ofinterest (Plut. cr. 3. l), putting political obligations on many senators (Sall. Cal. 48. 5). The provincial negotiaof other senarors(Fam. xüi. 4t f.,55, l7) were no doubt loans. Q. considius who was owed r 5 million HSS in 63 by other Romans was perhaps a senator (Nicolet 848 t). For Cicero himself seeJ. Carcopino, Cicero,The Secreß of hisCorrespondence, rg9t, 55 tr Cf. also Wiseman r99 ff. r03 Buckland, r9o8, chs. vrrr f.: the little Republican evidence (A. Watson, Law of personsin the LaterRomanRep.,tg67, I78 ff.) is sufficient to show that essentiallythe relevant classicallaw eoes back to the Republic. roa Treggiari gr ro6. Most Capuan manufacturersin M. W. F'rederiksen,pBSit rg5g, ro7 ff., are freedmen. The data analysed by Gummerus, Rä ix. r496 ff., are chiefly imperial, but what Republican evidencethere is fits his picture; probably the'statistics'somewhatunderrate the part played by the lreeborn in trade and industry (lM 387). los Wilron, r966, r ro.

THE EQUITESIN THE LATE REPUBLIC

175

thosewho had could probably have said, like the younger Pliny in a later time: 'I am almost entirely in real estate,but have somemoney out at interest' (Ep. ü1.20. B). Their own interestsin businesswould have then been marginal. But many besidesCicero would have had 'friends'or clientsin the business world, and senatorswho had to resort to borrowing had reason perhaps to ingratiate themselveswith their creditorsin their political conduct. Yet just as the senate, or individual governorsof the most various political complexions,Lucullus and Gabinius, Caesar and Cicero, could at times withstand the pressureof publicans for the benefit of treasury or taxpayers, so they could also set themselvesagainst the of usury.106The primitive laws that forbade or limited the excesses 107In the relatively complex taking of interest were indeed obsolete. economy of the late Republic the provision of credit facilities was indispensable,and it was recognized that it could not be obtained unlessthere were a reasonablereturn on loans. When good security was available,the normal rate of interestwas not high. At Rome it had been no more than t per cent per month ir 54, when it doubled becauseso much liquid cashwas taken up in electoralcorruption (Cic. Att. iv. 15. 7). In such conditions the maintenance of credit was considereda necessity.In 63 under Cicero's leadership the senate would srant no relief to debtors and forced them to fulfil their 'fundamentaotiosae obligatiänsin full.lo8 Credit (fides)wasamong the dignitatis'on which Cicero expectedall good men to agree(pp.6I f.). Mithridates had to be eliminated among other reasons because insecurityin Asia could lead to a crisisin the money-market(n. 98). It was only in exceptional conditions due to civil wars in the Bosand 4os that specialrelief was given to debtors (pp. I58 f.). However, the ancient prejudice against usury persistedto the extent that attempts could be made to limit rates of interest to those which were considered fair; but these attempts reflected traditional moral views rather than the self-interestof a landed classin Italy which was supposedlyin constant financial embarrassment.Lucullus banned usury in Asia for the sakeof the provincials, not of Italian landowners; l06 Lucullus in Asia limited the rate of interest to I per cent (compound?) monthly, deducted interest already paid (at a higher rate?) from principal due for repayment, and provided that no creditor should receivemore than a quarter ofa debtor's income: it is said that all loans were then paid offin four years (Phtt. Luc. zo). Caesarwould allow creditors in Spain to take no more than two thirds ofdebtors'incomes (Caes.tz; we may note that usuriousexactionswere not confined to eastern provinces; cf. Cic. Mur. 4z; Sall. Cat.4o for indebtednessin Transalpine Gaul, which doubtlessled to the Allobrogic revolt of 6:, Dio xxxvii. 4z etc.).Gabinius: n. 29. Cicero: Att. v. 2r . r r 1 3 ( m a x i m u m i n t e r e s tf i x e d a t r p e r c e n t c o m p o u n d a m o n t h ) , v i . r . 1 6 , e . 5 ; h e w o u l d appoint no negotiatlrin his province as prefect (v. zI. Io). r07 For what follows see generally RE vi. zr87 ff. (Klingmüller); ch.6 n.6o. 108Cic. de f f i c . ü . 8 4 ; c f . D i o x x x v i i . 2 5 . 4 ; C i c . C a t .i i . r 8 z r ; S ^ l l . C a t . 2 r . 3 3 .

t76

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Cicero says that the 'aequitas'of his regulationswas such that they were observedfor the next twenty years.10eHe himself took similar rrleasuresin Cilicia and announced them in an edict he terms tralatician (Att. vi. r. r5f.). They probably accorded with those commonly adopted in principle sinceQ. Scaevola'sgovernment of Asia (r. g5), even if Lucullus' predecessors in Asia left them in abeyance there. It was probably for the benefit of provincials that the senare itself passeda decreeof unknown content in 6o, which had the effect of preventing Atticus from collecting what he thought his due from the free city of Sicyon. Cicero imputes it partly to malice (i.e. against negotiatares), partly to the conception that it was fair. The second explanationis more plausiblethan the first. The decreenot only had the support of Cato, who proclaimed his devotion to the welfare of the subjects,but of the pedarü,the very sectionof the senatein which men of equestrian origins and connections can be presumed to have predominated.IIo In 5 r-5o the senatedecreedthat at Rome interestshould be limited to r per cent per month.lll We do not know why this measurewas passed;the maximum fixed much exceededthat to which the rate had risen in 54; perhaps fear of civil war had already reduced liquidity. A critic alleged that this was subversive of credit, but the rule then establishedseemsto have remained nominally in force throughout the Principate, though it did not apply to bottomry loans with the grearer risks that they involved. we should not ascribeit to sectionalinreresror hostility to 'businessmen', many of whom, no less than landowners, would have benefitedfrom relatively easyterms of credit. It is of course unwarranted to assume that the senate was never actuated by considerationsofjustice and the general welfare, even though it might be too ready to grant exemptions to persons of influence without scrutiny; in the same way individuals like Atticus (Att. vi. r. 5) or Cicero himself (n.r+) could apply pressureon governorsto accedeto the claims of their friends without regard to merits of those claims, which they might choosenot to inspect too closely. Limitation of interest rates was a deviation from the normal laissezfaire attitude of ancient states,Rome included, an-attitude not inspired by economictheory, of which there was none,ll2 but conditioned by the lack of government machinery to make interference effective. There was hardly any regulation of trade or industry. They might r . o . eA m d . P r . ü . tto Att. i. zo. 3. 4, li. r. ro; cf. i. r3. r, 19.g. ttt Ci.. Att.v. (the allusion to C. Iulius is obscure). On ttre öa6inian law forbidding zt. 13 at Rome to foreign embassies,seeM. Bonnefond in c. Nicolet (ed.), Des ordresä Rone, rg8 f, !oa1s 6r ff.; it was not designedto restrain moneyJending to provincials. r12 M. I. Finley, r985,ch. vr.

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indeed be subject to taxation. Ancient states were loath to tax citizens directly; they preferred to rely on rents lrom public domains, including mines, on transit and customs dues, monopolies, taxes on sales or on particular occupations, and so forth. All these revenues could be, and commonly were, collected by publicans in default of a civil service. For the same reason there could be no effective control of private commercial and industrial enterprises, and laws like those on usury were apt to fall into desuetude; the enforcement of laws too commonly rested on the private efforts of delators incited by rewards. Customs duties were normally levied with no regard to the ownership or provenance of the goods or the ships carrying them. This was, for instance, the Roman practice both in Italy and the provinces. The aim was to raise revenue; no one thought of giving preference to native producers or merchants; in fact duties were generally low.ll3 There is indeed one important qualification to be made in regard to this laisseT faire habit. Governments were always concerned to ensure the importation of essential supplies, especially food. They would therefore intervene when private enterprise could not be expected to meet the . need. At various times the Republican government took steps to procure imports of grain when i dearth threatened shipments to Rome. The construction by magistrates in the second century of harbour works, emporia,and the like also facilitated the city's imports; there is no need to invoke the influence of traders, even though it was of advantage to them.11a Trade was undoubtedly important in the Italian economy. The city of Rome had become dependent on imports of grain, especially from Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. Even grain collected as tithes had to be transported by private enterprise, and much more must have been bought and shipped by merchants on their own account. Storage too was probably provided chiefly or entirely in private granaries.lls Naturally Italian businesscommunities were especially conspicuous in Sicily and Africa. There were also substantial imports of luxury goods and of slaves. It is often thought that most slaves imported were captives made by Roman generals, but even these would normally be sold in the camp, and placed on the Italian market by slave-dealers; and in fact many or most of those who reached Italy came from regions where Rome had fought no wars, and must have been purchased by traders, partly among the victims of piracy or of fighting between 11r De Laet,rg4g,Partl.LowadualoremratesareattestedinRepublicanSicily(Cic. IIVerr.li. r85: 5 per cent) and in the Principate, except fbr tolls at imperial frontiers; in Gaul duties on wine varied from place to place (De Laet 79 ff.). l l a R i c k m a n , r g 8 o , c h s .r r r . rr5 Rickman, rg8o, chs. v and vr. Some horrea were owned by senators.

r78

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peoplesbeyond the frontiers.The importanceof Delosas an emporium, and the prominenceof Italians there, probably dependedin part on the slave-trade(n. 87). The cost of imports was met not only from the profits of empire but by exports, for instance of wine. Italians presumably had some advantage in supplying the needsor shipping the products of their own country; moreover, the influx of wealth into Italy may well have meant that Italians tended to have more capital than others for all kinds of commercial undertakings,notably of course for banking and moneyJending. But in general the Roman government in the Republic had no incentive to promote Roman or Italian trading activity. This was not the result of hostility to or contempt for the 'business'community, nor to deliberateindifferenceto its interests; it was the product of a habitual and unconsciousattitude which kept the state aloof from commercial activity, except in so far as it was a sourceof public revenue or indispensableto the procurement of vital supplies. It is true that in the first century it seemsto have beenRome'spolicy to require exemption from the tolls imposed by cities within Rome's dominion for goods transported by publicans (n.9o). This was a privilege procured by their exceptional power and the importance of their public functions,and it would not have beenneeded,if citizensas such already enjoyed the sameimmunity. Probably then the insistence of the governmentin rB7 that Ambracia shouldfree all Italian traders from her tolls is an instance as isolated as it is inexplicable of a policy lavouring them. In 168 Rome made Delos a free port. The effect,and probably the intention, was to divert much traffic from Rhodes, to diminish her revenuefrom customsduties,and in consequence to weakenher naval power. Delos became the principal emporium of the Aegean, especially after the destructionof Corinth in r46, which was, so far as we can tell, a purely vindictive punishment for disloyalty. Certainly Italian negotiatoresfl.ockedto Delos, but so did others of various nationalities: the Italians had no specialprivileges.ll6 To an increasingextent sea-bornecommercein the Mediterranean sufferedfrom the depredationsof the pirates. These naturally affected the necessaryimports of peoplesunder Roman rule or protection, and eventuallyof Rome herself.In roz the senatemade its first attempt to suppressthe evil by dispatching M. Antonius to Cilicia. A more systematicassaultwas planned in ror or roo. There is reasonto think that it was promotedby populares. The extant fragmentsof the law that they carried declaresthat it is designedto enableRomans,Latins, and L i v y x x x v i i i . 4 4 . 4 ( A m b r a c i a ) ; P o l y b . x x x i . r o ( D e l o s ) .H a r r i s , r g 7 9 , 9 4 ( a m o n g o t h e r s ) , .rr6 takes a somewhat different viewi cf. n. rzo.

t t Q U l ' t ' E Sl N ' l ' H l i L A ' I ' E R I P U B L I C

r79

all peoplesin the lriendship of the Roman people to sail the seasin safetyand obtain what is right.1r7 On this footing it was not inspired by merely Roman commercialinterests. The measurestaken at this time had at bestonly temporary success. By 6Z the pirates had all but closed the seas.Rome's prestigewas damaged, and the population of Rome was in danger of famine. It is clear that thesewere the chief considerationsthat made the demand for the appointment of Pompey to clear the seasirresistible. If the senate opposedit, it was for political reasons:the senatorswere jealous and apprehensiveof Pompey. It has been conjectured that they had been Iessready to initiate effectiveaction becausethe pirates contributed to ofthe slaveswhoselabour they needed the abundanceand cheapness on their estates.There is no proof of this, and it seemsmore likely that their inertia is an example of their general incapacity at this time for the efficient conduct of affairs; probably too no one but Pompey had the insight to discern that the evil could be suppressedonly by an organization extending over all the seasunder a unified command.l r 8 It was alsoonly under popular pressurethat in 5Z Pompey was granted the curaannrnaefor five years, with the imperiumneeded to requisition crops and stocks in the hands of merchants and to divert corn ships from other destinations to Rome. These powers were not obviously agreeableto merchants,but they were necessaryfor the provisioning of the city.rre Both in 67 and 57 this quite traditional concernlay behind extraordinary measures.As was often the case, the senate failed to dischargeits accepted responsibilities,but its hand was forced not by sinister commercial interestsbut by popular clamour. IV The mentality

implicit

in the normal

laisseTfaire policy,

not sustained

by any doctrinal justification but followed unthinkingly, makes it unlikely not only that the senate would have deliberately furthered commercial enterprises by systematic state intervention but even that Roman businessmen would have conceiveri the possibility of seeking this support; nor, as we have seen, were they organized to press for it. It was another matter that considerations of honour and prestige imposed on the government an obligation to protect the lives and property of its citizens, and for that matter of other allied and friendly peoples who r11 MRR. i. 568. M. Hassall and others combine and comment on the Delphi and Cnidos fragments of the 'pirate law' from which I quote u 6 ff. in JrRS 1974, rg5 ff. t"" e.g. Magie, r95o, ch. xrr; cf. n. 98. Strabo xiv. 5. z stresses the pirates' part in making ,,.".r. rre Cic. Att. iv. t. 7 , Q . u . - f r . r i .5 , d e d o m .r 4 - 3 r , e t c .

r8o

'l'Hr:

' r ' H ur : Q u l ' l ' t : sr N ' l H H r , A ' r ' rR, D P U B L T ( :

UqUl'l'us IN't'Hl: LA'l'l: RllPt,'BLl(:

'-fhe

happened to be active in affairs outside Roman territory. publicans,it is true, who were actually exploiting public lands and revenues,might easilyhave entertainedthe hope of extendingthe field of their activity; yet in fact, as already remarked,their scopecontinued at all times to be somewhatrestricted,and so far as we know, without proteston their part. None the less,it has been held that publicansor negotiatores or both favoured imperial aggrandizement for their own profit, and either resentedthe senate'sreluctanceto respondto their wishesor forced the senateto comply. The notion that their interestshad any effect on the senate'sforeign policy, at leastin pre-Gracchantimes,hasbeendeniedin particular by those modern historians who discount any economic motives for the expansion of Rome's power, and who are partial to Roman claims that, apart from some unauthorized campaigns initiated by generals greedy for plunder and military glory, Rome fought only to repel attacks on her own territory or on her friends and allies, or at worst to anticipate and prevent future aggressionswhich were sincerely, if sometimesunreasonably,feared.l20Many wars which resultedin the extensionof Rome's dominion can certainly be explained in this way. But various reservationsmust be made. Certainly the supposed reluctanceof the senateto annex new provincesis not proof that its policy was essentiallydefensive. (a) We must not neglectthe Roman craving for'glory'or what we might prefer to call honour or prestige,which was to be obtained by victory in war and the subjection of other states to Rome's will; individualstoo in all ranks cravedfor military distinction.Annexation was not necessaryto satisfy this impulse. The Roman empire was conceivedas extendingto all peoplesthat could be expectedto submit to Rome's instructionsand not merely to thoseunder direct administration. By Cicero'stime Romans could already think that they were destinedby the gods to rule the world (Phil.vi. r9). Any resistanceto them could then be treated as unjustifiable. annexationsin the /ü,) Rome showedno reluctanceto make overseas r2o See..g. T. Frank, Am. Hist..Rea. rgrzl3; c[. RomanImperialismpassim,mntra e.g. G. de Sanctis,Sl. d. Rom.iv. z6 n. 58, 554 n. r 6 r ; E. Gabba, ry73, 2rg ff. : r 976, 78 ff., who invoked the authority of Rostovtzeff;but the latter came to agree with Frank on the treatment of Macedon, Rhodes, Corinth, and Carthage (SEHHW 737 f., 787 f.); it is no longer necessaryto discussthese matters fully. In what follows I am in general agreement with Harris, r979, though he allows some commercial influence on Roman policy (g3 ff.); cf. Papersand MonographsoJ the American Academ2 in Romerg94, l3 ff.; the volumc contains other interesting essayscln Roman imperialism with bibliographies, notably Gruen's able but unconvincing depreciation of economic motives. Cf. also Brunt, Zazs Inperii; it need not be denied rhat the Romans waged meny wars in accordancewith their own peculiar and biased conception ofwhat a defensivewar was. Harris, 1979, ch. rv, rightly rraverses the doctrine, accepted by e.g. Badian, 1967, of rhe senatc's d c l i b e r a t r a v e r s i o r tro a n n e x a t i o n s .

rflr

third century, when the provincesof Sicily, Sardinia, and Hither and Further Spain were constituted.Admittedly two generationspassed before additional and still limited annexationswere made. Certainly the senatepursued no plan of systematicaggrandizement.This is not least clear in the caseof Spain. The limits of the provinces there were pushedforward only intermittently and on the initiative of individual governors;it was left to Augustus to pacify the whole peninsula,which he did in a decadeby deploying exceptionallylarge forces.(Incidentally, it was only thereafter that the rich mineral resourcesof Asturia could be exploited.)The senateseemsto have been incapable,as we might expectfrom a body already in pre-Sullan times composedof 3oo members, of the insight, resolution, and consistency to devise and executethis kind ofexpansioniststrategy.It reactedto contingencies as If we suppose they arose,as indeed did most of Augustus' successors. that it was guided by considerationsof gain as well as of mere defence, we may then note that the treasury was for decadesas amply fed by indemnities paid annually as it might have been by the imposition of tribute on provincials. Moreover, the burden of military servicebore heavily on the citizens; the senatewas bound to have some regard to public opinion before prolonging a war d outrance when submissionand indemnitiescould be more easilyobtained, and perhaps (as in Spain and Macedon) incurring the subsequentnecessityof installingpermanent garrisons, to keep the subjects down and ward off external attacks;even on a financial reckoningthe costsmight then exceedthe return. In some casesthe easeof annexationhas been overestimated. And no doubt the senatemight be jealousof the pre-eminencethat an able general might attain from outstanding military success,and fearful of disaster,if armies were led incompetently. (c) It is not plausible that Romans were ever unconsciousof or indifferent to the profits of conquest.Rome's expansionin Italy before 264, and later still in the north, involved great accretionsin territory where the wealthy could aggrandize their landholdings and peasant colonistscould increaseand multiply. The booty that many acquired in the Italian campaignsprompted the hope in 264that interventionin Sicily would prove no lesslucrative, a hope that contributed to the outbreak of the first Punic warr2r and the extensionof Roman power overseas.At all times generalsand soldierscould be incited to offensive operationsby the sameprospect,though campaigningwhich brought few rewardswas unattractive.In the secondcentury imperial revenues filled the treasury,and made it possibleto suspendindefinitelydirect taxation on Roman citizens.Membersof the ruling order, not to speak t2l Polyb. i. r r. There were other powerful reasonsboth for and against intervention (cf. ro).

r8e

' l ' H r :U Q U I ' I ' Ul S N ' t ' H UL A ' r ' rR] t i p U B L r C

of the publicans,were enrichedby the profits of war and government. At a later stagethe populace received manifest benefitsfrom annexations."'We cannot be sure that but for popular demand the senate would have acceptedAttalus III's bequestof his kingdom; in any case Tiberius Gracchus appropriated receipts to fitting out his settlerson Roman public land, and GaiusGracchuspresumablyfound the money for his corn dole and public works by a more efficient exploitation of the new province. The conquestsof Pompey financed greatly increased expenditure for the benefit of the urban plebs and settlerson the land. Clodius also promoted the annexation of Cyprus, perhaps to assistin meeting the cost of the corn dole.123But even if we ailorv that the profits of empire were both perceivedand desired,the profits envisaged derived from plunder and the augmentation of public revenues,and they advantaged many sectionsof the citizen body. For Thucydides (i. 76 f.) profit, fear, and glory were the three motives that decided men's actions. Roman policy illustrates this diagnosis.Which, if any, was dominant at any given moment, it would often be hard to say. But in so far as we give weight to profit, it is not necessaryto contend that either publicans or other negotiatores played a significant part in disposing men to imperialist policies: there were much more evident economic benefits for Romans of all sorts. The specialinterestsof publicans and negotiatores it may be added, were not precisely the same. Negotiatores could and did flourish beyond the frontiers of provinces,wherever they could expect local governmentsto be too apprehensiveof Rome to threaten their security or even curb their activity: publicanscould farm taxesand rents on public domains or extract ore from state-ownedminesl2aonly after annexation. There were also profits to be made from the supply of armies, though wars must have interfered with much other commerce. Cicero assertedin 66 that Rome had often fought to redresswrongs to her merchantsand shipowners(n. gB). A few possibleinstancescan be cited. In the z3osRome forced carthage to liberate Italian traders 122 Badiar, r967, stressed this. 123 Sterwin-white, r984, z68 ff., who rightly notesthat clodius and his friends could not gain personally from the annexation, suggesrsthat he was motivated by rancour against the king. Be this as it may, he must havejustified his measurepublicly in other ways. Sherwin-White seeksto show that the treasury did not need additional resources.His calculationsare speculative,but in any case Cicero could in the years 59 56 assertor believe that the extravaganie of the populares w a s e x h a u s t i n g t h e t r e a s u r y ; s e e , { t t1 . i6i .. r , 1 7 . r , p o s t r e d . s e n . r B , d e d o m . z B , V a t . 5 - z g , p t s . z g . 57; we may perhaps give some credence to Qt.-fr.ü. 5. r, de har. resp.6o, deproz,.cons.rr; and Clodius could build on such allegations,whether true or not, when advocatine the acquisition of C y p r u s . C [ c h . r . e n d n o t e6 . 1 2 4 P o l y b .x x x i v . I o . r o - I z ( c f . W a l b a n k a d l o c . ) , h o w e v e r ,a t t e s t sr h a t I t a l i a n sl o r s o m e t i m e joined in working the gold mines in Noricum beyond the frontier, but were expelled bv the natives, who wished to monopolize the profits.

't'HH

l:qul't'l:s lN l Ht: l,A'lH RllPUBt,l(l

r83

arrested for supplying her rebel mercenariesin Africa; their illtreatment afforded a justification for seizingSardinia under threat of war. In 22g an expedition was launched against the Illyrians on the plea that they had robbed and killed Italian merchants.But in both caseswe can adduce other possibleor probable reasonsfor action. Sardinia was to be a sourceof revenue,and the Romans may have desired to extend their power across the Adriatic.l2s In uny.ut. injuries to any citizens or persons under Rome's protection were affronts to Rome's honour, and in so far as they were true causesof war, it still does not follow that the aim was to promote business interests. This considerationis relevant to the claim that the Jugurthine war was inspired by economicmotives.It is clear enough that there were not only in the province of Africa but in numerous Italian negotiatores the Numidian kingdom. At Cirta they defendedking Adherbal against Jugurtha massacredthem Jugurtha's attacks, and as a consequence (Sall..BJ zz, z6). There was a popular outcry at Rome, and the senate was finally forced, against the inclinations of those who had the most influencein its deliberations,to undertakea war for the destructionof Jugurtha. The senatorsheld to be responsiblefor its earlier failure to protect Adherbal and for the failure of the first campaign were suspectedof corruption, a charge that Sallust took to be proven and that was presumablyacceptedby the court establishedby the Mamilian law. The 'Gracchani iudices' who composed the court and condemnedthe defendantswere evidently Equites,a fact that Sallust doesnot notice.126 The speechof the tribune Memmius which, whether or not it is drawn at least in part from some authentic account of what he said, representsSallust'sown interpretation of anti-senatorialagitation at the time, accusesthe senateof sacrificingnot the economicinterestsof of the state.l27It or imperium any sectionof the peoplebut the maiestas is also replete with bitterness at the arrogant exclusivenessof the nobility which monopolizedpower. If this motif is authentic, it no doubt reflectsthe attitude of somemen of equestrianorigin like Sallust himself,who aspired to a sharein government (n. 4I). Sallust also stressedthe hatred felt by the plebs for the nobility, of the Gracchi. It is the plebsthat exacerbatedby the cruel suppression is determined on Jugurtha's destruction (3o, 33. 3), yet so far from suggestingthat it was actuatedby genuinecare for Roman honour, he t 2 5 [ ) e i m p . C n . P o m p .r r ; H a r r i s , r 9 7 9 , 6 5 , r 9 5 - 7 . f 26 ()orruption:BJ 13, r5 [, :r5. 2g,32-5,4o. r, 8o. 5. Mamilian court: GC 68 f. t " R , 7 g t ( s c c t i o n s q a n d r 5l o r m a i e s t a s a n d i m p e r i u m ) . C i c . B r u t . r 3 6 d o e s n o t i n d i c a t e t h a t a n y r r l h i s s p e c c h c sw e r c t x t a n t .

I tl4

'IHE

U Q U t ' t ' t : St N

't'HE

t , A ' t ' } ]R t : p t j B l , t ( r

asserts that it wasmovedchiefly by factiousspite(3| . 2, +o.3). But not the Equites.By his account the state was split between the senateor nobility and the plebs (4r f.), and the senate had had equestrian assistance in crushingthe Gracchi (".g); he doesnot then regard the Equites as necessarilyopposedto the senate.He doesindeed inform us that Marius prevailed on Equitesin Africa, both negotiatores and officers in the army, to intrigue for his election to the consulship and appointmentto replaceMe tellus(n. z6). But they were simply induced to believethat Metellus was protracting the war and that Marius could finish it off more rapidly; they were impelled by 'hope of peace'. He actually conveys the impression that as candidate for the consulship Marius dependedchieflyon the backingof the common people(Zg.6), though, as he and his readerswould have known, he could not have been returned without the votes of men of property. But if Sallust has not sufficiently brought out the part played by Equites in thesetransactions,both as members of the Mamilian court and as electorsin the centuriateassembly,we should not concludethat he neglects the true reasonswhy they too shared in the revulsion against the senate'sconduct of affairs. The massacreat Cirta was an extreme provocation to Rome's honour; Cicero in 66 was to adduce Mithridates' slaughter of Italians only to show the necessityof its vindication (de imp. Cn. Pomp. rr f.). The allegationsof corruption surely found generalcredit and may have been true. An irresistibleand almost universal demand for vengeance on Jugurtha was perfectly natural. Once Rome had embarked on the war, it was of coursenot only considerationsof honour that required its victorious and swift termination. The early restoration of peace and order was also conduciveto the prosperityof trade. Metellus' successes were indecisive. It was easyenough for men including army officersto believe that Marius could completethe job more efficiently. Certainly there is not the least hint that Marius held out the prospect that he in contrast to Metellus would annex any part of the Numidian kingdom. In the event he did not do so. Annexation would presumably have alienated Bocchus, who helped decisively to end Jugurtha's resistance,and h,aveentailed much more prolonged military effort at the very time when Italy itselfwas thought to be menaced by the German hordes.128No one is known to have had it in view. In so far as Marius promoted the settlementof veteranson public lands within the province of Africa, it can only have diminished the revenues derived from them and collectedbv publicans. Commercialinfluencehas alsobeen detectedin the conquestof that 1 2 8H a r r i s , r g 7 9 , r 5 r .

't'Hl:

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part ol''l'ransalpineClaul which was later called Gallia Narbonensis.t2eHowever, the pretextsat leastfor war were affordedby pleasfor succour from Massilia and the Aedui, with whom Rome had contracted obligations of alliance or friendship. Rome had previously aided Massilia againsther Ligurian neighboursin r54 (Polyb. xxxiii. B-rl). It might well now have appearedthat only a permanent military presencein the region could guaranteethe securityof Rome's allies. Moreover, control of the region safeguardedthe land route to Spain. It is significant that the construction of the Via Domitia immediately followed the conquest, and that the province had a permanent garrison. It may also have been envisagedthat it would prove a valuable sourceof supply for armies operating in north Spain, as it did in the 7os (Cic. Font.B, I3, 16, z6); it was no doubt for this purposethat Fonteiuswas then improving the road (ibid. l7). There was a vigorous and increasing export trade in Italian wine to south Gaul, but that does not warrant the view that conquest was undertaken to promote its growth. The customsdues Fonteiusimposed on wine in the 7os may actually have damaged Italian exporters by raising prices. Noricum too attracted Roman traders from the second ..ntuiy, but there was no move to annex it till Augustus'time;130the Roman government had not intervened even when the natives expelled Italian mining operatorsin Polybius'day (n. rz4). And it was left to Caesar to extend Roman territory in Gaul beyond the narrow limits of Narbonensis. In the fictitious dialogue of his de republica(iii. I6) Cicero makes L. Furius Philus assail the injustice of a ban Rome had imposed on the 'Transalpine peoples'. The dramatic planting of vines and olives by date is rz9 (i. I4); the ban should then have been earlier' The only such peoples in any sensethen subject to Rome were the Ligurian tribes defeated in I54. The text is not evidence that it was later extended to those conquered in and after I25. The accumulating archaeologicalevidencefor the Italian wine trade in the region cannot in its very nature show that there was no indigenous production, still r2e GCr8,47-g,53f.,assemblesmostofthescatteredtexts; Ineednotdiscusschronological problems, nor cite the various and idle speculations on Cic. de rep. üi. 16. On Narbo see also S t r a b o i v .r . 6 , r z , t 4 , i v . z . r . B y A D I 2 - t 3 E q u i t e s m u s t h a v e b e e n s o n u m e r o u s t h e r e ( c f . G a d e s and Patavium, Strabö iii. 5. 3, v. l. 7) that some belonged to the local plebs and not to the local council (/ZS r rea); no doubt trade accounts for this. The Via Domitia followed an old route known to Polybius (iii. 39. 8, xxxiv. 6). Garrison: IM 46g tr. My table on 4gz f . should probably allow for legionsthere in each year before gI. Seegenerally Clementi, I974; C.Jullian, Hist. dt la Oaule iii. ch. r. t30 G. Alßldy, -ifoicum, rg74,44ff.;cf. n. Iz4. It appearsfrom Strabo iv. 6. that the Romans 7 did in the Republic deprive the Alpine Salassiof their gold workings, but failed until Augustus to prevent them from selling to the publicans the water required at extortionate rates (cL also Dio, fi. 74, liii. z5).

186

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lessthat it was prevented or restricted by Roman action, or that Cicero has dated the ban too early. We cannot indeed know that it was ever effective anywhere; how was it enforced? Furius is made to say that it was designed to increase the value of Italian vine and olive plantations; in that case the intention was at least as much to benefit landowners as merchants. But we have to recall that Furius had assumed the role of aduocatusdiaboli; there was to be a reply from Laelius, of which only fragments survive. Laelius may have answered that the ban had been imposed at the request of Massilia for the profit of her wine producers; it was in her defence that Rome had fought in r54. The text casts no light on Roman motives for subsequent aggrandizement. At an early date after the conquest a Roman colony was founded at Narbo. This too has been adduced as evidence for the commercial inspiration of Roman aggrandizement. The place was already and long remained an important trading centre. It had a port and relatively easy communications up the valley of the Aude with that of the Garonne, and it also lay athwart the ancient route from east to west on which the Via Domitia was built. It was a point of strategic importance for the same reasons that made it a thriving mart. That was surely why it was selected as the site of a colony and as the provincial capital. The colony bore the cognomen Martius; for Cicero it was a'specula populi Romani ac propugnaculum' (Font. tg). That is a description which fits the traditional role of a Roman colony. No doubt the cognomen also recalls those which C. Gracchus bestowed on his colonies, for example Carthage-Junonia. But despite the historic role of Punic Carthage in Mediterranean commerce, the settlers whom Gracchus took out, though 'respectable' and therefore not mere peasants,received allotments of land.r31 HoweverJunonia might have developed, if it had been permitted to survive, the basis of its economy was initially to be agrarian. That may be no less true of Narbo. Romans believed that the best soldiers were to be found in the rural population, and in any case those who were, if need be, to defend a strategic stronghold were best given a permanent attachment to the soil; lands were no doubt confiscated from the natives. On this view the foundation, which was a 'popular' measure, could have found favour with the rural plebs; the objection of the senate to transmarine settlement was probably based on a hidebound prejudice against dispersing Italian military manpower) or if merely factious, ostensibly jusiified in these terms.r32 It makes little sense'to ,rrppor. that thä ttt App.Pun.r96,BCi.z4;Plut.C.Gr. rr.Plut.g.zreferstorespectablecitizenstobesettled in other colonies:FIRA i2.8. 59 indicates that those despatchedin Junonia received up to 2oo iugera. 112IM gg,7oo.

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scnatc simply wished to deny the desire of Equites to develop the place commercially, especially so soon after it had secured equestrian support against the Gracchi, and at a time when it abstained from any move to deprive Equites of their new judiciary rights' It has already been argued that Roman aggression against Mithridates in 89 was the responsibility of Manius Aquillius and other senators in post in Asia, abetted by some money-lenders in the area, and that there is no evidence that they were acting at the instance of powerful equestrian interests a-t home, nor that they themselves meditated aitual annexations.t33 The reprisals taken by the king for their aggressionhad to be avenged, like Crassus' defeat at Carrhae; no matter that the Romans acknowledged in both casesthat their generals had flouted their own conception of a just war' In both cases too extraneous circumstances retarded the restoration of Roman honour' For obvious reasons Sulla in 84 had to be content with the recovery of the lands Mithridates had overrun; later he disapproved Murena's premature resumption of hostilities with inadequate resources.But the peace he patched up was never ratified at Rome, and in the next few years Roman armies were engaged in securing territory to the south of the Pontic kingdom, whence a new offensive could be launched. In 74 the senate did not hesitate to accept the bequest of the kingdom of Bithynia; it can hardly have been a surprise that Mithridates, who could not be unaware of Roman ill will, treated this as a casusbelli, Publicans had at once gone to work collecting revenues in the new province,l3a and we cannot doubt that they heartily approved of the ännexation; but just at this time, when Equites were still excluded from judication, their influence on the senate was surely minimal; it may be significant that it was before the Aurelian law had been enacted that Lucullus felt able to adopt strong measures in Asia against equestrian extortions. Already committed to the costly deployment of large forces in Anatolia from fear of Mithridates and hope of vengeance, the senate itself must have welcomed the accession of new revenue from Bithynia, and probably saw no other means but annexation to make it safe from his attacks. Equally, once Mithridates had been dislodged from his own kingdom, there was little alternative to bringing Pontus itself under direct rule. Very probably this was Lucullus' intention, though he failed to carry it out as a result of his entanglement in an Armenian war, which permitted Mithridates to make a come-back. It was therefore left to to constitute the new conjoint province of Bithynia and ito-p.y ttt Cf. p. r57. For what follows seeesp. Sherwin-White, I984, chs. vrr-tx, where the meagre cvidence is fully given. r i a P l u t . I , a c .B ; A p p . B M TyMemnon (FGH no.43$ z7- 5f.

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Pontus. He also brought Cilicia Campestrisand north Syria under direct Roman rule. In theory they had hitherto formed part of the Seleucidkingdom, but Antiochus XIII, though recognizedby the senateas king about 73 and again by I-Jlcullusin 69/8, had probably neverenjoyedany authority in Cilicia,135and had beenexpeiledfrom Syria. Pompeydethronedhim. It is plausibleto conjecturethat he took into account the potential threat from the Parthians, who for generations had been expanding their power, and who could not thereforebe counted on to accept the Euphrates as its limit. Pompey preferred to maintain or establish vassal princes in central and eastern Anatolia and south Syria, but this sort of barrier to Parthian aggrandizement was likely to be most firm, if it were supported by a Roman military presencein the fertile plains of Cilicia and north Syria, where Rome could find the usual co-operation from the local administrations of Hellenized cities,l36and could extract revenue through tax-farmers that would meet or more than meet the expense. There is then no reasonto think that Pompey was the instrument of equestrianbusinessinterests.of course the Equites active in Asia had no love of Lucullus and must have approved of his removal from the command, but by 66 this was in any caseinevitable, whatever their attitude (n. zB). It would also have been natural for them to have backed the Manilian law, simply becauselike everyoneelsethey must have thought Pompey the best general to conclude the war rapidly and restore that peaceand security in the east which conduced to all their operations there. That they knew in advance that he alone would pursue a policy of annexation and thus enlarge the scopeof the taxfarmersfor profit is a mere conjecturewith no foundation in the sources '(cf.n. r35). The decisionshe eventuallytook were probably prompted by the knowledge of conditions he obtained on the spot. It is not attested that he had any close connection with the publicans either then or later. The notion that he had helped in 7o to restorethe system of tax-farming in Asia abolished by Sulla is groundless.Even if there were evidence for abolition by Sulla, it had been revived before 7o (n.5t), i.e. during Pompey'sabsencein Spain. Unlike Crassus,he is not known to have secondedthe claim made in 6r by the farmersof the Asian tribute for a reduction in their liability to the state;admittedly it was Caesar,his ally, who satisfiedthem ir 59. sherwin-white also argues that the constitution of vassal statesin 13s Magie, r95o, r r78 n. 37. Pompey settled ex-piratesin Cilicia (ibid. r rBo n. 43); it has been suggestedthat this made his intention of annexation clear before the Manilian law was enacted. but his action may not have been taken, or at any rate not known at Rome, so early. whether or not-Marius granted lands to Romans in Numidia (ch. 5, App. rr), annexation dld not follow. 136 In Pontus he lounded new cities to provide this-infraitructure for Roman Rovernment ( S h e r w i n - W h i t e ,r 9 8 4 , a z g ) .

r89 prt'li'rt'rrt'c to anncxation indicates his indiff'erence to the profits of pulllicans, whose scope was thereby more restricted than it might othcrwisc have been. This is not so clear. Judaea was certainly not the only vassal state that was now made subject to tribute, as the Macedonian and Illyrian republics had been in I68. Caesar as dictator was to exclude Roman publicans from rights of collection in Judaea, and it is imprudent to assume that he was confirming what Pompey decreed.l3T In the wild regions in which these vassal stateswere found it would doubtless have been hardly safe for publicans to collect direct Irom the taxpayers; but in the provinces settled by Pompey they did for lump sums with the city not do so: they made bargains Qpactiones) made with dynasts in were certainly Similar bargains sovernments.l38 prou. g). perhaps suspend judgement. (Cic. We should de clns, Syria loans to vassal make usurious least could money-lenders at Roman in to Pompey king was heavily debt Cappadocian In the princes. 5r himself, and we need not share Cicero's good opinion of the modesty of his demand s (Au. vi. I . 3) . But all in all Pompey's arrangeme nts can be adequately explained by his conceptions of the interests of the Roman state. The failure of Equites to induce (or perhaps to invite) the senate to annex lands in which publicans might have operated is remarkably illustrated by Rome's dlalings with öyrenaica and Egypt.ttn Ptolemy Apion bequeathed the former kingdom to Rome in 96; the Roman 13? Badian, 1967, ch. v. Cic. Att. ii. 16. z refers to tribute from Antilibanon, i.e. from the I t u r a e a n p r i n c e , P t o l e m y ( R E x x i i i . I 7 6 6 n o . 6 o ) . J u d a e a : J o s .A J x i v . q o r ( r f . 7 ü ; S h e r w i n W h i t e , r g B 4 , 2 3 2 n . r r 5 , d o u b t s t h e n a t u r a l i n l e r e n c e s f r o m C iFc l. a c c . 6 9 ; d e p r o u . c oInoso.n t h e usc of oublicans there before Caesar. 1 3 8 S h e r w i n - W h i t e , r 9 8 4 , 2 g 2 n . r I 6 . ' f h e e v i d e n c ec o m e so n l y f r o m B i t h y n i a , C i l i c i a , a n d Svria, except that Fam.xiii. 65. r , which raisesspecialproblems,seemsto relate to scriplurain Asia. Shcrwin-White supposesthat in the past the Asian publicans (like those in Sicily) had made pactiones with the individual taxpayers,not the cities.This may be true, though Cicero's reference 'in agris' (deimp. Cn. Pomp. 16) may refer only to collection of rents to their large staffemployed from former royal lands outside city territories. I believe but cannot prove thal padilnes with cities the Asian cities for an indemnity in 84; that the publicans <'amein after Sulla directly assessed were thereafter insurers, not collectors,of the direct tax imposed on cities; that this systemwas simply adopted for the new provinces; and that it made it simple for Caesar to eliminate the publicans in Asia too(n.33). (In my view Sherwin-White wrongly interprets Fiacr. 9r, which 'Iralles, farmed out not by the governor Globulus, but simply when he relatesto local tax of Asian from the wäs qovernor; cf. Broughton, AJP rpp .6, r75 ff.; the cities could fulfil the pactiones of local taxes.) rrroceeds ' rle See generally Sherwin-White, 1984, ch. xI, better than Harris r54ff. Speculations on s<.natorialpolicy concerning Cyrene are idle; we must be content with ignorance. It is particularly irnplausible that in this case there was jealousy of the 6clat to be won by any organizer of the province. In 75 a quaestorwas given the task. So too the quaestorsent out regularly to Lilybaeum rnay have been Rome's first magistrate in Sicily: men of quaestorianrank could be commissioned ro q(,vcrn Hither Spain in 65 and to annex Cyprus in 58; we have further particulars which show rhat thcrt wcrc specialrcasonsfor theseappointments;otherwisethey too would be incomprehensiIrk.

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government apparently laid hands on his treasure, but took no steps to organize a province till 75; it was then presumably that the former r o y a l l a n d s w e r e f i r s t l e a s e d t o p u b l i c a n s ; 1 a oi f a n y r e v e n u e c a m e i n lrom Cyrenaica before, it must have been through the agency of the free cities. In BB king Ptolemy Alexander I likewise left Egypt to Rome, or so it was claimed, by u will the authenticity of which was disputed. The senate did not hesitate to authorize seizure of moneys he had deposited at Tyre. But it did not attempt annexation. Ptolemy Lathyrus, who had disputed the crown with Alexander, was able to take over; on his death in Bo Sulla dispatched a son of Alexander to assume the diadem; but he was soon murdered, and Ptolemy Auletes, an illegitimate son of Lathyrus, installed himself as king, unrecognized but undisturbed by Rome. Given Rome's preoccupations in the Bos and 7os, it was natural that no effort was made at occupation. That would have required a considerable armed force. In 65, when other difliculties were at an end, Crassussupported a bill that the inheritance of Egypt should be taken up. It was defeated by optimate opposition. Cicero spoke against it before the people; it was one of only three appearances of this kind that he made before his consulship. We may think that he wished to ingratiate himself with the oprimates, but he would hardly have chosen this occasion to take their part, if he had feared that it would alienate the good will of the publicans with whom he had close associations;silence would have been more prudent.141 Auletes was to be recognized in 59 on the proposal of Caesar, in which his fellow 'triumvirs' presumably concurred. Auletes paid such large sums to this end that his measures to recover the expense from his subjects provoked his expulsion; again he resorted to bribery to obtain his restoration by Roman arms, which Gabinius ultimately effected. Rabirius Postumus was probably not the only equestrian financier who hoped to recoup himself from the subsequent exploitation of Egypt. But the publicans never appear to have pressedfor annexation, despite the wealth of the Nile valley. Sherwin-White supposes that the bureaucratic system of administration in Ptolemaic Egypt must have been well known in Rome and that its 'peculiarity' was one decisive consideration against annexation. In fact, howeuei, the Ptolemies did lao Cic. de leg. agr.5o f. implies that in 63 they had been leased by censors;in Pliny's day publicans collected scriptura(NH xix. 39). rar The fragments of his speech with comments by the Bobbian Scholiast (gr-3 Stangl) are our best evidence. Crassusbacked the claims of the Asian publicans in 6 t (n. 53), but this can be explained not by any financial connectionswith them, on which our sources,e.g. Plut. Cr. z f., 6 l, are significantly silent, but by his wish to disrupt their good relations with the optimates; the enmity, generally covert, between him and Cicero, their consistentadvocate, is notable. And nothing suggeststhat his Parthian war was prompted by anything but his own pursuit ofglory and wealth.

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lirrm out some taxes and monopolies, though with all sorts of <'hecks.la2One may doubt if publicans understood the Ptolemaic system well enough to see that it would afford them very limited prospectsof profit, or if they did, would have assumedthat the Roman governmentwould and could make no changesto enlargetheir scope for gain. It may well be that all their availablecapital was absorbedin existing undertakings and thosewhich they could expect to result from Pompey'sconquests.The controversiesthat concernedEgypt in the 6os and 5os seem to have divided the senatorialorder, not to have separated it from the Equites; rival politicians advocated different coursesfrom personal greed or ambition or mutual suspicionand distrust. It remainedfor Augustusto annex Egypt, and then not to open it up but to exploit it for the state and to augment to Roman businessmen Egypt as a basehe was also to attempt the With Rome's corn-supply. most flagrant exception to the defensivepolicy Arabia, the conquestof (and in my view erroneously)impute generally modern writers which by what he had heard of the riches he was impressed him, because to of the country; we hear nothing of any plan to secure for Rome's subjectsa greatersharein the spicetrade on which the sheikhslevied lucrative tolls.lar This was a typical specimenof economicimperialism of the ancient kind; the aim was to divert these tolls into Rome's treasury, v We may then conclude that there is no proof either that the foreign policy of the senatewas inspiredby any economicaims other than that of adding to the reservesand revenues of the state, or that it was subjectedto pressureby businessinterests.The publicans too gained by the accessionof new revenues,so far as they were entrusted with the collection, but they appear in general to have been satisfiedwith the opportunities they already had at any given time, and are not known to have urged further annexationson a reluctant senate.Traders and money-lenderscould prosper beyond the limits of Roman administration, wherever the extensionof Roman power afforded them protection; if injuries to them arousedindignation and led to retribution' this was no more than Rome's honour required. The intermittent conflictsof the orders do not call for an explanation ra2 I prefer the account in Wilcken, Gr. Ostraka,i. 5I5 ff., to that of e.g. C' Pröaux' L'öeonomie nyab desl.agides, tg3g, 45off. rar Strabo xvi. 4. zz. Tolls: Pliny, NH vi. tor , xii. 63-5, 84. Rome also imposed high duties on rlrr f'rontiers(De Laet, r 949, 3o6 tr , Sgl tr ).

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in termsol their divergenteconomicinterests. SomeEquitespresumably resentedthat aristocraticexclusiveness which limited their own ambition to riseor seetheir sonsrisein a political career.At times the senateprovokedthe publicansby fulfilling its proper responsibilities to the treasury and the taxpayers.But the root of discord lay in the competition for judicial rights. When vested in the Equites, they conferred somethingof that dignitaswhich was dear to Roman hearts, and alsoallowedthe publicans,the leadingand only organizedsection of the order, to exert undue pressureon senatorsin maximizing their profitsfrom statecontracts;to senatorsthis dependenceon Equiteswas a hateful diminution of their own prestigeand freedom.This quarrel certainly did much to exacerbatethe discordsat Rome in and after Drusus' tribunate, and thereby contributed to bringing on the civil wars of the Bos.The memory of the fearful experienceof this time and the failure of Sulla to heal the wounds inflicted were in turn to colour or determine men's attitudes in the age of Caesar.In this way the discordof the ordershad a sharein the ultimate fall of the Republic, though in the meantimeit had been allayed by the compromiseof the Aurelian law. The Equitesin generalwere doubtlesslessready to make sacrificeslor that political supremacyof the senatewhich optimates identified as the cause of Republican liberty, and more prone than senatorsto yearn for peaceand order at almost any price; yet many were found among the adversariesof Caesarand his heirs; the order as such took no side in the political struggles after 7o and the civil wars they generated. We may briefly look forward to the Augustan settlementso far as it concernedthe Equites.laaNothing suggeststhat Augustusrestoredto the publicansthe function of collectingdirect taxesin the eastof which Caesarhad deprivedthem (trn. 33 and r37), though they continuedto farm indirect taxesand rents on public lands and were even given the collection of the new death duties on Roman citizens.Other businessmenreceived no more favours from the state than they had ever done. If Augustusneededto securethe loyalty of the order, he did not conceive that for the purpose he had to assist them in business activities.Equitesretainedtheir judicial rights, but in Augustus'reign the processbegan whereby senatorswere to be tried for alleged crimes only by their own peers (unlessby the emperor himself); they were no longer to feel a galling dependenceon an inferior order. In this, as in other ways, Augustus and his successorswere ready to uphold the dignity of senatorswithout imperilling their own control of the state. Equally, they would promote the socialesteemof senators.The Equites r a a S e eB r u n t ,

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t(x) were to be set apart from and above the people at large.las It is characteristic that Augustus records that in 2 Bc he was hailed father of his country by the senate and equestrian order as well as by the entire Roman people (RG aS). New men of equestrian origin, chiefly the domi nobilesfrom Italian towns, now had a better chance of rising to the summit of a senatorial career. Those who did not choose or could not attain this eminence now had increased opportunities of distinction in public service. In an enlarged standing army there weremore military iommissions for them to fill. Some of these officers could advance to higher posts in the fiscal administration and as governors of provinces and hoiders of great prefectures at Rome . A few might be numbered among the emperor's most intimate counsellors. It has even been held that emperors were more confident of the loyalty of Equites than of senators and aggrandized the former to protect themselves against the latter. This theory perhaps draws some of its persuasive power from the belief that there had already been in the Republic a fundamental cleavage between the orders, recollections of which might make a ruler congenial to Equites if he had lost senatorial goodwill. But no such cleavage had existed. An emperor whom the senate had cause to hate would also forfeit the loyalty of most Equites, even though the senate might be the focus of discontent' This was only natural. In the Principate, as in the Republic, the two orders formed a single class with common economic interests as large proPerty owners' and their members were often bound together by birth, marriage, education, and social intercourse. It was only evanescentconditions that had ever intermittently sundered them. rn5 B.urt,JRSr96r,T6ff.TheLarinumSCprovidesanewillustration(B.Levick,JRJr983'

e 7n ) .

. l L J D I ( l l A R YR l ( ; H ' l S I n *

+ JUDICIARY RIGHTS IN THE REPUBLICI

I. The Problem. II. The conflicts and ambiguities of evidence on C. Gracchus' legislation: his probable aims consideredin the right of polyb. vi. r7.m. The thesisthat c. Gracchusgave Equitesa monopoly ofjudication only for the repetundalcourt and created a mixed album of iudicesfor other criminal and civil casesnot inconsistentwith other relevant leeislation between rz3 and Sulla'stime, in particular with Drusus,proposals.iV. .Iir" inaccuracy of most ancient evidence on the lex Aurelia, and the general inadequacy of sourceson criminal legislation.why the testimony är ptutarch, and probably Livy, on Gracchus' judiciary legislation should be preferred.v. This testimonycannot be rejectedon the premissthat in rz3 there was no standing criminal court except for repetundae; most of thä standing courts of the post-Sullan period certainly antedated sulla, and some are almost certainly pre-Gracchan.Vr. In any caseGracchus'restriction on the inappellate criminal jurisdiction previously exercisedby magistrates almost necessitatedthe creation of some standing criminal cot,rm, if they did not already exist. vrl. The importance of the albumiudicumfor civil cases.VIII. Summary of conclusions.

N r 49 Bc the lex Calpurniaprovided for the establishment of a large standingcourt beforewhich Rome's subjectsand alliescould seäk reparation from magistrateswho had illegally enriched themselves at their jurors were all to be senators. It seems quite ,expense.The certain from the narratives of Appian and Diodorus and lrorrr the extant fragments of the repetnndaelaw engraved on the tabula Bembina I I here restate with minormodifications the thesisadumbrated by M. Gelzer (Kl. schr.i. zzz) and developedin App. II to the original version of ch. 3; my aim is partly ro meet criticisms macle b y M . G r i f f i n , C Q r g T Z : G r u e n , r 9 6 8 ( c h . r r r ) ;a n d S t o c k t o n , r g T g ; a n d p a r t l y t o s h o w h o w m y reconstruction of Gracchus' judiciary reform coheres with later rn.uru.". afiecting judication. The bibliography is large, but I shall refer only to those works of which it is neceisärv to taxe for presentingmy thesis;J.P. v. D. Balsdon,Pa.sR r938, r ff, remains fundamcntal, and 3c,col-nt w. Kunkel, 196z, revolutionized our understanding of Roman criminal pro<.eclurcin thc R e p u b l i c t o a n e x t e n t w h i t h h a s n o t b e c n g r a s p t d h y a l l l a t c r w r i r e r so n t l r c s cp r o [ l t . m s , ' l h i s essayhas been improved by critcisms lrom Mr. Slo<.kton.

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that Gaius Gracchus substituted Equites for senatorsin this court. However,accordingto all explicit testimonyGracchus'legislationalso concernedjudication in general, that is to say the right and duty of acting as iudexin all criminal and civil processes.All but one of our sourceswhich purport to record such legislationmake out that he transferredjudication in general to the Equites: Plutarch alone says that iudiceswere to be drawn from a mixed album of senators and Equites,a plan he also ascribesto Tiberius Gracchus(n' zr), without court. noticing that Equites were to have a monopoly in the repetundae It is clear that of all Gracchus' measureshis reform of judication was consideredthe most momentous.It must therefore have been fully describedby Livy. In my judgement Livy would have given a correct accountof its main features.Unfortunately what he reportedis lost, or of his sixtieth book, where we read rather it is garbled by the Perioche that Gracchuspasseda law for the enrolment of 6oo Equites in the senateitself,therebytrebling its size.I shall arguethat what liesbehind this nonsensewas an account basicallyagreeingwith Plutarch's,and that in fact Gracchuscreated a mixed albumof senatorsand Equites for Plutarch forgot the exception: other writers all casesbut repetundae. were so much concerned with the exception, becauseof its political that they overlookedthe rule. It is important alwaysto consequences, bear in mind that we depend throughout on mere epitomatorsof the full accounts that once existed, written when the facts were well known, and that it was the prevailing vice of ancient epitomatorsto distort the accounts they followed, by loose and inaccurate formulations and by arbitrary selectionof material.2 My reconstructionof the Gracchan legislationon judiciary rights inevitably requires me to adopt particular views of later judiciary legislation. This essaywill therefore survey the whole field, though without attention to somedetails,such as the organizationofjudicial decuriesin Cicero's time, or the special provisions of the lex Licinia de sodaliciisof 55 or the lex Pompeiaof 52, or more than incidental 2 Brunt. CQr98o, 477 ff. Besidesstatementsquoted in the text seeVell. ii. 6. 3,32;'lac. Ann. xii. 6o. Anyone who reads Velleius' narrative of the period consecutively will see that it is 'cum Semproniis rogationirhetorical, vague, and untrustworthy. Let Tacitus speak for himself, leges senatui iudicia rursum Serviliae locaretur et iudiciorum in possessione bus equesterordo 'semproniae rogationes' rcddeient, Mariusque et Sull/olim de eo vel praecipue [!] bellarent'. can be rhetorical plural for a single law. The Servilian law of Caepio in some measurerestored senatorialjudication; that ofGlaucia deprived the senatorsofwhatever rights Caepio had given them. I have a high respectfor Tacitus'testimony on the Principate, but he had not had occasion ro study Republican history, and in the whole chapter is perhaps summarizing a typically muddled speechby Claudius (cf. R. Syme, Tacitus7o5); see,however, n. rr. Pliny, JV/1xxxiii.34 (
r96

J U D r c t A R y R t ( ; H , t . tsN . r . H HR l : p t j t i l . t ( : 'I'he

c o m m e n t o n t h e s u b s t a n t i v ec r i m i n a l o r c i v i l l a w . 3 argument is complicated and conclusions are summarized in the final seätion. II

I may,beginby remarking that, although Appian and Diodorus show by incidental remarks that they were pärticuiarly concernedwith the repetundae court, they and all other writers who expressly refer to Gracchus' judiciary legislation do not limit it to the repetuidae courr. and that someacruallyimply that Gracchusderended-iton grounds that were hardly applicableto that court at all. According to Äppian, having bought the support of the urban plebs by corn d"istrib"ti""r, Gracchusthen sought that of the Equites by tran;ferring the courts ro them: he boastedthat he had thus overthrown the senäte6. zz. u. 93). Plutarch representshim as seeking to curtail the power "f ihe senateby-abolishing_theirmonopoly of judication (C. Gr.5). In the view of varro (a1. Nonius 7zB L.),'he transferredthe iudiiia to the pquestrianorder and thus made the state two-headed':that phrase recurs-inFlorus (ii. s), who might well have drawn on Livy; pärhaps Gracchusused it himself. Florus also seemsto be echoing'Gracchän propagandaa when he askswhat could be more productiie of 'equal liberty' (.f. p. 338) than an arrangementby which, with the senate governing the provinces, the authority of the equestrian order had a basisin dominion of the courts (ii. r). Diodorus tells of haranguesin which.Gracchusspokeof destroyingaristocracyand settingup de-ocracy: in T,atin parlance he attacked the pauciand champlonäd tibertas and the iura populi (xxxiv-xxv. z5). According to the same writer (xxxvii. 9), 'when the senatethreatenedrrur o.r-G.ucchuson account of the transfer of the courts, he made the bold reply that if he were to die, he would still leave the sword implanted in the flank of the senators'. Like other somewhat similai reports of his belligerent sayings,sthis may be an invention of his ..r.-i.r. whatever his tirades against the senatorsand whatever his real motives, he must have overtly defended his judiciary legislation by arguments, however specious,that the causeofjusticewould be servedby extendingjudicial rights to the Equites.6 Diodorus and Florus might suggest"that he contendedthat this would make a better balancein thä"constitution 3 on the Gracchan law itself see.fromthis standpoint A. N. sherwin-white, JRS rg8z, rg fI.; and on_Republican developmentsin the raw of ripetundarA. w. Lintott, si 19gr, rtiz fr.; cf. B r u n t , H i s t o r i ar q 6 l , r B q - "' ot a Stockron, 5 ,g7g, rr5. Cic. de leg. ili. zo..l)iod. xxxiv/xxxv. zr. ' .sherwin-white {n.3' shows thar the Graichan raw cannot be intcrpreted as a mererv partisan measure; the details illustrate a concern lor thc riehts rrf all unät.r n.-on ,rt. ,'. protection. [Roman citizens roo could benefit, pp. ,r:6 fl.]

. fu t ) 1 ( : t A R yR t ( ; H ' t 'lsN t H u R u p t ; B t . t ( :

t97

and promote the cause of liberty. An appeal to liberty, that is to say to pxrpular rights, hardly seems apposite, if Gracchus was simply conccrnt:d with repelundaesuits, which were primarily, if not exclusively, designed to secure compensation for Rome's allies and subjects. Plutarch of course thought that he was abridging the judication of scnators over citizens, and he notes that it was in advocating this measure that Gracchus symbolically departed from the traditional practice by which orators had turned their faces when speaking towards the senate and for the first time began to f;acethe people. What he was proposing was allegedly at least in their common interest. Now Polybius had held that the 'people' were dependent on the senate, not only because the senate controlled all public contracts, but 'most of all' because senators were Judges in the majority of both public and private transactions louvaL[dyy,azo], where the complaints ' fäyxLrjy.arul were grave (vi. r 7. z). The terms he usesshow that he has civil casespartly or chiefly in mind. 'Public transactions' could indeed refer both to criminal trials and to the disputes that might arise from public contracts, which magistrates would decide with a consilium under administrative law.7 They might also include repetundac cases, given that citizens as well as foreigners could bring charges under the lex Calpurnia and later laws, and that Polybius wrote or revised his sixth book after r4g, when the lex Calpurnia was passed. But he was surely thinking chiefly of casesin which the defendants might be 'from the people', and in the Republic charges of repetundaelay only against senatorsor persons who were at least of the senatorial order (n. ro with text) . In any event Polybius' allusion to 'private transactions' must refer to ordinary civil suits, and those who, like Fraccaro (n.99), deny that senatorscould have had any monopoly ofjudication in any classof such cases in effect tax him with error, without warrant as I hope to show later. Dionysius also supposed that senators were given a monopoly of civil judication in the regal period (ii. r4, iv. 25, 36); I presume that nothing rvas known of the legal institutions of that remote age, but also that the annalistic invention which Dionysius adopted was probably, like many such fictions, a retrojection of later practice. So too Plutarch held that bcfore Gracchus 'senators alone decided court cases', and that 'in consequence they were formidable to the people and to the Equites'. Polybius of course does not go so far: he restricts the senatorial monopoly to important cases.It need not have been based on statute r:rther than on usage maintained by the discretion of the praetors, but to alter the usage a statute would have been required: senatorial t l , i d d " l l: r n d S r ' o t r s . v . ( ) n a c l m i n i s r r a t i v e l a w s c e M o m m s e n , S t R i 3r. 6 9 - 8 5 , 3 r 4 ; f o r t h e r i g h t rrl cilizcrrs l() [)ros(\'ut(' llor rQehndat Isce pp. .rz6 fli]|.

r98

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magistrates were unlikely to have exercised their discretion to reduce thelnfluence of their own order. We can easily guess that the Equites resenteddependence on senators.To ingratiate himself with them, and to make them fully capable of balancing senatorial power, Gracchus needed to remove the monopoly. According to Appian, the senatorial courts had been discredited by corrupt acquittals in the recent past of Aurelius Cotta, (Livius) Salinator, and Manius Aquillius. The senate was therefore ashamed to resist transfer of the courts to the Equites. Cotta was certainly charged with repetundae,and so presumably were Salinator and Aquillius.o Hence Appian was at least primarily concerned with legislation that court. He goes on to tell that in course of time the affected the repetundae equestrian iudices made unjust and corrupt use of their power over 'of the rich' and abolishing prosecutions senators, suborning accusers for the bribery of judges. The former allegation also appeared in L. Crassus' invective on equestrian judication in ro6 (n. I6). Appian's source evidently had the same kind of bias. Diodorus too, presumably following Posidonius,when he condemns Gracchus ficr'designating the Equites as iudicesand thus making the inferior element in the state court and supreme over their betters', is thinking only of the repetundae perhaps of others modelled on it which were to try the offences of o senators. However, Appian also thought that after Gracchus' enactment Equites sat in judgement on a// Romans and Italians, and in a// matters affecting property and civic rights. Does this not imply that the It may be Gracchan legislation was not restricted to casesof repetundae? law itself extended beyond senators. said that the Gracchan repetundae It covered offences by all magistrates down to quaestors' tresuiri capitales,and the tribunes of the first four legions, together with their sons if the fathers were themselvessenators (on the best interpretation of the surviving words in v. z).ro It did not, like a formula in the Sullan law de sicariis, probably derived from another of Gracchus' laws' 8 See Cruen, 1968, zg7. I suspect that the major count against senatorial iudiceswas not corruption but partiality towards defendantsoftheir own order, amply attestedin the Principate (Brwt, Historia196r, zr7 ff). Appiari probably mistook referencesto the shame felt by some individual senatorsfor a general acquiescenceby the senatein Gracchus' law, see contraDiod. law may well be that which passedby a majority of only xxxvii. g. The judiciary or repetundae one tribe (ibid. xxxiv/xxxv. z7). e Posidonius,whom Diodorus presumably followed, was no doubt particularly concerned by the oppression of the provinces, which in his view was exacerbated by collusion between senatorialgovernorsand equestrianiudices,amongwhom the interest ofthe publicans was decisive (cf.xxxvii. 5). 10 Sherwin-White (n. 3) r9, commenting on v. z of the Gracchan law, rcstored by analogy w i t h v v . 1 6 a n d z z , w h e r e h o l d e r s o f m i n o r m a g i s t r a c i e s a r e a g a i n a s s i m i l a t e d t o s e nbaut ot cr fs.; J . - L . F e r r a r y , L a b e ot g 9 3 , 7 l f . P e r s o n si n d i c t a b l e u n d e r t h c l a w w h o w c r c n o t s e n a t o r sw o u l d almost certainly be equilescquopuhliro.Cf. n. lg.

'l . lt : l ) l ( : I A R YR l ( ; H ' ls l N H l l R l : P L ; l l l(.:

I99

c m l r r a c c a l l w h o h a d g i v e n o p i n i o n s i n t h e s e n a t e ( C l u e n l -r 4 8 ; c f . r 5 r ) , a category which would probably have included quaestoriieven before their enrolment (Livy xxiii. 3z; Festus45+L.; Gell. iii. rB. Z). It would be prudent to assume that, as in the Principate the office of triumuir capitalis was normally held before the quaestorship, which gave access to the senate, most Republican holders of that office were not yet senators in any sense; and though as late as 70 senators could be military tribunes (I Verr.3o), there werr- 2+ each year and the majority cannot have been members or had any hope of entering it. However, the distinction drawn between the tribunes of the first four legions, who were elected by the people ("StRii3. 575), and the other tribunes, who, like praefecti,had just as good opportunities for extortions, is significant; the former counted as magistrates, and election was an honour, which was probably most sought by men of senatorial lineage. The extension of the coverage of the law to sons of the magistrates listed, provided that they had senatorial fathers, may suggestthat a high proportion of the minor magistrates in question would at least be of senatorial family, and in itself indicates an intention to strike at men of senatorial rank in a loose sense. It may also be noted that the penalty under Gracchus' law was only pecuniary (cf. n. r5): condemnation did not entail the loss of civic rights or banishment of which Appian speaks. Appian is not then 'men of law, even so far as thinking merely of the Gracchan repetundae all that senatorial rank' are concerned; and of course he suggests Romans and Italians were affected. Stockton, however, has rightly observed that he does not strictly imply that it was Gracchus himself to Equites: he who transferred judication in casesother than repetundae (as he alleges) when Gracchus is indeed looking forward to a time after 'the make themselves and Equites used to combine with the tribunes he had mind what had in might have formidable to the senate'.1r He up by as those set such of courts read in his source of the establishment maiestas, laws on Varius' and the Mamilian law and by Saturninus' |n which judication *u, ,r.rt.d in the Equites on the Gracchan model.12 But this will still not account for his view that all Romans were affected. If we take this seriously, we must posit a general law breaking that partial monopoly of judication both in civil and criminal cases which Polybius attests. If such a general law was enacted after Gracchus, we might even in our meagre sources have expected some hint of it. (It needs no proof that praetors would not of their own volition have used thetr imperium to modify the monopoly.) Stockton r r S t t x ' k t o n ,t g 7 g , 1 4 7 . f 2 I r r , , w t a k e t h c g e n e r a lv i e w t h a t ' G r a c c h a n i i u d i c e s 'i n C i c B r u t ' r l 8 m e a n s t h a t t h e . o r S a t u r n i n u s 'l a w s e e C i c . d e o r a t .i i . r 9 9 z o t . I l r r r r r i l i a r rt o u r t s ( 8 . / 4 o ) w c r e t ' q u e s t r i a n F

2oo

J U I ) l C l A R Y R l ( ; H ' l ' s l N ' l ' H l . :R l l P L ; B L l ( :

himself attributes to Gracchus such a general law giving Equites in turn a monopoly of all judication. But we know of senators who still acted as iudicesin civil cases, between the tribunates of Gracchus and the dictatorship of Sulla.l3 This evidence could be explained on the assumption that with the praetor's consent litigants could still have been free to choose any iudex by agreement among themselves, though one party could hardly have insisted on the choice of a person who was not on the list of recognized iudices.Still, it is obviously compatible with Plutarch's testimony that Gracchus' law itself constituted such a list of both senators and Equites, testimony which Stockton simply rejects. There are two obvious objections to Plutarch's account. (a) Why should Gracchus have given Equites a monopoly ofjudicial functions only for repetundae,and how could he have justified a distinction between that processand other processes?(ä) How can we explain the statements in most of our sources that the iudicia were simply transferred to the Equites? (a) Gracchus could well have argued that senators were too biased to do equal justice in casesof a kind in which members of their own order were always defendants and that experience had proved this. There was no like reason why they should fail in their duty when deciding either civil suits or charges of crimes such as murder, or even ambitus,in which senators themselves would be the aggrieved as well as the allegedly culpable parties. Granted that non-senators resented the exclusive right of senatorsto determine the most important civil suits, it did not follow that there was a demand to deny them any part in civil judication. Legal expertise was still chiefly found among the senators. Many were doubtless of known integrity. It is true that even if they were excluded from the album litigants could still choose such men to act as unus iudex, but as will appear later, that would not suffice to ensure that senatorswere available for all civil judication, for example, as centumuiri,even when their suitability was not open to question. These were considerations by which Gracchus could have justified a distinction between repetundae cases and all other cases, both in public and in his own mind. (r) BV creating a mixed dlbum of senators and Equites from which iudiceswere to be chosen in cases hitherto decided by senators alone, and an album in which Equites perhaps outnumbered senators by two to one (seebelow) Gracchus did in a vague sense'transfer iudicia' to the r3 Drg.xxiv. 3 . 6 6 p r . ( P . M u c i u s ( c o s r. 3 3 ) : d o w r y o f G r a c c h u s ' w i d o w ) ;C i c .d eo f i c .i i i . 6 6 ( M . C a t o , d i e d b e f o r eg r : s a l eo f h o u s e ) ,i b i d . 7 7 ( C . F i m b r i a , c o s9. 4 : s p o n s i o ) ; aHde r . ü . r g ( C . C o e l i u s C a l d u s ,r o s .9 4 : i n i u r i a ) ;V a l . M a x . v i i i . : . 3 ( M a r i u s : d o w r y ) . C i c . R o s r .C o m . 4 z g i v e sa p p a r e n t l y the only attestedinstanceofan cquestrianiudexrnder thc Republic: it was thc <'unductofrmint:nl men in this role that was remembert'd.

'l . lt : l ) l ( : I A R YR l ( ; l l ' ls l r - H l , R l : I r t ' t l l . l ( :

2trr

lirluitcs. Similar lirnguagc could bc cmploycd by Cicero himself (II l'err. äi. 2zg),to Plutarch (Pomp. zz), the Periocheof Livy xcvii, and Ps.-Asconius(zo6 St.) to describe the effect of the lex Aurelia,which did irr läct constitute a mixed album. The inaccuracy was the more 1>ardonablein regard to the Gracchan system, since the Gracchan lex de repelundis,and later laws setting up similar courts for maiestas,gave Equites a judicial monopoly and made senators responsible to them in precisely those iudicia which most attracted the attention of political historians and of orators concerned with politics. Judgements on civil suits or on criminal prosecutions of lower-class offenders would arouse no political controversy. By contrast conviction for repetundae,if it involved financial ruin and infamia, could make the defendant prefer exile, as Verres did.ls Even in a civil suit, when it threatened bankruptcy and iffimia, it could be said that a man's fame and fortune (Quinct.B), and indeed his caput (ibid. 29, 33) and life-blood (ibid. 39, people 46), were at stake. He nce in I o6 L. Crassuscould plead with the 'can only to rescue senators from the cruelty of equestrian iudices,which be satiated with our blood', another figurative expression;he may also court was have hoped that if the equestrian monopoly of the repetundae destroyed, it would be less likely that the Equites would be given exclusive judication in extraordinary courts like that set up by the 'capital' penalties resulting in Mamillian court, which could impose court was the banishment. At any rate the composition of the repetundae source ofpolitical controversy in the last decade ofthe second century; and still more bitter conflicts followed the notoriously iniquitous condemnation of P. Rutilius in c.gz and the proceedings under the lex Varia.r6 Now it is indeed certain that Gracchus made Equites alone iudicesin repetundaecases. It should never have been questioned that the fragmentary lex repetundarumpreserved on one face of the tabula Bembina @lRA i2. nt. 7) is a Gracchan law.rt It requires the peregrine praetor 1a Stockton, Historia rg73,2r6ff., canvassedagain the possibility that Cotta's first proposal was more extreme, but see Gelzer, Kl. Schr. ii. I68 ff.: Cicero's rhetoric should not be taken literally. 15 C. Cato (cos.I I4), though condemned.forrepetundaz, but only to pay Sooo HS (Cic. II tr/arr. iii. r84, iv. zz; Vell. ii. B), retained his consular status till conviction under the Mamilian law in rro(Cic. Brut.tz8\.InJamia,whichinvolvedlossofstatusanddisabilitiesinprivatelaw,wasnot prescribedby the Gracchan law as incidental to condemnation, but probably first by Glaucia (a/ Her. i. zo; cf. Lintott (n. 3) ". r33). Compare the disabilitiesimposed by the Latin law of Bantia (ch. z, App. rv). When condemnation involved both social and financial ruin, men might prefer voluntary exile; they could then take their liquid assetswith them beyond Roman jurisdiction; and their wealth and continuing connectionsat Rome might earn them influence in their new lrome (cL Cic. Au. v. rr.6 on C. Memmius at Athens,and Strabo x. 2. 13 on C. Antonius in (i'ohallenia). f u G C ; ) 6 3f . ( M a m i l i a n c o u r t ) , 7 8 ( L . C r a s s u s ) ,r z 5 - 7 ( R u t i l i u s ) , 1 3 6 f . ( l e x V a r i a ) . r ? S t r , < k t o n ,r q 7 9 , 2 3 o f l ; c f . S h e r w i n - W h i t e , JRS r972,83 99.

2o2

JtiDl()IARY

RI(;H'l'S lN'l'HI'l RllPUBl.I(;

to empanel45o personsfrom whom juries are to be chosenfor trials in the current year; in subsequentyearsthe praetor appointedto preside over the court is to do the same.All presentand former membersof the senate,together with holders of officeswhich gave a claim to future membershipof the senate,and the fathers,brothers,and sonsof such persons,are ineligible;the positivequalificationis lost in lacunaeof the text, but thereis no doubt that it was in somesenseequestrian,whether the iudiceswere to be past and presentholdersof the public horse,or to be merely of free birth and equestriancensus.They also had to be resident in Rome;l8 so they were not likely to be mere country gentlemen,but the richest membersof the order, notably publicans who needed a Roman domicile for their business.Personsindictable under the law are among those ineligible; they would have included someEquites.le There is a seemingdifficulty for my casein that the repetundae law provided for 45o equestrian iudices,while the judiciary law posited provided probably for 6oo or 3oo. But this can easily be met. We have only to postulatethat the judiciary law was passedlater (henceit was impossibleto define the positive qualifications of iudicesin the repetundae law by referenceto it), and, if we accept the figure of 6oo, that a larger panel was now seen to be required for the more multifarious duties with which the more generallaw was concerned. Appian and Diodorus,aswe have seen,inform us, without explicitly stating, that belore Gracchussenatorshad judged chargesof repetundae, and that he substitutedequestrianjuries for that offence.It may be said that as on my own view Appian and other authorities are misleading in suggestingthat senators were excluded from judicial functions, they might also be wrong about the repetundar court. The epigraphic law abrogates two preceding statutes on repetundae, the Calpurnian,which had first set up a permanentcourt (.. 69), and the Junian, which is otherwiseunknown. Cicero alone refersto an Acilian law which clearly provided for equestrian jurors and which was proposedby the father of M'. Acilius Glabrio, praetor 7o (I Verr.5r).'o Could not the Junian law have been Gracchan, instituting mixed juries, and the Acilian a more extreme measureof later date? That is 18 Tradition and sound practical reasonsdictated this rule (Sherwin-White (n. 3) zz), though I doubt if it excluded 'man1R.oman financiers' (my italics); he also in my view underrates the importance publicans already enjoyed belore rz3; cf pp. r48 ff. 1e Seen. ro;manyormostoftheminormagistratesandsonsofsenatorswouldbeEquites.But under theJulian law Equites (unlessminor magistrates)were still immune (Rab. Post. r3.); the scopeofthe repetundae processwas only extended to other equestrianofficialsunder the Principate (Brunt, Hisloria 196r, rg8). Cic. Cluent.ro4, rr+, Rab. Post. 16 show only that in Republican repetundae law Equites could not be prosecutedfor taking bribes as jurors. 20 He would have been an aequalisof Gracchus (Badian, AJP rg54, 974tr.).

2o3 J U D I ( : I A RR Y l ( ; H ' l ' lSN ' l ' H t :R n P U B L I C 'I'he total extrusionof senatorslrom the court by a posthard to credit. Gracchanlaw would have beena controversialmeasurethat could not have lailed to leave some other mark even in our meagre tradition. If the Acilian law was post-Gracchanit must have done no more than modify Gracchus' measurein technical details; alternatively, it can be identified with Gracchus' statute on the basis that Acilius, like Rubrius, was a colleaguewho acted as his agent. The Junian law, on the other hand, is best regarded as a measurewhich introduced some minor modification into the arrangements made by the Calpurnian. We can safely conclude that Gracchus did entirely replace senatorial court. with equestrian iudicesin the repetundae 'provided for Let us now turn to Plutarch. He statesthat Gracchus the enrolment of 3oo Equites in addition to the 3oo senators and confidedjudication to the 6oo together'. In itself this is ambiguous' and it might mean that Gracchus enrolled 3oo Equites in the senate.Such an enlargement of the senatewas to be proposedby Drusus in gr and effected by Sulla for the very purpose of enabling the senatealone to provide all the iudicesrequired-at a time when more were undoubtädly required than in Gracchus' day. However, elsewherePlutarch resolvesthe ambiguity: he meansthat there was to be a mixed albumof 3oo senatorsa.rd loo'Equites.21Like our other authorities,he doesnot but unlike them he makesit clear that he is explicitly refer to repetundae, thinking of all kinds of judication, of casesin which defendantswere not necessarilysenatorii. 'Ihe Periochaof Livy lx, which does not mention any judiciary measure at all, allegesthat Gracchus passeda law that 6oo Equites should be enrolled in the senate,which then consistedof 3oo members' with the result that the equestrian order was twice as strong in the senateas the former members.The author is wretchedly inaccurate. It may well be that he did not draw on Livy directly but on an epitome (". +g). He probably lived at a time when the albumiudicum, which in Livy's day included both senatorsand Equites (p. z3I), had ceasedto exist. We can readily assumethat Livy, like Plutarch, wrote of the constitution of such an album,and that an abbreviated statement of his account was misunderstoodby a writer to whom the concept of an albumwas unfamiliar and unintelligible: unlike the fuller description of Gracchus' proposal, which Livy himself must have given, it may have been as ambiguous as the first formulation in Plutarch which I quoted. This is the view taken not only by those who accept the 2r C. Gr. with Conp.2. Plutarch ascribesthe same proposal to Ti. Gracchus when standing 5 for re-election (Ti. Gr. 16),whereas Dio, fr. 83 makes him propose transference ofthe courts to the Equites. SeeStockton, rg7g,73. Conceivably Tacitus (n. z) had in mind Ti. Gracchus'proposals as well as his brother's laws.

2o4

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evidenceof Plutarch but by somescholarswho supposethat Plutarch and Livy both refer to a proposal made by Gracchus and later abandoned by him in favour of purely equestrian courts. I shall consider this hypothesislater. It would make it easy to explain the discrepancy between Plutarch and the Periocheas to the number of equestrian iudices.If both were concerned with an abortive plan, we could conjecturethat Gracchus toyed with alternative numbers. But it is also conceivablethat if both are reporting a judiciary law actually carried, Plutarch misconstrueda statement that the number of equestrian iudiceswas double that of the senators as meaning that the number of personson the album was double that of the senate. The emphasisthat the Perioche lays on the total number may deservecredit, and the number of iudiceswas probably that establishedby the lex Aureliaof 7o, viz. goo. Gruen (p.BB) and others contend that both Plutarch and the Perioche are discredited by their disagreements.The truth is that they, and all our other sources,are continually inaccurate, and that their inaccuracies produce conflicting statements, each of which may none the lesshave some basisin facts more complex than any one of them reveals. III

Now all our sourceswhich refer to any judiciary legislation of Gracchus purport to record a generallexiudiciaria,somealluding in particular to the repetundae court. Miriam Griffin remarks that in this respectall may give inaccurate reports of a measurewith more limited scope;she adduces what shetakesto be parallels.22Certainly no precisionon such a matter can be expectedof them. However, as she admits, they are not always wrong. The lexAureliawasindisputably (asthey state)a judiciary law. In my view Drususin 9r alsoproposedsuch a measure(seebelow). On the other hand, Miriam Griffin is right about the lex SeruiliaCaepionis of ro6, although it is styled 'iudiciaria' by Cicero (deinu.i. gz); he could equally use the phrase 'omnesiudiciariae legesCaesaris'to denoteJulian laws concernedwith particular offences(Phil. i. rg; cf. zr). The Servilian law may be considered here, becauseits terms might seemto be inconsistentwith the hypothesisthat Gracchushad set up a mixed album.Cicero tells us that it was hateful to the Equites 'cupidos iudicandi' (de inu.), and that they were hotile to Caepio 'propter iudicia' (de orat. ii. r99). Tacitus confusedlywrites of 'Servilian laws' that restored the 'iudicia' to the senate (n.z). Late authorities, dependent on Livy, state that it provided for mixed senatorial and " r97.

CqtgTg,

ro8ff. Much of what follows replies to this article; cf also Lintott (n.3) 186ff.,

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equestrian courts.23Balsdon gave strong reasonsfor prelerring their account,and I accept it.za However, on my view jurisdiction was in general already shared between the two orders. If so, it follows that it was no doubt Caepio's law concerned only the court de repetundis; likely to affect any extraordinary courts to be set up for political charges.Cicero can be taken to mean that the Equites resentedlossof their control of political courts. It is evident that Saturninus' law on gave them such control of the new court it established(n. rz), maiestas and that Caepio's law was soon repealed by the lex de repetundisof Servilius Glaucia, under which a vindictive equestrian jury was enabled to convict Rutilius.25 Miriam Griffin also regards Plutarch's account of Gracchus' legislation as inconsistentwith certain statementsby Cicero and with Drusus' judiciary proposal in gr. (a) In 7o Cicero declaredthat there had been not the least suspicion ofjudicial bribery in the fifty yearsin which Equites had continuously enjoyedjudication ('cum equesterordo iudicaret'), in contrast to the notorious corruption rife after the transfer of iudicia to the senators (I Verr. gB).If this were true, there was an astonishingmoral degeneration in the order after 7o. Cicero could perhaps venture on his claim, however false, simply because no equestrian iudex had been actually convicted of taking a bribe. However, it contradicts the no lesspartisan testimony of Appian's sourceson their misconduct, and cannot be reconciled with the attempt made by Drusus, which the Equites strenuously resisted, to impose retroactive penalties on them for corruption (see below). But memories are short, and the suspicions which had certainly existed despite Cicero's assertioncould have faded in comparison with what was believed to be the proven guilt of senatorial iudicesin the more recent past. Cicero's assertion thus had enough plausibility for his rhetorical purpose, that of impressing on the court the necessityof restoring the reputation of senatoial iudices,if the senatorialmonopoly ofjudication were not to be swept away. We are not to look for any truth or precision in Cicero's statement. Moreover, in fact he does not strictly imply that Equites had possessedsole judication for fifty years; he had not necessarilyoverlooked Caepio's law, and there is no need to think that he meant that in casesother than repetundae, on which he was focusing attention,26 senators had 23 Obsequens 4r; Cassiod. Chron.MGH xi. r3z (on which see Mommsen, Ges. Schr.vii. 668 tr). 24 PBSR 1938, ff. 98 2s Cic. Scaur.a1. Ascon. zr C., Brut. zz4. Cf. n. 16 with text. 'Propter iudicia' could mean 'because of trials', sc. 'because of courts' established of one kind of case, rather than for various kinds of case. 26 | ycrr.38. Admittedly he goes on to mention casesin which senatorial iudirn in other postSullan courts had taken bribes.

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always been excludedfrom the courts,as Equiteshad been excludedby Sulla. Again, in his speechfor Cornelius he said: 'Memoria teneo, cum primum senatorescum equitibus Romanis lege Plotia iudicarent, hominem dis ac nobilitati perinvisum Pomponium causam lege Varia de maiestate dixisse.'27Under the lex Varia many senatori had been condemnedfor treasonby the malice of the Equites,who then controlled the court demaiestate; the lexPlautiaof Bg provided for the election of iudices on a tribal basis,not excludingsenatorsnor even'plebeians',but probably only iudicesto hear chargesunder the lex Varia (n. rzz). In the context Cicero'swords do not imply that senatorsand iudiceshad never shared judicial functionsin any other court before,or that neither Caepio nor Gracchuscan have set up mixed courts. We may noticehere another text which on its most natural interpretation refersto mixed courts in the pre-Sullan period. The author of the treatise ad Herenniumgives a model passagefrom a speech, actual or fictitious, in which a prosecutorfor parricide appealssuccessivelyto iudices 'who love the name of the senate',to those'who wish the station of an Equesto be mostsplendidin the state',and to thosewho have parentsor children (i". +l). This would make little senseunlessthe court desicarüsor de uenenis, which also took cognizanceof chargesof parricide (n. 7t), included both senatorsand Equites. The lex Plautia can of course be invoked to explain it by thosewho believethat law to have had a wider extensionthan I think plausible. (ä) As for Drusus, we are told in the Peiocheof Livy lxxi that he proposed that the iudicia should be equally shared between the senate and the equestrianorder. If this has any basisin Livy's text, we might supposethat the proposal was really limited to the courts de repetundis and de maieslate,of which the Equites admittedly had sole control: it would therefore not show that a mixed album did not already exist ör other purposes.However, this would mean that Drusus did not seekto effect what, according to the Peiocheof book lxx, the senate actually desired, viz. the outright transferenceof the iudicia to itsell And yet in conformity with Cicero's delineation of Drusus' policy,28 the Perioche acknowledgesthat he was thg champion of the senate'scause.Moreover, Appian (i. gS) statesthat he proposedto re-establisha senatorial monopoly, and so far Velleius (ii. 13) agrees;Appian adds that for this purpose the senatewas to be enlarged by the adlection of 3oo Equites.

in It is evident that whereasno such enlargementhad been necessary give a share in membership was to senators when all that was done ro6, of the one court from which they were then excluded, a senateof 3oo members was too small to provide all the iudicesrequired for other duties, both civil and criminal. Hence it would not be surprising that Drusus should have intended to anticipate the course taken by Sulla. The author of the work de uiris illustribas(66) also says of Drusus that 'equitibus curiam, senatui iudicia permisit', and, as Appian tells more fully, that the proposal evokedjealousy on the part of the Equites who were not to gain admissionto the senateand objectionsfrom senators who did not wish to see the aristocratic composition of the senate diluted. Perhapson this account the senatewas in the end the readier to quash Drusus' laws.2e There is no difficulty in supposingthat the epitomator of Livy once again mixed up the senate with the album iudicum,especially as his summary of Drusus' law is incongruent with his own account of the senatorial objective that Drusus championed, and that Velleius has simply omitted mention of the proposed adlection of new senators (which of coursenever took place). It is true that Appian's account is not free from error and confusion. He cannot have been right in thinking that the senate had been reduced by seditionsbelow its normal number, as was to be the casein Br;even when recordinghow Sulla increasedits size(i. roo), he did not understand that this was necessaryif senatorswere to man the courts, and supposed that he was merely filling gaps in the roll of senators created by the civil wars. He was surely providing his own ignorant 'suspected'that glosson Drusus' proposal.He also saysthat the Equites the admission of some of their order to the senate would only be a prelude to their exclusionfrom the courts, although by his account it must have been apparent that this was preciselywhat Drusus intended. But of courseindiaidualEquites, once Drusus' plan had been published, would have suspectedthat they might personally lose their judicial rights by not being enrolled in the senate,a promotion somemight not even have desired; Appian could easily have garbled a statement to this effect in his source. The detailed account that both he and the writer de uiris illustribus give of the attitudes of both senators and that their versionof it, which is also Equites to Drusus' bill presupposes that of Velleius, is correct; and it seemsto me incredible that it could have been sheerfiction. Of coursethere can have been no uncertainty about its content, all the more as it was passed into law, though annulled before implementation. Livy would not have been in error,

27 Ascon. 79 C. I alsoagreewith Balsdon (n. z4) that'cum primum'can mean,assoon as'and not necessarily'when for the first time', but even ifit is construed in the latter sense,it has to be considered in the context. I follow Badian (Historia 1969, 475) in amending ,Cn. Pompeium, to 'Pomponium'; we do not need to think that Cicero was an 'adherent' of Pompey to see that he could not have vilified Pompey'sfather in 65. 28 dt orat.i.24, Mit. rO; it'Dioa. xnvii.'ro; Vell. ii. 13; Ascon. 68 C.

2e Cic. dc dom. 4r, 5o, de lcg. ii. 14, 3r; Diod. xxxvii. ro.

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and Velleius may well reflect what he wrote;3o a confusion by the contemptible epitomator is easy to credit. Drusus also enacted penalties against iudices who took bribes. Miriam Griffin contendsthat as in the post-Sullan era chargesof this offence normally came before the repetundaa court,3l Drusus' law must have been a lex de repetundis and not a lex iudiciaria.That would carry the unacceptableimplication that he did not attempt to change thä equestrian composition of the maiestascourt. Moreover, we do not know (i) that Drusus, whoselaws never came into operation, intended the same procedure for trying charges of judicial iorruption as that establishedby Sulla, or (ii) that he did not proposea separateraw on judicial corruption penalizing equestrian iudices.The provision of such penaltiesis often taken to be incompatible with the exölusionof Equites from the courts. But that is not the case,if the penalty applied to past corruption. of the two texts in which cicero refers to iti äppücability to Equites, one permits and the other requiresus to believe-thatit wai retroactive. The second text has been unwarrantably emended, with no linguistic justification, to remove this implication, on the premise that retroactive legislationwas contrary to the spirit of Roman raw.32 That is indeed a principle stated by Cicero, but with a significant exception:'nisi eius rei quae sua sponte tam scelerataet nefaria est ut, etiamsi lex non esset,magnopere vitanda fuerit' (II Verr. i. ro8). Judicial corruption was the more suitable to be treated as such an exceptionsinceit had actually been a capital offenceunder the Twelve Tables.33Evidently this law had fallen into desuetude.However, in r42 the praetor L. Hostilius Tubulus had been flagrantly guilty of taking mo,neywhen presiding over a murder court, in l4r a plebiicite authorized his trial by a quaestio. under the presidency bf one of the consuls,and he went into exile;34if we may LeheveAiconius (23 C.), 30 rREviii. A 644 (Dihle); cf. Haug, 1947, roo ff. "- op. cit' (n. zz) r 16; seecic. cluart. ro4, rr4; this was not the only possible procedure (ibid. I 1 5 f ; c f . E w i n s ' J r R J 1 9 6 o , 9 g ) . R a b . P o s t1. 6 , c i t e d b y G r i f f i n , i s h e r e i r r e i e v a n t , u t r d h . r i n f e r e n c e from the Gracchan rcpehndazlaw v. zB seems to me unsound; it cannot have been Gracchus' deliberate intent to exempt Equites from penalties for taking bnbes, contraNicolet, 1966, 5rr ff.; even though Gracchus'law neglected to penalize them, that could not mean that in taking-bribes they were'taking money in amordauewith this law' (surely a patent absurdity); sherwin-white (n. 3) must be right that the clause relates to personsindictable under the law, who would include some holders-of the public hone (n. ro), when they had taken money less than the minimum (v. z) required for indictment. 32 Post. 16: 'si quis ob rem iudicatam [sometimes unwarrantably amended to 'iudican- ._Rab. dam'] pecu4iam accepisaet'; clunt. r53i'ei qui rem iudicassent' (whiih could but need not tePresent a llture perfect in the terms of the statute; in any event Cicero need not be quoling the terms, conha Lintott, op. cit. in n. 3, n. rz5). Appian and Diod. xxxvii. ro. 3 also striitly iäply that he provided for rerrospective charges, though their accuracy could be impugned. 33 Gell. *. t. 7; cf. n. 34. 'o ü. 54: 'cum praetor quaestionem inter sicarios exercuisset,ita aperte cepit 9ir. ! in. pecunias ob rem iudicandam, ut anno proximo P. Scaevola tr. pl. ferret ad plebem, villentne de

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his extradition was ordered, and he took poison.Evidently at that time there was no lex defining the offence and setting up a permanent quaestio to try it, even when it had been committed by a senator,yet it was consideredso monstrous ('magnoperevitanda') that a retroactive capital penalty could be imposed. It is true that the condemnation of Rutilius, which clearly set Drusus off on his anti-equestrian programme, is not ascribedin the numeroussourcesto judicial corruption, but simply to the conspiracyof the publicans against a man who had curbed their extortions;3sbut there is nothing to exclude the possibility that some of the iudiceswere believed to have been bribed by his enemies,or that other casesof corruption were alleged; Cicero's bland denial of this has virtually no weight (seeabove). Miriam Griffin makes much of the statement made by Drusus' chief opponent, the consul Philippus, that he needed a 'consilium' other than'illo senatu'.This of coursepresupposesthat the senatewas at the time (Septembergr) still on Drusus'side.'That senate'is simply pejorative:from Philippus' standpoint it had ceasedto act in the public interest.'o There is a parallel to, or reminiscenceof, this complaint in (non that which Livy (ii. 57. d attributes to Ap. Claudius, dor.495: consulem senatui sed senatum consuli deesse'.Griffin's notion that Philippus is implying that he intended to constitutean equestrianantisenate,and that an abortive plan of Drusus' adversaryhas been made the basisfor a false account of Drusus' law, seemsto me sheerfantasy. Thus Drusus sought to do what Sulla actually did, restore the senatorialmonopoly-of the courts. And even if Drusus proposedäixed courts, there could be no question of Plutarch mixing up Gracchus' proposalswith his, or for that matter with Caepio's;he never had any occasionto write of the activity of Caepio and Drusus,37and even if the presumably rather detailed source or sourceswhich he used for Gracchus made any comparison between his judiciary proposals and thosewhich were made later, that would have made plain to him what Gracchusactually did. There is of coursea clear analogy between the enlargement of the senate which the Periocheof Livy ascribes to Gracchus and that which Drusus proposed and Sulla effected; but nothing in the habits of its writer suggeststhat he would have read on ea re quaeri. Quo plebiscito decreta est consuli quaestio Cn. Caepioni; profectus in exsilium Tubulus statim nec respondere ausus; erat enim res aperta.'Tubulus was long remembered as a prime scoundrel (MRR i. 475). The incident shows that whatever procedure the XII Tables had prescribed had fallen into desuetude; cf ch. r n. r9. 3s GC rz5-7. 16 Cic. de orat. ili. z. Philippus said in a rozlio: 'videndum sibi essealiud consilium [a council that behaved differently', so too in Val. Max. vi. z. e; 'alio senatu']; illo senatu se rem publicam gererenon posse'.For the usageof ille'see OLD s.v.4 c. Cl also Quint..Izrt. Or. xi. r.37. 3t He names Drusus only in Calo Minor z.

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to bookslxxi and lxxxix and misconstruedGracchus' plans in the light of what he found there. Livy himself cannot have been in error (see below). We cannot explain away the testimony of Plutarch and the Perioche by confusionwith subsequentlegislation,which, if mentioned at all in their sources,would have been mentioned only by way of contrast with the Gracchan scheme. IV

The conflicts of evidence on the judiciary measures of Gracchus, Caepio, and Drusus make it worth while to turn to the evidenceon the lex Aurelia,as similar discrepanciesoccur, though the truth is known beyond question. Scholiastson Cicero testify that the iudicia were equally shared by senators,Equites, and tribuniaerarii;38two allusions in Cicero's letters confirm this.3e However, Cicero treats the tribuni aerarüas Equites and even as 'principes equestrisordinis',4o and can therefore say that the courts were now shared between senatorsand Equites.ar This is only comprehensibleif the panel of Equites proper consistedof past and present holders of the public horse, while the tribuni aerarii were also Equites in the looser senseof possessingthe equestrian property qualification. We can only conjecture why the panels were constituted in this way. Cicero had remarked in 7o that the corruption imputed to the senatorial iudiceshad created a demand for the appointment of censorswho would be able to purify the courts by removing the unworthy from the senateand thereby from the album iudicum(Diu. Caec.B). It was reasonablefor Cotta in proposing his reform to have provided that the new equestrianjurors should likewise be subject to censorialscrutiny. The enrolment of equites publicowas equo a matter for the censors,and we may readily assumethat they were also responsiblefor designating the tribuniaerarii;it had once been their 3E Ascon. r7 C. etc.; cf. Schol. Bobb. 94 St.: 3oo from each category (cf. Cic. Faz. viii.8.5; Pliny, "MlI xxxiii. 3r). 3 e A u . i . 1 6 .g , Qt. Jr. ü. 4. 6. ao Font. 4r, Rab. Post.14; cf. Clucnt.12r, r30, Flacc.4, 96, Planc.4r. Pompey'sregulation of55 thatiudices of all three orders should be selected 'amplissimo censu' (Ascon. r7 C.) merely means they were to be among the richest of tliose possessedof the formal qualifications (which for all comprised a minimum of 4oo,ooo HS). Schol. Bobb. gr St., perhaps derived from Cicero, says that a iudex might disqualify himself by losing 3oo,ooo or 4oo,ooo HS; naturally this does not imply that he is contemplating the loss of a man's entire fortuner and therefore that 3oo,ooo was the minimum required for tr. aer. Caesar eliminated them (Suet. Caes.4r; Dio xliii. e5), but apparently retained the minimum censusqualification of4oo,ooo (Cic. Phil. i. zo). Augustus' creation of a fourth decury of men with only zoo,ooo,entitled to judge only'de levioribus summis' (n. r ro), is ofcourse not evidencethat the tr. aer.had once formed an intermediate grade, esp. as their competence was not restricted. Cicero's testimony is in any event decisive against conjectural combinations of this kind. 4r Cluenl.r3o. So too he ignores 'plebeian' iudicesunder the lex Plautia (n. z7).

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function to pay the legionaries,and that might well have meant that they were not only drawn from thosewhoseproperty furnished security in caseof their embezzlementof public funds in their care, but that they could be cut off from the list by censorsfor misconduct.42Their office had become a sinecure,just as the equitesequopublicowere no longer required to serve in the cavalry, but in the one caseas in the other the censorscould have retained the right to award or withhold a title of socialdistinction which raised them above others with the same property qualification. Thus two thirds of the new albumwere in some senseEquites. Velleius says that judicial rights were shared between senators and Equites 'aequaliter' (ii. 3o), which we may perhaps render as 'fairly', though in the absenceof other evidence 'equally' would be more natural. The preponderanceof Equites in the broad senseexplains why Plutarch (Pomp.zz) and the Periocheof Livy xcii write of transferenceof the courts to them. We can similarly account for a misconceptionof Gracchus'judiciary law. True, Velleius expressly contraststhe compromiseof 7o with the Gracchan systemof purely equestriancourts and the Sullan of purely senatorial (loc. cit., cf. ii. 6. 3), presumably becausehe is thinking of the exclusivecontrol of political courts by Equites in the Gracchan system. It is clear that but for the survival of commentariesby the diligent Asconiusand of the letters of Cicero the content of the lex Aurelia would be as disputable as Gracchus'judiciary legislation, for which we have no evidencebetter in kind than Velleius and the Periochae of Livy. None should doubt that Livy, writing when there was a mixed album,was perfectly well aware of the terms of the lex Aurelia,and that the error in the Perioche is one of many that must be attributed to his miserable epitomator.a3 It seemsto me no lesscertain that if we had Livy's account of eventsfrom the Gracchi to Sulla, though it might fail to bring to light those 'clandestine,private maneuvers'which, according to Gruenaa,are the'genuine stuffof politics',and though it might reflect the bias of his sourcesin analysisof the motives and intentions of rival politicians, we should not lack accurateinformation on overt facts known to all contemporary observersof the political scene.The period was perfectly familiar to historically minded Romans in the first a2 C. Nicolet, Tributum,r976,46 ff., also for the possibility that they collected the tributum(not levied since I67) and had to advance the sums due to the treasury. Of course senatorstoo were liable to be removed by the censors.(The distinction drawn in a Sullan law between membersof the senate and those with a right 'in senatu sententiam dicerc' (Cluent. r48) seemsto imply that Sulla had assumed that there would be regular censorial lectionesthrough which ex-quaestors embraced in the latter category would normally become full senators.) a3 Many scholars have h"eli that the Periochäederived from an earlier and fuller epitome of Livy: Kroll disagreed (rRExiii. 824 ff., with bibliography). a a G r u e n , 1 9 6 8 ,c h . r .

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century sc. Hence Cicero can casually refer, for example, to such incidentsas Pennus'law of r26, the lex Thoria,and the prosecutions under the lex Mamilia, without giving any explicit account of them:as he could take it for granted that his audience or readers knew the circumstances.What he saysin the last instancewould be as problematic to us as the other two allusionsbut that Sallust'sBellumlugurthinum was preservedas a masterpieceof Latin prose writing. That work in itself shows the wealth of material deriving from contemporary narrativesand speechesthat was available to a writer three generations later. Exactly what sourceswere used by Livy or Sallust, or by other derivative writers such as Claudius Quadrigarius, Valerius Antias, or Aelius Tubero, whom Livy might have followed, it is impossibleto tell. We can name somewriters of contemporary history in the period, such as Cn. Gellius, L. Coelius Antipater, SemproniusAsellio, C. Fannius, and P. Rutilius Rufus, but so little is known of the scopeof theirworks, and that from a few chance allusionsor citations, that we cannot even be sure that there were no other sourceslost in total oblivion. The memoirs of Scaurus (cos. lr5) were available to Cicero and are probably cited later; Plutarch, or his sources,could cite the memoirs of Catulus (cos.toz).46Numerous speechesfrom the secondcentury were extant, including some published by Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, of which the latter evoked Cicero's strong admiration.aT They have probably left some traces even in our meagre tradition.as Livy certainly used speeches,Cato's in particular, and it is extremely unlikely, given his rhetorical training, that he was not as familiar with those of Gaius Gracchus, whom Cicero had rated so highly, as with thoseof Cato; in fact, we may infer from Perioche lix that he drew on Gaius' speg:h for the rogatioPapiria ( r 3 r oc), which was long extant in antiquity.4e It is true that, whereashä neededa book for r.B years in his third decade,and for just over 2 years for his narrative oi^events from zoo to 168,and no lessthan rB booksfor the period from gr to 79 (which is alsopoorly documentedin our extant sources),r3 sufficedfor the yearsfrom r33 to gz. It was not a time of great wars, on which he a.s Dt o5r. üi. 47, Brut. rg6, tz7 f. "o Cl Perer, a1 Brut. ro3, rz5 HRRI. subnominibus. f. a8 Malcovati, ORF2, no.48, 16-zo. She reasonably "rJ.,-.ä that Gracchan speeches are r e f l e c t e di n s o m e p a s s a g eosf P l u t a r c h 1 T i . G r . g , 1 5 .C . G r . r . 3 . B ) a n d A p p i a n t i , t r , 2 2 ) . *' xxxviii. 54. r r, xxxix. 4z f., Per. xli, xlix (Cato's speeches,which may also have been used where this is not stated,e.g. in xxxvii. 57; there is a puzzie about the ref.re.ce in Per.xli ro Cato's speech on the lex voconia,which belongs to 169 and is not menrioned by Livy in xliii, where it b e l o n g sp; e r h a p s t h e r e w a s a f o r w a r d a l l u s i o n t o i t i n o n e o f t h e g a p s i n x l i . t 8 - 2 r , c o n j e c t u r a l l y i n connection with the undated lex Furia, which it strengthened.) cf. per. xlix (Galba) lix (e. Metellus), lxx, where Livy evidently relied on a statement of Cicero for the trial of Maniui Aquillius in default of other evidence (GC r r6).

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loved to expatiate.But within this period he could still write at length on major internal commotions.Tiberius Gracchus'tribunate occupied virtually the whole of book lviii (apart from some material on the Sicilian slave war), and the activities of Gaius must have consumed most of books lx and lxi, which ran from rz6 to r2o Bc. It is our misfortune that both Appian and Plutarch have not chosento tell us as much of the transactionsof r2g-r22 as of r33; both must once have been amply recorded. Our information on the turbulent year of Saturninus' second tribunate, to which Livy devoted a whole book (lxix), is just as scanty. The period from the Gracchi to Sulla is therefore not one in which we should expect to find different 'traditions' about public events,one of which can be regarded as authentic, while others can be rejected as fictions devoid of all foundation; the discrepanciesin our evidencemust rather be explained by the rhetoric, bias, and inexactitude of many of Cicero'sallusions,and by the carelessness characteristicof epitomizers, which we often find in the secondary accounts of events in the 5os. Here their errors can generally be exposed by collation with the testimony of Cicero: it is this alone, for instance,that proves that those late narratives are right which credit Caesarin 59 with two agrarian laws, and not with only one; if it were lost, Ockham's razor would doubtlesshave been confidently applied.so It is never sufficientsimply to dismissone version of eventsand to prefer another, without showing how the error of the former can be explained. No sourceof error is so common as the undue brevity and looseness of hasty epitomizers.The lexAureliagave the Equites preponderancein the courts: it was then easy to say that it transferredjurisdiction to them. The tribuniaerarüwere Equites in a wide sense(n.4o): it was natural not to differentiate them from thosewho were formally entitled to the appellation. Even if Asconius were a generally unreliable authority, and even if his testimony were not confirmed by Cicero, it would have been right to believe that they formed one third of the albumiudicutn,simply becauseit would have been impossibleto seehow their inclusion could have been invented, and perfectly comprehensible that it should have been ignored. The more detailed our testimony is, the more it is likely to preserve (perhaps in a confused and inaccurate form) some elementsfrom the earlier and fuller evidence, which rival versionshave omitted, or obscured in imprecisely general phrasing.So too in regard to Gaius Gracchus'legislationon the courts, ifhe did not excludesenatorsbut gave Equitesa shareor preponderance,togetherwith an actual monopoly in the court that was of most 50 Cl Brunt, CQ r98o 4 7 r f f . , e s p .4 9 2 .

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political importance,epitomesand casualallusionscould easilycredit him with transferringthe courts to the Equites;on the other hand, the contradictory statementmade by Plutarch, which must be right if it has the backing of Livy, is lesseasyto explain except on the basisthat it is true. In fact only one other explanation merits seriousconsideration.It is the theory adopted by many scholars, including Stockton, that Plutarch and (probably) Livy recorded an initial proposalof Gracchus which he eventually abandoned. Some discovered an analogy by imputing to him a change of plan for the extension of the franchise: Stockton himself has refuted this, and I shall waste no words on it.51 Others sought support for the theory in what we are told of his enactment (perhaps part of some more general measure) 'ne quis iudicio circumveniretur', which prescribed penalties for senators alone.s2They supposedthat this expresslyrelatäd to the acceptanceof bribes by iudices,and found it inexplicable that only senatofial iudices were liable, not only if senatorswere excluded from the courts, but also if Equites were even eligible. Hence they dated it to a time when Gracchus did not intend to touch the senatorial monopoly, and conjectured that the Periocheof Livy, rather than Plutarch, has preserved the truth, and that at one stage he designed simply to enlarge the senateand leave senatorsin possession of the courts. But it has been shown that, though the terms of the enactment were so wide and vague that they could cover a corrupt vote for condemnation, that was not its true purpose: it was devised to limit the undue exerciseof power by senators,making it a criminal offence for them to procure a man's unjust condemnation by any wrongful means,of which bribery was only one.53 Most advocatesof the two-stagetheory dated the law or laws to r22 and the abortiveplan to re3. In myjudgement it is far more likely that in order to consolidatehis power Gracchus sought to win equestrian lupport in his first tribunate, both by his judiciary legislation and by his regulation of the Asian tax system.Moreover, whether or not the bill that passedby only one tribal vote be identified with a judiciary law (n. B), the confermentofjudication on the Equites can have had so little appeal to the massesthat it would have been safe in tzz for

Drususto have exercisedhis veto.5aIndeed the influenceof Gracchus waned in rzz, and in the early part of that year, when it was perhaps still strong,he had to spendseventydays organizingthe settlementof Iunonia (Plut. r r. r ). All this is not decisiveagainsta date very early in law at least must be placed the second tribunate, and the repetundae early in either I23 or I22, since it envisagesthat a panel must be enrolled for the current year, in which charges under the new procedure may still be brought;ss Stockton, who favours r2g) can hardly be right in dating it to the autumn. Holding with more entire confidence than the evidence permits that the judiciary legislation belongsto early rz3 (which I still think most probable), I previously argued that there was no time for a change of plan. However, there is no force in this contention. Plutarch and Livy could have recorded a schemethat he contemplated but abandoned after a week or two. Nor can we make anything of the mere fact that both refer to a law (lex, vdp.os),not a rogatio.In the very same context Plutarch writes of the 'law' for enfranchising Latins, which never passed,and the author of (book iii) can use the term legesof agrarian bills which the Periochae were not enacted. However, Plutarch makes clear his belief that the law as he described it was actually passed.He adds that Gracchus himself selectedthe new equestrian iudices.This is incompatible with the mode by which iudicesare to be empanelled in the tabulaBembina and under later legislation.s6Probably Gracchus'enemiesmade out that they were his creatures,and Plutarch has here mistaken hostile propaganda for truth. Whether Gracchus' supposedchange of plan evincesgreater moderation or less,we might expect that some explicit hint of it would be

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51 Stockton t4g-g,237-9. 52 Cic. Cluenr.r 15 f.; cf. U. Ewins, J.RS 196o,94 ff., at 99. Cluent. r48, r57; Ewins, art. cit.; cf Stockton, r979, rzz-6. SiUa iricoip"orated this -53 Gracchan law in his lex de sicarüs(Cluent.r 5r). It may be that it had been part not oftie Gracchan law'ne de capite . . .' (n. 88 with text) but ofan otherwise unattesredGiacchan law de sicariis;as shown in sectionvr, the law 'ne de capite . . .' necessitatedthe creation of a quaestio de sicarüsif it did not already exist; and if it did, Gracchus may have wished to amend its terms of refbrence. The absenceofany expresstestimony to such a Gracchan law is certainly no proofthat there was none (cf. pp. z16 ft).

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sa It may be objected that, according to Cicero ap. Ascon.78 C., the populace demanded the Aurelian law and the Roscian; but his claim in regard to the Roscian is highly dubious (ch.6 n. r55); in any case the notorious corruption ofsenatorial iudicesin the 7os, which could affect defendants of all degrees charged with murder, peculation, or forgery, might account for a universafdemand for reform (cf. I Verr.44). Stockton, ry79, zz6 ff., reviews other chronological arguments on the chronology of Gracchan laws, all in my view indecisive.Perhaps the order of the notices in Per. Livy lx has some weight, but we cannot be sure that it follows Livy's. In my view Appian narrates events to explain the rise and lall ofGracchus without exact attention to chronology; he even fails to note that he was killed in the year after his secondtribunate; cf. ch. g n.6r. 55 I t is not very material that the praetorian provinces for the year had already been allocated (vv. rz, r6), sincethat might have been done at the end ofthe preceding year, but significant that the law envisagesprosecutionsin the very year ofits enactment. It seemsto me that the repeated mention of r Sept. (vv. 7, g) implies that a charge under the law would not be heard in the year in which it was brought unlesspreferred before that terminus, even though the lacuna in w. 6 f., makes it impossibleto determine what happened if it were preferred later (cL W. W. Buckland, |JRS rg7, 4z). 36 Cic. Cluent.rzr: 'praetores urbani ... iurati debent optimum quemque in selectosiudices rcft'rre'. In 5z Pompey was apparently empowered to nominate for a speciala/äan (Ascon. 38 C.), but this was more appropriate for a consul than lor a tribune.

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found in some of our sources,and more particularly in Plutarch, who brings out how Tiberius Gracchus was inflamed by opposition to his first agrarian bill and made it more severe,and how Gaius abandoned his persecution of octavius.sT stockton replies that it is no less remarkable that Plutarch fails to mention that he altogether excluded senatorsfrom the repetundae court. That is not so. Plutarch was not an historian but a biographer. His primary concern was nor with the actions of any of his heroesfor their intrinsic importance but with the way in which they illustrated the man's personality, his virtues, and faults (e.g. Alex. r). Gracchus' legislativeprogramme interestshim becauseit showsGracchus'gratifying the people and overthrowing the senate'(5. r) and therebyobtaining almostmonarchicpower (6. i). If he was right that Gracchussubvertedsenatorialdominance by abolishing their monopoly of jurisdiction, his special regulation of the repetundae^court was a detail that did not essentiallyaffect Plutarch's picture.ss But it would have been very differerri if Gru..hus had changed his mind, becausehe was either exacerbatedby resistanceor ready to defer to objections.It is then unlikely that Pluiarch found in his source any evidence that Gracchus ever propounded a judiciary reform other than that which he brought into operation.

r. de sicariisel aeneficis nummaria z. defalsis, teslamentaria, g. de repetundis 4. de maieslate 5. de ambitu 6. depeculatu 7. de ai The last was certainly created after Sulla under Lutatian and Plautian laws; the others are known to have operated under Cornelian laws, ofwhich this is presumed.The Cornelian statutesde except for peculatus, sicariis. . . and defakis . . . remained the basisof the relevant criminal law throughout the Principate; the other statuteswere supersededby (59 sc), demaiestate, deambitu,depeculatu,and de Julian laws derepetundis ui, which likewise remained in force thereafter;for our purpose it does not matter which of them were the work of Caesar or of Augustus.6o The imperial jurist Pomponius,having recordedthe institution of the 'after urban and peregrinepraetorships(Deg.i. z. z. 27 f .), observesthat the conquest of Sardinia, then of Sicily, also of Spain and next of Narbonensis',an enumeration of the creation of new provinceswhich is chronologically disordered and omits the pre-Sullan annexation of Achaea, Macedonia, Africa, and Asia, additional praetors were ap'quaestionespublicas pointed to govern them, and that then Sulla constituit, veluti de falso,de parricidio, de sicariis,et praetoresquattuor adiecit'; Caesar was to add two more, and there was thus a total of twelve (ibid. 3z). Pomponius'countof praetorsis inaccurate:after I79 there were always six, ind in Cicero'stime only eight;61of coursein the Sullan system praetors stayed at Rome in their year of office to administer justice, and went out thereafter to provinces as promagistrates. Nor was there any permanent court deparricidio;trials on this chargeseemto have come beforethe court desicariis(seebelow), though the offencewas regulated not by the Cornelian law but by a Pompeian law of unknown authorship and date (Drg. xlviii. 9). Pomponius' testimony is thus so inaccurate that we could not properly infer from it 'constituit' unambiguously that Sulla created (even if that were what he specifically mentions, or any others. means) the three quaestiones The fact that a Sullan statute defined the law to be applied by a permanent court to a particular crime or group of crimes is plainly no proof that any such court was first set up by Sulla. W_e,tnozothis to be We also have üntrue of the courts de repetundisand de maiestate.62

v It will be seen that the two-stage theory is not capable of decisive refutation. But I do not think that scholarsin generalwould have been disposedto acceptit, had they not been unduly influenced not only by the apparent testimony of some sourcesthat Gracchus simply transferred the iudiciato the Equites, but also by the belief that there were no other judicial functions besidesservicein the repetundae court, from which senatorswere admittedly excluded, to which his legislation could have applied. To this contention I now turn. So far as crimes are concerned,it is said that no other permanent quaestiones yet existed.It might be added that it would have been futile for Gracchus to have prescribed the composition of any future court constitutedad hoc,sinceits composition could always be determined by the very measureby which it was constituted. In the post-sullansystempermanentcriminal courtsexistedat least:5e s1 T;. Cr. to. C. Gr. a,. tl fl.. law-on repetuidae has little interest for most narrative sources in its own right, as .. d i s r i n g u i s h e df r o m t h e c o m p o s i t i o no f t h e c o u r t ( c f . n . 6 4 a n d t e x t ) . se GCzlgff.,assemblethechieftexts. Iignorethenovel lexCorneliadeiniuriis,astheprocess was certainly civil (Izst. iv. 4. r; Gruen, r968, 263, is apparently unaware that poern and iudicium are terms ofcivil as well as ofcriminal process),and we do not know that thire was a quaesho (Kunkel, RE xxiv. 742). Vis: see Lintott, r968, ch. vrrr.

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60 Drg. *lriii. 4. 6-8, 9-r r, I3. 6r Cic. Sest. 87, post red.sen.zz f. for 57 ac. 62 'l'he trial of Norbanus in r. 95 under the la( Appuleiamaiestatisproves that that law created a p ( ' r m a n e n tc o u r t ( / a o r a ! .ü . r o 7 , r 9 7 f . ; c f . G C g I t r ) .

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allusionsto pre-sullan trials by quaestiones for murder, ambilus,and peculatus (seebelow). some or all of thesehave been construed to refer to adhoccourtssetup on specialoccasions. A passage in cicero seemsto draw a distinction between ad hocand permanent courts: 'cognosce alias quaestiones,[i] auri rolosani Iro4], coniurationisIugurihinae [sc. under the lex Mamilia of r ro]; repete superiora:Tubuli dä pecunia capta ob rem iudicandam U+zl; posteriora; de incestu rogatione Peducaea Ittg]; [ii] tum haec cotidiana: sicae venena peJulutus, testamentorumetiamnoualegequaestiones';elsewheretoo he showsthat sulla establisheda new permanent court for forgery.63The 'cotidiana' are clearly crimes repressedby permanent courts, but among them Cicero differentiatesbetween forgery, which was a novelty, anä those which by implication were the subject of earlier legislation. so there was nothing fundamentally new in sulla's law 'de sicariis et veneficis' or in the post-sullan repressionof peculatus (a sullan law is not actually attested); and there is no evidence that he first created anv criminal court, except for forgery. In fact no historical narrative ror itre period mentionshis constitutionof any courts at all. Velleius (ii. 3z) merely saysthat he transferredjudiciary functions to 'the senate', an inaccurate term to represent 'the senators'. Appian does no more than mention that he adlectednew senators,without making it clear that he doubled the size of the senatewith the aim, as Tacitus alone remarks (Ann. xi. zz), of enabling it to provide sufficient iudices.There is of course equally no ancient authority for the myth widespread in modern works that he performed an outstanding serviceby iemodelling the criminal law in substance;in fact, his laws, except on forgery, may have been tralatician apart from points of detail. This silenceon the part of narratiues,urcesis typical. They were not interestedin the establishmentof new courts, or in the designation of certain acts as criminal, or in subsequentmodificationsof criminal law. Just as they are silent on almost every statute that reformed the civil law in substanceor procedure, so too they do not mention the lex calpurniaderelpetundis, nor any later legislation on the offenceincluding the lex lulia,o* except in so far as it changed the composition of thä courts, nor the lex Appuleiade.maiestate (n.62), nor the lex Pompeiade parricidäs,nor the statute undär which men were prosecutedfor ämbitus in the pre-sullan period, nor any statute on peculatus, nor the Lutatian

(Phil.i. and Plautian laws on urs,nor Caesar'slaws on ul'sand maieslas zr). We can learn much of thoselaws which were in force in Cicero's in which he was pleading under their own day, chiefly from speeches terms, and much of those still operative in the Principate from the commentsofjurists on their interpretationand later extension;statutes which had become obsoletein Cicero's lifetime are known, if at all, from a few chance literary allusions,5sor from the equally fortuitous survival of epigraphic fragments. It is therefore illegitimate to argue , silentiothat at any particular date no law was in force by which a permanent quaestilhad been constituted, becausewe do not hapPen to know of it, or to assumethat Sulla was the first to establishsuch courts, if they are not clearly attested before his dictatorship. Cicero recalled that Servilius Glaucia used to warn the people to be beforewhich any citizen, and wary of any bill that set up a new quaestio not simply ex-magistrates,might be indicted for offencescommitted after its enactment; it is evident that at least proposalsof this kind had becomefamiliar before the end of the secondäet iury.66 With no police or public prosecutor,the state had to rely on delatorsto bring crimes to light and to encourage them with rewards. A class of professional accusersseemsto have come into existencebefore Bo, who were active inter alia in preferring charges of murder; some time earlier it had become ,,..ättuty to-penalLe false accusationsby a lex Remmia,61which was perhapsthe work of a Remmius attestedas tribune in 9I,68 but rvhich is unlikely to have been enacted until the abusesof the practice of delation had becomeapparent over a period of someyears. It is only sheer prejudice that obliges somescholarsto put a wholly unnatural construction on a passagein which Cicero indicates that predated Gracchus. He says that C. several permanent quaestiones Carbo (cos.r2o, and born thereforec. 165) was distinguishedas an 'plura fieri iudicia coeperunt; nam et advocate at a time when quaestionesperpetuae hoc adulescente constitutae sunt, quae ante nullae fuerunt; L. enim Piso tr. pl. legem primum de pecuniis repetundistulit'(in r49). Gruen holds that this'in context surely perpetuae dated to I49, not that meansthat the institution of quaestiones were constituted about that time'.öv But the Calpurseveralquaestiones and it seemsto me the plain nian law created only one such quaestio, senseof the text that for Cicero it was the precedentfor othersset up in

63 denat. deor,üi. 'cornelia testamentaria,nummaria, ceteraecomplures 74; cf. ll verr. i. roB: (leges)in quibus non ius aliquod novum populo constituitur, sedsancitur ut, quod sempermalum facinus fuerit, eius quaestio ad populum pertineat ex certo tempore', from whieh we may deduce that in respectofat least some ofthe offenceslisted in Sulla's forgery law an injured party could previously have brought a private action; cf. Kunkel, tg62,64. "'Yetthe narrativesofdomesticeventsin59arefullerthanforanyyearbetweenr3zandTg. Dio liv. r6 also neglectsthe enactment of Augustus' adultery law.

65 Fullest for Glaucia's repetundae law (GC roof.), whose provisions, continued in later legislation, Cicero cites in three forensic speeches. 66 Rab. Post.rt. 67 Cic. ,Rosr.Amer. 55-7; cf. also 8, go; Dig. xlviii. 16. r. z; Kunkel, 1962, n. 343. Dio, fr. roo names a delator notorious in 88. 6E De uir. ill.66. z (not in MAR). 6e Brutusro6; Gruen, 1968, 87 n.44, is followed by Griffin.

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the next two decades.If he had been thinking only of trials ('iudicia' could be so translated) in the repetundae court, he would simply have omitted the words 'nam et . . . fuerunt'. what other courts.o.rld hu'ue been established? It is most natural to think of quaestiones de sicariisand,deuenenis, which took cognizance not. only or primarily of murder but of carrying weapons and procuring poisons with evil intent, though it wili bä convenient to refer to them as murder courts.to Murdei of close kin was parricide and under the lex Pompeiaknown to us by name only from imperial jurists, it carried a peculiarly barbarous penalty; cicerä te^llsthat a few yearsbeforehis defenceof sextus Rosciusin Bo a charge of parricide brought by a delatolhad been tried by a jury, probablyln a court de sicarüsor de uenefcirs.Tl His pre-Sullan träatiie'de inueniione p-rovidesan example of delation for both poisoning and parricide, and alludesto a casein which there was an attempt to bar a öirril action for iniuria on the footing that a decision would be prejudicial to a future trial 'inter sicarios'. The roughly contemporary work addressedad Herenniumoffers specimensof oratorical pleas for men accusedbefore iudicesof parricide or murder. All thesecaseswere pre-Sullan. when Roscius was charged with parricide, but before the court 'inter sicarios', cicero says that that court was meeting in Bo after a 'long interval'; however, the president M. Fannius, *lio was then praetor, had actually presided in some previous year, presumably as iedilicius (nn. 74-6); the interval need be no longer thän that of ihe civil war (83*Bz) plus a subsequentperiod in which Sulla might have dealt summarily with criminals as dictator. cicero refers tö the countless professionalinformers who were accustomed to bring charges ,inter sicarioset de veneficiis'evidently before this 'interval'.72 Sullais statute (which cicero never mentions in his defence of Roscius) need have done no more than consolidateand elaborate the previous law; though it em-bracedboth types of offencesunder the häading 'de sicariis et veneficis', sulla did not necessarilyenvisage that one court would suffice; in 66 two courts inter sicariosand one de aenefuis were sitting simultaneously.73 70 Kunkel, 196z,64 ff.; cf. J. D. Ctoua, S{, 1969, 16o ff. " Lex Ponpeia;Drg. xlviii. g. I do not seewhy it may not be pre-sullan. The court which heard . charges before sulla (ad Hcr. iv. 47, de im. ü. 58f., Rosc.Amer.'64 f was probably, as after Sulla ) (Rosc.Amcr._rt with r8), the quaestiointer sicariosor deuenmri.This may have been piescribed either by the lex Pompdn itself or by pre-Sullan and Sullan legislation on the other 'murder' charges, which might have enacted that penalty should be that laid down by the lex Pompeiain the -the "ases to which that law applied. Similarly the lex lulia de repetundis may have incorporated heavier pecuniary penalties when the offences proved would älso have bien indictabü under e.g. the thln Su]l,an^faw.dq maicstak(cf. Cic. Prs.5o; A. N. Sherwin-White, pB.9rRrg49, reff.). ' ' C i c . d er z u . i i . c 8 - 6 o . R o s c . A m errr., 2 8 , 6 4 f . , 9 o ( c f . n . 6 7 ) , a d H e i . i i . + l , S i c f . n n . 6 7 , 7 5 . 13 Cic. Clucn. tl7 f.

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servedas In the 9os C. Claudius Pulcher (cos.gz) had, as aedilicius, 'iudex q[uaesti,-,nis] veneficis'.So too in the post-Sullanperiod there and their were often too few praetors to presideover all the quaestionzs, The writer ad or quaesitor.Ta place was supplied by a iudexquaestionis in murder cases,among them L. Herenniumrefers to such quaesitores Cassius (cos. rz7), who was long remembered for asking in that capacity icui bono fuissetperire eum de cuius morte quaeritur'.75It is most probable that he exercisedthe function as praetor or after his aedileship,i.e. before rz3; in the late Republic the presidentsof standing courts, if not praetors, were aedilicü,like C. Claudius.T6 'quaestioneminter sicarios Finally, the praetor Hostilius Tubulus it likely that he wasin charge exercuit'in r4z (".g+).Gruen considers quaestio quaestio, was set up in I38 to try since such a of an extraordinary publicans and their agents for murder, and he supposesthat to have been unnecessary,if a standing court were already in being. (He also thinks, contrary to the evidence, that the permanent court is not known to have existedbeforeSulla.)77His argument has no force. In 52, although permanent courts for uis and ambitusalready existed, Pompey promoted new legislation for the trial of offenders, which aggravated the penalties, speededthe procedure, and provided for a specialalbumof iudicesand for the election of a consular to presideover tire court to hear the chargesarising from Clodius'murdär.78 In l38 'men the publicans of Sila were alleged to have procured the death of 'the of note', and given the probable influence of the defendantsand magnitude and atrocity' of the crime imputed to them, the consuls themselveswere commissionedto take cognizanceof the matter. The establishmentof a specialcourt for this affair is thereforeno ground for denying that there was a regular court to try what Cicero calls the 'daily' crimes of low-classsicarii. 'daily' type (n.6r) which Peculation was another offence of the could be committed by men of relatively lo* i"rrk,?' and for which 1a ILS president of the court might be'iudex 45.The lex Comeliade sicariisenvisaged that the 'quaesitor' (l Vcrr. zg, Font. 2r, Cluent. quaestionis'(Coll. i. r. 3; Drg. xlviii. 8. r . r ). The term 55, 74, Bg) is in my view used to denote the president, whether a praetor or such a iudcx. Aliter Mommsen, SrR2 ii. 582 ff., whose theory need not be examined here. '5 Ad Her. iv. 47 with Ascon. 45 C. 76 M.Fannius(n.72),aed.probablyinS6(itiRCi.no.35I),C I u. n i u s i n T 4 ( c f . C i c . C l u e n t . T g ) , C. Flaminius in 66, Caesarin 64, C. Octavius in 63 (?), CrassusDives in 59 were all aedilicii,like C. Visellius Yarro (Brut.264), ann.ize.; this can be true of all other suchiudicesrecorded in MRRü. under 86, 7o, 66, 62. Consulars and praetorians are attested only for extraordinary courts set up b y t h e l a w s o f P e d u c a e u s( r l 3 ) , M a m i l i u s ( r I o ) , a n d P o m p e y ( 5 2 ) . 77 Gruen,r968,z6r,onCic.Brut.B5-S.Itisanothermatterthattherewasaspecialquacstioto t r v ' l ' u b u l u s( n . 3 4 ) . tt Ar..,n. ':3; Plur. CatoMinor 38 f. C.; App. ii. 48; Tac. Dial. 38. z; cf. Cic. Mil. | 5, Att. xüi. ' 11 ) . I 7 ' r ' . g . ( l i t . M u r . q , t ; P l u t . C a l oM i n o r 1 6 . 3 ; L i v y x x x . 30. 7.

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there was a pre-Sullanpermanentcourt. Naturally we seldomhear of prosecutionsexcept when a man of high station was accused,as L. Lucullus was probably accusedin r oz and Pompey in 86. Gruen concedesthat a permanentcourt probably existedby roz, but argues that it must have been constituted after ro4, when there was an extraordinary investigationinto the embezzlementof the Tolosan gold (". 6S). But the eminenceof the principal defendanton that occasion, Q. Servilius Caepio (cos. ro6), and the complexity of the affair, in which a great number of personswere probably implicated, might well have made it seemappropriate to set up a specialtribunal with its own procedure and an exclusivelyequestrianjury, unlike that of a permanent court already in existence.uu The existenceof somepermanent criminal courts which would have been senatorialas early as 133 would be certified, if we were to accept Plutarch's story that when seeking re-election Tiberius Gracchüs propounded a new legislativeprogramme (n. zr), including a bill creating a right of appeal to the people from their verdicts, unlesswe suppose that the putative bill merely reinforced the right of such appeal when a citizen was condemned by the magistrate acting by advice of his consilium,perhaps under the authority of a senatorial decree (cf. section VI). Tiberius might also have proposed to make even the sentencesof courts set up by the people appellate, as Antony proposedin 44 \9 provide for appealsfrom sentencesof the courts deui and demaiestate.6r Somescholars,however, take his allegedprogramme to be merely a fictitious retrojection of Gaius' measures:I incline to think this view implausible, on the ground that even if Tiberius was seekingre-election simply for his personal security, he still needed to furnish public reasons for his candidature, and to win additional popular support. VI

Whether or not there is evidence for the existencebefore rz3 of any permanent court except that derepetundis, the question of the establishment of such courts before Sulla needs to be reviewed in the light of Kunkel's reconstructionof pre-Sullan criminal processes. On Mommsen's theory, which became canonical, citizens could be tried by a magistrate for crimes, but they could always appeal to the people against sentencesof death, flogging, and fines over a certain limit; as a result proceedings in the magistrate's court were mere formalities, and the substantive trial took place on appeal, to the 80 Plut. Luc. t, Pomp.4; cf. Gruen, r 968, r 76 f ., 244ff. For the aurumTolosanum seeGC 8o, 85. 81 Cic. Phil. i. er f.

