Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic 0197662668, 9780197662663

Table of contents :
Cover
Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I VALUES, TERMS, AND PATTERNS
1. Shame, Respect, and Deference
2. Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia
3. Setting Norms
PART II RESTRAINT, CONFLICT, AND COLLAPSE
4. Tiberius Gracchus
5. Uncertainty
6. Cataclysm
7. The Lost Generation of the Republic
8. Restraint as Accelerator
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic

Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic PAU L B E L O N IC K

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Belonick, Paul, author. Title: Restraint, conflict, and the fall of the Roman Republic /​ Paul Belonick. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022027476 (print) | LCCN 2022027477 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197662663 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197662687 (epub) | ISBN 9780197662694 Subjects: LCSH: Rome—​Politics and government—​265-​30 B.C. | Social values—​Rome. | Political culture—​Rome. | Moderation. | Self-​control. Classification: LCC DG254 .B45 2023 (print) | LCC DG254 (ebook) | DDC 937/​.02—​dc23/​eng/​20220701 LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​202​2027​476 LC ebook record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​202​2027​477 DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

familiae optimae

Contents Acknowledgments 

ix

Introduction 

1

PA RT I : VA LU E S , T E R M S , A N D PAT T E R N S 1. Shame, Respect, and Deference 

15

2. Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia 

37

3. Setting Norms 

51

PA RT I I : R E ST R A I N T, C O N F L IC T, A N D C O L L A P SE 4. Tiberius Gracchus 

83

5. Uncertainty 

102

6. Cataclysm 

121

7. The Lost Generation of the Republic 

137

8. Restraint as Accelerator 

168

Epilogue  Bibliography  Index 

187 197 221

Acknowledgments This book is based on the PhD dissertation I completed under E.A. Meyer at the University of Virginia, to whom I owe an incalculable debt. The project began in 2011 at a lunch where we thought about possible topics. “We know that competition makes the Roman Republic go, like a car,” I recall her saying, “but what makes the car brake, or at least stay on the road so long?” I hope this book helps us find an answer. I cannot adequately express my appreciation for her guidance and pedagogy over these many years. Special thanks go to Prof. J.E. Lendon, whose wonderful support and advice have also spanned these many years, and who formed and shaped early drafts of this work in the proverbial refiner’s fire. I am particularly grateful to Prof. A.J. Woodman, who shared his renowned expertise on Roman rhetoric and historical sourcing, and whose incisive comments and suggestions for improvement sharpened the book’s arguments immeasurably. Gratitude is also due to the rest of my dissertation committee, Profs. J. Crawford, J. Dillery, and C. McCurdy, whose assistance I treasure. All errors remain, of course, my own. None of this would be possible without my undergraduate professors, Profs. C. Rubino and B. Gold at Hamilton College, who first taught me Latin and Greek and the love of the classics. I am forever indebted to them. I am also grateful for the support of my family and many friends, who have understood and endured the time and work that this study has taken. Finally, and most deeply, to my wife, who made this book possible. She willingly took on extra time to look after our small boys or to finish tasks while I raced to the library or typed late into the night, all while handling an enormously busy schedule of her own. In return, she gave me only ever more encouragement. I cannot have done this without her patience and love.

Introduction In June 43 BC, an anxious Cicero wrote to his friend Brutus. Julius Caesar was dead at Brutus’ hand, but civil war continued, while an “internal disease” in the Republic “grew more severe daily.” Young Octavian—​the future Emperor Augustus, by now styling himself “Caesar” after his assassinated great-​uncle—​ seemed prey to a frightening desire for power, and the city was restive. And so Cicero feared for the Republic: it should have been immortal, he lamented, but was not, because nothing inhibited insolent would-​be despots from demanding as much as they had the power to take: Neither reason (ratio), nor moderation (modus), nor law (lex), nor custom (mos), nor duty has any strength, nor do the judgment and esteem of the citizenry (existimatio civium), nor shame (verecundia) at what posterity will think.

To Cicero, these forces of restraint normally prevented ambitious men from disrupting the state. In his eyes, they were failing, and res publica with them.1 Some decades later, Livy portrayed the abuses of the last Roman king, Tarquin the Proud. According to the legend, Tarquin had his predecessor, King Servius Tullius, assassinated, while mocking him as the son of a slave then denying him proper burial. Tarquin put to death eminent senators who grew too popular, and refused to appoint replacements so that, as Livy put it, the Senate “might become more contemptible for its very smallness, and then less indignant at being ignored.” He broke the tradition of taking the advice of the Senate and made treaties without collaborating with either the Senate or the People. He tried all legal cases without advice and judged as he pleased so he could steal the accused’s goods. His own children could not tolerate his superbia—​his arrogance toward others. Resistance to him ignited into revolution.2 The extent to which Livy related any history here or just pure folktale is hotly debated, but at all events the portrait demonstrated that a good republican Roman must be what the Tarquin of fable was not—​and Tarquin’s traits were the 1 Cic. ad Brut. 1.10.1: ingravescit enim in dies intestinum malum, 1.10.3: non ratio non modus non lex non mos non officium valet non iudicium non existimatio civium non posteritatis verecundia, 1.10.5. 2 Livy 1.48, 1.49.5, 1.49.6: quo contemptior paucitate ipsa ordo esset, minusque per se nihil agi indignarentur, 1.49.7, 1.54.1. Cf. Cic. de Rep. 2.45; Dio 2.10.1 (Zon. 7.9). Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.003.0001

2 Introduction precise inverse of Cicero’s list to Brutus. Tarquin displayed no respect for custom, no moderation, no shame. His contempt for Senate and citizenry lacked care for the opinion of others or respect for his office. His refusal to show deference to senators and commons alike was intemperate. He lacked any self-​control and dripped avarice. His own posterity hated his arrogance. His sobriquet said it all.3 One hundred and sixty years after Livy, the Alexandrian historian Appian wrote of Lucius Cornelius Sulla’s bloody march on Rome against his countrymen in 88 BC to “free her,” in Sulla’s reasoning, “from tyrants.” Although rivalries had long been common in the Republic, there had never been such widespread and sickening violence as that which followed. Why this time? Appian answered: “There was no longer restraint on violence either from a sense of shame, or from the laws, or from civil institutions, or from love of country.” Elsewhere he added “reputation,” and “respect for office-​holding status” to the list of absent values that led to discord and murder—​items parallel to Cicero’s “opinion of the citizenry” and to deference.4 The commonality of these opinions is not surprising to anyone familiar with the ancient sources on the Roman Republic, both Greek and Roman, contemporary and late, and particularly those writing in or about its well-​documented last century. The sources are filled with endless worry about failing “morals” and lost self-​control, moderation, modesty, temperance, and shame. Separated by decades or centuries, and describing times even more diverse, myriad authors shared a common theory: a functional Republic required citizens who displayed vigilant personal self-​control, moderation, and deference to others. This ubiquitous commonality, however, calls for explanation, particularly because self-​restraint is the seeming opposite of another fundamental cultural feature of the Roman Republic: keen self-​advancement. Historians now generally accept that Roman ascendance was attributable to the uncommonly ravenous competitiveness of the Roman aristocracy—​those few members of Roman society whose families achieved high offices and military commands—​with their enemies, ancestors, and among themselves. From early youth a Roman noble boy was taught to be the best of all his peers and better than his forbears. The walls of his home displayed the wax funeral masks of his relatives and the spoils of their victories, labeled with their magnificent deeds, while he was exhorted at funerals to surpass the dead man’s achievements. The climax of the competition for self-​promotion was the triumph, in which a victorious commander dressed as Jupiter—​a god for a day. Empire flowed from this competition as Roman elites

3 Cf. Dunkel (1971) 19; Hammar (2013) 166. 4 App. B.C. 1.4.33: οὐδένα ἔτι ὠφελούσης οὔτε ἐλευθερίας οὔτε δημοκρατίας οὔτε νόμων οὔτε ἀξιώσεως οὔτε ἀρχῆς, 1.7.57: ἐλευθερώσων αὐτὴν ἀπὸ τῶν τυραννούντων, 1.7.60: οὐδενὸς ἔτι ἐς αἰδῶ τοῖς βιαζομένοις ἐμποδὼν ὄντος, ἢ νόμων ἢ πολιτείας ἢ πατρίδος.

Introduction  3 sought to win dignitas (“standing” or “esteem”) and high electoral offices through successful conquests in Italy, then the Mediterranean, then beyond.5 Modern historians, particularly in the last few decades, have modeled this competition’s interplay with Roman culture and politics. Power in ancient Rome, as scholars now realize, was not so much a matter of “institutions” or “structures” as it was a more fluid, semiformal social arrangement, a kind of “performative-​ competitive politics” mediated through acts of public display, ceremonies, and spectacles that placed rulers and ruled into a framework of reciprocal relations through shared symbolic practices and public exchanges of praise and votes. Aristocrats held power and influence because they competed to win public symbolic capital—​ victories, reputation, offices, family histories—​ possession of which gave them the traditional right to control the government, which gave them further symbolic capital. The formal structures and offices of the Republic, too, were shored up by performative-​competitive, symbolic cultural features: aristocrats contending for office in public speeches, canvassing about with visibly large crowds of clients in their wake, and so on. Competition also helps explain the Republic’s governing structures (e.g., its hierarchies of offices), its rigid social stratifications, and even the aristocracy’s interactions with the common People, who participated in the performative-​competitive Roman political system by judging the competition among the elite with their votes, cheers, or hisses.6 What role could that ubiquitous commonality of self-​restraint play in such a competitive framework? Unfortunately, modern analyses are still lacking, largely because modern historians have been (correctly) chary of swallowing whole the Romans’ own thesis that their society collapsed because of lost “morals.” That concern long made it unfashionable (at best) to suggest that Roman politics and Roman plaints over “morality” had much to do with each other. Accordingly, scholars of Rome saw those ubiquitous references to self-​restraint as a mere literary trope, rhetorical platitude, or philosophical nicety, “a tedious commonplace, whose literary history may be traced by the zealous but whose frequent

5 Polyb. 6.53; Sall. B.J. 1.4.5–​6; Pliny, N.H. 35.6; Flaig (1993) 199–​200; Wiseman (1994) 98–​102; Flower (1996); Beard (2003); Hölkeskamp (2010) 112–​115; Covino (2011) 74; Mouritsen (2017) 96–​ 104; Beck (2018). 6 The literature on performative politics has ballooned since the mid-​1990s, and now generally analyzes the People’s key role in it as well: e.g., Bernstein (1978) 195; Millar (1984) 10–​14; Develin (1985) 55, (2005); Rosenstein (1990) 154, (2006); Flaig (1993), (1995); Lintott (1994) 10–​15, 45–​ 46; Meier (1995) 12; Hölkeskamp (1993), (2006) 364, (2009) 8–​9, (2010) 1–​5, 16, 56–​60, 109–​124, (2011a) 162, (2011b) 26–​30, (2013); David (2000) 29–​30; Martin (2002) 167–​171; Sumi (2005); Jehne (2005); Patterson (2006) 346–​350; McDonnell (2006) 185–​195; Pittinger (2008); Wiseman (2009); Lundgreen (2011) 260; Morstein-​Marx (2011) 272; Steel (2013) 42–​46, 51–​53; Hammar (2013) 87–​ 92; Flower (2014); Harris (2016) 37–​40; Gruen (2017) 559; Yakobson (2006), (2017), (2018); Rosillo-​ López (2017); Tiersch (2018) 39. On the theory of social capital see Bourdieu (1991) 192, (1993b) 162–​163.

4 Introduction recurrence requires no real explanation.”7 The unhappy effect has been largely to jettison “morals” from comprehensive analyses of Roman culture, history, and politics. Nearly thirty years ago, Catherine Edwards rightly challenged that view, arguing that aristocratic attacks on the perceived immorality or prodigality of other aristocrats were a social marker, “implicated in defining what it meant to be a member of the Roman elite, in excluding outsiders from this powerful and privileged group and in controlling insiders,” with perhaps some small additional practical benefits of enforcing hierarchy and discouraging elites from losing their status by frittering away their means.8 Some historians have since taken the thought further, arguing that moralizing was an “arbitrary” way for the elite to justify its privileged social position and to seem grave and “responsible.”9 In time, aspects of Roman self-​control have come under expanded inquiry, including fine semantic and single-​word lexicographical studies on concepts such as shame, virtus, and frugalitas. And, in a refreshing trend, scholars have also recently begun investigating how social values were expected to exercise real power in Rome, especially through oratory.10 Still, despite much good work, the advances since Edwards’ efforts that scholars have made in modeling the performative-​competitive system invite us to combine these trends and to update and rethink holistically what work the range of concepts relating to self-​control did in Roman society, why the Romans seemed so paradoxically obsessed with self-​restraint within a competitive schema, how self-​control interlocked with aristocratic competition and with other aspects of Roman performative politics, and what difference it made to their history. This book aims to make three contributions on these lines. First, to show how Rome’s political structures and its performative politics were deeply shaped by values of self-​restraint. Performative competition alone cannot fully describe the Republic’s operation. The society would have collapsed into fratricidal chaos almost immediately if everything were nothing but constant war of all against all. The development of the republican system of limited, iterative, and collegial elective office-​holding was a partial salve to chaos. Indeed, we can conceive of the Republic as a system that organized the competition for the distribution of honors, allocating competitive offices and other 7 Edwards (1993) 176, citing numerous scholarly examples. Cf. Henry (1937) 27–​28; Pelling (1995) 206; Wallace-​Hadrill (2008) 319. 8 Edwards (1993) 11–​12, 138, 175–​180. 9 David (2000) 23; Hölkeskamp (2006), (2017); Reay (2005) 352; Hammar (2013) 109. On the cultural “arbitrary,” an intrinsically valueless thing that acts as a valued social marker, see Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) 8; Edwards (1993) 4, 26. 10 E.g., Burck (1951) 167–​174; Hellegouarc’h (1963); Dieter (1967); d’Agostino (1969); Viparelli Santangelo (1976); Militerni Della Morte (1980); Moore (1989); Scheidle (1993); Lintott (1994) 49; Perruchio (2005); Kaster (1999), (2005); Thomas (2007); Tatum (2011); Hammar (2013); Balmaceda (2017); Vervaet (2017); David (2017); Roller (2018); Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020).

Introduction  5 prizes according to an electoral process based on generally acknowledged merit, which was usually determined by an admixture of military success, wealth honestly gained, family history, and speaking ability. The system also gave the People a consistent stake in its operation, which lent it stability, as did the shared performative and symbolic cultural features just mentioned. Even so, the republican system was no cure-​all: it was ad hoc, unwritten, subject to formalized legislative rules only astoundingly late in its progression, and riddled with unpredictable accretions and exceptions, while its connection to performative power placed it in constant danger from the Roman competitiveness entangled with it. The Romans were habitually anxious that a single man might—​even by genuinely exceptional merit—​raise himself so far above his fellows as to deprive everyone else of their chances at glory. Naturally, too, ambitious individuals might “cheat” to win, while excessive rivalry and personal feuds could disrupt the system as well. And in the end, of course, the system and its structures failed utterly to contain the competition as the Republic devolved into civil wars.11 Nevertheless, in the face of these omnipresent dangers, the Romans managed to run a Republic for more than four hundred and fifty years. What kept the system cohesive, and for so long? Why, at last, did this finely tuned social structure collapse, and why did that collapse come when it did? Even as our modeling of the performative-​competitive system has improved, these questions remain stubbornly unanswered. Something is still missing from the performative-​ competitive analytical models.12 This book argues that a set of Roman values of self-​control provides vital missing pieces to those questions, and, by bringing those missing pieces into the analytical fold, bolsters the modern models. A vast array of ancient Roman authors used words such as pudor, verecundia, existimatio, modus, moderatio, modestia, and temperantia (and many adjacent concepts) with uncanny frequency to express moderating values of self-​control. Greek historians noticed these values at work in Roman society as well, and used words such as αἰδώς, δόξα, μετριότης, ἐπιείκεια, εὐταξία, and σωφροσύνη to approximate the Roman concepts.13 Most important, even when the ancient authors did not overtly use the words themselves, the mindsets and actions that the words expressed appeared regularly in the authors’ descriptions of historical events and of their subjects’ patterns of behavior. I will call these concepts and patterns of behavior collectively “restraint values” or “restraint norms,” which made up a restraint-​permeated habitus, in 11 Cf. Beck (2016). 12 Cf. Morstein-​Marx and Rosenstein (2006) 634–​635; Mouritsen (2017) 105. 13 TLL 8 1205, 1220–​1221; V,2 Fasc. X 1512; X,2 Fasc. XVI 2492. On the Greek terms see North (1966); Cairns (1993); Rademaker (2005).

6 Introduction the sense of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu: an immersive social context, presumed to be self-​evidently correct and that becomes unconscious second nature, that deeply valued self-​control, and that affected how Roman men thought and acted. Together, I argue, these restraint values and their habitus were moderating social factors that acted as meta-​rules for running the republican competition, permitting the system to continue along intelligible lines, and legitimizing competitive self-​assertion and claims to power.14 As such, Roman restraint values were more than just “arbitrary” social markers of the elite in-​group and were not mere personal ethical values or empty rhetoric. Rather, one of this book’s central contentions is that restraint values had positive political content that the Romans believed requisite to res publica’s health. Such values were prized because they undergirded and regulated the peculiar, unwritten republican system and its semiformal structures. Without restraint, dignitas (whence came power and influence) was considered overbearing and unjust, even if given by law or election. Restraint therefore validated power in the fluid republican framework. Moreover, the values encouraged respect for the competition’s validity and helped to inform everyone how to compete and act, and to whom to defer and whom to obey. The values aided Roman aristocrats’ understanding of the system’s rules, and created a sense of cohesion among the aristocracy and People when acknowledging the “winners” in the competition, which also legitimized the competitive “game.” And because the republican system was so interlaced with performative symbolism, Roman men were expected to display the values publicly, and did so—​sometimes spectacularly—​ even competing in exhibiting them, for which they were duly rewarded by both peers and the common People (who also expected their rulers to display these values) with praise and electoral success. Hence, the symbolic capital that men gained in the competition by display of the values advanced the kind of men willing and able to maintain the system.15 Accordingly, the values did not curb competition entirely, but regulated it: if everyone understood and followed constraining rules, the ruling elite could theoretically keep competing among themselves and passing around honors and offices indefinitely with reasonable assurance that relative merit—​and not violence, bribery, or other undesirable methods—​would determine to whom the prizes would be acceptably distributed. The competition would therefore have meaning; in that sense, restraint complemented competition, and thus legitimized the exercise of republican power. 14 Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) 8; Bourdieu (1993b) 5; Lundgreen (2011) 34. For norms as unwritten behavioral expectations, see Bruhns (2017); Humm (2017) 301–​302; Lundgreen (2017) 18; Roller (2018) 8 n.10. 15 Cf. Millar (1986) 4; Hölkeskamp (2006), (2014b) 44, (2017); Morstein-​Marx (2011) 272; van Wees (2011) 3; Hurlet (2012) 27–​32, 38.

Introduction  7 To be clear: this is not to say that there was ever some golden age of “moral” self-​ control. Romans, being human, always had disagreements, sometimes strident, throughout the Republic’s history. Behavioral norms were constantly contested, as we will see. But that process of contestation does not mean that normative behavior was nonexistent, or not respected. Rather, contestation could strengthen norms as disputes over proper behavior were resolved, the actors praised or punished, and the contested incident commemorated for consumption by the peer group and their descendants. Thus, for much of the republican period, and particularly after the aristocracy formed in the late 300s into what has been called the “new nobility,” the norms congealed through contestation, waxing rather than (as later Romans supposed) ever-​waning, until by the third and into the second century BC the habitus settled reasonably well into place, and a critical mass of aristocrats was generally capable of managing by consensus and norms the tension between self-​advancement and self-​restraint, and of containing would-​be miscreants nonviolently through restraint mechanisms.16 In sum, norms of personal self-​restraint were a sine qua non of the performative Roman political system–​cum–​aristocratic competition. That—​and not the values’ role in elite self-​definition alone or as literary niceties or oratorical commonplaces—​explains why the Romans were so preoccupied with them. In this way this study unifies analytical models of performative competition for personal self-​advancement with the Republic’s endless harping on personal self-​restraint. The book’s second contribution is to apply restraint to the arc of Roman history through several focused analyses and sustained historical narratives. This method reveals how restraint influenced specific social contexts and long trends within which individuals made their decisions, and brings new insights to much-​examined cases. Most important, it follows the primary (if not sole) social perspective—​“Is this actor properly restrained or not?”—​through which the Romans themselves judged action, and thus sensitizes us to their own decision-​ making and reactions to events in real time (what Karl-​Joachin Hölkeskamp has invited as a study of historical “microprocesses”). Hence, the values will take their proper place as historical causal forces in their own right.17 The third contribution is to combine these observations into the book’s main thesis: that restraint norms were central to the Republic’s disintegration—​but not in some crude linear deterioration from good mores to evil, as so many late, moralizing Roman authors imagined. Rather, because restraint norms were 16 Cf. Morstein-​Marx and Rosenstein (2006) 634–​635; Lundgreen (2011) 14, 23–​24, 118, 279, 282–​284, 302; Passet (2020) 192. 17 Cf. Earl (1967) 17; Corbeill (1996) 24; Wallace-​Hadrill (1997) 9: the “main, indeed the only, Roman theory of the fall of the Republic is, in our terms, a cultural one: of the corruption of mores”; Jehne (2009) 12–​15; Hammar (2013) 180; Hölkeskamp (2014b) 43–​44.

8 Introduction principles integral to the competitive system, they became corrosive flashpoints of conflict when, in time and in shifting contexts, they came up for hot debate. The process was fourfold: (1) Just as noble Roman boys had “be the best” drummed into their heads from birth, so too countless exempla, speeches, poems, plays, and other lessons also conditioned into them the principle that self-​restraint, deference, and consensus were self-​evidently correct behavior indispensable to the prime directive of maintaining legitimate republican governance. The restraint values, though, were behavioral norms, and could never be more than outlined, passed down more through general exempla and such than through systematic definition.18 (2) Because the restraints were normatively forceful but unavoidably subject to dispute, serious conflicts arose about their practice in novel circumstances as the Republic moved through time. The Romans attempted to use restraint norms to determine winners in these conflicts and to delineate legitimate exercises of power. (3) Such conflicts about normative behavior required judges to mediate them, judges who—​self-​ referentially—​needed to be seen by the disputants as normatively acceptable for their judgments to merit deference. The very judges of normative behavior, however, became in time normatively questionable figures amid the conflicts. (4) At which point, as a series of factors converged (described in Chapters 4 and 5), the conflicts became unjudgable and intractable. But because the Romans had tightly linked “proper” restraint with legitimate participation in the republican competition, the unresolved turmoil in restraint led to turmoil in political legitimacy, while the nobility’s conditioning kindled ever hotter emotion at intractable perceived deviance. That turmoil and emotion led to increasing mistrust that “regular” republican institutions were sufficient to contain illegitimate “deviants,” compromise with “deviants” being imagined as treason to the prime directive, dehumanization, and then violence, until the normally restrained republican competition turned into unrestrained conflict. In short, the Roman aristocratic consensus was formed and then cracked along axes of personal self-​restraint. Not because the norms were objectively forsaken (as a forlorn Cicero or Sallust or Livy might interpret events), or because aristocrats collectively defied their conditioning, but ironically because the values remained to the very end of the Republic normatively desirable, essential to the competition, and emotionally gripping. We will see not a neat dichotomy of restrained and unrestrained persons—​the former looking on aghast as the latter destroyed the Republic—​but rather a tangle of arguments, with a surfeit 18 Cf. Lundgreen (2017) 20, 27; Badel (2017) 551–​552. On aristocratic education and the formation of a habitus, see Eyre (1963) 47–​48; Bonner (1977); Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) 8; Wiseman (1989), (2000); Harker et al. (1990) 16; Bourdieu (1993b) 5; Habinek (1998); Corbeill (2001) 263-​266, (2007); Flaig (2003); Forsythe (2005) 294–​295; Billows (2009) 35; Gildenhard (2010); Lundgreen (2011) 33–​34; Scholz (2011); Roller (2018) 9.

Introduction  9 of emotion. Opponents all claimed themselves as restrained (which explains the values’ omnipresence in the sources) even as divided audiences became ever more unable to form a normatively acceptable critical mass able to adjudicate contested behavior conclusively or to cow “bad” actors into submission (which explains the sources’ persistent, if always one-​sided, lamenting that “morals” had become lost). As restraint came into impassioned dispute, it weakened determinations of republican legitimacy tied to it and also the guiding meta-​rules within the performative-​competitive system, and begat violence against competitors perceived as desecrating normative principles believed indispensable to the Republic’s well-​being—​competitors who thus became mortal enemies to be eradicated.19 The book is divided into two parts. Part I, “Values, Terms, and Patterns,” sets the baseline, exploring the restraint values in three chapters. Chapter 1, “Shame, Respect, and Deference,” describes the norm of deference, not merely to superiors, but to peers, colleagues, and groups of peers; a deference undergirded by social conventions of shame and care for one’s reputation that could act more strongly on an aristocrat even than military necessity or threat of force. Chapter 2, “Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia,” examines “moderation” and “temperance.” A principal argument is that the same values meant to restrain a man against luxury and lust were also meant to restrain him in relations with peers and in government, with no alteration in social operation. That point helps to explain the ancient sources’ constant carping about the evils of “luxury.” The first two chapters together conclude that this cluster of restraint values was generally agreed upon and followed, that Roman aristocrats competed in their practice, and that the values supported the republican system. Both of these chapters primarily use the works of later ancient historians (filled out with contemporary sources where available), for the simple reason that such writers provide the fullest picture of how these restraint values were ideally to operate. Chapter 3, “Setting Norms,” addresses the objection that restraint in the late historians—​almost none of whom wrote during the Republic’s lifetime—​was little more than literary license, retrojection, regurgitated Greek philosophy, or pure nostalgia. The chapter serves three functions: first, to attempt (given the paucity of contemporary evidence from early times) to place the restraint values into Rome’s republican past by using exclusively sources and fragments contemporary with the action; second, to postulate the restraint norms’ provenance and path until the last half of the second century BC; and third, to situate the observations of the first two chapters into modern scholarly models of how the Republic functioned.



19

Cf. Wallace-​Hadrill (1997) 11; Hölkeskamp (2006) 383, (2014b) 45.

10 Introduction Part II then follows the values through “Restraint, Conflict, and Collapse.” Chapter 4 re-​examines the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus in the light of the restraint norms, showing how Gracchus’ quarrel with his colleague and Gracchus’ murder were, paradoxically, products of the restraint values and set in motion long-​term changes to the values’ operation. Chapter 5, “Uncertainty,” shows how the restraint values became highly disputed in the following decades, particularly with respect to the Senate’s and People’s traditional roles as judges of normative behavior, and how the contests ushered in hitherto unknown levels of violence. Chapter 6, “Cataclysm,” locates within that unstable long trend the clash between Marius and Sulla, which deeply sapped normative behavior’s ability ever afterwards to set reliable expectations for peaceable inter-​peer relations. Chapter 7, “The Lost Generation of the Republic,”20 follows the actors of the 60s to the 40s bc, who inherited a veneer of structural integrity that concealed highly confused understandings of normative behavior, expressed in a vast array of approaches to restraint. This volatile social context shaped the generation’s decision-​making and emotions and heightened their conflicts, rendering them helpless to resolve peaceably amongst themselves what shame, moderation, and consensus should mean, even as they clung to the profound conviction that these values must somehow be upheld for the sake of the Republic. Finally, Chapter 8, “Restraint as Accelerator,” assesses in a close reading how in the final crisis of 50–​49 BC all the major players were driven by irreconcilable visions of restraint-​ based legitimacy, for which no body of peers or the People themselves could provide a definitive, acceptable verdict. The violence that followed at last snuffed out the republican system. A short epilogue touches on restraint in Augustus’ “restored” polity, and concludes. Two last points before we begin. First, because this book argues that the habitus of restraint had causal power, we will encounter the age-​old problem of reading motivations from ancient sources. Of course, we cannot peer into the mind of any given ancient individual to see what he “really” believed about restraint or the extent to which it was driving his actions. It may be tempting, too, to see restraint values as “just” rhetoric or propaganda glossing over the Republic’s “real” social or economic issues. But the constant repetition of restraint values should suggest that they had a general behavioral effect on Roman society—​as though the Romans collectively and constantly talked about restraint without anyone ever believing a single word of it or acting on it. Rather, the way people speak and think about a problem can, in fact, drive decision-​making, and can be studied. Rhetoric and propaganda are themselves historical and cultural forces that shape human reactions to circumstances—​often, for instance, sharpening generalized social or

20

The title, of course, points to and challenges Erich Gruen’s famous (1974).

Introduction  11 economic discontent into violent anger at specific human targets. They are also historical and cultural data that tell us what a particular culture cares enough about to get enraged over. More so, the magnitude, consistency, and timing of shifts in norms relative to social and political changes, as well as much primary evidence that directly connects norms to decisions, will strongly suggest that restraint norms repeatedly prompted action. We will see material and economic developments especially shaped through the habitus of restraint. We will also see quick, vivid physical actions and reactions in line with restraint, which also imply true internalization. Some Romans, too, surely fell into the cognitive bias of believing in restraint when it was personally useful; the human mind, after all, is exquisitely adept at holding fervent beliefs that happen to support what it wants. But the use of restraint as a viable strategy to support one’s desires only shows that even if some people enacted restraint while secretly completely disbelieving in it or having some other motives, they evidently expected that their audience believed in it and would justify them on that basis—​which also shows a baseline power of the norms and, simultaneously, contestation over them. So even if we cannot perfectly know what motivated a given person in a given instant, we still can, taking the evidence as a whole, trace restraint’s path through group cohesion and then crackup, and reveal restraint as a causal force. The direction of causation between changes to restraint norms and social, economic, and political forces will be multivariate, of course, and I will expressly argue that restraint and social change acted as feedback loops on each other. Finally, it has been wisely said that “most of us can only follow one or two threads of the web; which is reasonable and useful, provided we do not claim that we have found the answer” or suggest that our thread is the “only one that matters.”21 This study aims to follow a particular thread of some critical social restraints on aristocratic competition through the Romans’ history, not to create an exhaustive list of every possible restraining impulse that the Roman aristocracy used. Some restraints, like law, require their own comprehensive studies and can be touched on only lightly here. Nor will I pretend that the Republic’s operation and dissolution hinged on one monocausal factor alone. Rather, I will show how the habitus of restraint intersected with numerous other historical trends, forces, and even accidents that shaped Republican history. All the same, I will intentionally keep a tight focus on the thread of restraint to illuminate primarily this long-​inadequately understood factor in Roman politics and culture. To the extent that the inquiry adds something to other threads and questions, though, I hope it is in a “reasonable and useful” way.



21

Badian (1972b) 55.

PART I

VALUE S, T E R MS, A N D PAT T E R NS Part I explores how the Romans conceived of, used, and passed on restraint values such as deference, moderation, and temperance, and shows how the values were political norms that supported and legitimized the Romans’ peculiar semiformal performative system of governance. Part I also addresses the objection that the values were nothing but rhetorical tropes or idealized nostalgia, showing instead in Chapter 3 using evidence contemporary with the action how the restraint values settled into behavioral norms over time until they became by the end of the second century bc part of the Romans’ unconscious habitus, which also explains the values’ omnipresence in the historical sources. The Part concludes by placing the values into modern historical models of the Republic’s functions, illustrating the values’ integral role in the Romans’ social dynamics and republican structures and institutions.

1

Shame, Respect, and Deference Cicero and Appian believed that “the judgment and opinion of the citizenry,” respect for “office-​holding status,” “shame,” and “reputation” should have restrained men from committing evil against the commonwealth—​but were failing.1 How did these values constrain the Roman aristocratic competition? First, office-​holding status and reputation created social hierarchy, and the Romans expected everyone to defer to their betters. That is an unoriginal observation, of course. Far more important, the Roman nobility also expected peers, and especially colleagues in office, to cede to each other in an exercise of mutual deference—​even though peers and colleagues were also natural rivals in competition. The significance of this restraint value of deference to peer and colleague can scarcely be overstated. Roman aristocrats are repeatedly portrayed in the ancient sources exhibiting a conviction that mutual accord—​and not antagonistic checks and balances—​defined the ideal collegial or interpeer relationship.2 A willful aristocrat could especially be overborne by a display of solidarity of a group of peers or colleagues, and particularly when the Senate, the greatest conglomerate of dignified men, acted in concert. Indeed, a collection of peers could pressure a Roman aristocrat even more than fear of enemies, physical force, or threat of death. This norm of deference was closely tied to inhibitory emotions to which the Romans gave the names pudor and verecundia, a “sense of shame,” whence came “respect” for others, which were in turn related to the concern a Roman had for his existimatio, his “sense of worth” in the eyes of others. Additionally, the rewards or punishments respectively associated with proper deference or with shameless disregard for the “judgment and opinion” of one’s fellows cemented the values’ symbolic capital. Of course, these restraint values might occasionally become contested and fraught. Navigating the tension between expected self-​restraint and expected self-​advancement was inherently difficult. It could be painful for an ambitious Roman aristocrat to submit to others. But Roman aristocrats in our sources regularly appealed to these deferential values as the primary means to settle disputes, 1 Cic. ad Brut. 1.10.3; App. B.C. 1.4.33. 2 Cf. Eckstein (1987) 324, contra are Levick (1982a) 57 and Lowrie (2010) 178 who saw only check and balance. Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.003.0002

16  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic which shows both the values’ significance and the Romans’ deeply held assumption that the values would work. And to what end? Ultimately, the restraint of deference underlay the cohesive functioning of republican power. The aristocracy gave influence to those who judiciously combined restraint and self-​ assertion. Pure advancement without restraint could not be a fully justified or legitimate “win,” but would be superbia, which would lessen dignitas and influence. The aristocracy consequently assumed that the Republic was in danger unless its members individually and collectively abided by norms of deference and were receptive to the weight of shame and the reputation, judgment, and opinion of their peers. That is why Cicero and Appian placed these qualities in their list of failing fail-​safes. And that is also why Romans are described in the sources as fixated on the values. A three-​episode account from Livy will begin to illustrate how the restraint value of deference informed ideal aristocratic interactions.3 *** Young Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus was no mean soldier. He had distinguished himself against the mountain-​dwelling Samnites, and his bravery led to advancement. When in 325 BC the Samnites once again threatened, the general L. Papirius Cursor was chosen dictator and selected Fabius for his Master of Horse. Along the march to Samnium the dictator returned to Rome to take fresh auspices, and sternly charged his subordinate Fabius to seek no battle until his return. Fabius, however, like any ambitious young Roman, was keen for fame. When he discovered that the Samnite pickets were lax, he eagerly attacked. The fight could not have gone better, and the exultant Romans gathered up the enemy’s armor and weapons in a great pile in front of Fabius, who put it to the torch. This was either to fulfill a vow to the gods or to ensure that Papirius could not claim the spoils, which was his right as the technical commander-​in-​chief. In a final insult, Fabius sent a dispatch of his victory directly to the Senate—​and nothing to his superior.4 Papirius was furious and rushed back to the camp, faced down the angry soldiers who supported Fabius, and then ordered his lictors to bind Fabius for summary execution. Fabius escaped their grasp and hid among the men, who pleaded with Papirius to forgive; it would not do to punish a young man of such merit so harshly. They clamored to the verge of mutiny, but Papirius shouted back. The din went on until dark, when Fabius slipped out of camp and fled to Rome to appeal to the senators.5

3 On the general historicity of the following episodes see Cornell (1986) 82; Forsythe (2005) 76, 295; Oakley (2007) II 696; Cornell et al. (2013) II 93. Contra is Chaplin (2000) 111. 4 Livy 8.29.8–​8.30.11; Val. Max. 2.7.8. 5 Livy 8.32.14; Val. Max. 2.7.8.

Shame, Respect, and Deference  17 Rivalry for glory first embroiled the army and now perturbed the Senate. Fabius had barely begun to make his defense in front of the fathers when Papirius followed in. As a group, the senators, including Fabius’ father M. Fabius Ambustus, entreated the dictator to put aside his anger. Ambustus, once dictator himself, decried that “neither the authority of the Senate nor my old age . . . nor the virtus and nobility of your Master of Horse”—​what evidently seemed to him (or at least to the narrator Livy) to be restraints on the desires even of dictators—​ had any weight with Papirius. Stymied, Ambustus led the senators outside to a growing throng.6 Ambustus and Papirius then faced each other at the speaker’s platform. On the one side was the authority of the Senate and of the multitude, along with a gathering of leading men; on the other the authority of the dictator, accompanied by only a few attendants. Custom, precedent, and law supported both. Ambustus, after having submissively stepped down from the platform at Papirius’ insistence, asked Papirius to defer to the majesty of the Senate, the favor of the People, the help of the tribunes, and the memory of the absent army. Where, Papirius retorted, was respect for the Roman People who had given him dictatorial powers, or for discipline? Let Fabius off, Papirius argued, and soldier would not obey commander, and no one would have respect for men or gods. The entire Republic might then be destroyed for the young man’s licentia.7 At this, the crowd began to beg, falling to the pavement. Fabius and Ambustus too bowed in front of Papirius and pleaded for forgiveness. Moved, Papirius declared that discipline was restored: Fabius had learned in war and peace to “submit to legitimate authority.” The People might therefore have Fabius’ life restored to them as a gift, the dictator deferring to their wishes in exchange for the show of deference to himself. The quarrel subsided—​and without violence.8 Fifteen years passed. Fabius had since been consul and dictator himself, and was now consul again, and again in the field against the Samnites. Exaggerated reports had fanned rumors in Rome that the legions under Fabius’ consular colleague C. Marcius had been wiped out. The Senate, in dismay, called for a dictator to lead the counter-​attack. By custom, a consul must appoint him. Marcius was feared lost, and only Fabius remained to perform the rituals to invest the man who would take from him the credit of his campaign. The Senate chose as dictator none other than L. Papirius Cursor.9 The senators were not foolish in this choice. Papirius was the foremost gen­ eral of the day. But Fabius’ private enmity with Papirius caused worry. This 6 Livy 8.33.7: quando quidem . . . apud te nec auctoritas senatus nec aetas mea . . . nec virtus nobilitasque magistri equitum. 7 Livy 8.33.9-​23, 8.34.1-​4, although see Oakley (1997–​2008) II 729. 8 Livy 8.35.7: pati legitima imperia. 9 Livy 9.38.4-​9; Pina Polo (2011) 188–​191 on the requirement.

18  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic appointment would not be without friction. To ensure that Fabius’ anger “would not obstruct the public good,”10 wrote Livy, the Senate decided to send an honorable “deputation of former consuls,” because, the Senate judged, they “could add their own personal auctoritas to that of the nation, and thereby convince Fabius to put aside the memory of his quarrels for the sake of the country.” The party—​ all Fabius’ peers and (perhaps) sometime colleagues—​met with Fabius in camp and urged him to defer to their wishes.11 Silence. Fabius fixed unmoving eyes on the ground—​then got up and left without a word.12 He likely pondered his choices. As consul, he might refuse to perform the rituals that would let Papirius overtake him. But the Senate had sent men of the greatest worth to plead that he cede to their and the Senate’s wishes. These particular men, moreover, had been sent precisely because the Senate expected that Fabius would weigh their opinions heavily in light of their immense dignity. And so, as was custom, in the middle of the night he prepared the sacrifice and appointed Papirius over himself as dictator. The next day the deputation learned of it and hurried into Fabius’ tent to thank him for “admirably conquering his feelings.” Silence again. Fabius bade them leave without reply. That, wrote Livy, was a “clear sign of how his singular sorrow was crushed by his great spirit.” For this act, wrote the historian Cassius Dio, he “gained the greatest glory.”13 A further fifteen years passed. There was no doubt that the now-​aged Fabius would be selected to his fifth consulship, for the year 295 BC. He tried to beg off because of weakness, but “overcome by the consensus” of all he agreed, on the condition that the other consul be P. Decius Mus, his colleague in two previous consulships and censorship. Through his experiences, Livy had Fabius say, he had learned that “nothing protected the Republic more firmly than concord among colleagues.”14 *** These three (perhaps idealized) episodes exemplify the temptations a Roman aristocrat faced to engage in self-​glorifying behavior that might interfere with the desires of his fellows, but also amply demonstrate the assumed value of deference and its emotional valences. 10 Livy 9.38.11: quae ne ira obstaret bono publico. 11 Livy 9.38.9-​13: legatos ex consularium numero mittendos ad eum senatus censuit, qui sua quoque eum, non publica solum, auctoritate moverent ut memoriam simultatium patriae remitteret. Cf. Dio 8.26. 12 Livy 9.38.13-​14. 13 Livy 9.38.13-​14: cui cum ob animum egregie victum legati gratias agerent . . . ut appareret insignem dolorem ingenti comprimi animo. Dio 8.36.26: εὔκλειαν ἐκ τούτου μεγίστην ἔλαβεν. 14 Livy 10.22.2: vincebatur consensu, 10.22.3: expertum se nihil concordi collegio firmius ad rem publicam tuendam esse.

Shame, Respect, and Deference  19

Deference to Superiors Observe first the esteem for rightful grounds of Roman self-​assertion. Military heroes were due respect from all, elders were due respect from youth, and men were supposed to yield to a superior in an official position. Papirius as dictator simply expected obedience and was livid when he did not receive it. The higher one climbed in the competition, the more claim one had to power and dignitas. That was a main point of the game. But the exercise of power was not a matter of naked force or official position alone. Although the threat of force could influence conflicts—​Papirius had rods and axes handy—​it was not here the resolving factor. The senators did not physically threaten Papirius to get their way, nor did Fabius fifteen years later face any physical hazard from the senators who visited him, nor any threat of some official “constitutional” sanction. Yet both officials gave ground in the end.

Deference to Social Equals and Colleagues A second and more important observation helps explain why. Deference to one’s dignified peers was a powerful norm, something Christoph Lundgreen has called a “disposition of yielding.”15 Fabius ran to his consular father and to the Senate to protect him—​but not for their physical strength. The aged Ambustus is portrayed as assuming instinctively that even though Papirius was within his legal rights as dictator, he might be swayed by the opinion of social peers. The Senate instinctively assumed the same of the deputation of Fabius’ peers sent to convince Fabius to appoint his hated rival dictator. There is ample evidence that the Romans imagined that peers, and particularly colleagues in office, should show mutual deference to one another. Stories of the oldest times—​which we should take at least as legends contrived to illustrate exemplary behavior—​assume the ideal explicitly. When, for instance, the illustrious Camillus, the “second founder of Rome,” was voted one of six military tribunes with consular powers in 386 BC, his colleagues reportedly agreed to defer command of all pressing military affairs to him, believing that there was “no detraction from their own majesty in doing so.” The Senate enthusiastically approved, and Camillus replied that the greatest responsibility he felt came from the “deference shown him by such honored colleagues.” Then he immediately delegated powers back to them. The senators again shouted their approval: the state would never need a dictator with men in such “concord,” Livy has them say, “equally ready to command and obey,” and “adding to common praise rather

15

Lundgreen (2011) 23.

20  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic than detracting from the common good for their own purposes.”16 Similarly, in 381 BC Camillus was colleague as military tribune with consular power with his brother’s son, L. Furius Medullinus. Camillus reportedly said that “he had a colleague of equal right and authority,” and he could not “impede the command of his colleague”—​his own nephew, and he the (traditionally stern) paternal uncle.17 Concord followed deference. Livy’s books covering the years between 296 and 173 BC repeatedly inform us that consular or censorial pairs acted among themselves “with the greatest concord” (or some close variant) with such insouciance that one suspects that Livy was relating some traditional formula of approval.18 A lucky find of an inscribed bronze fish dating from the Middle Republic also hints at such a formula: “[Consc]riptes cose.”—​the “conscript fathers in consensus.”19 Obstinacy and intercollegial strife were, consequently, consistently frowned upon, both in legend and in later, more historical, episodes. In 418 BC, for instance, the several military tribunes with consular power were said to argue among themselves about who would get the glory of a campaign and who would have to stay behind to govern Rome. Livy wrote that the senators looked on with “astonishment” at this contest, which had become parum decorum (“scarcely honorable”). Quintus Servilius, a former dictator, ended the matter with a tongue-​lashing. Because, he seethed, the tribunes had no sense of verecundia for Senate or Republic, he would order his tribune son to stay in Rome. As for the tribunes who went out to fight, he warned, they had better conduct the campaign with “more harmony and concord than they sought it.” And when two of the tribunes continued to bicker, their lieutenants scolded them and forced them

16 Livy 6.6.7: nec quicquam de maiestate sua detractum credere, 6.6.8: ingens inde ait onus . . . maximum tam honoratorum collegarum obsequio iniungi, 6.6.18: si tales viros in magistratu habeat, tam concordibus iunctos animis, parere atque imperare iuxta paratos laudemque conferentes potius in medium quam ex communi ad se trahentes. Cf. Oakley (1997–​2008) I 446, 455. On the college, see Adcock (1971); Forsythe (2005) 234; Drogula (2015). 17 Livy 6.23.9-​10: nunc scire se collegam habere iure imperioque parem . . . collegae imperium se non posse impedire; MRR I 104. Plutarch Cam. 37.3 holds that Camillus permitted Medullinus to take command only out of fear that he would be thought stealing his nephew/​colleague’s opportunities for glory. Cf. Klotz (1941) 307; Oakley (1997–​2008) I 580. In both versions, however, Camillus assumes that he should cede to a colleague, and that depriving his young colleague of just opportunities would be shameful. On the stern patruus see Martin (2002) 160–​161. 18 E.g., Livy 10.24.2 (concordia inter se), 22.32.1 (summa inter se concordia), 27.38.10 (omnia cum summa concordia consulum acta), 32.7.2-​3 (censores . . . magna inter se concordia et senatum sine ullius nota legerunt), 40.40.14 (cum summa concordia), 40.51.1 (censores fideli concordia senatum legerunt), 42.10.4 (concors et e re publica censura fuit). Cf. Hellegouarc’h (1963) 123; Levick (1978); Akar (2013) 98. 19 Warmington (1935-​2006) IV 208, dating the fish to 222–​153 BC. The fish was found at Fundi, and so if the reference is not directly to the Roman Senate, then likely the Fundian aristocracy were mimicking Roman mores in a gift to a “Ti. Claudius.”

Shame, Respect, and Deference  21 to compromise by exchanging days of command—​apparently a second-​best solution.20 In 187 BC a well-​ documented case of strife arose between the consul M. Aemilius Lepidus and M. Fulvius Nobilior, cos. 189. Lepidus blamed Fulvius for blocking him from becoming consul sooner, and brought charges against him of cruelty on campaign. Lepidus also enlisted the tribune of the plebs M. Aburius to thwart Fulvius’ request for a triumph. Aburius’ colleague in the tribunate Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (father of the famous tribune brothers), however, staved him off. Livy’s stock speech for Gracchus assumed that it was indignum to the college for its members to carry on personal battles for others, and was terrible precedent: Gracchus was no friend of Fulvius, but he had “put aside enmities for the sake of the state,” while Aburius put forward another’s enmities. Should two tribunes, Gracchus asked, two colleagues, be at odds with each other? What would posterity think of that? At this, Aburius dropped his claim and left the Senate meeting, victus castigationibus (“defeated by the castigations”) of his fellow tribune—​a curious construction to which we will return. Fulvius triumphed.21 The enmity between the disputants Lepidus and Fulvius, however, did not dissipate. The two were chosen to be censors together in 179 BC. By now, their vicious arguments had erupted on more than one occasion in public, and there was anxiety about how they would behave as colleagues. The new censors took their seats after their election, and Q. Caecilius Metellus, the aged consul of 206, approached them with a crowd of principes senatorum (“principal men of the senators”). It was usual, Livy reported Metellus as saying, for censors to admonish others in their manners, not vice-​versa. But he must point out “what there is in you two that offends all good men, or at least what they should like to see changed.” For years the two had harbored a feud, a “grave and atrocious” thing by itself, but all the more “dangerous now to us and to the state.” The Republic would suffer because the two so disliked each other. Metellus, together with the dignified men around him, now begged them to make the customary censorial prayer—​“that this matter may turn out well and happily for myself and my colleague”—​a reality. His speech done, the crowd cheered.22 20 Livy 4.45.8, 4.46.8: consideratius concordiusque quam cupiunt. A system of rotating command would be a practical way to apply the fiction of perfect collegial equality. Cf. Drogula (2015) 151, although see Ogilvie (1965) 604. 21 Livy 37.47.6, 38.43.1–​13, 39.5.1–​5: ne hoc quidem cernere eum, fore ut memoriae ac posteritati mandetur eiusdem conlegii alterum e duobus tribunis plebis suas inimicitias remisisse rei publicae, alterum alienas et mandatas exercuisse. Cf. ORF3 57 fr. 148 (=​Gell. 5.6.24); Develin (1985) 193–​194; Epstein (1987) 13, 15, 25, 59, 73; Gruen (1990) 132; Chaplin (2000) 154; Briscoe (2008) 179; Flaig (2017) 402–​407. 22 Livy 40.45.7, 40.46.2–​3: indicandum tamen est quid omnes bonos in vobis aut offendat aut certe mutandum malint, 40.46.5–​6: graves et atroces . . . periculum est ne ex hac die nobis et rei publicam quam vobis graviores fiant, 40.46.9: ut ea res mihi collegaeque meo bene et feliciter eveniat. Pittenger (2008) 210 n.35 comments that the Romans valued concordia in the censorship because it helped them to work together practically and set a decorous example.

22  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic It is risky, of course, to rely on set speeches in ancient sources, though given the Romans’ religious scrupulousness the text of that remarkable prayer may be at least partly a direct quotation.23 And Livy’s sentiment in any event captured the outcome: Lepidus and Fulvius, rivals as they were, at first resisted. But as the censors looked on their dignified petitioners, the valued deference to colleague and peer took hold. Both stated that, if the other wished, they would put themselves in the power of such an impressive group of leading men of the state. At the urging of all present, they shook hands and ended their feud. Applause again: the crowd accompanied them to the Senate, where the fathers praised both further. Importantly, it is certain that this public reconciliation in fact occurred, and very likely as Livy described it; the contemporary Ennius celebrated it in verse.24 Note what did not solve the feud: a suggestion that one colleague cede to the other as junior or inferior, or that one would for any reason automatically outrank a colleague. Nor did it apparently occur to anyone simply not to elect the two rivals together.25 In fact, electing rivals to serve as colleagues would have been normal and inevitable. Given the step-​by-​step progression of Roman office-​holding, age-​peers would contest against each other at every stage of advancement, and any pair of potential colleagues would be lifelong competitors. That fact makes it all the more remarkable that everyone apparently assumed that even bitter opponents, once in office, should value deference to a colleague’s wishes. Indeed, the inherent structure of colleges implied some means of allocating equal honor and power. The ideal solution, it seems, was for one colleague to be prepared to cede to another, which would redound to praise for both. In all these examples we find common themes, and can now state the idealized norm as presented through the exempla. An individual was engaged in self-​ advancing behavior, but that presented some perceived danger to the republican system: either a man would gain too much influence alone, someone else would be deprived of a merited chance for glory and honor, an action would foment dissension among the nobility or set a bad precedent, or a feud would threaten the orderly administration of an office. In response, mindfulness of a colleague’s or peer’s equal worth or an appeal to concord among colleagues were normatively expected responses to such impulses. Praise—​symbolic capital in a competitive field—​from peers and from the public, in front of whom the performance was conducted, followed deference, to the point of formula; blame followed continued obstreperousness.26

23 Cf. Cat. Mai. re Rust. 141.3; Hickock (1993) 70–​71, 141 n.2; Briscoe (2008) 531. 24 Livy 40.46.14–​16; Val. Max. 4.2.1; Gell. 12.8.5–​6; Cic. Prov. Cons. 20–​21; Develin (1985) 194; Briscoe (2008) 528. 25 There seem to have been many candidates. Evans and Kleijwegt (1992) 186. 26 Cf. Dominik and Smith (2011) 3; Steel (2011) 35, 38, and references.

Shame, Respect, and Deference  23

Groups of Peers If the normal pressure on a Roman aristocrat to defer to peer or colleague was strong, the pressure was far more intense when groups of great men helped to enforce it. The patres repeatedly considered that, not a simple order or message, but a deputation of grandees was the best way to influence men on the verge of succumbing to temptations that would endanger the Republic. We have already seen this concept at work twice: the deputation that the Senate sent to Fabius in Samnium and the crowd of principes senatorum led by Metellus to reconcile Fulvius and Lepidus. So too in 167 BC when L. Aemilius Paullus and the praetor L. Anicius were to settle Macedonia and Illyria after the battle of Pydna, the Senate sent tales viri (former consuls, including a former colleague of Paullus, and censors) to the commanders in “hope that by their advice the generals would establish nothing unworthy of the clemency or dignity of the Roman People”—​as apparently the senators worried the generals might do if left alone.27 If a deputation of great men could restrain, the opinion of the full Senate was thought to be weightier still. Consider Livy’s repetitive use of the phrase “victus consensu omnium” (“defeated by the consensus of all”) and similar expressions. According to Livy, the senators knew that one consul for 207 BC would be the preeminent C. Claudius Nero. But they were concerned: Hannibal was still in Italy, and Nero was known to be impetuous. He needed a colleague of “moderation and prudence” who could “temper” him (a theory that assumed, of course, that colleagues would defer to each other). M. Livius, later given the cognomen Salinator, might be the man. But this choice was worrying too: in 219 Livius had been convicted for taking too much spoil from a campaign, and Nero had been a witness against him. Livius had accordingly withdrawn from the city for many years, and at first refused to consider running. The Senate, however, together strongly rebuked him, and through the “united efforts of all” of the senators (adnisi omnes) he was elected with Nero.28 Because the upcoming year would be hazardous the Senate wanted the consuls-​elect to reconcile immediately. Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator took the lead and asked the pair on behalf of the Senate to put aside their quarrel. Yet in spite of the obvious military perils of having a pair of backbiting commanders, 27 Livy 45.17.7: tales viri mitterentur, quorum de consilio sperari posset imperatores nihil indignum nec clementia nec gravitate populi Romani decreturos esse. This reminder of proper behavior might have inspired Paullus to his acts of generosity described in Chapter 2. 28 Livy 27.34.3: temperandum . . . moderato et prudenti viro adiuncto conlega, 29.38.11; Frontinus 4.1.45; Suet. Tib. 3; Epstein (1987) 13, 17–​18, 70, 94; Gruen (1990) 85–​87; Yakobson (2017) 507–​ 508. Rosenstein (1995) 327 notes the oddity of these candidates: Nero had lately been outwitted by Hannibal, and Salinator had no experience against the Carthaginians. But Rosenstein points out that the choice of general came down, not to military skill, but to the man most capable of embodying virtus and thus inspiring his troops, which perhaps explains the choice of Livius to temper any parts of Nero that detracted from his virtus, which included self-​control.

24  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic the two at first refused. Livius, still brooding on Nero’s insult to him, argued that there was no need for reconciliation because enmity would keep each alert to avoiding errors that the other might exploit. The Senate, however, would have none of this line of reasoning. Concord, not check-​and-​balance—​that was the ideal. Instead, “the Senate’s auctoritas overcame them to make them administer the Republic with a common mind and counsel, putting aside their hatred.”29 The two quickly had opportunity to show it. They prepared for battle cum summa concordia and fought bravely at the Metaurus River, winning a tremendous victory over Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother. The victorious pair then courteously decided not to enter Rome separately; they had fought the war in common, and agreed that because the battle had been fought in the territory assigned to Livius, and the auspices on that day happened to be Livius’ (they alternated days of command), Livius would ride the triumphal four-​horse chariot while Nero followed on horseback. This sharing of the triumph, commented Livy, added to the glory of both, but even more so for Nero, who, although he achieved more in the actual fighting, “ceded the greater honor to his colleague.” Thus the force of deference to colleague and to collective senatorial consensus was thought to resolve dangerous rivalry, even when urgent military need could not.30 The value of deference could also play another role that Livy related with the phrase victus consensu: to help the nobility decide to whom to distribute dignitas, a critical function of the republican system. Debates over triumphs exemplify this dynamic in action. In 200 BC, Lucius Cornelius Lentulus the proconsul came back from a successful campaign in Spain. After giving an account of his successes to the Senate, he asked for a triumph. Because his had been an emergency appointment, however, he was technically not qualified for the honor; the auspices had not been in his own name. When the Senate suggested an ovation instead, the tribune Ti. Sempronius Longus objected to this as also against precedent. Yet, victus consensu patrum (“defeated by the consensus of the fathers”), he withdrew his veto and Lentulus got his ovation.31 In 167 BC, Ser. Sulpicius Galba opposed a law granting L. Aemilius Paullus a triumph for his victory at Pydna, accusing Paullus of not given enough of the booty to the soldiers out of the massive haul given the treasury. The first tribes, surrounded by sullen soldiers, started the vote against Paullus, and an uproar ensued among the senators. M. Servilius, who had been consul and Master of Horse, requested that the tribunes start the vote over again. No doubt the tribunes would have enjoyed the goodwill of the

29 Livy 27.35.8, 11: vicit tamen auctoritas senatus ut positis simultantibus communi animo con­ silioque administrarent rem publicam. Cf. Val. Max. 4.2.2; 7.2.6a; Epstein (1987) 13. 30 Livy 27.38.11, 28.9.9–​11: tantum honore collegae cesserat. Note that the Senate decreed an equal triumph for both and Nero’s deference was therefore an example of praecipua moderatio (“exceptional moderation”), Val. Max. 4.1.9. 31 Livy 31.20.6; Sage (1933–​2000) ix 59 n.2.

Shame, Respect, and Deference  25 voting soldiers, but, victi auctoritatibus principum (“defeated by the authority of the leading men”), they allowed Servilius to address the assembly, and then repeated the proceedings. Paullus triumphed on the second vote.32 Livy’s recurring expression thus marked the outlines of another recurring pattern of ideal normative behavior. An individual’s will could be “overcome” or “defeated” (victus) by the authority or united judgment of others, particularly the Senate or the leaders thereof. If an individual wished to advance himself or pursue rivalry to an unacceptable degree, such men gathered together and presented a united front, often publicly. The individual’s submission was then expected, and when granted, highly praised. Indeed, the value of deference worked on the intransigent even when seemingly more obvious restraints, such as dire martial necessity, did not. Equally important, this value of individual deference to aristocratic group opinion helped the competitors to determine how merit and honors would be acknowledged and allocated—​the very heart of the republican system.33 Yielding was no arbitrary courtesy; it was a core political quality.

Pudor, Verecundia, and Existimatio So far, we see (at least an idealized) value of deference helping to order the republican system’s honor-​and-​office distribution functions amid contests over self-​ advancement, and to justify the results. But why was this restraint value so potent? A clue comes from Cicero and Appian. Cicero, recall, lamented that verecundia and existimatio had vanished. Appian cited the loss of ἀξίωσις, a sense of “being thought worthy,” or “good reputation,” as well as of αἰδώς, a “sense of shame” (in Latin, pudor).34 Robert Kaster and Jean-​François Thomas have studied carefully across the entire Roman literary record the emotions expressed with the words verecundia, existimatio, and pudor, and have come to two conclusions pertinent here. First, pudor and verecundia opposed to some degree the gloria and laus that every man sought—​but one could, paradoxically, nevertheless receive praise for their exhibition. Second, the words connoted a sense of mutuality: each emotion was related to the opinions of those who observed the man displaying them. Take pudor, for example. As Kaster explains, a Roman’s experience of this emotion was directly tied to the opinions that other Romans had of him: “All experiences of pudor depend upon notions of personal worthiness (dignitas) and value (existimatio), which in turn derive from seeing myself being seen in creditable



32

Livy 45.35-​36. Cf. Thomas (2007) 412; Brennan (2014) 31, 44–​45. 34 Cic. ad Brut. 1.10.3; App. B.C. 1.4.33, 1.7.60. Cf. Ovid Fasti 1.251; Barton (2001) 19 n.5. 33

26  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic terms. I experience pudor when I see myself being seen as discredited, when the value that I or others grant that self is not what I would have it be.”35 Verecundia was similarly mutual, although it differed slightly from pudor.36 While pudor was primarily an inward-​facing, unpleasant feeling of being lowered in the eyes of others, verecundia, Kaster writes, was an outward-​facing emotion that “animates the art of knowing your proper place in every social transaction and basing your behavior on that knowledge; by guiding behavior in this way, verecundia establishes or affirms the social bond between you and others, all of whom (ideally) play complementary roles.”37 Critically, verecundia meant that each Roman would constantly gauge his “standing relative to others” and would present himself to them “in a way at least that will not give offense . . . and that preferably will signal [his] full awareness of the others’ face, the character they wear in the transaction and the respect that that character is due.” As a result, a Roman possessed of verecundia would “stop short of overtly pressing [his] full claims, yet not be excessively self-​effacing.” Thus the “mutuality of verecundia, the way that its wariness looks both to the self and to the other . . . is the essence of the emotion as a force of social cohesion.” So too Thomas, who shows that verecundia ensured “entente” and social peace.38 Finally, a proper showing of verecundia avoided jeopardizing one’s existimatio, one’s “sense of worth” in the eyes of others, which completed the circle back to pudor, the desire to avoid shame and “loss of face.” Existimatio also depended on how well one considered the “face” of others. The “unimpeded liberty” that some manifestations of pudor sought to control was, Kaster explains, “commonly, even typically,” conceived as a “desire not just to satisfy myself at others’ expense but also to distinguish and separate myself from others, whose claims on me I can then ignore and—​as important—​whose equality with me I can deny,” or, more bluntly, “doing what I damn well please.” Concern for one’s existimatio was too a mutually felt emotion, and closely linked with a Roman man’s calculation of parity with a peer. In short, if one failed to exhibit verecundia—​the studied calibration of one’s actions with a view to one’s standing relative to others—​one could lose existimatio, which would lead to pudor, discredit in the eyes of others; a loss of social capital to be avoided in a republican competition fueled by desire for dignitas.39

35 Kaster (2005) 4, 29; Thomas (2007) 52, 325–​330. Cf. Hellegouarc’h (1963) 283; TLL X,2 Fasc. 16 2491. On Roman shame see also Vervaet (2017). 36 Kaster (2005) 63; Thomas (2007) 446. 37 Kaster (2005) 15. Cf. Thomas (2007) 403. 38 Kaster (2005) 15, 19; Thomas (2007) 412. Cf. Barton (2001) 209. 39 Kaster (2005) 43, 55, 63–​64; Thomas (2007) 400–​401. Cf. TLL V.2 Fasc. X 1512; Hellegouarc’h (1963) 362; Bourdieu (1966) 198; Barton (2001) 214; Hall (2005); Pittenger (2008) 133–​134. See also Cairns (1993) 432 on αἰδώς as an inhibitory emotion vis-​à-​vis others.

Shame, Respect, and Deference  27 The connections among pudor, verecundia, and existimatio and the norm of deference to peer and colleague now become clear. Kaster’s and Thomas’ descriptions show that these emotions operated as the emotional underpinnings of the deference ideal. Even when the ancient historians did not use these words when describing episodes of deference, the emotions are recognizable in the actors’ behavior. It explains why, when the senatorial deputation requested that he appoint his rival Papirius dictator, Fabius Rullianus could not speak a word or even remain in their presence. Instead he cast his eyes down on the ground and left the tent. Kaster notes that pudor, the feeling of having one’s existimatio lowered in others’ sight, not only restrained action, but might cause one to “break . . . off contact with others: silence, downcast eyes, averted glance, a turning away, or an actual withdrawal”—​gestures we will see repeated several times. That is, Fabius, even without Livy’s using the word, showed pudor relative to a group of peers who sought to demote him.40 But that same pudor also explains why Fabius deferred. The fact that the Senate repeatedly sent deputations—​and not a mere message or order—​to assert its will presupposes how the Romans expected these emotions to operate. The genius of sending a deputation was that it forced a man to calibrate then and there his worth relative to that of multiple peers directly in front of him—​that is, to exercise verecundia. If he failed to defer to one peer, to consider that man’s “face,” the loss of existimatio in the eyes of others would be bad enough. But if he failed to defer to the wishes of many peers, to take no account of their combined “faces,” the display of non-​verecundia, and the resulting loss of existimatio and consequent pudor, might even shame them, and would be far worse even, for instance, than the sting of demotion that a mere dispatch telling a general to appoint a rival as dictator could relay. And, of course, a deputation—​as opposed to a mere private message—​fits perfectly into the observation that power in Rome was public and performative. This fear of pudor, concern for existimatio, and calibration of verecundia, moreover, are identical to the reports above of how an aristocrat acted if he became victus consensu omnium. Thus the interplay of these emotions constituted a social force so strong that it could outweigh Rome’s security or personal rivalry as an impetus to restrain or channel action.41 And that is not all. These emotions also help explain the very structure of the republican office-​holding colleges. As seen, colleagues in office were ideally to consider each other equals in all respects and act accordingly, even if when outside the college they plainly were not equal in age, status, or even in intra-​familial rank.42 The fiction of perfect equality among colleagues interlaces elegantly



40

Livy 9.38.13; Kaster (2005) 32. Cf. Barton (2001) 208, 254. Kaster (2005) 20–​21. Cf. Dominik and Smith (2011) 2 on shame as a policing mechanism. 42 Vishnia (1996) 200. 41

28  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic with the emotions of verecundia and pudor and the restraint value of deference. First, parity required colleagues automatically to practice verecundia, a constant adjustment of one’s position in light of the needs and desires of a perfect equal. A Roman man would thus all but automatically experience pudor if he failed to take the “face” and wishes of his colleague into account—​something that he would not feel so harshly if he could consider his colleague an inferior. Accordingly, the Roman college ensured instant pudor should an officeholder become overly self-​willed.43 That is no doubt why the great Camillus was mythologized as having pitch-​perfect deference to colleagues, even to his nephew. Second, and inversely, the collegial structure provided an aristocrat a tailor-​ made opportunity to display verecundia, to his credit. An aristocrat elevated to any office (save dictator) received immediately at least one collegial peer upon whom he constantly could practice verecundia and the avoidance of pudor. Thus the college created a glorious challenge: again, given the nature of the Roman electoral system, any set of colleagues had been opponents for their entire lives, but now could display deference. Exercise of restraint within the college therefore could lead the more to socially desirable praise and gloria, while protecting the college itself. All told, the emotions described by pudor, verecundia, and existimatio underlay the deference to colleague, peer, and groups of peers that we have repeatedly observed. Moreover, the nature of the Roman college provided multiple men with multiple opportunities for advancement and achievement—​the competition that a Roman man craved—​but also produced an arena in which a Roman noble could practice and publicly display verecundia and care for his existimatio. The aristocrat would feel pudor if he failed and gain gloria if he succeeded. The norm of deference to colleague and peer was thus a stanchion of the orderly operation of the Republic’s structural and performative institutions, its distributive functions, and its cohesion, and rested on these performative concepts and emotions—​emotions that Cicero and Appian would mourn as lost.

Contestation To this point, we have the ideal. But (putting aside for the moment the question whether Livy et al. outright invented all this evidence) the disputes we have already witnessed plainly reveal that there was no golden age of pure consensus in which this normative system of behavior functioned seamlessly to restrain

43 Compare Sallust B.C. 6.7, who argued why there were two chief imperatores: eo modo minume posse putabant per licentiam insolescere animum humanum (“They thought that by this means it would be the least likely that men’s minds would become haughty through license”).

Shame, Respect, and Deference  29 competition, or in which an abstract, Platonic ideal of each restraint value existed to which all might definitively appeal. Rather, even though the Romans rarely (if ever) directly questioned these values, throughout the Republic’s history restraint norms would be tested in tension with other values, put up for judgment to the social group, and be shaped by events. That was especially true—​as we will repeatedly see—​in moments when the Romans tried to apply normative restraint behavior to some novel circumstance. Several instances of unclear application of normative behavior in new contexts, however, show how the Roman aristocracy considered pudor, verecundia, existimatio, and the system of deference that they supported to be the normal and efficacious remedy for overawing a wrongdoer into submission, and considered collections of peers to be the proper judges of the situation, even when the restraint values ultimately (the Romans being only human) failed to resolve a situation wholly. Most important, the disputes routinely centered on restraint, which show how the values pervaded the Romans’ interpretation of their social system and memory of their history. The desire for high office, for example, created the quintessential tension between proper restraint and legitimate self-​advancement. According to Livy, in 310 BC App. Claudius (later the Blind) insisted on remaining censor past the expiration of his term and could be “compelled by no force” to abdicate, as his colleague had willingly done. P. Sempronius, tribune of the People, attempted to apply the deference norm: with the weight of the united citizenry and nobiles reportedly behind him, he appealed to multiple precedents of dictators—​a group of peers, as it were—​who had laid down their power after just days. But neither the exempla, the “expiration of Appius’ term, nor his colleague’s resignation, nor law, nor pudor could coerce” Appius; he mistook “the contempt of gods and men” for virtue. Appius continued as sole censor—​but not, at least in Livy’s telling, without earning that very hatred that he scorned, invidia omnium ordinum (“the hatred of all the orders”).44 In 185 BC, the consul App. Claudius Pulcher canvassed intemperately for his brother, “flitting about the whole forum” after voters, and unattended by his lictors. The “majority of the Senate” scolded him for forgetting his office—​an attempt by the mass of peers to instill pudor. But “he refused to be coerced from this extravagant pursuit.”45 In 184 BC, Q. Fulvius Flaccus, aedile, wished to run for a vacant praetorship while already in a curule office. When he began to canvass, the Senate voted that the consul should appeal to him personally not to 44 Livy 9.33.4: nulla vi conpelli, ut abdicaret, potuit, 9.34.22, 9.34.26: te nec quod dies exit censurae nec quod collega magistratu abiit nec lex nec pudor coercet: virtutem in superbia, in audacia, in contemptu deorum hominumque ponis. On the tricky historicity of this event, see Oakley (1997–​ 2008) III 361; Develin (1985) 215–​224; Wiseman (1979) 57–​139, esp. 86–​87. Even if invented, the story is an effective attack on a reputation only if failing to cede were considered wrong. 45 Livy 39.32.10: toto foro volitando, 39.32.11-​12: maiore parte senatus . . . coerceri tamen ab effuso studio nequit.

30  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic act in this unprecedented way. Flaccus replied to the consul that he would “do nothing unworthy of himself,” a “measured response by which he gave hope to those who interpreted it as they wanted to that he would cede to the authority of the fathers”—​the expected and approved outcome. Flaccus’ enigmatic statement, which is aphoristic enough to suggest it is preserved verbatim, shows that he honored deference, at least in an abstract way. But when election day came, Flaccus continued as before. When the senators saw that their “authority could not move him”—​as they evidently first assumed it would—​they appealed to the assembly. Flaccus, “unmoved even then by opinion,” continued to seek the crowd’s vote. Exasperated, the Senate finally decreed that the office would not be refilled; the remaining praetor alone would handle all jurisdictions. Livy’s language may not be contemporary with the action, but the pattern of behavior he described is plain enough: the Senate’s first move was to attempt to instill shame in the wayward office-​seeker through force of group opinion, and their befuddled response to Flaccus’ intractability suggests that they struggled to imagine immediate recourse to alternative solutions because their expected solution usually worked.46 Desire for a triumph and military glory also created a tension with restraint principles. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, L. Postumius Megellus, cos. 291, demanded command of the latest Samnite war. His colleague, C. Junius Bubulcus Brutus, of a plebeian family in a time when the classes were still finding common footing, “vexed” that he was being pushed aside from his “equal rights,” “often pressed his rights” to the Senate, but at length followed the deference script and “came to agreement” and “yielded to his colleague and conceded . . . command of the war.” The previous year’s consul Q. Fabius Gurges, however, was still on campaign, and Postumius insisted that Gurges withdraw. The Senate’s first response to the crisis was (here it is again) to send a deputation to persuade Postumius to allow Gurges to continue as general. Postumius, however, scoffed at them “arrogantly and tyrannically” saying that it was for him to command the Senate, not the Senate to command him. (At least he shared the assumption that someone should cede to someone). Indeed, Gurges “ceded” to this “madness.” After the campaign, Postumius demanded a triumph. Instead, the People eventually fined him heavily—​apparently a frustrated last resort.47 46 Livy 39.39.8: respondit Flaccus nihil quod se indignum esset facturum. medio responso ad voluntatem interpretantibus fecerat spem cessurum patrum auctoritati esse, 39.39.10: auctoritas patrum nihil movisset, 39.39.11: ne tum quidem de sententia motus. Livy erred: Flaccus was merely aedilis designatus. Briscoe (2008) 348; MRR I 375. 47 Dion. Hal. 17.4.2–​6: ἐφ᾽ οἷς ὁ συνύπατος αὐτοῦ καταρχὰς μὲν ὡς ἀπελαυνόμενος τῶν ἴσων ἠγανάκτει καὶ πολλάκις ἐπὶ τῆς βουλῆς τὰ δίκαια πρὸς αὐτὸν ἔλεγεν . . . εἶξέ τε τῷ συνυπάτῳ καὶ παρεχώρησε τοῦ . . . πολέμου τὴν ἡγεμονίαν . . . ὑπερηφάνους καὶ τυραννικὰς . . . εἴξας τῇ μανίᾳ, 17.5.4. Dionysius reported Bubulcus ceded because of his plebeian background and fewer friends. Evidently the ideal of perfect equality among colleagues was not entirely set in this early time, although Bubulcus clearly thought at first it might be when he pressed his rights to the Senate—​another moment of contestation. Cf. Bravo and Griffin (1988) 447–​521; Palmer (1990); Gabrielli (2003).

Shame, Respect, and Deference  31 Amid Rome’s wars of expansion a century later, opportunities for disputes grew greater, but the restraint patterns still appear as the assumed protocol for handling them. In 197 BC the consul Q. Minucius Rufus, jealous of his colleague C. Cornelius Cethegus’ military exploits that year for which the Senate granted a triumph consensu omnium (“by the consensus of all”), demanded a joint triumph, despite having himself achieved only a few small and dubious victories. At first Cornelius did not resist his colleague’s request, but the tribunes of the plebs gathered together to object: a consul, they said, should not grant a colleague an honor he did not deserve but which he “shamelessly sought.” Thus a contest over an honor combined with a dispute over proper collegiality. When Minucius saw that the “whole of the Senate” opposed his triumph, he declared he would triumph on the Alban mount with leave of the People, to malicious gossip that the procession was less honorable than Cornelius’ and involved pilfering from the treasury.48 Apparently this “triumph,” even with the People’s imprimatur, was considered so distasteful that there was no triumph on the Alban mount for twenty-​five years, when C. Cicereius, a former scribe of the Scipios who captured 200,000 pounds of beeswax from an enemy, demanded a triumph, was (unsurprisingly) denied, then triumphed on the Alban mount; the last such spectacle.49 And in 171 BC the consul C. Cassius Longinus sua sponte invaded Macedon, his colleague’s provincia. The outraged Senate voted to have the praetor appoint (yet once more) a delegation to persuade him to desist.50 Evidently, a simple order from the Senate would not do. A famous example of contested norms came in the aftermath of the Second Punic War, amid the “trials of the Scipios.” A full discussion of the confusion surrounding these incidents is beyond the scope of this work, as is a full discussion of the social and demographic upheaval that followed in the war’s wake.51 But as a whole the incidents show how contestants disputed proper aristocratic behav­ ior in a background context of unique perplexity. P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus’ dazzling rise and defeat of Hannibal at a shockingly young age (amid the carnage the war caused his generation) created an unprecedented tension between his 48 Livy 33.22.6: non tamen nec illum nec quemquam alium civem tantum gratia atque opibus valuisse, ut, cum sibi meritum triumphum inpetrasset, collegae eundem honorem inmeritum inpudenter petenti daret; 33.23.3-​8: adversum omnem senatum. 49 Val. Max. 3.5.1. Cf. Gruen (1995) 59–​69; Brennan (1996), esp. 325–​327; Sumi (2005) 31; Pittenger (2008) 44–​47. 50 Livy 43.1.70. Longinus was censor seventeen years later in 154 BC (MRR I 449), though perhaps because by that time, and with Macedon defeated, Longinus had calmed; according to Cic. de Dom. 130, 136, as censor Longinus carefully consulted the pontifices about dedicating a statue and the senate house to Concordia. Cf. Levick (1978) 220. 51 As Erich Gruen has wisely put it, it is impossible to reconcile the sources anyway, and more profitable to consider the “broader implications.” Gruen (1995) 59, 74–​78. On the evidentiary problems surrounding the trials see Scullard (1951) 290–​303, (1970) 224, 234; Schlag (1968) 162–​174; Richard, (1972) 43–​46; Luce (1977) 92–​104; Astin (1978) 59–​72; Bauman (1983) 192–​212; Develin (1985) 245–​248; Vishnia (1996) 129–​132; Briscoe (2008) 170–​179.

32  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic self-​advancement and the expectations of the aristocratic group. Although undoubtedly great heroes, because of their respective successes against Carthage and the Seleucid king Antiochus III, Africanus and his brother L. Scipio Asiaticus were accused at various points of superbia, luxurious living, misappropriating booty, and of regnum in senatu (“kingship in the Senate”)—​points of attack, not coincidently, firmly on the lines of restraint values.52 At first Africanus’ relationship with the Senate appeared to follow a normal arc. He applied for a triumph in 206, for instance, was rejected on the technicality that he was a private citizen, but deferred and did not press the issue. Around the mid-​180s, however, he was reportedly charged with having lived luxuriously while on campaign, and responded simply by turning his back on this accusers and ascending the Capitol with a massive crowd in tow to give thanks for his great victories. Asiaticus was then subject to proceedings relating to charges of peculation as well. The actual charges in all these cases are extremely obscure—​perhaps a residual clue that the legalities were afterthoughts. Rather, the thrust was a contest between the principles that a successful commander was due respect and that a commander should not advance himself too far (a norm we will also return to in the next chapter). What is certain is that group opinion eventually won out over the individuals: in response to his peers’ attacks Africanus—​who no doubt retained the loyalty of faithful veterans handy with swords—​chose self-​imposed exile in shame at his country estate, where he wasted away and died. His sole reprisal was to deny his country his ashes, which Valerius Maximus described as an attack not with arms but with “verecundia.”53 All of these vignettes show contestation in interpreting normative restraint behavior, trying to find the proper balance in the tension between advancement and deference. Triumphators on the Alban mount felt that the People’s judgment was sufficient for honor; the bulk of the Senate obviously disagreed. Appius, Postumius, Longinus, and the Scipios apparently operated under the (reasonable) assumption that one who held high office or imperium or achieved great victories should receive deference, and the greater the achievement, the more deference was due. By contrast, their opponents obviously felt that that principle could be overdone, and that such a man should still show deference to the “faces” of others, as well as should live in a restrained manner. The Romans, in other words, were attempting in these moments of conflict to navigate clashing valuations of symbolic capital in determining what constituted proper dignitas—​which required a mix of advancement and restraint—​and thus

52 Livy 38.50.8, 38.51.3-​10, 38.52.4, 38.54.6, 38.59.7, 38.60.10; Val. Max. 8.1.damn.1. 53 Polyb. 23.14; Livy 28:38–​2-​4, 38.51-​53, 38.56.1-​8; Gell. 4.18, 6.19; Val. Max. 2.8.5, 5.2.3b; Dio 17.57.6.

Shame, Respect, and Deference  33 who were the proper “winners” in the competition. Because this process was so critical to the competition, it therefore should not surprise these conflicts over normative behavior were contentious for the Romans, and accordingly left historical traces of both shame and praise, and sometimes of split reputations from competing traditions (as of Appius or the Scipios) for laudatory traditionalism and greatness along with damnable, undeferential superbia—​a social process to which we will return in greater detail in Chapters 3 and 5.54 But, as Matthew Roller has established, such tensions should not signal weakness in a system of normative behavior. Rather, deviance and contestation can strengthen a norm as a group evaluates an action and doles out praise or punishment that cements the norm into place as a future exemplum. Indeed, sometimes an incident of breach is the first time a norm is consciously considered, and then nailed down definitively. The trials of the Scipios, for instance, posed the question of how properly to allot social and economic capital amid the unprecedentedly enormous wars of the late third and early second centuries bc with their concomitantly unprecedented opportunities for singular advancement. The Scipios lost. The patrician Postumius treated his plebeian colleague with contempt while a new normative rule in favor of consensus between social classes was forming under his feet. He lost too. But with defeats came some solidification of the norm: the haughty behavior toward plebeian nobiles for which Postumius was reproved is conspicuous for its general absence afterward, while plausible allegations of regnum in senatu all but disappeared from the Roman mental map for decades to come. Thus these cases show a double tension—​advancement versus deferential restraint within a backdrop of untried circumstances—​with resolutions that were reasonably clear, if simplified in commemoration.55

Consequences, Normativity, and the Republican System At all events, these cases illustrate how the Romans thought they should resolve such tensions: whether in a public trial or in a meeting of the curia, the peer group’s main sanction was to appeal to the malfeasant’s verecundia and pudor, and to threaten implicitly or explicitly his existimatio. And the method seemed mostly to work. Actors gained invidia when they found themselves on the wrong side of consensus about the norm, and we can gather that such behavior risked lasting reputational consequences because incidents of total non-​deference and 54 Cf. Cornell (2000) 84–​85; Spielvogel (2004) 384; Oakley (2004) 21; Humm (2005) 643; Roller (2018) 133. As Lundgreen (2011) 46 notes, disputes usually are between recognized legitimate principles, because only such principles are worth fighting over. 55 Roller (2018) 9. Cf. Hölkeskamp (1993); Lundgreen (2011) 33–​37, 73, (2017) 28; Gabrielli (2003) 254–​255, 259.

34  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic protracted conflict appear extraordinary. Postumius’ ill-​advised actions likely ended his career, which consisted later only in being part of an ignominious embassy to Tarentum (and that likely only because he was a rare Roman of the time who could speak Greek).56 Livy explained that the fight between Fabius Rullianus and Papirius was more famous than either’s achievements.57 In 204 BC, just three years after their celebrated joint consulship and triumph over Hasdrubal, C. Claudius Nero and M. Livius Salinator joined in the censorship. Their concordia as consuls was quickly forgotten and their feud re-​erupted into a notorious dispute, in which each attempted to degrade the other’s citizen status. Of course, because both censors had to be in concord for any of their acts to take effect, their individual sniping had no force. But that only increased the grotesqueness of it all: Livy called this contest “perverted” (pravum). Dio, who followed a different source from Livy here, wrote that their reputations became “scandalized” (περιβόητοι). Evidently, several sources from the Middle Republic found such quarreling, brought to such a dangerous head, unusual—​and therefore worthy of permanent record. Then such episodes of contestation and normative resolution could be remembered as exempla of kinds of behavior to avoid.58 By contrast, deferential men gained laus: the senators legendarily loudly approved when Camillus and his fellow military tribunes with consular powers showed their willingness both to command and to obey.59 When Fabius Rullianus’ noble peers prevailed on him to cede and appoint Papirius dictator and he (albeit grudgingly) acquiesced to their wishes, he received gracious praise in return. Crowds and poets cheered the (indubitably factual) concord of M. Aemilius Lepidus and M. Fulvius Nobilior as censors. Cassius Dio reported that on account of Scipio Africanus the Younger’s “moderation” (μετριότης) and “yielding” (ἐπιείκεια), he “escaped the envy of his peers, for he chose to make himself equal to his inferiors, not better than his peers, and inferior to men of greater renown, and so avoided jealousy.”60 For this he received praise and honores, and “none of the other nobles expected serious trouble from him (even though he was obviously an obstacle to them) because they admired his value to the state.”61 56 Dion. Hal. 19.5.1–​6; Dio 9.40.7; Val. Max. 2.2.5; MRR II 608; Palmer (1990) 13–​16; Oakley (1997–​2008) III 572. 57 Livy 8.29.10. 58 Livy 27.34.13, 29.37.13-​16; Dio 17.71. Cf. Val. Max. 2.9.6a-​6b; Schwartz PW 32 1684–​1722; Develin (1985) 32; Vishnia (1996) 81–​82; Oakley (1997–​2008) III 436–​437; Akar (2013) 99. 59 Livy 6.6.11–​16. 60 Dio 21.70.9: τοιγαροῦν μόνος ἀνθρώπων ἢ καὶ μάλιστα διά τε ταῦτα καὶ διὰ τὴν μετριότητα τήν τε ἐπιείκειαν οὔτε ὑπὸ τῶν ὁμοτίμων οὔθ᾿ ὑπό τινος ἐφθονήθη. ἴσος μὲν γὰρ τοῖς ὑποδεεστέροις, οὐκ ἀμείνων δὲ τῶν ὁμοίων, ἀσθενέστερος δὲ τῶν μειζόνων ἀξιῶν εἶναι, κρείττων καὶ τοῦ φθόνου τοῦ μόνου τοὺς ἀρίστους ἄνδρας λυμαινομένου ἐγένετο. For the gloss of μετριότης as moderatio, see TLL 8 1205. 61 Dio 24.84.1: οὐκοῦν οὐδὲ τῶν ἀντιστασιωτῶν τις αὐτῷ θανόντι ἐφήσθη, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκεῖνοι, καίπερ βαρύτατον αὐτόν σφισι νομίζοντες εἶναι, ἐπόθησαν: χρήσιμόν τε γὰρ πρὸς τὰ κοινὰ ἑώρων, καὶ δεινὸν οὐδὲν οὐδ᾽ ἂν σφεῖς παθεῖν ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ.

Shame, Respect, and Deference  35 In every one of these instances, actor and audience engaged in exchange. Praise and thanks followed deference; contempt followed non-​deference. And laus less invidia, of course, resulted in a good existimatio, which led to advancement. Because one’s willingness to show deference improved one’s existimatio, and because men with high existimatio were successful in seeking honores, it is only a short leap to a key conclusion: the Romans intertwined the restraint values with ideal leadership in the Republic and with the proper sharing of honors and offices. The norm of deference safeguarded the republican honor-​and-​office distribution system’s functioning, without violence. Romans were able to manage the pressures on their semiformal system through restraint mechanisms and consensus (or with repeated intense group efforts to instill shame through more ceremonial means such as trials or censorial notae, as we will discuss further in Chapter 3) even if the efforts occasionally did not succeed—​those evidently being infrequent events worth noting. The factual lack of violence alone should pique our interest, and Appian captured the spirit of this observation when he wrote that there was no internal violence in Rome from legendary days to Tiberius Gracchus because discords about serious economic issues and the election of magistrates, numerous though they were, were worked out with a “sense of shame” (αἰδώς) and “yielding” (εἴκοντες) to each other.62 Similarly, Cassius Dio observed that when the Romans were at the height of their power they “showed great daring against their enemies, but to each other yielding (ἐπιεικής) that went hand in hand with good order (εὐταξία).”63 Rose-​ shaded observations, no doubt—​ but grounded in well-​ attested Roman social dynamics. To sum up: a Roman man always felt pressure from two sides. On the one, pressure to advance himself. On the other, pressure to keep within limits, to restrain himself through deference not only to superiors, but to colleagues and to peers. Both individual action and group decision-​making coursed through this normative framework, the edges of which were often enough contested, especially in novel contexts. But the outline of the framework was reasonably clear, and shaped patterns of expectable behavior. When a Roman aristocrat looked as though he might risk Rome’s safety, the dignity of others, or integrity of the office-​and-​honor-​distribution system itself, the first line of defense was appeal to deference, often in the form of a colleague. Pressure came all the more from gatherings of great men, or with the Senate or even the People as a whole to judge his conduct. Although all knew that yielding was painful, a Roman man was encouraged to “cede his full rights” and “meet with concord,” as Livy put it

62 App. B.C. 1.1.1. 63 Dio 13.52.1: πρὸς τοὺς ἀντιπάλους ἐνδεικνύμενοι, τὸ δὲ ἐπιεικές, οὗ κοινωνεῖ ἡ εὐταξία, κατ᾽ ἀλλήλους παρεχόμενοι. On the connection between εὐταξία and modestia see Cic. de Off. 1.142.

36  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic through the character of an early Roman.64 Those who displayed these restraint values received praise—​symbolic capital that might aid their future chances in the competition. Those who did not received shame. Deference, with its emotional underpinning of shame, was thus a force that helped the republican competition of ambitious men operate, which is why Cicero and Appian included deference and shame on their list of failing safeguards in a failing commonwealth. Before we go on, however, we must observe two crucial points. First, although we have reviewed some solidly evidenced incidents in which the norms clearly worked, we have also seen a good deal of idealized behavior in exempla, through which the lessons instilled were equally idealized and smoothed over in commemoration, to the point of making the exempla gnomic. Behavioral norms were thus traditional and powerful, but were but general principles, not detailed instruction manuals for every changing circumstance. Second, restraint values might be contested and so clash with other forms of symbolic capital in the performative-​competitive game that they might not fully contain competition or resolve conflict, especially in new, disorienting contexts. Those two points would become of grave consequence.



64

Livy 4.43.11.

2

Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia Chapter 1 explored the pressure supported by αἰδώς/​pudor, verecundia, and existimatio on a Roman aristocrat to defer to his fellows. But along with losing pudor and verecundia, Cicero also complained of a lack of modus in the splintering Republic.1 This chapter describes restraining pressures to which the Romans gave the names modus, modestia, moderatio, and temperantia, and examines them in three different arenas: vis-​à-​vis aristocratic fellows; relating to luxury or lust; and as affecting the Republic’s operation as a whole. The Romans believed that restraint in these three arenas overlapped to support the proper functioning of the Republic. A man able to array these restraining qualities in public and in private would fill his offices well and take orderly part in the distribution of honors because he could operate well with superiors, inferiors, and peers, with the citizenry, with foreigners, and with tradition. A man who did not have these qualities, either in public or in private, could not. Because Roman aristocrats so valued these restraints, and so knitted them into their ideals of proper governance, they ascribed an incredible moderatio and temperantia to the glorious Republic of their ancestors. Of course, as with deference, in reality these restraints were also always in tension and contestation with self-​advancement, and were painful to learn and internalize. Nevertheless, as with pudor and verecundia, one could also compete in, and gain gloria for, demonstrations of modestia, moderatio, and temperantia.

How to Act with Others: Restraint with Superiors and Peers Modestia The word modestia is at least as old as Plautus and Ennius.2 It once largely connoted female chastity, but eventually came also to signify a political virtue that men could display. In 189 BC, for instance, young King Attalus II of Pergamon allied himself with Cn. Manlius Vulso during the latter’s campaign in Galatia. At the end of the successful venture Vulso “praised everyone and gave gifts

1 Cic. ad Brut. 1.10.3. 2

TLL 8 1221; Plaut. Trin. 317; Enn. Scaen. 55. Cf. Scheidle (1993) 37.

Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.003.0003

38  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic according to each’s merits, but above all to Attalus, with the complete assent of the rest, for the young man had shown not only singular bravery and assiduousness in all his labors and dangers, but also modestia.” What had Attalus done? Given his troops to the Romans to command, and obeyed the orders of Vulso to attend him—​neither of which, presumably, he would have to do as a sovereign king. The group approved. Significantly, this section of Livy came from a first-​hand source, possibly some sort of war diary, and therefore illustrates a contemporary understanding of modestia from the 180s bc.3 Livy also imagined the value as an early form of humility within the Roman political system, praising the plebs in the election of 446 BC for choosing patrician candidates—​although the plebs had the option of electing one of their own, even if only to defy the patricians—​and commenting that in no way would one find such modestia in his own time.4 Cicero esteemed modestia as well, particularly when recommending young men to his peers for jobs. He commonly described the recommendees as being modestus, sometimes along with having verecundia. Even where Cicero did not use the words directly, he often stressed that the young man was obedient and would not exceed his place. In return, the young men received the orator’s praise and recommendation, which would aid advancement. Cicero also equated modestia with the Greek εὐταξία (“good order”) and proposed an ideal law that all senatorial business be carried on with modestia.5 Modestia notably involved reciprocity. One could expect rewards for the display of modestia, and, having received rewards, it was also an exercise in modestia to give some social capital in return. In 368 BC the tribunes C. Licinius and L. Sextius reportedly requested reelection on the strength of the many measures they had passed to help the commons, and chided the voters: it would be unlike the usual modestia of the Roman people, they said, to have received so many benefits at their hands and then give no honor or hope of honor back to them.6 Correspondingly, if one showed proper modestia, one could expect to be spared wanton attacks from superiors. In 190 BC, the consul P. Villius found part of his army mutinying as he arrived in Macedonia to take command. The troops complained that they had signed up to go to Africa only, and had been taken east 3 Livy 38.12.9, 38.20.10, 38.23.11: laudati quoque pro contione omnes sunt, donatique pro merito quisque, ante omnes Attalus summo ceterorum assensu; nam singularis eius iuvenis cum virtus et industria in omnibus laboribus periculisque tum modestia etiam fuerat. Cf. Mommsen (1864–​1879) II 538–​545; Sage (1933–​2000) 50 n.2, 80–​81 nn.1–​2; Briscoe (2008) 56. 4 Livy 4.6.12. Ogilvie (1965) 233 recognized that “restraint on the part of the governed (modestia)” was the prevailing theme of Livy’s Book 4; cf. Moore (1989) 154. 5 E.g., Cic. ad Fam. 13.15.1: modestiam, 13.63.1: singulari modestia, 13.17.3: verecundiam, 13.10.3: modestum hominem, 13.38.1: L. Bruttius . . . adulescens . . . meque observat diligentissme, de Off. 1.142, de Leg. 3.10, 3.40. Cf. Hellegouarc’h (1963) 263; Militerni Della Morte (1980) 34; Cotton (1986) 447–​448; Woodman and Martin (1993) 280–​281; Evans and Kleijwegt (1992). 6 Livy 6.39.9–​10. The historicity of this episode is highly questionable, Forsythe (2005) 262–​265.

Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia  39 against their will. Villius replied that he understood the merit of their argument, but could not agree with their method. He promised that if they would agree to remain and obey orders, he would write to the Senate on their behalf, but that they would have a better chance to have their desires met by showing modestia rather than stubbornness.7 Modestia’s reciprocity implied by extension respect for the property or honor of others. Livy spoke of the modestia of the plebs during a secession; they did not plunder anyone’s farm. Hannibal’s troops were exemplars of the antivirtue: they did not leave the roads in Campania to pillage, it was said, more because of Hannibal’s strict orders not to alienate the locals than because of any natural modestia of the soldiers—​unlike Roman soldiers who actually competed with each other in showing modestia in restraining from pillaging while on campaign. That the Carthaginian soldiers were said to be abstemious only under orders and not through modestia illustrates a further point: modestia was conceptually separate from fear of physical punishment. When, for instance, the people of Praeneste did not welcome the consul-​elect L. Postumius Albinus in 173 BC in the manner to which he felt entitled, he furiously demanded several expensive perks at his next arrival. Either, Livy stated, through fear or through modestia, the Praenestines obeyed, even though no such thing had ever been demanded before. That is, normally modestia compelled obedience—​but on this occasion, it may have been actual fear, something different entirely.8 These examples help us craft a working definition of modestia as a political behavioral norm: the quality of one who does not climb above his station, would cede place, obedience, and honor to a superior, and would act in good order. Moreover, modestia was a constraint on action that was not fear of physical punishment. Rather, it seems to have implied that the ideal modestus lacked any desire to exceed his place, even when he might nominally have power so to do: the plebs could have voted for a plebeian magistrate, Attalus might have insisted on command of his own men, and Cicero’s recommendees were not slaves to his correspondents, but they chose to obey. Absolute place in the hierarchy apparently was not a requirement for modestia either, only relative place: the word as easily applied to young nobles, senators, or even kings who knew how to obey or act in an orderly way as to the plebs. Modestia also implied reciprocity of respect. The man who showed modestia would obey others willingly, while the one to whom the modestus deferred was to show the modestus respect and praise in return. The prospect of reward was so expected that one could even compete in displaying modestia.

7 Livy 32.3.7. 8 Livy 3.54.8, 24.20.10, 42.1.12. On soldierly modestia see Livy 27.45.11; TLL 8 1222; Goodyear (1972) 257; Moore (1989) 76.

40  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic

Moderatio Modestia, naturally, shared similarities with its cousin moderatio, both being grounded in modus, a “measure” or “limit.”9 But moderatio more usually described a man who was already quite high in the hierarchy who refused to take some action that his position might permit him to take. The well-​known legend of L. Quinctius Cincinnatus’ surrender of the dictatorship to return to his humble farm should immediately come to mind as an idealized version of this dynamic.10 And this pattern of behavior is so often repeated in the sources that we should see such stories (which often invoked moderatio expressly) as conveying norms of ideal conduct. In 407 BC, C. Servilius Ahala was said to have been reelected military tribune with consular powers in large part because of his “singular moderatio”; in the previous year he had not objected and deferred to the Senate’s wishes in naming a dictator and decried his own colleagues’ desires to go on campaign themselves, “preferring that his colleagues would of their own free will give in to the senators’ authority” and “placing the Republic above the favor” of the other tribunes. After all, what good citizen, Livy had him ask, “considers his own interests apart from those of the nation?”11 In 211 BC, M. Marcellus won gloria for a great act of moderatio: although he had the evident privilege as consul to bring up any matter he wished in front of the Senate, he refused to allow complaints about his actions in Sicily to be heard without his colleague present, so that the Sicilian accusers in front of him would feel protected by the presence of his colleague and would not be ashamed or afraid to charge him to his face alone.12 Additionally, moderatio described a powerful man’s refusal to seek honors that he otherwise might licitly seek. Q. Fabius Rullianus, asked to run once again for consul as an old man, at first refused. There was no lack of offices for brave men, he said, nor other brave men for offices. “I have risen up,” he instead declared, “to equal the glory of my elders and I am happy to see others growing up to my measure.” This display of moderatio, we are told, only increased his friends’ enthusiasm and that of the voters, so that eventually, consensu civitatis victus (there once again) he deferred to their wishes and agreed to his fourth consulship.13 9 OLD2 II 1237. Cf. TLL 8 1252; Lobur (2008) 45. The concept is at least as old as Pacuvius, Accius, Plautus, and Terence, e.g., Pac. Fr. 3; Acc. Fr. 288; Plaut. Bacch. 91, Poen. 239, Mil. Glor. 1214; Ter. Heaut. 216, 519, Andr. 61. Cf. North (1966) 263. 10 Livy 3.26–​29. Cf. Ogilvie (1965) 390. 11 Livy 4.57.3–​4, 12: quem enim bonum civem secernere sua a publicis consilia . . . quia maluerit collegas sua sponte cedere auctoritati senatus quam tribuniciam potestatem adversus se implorari paterentur . . . potiorem sibi collegarum gratia rem publicam fore. . . . unica moderatione. 12 Livy 26.26.5–​9: moderati animi gloriam eo die adeptus (“having won glory for a moderate spirit that day”); Val. Max. 4.1.7; Eckstein (1987) 173–​175; Westphal (2015) 191–​197. 13 Livy 10.13.6, 7–​8: et se gloriae seniorum succrevisse et ad suam gloriam consurgentes alios laetum aspicere . . . acuebat hac moderatione tam iusta studia. Cf. Livy 10.6.3–​9, 10.15.7–​12; Val. Max. 4.1.5; de Vir. Ill. 32.2.

Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia  41 Moderatio in these exempla described a highly placed man’s self-​imposed sacrifice of his prerogative to wield powers that his official or social position suggested he might licitly use or extend; a self-​imposed check within a fluid, interpersonal governing system. It followed that the more a Roman noble had a right to get his way, the more praiseworthy it would be if he moderately refused to do so. And indeed, that is the precise sentiment Livy gave the tribune L. Valerius in a debate in 195 BC over the sumptuary Oppian Law: quo plus potestis, eo moderatius imperio uti debetis—​“the more powerful you are, the more moderately you should use your authority.” So too Cicero: “The more superior we are, the more we should conduct ourselves quietly.”14 All told, an ideal moderatus consciously acknowledged the worthiness of others, made little effort to promote himself—​or promoted himself only with a sharp upper limit—​and happily allowed others to take a coveted place or prize. Even when the ideal moderatus was already at the top of a state’s hierarchy and was acknowledged for his great merit, he would because of his moderatio refuse to use or extend his influence when others also were deserving of some attractive chance for achievement.15 The link between modestia and moderatio should also be evident, and seemed to build as a Roman man grew: a young modestus was ideally disposed to cede to his elders and betters until he grew into a great moderatus, who was then ideally disposed to deal well with his fellows and underlings. Again Cicero: “For it is necessary that the man who rules well must have obeyed at one point, and he who obeys modestly will appear worthy to rule later on.”16 Moderatio also involved a sense of reciprocity similar to that of modestia: one could receive praise, offices, commands, or gloria for its display. Therefore, just as modestia created respect for others, moderatio required a Roman leader to monitor constantly the opinions of equals and inferiors, to determine how his actions might affect them: Livy described the legendary hero Verginius’ arbitration of a debt crisis in the earliest years of the Republic as moderatum because it took account of all sides.17

Moderatio, Modestia, and Res Publica With these pieces in place, we can begin to understand the interplay the two qualities had in the ideal operation of res publica. Modestia was a norm that 14 Livy 34.7.15; Cic. de Off. 1.90: quanto superiores simus, tanto nos geramus summissius. Cf. Bourdieu (1966) 199; Gruen (1990) 143–​146; Aubert (2014) 176; Westphal (2015) 204–​205. 15 Cf. Oakley (1997–​2008) I 600: moderatio is “behavior on the part of an office holder who has resisted the temptation to exploit his position for all it was worth.” 16 Cic. de Leg. 3.5: nam et qui bene imperat, paruerit aliquando necesse est, et qui modeste paret, videtur, qui aliquando imperet, dignus esse. 17 Livy 2.30.1. Cf. Westphal (2015) 203–​204.

42  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic reinforced the voluntary obedience and respect of inferior to superior necessary for advancement in the competition to be meaningful. Modestia also spurred a young Roman to wait his turn for honors in due course, which ensured orderly dissemination of offices based on relative merit, of which seniority was a component. (Such a norm would be particularly salient relatively early in the Republic, before the age-​based cursus honorum was set in place).18 Moderatio, in turn, appears as a behavioral norm that smoothed tensions that self-​advancement might foster, prevented one man from growing too influential, even by merit, and thereby helped order and spread the distribution of prizes in a fluid and semiformal competitive system. It also made the individual exercise of power acceptable to the group; self-​advancement in the competition was not truly laudable unless mingled with self-​control.19 Hence, theoretically, if everyone in the group of noble peers were moderati and modesti, the peers could compete indefinitely for honors, offices, and praise without too much conflict and without the competition leaving too many men of merit without the proverbial musical chair. That fact, of course, would make the “game” worthwhile, and the exercise of power by the winners legitimate and acceptable to the group and the “losers.” Accordingly, moderatio and modestia generated considerable social capital because of the direct benefits they afforded the system in their (sometimes awesome) display—​precisely why the legends that the Romans told of the modestia and moderatio of early republican heroes reached near-​apotheosis. That systemic social capital in and of itself signifies the norms’ weighty cultural valence, and shows, again, that these values were not arbitrary social refinements but fit directly into a performative framework that subsisted on such exchanges of symbolic capital in honor and praise. There was, to be sure, no physical or even clear institutional enforcement mechanism (especially in early times) to ensure this outcome. The only way that such a system could work were if the restraint values were inculcated so deeply into the Roman noble’s worldview as to be reflexive and habitual; the constant hammering of these themes through exempla to the point of idealized trope is evidence that they were.

Temperantia Now to fold in temperantia. There was obviously some overlap among temperantia, modestia, and moderatio. Like moderatio, temperantia could describe situations in which a man had the power to act but chose not to do so. The

18

19

I review the lex Villia annalis in Chapter 3. Cf. Westphal (2015) 202–​203.

Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia  43 word could thus refer, for example, to a commander’s refusal to press a war to the fullest by attacking the cities of an enemy after their defeat. Or it could illustrate a refusal to push a legal right against an opponent as far as it might go: during a lectisternium in 399 BC, for instance, personal enemies reportedly exchanged kind words and “tempered themselves from quarrelling and lawsuits”—​iurgiis ac litibus temperatum.20 But although temperantia overlapped with modestia and moderatio in that it restrained the desires that one had the power or even right to indulge, temperantia more easily than moderatio described the process of suppressing a kind of desire or emotionality that the Romans found either morally wrong, or licit but unseemly, especially in that satisfying it might insult or injure others.21 It also described, perhaps more realistically than ideal modestia or moderatio, the real temptations men faced. The dictator Papirius Cursor, a harsh man, reportedly worked to “temper his ingenium, and to mix his severitas with leniency” to win the loyalty of his troops.22 Ingenium was one’s innate personality and natural disposition, and changing it required painful struggle. As Cicero said, temperantia fights with the vices.23 Victory was not assured, he wrote: young men must show deference to their elders, and even when youth want to relax they must “beware of intemperantia and remember verecundia.” The virtue was supposed to defeat strong and dangerous emotions: it was sedatio perturbationum animi, said Cicero, a “calming effect on discords of the soul.”24 Moderatio, modestia, and temperantia also intersected with shame: Terence and Plautus tied them to the experience of pudor, and Cicero translated them in a cluster of words along with pudor by σωφροσύνη, the classic Greek word for self-​control.25 In sum, we see an interplay of restraints vis-​à-​vis peers that created idealized behavioral patterns amid Rome’s performative culture: modestia in a young noble or in a lower-​class man, and moderatio in a great man, prevented one from exceeding one’s place or demanding one’s full rights in the competition. Verecundia was the art of constant calibration of social worth that helped determine how to apply deference. Temperantia was the process of tamping down any selfish urges that remained. The symbolic capital of praise attended the public exercise of all these restraints, while pudor in the “face” of others sprang into action if the other restraints failed, the certain result when one realized that one’s act would lower 20 Livy 5.13.8, 7.20.9, 10.12.8, 25.25.9. 21 Cf. Hellegouarc’h (1963) 259. 22 Livy 8.36.5: temperandum ingenium suum esse et severitatem miscendam comitati. Cf. Flaig (1993) 213. 23 Cic. in Cat. 2.11.25. 24 Cic. de Off. 1.93, 1.122: caveant intemperantiam, meminerint verecundiae. Cf. Dyck (1996) 249–​250. 25 E.g., Ter. Heaut. 580–​581; Plaut. Truc. 61; Cic. Tusc. 3.8.16, de Leg. 1.19.50, Fin. 2.22.73. Cf. OLD II 2019; Hellegouarc’h (1963) 258; North (1966) 262, 263, 268–​269.

44  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic one’s existimatio with the group. Good or bad action was then judged, praised or shamed, and inscribed into exempla like those Livy reproduced, which helped inculcate the framework into later generations.26

How to Deal with Things: Restraint of Lust and Desire for Luxury Now an important turn. By comparing how the restraints operated between public and private spheres we can understand how the Romans’ interminable harangues about “luxury” were not exhortations to mere personal ethical goodness. They were rather an application to luxuria and libido of the same restraint values that regulated interpersonal relations in the competitive political field. That is, the restraint values operated according to the same pattern no matter whether their object were relations with peers or with physical desires or things, because the Romans believed that unrestrained private luxuria and libido vis-​à-​vis material goods revealed a lack of modestia, moderatio, and temperantia that would necessarily interfere with a man’s proper relations vis-​à-​vis peers when he engaged in public affairs. Hence, as early as Ennius Romans heard the story of M. Curius Dentatus (cos. 290, 284, 275, 274 BC) sitting in his simple country house preparing a meager dinner in wooden bowls when Samnites arrived bearing bribes of gold. Cicero, recounting a version told by Cato the Elder, related how Dentatus rejected the offer while quipping that “possessing gold is not as glorious as conquering its possessors.”27 This is moderatio’s ideal pattern translated to luxury: the great hero Dentatus displayed no desire for wealth or the gold, consequently refused it, and received the glory of posterity. Appian told a similar tale of Dentatus’ contemporary C. Fabricius Luscinus (cos. 282, 278 BC). When King Pyrrhus of Epirus in 280 offered him a bribe, Fabricius burst out laughing: “My poverty is more blessed,” Appian reported him saying, “than any tyrant’s wealth combined with fear.” In Dio’s telling, Fabricius sagely added that he was satisfied with what he had and had no desire for what belonged to others; further, that an upright man would do nothing against his country, while the only truly poor man is he who puts no boundary on his desires and is not content with what he has. Valerius Maximus recorded that after Pyrrhus’ defeat, Dentatus would not touch any of the spoils, and refused to accept a larger share of captured land than was given to the rest of the populace.28 26 Cf. Ogilvie (1965) 526; Ducos (1984) 388–​391; Thomas (2007) 373–​374; Roller (2018) 9. 27 Cic. de Sen. 56: non enim aurum habere praeclarum sibi videri dixit, sed eis qui haberent aurum imperare. Cf. Enn. Ann. 209; Val. Max. 4.3.5; Harris (1979) 66 n.3. 28 App. B.S. 10.4: καὶ τὴν πενίαν τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ μακαρίζω μᾶλλον ἢ τὸν τῶν τυράννων πλοῦτον ὁμοῦ καὶ φόβον; Dio 9.34-​36; Val. Max. 4.3.5b. Cf. Flor. 1.13.22; Gell. 1.14.1.

Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia  45 Praise ensued. Again a legend passes down the pattern: absence of desire, repudiation, reward. By contrast, a number of historians recorded that Fabricius felt great enmity toward P. Cornelius Rufinus because of Rufinus’ susceptibility to bribery, and it is firmly attested that in 275 BC as censor Fabricius expelled Rufinus from the Senate for owning ten pounds of luxurious silver plate, even though Rufinus had been dictator and twice consul—​one of only four consulars in republican history to suffer this punishment. Critically, although Fabricius and Rufinus were enemies, the only stated reason was Rufinus’ incontinence with luxury, which shows the powerful cultural resonance of self-​control at the time.29 In consequence Rufinus’ family was “submerged for four or five generations.”30 The pattern in reverse. Yet Fabricius later reportedly chose Rufinus to lead the fight against the Samnites, “making his private enmity of little account when compared with the commonwealth” and considering it “all equal as far as he was concerned if the city benefited by him or one of his fellows, whether or not that man were an opponent.” For this he gained great honor.31 There once again: lack of desire to pursue anger, refusal to act even within one’s power, and reciprocity. Even when the financial stakes were as high as they could possibly be, the pattern still emerges. In one of the best-​documented events of the Middle Republic, L. Aemilius Paullus conquered Perseus of Macedon in 168 BC and added all of Greece to Rome’s possessions. The spoil was so great that the citizens of Italy did not have to pay any land taxes (tributum) to Rome for over one hundred and twenty years. But Paullus himself, Plutarch wrote, “did not even want to look upon” the quantities of silver and gold, and instead handed the lot to the quaestors for the public treasury. For this, “men greatly praised him.” Although he had obtained such a vast amount of wealth for the state, Paullus’ abstinence was so thorough that at his death he did not have enough to pay back his wife’s dowry. When Paullus’ contemporary Polybius reported this fact, he wrote that he knew his Greek reader might find it incredible—​but it was true. This was moderatio in all its aspects par excellence: absence of desire, refusal to look at (much less take) even what one had a right to take, reciprocity, and praise. Paullus tried to live the ideal restraint pattern—​and not in hoary legend.32

29 Dio 8.40; Liv. Per. 14; Dion. Hal. 20.13.1; Val. Max. 2.9.4; Gell. 4.8.7; Flor. 1.13.22; MRR I 196. Cf. Starr (1980) 47; Astin (1988) 23; Crawford (1993) 30; Zanda (2011) 43–​44; Rich (2020) 183–​184. 30 Crawford (1993) 30. 31 Dio 8.40: καὶ παρ᾽ ὀλίγον τὴν ἰδίαν ἔχθραν πρὸς τὰ κοινῇ συμφέροντα ἐποιήσατο . . . ἐν τῷ ἴσῳ τό τε ὑφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τὸ δι᾽ ἑτέρου τινός, κἂν διάφορός οἱ ᾖ, εὖ τι τὴν πόλιν παθεῖν ἐτίθετο. 32 Plut. Aem. Paull. 28.10–​11: ἐπῄνουν οἱ ἄνθρωποι . . . οὐδ᾽ ἰδεῖν ἐθελήσαντος, 38.1. Cf. Polyb. 31.22.1; Cic. de Off. 2.76; Liv. Per. 45–​46; Zonaras 9.24; Val. Max. 4.5.8–​9, 5.10.2; Vell. Pat. 1.10; Plut. Apopth. Aem. Paull. 9; Sen. Ad. Marc. de Cons. 13; Dyck (1996) 469; Crawford (1993) 75; Flower (2014) 385, although see Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 57 on the social disruption that followed the taxpayers’ loss of “political leverage.”

46  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic And the struggle of temperantia? The pattern repeats. Polybius reported that Scipio Africanus the Elder when a very young general in Spain returned a beautiful prisoner rather than indulge himself with her, with the explanation that he might have enjoyed such pleasures as a private citizen, but as a commander he must refuse. For this display of ἐγκρατεία and μετριότης (“self-​control” and “moderation”), his troops gave him “great approbation.”33 Livy similarly described a meeting during the Second Punic War between Scipio and the allied Numidian King Massinissa, who yearned for a Carthaginian princess. Scipio said that he was proud of his temperantia et continentia libidinum (“restraint and self-​control of his lusts”), and scolded Massinissa because there was greater danger from pleasures than from enemies, and greater glory in conquering them.34 The comparison to battle, of course, suggested that Scipio considered it very difficult to conquer such desires.35 Distinction, however, would follow victory. Consider also Polybius’ famed portrait of Scipio Aemilianus, the Younger Africanus. Whereas many of the young Scipio’s contemporaries had taken to prostitutes and banquets and various luxurious habits—​so much that Cato the Elder complained that an attractive slave or a jar of fish sauce might cost more than a decent farm or worker—​Scipio, by contrast, turned himself onto the opposite training course for life, and marshaling up his forces against all his urges, and furnishing himself fully with a consistent and orderly way of life, in perhaps five years he built up a reputation for himself in front of everyone of discipline and self-​restraint.36

Flush with military metaphors about harsh discipline and drill, this passage describes the constant process of effort that exemplified temperantia, applied it directly to luxury and lust, and observed the praise that resulted from the effort. Shame, naturally, followed failure, and could be public and potent. Hence a quip of Cato the Elder recounted by Horace: upon seeing a young man exiting a brothel, Cato at first commended him for relieving his lusts there instead of meddling with other men’s wives. But upon seeing the young man again exit the brothel a few days after, the censor now chastised him, “Young man, I praised 33 Polyb. 10.19.5–​7: μεγάλην ἀποδοχὴν. Cf. Livy 26.50; Val. Max. 4.3.1; Dio fr. 57.43; Cornell et al. (2013) III 344, although see Valerius Antias, Cornell et al. (2013) II 571 fr. 29 (=​Gell. 7.8.6). 34 Livy 30.14.7–​8. 35 Evidently Scipio considered temperantia a struggle; there were many rumors of his womanizing at other times. Polyb. 10.19.3; Naevius fr. 1–​3 (=​Gell. 7.8.5). Cf. Livy 29.19.11–​12; Val. Max. 3.6.1; Barton (2001) 222–​223. 36 Polyb. 31.25.8: πλὴν ὅ γε Σκιπίων ὁρμήσας ἐπὶ τὴν ἐναντίαν ἀγωγὴν τοῦ βίου καὶ πάσαις ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις ἀντιταξάμενος καὶ κατὰ πάντα τρόπον ὁμολογούμενον καὶ σύμφωνον ἑαυτὸν κατασκευάσας κατὰ τὸν βίον ἐν ἴσως πέντε τοῖς πρώτοις ἔτεσι πάνδημον ἐποιήσατο τὴν ἐπ᾽ εὐταξίᾳ καὶ σωφροσύνῃ δόξαν. Cf. Val. Max. 4.3.13; Aelian Var. Hist. 11.9; Pliny N.H. 33.50; Plut. Apophth. Scip. Min. 1, 7, 13, 16, 17; Kidd (1999) 339 fr. 265 (=​Athen. 6.273.a–​b).

Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia  47 you for coming here occasionally, not for living here!”37 Here again the pattern, without even needing to use the word temperantia: praise followed control of troubling desire; mockery resulted from stumbles. In 184 BC Cato and his colleague L. Flaccus expelled L. Quinctius Flamininus, cos. 192, from the Senate for a horrific act of lust and cruelty: at a dinner party, to please his lover, he had summarily executed a prisoner. After the expulsion Flamininus hung at the back of the theater during games, until the crowd, apparently moved by his contrite deportment, compelled him to return to his seat.38 In short, modestia, moderatio, and temperantia ideally restrained according to precisely the same behavioral pattern no matter whether the impulses to be restrained were desire for luxurious objects, lust, or the emotions that might affect interpeer relations. That shared pattern of behavior leads to a vital conclusion: the Romans did not moralize (incessantly) against luxury or lust for the sake of it, but because they included all these restraints, public and private, in the same habitus of self-​control. Accordingly, they were concerned that if someone could not restrain himself in private fields, he would, by the logic of the parallel, also deal poorly in public and with peers. Isak Hammar has coined the useful term “web of immorality” to describe this Roman belief that a man who exhibited one depravity was likely to exhibit any and all others. Or, as Cicero put it, just as an expert musician can sense a note slightly out of tune, so too did one small flaw of character signal greater and more fundamental vices.39 We will return regularly to this belief in Part II. To be sure, this was not the only role of temperantia in the Republic. The ancients, for instance, expressed anxiety that luxury would enervate their morals, a thesis we will revisit and try to explain in Chapter Five. Alan Astin, Catherine Edwards, Emanuela Zanda, and others have identified a concern that prodigality would threaten an aristocrat’s elite status, which always required honorable wealth (although, if this is the only reason for the value, it is curious why elites should try to shame their competitors for spending themselves out of the competition).40 Andrew Wallace-​Hadrill wisely also has noted that control over access to luxury items helps to define social hierarchy and order by excluding upstarts from breaking into elite circles by wealth alone.41 Expensive and (especially) foreign delicacies could also be thought markers of a troubling lack 37 Schol. on Hor. Sat. 1.2.31–​35 (=​Keller (1904) II 20): adulescens, ego te laudavi, tamquam huc intervenires, non tamquam hic habitares. 38 The outline of this incident is clear; details are garbled in the various tellings. Cic. de Sen. 42; Livy 39.42.6–​43.5; Val. Max. 4.5.1, 2.9.3; Plut. Cat. Mai. 17.1–​6, Flam. 18.2–​5, 19.4; MRR I 374; Bloomer (1992) 136–​137; Briscoe (2008) 358–​359. 39 Cic. de Off. 1.146; Hammar (2013) 323. Cf. Tatum (2011) 167; May (1988) 168; Balmaceda (2017) 246. 40 Astin (1978) 94–​97; Edwards (1993) 63–​97; Dauster (2003) 92; Zanda (2011) 4–​5, 68, 92, 113; Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 22. Cf. Polyb. 6.56.1–​3; Sall. B.C. 7.6; Pliny N.H. 7.139–​140. 41 Wallace-​Hadrill (2008) 327–​328.

48  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic of regard for Roman tradition.42 Roman resistance to luxury can be understood as well “in the context of the urgent need of the . . . aristocracy to preserve the cohesion of the group” and thus of the state.43 Relative balance in the (non)consumption of luxury would have created a sense of camaraderie, especially when generals farmed small plots for their living after campaigning season just like their soldiers and peers. Those facts help explain why egregious displays of private wealth, and not wealth per se (for example, from respectable traditional agriculture) drew scorn. Thus Cicero: “The Roman People hates private luxury, but loves public splendor,” while Pliny the Elder reported a record of Carthaginian ambassadors who said that no people lived more kindly among each other than the Romans because each used the same plate service at every banquet.44 As such, temperantia was, again, a political value as much as a private one; the two aspects mingled inextricably. All of these points, of course, show that self-​control in consumption and successful and legitimate participation in the Roman aristocracy were intertwined.

How to Face the Commonwealth: Moderatio, Modestia, Temperantia, and Res Publica Now, the third angle. If moderatio, modestia, and temperantia acted in the same way upon desires for luxury as they did upon interpeer relationships, and if the smooth operation of res publica depended largely on correct relationships among noble men, then if the values were truly normative supports of the performative-​ competitive structure, they should also work according to the same pattern when tied to the institutional needs of the res publica in distributing power and honors and in executing one’s office. Once again, they are portrayed precisely in that way. First, the moderatio pattern. C. Servilius Ahala the military tribune displayed “singular moderatio” in “placing the welfare of the state above the favor” of his rival tribunes who were competing with each other for commands.45 Valerius Maximus in his chapter entitled “Moderatio” recorded that in 265 BC, C. Marcius Rutilus Censorinus rebuked the People for electing him censor for the second time; this office was already limited in duration.46 In 216 BC, during the Second Punic War, M. Fabius 42 Cf. Tac. Ann. 3.55. Cf. Lintott (1990) 6, 16; Lobur (2008) 44, 45–​46; Rosenstein (2009); Jehne (2011a) 214; Aubert (2017) 409–​410; Drogula (2019) 110; Wallace-​Hadrill (2008) 338–​345. 43 Crawford (1993) 76. Cf. Corbeill (1996) 128–​173; Wiseman (2009) 52; Hammar (2013) 317, 323. 44 Cic. pro Mur. 76: odit populus Romanus privatam luxuriam, publicam magnificentiam diligit; Pliny N.H. 33.143. 45 Livy 4.57.3: quem enim bonum civem secernere sua a publicis consilia? 46 Val. Max. 4.1.3.

Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia  49 Buteo was appointed dictator to redraw the outdated list of the Senate, but while the current dictator, M. Junius Pera, was already out with the army. Buteo angrily disapproved of two simultaneous dictators (something unprecedented) and of a dictator being appointed without a Master of Horse, and of having the dual censorial power devolve on one man, and for a second time on himself, and of having imperium going to a dictator who was not in charge of handling all the state’s affairs. Nevertheless, he announced, because the difficult circumstances forced such “inmoderata” on him, he would set a “modum” on himself. He would not eject any senators allowed by the last censors, and deceased members he would replace only with worthy men equal to their predecessors’ rank who had held office or who had been war heroes. He read out his new list of senators, immediately abdicated, stepped off the platform a private citizen, and ordered his lictors to leave him. He then—​with moderatio’s signature lack of desire for power—​tried to kill time in the Forum with private business so that everyone eventually would wander off. The ploy failed; a crowd followed him home in admiration.47 Similar was temperantia vis-​à-​vis the exercise of power. Temperantia could describe refusal to accept excessive honors: in 211 BC, T. Manlius Torquatus, against his will, was chosen consul for the fourth time by the first voting century. He refused and demanded a re-​vote. Livy commented: “Neither could the leading men of the state have been more serious or temperate in avoiding the lust for power nor the multitude have better sense.”48 Scipio’s aforementioned self-​ control against lust was considered proper for a republican commander. Cato the Elder removed the public horse of a corpulent eques with the line, “What good is a body like that to the Republic, where everything from gullet to groin serves the stomach?”49 Cato again: “The worst ruler is one who cannot rule himself.”50 Scipio Aemilianus caught a military tribune with gem-​encrusted wine cups in his saddle bags and temporarily relieved him of duty: “You’ll be useless to me for a short time, but to yourself and to the Republic forever.”51 Sallust a century later: “Those who have the greatest power have the least freedom in action . . . What is called ‘irascibility’ in private citizens is called ‘superbia’ and

47 Livy 23.22.11, 23.23.3: quae inmoderata forsan tempus ac necessitas fecerit, iis se modum impositurum, 23.23.7. 48 Livy 5.13.8, 7.20.9, 10.12.8, 25.25.9, 26.22.14: non equidem . . . aut principes graviores temperantioresque a cupidine imperii aut multitudinem melius moratam censeam fieri posse. But see Mouritsen (2011) 229. 49 Plut. Cat. Mai. 9.5: τῇ πόλει σῶμα γένοιτο τοιοῦτόν χρήσιμον, οὗ τὸ μεταξὺ λαιμοῦ καὶ βουβώνων ἅπαν ὑπὸ τῆς γαστρὸς κατέχεται; Astin (1978) 82, 97. 50 Plut. Apophth. Cat. Mai. 8: κάκιστον δὲ ἔλεγεν ἄρχοντα εἶναι τὸν ἄρχειν ἑαυτοῦ μὴ δυνάμενον. Cf. Mor. 210 F (33). 51 Front. Strat. 4.1.1: mihi paulisper, tibi et rei publicae semper nequam eris. Cf. Plut. Apopth. Scip. Min. 17 to similar effect; Liv. Per. 57; Val. Max. 2.7.1; Polyaen. 8.16.2; Passet (2020) 204.

50  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic ‘cruelty’ in those with power.”52 And Sallust once more: “When you all individually seek your own interests, when you serve private pleasures at home or money or influence in public, that results in an attack on a sapped Republic.”53 A fragment of a speech by Scipio Aemilianus in 142 bc directly married temperance and the exercise of power, telling the People that as censor he would be a “guard for you and the Republic, like a collar for a dog.”54 The point of the layered metaphor was equally one of restraint and one of protection, because dogs’ collars were often spiked to defend them from wolves. Thus the censor’s restraint was to be applied where men’s personal restraint did not; such unrestrained men would be the “wolves,” against whom the censorial harshness would defend. Upon his return from his quaestorship in Sardinia in 124 BC, Gaius Gracchus defended the political charge that he had abandoned his post too early by touting his personal restraint, telling the crowd that he came back with empty money belts, spent no time with prostitutes or slaves or in bribery, and entertained and ate modestius; if that were not true, the audience could consider him the lowest of men.55 That is, of course, the moderatio/​modestia/​temperantia pattern, and his point was that these restrained actions showed not only his innocence of the charge, but also his fitness to hold his post—​and no doubt to hold future office, too.56 And, even more directly, in his list of ideal statutes in his treatise On the Laws, Cicero commanded that those who had power se et suos continento (“should control themselves and their own”), and the Senate, “free of vice, should be an example to all.” “If we gain this,” Cicero wrote, “we gain everything.”57 “Wolves”? “Lowest of men”? “Gain everything”? Was this hyperbole? Not if one considered restraint to be essential normative behavior linked to the proper exercise of republican power. It was not physical force or fear that were thought to constrain a man from attacking the laws and processes of the Republic, or from uprooting its traditions, nor fluid and exception-​riddled institutions alone. Instead, the norms of modestia, moderatio, and temperantia were to facilitate that task, in private and in public alike. Otherwise, the res publica was perceived to be in mortal danger.

52 Sall. B.C. 51.13–​14 (Caesar is the speaker in the debate on the Catilinarian conspirators): Ita in maxima fortuna minuma licentia est . . . quae apud alios iracundia dicitur, ea in imperio superbia atque crudelitas appellatur. 53 Cato the Younger in the same debate, Sall. B.C. 52.23: ubi vos separatim sibi quisque consilium capitis, ubi domi voluptatibus, hic pecuniae aut gratiae servitis, eo fit ut impetus fiat in vacuam rem publicam. 54 ORF3 126 fr. 15 (=​Paul. Fest. 137.3): vobis reique publicae praesidio erit is quasi millus cani. 55 ORF3 181–​182 fr. 26–​28 (=​Gell. 15.12). Cf. Lintott (1994) 77. 56 Cf. Heitland (1909) II 296. 57 Cic. de Leg. 3.9, 3.10: Is ordo vitio vacato, ceteris specimen esto, 3.29: quod si tenemus tenemus omnia.