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centuriateassemblyon capital indictments,and to the tribal when the penalty was a heavy fine; no other procedure was known until permanent or ad hoccourts were set up for particular offencesor typesof offence.o'Numerous trials beforethe peopleare in fact recorded,but critics ofMommsen were able to show that in all historic cases,exceptfor the trialsof C. Rabiriusin 63, the peopleactedasa court offirst instance, hearingindictmentsby a magistrate,normally a tribune.s3Moreover, almost all the casesare thoseof political offences.Kunkel supposesthat magistratesacting by the advice of a consilium could exerciseinappellate jurisdiction, e.g. for murder, on prosecutionsbrought by kindred of the victim or by delatorsappearingin the public interest.Ea His complex and plausible argumentscannot be rehearsedhere, but at first sight his conclusionis barred by an insurmountable difficulty. That citizens had a right of appeal against capital convictions in the secondcentury is beyond question. It cannot be believedthat this right was renderedinoperative just becausethe magistrate tried a man with a consilium which he could chooseat his own will and which could share his own bias. Defendantson political chargescould then have been at the mercy of a hostile court. There seems to be no doubt that in practice magistratesdid not venture to hear such charges,which came before the assemblyin the first instance.This was ensurednot only by the ius prouocationis and by the tribunician ius auxilü, which was available only within the city of Rome, but precisely by the competence of tribunes to impeach before the people any magistrate who violated the former right. However, it is another matter to supposethat tribunes would give protection within the city to personsprosecutedfor common crimes, or impeach, or threaten to impeach, magistrateswho would not allow appeal on conviction, when there was no reason to think that he and his consilium would fail, or had failed, to give them a fair hearing. Hence in actual usage non-political crimes could have been dealt with as Kunkel suggests.Indeed it seemsinconceivablethat the cumbrous procedure of the centuriate assembly,with hearings on four days (n. Bz), was the normal mode of bringing common criminals to justice.85Some caseshave been adduced when it was used for such trials, but all have exceptionalfeatureswhich can explain the adoption of an unusual process.s6Good sensesuggeststhat the peasant who 82 stit iii3. 83 Bleicken, RE xxiii. 2444 ff.; cf. endnotes8 f. 75r ff. 8a Kunkel, 196z (cf. my review in Tijdschr. uoor Rechtsgeschiedenis 1964,44o fl., and lucid discussionby Nicholas inJolowicz-Nicholas, ch. r8), ÄE xxiv. 7zr ff.; he strengthened,perhaps without proving, his casethat the magistrate was bound by the majority of his consiliunin Kl. Schr. r974, rrr ff.; no doubt this was the custom. 8s In my view Polyb. vi. 14 relates only to political trials. Cf. ch.6, xI. 86 A. H. M. Jones, Criminal CourtsoJ the RomanRepublicand Principate, rg7z, 5 f., tried to show that ordinary crimes were tried by the people, citing Oros. v. r6. 8; Val. Max. vi. r. 8, but on the

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killed an unfaithful wife, or the lootpad of the city srreetsand rural highways were more summarily trcated. No doubt many culprits who.sgguilt wasflagrant or admitted ('manifesti'or'confessi'jcould be punishedout of hand, but many must have had somedefenceto offer, and they would hardly have renouncedthe right of appeal if that righi had been respected.But in that event the asJemblywould have bJen 'sullan kept in almost continuoussession:casesunder the murder law occ_upied three courts simultaneouslyin 66 (n. Zg). on occasionin the second century the senaie'instituted quaestiones that exercisedinappellate capital jurisdiction.sT This too was possible because,given the kinds of crime to be repressed,public äpinion a-pproved,and the tribunes would not interferä. But it may be thought that these senatorial decreeswere unnecessaryand unintelligiblel if magistrates were regularly repressing such crimes in the oidittury courseofjurisdiction. This difficulty can easily be met: it would havä been reasonablefor the senateto take specialnäte of what was seenas a 'crime wave', and then either (asin r86 and r3o) to direct the consuls to act, th_oughthey did not normally exercisejurisdiction at all, or (as tBf' tBo, and r 79) to free particular praetois from other responsibilil ities for the purpose, However, the establishmentof the permanent court derepetundis may well have suggestedthe desirability ol creating similar "o.r.t, desicarüs d: aenenis by statutes, which would havä provid ed inter alia like 2"1 sulla's.law (n- 74), that in default of a praetoijurisdiction should be vestedin a iudexquaestionisr like c. claudius pulCher, and ensuredthat there.was a^panel of suitably qualified iudicesreadiiy available to the president of the court. There is nothing against this hypothesis,and what we are told about the quaestiones-of Hostilius Tuüulus and L. Cassius(nn. 76 f.) makes in its favour. In r3a the senateactually commissionedthe consulsto try without appeal thosewho had allegedly engagedin a revolutionary cänspiracy with riberius Gracchus. This was ä violation of the rule hiiherto observedthat it was for the people to hear capital chargesof a political character.No tribune had the will or.ou.ug. to interiene, but in rz3 c. Gracchus secured the banishment of ai reast one of ihe consuls concerned,P. Popilius, for his infraction of the rights of citizens. He

also carried a new law 'ne de capite civis Romani iniussu populi iudicaretur'.88 In some degree this law must have been merely declaratory.Gracchuswas re-amrming the principle of the Valerian and Porcian laws (pp.gg, f.) which Popiliuswas properly held to have violated. But the provisions of a Gracchan law cited by Cicero 'ne quis iudicio circumveniretur' (nn. under the rubric 52 f.), which penalizedall thosein the senatorial order who combined to procure by illicit means,for instancebribery, the capital condemnation of a citizen in a iudiciumpublicum,may have been part of the sameenactment.More important, that law provided that any senator, and not merely a magistrate, who voted for the capital condemnation of a citizen contrary to its terms, should himself be liable to a capital charge before the people. Henceforth any member of a consular consiliumexercising capital jurisdiction without the people's sanction would be placing himself at risk. Gracchus' law did not of coursepreclude the constitution of such extraordinary tribunals by statute; courts set up in this way would exist'iussu populi'. It is surely no accident that after I23 we hear nothing of courts created by the senatealone even to try common crimes.8eTo disposeof the seditious,the senatewould now resort, for the first time in r2r, to passing 'the last decree' (ch. r n.25); the magistrates were thus encouraged on their own responsibility to execute agitators or 'conspirators' summarily as enemiesof the state. But it seemsreasonableto supposethat after r23 the senatethought it prudent that there should be a statutory basisfor the inappellate trial that of common criminals. The institution of the permanent quaestiones pre-existedSulla, in so far as they were not already in being in tz3, may be seenas the necessaryresult of Gracchus' law. A theory has recently been advanced that before and after Sulla, and until some unascertainabledate in the Principate, municipal courts could impose capital penalties on citizens. If this be true, after rz3 (if not before) they must have obtained this authority by statute. We know that the municipal jurisdiction of communities in Cisalpina enfranchisedin 49 was regulated by statute, and presumably there had been similar legislation for the communities enfranchisedas a result of the Social war, if not for thoseincorporated earlier. However, even in civil actions the competenceof Cisalpine courts was restricted where the defendantwould incur iffimia, anditis afortiorihard to credit that criminal courts in the Cisalpinecommunescould deprive a citizen of

first incident seeKunkel, rgiz, 47 n. l79; the second was also peculiar: .non enim factum tunc, sed ^a{mrT in quaestionem deductus_est; plusque voluisse peicare nocuit quam non peccasse The sovereign people could be inäuceä to convict when a court "o,rld b. expected to nrgfuilj reJect_thecharge. Both defendants were also of high degree. o'Livy xxxix. 1 4 , r s l c t . s C t l e B a c c h a n a l i b u s , f l n , L i 2 . gr g o6 , nc; Livyxl. 19.9f., rgr),4r.5 . ( r 8 ^ 4p: o i s o n i n g ) ,* 1 . S 7 . 4 ( r 8 o : p o i s o n i n g ) , + S . z ( r 7 9 : p o i s o n i n g i r , ' p e irl.v ü i . 1 . f . V . f . M a x . v r . 3 . 8 , r 5 z : p o i s o n i n g ) ;c f . n . 7 7 . N o d o u b t a s u n d e r - D o m i t i a n l D i o l x v i i . r r . 6 ) u n d i a g n o s e d epidemics were confused with mass poisoning.

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8 8 G C r 3 , 3 r . N o t e C i c . C a t .i v . r o , S e s l . 6 r ;D i o x x x v i i . r 4 . 5. 8e Diod. xxxvi. r5 tells how probably in ror Saturninus was tried for his life by senatorsfor outraging Mithridates' envoys.Despite SIR ii3. r rz n. 3. I think this inaccurate; cf. Gruen, r968, r68 f. He was acquitted after agitating with the plebs. I think we must assumethat if condemned he could have appealed to the people under Gracchus'law.

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his caput,nor is it likely that they were denied a power which other local courts had retained.eoThe argumentsadducäd for the conrrary view are not probative.el what hasbeensaidseemsto prove that permanentcourtsdesicarüsand deuenefcüs musthaveexistedbeforer z3 or have then beenestablished.Nor need we think that there were no others. charges of ambitusbefore a quaestio are attestedin l r 6, 97 and 92. Gruen himself concedesthat it is reasonableto posit a standing court, though the law under which it was establishedis not recorded.e2Since thJ evidence is so scantv. and preservedby chance,we can aswell date it before r 23 asufte.*u.är. No, should we infer that a quaestio depeculatuwas post-Gracchan becausethe only known pre-sullan trials are of ro4 or later (n. Bo). Not many cases are attested in cicero\ hgyluy, though he speaksof them as 'daily occurrences'(.'' 63): The defendantsmight be, and perhaps generally were,clerksrather than ex-magistrates (". zg).Both Courts--ight .ro.,l the lesshave furnishedtheatresfor carbo's forensicdisplays ip. rtg). In this period andlater the penalty for ambituswas no lönger, is it häa once been, gapital.e3conviction for peculatus resulted ii pec,rniary damages.eaPersonscondemned on either charge might thärefore be among thosewho were excluded by the Gracchan repitundae law from acting aspatronior iudices becausethey had beencondemned,quaestione ioudiciovepuplico'esand wereon that accountnot to be enroiledin the senate.I do not, however,pressthis asconfirmation that there was more than onepermanent courtin r 23, sincewe might alsothink of adhoccourts, nor can we be sure that at this date iudiciumpublicummight not refer to trial by the people. Manifestly the draftsman did noihu,u. in mind personswho had suffered a capital sentence,e.g. for murder! To sum up' one text of cicero, naturally interpreted, showsthat the repetundae court was not the only permanent quaeiüoin existencebefore r 23. There is no objectionto supposingthat similar courtshad beenset up for murder, peculation, and electoral corruption; and the general state of our evidenceis such that absolute corroboration woulä have b-eenwholly fortuitous and indeed unlikely. Moreover, if we accept Kunkel's theory, magistratessitting with a consiliumhad been accustomed to exercisecapital jrrrisdiction over common criminals, and except when this procedure had already been supersededby the

creationof statutorycourtsbeforeI23, the enactmentof Gracchus'law now made the creation of populiiudicaretur nedecapileciuisRomaniiniussu of the jury could the composition Admittedly imperative. such cäurts a new law establishing in each regulated separately been have no was that there to say not entitled are we quaestio, but permanent Aurelia lex like the measure general for any time Gracchus' in äccasion to regulatejudication in criminal cases,and that for that reasonalone Plutirch's account of his judiciary legislationmust be incorrect.

er See endnoter. ? i F I R A i 2 . 1 9 L , e s p .2 0 . r - 9 . Gruen z6of. (with evidence two other speculativecases).The laws against ambilusof ^" .and , 8 j . u l d . r 5 9 { L i v y x l . r g , P e r .x l v i i ) c a n n o t h a v e i e t u p a s t a n d i n g . o u . t ; c f . n . i g . " Polyb. vi. 56. 4 makes this out to be true in his day; more probäbly the penarty was anclenr, . but already obsolete.cf. Mommsen, strafrecht865 ff. capital pänalties""a.. xtt 'iabres (vnr. r, 8 - - r o , z r , 2 3 , r x . 3 ) a l s os e e mt o h a v e b e c o m eo b s o l e t e , ' e" Strafrecht e5 I take ff. theseterms to be probably tautologous (ch. z, App. rv). 76o

VII

'[he

lex Aurelia,however,also concernedcivil judication (n. rzI), and this was a matter of more concern to the Equites than criminal touched senators, judication, except when the charges,llke repetundaa, whom the ludicial authority of Equites might make obsequiousto equestrianäesires.e6Their power and dignity were not much enhinced by the right to sit in judgement on men accusedof common crimes, who would rarely be of their own order, whereas their individual interests might be deeply affected by the settlement of disputes arising from public contracts, by claims to inheritances and bequests,by contractual suits often involving large sums, or by civif and the lossof full actions on delicts, which could entail fines (poenae) civic status (infamia).It would have been at leastgalling if they were compelled to accept the adjudication of senators,and this could have been to their disadvantage,if it was with senatorsthat they were in dispute. Let us again recall the testimony of Polybius, whic! critics of my hypothesishave passedover in silence,that it was chiefly by their monopoly of judication in important public and ciuil casesthat the 'the people'. Moreover, it is clear senatesecuredthe dependenceof that in Cicero's time iudication in civil as well as in criminal cases enhanced a man's dignity,eT which was dear to every upper-class Roman. It would have been natural for the Equites to desireto break a senatorial monopoly, and for Gracchus to satisfy this ambition. We should not be the leastsurprisedthat a changein civil judication does not enter into our historical record, when we reflect that that record ignores the introduction of the formulary system and virtually every other change made by statute in the civil law. In the previous statementof my thesisI laid the greatestemphasison the importance of this feature of Gracchus'judiciary measure;my critics generally ignored this part of the argument.e8 e7 Cic. Rosr.Com. 15, e6 So Diodorus (n. g) 4z e 8 N o t S t o c k t o n ( r g 7 g , r 4 6 f f . ) , w h o s e v i e w n e c e s s i t a t etsh e t w o - s t a g et h e o r y o f G r a c c h u s j r r r f i ri ; r r l l c r l i s f ; r t i o t ti n l r a p l r . 2 t . + l , .

zz8

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' l ' H DR E P U B L I C

Of course no such refiorm can be imputed to Gracchus if (as some think) Fraccaro proved that there was no senatorial monopoly of civil judication to be broken, and that Gracchus could not have created an albumiudicum,however composed,whosememberswere alone qualified to determine some civil cases. Fraccaro, indeed, gave the classic expositionof the view I am contesting,becausehe did at least confront the implication of Polybius' testimony.eeHe supposedit to be largely mistaken, as he accepteda theory of Wlassak,which for long had the authority of a dogma. At Rome litigants would first appear in iure before a magistrate,generally a praetor, who could accept or deny the right of action, would define the issue that was to be decided, and would instruct one or more private persons,the unusiudexor occasionally recuperatlres to decide it. Wlassakaccountedfor this division of legal process by the hypothesis that originally the parties had freely acceptedarbitration by personsof their own choice; the state did no more than give its approval and regulate the forms. This hypothesis rested partly on explanations of other featuresin Roman civil procedure. Here it will suffice to say that so far from being unquestionably true, it has now beengenerally abandoned.looIt cannot thäreforehave the conclusiveforce which Fraccaro gave it. However, one of wlassak's arguments, endorsed by Fraccaro, is of particular relevance to our theme. cicero claims that the degradation (nota)of a man by the censorsis not to be reckonedas a jud[ement on him, since'neminem voluerunt maiores nostri non modo de existimatione cuiusquam sed ne pecuniaria quidem de re minima esseiudicem, nisi qui inter advärsarios convenisset'(cluent. lzo) . This claim was taken to demonstrate that the unusiudexwas in and before cicero's time always freelv chosenb' the parties, and therefore that there could have been ,ro ,.q.lir.-.rri that for certain types of casehe had to be selectedfrom the senateor from any album iudicurn,however composed. But Cicero does not purport to be speakingonly of casesthat would be settled by an unus iudex-He is chiefly concerned with judgements that affected a man's existimatio.Now condemnation in a iudiciumpublicumcould result in ffimia, not to speakof heavier penalties,and it was obviously untrue that the iudicesin criminal cases were chosen by free agreement between the prosecutorand defendant: they had only limited rights of ee ii. 255 ff.; p. 259 statesWlassak'sdoctrine without citing him. '* ^Opusrula -Jolowicz-Nicholas r76-9; more fully, with bibliography, M. Kiser, Röm. ,(ütilpro4ssretht, r966' 6 f., r4-16, zo, 23, 3r-6; 4t-4;he acceptsthat wassak's theory is more plausiblä for arbitri, but o. Behrends, Die röm. Geschworenenuerfassung, rg7o, 97 ff., thinks that they were originally expert assistantsof the magistrate. Kaser 36 n. 39 cites especially Fraccaro lor the view that Gracchus' law concernedthe repetundae court alone, which he thinks 'perhaps' right; but clearly he cannot have been impressedby Fraccaro's legal arguments.

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rejectinga specifrednumber of names.Nor were all civil casesdecided by an unusiudex.Someadministrative cases,and someactionsfor delict, in which condemnation might entail loss of existimatio,as well as The lex agrariaof t I t provides that pecuniary loss,went to recuperatores. against users of public land are to be decided publicans claims made by eleven names, and plaintiff magistrate propounds the by recuperatores: reject not more than four. A mode to entitled are each and defendant right of rejection a limited the parties which allowed of appointment free betweenthe far of agreement It falls short normal.lol to be seems litigants. At least in the post-Gracchan era inheritance disputescame (seebelow); here again there was a numerousjury, before the centumuiri and the litigants can at best have exercised a comparable right of rejection, which may be presumed, though it is not apparently documented.In Cicero'stime it was for minor magistrates,the decemairi to determine if a man was free or slave;to say nothing litibusiudicandis, of the importance of the issueto the man whoseliberty was at stake, the party who claimed him as a slave might stand to lose or gain an asset worth much money. The decemuiri,if not already senators, were doubtless always of the senatorial class, and could easily have been embraced in Polybius' concept of senators.l02Again we might conjecas biased.But it is ture that either party could reject particular decemuiri plain that in all thesecasesthe free agreement of the parties must be reduced to at most a limited right of rejection, and that Cicero's rhetoric is misleading. To allow his claim some specious plausibility, which we should beware of denying to any of his forensic assertions,however false,we may supposethat it had rather more applicability to the appointment of the unusiudex.We know in fact that the plaintiffor defendant could 'ferre iudicem', i.e. tender the name of a iudex,and that the other party ror ln FIRA i2. no. 8. need not be either senators or Equites. Of course 36 f., the recuperatlres any law after r z3 could modi$ qualifications required by a Gracchan law. Here we can divine a may be made by a promagistrate, i.e. reason for deviation. The appointment of recuperatores outside Rome, and must be made within ten days of application. The dispute to be settled could arise far from the city, in an area where there were too few senators or Equites immediately see available for the prompt adjudication that was desired. Cf. also n. r35. On recuperatores generally Kaser (n. roo), pp. r43 f. (citing FIRA i2. no. 67. 67-9; ll Verr. äi. r4o etc.);J. M. Kelly, Studiesin the Citil Judicatureof the Rom. Rep., 19?6, ch.rr. r02 Cic.Caec.97,dedom.78;cf.REiv.z:6off.(Kübler).InthePrincipate,whenthedecemüri had been transferred to take some part in the organization ofthe centumviral courts (tt.tlS), they were young men who had not yet held the quaestorship,but 1ZS gI5 f., 948, show that this was not always true under Augustus and Tiberius; in 1ZS 9 we cannot be sure if Cn. Scipio (pr. r39) gives all his offices in strict order. One might doubt if judication in causaeliberaleswas normally left to men in their twenties, or whether the office might not be held, as military rribunatesstill were in69 (t Verr.3o), by senators,i.e. men over thirty. Admittedly it is not listed i r n r o r r g ' s t ' n a t o r i aol f' l i c e si n F - l R Ai 2 . 6 . $ 3 ( B a n t i a ) ,7 . 2 2 ( t a b .B e m b . ) , b u ta n y d e c e m v i rw h o w a s ;rlrcadv ir scrratorwould havc been covcrcd 4za senator (6. $ 4, 7 loc. cit. ) . Plaut. Rudens7 t g might suggcstthat a senator could be expected to determine a causaliberalis.

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could accept (sumere) that name; cicero provides us with two instances in which a iudexwas^chosenby this kind of agreement,one a senaror, the other an Eques.lo3A iudexthus appointedlould still be taken from the album;Senecacan write of 'accepting' a iudex'ex turba selectorum' (n. ro7),^and though in the Principate choice was not so circumscribed,loait could not fall on u.tyonä in categorieswholly disqualified !y law;ros that must always have been truel and ,.pr.i..rt, änother limitation on agreement between the parties that cicero could overlook. He more than once mentions the right of either party to reject on oath (eiurareor eierare)a person nominated as 'unfair, (iniquus). This correspondsto the right of a litigant in the Principate to 'refuse' or 'reject' a iudexappointed by lot from the album;we hear no more of an oath, which had perhaps become obsolete.ro6I can find no evidence that eiuratiowas in order only when a iudexhad been proposed by the adversary, and not also when he was taken from ihe list. In the Principate the alternative to free choice by the parties was sortition,107 evidently from those members of the albumwho had been assignedto civil judication (n. r rB); the younger Pliny suggeststhat sortiti,onwas the normal course(n. ro6). We cannot say if it was employed in the Republic as distinct from nomination by the praetor. Ii may be that agreementbetween the parties was then more common, but it cannot always have been forthcoming. A litigant would in any case have found it hard to resistthe nomination by his adversaryof a personwho was on the list of thoseofficially qualified to act, unlesshe could allege that the nominee was 'unfair'; nor would the praetor have torerated the endlessrejection of one name after another, a course that could have prevented the suit from ever coming to trial. Social and magisterial pressure would thus probably have ensured that most iudicesin important caseswere taken from the list by a procedure that could always be representedas involving the agreemenl of the parties, given-their right of eiuralio.None the lesscicero could contemplite that an advocate might have to plead before a hostile iudex,and his use of thc singular shows that he had an unusiudexin mind (de orat. ä. 7z). Thus even in relation to this kind of civil processthe rhetoric in' pro

Clucntior 20 is very economical of the truth; there were limits and 'our ancestors'which he did not care exceptionsto the ideal practice of to specify. Agreement between the parties and magisterial nomination are also distinguishedin Republican legal texts which speakof iudicis recuper'iudicis'] datio addictio', of atorum datio', of 'reciperatorum for 'iudicis arbitri recuperatorumdatio addictio'.ruuThere should be a 'datio' and 'addictio'. Now Servius Sulpicius distinction between referredto a iudex'exconventionelitigatorum addictus' (Deg.v. r. Bo), 'addicere'means'dicereet adprobare and accordingto Festus(rz L.), 'iudicem dicendo'. We may then infer that the magistrate was said addicere' when he approved the choice of the parties; the term 'iudicem dare' is wider, and in the Table of Heraclea the magistrate is required 'iudicem dare' in circumstancesin which the consent of the defendant would hardly have been apposite;similarly there is nothing to suggestthat it was ever obtained for the appointment of recuperatores.roeThus the terminology indicates that in the Republic the iudex could be 'given' without such consent. Since there is hardly any Republican evidencefor the assignmentof iudiceson the album to their various functions, we may first consider what is known of the systemin the Principate; that too is not abundant. At the outset of Augustus' reign there were three decuriesof iudices, consistingof senators(n. rr6) and Equites only (cf. n.4o); Augustus added a fourth, composedof men with a censusof only 2oo,oooHS and qualified to decide only 'de levioribus,summis', and Gaius a fifth, no 'selectiudices'boast do,rbt subjectto the samelimitation;110sincesome 'inter quadringenarios', we may infer that on inscriptions of being equestriancensuswas required only of thosewhosejudication was not over from the reitricted and so more honourable.i l1 The .-p..o.iook men on the album.rrz (". function of enrolling urban praetor S6) the members, but they were now I,ooo comprised Nominally each decury honour, as the was an though selection not alwaysat full strength;r13 and reluctant perform the duties, were to inscriptions show, some Auguitus allowed a year's vacation to each decury in turn.l1a The TabulaHebana,a law of AD Ig, modelled on one of eo 4, refers to the Equites of all the decuriesconstituted for the public iudicia,and Gellius saysthat he was chosenby the praetor among the iudicesto determine

tor. De orat. ii.

263; e.g. fuinrt. gz, Rosc.Com. 42. Die. y. . 8o .'* .r !Pomp.), xlii. r. 57 (Ulp.). Quint. Inst. v. 6. 6 warns against leaving to the adversary choice of iudcx. '.it, Ore v. t.2.3 (Paul); cf.i.9. z rCassius;. _ _ ' " o ' F i u r a r e f o r ' e i e r a r e ' ] i u d i c e m i n i q u u m 'c: i c . r r v e r r . r ä . t 3 7 , d c o r a r . ü . z B 5 , d e f n . ü . t r g , ,iudicem Phil. xä. r8. I cannot find this phrase documented after cicero. Tac. Dral. 5. i uses recusare';cf. Pliny, Paneg.36.4: 'Sors et urna fisco iudicem adsignat a iudei is now appointed [i.e. in rh_enormal way for fiscal cases];licet reicere,licet exclamare: ..hunc nolo', . . . '. '"'Agenn. t r b . \ G r o m a t i r i 7 4 . 2 2 I . . ) ; P l i n y , . N H p r . 6 - 8 ; B e h r c n d s ( n . r oi.m ) plausiblyprtsscs this to show that there was an alternative only betweensortition from the atbun aid relecti.n fr,rm o u t s i d et h e a l b u m . B u tc f S e n . d r b c n e J . , ü i . 7 .

'o8 FIRAi2.8.34 r . A t e s t . )S . e ee n d n o t ez . 7 ( l e xa g r . ) ,r z Y ( : G r o m a t i c i z 6 3 f . L . ) , z o , I 5 ; c f . 7 ( f'addictio' toe Ibid. rg. of reciperatores 44.1 suspectthe Gromatic text (n. roB) which refers to without collocation of iudicis'. Contrast FIRA i2. zt. xrv (Urso). Ltt ILS r10 Suet. Aug. gz. 4og3,654,6772. 3, Gaius 16. z; Pliny, "lfl1 xxxiii. 33. I 12 Suet. Aug. zg. 3, 22. g, Tib. 4r, 5t, Cl. 15. r; Pliny, ,MII xxix. t8. ll3 Pliny, "lfll xxxiii. 3o. A senatorial decury could never have been Iooo strong. r r a S u e t .A u g .z z . 3 ; P l i n y ," M i l x x x i i i . 3o;Dig. 1.5. r3 (Ulp.).

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the iudicia called private; the elder Pliny also distinguishesberween thosequalified to condemn a man to exile and thosewho could only decide pecuniary suits.l15 Ho*ever, these texts do not imply thai iudicesentitled to determine criminal casesmight not also exercise judication in important civil processes. There can be no such implication, since senators employed on other public business co.rid b. exempted in r r sc from both public and private iudicia,r16 and the Eques ovid served in the centumuiriand as unusiudex,as well as in criminal courts.117No doubt the iudicescompetent only 'de levioribus summis'alsohad no part in criminal judication. It appearsthat at the beginning of each year the iudiceswere assignedby lol to different civil and criminal functions;118 Dio refersto their alloiment to the centumviral court under Augustus, and the spaciou_s.rforum Augustiwas partly intendedto accommodatethe'sortitiones'.11e obviously the system in the late Republic was not identical with that in the Principate: we know of some modifications made by Augustus and his successors, and there may have been more, introduced by Augustus'ill-documentedjudiciary laws.l2oHowever,it is at least clear from one remark made by Cicero that after the lex Aurelia the same iudiceshe addressed in a case of repetundae would also determine civil suits.Not, we may think, necessarilyin the sameyear in which they were availablefor the repetundae court.121It appearsthat it was already the practice for iudicesof the albumto be assignedby lot to the various criminal courts and presumably to civil juäicatuie by a sortition carried out by the quaestorsafter they came into office on 5 December;122 as Gelliusshows(n. r r5) this function had passedto th; urban praetor by the secondcentury AD. The number of iudiceson the albumwasmuch greater from Augustus' time than it had been in the Republic. under tie lexAureliathere were only goo (". gB); Sulla had reservedjudication to some600 senators; the Gracchan album which I have posited comprised 600 or, more proba-bly,9oo, but beforer 23 the senatorsnumbeied only 3oo. It must therefore be asked whether senatorscould have monopolized judication even in the most important casesbefore Gracchus, especiailyas a -by considerablenumber would be at any given time exempt reasonof lr16 ll S.l g+".9; Gell. xiv. z. r; Ptiny,,MlI xxix. rB. Front. de aquistor: lor senatorson the albumcf Sherwin-white on pliny eb. v. ze. z (but M?li":.1 his suggestionthar they had ceasedro serve in SrR iii. g97.'3;. .*tjdl_"* Ovid, Tr. ü. 92,4, Ex Pontoiii. 5. z3 f.; cf. ILS 6747. r::: r8 See tte Suei.-lzg. B e h r e n d s1 n . r o o ) r 7 - 7 o . 29. r; Dio liv. 26.6. ''" S. Riccobono, Acta Diai Aug., rg45, 14: ff., collects the widence; see esp. Zat. rt. ,gl f. r 2 r F l a c c .r z , w h i c h c l o e sn o t p r o v e t h a t t h e s a m c m e n a l t e r n a t c c li n t h c s a m e y ( , L r r (, . o n h a B e h r e n d s( n . r o r ) 6 3 , t h o u g h t h i s m a y h a v c o c c u r r c d ,a s i n t l i r c st r l l o r t e crl o s o m c e r i n r i n a lc o u r t s would have had littlc or nothins to do in many ve:rrs. r22 Dioxxxix.T.3withC,ir.q:r.fr.ii.r.z[,rightlyin,.rpr",edbyE.Mt,y.r,(,arsarr Monarrhie

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age,infirmity, or other public duties,and indeedhow even6oo or 9oo personscould cope with the judicial businessthat occupied so many more in the Principate. We may first notice that the amount of such businesswas continually growing.r23 Granted that two or three permanent quaestiones had been created before I23, or were at besidesthat for repetundae latest establishedin that year, others were certainly added subse(Saturninus),falsaetc. (Sulla), uis (soon quently to deal with maiestas after Sulla), and adultery (Augustus);the scopeof the court or courts de ui was enlarged by the lex Julia de ai priuata. Unless municipal courts could imposepenaltiesaffecting the caputof the citizen (tt. 9t), the enfranchisementof the communities of peninsular Italy in and after go, and of thoseof north Italy in 49, must have greatly increased the work of those Roman courts which tried common crimes, including after Augustus' legislation adultery. Equally it must have enlarged the businessof civil judicature. It is clear that the jurisdiction of local courts in Transpadana was restricted by pecuniary and other limits,r2a and similar limits no doubt applied to those in the other Italian communities.l2sThat did not preventlitigants acceptinglocal jurisdiction outsidethe limits,l26 but *e can readily supposethat one of the parties would often insist on his right to sue or be sued at Rome;127very likely this involved delay and additional costs,which would commonly suit the wealthier litigant. The tendency to refer casesto Rome might well have grown, as the memories of former autonomy faded in Italy after go Bc. We have also to consider the size of the jury courts. Under the the jury was to be 5 t strong. But in I7I the Gracchan law de repetundis to hear Spanish.complaints senatehad appointed only five recuperatlres for recuperatlres."o It could number This was a standard of repetundae. repetundae law. The senatorial by the Calpurnian have been adopted of 4 Bc were to have only nine courts constituted by the SC Caluisianum rog n.3; cf. Brunt, Lfu. Cl. Monthly, I98r, r-4 ff, against Behrends u. dasPrincipatdesPompeius, tn. roo) 64 ff. r23 Suet. Aug. zg. r refers to the increased 'hominum et iudiciorum multitudo' which necessitated the construction of the Jorum Augusti. r2a I need not enter into the interpretations of FIRA i2. nos. t9 f. (seee.g. Simshäuser,Ch. v). r25 The lex lrnitana, esp. Lxrx, r,xxxrv, furnishes new evidence on municipal jurisdiction, see JRS ry86, zz7-go, for commentary citing the principal texts known previously. See endnotö e. We cannot be certain how far rules attested for the Principate go back to the late "u Dig. v. r. r (Ulp.), l. I. z6 (Paul). Republic. r21 Cato, de agric. r4g. e perhaps supplies an early instance. Note Paul, Dig. ü. r. ro: 'extra territorium ius dicenti impune non paretur'. If a man from town A desired to sue one from town B, on a cfaim that could be tried eitherin town B (but not in town A) or at Rome, he might naturally find resort to Rome more convenient. 1 2 EL i v y x l i i i . t . q ; c L K a s e r ( n . r o o ) .

23+

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members.r2eGracchus might well have opted for a much larger repetundae court, to minimize the chancesof corruption. Both permanent and extraordinary courts after 7o had juries ofover 5o and erren over 70, the number perhaps varying with the kind of qu-aestio. But it looksas if in the sullan system,with only senatorsentitleä to serve.the juries were smaller,In the trial of oppianicus for murder only 3z iudices voted (cluent.74) , and cicero suggeststhat the eight iudices, who would have ceasedto sit in the trial of verres had it beän protracted into 6q, constituted'alarge part'of the court (l Verr.30,Ii i.3o).tto of all civil casesthe most important on the whole werä probably the inheritance cases,which were heard as early as the time äf L. crässus (cos.95) by centumuirf; it was these which engaged great orators like crassusand in the Principate the younger pliny.]31 I\o other caregory of civil casesis more likely to have been reserved to senatorsbe"forä Gracchus. In Pliny's day the centumuirinumbered at least lgo and normally met in four different courts.r32Festus,however, tells us that they had once numbered lo5, three persons being ,chosen, (by u processthat is not recorded) from each of the thirty-five tribes, and that they were then called centumairi for convenience. This precisearrangement cannot have gone back beyond z4r, when the last two tribes were created. Many scholars aigued ihat the centumviral court was therefore first constituted aftei z4r, perhaps much later; wassak was bound to regard it as a 'moderni invention, since its character did not accord with his theory that civil judication was originally arbitration by persons whose decisions tire parties consentedto accept. A late date has now fallen out of favour .tri.Ry becauseof the archaic featuresof centumviral procedure (n. r3zj. conjectures have been advanced to explain why from the firsi a tiiriy large jury rather than an unusiudexshould have been responsiblefor settling inheritance disputes. Kelly supposesthat the tribi organization of the court was primitive; but sirrcethere is some evidence that t " Ol Mommsen's supplement of the tabula Bembina7 f ., reeuperatores decided certain charges ^ of repetundae, but supplement and senseare very ,.,n"e.t"ir, (W. fo. Buckland, 'l'acitus JiRS rg37, 4z f.). refers to the court, which could award simple dämages for repetunäneunäer the 5c Caluisianum(Ann. i. 74.6: cf. FIRA i2. 68, v) as rctupcÄtores. tto otherevidenceinMommsen, stritfru'htzr7f.l.Lengre,sz,ggs,zT5ff.,madeitprobable that under the Sullan system the senate was divided into t." a..u.iJrlä".'ät*itl.tr was available for each permanent quaestio;inthat case no jury could consist of more than 6a-x iudices,where x represents senators necessarily excused from service on particular occasions. orat. i. r73, r77,-t}o, etc.; Tac. Dial. gB. z; pliny, Ep. vi. gg. z, ix. 23. r (with ^.ttt .Ci:,-!r. Sherwin-white's notes). cf. Kelly (r,.go) g+ff., anä ctr.rrr on th.,tut"irii"ui importance of it is clear (apart from his figures) that the jurists paid most attention ä the law of :il::::i:1.**'; tt' t]int, Ep' vi. 93.3. see in generarwlassak, r?E iii. r935 ff., for evidenceon the court. For recent discussionof its antiquity see-Kunkel, 1962, rrgff., and Kelly (n. ror), ch. (with I bibliography); he rejectsviews that it had jurisdiction beyond casesofsuccession.'-

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juries of quaestiones were chosenon a tribal basisin the first century, it might rather be thought that Festuswas describingthe centumviral orgänizationas it wasln that era.133Certainly he wäs only explaining the name of the court, which had ceased to be apposite in the Principate, by referenceto a time when it approximately corresponded to the number of iudices;he does not even professto know, and could hardly have known, that it had been constituted in the way he describesfrom its very inception. For instance,if we supposethat the iudicesconcerned always numbered about loo and were tribally selected,the number of iudicesper tribe could have varied as more tribes were created (z1x4, 32x3, etc.). Alternatively, the total number and the name might both have changed,just as the decemuiri Again, senatorsalone, or senators sacris faciundisbecame quindecemuiri. and Equites, might have been enrolled on a tribal basis;or that basis may itself have been a later innovation. The retention of archaic procedurein the Principate doesnot of courseexclude the possibilityof all kinds of other reforms at different dates: we actually know that in that period the total number of iudicesenrolled had increased,and that the decemuirilitibus iudicandishad been given by Augustus a novel, though problematic, part in the organization. It therefore follows that we cannot be sure that the organization describedby Festushad not been first createdin or after I23 (the name of the court is not attested earlier), or, that the number he gives the panel did not reflect the influence of Gracchus. Before I23 the total number of iudicesrequired for inheritance casesneed not have been so large that they could not all be drawn from a senateof 3oo members. Not indeed that we must assume that it was ever normal for all centumuirito sit together; in Pliny's day a jury in ordinary cases presumably numbered about 45, and in the late Republic the centumuiri may already have been split into similar divisons. There must have been some unrecorded statute which prescribed the tribal representation and which could also have determined the number in each division. Perhaps of Gracchan origin, this statute will have instituted the systemthat Festusdescribes,operative in the time of L. Crassus. 'Cum essentRomae triginta et quinque tribus, quae et curiae sunt dictae [!], terni zx 47 L., 'a'] singulistribubus sunt electi ad iudicandum, qui centumviri appellati sunt: et licet quinque Inot amplius quam centum fuerint, tamen, quo facilius nominarentur, centumviri sunt dicti' (cf. Varro, RR ii. r. z6).'I'ribal composition is compatible with a requirement for senatorial or equestrian qualifications, cf. perhaps the tabulaHebana(EJ g4a). We do not need to seeany close parallel with the lex Plautia of 89, under which 'tribus singulae ex suo numero quinos denos srlragro creabant qui eo anno iudicarent; ex eo factum est,ut senatoresquoque in eo numero essent,et quidam etiam ex ipsa plebe' (Ascon. 7q C.); Festusdoes not imply election.In my view the lex Plautia need have applied only to the maiestas court, since in go it had been the only court active, according to Cic. Brut. go4. Tribal representation was also provided by the lex Licinia desodaliciisof 55 (Cic. Planc. g6) and perhaps had some place in quaestiones generally after 7o (Kunkel, rtE xxiv. 753 tr). tt'

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The statementsthat sulla transferredthe iudiciato senatorsare made by authorswho were concernedwith the quaestiones.r3a It may well be tlll was made to withdraw främ the Equites thar sharein io ?tlgmpt civil jurisdiction which they had acquired. The äfranchisement of Italy must have increasedthe volume of litigation at Rome, and even with an enlargedsenateit might not have beä.,conrrenientto restoreto senatorstheir monopoly of deciding the most important civil cases. The constitution of a mixed arbim from whiih iudiceswere to be selectedfor both criminal and civil casesdecided at Rome naturally did- not preclude the subsequentenactment of legislation which mighi widen or restrict the choice of iudices.one ma"y recall the abortive attempt to establisha specialjury lor the trial ofblodius in6t, the lex vatinia dereiectione iudicumof 58, and the lex pompeiaand the lex Licinia de sodalicüsof 55; similarly in the pre-sullan era senatorscould be excludedfrom newly createdspeciaior permanent quaesrione.r under the Mamilian and Appuleian laws ny ,,it ict they were set up. The qualificationsfor judication outside Rome could älso be quite different from. those prescribed for Roman courts: thus recup)ratores to be appointed under the lex agrariaof r r r are simply to üe drawn from citizens of the first class, and iudicesor recupeiatoresappointed by municipal magistrates o._ !J provincial gorri.rro., *""ta also not require equestriancensus.l35

VIII

Conclusions r. Ac-cording to Polybius, before r 23 senators had a monopoly of . judication in the most important ädministrative and civii cases. They also provided iudicesfor repetundae trials, and presumably composedthe consil-ia of magistrateswho exercisedjurisdiction for xgmmon crimes,.whichwere in practice not subjeci to appeal. z. The Gracchan law 'ne de- capite civis Romaäi ini.,r* populi iudicaretur' put an end to this inappellate jurisdiction. 3. under a Gracchan law Equites obtäined e"xclusivecontrol of the r3n Cic. I Verr. 37 etc.:Vell. ii. 3z; Tac. Ann. xi. zz. rrr For provincial lists of quarified iudicesseeSherwin-white on priny, Ep. x. 5g. r. I do not agree that those in Bithynia would not act in civil cases,for which th. gou...rä. *oJld use his own comitcs;in Republican Sicily, though there was as yet no provincial itbun, it was pioper fo. the governor to select local Roma.n residentsor negotiatores by lot (cic. rr i/err. ü. iz-4 et..;. tn cyrenaica the "ensusqualification ror murder triäls raisedby Augustus from ,,,5ioärnorrto 7,5oo was low (FIRA f .68. I). In municipalities where iudicesor recuperatnrcs wereappointed by the local magistratesiuri dicundo(e.g.FIRA i2. zo f.), no high property qualification .urr'huu. been required In law or practlce.

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repelundae court, which was broken by Caepio'slaw of to6, but restored by Glaucia (annoincerto). soon set up by the Mamilian law and that permaad hoc court 4. The by Saturninus were also equestrian. nently establishedfor maiestas to reinstate the senatorial monopoly for in Drusus proposed 9r 5. criminal judication (this has been questioned,but wrongly). 6. The lex Plautia of Bg provided for the election of iudicesfrom the senate, Equites, and even e plebe, but this probably concerned only the maiestas court. restored senators the monopoly of at least criminal Sulla to 7. judication. B. The lex Aurelia of 7o constituted an album of 3oo senators, 3oo equesEquites (equopublico),and goo tribuni aerarü(who possessed trian census,a fact sometimesdenied, but wrongly), from which iudiceswere to be taken for both criminal and civil cases(including centumviral cases)decided at Rome, though the parties to a civil dispute could also agree on a unusiudex outside the album. g. According to all sources, Gracchus passed a general law on judication which eitherconstituted a mixed album somewhat as the lex Aurelia did (Plutarch and probably Livy) or vestedjudication entirely in the Equites (other authorities): Appian as well as Plutarch indicate that after Gracchus Equites could judge casesin which non-senatorswere defendants,i.e. casesother than repetundae. Some scholarsdeny that any such law was passed,holding that there was no purpose in any general regulation ofjudiciary rights, existed in Gracchus' time since (o) no permanent quaestiones and (ä) civil litigants were free to select besidesthat for repetundae, iudicesas they wished and could not be restricted to those whose names appeared on any album.These objections are unfounded. As to (a): ro. On the natural interpretation of Brutu.r(Io6) Cicero implies that wert- set up before rz3; besidesthat for repetundae other quaestiones in any event the establishment of some such statutory courts becameimperative on the enactment of Gracchus' law ne de capite , ,. 3,rifu is known to have created only one such court; the quaestio maiestatisexisted from to3, and permanent courts de sicarüs,de uenefcis,de ambitu, de peculatumay be pre-Gracchan (they are certainly pre-Sullan). As to (ä): re. The theory that litigants were invariably free to choose an unus

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iudexis not demonstrablenor plausible; they certainly could never choosecentumuiri, decemuiri, recuperatores; hence there is no warrant for rejecting Polybius' testimony that in his time all iudicesin importantcivil and administrative caseshad to be taken from a senatorial album. It therefore follows that: 13. The testimony of the sources should certainlt be accepted that Gracchus passeda generaljudiciary law, in addition to a repetundaelaw. 14. lf his aim was to reduce the power of the senateby enhancing that of the Equites, he should have ended that senatorialmonopoly of judication which Polybius srressesby constituting an albumfor civil as well as criminal caseswhich was eitherwhollv or

oTitJ*tä;t$:?".r.

berween thesealternatives? Irr". r,"a u r,rn

record of the period from r 2g to 70, such as Livy provided, the uncertainties which so often exist for us about overt facts of importance, like judiciary laws, would surely vanish; they arise only becausewe have to depend on inaccurate historical summaries and loose allusions in which rhetoric may distort the truth. The contradictions in our miserable sourcesabout the proposals of Gracchus,Caepio, and Drusus are matched by their confllcting statemcntson the lex Aureliaitself. It is only becausethis law was operative in Cicero's time that we happen to have evidencefrom his writings which proves that the most complex version of the purport of that law is correct: epitomizers tend to simplify. In all thesecasesdiscrepanciesdo not originate from rival traditions (or fictions), but from the failure of any of our authorities to give precise and complete statementsof the truth. We must not then pin our faith to any one source, but try to elicit the truth by discovering how all may reveal it in part, and yet distort it by carelessness. Since Gracchus undoubtedly gave Equites a monopoly in the repetunda, court, and since courts later set up to judge political offenceswere r4odelled on it, it would have been quiie natural for writers who were chiefly or onlv concerned with judication, in so far as it remained a constant source of political controversy, to say baldly that he transferred the iudicia to the Equites, and to neglect the more general reform of the album recorded by Plutarch and, conjecturally, by Livy (whose testimony would be decisive,if we only knew what it was). The error was the easierif Equites preponderated in the album,as under the lex Aurelia, which some writers once again represent, falsely, as

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eliminating senatorsfrom judication. To account for Plutarch's version on the footing that it is incorrect seemsto me lesseasy; there is nothing to be said for the supposition that he confounded Gracchus' proposal with that of any later reformer, and the theory that he mentioned only a plan from which Gracchus resiledand not that which he actually enacted,though it cannot be refuted, is incompatible with Plutarch's biographical interests. Plutarch of course is also one-sidedin ignoring the repetundae law. This is just the kind of omission that is typical of epitomators. r5. We may then concludethat it is probable that except for repetundaeGracchuscreated a mixed album;Caepio (in my view) applied the same principle to repetundae, while Drusus (as the evidence independently proves) anticipated Sulla in proposing to restore a senatorial monopoly, at least in criminal judication, and to enlarge the senatefor the purpose.

ARMY AND I.AND IN

5 THE ARMY AND THE LAND IN THE ROMAI\ REVOLUTION * I. continuing importance of the agrarian problem after the Gracchi. Most Italians countrymen; the influx into Rome, where, as in other towns, freedmen and slaves had a disproportionate share in all skilled work. structure of rural population; well-to-do randowners,small peasantowners and.tenants,day-labourers.The labour force on great estatesnot entirely servile.Desire of the free ruslicifor farms of their o*r,. II. The army recruited from rustici,who were still often conscribedafter Marius. Length of continuous service in the legions, even if the norm was six y.u.r, .rro.[h to ruin small farmers; -they needed l1"d gl .discharge, rrr. indiscipline"and disloyalty among the troops. Purely political appealsfor their s,rpport. Few of iheÄ bound by personal allegiance.The ties of religion. Matirial inducemenrs ro loyalty: booty and illicit enrichment;donativer.rv. Abo,reall they demanded land allotments. The senate adverse to their demands. Refutation of views that they saw allotments merely as assetsto dispose of, and that they commonly regarded military serviceas a professionfhey had no wish to give up. Land the mostnatural provisionfor their retirement.Why thev sometimes failed as farmers. V. Epilogue on Augustus, measures. I

Roma.n revolurion had its origin, as Sallust (BJ 4 f) partly in the misery of the poor, in a sociai örisis; it :u*, II began with the Gracchi and with agrarian reform, and agrarian reform remained a leitmotiv in th; turbulent centurv that followed. I need only mention the laws or bills of Lucius tTt"u

* This versionofan essaypublished inJRS r96: is partly rewritren, especiallyin secrionl, wirh notesrenumbe_red, and supersedesthe German version of ig76. For documentaiion given in l96z I have now often referred ro fuller statementsin IM or elsewhere.The argument-is essentiilly unchanged:to my knowledgeit has never been refured. It built on the work ätR. t. s-i,h, ,g5ti, and on articlesby E. Gabba in-4thelaeumr949 and r95r, since republished with some charges in tgi? (Eng. tr. 1976). But in crucial points iäiffer wideiy rrom Gabba: for examlle, I 9ib.bi think it misleading to describethe army of the late Republic as'piofessional'; I rate much lower the importance of clientship; and I think Gabba wholly mistaken in holding (e.g. rg73, trl r976' rzo ff.) that normally vereranshad no wish io return to the land. in the revised \.: versions_ of his essaysGabba takes.no account of my contentions. I repeat here my original of helpful suggesrionsmade by M. H. crawforcr, p.J. c;tr, M. w. Frederiksen, 1.u.n-oyt-"1*.-tnt A. H. McDonald, and R. E. Smith.

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'Iitius,2 Philippus,l Saturninus, Sextus and the youngel Drusus, the settlement of the Sullan veterans, the proposals of Plotius," Rullus, and Flavius, the agitation of Catiline, the legislation of 59 rc, and the later allotments of Caesar, the Triumvirs, and of Augustus himself. Modern accounts tend to obscure or even denv the unitv of this theme phase reformers throughout the period.a It is true that in the -earliei were more concerned to find remedies for social distress as such, and in the later to provide homes for veterans. But the Gracchan settlers and the veterans had two things in common: they were mostly countrymen, and they desired to obtain a secure livelihood by owning their own land. According to Appian, whose testimony we have no right to reject, the work done by the Gracchi was not lasting (cf. n. r). Hence the distress they had tried to alleviate persisted or revived; the governing class remained indifferent. Unorganized and unarmed, the followers of the Gracchi could save neither their leaders nor their own interests; men of the same class, with arms in their hands, were the essential instruments for bringing down the Republic. In the economic life of ancient Italy agriculture was of dominant importance. Land was the safest investment, and the chief basis of wealth. The total number of men, women, and children of citizen status in eo r4 was on my estimate not much above 4,ooo,ooo, of whom 5 6oo,ooo were domiciled at Rome. Of the rest some lived in towns; their number cannot be estimated, but many towns must have been centres from which most of the inhabitants went out to till the adjacent fields. The great majority of citizens obtained their livelihood from the country. There were also two or even three millions of slaves, most of whom again must have been employed in agriculture and pasturage; the higher the figure we adopt, the larger their share would have been in rural employment, for it is a fair assumption that trade 'non I Qic. de ofic. ü. essein civitate duo millia hominurn qur rcm 73: Philippus' assertion haberent'illustrates and exaggeratesthe failure ofthe Gracchi (App. i., z7). 2 Obsequens Val. Max. viii. r, Damn.3. 46; 3 Plut. Iac. 34. 4; Dio xxxviii. 5. r-z probably refer to the lex Plotiaagraria(Cic.,4tl. i. r8. 6) of 7 o ( ? ) s c ( M R R | i , r z 8 ) ; c f . E . G a b b a , P a r . d e l P a s s .r 9 5 o , 6 6 f f . ; R . E . S m i t h , C Q r g 5 7 , 8 z f f . ; contraSmith, Dio shows it was not implemented. a Gabba 197311976,ch.n passim,like Velleius i. t5. 5, too sharply distinguishesveteran settlementsin the first century from almost all previous allotments oflands. In fact the extensive allotments, colonial or viritane in the early secondcentury, as in previous times, probably served both to augment the number ofpeasants,from whom the armiescould be recruited (cfl App. i. 7), and to reward soldierswith part ofthe land they had conquered (cf. Livy xxxi. 4. r-3, xxxv. g. 7 1.,40o. 5 f., xxxvii. 57. 7 f., xl. 34.2 4; G. f ibiletti, Athen.rg5o,234 ff., and H. H. Scullard, JRS r96o,6z ff., conjectured that the agrarian bills ofLaelius and Ti. Gracchus respectivelywere in 'I'he part designedfor the benefit of veterans. social motives of the Gracchan scheme(c[. Cic. ,Srst. ro5) were adduced for later agrarian proposals(Cic. de leg. agr. i. zz, ü. 7o, 97, ltt. i. rg. 4; Dio x x x v i i i .r . 3 ; S u e t . C a r s . 4 r .r ) . S e e a l s o K . H o p k i n s ,r 9 7 B , c h s . r - r r , a v a l u a b l e a n a l y s i s o f ' t h e impact of conquering an empire on the political economy of Italy', which is relevant to most of this essay.

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and industry cannot have occupiedmore than ro-zo per cent of the total population. clearly the totalnumberof those so occupied must have risen, as the population itself gradually increased, if only through the influx of slaves,and the proportionsurely became greater, as Itily was enriched by the acquisition of imperial possessions overseasand by the internal peace which obtained, except in the north, for a century after the Hannibalic war.s The increaieof population would have required an enlargedsupply of food; this demand was met partly by imports, partly by clearance and drainage bringing new länds under the pl,ough, partly perhapsby improved methodsof cultivation; but a riseln toial purchasingpower, however unevenly distributed, must have meant that there was also an enlarged demand for manufactured goods and for the servicesofthose engagedin trade, transportation, and construction. Naturally this was greatestat Rome itself, where the ruling class were domiciled and there was the greatest concentration of both private and public expenditure. The growth of the population there can be dimly traced in the need for additional *utei supplies,which required the construction of great new aqueductsin iia-rz7 and 1gu1"-under ALgustus.bS_omepeasantsdrifted into thä city, and doubtlessinto other towns.TBut the -population of Rome *u, .hi.fly augmentedby slavesand freedmen.8 Many of these belonged to the households of the rich, securing their luxury and ostentatiousdignity. But more important, thousandi of inscriptionssuggestthat at Rome, and to a lesserextent in Italian towns' trade and industry were chiefly in the hands of slaves and freedmen. Most are imperial, but what we have from the late Republic or the Augustan period is congruent with the later data. For instance the fine ware made at Arretium in the first century nc 5, IM, .h. x, giving the results of rr-x. I!, ch' xxr, which requires some modification in detail, not affecting the general conclu." sions. Livy xxxix. 3.4-6, xli._8.6ff refer to migration of Italians to Ro-"e in tf,e early second century; the language may be anachronistic. Italians with 'ius migrationis, could sain the citizenship thereby, if rhey settled anywhere in the agrr Romanus; ct x-"xxiv.42. 5 r. 1*iin n. e. Smith,J.R.l r954, rB tr). A. H. McDonald adhered to ihe view that there *", i d.ift to Rome and other towns from the early secondcentury; cf. camb. Hist. Journ.193g, rz6 l, r3z. cf. n. r3 below. Note that Marian veteransdid not migrate to Rome (App. i. ,gt7 some town-dwellerscultivated thJadjoining nelai, see..g. öi.. de leg. agr. ii. g9 on capua, which must be lrue a fortiorr' of towns less developed as manufacturing ind"tradin! centres; p. Garnsey, Proc.camb. Phit. soc.rg7g, r ff., a valuable discussionoftheixtent to whfch peasants lived in villages and scattered homesteads(a pattern of settlement surely more common after Rome had establishedinternal peace in the peninsula), misunderstandsthi, t.*t, which means that after_losingcivic seltgovern-.ni in ztr, remained a 'receptaculum ".utorr-,. _capua, F9i what lollows see (besidesthe chs. in IM and, Hopkins ciöd in nn. ^.' 4-6) Brunt a1. Cherubini, r g83, and on freelabour at Rome, JRS r g8o, g r ff., defending u.d u-piifying ui.*, i. The RomanMob (.Finley, rg74, ch. rv).

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was manuf;actured by freedmen and slaves. Conceivably the epigraphic evidence somewhat exaggerates their predominance. It can be conjectured that for various reasons humble men of free birth were less able or willing to leave memorials of themselves and of their manual employment. Moreover, there are few inscriptions of those engaged in unskilled, often casual, labour, which must have given a livelihood to some displaced peasants; on the other hand, they possessedneither the skill nor the capital to compete in the crafts or even in trade. The wealthy could import slaves who were already trained, or could pay the cost of training them. It is evident that rightly or wrongly entrepreneurs supposed that slave labour under their absolute control brought in the greatest profits, at any rate if the slaves, who had to be maintained continuously, could also be kept continuously at work; this was a proviso well understood by Cato in regard to farming,e and it must have been seen to apply equally to urban employment. In order to obtain efficient service from skilled slaves, owners were indeed obliged to allow them a share in earnings, and often to reward them with freedom before they had come to the end of their working lives. But in manumitting them they could require continued service from them, even without payment if they were given maintenance. The freedmen engaged in industry and trade were doubtless mainly pursuing the same activities as in their days of servitude; and though they might become rich themselves,it is probable that initially at least they were financed by their former masters in return for a share in profiis.10 The impression derived from inscriptions of the preponderance of slaves and freedmen in the population of Rome is fortified by Cicero's allusions to the plebs, especially to Clodius' gangs, which in fact comprised numerous artisans and shopkeepers.lr At a much earlier date Scipio Aemilianus 'to had berated the Roman plebs as consisting of men whom Italy was but a stepmother'.12 e Implicit in Cato de agric.z. z f., 5. z, 39. z. 1 o T r e g g i a r i , r 9 6 9 , r r e o , 6 8 8 r ; P . G a r n s e y , K l i o t g 8 r , 3 5 9 f f . , d i f f e r e n t i a t e sb e t w e e n freedmen who became independent of patrons and others. Statistics on craftsmen etc.: H. G u m m e r u s ,R E i x , 1 4 9 6 t r ; A . M . D u f f , F r e e d m e n itnh ee a r j R o m a nE m p i r er o 9 f L ; c [ ' I - r e g g i a r i , r969,gr-ro5 for the Republic. " The RomanMob (n.8) SS ff.; Lintott, 1968, ch. vr, to be preferred to Gruen, rg74, 433tr. Gruen 36 r n. 9 notes that in de leg.agr. li Cicero implies that the urban plebs was ol native stock; but in this speechhe aimed at flattery of the plebsurbana. 12 Vell. ii. 4. 4; Val. Max. vi. z. g; de ür. ill. 58. 8. P. Fraccaro, Studisutl'etädei Gracchi(Stud. stlr. p(r I'antich. rlass., rgrz), 387 ff., connected this nol with Scipio's efforts to limit land allotments in the interest of the Italians. This would imply that the urban mob were interestedin 'I'he land allotments. I do not believe this. sourcesmake Scipio reply with this mol to the outcry 'I'his whcn he had pronounced that Gracchus was'iure caesus'. is perfectly plausible;the killing of C.)racchus was a violation olproaocalio, to which the humblest citizenswere profoundly attached, as C l i c c r oI ' o u n dt o h i s c o s t . S c c a l s o A . E . A s t i n , C Q r 9 6 o , r 3 5 9 .

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None the lesssome peasantsdid drift into Rome,rl a'd doubtless into other towns.They could at any rate hope for casualemployment, for which it was uneconomicto maintain ,lurr.r. They migir go out into the fields to assistin seasonaloperations(p."+gi. As theie was little navigation in the winter, the work or abcl-iälourers and of porters and carriers must have bunched in the summer months. Building ^aclivjty of all kinds was to some extent seasonar;and the demand for labour on great public works was extremelyintermittent. At Rom.eimmigrants might also receive doresfrom the great houses, purchasing their loyalty, as well as bribes from candidatei for office.rd In the brawls at Rome beforesulla's time the nobility could call on the aid of urban clients (doubtlessincluding their freedmen)against the rural supportersof 'popular' agitators.r5 It was pe.rhapsto underminethis attachment,and not or not merely ^ genuine lrgm.. ^compassion, that Gaius Gracchus instituted cheap distributionsof grain at the public cost. This measurein any event testifiesto the existenceof an urban proletariate of free men at Rome, which had already been formed befoie state doles were available. The public expenditure on grain distributions was in someway reduced by a lex octauia,probably towards the end of the secondor eaily in the first century; and they were totally aborishedby Sulra. consequential resentmentmay explain why in cicero's time the nobilitv had lost control of the urban plebs; ifso, it had not been allayed by ihe revival of distributions for a limited number of beneficiariesin' 73, nor by cato's law of 6z extending them much more widely: the päor could perceivethat thesewere concessions extorted by fear. o"ly i" 58 did p. clodius make distribution free, and the number of recipient, iuur roo' vastly swollen'probably becauseslave-owners took the opportunity to manumit their slaveson a large scale,retaining a legal iight to their servicesand transferring much of the cost of -uint.nä.e to the state.16However, the urban poor could not live on bread alone: they neededother food, clothes,and shelter.At all times the possibilitiesof obtaining casual employment for wages must have been the primary causeof migration into Rome, and no doubt to someextent inio other r3.Sall.Cat.37.4 7 ; Y a r r o , R R ü p r . 5 ; A p p . i i . r z o ; S u e t .A u g . 4 z . 3 ; t h e l a s t t h r e e r e x t s r e l b r r o conditions after cB. ta Sall.lr.; C I c . V e r r .ü . 3 . . 2 r 5 , d e o f i c .ü . 5 5 , 5 7 - 9 ; p l u t . C ) c .g . r ; F l i n y , N H x v . z , x v i i i . 1 6 . _ t.f|u,trr, Dig. ix. g.5. r^indicatestnit p"t.än, give clients free #"ri";. ' - e . g : r n r o o ( n . 4 3 ) , 8 8 , a n d 8 Z ( A p p . i . 5 5 .äig"ht z+3f.,64.28g;the.oldcitizens,äresurelychiefly . t h o s er e s i d e n ra r R o m e r t c l . p p . 4 3 : L '" IM 976-82, but lor date of lex OctauiaH. Schneider, Wirtschaftr. politik, rg74,361. I now t h i n k t h a t r n a l e s . w e r e e l i g i b l e f o r t h e ^ d o r e sf r o m p u b e r t y , a m e n d i n s . u n d e c i m o , r o . q u a r r o decimo' in Suet. lzg. 4r-i .! J. Rea, Ox1t.pap. xl p. r3. It is only .n u;'ru-p;;i;at the ration .1. was always, as in 73 (sall. or..Mac.ri rg1,5 modiia --ontÄ, .o-pu.id '"ith for legi
ARMY AND LAND IN

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towns, where there were no regular public dolesat all. Suggestions in our sourcesthat the drift of peasantsinto Rome was principally due to the public grain distributions are thus exaggerations.Only Sallust makes this the reason for migration as early as 63. He speaks of peasants preferring life in the city to 'ingrato labori' in the fields (tr.rg). In truth, they could not subsistanywhere in entire idleness; and if they moved into the towns, it must have been largely becauseit was even harder to procure a livelihood in the country. Not that they can have prospered in Rome. In the crowded and insanitary conditions there mortality must have been very high. Probably few could raise a family; the dole, given only to males above the age of puberty, though more than enough for a single man, was inadequate for a wife and children as well; and the continuing influx of free immigrants will not have resultedin a steadyand substantialnet increasein the total of free-borninhabitants.17 Thus in my view the majority of the population of Rome had no roots in the soil of Italy and little interest in agrarian reform.l8 Equally, as will appear later, they contributed few recruits to the legions. Their riots fill a large part in our records, and in 67 their discontent forced through the Gabinian law; this was certainly an essential link in the chain of events that led on to the fall of the Republic. But in the end it was the disloyalty of the soldiers to the establishedregime that was decisive;it is their behaviour which above all requires elucidation; and they were drawn from Italy rather than from Rome itself. Now the free inhabitants of Italy outside Rome, though there were obviously craftsmenle and traders in other towns, many of them freedmen,and sailorsand fishermenon the coasts,must principally have obtained their livelihood from agriculture and pasturage. Something may first be said of the substantiallanded proprietors. In the late Republic there were over 3oo towns in Italy excluding CisalpineGaul,20and the curial class,togetherperhapswith somerich freedmen,may well have numbered over 5o,ooo.21Each city councillor, even where the censusqualification was as low as r oo,ooosesterces, might have owned a farm of the model sizeof roo 3oo iugera,25-75 t1 IM 1 8 C i c . d e t e g .a g r .ü . 385 ff.; cf. ch. xr 7r. te Varro, ^R^R i. r6. 4 shows how such craftsmen might serve surrounding farms. 20 Beloch, Beaölkerung 39r, counted 43r in the Principate; some were constituted in the late Republic, and before 49 Bc some fifty in Transpadana lacked citizen rights. 2r Curiaeofroomembers,Cic.deleg.agr.ii.96(Capua);1ZS6rzr(Canusium,a,ozz6);cf.Di1. Ep. s.v. centumairi,but smaller numbers are known. e.g. CIL xiv. 2458, 2466. The property qualification might be roo,ooo HSS (Petron. 44; Pliny, Ep. i rg. zr; cf. Dio lxxii. r6). In many towns, as in Patavium (Str. v. r. 7) or Narbo (ILS ttz) under Augustus, there must have been welf-to-do men outside the curiae,notably freedmen corresponding to the later Augustales.

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hectares,describedby the agronomists.Of course the great Roman magnateswere immenselyricher; Lucius Aemilius Paulus was worth 37o,ooodenariiat his death in r6o, and Crassus(ros.7o) was reputed to have invested5o millions in real estate.Since averageland-values are unknown, we cannot estimate the size of their holdings, but plainly they were vast. By purchaseor violence,or by taking lands pledgedto them as securityfor debts that could not be repaid, some of them chose to annex the farms of their poorer neighbours and to possess themselvesof extensivecontinuoustracts of land; others, like Pompey, preferred to acquire discrete properties in different regions, so as to minimize the risk of adverseclimatic conditionsin a particular locality; in either casethey may well have preferredto divide their property into the relatively small units which the agronomistsenvisage,that could either be efficiently managed by a ailicuswith a score or so of slavesor be leasedto small tenants.Thus in the early first century Roscius owned thirteen separatefundi in the territory of Ameria (Cic. .Rosc.Amer. zo). Naturally ranching required far more extensive land for pasture, but flocks and herds could be grazed partly on the great expanse of public land in return for a fee (scriptura) paid to the publicans.22 The great massof free men in rural Italy must, however, have been composed of owners or tenants of small farms and of agricultural labourers. According to tradition, the typical holding of the peasant citizen had once been only 7 iugera,and some allotments made to settlersin the early secondcentury were at leastbelow the sizeof zo-3o iugerawhich were needed,except on unusually fertile soil, to support a family. Such peasantshad to supplementthe produce of their own farms either by working on larger estatesor by exploiting adjacent public land, but their enjoyment of public land was progressively reduced by the ability of the rich to occupy and enclosecultivable parts of this land for their exclusiveuse, or to pasture on it their flocks and herds. Hence the decline in the peasantry,which was observableby r33. Not of coursethat the classof smallholderswas then (or ever) extinct. Probably they held, out longest in the more mountainous, infertile, and inaccessible regions,which were least attractive to rich investorsin land. The declinewas perhapscheckedby the Gracchan allotments,though we are told that they ultimately proved ineffective (tt.t), and by settlementsof veteransin the first century, though to a 22 K. D. White, 81C,5r967, 63 ff., collecred evidenceon tat{undia and on large landholdings generally. The word is 6rst attested in Pliny, "i(fl xvii. r35, where it evidently excludes such discrete holdings as Pompey's. Wealth of rr,agnares:ESAR i. zo8 ff., zg5 ff, 387 tr, cf. Brunr, Latlmus rg75,6zo ff., on the huge landholdings ofL. Domitius Ahenobarbus (ros.54 oc) and ofa f r e e d m a no f t h e M e t e l l i ( o ä .B n c ) . S t o c k t o n ,r 9 7 9 , a d m i r a b l y s u m m a r i z e st h e a g r a r i a n s i t u a r i o n i n t 3 3 a n d e x p l a i n st h e u s e o f a g r r l u b l i c u s( c h . I a n d A p p . r ) .

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considerableextent other peasantswere displacedfor their benefit.23 'l'he same factors, which cannot be discussedhere, that militated againstsmallholdersin the pre-Gracchanperiod continued to operate thereafter.2aNone the less, at no time in the late Republic were smallholderseliminated.Varro briefly notesthat a very large number o[poor men were still cultivating their own fieldswith their own labour and that of their families in the 3os;he was probably thinking not onlv 'cum of peasantproprietors but of tenants,such as Horace'sOfellus, et gnatis fortem mercedecolonum'.2s p.io.. We know little of the rural poor.26They hardly ever left epigraphic records of their existence. In certain areas archaeology reveals the presenceof small farms; but their dating is insecure, and material remains cannot show if the farmers were owners or tenants; it is also often unsafeto assumethat what was true in one place and time applies to any other.27Extant literature, written by or at least for the 6lite, takes little interest in the rural poor, except when (as in I33) they contributed directly to political conflict. Even the agronomists' Cato, Varro, and, at a date beyond our period, Columella did not aim at describing the rural economy of Italy, but only at instructing substantial ownershow best to exploit their estates.They tacitly assumethat in optimum conditions slave labour brought in the highest profits. Slaves provide the permanent labour force on Cato's model farms. Varro takesit for granted that they will perform routine operationson farms and act as herdsmen for stock-breeders.Though we cannot be confident that landowners invariably followed the precepts of the agronomists,sincein other agesthe practicesrecommendedby experts and pursued by the majority of farmers have differed widely, generalizations in our sourcesindicate the extensive employment of slaves. Their number cannot be determined,but thereis hardly a hint that the mortality among slavesattendant on Spartacus' revolt, in which at 'least r5o,ooo may well have perished,seriouslydenuded the land of slaveworkers.2sStill the agronomiststhemselvesconcededthat it was uneconomic to use slaveson lands that were unhealthy (probably or so malarial), where the depreciationrate would have beenexcessive, 23 IM,.h. xrx (ii) and (vi). 2a See pp. 73 ff. Conscription still aggravated other factors (IM, ch. xxII). 25 Varro, R^Ri. r z; Hor. Sat.ii. a. r r5. 7. 2 6 T h e t h e n k n o w n e v i d e n c e w a s c o l l e c t e d a n d a n a l y s e d b y W . E . H e i t l a n d , A g r i c o l al,9 z I . C f . K. D. White, RomanFarming, I97o, ch. xt, Brunt ap. Cherubini, 1983, 95 ff. 21 IM g5z f. Much subsequentarchaeologicalwork is used in A. Giardina and A. Schiavone r98r, but is overlaid by dogmas on the nature, extent, (eds.),Sorrrtäromanaeprodulioneschiauistica, and developmentof the'slave mode of production'; cf. the reviewsby D. W. Rathbone, JRS t983, r6o ff., and M. S. Spurr, CÄ rg85, tz3 ff.; whether these are right or wrong, the archaeological evidence is too Datchv and ambiguous to demonstrate. 2s IM rzz.zB7.g.'

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distant that the ownerscould not exercisesufficiently closesupervision; Columella also applied this advice to lands desolatedby the severity of the climate or the barrenness of the soil (which might have been unsuited to vines or olives and have produced a scanty yield of cereals).2e In such conditions Varro recommends employment of free wageearners,Columella leasing to tenants. Tenancy was also known in the Republic,for instanceto Varro himself.30It so happensthat thereis no allusion to it earlier than a fragment of the agronomist Saserna (ap. Colum. i. 7), writing perhapsat the beginningof the first century. But the silenceof previousliterature, given its small bulk and its subjectmatter, is no indication that tenancy was not in use, perhaps in common use.Even Cato was not aiming to describethe rural economy of his time. In my view it is an accident that we also hear little of it in any Republican or Augustan sources;most of our information comes from the younger Pliny and from imperial jurists. But Cicero too leased his farms in the territory of Arpinum; only he does not, like Pliny, tell us anything of the processand problems.Juristic texts are sparsebefore the secondcentury of our era; it is all we can expect that the fragments of Republican and Augustan legal writers contain a dozen referencesto the law governing tenancy of farms.3l It is also probable that the juristic texts of all periods chiefly concern substantial tenants who, unlike ^thepoor, were capable of taking disputeswith landlords to court." Somepossessed slavesof their own. It is significantthat juristic and someother allusionsto tenancyshow that lands under vines and olives, in which considerablecapital would often have been invested, might be leased;the rents would then be relatively high, and beyond 2e Varro i. t7. g; Colum. i. 7 (who thought that in ,ärszconditions slaves were specially unsuited for cereal production). 30 i. z. r7, ii. 3. 7j seealso nn. 3 r , 32. P. W. de Neeve,Colonus,rg}4,is exhaustiveon renancy ln this_period.His analysisofthe evidenceis acute, but I tacitly differ from him on several points. 3 r S e r .S u l p i c i u s D , e g .x i x . r . r 3 . 3 0 , 2 . r 5 . 2 , z . 3 5 . r ( ? ) ;A l f e n u sV a r u s , x v . 3 . r 6 ( s l a v e ' q u a s i c o l o n u s ' ,c f . a l s ox l . 7 . r 4 ) , x i x . 2 . 3 c . 4 : A e l i u s T u b e r o , x i x . r . r 3 . 3 o ; L a b e o , v i i . 8 . r o . 4 , x i x . z . 6 o . r a n d 5 , x x . 6 . 1 4 ,x x x i i i . z . 3 o ( ? ) ,z . 4 z ( ? ) , 7 . r : . 3 ( s l a v e ' q u a sci o l o n u s ' )x, x x i v . 3 . r 7 ( ? ) ( m e n t i o n i n g ' r e l i q u ac o l o n o r u m ' ) ,x x x i x . 3 . 5 , x l . 7 . r 4 . ( A l l u s i o n st o ' r e l i q u a c o l o n o r u m ' d o n o t necessarilyprove that tenants were prone to default on rent, ofwhich there is other evidence in Pliny; as rent was payable in arrears, the sums due were among the assetsofan estate,which the owner might devise by his testament). De Neeve's view that the texts cited suggest that the relevant law (of locatio-conductio of farms) was still at an early stage of development (pp. 45 ff.) seemsto me subjective;the introduction ofnew remediesagainst defaulters,probably in the first century, may however suggestthat it was only now that there were some substantial tenants capable oflitigation. Contracts for leasescould ofcourse have been made by stipulation, before the contract of loeatio conducliowas devised. lf colonusin the senseof tenant is not attested before Ioo, it is also then found only in Cato in the basic meaninq ofcultivator. " C f . J . M . K e l l y . R o m a nL i t i g a t i o n , 1 9 6 6 ,r r r r .W e l l - t o - ä o r e n a n t s :d e N e e v ep p . 8 z 6 . r o o . t95, with erroneousinterpretation ofPliny Ep. x. 8. 5, where'colonus' is singular for plural, as the allusion to'remissiones' orovcs.

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the capacity ol'purr men to Pay, or at any rate to find adequate sureties fior payment. It may be observed that large owners might choose to lease their lands for reasons other than those which the agronomists mention. A woman or a minor, or a man likely to be long absent from his estates, might all adopt this course, if it was recognized that operation through a ailicus demanded the close personal supervision that they could not provide. Some owners might also prefer a fixed return to the supposedly higher profit of direct management with its attendant risks. It was perhaps partly for this reason, as well as to reward faithful service, that some owners actually set up their slaves as quasi-tenants, rather than appointing them as uilici.33 If land was almost entirely under cereals, which do not require continuous cultivation throughout the year, the employment of slaves would not have been economic, as for vines or olives or (and this was probably most common) for mixed farming. But we carr hardly doubt that most tenants were small men. Horace's modest Sabine estate comprised a home farm worked by eight slaves and five holdings leased to tenants. Such men would be economically dependent on their landlords and probably be their clients, though the notion that patrons assigned land to clients on a precarious basis without rent is in my view without foundation (P.4tt). Hence Catiline in 63 and Domitius Ahenobarbus in 49 could raise troops from their tenancy.3a Even when farms were directly managed, the labour force was not necessarily servile, or at least not entirely servile. Cato alludes to arrangements in which free men pe rformed some of the cultivation in return for a share of the produce." Varro, as we have seen, envisages that all the work might be done by hired labourers. When slaves did constitute the permanent labour force, it did not pay the owner to maintain enough hands for seasonal work such as harvesting grain, picking and pressing olives, gathering and treading grapes. It is partly implied, partly stated by Cato that such work was put out at contract. For such seasonal work the contractor needed free labourers, not slaves whom he would have had to maintain for the rest of the year.36 Varro (A,R i. r7. z) expressly says that for those'opera rustica maiora'gangs of hired free labourers were employed. There are a few other extant 'messores' or'vindemiatores', or to other hired labourers on allusions to t3 P. Veyte, R. Pi. Ig8o, 43ff., Röu. hist. rg9r,3 ff., does not convince me that this was ( ommon. r a H o r . E p . i . 1 4 . r , S a l .i i . 7. I IB; cf. n.87. ts De agric. 136 f. as interpreted by de Neeve zoI ff. 3 6 D e a g r i c . r 4 4 - 6 ;c f . F l . B r e h a u t , C a l o l h e C e n s o r o n F a r m i n g , r g 3 3 , x x x i v f f . , o n t h e i m p l i c a t i o n s 'custodes'in 13, 66 f. Cato's 'operarii' are not free (Brunt' ol'his t alendar offarm work. F'ree JRS r r y . , t l ,r t i 5 ) , n o r a r r t h c ' p a s t o r e s ' o f r 4 9 f . , w h o c a n b e p l e d g e d .

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the land.37 Caesar requircd sraziers to employ lree men up to onethird of their labour force (Suet. Caes. 4z); the enactment may have been ineffective, but can hardly have been patently futile: it implies that free workers were available. The picture drawn in the parabie of labourers waiting to be hired for work in the vineyards (Matt. zo: r ff.) may have been as familiar in ancient Italy as in Palestine. We cannot tell how these agricultural labourers found a livelihood when they were not engaged by the large proprietors. Some no doubt dwelt in Rome or in other towns, where they could get casual employment. Many probably had small plots of their own or under leases,which neither sufficed for the subsistenceof a family nor (especially if under cereals) demanded their labour throughout the year. But underemployment and near starvation must have been chronic in ancient Italy, as in modern times, among the rural poor. Marius' backers for the consulship included 'opifices agrestesque omnes, quorum res fidesque in manibus sitae erant',"o and these were clearly the people who gladly embraced the prospect of hard, dangerous, and ill-paid service in the legions, which did at least assure them of clothing and food. It is only to be expected that the partisans of land allotments should be lound not among the urban plebs, but among the rural poor, very small owners, the younger sons of yeomen whose farms brooked no subdivision) tenants who wished to own rather than rent their land, and day-labourers whose work in the fields hardly sufficed for subsistence, agriculturists born, who had not found that 'fundit humo facilem victum iustissima tellus'. On the whole this expectation is confirmed by the evidence. Diodorus3e and Appianao mäke it plain that Tiberius Gracchus' supporters came from the country. Cicero and Plutarch say the same for Gaius. It was in country districts near Rome that in rz3 he sought votes for the bill against Popilius Laenas.al Though he also wooed the urban plebs by his frumentary law, at the end it could be taken for granted that 'harvesters' would be his partisans.a2 Saturninus called up veterans from the country to pass a colonial bill: the 'optimates' mobilized the urban population.a3 In 63 Rullus' bill evidently gave preference to the rural tribes-er,, und 3? Plut. C. Gr. rg. z, Mar. 4r. z; Cic. deorat. lü. 46;Hor. ^9at.ii. 6. r r; pliny,,MIlxiv. ro (cf. W. K u n k e l , E o s r 9 5 7 ,z o 7 f f . ) ; S u e t . V e s p . i .t 4 ; S e n .E p . 4 7 . r o ( c f .E . G a b b a , r 9 7 3 , 9 3 n . r r q . ) C i c . d z ffir. i. +t , 5o need not refer to agricultural workers, and caet. 58, 63 may allude to 'servi alie ni'. The labourers who migrated to Rome (Sall. Cat. 37. 7) need not have been completely divorced from the land. 38 Sall. .B;l 7 3 . 6 ; c f , G a b b a , 1 9 7 3 ,3 8 : 1 9 7 6 , 1 6 . 3e xxxiv/xxxv. 6. r: no i. ,3. P o s i d . ( J a c o b y ,n o . 8 7 ) , F r r o ( b ) . 5 7 , 1 4 .5 8 f . o' Cic. Cat.iv.4; Plut. C. Gr.3. r; cC the title ofhis speech,de fopittiä'fae"ate circum c o n c i l i a b u l a 'i n G e l l . i . 7 . 7 . L i v y v i i . r 5 . r 3 ( ' n o v o r u m . . . h o m i n u m . . . q u i n u n d i n a s e t conciliabula obire soliti erant') may reflect the pracrice of populares in the late Republic. a 2 P e r e g r i nwi e r e s o ar'App. i. 29. d i s g u i s e dP , l u t . C . G r . 1 3 .z . r3z, l".i1+,3r. r39 f.

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tlrough it is clcarly nonsensewhen Cicero suggeststhat they would be men ol'property (de leg. agr. ä. 79), it is likely enough that his intention was to allot lands first to country-dwellers. It is true that residentsin the city were not excluded, and that Rullus, Cicero in 6o, and probably Caesar in 59 all talked of draining offthe urban proletariate and at the same time repeopling the deserted parts of Italy (n.4). But probably only some of the most recent migrants into the capital would have been attracted back to the land. Cicero in 63 appealed with demagogic skill to the mob's love of the bribes, games, and festivals enjoyed chiefly by those domiciled at Rome. Livy's story of the early colonization of Antium is probably coloured by later experience; few, he says, would 'cetera multitudo poscere Romae agrum malle quam alibi enrol: accipere'. Similarly, later conditions are probably reflected in Dionysius of Halicarnassus' story that king Tullus Hostilius distributed royal and public domains to men who would otherwise have had to work for wages on the estates of the rich.aa In other wordsf for the urban proletariate an agrarian agitation was not serious; or rather, it did not seriously desire to receive land so much as to blackmail the senate into other concessions. The agrarian agitation of 63 was followed by Cato's law of 6z greatly increasing the number of recipients of cheap corn. In 63 the urban plebs at first supported but finally deserted Catiline; they were alienated by Cicero's skilful allegation that the conspirators 'agrestis homines, intended to burn down the city.45 It was among tenuis atque egentes' (Cic. Cat. ä. 20) that Catiline found his most faithful followers. The threat which his movement presented to order, 'exercitus locupletium' (Att. i. property, and the interests of Cicero's 'the men whose fortunes had been augmented and accumulated rg. 4), by the favour of the gods'(Cal. iv. I9), is the clearest indication we have of the distress and discontent which is the social background of the political revolution in this period. At the consular elections in 63 Catiline had already forfeited the support of Crassus and Caesar;nu h. appeared in public, surrounded by impoverished Sullan colonists and the very peasants they had dispossessed;47it was reported that he had privately declared his resolve to place himself at the head of the 'miseri', and he openly boasted in the senate that he would not fail to give leadership to the class whose one weakness was that it had lacked a leader. Defeated at the polls in a timocratic assembly, he proclaimed then, if a a C i c . d e l e g .a g r . ü . 7 r ; L i v y i i i . r ; D i o n y s . H a l . i i i . r . 5. 45 Sall.Cat.37.48.r f; cf. Cic. Cat.äi. zz, iv. r7; Dio xxxvii. t. 3. 46 At least there is no evidence for it, and Crassus defended Murena. His, and Caesar's, c o m p l i c i t y i n t h e p l o t w a s a p a r t i s a ni n v e n t i o n . a1 Cic. Mur. 49; cf. Cat. ii. eo; Sall. Cat. 16. 4,28. 4. Cf. Harmand, 1967,476.

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not earlier,a prosrammeol' remissiono{'debtsand redistributionof lands.ooFightingand devastationin the Bosand again in 78-77, the persistence of violencein the countrysidethereafter,aethe great slave revolt of 73 7 r, and the indirect effectsof pirate depredationsand the Mithridatic war had naturally led to a socialand economiccrisis.The exceptionallylarge number of legionsrequired between 78 and Trso had inevitably involved conscriptionof peasants,including no doubt many of the Sullan colonists,many of whom would have been ruined by absencefrom their farms. The burden of debt had never been greaterthan in 63, accordingto Cicero'sown admission,and somebill had been promoted, but not passed,at the beginning'of the year .for the cancellationof debts'. cicero said that in every corner of Italy all who .were oppressedwith debt rallied to Catiline.sr These people certainly did not consistmainly of men with great possessionl, like catiline himself,who could perhapshave paid their debtsoffby selling part of their property, and it would be uncritical to supposethat debti were_incurred only through extravagance,or that in Cicero'slanguage all those who were_'egentes'or 'malis domesticisimpediti, weie 'improbi'or'furiosi'.s2 A succession of bad harvests*orld inevitably force the yeoman to borrow and the tenant to default on his rent; the harsh law then left him at the mercy of his creditor, who could keep him in custody,and perhapseven make him work as a bondsman;s3 Manlius' letter, as reporred by Sallust (Cat. 33), claims that many farmers had lost 'fama atque fortunis'-their property had been sold up and they had sufferedlossof 'existimatio'-and that they were not even allowed 'amissopatrimonio liberum corpushabere'. It is not surprisingthat the revolutionary movement spread to all parts of Italy;54'tar,ä vis morbi ac veluti tabesplerosqre civium animos invaserat'(ibid. 36). Etruria was the chief centreof disturbance,as in l,epidus' time, but outbreaksare also attestedin Cisalpina,Picenum, Umbria, the Paelignianland, Campania,Apulia, and Bruttium.ss It is llmost a catalogueof the recruiting areasfor the Roman legions. But Catiline lacked a show of legitimate authority and a triined and disciplinedarmy. It was otherwiseir 49, when 'numquam improbi civeshabuerunt paratiorem ducem' (Cic. Fam. xvi. r r. 3); Caesartoo a8 Djoxxxvii.3oputsthisaftertheelectionsof63,perhapstoolate;Sall.Cat.zr.r,in64,much too^carly, when the plutocrat Crassuswas still backing Catiline. "" IM ch xvltl and App. B. Texts which purport to refer to early Rome may also retroject later conditions, e.g. cassiusHemina, fr. r7 P.; Sall. /*sl. i. r r. Note also cic. phit. ri. a;. on removal o f b o u n d a r y s t o n e sc f . D i o n y s . H a l . ü . 7 + . 5 ; G r o m . V e t . 3 5 o f L . ( f r . o f V e g o i a l . * so-IM s' Cic. de o5r. ü. ta, Cat. 1i.B: Dio xxxvii. 25. 446tr. s2, e.g. Cat. ii. r s3 Ch. 6 n. 7 *iih tc*r. 7 ff.. Srrl. 97. de of. i. Ba. ' " C i c . C a 1 .i i . B . i v . 6 l C a t o ' s s p e e c h .S a l l . C a 1 .5 2 . 1 5 . C i c . . . C a t . i i . 6 , S z / / . 5 3 , S r s 1 . g ;C - Sa at .l2l .7 . r , " ö . a , { A . r , 4 2 . r ; p l u t . C i c . r o . g , r 4 ; A p p . i i . r ; _.5s D i o x x x v i i . 3 0 . 4 , 3 r . z ; O r o s .v i . 6 . 5 - 7 . C f . n . 4 7 .

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w i r s s u s p e c t e do l i n t e n d i n g t o r e m i t d e b t s ( A t t . v ä . r r . r ) , a n d h i s läilure to fulfil this expectation led in 48 and 47 to riots and revolt.s6 II

The rural population not only provided partisansfor land distributions;it was they who suppliedRome with her soldiers.Velleius(ii. r5. z) saysthat before go Bc two-thirds of Roman armies were drawn from the Italian allies:this proportion may be too high,sTbut no one will question that they then provided over half the recruits; and surely they continuedto contributeon much the samescaleafter their enfranchisement. Before Marius' first consulshipin r07 the Roman legionarieshad normally been assidui,citizens possessed of some property, and therefore for the most part peasant proprietors. But whether or not the property qualification had been reduced in the Hannibalic war and again in the Gracchan era, a theory advancedby Gabba, modified by me, and widely adopted,'o it was certainly so low by ro7 that it can hardly have exceededthe value of a dwelling and a garden plot; the soldiersno longer supplied their equipment which the state provided, deducting the cost from pay. Marius enlisted proletarü,and oui' authorities imply that his example was followed thereafter. They censure him for opening the army to men without 'a stake in the country', and modern writers, including even Gabba, have generally held that he introduced a fundamental change in its composition.se But in social terms the difference between men who in civil life had lacked economic independence, and those totally destitute of property is minimal, and the significanceof Marius' reform was very small. It will be seenthat it did not create a professionalarmy of volunteers,as Gabba still supposed. In any event it did not alter the rural , provenance of most soldiers. There were never many recruits from the urban proletariate. We s 6 S e ep . s] IM, App. z6; cf. Ilari, tg74, t48tr. 5o5 at 5. s8 Intheoriginalversionofthisessay,asinlMT4-B3,4oz-s,Isupposedthatadeclineinthe number of those qualified for legionary service (a) led to reductions in the qualification in the Hannibalic war and in the Gracchan era, and (D) alarmed Ti. Gracchus and his contemporaries; the fall in the total number ofcitizens registeredin the army between r65/4 and r36i5 is not very considerable,but if it concealed a disproportionately greater fall in the number of assidui,they would have known it, as we do not.'fhis is all conjectural; seeJ. W. Rich, Historia, tg83, e8B ff., lor acute though perhaps not decisive objections. Rich also shows in effect that as a result of devaluations in the coinage from the time of the Hannibalic war the property qualification lor legionary service must have progressivelyfallen in real terms unless it was actually raised in monetary terms. 5e Sall. BJ 86. r; Val. Max. ii. 3. r; Gell. xvi. ro. r4; Florusi. 36. r3; Plut. Mar. g. t. Cf. G a b b a , r 9 7 3 , r 9 7 6 ,c h . r .

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h e a r o l ' l e v i etsh r o u s h o u It t a l y i n 8 7 , 8 4 8 1 , 5 r , 4 9 , 4 , 3a, n d 4 r s c , a n d more particularlyon variousoccasions in Cisalpina,Etruria, Picenum, Umbria, the Sabinecountry,near Arpinum, in Campania,Samnium, Lucania, Apulia, Bruttium, among the Marsi, Paeligni, and Marrucini. The levy was probably conducred through the municipiaand just as before 9o allied cohorts had been levied under the coloniae, from the Italian towns.6oDischargedsoldiersunder formulatogalorum the Republic, as in Augustus' reign, return to their home towns. By contrast references to recruitment at Rome are rare. In Rome lreedmenpreponderated;they were normally ineligible for legionary service,and only in emergencies were they formed into specialunits, as i n z r 6 , ( L i v y x x i i i . 5 7 . r r , x x i v . r 4 . 3 ) 9 0 , 6 1a n d e o 6 a n d g . 6 2O n t h e s e occasionscity-dwellersof free birth were alsoconscribedfor the legions; the result was not very encouraging;in Bg the army of Lucius Cato, chiefly drawn from the city, was undisciplined(Dio, fr. roo), and I needhardly do more than allude to the 'vernaculamultitudo, lasciviae sueta,laborum intolerans'servingin eo r4, to suchmen as Percennius 'dux olim theatralium operarum, . . . procax lingua et miscerecoetus histrionali studio doctus' (Tac. Ann. i. 3r; cf. 16). In 83 the consuls Scipioand Norbanus,Appian tellsus (i.82.37$,levied the bestarmy they could from the city and joined it to the army lrom Italy. Perhaps Appian has garbled a contrast betweentroopsdrawn from old and new citizens;however if this is not so, it is relevant to recall that Scipio's army had so little stomachfor fighting that it soondesertedto Sulla (i. B5). Leviesin or near the city are again recordedin 49 and 43, but thesetoo were at momentsof exceptionalcrisis. There is indeedno doubt, though the contrary has been affirmed,63 that the armies of the late Republic were overwhelmingly rural in origin, just as the legionariesand praetoriansenlistedin Italy during the Principatehardly ever came from the city of Rome, but generally from the central and northern regions.6aMarian veteranscame in

lrom thc fieldsto back Saturninus(n.43). Sullareturnedto Italy in 83 with five legions,but he allotted land to twenty-three;with the possible exceptionof men from Scipio'sfour legions(Plut. Sulla zB. 3), which had desertedto him, his reinforcementscame from the country; he did not control the capital when recruiting in 83.6s Cicero describes Caesarianveterans,when he is in complimentary vein, as 'homines rusticos,sed fortissimosviros civisque optimos', but when they took Antony's side as 'homines agrestes,si homines illi ac non pecudes potius'.66For Horace the typical soldiercapturedby the Parthianswas a Marsian or Apulian (Odesäi. S. g); in fact we happen to know that a strong Lucanian contingentservedunder Crassus(Pliny, NH ä. r47). In the twenty years after Caesarcrossedthe Rubicon, some 2oo,ooo Italians were often under arms; hence 'squalent abductis arva co7 lonis'.6 It has generally been supposedthat from Marius' time the army was composedmainly ofvolunteers.The suppositionwas natural, given the misery of the poor, which in modern countriestoo has always tended to make the voluntary principle effective(cf. Tac. Ann. iv.4). Yet it is not correct. Conscription was frequently employed, as R. E. Smith showed in his excellent book,68 in times of civil war, but not only then. Conscription must have affectedthe peasantswho still owned or rented small farms. Pompey in 49 took it for granted that cohorts raised in Picenum 'quae fortunas suasreliquerunt' (Att.viii. rzB. z) included men of property. We know that the levy had been resentedbitterly in the second'...rttl.u.ueand this was still true in the first.70 The period of särviceremained uncertain, and might be long. The legionswhich Lucius Valerius Flaccustook out to Asia in 86 were not discharged for twenty years;7l on the other hand those raised by Lucius Piso in 58 were disbanded in SS." I do not agree with Smith that any distinction can be drawn in theory or practice between standing armies in the provinces and legions raised for special pur-

60 See App. r. It is not clear that in 63 Cicero actually levied any of the urban plebs (Dio xxxvii. 35. 4). In my view (contraHarmand, 1967,246,254) Dio xxxix. 39 doesnot imply that the conscriptionof55 either extended to them, or that conscription had becomeabnormal (cf. n. 7o); protestsagainst the levy were known earlier (n. 69; IM, App. ar), when it was certainly the usual way ofraising an army. Livy viii. zo. 4 probably reflectslater experience,whereasvii. 25. 8 is out of fine with other evidence.CL also Sall. Or. Macri z6f. with IM 643. l6l 2 e p p . i . 4 9 . z r z ( c f . G a b b a a d l o c . ) ; P e r . L i v y l x x i v ; M a c r o b . i . r r . 3 2 . P f i n y , N H v ä . t 4 g ; S u e t .l z g . 2 5 . z ; D i o l v i . 2 3 . 3 ; M a c r o b . i . r r . 3 z ; E J 3 9 6 8 = l P E r y 7 4 , r6r ff Tac. Ann.i. gt. (cf I6) and Dio lvii. 5.4 refer tosuchingenuiin the legions;freedmenserved in special cohorts. 63 M. Cary, Hist. of Rome,tg47,3o3l cf. CAH ix.49z. Most books are vague on the point, but create the wrong impression.The truth was seenbut not fully argued by W. E. Heitland, Agrieola, tg?1, t7 5 f.; J. Carcopino, Hist. Rom.2, rg4o, 486; and Gabba, r 973, 56 ff. : r 976, z4 ff. 6a G.Forni, Reclutamentodetlelegioni, 1953,ch.rv; cf. r57ff.; A.Passerini,Ciortipritorie,rg3g, I48 ff.; for exceptional enlistmentofsoldiersat Rome in e.o r 3r-3; cf.J. F. Gilliam,lJP r 956, 35g ff.

ut App. i. 7 g . g 6 g , 8 r . 3 7 o , 8 S . g 8 7 , 8 6 . g g l , r o o . 4 7 o ( w i t h G a b b a ' sn o t e s )s h o w h o w S u l l a ' s army grew; for its numbers seeIM 44r fi] cf. 3o5. 66 Fam. xi. 7. z. Phil. viii. g; cf. x. sz. See alsoArch. 24, }Jlt. Ep. ä. z. gg. 6' Gurg. i. 5o7; cf Lucan i. u8 f.; App. v. 18. 72, 74. 3r4; IM ch.xxvt. 68 Smith, 1958,44ff. 6e Livy xxxiv. 56. g, xxxvi. 3. 5, xxxix. 38. 6 ff., xlii. 32. 6 35. r, xliii. rt. ro, Per.xlviii, lv, and O x 1 .E p i t . o f l v ; A p p . I b e r . 4 9 , 7 8 ; S a l l . B J + t . 7 ; A p p . i . 7 . 3 o ; P l u t . T i . G r . 8 . 3 . P . J . C u f f t h i n k s that harsh discipline in the mid-secondcentury (Pol. vi. 37; Per.Livy lv; Front. Strat.iv. I . zo) was a particular grievance; later it was relaxed; cL n. roo. 10 IM 4oBff. with App. zo. Conscription in Italy, though not in the provinces,first fell into desuetude(with some later exceptions)under Tiberius; cf. Brunt. ScriptaClass.Israel r974, goff. 1r Cic. de imp. Cn. Pomp. z6; Pltt. Luc.34f.; App. Mith. go, which must refer only to the Valerians; Dio xxxvi. t4-6, 46. r. 12 Cic.deproa.cons.5,Pis.57with47,9r-z.TherewerenolegionsinMacedoninearly49;cf, Caes.BC iii. a.

255

256

A R \ ' l Y A N I ) l . A i \ * t )l N ' l H l l R ( ) \ ' t A N R H P I . ' l l l . l ( ;

p o s e s . t 3S o m e p a r t o l ' M e t e l l u s P i u s ' a n d P o m p e y ' s a r m i e s i n S p a i n must have remained as sarrisons there after the end of the Sertorian war.74 Pompey took ovei troops in the east from Lucullus and various commanders, including the legions that had been sent to Cilicia in 78 under Servilius Vatia, and on his return to Rome he left legions in Syria and Cilicia, whose survivors were still there in 49. The nucleus of the army that conquered Gaul consisted of four legions which before 59 had constituted the garrison of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul.Ts But a tabulation of the number of legions in the field during the postMarian period shows that many soldiers must have been discharged after a campaign or two, while it was no novelty that there were permanent garrisons in some provinces, though they were now more numerous. In the first century as before soldiers had a claim to be demobilized after serving six years (nn. rz3, r24). If some served far longer, that had been true also of legionaries in the Hannibalic war. No recruit could foresee how long or where he would be called on to serve. This means that it is misleading to speak of a professional army; no one who enlisted could count on making a career in the army which would occupy most of his active life. As will appear later, the evidence makes it doubtful if many would actually have entertained this ambition. They often pressed for demobilization, though they hoped then to obtain rewards that would secure their future livelihood. Those who had previously been small farmers would often have nothing to return to; even two or three years in the legions might have been enough to ruin them. As in the second century, when 'the people were oppressedby military service and lack of resources' (Sall. BJ +t. 7), the incidence of conscription continued to aggravate the perennial factors n'hich imperilled the viability of small farms. The pathetic story Valerius Maximus (i,r. +. 6) tells of the consul Regulus will be remembered. During his absence for a year in Africa the steward of his farm of seven iugera had died; his hired man had run away with the farm stock, and his wife and children were in danger of starvation. Such must have been the fate, not of a consul and a noble in the third century, but of many a peasant in the second and first centuries. Thus, even when the legionary was a man of some property, army service would soon reduce him to the same economic level as his proletarian comrades.

t3 Smith, 1958, ch. rrr; clntra IM zt9 2c., 227-g2. For provincial garrisons see rrow my tabulations of legionsin IM qz f., 449. 74 Smith zr. z; cf. IM 452-63. 1s IM 463tr.

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257

III

The political attitudes of the legionaries in the late Republic were varied and complex. Mommsen once wrote of the soldier in the post'his only home was the camp, his only sciencewar, Marian army that his only hope the general'.76 This opinion is rather exaggerated; at least the soldier was often not inexperienced in agricultural work. It remains true of course that he was commonly a man who had lost his property or never possessedany, and that while he might make or i.puir his fortune in an army, he had little prospect of continuous and remunerative employment in civil life after discharge. It is clear from the conduct of troops who served under Sulla, the Marian leaders, Caesar, and the dynasts who struggled for power after Caesar's death that he might feel more loyalty to his commander than to the government at Rome. In all these cases, however, conditions were abnormal; the legitimacy of the government at Rome could be denied. The frequency of indiscipline, mutinies, and even the desertion of generals by their armies in civil wars indicates that commanders could not count on the implicit loyalty of their troops. It is also too easy to assume that the soldiers were entirely indifferent to constitutional and political issues and guided wh_o_llyby personal attachments, still more by hopes of material rewards,TTalthough the assumption was made in antiquity. Some, says Sallust (BJ 86. z), explained Marius'enrolment 'homini potentiam quaerenti egentissiof capitecensiby his ambition: mus quisque opportunissimus, cui neque sua cara' quippe quae nulla sunt, et omnia cum pretio honesta videntur'; and other writers echo the same accusation (".Sg). Sallust wrote out of his experience in the triumviral period, and as Appian said in a notable analysis of the conduct of the soldiery in 4I rc, they were then serving their generals rather than the state, and did not scruple to desert them for rewards, since they knew that the generals needed them only for personal 'nulla ends.78But we have reached a time of which Tacitus could write iam publica arma' (Ann i. z), and yet even now (as Appian says) generals and soldiers veiled their infidelity with the pretence that they were acting for the general good. In earlier days it is still clearer that the armies were wooed with political propaganda; men may act from mixed motives, and we '6 Hitt. of Ro*, iv. 6 (Everyman edn. iii. rBB). t t A . t o i P r e m e r s t e i n ,r g 3 7 , 2 5 . a n d G a b b a , r g 7 g l 1 9 7 6 ,c h . r r , s t r e s s e dp e r s o n a la t t a c h m e n t ; contraGruen,rg74,365 ff. Indiscipline: Harmand, 1967,z7z ff., assembledthe evidencedown to (Dio xliii. 5o. Note also the rnutinies against Caesar in 49 and 48-47 (nn. Iz6-7); also in Spain zq). In 44-4o examples are too numerous to cite; there was also a serious mutiny against O ( : t a v i a ni n 3 6 ( n . I r 8 ) . t t A p p . v . r 7 ; c t ' .P l u t . S z / / ar z . 6 9 ; N e p o s ,E z m r z e sB . z .

258

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cannot be sure that this propaganda was of no effect. When he marched on Rome in BB, Sulla could point to the violence at Rome by which legislation adverse to his interests and views had been carried, and argued that he was doing no more than meeting force by force; though all but one of his leading officers abandoned [i-, r.rch pleas may have affected the common soldier. In 87 Cinna claimed that his deposition violated popular sovereignty.TeBoth of them certainly appealedto the cupidity of their troops as well, but how can we determine that this appeal alone was decisive?The regime that cinna establishedrested on force, and flouted constitutional rules; its legitimacy could be doubted. In 83 Sulla sought support by guaranteeing the rights of the new citizens and advoca,tinga compromise peace,which the troops of his enemieslonged for.80 Both Caeiar and the Pompeiansspoke,however insincerely, of their attachment to the Republic and the constitution(Dio xli. 57 r; cf. 17.g), and addressed such propaganda to the armies. The Pompeiansstressedthe authority of the senate.we are told that the sincere and passionateeloquence of Cato's appeals to patriotic duty inspired their troops at Dyrrhachium.o' Caesar,while inflaming the cupidity and personalloyalty of his men, also harangued them on his own servicesto the senate,'the unconstitutional acts of his opponents, and the violation of tribunician sanctity; his soldiers on the Rubicon shouted that they were ready to defend his dignity and the rights of the tribunes.s2In Spain he told the soldiersthat he preferred a bloodlessvictory over feliowcitizens. on the eve of Pharsalus he reiterated the story of his vain efforts to secure 'quietem Italiae, pacem provinciarum, salutem imp_erii',and the veteran Crastinus plunged into battle with the cry: 'Caesar shall recoverhis dignity and we our freedom'.83H. Drexler has argued that the simple soldier who wrote the Bellum Hispaniense saw the campaign of 45 oc as one that was fought between armies that owed a merely personal allegiance; but even this author notes that, as in the p{s.t,Caesarwas striving to saveSpain from devastation and oppression.saBrutus and cassius"surelyshäwed some skill when they combined with lavish gifts to their troops appeals to the ideal of liberty: Caesar, they said, had held the sanctity of tribunes and the electoral rights of the people in contempt, and the triumvirs were tt App.i. 65. zg8 f.; for bribes,Vell. ii. zo. 4; schol.cron.286 ff on the conduct of armies in the 8os^cf.Meier, 1966,zg7 ff. On propaganda and its effectssee also Harmand 3o3-rz,4rBff. App.i. 85 (with Gabba's notes);Per. Livy lxxxvi. Cf. n. r3o. -"1 8 r P l u r .C a t o M i n o r5 4 ; A p p . i i . 5 o f f . ; D i o x i i i i . 5 . o ' C a e s .B C i. 7 f. (cf.App. ii. 33; Dio xli. 4. r), zz, 85. C a e s .B C i . g . 7 r f . , 8 o , 8 5 , i i i . 9 o ; c f . 1 9 , 5 7 : A p p . i i . 4 7 . ]l '* Hermes1935,ro8 ff., stressingB. Hüp. 17, t9. 4t cf. B. AJr.45; but cf B. Hüp. r, 42,B. Afr. 2 5 . 5 . C f . a l s oG r u e n ' sj u s t c o m m e n t s( r g l + , Z l d o n D r e x l e r .

ARMY AND LAND IN

'THE

ROMAN RT]PUBLIC

259

oppressingltaly. Their legions,many raised by Caesar,fought hard foi their iictory.s5 Other Caesarians,it is true, behaveddifferently; at one moment in 44, when Octavian professedto be an obedient servant of the Republic, ready to opposeAntony, he lost the favour of veterans who cared chiefly for vengeance on Caesar's assassinsand the retention of their land allotments(App. BC äi.4I f.).But at least in 4o Octavian's men were unwilling to fight Antony in a purely perJonal quarrel (ibid. v.59), whereas in 3t they showed no like ieluctance to take part in a struggle against one who had been branded as a traitor to Roman traditions and interests. Appeals to the citizen's senseof duty to the commonwealth and to the püblic good may then have had some effect on the soldiers;how r.ruch we can hardly estimate.But the issueswere seldomclear in times them, were of civil war, and the soldiers,even if they were able to assess considerations. personal by influenced decisively surely more It is allegiance to commanders that is most commonly emphasized' The armies of the late Republic, it is often said, came to be almost private armies attached to their generalsrather than to the state.This kind of assertionhas plausibility only in relation to armies that took part in civil wars. No one will believe that, for instance, the garrison legions in Macedon or Spain were private armies of the successive proconsulsappointed to command them' And even in civil wars some ärmies deserted their generals.Cinna was actually killed by his own troops. The legionsof the consulsof 83 went over en masseto Sulla. In 44 two of Antony's legions transferred their allegiance to Octavian. This can hardly be explained by their hereditary allegianceto caesar's adopted son. They had been formed by Caesarin or after 49, and other legiönsof the samevintage were to fight for Brutus and Cassiusagainst him.86 The personalloyalty imputed to the soldiersis commonly connected with clientship. It is supposedthat generalsoften enlisted their own clients or that the troops under their command were converted into their clients. The recruitment of clients is attested,but rarely. In r 34 Scipio Aemilianus had raised4,ooo volunteersfor the Numantine war, bui of theseonly 5oo consistedof his friends and clients, and of course he also took over the two legions already in the field. In 83 Pompey mustered ultimately three legions, the kernel of which was evidently composedof his father's old soldiersor dependantsin Picenum. One might wonder how he paid them; can Crassushave had his successin mind when he said that no one could be esteemedrich who could not t' App.iv.89-99, I33. 86 lM474-88;legionesMartiaandrvwerenotpartoftheGallicarmy.Forotherdesertionscf. Harmand (n. 77).

E6o

ARMY AND LAND IN THE ROMAN REPUBLIC

support _anarmy from his own resources(Cic. de ofrr. i. z5)? Sulla's other officers could not vie with him, but the yo,i.g., Iliäriu, *u, able to induce veteranswho had probably servediiit tuih.. to re-enlist, an-d they may have acted from hereditary loyalty. In general sulla collected.trogprby'friendship, fear, money, and promir.r;1App. i. 86); presumablyhis opponentsdid likewise;both sidesbrought'pressure on the Italian communities in the course of recruitment" (Diod. xxxviii-xxxix.. r3). 'Friendship' can be an euphemismfor clieniship, and we may conjecture that municipal as well äs aristocratic adheräts of the y-?1ti-"9parties procured soldiersamong their own clients, or, like L. Visidius in 43 (cic. Phil. vä. z4), encouragedenlistment by exhortations and grants of money. The tenants *ho folrowed catiline in 63 and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus in 49 ma2 have been their clients (p. z+g).But in 49 both the Pompeiunrutrd caesar relied on conscription; men were reluctant to serve.rn 44_42octavian could re-engage veteransof caesar, who doubtlesslooked on him as their heredi"taiy patron', though they had other motives for taking arms (seebelow); sä could Antony and Lepidus, who had other claim, ott ih.i. rrrpport; somehad receivedlands under a law moved by Antony, which he and his associateswere charged to execute; and Lepidur rrua probably organized coloniesfor veterans in Gaul, and wai their paträn in his caoacity as deductor; Antony perhaps had a similar relation to beneficiariesof his law.87 The nucleus of caesar's faithful Gallic army was formed of four legionsraised to protect cisalpine and rransalpine Gaul years before he became their commander; so too pompey in 66 took over ten or more legions already in the east.88 conscripts or volunteers, these troopswere not initially their clients;no more were any armiesin being the clients of thosewho succeededto their command. No doubt timä and habit might forge a personalallegiance.Labienus reckoned that in three years the Pompeianshad made their forces in Africa ,loval bv custom' (B.A{r.45). But successin war, especiallyif prolongeä anä gained over fo^reignenemies, contributed most (cf. iaer. f"C i. 7;; caesar makescurio say that.'successfulactions win the goodwill of an army for commandersand reversesmake them hated' (iil r. 3 3). sulla, Pompey, and Caesar had pre-eminently enjoyed ,rr...rr."Wä are too 8? Scipio: App. Iber.84; Pompey: Vell. ii. 29, B. Afr. zz. z, etc.; Diod. xxxviii_xxxix. ro makes ^ Sulla expresssurprise that hisother leading paitisans had not even obtained aid from their oiketai; (can this term indicate a misunderstanding of famitiaresor clientes!);Marius: Diocl. ibid. rz; catiline: sall. cal. 59. 3; Domitius: caes. .BCi. :+, s6; p.J cuffsuggesied to me that the Domitii were patrons ofthe Marsi, where he recruited troops (cf. Diod. xxxvii. r3); conscription in 49:IM 4og;.recruitment in 4q-49 by Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus: IM lgr 3; lex',lnttmia: gz4 If; L e p i d u s 'c o l o n i e s : ^ 5 8 g : c f c e l s a i n s p a i n ( 5 9 z ) . ' D e d u c t o r e sp' aast . o n s : ' H a Ä a n d , r q 5 7 , z 3 f f oo IM 457 f., 466 f.

ARMY AND LAND IN THE ROMAN REPUBLIC

e6T

apt to treat them as typical. Victories might also give the general the means of largess; Caesar delicately refers to his 'perpetui temporis officia' (iii., 9o) to the Gallic legions, whom he had continually enriched(".92).No doubt all this was not enough;Lucullus'soldiers securedmuch booty (n.g5), but he could not convincethem that he had a genuine concern in their welfare; moreoever, in the end he suffered reverses.He may also have lacked the personal magnetism that Sulla perhaps,and Caesar,possessed. Caesarclaims that he was so loved that his men would refuseno danger for his safety (BC iii. 26. r ); one particularly striking example of devotion is on record (8. Art. 4+-6), and it was exhibited posthumously in their insistence on retribution for his assassins. Still, it was confined to thosewho had long servedhim in Gaul; the two legions he sent back to Italy in 5o, which had been formed not long before,were to fight for Pompey (BC iii. BB. z), and many of thoseraisedin or after 49 followed Brutus and Cassius, admittedly in the hope of great rewards, which-equally prompted their compeers to serve the triumvirs (see below).ö' The Gallic veterans were themselvescapable of mutiny (nn. tz6-7), and their loyalty to Caesar'smemory was sharpened by apprehensionsthat his enemies would deprive them of their land allotments.eoNor is there comparable evidence for fidelity to Pompey among his former soldiers

(pp.+szr.).

Religion sanctified the soldier's loyalty. He had sworn to obey his general and not to desert the standards.el Obviously this traditional oath (sacramentum)had never been conceived to justify taking arms against the commonwealth. But in a civil war, when the legitimacy of the regime in power at Rome was itself in dispute, it may be that legionaries, to whom the rights and wrongs of the quarrel were obscure, saw their clearest duty in literal fidelity to their oath. In 49 and later, however, rival generals sometimes thought it expedient to order their men to swear a new oath of fealty, and those who had transferred their allegiance might be sworn in again to their new commander. It is difficult to assessthe effect of such oaths; the sanction was fear of divine wrath, and we do not know how lively this was. Certainly oaths were often violated; perhaps the mere reiteration of solemn formulae weakened their force. In any case they have nothing to do with clientship; no one tells us that clients as such were sworn to obey patrons.e2 It ii also hard to discern how much soldiers may have 8e IM 485f. eo Seegenerally on Caesar's troops in Gaul Plut. Caes.t6 f.; Suet. Caes.67-7o. Their attitude a f ' t t : rh i s d e a t h : N i c . D a m . F G H g o F r 3 o . 4 r , 4 6 , 4 9 , 5 6 , r o 3 ; r r 8 ; A p p . i i . r 3 3 , ä i . r z , 3 z , 4 o , 4 g , etc.; fior full analvsissee Botermann. ro68. er Harmand, i967, 299f. e 2 ( l : r c . .R O i . 2 , . 1 , 7 f i , i i . r t t 3 2 , i i i . t i T lA p p . i i . q 7 , r r ) , t i,v . 6 2 . z 6 8 , r r 6 . 4 8 7 .C f . a l s oc h . 8 , v u .

z6z

A R M Y A N D L A N I )I N . I . H } R : ( ) M A NR } : P I ; B I , I ( ]

been ready to seethe victories oftheir general as proofofdivine favour, legitimizing his cause.e3 Clientship itself was a moral tie, resting onfdes.If there is no proof that soldiers in general became clients in the strict sense,bound by a hereditary attachment to their generals, it is also true that in Roman morality the conferment of benefits created an obligation to requite them when possible. None the less,duty to the commonwealth was a higher claim on every citizen's conscience. But the influence of any of these moral claims can easily be exaggerated. Gratitude for past favours might count less than expectation of those to come; and soldiers might be most faithful to generals with the best chance of victory and of fulfilling promises of future benefits. The chief need of the poor was subsistence, and the strongest motive for the soldier was the prospect of rnaterial gain. The rate of pay is disputed, but certainly was low, till'doubled'by Caesar to 225 denarii a year: and pay might fall into arrears. So far as the legionary depended on stipendium,he could expect only a mere subsistence,with nothing for his family or future . But there was also the hope of booty or donatives.ea Marius attracted volunteers for the Jugurthine war by the chances of plunder (Sall. ^BJ 84.ü, and he f u l f i l l e d t h e i r h o p e s ( i b i d . 8 7 . r , g r . 6 , 9 2 . 2 ) . W a r f a r e i n t h e e a s tw a s particularly lucrative; even Lucullus, though he was accused of meanness to his troops and tried to restrain them from sacking Greek cities, allowed them to plunder Tigranocerta with its immense storesof wealth, and by his own account distributed g5o denarii to every one of his soldiers; we hear of their riches and luxury.es Pompey rewarded his legionaries in the eastern campaigns with r,5oo denariiapiece.e6Caesar enriched his soldiers in Spain after a minor campaign in 6r (Plut. Caas. 12. 2)) and his liberality in Gaul was evidently vast.eT Then, as on other such occasions, officers did proportionately better. Of course booty and donatives accrued chiefly to men who served in large armies and in great wars. Much less was to be made in the guerilla fighting ]'"' J . R u f r t F e a r s , P r i n c e p s a D i s E l e c t u s , r g T T , g o - t r r , w i t h m y r e s e r v a t i o n s i n J R s r g 7 9 , r 7 o f . Pay: H. C. Boren, Historia tg83,42.7ff., reviewsall the hypothesesand producesa new one: it is only certain thar the legionary receivedabour reo denaii in Polybius' time and ze5 in no r4; cf. ch. r n. 56. Donatives: Fiebiger, RE s.v. donatiaum; IM 3gz ff. Booty: Harris, rg7g, roz f., and Rich (cited in n. 58) justly stressthat the prospect of booty could be a motive for volunteering. Resistanceto conscription (Taylor, JRS 196z, rg ff) was doubtlessmost apt to occur when the prospect was small, and hardship and danger more certarn. e5 Plut. Luc. 14, 17, r9, zg with 26. z (cL App. Mith. 86 with 78), 3o, 37. Cf App. Mith. Bz. F u r t h e r t e x t si n H a r m a n d r q 6 7 , 4 r r n . r B ; c f 4 r o f . , e s p e c i a l l yH o r . E p . ü . z . z 6 - 4 o . e6 Pliny, ,ifllxxxvii. tO; Ptri. i'omp. 45. 3; Lpp. nf;$. r r6. booty anä Tigrar.s' gitts 1Str. ,i. r 4 . - t o ;P l u t . 3 3 .6 l A p p . t 0 4 a r e n o t i n c l u d e d . '' Plut.Cacs.rT;Suet.Cars.67f.;App.ii.47;ctDioxli.16;Caes..BCiii.6,go,conlraLucanv. 2 7 3 ; s e e ,m o r e g e n e r a l l y ,N i c . D a m . F G H g o F r 3 o . 4 r .

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endemicin many provinces.ln 48-47 Quintus Cornificiustook some 'quae etsi erat Illyrian forts and was able to distribute some booty, tenuis,tamen in tanta desperationeprovinciaeerat grata' (8. Alex. 42. 3). Octavian in 36 tried to make his soldiersbelievethat they could be enrichedby plunder in Illyricum (App. ,BCv. zB), but the country was poor (Dio xlix. 36) and the prospect probably illusory. We have also to reckon with opportunities for illicit enrichment. Some commanderscould not maintain discipline (n.77), and were carelessof the rights and interestsof the civil population. The Cypriots paid governors of Cilicia zoo talents a year to be spared the winter quarteringof troops (Cic. Att. v.?^t.7). Lucullusand Pompeymade their armieswinter under canvas;'obut this was perhapsexceptional. According to Cicero, the entry of Roman soldiersinto a provincial city 'ab hostili expugnatione',and he justly surmisesthat the differed little sufferings of the subjects must have been worse than those recently inflicted in Italy itself.ee Civil wars accentuatedthe sufferingsof civilians and the opportunities of soldiers. In the Social war Sulla ingratiated himself with his troops by relaxing discipline and by allowing them to pillage Aeclanum.l0oProscribedand dependenton the loyalty of his army in 84, he quartered them on the Asian cities and ordered their unwilling hosts to pay each man tz denariiaday, about as much in ten days as their (Plut. Sulla25. 2).In Italy he won goldenopinionsat annual stipendium first, important for his final success,by keeping his men to a pledge to abstainlrom plundering;101but as the war developed,he had to live off the countiy;102whole citieswere sacked.lo3Cäesartried to spare Italy from plunder and punishedsoldierswho resortedto it;1oaevenin the provinces he was generally scrupulousand preferred, as in Africa, But to imposeheavy finesout of which he could reward his soldiers.r0s his own deputieswere laxer in control (8. Alex. 48. 2,49, 65). The Italians suffered severely from military depredations in the years 44-40, as in the Bos;lo6in the winter of 43-42, for instance, the triumvirs quartered their armies on the Italian towns, which had to provide the men with free board and to submit to their illegal rapine (Dio xlvii. r4. 3 f.). ServiusSulpiciusand the Augustanjurist Labeo e8 Plut. Lm. 33. 3; Cic. de imp. Cn. Ponp. 39. ee Cic. de imp. Cn. Pomp. tg,37 f.; Pls. 86,9r. r 0 o P l u t . S u l l a6 . I f . ( c f . r z . 9; Sall. Cai. r r); App. i. 5r. zzg. to' App. i. 86. 1 0 1 P l u t . S u l t a2 7 . 3 ; V e l l . i i . z 5 ; D i o , f r . r o 8 f . 389. t o ' A p p . i . g q . + 5 8 ( P r a e n e s t e ) ; 8 8 . 4 o r ( S e n a G a l l i c aC)i;c . I I V e r r . i . 3 6 ( A r i m i n u m ) ; F l o r u s i i . 9. zB (Sulmo). Cf. /M, ch. xvtII. r o a D i o x l i . z 6 ; c f . C a e s .B C i . z r , B . A f r . 5 a . B C i . e 8 . r p o i n t s a c o n t r a s tw i t h P o m p e y . t 0 5 C a e s .B C ä . z z ( b u t c f . i i i . 5 6 , B o ) , , 8 . A r t . S , I , 2 6 . 5 . B u t n o t e S u e t . C a e s .5 4 . 3 . 106 Cic. Phil. äi.3r, vii. 15, z6; App. iv. 35.

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had occasion to discuss the incidence of liability as between landlord and tenant in Italy 'si exercitus praeteriens per lasciviam aliquid abstulit'; or to take a concrete instance, when the tenant had fled in terror at the mere approach of the soldiery, and they had removed the window-frames and everything elsefrom his farmhouse (Dig. xix. z. r5. 2 , 2 . r : . Z ) . A s i n e o 6 9 a n d t h e l a t e r e m p i r e , t h e s o l d i e r ss h o w e d l i t t l e sympathy or plidarity with the peasantry from whom they themselves were drawn.107 They did, however, insist in 4l that their own relatives and the fathers and sons of their comrades who had fallen in battle should be spared the confiscation of their lands (Dio xlviii. g. 3). Desire for plunder made the soldiers readier to follow their generals in civil wars, irrespective of the cause they professed to represent; 'praemia miles dum maiora petit, damnat causamque ducemque' (Lucan v.246f.). Sulla, the first to turn his army against the government at Rome, probably appealed to their cupidity; his soldiers almost forced him to march on Rome in BB, as, according to Appian (i.SZ.z5z), they were afraid that if he were replaced in the eastern command, other legions would enjoy the spoils of Asia. In 83 he employed bribes and promises as well as appeals to friendship and coercion in raising reinforcements (ibid. 86. Sgg). When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, a gesture he made led his soldiers to believe that he was promising to make every man among them an eques(Suet. Caes.3g). Certainly neither he nor his opponents spared promises of great rewards.r08 At his triumph in 46 Caesar gave each veteran 5,ooo or 6,ooo denarü.10eAfter his death rival commanders and the senäte itself vied in undertakings to enrich the soldiers.I I o Ruthless exactions in the east enabled the high-minded Brutus and Cassius, after paying one donative, to promise their men t,5oo denaril'apiece , and after the first battle of Philippi Brutus actually distributed r,ooo. Ar the same time the triumvirs promised their soldiers 5,ooo each. Not since Cannae had there been such a slaughter of Italians, and it was primarily for lt :o]8 N H B a y n e s , B T 4 . S t u d i e s 3 o T n ( : J A S r g z g , z z g ) . s e e f o r i n s t a n c e T a c . H i s t . ü . 8 7 . 2 . F o r C a e s a r c f . C a e s . . B C i . 3 9 . 3 fi .i i; . 6 , B . A l e x . 7 7 . z ;S u e t .C a e s . 3 8r.; A p p . i i . + l , g r i n i o x l i . 2 3 . r , x l i i . 5 e . r , 5 4 . z ( p e r h a p sn o t h i n g h a d b e e np a i d b y S e p t .4 7 ; c f . C i c . A t t . x i . 2 2 . 2 w i t h A p p . i i . 9 z ) . F o r P o m p e i a n sC , a e s .B G i . t 7 , z r , i i . z B , i i i . 8 2 . C u r i o : C a e s .B C i i . a g . e . ton 5 , o o o ,A p p . i i . r o z ; D i o x l i i i . z r ; 6 , o o o : S u e t . C a z s3. 8 , p e r h a p si n c l u d i n g r , J J o p r o m i s e d ( A p p . i i . 9 2 ) o r a c t u a l l y p a i d ( P l u t . C a e s . 5 r ;c f . D i o x l i i . 5 4 . z ) d u r i n g t h e m u t i n y o f 4 7 e c , o r else an extra largessafter Munda, when he feastedthe plebs (Suet. 38; Pliny, "lfl1 xiv. 97) and perhapsgave the soldiersanother donative. Or perhapsGallic veteransreceived r ,ooo more than the rest. I I o 'Ihus in 44 Octavian gave vererans 5oodenarü(Cic. Au. xvi. B. r ; App. iii. 4o) and then 5oo more,withapromiseof5,ooo(App.iii.48),ratifiedbythesenate(ibid.65,86,cf.C P ihci.l . v . 5 3 , vii. Io, etc.); the senate'sattempt to delay payment in full was one facror that enabled Octavian to march on Rome in 43, when the senarevainly offered 5jooo to all his rroops (App. iii. 86, 89 f.; c h . r n . I z 5 ) ; A n t o n y ' s p a r s i m o n ya n d a t t e m p t t o i m p o s es t r i c t d i s c i p l i n ec a u s c dd e s c r t i o n s( i b i d . 4g; cf. Phil. v. 22, ctc.). For bribes oflcrcd to Spanish lcgions, cf. I.'am.x. gz. 4.

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l l The lavish monetary mercrenary motives that the armies fought.l gifts made or at least promised to soldiers on whom their generals were dependent might much exceed the sum of 3,ooo denariiwhich Augustus thought adequate as a bounty to legionaries who had served for twenty years or more (Dio lv. 23. r). But in the late Republic the soldiers were not content with money: they wanted land. IV In and before the early second century allotments of land had sometimes been made to veterans (cf., n.4) . But there is no good evidence that the senate continued this practice after about r5o ac. It could take no credit for Saturninus' laws, providing for grants of land to Marius' veterans (Appendix II). The colonization of soldiers by Sulla was his personal policy, not that of the senate.R. E. Smith indeed 'accepted practice' for grants of argued that after Marius it became land to be made to veterans.ll2 Thus he suggests that governors customarily gave men demobilized from the standing armies in the 'a piece of land, probably in the vicinity of the garrison provinces town, or a sum of money with which to buy a property for themselves'. He has shown that legionaries sometimes settled in provinces where they had served, and it is likely enough that they were farmers or at least landowners; there was no other investment that offered better security than land, and few of them had any civilian experience except in agriculture. But we can readily suppose that they acquired land by purchase out of their military profits, or even by sheer violence . Only in Spain have we records of a very few colonial foundations such as Italica (zo5 nc), where soldiers were or may have been settled, apart from the settlement of Marian veterans in Africa, Corsica, and perhaps Cisalpina (Appendix II). As for troops discharged in Italy, it is plain that they had little or no chance of securing land allotments there from the voluntary action of the senate; they had to look to their generals (cf. Cic. de leg. agr. ii. S+)' and few generals had the influence and the lack of constitutional scruples to force through agrarian bills. The senate is said to have approved land allotments to veterans of the Sertorian war, probably under a lex Plotia of 7o nc. But the situation was revolutionary; Pompey did not disband his army in 7I and used his power to undo part of Sulla's work; the senate was perhaps not a free agent."'Cicero rr2 Smith,1958, ff. t t t A p p . i v . 8 9 , r o o , r z o ; P l u t .A n t . 2 Z . r . 5r tt3 See contraA. N. Sherwin-White, JRS I956,5-7.But the conduct of Metellus Pius in 7r (Salt. t/rsl. iv. 49) and Pompey in 6z (Vell. ii. 4o. 3; Plut. Ponp. 4g;Dio xxxvii. 3o. 6), when he did not realisefearsevoked by his conduct in 7 r, showsthat it was irregular for him to retain his army even till his triumph on the last day of Tr; cf. R. E. Smith, Phoenit 196o, I ff. Sherwin-White's

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condemned the lex Plotia (Att. i. rB. 6), and in 59 ec it had still nor been implemented. In 63 Rullus' bill was defeated; ostensibly, according to it was designed ro settle the poor on the land (p. z5r); butif it !ic91o, had been passed,crassus and caesar would have been abL io make a deal with Pompey; he required lands for his troops, and they would have had lands to dispose of.rra The optimatäs resisted Flavius' proposals to settle the Pompeian veterans, and caesar's bills in 59 could be carried only by violence against their continued oppositior5 the senate could not meet force with force, becausethe triumviis had at their bidding the veterans themselves, and Caesar's army.rr5 After caesar's death in 44 his veterans feared, not without r.utotr, that if the optimates recovered power, their allotments would be in jeopardy.ttu These fears combined with their affection for caesar to mäke ihem irreconcilable with the 'Liberators'. At last in +z the senate saw the necessity of satisfying the desire for land at least of those soldiers on whom it depended for victory over Antony. cicero's motion of the r January promised increased allotments to the veterans of the vnth and vmth legions, whom Octavian had recalled to the standards, and liberal assignations to the legionaries, raised in or since 49, who had deserted Antony; money and other privileges were also voied (phil. v. 53). Pansa's agrarian law doubtless embodied the terms of this motion.llT But even now senatorial generosity was restricted and insincere. Nothing was promised to the new recruits, or to the provincial armies; and once it appeared that Antony had been decisively beaten, the senate tried to fob offthe veterans of vlr and vrrr with half the donative promised; it was octavian's march on Rome that brought about a tardy repentance; only then did it vote to pay the full sum to the veterans, and to his other soldiers too (n. r ro). Ii would certainly have been wise for the senate to have followed the precedent set by Sulla, and to have adopted the practice which Smith srpposer to have been normal. The evidence shows that it did not. In eyes of the optimates it cost too much money to buy land (cf. _the n. r46), while redistribution of the public domain viälated ihe sacred rights of possessorsand the just law of inequality, and shook the very foundations of the stare.rtt'In 59 neither objection could be raised to

Caesar's first agrarian bill; but it was leared that the popularity accruing to its ;uthors would make them too powerful;lle such a danser need never have arisen, if the senate itself had initiated similar measures. Force or the threat of lorce was necessary to overcome senatorial opposition. The soldiers had to look to their generals to apply this coercion, though few generals were both ready and able to exercise it. But did the soldiers really desire or need land? Hugh Last expressed 'military service was the what I take to be a prevalent opinion that occupation of their ctr-oice,to be protracted as long as possible',12oand that when the time for discharge at last came, what would have suited them was a pensions scheme (a device which incidentally did not occur to Augustus or his successors).Heitland, who recognized more clearly than most writers of his day that the legionaries were rustics, thought that they desired an easy life as proprietors and that the excitements of warfare unfitted them for the patient economy of farming.12l Most recently, Gabba and Smith have suggested that on the whole they 'easily c9l^regarded land allotments as pieces of real estate, assets livelihood'.r22 gaining a veited into money, rather than as a means of How far are these views to be accepted? In the first place, it seems to me that Last's view rests on an exaggerated estimate of the normal length of military service. The Table of Heraclea (". go) suggeststhat, as in the second century, six years with the legions was re[ä.ded as a normal term.123 Most of the men Sulla recruited from the land and resettled there had served him for only two years, though many had doubtless fought in the Social war. Metellus Pius and Pompey disbanded legions in 7r-7o after seven to ten campaigns. The soldiers Pompey demobilized in 6r had mostly been serving only since 68 or 67. The twenty legions which fought for the triumvirs at Philippi consisted mainly of men enlisted in 49-48; yet they could be said to have served their full time.12a In 36 soldiers who had been recruited for the bellum Mutinense in 43 demanded and obtained their discharge on the same ground (n. rzB). None of these veterans had been so long in the army that they need have forgotten how to work in the fields.

allegedprecedentfrom r8o gc is nothing ofthe kind; Livy xl. 43. 4 f. merely meansthat e, Flaccus triumphed with the soldiershe had been permitted to bring baik irom Spain (cL 35 f., esp.36. ro), not,hisvhole fo1 a late parallel cf. Plut. Luc. 36. 4. Cf. Meier. Athrn. ,{612,n.,4. lrmyl "* Cic. de lcg. agr. ii. is characteristically perverse. " " P l u t . P o n p . 4 8 . r , L54 ut.4z_.6,caes.r4.36and D8i o; x x x v i i i . 5 . 4 . o n ' e x e r c i t u s c a e s a r i s ' ( l / / . . ii. _r-6-. z) see now C. Meier, Historia rg6t,79tr. ' " 1 . r 3 5 , r 4 r , i i i . 8 7 ; N i c . ö ä m . F r 3 o . r o 3 . B u t s e ea l s on . 9 o . l"l l ' 4 f p j i C i c . P h i l . v ü . r o , x i . 3 7 . x l i . z g , F a m .x i . z o . z r . r . C i c .d e o f i e . ü rep.i.49.ButSulpicius,presumablythe , warnont e ' d. .i v" oi d i t a m e n e s s e i uTs3p, T l eSb,edier u r a l a r g i t e r a d a d o r e a m ' ( y a r r o L L v .g4roe, a^ -t j.unrdi .sdt (bryoLsa. 5c rh;m ).

r2o CAH ix. rg4. rre Plut. CatoMinor 3r; Dio xxxviii. z. 3. r22 Smith, 1958, r2r op. cit. (n. 63), r75 f. 5 z ; c f . G a b b a , r g 7 g , t z 8 = 1 9 7 6 ,4 7 f . r 2 3 S t e i n w e n d e r , P h i l o lr.B B 9 , z 8 5 f f . , a r g u e d f r o m ( i ) L i v y x x v i ' 2 8 ; ( i i ) x l i i . 3 3 f . ; c f . x x x i v . 4 9 (Ligustinus' regular service,2oo I 95 sc) ; (iii) xxxix. 39; (iv) xl. 36; cf. xxxix. 2c' 30, g3; (") App. Iber.78, that 6 years was usual practice in the third and second centuries. Steinwender'sother arguments, and those of E. Cavaignac, Rh. de Phil. rg5t, r69 ff., are more fragile. The text in Polyb. vi. r9. z is uncertain, and even if'r6'is read there, evidenceremains that so long a term of servicewas unusual. Cf. IM 4ooff. ContraL. R. Taylor, JrtS 1962, 24, App. 1äer.78 does not suggestany innovation in r4o. Lucilius' I9 years (49of. M') must be quite exceptional. t'n App.v. 3 ; D i o x l v i i i . r . 3 ; c f . i n g e n e r a lI M 4 8 8 f . o n t h e t r i u m v i r s ' l e g i o n s .A p p . i i i . 4 z .