3

Setting Norms To give us a full picture of the ideal normative values that restrained republican aristocratic behavior, the first two chapters have unapologetically sourced late ancient historians and biographers—​although the chapters also included many references to sources contemporary with the action that are more apt to relate cores of historical truth than the dialogue of later historians. Still, ancient historians and biographers notoriously provide uncertain ground from which to glean fact.1 While many scholars have defended the general historicity of Livy’s (and other authors’) work, a potent objection to this study’s conclusions thus far is that we have seen nothing more than a late “cultural imaginary” or late literary thesis about how social mores in the Republic should work. Moreover, it might be protested that this thesis, patched by historians onto oral traditions and annalistic bones to create a smooth and morally pleasing storyline, was a product of its time and more reflected the experience of Sulla and Caesar than of the Scipios or Paullus, much less of Camillus or Cincinnatus. The objector might further note that the values often appear (in Livy’s descriptions in particular) to act in stories of the earliest Republic in the same way that Livy likely wished that they would have in its final century, which suggests that Livy retrojected fully evolved late beliefs into early history. A particularly pressing issue is the thesis of decline. Although ancient writers were, of course, never blind to struggles in Rome’s early days, by the time of Sallust and Cicero at the latest a narrative was in place that described the failures of the Republic as a product of “moral” decay: in the past, the story went, the ancestors were gloriously unselfish and upstanding. Then, at some point, an increase of vices and a loss of such virtues led to the Republic’s woes. Although it is unclear when the narrative of decline originated, the mode became pervasive and didactic among writers by the first century BC. Modern scholars have attacked the decline thesis as pure fiction. (Although, as David Engels has pointed out, republican writers lived through perceptibly worsening social upheaval from 1 Standard treatments of this problem are Wiseman (1979), Woodman (1988), and Lendon (2009). The issue, expertly debated by Raaflaub (2005a) and Cornell (2005), is insoluble here. Cf., with differing conclusions, Ogilvie (1965) 597; Badian (1964); Alföldi (1972); Luce (1977) 286–​295; Cornell (1986); Crawford (1993) 5–​15; Bruun (2000); Miles (1995), Develin (2005); Forsythe (2005); Raaflaub, ed. (2005); Ungern-​Sternberg (2005a); Oakley (1997–​2008) I 86–​87; Oakley (2014) 3–​4; Wiseman (2008); MacMullen (2011); Mouritsen (2017) 105–​108. Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.003.0004

52  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic which they deduced, rationally enough, that for some reason some form of “decline” was occurring.) All the same, at minimum the decline narrative influenced late historians’ presentation of earlier centuries, and as such calls this study’s conclusions about self-​restraint into doubt as historical realities, especially before the second century BC.2 Such objections cannot be dismissed lightly, and are a key reason why “morals” have long been pushed to the side in serious historical analyses of Rome. Ancient authors had theses, contemporary biases, and ulterior motives that they used to explain, embellish, or even possibly outright invent storylines to stitch onto the laconic records they found in their research.3 And we have already discussed how exempla came down in smoothed-​over forms, which made the behavioral patterns they touted normatively desirable and traditional but still general in outline. But neither should these objections dissuade. In the first place, even putting aside the unlikelihood that Livy et al. would present baffled readers with a social milieu contrived whole cloth, in some sense whether the thesis of decline was “true” matters less than that in time many Romans came to believe that the thesis was true, that their own age had tumbled from the moral altitudes of their elders. That belief made many prominent Romans (over the course of the first century BC especially) particularly sensitive to supposed moral deviance because (according to the thesis) such “deviance” accelerated the Republic’s deterioration. Fear of deterioration then sparked heated reaction to the “deviance,” fraying social relations. Perception of decline became self-​fulfilling reality, with real historical consequences. This point will recur for the rest of this study, and cannot be overemphasized. But we can also study how these many Romans came to reach that belief, and to recognize that a habitus of normative restraint behavior was not purely a literary invention, or an “arbitrary” marker of social status, or wholly a “cultural imaginary,” but developed over time from real memories and cultural wellsprings, and was grafted into the proper operation of the Republic. If we can locate the early seeds of restraint norms, it would show that at least one of the decline narrative’s 2 E.g., Cornell et al. (2013) II 99 fr. 24; Sall. B.C. 10–​11.1; Livy 39.6.7; Lucan 1.158–​182; Tac. Ann. 2.38; Flor. 1.48.7; Plin. N.H. 17.244. The origins of the thesis are debated, but its prevalence by the first century is clear enough. Cf. Earl (1962) 470–​471; Lintott (1972) 638; Levick (1982a) 54, 60–​ 62; Edwards (1993) 177; Oakley (1997–​2008) I 74; Engels (2009) 863, 890; Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 46; Gildenhard (2020) 243. Biesinger (2016) 52–​58, 178, 355–​379 in particular argues that the decline narrative was a literary trope designed as “counter-​history” to earlier (lost) narratives of continuity and success and as a way after Fabius Pictor around 200 bc for writers to critique social problems of their day. But Biesinger demurs (18–​20) from determining precisely what historical basis the cohesion or decline narratives may have had. If Biesinger is correct, however, it would suggest a habitus of relative consensus followed by a “decline” narrative that became over time part of an updated habitus in which moral deviance came to have high emotional valence. 3 Cf. Oakley (1997–​2008) I 77; Muntz (2017).

Setting Norms  53 premises—​that there was a time before the perceptibly worsening social upheaval when Roman men more or less comported themselves by normative restraint behavior—​had some substance, and might help explain Rome’s centuries of nonviolent cohesion. In doing so, we can also give the late-​republican Romans agency and credit for sensing that something about their own society was indeed growing amiss, and somehow related to self-​control. Of course, from that premise would not necessarily flow the conclusion that some objective imbalance of “virtue” and “vice” had anything to do with the Republic’s dissolution, a misconception considered in Part II. But for now, at minimum, we can show that the Romans of the late second and then first centuries bc had enough evidence about the behavior of their ancestors that they could sensibly believe (even if with some inaccuracy and foreshortening), and be inculcated with the notion that, restraint was traditional and necessary for the health of the state—​and consequently worry when they reckoned that restraint was disintegrating. The simplest way to test the hypothesis is to push back in time to seek contemporary evidence of the restraint values from the Middle and Early Republic. Such evidence exists in the form of plays, poetry, epigraphy, behavioral patterns, and political speeches, as well as republican legal and institutional features. And to reduce the chance of error and to meet objections like those posed above, this chapter avoids evidence mediated through later historians such as Livy or Plutarch all but entirely, and inspects the oldest surviving primary sources to see the extent to which the restraint values existed in Rome’s most distant past, and in what form. To be sure, because some of the evidence from those early times comes in contextless fragments retained by chance in snippets of grammarians and so on, the clearer picture afforded by the historians in the first two chapters must provide some interpretive shape. This tactic presents some risk of circularity and survival bias: we might wrongly assign to early dates the norms of later days because a certain piece of stray evidence from early times resembles to us the later manifestation of the values or because it happened to be copied because it appealed to the mores of late recorders.4 Still, the way the sweep of the evidence in all its forms and fullness consistently hangs together is highly unlikely to be coincidence, and thus more likely reflects roots in a coherent background social habitus than chance.5 Thus, with due caution and as much chronological nuance as possible, we can still draw some fair deductions from the evidence about the restraint values from the second century BC and before. The goal of the chapter is threefold. First, to examine restraint values in what core of fact about earlier periods can be found. Second, to seek the provenance

4 5

Gray et al. (2018) 4–​5. Cf. Goh (2018) 34.

54  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic of the norms, and watch them developing—​again, often through the process of contestation—​with some roots as early as the fourth and conceivably fifth centuries bc, but at all events congealing by the third and into the second centuries bc into the form that would dominate the Romans’ thinking for the next few generations. Third, to position that factual core and the observations of the first two chapters into current scholarly models of the Republic’s operation. *** The two previous chapters have included several contemporary illustrations of restraint values at work in the Middle Republic not filtered through late historical prose. Ennius lauded the deference that publicly reconciled the enemy censors Fulvius and Lepidus. According to Polybius, Scipio the Younger as a young man in the 160s strove for a reputation of self-​restraint, which helped secure his advancement in offices. Even if Polybius exaggerated his portrait, he surely did it because he knew that the traits he assigned his friend were socially and politically advantageous.6 Similarly, Gaius Gracchus’ preserved speech upon his return from Sardinia in 124 BC touted his continence with prostitutes and luxurious dinners, and was evidently meant to redound to his social and political credit. There is much more. One of Scipio the Younger’s own preserved sayings runs, “from innocence is born dignitas, from dignitas honor, from honor command, from command, freedom,” which directly connected moral purity to performative-​political power.7 Roman satire regularly parodied moral dissipation. The poet Lucilius mocked those who “put feasting and spending before honest living,” ridiculing intemperantia.8 As scholars have noted, the ancients regarded satire as the only literary genre that the Romans invented, which implies that this artistic medium was tailored to a distinctive Roman cultural idiom that policed personal incontinence more closely than other cultures did. And, of course, satire is itself evidence of a reasonably well-​defined commonality of moral judgment among the audience—​the humor cannot bite if the target’s violation of group standards is not instantly obvious and condemnable.9 We have also the witness of Terence, whose plays were roughly contemporaneous with the death of Aemilius Paullus and the youth of the younger Scipio. Terence translated and produced plays from Greek originals, but added Roman seasoning for his audiences.10 In the play Adelphoe, for instance, taken from Menander’s original and given in 160 BC, the playwright himself spoke

6 Cf. Harders (2017); Passet (2020) 202–​205. 7 ORF3 134 fr. 32 (=​Isid. etym. II 24, 4): ex innocentia nascitur dignitas, ex dignitate honor, ex honore imperium, ex imperio libertas. 8 Warmington (1935-​2006) III 402 fr. 1234: quod sumptum atque epulas victu praeponis honesto. 9 Dion. Hali. 20.13.2–​3; Edwards (1993) 2; Corbeill (2002b) 201. 10 Starks (2013) 141–​155.

Setting Norms  55 in an original prologue to address a rumor that he was the front man for ghost authors, certain homines nobiles. His enemies, he said, called this a maledictum vehemens—​a “serious slander.” Terence disagreed, and called it “great . . . praise, because [I please] those who are pleasing to you all and to the public, the aid of whose works in war, in peace, and in business each man at various times has made use, without superbia.”11 Thus Terence in his own voice connected the absence of superbia with the proper conduct of governance both military and civil, and also illustrated the mutuality of restraint: for leading without superbia, the People praised and followed the nobiles. Terence also seems to have made drastic changes to Adelphoe’s original Greek ending. The plot revolves around the romantic foibles of two young brothers, each raised by a different father, who are themselves brothers: Micio (one young brother’s adoptive father) lenient, Demea (natural father of both boys) strict. As is typical of Greek New Comedy, the brothers are spendthrifts and partygoers and dally with prostitutes, which provides the play’s comic twists. The lenient father Micio believes kindly discipline through amicitia is stronger than authority imposed through imperium; thus he sees nothing necessarily wrong with a young man for a time drinking and chasing girls—​he (and his stern brother too) would have done the same in youth had they been able to afford it. That is, Micio does not mind (a reasonable amount) of intemperance in luxury and lust. Demea, however, is quite the opposite, and blames his brother’s soft influence for the boys’ impending downfall.12 It seems that Micio’s lenient views on childrearing prevailed in Menander’s lost original, particularly because, for over 90 percent of Terence’s lines, the strict Demea is portrayed as losing the argument, is the butt of jokes, and appears about to shift attitudes to gain popularity with his sons. But in Terence’s Roman telling, Demea’s views suddenly triumph in the final scene in a pungent monologue on morality and his brother’s failed laxity, informing the brothers (to their thanks and praise) that if they need correction from their prodigal and libidinous ways, he stands ready.13 In this very awkward finale, a shift so abrupt that some commentators have described it as a deus ex machina, Terence thus molded his Greek original to please his audience with traditional Roman mores such as temperantia and modestia, of which the two errant brothers of Menander’s creation had been entirely devoid.14

11 Ter. Adel. 15, 17–​19: laudem . . . maxumam quom illis placet/​qui vobis univorsis et populo placent/​quorum opera in bello, in otio, in negotio/​suo quisque tempore usust sine superbia. Cf. Forehand (1985) 6–​7; Gratwick (1987) 1, 6; Hanchey (2013) 118–​131. 12 Ter. Adel. 65–​67, 95–​97, 105–​106, 792–​793, 835–​837. 13 Ter. Adel. 855–​881, 985–​995. Cf. Traill (2013) 327–​339. 14 Forehand (1985) 110. Cf. Rieth (1964) 131; Johnson (1968) 172, 185; Grant (1975); Gratwick (1987) 17, 55–​57; Barsby (2001) 245; Victor (2012) 683–​691; Traill (2013) 320–​339.

56  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Language elsewhere in Terence’s plays also shows such molding. In the play Andria, for instance, the old father Simo described the sad moral decline of his son Pamphilus. Pamphilus once acted with notable “moderation” (mediocriter). Simo explained: “Thus was his life: ready to endure and permit all/​to give himself to whomever he was in company with/​to comply with all their pursuits, contrary to no one/​never to put himself ahead of anyone, so that most easily you might come upon praise without envy and also make friends.”15 Moreover, said Simo, even when Pamphilus began to keep company with a fast crowd, he at first maintained his self-​control and was a model of continentia, which showed his strong character: “For he who contends with such types/​and whose soul is however not moved/​you can know in what manner of life he keeps himself.”16 Thus, Pamphilus was (at first) temperate and deferential, especially to those in his company of peers. Praise (and expanded social opportunity) resulted. The norms are in action, and in this case transferred directly to later generations: Cicero thought Simo’s speech exemplary, and repeatedly cited it in his own writings. Of course, it is impossible to disconnect the Roman plays from the Greek originals entirely, but we know for a fact that Terence reworked this very scene for a Roman audience because lines 83–​84 describe gladiators, and Terence’s choice of vocabulary is so strikingly similar to the operation of the restraint values that we should suppose that his take on Menander was shaped to please Roman ears.17 Examples could be multiplied; there are dozens of references in the sources over the course of the mid-​to-​late second century BC to attacks on luxuria and the like (although I have focused here on some examples in which normative behavior is quite explicitly connected to personal social success).18 From this evidence we should conclude beyond serious cavil that by the last two-​thirds of the century, some significant portion of the Roman aristocracy not only considered deference, temperantia, modestia, and moderatio to be normative and desirable behavior, but also connected advancement in standing to the display of these values. Can we go back farther? We approach Plautus and Cato the Elder. As has long been recognized, Plautus’ works, like those of Terence, were taken from Greek originals, but to a far greater extent than Terence’s were altered to reflect current Roman events in order to provide “vehicles to address, promote, mock, or satirize

15 Ter. Andr. 59, 62–​66: sic vita erat: facile omnes perferre ac pati/​cum quibus erat quomque una eis se dedere/​eorum obsequi studiis, advorsus nemini/​nunquam praeponens se illis, ita ut facullume/​ sine invidia laudem invenias et amicos pares. 16 Ter. Andr. 93–​95: nam qui cum ingeniis conflictatur eiusmodi/​neque commovetur animus in re tamen/​scias posse habere iam ipsum suae vitae modum. 17 E.g., Cic. Inv. 1.19.27, 1.23.33; de Orat. 2.172, 2.326–​329; Zanetto (1998) 72 n.11; Germany (2013) 232–​233. 18 See also MacMullen (1991) 431–​434.

Setting Norms  57 items that held public attention or provoked public debate.”19 So too did Plautus represent aristocratic virtues, even in jest; parody, after all, must draw from reality.20 Examples are myriad in Plautus’ plays, but a few lines serve to illustrate. First, a man who cannot exercise self-​control is of no value. The protagonist of Bacchides, Pistoclerus, says in his lust for his amica: sumne autem nihili qui nequeam ingenio moderari meo? (“Am I not worth nothing if I cannot moderate my ingenium?”) Pistoclerus’ old tutor agreed: nam ego illum perisse dico quoi quidem periit pudor (“For my part, I say that anyone is destroyed whose pudor is destroyed”).21 Indeed Pistoclerus is figuratively destroyed as a citizen: he is so overborne by his desires that he pledges himself as a slave to his lover. And because Pistoclerus uses the Latin formal language of legal surrender of power over a person when he finally submits to his amica—​“mulier, tibi me emancupo” (“Woman, I emancipate myself to you”)—​Plautus obviously couched Pistoclerus’ lack of self-​control, even if based in the Greek original, in Roman social terms.22 Second, Plautus believed that the restraint norms reflected traditional views. In one of the first references in written Latin to the mos maiorum, Plautus tied temperance to mores, a proper ingenium, and personal restraint in matters of luxury, and then joined all three with the public good. The scene is in Trinummus (c. 188–​187 BC) wherein the slave Stasimus is the mouthpiece for a very aristocratic point of view. Facing the prospect of being cheated of money by lowly persons, he complains: “If only the old ways of men, the old parsimony, got greater respect than these evil ways here.”23 His master, listening secretly, opines to himself: “Immortal gods! This fellow begins to speak of princely deeds! He seeks the old ways, you can tell he loves the old ways of the manner of our ancestors (more maiorum).”24 Stasimus continues: Shouldn’t this matter be denounced publicly? For this breed of men is the enemy of all men and harms the entire public, for by working in bad faith they destroy the faith even of those who don’t deserve that to happen to them; for men judge the ingenia of such men by the deeds of those other men . . . But I’m too much of a simple-​minded man to take upon myself public affairs when I should worry about saving my own skin, which is my biggest concern!25 19 Gruen (1990) 129. Cf. Fraenkel (2007 [1922]); Earl (1960b), (1962); Owens (1994); Hallett (1996); Nichols (2010) 42; Pagola (2018) 50–​51. 20 Earl (1967) 25–​26, 34; MacMullen (1991) 421–​424; Richlin (2017) 12, 17–​20. 21 Plaut. Bacch. 485. 22 Plaut. Bacch. 91. Cf. Earl (1962) 469; Lefèvre (2011) 82, 185–​186. On the play see Barsby (1986), Lefèvre (2011), and Questa (2008). 23 Plaut. Trin. 1028–​1029: utinam veteres homines, veteres parsimoniae/​potius maiore honore hic essent quam mores mali; Lind (1978) 51; De Melo (2013) 116. 24 Plaut. Trin. 1030–​1031: di immortales, basilica hicquidem facinora inceptat loqui/​vetera quaerit, vetera amare hunc more maiorum scias. 25 Plut. Trin. 1046–​1048, 1057: nonne hoc publice animum advorti? nam id genus hominum omnibus/​univorsis est advorsum atque omni populo male facit/​male fidem servando illis quoque

58  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic The passage reveals the connection that an aristocrat would draw between the ways of his ancestors, conduct of public affairs, the relationship among peers, and resistance to greed, while final comic touch highlights the connection in the ridiculous contrast between the performative display of aristocratic values in public service and Stasimus’ servile condition. Third, Plautus believed lack of restraint damaged the Republic itself. In Mercator, Demipho, an old man, falls in love with his own son’s lover. He is rebuked by his stern friend Lysimachus and his son’s friend Eutychus: Lysimachus: Are you still speaking, you old ghoul? At your age it’s fitting for you to temper (temperare) such practices. Demipho: I confess it; I’ve certainly been lacking. Eutychus: Are you still speaking, you old ghoul? At your age you should have been devoid of these faults. Just as the year has its seasons, each deed is fitting for a different age. But if it is right that old men in their old age chase whores, what will become of our res publica?26

Here Plautus directly connects personal continence and the health of the state, a clear echo (even a gentle lampoon?) of a mindset that the audience intuitively would have understood. Finally, Plautus knew that restraint led to praise and advancement. A satirical scene in Poenulus is either an original Plautine creation or at least a “clever adapt[ation] to the Roman situation.”27 Two Carthaginian sisters, Adelphasium and Anterastilis, are (of course) prostitutes, and discuss the copious time and money required to polish and perfume themselves day and night. Adelphasium is not happy: “Envy and malice,” she tells her sister, “were never innate in me—​ I’d prefer to be adorned with a good ingenium than with much gold. Good luck finds gold, while nature creates a good ingenium. I’d rather be called good than rich.” Moreover, she opines, “it is fitting for a prostitute to wear pudor rather than purple, and far more fitting for her to wear pudor than gold.”28 But, ventures abrogant etiam fidem/​qui nil meriti; quippe eorum ex ingenio ingenium horum probant . . . sed ego sum insipientior, qui rebus curem publicis/​potius quam, id quod proxumum est, meo tergo tutelam geram. Cf. Earl (1960b) 267; De Melo (2013) 113 on the Romanity of the scene, although contra is Fraenkel (1922–​2007) 103–​105, but see 333 n.24. 26 Plaut. Merc. 983–​986: Lysimachus: etiam loquere, larva? temperare istac aetate istis decet ted artibus. Demipho: fateor; deliqui profecto. Eutychius: etiam loquere, larva? ess’ vaciuom istac ted aetate his decebat noxiis. itidem ut tempus anni, aetatem aliam aliud factum condecet. nam si istuc ius est, senecta aetate scortari senes, ubi loci est res summa nostra publica? 27 Johnston (1980) 144. 28 Plaut. Poen. 210–​215, 300–​305: invidia in me numquam innata est neque malitia, mea soror/​ bono med esse ingenio ornatam quam auro multo mavolo/​aurum, id fortuna invenitur, natura ingenium bonum/​[bonam ego quam beatam me esse nimio dici mavolo]/​meretricem pudorem

Setting Norms  59 Adelphasium in a wry twist, modo muliebris nullus est!—​“there is no moderation for women!”29 These passages likely are a send-​up of the debates in 195 BC around repealing the sumptuary Oppian law, which had been passed during the second Punic war and forbidden women from displaying certain luxuries.30 Cato the Elder, in Livy’s telling at least, argued in favor of keeping the law that women should not desire such extravagances at all, and that pudor too should dissuade them from such spectacle (although according to Livy, Cato’s opponent, L. Valerius, successfully argued for the law’s recission by arguing that the women could control themselves through pudor, without a law).31 Here, humorously, a Carthaginian female prostitute channels such austere sentiments, surely shared by many among the patres: a good ingenium is the opposite of lust for luxury, pudor is an effective remedy against gold and purple. And later in the play the sisters’ pudor and resulting relatively plainer adornment comically gives them victory in a beauty competition for prostitutes—​a victory, declares Anterastilis with mock solemnity, comparable to men’s achievements in their own fields.32 Display of the restraint virtues thus leads to (spoof) competitive success. Plautus’ parody reveals a background social context that made his satirical jokes possible: one that took the connection of personal worth and advancement to the practice of self-​control seriously enough that a playwright could caricature it effortlessly. The mention of Cato the Elder now turns us to him. Cato is a prime example of how mores of restraint were disputed amid controversy in his time, yet how norms hardened into a consensus based on idealized exempla. His status as a “new man” makes him especially useful for locating the norms of his day: the “homo novus should set a perfect example of the aristocratic norms so that his descendants’ assimilation was assured.”33 So we can confidently use the fragments of Cato to exemplify several aspects of aristocratic mores in the early second century BC. The first aspect is the Censor’s famed hatred of luxuria. In his (unfortunately largely lost) Carmen de Moribus, he contrasted luxury in his day to the supposed parsimony of the ancestors, and he displayed “conspicuous parsimony” himself, particularly when the public might benefit thereby.34 After his successful gerere magis decet quam purpuram/​ [magisque id meretricem pudorem quam aurum gerere condecet]. 29 Plaut. Poen. 230. 30 Johnston (1980) 159. Cf. Astin (1978) 93–​94. 31 Livy 34.2.8-​10; Fest. 109 (=​Cornell et al. (2013)) II 221 fr. 109. Cf. Kienast (1954) 20–​22; Paschkowski (1966); Luce (1977) 252 n.47; Astin (1978) 25–​27; Johnston (1980) 147; Briscoe (1981) 39; Cornell et al. (2013) I 197. 32 Plaut. Poen. 1192a–​1193. 33 Spielvogel (2004) 395. Cf. Astin (1978) 87; Lind (1978) 53; McDonnell (2006) 321–​323. 34 Dauster (2003) 73; cf. Gell. 11.2.2.

60  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic campaign in Spain in 195 BC, for example, he declared in a reported speech given during his triumph that it was better for many Romans to return home with silver than a few with gold, insisted that his soldiers be paid handsomely from the spoils, and made evident to everyone that he took nothing from the campaign but what he ate and drank.35 He repeated this claim in fragments of surviving speeches: “I do not blame those who wish to profit from booty, but I wish rather to vie in goodness with the best man than in wealth with the richest and in greed with the greediest.”36 In these examples we see precisely the moderatio and temperantia patterns Livy later described: Cato consciously exhibited a lack of desire for luxury, refused to succumb to temptation, and expected concomitant praise. Moreover, Cato turned display of restraint in the face of luxury into a competition with his aristocratic peers. The competition helps explain a second aspect of his behavior: the public benefit that Cato assumed came from his personal restraint with his wealth. Thus his attack on the spoils taken by a Claudius Nero, a former comrade in Spain: “My money is more beneficial to the Republic than the way in which you use yours.”37 Elsewhere he condemned anyone who “does not consider his stomach to be an enemy, who throws banquets at the Republic’s expense rather than his own, who makes promises stupidly, who builds lustily.”38 Cato’s attack was not merely that his targets were privately unrestrained men who did not share with their fellow citizens, which was blameworthy enough. Rather, such attitudes made for bad aristocrats and bad republicans, exactly the assumption about temperantia we saw in the last chapter. Cato’s trumpeting of his own continence, meanwhile, was meant as the inverse.39 Most striking in this regard are the fragments of Cato’s speech for the Rhodians in 167 BC. Rhodes was allied with Rome, but was also friends with Perseus, the last king of Macedon. Upon Rome’s victory over Perseus, questions arose about Rhodes’ loyalty. Some senators wished to declare war on Rhodes, in part because of the possibility for rich conquest. Cato, however, spoke on the Rhodians’ behalf in a speech that he included in his Origines and that he also published. The entire prologue is extant:

35 Plut. Cat. Mai. 10.4. Cf. Astin (1978) 28–​50, 52–​53. 36 Cornell et al. (2013) II 233 fr. 135 (=​Plut. Cat. Mai. 10.4): καὶ οὐκ αἰτιῶμαι . . . τοὺς ὠφελεῖσθαι ζητοῦντας ἐκ τούτων, ἀλλὰ βούλομαι μᾶλλον περὶ ἀρετῆς τοῖς ἀρίστοις ἢ περὶ χρημάτων τοῖς πλουσιωτάτοις ἁμιλλᾶσθαι καὶ τοῖς φιλαργυρωτάτοις περὶ φιλαργυρίας. Cf. ORF3 82 fr. 203 (=​Front. 92.21); ORF3 91 fr. 224 (=​Gell. 11.18.18); Astin (1978) 53; Harris (1979) 65–​68, esp. 66 n.4, 74–​77. 37 ORF3 36 fr. 83 (=​Prisc. GL 11 228.3): pecunia mea rei publicae profuit quam isti modi uti tu es. Cf. Astin (1978) 81. 38 ORF3 53 fr. 133 (=​Iul. Rufin. RhL p. 43, 21): Qui ventrum suum no pro hoste habet, qui pro re publica, non pro sua, obsonat, qui stulte spondet, qui cupide aedificat. 39 Cf. Livy 34.15.9; Plut. Cat. Mai. 14.2.

Setting Norms  61 I know that when matters have gone successfully and smoothly and prosperously most men’s minds tend to puff up, and their superbia and fierce insolence grow and swell. For this reason I am very worried that, because this matter has turned out so successfully, some adversity might enter into our discussion and confound our successes, or that this happiness might become too luxuriant. Adverse circumstances subdue us and teach us what ought to be done, while successes, with attendant happiness, tend to push us away from proper deliberation and understanding. Therefore it is with great urgency that I say and advise that this matter should be put off for some days, during which time we might return from such joy back to mastery of ourselves.40

This preamble maps seamlessly into the framework of restraint values. Cato first warned against uncontrolled emotion, which he compared to luxury, and connected it directly to the proper mien necessary to govern the state. Then he expressly counseled against superbia’s entry into the Senate’s deliberations. These words were not just a clever rhetorical device. Cato meant something concrete: the Senate’s deliberations would be marred and its conclusions erroneous if individuals could not control their emotions and arrogance. The reference to superbia and the notion that certain senators already were thinking enriching themselves with spoils shows the mechanism by which the marring would occur: lack of self-​control was assumed to lead directly to superbia, the quintessential want of respect for the existimatio of others, and that lack of respect would disrupt the peers’ consulendo, the act of collective decision-​making of the Senate. Cato fastened personal temperance and the proper functioning of the Republic’s institutional organs together quite tightly. Third, Cato’s certainty that his attitude had the ancestors’ approval. He fulminated against a Q. Minucius Thermus for permitting Roman citizens in his province to be flogged: “Who can bear such insult, such tyranny, such slavery? No king ever dared do such a thing; should it be done to good men, born of good families, with good intent? Where is fellowship (societas)? Where is the good faith of the ancestors (fides maiorum)?” Little comment should be necessary by now on the connection between aristocratic ideals, the negative precedent of kingship—​clearly in force by this time—​and the ancestors’ good faith. And whether Cato was historically correct about the ancestors is far less relevant

40 ORF3 62 fr. 163 (=​Gell. 6.3.14): scio solere plerisque hominibus rebus secundis atque prolixis atque prosperis animum excellere atque superbiam atque ferociam augescere atque crescere. quo mihi nunc magnae curae est, quod haec res tam secunde processit, ne quid in consulendo advorsi eveniat, quod nostras secundas res confutet, neve haec laetitia nimis luxuriose eveniat. advorsae res edomant et docent quid opus siet facto, secundae res laetitia transvorsum trudere solent a recte consulendo atque intellegendo. quo maiore opere dico suadeoque uti haec res aliquot dies proferatur, dum ex tanto gaudio in potestatem nostram redeamus. Cf. Astin (1978) 123–​124, 139.

62  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic to the inculcating of the restraint norms than the zeal of his conviction and the audience’s evident acceptance of his claims.41 Finally, the direct link that Cato drew between personal obedience to the restraint values and the distribution of honores. In his speech de Vestitu et Vehiculis he decried the luxuria of fancy clothes and litters and concluded, “Because offices have been given me on account of those mores that I held before I was elected, it would be quite unjust after I was elected to change them and become a different type of man.”42 We should take Cato at his word. Such a statement would be ridiculous if success in gaining offices were not actually coupled to displays of restraint of the kind that Cato conspicuously exhibited throughout his career. The norms suffused the Republic’s political structures. But Cato also shows how restraint norms could set in amid turmoil. During Cato’s life Rome experienced bewildering transformation, growing from a regional power to the dominant Mediterranean polity, struggling with newfound wealth and unfamiliar foreign cultural influences alike. With the privations of the Punic Wars past, and victorious Roman generals now rivaling Hellenistic kings in influence, the tension between advancement and restraint could not but heighten. Cato himself represented some of these tensions: while he saw no problem getting rich (solidly traditionally) through his farm, he also invested in cargo ships, something likely considered disreputable for a senator.43 Hans Beck and Christoph Lundgreen have argued that amid this turmoil the Romans turned to a novel means to control their society: law.44 A prime example is the lex Villia annalis of 180 BC, which normalized age qualifications for office in reaction to examples such as Scipio Africanus the Elder’s youthful consulship at the age of 31, and that apparently solidified earlier custom.45 Laws against bribery, luxury, and financial misappropriation similarly appear at or after this (remarkably late) point in the Republican timeline: the lex Orchia of 182 bc opened the doors of private banquets to public view, the lex Baebia de ambitu, sponsored by the consuls, regulated electoral bribery (possibly for the first time) in 181 bc, the lex Fannia of 161 bc allowed a maximum of 100 asses to be spent on dinners and this only on certain holidays, the lex Calpurnia de repetundis of 149 tried to instantiate the probity in foreign relations that Aemilius Paullus had displayed.46 41 ORF3 27 fr. 58 (=​Gell. 10.3.14): quis hanc contumeliam, quis hoc imperium, quis hanc servitutem ferre potest? nemo hoc rex ausus est facere; eane fieri bonis, bono genere gnatis, boni consultis? ubi societas? ubi fides maiorum? Cf. Astin (1978) 143, 327; Passet (2020) 198. 42 ORF3 39 fr. 93 (=​Prisc. GL 2 p. 226.16): nam periniurium siet, cum mihi ob eos mores, quos prius habui, honos detur, ubi datus est, tum uti eos mutem atque alii modi sim. 43 Plut. Cat. Mai. 21.5–​6; Astin (1978) 4; Edwards (1993) 16; David (2000) 50–​51, 77–​85. 44 Lundgreen (2011) 260–​266; Beck (2016) 142. 45 Livy 40.44.1. Cf. Astin (1958); Hopkins (1983) 47; Develin (1979); Evans and Kleijwegt (1992) 184; Beck (2005) 142–​145; Briscoe (2008) 522; Timmer (2017) 275. 46 Lintott (1990) 5–​6.

Setting Norms  63 Of course, an abrupt turn to law after more than 300 years of Republican governance indicates that something else had been deemed quite adequate before to the task of regulating behavior. Moreover, even accounting for survival bias, only a dozen or so laws were passed or even proposed over decades around this time, which suggests that legislation was a fledgling resort to address ad hoc issues of special concern rather than a sweeping pattern of social change.47 The exceedingly sharp focus of the legislation also suggests general preexisting conformity of luxury in all but minute, recent, and delicate details. The strange triviality of the laws is also instructive. Why the Romans should care about what was for dinner enough to legislate about it (repeatedly) is difficult to square with some grand policy. As noted, some scholars have suggested that such laws were meant to control aristocratic spending to prevent them from wasting their patrimonies. Others have seen in the laws control over generally equal access to clientage, in which banqueting played a major role. But these laws did not limit outlay from one’s own farm, or on public banquets, or on the size of one’s house, or on triumphs or temples or the like—​all of which, presumably, also could both help a wealthier Roman gain more clientage than his poorer peers and also empty his family coffers quite quickly. And, again, why should the voters for a law care if a competitor chose to spend himself out of the game anyway?48 In light of restraint norms, however, the laws make perfect sense. Having banquets at home—​paid for with cash, not produce of one’s farm—​was behavior that was untraditional and private. (That the Romans apparently never attempted to legislate the size of houses or clothes, at least not for men, may be because such public-​facing activity was more easily controlled by public gaze.)49 The laws are thus best understood as an emotionally triggered reaction to perceived violations of the Romans’ norm of temperance, which, as we saw in Chapter 2, cared deeply about nontraditional actions and even the slightest loss of private self-​control among those who wielded power.50 Indeed, that some of these laws might seem ludicrously petty to us, but were clearly not to the Roman promulgators and voters who put in the effort to pass them, signals that we are probing a distinctive and sensitive cultural feature, which restraint was. More important, we must not imagine that lawmaking was a category of behav­ ior distinct from enforcing mores through other social means. Antonie Wlosok many years ago ably showed that the Romans predominantly enforced morality without law, never strictly divorced law from the enforcement of custom, and instead saw their legal process as ever infused with the sanction of shame.51

47

Beck (2016) 149. E.g., Edwards (1993) 178–​180; Dauster (2003) 70, 91; Zanda (2011) 4–​5, 113. Although see Wallace-​Hadrill (2008) 337–​338. 50 Chapter 2, notes 40–​45. 51 Wlosok (1990) 88, 91–​96. Cf. Mouritsen (2017) 167. 48 49

64  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic The point of legislation was always to solidify to a perceived status quo, and, critically, here focused on shoring up temperantia in this growing context of new wealth. In this light, what Lundgreen sees as law’s “rigidifying” force controlling formerly “flexible” social arrangements can instead be seen as a particularly intense version of attempting to obtain obedience to norms through collective display within the performative-​political framework: an act of the whole People, voting in the open, especially in conjunction with senatorial sponsors, was a powerful, ritualized, public method to announce and enforce traditional behavior.52 As such, law never replaced social control through normative behavior (although of course it was an anxious attempt to aid that control). But the intensity (along with the pettiness) of this lawmaking, as well as the fact that many of these laws soon became full of exceptions, nevertheless hints at an restless social context, in which Cato was active in shaping Rome’s reaction to its new pressures, giving speeches, debating laws and possibly proposing his own.53 Cato’s prime reaction, famously, was to recoil at what he believed were eastern influences antithetical to traditional Roman mores, instead favoring the hardy virtues he imagined of the ancestors, which elevated his standing among an audience that apparently largely shared that belief. The Romans, especially Cato (as Edwards, Jean-​Michel David, Fred Drogula, Catalina Balmaceda, and many others have amply established), did not blindly borrow Greek models of morality, but drew primarily instead from their own Roman past, and quickly shaped even borrowings to own cultural milieu or imagined that they were always native. Cato’s harsh and moralistic censorship in 184 BC—​ for which he was remembered as Cato the Censor—​is a famous example of his traditionalist counter-​attack on what he perceived as new extravagances, which then deeply imprinted the following generations’ conception of moralistic behavior.54 His cantankerousness is of course also evidence that not everyone in his generation quite agreed with his interpretation of proper behavior—​or else he would have had no targets. But critically, in the end, his version of mores shaped and represented consensus and became largely victorious (or apparently lost out only to very similar normative claims, such as L. Valerius’ during the debate on the lex Oppia). Indeed, Cato’s views came to represent normative behavior so thoroughly that some prominent scholars have given him personal 52 Cf. Hölkeskamp (2010) 22; Walter (2017). 53 Cf. Astin (1978) 4, 319–​320, 329; Beck (2016) 149; Drogula (2019) 9–​18. 54 Edwards (1993) 21; David (2000) 80–​85; Reay (2005) 352; Drogula (2019) 18; Balmaceda (2017) 19–​25. Cf. Axtell (1907) 59; Hellegouarc’h (1963) 127; Astin (1978) 78–​103; Freyburger (1986) 314–​ 315; Scheidle (1993), esp. 19–​22, 46–​54, 209–​213; Humm (2005) 622–​623. Cf. Lejay (1920) 134; Burck (1951) 169; Stoessl (1979); Ducos (1984); Brunt (1988) 39; Lévy (2006) 563–​571; Wallace-​ Hadrill (2008) 237–​238; Eckert (2018b) 22, 32.

Setting Norms  65 credit for the rest of the second century’s fixation with luxury and immorality. That is a bit much; Cato’s messages to the class he wished to join were fruitful because they landed on already-​primed soil. His choice to self-​fashion as he did would have been pointless and unsuccessful otherwise. But Cato’s fretful, moralized reaction to Rome’s circumstances in his time, and the fact that he memorialized his beliefs into popular speeches and writings, made him one of the chief exemplars of self-​restraint ever after. All told, through the evidence of Plautus and Cato, along with the evidence of legislative activity, we may with confidence say that through the second century BC the restraint values were generally acknowledged among the aristocracy, were considered necessary for the preservation of res publica, and were associated with the achievement of offices and honores.55 Can we go even farther back in time to discover how Cato’s soil was primed? Although past this point we all but lose contemporaneous literary sources, there remains enough of a handhold for some reasonably secure conclusions. In the speeches above, given as early as 195 BC, Cato talked nonchalantly of concepts later denoted by moderatio and temperantia, and attributing such attitudes to the mos maiorum.56 To avoid looking ridiculous, Cato would have to persuade the audience members, born perhaps as far back as the 260s and 250s and who likely remembered instruction in mos maiorum from their own elders of the generation or two previous, that his were indeed the ancient ways. Plautus too cited the language and concepts of restraint and the customs of the elders in the 190s and earlier, and he too would need to sound plausible in his invocation of the mores maiorum on stage, even in jokes. There is evidence contemporaneous with the late fourth and early third centuries bc to suggest that Cato’s and Plautus’ claims were based on some social fact. For instance, the archeological circumstance that Roman material culture was poorer and more homogeneous at the end of the fourth and beginning of the third century BC than by the second may have (rightly or wrongly) suggested to men like Cato—​who grew up near Dentatus’ reportedly humble farm—​that the ancestors’ success and concord were predicated on abstemiousness and thrift.57 More concretely, one of the earliest fragments of Latin literature, the Sententiae of App. Claudius Caecus, dates from around the beginning of the third century BC, when the grandfathers of the senior men in Cato’s and Plautus’ audience were youths. Of this ancient work only scraps remain. One is as follows: qui animi compotem esse/​ne quid fraudis stuprique ferocia pariat, which may be rendered, 55 Astin (1978) 25–​27; David (2000) 87–​89; Beck (2016) 152; Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 31; Passet (2020) 193. 56 Drogula (2019) 10–​18. 57 Cf. Astin (1978) 1–​2 n.3; Flower (2010b) 37; Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 15–​17; Viglietti (2020) 131–​135. I expand on this point below.

66  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic “to be the master of a balanced mind/​lest fierce insolence give birth to rupture of good faith, and to shameful disgrace.”58 This tiny kernel carries in its orbit a number of assumptions that correspond to the habitus. First, the man who could not (or would not) control his mind would engage in fraus. The word in classical Latin, of course, connotes trickery. But the correct translation of this term in its archaic context is a breach of fides, of social bonds of agreement, likely here with peers.59 Fraus therefore signifies that Appius saw an inexorable step (pariat, “beget,” “spawn”) from a personally uncontrolled mind to a breach of inter-​peer relations that normally would be carried on in good faith. Appius similarly connected an uncontrolled and fiercely insolent mind to an inexorable path toward stuprum. While in classical Latin stuprum connoted sexual perversity, Festus quoted this passage as an example of an archaic use of stuprum for the classical Latin turpitudo; hence stuprum here can be rendered something like “shameful disgrace” or “dishonor”—​a poor existimatio.60 Accordingly, this fragmentary survival of one of the earliest Roman authors suggests recognizable restraint norms functioning among aristocrats of the turn of the fourth to the third century: respect for peers, the valuation of self-​control, the effect of self-​control to organize inter-​peer relationships, and disgrace for a man who failed to display self-​control, all to the benefit of res publica. This is true even though Appius did not use the precise words that later Romans applied to those concepts (although the words he used are obviously within the same semantic realm). While the view is growing dimmer, such evidence hints at a memory of a social context from which Cato and Plautus might have derived their own thinking. Of course, as we saw in Chapter 1, Appius himself was a strongly contested figure who inspired starkly competing views about his character, which may represent remnants of unrest over judging his behavior in his own time.61 To see what might have animated such unrest, we can continue farther back into this period, albeit on ever more unsteady ground. Contemporaneous literary evidence ends; archeology, epigraphy, arguments from social structures, and shards of fact mined from tradition provide what contemporary evidence remains. But a key means of exploration is to examine an important new social context: the emergence in the second half of the fourth century of the “new nobility” or the 58 Morel et al. (1927-​2011) 12 fr. 1 (=​Fest. 418 L (317 M)). The text is garbled in Festus; I accept Morel’s reconstruction. Lejay (1920) 134 and Palmer (1965) 316 differ only slightly. On translating “fierce insolence” see OLD2 I 757; Roller (2018) 96–​100. 59 OLD2 I 804 5, 6, 7; TLL VI Fasc. I 1267; Hellegouarc’h (1963) 567; Freyburger (1986) 125–​132, 311–​312; Humm (2005) 529. 60 Cf. OLD2 II 2198. 61 Humm (2005) 77–​97; Roller (2018) 95–​133, though contra is Wiseman (1979) 104–​112, 138–​ 139, arguing (less persuasively) that Appius’ reputation became contested only very late.

Setting Norms  67 “patricio-​plebeian nobility.”62 The creation of this new nobility brought with it an emphasis on personal restraint, particularly as part of the new nobility’s stress on concordia and deference. I state the bare minimum of agreed fact. Roman tradition and some epigraphic evidence permit us to infer that before the first quarter of the fourth century BC, the Roman aristocracy comprised families known to us as “patrician.”63 What, precisely, defined them as such has been debated extensively, although heredity, their sole control of certain archaic priesthoods and the auspices, ancestral access to the former royal council, and some military privileges were likely criteria.64 By invoking these criteria the patricians maintained an apparent monopoly on the consulship and other honores for some long period. But around the year 367 BC, again traditionally, the aristocracy in some way became noticeably more open to “plebeian” members, perhaps by admitting them to the consulship.65 With that change, the definition of nobilitas began to extend beyond “patrician” birth to include the holders of certain offices, and to their descendants.66 To be sure, change was not immediate. Even after the traditional date of the entry of the plebeians into the consulship, patrician names dominate (but notably do not monopolize) the consular fasti lists for some twenty-​five years.67 Eventually, the Genucian laws of 342 BC and Publilian laws of 339 BC, which may have followed some military or debt crisis, altered the nature of republican office-​holding. The leges Genuciae banned holding more than one office at the same time, prevented iteration of the same office for ten years, and apparently assured that one consul of the pair had to be plebeian. The leges Publiliae seem to have provided that votes by the plebeian assembly would be binding on the whole community, and also that one of the censors would be plebeian.68 In the ensuing decades there is a corresponding influx of new names into the consular lists: up to twenty per cent of consulships in a decade went to new gentes until

62 The literature on this development is vast: Ferenczy (1976); Gabrielli (2003) 245–​255; Forsythe (2005) 96; Oakley (2014) 8–​9. Cf. Palmer (1970) 253–​276; Mitchell (1990) 1–​30; Martin (2002) 167–​ 168; McDonnell (2006) 154, 194; Bringmann (2007) 40–​41; Wiseman (2008) 75; Mouritsen (2011) 224, Hölkeskamp (2011c). 63 De Sanctis (1956–​1969) I 228-​30; Momigliano (1969) 10, 25; Forsythe (2005) 165–​167; Mitchell (2005) 132; Raaflaub (2005b) 201; Smith (2011) 25–​26; Oakley (2014) 7. 64 Momigliano (1969) 22–​23; Mitchell (1973) 105–​06; Momigliano (1989) 102–​03; Linderski (1990) 565–​569; Crawford (1993) 24–​25; Forsythe (2005) 159–​160, 167, 228; Richard (2005); McDonnell (2006); Bringmann (2007) 7. 65 Staveley (1953); Develin (2005); Bringmann (2007) 43; Oakley (2014) 6; Brennan (2014) 27. 66 Starr (1980) 2, 57; Brunt (1982); Hölkeskamp (1993); Cornell (2000); Humm (2005) 126–​128, 539; Flower (2006) 51; North (2006) 259–​266; Hölkeskamp (2010) 77–​78. 67 Forsythe (2005) 271; Develin (2005) 297, 302–​303; Bringmann (2007) 43. Smith (2011) adequately relieves any doubts about the accuracy of these records. 68 Livy 7.42.2; Drummond (1989) 223; Cornell (1989) 223, 338, (2000) 78–​79; Forsythe (2005) 274–​275, 366; Humm (2005) 118; Hölkeskamp (2011c) 109; Drogula (2015) 40.

68  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic the year 260.69 Although the underlying reasons for the changes remain mysterious, and the details are unclear, in these years the aristocracy was undoubtedly expanding to include members of a formerly disempowered group. A new social structure was being birthed. But as it expanded, the aristocracy also (emphasis on ancestry now being lessened) had to both reify its place as an elite over the People and to congeal around common beliefs, as Guido Clemente has argued.70 Elite norms of restraint could perform both tasks in this new context: sacrifice for the sake of the public helped to define elite status against the commons, while mutual respect for success among aristocrats could force calibration among the new aristocracy of care for the “face” of fellow aristocrats, binding the new aristocracy together, all while settling into normative place along with the new structures. For example, it is apparently around the turn of the third century that generals began to dedicate temples to express their prowess. But even when a general vowed a temple to glorify his achievements, the Senate—​the general’s peers—​ordinarily acted as judges of his merit and provided the funds, such that private initiative and public consensus intermingled.71 It is, moreover, unlikely coincidence that there appears in the fasti after the year 300 a marked decrease in the use of dictators, which suggests a growing confidence in the ability of many noble men from many families to hold office even during emergencies—​something possible only if nobles were willing to yield chances for glory regularly to peers.72 Likewise, epitaphs glorified the dead, but with an eye to peers.73 The tomb of L. Cornelius Scipio, cos. 259 BC, for example, is inscribed with the archaic words: honc oino ploirume cosentiont R[omai]/​duonoro optumo fuise viro/​Luciom Scipione (“Most Romans agree that this Lucius Scipio was the best of the good men”).74 Similarly, Cicero recorded the inscription of A. Atilius Calatinus, cos. 258, 254: hunc unum plurimae consentiunt gentes/​populi primarium fuisse virum (“Most of the families agree that this man was first among the people”).75 That formulaic cosentiont is important: rather than simply declare their subjects to be the best or first, the eulogists took the effort to carve into stone the existimatio of the majority of the fellow citizens of the deceased. Further, the fact that the 69 Hölkeskamp (1993) 23–​26; Cornell (2000) 79; Forsythe (2005) 165, 270–​276, 366; Humm (2005) 127–​128. 70 Clemente (2018) 205–​208. And, as Lundgreen (2017) 21–​22 has reminded us, norms are culturally contingent practices that grow up around culturally contingent structures and historical factors, such as this new social context. 71 Orlin (1997) 127, 159, 198; McDonnell (2006) 154; Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 48–​49. 72 Cf. North (2006) 264. 73 North (2006) 377–​378. Cf. Zevi (1969–​1970); Benedetto et al. (1973) 234–​241; Bringmann (2007) 48–​49; Wiseman (2008) 6–​7. 74 CIL 1.2.9 =​ILS 3 =​ILLRP2 180–​81. Zevi (1969–​1970) 66–​67 convincingly shows that the lines are contemporary with the funeral, even if appended to the sarcophagus later. 75 Cic. de Sen. 17.61. Cf. Hellegouarc’h (1963) 123 on consentire.

Setting Norms  69 epitaphs recorded that “most” of the families or good men held that opinion also suggests that aristocrats wished to advertise the relative size of the groups of peers that supported them, to whose critical mass the reader might then defer. A member of the nobility of the third century thus advertised not only achievement, but wished to display consensus about the merit of that achievement. Perhaps even more striking, the tombs of Cornelii Scipiones provide firm contemporary archeological evidence of growing conspicuous temperantia. Their epitaphs may have fulsomely touted peers’ approval of their many accomplishments, but as the family grew more powerful, the sarcophagi and engravings themselves became intentionally ruder and poorer over time, until by the mid-​second century the epitaphs still lavishly listed achievements, but on cheap stone, without any decoration, and not even carved neatly. That some of the most powerful and elite men on the face of the planet should display their kin in death in mingled self-​advancement and antiluxury is formidable evidence indeed of a habitus of self-​restraint driving elite decision-​making and self-​ presentation in the competition for power.76 Meanwhile, consensus and existimatio begat concord, and additional archeological evidence demonstrates that the ideal of concordia either was or became so widespread around this time as to be quotidian: a drinking cup of the late fourth or early third century inscribed with a dedication to cucordia, for instance, is of the exact type of many others devoted to more recognizable deities such as Juno and Vesta.77 More extravagantly, Cn. Flavius, a former scribe of App. Claudius and a freedman’s son, became curule aedile in 304 BC and dedicated a temple to Concordia.78 The divinization of the ideal just at this time speaks loudly. The late fourth-​to early third-​century lex Ovinia is even further evidence that the “new nobility” coagulated around ideals of restraint.79 According to Festus, after the kings were expelled, the consuls (and consular tribunes) had the power to choose the Senate as they wished. But after the Ovinian law, the censors had the task “having taken an oath, to enroll into the Senate the best men from [every] order.”80 Thus, apparently, began the lectio senatus, the enrolling of the Senate, the task for which the censorship became both famous and powerful.81 76 Passet (2020) 206–​209. 77 Bennedetto et al. (1973) 66 no. 31. 78 Livy 9.46.2; Pliny N.H. 33.19; InsIt 13.2.15,47; MRR I 168; Axtell (1907) 59; Hellegouarc’h (1963) 127; Freyburger (1986) 314–​315; Ziolkowski (1992) 21–​22; Orlin (1997) 163–​165; Akar (2013) 98; Humm (2005) 622–​623. 79 On the difficulties of precisely dating the laws see Mommsen (1887) II 418–​419 n.3 (312); Cornell (2000) 79; Bunse (2001) 152; Williamson (2005) 189 n.144, 452; Develin (2005) 301; Mitchell (2005); Stone (2005) 73; Bringmann (2007) 46; Hölkeskamp (2011c) 142ff. 80 Fest. 290 L: ex ordine optimum quemque [iur]ati in senatum legerent. I follow Cornell’s (2000) 83 and Clemente’s (2018) 206 emendation, but see Stone (2005) 71–​72; Jehne (2011a) 218. 81 Wlosok (1990) 91–​93; Martin (2002) 169; Humm (2017) 306–​307, 311; Clemente (2018) 206–​ 209; but see Mitchell (2005) 147.

70  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic What qualified the “best men”? Certainly some wealth and respectable family background were necessary for legitimate claims to senatorial status, but that cannot have been all.82 Both censors had to agree publicly to a candidate’s enrollment or rejection—​a process hardly necessary to check a pocketbook or a genealogy. Instead, as Clemente has argued, the agreement of two colleagues with veto power implies that the candidate also had to be socially inoffensive. Indeed, according to the law the censors had to apply a nota for failed candidates, a stated reason, which allowed the entire group to witness and understand what behavior would result in rejection—​thus cementing in norms in contested cases.83 The other evidence of the period, particularly the testimony of App. Claudius, has suggested what such behavior might be: a “fiercely insolent” ingenium, self-​ servingness, and lack of respect for one’s peers and for consensus, which marked a man as socially inept and thereby unfit for the exercise of government, an important source of honor. To that result may have been added shame: Festus claimed that before the lex Ovinia there was no disgrace in being passed over for the Senate, but that after the law men felt ashamed if they were excluded from the Senate.84 Shame indeed was a principal censorial sanction; as Cicero would later put it, the “censorial judgment offers no punishment beyond a blush.”85 Accordingly, the threat of the nota required senator and censor alike to consider carefully his own “face” and the “face” of others. We can fairly assume, moreover, that the former patrician aristocracy, who reportedly fought hard for most of the century to retain their exclusiveness, would desire the enrollment of those who most resembled themselves. The new plebeian members, in turn—​an entire group of novi homines—​would likely wish to mimic the patricians they had at last joined.86 The resulting social concord would have been critical in what were evidently rocky years as the plebeian and patrician nobles learned to coexist. Hanging all this evidence together, the social context around the end of the fourth century BC shaped and then helped to enforce restraint-​based social norms as the new patricio-​plebeian nobility set in, and directly and permanently connected the exercise of the norms to legitimate and successful participation in the performative competition. Numerous scholars have demonstrated that the creation of the new nobility set the baseline for the Republic’s culture and institutions for the rest of its history.87 Thus, even if we go no further back in time, we have found, if not the ore mine, then a primary forge of the values that came to restrain aristocratic competition for the remainder of the Roman 82 Cf. Cornell (1989b) 393–​394; Cornell (2000) 80. 83 Clemente (2018) 206–​209. Cf. Humm (2017). 84 Fest. 290 L. 85 Cic. de Rep. 4.6.6: censoris iudicium nihil fere damnato nisi ruborem offert. 86 Momigliano (1969) 28; Palmer (1970) 256–​265; Cornell (2000) 83; Develin (2005) 305; Clemente (2018) 207. 87 E.g., Hölkeskamp (1993) 36; Forsythe (2005) 276; Oakley (2014) 9; Clemente (2018) 204.

Setting Norms  71 Republic, and have watched how through further forgings amid expansion, economic growth, and exacting censorships, the restraint norms solidified, until over the second century they reached a form of habitus so ingrained that poets and playwrights could assume audiences steeped in it. Could we go back even earlier to see if we can find the ore mine, the wellspring? We are already at the dawn of reliable evidence, and behind this line lies little more than legend and conjecture.88 So if we continue, we must be aware of the severe limits of our knowledge, and should only cautiously hypothesize whether the new nobility adopted old values or created values afresh to help the new aristocracy meld. But four pieces of structural, religious, and legal evidence from this near-​darkness suggest assumption by the newly forming patricio-​ plebeian aristocracy of at least some preexisting values of an archaic patrician nobility that valued and institutionalized self-​restraint. First, one of the most ancient of Roman institutions: the interregnum. When a king died, the Senate appointed a series of interim kings (patrician interreges) who presided over the selection of a new king. Each interrex would hold office only a short time before the next interrex took over or a new king was chosen. In the Republic the system stayed in place when the consuls left the office vacant.89 The entire theory of the interregnum, of course, presupposed an aristocracy that had already recognized among itself and its members some general equality that had to be respected. As Andrew Drummond has observed, “the forms in which patrician political power was institutionalized from the start of the Republic sought both to forestall abuse and usurpation by individual magistrates and to ensure a major role for the voice of the patriciate as a whole. The principle of collective aristocratic authority is, indeed, already implicit in the interregnum procedure.”90 Second, Table X of the XII Tables restricted a list of sumptuous accoutrements at funerals, as well as (perhaps) excessive wailing. The precise meaning of some of the primeval prohibitions escaped even Cicero, and little more literary detail can be gleaned for certain. But, as Cristiano Viglietti has argued, archeological evidence shows that the Romans went beyond the law and enforced even unwritten social norms. Roman tombs from the sixth century bc suddenly start to lack not only the banned goods listed in the Table, but scarcely any other luxury goods at all; a remarkable phenomenon, quite atypical in the ancient world. A fair interpretation of this evidence is that the archaic Roman aristocracy had assumed some principle of isonomy, or perhaps wished to limit the field of competition to prevent parvenus from winning with excessive wealth and not family



88

Cf. Flower (2010b) 36–​37. Palmer (1970) 226–​232, 301; Forsythe (2005) 110. 90 Drummond (1989) 184. 89

72  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic social capital. In any event, cultural memory of this phenomenon could well seed a later ideal of a successful but personally moderate and temperate aristocrat who cared for the “faces” of other aristocrats and eschewed socially unsettling wealth.91 Third, the early existence of priestly collegia. It is certain that the collegiality of the consulship and other offices, whenever it occurred, was anticipated in the religious field.92 More important, certain restrictions on membership in priestly colleges appear quite antique, including that a single gens could not provide more than one member to a college, and that a person could not hold several collegial positions simultaneously.93 Such restrictions also suggest principles of isonomy among the aristocracy, which would require some measure of deference to the “face” of others. Moreover, it was not permitted for a priest to be co-​opted into a college if he had enmity with any member. In this arrangement may also be the possible origin of the ideal of deference to colleague: at all accounts enmity must be avoided to ensure the sacred operation of the priesthood.94 The same understandings probably would apply later to the consulship, especially given the close relationship of the ancient consulship to the auspices. There is indeed some hint of such understandings in the fasti: between 366 BC and 264 BC, at least nine pairs of men iterated in the consulship together, at least four times men iterated with a relative of a former colleague, and at least five times a pair of consuls later became censors together. But despite this type of iteration, never at the very beginning of the Republic did a single gens hold both consulships simultaneously, nor (with only one apparent and unrepeated exception in the first two years of the Republic) did any single man hold the consulship in successive years. Thus each individual aristocrat and each gens was evidently under considerable pressure even this early to show care simultaneously for the “face” of his colleague and also for the aristocracy as a whole, so as to share the offices with peers.95 Fourth, and finally, the nature of the consulship and other collegial offices. How and when the consulship assumed its final form is a subject of significant disagreement among modern scholars, although the traditional view—​that the consulship followed directly on the monarchy—​remains credible.96 We can in 91 Cic. de Leg. 2.59–​62; Fest. 158; Warmington (1935-​2006) III 498–​503; FIRA I 66–​69. Cf. Starr (1980) 74; Zanda (2001) 34–​36; Dyck (2004) 404–​405; Toher (2005) 269–​270, 286; Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 44–​45. Viglietti (2020) 131–​135 explains the evidence as a norm of elites attempting to conserve wealth to maintain census status, as well as isonomy. Still, as Viglietti agrees (151), later Romans could easily see an idealized personal parsimony in it. 92 Drummond (1989) 187; Forsythe (2005) 153. 93 McDonnell (2006) 198; cf. Dio 39.17.1–​2. 94 Cic. ad Fam. 3.10.9; Liebeschuetz (1979) 19; Develin (1985) 66. 95 Cf. Drummond (1989) 206; Smith (2011) 32. 96 On balance I am persuaded by Smith (2011) and Ogilvie (1965) 230–​231, although for the debate see Momigliano (1969) 19–​20; Levick (1982a) 57; Drummond (1989) 187–​188; Linderski (1990) 570; Cornell (1995) 218–​239; Martin (2002); Raaflaub (2005a) 13, 29; Forsythe (2005) 151–​153; Beck

Setting Norms  73 any event reasonably assume that, whatever the last monarch did or failed to do, his single, life-​long rule so displeased the aristocracy that (whether immediately or over the ensuing decades) they replaced it with two magistrates (likely originally called praetors) with equal powers and a limited term in office, and also experimented in the early years of the Republic with other time-​limited and collegial configurations of executive power (boards of magistrates, tribunes with consular powers, etc.). To explain this change, we need not invent in a Tarquin a depraved and violent man—​although it is of immense interest to the formation of the habitus of restraint that tradition made him so. Instead, as Jan Timmer has illustrated, iterative limited offices institutionalized mistrust that a leader would act in preferred ways, which suggests that the Romans’ institutional creations went hand-​in-​ glove with traits that they wished leaders to show but could not be quite trusted to have on their own.97 From the solutions upon which they settled we might deduce what those traits were. It is easy to focus on the power of the collegial veto to explain collegial institutions, or to see in yearly turnover of office the desire of the many gentes to participate in rule. But the veto cannot be the only reason for collegiality: why not simply declare a means by which a single leader who stepped out of line could be deposed, or devise a system by which his decisions could be overruled by the patres as a whole? Nor does the desire for iteration alone explain the turn to collegial configurations: the Romans apparently never tried to regularize a single king-​like magistrate in a one-​year term. The answer lies elsewhere. The college provided more than a negative vote: it exemplified in its marrow proper interpeer cooperation that even in this near-​ darkness we sense was idealized, the kind of deferential spirit that the last king legendarily lacked and that a next king could not be trusted to have. We have already seen that concord—​and not check-​and-​balance—​was the model collegial attitude. We have also seen that one of the built-​in advantages of paired collegiality is that it provided aristocrats with front-​and-​center partners whose “face” they had to take into account constantly—​partners with whom to practice the restraint values that made an effective college possible and the competition for office-​holding purposeful, and for displays of which traits men were rewarded with office. Thus, if the fear was that a monarch would not respect cherished traits of deference to the aristocracy’s collective “face” and personal restraint, collegial offices (whenever fully developed) provided a tailored resolution. The structures et al. (2011); Smith (2011); Oakley (2014), versus Hanell (1946); Heurgon (1964); Guarino (1969); Adcock (1957) 12–​13; Bringmann (2007) 15, 41–​46; Wiseman (2008) 298–​299; Holloway (2009) 74; Pina Polo (2011) 36–​38; Urso (2011) 41–​60; and Drogula (2015) 41–​42, 185–​188.

97

Timmer (2017) 220–​222.