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There were indeedsoldierswho prcfbrredto remain in the army or were not contentto settledown on farms.In 68 the so-calledValerians who had gone out to Asia in 86 were mutinous; their dischargewas authorized;in 67 they disbanded,but in 66 they joined up again with Pompey (Dio xxxvi. 16. 3,46. r). (There is no räcord thät they were offered land as an alternarive.) According to Caesar (^BCi. 86), Pompey'smen in Spain looked on dischargeas a reward in itsereyet someof them found their way to fight for Pompey once more in the eäst (iii. BB.3). Appian tells us that in 44 veteransfrom Caesar'sold vnth and vurth legionsrallied to octavian when they remembered'the toils of agriculture and the profits of military service'(App. iii. 4z). They were survivors from two legions which caesar had taken over on becominggovernorof the Gaulsin 59 rc (BG viii. B. z), and though we must in my judgment suppose that all Caesar'slegions, depleted lhough they were in the 4os, had received tte* re.r.rits during the Gallic wars, it is likely that many of these men had served fot urt exceptionallylong time; they had also found their serviceexceptionally lucrative. This isolatedstatementon the attitude of certain vererans has little force when contrastedwith the other evidencethat showshow anxious they were to retain the allotments granted or promised by caesar (n. r16). rn 4z after Philippi the triumvirs deciäed to settle their time-expired soldiers in Italy, except for those who desired to remain in $e army. The volunteersnumbered B,ooo. Their army consistedof twenty full legions (App. BC iv. ro8; cf. ro7), about Ioo,ooo men; allowing for heavy lossesand for new recruitsof 49' 42, not entitled to discharge,I would put the number of the time-expirid at under 5o,ooo(n. rz4). Even on this basisit was only about one man in six who wished to protract his service,though most of them had been in the army for no more than sevenyears. on someoccasionsthe soldiersactually demanded discharge.I have already referred to the mutiny of the Valerians (.t.7r). Fiom their later conduct it would seemthat they did not truly desireto return to civil life, but were seekingto put pressureon Luculius for a larger share in the spoils.In 5r the senate tried to considerthe right of-caesar's legions discharge (cic. Fam. väi. B. 7), and in 5o it was widely -to believed that_they were war-weary and would deseit caesar in the event of war.'" The belief was quite false,yet it was entertainedby Pompey himself;and he, if anyone, should have understoodthe normal and natural wishesof soldiersafter prolonged and arduous campaigns. In 49 the rxth legion, one with the longest service,actuallv mutinied: the men claimed that they were exhaüsted.Dio held thai their reai t 2s Cae.. BC i. 6. z; Plut. Cars. zg. 4, pomp. 57.4; App. ii. 3o. Cf. Rice Holmes, r 9:3 iii. z n. z.

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motive was dissatisfactionwith Caesar'srelüsal to permit them to plunder at will; and they openly demanded payment of a promised äonatirre.r26But is it nät possibtethat a wärrä of temporäry warwearinesspassedthrough the legion?Lucan, for what his evidencemay be worth, suggeststhat they desiredpeaceas well as praemia(u.z4g, 27off.); these perhaps conflicting motives may have operated on different men, or on the samemen at different moments.In 47 there was a more general mutiny of the veterans;again they demanded discharge,and again Dio and Appian say that they were really seeking donatives.127 It is of interest that Caesardid on this occasionrelease somesoldiers-'those who were fairly well versedin farming and could make a living' (Dio xlii. 55. r )-perhaps later recruitswith the keenest taste for agriculture, or more substantial farmers who had been conscribed in Cisalpina. It must be stressedonce more that the Gallic veteransare probably untypical of the soldiersof the late Republic. In 'bello confectae',and 43 legionsraised in or after 49 were describedas it was proposed to reward them with discharge and exemption from future call-ups (Cic Phil. v.53). In 36 Octavian had to face mutinies from his veteransin Sicily, and he was obliged to dischargezo,ooowho had servedat Mutina and Philippi and whose time had expired. Some of these men were no doubt former soldiers of Brutus and Cassius, recruited by Caesarin or after 49 and incorporated in the three legions Octavian brought home from Philippi; but service as recent as 43 sufficed for discharge. Again it would seem that not all of them genuinely wished to return to civil life; some volunteered anew and were formed into a special legion. Their number we may compute at about 5,ooo.Thus, of thosedisbandedin 36, three men out of four were tired of the military life.128If we look forward, we find that the length of service under Augustus was one of the chief complaints of the mutineerson the Rhine and Danube in ao ,4.12n Republican soldiers did not show such a zest for civil wars as the professionalarmies in eo 68-9 and later. (Yet though they were risky and repugnant to sentiment,they brought the prospectof largesses and relaxation of discipline.) In 83 Sulla gained over the legionsof Lucius Scipio, partly when it was made to appear that Scipio had frustrated the hopesof peace.r30At the onsetof the strugglein 49 Italians were reluctant to enlist under Pompey, as they thought that Caesar'sterms were reasonable(Plut. Pomp.59. z); and Caesarplayed on the general t ' u A p p . i i . 4 7 ( 5 o o d e n . ) ; D i ox l i . e 6 f f . ; c f . R i c e H o l m e s , r g e 3 i i i . r o 9 . r21 Clic.Att.xi.2r.z,zz.z;Plut.Cacs.5r;Suet.Cces.70;App.ii.gzff.;Dioxlii.3o.r,5zff.Cf. Plut. 37 for trouble in 48. Cf. Rice Holmes, 1923, iii. 232-4c . t" App. v. rzSf Dio xlix. rgf., g4;Oros. vi. rB. , 33. ' n u l l i s n o v i sc a u s i s ' . r2e Tac. Ann.i. 17. zf.,3r. t,36. 3. Note 16. r, tto App. i. 85; Florus ii. 9. r9. Plut. SutlazB (cl. Sall. Hist. i. gr) allegescorruption.

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ARNIY ANI) I,ANI) IN'I'HH ROMAN RHPtJBI,I()

d e s i r e f o r p e a c e e v c n i n a d d r e s s i n gt h e s o l d i e r s ( n . B S ) . T h i s p r o p a ganda may have stimulated Pompeian desertions (Caes. BC i. 74; App. ä. 4z). Caesar also paraded his care to avoid shedding the blood of Romans fighting for his enemies (i. 72, Br f., iii. 86. 4,90. 2), remembering no doubt that there were neighbours and kinsmen on both sides (1. 1ü, and though his own troops sometimes did not share this sentiment (i. Br f.), it affected them on other occasions (i. 74), and Lepidus could pretend that his troops in going over to Antony in 43 had 'consuetudinem suam in civibus conservandis communique shown pace'; he must have thought that it provided an excuse for his conduct that was at least plausible. It is in fact clear that in +4-43 Caesar's Gallic veterans were generally averse to fighting each other, that in 4l it was the soldiers through their officers who tried to patch up the conflict between Octavian and Lucius Antonius, and that in 4o the veterans forced Octavian and Antony to come together.l3r Among other reasons the recrudescenceofwar endangered their possessionof lands. In 36 Octavian had to promise the mutineers that he would fight no more civil wars. Tacitus' judgment is also to be noted: 'populum annona, militem donis, cunctos dulcedine otii pellexit' (Ann. i. z).'Cunctos'includes the soldiers; they too desired peace-if only as the guarantee of the rewards they had won. But is it true that it was not so much land that veterans wanted as the cash value of land? The suggestion does not seem very plausible. Flavius and Caesar himself proposed that the new revenues derived from Pompey's conquests should be used to purchase lands for veterans.l32 If in fact what the veterans desired was cash, in addition to the gratuities they had already received from Pompey, how much simpler it would have been to enact that further bounties should be paid to them out of the state's new income. Why was it taken for granted by Caesar as Dictator, by the senate in 49, and by the triumvirs that the best way of satisfying veterans on discharge was not that of augmenting their monetary rewards but of allotting lands to them, though the purchase of land was no less costly than increased bounties, and confiscations perpetuated discord in the state? An answer is not hard to give. The veteran might squander ready money, and in that case he would remain a discontented and dangerous element in the community, or he might try to invest it, and he then had no sound alternative to buying land for himself; there were no gilt-

edged securities, no lile insurance, while business and trade were precarious and outside the experience of all but a few soldiers; most of them were farmers or farm-labourers by origin. The allocation of land 'ahaphazird elxpedient',133but the most was thus not in Last's phrase natural course to adopt.13a Naturally not all the military colonists made good. The more feckless among them might decide to realize their assetsbefore even giving a fair trial to farming. Sulla made his allotments inalienable, prob_ablyfor a term of years, but the rule seems to have broken down.t3s Caesar followed his example, and Brutus and Cassiusvainly sough_t_popularity with the veterans by proposing to annul this safegua.6.136We know that some Caesarian veterans soon tired of agriculture (App. iii. 4z). We know too that many of the Sullan settlers had failed by 63 (n. 47).That is not astonishing. The decay of the yeomanry befiore I33, the failure of the Gracchan scheme, must be remembered. Why should it be supposed that in the adverse economic conditions of the years between Bo and 63 (p.zSr) small farmers should have been more successfulthan their predecessors but for defects derived from their having served in the army? The Sullan colonists were inevitably unpopular, and it is a familiar fact that a class which is unpopular as a whole is easily branded with the worst qualities of its worst members. We can well believe that some of Sulla's soldiers were spendthrifts who looked back with regret to the violence and plundering of civil war (Sall. Cat. t6.4); but they need have been no more than a small minority. There must be some truth too in Lepidus' reported allegation thats^ome of them had been fobbed off with poor land-'paludes et silvas'."' The size of allotments is seldom recorded reliably, but probably varied between z5 and 66! iugera, according to the fertility of the soil. Farms of this size could be worked by the settler himself with the aid of his lamily or of a few slaves, whom he would have been able to purchase from his share in booty or from the cash donative he had also received, but would hardly have yielded an adequate return' if he had leased them to tenants or committed management to a uilicus. The meagre evidence of veterans' tombstones, especially in the territories of triumviral or Augustan colonies at Beneventum and Ateste, suggests that they often lived on their farms in the countryside and were not rentiersdomiciled in the cities: of course residents in a town could also work fields in its close vicinity.l38 Officers would receive larger

r3r Nic. Dam. F r3o. r r5 ff.; App. äi. 4z (44 nc); Cic. Fam. x. 35. r; cl App. iii. 84 (Lepidus' a r m y ) , b u t c f . F a m .x . 3 3 . 3 ( P o l l i o ' s )( 4 3 a c ) ; A p p . v . 2 0 - 4 ; D i o x l v i i i . I I f . ( 4 r n c ) ; A p p . v . 5 7 - 6 4 (4o nc); v. rz4, rz8 (twice in 36 nc). Cf. now W. Schmitthenner,Hist. /eitschr. I96o, Iz ff., esp.on the role of the officers.The importance Dionys. Hal. (xi. 4z-Q assignsto centurions in a military revolt probably reflectsexperiencein our period. 1 3 2C i c . A t t . i . r g . 4 l D i o x x x v i i i . r . 5.

rx3 CAH ix. 137. Keppie, rg83, rz6 n. r27, collects the litde evidence for veterans in urban occuDations. 1 3 s C i c . d e l e g .a g r . ä . 13i Cf. Lucan i.g+g-s, vii. 257L 78. t3? Sall. Or. Lepidi zr-4; cf. Cic. de leg agr. ii. 68*7o, iii. r. tt" App. üi. z, 7. r3E Keppie, 1983, 9r ff, largely supersedesIM 295ff., but not the remarks on Sullan allotments, ibid. 3o9 L Plut. Cr. r. 8 allegesallotments by Marius of t4 iugera.

270

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allotments,and they could indeed becomerenliersif they chose:the choicewould be not unnatural and would not prove that the settler was incapableof f,arminghimself.We have a glimpse of what might happenin one of Horace'sSatires(ii. z. rrz ff.). Ofellus,a substantial working farmer,haslost his lands to the soldier,Umbrenus;he remains as a tenant on part of his former land. I get the impressionthat Ofellus still rented a fairly large farm; surely then Umbrenus was an omcer, who would have beengiven more acresthan a common soldier.Ofellus surveysthe future and saysof Umbrenus: Illum aut nequities aut vafri inscitiaiuris, postremumexpelletcertevivaciorheres. The land may pass to Umbrenus' heir, but he may lose it through incapacity or through 'ignoranceof the subtle law'. The last phrase may remind us that when military settlersdid not make good, it was not alwaysfrom ignoranceof agricultural techniques.l3eLike all small farmers, they would in any event have had no option but to borrow in a bad season,and if that were followed by others, they would have been unable to repay the loans and ultimately have forfeited the ownership or enjoyment of their farms; this processcannot have been effectively hindered by the provision imposed by the Gracchi, Sulla, Caesar,and perhaps in all cases,that debarred them from alienating the allotmentsby sale,at leastfor a period of years.Still, the triumviral and Augustan coloniesmay have been on the whole successful.At any rate Augustus boasts that twenty-eight colonies he had founded in Italy were flourishingin his reign (RG zB. z). It may be said that Augustus'decisionin r3 Bc to substitutecash bountieson dischargefor the land allotments 'the soldierswere always demanding' (Dio liv. 25. 5) reflectsthe government'sexperiencethat the soldier did not make a good farmer. More probably it was due to the impossibility of continuing to provide farms in Italy without disturbanceof property rights.l40 Moreover, in en r4 the mutineers complained that on discharge they were dragged away to widely scatteredlands 'ubi per nomen agrorum uligines paludum vel inculta montium accipiant' (Tac. Ann. i. ,l). Augustushad then not given up the practice of settling veteranson the land outside Italy. At all times in the Principate veteransreceivedlands. The mutineersdid not object in principle to this: it was the remotenessand poor quality of the lands actually assignedagainst which they protested. Probably they were r 3 e C f . p e r h a p s t h e c o r r u p t t e x t i n A p p . i . z T . r z 4 ; s e e C i c . C a e c . 6 ( l a w ' s d e l aIyl sV)e, r r . i l i . z T (hardshipslitigation imposed on working farmers). Cf. n. 53. rao See e.g. Suet.,4zg.56. z; cf. Zrä. z9 ('singulis'); /ZS 244. 17 (privatarum') for imperial respectfor private interests.

I, A R M Y A N I ) I , A N I ) I N ' I ' H } : R O M A N R T : P T ; BI C

,273

mostly Italians and would have been well content with farms in Italy. By the time of Nero, when the legionaries had come to be provincial by origin or adoption, it was settlement in Italy far from their homes that they disliked (Tac. Ann. xiv.27.). Military colonies in the provinces were anything but failures. In Africa, for instance, colonists who had served twenty-five years, much longer than most Republican legionaries, helped to push forward the area of cultivation and peaceful order.ral This hardly fits the notion that the peasant soldier was incapable in lavourable economic conditions of earning his livelihood after his army service by a return to the land. I do not indeed followJ. Kromayerra2 in arguing that the successive settlements of veterans in Italy between Sulla and Augustus restored the class of proprietors and reduced the preponderance of latifundia.It will suffice to say, firstly, that in each successiveredistribution of lands, while some large estates were broken up, others were formed for the benefit of influential partisans of the victor and that perhaps most of the military colonists only replaced other middling and small farmers; and, secondly, that the economic factors may have remained adverse to small farming; if so, the effects of land distribution may have been ephemeral. There is some reason to think that under the Principate the number of small, independent farmers continued to fall. We cannot expect to hear much of this decline . No seditious tribunes could any longer voice their grievances; and as Roman armies were to an everincreasing extent recruited in the provinces, the government had less reason to be concerned with the military consequencesof a diminution in Italian manpower. V The Roman revolution, then, effected no permanent changes in the agrarian society of Italy. At best a number of those rural workers who had served in the legions bettered themselves individually. They had never fought in the interests of their class. There was no doctrine or programme to give the peasantry a sense of solidarity, and the leaders sought not to direct the rural masses in efforts to secure clearly conceived social changes, but simply to reward their own soldiers for their own ends. None the less, it was the wretchedness of the population from whom the army was recruited that enabled leaders whose primary concern was their own enrichment or aggrandizement to threaten and finally to subvert the Republic. Modern historians 1al F. A. Lepper reminded me alsoof the evidencethat imperial legionshad their territoriesor p r a t a ;c f . e . g . R o s t o v t z e f f ,1 9 5 7 ,c h . v t , n n . 6 5 , 7 4 , 7 8 , 8 r . 1o2 Nrrc Jahrb.f. kl. AltertumsIgI4, I45 ff. See contra/,4,1,ch. xIx.

ARMY AND LAND IN'I'HEROMAN RHPUBLIC

A R M Y A N D I - A N D I N ' I ' H T ]R O M A N R I ] P U B L I ( ;

properly devote their skill to elucidating the aims and ambitions of theseleaders,their intriguesand combinations.Ye t their designscould not have been accomplishedif they had failed to find followers,and we need also to considerwhy the soldiersshowedso little attachment to the old order.ra3 did no more than the Moreover, since Augustus and his successors senatorial government to ameliorate the condition of the rural poor, they too were confronted with the same problem that the senatehad failed to solve;they too, in Tiberius' words, had to hold a wolf by the ears(Suet. Tib. z5). Augustussoughtto restorestability (Suet.Aug. zB. z), and for this purposeit was no lessimportant to securethe loyalty of the troops than that of the old governing class.Here too his successwas long-lasting,though not complete,as the mutinies of eo I4 and the revolts of 68-9 were to show. He was able to use more than one expedient.All the soldierswere bound to the emperor by the religious tiei of the military oath and a personal oath of fealty.t'44There was also an aura of divinity about him. All commands and commissions, down to the centurionate,were in his gift; and he could hope to ensure that the soldierswould find no one to lead them in rebellion (ch. I n. r37).The conditionsof servicewere improved. Caesarhad doubled the pay of the common soldier, and Augustus seemsto have greatly incröasedthat of the centuriotrs,l45who in revolutionary times were and leadersof the troops (cf. n. I3r). Donatives the natural spokesmen were given on suitable occasions.At the end of his long service the soldiercould now expecta bounty in cashor an allotment of land; he was no longer dischargedinto destitution.All this cost money. In the Republic the optimates had been apt to meet any claims on behalf of the 'improbi et egentes'with the cry that the treasury could not afford 'boni et beati' neededso much from them.la6 How could it when the public funds?147In a single year as governor of Cilicia Cicero saved 'salvislegibus' to pay a legion.ras äbo.rt enough from his allowances Augustus found it necessaryto reinstitute direct taxation of well-to-do Italians (in the form of the aicesimahereditatium)in order to pay dischargedsoldierstheir praemia.It was much resented.laeEven in the

last struggle of the Repu,blic the rich, as Cicero complained, were reluctant to pay tributum.ts0 They were ro find that the price they had been unwilling to pay for retaining their libertieshad to be paid, after thoselibertieshad beenlost, to preserveorder and stability. In refusing to satisfy the needs even of those 'miseri' whom they were obliged to arm, the Republican ruling classhad displayednot only a lack of social sympathy which is conspicuousin their policy as a whole, but also a lack of prudence that was fatal to their power and privileges.

274

ra3

Schmitthenner, op. cit. (n. I3I), 3. too Cf. p. 439. See especially P. Herrmann,

1 4 s B r u n t , P . B S R ,r g 5 o , 6 7 . r968. ra6 See especiallyde ofic. ä. (obviously cf. de leg. agr. ä. ro insincere), 15, Att. i. tg. 4 7z-g; (specious),ii. 3. 3, 16. r, 17. r, Sesl.ro3, de dom. 23, Tusc.Disp. üi. 48, ad Her. i. rz. zr. r47 Salf. BJ 4r. 7; Or. Macri 6; Plur. CatoMinor tB. t. 1aa Fam. v. 20. g (z,zoo,ooo HSS). Piso apparently with legality invested his allowance of rS,ooo,oooat Rome (Pai.86; cf. 6r). Pompey was voted 24,ooo,ooofor his six legionsin 5r (Plut. Caes.28.5, Pomp.55.7): more than enough (ct. IM 7rQ. Governors made legal profits from sums voted 'cellae nomine', II Verr.üi. tgS, 2r7. For sheerpeculation cf. de imp. Cn. Pomp.37. Cfch. r n. I IO.

tae Diolv.z4.g-25.6, lvi.:8.4 6.Cf. onthe centesima'I'at.Ann.i.78,ü.42.4.

lso Cic. Fam. xü. 3o. 4; Brut. i. r8. 5. Cf. tteofic. ü. 74.

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APPENDIXES

Picenum (cf. E. Gabba,83 r 9 7 3 ,g o ) 63

I. Areasof Recruitmentfor the RepublicanArmy All Italy

Urbs Roma

8 7 n c Plut. Mar.4r (Cinna)-nor at Rome B4-82 A p p . i . 7 6 1 . ,8 r , 8 6 ( M a r i a n s ) B3-82 App. i. 86 (Sulla)-not at Rome Cic. Mil.67 f., Caes.BG vli. r; Ascon. 52 34. 5 C.; Dio xl. 5o. r Caes..BCi. 7; App. ii. 34 +9 Cic. Phil. v.3r (Cisalpinaexcepred,as 43 D. Brutus had already levied troops t h e r e ) ,v i i . r 3 , z r ; x i i . r 6 ; x i i i . 5 , 2 3 , x i v . 5 , F a m .x ä . 5 , 2 ; A p p . i i i . 6 5 , g r App. v. 27, 74 4r go

Be(?) 6: (?) 4e (?) 43

Dio, fr. roo; for freedmen cf. Per. Livy lxxiv; App. i. 49; Macr. i. r r. 32. App. i. Br. 379; but cf. p. 254 Dio xxxvii. 35. 4 (tumultuary levy by Cicero, cf. n. 6o) Caes.,BCi. 14. + ('circa urbem') Cic. Phil. x. zr, Fam. xi. B. z.

Umbria

+9 Ager Sabinus

Plut. Sert. 4 App.i. 67.3o8 App. i. 86. Sgs Cic. Cat. ä. 5 C a e s ., B Gi . 7 , ä . z Caes.,BGv. 24, vi. r, vii. r (.f. 7. 5, 5/. | )

Dio xl. 6o. r Caes.BC. i. rB, cfl,iii. 87. 4 ('plerique ex coloniis Transpadanis'); cf. for Opitergium, Lucan iv. 462; Florus ii. 13. g3; Per. Livy cx Cilc. Phil. v. 36, xii. 9 (D. Brutus); 44-43' vii. z r (Antony) Dio xlviii. rz. 5 +r 5o 4S

Etruria

B7

++ 43

A p p . i . 6 7 ; P l u t .M a r . 4 r . z App. iii. 4z;Dio xlv. rz.6 Cic. Fam. x. 33. 4, Phil. xü.33; App. iii. 42,66 Cf. leviesby Lepidus in 78 and Catiline in 63

49

Latium/Campania 3l +9 44 44-42 Marsi, Paeligni, Marrucini

B3 49 'tJ

Samnium Cisalpina (cf. Harmand 9o 257) 87 B3 63 5B-57 54-52

49 43 64

Lucania and Bruttium

44

55

+9 Apulia

49

o a 1

Vell. ii. zg; Plut.Pomp.6 Cic. Cat. ii. 5; Sall. Cat. 3o Cic. Att. viii. rzB. z; Caes.BC i. r3-5 App. iii. 66, 72, 93 Cic. Mur. 4z Cic. Att. viii. rzB. z; Caes.BC i. rz Cf. also ILS zz3r Suet. Vesp.t. z App. i. 65. ,g+ with 66. 3oz Sall. Cal. 3o C i c . A t t . v i i i . r r B . z ( C a m p . ) ,i x . r g . r (near Arpinum); Caes.BC i. r4 etc. Cic. Au. xvi. 8. r, 9; Nic. Dam. (Jacoby n o . 9 o ) F r 3 o . 1 3 6 - 8 ;V e l l . i i . 6 r . z ; App. iii. 4o; Dio xlv. rz. z Cic. Phil. vä. zz (by Antony) Cf. also Cic. de leg. agr. ü. 84; ILS zzz5 Plut. Crass.6. 3 C a e s . B Ci . r 5 , z o , ä . 2 4 , 2 7 , z B . t , 2 9 ' 3 , 3 4 . 3 '3 5 . I Cic. Phil. vii. z3 Cf. Hor. Odesäi. 5. 5 C , i c .A t t . x v i . r r . 6 w i t h B . r Cf. ILS 244 Pliny NH ä. r47 Caes..BCi. 3o. Cic. Au. vii. rz. z; Caes.BC i. z+ Cf. EJ3 368, 1IS zzz4; Hor.l.c.

(The alleged disqualification for military serviceof Picentes,Lucanians, and Bruttians after the Hannibalic war (IM, p. z8o) naturally has no bearing on the situation after the enfranchisementof Italy. The Lucanians at least could provide numerous soldiersin the social war (Diod. xxviii-xxxix. r3), and had continued to furnish troops for Rome's armies (ibid. xxxvi. B. r).) Note also legionsnamed sorana, sabina, Mutinensis. For soldiers'homesin the Italian towns cf. Plut. Pomp.43.z; Sall. (?) ad Caes.i. B. 6; .RG where 3, Augustus saysof some veterans 'remisi in municipia sua'; for this praitice, cf. IM zg7,3oo, 3o4 f., 3rB*27, Z2g, 357f., 342, 34g-52,356, 366, 6o9.ln IM I argued that not only the allied communities before go but the various communes of Roman citizens both before and after that date, as well as the cisalpine communes which received the ius Latü in 89, were responsiblefor raising troops under the dilectus,see pp. 37, 4oB, and App. 19, especially 65r*4; thus, when a dilectuswas ordered in any region or- in ill, thä instructionswent to the local magistrates.Note, in addition to the texts there c i t e d , D i o . x x x v i i i * x x x i x . r z ; C a e s .B C i . 2 3 . 2 : , m a g n u sn u m e r u se q u i t u m

278

A R M Y A N D L A N D I N T H E ,R o M A N R E P U B L I C

Romanorum et decurionumquos ex municipiis Domitius evocaverat';ii. 29. 3 : ' m u n i c i p i a [ s c . i n I t a l y ] d i v e r s i sp a r t i b u s c o n i u n c t a ' ;i . r 5 . z : , m i l i t e s imperat; mittunt' [sc. the people,or rather the magistrates,of Cingulum]; cf. more generallyCic. Cat. ä. e4; 'florem totius Italiae ac robur educite. Iam vero urbes coloniarum ac municipiorum respondebunt Catilinae tumulis silvestribus';for the 8os, App. i. 66, 76; for 43 ac Cic. phit. vii. e3, viii. 4 (indica_tingthat fines might be imposed on towns for disobedience),xii. 7, ro. In 44 octavian had indeed made a direct appeal to caesar's veteranssettled in campania, but also sought the co-operation of the council at calatia, Nic. Dam. F r3o. r36f. So too in Cisalpina Caesar,provinciae toti quam maximum potest militum numerum imperat', where the 'whole province' equals the municipiaand coloniae, cf. Cic. Phil, v.36 with xii. g. Some of these texts also refer to the collection of money from the towns (cf. also Dio xli. 9. 7; App. ii. 34; Caes.BC i.6.8), and supplieswere evidentlyobtainedin rhe same way (CaesB . C i. rB.4; Vitruv. ii. 9. r5). The triumviral legioUrbanawas probably not a legion raised at Rome in 43 but one that was left for the defenceof the city (App. iii. r9; Obseque".69;, seeRitterling, ÄE xii. r587.

II.

The Settlement of Marian

Veterans

The book de uirisillu.ttribus73 records that saturninus as tribune, presumably in Io3, proposed that veterans should each receive roo iugerain Africa, and overrode the veto ofhis colleagueBaebius by violence. A colony at Cerceina (Inscr.Ital. xiii. 3, no. 7) may have been founded in implementation of this l3*.J.-L. Ferrary, Mö|. Wuilleumier,rre, notesthat Cic. de leg.agr. ii. 38tr does not refer to the existenceof any agerpublicusin Africa, and infers that it had probably all been distributed among Marian veterans. I am not persuaded by this argument, but no refutation is possible. The question whether Marian veterans were also settled in Africa outside that province is entirelyseparate.I contendedin IM, App. rz, that this could not be deduced from the fact that someAfrican communities under the Principate commemorated Marius as conditor: it was native Africans that he had setiled in them. To the parallels I gave (p- 57g) one could add Pompey'sfoundations at pompaelo (Strabo. iii. 4. ro), Lugdunum Convenarum (Jerome, adu. Vigilannum 4; Strabo iv. z. r), Gadara (E. Schürer, Hist. of JewishPeoplein theAge of Jesis christä. r34, revisedEng. tr.), and of coursehis foundationsin pontus rÄ. H. M. Jones, Cities of the EasternRoman Prouinces2,r5g). In Spain, Bracara Augusta, which only attained Latin status under vespasiän, celebrated Augustus as conditor(cIL ü. z4zr). The prevalence of the name Marius in parts of Africa (P. Garnsey in Garnsey and whittak er, Imperialismin theAncient world, z5o) suggeststhat Marius actually enfranchised native Africans on some scale.I thereforeadhere to the view propounded in IM for the reasons given there.

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279

Dc uiris illustribus,now evidently referring to the year Ioo, also reports that Saturninus proposed to found coloniesin Sicily, Achaea, and Macedon, and to the purchaseof lands; that seemsto me to appropriate the aurumTolosanum have been fabricated, We need not assume is unlikely to the kind of detail that that no colonization was to be in Italy, or that the list of provinces given is complete. None in fact was founded in Sicily, Achaea, and Macedon, but Eporedia in CisalpineGaul is dated by Velleius (i. I5) to Ioo' and another colony was establishedby Marius in Corsica (Pliny, NH äi.8o; Sen. Cons.ad Hela.7.9) . The settlementat Cerceinamay also have been authorizedunder this law rather than under that of Io3. Appian also alleges that it was proposed to distribute land which had (it was pretended) been conquered 'in from the Gauls (who thereforehad no surviving title to it) by the Cimbri what is now called Gaul by the Romans' (i. zS). Gabba ad loc. holds that Appian means Cisalpine Gaul, but this seemsto me improbable. It was not remotely plausible that the Cimbri had annexed any land there, and the word 'now' rather suggeststhat Appian was thinking of what was still irr his own 'Gaul', as distinct from Cisalpina, which had long since day indubitably of Liguria, Transpadana, Venetia, and Aemilia within constituted the regiones Italia, even'thoughthe term Cisalpinawas still in non-technicaluse.It is of courseimmaterial that in Transalpina too no colonieswere actually founded, and that there is no mention of Italian smallholderson the soil. All this is not to say that there were not also to be colonies in Cisalpina as in Sicily etc.; Appian too has given a very imperfect account of the law. Cicero happens to tell us that Saturninus' law empowered Marius to grant Roman citizenshipto Latins and perhapsother Italians (the number doesnot concern us here) enrolled in the coloniesto be founded, and to report a casein which the validity of the grant to T. Matrinius was impugned in the courts on the basisthat it was contingent on the foundation of the coloniesand that they had not beenfounded (Balb.48).The last statementis not true, t'Eporedia or the Corsican colony or Cerceina were founded under the law in question. It would perhaps have been enough for the prosecutors of Matrinius if the colony for which he was registeredhad never been founded, and Cicero might have supposedthat none had, if almost all which had been designedhad been abortive, and particularly those to be sited in Italy. It would be imprudent to assume that the plan of which we have such fragmentary information was confined to colonization in the provinces (including Cisalpina) and that it did not provide for viritane allotmentsas 'lex agraria', of Livy lxix in fact writes of a well as for colonies.The Perioche though this does not prove, especiallygiven the character of the source,that there was also to be viritane settlement as under other agrarian laws. From Appian's accountof the disturbancesthe proposalcausedwe can only discern that it was to benefit rural citizens (i. zg, 32, where they are also called Italiotai,which in the contextshould not designateItalian allies;3o. r34, r36; cl'.32, r43), as distinct from the urban plebs.An anecdotein Plutarch (Crassus Marius as himselfconcernedin the distributionof r4iugeraapiece z) envisages 'I'his was surelyin Italy. M. H. Crawford, RÄC 629 f., thinks t() his veterans. tlrrrt the'enormous' issuesof coinagein gg-g7 suggestthat the lex agrariaof

z8o

A R M Y A N D T . A N DI N , I . H TR] O M A NR T : P T ; B I . I ( :

Ioo was put into effectand that 'Rome struck moneyspeciallylbr the purp()s(:, to finance the viritane setrlementof Marius' veteranJ'.This seemspiuuiibt.. We may conclude that as a result of Saturninus' two laws, thougtr very few colonieswere founded and none is recorded in Italy, some Mariin veterans were settled uiritimin the province of Africa, and others in ltaly. There had been distant precedentsfor the viritane settlementof veterans(n. a), but it was of coursenovel that the setrlementshould be forced through by popular agitation, and that to some extent it was to be effectedoutside Italy. Marius (or saturninus) showed sulla the necessityof rewarding veteransin this way, without (any more than sulla) devising any system of such praemiafor the future; and it was left to caesar and his successors to resumemaking grants of provincial land.

6 L I B E R T A S I N T H E R E P U B L IC

i

in I. Some rival modern views: the supposedcontrast of libertasand eleutheria; Iäct to both Greeks and Romans freedom conceptually and in practice meant different things to different people. ll. Libertasbasically opposed to legal servitude, but also to lesserforms of private subjection; hence it admitted of degrees.The acceptance of slavery generated conceptions of the superior morality and social dignity of the free man, and inhibited developmentof the notion of freedom as an inalienable natural right. III. Ambiguity in the ascription of libertasto communities; either independenceof external control or the freedom of citizens from internal despotism; in either case both for Greeksand Romans it admits of degrees.fV. Personallibertasrestson positive laws; though not identical with citizenship;not an abstractidea, but (as in England) a set of rights gradually acquired. V. The contrast drawn by Constant between ancient and modern concepts of freedom not wholly satisfying. (i) Greeks and Romans did not opposethe state, as an impersonal entity, to the individual: the statewas the citizens.(ii) Many of the individual liberties comprised in Constant's ideal belonged to the Romans, more or less unchallenged and unrestricted, and therefore not consciously valued as liberties. Freedom of thought, of worship; attempted regulation of private morals (which could be regarded as detracting from freedom); individualism inherent in private law; freedom of association;economic laisseTfaire.YL Negative and positive sides to both Roman and Greek freedom (positive freedom equivalent to power). 'Doing what you please'not the only aspectof eleutheria, but a view of freedom even more abundantly illustrated in Latin usage.Freedom of speechat Rome. VII. Both Romans and Greekscould treat laws as at once restrictions and guarantees of freedom; nothing peculiarly Roman in the conception that freedom restson the laws, which in any case derive at Rome from the people'swill. VIII. Moderation or self-restraintcan qualify libertasand is thereforenot inherent in it; partisan distinctionsbetween libertas and licentia. IX. Falsity of view that libertas comprises respect for auctoritas in popular conceptions;Cicero himself, who speaksfor the aristoc'the Roman' conception (as if there were one), racy and does not express regardsthe liberty ofthe people and the authority ofthe senateas countervailing forcesand wishesthe former to be a mere sham. X. He values the libertl', i.e. the power, of senators,but senatorial liberty also excludesthe preponderant aucllritas of individuals. XI. The libertas,i.e. particular rights-even 'sovercignty' valued by the peoplegenerally.Protectionof the citizensfrom

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magisuates.XIr. Equal liberty beforethe laws (with comparisonof Athens). Xrtr. The iussufragii; elections.The people'sjurisdiction. XrV. Legislation. The co.nnectionof legislativepower with the people'scommoda. XV. pässibility that liberlas could connote economic independence. XVI. obstacles to democraticfreedom.Extinction of political freedomin the principate.

concrete advantageswhich theserights securedto them' But the liberty or liberties of the aristocracy and of the plebs were not always congruentwith each other. The very notion of liberty (whateverword Both be usedto denoteit in any language)is full of self-contradictions. conceptually and in practical application libertasmeant different things There was' and could be, no single to different people. So did eleutheria. Roman and no single Greek idea of freedom,though to a very large extent the samerange of meaningsor applicationsis to be found in the thought and practiceof both Romans and Greeks.In particular there is nothing peculiarly Roman in the beließ that freedom within society is at once based on, and restricted by, law, while the contention that deference to the authority of a superior is inherent in the very definition of Roman libertasis perverse.

N the political strugglesof the late Republic frequent appeals were -essentially made on all sides to libertas.For Syme they wera fraudulent. 'Liberty and the laws are high-soundingwords. They will often be rendered, on a cool estimate, as privilege and ,u.rt.ä interests.'The name of liberty was usually involied in äefence of the existing order by the minority of rich and powerful oligarchs. 'The ruinous privilege of freedom' was extinguishedin the Princlpate for the higher good of 'security of life and property'. Other scholars,sometimesperhaps writing under Hegelian influence, and taking more account of the individual rights guaranteed to citizensby the laws, have idealized'the Roman' conceptof freedom, limited by law and morality, and inseparablefrom Roman respectfor authority and discipline, which they admire in the Roman wav of life: they can representit as wholly reconcilablewith obedienceto'the will of a small ruling classor even of the emperor held by their inferiors in due esteem;they sometimescontrastit with the wild licencesupposedly inherent in the Greek concept of eleutheria, the right of men to live as they please.1 Both types of analysis take too little account of the predominantly aristocratic character of our literary sources and pay insufficient attention to evidencethat showsliberty as a term that could expressthe interests and views of the common people, as well as of feuding oligarchs.Moreover, though syme was right in holding that on the lipi of the nobility it often veiled their selfishattachment io po*.r and its perquisites,he was wrong in my judgement in suggestingat least by insinuation that it was no more than a catchword, proclaimed in consciouscynicism, and that some, perhaps most, of them did not sincerely believe that the liberty or power they possessed under the Republican constitution was essentialto the publii good. In the same way the.common people were surely attached to the different personal and political rights which their spokesmensubsumedunder the name of liberty by sentiment and tradition, as well as by consciousness of the t s-eeRR 2,59, 154-6ff., 513. contrast accounts of Kloesel, Schulz and Bleicken, discussed later. Wirszubski'streatment is more balanced,and I seldom disagreewith it. De Ste Croix q66-8 has some admirable remarks.

II

In Rome, as in Greece, freedom is primarily the legal status opPosed to slavery. Already in the Twelve Tables the free man and the slave are sharply distinguished, and in all legal writings libertas generally means the status of one who is not a slave, but sometimes the actual grant to a slave of free status.2 Most philologists agree that liber and its Greek equivalent eleutheria have the same Indo-European root,*leudher\s.Yetthe terms for slave in Indo-European languages have no common root. Both doulosand seruus seem to be borrowings. Normally men did not enslave their own conationals; for example, in the earliest Roman law, long obsolete in historic times, though a citizen could be sold into slavery for debt, he had to be sold outside Roman territory (Gell. xx. I.46f'). Perhaps early Greek and Latin speakers borrowed the terms for slaves from the alien peoples among whom they made slaves. In Sanskrit the term used is actually taken from that of a foreign people in north-west India (Dasa); the Germans once called their slaves wealh (cognate with 'slave' and its equivalents in other modern European Welsh); our 'Slav' bondsmen from the Black languages recall the importation of Sea-into medieval Italy. It seems to be beyond doubt that the term liberi, the free persons of the household (familia) subject to its head (the paterfamilias), is the plural of liber; but if the facts are as stated, it cannot 2 FIRA i2 . z3 ff. (n, t a, v, 8, vII, I 2, VIII, 14, xrr, za). F. de Martino, St.non. di Romaantica, 3, rg79, 69 ff., deniesthat slavery existedin primitive Rome, sincethere are no reliable recordsofits as if there are any reliable records for any social institutions earlier than the XII .ilri."J., 'fables. As in Homeric Greece, one would expect to find slaves as domestic servants from the earliesttimes. Slavery was already of vital economic importance in the Hannibalic war (1M 66 f.)' and no doubt furnished more and more of the labour force as Roman dominion in Italy exoanded.

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have denoted in origin the free membersof the householdas distinct from the slaves.on a frequentlybut not universallyacceptedview the common root of liber and eleutheros is to be connected wiih a group of words in Indo-European languages, to which the German Leute (people)belongs:the liberiare the natural increaseof the familv. and the god Liber wasoncea numinouspowerof naturargrowth.o[course theseetymologicalspeculationswere unknown to th; ancients.whatever had been the most primitive senseof liber or eleutheros was long forgotten.The man so designatedwas simply not a slave.3 The slavewas in almost all respectsa pieie of property, to be bought and sold, given away, or bequeathed,like any öther animal. fhe owner could forcehim to work, chain him, flog him, put him to death at his own discretion,allow him to breed oi not ai he chose.The children of the slave mother belongedto the mother's owner. slave parentshad no assuredmarital or family life. under the principate the law was to give slavesa little protection against brutality from their masters,but that is no more than the laws of other stateshave done in forbidding_ cruelty to animals. slaves had of course always been protected from ill-treatment by third parties: the owner could sue lor reparation,just as when he sustainedwrongful damage to any other property,a Not all the disabilitiesof the slave were pecuriar to him. The paterfamiliaswas in law arbiter of life and deaih over his liberi. Like slaves,they could own no property. They could at one time be sold like slaves,and it was still possiblein the second century eo if they committed a civil wrong, for which thepaterwas necessaiitytiubte, to. him to. avoid paying damagesby handing them over to thä aggrieved party (noxaedatio):they were then said to be 'in eius mancipio'-(in his ownership)and to be'in the positionof slaves'(seruorumloco) . The poor man, who had no means to pay compensation,might have no choice 3 TLL s.v. Iiber; so P. chanraine, Dict. de la languegr. and H. Frisk, Gr. et|m, wörterbuch,s.v. , äAei|epo5'and Walde-Hoffm_ann, Lat. eum. Worterblthi.v. liher;J.Pokorny,6dogu*. Wörterbuch, I959' 68.4*f,;the kinship of liber and eleutheros is doubted by Ernout,Meitiet, Ei a;a. de la langue l a l . , s ' v . . l i b e r , a n d d e n i e d _ b y P o h l e nr 9 z ,6 6 , r 8 r n . 4 . I d e r i v e o t h e r s u g g e s t i o n s i n t h e textfromE. tJe.nveniste,REL x 4zg ff.. xiv 5r tr., an{- Le Vocabulairedes inst. indojär. i, 1969, 3zr ff.; for the originof schiaztoetc.seech.vcrlinden,L'EscrartagedansPEurope mediöoale,ü,,gi7,"[{gff;thethesis concerning serazsis doubted by Chantraine, and Ernout-Meillet favour irt. iäpii"rinr. connection made in antiquity wilh seruare(Just. /nst. i. 3. 3;. ch. 2' esp. 70 f. Note sen. at ciei.;. rB. z: 'cum in servum omnia riceant, est ,." Tt:l.v'.rg8o, aliquid quod in hominem licere commune ius animantium [!] vetet' (cf. r 7. r ), and pius, rescript (Coll. üi' 3. z): 'dominorum quidem potestatemin sros ,..vos-irlibatam "... ofo.t.t nec cuiquam hominum ius suum detrahi: sed dominorum interest, ne auxilium contra saevitiam vel famem vel intolerabilem iniuriam denegetur his, qui iuste deprecantur', circumscribing the rights of individual mastersfor the common interestsof all and of public order posidlFGtl noi.g7 f.. 1cf. to8 c, fon the causesofthe first Sicilian slave revolt). For imperial protection ofslaves in general seeBuckland r6-8.

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quasi-slavescould be l)ut to surrender a son in this way. emancipated, as slaves could be. Indeed the pater himself could emancipatesonsin his power; it is significantthat they are then said,in 'free'.Completesubjection,evento one'sown the Twelve Tables,to be father, hardly seemedcompatiblewith freedom." In the early Republic the poor would enter into a contract (nexum) which somehowmade them the debt-bondsmenof their creditors.Livy supposedthat these nexi could be kept like slavesin a private prison, chained, and flogged. According to the annalists, their condition of the plebs and the establishmentof the occasionedthe first secession long, however, nothing was done to end the servitudeof tribunate. For The annalists held that M. Manlius in 385 used his own the nexi. resources to deliver debtors from their bonds, claiming to be a champion of liberty, but was actually accused by the tribunes of aiming at tyranny and put to death as an enemy offreedom. Two more generationspassedbefore the contractof nexumwas abolishedby the lex Poetelia,and those then in bondage were released.Livy describesthis reform as a new beginning of freedom; the first had been the overthrow of absolutemonarchy.6 In reality this was not the end of bondage for debt. Under Roman law it always remained possiblefor the creditor to obtain a judgement of the court whereby he could take into custody the debtor who had not made ,.puy-..rt.7 This addictiowas a .r*ifrl mode of coercion s The XII Tables declared: 'si pater filium ter venum duit, filius a patre liber esto' (Gaius i. r 3 : ) ; c f . D d g . x x x i i . 5 o . r ; C J v . 4 . I 8 , v i i i . 4 9 , i x . S r , 1 3 . 4 ' , S e n C o n t r o r . v l i . 4 . 4I.n g e n e r a l s e e G a i u si . r z 3 - 4 r , e s p . r 3 8 - 4 r , i i i . I o 4 , I r 4 , i v . 7 5 - 8 o ; P a p i n i a ni n C o l l . ü . 3 . L B y J u s t i n i a n ' st i m e noxaedalio oflree personswas no longer allowed (Inst. iv. 8. 7). 6 Livy viii. 28. r;Varro, LLvä. ro5;Cic. de rep.ii. 59. Varro shows that the nature of nexum was already a matter of doubt and dispute for the jurists M'. Manilius (ros. 149) and Mucius (presumably Q. Scaevola,ros.95); it is unlikely that the highly coloured accountsofthe plight of nexiinLivy(li.z8.7,vi.r4.3,andro,t7.2,27.8,97.7,vüi.z7)andDionysiusrestonmorethan the vaguest recollections transmitted orally; they probably reflect later experience of the condition ofsome addicti (n.7), and cannot be used to define the archaic legal institution. Analogies from other social systems suggest that the zerd were not, like addicti, defaulters under court judge ments, but men who had bound themselvesto servicein return for a loan which it was not expected that they would repay. Cf. Finley, r98r, ch. g. The modern literature is immense. 7 L i v y x x i i i . 1 4 . C i c . l l V e r r . ü . 6 3 , F l a c c . 4 5 , 4 8 ;F I R A i 2 . n o . I 9 . x x I f . , e r . r x r ; F . v o n 3; Woess,S{ rgzz, 485 ff., 523 ff.; Schulz, r95I, 26, remarks that some rules of classicallaw are unintelligible if addictiois forgotten (seehis sections78, 372,529 f., 7oo, 792, 88o). Qyint. 1zst.vii. 3. z6 refersto the'addictus, quem lex serviredonec solverit iubet'; cf. v. Io. 6o; Ps.-Qyint. Declam. 3rr; HA. Hadr. 18; and Sallust and Columella cited in the text. The jurists never mention this, perhapsbecausea pact between creditor and addictus was (despiteQgintilian's'lex') informal, or bccauseit woufd never give rise to a suit in court; the addictuswo'tld have no means to sue for nonIülfilment, and the creditor had the sharper remedy ofreturning him to bonds. Varro's testimony (RR i. r 7) may be explained as in the text, or by the hypothcsis that he meant by obaerarüa classof in contractual bondage for labour seruice,like the nexiof old (n. 6). It is probable that the 1rt'rsons rich always preferred slave labour when cheap and plentiful; the increasedsupply ofslaves (other I talians) resulting from Rome's conquestsin the late fourth century may help to explain why they tlrt'rr wrn' readv to <'oncedethe abolition of nexum-See also ch. t n. to7 with text.

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against the debtor who was solvent but refused to discharge his obligation. However, since the creditor had to maintain such an (Drg. xlii. r.Z4), it would have involved futile expenditurein addictus unlesshe could be made to work. the caseof the man with no resources, (Ps.-Quint. Declam.3rr) indicate rhetorician and another Quintilian that addictiwere 'in servitude' until they had worked off their debts, and Columella says that they were kept in prisons (ergastula)while them by labouringon the great estates(i. 3. r z). He actually designates the old name of nexi.Livy indeed often treats the nexi of old times as addicti(e.g.vi. r4.3 and ro); his picturesof their plight are probably drawn from what was known in historic times of that of addicti.ln 6g indebtedpeasantscomplainedthat through the savageryof the moneylendersand the praetor they had lost their personalfreedom as well as their property (Sall. Cat. y). The stock of slavesin Italy must have been temporarily diminished in the 6os by the lossesowners had sustainedin Spartacus'revolt, and they may have been the more tempted to fill the gaps in their labour force by reducing debtors to a kind of servitude.Varro (RR i. r7. z) in the 3oswrites as if there were in Italy, as there were in somelands then no debt-bondsmen(obaerarii) overseas.The explanationcannot lie in any change in the law, since addictiowas always permitted; moreover, Columella again attests forcedlabour for debt in the Italy of the Principate.It may be that the huge demand for legionariesin the years from 49 made it impracticable for creditors to detain debtors, who could easily escape by enlistment;whereasby the time of Columella and Quintilian there was little recruiting in Italy, and indeed the emperor Tiberius had been reluctant to allow the pennilessand vagrantsto join up (Tac. Ann.iv. 4).8 Some citizenswould also bind themselvesby contract as auctoratito serveas gladiators and submit themselvesto servile discipline by their employers.e We cannot tell how commonly poor men fell into servitudein one of these forms. But numerically such bondsmen were far lessimportant than chattel slaves.As early as the Hannibalic War there must have been adequateslave labour to keep up the production of necessary supplies,with perhaps r r per cent of the citizen population serving in the legions. In the late Republic slaves ma2 have comprised three seventhsof the inhabitantsof Italy.l0 Chattel slaverywas not only the most common, it was also the most perfect form of servitude in Roman society.There was somejustifica8 IM 4rg-5; more fully, Brunt, Scripta Class.Israelica, r974, go ff. e Sen. Ep. 37. r; Petron. r r7; other evidence in Mommsen, Ges.Schr.iii. g n.4. 1o IM 67 and ch. x (highly conjectural estimates).

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tion fiorsayingthat men who were not chattel slaves,though subjectto the power of another,were in somesensefree.The liberiin the power of their paterjamiliashad most of the rights and obligations of citizenssrui iuris,They could vote and hold office;they could servein the army, as slavesand even freedmennormally could not; they could marry, and their children were of free birth. Marriage was permitted also to those in mancipio(Gaius i. t35), and presumably to addictiand auctorati;and protection as citizens perhapstheseclasseshad, like the liberiin potestate, against arbitrary punishment by magistrates.The liberi automatically acquired full independence(if males), becoming sui iurisonce death removed the paterfamilias;theflius in mancipiowould be freed by the praetor, when he had worked off his debt, and the addictusmay have was Lad somechanceof securingfreedom by his labour;11 the auctoratus had bound free, if he survived to the end of the period for which he himself to fight. The slavewho was manumitted enjoyed as a freedman only limited citizen rights:the liberation of other bondsmenrestoredto them the title of free birth. Thus there could be degreesof freedom or servitude. This was true of communitiesas well as individuals.Aphrodisiaswas granted freedom by Rome 'on the same basis as a community with the best rigtrt and legal statuswhich has freedom and immunity bestowedby the Roman a statecan be entirely people' (". g t ) . By analogy with thepaterfomilias 'the paterfamiliashad total 'sui (tt.zS). iuris ac mancipi' hee-if it is control over his familia: Rome is the freest of states becauseof its imperial dominion (tt.ao). Liberty is independenceand, indeed, power (nn. 70 2). The existenceof slavery and other forms of servitude coloured the thinking of both Romans and Greeks about freedom in various ways. (r ) The degradation of many slaves made it natural to connect freedom with morality: a free man was, or should be, a better kind of man than a slave.(z) Freedomas a legal statusraisedthe dignity of its however poor, over that of the slave; it gave him some possessor, compensation for the superiority of material conditions that some slavesmight enjoy, and inhibited the growth of any senseof common interest in the labouring class,which included both slavesand free men. (3) It was manifest that freedom of status depended on the positive law of a man's own state; the notion that freedom was a natural right due to human beings as such, though sometimessuggested,could gain little credenceand had no practical effect. ( r .)We read in Homer that when a man is enslavedhe loseshalf that excellence(aretE)which makeshim truly a man (Od. xvii. 3zz f.). For rr Papinianin n. 5; cf. n. 7.

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Aristotle the natural slave,one who deservesto be a slave,is a man whoseintellectualand moral quality assimilates him to an animal, and who needsin his own interestto be under the perpetual tutelageof a master.12This doctrine was no doubt partly founded in expeiience. Most slavesknown to Aristotle were barbarians who seemedimmeasurablyinferior to Greeks. In any case enslavementdoubtless tended to debasea man. Hence slaveswere depictedas typically lowspirited,cowardly,idle, shy, dishonestand mendacious.A free man of low moral quality was called in Greek 'aneleutheros', unfree, a term not used of actual slaves.Eleutheriaand eleutheros occasionallydenote the excellence in characterexpectedof a freeman;r3 Terenceuses'liberum ingenium atque animum' (Ad. BzB) in the same way, probably translatingfrom the Greek,for Romans more naturally say'worthy of freedom'. The Greek eleutherios and Latin liberalishave the samesense, along with their derivatives,though both comealsoto mean 'liberal' or 'munificent', virtues which the slave, having no property, had no means to practise.By contrast seruilisis a term of moral opprobrium. The slave might, indeed, display qualities above his station, and for Aristotle himself he was then entitled to freedom; Terence makes someonesay'I have convertedyou from my slaveinto my freedman, becauseyou served me with the character of a free man fliberaliter)' (Andr. 3B). In sum, for both Greeks and Romans freedom could acquire moral overtones.The subjection of a whole people could be defendedon the ground that it was unfit for independence,and merely lost the licence to do wrong,ra while imperialiits could justify their dominion on the ground that they were worthy to rule (e.g. Thuc. i. 76). However, though the manumissionof slavescould be justified by their worth, it was not suggested that a freeman should be deprivedof his legal status becausehe was morally unfit for it. (z) Kunkel somewhereremarked that the contrastbetweenmasrer and slave was omnipresentand vivid in Roman daily life: this was no less ffue in that of a Greek city. This must have made a man more intensely consciousof the value of whatever freedom he possessed. His own rights were more preciousby contrast with the rightlessness of the slaves around him. No doubt this gave a special emotive force to 'freedom' and 'slavery', when they were employed as political slogans. In Rome societywas always hierarchical. Senatorsor Equites had their own privileges,for instance their own form of dressand reservedseats at the games.But even the humblest citizen had his own social esteem

and rank (dignitas), which set him at least above the slaves. This doubtless explains why it was that the free poor gave but little aid to slaves when they rose in revolt, and why their champions were reluctant to seek servile support, though both classesmay appear to us victims of a common exploitation.ls 'We hold (3) The Founding Fathers of the United States declared: these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' Sophistry reconciled these affirmations with the ownership of slaves.'o ('How is it', 'that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the asked DrJohnson, drivers of negroes?'). Greeks and Romans hardly ever embarrassed themselves with the notion that freedom was a natural or divine right, which their acceptance of the institution of slavery denied. Slaves could indeed not be treated entirely as if they were things, not human beings. The law recognized their humanity in making them liable to punishment for crimes, in accepting their evidence (given under torture) in the courts, and in permitting their masters to manumit them; by a peculiarity of Roman law, unparallelled in the Greek world, manumission by due legal process gave them the status of citizens, subject to certain disabilities which did not extend to their descendants born in freedom. All this made it evident that there was a certain artificiality in slave status. So did the mere fact that men of free birth, Romans included, could be enslaved through war, piracy, and kidnapping. Roman law prescribed that the captive would, on return to the territorv of Rome or of a friendlv state. normallv recover freedom and citizensirip.lT Enslavement mighi be just bad lucl (Plaut. Capt.3oz ff.), and it was a commonplace, which the orator could take over from philosophers, that fortune, not nature, made men free or slaves;18not that this is likely to have made free men in general entertain any real doubts about the justice of their own superiority to slaves. Some Greek thinkers had asserted that all men were born free, and that slavery was unjust as an institution, though without demanding its actual abolition: slavery was so deeply rooted in the economic organization and traditions of the Graeco-Roman world that this was

12 Politicsi. z, 5, etc. 1 3 P o h l e n z , 1 9 6 6 , 4 7f f . D e m . v i i i . 5 r , x v i i i . z 4 z s h o w t h i s v i e w r o h a v e b e e nf a m i l i a r t o t h e general public. ra Cic. de rep.ap. Aüg. Ciu. Dei xix. zt.

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I s During the Sicilian slave revolts the free poor gloated at the misfortunes of the rich and plundered on their own account but did notjoin the rebels (Posid. a/. Diod. xxxiv. z. 48, xxxvi. fi, r r ). A few free men joined Spartacus (App. i. r 16. 54o, r r7. 547; other texts cited ad loc. by ()abba prove nothing); this was hardly significant. Catiline would not enlist slaves(Sall. Cat. 56. l), though governments did so in crises,e.g. Rome in the Hannibalic war. rö lrrr an explanation seeJ. P. Grene, l// Men are CreatedEqual (inaugural lecture, Oxford, r( ) 7 o J . t1 I'o:tliminium;scc r.g. Buckland 3oz f[.; anyunt'who redeemedthe captive had a lien on his 1 x ' r s o rtri l l l h ( ' ( o s t w a s r c p a i d , a n d p r e s u m a t r l yw o u l d t ' x a c t I a b o u r f r o m h i m . t E S c n . ( . i u n l r o rv,i.i . t i . r t | ; Q t r i n t , / n . r / .i i i . f l . 3 r .

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never thought of. Roman jurists of the imperial period were also to say or imply that all men were free by the law of nature.re This is apparently the law that nature has taught to all animals,which leads them to procreate and rear their young, and also to desire freedom instinctiväIy.2oFreedom can be defineä by one jurist as 'a natural faculty of doing that which everyonewished to do, unlessthere is some hindrancein forceor law.'21We shall seethat this conceptof freedom asper seunrestrictedis no more alien to Romans than to Greeks.Law itselfimposeslimitationson it. It doesnot of course{bllow that any of the limitations were unjustified. Slavery is for the jurists an institution of the iusgentium,the law of nations, and that law can be viewed not only as the body of rules that all peoplesuse, but as establishedby natural reason.Now instinct is common to all animals, but reasonis peculiar to man.22 In affirming that slavery was contrary to the instincts of nature, the jurists were not then suggestingany moral condemnationof it, nor were they implying that the law of nature in this sensewas what the Stoicsheld it to be, the rational and divine regulationof the world, a conceptionthat doesindeed appear in other juristic texts. And even Stoics accepted slavery; ubiquitous as it was, how could it not be part of the providential order determined by reason?23It is another matter if' the teaching of the Stoics, who recognizedthat the divine reasonwas immanent in every man, and that the slave was as capable of virtue as the free man, perhaps conduced to some amelioration of the legal status of slaves. This developmentin any casebelongsto the Principate,and it was then (if at all) that Stoic influencecould have affectedit. And at no time was the abolition of slavery proposed, even by those Greek thinkers who had challengedits justice and to whosetheoreticalobjectionsAristotle had offered a theoreticalreply. They alone had suggestedthat freedom was a natural human right, without drawing any practical consere Greek theoreticalcriticisms ofslavery are chiefly known from Aristotle's reply in Pol. i. For natural freedom in Roman jurisprudence seeDig. i. t . 4 pr. (Ulpizn), xii. 6. 64 (Tryphoninus); xl. r r . z ( M a r c i a n ) ; 1 .1 7 . 3 2 ( U l p i a n ) ;n n . z r f . 20 Dig. i. r. (Ulpian) xli. r. r -5 (chiefly Gaius); Cic. d.eteg.agr.ü. g, derep.i. 55;Tac. /Isl. iv. 3 r 7. 5: 'libertatem natura etiam mutis animalibus datam, virtutem proprium hominum bonum [as of rational beings]'. 'libertas 2r Dig. i.5. est naturalis facultaseius < faciendi> quod cuique facerelibet, nisi si 4 1r: quid vi aut iure prohibetur. (r) Servitus est constitutio iuris gentium, qua quis dominio alieno contra naturam subicitur.' Florentinus goes on to accept the etymological connection of sertus with sertare(n. 3), and he may have thought that the 'narural faculty' to kill one's caprives ar one's pleasurewas rationally limited, 'iure gentium', by the practice ofpreservinu their lives and exploiting their labour. D i e . i . r . 9 ( G a i u s ) ;i . r . 4 ( U l p i a n ) . ": : S t o i c n a t u r a l l a w : D i g . i . 3 . z ( M a r c i a n q u o t i n g C h r y s i p p u s ) ; c f . r . r p r . .' i u s t ' s t a r s b o n i e r a e q u i ' ( C e l s u s ) ,r . r . r , r o ( U l p i a n ) , r . r r ( P a u l ) . S t o i c a c c c p t a n < 'ocl ' s l : n , c r v :^ S l ' / ti i . r r r U , i i i . 3 5 r - 3 ; C i c . d e( f i c . i . 4 r .

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quences,and this was not a notion that had any significantpart in Greek or Roman thinking. Of coursein any statethat recognizedslaverythe free man who was illegally enslavedhad to be given meansof redress'At Rome a person dejacto in slavery normally had no accessto the courts, but a free man could appear on behalf of one who claimed entitlementto liberty, and under thä Twelve Tables he was subjectto lesspecuniary risk than in other litigation; Gaius (iv. I4) explained this on the ground that the law favoüred the restoration of his rights to the free man wrongfully held as a slave.Many later rules of Roman law exhibit thesamefauor libertatisto slaveswho had a legal claim to manumissionunder a will or contract,24but were in danger of being defraudedof their rights by an inequitableinterpretationof the law. In principle all theserules were designedto uphold a man's legal title to freedom' which he had been unjustly denied, and do not illustrate any lurking belief that freedom was due to every man under the law of nature. Manumissiontoo was and it was a mark of virtue to bestow benefcia regarded as a beneficium, on those, including slaves,who deservedthem by their individual merits. But an admissionthat someslavesshould be freed implied no condemnationof slavery. III

'sui iuris ac Communities, like individuals, could be described as free or rnancipi'.2s The application of the term was ambiguous. It might refer either to their external relationships or their internal organization. A state could be regarded as free if it were not subject to the rule of another state, or if the citizens had rights against their own rulers and were not enslaved to their despotic will. In both applications freedom might be more or less complete. No distinction between Greek and Roman ideas on these matters can be drawn. Peoples who were subject to the arbitrary will of a single man or a small group of men were held to be deprived of freedom, as their condition was analogous to that of slaves. Thus for the Greeks the subjects of the absolute Persian king were his slaves' Romans contrasted libertas with both regnum and the dominatio of a faction. No 'freedom consistsnot in having a matter if the despot was benevolent: this view the j u s t m a s t e r , b u t i n h a v i n g n o n e ' ( C i c . d e r e p .i i . + : ) ' O n 'fuU The freedom.26 of of the monarchy at F.ome was the beginning 2 a r . g . s a l c' u t m a n u m i t t a t u r ' , B u c k l a n d 6 2 8 f f . 25 (',ic. atl llrut. 24.4; c[ Sen. de beneJ.üi. zo. r. 2 6 S a l l . ( ; c l . t i L ; L i v y i i . r ; ' l ' a c .A n n . i . r a l l c o n n e c t t h e i n s t i t u t i o n o f t h e a n n u a l a n d c o l l e g i a r e i pi t h l i l x ' r t y . t o r r s r r l s hw

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very name of king was detestable;27 and sulla and caesar could be seenas 'kings' and destroyersof liberty. some nations indeed loved their chains: 'few desire freedom, the greater number prefer just masters'.For Greeks that was a mark of barbarism; cicero too could contemptuouslysay thatJews and syrians were 'born to servitude'.28 But the Romans could pretend that they were conferring a boon on Macedonians (as Greeks) in abolishing their popular a-nd national kingship and dividing them into four artificial iepublics. 'All nations were to know that the arms of the Roman people were not employed to enslavefree peoplesbut to liberate others frorn slavery.'2e Internal freedom admitted of degrees.It could be predicated of a community whose citizens had only a limited shari in their own government, provided that they had some rights guaranteed by their laws. Thus the-Spartans boasted of their fieedJm (Hdt. vii. ro4). Roman internal freedom, traditionally associatedwith the foundation of the Republic, admittedly increased as ordinary citizens acquired further rights. cicero could claim that oratory flourished in ,every free people',as it did at Rome (deorat.i.go);it was the mark of a truly free state that decisions were taken after public discussion, which was influencedby the arts of persuasion(p.+S). National freedom may also consistin independenceof foreign rule. From this standpoint Sallust could say thät in their struglles for independence under royal government the Romans were-älready fighting for liberty (cat.6.5 f.); in the next breath he makesthem win liberty by overturning the monarchy (1. s).similarly Herodotuscould speak of the Persiansas not being slavesto others, since they had a national king (ix. rez). Freedom from arbitrary rule at home and freedom from foreign domination did not necessarilygo together, as Livy observed (ii. n. 2). The enemiesof imperial Athins ii the fifth century claimed that she had enslavedher allies, Athenian apologists that she not only protected their freedom against the barbarians but enlarged it by conferring on them the democratic freedom in their internal affairswhich she enjoyedherself(r,. gz). The independenceof a statehad to be fought for (e.g. Sall. or. Lepidi 4). It rested on power. Acccirding to cicero, 'Rome-far excelsother

statesin the prerogativeof freedom';she'aloneis and has alwaysbeen in the highest degree free'. What meaning can be lound in this rhetoric? Only that Rome's power made her uniquely free of any external constraint. 'Other nations can bear servitude,but liberty is proper to the Roman people',sinceby divine will Rome rulesover all other races.3oThis was the freedomthat someGreeksare said to have pined for in rge: Greek 'honour ldignitasl consistsin that freedom which restson its own strength,not on the will of others' (Livy xxxv. 22. rr). Very different was the freedom that Rome had just bestowed on the Greeks:unable,asRhodian envoysare made to acknowledge,to defendit with their own arms, they relied on thoseof Rome (xxxvii. 54. 2il. Freedom of a community from external control also admitted of degrees. It could be restricted by treaty obligations and power relationships.Hellenistic kings would recognize the 'freedom' of cities that accepted their 'friendship' or 'alliance', and often specify the rights comprisedwithin this all-embracing term: free cities would have their own constitutions,laws,and courts,would be immune from taxes, and have no governorsor garrisonsimposed on them. The citieswhich had acquired hegemoniesin fifth- or fourth-century Greecehad often given similar undertakings.None of thesepromisesheld good when the suzerain had the power and need to disregard them. Rome bound herself in the same way to respect the freedom of cities within her dominionsby contractingformal treatieswith them or by unilaterally concedingprivilegesto them by law or decreeof the senate.As freedom was vague and undefinedin itself,it did not necessarily include all the specificrights that might be associated with it. Free cities,for example, might be subject to taxation; or their right to impose their own taxes might be curtailed by exemptionsfor Roman or Italian residents. Aphrodisiasenjoyed freedom optimoiure:by implication other free cities had less. But all which had a treaty relationship with Rome or possessed a charter conferred by people or senatewere, at least in theory, exempt from arbitrary interferences in their own internal affairsby the holdersof Roman imperium.Inpracticeevenunprivileged citiesmust normally have enjoyedlocal self-government. The Roman governor had not time or staff for frequent interpositions of his authority. In Cilicia Cicero gratified the Greeksby promising them autonomy,the useof their own laws and courts.It is not to be supposed

" derep.ii. 53: 'pulso Tarquinio nomen regisaudire non porerat . :.r.cic. [populus Romanus],; there is no contrary testimony..when cicero refers (i.J4 f.) to men's affe.tio" ro. kings, he has in mind their p-atriarchal position in some other societies (cf. plato, Laws 6goe,6ioa) or the conception ofthe ideal monarch ofGreek political theory, whose rule was secure"because his orrtstandingvirtue won the love.or consentof his subjects(seee.g. M. Griffin, seneca,1976, r44). 'suff anum regnum': e.g. cic. dehar. resp.5+, Au. vüi. i r. z; Sall. ör. Lepidi.whether or not caesar aspired to the tide, he had in effect made himself rer lor cicero 1deinnc.;;i. B3 etc.). :: Vn Ep Mithr. ß; Livy xxxvii. 54. z4; Cic- deproa. cons.ro. 2e Liuy xlv. 18. I. None the lessRomani did not scruple to acknowlcdgr:and protcct vassal . kings.

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30 Cic. de leg. agr. ü. zg, Rab. Post.zz, Phit. vi. rg, cf. Il Verr.v^ 164, Cat. iv. z4; Brtnt, Laus Imperiiw-vr. In lz the Gauls allegedly hoped to obtain'imperium libertatemque' (BG vii. 64). f)n
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that his predecessorshad taken all or most cases into their own jurisdiction, but only that they had intervened whenever it suited them; Cicero promised, as a matter of principle, that he would not do so. This was a matter for his own discretion, where unprivileged cities were concerned; treaties and charters guaranteed the favoured communities against the governor's intrusion. But even this freedom was precarious; if in the judgement of the Romans a free city misbehaved, a treaty could be denounced and a law or senatorial decree rescinded. The ambassador of the free Achaeans remarked in r 84 that their treaty afforded them no security, since imperirzmbelonged to Rome (Livy xxxix. g7. 13).3r Moreover, no less than Athens, 'the tyrant city', and Sparta, the professed champion of Greek liberty, Rome tended to insist that her 'allies' subjects or adopted the forms of internal government that she approved. In the fourth century many Greeks had come to identify freedom with democracy; instances still occur in Roman times, but Rome did not tolerate democracy except in outward forms.32 It is thus not true, as Last said (CAH xi.436), that the 'free'cities in her empire were merely 'deprived of untrammelled control of international relations, with the right to declare peace and war at will'. For Tacitus they were only nominally free (Ann. xv. 45. r), and Pliny writes of the 'remaining shade and surviving name of freedom' still left to Athens and Sparta (Ep. vüi. 2+. ü. In their time the scale of Roman supervision over the cities' internal concerns was marginally increasing, but it had always been true that the Greeks had never had more freedom than their Roman rulers conceded; Romans would naturally have concurred in Plutarch's comment (Bz4 c) that more might not have been good for them. The imperial jurist Proculus, after saying that a free people is one 31 SeegenerallyJones, rg4o, chs. vr, vu; freedom divorced from tax immunity, ch. vu nn. 33, rz3, r5 ff.; Polyb. iv. 84,xv. t4. lt 35. Rights associatedwith freedom:Tod,Greek Hist. Inscriptions was the mark of all free peoplesto live under their own laws, adopting Roman only by their own choice: Cic. BaLb. zo-2, but the lex Antonia allows free Termessus use of its own laws and presumably courts only 'quod advorsushanc legem non fiat' (FIRA i2. r r . 8), and probably few had, like Chios,jurisdiction over Romans (^9/G3785). Aphrodisias:Sherk z8B. 7. Cilicia: Cic. Au. vi. r. 5, z. 4). 32 Sparta: Thuc. i. rg, r4+. 2, v. Bz. l; cf Spartan actions after the King's Peace.Athenian apologists often represented their support of democracy in 'allied' cities as championship of f r e e d o m :L y s i a si i . 5 5 - 7 ; I s o c r .i v . r o 4 - 6 , x i i . 6 8 ; P l a t o ,M e n e x . 2 4 2 a , 2 4 3 a , 2 4 4 cI ; d o n o t b e l i e v e that Athenian politicians ever admitted what was in T'hucydides'view the rruth, thar their rule was tyrannical. Alexander fulfilled his promise to liberate the Greeks of Asia by installing d e m o c r a c i e s( A r r i a n , A n a b . i . r B ; c f . D i o d . x v i . q r , x v i i . z 4 ) ; i n f a c t t h e y w c r e h i s s u b j e c t s .F o r freedom as democracy seeJones,rg4o, ch. x esp. pp. r7o ff.; in 1ZS 3r (Lycia) liberta.rtranslates democracy, and Pergamum, a lree city, honoured a Roman governor in 46 ltrr rcstoring 'its a n c e s t r a l a w s a n d u n e n s l a v e dd e m o c r a c y ' ( i b i d . 8 8 7 9 ; c f . M a g i c r 5 ( i , 4 1 7 ) . O n t h c d c c a y o f d e m o c r a c yu n d e r t h c i n f l u c n < ' co f t h e k i n s s a n d o { ' R o m c s c t .r l t ' S l r ' ( ) r o i x , l q f l z , A I r t r . r v .

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not subject to the power of another people, adds that it may none the less be bound by treaty 'alterius populi maiestatem comiter conservare'-'to respectloyally the greatnessof another people'.This clauseappeared,for example,in the treaty made by Gadeswith Rome, and Cicero construed it as marking the subordination of Gades to Rome (Balb. 35-7). Proculus comments that though it does indeed imply the superiorityof one party, the other is none the lessfree,just as clientsare free,^though unequal to their patronsin influence,rank, and sheerstrength." Some scholarssupposethat the limited and precarious freedom that Rome granted was rooted in typically Roman social structure and ideas, and was so unfamiliar to the Greeks that they misunderstood what the Romans meant when they professedto be upholding the freedom of Greek cities. There is no warrant for this view. Centuries earlier the Spartans had professedto maintain the freedom of their allies without scrupling to impose on them oligarchic control when they had the opportunity, just as much as Rome did (n.gz). 'Perhapsall kings', wrote Polybius (xv. 24.4), 'begin their reigns by making nominal offers of freedom to everyone'. Such professionshad once been made for deception, but long experiencehad exposed the harsh truth that no power would readily leave full independenceto statesthat it could dominate. Local self-government was probably all that most Greek beneficiariesof royal or Roman grants of freedom had come to expect, and all that Rome would accord. For their part Romans were perfectly consciousthat such freedom was not freedom in the fullest extent, and they could also use that ambiguousword, libertas,to designatethe sovereigntythat they sought to abridge. Cato, for instance, said that the Rhodians were to be excusedfor not wishing to seeRome utterly subdue Macedon, in the fear 'that under our single rule they might be in servitude to us: I consider that it was for their own libertasthat they adopted this view' (Gell.vi. 3. r5).Caesardoesnot hesitateto admit that the Gaulswho resistedhim were fighting for freedom, even the Aedui (BG vä.37), who were alliesof Rome by treaty (i. SS),'all men have a natural urge for liberty and hate a condition of servitude'(iii. ro). The very reason why Proculushad to insist that the inferiority of a dependentally or client did not involve lossof freedom was that the restraintsthat flowed from such inferiority were naturally conceivedto be inconsistentwith freedom.There is no ground for holding that the grantsof liberty made to dependentcitiesby Rome embody a peculiarlyRoman conceptthat liberty as such is a statusproperly limited by some higher authority. 'etiamsi 33 xlix. I5. 7. I: neque auctoritate neque dignitate neque viribus pares sunt' (codd. 'nequc viri lroni nobis praesunt').

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L T B E R 'A| s I ; \ * ' t ' H [ R E p t ; B t ,l ( ]

I . I B T ) R ' IÄ S I N ' I ' H T : R I ] P I . ; B I . , I ( ;

They show only that for Romans, as for Greeks, 'liberty' could be convenientshorthandlor privilegesthat fell short of that full independencewhich both the Greek and Latin terms also connote.

Roman citizenswere of coursenot entrenchedin a written constitution any more than those of British citizens,3ssince at Rome, as in this country, there was no such constitution: they rested on particular customsand statutes,which could be modified or repealedby new legislation,in accordancewith the rule of the Twelve Tables that whatever the peoplelast enactedwas binding in law.3e The legal rights that Romans most explicitly and commonly subsumed under the title of freedom are of two types: immunity from arbitrary coercionand punishmentby magistrates,and somedegreeof participation in political power. Neither derived from any abstract conception of freedom and its value, such as that which underlies,for instance,the American Bill of Rights: indeed they both originated in early times innocent of political theorizing. Specific liberties were soughtand obtained to protect their holdersagainstoppressionand to securetheir material interests.It does not follow that an appeal to liberty was neveranything but a cloak for suchadvantages.The'name of liberty was sweet', if only becausemen instinctively wish to live as they please.The right of citizenshipwas the more prized becauseit was 'eximium', setting the Roman above the slaveand the foreigner.His freedom made him lesssubject to the will of others or better able to enforcehis will on them. Independence,power, superiorityto the less privileged were enjoyed most of all by the aristocracy, but the humblest citizen had some share in them. Without ever formulating any more or lesscoherent notion of freedom as an ideal, and leastof all the doctrine that the individual has a right to develop his own personality as he thinks best, within the limits of social order and justice, Romans could value liberties they possessed for thesereasons, as well as fior the concrete material intereststhey might assume;and they could seeknew rights, like the secretvote, in the narne of freedom, by analogy with or extension of those which they already enjoyed. Bleicken(tg7z,38) suggeststhat the significanceof appealsto liberty at Rome was the lessbecausethey were made in particular situations by men acting from personal motives, and embodied no abstract idea of liberty. The motive of thosewho invoked the name of liberty is not very material to judging the effect of the appeal on those to whom it was made, and the absenceof an abstract idea of liberty will not seem of much importance to Englishmen. A limited similarity may be seenbetweenthe Roman experienceand our own. It could be boasted in 1816 that'liberty is the chief distinctionof England from other Europeancountries'.However,then (as now) it consistedonly of a bundle of legal or customary rights with

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IV Freedom, as we have seen, could never be for Greeks and Romans, who

accepted slavery, an inalienable right inhering in the human personality: it necessarily denoted privileges that reposed on positive law, including custom. Misleading statements made by Cicero have induced the thesisthat for the Romans it was actually coterminous with citizenship,34not necessarilythat of Rome, since the Romans of course acknowledged that foreigners could be free, but also of any other state recognized by Rome. This thesis has been refuted: in Levy's formula'liberty tion _was the precondition of citizenship, and citizenship its guarantee'.35 Sumce it to note here that the Campanians, who were deprived of Roman citizenship for some time after 2 r r, and theJunian Latins under imperial law, were both free, though stateless.36However, for Romans and for Greeks, liberty came to mean more than the legal status of a man who was not in some kind of bondage. If a community was said to be free when its citizens had some share in determining their own civic obligations, this freedom can be resolved into the rights of the citizens. Political freedom of the individual citizen can indeed be equated with his citizenship; Romans often associated their right or rights (ius or iura) with their liberta.r,or used the terms interchangeably. Thus Cicero apostrophizes the personal security guaranteed to Romans by the Porcian and Sempronian laws with the 'O words: nomen dulce libertatis! O ius eximium nostrae civitatis'. The latter phrase in itself illustrates how this or any other right which Romans identified as liberty did not belong to a man as such but was the special right ('ius eximium') of a Roman citizen.3T The rights of la 35 S{ 196r,r4z ff See endnote r. 3 6 S e e e . g . S h e r w i n - W h i t e ,t g 7 3 , 2 t r , 3zg ff. 37 Cic.IIVerr.v.r63('dulce':Cat.iv.z4,Att.xv.r3.27;PollioinFam.x.3r.3;Livyi.r7.3,xxrv. z r . 3) ; for 'ius cximium' cf. n. 3o. Ius (oiriura) liberlatisand the collocation of izs or iura with libertas r e f e r t o p r o t e c t i o n o f t h e c i t i z e n ' s p e r s o n ( e . g . I l V e r r . i . 7 , i i . r 6 , v . t 4 3 , R a b .rpl fe. ,r S d .r s t . 3 o ; L i v y iii. 56. B Io), electoralrighrs (deleg.agr.ri. zg1,participation in comitial trials ofpolitical offenders (Livy xxxvii. 5e. 5), free speech(Planc.55;cL 33), and eligibility for office (Sall. Cat.37. 9). Sallust contrasts'ius a maioribus relictum' with 'hoc a Sulla paratum servitium', and relersto the tribunes, w h o a r e a l w a y s c o n n e c t e d w i t h l r e e d o m ( n r. o 9 ) , a s ' v i n d i c e s o m n i s i u r i s ' o f t h e c i t i z e n s ( O r . A . I a c r i . t, zr); in B.^Jgr. r6f. libertasand ius (populi) arc mere variants; lrecdom to vote on legislative proposalsol'tribunes is here to the fore; cf. sectionxrv. Cf Cic. ap. Ascon. 76-8 C.; where he first describesthe origin of thc tribunate and other izra (cf. Sall. Hist. i.t r) , and cites 'Porciam flegeml principium iustissimaelibertatis fprotection for thc pcrson; cL cndnotc 81, Cassiam qua lt:gc s u f f r a g i o r u mi u s p o t e s t a s q ute' o n v a l u i t[ c [ n . r o 3 l , a l t t ' r a m C a s s i a mq u a c p o p u l i i u d i c i a f i r m a v i t [pp. 34., t.) Iura populi is a lerm cqLrir.alrnrro libertasin Sall. (]at. '.1t1. 3, Or. t.cpidi rr, r0, zq.

38

See endnote z. 3e Livy vii. r7. rz, ix. 34. 6; Cic. Balb. 32, Att. lli. z3; cf. n. 34

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no constitutionalguarantee(n.38). Even the Bill of Rights passedin r689, 'our greatestconstitutionaldocument since Magna Charta',ao enumeratesonly those rights which had recenrly been infringed by royal prerogative,to the disadvantageof interestswhich preponderated in Parliament. Freedom of worship, and of religiousbelief and expression, are certainlyregardedasimportant elementsin our liberty, but they were securedin full over a long period, and not so much from recognition of the principle that men ought to be free to hold, propagate, and practise whatever religious faith answersto their own convictions, as because it became politically expedient to make concessions to thosewho would not conform to the establishedreligion. This is characteristic of the way in which English freedom 'slowly broadeneddown from precedentto precedent'. v It is of coursetrue that our concept of freedom has ultimately come to embracemany activitiesto which it was not consciouslyrelated by the Romans,or indeed by the Greeks.This was partly at leastbecausein medieval and early modern times the individual had been subjectedto restraintswhich were not imposedeffectivelyor at all in antiquity, or not felt as limitations of freedom, becauseconsciouslyor unconsciously they were taken to be inevitable; the effect of social tradition may be in this respectas strong as that of physical laws which constrict the power of a man to do as he pleases,but are not normally seenas limiting his freedom. It was when changesin conditions made these restraints irksome that their removal in modern Europe was demandedin the name of liberty. New restraints,imposed by law, are always naturally opposedas infringementsof liberty by thosewho suffer from them. So it was at Rome. Although in general Roman freedom is political in character, novel attempts to control private behaviour could be denounced as inimical to freedom. Benjamin Constantobservedthat the mere sizeof the modern state made it impossiblefor men to enjoy that continuousand direct part in government which Greeks and Romans were prone to identify with liberty, and that his own contemporarieswere more concerned than the ancientsto limit the intrusion of the state into private life; political liberty itself, in the senseof the power that citizenscould now exercise only in periodicelections,was for him chieflyvaluablebecauseit could oo D. Ogg, England in the Reignsof JamesII and William III, r4r ff. Note the use of 'liberties' in English to denote 'privileges,immunities or rights enjoyed by prescription or granr' (oxJordDüt. s . v . ,w h e n c et h e q u o t a t i o n o f r 8 r 6 ) .

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be used to obtain institutional guarantees for private freedom.al At first sight Constant's view of ancient liberty may seem hardly applicable to Rome, since most Romans in the middle and late Republic could take no direct and continuous part in public affairs. But they had had more opportunity to do so in earlier times, when Rome's territory and population were relatively small, and that was surely the formative p.iioa when Roman ideas of lreedom evolved. However, Constant's comparison between ancient and modern ideas of liberty' though not devoid of truth, is not satisfying. (a) Neither Greeks nor Romans conceived the state as an impersonal entity which could be sharply contrasted with the individual citizen. Aristotle represented what they all thought in describing it as a kind of partnership between the citizens or free men (Pol. r252^r, rzTguzr). 'the Roman people of Öffi.iutty Athens was'the Athenians', and Rome 'civitas' or 'res publica' may be Latin words The the Quirites'. 'the quality translated as'state', but fundamentally the former means 'that which 'the latter the and citizens', of body or a citizen' being of 'commonbelongs to or concerns the people'; it may best be rendered 'to possessa commonwealth' are for Cicero 'To be free' and wealth'. (Sesl. Br) equivalent expressions.a2The citizen was, as it were, a shareholder in the state, and at Rome, as at Athens' men thought it quite proper to take dividends from its property:.the state lands and revenues, Cicero tells the people, belong to them.*" Of course the state laid heavy burdens on the persons and sometimes on the property of the citizens. Romans could treat conscription and taxation as marks of servitude. But it was more manifest than it has often been in the modern era that the defence of the community in war, for which these burdens were imposed, conduced to the safety of the citizen, when the consequences of defeat might be massacre or enslavement; in his own interest and in that of all who were dear to him the individual might feel a more unconditional commitment to his community. This devotion was indeed diminished or obliterated if he considered that the organization of his community was injurious to him. This was the origin of the internal conflicts (stasis)so prevalent in Greek cities, and therefore of the development of Greek political theory, which was not primarily concerned with the nature and validity of the citizen's obligation to his state, the question which has ar De Ia liberti desancienscomparieä cellesdesmodernes,tBtg. a2 H.ll.gouu..'h545r.zassemblestextsconnectinglibertasandrespublica;noteesP.Cic.Phil. 'ius rei p.' is libertas.Officially the Romans state remained a respublica even in x. 7 f., wheie (Brunt. JRS rg77, rI6); Tacitus occasionally uses both terms to mean the usage Justinian's Republic (Hist. i. 16, 5o, Ann. i. S, +, ZZ, ii. 8z); cf. Suet. lzg. 28. I (contrast z). 1 ' C i r . d r l e g . a g r . ü . 4 8 , 5 5 , 8 o2 , 8 5 ; C . G r a c c h u s a p . C e l l . x i . r o . 3 . B a d i a n , r 9 6 T , b r i n g s o u t 'popular' measures. how thc empire was exploited to meet the cost of

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tendedto dominate modern political theory, but rather with the fiorm of state which would best guaranteehis welfare.It is indeed obvious that once Rome had acquired imperial power the individual Roman would not have had causeto identify his own good with the survival of his state,which was no longer in peril; but in the formative period of Roman historyhe must have beensubjectto the sameapprehensions as Greek citizens,and the outlook thus engenderedcould have persisted after the conditions that createdit had passedaway.4aThe annalistsof early Rome did in fact supposethat civic burdens, which were always resented as marks of servitude when imposed by an autocrat or a foreign power, had been grievous to the poor in the fifth and fourth centuries; perhaps they were importing into that period feelings arousedin the time of overseaswars (seeendnote 3). At any rate Romans as well as Greeks apparently felt no tension between the freedom of the individual and the authority of the state, provided at leastthat the individual had somesharein that authoritv. and was not oppressedby it. (zi) In actual fact the Roman stateinterfered much lessin the private activity and beließ of individuals than did the authorities of both state and Church in the subsequentperiodsto which Constantlooked back, or than statesdo in our time. Romans could practisesomeactivities in ways later regarded as essentialto individual freedom, without themselvesprizing suchfreedomas a right, perhapsjust becauseit had never been contested.Moreover, the effectivepower of the state, even under the Principate,to curtail men's private liberty was very limited. In the late Republic freedom of philosophical, religious, and even political speculation was unchecked.asAny supposed attempt to substitute monarchy for the Republic could be treated as a crime worthy of death, but there was nothing to hinder Cicero from making a casein his derepublicafor the thesisthat ideally it was the best form of government. By contrast in the Principate, if the relative merits of different constitutions were discussedat all, it became necessaryto decidein favour of rule by a singleman of supremewisdom, such as the emperor could be deemed to be; and though the old teaching that monarchy could easily degeherate into tyranny, the worst kind of government, could not be forgotten, it was unsafe, at times when the emperor could fit any delineation of the tyrant to his own head, to expose its evils or even to represent as tyrannical the conduct of a aa Eur. fr. ü); 36o Nauck, esp. 39 f.; Democ. z5z D. (in Diels Kranz, Fr. der Vorsokratiker, Thrrc. ii. 6o. z 4; cf. Sall. Cal. 6 on early Rome: 'libertatem patriam parentesquearmis tegere'. a5 For I. Berlin, Four Essa2s onl,ibtre, r969, r r8, remarks that the studiesofsocial ancl pofitical theory 'spring from, and thrive on, discord'. In suppressingdiscord the Roman Principate dried up their sources.

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former ruler, which too closelyresembledthat of the reigning prince. Bookswere to be burned for containing such seditiousviews and their authors put to death, and philosopherswho gave them currency were expelled from Rome. Such restrictions on freedom were almost unknown in the Republic.a6 It is true that in 92 the censorsbanned the teaching of Latin rhetoric within Rome, but it was soon flourishing without further impediment (Suet.derhet.,esp. r). In r55 old Cato persuadedthe senateto dismiss as rapidly as possiblean Athenian embassycomposedof philosophers, whose lectures (he thought) were turning the aristocratic youth of Rome away from their old respectfor laws and magistrates;the chief offender was presumably the Academic sceptic, Carneades. Both philosophersand rhetoricians were expelled from the city in 16r and r54 (or r7g).n'But in Cicero's time there was no restriction on philosophic speculations.He himselfadopted Carneades'views. Epicureanism he abhorred, refuting its doctrines and denouncing its tendency to corrupt morals,but it never enteredhis head that it shouldbe legally proscribed. It may be relevant that theoretical beließ did not necessarilyaffect the practice of men who embraced them. Epicurus inculcated political quietism, but his teaching was ignored by^such followers as L. Piso (cos.58) and Caesar'sassassin,C. Cassius.*uThe traditional cults presupposed the beließ that gods existed, and in human form, that they would afford men aid and Protection, that their favour could be procured by prayers and sacrifices,and that they gave signs,which men might acquire the skill to interpret, of their approval or disapproval of proposed actions, and so made it possibleto avert disasters;in various ways all the philosophic schoolsimpugned these conceptions. The Epicureans denied that the gods intervened in human affairs. Stoics tended to assertthe ineluctability of fate. Most philosophersdecried anthropomorphism. The scepticsof the Academy doubted everything; Cicero, an augur himself,would exposedivination in particular to devastating criticisms. But such subversivediscussions were confined to small circles;though they were published in books,we can assumethat the circulation was restrictedby their price, the lack of a5 Tac. Ann. i. 72, iv. 34 f., Agr. z f., etc.; book-burning was first authorized under Augustus ('res nova et inusitata de studiis',Sen. Controt.x.pt. g-5); cf. F, H. Cramet, Joum. Hist. Ideasry45, r57 ff.). Men were not free to write candidly of reigning emPerors (Ann. i. t, Hist' i. r), and indictments ofpast tyrants could be treated as aspersionson the current ruler, ifhis conduct were similar; even ideal comparisons of the true and virtuous monarch with the tyrant could be dangerous. The expulsions ofphilosophers from Rome under the Flavians belong to this context. 4? A. E. Astin, Cato the Censor,rg78, r74 ff., for full discussion. a8 Cf. Lucret. ii. r-6I. A. Momigliano, JRS rg4r, r49 ff., collectsevidencefor Epicureans in politics; his suggestionsthat they were active ar Epicureansand that the ex-Pompeian Cassiuswas simultaneously converted to Epicureanism (Cic. Fan. xv. 16) and to the cause of Republican lreedom are quite implausible. See also O. Murray, JRS r965, esp. I73 and I78ff.

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literacy, and the complexity of the subject matter. Philosophy, as Ciceroremarked(Tusc.Disp.ü.4), 'wascontentwith a fewjudgesand shunned the multitude', and Lactantius was surely right in glossing this (Diu. Inst, iii. z5) with the observationthat it required so much preliminary study that it was beyond the reach of women, slaves, artisans,and workers on the land. Even under the Principate it was only the speculationsof political theory that were curbed. It could indeed be felt that the very diversity of theologicalsystems,to say nothing of the impiety of some, might undermine faith in the cults among the vulgar,aebut there was all the lessrisk of this, since the enlightenedwere one and all ready to conform externally and set their inferiors an improving example; as the efficacy of traditional forms of worship was thought to depend on the exactitude of their performance and not on the mental attitude of the worshippers,it was unnecessary 'to make windows into men's souls'. In public evenEpicureansand scepticswould practisethe cults,and scepticswould actually affirm the truth of the beließ implied, for which they could find no rational justification; they were of courseequally unable to refute them. For such conformity there might be various explanations.Those who adopted a spiritual conception of divinity might regard acts of conventional worship as symbolizing their genuine reverencefor it. The Epicureans too claimed a true piety, though their enemiesalleged that at heart they were atheists,and that fear of popular opprobrium made them hypocrites.In some minds there was doubtless a lurking suspicion that the generally received beließwere true; it was then a kind of insuranceto act as if they were. But it was probably a common view among the 6lite that, however erroneousthe superstitionof the massesmight be, it serveda necessary social purpose.Cicero sometimesstressed,and exaggerated,the utility of the statereligion for purely political ends (ch. I n.5I). In public he assertedthe age-old and long-enduringclaim that it was by Rome's specialdevotion to her gods that shehad acquired by divine favour her imperial dominion (ch. r n.98). We can hardly estimatethe effectof this conviction on the morale of Roman soldiers.It could also be held that religion was *1s Indi,spensablebasis for social morality (ch. r n. ror). It is hard for us to seethe connection,sincein most of the cults therewas no moral implication, and no explicit ethical instructionwas attached to any; for instance,no dogmaswarning the wicked of eternal punishment. Perhaps it was felt that if the force of tradition were weakenedin the religious sphereit would also be undermined in every other. At any rate Varro, who adhered to a philosophic theology ne Varro ap. Atug.Ch. Dei vi.5; hence philosophic theology is not lor theforum; cf. Cic. denal. d e o r i. . 6 r , d ed i r . i i . z B .

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remote from that which he himselfcould regard as prevalentsuperstition, was none the lessanxiousthat all the traditional rituals shouldbe kept up and revived. In the sameway Cicero,after expoundinga sort inconsequentially of Stoic pantheismin the first book of his dalegibus, proceedsin the second to prescribing a code of sacred laws modelled with only minor amendmentson Roman tradition. In his later works he reverted to Academic scepticism,but Cotta, his mouthpiecein de still insistson the necessityof maintaining the established naluradeorum, religion,and even (aslater scepticswould do) his acknowledgementof its truth; while in de diuinatione,after traversing all the arguments in favour of the official Roman modesof divination or of any claims that the gods revealed their will or the course of future events to men, he declaresat the end that there must be no change in the ancestral institutions.so Cicero made no provision for censorshipof speculativebeließ in his idealcodeoflaws, unlike Plato (whom he had in mind), perhapsbecause they had so little effect on practice. But he did not allow freedom of worship. Foreign cults were to be admitted only if the state sanctioned them.s1There was in fact a long tradition of naturalizing them, and then in such ways that they were harmonized with Roman modes of worship (Dion. Hal. ii. rg). In tB6 secretand presumably orgiastic Bacchanalian rites had been repressedon avowedly moral grounds. Occasionaleffortswere made in the late Republic and Principate to ban the introcluction of certain oriental religions, though in courseof time they all obtained the sanctionof the state.With the exceptionofJudaism and Christianity they were all compatiblewith the continuedrecognition of the ancestralgods. Not indeed that the state enforced any worship on private individuals; conformity only became necessaryif men acceptedofficeswhich entailed sacral functions; it was not until Deciusmade the first systematicattempt to root out Christianity that all men were required to sacrificeto the gods as proof that they had not defectedto the new faith. In any case,in comparisonwith medieval and modern rulers even the emperors lacked the machinery to impose religious uniformity. They were best able to undertake this task when abetted by the zeal and organization of the Church. One may recall 'a Tacitus' remark on astrologers, classofmen which our statewill never tolerate or forego' (Hist. i. zz). Toleration was not a principle of government, except in so far as each subject people could normally retain its own ancestralreligion; in practice there was a large measureof freedom for men to worship, as well as to believe, as they chose. so See endnote a. 51 ff (for earlier reception offoreign religious practices, ch. vu). Cl Latte, 196o, i7o-84,342 also J. A. North, Proc. Canb. Phil. Soc. I 979, 85 ff., on the Bacchanalia.

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Cicero'scode alsogivesthe censorspower to prohibit celibacy and to regulatethe moralsof the people (deleg.iii. 7I); he actually exhorted Caesar, who had assumed the unfitting role of praefectusmlrum, to encourage procreation and represssexual misbehaviout (Marc. zg), and Augustus was to attempt to carry out this programme. However, in the period of the Republic for which we have evidence, men were not compelled to marry and have children, and the supervisionover morals that traditionally belonged to the censorswas not exercised continuously, nor did it compare in strictnesswith the control imposed in later times by ecclesiasticaljurisdiction; in any case it chiefly affected (as did Augustus' marriage laws) the upper classes.It was their luxury that a series of sumptuary laws, attested from z l7 to Augustus' reign, sought to curtail. None seems to have proved .s2 enforceable Of coursetheseenactments,like the intermittent severity of censors, representattempts by the state to regulate private life. But it is an error to supposethat no one ever protested against them as infractions of liberty. In r95 when it was proposed to repeal the Oppian law that prohibited displays of female finery, according to Livy, Cato, in defending the law, had to meet the claim that its repeal wasjustified in the name of liberty; in his view it could more properly be styled licence. 'the Roman This is one of the texts sometimesadduced to prove that conception of liberty' comprised the principle of due restraint and moderation (p.gzo). It is relevant that the people did not endorse Cato'sjudgement: they repealedthe law.s3 In 97 the tribune Duronius, urging the repeal of another sumptuary law, is representedas saying: 'you have been bound and restrained by the bitter bonds of slavery, by the law that commands you to live soberly . . . What use is freedom, if we are debarred from ruining ourselveswith luxury, if we wish?' He was expelled from the senate by the censors.Here again proof is found that the Romans rejected so anarchic a conception of freedom.But the votershad adoptedDuronius'proposal(Val. Max. ii. g. 5). Moreover, the inefficacy of sumptuary laws which remained on the statute book showsthat they were not in sufficient accord with the real sentimentsof the citizens.The emperor Tiberius pronounced their futility (Tac. Ann. iii. 53 f.). For Tacitus any kind of moral legislation, however well justified by degenerationin social behaviour, is coercion s2 LawsofztT,zr5, r8z,r6r,r43, Ir5; aLicinianlawbeforero3,andAntianof6s(?);Sulla, Caesar, and Augustus all legislated in this matter (evidence in Rotondi, bges publicaepopuli romani),Cf. ch. r. n. 74. Cic. Att. xiii. 7 shows, contraDio xliii. 25. r, that Caesar'smeasure was ineffective. Augustus' marriage laws: IM, App. g. 53 Liry xxxiv. r-8, esp. 2. r3. According to Livy the advocatesofrepeal were in fact arguing for the liberty of fathers and hushands to keep women under their subjection without state i n t e r v e n t i o n( 7 . r r r 3 ) !

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(Ann.äi.26. r);even Numa had'bound the peopledown by religious cults and divine law', (e6. 4), and the enactmentsby which Augustus with financial pains and penalties,to say nothing visited childlessness 'stricter bonds' (zB. adultery, constituted towards of his harshness S)' Hence, it is not true, as Schulz held, that'freedom to the Romans neaermeant the capacity to do or leave lrndone what one pleased,to live at one'sown sweetwill' (my italics);sathis was certainly a view of lreedom that some Romans entertained; and we shall see that this meaning was often inherent in usagesof liberand its derivatives.It may seemthe strangerthat Schulz should have fallen into this error, since 'the extreme individualism' that pervaded he himself delineated Roman private law, for example the law of marriage, of associations (when there was any community of rights and obligations, as between 'must be at liberty coheirsor businesspartners, each person concerned to escapefrom the union and its limitationsat any time'), of ownership, and of succession:he depreciatedthoseobligations which did restrict a man's absolutecontrol over his property. In analysingthe classicallaw concerningcontractsof hire, he remarked that it correspondedto social preponderated, and economic conditions in which the beatipossidentes 'partieswere with the result that the rulesof law suited their interests: perfectly free to form the contract as they liked, which in this case 'generousfreedom of disposition' was means as the capitalist liked.' A accorded to the testator: it seemsto have been more generousunder the Twelve Tables than it became as a result of praetorian and legislative modifications, some doubtless introduced to prevent men from exercising their rights in ways which had never been envisaged when the fifth-century code was drawn up, and which remained offensiveto generalopinion.s5Still, one may questionwhether Schulz should have subsumedunder liberty legal rules in which, though the modern theorist can detect its operation, the Romans themselvesfailed to enunciate it explicitly; they were not clearly consciousof it as a 'principle' to be respected,perhapsbecauseit was so little infringed. To so-. modern thinkers the right to private property has appearedto be an essentialpart of freedom, perhaps its guarantee.Cicero, who thought that it was one of the chief purposesof social and political 'retained his own', and who organization to ensure that each man t o S c h u l r , 1 9 3 6 ,I 4 o L 55 Schulz,r936,r46ft,I95r,rozff.(eulogizingthe'purelyhumanisticlawofmarriage...as a free and lreely dissoluble union of two equal partners tor life'). Law of hire: ibid. 542 6. Praetorian restrictionson testator'sfreedom: 266 ff.; cf. also provisionsof legesVoconia(t69) and F'atcidia(4o) and of Augustan marriage laws. The praetor also limited the testamentaryrights of lreedmen in the interest ofparrons.'l'he spendthrift could be deprived ofdisposal ofhis property (ibid. zoo-z). In old days the censorscould penalize a man who farmed his land badly (Gell. iv. r l ' . S r t n . ; f t r r r e s t r a i n t so n s l a v t ' - o w n c r s .

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56 deofic.i.zof.,5r,ri.79,78,iii.:r-4,derep.i.4gonpropertyrights;seeendnotegandPhil. xiii. r for faint association with liberlas;cL pp. 347 ff. s7 XII Tables: Gaius, Dlg. xlvii. e2.4. Numa was supposed to have instituted collegiaof

not exist.The statewas strongenough to perform the vital functionsof mustering troops and raising money to pay for them, but for very little else.It did not even assistthe plaintiffin bringing a defendantto court or in executingthe court'sjudgement.6l The penal laws were dormant, unlessprivate citizens would come forward to prosecuteoffenders.No doubt it was on this account that sumptuary laws were inoperative. Rome itself was unpoliced before the Principate. But the administrative feeblenessof the state persistedeven then. For instance Domitian could not carry out his restrictionson viticulture (Suet. Dom.7. z). With a larger bureaucracy fiourth-century emperors did seek to regiment economic life. Diocletian set maximum pricesfor virtually all goods and services;infraction was to be visited with death; the empire (it is said) was deluged with blood; but in the end his edict had to be withdrawn. Many sorts of men were to be bound to their hereditary vocations,but the laws were often evaded, and we cannot be sure how effective they were.62 The autocrats of this time had an army of officialsto do their will, which the Republican government had lacked, but they could not keep these very officials under control.63 As for Republican times, there was no need at Rome for any agitation to sweep away in the name of freedom the innumerable regulations of economic activity which characterizedthe medieval and early modern periods:they did not exist. No doubt social pressuresrestricted the individual far more than the statedid. To J. S. Mill they representedthe most insidiousdanger to liberty. Of this most Romans in all probability would hardly have been conscious.Following Panaetius,but as always exercisinghis own judgement, Cicero actually laid down that the 'decorum' requiredof a good man was to be found in conduct that met with the approbation of his fellows(deofic.i.gg); in illustrating this doctrine,he takesexamples from Roman proprieties, which could differ from the Greek examples Panaetiuswould have given,for instancethe ban on nudity (ibid. rz7, r zg); and it is he, no lessthan Panaetius,who holds that the established customsand conventionsof a societyare binding rules, and that we may not treat as exemplary the deviations of a Socrates or an

artisans (Plut. Numa t7; Pliny, "VIlxxliv. r, xxxv. r59), and the tyrant Tarquinius Superbus to have dissolvednumerousassociationsas seditious(Dionys. iv. 43). SCo164 and Clodius'law: Cic. Prr. g; Ascon. 7 f. C.; Dio xxxviii. r3; lor Clodius and libertassee nn. r42, r58; Caesar and Augustus: Suet. Caes.42, Aug. 32. For exhaustive treatment see F. M. de Robertis, Il diritto associatiaorom., r gg8. 58 See also ch. pp. r se Finley, rg85, ch. r 3 76 ff 60 Cato, de agit- pr.:,'maiores nostri sic habuerunt et ita in legibus posiverunt, furem dupli condemnari, feneratoremquadrupli.' Allegedly interest rates were limited and finally prohibited b y t h e X I I T a b l e s ( T a c . A n n . v i . 1 6 )a n d p l e b i s c i t eos t g S 7 , 3 4 7 , 3 4 2( L i v y v i i . r 6 , 2 7 . 3 , 4 2 . r ) ; a lex Marcia of unknown date was passed 'adversus faeneratores,ut si usuras [perhaps at an excessiverate] exegissent,de his reddendis per manus inicctionem cum eis ageretur' (Gaius iv. z 3 ) . F o r c o n t e n t i o n so n t h e q u e s t i o ni n t h e s c c o n dc c n t u r y A s t i n ( n . + i ) , p p . 3 r q - r 3 A p p . i . 5 4 .

232 says that a ban on usury stood in the statutes in 89; it had clearly become obsoleteon the principle that laws could be repealed'tacito consensuomnium per desuetudinem' (Julian, Dig. i. 'de modo credendi possidendiqueintra Italiam' similarly fell into abeyance 4. 32. r); Caesar'slaw (Tac. l.c.), as had the law de modoagrorumpartially revived by Tiberius Gracchus. Cf. ch.3 nn. ro6-r r with text. 6 r K e l l y , 1 9 6 6 ,c h . r . 62 Lact. de mort.perser.vii. 6. 7; A. H. M. Jones,Later RomanEmpire, rg74, ch. xxI. 63 See e.g. Cod. Theod. vüi. passim;the more scattered evidence from the Principate (S. 5 Mitchell, JRS r976, ro6ff.) indicates the earlier prevalence of similar abuses.Nero and later emperorscould also not make effectiverules to prevent extortions by publicans (Tac. lnn. xiii. 5 t : Ulpian, Drg. xxxix. 4. tz p.).

deplored some measuresof land distribution or relief of debtors as assaultson property (though their advocatescertainly never attacked it in principle), only hints at a connection between property and argued that the poor were not truly freedom; it may be that populares independentif they owned nothing.'o The Twelve Tables allowed citizens to form associations(collegia) with what rules they pleased,provided tha.t they did nothing deleterious under public law. In the late Republic they were active at riots in Rome, and the senatedissolvedthem in 64. This was an usurpation of legislative authority. Clodius' law of 58 reassertedand perhaps extended the right of association.He could have appealed, as Cicero so often did, to ancestral custom, but also, as for his other measures,to like himself. Men could have liberty, a word ever on the lips of populares becomeaware that the right was part of their freedom, once they had been deprived of it. Caesar and the emperors were to impose new restrictions.Collegianow required a governmental licencegranted only on certain conditions.It may be doubted if the rules were invariably operative,but the changeillustratesthe abridgementof freedomunder the Principate.'' The collegia,though someconsistedof men following the sametrade, seem to have served primarily social and religious purposes;unlike medieval guilds they had no legal power to monopolize production, determinestandards,or fix wagesand prices.In generalthe state too made no attempt to regulate economic activity.s8 LaisseTfaireprevailed, though it was not an axiom of economictheory, of which there was virtually none,5enor groundedon doctrinesof personalfreedom. For example,though the stateimposedport duesand taxeson sales, it was only to raise revenue. Protection of trade and industry was almost unknown. When the state did intervene, it was with little success. Prohibitions or limitations of lending money at interest were of small or transient effect.6oThe apparatus for economic controls did

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Aristippus (ibid. r48). His tone is not polemical, and he doubtless counted on general assent. Of course eccentricity was far from uncommon among the high aristocracy,of whom we happen to know more than of the rural and municipal gentry, to say nothing of the massof the population, and the most open contravention of traditional rules of behaviour does not seem to have injured nobles in their political careers.How often, if at all, they assertedtheir right as free men to set theserules aside we cannot tell. VI

I now turn to modern claims that the Romans had their own distinctive conception of freedom, as not merely subject to necessary restraint but comprising restraint as an element inherent in its very nature, and far different from the Greek conception of eleutheria. Wirszubski remarks that 'freedom, comprising as it does two different concepts,namely "freedom from" and "freedom to", neither of which admits of any but general definitions,is a somewhat vague term'.64 A man would be äbsolutely free if tre were (a) freeJroiall human restraints and (ä) free to realize all his desires,subject only to physicallimitations. Sincesuch absolutefreedomis obviously unattainable, he will think it enough if he is (a) freefrom all human restraints except those which he consciouslyor unconsciouslyaccepts,and (ä) free to realize his desires so far as they are compatible with those restraints.It is clear that these'negative'and 'positive'conceptionsof freedom to a great extent overlap. The slave owner is free lo make his slave work for him as he pleasesin proportion as he is freefrom any constraintsof law or public opinion. But the'positive' conceptionmay go further. Ancient thinkers, however far they exalted the authority of the state, had not indeed evolved the notion of somemoderns that the liberty of the real self can be promoted when the state compels the individual to do for his own true good what he does not consciously wish to do. But it is also a positive conception of freedom which identifies it with a share in political power. Both Greeks and Romans held that in one senseit did cbnsistin the exerciseof political rights; of course this sort of liberty might also be the guarantee of negative liberty, e.g.freedomfrom arbitrary punishment.It is no lessclear that the freedcm, negativeor positive,of one man or set of men may be the slaveryof another man or set of men. The freedom of the master is correlativewith the servitudeof his chattel.Political rights may signify power for some, subjection for others. The underprivileged may 6 a W i r s z u b s k ir ; c [ B e r l i n ( n . 4 ' r 1 ,c n . r r r

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complain in the name of liberty if they suffer restraintslrom which others are exempt or if they lack power which others enjoy. Thus a connection arises between freedom and equality. Romans spoke of aequalibertas.Equally the privileged may claim that their own liberty is abridged by new restrictions,which may actually enlarge the liberty of the rest. In practice liberty meansdifferent things to different people, and becomesthe battle-cry of opposed sectionsof the community. It would be extremely surprising if all Greeksor all Romans had agreed even among themselveson the specific rights through which freedom negative or positive was to be realized. Living in a multitude of cities with varying social structuresand political systems,each of which was liable to bitter civil conflicts, the Greeks could hardly be expected to have any single and concordant view. But Romans too, who lived through the strugglesof the early and late Republic, are no more likely to have been in agreement. Those who contrast Greek and Roman ideas seemto be really contrasting Athenian democratic ideas, which they sometimesmisunderstand, with those held, not by all Romans, but by Roman aristocrats.Of course,sincethe Roman political system was very different from Athenian democracy,it is easyenough to show that there were differencesin the rights that Romans and Athenians saw as constituentsof freedom. I may give one paradoxical instance.It was Romans, not Athenians, who treated personal protection against magisterial power as an important element of freedom. This was because the imperiumof Roman magistrates made them potentially oppressive,as magistratescould not be in the Athenian democracy. or the tribunician auxilium. Athenians did not need the iusprouocationis Particular forms of liberty are valued most when they become necessaryin practice to protect men from some kind of coercion inimical to their desiresand interests. As we have seen,Schulz denied that libertasever meant doing as you please.He held that limitations were inherent in the Roman conception; this is a very different matter from acknowledging that different Romans saw the necessityof limiting their own freedom in different ways,and still more that of others.He alsoclaimsthat'libertasis a truly Roman conception,clear,limited, practical,somewhatmatter-of-fact' (". S+).Yet neither he nor anyonehas beenable to delineatethis clear, unitary conception with any precision. He and others delight in contrasting it with the licencesupposedto characterizeGreek eleutheria. For instance, Hellegouarc'hsetoffthe egalitarianand democraticview of freedom supposedly prevalent in Greece, which he took to be essentiallynegative (as if belief in the sovereignpower of the people could be so construed), against the positive view of the Romans, positiveapparently becauseit included the notion that free men owe

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deferenceto their superiors!It will be seenlater that Romans of all ranks could treat deferenceto the authority of others as antithetic to their own libertas,and it may be suspectedthat scholarswho cannot discern this are foisting on the admired Romans their own ideal. Schulz specifiedone particular limitation inherent in libertas,which would illustrate how Romans moralized the concept: they recognized that 'one symptom of the liberty of a human being is that he grants liberty to others'. Kloesel (pp.rg+f.) and Wirszubski (p. B) more or less agreed. Of course such recognition of human rights by slaveownersis quite unthinkable. Schulz adducedonly one text in support of this absurdity,and he misunderstoodit.6s Certainly the conceptionthat in Hobbes' words 'a free man is he that . . . is not hindered to do what he hath the will to do' was current in Greece.Thus at Delphi manumitted slaveswere entitled 'to do what theywish and run offwhereverthey want' (e.g.Collitz, GDI 1685 7).In his RepublicPlato portrayed a democratic city full of liberty and of freedom of speech,in which everyonewas allowed to do whatever he wished; he would then satisfy every desire without regard to law and moralsin a societyunrestrainedby any authority (SS7f., S6z-+).In the Laws again he censuredthe 'total'freedom at Athens in much the same way (698-7or), while concedingthat somedegreeof freedom,or some compromise between freedom and complete subjection, is beneficial (7ore; cf.6g4a,6gZ.).On the samefootingAristotleoncesuggested that Sparta alone had graspedthe necessityof forming the character of her citizens;elsewheremen lived as they pleased(EN rr$o"z4 ff.). He says that thiswasone, (not the only), democraticconceptionoffreedom (Pol. r gro^z7 ff., t 3 r 7ot t ). It is obviousthat Plato disapprovedof freedomas he describesit, while Aristotle indicates that true freedom is not to be found in mere absenceof restriction; there are hints that he regards the freeman asone obedient to the law or reasonin his breast (EN r rz9"gz, Met. to75"rg).But we neednot doubt that'doing as you like'was one conceptionoffreedom common among the Greeks.We shall seethat this wasjust as true of the Romans. 65 Schulz, r936, ch. vrn. Livy xxxvii.'54. 6, from a Rhodianspeech to the senare:'rerum natura disiungit [the Rhodians from king Eumenes], ut nos liberi etiam aliorum libertatis causam agamus, regesserva omnia et subiecta imperio suo essevelint'; Schulz says that only the second halfofthe sentencecomesfrom Polyb. xxi. zz, but the first halfis simply a rhetorical antithesisto the second, and the ideas are Greek. The Rhodians are not granting freedom to others, but arguing that the Romans in conlormity with their general policy olliberating Greeksshould not subject any Greek cities to Eumenes;they are pleading the causeofother Greeks,as distinct from barbarians (ch.54. rr), who can properly be handed over to a king. The argument is also reminiscentof the t0p0son the common interest of democratic and thereforefree cities in Dem. xv. I8-z I . Respectfor others' freedom is approved in Livy vii. 33. 3, xxiii. r z. g, but theseand other texts cited by Wirszubski 8 n.5 do not show that it was conceivedas part of one's own. Cf. also Kloesel Iz8 ff.; Wirszubski 35, r r2; Hellegouarc'h 542 fl,

3II

'I'he

Stoics took the negative senseof freedom and gave it a different 'What is freedom but twist. Cicero writes, in formulating their views: the power to live as you wish? Who then lives as he wishes, except the man who lives aright?' He whose life is not directed by moral principles is a slave to material things outside his own control and to his own passions. Only the wise man is free, because in accordance with the divine reason within him he conforms himself to the dispensations of a beneficent providence and does not see them as constraints, like 'in whose service is perfect freedom'66 the Christian suLmitting to God, The Cynics inculcated the doctrine that in order to be free a man must rid himself of all desire for material goods or anything that fortune could deny. Throughout lands of Greek culture,_perhaps including Italy, popular preachers disseminated such ideas.o' Now Ennius wrote (fr. 3oo-3

V.): sed virum virtute vera animatum addecet fortiterque innoxium stare adversusadversarios; ea libertas est,qui pectuspurum et firmum gestitat; aliae res obnoxiosaenocte in obscura latent. It is proper for a man to live inspired by true manlinessand to stand against his adversariesstrong and blameless;it is freedom when he bears a pure and steadfastheart; all else is servile, hidden in the darknessof night. Kloesel held that this cannot be a mere translation from Ennius' Greek model, Euripides' Phoenix, for then the Greek lines would have been preserved by an excerptor, like so many other Greek aphorisms on freedom! Kloesel inferred that Ennius was setting out a truly Roman conception of freedom in which the limits imposed by moral rectitude are inherent. But there is no other clear instance of this loaded senseof libertas in Latin, except in writers who were subject to Stoic or Christian influence;68 it is in fact a more natural usage for Greek eleutheria.There is not the slightest objection to supposing that Ennius reflects the moralizing of Greek teachers of his day. Similarly the apophthegm recommended to orators that he must be deemed free who is no slave to vice (ad Her. iv. z3), is clearly one of several borrowed from the Greek schools. 6 6 P a r a d . . S t . 3 4 ; d e o f i c . i . T o . F r e e d o m o f t e n h a s t h i s s e n s e i n S e n e c a a n d M a r c u s A usreeel i u s ; e s p .E p i c t . i v . t . 6 ? S e ee . g . D i o g . L a e r t . v i . 7 r ; D i o C h r y s . x i v , l x x x . H o w e v e r , C y n i c i s mh a r d l y p e n e t r a t e d Rome in the Republic (D. R. Dudley, Histor2o-fClnicism,1937,ch. vI). Epicurus too said that'the greatestfruit of self-sufficiencywas freedom' (Bailey, fr. 77), and Epicureansclaimed to lree men from (superstitious)fear (Cic. de nal. deor.i. 561, but freedom is not prominent in Epicurean tcaching. 6 E K l r r c s c lr , , t (fi l l B u t s t c T l , l , s . v . l i b e r t a rs3 r 5 . 7o-I316. 43.

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Greeksalso took a positiveview of freedom.Admitting that it was fundamental to democracy, Aristotle identified it in effect with the sovereigntyof the majority.6eJacqueline de Romilly observedthat Greeks could resard dominion over others as an extension of freedom.70Romansäould sharethis way of thinking. As we have seen,the unqualified freedom that Rome possessed as a state derived from her imperial strength. Within the state too power and liberty are assimilated. Scipio Aemilianus could say that dignitas (worth and rank) sprang from integrity, honor (office and distinction) from dignitas, imperiumfrom honor,and libertasfrom imperiutn.In other words a man was most free when he had the fullest right to enforce his own will. Similarly the emperor Tiberius spoke in the senate of the great and unrestricted('tam libera') power with which he had been vested.He could be charged with destroying the liberty of the magnates,when he curtailed their influencein the courts.7l Cicero refersto the people,s 'ius potestas libertasque'inone breath. You will not satisfythe people's desireforfreedom,he argues,by giving them only alittle power.Catiline is made by sallust to adjure his associatesto reclaim their freedom: he meansa sharein the influence, power, offices,and richesof which they had been deprived.T2Livy represenrsthe favourites of Tarquin as complaining that their lossof power amounts to servitude (ii. S. g). The 'excessiveliberty' of the people, of which aristocratscomplain-in his story,is identicalwith their'excessivepower' (iii. 57. G,Sg. t f.). So too in private life the 'freedom' of the husband consistsin his control over his wife (xxxiv. 2. 2). It is indeed power that enablesmen, within the bounds that they possess it, to do as they like. But this anarchic conception of freedom cannot be seenas typical of Greek democraticthinking. Plato merely produceda model of the conditionsthat would result if men acted on this principle, and in sheerprejudicemade it the principle of democracy. His 'never-never'world is not even a caricature of the Athenian system, which imposed heavy and unchallenged obligations on the citizensto servethe city with their personsand property. It is ludicrous to find 'the Greek conception'of freedom,as if there were any unitary Greek conceptionof it, in his'account,and then to contrastirwith thä 6e Pol. r3t7^ 4 o f f . H e r e a n d e l s e w h e r e( e . g . r z 6 r " 3 z , t z 7 5 " z z , t z 7 5 b z , r g , r z 7 9 " g ) A r i s t o t l e stressesthat lree citizens take turns in ruling and being ruled; in fact at Atheni neither this principle nor the concomitant use of sortition and payment of officials applied to those with the highest responsibilities,which they might exercise for years on end, while real power often belonged rather to 'orators', who also might guide the assemblyfor long periods; all wcre men of property. 1_o,Thucltdides and AthenianImperialism, 1963, Br. 1 1 O R F 2 ,f r . 3 z ( p . r 3 z ) ; S u e t . T i b . z g ; : I ' i c . A n n . i . 7 5 ( o n w h i c h s e cK e l l y , r q f i 6 ,c h . r ; c l eS t e Crcix, rg8e, 366f.). '' Cic. de leg. agr. ü. zg, de rcp. ii. so; Sall. ,,ot. ,u. ,rfi'.

I . t B L : R I . t . \t N

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ordered liberty approved at Rome. It was a share for all citizensin political rights that Greek democratsprized above all as constituting their freedom, and Romans too subsumedsuch rights, naturally not the sameas in Athens, under liberty. In fact, however,to judge from linguisticusage,the purely negative senseof freedom was more congenial to the Roman mind than to the Greek. Unlike their Greek equivalents,liber and its derivativesdenote mere absence of restraint in a great variety of contexts. A few illustrationswill suffice.In Republican Latin arms and shouldersmay be free to carry weapons (Caes. BG vä. S6.+), housesare free of occupiers(Plaut. Cas.533),and a bed free of a wife (Cic. Att. xiv. r3. is free,if unimpeded(Bell.Alex.3o.5); a man is free,when 5); access unoccupied(Cic. Fam.vii. I. 4), and then his time too is free (deorat.äi. 57); Senecacomplains that a throng of clients leavesthe patron no freedom (Breu. Vitae z). Men can be liberated from hope, fear, and bias.73 On some philosophical views death frees the mind from the body, and the mind then comes'in liberum caelum';for then its vision is unclouded. Or again, the philosophical scepticis free from the larvs of dogmatic systems.Similarly the writer or orator can be free from rules of diction or rhythm.Ta In la* land can be free of servitudesor easements(and other obligations); libertasis a technical term in this 'liberum mortis sense.If condemned to death, a man may receive arbitrium', the right to choosehow he will die (Suet.Dom.8.4). For a lawyer a man's arbitriumor uoluntasis free when he may act without instiuctions from anoth er.75Thepiusfamilias or slave may receivefree, According to Severus i.e. unrestricted, power to manage hispeculium.T6 Alexander'libera matrimonia esseantiquitus placuit': that meant that no limitations could be placedon the right of the spousesto divorce.TT There were precise rules for the making of a valid will, but Trajan 'in any manner they confirmed the privilege of soldiersto make wills 'libera testamenti factio', a term also used when wish'; this was called freedmen were exempted from their normal testamentaryobligations 'freedom in life: from to their patrons.TsFor Caesarthe Suebi enjoyed boyhood they are altogether unaccustomedto duty and discipline and act entirely as they please'(AG iv. r. 9). This negative senseof freedom is perfectly apparent in Roman political usage.The protection for the personwhich the laws securedto Roman citizens was regarded as liberty, becauseit freed them from 'that certain forms of coercion. The ballot enabled voters to exercise ?3 Sall. Cot. z: 'mihi a spe, metu, partibus rei publicae animus liber erat'. 4. 'a Cic. de sencet. So, Tuv. Dßp. i. 5I, v. 33; cf. TLL. s.v. Iiber, 1284. zoff. 1 6 e . g .D i g . v i . I . 1 5 e . g .D i g . i . 4I. I. 7.28, iii. 5. 18 (r9). z. ? 8 1 ) { g .x x i x . r . r , x x x v i i i .2 . + 7 . 2 . ' 1 { ) . 7v ü i . g B .z .

314

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'rhese

freedom which consisrsin doing whatever they wish'. words of c i c e r o ( P l a n c .r 6 ) s h o w t h a t ' d o i n g a s y o u l i k e ' w a s a t l e a s to n e s e n s eo f libertasperfectly acceptable to Romans in a political context. A libera legatioentitled a senator to travel abroad on his private business ,sine procuratione . . . sine mandatis, sine ullo rei publicae munere' (without charge, restrictions, or public duty): i.e. he could do as he pläased.7e Freedom of speechfor a senator meant that he could speak w-hat he felt without bring subject to fear or pressure; cicero *orid certainly have concurred with Tacitus that it existed 'when you are allowed to think what you please and to say what you think,.8o Liberty of speech merges into a more general independence, proper to senators a.t least, which means that a man must be free to chöose his own course of action. Valerius Maximus groups 'libere dicta aut facta' in a sinele chapter (vi. z). A ' f r e e t o n g u e ' i s a n e x p r e s s i o nu s e d b y N a e v i u s ( c o m .r r z R 2 ) a n d by others after him. Plautus writes of 'libertas orationis' (Bacch. ßB). There is no necessity to multiply testimonies to this kind of usage in Latin; they are extremely com',non.8l some have thought that as the Romans did not feel the need of a single word, like the Gieek 'parrhesia', to denote freedom of speech,they valued it little.82 It seemstome more striking evidence of the importance they attached to it that the word liber can be used toul courl to mean 'speaking one's mind,, unlike equivalent words in Greek, English and other languages; thus Horace has 'liber amicus' for'candid friend',83 and Quintilian can refer to the Athenian comic poets as 'liberrimum genus hominum'.84 Such freedom of speechcan go too far, and may then be stigmatized as licence; it is, however, significant that even in excessit can still be described as fiberty.o' Admittedly in mosr cases where libertas corresponds to 'parrhesia', the specific reference is made clear in the context.s6 Freedom of speech is most often claimed as a due to senators, and vital to them, but that is perhaps an accident of our evidence: cicero and other upper-class authors were most concerned with senatorial rights. However, in his defence of Plancius, cicero answers the prosecutor's complaint that Plancius' father had made too ,rough, a l l a t k g . i i i . r 8 , d i s a p p r o v i n go f t h e p r i v i l e g e . "" Tac. Hist. i. t: c[. Agr. z f.; cf. Cic. Phil. i. 27,iii. 5, xi. etc. 3, : t ^ f L L , s . v . l i b e r t a rs3 14 . 7 o f f . o' Nepos' Timoleon5' 3 rendersparrhesiaas'talem libertatem . . . in qua cuivis liceret de ouo v e l l e ti m p u n e d i c e r e ' .o n t h e G r e e k i d e a l s e eA . M o m i g l i a n o .D i c t . 0 f H i s l . o Jl d c a sä . , g 7 3 , " 5 0 n 83 sal. i. 'at est rruculentior et pluJaeqro liberisimple"x fortisque habeatur,; 4. rgz; cf.3. 5r: 4. 90. 8a Inst. xü. z. zz; cf. x. r. 65; Hor. Sat. i. 4. r-5. r45ff.,onFescenninefaries;irspoet.cgrflonoldcomedy.cf.euint.lzrr. .tt Yo..Ep.ü.r. xi. r. 67, xii. 9. r I ff., on forensic abuse. 86 e.g. Cic. Rosc. Amer.9, Ser/. rz3, Planc. 3g, de oral. üi. 4.

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remark by sayine that though he had perhaps spoken with too much lieedom, il- the prosecutor, Juventius, were to contend that that was intolerable, he would rejoin that it was intolerable for men not to 'Where respect the freedom of a Roman Eques. is our famous tradition, where that equity in rights, where the ancient freedom which, though oppressed by the evils of civil strife, ought by now to have raised its head and to have at last revived and set itselferect?' Freedom ofspeech is an ancient right, which he can illustrate by the gibes made by the auctioneer Granius (whose occupation was not very respectable) against men of the highest eminence in the generation before the Social war; the elder Plancius was at most too keen on sticking to equestrian rights and freedom.sT Cicero does not indeed assert that the humblest plebeian properly had the same liberty as a Plancius or even a Granius: that was not necessaryto his argument (and would not have accorded with his own prejudices). But in law the Eques can have had no peculiar title to say what he thought, which the poorer citizen lacked, and we simply do not know that humble people would themselves never have claimed the right. Of course persons of higher rank would have objected, just as Juventius objected to Plancius' behaviour. Valerius Maximus thought it improper that the son of a freedman 'carnifex should have freely inveighed against Pompey as adulescentulus' (a teenage hangman). Pompey had indeed to endure insults ('licentia') from all sorts of people; Valerius views this as a conflict 'auctoritas' 'libertas'. between his massive and their Quintilian held that what would be freedom of speech in persons of high degree would be licence in others. The remark is evidence only of upper-class prejudice.ss Moreover, Valerius and Quintilian both wrote under the Principate, when popular rights had vanished. Admittedly the citizen had no right to address the people on public affairs. Meetings (conliones)at which they were debated could be summoned only by a magistrate, and no private person could speak at them except on his invitation. This did not mean that all sorts of views on controversial issues were not freely ventilated, even though it is likely that magistrates seldom chose to call on humble citizens to give their opinions, which most of them would doubtless have been unable to do. However, the people at large could declare their sentiments in collective acclamations, and Cicero lamented that they, as well as the 8 7 P l a n c . 3 3 , 5 5 .F o r ' t o o f r e e l y ' H o r . S a t .i . 4 . r o 3 , i i . 8 . 3 7 ( c f . n . 8 3 ) . C a t o ' s ' l i n g u a a c e r b ae t i m m o d i c el i b e r a ' ( L i v y x x x i x . 4 o . r o ) d i d n o t i n j u r e h i s c a r e e r . 'ad male 88 Val. Max. ix. 6. 8, vi. z. 4; Quint. 1zst. iii. e. 44. Cf. Cic. Font. 4o on Gallic d i c e n d u ml i c e n t i a m ' .T h e ' m a l e d i c u s ' w a st o o r e a d i l y t a k e n t o b e ' l i b e r ' , Q u i n t . i i . r z . 4 f . L i c e n t i a is also a technical term of rhetoric for reproaches 'cum apud eos quos aut vereri aut metuere drbemus, tamen aliquid pro iurenoslrodicimus' (ad Her. iv. 48 f.; cf. Quint. ix. z. z7); cf. Thuc. iii. 38; Dem. ix. 3 [

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leading men, had lost their freedom,whcn it had allegedlvbecome unsafefor them to expressthemselvesin this way.8e Thus it is untrue that in the Republic lreedom of speechwas not associatedwith the Roman conception,or rather wittr,some Roman conceptions,of libertas,nor is it leg-itimateto argue e silentiothat it was properly confinedto men of rank.eowe simply cannot tell that it was not valued by ordinary commoners.of courseit would often have been imprudent for them to exerciseit in a manner adverseto those with the power to hurt or help them. But that is no lesstrue in every society, including those which in principle prize freedom of speecÄ most highly. Nor is it significant that freedom of speechwas subject to certain legal limitations,as it usually is. In our own country, foi instance,it is limited in variousways, notably by the law on defamation,but we do not concludethat the right doesnot existat all. A clausein the Twelve Tables was understoodin antiquity to have made it a capital offence to defamea man with opprobrious songs(carmina);it woulä be characteristic of early Roman law if this was interpreted in a literal and restrictive sense,and therefore did not cover defamation of any other kind.el But the capital penalty must have fallen into desuetude,when the poet Naevius (c.zoo) was merely imprisoned for his abusive lampoons on leading men, and only releasedby the tribunes after he had apoiogized(Gell. iii. 3. r5). Horace supposedthat the ribaldry of Fescennineversesattracted a flogging (".8s) .No casesare recorded. Personsdefamed from the stage could sue for damages.Lucilius was notorious for the bitternesswith which in his satirical verseshe assailed men of note: Horace thought that he escapedwith impunity because he was a man of substancehimselfand protectedby scipio Aemilianus and his friends.e2There is no proof ihat the sullan^ raw de iniuriis coveredlibel or slander beforeimperial times. The praetor gave a civil action against anyone who uttered or instigated conaicium,butconuicium was not any kind of abuse: it seems to have meant originally the concertedshoutingof insults,and alwaysdenotedchantingbr bawling in public." One may doubt if such suits were ever at äll co--orr;

tlrcrc would llt'sali'ty in nurnbcrswhcrr a cnrwcishoutcd maledictions, and thc rcsponsibility ol' the organizer rnight be hard to prove. Moreove r, the praetor could refuse a suit unlesshe judged the insults to 'adversus be bonos mores', against accepted standards. The procedure gave no remedy for written libels, nor probably for the mellifluous slanders of orators like Cicero. The praetor's general edict allowing suits for injury to a man's personality did no doubt cover defamation,e4 yet Cicero's invectives, and some of Catullus' poems, suggest that there was virtually no fear among men of standing in the Republic that they might have to compensate the victims of their most mendacious abuse; at worst their language might be censured as 'too free' ( " . 8 2 ) . I t w o u l d b e s e r v i t u d e ,s a i d C i c e r o ( S u l l a , 4 8 ) , i f y o u c o u l d n o t speak against anyone you wished. As for the poor, to sue them would have been futile: they had no means of paying damages. Under the Principate indeed things changed; defamation was more strictly repressed, and if directed against the emperor or leading men) assimilated to treason.