74  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic forced a noble magistrate to calibrate respect for his colleague(s), prevented overt self-​serving behavior, and embodied deference for the nobility’s isonomy, ensuring that each aristocrat could legitimately compete for a piece of the former kings’ dignity without fear that another would snatch it away forever. The new structures, no doubt, in part stemmed reflexively from the antecedents of priesthoods and interreges. But even if they were not constructed with restraint consciously in mind, restraint ultimately proved useful and durable in its new structural home, a custom fit to the Romans’ cultural peculiarities and performative competition—​and thus restraint continued to support the new institutions until it became ingrained in Roman consciousness, maintained out of habit and because it generally worked. Whereupon, of course, collegiality, time-​limitation, and iteration themselves recommended models of restrained normative behav­ ior to future generations, until restraint norms and institutional structures were so intertwined that one could not tell which was chicken and which egg.98 All told, even avoiding excessive speculation, we can see in the Early Republic the ingredients and antecedents of the restraints on aristocratic competition that would be invoked over the course of the Republic’s entire history, and that subsequently crystallized into place as the new nobility solidified and drew from such antecedents to mold normative behavior in their own context. Their efforts then provided further wellsprings for later generations, until the sum total of these actions, antecedents, and beliefs—​bolstered by their utility to and interconnection with the Romans’ peculiar governing system, their repeated practice, the exempla illustrating them, the process of solidifying the norms through contestation, the writings of great men such as Cato memorializing them, and the Romans’ traditionalism—​congealed by the end of second century BC into that well-​entrenched habitus that caused the Romans of the first century and later to conceive unquestioningly of self-​restraint as primevally Roman and essential to the state.99 The weight and quality of this early evidence shows that the “cultural imaginary” of restraint was not altogether “imaginary,” but developed from real (if sometimes misremembered) roots. Nor was it an “arbitrary” social marker, but interlocked at every step with acceptable participation in the competition and thus with the wielding of legitimate power.100 On this view, normative views of restraint did not decline from a pristine past state to a sad later nadir. The late Roman narrative of decline did err there. Rather, the normative force of the belief that one must display restraint grew forward in time into place through contingency and contestation. The Romans nevertheless successfully handled contestation within those burgeoning restraint



98

Cf. Bourdieu (1990) 53); Hölkeskamp (2010) 54. Cf. Clemente (2018) 204. 100 Cf. Cic. de Rep. 2.1. 99

Setting Norms  75 principles for centuries, without violence, and without the crackup of the aristocratic group, which strongly indicates (and certainly indicated to later Romans) that this behavior was indispensable to the Republic. Still, as we will observe over the next several chapters, contestation over normative behavior within the fluid performative-​competitive framework never ceased, and the question of how to define and display restraint day-​to-​day continued to shift under the Romans’ feet, in unanticipated ways. The remaining task for this chapter, meanwhile, is to reconsider what light the Romans’ adoption and use of the restraints sheds on some modern theories about Roman culture and governance. As noted in the Introduction, modern scholarship on the Roman Republic has turned in recent decades to study the aristocracy’s governance of the Republic through the relatively informal and “flexible” performative display of aristocratic “capital,” a trend largely begun by Christian Meier, and carried on by Egon Flaig, Hölkeskamp, Catherine Steel, Nathan Rosenstein, and many others.101 The most important insight to be drawn from this work is that the Republic operated, not by “constitutional” or “institutional” rules, but largely through interpersonal relations among aristocrats and with the general public. But if this was so, then the Republic’s long-​term ability to resolve internal conflict without violence called for explanation, as did its ultimate failure. Meier’s solution was to imagine something approximating a code of ethics, an aristocratic self-​definition as a group of persons ennobled by offices and in service to the res publica.102 So powerfully did the nobility hold that vision of itself, he argued, that, as problems mounted, no one was willing to abandon the failing system in which he had a vested stake, which sparked, in Meier’s famed formulation, a “Krise ohne Alternative.”103 Hölkeskamp, who adds to Meier’s suggestion, has attributed much of the Republic’s long-​term stability to fealty to mos maiorum, what he considers an admirably plastic concept but one of considerable strength.104 Moreover, Hölkeskamp, following the famed sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Georg Simmel, observes that a competition tends to reify and reconstitute itself because the examples of people who “win” by following the competition’s particular rules (its habitus) further incentivize future competitors to follow the habitus.105 Timmer has lately added a theory that aristocratic “trust” lubricated complex “negotiation” over “policies,” thus lowering the “transaction costs” of governing in a Republican system that required consensus to make decisions.106 And, starting especially with Flaig, and moving through the



101

See, e.g., Introduction note 6. Meier (1995) 349–​363, (2017) 47. 103 See also Rosenstein (2006) 627–​628. 104 Hölkeskamp (2009) 3, (2010) 99, 105–​106. 105 Hölkeskamp (2014b) 39–​40 106 Timmer (2017) 99, 103–​104, 193–​195. 102

76  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic scholarship of Martin Jehne and Hölkeskamp particularly, historians have realized that the People were a stabilizing part of the “consensus system,” whose sharing of cultural capital with the aristocracy led to a steadying sense of hierarchy and common “Romanness.”107 Even more precisely, when attempting to place the People into the republican framework Hölkeskamp invoked Simmel’s insight that competition within a social group is not necessarily inimical to consensus. Instead, the process of competition can itself promote consensus and stability, provided that two conditions are met: first, that every person involved in the competition knows and understands the rules of the competition, and second, that there is a recognized third-​party judge (a “dritte Instanz”) to award prizes in the competition according to the rules.108 Hölkeskamp is surely right that in the Roman context both the People, who judged the aristocracy’s competition through elections (and through other, informal means such as mockery or praise of candidates or speakers in the Forum), and also the larger peer group instantiated in the Senate, which also could mediate and judge, together fulfilled the second condition of Simmel’s formulation.109 As Lundgreen puts it, the will of the Senate and People collectively acted as sort of a “rule of recognition” that could determine whether a person’s actions were legitimate.110 Gathering these ideas together, we see how Rome’s public competition could in theory achieve consensus, long-​term stability, and governmental legitimacy, provided that its rules were generally accepted and the competition deemed fairly refereed by the Senate and People as recognized judges. In this line of thinking, therefore, danger would come if a loser delegitimized the process of judging that gave rewards to the winners, or if the rules of the competition became overly disputed.111 But while Flaig, Hölkeskamp, Lundgreen, and others accurately placed the People and Senate into this system, and while Meier and Edwards understood how tradition and status bound the nobility together, scholars have not placed enough emphasis on the actual substance of the rules of the competition, except (in Meier’s case) to imagine them as a “collective ethos” of republicanism, or (in Edward’s case) to see in the rules “arbitrary” markers of elite standing, or (in Hölkeskamp’s case) to blanket them under the general heading of mos maiorum 107 E.g., Flaig (1995); Jehne (2011a); Hölkeskamp (2006) 363–​364, 379–​380, 386, (2009), (2013), (2014b); Beck (2009) 66. 108 Simmel (1992) 204, 323, 340; Hölkeskamp (2010) 99, (2014b) 34–​35; Morstein-​Marx (2009) 126; Steel (2011) 45. 109 Hölkeskamp (1993) 19, 34–​37, (2010) 25–​27, 99. Cf. Hopkins (1983) 113–​114; Millar (1984) 10–​14; Spielvogel (2004) 384; Sumi (2005); Steel (2011) 37; Rosillo-​López (2017). 110 Lundgreen (2011) 260–​266, borrowing the famous formulation of the legal scholar H. L. A. Hart. 111 Cf. Hölkeskamp (2006) 383, (2014b) 45.

Setting Norms  77 that created a sense of “belonging,” or (in Lundgreen’s case) to notice that a “disposition of yielding” was some part of the mix, or (in Timmer’s case) to speak vaguely of “trust,” without digging with a sharp enough analytical tool into what the object of trust was.112 Rather, the ubiquitous moderatio, modestia, temperantia, pudor, verecundia, care of existimatio, and deference to peer and colleague (and to groups of peers) provided the substance, the meta-​rules for the semiformal Republican system. Moderatio enforced hierarchy and reciprocity among nobles, while also ensuring that no one man would dominate the competition. Modestia too enforced hierarchy, encouraging the relatively young man to wait his turn for honores and the inferior man to obey. Temperantia regulated the strong emotions that could tempt one to disrupt the settled rules, become self-​serving, or ignore the group’s homogeneity. Pudor and verecundia, along with care for existimatio, enforced all these rules, and ensured that every peer had to respond carefully to the “face” of every other peer, which led to consensus. Deference arose from these values, and prescribed consensus, collegiality, and respect for the results of the competition. Display of these values supported institutional structures such as iterative offices and colleges, praise and blame incentivized their practice, and repeated exempla hammered the values into habitus, which in turn (just as Bourdieu and Simmel might have predicted) reproduced the results in later competitions, creating stability. Further, display of these behaviors gave the People substance to judge when determining who the winners (leaders) and losers of the system should be. As Flaig has shown, popular assemblies never greatly exerted themselves parsing “policy” when considering specific proposals or picking candidates, leaving the details to the aristocracy. For that matter, contra Timmer, very little of the evidence suggests that complex negotiations over “policy” positions constituted “governance” that required transaction-​cost-​lowering “trust” to work. Rather, the People concentrated on the candidates’ or promulgators’ character—​exactly why men touted their self-​control to voters—​and also praised or censured aristocrats over restraint in public settings and meetings. That suggests strongly that the populus Romanus had well-​formed conceptions of proper aristocratic behavior that they could wield extemporaneously with cheers and jeers in theaters and at speeches and the like, that they vetted aristocrats by those standards, and that they then simply trusted the vetted aristocrats to lead, while the substance of the standards explains why the People could trust leaders who displayed them to helm the system.113 112 Edwards (1993) 4, 26; Hölkeskamp (2010) 45 (citing Meier), (2014) 40–​41; Lundgreen (2011) 23. 113 Flaig (1995) 122, 124–​127. Cf. Steel (2011) 38; Jehne (2016); van der Blom (2017); Introduction note 6.

78  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Meanwhile, consensus around these values created a new competition that acted as a feedback loop and reinforcement mechanism. Roman men competed, often ostentatiously (e.g. Cato the Elder, Aemilius Paullus, the young Scipio Aemilianus, and later, Cato the Younger), in displaying restraint, for which they were rewarded with praise and often by the receipt of offices and honores. Indeed, the very fact that the Romans competed in displaying the values illustrates their cultural significance.114 Finally, because the values were appurtenant to the competition for republican office-​holding, it is small wonder that—​for all the diversity of types of evidence we have seen—​we should find such values at work for as long as that competition spun on. In sum, if the People and the Senate as judges were the second of Simmel’s sociological desiderata for controlled competition, the restraint values were the first desideratum, providing substantive rules that helped the competition-​ cum-​consensus function. That the Romans assumed that the maiores also held these values and that the values marked off the elite was important, of course, but the values’ perceived age and prestige were not alone the source of their power. Instead, the values provided a locus for consensus and had positive content, permitting the performative aristocratic competition to continue regularly, hierarchically, and with reasonable opportunity to pursue reliable rewards. If the conditions generated by the values were generally in place, the right men could win and fit neatly into governing structures intertwined with the values, and peers and the People could accept their victory, giving the exercise of power in the Republic legitimacy—​which is to say the libera res publica functioned optimally only when the restraint norms were generally understood and honored among aristocrats who could generally trust that their fellows would also abide by the values, and when no malfeasant could overly upset the peer group’s and People’s ability to police the boundaries of normative behavior. In this way we have placed “morals” back into their proper place in the Roman social and political framework—​and without having to claim that the Republic worked just because the earliest Romans were preternaturally moral humans. Instead, the values, through contestation, exemplary traditions, and time, created a self-​reinforcing, stabilizing group habitus that assumed a reasonably secure shape and function by the second century BC, by which point the values’ critical role in the republican schema, their concomitant symbolic currency, their pedigree, and their resulting place in the Romans’ habitual mental map together accounted for the Romans’ ubiquitous, ceaseless, near-​obsession with them—​ that aspect of Roman rhetoric and culture long underexplained or discounted. The story does not end here. The very fact that restraint principles were considered vital to a properly functioning Republic meant, necessarily, that restraint

114

Roller (2018) 9–​11.

Setting Norms  79 was politically sensitive and carried high emotional valence. And although the Romans had successfully piloted through contests over restraint in several changing contexts, such contests necessarily meant that human men might not forever agree on what restraint meant or how to balance it against self-​advancement in a given situation, even if all agreed in the abstract that restraint must be observed. Could intermingling political legitimacy with imprecise but dearly held social values help to bring the Simmelian rules and judging process too much into question? Might the values then delegitimize the competition? Perhaps, in some new context, something in this intricate social dynamic might crack instead of resolve. With that observation, we turn to follow the thread of restraint through the narrative arc of the Romans’ late-​republican history, beginning with the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus.

PART II

REST R A IN T, C ON FLIC T, A ND C OL L A PSE Part II follows the restraint values through the narrative arc of Republican history from the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus until 49 bc, observing how the values affected decision-​making and the microprocesses of historical causation. It argues that the Romans conceived of both interpersonal conflicts and larger trends exclusively through a restraint-​based mental framework. It also shows how during this time restraint norms became highly contested as never before as a series of new forces converged, and how those contests became irreconcilable as the judgment group fractured over how to apply the norms in the new circumstances. In this way, these deeply held values that once led to consensus now no longer caused the society to cohere, but turned into points of hot dispute that instead caused social fraying. And because the Romans inextricably intertwined the exercise of legitimate governance with these now-​volatile norms, their semiformal political system ceased to garner confidence and voluntary recognition of legitimacy. Instead, violence and force took the place of trust in Republican institutions and processes, until the Republic became only a name.

4

Tiberius Gracchus Cicero, Appian, and Cassius Dio believed that the tribunate and murder of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (c. 163–​133) formed a fulcrum of qualitative change in the Republic’s operation. Appian took a long view. In the farthest past, he wrote, there had often been conflict between the People and Senate, but the disagreements remained “within the limits of the law,” and the parties settled them by “yielding” to each other. But when Tiberius promulgated his famed agrarian law, said Appian, “disorderly hubris took hold,” along with violence and a “shameful disdain for laws and justice,” which precipitated the Republic’s demolition.1 Cassius Dio taught that Tiberius sowed discord because of his “love of honor” (φιλοτιμίαν), despite his excellent nature and upbringing. After Tiberius proposed his law, Dio wrote, there was no “practice of moderation” (οὐδὲν μέτριον ἐπράττετο), but as Tiberius and his fellow-​tribune M. Octavius jealously vied “to be superior to each other rather than to benefit the state,” they “brought about unusual things more appropriate for war than peace.” The result was murder and institutional disorder: magistrates could not perform their duties, courts stopped operating, contracts ceased, and everything was in upheaval and confusion.2 Cicero wrote that Tiberius “sought to overturn the Republic,” he “convulsed it,” “he tried to—​no, rather—​he did rule like a king for a few months.” “For, as you see,” Cicero said, “the death of Tiberius Gracchus, and even before that the entire method of his tribunate, split the unified people into two parties.”3 That suffices for Cicero’s belief in Tiberius’ anti-​republicanism. Partisan claims, perhaps, but not without reason. The most obvious indicator of actual qualitative social change is that, from legendary times at least, political violence and murder simply did not happen in the Republic. And then, with

1 App. B.C. 1.1.1: ἔννομοι . . . εἴκοντες, 1.1.2: ὕβρις τε ἄκοσμος ἐπεῖχεν αἰεὶ δι᾽ ὀλίγου καὶ νόμων καὶ δίκης αἰσχρὰ καταφρόνησις. Cf. Sall. B.C. 9.1–​3. 2 Dio 24.83.1, 4–​ 5: ἀντιφιλονεικοῦντες περιγενέσθαι μᾶλλον ἀλλήλων ἢ τὸ κοινὸν ὠφελῆσαι . . . πολλὰ δὲ καὶ ἄτοπα, ὥσπερ ἐν πολέμῳ τινὶ ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ εἰρήνῃ, ἔπαθον. 3 Cic. de Fin. 4.24.65: rem publicam studuerit . . . evertere, de Har. Resp. 19.41 convellit statum, de Am. 12.41: Ti. Gracchus regnum occupare conatus est, vel regnavit is quidem paucos menses, de Re Pub. 1.31: nam, ut videtis, mors Tiberii Gracchi et iam ante tota illius ratio tribunatus divisit populum unum in duas partis. Cf. Vell. Pat. 2.3.3; Flor. 2.2.14; Murray (1966); Béranger (1972); Clark (2007) 131. Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.003.0005

84  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic the killing of Tiberius Gracchus, they did.4 By using the restraint values as interpretive tools we can move past partisan theses to hone in on why this tribunate ushered in novel bloodshed: two groups of aristocrats (or, in the end, one aristocrat alone and a group of aristocratic opponents) each appealed to traditional restraint values in irreconcilable ways, or appeared unrestrainable in unprecedented ways. Violence was the unprecedented solution. It was not that one side was objectively restrained and one not. Instead, the crux was that each side could plausibly claim that it was drawing on traditional restraint and its opponent(s) not. That explains why the narrative coheres around restraint in every extant version of Tiberius’ story, both in traditions favorable to him and in those opposed, even when the later authors—​writing long after the fact, and through layers of confusion and partisanship—​did not always name or recognize the restraints underlying the characters’ actions. The story begins in Numantia in Spain. Young Tiberius was posted there in 137 BC under the hapless consul C. Hostilius Mancinus. When Hostilius found his army surrounded he asked for terms, and the Numantines replied they would treat only with Tiberius, whose family had a reputation and clientela there. Tiberius negotiated the truce, wrote Dio, in the hopes that he would be honored. After all, his treaty saved the lives of thousands of citizen-​soldiers. But the Senate, apparently thinking surrender shameful, disavowed his treaty and continued the war, and some in Rome even advised that the cowardly consul and his officers be delivered naked to the Numantines, as failed leaders of ancient times had been sacrificed to enemies.5 The People, influenced by Scipio the Younger, spared most of the officers (but not Hostilius) this indignity, but Tiberius nevertheless came away from the entire affair humiliated. The Senate had apparently ratified similar treaties recently, and, to the extent that we can take Dio’s later diagnosis at face value, Tiberius “came to perceive that one’s deeds are estimated, not according to one’s worth or the truth, but through sheer luck.” Certainly, however, Tiberius’ reputation, and thus political future, was wounded. That detail, though uncontroversial, should not be underestimated. Nor should we underestimate another point, from Plutarch: despite the acerbic reaction of the nobiles, Tiberius received effusive thanks and praise from the families of the common soldiers whose lives he had saved.6 A bifurcation in the judgment-​group was emerging, making space for a wedge. 4 Cf. Boren (1961) 358; Millar (1984) 2. Lintott (1968) 70–​71, 209 is contra, but with scant evidentiary support. 5 Plut. Tib. 5.1–​4, 7.1–​2; Cic. de Off. 3.109; Val. Max. 1.6.7; Dio 24.83.2; de Vir. Ill. 59. Cf. Stockton (1979) 29; Bloomer (1992) 37. 6 Cic. Brut. 103; Dio 24.83.2–​3: ἔγνω καὶ τὰ πράγματα οὐκ ἀπ᾽ ἀρετῆς οὐδὲ ἐπ᾽ ἀληθείας, ἀλλ᾽ ὥς που καὶ ἔτυχεν, ἐξεταζόμενα; Vell. Pat. 2.2.1; Plut. Tib. 7.1; Flor. 2.2.14; Oros. 5.8.3; Morgan and Walsh (1978) 200–​203; Bernstein (1978) 69–​70, 117–​119; Stockton (1979) 29–​30; Rosenstein (1990) 137, 148–​150, 198–​199; Konrad (2006) 167; Steel (2013) 68.

Tiberius Gracchus  85 Tiberius returned to a city wrestling with its own controversies. During the Second Punic war nearly a century before, some of Rome’s allies had gone over to Hannibal. In retribution, Rome had taken their lands and sold them to her own citizens. Richer citizens naturally did best in the arrangement, consolidating massive plots for themselves, although a law dating to the 360s bc forbade owning more than 500 iugera of land (likely on the belief that the concentration of too much land in the hands of a few individuals was bad for the community, or that large estates were untraditional—​an interpretation bolstered by archeological evidence of the small land distributions made when founding Roman colonies).7 Nevertheless, through shell transactions some owners continued to accrue huge holdings, apparently turning them into slave-​run estates that undercut neighboring smallholders, who were forced into Rome to find work, which undermined Rome’s ability to recruit them as soldiers.8 Restraint shaped the Romans’ mental reaction to this economic situation. Tiberius reportedly traveled by such estates in anguish, and upon becoming tribune of the plebs in 133 BC promulgated his agrarian law, apparently both to help the poor and to burnish his reputation. The terms of the bill were simple: illegal holders had to surrender excess land, with compensation, and with no fines or penalties, to commissioners who would redistribute the land to smallholders. As soon as Tiberius had conceived of his law, his first move, we are told, was to gather notable supporters. Among these were P. Licinius Crassus Mucianus Dives, cos. 131 BC, father-​in-​law to Tiberius’ brother Gaius Gracchus and later pontifex maximus, and Tiberius’ father-​in-​law Ap. Claudius Pulcher, cos. 143 BC, cen. 136 BC, and current princeps senatus, who, along with Tiberius and Gaius, would be on the board of land commissioners after the law’s passage. Tiberius also attracted P. Mucius Scaevola, consul that year, and brother of Crassus Mucianus. A well-​known iurisprudens, Scaevola likely co-​drafted the law with Tiberius, Claudius, and Crassus. Other known or probable supporters of Tiberius included C. Papirius Carbo, cos. 120 BC, C. Porcius Cato, grandson of Cato the Elder, a Fulvius Flaccus (either Gaius, cos. 134 BC, Marcus, cos. 125 BC, or Servius, cos. 135 BC), a consular named “Manilius” or “Manlius,” and Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, cos. 143 BC and later censor in 131.9 7 ORF3 65–​66 fr. 167 (=​Gell. 6.3.37); Badian (1972a) 701–​706; Stockton (1979) 47–​48; Bauman (1983) 255–​260; Forsythe (2005) 265; Konrad (2006) 168; Rich (2020) 179–​180. 8 The actual extent and origin of these problems are strongly debated, although clearly contemporaries saw the situation as a problem, and interpreted it, as we will see, through the lens of restraint. Cf. Earl (1963) 40–​60; Becker (1964); Brunt (1965a); Badian (1969) 210–​213; Brunt (1971) 77–​78; Nagle (1970-​1971); Badian (1972a) 674–​690, 92–​93; Bernstein (1978) 127–​49, 157–​59; Stockton (1979) 31–​35; Bauman (1983) 249–​272; Horvath (1994); Lintott (1994) 62–​65; Rosenstein (2004); Spielvogel (2004) 394; Harris (2016) 90–​91; Maschek (2018) 119 n.19, 136–​139; Balbo (2020). 9 Tib. 8.5–​6, 9.1–​2, 11.1; Cic. de Re Pub. 1.31. Cf. Badian (1972a) 691; Briscoe (1974) 127–​132; Bernstein (1978) 110, 150; Stockton (1979) 27–​28, 36, 57; Bauman (1983) 247–​248, although see 271–​272 and Gruen (1968) 53 on the difficulties of identifying “Manlius.”

86  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Plutarch described these glittering republican heavyweights with two words. The first was that they possessed ἀρετή, by which Plutarch seems to have meant moral “virtue”: he quickly contrasted these men’s ἀρετή to the πλεονεξία (“arrogant greed”) of the πλούσιοι καὶ κτηματικοὶ (“rich and opulent men”), which caused them to hate the law, and their ὀργή and φιλονεικία (“wrath” and “love of strife”) which caused them to hate the law’s promulgator.10 But Tiberius’ detractors and supporters cannot be divided crassly into neat economic factions of “rich” versus “poor,” as both Plutarch and Appian tended to do.11 Tiberius’ supporters were as rich and powerful as any Romans could be. Plutarch’s colorful description of them as a band of virtuous citizens soon to clash with a luxuriant den of the “wealthy” therefore is either a misinterpretation (willful or otherwise) on Plutarch’s part, or perhaps something more interesting: a trace in his own sources of a forked rhetorical judgment of the actors along the lines of temperantia, despite the actual relative economic and social equality of the disputants. The second term reveals another aspect of the restraint schema: δόξα, Tiberius’ supporters’ “reputation,” what in Latin would involve dignitas and existimatio.12 In light of the restraint values, this impressive list of officeholders was not just a kindly group of like-​minded men with ἀρετή: it was the tried-​and-​true group of noble peers with compelling weight of combined dignitas to prevail on others, which would be necessary for Tiberius’ success. Even if convinced of his law’s legality, he would need a culturally-​consonant way to convince dignified, wealthy opponents to abandon their lands (filled by now after decades of ownership with the bones of their ancestors and mingled with their wives’ and daughters’ dowries, as Appian reports them arguing).13 Indeed, a similar law had recently failed. C. Laelius, pr. 145 BC, cos. 140, a close companion of Tiberius’ cousin (and brother-​in-​law) Scipio the Younger, had considered some kind of agrarian law at some point in the 150s or 140s bc and had been dissuaded. Plutarch, unfortunately, is the sole source for this proposed law, stating briefly only that Laelius’ failure came because “the powerful men (δυνατοί) clashed with him” and he feared some “upheaval” if he persisted.14 We must be careful reading overmuch into such short sentences, but the schema of restraint was plausibly at work here. There is no indication that Laelius gathered any substantial help from influential nobles; if Laelius had gotten full-​throated aid from his friend Scipio, Plutarch likely would have mentioned it. As a result,

10 Tib. 9.1–​3. 11 Cf. App. B.C. 1.1.10; Pelling (1986) 166–​181; Magnino (1993) 526. 12 Tib. 9.1; TLL V,2 Fasc. X 1512. 13 App. B.C. 1.1.10. 14 Tib. 8.5: ἀντικρουσάντων δὲ τῶν δυνατῶν φοβηθεὶς τὸν θόρυβον. Cf. Scullard (1960) 62–​66; Bernstein (1978) 113; Stockton (1979) 33; Bauman (1983) 253 n.182.

Tiberius Gracchus  87 when some unknown δυνατοί—​who, we can gather from the plural, did form some sort of group—​obstructed, Laelius dropped his law, thus deferring to the combined will of his collected opponents. Laelius also may have brought his legislation as a tribune in 151 BC, which would make him relatively young compared to the “powerful,” and thus susceptible to modestia. In any event, for his capitulation Laelius obtained the flattering (or, perhaps, for stupidly venturing immodestly on his own, the ironic) epithet Sapiens, “Wise.” Thus, although Plutarch’s brevity forces some conjecture, the episode maps deference’s behavioral pattern: nobles gathered, deference resulted, the deferrer was rewarded and praised (or shamed for his error?).15 Tiberius surely wished to avoid the same failure as Laelius. Consequently, he resorted from the first to the Roman means of obtaining deference par excellence: a mass of nobilissimi. How exactly he managed it, and why these particular men (most of whom were not relatives) is uncertain, but once we cast his actions against the background workings of restraint, his move makes complete sense. Success would require persuasive—​and plural—​pressure up front. But not too much pressure, and not in the wrong way. Deference also explains why the terms of the first draft of the law, as Plutarch stated, were mild. Again, the holders of illegal lands would be compensated, with no fines or other penalties. Plutarch, tellingly, took this lenity amiss: he would have liked to have seen the grasping wrongdoers punished harshly. Rarely is it so patent how distant Plutarch is from his subject’s context. Under the plan, the wealthy landholders, evidently Tiberius’ elders and superiors, would suffer as little loss as possible in exchange for obedience to a law supported by their grandest peers and passed with the imprimatur of the People, and would fear no invidia—​no convictions or fines to their shame. Tiberius (a recent victim of dishonor himself) modestly showed no desire to lord it over anyone. That might be enough to prevent a group of δυνατοί from forming a persuasive opposition, while his company’s own combined dignitas and ample show of moderatio would both disarm discontent and also shield him from being cowed himself into submission. Tiberius and his supporters, working within their familiar schema of restraint behavior, would reasonably believe that these factors might tip the lawbreakers into the expected dignified compliance, while maintaining proper relations with them, all to Tiberius’ praise and the People’s benefit.16 Tiberius’ actions, that is, made perfect sense within his habitus. The opponents, however, refused and began to resist the bill. Such resistance in defense of one’s wealth and thus standing was not shocking, which is why Tiberius was sure to begin with weighty supporters and modest terms. But the

15

16

Although Scullard (1960) 63–​64 and Lintott (1994) 62 propose later promulgations. Tib. 9.2; Diod. Sic. 34/​35.5.1.

88  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic opposition also understood the habitus’ rules of counter-​balance. Appian relates an important detail about their methods: they “stood together in groups,” a point his sources apparently thought worth noting.17 Both sides knew the force of dignitas and the value of groups of peers. Yet because, perhaps unlike in Laelius’ attempt, Tiberius had been careful to amass enough dignitas-​density in his favor to counter-​weigh pressure, the opponents of the law at length decided to shift course. Their next move was to turn to an impeccably traditional method to try to influence a magistrate. Enter Tiberius’ fellow-​tribune Marcus Octavius. Plutarch described him as “a companion of Tiberius and a friendly acquaintance” and “dignified and moderate in bearing.” These are important traits within the ideal of concordia among peers and, especially here, colleagues. The opponents knew this ideal well: giving up speaking against Tiberius directly, as Plutarch tells us, the opponents “turned” (τρέπονται) to Octavius. Given the plural verb, they came to him, predictably, in a group. Their implicit assumption was that if Tiberius would not cede to them, he might defer to a colleague. That is exactly the assumption previously observed: we saw in Chapter 1, for instance, how Tiberius’ own father reportedly inspired deference in his colleague Aburius regarding M. Fulvius Nobilior’s triumph, even when the Senate’s pleas did not.18 But on hearing the landowners’ overtures, wrote Plutarch, “because of ” his status as Tiberius’ “companion and acquaintance,” Octavius “at first withdrew, feeling shame on account of Tiberius.”19 This sentence deserves pause. Start with the verb: Octavius ἀνεδύετο, meaning “to withdraw, to draw back from.” Recall that pudor might cause silence, downcast eyes, or an actual withdrawal.20 Octavius’ physical reaction shows that he was feeling what he would have called pudor in the face of his colleague; indeed, Plutarch described Octavius’ behavior with αἰδώς. Pudor, as seen in Chapter 1, was connected to fear of losing one’s existimatio, and thus might restrain one from taking an action one perceived as wrong, as Octavius “at first” apparently did. But, at that point, of what could Octavius possibly have been so ashamed that he should physically withdraw? He had as yet done nothing except hear the request of a group of powerful men who wished him to act contrary to the plan of his well-​supported peer and colleague. And that is precisely it. His reaction 17 App. B.C. 1.1.10: συνιστάμενοι δὴ κατὰ μέρος. Cf. Diod. Sic. 34/​35.6.2 18 Tib. 10.1: ἑταῖρος δὲ τοῦ Τιβερίου καὶ συνήθης; ἐμβριθής τὸ ἦθος καὶ κόσμιος. Note the contrasting description in Dio 24.83.4: ὅτι Μᾶρκος Ὀκτάουιος τῷ Γράκχῳ διὰ φιλονεικίαν συγγενικὴν ἑκὼν ἀντηγωνίζετο (“Marcus Octavius willingly opposed Gracchus because of a congenitally contentious temperament”). Cf. Badian (1972a) 701 n.99; Epstein (1983) 297–​298. The irreconcilable picture suggests the conflicting judgments of the authors’ sources, which hinge, critically, on Octavius’ modeling vel non of moderatio and temperantia. On Aburius see Chapter 1 note 21. 19 Tib. 10.2: διὸ τὸ μὲν πρῶτον αἰδούμενος ἐκεῖνον ἀνεδύετο. 20 Kaster (2005) 32; Cairns (1993) 433. Cf. Jenkins (1992) 75; Bourdieu (1993b) 122–​146; Flaig (1993) 202.

Tiberius Gracchus  89 aligned with normative deference and intercolleague concord. It was “because of ” (διὸ τὸ) Octavius’ status as Tiberius’ companion and peer—​and, no doubt, of his being “moderate in bearing”—​that Octavius felt shame at his callers’ request that he oppose a colleague’s moderate and well-​supported plan. But even putting aside Plutarch’s (centuries-​late) language, we can see behind Octavius’ physical behavior the push and pull of the forces that shaped Roman inter-​peer, and here especially inter-​colleague, interactions. Octavius now faced a serious dilemma within the familiar framework of restraint. The value of deference to group dignitas of the “powerful” squared against the pudor enmeshed with deference to colleague—​no doubt with Octavius’ own ambition as a potent variable. And so, in Plutarch’s vivid description: πολλῶν δὲ καὶ δυνατῶν δεομένων καὶ λιπαρούντων ὥσπερ ἐκβιασθεὶς ἀντικαθίστατο τῷ Τιβερίῳ καὶ διεκρούετο τὸν νόμον. Because of the begging and persistent pleading of the powerful, he began to oppose Tiberius as though compelled by violence, and resisted the law.21

Despite their name, the “powerful” clearly could not simply order Octavius to oppose Tiberius, and although they might hope that their begging would work (why else bother to ask?), it evidently could be achieved only through persistent and plural coaxing—​which would best be explained if Octavius was trying to calculate the relative dignitas stores of Tiberius’ backers and of the “powerful.” At some point unsalvageable to history, the scales tipped in Octavius’ mind “as though compelled by violence.” Wherever Plutarch derived this turn of phrase, it described a fact of Roman aristocratic relations: in Chapter 1, we saw repeatedly that deference to groups of peers could be a more powerful goad than the threat of physical force or urgent military emergency. Provoked by this development, Tiberius stripped out the provision of the law that permitted compensation.22 This move evokes a meeting that Livy described between Hannibal and Scipio the Elder. When Hannibal refused to seek peace willingly, Scipio declared himself unbound by verecundia—​that is, he no longer felt obligated to avoid confrontation.23 He could now push his interests in full.24 That sentiment resonates with Tiberius’ actions here, with less regard for the landowners’ existimatio that he had modestly cultivated the first time around. And yet his modestia had not yet completely given out, as subsequent events show.



21

Tib. 10.2. Tib. 10.3. 23 Livy 30.31.9. 24 Cf. Kaster (1995) 15. 22

90  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Octavius and Tiberius now matched off in oratorical counterpoint over the law nearly daily in the Forum. At this point in the narrative, Plutarch lapses into purple. Although the two rivals, he wrote, struggled against each other with great “earnestness and ambition for victory,” they did not speak ill of each other, or lash out in unseemly anger.25 To Plutarch, this was proof of their excellent “moral natures and upbringing.”26 This sort of talk might at first glance seem like Plutarch’s attempt to suit the heroic mien or to raise the dramatic stakes—​ but Plutarch insouciantly mentions that he got these details from some outside sources.27 Thus, “noble natures” or no, the public fact of the pair’s mutual restraint at this juncture is attested by more than Plutarch’s say-​so, and some older sources—​perhaps especially shocked by the contrast to the later break—​had found worth reporting displays of collegiality, temperantia, and modestia laudably at work at this stage of the story. Indeed, such collegiality was expected because for more than 150 years there had been no recorded instance of a tribune vetoing a plebiscite over the wishes of his colleague—​sure evidence of long-​standing consensus and yielding.28 Tiberius could foresee competing speeches, but reasonably could calculate that eventually Octavius (or himself, if the wind smelled wrong) would defer, and the bill either go to a vote or be dropped. Because of this, there was no reason for any untoward personal abuse, and collegial deference in theory and practice repressed such bile. If it did not (Romans being but human), the perpetrators could always be rebuked. Plutarch thus misinterpreted his sources’ reports of these speeches. When contemporary sources took note of the speakers’ civility, Plutarch saw it as evidence of the speakers’ unusually moral characters, without correctly attributing these facts to the normative restraint dynamic (long vanished by Plutarch’s day) of the republican collegial system. But when neither Octavius nor Tiberius would budge, the pressure began to grow. Tiberius closed the temple of Saturn to prevent all public business until a vote was held—​a stunning move. The stroke is best explicable as a tit-​for-​tat response to the unnerving and extraordinary resistance of his colleague. The “wealthy,” in response, went about in rags and mourning.29 Their garb takes on a restraint attribute when we recognize that it was meant to bring their opponents into invidia.30 When the day of voting arrived, the opposition stole the voting urns, while the supporters of Tiberius banded together. Tiberius ordered the 25 Tib. 10.5: ἄκρας σπουδῆς καὶ φιλονεικίας. 26 Tib. 10.6: τὸ πεφυκέναι καλῶς καὶ πεπαιδεῦσθαι σωφρόνως. 27 Tib. 10.5: λέγονται. 28 Badian (1972a) 697–​701, 706. Cf. Bernstein (1978) 185; Stockton (1979) 64; Bauman (1983) 279; Lintott (1994) 66–​67; Lundgreen (2011) 277, 282; Flaig (2017) 400–​401. Contra are Morgan and Walsh (1978) 205–​206, although with little support in the sources. 29 Tib. 10.7. 30 Gruen (1968) 16–​17, 20; Lintott (1968) 16–​17.

Tiberius Gracchus  91 clerk to read out the law; Octavius vetoed and ordered the clerk to keep silent. Tiberius, rebuking him, but still respecting his colleague’s decisions, delayed the voting a day. The next morning, the scene repeated. Then, for the first time, collegial restraint showed clear unmended seams. The two fell to “reviling” (λοιδοριῶν) each other.31 At this precise moment, Appian reported, some “powerful men” approached Tiberius and Octavius to ask them to turn the matter over to the Senate to arbitrate.32 Plutarch is more specific: two consulars, Μάλλιος (possibly the aforementioned Manilius or Manlius) and Fulvius (Flaccus, the Gracchan partisan?), rushed up to Tiberius and fell to their knees, “weeping and begging him to stop,” and asking that Tiberius immediately put the issue—​“beyond their worthiness to advise,” they said, even as consulars—​to the full curia. If these men were part of Tiberius’ original group of supporters, as seems likely, we might well ask their motives—​should not they have been standing with Tiberius in support of their law at this crucial juncture?33 And what advice would Tiberius ask the Senate that he could not ask them? We now must make a firm distinction. It is tempting to assume (as did Plutarch and Appian) that the most important issue facing the players was the content or policy of Tiberius’ law, which had created two factions, one poor, one rich, one for, one against, the law’s provisions. But if that is so, then the two consulars here, and shortly the consul P. Mucius Scaevola, who helped draft the law, appeared to switch sides, or declare fickle neutrality, for no evident reason. They obviously had foreseen strong opposition from powerful senators when they first endorsed or even personally composed the law—​why reject it just when the voters were gathering? And Tiberius obviously needed no more input on the law’s content; he could get no better advice or draftsmanship in the curia than he already had gotten. The answer, of course, is that these senators did not need further reflection about the content of the law. It would, indeed, persist after Tiberius’ death and be enforced by his supporters, including Appius Claudius, princeps senatus.34 Instead, it was the process of promulgation that grieved two consulars so much that they would kneel before a young tribune and beseech him to desist.35 That process at first had followed, and now for the first time pushed against, the 31 Tib. 11.1; App. B.C. 1.1.12. On the confused timeline of the day, see Badian (1972a) 720–​721; Stockton (1979) 62–​63. 32 App. B.C. 1.1.12. 33 Tib. 11.2–​3: δακρύοντες ἐδέοντο παύσασθαι . . . οὐκ ἔφασαν ἀξιόχρεῳ εἶναι πρὸς τηλικαύτην εἶναι συμβουλίαν. Badian (1972a) 706 n.116 conjectured that they held mutually opposing views of the law, which if true would suggest that the ideal of deference transcended any particular issue. 34 Stockton (1979) 38–​39, 81; Flower (2010b) 102; Maschek (2018) 146–​148. 35 Scullard (1960) 65; Earl (1967) 291–​292, 296; Seager (1977) 386–​387; Bernstein (1978) 110, 161, 198–​225; Stockton (1979) 84; Lintott (1994) 67–​73.

92  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic traditional normative behavior patterns. Tiberius had gathered his supporting group of grandees. He found powerful, plural opposition. Not an insurmountable problem, but enough to prompt modest caution. The law’s first provisions had anticipated this. He had made his speeches. All well to that point. Then his tribunician colleague balked from backing down—​unexpectedly and without precedent in more than a century and a half, but there it was. Query: should not Tiberius himself now cede, just as Laelius the Wise had? No clear answer or precedent presented itself. Moreover, the consulars believed that their own influence was insufficient to sway this out-​of-​the-​ordinary clash of wills. Instead, the full Senate, as a far greater collection of authority, would decide. Someone soon might be victus consensu omnium, or perhaps some compromise would be reached, and all would be well. And so the consulars approached the young Tiberius together with tears, using the exact same shame and deference patterns recently used on Octavius, and directing and shaping fluid “official” power by potent social means. Tiberius was not insensitive to this time-​trusted tactic. Reportedly indeed moved δι᾽αἰδῶ for the pair of noble men—​“by shame” and reciprocal respect once again—​he agreed to their entreaty. Appian further reported that Tiberius consented because he felt that the law was “satisfactory to all well-​thinking men.” That is something of a puzzle, for if Tiberius was so confident of the law’s acceptability to most senators, why had he not approached the whole Senate before, perhaps even before promulgating the bill?36 To be trapped by the puzzle is to miss the issue: perhaps Tiberius only now thought the matter worthy of Senate’s advice because only now did he believe a serious enough problem had arisen. Again, not with the law’s content, but with its passage, which had started in accepted, traditional ways, but was careening only now into rancor as restraining concordia among colleagues, along with moderatio and temperantia, were for the first time breaking down. And so Tiberius went to the senators. What happened in the Senate is opaque; the meeting was kept secret. Neither Plutarch nor Appian knew much except to say that there Tiberius was “insulted” by the “rich.” But this was a more important moment than either Plutarch or Appian understood. Tiberius must have asked the Senate to rebuke Octavius’ unexpected stubbornness. But rather than getting satisfactory arbitration, Tiberius evidently found himself slighted. Why the Senate, or consul, or Tiberius’ father-​in-​law the princeps senatus, refused to or were unable to help him is as obscure to us as it was likely confusing to him. Perhaps Tiberius’ supporters summed up the opposition and now felt 36 Tib. 11.2; App. B.C. 1.1.12: ὡς δὴ πᾶσι τοῖς εὖ φρονοῦσιν ἀρέσοντος τοῦ νόμου. Modern scholars, mercifully, have debunked the old canard that Tiberius “legally” had to bring the bill to the Senate before bringing it to the People for a vote. Badian (1972a) 694–​696; Bernstein (1978) 162; Stockton (1979) 64; Lintott (1994) 67; Konrad (2006) 168; von Ungern-​Sternberg (2014) 79.

Tiberius Gracchus  93 overpowered, and duly deferred. Perhaps Tiberius’ abuse of his colleague, combined with the closing of the treasury and the harshening of the law, showed the senators that he had lost self-​control. But to Tiberius, the result was a sour shock, and to his thinking, the Senate would have failed in its expected function as an acceptable judge. The Senate should daunt obstinate malfeasants into submission, rendering a man victus consensu omnium, or otherwise attempt some settlement while sparing the dignitas of the contestants. But that day, in Tiberius’ mind, it did not—​and recall Dio’s remark that after Numantia Tiberius learned that luck, and not merit, determined how one was estimated. If that was true, the competition would be pointless. Worse, he almost certainly concluded, immoral, illegal greed must have been a motivating factor in his slight; we have evidence of Tiberius decrying the “luxury and wealth” of the senators for whom the People fought wars and died. At this moment, then, we can see a question form in his mind: why should immoral, arbitrary, ungrateful senators supporting my extremist, untraditional, undeferential colleague be respected as judges of my conduct—​especially if there is another proper judge who has recently been deferential and grateful to me?37 The question was the natural product of the habitus. Tiberius to this point had acted according to a reflexive logic: first, gain others’ accession to one’s wishes through one’s high office-​status or dignitas. If one did not have that on one’s own, being so young (or recently disgraced), gain it through the help of a group of friends’ office-​status and dignitas; failing that, gain it through a show of modestia and moderatio in a law that appealed to and protected others’ existimatio and pudor; failing that, gain it through debate to convince a colleague to act in concord and to cede modeste; failing that, try repeatedly to convince him; failing that, gain it through senatorial influence; failing that, defer one’s self with proper modestia. But for Tiberius, for reasons certainly related to the happenstance of his failed Numantine treaty and Octavius’ unusual resistance, that final link in the chain was unacceptable.38 And so, failing that final link? Tiberius was certainly not the first Roman man to persist past what others deemed proper, but all the same he was not consciously rejecting normative behavior. Instead, his subsequent actions show reluctance and perplexity in this novel circumstance about how to take the only remaining steps conceivable within the habitus: he decided, lest he have to defer to his opponents, to gain others’ submission through appeal to the theoretical greatest judge of behavior in the Republic—​the sovereign People—​ a course of action no doubt suggested to him by the thanks and praise he had 37 App. B.C. 1.1.12: ὑβριζόμενος ὑπὸ τῶν πλουσίων; Dio 24.83.2-​3; Tib. 9.5: τρυφῆς καὶ πλούτου, 11.2. Cf. Badian (1972a) 690, 697, 706–​707; Bernstein (1978) 174; Eder (1996) 447–​449; Hölkeskamp (1993) 33–​37, (2010) 103–​106. 38 Cf. Morgan and Walsh (1978) 201; Bernstein (1978) 230.

94  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic gotten from the Numantine veterans’ families. Little wonder, then, that Appian and Plutarch stated unequivocally that this was the instant at which Tiberius first formulated his ill-​fated and unparalleled plan to remove his colleague Octavius from office: if the People could not sway Octavius, then Octavius would have to go—​the truly unprecedented step.39 Tiberius called for a vote of the People to remove Octavius as tribune, but with careful staging that suggests that he did not necessarily wish Octavius’ deposition, and looked to use the People’s weight to compel his colleague to yield (more or less) voluntarily at last. Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch report that Tiberius opened his gambit with a public proposal that both tribunes might lay down their offices, or he his own, if Octavius would desist, in which we can see an appeal to concordia, moderatio, and modestia. Octavius demurred. The voting commenced, and the first tribe voted to remove Octavius. Tiberius stopped the polls and in the view of the People begged his co-​tribune to withdraw his veto. Octavius refused. The voting continued. When seventeen of the thirty-​five tribes, one short of a majority, had voted to strip Octavius of his office, Tiberius stopped the proceedings again and embraced and kissed Octavius in view of the People—​ that is, performatively displaying concordia and collegiality—​and begging him not to allow himself to become “dishonored,” ἄτιμος.40 Centuries’ worth of constraint pulled on both men, from multiple directions. At this, Plutarch recorded, a source or sources related (λέγουσιν) that Octavius began to weep, and stood still for a very long time. But at length, as he turned his head to the side, πρὸς τοὺς πλουσίους καὶ τοὺς κτηματικοὺς συνεστῶτας ἀπέβλεψεν, αἰδεσθεὶς δοκεῖ καὶ φοβηθεὶς τὴν παρ᾽ ἐκείνοις ἀδοξίαν ὑποστῆναι [καὶ] πᾶν δεινὸν οὐκ ἀγεννῶς κελεῦσαι πράττειν ὃ βούλεται τὸν Τιβέριον. he caught sight of the rich and wealthy men, who were standing together. Being filled with shame, it seems, and fearing low regard from them, he withstood the risk not unnobly, and told Tiberius to do what whatever he wished.41

This description is rich with restraint values—​and their limits. Tiberius told Octavius not to suffer dishonor (loss of existimatio) by resisting the People. He asked one last time for Octavius’ deference, this time to the wishes of both colleague and the visible judgement of the very People themselves. Octavius clearly felt the crushing force of this argument: he stood silent, dropped his head, and broke into ashamed tears. But then he looked up and saw the opponents of the

39

Cf. Taylor (1962) 25; Seager (1977) 386; Bernstein (1978) 185. Tib. 11.3–​4, 12.2; Diod. Sic. 34/​35.7.1; App. B.C. 1.1.12. 41 Tib. 12.4. 40

Tiberius Gracchus  95 law “standing together”—​and the importance of that detail should need no repeating by now. With that view in his eyes, he appeared to feel fear of loss of esteem and shame. And, as if to cap the scene, Octavius’ final words evoked consummate, if ironic, deference to his colleague. Why at this critical moment fear of pudor and loss of existimatio in the sight of the law’s opponents outweighed Octavius’ fear of dishonor in the sight of the People cannot, of course, be fully known. Likely he felt most justified by the Senate’s late adjudication in his favor, which nevertheless revealed the People’s and Senate’s ability to judge as painfully bifurcated. But the framework of restraint norms that shaped Tiberius’ and Octavius’ behavior is by now clear. Events had coursed entirely within the restraint-​based habitus that ruled the Middle Republic, as highly sensitive cultural valences hijacked a seemingly straightforward legal question, and now channeled the players into a stalemated performative clash of nominally shared values, forcing a moment of decision. The wedge of bifurcation was over who displayed proper restraint. Temperantia in wealth, collegial concordia, deference, and the judgment of the People stood toe-​to-​toe against pudor, modestia, care for existimatio in the face of great men, and the judgment of the Senate. Octavius chose to whom to cede. Tiberius once more in the sight of the People begged him to relent. Nothing. But even at this last instant, the ingrained values tugged like stretched elastic—​then snapped: Tiberius asked the gods to witness that he “unwillingly dishonored his colleague,” the next tribe voted to remove Octavius, and Tiberius had his freedmen physically drag his sacrosanct colleague from the platform.42 With no further opposition the lex Sempronia passed. Tiberius, his brother Gaius, and Appius Claudius the princeps senatus were named land commissioners, and would proceed to reallocate the illegally held plots. Plutarch describes the following months quickly. The Senate engaged in obstructive tactics—​withholding supplies, allowing a pittance for expenses—​but the law was enforced. Tiberius in kind took a momentous step, and brought a bill to the People to seize the treasure of the late king of Pergamon in an act of one-​man foreign policy, circumventing the Senate’s special sphere of influence. Livy would chalk up Tiberius’ death to such “many indignities” that he showed to the fathers. Rumors also abounded that Tiberius had a crown and purple robe hidden at his house: the charge of regal superbia.43 In the midst of this rising anxiety, Plutarch mentions a witticism of Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, cos. 143 BC, one of Tiberius’ former supporters. Metellus declared that Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus père had been so grave as censor that 42 App. B.C. 1.1.12: ἄκων ἄνδρα σύναρχον ἀτιμοῦν. 43 Liv. Per. 58: tot indignitatibus; Tib. 14.1–​2; Oros. 5.8.4. This was Tiberius’ most dangerous act to date, and the East and Rome’s allies could have been thrown into unrest, Badian (1972a) 713. Cf. Hellegouarc’h (1963) 439–​440.

96  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic people extinguished their lamps as they saw him walking home for fear he would think they were reveling, but that Tiberius fils now was lighted on his way home by the torches of the most arrogant and neediest of the poor.44 This is a revealing nonsequitur. The clauses of the taunt are not at first glance parallel: whereas the father walked in the dark because of his battle with luxuria, the son walks in the light because of . . . his support among the poor? How were battling drinking parties and gaining power through appealing to the plebs without the Senate moral inverses of each other, as they logically must be for this barb to stick? To a Roman aristocrat of the Middle Republic, the predicates followed perfectly. Resistance to luxuria and intemperantia and maintaining proper relations with superiors and peers instead of using the needy and arrogant poor to get one’s way—​these were nothing but different manifestations of the same value of self-​control. Intermingling the two in the joke was as natural a connection as equating tyranny and violence. The attack is only more striking in that Metellus formerly supported the law that would have helped such “needy” poor folk; once again, Tiberius’ process, not the law’s content, offended him. And so it was all the more alarming to the senators when the “tyrant” with the hidden purple robe and crown announced that he wished to run again for tribune for the next year—​ something not precisely illegal, but not done in at least two hundred years.45 As election day approached, the tribune Rubrius was chosen by lot to preside over the voting. When he expressed doubt about the legitimacy of Tiberius’ candidacy, Octavius’ replacement (a former client of Tiberius) proposed that he himself be substituted for Rubrius. Rubrius agreed, but the other tribunes objected: Rubrius had been chosen by lot, and so should his replacement. The lot-​casting is further evidence, of course, of theoretical total collegial equality. Tiberius in response again appealed to a theoretically even higher power: he went about in black, asking citizens to save him with their votes. Crowds began to gather before the election. In the morning, Tiberius’ fellow tribunes somehow prevented the voting from going forward. The Senate, meanwhile, had called a meeting in the Temple of Fides, and as reports came to them of the crowds the fathers in uproar asked the consul Scaevola to put down the “tyrant.” One of the senators slipped away into the crowd to warn Tiberius of the growing danger. Tiberius called to the throngs for aid by pointing to his head. His opponents read the gesture as a demand for a crown.46 When this news reached the Senate, the pontifex maximus, another of Tiberius’ cousins, P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, called upon the consul Scaevola to save the state. Scaevola recoiled: he would overrule any illegal acts, but would engage in no 44 Tib. 14.3–​4. 45 Badian (1972a) 722; Konrad (2006) 169; Steel (2013) 18. 46 App. B.C. 1.1.14–​15; Tib. 19.2-​3; Flor. 2.2.14. Fides was a symbolic choice, representing abandoning warlike action for agreement, Freyburger (1986) 311–​312; Clark (2007) 199 n.19.

Tiberius Gracchus  97 preemptive violence.47 He held to the last a sense of restraint with which Nasica did not agree. The pontifex wrapped his toga around his head as if preparing for sacrifice, called on all who wished to preserve the Republic to follow him, and rushed from the temple into the multitude.48 True to the deference due the collection of great men, the crowds parted before their “worthiness,” even trampling each other to get out of the way. The senators broke up benches, turned the pieces into clubs, then rushed on toward the knot of supporters around Tiberius. His cordon broke. He turned, fled, broke a grip on his toga, tripped. The first blow, said Plutarch, came from Publius Satureius, one of Tiberius’ co-​tribunes.49 Three hundred men were beaten to death with him. The bodies were dumped into the Tiber. This, wrote Plutarch, was the first stasis since the end of the monarchy to end in violence. All other contentions had been solved ἀνθυπείκοντες ἀλλήλοις—​ “yielding in turn to each other.” Yet even on this occasion, Plutarch opined, Tiberius might have been persuaded to give in, except that his opponents used violence. The apparent unexpectedness of the bloodshed—​the senators made weapons makeshift out of benches—​supports Plutarch’s point. No one was quite sure what to do or how far to go when an aristocrat showed such a loss of deference as Tiberius had displayed. Likely even his killers were shocked, unsure of what they had just done, and of what would happen next. In the aftermath, the Senate frantically turned to the Sybilline books and emergency sacrifices and expiations. Nasica, on pretext of going on commission, absconded to Asia, where he died. Meanwhile, Tiberius became an icon among the People.50 We return to the original question: what qualitative change did this episode represent? The answer is a uniquely irreconcilable clash of restraint values interlocked indissolubly with the health of the state. Both sides defined the conflict in those terms. Tiberius’ supporters could point to Octavius’ refusal to back down as a failure of concordia, could claim that too many senators were too corrupted by intemperate greed, and could easily argue that the senators’ murder of a sacrosanct tribune in an inaugurated assembly was outrageously 47 Scaevola’s confusing flip from supporter of Tiberius to supporter of Nasica (Cic. de Dom. 91, pro Plan. 88) has led to claims that Scaevola was a shameless political opportunist, or (more kindly) a political “independent.” Another solution is simpler: Scaevola supported Tiberius only so long as Tiberius’ process followed restraint. Gruen (1965) 326–​327; Briscoe (1974) 128; Bauman (1983) 274. 48 Or around his left hand, Val. Max. 3.2.17; Vell. Pat. 2.3.1, in which case Clark (2007) 128 argues that wrapping the left hand represented a conscious reversal of the rites to Fides, which normally entailed wrapping the right hand, suggesting that the senators were ceremonially unraveling their bonds to Tiberius as they went to confront him with violence. For other interpretations of the wrapping, see Earl (1963) 118–​119; Badian (1972a) 725; Bernstein (1978) 223; Stockton (1979) 76 n.43; Bauman (1983) 272; Spaeth (1990) 192; Linderski (2002); Flower (2006) 74–​75; Wiseman (2009) 185–​187. 49 Tib. 19.4: ἀξίωμα, 19.6; Oros. 5.9.2. But see Rhet. Ad. Hen. 4.55.68; Diod. Sic. 34/​35.33.7; Val. Max. 1.4.2. 50 Val. Max. 5.3.2e; Tib. 20.1-​2. The expiations were to Ceres, who both defended a tribune’s sacrosanctity and accepted sacrifices of a slain tyrant’s goods, Spaeth (1990); Flower (2006) 73–​75.

98  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic unrestrained. Tiberius’ opponents, by contrast, could say that by ignoring the combined pleas of numerous peers, disregarding the direction of the Senate, removing his colleague from office, seizing the Pergamene treasure, and running for tribune a second time, Tiberius showed that, if he chose, and with the People behind him, he now never would and never would have to cede to anyone. What kind of man would refuse to be restrained in the face of that kind of pressure, or pay so little regard to the existimatio of his fellows? Only (the accusation could go) a tyrant. And that is precisely what Tiberius was called.51 If that seems a drastic diagnosis, it was because Tiberius had directly distressed some foundational and exceedingly sensitive conditions of the Roman Republic: it worked only when everyone agreed together to make it work, when Roman aristocrats generally voluntarily operated within the boundaries of the deference and restraint patterns—​or at least were sufficiently motivated by pudor and verecundia to avoid too much transgression. And, most important, it worked only when everyone generally agreed how to practice moderation, deference, and self-​ control properly. Only then, with generally voluntary consensus and compliance by all, could offices and honors be distributed according to merit and the necessities of governance effected and obeyed, without need for violence or autocrat.52 But if one man discovered a means by which he did not have to obey these rules and still could get his way any time he wished (and every Roman man so anxiously wanted to get his way), the theoretical girders of the Republic would vanish. That dreadful realization best explains Nasica’s catastrophized call to “save the Republic.” Of course, contests over the restraint ideals had often occurred. Nobles had quarreled, some celebrated triumphs without leave of the Senate, censors insulted each other, men behaved badly in far-​flung provinciae, and so on. We have seen how the restraint values had always been tested in the face of ambition, inimicitia, and desire. The tension between restraint and self-​advancement had animated hot disputes, from Appius Claudius through the Scipios and Cato the Elder. There was, it bears repeating, no perfect golden age. And Tiberius’ actions were not wholly out of more current context. In recent years the People had apparently asserted some autonomy through gaining the secret ballot (perhaps best interpreted as a means of ensuring merited electoral outcomes) and the Republic had witnessed even the spectacle of tribunes imprisoning consuls.53

51 Tib. 19.3. Cf. Bernstein (1978) 214; Konrad (2006) 169. 52 See again Hölkeskamp (2010) 103–​106. 53 In 151 and 138 BC. One of the imprisoned consuls was Nasica, possibly in response to an ignored tribunician veto, which would explain Nasica’s particular sensitivity to tribunician power. These events, however, did not spark a crisis as Tiberius’ tribunate did because of absent key variables: the People there sided with the consuls, the tribunes’ actions did not threaten collegiality, and no one was deprived of an office. Cicero Leg. 3.20; Liv. Per. 48, 55; Per. Oxy. Cf. Taylor (1962) 26–​27; Gruen (1968) 45–​46; Binot (2001) 187–​188, 200; Harris (2016) 88; Mouritsen (2017) 114.

Tiberius Gracchus  99 But several factors made Tiberius’ crisis distinct from previous cases, and what followed different from prior incidents’ resolutions with their general retrenchment of norms. First, the new way in which Tiberius combined the judgment of the People with the restraint values to so unsettle foundational aspects of the Republican structure. Previous conflicts over the values that we have seen were qualitatively different from threatening the office distribution process itself. Insisting on a triumph against the will of the Senate, for example, was unseemly, but understood as something less than a full honor, and others could still achieve glory. Insulting one’s censorial or consular colleague was pravum, but did not deprive anyone of an office. Disobeying a superior was wrong, but would not cost a peer his position. All of these things were offensive and bad, but not, so to speak, mortal sins. But if a single man, in defiance of all pressure from his peers, using the exclusive backing of the People, and ignoring the judgment of the Senate, could occupy a post as long as he liked and could dictate who would and would not hold offices, it would cause existential damage to the central rationale of the republican competitive schema: allotting honores regularly according to merit, with due respect for the virtues of peers and colleagues, and with (at least theoretical) equality of opportunity for advancement. That is why Tiberius’ particular lack of deference in this case was so uniquely terrifying.54 Second, the extent to which every issue in this case was mediated but unresolvable through the traditional patterns of restraint. All the actors, even if they dimly sensed that something new was occurring, could not process the situation except through the conceptual framework of restraint and deference embedded in them, and acted accordingly. A late literary “narrative of decline” cannot be responsible for the behavioral patterns we have seen, which repeatedly reflected real normative enactments of temperance, collegiality, and deference.55 The actors were instead fully caught in their conditioning, their habitus. But while traditional ways of thinking had led before to satisfactory (or at least tolerable) solutions, in this case the ideals of restraint led the parties to a dead end, while giving every actor simultaneously reasons to be mortally certain that he was in the right. Third, the habitus that otherwise might have channeled the parties to resolution instead turned deadly because Tiberius had (albeit unwittingly) ushered a novel wedge into Roman politics: the idea that, perhaps, the Senate as a whole or in great part need not be heeded because the senators were collectively stricken with greed, intemperantia, and immoderation. In other words, Tiberius claimed that the “powerful” in the Senate, being unrestrained in luxury, were morally and

54 Livy 33.23.3–​8; Stockton (1979) 84; Brennan (1996) 325–​327; Konrad (2006) 169; Akar (2013) 186. 55 Cf. Levick (1982a) 54.

100  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic normatively incapable of acting as a proper judge of his behavior, and thus unworthy of deference—​and, with that, the traditional dritte Instanz, an indispensable conceptual desideratum of the entire Simmelian performative competition, was upended.56 The wedge meant that the People could now be seen as primary or even sole judge, and they evidently gave Tiberius a friendly ear, apparently out of both timeless expectation of temperantia in their leaders and, no doubt, self-​ interest. The senators, in any event, shot back that Tiberius lacked restraint. That is, everyone agreed that restraint was good. But in this case they could not determine definitively who best comported his behavior with restraint—​or even who could conclusively judge that question—​which disturbed the fine-​tuned system in an unexampled way. Fourth, the extent to which the parties stretched normal, expected behavior, creating an uncontrolled pendulum effect. Boundaries had always been tested, but the idiosyncratic circumstances of this clash—​a tribunician bill brought by an unusually strong-​willed advocate who was opposed by a colleague equally powerfully swayed by group of nobiles—​permitted each side simultaneously, and with merit, to claim that his opponent had committed an exceptional breach of restraint. Tiberius’ personal hijacking of foreign policy and his one-​man deposition of a colleague, with physical battery at that, were completely unparalleled. Tiberius, of course, could claim with equal justice that Octavius’ outright refusal to yield to a colleague who acted with the full assent of the People was an unmatched violation of collegial deference and disrespect for the Republic’s highest authority. The parties thus together stretched and pushed the restraint values farther than in any previous episode, which caused uniquely high emotion, and exposed the restraints as imperfect barriers. This mutual emotionally charged stretching, and not any single party’s act or “political” stance, underscores again the uncomfortable fact that norms work only when agreed upon, which meant that in this case—​again, especially without an agreed-​upon judge—​there would be no clear denouement that could become exemplary. Instead, competing but unresolved versions of “correct” behavior could start to swing wider apart, making consensus impossible. Fifth, and accordingly, the violence. Physical force is ideally the last resort for getting one’s way. But because the actors in this case were disputing fundamental aspects of the Republican schema and touching on deeply felt, instilled normative behavior, when the restraint values reached the limits of their ability to constrain action the emotional response was catastrophized resort to violence: Tiberius to dragging his colleague bodily from his chair, Tiberius’ murderers to their clubs. Although Cicero concluded that Tiberius “was killed by the very Republic itself,” the truth was quite the opposite.57 Such violence did severe damage to the Republic

56

Cf. Hölkeskamp (2014b) 44.

57 Cic. Brut. 27.103: ab ipsa re publica est interfectus.

Tiberius Gracchus  101 because the previously unthinkable (since legendary times) was now thinkable: force might replace deference and consensus, a fact that would underlie even more ghastly incidents in the century to come. The fourfold process mentioned in the Introduction was emerging. The disruptive implications of that new reality became quickly apparent. Shortly after Tiberius’ death the tribune C. Atinius Labeo attempted to have Q. Caecilius Metellus the censor flung from the Tarpeian Rock for passing him over on the senatorial roll.58 Another tribune had to be found in the emergency to subdue his colleague. It is extremely difficult to believe that a tribune of earlier decades would even have suggested such a thing. Finally, some new, insurgent thoughts. Henrik Mouritsen has argued that the tribunate—​with its basis in only one sector of Roman society and its potent veto power—​was structurally so idiosyncratic that it was only a matter of time before it sabotaged the republican machinery.59 But although it perhaps was natural that a tribune of the plebs would someday make this turn to the People alone for their judgment, it was only when all of the above aspects of this situation converged that irreconcilable conflict resulted—​which explains why the tribunate had not until this moment caused any major rifts in the aristocracy (except in legend). Yet now, with Tiberius’ fragmented precedent in place, new analogies (grown from old soil) could be drawn upon, and someone might again try what Tiberius had—​in better circumstances perhaps, with the right amount of support from the People, and with attacks or even with violence against “immoral” men—​and find the means to reduce constraint from peers in the never-​forgotten pursuit of self-​advancement. The People evidently perceived some nascent change too. Only five years before Tiberius’ death Nasica had given a speech against a proposed grain distribution. When the People grumbled, he merely said “Quiet, please, citizens. For I know better than you what befits the Republic,” whereupon all “fell silent in veneration of his authority,” which was “greater than their desire for grain.” Now, after Tiberius’ death, a difference. Scipio the Younger, in Spain at the time, quipped when he heard of his tribune cousin’s end: “Thus may any man die who should attempt such things.” Like Nasica’s, a confident dismissal. But when Scipio returned to Rome, the crowd began to jeer him—​something that had never happened before. In response, the man whom Polybius made so famous for his self-​control lost his temper and shouted insults back.60

58 Liv. Per. 59; Pliny N.H. 7.44.143. Cf. Cicero, de Dom. 123. 59 Mouritsen (2017). 60 ORF3 157 fr. 3 (=​ Val. Max. 3.7.3): obstrepente deinde plebe, “tacite, quaeso, Quirites,” inquit: “plus ego enim quam vos quid rei publicae expediat intellego.” qua voce audita omnes pleno venerationis silentio maiorem auctoritatis eius quam suorum alimentorum respectum egerunt; Tib. 21.5–​7, quoting Hom. Od. 1.47: ὡς ἀπόλοιτο καὶ ἄλλος, ὅτις τοιαῦτά γε ῥέζοι. Cf. Val. Max. 6.2.3; Vell. Pat. 2.4.4; Sumi (2005) 6; Jehne (2011b) 116.

5

Uncertainty The next two chapters follow Roman restraint values over fifty-​five years, from Tiberius Gracchus’ death through the resignation of L. Cornelius Sulla Felix in 78 BC—​from the death of one senator at the hands of dozens of his peers through the deaths of dozens of peers at the hands of one senator. Values of personal restraint, paradoxically, molded the course of that grisly progression. Roman aristocrats of these years wished, as before, to be perceived as restrained, and operated under the impression that their problems could be solved using restraint patterns, just as (they were certain) their ancestors had done. Nevertheless, during these critical decades the Roman aristocracy experienced a recurrent and mounting breakdown in consensus about how to apply the norms to a given issue, or about how to judge rightly who practiced restraint. Violence increasingly followed as the fourfold process continued to develop. Although our source materials for this period are thin, we can see that causes of this breakdown in consensus were multifarious and intertwining.1 Part of the reason that some men grew unwilling to cede to their peers was the development of new (and yet colorably traditional) justifications not to stand down, particularly Tiberius’ invigorated appeal to the People—​especially when such men convinced themselves (often with some justice) that their adversaries were immoral and luxuriant. The adversaries justified a bloody response with the retort of “tyrant.” This dynamic merged with new loci for clashes, unprecedented economic pressures, random chance, and idiosyncratic personalities to create unpredictable breaches in the social arrangement. Because both normative behavior and the process of judging that behavior were simultaneously unsettled, these contests had fewer clear, normatively compelling outcomes. The result, step by step, was increasing slippage, uncertainty, and discord about restraint, even though in the abstract restraint remained ideal behavior connected to proper governance. Because of this uncertainty, the values could no longer bind the aristocracy together. Instead, the values came to motivate disagreement over time, especially as some aristocrats seemed unable to be cowed by the normal sanctions of shame (or by formal extensions of such efforts such as trials). At this, aristocrats collectively



1

For the difficulties with the sources, see CAH IX 73; Scullard (1982) 42–​84; Konrad (2006).

Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.003.0006

Uncertainty  103 lost confidence that others would follow the values, and thence began to envisage the specter of “decline,” which aroused further fear. Fear turned disputes about restraint into tinderboxes, and the resulting unprecedented violence recorded in these decades was both cause and effect of confusion over restraint, with restraint and the greater society working in a pathological feedback loop. The rapidity with which even senators reacted with violence in the face of a perceived lack of restraint perfectly illustrates how catastrophic supposedly unrestrained men seemed—​so catastrophic that such men were fast considered morally (and, later, legally) equivalent to hostes, enemies of the state against whom violence was warranted and necessary (even as those alleged hostes justified their own actions through highly visible exercises of self-​control). And once violence came, the increasing randomness and gruesome extent of the bloodshed became self-​replicating as more than a few men realized that, no matter how great a store of personal restraint one might believe one had, or no matter one’s seeming good standing in the aristocratic group, the ability to defend one’s self and to get one’s way might ultimately depend on one’s ability to add pure force to social pressure. If that meant a mob, perhaps good enough. An army, of course, would be even better. *** The decades that followed Tiberius Gracchus’ murder were tumultuous. Ten years after Tiberius’ death his younger brother Gaius followed him into the tribunate and passed controversial new legislation to aid the Roman commons. He died, like his brother, at the hands of his fellow senators. Tribunes such as L. Appuleius Saturninus fomented deadly riots. Assassinations—​inconceivable even a decade or two before—​became a familiar part of politics. Meanwhile, the Romans fought grueling wars in North Africa, beat back invasions of Germanic barbarians from over the Alps, and then faced down their own allies as Italy rose in revolt. Nevertheless, considerable evidence survives even in the patchy sources for these turbulent years of attempts to practice restraint in recognizably traditional ways. Temperantia, for example, was still highly valued. In 121 BC the censors L. Cassius Longinus Ravilla and Cn. Servilius Caepio expelled senators from the curia for renting houses for more than the relative pittance of six thousand sesterces and for having villas that were built too tall.2 The princeps senatus, M. Aemilius Scaurus, cos. 115, promulgated (yet another) law restricting delicate foods at banquets, and, according to Sallust, “restrained his mind from his usual wantonness” because he recognized that invidia awaited the licentia of those who accepted the “shameless” (inpudentem) bribes that the Numidian prince

2

Vell. Pat. 2.10.1; Val. Max. 8.1.damn.7; MRR I 510; Astin (1988) 25.

104  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Jugurtha passed around Rome.3 In 111 bc the consul Scipio Nasica Serapio demolished a theater, which he considered a nest for sedition and a portal for eastern “pleasures.”4 A censor of 108 bc, Q. Fabius Maximus Eburnus, perhaps taking tradition a bit too seriously, had his own son killed on grounds of “dubious chastity.”5 Around 104 BC a now-​anonymous orator pilloried the “prefects of cookshops and of luxury” who believed that no dinner was elegant unless a stream of ever more elaborate dishes arrived from the kitchen, who ate morsels from rare birds, and who scorned the unrefined palates of their guests. “If luxury continues to grow at this pace,” the orator groused, “what will be left for men to do but order others to eat dinner for them, so that they don’t get tired out from eating, while their couch is more amply adorned for mortals with gold, silver, and purple than for the immortal gods?”6 And in 101 BC P. Rutilius Rufus, cos. 105, of whom more shortly, attacked one Sittius in a speech for his “luxuriousness and effeminate lust.”7 Moreover, deference to peer and superior, along with its underpinnings pudor and verecundia, still appear hale in many instances. The princeps senatus Scaurus inspired dread, and, according to Cicero, “all but ruled the world with a nod of his head.”8 Attacked as an old man in 90 BC by a tribune named Varius from Spain for allegedly betraying Rome during the run-​up to the recent Social War, Scaurus’ sole defense was to address the crowd: “Quintus Varius Hispanus says that Marcus Scaurus, princeps senatus, mustered the allies against Rome in arms; Marcus Scaurus, princeps senatus, denies it. There is no witness. Which of the two, Quirites, should you believe?”9 The crowd shouted the tribune down. Similar was the trial for extortion of Q. Caecilius Metellus Numidicus in 112 BC: Cicero’s father related to his son how the jury commendably averted their eyes—​note the traces of pudor and verecundia—​and would not even glance at Metellus’ account books out of trust and respect for the great man.10 Moreover, the Senate might defer to the will of a tribune and People out of pudor, even on gravely important matters: Appian reported that the profligate conduct of certain 3 Sall. B.J. 15.5: animum a consueta lubidine continuit; Plin. N.H. 8.223; Gell. 2.24.12, de Vir. Ill. 72.5; Oros. 5.14.3–​5; MRR I 531. 4 App. B.C. 1.4.28: ἡδυπαθείαις. 5 Val. Max. 6.1.5: dubiae castitatis. Cf. Oros. 5.16.8; Ps.-​Quint. Decl. Mai. 3.17; Cic. pro Balb. 28; Badian (1984a). 6 ORF3 204 fr. 1(=​Gell. 15.8): praefecti popinae atque luxuriae . . . si pro portione pergit luxuria crescere, quid relinquintur nisi ut delibari sibi cenas lubeant, ne edendo defetigentur, quando stratus auro argento purpura amplior aliquot hominibus quam dis immortalibus adornatur?; and taking Malcovati’s (1929) conjecture for the date of the speech. 7 Cornell et al. (2013) II 469 fr. 15 (=​Athen. 543 A–​B): τρυφῇ καί μαλακίᾳ. 8 Sall. B.J. 25.10; Cic. pro Font. 24: nutu prope terrarum orbis regebatur. 9 ORF3 167 fr. 11 (=​Ascon. 22C): Q. Varius Hispanus M. Scaurum principem senatus socios in arma ait convocasse; M. Scaurus princeps senatus negat; testis nemo est: utri vos, Quirites, convenit credere? Cf. de Vir. Ill. 72.11; Val. Max. 3.7.8. 10 Cic. pro Balb. 11, ad Att. 1.16.4. Cf. Val. Max. 2.10.1.

Uncertainty  105 provincial governors who escaped prosecution through bribery made the Senate “very much ashamed,” and as a result the senators “yielded” to Gaius Gracchus’ controversial law that placed equestrians on juries.11 Public performance of restraint was also still imperative. Perhaps the most famous example is the trial around 94–​92 BC of P. Rutilius Rufus. Rutilius—​ reportedly one of only a handful of men in Rome who respected laws against extravagant dining—​administered the province of Asia with such scrupulousness that allegedly the tax collectors prosecuted him for extortion to discourage examples of probity that might cut into their profits. Rutilius posed a defense restrained to the point of martyrdom. Preferring to rely on his virtues rather than on wearing filthy clothes and growing his hair long to garner pity, he spoke only for himself without advocates. But the jury did not show the same respect as had been shown about twenty years before to Metellus Numidicus at his extortion trial. According to Cicero, Rutilius’ conviction was considered a thorough scandal that “convulsed the Republic.”12 Rutilius retired permanently to Asia to the warm welcome of the very provincials whom he had allegedly fleeced. Even revolutionary tribunes wished to display themselves as restrained, and even as they carried out programs that others found profoundly shocking. That is, the tribunes were not countercultural iconoclasts; they apparently imagined their enactment of restraint to be an adjustment compatible with tradition or no real change at all. We have already seen how Tiberius Gracchus gamely tried to follow the deference patterns. Gaius Gracchus made considerable use of the patterns too. Beyond his Sardinian speech, fragments of speeches in support of his laws railed against luxuria and overweening power, attacking as libido and intemperantia the actions of wealthy young men who lorded it over poor foreigners, and decrying those luxuries that went “beyond the necessities of life.” Naturally high-​tempered, he made notable efforts to moderate himself while speaking by having a slave strike a low note on a musical instrument when he seemed to be getting too emotional. Plutarch also recorded that Gaius walked through the Forum surrounded by men of every station, from grammarians to contractors to soldiers, yet showing to each such courtesy that his enemies were seen by contrast as “wholly vulgarly arrogant” and “violent.”13

11 App. B.C. 1.3.22: ἅπερ ἡ βουλὴ μάλιστα αἰδουμένη ἐς τὸν νόμον ἐνεδίδου. 12 Cic. Br. 115: quo iudicio convulsam penitus scimus esse rem publicam; Oros. 5.17.12; Athen. 6.274.c; Dio 38.97.2. No doubt some of Rutilius’ restraint was attributable to his Stoic beliefs, but his Stoicism fit well with the ideals of temperantia and moderation as virtues of a good republican. Cf. Badian (1956b) 117, (1958) 324, (1976) 43; Gruen (1966) 53–​55, (1968) 120, 161, 204–​205; Josserand (1981) 430; Alexander (1990) 49–​50; Kallet-​Marx (1990) 137–​138; Lintott (1994) 81–​82; Fantham (2004) 42–​43; Lévy (2006) 563–​544, 570–​571; Arena (2011) 317. 13 Plut. Tib. 2.4–​5; C. Gr. 6.4: φορτικὸν ὅλως ἢ βίαιον; ORF3 191–​192 frs. 48–​51, esp. 51 (=​Gell. 9.14.16) (non est ea luxuries [sic], quae necessario parentur vitae causa); Gruen (1968) 74–​75.

106  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic L. Appuleius Saturninus, the most turbulent of the tribunes in these decades, did not cavil to attack colleagues physically, and was not above assassinating rivals. Cicero would describe him as effrenatus et paene demens (“unrestrained and nearly mad”). His attitude may have stemmed from a similar sense of rejection as Tiberius Gracchus had felt: the Senate stripped Saturninus as a young quaestor of his position managing the grain flow from Ostia to Rome, either on account of poor performance or to give the post to the princeps senatus, Scaurus. Cicero claimed that Saturninus became a popularis from the pain of this insult. Yet clearly Saturninus too knew the power of displaying traditional restraint. According to Diodorus Siculus, to return to influence Saturninus reportedly made some showing of a change from his former ἀκολασία (“intemperance”) to lead a “self-​controlled” (σώφρων) life to gain the tribunate. Cicero grudgingly agreed that Saturninus “acted, if not moderately, at least in the popular interest and abstinently.”14 Unfortunately, Cicero and Diodorus did not spell out precisely what Saturninus did to merit those descriptions, but Saturninus clearly felt that some display of memorable personal restraint was helpful to be elected. Consider also the tribune Livius Drusus, who in 91 BC unsuccessfully attempted to reconcile popular and senatorial opinion over several persistent issues such as the role of equites on juries, colonization, and the growing discontent among Rome’s allies in Italy who had grown tired of fighting Rome’s wars while not sharing fully in her civic power and wealth.15 Part of Drusus’ strategy was to nurture an unspotted reputation for self-​control, the fruits of which have survived into our sources: Plutarch memorialized him as “a most chaste man in all respects,” Cicero lauded his impressive severitas, and Velleius Paterculus reported an anecdote that Drusus asked his architect to construct his house in such a manner that all could constantly watch him, no doubt so that all could admire his virtues and see that he practiced no vice.16 Finally, instances of perceived non-​deferential behavior could still incur a repertoire of sanctions. Scaurus reportedly smashed the chair of the praetor P. Decius Subulo, who would not rise for him.17 Q. Servilius Caepio (cos. 106 BC) could not bring himself, as proconsul, to act in concert with the consul of 105, Cn. Mallius Maximus, a novus homo, when Mallius asked for aid against 14 Cic. de Har. Resp. 41–​43, pro Sest. 37: Saturnin[us] . . . si non moderate, at certe populariter abstinenterque versat[us], 39; Diod. Sic. 36.12.1; de Vir. Ill. 73.1; MRR I 576; Lintott (1968) 210; Flower (2010a) 77. 15 App. B.C. 1.5.35–​37; Vell. Pat. 2.13.1–​3; Maschek (2018) 143–​144. I cannot treat the important topic of Italian relations fully here, yet clearly the Roman elite would have become more guarded and anxious about defining itself against perceived outsider incursion. Cf. Wallace-​Hadrill (2008) 449. 16 Plut. Cat. Min. 1: τἆλλα σώφρων ἀνὴρ ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα; Cic. de Off. 1.108; Vell. Pat. 2.14.1–​3. Cf. Diod. Sic. 37.10.1; App. B.C. 1.35–​36; Strabo 4.1.13. 17 de Vir. Ill. 72.6; Crawford (1993) 124. Decius may have refused to stand because he had supported the Gracchi, whom Scaurus opposed. Cic. pro Sest. 101; de Vir. Ill. 72.9; Bloch (1908) 14–​ 15; Badian (1956a) 94–​96; Bates (1986) 252–​253; Drogula (2015) 197; but see Gruen (1968) 97.

Uncertainty  107 an incursion of Germanic Cimbri from the north. Caepio, at the head of a proconsular army in the region, insulted Mallius as a “timid consul,” set his camp closer to the enemy to gain the first glory, would not let the Roman armies combine to cooperate, and threatened to kill the barbarians’ envoys because they had approached Mallius first to treat.18 Worse, when the Senate (predictably) sent a group of legati to see that the generals “would act in concordia and would at the same time aid the Republic,” Caepio “did not deign to listen.”19 Caepio also resisted his own soldiers’ pleas to consult with Mallius. When the soldiers finally forced the two to meet, the generals could not reach agreement, and, according to Dio, “fell into rivalry and into insulting each other, and shamefully broke up the meeting.”20 The result was banishment after the pair’s failure to cooperate led to a frightful military rout at Arausio.21 The reason for the harsh punishment was not likely military loss only; Nathan Rosenstein has shown that Roman commanders were not prosecuted simply for losing battles. Some have thus hypothesized that Mallius and Caepio must have shamefully fled the field. But that inference is absent in Granius Licinianus, Dio, and Orosius (who, notably, followed the contemporary writer Valerius Antias), who instead wrote that the commanders argued disgracefully, even in the face of pleas by the soldiers and the Senate itself to act in concord. That failing left Mallius and Caepio susceptible to attack from tribunes and a citizenry that, like the soldiery and Senate, expected in their generals cooperation and deference.22 So far, the evidence shows the familiar behavioral patterns being taken very seriously; unsurprising given the instilled habitus. And yet in these same examples we also sense that something was terribly wrong. The infighting at Arausio and its comeuppance were extraordinary. Saturninus could swing wildly between restraint and violence in ways his contemporaries clearly found deplorable, which shows that the values were becoming fluid in application—​and worse, could be distrusted as being manipulated for sheer self-​advancement. And one particularly detects in Rutilius Rufus’ uncompromising approach to his extortion trial a 18 Dio 27.91.1–​4; Gran. Lic. 33.7: timenti consuli. 19 Gran. Lic. 33.7–​8: nec legatis, quos senatus miserat, ut co[n]‌cordes essent simulque rem publicam iuvarent, auscultare dignatus est. 20 Dio 27.91.4: ἔς τε γὰρ φιλονεικίαν καὶ λοιδορίας προαχθέντες αἰσχρῶς διελύθησαν. Cf. Oros. 5.16.2 (=​Cornell et al. (2013) II 595 (Valerius Antias)); Drogula (2015) 158 n.90. 21 Kidd (1999) 344–​345 fr. 273 (=​Strabo 4.1.13); Cic. de Orat. 2.125, 2.199; Rhet ad Her. 1.14.24; Liv. Per. 67; Gell. 3.9.7; Gran. Lic. 33.13; Ascon. 78C (=​Lewis (1993) 157); MRR I 559. On Caepio’s trials see Cic. de Orat. 2.197, 2.203, Part. Or. 104–​105; Lengle (1931) 313; Gruen (1968) 161–​165; Ferrary (1983) 558–​561; Bates (1986) 266; Epstein (1987) 16; Rosenstein (1990) 125 n.50; Lintott (1994) 93; Drogula (2015) 216–​217. 22 Lengle (1931) 307; Rosenstein (1990) 126 n.47; Rich (2012) 110. Although Cic. de Orat. 2.199 briefly mentions a “flight” of Caepio alone, that could not explain why Mallius was ejected ob eandem causam as Caepio, Gran. Lic. 33.13, which requires some other reason for the sanction. On Valerias Antias see Cornell et al. (2013) I 294–​296.

108  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic perception that temperantia no longer functioned as he expected that it should. His reaction was to exaggerate the desired pattern of behavior. Indeed, the above episodes contain behavior so harsh—​killing a son, smashing a curule chair, theater demolition, fines, exile—​that they suggest that the actors viscerally believed that the society was in danger, and were trying to find salvation by enforcing restraint patterns to an extreme degree. This extremism is well illustrated by the censorship in 115 BC of L. Caecilius Metellus and Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus that expelled thirty-​two men from the Senate, or just over 10 percent of the nominal membership. The next most rigorous censorship in Roman history had been that of 252 bc, which had expelled only about 5 percent of the senators. Between 252 and 115 bc no recorded censorship expelled more than 3 percent of the patres, and most had ousted a mere 1 or 2 percent. Even the legendarily grave Cato the Elder had removed only 2 1/​3 percent of the Senate in 184 bc.23 Metellus’ and Ahenobarbus’ unprecedented rigor reveals unprecedented worry. Evidence from the period shows that these actors had good reason to suspect that something about the restraint values was malfunctioning. And yet we must be precise. Despite what a Rutilius or Eburnus (or later a Sallust or Livy) would say, the evidence does not show some facile divide between properly, traditionally restrained and counter-​culturally unrestrained persons or a simplistic decline from good to evil. Instead, the evidence shows that restraint was a subject of confusion and suspicion, leading to conflict. Luxuria was a particular ground for quarrel. In the years following the destruction of Carthage, Rome famously experienced an influx of wealth from its newfound empire unlike anything it had encountered before, even after the First and Second Punic and eastern wars. Consumption of luxury goods grew sharply as well, especially as a developing money economy in specie taken from conquest spurred spending.24 The Romans collectively struggled to apply the traditional ideal of temperantia to both the new and cumulative effects of this long-​term trend. Around 97 BC, for example, the censors removed the tribune M. Duronius from the Senate for “impudently” proposing that an antiquated law on banqueting be abolished. In spite of the censors, at least a few gourmands hoped for abridgment: Lucilius probably referred to this law when he mocked those who said legem vitemus Licini (“let’s evade the Licinian law”). Yet as radical as Duronius’ position sounds, he did not in fact endorse gustatory orgies or a libertine life; his point was that there could be no “freedom” unless people could choose to “kill themselves with luxury,” which he evidently perceived as a bad

23 Astin (1988) 28, 30 compiles these calculations; cf. Liv. Per. 62; Cic. pro Cluent. 119; Val. Max. 2.9.9. 24 Astin (1967) 339; Badian (1970); Gelzer (1968) 8, 11–​12; Harris (1979) 88–​89; Maschek (2018) 36–​47, 215–​223.

Uncertainty  109 thing to be avoided through self, not state, control. Thus three starkly competing points of view, with uncertain resolution.25 Similarly, there was a common belief that there should be some limit on senators’ lodgings and lifestyle, and yet opinions fluctuated wildly on what the limits exactly should be. The censorship of 121 BC that expelled men over rents and building heights shows plainly that many senators were not of one mind. Three decades later, in the censorship of L. Licinius Crassus and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus of 92 bc, the limits were even less clear. Domitius accused Crassus in a public altercatio of living in a house far too expensive for a censor, with marble columns and shady trees, and asked him what he thought it was worth. Crassus replied with a million sesterces, but queried Domitius what he would buy it for without the columns and trees. Domitius answered that he would give a million sesterces as is, but without the trees and columns nothing. Crassus laughed and said that he himself provided the grave censorial example and Domitius a luxurious one: while Crassus lived graciously in a house that he had honorably inherited, Domitius valued trees and columns at a million sesterces!26 On another occasion, Domitius accused Crassus of crying over the death of a pet eel that Crassus used to call and feed by hand. So far from “blushing to admit it,” Crassus argued that such “pious” devotion to his pet should be praised.27 Wholly unable to work together, the two resigned their censorship without completing the census.28 These attacks and punchlines make no sense unless Crassus, Domitius, and their audiences operated within some context of temperantia. The insults were meant to get the audience to agree that the target had committed some moral transgression within the habitus of restraint, and thus to reduce his political capital. But the ridiculous repartees ended not in a clear answer but in ambiguous détente, and show how unpredictable the definition of “luxurious” was becoming. The insults also reveal insecurity and tension among aristocrats trying to find the mean between self-​promotion and tradition amid imperial expansion.29 Crassus’ reputation exemplifies the confusion: he was lampooned in his lifetime for his pet eel and marble columns, but also left fragments of speeches that condemned the haughty “libidinousness” of men who would not show proper deference to a united Senate (note the mingling of temperantia with deference to peers), attacked “lust” that threatened “innocence,” and even became 25 Val. Max. 2.2.4: etenim quid opus libertate, si volentibus luxu perire non licet?; 2.9.4: impudenter. Cf. Gell. 2.24.10; Macrob. Sat. 3.17.7; Gruen (1966) 41 n.56. 26 Plin. N.H. 17.1.3–​8; Val. Max. 9.1.4; Millar (1986) 5. 27 Macrob. Sat. 3.15.5: neque id confiteri Crassus erubuit sed ultro etiam, si dis placet, gloriatus est censor, piam affectiosamque rem fecisse se iactitans; Plut. Mor. 89 F, 811 A, 976 A; Aelian HA 8.4. 28 MRR II 17. The only thing that the two could agree on was to expel Latin rhetores from Rome, which insulted the Italian allies and helped foment the Social War. 29 Edwards (1993) 16, 138–​141; Maschek (2018) 180–​182.

110  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic for his student Cicero an example, of all things, of being “most parsimonious regarding elegant items.”30 Indeed, similarly contradictory reputations for self-​control vel non reported for several major political actors of the era are best seen as traces of the aristocratic group’s collective inability to judge men’s restraint, and thus collectively to demand their deference. Plutarch averred that Gaius and his brother both “had no desire for money” and kept themselves “pure” from “unjust gain,” but also reported accusations that Gaius bought expensive silver dolphins.31 Q. Servilius Caepio, as we have seen, had the reputation of being an uncontrolled, uncooperative colleague, and was also rumored to have spirited away sacred gold from the captured Gallic town of Tolosa. But in the report of Cicero, he was a vir acer et fortis—​a “vigorous and brave man”—​as well as a vir bonus possessed of prudentia.32 Aemilius Scaurus carried a sumptuary law during his consulship that apparently banned certain specific luxurious imported foods, and he was reportedly a strict censor.33 But we also have from Cicero fragments of speeches from Scaurus’ contemporaries that ridiculed a perverted renown for greed and theft, joking that he would chase down funeral biers as if to gain inheritances.34 In one muddled breath Sallust included Scaurus among men for whom the bonum et aequom was “more dear than riches,” while in the very next sentences decried Scaurus’ cupidity.35 Later sources about Scaurus also preserved vestiges of a contest over his self-​control. On the one hand, Tacitus grouped Scaurus with the sinless hero Rutilius Rufus, and praised his “good conscience.”36 On the other hand, a scathing passage of Pliny the Elder accused Scaurus of acting as vile receiver for treasures plundered from provincials, and we read accusations in Sallust, Florus, and de Viris Illustribus that Scaurus in fact succumbed to Jugurtha’s bribes.37 A prime example of contested but unresolved restraint at this time is the aforementioned tribune Livius Drusus. Because the Romans still tried to use the values, as they always had, to judge each other’s political aims, Drusus, who

30 Cic. de Orat. 1.227, Or. 219: nam ubi lubido dominatur, innocentiae leve praesidium est, Br. 148: Crassus erat elegantium parcissimus, ORF3 267 fr. 10 (=​Cic. de Orat. 3.4): libidinem. Cf. Badian (1962) 57; Fantham (2004) 26–​48. 31 Plut. Comp. 1.3–​4: καὶ μὴν τῆς γε Γράγχων ἀφιλοχρηματίας καὶ πρὸς ἀργύριον ἐγκρατείας μέγιστόν ἐστιν ὅτι λημμάτων ἀδίκων καθαροὺς ἐν ἀρχαῖς καὶ πολιτείαις διεφύλαξαν ἑαυτούς; Tib. 2.4. 32 Kidd (1999) 344–​345 fr. 273 (=​Strabo 4.1.13); Cic. Tusc. 5.14; Gell. 3.9.7; Dio 27.90; Val. Max. 6.9.13; Oros. 5.15.25; Gruen (1968) 161–​162; Bloch and Carcopino (1935) 336. 33 Pliny N.H. 8.223; Gell. 2.24.12; de Vir. Ill. 72.5. 34 ORF3 216–​217 fr. 5 (=​Cic. de Orat. 2.283); Cic. de Orat. 2.280; Gruen (1968) 147. 35 Sall. B.J. 15.3–​5: pauci, quibus bonum et aequom divitiis carius erat. 36 Tac. Agric. 1.2–​3: bonae . . .conscientiae. An odd pairing; the two once prosecuted each other for ambitus, although their inimicitia may have been short-​lived. ORF3 165 fr. 3–​4; Bloch (1908) 25; Bates (1986) 255; Epstein (1987) 117. Cf. Ascon. 21C (=​Lewis (2006) 43); Val. Max. 4.4.11; 5.8.4; Hor. Odes 1.12.37; Juv. Sat. 2.35 and 11.91. 37 Sall. B.J. 29.2–​3; Pliny N.H. 36.116; Flor. 1.36.5; de Vir. Ill. 72.4, but cf. Gruen (1968) 148 n.58.

Uncertainty  111 put himself at the center of intricate political controversy over issues like colonization, juries, and the claims of the Roman allies, unsurprisingly left a wildly fluctuating reputation for self-​control. Despite the open house that could reveal his virtues, other sources relate hostile stories that Drusus was ambitiosus et superbus, threatened to throw opponents from the Tarpeian Rock, acted contra dignitatem with money, was rumored to enjoy luxurious meals of pickled thrush, gave overly extravagant games while aedile, and, when a colleague confronted him to ask what good such spectacles were to the Republic, retorted uncollegially, “What good are you to the Republic?” Pliny the Elder similarly accused Drusus of hoarding 10,000 pounds of silver, and observing that it was a far cry from the pittance for which men were once ejected from the curia.38 Any underlying truth to these erratic reputations is impossible to salvage at this distance, of course. But the underlying truth is not the point: this whiplash-​inducing confusion reported by our sources (no doubt culled from traces of confusion in their own sources) is itself evidence of a critical social context in flux. Restraint remained important enough to be the main (if not the only) line of political attack, but its application to a given individual was often unsettled, which indicates that no group of senators—​even the most powerful—​had a monopoly of authority to decide who was or was not behaving properly. There is no hint in these reports of a collective view or critical mass that left someone victus consensu omnium. Instead, we see in this evidence remnants of men’s efforts to try to gain a critical mass, as they believed had always been done, but which resulted only in passionately disputed claims without clear resolution. Still worse, the attacks presuppose suspicion that displays of the symbolic capital of restraint might be a sham: Scaurus’ virtues, the accusation went, only masked his wantonness; Drusus, despite his house, might still conceal vice. These were ominous developments for a system dependent on consensus about who was acting rightly or wrongly. By far the strongest evidence for disturbance in the traditional restraint patterns—​and particularly in the deference norm—​in these years is violence. A. W. Lintott counted in the seventy-​nine years before Tiberius Gracchus’ death at most four (historically questionable) instances of public “violence.”39 Afterward, a stark upsurge: thirty-​seven separate incidents of public violence are reported between 133 BC and Caesar’s consulship in 59 BC, and twenty-​seven more between 59 BC and the outbreak of the civil war in 49 BC. Riots associated with the promulgation of laws occurred in 111, 110, 104, 103, 102, 101, 100, 99, 92, 91, 90, and 88 BC.40 38 de Vir. Ill. 66.1–​2, 5, 9: “Quid tibi,” inquit, “cum republica nostra?”; Pliny N.H. 33.142. Cf. Drusus’ alleged licence and lack of deference in Liv. Per. 70, Ascon. 69C (=​Lewis (1993) 139), and Val. Max. 9.5.2. 39 Lintott (1968) 70–​71, 209. 40 Lintott (1968) 210–​211, Appendix A; Kelly (2005).

112  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic The change came both in the quantity and in the brutality of the violence. In 121 BC the consul Opimius and armed men killed Gaius Gracchus, his consular ally M. Fulvius Flaccus, Fulvius’ young son, and many of Gracchus’ supporters. After the slaughter, Opimius, with the Senate’s approval, dedicated a temple to the deferential ideal of concordia—​here “achieved” only through bloodshed. Someone scrawled on the temple wall the line “A work of discord builds this temple of Concord.”41 In the late 100s, Saturninus and his ally C. Servilius Glaucia carried agrarian laws by mob force and assassinated at least two political opponents (according to Appian, “without any shame”) to advance Glaucia’s chances in his run for the consulship. In response, the Senate declared a senatus consultum ultimum and besieged Saturninus, Glaucia, and their followers on the Capitoline. Promised safe passage for surrender, they were escorted to the Senate house. But an irate mob swarmed over the building, stripped off the roof tiles, and pelted the prisoners to death. Appian shuddered at what the deaths of elected officials, still in their insignia of office, and at the hands of the Senate, portended.42 The tribune Publius Furius, by turns friendly then inimical to Saturninus, was torn to pieces by a mob in the following year.43 In 91 BC, the consul Philippus, opposing Drusus’ reforms, snapped during a Senate meeting on Drusus’ legislation that he could not “do the Republic’s business with such a Senate.” L. Crassus responded with an attack on Philippus’ libido, at which Philippus ordered Crassus’ arrest. Crassus shoved back the lictor with the retort “you’re no consul to me, Philippus, because I’m no senator to you!”44 Lack of mutual deference, allegations of intemperantia, and physical attack here converged directly. On another occasion, during a raucous assembly, one of Drusus’ attendants choked Philippus until blood poured out of his eyes and mouth. An unknown assassin murdered Drusus soon afterward. The consuls were suspected.45 Of course, for long intervals during these decades the business of the Republic carried on without incident. Violence was not yet fatal to the state, and men might still resist violence with habitual self-​restraint alone. Metellus Numidicus, for instance, refused to swear an oath to uphold laws of Saturninus passed by violence. When condemned to exile, and when some in the crowd offered to form

41 Plut. C. Gr. 15.6, 17.6: ἔργον ἀπονοίας ναὸν ὁμονοίας ποιεῖ. 42 App. B.C. 1.4.28, 32: οὔτε τινὸς αἰδοῦς, 33; Liv. Per. 69; Vell. Pat. 2.12.6; Val. Max. 9.7.3; Plut. Mar. 29.1–​30.4; Flor. 2.4.1–​6; Oros. 5.17.3, 6; MRR I 571–​572, 575–​576; Badian (1984b) 112–​118; Evans (1994) 125–​126; Ferrary (1977); Billows (2009) 29. 43 App. B.C. 1.4.33; Dio 28.95.2–​3; Gruen (1966) 35, (1968) 188. 44 Cic. de Orat. 3.2: illo senatu rempublicam gerere non posse, 3.4–​6; Val. Max. 6.2.2: non es . . . mihi, Philippe, consul, quia ne ego quidem tibi senator sum. 45 Liv. Per. 71; App. B.C. 1.5.36; Vell. Pat. 2.13–​14; Val. Max. 9.5; Sen. de Brev. Vit. 6.1; Flor. 2.5.8; de Vir. Ill. 66.9, 66.13; Lovano (2002) 18; Yakobson (2018) 29.

Uncertainty  113 a mob on his behalf, he thanked them but said that he “could not permit any danger to come upon the fatherland on his account” and went quietly away.46 Nevertheless, such violence, unparalleled by anything in Roman history except in legend, revealed a troubling and growing lack of mutual trust, and strongly suggests that traditional expectations of behavior had suddenly come into considerable doubt. In an older time, a man could reasonably be expected to defer to others, in part, at least, because he believed with some certainty that peers might do the same. Now, a fair number of men seemed willing to turn to violence or even outright assassination to get their way, which shows that the old certainty was lessening. When Appian described “almost constant” (αἰεὶ δι᾿ ὀλίγου) warlike violence in these decades, he (in typical Greek fashion) connected it to στασίαρχοι μοναρχικοί, “heads of factions seeking monarchy.”47 But the behavior he observed in his sources actually illustrated a change in the Roman mindset. Roman men had always formed groups of peers to gain influence. Before, however, the groups were meant to effect only social pressure. Now, at least some men began to believe that they might gain influence, not through traditional patterns of restraint alone, but with the addition of force. So far, we have reviewed significant evidence of discord and violence. But why were these episodes occurring at all, particularly if the habitus simultaneously appeared strong? Difficult decisions about how to govern, contestation over proper behavior, and restraint-​based attacks were nothing new, but previously had found reasonably satisfactory resolution; why not now? Why was peaceable intra-​group policing faltering? Because the evidence for the period is so spare, we must resort to some conjecture, but a few reasons are probable. A standard diagnosis among moderns is that imperial growth in the mid-​ to-​late Republic led to increased competition for commands, and forced the Republic to expand junior offices while retaining limited senior offices, which in time heightened inter-​aristocratic strife beyond control.48 This is not entirely wrong inasmuch as eastern opportunities were quite tempting, and the rewards of self-​advancement undoubtedly grew in this period. But the upheaval we have observed so far was not connected to claiming imperial commands. Increased competition for generalships does not explain the timing of the disruptions satisfactorily either: competition for military glory had always been blistering even when the target was some rude Apennine tribe, and extra-​Italian commands had been massive for nearly a century before domestic breakdown and violence followed. Linking overheated competition for offices to the troubles is

46 App. B.C. 1.4.31: οὐκ ἔφη δι᾽ ἑαυτὸν ἐάσειν οὐδένα κίνδυνον ἐπιγενέσθαι τῇ πατρίδι. Cf. Liv. Per. 69; Plut. Mar. 29.8; Val. Max. 3.8.4; Flor. 2.4.16; Oros. 17.4; de Vir. Ill. 62. 47 App. B.C. 1.pr.2. 48 E.g., Crawford (1993) 71–​72; Jehne (2009) 25, 94.

114  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic also questionable: the praetorship, for example, was expanded to four in 277 BC and to six in 197, yet for decades no internal violence followed. Something else was amiss. A standard diagnosis among the ancients for the troubles was that the influx of wealth from growing empire fostered some sort of moral enfeeblement.49 We should not adopt that unsophisticated thesis, of course. But in light of the mechanics of restraint, we can see that the ancients well sensed that this new wealth had some role in their Republic’s difficulties, and not simply because it heightened the competition for conquest. As we have repeatedly observed, wealth always sat uneasily between improper lack of temperantia and proper advancement in helping to determine a man’s social and political merit. In poorer and more materially homogenous times the tension would have been easier to resolve and “intemperance” easier to spot and define, which is why we saw relatively clean-​cut cases of “intemperance” (and senatorial notae) turning on owning silver plate, and so on.50 As novel wealth gained from laudable conquest became far more abundant, however, it appears to have sparked novel disputes over the balance. In addition, as Wallace-​Hadrill has illustrated, sumptuary legislation of the kind passed over the second century ironically inspired disruptive competition in remaining unregulated areas, like home size. Accordingly, the era shows such a wide range of reactions to luxury—​Lucilius’ targets, Crassus’ trees and columns, Duronius’ libertarian stance, Scaurus’ allegedly itchy fingers, Rutilius’ theatrics—​that we should conclude that the Romans in fact faced a novel level of confusion over it. Indeed, albeit with scattered data points, we can see wealth introducing increased friction over time: in 121 BC questions of senatorial luxuria turned upon thousands of sesterces and by 92 BC upon millions. Metellus Numidicus believed, correctly, that he could rely upon personal virtue to save himself from charges of extortion in 112 BC, while twenty years later Rutilius’ temperantia led only to condemnation.51 In this sense, growing empire did not spawn some nebulous moral corruption. Rather, the Romans’ peculiar normative framework shaped how they viewed empire’s material and economic transformations. Conquest and growing luxury over the course of the 200s stressed the Roman nobility’s homogeneity along exceedingly sensitive social and political axes in a social context that long tightly linked a man’s political weight and normative claims to legitimate power to his reputed level of personal self-​restraint—​now without definitions that any

49 Chapter 3, note 2. 50 Cf. Flower (2010b) 37; Platts (2011) 243–​246; Pina Polo (2016) 169; Wallace-​Hadrill (2008) 354. 51 Cf. Deiter (1967) 71; Lintott (1972) 638; David (2000) 31, 68–​71, 91–​93, 213–​215; van Wees (2011) 13; Mouritsen (2017) 169; Maschek (2018) 174–​226; Wallace-​Hadrill (2008) 345; Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 55.

Uncertainty  115 critical mass apparently accepted. We are getting closer to answering why the social fabric was fraying at this point. Still, temptation for luxury or increased competition do not explain fully this new extreme anxiety and violence among the Roman aristocracy. A deeper explanation is that the changes that imperial wealth and power wrought on restraint converged toward the end of the century with several key social after-​ effects of changes in the restraint values wrought by Tiberius Gracchus’ tribunate as well as by the Roman habit of tending to see issues in “moral” terms, which deeply affected the general meta-​rules of the Romans’ entire semiformal system of government. The convergence soon moved beyond the tribunate or the specific agrarian issue in that case to disrupt the meta-​rules of governance more broadly, while the generation(s) that followed accepted the changed landscape as a new normal, then stretched the after-​effects to even further lengths in a cumulative causal loop. The first key after-​effect was a change to the operation of existimatio. Tiberius’ turn to the People gave posterity a pedigreed justification not to care too deeply for one’s existimatio in the eyes of at least some of one’s aristocratic fellows. A man would be warranted, after all, in refusing to bow to men who would not bow to the populus Romanus. This was particularly true if those men could be labeled luxurious and intemperate, an easy task amid shifting interpretations of temperance just at this time. The result was that one man could now declare large portions of the rest of the senatorial group incontinent and unworthy judges of his performance, giving such a man real ability to implement his views over attempts of the rest of the aristocratic group to get him to defer. In such a context Gaius Gracchus could declare that “if I light upon some desired object of the People, I will affirm the benefit of the Republic,” while carrying laws for the People’s benefit over opponents’ objections by attacking those opponents as rife with intemperantia and libido. The (viable) charge that a substantial bloc of his peers was licentious also permitted Gaius to orient the People into the rhetorical position of a proper aristocratic peer possessed of “wisdom” and “virtue.” This seems quite new. As we saw, about two decades before Gaius’ tribunate Scipio Nasica had quieted the plebs by telling them that he knew what was best for them and the res publica. But now Gaius stated that he sought from the crowd not money, but “honor,” praise, and a “good existimatio” (as he would from a peer), while he sniped at his senatorial opponents for caring for nothing but the riches of foreign kings.52

52 ORF3 183 fr. 30 (=​Prisc. GL II p. 513, 16): si nanciam populi desiderium, conprobabo rei publicae commoda; 187–​188 fr. 44 (=​Gell. 11.10): Nam vos, Quirites, si velitis sapientia atque virtute uti, 191–​92 frs. 47–​50; Plut. Tib. 2.4; Heitland (1909) II 304; Hill (1948); Yavetz (1974) 50–​51; Lobur (2008) 48.

116  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic This change to existimatio is part of the reason Gaius appeared to care less (and less modeste) about the Senate’s or his colleagues’ approval than any man of his generation. Not yet thirty, he was reportedly the first to turn his back to the Senate and rotate on the Rostra to face the People in the Forum;53 he stripped senators of their monopoly on jury-​membership in the repetundae court; he abandoned his home on the Palatine to live in the poorer quarters of the city; and he denounced the consul in a public edict. Plutarch flatly accused him of deposing the Senate. He also offered grave insult to his fellow tribunes, who constructed for certain games some wooden seats for paying customers, which blocked the (non-​paying) People’s view. Gaius harangued his fellows to remove the seats, to no avail—​and then, in the dark of night, had his own workers do it. For this, Gaius’ colleagues thought him “reckless” and “violent” and machinated his defeat at the next polls.54 Doubtless Gaius’ attitude was the idiosyncratic product of understandable rage over his brother’s murder, his dislike of men who idled in wealth, and also of genuine solicitude for the plebs Romana. But no matter the amalgam of reasons, the pendulum swing in his attitude toward existimatio—​and the example that it set—​made him extremely dangerous within a republican framework that depended on inter-​peer deference to function. This reconfiguration of inter-​peer existimatio had lasting consequences. Saturninus and Glaucia later espoused the maiestas, not of the Populus Romanus alone, but only of those of the plebs who actively opposed the aristocracy, which suggests that they took the idea a step farther than Gaius.55 The People were receptive to these ideas, eventually taking formal charge in these years of numerous functions previously handled by the Senate, including the cura morum, and also legislating on an “enormously extended” “scope of the subject-​matter of politics.”56 That is, the People were taking on the role of enforcer of norms. Changes to inter-​peer deference were now both affecting the very functions of institutional structures in the aristocratic competitive system, and also splitting the dritte Instanz, with restraint as the fracture-​line. A second after-​effect of Tiberius’ turn to the People and away from his colleague was the reconfiguration of pudor and verecundia, the other underpinnings of the deference ideal. It is admittedly difficult to get at the emotions of the men of this era through our scant sources, but we see far less of the overt blushing, weeping, or downcast eyes, in the face of colleagues and peers of the kind, for example, that Octavius had shown regarding Tiberius. Gaius Gracchus especially 53 Plut. C. Gr. 5.3, although according to Cic. Lael. 96, a speaker had already done this in 145 bc. Still, Gaius’ act was apparently particularly provocative. 54 Plut. C. Gr. 5.1–​2, 12.1–​2, 12.4: ἰταμὸς καὶ βίαιος. Cf. Cic. de Har. Resp. 20.43. 55 Ferrary (1983) 564. 56 Millar (1986) 6–​8. Cf. Lanfranchi (2017) 382, 388; Clemente (2018) 214–​217.

Uncertainty  117 did not seem the least bit troubled by his actions. His decision to tear down the seats showed little calibration toward the “face” of his colleagues that would have attended traditional verecundia. This attitude too only swelled in time: Saturninus brazenly insulted the Senate when members claimed to hear thunder that would invalidate his acts, mockingly proclaiming that if they did not keep quiet it might hail, too.57 Instead, such men appeared to calibrate their emotional map relative only to the goodwill of the plebs: Gaius is recorded as weeping in front of his father’s statue only once he began to feel that the People had abandoned him, and his tears caused some to rally back to him.58 The fracture in the judgment-​group was shifting emotional habits too. A third after-​effect—​the violence of Tiberius’ death, and the extent to which he and Octavius had stretched the restraint values—​also unsettled the third leg of the deference pattern, mutuality. Appian’s competing στασίαρχοι, as well as the mobs that Gaius and Saturninus gathered against equally determined forces of opposing elites, show how violence produced counter-​violence among aristocrats, either out of mimicry or self-​preservation. Trust in traditional deference could be dangerous. Gaius Gracchus prepared to come to the Senate to persuade them rather than risk bloodshed when violence seemed imminent, but his partisans held him back, certainly because they recognized that matters were too far gone. They proved right. Once violence became a viable alternative to deference, deference could lose out: Drusus’ attempts to create concord around charged political questions only got him killed.59 That much of the violence described above was perpetrated by the society’s elite shows how critical they considered this loss of deference to their wonted system. The deaths of the Gracchi and Saturninus at the hands of senators are only the most obvious evidence that, once a player steadfastly decided not to defer, the Senate might find recourse only in cudgels. It is strange at first glance that the aristocracy, which seemed possessed of many methods to rein in troublemakers—​notae, lawsuits, legislation—​should have come so quickly and so often to violence.60 But willingness to resort to lethal force (even if shortsighted) demonstrates that many senators did not believe that peaceful methods of restraint would be effective, and at minimum confirms how calamitous they imagined their opponents’ lack of deference to be, as the pendulum swung farther yet. Of course, the Senate’s descent into violence did not solve its problems.

57 de Vir. Ill. 73.7. A pun: thunder and hail together created what augurs called a calamitas, with which Saturninus threatened the Senate, Linderski (1983) 453–​459. 58 Plut. C. Gr. 14.4. 59 Plut. C. Gr. 14.4–​15.1, 16.3. Cf. Steel (2010) 49; Shanske (2013) 303. 60 No lex de vi would exist until the 80s bc at the earliest, Heitland (1909) II 528; Lintott (1968) 122; Bonnefond-​Coudry (1989) 780. Kelly (2005) proposes a lost earlier law, but this could not have passed so unnoticed even in this era of spotty evidence.

118  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Instead, it could become hated for the harshness of its methods; the People turned the slain Gracchi practically into gods. Nevertheless, the intensity of that sense of calamity was exacerbated by the fact that the inculcation of the restraint values—​particularly through smoothed-​ over exempla—​had created a sort of toggle-​switch of moral and immoral. Jean-​ Michel David has argued that the Romans’ problems began with an embassy of Greek philosophers in 155 bc who introduced the concept of nuance into the aristocratic consensus. This theory has it in reverse: the Romans seemed never to learn to appreciate nuance, but tended to approach their issues in “moral” black-​ and-​white terms. As Lucilius intoned: Virtue is to know what is right and useful and honorable for man and again what things are good and what are bad, what are useless, shameful, and dishonorable/​virtue is to know the end and modus of things . . . to be adversary and enemy of bad men and bad habits/​and on the other hand a defender of good men and good habits.

Similarly, Gaius Gracchus could say that “it is inescapable that a man who approves of dishonest men will disapprove of honest men,” and from that premise could conclude that those who killed his brother—​great nobles all—​were in fact pessimi. The trouble was that Gaius’ enemies and Lucilius’ marks would have agreed with these all-​purpose statements. The nub of debate was over who qualified as honestus, and in these decades answers were unpredictable. Everyone might believe in the abstract that a luxurious or libidinous man was malus. But Tiberius Gracchus’ episode revealed that a senator husbanding a fine estate was now a divisive character to a degree never seen before: intemperate and greedy (and thus no legitimate judge) to some, traditional and upright (and thus worthy of deference) to others.61 The last key after-​effect was an important mental leap that sprang from this toggle-​switch thinking. We have seen several men to this point in Roman history be unrestrained. Such obstinacy, however, had never been enough to merit death. Yet around the time of the Gracchi a new metaphor (if not yet the legal title, which would come) seems to have been applied for the first time to troublesome citizens: the concept of the hostis, an impudent foreign enemy against whom the use of ruthless force was second nature to the martial Romans.62 Scipio Nasica 61 Luc. Sat. Fr. 1198–​1205: virtus scire homini rectum utile quid sit honestum/​quae bona quae mala item, quid inutile turpe inhonestum;/​virtus quaerendae finem re scire modumque;/​. . . hostem esse atque inimicum hominum morumque malorum/​contra defensorem hominum morumque bonorum; Cic. Or. 70.233: abesse non potest quin eiusdem hominis sit probos improbare qui improbos probet; ORF3 178 fr. 17 (=​Char. P.313); David (2000) 215. Cf. Harders (2017) 249 on smoothing exempla. 62 Cf. Cic. de Off. 1.37; Maschek (2018) 53–​108.

Uncertainty  119 believed that Tiberius Gracchus’ unprecedented lack of restraint meant that he was actually trying to destroy the Republic. In 131 BC, Scipio Aemilianus judged Tiberius iure caesum (“justly killed”), and amplified the point in 129 when a mass of Gracchan supporters shouted for his death as a “tyrant,” to which Scipio casually replied, “They want to kill me—​just what one would expect from the those who make war on the fatherland.”63 In toggle-​switch thinking, normative disagreement was “war,” and there was no middle ground—​and thus no quarter. A decade later the hostis metaphor recurred when one of Gaius Gracchus’ supporters killed one of the consul Opimius’ attendants, and Opimius called on a senatorial mob and foreign archers to help put Gaius’ followers down as though enemies of the state. Even those opposed to Opimius adopted the metaphor: some felt that Opimius’ dedication of his temple to concordia too much resembled a victorious general arrogantly celebrating a triumph over foreign foes.64 According to many modern scholars, black-​and-​white exempla of legendary citizen-​hostes such as Sp. Maelius, Sp. Cassius, and M. Manlius Capitolinus also gained currency around this time to help justify the brothers’ murders, and indeed at this juncture orators began to use such stories (with their simplistic messages) to justify violence against other malefactors.65 Certainly, if one truly believed that one’s fellow senators—​even one’s own relatives, in Scipio’s case—​were on the same moral plane as alien hordes, then mutual deference was in rocky straits indeed. In sum, in these uncertain decades all agreed that the restraint ideals were powerful, wished to be perceived as following them, and attached political success to them. The political verdict on a man continued to be evaluated in terms of self-​control. The habitus remained strong. Yet the questions of how to practice restraint rightly and who could judge it rightly were highly charged, and growing unresolvable. Tiberius’ tribunate and many examples that followed had brought the vital guardrails of existimatio, pudor, verecundia, deference, and the process of judging them into debate, mingled with increasing anxiety over temperantia. The results were growing chaos in defining normative behavior and toggle-​ switch thinking that catastrophized disputes. Likely it is for this reason that, by this time, the foreboding “decline” narrative seems to have become dominant. It also hinted at self-​fulfillment: the aristocracy’s normal processes of restraint-​ based, non-​violent self-​policing were weakening as the nobility grew more fearful and violent in the face of perceived declining restraint.66 63 Cic. de Orat. 2.106; Vell. Pat. 2.2.4; Plut. Apopth. Scip. Min. 23: ‘εἰκότως,’ εἶπεν, ‘οἱ τῇ πατρίδι πολεμοῦντες ἐμὲ βούλονται προανελεῖν’. Cf. Gruen (1968) 65; Astin (1967) 234, 240. 64 Plut. C. Gr. 16.3, 17.6; App. B.C. 1.3.25. Cf. Flower (2010a) 76. 65 van der Bruwaene (1950–​1951) 231–​238; Ogilvie (1965) 337–​339, 550–​552; Lintott (1968) 55–​ 57; Forsythe (2005) 193, 240, 259–​261; Raaflaub (2005a) 25, 29; Cornell (2005) 50–​51; Lowrie (2010) 171–​173. 66 Cf. Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 60.

120  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Thence, a paradox. Because traditional normative behavior had long been the chief measure of political and social rectitude, as more serious debate over who best displayed the restraint values arose, the less power the values exercised to unite and order the group as a whole. Instead, because restraint norms remained so socially potent, they began to augment disagreement, which endangered those who trusted too much in them. Resort to violence, to the point of murder, tried to resolve what appeal to concordia could not—​which only further disrupted trust and aroused suspicion and high anxiety, which in turn only further corroded mutuality and deference. To be sure, such violent incidents were at first sporadic, but bloodshed now threatened as never before. In this confluence of factors, social values that ideally stabilized the Republic were now starting to destabilize it.67



67

Cf. Wallace-​Hadrill (1997) 11; Hölkeskamp (2006) 383.

6

Cataclysm It is within this destabilizing trend that we can best understand the individual decisions that led to Rome’s “First Civil War.” The struggle began as personal rivalry between two men, one a military novus homo whose political education came in the unsettled years after the Gracchi, the other a sullied patrician who felt shunned by his peers and wished to make good. But at every point, the convoluted paths of Gaius Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla and the cataclysmic butchery that they unleased were shaped by the confluence of factors in the application and judgment of restraint norms that we have been tracking that were making nonviolent, intragroup policing ever less viable. Plutarch and Sallust explained Marius’ rise from the humble town of Arpinum to quaestor (ca. 123 BC) to tribune of the plebs (119 BC) to praetor (115 BC) with a favorable tradition touting his military prowess as well as his “moderate living at home and victory over lusts and riches,” and avoidance of “luxury and extravagance.”1 Be that as it may, Marius certainly exemplified the disorder of the period, marking his term as tribune of the plebs in a fumbling popularis style in his own “turn” to the People. He promulgated a law that narrowed the gangways through which voters passed to reduce the chances for influential citizens to buttonhole them, and when the Senate called him to account, he “did not act like a young man who had just entered politics without a brilliant background,” i.e., modestly.2 Rather, he threatened to throw both the consul Cotta and his own patron (the same Q. Caecilius Metellus Numidicus whose account books later went unseen at his extortion trial) into prison if they dared oppose him. The Senate—​ just four years out from the second Gracchan debacle—​yielded. Plutarch reported a negative tradition that, because of this incident, men thought Marius “uncaring for shame,” although a “fierce opponent of the Senate and favorable among the demagogues.” He was rejected soon after for the curule and plebeian aedileships, allegedly because he was “over-​bold” and “self-​willed,” which also suggests that he failed in some expectation of modestia. Marius overcame his

1 Sall. B.J. 63.2: domi modicus, lubidinis et divitiarum victor; Plut. Mar. 2, 3.2: τρυφῆς καὶ πολυτελείας. Cf. Diod. Sic. 37.29.2. 2 Plut. Mar. 4.2: ἐκεῖνος οὐκ ἔπαθε νέου πάθος ἀπὸ μηδενὸς λαμπροῦ προεληλυθότος ἄρτι πρὸς τὴν πολιτείαν. Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.003.0007

122  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic misstep—​unfortunately we are not told how—​and was elected praetor for 115 BC, albeit narrowly, and with murmurs about bribery.3 Marius especially displayed a tenuous adherence to the concept of mutual deference. After Marius’ praetorship, Metellus took him as legate to North Africa against Jugurtha, where Marius fought brilliantly, but reportedly in a fashion meant to gain glory for himself and not for his patron.4 When in 109 BC Marius asked Metellus for a furlough to seek the consulship in Rome, Metellus coldly landed a lacerating remark that Marius could run when Metellus’ twenty-​year-​ old son did.5 Marius resolved to overcome this condescension by earning the support of merchants who believed that the war was progressing badly and who were put off by Metellus’ imperious personality, and also by sharing in the hardships of his troops, no doubt to contrast himself with the perceived arrogance of the commander.6 Jugurtha also provided fodder for victories that advanced Marius to the consulship in 107 BC. After the election, Marius and a friendly tribune engineered a plebiscite that deprived Metellus of the African supreme command and allotted it to Marius. Metellus, we are told, reacted to the news by being “unable to temper his tears or control his tongue,” his unseemly crying and curses caused either by superbia or an insulted bonum ingenium.7 Nevertheless Metellus yielded and handed over the command—​albeit through his legate, our eternally composed P. Rutilius Rufus, rather than having to face Marius himself.8 By 104 BC Jugurtha graced Marius’ triumph in Rome. To this point, Marius’ career had meandered among clumsy navigation of modestia, deference, and pudor, some apparent reputation for temperantia (either created now or later but surviving to his biographers), care for the People’s (and troops’) judgment, and skill as one of Rome’s foremost fighting men, which had kept his hopes for higher office viable, if not sterling.9 A confused opportunist, perhaps, in a jumbled social context. He might have been little further heard from but that chance obliged: the terrifying incursions of the Germanic Cimbri that overwhelmed Mallius and Caepio at Arausio impelled the voters to grant Marius an unprecedented five consecutive consulships between 104 and 100. For his victories over the invaders he was called the “third founder of Rome” after Romulus and Camillus.10 3 Plut. Mar. 4.3: ἄτρεπτος δὲ ὑπ᾿ αἰδοῦς, δεινὸς δὲ κατὰ τῆς βουλῆς ἀνίστασθαι χάριτι τῶν πολλῶν δημαγωγῶν, 5.2: θρασὺς and αὐθάδης. Cf. Val. Max. 6.9.14; Diod. Sic. 34/​35.38.1. 4 Plut. Mar. 7.1. 5 Sall. B.J. 64.4; Plut. Mar. 8.3. Evans (1994) 52–​63 proposed that this comment was invented propaganda. Even if so, note that its power came from its attack on aristocratic superbia. 6 Plut. Mar. 7.2; Sall. B.J. 64.1–​6; Diod. Sic. 34/​35.38.2. 7 Sall. B.J. 73.7; 82.2–​3: neque lacrumas tenere neque moderari linguam; Gruen (1968) 154–​155; Evans (1994) 74–​78. 8 Sall. B.J. 86.5; Plut. Mar. 10.1; MRR II 613. 9 Cf. Plut. Mar. 31.2; Vell. Pat. 2.11.1–​2. 10 Plut. Mar. 27.5.

Cataclysm  123 Yet the aristocracy, which respected Marius’ achievements while barbarians menaced south of the Alps, never welcomed this novus homo into their well-​bred fold to the same degree as they once had Cato the Elder—​try as he might to gain approval within the habitus by distributing booty honestly, by “wishing to show himself as moderate after such good fortune” by presenting himself as contentus with a single triumph when offered two, and by insisting on sharing his triumph over the Cimbric tribes with his colleague Q. Lutatius Catulus.11 This point is critical: the current contorted state of restraint and judging, combined with Marius’ idiosyncratic, popularis, and prickly history, seems to have disturbed the feedback loop of mutual deference, such that Marius’ efforts to trace traditional patterns of restraint behavior did not fully yield the gratia that he expected in recompense for his moderatio or his great deeds. Accordingly, he evidently decided, the solution was more great deeds: in 99 BC he went to the East for a few years to “fulfill a vow,” but likely really to make trouble enough to start a war to keep himself in the spotlight, during which time rose his great rival, about nineteen years his junior, Lucius Cornelius Sulla.12 If Marius typified restraint and deference in disarray, so did Sulla. Sulla was of patrician Cornelian stock, but of a disgraced station. His father had left him nothing, and he spent a number of years living vivaciously in the company of actors until he found enough financial footing to embark on a minor career.13 Sulla eventually became Marius’ own legate in North Africa during the war with Jugurtha. Marius, we are told, was irritated with Sulla’s reputation for frivolity, yet Sulla nevertheless fought with notable valor, undoubtedly to try to overcome his maculate past.14 But although Marius’ military subordinate, Sulla portrayed himself as the actual winner of the war because he personally captured the renegade Jugurtha. He then flaunted the newfound wealth gained from his expedition—​to the dislike of some who wondered aloud how he could be an honest man if he had become so rich so quickly.15 In other circumstances, this sort of opportunism might have aroused at most indignant disdain from the elder consul, just as when Marius had similarly crossed Metellus Numidicus. Indeed, the rivalry merely simmered over the 11 Dio 27.92.1; Plut. Mar. 27.6: μέτριον ἐπὶ τηλικαύταις εὐτυχίαις βουλόμενος παρέχειν ἑαυτόν; Liv. Per. 68. Cf. Cic. Tusc. 5.56, de Prov. Cons. 19; Vell. Pat. 2.22.4; Val. Max. 9.4; Eutrop. 5.1.2. Cf. Badian (1958) 203, 210; Kildahl (1968) 123; Brunt (1971) 97; Evans (1994) 89–​90. We must avoid overemphasizing Marius’ rejection, as Luce (1970) 164–​165 notes, citing the honor of an augurate in 98 bc. But, especially considering Marius’ assured disappointment in not becoming censor, we still must imagine Marius pining and restless in the 90s. 12 Plut. Mar. 32.1–​2; Heitland (1909) II 356; Luce (1970) 166–​169; Keaveney (2005) 37. 13 Badian (1976) 37–​39; Keaveney (2005) 6–​10. On the proverbially tenuous morality of actors, see Edwards (1993) 127–​136. 14 Val. Max. 6.9.6. 15 Sall. B.J. 80.6, 112–​113; Plut. Sull. 1.2, 3.2–​4; Plut. Mar. 9.3–​6, 10.2; Diod. Sic. 34/​35.39; Flor. 1.36.17; Rolfe and Ramey (2013) 340.

124  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic next decade while Marius was preoccupied with the Germans, and Sulla with assistance against the barbarians and then with various provincial duties.16 But starting in 91 BC, events and the unsettled social context of these decades converged to turn mutual dislike into a violent series of coups and countercoups. First, the Senate approved the dedication of several trophies and images on the Capitol that depicted Sulla’s capture of Jugurtha. Marius was furious. Then the assassination of Livius Drusus sparked the uprising of Rome’s Italian allies and the Social War, in which both Marius and Sulla took commands as legates. But although Marius enjoyed early success, he was sidelined by a Senate afraid of his aspirations, while Sulla defeated some of Rome’s former allies from Samnium, giving him the attractive distinction of being the new conqueror of the bogeymen of Rome’s distant past and securing for 89 BC the consulship he had long craved. Meanwhile, while Rome was occupied in Italy, King Mithridates VI of Pontus ordered the murder of all Roman residents in Asia Minor and invaded Roman territories. Naturally, the Roman who could avenge Mithridates’ genocidal crimes would bask in praise. As duly elected consul, command fell to Sulla.17 To Marius that result intolerably denied an unparalleled six-​time consul his due chance at glory (and rendered pointless his recent surreptitious efforts in the East). A key scene followed: in denial of his sagging septuagenarian physique, Marius began to compete embarrassingly in military exercises with much younger men, obviously to prepare for campaign. This vignette became notable even its time because it was a condensed symbol that reflected several of the converging, worrying factors of the last chapters. It manifested the competition for great commands of course, but it equally exemplified the recent trend of disrupted moderatio: the sources clearly report disdainful contemporary mutterings that Marius should have been content with all of his incomparable successes, not pressing a senescent body for another campaign.18 It further revealed the growing problems with pudor: despite wagging tongues, the old man stripped down amongst the young. And it illustrated the disorder affecting existimatio: on the one hand, Marius desired that others would defer to his undeniable merit. On the other, perhaps a result of his dazzling rise in the face of scorn, Marius developed a frightening reputation: as Plutarch put it, he “did not care to be the best man so long as he could be the greatest.”19 If that assessment also derives from contemporaneous sources, it suggests that Marius’ fellows 16 Badian (1964) 157–​178, (1976) 41–​42; Keaveney (2005) 22–​39. 17 Plut. Mar. 33.1–​2; Plut. Sull. 3.4–​4.1, 6.2; Oros. 5.18.24; Greenidge and Clay (1960) 168–​169; Luce (1970) 184–​190; Keaveney (2005) 65; Konrad (2006) 178–​179. 18 Vell. Pat. 2.18.6; Plut. Mar. 35.4; Diod. Sic. 37.29.1; Lintott (1971a) 443 n.3. Luce (1970) 193 has proven that the vignette is contemporary with the action: references to proposed battle sites in the passages describing Marius’ exercises could have been envisioned only just as the war was breaking out, and not for long after as the theater of the war shifted. 19 Plut. Mar. 28.3: ὑπὲρ τοῦ μέγιστος γενέσθαι τὸ βέλτιστος εἶναι προϊέμενος.