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8e cont_iones:_stR i3. rg7ff. Acclamatlons: cic. sesr. 14, phil. ii. 64 (the people only liee to groan); Val. Max. vi. z. 6; A. cameron,circus Factions,r976, r57 ff., for popular'demonsrrations a t - t h eG a m e s .e v e n i n t h e E m p i r e . eo Cic. Fam. ix. 16. 3 treats it as integral ro libertas, and we cannot be sure that manv oflow rank would not have thought the same. er FIRA i'. p. 5r..rp, öi.. de tcp. iv. rz, Tusc.Disp. iv. 4. "l sat.ii. r. 65 f. (note 79 ff. for libel actionsof his own time;;Trebonius ap. cic. Fam.xii. r6. . 3; A.lVatson, Law oJ Obligationsin the Later RomanRepuhlic,1965, ch. 16. C m a i c i u mD:i g . x l v i i . r o . t 5 . 2 - 1 2 . C f . H . U s e n e r , n . S i n r . i v . 3 5 6 f f . ; L i n t o t t , r 9 6 8 , g - r o ; _-e3 Kelly, r966, zr-3' E. weber, Peasantsinto Frenchmen, ry77, ch. rr, äir",rr.., similai practices surviving in rgth cent. France, which served to enforce obedience to traditional mores-General

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VII

It is often held that for the Romans, unlike the Greeks,the limits imposedby law were of the essence of freedom.This is yet anotherfalse contrast between Roman and Greek ideas. Certainly Greeks could write as if there was an antithesis between freedom and law; thus Herodotussaid of the Spartansthat 'though free, they are not free in all respects:above them is set a master in the law'.es If the jurist Florentinusalsoopposeslaw to freedom (n. z r ), that is written off as a borrowing from Greek theory. But other Romans expressedthemselves in similar fashion.Sallustdescribesa primitive peopleas 'without laws or government, free and unconfined' (Cat. 6. r). A character in Plautus' Trinummus(ro3z f.) complains that nowadays no one cares what the laws sanction: corruption is approved by custom and 'free from the laws'. A dictator is 'free and releasedfrom the bonds of the law' (Livy iv. r r. 3). For Cicero the peopleat large or the Equitesare 'freefrom'a law, when it is binding on senatorsalone(Cluent.t5t, Rab. Post. rz). To be sure the Romans did not seelaws as necessarilyconstricting freedom. On the contrary the liberties they prized were themselves cdict /s iniuriis: caius iii. zzo; Dag. xlvii. ro. z5 ff, which also concerns the special edict ( A u g u s t a n ? )' n e q u i d i n f a m a n d i c a u s af i a r ' . ea'I'ar:.Ann.i.7z.CI'. t h e A u g u s t a n e x t e n s i o n o f t h e S u l l al n exdeiniurüstocoverlibelsagainst i r n y o n c ,. D i g .x l v i i . r o . 5 . g r r , 6 ; S u c t . A r g . 5 5 . e5 Hdt. vii. ro4; cf. llur. Hec.864ff.; Plato, Laws 6g8b,699b. Berlin (n.45) r48 quotes l l o r t h ; r n t ' sl i c w t h a l c v c r y l a w i s a n i n f i a c t i o n o f ' l i b e r t y

3r8

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basedon the laws.They could therelorespeakof liberty and laws in the samebreath (".g6). It was obviousenoughthat the alternativeto the rule of law was that of sheerforce.For Cicero the violenceof Clodius' So did the tyrannic gangssubvertedboth freedomand laws (.Mil. 7771t. power (regnum) that Caesarusurped.But laws might either guarantee or deny men the right to act as they wished, and it cannot be concludedthat all Romans acceptedthat legal restraint was inherent in the very idea of freedom. Scholarswho believethis lay too much 'in a state held together by laws' it is weight on Cicero'sargument: essentialthat the laws be scrupulouslyobservedby the courts; that is of senatorsand Equites(whom he was the bond that securesthe dignitas 'we are all and the basisof liberty and the sourceofjustice: addressing), slavesof the lawsin order that we may be free'.It is in the laws that the privilegesof the orders and the competenceof the courts have their rights, liberty, origin; 'it is by the laws that we obtain all our blessings, and our very survival'.His aim was to persuadethejury that the terms of the statute under which his client was accusedmust be strictly respected,howeverinequitable this might seem,and for this purpose he introduced the generalitiesin which he no doubt expectedtheir ready concurrence and from which he drew his more controversial conclusion.But it cannot be inferred that his audienceregarded true liberty as in its very nature limited by law. The point was that the positive laws provided the guarantee of the specific rights in which Romansdiscernedtheir liberty, and he particularly emphasizednot so much liberty toutcourtas the privilegesof the higher orders.'o In this there was, moreover,nothing peculiarlyRoman. Cicero was embroidering the same theme as a Greek orator, who, after proclaiming the necessityof law for human societyin terms to be quoted with approval by a Roman jurist (Dig. i.3. z), illustratesthis by showing how various Athenian institutions rest on the laws ([Dem.] xxv. rS-27). Though that orator doesnot indeed explicitly make freedom dependon the laws,he remarksthat if everyonewere permitted to do as he liked, Athenian life would resemblethat of wild beasts (zo; cf. z5). And Aeschinesdid remind a court of what they had oftenheard, that it is the laws that preservedthe personsand polity of citizensin a democracy, as distinct from a tyranny or oligarchy (i. +f.), while Demosthenesopined that no one would gainsaythe propositionthat her democraticsystem,and Athens owed to the laws all her blessings, her freedom (xxiv.5). One may also recall the claim that Thucydides imputesto Pericles,that in the Athenian democracyprivate differences e 6 C l u e n tr.4 6 - 5 5 . F o r a s s o c i a t i o n o f l a w (as n) d l i b e r t y s e ea l s o n . 3 7 a n d e . g .M i l . 7 7 , P h i l . x i . g 6 , d e f f i c . i i . z 4 , i i i . 8 3 ; S a lO l . r . L e p i d i 4 , O r . P h i l i prpoi ; L i v y i i . r , i v . I 5 . l , x x x i v . z 6 . 7 , x x x i x . z 7 . 9 , x l v . 3 r . + , 3 2 . 5 . S e en . r 5 r ( C a t o ) .

I . I R E R ' I. ' 1 .I\ N ' I ' H } : R I : P I : B t , I( I

3r9

a r e s e t t l e d i n a c c o r d a n c ew i t h t h e l a w s u n d e r w h i c h a l l a r e e q u a l ( t h i s is the aequumius of the Romans), and that for all their lreedom the citizens are law-abiding in public affairs, obedient to magistrates and 'not least to the laws prescribed for the laws, principally lrom fear and assistanceof victims of wrong-doing, and to those which are unwritten, whose violation brings social disapproval'.e7 The innumerable indictments for illegal proposals (graphai paranomon) at Athens confirm the importance of respect for the laws in Athenian democracy. Cicero was echoing a commonplace of the Athenian courts' a commonplace because it was manifestly true at Athens and Rome alike, as in every civilized state which possessesany measure of freedom. We must also bear in mind that to a Roman lawyer a lex (or ptebiscitum)is 'what the people [or plebs] commands and establishes' 'the laws are binding on (Gaiusi. 3); according toJulian (Dig.i.3.32), us only because they have been accepted by the judgement of the people'. These dicta come from the second century eo, when much of the substantive law in force had actually been made by emperor or senate, without formal concurrence by the people: they preserve Republican theory, when it had ceased to have practical significance' Indeed imperial jurists grounded the legislative competence of the empe ror himself on the basis that he had received his imperiumfrom the people.e8 In the same way the decemvirs, according to tradition, had power to legislate delegated to them by the people; likewise Sulla, though he preferred to obtain comitial ratification for his enactments. For the most part the powers of the magistrates and some other institutions of public law had never been established by statute; they rested on immemorial convention; but in this case,asJulian held; their validity could be supposed to depend on tacit and universal consent (loc. cit.). As for the important modifications in statute law due to Republican praetors, had they not corresponded to the general will, they would hardly have outlasted the innovator's own year of office, if they had escaped a veto when made. No Roman actually said, as Swift 'freedom consists in a people's being governed by laws made did, that with their own consent', but this principle is implicit in the Roman system, under which the people could not in perpetuity be bound by the laws that it had enacted or the conventions it had accepted, but had in general the power to set them aside by new legislation (n. 39); the conception that law is a divine ordinance, which men may not e7 Thu.. ii. 37, iii. 37. 3 with Gomme's notes.The sentimentsexpressedby orators in court are more probative of what ordinary Athenians actually thought; cf. K. J. Dover, CreekPopular Morality, rg74,8-ro; on their attitude to law seefurther r84-7, 3o6-9. Similarly what Cicero says in speechesreflects the views ofhis audience (or reading public). eo Brunt, JRS rg77, ro7ff.

32()

r . tBEn ? . . t ,IfN ' t ' H! : R t : p U B l . t ( :

tamperwith, appcarsi. phibs'phi.al arrdevelri..iurisrir.the,ry (/)r,g. i . 3 . 2 ) , b u t i t h a s n o p l a c ei n t h e R c p u b l i c a nc o r i . s t i t u t i o n . VIII

Again, accordingto Kloesel (1zBtr) and orhers,moderationis part of the very idea of libertasand distinguishesit from licence. Now Roman writers certainly commend the moäerate useof freedom and reprobate its excess,but the very textsconcernedoften employ ribertasas a neutral term (like Plato's eleutheria), describing a condition that is to be approved or condemned according to the ,rs. men make of it; to qualify freedomas moderateor exceisiveimpliesthat moderation is no part of the meaningof the term.eeIt could be argued that men who were unaccustomed to freedom or at a primiiive stage of their developmentwere unfit for iq they neededtä be kept u'd?, tutelage, or to be given freedomonly in a modestmeasure.töoHo.,".,,r.r,sirice libertaswas a 'dulce nomen, (n. g7), and most men craved for it, and yet recognizedthat a total relaxation of all restraintswas incompatible with the social order, the term could undoubtedly be used, like its equivalentsin other languages,to refer to that ä.gr.. or kind of freedom which was acceptabG;anything beyond thosJ limits courd be denigratedas 'licence',a term which itsätroriginallymeant only what is permitted,and which is sometimesusedin inis neutral sense;in that caseit too denotesa right which can be abused (Dig. äi.5. or 37) carried to excess(Gaiusii. zzB). Thus Livy certainiy tentifiäs hbertas as freedomsubjectto just restraintswhen hä writes (xxiv. 25. B) that ,it is the nature of the massesto.serveabjectly or to lord it with"arrogance; freedom lies between, but they do ntt know how to establishit with moderationor to maintain it.' Elsewherehe notesthat it is not only the massesthat may miss the golden mean: ,to show moderation in guarding freedom is a hard task; professing to desire equality, each man lifts himself up to presshis fellows down; to avoid living'in fear themselves,men deliberately make themselvesthe objectsoiöur, u'd in repellingwrongs,we inflict them on others,asif we inust either do or sustaininjury' (iii. 65. r r). However' what was true liberty and what was licencedependedon a man's point of view; Republicansor popular spokesmenäould predie g C l c Q u . J r . 1 r. . z z ( ' t a m . i m m o d e r a r a l i b e r t a s C , ) a, e t . 4 3 , p l a n c . 4 g ; L i v y i i i . 5 7 . 6 , 6 7 . 6 , :.: xxiii. z. r, ('licentia plebissine modo libertatem exercentir'"t cr'fr") , .*i"'.";.1; i;;irl 49. B, xrii. r4..?: Bell. AJr. 54: nn.83- B. '"' de ri, .ci: .rep. 55 ('modica libertas'); Livy xlv. rg. 6 ('ribertatem salubri moderarione datam'). Peoplesunready for freedom: Livy'ii. r. 3-6 (Romans under the monarchy), xxiv. 24.z, 27. 5, xxxix. 13. r3. cicero suggeststhat on the fall ofiarquin the Romans ubu..J'iiLe.ty, u.ing unaccusromedto it, de rep.i. 6z (cf. Sall. ^f/err.i. :9: ,insuiti libertatis,).

l . l B E t ' rA , \l N ' t ' H t :R l : P t : B t . t o

:l2r cate licence of the abuse of power by kings and their agents or Iävourites,by the holdersolimperium,or by the nobility;ro1ariitocrats, the excesses of democraticassemblies or of seditioustribunes,or simply of popular sovereignty.l02For men of high degreeit is licenceif tüey are ins.ultedby their inferior (n. BB), if the voters demand a secret ballot,'"'_if the plebs insist on bringing their oppressorsto trial (n' r l4) . For somemalesit is found if women wish to be releasedfrom restrictions(". Sg). what some classedas licence, others claimed as indispensable liberty, e'g. the ballot (n. ro3). clodius persecuredcicero on the ground that he had violated the personalsecurity in which citizenssaw their liberty; he dedicated a shrine to Libertas on the site of cicero's town house.For cicero his own condemnation,and the violenceby which clodius dominated the streets,were breachesof libertv. and the shrine was an honour to Licence (n. t4z). An apologist for the tranquillity of the Principate, when there was no need for dlbate, since the all-wiseautocrat determinedeverything (Tac. Dial.4r. 4), could explain the decline of oratorical eloquencöon the basis-that it had always been'the nursling of licence,which fools call liberty' (4o.2), anotherstatementthat has beenseriouslyadducedto show the Roman conception of freedom; one might wonder if racitus really disagreed with cice'r-o's dictum that'eloquencehas alwaysflourishedand reigned most of all in every free state,and especiallyin thosewhich enjoy peace and order' (deorat.i. go). IX Again

serious misconceptions

arise from

the doctrine

advanced

by schulz that 'the Roman statenever omitted to uphold the principle of

t o r - . K i n q se t c . : Livy ii. 3.3, xxvii. ff., xxxiv.4g. z, xlv. 3e.5; Sall.Cat.6. 7. Magistrates lr.S . , : . ; " L r l y i i . 3 7 . B ; S a l l .B J 3 r . z z ( c f . , l u b i d o ' i n t .s5,,e4s2t.v4e)r;oOl irc.eMnat irai .' i)6: L. i v v i i . z r . ' " ' u l c . f l a t c . t 6 , d ? r e p . i . 4 4 , i i i . z 3 ( d e m o c r a c y3' dr .i c7i ,t u4rcl i' b. 3e,r4t a r 2 . r g . g . i i i . 5 3 . 6 . v . 2 9 . g , v i . 4 u . 7 , x x i i i .r . r . 4 . 5 , x l v . r B . 6 ; p h a e d r u is. z . r f f . ''" cic.sdr1.r03.Forballotlawsconstitutingfreedomseedeleg.agr.ü.4,planc.t6,deteg.üi. 3 4 t r . , d e a m i c .4 r ; R l ? C n o s z G 6 . _ r ,: 9 2 , t , 4 o 3 , 4 1 3 , 4 2 6 .z , 4 3 7 ;A s c ä n . 7 8 ' C . ( n . 3 7 ) . B l e i c k e n , rg7z,38, urges thar we cannot deduce from theselaws that they were motivateä bi'an ,abstract idea of equal political liberty'; secrer voring was not treared as a ,new norm', üut gradually introduced for different kinds ofcomitial business;this indicatesthat each law was desisned to suit particular circumstances.So_too_inthis country it was on the principle ofthe right of"the middle classto representationthat the Reform Act of rB3z was advoiated;^the principie was applied in tB35 to the government of boroughs, but not until rB88 were the .ou.ties administered bv represcntativebodies. cf. Endnote z; it is an unwarranted assumption that a principle is not operative if it is brought into operation.slowly and piecemeal.Neitier in Rome no. in England indeed was thc principle that resulted in the creation of new liberties an 'abstract idea', even t h o u g h s u c h a n i d e a a s e q u a l i t y o f r i g h t s c o u l d bi en v o k e da d h o c t o s u p p o r r w h a t w a s d e s i r e d f o r mort' practit al r('as()ns.

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lN'lHH REPUBLICT l . l B E R ' |. ' l , S

authority; and, truly, individual freedomis impossiblein the long run without authority', or in the words of Biondi, which he quotes with approval: 'Liberty and authority are not mutually exclusive;each presupposesthe other; liberty is more effective in proportion to the strength of authority; without authority it is anarchy, in the same way as authority without liberty is tyranny.'For Kloesel,whom wirszubski more or lessfollowed, 'in every conception of freedom, so far as true freedom, not licentia,is involved, the concept of authority has its place, and this is true with altogether specialstrength of the Roman coniept', since'an aristocraticvaluation of personalitydominated the whole of public and sociallife at Rome', excluding equality and requiring social gradations..Hellegouarc'h held authority at Rome to be the guarantor of freedom.r04All thesewriters seemto be suggestingnot siäply that in any ordered political society, and specifically in the Roman, we must expect respectfor law and government,whereby some liberties are preserved,but that there is no incongruity betweenliberty, at least as the Romans perceivedit, and submissionto higher power, and that this submissionis inherent in the very concept of libertäs,or in any just notion of freedom. It will, however, become apparent that Romans, like everyone else, could discern an incongruity between the ,principles'ofliberty and authority, and seekto establisha balancebetween them. Heinze's famous essayon auctoritasis of course always cited. He describedit as the influence that belongedto thosewhoseopinions and advice were sought and usually prevailed, especially ro aheprincipes distinguishedfor the officesthey had held, and for their age, experience,ability, and servicesto the state.But he was content to remark that auctoritas, which he sharply differentiated from potestas or imperium, did not infringe freedom, since anyone could still decide for himself whether to seekand adopt the advice of thosewho possessed it; this of c-o]rlsedoes not imply that you take the advice simply becauseyou think it reasonable;you defer to the views of a man with aucloritas becausehe is the man he is.10s But Schulz mixed this up with submissionto superiors,some of whom had the legal power to änforce their will; Romans would cohform to the directions ol the paterfamitias (he forgot that the son might be 'freed' from his power), the magistrates' the senate,the emperor, the jurists of eminence:the consequencesof auctoritas'are obedience, order, discipline; reasonsfor its dictatesare not required,nor could many peoplecheckor understand

'combined them, if given.' Through such conformity the Romans liberQ with bondage'! according to Last too claimed that'liberla.t was not, like eleutheria some accounts, an unfettered freedom, but rather, like principatus, which was one of its constitutionalcounterparts,freedom from arbitrary rule' (CAH. xi. 436). Both he and Schulz referred to the denominationof citiesas freewhen their freedomwas really limited by the paramount authority of Rome. But, as we have seen(p' 293), this freedom was qualified, and inferior to that of a city like Rome hersel{, which was fully independent; such cities were free only in so flar as Rome did leave them to act as they chose.Both alsoheld that Roman libertas was compatiblewith the regimeestablishedby Augustus;this of courseaccordswith the claims made by or on behalf of many of the 'the emperors;Seneca,for instance,flattering Nero, could write of happiestform of the commonwealth,in which thereis nothing wanting for the most perfect freedom but licence to destroy ourselves'(deClem.i' 'res olim r.). Tacitus himself allows that Nerva at last combined principatum ac libertatem' (ASr.g); yet in fact the rights dissociabiles, in which Cicero and his contemporarieshad thought liberty to consist were attenuated, or disappeared,under the Principate, and libertas could be usedto designatethe Republicansystemwith the implication that it had beenlost in the new order (n.42). Let us, however, revert to the Republic. In the PhilippicsCicero continually claims to be representingthe causeof the authority of the senate,the liberty of the people,and the preservationof the commonwealth from Antony's designs of domination. We know from his political programme in the pro Sestiothat he held that all good men shoulddefendthe ancestralconstitutionunder which the senatewas to rule with the magistratesas its executiveservants;ideally the senate would protect and extend the liberty and interestsof the common people.106Such statementsdo not, however, show that even Cicero supposedthat respectfor authority was inherent in the very notion of

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r93-6,r6,5,r87 f.; KloeselB ff.; Wirszubski35; Hellegouarc,h 543. lli tut l.!:tl. R. Heinze,vonGeistdes Rämertums, rgio,43 ff. However,theJarrypatru"mäucrorilas and that of the-tutor werelegalpowers;and senarus aucr,rir.s meantmore than mereadvice.Seealsop.43 and ch. r endnote4.

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106 Szsl.r37; our ancestors'senatum rei p. custodem,praesidem, propugnatorem, conlocaverunt; huius ordinis auctoritate uti magistratus [cf. Piil. vii. rz; and Pompey ap. Fam. viii.4. 4,8. 9] et quasi ministros gravissimi consili essevoluerunt; senatum autem ipsum proximorum ordinum splendorem confirmare, plebis libertatem et commoda tueri atque augere voluerunt'; cf. ad Her. 'senatusest officium consilio civitatem iuvare, magistratus est officium iv. 47 fbr the view that opera et diligentia consequi senatus voluntatem; populi est officium res optumas [sc. in legislation] et homines idoneosmaxime suis sententiisdilegereet probare'. Texts cited by Kloesel senatus with liberlaspopulido not le.g. Phil. iv. 5, x. 23, xiii. 33, 47, dedit:.i. z7) which link auctoritas justify his claim that even on an optimate view the former guaranteesthe latter, but only that t h e y a r e c o m p a t i b l e .l t d e D o m . r 3 o C i c e r oc o n t r a s t st h e t r a n q u i l t i m e w h e n p o p u l a r f r e e d o mw a s combined with senatorial direction ('gubernatio') of affairs with the Clodian terror, which (he alleges)had destroyed both. This is ofcourse ex parte, and Clodius would have had a partially p l a u s i b l cr c p l y .

t.tBh:R 7/.TIN't Ht: R!:Pt'Bt.t(l

I . t B h : R ' t . t . TI N ' t H t . ; R t . : t ' U 8 t . t ( :

liberty, still lcss that Romans in general shared the same view. Authority and liberty might be consonant, but Romans could detect conflicts between them. Cicero himself adopted the theory that the ancestral constitution 'mixed' was of the kind, or rather balanced fairly between monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements. In his Republiche sketched the evolution of this system. Already under the monarchy, not only the senate but the people too had limitäd political rights.roT"ihis was only a mere taste of liberty in the sense of power, enough to titillate the appetite and not satisfy it (ii. 5o). Once Tarquin had been overthrown, they demanded more. It was prudent on the part of Valerius Publicola to make some concessions to them; by granting the people freedom in moderation, he more easily maintained the authority of the leading men.l08 Most decisions were taken by the senate, whose control was fortified by the patrum auctoritas,the rule that every act of the comitia required the sanction of patrician senators (ii.56). (In the ideal code Cicero later proposed (de leg. äi. zB) he would have gone further, giving decrees of the senate the force of law.) The people were still not content; the proper balance between the power of magistrates, the authority of the aristocratic council, and the freedom of the people, which would secure stability, had not yet been attained (de rep. ii. SZ). Hence the further agitation for the creation of the tribunate designed 'to reduce the power and authority of the senate'(5g). Not that this aim was achieved immediately; the senate continued to enjoy the highest authority, with the compliance and obedience of the people (6r). In his later half-hearted defence of the tribunate as an essential element in the mixed constitution, Cicero remarks that it was originally devised as a compromise 'to make the humbler citizens belieuethat they were on a level with the leading men', and that although some real measure of freedom had to be granted, there were then many excellent institutions (he was probably thinking again primarily of the patrum auctoritas)which still made the commons yield to the authority of the leading citizens (de leg. äi. z4f.). It is implicit of course that the tribunate was, as it is elsewhere described, a bastion of Roman freedom;10eand it is thereforb to be noted that Cicero should say that

it made men think that they were equal to the aristocrats; liberty implied some degree of equality. Deference to one's superiors is no part of the lreedom they wanted, even by his account. The increase in popular liberty which the tribunate was thought to secure was tolerable for him, only in so far as it was inoperative, either becausethe senate could still baulk the tribunes, or becausethe tribunes themselves might calm rather than excite popular demands (ibid. z3). In the same spirit Cicero's ideal code defeats the purpose of the ballot, which the plebs prized as a constituent of freedom (n. ro3), but 'which had deprived the best men of their auctorilas' (ibid. Zü,by providing that men of rank may inspect the votes; he explains (39) that this 'grants the appearance (species)of freedom, and preserves the auctoritas of the aristocrats (boni). Livy expressesthe same outlook in saying of the timocratic organization of the centuriate assembly (p. g+g) that while no one appearedto be barred from voting, all power lay with the leading citizens (i 43. ro). So far from thinking of libertasas inhe rently moderated by respect for superior authority (or moral principles), Cicero did not hesitate to use the term (de rep. i. 67) to translate eleutheriain paraphrasing Plato's denunciation of democratic licence (Rep. S6S tr). No democrat, he rejects the democratic contention that all citizens should have equal rights; it contravenes the principle that equality is itself inequitable, because it excludes distinctions of degree, and in any case equality is never realized, as the people itself creates inequalities by grants of special powers and honours to particular persons. On this principle he approves of the timocratic organization of the centuriate assembly; it accorded with the rule, always to be observed, that the greatest number should not have the greatest power; the preponderance of voting strength lay with those who had the greatest interest in ensuring 'the that the state was in best condition'. One is reminded of the contempt he expressed in a speech for the 'uncontrolled lreedom and licence' of Greek assemblies dominated by ignorant men, 'artisans, shopkeepers, and all that scum'; how different from the Roman comilia organized in classes,which voted only after they had heard auctores,the men with auctoritaswho would advise on the business duly laid before them.l1o Greek critics of democracy had condemned the power vested in the lower class by the Athenian systemjust as strongly, and Cicero's insistence on proper gradations of rank echoes the preference of many

324

r07 A svstemcan be mixed without being balanced (derep.i.69, ii. 43). Rome, which was the model (i. 7o), evolved towards a balance ofthe different elementspresentfrom the first (ii. z, 37). For the senateunder the monarchy, ii. z3; for the people'sright to elect or confirm a new king, 24, 3r, 33, 35, 37 f, and to hear appeals,54. Cicero acccprsthe tradition that Ser. Tullius devisedthe centuriate assembly,39 f. Servius' supposeddependenceon popular support (Dionys. iv. 4o) probably explains Accius' words (ap. Sut. r33): 'Tullius qui libertatem civibus stabiliverat'. r o 8 d e r e p . i i . S 3 - Sc;o n t r a s t i . 6 u , p e r h a p s d r a w n f r o m a n a n n a l i s t i c p r e s e n t a t i o n o f a n e x t r e m e oatrician view. roe Cic. de leg. agr. ii. r5 ('tribunum quem maiores praesidem libertatis t:ustodernquccssc v o l u e r u n t ' ) ,R a b .p e r d .r r 4 , S e s t3. t >d, e o r a l .i i . r 9 9 , S a l l . O r . L e p i d i 1 3 , O r . M a c r i . : 6 ( t , f .p . q 4 s ) ;

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D i o d . x i i . 2 5 . z ; L i v y i i i . 3 7 . 5 ( ' t r i b u n i c i a m p o t e s t a t e m ,m u n i m e n t u m l i b e r t a t i s ' ) , 4 5 . 8 ('tribunicium auxilium arx tuendae libertatis'; cf. endnote B with text). Cf pp. zr ff and esp. Polyb.vi. 16.4 f and ch. r n. 39. t \ o d er e p .i . ' + 2 , ' s e dg r a d u sf a c t i , ut S Z Q o n t r a4 g i , ü . 1 q f . , i v . z , d el e g .i i i . 4 4 ; c f . L i v y i . 4 3 . r o : Iretluccxclususquisquam suffragio uiderelur ct vis omnis penesprimores civitatis esset',and n. r64 w i t h t e x t i ( ) i c . l ; l a t c . l s r 8 ( w h c r e h c i g n o r c st h c t h c t r i b a l a s s c m b l y ! )

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L I B L : R ' /I l s l N I ' H t : R u P t : l l l . l ( :

'geometric'equality, in which men enjoyed rights Greek thinkersfor proportionate to their excellence,whether excellencewere to be äefinedin terms of birth, property, or moral attributes'111 Cicero'sviewsare not then peculiarlyRoman, but representativeof attitudescommon to both Greek and Roman aristocrats.It is obvious that they were not shared by all Romans; had that been so' the accretionsto the power of the peoplewhich are examined later, and the line taken by the popularesof the late Republic, would be incomprehensible.Cicero himself alludes to a very different Roman conception,when he makesthe advocatesof democraticliberty argue that unlessthe peopleare in effectivecontrol of the state' therecan be no respublicathat satisfiesthe meaning of that term as respopuli (derep. i.gg).This argumentcannot come from a Greek source,becauseit derives from the literal senseof a Latin term for which there was no Greek equivalent.ll2 To Cicero no doubt full democraticliberty was licence(derep.iii. z3). The liberty concededto the peopleat Rome was tolerableonly in so far as it was specious.But evenin his conceptionof the Roman systemthe liberty of the people and the authority of the senateare countervailingforces,which must be balancedin sucha way as to contentthe peoplebut permit the senateto preponderate.All this is totally incompatiblewith Kloesel'sinferencefrom his views (p. Iz5) that'libertas without auctoritasfounded on dignitasas its correlative is unthinkable to the Roman'. Not only must we reject the assumption that Cicerospeaksfor'the Roman': in his own way of thinking popular is indeed essentialto a well-ordered state, but it is respectfor auctoritas in libertas, by which it is actually threatened. not inherent when he is deliberatelyappealing to popular in harangues Except no is witness to Roman views on liberty which Cicero sentiments, his own class. outside prevailed Just as one-sidedare the opinionsthat Livy puts into the mouths of patrician spokesmencontendingagainst the developmentof plebeianrights. Thus, we are told, they resisteda proposal that the plebs should usurp the senate'sprerogative by granting a triumph, on the ground that the statewould be freeand the laws operate'equally',only if eachorder kept its own'majesty', and an agitation against prolonged military service aroused their ironical comment that Roman liberty was being construed as involving disrespectfor senate,magistrates,laws, ancestralcustomsand institutions,and military discipline.This expartestatementhas actually been 1 1 1S e e e . g . A r i s t o t l e , P o l . r ü . 5 . 8 - r o , 7 . I - 6 I, .vz. f . ; F . D . H a r v e y , C l . e t M e d . , r 9 6 5 , r o r f f . ; C. Nicolet ap. La flosoja grecae il dirilto romano,i (Acc. Lincei, r 976), I I I ff. tt2 ln de rep.;. 4 7 f . , C i c e r o ' sm o u t h p i e c eS c i p i o a l l o w s t h a t t h e p e o p l e c a n h a r d l y p o s s e s s lreedom under an aristocracyany more than under a monarchy, howt'vcr bcneficcnt (cL ii. 43). Cf. Tac. Ann. vi. ,t.2.

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adducedto show that the true Roman conceptionof liberty comprised such respect.lr3With imaginative plausibility the annalistsmade out that the patricians would long resistany additional right which the peopledemanded,but once they had been forced to concedeit, they would acceptit as constitutingliberty, but argue that anything more would be licence. Thus 'equal liberty' had been secured by the publication of the law code,but it would be licenceif the peoplewere enabled to bring magistrates to account for violating the laws. Admittedly freedom involved the right of the people to elect whom it wished,but it was deplorablethat Ihis freedomshouldnot be subjectto the constraint of open voting. What Livy saysof the attitude of the 'they patriciansofold wasnot lesstrue ofoptimatesin the late Republic: thought that any provision for the liberty of the plebs detracted from their own power' (iii. 55. e). Naturally, however,they would appealto popular notionsof liberty when it suited their own ends.According to Livy, the sovereign electoral power of the people (which could be invoked to justify infringementsof the legal conditions for eligibility in the interest of popular figures like Marius, or for the conferment of extraordinary commands in the late Republic) was held by the patricians to warrant the electorsreturning two patrician consulsin defianceof the law. Adopting a'popular' standpoint,Ciceroin 63 could criticize a 'popular' agrarian bill for its derogation from their electoral rights,and contend that his own banishmentby the peoplein 58 was a violation of the libertv due to everv Roman citizen.lra x Of courseCicero too was passionatelyattachedto liberty, the liberty of the senators.The authority of the senatewas itself a nullity if it could Every member should not take decisionswithout fear or pressure.115 be able to voice his genuineopinionswith somechanceof swayingthe issue. Senatorial freedom was indissolubly linked with senatorial dignitas.Cicero could say in 63 that the enactment of Rullus' agrarian bill would place the senateat the mercy of his land commissionersand their followers and that the senate would therefore lose both libertas and dignitas.l16This kind of apprehensionwas frequently realizedfrom the time of the formation of the first'triumvirate'. The military forceat 'triumvirs' and the street gangs organized by the disposal of the r 1 3 L i v y i i i . 6 3 . r o , v . 6 . r 7 ( I ( l o e s e lr 4 4 ) ; c f . p e r h a p sv i i i . 34. 7-ro. r r a I m p e a c h m e n t sL: i v y i i i . 5 3 . 6 - r o ( c L D i o n y s . v ü . z z . z , 5 o ) ; E l e c t i o n s v: i . 4 o . r 5 - 4 r . 3 ; c I enonore 5. '^"

See endnote

b.

tr6 deleg.agr.i.zz;cf.nn.rrT,rrB.Thedignitaso[thesenateisoftenonhislips(e.g.i.z7).So too the dignilasol the respublicacan be associatedwith its liberlas(Phil. iii. tg); cf. n. 3o with text.

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Clodius rendered the senate helpless. In such conditions Cicero could I7 say that the commonwe alth (respublica) no longer subsisted,I since in his judgement it was properly vested in the direction of the senate (n. ro6). In 57 senators deterred from attendance by riots complained that the house had no freedom ofjudgement. In 55 Cicero could write to 'the objective on which we had been set, after Lentulus Spinther that holding the highest offices and performing the greatest exertions, of exhibiting dignitasin stating our opinions and libertas in administering public affairs, has been totally eliminated; I have suffered no more than everyone else; there is no choice but to fall in with the dynasts, whom we cannot influence, or to express dissent to no effect'.1r8 Caesar and Hirtius could play on the same theme by alleging that inJanuary 49 the senate was deprived of freedom by terror of Pompey's soldiers.lle Under Caesar's autocracy Cicero lame nted that'if dignilas consists in holding sound opinions on public affairs, with which good men agree, mine is intact, but if it lies in the ability to realize them or at worst to advocate them freely, not a vestige of it is left'. At the same time Servius Sulpicius averred that the regime deprived men of their 'freedom' in promoting the interests of their friends. Pollio's claim that 'how delightful liberty is and he had learned in these circumstances how wretched is life subject to a master'rings true.120 As Cicero pointed out in 43 to Calenus, under a despot even his partisans could not count on continuing influence (Phil. viii. Iz). Many prominent 'Liberators' who killed Caesar or joined Caesarians were among the (p.Soo). menaces them later But soon the of Antony subverted the Cicero was to pretend then that he had independence of the senate.12l always exercised the freedom required of a senator (Phil. i. z7). The facts belie him (p.486). In 6s he had declared that it was his practice 'to speak his mind freely in the senate, to have regard rather to the interest than to the will of the people, to give way to none and to stand in the path of many'. From 63 to 59 he exhibited such independence, not least in his relationship with Pompey, and after his return from exile he hoped to resume it, but he was soon reduced to silence or subservience. Admittedly he was speaking in 6z as a consular and one of the principes.l22 His dignitds was superior to that of most senators. It 'to was legitimate to seek be equal in freedom to the rest, but first in t t ' e . g .A t t . i i . z r . r , Q J t . r t . i . 2 . 1 5 ( 5 9 ) , i i i . 4 . r , 5 . + ( S + ) C f . n . 4 z f o r c o n n e c t i o no f r e s p .a n d libertas. rt8 dedom.ro,Fam ttn BGvüi.52.4,8Ci.3.5,g.5. i.B . . 3 f . ( c f .A t t . i v . 6 .r f . ) , i i . 5 . 2 . r 2 o F a m .i v . 1 4 . 1 , 5 . ( P o l l i o ' s x . a v o w a l l o v e f o r C a e s a rs h o w st h a t h e w a s n o t o f h i s 3, 3r. 3 simply ingratiating himself with Cicero). r 2 t A t t . x i v . 1 4 . 3 f . , F a m . x i . 7 . z , P h i t .i i i . 6 , e t c . r22 Sullaz5; for Cicero'sindcpendenccin 6z-sq and latcr lossofit (dt:spitchis protcstationsin P l a n c . g r4 ) s e e p p . q 7 8 f , 4 8 6 f . P r i n c i p e s : ( i c l z c r , r q t il qI .,;4m4o r e f i r l l y , L . W i c k c r t , , t C x x i i . : o r 4 f l .

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h o n o u r ' . B u t h c r e t h e f i r s t p r o p o s i t i o n i s a s s i g n i f i c a n ta s t h e s e c o n d . 1 2 3 And the lreedom of a senator to take the political line he chose could be compromised by binding commitments to others. Cicero could allege that the consuls of 58 had lost their liberty of action by their infamous bargain with Clodius, while Clodius could suppose that by accepting an extraordinary command Cato had barred himself from denouncing any others of the same kind.12a The liberty prized by senators was of course incompatible with the 'triumvirate' or the despotism of a domination of a faction like the first single man. It meant an effective share in political power. In this sense it was indeed associated with auctoritas, that of the senate as a whole, and for many of its members their own personal influence. But there is no sign that senators themselves felt that their individual liberty involved respect for the auctoritasof others. A true senator, said Cicero, was one whose mind was not determined by an auctor but was respected for himself. Tiberius surely understood this kind of leeling when he gave out that he wished to be called suaslr) not auctlr; senators liked to think that they were prepared to make decisions on the basis of advice.125 This did not of course imply that they would not on occasion rely on the judgement of leading men they esteemedas distinct from mere argumentation. They were called on to speak by rank, and doubtless the junior members commonly followed the guidance of one or more of the principes.But this was not invariably so. On 5 December 63 the senate was successivelyswayed by the oratory of Caesar and Cato, who were respectively only praetor and tribune designate. In 6r it was none of the consulars but the praetorian Q. Cornificius, a man of little note, who first stimulated the senate to take cognizance of Clodius' alleged incest. In 5o the great majority rejected the lead given by the chief optimates and voted for a compromise be tween Pompey and Caesar.r26Auctoritalwas sinister if it required mere submission. Brutus and Cassiustold Antony that'to free men no authority belongs to one who utters threats'; they would not object to his being a great man in a free commonwealth, but set their own liberty at a higher rate than his friendship. Brutus would later write that he and his associatescould have obtained benefits and 'a kind master', but that this would not have honours from Antony as been consonant with freedom; no one should have more power than the laws and senate. Feu'senators of his generation would readily have 127 tolerated the pre-eminent auctoritasof which Augustus was to boast. ''' 2 ! P h i l . i . 3 4 ; c f . C a t o ( q u o t e di n n . r 4 9 . ) &.)?J1. tlq; ct. bo. dc dom- 22. 1 2 6 S a l l .C a t . 5 o t r . ; C i c . A t t . i .r 3 . 3 ; c h . 9 n . 9 4 . r 2 5 C i c .d e l e g . ü i . 4 o ; S u e t . T i b . z 7 . t21 Fam. xi. 3. 3, ad Brut. 24. 4f.; in his commentary Shackleton Bailey impugns the authenticity of the latter letter, but with no compelling reasons as against 25. Brutus had

330

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'I'H};

R}:PI.;BI.,I(

In the Republic superiority of talents and achievements tended to evoke jealousy. It was only on an aristocratic conception that liberty could be said to have originated in the fall of the monarchy, which in the Roman tradition resulted in but a small accretion to the political rights of the people; but the royal power was now shared equally between the annual consuls,l2s and in consequence the directi,on of affairs passed to the senate. The subsequent multiplication of offices, the restrictions on re-election, the aversion to prolonged prorogations and to extraordinary commands, all illustrate the proclivity of the senate to deny any of its own members to acquire too manifest a preeminence. If the cursushonorumin itself created distinctions of degree, it was a derogation from liberty, as Servius Sulpicius implied,lte that under the Caesarian regime men would no longer be able to seek office in due sequence.Within the limits that these distinctions imposed, the senators showed some regard for that connection between liberty and equality which, as we shall see, coloured the popular conception, though it was only a measure of equality in their own number that they valued. The new servitude of the Principate was manifest in eo 14, 'when all, casting off equality, awaited the orders of the prince' (Tac. Ann. i. 4). XI But attachment to liberty, including liberty in the sense of political rights, was not the exclusive concern of senators in the Republic. It was also the watchword of 'popular' politicians, and must therefore have had some appeal to the masses. Cicero himself played on it, when for his own ends he wooed their support. Very probably it was slogans and arguments of populares from the Gracchi onwards that annalists retrojected into their accounts of the early struggles between patricians and plebeians. Popularessought to show that it was their ideas of liberty that had triumphed in the times of 'our wise ancestors', and that it was optim?les who deviated from the traditions by which Rome had grown great.130 It would be a gross error derived from our exCessive dependence on the partisan opinions of Cicero to suppose that populares did not make as much play with mos mailrum as their opponents. The proclaimed his devotion to liberty as moneyer in 54 (RRC 4g$ against Pompey'sdominance; cf. Quint. 1zsl.i*. 3. 95. On RG g4 see Syme. RR gzo.z. rru Note Livy iv. 5. 5:'quod aequandae libertatis est, in vicem annuis magistratibus parere atque imperitare licet'; cf Dionys. iv. 74;' Cic. deieg. iii. 5; n.69. r2e Fa*. iv. 5. 3. Accessto office, at lCastfor thosewith the censusqualification (Nicolet, JRS 1976, zo ff), is representedin the annals of the early Republic as an element in equal liberty (p.337). 130 See endnote 7.

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the tribunician prerogatives,the legislativesupremacy iusprouocationis, mblies independentof senatorialauthority, all belongedto of the asse ancestral usage,and were contravened by, for example, repression under cover of the senatusconsultumultimum or by the legislative innovationsof Sulla effectedby force. It is characteristicthat in 58 Clodius restoredthe right of free association,which was supposedto go back to Numa and which the senatehad abrogated in 64 by sheer usurpationof legislativepower (". SZ).Tiberius Gracchuscould claim that his agrarianlaw implementedan old enactmentforcedthrough in responseto popular demandsand then set at naught (App. i. B), and that it embodied a traditional policy of keeping up the stock of soldiers by settlementsof the poor on the land. The rights and material interestsof the common peoplecould all be subsumedunder, or closely associatedwith, liberta.i.Thus while optimates could raise the cry of liberty in danger when they saw or affected to see the prospect of despotism, popularescould do so more regularly, because popular liberty was continuouslythreatenedby oligarchic dominance.It was probably becauseof the more distinctly popular nuanceof the term in most of the great conflictsof the late Republic that Cicero omits it from 'good' men could agree' his catalogueof the principleson which all especiallyas the freedom he prized himself was inherent in the senatus aictoritas,whose maintenance is for him the most vital of all these principles(pp. SSf.). In the popular conception liberty consistedpartly in protection under the laws for the ordinary citizen against arbitrary punishment 'excessive by magistrates.Their unfettered imperiumis representedas and unendurablein a freestate',as was the very czgnlmen'Imperiosus', assumedby T. Manlius Torquatus.l31 The palladium of freedomin this sensewas thought to residein the right of appeal to the people (tzs prouocationis) from sentencesofexecution, flogging, and heavy fines,and ln the right of the tribunes to intervenebetweenthe magistrateand a citizen whom he sought to coerce (ius auxilü). The origins and development of these rights are swathed in obscurity. The former, establiihed by tradition as early as the foundation of the Republic, still neededconfirmation at leastby a lex Valeriaof 3oo, which was in Livy's view necessarybecausehitherto the great resources(opes)of the few had counted for more than the freedom of the commons,and even this law merely declared an infringement to be wrongful, without prescribing any sanction;it was only in the early secondcentury that three Porcian laws were passed,of uncertain date and content' which not only supplied this deficiency but seem first to have made the right 131 Livy iii. history. 9. z-5, vä, 4. z. A contrast between libertasand imperiumrecurs in his

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operative outside the city ol'Rome, :rnd to have prohibited the use ol' rods (but not of canes) for flogging in the army; in my view generals were never debarred from inflicting the death penalty on soldiers under their command. Even then the right was sometimes violated and needed further strengthening by a law of Gaius Gracchus (rh.+, s e c t i o nV I ) . t t ' At one time the real guarantee of personal security probably lay in the readingssof the plebs in the city to give physical aid to the citizen in danger,r33 later in respect for thä legäl pie.ogative of the tribune to intervene, or (since he could act only within the city) in the possibility that a tribune would impeach the offender before the people after he had demitted office; the people could doubtless condemn him at its discretion for wrongdoing, even if no specific sanction had been appointed by law. Even Sulla left the tribunes with their iusauxilii,but he may have deprived them of the right to bring charges before the assembly; this might explain Macer's complaint in 72, as given by Sallust, that citizens in the country had no protection from magistrates. If so, it was restored in 7o by the lex PompeiaLicinia, since it was exercised in 63 by the tribune Labienus against Rabirius.l3a 'O nomen dulce libertatis! O ius eximium nostrae civitatis! O lex Porcia legesqueSemproniae ! O graviter desiderata et aliquando reddita plebi Romanae tribunicia potestas': Cicero's famous apostrophe in arraigning Verres' execution of a citizen (lI Verr. v. r63), while it indicates the value that was set on liberty in the sense of personal protection under the law, must not be taken as suggesting that such protection exhausted the popular conception of liberty. It is significant that Cicero appeals to laws that the people had enacted. The tradition made it perfectly clear that it was only the sovereignty of the people in legislation that had secured them liberty in this form. The ius prouocationispresents us with a puzzle. There is no certainly authentic instance of trial on appeal by the people, except for the archaic proceedings against Rabirius.135 Otherwise we know only of r32

See endnote B.

133

See endnote

9. r3a Sulla deprived tribunes oftheir power'iniuriae faciendae' (Cic. de teg. iii. zz), removing their right to initiate legislation (per.Lfuy lxxxix), at any rate without the senate'ssancrion, and l i m i t i n g ( w e d o n o t k n o w h o w ) t h e i u s i n t e r c e s s i o n z i (lC I Vi ce.r r . l . r 5 5 ; C a e s B . Ci.5,7),perhaps too debarring them from bringing impeachments before the people; that would explain why c i t i z e n s o u t s i d e R o m e , w h e r e t h e i u s a u x i l i i d i d n o t e x t e n d , w e r e d e f e n c e l e s s ( S a l l . OM r .a c r i z G ) ; this may also explain cicero's words quoted in the next paragraph; the need for tribunician impeachmentswas felt becausein its absencethere was no guaranteeofobservanceofthe Porcian and Sempronian laws. r 3 5 G e l z e r ,K l . S c h r . l i . z o e l . , C i c e r o 7 6 S,rightagainstR.A.Bauman, TheDuumairiintheRoman 'I'he CriminalLau and.theHoratiusLegend r 969. appellate proceedings that lollowed Rabirius' capital condemnation by duoairihad terminated; Cicero was defending Rabirius on a charge brought by Labienus, for which the penalty was a fine; Cicero'ssuggestionsthat Rabirius' caputwas in danger when he spoke need bc taken no morc seriously than cxpressionsin (lincl. I), 4O.

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trials by the peoplein the first instanceon impeachment.In the preGracchan period non-political criminal chargeswere tried by magistrates with their consilia,and citizens they condemnedwere apparently unable to seizeat a straw of escapethrough the people'sclemency (ch. 4, sectionVI). It seemsto follow that the supposedright of appeal was continually infringed. How then could it have been regardedas the palladium of Roman freedom?An analogy may be found in our own Habeas Corpus Act. Most personswho are arrestedhave no need to resort to it, becausethe very existenceof the procedure it provides inhibits their indefinitedetentionwithout trial. In the sameway the ezs proaocationis probably deterred arbitrarypunishmentsof citizens;on the other hand, tribunes would not intervene at the time, or seek retribution later, if a citizen were punishedafter fair trial for a common crime, or if in their judgement he was manifestly refusing to obey lawful commands,e.g. by resistingconscription,given that the levy was being equitably administered.l36On the other hand, when charges were political, magistrates and their assessors(a consilium composed of men of their choice) could not be trusted to decide impartially on the life or status of defendants who might be their political adversaries,and only the people were competent to decide, acting not on appealbut in the first instance.It was then only political chargesthat Polybiushad in mind, when in his analysisof the balance of the Roman political system he twice assertsthat the people alone of common crimes would could passcapital sentences;the rep^ression and the ius not have come within his purview.t'' The iusprouocationis auxilii safeguarded this system. The arbitrary repressionof Tiberius Gracchus' partisans by the consuls of rgz was a deviation from acceptedpractice. As a result Gaius Gracchus entirely prohibited the capital condemnation of any citizen (whatever the charge, and whether or not he appealed)except by authority of the people, i.e. except after trial by the people or (as became more usual) by a court .rtublirh.d by stat;te.rtö titit Sempronianlaw was now in turn the chief guarantee of freedom. BecauseVerres held it in contempt, all 'their rights, interests, Romans, Cicero could aver, thought that protection,and indeedtheir entire liberty'dependedon his condemnation. No matter that he was not on trial for this crime. for Roman courts did not necessarilydecide either by the law or the facts relevant to the specific charge; moreover, Cicero promised that if Verres r36 Bleicken, r955, 78-83; Taylor, JrRS r962, rg ff. 137 Polyb. vi. r4. 6, r6. z: it was only political offenderswho would regularly escapedeath by voluntary exile. t38 The banishment of Popilius (GC 3r) showsthat he was deemedto have broken the existing laws. Cf. Clodius' actions against Cicero.

L I R t : R ' t . . tI,N S l'HE RHI't'Bl.l(:

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escaped condemnation by the court, he would as aedile impeach him before the people for his violation of citizen rights.l3e Cicero often paid lip-service to liberty in this sense, and indeed incorporated the iar proaocationi.sand ius auxilii in his ideal code of laws.lao But it was of prime importance to the humbler citizens: aristocrats were seldom at risk from the imperium of magistrates. The action of the consuls in r3z is only one case in which the ruling class demonstrated their lack of respect for the principle involved. Even after Gaius Gracchus' law, they were able to set it aside under cover of the senatusconsultumultimum (cl. p. r 6). It was obviously reasonable that the magistrates should repress by force as public enemies men who had taken up arms against the state, but in lzr the consul Opimius then proceeded to execute those who had already surrendered; and his acquittal on impeachment before the comitia centuriala,dominated by the well-to-do, who prized order above freedom, gave his action the strength of a precedent, which was more than once followed.lal The prosecutionsof Rabirius in 63 (n. t gS) were 'popular' attempts to deter such violations of liberty in the future. To no avail: in the same year Cicero executed the Catilinarian conspirators without trial. Hence Clodius could assail him as 'a tyrant and thief of liberty', secure his banishment by the plebs, and dedicate the site of his house to Libertas.la2 In my view Cicero remained thereafter unpopular with the plebs.ra3 Of cäurse he complained bitterly of his own banishment without trial (de dom. Bo), but in 44 he was just as ready as before to approve of the summary execution of low-class rioters. laa

prevented by unpopularity from retaining or recovering what is theirs'.r45 In Roman tradition this ideal was largely realized by the decemvirs' codification of the laws in the Twelve Tables. Cicero's account implies that the greater part of the code was based on the principle of equality, when he refers to the two last tables as unfair, citing the prohibition on marriage between patricians and plebeians, a derogation from that principle removed almost at once (de rep. ii.63). He does not bring out that the codification was supposed to have been the product of prolonged popular agitation and to have marked a further stage in liberty. This is clear in the annalists. Livy, evidently following an 'optimate' source, held that after the overthrow of the monarchy the commands of the laws were already more potent than those of men, and that both lreedom and equality of rights (ier aequum)had been attained. Dionysius even makes Servius Tullius uphold the latter ideal; however, in his account the kings had discretion in interpreting the laws, which were not published nor fully known to the citizens in general, and the consuls retained this discretion; hence popular spokesmen still had to agitate for equality under the laws, which he calls indifferently isegoria and isonomia,as a security for freedom.la6 Granted that men could no longer trample on the rights of others because they stood high in the favour of a king, a state of affairs that was allegedly observable later in regal Macedonia,r47 the annalists themselves supposed that the plebs could still be unfairly treated. Hence the work of the decemvirs could be described as that of equalizing'freedom' or legal rights. Equality in freedom and in legal rights clearly has the same meaning.raB The fragments of the Trvelve Tables show that in general this principle was realized in form, as far as the private rights of citizens were concerned, though admittedly those without property were at a grave procedural disadvantage (Gell. xvi. r o. 5). It is noteworthy that under the code only the people was authorized to passpriuilegia against named individuals.lae We are reminded of the famous statement of the Athenian democratic ideal in Euripides' Supplices(43otr): 'first of all, when the laws are not common to all, but one man rules and keeps the law to himself, there is no equality; but once the laws are written, the weak and the

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Cicero himself taught that it is the very essence of law (lex) that it binds all alike (de leg. äi. 44), though he did not concede the democratic contention that all citizensmust have equal political rights (n. ro). However, 'the private man should live with his fellow citizens in accordancewith a fair and equal systemof law laequoetpari iure], not in grovelling submissionto others nor lifting himself above them', and the wise statesmanwill seeto it'that 'each man keepshis own with equal legal rights laequitateiurisl, and that the weaker citizens are not defrauded on account of their low status, while the rich are not r3e U Vur. i. r3f., v. 163, r7z f. Schulz, 19g6, r74, is perverse. lao de leg. iii.6; cf. n. r3z. tnt GC 44-1,5of., esp. Cic. Parl. Or. to4. 142 For Cicero they were not entitled as hostes to the protectiän ofcitizens under the law, Cat. iv. g{ Cfodius' dedication: Srrt. rog, de dom. to9-rr, de leg. ii. 4z (really to Licentia). 1 4 3C h . 9 n . 7 6 . raa Fam.ix. t4.7 f.; one may doubt if it was welcome'infimo cuique'. For the circumstances s e eW e i n s t o c k ,r g 7 r , 3 6 4 t

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ras de leg. üi. 'privatum autem oporrer aequo et pari cum civibus iure 44; cf. de ofic. i. rz4: vivere', ii. 85: statesmenshould provide 'ut iuris et iudiciorum aequitate suum quisque teneat et neque tenuiorespropter humilitatem circumveniantur neque locupletibus ad sua vel tenenda vel recuperanda obsit invidia', a principle reaffirmed by a third-century jurist (Dlg. i. 18.6. z). 1 4 6L i v y i i . r . r - 6 ; c f . n . r 4 7 ; D i o n y s . i v . g . gr ,r . 2 , 7 2 . 3 , x . r , z g . 4 f . ra7 Livy ii. 3. 3; cf. xxxix. 27. 8 f., xlv. 32. 5. ra8Livy üi.3r.7,34. 3 , 5 6 . 9 , 6 r . 6 , 6 7 . 9 ; T a c . A n n .ü i . 2 7 . C f n . 3 7 . 14e Cic. de leg. üi. 44, de dom. 49, Sest.65.Dispensationsfrom rhe law were at first granred by the people, later by the senate (Ascon. 58 C.; St^Riii3. 337).

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r i c h h a v e t h e s a m e r i g h t , t h e w e a k e r w h e n a b u s e dc a n r e p l y i n k i n d t o the man of fortune, and with justice on his side the inferior triumphs over the great man. Freedom is found in this too: "Who wishes to bring before all some useful plan he has?"; then he who desires to do so wins fame, while he who has no such wish holds his peace. What is fairer lor a city than these things?' The second of these constituents of Athenian 'equal freedom' never existed at Rome, but the first is enshrined in the Twelve Tables. Perhaps later writers placed the achievement of the code in a conceptual framework borrowed from the Greeks; perhaps the legislators themselves were influenced by models from the Greek cities in the west (rather than from Athens);1so Nepos was certainly following a Greek source when he made Timoleon say that under the system he had created at Syracuse 'it was a form of liberty, if everyone were permitted to resort to the laws in accordance with his own desires' (Tim. 5. z). But in any event it seems plausible to hold that the codification itself, and the equality between citizens which on the whole the code upheld, sprang from conditions similar to those which had produced similar effects in Greek cities, and that Romans, who found liberty inherent in the ius prouocationis and the ius auxilü, institutions peculiar to themselves, were capable of independently discerning it in what the Greeks called isonomia.The insoluble question of derivation is of lesserimportance, compared with the undoubted fact that Romans adopted the view that equality before the law was essential to their freedom. This view is probably implicit in Cato's dictum that 'we should have common enjoyment of right, law, freedom, and the commonwealth, but of glory and honour in accordance with the individual's own achievement'. The most liberal or egalitarian society might not object to the distinction that this dictum allows.l51 Finley, commenting on 'the boldness and rarity' of the Athenian ideal expressed by Euripides, says that the Romans never attained it in the Republic and that the emperors rejected it.l52 He has traciuced the Republic, though not the Principate. The idea was accepted, even by Cicero. In practicemen of wealth and standing had many advantages. Even when the laws had been published, the modes of procedure were not, until the aedile Cn. Flavius rectified this in 3o4. The forms of process most usual in early Roman law required litigants to wager a sum of

money which the poor can hardly have afforded; they were only gradually superseded in the late Republic by the formulary system in which there were no wagers. At all times in the Republic, the plaintiff had to bring'the defenäant to court, and the successful litigant to execute the court's judgement, without assistance from the state. This must have made it hard to obtain justice from a more powerful adversary, unless he were sensitive to the censure of public opinion. Freedmen were severely limited in the claims they could make against their former owners, though not against other citizens. (In Athens they were not even citizens.) Courts might be open to the influence and power of magnates and to bribes from the rich. Men of rank and wealth were best able to retain the services of the most learned jurists and most eloquent advocates. However, Finley himself allows that at Athens too the principle of equality before the law was for similar reasons not always realized in practice. As in modern democratic societies, wealthy litigants enjoyed substantial advantages. At Rome they were no doubt still better able to exploit their superiority.ls3 Bleicken remarks that the idea of legal equality could not become 'the engine of historical development'because of the inequalities that prevailed in Roman society.lsa These inequalities surely increased as Roman dominion and wealth expanded. No doubt ideas contribute most to promote political and social changes when they harmonize with material changes; at Rome those changes accentuated disparities in property and power. But that does not mean that the ideal of 'equal liberty', once it had been, however imperfectly, embodied in equality before the law, was more or less submerged in Roman consciousnessby that respect for rank, authority, and patronage which Bleicken is apt to think to have been commonly preponderant among inferiors in Roman society; his evidence is valid only for what their superiors expected. He 'equal himself has to allow that some measure of liberty' in a political sensewas obtained by plebeians in the struggle of the orders. We do not of course know how they actually argued their case; annalistic representations necessarily mirror the ideas of their own age. By their account spokesmen for the plebeians contended for their eligibility to the highest offices on the basis that they should be open to all men of ability for the purpose 'aequandae libertatis' (Livy iv. 5. 5); 'aequum it was contrary to ius' if plebeians were denied the chance of imperium (ui. 27.4), and it was a remarkable evidence of plebeian

tto So F. Wieacker, Vomräm.Recht2196r, 46ff. r5r ORP, fr. a5z: 'iure, lege, libertate, re publica communiter uti oportet, gloria atque honore, quomodo sibi quisque struxit' (cf. Cic. Phil. i. 34). Ter. Ad. r83'libertatem aequam omnibus' might come l'r'oma Greek source. rs2 Finl.y, r98r.84.

t53 Kelly, 1966, chs. r-3, illustrates the various advantages of the rich in litigation. He conjectures that conuicium(n.93) may have restrained the powerful from disobeying the law; hardly, ifthey lived in Rome and wreaked injustice through agentsand slavesin distant parts (cf. I M A p p . B ) . F r e e d m e n :p . 4 r 8 . r 5 a B l e i c k e n ,r g 7 2 , 2 4 f f . A s a l w a y sh e o v e r e s t i m a t e tsh e s i g n i f i c a n c eo f c l i e n t s h i p .

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liberty, when one of their number for the first time dedicateda templc, defyingthe arroganceof the nobility (ix. 46. 5-B). No doubt it was also in recollectionof Italian claimsin go that a Latin representative in 34o was made to claim that one consuleach year should be a Latin, in the name of liberty and 'aequatio iuris', since 'ubi pars virium, ibi et imperii parsest' (viii. 4. 3). All this may alsoremind us of complaintsin the late Republic of 'paucorum dominatio', and of Cicero'sassertion, appropriate to a parvenu, that office was open to the 'virtue and industry'of all citizens (,Sesl.r37). Naturally Cicero knew very well that it was accessibleonly to men of substantialproperty (n. rzg) though he might well have said that that could be acquired by virtue and industry, and that the nobility had a preponderantshare;but we must bewareof supposingthat an ideal which had very limited effectis of no importance at alI; and we may recall that even in democratic Athens the poor were not eligible for all offices,and certainly lacked the leisureand educationrequired for the political leadershipthat the 'orators' supplied. The ideal reappearsin the justification probably advancedfor C. Gracchus'extensionofjudicial rights to the Equites:it ' (Florusii. r The reservation conduced'ad ius libertatisaequandae of ). the best seatsat games to senatorsin r94 was also resentedas a diminution of equal liberty, and so probably was the similar privilege t It was in the Principate that restoredto Equitesby the lex Roscia.Lr the idealwas discarded;the hierarchical order was then strengthened, and eventuallyequality beforethe law was lost. XIII

In the early Republic Rome alsotook halting stepstowardsdemocratic freedomin virtue of the electoral,judicial, and legislativerights of the assemblies, which were also to be swept away in the Principate;these rights,as Sallustwould make Macer say (seebelow), constitutedthe ius and maiestasof the people. Maiestasis a vague term and may be renderedin this context by such equally vague terms as sovereigntyor supremacy. In its electoral capacity the people was the fount of honour,ls6 and could eve& assertits right io choosemagistratesnot qualified by law for office (n. rr4). It could pardon offenderswho appealedto it (n. r33), and itself determinecapital chargesincluding thoseof perduellioor maiestas, a crime so ill-defined that the assembly 's5 Liuy xxxiv. 54. 5; Plut. C?. r3; Pliny, "l[I1vii. r r7. The Roscian law'restored' ,n. p.i"if.g. ( C i c . M u r . 4 o ; V e l l . i i . 3 z ) , o r ' c o n f i r m e d ' i t ( A s c o n .7 8 C . w h e r e C i c e r o ' sc l a i m t h a t t h e p e o p l e demanded both this and the Aurelian law of :o is implausible). 156 'Omnis potestates,imperia, curationes ub rniu..ro populo Romano proFcisci convenit': Ci.c.de leg. agr. li. 17; cf. z7 f. See endnore ro.

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could construeit by its own pleasure.Its legislativecompetencewas unbounded (".gg); Polybiusremarked that it could passlaws depriving the senateof traditional prerogativesand dignity and damaging to without senators'property (vi. r6); the Gracchi and later populares, pattern of a Greek of affairs on the claiming for it the normal direction public affecting every in fact propose enactments would democracy, magistrate on the initiative of a it could act only It is true that concern. and that there were variouswaysof obstructingits will. However,on a traditional view accepted by Polybius (vi. 16), the tribunes were would be ruthlessin expectedto elicit or expressthat will, and populares overriding obstructions on the ground that it should be decisive (pp.st ff.). When a tribune was accusedof violating the people's maiestasby employing violence to pass a law, it was argued in his defence,on the footing that the law had the people'sapprobation,that 'maiestas, which consistsin a kind of grandeur of the Roman people in the retention of its power and right, was rather increased [by his action] than diminished'.157Not surprisinglyClodius carried a measure in 58 designedto ensurethe people'sfreedomto reach its decisions unimpededby vetoesor religiousobstruction.l5s This popular liberty entailed the ius sffiagü. This constitutes another reason for rejecting the view that it was coterminous with citize^rship(p. zg6), seeingthat from the fourth to the secondcenturies there were citizens (whom Mommsen called half-citizens)sinesufragio, possessed of only the private rights of citizens. We may reasonably guessthat it was at the demand of the communitiesconcernedthat they were gradually raisedto equality (pp. t o+ f., r 36 ff. ) . Intermittent proposalsto abolish the rule whereby freedmen,or most of them, were registeredonly in one or all of the four urban tribes and to transfer thoseresidentoutsideRome to the appropriate rural tribes,in which their votes could have more weight, were also probably advocated (for (equal liberty', while a plan to remove whatevermotive) in the name of them from the tribal rolls altogether and thus to deprive them of the vote was abandonedon the objectionthat it was tantamount to taking away boththeir citizenshipand their liberty.l5e The liberty sought by the Italians in 9o was alsoa sharein the political rights of Romans,and r57 Cic. Part. Or. ro5; cf. J.-L. Ferrary, C.R,411983, 556 ff. l s B C i c . S r s l . 5 6 : ' e a m l e g e m q u a e o m n i a i u r a r e l i g i o n u m . a u s p i c i o r u m .p o t e s t a t u m .o m n i s legesquae sunt de iure et de tempore legum rogandarum, una rogatione delevit'; cf. dehar. resp.58 (note'intercessionemremovit') etc.; the vague rhetoric in all Cicero's allusions does not reveal (any more than Ascon. 8 C.; Dio xxxviii. 37) the precisepurport of the law, which evidently did more than restrict the use ofreligious obstructions. t5e Lity xlv. r5. Treggiari, lg6g, sZ ff The first to attempt this, Ap. Claudius the censor,ts 4; portrayed as a demagogue (Livy ix. 46. r o ff. ) , and the later proposers,P. Sulpicius Rufus, Cinna, Manilius, and Clodius, ranked as plpulares.CL n. r69.

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it must have been on the plea ol' equal liberty that the newly enfranchisedallies took up arms in BB-87 to resist the attempt to confine them to tribes whose votes would count for little. Obviously neither the centuriate nor the tribal organization fulfilled the ideal of equal voting power for all citizens,but an ideal can be entertained, though realized very imperfectly. The second board of decemvirs infringed liberty, according to Dionysius (xi. r-3), not only by its oppressiveadministration but by retaining office without elections.Cicero argues that the provision in his model code of laws that the senateshould consistof ex-magistrates and not be chosenby censorsis 'popular', since it ensuresthat the senateis recruited indirectly by election (deleg.äi. z7). It corresponded to practice in the post-Sullan period, but even earlier those who had held certain officeswere entitled to attend the senatebefore they had been formally enrolled by censors,and censorswere expected not to passthem over at the next enrolment without good reason.After Sulla censorscould still eliminate men from the roll; it was characteristicof the popular standpoint that Clodius legislated in 58 to institute safeguardsagainsttheir making arbitrary judgements.l60 Political liberty meant the right of the citizens to vote as thel chose. When adopting an insincerelypopular stance,Cicero could declar" that it was for the whole people alone to confer every kind of magisterial power, and that any derogation from this right was a diminution of liberty: citizens must be free to vote for whom they pleased(n. rr4). It is clear that in electionscandidateshad to woo the suffragesof peopleof all sorts (ch. B, sectionV). The introduction of the ballot by a seriesof laws was thought to free their votes from influenceand pressure(n. ro3). Of theseballot laws that which, according to our information, was most strongly resistedby the nobility was the Cassianlaw of r 37, which extended secretvoting to popular trials, except those for treason; the exceptionwas not removed until ro6, when the tribune C. Coelius apparently thought that he was most likely to securethe conviction of C. Popillius Laenas for maiestas (ad Her. i. r5. z5), if the voting were secret(Cic. deleg.äi.36). The trial of Popilliuswas the first of a series in the next few years of impeachments before the people of generals who were held to have disgraced Roman arms. Among them was Q. Servilius Caepio, whom the people first deprived of his command (Ascon.78 C.), an act, it is said,without precedentsincethe deposition of Tarquin (Per. Livy lxvii); it was followed by another Cassian law excluding from the senate anyone so deprived or convicted by the 160Sll? ii3.4r8ff.; Ascon. S C . e t c . f o r C l o d i u s ' l a w , w h i c h w a s r e p e a l e di n t h e o p t i m a t c r e a c t i o no f 5 z ( D i o x l . 5 7 ) .

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people. Cicero, giving the 'popular' view, lists both Cassianlaws as notableaccessions to the power of the people;by the first'suffragiorum ius potestasqueconvaluit', while the second'populi iudicia firmavit'; and he collocatesthem with the Porcian law, 'principium iustissimae libertatis' (Ascon.loc. cit.). In Polybius'view the people'sright to try political offenders was an important democratic element in the constitution(".rgZ). According to Valerius Antias, the accuserof Scipio Africanus in rB7 maintained that 'no citizen should be so eminent that he could not be questionedby the laws, and that nothing servedso much to promote equal freedom as the liability of the greatest men to stand trial'; his story of the affair is suspect,but none the lessit reflectsfirst century ideasof popular freedom.l6l The accountabilityof ex-magistrates to the peopleon impeachment,normally by a tribune, was not only the guaranteeof the private citizen'spersonalsecurity from arbitrary coercion,but was essentialto that ultimate control by the people which the populares championed, as the leadersof the plebs were supposedto have done in the time of the struggleof the orders.In thosedays,accordingto the annalists,it had been keenly contested;to the plebeiansit was liberty, to the patricians licence (n. rr4). The patricianshad indeedsucceeded in ensuringthat capital chargescould be heard only by the centuriateassembly,and not by the tribes,which could only impose fines.This was to prove a safeguardin later times for nobleslike L. Opimius in rzo (ch. r n. z5), who was thought to have acted in the interestof the whole propertied class. Despitethe flurry of impeachmentsin the last decadeof the second century, the procedure was by then falling into abeyancewith the constitutionof permanentcourts,or of courtsconstitutedad hocto deal with political offencessuch as that establishedby the Mamilian law for misconductin theJugurthine war. But thesecourtswere themselves set up by the people, and sometimesas in this case,on the motion of 'popular' tribunes. Another 'popular' law, the Appuleian, created a permanent court to hear charges of maiestas, before which the younger caepio could be indicted for obsrructing by violence the will of the people,while Norbanus, prosecutedfor his own resort to violencein the 'popular' interest,could be exoneratedon the ground that he was fulfilling that will. The iudicesunder both the Mamilian and Appuleian laws were Equites;their attitude might not be very different from that prevalentin the centuriateassembly,and it may have been supposed that they would be lesssusceptibleto the influence of the .rö6ility, especiallyin the circumstancesof the time. It was also an advantage that prosecutionin such courts did not depend on the initiative ofa 16t Liuy xxxviii. 5 o . 5 B ( s e eS c u l l a r d , r g 7 3 , A p p . r v ) ; c f . x x v i . t . r 6 .

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tribune.l62In the absenceof a public prosecutoralmost any male citizen,and not merelyone aggrievedby the allescddelinquent,could prefera chargeon behalfof the state.Men who made a businessof this activity, stimuiatedby financial and other rewards,could acquire an infamousreputation as delators (Cic. de ofic. ä.5o), especiallyin the Principate,like the sycophantsof democraticAthens, where the same systemhad beenadopted.We may, however,recall that the author of of Athent (9. I), who ascribed the origin of the Aristotelian Constitution the practice there to Solon, regarded it as one of his three most democratic innovations.It is of courseunlikely that at Athens, any more than at Rome, accuserswere often humble people. At Athens indeedthejurors were paid and might be poor men; in Rome therewas alwaysa property qualification.Still, it remainstrue that the judicial systemof the late Republic ensuredthat membersof the ruling class could be brought to account either before the people or before courts not composedof their own peers.It was only under the Principatethat senatorsbecame free of such control by their inferiors. The ideal of aequalibertashad then been abandoned altogether. xIv the most momentous, Of all the rights of the peoplein their assemblies though at timeslittle exercised,was that of legislation,sinceit was by passing laws that the commons could gain material benefits; to say nothing of popular enactmentsin the late Republic, it was by earlier secured. legislation that nexumwas abolished and the iusprouocationis Dionysius thought that lrom the first the people, then voting by curiae, had had the power to enact laws (ii. I4); by removing this power, Tarquin the Proud destroyedliberty (iv. BI.2f.); it was restoredwith the Republic (iv. 75. 4t v. 2. z f., vii. S6. S); indeed the new systemwas approved by an assembly(iv. 84. 3). Although in his view it was 'lover of freedom' declare that aristocratic, he makes a patrician in governmentby consent(xi. rr. z; cf. 15. 3), and freedomconsists another acknowledgethat the right to legislatewas proper to free men (1*.++.6). I take it that theseand other similar textsin Dionysiusand Livy163 relating to the early Republic, whether or not the facts they purport to give are authentic, derive from annalistswriting after the Gracchi and reflect the sentimentscurrent in the late Republic, especiallyamong the popularer,a term that Livy usesof spokesmenfor plebeian rights during the struggleof the orders, and that Dionysius 'ut J.-L.Ferrary (n. r57) has an interesting discussion.CL ch. 4 lor qualifications o[' iutlices. The plebeiansqualified under the LexPlautiaof89 probably had to bc personsofsome srrl)stancc. 163Livy iv. 5. z; cf. vi. 27. 6 ft

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renders by demotikoi;thus, he so charactcrizesthe consuls of +49, Valeriusand Horatius (xi.43), whosetenureof officein Livy's view was'popularis', becausethey passedlaws for the lreedom of the plebs (iii.55). Popular liberty in this sensevvasrestrictedunder patrician ascendancy. No decisionscould be taken by the curiaeor centurieswithout ratification by the patrician senators Qpatrumauctoritas).Dionysius supposed that originally the tribunes of the plebs were themselves elected by the curiae;it was therefore of great advantage to the plebs when the electionswere transferred to the tribes, which were also not liable to obstruction by patrician augurs (ix. 4r, +g). Legislation, however,belongedin the Republic only to the centuriateassemblyof the whole people; the tribes could do no more than passplebiscita which had no binding force. This meant that legislation could be initiated only by the patrician magistrates who presided over the centuries,not by the tribunes who representedthe plebs. Moreover, as Dionysiusfrequently observes,the common people had almost no power in the centuriate assembly,which was dominated by men of property, with whose support (he thought) the patricians were able so long to maintain control ("i. +S. 3). Originally rB centuriesof Equites and Bo of the first property classhad an absolute majority of the r 93 centuries;when they concurred, citizensof the middling sort would not even be called to vote, and the very poor, the proletarü,were brigadedin a singlecentury, which would vote last, if at all, although on Dionysius' estimatethey comprisedperhapshalf of the citizenry; probably this estimatewas not far wrong for the time of the Hannibalic war, and the disproportion must have increased thereafter. In f;act the centuriate assembly never lost this timocratic character; though there was a 'democratic'change,which can be dated between z4t and el8, of which Dionysius was aware, it did not amount to much; henceforth the centuries of the first class voted before the Equites, and they now numbered only 70, two for each of the thirtyfive tribes, with the result that an absolute majority required at least some votes of the second class.16aNor would it have made any significant difference if proposals attributed to Gaius Gracchus and put forward later had been carried, whereby the centuries would r6a iv. zo. vii. 5, 5 9 . 7 , v i i i . 8 2 . 6 , x . r 7 . 5 ; * i . 4 5 . g . P r o l e t a r üi v: . r B . z , v i i . 5 9 . 6 ( c f . L i v y i . 4 3 . rt); IM 24,64-8. Democratic change: iv. zr. 3; cf. Brunt, JiRS r96r, App. rr. For the subsequent systemcf. Cic. de rep.ii. 39. In electionsa candidate neededan absolute majority to be returned; Cic. Phil. ii. 8r proves that this was attainable once the secondclasshad voted. Cicero'sboast that he was unanimously returned as praetor and consul (deimp. Cn. Plmp. 2, de leg. agr. ii. 4) means only that he had the votes olthe Equites and the first two classes.Of his competitors in 64, C. Antonius beat Catiline only by a lew votes; on this occasionall or nearly all the centuries must h a v c b e c n c a l l e d t o d e c i d e b e t w e e nt h e m .

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have been called in a random order and not in the rank ol'property r 65 classes. Hence it was vital, if the true will of the whole people was to prevail, that the right of legislation should be granted to the tribes, which at one time were more truly representative than the centuries, and which could vote on bills that the tribunes laid before them, and that the enactment of laws should not be subject to ratification by the patrician 'equal liberty' means the senators. Livy makes tribunes argue that right of the people to legislate as it chooses(n. r63); in the context this demand relates to the tribal assembly.tuu The actual development is obscure. The patrum aucloritas, though never abolished, was reduced to a formality (Livy i. tZ.g) by a lex 'popularis' Publilia of 339, the work of a dictator, and a lex Maenia, probably later than z9z; Sallust makes Macer say that this freed the people's votes.167 Plebiscitawere given binding force, we are told, by a lex Valeria Horatia of 449, by another lex Publilia of 339, and by the lex Hortensia of c.z\7. The last of these measures is unquestionably historical, though the circumstances in which it passed are largely veiled from us by the loss of the narratives of Livy and Dionysius. Whether the earlier laws are mere inventions or their purport has been inexactly transmitted, a matter of endless scholarly dispute, it is 'popular' enough for our purpose to note that Livy conceived that the consuls of 449, whom he credits with the reform, promoted the cause of liberty by putting the sharpest of weapons into the hands of the tribunes (iii.55), a weapon, as Sallust's Macer was to say, to be used lor liberty (seebelow). Dionysius took the view that they gave powe r to 'plebeians the and the poor'.168 The tribal assembly itself cannot have been fully representative of the people in zB7, and must have become increasingly lessrepresentative;16e in the last century of the Republic it seems to have been 165 Ifwe credit Sall.(?) Ep. ad. Caes.ii.8, C. Gracchus considered this scheme,anticipating Manilius in 66 and Ser. Sulpicius in 64 (Cic. Mur. 47, testilying to the indignation of the municipal gentry). 1 6 6 S e e n . 1 6 3 . L i v y i i i . 5 5 , v i i i . r z . r 4 f . a l s o t r e a t s a n y i n c r e a s ei n t h e p o w e r o f t h e t r i b a l assemblyas popular. 161 Or. Macri r5; cl Cic. Planc.B (iuspopuli).Publilian law: Livy viii. rz. rz ff.; the Maenian is after zg8 (Cic. Brut.55) and was presumably noticed in Livy's third decade. r68 Livy iii. 55 (cf. Dionys. xi. 45), viii. rz, Per. xi:'plebs propter aes alienum post graves et longasseditionesad ultimum secessitin Ianiculum, unde a Q, Hortensio dictatore deducta est'; cf. Dio, fr. 37 on the preceding agitation lor a moratorium in repayment of debts; Caius i. 3 etc. briefly record the law givingplebiscitathe force of leges.For laterjurists this was the operative law; moreover, the relevant events would still have been remembercd in outline by the earliest annalists,writing some three generationsor lessafterwards. r 6 e T a y l o r , 1 9 6 o ,P a r t I ( w i t h m a p s ) . - I ' h e r 4 r u r a l t r i b e s c r c a t c d b c t w e c n i87 and.:4r had larger territories and ultimately at least more resisteredcitizcns than the first r 7 rural tribcs close t o R o m e , e x c e p t f o r t h o s e a m o n g t h e l a t t e r w h i c h ( c s p c c i a l l yP o l l i a ) a c q u i r c d s u b s t a n t i a l

t . t ß t ) R ' IÄ ; ; t N ' t ' H l : R ! : P t ; n t , t ( ;

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dominatcdby the urban plebs(p. z5l.), while the centuriateassembly continued to reflect the views of the more affluent. But not even opponentsof the power or liberty of the peopleever took the point that neither assemblycould truly be regardedas the people.And they too, while alwaysseekingto curb or nullify the exerciseby the 'people'of its rights, were bound by respectfor constitutionalconvention,on which the authority of the senate was itself based, to pay lip-service to its sovereignty;thus in ro6 Lucius Crassus,cajoling a popular audience, 'we could acknowledge that [senators] can and ought to be subject fseruire)to you all', i.e. to the people as a whole (Cic. de orat.i. zz5). with This conception of popular sovereigntywas identified by populares liberty. Thus the Gracchi, according to Sallust, sought to reassertthe people'sliberty (BJ +r.r); it must have been as clear to him as it is to us that they had claimed its right to legislate without restriction on which mattersof everysort (p. 33). This is a leading themein speeches he attributes to 'popular' spokesman.They stand at leastin name for the people's rights (Cat. 38) acquired in the early Republic and thereforesanctionedby mosmailrum,the Roman equivalent to constitutional law. Thus Memmius reminds the people of the ius and maiestas of old (BJ Zt. r7); both had been violated by won in the secessions oligarchic tyranny (3r. I and 9); the people must throw off'slavery' and resume their liberty by assertingtheir rights in the interest of the commonwealth (passim),in the particular instance by overriding the senatein its conduct of relationswith Jugurtha. The Gracchi, falsely accusedof aiming at regal power, had been the people's true champions (3r.2,7 f.). Lepidusdeclaresthat under Sulla'sdespotismthe people has been stripped of imperium(!),glory, and right, with the result that the citizens are exposed to illegal entrenchments on their private rights; they are enslaved(Or. Lep.,esp. I I). Macer again, in agitating for the restoration of the rights that Sulla had taken from the tribunes (n. I34), laments the people'sloss of liberty under the (I and 6). Liberty is not simply the right domination of his successors to vote-for they can still at electionsdesignatetheir masters (6), nor security against arbitrary ill-treatment, which had supposedly been securedby the first secession(I ); though Macer suggeststhat even this had been lost by citizensoutside Rome itself (n. I34), he treats with contempt the notion that personal security constitutessufficient freeexclaves. The distribution of the enfranchised Italians among the rural tribes after go only produced new inequalities.We must suspectgerrymandering, but do not know how it worked nor in whoseinterest.The number ofcitizens voting in an urban tribe was evidently greater than that of those voting in a rural tribe, and individual votes therefore less valuable; this must be the explanation ofattempts to allow freedmen to be registeredin rural tribes oftheir residence(which ol'course also presupposethat some freedmen lived in towns other than Rome or had farms); cf. n.r59.

3+6

LIBERTASIN THE REPUBLIC

dom (26). What is required is the restorationof the tribunician power as a weapon ('telum'; cf. Livy iii.55) to be used for lreedom (le), which must not be bartered for the meagrecorndole with which the senatehad tried to assuagediscontent (I9)' In 63 Cicero himself, suiting his sentimentsto thoseof a massaudience, would speakof the 'ius potestaslibertasque' of the people,which was not to be abated by any iurre nder of its own prerogativesor of thoseof tribunes (deleg.agr. ii. z9f.). Once again liberty cannot be dissociatedin the eyesof its frOm power. POSSeSSOT XV

Liberty in the senseof popular power, whether that which formally belongedto the plebsat leastafter the Hortensian law, or that which the plebs was believed to have exerted by agitations before its legislative iights had evenin the annalistictradition beenconceded,was certainly ttre means by which the unprivileged extracted material advantages from the ruling class,and itis not surprising that libertasand (commoda) were are sometimäsassociated.lToSome of these commoda its commoida undoubtedly subsumedunder the concept of liberty in other senses;the 'equal liberty' under the laws' whose ius auxilä and iusprouocationis, codification and publication were thought to have been forced on the patriciansby popular clamours,the abolition of nexum,and (we may äaa; tne freedomof clientsfrom oppressivedemandsby patrons, which was securedby legislationof the late third century (ch. B nn. IoB f.)' It 'equal liberty' was obtained for was alsoby the power of the people that plebeiansin office-holding,and that the introduction of balloting gave them greater freedom to vote as they pleased.Naturally the various measuresof relief for the poor ascribed to plebeian leadersof the early Republic, or promoted by Flaminius' agrarian distributions, and by the were at leastproducts of that libertaswhich Gräcchi and their successors, could be identified with popular sovereignty.Moreover, it could be held that the property and revenuesof the Roman statewere the possessions and income of the citizens (cf. Cic. de leg.agr. ä.55, Bo-z); Tiberius Gracchusurged that it wasjust that the land of the community should be distributed in common, sc. that individual citizens should be given sharesin what belongedto them, and Gaius probably deployeda similar argument for the application of public funds to grain distributions (Fiorusii. r ); it may well be that they contendedthat the peoplewasfree to disposeofits own. Sincethe freedomofRome asa statewasconnected with its imperial strength (.. 3o), Tiberius might also have contended that his agrarian law, designed to ensure that more land should l70 Hcllegouarc'h 556.

,I I . IB E R ' T , I SI N ' I ' H D R T ] P U B I C

3+7

be in the possessionof free men available for service in the army, whose numbers guaranteed that strength, instead of being cultivated by slaves, was conducive to Roman freedom. But is there yet another possibility, that distributions of land and grain or the relief of debtors were actually seen as enhancing or -reating freedom? It could have been said that grain distributions at Rome made the recipients less dependent on bounties from the great houses, while limitations on the rate of interest, moratoriums on the repayment of loans, or reductions of the capital due to be-repaid, freed debtors from creditors; the last claim was unquestionably made on behalf of those who had lallen into a condition of bondage analogous to that of the nexi of old (". 2). Kloesel thought that this conception did emerge in relation to the establishment of peasant proprietors on the land (n. r7r). He cited a speech of servius Tullius in Dionysius (iv. g. B), in which that king proposed to share out public land among the poor'in order^that, free men as you are, you may not labour as hirelings for others, but farm your own land and not that of others'. This is redolent of the notion of upperclassGreeks that it was servile to earn one's livelihood by taking wages' since the wage-earner had no true independence. Cicero repeats this idea, but in ä passage in which he mal be simply following the Greek Panaetius. I am not ä*ure of any other explicit statement of it in Latin. It is quite another matter that upper-class Romans commonly shared the cbntempt expressed by their Greek peers for manual labour, including inmy view the actual cultivation of the soil, as distinct from 'banausic' occupations of all landownlng; this contempt was felt for kinds (retail trading too), irresp_ectiveof the legal or economic status of t h e p e r s o n s" t g u g . ä i n t h e m . r T l Siill, Kloes.I Äuy have been right.172 As he remarks, Sallust says that the Gracchi began to champion freedqm and expose the crimes of the oligarchs (BJ +z.t); now, though it is true that Gaius Gracchus 1 t t D e S t . C r o i x , r 9 8 r , r 7 g - z o l ; f o r r e a s o n s g i v e n i n J r t s r g s z I, 6 o f . , I d o n o t t h i n k t h a t t h e upper-classopinion that *ug.:-lubor. was servilein itselfdoesanything to show_that it was not of cänsiderableeconomic impoitance, ifonly becausethe poor can have often had no alternative to acceptingwageswhen offered, even though they too felt that it was a lossofindependence' In JRS to slaves;were ,9Ao, gg1, I sought ro refure the view that Roman law assimilatedmercennarü ,üi, i."ä, it woulJ of course prove that men gained freedom by being taken out of the classof 'banausic' work either did not share the upperwage-earners.It is also clear tirat thoseengagedin nelmondorom.,r 963, z r -4I ), or at e lauoratori Laaoro ctas"s prejudice against it (so F. M. de Robirtis, ury ,ute"hud ,,o ähoi.. but to live by meansthey despised.On Cic. deofic.i. I5o f., seeBrunt, Proc. Camb.Phit. Sor. I973, :6 ff.; on contempt for cultivation ofthe soil, ibid' t I-t3' r?2 Kloesel Bleicken, rg72,35 n' 58, for lack of 4""fi.l di..out,.d by Wirszubski 44ff., and 'I'here is indeed no force in Kloesel'ssuggestionthat opponentsofagrarian distributions evidence. were answering the claim of reformersthat they made ficr liberty by taxing them.with the design of aiming thÄselves at despotic power; this imputation surely countered the assertion by rcformcrs of liberlasin tht' senscof the peoplc's sovereignty'

348

I . I B I : R/ , : t . t\ N ' l H l : R t : t ' t : u t , l ( :

fortified the insprouocalionis and that his lamousjudiciary refbrm could be represented as an extensionof 'aequa libertas' (Florusii. r), his brother was especiallyassociated with agrarian relorm, and he himself continued the work and also instituted the grain dole, while the context in which Sallust sums up their achievementis that of a description of the miseries of the poor: the lreedom they stood for shouldbe relatedto their effortsto alleviatesocialdistress.Appian tells that the poor fearedthat in the eventof Tiberius'death 'they would no longer enjoy equality in citizen rights but would be forced into being the slavesof the rich' (i. r5). Lepidus'speechlinks the lossof freedom under Sulla with the ejectionof the poor from their homes (4, rz, z4) and with the abolition o[the corn dole, which left the peopledestitute, deprivedevenof slaverations (r r ), aswell aswith disregardof the rule of law. Tiberius Gracchusalsolamentedthat men who had fought for Rome had lost their own homes (Plut. Zi. Gr.g), and Cicero himself was to mention in the samebreath 'private hearths'and 'the rights of liberty' (Phil. xäi. r ). All this is little to show that libertascould connote economic independence,but we must recall how little the sources preserveof the sentimentsto which populares appealed. In any case,libertasas the sovereigntyof the people was not just the instrument by which the people had securedvarious benefits:it had also been sought, according to annalistic tradition, for the sakeof those benefits.This is written large in the accountsof the struggle of the ordersin Livy and Dionysius.Cicero draws on this tradition when he suggeststhat there would have been no pressure to create the tribunate, had the senateprovided relief for debtors who were being reduced to bondage (derep.ii.Sg), and Sallustwhen he explainsthe first secession of the plebs and the institution of the tribunate and other rights for the plebs by cruel and oppressiveadministration of the patricians(Hist.i. r r ). No doubt the tradition was in large measurethe product of annalisticimagination,but the very nature of the tribunate and of the organizationof the plebs,as a kind of state within a state, virtually implies a bitter classconflict. At Ieastthe secession of c.zB7, and the circumstances that provoked it, must have been in the recollection of the earliest annalists, if not recorded in the pontifical annals at the time, and we can then safely say that the lex Hortensia, which finally establishedpopular sovereignty,was the issueof a debt agitation (n. 168). In the late Republic too restoration of the full tribunician power was demanded in the 7os for the sake of freedom, but, according to Cicero (I Verr. 45f.), it gained its force from discontentwith provincial misgovernment(which is perhapsnot easy to credit) and judicial corruption, for which no remediescould be expected unless tribunes recovered their former rights to initiate

I . I B I : R ' I/ I . f I N ' I ' H H R T ] P ( : B I , I ( :

349

re{ilrms; we may perhaps think that the masseswere more concerned with the abolition or inadequacy of the corn dole and indeed the f,ailure of the government to maintain supplies of grain for the market (Sall. äisl. ii.+S), and by the lack of protection for citizens outside Rome (Or. Macri z7). We may then well believe that ordinary citizens valued their political rights in the consciousnessthat they had afforded, and might continue to afford, all sorts of other benefits,just as senators must have valued the liberty that inhered in the senate's authority for the power and perquisites that they individually derived from it. But in neither case need we assume that liberty had not also come to be regarded as a good per se, partly by its association with other advantages, penetrating men's minds at a deeper level than that of conscious calculation, and partly for the dignitas that it bestowed on its possessors. Senators enjoyed general respect and deference, but the common people could also rejoice that these grandees had to humble themselves in soliciting their votes. Each citizen had his share in the maiestasof the people. XVI If all this be true, we cannot say that there was no Roman conception of libertas that did not comprise democratic ideas. It is of course obvious that the seedsof democracy sown in the early Republic never c;me to fruition. The extension of Roman territory and the growth of citizen numbers, to say nothing of the peculiar defectsof the Roman assemblies, were insurmountable hindrances, given that no one so much as thought of introducing the representative principle. The'strength of the plebs', as Sallust observes,was 'disunited and dispersed' (BJ U. 6). The people could act under the constitution only on initiatives from above, and though these were forthcoming they were for long infrequent, and always intermittent; there was no organized party with a continuous existence, ever intent on enabling the people to give effect to its will. Most aristocrats were always at one in desiring to keep real power in their own circles and the people, which was bound to commit the exercise of government to persons within a limited class qualified by property, education, training, and tradition, seldom had the chance to choose for office members, either nobles or new men, who would act against the common interests of that class, still less to fill the senate with them. We need not doubt that most citizens felt a respect passedon from generation to generation for the senatorial order under whose direction Rome had grown great, but such respect did not always outweigh all other interests and passions, nor was it thought to be inherently ccrnnected with libertas. Auctoritas was a restriction on libertas, and the

35o

L I I | E R T . 4 .l \. r - ' tH H R t : p t ' B L t ( :

a b u s eo f a r i s t o c r a t i cp o w e r i n s p i r e d e b u l l i t i o n s o f p r o t e s t a n d h a t r e d . I t was aristocrats who then spoke of popular licence. These ebullitions resulted in violence on both sidesand ultimately in civil wars, in which the antagonists could all claim to be defending freedom, which they conceived in different ways. Seneca was to observe that it was futile for Brutus to hope that it could be restored in a state where so much was to be gained from both ruling and submitting to slavery, and which could no longer be brought bäck to its former condition, once the old morality had been lost; there could never again be equality of civic rights and a stable system of law, when so many thousands of men were ready to fight not for their liberty but for subjection to a particular individual (de benef.ii. zo). He implied that political liberty, taken to depend on sound morality and respect for law, was doomed before the institution of the Principate and was incompatible with it (cf. n. +2). of course Tacitus and others could admit that liberty, in the attenuated senseof freedom for men of rank to think and speak as they chose, could be maintained by a benevolent prince; but even this measure of freedom was precarious: it reposed on the will of one despot and might be revoked by his s.t...ssoi.173 For Tacitus too loss of equal rights was important: in eo r4,all men fhe is thinking of men of rank] abandoning equality awaited the orderi of a ruler' (Ann. i. 4). Like Seneca, he saw that Romans in effect prized other things more than freedom; the plebs were won over to thi new system by cheap food, the soldiers by rewards, all by the desire for otium; even the survivors of the old nobility were seduced by prospecs of officesand wealth (i. z). However, while the higher orders retained a share in the government, if only as servants of the monarch, and the new system respected their material class-interests,the people forfeited not only its electoral, judicial, and legislative rights, bui eventually 'equal liberty' before the laws. It is symptomatic that caesar himseif abrogated that lreedom of association which clodius had confirmed, a-nd that Augustus (or Tiberius) would invest the consular prefect of the city with arbitrary powers of coercion not only over slavej but over 'that disorderly element among the citizens whose audacity could be deterred only by force' (Ann..vi. r r). This was one step along the path that would lead to the imposition on the humble of penalties once thought appropriate only to slaves, and bind them to the soil in the interests of treasury and landowners. The optimate critics of the Gracchi were proved right; attempts to 'restöre' the power of the people led on to monarchy, and monarchy destroyed popular freedom more completely than senatorial. I 7 3 W i r s z u b s k ir 67-7r

7 AMICITIA

IN THE LATE ROMAN REPUBLICl

I. A modern conception that amicitia denotes political association contrasted with Cicero's ideal of amicitia as founded on virtue and the common value set on the pleasure derived from the relationship. Amicitia can certainly denote affection, and though it entails fficiait is more than a relationship requiring the interchange ofservices (not necessarily political). Its range extends from genuine intimacy and community of principles (or at least pursuits) to forms of outward courtesy. II. These forms can coexist with political opposition and secret hostility. Nominal friendship does not indicate readiness to assist a 'friend'. Overt inimicitiae, as distinct from occultaodia, rare. Men can preserve the forms of friendship with avowed enemies of their other friends. Amicitia and inimicitiae in political trials. Amicitiae cannot be identified with political alliances, and private obligations to friends are far from furnishing the chief explanation for political alignments.

I

N describing a close political union Sallust observes 'haec inter bonos amicitia, inter malos f;actio est' (BJ Zt. r5).2 This remark may be take n as a text for a fashionable interpreta tion of amicitia in

the late Roman Republic. ProfessorLily RossTaylor writes that 'the old Roman substitutelor party is amicitia',and that 'friendshipwas the chief basisof support for candidatesfor office, and amicitiawas the good old word for party relationships'.3Again, Sir Ronald Syme saysthat 'amicitia was a weapon of politics,not a sentimentbasedon congeniality', and he maintains that 'Roman political factions were welded together,lessby unity of principle than by mutual interest and by I 'I'his paper, of which I read a version ro the Cambridge Philological Society in r964, was suggested by reading F. Lossmann, citero u. caesar im Jahre 54: stud. 1. Theorieu. praxis der rijm. (r96z); cf. my review in cl. Rea. r964, go f. I have also been helped by the valuable FreundschaJl collection ofmaterial inJ. Hellegouarc'h, Le Vocabulaire lalin desrelationset despartispolitiquessousla Ripublique(r963). The presentversion is revised,and some material has been rransferredto ch. g. 2 Cl. BJ 'nobilitas factione magis pollebat, plebis vis soluta atque dispersain multitudine 4r.6: minus poterat'; cic. de rep.i. ++, 6g, iii. 44, and esp. z3: 'cum autem certi propter divitias aut senus aut aliquas opes rem p. tenent, est factio, sed vocantur optimates'. See also Hellegouarc'h g9-n; M. I. Hcnderson, ./ÄS rq5z, r r5; ch. g passim,and pp. 446 f. below. " 'l aykrr, 1949, f. 7

352

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mutual services(oficia),either betweensocialequalsas an alliance,or from superior to inferior, in a traditional and almost feudal lorm of clientship: on a favourable estimate the bond was called amicilia, otherwisefactio'.aOn this view, if a Roman called a man amicus,it meant that he was a political ally, or a memberof what in eighteenthcentury England could have been describedas the same'connection'. This sort of relation is one describedby Cicero as 'non amicitia sed mercatura quaedam utilitatum suarum' (de nat. deor.i. rzz). The theoreticalaccount of rue friendship which he offersin the Laeliusor de amicitiais strikingly different. It is 'voluntatum studiorum sententiarum summa consensio'(r5), arisingnot from our consciousness of our own deficienciesor from our need for reciprocal services:it springs rather from natural affection and benevolence,from which in turn reciprocalservicesresult.sThis affectionis one of the bonds that unite any human society,but in an intenserform it subsists only betweentwo or at most a few men. Betweenthem it is certain to last only if they are good men, whose character and views do not 'alter when they alterationfind'.6 It is only on the foundationof virtue that genuineand durable affection can be based,a friendship inspired by mutual good faith (deamic.65) and goodwill and by reciprocal recognition of merits (eo), and cementedby similarity of character (mores)and pursuits (studia)(27,74; the friendsare frank, though courteousto eachother, loyal and unsuspecting(6S-6); they share,and ought to share,each other's joys and sorrows (zz, 45-B); they serve each other without keepingan accountof profit and loss(SB);u man will do more for his friend than he would do for himself, and should even deviate from the strict path of justice, if his friend's life or reputation is imperilled,T though naturally he will do, and will be asked to do, nothirtg absolutelyshameful(56-6 r; cf. 4o); in short the true friend is an image of oneself(23), or indeed a kind of secondself--'tamquam alter idem' (Bo;cf. 9z).8 In this essayCicero was presumably drawing on Greek philosophy, and W. Kroll, who held that amicusmeansin the everyday language of a 6 ' o

5 de amic, rg-32; cf. ArRr57, ch. rr. 5r Ibid. r8-zo, 5o, 65, 79-84; cf. Arist. E"M r r56b6ff. F . S c h u l z , r y 3 6 , 4 7 , a p t l y c i t e sl l V e r r .g , r 2 2 , r 5 2 For morescf. Nepos, Att. 5. g; though Atticus' sister married Quintus Cicero, he was more intimate with Marcus, 'ut iudicari possit plus in amicitia valere similitudinem morum quam affinitatem'. Common studia,seebelow; cf. also Cluenl.46: 'iam hoc fere scitis omnes quantam vim habeat ad coniungendasamicitias studiorum ac naturae similitudo'; examples,Ii.g. zr (Tubero), F a m . i . 7 . I I , g . 2 3 f ( L e n t u l i ) , i i i . r 3 . r ( A p p . C l a u d i u s ) v, . r 3 . 5 , r 5 . z ( L u c c e i u s )x, i i i . 2 9 . r (Plancus),dtfato z (Hirtius), Ac.praef.and i. r (Varro). Hellegouarc'h r74 ff. missesthe common senseofintellectual pursuits. Frankness,Fam. xi.28. 8. Courtesy in complaints, iii. r r. 5. Image, Lossmann (n. l) gg ff. compares Arist. MM tzrg^7 ff. Secondself,Fam. vü.5. r (Cacsar), ,,lll. iii. t 5 . 4 ( A t t i c u s ) ,a d B r u t . 2 g ( = i . r S ) . z ( B r u t u s ) ,A t t . i v . r , 7 ( P o m p e yo n C i c e r o ) .

/1,\l l(:l'l

I

I.'l

353

the timc n() more than a politicallirllower,wascontentto explainthat we find Roman practice in the strongestcontradiction with Greek theory.eCicero'ssourceor sourcescannot be identifiedwith certainty; he doesnot here name any source,in the way that he namesPanaetius in the defficüs, and neithär internal evidencenor Gellius' statementlo that he häd apparently used Theophrastuson friendship proveswho the writer o. *.it.rr were that he was following; it is obviously possible that he was not slavishlyfollowing any source,even though he was influenced by one or more Greek philosophical treatments of his subject.rl It is true that he was not an original thinker and that where he is co.,ce.nedwith the more abstract philosophic themes,metaphysics, physics,and the like, he perhaps does no more than expound the doctrines of others. whether or not he indicates his own approval or dissent.But it is another matter to supposethat he adopted the same procedure when writing of practical morality or politics. Here he 'It ä"p.esslyclaims independence' would be very easy', he saysin de ,ro translatePlaro,which I would do if I did not wish to tefib"s(ii. r 7;, .ip..r, -y#lf.' Even in the defficüs, where he avows that he is mainly following Panaetius,it is plain that he does so only becauseand in so f;aras hJcan adopt the views of Panaetiusas his own, and confirm and 12 illustrate them from Roman experience. This was possiblebecause Panaetiushimself had written not about the duties of th3 ideal sapiens, but about those which should be performed by men who could convenrionally be regarded as good in the workaday world (i. 46, iii. r4-r6). So too in the Laeliuscicero makesit clear that the good men ,"ho uion. can enjoy true friendships are not necessarilyphilosophic sagesbut men, like Scipioand Laelius,who are good in the plain man's he cites other modelsfrom Roman history. se.tse;13 The doctrine of the Laeliuswas certainly not the mere product of Cicero'sphilosophicstudiesin old age. In a youthful work he defines 'the will that good things should accrue to the man loved friendship as for his own sake,combined with a like will on his part', and adds that ,as we are here speakingof lawsuits,we take into account not only friendshipbut alsoits fruits. so that it would seemto be soughtfor their 'There are some',he proceeds,'who think that friendship sakeas well'" e Kultur der ciuronischen.leit, i. 55 tr. to i. that Cicero ustd Theophrastus, 3. , r; contraPhllippson (RE viiA. r r63 ff.) he clearly held iii), t967, desPanailios(Palingenesia but he n'eednot be right. F. A. Steinmetz,Die Freundschaflslehre an admirable u.alysis of de amicitia,has strengthened the casefor Panaetius as at least Cicero's chief source. tt Cf. V. Pöschl,Roz. Staatu. gr. Staatsdenken bei Cicero,196z, e3 n. 27 on de republica' 1 2 P a n a c r i u s ,t h c m a i n s o u r c e o f i i i ( c f . i i i . 7 : ' q u e m n o s c o r r e c t i o n eq u a d a m a d h i b i t a p o r i s s i m u ms c c u t is u m u s ' ;l l t . x v i . r r . . 1 ) ,i s c r i t i c i z e de x p l i c i t l yi n i . 7 , 9 - r r , t 5 z , l 6 t , i i . 1 6 , 8 6 , iii. j..t. t3 fu nnir.rtl rt, ; 8 : t l . 1 r 1t., r r , 1 .

ÄMrot'rIA

. . t , vl ( ; l ' t L l

shouldbe soughtonly for its utility, otherslor its own sakealone,orhers againwho valueit on both counts.'r4This distinction,which reappearsin a letter to Appius Claudius (Fam. äi. ro. 7-9), berweenrwo types of friendship,not mutually exclusive,is somewhatdifferent from Aristotle's, who had held that friendship was of three kinds: what artracted us in a man might be either the good, the useful, or the pleasant.ls But the pleasuresof friendshipalso constituteda theme well known at Rome; it was a rhetorical toposthat'maximum bonum est amicitia; plurimae delectationessunt in amicitia' (deina. i. gs); such terms as iucindusand, suauisare often used to describe friendly relations, and Aristotle's classificationunderliesCicero'sexplanation of the fact that Catiline had so many friends;in thepro caelio(tz-14) he saysthat catiline wasable ro do them services, his companygavethem pleasure,and to all appearances he was a man of many virtues; it accordedwith Roman expCrience. A sharp contrast between Greek theory and Roman practice is indeed out of place in Cicero's day. Roman thinking was already permeated by Greek ideas. Like many others of his class,Cicero had been versed in Greek philosophy long before he began to write on it more or lesssystematically,röand he could take such knowledgefor granted in others;thus in writing to Appius Claudius long before he composed the Laelius,he can refer to the books of learned men on friendship as a matter of common knowledge (Fam. üi.7. S, B. S). cicero himselftook the moral and political principleshe had äaopt.a from Greek thought so seriously that in 49 BC, for instance; he examinedover and over again how he should act in accordancewith them; as Gelzerremarks,'thisway of thinking sprangfrom his deepest convictions'.r7At the same time it is implauiible tJsuppose that the Romans, whose word for friendship (as Cicero points out) 18 derives Irom amo,had no native acquaintancewith genuine affection of a nonsexualkind. cicero contendedthat in generalthe Romans were better practitionersin moral and political life than the Greeks,leand that the experienceof a Roman statesmangave him special competenceto write on political theory,2oalthough the virtuä Romans ärew from

n a t u r e , t r a d i t i o n , a n d e x p e r i e n c ec o u l d b e m a t u r e d a n d d e e p e n e d b y the study of Greek doctrines.2lThus in his view Romans had a special aptitude for ethics and politics, the most important parts of philosophy.22 It would be strange then if Cicero, holding as he did to the superiority of Romans in practical morality, would have been content in his old age merely to copy out Greek doctrines from a book, if they were totally irrelevant to the actualities of Roman life as he knew them in a long career. The Laelius is constantly illustrated from Roman life and it should be taken seriously as an expressionof Roman experience. It is beyond question that amicitia, for whatever reasons the relationship was formed, was not a relationship either of mere affection or of mere reciprocal interest; if it was more than an empty name, it bound the friends together in bonds of obligation and honour. It was supposed to be founded on fdes, or, as Cicero says in the Laelius (92, 97) and quite casually in a forensic speech (Quinct.z6), on ueritas.The author of the rhetorical work ad Herennium(iv. r9) ranks betrayal of friends with breach of an oath or violence to parents among acts of moral obliquity; a man can be condemned for destroying political harmony, good faith, friendship, and the public interest. In giving practical recommendations to the orator, Cicero remarks that he may appeal to considera'which friendships, tions of both expediency and morality (honestas); are determined by affection and love', come under the second head (Part. Or. Bg-B).The duties (oficia) that friends owe to each other are mentioned so often that I need cite no evidence here; many of the relevant texts will be quoted later. Following Panaetius, Cicero acknowledges special obligations first to the fatherland, and then in descending order to parents, children, kinsmen; but he then stressesthe ties that bind us to friends, especially to those with whom we are united 'similitudo morum' (de by ffic, i. SB). However, men could find themselvesunder apparently conflicting obligations, and had to decide which were the strongest in the complexity of actual circumstances. It was a breach of duty either to fail in doing for a friend what you might do for him rightly or to do for him what was not just; you should never prefer your own advantage to the claims of friendship, a practice which all too often led to the dissolution of the specious friendships of politicians (de amic.33, 63), nor those claims to the interests of the fatherland or the requirements of law and justice.23 The passage I have already cited from the pro Caelio is only one of

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t a d e i n u .i i . r 6 7 : c[ r57. ts EN r r56br6 ff. [t ii characteristicofone difference between Greek and Roman societv that C i c e r o . d o e ns o t b r i n g u p A r i s t o t l e ' sp o i n t t h a t f r i e n d s h i pf o r u t i l i t y i s p r o p e r l o t h e b u s i n e s m s an. O:up.i.7,r3,Fan.iv.4.4,Brut.3o8etc.;forlaterstudiesinleisuie,ir.i.rr,Att.ii.r6,3,etc. _'" F o r o t h e r R o m a n s s e e E . Z e l l e r , P h i t . d . G r i e c h e n i i i / i a . 5 56ow i t h n u m e r o u s r e f e r e n c e s , e s p . T r . i i . 4 f ( L u c u l l u s )F, a m . i v . 3 . 3 ; c f . z . z ( S e r .S u l p i c i u s )x, v . 4 . 1 6 ( M . C a t o , w h o m i n d e f n . i r i . T Cicero depicts in Lucullus' library 'multis circumfusum Stoicorum libris,). " RE viiA. 9 9 5 . c L B r u n r . J R S 1 9 8 6 .r z f f . d e . a m i t . 2 6c. [ H e l l e g o u a r c ' hr 4 6 f . f o r a m o ra s e q u i v a l e n t o a m i ( i t i ac. . g . , 4 1 rx. i r . r 3 a . r . ^'o Fam. i. 8. 2, g. 6' qu -fr.iii. 5. 3 f. cicero supposedthar Brutus was very fond of him ('mc tam v a f d ea m a t ' , A l t . x ü . r 4 . t \ . t n T u r r . D i s p .i . 2 0 d e r t p . i . t . . 1d. c l e t . r 3 , r i . d , u p . i ü . 7 . d e t e . qü.. 6 2 . iii. 11.

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2 r d e r e pi.. r 3 , i i i . 4 f i . H c n c e i t i s a p u b l i c s e r v i c e t o e x p o u n d G r e c k d o c t r i n e s , d e n a t . d e o r . i . T , de dia. ä. r-q, defn. i. to, de ofic. i. r55. 22 de rep. i. 33, de nat. deor.i. 7, de olJic.üi. 5. 23 deqlfir.i.58L,iii.43,deami.35-43,6r.Steinmetz(6 n6 . rfof .) i s n o d o u b t r i g h t t h a t C i c e r o was polt:mizine against partisansof ()aes:rror Antony who justified their conduct in the name of f l i c n d s h i p ,b u t s t r ' p p . ' 3 8 of .

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.4fitI(:I'I I..1

many in the speeches and lettersin which amicitiais not restrictedto a connectionfounded solely on mutual servicesand common interests, still lessto membershipof the samefaction. It is easybut one-sidedto quote such statementsas cicero's 'idcirco amicitiae comparantur ut commune commodum mutuis officiisgubernetur'.24Even when only utility is mentioned, what is stressedis often not so much the services actually rendered as the constant and known will or readiness to render them,25and the senseof amicitiais not exhausted by offcia; thus Trebatius is not only 'plenus offici' but also 'utriusque* nostrum a.mantissimus'(Fam. xi. 27. r). And amicitiaoften purports to describe sincere affection based on a community of tästei, feelings, and principles,and taking the form, where opportunity permits, of öntinuous and intimate association (aetustas, It is familiaritas, consuetudo).26 im.material for. my present purpose whether such affection always existed where it was professed:I am concerned for the present oniy with the meaning of the term. Here cicero's correspondencewith Appius craudius is of special interest. It needs no proof that the amicitia was purely politiäal, a matter of expediency. It is therefore the more st;iking t-hat cicero chooses representit as something more. He tells Applus that if it is _to the-mark of the greatestshrewdness'omnia ad suam ,riiiitut.- referre,, nothing could be more useful to him than a union with a man of such ability and influenceas Appius, but he proceeds:'illa vincula, quibus quidem libentissimeastringor, quanta sunt, studiorum similitrrdo, suavitasconsuetudinis, delectatiovitae atque victus,sermonissocietas, litterae interiores'.Even to caelius, Appius is representedas ,suavis amicuset studiosusstudiorum etiam meorum'.27Thus their friendship is depicted as more than a political connection:it is based on their common intellectualpursuitsand the delight they take in each other's conversationand comf)any. He later writes to Appius in the spirit of the.Laelius:'plopolo fructum amicitiae nostraeipsam amicitiam, qua nihil est uberius (Fam. äi. 13. 2).similarly he tells Lucceius that he would greatly desireto live in his society;'vestustas,amor, consuetudo, studia paria; quod vinclum, quaeso)deestnostraeconiunctionis?'(v. I5. 2), and in 6z he writes to'Pompey that if his serviceshave not yet

b r o u g h t t h e m c l o s et o g e t h e r , p o l i t i c s w i l l c c r t a i n l y c e m e n t t h e i r u n i o n ; he hopes that on his return Pompey will allow him 'et in re publica et in amicitia adiunctum esse','to be united with him botltin politics and in friendship'; a similar distinction is often made .28 By his own account these hopes were fulfilled; in 6r he refers to their'multa et iucunda consuetudo'; in 56 he publicly claims not only political co-operation but'hanc iucundissimam vitae atque officiorum omnium societatem'; in 5o he speaks not only of Pompey's services to himself but of 'consuetudinis iucunditas'; their union is marked by 'amoris atque offici signa'; and in 49 he regards himself as bound to Pompey by 'merita 'familiaritas', 'ipsa summa erga salutem meam', by and by rei publicae causa'.2fSimilarly in the Erutis (r f.) he recalls how much he lost by the death of his friend Hortensius in 5o 'consuetudo iucunda, multorum officiorum coniunctio', and wise advice in the political crisis. The fficia, when distinguished from political collaboration, must refer to personal or private services;the senseof loss on the death of a man from whose intimacy Cicero claims that he derived pleasure and private profit was enhanced ('augebat molestiam') by the fact that he was also a political associate.'Semo, litterae, humanitas' (cf. Fam. äi. g. t ) were recognized as qualities which might make even a disreputable man a welcome associate on whom the name of friend could be bestowed (II Verr. iii. B). I need hardly do more than reler to Cicero's relations with Caelius, Cornificius, or Papirius Paetus, with whom he might indulge in rallies of wit.30 Frorrr Trebatius he derived 'non mediocri . . . voluptate ex consuetudine nostra vel utilitate ex consilio atque opera tua' (Fam. vii. r7. z).31 Cicero represents his friendship with Matius, who as early as 53 is described as 'suavissimus doctissimusque' (Fam. vä. r5. 2), as beginning not with reciprocal servicesbut with mutual affection (amor),which at first did not ripen inro intimacy only because their different ways of life kept the m apart;32 then came the time when Matius rendered valuable help to Cicero in the civil war, and at last, after his return to Italy, they lived on terms of familiarity; they often spent many hours,'suavissimo sermone', and Matius encouraged Cicero to write philosophical works. 'Omnia me tua delectant', says Cicero, 'sed maxime maxima curn fides in amicitia,

24 Rosc.Amer. q.2t E.g' sull cä- zo.4, 'idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est,;I.-am.v.2.3, v..7. z, xi. e8. r (Matius refersto perpetua planc. etc. cf Hellegouarc,ir rgr ff.; beneaolentia), brit 5, his view that'voluntas est donc le terme propre ä d6signerla iotion d, ,.opinän politique,', (r83) is at once too narrow and too weak; aolunlasconnotei the will to realize ä..', opinio6 and thJy n.;9 be political._Forbeneuolentia in true lriendship see e.g. de amic. rgf. '" T, On theseand other such terms seeHellegouarc'h;sanalyies,68 ff. ()oisuetudo could naturally be.hampered by separation; cf. tr'am.xv. r4. z and p.357 on Matius. "'..Fam. i i i . I . I ( A p p i u s d e a r t o C i c e r o ' p r o p t e r m u i t a s s u a v i t a t e si n g e n i i , o f f i c i i ,h u m a n i t a t i s t u a e ' ) ,r o . 9 L , i i . r 3 . z .

28 Fam. v. 'mecum et amicitia et omni voluntate sententlaque 7; c.f.de.fin.iii. 8 on Lucullus c o n i u n c t u sd' e: o r a t . iz.4 : ' M . A n t o n i u s , h o m o e t t o n s i l i o r u m i n r e p . s o r . i u s e t s u m m a c u m C r a i s o familiaritate coniunctus'; l'am. xü. r 5. z (Lentulus writes): 'homo mihi cum familiaritate rum etiam sensibusin re p. coniunctissimus'(Helleeouarc'h 7o misinterpretsboth the last texts), P/ana. 95, etc. 2e Att. i. 16. rr (cf. 17. ro), d ed o m . 2 8 ,l ' a m . l l i . t o . r o , A t t . v i i i . 3 . z . 3 0 I . a m .i i . r z . r . v i i i . q . r . xii. r8. z. ix. r.,. r f. 3 r I ' o r ' l ' r c b a t i u s c f . a l{st it ,. i x . t 1 . . 1 , * . t t . . 1 .F a n . t i i . r q f . , x i . z 7 .r , T o p . r - i . 3 2 ( ' , 1I-..' a mx. v . r r . e .

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consilium,gravitas,constantia,tum lepos,humanitas, litterae, (Fam. xi. r7). Above all of coursethere is Atticus, whom cicero saysthat he loves for his virtues next to his brother; Atticus is the partner of his studies; they sharethe samejoys and grieß; when Atticus is away, Cicero lacks not only his advicebut 'sermoniscommunicatioquae mihi suavissima tecum soletesse',and yet even then he seeshim as if he were present,so clearly does he perceivethe fellow-feelingof his love.33In the same way he tells Lucceius that even when parted, they will seem to be united 'animorum coniunctioneiisdemque studiis'(Fam.v. r 3. 5). One is reminded of the dictum in the de amicitia(23): 'amici ei absentes adsunt'.Atticus,so cicero believes,caresfor his interestsmore than for his own (Att. xä.37.il,just as Laeliusis made to say that a friend should. 'q.rid dulcius quam habere quicum audeas sic loqui ut tecum?',asksLaelius (deamic.zz). cicero could speakwith Attiius as with himself (Att. viii. r4. z); indeed Atticus is a sort of alterego.The phrase was borrowed from the Greeks, but it was in common use; Cicero appliesit plso to Caesarand to Brutus, and pompey usedit in public of Cicero.3a It is a similar relation between Laelius and Scipio that cicero portraysin the deamicitia.'Inscipio'sfriendship',saysLaelius,'I found agreement on politics, advice in private affairs, and repose full of delight.' They shared the same house, the same life, the same campaigns,the sametravels;they were occupiedin leisurein the same philosophicalinquiries. They enjoyed 'thar in which lies the whole strengthof friendship,the most completeagreementof wills, pursuits, and opinions'.r5Kroll cites one of thesetexts to iustifv his starement that 'cicero makes Laelius say that for his friändship with Scipio political agreementwas essential'.This distortscicero's meaning;hä is rather suggestingthat the political agreement which did iubsist between Scipio and Laelius itself flowed from their perfect accord in character, which was the main basis of true frienäship. of course Laelius emphasizesthat such friendship is uncommon; the bonds of affectioncan unite only two or at most a few persons(deamic.zo), and there is no certainty that such affection will ändure unlessthe friends are good men, a doctrine that cicero alludesto in writing to Appius (Fam. äi. ro. 7, rZ. r-z). But the rarity of true friendship is not a peculiarity of Roman society;it is probably true among ail peoples, and in all ages. In professinghis renewed friendship for crassus, cicero writes to him: 'has litteras velim existimesfoederishabituras essevim. non 33 Au. i. 17. 5 f . , v . r B . 3 , v i i i . 6 . q , I - a m .v i i . 3 o . r . 34 Att. üi. rq. 3 5 d ea m i l . r 5 , 4; cL n. g. 7q, ro3 l.

AMI(:t'rtA

359 epistulae' (Fam. v. B. 5). ProfessorTaylor cites this to support her statement that 'friendship for the man in politics was a sacred agreemenr'.Although in. fact many political friendshipswere shortlived and insincere,thereis no doubi tirat shehashit otritre meaning of the termrfoedus.Treaties were ratified by solemn oaths and to break them- was perjury. But it is wrong to confine the sacredness of friendship to political connections.calullus usesthe same metaphor of his relations with Lesbia, in a passagewhere amicitiastands for amor. just as amlr may replaceamicitia re); he prays 1n. ut liceatnobistota perducerevita aeternum hoc sanctae foedus amicitiae.36

According to Sallust,indeed,it was one mark of the depravity of his age that 'ambitio multos mortalis falsosfieri subegit,aliuä clausum in pectore' aliud in lingua promptum habere, u''ftiiiut inimicitiasque non ex re, sed ex commodo aestuma,re,magisque voltum quam ingenium bonum habere' This indiäment of the politicar \cat...to,5). morality of his times was hardly iniended to be of universal application; we are not to supposethat sallust thought that no Romans of his day recognizedthat amicitiainvolved ,u.r.iobligations.3z The common practices of private life, not least the frequeicy with which men rewardedwith legaciesthe servicesthey had reteiveä in lif., show how strongly the fdes on which amicitiawas based still workeä on men,s Sinds;.the prevalenceof fdes in businesslife explains many of the institutions of Roman law. A friendship contracted ex commodo could easilyinvolve the recipient of benefitsin an obligation to repay them in circumstanceswhen it was no longer in his intärestto do'so.'A friend has.aduty to give good advice (Ait. äi. r5. 4), and when necessaryro lend.money (Fam.xiv. r,5,2.3) or to p..-fo.- all manner of other services.The^recognizedmoral erementin political friendship made it possiblefor cicero to appear to caesar as his friend i" ä let him 49 'bonus prove himself vir, gratus, pius' in his relationstripw"ith lompey (Att. ix.2A. 3). But thosewho weri guided in any -.ur.r'r. by u ,..rr. of obligation could easily recognizethät their obligations to tlieir friends were transcendedby their obligation to their pairia (". zg); and this in turn made it natural for seemingfriends to excusepolitiääi differences wi$ 1 plea that covered a diveigence of their own interests. In. its highest form, true affeciion between good men, amicitia was . durable even among politicians becausethey were exrrytpoittesimen who

"'#äi:f,äii:,i "r,;:,K;,ä:i.:!: TJ::{:1?ffr-,-"en:;,#ßihxl#li..L # tr,,i:fp,, tr. 70 Muny paraltelsfor suchfoederacan be found, TLL vi. roo4 6. .r",,S*}]l:^.-1,o,9,^.j J6;3: !7. :.

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shared the same correct moral and political principles. others aspired reality o, pr.tended to such a genuine and lasting intimacy, when in hollowthe and interests; or tastes common by only the' were linked nessof their connecd;n was not exposed unless their interests diverged' a In the meantime this secondary form of friendship might assume obligainvolve and caelius, and cicero between as close familiarity, tions to render mutual services. But not all who called themselves and friends were so closely bound together. wherever courtesies services were interchanged, the urbanity of social etiquette^extended the use of the term amici to persons with whom no sort of intimacy and desubsisted, Amicitia had impeiceptible gradations.il ll"ulitl. ,ambiiioru. f.r.orueque amicitiae'r' which 'frucgree;.8 y.t ,u.r, the ium.domesticum non habent' took their name by external analogy from the true affection which is the primitive significance of the word. friend a Like oursel'ues,4othe Romans might politely describe as a or person with whom they had no famjliarity, but to whom they had' both calls professed to have, nothing but goodwill at the time. cicero remarks ih. ..rrro^ of 7o nc his fründs, 6ut in almost the same breath I n 43he t h a t h e w a s i n t i m a t e w i t h o n l y o n e o f t h e m ( C l u e n t 'r r 7 ) ' declared that there was no consular (not even his old enemy' L' Piso) 'quin mecum habeat aliquam coniunctionem gratiae, alii maximam' aiii mediocrem, nemo nuilam' (Phil. väi. zo). It was surely the merest 'consuetudines victus non commonplace, understood by all, that possunt essecum multis' (Mi[. zr). In letters he bestows the name of irie.,d on far too many people to warrant the supposition that he even expected his correspottd.ttt, to think that they were all his close ,.i.r.iates.ot The author of the Commentariolumobserves that a candidate may be free with the title of friend and give it- to anyone who manifests his support; but from such supporters is to be.distinguished 'quisque do*.rti.r, ac maxime intimus', though othels. may be 'adducenda amicitia in spem familiaritatis et cä.rfir-ed in allegiance; c o n s u e t u d i n i s '( r d z 3 ) ; e v e n i f h e b e n o t Q . C i c e r o , t h e w r i t e r w a s w e l l of the age. Many who belonged to the versed in the -uni.., 38 C,.. de ina. ii. r68: .amicitiarum autem ratio, quoniam Partim sunt religionibus iunctae, sunt' partim novae, partim abillorum.' partim ab nostro veteres partim et quia partim non sunt, dignitatibus' ex temporum Leneficio profectae, partim utiliores, partim minus utiles, ex causarum ex religionibus, ex ve.tustatibus habcbitur'' officiis, cx opportunitatibus, '3n p 356 above were Au. i. 18. r. The qualities of his lriendship with Appius listed on 'domestica' (I-am. iii. to. 9). 'friend' may be 'applied to a merc no Th. ,M), Eng. Ditt iv. (I9or), 545 f. recognizes that k i n d ly condcscension on thc part ofthe ofgoodwill or acquarntance, or ro a srranger,;r.'-;;[ ,one who is on good terms with anothrr, not hostile or at and that it may"meun ,päk.." va ri a nce'. ()mllll)tls noll ( 'ctsi ar Fam, xiii. omnium causa qu()s commtnd
36r

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governor'scohors, or who paid morning visits of respectto the great irou.ar, were amici only by courtesy'42More accurately,some were clients,but this was an appellationresentedlike death by all with any pretensionsto rank or affluence.*" Such amici,drawn from the plebs,may well be regardedas political followers,yet it may often have happenedthat no tiesof either interest or oLrligationbound them closelyto any one political leader,and that they owed but a shifting allegiance.In the higher ranks of society, while the term amicur no more implied cordiality than that of 'honourablefriend' in the House of Commons,it did not even denote political association,as the latter does.Courtesyor expediencyoften iequired that one senatorshould style another as his friend, despite seriousdisagreementsin politics, merely becausehe had no wish for a personal quarrel, and at times because a genuine pe_rsonalliking subsistedamong thosewho were not in political accord. Moreover, in the network of relationshipsbetweenleading senators,men incurred obligations to different amici or patrons whose policies and interests subslequentlydiverged, and were then confronted with a conflict of duties arising from the private relationships.With some the public interest might outweigh all private claims, as it was supposedto do rather than exfde,veiling (n. z:). Others might prefer to act excommodo which bestsuited obligations privale advantagewith the cover of those professedto be always amicitia ih.i. o*n selfish aims. Thus, while in the or allegiance, alliance different from and superior to political second In the less. deal a good real world of public life it is commonly part of this esiay I proposeto illustrateits complexityor ambiguity in political affairs. II

Courtesy often outsteppedthe bounds of even temporary political cooperation. In May 44 cicero privately describedAntony's conduct as nägligent,dishonourable,and pernicious,while assuringhim of his .otträ.rt love: no one, he said, was more dear to him in the existing political juncture (Au. xiv. i3. 6, I3e). Thus covert enmity and äpposition were cloaked by polite professionsof concord and amity. In his speechof z September Cicero still claimed to be Antony's friend whilä openly criticizing his conduct of affairs (Phil. i. r I f.). This was indeedioo much for Antony; he made an insulting reply (Phil.v' r9 f')' 'quid estdictum a me cum contumelia,quid surprise: Ciceroprofessed o2 M. Gelr.r, KI. Sthr.i. Ioz ff a3 tle o1trc. ii. 69; ct Sen. de benef.ii. 23. 3. Genuine friendship could ofcourse subsistbetween men who were not completely equal in rank (deamic.7r f.)'

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. . t . v t (I:T I A

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non moderate, quid non amice?' (ii. 6; cf. i. z7). He expectedhis hearersor readersto accept that political oppositionwas compatible with friendship, if there were no abuse.Before demonstratinghow much further he could go when provoked, he adds: 'I made serious complaintson policy, but said nothing of the man, as if I had been contending with Marcus Crassus,with whom I had many grave disputes,attd .r
tasteless(xv. 4. r ), but to which he must have replied with polite assent. 'vir fortis ac strenuus, amicus meus' (Phil. viii. r r), For now Calenus is and if Cicero attacks his views, he professesto do so more in sorrow than in anger; he is careful to avoid abuse (viii. r 7, r 9) and to expressple asure when lor once their opinions coincide (xi. t5). He only fears that'ita saepe dissentio ut . . . id quod fieri minime debet, minuere amicitiam nostram videatur perpetua dissensio'(*. z). It was only in extreme cases that the wickednessof a man's public conduct could be , or alleged to be, the basis for personal hostility (deprou. cons.z4).If the courtesieswere observed, a nominal friendship might survive political disagreements, unless they were too continuous, or degenerated into personal assaults. In the same spirit Cicero could reject the suspicion that he had differed 'animorum contentione, non opinionum dissensione;nihil from Appius autem feci umquam neque dixi quod contra illius existimationem esse v e l l e m ' ( F a m .ä . I 3 . 2 ) . going back to With Caesar he could claimfamiliaritas and consuetudo Cicero's committhe days of their youth.a6 In December 63, despite 'popular' as a and Caesar's avowed stance measures ment to oppose 'popularis', Late in 6o he terms. he spoke of him in complimentary 'meliorem', reports an complacently and hoped to make Caesar assurance that Caesar would value his counsel. Although his disapproval of the conduct of the triumvirs in 59 was avowed, and led them to effect Clodius' transitioad plebem,with the menace to Cicero's security that this conveyed, Caesar continued even thereafter to offer posts to Cicero, which implied that there was no personal breach between them.aT Formally his friendship with Pompey remained beyond question intact. It was therefore not implausible for Cicero to claim in 'ita dissensiab illo fCaesar] ut in disiunctione sententiae coniuncti 56: tamen amicitia maneremus' (deprou. clns. +of.; cf. z5).41 The fact or appearance that Caesar had promoted or connived at his banishment in 58 justified men in supposing that Cicero was now bound to regard Caesar as an enemy; Cicero pretended to deny his responsibility, and appealed to Pompey as witness that Caesar approved of his recall, and had thereby repaired any wrong Cicero had suffered (ibid. a3); in any event (he argued) Caesar's services to the state were such that any private rancour must be laid aside, and the honours which the senate had voted him with Cicero's support wiped out the memory of their earlier political discord and would have necessitateda reconciliation, if any reconciliation had been called for (ibid. 23 ff.). The language he used to the senate in delineating his relationship with Caesar, however false we may think it, must at any rate have

n a F a m .x i v . z . z ; i . g . g . 4 s I b i d . v . 8 . 4 , x i i i . 1 6 .t , fu.fr. ii.8. u; Plut.Cr. r3.

a 6 d ep r o r . c o n s . + o , A . J r . r i . 1 4 . r , F a m .i . g . r z . a1 Cat.iv. g, Att. ü. r. 6, 3 . 3 f . , r B . 3 , r g . 4 f . , d ep r o u .c o n s+. r .