Cataclysm  125 fretted that his self-​control and respect for peers was weakening relative to his desire for self-​assertion—​something that made even a “third founder of Rome” a dangerously uninhibited menace to others’ just opportunities for advancement. Similar fears to those that the symbolism-​laden vignette raised had, of course, been raised with other men such as Scipio Africanus the Elder—​but now the fears proved unprecedentedly prescient. Around this time Marius found an ally in the tribune Publius Sulpicius, who had been rebuffed by Sulla after giving him some political support, and who was seeking the backing of the Italian allies (who had mostly by now made peace in the Social War on condition of receiving the enfranchisement long denied them) by sponsoring their bid to have their votes distributed evenly among the tribes. To protect himself from the certain backlash (and, of course, to force his will) he surrounded himself with a band of swordsmen he mockingly called the “anti-​Senate”—​a particularly wide pendulum swing.20 Marius and Sulpicius now came to a covert pact: Marius would support Sulpicius’ bid if Sulpicius would do him a portentous, secret favor. Rioting followed as Sulpicius urged his voting laws, and Sulla as consul attempted to end the violence by suspending public business. After being personally threatened in the melee (in which the son of Sulla’s co-​consul Q. Pompeius Rufus was killed), Sulla sought refuge in Marius’ house, and there arranged to cease his opposition to the law in exchange for calm. Sulla then quitted Rome to join his army besieging the Italian holdout of Nola, intending to snuff out the last cinders of allied resistance and to prepare for the East. There, word reached him that Sulpicius, with due regard for his clandestine deal, had passed a plebiscite that had stripped Sulla of the Mithridatic command and given it to Marius.21 From one perspective, Sulla should at this point have simply obeyed the People’s latest word.22 But in the twenty years since Metellus Numidicus had grudgingly yielded to a similar plebiscite, the continual destabilizations to normative behavior and judgment reviewed in the last chapter had widened imaginable avenues of response, rendering it conceivable for a consul to ignore even an official “judgment” of the People. And so, Sulla did something staggering: ordered his army to march on Rome. Turmoil in restraint, mingled with recent trends, let Sulla conceive of and justify this astonishing act. First, Sulla called Marius’ and Sulpicius’ law an arrogant “insult” (ὕβρις) against him, linking the law’s legitimacy with its promulgators’ 20 Plut. Mar. 35.2; Plut. Sull. 8.2; App. B.C. 1.8.55–​56; Ascon. 25C (=​Lewis (1993) 51); Luce (1970) 194; Lintott (1971a) 442 n.3; Keaveney (1983) 53–​55; Seager (1994) 167–​168. 21 Vell. Pat. 2.18.16; Liv. Per. 77; App. B.C. 1.8.55–​57; Plut. Mar. 35.3-​4; Plut. Sull. 8.4–​6; Lintott (1971a) 443–​445; Levick (1982b); Keaveney (1983) 59; Evans (1994) 135. 22 Morstein-​Marx (2011) 263 notes a legal distinction: Marius in 107 bc was a sitting consul to whom was transferred the command of a proconsul, but in 88 bc he was a privatus who took command from a consul. Still, a plebiscite ought to be obeyed.

126  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic motives (and reminding us that the fluid performative competition’s “institutional” or “legal” features were outgrowths of malleable social relations). The Gracchan after-​effects of violence of the last decades (indeed preceding weeks) also surely left Sulla to conclude that not only his command and reputation but even his life were in danger, while the pendulum of violence swung to its farthest point yet. Meanwhile, as modern scholars have (perhaps over)emphasized, Marius had recently enacted military reforms while consul, enlisting poorer citizens who consequently allegedly looked to some greater degree than past citizen-​soldiers to their general-​patron for spoil. Thus Sulla’s soldiers reportedly feared that if Sulla were replaced, Marius would choose new men to fight for eastern plunder. They likely also were protective of their election of and the honor of their consul. An affront to their consul’s existimatio thus happened to intersect with their interests. The march was also a manifestation of a split dritte Instanz: the officers (save the quaestor L. Licinius Lucullus, of whom more later) refused to follow Sulla, whose actions, although immediately rational to Sulla and at least part of the traditional judgment-​group (a loyal portion of the People, here at arms), were to them as yet unthinkable. They were about to get an indelible lesson.23 But the main justification for the march derived from the characters of Marius and Sulpicius themselves. As Sulla approached the Senate sent as envoys the praetors M. Junius Brutus and a “Servilius.” The former was a known supporter of Marius; a ludicrous choice unless we perceive the old assumption that an embassy’s group dignitas would outweigh personal differences. The gravity of the praetors’ office, however, did not here prevent the outraged soldiery from smashing their fasces and tearing at their robes when they spoke to Sulla with “rather much boldness.” The envoys did have the time at least to ask Sulla why he was leading his soldiers against Rome. In the Introduction to this book we heard his reply: “To free her from tyrants.”24 This situation-​changing epithet was a product of the last few decades of fraught emotion and disorder in the restraint patterns. From Sulla’s point of view, Sulpicius and Marius had committed profound violations of the restraint rules. Sulpicius, for his part, had once upheld the values, promulgating a law to prevent senators from holding too much debt, opposing the illegal candidacy of the aedile C. Caesar Strabo (who had not yet held the praetorship) for the consulship, and by turns supporting Drusus and Sulla. But then, Sulla charged, Sulpicius became unrestrainable himself. Plutarch, who followed Sulla’s now-​lost memoirs here, described Sulpicius as “A man who was second to none in the heights of 23 App. B.C. 1.8.57; Gelzer (1968) 11; Levick (1982b) 503; Keaveney (1984) 119, (1992) 18, (2005) 52; Morstein-​Marx and Rosenstein (2006) 632; Billows (2009) 43; Morstein-​Marx (2011) 272. 24 Liv. Per. 89; App. B.C. 1.7.55–​57: ἐλευθερώσων αὐτὴν ἀπὸ τῶν τυραννούντων; Plut. Sull. 9.2: θρασύτερον; MRR II 40–​41; Keaveney (2005) 53. Servilius is otherwise unknown.

Cataclysm  127 evil, so that one could not ask who was more wicked than he, but rather only how he could outdo his own wickedness.” The purported “heights of evil” were high indeed. In this telling Sulpicius used the mob to somehow prevent the consul (Sulpicius’ long-​time friend) Q. Pompeius Rufus from exercising his powers, and his mob, as noted, also killed Pompeius’ son in a riot. There was also Sulpicius’ decidedly disrespectful “anti-​Senate,” which could be seen as a bodyguard—​ a classic mark of a would-​be tyrant. And Plutarch (again following Sulla’s memoirs) further supposed that simple bribery and avarice abetted Sulpicius’ apostasy, as evidenced by a suspicious episode that saw an allegedly indebted Sulpicius counting out money in the Forum.25 Of course, we must be more cautious than Plutarch or Sulla. Ernst Badian and Sulla’s biographer Arthur Keaveney adduced the more attractive argument that Sulpicius proposed his bill to aid the Italians just as Drusus might have, and was then insulted when his friends Pompeius Rufus and Sulla, whom he had just aided in winning the elections, prevented a vote on his bill. Only then did he turn to violence and a compact with Marius. Lintott may also have identified part of Sulpicius’ motivation when he proposed that Sulpicius was insulted by boni while resisting Caesar Strabo—​and we might imagine that this caused Sulpicius to believe that he was being punished for respecting tradition more than certain greedy peers. If the latter two theories have any truth to them, it would explain why Sulla would be eager to deflect criticism of his and his peers’ own actions, which he did by ascribing to Sulpicius the pungent motive of intemperantia. Nevertheless, we have from all of this evidence a snapshot of Sulla’s justification as he marched: Sulpicius turned from traditional good order to the mob, failing to defer properly to peer opinion and greedily taking bribes. Sulpicius, of course, would have responded that he had been frustrated by selfish superbi as he acted in the defense of traditional rules and virtues, and all signs indicate that he assumed Sulla would simply cede to the People’s law as a deferential nobleman properly should.26 Now for Marius. As Sulla underlined in his memoirs, Marius should have been satisfied with his unprecedented six consulships and numerous victories, and should have left chances at glory for others (especially for a sitting consul). Instead, he fell prey to “madness for praise and love for honor.”27 Marius had 25 Cic. Am. 2, de Orat. 3.11, de Har. Resp. 43; App. B.C. 1.7.55; Vell. Pat. 2.18.6; Plut. Sull. 8.1–​ 2: ἄνθρωπον οὐδενὸς δεύτερον ἐν ταῖς ἄκραις κακίαις, ὥστε μὴ ζητεῖν τίνος ἐστὶν ἑτέρου μοχθηρότερος, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τί μοχθηρότατος ἑαυτοῦ; Ascon. 64C (=​Lewis (1993) 129). Cf. Badian (1958) 232 n.3, 230–​234; Gruen (1965a) 72–​74; Dunkle (1967) 164; Lintott (1971a) 442–​443; Mattingly (1975) 264–​266; Keaveney (1979) 454–​455, (1983); Evans (1994) 134; Rosillo-​López (2017) 143. 26 Sherwin-​White (1956) 5; Badian (1957) 344, (1958) 232–​235, (1976) 46; Luce (1970) 193 n.132; Lintott (1971a) 451; Brunt (1971) 104; Keaveney (1979) 455, 459–​460, (1983) 53; Lovano (2002) 21; Konrad (2006) 179. 27 Plut. Sull. 7.1 δοξομανίας καὶ φιλοτιμίας. Cf. Flor. 2.9.6; Diod. Sic. 37.29.3–​5.

128  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic balanced self-​advancement and self-​control wrongly. Worse, not only could Marius not control his personal urges, but he found in plebiscites and violence the means to bypass peers to fulfill those urges, thereby proving himself unrestrained and unrestrainable—​to the end that he could all but dictate who would receive offices, commands, and honors. Tendrils of the post-​Gracchan context resurfaced. To Sulla, personal failings in the restraint patterns, therefore, made Marius and Sulpicius “tyrants,” and “tyrants” deserved no mutual respect or trust, but only death.28 It followed that a judgment of a People deluded by “tyrants” need be afforded little weight. Sulla also clearly calculated that, even if his officers blanched or the People in the Forum objected, many peers in Rome and his army would agree (indeed his consular colleague, the grieving Q. Pompeius Rufus, did join him).29 All told, in a remarkable twist, it was the logic of (destabilized) personal restraint by which Sulla validated the inconceivable: attack on the mother city. The denouement, however, signals that the logic was not sheer surface rhetoric to disguise Sulla’s (undoubted) personal pique, but was an action-​inducing product of the habitus. After the envoys left (and the Senate, naturally, sent at least two more sets of envoys), Sulla subdued Rome in a night of fighting, then summoned a contio and proposed four measures of import.30 First, Marius, Sulpicius, and ten others were declared public enemies. This was new: for the first time the Senate officially declared citizens hostes by that name.31 Marius managed a sequence of thrilling escapes and found his way to Africa to plot revenge; Sulpicius was betrayed by a slave and slain on the spot. Second, Sulla enacted a law that no new business was to be brought to the People before approval of the Senate, the size of which he also possibly expanded at this point. Third, he saw to it that all leges were to be passed through the comitia centuriata, which ensured that the propertied centuries’ votes would control any proposal. Fourth, Appian reported that Sulla somehow curtailed the influence of the tribunes, although it is unclear what measures he implemented at this time.32 At a high level of generality, these actions reduced the power of the People and of a branch of the state (the tribunate) relative to branches controlled by more senior nobiles. Keaveney thus saw in his biographical subject’s work a 28 Cf. Cic. de Off. 3.32 on the Roman opinion of “tyrants.” 29 App. B.C. 1.7.57; Plut. Sull. 8.3, Mar. 34.2. 30 App. B.C. 1.7.59; MRR II 40. Keaveney (2005) 55–​57 shows that these measures were not a doublet of later laws. 31 Cic. Br. 168, Liv. Per. 77, and Val. Max. 1.5.5 state that they were declared hostes by the Senate, although see Vell. Pat. 2.19.1; App. B.C. 1.7.60; Plut. Sull. 10.1. Cf. Lintott (1968) 155; Bauman (1973) 277–​285; Seager (1994) 171; Flower (2010a) 78. 32 App. B.C. 1.7.59; Gruen (1968) 258–​265. Keaveney (2005) 56 is reluctant to assign to 88 BC any expansion, although contra is Heitland (1909) II 456. The sources do not indicate that Sulla interfered at this point with the tribunician veto, as he would in 81 BC.

Cataclysm  129 “programme” of “constitutional amendment” that was a result of complex “political thinking” meant to stabilize the influence of the propertied over the poor.33 But on closer inspection, these acts were not a constitutional counter-​revolution meant to effect general political transformation, but instead a limited reaction to the excesses of specific bad actors, based in the personal terms of inter-​peer relations. Using a more nuanced lens than Keaveney’s, we can perceive that Sulla was trying to mend what he saw as a broken restraint system. Appian wrote that “because the smallness of the Senate had incurred contempt, [Sulla] straightaway enrolled 300 of the best men” of “good counsel.”34 This plan makes the most sense if Sulla believed both that would-​be radicals would defer to refreshed group dignitas, and also that men of “good counsel” would act in concord and not simply double any discord. Sulla’s further actions were meant to cut off the primary institutional means by which any remaining unrestrained men could do any damage. An aristocrat who fell prey to Marius’ “madness” might think little of his peers’ social controls, but at least now, imagined Sulla, he would simply flounder helplessly, unable to use the People to bypass the restraint system to any real effect.35 Simmelian judgment would instead be channeled through those who knew best how deference worked. Thus, in Appian’s words, Sulla removed any “starting point for civil strife.”36 But, critically, the People were not removed from the dritte Instanz. They did not lose their right to pass laws, and Sulla did not interfere in the next election wherein Marians defeated his picked candidates.37 That is, Sulla was (consciously or not) trying to make the dritte Instanz whole again: freed from the meddling of immoral, undeferential men, the People’s judgment could again be trustworthy. Moreover, Marius’ and Sulpicius’ fates were far less impulsively imposed than the mob killings of the Gracchi or Saturninus. The violence, this time at least, was contained—​“moderate,” one might say. That is, Sulla tried to play the perfectly restrained leader in volatile circumstances. Appian accordingly related (no doubt from Sullan traditions) that Sulla “perhaps could have ruled as monarch,” but (incredibly) “willingly refrained from force” while consul. He apparently even used concordia as a slogan. The only guarantee that Sulla provided for his laws was the religious oath that he obtained from the consuls-​elect Cn. Octavius and the Marian L. Cornelius Cinna not to disturb his acts while in 33 Keaveney (2005) 56, 57, 150–​151. 34 App. B.C. 1.7.59: εὐβουλίᾳ. . . . ὀλιγανθρωπότατον δὴ τότε μάλιστα ὂν καὶ παρὰ τοῦτ᾿ εὐκαταφρόνητον ἀθρόους ἐκ τῶν ἀρίστων ἀνδρῶν τριακοσίους. Note the echo of Livy’s claim (1.49.6) that Tarquin the Proud refused to increase the size of the Senate to make it contemptible. 35 Cf. Gruen (1974) 9; Mouritsen (2017) 145. 36 App. B.C. 1.7.59: γιγνομένας δώσειν ἔτι στάσεων ἀφορμάς. 37 Plut. Sull. 10.3; Millar (1998) 54–​55. Sulla was reportedly annoyed at the outcome, but did not attempt to change it.

130  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic office. According to Dio, Sulla expected no trouble from Octavius on account of Octavius’ ἐπιεικεία, a word we have seen repeatedly used to register the value of deference.38 In short, Sulla wanted restraint to work as he imagined it once had. Nevertheless, there had been a radical change in Roman affairs. First, what had existed of general consensus had been thoroughly disrupted. Sulla may have envisioned himself as moderate, but from the point of view of many Sulla’s invasion of the city was wholly unrestrained and wholly revolutionary. As senior senator Q. Mucius Scaevola reportedly remonstrated to Sulla, “You can show me the gang of soldiers with which you’ve surrounded the Senate-​house; you can threaten me with death over and over again; but you can never bring about, by spilling out my aged blood, that I’ll declare Marius a public enemy, by whom the city and all Italy were saved.”39 Which man was right? The six-​time consul who usurped a peer’s prerogatives—​but by turning to the People with the help of a sitting tribune? The current consul who stood up to demagogues—​but who invaded Rome, voided a plebiscite, and declared Rome’s “savior” a hostis? Moreover, was the violence the proportional act of a restrained man, or an astounding breach of mores? Sulla’s display of restraint could not paper over, much less resolve, these uncertainties—​to say nothing of the underlying question of who should get the eastern command. Scaevola’s dark protest hinted that only violence could answer any of these questions definitively.40 Second, the march had critically upset mutuality. For centuries, at least one answer to the question “Why should I exhibit restraint?” was “I will be praised.” That logic had been unsteady in recent years, but was here demolished. Try as Sulla might to portray himself in a restrained mien, he found himself not the object of admiration, but of deep mistrust. After all, if Sulla could act this way and still claim to be restrained, then all claims of restraint would henceforth be alarmingly suspect. Sulla’s precedent would continue in the future to decouple conspicuous acts of moderation or deference from hoped-​for group praise, replacing mutuality of praise instead with fear that displays of self-​control only disguised sinister designs. Third, Sulla’s violence begat violence in a reversion, as Sallust described, to “the barbarous past in which right was based on might.” Sulla arranged for his consular colleague Q. Pompeius Rufus to take proconsular command of troops under Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the (soon-​to-​be) Great. Strabo pretended to cede place upon Rufus’ arrival. Traditional enough. But in short order 38 Sall. Hist. 1.49.24; Dio 31.102.3; App. B.C. 1.7.63: δυνηθεὶς ἂν ἴσως ἤδη μοναρχεῖν . . . τὴν βίαν ἑκὼν ἀπέθετο; Plut. Sull. 10.4. Cf. Keaveney (2005) 61. 39 Val. Max. 3.8.5: ‘licet’ [Scaevola] inquit ‘mihi agmina militum, quibus curiam circumsedisti, ostentes, licet mortem identidem miniteris, numquam tamen efficies ut propter exiguum senilemque sanguinem meum Marium, a quo urbs et Italia conservata est, hostem iudicem’. 40 Cf. Cic. Att. 9.10.3; Ascon. 64C (=​Lewis (1993) 129); Morstein-​Marx (2011) 261–​262; Akar (2013) 236.

Cataclysm  131 Strabo’s troops (likely at his command) fell upon Rufus and murdered him—​the first time a consul was killed by Roman soldiers. Soon after, Sulla at last departed for the East, whereupon Octavius and the new consul Cinna rallied opposing factions and supporters, all with daggers. Octavius succeeded in driving Cinna from the city in a furious riot, then had the Senate declare him a hostis and abrogate his consulship, something consul and Senate had no legal right to do. Thus violent disruptions to social mores further disintegrated republican structures.41 Cinna fled to Capua and in tears addressed the Roman troops stationed there, laying his fasces at their feet, rending his robes, and lying on the ground before them, warning that unless he were restored as consul, their rights to vote were annulled. That is, Cinna’s strategy was to display surface fealty to the Senate’s declaration by laying down his insignia, before overriding it through humble appeal to the “assembly” of the army—​thus symbolically deferentially mending the split in the dritte Instanz. The troops were receptive to this imagery, and for the second time in as many years a Roman army marched on Rome. But, as Velleius Paterculus wrote, Cinna also felt that, although strong in numbers, he lacked enough auctoritas to carry out his plan. That is, even sword in hand, he (and his audience) still believed that pressure from dignified peers was needed for proper influence—​further evidence that the restraint patterns were normatively powerful but in serious disorder. And so along the way he engaged a glowering presence. Marius returned from Africa, took command of some of Cinna’s troops, and turned on Rome.42 The briefest catalogue of the violence that followed should impress us with the fourth result of Sulla’s (and now Marius’) march: how in such unprecedented butchery no assay of personal restraint or dignity could guarantee respect or safety. Cinna had the Sullans declared hostes. Octavius removed to the Janiculum and quietly sat in his curule chair in his consular robes, surrounded by lictors—​ perhaps emulating the legendary sangfroid of the senators who sat in statue-​like silence in their homes for the invading Gauls in 390 BC.43 Marius’ partisans were less impressed than the Gauls. They sliced off Octavius’ head and put it on display in the Forum; the first consul to meet such an end. Upon arrest for doing nothing more than having succeeded Cinna, the replacement consul L. Merula opened his veins. He pulled off his flaminal hat before he slit his wrists, lest he violate a sacred taboo—​a piety reminiscent of the legendary priests during the Gallic sack who walked serenely past astonished enemy pickets to shrines in captured parts of the city to attend to appointed rituals. The advocate Marcus Antonius, 41 Liv. Per. 79; Sall. Hist. 1.43: et relatus inconditae olim vitae mos, ut omne ius in viribus esset (McGushin (1992) 28, trans.); Vell. Pat. 2.20.1–​3; App. B.C. 1.8.64; Keaveney (2005) 62. 42 Cic. ad Att. 9.10.3; Liv. Per. 79; Vell. Pat. 2.20.3–​5; App. B.C. 1.8.65–​70; Plut. Mar. 43.1; Gran. Lic. 35.1–​2; Bauman (1973) 271, 286–​289; Lovano (2002) 35–​38; Morstein-​Marx (2011) 265. 43 App. B.C. 1.8.71; Diod. Sic. 38/​39.2.2; Livy, 5.41.1–​10; Bauman (1973) 270, 290–​293.

132  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic later lionized by Cicero as an ideal orator, fled for the countryside. Discovered, he spoke so sympathetically to the soldiers who came for him that they stayed their hands and wept. Their leader, waiting outside, became annoyed at the delay and rushed in to finish Antonius off before he too could be enchanted. Antonius’ head also found its way to Marius.44 Of Q. Lutatius Catulus—​ Marius’ own former colleague, with whom he insisted on sharing his triumph over the Cimbri—​Marius said only, “he must die.” Catulus was hunted down until he locked himself in a small room, lit a fire, and suffocated himself. The consular P. Licinius Crassus also committed suicide. The tribune P. Popilius Laenas threw the previous year’s tribune Sextus Lucilius from the Rock, and threatened the same fate for his tribunician colleagues, who fled to Sulla. Marius’ son slew another tribune with his own hands. Numerous senators were seized in the street and murdered. The former praetor Q. Ancharius suffered an emblematically arbitrary end: when Marius ran out of all the enemies he could think of, he ordered his gangs to kill anyone to whom he did not extend his hand in greeting. When Ancharius approached Marius in the Forum and received no reply—​whether on purpose or on accident is unclear—​he was stabbed to death instantly. Dio lamented that men died not only without trial, but sometimes even without enmity. All it took was a withheld hand. A personal store of dignity was meaningless.45 Upon Sulla’s vengeful return five years later the lesson amplified as Roman fought Roman in outright civil war across Italy. Marius’ twenty-​seven-​year-​old son, who had managed to get himself made consul, committed suicide as Sullan pursuers closed in. Sulla mocked his immodest youthful aspirations and his severed head with a quotation from Aristophanes: “you have to be a rower before you try the rudders.” After his victory Sulla introduced proscription lists of men to be killed as public enemies by any comer, to whom the dead man’s property would be forfeit. “The richest man was he who killed the most,” wrote Velleius Paterculus. Hundreds died.46 It was thus for good reason that Appian cited Sulla’s march as the moment after which “there was no longer restraint on violence either from a sense of shame, or from the laws, or from civil institutions, or from love of country,” and wrote that Marius’ followers had “neither αἰδώς for the gods, nor the fear of men’s 44 App. B.C. 1.8.71–​74; Vell. Pat. 2.22.2–​3; Plut. Mar. 44.1–​4; Val. Max. 8.9.2, 9.2.2, 9.12.5; Flor. 2.9.16; ORF3 221–​237; Bennett (1923) 27; Broughton (1953) 209–​210; Badian (1984b) 122; Lovano (2002) 47. Cf. Livy 5.40.7–​10, 5.46.1–​3; Cornell et al. (2013) II 259 fr. 22 (L. Cassius Hemina). 45 Cic. de Orat. 3.9, de Nat. Deor. 3.80, Tusc. 5.56; Dio 30.103.11–​12; Vell. Pat. 2.22.3–​2.24.4; Val. Max. 9.4; App. B.C. 1.8.72–​74; Diod. Sic. 38.4.3; Plut. Mar. 43.3–​45.1; Flor. 2.9.15; Bennett (1923) 32, 37; Badian (1957) 324; Kildahl (1968) 124; Gruen (1968) 232. 46 Vell. Pat. 2.27.4, 2.28.3: plurimumque haberet qui plurimos interemisset; App. B.C. 1.10.94: ἐρέτην δεῖ πρῶτα γενέσθαι, πρὶν πηδαλίοις ἐπιχειρεῖν, quoting Arist. Knights 542; Plut. Sull. 31.3. For the number of dead see Bennett (1923) 24, 34; Lovano (2002) 45; Gruen (1968) 231 n.75.

Cataclysm  133 nemesis, nor [did] fear of hatred for their acts any longer exist among them.”47 At one time, one answer to the question “Why should I be restrained and defer?” was: “My display of the values will cause others to respect my ‘face’ and praise me, and I will respect their ‘face’ in return. Thus mutual existimatio and good governance are connected to display of traditional norms.” That syllogism was clearly now amid capricious death far more uncertain than at any point in the past. Sallust put that realization into a speech by Sulla’s Marian opponent M. Aemilius Lepidus (soon also to attempt a failed rebellion himself upon Sulla’s death): “In this season, citizens, one must either be a slave or rule, one must fear or cause fear.” Moreover, the deaths of the Gracchi and Saturninus had been the result of a united Senate ranged against a relative handful of individuals. By contrast, a relative handful of individuals now meted out slaughter to many fellow senators, seemingly at random. Thus again Sallust: “There was a time, citizens, when you as single citizens had safety in a group, not the group in one man.”48 The norms were upended. And yet, despite all the carnage and upheaval, invocations of the traditional patterns of restraint show that normative beliefs still did not simply disappear. The habitus was too deeply ingrained. Sulla’s main political objective, as is well recognized, was a return to normalcy. Once ensconced in power, and with his enemies dead, he passed legislation designed to uphold the authority of the Senate and to cut down the risk of rogue operators. Now no tribune could bring bills before the People, summon the Senate, or seek higher office, which deterred ambitious young men from seeking the tribunate.49 We see in these acts the same theory as before: Sulla wished to ensure that any unrestrained aristocrat would be subject to his peers’ social control, guaranteeing that power would flow primarily among senior, staid senators. Moreover, he explicitly touted in his memoirs (again as recounted by Plutarch) his ὁμόνοια—​ what in Latin would have been concordia—​with his consular colleague. And we should not be in the least surprised to find that in the midst of Sulla’s efforts to prevent political upheaval he enacted sumptuary laws on gambling, banqueting costs, exotic foods, funerals, and sexual immorality, and punished soldiers who looted. All restraint was webbed together. Even the proscription lists could be viewed as a form of restraint: according to Plutarch, Sulla created the lists in response to a request to spare the innocent from suspense and delineate those to be punished. And, most important, after a period as dictator, Sulla studiously

47 App. B.C. 1.7.60: οὐδενὸς ἔτι ἐς αἰδῶ τοῖς βιαζομένοις ἐμποδὼν ὄντος, ἢ νόμων ἢ πολιτείας ἢ πατρίδος, 1.8.71: αἰδώς τε θεῶν ἢ νέμεσις ἀνδρῶν ἢ φθόνου φόβος οὐδεὶς ἔτι τοῖς γιγνομένοις ἐπῆν. 48 Sall. Hist. 1.48.10: hac tempestate serviundum aut imperitandum, habendus metus est aut faciendus, 3.34.24: Verum, Quirites, antea singuli cives in pluribus, non in uno cuncti praesidia habebatis. Cf. McGushin (1992) 97. On Lepidus’ revolt see Arena (2011). 49 Keaveney (2005) 141.

134  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic and theatrically laid down his powers. Like the dictator M. Fabius Buteo of 216 BC, Sulla stepped off the Rostra a private citizen and ostentatiously lingered in the Forum with only a few friends. A thoroughly traditional and self-​controlled performance.50 A cynic, naturally, might argue that Sulla’s “restraint” was meaningless propaganda.51 Not so. Even putting aside that decision-​making in the course of events was repeatedly congruous with the recognizable habitus—​which suggests unconscious internalization—​such “propaganda” at minimum would show that Sulla believed that restraint would win his audience’s approval and justify his power, which only confirms that within the republican schema only self-​advancement plus restraint rendered power fully acceptable. More important, analyzing not just why these crises happened, but why they happened when they did further hints that restraint was an action driver and not mere window dressing. No doubt, knotty political issues had helped instigate the crises. Erich Gruen has recently argued, for instance, that the Social War at last inspired Romans to turn on each other after turning on their confederates. Dominik Maschek has similarly contended that the Romans’ long history of (appalling) violence against external enemies finally turned inward at just this time. Hölkeskamp and Meier also once noticed something of the pattern that this chapter has described: “disputes over concrete issues as well as the respective tactics and strategies to deal with them not only simply fueled [crises], but turned . . . into a kind of dynamic, self-​ evolving process,” or “autonomous process,” in which polarizing issues were “prone immediately and automatically to result in sharp, fundamental, and increasingly violent controversies.”52 Such analyses are missing key points. As to Gruen, it is unclear why Romans fighting purposefully against noncitizens in the Social War should necessarily analogize fellow citizens to the enemy instead of standing in greater solidarity with each other. At any rate the Romans were already engaged in dreadful intra-​ aristocratic violence well before the Social War. Maschek’s theory is similarly unhelpful in that the Romans had been pitiless to enemies and wayward allies for centuries before turning on themselves—​why now? Why, too, should the irresistible “autonomous process” have spun into violence in these decades and never before, as though “concrete issues” and “controversies” were not messy and issues sharp in the days of Appius Claudius or the Elder Scipio or Cato? It is, moreover, practically a nostrum of current scholarship on performative politics

50 Livy 23.23.1–​3; App. B.C. 1.7.59, 1.12.104; Plut. Sull. 6.5, 31.2, 35; Gell. 2.24.11; Seager (1994) 203; Keaveney (2005) 140–​155, 165. 51 Cf. Bloch and Carcopino (1935) 481; Frier (1972); Keaveney (2005) 149. Anti-​Sullan propaganda naturally charged that Sulla was himself wildly unrestrained, Plut. Sull. 35.3–​36.5; Sall. Hist. 1.48–​1.50; Sumi (2005) 27–​28; Eckert (2018a). 52 Hölkeskamp (2010) 42–​44, citing Meier; Gruen (2017) 565; Maschek (2018), 74–​76, 106–​108.

Cataclysm  135 that Romans did not have political “programs” to pursue policy issues, which suggests that “political” issues were in and of themselves unlikely the new driving spark of the unprecedented violence.53 From the fact, however, that the Romans did not have political programs reemerges the observation that Roman politics were more about the players’ dignitas and character than any particular ideas they had.54 And from that fact proceeds an inference that our evidence repeatedly has supported: the Romans viewed the rectitude of political questions through the lens of whether the actors in charge of the issue were acting according to the habitus—​just as Sulla’s memoirs and laws demonstrate. It was, therefore, only in these decades, as that series of factors from the last two chapters converged to render debates over the meta-​rules of republican governance persistent and nearly impossible to reconcile, that the deadly “autonomous process” could take hold over internal “political controversies” and make them violent. Once again, folding ubiquitous Roman restraint into scholarly models gives them fuller explanatory power. To conclude: Marius and Sulla pursued their feud within a decades-​long trend of growing uncertainty about displaying and judging normative behavior. That uncertainty shaped how they perceived events and drove their decision-​making. The two then injected a heavier dose of destabilizing uncertainty into the sensitive mores than had ever been absorbed before, and carried the disruption well past any facile tribune/​senate divide or structural idiosyncrasy of the tribunate. There was now more disagreement than ever before about what restraint was and who could judge it. At one time, men could be generally assured that the force of deference could order relations. Now, after Marius and Sulla, men would never again be entirely convinced. The ligaments among mutuality, praise, shame, and displays of normative restraint behavior became, as a result, ever more tenuous, and traditional displays of restraint might now meet with intense suspicion instead of praise. The group’s collective ability to judge actions and enforce obedience peaceably was, consequently, more fragile than ever before. Worst of all, the severed heads in the Forum meant that those who trusted that traditional social ordering norms would protect them might instead pay with their lives. The ability of social norms to order the group as a whole peacefully thus weakened, and violence further became the solution to disputes. Although this process did not dictate immediate social collapse, and the Romans’ continued habitus would foster periods of reasonable functionality in the following years, uncertainty now would hang in the background of every future aristocratic interaction; the long,

53 E.g., Sherwin-​White (1956) 151–​152; Bauman (1983) 10–​11; Lintott (1994) 13, 50–​53; Flaig (1995) 79; Hölkeskamp (2010) 23–​43. 54 Chapter 3 note 113.

136  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic destabilizing trend was agglutinating. Its effects, like hidden fractures swelling and spidering in a foundation, would emerge over time. Meanwhile, paradoxically, Sulla represented simultaneously an emphatic effort to enforce the traditional restraints that had long served to stave off a king, and an exemplar of unvarnished individual power. Some scholars have been unduly confused how Sulla could be a man simultaneously so shocking and so orthodox, or have imagined that he was so distinctive that he and his Republic must have represented something wholly new in Roman affairs.55 Confusion sharpens into focus once we realize that Sulla consistently attempted to hew to a kaleidoscopic system of restraint patterns that caused him by turns to be ruthless or orderly, but always in pursuit of upholding what he believed were longstanding values in the habitus. Loss of consensus, quarrels over traditional restraint patterns, and violence, snowballing over decades, had created the kaleidoscopic dissonance he struggled to control. Still, the norms were yet cogent enough to keep Sulla from crossing the final boundary—​perpetual dictator—​and he died in 78 BC a private citizen. But now, perhaps for the first time, it was conceivable how another man in a similar position might justify a different calculation.



55

Gruen (1968) 251–​252; Flower (2010b) 121–​130, 138; Mouritsen (2017) 131–​133.

7

The Lost Generation of the Republic The last chapter illustrated how the restraint values not only might not prevent bloody conflict, but could escalate it. The next (and last) forty years of republican history saw that process iterated and intensified among the impressionable youths—​the “last generation” of the Roman Republic—​who had seen the severed heads in the Forum.1 The cast is familiar: Lucullus, Catiline, Cicero, Cato, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar. This chapter observes these men’s interactions after the death of Sulla, showing how divergent conceptions of restraint shaped their affairs. The evidence (by this point largely contemporary and primary) demonstrates that by the time the restraint values reached them, “proper” normative behavior was not only a brooding, omnipresent mental fixture that they hoped would order their relationships, but also so fragmented and indefinite as to leave them repeatedly lost, anxious, and angry. This chapter focuses on three representative cases. First, the career of Pompey the Great to 59 BC exemplifies how the moderatio pattern that had traditionally rendered influence and advancement acceptable now instead might only exacerbate invidia and mistrust, which undermined legitimate, institutional grants of power. Second, the conspiracy of Catiline shows the chaotic state of the emotional underpinnings of pudor, verecundia, and care for existimatio that once supported deference. Third, the interactions among M. Licinius Crassus, M. Porcius Cato, and C. Julius Caesar demonstrate how it grew ever more impossible to achieve consensus in judging individual behavior. The result was that abiding by the traditional rules of peaceful, deferential group ordering—​that is, trusting in the normal processes of the Republic itself—​ eventually risked suicide, until by 59 BC Cicero could moan, “we think that there is no resistance without murder, nor see do we see any end for someone who cedes ground except death.”2 The impetus for that despairing comment was an ominous private arrangement. The “First Triumvirate” has often been explained as a pact to further certain material goals. That is in part true, of course. But

1 This chapter, of course, responds to Gruen’s (1974) argument that the Republic never “declined” because its structural features remained intact to the end. 2 Cic. ad Att. 2.20.3: neque enim resisti sine internecione posse arbitramur nec videmus qui finis cedendi praeter exitium futurus sit. Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.003.0008

138  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic the “three-​headed monster” was as much a product of tangled and weaponized norms as it was a practical bargain.3 ***

Pompey, Moderatio, and Mutuality Sulla surrounded himself with ambitious young men, chief among whom was Gnaeus Pompey, whose gleeful slaughter of Sulla’s enemies earned him the epithet adulescentulus carnifex, the “Butcher Boy.” Sulla did not seem to mind Pompey’s zeal, and praised him with another epithet: Magnus, “the Great.” After Sulla’s death, the twenty-​eight-​year-​old Pompey helped quash the short-​lived revolt of the consul Lepidus, then refused to stand down his army at the order of the other consul, Q. Lutatius Catulus. The Senate, intimidated by the soldiers lingering near Rome, and facing a lack of military talent in the aftermath of the proscriptions, gave in. Pompey then spent the better part of the rest of the 70s in Spain grinding away at Marian resistance until, mid-​decade, with his patience and his troops’ supplies at low ebb, he threatened the fathers with invasion of Italy if his demands for resupply and reinforcement were not met.4 Thus a man barely out of his twenties who had never held a single priesthood or magistracy twice menaced the entire Senate at spearpoint. As we have also already seen from the murderous turn of Pompey’s father, once one learned from Sulla and Marius that the rules of the competition could be bent with the force of the legions, the temptation to bend them if one were able must have been very great. The Senate, Sallust reported, seemed unable to retaliate against Pompey’s intimidation, and worried that if Pompey made good on his threats “they themselves would have neither praise nor dignitas.”5 Thus the reciprocity of respect between youthful commander and Senate was mediated not through reverence but through flat coercion. Only when we compare the operation of deference and modestia before Sulla and Marius, and indeed before the Gracchi, can we entirely fathom this result. Some new dynamics were at play too: proscriptions and the Social War had deeply disrupted the normal demography of the aristocracy as an appreciable number of elders vanished at one blow. The last generation of the Roman 3 App. B.C. 2.9, citing Varro. 4 Val. Max. 6.2.8; Plut. Pomp. 13.5, 17.3–​4, 20.1; Luc. 5.2. Cf. Sall. Hist. 2.82 (but see Meyer (2010)); Heitland (1909) III 7; Syme (1964) 201. 5 Sall Hist. 2.82.10: laus sua neque dignitas esset. Of course patriotism and personal considerations also played a role: Lucullus, then consul, reportedly gave Pompey what he wanted to keep him in Spain and away from Lucullus’ command against Mithridates, Plut. Luc. 5.2–​3; Keaveney (1992) 53.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  139 Republic had been (in many cases literally, like Pompey) orphaned in the violence, made to take on the (already tenuous) restraint system with greatly reduced guidance from the previous generation. Restraint instead settled in the last generation through a bottleneck, piecemeal, second-​hand. As Pompey’s career will show, the generation never quite grasped it.6 We see this in Pompey’s quest to bask in the praise that had eluded Sulla. He knew from Sulla’s example that strongarming alone, without “moderation,” was not a “win.” He further knew that Sulla had tried to seem moderate, but had incurred hatred for his efforts. His attempted solution was clumsy reemphasis: over the rest of his career Pompey exhibited a constant tension between self-​promotion and studied attempts, with ham-​fisted insecurity, to show as extravagant a fealty to traditional restraint as an ex–​Butcher Boy plausibly could.7 Hence, after his eventual victory in Spain he ostentatiously burned the defeated Marians’ captured papers and welcomed Marian veterans with forgiving arms, no doubt to contrast with Sulla. Pompey then repaired to Italy, mopped up the last of Spartacus’ then-​ongoing slave revolt—​to the chagrin of the commander in that theater and another Sullan lieutenant, M. Licinius Crassus—​and successfully stood for the consulship with him. Pompey’s and Crassus’ tenure began in conspicuously restrained form, despite their known rivalry in competing for Sulla’s favor, and amid the Spartacus affair. Both men at that time had armies near Rome, and the worried crowd repeatedly implored the antagonists to operate in harmony. Crassus came down from his chair, walked to Pompey, and extended his hand. Pompey, we are told, rose from his seat and “rushed” to match the gesture. He also thanked the crowd for both the office and for his colleague. The crowd burst into cheers; naturally they desired peace, which came here through a display (however privately sincere) of collegial concordia, according to the same script—​down to the public handshake and applause—​that repeatedly reconciled rivals in exempla.8 Shared performative symbolism worked well here to order relations and institutions. But not for long, and not for the entire judgment group, as events soon showed. By 67 BC the problem of piracy in the Mediterranean had become acute. The tribune Gabinius proposed that a general be dispatched with imperium over the entire Mediterranean and fifty miles inland of its coasts, overlapping with the provincia of several governors. Pompey was plainly the intended beneficiary 6 Seager (2002) 23. On the dearth of elders see Goldsworthy (2006) 151; Flower (2010b) 32; Maschek (2018) 189; Drogula (2019) 51. David (2000) 215 and Blösel (2016) 81 note how fewer available generals led to heightened competition for command. 7 Cf. Plut. Pomp. 68.2. 8 Cic. 2 Verr. 5.153; App. B.C. 1.14: ὁ δ᾿ὑπανίστατο καὶ προσέτρεχε; Plut. Ser. 27, Crass. 12.2–​ 4. Plutarch placed the handshake scene at the end of the consulship, but Appian’s timeline makes better sense considering the presence of the armies. Cf. Marshall (1976) 49–​50; Khan (1986); Billows (2009) 72.

140  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic of this plan, and the vast majority of the Senate resisted when it considered that such power might be given the carnifex. Gabinius brought the proposal to the People, in part by invoking the wrath of the crowd to browbeat his fellow tribunes into not interposing vetoes (as the Senate attempted to persuade them to do). Velleius Paterculus understood the stakes: some seven years earlier a similar command had been given to M. Antonius Creticus (son of the slain orator, and father of Marc Antony), but which had not aroused any suspicion or violence at the time. According to Drogula, the reason was that Antonius could “respect tradition and the prerogatives of his colleagues.” But Pompey, as Velleius put it, had too often proven ready to take up or lay down power only suo arbitrio—​“at his own whim.”9 That made him dangerous. Pompey must have sensed that this was the reason for the obstruction because his antidote was to affect disdain for the command. Dio thought this a sham—​ but it is important to see how the sham was calculated to work. Pompey thanked the People for the honor, rehearsed his military achievements, decried the jealousy that the position would surely bring him, and resolutely refused the post, saying that the People had options of many good generals: “For surely I alone do not love you, nor am I alone skilled in warfare, but there are also this man and that—​I do not mention anyone by name so as not to seem to favor anyone in particular.”10 Even if we take only the outline of the speech as fact, Pompey invoked a moderatio script of thanks and refusal that Livy would later assign to the aged Fabius Rullianus and the great Camillus. Plainly, however, Livy did not contrive this script for his book: Gabinius, on cue, praised Pompey’s reluctance, while the crowd, which clearly prized this form of restraint in its leaders, clamored the more for Pompey.11 The script was a real, forceful part of Roman performative governance. This particular performance, however, was not good enough for many of the aristocracy. The tribune Trebellius endeavored opposition. The crowd shouted him down, and Gabinius began to call the tribes together to vote him out of office. Trebellius, unlike Marcus Octavius six decades before, yielded. In the fracas another tribune could manage only a gesture of two fingers, indicating that Pompey at least should have some colleague. A senator growled to Pompey that if he continued to act like Romulus he’d end up like Romulus—​disappeared without a trace.12

9 Cic. Verr. 2.2.8, 3.213; Liv. Per. 97; Dio 36.23.2-​24.4, 36.32.2–​33; Vell. Pat. 2.31.3–​4; Plut. Pomp. 25.2–​3; App. Mith. 94; Jameson (1970) 546; Maróti (1971); Badian (1980) 105; Steel (2001) 116–​156; Seager (2002) 205 n.18; Drogula (2015) 318–​322. 10 Dio 36.26.4: οὐ γάρ που ἐγὼ μόνος ὑμᾶς φιλῶ ἢ καὶ μόνος ἐμπείρως τῶν πολεμικῶν ἔχω, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ δεῖνα καὶ ὁ δεῖνα, ἵνα μὴ καὶ χαρίζεσθαί τισι δόξω ὀνομαστὶ καταλέξας. 11 Livy 6.6.18, 10.13.7-​8; Dio 36.27.1-​4; Steel (2001) 123. 12 Plut. Pomp. 25.4–​6; Dio 36.30.1–​3; Ascon. 72C (=​Lewis (1993) 145); Steel (2001) 47.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  141 Pompey was voted the command, receiving for his elaborate show of moderatio praise from the crowd—​but not from his fellow nobles. From them he received suspicion and even threats to his physical safety. Pompey’s personally brutal history—​a consequence of Sulla’s and Marius’ feud—​undercut the expected tight relationship between a display of moderatio and receipt of honores. Praise obtained in this case only from the assembly, not Pompey’s peers. The judgment group again split. Why is obvious. Displays of restraint helped a man get large, dangerous military forces. Senators would be more suspicious than the crowd of the Butcher Boy’s display, because aristocrats, not shopkeepers and farmers, would die in any future proscriptions at the hands of those forces. Fear made the social pattern function abnormally, undercutting with threats of resistance and personal violence a facially legitimate (and traditionally performative) grant of institutional power. Meanwhile, Pompey’s next great opportunity was developing. Seven years of renewed war had not bested the exasperating Mithridates of Pontus. The Roman commander was L. Licinius Lucullus, cos. 74, the sole staff officer to accompany Sulla’s march on Rome, and a man whose name would become a catchphrase for sybaritic luxuriousness. By 66 BC Lucullus had achieved advances, but not victory, and nasty rumors began to circulate. Velleius Paterculus later bluntly blamed cupido pecuniae (“lust for money”) for Lucullus’ failure. Cicero (more contemporarily) similarly hinted, however gently, that Lucullus had invaded Armenia (and thus lengthened the war) to plunder a temple, and Plutarch (sourcing Sallust) wrote that Lucullus’ troops also accused him of prolonging the war for “love of power and love of money.” Plutarch, moreover, attributed Lucullus’ replacement in part to adverse fortune, in greater part to Lucullus’ refusal to court the soldiery with booty or billets in cozy Greek cities in winter, but “most of all” because he was not “accommodating with men of power and his equals, but looked down on them all and considered none as worthy as himself.”13 What exactly Plutarch meant by this last phrase is unclear, but Sallust’s lost History is likely the basis of this diagnosis, the gist of which we can gather from Plutarch’s following paragraphs. In Lucullus’ camp was P. Clodius Pulcher, Lucullus’ brother-​in-​law, who four years later would corrupt the Bona Dea rites. Clodius did not feel as welcomed by his relation as he expected: Plutarch (Sallust?) reported that because of Clodius’ “way of life,” he “did not receive the honor that he thought worthy of himself . . . first place.” What our source surely meant is that Lucullus despised his peer for some moral failing—​probably

13 Cic. pro Leg. Man. 9.23-​24; Vell. Pat. 2.33.1; Plut. Luc. 33.2: τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, οὐδὲ τοῖς δυνατοῖς καὶ ἰσοτίμοις εὐάρμοστος εἶναι πεφυκώς, ἀλλὰ πάντων καταφρονῶν καὶ μηδενὸς ἀξίους πρὸς αὑτὸν ἡγούμενος, 33.4: φιλαρχίας καὶ φιλοπλουτίας. Cf. Heitland (1909) III 36; Steel (2001) 113–​115, 153.

142  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Clodius’ rumored incest with his own sister, Lucullus’ wife—​and passed him over for praise and honor.14 Clodius’ reaction, however, was not to yield in the face of such shameful censuring. Instead, the budding demagogue practiced becoming “friend to the soldiers” by accusing Lucullus of secreting golden vessels while the soldiery labored to no reward. The troops mutinied. Lucullus attempted to affect humility, going meekly with tears from man to man and taking some by the hand, but in response the soldiers only threw down their empty money bags and taunted him that he should fight alone, if he alone knew how to get rich from it. Thus, if we have the sources right, Lucullus’ downfall in Asia stemmed from disregard on grounds of personal incontinence for the “face” of a volatile peer, who chose to take revenge by stirring up soldiers hungry for loot with allegations of their commander’s intemperantia that made it back to Cicero’s Rome. A muddle of restraint-​based arguments, indeed. Again, any objective truth of any of these charges is not the point here; that the Romans chose these explicit points of attack, and that the attacks achieved their very practical ends, however, speaks volumes.15 That muddle provided Pompey with his opening. The tribune Manilius proposed to give Pompey (who in a dazzlingly successful campaign had rid the sea of pirates in a matter of months, and was in Cilicia wrapping up the engagement) command of the Mithridatic war, with several simultaneous governorships in the East to boot. Predictably, many members of the aristocracy were again deeply displeased, not only at the insult to Lucullus, but that Pompey seemed to be inching closer to absolutism.16 After all, had not Sulla also amassed power in a war with Mithridates, only to return to slaughter his fellow citizens? Q. Lutatius Catulus, consul of 78 BC and son of the Marian victim of the same name, made a speech on the subject famous enough to have been reported by Dio, Plutarch, Sallust, Velleius Paterculus, and Valerius Maximus.17 Unfortunately little direct quotation remains, but its crux was that so much power should never repose in one man, particularly in a private individual, because a privatus’ irregular command would render regular officia worthless sinecures, would deprive others of military experience and glory, and would inevitably puff up a single individual, no matter how excellent. And when Catulus rhetorically asked the crowd whom they would choose as a replacement should something befall 14 Plut. Luc. 34.1: τότε δὲ τῷ Λουκούλλῳ συστρατεύων οὐχ ὅσης αὑτὸν ἠξίου τιμῆς ἐτύγχανεν ἠξίου δὲ πρῶτος εἶναι, καὶ πολλῶν ἀπολειπόμενος διὰ τὸν τρόπον; Keaveney (1992) 48–​49, 133. 15 Plut. Luc. 34.3, 35.4; Dio. 36.14.4; Cic. de Har. Resp. 42. 16 Dio 36.42.4–​43.3; Plut. Pomp. 30.1–​3; Luc. 35.7; Heitland (1909) III 40; Seager (2002) 43; Drogula (2015) 310–​311. 17 Sall. Hist. 5.24; Vell. Pat. 2.32.1; Val. Max. 8.15.9; Dio 36.31-​36a; Plut. Pomp. 25.5. On the later confusion about the date of this speech, see Millar (1998) 81; Burden-​Stevens (2018) 116–​117, 123–​ 126; I follow Cicero’s (pro Leg. Man. 59) eyewitness account.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  143 Pompey, they unanimously cried “you!” According to Velleius Paterculus, at this Catulus, victus consensu omnium (just as Livy would have put it), and in a display of “verecundia,” conceded and left the Rostra.18 The restraint patterns precisely, here in impromptu exchanges with the People. Then, in clear, primary evidence that political questions were channeled through the logic of personal self-​control, spoke Cicero, recently elected praetor. Woven throughout his speech is Cicero’s assurance to the crowd that no tyranny need be feared from Pompey because he was filled with “such temperantia, such mildness, such humaneness” that Roman allies considered themselves fortunate when he stayed with them. Cicero juxtaposed Pompey with men who would sell commissions, take bribes, plunder treasure, and terrorize the populace. “No general,” said Cicero, “can command an army unless he has control of himself, nor can he be a strict judge if he does not wish others to judge him strictly.” The pleasures of Asia would not tempt Pompey as they had so many commanders before. Rather, declared Cicero, like men who were moderatiores on account of pudor and temperantia, Pompey’s continentia would hold firm. Cicero even explained Pompey’s military abilities—​ speed, experience, judgment—​ as products of his innocentia, his temperantia from luxurious distractions, his ingenium, fides, and humanitas. As for the argument that too much power should not be given one man, Cicero noted that Catulus and others had said the same in the debate over the pirate command, yet Pompey had shown self-​governance as sole general quite adequately.19 Why did Cicero make these claims? Steel has argued that temperantia is “far from self-​evident as a military quality,” and so has proposed that his arguments were part of a “range of further qualities” appended to courageous virtus, “all of which seem to be good things.”20 This assessment misses the full work Cicero’s logic did in the performative, competitive game. Rather, Cicero was responding to Catulus’ primary fear—​disruption to the regular office-​holding structure—​by promising that Pompey’s private restraint showed that he would in parallel restrain himself as general and relative to his peers once he returned to Rome, such that any disruption to the regular structures would be temporary and minimal. We should also believe that the crowd judged display of these private traits important qualifications for military command. Cicero would not have chosen his 18 Sall. Hist. 5.24; Vell. Pat. 2.32.2; Dio 36.32.1–​36.4; ORF3 334 fr. 5 (=​Cic. pro Leg. Man. 59); Steel (2001) 119; Sumi (2005) 18. No doubt Catulus’ opposition also stemmed from Pompey’s refusal to obey his command in 78 bc. On the luminescent reputation of Catulus, including his reported clementia, verecundia, moderatio, and prudentia, see Arena (2011) 304–​305. 19 Cic. pro Leg. Man. 5.13: tanta temperantia, tanta mansuetudine, tanta humanitate, 13.36, 13.38: neque enim potest exercitum is continere imperator, qui se ipse non continent, neque severus esse in iudicando, qui alios in se severos iudices non vult, 14.40, 17.51–​53, 22.64–​66, 23.67. Cf. Jonkers (1959) 44–​48. 20 Steel (2001) 133.

144  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic arguments haphazardly: references to Pompey’s personal temperantia were not mere panegyrics or an assemblage of “good things”; they went to the core of resolving a practical, political question in the press of the moment. The contrast between Pompey’s and Catulus’ receptions, however, illustrates the fault lines in the audience. Catulus received the expected honor due him, even silencing an unruly crowd through respect alone, and responded in kind to their effusive praise in an act of mutual courtesy. He also received the evident approval of his peers.21 Pompey, however, once again faced invidia and suspicion as his touted restraint gained him further power. Pompey knew this, which explains why, when news of the appointment reached Cilicia, he again assumed a façade of annoyance and claimed to hate the new task. His comrades reportedly could scarcely abide this dissimulation.22 What followed on campaign demonstrates that Pompey felt the primordial Roman tension: he could be haughty when dealing with foreign kings, and his behavior could be embarrassingly grandiose, such as desecrating the Temple in Jerusalem by entering the Holy of Holies. But Pompey appears nevertheless to have striven to live up to Cicero’s promises about his moderatio and temperantia. He refused, for instance, take any spoil from the Temple. Like the abstinent Scipio Africanus the Elder with the captured slave girl, he did not touch captured concubines of Mithridates. He rebuffed personal gifts of golden furniture.23 The fact that we today know about his efforts to demonstrate restraint during this campaign shows how much trouble he took at the time to let everyone see them. And even if he only cynically feigned restraint, it would still establish that the restraint patterns were so important that he should bother to fake displays of them, and yet so broken that he did not consider himself truly bound by them. Pompey’s greatest public display of moderatio followed his return to Italy in December 62 BC after rearranging all of Asia to the benefit of Rome, perhaps the mightiest act by any Roman to date. Despite his immense power, upon landing at Brundisium, he dismissed his troops without waiting for any vote of the Senate or People. That this very public performance would redound to Pompey’s social capital is evident from the deleterious practical effect that it had on another form of self-​promotion: the dismissed troops would not be as easily available for a triumph. Instead, Pompey journeyed home with only a few friends. Crowds followed in demonstrations of good will. He refused any conqueror’s agnomen; “Magnus,” it seems, was enough. He also refused in the coming months to receive

21 Cic. pro Leg. Man. 17.51, 20.59. 22 Dio 36.45.1-​2; Plut. Pomp. 30.6. 23 Joseph. B.J. 1.152–​153; Dio 37.6.2; Plut. Pomp. 36.2, 36.7, 38.2, Luc. 9.197–​198. Similar stories were told of Roman heroes such as Aemilius Paullus and Scipio the Younger, but also of Alexander the Great, Front. Strat. 2.11.5–​6. On Pompey’s uneasy mimicry of Alexander, see Martin (1998) 47; Steel (2001) 155–​156; Goldsworthy (2006) 93; Billows (2009) 61; Rosillo-​López (2017) 227.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  145 many “excessive honors,” save to wear laurel and military dress at public games and triumphal garb at horse-​races. Dio and Plutarch both make clear how “astounding” such acts were considered, especially among the People. This moment is direct proof that ostentatious humility to Pompey was not just cheap rhetoric to cover raw physical power, which Pompey here in point of fact forewent; instead, it was an attempt to gain the genuine existimatio that could ensure legitimate, accepted victory in the aristocratic competition.24 Despite the crowd’s praise and his hopes, however, Pompey’s efforts met once again with a dismal response in many noble atria. His first public speech upon his return, according to Cicero, was dull, and pleased none of the boni. When Pompey was asked his opinion of the Senate’s decision to apply special procedures to try Clodius for his recent scandalous invasion of the Bona Dea rites, he responded “aristocratically” and “in many words” his “greatest and abiding respect for the Senate’s opinion in all matters”—​a marvelously normative but watery statement. As Pompey finished and sat down next to Cicero, he remarked to the orator that he thought that his answers had been sufficient. To his mind, they certainly were. One can see a simplistic calculation at work in Pompey’s head. He had played his hand in a very traditionally restrained fashion. After monumental success in Asia, interlaced with displays of personal temperance just as Cicero had guaranteed, he had paid emphatic deference to the Senate’s will, even as he rejected many extraordinary honors, graciously dismissed his troops, and walked home from war a plain private citizen. Now he should receive the senators’ full mutual regard, deferential approval of his settlement of the East, land for his soldiers, and undying laus.25 He was grievously mistaken. Immediately after Pompey’s speech, according to Cicero, Pompey found himself outshone by Crassus, who praised Cicero for his bravery during the Catilinarian conspiracy (of which more shortly) and then by Cicero himself, who co-​opted the event with a thunderous oration on his own achievements and his theories of harmonious government. Indeed, Cicero privately (and vainly) commented that Pompey’s efforts to praise him showed only Pompey’s jealousy. The Senate meanwhile rejected Pompey’s request to postpone the consular elections while he prepared to reenter the city to aid a favored candidate, and would not ratify his Eastern settlement or grant his soldiers land. It was not that Pompey lacked supporters—​many hoped to benefit from association with him—​or that his triumph was not glorious, but formidable detractors were numerous. Cato the Younger rebuffed Pompey’s offer that he and his son 24 Dio 37.20.3: θαυμάσαι, 37.20.5–​6, 37.21.3: τιμὴν ὑπέρογκον; Plut. Pomp. 43.2: θαυμαστόν, Cat. Min. 26.4. 25 Cic. ad Att. 1.14.1: tum Pompeius μάλ’ ἀριστοκρατικῶς locutus est senatusque auctoritatem sibi omnibus in rebus maximi videri semperque visam esse respondit, et id multis verbis. Cf. Shackleton Bailey (1965–​1967) I 307; Seager (1979) 186–​188; Keaveney (1992) 45.

146  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic marry Cato’s nieces. The consul Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer not only opposed him politically, but bore a personal grudge: Pompey had divorced Metellus’ half sister Mucia even though the couple had children. Lucullus (predictably) also opposed him. Crassus, who at this point was possibly the most powerful man in Rome after Pompey, combined with Lucullus, as did Cato.26 We should see more than petty irritation in this opposition or even normal competition. Pompey was suffering the fate that Scipio Africanus the Younger had reportedly avoided. Scipio, as seen in Chapter 1, was called moderate and “yielding,” by which he “escaped the envy of his peers.” Try as Pompey might to follow faithfully (or at least adequately ape) the restraint pattern that Scipio reportedly once embodied, the results were frustratingly different from his expectations. He once said openly that he feared that his enemies might murder him, just as Scipio had (allegedly) been killed.27 By contrast, Pompey’s peers’ invidia was restitution for his desire for extraordinary power, which was sufficient excuse to block any of his designs.28 Worse was his peers’ evident suspicion that every act of moderatio or temperantia that Pompey performed was really a ruse. Personal restraint, as Cicero’s speech pro lege Manilia concretely proves, was social currency that still purchased and ordered power. Power, particularly after Sulla, was exceptionally dangerous. Was Pompey’s currency forged? Sallust recorded precisely that fear: Pompey was seen as a man of “honest face but shameless spirit,” and “modest in all things except in seeking domination.”29 In sum, while interpretations of Pompey’s actions coursed through conduits marked out by moderatio and temperantia, there was no agreement about whether Pompey actually embodied these virtues or deserved respect for them. Mutuality was fractured, and the deference pattern with it. The memory of Marius, Sulla, and the young butcher underlay that fracturing. And because, again, legitimate influence and respect required a mix of proper self-​assertion and personal restraint, and because the group could not decide whether Pompey’s mix was authentic, the fracturing had practical results: Pompey’s Eastern settlement was not ratified, Pompey’s soldiers did not get their land, and Pompey was in disrepute in many quarters, all while Pompey fumed at the

26 Cic. ad Att. 1.13.4, 1.14.4, de Off. 1.25; App. Mith. 117, B.C. 2.9; Dio 36–​37; Plut. Pomp. 42.7, 44–​ 46, Cat. Min. 30–​31, Luc. 42.6. Cf. Shackleton Bailey (1965-​1967) I 305; Gruen (1974) 79–​80; Beard (2003) 29–​34; Sumi (2005) 34. Drogula (2019) 108 notes that Cato’s opposition stemmed in part from Pompey’s murder of Cato’s relatives, but also because Cato could not risk his moral reputation by attaching himself to so untraditional a man. Cato’s neices were aghast at Cato’s actions, but soon after Cato claimed vindication when Pompey used bribery in the consular elections. 27 Chapter 1, note 60; Cic. ad Q.F. 2.3.3, ad Fam. 5.7.3, ad Att. 1.14.3, 2.23.2, 2.17.3. 28 Cf. Plut. Luc. 42.5–​6; Flor. 2.13.9. 29 Sall. Hist. 2.17 (McGushin): oris probi, animo inverecundo; 2.18 (McGushin): modestus ad alia omnia, nisi ad dominationem. Cf. Syme (1964) 206; Westphal (2015) 204–​205.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  147 perceived injustice. If he did not wish to face eclipse, he would have to find more direct ways to manage.30

Catiline, Cicero, Shame, and Deference Pompey’s peers’ nervousness was surely exacerbated by the recent intrigue of L. Sergius Catilina, the first lunge at sole rule since the revolt of Lepidus fifteen years before, and an episode that particularly reveals divisions about the workings of shame and deference. The plan and chronology of the conspiracy have, as Gruen put it, been “thoroughly, even excessively, discussed,” and we will not rehash them here. Also well covered is its historical context: scholars have long recognized that the social and economic backdrop of the 60s bc could convince Catiline and his small group of followers that they could take over the government by force of arms. In Etruria and the Apennines there were men still uncomfortable with Roman power after the Social War, as well as Sullan veterans who had gained more with the sword than they now did with the plow. Complaints from litigants from these regions about judicial corruption in Rome were prevalent. The Gracchan land reforms had failed to create a peninsula of smallholders; many urban plebs, still unable (or at least unwilling) to return to the fields, instead nursed discontent. Great landlords found themselves cash poor and in debt in Rome as competition with their fellows drew hard on their pocketbooks. Revolution might have gained support from all of these quarters.31 But scholars have not yet correctly recognized the extent to which Catiline, his followers, and Cicero all attempted to use social values to interpret and to pilot the course of events within this background.32 Sallust’s famous conclusion that the conspiracy was the result of failures of personal restraint born from imperial luxury needs no belaboring. And yet, Sallust’s conclusion is so famous that it, along with some of Cicero’s sharper invective, has been shunted off as so much propaganda that obscures some underlying truest causes, such as those social and economic factors above that modern eyes have discerned. That is not, however, how the ancients perceived the situation. They instead mentally filtered proceedings through the rhetoric of restraint, and their thinking then metamorphosed into physical actions and reactions. Our starting point for understanding the conspiracy should therefore be that rhetoric, and Cicero’s Catilinarian speeches 30 Cf. Bringmann (2007) 229: “So it had brought Pompey nothing that he had attempted to reach agreement with the Senate and had not used violence to implement his goals.” 31 Cic. de Leg. Ag. 2.71; Sall. B.C. 20–​21; Heitland (1909) III 83–​84; Allen (1938) 73–​77; Gruen (1974) 416, 424, 425–​428; Rosillo-​López (2017) 167; Maschek (2018) 170–​173. The Catilinarian bibliography is vast, for which see, e.g., Levick (2015) 125–​130; Hammar (2013) 177 n.557. 32 Dugan (2010) 185 and Hammar (2013) 169–​226 come admirably close, although more is needed.