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correspondedto normal conceptionsof the ways in which amity could be preserved,or restored,betweenpolitical adversaries.In fact by S6 Cicero was obliged to bow ro rhe dictates of the triumvirs. But ln private he now professes the warmestfeelingsfor caesar in particular, especiallyin letters to his brother Quintus and to Trebatius, both of whom were servingin Gaul; he even tellsQuintus that he lovesCaesar as much as Quintus or their children (iii. r. rB). Theseletters,indeed, could easilyhave falleninto Caesar'shands (iii. r . z r; cf. 6. z, 7. g), and perhaps the recipientswere actually expected to relay his gushing sentimentsto caesar.Still, he could expresssatisfactionto Atticus with the regard that Caesarshowedfor him (Att. iv. r 5. r o, rG. 7, rg. z). No doubt Caesar,who wrote to him three timesfrom Britain, treated him with exquisitecourtesy,besideslending him Boo,ooosesterces.4s Gelzer supposedthat Cicero fell under his charm. That may be doubted. Late in 5o, cicero makesit clear that it was for his political security that he had had to join Pompey, and therefore to cultivate Caesar(Att. vä. r. z f.). As Pompey'srelationswith Caesarcooled in 5 r, so Cicero ceasedto refer to him with warmth; the loan was a particular embarrassmentwhich he was anxious to repay) but never did. Though advocatingpeacein 5o-4g, Cicero then regardedCaesar as'perditum latronem' (Att. vä. rB. z; cf. vii. rr, 13. r), and in his intimate correspondencewith Atticus there is not a word of sorrow that his duty to the state or to Pompey may involve him in mortal conflict with a man he had once loved. Yet he still kept up friendly correspondencewith caesar himself for a time, as with several of his partisans,4e who looked after his interestswhile he was with Pompey, and helped to secure his restoration;so and for years they lived- on termsof closefamiliarity, seemingcordiality,and concealedmistrust.sl a8 On the relations between Cicero and Caesarfrom 56, Lossmann (n. I ), with full discussion, and Gefzer, r969, r38 f., take a different view from mine. cicero's apologia: deproa. cons.zg- 43; c f . . F a mi . 9 . r z - r B . T h e l o a n :A t t . v . t . 2 , 4 . j , 5 . 2 , 6 . z , v i i . B . 5. ae Correspondence w i t h C a e s a rA , tt. rü. zi. g, viii. z. r, 3, r, tt.5, ix. 6a, rle, 16. z; their m e e t i n g ,i x . r B . R e l a t i o n sw i t h B a l b u sa n d O p p i u s ,v i i . 3 . r r , v i i i . r 5 a , i x . 7e,o, l3e, x. rg. z; with T r e b a t i u s ( ' a q u o m e u n i c e d i l i g i s c i o ' ) ,1v7i .i .3 l . , F a m . i v . r , A t t . i x . g . 4 , r z 1, 5 . 4 - 6 , t 7 . t , x . t . 'vir plane et civis bonus'); with Matius, ix. r r. s (and often linked with 3, r r. 4 (still in early May T r e b a t i u s ) , - F a m . x i . z 7 . g ; w i t h C a e l iFu as m , .vü.r5f.,Att.x.9e; withAntony,whoprofessedthe w a r m e s t a f f e c t i o n , x . Sr oe ., t , x i . T . z , a n d v i s i t e d h i m , x r. r . 4 , a s d i d C u r i o , x . 4 . g ; c f .1 6 . 3 . I n Pompey'scamp he receiveda letter from his son-in-law Dolabella, written in Caesar's,Fa-.lx. g. F o r y . x i . 2 7 .4 ( M a t i u s ) , z g . z ( O p p i u s ) ,x v . 2 r . 2 ( T r e b o n i u s ) ;f o r A n t o n y , B a l b u s ,O p p i u " s , __.to. H i r t i u s , P a n s a ,T r e b a t i u s ,V a t i n i u s c [ . A u . x i . 5 . 4 , 6 . g , 7 . z , B . r , 9 . z , 1 4 . r , r g . F a m x i . q 7 f . ( M a t i u s ) ,z 9 ; c l A u . x v i . r z . i l O p p i u s ; , F a * . i r i r i .1 9 . r , * i . e 7 . r , T o p . t t r . _jt (Trebatius). Fam. vi. tz. z (46 rc): 'omnis Caesarisfamiliaris satis opportune habeo impiicatos consuetudineet benevolentiasic ut, cum ab illo discesserint,me habeant proximum. hoc pansa, H i r t i u s , B a l b u s , o p p i u s , P o s t u m i u s p l a n e i t a l a c i u n t u t m e u n i c e d i l i g a n t ' , c fr.6i x. z. ( r h e i r a m o r is genuine), vi. ro. z, r4. 3. Referencesto his teaching rhetoric to Hirtius and pansa are p a r t i c u l a r l y c o m m o n . I n 4 4 h e h o p e d t o t u r n H i r t i u s i n t o a n o p t i m a r e, A t t . x i v . , z o . z r . 4, 4; but f o r d i s t r u s to f H i r t i u s ,B a l b u s ,a n d M a t i u s a t t h i s t i m e s e cx i v . r . r , 2 r . 2 , r . r . , , * r . r . , r , .

l.\il(:t't t:l

365 No doubt both they and cicero were ar times angling for political advantagewith each other; still, there were all the outward marks of affection in their intercourse,and a community of cultural interests helpedto bridge or veil differencesof political outlook. so too he could receive Caesar himself as a friendly guest and discussbelles-lettres with him (Att. xiii.53). That did not prevent him exulting in the despot,s assassination, the 'banquet' of the Ides of March, in which he only regrettedthat he had had no part (Fam.x. zB. r). It was not only Cicero who behaved in this way. Varro in Spain commanded a Pompeian legion ir 49 but 'amicissimede Caesare loquebatur' (Caes.BC ä. 17); like Cicero and many others,he had old tieswith eachof the rivalsl it wasoften hard for suchmen to opt fioreither side.Lentulus Spinther could actually plead for Caesar'sciem.rr.y on the ground of their old friendship and the numerousbenefitscaesar had conferredon him (ibid. i. zz). Caesarcould negotiatethrough his own supportersand theirfriendsin the Pompeiancamp (i.26.3, iii. 57.g); and the PornpeianL. ScriboniusLibo, with whom he claims no personal amity (i. zG), was at leasta more suitableintermediary than Bibulus, who was actually his personalenemy (iii. 16. 3), one of a small knot of such men, whom Caesardifferentiates from his other adversaries(see below);Octavian made a similar distinctionamong thosewho held out againsthim at Perusiain 4r (App. v. 38, 4o, 49). It was alsoa common friend of Antony and octavian who reconciled them at Brundisium when they were on the point of hostilities(ibid. 6o tr). caesar's personal relationships with political adversariesdeserve remark." By family connectionshe was a Marian, and it is said that Sulla was hardly persuadednot to proscribe him; that did not prevent his marriage in 68 to a granddaughter of Sulla and of Sulli's likeminded colleaguein the consulshipof BB. He first made his oratorical reputation by prosecutingthe Sullan proconsul C. Cornelius Dolabella, whose counsel included his cousin, C. Aurelius Cotta, and attempting that of C. Antonius Hybrida, whose candidature for the consulshipof 63 he was later to support. suetonius remarks that the first act generated ill will (Caes.4. r); however, as we shall see, prosecutions,though they necessarilyimplied or produced hostility with the defendant and probably his closestkin, did not betoken any political commitment; hence there is no reasonfor specialsurprisethat the collegeof pontifices composedof optimates co-opted Caesarin 73. In the 6oshe seemsoften to have been associatedwith Crassus,and yet to have done much to ingratiate himself with Pompey, though their mutual animosity was an open secret; he was able to bring them 52 Evidence not given here, or in ch. g, rv will readily be found in Gelzer, r96g.

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367

togetherin 6o, and again at Luca in 56, when their ill will to each other had again becomepatent (pp.4Bz tr). As soon as he had begun to engagein political activity, he had pursued'the path that is accountedpopular' (Cic. Cal.iv. 6)' This did not involve him in personalenmity with all or most of the optimates. On 5 December63 he could almost sway the senateto clemencyin dealing with Catiline'saccomplices.It is true that Q. Catulus and C. Piso tried to inculpate him in the plot, but each had private grudges againsthim; Caesarhad tried to encompassPiso'scondemnationfor and Catulus could not forgive him for his defeat in the repelundae, election to the chief pontificate (Sall. Cat. 49), perhaps not simply becauseit was a slight to his dignita.rbut becausehe believed Caesarto have won unfairly, by bribery (cf. Suet. Caes.t3)' Bibulus too became his personalfoe during their joint aedileship(Caes.BC äi. I6. 3), when Caesar had appropriated all the credit for their joint expenditure (Suet. ro). Caesaralso namesCato among his personalenemiesin 49, whose attitude he distinguishesfrom those of warmongers such as MetellusScipioand the consulL. Lentulus,men allegedlyactuatedby private greed and ambition (BC i. +, 7). C^to had actually proposed that he shouldbe surrenderedto the Germans,whom he had in Cato's view perfidiouslyattacked (Plut. Caes.zz); this was naturally proof of the most bitter hostility, but whether it originated in Cato's excePtional rigidity of political principle or in his private connectionwith Bibulus we cannot be sure. Caesar, like Balbus (Atl. väi. r5e. t), complained that theseenemieshad alienated Pompey from him; he referredto them as thosewho had once been their common enemies' but it is far from clear that Bibulus and Cato had ever had a formal rupture with Pompey (cf. n.64); it must have been healed,if it ever occurred,in 52, when both had advocatedthat Pompeyshouldbe sole consulin the interests,as they saw it, of the commonwealth,sinceonly Pompey could restoreorder at Rome. Aware that Cicero would not countenancethe coursehe had taken, Caesarcould still urge him not actually to join Pompey and thus inflict a graver injury upon their friendship;he would not treat Cicero'srefusalto espousehis side as in itselffatal to it.53 Similarly,-inAugust 44 Brutus and Cassiusformally protestedto Antony in terms like thoseof a diplomatic note sent by one 'friendly relations'; state to another with which it preservestechnically they declared that, though preferring their own freedom to his amity' thei did not mean to provoke him to acts of hostility.s4 Avowed

they were not yet inimici,Courtesieswere kept up political adversaries, on the brink of civil war-or even beyond. If amicitiamay connoteno more than outward courtesy,it can also indicate readinessto render effectualaid. When Cicero describestwo 'destituteof friendsand reputation' (Au. i. consularcandidatesof 65 as r . z), he surelymeansonly that they lackedactual suPport.None of the consulars,he told LentulusSpintherin 56, was Lentulus' friend besides Hortensius,M. Lucullus, and himself;somewere covertly unfavourable, othersdid not concealtheir anger againsthim. But it can hardly be 'obscuriusiniqui' or even the 'non dissimulanter supposedthat the irati' were abusiveof Lentulus; the latter actually included the consul Marcellinus, who declared that except on the Egyptian questionhe would vigorously defend Lentulus' interests.The man whom Cicero calls 'the perpetual enemy of his own friends' was one who evidently underminedthem while professingamity.tt The term amicitiais indeed ambiguouswithin a wide range.To determineits exact nuancein any particular context requires tact and discrimination, and it is often found where we have not sufficient knowledge of the circumstancesto discriminate. Certainly complex personal relationships could cut acrosspolitical discords, and amicitia does not necessarilyconnote, though it may involve, collaboration in public affairs, still lessconsistentmembership of a faction. It may seeminconsistentwith this that in the LaeliusCicero remarks that ordinary friendships, those which are not based on mutual recognition of genuine virtue, are liable to break down, when the political interestsand views of the friends are no longer harmonious.But this is not the only possiblecauseof rupture; it may alsofollow from a changein men's charactersand tastes.)oIt is clear from what has been said that there might also be not so much a dissolution as a weakeningof the ties of friendship; familiar intercourseor political cooperation might degenerateinto external politeness.Much would depend on the particular circumstancesof a breach and on the temperament of the friends. Naturally it was always a possibility that strong political opposition would be taken as a personal affront. Thus of the 'triumvirs'supposedthat Cicero'smove the optimate adversaries against them early in 56 would offend Pompey and make Caesar his bitter foe (Fam.i. g. ro; cf. Au.iv.5. z), and that he would forfeitthe friendship of both (which is not quite the same as incurring their Crassus(ibid. zo); hostility) by his suddenquarrel with their associate,

53 Att. x.8o, written after the interview from which Cicero concluded 'hunc me non amare' (ix. r8. t). 'nos in hac sententia sumus, ut te cupiamus in libera re p. magnum sa Fam. xi. 3, esp. at 4: vocemus te ad nullas inimicitias, sed tamen pluris nostram libertatem quam atque honestum esse, tuam amicitiam aestimemus'.

ss Fam. i.9. z (probably L. Domitius Ahenobarbus; cf. Shackleton Bailey ad loc'): for S p i n t h e r ' s ' o b t r e c t a t o r e s( A ' . - f r . ä . z . 3 ) s e ea l s oi . 5 n . z , 7 . 3 ; M a r c e l l i n u si . t . z . T h e E g y p t i a n question and Lentulus' complex connectionsare more fully discussedon pp.4B4 ff. 56 de anic. ggtr.; fuf.,77 f.

AMI(;r'II.'I

AMr(:r'rrA

we shall see,however,that men toleratedattacksby a friend on their a.ssociates and expressions of amity and esteemto their antagonists,In the- verrines(IL iii. 6) cicero appears to imply that sharp political differencesentailed personalfeuds, when he asks Hortensius,'an tu maioresullasinimicitiasputasesse quam contrariashominumsententias ac dissimilitudinesstudiorum ac voluntatum?' But the large inference we may be tempted to draw from thesewords must be reiäcted in the light of the other evidence.The context should be coäsidered.By prosecutingVerresCicerowas undoubtedlyengagingin hostilitieswitü him, and Hortensiushad apparentlycensuredthisonihe ground that he had no private quarrel to plead in justification. cicero urri*.r, that one who had violatedjdes, religion, and the rights and liberty of Roman citizens, -besidesoppressingRome's subjects,was the enemy of ail good men and had earned the detestationof the Roman people. Hostility was always due to such a putative 'inimicui patriae', for exampleP. clodius. It would then be reciprocared.cicero could boast of the hatred in which he was held by the 'perditi'. Sallustmakes c. Au.relius allege that he had incurred 'maximas inimicitias pro re 9"fr-" publica'-" The f;atherlandindeed took precedenceof ail private ties. on this footing Pompey could answer caesar's appeal to their long friendship with the plea that what he had done ?äi publicae causa-, shouldnot be a matter for reproach:'semperserei publicaecommoda privatis necessitudinibushabuissepotiora'; caesar too should refrain from injuring the commonwealth in his desire to injure his private enemies.sscicero, in arguing that it was right for hlm to have laid aside any personal quarrel with caesar because of caesar's great servicesto the state, certified by the honours the senatehad paid him, could adduce famous examplesof paqliots who had agreed to terminate their feuds for the public good.se Equally -en -ere bound to subordinate to this consideration the obligations of friendship. e. Aelius Tubero and other friends of riberius Gracchus had acteä admirably in abandoning him when they saw him 'rem publicam vexantem'. The young Lentulus Spinther took pride in desärtinghis crony Dolabella and his kinsman Antony 'from greater love foi the fatherland'.60 It was in this way that former friends of caesar could

justify their part in his assassination or their subsequenrplauditsof the deed (seebelow). Naturally it was a matter of subjectivejudgement whether the vital interestsof the commonwealthwere involved in any particular issue;not every political differenceof opinion necessitated a breach in friendship.In 49 Caesar,pretendingthat the war had been occasionedby the machinations of his personalfoes,took the view that those who refused to support him might yet honour the claims of friendship by neutrality and still enjoy his amity, whereas the pompeiansmaintained that they were fighting for the commonwealth,and that all who were not with them could be treated as its enemies.6l It is true that in many instancesfriendshipshad been dissolvedby lessgrave dissensions,such as competition for office. This was to be regretted. However, despite the frequency of electoral contests,we do not find the leading men at Rome in Cicero'stime (of which we know most) persistentlyinvolved in mutual hostilities.cicero pronouncedit disgraceful if on such occasionsformer friends became open enemies and resortedto iurgia,maledicta, contumeliae (". S6). Here Scipio Aemilianuswas the model; he gave up his amity rvith Q. Pompeiuswhen the latter cheatedC. Laelius of the consulship,and that with Q. Metellus Macedonicusbecauseof somepolitical difference,but 'utrumque egit graviter ac moderate et offensioneanimi non acerba' (de amic.7l. Elsewhere cicero speaks of the 'sine acerbitate dissensio' between Scipio and Metellus, though he classesMetellus among Scipio,s 'obtrectatores et invidi'.62 Now inuidi are often distinguished from inimici(cf. n.55); thus Cicero ofren describesthe boni,with whom he soughtto co-operate,as his inuidi.63Such peoplewho harbour ,occulta 'insidiosi amici', but they are nor ,aperte gdia' (Fgry.i. g. S) may be inimici'.64 Despite the contrary statementsof someiate writers, I do not doubt that scipio and Me tellus continued to speakof each other with outward courtesy,even when their intimacy had been broken; otherwiseit is hardly conceivablethat Scipio'skin and friendsshould have let Metellus' sonsact as his pall bearers.And, however this may be, their differencesdid not extend to every political issue;Metellus,

5_1deprou.rcns. 24, Fan. i. g. ro (Clodius), Cat. ji. rr; Sall. Or. Couae6. t o C a e s .8 C i . B . q . Cf. n. z,r. 5e dcproa-rozs.r8h: cf. Flart.2, postred.etir. zg:and seeFam. v. 4. z and posrred.sen.z5 l:or . Metellus Nepos' quarrel and reconciliation with Cicero. The reconciliation of M. Aemilius Lepidus and M. Fulvius Nobilior lollowed their election as censorsin r79 (cf. Livy xl. 45 f.), and can be explained on the basisthat the censorscould do nothing except in-agreement llviäm*sen, s, 8 ii3. 339); scullard, r973, r7g ff., adopts an interpretation of the facts which defies all rhe evidence.See also n. qi. 60 Fam. xü. t4.7.

writes with resentment of the nobles who shared his political aims but who weri envious of or s e c r e t l yu n l r i e n d l y r o h i m . a n d w h o r v e n ' l o n d l e d ' C l . d i u r , w h e n h e r o o w a s w o r k i n g a g a i n s t Pompey; Bibulus and Hortensius were prcsumably among thesenobles, and it is clear that there was no open breach between Cicero and them. De proa.rozs. r9 distinguishesalieni from inimici, Fam. i. g. 17 fr<:mamici. 6a d.edom.zg, lI Verr.5. r1z, Mur. q5, Fam. iii. ro. 6. ln 56 pompey spoke ro Cicero olCurio, B i b u l u s ,a n d ' c e t e r i ss u i s o b r r e c r a r o r i b u sa' n d o f ' n o b i l i t a t e i n i m i c a ' ( Q J t . - f r . ü . 3 . 4); but their h o s t i l i t y w a s c o v e r t ; , f . q t . r t . i i . r . r , 5 . 3 . N o t e c a e l i u s i n F a m . v ä i . 1 4 . z : ' s i c i l i i a m o r e se t invidiosa coniunctio.[ofCaesar and Pompeyl non ad occultam recidit obtrectationem [as might have been cxpected] sed ad bellum se crupir'.

368

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6r Raaflaub. r974, 6 2 d eo 5 r . i . 8 7 . d er e p . e s p .2 9 3 f f . i. " ' E . g . . { 1 1 . i . r g . 6 , z o . 3 , l i . r . 7 , r 6 . z , i i i . 7 , z . i v . r . 8 . I n i v . 35t.. r f . ( c f . F a m . i . g . 5 . r o , z o ) h e

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like Pompeius,to whom he was at one time hostile,was united with the friendsof Scipio in opposingTiberius Gracchus.65 Inimicitiae, open and avowed,were imprudent and surelyrare-most common' if-we may believecicero, with noaihomines.66 in 54 cicero could actually assertthat Pompey, who had given as much äff..,.. u, most men of his day,.had not an enemy in the state exceptp. clodius \Fary. i. g. rr)! This was false, but cannot have beän flagrantly implausible (cf. n. Q!. Inimicitiaemight be formally denounced and formally composed.6T Savein-the exceptionalcasesin which they were warrantedby patriotic duty,68they arösefrom personalinjuries,which might include thosesustainedby one's father or closekiriand friends. Political contentions did not in themselvessuffice, unless they were accompaniedby personal abuse or damage to a man,s status and dignity, such as that suffered by Metellus Nepos at the time of his breachwith cicero (Fam.v.2.6ff.). To prosecuteor testifyagainsta was näceiarily a Tan-on chargesthat threatenedhis caputor existimatio hostileact, which might initiate a feud if one did not exist already. T'his was p_erhapsthe most common cause of enmity, or its most flagrant manifestation.A man might also become the enemy of one who in his view had given an unjust legal decision against him,6e or against a competingcandidatewho unfairly got the better of him, for instance by bribes.L. Torquatus and his son becameenemiesof p. Sulla when corruption gave him th-evictory over the former at the polls; they then sought and obtained his conviction (sulla go). cicero,s own bitter invectiveagainstcatiline and c. Antonius Hynrlaa in 64 was inspired b_rthe malpracticeswhereby they hoped to beut him in the consular election.The hatred that both catului and Bibulus felt for caesar can be explained by their belief that he had treated them unfairly. As we have seen, the breach berween Scipio Aemilianus and ptmpei.,s e, had a similar origin. There is no evidencethat competition in itself betokenedany preexisting hostility or turned rivals into personalenemies.cicero was so

ut.Vul.Max.iv.r.rr; P l i n y ,N H v ' i . r 4 4 ; p l . , t . M o r . z o 2 A . A s t i n , t g 6 7 , 3 , f f . , b e l i e v e s t h e m . ^ See also pp.466 tr ll Vur'.5 r8o L (with instances).-Asinius Pollio said that Cicero ,maiore ."" simultates adpetebat animo quam gerebat' (sen. szäs.vi. z4). Suetoniusherd (with .*u-pl.rj ihut cu..u. was always ready tocompose his enmities (caes. f3). syme, r964, sa.ilustzz,cites nJ evidencefor nrs assertlonrhat nobles took pride in often inherited feuds. ut o.ninimicitiae(hostileactiordeclarations).r.i.tt.gouu..'hrg6ff.;thesingularisusedonly . by modern scholars.R. s. Rogers, TApA rg5g, zz4 ffI, dir.rrr.s the formalities, mostry liom imperial evidence; Fam. v. 2.5 shows that-iri.re Äight u" doubt in cicero,s time whether h o s t i i i t i e s c x i s t e dr ,e q u i r i n g f o r m a l r e c o n c i l i a t i o nH . e r ä i t a r y : e . g . A s c o n . 6 z I c . ; d eo j i c . ü . 5 o , A t . ü . r . M . B r u r u s ' h a r r e do f p o m p e y . w h o h a d p u t h i s f u i h . . " t . d..rth. i., ".iri.g rnstance ( P l u t .P o n p . 6 4 . 3 ) . d: tfrr-, ii. 5o. 5211.61.. deproa.rcnr. 24, Fan. i. g. ro. ä "" Diu. C a e r .5 5 - B , b u t c f . l l l / c r r . r . r 5 . . I l V c r r . ' 3 . 7

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.)t

L

far lrom having been an enemy of catiline before 64 that in the previousyear he had thought of defendinghim in the courts with a view to mutual assistance in their candidature (Att. ä. r). Once Antonius had been electedas his colleague,he obviouslymade up his quarrel with him, and was to appear for his defenceir 59, of cöurse without any love of the man. It is indeedvery seldomthat we have any list of candidates.But in rB4 the names of five patrician and four plebeiancompetitorsfor the censorshipare given by Livy (xxxix.4o): they included two Scipios, and on Scullard's theory (which I do not accept) two of the plebeian candidates also belonged to their faction; on any view it is impossibleto supposethat whatever combinations there may have been between any two of them, such as that which obtained between thosewho were elected,M. Cato and L. Valerius Flaccus,personalenmities inspired the 'contentio dignitatis' among them all. In the notorious election for the consulshipof Sg (p. 427)M; of the candidatescombined, but there is nothing to show that they were already on bad terms with the rest, any more than Cato was at feud with his fellow-optimates,M. Marcellus and Ser. Sulpicius, who defeatedhim for the consulshipof 5 r. we must not supposethat hostility to any particular personinvolved hostility to all his associates,or that friendship witli him excluded enmity with them. Antony's hatred for cicero is said to have extended to all his friends (Nepos,Att. ro.4). Cicero could refer to thosewho were enemiesnot only of P. Sittius but of his friendsaswell (Fam.v. r7. z). But such an attitude was surelyexceptionaland called for remark. cicero says that it was his own resolve not to assail the friends of his enemies,especiallythoseof humbler station (Att. xiv. r38. 3).When he quarrelled with Metellus Nepos, he could depute common friends to negotiatea reconciliation(Fam.v. z. B); his effortsfailed, but his letter to Nepos' brother Celer indicatesthat their relationship,though chilly in the extreme,was not formally hostile.In 57 Neposagreedto give up the feud (Sesl.r3o, Fam. v.3), but still backed Cicero'sbitter foe p. Clodius (Srst.89), who was his brother-in-law. Cicero himself could support the samecandidateas Clodiusin 59 (Att. ii. r. 9) and plead for the samedefendantin 54 (n.78). In 59-Po-p.yrvui'fri..rd of both cicero and clodius (ibid. 22. 2), and Atticus had 'marvellousconversations'with Clodius,which he reported to Cicero (g. r, zz. I and 4) . Atticus' lifelonggenerosityin befriendingmutual enemieswas remarkable, but he only carried further what was accepted,that there was no obligation to hostility with a friend's enemies,nor to amity with his friends. After Luca Cicero was bound by ties of friendship to both Caesarand Pompey; that did not impede a temporary rupture with Crassus(seeabove),and Lentulus Spinther,who was also their friend,

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thought that his reconciliation both with Crassusand with Caesar's prot€geVatinius demandedexplanation(Fam.i. g. rg f.); moreover, Cicero continued to assailCaesar'sfather-in-law L. Piso and Pompey's associateGabinius. Admittedly his relationship with Caesar inhibited him from actually prosecuting Piso (Pis. Br ff.), and Pompey ultimately obliged him to undertake Gabinius' defence;his denial that he acted under pressure (Rab. Post.3z f.) was utterly insincereQr."fr.iii. r. 15, 2. 2, 4. z f.), and can have convinced nobody. But Cicero'sspecialinsecurity fettered his independenceto an unusual degree;Appius Claudius, whose daughter had married Pompey'sson, was perfectly free to assailGabinius (Qrz.fr. äi. z. g). Cicero too remained a bitter enemy of P. Clodius, though reconciled to Appius (Fam.i. g. r9). Cicero excused his reconciliation with Gabinius with the apophthegm that he was not ashamedif his enmitieswere mortal while his friendships were everlasting (,RaD.Post. gz). This was a proverbial expression(Livy xl. 46. rz). Not only the supposedinterestof the state (".Sg) but personal advantage might bring former foes together. Hostility was as fragile as amity, or more so; it was embarrassingfor men who might often meet in the samecircles,one reasonwhy no one would readily involve himself in the feuds of his own associates. It has already been noted that criminal accusationsfurnish the most striking evidence for personal rancour. But no less notable is the reluctanceand infrequency with which leading members of the ruling classundertooksuchprosecutions. It waslegitimateto avengeone'skin in the courts, or .to prosecute in the interests of the Republic or of injured subjects.To But in Cicero'sday it was no longer in vogue for men ofrank and influenceto appear as accusers,Tl and there had been cases,it was held, in which defendantshad been acquitted out of prejudice against powerful enemieswho assailedthem in the courts.72 Young men indeed might seekto establishan oratorical reputation by prosecuting,as L. crassushad done in securingthe conviction of c. Carbo (Cic. Brut. r59); Cicero's triumph over Verres is the most famous instance. There was said to be more honour, and there was certainly more gratia,to be won from acting for the defence.To prosecuteonce might be enough,or too much; in old age Crassusrepentedof ruining Carbo (rr verr.iii. 3). At the outset of his careerat the bar cicero abjuied any

desire to rise by the misfortunesof others, and thoush he secured primacy by accusing Verres, he representedhis prosecution as a defenceof the Sicilians,to whom he had a duty as their patron; he hoped that it would be his last appearanceas accuser,as it washis first; and in fact he only acted as prosecutoronce more) againstT. Plancus in 52. In his opinion it was inhumane to accusea personalenemyon a charge of which he was innocent, but you might properly defend a man you believedguilty, 'modo ne nefarium impiumque', a gualification that meant little; he had himselfbeen preparedto defendcatiline for repetundae, though his guilt was crystal clear (Att. i. z. r). At most it was permissible to indulge in frequent indictments of inimici rei publicae'.73No doubt otherstook a it...r.r view and were more intent on seeingthe laws observed;for that purpose,in the absenceof a public prosecutor,delation was indispensable . The accusersof Murena in 63 included the upright Cato, who had no private or public quarrel wit[ him (Mur. 64), and C. Postumus, his father's friend, who had previously been connectedwith him by neighbourly goodwill (ibid. 56), as well as Ser. Sulpicius,who was naturally incensedthat Murena had beatenhim at the polls, as he supposed,by sheerbribery. Cicero speaksof numerous persons who were 'the common enemies of all defendants', ever ready to bear witness on charges of ambitus:their testimonycounted little with the courts and alienated the people; it was not the way to rise in public life (Planc.55).Ivf. Iunius Brutus, a second-centuryprototype of imperial delators, who set out to be a Roman Lycurgus, was regarded as a disgraceto his family (Brut. r3o). It was clearly unusual that Gaius and Lucius Memmius were 'accusatores acresatque acerbi' and seldom appearedfor the defence(ibid. 136); the former,it is true, all but reachedthe consulship(App.i.gr). But it was more typical that, so far as we know, Hortensiusuppea..ä a, prosecutoronly twice, whereashe is recordedascounselfor the defence on seventeenoccasions,l4and that Marcus Crassus,an assiduous pleader (Brut. 233), is not known to have prosecutedat all. A man of low birth and mediocretalent, Q, Arrius, could reach the praetorship, becausehe servedso many defendantsin time of need,inciudi'g some whosepolitical prospectswere at risk (ibid. 243). cicero saysthat if the friendsof serviussulpiciushad beendebarred from representingMurena, when sulpicius charged him with ambitus, neither he nor Hortensius nor crassus nor any other counselcould

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70 Forwhatfollowscf.generallydeofu.li.4T,49tr.pliny,Ep.ix.r3.2('materiaminsecrandinocentes,miserosvindicandi, seproferendi') correspondsto Republican practice. cf. Gelzer, r 969, g3 f. ''. 'Princ-ipe,s'once appeared 'pro sociis',now only'imperiti aduiesct'ntes',Db. caeir.o3 n; .e __ II g . 6 , C a e l .7 g t r . , d e o f i c . l o c . c i t . ( l a s t n o t e ) ; e u i n t . I n s t . x ü . 6 . r , .'zV . e r r . 7. r ft Fznl. 23 ff., Sall. Cal. 49. z, Ascon.6o C.

i I

.)/.)

? . 3S e e ^ / _ q o f i c . ü . 4 g f . ; e . g . R o s r . A m e r . 8 3 , D i a . C a e c . r -I4l V, e r r . i . q B , i i . r o , r 7 9 , v . r g g , R a b . perd. r, Sull. 3 ro, 49, VaL 5 (cum in hac civitate oppugnatio solear . . . defensio numquam vituperari'), Reg.Deiot.3o, Sz/i. 8 r . Plancus,F'am.vri. z. z; Dio xl. 55. 4. Restored by caesir, he was a partisan ofAntony and reviled by Cicero (Phit. vi. ro etc.) who was on ostensiblycordial terms with his brother Lucius (i'az. x. r 24). '4 RE viii.:47o ff 1r.dcr Mühll .

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have beenfioundfor the defbnce,so widely did sulpicius'grariaexrend. He claims that he himself had done all in his power to bring about sulpicius' election. sulpicius construed it as a breach of lriendly obligation that he should then defend Murena. without reason, according to Cicero: Sulpicius himself was ready to advise men who were nothing to him in their suitswith his own friends, and on the same footing cicero would have been entitled to representMurena, even if he had not b_een(so he says)an old intimate of Murena as well. (In later years Cicero and Sulpicius weie certainly still, or again, on amicable terms.) Between clients and patron in the courts thäre need have been no antecedentties. According to cicero, Marcus Antonius (ras.gg), like himself,had frequently defendedmen with whom he had not the least connection('alienissimos');he also makes him say that once advocates had undertaken such cases, if they wished to be esteemedgood men they must no longer regard their clients as alieni, but use all their eloquence to gain for them the sympathy of the court.75As in the trial of Murena, they might have friend, on th. othe. side.In 54 Cicerowas doubtlessprepared,if need be, to defendany of the four candidatesfor the consulship,who might be accusedof bribery (of which each was equally guilty), for he counted all as his friends.T6 'the unending prosecutionsbrought from !. R, Taylor wrote of political motivesby [a man's] personalenemies'.In fact most of the principesin cicero's time had not been arraigned in the courts, nor arraignedothers.77cicero saysthat a good mai would not wish to ruin a citizen even by making him bankrupt (Quinct.5r); of coursehe was no-t .thinking of circumstances in which personal enrrrity already subsisted.'All of us', he says,'rush in unison to rescuefrom dangers' men of eminencelike Murena, 'and all who are not their decläred enemiesearnestlydischargethe duties of the closestfriends, even ro those with whom we have the least connection, if their caputis in danger'_(M*. +il.The trial of M. Scaurus in 54 affords a signal illustration. In order to bar his election as consul, *tri.tt he hopeä at that time to securefor his brother Gaius,Appius claudius instigateda charge of repetundae against him. Scaurus' counsel included nät only cicero but his bitter enemy and Appius' brother p. clodius, as well as Hortensius,M. Messalla(cos'.6r),M. Marcellus (cos. 5r), and M. Calidius.Nine consulars,among them Cicero,senemy L. piso, deliv'5 Mur.7-ro.Deorat.i.tS4depictsthejurisconsult'praesidiumclientibusarqueopemamicis e,tprope cunctis civibus lucem ingeni et consili porrigentem'. Antonius: de orat. ii. zob; cf. r9r f. Cicero'spractice: 'tantum enitor, ut neque amicis neque etiam alienioribus opera, consilio,laüore d , e s i m ' ( F a mi .. g . r Z ) . i i i . r . 1 6 ;i e p r e l e r r e dM e s s a l l a ,i i i . 6 ( B ) . 3 . A l l i n d i c t e d , i i i . 2 . 3 . :'.' : g f: Taylor, rg.49,7. Pompey was charged with puuratis, crassuswith incesruÄ, both before they . had risen to eminence.Caesar prosecutedonlv in his vouth.

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375 ered or sent in laudationsof the accused.other notablesof lower rank supplicatedthejury on his behalf:they included Milo and the sonof c. Memmius, one of scaurus' rivals for the consulship. plainly this heterogeneousassortment did not constitute a politiöal faction; the sceneshows the general unwillingnessof ^thearistocracy to encompass or seethe ruin of one of their own class.78It is also characteristicihat the_prosecutionwas conducted by young men of inferior lineage. of courseit was by defending men whö were not already his [iends. and indeed by making it clear that his services*..e u,uäil"ble to ali who might require them (comm.Pet. zz), that an orator could extend his connectionsand influence: 'alieni' who owed their acquittal to him were 'alieni' no longer.Tert was no less expedient thät he should handle his opponents as gently as his client's interests permitted. In seeking to oblige some, you must be careful not to omenaothers: the point seemedself-evidelt to cicero (de ffic. ii.68). He says that in defending Murena he r,'ill always keep hiJfriendship with sulpicius in mind (Mur. ro). In.th9 :1me speechhe ridiculesbato's phiiosophic yi.^*1. but implies the,highest opinion of his integrity aÄd auctiritas (sB tr). At the trial of Scaurushc spokewith greair.rp..t of Appius, with whom he was newly reconciled. I have noted eleven instancesin which he professesfriendship^with the prosecutorsof his clients,sonot to speakof adversewitnesses,srand even when he doesnot go so far, he prefersto apply to them kind or laudatory terms) to avoid t"hehostiiity that might arise from contumely.s2 Fiis personal attacks on the integrity of verres' principal counsel Hortensius, with whom he had often appeared on the same side (Dia. in Caec. 44), are quite excep_ tional, and were no doubt occasionedby the ,x. thäi Hortänsius made of his political authority as well as of his eloquenceon verres' behalf; it was thereforenecessaryto discredit him as far as possible.s3one might lyppose that a feud resulted, but in 66 ciceio, while counteÄg Hortensius' objections to the Manilian law, was already speaking o"f him in honorific terms (deimp. 5t); after 63 they often co-operatedboth y u , . 4 5 ; A s c o n . r 8 - c o c . c f . p e r h a p st h e t r i a l o f c a t i l i n e i n 6 5 , i b i d . 8 7 w i t h J z / / . 4 9 , g r . -" For.Gruen (tg68 passim, rg7z, chi. vii-viii) prosecutiorx b|-.enuto.s were poriticaly 'so mo.tivated; he explains away the readinessof-most many individuals of such varied political attitudes' to defend Scaurus by the hypothesisthat they thought it in their common int...r, .,ot to allow a man to be debarred from standing for office by a cha"rgeof repctundae; this is sheer fantasv ( r972, 934ff.1. 7e Gelzer, 1969, 7o ff. ( i ) F o n t . 3 6 ; ( i i ; A s c o n . . 6 oL C ' B r u t . z 7 r ( p r o C o r n e l i o )(;ü i ) C t u e n t .r o , r r B , B r u t . z 7 r ; .. 1".1.. ( w ) M u r . _ 5 , 7 , r o ; ( v ) S u l l . 2 , 4 7 . ;f t i ) F t a u . z ; 1 " ; t 1 i ä r t . 7 , z 5 ; l v i i i ; i t a n . z t r . , 5 A ; 6 i 1 S r o u r .g r ; (x). Rab. Post. 3z; (xi) Lig. : r . The bitter attacks on Hortensius in tie Verrinesu.."."i.ptio.rut ".ra did not preclude a hollow friendship later. L. Torquatus' taunts did indeed make him threaten to renounce friendship. sull. zr f.,47, "' but his moderation on this occasion*", no, ,rrriqu., ibid. 49, p/anr

s6;nsion.6oc._f.'

at-i;t.";,";;;. perd.

2s. "f 'l e . g . D i a . i n C a e r . . z gI, V e r r . t 5 , 3 5 _ 4 o , I I V e r i , ü i . 7_g, iv. ö, rc6, v. r7g_7.

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in politics and in forensicpractice, and in the Brutus (r fl.) Cicero pronouncesa posthumouseulogy on his old rival. Here he alsolauded the memory of L. Manlius Torquatus (ibid. 265), who had in 6z assailedhis 'regnum' in the courts with perhaps almost as much opprobrium as Cicero had vented on Hortensius.saCicero says nothing in his pro Sullaof the allegation that he had undertaken Sulla's loan Sulla was ready to let him defenceonly becauseof the interest-free without proof have (Gell. xii. rz), but it may well have beensuggested by Torquatus,and passedover by Cicerowhen he publishedhis speech in order not to give further currency to a report he could not refute. But Torquatus' attack on Cicero was probably as untypical of the behaviour of advocatesas Cicero's onslaught on Hortensius.When Favonius prosecutedNasica, he was content with slight censureof Cicero for defendinghim (Att. i|. r . 9). And a more or lessprofessional advocate,like Cicero, whose influence rested to some extent on his forensicpractice even after he had reached the consulship,had reason not to speakin ways that might debar him from taking another brief. In 56 he could successively defendL. CalpurniusBestiaon a chargeof ambitusbrought by M. Caelius,85and M. Caeliusin the speechstill extant on chargeslaid againsthim as a reprisal by Bestia'sson. Thus the appearanceof an orator as counselfor the defenceis no and an accusermight act out of clear proof of his political afffrliations, private hostility,s6the desire to make a name, or even care for the public weal; we can never assumethat his aim was to strike at a member of a rival faction. I cannot, for instance,agreewith Badian's thesisthat M. Antonius is to be seenas an ally of Marius becausehe defendedManius Aquillius, GaiusNorbanus,and Marius Gratidianus;87 his strenuousresistanceto the popular tribune of gg, Titius, when he was consul,is a better indication of his political stancein the gos (da orat.ä.48). To explain his defenceof Norbanusin particular, we need not go behind the reason Cicero gives (ibid. 2oo), that he had obligationsto his former quaestor;88no doubt he spokewith passion, but we may recall that Cicero makeshim hold that the orator must be like the actor (ibid. r93),'his.whole lünction suiting with forms to his conceit, and all for nothing'; this was of course Cicero's view, correspondingto his own practice (Orat. r3z). 8a Sull. zr f., 4o, 48. "t Qu.-fr. ii. 3. 6; Cicero had previously appeared for C. Antonius Hybrida, when accusedby Caelius,once his youthful protög6,and again his friend after Cicero securedhis own acquittirl; see R. G. Austin's introduction to his edition of pro Caelio,rg5g. s 6 H o r t e n s i u s c o u l d e v e n p r o l e s s t o u r . u - . i h u , t h i s * a i i h t , o r e l e g i t i m a t e r t ' a s o nI.I l ' e r r . ü i . 6 . 8? Badian, r964, s f p o l i t i c a l r i i g n - " n t , d c p c n c lo n s i n r i l r r r 4 6 f . S o l a r a s h i s r c c o n s t r u c t i o no e v i d e n c e ,E . G r u e n ( n . 7 7 ) b u i l d s o n s a n d . S e ea l s o O O . 4 . , qf l ' . 8 8 C f . D i , . C a e c(.i t . P l a n r . , 2 8 .

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taskol'the advocatcwas to put his client'scasein the way most likely to sway the jury. In 66 Cicero denied that his own utterancesin court could be taken as proof of his personal sentiments (Cluent. r3B-42). Antonius, he recalls, had been care{ül not to publish his forensicspeeches,lest they be quoted against him. Cicero was less prudent, but no doubt reckonedon his readers'comprehension.His statementis relevant to the extreme'popular' principleswhich he too voicedwhen defendingC. Corneliusin 65; he certainly would not have endorsed them at any time after he appeared as a champion of senatorialauthority as consulin 63; and already in political speeches he had concurred with the optimates in resistingthe annexation of Egypt and an attemp^tto extract public moneysfrom FaustusSulla, allegedlyembezzled.o'It is true that he also advocatedthe Manilian law and in doing so pronounceda great encomium on Pompey, but even then he referredin honorific terms to eminent optimateson the other side.Corneliushad been Pompey'squaestor;and somehold that his prosecution was an indirect attack on Pompey, whose interests Cicero was protecting. This is highly speculative.It is true that the indictment was backed by five optimate consulars,and that in 56 Vatinius alleged that by his defenceCicero incurred the ill will of the optimates; Cicero replied that Cornelius was his old friend and that his action had not prevented his election to the consulship with the enthusiasticsupport of all the bestpeople (Vat.5 f.). They presumably included the common enemy of Cornelius and Pompey, C. Piso (cos. 67), who by making Cicerohis legategavehim facilitiesfor canvassing in Cisalpine Gaul (Att. i. r. z). It appearsto me that the nobleswho assailedCornelius had their reasonsfor doing so, independent of any political connection he may have had with Pompey, whose attitude to his reforms is not on record, and that they will have understood well enough that Cicero was bound to do all in his povveras an orator to save his client.eo It was another matter indeed when the orator to win his employed not only the sophistriesof his art but his auctoritas curä,m Cicero was later to do on someoccasions.elAnd of coursethere might be instancesin which he expressedhis true opinions in a forensic speech,as when he appearedfor Sestius.But we need other evidence, such as Cicero supplies in intimate letters or theoretical treatises,to discern when this is so. I have tried to show in Chapter g that in Cicero'stime, though there was a fundamental division among politicians between those ready to impugn the authority of the senateas the true governing body of the 8e Cic. OrationumSchol.,ed. Stangl, gI 3; Asc. 73 C. eo F-or a different interpretation see M. Griffin, JRS rg73, 196ff, cf. p.47r below. et Mur. z, .:-4, ro, etc. 59, 86, .Sa//.

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stateand thosewho would uphold it, so far as they had the means,the politiciansof whom we know most almost all took the most variable courses,at leastwhen this issuewas not at stake, and that therewere no large, durable, and cohesivepolitical factions;nor is there any proof that they had existedin earlier generations.It is apparent that the usual characterof friendshipin the political classdid not favour the formation of suchfactions.Even when political friendshipamounted to more than the exchange of formal courtesies,and created actual obligationslor reciprocalsupport,it was unstable(deamic.64)in so far as men found themselvessubject to conflicting claims from different friendsor subordinatedall such claims to their own selfishaims or to their conceptionsof the public good; nor did it attach them to the interestsof thoseassociates of their friendswith whom they themselves had no direct tie, or implicate them in hostility to their friends' own enemies.It never required them, even in moral terms, to direct their political conduct in sole conformity with private obligations.That is not to say that ceterisparibusthey did not often seek to gratify their friends,sometimesno doubt becausethis appearedto suit their own advantage. Moreover, men who could not clearly discern where their patriotic duty lay, or who did not scrupleto ignore it, might be guided to some extent by consideration of their private relationships. This happenedin somecaseson the outbreak of civil war in 49. The unscrupulousCaelius said that in peacefulcontroversiesone should take the more honourable part, and in civil wars the stronger and safer, but he also explained his choice of Caesar's side by his friendshipfor Curio and hatred of Appius.e2Pollio acted in a rather similar way, by his own account,avoiding the camp where his personal enemieswere too strong.It was only later that he came to love Caesar 'sttmmacumpietateet fde'.e3 Cicero once said that the only men who joined Pompey in flight were those who had cause to fear Caesar's hostility, a transparent exaggerationat best (r4tl. ix. r9. z), and Plutarch alleges that Pompey had more followers from personal allegiancethan from public principle (Pomp.6t. +). For Syme Labienus himself would serveas an instance;this may be doubted (ch. g n. rr4). Caesar,of course,wöuld have his readersbelievethat the war was provoked by the factious hatred of his personal enemies (BC i. a etc.), a partial view we must be wary of accepting. The difficulty of accounting for men's behaviour at this time mainly by their feudsand friendshipsis that many had friends and enemieson both sides.Labienus, Lentulus Spinther, Varro, Cicero himself, and ' - lna m . v [ t . r 4 . c l . r o . r 7 . r . 3l e3 Fam. x. gr.2: 'cum vero non liceret mihi nullius partis esse,quia utrubique magnos inimicos habebam, ea castra fugi in quibus plane tutum me ab insidiis sciebam non futurum'. o t

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doubtlessa host of otherswere friendsol'both Caesarand Pompey,and many more must have had closeconnectionsin the opposingcamp; even Balbus,Caesar'sconfidant, was permitted not to appear in arms againsthis old benefactors,Pompeyand the consulLentulus Crus, and actually to managethe affairsof the latter at Rome.e4Both the leaders made play in their propaganda with appealsto public interest and constitutionalprinciple,and affectedin their private negotiationsto be ready to subordinate their own advantage to the common good (pp. +go L). M. Brutus, whosefather Pompey had put to death, had not beenon speakingtermswith him, na^turallyenough;now hejoined his camp, obviously'rei publicaecausa'.e5It is not likely that he stood alone. Though professionsof patriotism may be 'the last refuge of a scoundrel', it would be unwise to assume that they were always insincere.Men do not appeal to standardsthat no one observes,and hypocrisy servesno purpose where virtue is not to be found. Cicero's own hesitationsare significant. He speaksof the 'causa bonorum' and the 'turpitudo coniungendicum tyranno', yet he often questioned whether resistanceto Caesar could succeed,or whether Pompey'svictory would not be marred by cruelty and lead no lessthan Caesar'sto a 'Sullanum regnum'; he would have preferred a compromise peace.His mind endlesslyrevolved not only the public good, but his own self-interestand his duty to Pompey as a friend, continually emphasizingand consciouslyoverstating the benefitshe owed him. In the end he seemsto have concludedthat only Pompey'svictory would ultimately assurethe restorationof the Republic.e6Later he could say: 'erat obscuritasquaedam,erat certameninter clarissimosduces;multi dubitabant quid optimum esset,multi _quidsibi expediret,multi quid deceret,nonnulli etiam quid liceret';v' he himself doubted all these things at once. A man without scruple would surely in thesecircumstances have chosen his own advantage against all ties, public or private; but a man of honour might resolvehis problem by the claims of friendship, becausehe could fairly plead that he could not seeclearly what his public duty was. Such a man perhapswas Matius, 'temperatuset prudens. . . semper auctor oti', as Cicero wrote at the time (Att. ix. r r. z). If we accepthis own claims, he disapproved of the war and of Caesar'scase,and he gained nothing from Caesar'svictory, rather sufferedfinancial loss;he followed Caesaras a friend, not as his political leader. He mourned his death, and his critics said that he was putting friendship before the e4 Au. vni. r5r, z, ix. 7n, z. 'adherent' of Pompey) may well es Plut. Brut. 4. The influence of Cato (not himself an old have been decisive, but can hardly be ascribed merely to Cato being his mother's stepbrother. e6 Brunt, e1 Marc. 3o; cf. Lig. tg. JRS 1986, rz ff.

.t,\ll(:l'l I.'l

. t . t t t ( ;t t . t

Republic by grieving lor a tyrant; his reply was in effect that Caesar had been no tyrant and that there was no proof that his killing had been of public benefit; he still claimed to bc as good a patriot as anyone.es One might indeed think that the man who wished everyone to feel the bitterness of Caesar's death let private affection weigh too rnuch with him, and that Cicero was right in suspecting him of rejoicing at the general confusion which ensued (Att. xiv. r. t). An Eques who had not sought a political career, Matius cannot be regarded as typical of those who did. More significant is the behaviour of men who took part in Caesar's assassination or gave it their approval. Some, like Marcus Brutus and Cassius, were former Pompeians, but others had been adherents of Caesar. Among the conspirators themselves they included Ser. Sulpicius Galba, who was perhaps disappointed in his expectation of a consulship, but also C. Trebonius, whom Caesar had honoured with that office, and D. Brutus, who was one of his special favourites, and who could have counted on being one of the leading men under a Caesarian monarchy. They were reproached for disregarding the obligations of friendship and betraying their leader; Cicero would justify them, as no doubt they justified themselves, for their fidelity to the commonwealth, of which they 'Liberators'. It must be borne in mind that their claimed to be the enterprise was dangerous; in the end it cost them their lives, and this might well have been the immediate issue of the attempt. It is not plausible that they risked so much simply'in envy of great Caesar', to gratify personal grudges and ambitions, as malignant enemies sometimes alleged. At worst it might be said of them that, like Caesar 'tyranny' subverted, himself, they set their own dignitas, which his above the public good, but in fact they did not distinguish it from the liberty of the Republic. The senate itself, full of Caesar's nominees, indemnified them. Others who had served Caesar against the Pompeians, like the young Q. Hortensius or the new man Staius Murcus, who must have owed his rise entirely to Caesar's favour, were to join their standards, or countenanced their cause until Octavian and Antony became masters of Ro.me (pp. Soo f.). In writings after Caesar's death, especially the Laelius, Cicero lays much weight on the priority of duty to the commonwealth over private ties; but we should not conclude that this is special pleading in their cause; rather, their actions illustrate the truth of his contention. He was representing the Roman tradition: the good man was true to his friends, but not to the extent that he was bound to assistthem in doing wrong, and above all

n o t i n c l c r e l i c t i o no l ' t h e s u p r e m e d u t y t o t h e f a t h e r l a n d , t h a n w h i c h thcrc could be no graver example than the imposition of despotic rule. Matius' own loyalty to Caesar and his memory betokens a friendship 'mutual interest and mutual which cannot be simply analysed into services' and takes us back from the world of political laction towards that realm of ideal friendship with which I started. The range of amicitiais vast. From the constant intimacy and goodwill of virtuous or at least of like-minded men to the courtesy that etiquette normally enjoined on gentlemen, it covers every degree of genuinely or overtly amicable relation. Within this spectrum purely political connections have their place, but one whose all-importance must not be assumed. They were often fragile, and ties of private friendship could transcend their bounds. The clash of social and economic interests between sections, the constitutional principles in which such interests might be embedded but which men had often come to value for their own sake, the fears, ambitions, greed, and even principles of individuals deserve no less consideration than the struggles of factions, whose stability is exaggerated, when their existenceis not simply imagined (Chapter 9). To the historian of ancient Rome, however, if he is not concerned only with the power-struggle but with every aspect of the people's life and thought, the moral ideal which informed the concept of amicitia and the polite civilities which social conventions required from all but the few who were declared enemies merit attention for their own sake.

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e8 Fam. xi. z7 f ., on which seeA. Heuss,Historia 1956,53 ff and B. Kytzler, ibid. I96o, , 96 ff.; I do not wholly agree with either, but any interpretation ol Matius' views must probably rcmain subiective.See also Steinmetz (n. ro) 7o ff.

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B CLIEJVTELAI

I. Prefatory remarks on varieties of relations of dependence; the nature of clienlela;the excessiveimportance modern scholars attach to it. II. The silence of Polybius and Cicero de fficüs; the general character of gratia; the rarity of allusions to Roman clientelae in Republican evidence; Caesar on clientship in Gaul; the foreign clientelaeof Romans (to be considered only as evidence for the nature of Roman clientship); the distinction of clientship from amicitia and hospitium; patronage not restricted to the nobility of patrons; conflicting obligations of clients. III. Clientage in early times; the evidence of Dionysius; the meaning of patronus and of fdes; modern exaggerations of the subjection both of freedmen and of clients (who must be distinguished); the supposed patriarchal relations of patrons to clients in early times; clientship in the struggle of the orders. IV. Evidence from the middle Republic for mutual obligations of patrons and clients; a relaxation of ties inlerred from legal institutions; other signs of the disintegration of a putative social harmony produced by clientage; independence ofthe plebs before and in the Gracchan period. V. The supposed electoral importance of clientage greatly overrated. VI. The minor role of clients in civil broils of the late Republic. VII. Irrelevance of clientage to the behaviour of the soldiery. VIII. The erroneous conception of the princeps as universal patron. The increased importance of private patronage after the fall of the Republic. Conclusions.

I This essaychallengescurrent views of the importance of patronage, reflected for instance in Syme, RR, Badian, r958, and Gruen, ig74, which derive above all from von Premersrein, rgoo ( R E i v . r z 3 f f . ) a n d r 9 3 7 , a n d G e l z e r ,r 9 6 9 ( t h e s l i g h t l yr c v i s e dv e r s i o no f a m o n o g r a p ho f r g r z ) ; it is notable that in his later and detailed narratives ofevents in the late Reoublic Gelzer himself put little emphasison it. I am indebted for commentson earlier drafts especiallyto rhe late M. W. Frederiksenand to Andrew Drummond. The earliestof them antedated Rouland's work of r 979, perusal ofwhich has not led me to make any substantial changes.In my view his discussionof early clientship is vitiated by credulity in the'testimony'ofannalists; he even rakesspeechesin Dionysius and Livy to be authentic. I am also not convinced by his thesisthat clients were larer found mainly or chiefly in the urban plebs, not in the rural population, givcn thc evidence (of which he is aware) ofpatronage over Italian towns, and thereforeover the ltx'al gcntry. l:vidcncc for urban clients is unbalanced by Martial and Juvenal; and in any rvcnt tcxts rclating to thc Principate can be used only with caution for thc Rcpublic.

ELArroNsof dependenceare found in all societies. They may be I-) and upheld by law. The slave-owner possesses legal defined the K over his slaves(not necessarilyas absoluteas at Rome), I\power and he may retain a legal right to their servicesafter manumission,as at Rome. Serß have legal obligationsto lords, whoselands they may cultivate and to whose jurisdiction they may be partially subject. Dependencemay also rest on sheerforce, like that which mafosiemploy 'protection', or on the economicpressure to bring peopleunder their which in certain circumstancesthe landlord can exert on his tenants, the creditor on debtors, or the employer on wage-earners.The authority of the superior may be subtly reinforced by respectimbued by habit and tradition for his birth, education, achievements,and supposedwisdom.Within the samesocialsphereone man may deferto anotherof greaterage,station,or real or reputedtalent, with influence by which he can assistthe advancement of those he favours. This last kind of gradation inevitably exists in the most democratic and egalitarian societies;for instance,in our own the preferment of men in political parties, in the professions,and in businesscompaniesis likely to turn on the approval of those who have already risen higher. At Rome it was proper for young aristocrats to model themselveson respectedfigures of an older generation (nn. I4-r6), whose political support they could then hope to obtain. However, subordinationof this kind will naturally diminish or disappear, as the inferior himself advances,though he may continue to harbour sentimentsof regard, affection, or gratitude. On the other hand, where dependenceresults from a lasting disparity of power, it may endure throughout a man's life and be transmitted to his children. In a stable societywhich is also highly stratified we may expect to find in some degree a tradition of subservienceto all membersof a higher class,even to thosewho do not enjoy any legal or economic control over all who manifest it. In our own country, for example, the gentry and persons in the higher professionscould for long count on deferencefrom the lower classes, not confined to thoseon whom they could bring pressureindividually. This subordination tends to break down when and if the lower classes perceive more or lessclearly that their interestsdiverge from those of the higher, and acquire the meansto organize and protect themselves, by violence or the exerciseof political and other legal rights, or by a combination of both methods. During the early strugglesof patricians and plebeiansat Rome, and again in later periods of the Republic, the common citizens were patently able to use their political rights, and sometimesforce,in this

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way. It may be notcd that (liccro thought that all mt:n, Rornans included,soughtequality be{brethe law (deofic.ü. 4z; cf. ch. 6, section XII). None the lessRoman societywas on the whole both stableand stratified.There weregreat inequalitiesin wealth. Many were economically dependenton the rich as tenantsor wage-labourersor artisans producingfor their needs.The higher ordersmonopolizedpolitical and military officesand rights of judication at Rome itself, while local oligarchiesruled the municipalities.Men of rank could enjoy that auctoritas which enabled them to make their wishesprevail in default of legal powersof enforcement.Knowledge of the law was restricted to a few experts. The successfullitigant was left to execute the civil judgementsof the courts, and this may often have been hard, if he could not deploy sufficient force. Social gradations were marked by distinctionsin appareland ornamentationand in reservedseatsat the games,distinctionswhich the massescould occasionallyresent (ch. 6 n. r55). Ideally to a conventional upper-classRoman like Velleius, 'the humble would look up without fear to the powerful, who take precedenceover them without feelingcontempt'. In his view the ideal was realized under the beneficent rule of Tiberius.2 By then the ordinary citizenshad in effect lost their political rights; so long as they had possessed them, they had lesscausefor subservience.But probably respectfor superiorshad always been normal. Velleius expectedmen of station to be respectedby all thosebeneath them. He was not specificallyconcernedwith the relationship between patrons and freeborn clients,which was peculiar to Roman, or Italian, society. Described at some length by a Greek observer, Dionysius of Halicarnassus,this had imposed more or lessdefined obligations on both parties. They rested not on law but onfdes, trust or good faith, required by custom. They were hereditary on both sides.Accepted in the first place (we may suppose)to suit the reciprocal interest of the parties, they might be strengthenedor loosenedin proportion to the extent to which they continued to answer to those interests,but they might also be perpetuated by social opinion and unreflecting habit. The patricians of old, and later the patricio-plebeian nobility, which enjoyed firr generationsthe g.reatestpower, political and economic, to afford aid and protection, or to inflict injuries, must have been in the best position not only to retain that generaldeferencedue to their rank but to accumulate the largest number of clients in the strict sense. Their hereditary patronage could extend to whole communities. Hospitium(n. zB) and amicitia,connections,which in themselvesdid not entail subordination, but which also reposedon fdes, might approxi2 ii. 116.3; cf. Tac. Diat.4o.4 (citedby Woodman ad loc.)

ot.lh).ii'I El.A

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mate to clientship, where one party was permanently superior to the other in influence and resources. Gelzer propounded the view in r9I2 that'the entire Roman people' both the ruling circle and the mass of voters whom they ruled, was' as a society, permeated by multifarious relationships based onfides and on personal connections, the principal forms of which were patrocinium in the courts and over communities, together with political friendship and financial obligation . . . The most powerful man was he who by virtue of his clients and friends could mobilize the greatest number of voters'.3 He was consciously resurrecting the theory of Fustel de Coulanges, who had traced to Rome's earliest days the form of patronage (patrocinium),which was certainly an important feature of society in the late empire, and who held that it furnished.part of the explanation of the origin of feudal institutions in France.* Since Gelzer wrote' this way of thinking has become increasingly dominant. Roman nobles have actually been assimilated to feudal barons, and the armies of the civil wars conceived as formed from their retainers. In a recent treatment of the Roman constitution Bleicken prefaces his account of political institutions with an analysis of clientship; he seemsto suppose 'clientship absorbed the political that most citizens were clients, and will of the citizens, which was conditioned by the social mechanisms consequential upon it.'s The Roman system can then be viewed as oligarchical without qualification; it becomes possible with Syme more or less to disregard the powers of the assemblies and the sentiments and interests of the -urr.r.6 I have tried to show in Chapters I and 6 that this conception blinds us to the realities of the great crises of the late Republic. The theory rejected in Chapter g that Roman politics were dominated by long-lasting factions of great families allied by kinship and friendship, or eventually by the adherents of dynasts like Pompey, rests in part on the premiss that they could simply manipulate the votes of massesof dependants. Even Meier, though critical like Gelzer of this theory, expatiates on the importance of personal connections of kinship, patronage, and friendship.T It is a relief to turn to Nicolet's balanced survey of Roman institutions, in which clientship is allotted only a limited place.8 3 G e l z e . , 1 9 6 9 ,r 3 g . a Hist.desinstitutionsdel'ancienneFrance,lesoriginesduslstimeJiodai, IB9o,zo5ff.; c{'.z55ff.onthe late empire. 5 D i e V r r f t t t r n g d e r r d m . R e p . , r g T 4 , 2 c ; o n r 3 S f f . h e d e p r e c i a t e s t h eor of tlhee p e o p l e . S i m i l a r exaggerationspervade Bleicken, tg7z,64 ff., and I975, 268 ff. 6 Syme,tg6e,7r. t Meie., r966, ch. n. Gelzer's factions (I969, rz3 ff.) are only shifting combinations. 8 He devotesonly Io out of du mondemöd.,t977, i. zz7 ff., to 45o pagesin Romeet la conquöte patronage; the book provides the best modern brief analysis of political, social, and economic institutions.

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I! -y view, as argued in other chapters,it is evident that the great conflictsof the late Republic resultedfrom divergenciesof interestand sentimentbetweenthe senatorialnobility at largeon the one hand, and (at varioustimes)the Italian allies,the Equites,ihe urban plebs,and the peasantryon the other; it was also becausethe senatenad raited to win the heartsof the massof the rural population that the soldiery, mainly recruited from that population, displayed so little loyalty to the government,and were ready to obey the treasonableordersof generals. to whom they were attached not as clients to patrons, but üther as mercenariesto condottieri, and to whom they lookäd for rehabilitation as peasantfarmers, cherishing the aspirationshabitual to the classfrom which they were drawn (chapter 5). The leaderswho for whatever motives placed themselvesat the head of dissident movements were indeed themselveschiefly aristocrats,but they relied for support not so much on personalconnectionsand influence ason the kind-oifollowing that political reformersmay securein any age by the attractiv.ness oT the.measures they seekto carry. This is the only interpretation of Roman politics which is commended by the ancient sources. In considering the strength of personal connections,we must be careful not to assimilateamicitiaor hospitiumtoo closely to clientage. Admittedly both terms might veil the real dependenceof one parry on the other; there is, however, nothing to show that they impäsed the specificobligations said to be incumbent on clientr, unä men of some social standing resented the appellation of client, which implied a subordinationincompatiblewith their senseof their own dignity i". s t ). In chapter 7lhave tiied to show that the political tiesoffriändrtrip -.i. often looseand transient.As for hospitium, it is a reasonableassuÄption that it was the term most readily applicable to what was ieally patronage exercisedby Roman magnatesover the aristocratic families which commonly controlled the peoplesallied or subject to Rome. The surviving evidencedocuments this kind of relationship most fully for provincial communities, but we can readily suppose that it often subsistedbetweenthe great housesat Rome and the-dominobilesamong the Italian alliesbeforethe social war (seee.g.cic. phil. xi. z7), aslatei we find it attestedwith the Italian municipaliiies. In that case iro*.,u.r, , it is highly relevant to any assessmentof the strength of itre ties so established that they did not prevent the widespreadievolt of 9r-9o; it was then primarily the Latin citiesthat remaineäloyal, and theL lovaltv can surelybe explainednot in termsof the p..ronui connectionsorin.i, principes with Roman aristocrats,which the rebelprincipesmustalsohave but by the solidarity of kinship with the Ro-ä., people, which !{., distinguishedthe Latins from the other alliesand was the üasisoispecial privileges they already possessed.

If we turn to clientshipin the strict sense,the star witnesson its importance,Dionysius,who lived at Rome under Augustus,held that it had been the chief factor in preservingsocialharmony in the good old days, forgetting that this harmony had not been very manifestin the time of the struggleof the orders,but that it had been dissolvedin the age of Gaius Gracchus (ii. rr). But of course the Gracchi only revealedmore clearly cleavageswhich had long been present,if largely latent. I shall argue that the authority of patrons had never in any period of which we are informed extended in Gelzer's words to 'the entire Rome people', and that it was being progressivelyeroded before the Gracchi set to work. It is indeed remarkable how rare are the references to clientshipwithin the citizen body in the last century of the Republic. But the first notable silence is that of Polybius,e who observedthe Roman sceneat the very time when, ifwe trust Dionysius, the institution of clientshipwas in its heyday.

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In regarding the Roman constitution as the finest example of the mixed constitution beloved of Greek theorists,Polybius recognizedthe importanceof the democraticelementwithin it (pp. rB ff). According to Walbank, this doctrine 'blinded him to an extraordinary degree to the elaborate texture of political life which throughout [his lifetime] ensuredthe domination of the nobility';to Walbuni doesnot add that Cicero, who was after all a practising politician, took a similar, supposedlydoctrinaire, view. He does not explain his criticism, but presumablyhe had in mind the prevalentnotionsthat the domination of the nobility restedon the ability of the great housesin their putative alliances to combine in mobilizing their dependants,especiallyat elections,so as to control the assemblies.It is fair to say that Polybius focusesattention too much on the formal powersof the different organs of government.He doesnot even make öxplicit the fact that senators and magistrateswere of a classdistinguishedby birth and wealth, though he may have made this clear in his lost 'archaeology'.In any casehis Greek readerswould have taken for granted that the leading e Polybius mentioned clientship in his account of the regal period, which was fairly _ .Perhaps detailed tojudge lrom fragments in vi. r ra, as did cicero (derep.ü. r6); like cicero (ii. 2, go, g7), he insistedon the gradual and experimental development ofthe Roman system (vi. ro. r3L;, and may have furnished details on particular institutions at the putative moment of their inception ( c f . i i i . 8 7 . 8 ) , i f t h e y w e r e n o t g i v e n a s a s e q u e l t o t h e g e n e r a l a n a l y s i s i nrvzi-. 1 8 ; s o m e w h e r e h e evidently explained who patricians were (x. 4. r), just as he gave information on Roman priesthoods(xvi. r3. r r); and he surely noticed the Roman practice ofgroup voting, srrange ro Greeks.Not that cicero's narrative in de rep.ii is wholly dependent on PolyLius. ci walbant<,s Commentar2 i. 635, 663 tr ro Walbank, Potybius, rg72, r55.

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men at Rome were of this type , as in their own cities, including those which still retained democratic forms.ll Naturally Polybius was aware of the truth, and brings it out incidentally both in his famous account of Roman aristocratic funerals, which implies that many at least of the great men at Rome belonged to families that had held office for generations, and in allusions to their contemporary riches and luxury.12 From their own military and diplomatic iontacts with Rome Greeks were familiar with the powers of senate and magistrates, which are corrtinually exemplified in Polybius' narrative, but they were less likely to know of the prerogatives of the people, which were more conspicuous in internal affairs, and which were better understood by Polybius as a result of his long residence at Rome. In my judgement he was right in recognizing their importance, though he himself remarks that the aristocratic element in the 'mixture' was the largest at Rome, by contrast with Carthage (vi. 53). As he was long associated with Roman aristocrats, it is not at all likely that he was blinded to the true extent of their power; his eyes were not closed to social and economic realities. Thus among the devices by which the senate was able to control the people, he notes its right to superintend the public contracts, in which 'everyone' invested, and the senators' monopoly ofjudication in the most important civil suits (vi. r7); by the 'people' he means of course the most aflluent citizensoutside the senate (pp.t+8ff.), whose votes, as he may well have observed in a lost part of his work, preponderated in the centuriate assembly (cf. n.9). Implicitly, he was drawing attention to social and economic modes of senatorial control. He also has various allusions to social mores.r3It is therefore the more striking that in the extant part of his work he never refers to patronage, not for instance in accounting for the influence of Scipio Africanus and Scipio Aemilianus. He traces the rise of the former to his reputation for valour, beneficence,liberality, and courtesy, and of the latter to the popularity he earned by generosity, courage, and other virtues.la It is true that he contrasts Aemilianus' conduct in youth with that of his peers, who commonly sought favour by advocacy in the courts and by formal visits to the houses of leading men, and Gelzer brought this into connection with patron-age by suggesting that they were paying court to their'protectors'.r) But the deference envisaged is not the

subordination ol- hercditary clients to patrons; it is simply that of relatively young men to their elders and betters in the same social stratum, which is common to all societiesand would have been well understood by Greek readers who knew nothing of clientage. In his de fficiis Cicero prescribes conduct appropriate to members of the landed 6lite (i. r5of.), adapting the views of the Greek Panaetius; he enjoins the young to revere and take the advice of their most respected elders, men conspicuous for moral rectitude and public services,and especially of those vested with legal powers; equally it is the duty of these men to supply counsel and guidance to the younger generation. He is certainly not thinking of the special relationship of clients to patrons, which he does not mention; his precepts, which surely correspond to traditional Roman social morality, as observcd by Polybius, would apply to scions of the highest aristocracy, for example to the young Brutus, who associated with Cato and took him as a model. Cicero remarks that by winning the approval of those who already enjoy public respect a man can inspire in the-people the expectation that he will himself act on the same principles.'" Polybius' young nobles were behaving as he was to recommend. They hoped to rise by the merila and gratia on which the emperor Tiberius could suggest that candidates for the consulship might rely (Tac. Ann. i. Bt). Gratia signifies not only a favour done to others, and especially a favour done in return for those received, and the gratitude evinced in such a requital, but also the influence that accrues to men with a claim on the gratitude of others. Its ambivalence reflects the reciprocity of services and obligations which was characteristic of Roman society. This reciprocity is of course illustrated in the relationships between patrons and clients, and between friends, but it has a wider range. For Cicero beneficenceor liberality (such as the Scipios displayed), though a virtue to be practised on its own account, is no less expedient than honourable, since it also reaps rewards from the gratitude that it evokes.It is due, he holds, in particular to kinsmen, friends, and fellowcitizens; he makes no reference to clients, nor of course to patrons, since it is the duties of men of high station that he is concerned with; at most he notes that grateful recollections of farrours received may be transmitted to future generations, but without any hint that he has in mind the transmission of hereditary dependence. He dwells rather on liberality and aid given to the people at large. In his moral vein he depreciates the prodigality so common in Roman public life on the provision of feasts, shows, building, and the like, and recommends

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t' ui.53f., xxxi. z5 1l Jo".r, I94o,166 8. 9. "i. e.g. r ra. 6: cf. Cic. de ,ip. i". 3 atd n. r4. t. 3i 4, 52 ll' ' *. 3 [, xxxi. z5-g. rs Gelzer, r969, ro4. In imperial times Fronto (Haines ii. r5z: l'er. ii. 71 shows his consciousness ofthe differencein making out that a youngcr senatorshowcd hinr thc sanrt.n'sper.r as a client orfreedmanwould. Wc may comparc thc rclationship (o th:rt of srnior lnr.mlx.rs ol'ir m o d e r n C a b i n e t w i t h y o u n g c r a s p i r a n r st o o f l i c t ' .

3tig

t 6 d e o 1 l t c . i . r z z l .r,4 7 e,fromthatpartofhisworkwhithmostcloselyfollowsPanaetiusonrd npinov (dcnrum),ii. 4ti f. (with Rornan cxcmpla).(ifi Schulz, Iq46, 5(i B, on thc rclations between t ' n r i n t ' n tj u r i s t sa n c l r r o v i t i i r t c si,r l l o l ' t h c l t i g l t c r t l a s s t s .

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CLIENTELA

readinessto give servicesrather than freedomwith the purse;however, servicesshould be available not merely to those with whom special connectionsalready exist but to as many as possible.Most men, he observes,are prone to bestow benefits on persons,evidently of substance,from whom they can expect a prompt and speedyreturn, yet the gratitude they procure hardly extends beyond the beneficiaries themselvesand perhaps their children. The poor, or at least the deservingpoor, are more likely to be grateful, but they need help from many quarters,and hope for similar favoursin the future; by assistinga single honest man among them, you can gain a reputation that will earn the goodwill of the rest. Clearly he is not contemplating the creation of permanent and exclusive hereditary ties, like those of traditional clientship; men of substanceresented the very name of client, while the poor needed more than one protector. Moreover, influence derivesas much from the hope of future benefitsas from the obligations incident to those previously received.lT Similarly, in idealizing senatorsin early times, he says that they would give their services, advice, and material aid to individual citizens, without specifyingthat this assistancewent to existing clients or brought others within their patronage (derep.ä. 5$. Hence Sallust's reference to the 'few powerful men under whose influencemost peoplehad passed'('pauci pot..tt., quorum in gratiam plerique concesserant')need not relate solely or primarily to the patrons of clients.Rather the contrary: in the very same context he writes of strugglesfor power between men pretending to act on behalf of senate or plebs ('sub honesto patrum aut plebis nomine'); as elsewhere,he is concernedwith the political followers of the optimate or popular leaders; and here, so far from mentioning the personal loyalty that magnatesmight inspire in their dependants,he sneersat the greater facilities for doing injuries to humble folk that wealth affords. From an optimate standpoint Cicero divides politicians into the true champions of property rights and the public good and demagogueswho in offering speciousbenefitsto the massesfail to win the gratia they seek because they forleit the goodwill of property owners.18 Patronage certainly figures in some lists of the concomitants of aristocratic power (".rgg). Thus Sallust makes Marius enumerate among the advantagesof the nobility the resourcesof their kin by blood and marriageand their numerousclients,but also their ancient

lineageand the brave deedsof their ancestors;by implication thesein themselves strengthentheir hold on the people;later it is only their pride of birth and their richesthat Marius depreciates(BJ BS.4and 38), and the allusion to the importance of patronage is isolated in Sallust's unquestionablyauthentic works.le In his idealizationof the good old days he tells how the foremostmen pursued true glory in the serviceof the state and acquired true friendships by their readinessto confer benefits,without adding that they would protect humble dependants (Cat.6.5, 9. r); once corruptedby the greedfor money which they squanderedin luxury and by unscrupulousambition (e.g.Cat. Z-r2), they would not only enrich themselvesby monopoly of the profits of empire (Cat.2o.7, BJ 3r.g, rg) but oppressthe impoverishedplebs, which was impotent to resist them, not becausethey could mobilize dependantsto do their will, but becausethey were organizedand the plebs leaderlessuntil the Gracchi came firrward (BJ +t f.) Their patronage is not adduced to explain their exclusivehold on the highest offices(Cat.24.6, BJ 69. 7); indeedSallustproffersno explanation,but he conveysthe impression,exceptin the singleallusioncited aboveto the nexus of family connectionsand to clientelae, that it lay in their wealth and in the general respectfelt for their ancestralfame.2o In fact clientship appears infinitely more often in modern than in ancient writings. Exclude referencesto patronage over (a) freedmen; (ä) provincialsand foreigncommunities;(r) personsrepresentedin the courts (who admittedly incurred obligationsto their advocates,but might be their equals or superiorsin rank and were in that case certainly not their clients), and the lexica then registeronly somefifty allusionsto clientshipin Italy in all the works of Cicero and Sallust; about a third concernindividual clientsof one or more persons(chiefly Cicero's).21Clients are also found rather seldomin inscriptionsboth Republican and imperial; the inscriptionsdo indeed confirm that the institution was not confined to Rome but was known in other Italian communities.22Mass all this evidencetogether,and throw in references to other forms of connection, as Gelzer did, and it seems impressive;scattered over a thousand pages of Latin, it does not naturally suggestthat political power was basedon theseconnections, especiallyas the ancient writers often afford explicit indications that it was founded on sectionalinterests.

3go

r "1 1 de ofir. i. 4z ff., ii. 5z ff., esp. 63 7o. 18 Safl. F/rst.i. rz, Cat. g8, BJ 4r f.;in Hist. i. r r he also explained the early movement ofthe plebeiansagainst the patricians by the oppressivegovernment ofthe latter; Cic. .9ar/.96 ff., deofir. ii. 79.

39I

1e His 'gloriam dignitatem 1?1secondletter to Caesaralso notesthat the nobility had inherited clientelas' ( r r . 3); here high lineage extends the respect they enjoy beyond their own clients. 20 See generally Earl, r96r, chs. r-rv. 2r I count only allusionsro diens,palrlnus,and cognates;the phrase'in fide[m]'is ambiguous but also not common. No doubt someamicior hospites were clients in all but name, but we olien do not know enoush of the circumstancesto be certain of this. 2 2 S e ee n d n J t e r .

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The Caesarian corpusnever expresslymentions Italian clicnts, though the tenants mustered by L. Domitius Ahenobarbus in 49 along with his slaves and freedmen may have be en his clients (BC i. 3a) . Caesar has, it is true, much to say ofclientship in Gaul, and his use of the term shows that he detected some analogy with the Roman institution; however, he is clearly bent on making the differencesclear. In Gaul by his account the common people were virtually slaves;debt, taxation, and oppression by magnates forced them to place themselves in servitude to nobles, who had all the same rights over them as (Roman) masters over their slaves a word used by Ennius, (.BGvi. r 3). Festussaysthat the Gallic ambactus, was equivalent to slave (4 L.), and according to Caesar, the greater the lineage and wealth of a Gallic notable , the larger was his retinue of ambactiand clients (vi. I5). Elsewhere he collocates clients and debtbondsmen; the latter could be mobilized for war by their lords; we hear the same of clients alone (i. 4, vä. 4, 32, 40). Befiore Caesar's time it had been the custom for a man's favourite slavesand clients to be immolated on his funeral pyre (vi. Ig). Clients thought it sinful to desert their patrons in the extremity of ill fortune (vii. 4o). In return for such devotiön they received protection: it was an ancient usage that none of the commons should lack aid (auxilium) against the more powerful; no 'his own people' be oppressed and defrauded; that magnate would let his influence (vi. II). A similar class in Aquitania would be an end of 'friendship' of lords, with called soldurii surrendered themselves to the whom they shared the good things of life and whom they held it shameful to survive (iii. zz). It may be that Caesar has confused various types ofservitude in Gaul, but what he calls clientship is evidently one of them. The entire subordination of the Gallic client to his lord arises because humble Gauls have no such protection in the law and the tribunician iusauxilü as Roman citizens. They must look to one magnate to defend them from the rest. What Caesar tells of Gallic clientship suggestsby implication what Roman clientship was not. Roman magnates too were often hereditary patrons, or in name hospitesor amici, of the subjects or allies of the Roman people, of kings, peoples, cities, and individr;als, both in Italy befirre the enfranchisement of the Italians and beyond the seas,23and we may assume that when the terms patronage or clientship are applied to these relationships, they are used in the Roman sense;what we learn of these'foreign clientelae'can therefore be used as evidence for the Roman institution. In fact we hear more of them than of clientship within the citizen body. This may in some degree be an accident of ihe surviving evidence,2a 23 Gelrer, r969, 86 ff. Harmand, tq57, assemblesdata. App. ii. saysthat all sulrject ptrtples 4 had patrons (npootd.rat)at Rome. 2 a R e l b r e n c c s n r o l i f i ' r a t c i n t h t V e r r i naensd n o d o u b ( d i s t o r t t h t ' b a l i t n < t ' o l ' l h c t ' r ' i d c I t t c .

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but it may also be due to the {äct that lbreigners lacked the political rights whereby citizens could independently influence political decisions at Rome, and were thus in greater need of the aid that Roman patrons could give . I shall not discusshow far such patronage affected Rome's administration of the subjects or loreign relations. My concern is with the effects of patronage in Roman internal affairs. No doubt the dignitasof a Roman grandee was enhanced by the mere number of his foreign clients. This was probably always an important incentive to the extension of patronage (cf. Plaut. Men.574); in the Principate it is hard to think of any other reason why the great houses continued not only to maintain patronage in the provinces (Tac. Ann.äi. 55) but also to support so many hangers-on in the city of Rome (". t SS); by that time clients could hardly afford them any useful political support. In the Republic too foreign clients, though they might perhaps assistRoman patrons financially (cf. n. r o7), could have little impact on political decisions, or on military issues.In 48 Dolabella tartly observed that Pompey's boasted patronage of kings and nations had not prevented the loss of Italy and Spain (Cic. Fam. ix. g. z). Admittedly in Spain his extensive connections were to revive and drag out resistance tiil Munda and beyond, but they could not secure Caesar's defeat.25 The votes, and ultimately the arms, of Italians were decisive; relatively few provincials fought in the civil wars.26 Provincial clientship was perhaps of most material value to the clients, though their hopes of favour and protection were not always fulfilled, as the Sicilians discovered in Verres' time. Brutus exacted usurious interest from his Cypriot clients, and Cicero did not welcome the grant of the Latin right o. ofcitir..rship to his dear Sicilians,2Tany more than Pompey sought to elevate his Transpadane clients from Latin to Roman status. Given the paucity of explicit evidence on clientship in the late Republic, modern scholars discourse more vaguely on other necessiludin)s based-on fides (Nlh-und- Treuuerhältnisse1,amicn;a ( Chapter 7), and hospitium.2sThere can be no doubt that these terms may disguise a 2s Geke., r 969, 96; add Caes.BC i. 6r . 3 for Pompey'sname inspiring fear as well as affection; note too 74.5, B.Alex.58 f. against the view that loyalty to Pompey had much to do with the movement against Q. Cassius.Dio xliii. 3o. t, xlv. Io. r; App. v. 143 best illustrate the strength of his Spanish connections.But Caesar too had Spanish clients and complained that his favours to them did not produce proper devotion (8. Hisp. 4z). No doubt many Spaniards had conflicting obligations, and macie (as it happened) an imprudent choice between them. 26 IM, App. zg. 2 7 B r u n t , C h i r o nr g 8 o , 2 7 3 f f . ; ( e s p .r t V e r r . i v . 8 9 ) C i c . A u . v i . t . 5 , x i v . r z . r . G e l z e r , 1 9 6 9 , 88 ff., illustrates servicesthat some patrons did render to provincial communities. 2 8 H o s p i t e s : W i s e m IagnT, I , 3 3 t r . i f L L s . v . h o s p i t i u m i c f . n . S z w i t h t e x t : H a r m a n dl 9. 5 7 , c h . r r . Lyso ofPatrae could entertain Cicero and tend his sick freedman Tiro, servicesnot comparable with Cicero's protection ofhis businessinterests(Fam. xüi. lg. r); cL Shackleton Bailey on Fam. xiii. 78, and for Cicero's often speciousreferencesto friendship, on xiii. 27.

39+

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d e g r e e o f s o c i a l d t : p e n d t : n c c ,l l u t t h i s t ' a r r o n l y b e d c t c r m i n e c i l l y s c r u t i n y o f t h e p a r t i c u l a r c i r c u m s t a n c c s ,w h i c h ä r r en ( ) t a l w a y s c l e a r , Let us look at some instances. Cicero warnrly commended to his brother M. Orfius, an Eques who was a notable of Atella and influential beyond his home town, and who was at the time serving under Caesar. Atella was a town in Cicero's patronage, and its leading men, like Orfius, may well have been individually his clients: the ties between a Roman magnate and a municipality were doubtless strong in proportion to the strength of his ties with the chief local figures. Cicero describesOrfius simply as a person connected with him in his own right ('necessarium per se'). The connection evidently did not extend automatically to Cicero's brother. As a military tribune in Caesar's army, Orfius probably had incurred heavier obligations to his general. Another such connection of Cicero was the young C. Trebatius from Yelia (Fam. vii. eo. r), who was to attain great eminence as a jurist. Cicero had received him 'in amicitiam et fidem', and commended him to Caesar, in the hope that the latter would enrich him 'totum from the spoils of Gaul. He writes: denique hominem tibi ita trado de manu, ut aiunt, in manum'. This language is hyperbolical. Subsequent correspondence shows that Trebatius remained Cicero's friend as well as Caesar's, and it would be injudicious to suppose that he was simply transferred in such a way as to be at Caesar's entire 'Caesar's disposal: he was not man' any more than he had been Cicero's. Commendatio in itself did not have that effect; Cicero could also 'wholly commend and transfer' himself to the young Curio: 'nunc tibi omnem rem atque causam meque totum commendo atque trado'.29 But Cicero's numerous letters of commendation (Fam. xäi passim) illustrate the help that such friends as Trebatius might obtain from their superiors; it could actually extend to more or lessdelicate pressure on magistrates who were to determine their rights in litigation.3o Advocacy in the courts or legal advice were other services that might be rendered, but they might not only fulfil the pre-existing obligations of a patron or friend, but (as Gelzer showed at length) enlarge the circle of his connections. The practice of procuring priuilegia from the senate in a thin house, circumscribed by the lex Cornelia of 67 (Ascon. 58 C.), is probably another example of the operation of patronage in a broad sense. Orfius was Cicero's necessarius, Trebatius his amicus;like iorpes, these could be courteous appellations for connections which presuppose 2e Orfius: Cic. Qtfr. ii. r3 (rz). 3. Trebatius: Fam. vü.5. 3; cf. r7. r; parallel casein (lacs. lJ(,' ii. 57. I. For Trebatius as intermediary between Caesar and Ciccro in 49 scc /ll! vi,r, ze5 fl. (Sonnet). Cicero and Curio: l'an. ii. 6. 5. 30 G. E. M. de Ste Croix, Br. ,t't fl' .Journ.Sodol.rqs4,

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d e p t ' n d e n c t ' ,w h e n t h e r t ' w a s g r c a t d i s l l a r i t y b c t w t ' c n t h t ' p a r t i e s i n s t a t u sa n d i n l l u c n c e . B u t i t i s s i g n i f i c a r r tt h a t t h e y r n i g h t b e p r e f e r r e dt o l a n g u a g e t h a t u n v e i l e d t h a t d e p e n d e n c e .M e n o l ' w e a l t h a n d s t a n d i n g , 'like death' to be called clients; they might even Cicero says, thought it be reluctant to accept f,avours that bound them too closely to the benefactor and looked for a return.31 Only two of his correspondents who belonged to this class style themselves clients, in conscious selfabasement, when imploring his help, and these very men he urbanely ancl perhaps sincerely addressesas his friends.32 In his youth, when himself an Eques, he had assimilated clients to freedmen and slaves (". BZ). It was then natural that the description should be abhorrent to all Romans whose dignitas made them cherish their independence. In 'barter 'accept a favour' is itself to an epigram of Pubilius (8. 5) to freedom', and Brutus would not sell his liberty for the benefits Antony might grant (ad Brut. 24.4). Romans whose social status was sufficiently assured evidently resented the claim to subservience that clientship might seem to cotluey.33 We have no access to the mentality of the lower classesin this regard, unless Publilius speaks for them, but they might well have wished to model their attitude on that of their betters. 'in obsequium plus aequo pronus' (Hor. Ep. i. lB. ro) Was not a client destitute of that libertas which many or almost all Romans valued? It may be said that terminology is of little importance in assessingthe realities of the relationship between a Trebatius and his more powerful friends, but this may not be true. Though friendship might persist over generations in Roman as in any other society, we are not told that it involved any hereditary obligations, as clientship did, and it was certainly in the discretion of friends to decide when and how far they would reciprocate services rendered. The nuances of the mutual connections of Romans are obscured when friends of lesser degree are treated as no more than clients. It may also be imprudent to assume that even clients faithfully observed the theoretically hereditary force of their obligations, which is attested by Dionysius and confirmed by some inscriptions.3a In fact very few literary texts of the Republic relate to inherited clientelaein Italy. It is patent that though the great noble dynasties presumably had the largest number of clients, this did not invariably suffice to 3r Ci.. dt ofie. ü. 69; cf. Sen. dz benef.ü. 23. g. 3 2 F a m . v i . 7 . 4 , v i i . 2 9 . z ; c o n t r a s tu i . 5 . 4 , 6 . z , g . r ( C a e c i n a ) x; i i i . I 7 . I ( C u r i u s ) ;h i s correspondencewith them suggestssome real familiarity. Fam- v. g. r is merely jocular. 'Vis te, Sexte, coli: volebam amare./ parendum est tibi; quod iubes, 33 Note Mart. ii. 55: colere:/sedsi te colo, Sexte, non amabo.' 3a Dionys. Hal. ii. ro.4;12S6o94-6Ioo (hospitium t o o w a s h e r e d i t a r y ) ;G e l z e r , 1 9 6 9 , z z f . Collaterals might have patronal claims; cL Brunt, Chiron Ig8o, n. I on lI Verr. iv. 79-Bl; but of Cicero and not of'his brothcr. Orfius was necessarius

396

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sustain their power and influence. Some ol' them läilcd to supply consulsfor long periods, perhaps as a result of earlv deaths in successive generations, but perhaps also because of the excclttional incapacity of their representatives,or of extravagance that diminished the resources availabie for munificence to the people at large.35 For instance, M. Aemilius Scaurus, consul in t r5, who became the first man at Rome by his own efforts, belonged to one of the most splendid patrician clans, but for three generations none of his forebears had attained office, and he had to repair his economic fortune belore embarking on a political career.36Probably the loyalty of hereditary clients was impaired when the patron lacked the wealth and power to render them much assistance.In 5o the young Tiberius Claudius Nero, the scion of' a patrician house that produced no consul between zoz and the future emperor Tiberius in r3 needed the help of the governor of Bithynia to confirm his ancestral patronage there and to bind his clients with new favours (Fam. xäi.64). Under Sulla's dictatorship the Roscii of Ameria deserted their numerous old patrons, who included some of the chief aristocrats at Rome, for the more effbctive aid of Sulla's freedman and favourite, Chrysogonus.3TInherited sentiments of loyalty counted for less than the possessionof resourcesand influence, combined with the disposition to use them, for the aid and protection of dependants. Perseverance,dear my lord, Keeps honour bright; to have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Men who came to the fore by their personal talents were thus well placed to acquire an extensive patronage; their clients must either have been previously independent, or have had ties with other patrons (which, as we shall see, were not necessarily dissolved by the new connection). There is perhaps some exaggeration in Valerius Maximus'report (ix. r5) that the oculist Herophilus, by posing as Marius' grandson, gained the allegiance of numerous veteran colonies and 'almost all the collegia', but it suggests that other townships and of Marius, though a new man, had a widespread patronage, which is not astonishing, since he had been seven times consul and was acclaimed as saviour of his country. Sulla himself came from a branch of the Cornelii, which had not attained the consulship for two centuries; if his son Faustus, who himself does not seem to have enjoyed political 3s Brunt, JR.l r982, xxxr-xxxllr. 36 Ascon. z3 C; de rir. ill. 8z; Val. Max. ii. ro. 4; Cic. Mur. 16. 37 'Cum muhls veteresa maioribus Roscii patronos hospitesquehaberent, omnes eos
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influence incommensurate with his youth, could be described as a man 'with the greatest resourcesand numerous kin by blood and marriage, connections, and clients', the explanation must lie in his father's personal dominance.38 Pompey's large clientela(tt. I++) must likewise have been in part the result of his own unique military and political career; it is true that his father Cn. Pompeius Strabo already had many dependants in Picenum, but Strabo himself, though perhaps a collateral of the parvenu consul of r4r, was at best of praetorian descent. Not surprisingly, we know most of the patronage of Cicero; his preeminence at the bar and his consular rank enabled him to furnish valuable aid and protection; individuals apart, he was patron of the Sicilians, of Arpinum, Capua, Reate, Atella, Cales, Volaterrae, Arretium, and all the towns from Vibo to Brundisium, not to speak of his close connection with the great publican companies, whose lcading members would obviously have been styled friends.'" Nor was patronage confined to nobles and new men, like Marius and Cicero, who rose to exceptional authority. It might belong to senators of much lower status, like P. Sestius,or to such persons as the latifondistaC. Quinctius Valgus, patron of Aeclanum, or M. Satrius, patron in 44 of all Picenum and the Sabine country ('o turpem notam temporum'), neither of whom is known to have entered the senate. To say no more of Chrysogonus, a mere freedwoman of the Manlii boasts of the great number of her clients (n. zz). Naturally Atticus too had his clients. So within their home towns did many domi nobileslike the Roscii of Ameria; the grafiti at Pompeii afford many examples (n. r27).4o It will appear in section V that the electoral support of municipal gentry was important to candidates for office at Rome, but perhaps not so much because of their humble dependants as because they might persuade friends and neighbours of the same status as themselves, who had the means to travel to the city and whose votes would count more in the centuriate assembly, to support the same candidates as they did. Such men, like the Roscii, might themselves be clients of great Roman houses. But we cannot assume that there was always or usually any unbroken line of dependence. Atticus, for example, obviously owed no allegiance to anybody. tB Cluent. 94. Cf. p. 474 on Faustus. l e D i a . C a e c . 2 , d e o f r c . ü . 5 c , A t t . xIi zv (. S i c i l y ) , S e s l . g , P a s . z 5 ( C a p u a ) , C a t . ü i . 5 ( c f . S a l l . C a l . 26.4), Scaur.z7 (Reate), QJt.rt.ü. tg. 3, Fam. xiii. 7. r (Atella), Planc.97 (Vibo etc.)' implied for Cales (Faz. ix. I3. 3), Volaterrae (xiii. 4. r, Att. i. 19.4, as for Arretium; cf. Caee'97); we can hardly tell how far his patronage of communities derived from defence of local magnates like Caecina or C. Curtius (Fam. xüi.5). Patronage ofhis native Arpinum can be assumed(cl' Fam. Cat. xiii. r r f.). Publicans:e.C.Qu."fr.i. r. 6, 3z-5, Fan. xäi.9, 65. z.Provincial clients and hospites: iv. 23, e.g. Dyrrachium (Planc. 4r). Syme says that Cicero lacked clients (.R.Rt6)! ao ILLRP5zg(Quinctius);Cic.deofic.iii.74(Satrius),postred.sen.eo(Sestius),Rose.Amer.tg ( a R o s c i u s ) ,A t t . i . r z . 2 , 2 0 . 7 , x . 8 . 3 ( A t t i c u s ) . C f H a r m a n d t 9 5 7 , 7 g - B z .

(;t.tl:.\'t t:t.,4

(;t.lL:N'I l:1..4

Indeed it is highly questionable how fär clients in general stood in an exclusiverelationship to particular patrons. The Roscii had many noble patrons (".S2).A. Caecina was a client both of the Pompeian Cicero and by a hereditary attachment of the Caesarian consul of 48 P. Servilius Isauricus.ar At one time Marius was apparently a hereditary client of both the Metelii and the Herennii, not a consular family (Plut. Mar.4f.). Even a freedman could have a patron other than his exmaster.4z Generals became patrons of the peoples they subdued, but thereafter these clients could choose additional patrons; Syracuse and other Sicilian cities had many besidesthe Marcelli. Colonies were in the patronage of their founders (deductores),but as the foundation was normally entrusted to triumvirs, they had more than one from the start, and the Caesarian charter of Urso, in part at least tralatician, permits the council, subject to certain restrictions, to co-opt patrons in addition to the founder and his descendants. The Sullan colony of Pompeii had several patrons in 62. Co-optation is probably attested in an inscription of Fundi (not a colony) not later than t5z. Cicero boasted that after his consulship Capua made him sole patron (".gg); this was clearly unusual, and it cannot have remained true after Capua received colonial status by favour of Caesar in 59 and of the land commissioners appointed under his law.a3 It is simply inconceivable that Cicero was sole patron of all the other towns mentioned earlier. Pompey had clients in Transpadane Gaul; perhaps all the cities there that owed their Latin right to his father *... bo,lt d to him,aa but he never advocated their enfranchisement as Caesar did, and we may guess that as proconsul Caesar conferred many benefits on them and continued to hold out the prospect of their promotion to citizenship; in 5o he could count on Romans the re, including the ex-magistrates of the Latin communities, to vote for his protägös(BG väi. 50. 3, 52. r ) : he did enfranchise the Latins, once master of Rome (Dio xli. a6. g), and the region was an important source of recruits for his legions (,BC iii. BZ. ü. By +g he had stronger claims than Pompey on their support, and if they were already voting at his behest, we cannot infer that this was what clients normally did for patrons; they had singular expectations from his favour.

The plurality of patronagehas of coursebeen noted before,but its significancehas not been brought out. It necessarilymeant that if the patronswere discordantthe loyaltiesof the clientswere divided. Thus in civil wars many communitiesand individuals might have ties with both warring parties;the dilemma of Massilia (Caes.BC i. 3) cannot have been unique. In Italy itself all the towns, it is said, offered prayers for Pompey when he was seriouslyill in 5o, and thanksgivingswhen he recovered.Perhapsthis demonstratedprimarily the universalpopularity of a national hero, but Pompeymust have beenpatron of at leastas many towns as Cicero. Yet even in Picenum there w-aslittle resistance to Caesar in 49, and the adulation for the victor was no lessfervent when he had driven Pompeyout of ltaly.as A similar dilemma in a less acute form could confront clients when their patrons competed for office. It may be noted that Pompey himself had to resort to bribery or force to securethe electionof a candidatehe preferred(Cic. AU.i. t6. re), and even firr his own itt 55.There is indeed no sign that in this period the mobilization of clients had anything more than a marginal effect at elections (section V), whether because patrons could not ensure their loyalty or becauseloyal clients could never constitute a decisiveproportion of the electorate. It may be observedthat the great noble families were still as successfulas they had ever been in filling the consulship,and we cannot therefore explain their previous preponderance by the hypothesis that the votes of their dependants had once mattered more. Clients, like friends, if faced with a conflict in their personal obligations, had to make a choice, and that choice might be determined by consideration either of the relative strength of those obligations taken by themselves,or of their own advantage, or of the public interest,'or, of course,by mixed motives.We must not assumethat their views of the public interest counted for nothing. It might actually affect their choice of patrons. The adoption of Brutus and Cassiusas patrons of Teanum and Puteoli after Caesar's death looks like a declarationof adherenceto the Republican cause(ch. I endnote I). If we can believe Cicero, it evoked widespread enthusiasm in Italy, including Cisalpina. There Brutus could have acquired clients as governor in 46, but there is,no like explanation of Cassius'patronage ä-ong the Transpadani.a6 Only those towns in the region which Antony actually träta Uy force failed to back the senate.aTYears later

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a r C i c . F a m .v i . 7 . 4 ( ' m e v e t e r e mt u u m , n u n c o m n i u m c l i e n t e m ' ) ,x i i i . 6 6 . r . a2 Treggiari zz3. n3 Gelre., I969, 87; further items for Sicily in Brunt, Chiron rgBo; Cicero's suggestionthat Verres could substitute himselffor certain patrons in Sicily (lI Verr.4. 89) is delusive. Pompeii: Cic. Sz//. 6o. Fundi: ILLRP to68. Urso: 1IS 6o87, xcvrr, cxxx: the restrictions were perhaps Augustan, (cf. Dio lvi. 25. 6), and interpolated in the text of Caesar's charter. In eo zz3 Canusium had 4o patrons, ILS 6rzr. aa Fam.viii.4.4,A.-fr.ä.3.4,aresultperhapsofhiscampaigninSTT,moreprobablyofthe lex PompeiaofBg (Ascon. 3 C.; Seager, tg7g,2, says that'it was designed to extend IPompeius Strabo's] influence';by parity ofreasoning the lex lulia ofgo was designedto makt all new t:itizcns clients of L. Caesar!

3gg

4s Vell. ii. 4 z ; P l u t . P o m p . 5 7 ;D i o x l i . 6 . 3 ; c f . C i c . A t t . v ä i . 1 6 . I , i x . 5 . 4 . 46 Cic. Phil. ä. ro7, Fam. xii. 5. z; cf. ch. r n. 9. a7 They included Bononia, 'in Antoniorum clientela antiquitus' (Suet. lzg. I7. z); the (Livy xxxvii. 57) had, so lar as known, no living descendantsin the male line. But deductores Antony founded a colony there (Dio l. 6); that can hardly have suited the existing citizens,and I wonder if he was not simplv patron of the new colonv.

4oo

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Brutus was still honoured at Mediolanum as thc champion o{'lieedom (Suet. ,Riel.6). Clientship might then be the efl'cct rather than the cause of political affiliations, just as personal lricnclships and enmities could be terminated in changed political conjunctures on the basis or pretext of political principles. To summarize the argument thus f,ar,it appears that our authorities do not justify the modern hypothesis that the influence exercisedby the great aristocratic lamilies at Rome over hordes of dependants was of great significance for the understanding of Roman politics. Patronage was not confined to those families, and its acquisition was as much a consequenceas a calse of ascendancy in the state. It was sometimes or often shared, and then established no exclusive claim to allegiance. It is mentioned rather seldom in our sources,and they offer quite different explanations (examined in other chapters) of the great conflicts of the late Republic and the course they took. In later sections I shall discuss more fuily the part that clients supposedly played in these conflicts. But first I shall consider what is known or believed of clientship in prcGracchan ages. It is in part because scholars suppose it to have been the foundation of aristocratic power in early Rome that they are ready to assume that it survived in some degree so long as that power continued. Their conception of the structure of society and politics in the second and first centuries is coloured by the picture they have drawn of archaic conditions; and no one should deny that ancestral custom had a strong effect on the mentality of Romans. However, in fact very little is known of early clientage; and there are sufficient indications that even in the fifth and fourth centuries the majority of citizens could show their independence of patrons, and that thereafter the ties that bound patrons and clients together became still looser.

III

The antiquity of clientageis beyond dispute.The ancientsthemselves made Romulus its creator. Cicero said that he had the plebs distributed into clientshipsof the leading men ('habuit plebem in clientelas discriptam'); Cicero promised to show the advantagesof this later, but (ii. r6). In the light of if he did so it was in a lost part of his derepublica the lessambiguousstatementson Romulus' work in Festus(z6z L.), Dionysius(ii. g. z), and Plutarch (Rom.r3), that Romulus divided the plebeiansas clientsamong the patricians,the suggestionthat Cicero meant that the plebeians were already clients before the city was founded can be dismissed.According to Dionysius,each plebeianwas allowed to choosehis own patron. Both he and Plutarch purport to

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4OI

describe the first organization of the Roman community and the very origin of clientship. Naturally no one will now believe that it was deliberately instituted in this way, but the construction of the Roman annalists has commonly been taken as proof of an authentic tradition that at the first all plebeians were clients of the patricians.as Modern scholars also tend to think that they were clients of patrician gentesas such, whereas the ancient writers explicitly state that they were assigned to individual patrons, admittedly on a hereditary basis; in historic times there is certainly no evidence for patronage exercised by gentes.ae More important, the moderns often deny that the clients, and therefore the plebeians, originally had citizen rights, however limited. 'tradition', which knows This contention has no foundation in the nothing of the enfranchisement either of plebeians in general (as distinct from their acquisition of particular rights withheld from them in early times) or of clients in particular; for instance, the annalists told that in the early Republic plebeian clients supported the patricians with their votes. Moreover, although Dionysius claims that the social harmony maintained by patronage lasted till Gaius Gracchus, and therefore by implication that till then the support given by clients to patrons remained of political importance, the annalists also conceived that in the struggles between patricians and plebeians many of the latter could be sharply differentiated from the clients of the patricians, and therefore that it was no longer true that all plebeians were their dependants. This must be correct; otherwise it would be impossible to understand how some of the plebeians won full parity as nobles with the patricians, or how the citizens in general acquired the personal protection under the laws and the political rights which they undoubtedly enjoyed from the early third century. The'tradition' castsno light on the putative process whereby many at least of the plebeians had escaped the ties of dependence by which all were supposedly once bound; we may of course conjecture that they had been liberated by the disappearance of patronal families. This is speculation; and we may a8 So recently F. de Martino, Misc. Manni, rg7g,68I ff., but seeabove all Premerstein, I9oo, i.gSS ff., and SrR3iii. whosedogmas and conjectureslargely derive from Mommsen, Röm. Forsch. 54 ff., one of those constructionsin which Mommsen displayed his imaginative power to create almost zx nihilo;they have been more or lessrepeated by other scholars,e.g. with some variations b y M . L e m o s s e( R I D A , r g 4 g ,a 6 t r ) , C . W . W e s t r u p ( i b i d . t 9 5 4 , 4 5 I t r ) , a n d B a d i a n , I 9 5 8 , I - r 3 (with occasionaland rather tender criticisms); lor this and other theoriescf. Richard, ch. I and r57 ff. ae Dionys. ii. ro. e says clients were to trlv ävoAapärav [of patrons]
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wonder if therewas any genuinerecollectionof conditionsin which ail plebeianswere clients, anterior to the conflicts beginning in the early fifth century, when this can no longer have been true. All modern accountsof Roman clientship rely heavily on Dionysius (ii. 9-rr). He professesto be recording the laws of Romulus, the historicity of which must be in doubt. Was he none the lessdrawing ultimately on laws of the regal period?A recordof these'laws',someof w h i c h o n D i o n y s i u s ' o w na d m i s s i o n( ä . 2 4 . r , 2 7 . 9 ) w e r e o r i g i n a l l y unwritten, was evidently kept in the pontifical archives, but few will take this to be proof of their authenticity.to Th. rule mentioned by Dionysius that a patron or client convicted of impious and unlawful actions against each other was liable to be killed for 'treason' by anyone who pleasedas a victim to Zeus Katachthonios might be seen as a retrojection of a supposedprovision in the Twelve Tables that the patron who wronged his client was to be sacerand his life therefore forfeit,sr but the authenticityof this provisionis itselfsuspect(p. 4og). The 'impious and unlawful actions' include acting in the lawcourts and voting against each other, or being ranked among each other's enemies;it is hardly credible that all such conduct was ever prohibited by law, and Dionysius' assertionsthat clients were to assistpatrons in the cost of magistraciesand not to vote ag_ainst each other, perhaps in courts but more probably in the comitia,t"are patent anachronisms for the regal period. It seemsmost likely that Dionysius or his source found a validation in fictitious laws for customswhich they took to be characteristicof the 'good old days'. We cannot in fact be sure that all the customshe describeswere authentic.In historic timesit seemsthat the founders (deductores) of colonies and the generals who reduced foreign peoples to submission were necessarily the patrons of the communitiesconcerned,53 which could subsequentlych-oose additional patrons; Dionysiusmakesout that communities,like individuals, could always choosetheir patrons. But he is right that the relation of patrons and clients was hereditary, and there is confirmation of his statement that patrons were authorized by the senate to compose communal so Legesregiae:FIRA i'. pp. ff.; for authenticity, A. Watson, JRS rgTz, roo ff; A. Drummond 3 remarked to me that his medieval parallels suggest,contrary to his own view, that social bonds would be given legal definition gradually, if at all. J. P. V. D. Balsdon, J.RS r97r, 18ff., discredited the theory that Dionysius drew on a political pamphlet, but even ifhe is wrong, the source of that pamphlet could have been 'laws' in the archives. 5r It would be another anachronism if he meant Dis Pater(Wissowa 3o9 ff.; Latte e46 ff.). See a l s o ^ 4 .W a t s o n ,C Q r g l g , 4 3 9 r u n c o n v i n c i n g )C. f . n . 7 5 . "' The context of the sentencesuggests that he has trials in mind, but in what early courts would there be voting? He certainly thought that there were magistratesunder the kings, and later (n. Bz) often refers to clients votins at elections. 5 3 G e l r e r , r 9 6 9 , 6 3 ; C i c . d e o f i c .i . 3 f 1 t h e S y r a c u s a n sw o u l d h a r d l y h a v e t a k e n M a r c e l l u sa s patron out of love for him!). Cf. n. 43.

4()3 controversies.5a He was realisticin writing of the zeal with which the magnates would maintain and extend their patronage, but surely idealizing, when he speaks of the marvellous goodwill that once subsistedbetweenthem and their clients. Dionysius makes various statementsabout the early relationship between patrons and clients in legal processes. Patrons were (r ) to explain to their clientsthe laws of which they were ignorant; (z) to sue on their behalf if they were wronged, e.g. on contracts;(3) to delend them in both civil and criminal cases.Furthermore, patrons and clients might not (4) bring accusationsnor (5) bring witness against each other. Mommsen held that (4) could relate only to civil suits,sincein his view there were no private prosecutionsfor crimes in early Roman law, a thesissinceimpugned by Kunkel.5s Someinfer from (r) and (3) that clientscould not appear in the courts themselvesand must then have lacked the full rights of citizens,s6but the prohibition i" (+) implies that they could take independent action, except against patrons,and of courseDionysiushimselfcreditedthem with the voting rights of citizens. In the historic period clients were still debarred from appearing as counselor witnessesagainst patrons, though this restriction apparentlyvanishedin time (pp. +t 7 f.), and the right of freedmen to sue their patrons was limited, but not that of freeborn clients. In classical law citizens could be legally represented by a cogniloror procurator,or in certain circumstancesby a tutzr or curator;such legal representatives were not necessarily patrons.sTNo doubt patronswere always under a moral obligation to assistclientsin the courts;s8the legal rules reported by Dionysius,if they ever existed,becameobsolete in courseof time. Dionysius says more generally that the patron was to care for his clientsasfor his own sons.We must not infer thatlikefliifamiliarum they had no property.That conclusionwould certainlybe incompatiblewith his own assertionsthat they were expected to contribute to the costs sustainedby patronsin dowries,fines,ransoms,and public services. Of such contributions there are recorded instances,real or fictitious.se Plutarch,however,saysultimately it was thought demeaningfor men of high degree to take money from clients.6oIn fact, as we shall see, demandsfor gifts were resented,and restrictedby law (p.+zz). 5a ILS 5946; Cic. II Verr. ü. rzz, Sulla 6o z. Horace credibly pictures a Regulus settling d i r p . " : . j b e t w e e n ^ i n d i v i d u acll i e n t s r O d e sü . 5 . 5 3 t . " K u n k e l . r g 6 a , c h s .u r . v r r r , x r v f . 56 A. Magdelain, REL rg7r, ro3 ff. (with other implausible conjectures),followed by Richard r6r etc. 5? M. Kaser, Röm 58 e.g. Plaut. Men.574ff. liailpro4ssrechtr52ff. 5 e F i n e s :L i v y v . 32. 8, xxxvii. 6o. g. Cf n. ro7. 60 Rom. r3. 6. Evidently Dionysius is not his sole source.

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Cicero tells of a foreigner residing in Rome as an exile who had 'quasi patronum'; he died intestate, and the applied to a Roman patron claimed the estate;in the proceedingshe illuminated the ius which was quite obscure and unknown (de orat. i. tZZ). applicationis, Now under the Twelve Tables the patron did not enjoy the right of intestate successioneven to a freedman who had a suusheres,i.e. a and he member of his family who had been subject tohis patriapotestas, never in historic times had such a right in the caseof a freeborn Roman or se client. Nor are the terms seapplicare(as distinct from secommendare ever used elsewhereof a Roman coming dare)6r and ius applicationis under the patronageof another Roman. The ius in question would not have been obscure if the client had been a Roman freedman or But he was a foreigner, who doubtlessdied without natural ingenuus. heirs, and the patron evidently argued, presumably with success,that he had the same right to his estate as if he had been his freedman intestate in similar circumstances.The text has no relevance to patronage over freeborn Romans. of archaicAthens Dionysiuscompared clients (pelalali)with the thetes penestai (ii.9. latter were serß,and he also Thessaly z); the and the of penestai (i*.S.4) . This the Etruscan serß term to denote uses the terminology has helped to generate a modern theory that clientship was originally a kind of serfdom(Hörigkeit).Itis supposedthat the first clients were peoples conquered by Rome and distributed as dependants among the patrician gentes,together with freedmen and their that the latter long remainedunder the absoluteauthordescendants, ity of their former masters,and that their status revealswhat that of other clients had been; the conquered were subject to the unfettered control of the Roman state, and thereforeto that of their particular patrons!It is admitted that patronsnever had the sameauthority over freeborn citizenswho voluntarily sought their protection (by a proceand that they eventuallylost it dure unwarrantably styled applicatio), over other clients of free birth and later over freedmen. In fact, as we it over shall see,there is no good evidencethat they had ever possessed citizens,whether of free or servile birth, nor is there any record of the change assumed.The only kind of bondageattestedat Rome apart from slaveryis debt-bondage,abolishedin 326 or 3I3, though forced labour could be exacted in various relationshipsarising from contract or delict (pp."BS f.). The theory is certainly alien to Dionysius' own conceptions,for what they are worth; he observed that the Romans improved on the Greek patterns he cites;clients were not treated as virtual slaves,like Thessalianpenestai,nor despisedas mere hirelings, 6 t ' l c r . E u n . 8 8 5 ,r o 3 g ;G e l l . v . r 3 . : r 1c l i n . 3 7

CLIhN'I

EI.tl

4()5

like Athenian theles; there was a relationshipof mutual goodwill (ii. g). The theory restsneither on his accountof clientshipnor on any direct testimony, but on assumptionsand deductions which do not bear critical examination. We may begin by noting that it is not sustainedby the terminology of the Romans themselves. No certain inferences,for instance,can be drawn from the original meaning of cliens,which is as obscure as its etymology.62Patronusobviously comes from pater; and therefore, it is argued, the patron once had the same authority over clients as the paterfamilias(head of the household) always possessed over his slaves and children. An adventuroussupplementationof lacunae in Festus simply derivesfrom this hypothesisand cannot properly be adducedin proof of it."' By contrast,Dionysiushad learnt that the significanceof the word derived from the fatherly care of the patron for his dependants(ii.g.g).This may be true. It is alreadyusedfiguratively to mean 'protector',like pateritsell by Plautus,6aas it was by Metellus Pius when he called the tribune Q. Calidius, a new man, patron of his proud family becausehe had secured the recall of Numidicus from exile.6s The specialapplication of the word to a pleaderin the courts may always have had the samesense,though it may go back to days when patrons normally assisted their clients in legal proceedings; naturally in the historic period, when patronusin a specialsensemeans pleader, it is not correlated with cliens.For instance Cicero's appearancein 63 as counselfor Piso,the consulof 67, in arepetundae trial did not make Piso his cliens.Gelzer indeed suggeststhat the term patronus was reserved for advocates of high rank, but there are too many exceptionsto this supposedrule.66 62 ItisgenerallyheldtobecognatewithGreekrÄrlo(listen) orxAivopat(leanon);cf.Richard r5g f. Rouland rg ff. derives it from colere. 63 Festus253 M. reads'patr[onus a patre cur ab antiquis dictus sit, manifestum: quia ut liberi, sic enim clientes] numerari inter do[mesticos quodammodo possunt]': 'why the term patron [derived from paterwas used by the ancientsis clear; it was becauselike the sons,the clients too could be] counted among ho[usehold people in a way]'. Lindsay 3oo rightly spurns this conjectural reading. 64 Neuhauser,Palronusu. Orator,64ff., is useful here. Note the collocation in this sensein Plaut. Capt. 444; Ter. Ad.456. Even slavesor lreedmen can be 'patrons', i.e. protectors, of their own mastersor ex-masters,Plaut. Asin.65z, Cas. 7gg, Rudens1266, and a man may be 'patron' of others' slaves(Rudens7o5). 65 Cic. Planc.69. Drusus (tr. pl. gt) was 'senatus . . . paene parronus' (Mil. 16). T'he usageis common (cL last note). Livy writes of a patron or parrons of the army (iii. zg. z, xxii. 29. r r , 30. 2, with assimilation to pater;cf. 34. 6) and of the plebs (ii. g, vi. rB. r4). 66 Conlra Gelzer, 1969, 7r, Cicero so designatesnor only P. Antistius (Brut. zz6) but L. Fufidius, C. Licinius Macer, and Q, Arrius (ibid. rr3, zg8, z4g), himself while still an Eques (Rosc.Amer.5) , and the Caepasii (Cluent.57) . I doubt if r/lazsis normally used,as client in English, for the personrepresentedby an advocatein court; deorat.i.5r, r74, Brut. 97 may rather illustrate the practice ofpatrons appearing lor clientsin the normal senseofthe latter term, and Fam. v. qe. t is ironic.

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An individual who voluntarily became a client was said, as we have s e e n , ' s ec o m m e n d a r e [ d a r e ] i n f i d e m a l i c u i u s ' ( n . 6 I ) ; b u t i n C i c e r o ' s time this certainly did not mean that he surrendered himself to the patron's absolute control (n.z9 with text) . There is no proof that it had ever had this meaning, nor indeed is this alleged by advocates of the theory under consideration. But have they any reason to hold that such control appertained to the patron ofa conquered people? Such a 'in fi_dempopuli Romani', was indeed subject to people, on submitting the absolute dicio of Rome.o' Moreover,fdes was associated with power when Romans spoke of thefdes of the magistrate (e.g. Suet. Rhet. r) or that of iudices.Since such a community was also in thefdes of its patron, does this not suggestthat at one time it was as much in his power as in that of the Roman state? This must be answered in the negative. Plainly it is not true that patrons had such power in the historic period, and it cannot be inferred lrom the terms used that their position must originally have been stronger. The Roman state, being subject to no higher authority, had absolute discretion how to treat a community that had surrendered to its fdes, and so had the general as its representative at the time when he accepted the surrender, but it does not follow that once Rome had defined the status of that community, he and his descendants as patrons still had like power. Fides cannot be equated with potestas(which could itself be limited, as in the case of minor magistrates); we must bear in mind the phrase do fdem, used when a solemn promise was given, the mutualy'des expected of friends, and the development of the word to denote a moral quality of trustworthiness. In the light of these usages the fdes ascribed to magistrates and iudices surely indicates that they had a trust in the 'in fide exercise of power. We may then suppose that the client was patron should matter good faith that the it was a of patroni' because 'in fide protect his client. Though the patron is never said to be clientis', Dionysius thought that the client owed a certain faith to his 'clientium frdes' (Men 576). But such patron, and Plautus speaks of 'allegiance', 'fealty' which conjure up the legal obligaterms as and tions of medieval vassals to their lords, including that of military service, are hardly apposite fo the relationship.6s In historic times the

patron had no legal claims on his clients, and there is no proof that he had ever had any. It is sheer fantasy to infer from the hereditary character of patronage and from the legend of Romulus' distribution of plebeians as clients that the plebs, including conquered peoples, were at one time all clients of patrician gentesas such; still more to suppose that they were ruled by the head of the gezs (himself a figure constructed by modern scholars) in much the same way as the familia was ruled by the paterfamilias.But did the latter have any legal authority over his clients? It has been contended (a) that he long retained absolute power over freedmen as well as slaves, and (ö) that this points to his having once enjoyed as much power over other clients. Neither proposition can be justified. (a) Three anecdotes used to be commonly cited to show that as late as the first century BC the patron still possessedthe right of life and death over his freedmen, but it has now been proved that they have no evidential value. Cicero had no effective means of coercing a refractory freedman. It was apparently the Augustan lex Aelia Sentia that first made freedmen liable to legal penalties for'ingratitude', and then only by action in the courts.6e Re-enslavement is occasionally attested, but not before Claudius.To As early as the Twelve Tables the freedman could acquire and devise property; the patron inherited from him only if he died intestate without a suusheres;it was later that the praetor gave the patron limited rights of inheritance against the terms of the will, if the freedman had no heir of the body. The patron's restricted right of intestate succession is similar to that of agnates or gentiles;and just as under the Twelve Tables the nearest agnate becomes tutor legitimusof the freeborn minor, for whom his father had appointed no tutor by will, so in like circumstances did the patron of the freedman's son; it was the right of the tutor in both casesto administer and preserve the property which would pass to him if his ward died (Deg. xxvi. 4. r !r., 4. g Fr.); there is no implication that the freedman remained a member of the patron's familia, any more than the freeborn minor belonged to thefamilia of the nearest agnate. As patrons evidently had no title to hinder freedmen from making wills adverse to their interests,Tl they can hardly have had coercive power over them at the time of the Twelve Tables; and it is an unfounded conjecture that they had possessedit earlier. It is true that, according to Servius Sulpicius, masters could impose

4a,6

6 7 B a d i a n , r 9 5 8 , 4 - 7 , 1 5 6 ;c f . W a l b a n k o n P o l y b . x x . 9 . I o ; E . G r u e n , A t h e n .r g 9 z , 5 t o f f . 68 Watson, rg75,47 5r, ror, ro5; Cicero's referencesto thejdes and,polestasof iudicesare irrelevant to the position ofpatrons (F'0n1.40; cf. Qtinct. ror, de dom. r). Fidu; bibliography and survey of views, F. Wieacker, S{ r963, zo ff. Elsewhere(Von räm.Rerhtz r96r, r41 he suggested thatjdes was a constraint on another personwith supernatural sanctions,at first magi(:aland then divine. Whatever be thought ofhypothesesonfles in its most primitive charactcr, its actual usase in historic times in relation to clients or friends must be connected with its mort: gt'neral application in Roman society (seethe text), and with e.g. Cicero's definition, which is ficr of :rll s u p e r n a t u r a cl o l o u r i n go r a f f i n i t y w i t h p o l e s t a s ' . ' d i c t o r ucmo n v ( ' l l t ( ) r u n l ( l u((I ) n s t i u ) l i i t t v c r i t a s ' (deofic. i. 13); we cannot assumethat it retaincd nuanc('s{iom a rcmole pasl.

4o7

6e Treggiari 7r ff. against e.g. Kaser, S{ rg5r, 88 ff. 70 Buckland 4zz ff. On supposeddomestic jurisdiction over lreedmen (and clients) in Drg. xlvii. z. g
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excessivelyonerous obligations on freedmen at the time of manumlssion, until their rights were limited by the edict of Rutilius Rufus, praetor c.IrB. But his statement can and probably does mean that such obligations had earlier been made binding by oath or stipulatio; this would hardly have been necessary if freedmen were as such subject to the absolute jurisdiction of patrons.T2 Under the Principate a governor might have to intervene to enforce obsequiumto the patron (Dig. i. r6. g. g). Naturally we do not know what was the position of the freedman in times for which no testimony exists, and we may adopt any hypothesis we like, provided that we do not claim that in the time of the Twelve Tables or later freedmen were hardly differentiated from slaves. The lex Cincia of 2o4 BC (n. Iog) is indeed reported to have excepted from a general ban on the acceptance of gifts those gifts which 'a came servis quique pro servis servitutem servierunt', and an ancient commentator remarked that here the term serui comprises freedmen, 'slaves and but the meaning was surely that gifts were allowed from been in who hauebe slaves, thought to men] who were those ffree In any category.T3 lottg.t in either were no i.e. who those servituäe', case the freedman's long-existing right to devise property is conclusive that in legislation of this date he cannot have been assimilated to a slave. (b) Even if the freedman had once remained in subjection to his patron, that would furnish no proof that this was also true of the freeborn client. In later Latin the freedman is seldom called a client, and we find two separate correlations, patronusfcliens and patronusllibertus.7aTl:'e term patrlnus had different connotations for each pair, at any rate in the Iater law, when the freedman was limited in his rights against the patron in ways that the freeborn client was not. The fragments of the Twelve Tables preserve no traces of any status 'between freedom and slavery'. They contrast free men (citizens of course) and slaves (vlII. l4) , without admitting an intermediate class ?2 Treggiari 68ff. Cicero's claim that of old patrons could command lreedmen not less than slaves(Q2.y'. i. r. r3) would relate to practice, not law, and need not be true. 1 3 V a l . J r . 3 o 7 . P . S t e i n , A t h e n . r g 9I 5 4 ,3 f f . , w h o c o l l e c t s e v i d e n c e o f t h e l e x C i n c i ar(ong. ) a n d discussesvarious interpretations ofthis text, thinks that the gifts allowed are from those still srrai but this seemsto me implausible in itself (there would have been no need or liberibonajdeseraientes, to legitimate such gifts), and an unnatural construction ofthe perfect tense. 7a See e.g. Cic. de inu. i. to9: 'servislibertis clientibus'; Caec. 57:'aut cliens aut libertus'; Drg. 'Libertinus cliens' (Livy xliii. t6. xlvii. z. 9o: 'libertus vel cliens'. 4; Suet. Caes.z) is an unusual 'paroni hic accipiendi sunt. qui ex collocation.Writing on'in ius vocatio' (cf. n. 94) Ulpian says: s e r v i t u t em a n u m i s e r u n t '( D i g . ä . a . B . r ) . T h i s i s p a t e n t l y t h e n o r m a l m e a n i n gi n l e g a l t c x t s ,a n d we can assumeit even where it is not explicit, e.g. probably in the rule that the patron ofcither party may not sit on juries under the Sullan law de iniurüs(xlvii. Io. 5 pr.) or in xlviii. Iq. 28. B (heavier penaltiesfor crimes committed against thosewith whom spccial relatiolrshipssubsistcd). law bv a pt'riphrasis Patrons and freeborn clients arc desienated in the Gracchan rebetundae (n. 89). CL Rouland 7o (1.

I

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(even that of'lreedmen), and among free men, they distinguish only between those with and without landed property, (adsiduiand proletarii, r. 4, r o)) and between patricians (patres)and plebeians (xL r ); the household (familic) consistsonly of sons and slaues(xrr za), and the power of life and death, which presumably needed no legal sanction in relation to slaves, is expressly conceded to the paler over the sons alone (rv. z). However, the legal dependence of the client on the patron in the 'fragment' of the time of the code has been inferred from the only Twelve Tables in which the relationship is allegedly attested. Virgil mentions among other sins, not all of them subject at any time to legal 'fraus innexa clienti' (Aen,vi. penalties, but punishable in the after-life, 6o9). In his commentary Servius claims that there was a provision in 'patronus si clienti fraudem fecerit, sacer esto.' the Twelve Tables: to imply that the client had no right to sue his Mommsen took this patron for civil wrongs, but that instead the magistrate could proceed against the patron on a capital charge. If convicted, he would then be sacer:i.e. anyone could kill him with impunity (cf. Festus +24 L.). Mommsen connected this with Dionysius' statement that under the laws of Romulus either patron or client who violated the reciprocal obligations which he had listed and which included a bar in either party appearing against the other in court (p.+og), was to be treated as guilty of treason and to be sacrificed to Zeus Katachthonios. However, he thought that Servius was in error in imputing the rule to the Twelve Tables, apparently supposing that it belonged only to the so-called laws of Romulus. For this contention he gave no explicit reason, but remarked that there is no trace of the application of the rule in practice and that in the historic epoch it was obsolete. That is of course no less true of some other rules in the Tables, notably those concerning the sale of insolvent debtors into slavery beyond the Tiber (iii. 5). Still, the Tables themselves strongly suggest that there was at their date no bar on clients proceeding against their patrons in the courts, any more than under the classical law (p.4IB). They plainly allow all free citizens the right to sue for reparation of wrongs under various heads (i. passim,vii. B, viii passim).This is compatible with the putative bar, only if we assume either that no citizens were clients, and that it was after the codification that any clients obtained citizen rights, or that clients were specifically prohibited from proceeding against their patrons, though not against other citizens. But no such specific prohibition is on record (except in Dionysius' account of the laws of Romulus), and it is manifestly incredible that no citizens needed or secured patronal protection, or that there was a mass enfranchisement of clients after c.45o, of which we hear nothing. 'do 'fraudem harm', and it would be facere' can mean only Moreover,

+ro

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bizarre if the all-powerful patronal class had on the one hand safeguardedits membersfrom all pecuniary claims for delict on the part of clients,and on the other exposedthemselves to a capital penalty for offencesso undefinedthat (asMommsen held) it must have been at the court'sdiscretionto determinein what conditionsit was due. There must then be grave doubt whether Servius'ascription of the rule in questionto the Twelve Tablesis correct (at leastif it carrieswith it the implication that Mommsen discerned);but, if it really came from the 'laws of Romulus', it may be quite apocryphal." All this is not to deny that in early times humble citizensneeded protectionfrom patrons,not leastin mattersof legal process,and that in practice they were unable to proceedin the courts against their own protectors, who equally could doubtless coerce them effectively enough, without invoking the machinery of law. Admirers of 'the good old days' would give a moral colouring to the hard realities of dependenceand would say, for instance,like Gellius (xx. r. 4o), that no misdeedhad once been accounted worse than the proved plundering of a client; the next step was to embody a prescription of social morality in a fictitious royal code of law. Be this as it may, it is certain that in all periods for which reliable evidenceexiststhe dictum of the imperial jurist Proculus holds good: 'we recognize our clients as free men, although they are not our peers in authority, rank, or resources'.76 The rest is surmise. Economicdependencemust usually have lain beneath the subordination of clients to patrons. On one theory it took a specialform in the earliesttime. Festusexplained the useof patresto mean senatorsas well as fathers partly by the fact that 'agrorum partes ad [tribuerant tenuioribus] perinde ac liberis'; the supplements are guaranteed by Paul's epitome: 'they had assignedparts of their lands to humbler personsas to their children. (zBBf. L.)' The etymologicalexplanationis fanciful, and it may be doubted if Festus'antiquarian sourcehad access to any reliable tradition about the earliest Roman society.We might perhaps place more confidencein the ancient belief that the heredium owned by an individual and transmissibleto his heir was originally only two iugera,and infer thät most land belonged to the state or the gentes.It is a further inference drawn by modern scholarsfrom Festus that at first only patrician gentesowned lands and that plebeians as their clients could at best receive from them revocable holdings. This was clearly no longer true, if it ever had been, in the early Republic, 1s ln Röm.Forsch. i.384 Mommsen took Servius'fragment of the XII Tables to be genuine, but s e e S t r a f r . 5 6 6 , . f t . R . 3 i i i . 8 z ; a l s o K u n1k9e6l z, , 4 rn . r 5 3 . S e r v i u s h a d n o c a u s e t o t e l l u s w h a t Dionys. ii. ro. 3 asserts,that the faithlessclient was also liable to penalty (under Romulus'laws). 76 Dig. xli*. r5. 7.

CLIE..v'fEI./l

+rr

sincethe success of the plebeiansin winning equal rights is incomprchensibleexcept on the assumptionthat some of them were men of substance,and in the conditionsof thosedays, landowners. The theory derived from Festus' text has been supported by considerationof 'precariouspossession' in the lawbooks. An owner could grant such possession of any property, including a farm: the possessor was protected against eviction by a third party, but not againstthe owner, who could resumethe grant wheneverhe pleased. No connection is made by the jurists between such possession and clientage. They representprecarious grants as acts of liberality or kindness;no payment was due. Very possiblysome clients were the None the less,it is of courseinconceivablethat grantsof beneficiaries. this kind had their origin in the systematicassignmentof landi to clients on this footing, in days when patrons could clearly not have afforded to dispensewith rent in money or kind from the estatesin which their economic and political power rested. We may, if we choose, conjecture that the practice of requiring a recompense for had disappearedin later times. (It may be noted precariouspossession that the occupiers of public land also had only precarious possession and that they were liable to pay rent to the state (App. i. 7), but different rules could well have applied to public land than to private.) It is also true that precariousgrants of property were not necessarily,or perhaps commonly, proof of sheer generosity.A debtor would often transfertitle of his property to a creditorbyfiducia,on the footing that if the debt was repaid when due it must be restored to him; as the small farmer had no meansof paying, if in the interim he lost the enjoyment of his farm, it might be arranged that he should retain it by precarious possession until payment was due. The benefit to the creditor was recovery of the principal lent, with interest. But there is nothing to show that this sort of arrangement was one made chiefly by patrons with their clients.T? The most reliable tradition on the typical conduct of landowners in early Rome tells us nothing of patriarchal benevolence,but shows them working their estateswith the labour of citizens whom they had 11 Premrium;Steinwenter, rRE xxii. r8I4ff., and Michel r28ff., who both take the view I lo make periodic contest. Michel conjecturesthat custom might require the precariouslossessor gifts (r3o); cf. his Part rrr for reciprocal gifts in societiesat a pre-contractual stage,a practice that has left traces in Roman laws and customs. Presumably, too, st;pulatiocould be used to obligate such alossassorto rent or services,as to obligate a debtor to pay interest on a loan contracted by mutuum; the contract of lomtio-conducrrowas of relatively late date. But there are no texts; hypothesis is heaped on hypothesis. In classical times a creditor would acquire his debtor's property by fducia and then allow him precarious possessionof it as the means of getting his capital back with interest; this was the economic incentive, rent not being due (Gaius ii. 6o; cf. S t e i n w e n t e rr B r 6 ) .