148  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic show that Cicero hoped to rally actual, substantive support against Catiline by tapping into the restraint values.33 The values permeate the first speech from the celebrated opening lines: Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? For how long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience? How much longer indeed will that frenzy of yours mock us? To what end will unrestrained audacity hurl itself?

This opening is an appeal to proper deference to a distinguished group of peers. Cicero’s first step was to separate Catiline out of the assembly of senators in an unambiguous contrast between “us” and “you.”34 Critically, Cicero’s dichotomy was no metaphor or rhetorical embellishment, but was as corporeal and spontaneous an expression of the value and force of group deference as we might ever see in the ancient evidence: as Catiline had entered the Senate before the meeting, his fellow senators—​and particularly, as Cicero took the time to remark, the eminent consulares—​had stood up, walked away from him, and gathered together on the other side of the room, leaving him alone among denuded benches. “How,” Cicero demanded of Catiline, “ought you to feel about that?”35 Cicero did not need to voice the correct answer: “ashamed.” Cicero was directing Catiline to calculate his “loss of face” in the physical presence of the peer grouping, to recognize from that calculation that his behavior was indefensible, and to feel the pudor and verecundia that we saw in Chapter 1 should guide him to defer. Moreover, because physical confrontation was so important to creating these reactions, Cicero ordered Catiline in only the fourth sentence of the speech to consider the (very visible) “concursus of all good men” and the ora voltusque, the “faces and expressions,” of the senators looking at him, and then asked Catiline why the sight of that gathering and of those faces did not “move” him. “For my part,” Cicero also professed, “if I saw myself suspected and so offensive to my fellow citizens, even unjustly, I would prefer to absent myself from their gaze rather than be seen by the hostile eyes of all.” This is precisely pudor’s behavioral script. Shame from the (literal) faces of his peers should have been the primary force constraining Catiline from his present course. Instead, as Cicero pithily said, Catiline was “not a man whom pudor would turn back from wickedness, or danger from fear, or reason from frenzy.”36 33 Sall. B.C. 10.1–​13.5; Gruen (1974) 422–​423. 34 Cf. Langerwerf (2015) 157; Hammar (2013) 181. 35 in Cat. 1.16: quo tandem animo tibi ferendum putas? 36 in Cat. 1.1: nihil concursus bonorum omnium . . . nihil horum ora voltusque moverent?, 1.17: et si me meis civibus iniuria suspectum tam graviter atque offensum viderem, carere me aspectu civium

The Lost Generation of the Republic  149 Cicero’s next move, also completely consistent with the habitus, was to try to amplify the force of shame by a turn to other restraint values. If Catiline lacked pudor, he also lacked the emotional backstop of temperantia—​to say nothing of the more lofty virtues of modestia or moderatio. Hence Cicero contrasted Catiline’s “abuse” with the senators’ “patience,” and scolded his mocking “frenzy” and “unrestrained audacity,” which were leading Catiline to breach the bonds that tied him to his peers. Cicero then cited exempla of wicked citizens—​the Gracchi, Spurius Maelius, and Saturninus—​who aspired with audacia to revolution and were slain swiftly by great patriots, and cleverly inverted the theme by arguing that Tiberius Gracchus was killed for only “moderately” endangering the Republic, while Catiline wished to “waste the whole globe in slaughter and fire.”37 Then, a pivot. Cicero detailed what he had already unearthed of the conspiracy, and ended his account with advice that Catiline should leave the city. Exile would not be so terrible for Catiline, Cicero declared, for what pleasure could he still have in Rome when everyone hated him? Not, as one might expect Cicero to say, on account of the plot, but instead for a litany of failures of private self-​control. Catiline’s personal affairs were a scandal. What libido, asked Cicero, “has been absent from your eyes, what crime from your hands, what shameful act from your entire body?”38 It was true, Cicero noted, that Catiline had developed a famous ability to sleep on the cold hard ground, and to face hunger and fatigue. But, said Cicero, Catiline cultivated these controlled qualities only so that he could patiently carry out late-​night thefts and adulteries. So too did Catiline owe money, and his ruin in debt was imminent. His cupiditas was effrenata and furiosa. Voluntary exodus to Etruria, however, promised the delights of bacchanals—​a life for which Catiline had been preparing for years by his debauchery.39 Cicero would repeat and expand on the same themes the next day in front of the People. Cicero there presented Catiline as the ringleader of an astonishing group of immoral debauchees. Shame became the first theme in his peroration:

quam infestis omnium oculis conspici mallem, 1.22: Neque enim is es, Catilina, ut te aut pudor a turpitudine aut metus a periculo aut ratio a furore revocarit. 37 in Cat. 1.2: mediocriter labefactantem statum rei publicae . . . Catilinam orbem terrae caede atque incendiis vastare cupientem . . . . Cf. Quint. 8.14.13–​14; Wirszubski (1968) 15; Dyck (2008) 69. 38 in Cat. 1.6–​13, 1.13: quae libido ab oculis, quod facinus a manibus umquam tuis, quod flagitium a toto corpore afuit? Cf. Sall. B.C. 4.5, describing Catiline as “burning with lusts” with “mind always lusting after things immoderate, unbelievable, too high” (ardens in cupiditatibus . . . vastus animus inmoderata, incredibilia, nimis alta semper cupiebat); Q. Cic. Comm. Pet. 9–​10; Ascon. 86C (=​Lewis (1993) 172). 39 in Cat. 1.25–​26. Cf. pro Cael. 5.12–​6.14; Sall. B.C. 5.3.

150  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic On the one side fights pudor, on the other immodesty; here chastity, there sexual immorality; here good faith, there fraud; here piety, there wickedness; here constancy, there frenzy; here honesty, there evil; here self-​control, there lust; here equity, temperantia, bravery, prudence, all the virtues that battle with iniquity, luxury, idleness, temerity, and with all vices.40

Here is the black-​and-​white toggle switch again, and Sallust would later repeat these themes.41 The significance of Cicero’s strategy has not been fully appreciated. Gruen, for example, commented dismissively on these arguments that “[p]‌ropaganda and invective pollute the tradition.”42 The word “pollute” is telling, as though Cicero’s strategy only distracts from “real” issues that we should go looking for.43 His obvious exaggerations might also be seen as a mere distraction. But Cicero was in the most extreme moment of his life, and surely believed that he faced death or flight if he failed.44 Cicero’s strategy was itself a part of Roman social reality, not a distraction from it. Within that social reality, his purpose was twofold: first, to convince his listeners that Catiline was the type of man who would truly plot what Cicero said he was plotting.45 Cicero knew that his descriptions of Catiline’s sexual and financial perversity would be consonant with his audience’s worldview that amalgamated displays of private self-​control with the ability to participate properly in republican governance—​the very thing that Cicero alleged that Catiline was not doing.46 Moreover, we should not think Cicero’s listeners such dullards that they could not find mere gossip irrelevant, nor should we believe Cicero such a fool as to waste dire minutes of his audiences’ priceless attention on frivolity. Instead, as Jeffrey Tatum has shown, moralizing in public speeches, if perceived as “genuine,” would strengthen a speaker’s argument: “moralizing” was not for the sake of it, but was thought to have real force if wielded properly.47 Thus, whether the

40 in Cat. 2.5-​10, 2.25: Ex hac enim parte pudor pugnat, illinc petulantia; hinc pudicitia, illinc stuprum; hinc fides, illinc fraudatio; hinc pietas, illinc scelus; hinc constantia, illinc furor; hinc honestas, illinc turpitudo; hinc continentia, illinc libido; hinc denique aequitas, temperantia, fortitudo, prudentia, virtutes omnes certant cum iniquitate, luxuria, ignavia, temeritate, cum vitiis omnibus. 41 Sall. B.C. 14.1-​7; Dyck (2008) 158: “the passage . . . provides important evidence for what Romans perceived as binary oppositions within their value-​system.” 42 Gruen (1974) 422; contra is Powell (2007) 19–​20. 43 Cf. Earl (1967) 17: “Thus, where we would see the working of the process of economic change and sociological and political adjustment, they saw—​or appear to have seen—​only ethical issues.” 44 in Cat. 1.9–​10; Sall. B.C. 28.1–​3. 45 Hammar (2013) 191: “By traversing the superficial line between immorality and conspiracy, the consul effectively erased it. Lust and violence were connected.” Cf. Craig (2004) 199; Corbeill (2002b) 197; Rees (2011). 46 Cf. Hammar (2013) 254; Corbeill 1996 (5), (2002b) 199–​201; Jordan, et al. (2016). 47 Tatum (2011) 175.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  151 listeners would believe that Cicero was factually correct was one thing, which is why he needed to provide ample scandalous detail; that they would be receptive to his purpose and methods, however, should not be in doubt. Second, as Joanna Kenty has demonstrated, Cicero’s appeals in his speeches to mos maiorum (of which restraint was a part) were meant to recast a “dispute as an ethical fork in the road, with one path leading to disaster and the other to a reassertion of ancient virtue.” Hence, again, the toggle switch of bad and good citizens. Even more important, Kenty further proves that such appeals were also “tribalist,” tapping into to raw human emotions of belonging and identity. That is, Cicero tended to use such appeals to speak to the irrational, emotional parts of the listeners’ thinking at points in speeches when Cicero needed to smooth over logical gaps in his arguments (as here, where actual evidence of the conspiracy was still developing).48 That cognitive tactic also helps explain Cicero’s exaggerations: the more the rage, the more easily logical gaps are traversed. Exaggeration thus does not lessen the force of his strategy or restraint’s centrality to the culture; if anything it highlights it. Cicero spoke as he did because he knew that within his habitus appeal to the normative restraints might break Catiline off from the group and arouse its anger by stoking the fiery, irrational, tribal emotion that violations of the society’s dearest mores could spark. The substance of his attacks, of course, again reveals the content of the habitus. And the practical effects of the attacks were as intended. Indeed, Catiline himself confirmed the social reality and force of Cicero’s strategy. Far from questioning Cicero’s premises, or decrying some translucent “propaganda,” Catiline undertook the same restraint-​based approach in reply. Sallust reported that when Cicero sat down at the close of the first speech, Catiline attempted rebuttal: With downcast face and in a suppliant voice he began to ask the fathers not to believe anything about him recklessly; he was born of such a family, and had ordered his life from his youth up, such that he should be able to hope for all good things. They should not think that the destruction of the Republic would be any benefit to him, a patrician, by whom and by whose ancestors many benefits had come to the Roman plebs—​nor that M. Tullius, a resident alien in Rome, should be the Republic’s savior.49 48 Kenty (2016) 445, 455. Cf. May (1988) 166–​167: Cicero often put choices “in a disjunctive mode” of good and evil; Langerwerf (2015) 157. 49 ORF3 370 fr. 9 (=​Sall. B.C. 31.7): demisso voltu, voce supplici postulare a patribus coepit ne quid de se temere crederent; ea familia ortum, ita se ab adulescentia vitam instituisse, ut omnia bona in spe haberet; ne existumarent sibi, patricio homini, quoius ipsius atque maiorum pluruma beneficia in plebem Romanam essent, perdita re publica opus esse, quom eam servaret M. Tullius, inquilinus civis urbis Romae. On the historicity of this speech see Plut. Cic. 16.3; McGushin (1987) 62; Ramsey (2007) 148: on balance the evidence suggests that Sallust’s reported speech reflects some real expostulation by Catiline that night.

152  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic The response makes sense only in the context of restraint that Cicero and his audience had just shared. Catiline asked the fathers not to be “reckless,” a gesture toward temperantia. Catiline then insisted that he would gain nothing by revolution, for he still could expect “all good things” in his career—​plainly the offices and honores thus far denied him—​because he not only came from good family, but he had properly “ordered his life from his youth up.” That “ordering” is another claim to temperantia, meant as a direct counter to Cicero’s salacious allegations, and signifies that both he and the Senate considered such “ordering” to be proper to a legitimate officeholder. By this “ordering” Catiline likely meant his reputation for self-​control in the face of cold, fatigue, and hunger, a reputation that he had apparently taken such effort to curry and display that Cicero could assume that his audience was familiar with it. For Catiline, self-​control was not some modish literary ornament: he actually slept on cold ground, and made sure everyone knew it.50 Cicero obliquely substantiated Catiline’s reputation by not implausibly denying the fact of it but instead trying to invert it into a bogus lack of self-​restraint. Moreover, Catiline invoked the principles of deference: Cicero, an eques from nowhere, though consul, was undeserving compared to a man of a family long distinguished as patrons to the Republic’s highest power. And all of this came in a bodily posture, with those downcast eyes, meant to neutralize Cicero’s primary accusation: that Catiline lacked pudor in the face of his illustrious peer group. It didn’t work. Catiline reportedly tried further (unfortunately unrecorded) maledictions on the consul in an attempt to realign the group behind himself and to isolate his adversary. In response, the emotional fire: the enraged senators instead began to shout Catiline down. Catiline rushed from the meeting, threatening to bring destruction on them all.51 The extant evidence explains Catiline’s own irrational, emotive rage, because he shared the same emotion-​stoking normative outlook as Cicero, but with an inverted interpretation of the facts. In an address to his followers (admittedly likely created by Sallust, although possibly based on some authentic intelligence) Catiline justified himself by thundering against his preposterously luxurious enemies, who treated “boni” like himself and his supporters like a mob of commoners and deprived them of their due.52 We see the same rationales in a letter—​this time assuredly genuine—​that Catiline sent to Q. Lutatius Catulus, asking Catulus’ assistance in caring for his wife, defending his actions:

50 Cf. Steel’s (2011) 37 and van der Blom’s (2017) point that candidates rarely had a chance to give speeches to voters, and thus engineered reputations before running through other displays. 51 Sall. B.C. 31.8–​9. 52 Sall. B.C. 20.2-​14; Paananen (1972) 60–​62; Malcolm (1979); McGushin (1987) 33–​35.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  153 Provoked by injustices and false rumors, because I was deprived of the fruit of my labors and industry and could not retain my level of dignitas, I took up the public cause of the unfortunate, as is my custom, not because I could not pay my debts out of my own pocket—​and the liberality of [my wife] Orestilla, through her own and her daughter’s resources, could have covered debts incurred by others—​but because I saw unworthy men honored with office and myself denied through false suspicion. For this reason I have pursued honorable enough hopes of preserving what remains of my dignitas in view of my circumstances.53

This is the same mental framework as with Cicero. Catiline rested his case for legitimate power on a balance of traditional, deserving self-​assertion and personal restraint. He blamed his lack of political success on “false rumors.” Given that he took special pains to correct whispers about alleged profligacy with money, these must have included the rumors of intemperance reflected in Cicero’s speeches. Catiline, like Cicero, believed that personal restraint truly mattered; he simply denied that he lacked it. Also remarkable is the direct link that Catiline drew between his support from the commons and the fact that “unworthy” men ran the Senate. Consequently, he felt, men like Cicero should defer to him, not vice-​ versa, and the Senate should have agreed. His disdain for the senators also apparently stemmed from allegations of immoderatio and intemperantia: Sallust described a message from C. Manlius, one of Catiline’s co-​conspirators, that complained of the saevitia faeneratorum atque praetoris (“the savagery of the moneylenders and the praetor”) and the superbia magistratuum (“arrogance of the magistrates”).54 Catiline’s logic therefore tracked his own turn to the People for a source of existimatio in the face of a haughty, greedy, and unworthy nobility. Most interesting is the letter’s relationship to shame. Cicero had averred that Catiline lacked pudor, and in as many words. Catiline here retorted that he need not feel ashamed at an “honorable” course, in preservation of his dignitas. Instead, Catiline was able to untether his personal sense of dignitas from the many senators’ assertion that he should feel pudor. Cicero had tried to argue that such a thing should not be possible: how could a man claim any dignitas, or feel anything but shame, if all the best men so patently hated him? But Catiline could 53 Sall. B.C. 35.1-​6: Iniuriis contumeliisque concitatus, quod fructu laboris industriaeque meae privatus statum dignitatis non optinebam, publicam miserorum causam pro mea consuetudine suscepi, non quin aes alienum meis nominibus ex possessionibus solvere possem—​et alienis nominibus liberalitas Orestillae suis filiaeque copiis persolveret—​sed quod non dignos homines honore honestatos videbam meque falsa suspicione alienatum esse sentiebam. Hoc nomine satis honestas pro meo casu spes relicuae dignitatis conservandae sum secutus. On the letter’s genuineness see Heitland (1909) III 99 n.3; Syme (1964) 71–​72; McGushin (1987) 66; Wilkins (1994) 46; Ramsey (2007) 155. 54 Sall. B.C. 33.1; Lintott (1977); McGushin (1987) 48; Ramsey (2007) 153.

154  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic in fact do so, first because he could imagine gaining existimatio enough from his supporters, at least some of whom were highly-​placed; second, from a turn to the “unfortunate” People; third, because he believed that he had built up a famous store of self-​control that others had failed to appreciate fully; and finally, because he could also imagine that the senators as a group were unworthy judges of his merit, as evidenced by their support of undeserving men, their foolish belief in false rumors, and their own greed and arrogance.55 It followed, for Catiline, that the Republic’s institutions that such men controlled were currently beyond salvage—​as his unjust electoral losses proved—​and must be wiped clean and revived. These mental leaps would have been all but impossible before the shifts in normative restraint patterns over the previous seventy years. And even if someone could have made the leaps before, only after the recent resulting disturbances could he have considered doing anything serious about it. But through the now-​ tortuous logic and language of restraint, Catiline, like Sulla (whom Catiline had served during the proscriptions), could justify and wage an armed revolution.56 In sum, both Cicero and Catiline believed that arrogant and luxurious men were injurious to a properly operating Republic. Catiline did not quibble with Cicero’s invocation of this belief, but disputed only whether it was himself, or Cicero and the senators, who best fit that description.57 The disruptive uncertainty of the previous decades allowed each to believe he was right. Cicero clung to the hope that, with proper exhortation, the restraint norms once again would be acknowledged by all and all men’s behavior would be once again directed consensu omnium.58 But that hope failed where only force would succeed. Catiline’s conspiracy instead revealed certain men’s ability to separate their own existimatio from the judgment of the collective Senate by combining appeal to the People, loyal supporters, and a belief that a substantial portion of the Senate was luxurious, arrogant, and unworthy of respect. Such men were then immune to the most potent forces of shame and deference that the aristocratic group had traditionally used to tie itself together. Worse, that Catiline (and his supporters) could justify arson and murder as “honorable,” even in the face of the assembled Senate, illustrates that pudor was without universally acknowledged or automatic application, and without any obvious binding power across the aristocracy or the Republic’s institutions as a whole. The unjudgeable disagreement ended in executions and the slaughter of Catiline and his supporters on a battlefield. The fourfold process was now entering its mature stages. 55 Price (1998) 113 counts eleven senatorial supporters. Cf. Ascon. 83C (=​Lewis (1993) 166). 56 Keaveney (2005) 129 and n.13; see also Syme (1964) 124 and Wilkins (1994) 83. 57 Cf. Wilkins (1994); Batstone (2010) 228. 58 Cicero’s naïveté was later exemplified by his hopes to “heal” the Republic by teaching young men such as Clodius proper restrained manners through witty insults, Cic. ad Att. 1.18.2.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  155

Crassus, Cato, Caesar, and Consensus Thus far, we have seen two underpinnings of deference—​mutuality and shame—​ failing to function properly, and temperantia (once again) scrambled into futility. Three further factors now helped birth the “three-​headed monster.” First, the attitude of M. Licinius Crassus, who seemed to care little for restraint if it hampered his chances of survival. Second, the belief of M. Porcius Cato that the only way to fix the ailing Republic was to apply traditional restraint values as severely as possible. We have encountered larvae of these attitudes in the two previous generations, the former attitude in such men as Pompeius Strabo and M. Aemilius Lepidus, the latter in men such as P. Rutilius Rufus and Q. Lutatius Catulus. Consensus between these utterly incompatible views was impossible. The third factor we have previewed in Saturninus and Marius: Caesar, a man whose vision of restraint seemingly always turned only to his advantage, never to his detriment.

Crassus Crassus was perhaps the most enigmatic of the men who played a role in the Republic’s demise. Plutarch struggled to grasp the motives of his famously wealthy subject. Crassus’ boyhood house and table, Plutarch insisted, were humble, and for this reason Crassus’ early life was σώφρων καὶ μέτριος—​“temperate and moderate.” But then, according to Plutarch, a sole vice—​φιλοπλουτία, “avarice”—​submerged his merits. Little of Plutarch’s Life diverges from this simple thesis, one of Plutarch’s lazier efforts.59 But Crassus’ famed love of money was not a native failure of self-​control. Rather, it was a calculated reaction to the conflict between Marius and Sulla. Marians murdered Crassus’ father and brother and devastated the family fortune, and the young future dives was forced to flee to Spain. There he hid in a cave in fear, and accordingly attached himself as soon as possible to Sulla on his return. He found among his fellow Sullani a life-​long rival in Pompey, whose “greatness” Crassus felt came at his own expense. These events probably turned Crassus to think coldly of survival. Through his relationship with Sulla Crassus obtained a scandalous amount of wealth, first through acquisition of the prop­ erty of the proscribed, then allegedly through other questionable acts such as seducing wealthy women, even (allegedly) Vestals, propositioning for cut-​rate sale prices property owners whose buildings were on fire, and getting himself suspiciously named heir to wealthy strangers. There is no hint, however, that

59 Plut. Crass. 1.1, 2.1.

156  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Crassus felt any shame about his money, even though some contemporaries thought he ought to (Cicero sniffed that Crassus would dance in the Forum if it would get him named in a will). And even if such rumors were false, there is no indication in the sources that Crassus felt the need to dispel them.60 Now, what to use the money for? Not for Crassus a splendid private house or table, a fact that perplexed Plutarch.61 Instead, we have Crassus’ famous sayings that no man was wealthy unless he could support a private army from his own means, and that “war has no fixed rations”—​one could never be sure how much a war would cost. Plutarch thought this belief gauche, and preferred the hardy advice of Marius that one’s meager farm should be sufficient for one’s essentials. Plutarch missed the context: Crassus’ decisions make sense in light his rivalry with Pompey and of Sulla’s march. Crassus plainly worried that Pompey might someday post his own proscription lists, on which the name “Crassus” would not likely be low. From Sulla Crassus had obtained the clear-​eyed lesson that force was useful for defense. Shame was evidently farther down on his catalog of concerns.62 Also useful would be the support of many friends. Thus we discover that, Crassus would often hold intimate dinners with “leaders of the commons and popular men,” and would greet commoners in the street by name. Another of Crassus’ pastimes was handing out interest-​free loans. The recipients’ allegiance was the expected return on investment. This is also why Crassus, we are told, was willing to take any court case of whatever importance, even without hope for any financial return, and for men whom Cicero, Pompey, and Caesar had rejected as clients. An even less savory pursuit was helping men grease their juries, such as the one that scandalously acquitted Clodius in the Bona Dea affair. We have no inkling that Crassus cared, even if Cicero (and presumably others) found his behavior appalling. Crassus also (unusually) cultivated the support of the so-​ called pedarii, junior senators who expressed their opinions only with their feet while lining up to vote or by gathering around a man they supported. No doubt he hoped to place the younger generation under his wing as they matured into decision-​makers, and to have them flock around him when he spoke. His plans further required that he be beholden to no one; thus Plutarch depicts him as resisting favors from Pompey that might place him into Pompey’s debt. Finally, he also warmed to the tax-​collectors, for political support and for the remuneration that they might bring. His munificence, Plutarch reported, in fact did make 60 Cic. de Off. 3.75; Val. Max. 9.4.1; Plut. Crass. 1.2, 2.3-​4, 4.3-​6.1 (=​Cornell et al. (2013) II 951–​953 (Fenestella)), 7.1, Comp. Nic. and Crass. 1.2. Cf. Marshall (1976) 12. To Cicero, dancing in the Forum would be so shameful it would be permissible only in the fantastical scenario where it might save the country, de Off. 3.93, in Pis. 22; Corbeill (1996) 135–​139. 61 Plut. Crass. 2.5. Cf. Vell. Pat. 2.46.2; Ward (1977) 291; Woodman (1983) 72. 62 Cic. de Off. 1.25, Parad. Stoic. 6.45; Plut. Crass. 2.7: ὁ γὰρ πόλεμος οὐ τεταγμένα σιτεῖται, Pomp. 43.2; Dio 40.27.3; Ward (1977) 69.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  157 him friends to such a degree that, without having held any brilliant military command, he became as powerful as Pompey, and managed to be elected praetor and consul without apparently having achieved any of the lower offices.63 In fine, Crassus represented one possible reaction to the disturbances of the previous decades: to emphasize force and survival over the framework of restraint that used to gain men respect and safety. Crassus had seen the heads of restrained and dignified men roll; his new course was safer. Indeed, an otherwise militant tribune commented that he left Crassus alone like an ox known to gore.64 Thus Cicero wrote, “There are others who do whatever is necessary, will pander to anyone, as long as they get what they want, as we saw in the case of Sulla and M. Crassus.”65 But his method’s atomizing, barbed-​wire individualism was anathema to larger group solidarity, and his focus on wealth could not but help escalate the competition to gain it. Most important, Crassus’ conclusions also meant that he would not scruple to enter into advantageous private arrangements, even if his more self-​righteous peers found them monstrous.

Cato In contrast stood a second possible reaction to the disturbances, that of M. Porcius Cato the Younger, great-​grandson of the Elder Censor. Cato’s relationship to restraint came in two general flavors. First, temperantia was to be exercised as strictly as possible; tales of his abstemious forbear evidently burrowed deeply into his mind. By the time Cato was in his early twenties his hatred of luxurious living and lust was already renowned. He refused even to look at the nude female mimes in coarse theatrical productions. He was memorably honest with money, performing his duties as quaestor in 65 BC with immaculate efficiency, putting his colleagues—​engaged in peculation and fraud—​to shame. Cato demanded (harshly) that others live up to his standard too: he once attacked a foppish young senator’s hypocritical homily on temperance with the frustrated outburst “Won’t you shut up? You get rich like Crassus, you live like Lucullus, but you talk like Cato.” In 58 BC, the ever-​troublesome Clodius contrived to remove the too-​ honest Cato from Rome by sending him to Cyprus to relieve the island (and its riches) from the control of its king. Cato returned with a colossal treasure, but 63 Cic. ad Att. 1.16.5, 1.17.9–​10; de Off. 1.25, 1.109; Sall. B.C. 48.6; Vell. Pat. 2.30.6; Plut. Crass. 3.1: δημοτικὴ καὶ λαώδις, 3.2, 7.2–​6, 12.1; Pliny N.H. 33.134; Gruen (1974) 67–​72; Ward (1977) 82; Goldsworthy (2006) 135. 64 Plut. Crass. 7.9. Ward (1977) 78 perceives a pun on the hay (faenum) tied to a dangerous ox’s horns and a moneylender (faenerator), the joke being that people were afraid to attack their creditor Crassus. 65 Cic. de Off. 1.109: itemque alii, qui quidvis perpetiantur, cuivis deserviant, dum, quod velint, consequantur, ut Sullam et M. Crassum videbamus.

158  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic did not pocket a drachma. He instead sailed up the Tiber—​in his insistence on pecuniary propriety even bypassing a senatorial welcoming committee on the riverbank—​and placed seven thousand talents directly into the treasury. The unfortunate damage in a fire on the journey home of his record book is said to have upset him, not at the loss of proof of his own uprightness (which was unnecessary), but at the loss of an example to others. In later years Cato’s reputation for temperantia was such that electoral opponents even put money into escrow with him so that anyone whom Cato personally found guilty of chicanery would forfeit his stake. Cicero commented that through this act Cato by himself did more to combat bribery than all the laws and the juries. And Cato’s own words preserved in a letter to Cicero show his rigid views, counseling a course of “severity and scrupulousness” (severitatem diligentiamque).66 The second flavor was Cato’s opinion of deference and moderatio, which for the most part took the shape of a nearly obsessive animosity toward men whom he judged had climbed beyond what he thought proper—​a very low bar. Cicero reported that Cato “hates only people whose dignitas cannot (or can but slightly) grow larger.” Thus not only Pompey and Caesar found triumphs and honors blocked, but even Cicero, who asked for an innocuous triumph himself. The instances when Cato’s scrupulousness relaxed showed where his heart was: he might deign to ignore bribery, for example, but only for the greater goal of seeing a powerful man cut down to size.67 Cato applied the rules to Cato, too. After his remarkable turn in Cyprus the Senate considered bestowing on him an extraordinary appointment as praetor, a triumph, the right to a purple-​bordered toga at games, and the right to name after himself the slaves he brought home. Cato himself vigorously inveighed against these measures as intolerable innovations; an example, said Valerius Maximus, of “the greatest moderation.” As Sallust later wrote encomiastically: Cato pursued modestia and propriety, but most of all strict austerity. He competed neither with the rich in wealth nor with the partisan in partisanship, but instead with the vigorous in manly virtue, with the modestus in pudor, with the

66 Cic. ad Att. 4.15.7–​8; ad Fam. 15.6.3; ad Q.F. 2.16.4; pro Mur. 66; Dio 37.22.1, 39.22.4; Vell. Pat. 2.38.6, 2.45.4–​5; Val. Max. 2.10.8, 4.3.2 (=​Cornell et al. (2013) II 741 (Munatius Rufus)); Plut. Cat. Min. 8.1, 9.2, 16–​17, 34.2, 38–​39, 44.5–​7, Luc. 40.3: “Οὐ παύσῃ,” ἔφη, “σὺ πλουτῶν μὲν ὡς Κράσσος, ζῶν δ᾿ ὡς Λούκουλλος, λέγων δὲ ὡς Κάτων”; Flor. 44.1–​5. Drogula (2019) 165–​169 suggests that Cato deliberately lost the books to cover pilfering by his nephew Brutus. But why Cato would have destroyed entirely the books that could bring him renown (as opposed to simply doctoring the unpleasant parts) is unclear, and contemporary claims against Cato for losing the books came to nothing. 67 Cic. ad Fam. 15.4–​5, ad Att. 7.2.7, 7.3.5: Cato declaravit iis se solis . . . invidere quibus nihil aut non multum ad dignitatem posset accedere; Dio 37.21.4–​22.4, 54.1–​2; Suet. Div. Iul. 19; App. B.C. 2.8; Plut. Cat. Min. 30, 31.2-​3; Pomp. 44; Flor. 2.13.9; Canfora (2007) 28.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  159 blameless in abstinentia. He preferred to be, rather than to seem, a good man, and the less he sought glory, all the more did it pursue him.

Dio agreed: “No one in those days except Cato took part in public affairs purely, without personal greed.”68 Such hindsight assessments are a bit rosy, of course. Like any other Roman, Cato struggled with the tension between advancement and restraint. He could be hypocritical, pushing for honors for family members that he might deny others, and, as noted, even connived at bribery if it would defeat a foe. It is indisputable, however, that his awesome conduct made him stand out starkly from his peers. Even barbarians tried to emulate him, and Cicero thought it mirabile that Rome had produced even one Cato.69 Some scholars have been unnecessarily puzzled why Cato wielded so much influence despite his “moralism.”70 This is backward: what influence and symbolic capital he wielded as a poor fatherless descendant of a then-​diminished house was because of his moralism, which was still prized within the habitus. But Cato was perhaps the most lost of all of his generation, an embodiment of the disordered state of restraint in his day. Orphaned, lacking firm guidance from a generation of elders devastated by the Social War and the proscriptions, and long separated from his great-​grandfather’s milieu, he created a sometimes bizarre pastiche of restraint norms he plucked without context from past exempla that was only partially effective in gaining him support and that often managed to alienate and bewilder others. As praetor, for instance, he judged cases in only a toga and no tunic or sandals, an outfit he derived from ancient statuary, but which scandalized people, while his intense abstemiousness while on embassies perplexed foreign dignitaries who, obviously expecting visiting Romans to enjoy their hospitality, did not know how to entertain him.71 As a result, his influence was limited. When Cato once chanced to meet Pompey in Asia, for instance, Pompey stood up to greet him as though a superior. As Plutarch perceptively noted, however, this was for show: Pompey had no real love of Cato, and appeared to admire him only in self-​interest. That was because, as Plutarch also noticed, while men esteemed Cato, his “reputation was greater than his power”—​few in fact followed him, preferring Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus.72 The contrast with Crassus in particular is stark. Cato evidently 68 Sall. B.C. 54.5–​6: Catoni studium modestiae, decoris, sed maxume severitatis erat. Non divitiis cum divite neque factio cum factioso, sed cum strenuo virtute, cum modesto pudore, cum innocente abstinentia certabat; esse quam videri bonus malebat; ita quo minus petebat gloriam, eo magis illum sequebatur; Dio 37.57.3: καθαρῶς μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἄνευ τινὸς ἰδίας πλεονεξίας οὐδεὶς τῶν τότε τὰ κοινὰ πλὴν τοῦ Κάτωνος ἔπραττεν, 39.23.1; Val. Max. 4.1.14: summae moderationis; Plut. Cat. Min. 39.3. 69 Cic. ad Fam. 15.6.1; Hor. Ep. 1.19.12–​14; Drogula (2019) 202, 252, 296–​314. 70 E.g., Tatum (2008) 127. 71 Plut. Cat. Min. 6.3; Drogula (2019) 2–​3, 27–​44, 52, 54, 106. 72 Plut. Cat. Min. 14.2, Crass. 7.7: Κάτωνος γὰρ ἡ δόξα μείζων ἦν τῆς δυνάμεως.

160  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic hoped that his spectacular self-​control would win him adherents and offices, yet he achieved only the praetorship. Crassus, who thought and acted quite differently, managed multiple consulships and great commands. Cato is thus simultaneously evidence, once again, of the force of the restraint patterns and of degeneration of consensus around them. By adopting an extreme version of mos maiorum, Cato gained some real respect and power, but also could cleave consensus, confusing and putting others off. As his biographer Fred Drogula observes, “stories of popular respect for Cato’s moral authority . . . clash with the reality that the voters did not [always] back his policies, revealing considerable complexity in how the people received and internalized appeals to tradition,” and noting that there was “no clear agreement about what—​exactly—​ was and was not consistent with the mos maiorum,” making Cato a microcosm of this study’s broader observations to this point.73 Cato himself, at least in Sallust’s telling, seems to have frustratedly discerned this troubling definitional problem: iam pridem equidem nos vera vocabula rerum amisimus. Quia bona aliena largiri liberalitas, malarum rerum audacia fortitudo vocatur, eo res publica in extremo sita est. Indeed, for quite some time now we have lost the true vocabulary for things. “Wasting” other people’s money is called “liberality”; “audacity” in wrongdoing is called “fortitude”—​for this reason the Republic is in extremis.74

Cato’s solution to this problem was to try ever harder to force everyone into his single-​minded re-​creation of a system that was no longer a living tradition, which only further offended. Even the sympathetic Cicero famously brusquely concluded that Cato “speaks in the Senate as though he were in Plato’s Republic and not in Romulus’ sewer.”75

Caesar These latest contortions to normative behavior now converged to a head. We left Pompey in the late 60s bc flailing in his efforts to obtain the mutual regard that he thought should result from his vaunted moderatio. Cato’s differing vision of 73 Drogula (2019) 106, 189. 74 Sall. B.C. 52.11. Ramsey (2007) 208 detects Sallust modeling Thucydides here, although that simply shows the applicability of the Greek observation to the Roman situation; Drogula (2019) passim expertly proves that Cato’s values were not derived from Greek sources, but were natively Roman. 75 Cic. ad Att. 2.1.8: dicit enim tamquam in Platonis πολιτείᾳ, non tamquam in Romuli faece. Cf. Meier (1995) 199.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  161 moderatio had directly subverted Pompey’s plans. Both positions were the products of the unraveling trend recently exacerbated by Marius, Sulla, and Catiline. Meanwhile, the same trend had left Crassus focused on pure advantage: just then, in the first few months of 60 BC, Crassus was working to shore up his position with the tax-​collectors, helping to rescind a foolishly overbid contract with the censors. Cato strongly opposed what Cicero called the “shameless” proposition; thus Cato’s steely enforcement of temperantia had now set him against Crassus, too.76 In these months arrived Caesar, lately pro-​praetor in Spain, who sought permission to stand for the consulship of 59 BC in absentia (as an exception to a law promulgated by Cato three years earlier) so that he might not have to enter the city and forego a triumph. Appian tells us that he argued that others had received such dispensations, and that he (naturally) gathered a group of influential friends for the task. These failing, and with Cato in filibustering opposition, Caesar ceded to the Senate and stood for office. To avoid future setbacks, at some point he approached Pompey and Crassus with the suggestion that the three combine their strength.77 The unprecedented nature of this arrangement makes it a fair guess that, at any point before, men of Pompey’s and Crassus’s stature would have rejected such a proposal. Indeed, the principled Cicero was at first considered for the group, but he declined the triad’s overtures because he was afraid to lose famam laudesque bonorum (“fame and the praises of good men”). But the fractured restraint patterns now permitted the frustrated Pompey and the shrewd Crassus to be receptive to the idea. By that point, moreover, Caesar may have reached the cynical conclusion that he would later voice as dictator: that the Republic was “a nothing, a name only without body or form,” the loose language and symbols of which could be used to gain the thing most needful to him.78 There could be no real compromise between such points of view and that of Cicero, much less that of Cato. At best, like Cicero and Catiline, the sides could share a veneer of common words and symbols without any necessary binding force. The Senate was ignorant of the triad’s agreement as the elections approached, but many members were highly suspicious of Caesar, as shown by the Senate’s decision to designate as the next consuls’ province the “woods and tracks of Italy” to keep a real province out of Caesar’s hands after his term in office. That fact requires explanation. Hindsight knowledge of Caesar’s later importance should not confuse his status in 60 BC. Caesar’s official résumé to that point had

76 Cic. ad Att. 1.17.9–​10, 1.18.6–​7, 2.1.8: impudentius. 77 App. B.C. 2.8; Plut. Crass. 14.2. On the difficult question of whether the coalition preceded or followed the election, see Marshall (1976) 101–​102; Ward (1977) 215; Millar (1998) 124; Goldsworthy (2006) 165–​166; Drogula (2019) 119–​120, 135. 78 Cic. ad Att. 2.3.4; Suet. Div. Iul. 77: nihil esse rem publicam, appellationem modo sine corpore ac specie (=​Cornell et al. (2013) II 731 (T. Ampius Balbus)); Gelzer (1968) 88.

162  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic been praiseworthy, but not overawing.79 He was of good family, had gained all the requisite offices without great difficulty, was pontifex maximus, had shown bravery on campaign in Asia, and had recently won notable victories in Spain. On the face of it, consul Caesar should not have been objectionable. But he was, because, as Martin Jehne and Adrian Goldsworthy have seen, he was believed to possess “an extreme individualism” over and above contemporaries, and felt that “[p]‌erhaps the rules that bound others did not apply to him.”80 Those rules were of self-​control. Caesar was Marius’ nephew by marriage, and at eighteen years old stubbornly defied Sulla’s order that Caesar divorce his wife, Cinna’s daughter. Sulla ordered his arrest, which Caesar escaped only through a daring flight in disguise by night and through the careful intercession of relatives and friends. He was nevertheless stripped of his priesthood, his wife’s dowry, and his family estates, with the foreboding remark from Sulla that in the upstart Caesar lay “many Mariuses.”81 Caesar, like Crassus, thus directly experienced how slim a reed Sulla’s “moderation” could be, and how much reliance on the restraint of others could cost. In this the two differed from Pompey, the member of the triad who seemed to rely the most (at least once he was in a position to play the moderatus) on traditional restraint patterns to get what he wanted—​but the only one of the three who had never been on the wrong side of a manhunt. Caesar then obtained some celebrity through exercises in provocative novelty and participation in popularis politics. He gave his aunt Julia (wife of Marius) a funeral oration in which he reintroduced images of Marius into Rome. At this, Q. Lutatius Catulus flipped the toggle switch: “No longer, Caesar, are you undermining the Republic; you’re besieging it!” He supported various “popular” positions, especially in restoring the tribunate’s powers.82 True, Caesar could also show self-​abasement. On the first day of his praetorship in 62 BC, for example, Caesar attempted to deprive Catulus of the honor of having restored the Capitol, which had been damaged by fire in 83 BC, and to replace Catulus’ name on the edifice with Pompey’s. Caesar went so far as

79 Gelzer (1968) 69; Khan (1986) 187; Seager (2002) 172; Goldsworthy (2006) 106, 108, 149–​151; Billows (2009) 79; Stevenson (2015) 52. 80 Goldsworthy (2006) 60; Jehne (2009) 141. Cf. Gelzer (1968) 331; Buszard (2008) 207–​211; Stevenson (2015) 52–​61; Drogula (2019) 121. Contra are Meier (1995) 358 and Billows (2009) 183–​ 188, who claim, with little supporting evidence, that the Senate opposed Caesar as a “recognized leader” of a popularis movement. Rhodes (1978) and Shotter (2005) argue that the “woods and tracks” were a mere placeholder in case of trouble in Gaul. But if there were real worry about Gaul (but not about Caesar), the assignment could have been made. 81 Vell. Pat. 2.41.2; Plut. Caes. 1.3; Suet. Div. Iul. 1.2–​3: nam Caesari multos Marios inesse. 82 Plut. Caes. 5.2 (although see Millar (1986)), 6.1–​5, 6.4: “Οὐκέτι γὰρ ὑπονόμοις,” ἔφη, “Καῖσαρ, ἀλλ᾿ ἤδη μηχαναῖς αἱρεῖ τὴν πολιτείαν”; Suet. Div. Iul. 1.6, 6.1–​2. It is unclear what Catulus thought the young Caesar had been doing before. Cf. Taylor (1942) 10–​17; Gelzer (1968) 32; Raaflaub (2003) 47; Billows (2009) 85.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  163 to force the venerable senator to speak on his own behalf humiliatingly from ground level and not from the platform. Caesar dropped the matter, however, when he perceived that numerous senators “gathered hurriedly into groups” to resist this measure. Soon after he was somehow curbed from exercise of public office for persistently supporting a tribune who was trying to recall Pompey to restore order after the Catilinarian conspiracy, but regained his position after he melodramatically dismissed a mob that had gathered and pledged to support him.83 These shifts make it impossible to know, of course, to what degree Caesar believed in restraint or used it only as he pleased to gain what influence he could. The best we can say is that he acted very much like he genuinely believed in restraint whenever that best suited his purposes. Still, more than a hint of intemperate impropriety and scandal always followed him. His adulteries were legendary, and legendarily dangerous. He reportedly bedded the wives of numerous senators, including Crassus’ wife, Pompey’s wife, and Cato’s half sister Servilia, the latter of whom was so apparently smitten that she sent Caesar love notes during the debate on the Catilinarian conspirators. Cato—​a man who prided himself on having resisted sex until his marriage—​saw the note passed and demanded its contents. Caesar handed it over, and when Cato read it he screamed, “you can have it, you drunk!”84 There is no report that Caesar seemed ashamed to be caught out. Indeed, shame was never evidently much on his mind. His dress was flamboyant: long tunics, fringed sleeves, and a loose belt. This sort of attire was another condensed symbol, believed to reveal a dangerous and nonconformist character: Sulla reportedly warned others to beware “that ill-​belted boy.” By contrast, Cato went about in simple clothing in unfashionable colors; he evidently considered Caesar’s type of dress both untraditional and threatening. Caesar’s debts were also outsized, sometimes spent on extravagances like custom villas or giant pearls for his mistresses. These were the source of much disapprobation, and also trepidation: only through some monumental action could Caesar ever hope to pay the arrears.85

83 Cic. ad Att. 2.24.3; Suet. Div. Iul. 15: concucurrisse, 16, 46; Dio 37.44.1–​3. Drogula (2019) 93–​94 doubts the temple incident as written; it is absent from other sources and the Senate did not have the power to suspend magistrates. But some show of senatorial influence against Caesar seems likely, as does his response. 84 Plut. Cat. Min. 7.1, 24.2: Κράτει, μέθυσε. Note that in the shock of the moment, Cato self-​ hatingly and reflexively accused (the generally teetotalling) Caesar of lack of restraint in the one area—​alcohol—​in which Cato seems to have lacked it, Plut. Cat. Min. 6.2; Goldsworthy (2006) 88–​ 89, 155, 165. 85 Plut. Caes. 6.4, 7.2–​4, 11.1; Suet. Div. Iul. 45.2: male praecinctum puerum, 45–​50; Gelzer (1968) 30; Khan (1986) 113; Goldsworthy (2006) 149; Canfora (2007) 26–​31; Billows (2009) 63–​64; Jehne (2016) 196. Cf. Edwards (1993) 90: “A detail of Caesar’s dress was the most apt sign his enemy could invoke to sum up the nature of the threat he posed to political, social and cultural order.”

164  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic He was also reportedly painfully and publicly ambitious and impatient. We are told that in 67 BC at the age of thirty-​three he chanced upon a statue of Alexander the Great and erupted into tears; while the Macedonian had conquered half the known world by that age, Caesar had still achieved nothing but a dismal quaestorship. On the way back to Rome after his later praetorship in Spain, he passed through a wretched peasant village in the Alps. When his officers smirkingly wondered whether its muddy inhabitants competed for glorious offices and honor, Caesar with all seriousness rejoined that he would rather be first in that village than second in Rome. When made, these gestures and statements came from a relatively junior magistrate, one among many. Even if more meaningful in hindsight (and not, as seems unlikely, pure retrojections) they must have been striking at the time to deserve remembrance.86 All told, by 60 BC, traditionally minded senators would have marked Caesar’s (or at least Caesar’s widely rumored) lusts, vanity, greed, indebtedness, immodesty, populism, insubordination, and aching ambition. Merited or not, this reputation made the senators extraordinarily afraid that Caesar’s “web of immorality” would spread to his official consular powers, and explains the extraordinarily paltry province they assigned. It also explains why they put up M. Calpurnius Bibulus as candidate for Caesar’s colleague, in Appian’s telling, to “oppose” him. If pure opposition was the goal, it was a strange choice. Caesar and Bibulus had been colleagues twice before, as aediles in 65 BC and praetors in 62 BC, Caesar often acting quite independently of Bibulus.87 Rather than pure “opposition,” then, the theory seems to have been that Caesar might at last feel stinging verecundia in the face of his former colleague and moderate himself to his peers’ satisfaction. Signs indeed initially pointed in that direction. Suetonius reported that after Caesar and Bibulus entered office Caesar had his lictors follow, not precede, him in the months when he did not hold the fasces, just as supposedly occurred in the most ancient times; a display of collegiality and moderation in the visual exercise of power. According to Appian, Caesar also gave speeches in the Senate on the topic of ὁμόνοια—​a word, as we have seen, that in Latin would encompass concordia and deference between colleagues—​and to the purport that the commonwealth would be damaged if he and Bibulus had disagreements with each other. Appian also reported that Bibulus thought that Caesar was sincere and so was caught off guard when Caesar shortly after gathered armed men to support a proposed land law meant to aid Pompey’s troops.88 Such a complacent attitude of Bibulus—​who allegedly had been chosen to resist Caesar—​would make sense 86 Suet. Div. Iul. 7.1; Dio 37.52.2; Plut. Caes. 11.3, 12.3. 87 Caes. B.C. 3.16.3; Suet. Div. Iul. 10.1, 19; Dio 37.8.2; App. B.C. 2.9: ἐς ἐναντίωσιν; MRR II 159, 173; Gelzer (1968) 188; Goldsworthy (2006) 160–​161. 88 Suet. Div. Iul. 20; App. B.C. 2.10; Marshall (1984) 131–​132; Hölkeskamp (2011a) 171.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  165 if he held a baseline belief that a consul would rise to the ideals of the office, as so many consular and censorial rivals had before, and was so duped when he at first saw his expectation met. Meanwhile, Dio described the careful and deferential method by which Caesar proposed his new redistributive land law. The lands were to be fairly purchased using the spoils of Pompey’s victories, and Caesar stated that he would not introduce the measure without the approval of the Senate, that the law would appoint twenty land commissioners to “permit many to share the honor,” and that he would except himself from consideration for that post. He even called each senator by name to ask for criticisms, and promised to amend or cut any offending clause.89 This is a prime example of using the familiar moderatio and verecundia patterns to make exercises of power acceptable. Such studied displays of restraint should have garnered praise, if not deference, to Caesar’s wishes, as Bibulus indeed (at first) showed. Instead, yet again, they gained hatred and distrust. Dio reported something even worse: the senators “were most of all grieved by the fact that the law was drawn up in such a way that no one could find fault with it, even though it embarrassed them.”90 This is remarkable: the moderatio and verecundia scripts had warped in the disturbed context to such a point that overt attempts at inclusion and refusal of self-​advancement had become not only not praiseworthy, but so suspicious in some men as to be actively blameworthy. The senators thus refused Caesar’s requests, and Cato urged that the Senate should oppose the law. Violence then once again took the place of the tissue-​thin force of deference. Caesar attempted to have Cato dragged to prison. The Senate followed Cato with (predictable) “downcast looks.” When Caesar rebuked the aged senator M. Petrieus for leaving without being dismissed, he replied to the consul, “I’d prefer to be in prison with Cato rather than here with you,” at which Caesar felt “shame and dishonor” (αἰσχύνης καὶ ἀδοξίας) and told a friendly tribune to release Cato.91 Caesar, who “pretended he had suffered injustice” at the Senate’s hands, now referred his law to the People. To some extent, he was justified: he had followed a time-​honored method of pursuing proper influence, and been rebuffed. Nevertheless, Dio reports, he still wished the support of “some of the leading men” when he brought his bill to the assembly. To this end he courted Bibulus’ imprimatur once more, and asked him publicly whether he disapproved of any provisions in the law. When Bibulus lamely replied only that he would brook 89 Dio. 38.1.6: τῆς τιμῆς μετασχεῖν, 38.2.2. 90 App. B.C. 2.10; Dio 38.2.3: καὶ αὐτό γε τοῦτο αὐτοὺς ἐς τὰ μάλιστα ἐλύπει, ὅτι τοιαῦτα συγγεγραφὼς ἦν ὥστε μήτε τινὰ αἰτίαν δύνασθαι λαβεῖν καὶ πάντας σφᾶς βαρύνειν. 91 Dio 38.3.2: μετὰ κατηφείας, 38.3.3: ἔφη ὅτι μετὰ Κάτωνος ἐν τῷ οἰκήματι μᾶλλον ἢ μετὰ σοῦ ἐνταῦθα εἶναι βούλομαι. Cf. Val. Max. 2.10.7; Plut. Cat. Min. 33.1-​2, Caes. 14.7.

166  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic no “innovations” during his term, Caesar turned to the crowd and offered, “you shall have the law only if he wishes it”—​a packed phrase that was both a threat and also a feint to collegiality. Bibulus furiously shot back that there would be no law even if all the People wished it.92 This rejoinder gave Caesar leave, in effect, to claim that his colleague lacked all moderatio or care for the People’s, Senate’s or colleague’s will. He could thus be ignored. Instead, as the crowd gazed, Caesar ostentatiously looked to two other “leading” men for moral support: Crassus and Pompey. Pompey spoke in favor of the measure to the crowd’s delight, and concluded by saying that he would meet any violence with violence, something “more vulgar” than he had ever said before; his friends had to apologize for it as a momentary lapse. Dio wrote that Pompey found himself elated at the honor that both the consul and People together at last sought his influence. Come as it might, he would receive the praise that he felt he was owed.93 The Senate meanwhile assembled at Bibulus’ house and resolved that Bibulus should defy Caesar outright. It was too late, however, to win back the crowd, and college of tribunes was too fractured to be relied upon in any direction. Further violence accordingly followed. Upon Bibulus’ entry to the Forum at voting time his fasces were broken and attendants beaten. Cato tried to speak in the frenzy but was carried bodily from the Forum. When he snuck around through a back street he was carried out again. Someone dumped a basket of human waste on Bibulus’ head from a rooftop. Bibulus retreated and remained at home the rest of the year declaring religious bans on further assemblies. He went unheeded, and the three-​headed monster proceeded unabated as once again breaks in mores undermined republican structures: Caesar managed affairs by himself for the rest of his term so thoroughly that wags cracked wise about of the consulship of “Gaius and Julius.”94 Pompey’s law passed. So too was the publicans’ bid reduced for Crassus’ sake. Caesar achieved provincial command in Illyricum and Gaul, where he would spend the next ten years. From the point of view of anyone who abhorred the dominance of one man over all competitors, Caesar and his fellows were immoderate. That was the precise word that Cicero used as the triad’s agreement came in light in the spring of 59 BC: “tris homines immoderatos.” By July he further wailed that their anger and “intemperantia” at Cato had destroyed the Republic. But that opinion mattered little. Caesar had taken sufficient pains to show plausibly enough to

92 Dio 38.1.3: οὐκ ἂν ἀνάσχοιτο ἐν τῇ ἑαυτοῦ ἀρχῇ νεωτερισθῆναί τι. . . . εἰπὼν ὅτι ἕξετε τὸν νόμον ἂν οὗτος ἐθελήσῃ, 38.4.2: τῶν πρώτων τινὰς; App. B.C. 2.10: ὑποκρινάμενος δυσχεραίνειν, ὼς οὐ δίκαια ποιούντων. Cf. Jehne (2011b) 117–​118. 93 Plut. Pomp. 47.4–​5: φορτικώτερον, Caes. 14.3; App. B.C. 2.10; Dio. 38.5.4. 94 Cic. pro Sest. 113; Liv. Per. 103; Vell Pat. 2.44.5; App. B.C. 2.11–​12; Dio 38.6.7, 38.8.2; Plut. Pomp. 48.1, Cat. Min. 32.2. Cf. Gelzer (1968) 75; Millar (1998) 128–​129; Drogula (2019) 137.

The Lost Generation of the Republic  167 the crowd—​which mattered more—​that he had been deferential to colleagues and People alike. Cato and Bibulus, he could now argue, were the nondeferential ones, a tiny stubborn faction defying proper values by defying the wishes of a colleague after exhortation to ὁμόνοια, refusing to respect great men like Crassus and Pompey, rejecting a bill moderately and properly promulgated, and especially, in Bibulus’ case, insulting the very People themselves. This was the logical end of the turn to the People for existimatio: Caesar’s invocation of the plastic rules of deference justified nondeference to peers—​which in the not distant future would include Pompey. For now, however, Pompey could savor the praise and influence denied him for the painstaking moderatio patterns he hitherto had displayed. Crassus, meanwhile, need do nothing but wait for advantage to come his way.95 Thus, the private agreement between the three men was made possible by fractured norms as much it was created to meet specific political goals. The “dynasts” and their opponents all pointed to shared language and concepts, but there was no binding agreement whatsoever in their practice; the norms had been redefined past any useful consensus. As Fergus Millar observed, almost everything that occurred in the year 59 BC happened “against the will of the leading senators.”96 True—​and this was possible only because the aristocracy’s values could now be manipulated by a tiny group to gain enough legitimacy to operate, especially with the People, while in no way actually preventing them from doing as they wished. Meanwhile, the Senate, formerly the final arbiter of rectitude, and despite its best efforts to display (even bodily) the norms, was repeatedly rendered impotent by either unilateral claims that it was haughty and greedy, or by overdone applications of restraint from extremists like Cato whom many felt permitted to ignore. In the impasse violence predictably followed what was by now practically precedent. The adrift generation had indeed inherited the structural features of their ancestors’ government. But it had replicated, at best, only detached shards of those structures’ supporting social frame—​then turned the shards on each other. The last decade of the Roman Republic had begun.

95 Cic. ad Att. 2.9.2, 2.21.1; Vell. Pat. 2.44.2; Marshall (1976) 104; Akar (2013) 328. The crowd’s adulation would fade: Pompey was booed a few months later in a theater at the lines “if neither law nor custom can constrain,” Cic. Att. 2.19.3. 96 Millar (1998) 125.

8

Restraint as Accelerator Analyses of the final crisis of the Republic in the waning months of 50 into 49 BC have taken many forms. Some scholars have explored legal distinctions (When did Caesar’s command in Gaul technically end? Could he stand for the consulship in absentia?), while others have pursued political or factional queries (Who was an optimate? Was Caesar the leader of a popular movement?).1 Such antiseptic analyses, however, fall short of explaining the emotional state that could drive friends and relatives to shove swords into each other’s bodies. Law and politics, simply put, might have provided grounds for disagreement, as they always had. Competition for dignitas, was, as always, robust. But these could turn into bloodshed only in an adequately fiery emotional environment. The final crisis of the Republic instead requires a visceral explanation, one that probes the combination of fear, disdain, mistrust, and anger that could generate civil war. Such an explanation must do better than feint lightly toward an emotive map, such as anodyne observations that Caesar “feared” prosecution or “cared” about his honor.2 This chapter instead explains how the psychological fixture of restraint logic and language—​now in full destabilizing mode—​helped lead Pompey, Caesar, and their followers to each other’s throats within months of being allies. Chief among the elements that guided this transition were the long trend described in the last few chapters of a hierarchical system’s going awry, apprehension of violence, and mistrust of one’s peers arising from perceived moral failures of restraint such as lust for riches or power. Even the perspicacious Cicero, for all his grasp of the situation’s nuances, always instinctually categorized events through the lens of restraint. And once the issues were cast in terms of restraint, the now-​familiar black-​and-​white toggle-​switch of moral degradation convinced men that their opponents’ lack of restraint would destroy the Republic, and that the opponents therefore must surrender or die. It was, all said, the pervasive cultural grip of the restraint values that provided the unconscious emotional fire that could lead to and justify such horrific violence. It was the values’ long-​fractured state that prevented them from stopping it. ***

1 2

E.g., Stockton (1975); Brunt (1988); Morstein-​Marx (2009) 135; Billows (2009) 262. E.g., Raaflaub (1974); Morstein-​Marx (2009) 123–​124; Stevenson (2015) 121.

Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197662663.003.0009

Restraint as Accelerator  169

“Legality” and the “Spark” of Civil War Grappling with the final crisis requires understanding two legal issues that bounded the contours of events while avoiding the misleading notion that they provided sufficient motivation for violence. The first issue is how long Caesar’s command in Gaul was “legally” supposed to last. This question has exercised scholars continuously since Mommsen, particularly because it seems, at first glance, to explain why the civil war occurred, and why it occurred when it did.3 On this theory, either Caesar tried to extend his command in Gaul past its “legal” end date, or his enemies tried to cut it short; one or both “illegalities” justified civil war. The trouble is that any possible expiration date of Caesar’s provincia seems to bear little relationship to the actual outbreak of violence. Caesar’s provincia initially ran from 59 BC for five years until March 1, 54 BC, but in 55 was extended for another “five years” through the friendly offices of Crassus. Some scholars have deduced, rationally enough, that the end date of the command in Gaul was thus March 1, 49 BC. That date, the theory goes, explains why Caesar would invade Italy in January 49 BC when, in that month, his enemies stripped him of his “right” to hold his provincia for two further months.4 But Cicero in December 50 BC distinctly spoke of the command in Gaul as already expired, and, more important, Caesar did not include such an obvious justification as the illegality of an early removal in his list of reasons for his invasion.5 Nor are we much closer to understanding why the civil war happened when it did if the terminal date was March 1, 50 BC, as others have suggested, calculating “five years” from the moment of extension. In that case, Caesar’s enemies could claim by January 49 BC that Caesar was behaving criminally in resisting succession well past the set expiration date—​and yet they had taken no real action against him for nine months.6 In short, if we are looking for a “spark” for civil war, no clear answer seems forthcoming solely from an examination of the legal terminus of Caesar’s provincia. The second legal issue was the so-​called Law of the Ten Tribunes, a plebiscite passed in 52 BC that gave Caesar the right to canvass for the consulship in absentia, often referred to as the ratio absentis. Both Pompey and Cicero had supported the ratio absentis (although with what true warmth is unknowable).7

3 The bibliography on the so-​called Rechtsfrage is lengthy: see, e.g., Stockton (1975) 232–​234; Mitchell (1991) 238 n.22; Seager (2002) 190–​193; Billows (2009) 190; Drogula (2019) 232 n.4. 4 Cic. Phil. 2.24; Vell. Pat. 2.46; Plut. Pomp. 52, Caes. 21; App. B.C. 2.17; Stockton (1975) 234. 5 Cic. ad Att. 7.7.6 (transierit), 7.9.4 (praeteriit tempus). Shackleton Bailey (1965–​1967) III 306, 312 uses special pleading to avoid what Cicero’s verb tenses plainly mean. Caesar’s reference in B.C. 1.9 to “six” stolen months should best be understood as relating to his ratio absentis. 6 Stockton (1975) 240–​241. 7 Cic. ad Fam. 6.6.5, ad Att. 7.1.4–​5, 7.7.6, 8.3.3, Phil. 2.24; Shackleton Bailey (1977) II 234–​235.

170  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic This law gave Caesar several advantages. First, it helped preserve his chances for a glorious spectacle. In 60 BC, as we saw in Chapter 6, Caesar had returned from operations in Spain and waited outside the walls of Rome for a triumph, but found it blocked by Cato, which endangered Caesar’s candidacy for the consulship of 59 BC, for which he had to present himself within the city. Then he had elected to pursue the office over the parade; now the ratio absentis would obviate the problem upon his return from Gaul.8 Another reason that Caesar might have wanted the ratio absentis has been a matter of exceptional controversy among scholars for decades, and interlocks with the timing of Caesar’s provincia in Gaul. A well-​worn and highly dubious explanation for Caesar’s invasion of Italy was his alleged fear that he would be prosecuted once he returned from the province, either for his actions in Gaul, or for the violence and irregularities of his consulship in 59 BC. The imperium that he had obtained in 59 BC had never lapsed—​first as consul, then pro-​consul in Gaul for ten years—​and he was immune from lawsuits so long as he maintained it. Accordingly, this theory goes, should Caesar return from Gaul to run for consul, he would lose his imperium by crossing the pomerium of the city to enter the canvass and thus expose himself to litigation. The ratio absentis, however, would let him stay outside the walls with imperium but also join the balloting, and he then could conveniently step from his pro-​consulship to his new consulship without a gap during which a prosecutor could commence suit. On these theories, therefore, Caesar’s enemies’ attempted interference with the ratio absentis sufficiently explains Caesar’s motivations for invasion.9 The trouble with the ratio absentis, however, just as with the question of the terminal date of Caesar’s Gallic provincia, is that the precise outlines of the grant are not well known to us, despite the great depth of detail we have from this period. Specifically, scholars have not reached consensus on which election, if any, it was intended that the ratio absentis be used. If it was intended that Caesar use it in the summer of 50 BC for the consulship of 49, why did Caesar, as we shall see, stay in Gaul through the summer of 50? If it was meant for the summer of 49 BC for the consulship of 48, why, as we also shall see, was there such commotion over whether it would be used in 50? And, if interference with the ratio was the proximate cause of violence, why did Caesar, as we further shall see, offer in the waning days of peace to abandon it? Even more so, why should the conqueror of Gaul particularly dread prosecution? Caesar not once mentioned such a worry in his own works, and given his overwhelming popularity as a victorious general

8 Morstein-​Marx (2007) 169; Tatum (2008) 129. 9 Shackelton-​Bailey (1977) II 431; Stanton (2003); Shotter (2005) 74; Morstein-​Marx (2007) 162–​163.

Restraint as Accelerator  171 (not to mention his massive wealth and apparent ease with bribery) was it really so great a fear?10 The fact that we cannot find in the best-​attested period of Roman history a clear answer to the question whether Caesar or his enemies acted “legally” or not—​or explain exactly why that mattered—​suggests that we are looking for the wrong casus belli. Instead, if the terminal date of Caesar’s command was not actually set beyond a vague “five years,” or was malleable beyond harmonization, and if the exercise of the ratio absentis was equally malleable, then we enter a new field of analysis. The issue is not one of parsing codicils to find the legal transgressor—​ to the extent that either of the dynasts considered themselves bound by law anyway—​but instead one of examining the social mores that the players expected to use to work things out informally when the time came.11 A focus on those social mores—​on restraint—​is supported in the ancient texts, because that is precisely how Caesar and Pompey, as well as our immediate informants Cicero and M. Caelius Rufus (Cicero’s correspondent and eyes at Rome while the orator was away in Asia), repeatedly interpreted the course of events.