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(;t.ft..\"tt: 1...1

reducedto debt-bondage(nexi).t8As fbr later timt:s,it may be that tenantsor free wage-labourerswere sometimesor often clientsof their landlords or employers,but I do not recall that this is ever documented. Roman writers on agriculture presupposethat landowners will adopt purely economiccriteria for the best exploitation of their holdingsand will commonly rely on slavelabour; they never hint that their decisionsmight be affectedby obligationsto clients.In the first century an Columella offers some discussionof the relative advantagesof leasinglarms and of keepingthem in hand with slavegangs; if they are leased,he recommendsthat the tenants should be, not clients as such bound by special ties of loyalty or affection to the owner, but country-bred, long associatedwith the lands they cultivate, and diligentin their work (i. 7.2f.). The relationshipof tenant to owner appears in all the evidence to be contractual and not 'precarious'. The 'tradition', as we have seen,bids us believethat all plebeians were once clientsof the patricians,but not that they were destituteof all citizen rights. I shall not enter into controversieson the origin of the plebs, a 'serbonian bog, where armies whole have sunk'.7e Whether or not the 'tradition' was right on both points or either, and whether or not it reposedon genuinerecollections, it is also clear that if we give it credit, we must also believe that from the early fifth century there was a mass of plebeian citizenswho could be distinguished from the clients of the pätricians. As for the latter, it is presupposed,particularly in what Dionysius tells us, that they included men of substance.It was only to such men that noble patrons could turn for useful material assistance, and it was only their votes that counted for much in the centuriate assembly;moreover, the indigent do not litigate, and all that we hear of the aid that patrons might furnish to their clients in legal processessurely relates to property owners. Yet it is preciselypersonsin this classwhom we might expect to have chafed at a condition of dependence.It will in fact appear that the ties between patrons and clients were gradually relaxed, a processthat we can occasionallyillustrate from the middle period of the Republic, as well as by contrastingwhat is known of the relationship that still subsistedin that time with that which is revealedlater in juristic texts (pp.4r6-zo) If the hold that patrons originally had over their clients was in reality greater in the beginning than in my view the scanty evidencejustifiesus in supposing,its later relaxation naturally suggeststhat patronal authority provoked discontent,which whittled it away. This would be a processnot easy

to tcrminate, in conditions in which the lower orders of society still hacl the means to carry it further. 'l'o revert to the early Republic, we are told that some great houses, the Claudii and Fabii at least, had hosts of clients; according to Dionysius, the latter could raise an army from their own clients to fight for Rome, just as in the tale of the Sabine Appius Herdonius nearly capturing Rome in 46o his force was composed of clients and slaves. Camillus' clients are said to have formed 'a great part of the plebs'.8O It is worth noting that Livy has nothing of ttre same kind after his first decade, save that in the suspect story of the trial of the Scipios he mentions their 'masnum agmen amicorum clientiumque'. A strange tale of Suetonius, that some early Claudius (whose identity cannot be determined) had a diadem set on his statue at Forum Appii and tried 'Italiam per clientelas occupare', is evidence that this kind of design could at any rate be the subject of legend or of invention developed from a picture of society that may be legendary.o' Both Livy and Dionysius make out that clients sometimes gave important backing to the patricians in the struggle of the orders. What historic truth these reports have may be doubted. Ogilvie 'Livy thinks preserved nothing of value about the primitive clientela. Instead he gives a picture of it at work as it must have been in the first century BC.'82 This judgement seems to me to rest on the common exaggeration of the strength of clientelain the later time, and in particular on the false belief that powerful men could often raise armies from their own retainers (cf. section VII). It is far more likely that intermittently aware, as they were, that conditions in the early Republic were very different from those which prevailed later, the annalists guessed that the dependence of clients on patrons was then far greater (as Dionysius clearly implies), and produced an imaginative reconstruction of political life in the fifth century which did not in this respect accord at all with their own experience. It may not have been wholly wrong. How did some fifty patrician clanss3 retain control of the state lor r5o years after the fall of the monarchy? No doubt they commanded general respect, so long as they monopolized experience in military leadership and (so it may have been believed)

+t2

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8 0 L i v y i i . r 6 . 4 ( c f . i i i . 5 6 .r ) , 4 9 ( w i t h p a r a l l e l s c i t e d b y O g i l v i e , e s p . D i o n y s . i x . r5),v.3e.8; D i o n y s .x . 1 4 . r . N u m b e r s a r e w i l d l y i n f l a t e d ;c f . d e M a r t i n o ( n . 4 1 7 o z f . 8r Livy xxxviii. 5 r . 6 . N o t e a l s o x x i i i . 3 . z , 7 . r o ( C a p u a ) . O n S u e t . T i b . z s e eP r e m e r s t e i n , r 9 3 7 , r 8 ; T a y l o r , 1 9 6 o ,r 3 7 . 82 Lity ii.aS.+, S 6 . S , 6 + z. , ü i . t 4 . 4 , 1 6 . 5 , 5 8 .r , v i . r 8 . 5 ; c f . D i o n y si.i . 6 2 , v . 7 . 5 ,v i . 5 r . r , 59 3,63.3,vii.18.2,2t.3,54.3,64.3,ix.4r.5,x.t5.5,27.3,4c .g,4t.5,xi.22,3o.r,33.r,36. 2, 38. 4, xiii. 5. See Ogilvie's Commentarlt on Livy (pp.+lg f.) and his Addendum. Dionysius tlrousht that whole armies could be composedofpatricians and their clients (vi. 47. r, vii. r 9. z, x. .1._3J;the l'abii sustained Rome's war with Veii thus (ix. r5); Livy has nothing of this. 8 ' r M t r m m s c n .R ö m .F o r s c hr.. 1r-r21.

414

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in the skills required to propitiate the gods; a people struggling for survival would not lightly cast off their leadership.But it would be helpful to supposethat they also had substantialvoting support given by their dependants, Still, the plebeianleadersmust have been economicallyand politically free of their control, and in the end they won the backing of a majority of the citizens for their own ambitions, largely (if the tradition is sound) by linking them with the satisfactionof the grievancesof the masses. The majority might have consistedpartly of clients of the patricianswho would not always vote as their patrons directed,partly of clientsof the plebeianleadersthemselves,sa partly of entirely independent citizens. So too the nexi were either clients whom their patrons failed to protect or men with no patrons to protect them. On any view the patricians had lost their putative patronal relationshipto all plebeians,or elsethis relationshipdid not suffice to assuretheir loyalty. Both the dependenceof the masseson aristocratic patrons and the social solidarity acclaimed by Dionysius as its result had already broken down. So much at least the tradition shows.The last secession of the plebs c.z87 must be historic (ch. 6 n. r68), and it is alone enough to prove the existenceof a grave social cleavage.But the evolution of the plebs as a kind of state within a state and of the tribunate tell the samestory, as doesthe abolition of nexum.If the prolonged successof the patricians in preserving their supremacy suggeststhat they could rely on numerous clients, their ultimate lailure is conclusive that the majority of citizens felt no obligation to obey their behests.The struggle of the orders resulted in the acquisitionby the common peoplenot only of personalprotection under the law, which tended to make them somewhatlessdependent on the aid of patrons, but of significant political rights, by which they were able on occasion to impose their common will first on the patricians, then on the nobility which was to be formed by an amalgamation of the patricians with the greater plebeian houses. Patronage inevitably came to be of lesspolitical importance through the exerciseof theserishts. IV

No doubt Dionysiuspreservessomefeaturesof patronage in early times which survivedlater (ii. ro f.). His statementscan be acceptedin so far as they are confirmed by more reliable evidence(seebelow). On this basiswe can say that patrons were expectedto give their clients legal 8 a L i t y s u p p o s e dt h a t S p . M a e l i u s h a d h i s c l i e n t s( i v . r 3 . z ) .

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a d v i c e t o a s s i s tt h e m i n t h e c o u r t s , a m a t t e r o l ' c o n s i d e r a b l e i m p o r tance when successin litigation depended both on knowledge of the law and on social and economic strength; that they might arbitrate between them (n.54); that they would in all sorts of ways represent the interests of communities in their fdes. Patrons and clients were expected not to take hostile action against each other in the courts. In certain circumstances clients were morally bound to render their patrons material aid. We may credit Dionysius' unsupported statement that they were also to vote for them when they stood for office. He does not claim that they were equally bound to vote for any other persons) or on legislative and judicial questions brought before the assemblies,as their patrons might direct, but respect for the trusted authority of men of rank, ingrained affection, economic dependence and mere habit might make them ready to take the advice that patrons offered, at least when their own interests or consideration of the public good did not furnish compelling reasons to reject it; and men and communities might have several patrons, who were not necessarily in agreement. There was of course no question of their being bound to fight for their patrons; the legend of the Fabii at the Cremera (n. Bz) is isolated; until the civil wars armies were raised normally by the levy enforcing the duty of citizens to serve their country, and we shall see that clients do not figure largely in the gangs or legions of the first century. In that period indeed clients appear seldom or inconspicuously in the ancient texts, as distinct from modern accounts, even in circumstances where we should most expect to find them prominent if those accounts are true, for example in elections (section V), Moreover, there are indications in the Republican sources and in the silences of later juristic texts that the ties binding patrons and clients were progressively loosening from the late third century. The development of popular movements and the increased opportunities for material gains available to the higher orders both contributed to disintegrate such solidarity between patrons and clients as had existed in early times, which even then had not prevented the tensions apparent in the struggle of the orders. Dionysius himself allows that this disintegration occurred in C. Gracchus' time (ii. r r . 3). In imperial times Gellius records an old view that clients had a higher claim on fdes than hospites,and both than cognati_(sc. all blood-relatives);85 the jurist Masurius, whom he quotes,86 reverses the order between cliänts and hospites;these texts warn us not to assimilate hospitium(or amicitia, which is not mentioned) 8 5 G e l l .v . r 3 ; c f . x x . r . 4 0 . 86 In the last of his three books on iusciuile,thought to be dependent on a work of Q. Mucius St'aevola,ros.95 (Schulz, r946, r56). Did Mucius too write of y'astobligations of patrons?

4r6

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to patronage.GelliusalsoquotesCato as sayingof'his own day that a man testifiesagainstcognati on behalfof a client, but not againstclients. According to Cicero (de senect.3z),Cato still fulfilled his duties to fatherland,friends,clients and hospites in old age. But Cato also said that men placed ('habuere')a patron next to a father. The changeof tenseis significant;he is now referringto the past; the loyalty of clients was not what it had been.In the next century the writer of the treatise ad Herennium, after referring to 'societatesatque amicitiae', recognizes specialduties 'in parentisdeospatriam hospitiaclientelascognationes adfinitates'; the order is perhaps arbitrary.sT Gellius also quores Caesaron his principle of settingclientsabovepropinqui.Perhapsthat had becomeeccentric.Sallusthas not a word of care for clientsin his eulogiesof the old Roman morality. Cataloguesgiven by Cicero, Horace, and Senecaof those to whom we have special obligations include friends but ignore patrons and clients altogether;88nor are clientsexpresslymentioned as proper recipientsof liberality in Cicero's long discussion of that topic (daffic. ü. 52-7 | ) , though it is plain that in his view benefactorsexpectedgratitude. Naturally we have nothing in our upper-classsourcesfrom clients to show how they viewed the relationship. Dionysius' statement that patrons and clients would not bear witness against each other is confirmed by Cato for the patron; both doubtlessrefer to evidence given voluntarily. Under laws that set up iudiciapublicawitnessessummoned by the prosecutioncould be bound to testify. But the Gracchan repetundae law barred the summons of anyone who, or whose ancestors,had been in fde of the defendant or his ancestors,or of anyone who, or whose ancestors,had held in fde the defendant or his ancestors;such persons could also not act as prosecuting counsel. The law thus enforces the old moral code, though it implies that hereditary ties might have been severed; a man's ancestorsmight have been clients, when he himself was not. Curiously, there is no like disqualification for jury service,as there is for kinsmen of the accused and fellow-members of a club or guild (sodalitas Perhapsthis was an oversight; Roman laws are or collegium). 'cliens "' Ad Hrr. iii.4. Ter. Ad. amicus hospes'.Cicero promised Crassusin 5zghas the order: (Fam. to his friends, look after hospites, clients v. 8. 5). Friends first intrude, then take a higher 54 p l a c e t h a n c l i e n t s f; i n a l l y c l i e n t s d r o p o u t o f s u c h l i s t s ( n n . 8 8 , r 3 9 ) . C i c . d ei a t . i . r o g d i s t i n g u i s h e s between (a) kinsmen and lriends and (ä) slaves, freedmen, clients, and suppliants, 'quibus indignum [est] nos male tractari'; clients are associatedwith freedmen and even slzvesinpostred. s e n . z o , P a r a d . 4 6T;a c , H i s t . i . 4 , A n n . i v . 5 9 , x i v . 6 r ; M a r t . v i i . 6 z ; F r o n t o i i p . r 5 z H a i n e s . 88 de ffic. i. 53-8 from Panaetius,but Cicero adapts his doctrines to Roman conditions where necessary.No clients in lists of persons to whom special obligations are due in Part. Or. 8
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^t'1

not invariably well-drafted.There were probably similar provisionsin the law on ambitus,under which Marius was tried in rr6, and which may be earlier.se This incident justifies a digression. Herennius refused to bear witnessagainstMarius on the plea of being his hereditary patron. At this time then a senator could still be counted a client. This is also implicit in the repetundae law, since most defendantswould be senators or ex-magistrateswith a claim to be enrolled in the senate, together with their sons, though former tribuni militum, who would not necessarily be of senatorialfamily, were also liable.eoHerennius,it may be noted, had no exclusiveclaim to Marius' allegiance,for he also seems to have been a client of L. Metellus. However, Marius had already shown so little respectfor the ties of clientship that he had as tribune ordered the arrest of Metellus, then consul. He also resentedHerennius' plea as derogatory to his own dignity, averring that he had ceasedto be a client on election to office. evidentlv at least from his election to the tribunate.el It was his view that was to prevail: in Cicero'stime no senatoris ever called a client by Roman writers. It is regrettable that modern scholars do not always follow their usage, and thus preservethe gradations of social distinction which it reflects. Practice does indeed seem to have changed again in the Principate; Tacitus could describe men of high rank as clients, and though they themselvesmight have spurned the appellation, a Gallic magnate of the third century evidently had no objection to being styled 'amicus et cliens'of a Roman governor.e2 The provisionsthat mention clientagein the second-centurylaws on repetundae and ambitusalso seem to reflect a dying social order. No restriction in later legislation is recorded on patrons and clients (as distinct from freedmen)e3suing or prosecutingeach other or giving hostileevidence.Caesar'sor Augustus'law deuaprohibited a freedman, but not a client, from bearing witnessagainstpatron or his son. The senatus consultum Caluisianum derepetundis of 4 nc excludesnomination of a iudexwho is so related to the accusedby blood or marriage that he could not give evidence against him under the lex lulia iudiciaria,or whom the accusedswore to be his enemy; as the iudicesare necessarily senators, there was no cause to refer here to clients (much less freedmen). However, the lex in question (apart from provisions regarding kinship) merely ruled thaty'eedmen and patrons might not be 8e FIRA i2. no.7 vv. ro, 22, 33; Plut. Mar. 4f. eo Sherwin-White, el Plut. Mar. JRS rg8z, 19;cf. p. r98. 4f. e2 'l'ac. Hitt. üi.66, Ann. iv. z, 68; CIL xüi.3r6z ('Ihorigny). e 3 F I R A i 2 . n o . 6 8 , v . F o r e x c l u s i o no f k i n s e ec h . 9 n . 8 . L a w r e l a t i n g t o w i t n e s s e sK: a s e r , R E vA, ro4c)fl. Cf. n. 74 on Sullan law de iniuriis. Vis: Dig. xxii. 5. 3. 5, 5. 4; in 5. 3 pr. the patron is sigrrificantlvabsort; tl. &tll. ix. z: IL,9 6o87, xr;v (Urso), whcrc patronusis correlative to libertus.

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compelled to give evidenceagainsteach other (this also applied to the freedmenof patrons'children, parents,or spouse),but apparently did not excludesuch evidencegiven voluntarily, and in any casedid not concernthe freedmen'sfreeborndescendants, still lessclientswith no taint of servile blood. A similar provision occurs in the caesarian charter of LJrso,which is in part tralatician. So too it is only the freedman, and not his freeborn descendants,who under the praetor,s edict (which is generally held ro have been little altered äfter the Republic) is debarred from suing patron, or his children or parenrs, exceptwith the praetor'ssanction(which would be forthcomingunless the action wasfamosa). The freedman could also sue his pation for iniuria atrox, for instance if he had received a severebeatins. (Some scholarshold that this concession is 'post-classical'; that would-havethe implication, which I find bizarre, that freedmen were better protected by the law in the increasinglyhierarchical societyof the late Empire.) He was.also permitted to defend his property rights against the patron.eaBut he might nor chargehim wiih a criÄe, ä..pt ö. m.rrder of his kin, adultery with his wife, or treason.es In all this there is not a word of freeborn clients. Their right to proceed against patrons seemsto be quite unrestricted.They are actually mentioned no more than five times in the Digest.e6It may be said that all this evidenceis imperial, and that the fewnessof allusions to clientage in the legal texts fails to show that it was not more important in the Republic. But literary testimony proves that great men continuedto havejust as extensivepatronageas in the past in the time of racitus, Martial, andJuvenal (n. r55). The juristii texts are mostly of still later date, but there is no reasonto think that the social and-economic importance of patronage was diminishing: it was to reachits apogeein the late empire (nn.4, r56). Perhapsit might be thought that thejurists would not be concerned with a relationship that created obligations of fdes not enforceablein the courts. However, the case-lawin which the Digestaboundsis full of allusionsto the socialcontext of litigation. Moreover, other relationships ofy'desgeneratedor influenced numerous institutions of Roman law, such asfducia,fdeipromissio,fdeicommissa, someof which go back to

the second century nc or beyond; it was probably in the third that the praetor began to give binding effect in law to some at least of the consensual bonaefdei contracts. Ties of amicitia are mentioned quite often; they sometimes affect legal rights and obligations, and indeed originated some legal institutions Iike mandatum.eTBut no such influence of clientship can be detected. The draftsmen of second-century laws did think it appropriate, as we have seen, to give legal lorce to the mutual obligations of patrons and clients, but their successorsdid not. We may contrast their attitude to the relationship between patrons and their freedmen. The honour morally due from the freedman to his former master is never forgotten: 'the freedman and the son should always treat the person of the patron and father with honour and veneraiion'.es No such consideration operates with regard to patrons and freeborn clients. The law of guardianship affords one illustration. Servius Sulpicius declared that its purpose was no longer to preserve the property during a minority for the next heir, but to protect the minor himself (Deg. xxvi. r, r pr.). If a minor has no tutor teslamentarius or legitimus,his kinsmen or father's friends and freedmen, but not his patron or client, have a right, and in some casesan obligation, to apply to the praetor for the appointment of a tutor. Nor is there any suggestion that a patron would be the appropriate choice, whereas the patron of a freedmaz'J son, if also his intestate heir, would be his tutor legitimus(Dig. xxvi. 6. 2, pr. r). Now appointment of a tutor by the prae tor went back to the lex Atilia, earlier than 186 nc (Livy xxxix. g. 7); significantly he had to obtain the concurrence of a majority of the tribunes (Gaius i. r85), the traditional guardians of the common people. Diodorus, presumably drawing on Posidonius, tells of a praetor, probably L. Sempronius Asellio (r.96), who was outstanding for his justice, and who would commonly name himself; he also took great care in succouring victims of oppression; the context suggeststhat he would hinder tutoresfrom pillaging the estates of their wards (xxxvii. B. 4). In that case the safeguardsdevised by the lex Atilia had not always been effective. Perhaps the legislator had had it in mind that patrons were not to be trusted with the property of their clients under age; at any rate it is clear that the law never treated them as the natural candidates for guardianship. Similarly, if a free man in slavery does not exercise his right to proclaim his title to freedom, a parent or kinsman may act on his behalf and so may a patron on behalf of his freedman, but not a patron on behalf of a freeborn clienr (Dig. xl. rz, r-6). Or again

4r8

e4 Dig.1i.4.4.r,4.8. r - r . o ,r z , x x x v i i .r 5 , z , x l v i i .r o . r r . 7 , x l v i i i . z . r r . r ( c f x l i i i . r 6 . r . 4 3 ) , 5' 39. g. In iv. 3. r r the humilrstoo is barred from the adio dedoloagainst a man ofhigh deg.ee,..g. a consular (but not a parron as such); Garnsey, rg7o, r8r ff., thlnks this may be Äueustanr the secondcentury seemsto me more likelv. es xlviii.2.8, z . t t p r . , 4 . 7 . 2 , 5 . 3 9 .g . C [ n . r z g . { vii. 8. 3 , i x . 3 . 5 . I , x x v i i i . g . 3 . 6 ( t e x t sw h i c h s h o w t h a t c l i e n t sm i e h t g e t f r r r l o c l g i n ga p d maintenance;the referenceto Rutilius in vii. B. ro. indicatesthat this wa.i a Republicarr prat.tit.t.; 3 i t w a s n o t o n l y f r e e d m e n a n d c l i e n t s w h o c o u l d b e n ecf L i tM ; ichcl 4z-5s),xlvii.t.q.(n.7,),xlix. I 5 . r ( n . 7 6 w i t h t e x t ) ; x l v i i . r o . r 5 . 2 3 , w i t h o u t n a m i n g c l i e n t si e l c i s t , , t h t ' i r a i . s e r t i t t t i r t .

4r9

e7 Michel 555 77 (though not all his rexrs expresslymenrion amicil; seeesp. 568 on tutela. N o t c D e g .i i i . r . r . z , x x x i x . 5 . 5 . e8 /)1.g.xxxvii. 15 passim,csp. 9.

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servitudes can be exercised or retained through slaves, tenants, friends, and hospites,but not through patrons or clients (xliii. rg. 3. 4; cf. r. 7 f.). All this surely betokens that the ties between patrons and clients had weakened in the Republic, and were not given legal force even in the Principate, when there is reason to believe that patronage was acquiring or regaining greater importance. In the old days, according to Horace (Odesäi.5. 52) patrons would arbitrate between their clients, and according to Dionysius, would interpret the law for them and represent them in court. In Plautus' Menoechmi(SZt tr) we read'that a summons to appear in court is directed not only to the defendants but to his patron too'. 'Our ancestors',declared Cicero, 'did not wish even the humblest citizen to be in want of a patronus to plead his cause.' The patrons of Sextus Roscius at least engaged the young Cicero to defend him on their behalf. Cicero recalls that the houses of iurisconsults like Sex. Aelius (ros. r98), Manius Manilius (cos. t49), u.tä qt,i.tt,rs Mucius lcos. rr7), and still earlier worthies, were thronged with men who would consult them not only on the law but on the marriage of daughters, purchase of farms, cultivation of the land, and any obligation or business. However, their doors were open not only to clients but 'to all citizens'.ee Cicero himself would refuse no one an audience.loo By their.practice jurists, still more orators, could increase their opes and,gratia;ror their aim was not simply to fulfil hereditary obligations but also to extend their influence, and perhaps to render a publie service. The magnates needed ample room in their mansions to accommodate visi1ors,l02 but thougü many of these would be clients who, according to Pliny (/ftlxxxiv. r7), would set up statues of their patrons in the atria, many would also be 'friends', often men of rank, going on the round of salutations which is best attested for the Principate,l03 but which had already become the vogue in Polybius, day (n. r4). Gaius Gracchus and Drusus, tribune in gr, had to divide 'friends' such into three categories, those they received singly, in groups, and en *asse.ro4 Although both belonged to great fa;ilies, hereditary patronage cannot explain why they were courted by

cxccptional numbers ol'visitors: most ol' tht:sc mcn w('r(. n()t lärnily dependants but political lollowers or time-servers attracted to them by the great power they had temporarily acquired bv their legislative programmes. In Cicero's day moral obligations might sit lightly on parrons. He speaksof it as an admirable practice of the past that Rome's great men would prosecute governors for despoiling their provincial clients. In fact the numerous patrons of the Sicilians did little to protect their dependants against Verres: some actually aided the culprit. If provincial patronage had afforded effective aid to the subject, oppressive government would have been lesscommon.l0s No douLt the Äagnates were readier to advise and sustain citizens and citizen communities: they had votes.1o6(This was perhaps one reason why the Italians were so bent on obtaining voting rights in and after go.) The claims of fides counted for lessthan selfishinterests; perhaps that had also been true in 'good the old days'! Dionysius thought that patrons and clients had once given each other mutual aid of a material kind (ii. ro. z). No doubt the free meals and sportulaethat clients at Rome could obtain from the great houses in the Principate (n. rog) were not unknown in the Republic. Legal texts show that lodging and maintenance might be given ( " . g 6 ) . B u t C i c e r o s a y s t h a t m o s t m e n o f h i s o w n c l a s sp r e f c r r e d t o confer benefits on the rich, who were best able to reciprocate (de ofic. i i . 6 9 ) . P l a u t u s h a d m a d e t h e s a m e s u g g e s r i o n( M e n . 5 7 B f . ) . I n t h e Principate it seems to have been common for men to make provision for maintaining their poor freedmen (Dig. xxxiv. r); otherwise their patronage was ultimately lost (xxxvii. r+.5). But we hear of no such arrangements for their freeborn clients. What of the material aid that clients, according to Dionysius, had once rendered patrons? Livy has a tale that in ß7 L. Scipio's kin, friends, and clients offered to pay his fine (".Sg). I know of no later instance of Roman clients acting in this way. We never hear in the historic period of their contributing to a candidate's electoral expenses. Prouincial clients undoubtedly gave their patrons pecuniary -bear assistance; for example, the Sicilians helped Cicero to the costs of the aedileship in 69.1o7 Plutarch thought that patrons came to be ashamed to demand such subventions (n.6o). Probablv he had read that the practice had ceased, but his explanation need not necessarily be credited. It may be that Roman clients resented claims

42o

ee Cic.Mur.ro,.Rasr. A m e r . 5 , z 8 , g o , 7 7 , r 4 9 , d e o r a t . i iri3. 3 ( c f . i . r 9 9 f . ) , d e l e g . i . t o - r z ; H o r . E p . ü . r . t o 3 . T h r a s e aP a e t u sw o u l d d e v o t eh i m s e l f t o ' c l i e n t i u m n e g o t i a ' o n r e t i r i n g f r o m p u b l i c life (Tac. Ann. xvi. zz\. too PIo*. 66; cf. Att. tot de o1lr.ii. 65f.; cf. Mur. ü. zz. z. 23ff. r02 E.Wistrand,EranosrgTo,rgrff.,OperaSeleai,tg7z,aO9f.Cf. deoffi.i.t39;Stat.Theb.i r a-ro3 6. Friedländer, Sitteng.Romse,rgrg,i. t4ff. (Eng. tr. lrom 7th edn.,RomanLife and Manners, -I'hc i. t95 ff.). Rouland 557 ff. seemswilling to treatsalulalores of rank as clients! s^mt ialutatores would visit rival candidatesfor office (Comn. Pet. g5). roa Sen. de benef.vi. 34.

. l 2r

ros Diu. Caec.66-9; cf. Brunt, Chiron rg}o, z7a,ff. 106e.g. Cic. Att. iv. rq.., with Varro, ,a?R i i i . ; . . 1 . I ' h i s p r a c t i c ec o n t i n u c d i n t h c p r i n r . i p a t c (nn. I 56L). lot Plut. (,n. 8. Shatzman 86, and Badian, rqs8, rfir. sive furthcr cviclence.

422

CI,I ENTE I,A

on their pockets. And they had the voting rights to curtail them by law. 'inasmuch Macrobius tells us that as many took the Saturnalia as an occasion to make greedy and presumptuous demands for munera from their clients, and this burden fell heavily on the poor, Publicius, tribune of the plebs, enacted that only wax tapers should be sent to men of greater wealth'.ro8 This law seemsto belong to the same period as the Cincian law of zo4, which forbade advocates to take fees, a prohibition that was not in the end very effective. The law had a wider scope: Cato, according to Livy, said that it was designed to prevent the commons from becoming tributary to the senate, and it restricted 'dona et munera' in general, except between persons within specified degrees of kinship and between patrons and freedmen;in the later law the latter could be required to maintain indigent patrons and their c h i l d r e n ( D z g .x x v . 5 . r 8 f f . , x x i x . 2 . 7 3 ) . O n c e a g a i n n o s u c h r u l e s apply as between patrons and clients. The Publician law, which I take to be earlier, concerned only gifts at the Saturnalia, the Cincian gifts at all times. Neither stopped patrons bestowing sportulaeon clients, and in the Principate we stiil find clients making small regular presents to patrons; we cannot be sure whether the Cincian law actually allowed gifts of limited value, or was inadequately enforced. In any event it is clear that the people wished to relieve clients of burdens; the legislation can hardly have been welcome to patrons in general, even though Q,. Fabius Cunctator backed the Cincian law.loe Horace portrays a grasping landowner who entrenches on the land of his neighbours and drives them by violence from their farms, though they are his own clients (Odesä. rB. 23. ff.). Whether or not such behaviour was common, it is beyond question that in one way or another the rich were enlarging their private holdings of land in the pre-Gracchan era and annexing more and more of the public domain. If the peasants who were thus deprived of their livelihood were not clients, it follows that clientage was far from extending to the whole body of the commons; if they were, patrons failed to give them protection. The large landowners, moreover, preferred to employ slaves in cultivation rather than humble dependants. It was in these conditions that Tiberius Gracchus could carry his agrarian bill. Like his brother, he and their few associatesamong the nobility naturally had their own clients, but they must have been outmatched by those of ro8 Macrob. i.7. gg; cf.Mart. x. 87. 'cereus aridi clientis'. i; roe Ci.. de oral. li. 286,, de senect.ro; Livy xxxiv. 4. g; Val.Jr. z6o 316; see M. Kaser, Rr)m. Priuatrecht2,6oz ff.; c[ n. 73 above. Advocates'fees:Tac. Ann. xi. 5 f. and commentarit's tht.rcorr. The small gifts that peasantsbrought to a grandee'svilla in Mart. iii. 58. 33 ff. mav illustratt a custom that could have been onerous.Martial also refersto gifts from clicnts in ir'. tlti. .1;viii. 't.t. I I , x i i i . 2 7 . B u t i t i s i m p r u d e n t t o u s c i r n p e r i a l t c x t s l o r r h c R c p u b l i r ' ,t I p . 4 . 1 o .

CI,IENTEI.A

423

their adversaries,who preponderatedin the aristocracy.In fact we hear almost nothing of clientson either side.The massedsupportersof Tiberius were clearly rusticswho hoped for allotments,just as those who thronged -round his brother were prospective beneficiariesof his programme.llo Gaius of courseappealödalso to the urban plebs,the Equites, and the Italians. If their opponents too could eventually mobilize equestrianor Italian support (Sall. BJ 42.ü, it was surely when Equitesor Italians (cf. App. i. t9), or somesectionsamong them, felt that their own interestswere prejudiced by the reformers.Neither then nor in the caseof later popular proposalsdo we hear of appealsto clients either by popularesor by optimates. The antagonists play on sectionalinterests,or invoke political principles: they can seldom rely on the allegiance of personal followers (cf. section VI). The Gracchi were not of course the first to force through laws againstthe oppositionof the greater part of the nobility, who, it must be assumed,had the most clients.We may think of Flaminius' agrarian law, and of the Claudian law of zrB (p. r 7Z),or of the Porcianlaws on prouocatio (ch. 6 endnote B), and not least of the introduction of the ballot for electionsin r37, for popular trials except in casesof perduellio in r37, for legislationin r3r, and for trials of perduellioin ro7 (see p. 34o). Obviously the ballot diminishedthe ability of patronsto bring pressureon client voters;however,we must bear in mind that all the laws mentionedexcept the last, and also Tiberius Gracchus'agrarian law, were passedby open voting. We must not indeedregard the ballot as crucial to the independence of the assembliesin the post-Gracchanperiod. It is significant that Sulla did not repeal them; he thought it enoughto deprive tribunesof their rights to initiate legislation and perhaps to bring criminal prosecutionsbefore the assembly(ch.6 n. r34). The ballot did not remove any senseof moral obligation or sentimentalattachment to patronsthat clientsmay have felt: it only restrictedintimidation. Still, the laws indicate that patrons were thought to be resorting to such pressure,and not merely trusting the loyalty of their dependants,and that this was resented,if not by the clients themselves,then by independentvoters, who were sufficiently numerous to carry them. Bleicken's comment that the ballot destroyed the relation of the assemblies to the real socialstructurebasedon clientageis perverse.111 It exaggeratesthe effectsofsecret voting, and blurs the truth that an effective majority of voters were already not invariably, if ever, the mere toolsof noble patrons.The tiesof clientship,so far as they existed, rro Vell. ii. 7 . 3 ( m e n t i o n i n gC . G r a c c h u s 'c l i e n t s ) ;P l u t . Z i . G r . r 3 . e ; c f . r z . 4 f o r t h e i r f r i e n d s a n d .f r e e d m e n . C r a c c h a n s u p p o r t e r s : A s e l l i o a l . G re3l ;l .Ai ip. p . i . r o , z r ; P l u t . C . G r . 6 . 3 , e t c . " ' B l r i c k r n .r q 7 5 . z78ff.

424

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(:t.t ti..\"tEt.tl

were too weak to keep the masses obedient, when patrons werc responsible for, or oblivious to, grave social and economic grievanccs. The oligarchs could actually become the objects o[ popular hatred, as s h o w n i n t h e l a s t t w o d e c a d e so f t h e s e c o n d c e n t u r y . l l 2 T h i s w a s a t least as much a part of the social reality as personal allegiance, and clearly had much more effect on the course of events. Equally the patronage that the great houses presumably had over Equites and the gentry of the Italian towns (disguised or attenuated as it might be under the names of friendship or hospitium)did not inhibit the conflicts of the senatorial and equestrian orders or the revolt of the allies. It is only in elections to the higher offices that it seemsplausible to see the strength of aristocratic patronage. But here too closer investigation suggeststhat its importance is usually exaggerated. V

It was in elections, especially to the consulship, that the nobility generally continued to dominate the assembly. Five out of six consuls throughout the period from rgg to 49 were of consular descent. Most of the rest belonged to well-established praetorian houses. When mere parvenus were returned, they were usually leagued with influential aristocrats. It was exceptional when Marius was elected for ro7 against the united oppostion of the nobility. In the same decade three other new men were returned, and what with Marius' repeated re-elections, only twelve members of consular lineage were successful.l13 The hatred that the nobility had inspired among the massesby their cruel suppressionof the Gracchi and their partisans cannot fully account for this, since in the centuriate assembly it was citizens of substance whose votes were normally decisive. Imputations of corruption and the military disastersbrought on by incompetent aristocratic commanders had for the time weakened the prestige of the nobility, and the influence of patrons could not avail against the supposed interests of the commonwealth (n. r rz). It seems to me erroneous to believe that patronage was more than one lactor in accounting for the normal prepbnderanie of noble names in the list of consuls.Very few even of the greatest families could secure the office in each successive generation. Some of them fell into -I'heelectionsof Mariusand S . r , r 6 . z , 3 o f . , 3 r . 5 , 4 r l . 3 , 6 5 . 5 , 7 3 ;l ' l u t . C . G r . ß . of other noai(in r o5 and r o4; Billienus too was nearly successful,Cic. Brut. 75) as consuls,thc trials under the Mamilian law, and the impeachmentsof aristocratic generalsin the last dccadc of thc century variously illustrate the resentmentsof the common people, and to somc cxttnt ol melr rtl' s u b s t a n c eo u t s i d et h r s e n a t o r i a lo r d e r . r13 Brunt, J R S l g 8 z , r f f . H o p k i n s , r 9 8 3 , c h . q , p r e s e n t sm o r e s c h e m : r t i c a l l yb u t w i t h g r t ' a t force the limits within u'hich consular lamilies monooolizcd hiqh oflicc. 1 1 2 S a l l .B J

ri i

425r

'l'heir prolonecdobliviolr.
(:I. I E.N'T'E I.,.1

(;t.lE.\'I t:1..'l

certainly we hear nothing of corruption in the last three yearsof the free Republic. Gruen suggeststhat its prevalencein the post-Sullanera is often exaggeratedon the ground that it is only actually attestedin nine years and that'formal chargesgrew out of the campaigns'inonly four. More generally candidatesfor the consulshipwere returned 'as patrons, benefactors, and heirsof illustriousgentes', occasionallyas adherentsof otherswho had a similar following. In fact, however,we can seldom judge why the electorspreferredparticular candidates,if only because we often do not know whom they rejected;we have no information, or virtually none, about the circumstancesof most elections.l16The multiplication of senatorialdecreesand laws on corruption is alone proof that the evil was rampant. The difficulty of obtaining convictions must have deterred prosecutions;Murena, for example, was pretty clearlyguilty, yet he was acquitted.There were obviousdisadvantages of incurring dangerous enmities by bringing accusationsunlikely to succeed.Gruen remarks that imputations of bribery might be unfair, but they must have had at least the plausibility that derived from the frequencyof the practice. Some of the cases in which such allegations were made have particular significancebecausethey imply that it was true, or plausible, that candidatesof the highestlineageor attainments,or their most influentialsupporters,could not dispensewith corruption.Thus Cicero suggestedthat in the electionsof 7o Q, Hortensius and Q. Metellus Celer relied on largessfrom Verres' coffers;yet the former was leader of the bar, and the latter the scion of a family which had enjoyed unexampled electoral successfor two generations; however, he had been a candidate for the praetorship of 74, and if all had gone smoothly for him, should have been praetor that year and consulin 7r. One of the disqualified candidatesin 66, whom the voters had preferred to an Aurelius and a Manlius, was P. Autronius, who was not of consular descent.For all his personalpopularity and resplendentbirth Caesarin 6o thought it prudent to enter into a coalition with L. Lucceius (who was at bestof praetorianlineage): Lucceius'rolewas to furnish cashin theirjoint behalf.(It did him ho good; Caesarwas returned along with

his political and personallbe, Bibulus.) Pompey had in the prevtous year resortedto bribes to securethe return of his prot6g6Afranius.He himselfand Crassus,it may be noted, had to employ outright violence for their own election as consulsof 55. Most remarkableof all is the electoralcampaign of 54.t17Three of the candidateswere of consular houses,M. Aemilius Scaurus,Cn. Domitius Calvinus,and M. Valerius Messalla;the fiourth, C. Memmius, had the backing of Caesarand Pompey,who also gave initial and (it was thought) insinceresupport to Scaurus.The latter could appeal to the greatnessof his father's 'country people' (Att. iv. r 6. 6), but he name, which still countedwith had also lavished his wealth on aedilician games. Domitius and Messallatoo had displayedmunificence,and Domitius' claims were urged by many friends.Yet he and Memmius thought it advisableto make an infamous pact with the consuls,who were somehowto help engineertheir return; and all four resortedto bribery to an extent that doubled the rate of interest. All were accused of the offence, and ultimately Messalla(who was returned with Domitius), Scaurus,and Memmius were convicted. Thesemen, it is patent, could not depend simply on birth, connecAmong the consularcandidatesin 65, tions,and patronagefor success. the patrician P. Sulpicius Galba was being plainly refusedsupport; neither he nor L. CassiusLonginus was a seriousrival to Ciceroin the following year despitetheir lineage. (Admittedly no Galba had been consul since r45; another member of the house,backed by Caesar, failed in 5o.) In 65 two other candidates of consular family, Q. Minucius Thermus and D. Iunius Silanus,are describedby Cicero as poor in reputation and friends; however, he notes that the former had gained by having been curatorof the Via Flaminia, presumably because the post had given him the opportunity to confer benefits and win new personal adherents, rather as Murena was to ingratiate himself with votersin Umbria by his conduct of the levy there (Cic. Mur.4z). It is no part of my contention that gratia acquired in such ways (as by munificence), did not count: it is very different from hereditary patronage. (It may be that Thermus was actually elected for 64; certainly Silanus was returned in 63.)118 1tr all these accounts of electoral campaigns we hear nothing of clients, unlessin the reference to the öclat of Scaurus' name with the country people. Our best Petitionis, evidence, however, comes perhaps from the Commentariolum

426

Sl.Riii3. 196 (esp.Cic. I Verr.zz f., dehar. resp.42, ap. Ascon. 74 C. Att. i. 16. tz, Planc.45-8 and Cic. ap. Ascon. 8g C., Plane. 98. Decuiae and conscriptio:Planc. 45, 47. Sodalitates, 55). Sequestres: once respectable associationsfor sacral and convivial purposes (Cic. de amic. 45, deorat. ii. zoo, II Verr. i. gg, Mur. 56) had come to denote organizations for political ends (perhaps Comm.Pct. rg) and, in fact, ficr corruption (Planc. 46). Cf. ch.9 n.8. rr6 Gruen, r974, ch. ry, esp.pp. rz7 ('Ties ofpatronage, which bound the voting populace to the dominant clans ofthe aristocracy,remained unbroken.') and 159-6r; the chapter is a tissueof speculativeexplanationsfor the return ofparticular candidates,which also restson his beliefin aristocratic factions. But it contains the evidence for what follows on consular elections:it is his interpretations that need to be treated with caution.

427

1 1 ? S e ee s p .C i c .A t t . i v . r 5 . 1 6 .6 , r 7 . 2 , 5 , Q J t . f . i i i . I . I 6 , 2 . 3 , 3 . 2 , 6 . 2 , 7 . g ; A s c o n .t 8 - z o 7, C. Cf. p.475. Scaurus and Memmius were convicted in 5z (App. ii. z4), Messalla,acquitted de ambituin 5r, was condemned de sodalicüs(Cic. Fam. viii. :. I, 4. l). rt8 Att. i. r f. (cL ShackletonBailey on Thermus' possibleidentity with C. Marcius Figulus, cos. 64); Ascon. 8z C; Comm.Pel. 7.

428

(;t. u.:.\ I t: t..1

a n d c e r t a i n l y f r o m t h e s p e e c h e si n w h i c h C i c e r o d e { b n d e dM u r e n a a n d P l a n c i u s o n c h a r g e so f c o r r u p t i o n . H e r e t o o t h e r e i s l i t t l e t o s u g g e s t that paironage did much to decide elections. The former work is at least well-informed about conditions in the late Republic, whether or not its attribution to Quintus Cicero be accepted. It purports to advise Cicero on canvassing. As a new man Cicero naturally had no hereditary clients unless in his native Arpinum. How far he had yet personally secured the extensive patronage which he eventually possessed(".gg) we cannot say with precision, but he already had a claim of gratitude for services rendered to the publicans, most Equites, many municipia, collegia, and sodalitates,and various individuals (3, B, r6-2o,32,50,55). They must, however, all be constantly reminded of their obligations (38), and it is not only benefits previously received that are likely to affect votes but the prospect of favours to come (zz, 26, +o, +g). Cicero must personally canvass all and sundry (+t tr); we know that he adopted this precept in 65 as far afield as Cisalpine Gaul (Att. i. r. z). He was then plainly hoping for indications of support from the nobility and from Pompey; the pamphlet bids him cultivate consulars, nobles, and other senators (+-6, zg), while contriving to suggest that his return will be agreeable to Pompey (cf. ch. g n.5o).But he must also woo persons of influence in their own towns and regions, and freedmen in the city itself.lle It is evident that some of these could deliver more votes than their own, but also that they would not themselves necessarily act at the command of noble patrons. Even freedmen are taken to be potentially independent; as for municipal gentry, they were likely to have had connections with several of the great families at Rome, and could doubtless steer a delicate course between them if those families were themselves not united. Cicero's successwill rest partly on his own reputation and his energy in the canvass,partly on the zeal of his friends, partly on popular sentiment (16; cf.4r ff). It is in the last context that we find the only allusion to his own clients. He must show that he is loved by his friends, fellow-tribesmen, neighbours, clients, freedmen, and slaues (r7)! Their enthusiasm will prove to others that he deserves their votes; his gratia among men who know him will be proof of his merita. Similarly in his defence of Murena there is only one allusion to clients (in that of Plancius there is none): rre Co-*. Pel. 24, zg (freedmen;some leading men in urban collegia(cf.3o) would be in this class),3o-z; Cicero can count on some, apparently municipales,'proptersuam ambitionem, qui apud tribules suos plurimum possunt', presumably men, like Plancius, themselvesaspiring to a senatorial career; others have influence 'apud aliquem partem tribulium' (ibid. 3z); sincc many or most rural tribes were since the Social war geographically fragmented, it is in fact rathcr unlikely that anyone (even a Roman aristocrat) had influence extending to the whole tribe; cli n . r z 5 . S e e a l s op p . r z 6 f . , r z B .

c l.t E1"I bt...l

429

Murena canvassedwith a cortöge, partly consistingof clients,neighbours, fellow-tribesmen,and Lucullus' soldiers,rvith other humble citizens,who, the prosecutiondoubtlessalleged,were mere hirelings. The votesof the poor, among whom we must reckon soldiers,counted for almost nothing in the centuriateassembly:Murena's purposewas to parade the good opinions he inspired. Cicero claims that the soldiers' commendationsof his military prowesscarried auctoritaswith the electorateat large.120 In the end Cicero carried every century of the first two property and the Equites,which gavehim the absolutemajority required classes (ch.6 n. r64). Sallustimplies that the ill-reputeof his two principal rivals, Antonius and Catiline, both nobles,who relied on corruption if we believeCicero (ap.Ascon. Bg C.), induced the nobility to support him (Cat. zg), and Plutarch was surely right that fear of disorder brought all respectablepeople to his side (Cic. rc); that best explains their unanimity. Murena and Plancius were each prosecutedfor corrupt practicesby defeated competitors, who argued inter alia that only bribery could explain why they had not been preferred for their more splendid lineage. Cicero, who was able to reply in the caseof Murena that his descent was not truly inferior to that of the prosecutor, Servius Sulpicius, rejects this contention: the people had to be wooed; they were capricious, volatile, unpredictable; they had often preferred to noblesmen inferior both in rank and in other respectsfor reasonsthat in retrospect still remained obscure; moreover, the prosecutors of Murena and Planciushad been insufficiently assiduousand deferential in courting their favour.l2l The prosecutorsalso claimed that they were superior in ability and previous servicesto the state; Cicero Both comparesthe past careersof the rivals to subvertthis assertion.r22 sidesassumedthat meritain public life mattered as well asgratia.But as to gratia Cicero stressesMurena's munificence (which may have contravened the law) to the whole plebs, and the benefits he had personallyconferredon Umbrian towns and on Romans with affairs in Transalpine Gaul; he does not speak of inherited patronage (and neither Murena nor his adversary Sulpicius may have had much of that). By contrastSulpiciushad offended'menof rank and influencein their own neighbourhoodsand towns'. Here again there is a suggestion that local magnatescould influencevotes in their home districts,but "o Mur. 37 f.,69*72. The soldierswere not even numerous (contraGruen, 1974, lzg), some 16oo men (IM +Sl).Parallels: Att. iv. 16,6, Livy xlv. 35. B f. t2t Mur. r5-r7,35f., . et.rI. The end of +g*B, 53, Planc.6-18,3r-5,5o-3. Cf. CommP 'largitionibus ac precibus sordidis' ('[ac. Ann. i. 15). electionsby the people releasedsenators t22 Mur. rB-34, 4 1 1 . ,P l a n c .1 3 , z 7 f . , 6 1 3 , 6 7 , 7 7 .

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also that they were independent themselves.l23 Plancius too enjoyed powerful backing not only from his father's publican friends but from his compatriots at Atina and populous places in the vicinity. Cicero recalls that he had had similar regional support in his own electioneering. Plancius'influence among his neighbours was partly inherited, partly due to the favours he had himself bestowed. It was, according to Cicero, traditional for men to be liberal to their own tribesmen, to win them over ('conficere') for their friends, and to expect friends to do the same for them. Bribery in such circumstances was an absurd imputation.l2a Cicero claims that he could name the person by whose efforts ('studio') any tribe had been carried in the aedilician election at which Plancius was returned. This boast should not be taken too seriously. If the electoral behaviour of the people as a whole was incalculable, that must also have been true of most of the voting units. Few tribes can have been at the disposal of a single magnate. L. R. Taylor pointed out that both Caesar and his irreconcilable adversary, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, were registered in the Fabian tribe and that both surely had much influence within it; in most tribes there must have been many such persons.l2s There is a similar exaggeration in a letter Cicero wrote to D. Brutus in 43, urging him to win over for a particular 'in which you are sovereign' (,Fam. candidate the equestrian centuries xi. r6);in this caseit seemslikely to me that Cicero assumed that these 'tyrannicide' of Caesar, and would centuries strongly approved of the 'Liberators' lollow advice tendered by Brutus, the most eminent of the still in Italy at the time. The extensive canvassing to which he himself, Murena, and Plancius all had resort, the importance of munificence and bribery, the weight attached to the past careers of candidates, all go to show that election did not turn on the support of a handful of powerful patrons. The magnates could not even rely on the obedience äf th.ir own freedmen.r2ö The votes of humble ili.r,m, who might often be mere dependants of a single family, could seldom affect the issue, at least in the centuriate assembly, but a display of their loyalty t23 Mur. . et. 3o-2. 3 7 , + 2 , 4 7 , 7 2 - 7 , P l a n c . 6 7 ;c f . C o m mP r24 Planc. rg-22,45,48, cf. Mur. 69. Vicinusand cognate words are as common in Cicero, in referenceto Italians, as iliens.On tribuies,StÄ iii3. r97 (surely overstating the familiarity among t h e m i n t h i s o e r i o d :c f . n . t I o ) . 125 Planc. 48; cf. Taylor igag, 6z ff.; she quotes Phil. ü. 4, where Cicero alleges that in 5o Antony could not have carried a single tribe without Curio's help, but that probably relers to Curio's influence as a popular tribune. Cf. n. r Ig. r26 Dionys. iv. 23, 6 supposedthat freedmen and their posterity would vote for their patrons (cf Rouland 86). Most freedmenwere confined to the four urban tribes, and rich freedmen may Succusanaand actually have preponderatedin the centuriesofthose tribes in the higher classes;in Esquilina at least there might have been no senatorsor equestrianiudicesenrolled in eo 5 (EJ g4a. v. 33). If the nobility could generally count on freedmen backing their patrons, that might provide a paradoxical explanation oftheir consistentopposition to the redistribution offrecdmen in the rural tribes (Treggiari SZ n). But some frecdmen seem to be indcpendent.

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might impress uncommitted voters.l27 Men of higher status undoubtedly had connections with Roman aristocrats, and could bring out their own associatesto vote with them, but they had to be courted directly, probably because those connections, often better described as relationships of amicitia or hospitium rather than of clientage, were so varied and so likely to result in conflicting obligations that they were free to make their own choice. Patronage was only one of many factors that affected voting behaviour, and the evidence does not warrant the conclusion that it counted more than any other; rather it suggeststhat it was of subordinate imoortance.l28 VI In the late Republic violence became endemic. How far could the magnates rely on the allegiance of clients? Many stories of the adventures of men proscribed in the Bos and 4os illustrate the loyalty or treachery of wives, kinsmen, freedmen, and slaves. I can find only a solitary case in which a man was harboured by his client;12eone might add that a former client of P. Clodius revenged his patron by revealing Cicero's whereabouts to Antony's cutthroats (App. iv. r g). A faithless client is said to have cut off Gaius Gracchus' h e a d . l 3 0 ' F r i e n d s ' o c c a s i o n a l l y a p p e a r i n t h e s t o r i e s ,a n d s o m e m a y i n reality have been dependants.l3l In the second century the praetor found it necessary to protect men forcibly ejected from their possessionsby the interdict de ui. In Cicero's time still sharper remedies were devised against the illegal use of armed force. They expressly relate to ejection by a man'sfamilia or procurator as well as by himself.Thefamilia consisted of the slaves, and in the 7os misdeeds effected by armed gangs of slaves on distant estates had become common (Cic. Tull. B- r r ). The term procuratorcould include a tenant, neighbour, client, or freedman, but any such person exposed his principal to legal action only as his agent and not as a direct 127 Electioneering at Pompeii in the first century AD may present some analogiesto that of ^D 7r-g (Mem. of Amer. Acad. Republican Rome. J. L. Franklin, Pompeii,theElectoralPropaganda, Rome) rg8o, concludesthat clients could be expectedto vote for their patrons, unlesstheir loyalty was divided between more than one (ro6f.), but that they did not consistentlyfollow patrons' lead in voting for others, and sometimeshad to be incited to do their duty ( l r r ff.). Support from neighboursis also attested (gz f.). Clients often recommend the good qualities oftheir patrons to uncommitted voters. Cf. P. Castren, Ordo PopulusquePonpeianus,1975, tz7 tr. t'" App.iv. r8; cf. Val. Max. ix. rr.6. 1 2 8 S e ee n d n o t e z . tto App. i. z6 with Gabba ad loc. ' f u i s s ei n ttt App. i. 6o-2, 72-4, gSf., iv. rz-2g,36 5r; Dio xlvii. 3 r r; cf. Vell. ii. 67. z: proscriptos uxorum fidem summam, libertorum mediam, servorum aliquam, filiorum nullam' (nothing on clients). Anecdotesin Val. Max. iv. 7. r-6 relate to similar conditions. Tac. Ihst. i. 8r, iii. 73 f., 86 does tell of patrons hiding with clients in eo 69.

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consequenceof the other relationshipsnamed (Cic. Caec.SZ). By Cicero'saccount Caecinawas dispossessed by a band of armed men, someof whom were free (ibid. zo); they may have been clientsof his adversary,but in any casewe may supposethem to have been hired labourers (cf. Varro,,R,Ri. r7. 3), rvho as such would have been so economicallydependenton their employer as to perform his illegal orders.r321n any event clientagehad iong existed,änd had once been a more vital elementin Roman societythan it was by this time; the spreadof rural violence was clearly a new phenomenonrequiring new remediesin the secondand first centuries,to be associatedwith the increaseduse of slaves. In scenesof political violence slaves also frequentlyappear. Gruen indeed makesout that in the broils in Rome itself patrons often called on the strong arms of their clients. This is characteristicof the modern fashionof superimposingclientshipon the evidence.Turn to the pagesin which his admirable index registersclients, and you will seldom find them in the texts cited. In particular, Lintott's careful analysis of the composition of the gangs that operated in Cicero's Rome showshow rarely they are mentioned.l33 In rzr the consulOpimius usedtroopsto suppressC. Gracchusand his followers,whom I take to have beenhis political partisans(n. r ro). He also ordered senatorsand Equites to arm themselves,and the latter to turn out each with two armed slaves.By analogy, it was probably slaves rather than clients who bore clubs when attending on the senatorswho lynched Tiberius Gracchus.l3aOn the popular side Saturninus,who can hardly have had extensivepatronage, is recorded to have formed gangs from rustics, many or most no doubt Marius' veterans,who hopedto benefitfrom land allotmentsunder Saturninus' legislation. His enemy Caepio opposed force to ficrce,aided by 'boni viri'. Once the senatus consultum ultimumhad been passedin roo, senators and Equites appeared in arms, as in r 2 r, presumably with many followers, equipped from the public arsenals,and drawn, so Cicero says, from all orders; some perhaps came from distant Picenum. Probably clients were among them, but they were mobilized by order of the consuls.l3sIt is interestingthat, as again in BB-87, the urban

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plebsseemsto have sided chiefly with the optimates.Perhapswe may identify them with that sectionof the city population which Tacitus describesas 'the sound section of the people attached to the great houses', contrastingthem with'the low rabble' (Hist.i.4. 3). The grain doleswere as yet not free, and in any casethey never suppliedall the needsof the poor at Rome; many must have relied on largessesfrom the great houses.We may then allow that on theseoccasionsnobles could invoke the support of clients,though of men whoseloyalty could have been inspired not so much by sentiment as by economic dependence.In the post-Sullanera we find nothing of similar support for the optimates; conceivably the urban plebs were alienated by Sulla'sabolition of corn distributions,short-livedas it was, and by the senate'sfailure to ensure the cheap supply of grain for the market (pp. 75, r72, r79). In 9o the younger Drusus,who could employ a client to arrest the consul (Val. Max. i*. 5. z), may well in virtue of his birth and exceptionalwealth have enjoyedextensivepatronage,though Diodorus (xxxvii. ro) thought that his own and his father'sreputation had won him universalfavour. In lact he neededto gain popular backing by proposalsfor distribution of land and grain. It was not on hereditary clients that he relied when violenceensuedon his proposals.Seneca says that he was 'surrounded by a huge concoursefrom all ltaly' (de breu.uitae6. r). Of courseItalians backed him becausehe proposed their enfranchisement.The oath that they allegedly took to him, if authentic, bound them to pursue both his interestsand theirown, and to esteemhim their greatestbenefactorif they obtained the citizenship (Diod. xxxvii. r r). Granted that 'benefactor'(euergetes) representsthe Latin patronas,this obligation weni beyond that of traditional clientship,which had alsonot been ratified by oaths,and it held only on condition that Drusus could fulfil his promises. SulpiciusRufus in BBhad a guard of 6oo Equites(p. tS6), who were doubtlessaccompanied by slaves.As he belonged to a somewhat döclassö patrician house, we cannot supposethat they were his hereditary clients,a title that Equiteswere anyhow prone to resent(n.gt); they were clearly his political sympathizers.He could also depend on the new citizens(". tgS). In 63 Cicero did have a bodyguardof clientsfrom Reate.136Br.t on

t32 IM55tff;onlegalremediesseenowB.W.Frier,RiseoftheRomanJurists,rgs5,esp.5r-7. Changes in the praetor's edict concerning the interdicts undeai and de ui armata (Lenel, Edictum Perpetuum2 46r tr ) did not affect the principle that the transgressorwas liable for acts done under his mandate, e.g. by jliudanilias or mercennarius (Dig. xliii. r6. l. zo). Freedmen, but not clients, are debarred from use ofthe former edict against patrons, though given the protection of an utile interdietum, but not of the latter, presumably becausearmed violence breached public order as well as their private rights (xliii. 16. r. 43). r33Gruen439ff.,5or;Lintott,ch.vr. r 3 a P l u t .C . G r . 1 6 . 3 ; c f .1 4 . 4 , T i . G r . r g . 5 . ttt App. i. zg-gz; cf. Cic. Rab.perd. zo,23. Caepio: ad Her. i. r z. z r. Notc also lynching of F u r i u s ( A p p . 3 3 ) . I n b o t h B B a n d 8 7 t h e o l d c i t i z e n s ,s c . t h o s el i v i n g i n R o m c , s i d e d w i r h t h c

optimates against Sulpicius and Cinna (App. SS,64); perhaps Appian is right that they simply wished to preservetheir votine superiority. It may also be inferred from App. 58 that Sulpicius did have some support from town dwellers.App SS allegesthat his aim in redistributing the new citizens was only to obtain their support as 'servants' for his other purposes. 'Servants' in my judgement means that they would be his political {bllowers, not his clients; in any case this is probably a hostile misinterpretation of his intentions. r16 Cic. Cat. üi. ,,; cf. Sall. Cal. ,26. qg. +, 4. I

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5 Decemberarmed Equitesprotectedthe senate,and the government relied mainly on the levy to put down Catiline'srising (Sall. Cat. go, g6. g). The plebs is said to have favoured Catiline (37) till it was alienatedby fear that the conspiratorswould setthe city on fire (48). It was therefore only a few of Lentulus' freedmen and clients who planned his rescue,though in the end they did not attempt it (5o. t). In the final battle Catiline was surrounded by his freedmen and tenants (Sg. a). Similarly in 49 L. Domitius Ahenobarbusenlistedhis slaves,freedmen,and tenants (Caes.BC i. 3Q. Tenants might well have been clients of their landlords, but the choice of the term brings out their economicdependenceSasedon a contractual relationship, not the tie of fdes. Clodius made himself masterof the streetsin and after 58 with gangs composed, according to Cicero, of slaves, hirelings' and criminals. Cicero was capable of calling freedmen slaves,and we may question whether Clodius had the resourcesto hire men on a large scale' In fact there is reason to believe that by making the corn distributions free, enlarging the number of recipients,and restoring the right of association to the common people Clodius acquired genuine popular support. At times he could bring out shopkeepersand artisans)some of whom constituteda sort of urban middle class,in demonstrations,especially when the market price of grain rosehigh. Most of them may well have been freedmen, but in that case we have further proof that noble patrons lacked control even over their former slaves.Naturally Clodius must have had his own clients. but there is no actual allusion to them, and they would surely have been outmatched by those of the optimates,if the optimateshad been able to rely on such dependants. They had to turn to gladiators to fight it out with Clodius' gangs. When Cicero was recalledfrom exile by a lexin 57, it was passedby the centuriate assembly(which hardly ever legislated),presumably because the approval of the massesin the tribal assemblywould have been hard to obtain; and respectablepeople swarmed in from all parts of Italy to vote for it and to overawe Clodius and his followers; they must have had numerousattendants,but once more thesemay have been slavesrather than clients.137Sestiushad previously,it is true, mobilized his freedmen.clients. and slaveson Cicero's behalf, to little effect (Cic. postred.sen.20), and later Pompey brought up retainers 137 Brunt a1. Finley, rg74, sectionsvt f.; cf. Lintott ch. vt. The activity ofsimilar gangs in the 6os (e.g. Ascon.45,59 C.f.) had led to the senate'sdissolution olthe collegiaof humble people, which Clodius legitimated and organized more efficiently in 58 (ch. 6 n. S7) I doubt if hired lperaewere numerically significant in the gangs; where would the moncy havc tomc from? On Cicero's recall see Celzer, Ciceror48 L; I do not believe Cicero'sown asst'rtiotrsthat a// sectionsof the people welcomed it with enthusiasrn.

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from Picenumand Cisalpinafor his own protection (Q*fr. ii. 3. a). C. Cato too is said to have employed clients against Asinius Pollio, a vä. 4. 7). That is all; in general the evidence minor brawl (Sen.Controu. suggeststhat it was political partisansor slaveswho took the chief part in the gang-warfare of the 5os. It is significant that in the final encounter between Clodius and Milo each was escorted by armed slaves,a usual occurrencein thosedays, accordingto Asconius(3I. f. C.); they had two or three freeborn companions,who were conceivably clients,perhapsstyled'friends'. Much weight is often placed on Cicero's statement that in 59 everyone was promising to protect him against Clodius with their friends, clients, freedmen, slaves,and purses.This is a formula, which recurs in jest when Cicero implores Atticus to do everything possible to make sure that Cicero does not lose the legacy of a valuable library!138It looks as if clientswere traditionally included among the resourcesat a man's disposal. An anonymous writer of the time recommendsorators to traduce adversariesin the courts by dwelling 'vim, potentiam, factionem,divitias, incontinentiam,nobilion their tatem, clientelas,hospitium, sodalitatem,adfinitates'. In other such cataloguesof resourcesand connectionsclientssometimesappear, but not invariably.t'n Such texts certainly show, what I do not doubt, that clients might in various circumstancesaid their patrons. They do not tell us how common and effective such assistancewas when it came to blows. The promisesmade to Cicero in 59 were not fulfilled; perhaps they could not have been. The dialogue in Henr2 IV Part I comesto mind: GLENDowER. HorspuR.

I can call spirits from the vasty deep. But will they come when you do call for them?

VII Modern scholars are, however, fond of saying that in the late Republic able to raise troops from their clients or patrons were actually converted their soldiers into clients by the benefits they bestowed on them.lao tt" Q!.-fr.i. z. 16,Att.i. zo. 7. rle adHer.i.8;cLnn.87f.,r38;Cic.Cluent.94,plstred.sen.zo,Parad.46,Part.Or.87;Sall.BJ 85. 4. Note alsocollocationswith uicinior tribulesin Cic. Caec.57,Mur. 69,post.red.Qtir. g, Sest.ro (though they might be amicirather than clientes). Clientsare omitted in somewhatsimilar catalogues in Cluent. zoz, Val. gr, Fam.ii. I3. z, iii. ro. g. rao Premerstein, the rg37,22ff.; cf. Syme,,QRr5; Harmand,r967,445 (whodemonstrated peculiardevotionto Caesarof his Gallic soldiers,e.g. z7z-98, +42-94. ContraGruen, r974, 365n

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In fact, allusions to the enlistment of clients in the armies are extremely sparse.14r The normal mode of recruitrnent was conscription, and even when men volunteered for foreign wars, as lor service under Marius in to7, it was probably the prospects of booty that attracted them. If they joined up in response to an appeal from their patron, they might remain under the standards after he had returned home; and most generals took over the command of armies alre ady in being. As for civil wars, coercion was certainly one method used to procure soldiersin 83, and it is the only attested method by which both the Pompeians and Caesar raised troops itt 49. It may be remarked that Caesar could hardly have overrun Italy with two or three legions in the first three months of that year, if the nobility opposed to him had 'barons' able to summon retainers from their fieß; this indeed been feudal terminology is wholly inapposite to conditions in Republican ltaly.r42 The generals never failed to tell their soldiers that they were 'rei publicae causa', and it was on the basis that they had been acting legally invested with command that the soldiers were sworn to obey them; just because their title to such obedience could fairly be 'rei publicae challenged when they did not appear to be truly acting causa', they would sometimes try to bind the soldiers with a new oath, but the military or any other oath has nothing to do with traditional clientage. What effect either political propaganda or oaths had on the minds of their men is dubious. Certainly mutinies and desertions occurred.l43 On the whole the legionaries, though in a few instances influenced by the personal charisma of a leader (Caesar above all), behaved like the mercenaries of condottieri;it was gratitude for material rewards, and still more the expectation of benefits to come, that sustained their loyalty; and as there was no prospect of largess after defeat, they would abandon commanders who seemed to have little chance ofvictory. Since much is generally made of Pompey's enlistment of clients in Picenum in 83, it is worth examining, whether his later military and political career can be explained by his continued ability to call up clients in Italy. It is a conjecture that can neither be proved nor refuted that he again recruited'them in Picenum and Cisalpine Gaul for repressingLepidus' revolt.laa All that is clear is that the senate needed his talents for the purpose, as for the Sertorian war, and vested him with extraordinary cornmands, which of course entitled him to levy tnt Ch.5 n. B7; sectionsrrr-rv document much that follows in this section. Conscription: IM, ch. xxn (esp. 4oB f.) and App. zo. Marius' volunteers: Satl. r9J 84. 1 4 2 S y m e ,Ä R r z , a n d G r u e n , r g 7 4 , r o 2 , u s e s u c h t e r m s . 143 Cf. Harmand (n. r4o) and Botermann, r968. raa So Badian, rg5B, 277. Gelzer, r969, o3 ff., is exhaustivc on l)onrpcy'stlienlelat

+:17 troopsin the usual way. It was popular clamour that securedhim the commands against the pirates and Mithridates; once again he was authorized to conscribelegions,and in the east he took over those which had been raised by others in previous years. He enriched his troops in service,and after his return was bent on obtaining land allotments for them. But he could not effect this purpose, till he found in caesar an agent ruthlessin overcoming opposition. The strong arms of his veteransforced through caesar's agrarian legislation.to5It is 9!yi9"r enough that the veterans were not simply or primarily fulfilling the obligations of fdes: they were promoting their own interests.Gelzer once wrote that in 59 'the triumvirs controlled the largestclientelae and circlesof friends'. This seemsto be a misconception (which Gelzer himselfceasedto entertain); their dominancerest;d on force, not only that supplied by the veter_ansbut very soon by the proximity of caesar'sown army in Gaul.1a6within Rome itserfwhen clodius turned against him, Pompey's control and personal security were temporarily jeopardized by clodius' gangs,but then his veterans, preoccupied no doubt with farming, were not normally available to protect him; only once do we hear of his summoning ,a large band,, presumablyof clients (not necessarilyhis old soldiers),from picenum and Gaul for the purpose (Cic. Qu.rt. ä. 2. +). In 56 he and Crassus employed violencefor their election as consuls,but then caesar sent home soldierson leave to assist(Dio xxxix. gr. 2).when civil war approached, Pompey is said to have boastedthat he had only to stamp his foot to raise an army; very probably he was encouraged by thä universal demonstrationsof affection for him throughout Iialy on the occasionof his grave illnessin 5o.la7 within u y.uiit transpiredhow easily the Italian towns would turn to {öting caesar. we näed not of coursethink of Pompey as being patron, still lessexclusivepatron, of all the communitiesconcerned,though probably enough his patronage f,ar exceededthat of cicero (".gg). In any case,if he relied on the allegianceof clients,eventsproved that he was sadly mistaken.He had to resort to conscription, and it was unpopular, for instance in Campania (Cic. Au. vü. rZ. 2), where some of his veterans had presumablybeen settled.He had high hopesof picenum,la8 but the ras Plut. Ponp. 48. r; Cic. Vat. F,. ra6 Gelzer, r969, rz4; in caesar"67ff. he gives a correct account, with a bare mention ofthe hetai.riaiof the triumvirs (Dio xxxvii. s4. g, 57.2; plut. crasszs14. z), which did not justify his 'I e_arlierview; cf. pp. 473 ff. cic-,,Au. ii. r6. z imagines pompey saying later in 59: shulihrld you down with Caesar'sarmv'; no doubt Caesarwas already holding a supplementiÄ lor his provincial legions,of which three were in cisalpina; c. Mcier, Hi.storiar96r,79 n, .igttty rejeciscclzer's i n t e r p r e t a t i o no f ' a r m y ' a s f i g u r a t i v e . tot Plut. Plnp. 5 7 : c l 6 o . 1 , C i c . T u s c .t ) i s p . i . 8 ( r , / i l l . v i i i . r 6 . '"" Cic. All. viii. r r A , r 2 A c ; C a e s .B ( ' i . r u r 8 , , . r ,ltl ; c I ' .I M 4 7 4 1 . ' .

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towns in this putative fief of his family opened their gates to Caesar's small army without a blow; Auximum, which had recently honoured 'C. Caesaremimperatohim as patron (ILS 877), would not exclude rem, bene de republica meritum, tantis rebus gestis',the other towns followed suit, including Cingulum, which his partisan Labienus had organizedand endowed,and many of the soldierswhom his agentshad enlistedwere to serveCaesar.Caesar'stestimony (n' I4B) is partial, but the factsspeakfor him. There was no enthusiasmfor Pompey. And not a hint either in narratives of the war or in Cicero's correspondence of the importance of his patronage. As for Pompey's soldiers at this time (which included two legions that had seensome serviceunder Caesar), some from the five legions who surrenderedin Spain made their way east to fight for him again; Pompey regarded them as the most reliable of his troops at Pharsalus, b"t th.y constituted only a few cohorts, evidently not a full legion'lae Earlier, by Caesar'saccount, there had been almost daily desertions from Pompey'sarmy, none from his own. Perhapsit was not unfitting that in the end Pompey was assassinatedby one of his former 15o. officers. Neither Dionysiusnor any other ancientwriter intimatesthat it was a traditional duty of clients to render military aid to patrons. In foreign wars it was the citizen's duty to bear arms for the state, and civil wars had not been conceivedin the old days. It would have been a novel developmentin the late Republic if patronshad claimed a moral right to the servicesof clients either in street warfare or in campaigns. Occasionallythey did call on them with success,but no ancient source suggeststhat this was normal, or that the armies of the civil wars were composedof men who had been from the first, or became,the clients of their commanders;the bondsof loyalty are clearly delineated,and are quite different. VIII

Octavian (or Augustus) must.have inherited and acquired, in virtue of his adoption, power, and wealth, a clientela that exceeded all others. But there is nothing to show that this was one of the chief factors in his 1s1 That control rested, most gaining and keeping control of the state. tso Ibid. iii.6r, ro4. r 4 e C a e s .B C i . 8 7 , i i i . 4, 88. r5r ContraPremerstein,rg37, ch. rr, who basesthis view partly on a thoroughly exaggerated ofthe importance ofclientship in the Republic, partly on his interpretation ofthc soassessment called Gdolgnhdtseidtaken to Octavian in 3z and to later emperors;cL Harmand, rg'r7, r57 fl Syme, RR, acknowledgesa specialdebt to Premersteinin his preface, and firllows him ()n thc ()ath; he seesAugustus as leader ofa Caesarianparty basedon patronagcr but clscwht'rc (t'sp.t hs. xxlx and xxxrrr) rightly shows how he sought universal consent by his polit ics.

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obviously, on military force, and, like other dynasts since Sulla, he needed to win and retain the fidelity of the soldiers by material rewards. But force (or fraud) was not the sole,nor ultimately the most solid, basisof his supremacy; rather, this was the universal consentof which he boastedwith perhaps not much exaggeration,and which he earned by restoring order and stability and devising a system that perpetuated it, and above all, satisfied the general ideology of the upper class. In 3e men throughout Italy and the western provinces swore an oath of fealty to him. Similar oaths were to be taken to his successors. In some formulations they bound the swearersto pursue the emperor's enemiesby land and sea to the death. Premerstein derived this oath (which sometimesexpresslysetsup a hereditary obligation) from clientage.But clients were not traditionally bound by oaths at all. The oath of 3z and the later oaths 'in verba principis' are suigeneris, with some analogy both to the soldiers' oath of obedience (though civilians too took the former) and to the oath to protect Caesar taken by senators(who clearly did not thereby become his clients); there are Hellenistic parallels too. We certainly cannot infer from these oaths that all were clients of Augustus and his successors.l52 That would be a bizarre conception. Cicero thought it monstrous that L. Antonius should be designatedpatron of the thirty-five tribes, i.e. of all the citizens(Phil. vi. rz, vii. 16). The designationwas really meaningless.What clients expected from a patron was special favour and protection in their relations with others. The patron of all would be useful to none. In fact the emperor, who was in theory the leading citizen, had in a private capacity clients of his own, either inherited or acquired before he had attained the imperial station; they could be distinguishedfrom the subjectsat large.153As ruler he could also be regarded as having the whole state and all the citizens in his care and protection. He could from this standpoint be ofticially entitled pater patriae.rsaWe have seenthat the term patronuscan be used in the same sensewithout any correlation with clients (nn.64-6). This explains why Velleius (ii. rzo. r) can call Tiberius, even in Augustus'lifetime, 'perpetuum patronum Romani imperii'. The appellation is very rare and unofficial. Only in this metaphorical sensewas the emperor the universal patron. The patronage of others,however, increasedrather than diminished in the Principate.Grandeescontinuedto have individualsand commuls2 Herrmann, I968, giving all the evidence which has accumulated since Premersternwrote. r s 3 S u e t . A u g . 5 6 . 4 ; P l i n y , P a n e g z. g . r ; l o r c o m m u n i t i e s Harmand, rg57, r5gff. Rouland 5oo ff. rejects Premerstein'sview on similar grounds with further evidence. t to Cf sur I'aspertiilotogique du principar, rgS3, 252 ff. Thr' term prostates J. B6ranger, Recherthes need not translatepatronusina technical sense.See also A. Alftildi. Der VaterdesVaterland.es inröm-

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nities as clients. It is to some extent no doubt an accident ol- our evidence that the subject matter of Martial's and Juvenal's verse yields 'turba more information than any Republican writings about the clientium' (Sen. Ep. 26. rS) in the city of Rome itself, and that there is a far greater abundance of inscriptions documenting the patronage exercised over cities and tribes in the empire.lss But not entirely: destitute of political rights, men were now in greater need of protection from those who had power and influence. The more that decisions were taken in the emperor's closet, or by officials whom he appointed and who enjoyed his favour, the stronger was the impulse to seek the aid of those who had the best access to authority. Public careers no longer depended on citizen votes but on the imperial will, yet the emperor himself could often know little or nothing of candidates for preferment, and they naturally solicited the favour of those whose commendations he might respect. At every stage the hierarchical s6 structure produced a chain of dependency.t This processculminated in the late empire, when the humble would entrust themselves to the patronage of those who had the power to defend them against official oppression. If Fustel de Coulanges was right to detect the roots of feudalism in Roman patronage, it was patronage of a kind that thrived in these conditions (".+). Ii may conceivably have resembled that which had existed in early Rome, but there was no continuity between the one and the other. Dionysius, the star witness for the importance of clientship in the Republic, himself supposed that the solidarity it created in society had been dissolved in the Gracchan era; and we have seen indications that the bonds of clientship had been loosened earlier and had not been sufficiently strong even in the fifth and fourth centuries, to uphold the monopoly of power once enjoyed by the patricians, who in his accoun'i originally held all the plebeians in their patronage.

Many factors would have tended to weaken the authority of patrons in the Republic. The obligations that clients owed them were moral, but morally the claims of the state came first, and obligations to patrons could conflict, when men had more than one patron, a common occurrence. They were correlative with the duty of patrons to aid and defend their clients, and the loyalty of clients would be undermined, when patrons failed to afford such support or themselves inflicted injuries. The need for protection by the great families was reduced in so far as citizens obtained equal protection under the laws (which was indeed never complete) and political rights to further their own aims. We do not even know what proportion of the citizen body at any time, for instance during the struggle of the orders or in the contentions of the late Republic, ever stood in a relationship of hereditary dependence to noble or other patrons. It is unjustifiable to assimilate to this relationship that which obtained between a political leader and the following he secured by a programme of reforms, or that which resulted from the extensive gratia procured by munificence to the people at large, or to sections of it, or from the achievements of a sort of national hero such as Pompey. Modern accounts of patronage indeed conceal how elusive is the evidence for its strength. The references to it are somewhat rare; and it is not conspicuous where we should most expect to find it, above all in relation to elections. Respect for and deference to the aristocracy as such, who had (it could be supposed) made Rome great, is not the same as submission to particular noble patrons; and at times it could give way to popular hatred of the nobility. [n any event the dominance of patronage in Italian society, binding both individuals and communities by hereditary ties to the Roman nobility, is a hypothesis utterly incompatible with the most clearly attested facts of the history of the late Republic: the discord between senate and Equites, the great Italian revolt, the popular legislation promoted by a few nobles but opposed by most of their order, the introduction of the ballot, land distributions, corn doles, etc., and the behaviour of the soldiery in the civil wars. In the 'the last century of the Republic, says Sallust (BJ +r. 5), nobility made a passion of their rank, the people of their liberty; everyone sought gain, pillage, rapine for himself. Sallust saw no social solidarity founded on subservience to superior station. His picture is perhaps overdrawn. But the revolution was surely brought about not by the clash between magnates relying on their personal adherents, but by the success of rival politicians who were, or were thought to be, champions of the rights and interests, which could be construed as liberty or independence, of entire sections of the Italian population, the allied communities, the Equites, the urban plebs, and the

440

Denken,rg7r,4off. I also do not think it appropriate to say with Z. Yavetz, 1969, Plebsand 'in a sensepatrozi of the entire urban plebs'; the Princeps,r5z, that largitionesmade the emperors corn dole was a stateinstitution administered by senatorialprefects,and ofcourse clientsofnoble houseswere not excluded. Largessto both plebs and soldiershelped to make them loyal subjects; the term clients is never used. rs5 Seeesp.Tac.Ann.iii.55;cLii.55,iii.g,iv.z,94,59,68,xiii.47,xiv.6r,xv.zz,3z,Hist.i. 4, rz, Bt, ii. 72, iii. 66, 73 L, 86. For communities seeHarmand, I957, I59 ff. (patrons include emperors and members of their families). Such documents as EJ 354-6, 358a, make the hereditary nature of the connection explicit. Martial and Juvenal show how at Romc clients attend the leveesofpatrons, escortthem in the streets,and get mealsand trifling gifts ltporlulaeiin return. Tacitus refersto advocatesobtaining the patronageoftowns and whole provint'<'s(Dial.'1. + , 5 . 4 , + r . z ) a s w e l l a s i n d i v i d u a l s ;t h e i r h o u s e sw e r e t h r o n g e dw i t h m t ' n c o u r t i t t gt h c i r l i r v o u r ( t i . z); they acquired as a result wealth (B), dignitas,and far-flung lamc (5. 4, 7, r3. r). 156 R. P. Saller, PersonalPatronageunderthe l)arly Empire, r1sBt.

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peasantry from whom the legions were recruited, who could all suppose that they were contending in their own cause and not in that of individuals or families to whom their allegiance was due.

9 FACT I ON S

L The supposedexistencein pre-Gracchan or pre-Sullan times of large, cohesive factions composed of allied families; thereafter of adherents of personal leaders.The lack of explicit testimony to vouch for this theory. The ties of kinship and friendshipin 'routine politics'. The solidarity of families and effect of marriage-ties considered. Neither the Fasti nor political trials afford inductive proof for the theory. II. The attested character of the small coteriesround L. Crassus,Scipio Aemilianus,the Gracchi, and Scaurus.IIf. The post-Sullanage. The optimates. Pompey's supposedfaction. Crassus, Caesar, Cicero, and their connections.Alignments after 59. fV. Alignments 49-421no parties existedof men bound with a personal allegianceto Pompey or Caesar; the variety of motives which influenced the behaviour of sections and individuals.Developmentsafter Caesar'sdeath. V. Generalconclusions.

ccoRDING to the Romans themselves, there were from time to time bitter conflicts which divided the whole state, in the early

Republic between patricians and plebeians, and from the Gracchi onwards between optimates and populares,the champions of the authority of the senate and the rights of the people; knowledge of these later dissensions coloured the reconstructions of the early struggles which the annalists concocted. Mommsen is often belaboured for treating the antagonists as if they formed parliamentary parties familiar in his own day. Many of his critics adopt (with various modifications) the conception that originated with Münzer that throughout the Republic political life was dominated by contests for office and influence between coalitions of aristocratic families: kinship and friendship rather than differences on public policy or purely egoistic aims tended to determine the conduct of politicians; thus were formed factions so extensive that three or four might divide the entire senatorial order, lasting perhaps for generations. Münzer had not scrupled to describe them as parties, and his disciple Scullard, who briefly and correctly premised that there were at Rome no party organizations or'tickets'of the modern type, and preferred to write of

l A(;'l'l() r*s 444 'groups', none the less gave them much of' the cohesiveness and Roman debt in his a special Syme acknowledged permanenceof parties. to Münzer, whoseideassuffusethe whole work; it is perhaps Reuolution the brillianceof his interpretationof Roman politicsin the period after Sulla and especiallyafter Caesar'sdeath that has done most to make them prevalentin English scholarlywriting. In f;acttheir correctness has commonly been presupposedwithout argument; Scullard, however) attempted an explicit justification in the first edition of his Roman Politics,and in the Foreword to the secondedition stated objections with characteristicfairness,and tried to meet them, as Gruen had already done. Dissent had been voiced in a few English works, for instancetry implication in the original versionof Chapter 7 in I965' but it was left to Christian Meier, following in the footstepsof Gelzer (whoseviews are too often confoundedwith Münzer's), to develop the fullestcritique.l In what follows I shall argue that factions of the kind postulated in the time of Cicero and that there were at bestsmall and evanescent is no sound reason for believing that they were more extensiveand permanentin earlier times, for which there is much lessevidence.In my opinion each individual Roman politician normally took his own course, influenced no doubt by the ties of kinship and friendship to which the schoolof Münzer attachesoverwhelmingimportance,but as much hy merelypersonalambition or his own judgement of the public good, which men were prone to identify with the sectional interests I have naturally borrowed some that divided optimates from populares. points from Meier, with whose views on this question I am in general agreement.' According to Scullard, the solidarity of the gensor, when and if this was dissolved,that of the lamily was the basisof political divisions at Rome. Each gensor family would act together to further its own dignity and power, and for this purposewould enter into allianceswith other gentesor families, often cemented by intermarriage, and held together in any case,sometimesfor generations,by reciprocal acts of friendship, imposing obligations of continuing mutual support. Moreover, the great housesenjoyed the allegianceof large numbers of their I See Münzer, r9:o; Syme, ßrR; Scullard, 1973 (quotations come from his Foreword and pp. r 3o); Gruen, 1968 (esp. the introduction) and rg74 (esp. ch. II). For reservations and criticisms see Gelzer's reviews of Münzer and Scullard's first edition (r95I) reprinted in his i(/. Srär.i. r96-zro; Meier, r966 (with my review in JRS r968, zz9 ff.), esp. 7-63, I6r-zoo, and his admirable analysesofevents 9r-8o and r.6o in chs. vr f.; Scullard's F'oreword cites many other discussions. 2 Evidence not given here may be readily found in standard works on Roman history, in MRR, and in the articlesin REon individuals (thoseby N{ünzer are replete with accuratc infirrmation) and in Gruen's well-indexed books.

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inl'eriors,whether or not formally designatedas clients, who were attachedto them by manifold forms of assistance, economic,legal,and political. 'This far-reachingnexusof personaland family relationships and obligations... underliesthe basisof Roman public life.'Here no significantplace is allowed either to the egoisticaims of individualsor to genuinedifferenceson the interestof the state.In his later defenceof the theory Scullard defined the sort of 'group' he had in mind as consistingof '(a) a noble and thoseof his fellow nobleswhom ties of family or friendship bound to him and (b) the actual men who on a given occasionrecorded their votes for him'. This definition is of course consistentwith the view that there were no more than shifting combinations of politicians backed by equally shifting combinations of voters.Scullard himselfseemsto think that the primary function of his groupswas that of managingelections;however,he maintainsnot only that 'various blocs of the electorate tended to vote over considerable periods for candidatesof certain families', but that the groups tended to survive between elections,acting together for all sorts of purposes, and that they 'provided the basis of a noble's political power'; he allowed in the secondedition that their composition might have been more fluid than he had previouslymade out, but still contendedthat the rivalries between them were the essenceof political conflict, in preGracchan times at least. He and others supposedthat in those times groups formed around leading patrician clans such as the Fabii, Aemilii, and Claudii, or a great plebeian house, the Fulvii; other scholars, impressed by the successof the Metelli in obtaining fifteen consulshipsbetween r43 and 5e, freely write of a Metellan faction in that period, supposedly prominent even in yearswhen no consularof the family was active.3 No factions are designatedby ancient writers as Fabian, Metellan and the like, and it should seemwildly implausible that clans or families no less proud of their lineage ever accepted the leadership of Fabii, Metelli, etc.;however,it is no essentialpart of the theory that they did; the 'Fabian' or'Metellan'factions may be taken as convenientmodern labels for coalitions of the kind postulated. Scullard himself saw that this conceptionof family coalitionsdid not suit the copiousevidencefor Cicero's time, and suggestedthat factions then consisted rather of 'devoted followers' of ambitious individual principeslike Pompey: it still remains possible in his view to stressthe importance of kinship by blood and marriage and of the obligations of friendship in determining the composition of groups of this putarive new type. In fact the 3 See e.g. Badian, r958, zrz, and r964,34-7o (from Historiarg57). Nothing is heard ofany Metellus from 98 to the Social war, when Metellus Pius appears;y'r.89, he was not yet among the principes.'Iheother consular Metelli of Cicero's time do not seemto have been men of great force.

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evidencesuggeststo me that in all periods groups tended to lbrm around prominent individuals like Scipio Aemilianus,M. Scaurus,or they were both smaller and less L. Crassus,though on my assessment cohesiveand durable than thosepositedby the schoolof Münzer, and could rest on a community of sentimentsas well as on the ties which they representas stringent; as for Cicero'stime, not even a Pompey 'devotedfollowers'. could command the loyal allegianceof many It is true that Scullard'sconceptionof groupsattachedto individuals seemsto find some confirmation in the allusionsof our sourcesto Marians, Cinnans, Sullans, Pompeians,and Caesarians.But these terms almost invariably denote men who were .following or had followed one of the leaders named in civil wars,4 when there was necessarilya polarization of the political ölite,derived in my view from for the purposeof victory the conflictsbetweenoptimates andpopulares; eachsidehad to acceptthe leadershipof a singleman. Rullus, tribune in 63, doesindeedseemto have designatedall who approvedof Sulla's settlementas Sullans;Cicero speaksas if Rullus included personslike himselfwho had at the time remained neutral, and he characterizes Rullus as a Marian, though he was presumably too young to have taken part in the war (deleg.agr. iii. 7). This is wholly exceptional. The'Pompeian'senatemalignedby Antony in 4g @hil. xiii. zB; cf. 33, 38) designatedthe senatorswho had fought with Pompey in 49. But among them were men like Cato, who had spent their lives in oppositionto Pompey,and who sidedwith him in 49 only becausein their eyesthis was the way to prevent Caesarfrom seizing power. Scullard recognized that there was no Latin term for the kind of group that he fra'ain mind. He replied that this was the lesssurprising äs 'even in Cicero's day political groups were referred to with considerablelack of clarity'. The truth is that there is no hint in the sourcesof groups of the sort he postulates for that time too. The divisionsin the statewhich Cicero and Sallustrecognizeare between or senateand plebs (p.gz f')'The termfactio optimates andpopularer, certainly denotesa political combination,but one of which the writer disapproves,not a more or lessrespectablecoalition for electoral and simiiir purposes. For Sallust the nobility as a whole is a faction operating for the advantage of the whole class,and oppressingthe other citizens,whom they can dominate by reasonof their cohesiveness (BJ +t.6). Sallustand otherscan also write of factionsformed by an individual or by a number of individualsin leaguewith eachother, but always in a pejorative sense.One of them was the band of conspirators organizedby Catiline,in 64 on his falsechronology,which included L' 4 See TLL and the indexes to Cicero and Caesar s.nn.

{,i

+47

CassiusLonginus, who was a candidate for the consulshipof 63 in competitionwith Catiline himself.sThe useof the term neverseemsto imply a long-enduring alliance of families or individuals. Münzer's schoolnaturally thinks of Cato as the leaderof a coterieof friendsand kinsmenin the late Republic, but Sallust,whoseadmiration for Cato's high morality hardly makeshim an apologistfor his politics, aversthat he did not contend'factionecum factioso'(Cat.54.6). It remainsan objection to their view that the feature of Roman politics they think of paramount importancecould not be clearly describedin the language of the Romans thernselves. Although our sourcesdo not attest any such combinationsas they construct, Scullard claims that their existenceis proved directly for the period for which Livy's narrative is extant 'by the bitter personaland factional struggles'which it records.In fact Scullard has superimposed his own interpretation of political controversieson Livy's descriptionof them. For example, when Livy mentions 'the faction adverse to the Scipios' (xxxviii. 55. 3), he means that there was a combination, perhaps quite temporary, of their opponents, which he implicitly condemnsby his use of the term 'faction', without the slightesthint that it consistedof allied families; 'the Scipios' naturally referssimply to Africanus and his brother, Lucius, not to a family group formed around them. The objection that the postulated coalitions and electoral blocs of the second century are not mentioned in the sourcesis answered by Scullard in the suggestionthat the annalists on whom Livy directly or indirectly drew need not have included in their narratives descriptions of internal politics in the sense of factions within the nobility'. But Livy does certainly describe 'personal' struggles,such as those in which the Scipioswere involved, as well as apparently impersonal controversies,like that on the repeal of the Oppian law (xxxvii. r-B), without mentioningfamily alliances.Are we to believethat all the annalistswere either ignorant of the real working of Roman politics or that they suppressedtheir knowledgeof it? Gruen, apparently with Scullard's approval, adopted the first alternative, suggestingthat they might not be aware of 'back-stagemancuvres'. This is inconceivable,as severalof them belongedto the political6lite. 5 R. Seager, JRS rg7z,53 ff., showed that the word often has a verbal sense,the act of combining, whence it comesto mean the group engagedin this activity. I doubt ifit ever denores simpfy'influence' (for which auctoritasand gratia were the natural terms), or'dissension' (Caesar only finks'factiones dissensionesque', BG vi. zz. g), or 'intrigue', which was ofcourse one ofthe reprehensible procedures of a faction. Seager might have stressedmore strongly the almost invariably pejorative nuance of the term. on sallust's useolfactio seeesp.K. Hanell, Eranosrg45, 263 ff.; inJ,RS I968, z3I, I did not recognizethat he sometimesapplies it to small coteries (Cat. 3 2 . 3 , 3 4 . 2 , 5 r . 4 c ' 5 4 , 6 ; c f . n . 3 3 o n S c a u r u s )w i t h o u t a n y i m p l i c a t i o n t h a t t h e y h a d p r o l o n g e d life. Parlesseemsto be usedwhen the stateis deemed to be cleft into 'two parts', as in civil war (e.g. cic. Phil. v. 3z) on its imminence (n.6), or when men are divided on the gravest policy issuei.

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No one needdoubt that underhandmachinationssometimesoccurred; Polybius, who choosesto tell little of internal politics, refers to the intriguesof the friendsof Flamininusin rgB-r97 (xviii. ro f.), of course without the least intimation that they constituted a group of the Scullard type or that they persistentlyacted togetheron all occasions. However, on Scullard'stheory the groups existedabove all for electoral purposes;their memberswould mobilize friends and clients, and no doubt (as he admitted) woo the support of independentvoters,to get their own candidatesin, Thus year by year the existenceand cohesion of the factions would have been perfectly patent; the annalists could not have been ignorant of practiceswhich must have been open and respectable,and had no motive to concealthem. It is then very odd that not a vestigeof all this has survived in Livy's account. In Cicero'stime we find only shifting combinations composednot so much of whole families permanently leagued together as of individuals often working each for his own personal ends and not bound in allegianceeither to a group or a singleleader. No doubt the political scene was then very different from what it had been in the preGracchan era, when recorded domestic controversieswere relatively rare, and apparently lessbitter. Differenceswere perhaps most apt to arise over questionsof foreign policy. What Christian Meier usefully categorizesas oroutinepolitics'6 preponderated,that is to say contests over the filling of magistraciesand other official posts, and over a multitude of minor questionsthat concernedRome's relations with other communitieswithin and beyond her own dominion. It was only in and after r 33 that deep divisions were created in the body politic, when populares emergedto threaten the authority of the senateand on occasionthe economic and social interestsof the senatorial order.? At times too Marius and later 'dynasts' acquired influence or domination that evoked the fear and jealousy of other principesto a far greater extent than a Scipio had done in earlier generations. These new conditions undoubtedly affected even routine politics. Senators,when they did not opposepopular or over-powerful politicians in what they saw as the interest of their own order or that of the commonwealth, perhapssinking private feudi or rivalries for the purpose,might seekto 'RegelmässigePolitik', esp. pp. 6 See Meier's index (p. 7-23; e.g. note the honour 33o) s.v. paid by Pompey'sfriend M. Pupius Piso,ros.6r, to Pompey's bitter enemy C. Piso, cos. 67 (Cic. Att. i. rg. z). Probably men of differing political complexions often supported each other in contestsfor officesand the like, in fulfilment ofprivate obligations. Caelius thought it noteworthy that in the election of5o at which Antony was returned as augur'plane studia ex partium sensu apparuerunt; perpauci necessitudinemsecuti officium praestiterunt' (Fan. vüi. r4. r). Optimate kinsmen of the young Marian Caesarbeggedhim offin the Sullan proscriptions(Suet. Caes.t. z); and optimate ponlifcesco-opted him as a colleaguein 7z (cf. MRRü. rr3ff.). ' See ch. r Section tv.

l ' A ( : ll ( ) N S

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avail themselvesof their power to [urther their own advancement; and even issuesof foreign policy might be settled in ways that tended to suit or obstruct the designsof demagogues or dynasts. Still there were many years in which routine politics proceeded as of old and were not overshadowed by popular agitations or by the ambitions of dynasts. Hence it remains significant that large and durable groups, formed either round a great family or round a single leader, do not impinge on us in the sources, which are now relatively copious. Why should we suppose that there had been such a transformation in the political scene that in an earlier period there were long continuing coalitions within and between gentesand families, of which there is also no explicit documentation, and that their rivalries underlie all political decisions? The school of Münzer found this doctrine on the assumed solidarity of kindred and friends. Now in the time of Cicero even close kin were sometimes divided, while friendships were often fleeting or so nominal that they involved neither sincere identity of views nor overt co-operation. The tie that linked friends, and also patrons with clients, was the moral tieof fdes, but men do not always put the claims of moral obligation aborrö their own personal advantage; moreover, individuals could find themselves under conflicting obligations to different friends (and indeed kinsmen), just as both individuals and communities could have several patrons and might be torn in duty between them. It seemsunlikely that these limitations on the effectiveness of men's bonds to friends or patrons were not operative at all times in some degree, though perhaps the use of the words necessariiand necessitudo in reference to the relationships with both kin and friends suggests that the bonds had originally been tighter. Enough has been said on friendship and clientship in Chapters 7 and B; here I shall primarily discuss the ties of kinship. It is no part of the doctrine under consideration that the solidarity of families was based on mutual affection, which must often have subsisted at least among close kin, though it was perhaps a commonplace to speak of 'solita fratrum odia' (Tac. Ann. iv.6o. g); rather, it was the result of social convention or moral sense.Solidarity is likely to have been strongest between those most nearly related. In the Gracchan repetundaelaw it is plainly implied that no person could be expected to act impartially in the process if he were connected with either party to the suit by kinship relations extending as far as second cousins,fathers or sons-in-law, stepsonsand stepfathers,or by common membership of a sodalitas,or by hereditary patronal ties. (It is curious that we hear little elsewhere ol sodalitates,which probably originated as aristocratic social clubs, but which by SS had degenerared into a s s o c i a t i o n sl o r t h e d i s t r i b u t i o n o f b r i b e s a t e l e c t i o n s ( c h . B n . r r 5 ) ;

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they had evidently ceasedby that time to be significant features of upper-classsociety.)Whereaslater legal rules analogousto thosein the Gracchan law do not recognize the relevance of either patronal ties to the duties (exceptwhere freedmenare concerned)or thoseof sodales of citizens to take part in legal processesas iudices,advocates, or witnesses,in the developedclassicallaw among thoseentitled to sueon another's behalf, a right which was much restricted, there appear kinsmen within the same degreesas those prescribedin the Gracchan statute, and they could also not be requiredto give evidence against each other, though they were not debarred from bringing civil suits or criminal chargesagainsteach other. Thus the law marks out personsof specific affinities, which extend beyond but also do not go so f;ar as membership of the same patrilineal family or gens. These legal definitions surely correspond to prevalent conceptionsof the extent of duty towards kinsmen. Cicero too in determining the hierarchy of special obligations places in order of precedence those to parents, spouses,children, siblings,first and then secondcousins,by blood and marriage, and all who share the samefamilial rites and tombs; there is 'kinsmen with whom we are perhaps a reservationwhen he speaksof on good terms and with whom our lot is generally shared'. He also dilates on the mutual obligations of friends without making it clear how thesestand in comparisonwith thosetowards kinsmen (other than parents) if a conflict should arise.8 However, in Roman morality the fatherland had the highestclaim of all on citizens(pp. +o f.). That did not mean that kinsmen and friends did not commonly assisteach other in competition for officesor in other matters in which merely private interestsseemedto be at stake,subject to any conflicting obligations they might have to other kinsmen or friends.But even if this attitude prevailed in routine politics, wherever the public good was in men'sjudgement at variance with private claims, it was the former that should have taken precedence.And in so far as men neglected moral considerations,they could have been guided purely by those of personaladvantage.Moreover, where public issuesbecamea matter of debate in assemblyor senate, which was often the case, politicians could hardly have won much general support by obtruding their own private obligations or interest, but must have at least argued in the name of the public good. It is an unwarranted assumption that such arguments really counted for less than the combinations of families. For Scullard 'the genswith its subdivision into familiae lormed the basison which political life wasorganized'.Now in Roman private law 8

Scc endnote

r

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the family is the nuclear family in which the paterfomillarexercises and over its property; on his death each authority over his descendants survivingson acquiresabsoluteand independentauthority of the same of a common kind. The family as an entity consistingof all descendants ancestorin the direct male line has no functions, though all these and to personshave certain rights as agnatesto intestatesuccession guardianship of women of the sameline. As for the gentes, whatever role be assignedto them in the processby which stateslike Rome had come into existence,their functionsin historic times are shadowy.Patrician and some plebeian gentileswho shared the same nlmensupposedthemselvesto have a common ancestor,but as they invented fictitious eponyms,it is evident that their true descentwas lost in the mists of antiquity; moreover,many plebeianbearersof the samegentile nzmen that were did not evenaffect to be of the sameblood. In circumstances probably extremely rare they had the right of successionto any member of the genswho died intestate;the jurist Q, Mucius Scaevola (cos.95) found it necessaryto define the gentileswho could exercisethis right in such a way that they did not need to prove common descent, which many or all would presumablyhave been unable to do. Gentileshad certain common rites, and there are a few allusions collected by Scullard to meetingsof gentesor families which took place for sacralor legal functions.eHe conjecturesthat political action might be concertedat thesemeetings.That would be plausible,if it were clear that they did act in concert.There is, so far as I know, only one instanceon record:in r93 all the Cornelii supportedthe candidatureof P. ScipioNasicafor the consulship(Livy xxxv. ro. g).But they cannot have been in such accord the next year when he was actually elected, with his own cousin L. Scipio as a competitor (ibid. 24. 5). The relationship to each other of the numerous families of this gcnr must have been very remote;even the connectionsbetweenmembersof the singlefamily of the Lentuli (which ultimately held more consulships than any other noble family) elude our enquiries,and it is certain that e Scullard 8 f . On gentessee,however, endnote z and Brunt, J-RS r g8z, rv-rx. Some had their own sacra;neverthelesssacrapriaatahad to be kept up by the principal beneficiariesunder wills, and some sought by chicanery to evade the burden (Cic. de leg. ii. 48 tr). For theJamilia as a subdivision of thegezs seeStR iii3. r6 n. z, but in this senseit seemsto have no place in Roman law, in which theJamilia consistsofall those subject to patriapotestas(and thus not brothers who are sui iuris), and more specifically the slavesofthe household.At one time on the death ofthe palerrhe sui heredes would inherit in common and administer the property jointly (Gaius iii. r54a), but as early as the Twelve Tables coheirs could go to the courts for a division of the inheritance (ir,. r7a; Dig. x. z. r. pr); the caseof the Aelii Tuberones, who lived from a single farm held in c o m m o n i n t h e s e c o n d c e n t u r y ( P l u tP. a u l . 5 ; Y a L M a x . i v . 4 . B ) , w a s p r o b a b l y c o m m e m o r a t e d not only lor the poverty of a noble family, but for the rarity of so primitive a practice. C. Gracchus (p. +S:) uses the word familia in yet another sense,comprising kin bound together closely by natural affection (the use offamiliaris as a synonym for friend probably derivesfrom this, though i n C i c c r o ' st i m t i t c o u l d b e u s e di n m e r e c o u r t e s y ) ,s e ep . 4 5 2 .

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in the first century they did not all acr rogerher. 'l'hc claudii Pulchri and Nerones could both trace their descent to the famous ccnsor of grz, but whereas the former held at least one consulship in each generation, the Nerones gained none between 2o2 and the election of the future emperor Tiberius in r3; the Pulchri lacked the will or influence ro advance the cadet branch, whose kinship, unless refreshed by intermarriage, became more distant with each generation. No doubt there was more co-operation, the closer the relationship (and some gentes were reduced to a single line) ;even so, it would not always amount to entire agreement. Thus in r02 two cousins, Q. Metellus Caprarius and q. Metellus Numidicus, could not as censors agree to exclude Saturninus from the senate (App. i. zB). Members of the same family could compete for office, like the Scipios in r9z; two Sempronii (of different families) both stood for the censorship in r 84 (Livy xxxix. 4o). We cannot say how commonly this happened, since we seldom have lists of candidates even for cicero's time; this means incidentally that we can hardly ever assess the significance of the return of any particular candidate, since we do not know whom he defeated. Many other examples of division within genresor families will appear in the sequel. It is well known that Romans without male heirs of the body often adopted sons to prolong the family line, whose nomenclature preserved the memory of their original descent, if they came from a different gans, as in the case of P. cornelius scipio Aemilianus; of course nomenclature does not reveal where adoptions occurred from within the gens, and they may have been frequent. However, in many recorded casäsof adoption from outsidethe gens,the choice does not seem to have been made because no gentilis was available, for example in the second and first centuries there was a host of cornelii Lentuli, not to speak of Cornelii of other families, yet Lentuli adopted a Clodius (cos. 7i) and a claudius Marcellus, ancestor of the consul of 56. Neither adoptive father nor adoptive son can have felt overwhelming attachment t; the gentile link. No doubt the man adopted was often compensated by an ample inheritance for his loss of the ancestral name; this might explain why a calpurnius (cos.6r ) had transferred himself into the undistinguished family of the Pupii. It may also be remarked that Gaius Gracchus declared in rzz that if he and his son did not survive. the familia of his father and of Scipio Africanus would be rooted out (ORF, fr. 47). But there must have been Gracchi of a collateral line, whose descendants are attested under Augustus. Gracchus' sentiments are those of a man for whom family solidarity no longer includes all the ofßprine of a common ancestor in the male line, but can embrace those of a maternal grandfather, scipio Africanus. However, thc dcsccndants of

l ' A ( : tt ( ) N S

453 Scipio'sbrothcr and cousinare not membersof the same familiain his sense. Believersin family factions attach great importance to intermarriage. so far as family affection is conceÄed, it may well be that Romans ofterr felt as much of it for kinsmen on the mäthe.'s side as on -1 - the father's.Girls were usuallygiven away at the age of puberr, to such marriages were arranged, and not the result of ,.*,ruf attraction or romantic fondness,which conceivably may have had some effect when mature women contracted later'mariiages. It goes without saying that at the time when a marriage *a, irrarrged" the families concernedwere on amicableterms.But iLcannot be asirmed that their -3il oI only purposewas to cement a political association.T'he bride might be an heiress,or bring a largä dowry under her husband's control. Presumablyit was for economic reasonsthat aristocrats would sometimeswed women of famiriesof no political consequence, and of coursesuch reasonsmay often have counted or preponderatedin other marriagestoo. Thus the immensewealth of the^Mitelli as well as their electoralsuccessdoubtlessenhancedthe attractionsof their womenfolk. We cannot say how often mösalliances occurred, since so few marriagesare on record at all; thus in the best-knownepoch we do not know the name of even one wife for over half the sixty änsuls between 78 and 49 inclusive,and many Romans married more than once.But we may note a few cases.M. Crassus(cos.7o,55),himselfthe sonof a venuleia, married a Tertulla; the wife of L.'üä"li.rs Torquatus (cos. 65) came from Ascul'm' and L. calpurnius piso (cos. 58),-Jescended on the mother's side from a citizenof placentia, .rpt,rr.ä ihe du,,ghte. of one P. Rutilius Nudus; the wivesof M. Aemiii,rsLepid,rs(cor. 78), c. ScriboniusCurio (cos.76),,and.less surprisinglyof A. öabinius (är. 58) were at leastof non-consularlineage,änd so were thoseof L. Marcius Philippu.s (cos. 57) and C. Claudius Marcellus 1rrr. 5o), though admitte-dly they were cognates of Caesar.Atia, who *ur"pier,r_ub"ly not Philippus' first wife, was the daughter of a new -u' do* Aricia, M. Atius Balbus,who had securedthä hand of caesar'ssirt.r; we may well supposethat just as somenoblesmarried for money, others 'contentwere L.dv to give their daughtersor sistersto suitorswho were -- with little-in dowry in order to raise their socialstanding.ll Like marri-agesbetwern royal housesin moderi times, those between noble families at Rome afford no proof of previous alliance or K, Hopkins. poputarion Sr. r965. 3og ff. ll '' Y Metelli: Brunt, Latomusry75,624 tr. Misaltianus: Cic. Au. xü. 24.z, Sulta z5,pls. 6e; Ascon. -I'here 4 f C'; Suet' Caes.5o, t, Aug. 3l is no collection and analysis of all klown senatorial marriages; if there were, it might or might not furnish a sufficient statistical basis for assesslng their probablecausesand effects; it is, the practice of drawing quite speculativeconclusionsfrom -as particular marriases is methodicallv unsound.

+54

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future accord. Cicero remarked that 'old enmities are often discarded as a result of new marriage-connections'(Cluent.r9o); a fortiori they might unite men whose relations had been simply distant in the past. They might equally fail to preserve harmony, and even cause discord. Tiberius Gracchuswas doubly connectedwith the Scipiosthrough his mother Cornelia, the daughter of Africanus, and his sisterSempronia, the wife of Aemilianus; yet the latter and his friends proved to be hostile to the tribune's policy. This hostility is often linked with Tiberius' own marriage to the daughter of Appius Claudius, Scipio's chief opponent,who was also to be Tiberius' chief supporter.The date of this union is uncertain, and it might even have been part of an abortive plan to heal the discord between Scipio and Appius. It perhaps gained Tiberius influential backing, but his previous marriage-connections did nothing to maintain a putative political alliance of the past.If it be true that therewas no love betweenAemilianus and his wife (App. i. 20), that personalfactor may have helped to promote political dissension.The younger Drusus (tr. gr) and Q, Servilius Caepio each married the other's sister; the breakdown of both marriagesled to divorces, and to public as well as private enmity. By divorcing his wife Mucia in 6z for misconduct, Pompey alienated her half-brothers, Metellus Celer and Nepos, who had hitherto collaborated with him; he then sougtrta marriage-connectionwith his adversary Cato, but unsuccessfully.12 Cicero also noted that divorce was often the consequenceof new enmitiesarising betweenkinsmen (Cluent.ryo). In his time divorce had become rather common; no doubt in the secondcentury it was lessfrequent, but matrimonial discord may have been just as common before social convention tolerated the easy dissolutionof the marriage-tie,and just as apt to generatequarrels betweenkinsmen. All this should make us hesitate in inferring, when we happen to know that two men were related by marriage, that they and their families had been or were to be long allied in public life. In order to ascertainwho bplongedto any given group, Scullard and others supposethat members of the same families who are frequently found as colleaguesor frequently succeedeach other in office were allied to each other. They explain this partly by supposingthat the presiding magistratehad great influence over the electorateand could thus procurethe return of his political associates. Now it may be that in the early Republic the electorscould do no more than acceptor reject the namesof candidateshe submitted to them. But this had certainly r2 Badian, r964, 4 o f l ' . ;R . S c a g e r , t g 7 g , j 3 .

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long ceasedto be true.13At most he could excludecandidateswhom he had some reason for regarding as disqualified.to This was a rare occurrence, and there is no clear instance of his barring a political opponent as such. In the Hannibalic war by Livy's account Q. Fabius cunctator did indeed persuadethe centuries not to return as consuls men unequal, as he claimed, to the military crisis.l5 Livy also records that in r85 a presidingconsuldid his utmost by canvassingto promote the election of his brother. He was successful,but his procedure could be held incompatible with the impartiality expected of the presiding magistrate.'" There were various meansby which the magistratecould try to affect the voting.rT Cicero avowed that in 63 he had given all the aid to Ser. Sulpicius proper to a friend and a consul (Mur. fl. What this was is not stated: it was not efficacious.In Cicero's lifetime there is no evidencethat support given by consulsto would-be successors was common or that it was ever decisive. One case in the previous generation stands out. As consul in BB, Sulla, having made himself master of the city by military force, could not prevent the return of Cinna, who was known to be an ill-wisher (Plut. Sulla ro). This can well be taken as an illustration of the rule, not an exception to it. Indeed Scullard himself, holding that his 'groups' altirnated in dominance, is obliged to admit that from time to time a member of one had to declare his adversaries elected. Equally he concedes that colleaguesdid not invariably belong to the same group; since his assignmentof families to groups is nothing but conjecturaf reconstruction, this may have been far more usual in the secondcentury than he a l l o w sA . s f o r t h e l a t e rp e r i o d ,t h e c o n s u l o s f 7o,6g,6r,6o,59,57,5r, and 5o were all either opponents or at least not in complete accord; and disagreementsbetween the censorsof 65 made it impossible for them to complete the performance of their duties r3 E. S. Staveley, Historia Ig54, I93 f., revived a theory that the interrex retained.this power to . the last. Would the plebs in the time of the struggle of the orders have left it to a magistrate who was not elected and always a patrician? Strong evidence is needed to make this crediLle. It is not forthcoming; naturally construed, Livy xxii. 34. r with 35. rr f. (z16) and Dio xxxix. 3r (55) refute the theory. It would also have been pointless for Milo to continue bribing the electorate in the interregnum of5z ifthe interrexcouId,nominate the consuls. Pompey was indied then returned 'ex s.c.'; I take it that the intcrrex prevailed on the centuries to vote only for him. This was an altogether extraordinary occasion.See Ascon, 33, 36 C. r a V o l c a c i u si n 6 6 ( A s c o n .B g c . ; S a l l . c a t . ß . 3 j , S e n t i u ss a t u r n i n u s i n r g ( V e l r . i i . 9z), and thereforeconjecturally C. Piso in 67 (Val. Max. iii. B. 3) had such reasons. "_ Livy xxiv. 7 g (er4); he also reports strange doings at the electionsofzr6 (xxiii. 3-5), zro (xxvi. zz), and zo9 (xxvii. 5 f.), illustrativelrimaifacie ofpublic concern for the efficiencyofthe high command; Scullard (ch. nI) interprets the data to fit his theory ofgroups: mere speculation. '" Livy xxxix. 3z; cf. xl. 17. 8 for a parallel, but in r93 the presideniy oia corneiius did not avail a candidate lrom his gens(xxxv. ro. 9). 1? For exhaustive discuss'ionsee;/. Rillinger , Der Einfuss desWahlteitersbei der räm. forrrtrton/ len aon33-6bis5o uorchr., 1976 (rather too credulousofdata in Livy's first decade,which none the It'ssconlirrm with thc t'ont'lusionsthat the presiding masistrate had no decisiveinfluence).

(

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r'AC'rI oN s

If we had as little evidence fior Cicero's time as fior the second century, and made deductionsfrom the Fastiand from family relationshipsin Scullard'smanner, there would be curious results.In 7z and 7rr 57 and 56 one Lentulus succeededanother as consul; mutual support would be postulated. In fact Cn. Lentulus Clodianus (cos.7z) was as censor in 7o to expel his successorP. Lentulus Sura from the senate,nor did any other Lentulus supplicate for that man's life in 63, while the consul of 56, Cn. Lentulus Marcellinus, was to thwart the ambitions of the consul of 57, P. Lentulus Spinther (pp. +B+ f.). As Pompey and Crassuswere colleaguesin the consulshipboth in 7o and 55, we should infer that they were continuously allied. Caesar's connection with them would follow from the marriage of his daughter to Pompey, and that of L. Calpurnius Piso, elected consul under Caesar'spresidencyfor 58, from Caesar'sunion with Calpurnia. As a member of the samegensM. Calpurnius Bibulus would belong to the samegroup; it would be confirmation that he was Caesar'scolleaguein every office. Bibulus would carry with him his own father-in-law M. Cato and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cato's sister'shusband; it would be no accident that Domitius reached the praetorship under Caesar's presidency and the consulship under Pompey's, when Cato too was elected praetor. If it were recorded that Bibulus and Cato recommended Pompey'ssoleconsulshipin 5e and fought with him in 49, the chain of proof would be complete.But the existenceof this group could be traced back to the previous generation: in 89 Pompey's father had been consul with L. Cato at electionsdirected by L. Iulius Caesar,who in Bg shared the censorshipwith Crassus'father. This farrago of halftruths and falsehoodsis preciselyanalogousto fashionablereconstructions of earlier factions. Gruen, who concededthe fallibility of such procedures,but still held to the existenceof family factions, sought to determine their composition (in so far as it could not be inferred from attestedkinship) by an investigationof political trials. He premisedthat it was for factional reasonsthat men appeared for the prosecution or the defence.This is highly questionable(cf. pp. 37c.-7).Men would rally to the defenceof all but their open enemies,and declared enmity, which must not be equated with political dissensionor covert dislike and jealousy, was rare. As for prosecutors,we must remember that the Roman criminal law could only be enforced through private personsbringing charges; someaccuserssurely thought that they were performing a public duty by bringing wrongdoers to book. Others (we know) simply came forward to make a name for themselves.No doubt in either casethey would abstainfrom irnperiilingpersonalfriendsor political associates. And we may readily grant that they would be most prompt to assaila

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457

private enemy or political opponent. Private grudges were perhaps most often operative. It was consideredmorally justifiable to attempt the ruin of a man who had himself injured the prosecutoror his father. Syme writes of inexpiablevendettas'betweenfamilies.lsBut this is a patent exaggeration.In Rome there were no Capuletsor Montagues. In the revolutions of medieval Italian cities entire families were banished or deprived of civic rights. Not so in Rome. There law and practice knew nothing of 'the passivesolidarity' of the family. It was only in the dim past (so it was said) that all the Tarquinii had been expelled after the overthrow of the last king, Tarquinius Superbus. Only individuals were named in the proscription lists of the Bos and 4os. That was natural enough, when families were divided in civil wars. The triumvirs actually condemned their own kinsmen who had shared in the resistanceto them. Sulla indeed thought it prudent to exclude sonsof the proscribed from political life,le u-*.uru.. upheld by Cicero in 63 as necessaryfor stability;2o it was sons who had a recognizedduty to avengetheir fathers, and their vindictivenessmight threaten public tranquillity. The existence of family alliances cannot be inferred from the prosopographic data of which Münzer possessedmagisterial knowledge, unless the presuppositionsof his theory, and variants of it, are granted. We must first assent to the propositions that kinsmen normally acted together, and that attestedfriendship or collaboration between individual members of a family implies a family alliance. On this basiswe identify the nucleus of a group. We may then discern a conflict between two such groups on the premise that if particular members of one are known to compete for office, to disagreeon some question of policy, or to be personal enemiesof members of another, the groups constitute factions regularly opposed to each other. If a person in another family is recorded as a friend of a member of one group, or servesunder his command, or is perhaps remotely connected with him by marriage, or shares high office with him, or secures election under his presidency,or appearsfor his defence,or prosecutes one of his putative antagonists,his family may then be assignedto the samegroup, naturally with confidenceproportionate to the number of instancesin which these sorts of associationare known. If dissension between kinsmen, or dissolution of friendships, happens to be on record, it may be treated as exceptional, though it would be hard to demonstratethe rule by any processof induction from other recorded t8 ,?rt r57; cf.'feuds'in his index. Attested examples are only of enmities inherited from a father. Syme also writes (rg): 'anhitia presupposes ininüitin, inherited or acqtired'; contra pp. 370-2. re Sall.I/ist. i.55; Vell. ii.88; Plut. Sulla3t. 20 Cic.Au. ii. r.3; Quint. xi. r.85.

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T'ACTIONS

cases.It is hardly surprising that different scholars of this way of thinking differ on the composition of the factions,while concurring on their existenceand importance, since individuals or families may be found in thesekinds of associationwith more than one putative group. If the existence and importance of family factions were already certified, these differences might be ascribed to the deficiency of evidence. None the less they show that Prosopographic data in themselvescannot be the basis of an induction that there were any large cohesivegroups of the kind presupposed,still lessthat the entire political 6lite, was divided into a few warring factions.Yet clearly, if a group had but a small membership, its political significance is correspondingly reduced. In the complexity of the various constructions proposed the reader can easily lose sight of the fact that their foundations are all equally insecure.Family alliancesare not reported in the sources;there is no name for them in Latin; the solidarity of kinsmen is probably exaggerated,and so is the durability of political friendships,at any rate if we look to the Ciceronian period; community of views between colleaguesin office and between them and their successorsis admitted to allow numerous exceptions; and in my judgement the nature of political trials is misconceived.The inferences from prosopographicdata which are taken as reliable for the second century are of a kind that would lead to absurdly falseconclusionsfor Cicero's time, when at last they can be checkedby actual testimony to men's behaviour. In the next sectionit will be contended that where we have a little more information than usual for pre-Sullan politics, it suggeststhat political divisions were of much the same kind then as later. Kinship and friendship were admittedly among the factors that influenced men's conduct, notably in 'routine politics', but individual advantage might preponderate, as might concern for sectional interests, which men could sincerely or hypocritically identify with that of the commonwealth; the public good always furnished the reasonsemployed to persuade those with no private commitments, probably the majority, and politicians we.re never obliged to follow a party line instead of making a personaldecisionon each question as it presented itself.

The orator L. Licinius Crassus(cos.95) made an early name for himself by prosecutingthe Gracchan renegadeC. Papirius Carbo, and advocating the foundation of Narbo, a continuation of C. Gracchus' policy of establishing colonies overseas; his speech in its favour detracted from the authority of the senate (Qic. Cluent I4o). It must have been about this time that he married the daughter of Q. Mucius Scaevola (cos.rr7), who in his youth had been a friend of Scipio Aemilianus and probably an opponent of Tiberius Gracchus (see below), but who for all we know may have later backed C. Gracchus; the marriage, however, need have had no political significance.It has been supposedthat Crassuswas also closelyassociatedwith that man's cousin and namesake,who was his colleaguein every officedown to the consulship of 95; but it may be noted that this Scaevola as pontifex maximus obstructedCrassus'claimto a triumph. Crassushimselfhad at latest in 106, when he delivered a famous speechfor the lex Serailia renounced any popular leanings and become a champion of Caepionis, senatorialinterests(Cic. Cluent.r4c , de orat.i. zz5). In 9r he was the 'pro senatus chief supporter of Drusus, who assumed the tribunate auctoritate' (Cic. de orat. i. 24); this means in my judgement that he favoured not only the judiciary bill, to which Drusus was provoked by the condemnation of P. Rutilius Rufus (cos.ro5), who had married his aunt, but his proposalto enfranchisethe Italians (ch. z, App. I). It was Crassus' death in September that perhaps did most to frustrate Drusus' policy. Cicero presentshim as the leading figure in a discussionof oratory supposedto have taken place ten days earlier. The dialogue deoratoreis of coursefictitious, but it seemsunlikely that Cicero would have brought together as interlocutors men, all personally known to himself, who were not then at least on terms of amity, and though this alone did not invariably entail politicial collaboration, amity might hardly have survived sharp dissensionon the issuesDrusus raised,given the bitternessand violence which his programme evoked. The circle portrayed by Cicero is one with common cultural pursuits, and the absenceof Drusus himself, and of his most prestigiousbacker is enough to confirm that it was senatus,2r M. Aemilius Scaurus,princeps not his intention to include all Drusus' principal supporters; but we may still believe that the interlocutors were all among them, and in some instancesthis is certified. BesidesCrassushimself those supposedlypresent were his father-inlaw Scaevola,Q. Lutatius Catulus (cos.toz), M. Antonius (cos.gg), whom Cicero categorically describes as a political ally and close

458

II

Our sourcesafford occasionalglimpses from pre-Sullan times of the political affiliations and divisions of aristocrats, which tend to show that then as later they changed course and that though small coteries were formed they might be transitory.

459

21 Ascon. zr C. f ScaurusencouragedDrusus to proposehisjudiciary bill, but his indictment by Q, Varius indicates that he also backed Italian enfranchisement. But he was very old, and L. Crassus was doubtless the most energetic ofDrusus' supporters.

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personalfriend of Crassus(1. z+), C. Iulius Caesar Strabo (a halfbrother of Catulus), P. Sulpicius Rufus, and C. Aurelius Cotta, a nephewof Rutilius, eventuallyconsulin 75. The last two are stated to have been associatesof Drusus (i. zS), and Cotta fell a victim to Drusus' opponentsunder the Varian law, under which Antonius too was prosecuted.Catulus had indeed married the sister of Q. Servilius Caepio (cos.ro6), whoseson had becomea personalenemy of Drusus as also of Scaurus (Ascon. 22 C.), and one of his chief political antagonists,but this only illustrates the fact that such family connections did not necessarilyentail lasting political collaboration. There are no grounds for supposinglhat the circle of L. Crassuswere opposed by Marius and his friends." Marius' attitude to Drusus' proposalsis not recorded. Both Crassusand Scaurus had once been Marius' enemies)but they were among those who accepted that the public interest required his appointment to command against the Cimbri and Teutones (Cic. deprou. cons. rg). A reconciliation must have ensued:Crassushad given his daughter in marriage to Marius' son. Arguments (which I do not think probative) have been advanced to show that both Catulus and Antonius had been politically allied with Marius. Cicero representsSulpiciusas on friendly terms with him with Marius for reasons (deorat.i.66). In BB he was to form an entente which the dearth of evidenceobscures,and both were to be proscribed after Sulla's clup. But the events of BB and later years cannot be adduced to clarify political alignmentsin 9I. The membersof Crassus' circle themselveswent different ways after his death. As tribune in BB Sulpiciusresistedthe illegal candidature of his old friend CaesarStrabo for the consulship. After forcing his return in 87, Marius was to proscribe his chief opponents (Diod. xxxviii-xxxi". S). They included Catulus and Antonius, and Caesar Strabo, together with P. Crassus (cos.97), a kinsman of Lucius, and Caesar Strabo's brother L. Caesar (cos.9o), although Marius had himselfmarriedJulia, the sisterof the future dictator's father, a secondcousin of the Caesarshe killed. (Cotta too was connectedwith this branch of the Caesars.)These men must have at least acceptedthe ou.tlawry of Marius and of Sulpicius, once the friend of so many of them; Scaevolawas the only senatorto protest (Val. Max. iii. B. 5); and the resthad no doubt taken a prominent part in the resistanceto Cinna. Marius himself had few adherents in BB. Besides his son and Sulpicius, a mere sevenmen were outlawed along with him in BB; of theseonly one is known to have been of praetorian rank, and one other

of noblelineage.23Under the dominanceof Marius, Cinna, and Carbo in 86*8z only seven men held the consulship; besides Marius, C. Norbanus Flaccus was also a parvenu; the illegal iterations of Cinna and Carbo in the consulship may suggestthat they had few devoted partisans of high position to reward. Cicero implies that the Marians and Cinnanswere mostly new men (ll Verr.i. 35), and in addressinga senatorialcourt (.Rosc. Amer.r6. 136-8, etc.) he presentsSulla'scause as that of the nobility. In Bz the younger Marius ordered the massacre of senatorshe could not trust: the victims included a Carbo and the consul of 94 L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (App. i. 88), though another Ahenobarbus was to perish as a Marian at the hands of Pompey (Per. Livy lxxxix). (He is usually taken to be a brother of the optimate consul of 54, but is much more^likely, given the apparent disparity of age, to have been a collateral.za)Thus in the Bosas in the 4os (see below) familieswere divided (cf. n. z3), though it is improbable that so many of the nobility were found on the Marian side as later on Caesar's; Sulla's first proscription list is said to have contained the names of only forty senators, including the four surviving Marian consulars(App.i. 93); most of his victims are for us anonymous,and thereforewere probably not men of birth and rank. All this is not to say that most senatorswere Sullans, except in the sensethat they ultimately fought on his side or approved his victory. In BB they must have condemned Sulpicius' resort to violence and the unprecedented ransfer by popular vote of the eastern command to Marius from a magistrate.But few were probably ready to countenance the military coup, which was Sulla's answer to the pernicious laws carried by force. It is significant that all but one ofhis own seniorofficers would not follow him. The senateitself, perhaps,as Plutarch says(Srzl/a g), terrorized by Marius and Sulpicius,perhapsto avert bloodshedand an evil precedent,more than oncesent embassies beseechinghim to stay his advance (App.i. 57). Plutarch (Sullaro) had read that the senate disliked his proceedingsafter his capture of Rome; if true, this evidently appliesnot to measuresby which he reinforced its authority but to the savagerywith which he took vengeanceon his enemies.It was the people who rejectedhis candidatesfor the consulshipof8T and returned Cinna, who was already known to be on bad terms with him, but Cinna may have enjoyed support not only among the 'many'senators who were to fleefrom Rome and join him in BZ (App.i. 66), but alsofrom thosewho would later deplore his own resort to arms.

460

22 What follows on eventsfrom 9r to 8z involvesmuch disagreementwith Badian, r964, r-33, zo6-34. On M. Antonius cf. p. 376 f. I agree generally with Mcit'r, rq6(j, r'h. vL

46t

23 M. Iunius Brutus and P. Cornelius Cethegus(who joincd Sulla in 83-82; App. i. 6o, 8o with G a b b a ' s n o t e s )t;h e r e l a t i o n o f t h e f o r m e r t o t w o o t h e r M a r i a n s , M . B r u t u s ( t r . p l . B g ) a n d L . Brutus Damasippus, and to the Sullan consul of 77 D. Brutus is unknown. 2a For collateral Ahenobarbi see iRÄC i. 286.

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'domination of Cinna'. Out of The majority surely detested the twelve othär consularsknown to be alive at Rome in 87, Marius and Cinna put sevento death, togetherwith some other notables.2sWe may eäsily imagine the bitterness felt by their numerous kin and friends, but it can only have been lessin degree among the body of senators,who had lost so many of their most respectedleaders. The iteration of consulshipsby Cinna and Carbo showeda grave contempt 'sine iure et for law and custom. Cicero could say that the state was 'honesta causa' dignitate' (Brut. zz7) and that Sulla championed the have concurred probably would Sallust (di ofic.ä. z7), a view in which ( C a t .t r . $ . 'waiting for Sulla'.26There could Not thai from 86 to 83 men were have been no rational expectation that with a mere five legions he could overcome the forces which could be mobilized against him throughout Italy. Probably few fled to his camp in the east. Cicero recalled the despairhis seniorshad felt at the time (Fam.ii' I6. 6). The senatehad indeed not entirely lost its freedomof action. It was still able to attempt mediation between Sulla and his enemies,though impotent to restrain the military preparations which the latter made.27 The forms of the Republic were mostly observed.Some might hope for a gradual mitigation of the evils, or even to bring it about, if they could (Cic.Cat.iii. z5). L. Marcius Philippus (cor.9r) held ;ise to beprincipes 'to seryethe time'; with M. Perperna (cos.gz) he took that it was best office as censor,perhapswith the very object of frustrating the effective enfranchisementof the new citizens,to which Cinna was pledged. To Scaevola (cos.95) participation in civil war was the worst course of all.28 The attitude of neutrals it 49, and of those who, like Cicero, thought it hopelessto protract the strugglewith Caesarafter Pharsalus, or who, would even, like Brutus, accept preferment from him, was no different from that of men who choseto remain at Rome from 86 to 83. But when the intransigencealike of Sulla and his adversariesmade war inevitable, and still more when it came to appear that Sulla had a good chance of victory, senators progressivelyrallied to his cause, 'Marians' felt among them Philippus and perhaps Perperna, and the that they could not rely on neutrals still at Rome, whom they slaughtered.Sulla's new adherentsneed not be despisedas mere timeservers;earlier resistanceto the Marians would have been not only dangerousbut futile and perniciousto the state;war is an intrinsic evil, " App. i.7z-4;it is not certain ifA. Atilius Serranuswas the consul of to6. 25 See also P. V. D. Balsdon'scogent critique of Badian, 1964, zo6 tr , in JRS 1965, z3o ff. J. tt App. i. 77; Per. Livy lxxiii. Note Meier's conjecture (1966, 233 ff.) on the sending of L. Flaccus to Asia. 28 cic. Au. väi. g.6; IM 93.

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and hardly to be justified when there is no probability that the endsfor which it is fought can be achieved. Even Philippus may have eventually opted for Sulla, not just becausehe judged that he would be on the winning side, but also becauseit was the side to which his natural sympathies inclined. similarly the assassinationof caesar allowed Cicero and others to reveal their true sentiments. Sulla,s legislation in BB had already shown that he was likely to uphold the authority of the senate;and expectationsthat he would again follow the same course were ultimately to be fulfilled. His dictatorship was probably acceptedas a temporary necessity.Many who had fought for him surely condemned his cruelty and contempt for processof Iaw.2e but in the end he must have contented them by restoring the old systemwith new safeguardsfor control by the senate. In all these transactions we can sometimesdiscern small political groups, in which kinsmen by no means always stand together and which dissolveand form again, but we can also seethat the majority of the nobility and senate would work, so far as they could, for the preservation of senatorial authority, which Sulpicius, Marius, and Cinna tended to subvert; and which Sulla, however personalwere his aims, was ready to revive. All this seemsto be equally true of the precedingand subsequentgenerations. For the former Cicero names numerous friends of Scipio Aemilianus.3oThose of his youth are said to have included Cato (ros. 195,1, Ti. Gracchus (cos.r 77, ßZ), father of the tribunes, C. Sulpicius Galus (cos.r66), P. Scipio Nasica Corculum (cos.t6z, r55). Among his own contemporariesQ. Metellus (cos. r4g) and Q. Pompeius (cos. r4r) broke away from him and became his jealous detractors; in inferior sources,which I do not believe (p.g6g), they are representedas his personal enemies.C. Laelius (cos. r4o) always appears as his closest intimate. P. Rupilius was his prot6g6. With his colleagueas consul in r32 he persecutedthe humble followers of Ti. Gracchus: Laelius rvasa member of the commissionthey set up for the purpose. Scipio himself had approved of the lynching of Tiberius, the son of his old friend and 2e Cic. Rosc.Amcr. r5o-4, de dom. 49, perhaps reflecting the sentiments ofsenatorial iudicesor pontifccs, though the language in the former speech may well have been strengthened in the published version. Cf. Plut. Sulla 3r; Oros. v. zr. Ifwe believe the anecdotes in Plut. Cdro3 and Brut. g, we may think that the boys Cato and Cassiusventcd opinions which their elders discreetly reservedfor talk in private. See also Syme, Sallust 1964, t24, r77. Only the scholarly sophistry of modern times has made a statesman out of this historical Busiris. 30 Evidence for political affiliations (as well as speculations) for the time of Scipio Aemilianus and Ti. Gracchus is fully given by Astin, csp. ch. vrrr. See also Strasburger, St. zur alhn Gesch. 946 ff. (:Hernzs r966, 6o tr); D. C. Earl. TiberiusGracchusr963 (elaborating an interpretation adumbrated by Syme, i?rt 6o) with my critique in Gnomonr 965, 189 ff , and the riposte to it by Badian, ANRW i. t, 668 fi cf. alsoJ. Briscoe, Jrti rg7+, r2S ff Münzer himself gave a balanced account ofthe Gracchi in.RE, much to be preferred to the later extravagancesofhis school.

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husband of his sister (Plut. Zr. Gr. zt), and his attitude must have produced a personal enmity with Gaius Gracchus, with Tiberius' father-inlaw Appius Claudius (if it had not already arisen from their previous opposition in politics), and with Gaius' father-in-law P. CrassusMucianus. In r z9 Scipio was engagedin thwarting the activity of the Gracchan land commission. It is in that year,just beforehis untimely death, that Cicero places the discussionof political theory between Scipio and a number of his friends which forms the subject of the de republica.BesidesScipio and Laelius he namesas presentM'. Manilius (cos.r49),L. Furius Philus (cos.r36), Sp. Mummius, and someyounger men, Scipio'snephewQ. Aelius Tubero, the two sons-in-lawof Laelius, C. Fannius (cos. rzz) and Q. Mucius Scaevola(ros.tI7), and P. Rutilius Rufus (cos.ro5). The dialogue is certainly fictitious, and no credencecan therefore be given to Cicero's profession that he had learned its purport from Rutilius in his old age (i. I3). It is quite another matter to deny that he would not have eagerly listened to reminiscencesabout Scipio and his contemporaries from Rutilius and also from Scaevola and his wife Laelia (Brut.zr I); if he choseto representRutilius as his informant, it was doubtlessbecauseit was more dramatically appropriate to attribute to him the recollection of a theoretical discussionon matters in which as a Stoic he might have had a peculiar interest. Strasburgerwas surely right in holding that Cicero has inflated the measure of the cultural standards and philosophic understanding attained in Scipio's circle. But we need not follow him in supposing that Cicero simply reconstructeda list of Scipio's friends through the knowledge of his political associatesand kinsmen which he had acquired from historiesor speechesof the time or from Lucilius' satires, and perhaps threw in the names of some who were influenced by Stoicism,on the basisthat Scipio was a patron of the Stoic Panaetius. The political affiliations in r zg of the younger interlocutors of Cicero's dialogue, who were not then of much consequence , could hardly have been ascertainedfrom the sourcessuggested,and it may be noted that Sp. Mummius, an older man but of no more than praetorian status and surely not himself an important political figure, was brother of L. Mummius, with whom Scipio had had differencesin their censorship of r4z, and ofwhom he had spokenwith open contempt (Val' Max. vi. 4. z). Nor is it a convincing contention that Rutilius himself could not have stood close to Scipio, on the ground that the former adopted humane and the latter authoritarian views; both could be reconciled with Stoic ideas, and we are not bound to assumethat two friends shared exactly the same principles (any more than Cicero and Atticus did), or that Rutilius' outlook never changedafter his youth. It is also

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f,allacious to argue that such and such a personcan never have been a lriend of Scipio becauseat some point he dissentedfrom Scipio's policies. Rejection of Cicero's testimony by this kind of criterion is quite unjustified, all the more becausewe can seethat already in this period men altered their political coursesand entered into various and transitory political combinations. Scipio'sattestedfriendscertainly include somewho were related to him or to Laelius by birth or marriage.Cato's son was the husbandof his sisterAemilia; ScipioNasicaCorculum was his distant cousin;both he and the elder Gracchus had married the daughters of Scipio's grandfather by adoption; Tubero was his nephew; and Laelius' two sons-in-lawwere among the other interlocutors in the derepublica. ltis, however, apparent that such private relationships did not guarantee unvarying political accord, and do not imply membership of a group enduring for decades.Cato had been an opponent of Scipio Africanus; so had Gracchus (we are told), but in such a way as not to interfere with personal admiration or prevent him much later from taking Africanus'daughter to wife. Cato and Nasica were locked in prolonged dispute on policy towards Carthage; it seemsprobable that Scipio agreed with Cato, but a difference on this impersonal issueneed not have prejudiced the private amity of the cousins. From genuine or professedreligious scruplesGracchus too had forced Nasica's abdication from his first consulship; and he was on good terms with C. Claudius Pulcher, his colleague as consul and censor, who for the schoolof Scullard belongedto a group adversero that to which Scipio was hereditarily attached.SulpiciusGalus had had many associations with Scipio's natural father L. Aemilius Paullus; there had been a rift in r67, but this neednot have beenpermanent;it is alsoirrelevantthat Scipiowaslater on bad termswith Ser. SulpiciusGalba (cos.r 44), who may not have been at all closelyrelated to Galus. The breach between Scipio and the tribune Tiberius Gracchus despitetheir double family connectionhas already been noted; it may be added that in marrying the daughter of Scipio'santagonistAppius Claudius, Tiberius was renewing or cementing the friendship that had subsistedbetween Appius' father Gaius and his own. In the conflicts generatedby his tribünate other membersof the kinship went different ways. Tubero, though a cousin of Tiberius, was one of the coevalswho renouncedtheir friendshipwith him (Cic. deamic.37);not so another cousin,C. Cato (ibid.39); however,he cannot have remainedproGracchanthroughout his career,sincehe was to be one of the victims of the'Gracchaniiudices'underthe Mamilian law of rog (Cic. Brut. tzB). Though P. Mucius Scaevola(cos.r33) at first gave his assistance to Tiberius, on one account only covertly (Cic. Acad.Prior. ii. r5),

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whereas his brother P. CrassusMucianus (cos' t3 I) was openly a Gracchan,and though in rzg he was a leaderof that'part'of the state adverseto scipio's (seebelow), cicero could supposethat his young cousin Q;rintus remained a member of the scipionic circle; it was in fact imfrssible for him to side both with P. Mucius and his father-inlaw Läeüus. It is true that later Quintus gave one daughter in marriage to L. Crassus,who first appeared as a popularis,and another to M'."Acilius Glabrio, who malt have been tribune in rz3 and an associateof c. Gracchus;we might then supposethat some years after scipio,s death he deviated from the line that scipio's friends might harre e"pected to follow. But we do not know that Crassus,still less Glabrio, were committed to popular policieswhen the marriageswere contracted, and Cicero tepreients Scaevolain his old age as.condemning both the Gracchi (di orat. i. gB). Iaelius' other son-in-law did inäeed turn his coat not once but twice; he earned his consulshipin r zz by Gaius Gracchus' favour, and then took the lead in impeding Gaius' bill to enfranchisethe Latins' Let us turn to Scipio's attested adversaries.In I33 he w_a1absent from Rome, but we know that he was to disapprove of Tiberius Gracchus' actions as tribune. Tiberius' chief and only known backers of high position were Ap. Claudius and Mucianus' the fathers-in-law of himölf^and of Gaius, and more discreetly the consul in office P. Scaevola. Modern scholars sometimes make out that he had the support of a powerful senatorial faction, bent simply on aggrandizing their own po*et, and even go so far as to depict him as a mere mouthpiece, though the sources unanimously see him as the true authoiof his own measures.It is no objection that he was not by age we may recall that Drusus as tribune in 9I and rank one of theprincipes; could be called'almostpatron of the senate'(Cic. Mil. 16), or think of by Cato from the time he was elected tribune the authority possessed for 62. My impressionis ihat the majority of the senatewere from the first unsyÄpathetic to his agrarian scheme,and no 4q"4 their hostility *u, uggru.rated by his s"ubsequentprocedures'3l There is some confirÄätion in the composition of the triumvirate to which the distribution of land under ihe schemewas entrusted. If the schemewas to be implemented,it was vital that the work should be in the hands of those wÄo sincerely wished it success.Tiberius therefore secured the electionin the first place of himself, his young brother, and Appius. His 31 It was probably because of attitudes prevalent in the senate that Laelius had earlier agrarian withdrawn ro-. propo."l which Plutarch (Ti. Gr.8) thought analogous to Gracchus' n
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own place was to be filled by Mucianus; and when the deaths of Appius and Mucianus created other vacancies, no trusty consular was available to succeed them; it was some years before the new commissioners, M. Fulvius Flaccus and C. Papirius Carbo, attained the consulship (in rz5 and rzo); and the latter had by then deserted the Gracchan cause. P. Scaevola himself was either unwilling to take up the task or was thought unreliable; in fact, though he declined to suppress Tiberius by force, he had subsequently condoned the lynching, and was later to express by implication condemnation of the conduct of Gaius Gracchus. It is true that Cicero asserts (de rep. i. 3r) not only that Tiberius' 'people' tribunate and death had cleft the into two parts, but that the senate too was divided between the followers of Scipio on the one hand and of Appius and Mucianus, and thereafter of Scaevola and Q. Metellus on the other. The latter cannot, however, be regarded as leading a Gracchan faction; that does not fit the totality of what we know of Scaevola, and as for Metellus, we are told that he actually opposed both Tiberius, perhaps only late in his tribunate, and Gaius Gracchus (Plut. Ze. Gr. t4; C,ic.Phil. viii. r4). The nature and origin of the cleavage within the senate in r z9 are obscure. In the passagecited Cicero makes Laelius explain it by detraction and envy of Scipio, which he imputes to both Metellus and Scaevola. This explanation was dramatically appropriate to Laelius, and may also have been Cicero's. Anyone who outshone his peers, as Aemilianus or Scipio Africanus did, was bound to incur grave jealousy as well as to win high respect. No doubt there were senatorswho would tend to decry any policies that he championed, just because he was their champion; that would not of course entail that they were united on all other matters. But we must also note that the senate had made no effort to repeal Tiberius' agrarian law. That course may have seemed to the majority too unpopular to be safe or practicable; others may have thought that Tiberius had sought to remedy admitted evils, and that injudicious as his remedy had appeared when proposed, it was now best, given that it had passed into law, to test by experience whether after all it might prove efficacious. Scipio on the other hand was trying to frustrate the activity of the land commissioners. Thus there may have been a genuine disagreement on public policy between Scipio and others who were far from having been adherents of a powerful faction represented by Tiberius. The personal and political relationships of men in that time were patently variable and complex. Another illustration may be given. Both Metellus and Q. Pompeius were former friends and later detractors of Scipio. But they also became mutual enemies, not later

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than r39, when Metellus was a hostilewitnessat a trial of Pompeius (cic. Foit. z3), in which convictionwould have brought ruin. Yet both were taken is legatesto Spain by Scipio'sfriend Furius Philus, who is also said to havJ been an enemy of both (Val. Max' iii. 7. 5; Dio' fr' Bz). This can hardly be acceptedas it stands;Furius could not have supposedthat military operations could be conducted efficiently by thiee men divided by bittär reciprocal hostility. There must have been somesort of reconciliation. Pompeiusas well as Metellus was a critic of Tiberius Gracchusin I33 (Plut. 7i. Gr' r4), and in I3t they were colleaguesas censorsand completed their magisterial tasks,for which agreementbetween the two censorswas required." . Ir will hardly be denied that Gaius Gracchus attained for a time a greater dominance than his brother ever did. Among his associateswe äu., ,,uln. M. Fulvius Flaccus (cos. rz5), some of his tribunician colleagues,and for a short time C. Fannius, who turned against him after ätering on his consulshipin rzz. But in the surviving extract of his speechonthe mysteriouslexAufeia(Gell. xi. ro) he imputed corrupt motives to all the politicians who spokein the rival interestsof the kings of Pontus and Bithynia and to all who maintained a discreet silence. This was an invective on the honestyof the entire senatorialorder, and strongly suggeststhat he felt himself to be a more or lessisolatedfigure. In thät.usä *. must supposethat he owed the strengthof his position to his own eloquenceand capacity and to the support that he acquired 'the worst' citizenswho had outsidethe political 6lite. It was in his view done his brother to death (OFRz, fr. t7), but the senateas a whole had virtually condoned the killing; and it was by its will that Tiberius' followers, not his murderers, had been subjected to legal, or rather illegal, punishment. W. .än.tot tell how far the conflicts betweenleading men in Scipio's day arose from personal hostility or emulation, or from genuine disagreementsof judgement on public affairs. Indeed this can never have been clear except to thosewho could read their minds; whatever their true motives, politicians always had to appeal in public to considerationsof state in e4deavouring to persuadesenatorsor citizens who were not committed to follow them in any direction they choseto go. The evidencedoesnot suggestthat there were many so committed; än the contrary it appearsthat already in this age politicians could not count on the united support of their own kin on every issuenor on the constancyof their friends; not that dissentinevitably involved the 32 Sl,Rii3. M. Lepidus and M. 339. In my view this explains the famous reconciliation of Fulvius Nobilioi after theseold enemieshad been electedcensorsficr r 79; the honour, the greatest in their careers,would have been empty if they had persisted in mutual obstruction. Cbzlra Scullard r79 ff.

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dissolutionof friendship.collaboration on one or two occasionsneed not imply a permanent alliance, and expresstestimony is almost always neededto certify that a man's kin or friends rallied round him, especiallywhen large public issueswere at stake. Nothing suggeststhe existenceof large coalitions durably linked by kinship and friindship. As in the time of L. crassus,it is individuals rather than families *ho appear to count, men who possessed what the Romans called auctoritas, inspiring a respect that reached far beyond those bound to them by personal ties, but which at the same time provoked envy and antagonism among those who sought equal or greater eminence. Outstanding auctoritashardly ever belonged to men who had not risen to the highest officesof state, and in conbequencestill more rarely to those who were not of high lineage. But noble descent and connectionswere the apanageof most consulars,who did not all attain the samedegreeof influence; more was required, distinguishedservices to the state, especially in war, or eloquence, which öf course when exercised in the courts might place numerous individuals under obligations; to a lesserextent juristic expertisehad similar utility. we cannot perceive its sourcesin every individual instance. cicero could say that M. Aemilius Scaurus,consul in r l5 and for long princeps senatus, was able to direct almost the entire world by his nod. Thou[tr of patrician stock, he had raised himself from comparatively humble circumstances by his own ability. He married ä daughier of L. Metellus Delmaticus (cos.r rg), and may thereforehave änjoyed the support of the Metelli, then at their apogee of electoral Juccess,if indeed they were united, but it is clear that he himself and nor any member of that family was the most influential figure of his time. However, the nature of his talents is not clear from the evidence.He lad no great military exploits to his name, he was not a jurist, and though assiduousin the practice of oratory, he apparentiy had no specialgifts or training to excel as a speaker;at best,like M. crassusin cicero's day, he may have extendedthe circle of thoseunder obligation to-him by constant activity and diligence in forensicwork; ultimätely, of course,his mere appearance as a princep.r would assistthe causeof any litigant he aided. cicero createsthe impressionthat men trusted his judgement, whereas Sallust regards hirrr asfactiosus,an intriguer, adept at forming combinations. ---Th9 appellationfits M. Crassusin Cicero'stime; and he too by his libe-rality in making interest-freeloans from his immense wealth, his zeal in_canvassingfor candidates,his forensicactivity, and his ingiatiating flattery had many senatorsbeholdento him. W. -uy alsorecall that mysteriousfigure P. cornelius cethegus,who in the jos attained the authority of a consularwithout holding the office;of ä low moral

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repute, and no more than an adroit pleader,he had (we are told) a thorough knowledge of affairs; nothing could pass in the senate without his approval,and men would secretlyvisit his houseat night to implore his good offices. Sallust too testifiesto Scaurus' great influence and speaksof his faction,yet by his own accountScaurus(for motiveswhich he slights) initially advocatedmilitary action againstJugurtha, when the allegedly venal majority of the senate,apparently including membersof his faction,voted for merelydiplomatic intervention;it was only at a later stagethat he too in Sallust'svieu'was corrupted by a huge bribe; and in the end he could so far distance himself from those who were arraigned for corruption before the courts set up by the Mamilian law that he could himselfbe appointed as one of their three presidents.It may then be doubted if even Scaurus,though the chief figure in the politicalsceneof his day, was at the centreof any large,cohesivegroup. Certainly his faction, like the circles of Scipio and L. Crassus,did not survive him; the memory of his greatnessand the connectionshe had built up were of some service to his late-born son in 54 as candidate @.+1il and when on trial (p.Zl+), but this man was not a figure of The samecan be said of FaustusSu!a; even the the first consequence. dictator could not passinfluenceon to a new generation.33

overseas.T'hey may be termed optimates.Their basic community of 'routine politics', views did not of course exclude differenceson resulting from conflicting private ties and personal interests. On particular questionsof policy they might also hold divergent opinions of the public good, without abandoning their commitment to senatorial control of the state. Some thought it prudent at times to make concessionsto popular discontents.Thus C. Aurelius Cotta as consul in 75 carried a law relieving ex-tribunes of the disqualification for higher offices which Sulla had imposed on them; he thereby incurred the hostility of extremists, who would have preferred to keep the Sullan system intact.3a In 7o his brother, then praetor, met the agitation against the corruption of senatorial iudicesby putting an end to the senatorial monopoly of the criminal courts; whether he acted as an instrument for Pompäy's wishes is quite unclear.3s ln 7Z the consuls thought it necessaryto reinstitute on a small scalethe corn doles which Sulla had abolished, and they were greatly enlarged by Cato as tribune in 62. Optimates had never approved of these distributions per se; the circumstancesin which the law of 73 was passedare not known, except that in 74 there had been riots provoked by scarcity; Cato was surely prompted by the need to prevent a renewedupsurgeof feeling at Rome in favour of Catiline. who was still in arms (cf. Plut. Cato z6]t. It may also be noted that the chief men in the senate could not invariably command the determined support of the whole order. In 67 the tribune Cornelius carried laws which detracted from their influenceand encounteredstrong resistancein the senate;five ofthe Ieading consularsthereafter tried to ruin him by criminal prosecution, but it was only their familiars among the senatorialjurors who voted for his conviction. Here indeed we have evidencethat there were some lesser senatorswho would vote at the bidding of principes,but equally that their number was limited.36The shiftsof opinion in the great debateof 5 December63 on the fate of Catiline's accomplicesillustrate how little the senate was governed by one or two powerful factions: it was susceptibleto the force of argument. Nor was intransigent resolution ever a mark of its behaviour. Cicero had had much difficulty in

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Let us now turn to the better documented post-Sullan age. It will not be my sole purpose in this section to show that political affiliations were often transient and that no formidable factions were organized round either f;amilies or powerful individuals, but also to illustrate from time to time how personal self-interest and political principle as well as ties of obligation to kinsmen and friends influenced men's conduct. Sulla had ultimately restored and strengthened the senate's control over the state. At first the chief men in the senate were those who had fought on his side. Whether or not they had previously been his close political allies, or had disapproved of his methods and resented his temporary autocracy, they must have wished to uphold a system under which they possessedthe greatest influence. The majority of principesin the next generation were surely no less attached to senatorial supremacy, which accorded with their interests but which they might see as a matter of principle. The natural inclination of all would also have been to uphold law and order at home, and the imperial power of Rome 3 3 S c a u r u s : C i c . I - o n t . z 4 , BI rI uo t . r z ; S a l .B J t S . + f . , 2 8 . 4 , 2 9 , 3 0 . 2 , 4 o . 4 . M . ( l r a s s u s : 8 r z l . ' . i c . C l u e n l . 8 4 f . I, ' a r a d . 4 t , R r u l . r 7 t l ; P l u t . 1 - z r . z g g ( c f . z 4 z f . ) ; P l u t . C r . 9 , 7 ( f . n . 5 9 ) . C e t h e g u sC 5 f . F a u s t u s :c h . 8 n . 3 8 ; p . 4 7 4 .

,l

) I

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3a Acc. to Cicero ap. Ascon. 78 C. they became'inimicissimi' to Cotta. Sallust makes him say 'maxumas inimicitias pro re publica of his earfier career: suscepi' (Or. Cottae4). Inimicitiae seld,om resultedlrom merely political dissension(ch. 7 rr); Cotta doubtlesscontracted them earlier in the exceptionallv bitter conflicts of qr-qo. 3s' Brunt.'Cäiraz rg8o, 285 ff. 36 Ascon. 58-62 C. The consularswere Q Metellus Pius (8o), Q. Catulus (28), M. Lucullus (Zl), Q. Hortensius (69), and probably Mamercus Lepidus (77), not Manius Lepidus (66); cf. G. V. Sumner, J,RS I964, 4r ff. Full discussionin M. T. Griffin, JRS 1973, 196 ff.: I do not think it proved that Cornelius' prosecutionwas a disguisedattack on Pompey, his 'putative' patron.

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overcomingreluctanceto take early and strongaction againstCatiline. In the sosthe senatesuccumbedto the argumentof force.'' On the eve and outbreak of the civil war in 49, most senatorshad small sympathy for Caesar,but would have preferred to keep the peace.In this instance it seemsthat the senateallowed itself to be overawed or manipulated by a very small number of determined men, enemies of Caesar or intimates of Pompey, but many more would finally take arms against Caesarin a war they had not wanted (seebelow). Oligarchic control was menac.d by the discontents of sections alienated by Sulla, the Equites, the urban populace, the dispossessed peasants.As early as ZBM. Lepidus made himself the spokesmanof the plebs and attempted a military coup. He and his associateM. Iunius Brutus were defeated in the consulship of the optimates Mamercus Lepidus and D. Iunius Brutus. In Spain the Marian Sertoriushad held out and stirred up a formidable provincial revolt. The bloodshedof the Boshad left the senateshort of military talent (Cic. Font.42f.).It was necessaryto employ the young Pompey to suppressboth Lepidus and Sertorius. But it soon turned out that despite his Sullan past he was bent on securing a primacy in the state which was incompatible with the parity of dignity and influence which the other principesdesired to He could not be denied the consulshipof maintain among themselves. 7o, though strictly ineligible, and in temporary conjunction with his colleagueCrassushe carried a law restoring to the tribunes the plenary rights of which Sulla had deprived them.38This destroyedthe barrier to popular legislation Sulla had devised;the Sullan systemwas now in ruins, all the more becauseclamour or violencein the streets,which the senatelacked military force to put down, could be used to overcome legal obstaclesto further measureswhich the massesdesired. The initial beneficiarywas Pompey. It was by popular demand that he received under the Gabinian law the great command against the pirates in 67, a demand that sprang from the scarcity of food which their depredationscaused,not to speakof the damage they did to the interestsof merchantsand tax-farmers(p. tZz).Caesar is said to have been the only senatorwho spokefor the law (Plut. Pomp.25. ü.,A' veto was overridden by the mob. Pompey's swift successmade him a popular hero. For this reasonalone, Manilius' proposal that he should take over the war against Mithridates was probably irresistible. The most intransigent optimate leaders,Q. Catulus and Q,. Hortensius, 3? However, the tenor of Cic. de prln. clns.implies that some senators could bc moved by arguments that the extensionof Caesar'scommand was in the state'sinterest. On thc pulllication of this speechseep. 47. 38 Per.Livy xcvii; ,Ps.-Ascon.rBg St. As Pompey was chiefly responsiblr,thr.ioint authorship of Crassusis ignored in Cic. dc leg. iii. zz (cf. I Verr. 44): Vell. ii. ro; ltlut. Itomlt.r'.rl t ll n. (ir.

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could not muster united opposition in the senate:lour emrnent consularsadvocated the Manllian law,3e so it was safe for Cicero, anxious though he was not to offend anyone ofinfluence by taking a strong political stand (see below), to follow suit. But it would be moved by imprudent to supposethat its advocateswere not themselves such arguments as he adduced: the public interest demanded that Rome should finish with Mithridates, and there was no one else obviouslyequal to the task (p. tZz). Once the victoriousPompey had returned to Rome, the optimates, led by L. Lucullus, could again try to reduce his authority to the level of that to which otherprincipesmight aspire.They baulked his efforts to secure lands for his veterans and the ratification of his eastern settlement.It was on this accountthat he formed the combinationwith Caesarand Crassuswhich we nickname the first triumvirate. As consul in 59 Caesar did not scruple to carry through the measures that Pompey required, by the strong arms of Pompey's veterans.aoThe legislation of Vatinius too was enacted in defiance of all legal obstructions. Prima facie then Pompey rose to the consulshipby the remarkable serviceshe rendered first to Sulla and then in the 7os to the Sullan regime; but in 70 he adopted a popular role and subverted it; thereafter it was with popular support that he obtained his great commandsin 67 and 66; and it was by turning to Caesar,a consistent and avowedpopularis,and Crassus(n.64), and by resort to violence that he procured his endsin 59. Cicero implies that all three, Pompey included, acceptedthe appellationpopularis.4rThe grant to Caesarof a five-yearcommand with a great army and control of north Italy meant that so long as the triumvirs remained in accord the optimates had no means of meeting force with superior force.a2They even lacked the power to suppressthe gangs with which from 5B Clodius was usually able to dominate the streetsof Rome; Pompeyhimselfthen lost control in the city and was in more danger from thesegangs,when Clodius had broken with him, than from the rancour of the optimates. None the lesssome modern scholarssuggestthat Pompey owed his successto being head of a powerful aristocratic faction. Of this there is no hint in the sources.It is said that in 7o he had had lessinfluencein the senatebut more with the peoplethan Crassus(n. 5g), and that in 67 the senatewas almost united againstthe Gabinian law (Plut. Pomp. 3e Cic. de imp. Cn. Pomp.5r-68; the four consularswere P. Servilius Vatia (79), C. Scribonius C u r i o ( 7 6 ) , C . C a s s i u sL o n g i n u s ( 7 2 ) , a n d C n . L e n t u l u s C l o d i a n u s ( 7 2 ) . ao Plut. Pomp. f., Caes.t4, Cato gz;App. ii. Iof.; Dio xxxviii. 5f. 47 ar Cicero could regard Pompey as popularisin 6o (Att. i. 19. zo. z; cf. Badian. Athen.rg77, 4, 233ff.); for 59 cf. ii. rg. 2, 20. 4. 4 2 C [ C i c . A u . ü . t 6 . : ( w i t h M e i e r , H i s l o r i a 1 9 6 r , 7 9 - 8 4 ) S e ea l s o p . 437.

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z5). We shall seethat in and after 59 there apPearstohave.been no 'triumvirs' or of laige body of senatorscommitted to support of the Pompeyin particular, though both then and earlierindividualswould accommodatethemselvesto political realities,so far as to accept Posts in their gift or to avail themselvesof their electoral backing. The basis of the Äodern theory is a set of prosopographic inferences. It is supposed that Pompey was significantly strengthened by families reiated to him by the bonds of marriage or friendship. Let us first consider connectionsof the former kind.a3 Pompey had taken as his third wife Mucia, the half-sister of Q. Metellüs Celer and Q. Metellus Nepos; both served him as legatesin the 6os, and Nepos as tribune in 6z was ardent on his behalf. But it is unwarranted to speak of an alliance with the Metelli (Syme, RR 3z). Whatever his relationship may have been with his senior colleaguein Spain from 77 to 7I, Q. Metellus Pius, whom he overshadowed,in 67 he affronted Q. Metellus Creticus (cos.69), another distant cousin of Celer and Nepos.Moreover, when Pompey put Mucia away, Celer too turned again;t him, and was one of his strongestadversariesas consul in 6o. La1er. after the death of his next wife Iulia, Caesar'sdaughter, Pompey was to marry the daughter of Q,. Metellus Pius Scipio, and 'the compact with Metelli and Scipiones'(ibid. a3b) Symi writes of but there were no other representativesof either family then of mature years and political consequence. 'the Gruen notes Pompey'sconnectionsby birth and marriage with houseof Sulla', wittrM. Scaurus,son of the consulof t t5, and with tht' Memmii. He had once married Aemilia (his secondwife), the sistero{ Scaurusand the stepsisterof Sulla's only son Faustus,but she had died in Br. Faustus'own sisterwas married to L. Memmius, the father of C. Memmius, praetor in 58; L. Memmius' brother Gaius,who was killed when Pompey's quaestor in 75, was married to Pompey's sister, who bore him C. Memmius, tribune it 54, and who took as her second husband P. Sulla, the man elected to the consulship of 65 and disqualified for ambitus,who was to be a legate of Caesar in- the civil sinceP. Sulla and *ui. Th.'house of Sulla'is a.misleadingexpression, in the Catilinarian implicated family of the members other two probably only were have been) to alleged was (as he too conspiracy distant cousinsof Faustus,and are not known to have co-operatedwith him. Their connectionswith Catiline hardly suggestthat they were partisansof Pompey, and after 65 P' Sulla, though still rich, had in any ävent no political standing. That is no Iesstrue of Faustus,who was too young to reach any office higher than the quaestorship(in S+), and not n3 See e.g. Gruen 1974, 6z f.; Syme, RiQ,ch' Itt.

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much lessof Scaurus,at leastuntil he was praetor in 56; neitherseems any marked ability to offset their youth. Pompey's to have possessed nephewC. Memmius, as tribune, was along with Sulla, his stepfather, associatedin prosecutingGabinius (Cic. qu"fr.iii. 3. z), whom Pompeydespiteevery effort ultimately failed to save.That Memmius' cousinas praetor in 58 had been vocal againstPompey'sally, Caesar; and if any marriage relationshipis to explain this, it must be the union of his own sisterwith C. Curio (cos.76), who along with his son took a leading part in oppositionto the 'triumvirs'.44The praetor of 58 must later have changed front, as both Pompey and Caesar backed his unsuccessfulcandidature for the consulshipof 5g (Att. iv. 16. 6), though Pompeywas unwilling or unable to prevent his condemnation and exile for bribery. Scaurus,one of Memmius'rivals in the competition, sufferedthe samefate. Pompey had left him to govern Syria in 62, but there is no testimony to a subsequentpolitical connection, until Pompey supported him too for the consulship of 53, perhaps insincerely; he was thought to resentScaurus' marriage to his divorced wife Mucia (Ascon. rg C.; Att. iv. 15. 7), and threw him over before the election(fu.fr.iii. B. a). Memmius, Scaurusand P. PlautiusHypsaeus,whose condemnation for bribery in 5z Pompey also refused to avert (n.4g), are the only candidateswhom Pompey is recorded to have commended after Pupius Piso (cos.6r), though he also stood behind Afranius and doubtlessGabinius;it is in fact curioushow rarely we hear of the intervention of principesin any elections. Thus Pompey's kinsmen were not all his consistent collaborators, and (except the Metelli) did not reach the highest office; their support 'faction'. could not much have augmentedthe strengthof his It is also suggested that the four consulars who supported the Manilian law and likewise Cicero, as well as the senators whom Pompey chose as legatesin his various commands, were his political allies. Of the former C. Lentulus Clodianus and L. Gellius had been censorsin his first consulship;but it is a mere conjecture that they were chosenand acted at his will. Both were also among his legatesin the 6os.asSo too was Cn. Lentulus Marcellinus (ros.56), and P. Lentulus 'friend'. Hence an alliancewith Spinther (cos.57) is well attestedas his the Lentuli in general has been tentatively postulated by Syme (.R.R 44).Butin 59 L. Lentulus Niger was an opponent of the triumvirs,a6 44 Cic. Att. ri. 24, Vat. 24,Brut z r 8 f. Hence, after his clashwith the Curios asfriendsof Clodius in 6t (Au. i. r6. r; Schol. Bobb. 85 ff. St.), Cicero was again on good terms with them (Att. ii. Z. S). 43 MRR lists legatesin this period. a 6 C i c . V a t . 2 5 ,A t t . ü . 2 4 . z , i v . 6 . r . L . L e n t u l u s C r u s ( r o s . 4 9 )s h o u l d a l s on o t b e c l a s s e da s a prcvious adherent of Pompey becausehe had servedunder him in the 7os;Caes..BCi. I -4 makes him appcarr;uite indcpendent.

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and so was Marcellinushimselfas consulin 56 (n. 7l). [n fact the family had no political cohesion(p.+S6).Gellius too was adverseto Pompey in 5g.at In fact none of the four consularswho spoke for the Manilian law is known ro have given Pompey any political backing later. In 59 Curio was prominent in opposition (". ++). As for legates,it is far from clear that a governor normally chose them for their political affiliations rather than for their talents or character,or th;t they were subsequentlybound to his allegiance.as We may recall the choicemade by L. Furius Philus (p. +68). In the 6os, however grievous to the optimates was the popular legislation by which Pompey obtained his commands,it was manifestlyin Rome's interests thät her enemies should be subdued; men who took a prominent share in the task could hope to win for themselveshonour and riches,as well as Pompey'sfavour, in the serviceof the state;and if any apprehensionswere entertained of Pompey attempting a military on his staff were best placed to thwart it. Pompey's coup,-aristocrats choice was not then circumscribed by narrow political considerations. We know the namesof twenty of his legatesin this time; they include Gellius, Marcellinus, the two Metelli brothers, all of whom were later to opposehim, and L. Valerius Flaccus,with whom his relations had become so sour in 59 that he was suspectedof engineering Flaccus' (Cic. Flacc. r4); Flaccusnone the lessbecame prosecution for repetundae piso (cos.5B), who as Caesar'sfather-in-law is naturally i.gut. of L. taken to be an ally of Pompey. Of the other legates,L' Manlius Torquatus (cos.65) was at least not among those who.favoured his Egyptian ambitionsin 56 (seebelow), and M. Pupius Piso,whom he cJämended for the consulshipof 6r, did nothing effectualon his behalf when in office,and actually operatedagainsthim (Au. i. 14.6), and thereafter disappearsfrom view. By birth he was one of the Calpurnii Pisones,anothäi family not united politically; L' Piso (cos.58) stood with the triumvirs, but the young Cn. Piso had been Pompey's enemy (Sall. Cal. r9); so was the consul of 67, who was treated with high honour by Pupius (Cic. Att. i. I3. z). Only two of Pompey'sknown legatesmay be classedsafely as his loyal adherents,L. Afranius (cos. a? plut. Cic.26. r. The ,Pompeian'military man N,LPetreius(RR 3r n. 6) was also against him in 59 (Dio xxxviii. 3. z). i8" 'ihree of CiceÄ's four legatesin Cilicia had military experience,his brother Quintus, and C' Pomptinus and M. Anneius (Fara.xiii.57. z), neither of whom are known as his special friends. Acc. to Prj. 53 f., all L. Piso'slegatesin Macedon were ultimately estrangedfrom him. Of z3 who certainly or probably servedas Caesar'slegatesin Gaul, 7 were dead or have disappearedfrom our recordsby 49; ud-itt.dly r z were thereafterhis partisans (L. Caesar (ros.64) and Ser. Galba (pr.54) were perhaps neutral, and Q. Cicero and Labienus followed Pompey), but only two Öu.*iiu.rr, Antony änd the insignificant P. Sulpicius Rufus, belonged to consular houses;the rest had doubtless obtained unexpected riches and status by service with Caesar, and their relationship to him cannot be taken as typical ofthat between legatesand their commander.

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birth, who owed 6o) and A. Gabinius(cos.58), men o[undistinguished everythingto their connectionwith him and could hardly contribute independentinfluenceto enhancehis strength.Those mentionedIater as his intimate adviserswere also not men who counted for much in their own right.ae Cicerowas neveramong theseintimates,and complainsfrom time to 'friend' Pompey.s0 time how little he could understandthe mind of his Until he himself becameconsul, he hardly wielded much authority, whether or not Pompey'spartisan.But there is no testimonyor other good reasonto justify placing him in that category.His advocacyof the Manilian law warrants this for him no more than for the four consulars.He may well have believed that the law was justified by needsof statefor the reasonshe gives(p.r7z). No doubt he choseto just becauseit was make his first appearancein a contioon this occasion, a popular cause,to ingratiate himself with the electorate (de imp. Cn. Petitionissaysthat it had been his aim Pomp. r-3). The Commentariolum to win Pompey's friendship or at least prevent Pompey'sopposition to his advance (5), and that he ought to make it universallyknown that his election to the consulshipwould accord with Pompey's desire and interests(5r);but it containsno evidencethat Pompeyhimselfsignified his approval to anyone, and Cicero's own jocular allusion to Pompey's favour in the summer of 65 can hardly be taken seriously;at the time he was using the good offices of Pompey's enemy C. Piso for his -Ihe admits Commentariolum canvassingin Cisalpine Gaul (Att. i. L z). laudations of Pompey had alienated by his that there were others he (r4), but Cicero had been careful to minimize this risk, and in fact he had not lost Piso'sgoodwill. In advocating the Manilian law, as in ae Pupius: Dio xxxvii.44. presumably means that at Pompey'srequest the senatepostponed 3 the consularelectionsof6z to allow Pupius to stand in person;ifPompey askedfor postponementtill his own return (Pl:ut.Cato3o,Pomp.44),which was probably as late as December,the demand was rejected.Cicero namesas Pompey'sspecialintimates in 56 P. Plautius Hypsaeusand L. Scribonius Libo. Plautius, ofconsular lineage,he would support for the consulshipof5z and then abandon to judicial condemnation (Ascon. 35 C.; Plut. Plmp. SS;Val. Max. i*.S. 3).Libo, of old praetorian family, appearsamong his confidants in 49, along with L. Lucceius,Caesar'sunsuccessfulpartner in the consular electionsof6o, also ofpraetorian family (at best), and the Greekling Theophanes (n. ro7). Note also Pompey's cousin C. Lucilius Hirrus, who with his fellow-tribune M. Coelius Vinicianus would have made Pompey dictator in 53; neither was ofhigh lineage;Lucilius fought lor Pompey, was pardoned by Caesar and perished in the proscriptionsof43; Coelius commanded under Caesar.The famous M. Terentius Varro, presumably ofconsular descent,servedPompey as legate in Spain in the 7os, in the pirate war, and again in Spain in 5o-49, besidesbeing a land commissionerunder Caesar'slaws of59; but he seemsto have been ofno political consequenceand never rose beyond the praetorship held in the 7os. so e.g.Att.i.r3.4,iv.r.7,9.r1 , 5.7,Q!.rt.i.3.9,iii.6(B).4,Fam.i.r.3,z.3.E.S.Gruen,lJP r97r, r ff. (cf. Brunt. Chironrg8o, z5z f.) against Cicero'ssupposedconnection with Pompey in 7o. Comm.Pet. 5, 14, 5r and Att. i. r. z (seeShackleton Bailey ad loc.) do not show that Pompey i u. . S t . A n tt.9 7 6 - 7 , 3 2 9 f f . , i s p r o m o t e d h i s e l e c t i o n a s c o n s u l . F o r t h e y e a r s 6 r - 6 o R . J . R o w l aR nd essentiallyright.

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defendingCornelius,he had beencarefulto speakin honorific termsof the leadiäg optimates,including Pompey'srivals or adversaries.ttO.t the two other occasionsbefore his consulshipwhen he addressedthe people,it was on the optimate side.s2He could claim in 6z that at this time he was not yet deeply involved in politics,sincehe was preoccupied not only by forensicpractice but by his aspirationsfor the highest office (Sulla r I ). This statement,whether or not true' must have been credible;in other words it was plausiblethat a prospectivecandidate, which at leastif a parvenu,would seekto avoid political entanglements man to for a rising way was one This support. might alienate electoral preservehis independence. From 63 onwards Cicero could of course assumethe role of one of This meant for him that he should speakhis own mind on theprincipes. puUiic uffuitr with the chance of being able io affect decisions.s3 Except when the interestsof his client Cornelius had required him to justify the sovereigntyof the people (Ascon. 7t f., 76-8 C.), he had never even in the past detracted from the authority of the senate' though he had on occasion bitterly assailedthe arrogance of a few aristdcrats;s4now he frankly declared his optimate principles, and yearslater he could truly assertthat as consulhe had actedthroughout if he also advocated'concordia 6y the will and adviceof the senate;55 'consensus Italiae', it wason the basisthat the Equitesand ordinum' or the propertied classin Italy would accept the direction of affairs by the_ se.,äte,which on its part should respectthe sentimentsand interestsof 'lt had always been his these elementsin the state (Sest.96-I g7). 'that no one man should have more power than desire',he was to say, the whole commonwealth' (Fam.vii. 3. 5), and for him the senatewas the proper representativeof the commonwealth. Cato would have concurred. It is true that as consul he made out that in opposing Rullus' agrarian bill he was protecting Pompey'sinterests(deleg.agr.ä.24f., 47_ 54,6o-z);but the contentionwas perhapsno lessspeciousthan the öther sophistriesby which he discreditedthe bill; agrarian legislationof any kind he abhorred (Au. ii. S. a)' His resistanceto the tribune Metellus Nepos in 6z was r{ot that of a Pompeian partisan. When 5 r A s c o n . 6 I C . ; C i c . d e i m p .C n . P l m p . 2 0 f . ' z 6 ' 5t-63. s2 Against Crassus'p.oporäl (Plut. Cr. r3; cf. n.63) to annex Egypt (Schol. Bobb. 9I-3.; Cic' de teg. igr. ä. 4t-4), and against the atrempt ro make Faustus Sulla disgorge public moneys allegedly in his possession(Ascon. 73 C.). 5i It was now proper for him 'in senatu sentire libere, populi utilitati magis consulerequam voluntati, nemini iedere, multis obsistere'(Sulla z4). Cf. his complaints of the lossof such digzilas and libertasin Fam. i.8. g (SS) and iv. I4. r (46). 5 a e . g . Q t i n c t . g t , l V e r r . 3 6 ,I I r . I 5 5 , i i i . r 4 5 , v . I z 6 f . , t S o f . , C l u e n tr 5 r . B u t s e e R ' H e i n z e , Vom GeistedesRömertums,r96o (first published in rgog), 87 ff. 55 Phil.ä.rr.Hencehisbanishmentwasanassultonsenatusauctoritas(postred.sez.8,ro,etc.).

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Pompcy'sreturn was imminent, hc offercd to be Laelius to Pompey's Scipio (F-am,v. 7). The termsof the letter suggestto me that they had previously had no close association.After Pompey's arrival their relationswere at first distinctlycool (Att.i. t3, t4.3), and Cicerowas contemptuousin private and soonopenly critical of Pupius,Pompey's prot6g6in the consulship(i. r 3. z, r 6. B). In f;actPupiusproveddisloyal (t+. 6). Ciceroclearlynumberedhimselfamongthe optimates(r3. z f., r6. 6-8, tB. g); he deploredPompey'spopularstance(.t. 4r), despised Afranius, whose election to the consulshipof 6o Pompey procured by 'his bribery (16. rz), and expressedthe highest commendation of friend'MetellusCeler,the other consulof 6o (rB. 3, r9. 4,ä. r. 3); and yet Metellus took a leading part in obstructingFlavius' agrarian bill (Dio xxxvii. 5o), which Pompeywas bent on passing,to provide lands for his veterans (Att. i. rg. 4). Cicero himself proposedamendments which would have made the measurelesseffective,and his claim that he was satisfyingPompey was probably self-deceptive(ibid.). As for Pompey's other main objective, the ratification of his eastern settlement, of which Metellus was also an opponent (Dio xxxviii. 49), Cicero says not a word of it to Atticus, and surely gave Pompey no help. FromJuly 6r Cicerocould supposehimselfto be on the friendliest terms with Pompey, whom the raffish dubbed Cn. Cicero (Au. i. t6. ro, r7. ro), apparentlybecausePompeywas now at last willing to laud Cicero'sachievementsas consuland to lay asidesomethingof his own 'popularislevitas'(i. tg. zo. z,ä. I. 6); by the summerof 6o Cicero 7, hoped to bring Caesartoo over to the good cause (ii. t.6). All this showsthat in his own estimationhe was no partisanof Pompey,but his equal;moreover,their alliancewas to be basedon Pompey'sadherence to Cicero'sconstitutionalprinciples)not on the satisfactionof Pompey's personaldemands.But this allianceexistedonly in Cicero'sdelusions. He was awakened to reality by the pact between the so-called triumvirs. Though not active in opposing their measures,Cicero made his disapproval patent, rejecting all their overtures. He did indeed, probably like many others, preserve the outward forms of personal amity with them, but his unconcealed hostility to their political conduct induced them at leastto connive in his expulsionby Clodius. Clodius, it need hardly be said, was no mere instrument of the 'triumvirs'.56 By legitimating and organizing the collegiahe secureda mastery of the streets at Rome which outlasted his tribunate, and before his year of office had expired in 58 he had come into conflict with Pompey and his prot6gö as consul A. Gabinius, though not with Gabinius' colleagueL. Piso,Caesar'sfather-in-law,nor with Crassus; 56 E. S. Gruen, rg74, 98 ff.; c[ Phoenix196o, rzoff

48o

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FAC'I'IONS

with the at the same time he entered into some sort of rapprochemenl 'fondle' in the hope of him extrerneoptimates,who were ready to Caesar and less, Pompey the undermining Pompey'sposition.sTNone enabled thereby and a plebeian, had assistedhim in his adoption by him to qualify for the tribunate; and it suited their aims that he removedboth Cato and Cicero from the political arena at Rome. Of courseClodiusacted againstCicero from a personalgrudge,but as Cicero justly reiterated,his action in putting the Catilinarians to death had been approved in advanceby the senate'and the senate's authority was impugned when he was exiled for this alleged breach of the right of citizensto due trial on a capital charge (".SS). It is clear that the senate was almost unanimous in protesting against his martyrdom in its cause;it was impotent to savehim in 58 becausethe 'triumvirs', were leaguedwith Clodius, consuls,both supportersof the 'last decree' and there was thus no possibility of the senatepassingthe and callirrg on them to crush the force that Clodius commanded with superior force; moreover, Caesar, still outside Rome, indirectly pronouncedhis condemnationof Cicero'saction in 63 (Dio xxxviii. r7), and neither Pompey nor Crassuswould expressany opposition to Clodius' measures.However, the senatevirtually suspendedall businessuntil he should be restored,5shardly becausehe was personally much loved, but becauseits own authority was at stake. Its wishes could not be answereduntil Pompey had broken with Clodius and was prepared to organize respectable people thoughout Italy to back Cicero'srecall; and this he would do only when Cicero had given some kind of pledge not to assail his ally Caesar, and thereby procured Caesar'sassent (Fam. i. g. g). It can hardly be doubted that his banishment had been effected in the first place with the sanction' 'triumvirs', who viewed him as a potentially howeverreluctant,of the formidable antagonist, but were ready to restore him once they were assuredof his future good behaviour. Thesetransactionsare not merely of interestin so far as they concern 'triumvirs' themselvesconcurred in his Cicero's biography. If the banishment,which almost the entire senatetreated as derogatory to its authority, we have additional proof that they had little support in the senate. whose will was overborne because the consuls of 58, their partisans, refused to carry it out, and because Clodius' gangs and Caesar'sarmy in any event, outmatched any force which the senate could muster (Srsl.35,42). At the sametime the subsequentbreachof Clodius with both Pompey and Gabinius, but not with their associates, showshow uncohesivewas the small faction supporting the triumvirs. 51 Fam. 1. g. ro, fu.fr. ii. 3. 4. The manceuvresare obscure. s8 Brunt, LCM rg1r, zz7 ff. Gelzer, Ciceroch.Ix, gives the evidence fully on his exile'

48r

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senatc as a body had indeed been reduced to a nullity by {brce.Naturally some of its memberswould adjust themselvesto the circumstances.A board of twenty, of whom five were armed with judicial powers,was appointed to administer Caesar'sagrarian laws (MRR, ii. rgr f.). Pompeyand Crassusservedon it; besidesthem only five namesare recorded.They include a singleconsular,M. Messalla, who had when in office (6I) earned Cicero's approval as a man of sound views,but he seemsto have been a cipher. P. Vatinius, tribune ir 59, and one of his colleagues,C. Alfius Flavus, a man of no significance, the consuls of 58, and one or two of Clodius' fellow'triumvirs'; perhaps too tribunes can be treated as partisans of the Caesar's legates in 58, among then Clodius' brother Gaius, and perhaps Ser. Sulpicius Galba; the rest (Labienus included) were of undistinguished families. Thus there is nothing to show that the 'triumviral' faction was at all numerous. Pompey himself brought few adherentsto his cause.It is a petitioprincipii to speak of his aristocratic allies deserting him; there is no proof that in extolling his past achievements,approving the conferment of great commands upon him, or accepting from him commissionsin which they could serve the state and themselves,aristocratshad ever pledged an alliance with him for the future. As for Caesar, he was a declared popularis(Cic. Cat. iv.9); his espousalof popular causes,his eloquence,and his munificence had won him popular acclaim but could only foster suspicionin his own order (".6S). Crassusno doubt had a greater pull over senators (".gg); in 63 so many were under financial obligations to him that charges of his complicity with Catiline were not so much as given a hearing. But one who was neither a firm friend nor an implacableenemy but who readily changedhis attitude at the bidding of self-interestwas unlikely to have inspired devotion in others.seHis wealth and proclivity for intrigue, which may well have made Pompey and Caesarsedulousto conciliatehim, must also have generated mistrust; and I find no evidence that there was a group in the senatewhich consistently,if ever, lollowed his lead. His relationship with Pompey is in itself a striking example of the permutationsin the behaviour of almost all politiciansof the age of w h o m m u c h i s r e c o r d e d . 6Aoc c o r d i n gt o P l u t a r c h( C r . 6 . 4 , 7 . t ) , h e was envious of Pompey from the first. Yet he combined with him in canvassingfor the consulshipof 7o and as his colleaguein restoringthe tribunician power. But then he failed to show the deferencePompey expected;a quarrel ensued,ostensiblyendedby a public reconciliation 5e Sall,Cot.48;Plut.Cr.7;pcrhapsitwaspreciselybecauseofhisquarrelwithPompey(n.6r) that he had more senatorial support. 6 0 l V a r d , r g 7 7 , g i v c s t h c e v i d c n c cf u l l _ vt,h o u g h o f ' t e nt o o s p e c u l a t i v eo n p o l i t i c a l a l i s n m e n t s .

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that proved hollow.6r He did not support either the Gabinian or Manilian bills. He was thought to have promoted the exrraordinary appointment of Cn. Piso to govern Nearer Spain in 65, becausepiso was, like himself,Pompey'senemy.62Throughout pompey's absence from Rome he was engaged in mancuvres, of which this was one specimen,to build up his own influenceto counterbalancethat of the man he sought to rival. In someof theseschemeshe had the support of the young Caesar.63 Both favoured the enfranchisement of the Transpadanäs and the annexationof Egypt, and both appear to have been behind Rullus' agrarian bill in 63; in all casesthe optimates were obstructive. Both also seemto have backed the election of catiline to the consulshipof 63; that gave someplausibility to charges,which there is tro grou.rd fo. accepting, that both were involved in his plot of 63, not to ipeak of a coup allegedly projected in 65, which in my judgement wäs hostile invention. while caesar courageouslyargued against the execution of catiline's accomplices,Crassusabsented himself from the senatorial de.bate,not wishing either to deviate from 'popular' principles or to gke _astand againsthis peers.6aDespitehis Sullan pist he'*., ,ro*, like caesar,taking a popular line. The optimateswerä naturally averse to popular measures,and had no more love for crassus tiran for Pompey.The success of their opposition to crassus'schemesshowshow little real influencehe had in the senate.There is no reasonto think that he had it in mind to furnish himself with the means to confront Pompey in an armed struggle for power. No forces at his disposal 6r sall. Hist.iv.58,6r;Plut. c r . l z , p o m p . z z f f . A p p . i . r z r ( s e e G a b b a a d l o c .i)s , a s o f t e n( e . g . .. i i . g - r 4 1 .c h r o n o l o g i c a l l yc o n l u s e d . S4t Ca!.t7 7' rgiheisnodoubtrightthattheoptimatesconcurredinrheappointmentout ^11 of ill will to Pompey. 63.GeIr.., cau.ai, ch. z,,gives the evidence for what follows. R. seager,Hisroria r964, . 33g f., -igzg, decisivelydiscreditedthe'first catilinarian conspiracy'; his scepticismo"nthe second tiuia z4o ff.) is unwarranted, but the complicity ofCrassus and Caesäralleged by their enemieslacked proof or p-lausibility A coup by catiline would have given pompey-good reason for emulating Sulla, and have been their ruin had they been involved; craisus"would nor have been sä imprudent, and caesar had no cause to embroil himself with pompey. The soürcesfor many transactronsare meagre and biased, esp. on caesar's early career (cf. H. strasburger, caesais E i n h . i t t i n d i e G e s crhg.3 8 : s l . T u r . a l t c n G e s cr B h .r f f . ) . o n s u e t o n i u s ' s l i f e c f , c h . r n . g z ; i h e s t o r y i n 8.is incredible, though caesar's later enfranchisemenrof the Transpadani (Dio xli. 3'0.3; cr. öic. Att- v. z. 3) reflected earlier sympathy with their aspirations;anä r r on Egypt is"a färrago of nonsense,which at besthas a basisin truth ifhe backed crassus'move for urni*ation (n. 5zl. He as well as crassus may be the unnamed personsof cic. de leg. agr. ii.44 who had urged ii in 05, a n d w h o w e r e t h e r e a l b u t c o v e r r a u t h o r s o f R u l l u s ' b i l l , m e n f e a i e d b y - t h e s e n a ti 'e6(,i z. r , i i . r o , zo' 23, 65); the bill too in many respectscorrespondedto caesar's agiarian legislation in 59 eM 3-rz f.). Probably crassus assistedcaesar with his creditors in 6z (plut. caes. rr, cr. 7. 6;-Suet. caes. rB; App. ii. 8). If both also supported catiline's candidature in 64 (Ascon. g3 c.),'thar gavc some colour to hostile calumnies a year later. 6a His absence from the list ofconsulars present in Cic. Au. xii. zr. r idcntifies him as thr, notable professedpopulariswho would not vore on the cabutofa citizt'n (Car. iv. t.\.

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c<>uld havc equalledthe sricngthof Pompey'sveteranarmy, Rather it was a peacelülcontestfor influenceafter Pompey'sreturn that he was preparing lo1 Pompeywas a patron of the Transpaclanes (ch. B n. 44): crassuswould have had superior claims to theii gratitude ir ne häd obtained the citizenshipfor them. The acquisition of Egypt and its wealth would have matchedthe conquestspompey *ut -äking in the east. Rullus' bill would doubtlesshave providäd lands for pJmpey's veteransamong others, but Crassusas commissionerfor allotments would have gained much of the credit. The associationof caesar with crassus in mancuvres by which crassusat leastwas trying to set himselfup againstpompey is at first sight puzzling, since caesar had supporteä the Gabinian änd Manilian bills and was to join Metellus Nepos in 6z in demanding that Pompey be recalled to meet the threat from catiline; he also urged that Pompey, not catulus, should be commissionedto dedicateihe temple of capitoline Jupiter. He was colraboratinewith crassus.vet in o,therways ingratiating himself with pomp.y. Thit was rhe .uri.r, as crassus was characteristicallycareful to work against pompey only by indirect means, abstaining from any acts of-overt enmity. The patron of the Transpadaneshad no legitimate grievance if new benefitswere conferred on his clients. The ännexation of Egypt would not have entrenchedon his functions in the east.He .oulä'not have complained (despitecicero's pretences)if land had been availablefor his soldiersunder Rullus' law; caesar could have contendedthat it would actually suit his interests.The conduct of the young caesar in theseyears is to my mind only an extreme caseof the inäependence to which senatorsaspired,untrammelled by allesianceto u.rv leader or faction. Someancientand somemodern writershave believedthat therewas generalfear that on his return from the eastPompeywould seizepower by arms; it seemsunlikely to me that it was entärtäinedby thosewho knew the man. crassushimselfleft Italy in 6z in pretendeäapprehension,but went to Asia, where Pompeywas alreadyin absolute-ilitury control.6sPresumablyhe hoped to al a deal with him, as in 7o and in 59. But he was disappointed;at that moment pompey was meditating a rapprochement with the optimates, as his abortive overtures for ä 6.f fl"1 Pomp.egCic.Flact.3r; CrassuswasbackinRomeaboutthesametimeaspompeyor earlier (Att. i. t4. r Q, and must have started on his rerurn before he could learn thut pämpey h a d d i s b a n d e d h i s a r m y . F o r a l t e g e d f e a r s o f p o m p e y s e e a r s o V e l l . i i . 4 oA. pz p ; .Milhr.rr6; Dio x x x v i i z o , 4 4 . C i c . F a m . v . 7 . I ( o n w h i c h s e e G r u i n , P h o e n hr ( t 7 o , 2 3 7i L l u l * , i , r . l i . n , , ' s t h a r s ( ) m ( , h e m i g h t u s e h i s m i l i t a r y p o w e r i l l c g a l l y t v c t t h r f i r m o . t i , u t n k " n a g a i n s tt h c thought rribunr. Metellus.Neposin 6z might have furnishcd Pompcy with an ('x( us(' ftrr arrneclintr.rvt'ntiorr, as clid t h a t a . g a i n sttr i b u n e si n 4 o f t r r ( l a c s a r ,a n d s c c n r s( , r s l ) ( ) wt h a ( t h c s c n a t o r i a l c a d c r s had rrorcal apprehensionsol' a coup.

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marriage connectionwith Cato show.66In the event they otrstructcd his desires,abetted by Crassus.It was Caesaras the mutual friend of Pompey and Crassuswho brought them together in 6o-59.67 The insincerityof the latter was patent to Cicero, who remarked that the spectacleof Pompey addressingthe people in July 59 without evoking any signsof their customary affection for him could pleasenone but Crassus(Att. ä. zr. g f.). By 57 he was notoriouslyencouragingClodius in activity hostile to Pompey, who could even suggestthat Crassuswas plotting against his life (@.rt. ii. S. +). At Luca Caesar had to reconcile them again. Crassus had now realized that wealth and intrigue could never make him the equal of his partners; his price was a military command in which he hoped to rival their fame. The ill will of the optimates,of Clodius,and of Crassusbetween58 and 56 gravely weakenedPompey'sposition. Though he receivedwith senatorial assenta new commission, to organize the procurement of grain for Rome in 57, this was to allay popular agitation. How few and insignificant were his personal adherentsis revealed by.the senatorial debatesearly in 56 on the restoration of Ptolemy Auletes to the throne of Egypt; they also illustrate the disunity of the optimates and the entanglementof individuals in conflicting obligationsto friends.6s In 57 the senatehad allotted the task of restoring Ptolemy to P. Lentulus Spinther the consul,who was to be governor of Cilicia and Cyprus. Cicero's letters to him presuppose that Spinther counted himself one of the boni and could be expected to endorse Cicero's optimate ideal of otiumcum dignitate,which Cicero proclaimed in 56 when defending P. Sestius;at the same time he continued to enjoy some sort of personal friendship with both Pompey and Caesar. The king wished the task to be entrustedto Pompey.The optimateswere naturally opposed to his being given a new extraordinary command; 'discovered',and Crassussharedthis antipathy. A Sibyllineoraclewas interpretedto mean that no army might be sent to Egypt. The tribune Gaius Cato gave it publicity; a distant cousin of Marcus, he had assailedthe triumvirs in 59 (fu.rt. i. z. r5), but was now leaguedwith Clodius and covertly incited by Crassus.6eIf the oracle were to be observed,the restoration of Ptolemy would hardly be practicable. It 66 Plut. Pomp. 44, Cato 3o. 6 1 C i c .A u . i i . 3 . 3 c o n f i r m sA p p . i i . 9 ; D i o x x x v i i . 5 4 L ; P l u t . P o m p . 4 7 . 68 Cic. Fa*. i. ,-1, Q t r . , f r .i i . z . 3 , 3 . 2 , 5 . g Q . 5 ) ; D i o x x x i x . r z 6 . 6eSpintherandPompey:Fam.i.r.zf.,z.3,5B.2,7.S,S.S,QJt.-fr.ii.z.3.InFam.i.g.rr-t9 Cicero can assumeSpinther's approval not only of his accord with Pompey and with Caesar (another of Spinther's friends, Caes. BC i. zz), but also of his eulogy of Bibulus and his anti(n.75), and in general of his endorsementof optimate triumviral motion on the agerCampanus principles and of oliummm dignilate(ibid. r o, z r ); nor could Spinther understand his reconciliation w i t h C r a s s u s o r V a t i n i u (si b i d r 9 f . ) . C . C a t o : D i o x x x i x . 1 5 . Z ; 4 . - f r . i i . I . 2 , 3 . S f . , S . S ( + . S ) .

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{gs wasthusadverscto rheambitionsol'spirrtlrcraswr.ltasol't\rrrr1x.y. since spinther had assistcdhardly lcssthan I,,mpr.y irr cfli't'tirrg(li<.er''s recall,thissuitcdclrdius wcll; and c. cato in räctrricd to havt:spinther 'l'he deprivedof his province, optimatestoo mosrlyhad no inclination to gratify spinther. conceivably they resentedhis pcrsonal amity with Pompeyand crassus.Probably they secretlyagreeäwith the old sullan consul P. ServiliusIsauricusthat no attempt at all should be made to rcstorePtolemy;however,it was embarrassinglor them to resilefrom a commitment already accepted(not without bribesfrom the king), and in January 56 Serviliusapparently had no seconder,when the senate consideredfour other proposals,all for Ptolemy'srestoration(Fam.i. t. 322. r f.); (r) by Spinther(advocatedby M. Lucullus,Hortensius,and cicero); (z) by Pompey (supportedby the tribune Rutilius Lupus arrd by Pompey's closefriends, including Volcacius Tullus (cos.66) and Afranius (cos.6o); (g) by three legates,not excludins those already possessed of imperium, asPompeywas (proposedby Craszus);(4) by three legates,excluding holders of imperium.The last course*as favoured bv the consulscn. Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius philippus, by Bibulus,and by all other consularspresent(Fam.i. r T'hoseünown to ). have been still politically active and not abroad at the time were c. scriboniuscurio (26), L.Gellius Publicola (lz), e Me tellus cre ticus (!S), ttl.."1ts Lepidus (66), L. Cotta and L. To.quitus (65), L. Caesar (62), and Marcus Messalla(6r): curio was certiinly inväived, and so perhapswere all the rest. of thesemotionsthat of crassusevidentlyhad no support;and there was also no prospectof a vote in favour of pompey (-Fam. v.68. z). Only two consulars spoke for it, neither a man of any weighi; volcacius, moreover,far from being pompey's faithful adhärent,was to remain neutral ir, 49. Among Pompey'sintimates who urged it on his behalf cicero names only two men of lesserrank, p. plautius Hypsaeusand L. ScriboniusLibo (n.49). It was rheir acrivity thar made men assumethat Pompey covetedthe command; with his usual reticencehe would neither disavow them nor refuseto serve,while advocatingspinther's claimsin public and profcssingconstancyto his friendship.This attitude no doubt made it äasierfor"cicero. who was under obligationsto both, to go on pressingSpinther'scause. But only two other optimate consularsconcurredwitn him. Most together with the consuls agreed with Bibulus. Even Spinther's professecllriends behavedas his ill-wishersand derracrors(Fim. i. 2 f:, 2. l.), notably 7. 7 curio (4. r) and that'oerpetual foe of his own'friends'*h,i -oy rr" identifiedwith L. Domitius Ahenobarbus.To The consulM.r<.ellinus 7 0 S e cS h a c k l c r o n B a i l r y o n h i u n . i . < 1 z.

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proclaimed his readiness to protect Spinther's interests in any other matter (r.z);he did in fact obstruct Cato's bill to deprive Spinther of imperium(fu."f, ii. S(+). z f.; cf. 3. r). As remarked above (p. 456), the Lentuli cannot be shown to have formed a political unit, still less to have been allies of Pompey, of whom Marcellinus was a prominent adversary to the end of his cons,.,lship.7lThe majority of the senate rejected Bibulus' motion. Spinther was entitled to act on the previous decree of the senate, but not to use force. Naturally he did nothing; it was left to Gabinius to bring Ptolemy back, employing his army in Syria in defiance of the oracle. The complexity of alignments revealed in this affair could never have been inferred from prosopographic data, but need not have been unique. It is clear that Pompey did not have the backing of a powerful 'triumviral' accord personal faction. The pact of Luca in 56 renewed and dominance. But it still did not give their'party'sway in the senate. It is quite incredible that two hundred senators attended the confer.n.. ät Luca72 or that the triumvirs could thereafter rely on any considerable body of support in the house. Violence was needed to secure the election of Pompey and Crassus as consuls fo. 55 and the passage of the Trebonian law which gave them great commands in Syria and Spain. Cicero complained that Pompey was the sole master and that senators had lost, if not their freedom of speech, their ability to influence the conduct of affairs, with the result that there was no longer a true commonwealth.T3 But if they were impotent, Pompey was often almost in the same predicament. Violence and corruption Ta reigned. For the first time Cicero himself, who had tried on his restoration from exile to resume his independent role,75 was now reduced by the vague threats of the dynasts to acting on their behest; he who had once beön a leader had becomea mere'attendant' (Au. iv. 6. r).'u It was he who moved some of the unprecedented honours that the senate voted 'triumviral' to Caesar.77 We should not. however. conclude that a party now had a majority in the senate; Caesar's astonishing successes in Gaul had enhanced the laus imperii listed by Cicero among the foundations of that ideal of otium cum dignitatewhich in his view all good men desired; and the eulogy of Caesar which he delivered in his speech 7 2 W a r d , r g 7 7 , 2 6 5n . 1 3 " Qy.-fr. ii. 5. 3; Dio xxxix. z7-3o. 1 1 F a m .i . 8 . z - 4 , A t t . i v . 1 8 . z , ü i . 5. a. fu. fr. 1a e.g. Att. iv. I5. 7. The consulshipfor 53 was not filled for 6 months, for 5z for nearly 3. 15 e.g. Fam. i. g. 7-ro (on section9 see D. L. Stockton, TAPA 196z,47r ff.); cf. his proclamation of optimate principles in defending Sestius. 7 6 F o r h i s l o s s o f l i b e r t y c f . A t t . i v . 5I f8. ., 2 , q t . r t . f i . 8 ( Z ) . : , I 4 ( I 3 ) . 4 , i i i . 4 . r 1 . , 5 . 1.Fam.i. 7. 7 and ro, B. z-4, 9. 17, ii. 5. Cf. his complaint in 59:Att. ii. zI. r. ?? Caes.AG iii. 35, iv. 38 (cf. Cic. Balb.64, deprou.rozs.3B), vii. 9o.

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very probably correspondedto widely li'lt dc provinciisconsularibus patriotic rather than to partisan sentiments,even though the most bitter optimatesremainedhostile.7ENor in adhering to the 'triumvirs' was Cicero joining a cohesiveparty. Lentulus Spinther, himself a friend of Pompey and Caesar,approved of Cicero'samity with them, but could not see that this entailed reconciliationwith Crassusand Vatinius too (Fam. i. g. t9 f.). Cicero continued to inveigh against Pompey's prot6ge Gabinius and Caesar'sfather-in-law L. Piso, so far as he dared; in the end Pompeypressedhim into Gabinius' defence(to no effect) and Cicero lamented that he was not even free to hate.Te Cicero was certainly not the only man of note who decided after Luca not to kick against the pricks, as the coterie of M. Cato still did; otherswere ready to obtain their commendationsfor office,which were still insufficient without massive electoral corruption. That did not make them loyal partisansof Pompey or Caesar.We can perhapsguess their real feelingsfrom Cicero's.He professedthe warmest affection for Caesar.Yet on the imminence or after the outbreak of civil war he was to blame Pompey for raising up Caesar to be a danger to the commonwealth,and when indicting Caesaras 'an insaneand wicked man who had never glimpsedthe very shadowof honour' (Att. vä. tr. r ), he betrays no sorrow that it was one he had loved who so disgraced himself (pp. g6g f.); Pompey too had only turned into 'an admirable citizen' after his 'divine third consulship'in 52, when he had restored order in league with the optimates (vii. r. 2-ü.Vulnerable to the hatred with which the massesrequited his contempt for themsoand to the enmity of Clodius, Cicero had sheltered for prudence under the protection of the dynasts, to his own humiliation; he had forfeited the independenceto which all senatorsaspired.Appius Claudius with his aristocraticlineagewas one who could still retain it. He was at Luca, and in or before5 r married one daughter to Pompey'sson, but another to Pompey'senemy and Cato's associateM. Brutus (n. rog);he could first try to protect Gabinius and then assailhim; he could co-operateas consul in 54 both with L. Domitius Ahenobarbus,one of the most consistentadversariesof the triumvirs, and as censorin 5o with L. Piso; as a final curiosity it may be remarked that when in the interestsof one brother he engineeredthe prosecutionofScaurus,his other brother P. Clodius,with whom he had at timesactedin harmony, appeared(with Ciceroamong others)for the defence(p. ZZ+).The manauvres of such individuals cannot be explained in terms of factional combinations, however short-lived, or obligations to friends and kin, or in this 7 8 C i c . S e s r .g B ,F a m . i . g . z r ( w i t h r 4 - B ) ; c t B r u n t , . I - a z sI n p e r i i r 5 g f f . 1e Fa-. i. 9. r9 f., U. rt. üi.5. 4; Ascon. r f. C. 80 Att. i. 16. r r, ii. 3 . 4 , v i i i . r r n . 7 , P h i ! .v i i . 4 t A s c o n . 3 7 C l .

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instance by any principles at all; the personal advantage of the moment was everything. IV

For the 4osour information on political alignmentsis exceptionally rich, and the detailed thanks to the abundanceof Cicero'scorrespondence and generally reliable narrative of Appian for the eventsthat followed Caesar'sdeath.All the leadingmen pretendedto be acting in the public interest; for example Lepidus claimed that his desertionof the senate's causein 43, though forced on him by his soldiers,wasjustifiable in the name of peaceand concord (Cic. Fam. x. 35); generalscontinued to as late as 4r (App.v. I7).Contemporaries make similar professions assumedthat men would generally be governed by considerationsof common advantage;senätors,Equites,the urban plebs,debtorscould be expectedto adopt the same attitudes (t..93, 95). Though their predictionsweresometimesfalsified,we can seethe strengthof the desire for otiumat almost any costamong the propertied class.Naturally it was easy for them to equate this with the public good. Others, however, would prefer to risk everything for Republican liberty. All kinds of personalhopesand fearswere said to dictate the conduct of particular individuals.Familieswere divided and friendshipssundered;or rather, friendsin different camps could in a fashion preservetheir old relations of private amity or renew them easilyin the intermissionof peace.It is seldom suggestedthat the obligationsof kinship or friendship determined the choicesthat each man had to make for himself, and there is still lessreasonto hold that many consideredthemselvesbound in a merely personalallegianceto Pompey, Caesar,or Caesar'swould-be To show all this it will be appropriate to examine the successors. evidence,especiallyfor alignmentsin 4g, in somewhatgreater detail. Anarchy in the city had reached a crescendoin the riots of 5z ensuing on Clodius' murder. Pompey was the one man who could restoreotium.The senatevoted that he be made soleconsulin 5z on the hotion of Bibulus supportedby his father-in-lawCato (Ascon.g6 C.; Plut. Cato47). Together with L. Domitius, Cato's brother-in-law,and a few othersthey had beenhitherto Pompey'smost resoluteopponents. They were also Caesar's personal enemies.According to Caesar himself, in 49 it was they, along with Pompey, his father-in-law Q. Metellus Pius Scipio, and the consul L. Lentulus Crus, who manceuvredor terrorized the senateinto passingthe decreesthat left him no choice but to resort to arms. In 52 Pompey had married Scipio's daughter Cornelia,and then taken him as colleaguein the consulship. But Corneliahad previouslybeenthe wife of Crassus'son;Scipiois not

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Both leaders appealed to the public good and claimed to be Theseappealscan be termed championsof the free commonwealth.Ea propaganda,but propaganda served no purpose,unlessit was conceivedas affectingpublic opinion, and conciliatingwider support. 'PomLiberty was the ideal that both professedto serve.For the peians'it was tantamount to the authority of the senate,which Caesar of had setat naught first b'7inducing tribunesto preventthe expression its will, and then by open defiance.otCicero certainly believed,as did many others, that Caesarsought despotism.s6In intimate letters he could also assert that there was little to choose between him and Pompey:'eachwishedto reign'; Pompeyaimed at a'Sullanum regnum' (". Bg).Pompeyand his principal alliesmadeno secret of their intention to follow the example of Sulla; fearful proscriptions and confiscations would ensueon their victory, and freedom would be extinguished at leastfor a time.87Yet Sullahimselfhadin the end restoredcontrol to the senate.In the last analysisCicero too presumedthat this would be the resultof a Pompeianvictory.s8We must surelyendorsethisjudgement. Nothing in Pompey'spreviouscareerjustified the apprehensionthat he would seekabsoluterule for himself;in the war he was not fully masterof and in victory he would have had to defer to them; his leading associates, and they weremen eithergenuinelyattached,like Cato, to the authority of the senate,or at leastbent on maintaining and enhancingtheir own personaldignity and influencein the state. As for Caesar,he admitted that he was fighting to preservehis own 'dignity', which might otherwise have been lost by contrivancesof his enemiesto have him condemned in the courts and driven from public life; he avowed that it was dearer to him than life; he saysnothing of the thousands of other lives he sacrificed to it.8e Yet his dignitas 8a Thus Pompey urged Caesar to set the respublica,as he always did (!), before personal considerations:Caesar replied that he was acting in its interest (BC i. 8 L). In general the Pompeians seem to refer more often to the public good; for their propaganda see Plut. Cato 5g; App. ii. 37; lor Caesariann. 9r. At Pharsalusboth sidesappealed to liberty (Dio xli. 56; cf. Caes. aC iii. 9r), which meant different things to different people (ch.6, x tr). 'nihil interesseutrum C. Caesar senatui dicto audiensfuturus non esset 85 Pompey said in 5r an pararet qui senatum decernere non pateretur' (Fam. väi.8. 9). In 49 the Pompeians acted under the cover of senatorial dec.rees(e.g. Alt. x. 8. 8). 86 e.g. ,{tt. vli. . r r r cf. n. 97. 7 7, 3; 8 ' e . g .A l l . v i i i . r 6 , i x . r o . z , 6 , r r . f . , x i . 6 . z ; c f . n . 98. 3 8 8 F o r C i c e r ot h e P o m p e i a nc a u s ei s ' b o n a ' ( A t t . i x . 7 . 3 f . ) , a p p r o v e db y t h e s e n a t e( n . 8 5 ) , o r the'causa bonorum' (vii. 3. 3), even though the'boni' might not deservethe name (Fan. vii. 3. z); the war could be styled Just and necessary'(Att. x. 4.3); Caesar'svictory would destroy the 'nomen Romanum', and Pompey would at least be the better'rex' if he intended to follow Sulla's practices,ofwhich Cicero always disapproved (*. 7. r); still, even Sulla had restored'ius'and 'dignitas' to the state (Brut.227), and Caesar'srule proved far worse than Sulla's (Au. xi. zr.I. See Brunt, cited n. Bz. 'haec omnia facerese dignitatis 8e 8C i. 9. z with Cicero's indignant comment (Att. vä. r r . r ): causa. Ubi est autem dignitas nisi ubi honestas?'.

f AcTtoNr

491

pcaccthat he to dominancc;thc t'otttprttmisc involvedno pretetrsiott continuallyollbrcdwould havemadc hitn thc lirst man in thc statebut not its master.eoAncl he too initially claimed to be champion of a cause,that of the sacredrights of the tribunes,traditionally associated with plebeianfreedom,with the sovereigntyof the people, and that of the liberty of the senate;in his construction of events it had been intimidated by Pompey'ssoldiersinto taking actionswhich justified his march on Rome.el His conduct as dictator, and indeed the contempt he showedfor the veto of a hostiletribune as early as April 49, proved that he really cared nothing lor all this;e2none the less,we cannot be sure that his propagandahad no impact; at Pharsalusa centurion in 'we shall restoreCaesar's his army led the attack with the cry that dignitasand our own freedom' (,BCiii. gr). This propaganda could hardly affectsenators,who had no solicitudefor tribunician or popular powers, and who could have thought that in January 49 Pompey's soldierswere only making it possiblefor the senateto declare its true will. But it must have made a greaterimpressionthat Caesarpersisted even in 48 in offering a compromise peace, which would assure 'quietem Italiae, pacemprovinciarum,salutemimperi' (iii. 57), all the more as his overtureswere made from a position of apparent strength' Moreover, the contrast between his unexpected respect lor life and property and the angry menaces of the Pompeians produced a movement of opinion in his favour. In September 5o Caelius had predicted that if war broke out Pompey would have the backing of senate and iudices,i.e. the grander 'thosewho lived in fear or who Equites,whereasCaesarcould count on had nothing to hope for', and on his incomparablearmy. Respectable people fled en massefrom Rome when they heard that Caesar had occupied Ariminum. They feared that as despot Caesar would carry through a programme of cancellation of debts, redistribution of property, restoration of exiles, and forced levies of money. Cicero marked down as his supporters the urban plebs (which certainly favoured the old popularis),and all'lost souls': thosewho had suffered or expected to suffer judicial or censorial condemnation, those opdoröe,many of whom were doubtless pressedby debt, and thejeunesse But this kind of analysiswas in subjectto fina.riial embairassments.ei part falsified.Even among the upper ordersthere had never been any et BC i. r-7, g, 22.5, 32,85 e2 Dio xli. r5 r7; Caesar shows the uncooperativeattitude ofthe senatein BC i.3z f.; Curio perhaps exaggeratedhis wrath (Att. x. 4. B L); other texts in rVfrRrtii. r59. In 44 Caesar was to display flagrant contempt for the tribunician rights of Flavus and Marullus. e' Fam.viii. 14. Att. v1i. 3, 3 . 5 , i x . 7 . 5 . T h e a t t i t u d e o f t h e u r b a n p l e b s e x p l a i n sw h y t h c consulsof49 could not without troops return to Rome and seizethe contentsofthe treasury (,41l. vii.zr. z). eo So Cicero later recognized (Fam. vi. t. 6)

492

}.A(]'I'I ON S

enthusiasmfor war. In December50 the senateitselfhad voted by 37o to zz for Curio's motion that both Pompeyand Caesarshould give up their provincesand armies,which, if operative,would have peacefully resolvedthe impending conflict.ea Later in the month Cicero found a generaldispositionfor peaceat any price among the gentry immediately south of Rome, including both senatorsand Equites.To this end he himselfwould have concededCaesar'sdemands,though he thought them outrageous.Both sides found it hard to raise recruits. This betokensnot only that the peasantrywere indifferent to the issues,but in the taskof conscripthat the municipal oligarchies,whoseassistance tion was essential(.h. 5, App. I) did little to help. Early in 49 Cicero found them concernedonly for their farms, money-bags,and little country houses.es Caesar'sostentatiousclemencyallayedapprehensions that he would proscribehis opponents;for debtorshe did nothing until the end of 49, and then relievedonly property owners temporarily short of cash.e6 Curio and Caeliusindeedwarned Ciceronot to count on his persisting in this moderation; his conduct at Rome cast some doubt on his sincerity(Att. x.9n; cf. n.9r); and Cicerowas still convincedthat he would showhimselfa tyrant, or rather that he was alreadybehavingas one, and fearful that in the end he would resort to massacresand confiscations.eT Still, the dangerof a Pompeianvictory was much more evidentto all who had not taken the Pompeianside.From the moment of his departure from Rome, Pompey. had threatened to treat as traitors all who did not rally to what he saw as the cause of the commonwealth.esThese menaceswere continually reiterated in the Pompeian camp (n. B7). Thus neutrals as well as Caesarianswere threatened in their lives and property. Moreover, the Pompeian evacuationof Italy meant that they could win only by blockadingthe peninsulawith their command of the sea and provincial sourcesof food, or by fighting their way back. Though for Cicero the victory of either party would entail universalruin, it was pretty clear that Italy n o A p p . ü . z 7 - g r ; P l u t . P o m p . 5 8 .I t i s c l e a r t h a t t h e s e n a t ew o u l d h a v e p r e f e r r e dt h a t C a e s a r alone should disarm. es Conscription unpopular: e.g. Att.Nii. r3. z, ix. r9. l. Note ix. ze. z; Cicero claims foresight 'de municipiorum imbecillitate, de dilectibus'; cf. ch. 5, App. r on the role of municipiain the levy. Desire for peace:vii. 5.4,7. 5, viii. 13. z, 16 (note that the iudicesrtrned against Pompey). e6 Clementia: Weinstock, rg7r,2g3, gives all the evidence. Cicero doubted in 49 if Caesar's clemencywas sincereor would last (n. 97);it persisted,but the implication that he had the moral and legal right as well as the actual power to punish or pardon adversarieswas unacceptableto those who regarded his actions as treasonable.Debts: M. W. Frederiksen,JiRS t966, lzB ff.; for agitations after 49, MRR ä. 273, 286f. e 1 e . g .A t t . v i i i . 1 6 . e , x . r . 3 , 4 . z a n d 8 , 8 . z . C o n t r a s tA t t i c u s ' h o p e si n i x . r o . 9 . e8 Caes.BC i. 33. r; Dio xli. 6. Caesar'sletter in Att. ix. 7c was no doubt typical of his very different professions,first confirmed at Corfinium; he remained ready to treat all who were not a g a i n s th i m a s f o r h i m ( C i c . L i g . 3 3 ) ; f o r t h e e f f e c to n o p i n i o n s e ee . g . , 4 r r .v i i i . r 6 , i x . r 5 . 3 .

HAC'nONS

493

would suffer lessil'Caesar won.eeThe effect of this considerationon public opinion must have been very marked. The refugeesofJanuary 49 were soon flocking back to Rome, and Caesarwas {ätedin the towns which had recentlydemonstratedtheir affectionfor Pompey.looIn 48 Caelius, whose personal hopes in adopting Caesar'scausehad proved delusive, complained that he had no backing except from the few money-lenders(Fam.viii. r7. z). Agitation continuedfor relief of debt in 48 and 47 6.96). Caesarultimately had to assuagethe distressby new remedjes,later denouncedby Cicero as breachesof property rights (deffic. ii. 83f.). In particular he remitted houserents in Rome and Italy; the demand for this relief must have come not from the indigent but from middle-classpeople, principally perhaps from fairly prosperand artisans.lol ous shopkeepers No doubt Caelius exaggerated, but just as there had been no upsurge of sentiment in favour of the Pompeians,so there was none on Caesar'sbehalf (n. gS); at most men were unwilling to resista general 'who had deserved well of the commonwealth by his magnificent achievements'in Gaul (Caes.BC i. ry). His own military geniusand 'incomparable army' were to decide the war. In the end according to Dio (xli. 43), two hundred senatorswere found in Pompey's base at Thessalonica.This was only a third of the whole body, and to judge from the voting on Curio's motion and Cicero's testimony to the strength of pacific sentiment, most of them probably joined Pompey with as much hesitation and reluctance as Cicero himself. The conduct of the Marcelli is significant. Marcus, the consul of 5 r, had sought when in office to force the issuewith Caesar when others, Pompey among them, were still opposedto a breach; yet itr 49 he, unlike his brother Gaius, the consul of 49, favoured temporizing.l02His cousinGaius, the consulof 5o, remainedneutral. He had married Caesar'sgrandniece, but this connection can hardly explain his attitude, for it was he in December 5o who had on his own responsibility given Pompey a mandate to mobilize for war; Cicero ascribesit to sheercowardice. (A younger member of the same family served Caesarin Spain, perhaps with dubious loyalty.)103We *ay suspectthat most of the Pompeiansfelt that once armed conflict had begun they had no choice but to join Pompey, if senatorial supremacy were to be preserved.They included twelve consulars,whereasCaesar had the active aid of only three or four, and two of these,Gabinius and ee e.g.Att. viii. r r. z and 4, 16, ix. 4. z, 7. 4, g. 2, ro. z f., x. 8. 4. too e.g.Att. viii. 16,ix. r. 2,5. g, rg. 4. tol Frie., r98o, esp. ch. rr. to2 Caes. BC i. z. z, Cic. Fam. iv. 7. z. 103 C. Marcellus: App. ii. 3r etc. (cf. Hirt. BG viii. 55 for an earlier move against Caesar),Att. x . 1 5 . 2 . O n M . M a r c e l l u s ( q 2 . 4 9 , p e r h a p sc o s .z z ) , s e e M R R ü . 2 7 4 .

494

f Ac'rloNs

M. Messalla(cos.53),were among the ruined men whom he recalled from exile.Cicerolater conveysthe impressionthat in the lower ranks of the senatetoo there was more distinctionamong the Pompeians.ro4 ShackletonBailey has listed all the individuals known to have been Pompeian, Caesarian,or neutral.los It must be observedthat the senatorswho appearedat Rome in April 49 in responsetc Caesar's wishes were not disposed to co-operate with him and provoked his anger (sowe are told); many of the neutralswere willing to wound but afraid to strike (".g2). Among them were consulars,but thesewere men mostly inconspicuousin politics, or elderly; they included probably three connectedby marriagewith Caesar,l06and L. Paullus (cos. 5o), whose goodwill he was reputed to have purchased, and whose brother M. Lepidus, the future triumvir, was one of his partisans;both were sonsof that Lepiduswhom Pompeyhad helpedto suppressin 77. ShackletonBailey makes out that there were actually more nobles,by which he means men of consular lineage,in Caesar'scamp than in Pompey's,but by his own criterion he has wrongly classifiedsome of the Caesariansas nobles;his list also includessomerestoredexiles,and somewho are named only becausethey held postsin Caesar'sgift after Thapsus,when he was already employing ex-Pompeians;in general they tend to be younger men, and thus illustrate Cicero's remarks on thejeunesse doröe(n.93). Of Caesar'sr3 nomineesto the consulship (from 48 to 4z inclusive) only six were of consular families, and this disproportion by Republican standards persistedthroughout the triumviral period. It is therefore reasonable to hold that the greatest families on the whole were opposed to Caesar and his political heirs. Real or reputed sectional sentimentsand interestswere recognized by contemporariesas factors in the great division that the civil war revealedor effected,but not factions bound together by ties of kinship or friendship or allegiance to the two chieß. Most Pompeians were Pompeian perforce;on Caesar'sadherentssomethingwill be said later. We need not doubt, however, that the war was brought on by the resolutionof a small minority in the senate, no doubt mostly the same twenty-two who had voted against Curio's motion. Caesar himself rot Phil. ü. 37 f., 5z-4,xiii. z8 3o. Tie oth., Caesarianconsulswere Cn. Domitius Calvinus and, perhaps,L. Caesar,who had been legateofhis (remote) cousinin Gaul since 5z (8G vii. 65. t , ,BCi. 8) and was to be praeifectus urbi in 47 (Dio xlii. 3o), but may have remained neutral in the interim. His son was a Pompeian to the last (MRR ü. zg7). He himself had voted in 63 for the executionofhis brother-in-law P. Lentulus Sura, and took some part in resistingAntony, the son of his sister (n. reo), who with difficulty begged him offin the proscriptions (.REx. 468 tr). ros CQr96o,z53ff.,whichdocumentsmuchthatfollows.Bruhns,rgTS,ch.rr,differshereand there, notably in regarding Ser. Sulpicius (cos.5r) as neutral, not Pompeian. 1 0 6L . A u r e l i u s C o t t a ( r o s . 6 5 ) , a k i n s m e n o f h i s m o t h e r , L . C a l p u r n i u s P i s o ( 5 8 ) , h i s f a t h e r - i n law, and L. Marcius Philippus (56), his niece's husband and Octavian's stepfather, who had given his daughter in marriage to Cato.

l'AC'l'loNs

495

ascribesthe fatal decreesto the combination of Pompey with his personalfoesand others who hoped to enrich and aggrandizethemselvesby victory. Cicero providessomeconfirmationthat all but a few of the leaders (he exceptsPompey himself) were governed by personal ambition and rapacity or by their previousenmity with Caesar(n. Br ). But this combination is itself typical of the only kind of faction which the sourcesever attest, a temporary coalition called into being by a particular conjuncture. It would clearly be absurd to describeCato and his circle as Pompeians in any sensesave that of associatesof Pompey in the civil war. The leading 'Pompeians' were a parcel of aristocrats,each with his own purposes.Caesardepicts them on the very eve of Pharsalusdisputing over the honours and rewards to follow the victory on which they counted (.BCiii. B3). None counted among Pompey's confidants: they were the praetorians L. Lucceius and L. Scribonius Libo, and the Greekling Theophanesof Mitylene.loT Cato's circle merits further examination. Syme has constructed a genealogical stemma to illustrate his aristocratic connections, and insinuates that they may afford an explanation of his political influence.lo8The stemma certainly showsthat he was related by birth or marriage to many of the other leading optimates of his and the preceding and succeedinggenerations.It may, however, be surmised that a similar stemma of almost any leading aristocrat of the time would exhibit similar relationships. The special authority that Cato enjoyed, without ever rising to the highest office, was surely the product of his unique combination of noble lineage,talent, industry, and high-minded resolution.Moreover, if the stemma were somewhat enlarged, it would contain the namesof his distant cousin C. Cato, the seditioustribune of 56 (n.69), and L. Marcius Philippus (cos.56),the father of his secondwife, who was a neutral in 49 and was stepfatherof Caesar'sgrandnephewand heir, the future emperor Augustus. As it is, it includes the three daughters of Cato's half-sister Servilia, who married respectively the Caesarians, Lepidus and P. Servilius Isauricus (cos. 4B), and the Pompeian, C. Cassius.Servilius, son of the Sullan consul of 79, had long been a political associateof his uncle, yet in 49 he joined Caesarfor reasonsof which we know nothing. After Caesar'sdeath he was to take somepart in the resistanceto Antony, but made his peacein 43, and enjoyed a secondconsulshipin 4I. The son of the orator Hortensius also appears in the stemma; he fought for Caesar,though he was to perish with the Liberators at Philippi. Servilia'sson M. Brutus who had come under Cato's influence, took the side of Pompey, although he had previously to1 Att. i*. r. 3 , r r . 3 ; C a c s .8 C i i i . I 8 .

to8 RR zgf

496

F'ACTIoNS

not been on speakingterms with the man who in 77 had put his own father to deaih.loe In the light of all that we know of Brutus his attitude must surely be explained on the basis that he shared Cato's principles, not that he was simply moved by consideration.ofkinship. l{eithär family ties nor past political affiliations necessarilydecided men's choiceitt 49. to obey the Cicero was to say that Q, Aelius Tubero had felt bound'stock, name, senateand take arms agalnst Caesar,as befitted a man of family, and upbringing' (Zrg.2r,28). With this in mind we may allow that family cönnectionsor traditions could affect individual decisions' But Shackleton Bailey's lists show that some families, not to speak of gentesand cognates,were divided. The Marcelli afford one instance His rather ip.+gS). ThJkindred of Caesarhimself were not united. äirti"i cousin L. Iulius Caesar (cos.64) may have sided with him rather than taken a neutral stance;but that man's son Lucius fought against him ri outrance.rroCicero thought that his brother Quintus, *ho as Caesar'sformer legate might incur Caesar'sspecialresentment if he joined Pompey, was not under any obligation to make the same choice as himself (Au. ix.6. 4). As for friendship, that between caesar and Pompey had been among the most lasting known in the period; and there must have been many, like Cicero and Lentulus Spinther (n. 69), who had been friends of both the rivals, and who had other frienäsin the opposingcamp (e.g.Caes..BCiii. 57. r). It should be no surprisethat men's decisionswere not always predictable from the part they had previously taken in public affairs. Servilius is one case; another is Cn. Domitius Calvinus, active against the triumvirs as tribune ir 59, consul it 53, although Caesar had backed his competitors, but now the commander of one of Caesar'sarmies, and later to earn a second consulship from the favour of Octavian and Antony. Equally men could deviate from the attitudes of their fathers. D. Brutus was consul in 77 and adverseto the popular movement led by Lepidus and the father of Caesar'sassassinM. Brutus (with whom his relätionship by birth may have been remote), but his son, Decimus, though pröminent later in the conspiracy against Caesar,was at this time one of his legates. In general it iJ almost impossible to be sure why any individual opted fiorone sideor the other or for neither. Both at the time and later ii..to accounted for his own behaviour in different ways, even when roe Plut. ßrut. he was to 4; c[. also ibid. e on his closeassociationwith Cato, whose daughter marry in 45. -Sr.88 rr; g. f.; Suet Caes.75.3; cf. Cic. Fam. ix. 7. t. Ct. n. Io5. Families.divided: Aurelii Cottae, CÄsii Longini, Cornelii Sullae, Iunii Bruti, Pompeii Bithynici, Sulpicii Rufi, Terentii ,families' (i.e. bearers of the same nomina and cognomina)appear united because Varrones. Many they have only one or two known rePresentatives.

1 ' A( : ' r | ( ) N S

497

he was not trying todeceiveanyonebut himself.In my judgemt:nthe finally choseto follow Pompey in the belief that this was his duty to the commonwealth.But he made many statementswhich contradict this, some deliberately one-sidedif not f,alse,others occasionedby the tumult of his emotions at the time. We cannot rely on any single expressionof his opinions, still less then on what others said in exöulpation of their own conduct' or- on what was propounded in their defenceor in criticism of them.rrr But all these apologiasor imputations had to allege motives of a kind which everyone knew might have been determinant. On both sides there were some who hoped to aggrandize themselvesor obtain riches or at least shake off the burden-of debt fior their share in victory; they had to try to pick the winner. Caelius,an optimate tribune in 52, intimated to Cicero in advance that he thought it prudent in the event of war to disregard principle and attach himself to Caesar as the likely victor (Fam. väi. i+.g); later, when disenchantedwith Caesar,he would claim that he had yielded to the solicitationsof his friend Curio (ibid. t7. I). It was, according to the ancient sources,for a bribe that Curio himself had gon. o,u.-,from the optimatesto Caesarin 5I.112 q,' Ligarius, whose brothers and connections were in Italy and at least did not oppose Caesar, professedthat he had taken the other side only becausehe was in Africa, where the Pompeianswere in control (Lig. + f., zo); he T. Antistius' quaestorin Macewas to be one of Caesar'sassassins. don, found himself, according to Cicero, under a similar necessity' though he would otherwise have been guided by the Caesarian C' AteiJs Capito, whom he loved as his father (Fam. xäi.29.3f.). Matius, an Eques, was later to declare that he had disapprovedof Caesar'scause,yet had followed him as a friend (ibid. xi. zB. z): Pollio, that he had joined Caesar only becausehe feared that in the camp of Pompey his safety would be in jeopardy from the intrigues of his enemiesthere (ibid. x. 3I. 2 f.). Cicero accusedC. Marcellus and Ser. Sulpicius of timidity: they might have retorted the same charge on him; and Sulpicius perhaps-eventually adhered to Pompey, though his son was a Caesarian.rr3When Cicero heard of Labienus' desertion of Caesar (which Dio perhaps had some ground for ascribing to a personal quarrel), he assumedthat Labienus judged that Caesar'smarch on Rome was a crime and that he was actuated by the public good; Syme'snotion that Labienuswas bound to Pompey t I I Brunt, cited n. 8c. r r 2 T h e e v i d e n c ei s b i a s e db u t c a n n o t b t ' r c f u t c d , d c s p i t cW . K . L a c e y , H i s t o r i ar g 6 t , 9 t 8 f f . 113 St:rviusjoined Pompcy, according to Shackleton Bailey, remained neutral according to BruIns (n. roq). I lavour the lirrmcr vicw. In .1(i 4', he st:rvedCacsar as a proconsul, but so did t o t h c ( ) i r c s a r i a tIr) . S u l p i c i u sR u f u si s u t r k n o w na n d t h c c x - l , o n r y x . i aM n . B r u t u s .H i s r c l a t i o r r s l r i p p r o l r a l r l yr c t t t o t t .

498

FAcrloNS

by an old allegiance,to which he was returning, simply did not occur to him, and häs little plausibility.rra obviously, even if we accept any or all of the explanations for the behaviour of " f.rgyindividuals in the crisis,given by themselvesor by others, we cannot generalizefrom them. They reveal only a medley of often incongruousmotives:considerationof the public good and of the senate'sautlority, private friendship or hostility not only to-the leaders but to members oi their entourage, greed, venality, ambition, and pusillanimity. From such evidence we can draw no valid conclusions äbo.rt the atiitude of senatorsin general,let alone thoseoflower station' But contemporariesalways presupposedthat each man made his own decision:thiy do not hint that anyone was morally bound to a group. In so far as they were guided by public principles, it is natural to assumethat senatorsin glneral weie attached to the supremacy of their own order and heldlt to be essentialto the good government of the state. Before49 few would have sincerelyespousedpopular ideas, and still fewer, one might guess, have credited Caesar's professed fidelity to them. On the bther hand those who took his side need not harreäcceptedthe chargesof his adversariesthat he was already bent on seizingabsolutepo*ät; this was a design that he did not adrnit, and consideringhis readinessfor a compromisepeace,did not yet.harbour. There is no reason to think that there were any Caesarians who actually desired the establishment of a monarchy. Of those who believeä that the victor would in any event make himself at least temporarily dominant, somemight for personalreasonsprefer Caesar's dominance to Pompey's;others might regard his victory as certain or probable, and for ihut .e.ton chooseto back the winner. Ambition, greed, or fear no doubt induced many to join either side. Many more, äisapproving of both alike, preferred neutrality as the most prudent .o.rirä. They probably composedthe majority of the sexatewhich met on Caesar,ssumrnons'ine,piil 49, though somestill in Italy kept aloof. Even those who attended-showed that they had no sympathy with Caesar,and simply desired Peace. The intransigince of Caesar'senemiescompelledhim to defeat them in the field before he could attempt any settlementof the state. It was then virtually inevitable for him at first to reserveto himself, as Sulla had done, the direction of affairs. But he progressivelyshowed that, unlike Sulla, he was now unwilling to lay down the absolutepower r r a A t t . v ä . r 2 . 5 , 1 3 . r , F a m . x i v .z , x v i . r z . 4 . D i o x l i . 4 h a d r e a d t h a t h c . h . a d a p c r s t x t a l grudge against Caär.-Unless there had been such a personal quarrel, he could.havc cxlx'('tcd öu.rä, to"bu.k him for the consulship.Caesar had already enriched hirn (,411.vü. 7.6) Conha onc(' syme, RomanPapers,ch. 7, his tieswith caesar must have becomecloserthan any which lnay ties by such been decided have must that men convinced is so Syme Pompey. him to h"t. bo,,,r,d (lacsar. t h a t h e d o e sn o t e v e n . o . . l d " . C i c e r o ' si n s t i n c t i v cc x p l a n a t i o no f h i s d c s e r t i n g

l'A(:'rloNs

499

which the courseof eventshad given him. He fulfilled to this extent the predictionsthat his enemieshad made at the outset.The senateloaded him with honours,but he must have realizedthat this was lip-service. He could not count on the genuinegoodwill of the Pompeianshe had pardoned,nor of the former neutrals;and he would alienatesomeof his own partisansby his autocratic position and conduct. He did not even exert himself to affect a readinessto seakthe co-operation of the senate, which, having lost most of its natural leaders, was perhaps less competent than usually to make a usefulcontribution to the tasksof government. All power was concentrated in his hands. He appointed the army commandersand provincial governors.He nominated men to administer Rome itself. He controlled the public funds. His much advertised clemencydid not concealthe truth that it lay with him aloneto pardon his former adversariesor to leave them to rot in banishment. The assemblieswere still summoned to elect magistrates,but in 44 he was empowered to name half of them, and in fact no one could be chosen without his approval. The senatewas packed with men he selected.He still legislated through the people and consulted the senate (Dio xliii. z7), but Cicero found that he was registeredas a draftsman of decrees at which he had not been present (Fam.,il. tS.+). passedat sessions Constitutionalforms were sometimesneglectedaltogether."' 'reipublicae nox' For a time indeed hopes could linger that this (Brut. 33o) would clear. In 46 Cicero could still conceive that Caesar himself perhaps wished for the restoration of the Republic but was circumscribedby temporary difficulties(Fam.ix. 17. 2).In his speech for Marcellus he exhortedhim to undertake the task (26tr). Writing to ServiusSulpicius,who sharedhis own view (cf. Fam.iv.5. 3), he says that Caesar'sreadinessto respond to the senate'sintercessionfor rei p.' (i".+.g). Marcellusgivesa faint'speciemquasi reviviscentis More significantly, he could expessthe hope that Caesar desired 'ut habeamusaliquam rem p.' to ServiliusIsauricus(xiii. 68. z); even one of Caesar's partisans could be expected to feel no content in the existing state of affairs. But disappointment followed. Caesar'sappetite for power grew with its exercise;and it becameevident that he would never surrender autocratic control, at latest in 44 when he acceptedthe dictatorship for life.116It then proved that he had no party loyally prepared to sustain him. t"" l < was also disregarded. e.g. Fam. vii. 3o. l-he lex annali.s I t 6 As he was already dictator for ten years, i.e. till 36, and could have had the term renewed on expiration, in the rather unlikely event of his living so long, the dictatorship ficr life did not enhance his power but merely symbolized his intention of never surrendering it; hence it was p l a u s i b l et o i m p u t e t o h i m t h e s a y i n g s ' n i h i le s s er e m p u b l i c a m ;a p p c l l a t i o n e m m o d o s i n ec o r p o r e a c s p t ' < i t 'S ; u l l a m n c s < ' i s sl ict t c r a s ,q u i d i c t a t u r a m d e p o s u e r i t '( S u c t .( z r r . 7 7 ) . ' l i r R c p u b l i c a n si t

5oo

FACTIONS

The assassinsor Liberators included Pompeians whom he had pardoned and promoted, such as M. Brutus and C. Cassius,but also former adherents,notably C. Trebonius, whom he had made consul in 45, and D. Brutus, who was designated for 4z and was a special favourite.1l7 Thus men who had followed him in the civil war and who were high in his favour could not endure the loss of independence. They were to find support later among other Caesarians,who had been advancedto postsof government in the provinces;throughout the east his nomineeseither joined Brutus and Cassiusor failed to resist them.118On the morrow of his assassination the senate,filled as it was with men he had enrolled, promptly indemnified the authors of the deed and prohibited the creation of any future dictatorship. Whatever their private feelings,the other chief Caesariansfound it expedient to accept thesemeasures. Antony, Dolabella, and Lepidus, unlike Octavian and Caesar's Gallic veterans, appear to have had no rancorous desire to avenge Caesar'sdeath. Each no doubt hoped to avail himself of the confusion to establisha strong personal position in the state, Antony perhaps to succeedto his dominance. However half-heartedly, the senatewith the CaesarianconsulsPansaand Hirtius at its head sought to prevent this in unisonwith the 'Liberators'as well as with Octavian. The complex circumstancesin which this uneasycoalition broke down and in which Octavian came together with Antony and Lepidus to impose their was relatively unimportant whether he also aspired (as I believe) to the title of rex and, like Hellenistic kings, actually assumeddivine honours (cf. esp.J. A. North, JRS rg75, r 7 r ff.). As his monarchic power would not passautomatically to anyone elseon his demise, his assassins could reasonablyhave supposedthat the Republic would revive with his removal; and they might have been proved right if they had removed Antony too. The immediate abolition of the dictatorship after his death (App. iii. e3 etc.), and Augustus' prudent rejection ofit in zz (RG 5 etc.), show that its tenure was his chief offence. 117 The conspiratorsare said to have numbered 6o (Suet.8o) or over 8o (Nic. Dam. FGH n o . g o F . I 3 o . 5 g ) ; f o r r e c o r d e d n a m e s s e e G r o e b e , R E x . 2 5 5 ; A p p . i i . r r 5 i d e n t i f i e s5 e x Caesarians,of whom Tillius Cimber had a brother in exile, presumably as a Pompeian, and 8 friends ofBrutus and Cassius;but ofthese Ser. Sulpicius Galba had certainly been a Caesarian, and only Q. Ligarius is known to have fought on Pompey'sside. Galba had been disappointed of the consulship (Suet. Galba3. z); he was one ofonly 4 men ofconsular lineage in the band. t t t Ofg known praetorsin 43, all designatedunder Caesar,4 were proscribid by the triumvirs (including a brother of L. Plancus). In the provinces C. Antistius Vetus (ros. suf. Zo), Q Cornificius, Q, Hortensius, Q. Marcius Crispus, L. Staius Murcus (of central Italian stock, cf. Syme, it-R,9r), Caesar'sappointees,joined the Liberators. So did L. Aemilius Paullus, whom Caesar had helped to the consulship in 5o, the brother of Lepidus bur neutral in 49, and a younger P. Lepidus. Of all thesemen only Hortensius and the Lepidi were of consular families. The jurist PacuviusLabeo, probably of Samnite origin (W. Kunkel, HerkunJtu. so7.Stellung,rg5r , 3z; cf. E. Badian, Polisand Imperium,St. in honourof E. T. Salmon,rg74, r5z), adhered ro Brutus and killed himself after Philippi (App. iv. r35); his son M. Antistius Labeo, the greatestof Augustan jurists, was notable for his free-spokenindependence;cL the hostility to the triumvirs shown by another eminent jurist A. Cascellius (Val. Max. vi. z. r3), a senator probably lrom Etruria (Kunkel, u4-6).

fA(:'l l()Ns

5ol

'l'o

joint despotism<'ann5o2 l'A C'l' I () N S be its chief minister.l22The faEadehe erected to veil his ultimate supremacywas a tribute to the persistenceof the Republican sentiments among thosefrom whom he was obliged to enlist his agentsand assistants(senatorialand equestrian)in the task of government.He 'allegiance'of a mere party but could not and did not depend on the 'universal consent', promoting objectiveswhich most prelerred to seek men in the highest orders could identify with the welfare of the commonwealth (ch. t vu), and opening to individuals of'varied backgroundsthe opportunity to advancetheir personalinterests. V To conclude,in the post-Sullanera we do not find large groups of politicians, bound together by ties of kinship or friendship, or by fidelity to a leader, who act together consistentlyfor any considerable guided no doubt at timesby time. Individualsmake personaldecisions, of their own selfish also by considerations but private obligations, their advantage or of the public good. For all these varied purposesthey may enter into short-lived combinations.What evidencethere is for the period between the Gracchi and Sulla suggeststhat politicians then tendedto behavein the sameway. It is much harder, as the evidenceis so meagre, to determine how they had conducted themselvesin still earlier times. It is obviously true that the continual appearanceof 'popular' reformersor agitators, whose proposalsdirectly or indirectly threatened the control of the senate and on occasion the economic interests of its members, tended to rally the majority of senators, especially the higher nobility, to defence of a common cause. The exorbitant ambitionsof a Marius or a Pompey would have the same effect.Thesefactorswere not operative in any significant degreebefore the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus. 'Routine politics', which continued to be significantafter r 33, must have occupiedmost attention until then. Private ties probably affected men's political coursesmore strongly in, for instance,competitionsfor office when the welfare of the state did not seemto be at stake.It is, however,implausiblethat on more vital questionsconsider'ationsof the public good never predominated. The greed and ambition of individuals must then too have played their part. In default of testimony,it is imprudent to assume that even in pre-Gracchantimes loyalty to a group consistingof kin and friendsnormally governedthe behaviourof Roman aristocrats.Of large, cohesive,and durable coalitions of f;amiliesthere is no evidence at all for any period. r22 Brunt, Bibliotecatli Labeo,rg8z, 236 tr, CQ rg84, (i7 fI 423 lf. ()1. pp. EN DNOTES CTIAPTER I: Acc. to Cicero, 'all THE Italy' FALL OF THE ROMAN was against Antony REPUBLIC (e.g. Phil. iv' 9, vi' tB, vii' I, 20,x. I9, xiii. 39,Fam.xi. B. z, xii. 4- t, 5.3), likewiseCisalpina(e'g..Phil'üi' r 3 , 3 8 ,v . 3 6 , x . z r , x i i . 9 , F a m . x 1 i . 5 z. ) , w h e r eo n l y t h r e ec i t i e sa d h e r e dt o hiÄ, 3""Äiu, Regium Lepidi, and Parma (Phil.x. r o), the lasta{terhe had sackedit, killing the leadingmen for their Republicanism(xiv. I f', Fam'x' who was to.make his 33. +, xt. I3n)-. Padua, the birthplace of Livy, Vicetia are singledout and Ann.iv.34), (Tac. R.p"U[.un ientimentsplain in Fam' ix' rg' z), Brutus ro; cf. D. (Phil.xä. services exceptional for their but other citiis furnished men and money (Phil. x. z r, xii. 9) and suffered devastationsin the cause(x. zr, xii.9). Cassiusand D. and M. Brutus all had clientsin Cisalpina(Fam.xi. rg. z, xii. 5. z); probably as at Teanum S i d i c i n u ma n d P u t e o l i ( P h i l . ä . r o 7 ) a p p r o b a t i o no f t h e ' L i b e r a t o r s ' h a d gained them patronage.under Augustus M. Brutus was still honoured *lth u statueit Milan as'legum ac libertatisauctor et vindex' (Suet.Riet. 6); we may comparethe memorial at Nursia to thosewho fell for liberty in (Dio xlviii, r 3). Cicero also alludes to the enthusiasm tie beilum'Mutiiense f o r l i b e r t y o f t h e c o l o n i e s , m u n i t i p i a a n d p r a e f e c t u r a e i(nPl thai ll y. i v ' 7 , v ' 2 5 , vi. r 8), and though actionin CampaniaagainstAntony (ü. gg f ', xä' 7, Att' *vi. ir) may in part have been inspired by Octavian' and all Cicero's g"n.r.iiti., are suspectof exaggeration,if not mendacity, since it was his äue to overstatethe;xten t of zealfor his causeand thus make it appear safer 'bello autem dubio quod potest studium esse to join it (cf. Phil. v. 3r: to local votesof men and money (vii' z3 f' for references specific diläctus?'), Firmum and the Marrucini) and the contributionsof an individual Eques (viii. 4, xii. 7) have more weight' Probably the rB citiesdesignatedby the triumvirs for veteran settlementand numerousvictims of the proscriptions (ch.9 n. rrg) had been prominent in the struggleagainstAntony' The Republican consensusat Rome which cicero alleges to have existed r..ttng the Equites (e.g. vii. zr, z7) hardly (as he claims) extendedto a l l o r d e r s ,e v e nt h e p l e b s( v i i . z , x i v . 5 , a d B r u t -i . g . t ) ; h e h i m s e l fe x c e p t s ,thoseunworthy of citizenship'(viii. B) and privately admits the presence of internal enemies(Fam. xi. 25. z, ad Brut. i.9. 3, Io. r). It was the boni he countedon, rhe men of property (Phil.xiii. r 6), whoselivesand fortunes were supposedlyimperilled by Antony (iv. 9' v. 32, vii. 27, xüi' 47, x i v . 3 7) . The presidingmagistrateconsultsthe senateeither on specificmattersor 'de summa re p.' In the former casehe cannot prevent senatorsspeaking o n o t h e rm a t t e r s( e . g .C i c .A t t . i . t 3 . 3 , I 6 . 9 , F a m . i v . 4 .3 , v i i i . 4 . 4 , x . z B . , : ) a n c le v e n f i l i b u s t e r i n g( l l l . i t . 4 . 3 , G e l l . i v . r o . B ) , a n d h e m u s t a s k rlrr.iropinions in a fixed order o{'rank (consularsfirst etc.); after Sulla in each rank. take prcct'dcnceover ex-magistrates tlt.signtitcnrlrgistrates 504 g. 4. L,NDNO'I'T]S He doesnot normally put a motion of his own, but is lree to selectwhit:h motion made by another is to be voted on (e.9. Cic. qr.rt. ii. B. (Z) g; C a e s .^ B C i .z ) ; i f i t i s c a r r i e d ,h e ' m a k e s ' a . S C a s s i s t ebdy w i t n e s s ew s ho 'scribendoadfuerunt' and who were doubtlessin fact the draftsmen; if it is (Fam.vüi. B). Consuls vetoed,it may still be recorded as a senatus auctoritas have a prior right to all others in convening and consulting the senate; praetors take precedenceover tribunes, but a tribune, when his turn comes,may raisethe same businessas a consul and make a different SC or (..g. App. ii. 3o). SeeSlÄ iii3. go5 ff. In form decreeswere auctoritas senatus merely advisory; and magistratescould on their own responsibilityact on a senatus auctorilas if the veto could not be enforced (tribunes had no power outsideRome). In Sallust's view (BJ 4r f., Hist. i. rz) the cleavage in the state, which evidently resembledthat between patricians and plebeians in the early Republic (Hist. i. r r), followed a period of supposedlyunique concord, began after the destruction of Carthage (or after Rome acquired world dominion, Cat.36), and became patent when the plebs found leaders in the Gracchi, and again (Cat. 97 f.) after the restoration of tribunician power in 7o. Though Sallust avoids the terms popularesand optimates (very occasionallyand sardonically he can write of boni), terms certainly in common use in his day and perhaps since that of C. Gracchus (cf. his words in ORF2, fr. 17: 'pessimi Tiberium fratrem meum optimum interfecerunt', probably rejecting his opponents' claim to be 'the best people'), he has in effect the same dichotomy. Syme, Sal/ast,r7 f., rightly deniesthat he conceivedof two organized parties; equally he attachesno importance to factions within the nobility (ch. 9 n. 5), whom he regards as generally united against popular demands. His works, together with some insincererhetoric in Cicero's professedly'popular' speeches(deleg. agr. ä and Rab.perd.with fragments of his defenceof the popular tribune Cornelius), and retrojections of later polemics in annalistic accounts of early Rome in Livy and Dionysius, furnish our best evidence for the popular standpoint (seegenerallych.6, xIff.). Earl, r96r, showed that Sallust did not himself adopt a partisan view; he could bring out the good qualities of both the Gracchi and the optimate Metellus Numidicus and the self-seekingof Marius, and contrast the integrity of Cato with the egoisticambition of Caesar (Cat. 5Q. His approach is moralizing, which does not prevent him from discerning the social and economic causesof discord. I{is unhistoric idealization of old Rome and inaccuracies in recording the courseof eventsdo not invalidate his informed interpretation of Roman politicsin the last century of the Republic. Syme (loc. cit.) calls it 'schematicand defective',epithets that best apply to an analysisof Roman politics that ignoresor depreciatesthe grievancesand aspirations of the common people. Auctoritas: ch.6, Ixf., esp.n. r05. Tac. Germ.rr delineatesGerman chieß in Roman colouring: 'prout aetas cuique, prout nobilitas, prout decus bellorum, prout facundia est, audiuntur, auctoritate suadendi magis quam iubendi potestate.' Auctoritasalso derived from election to high t : ND N o ' l ' ] : s 5o5 ch. 6 n. rzz. L. Metellus (cos. oflice: (lic. fu imp. Cn. Pomp.z. Principes: r5r,247, ano ponl. max.) claimed that he alone of all Romans had 'primarium bellatorem esse,optimum achieved the ten greatestgoals, oratorem, fortissimum imperatorem, auspicio suo maximas res geri, maximo honore uti, summa sapientiaesse,summum senatoremhaberi, pecuniam magnam bono modo invenire, multos liberos relinquere et clarissimumin civitate esse'(Pliny, ]{H vä. I39; not all his coevalswould have agreed!).P. CrassusMucianus (cos.I3I) boastedof being'ditissimus, nobilissimus, eloquentissimus',a jurisconsult, and pontifexma)emus (Gell. i. r3.g). Cato held that though citizenswere equal in right they could attain eminence in gloria and honorby their own efforts (ORFz, fr. z5z); he endlesslysounded the praise of his own military achievements and integrity (ibid. z r-55, r zB-35, r73-5, zo3). The early monumentsof 'honos fama the Scipios (ILS r-7) commemorate their striving for virtusque gloria atque ingenium' (4), their officesand deeds.The great jurist Ser. Sulpicius(cos.5r) thinks of times beforeCaesardestroyedthe 'rem a parente commonwealth, when those of each rising generation traditam per se tenere possent,honores ordinatim petituri essentin re publica, in amicorum negotiis libertate sua usuri' (Cic. Fam. io'. S. g). Such texts reveal aristocratic ambitions and their limits: no one dreamed of domination before Sulla, and few afterwards. A great noble who had 'opibus, held the consulship, like Ap. Claudius, distinguished by honoribus, ingenio, liberis, propinquis, adfinibus, amicis' (ibid. ii. r3. z; cf. iii. ro. 9) would follow his own line in politics. We hear more of debt agitation in the early Republic than later; notably of the plebs in it led to the abolition of nexum(ch. 6 n. 6) and the secession ch. 3. (In that book I wrongly 287 (ibid. n. r68); cf. Brunt, SocialConficts, ascribed to the proto-popularisC. Flaminius a measurefor relief of debts, but seeR,RC6Io ff., and another,like Mommsen, Ges.Schr.äi.346, to C. Gracchus on the basis of a dark text in Nonius.) Personalexecution for debt: ch. 6 n. 7. Land and other property could be transferredbyfducia as security for debt, to be recovered if the debt were repaid, and personal goods could be pledged to a creditor (Schulz, Ig5 I,4ooff.); it was probably by the former processabove all that peasant owners lost their lands. For Caesar and the debt problem see M. W. Frederiksen,JRS ofrent 1966,rzB ff. Frier, tg8o, esp.chs. t f., showsthat the beneficiaries remissionsmust have been persons of some means, who paid rent in arrears,not the very pocir,who surely had to make down payments for a night's lodging; the former doubtlessincluded shopkeepersand craftsmen. 6 . Crawford, RRC 6y ff., collectsthe allegationsof inopia aerarii'; the large reserveaccumulated in the secondcentury must have been dissipatedin the Bos,and, given the number of legionsin servicein the 7os and 6os (IM 446ff.), not replenished until Pompey brought in huge new revenues from the east (on which see Badian, 1967, ch. vI, though the truth underlying Plut., Pomp.458 can hardly be ascertained);the data on the r('servein 49 in Pliny, "ly'flxxxiii.55 f., and Oros. vi. I5.5 cannot be used, :rs(lrawford shows.In my view complaintsof inopia'in the mid-5os(e.g. 506 7. B. t:Nl)^*()'l'HS de har. resp. 6o, Balb. 6t) might have seemed plausiblt', il' provirx'ial surpluses were not regulariy remitted to Romt: and il' the central accounts, which should have shown what was due, were conlüsed. For 'popular' measures see e.g. S'asl.ro3, criticisms of the extravagance of (on Tusc. Disp. iii. 48 C. Gracchus), de leg. agr. i, 3 f., tz, ii. ro,47 tl., Atl. i i . 1 6 . 4 , r 7 . r , r B . r , i i . 3 . 3 , Q i t . r t . i i . 6 . r , S r s l . 5 5 ,V a l . 5 - z g , P i s . 4 . Crawford, RÄC696f., shows that the annual cost of a legion in the first century was officially estimated at r,5oo,ooo denarii before Caesar doubled legionary pay and 3,ooo,ooo thereafter; however, he calculates pay for a legion of 4,4oo men as only 5z4,BBo;at full strength the post-Marian legion of 6,eoo rvould on the same basis have cost in pay alone no more than 7oo,ooo, but legions were often far below full strength (IM, Äpp. z7). We must no doubt allow an indeterminate sum for the cost of supplies, other than those for food, clothing, and arms, which were deductible from the soldier's wage (Brunt, PBSR rg5o, 50f.), but Crawford must be right that the official estimate of a legion's cost 'generous included provision for an inflated corps ofgeneral's aides'; and probably no account was taken of the difference between real and nominal strength. This helps to explain how Caesar had funds to raise 4 new legions in 5B-5 before the senate voted a further grant for their pa-y i n 5 6 ( B a l b . 6 r ; c f . I M + 6 1 ) . L . P i s o ( c o s .5 8 ) r e c e i v e d 1 8 m i l l i o n f o r h i s government of Macedon, where he had 3 or 4 legions (IM, 469); he banked this sum at Rome, presumably at interest for his own account (Cic. Pis. 6r,86-8), and met all expenditure from local revenues. Such revenues were of course also at Caesar's disposal. It is far from clear that a governor was required to refund to the treasury the balance between what he had been voted and what he had actually spent. Cicero could legitimately save 2.2 million for his own pocket from the sum voted him for his Cilician command (Fam. v. zo. 9; cf. Au. xi. r. 2,2.3). Was he entitled to appropriate the difference between the assumed and real cost of his two weak legions (IM 689)? Certainly governors could legally pocket the difference between the sum voted to them for purchase offood at fixed prices and that actually spent at the market price, if Iower (II Verr. äi. zog ff.), and the profit on such transactions would be potentially greater in proportion to the numbers of their troops and staff. Presumably there was no bar on governors investing for their own account public moneys they administered, provided that they ultimately accounted for and restored the capital. For vague charges of peculation or at least enrichment from public funds see n.6t Manubiae: Shatzman 63 ff. (cL Historia, 1972, r77 ff.); the enormous wealth of Pompey, and of Caesar after 59, illustrate the profits generals could make (ibid. 3a6 tr; 3Bg tr). 'de ln de rep. Cicero wrote by his own account optimo statu civitatis et de optimo cive' (Qt.fr. iii. 5. r). Though he agreed with most Greek political 'iustissimus theorists in pronouncing monarchy, i.e. rule by the et sapientissimus',to be the best of the simple forms of constitution (i. 43, 69, ii.4r, iii.46f.), he doubted if in practice a single man could be wise enough to govern by himself (i. 5z)-the good kings at Rome had ]:Nl)N()'l l:s 51t7 a c t u a l l y t n k e r r t l r c l < l v i c c t t l ' l l t t ' s t ' t t i t t r (' i i . r 5 , t l . i ' , 1 a t r d s t t g g c s t e dt h a t r itlr fiecdom (ii'+g); s u l l j e c t i o r rr ' \ ' ( ' n t ( ) a . i u s t t r r a s t c t ' w i t si r t t ' o t n p a t i l r l t w nl()r'('()vcr,likc the other sirnplt' constittttiolls, monarcht' was unstable; as 'l'arquinius Superbus, it could easily degenerate into at R()nrc undcr l b r m o l ' s overnment (cf. ch.6 n' z8). He therefore w < l r s t t h e tyranny, preli:rred the mixed or, rather, balanced system (i.54,69, ii.64f.)' of whi<:h Rome by a gradual evolution beginning under the kings was the e x e m p l a r ( i i . r - 6 5 c f . c h . 6 n . I o 5 ) . I n d e l e g .h i s a i m i s t o s e t o u t t h e l a w s 'optimus rei p. status' expounded in the earlier treatise appropriate to the (i. 15, zo); the code of secular law prescribed in book iii makes no provision for vesting extraordinary power in any individual except (iii. 9) that in accordance with old Roman practice a dictator may be appointed for no more than six months in the event of serious war or civil strife. A great part of de rep. was indeed devoted to an account of the oplimus ciuis,but the very term ciuisexcludes the notion that Cicero had in mind a man vested with monarchic power. He must be a statesman who can ride the fierce beast which the people is, and create the harmony needed for a state's preservation (ii. 68 f.); he is evidently to combine practical experience of affairs with philosophic insight, attributed to Scipio and his friends Laelius and Furius Philus (iii. r-6); Cicero clearly intends it to be thought that he himself had these qualities (i. 3, ,g).Philosophy shows that government must be founded in justice, it must then be exercised by men who are themselves ruled by reason and virtue (iii. 38-42) No doubt this means that the ideal statesman must have the same attributes as the good king such as Numa (v. 3), but it does not imply that he need possess regal prerogatives; in the renewed comparison between different constitutions which ensues (iii,43-8), Cicero does not retract his approval of the balanced system. The claim that the ideal statesman must be master of (t. 5, t r ) shows that in Cicero's view he must be capable law and eloquence not merely of giving just commands but of using the arts of persuasion in conditions of political freedom. The nouns by which he is designated, rector,gubernator,moderatorwith the corresponding verbs, can in Cicero's linguistic usage refer to the political administration, guidance, and Ieadership that may be exercised by principes who excel in auctoritas (cf. p. 43), and who possesspoleslasonly by accide nt; they have no monarchic overtones (see esp. E. Lepore, Il princeps ciceroniano, Iq54, ch' z, for exhaustive proof). He influences men partly by moral example; this is the more important because the leading men in any society shape the general standards (i. 47, vi. rz, de leg.iii. 3r). 'Laelius' makes out that in his day there was a good supply of men of this type (ii. 67); and Cicero, who had already written in de orat. iii. 63 of 'auctorem publici consilii et regendae civitatis ducem et sententiae an 'ad rem publicam moderandam usum atque eloquentiae principem'who et scientiam et studium suum contulisset', a description which patently 'moderator' of de rep., had' then named Scipio and three foreshadows the ol'lris coevals as conforming to the ideal, and indicated (ibid. i. zrt; cf. de 'Laelius' does indeed suggest that rg. ii. 67) that there were many more. 5o8 g. ENDNoI'ES in rzg, the dramatic date of the dialogue, the crisis required Scipio's appointment as dictator; but the very use of that term implies that his authority would be temporary; his task would be 'rem publicam consritue r e ' ( v i . r z ) . T h e n e w ' f r a g m e n t ' p u b l i s h e db y C . A . B e h r , A J P r g 7 4 , r4r ff,, givesno reliable grounds for questioningthis interpretation. Nor is there any good reasonto think that in 54, the year of composition, Cicero favoured resort to this expedient; certainly he showed no enthusiasmfor the proposal then being ventilated that Pompey should be made dictator (An. iv. r8. z f., Qtfr. üi.6. 4). Admittedly he was to approveof the way in which Pompey restoredorder in 5z as sole consul (An. vä r. 4), but Pompey's position then was well short of even temporary monarchic power, and in 49 Cicero evincesabhorrence of the design for regnumor dominatio which he sometimesimputes to Pompey. At that time he makes it clear that his 'moderator rei p.' is a model which bothhe and Pompey (and presumably all statesmen)ought to follow (Att. viii. r r, r); since for all his conceit Cicero never saw himslf as soleruler, this is alone proof that the term is not equivalent to monarch, and that he is not foreshadowing the kind of dominance Augustus was to exercise. Excursuson historicalfacts andeaidence. It seemsto me beyond question that the aim of the historian is to discover'how things really were', even if he recognizesthat he can never achieve complete success.The assumptions and proceduresthat he adopts are essentially,however refined, identical with thosewe all make in our daily lives. Whatever theoretical objections Pyrrhonists may raise, we have to act on the basis that material things and other personsexist, that we know about them from the evidence of our senses,even though the evidence of one perception may need correcting from that of other perceptionsand the judgements founded on perceptionsare always fallible, and that actual events occur from their interaction, which we instinctively interpret in terms of causeand effect; by this we may mean that A can be regarded as the causeof B, because there is an observablecorrelation in sequencebetween events of type A and type B, but more often becausewe seem to grasp that A directly producesB by some kind of force or propulsion. It must be remembered that every event that has occurred even in the last secondbelongsto the past and is thereforea part of history: there is no distinction in principle between the propositions that Caesar was killed by Brutus and Cassius and that Smith has just bern injured by a golf-ball. On such historical facts cf. G. Kitson Clark, The CriticalHistorian,r967, ch. 6 (a work with which I am in generalsympathy). In ascertainingwhat we need to know (in the loosesenseof that term applicablein daily life), we draw not only on our own perceprionsbut on thoseof others.We accept what they tell us, provided that experiencehas not seemedto show that they are generally mendacious,at any rate in the kind of report that is our immediate concern, or faulty in their recollections, or incapable of giving accurate accountsof their own perceptions. Subject to similar provisos,we may also trust what they tell us of others' reports,while recognizingthe probability that errorswill enter into their l : N t ) N ( ) ' tt : s 509 ()ur chanccol'karning the truth alwaysdependson access transmission. Documentsare no dircct rlr indirec:tto the fäithful report of an eyewitness. more trustworthy than oral evidencewithout this guarantee;hencelaws require that there should be witnessesto the sealingor signatureof wills and other legal instruments,to prove their authenticity. The historian ought to view his evidencein the same way. It is a curiosity that some who are familiar only with the normal practice of modern scholarsin relying entirely on written sourcesfind it disturbing when writers of 'contemporary' history resort to the interrogation of witnesseswho have actually seen or heard what they report. Yet all history must ultimately be based on such first-hand reports. Historical documentsmust be known or reasonablyassumedto have been authenticated by competent witnesses.Thus tabulated figures of industrial production rest on innumerable reports of clerks of the goods that left a factory. If the Roman historian treats the inscribed copy of a lex as evidence of what the Roman people enacted, it is becausehe supposes that it would not have been engraved and exhibited unlessit had been authenticated from an archival copy, and that this copy in turn had been certified as correct fiust how we do not know) on being depositedin the archives. (Decreesof the senatewere certified by the senatorsnamed as presentat their drafting.) But when history restson earlier narratives, its reliability reposeson the availability, often at many removes,of first-hand information. Very little of such information is directly accessible,especiallyto the historian of Greeceor Rome. Even a Thucydides or a Caesarcould have seen personally only some of the happenings they relate. They had to interrogate other witnesses.We do not know how skilful or thorough they were; Thucydides (i. zz) remarks that it was a hard task to discover the truth as the reports of eyewitnesses differed with their bias and recollections. Thus even contemporary sourcesare seldom 'primary'; and most of what we have is derivative. At best, like Polybius on the Hannibalic war, they may preservea full record (with their own interpretations) of what they themselvesfound in contemporary sources;at worst, they provide meagreselectionsor summariesof fuller accounts,not necessarilycontemporary, distorting them by sheerinaccuracy or through their ignorance of conditions in the times concerned. There are intermediate stages of unreliability, and at all of them bias, misunderstandings,and imagination may corrupt the tradition. If there is any element in the historian's craft that can justly be called scientific, it is perhaps to be found in the development of critical techniquesto determine and apply criteria in the valuation of evidence. In the last resort, however, the historian often trusts his intuition, guided by his general conception of what he takes to be relevant to his decision. Moreover, except where little is even reported (and this is not uncommon in classicalhistory), he cannot repeat (or if he did, no one woul [,NDNO'I'ES 5ro time to learn them all; he has thereforeto selectthosewhich he considers significant from his own inforrnation, and to decide not to inform himself about others.All this is highly subjective,all the more as hisjudgement is likely to be affected by preconceptions derived from the ideas and experienceof his own time, which may be alien to the times he studies. And this subjectivitycannot be excludedby adopting a model, if in the definition endorsed by Finley (AncientHistorl, 1985, 6o) models themselvesare 'highly subjectiveapproximationsin that they do not include all associatedobservations or measurements,but . . . are valuable in obscuring incidental detail and in allowing fundamental aspectsof reality to appear'. It is manifest that such models are abstractionsand involve presuppositions,in themselvessubjective, that there are certain funda' mental aspectsof reality. Moreover, they do not issuefrom empty minds: 'facts', and are they are suggestedby some prior subjective selectionof 'facts'. subject to testing by equally subjectiveexamination of other partial. No one thinks that rernains only Still, the subjectivity of history the historian purports to record the past freely, as he imagines it, whatever claims may be made on behalf of the historical imagination. If that were so, he could spare himself the arduous task of investigating evidence, and proceed like the novelist, providing perhaps more entertainment and more universal insight into human nature. Tolstoy's description of the battle of Borodino is not deprived of value, if found to be discrepantwith archival material; but the account given by a historian would be. The work of a historian, like that of a scientist,is subject to correction in the light of evidence that he has faisified, neglected, or simply not known about. Such correctionsnaturally imply that, however selectivea historian's choice of facts or interpretation of them may be, there are objective facts to be discoveredand appraised. It is such a fact that Brutus and Cassiuskilled Caesar; other facts can be brought into relation with this, and in principle new relevant flactsmight be revealed by further inquiry. It is thus that we think that we can at least come nearer to the truth about what actually happened. Models are not the only approximations to aspects of reality. In practice, however, the dearth of trustworthy evidencefor the political history of Rome is hardly ' ever remediable by new discoveries;it is mainly on social, economic and cultural conditions that new epigraphic, papyrological, and archaeological finds cast light (they are also occasionallyuseful for administrative history); the material long known has been almost exhaustively examined, and new work, if it doesnot consistin exposingthe errors of the past, often adds to their number. CHAPTER 2: ITALIAN AIMS AT THE TIME OF THE SOCIAL WAR r. The texts of Livy, cited on p. 95, seem to me to presupposethat a ius migrandialready existed, (perhaps extending to some non-Latins, Ilari r3), and to record that it was annulled in particular cases,and restricted H N I ) N ( )E' |S 5rr f t r r t l r c l i r t u r c ( t h o u g hn o t i n t h t ' w a y ( ; a l s t e r e tr h i n k s ) ,n o t a b o l i s h e dF. o r this and other privilegescomprisedin the Latin right seeJolowicz-Nicho.rtl fl., and with evidenceand full discussionREx. tz6o ff. (Steinwen1;15 tt'r);c[. RC'2roB ff.; seenow on its early history esp.Humbert, ch. Itt, and Iirr the Hernici, p. gz. Commercium entalled the right to inherit and own real property in the territory of the foreign state concerned;inheritances were likely to accrue as a result of conubium(which seemsalso to have extendedto somenon-Latins;cf. n. 7o); Ulpian's dictum that Latins and peregrinihave conubiumwith Roman citizens only 'si ita concessumest' (Tit. Ulp. 5. 4) probably refers only to later law, perhaps only to some Junian Latins. Originally, we are told, the membersof the Latin and and conubium with each other as well Hernican leaguesall had commercium as with Rome, which Rome terminated on dissolving the leagues(Livy v i i i . r 4 . r o , i x . 4 3 . z 3 ) , a t e m p o r a r ym e a s u r e( R C 2 r r 3 ) . I t w a s p e r h a p s often when a foreigner with these rights had acquired land in Roman territory that he would migrate and take up the Roman citizenship:I can conceive of no ground on which his right of obtaining the Roman citizenship by migration should have been limited to casesin which he had come to reside in Rome itself, though it might be (a) that it was generally by personal application to the censors there that he could properly get himself enrolled on the list of citizens; (ä) that the economic opportunities offered by residenceat Rome were particularly attractive to immigrants. As to (a), however, in so far as municipalities were entrusted with the registration of citizens within their own territories, they may in practice have been able to enfranchiseforeigners;cf. IM r7of.,543f. Enrolment of foreigners in a Roman colony would eo ipso give them citizenship;but the enrolmentof colonistsincluding Roman citizenswas a matter for the discretion of the magistratesconcerned. 2. G. Tibiletti, Rend.Istit. Lomb. rg5g,43 ff. Under the lex Pompeiaof 89 the Transpadane peoples in general obtained the ius of 'ceterae Latinae coloniae, id est ut petendo magistratus civitatem Romanam adipiscerentur' (Ascon. 3 C.). But at that time the Latin colonies in ltaly, including those of Transpadana, had already been raised to Roman citizenship by the lex lulia. Galsterer roo supposesthat 'ceterae Latinae coloniae' refers to Latin colonies existing in 89 in Spain, Carteia (Livy xliii. 3. ro4), and Corduba and Pollentia,whoseLatin statusis conjectural, which presumably did not benefit under the lex lulia; for all theseand future 'Latin colonies' a new privilege was now created. This seemsa possiblereading of the text, which might even mean that the izs belonged to all Latin colonies of Asconius' own time (cf. the charters of Latin municipiain Spain, see now JrRS 1986, r47tr.). It is more usual and natural to think that Asconiusmeant that the iushad,previously belonged to Latin colonies.But confirmation of this cannot be extracted from what we know of the rewards offered to successfulprosecutors under the laws; cf. Galsterer 94 ff. Gracchan repetundae law, as under later repetundae 'l'lrt'y irre entitled to receiveRoman citizenship with militiaeuacatio, or else (r'vi 5t2 3. l:Nt)N()'t'DS H,NDNO'I'E,S privilegesas litigants (FIRAi2.7. vv. 76-86; cf. the fragment of a later law found at Tarentum, convenientlyreprinted by H. B. Mattingly, JRS r969, r4o; Cic. Balb.53 f.); the rewardsfor Roman citizenswho prosecute (vv. 87 f.) no doubt include aacatio. successfully The secondalternativeis, however, not open to thosewho have been dictator, praetor, or aedile in their own communities. It is commonly supposedthat they are excluded becausethe rewards offered are inapposite, since these ex-magistrates were already as such entitled to the Roman citizenship (which carried but not, be it noted, uacatiomilitiae), or as with it the ius proaocationis Sherwin-Whiteholds (RCz z16; cf. JRS $72,94 ff.), to choosebetween this and the other specificprivileges. In Mommsen's supplementsthe exmagistratesnamed are only those of Latin communities. It is a difficulty for thesesupplementsthat not all Latin cities had dictators, praetors, or aediles:in somethe chief magistrateswere duouiri(e.g.ILLRP 536,545). No doubt the draftsman meant these titles to include all the chief magistratesin the communities concerned,but on that construction they are just as pertinent to non-Latin communities; the titles cannot show that the exclusionis limited to ex-magistratesamong the Latins. The most natural interpretation of the exclusion is then that the alternative set of rewardswas inappositefor thoseexcluded,becausethey already possessed the particular privileges offered; in that case the ius prouocationis etc. already belongedto ex-magistratesin all the allied communities.As there is no like exclusion in the previous clause offering citizenship, it would seemthat they did not automatically possess citizenshipas ex-magistrates; and ofcourse no one thinks that any but Latins could acquire citizenship 'per magistratum'. If any were already citizens, their rewards would be the sameas for other citizens(vv. 87 f.); there is no implication that the Latin ius mentioned by Asconius did not already exist, and none that it did. The only other possibility that occurs to me is that if the exmagistrates specified are only those of Latin cities, i.e. if Mommsen's hazardoussupplementsare correct, and if they were already entitled to claim the Roman citizenship, the legislator actually wished to deny them the option that might otherwisehave arisenfor thosewho had procured a conviction for repetundae of taking other privileges instead; it was Roman policy that they should identify themselveswith Rome. Cic. Caec.roo, Balb. z7 ff. show that it was contrary to the principles of Roman law that a man should be simultaneouslycitizen of Rome and of another state (as distinct from a mere muniiipiumlikeArpinum; cf. deleg.ii. 4 f.), including one defacto subject to Rome; the rule was breaking dow'n in his time (cf. Nepos, Att. 3) and was abandoned in the next generation; and I cannot believethat it was applied to the Transpadane Latins in his day; no more then to Latin communities before 89. Romans were enrolled in Latin colonieson foundation 'aut sua voluntate aut legis multa' (Cic. Caec.98; cf. de dom. 7B); the attraction of land allotments would probably produce enough volunteers normally. Since the colonies were intended to be propugnacula imperii in the midst of potentially or actually hostile peoples,it was essentialthat the colonists' t a' 5r3 loyalty to R 5r4 l:Nl)N()'t't:s E,NDNO'I'T]S not of local origin with Latinized name; some Umbrians could have borrowed institutions from Sabine neighbours,as Fulginiae and Assisium borrowed Etruscan marones(Vetter 233, 236-ILLRP 55o); cf. also E. Campanile and C. Letta, Studi sullemagistraturcindigenee munieipaliin area italica, ry79 (though much of their work seemsto me mistaken). 5. forattuoruiri,already found at Larinum in 83 (Cic. Cluent.z5), were so much the mark of a municipiumthat a rumour that the Transpadani had been ordered by Caesarto choosethem meant that he was supposedto be granting them the franchise (Cic. Att. v. z. 3); but duoairi (normal in colonies)also occur; A. Degrassi(Scr. Var. i. gStr) and Sartori (cited n. 84) think that the anomaliesmay result from the previous institutions of the communesconcerned.FIRA i2. r8 (Tarentum) and r3 (Table of Heraclea, on which seeIM, App. z) 83 ff. illustrate the regulation of Iocal institutions in Italy; thoseof colonieswere prescribedby legessuch as that of Urso (ibid. zr); though Caesarianand Spanish,it is in part tralatician (cf. rxrr). So too the charters of Latin municipiain Spain (seenow JRS 1986, r47 ff.) attest the uniformity imposed on their administration in Flavian times. The general tendency is to vest local government in the control of the local council, though the magistrates(from whom councils were recruited) are elected.We must assumemuch legislationof this kind, like that which prescribedjuridical ^institutionsafter the enfranchisement of the Transpadani in 49 @IRA i'. rg f.), to have been consequential from, if not comprisedin, the lex lulia (at least one minor matter was the subjectof the lexPlautiaPapiria;cf. n. 37) or from the subsequentgrants of citizenshipto the former rebels.Group voting: FIRA i'. z4; it may be the key to distinction in some Sullan colonies (IM go9) between the new settlers and the old inhabitants; cf. the senate's attempt after go to segregatethe new citizens in special voting units. 6. Gabba, rg73, ch. rv (= 1976,ch. ru), sect.Ix: his study first appearedin on this matter by Wiseman, rgTr.On Sulla's r 954 and is now superseded new senators cf. ch. 3 n. 50 with text, and on the great number of in the senatein 6e, Cic. Sulla z4; it is obvious that in doubling munieipales the size of the senateSulla was bound to recruit Equites, and in view of the hostility of those most active in politics c.go, especially those who controlled the communes that had taken his side. Caesar and the triumvirs, who raised the number to goo and then to tooo, must have elevated many more of municipal eminence; Augustus continued the samepolicy (ILS zrz.I r tr ). SeeWiseman,ch. r. He seeksto illustratethe processfrom prosopographicaldata. App. I purports to list newcomersto the senateby period, and App. rr to identifl' the origins of many of thenr. There are many uncertaintiesand more than he admits. (a) The nonconsular Fasti from t67 are very incomplete; many families must have been representedin the pre-Sullan senateunknown to us; hence a nlmen recorded later is not necessarilythat of a nouus,unless that term be reservedfor men of non-consularfamilies. (ä) A far greater proportion of senatorscertainly or probably living r.56 is known than of senatorsof a later generation (cf. ch. r n. B); hence App. t cannot be used for a 5l 5l statisticalconrparisonol'rrewt:omersbelirreand alier 49. (r) Nomenclature is olien an unsal'eguide to origins. As a result of colonizationboth lrelirre and during the first century, Latin nominawere widely diffused throughout ltaly, and may even have been adopted in non-Latin communes;for example,the name Tullius is borne by consulsof 5oo and Br , yet Cicero came from Volscian Arpinum; in any event a Latin nomenis obviously compatible with Latin as well as with Roman status before 9o. Moreover, from early days there had been Sabine and probably Etruscan elementsin the Roman citizen body, reflected,in nominalike Pomponius and Pompeius from Oscan pumps,as Quinctius ftom quinque.Even the characteristic Central Italian suffix -ilizs in nominais exemplified in the pre-go senatorial nominaAufidius and Didius, though there is a high statistical probability that bearers of such names were descendedfrom personsenfranchisedin the Bos. Non-Latin as well as Latin nominaare often widely diffused. This might be the result not only of the mix-up of landholdings consequent on colonization and the sale of confiscated estatesin the first century, but also of inheritances;for example, a man such as A. Caecina of Volaterrae, who inherited land in Tarquinii, might move his domicile there. I do not mean to deny that there are numerous examples produced by Wiseman of the rise of families from particular municipia,and it may be that we can properly infer from his App. n, conjectural as many of the data are, that the magnatesof communes which were Roman be{trre go or which then remained loyal to Rome (especiallyLatin) had a better chanceofreaching the senatethan thoseof ex-rebel communes. This would not be surprising; the former would be more Romanized and lesslikely to have sufferedeconomicruin in the Bos. CHAPTER I. 3: THE EqUITES IN THE LATE REPUBLIC Lex Roscia: Porphyry on Hor. Epodes4. t5f.; A. Stein, Der röm.Ritterstand, rg27,2r ff. Lex Visellia:Pliny,,M11xxxiii. 3z; CJ ix. zr. r, 3r. r; freedmen were certainly excludedfrom the r8 centuriesin the Republic (Dio xlviii. 45. B); by the favour of dynastsor emperors,or illicitly, personsof servile taint could creepin (cf. Treggiari, ch. rr, for the Republic). Pliny, xxxiii. 29-36, with its obviously false claim that only in 63 did the Equites becomea 'tertium corpusin re p.', cannot in my view be a safebasisfor any reconstructionof developments,paceJ . L. Ferrary, REL tg}o, 3t 3 ff. (whose analysis of the meaningof section 34 I accept). See in general Nicolet, r966, Part r, e.g. on the censusrequired in the Hannibalic war (p.66) and on the number enrolled in the rB cenruries(r r3 ff.), but cf. IM 7oo. I do not agree with him that the collectiue term Equites was restrictedin the late Republic to holdersof the public horse (cf. ch. 4 n. 4o with text on tribuniaerarii),seeaboveall T. P. Wiseman,Historiarg7o,67, for lucid review of all the evidenceand arguments:it mav well be that the honorificterm 'equesR.' was applied rc ä irdiriduolonly in the restricted scnsc.Nicolet also deniesthat the law of reg excludedsenatorsfrom the t[f .t'rrturies(ro3 ff.), since the Gracchan repetundae law specificallybars 516 l: N DN O't't:S ENDNo't'ts senatorsfrom jury service.This argument is not conclusiveunlessthe law made currentmembership of the rB centuries the positive qualification; and it fails if the law only required 'equestrian' property and birth, or embraced past as well as holders of the public horse, in which case senators,who would have held the public horse at least before admission to the senate,would have been eligible unlessexpresslyexcluded. Gelzer, 1969, 4 ff., has a useful sketch of the equestrianorder. 2. Seen. ro6 for Lucullus' anti-equestrianmeasuresin Asia. The allegations of his enemies(Dio xxxvi. z. z), that he was unduly prolonging the war, first made in 69, Ied then only to his replacement in Asia, which conformed to equestrianinterests;in 68 he was also given a successorin Cilicia (MRR ü. r5o n.7). It was hardly practicable for a general operating in Armenia to administer provinces to the west. In 67 the popular tribune Gabinius,later no friend of the publicans(r. rg), carried a law vesting Bithynia and Pontus in the consul M'. Glabrio, and dischargingthe 'Valerian' legionsunder his command, which had been in service since 86 (cf. App. BM go); in fact Glabrio did not take over. Cicerosaysthat the peoplethought 'imperi diuturnitati modum statuendum' (deimp. Cn. Pomp.z6). Since the Hannibalic war only Metellus Pius and Pompey in Spain had enjoyed so lengthy a tenure of command. This very probably arousedjealousy among other senators,and could not be justified by Lucullus' success;even before the disasterto Triarius in 67 it was manifest that his victories had been indecisive. Significantly Cicero fails to cite Lucullusin Fam.i.9. z6 as a victim of the enmity of Equites;at most it contributed to his supersession. This note modifies App. III in the original version of this article and takes account of the objections to it raised by T. R. S. Broughton in his comments on it in the same volume. g. Badian, r97z, ch.Iv, is the bestaccountof the Republicancompanies;for that given by Maria Rosa Cimma, Ricerche sullesocietddi publicani,rg9r, seehis criticismsin Gnomon1984,45 ff. But her book is valuable on public contracting under the Principate (ch. ru) and for the discussionof the later juristic texts on publican companies (ch. rv), which have unfortunately been much abbreviated or altered by the Justinianic compilers of the Digest,but which at least tend to confirm what is stated in the text on their peculiarities.For other kinds of partnership recognizedin Roman law, I may refer to any standard textbook, and especiallyto F. Wieacker, S( tg5z,3oz ff. and 488 ff. D'Arms, rgBr, ch. rr, ignoresor minimizesthe limits that legal rules impoded on 'commercial organization' in general; with the single exception of the public contracts they did not permit the constructionof a 'rudimentary company law'. The juristic fragmentsin Dig. xvü. z do not even suggestthat partnershipswere formed more for commercial enterprisesthan for joint holdings of land. Recently A. di Porto, Impresacollettiuae schiauo'manager'in Romaanlica, rg84, has argued that there was important scopefor joint enterprises conducted through the agency of seraiclmmunes) whether as inslitoresor trading with theirleculium;in the Iatter casethe liability ofjoint owners, like that of a singleowner, was limited roughly to the value of the peculium 5r7 or ol'thr:acquisitionsmadc try the principal(s)through the agencyol'their slaves.It is plainly hard to conceivethat any collectiveenterprisesin which very large sums were invested were conducted in this way. Moreover, just as a socielas could always be dissolvedat the instanceof any partner (subject to his meeting previously incurred liabilities), so the holders of any common property, including slaves,could at any time enforceits division. Finally, a slaveentrusted with substantialinvestments was bound to expect early manumission;if this was not promised, or the promise was not fulfilled, he was unlikely to show the zeal and efficiency required for the successof a business.Unless therefore the owner or owners could find a successionof efficient slave managers,the enterprises concernedwould hardly be long-lasting. Thus, whether or not di Porto's interpretation of the legal texts on which he relies (which do not in themselvesindicate that the use of a serauscommuniswas a frequent commercial phenomenon) wins acceptance,it cannot be concluded that the employment of slave managersdid much to remedy the defectsin the law of societas which tended to inhibit the establishmentof large trading companies.(I myself believe that individual Romans of wealth very often invested relatively small sums in probably many different enterprises carried on by different slavesor freedmen.) CHAPTER I. 4: JUDICIARY RIGHTS IN THE REPUBLIC W. Simshäuser,r973, r45-85. Beyond question municipal courts were authorized, e.g. under foundation charters, to impose heavy fines for infractions of the local constitutions. The Table of Heraclea disoualifies from municipal offices and membership of the curia any person condemned 'iudicio publico' in a local court, as well as anyone banishedfrom Italy as a result of condemnationat Rome (F1R,4i2. no. r3. r35 ff.); it is patent that thosein the first category have not been capitally condemned! Cf . lex Ursonensis (ibid. z r ) cn, cv, cxxrrr f., which doubtlessshow what we may understandin the Table by'iudicium publicum', but which again do not refer to capital trials. The Oscan Table of Bantia is in my view still to be dated before9o (ch. z, App. rv). I am astoundedthat S. Bove should infer from the documents he published, Labeo 1967, zz ff., that the magistratesof Puteoli in the Principate had the right to executecitizens, and by crucifixion (cf. Kunkel, RE xxiv. 78r f ., contraF. de Martin o, Labeo 1975,2 r r ff.). (Suet. C/. 34. r can refer to executionat Tibur of persons condemned by Claudius in that place.) The chief puzzle is that the first clauseof the lex Corneliaconcernedonly offencesof sicariiwithin the city of Rome (Col/. i. t.g). It may be that this was tralatician drafting, the processhaving originated long before Sulla in the need to preservepublic order at Rome by penalizing the carriage of weaponsthere with malicious intent, and that subsequentprovisions not only extended the scopeofthe quaestio to the use of poisons (clause5, Dig. xlviii. B. 3 pr.) but to murder by any meansand in whatever place; for one tralatician clause,borrowed from a Gracchan law lolidemuerbi.s, seenn. 5z f. 5rB 2. ENDNo'l'tls The publication of the editioprincepsotthe lex lrnitanabyJ. Gonzaleswith an admirable commentary in JRS r986, r47 ff., has enabled me to make a few last-minute adjustments in the text and notes of these essays.The overlap of its fragments with those of the lex Malacitana and lex Salpensana confirms what Mommsen had inferred from the latter documents that all belong to a standard form of charter for the Spanish towns on which Vespasianhad conferred Latin status. We cannot of course be sure how far the regulations correspond to those made for Italian or provincial communes which had earlier received the Latin right. It is also not necessaryto assumethat in every detail the regulations were identical even for the new Spanish municipiawith Latin status. For instance property qualifications for magistracies,curial rank and rights ofjudication, and perhaps the pecuniary limits fixed for the competence of municipal courts, may have been varied from one charter to another' to suit the varying afiluence of different communes. In the lex lrnitana (r-xxxtv) the local courts are restricted to civil casesin which rooo sestercesor lessare at stake; in Cisalpina with its large and prosperous citiesthe limit was I5,ooo (FIRAi2.I9. xxl f.). It is clear throughout that the local courts in Spain are to administer Roman private law in accordancewith Roman procedure, subject to any specificprovisions in the charters (esp.r-xxxxrn). Within the limits of his competencethe local 'datio addictio' of a iudexor magistrate is empowered to proceed to the the distinction (cf. nn. IoB f.) is made arbiteror the'datio' of recuperatores; 'dari' alone is used of the iudex in rxxxvt f. and lxxxr, though in r,xxxrx or arbiter.It is his duty to make up decuries of personsto serve in these capacities,consisting either of decurions or of others qualified as preare always to scribed by birth, property and age (r,xxxvr). Recuperatores be taken from the decuries, the litigants having defined rights of reiectio (rxxxvru). As for the nomination of a iudexor arbiter, the litigants by agreementmay choosetheir own man from the decuries,or (subject to restrictions) at large; if they do not so agree, a complicated processof reiectiofrom within the decuriesis prescribed,but if either party will not co-operate,the other is free to nominate (r,xxxvt f.). No doubt the much greater number of personson the albumat Rome made any such processof reiectioimpracticable there; hence the resort to sortition (n. Io7), where the parties could not agree on the choice of iudex or arbiter. The arrangementsin the lex lrnitanasuggestthat the parties were encouraged to agree;probably their ch6ice might usually fall on a man enrolled in the decuries,but it is plain enough that such agreementwas not a precondition for trial abud iudicem. cHAPTER6: rtann ?As IN THE REPUBLIc r. Cicero maintains (Balb. 3r) that the ancestraliura provide'ne quis invitus civitate mutetur neve in civitate maneat invitus'; these iura furnish 'fundamenta firmissima nostrae libertatis'; in de dom. 77-8o he speaksof 'iure munitam civitatem et libertatem nostram'; what is valid in the t : ND N O ' t ' l : S 2. J. 5r9 sophistrieshe deploysis that citizenshipguaranteedthrough the laws the (cf. ll Verr.i. 7). In Caec.95-rc4he with Roman libcrtas rights associated to recognizea law of Sulla depriving refused courts had the claims that the Arretines and (as the context shows) the Volaterrans of citizenship;it had apparently been argued that the standard form of sanctioin the statute, 'si quid ius non essetrogarier, eius ea lege nihilum rogatum', annulled the substantive provision in question. A lex (he claims) could 'si not deprive any citizen of either freedom or citizenship; semel civitas adimi potest, retineri libertas non potest'; this is simply false. Cicero's doctrine that the legislative authority of the people was fettered, despite the rule of the XXI Tables (". Sg) that'quodcumque Postremumpopulus iussisset id ius ratumque esset',might have seemedplausibleon the footing that the code also forbade the magistratesto Proposepriailegia,sc. against individuals (Cic. deleg. äi. | | , 44; cf. RE xxiii. r 9, Wesenburg), as distinct from bringing chargesagainst them to be decidedjudicially by the comilia We must also bear in mind that the verdicts of Roman courts centuriata. were not subject to review, and that their conformity with law could not be assured.In the casediscussedby Cicero, the sanctioin the Sullan Iaw coupled with the izs relating to priuilegiamay explain the verdict. Lepidus (cos.78),however, seemsto have thought it well to confirm by a new law the citizenship of those affected by the Sullan law (Sall. Or. Philippi t$. s.v. liberty: 'The law of Encyclopaedia, J. W. Gough writes in Chambers England does not recognizethe liberty of the pressas a special constitutional right, any more than personal freedom, or the right of public 'liberties of the subject'; all rest on 'the general meeting, or other so-called principle of the rule of law, which means that the government does not possessarbitrary power and no one can be punished unlessconvicted in the ordinary courts of a breach of the law', e.g. for infringing specificlaws relating to libel, obscenity, copyright, Official Secrets, etc. Religious toleration has never been assertedas a principle but securedby a seriesof statutes passed at long intervals, progressivelyremoving restraints on religious meetingsand (later) the civic disabilitiesimposed on Nonconformists, Roman Catholics, and Jews. In wartime, both Greek cities, and Rome (where there was virtually never peace)until 167,imposeddirect property taxes;cf. IM 76,64t f., for alleged complaints in the early period. Cicero thought that such taxation was a last resort,sinceit infringed property rights (/a ffic. ä. 7$, 'ut sit libera et non and it was a basic principle of political organization s o l l i c i t a s u a e r e i c u i u s q u ec u s t o d i a ' ( 7 8 ) ; c f . P h i l . ä . 9 3 : ' a t r i b u t i s vindicare' (the verb suggestsassertionof liberty). Of courseRome did not scrupleto imposedirect taxeson subjects,which Tertullian (Apol.t3.6) treats as marks of servitude. Conscription at Rome was a constant grievance (IM, ch. xxrr; App. zo, zr) and uacatiomilitiae was a prized privilege; but, unlessin Livy v. z. B, the obligation to fight for one's own country is not treated as servitude, as conscription by a foreign state may be (e.g.Tac. Agr.3r, Hist. iv. I4) . Rome and other westerncities must always have demanded from citizens services,affecting both personsand 520 4. 5. 6. ENDNO'TES property, familiar in Athens as liturgies; for coruöes, for instance, see the tralatician Charter of Urso (FIRA i2. no.2r, xcvnr); Dionys. iv. 8r. e regards those ordered by Tarquin the Proud as proof of his tyranny. These liturgies or munerawere essentialto the administration of municipalities in the Roman empire; they were heavy burdens enforced by the imperial government; 'immunity' was coveted, but it is not normally, if ever, termed'freedom' (seee.g. Dig. t.5 f.), no doubt becausetraditionally such obligations had not been thought incompatible with civic Iiberty. Piety of Epicureans:A. Festugiöre,Epicurusand hisGods,ch. rv; imputed atheism: Cic. de nat. deor.i. rz3 (citing Posidonius);conformity of Stoics: Zeller, Phil. d. Gr. iä.4, 3 r 8 ff., esp. 322; of Pyrrhonists; Sext. Emp. Adu. Math. ix. 49 (cf. the curious affirmation of belief by Cotta speakingfor the scepticalAcademy in denat deor.üi.5); of philosophersin general:Origen, v. 35, 45,vi. 3-5, r 7, vii. 6, 44, 66; Celsusurged the Christians that Celsum they could expresstheir reverencefor the true God through the traditional forms of worship, viii. e,66. For Varro's own theology, probably drawn from Antiochus of Ascalon, seeAug. de Cia. Dei vii. 5 f.; cf. iv. 3r; yet he prescribed (in immensedetail) adherenceto the traditional cults, including private cults (vii. 3), seeiv. 3r, vi. 4 f., etc., as did Cicero in /e leg.ä. rg ff. (esp.4); cf. de nat deor.iii. 5 e , de dia. ü. r4B. (In de leg.i-ä Cicero espouseda Stoicizing theology abandoned in his later works.) Electoral freedom was of courselimited by rules prescribing qualifications for office (cf. n. reg), including the legesannalesand restrictions on reelection; the last were suspendedin the Hannibalic war, when the people receivedthe right 'quos et quotiens vellet reficiendi consules'(Livy xxvii. 6. 7), and were defied in the re-election of C. Marcellus for r5z. There was a popular clamour lor the irregular election of Scipio Aemilianus as consul in r47, on the basis that the people had sovereign power to disregard the law; to avoid accepting this, the senatehad his candidature legitimated (App. Lib. rrz; cf. Astin, r967, ch. vr); a similar procedure was no doubt adopted to permit his secondconsulshipin r34 (Astin r35 n.5.). It is not known if such priuilegiawere obtained in advance for Marius' consulshipsr04-roo, which were all irregular. Legal requirements were also ignored under the 'domination' of Cinna and often in and after Caesar's'regnum'.In rB4 the senatewas resoluteagainst an irregular election asjustified 'nec iure ullo nec exemplo tolerabili liberae civitati' (Livy xxxix. 39. 6); here liberty is seenas necessarilycomprising respectfor the laws, not as popular sovereignty.For liberty as the right of the citizensto vote for and return whom they pleasedcf. Cic. deleg.agr. it. I6-25 (cf. n. r56), Planc.16; Livy iii. 64. 5. Livy iii. 59. 4; Dionys. vii. e5. 2. f ., go. r*3, 48. 4, 58. 2 refer to popular pressurein the fifth century, including threats of prosecutionfor opinions voiced in the senate;perhaps this reflectslater experienceofsuch opinions being quoted outside to prejudice optimates, e.g. at trials. Livy iii. 55. r3 allegesthat in 449 it was provided that decreesof the senateshould be transmitted to the plebeian aediles for deposit in the temple of Ceres, t:Nl)N()'l'[s 52t w l r o s ct ' r r l tw a s p t ' t ' r r l i ; r r lpyl c l x ' i a n( ! V i s s o w aI,( ) 7r , 3 ( x ) ) ;i n h i s t o r i ct i m e s llrt,y wcrc, lrowevt'r, pltct:d in lhe aerariumSalurni.Caesar'srule of 59 that the prrx'cedinesol'the senate (which recorded more than actual decrees)should be published (Suet. Ccas.zo) was perhapsdesignedto cxposc senatorsto the ftrrce of opinion outside; Augustus rescindedit (Suet.lag. 36);it was inappropriateto the new system,alwaysadverseto popufar rights. On the aetasenalus seeKubitschek, rtE i. 287 ff SherwinWhite, JRS r9Bz,2r, remarks on various provisionsin the Gracchan repetundae law concerning publicity, and enabling the people to 'exercise the passiveforce of public opinion'; F. Millar, /RS 1984, t9, adduces further instances,and has called my attention to the prescriptionof the Rubrian and Acilian laws (possibly 'popular') that treaties must be inscribed where they could be read and recited annually in a contio(Sherk no. 16, rr ff.). All such regulationsat least implied the responsibilityof senateand magistratesto the people. Popular libertasis the leitmotiv of speecheswhich Sallust puts into the mouths of Memmius (BJ 3I), Lepidus, and Macer, and reappears inappropriately in that which he makesCatiline addressto his aristocratic faction (Cat. zo); for Sallust it hardly mattered that the sentiments Catiline is made to utter cannot have been sincere,sincehe questionsthe sincerityof virtually all politicians(Hist. i. tz, Cat.38). His cynicismwas doubtlessequally warranted in relation to Lepidus.The historicalsetting of Lepidus' speechis impossible, but it does not follow that Sallust has done more than retroject the propaganda that Lepidus did really use later, to stir up a formidable revolt. Whether or not the speechesof Memmius, Lepidus, and Macer have any basis in evidence known to Sallust of what they ever said (which cannot be determined),it must surely be assumed that Sallust knew enough to give us the kind of considerationsthey would have advanced to win popular support, and the sincerity of their own attitudes (which Sallust probably allows in the caseof Memmius, ,BJ 27. 2, 30.3) is irrelevant to the effectiveness of these considerations.As almost always, it is idle to write them off as rhetorical topoi;slogansor propositionsbecome commonplaces,becausethey correspond with what many people feel and think. Hence Cicero too resorted to them in de leg. agr. ä and Rab.perd.,when affecting a popular stance. Bleicken'sattempt to discreditSallust'stestimony(rg7z, +4 f.) is characteristically confused by his inability to perceive the reality of social conflicts,blinded as he is by acceptanceofan aristocratic standpoint and by his infatuation with the importance of patronage,which even obtrudes into his treatment of libertas(6+ tr ). Memmius and Macer both hark back to the struggle of the orders; Sall. Ilist. i. r t suggeststhat he discerneda recrudescenceof old issues.Macer's Annalesmay underlie the anachronistic colouring of their accounts of that struggle in Livy and Dionysius, though the few fragmentsoffer no confirmation. Appian's remarks on the old law 'de modo agrorum' in i. B were surely at least influenced by annalistic versions of the lex Licinia Sextia,whether or not there was also a second-centuryenactment. ENDNOI'ES l:Nl)N()'t'!:s on capital changes was B. According to the annalists, tire ius prouocationis establishedby a lex Valeriaof 5og (Livy ii. B etc.) and confirmed by the /ax ValeriaHoratia of 4+g (iii. 55 etc.) and the lex Valeriaof 3oo (x. g) ; for appealsagainstfinesover a permitted maximum seeSrRi3. r58-6o. Most scholarsdiscredit the first two of theselaws as fictions. A sanction was first introduced by a lex Porcia(x. g) . According to Cicero (derep.ii. 54), there were three Porcian laws with three different authors, which did no more than that; he also refersto Porcian laws in the plural in Rab.perd. t3; Cal. iv. ro, whereasin Rab.perd.B,ll Verr.v. I63 he speaksof only one, as do Livy and Sallust(Cat.5r. gg).We may infer that though therewere three laws, one, presumably that which imposed a sanction, was regarded as most momentous,though it is reasonableto supposethat most magistrates would have complied even earlier with the prescriptionsof the lex Valeria from a general respect for law, nor could tribunes ever have been debarred from impeaching offenders ad hoc. On the other hand, it is impossibleto supposethat three laws were required simply to impose a The exact date sanction.They must have widened the extent of proztocatio. of theselaws is not known, but Porcii first appear inthe Fasti from zIr. One of the legislatorswas evidently a Porcius Laeca, whose descendants on as moneyersin the late secondcentury celebratedlibertasand.proaocatio their coins (ÄRC nos. z7o, 3or); in the second of these issuesa citizen dressed in the toga, i.e. not a soldier, appeals against sentence by a magistrate in military attire. This strongly suggeststhat Laeca's law extended the right of appeal beyond the area within the pomeriumand a mile beyond (Sr-R.ir. 66 tr) in which tribunes could operate, but only to citizens in civil life. It seemsto me clear that the general retained the power to executesoldiersin Polybius' time (vi. tz; cf. 37 f.) and later (Cic. Phil. iii. r 4; Plut. Crassusr o) ; on the other hand, he was forbidden to beat them with rodsby r34 (per.Livy. lvii; cf. Plut. C. Gr. g. 3); this may have been a novelty of a law perhaps advocated by Cato (Festusr66 L.). It is curious that Livy ignores all these statutes in his detailed narative of eventsdown to r67. Cicero avers(derep.ä. 5$ that the right of appeal was (a) shown to go back to the monarchy by the archivesof the pontiffs; cf. the legend of the trial of Horatius in Livy i. z6 (but the authenticity of such archives for early times neednot be credited, and the trial of Horatius can be regarded as a mere paradigm of later practice), and (b) that it was attested by several laws in the XII Tables; but if that had been the case, it is unintelligible that so much later legislationwas necessary.At best Cicero is guilty of rhetorical exaggeration; at no time was there any right of appeal against small fines or plenaeentailed by condemnation in certain civil processes.Cf. next note. Probably he misunderstoodthe code. For 'maximus instance,the provision he cites in deleg.iii. r r , 44 that only the 'de capite civis' could passsentence comitiatus', i.e. the comitiacenturiata, was probably intended to inhibit the tribal assemblyfrom attempting to exercisecapital jurisdiction, and irrelevant to proancalio.In the historic decided by the people were always a matter for period capital processes t h e t ' c r r t u r i a t ca s s c n r l r l yt ;h c t r i l x . sc o u l d o n l y i r n p o s ef i n e s .C i c e r om a y also havr anticipatedMommsen in supposingthat popular trials implied proaocatio, whereasit has now been shown that in all historical cases, exceptthat of Rabirius in 63, they were trials in the first instance,with a magistrate,normally a tribune, acting both as presidentand as prosecutor. If the views presentedin ch. 4,vr are right, the iusprouocationis was not in practiceavailableto common criminals,but only to defendantswhose alleged offence had a political colour, safeguarding them against the prejudices of a magistrate and his consilium;cf. n. r37. But even in this limited way it was along with the tribunician ius auxilü, considered a b u l w a r k o f f r e e d o m ;c f . n n . 3 7 , r o g ; a n d a l s o C i c . d e o r a ti.i . r 9 g , d e r e p . ä . 5 5 , ü i . 4 4 ; L i v y i i i . 4 8 ( ' t r i b u n i c i a ma u x i l i u m e t p r o v o c a r i o n e m . . . d u a s a r c e sl i b e r t a t i st u e n d a e ' ) , 5 6 . 6 , x . 9 . 3 - 6 7 , e t c . a n d t h e c o i n sc i t e d above. For full discussionBleicken, rRExxiii. 24+4tr; Lintott (next note); it need hardly be said that this is a subject of endless controversy (cf. ch. 4, vr). On Lintott's view (ANRW i. z.226ff.) proaocatio began as an appeal to 9. the plebs for physical aid, and always remained an appeal to the tribes, which would not formally try the appellant by the comitial procedure for which only the centuriate assemblywas competent (hearing casesin the first instance), but merely approved or disallowed the sentence.I cannot believe that the XII Tables formally sanctioned this, or that the theory can account for 'licere' in de rep. ii. 54. But texts he cites (e.g. Dionys. xx. r6; Livy xxvi. 33) actually attest decisionsby the tribes; his account may then be right for the period after the iusprouocationis had been prescribed by law, at latest from 3oo. Lintott suggests that presumably fictitious scenesof appeals to plebs or tribunes in annalistic narrativesof early Rome (Livy ii.55, iii.58, viii. 33, ix. 26. ro) derive from later experience. 'potestates'emanated I O . It was a partial concessionto the principle that all from the people that the great priestly colleges,at first filled by cooptation, came to be elective, by an assemblycomposedof r 7 of the 35 tribes selectedby lot. No doubt these tribes might commonly be a fair cross-sectionof the entire body, but it seems hard to explain the peculiarity of this practice, except on the hypothesis that the lot was supposedto indicate divine approval of the tribes it marked out, which was held to be requisite for the election of priests (Cic. leg. agr. ä rB) though this conceptionof the lot is little attestedat Rome (Ehrenberg,.R.E xiii. 1465f.). The pontifexmaximuswas thus elected in ztz and the curio maximusin zo9 (Livy xxv. 5, xxvii. 8); a 'popular' bill to make all priesthoodsdepend on 'beneficium populi' in r45 failed to carry (Cic. de amic. gG), but one was passed in ro4 by the tribune Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus,actuatedby personalreasons(Ascon.zr C.; Cic. deleg.ä. I8) but probably popularisat the time (cf. Ascon. Bo C.); his law was naturally repealed by Sulla and revived by the 'popular' tribune of 63, Labienus(Dio xxxvii. 37). Cicero arguesthat the sameprocedureapplied to any secularoffice would derogatefrom popular liberty (n. rr3). 522 523 524 ENDNOl'ES CHAPTERB: CLIENTELA Thus in Degrassi's collectionof Republicaninscriptionscliensoccursonly in a freedwoman'sboast of numerousclients (ILLRP g8z). Some Delian dedicationsto patrons (3S9-63, 433) were no doubt set up by clients, but in most casesa though the dedicantsdo not so describethemselves; patron is clearlythe former owner of freedmen,with whom he may have a common sepulture(..g. 798,gz7a,946 f.); a freebornclient sharesthis in CILvr. r4672, perhapsa unique record. The index to CIL vI registers3 or 4 clients in some 3o,ooo inscriptionsfrom the city of Rome; one is a dedication by clients of Sulla (r:go). Patrons occur very frequently: a sample shows that most were patrons of freedmen, the rest generally of communitiesor collegia;for Pompeii see n. I27. The standard form of index to CIL only notespatronage of communities (seee.g. 1ZSur. 69r f.), which is common. ILS 6577 ('C. Manlio C. f. cens. perpet. clientes patrono') from Caere (early Principate) is exceptional;the monument showsclients sacrificing to the lar of the patron'slfundus,according to R. Bianchi Bandinelli and M. Torelli (L'arte dell'antichitdclassica,ü. Roma 'in the light of Roman legal Imperiale,no. B4), and they suggest that conceptionsthere is clearly a representationof acceptanceof a natural under the manusof a patron'; but only in obligation, of entry in clientelam imperial law did jurists recognize that persons 'in power' could have ' n a t u r a l ' o b l i g a t i o n (ss e ee . g .S c h u l z ,r 9 5 r , 4 6 o f f . ) , a n d n o j u r i s t h a se v e r 'in power' (manus)lCf. W. W. supposedthat in this period clients were Buckland and P. Stein, Textbookof RomanLaw3, 1966, 552ff. 2. I have not mentioned in the text one matter perhaps pertinent, but obscure to me. In the centuriate assembly a tribal century of iuniores chosenby lot voted first, and its vote was announced before the election praerogatiuahad so much proceededfurther. Cicero allegesthat this centuria auctorilasthat of the two candidates who obtained its vote for the consulship the one returned first was always successful,either at that election or (if the election were interrupted and resumedlater ab initio) fot the year in question (Planc.49). Taylor, rg+9, 20+ n.40, notes some exceptionsfrom the Hannibalic war, but Cicero could hardly have made the allegation unlessit had been at leastgenerally true in his day. There is some confirmation in the promise made by two candidates in 54 to distribute corrupt rewards to voters in the prerogative century in the (Mur.38, event of their return (Qr.-fr:ii. I3. (r4) .4). Cicero alsosuggests de dia. i. ro3, ii. 83) that the preferenceof this century was thought to manifest the divine will, as it was chosen by lot. Yet the remaining centurieswere rarely unanimous,as in electingCicero (ch.6 n. 164); so not all of them would respect the omen. Why too was it only the candidate returned first by that century who was deemed to enjoy divine that a'bandwaggon psychology'wasat work. favour?Taylor 56 suggests That would seem to imply that whichever tribe was selectedto vote first was thought to be representativeof the feeling prevalent generally at least in the top classes of the centuriate assembly.Yet one would have supposed r. l:Nl)N()'ll:s 525r t l r i l l r n a D y o l ' t h c t r i l l c s w ( ' f( ' t ( x ) s t n i r l l : t l t < lt r x r s u s t ' t ' 1 l t i l r l t ' t toh e i n l l u e n t : e ol partit'ular nlagtlat('s to ltave lrt'ett rt'gardcd :rs t'ross-sectionsol' the ('lc('tor:rte,unless indeed it was normally the case that one candidate was so prcp At)l)uNl)l.lM ENDNo'rES 526 may reflect a loosening of kinship ties. In any event the legal rules, which obviously derive from current concepts of obligations to kinsmen, show that the senseof affinity extended beyond the nuclear family, but not to all who could claim the same patrilinear descent, and that it also encompassed connections on the mother's side and those most closely related by marriage. Cicero's hierarchy of special obligations (de ofic. i. views of the Stoic 53-g), even if taken from Panaetius (cf. the similar Hierocles a1. Stob., ed. Hense and Wachsmuth, iii. 73t, iv.67r-3)' corresponds to the Roman ideas revealed by the legal institutions. ADDENDUM THE RIGHT OF CITIZENS TO OBTAIN REPETUNDÄE REPARATION UNDER THE PROCESS I have treated it as a possibility that citizens as well as peregrinicould claim No proof reparation for their own wrongs under the lex Calpurniaderepetundis. the right can be given of this, but it seemsto me certain that they possessed view, This tabula Bembina. the with under the Gracchan law, identified advocatedby C. Venturini, Studirzl crimen repetundarum nell' etärepubblicana, tg7g,8z ff., from whom I differ in certain particulars,goesagainstorthodox oplrrlon derived from Mommsen (Grs. Schr.i. I ff.), though he himself later e*pressedsome hesitancy (Slrafr. 72r n. +). By his supplementation of the opining clause of the inscription (v. r), he excluded citizens from the cätegoriesof those whose wrongs could generate claims under the repetundae p.ocä$. However, there appearsto be no epigraphic objection toinserting the w o r d s ' [ q u o i c e i v i R o m a n o ] ' b e f o r e ' f n o ] m i n i s v eL a t i n i . . . ' I t i s b e y o n d question that Roman citizenscould take proceedingsunder the Gracchan law (rr.zz,76f.), but Mommsen held that they could do so' only when acting 'alieno nomine'on behalf ofperegrini,and that it was a later development,first attested in the time when Sulla's law was operative, by which citizens too coutt' could seekreparation from the repetundae procedure Mommsen relied on a conjectural hypothesisthat the repetundae pecuniae which indebitae, condictio action, developed from a form of private peregrinicould bring against ex-magistratesbefore the peregrine praetor, 'ius dicere inter civeset peregrinos', whosefunction, he supposed,was simply and who could therefore not entertain claims made by one citizen against another (Strofr. 7zr f.). Of such private actions there is no evidence (though we should not expect any). More important, Mommsen'sconceptionof the original jurisdiction of the peregrine praetor is ill-founded (D. Daube, JAS, r95r, 66 ff.). It is true that it was probably he who presidedover the repetundae court under the Calpurnian law (cf. tab. Bemb.v. rz), but a statute could confer on any magistrate functions diverse from those which he normally performed. So too it could develop the law in a novel direction. Thus, even if process'a Mommsen was right in his theory on the origin of the repetundad have could statute any (Venturini, loc. cit.), in fashion no longer theory 527 irrtrocf uced innovations,and there t:ould be n 528 ADDENDUM who the claimants were; if they were Roman citizens, then under the 'alieno nomine' on their Gracchan law Albucius etc. were entitled to act behalf. If they were acting on behalf of peregrini,it must surely have been under somestatuteamendingthe Gracchanlaw, whether the Acilian or one of which we have no record at all, a possibility that cannot be excluded (pp. z8Btr). The right to proceedon behalf of peregrinihad certainly been concededto citizensby the law, Caepio'sor Glaucia's,under which certain trials took place at the end of the first century; it is irrelevant to our present other than purposewhether this legislation had also withdrawn from peregrine asVenturini holds (4r9 ff.). As under the Latinr the right to suefor themselves Corrtelian law, it was then necessaryto establisha procedure of diuinalioto decide between rival prosecutorc(Diu. Caec.6zf.). It is significant that no extant part of the tabulaBembinarefersto diuinatio,and that it is again hard to seewhere provision could have been made for it in the lacunae. Very fragmentary clausesin the tabula(vv. 3o-5) show that the praetor was required to assist claimants in collecting evidence and to enforce the attendance of not more than 48 witnesseswhom they had called to suPPort their case.But the writ of a praetor at Rome surely did not run outside the ager in Italy itself; he could hardly have trespassedon the administation Romanus ofa provincial governor, nor unlessexpresslyauthorized, have entrenchedon the iutonomy of the Latins and Italian allies. The words extant or plausibly 'in terra Italia in supplementedin v. 34 refer to the collection of evidenceonly solent]', which praeesse opp.d.l. foreis conciliabfoleis ubei ioure deicundo and allied Latin the indicated since sense in the should be interpreted communiries in Italy would hardly be designated by such terms, while the 'extra Italiam' must surely supplementationwhich requiresthe praetor to act prosecutorwas enabled law the berejected. It is true that under the Cornelian (ll Verr.i. 6o, ii' rBe, iv. provinces in documents incriminating impound to g6, ,+g) and that under theJulia-n witnessesfrom beyond the seascould be io-päit.a to attend (e.g.FIRA i.2 no.68 v. 95).We must presumethat the Iatei laws obliged provincial governors to co-operatein the process.The fact that under the tabulaBembinathe praetor was to assistclaimants gathering evidencewithin Roman territory in Italy, and surely only within that limit, in itself suggeststhat claims could arise from the activity of a delinquent there, prejudicial to citizens. though limited as yet, illustrates This official aid to claimants for repetundae, the way in which they were favoured by comparisonwith a plaintiffin a civil action; the state did not intervene to enable him to seizedocuments or bring his witnessesto court. The praetor was also obliged to supply the claimant for repetundae on request with a patronzssubject to his own approval ofthe person .hor.n (vv. g-rz). Most important of all, the stateassumedresponsibilityfor execution of judgement, if the defendant was condemned,whereasin private law the plaintiff had to executejudgement himself. The provision that the condemned defendant was to pay twice the sum he was adjudged to have wrongfully taken, though reminiscent of the poenaprescribed in some civil actionsfor delict, also gave the procedure a deterrent effect.Moreover, a large equestriancourt was probably lessexposedto undue pressureby a powerful A D I ) l : Nl ) t : M 529 h scnirt(,rial 530 ADDENDUM province. According to Cicero, the Sicilians had never until 7o sought redress court 'publico consilio' (ll Verr. ii. B); they were accusfrom the repetundae in silence(iii.6a). Yet many of Verres'predecesoppression endure to tomed sors had been accused and only two acquitted (ii. I55). Though we may harmonize these assertionsby assuming that Verres was the first against whom Sicilian cities as such had acted, ani that earlier charges had been brought by or on behalf of private individuals, the possibility exists that resident Romans had been among those individuals. Appian's allegation of collusion between prosecutors and equestrian iudices (i. zz) gains in plausibility if someat least of the prosecutorswere Equites pressingtheir own claims. After his unjust condemnation Rutilius retired to the very province which was the sceneof his alleged extortions; the chargesagainst him might well have come not from provincial men of straw, but from Romans in Asia whose rapacity he had checked. The obscure Apicius, said to have been primarily responsiblefor his ruin (PosidoniusF. z7 Jacoby), could have been lhe chief claimant against him. So too in a later time Gabinius, who had incurred the animosity of the publicans in Syria, may actually have been condemned on claims they preferred. To conclude, under Gracchus' law citizens could obtain redress for extortions at their expense.This may have been possibleunder the Calpurto Equites made it more nian law, but the transfer ofjudication for repetundae likely that ex-magistrateswould succumb to claims made against them by citizens, among whom Equites active in the provinces might well have been the most notable. All this was written before the publication ofJ. S. Richardson's article in JRS, ry87, r ff, which produces arguments for holding that the procedure instituted by the lex Calpurniagave redressto citizensand was still available to them as late as 7o. This may well be so; his contentionsdo not undermine my thesis that Gracchus designed his new procedure for citizens as well as peregrini,and that it suited their interests, at least with equestrian iudices; indeed, it is rather lesslikely that it was not available to them, if their claims court. (I do not share Richardson's could already be heard by the repetundae doubts that the lex Calpurniaalso offered protection to peregrini.) I N D E X ES References to pages also include the footnotes. Romans are designated by cognomina,when so designated in the text. Many incidental allusions to individuals are not indexed, and some individuals are registered only under their families. Dates of magistracies are given solely fior identification. I. PERSONS, PEOPLES AND PLACES Accius,4I Acilii Glabriones, zoz, 466 L. AeliusLamia, r55, 16z, r7r A e l i i T u b e r o n e s ,3 6 8 , 4 5 r , + 6 + - 5 , + g G Aemilii (seeLepidi, Scauri), 447 L. Aemilius Paullus (ros. r8z), 29, 246' 465 A e q u i a n s ,l r 5 , r 3 8 L. Afranius (ros.6o), 476,479 Africa, corn-trade, r69, r77; taxes, I67; colonists,278-8o Ambracia, I78 Antistii, 4o5, 497, 5oo C. Antonius Hybrida (cos.63), zor, 343, 365, 3 7 o , 3 7 t , 9 7 6 ,4 2 9 L . A n t o n i u s( c o s . 4 r ) , 6 , t 6 5 , z 7 o , 4 3 9 , /), r3r, r47, 374,976, M. Anronius (censor9 377, 459, 460 M. Antonius (triumvir), 7, +9, 52, 57,86-7, 22e,323, gz8,3zg,36r, 366, 368, g7r; see 3 9 g , 4 3 r , 4 7 6 , 5 o 3 ; s r et r i u m v i r s Apulia, Apulians, I I5, r 16, z5z, 254, 255, M . ' A q u i l l i u s ( r o s .r o I ) , r 5 7 , r 8 7 , 3 7 6 Arabia, Igt Aristotle: on the state, zrg; on freedom, 3lo, 3 r r ; o n s l a v e r y , 2 8 8 - 9 o ;o n f r i e n d s h i p , 354, on history, 9r Arpinum, ro4, rr8, r3o, r38, rgg,z48,z54, 397 Arretium, rz8, 397,5r I; pottery, 242 Q A r r i u s ( Ä E n o . 8 ) , a 7 S ,+ o S Asellio, L. Sempronius (pr. c.96), 4r9 Asellio, Ti. Sempronius (pr.8$, r57 Asia, annexation and taxation, 33,64, r4g, r 5 r , r 5 3 , r 5 4 , 1 6 7 ,r 6 9 , r 8 z , 1 8 7 - 9 ,z r 4 Athens: and freedom ofher allies, zg4; institutions compared with Roman, 24, :7, 2 9 9 ,3 o 9 , 3 r o , 3 1 2 , 3 r 8 , 3 I 9 , 3 2 5 , 3 3 5 - 7 , 342' 404 -I'. A t t i c u s , P o m p o n i u s ,r 4 6 , r 4 7 , I 5 5 r I 7 I , r 7 f i , 3 5 { 1 ',. 1 7 t , 3 9 7 Augustus (Octavian, szzaisotriumvirs); longevity,84-5; genius, 87; partisans,5-8, 5oo-z; clients,438-gl military support,77i founder of monarchy under Republican pretenceswith universal consent,z-to, I8 (imperium),35, 52, 68, 83, 86-7, 329 (aucloitas),32g, 501-2,5o8; imPortance of restoration of otium,8, 67, 8o-t, 5oI; ofTacitus, z, 8, 67, 68, of assessments Velleius, 7, 67; realizesCicero's ideals of otiumcumdignitate,56-68; respectfor traditions, 6, +g, S7*8,8o; imperial policy, 6 g , 6 S - 7 , r 9 r ; f i s c a lm e a s u r e s6, 5 - 7 , 8 o - t , 274, and senators,5-8, 35, 67-8, I3o, I46, 5 r 4 - r 5 ; a n d E q u i t e s ,5 - 8 , r 9 z - 3 ; a n d u r b a n p l e b s ,8 , 5 2 , 6 7 , 7 6 , 3 5 o ; and soldiersand veteran settlements,8, 67, 78, z4r, z69, z7t-4; judicial measures, 23t-3 A u r e l i i C o t t a e , 4 2 6 , 4 g r , 4 9 4 , 4 9 6 , e s p .C . . 5) 365, 968,46o,47r Cotta (cos7 P. Autronius Paetus (ros.des.6), 426 Bacchanalian rites, 3o3 Balbus, L. Cornelius (tos. 4o),364,379 Bantia, Oscan, and Latin laws, t t6, t I8-zo, I 39-43 B i b u l u s ,M . C a l p u r n i u s ( r o s .5 9 ) , 2 7 , 3 6 , 5 9 , 365, 369, 37o, 427, 456, 485, 488-9o C. Billienus, r2g, 424 Bithynia, r57, I87, I89 Bononia,38g,5o3 Bruti, Iunii, 373, 46t, 472, 496 D. Brutus (cos.des.4z), 276,379, 38o, 43o, 496,500 . o9),4o,4I L . B r u t u s( r o s 5 M. Brutus (pr. 44): Republican principles and aims, 35, 4r, 366, 38o, 399, 4oo, 487,495, 5 o o , 5 o 3 ; f a t h e r ,3 7 9 , 4 7 2 ; b l u n d e r s , 8 6 ,8 7 ; t r o o p s ,2 5 8 - 9 , 2 6 4 , z 7 r ; l o a n s , I 7 3 , 3 9 3 B r u t t i a n s ,B r u t t i u m , 9 8 , I I 4 , 2 5 2 , 2 5 + , 2 7 7 532 I N D ü XO r P l : R s ( ) N s I N D E X O F 'P E R S O N S Caecilius (poet), t I8 A. Caecina, 395-7,452 M. Caelius Rufus, 357, 36o, 376, 378, 497 Caepasii, 4o5 Caepio, Q Servilius (cos.ro6) and son, r55, rg5, zo4-6, 2og,222,34o, 34r,492, 454, 46o Caere,ro4, tt8, t39 Caesares,Iulii, 46o, 496 C. Caesar (dict.): part in revolution,8z-4; before first consulship (popularis),25, 32,, 46,47,53, z5r, 266,365-6,426, 472' 479, 'triumvirate', 27, gZ, 45,76, 48r-3; during t 4 r , 2 6 6 , 2 7 o , 3 6 5 * 6 , 4 2 7 ,+ 9 7 , 4 7 4 , 4 7 6 , 479, 48o-t,484, 486; in civil war, 34, 43, 8 o , 8 5 , z 5 B ,z 6 g , z 7 o , 3 6 9 , 4 8 8 - 9 7 ; position and measuresas dictator, 52, 57, 59, 6o, 78, u5o, 3o6, 3I8, 328, 33o, 35o, 49r, 498-5oo (seedebt-question); Gallic command, esp. r8, 33, 42, 47, 76,83, 472, 486,487,489; his legates,474, 476, 48r' 494; Gallic legions,256, u6o-2, 266, 268; his soldiers,z6o-5, 268*7o, 435-6; veteran settlements,r6o, z6r, 266, 268, z69, z7o; longJasting'friendship' with Pompey, esp. 4+-5, 84, 364, 366, 472-4, 489, 487, +89, 496; relations with Cicero, go, 363-5, 37 1-2, 4go- t, 4gg; with others, kin, friends, opponents,365-6, 977-8, 448, 4$, 476, 485, +94, 496, 5ot ; clients, 393-4, 398, 416,482-g; concern with public opinion, 47-8,52t; with religion, 59 C . C a e s a rS t r a b o , 4 6 o L. Caesar (ros.go),456,49o, seelex lulia, (s") L. Caesar (cos.6Q and son, 476, 485, +94, 496,50r Caesarians: meaning, 446; not supporters of monarchy, 6-8, 38, 40, 364,488-5oI Q, Calidius, 4o5 C a m e r i n u m ,9 9 , r 3 t Camillus, M. Furius (dict. 39o), 4t3 C a m p a n i a n s ,C a p u a , I o 4 , I z r - 2 , t 3 8 - 9 , t74, 252, 254, 277, 296, 397-8, 437, 504 Cappadocia, I89 Capua, seeCampanians Carbo, C. Papirius (cos.rzo), zrg, zz6, g7z, 459, 467 Carlio, C. Papirius (cos.85), 46r-z; a hostile kinsman, 46I Carneades,3ot Carthage: question ofdestruction, 46, l8o, 465; Gracchan colony, r8z-3 A. Cascellius,5oo Cassii Longinii, 427, 447, 473, 496 C . C a s s i u sL o n g i n u s ( p r . + + ) , 2 5 8 - 9 , 3 o t , 366, 38o,463,495, often conjoined with M. Brutus 4.2. L . C a s s i u sL o n g i n u s ( c o s .r z 7 ) , 2 2 r , 2 2 4 , s e e ballot laws S p . C a s s i u s( r o r .5 o r ) , 4 o , 5 t Catiline (L. Sergius Catilina): plotting, 482; popular backing, z5I-3; fate of accomplices,gg4, 47r; seealso6r-2, 75, r48, z6o, c76, 3r2, 343, 954, 37o, 429, 454,471 Cato, C. Porcius (ros. r r4), zoI, 465 C a t o , C . P o r c i u s( l r . P l . S 6 ) , + Z S , 4 8 4 , 4 9 5 Cato, M. Porcius (ros. I95), 37I, 463, +65; 'Italia', o r a t o r y , 4 6 - 7 , z t z , 3 I 5 ; v i e w so n rr4, rr7; Iibertas,295,3o4, 336; patronage, 4 r 6 ; p h i l o s o p h e r s3, 0 I ; u s u r y , I 7 3 C a t o , M . P o r c i u s( 1 r . 5 4 , 4 7 , 4 8 , 7 5 , 1 7 6 , 32g, g5+, 373, 375; relations with Pompey, 258, 446, +54, +56, 47r, 484, 488; influence, 447,494-G Catulus, Q. Lutatius (ros. Ioz), 459-6o C a t u l u s ,Q , L u t a t i u s ( c o s . 7 8 ) , 4 9 ,3 6 6 , 3 7 o , 47r' 472 Cethegus,M. Cornelius (cos.zo4), 46 Cethegus,P. Cornelius $. 71, 46r, 469 7o Chrysogonus,396 Cicero, M. Tullius: origins, r59; property and income, 39, I64, 248, 274,5o6; public career to consulship, 42, 427-3o, 477-8; from 63 to exile,46, t65, 3r8,928,425, g4, 478-8o; lrom recall to civil war, 484-7; $n Cilicia, r5z, t76, 274, zg3, 5o6); thereafter, ZS, 379, 496-7; as o p t i m a t e ,3 2 , 5 z - 6 5 , r g o , 2 6 6 , 2 7 4 , 3 2 5 , 'exercitus 334, 39o,478-9, 5o6; his locupletium', r48, z5I, 397; relations with p u b l i c a n s ,r 5 r - 2 , r 7 t , r 7 5 - 6 , I 9 o ; w i t h urban plebs, 5g-4,249,334, 487; anici, r69, 356 6o; relations with Antony, 36I, 364; Atticus, 358; Caesar, go, 363-5, 3 7 r 2 , 4 g o - t , 4 g 9 ; C a e s a r ' sp a r t i s a n s ,3 6 4 ; Ap. Claudius, 356, 972; M. Crassus, 358-9, 362, Fufius Calenus, 363-4; Hortensius, 357, 363, 375-6; Lentulus Spinther, 367, g7r 2, 484-7; Matius, 357, 364; Pompey, go, 356-2, 359, 362-4, g7 t-2, 977, 379, 477-8o, 484-7, 49o, 496-7,5o8; Trebatius, 355, 357, 364, 3 9 4 - 5 ; c l i e n t s ,3 9 3 - 5 , 3 9 7 , 4 2 1 , 4 3 3 ; c o n s t i t u t i o n a vl i e w s ,z , l 3 - r 5 , 3 5 , 5 5 - 6 , 67, zgr,2gg, g2g 6, 478, 5o6-8; political ideals, 54-68, r48, 5o6 B; views on amicitia,4o, 352-6o; law, 6o r, 3r8, 334 B, 368;liberty, 55-6, zgz-3, z96,3tz, 323-30, 332 3, 34o-t,348, 486, 5zr; monarchy, 3, 292, 3oo, 5o6-7; mos t. ', m a i o r u m , 1 3 , 5 t i 7 , ( ) r ä t ( t r y ,4 1 6 i p r r 4 r r t y rights, 54, (it '1, provincial govcrnmcnt, 6 3 - 4 , r 5 r , r 7 r , r 7 5 - 6 ; r c l i g i o n , 5 { l6 o , -3, 3rlr 520; social morality, 39-4o, 3o7-8, 365, 389-9o, 45o, 526; traders, t 7o; tribunician power, 324, 348; wÄtings, dc ani' citia, 4o,352-5; de inp. Cn. Pomp.,42, 49, r72, 473, 478-9; fu lcg. agr. ä and other 'popular' speeches,zg, 42, 46, 49, 50,243, z 5 r , 3 2 6 , 9 4 6 , 2 7 7 , 4 7 7 - 8 , 5 o 4 ,5 z r ; d e o["., 5g,367, 389-9o; de orat., 459; P h i l i p p ; c s , 4 85, o 3 ; d ep r o a .c o n s . , 4 z , 4 7 ' 487; de rep.,3$, 464,5o6-8; his political importance, 46 Cicero, Q, Tullius, t7, r52, r7r Cilicia, r5z, r76, 188-9, 274,293,5o6 Cimbri, 44,83-4, rzg C i n n a , L . C o r n e l i u s( c o s . 8 7 ) , 7 9 , I o 3 , I I I ' r25, r3r, 135-6, 258-9, 339,432-3,455, 46o-z Cinnans, 38, 46r, 5zo; meaning, 446 Cisalpina (scea/soTranspadani), I I4, r t8, r 2 2 , t 2 4 , r z 6 , z 5 z , 2 5 6 , 2 7 6 , 2 7 9 ,4 3 4 , 4 3 6 , 5 o 3 , 5 r 3 ,5 I 8 Claudii Marcelli, r 7, 85, g7 |, 374, 398, 4I 3, +45, +53' 493' 496' 5zo C l a u d i i ( p a t r i c i a n ) ,4 r 3 ; P u l c h r i , r 7 3 , 2 2 r ' +52, 465; Nerones, 396,452 Ap. Claudius (censor 3tz), 339 Ap. Claudius Pulcher (cos.r4g), +54, 463, 465 Ap. Claudius Pulcher \cos.5$,354, 356, 372, 374, 378, 487, 5o5 P. Clodius Pulcher (h. pl. 58): champion of popular liberty, 27, 59-60, 334; corn-dole, 6S, 7S-6, 243; law on collegia,3o6, 33 I , 3 5 o ; g a n g s ,5 4 , 1 6 2 , 2 4 r , 2 4 3 , 3 t 8 , 3 z I , 432, 4g4-5, 473, 479-8c ,484; independent political role, 478-8o, 484-5; seealso r8z, 3e9, 362, 368-9,37t-2, 487 Cloelia, 4o-t C l u e n t i i ,I I r , 1 6 4 Q, Considius, t 74 Constant, Benjamin, 298-9 Cora, gB C o r f i n i u m( I t a l i a ) , r r r I z Corinth, r78, I8o Cornelii, 45t, 454, 455; seealsoCethegus' Cinna, Dolabella, Lentuli, Scipio(nes), Sulla(e) C . C o r n e l i u s( t r .p | . 6 7 ) , 6 r , t 3 9 , 2 7 7 , 4 7 1 , 478 C o s a ,r I 8 , r 7 3 Crassus,L. Licinius (cos.95): associates, 459-60, 469 70; backing of Drusus, ror, r 3 r - 2 : s e ea l s o 4 6 , r 4 7 , I 5 3 , 2 o I , 2 3 4 , 3 + 5 , Z7e, 446 and lex Licinia Mucia 533 ( i r l s s u s , M . l , i c i n i u s ( r o r . 7 o ) : i n f l u c n c ea n d p < r l i t i c am l a t r ( r u v r e s ,r 9 o , 4 6 9 7 , r , 4 7 2 - 3 . 479 86; relations with Cicero, 358, 362, 367; Parthian war and effect ofdeath, S3; w e a l t h e t c . , j t , 1 7 4 , 2 4 6 , z 5 g ; s e ea l s o3 7 3 , 374, 425' 453 C r a s s u sP , . L i c i n i u s M u c i a n u s ( c o s .r 3 l ) , 4 6 4 , 505 C u m a e ,r o 4 , I I 8 , r 3 g C u r i o , C . S c r i b o n i u s( c o s . 7 6 ) , 4 5 3 Curio, C. Scribonius (tr. pl. 5o),364,378 M.' Curius, 393, 395 M. Curtius, 4o-I Cyprus,65, r8z, 263 Cyrenaica, r89 Decii, 4o-t Delos,169, t78 Diocletian, 3o7 Dionysius of Halicarnassus:on clientship, 384, 987,4oo-16, 4zr, 438, 44o; on libertas and ia.r in early Republic, 335, 342, 944, 347, 348; on comitia centuilata,349; on senatorialjudication, rg7 D o l a b e l l a ,P . C o r n e l i u s( c o s .4 4 ) , 8 6 , 3 6 8 , 5 o o Domitian, 3t8 Domitii, tor, 46r, 523 Domitius, L. Ahenobarbus (ros.54), :46, z4g, z6o, 277, gg2, 43o, 434, 456' 485, 487, 488 Domitius, Cn. Calvinus (cos.53), 494, 496 D r u s u s ,M . L i v i u s ( l r . p l . r z z ) , 9 8 - 9 , z t 5 Drusus, M. Livius (lr. 1/. 9r): and Italian a l l i e s ,r o o - 3 , I o 6 - 7 , t 3 r - z ; a n d Equites,t48, r5z, I54-6, I6o, r6r, zo6-ro, 236, 49; other proposals,75, r o 6 - 7 , r 5 8 , : 4 I ; l a w s q u a s h e d ,2 7 , r o 6 - 7 ; supporters and adversaries,r3r-2, 4o5, 42(J' 433' +54, 459 M. Duronius, 3o4 Egypt, r89-9r,484 6 E n n i u s ,4 6 , r 1 5 , r 1 7 , r r 8 , 3 r r E t r u r i a , E t r u s c a n s ,I o 5 - 7 , r o g , r I 3 - 1 4 , t I 6 , r83, z5z, 254,276, 4o4 Fabü, 4rg, 445 Q , F a b i u sC u n c t a t o r , 4 2 , 4 2 2 , 4 5 5 Faesulae, Io6 Falerii, Falisci, I r5, r r8 C . F a n n i u s( c o s r. z z ) , 4 6 , 5 o , 9 6 , 9 8 , r 3 z , 464, 468 Flamininus, T. Quinctius (cos.r98), IB, 448 C . F l a m i n i u s ( c o s .z z g ) , z r , 9 4 6 , 4 2 3 , 5 o 5 Cn. Flavius (aed. 3o$, 336 L . F l a v i u s ( t r .p l . 6 o ) , 2 4 r , 2 7 o , + 7 9 C. Flavius Fimbria (cos.rc4), tzg SS4 INDIX M. Fonteius (Procos.74), t85 Formiae,Io4, Ir8, r55 Fregellae,7o, 96-7, tr5 L. Fufidius, 4o5 Q, Fufius Calenus (cos'45),362-3 Fulvii, 266,445 M. Fulvius Flaccus (cos.tz1;), g4-g' 467-8 M. Fulvius Nobilior (censor I79), 3o8 Fundi, Io4, rr8,398 P. Furius (tt. Pl. 9ü, +32 L. Furius Philus (cos.136), 185-6, 464' 468' 476 A . G a b i n i u s ( r o s .5 8 ) , 2 2 , r 5 3 ' I 7 5 ' I 9 o ' law 272, +SZ, 477, 479, 48o, 487, 5r6; constituting Pompey'scommand, 33, 44' I76, 49,76, t7g, 472-3, 483; other laws, 5r6 Gades, 295 L. Gellius (cos.721, 475, 485 Gibbon, to Glaucia, C. Servilius (pr. roo),64, r55, t95, 204-5, 219 Gracchi, Ti. and C. Sempronius:family relationships, 45t-2, 463-6; precursors'2I; populares and initiators of revolution, zz-3, 32-3, 39' 74-5,87' t97' 334-9' 345; m o t i v e s ,9 I ; e l o q u e n c e ,4 6 , 8 7 , z t z ; s u p p o r t e r sa n d a d v e r s a r i e s , 2 5z, 8 ' 7 2 , 7 5 , t 4 7 - 8 , t 5 r - 4 , 2 4 r ' 2 4 3 ,e 5 o , 3 3 8 ' 3 6 8 - 7 o ' 42o, 422-3, 43r, 432, 454, 4fu, 465-8; charged with seeking'regnum', 5r-2' 345; violent deaths and popular resentment, 78' r83, 424;Tiberius' agrarian law, z5-6, 27-8, 93, 49-5o, 6z' 64, 74, 94' t4t-z' 2 4 6 , 2 7 2 ,3 3 r , 3 4 6 - 8 , 4 6 5 - 7 ; c o n f l i c t w i t h Octavius, zz; subsequentproposals,33, 64, 'largitiones' and r8z, r95, 2og,222; Gaius' fiscal measures,g3,64-5, 75-6, r5r, 2 4 3 - 4 , 2 S o , 3 4 6 , 5 o 6 ; c o l o n i e s ,I 8 6 , e t 5 ; laws ne de ca\ite citis Romaniiniussupopuli iudicaretur,2r4, 224-7, z96, 339-41'de proaincäsconsularibus, 3g; d.erepetundisand judication; iudiciaria, seerepelundae, proposals on comitiaenturiata, 343: concerning Italian allies, 64, 94-9;on d e b t s( ? ) , 5 o 5 G r a n i u s ,3 I 5 Hadrian, r ze-3 Heraclea, ro5-6 Ap. Herdonius, 4t3 Herennii, 398, 4r7 H e r n i c a n s ,L a t i n s t a t u s ,9 5 , I 3 4 , r 3 8 , t 5 t A. Hirtius (cos.49), 364, 5oo H o b b e s r, z , 3 I o Horace, 67; Sabine estate,249 I N D E XO T P r , R s o N s o F P E R S O NS Horatii,4o-t Q. Hortensius (ros.69), 49,357' 357-9, 97g-6, 426, 47r-2, 485; his son, 38o, 495, 500 L. Hostilius Tubulus (pr. r4z)' zo8-9, zzr, Illyrian wars, I83' 263 Isidorus, C. Caecilius, 164, t74 Italian allies: limited autonomy, 98-9; directed by local principes.To, 99, Ioo. Io6, g86, 424; (whose ties with Roman nobles f"il to "u.tt revolt, 31, too' Io9, 986' 424); enjoy pax Romana,69; Romanization, r r 4- r 8; adoption of Roman institutions, rr8-ro; military and financial burdens, and other grievances,e.g. from agrarian m e a s u r e s7, 0 , 9 4 , 9 8 , l o 6 - 7 , r z o , t z t , r z 8 ; desire for Roman citizenship, 7l-2, stimulated by C. Gracchus' 94-9, strengthened universally thereafter, 129; 99- r r I , esp. as result of Cimbric war' i.e, for libertasin senseof share in Roman p o l i t i c a l r i g h r s ,9 5 , I o 5 , r z z - 3 ' r z 5 - 6 , 338-40; with concomitant benefits' lzo-t, rz7-go; and no appreciable reduction of local self-government.I2I- 4l oath to Drusus, Ioe-3, 433; organization of rebel , 6, s t a t e , t I I - 1 3 ; i n t e r n a l d i s s e n s i o n sI o ro8-9; anti-Roman sentimentsdiscussed, 7, rog-I r; attitude ofplebs to allied c l a i m s ,g S ; o f s e n a t e , 7 o - I ' 9 6 ' I o I ' I 0 3 ' t2s, 132-3, r35,424i ofEquites, r48; measuresof enfranchisement,Io5-Ior t3z-6; see also ciaessinesufragio, Latins Italians, Italy: concept ol ltalia, rr3-t+; geographical and linguistic barriers to unity, rI4; pax Romana,Romanization' 69, rr4-2o, 122-4; ethnlc mlx-uP, rl5, 5r6-r 7; population, z4t-z; rural economy' 245-53,273; trade and industry, Italian overseas,r 27, r 50, 168-87; negotialores municipal self-governmentand jurisdiction, r 2 r - 4 , t 4 c . ,z z 5 - 6 , z g g , 5 I 3 - I 4 , 5 r 7 ' 5 r 8 ; i n t h e h a n d s o f l o c a l o l i g a r c h s ,3 , r r , 4 8 , 54,72, r+o, 146, r55, r5g' t6g-4,245, gg7, 428-9, 43 r; their numbers and qualifications, r45-6; their military functions, 48, 254, 277-8, 4gz; rheir c l i e n t s ,3 9 r . g g 7 , 4 3 r , 5 2 4 ; t h e i r v o t i n g importance at Rome, r27, r29-3o' 428-3r; some recruited to senate,6-7, r29-30, I55, I59, I93,514-t5; recruitment of soldiers, 253-6, 276-7; s u f f e r i n g si n c i v i l w a r s , 6 , 7 2 , 7 9 - 8 r ' zig- 4; 482-3; political sentiments' 6-7, g 4 5 , q 7 g . 7 2 - 3 , 5 o t l s e eä o n i Italiotii (in Appian), r116,r79 D. lunius Silanus (ros.6z), 4t7 lunonia,r86 M . ' l u v e n t i u s L a t e r e n s i s( y ' r .S t ) , e 8 , 3 t 5 , 429 Judaea, r89 Jugurthinewar, r9, 44, 64, 83-4, t83-4, 34t' 345,470 Junian Latins, z96, 5r r Labeo, Antistius, 5oo T . L a b i e n u s( t r . p l . 6 g ) , 3 9 2 , 3 7 8 , 4 9 8 , 4 6 3 , 46r-7, 476, 48r, 4gz-3, 5zz C . L a e l i u s ( c o s .I 4 o ) , 2 4 t , 3 5 3 , 3 5 8 , 3 6 4 , 463-6 , 9, r 15,5t t-t3 L a t i n c o l o n i e s6 Latin language, diffusion in Italy, Io4, rr4-17 Latins: connotation ofterm, 95,98, 134; connection with Romans and loyalty to Rome,7o,96,98, ror-2, ro8-9, 386,5I3; alleged demands in 34o ec, Io3, 338; rights, 94-5, g7-8, 177-8, 242, 5to-t2; sponsalia,rz3; enfranchisement, rgz-4 $ee Junian Latins) Latium,277 Lentuli, Cornelii, 452; disunity in Cicero's time, 456, 479-6, 484-7, 495 Lentulus, L. Cornelius (Crus) (ros.49),85, 366, 475, 488 Lentulus, P. Cornelius (Spinther) (cos.57), 365, 967, 97 1, 378, 475, 484-7, 496; his son,368 Lepidus, M. Aemilius (censor r79), 368 L e p i d u s ,M . A e m i l i u s ( r o s .7 8 ) , + 4 , 7 9 , 8 2 , 252, 3+5, 348, 472, 5z I; coeval agnates, 47o, 472, 485 Lepidus, M. Aemilius (cos. 46): seetriumvirs; coeval agnates,494-5, 5oo Q, Ligarius, 497 Ligurians, t85 Livy: omissionsin lourth decade, silent on family factions, 447; value and sources for late Republic, unreliability of Periochae, r 9 5 , 2 o 3 , 2 o 7 , 2 r o - r 3 ; R e p u b l i c a n ,5 o 3 ; seeannalists L u c a n i a n s r, r o * r r , r r 4 , t t 8 , t 3 5 , t 4 I , 254-5, 277 L . L u c c e i u s ,9 5 6 , 4 2 6 , 4 7 7 , + 9 5 L u c i l i u s ( s a t i r i s t ) ,r r 8 , 3 I 6 C. Lucilius (tr. pl. g), 477 Lucretius, 43, 59 Lucullus, L. Licinius (cos.74): long command, 44, 79, br61'and Equites, r5z, r68, r75-6, r87-8,5r6; and soldiers, z 6 r - c ; a n d P o m p e y ,8 6 , 4 7 3 l , u c u ff u r , 'f'crcntiur 535 V a r r o ( r o . t .7 ' 1 , ' J 6 7 ,4 7 r , 485 M a r : c d o n ,m i n c s , I 5 o , t 6 6 M a c c r , C . L i c i n i u s , g 3 z , 4 6 5 ,5 z r S p . M a e l i u s ,5 r C n . M a l l i u s M a x i m u s ( r o s .t o 5 ) , I z g C. Mamilius (tr. pl. ro$, seequaestio C. Manilius (tt. p|.66): law on Pompey's command,Zg, 42, 49, rj2, r7g, t88, 375, g77, q7 2-8, 482-3; other proposals,339, 344 M . M a n l i u s C a p i t o l i n u s ,4 r , 5 t , 2 8 5 T. Manlius Imperiosus, 4o, 33I T. Manlius Torquatus (cos.r65), 4I T. Manlius Torquatus (cos.65) and son, 37o, 975-6, 426, 4$, 485 L . M a r c i u s P h i l i p p u s( r o s . 9 I ) , I o r , r 3 5 - 6 , 2 o 9 , 2 4 r ,4 r 2 - r 3 L. Marcius Philippus (cos.56), 4$, 485, 494 M a r i a r u , 3 8 , 5 3 , 6 2 , I I o , I 2 g , 1 3 5 - 6 ,t 5 9 , 257, 276, 448, 46o-gl. meaning of term, 446 C. Marius (cor.VII): part in revolution, 8z; trial for ambitas,4z5;election to first consulship, 93, 78, z5o, 4e4; commands granted by people, I9, 33, 186-7; associatesand actions after Ioo Bc, l3I, r56-7, 448, 46o-r; attitude to Italian a l l i e s ,g g , r o o , I o 2 , I o 3 , I o g , I I I , t 2 9 , r 3 r . 2 7 g i i n c i v i l w a r . p r o s c r i p t i o n s7, 9 , 4 6 o - r ; a n d s o l d i e r s ,7 6 - 7 , r 8 4 , 2 + r , 2 5 o , 253-5, 265,278-8o, 432, 436; and Equites, r5o, r56, r84; clients and patrons, 396,398,4t7 . z). z6o. 46t C . M a r i u s ( c a sB M. Marius Gratidianus, I59, 376 M a r r u c i n i ,t r 5 , r 1 6 , 2 5 4 , 2 7 7 , 5 o 3 M a r s i ,g g , r o o , I o 2 , I o g , I 1 2 , r t 6 , r I 8 , I e 5 , 254, z6o, 277 Massilia, I85, 3gg C. Matius, 40, gS7, 964, 379-8o, 497 Mediolanum, 4oo, 5o4 Memmii (connectedwith Pompey), 2or, 375, 427,474-5 C. Memmius (tr. pl. rtt), t54, I83, 345, 373, 52r Metelli, Caecilii: wealth and putative faction, 1 6 4 , r 7 4 , 2 4 6 , 4 2 5 ,4 4 b , 4 5 9 , 4 6 9 ;p a t r o n s of Marius. 398, 4r 7: disunity. 452; varying conduct in Pompey's time, 86, 368, 37o-I, 426, 454, 47+, 476, 478, 479, 483, 485, 488-9 Metellus, L. Caecilius (ros.:5r), 46, 5o5 Metellus, Q. Caecilius (Macedonicus), 369, 46s, 467-8 M e t e l l u s ,Q . C a e c i l i u s( N u m i d i c u s ) , I 4 I , r 5 z , r 8 4 , 4 S g ,S o + 536 Metellus, Q Caecilius (Pius), 44, 77' 4o5, 445, 47t, 5t6 J. S. Mill, 3o7 Milo, T. Annius, 435, 455 Minatius Magius, Io8, t33 Q Minucius Thermus (fl.6+), +zl Mithridates, Mithridatic wars, 44, 6t-2, 8z-3, rro, 156-7, 16o, r72, r75, r84' r87, 225,252, 472-3 Mommsen, on autocracy, ro C. Mucius, 4o P. Mucius Scaevola (cos.rg3), 465-7 Q, Mucius Scaevola (eos.tr7),43o, 459-6o, 464' 467 Q, Mucius Scaevola (ror. 95), r5z, 176, 462, see Let Licinia Mucia Mummii,464 Murena, L. Licinius (cos.6z),973-4, 427-3oN a e v i u s ,I I 8 , 3 1 6 N a p l e s ,r o 8 , I I 8 , I z z Narbo, 186, 245,459 C . N o r b a n u s ( c o s 8. 3 ) , 2 2 , r 2 5 , r 3 g , 2 1 7 , 254,34r, 376 Noricum, mines, I8z, t85 Q, Numitorius, gT Nursia, 5o3 Octavian. secAugustus, triumvirs M. Octavius (tr. pl. r33), zz, z16 L. Opimius (cos.tzr), 16, 25, 96, r48, 334, 432 C. Oppius, 48, 364 M. Orfius, 394 O s c a n l a n g u a g e ,r o 4 , I I o , t t 4 , r t 6 - r 7 , rr8-zo, r39-45 T. Otacilius (pr. zr7), 4z Pacuvius, I t5 P a e l i g n i a n s r, r 5 , r 1 6 , r r 7 , r 1 o , r 3 5 , 2 5 2 , 254' 277 Panaetius,39, 3o7, 947,953-+,3Bg, 464, 526 Pansa, C. Vibius (cos.q), 266,363, 5oo Papius Mutilus, Iog, I20 Parma, 5o3 Parthia, 83 PataVium, 245, 5og M. Perperna (cos.t3o), gg, Ioo, t2g M. Perperna (cos.gz), r35-6, 462-3 Philippi, battle, 86 Picenum,r r5, r25, 164, 254-5, z5g, 276, 997,432,434-6 P i c e n t e s ,r o 8 , 2 7 7 Pinna, Io5 P l a n c i i ,3 o , r 2 g - 3 o , r 5 5 , 1 6 z , 1 6 4 , 3 t 4 - r 5 , 428-3o P l a t o , o n f r e e d o m ,3 I o , 3 I 2 l N D l :x ( ) r P ! : R s ( ) N s INDEX OF PI,RSONS P . P l a u t i u sH y p s a e u s( y ' t .b y S S ) , 4 7 5 , 4 7 7 , 485 Plautus, I r8 Plutarch, aim as biographer, zr6 Pollio, C. Asinius (ros. 4o), 7, gz8,378, ß5, 497 Polybius: on Roman constitution, t4-e3, 33g, 387;and society,4I, 387-9; on Italy, rr+-r7; on publicans and judication, r49-50, r97, zz7,237-8 Pompeians,38,8o, I64, 258, z6o, z69, 369, 436,488-99; meaning ofterm, 446 Pompeii(city), IIz, tt8, 397-8,431 Pompeii Bithynici, 496 Cn. Pompeius Strabo (cos.89), Ioo, Io2, Iog' r33, r35, 397,456, 5I I Q , P o m p e i u s( c o s .t 4 r ) , 3 6 9 , 3 7 o , 4 6 9 , 4 6 7 - 8 Pompey (Cn. Pompeius Magnus): part in revolution 77,82-g; penonality 90; never sought monarchic power,4go; rise as Sullan, extraordinary commands, senatorial opposition, ntrns popularis,29, 33, 44, 49, 7 6 , 8 2 . 2 6 5 . 4 7 r - 3 ; d o m i n a n c ei n 'triumvirate' by force, 45, 16r, 427, 437, 473; collaboration with optimates from t h i r d c o n s u l s h i pt o d e a t h , 4 2 , 2 r 5 , 2 2 r , 4 2 5 , 487-95; relations with Caesar and Crassus, 83, 266, 368, 48r*5, 489; with Cicero, g.u.; with other'friends', kinsmen, adversaries, , 77g,47t,473-7, 3 8 , 4 5 ,1 6 r ,3 6 6 , 3 7 o 2 47g-8o,484-7; his few confidants, 47l, 485, 495; clients, e59, 393, 397-9, 436-8; soldiersand veterans, 45,76-7,256, z6o-3, 266-7o,4g6-8, 473; relations with Equites, r6r, r88; military achievements,r53, r66, 1 7 2 , r 7 9 , r 8 7 - 9 , I 9 I ; n a t i o n a lh e r o , 3 9 9 , 4g7,473; curaannlnae,76,r7g; lands and moneylending, t74, r8g, 146 S e x . P o m p e y ,S r , 5 o r Pontius Telesinus, t Io Q. Poppaedius Silo, 9o, Ioo-2, Iog, I I2, PraJneste,gS-g, r34 Privernum, I37 Ptolemies, r89-go, 484-6 C. Quinctius Valgus, 397 C. Rabirius, trials of 2eZ,932, g3+ C . R a b i r i u s P o s t u m u s ,I 7 I , I g o R e a t e ,3 9 7 , 4 3 3 Regulus, M. Atilius (cos.t67),256, 4og R h o d e s ,r 7 8 , r 8 o , 2 9 3 , 2 9 5 ,3 I o Romulus, laws of, 4oo-2, 4og-ro Roscii ofAmeria, 164, zzo,246, g96-7, 4zo Rullus, P. Servilius (tr. pl. q), agrarian bill, 46, 75, z4r, z5o, 266, 478 l ' . R u p i l i u r ( r o r ,t 3 r ) , 4 ( i 3 l ' . R u t i l i u sR u l i t r 1 r u . t o r ) ) ,t ' l t , t . 1 2 ,t r y ! r 2 ( r r ,r o 5 , r r * 1 ,r r r , 4 5 g , 4 b 4 S a b i n e s f,o 4 , I r 5 , r r 8 , r 3 7 , r ' . 1 8 , ' t 7 7 , , ' r ' j , 5 r 4 '5 r 5 S a l l u s t :i m p a r t i a l i t y , 5 o 4 ; s o u r c e s 2, 4 r ; expounds views rslpopularfr,52 l; on c o n f l i c t so f l a t e R e p . , 9 2 , 5 2 - 2 , e 5 7 , 3 4 5 g , 4 4 t , 4 4 6 - 7 , 5 o + ; i g n o r e sc o n f l i c t so f E q u i t e sa n d s e n a t e ,r 4 8 , 1 6 r , I B 3 - 4 ; o n amicitia, factlons, power of nobility, I4, 29, 3 5 9 , 3 9 o - r , 4 4 7 .5 o 4 : o n m o r a l degeneracy,43, 57 S a m n i t e sr, o 5 , r o g , r r 2 - r 5 , r 1 8 , r 3 5 , r 3 8 , 25+, 277; attitude to Rome misrepresented, I IO_I I Sardinia: annexation, r83; corn-trade, t77 M. Satrius, 397 Saturninus, L. Appuleius, 78, t48, t64,432; a g r a r i a n a n d c o l o n i a l s c h e m e s7, 6 , 9 9 , r 3 r , t 4 r , 2 4 t , z 5 o , 2 6 5 , 2 7 8 - 8 o ; m a i e s t al sa w , r39, r43, r53, r99, zt7, zr8,34r Scaevola,seeMucius S c a u r u s ,M . A e m i l i u s ( r o s .I I 5 ) , 4 2 , r 3 2 , zrz, g96, +Sg, 469-70 Scaurus, M. Aemilius (pr. S6), 374-5, 427, 474-5, 487 Scipio, P. Cornelius (Africanus), and agnate c o e v a l s ,3 4 r , 3 8 8 , 4 I 3 , + 2 r , 4 4 7 , 4 5 r - 4 Scipio, P. Cornelius (Nasica Corculum), 463, 465 Scipio, P. Cornelius (Aemilianus), I9, 520; kin, associates,adversaries,243, gt6, 369-70, 388, 446, +54, 4q-8,47o; evokes jealousy in senate,43; oratory, 46; opinions on urban plebs, 243, on libertas,3rz; clients in army, 259 S c i p i o ,L . C o r n e l i u s( c o s 8. 3 ) , r 2 5 , 2 5 4 - 5 , 269 Scipio, Q, Metellus Pius, ser Metelli L. Scribonius Libo (cos.34), 365, 477,485, 495 Sempronii, 45r Seneca,on fall of Republic, 35o C . S e n t i u sS a t u r n i n u s( c o r .r g ) , 6 , 4 5 5 Q, Sertorius, 4+, rro,265, 436, 472 P. Servilius Vatia (ros. jü, 473, 485 P. Servilius Isauricus (ros.48),495-6, 499 Sicily: corn-trade, 169, r77; Roman patrons, 3 g B ,4 z r ; t a x e s , r 6 7 ; s l a v er e v o l t s ,I 5 t , z 8 g Sila, r5o Spain:wars, t8, 66, I8r, 259, z6z; taxes, 167; saemines S p a r t a ,z 9 z , 2 g 4 - 5 , 3 r 7 S p a r t a c u s ,4 4 , 7 9 , 2 + 7 , z 5 z , 2 8 6 , z B g L. Staius Murcus, 7, 3Bo, 5oo 5:17 S t a t i r r s( S a n r r r i t c )r ,r x y S u l l a , 1 , .( i r r n c l i u s ( d i c t . ) : p a r t i n r e v o l u t i o n , 7 9 , l f z ; f i r s r c o n s u l s h i pa n d c o u p , 3 4 , 7 7 - 9 , r z 5 , r 5 t i , r 5 t l , 2 5 8 , 2 6 4 , 4 b 5 , 4 6 o - r ;i n east,156, 169, r87, t8g, l9o; in civil war, proscriptions,and confiscations,48,62, 72, 74, 79,80, tz5, 348,457,46r-3; and s o l d i e r s ,? j , 7 9 , 2 5 5 , 2 5 7 , z 6 o , z 6 r , 2 6 3 , 264, z69; his colonists,Bo, z4t, 25r, 255, 266-7, z7r, 273;'and Equites, r54-6, r59, r 6 o , r 9 5 , 5 I 4 , s z z j u d i c a t i o n ;e n l a r g e m e n t o f s e n a t e ,r 5 4 - 5 , r 5 9 , z 1 8 ,z g z , 5 t 4 ; attempts to buttressits authority with short-lived effects, 72, +7o-2, seetribunes; a n d S a m n i t e sa n d n e w c i t i z e n sI r o - t r , :58; abolitionofcorn dole, 75, r56, r69, r 6 7 , r 8 9 , r g o , 4 7 r ; s t a t u t e so n c r i m i n a l courts,rgB. ar4, tr6-zz, zz4-6, z3z-7: other measures,44,6o, g16, 4oS, 4r7, 5rg, 523, 525; clients, 397 Sulla, Faustus Cornelius, 397, 474, 478 Sullae, Cornelii, and Pompey, 47+,496 S u l l a n s ,3 8 , 4 6 r - 3 , 4 7 t - : ; m e a n i n g o f t e r m , 446 Sulpicii Galbae, g8o, 427, 465, 476,48t, 5oo C . S u l p i c i u sG a l u s ( r o s .r 6 6 ) , 4 6 3 , 4 6 5 P . S u l p i c i u sR u f u s ( / r . p | . 8 8 ) , 7 8 , r 2 5 , r 3 r , r56, r58, 339,433, 459-6r Ser. Sulpicius Rufus (cos.5t), 328, 33o,344, 371, 373-4, 429, 455, 497, 499: agnate coevals,496-7 Syria, 167, t88, t89 T a c i t u s : o n A u g u s t u sa n d P r i n c i p a t e ,z , l o , ,; 6 7 - 8 , 8 r . 5 o o ; o n m i x e d c o n s t i t u t i o n st 3 on libertas,gr4, gz8,35o; unreliable on Republic, r95 Thucydides, 84, 9o, rBz, 5og Tiberius as emperor, 87, +Sg; quoted, 29, 3o4,3rz, 389 Tibur,98, rz8, r34, 156 S e x .T i t i u s ( t r .p l . g g ) , 2 7 , 2 4 r , 3 7 6 Transpadani, rr4, r22-+, 3gB, 399, 482-3, 5II C. Trebatius Testa, 355, 357,164,994-5 A. Trebonius (cos.4), r47, Soo;law of 55 nc, 486 Trimalchio, r64 triumvirs (Antony, Lepidus, Octavian): function and Republican professions,6,35; supporters and opponents (sezBrutus); 5-7, 3gg, 5oo-2, 5o3; armies, settlement of veterans, 77, 24r, z59-6o, 263-4, 267- 7r, z7B; proscriptions,exactionsetc.. 7 , 7 4 , 8 o - r , r 6 r , 2 6 3 ; O c t a v i a n ' sp r o p a g a n d a a g a i n s tA n t o n y , 7 , 4 9 , 5 7 , 8 t , 5 o I ; seea/soAugustus 538 INDEX OF Tuder, Iog, I16 Turpilius, tz8-9 Umbria, Umbrians, ro5-7, Iog, I 13, I 16, r 18, re8, r33, 252,254,277, 429 Valerians, legionsof L. Valerius Flaccus (ros. 86), 255, 268 L. Valerius Flaccus (1r. 6ü, +26 M . V a l e r i u s M e s s a l l a( r o s .6 r ) , 4 8 r , 4 8 5 M, Valerius Messalla (cos.5$' 494 M. Valerius Messala (ros.3r), 6 P. Valerius Publicola, 324 Q. Varius (tr. pl. go), Io9, I39, r53, 156, rgg, zo6,46o Varro, M. Terentius, goz-3, 965, 477 II. suBJr,c'rs P . V a t i n i u s( t r .p l . 5 $ , 2 7 , 4 7 , 4 6 , 3 7 2 , 3 7 7 , 473, 487 Velitrae, t 37 Velleius: ancestor, to9; views on Augustus, 7, 67; on social deference,384 Venafrum, ro8, I 15, I3o, r38 Venusiag , S, roz, to8, ttz, tt8, r4I Vercellae, mines, I66 Verres, r5z, r7Z, 393, 368, 372, 373, 375-6, gg8,4zr,4z6 Vestini, r r5, I I6, t35 V e t t i u s S c a t o ,t o o , I o g , t t 2 Vidacilius, Iog V o l a t e r r a e ,l z 6 , r z 8 , 3 9 7 , 5 I g L. Volcacius Tullus (cos.66), 455, 485 V o l s c i a n sr,o 4 , r 1 5 , r 1 6 , r I 8 , 1 3 7 - 8 SUBJECTS Academy, 58-6o, 3ot-3, 5zo addietio,63, z5z, 285-6 adoptions, 452 aerarium,55, 63, 65-6, r8z, 5o5-6 agrarian question: rural economy of Italy, 24r-So, Ju?peasantry;pre-Gracchan land allotments and colonies,68*7o,74, z4t, 5r3 $ce Flaminius); agitations for land distributions, 7g*8, z4o- r, z5o-9, 263-79, seeLaelius. Gracchi, Saturninus, Sulla (colonists), lex Plotia agrarla, Rullus, Flavius, Iegesluliae agraiae, Pansa, and 'veteran settlements'under Caesar, triumvirs, Augustus; size of allotments, 2 4 6 , z 7 r - 2 , 5 I 3 ; i n a l i e n a b i l i t yc l a u s e s7, 4 , z7o-t; agrzrian schemesultimately futile, 74, 78, z7z-3: senatorial opposition, 74, 77-8,265-7, but cf.467; connection with Italian grievances, 70, 94, ro6-7, rz8; see armies, urban plebs a l b u mi u d i c u mr, 4 3 , 2 o o - 4 , 2 t o - I I , z z r , z z 8 , z3o-6 ambilus,zz6, 425 7, seequaeslio amici populi Romani, 17, rg amicitia: philosophic ideal, 352-5; social tie based onjlzs and imposing reciprocal moral obligations (sometimeslegal' 4I9), subordinate to d\ty ro patria, 3g-+o, 355-6, 359, 368-9,4t6, sometimes conflicting, 277-8o; based on mutual affection and community of studia as well as mutual advantage, 356-6o,364-5; as mere relation of courtesy, 36o-r, 362-3, 3 6 6 - 7 ; v e i l i n g c l i e n t s h i p ,3 I , 3 6 r , 3 8 6 , 394-5, or covert ill-will, 369; in politics, g7-g, 35t, 36o, 36r-8r, 457 B, 459-6o, 463-5, 467-8, 488, 496-8; not requiring hostility to friend's enemy, 37r-2; see ininicitiae annalists of early Rome: often mirror later e v e n t so r c o n d i t i o n s ,r 0 3 , 2 o g , 2 S r , 2 5 2 , e56, 285-6, goo, 327, ggo, 938, 342-3, 247-8,5o4,52r; but cf.4tg; and see Dionysius on clientship y'assrm applicatio,4o4 armies: numbers serving, 79,8I, 255, 268; provincial garrisons, 77, r8r, I85, z5g' 260; costs per legion, 5o6; supply contracts, r4g; recruitment from assidui,later proletarii, 76-7, 259,255; normally from peasantry, 77, 253-5, 264, 276-8, and by conscription (4.2.);period of service, 255-6, 267-9; pay, 77, z6z, 274; plunder, 77, z6z-5; discipline, mutinies, desertion, 257,259,z6t, z6g,268-9, z7z,27+, 522; loyalty to generals procured by propaganda, 257-9, z69-7o; by oaths, z6r-2, 274, 439; seldom by clientship' 259-6r,435*8; chiefly by material rewards, 3r, 77-8, z6z-5, esp. land aflotments, z4t, 265-73; fighting qualities decisive in revolution, 85-6; seea/sounder Marius, Sulla, Lucullus, Pompey, Caesar, Brutus, triumvirs, Augustus assembliesat Rome, szepeople auctoritas,j22,32g, 5o4-5; of patres in early Rome, 3zz, 324, 34g,344, of senateq.u., of individral prineipes,49, 469, of Augustus, 32g, 5or-2,5oB; in relation to libertas, 3zr-3o (concretely a vetoed S.C.,5o4) ballot laws, zz, zB, gzr, S25,34o, 423-4 bankers, seemoneylenders öozi (propertied class),32, 53-4,68, 8o, 8:, t N D t : x ( ) l ' l t t l E .lf: ( : ' l ' s r 7 r , 4 t t t l , { ( } r 3 , . r r } ' 1 ,. r o 4 ;a r i r t t x r l r r : l . t 5 i ,r, uprinruii* brnk-burning, ';o t causation in history, Sg-+, 8; 9; in fall ol R e p u b l i c ,S t - 9 2 c e n s o r s2, 5 , 7 2 , 3 o r , 3 o 4 ; o f 8 6 e c , r 3 5 6 cenlumairi,2oo, 229, 234-5 centuries,seepeoPle centuriaPraerogaltüa,524- 5 C h r i s t i a n i t y ,t u , 3 o 3 civil wars, character, and effects' B' 67' 72, 7g-Br, z5z cioitas (citizenship ) : extensions, 69; connection with libertas duitassinesufragio, ro4-5, I36 -9, 339 classstructure and conflicts, 3-+' 9' t2' 29, 53-4, 7g-4,82, 384 clii.t-patron relationship: terminology, 4o5-6; hereditary, 384, 395-6, 4o2, +t7' 44o' involving specific reciprocal obligations, based on jdes, 4c,2-22, and reflected in some Republican statutes, 416-17, and 'laws of Romulus' and Twelve allegedly in Tables, 4or, 4o8-Io, but not in classical law,4r7-zo; patronage over clients and freedmen distinguished, 4oZ, +o4, 407-9, 4r7-r9,524; patronage in lawcourts, 4o5; ilients distinguished from other kinds of dependants,383-4, 388-9' e.g. in Gaul, 392, and Greece,4o3, and from political follo*..., 386, 423-4, 433; connection with amicitia and hospitium,384, 386' 393-5' 415-16, +23, 43r, 435; dignitasenhanced by patronage, diminished by clientship, 393' 395,4Io, 4r7,4+o; found in Italian communities besidesRome, 39r' 397' 43r' 524; patronage over communities, 384, 386' 392-4, 3g8, 399, 4o2, 4o6; in Provinces, 392-3, 396, 398, 4zr; origins and importance in earlY Rome, 4oo-t4; independence ofplebs, 4r4; modern theory of pitronage as main source of power of nobility, z7-g2,385, not substantiatedby Roman testimony, g87-gz; not all patrons nobles, 395-7; multiple patronage and conflict ofobligations to different patrons' 398-9, 428, 43I, or with other duties, 3994oo, 415-16; loosening of ties from middle Republic, 346, 4t 4-24; failure of noble patrons to care for or retain loyalty of Equites, Italians, peasants,urban plebs, 31, 386, 4zr-4, 433; independence of assemblies in legislation 25,32, 423-4; limited value of clientship in elections, 424-32, in civil violence,43r-5, in armies, z59-63, 435-9; conception of Princeps as universal patron, 539 4 ' 1 Qiir x r c a s c di t l r p o r t a n c co l p a t r o n a g c t t t r t l c ra u t t x r a c y , 3 t 1 5 , 4 I 7 ' 4 r 8 , 4 z < >4' z z ' 44o c o i n a g e ,d c p r e c i a t i o n ,r 5 8 - 9 ' 2 5 3 cotlegia,57 8, ZS-6, 3o6-7, 35o, 4t6, 425' 428, 479 c o l o n i e so : v e r s e a s7, 8 , r 8 6 7 , 2 7 2 - 3 , 5 r r i s e e also agrarian question. Latins comitia,seepeople mmmendatio,394, 4o4, 4o6 c|mmerctum 9 5, , 5 I I , 5 I 3 c o n s c r i p t i o n ,z t , 6 6 , 7 3 * 4 , 7 6 - 7 , g g , I z 8 , I 8 I , z5z, 254-6, z6o, 299, 437, 492, 5o3' 5 r9 - 2 o constitution, Republican, tg-gz, 385-7; unwritten, 13,2g7; sezmagistrates,people, senate consulsand proconsuls, r5-rg, see magistrates szepeople contiones, c o n u b i u m9 ,5 , l I 5 , 5 I I , 5 I 3 cioiumRonanorum, t76 cont)entus conabium,3t6 corn-doles, 25, 75-6, t8z, 244-5, 28t, 347-8' 440' 47 | corn-supply, 76, r7z, t77-9 cursushonorum,4g-4, gz8, ggo Cynics, 3t t datio addictioiudicum etc., zzr, 5r8 debt: as social problem, 6t-3, 73, 272,344, 348,4tt,5o5; in the 8os,157-9; in the 6 o s , 6 2 , 8 o ,z 5 z ; i n t h e 4 o s , 4 8 8 '4 9 t - 3 ' 5o3; regulation of interest rates' I I 5' i57-9, r75-6, 3o6; seeaddietio,fdts,fducia' moneylenders, zerl litibus iudicandis,zz9 decemairis deeorum,go7 defenceby advocates,372-6 (more esteemed than prosecution) d e l a t o r s ,r 7 7 , 2 r 9 , 9 o 7 , 3 + 2 democracy: not achieved at Rome, 349; suppressedwithin emPire, 294 dignitas,seehonour; dignitasrei p., esp. 55' 63 divorce, 454 domi nobiles,controlling Italian communities, seeund.erItalian allies @rincipes)and ltaly dual citizenship, 94, r24, 5r2 elections: function, 36; people's right, l9' 24-5, 327, 34o, 52o, 523; role of presiding magistrate, tg,37, 374,454-6; eligibility to omce, tzg-3o,3g7-8; competitors need only be friendly rivals, 369-7r; effects of patronage, canvassing, corruption, and v i o l e n c e ,3 8 7 , 3 9 9 ' 4 o r - 2 , 4 2 4 - 3 r ' 4 4 5 ' 540 I N D I ] X T ) T 'S U B J E C ' r ' s elections (conl.): 448, 45r, 475, +77, 482; seeunturia praerogatiua eleutheria:no single Greek conception; diverse views and modes compared with Roman, z8z,r88, z9r-6, 3oB-Iz, gr7*rg,3z6-7, 335-7' 339 empire: how and why extended, r8, r8o-9t; garrisons 77, rBr, r85, 259, z6o; revenues, 64-7, t+g-5+, 16o,I66-7, t7z, tBt-2, r 8 5 , r 8 9 . I g I l p o w e r o f g o v e r n o r si n provinces, r7 rB; self-governmentof p r o v i n c i a lc o m m u n i t i e s ,I I . t g . 2 9 3- 4 ; j u s t government recognizedideal, 63 4; equestrian oppression, 69 (see repetundae); and publiinterests, see under negotialores cans; patronage, 392-3, 396, 398; effects on Roman revolution, 68-8r (onlY indirect, 6S, ggf); effectsof revolution on subjects.I I-I2; seelausimPcrii E p i c u r e a n s ,3 o r 2 , 5 2 o e p i t o m a t o r sd , e f e c t s9, r , r o 2 , 2 r g E q u i t e s :I 8 c e n t u r i e s ,2 4 , 7 r , r 4 5 - 6 , 1 7 r , t 8 4 (szepeople); in broader senseincluding tribuniaerarii, r46, zro,5l5 I6; manY municipal gentry, 3, I46, r64; mostly landowners, t46, 16g-4; for publicans and seeJ.r.; economic interestsnot negoliatlres basically divergent from senatorial, 3, t 4 7 - 8 , 1 6 z - 7 9 , I 5 7 - 9 ; s o c i a ll i n k s w i t h senators,3, I47; desire ofsome firr political careers, 154; recruitment to senate,3, 5, 6, r 3 0 , r 5 4 - 5 , I 5 9 . 4 9 9 ,5 o I , 5 I 4 - I 5 l n o l opposed to senatorial supremacy' 72-3; support of senate,in crises, | 47, 492; not discontentedwith senate'simperial policy, r56-7, r79-9I; divided in civil wars,6, 159-6z,4gt-2,5o3; as army officers, 163, r98-g; intermittent conflicts with senate, seeunderjtdication, publicans; partly due to desire for'splendor' szehonour; Cicero's ordinum,54-5, r48, I6I' aim of concord,ia 16r: patrons and clients. 394 5, 397; it Principate, 3, r92-3i seealso underGracchi, Sulla extraordinary commands, 33-4 factio, 447 factions: current views, 92,36-45, g5r-2, 443-58,466,5o2; factions round L. Crassus,459-60, 469; Marius and Cinna, 46o-r; Sulla 46I-3; Scipio Aemilianus, 4fu-5, 467-8; Gracchi, 465-6, 468; Scaurus,469; Pompey, Crassusand Caesar not leaders of powerful senatorial faction or factions, 473-89; r??optimates, parties, populares, Sallwt Jamilia, diversesenses,283-5, 45t-',1 families, srr factions,gezs,kinsmen faaor libertatis, zgr Fescennineverses,3I6 jdes: trust, z, 4o6; as such basis of amicilia and client-patron relations, 39, 355,406, 4 r 5 - t 6 e t c . ,a n d o f v a r i o u s l e g a l obligations4 , I8 rg; credit,6I-:, I75 jducia,74, 4tr freedmen: relations with patrons (exmasters), 3o5,397, 4o7-8, 4r8-zo, 432; other patrons, 398; clients, 397; as voters, r7r,33g,428,43o; Part in trade and industry, 242-3, 2+5 (as agents of patrons, r74); in army, 254,287 generals,srz armies gens,4or, 4o4, 4to, +4+-5, 450-2, 525 o gladiatorial contracts, r86 gloria, seehonorr gratia, g$g-go, cf. 29, 39, 3?2, 37+, 42o, 425, 427-30, 44r historical evidence, 5oB-lo; for Rome, 9r-2, zre (lost works) historical facts, 89, 5o8 honour: highly valued and motive for conduct in Greece and Rome,9o, IBo; of f r e e m e n , 2 8 7 - 9 ; o f R o m a n c i t i z e n s '5 t , 7 o , 9 5 , r z 5 - 6 , 2 g 7 , g 4 g ;o f t h o s e i n h i g h e r orders, 9, I9z-3, 3r8, gz6' 384; of Equites (sometimessplendor),5r, 55, 72, r27, r45, r 5 4 , 1 6 o , 1 6 z , 2 8 8 , 3 I 5 ; o f s e n a t ea n d s e n a t o r s r2 8 , g z , 4 r , 4 3 , 5 I . 5 5 , 6 7 (maiestas1,68 r 5. r , 2 8 8 , 3 r z , 3 2 7 - 9 , 4 t 7 t o f Caesar and his assassins, 51, 38o' 487, 49o-r; of patrons, 393, 44o (infringed by clientship, 5I, 395, 4ro, 4t7); ofstates, esp. Rome and her empire (often maiestas),59, 63, 66, r7z, t7g, t9z-4, r87, zg3' gz7, 462 (The citations include specific references to dignitas, meantng both esteem and social rank, and gloria, and to pages in which the concept is taken to be explanatory) hospitium,3I, Ioo, rog, 386, 392, 393 imperium,I5-18; opposed to libertas,3o9,33r individualism: pervasive of Roman private law, 3o5; in social life, 3o4, 3o7-8 individuals, role in history, 85-9t industry, seetrade i n f a n i n ,f i , r 4 r , r g g , z o r , z z 5 - 6 , z z 7 - g inimieitiae,362, 366-78, 457, 467-8, 47 r, 487, 488 9 (distinct from'occulta odia', 369, and from political opposition), see amicitia zz intercessio, iudex,iudices,scejudication tNDr.xor sltul:c'l's iudiriun publictan,t{, :1, 5t7,kc qudttlto iura (ius) fofuh, zgli 7, 33r {, 3'ttl 4(t, 5r8-r9 iusciailc:reccption in ltaly, application to all c i t i z e n s ,t t g , t 2 2 - 4 , r 4 r - 3 ; i n d i v i d u a l i s m , 3o5; principle of equality, 334-7; d e v e l o p m e n t ,t t , l 3 ius genttum,zgo ius naturac,zBg-go judication: senatorial monopoly in important civil and criminal casesbefore Gracchi, r94, r97-8; by Gracchus reservedto Equitcs for repetundae,tg4-5, 2or' in other casesdivided between Equites and s e n a t o r s ,r 9 5 , I 9 8 - 2 o 6 , z r 3 - r 6 , 4 7 - g ; f o r rcpdunda(by Caepio, 264-5: equestrian maiestasetc. undet monopoly for repetundae, laws of Mamilius, Saturninus, Glaucia, Varius, r99, zo5; lex Plotia, zo6, zg4,237; restoration of senatorial monopoly proposed by Drusus, 2o5-ro, and effected by Sulla, zog, zrB (perhaps not for civil cases,235*6); Iex Aurelia, zot, zt3, 237; lex Pompeia(52 rc), r95, 2ro,22r; changesin Principate, z3r-z; selectionof unusiudex, for civil casesheard at arbiter, rceuperalores Rome from album, zoo, zz7-38 (or from others with consent ofparties, zoo); for casesoutside Rome, 233, 236, 5t8 jurisconsults, go, 46, t49, 394, 42o kinsmen (agnatesand cognates),37-9, 415- 16, 449-56, 525; divisions exemplified, 454, 456, 457, +6c , 46r, 463-4, 465, 472, +74-5, 486, 487, +95-6 Iaisse4faire, r 76-7, r 79, 3o6-7 land as best investment, 73, t6g; for veterans, 27o- | landholdings ofRomans in provinces, I63, r68, I7z latifundia,247 l a u si m p e r ü , 5 5 ,6 3 * 4 , c f . 4 2 , 4 7 , t 7 z , t & o , rBz-3, r84, t87, zge,-3,487 law: as expressionofpeople's will 297, 3tg' 'popular' 342-6; rule of (in optimate and ius ciaile, conceptions),6o-I, 8o-z; see libertas legends of old Rome, 4o-z legcs,Iex: on civil and criminal law ill attested, t4g, zr6*tg, 528; sanctiones,5tg; Aeli.aSentia, 4o7; Antonia de Termessibus, tyo; Atilia on tutcla, 4tg; AuJcia, 4651' CaeciliaDi.dia, z7; Calpurniaon citizenship, tg3; Catsia dc senatu,z96, 34o-r; Cincia, zt, 4 o 8 ,4 z z , 5 2 5 ; C l a u d i a( z t 8 ) , e t , r 7 3 , 4 2 3 i 541 ,rz'.1;I)uonia,'jt>4; Domthafu Saccrdoliis, I'uria lulomenlaria,t I8, zt'.1, 5t5; Horlentia, 3 4 4 ;l u l i a ( 9 o ) r o r - 7 , r < t g ,r 3 z - 4 ; I u l i a e a g r a r i a c( 5 g ) , 2 1 3 , e 4 t , 2 6 6 , z 7 o , 4 3 7 , 4 8 r ; Iulia dc iudicüs,417; Iunia (Penni), 98; Licinia de sodaliciis,I95, 236, 425: Licinia Mucia, gB-lor, rgr; LiciniaeSextiae, 2 t , s e t ; M a e n i a , 9 4 4 ;O p p i a ,z r , 3 o 4 , + 4 7 ; Papiria on coinage, r59; Plautia Papiria, rc7; Ploti.aagraria, 27, z4r-2, 265-6; Poetelia,c85, Pompeiaon parricide, z I 7, zr8, zzo; Pompeiaon Transpadani, I 14, r24,398, 5tt; PompeiaLicinia,4Tz; Porciae zz5, z96, 332, 522-3; fu prooocatione, Publicia,4zz; Publiliae,344;Remmia,zrg; Rosciathcatralis, 146, r59, 398, 5r5; Terentia 225, 33t, (r8g), r38; Valeriaedeprouocatione, 5zz-3; ValeriaeHoratiae, 349-4; Visellia, 146, 5r5; Voconia,trl, ztz; censorin,t66; regulating municipalities in Italy and provinces, r22-4, r37, 225, 23r, 233, 235' 398, 5r3-r4, 5I7, 5r8; for other laws not registered above seeunder Bantia, Caesar, Clodius, C. Cornelius, Drusus (tr. p/. 9I), Flaminius, Gabinius, Gracchi, C. Manilius, Romulus, Saturninus, Sulla, Varius, Vatinius, agrarian question, ambitus,ballot laws, corn-dole, debt, jrrdication, quaestio, rtpetundat,sumptuary rules libels,3r6-r7 liberi: root meaning, 283-4i superior to slaves, zB7-9; status of flüfamiliarum, 284-5, 287 Iibertas: antithesis to slavery, its effects, z8g-4, 287-9; to other forms of dependence(hence admits of degrees), 284-7, z9z-6; natural instinct, 29o. 295; negative and positive senses,3o8-Io; lormer prevalence in linguistic usage, and important in political context, 3I3-14; highly valued at Rome but in diverse and contradictory conceptions and forms, Io, 50, 90, 3o9, 315, 320-+9 parrrm; not a natural right but based on positive law, 289-9r, 3Io; connection with eiritas,z96, 339, 5r8-r9; relation to Power, 292,297, 3o8, 3rr; to aequitas,SSo,33+-8,344,348; not inherently moderate, 3I5, 32o*I; constricted, enlarged, or guaranteed by l a w , z g o , 3 1 7 - 2 o , 3 3 5 , 5 2 o ; a n t i t h e t i ct o inpniun, ggr, auctoritas,32 r, 323-7' 329-30, monarchy, 5r-2, 2gr-2, pincipatus, ro, I23,35o, 4oo; not an abstraction but set of specific rights gradually acquired, zg7-8, gzr (see iura populi); comprises freedom of speech, 3 r 3 - t 5 , 3 e 7 - 9 , a n d a s s o c i a t i o n3, o 6 , 3 3 r , 5+2 t N D l : xo l ' st,BJl:c'rs I N D E X O F s u B JE C T S libcrtas (cont.) much 35o; in fact but not conceptually lreedom in beliel worship. private conduct, economic activity, 3oo-7; of senators(dignitasand independence),5t, 55, 227-3c.,395, 483' 5oo; of other .iiirittr, personal protection, I6' zo, 296, under 3og, 3I3, 327, g3r-4,342, equality l"i, Zg+-l; share in political rights freely e*ercised, including accessto office, and involving claims of popular sovereignty, 349. 52o' 50, 297,g26, 327, 932, 397-46' to 'commoda 523 (cf. Io3, rzG); relation populi', 3a6*9; seeproaocatio'tribunes; in ippeals to public oPinion, 5o-:, 258, ro' 12, 4go-r; eroded in Principate, 2' 3o7, 323' 44o; with reference to -ommunities, (a) freedom from arbitrary rule in varying degrees,5r-2, z9r-z; (b) complete independence,z9z-3; (c) limited self-government,293-6, cf. Io3; see also eleulheria licentia, gzo-2, 326-7, g4r magistrates: (Roman) executive functions, z, r6, 36 (ser consuls, praetors); presidency of assemblies,z6; accountability, t6, zo, 327' rt8, 3 3 3 , 3 4 o - t ; ( a l l i e da n d m u n i c i p a l ) r22, 5r2, 5r3-r4 maiestas(of people), 338, g6t; seequaestto ( in) manciPio,284- 5, 287 manual labour, 347; szewage-labour manubiae,5o6 manufacturing, seetrade marriages of nobility, 37-9, 453-4' 459 Marxist views, 9, 88 mercennarii,947 m e r c h a n t s ,r 4 5 , t 6 4 , r 6 8 - 7 o , r 7 8 , I 8 z - 3 migration: to Rome, 242, 244-5; to ager Romanus,95, 5 I o- l I m i n e s ,t 5 o , 1 6 o , 1 6 6 models, historical, 89, 5to monarchy: abhorred at Rome in Republic' 5r-,2, 2gr-2; not the aim of any faction, ;-8, 68; resentment at Caesar'sautocracy' 4g8-5oo; accePted in veiled fotml see Äugustus, Principate, indifference of urban plebs,5z; Hellenistic, in relation to'free' cities, r95 moneylenders,moneylending, I45' I57-9' r68-76, r87, t89 m o sm a i o r u m , 6 - 7 ,1 3 , 4 9 - 5 1 , 5 5 - 8 ' 6 o , 3 3 o - t motivation, 89-9I munera(civic), 5rg-zo municipalities: attitudes in 49 and ++-Z Bc, 4g7,5og; sezltalY, laws municipia(pre-go), I 36-9 mufder trials: pre-Sullan, zt8-c4; seeguacslio (de sieariis) necessarü, 449, 525 n e g o t i d t l r ers2, 7 , t 5 7 , I 6 7 - 8 , t 7 o , t 7 9 - g I ; connotation of term, 163, r7o nexi,nexum,285-6, 342, 4o4, 4r2' 4r+ nobiles:connolation of term, 5; ascendancy in Republic and causes,r4, z8-32, 385-6, 387*9I, Zg2' 397, 424-5, 428-9' 433; ^ e t h o s , 4 r , $ - 4 , 8 5 , 5 o 5 , s r eh o n o u r ( o f senators);Sallust on their conflict with people, 5o4, reeoPtimates, PoPulares; äccisional unpopularity, e5, 3r, 78, I83' 4r4; Caesariansand Pompeians' 4941 under Augustus, 5-6; seeclient-patron relationship, factions n o r i h o m i n e s , 5 - 8z, 8 - 3 I , 4 2 4 , 5 r 4 - r 5 ' s e e senate (recruitment) noxaedatio,284 oaths, t4, r4r, z6t, 433, $8 oligarchy,4, I4 opii-at..: not a Party in modern sense,but a term for opponents of populares(q.a'), champions of senatorial supremacy' 35-6. by 5z-3, and passim, esp. 47o-Bg; idealized -Cicero and extended to include all äozi 1 4 . u . )5, 4 - 6 6 oratory: importance, 45-9' 329; tnnves ln freedom, 292, 32r otium, generallydesired, 8, 67, 79-Bt, 492, 50r otium cum dignilare, 55-68 pamphlea, 47-9 parties, 35 (impossiblein modern sense);rdd factions, oPtimates, PoPulares palia'. supreme moral claims, 4o-2' 3oo' 355, 38o, 4t6, 45o; secPublic good. pui.i.iutts, alleged patronage of plebeians, 4oo-5; conflicts with plebeians' 2r' 324' 326-7, 33o-2, g35-7, 34t-4, 948' 3%-+' 4t3-r4 $ee annalists) resolvedbY compromise. 68 patrons, 372-6 (in lawcourts); saeclientpatron relationshiP in ltaly, 69-7o. 79, I r3; in W Romana: empire, tz p.u.atttry, g, 25-6, 3t,69, 7g-5, z4r-56 passtm,27r-3 peculalus,65, 5o6; seequaestio number and people (poPulus,P/eäs): distribution, 23-4,71, z4t; and respublica, r, 299, 326; assemblies,(a) centuriate, not democratic but representative of richer c i t i z e n s ,2 4 - 5 , 3 2 5 , 3 3 4 ' 3 4 r ' 3 4 3 ' 4 t 2 (rolc ol ftuitcr, r46, r49 1o, ol rnunitiprl gcntry, t16, r29 3 s43 pron riptionr,rrr Mariur, Sulla, triumvirs l r r r r r e t ' u t i o n rr ,c l c v a n c ct o p o l i t i c s ,2 7 , 9 7 z - 6 , 45b 7 provint'cs,sercmpire prouocalio'. (linked with tribunician ius auxilii) 20o,222-5, z96, 3gz-4, 336, 345-6, 5zz-3; in relation to Italian question, g4-5,98-9, ro5,rz8-g,5re public buildings, r48-9, z4z-q public domain land: in ltaly,27, 4g-5o,74, 94, Io6- 7, rz8, 246,266;in provinces. r49, 167, r77, r84, tgo, z7B; property of people, r9g public good: care for, normally avowed by all politicians, 42-5, 47,4g-5o (seel.ibertas, optimates, otium cum dignitate,popularu), e.g. in civil wars, 257-9, z6z, z69-7o, g7g, 487, sometimes to cover personal or sectional interests,S2-3, 378,399, 488, 498; seepatria public opinion: importance, e.g. 45-9, rBr, 3r5, 52o-r; in Principate, 4, 6, raapublic good publicans, Egyptian, t9t publicans, Roman: organization, 164-5, 5r6; preponderance in equestrian order and iudices,r5t, 16z, t7t, r9z; indispensableto s t a t e , t 5 t , t 6 4 , r 7 z , r 7 7 ; o p e r a t i o n sa n d importance before Gracchi, I48-5r, I6z, 166; aggrandized by C. Gracchus, I5r-4; restricted by Caesar and Augustus, r8g, rgz; relations with senateand magistrates, 72, rSo-3, r6r-2, r65-7, zo9;with Sulla, 16o, r88; with Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar, r6r, r87-go; with Cicero, r52, r7r; pactilnes,r89; landholding, r63-4; trading and moneylending, r69-7o; interest in imperial expansion discussed, r56-7, rBo, r8z, r87, t9o-t ( nes), 2c' 34o- | ; equivalent to iudicia quaestio publica, r4r-g; scech. 4 passim; (a) extra ordinem,set up by senate, r5o, 22r, 224-5, by people wder legesMamilia,20, I53, r 8 3 , r g 9 , e o r , z r 8 , g 4 r , L i c i n i aM u c i a , q.u.,Mucia against Hostilius Tubulus, zo8, ztB, auri Tolosani,zr8, ztB, zzt, Peducaea, zzz; (b) perpetuae, zt6-zz; (r) de adulterüs (Augustan), %S; Q) de anbitu, under preSullan, Sullan, and post-Sullan laws, zt7, 417,425i $) defakü etc. (Sullan) zt7-r9; (4) de maiestateunder laws of Saturninus, 4.a.,Varius, q.u., Sulla, zt7, let lulia, zrg; () depuulatu, under pre-Sullan, Sullan, andJulian laws,zt7-I8, zzt-z; (6) de repetundis,q.u.; (7) de sicarüset aenefuiis,preSulfan and Sullan, r98, zo6, zo8, zr4, 5+4 I N D E , XO F quaeslio( nes) (cont. 1. zt7-r8, zzr, zz6, competent for charges under /er Pompeiadeparrieidiis, zr7, zzo; (8) de ti :rnder legesLutatia, Plautia, Iulia, 2 r 7 , 2 r g , 2 2 9 , 4 1 7 ;n u m b e r p e r c o u r r , 2 3 3 - 4 ; p r e s i d e n c y 2, r 7 , 2 2 r - 2 recuperaloros, 229, 239 religion,re, 58-6o, z6r, 3or*3, 5zo repetundac: redress for subjects, 63-4, also for citizens,5e6 ff.; rewards for prosecutors,98, 5 t l ; composition of court, seejudication; let Calpurnia, r94, zt9-zo, 526, 53o; hx Iunia, zoz, Gracchan law (tabula Bembina\, 6 4 , r 5 z - 3 , r 9 8 - 2 o 3 ,4 r 6 - r 7 , 5 r 5 - r 6 , 5 1 6 f f . ; l e xA e i l i a , 2 0 2 - 1 , 5 2 7 , l a w s o f C a e p i o a n d Glaucia,64, t55, eo4-5, 5e8; Sullan law, 64, zr7, 526 tr.; lex lulia, 64, t45, 2r7, 527 respublica: meaning, z, zgg, 326, gz9, g46; fost under dominatioof '6rst triumvirs', Caesar'sdictatorship, and Principate (except in name), z, 49g, seemonarchy revolution: usageofterm, g,ro; character and importance ofchange from Republic to Principate, z-tz; its causesand conditions, 68-9e rhetoric: importance, 45; restrictionson teaching,97,3or routine politics, 448-So, cf. 3g-4o, r26,458, 5oz, seefzctions senate:composedof ex-magistratessitting for life, 14, 36, 34o; recruitment from below, e s p .a f t e r S u l l a a n d C a e s a r ,3 , 5 , 6 , r 3 o , r 5 4 - 5 , r 5 9 , z r 8 , z 3 z , 4 g g ,5 o r , 5 1 4 - r 5 ; dominance of nobiles(q.o.), t4; influence of principesg.a.; offset by jealousy of individual eminence, 4g, 44, 49, 82, rBr, 472; by custom possessedof auctoritasto d i r e c t a f f a i r s ,1 3 1 5 , 5 5 , 3 4 - 6 , 3 2 g , 3 3 r , g4i,48o; esp. imperial and financial, z, 17, rg, gg, r79-gl; with some control over magistratesand promagistrates, r6-r8, 33; and assemblies,zz, 27,32-5, g8,6o; Equites (s.u.)and publicans (s.2.); supremacy only alternative to monarchy, 5r-z; dear to most senators,fi, Z4g, 448; to Cicero (s.2.under'constitutional views'), and to optimates (s.a.);buttressed by Sulla, s.a.;procedure, 5o3-4; decrees, r r , 1 4 , 2 r ( e x a m p l e se , 5, 58, 6r, 176,zz5, 2gZ; senatusconsultumultimam, t6-r7, 57, 225, 324,48o); requiring execution by magistrates,r6-r7; debates, 42, 45-7, g2g, 484-7; disunity,467, 47c7-8,e.g. in 5o-49 ac,34, 16r, 488-9,4gz-5,498; but no parties, 36; successofpolicies before c.zoo suBJEc'rs ac and subsequenrfailures, 6Il-Bz, sctaln for army, c65-7, 274-5; faral rcsorr ro force against opposition, 78-9; lack of imperial straregy, r8r; crucial failure to suppresspiracy, r78-9, cf. zg, 76; seealso underagrarian question, Equites, ltalian allies, peasantry, urban plebs; relation to Gracchi, 466-8; to Drusus, r3z, 45g, 466; to Marian regime, 46o-z; to Sulla, 34-5, 16r, 462-3, 47o-t; to Pompey, 44*5, 49, 82, 472; impotence under 'first triumvirate', z, 45, t6r, gz7-8, 427, 497, 473, 48o-t, and in Caesar'sdictatorship, 328, 498-9; Republicanism after his death, 6; role in P r i n c i p a t e ,g , + , 7 , 5 6 , 6 7 , 5 o r - 2 , 5 z r senatorial status, loosely construed, rg8-g senators,Roman: property qualification and wealth, z8-9, r46. 146,425; economic r n t e r e s t s , 3 , 9 , 5 0 5, 2 , 7 9 , r 4 5 , 1 6 3 , r 7 z - 5 , r79; debarred from public contracts, r45, r5r; form with Equites and municipal gentry a single class,3-+, g, t47, tgg; privileges, t9z, 288; scealso underhonour, judication, libcrns shipowners, r45, 168, r73 slavery, in ius gentium and ius naturac, z9g-gr slaves,Roman: legal status and chance of freedom and citizenship, 2S4-5, 287, z8g, z9r, 383; supposedmoral degradation, e 8 7 - B ; n u m b e r s ,z 4 r . 2 8 6 ; i m p o r t s , r 7 7 - 9 1 economic importance, g; in agriculture, 73, 247-9, +r2; in trade and industry, 73, 242-3; ^s business agents, r 74, 5 r 6- r 7; in civic violence, 43r-5; seca/sa freedmen, Spartacus societas,t65, 516-r7 sodalitas,416, 425, 428, 4g4, 44g-So, 525 sporlulae,4zr S t o i c s ,e g o , 3 o r , 3 o 3 , 3 r r , 5 2 o sumptuary rules, 43, 57,304-5,3o7 taxation: in Italy, 66, 68, 7o-r, 8o-r, r2o-r, 274-5;299-3oo, 5tg, seeportoria;in provinces, sezempire (revenues) tenants: rural, 246, z6o, z49-g,4rr-r2; urban, 63, 493, 5o5 trade and industry, 3, r6j-74, r77-g, r8z-7, z4z-3, 9o6-7 tribunes ofplebs: iusauxilii, 2c ,22g, ggr-4 (seeprooocatio),legislative initiative and veto, 2 r-3, ß8-9, 944-6, 348-9; power ofimpeachment, g32, 3g4, g4o-r, gS4; origins ofoffice, 348; its role as munhnentum and telum libertatis, 32+-5, g45-6; Cicero's views on, 324-5; Sullan legislation, 23, 34, r4r, 932, 3+5-6, g4B, 47z; Caesar's attitude, 49r l N D r . xo i ' s u E J E c T s lribuni anarii, r4ti, r(ir, r t('. r t, t t:l 'l'ablo, Twelve r,1, e83, r[15, ,r9r, ,g7, 3o5, 3 o 6 , 3 1 6 , 3 3 4 - 6 , 4 o r , 4 o 4 , 4 o 7 ,4 o 8 r o , 5 r 9 15 2 2 - 3 urban plebs: growth, z4r-4; living conditions, 244-5; food their chiefconcern, 75-6 (seecorn-dole), little interest in land allotments, l5,2So-ri seldom recruited for army, 2SZ-4; dominance in tribal 545 elrcmbly, rn pcrrplc;cllcnrrgc, 41135l violcncc, rn 1,, (ilrxliur (ßrnßr)l (ircsrrian i n 4 q r c , 4 g r ; u n r l c r A u g u r r u r , t l , 5 ' . r ,f i 7 , 76' 35o vacationiliriat, gg, 5tt violence, growth and its <.onscquenccs, 79-8r, cf. 252,43r -5 wage-labour, t44, 248-5o, 347, 452

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