Moderatio, Deference, and Hierarchy The first restraint value that shines through the sources is a sense from Pompey and others that Caesar threatened to exceed his proper place, and hence was immoderate and shameless. We begin with the first whispers of conflict in the spring and early summer of 51 BC. Caesar had just squelched a major Gallic revolt (which implied that military operations in the province were no longer needed), and the “five-​year” prolongation of his command, whenever it was supposed to end, drew closer. His enemies in the Senate began to demand his recall. During the early course of events, Pompey kept his own counsel, occasionally pronouncing banalities that discussion about Caesar’s provincia should not be vetoed, and that everyone should obey the Senate.12 By September 51 BC, however, Pompey had stated publicly his opinion that Caesar could not both hold his province with his army and become consul at the same time. This position seems contrary to his former rationale in allowing Caesar to combine the ratio absentis with extended command. The reasons 10 Caes. B.C. 1.9.5; Cic. ad Fam. 16.12.3; Shackleton Bailey (1977) II 431; Morstein-​Marx (2007) 61, 177; Stevenson (2015) 111–​113. 11 Cf. Cuff (1958) 469–​471; Gruen (1974) 492–​493; Stockton (1975) 246; Crawford (1993) 182; Meier (1995) 197; Morstein-​Marx (2007) 175 n.78; Seager (2002) 191–​192; Tatum (2008) 125; Drogula (2019) 232. Thus Seager (2002) 195: “The greater the formal uncertainty [as to the termination date], the greater the scope for Pompeius to exercise his auctoritas as arbiter and assert his political domination over both Caesar and the optimates—​precisely what he wanted.” 12 Cic. ad Fam. 8.1.2, 8.4.4; Suet. Div. Iul. 28.

172  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic for Pompey’s changed stance are elusive, but conjecture is possible. In August, Pompey had traveled to Ariminum in the north of Italy to negotiate with Caesar’s agents (Caesar being elsewhere). The Senate had moved that Pompey go and return as quickly as possible so that debate on the provinces could begin.13 Thus Caesar’s succession was obviously a topic of conversation there. Perhaps at the meeting Pompey heard—​or convinced himself that he heard—​ that Caesar had no objection to discussion of his succession after March 1, 50 BC. This date made some practical sense for the dynasts. Gaul was nearly pacified, and Caesar would have no pressing reason to combine further continued command with the ratio absentis. He instead could canvass for the consulship in person or could use his ratio absentis as a patch to cover his run for consul in the summer of 50 BC for the year 49 to retain, if perhaps not his entire physical army, at least his ability to triumph. What more, Pompey surely thought, than triumph and consulship could Caesar justly ask? Hence Pompey’s statement in the Senate upon his return that Caesar would not keep both province and army and also run for consul, and Pompey’s open support for delay in discussion of the Gallic command until March 1, 50 BC. The Senate passed a unanimous resolution to that effect; evidently no tribune friendly to Caesar found it objectionable.14 As the resolution passed, Pompey engaged in a noteworthy exchange with some of Caesar’s enemies. Pompey specified that he could not “without wrongdoing” to Caesar countenance discussion of Caesar’s succession before March 1, 50, but after that would not hesitate. So far, the deal. Asked next what would happen if a tribune vetoed discussion at that point, he responded that it did not matter whether Caesar disobeyed the Senate himself or had someone do it for him. “But what if,” someone asked, “he should want to be consul and also to keep his army?” “Suppose,” Pompey responded, “my son should want to take a club to me?”15 That hard line was something new, and the full import of the vibrant imagery and emotional content with which Pompey chose to express his point has not been entirely appreciated. Gruen, in an effort to show Pompey and Caesar still as friends at this stage of events, took the sentence merely as “scoffing” proof of Pompey’s belief that his friend Caesar would be unlikely to attempt such a thing. But why such a vivid metaphor simply to say, “He’d never do that”? David Stockton instead suggested that it might mean that if Caesar did attempt anything 13 Cic. ad Fam. 8.4.4, 8.9.5, ad Att. 5.19.1; Morstein-​Marx (2007) 168. Note that Pompey distinguished Caesar’s holding of a province from the control of his physical army. 14 Cic. ad Fam. 8.8.5; App. B.C. 2.26; Dio 40.44.1; Gruen (1974) 464; Seager (2002) 142–​143. Caesar evidently desired more: friendly tribunes vetoed senatorial resolutions that would have prevented further vetoes, interfered with his discharge of troops, and effectively stripped Caesar of his provincia after March 1, 50, Cic. ad Fam. 8.8.7-​8; Morstein-​Marx (2007) 253. 15 Cic. ad Fam. 8.8.9: sine iniuria. . . . “quid si,” inquit alius, “et consul esse et exercitum habere volet?” at ille quam clementer, “quid si filius meus fustem mihi impingere volet?”

Restraint as Accelerator  173 he’d get a merciless “hiding.” This idea is better, and Tatum and Robin Seager also observe that the metaphor shows that Pompey felt himself to be the “superior” partner. That too makes sense: Pompey’s position was strong. His own command in Spain—​in absentia at that—​had just been extended in the previous year for another five-​year term, he had multiple legions in Italy, and he was the popular overseer of Rome’s grain supply to boot. Caesar’s position was poorer: his command was about to lapse, his soldiers to be discharged, and his enemies prepared to make any coming consulship miserable. The deal at Ariminum also put Caesar under obligation, and for Caesar to demand both continued command and the ratio absentis at this juncture or after March 1, 50 would reek of ingratitude for Pompey’s public efforts to stave off Caesar’s opponents.16 But these considerations still do not explain the metaphor fully. Restraint does better. In the past months Cicero had published his widely read treatise On the Republic, in which he wrote that a youth’s attack on a father was evidence of a dissolving society’s “complete loss of pudor” and immoral licentia before its collapse into tyranny. Pompey may have been reproducing Cicero’s metaphor from the popular tract consciously, or at least was tapping into the same emotional well that Cicero recently had shared with his readers. The arresting metaphor was one of a licentious, shameless, and revolting act on the part of an inferior against a superior, which threatened the very Republic, for which condign punishment must follow. The “son with a club” image illustrates how steeped in restraint values were the personal relations, even on matters of high politics, between the two men in Rome who mattered most, and suggests how Pompey conceived of the limits of his tolerance for the ambitions of his mercurial partner. It shows not merely what Pompey felt, but how he would act about it. Restraint logic and language shaped policy and conduct: on the strength of such a metaphor Pompey could stake out publicly in the Senate in the fall of 51 BC his position that Caesar would not exercise both legal rights at the same time. Pompey’s position would now have to stick.17 The image was also shocking, and gave the political questions under debate emotional immediacy with fear of societal breakdown and tyranny. If Caesar tried such a thing, it meant that the Republic itself was endangered. The audience would have gripped the metaphor immediately, as would Caesar’s friends, who no doubt reported to him Pompey’s words. Of course, by shaping the metaphor as he did, Pompey hoped to assure his listeners that revolt by a weaker Caesar would be futile. Caelius duly reported to Cicero, then in Asia Minor, that Pompey’s speech had “raised public confidence.”18 Nevertheless, Pompey had 16 Cael. ad Fam. 8.8.9; Gruen (1974) 469; Stockton (1975) 237; Seager (2002) 143; Tatum (2006) 206. Cf. Gelzer (1968) 176; Shackleton Bailey (1977); Goldsworthy (2006) 370; Stevenson (2015) 118. 17 Cic. de Rep. 1.43.67–​1.44.68: absit omnis pudor. Cf. Cic. ad Fam. 8.1.4; Plut. Pomp. 57.3–​5; Alexander (2018) 136. 18 Cic. ad Fam. 8.8.9: maxime confidentiam attulerunt hominibus.

174  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic now mingled imagery of immorality and shamelessness with the threat of tyranny and applied it to his co-​dynast; we must assume with Caelius that this sort of talk made a marked impression on a nervous audience already suspicious of Caesar. We, too, must keep the “unrestrained boy with a club” metaphor in mind; it would return in other forms as the final crisis drew on.

Moderatio, Deference, and Violence Caesar, of course, did nothing like what Pompey assumed he would: “cede,” as Cicero put it, to the Senate’s wishes. Part of the reason must have been Caesar’s new-​found assistance in the tribune Curio. Curio has been flatly blamed for kindling the civil war.19 To the extent that is true, he brought it closer by attacking Pompey using deference and moderation as mallets. On March 1, 50 BC, Caesar’s enemy M. Claudius Marcellus attempted to raise the issue of Caesar’s succession. Curio responded with a tactic that he would repeat at least twice more that year: to propose that both Pompey and Caesar together lay down their commands. The devastating effect of this proposal was to turn Caesar into, as Seager put it, the “voice of moderation” at one stroke. This first iteration of Curio’s demand merely took Pompey aback, surprised that Curio would interfere; Pompey was then unaware that Curio was working at Caesar’s behest. He responded with an awkward concession that Caesar leave his province and army by the Ides of November 50 BC, possibly in the hopes that the delay was all some mistake. Cato, however, exploded in rage, and shouted that Curio’s modest proposal was a deceitful trick to mask violence against the state.20 By April of 50, in any event, it was growing clear that Caesar would not return from Gaul to run that summer for consul. Why is a great and insoluble mystery, but it frayed Pompey’s patience. In April, Caelius reported to Cicero that Pompey feared that Caesar would seek to become consul and also keep his province and his army. Caesar was becoming the boy with a club. Accordingly, when friends and relatives of Pompey passed anti-​Caesarian senatorial resolutions, Pompey did nothing to stop them. Pompey also purportedly resisted Curio’s efforts to prepare land for Caesar’s returning veterans. This resistance apparently made Caesar only more stubborn; Caelius feared that Caesar would now stay in Gaul as long as he pleased. By early June Pompey had fallen ill, perhaps out of anxiety

19 The famous thesis of Gruen (1974) 471–​473, supported by Seager (2002) 144–​145. 20 Cic. ad Att. 5.20.8, 6.1.24, ad Fam. 8.11.3; Caes. (Hirt.) B.G. 8.52; Liv. Per. 109; Vell. Pat. 2.48.2; Dio 40.60.3–​4; Val. Max. 9.1.6; App. B.C. 2.26–​28; Plut. Cat. Min. 51.5; Gruen (1974) 480; Meier (1995) 339; Seager (2002) 144–​145. On dating Curio’s proposal see Gelzer (1968) 179; Meier (1995) 338; Seager (2002) 144; Goldsworthy (2006) 366, although contra are Tatum (2008) 137 and Canfora (2007) 354.

Restraint as Accelerator  175 at the thought that some senators were becoming prepared to accept Caesar back to stand for office with both legions and province in hand. Caelius relayed this news to Cicero with a crude joke that adumbrated proscriptions: rich old men like Cicero could worry about how everything would fall out.21 Over the summer Pompey’s contempt for Caesar’s ingratitude and presumption mingled further with the specter of marches on Rome, as Curio’s mallet struck again. In July or August, Curio again proposed that both Caesar and Pompey discharge their armies. This time, however, no compromise was forthcoming, and the reasons why are instructive. Pompey at first gamely agreed to the arrangement in a letter to the Senate that—​like his “disdain” for extraordinary commands so many years before—​was calculated to portray himself as the restrained and trustworthy leader. He wrote that before the time of his own commands’ expiration he would willingly give up his army, province, and honors that he had unwillingly assumed for the sake of the Republic after his last consulship, and return them to those who wished them back. The tenor of his words is by now familiar, echoing his reactions to his eastern commands, and closely matching another saying of Pompey, that he had achieved every office sooner than expected, and had laid every office down sooner than expected. Pompey’s response to Caesar’s offer, that is, was to behave like a moderatus. He would regain the restrained moral high ground. And, naturally, he would not have bothered with this dangerous dance unless he knew his society would give his symbolism real force.22 Curio, however, took advantage of a now seemingly infinitely elastic rhetoric of restraint, claiming that this behavior was pure façade and that Pompey would in fact wait for Caesar to disband his legions and then would treacherously hold onto his own troops in a bid for sole power. Curio’s and Caesar’s wedge was perfectly calculated. If Pompey refused the offer, it would justify Caesar’s own claims to moderation and cast Pompey as immoderate. (And, in fact, Caesar used later refusals of similar offers to claim that Pompey ruled dominatio atque arma, “by tyranny and arms.”) A refusal would also upset the People, who were at that time reportedly already annoyed with Pompey for cutting into lavish electoral gifts to them with his attempts to weed out bribery. But if Pompey took a sterling traditional line and accepted, Curio could swivel to the next best option: to dismiss Pompey’s moderation and temperantia with insinuations that Pompey was still using them to aim surreptitiously for tyranny and violence.23 21 Cic. ad Fam. 8.10.4, 8.11.3, 8.13.2, ad. Att. 6.3.4; Plut. Pomp. 57.1; Stockton (1975) 254; Shackleton Bailey (1977) I 419, 425, 431. For various theories why Caesar did not leave Gaul see Gruen (1974) 477; Millar (1998) 190–​192; Morstein-​Marx (2007) 173–​174. Most likely Caesar felt that his Gallic arrangements were not yet secure. 22 Cic. ad Fam. 8.14.2; App. B.C. 2.28; Plut. Mor. 204C 14. Cf. Shackleton Bailey (1977) I 431; Mitchell (1991) 243; Seager (2002) 146; Goldsworthy (2006) 368. 23 Caes. B.G. 8.52; App. B.C. 2.27–​28. Cf. Gelzer (1968) 185; Seager (2002) 144.

176  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic Pompey, Appian reported, was livid at Curio’s and Caesar’s maddening damned-​ if you-​ do, damned-​ if-​ you-​ don’t tactic, which made his mawkish public display of self-​restraint—​Pompey’s forte for years—​pointless, if not precarious. Curio’s accusations of subterfuge must have been especially galling because Pompey had only recently been sole consul, entrusted with the position, as Appian put it, because of his renowned “self-​controlled and temperate life”—​ even Cato had approved!—​and he had still refused to become sole dictator or monarch. What more could he possibly do to prove his good faith? Not even Pompey’s enemies in the 60s had been so bald in attacking Pompey’s recurring claim to legitimacy and dignitas: that despite his exceptional deeds, he remained deferential to Senate and peer. But here was Caesar (by now known to be behind Curio), abusing Pompey’s restraint to make a fool of him. Pompey reportedly at this point went back to practicing oratory to better argue against Curio, suggesting that Pompey took this rhetoric very seriously and thought he had to counter it. But in the 60s Pompey’s opponents had been orators armed only with words. Now his opponent was a dangerous general who commanded both friendly tribune and loyal legions. Within this particular social environment Caesar’s actions thus caused particular apprehension and anger, which helps explain why compromise collapsed, and why Pompey now openly predicted war, overconfidently boasting that all he would have to do if Caesar came would be to stamp his foot on the ground and soldiers would rise up from the earth to follow his lead. At this point that Pompey also decided to recall from Caesar for service in a possible Parthian war two legions that he had “lent” to Caesar for operations in Gaul—​but which Pompey now kept in Italy.24 After this incident, Pompey—​to that point something of an easy dupe—​would not countenance conciliation on anything but the most personally advantageous terms, a fact insufficiently noted in modern scholarship.25 That fact can be fully explained only by taking into account Pompey’s fear and fury at seeing his studied moderation mocked, a thing far worse than having his agreement with Caesar merely breached, as the first mallet blow had done. By September, as Caelius could inform Cicero, Pompey and Caesar had hit the crux of contention: Pompey had determined not to permit Caesar to become consul unless Caesar handed over his army and his provinces, and Caesar was convinced that he could not be safe if he left his army, which he would surrender only if Pompey

24 Cic. ad Fam. 2.13.3; Caes. (Hirt.) B.G. 8.54.3; App. B.C. 2.20, 2.23: βίον ἐγκρατῆ καὶ σώφρονα, 2.29, 2.37; Dio 40.65.2–​4; Plut. Pomp. 56.3, 57.5, Caes. 29.3, 33.4; Suet. de Rhet. 1; Gelzer (1968) 78; Rawson (1975) 185; Shackleton Bailey (1977) I 460; Khan (1986) 305; Seager (2002) 146. 25 Seager (2002) 144, however, correctly notes that Caesar’s attempt to appear the moderate compromiser “perhaps did more than any other factor to bring about the confrontation between Pompeius and Caesar that led eventually to war.”

Restraint as Accelerator  177 in fact also disbanded his own legions.26 A contest of “moderation” had so far restrained neither man, but had only stoked flames.

License, Tyranny, and Trust Cicero now explicitly bound all of these emotional strings together with intemperance and greed. Worry about war obsessed Cicero as the summer of 50 BC turned to fall. “I believe I see so great a struggle . . . as great as has ever been,” he confided to his lifelong friend T. Pomponius Atticus in October. “I surely feel this: the situation is extremely dangerous,” he again wrote in early December. The reason for this danger, as Cicero explained to Atticus, lay in personal failures of restraint. Caesar he called audacissimus—​the word that he had once used to portray the frenzied Catiline. So too was Caesar personally greedy: Cicero repeatedly assumed both before and after Caesar’s invasion that a substantial motivation for his threats on Rome was ordinary spoil. “He covets everyone’s all,” the orator wrote. “What can you not fear from a man who thinks that the homes and temples of Rome aren’t patria but plunder?” So too, “nothing could be more contrary to moral duty” than such theft. Pompey apparently shared Cicero’s assessment, reportedly saying that Caesar could not afford to satisfy the promises that he had made to the People. (Caesar, not coincidentally, would later counter such accusations with explicit claims of personal continence when handling public funds, and ostentatiously shared spoil with his troops to avoid charges of personal luxury). No doubt many others agreed with Pompey and Cicero too.27 Cicero also believed that allied with Caesar was a morally perverse following similar to Catiline’s, including the condemned and all those stigmatized with a censorial nota (and “all those who deserve one or the other, too”). Such men should have been red with shame, but to Cicero they were not. In August some large number of such men had indeed been tarred with expulsion from the Senate by the ill-​timed and hypocritical overenthusiasm of one of the current censors, App. Claudius Pulcher, himself an accused bon vivant. Appius’ steely but perhaps two-​faced application of vintage restraint values at just this moment was creating, not a purified senatorial class, but a cadre of disaffected noblemen susceptible to Caesarian overtures. Caesar paid their shame no mind, took them in, and rewarded them handsomely: they had, Cicero sneered, gained

26 Cic. ad Fam. 8.14.2. 27 Cic. ad Att. 7.1.2: videre enim mihi videor tantam dimicationem . . . sed tantam quanta numquam fuit, 7.3.5: sic enim sentio, maximo in periculo rem esse, 7.7.7, 7.13.1: omnia omnium concupivit . . . quid est quod ab eo non metuas illa tecta et templa non patriam sed praedam putet, 7.18.2, 8.3.4, 9.13.4, 10.8.2, ad Fam. 16.12.1, de Off. 1.43: nihil magis officio possit esse contrarium; Sall. B.C. 38.3–​4; Caes. B.C. 1.32; Suet. Div. Iul. 30.2; Plut. Caes. 17.1.

178  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic luxurious gardens and estates from the association. Also with Caesar were the “youth,” whom Cicero elsewhere described in a similar list of Caesar’s supporters as “morally depraved,” along with the “degenerate urban plebs” and profligate debtors. After Caesar’s invasion Cicero would confidently tell Atticus to expect the worst from them: Don’t think for a moment that the insanities of these men will be either tolerable or all of the same type. For it can’t escape you that once the laws and courts and the Senate are laid low, that no amount of public or private wealth will be able to satisfy the lusts, recklessness, extravagant luxuries, and neediness of such exceedingly needy men?

We must remember that Cicero was not on the Rostra here. This passage is not a rhetorical feint cloaking some secret “real” issue, or a fashionable literary flourish to decorate a historical narrative. Cicero was speaking to his closest friend in real time; these are his own thoughts and anxieties. To Cicero, Caesar and his followers were morally bankrupt and unrestrained, and their character would lead to war and slaughter. He posed the problem in no other way. We can believe that Cicero was not the only senator who apprehensively held that opinion—​ whether objectively true or not.28 Cicero plumbed even lower depths of moral pessimism with his friend when he considered Pompey and Caesar together. “Two men,” Cicero wrote Atticus, “now fight for their own power, at the community’s peril.” This pithy sentence carries more in its orbit than first appears. In an earlier part of the same letter, Cicero had referred to the (now largely lost) sixth book of his Republic. He evidently had the treatise on his mind as he wrote his letter, and that work helps to illustrate what he was trying to convey. In Book One, Cicero (through the voice of the Younger Scipio) had written that an ideal statesman who rules others “is a slave himself to no lust . . . nor does he impose any laws on the populace that he does not obey himself, but instead puts his own life out as an example to his fellow citizens.” In Book Five, he elaborated: The best citizens are not deterred [from disgraceful behavior] by fear of a punishment that has been sanctioned by laws as much as by the sense of shame (verecundia), which nature gave to man as a kind of fear of not unjust censure.

28 Cic. ad Att. 7.3.5: omnis damnatos, omnis ignominia adfectos, omnis damnatione ignominiaque dignos . . . perditam plebem, 7.7.6: perdita iuventus, 7.13.1, 8.11.4, 9.1.3, 9.7.5: noli enim putare tolerabilis horum insanias nec unius modi fore. etsi quid te horum fugit, legibus, iudiciis, senatu sublato libidines, audacias, sumptus, egestates tot egentissimorum hominum nec privatas posse res nec rem publicam sustinere?, 9.19.1, ad Fam. 8.14.4; Suet. Div. Iul. 27.2; Dio 40.63.3–​4; Heitland (1909) III 264; Gruen (1974) 484.

Restraint as Accelerator  179 The leader of a Republic, therefore, has grown this sense of shame using public opinion, and has perfected it through both established customs and training, so that shame (pudor) no less than fear keeps the citizen from doing wrong.

These quotations, of course, represent in a theoretical treatise precisely the restraint ideals within performative politics, applied to a model statesman who is himself perfectly self-​restrained and sacrifices himself for the health of the state. By contrast, as Cicero carefully explained, a tyrant thinks only of himself, his wealth, his lusts, and his power.29 In his pithy sentence to Atticus, therefore, Cicero was suggesting that by fighting for their own personal power at the expense of the community, the two men were lustful, were antistatesmen, and were flirting with tyranny. To be sure, to Cicero Caesar was the worse offender, and if Caesar continued on his chosen course, he would become a tyrant. Naturally, the specter of a tyrant dramatically heated the emotional atmosphere, and toggle-​switch thinking portended even more ill for peaceful settlement: as Cicero had also written in his Republic, A more foul or filthy creature and more hateful to gods or men than a tyrant cannot even be imagined. For although he takes human shape, he outstrips the most monstrous beasts in his manners of life. For who could rightly be called a “man” who desires no community of justice, no common bond of humanity, with his fellow citizens, or even with the whole human race?

This was dark and dangerous dehumanization indeed.30 Unfortunately, Cicero did not have a monopoly on this sort of thinking. In his efforts to rationalize why he had invaded Italy Caesar would later describe his opponents in uncannily parallel terms. For Cicero’s band of degenerate Caesarian insolvents, Caesar substituted the consul L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus, whom Caesar accused of opposing him “on account of the magnitude of his debts,” and the hope of future provincial command with concomitant massive bribes from kings. Caesar even charged Lentulus with bragging that he would 29 Cic. ad Att. 7.3.2, 7.3.4: de sua potentia dimicant homines hoc tempore periculo civitatis, de Rep. 1.34.52: is, qui imperat aliis, servit ipse nulli cupiditati . . . nec leges imponit populo, quibus ipse non pareat, sed suam viam ut legem praefert suis civibus, 2.41.68, 5.6: nec vero [optimi] tam metu poenaque terrentur, quae est constituta legibus, quam verecundia, quam natura homini dedit quasi quendam vituperationis non iniustae timorem. hanc ille rector rerum publicarum auxit opinionibus perfecitque institutis et disciplinis, ut pudor civis non minus a delictis arceret quam metus. Cf. Shackleton Bailey (1965–​1967) III 290; Corbeill (2002b) 197. 30 Cic. de Rep. 2.27.48: tyrannus, quo neque taetrius neque foedius nec dis hominibusque invisius animal ullum cogitari potest; qui quamquam figura est hominis, morum tamen inmanitate vastissimas vincit beluas. quis enim hunc hominem rite dixerit, qui sibi cum suis civibus, qui denique cum omni hominum genere nullam iuris communionem, nullam humanitatis societatem velit? Cf. Dunkle (1971) 14.

180  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic become the next Sulla. Caesar matched Cicero’s charges of an antistatesman’s arrogance and selfishness with Cato, who, he claimed, opposed Caesar out of long-​ standing enmity and because he was a sore loser in his recent failed reach for a consulship. Equally guilty was Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, Pompey’s new father-​in-​law, who also hoped for provinces and armies, and who displayed excessive “self-​regard and ostentation.” Similarly, if Cicero called Caesar’s followers the “depraved” youth and city rabble, Caesar countered that his enemies were an “oligarchic faction” (factio paucorum), who suffered from “too much stubbornness and arrogance” (nimia pertinacia atque arrogantia). And finally, as though mirroring Cicero’s claim that Caesar was audacissimus, Caesar wrote that Pompey—​whose career undeniably had been vastly more unorthodox than Caesar’s—​“wished no man to share equal dignity” and was prepared to fight to increase his own potentiam dominatumque, “power and domination.”31 Even if we assume that Caesar privately cared not a jot for restraint, he here unmistakably recognized it as a critical component of the exercise of legitimate republican power. It was evidently not enough for Caesar to claim that his opponents legally were in the wrong. For him to outflank them, they needed to threaten the republican mix of legitimate self-​assertion and self-​restraint, to be a tiny faction improperly undeferential to his (inarguably) great achievements and to the majority of their peers, and unrestrained, unorthodox, lustful, and tyrannical too. Caesar, playing within the same social framework as Cicero had used, wanted his readers to believe that Pompey and his adherents were just as morally reprobate, and thus as untrustworthy, as Cicero believed Caesar and his followers were. They, not Caesar, were the beast-​men destroying the Republic’s essence. The fourfold process rolled on. Thus the sides’ positions by early winter of 50 BC. We see in the sources fear and mistrust cranking upward like a ratchet—​able to increase, but not decrease. The medium of this emotional ratcheting were the values of restraint, thrown at the other side as accusations that dehumanized them, made compromise with and cession to them perilous, and left the Republic’s institutions unsafe in their hands. The reason that these emotions could grow so hot is that the culture held the values so thoroughly dear, as both Caesar’s public propaganda and Cicero’s unguarded private letters attest. But, once again, that both sides claimed the restraint values for themselves shows the struggle in their application. In this way they became an accelerator of conflict, not a solution to it.

31 Caes. B.C. 1.4.2: Lentulus aeris alieni magnitudine et spe exercitus ac provinciarum et regum appellandorum largitionibus movetur, 1.4.3: [adulatio] atque ostentatio sui et potentium, 1.4.4–​ 5: neminem dignitate secum exaequari volebat, 1.8.5, 1.22.6; Cic. ad Att. 1.6.4–​5; Drogula (2019) 270.

Restraint as Accelerator  181

Shame, Fear, and the Rubicon This hot emotion explains one of the bitterest paradoxes of the dying weeks of the Republic. Repeatedly, both before and after Caesar’s invasion, seemingly satisfactory compromises were offered, yet none accepted. In early December, Curio once again dangled the possibility of settlement. He first suggested once more in the Senate that either of the two men put down his arms, or, alternatively, that neither do so, as a counter-​balance. The consul Marcellus responded in the house by calling Caesar a “robber.” A bare majority of the Senate then agreed with Marcellus’ counterproposal that Caesar be deprived of command, but held that Pompey be permitted to retain his. Appian explained that the Senate considered Pompey a better republican, and hated Caesar for the way he had treated it as consul. But Curio quickly salvaged Caesar’s position by repeating the same proposal as before: that both men be disarmed. Now the vast majority—​370 to 22—​ approved. So too, we are told, did the People approve, spontaneously praising Curio and raining flowers on him (strongly suggesting, incidentally, that the People were not part of a “popular” movement with Caesar as head, but instead wished a contest of personal self-​advancement to resolve peacefully). The effort was wasted. Marcellus’ colleague Appius Claudius dismissed the house with the sneer, “You may win, but you get Caesar as master.” Cato too refused any compromise. Marcellus and Claudius, along with the consul-​designate Lentulus, instead approached Pompey and “authorized” him (without leave of Senate or People) to use force to save the state. Pompey accepted.32 In this decisive moment, all the threads of disrupted restraint that we have followed finally merged. A well-​regarded attempt at peaceful compromise could by now be seen as capitulation to a greedy thief on the verge of dictatorship. Deference to the overwhelming opinion of their many peers and of the People themselves could not allay the passionate fears of a few like Cato—​kindled by visions of Caesar’s personal immoderation and the specter of tyranny. In riposte, Caesar could describe these few as a factio paucorum undeferentially denying him the due reward of his immense successes. But neither could Caesar himself be swayed by shame or by deference to the majority of the peer group—​much less to the small factio that he claimed was unrestrained. Worst of all, no judge existed that could settle the matter definitively. Everyone’s actions were driven within the context of restraint—​indeed they used no other paradigm with which to assess the situation—​but no consensus was possible. That is, in this moment a decades-​long course of splintering consensus over normative values of personal

32 Cic. ad Att. 7.6.2; App. B.C. 2.29–​32, 2.33: νικᾶτε δεσπότην ἔχειν Καίσαρα; Plut. Pomp. 48.6, 58.3–​5, Caes. 30.1–​2, 30.3: λῃστὴν; Heitland (1909) III 268 n.4; Millar (1998) 193; Seager (2002) 147 n.101; Drogula (2019) 258, 271.

182  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic self-​control at last funneled individual emotion, decisions, and action into lethal deadlock.33 Cicero swore in early December that he would “urge concordia,” but the emotional stakes were fast growing beyond his control. On December 10, a day after Cicero wrote his pithy sentence to Atticus about the peril to the community, he met with Pompey, who spoke only of war: there was “no hope of concord.” Cicero’s only comfort was the chance that Caesar would not be “mad” enough to throw away a peaceful chance at a second consulship. By December 18, however, Cicero openly dreaded proscriptions upon the news that Caesar indeed was demanding that he keep both army and his right to stand for the consulship.34 Restraint values and violence now fused in fierce passion. Cicero’s word for Caesar’s demand was impudens. Pompey’s word was impudentissimus. Cicero raged on December 27 in a mock address to Caesar: What could be more shameless? You have held your province for ten years, given you not by the Senate but by force and through the workings of a faction. You’ve overstayed the time not by law, but through your own lusts (granted, there was a law). Your succession is to be decided, but you block it and say, “you know my right.” You know our rights, too. Would you hold your army longer than the People ordered, and against the Senate’s wishes? “You must fight unless you cede,” you say. And so we will, in good hope (as Pompey put it), either of victory or of death as free men.

A more pitiable portrait of a broken restraint system could hardly be painted. Caesar cedes to no one: not peers, not People. He disregards the traditional judges. His solitary will overrides that of a group of fellow senators. He demands deference from others, and if it is not given, he will fight them. His “lusts” drive him. This combination of attitudes, Cicero and Pompey agreed, constituted the most “shameless” behavior possible, and necessitated violence in kind.35 Cicero did not create this image from air. Caesar, as the orator noted, was fond of quoting a line from Euripides: “If right must be violated, let it be for the sake of rule; in all else, take care for piety.” Similarly, according to Appian, when Caesar heard of plans to strip him of his right to keep his army, he tapped on his sword 33 Caes. B.C. 1.22.6. Lobur (2008) 38 rightly comments: “Ironically, at the end of the Republic, there was a great deal of consensus, and a desire on the part of great men to represent it.” 34 Cic. ad Att. 7.3.5: ad concordiam hortabor, 7.4.1: nihil ad spem concordiae, 7.4.3: amentem, 7.6.2, 7.7.6–​7. 35 Cic. ad Att. 7.6.2, 7.9.3, 7.9.4: nam quid impudentius? tenuisti provinciam per annos decem non tibi a senatu sed a te ipso per vim et per factionem datos; praeteriit tempus non legis sed libidinis tuae, fac tamen legis; ut succedatur decernitur; impedis et ais ‘habe meam rationem.’ habe tu nostram. exercitum tu habeas diutius quam populus iussit, invito senatu? ‘depugnes oportet, nisi concedis.’ cum bona quidem spe, ut ait idem, vel vincendi vel in libertati moriendi, 7.17.2, ad Fam. 16.11.2.

Restraint as Accelerator  183 hilt with the words “this will give it to me.” Pompey bristled at what he regarded as an impertinent speech that the indebted Marc Antony made on December 21 attacking Pompey’s whole career. “How will Caesar himself act if he gets control of the Republic,” Pompey asked Cicero, “if this feckless, destitute quaestor of his dares to speak this way?” That sentence encapsulates the extent to which Pompey had by now mixed accusations of lack of self-​control with personal fear. Cicero was even blunter in melding lust and violence together: unless the boni won the coming struggle, he wrote, “Caesar will be no more merciful than Cinna was in slaughtering the leading men, nor more moderate (moderatior) than Sulla in stealing money from the rich.” Irrational perhaps, but no one ever said that humans are motivated only by rational impulses; indeed, often more the opposite. In Pompey and Cicero’s perception, shamelessness, lack of deference, lust, greed, and immoderation wrapped tighter together in Caesar and his followers, which led them to imagine ever more keenly that tyranny was imminent. Because of these traits, even a duly-​elected consul Caesar for a mere year was completely unacceptable, as all trust that the institutional republican processes could order affairs evaporated. The boy with the club had arrived.36 Caesar, of course, likely did not feel the shame that Cicero and Pompey wished him to. Nor, to his mind, need he—​particularly if he commanded the support of the army, or of the People. He already had the former; gaining the latter was Curio’s task, particularly through ostentatious appeals to classical moderatio in offers that all should lay down their commands. So too need Caesar not feel the sting of his enemies’ poor existimatio of him if he also commanded a valid law and the respect of some number of nobiles, which he evidently did, thanks in part to App. Claudius the censor’s recent feats of stringency. Those followers themselves would have little reason to respect those who had insulted them, and, being recent moral and social outcasts together, they would have formed some group loyalty as well. Again the dritte Instanz fissured, and again over restraint mores.37 Caesar accordingly wrote a letter to the Senate that was read out on January 1, 49 BC. After reciting calmly all his accomplishments, he again proposed that both he and Pompey lay down their commands—​but if Pompey would not lay down his, Caesar would quickly come to avenge himself. According to Caesar, Lentulus declared in response to these “most mild demands” that if the senators sought Caesar’s favor he “would take his own counsel and not conform 36 Cic. ad Att. 7.7.7: nec in caede principium clementiorem hunc fore quam Cinna fuerit nec moderatiorem quam Sulla in pecuniis locupletum, 7.8.5: quid censes . . . facturum esse ipsum, si in possessionem rei publicae venerit, cum haec quaestor eius infirmus et inops audeat dicere?, de Off. 3.82: Nam si violandum est ius, regnandi gratia violandum est; aliis rebus pietatem colas (translating Eur. Phoen. 545); App. B.C. 2.25: ἥδε μοι δώσει (cf. Plut. Pomp. 58.2); Goldsworthy (2006) 373; Beneker (2011) 77–​78. 37 Vanderbroeck (1987) 46–​48, 52.

184  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic to the Senate’s authority” (se sibi consilium capturum neque senatus auctoritati obtemperaturum). Caesar thus emphasized Lentulus’ contempt for peers and lack of temperantia. The vote on Caesar’s proposal, Dio reports, was not taken senator by senator, “lest through some sense of fear or shame each might vote contrary to his own judgment,” but rather by separating yea and nay votes into groups on opposite sides of the room. That is, Lentulus arranged the voting so that the time-​honored force of group peer pressure would disgrace the reluctant. Caesar, naturally, later characterized the maneuver as coercion—​proper protocol had been overborne by a tiny faction—​but at all events Lentulus’ stratagem worked. The Senate now voted that if Caesar did not give up his army by a fixed date, he would be a public enemy. Caesar was stripped of his ratio absentis, and his successor named.38 Cicero, now staring at open war, attempted concordia once more. The habitus still shaped these late attempts. The orator proposed that Caesar dismiss his armies and leave Gaul, but retain two legions and await his consulship. Caesar’s agents lowered the stakes to one legion. Pompey at first too appeared amenable. But Lentulus and Scipio continued to oppose, while Cato denounced Pompey for even considering compromise.39 That pressure ended any wavering on Pompey’s end. (Still, even after Caesar attacked Rome, Cicero convinced himself that he might be able to reconcile the two by preparing for them a philosophical lecture about concordia, while T. Ampius Balbus, one of Caesar’s partisans, also wrote to Cicero urging that the two, driven apart by liars, might return to their “pristina concordia” through the orator’s influence). On January 7 the Senate issued a senatus consultum ultimum. Caesar was now a hostis. Antony and other tribunes friendly to Caesar attempted a veto, and were ignored. They fled to Caesar disguised as slaves, complaining of their mistreatment. When Caesar received word of the tribunes’ handling, he crossed the Rubicon river into Italy with his troops. The news caused panic in Rome. Cicero screamed: “He says he’s doing all this for the sake of his dignitas—​but where is dignitas without moral good?” The word that Cicero used for “moral good,” honestas, he had identified in other writings with pudor, verecundia, modestia, temperantia, and care for how one acted in front of others. The restraints precisely. In this spellbinding, agonized utterance, Cicero encapsulated the entire Roman theory of republican legitimacy and the threat that the orator perceived to it: restraint values legitimized

38 Caes. B.C. 1.1, 1.2.3: compulsi inviti et coacti, 1.2.6, 1.5.5: lenissimis postulatis; Suet. Div. Iul. 29.2–​30.1; App. B.C. 2.32; Dio 61.1.2–​3, 61.2.1: μὴ καὶ δι᾿ αἰδῶ ἢ καὶ φόβον τινὰ παρὰ τὰ δοκοῦντά σφισιν ἀποφήνωνται; Plut. Caes. 30.2; Gelzer (1968) 171; Seager (2002) 151; Canfora (2007) 133; Tatum (2008) 139; Morstein-​Marx (2009) 139. 39 Cic. ad Att. 8.11.1–​2, 8.12.16, 8.15a.1–​2; Vell. Pat. 2.49.3–​4; App. B.C. 2.32 (but see Plut. Pomp. 59.3–​4); Plut. Caes. 31.1; Woodman (1983) 85–​86; Meier (1995) 345; Seager (2002) 149; Goldsworthy (2006) 376.

Restraint as Accelerator  185 advancement, dignitas, and the proper exercise of influence. Caesar’s lack of the former delegitimized all claims to the latter.40 As Caesar approached, he and Pompey exchanged a final gambit for peace, couched—​one last time—​in the language and imagery of personal self-​restraint. This effort, like its predecessors, collapsed. Pompey sent a message to Caesar that Caesar should not take the actions of Pompey as insult (contumelia), but instead should imitate Pompey’s belief that the Republic’s advantage was more important than private connections. Cicero could not have said it better. Pompey also warned Caesar that, “for the sake of his standing he should not allow his interests and anger to forsake the Republic, nor to be in such a rage as to harm the Republic in an attempt to harm his enemies.” Caesar responded in kind: his dignitas was worth more to him than life, yet despite being deprived of his imperium and ratio absentis, the gifts of the People, he would with equanimity (aequo animo) put away his rights, and was “prepared to abase himself and suffer all things for the good of the Republic.” Caesar accordingly proposed, yet once again, that both dismiss their armies, that he would permit succession in Gaul, that all levies be dismissed, that he would give up the ratio absentis, that Pompey would go to Spain, and that the men should meet to negotiate further.41 Thus, to the very end, Pompey cast the solution to the greatest political crisis the Republic ever faced as an appeal to Caesar’s personal self-​control: that he should temper himself and his anger, like Cicero’s ideal statesman, for the good of the state. Caesar replied in the same habit: he affirmed that his emotions were indeed under control, and he then offered moderately to cede, laying aside his claimed just rights, and asking that Pompey do the same. Caesar would also later stress his patientia in making this offer, contrasting the acerbitas, crudelitas, and insolentia of his enemies in refusing it and attacking the tribunes. His maneuver nearly worked. Cicero recorded that all of Caesar’s terms were acceptable—​on the sole condition that Caesar withdraw his forces out of Italy and that a meeting of the Senate be called.42 This final sticking point proved insurmountable. According to Caesar, Pompey and the consuls countered, ordering Caesar to return to Gaul and dismiss his army, while Pompey would go to Spain—​but would keep his army and continue to raise levies, which would be suicidal for Caesar to accept. Further, no meeting 40 Cic. ad Att. 7.11.1: atque haec ait omnia facere se dignitatis causa. ubi est autem dignitas nisi ubi honestas?, de Fin. 4.7.18; Caes. B.C. 1.5.3–​4; App. B.C. 2.33; Frank (1907); Bicknell and Nielsen (1998) 144; Beneker (2011) 78–​84. 41 Cic. ad Fam. 16.12.3; Caes. B.C. 1.8.3: Caesarem quoque pro sua dignitate debere et studium et iracundiam suam rei publicae dimittere neque adeo graviter irasci inimicis cum illis nocere se speret rei publicae noceat, 1.9.5: sed tamen ad omnia se descendere paratum atque omnia pati rei publicae causa; Dio 61.5.2–​4; Brunt (1988) 43; Seager (2002) 155; Morstein-​Marx (2007) 167. 42 Cic. ad Fam. 16.12.3, ad Att. 7.15.2, 7.17.2; App. B.C. 1.33.5–​6; Frank (1907) 224; Heitland (1909) 270; Shackleton Bailey (1965–​1967) IV 312; Bicknell and Nielsen (1998) 140, 143, 156; Seager (2002) 156; Rondholz (2009) 436.

186  Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic was scheduled; Pompey reminded the Senate that to send emissaries to Caesar implied respect for Caesar’s authority. Within the ancient deference scheme, since legendary times, Romans had always sent those dignified delegations to influence men of recognized auctoritas, which Pompey could not now admit of Caesar, a hostis. Meanwhile, Caesar’s attempts to play the moderatus amid the clanging of arms, like Sulla had, rang hollow. Caesar called Pompey’s terms “unjust,” and complained that Pompey should not keep raising armies while refusing to keep faith or even to come treat with him in person. Cicero called Caesar’s terms non honestae, suggesting once again not mere unfairness but immorality.43 At the end, neither man would cede to his partner, erstwhile friend, and only real peer, let alone to the clear will of the overwhelming majority of the Senate and even of the populus Romanus. This was true even as both men tried to use the habitus’ restraint scripts to govern their relationship and present themselves to their audiences, touting in their offers of settlement their own temperantia, care for concordia, and moderation. But at the moment of crisis, restraint logic was an accelerator, but not a brake.44 In such a contest, traditional Roman restraint norms had prevented neither man from doing anything that he truly wished to do in his quest for dignitas, gloria, and honores. Rather, after the last long eighty years of contortion, no restraint pattern operated clearly enough to render either man ashamed, and no judge existed with the definitive moral standing to render either man victus consensu omnium. Instead, each man accused the other and his followers of being wholly personally unrestrained, personally in love with riches and power, and therefore personally utterly untrustworthy and inhuman. The splintered restraint values justified attack, disintegrated the judgment-​group, and created deep mistrust that adherence to the regular republican system of elections and office distribution could produce anything but “tyranny” or self-​annihilation. And so, no peaceful deference, consensus, or any normal institutional solution could resolve the irrational, emotional, fratricidal chaos that the restraint-​based habitus propelled.45 Violence took the place of the republican meta-​rules and the institutional structures they supported. The fourfold process was at its end. Caesar refused Pompey’s counter-​offer and pressed southward. Two decades of nearly continuous civil war followed. On the other side lay monarchy.

43 Cic. ad Fam. 16.12.4; Caes. B.C. 1.10.11, 1.11.1: iniqua, 1.32.8–​9; App. B.C. 2.36; Plut. Pomp. 60.5, Caes. 33.4. 44 Meier (1995) 350 comments: “attempts to restore order and lawful procedures actually generated a stronger impulse to dissolution than adherence to humdrum routine.” 45 Cf. Raaflaub (2003) 46; Walter (2009) 51.

Epilogue Just before his death in AD 14, the Emperor Augustus deposited with the Vestals a catalog of achievements that he wished engraved into bronze and displayed at his tomb, his Res Gestae, written by the man who once and for all vanquished all others in the Roman aristocratic contest.1 He recorded his accomplishments in meticulous detail: three times censor, thirteen consulships, thirty-​seven years with tribunician power, three triumphs, princeps senatus for forty years, and much more besides.2 But among the entries that paraded his popularity and prowess, we also find these claims: Although the Senate decreed me additional triumphs, I refrained from all of them.3 When the consulship too was conferred upon me at that time for a year and in perpetuity, I did not accept it.4 Although the Senate and People were in consensus that I should be appointed on my own as guardian of laws and customs with supreme power, I accepted no magistracy conferred upon me that contravened ancestral custom. The things that the Senate wanted to be accomplished by me at that time, I executed by virtue of my tribunician power, for which power I myself, of my own accord, five times demanded and received a colleague from the Senate.5 I rejected the idea that I should become pontifex maximus as a replacement for my colleague during his lifetime, even though the People were offering me this priesthood.6

1 RG 35.2; Suet. Aug. 90–​92, 101; Scheid (2007) vii, xxvi–​xxviii; Cooley (2009) 42–​43. 2 RG 1.1-​14, 26–​31. 3 I follow Cooley’s translations and reconstructions. Cooley (2009) 61 (=​RG 4.1): [decernente pl] uris triumphos mihi sena[t]‌u, qu[ibus omnibus su]persedi. 4 Cooley (2009) 62 (=​RG 5.3): consul[atum] quoqu[e]‌tum annuum e[t perpetuum mihi] dela[tum non recepi]. He tried also to get two colleagues while consul, but was denied, Suet. Div. Aug. 37. 5 Cooley (2009) 64–​65 (=​RG 6.1-​2): [. . . senatu populoq]u[e Romano consentientibus] ut cu[rator legum et morum summa potestate solus crearer, nullum magistratum contra morum maiorum delatum recepi. quae tum per me geri senatu v[o]‌luit, per trib[un]ici[am] p[otestam perfici, cuius potes]tatis conlegam et [ips]e ultro [quiquiens a sena]tu [de]poposci et accepi. 6 Cooley (2009) 68 (=​RG 10.2): [. . . pontif]ex maximus ne fierem in vivi [c]‌onle[gae mei l]ocum, [populo id sac]rdotium deferente mihi.

188 Epilogue I restored the Capitoline temple and the theater of Pompey, incurring great expense for both buildings, without inscribing my name anywhere on them.7 In my sixth and seventh consulships, after I had extinguished the flame of the civil wars, although I had by universal consensus power over all affairs, I transferred the Republic from my own control to the will of the Senate and the Roman People.8 After that time I excelled everyone in influence, but I did not have a degree more power than the others whom I too had as magisterial colleagues.9

Augustus also wrote of setting “examples” for posterity, by which he surely meant attacks on profligacy and the many sumptuary measures he had passed, including strict legislation in matters sexual that drove his own dissipated daughter and granddaughter into exile. These details flowed from his primary achievement: “I restored the liberty of the Republic, which was oppressed by a faction.”10 It was not through military achievement alone that Augustus asserted that he had “restored liberty” to the Republic. Rather, he wanted to show that he had re-​created the social and moral principles that once directed it, and was thus its legitimate ruler. Those principles were those of restraint. Augustus wished to be remembered as great in war and among the nations, and yet simultaneously a self-​conscious spectacle and teacher of temperance, concordia, collegiality, moderation, and deference—​of mores, of the “ways” that once made the Republic work.11 The Res Gestae were, then, a public request for a verdict from the dritte Instanz on his performance. First from the People, who could witness Augustus at last “restore” the aristocratic values that they desired in their leaders. Second from the aristocracy, for whom Augustus repeatedly advertised his collegiality—​ especially striking given his unassailable position as princeps. Third, from the consensus of the People and Senate together, to which he showed particular deference by restoring power to their “will,” and not keeping it for himself. And for such behavior he received praise in return: Horace had lauded Augustus’ new 7 Cooley (2009) 80 (=​RG 20.1): Capitolium et Pompeium theatrum utrumque opus impensa grandi refeci sine ulle inscriptione nominis mei. Cf. Cic. Verr. 4.69; Dio 55.1.1; Brunt and Moore (1967) 61. 8 Cooley (2009) 98 (=​RG 34.1): In consulatu sexto et septimo [28-​27 BC] postqua[m b]el[la civil] ia exstinxeram, per consensum universorum [po]tens re[ru]m om[n]‌ium, rem publicam ex mea potestate in senat[us populi]que R[om]ani [a]rbitrium transtuli. Cf. Scheid (2007) 86. 9 Cooley (2009) 98 (=​RG 34.3): post id tem[pus a]uctoritate [omnibus praestiti, potest]atis au[tem n]ihilo ampliu[s habu]i quam cet[eri, qui m]ihi quoque in ma[gis]tra[t]‌u conlegae f[uerunt]. For the translation I am indebted to Woodman (2013) 155. Cf. Rowe (2013) 10–​12. 10 Cooley (2009) 58 (=​RG 1.1): rem publicam dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi, 66 (=​RG 8.5); Dio 54.16.1, 55.10.14–​16; Suet. Aug. 34.1, 40, 65; Gell. N.A. 2.24.1415. Cf. Brunt and Moore (1967) 46–​47; Frank (1975); Radista (1980); Galinsky (1996) 128–​40; Levick (2010) 151; Hodgson (2014) 254–​255; Cooley (2009) 108–​110. 11 Cf. Dio 53.10.4; Galinsky (1996) 64; Lobur (2008) 4; Levick (2010) 230–​231.

Epilogue  189 age, ruled by fides, pax, honos, pudor, and virtus. One last time, the mutualistic restraint patterns, lending “legitimacy” to the exercise of power.12 It can be tempting, from one view, to dismiss these inscriptions as arrant disinformation. Obviously, the Republic was not “restored” in any structural sense, and Ronald Syme, for example, accordingly called Augustus’ moral laws “perverse anachronisms,” arguing that “the whole conception of the Roman past upon which [Augustus] sought to erect the moral and spiritual basis of the New State was in a large measure imaginary or spurious, the creation conscious or unconscious of patriotic historians or publicists who adapted to Roman language Greek theories about primitive virtue and about the social degeneration that comes from wealth and empire.”13 Within the context familiar to Augustus and his audiences, however, his efforts were quite Roman and quite forceful, and Syme’s myopic view quite wrong. Rather, Augustus, who had far more information about the previous century than we will ever have, knew these values and their symbolic currency, and intimated through his measures that he perceived in them real ailments that had ruined the Republic. His diagnosis was not a lack of proper legal structures or institutions. Augustus put no effort in the Res Gestae into explicating an improved legal or political system. Rather, he focused on a belief that traditional restraint values had been weakened, and that, in direct consequence, the state had been seized by a selfish “faction.” He then cut his remedies into bronze: collegiality, deference, temperance, moderation, and care for the opinion of the Senate, People, and peers. He knew what made for legitimate power in his social context: a blend of authority and self-​restraint. The great irony, of course, was that these foundational, long-​standing republican self-​ restraint concepts now served only to legitimize autocracy.14 We must consider how the Romans arrived at this point. Metaphors can obscure. When we speak of a “breakdown” of the Roman Republic, the word is, of course, a mental shortcut. What we really mean to say is that over the second century BC into the first century some thing or things changed in the ways that aristocratic Roman men interacted with each other. We can observe the forbidding results of those changes easily enough. At one point, violence among them was unthinkable; later, it was not. At one point, political murder did not exist but in legend; by the end, friends and kin killed each other in fields and cities. The horror of that progression requires examination and explanation of those interactions beyond metaphor.15 12 Hor. Carm. Saec. 57–​58; Yavetz (1984) 8–​13; Lobur (2008) 31, 208; Cooley (2009) 39–​41; Galinsky (2011) 130. 13 Syme (1939) 453. 14 Cf. Suet. Aug. 42.1; Yavetz (1984) 13, 23; Edwards (1993) 36; Galinsky (1996) 11–​12; Lobur (2008) 30, 208–​209; Bringmann (2007) 314; Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020) 75. 15 If we are to use a metaphor, Eder’s (1996) 446–​447 is reasonably apt: “From without this constitution appeared to be a set of institutions, that is, the Senate, the popular assemblies and the

190 Epilogue The argument of this book has been that one thread that consistently ran through that progression was a set of changes to the meaning and application of norms of restraint that once coordinated the republican aristocratic competition. We have followed this thread through that progression through a cohesive, consistent, and insistent body of diverse evidence. We observed how the restraints were guides and meta-​rules for the unwritten republican system and were thus intimately tied to the Republic’s proper function and undergirded its structures, both in the Romans’ own minds and as buttresses to modern models of Rome’s performative politics. We saw how at one point in time restraint norms had general power to direct men’s actions, and were collectively expected to do so. Of course, as we repeatedly also noticed, since the day the monarchy ended men had always quarreled, many had cheated, and many had battled against the consensus of their peers. Roman morals were never pure. Yet even in moments of contestation, the Romans for centuries instinctively assumed that restraint would work to resolve the issues. Men who refused to be curbed were shunned and shamed; men who displayed self-​control were praised and received notable honors. Contests over behavior thus more often than not settled, rather than unsettled, normative behavior, and created exempla of proper or improper behavior to pass on to future generations. The inherent contradictory pull between a will to personal advancement and the consensus of the community was repeatedly eased (and expected to be so) through general agreement among a critical mass of the senatorial class and People who, together, could judge behavior effectively. But during the course of the last hundred years of the Republic the fourfold process described in the Introduction emerged. First, the actors were consistently caught in their conditioning that restraint was good and necessary for the Republic. Yet second, over time came novel and extremely complex circumstances and tensions that touched directly on traditional normative behavior but for which normative behavior—​often enough passed down in smooth exempla—​provided no clear answer, leaving the Romans stuck and frustrated.16 Third, and worse, in the aftermath of the Gracchan disasters—​precisely what many ancients diagnosed as the start of the troubles, although for perhaps the wrong reasons—​the Senate, the critical mass of peers, grew less able to judge restraint definitively and with unquestioned legitimacy because of restraint-​based attacks on its own membership, while the People were turned into the Senate’s magistracies, the competencies of which seemed to be well defined and exactly balanced in order to guarantee its smooth running. But this institutional ‘hardware’ could only work reliably if it was provided with an appropriate ‘software,’ namely, the social conventions drawn from and based on a consensus concerning the principles of politics.”

16

Cf. Roller (2018) 23.

Epilogue  191 rival over restraint, and thus also could not act as a definitive Simmelian judge. Fourth, meanwhile, the sense of self-​evident correctness of the importance of restraint that the conditioning had inculcated still made the Romans catastrophize perceived deviance, and made them attack—​interminably—​their foes on the grounds of alleged intemperance, greed, immoderation, and superbia, leading to dehumanization and rage, which vaporized trust in the Republic’s normal institutional processes that the norms sustained. In this sense, Meier was correct in his famous formulation that the Romans found themselves in a “crisis” without any viable “alternative,” and simply kept doubling down on the system failing them as they attempted to solve their problems. But, as seen, we cannot fully appreciate that crisis without understanding what the substance or import of the system’s values were, why the Romans doubled down on them, why that doubling down could cause such damage to the social fabric, or why the “autonomous process” unfolded when it did. With a sharp focus on restraint we have uncovered better answers: the fourfold process played out and grew heated because of the politically fundamental nature of the critical values involved, and played out when it did because a combination of factors temporally converged—​some, parts of longer trends, such as growing imperial wealth, some such as Tiberius’ turn to the People the products of unique contestation, some just random chance such as the invasions that made Marius six-​time consul, but all touching intensely sensitive aspects of Romans’ habitus. The fourfold process also produced the social context that gave us Livy, Cicero, Sallust, and the rest, who always and everywhere cast issues into “moral” terms. No doubt, as noted, they deserve some credit and agency for being attuned to the crucial role of restraint in their troubles. Still, their slanted points of view about that role and their tendency to create pure dichotomies of good men versus evil unfortunately left us a misleading thesis that their society’s ills were attributable to simple moral “decline”—​a thesis that has too long thrown historians off the scent of the true import of self-​restraint in Roman society. Instead, what the ancient authors cited as evidence of moral decay, we have better seen as signals of conflict over normative behavior in a system that required consensus about that behavior to support the distribution of honors and legitimate power within the republican schema. I have therefore never rested my argument on the contention that any particular individual or group was, in fact, objectively unrestrained. Nor have I tried to revive any weather-​beaten theory that after the fall of Carthage some general moral malaise settled on Rome as eastern luxuries, say, “enervated” Roman manhood. Instead, I have shown that the same “morals” stabilized and destabilized the Republic at different points in time as the process spun out: the aristocracy’s consensus formed into place and then cracked along axes over what constituted

192 Epilogue normative restraint behavior, which automatically undermined a central pillar of the performative-​competitive system itself. Some of these cracks were over the meaning of temperance and luxury, particularly in the face of novel imperial wealth, which were always intimately tied up with a man’s merit and ability to participate in governance. Some of the cracks were over deference or moderation or modestly waiting for one’s turn for distinctions, particularly in the face of chances for colossal honors and wealth that developed over the second century BC. But that was not all. A particularly important crack, as just noted, was over the right to judge action. One vision started to take very seriously the perfectly republican idea that the People were the highest power in the state, and that one should seek one’s dignitas and existimatio from them either alone, or at least above all others. By adding appeals to the venerable language of temperantia in a context of uncertainty around wealth, this vision argued that many in the Senate were infected with greed and superbia and who, in consequence, need not be heeded or deferred to. The second vision held that certain “popular” men were becoming impervious to social pressures such as peer deference and pudor that otherwise should control them; the habitus often drove those who held this vision to the panicked conclusion that their adversaries were reges in the making, and mortal enemies. To be sure, the lines between these visions were never clean, which helped the cracks progress well beyond a simplistic tribune/​Senate rift (or an even more oversimplistic democratic/​oligarchic divide), to affect the entire balance of judgment of aristocracy and People. The final votes over Curio’s proposals on Caesar’s command and the People’s reaction show as much.17 Meanwhile, every one of the cracks had the potential to fuel intense anger because they implicated critical principles subconsciously ingrained by the habitus, which inherently triggered irrational and tribalistic parts of men’s minds, as Kenty especially has proven. In this respect, what Hölkeskamp, Meier, Lundgreen, and others have often described as the competitive system’s admirable “flexibility” in defining mos maiorum might better be seen as an inherently emotional, unstable liability. Tensions between self-​restraint and self-​advancement came with high emotion because of the habitus and restraint’s essential role in the Republic, and as such wedged cracks in the consensus wider. Slippage in consensus was itself a catalyst for further slippage, which evolved into new long-​term trends. A Rutilius or younger Cato might lament—​but who could judge them definitively right or wrong but the very assembly of peers that included those who did not agree with them? Once agreement and mutuality

17 Cf. Bonnefond-​Coudry (1989) 757–​774, 790–​791; Meier (1995) 40–​42; Robb (2010) 15–​33, 164–​166; Arena (2012) 8; Stevenson (2015) 53; Rosillo-​López (2017) 156–​161; Mouritsen (2017) 105–​136.

Epilogue  193 were fragmented beyond a critical point, there was no obvious way to control a man who felt he was in the right and who did not want to be restrained. He would not certainly respond to peer deference or to group shame. Instead he might declare his opponents shameless, and thus ignore them—​and yet claim some colorable legitimacy all same. And once a man who could not be shamed could both decide himself to be in the right and could put some force at his back, there were no certain means to pressure him peacefully.18 The cataclysm of the Sullan and Marian slaughters was a product of such slippage, and then did crushing, terminal damage to the restraint system.19 One could fantasize, of course, that after the Sullan and Marian proscriptions the following generation of young aristocrats could have forsworn violence forever and rekindled consensus with one another. Human beings, sadly, do not operate that way. By the time it reached the “lost” generation restraint was fraught with suspicion, while the generation’s shard-​like memory of their ancestors and the specter of proscriptions created more confusion and rage than consensus. Pompey’s example suffices: his calculated shows of moderatio, plucked from smooth, heroic exempla like that of the Younger Scipio, did not garner the praise he expected, but instead inspired terror that his “moderation” was only enabling a quest for tyranny, one ostentatious “refusal” at a time. Such fear then further cracked consensus. Crassus turned to new, individualistic methods of gaining protection among a generation also unnerved by Sulla. Cato saw salvation only in obsessive devotion to his crabbed view of restraint, which caused more discord than concord. (Strongly held opinions about the old mores do not have to be objectively accurate to have real historical effects, of course.) Cicero apparently believed quite sincerely in traditional norms, but found himself continually disappointed—​and ever more paranoid as a result. And Caesar’s portentous decisions in 50–​49 BC were firmly sited within this long, continuous trend of embroiled restraint values. By the end of that destabilizing trend, he could imagine options in the face of resistance other than to go home quietly in shame, as the Elder Africanus once had. Instead, he was able in his now-​tangled context to use the values most effectively as a weapon against his enemies, and no pudor or threat could constrain him when he felt that his dignitas and life were endangered by a Senate controlled, in his telling, by a greedy, haughty, undeferential factio unworthy of his own deference.20 At this, trust collapsed that the electoral and governmental structures that the values

18 Cf. Batstone (1988) 29: “What is dignitas and the value of being considered clarus or magnus? What adds to dignitas? Who are the miseri and the mali? And what has happened to a society that cannot negotiate an answer those questions?”; Hölkeskamp (2014b) 44. 19 Cf. Mackay (2004) 132. 20 Cf. Jehne (2006) 63, 141–​144; Walter (2009).

194 Epilogue braced up could order affairs acceptably and peaceably, and violence against “beasts” took over. To be sure, this thread of restraint that we have followed was not the only part of the Romans’ story. Many economic or other social factors—​and even those pure historical accidents and unique personalities—​played a role in the Republic’s progression. The forces that induce human action, after all, strike from multiple angles. Along the way I have noted numerous intersections of restraint’s thread with such trends, forces, contingencies, and personalities, although to do justice to every intersection—​let alone to the hundreds of episodes of restraint and cracking recorded in the ancient sources I have had to pass over—​would take many detailed studies. I hope this book will inspire further work on these lines. Still, the focus of this work on the relationship of members of the Roman aristocracy to personal self-​restraint has had a purpose. This particular way that the Romans spoke and thought about their problems was a culturally-​ contingent mental framework whose adoption produced particular historical consequences. I have stressed how the Romans mentally navigated all but exclusively through the lens of personal self-​restraint the many social, economic, and other issues that scholars have proposed contributed to the “Fall.”21 Collisions between different organs of the Roman government, such as the Senate and the tribunate, once moderated by the restraint that Tiberius Gracchus first showed, were consequently sparked and aggravated by accusations of lack of self-​control. The growth of Rome from city-​state to empire did not alone bring the system down—​the republican empire functioned decently well for centuries, after all—​ but restraint-​based debates over new wealth and honors step by step weakened aristocratic consensus. Economic issues of debt, land redistribution, and largesse were repeatedly (if not uniformly) spun into contests over luxury and shame. Quarrels among competing aristocrats, between the Senate and senators, and between the People and the aristocracy turned consistently on questions of self-​ control, cast to a splintering audience to judge. So too “structural” reforms and legislation, like that of Sulla, centered on restraint. The Romans even reacted to happenstance in a restraint mindset, as with the Cimbric incursions that made Marius the object of moderatio-​based jealousy and fear. A contingency’s force and effect on a society, after all, is shaped by the social context in which the contingency is received. Amid the Romans’ navigation of all these questions, restraint values once acted as a set of meta-​rules for the performative-​competitive Republican structure, reasonably reliable guides for action judged by generally accepted arbitrators. As such, debates over restraint were neither frivolity nor literary flourish. They instead went to the very core of what it meant to exercise Republican power

21

Cf. Hölkeskamp (2009) 4–​7.

Epilogue  195 legitimately. Once the Romans supported that core with multivalenced mores, political crackup and conflict were, if not inevitable, at least highly likely as those mores inevitably shifted and flowed. That is why, through that long-​term process of contestation made irresolvable by the factors charted in Part II and the violence that followed, the values ultimately helped guide the Romans—​obsessed with them to the end—​into self-​destruction. It was therefore right to tilt our own interpretive focus tightly toward restraint to understand the Romans’ snarled lived experience and the emotions and ideas that drove their actions and shaped their governance. A republic is ultimately a kind of agreement, conscious or unconscious, that holds in common core social or political values and norms that shape and support the governing structures of that society. In the Romans’ case one critical agreement was over norms of restraint that intermingled with and supported their distinctive Republican institutions and performative politics. Core values need not be denied or abandoned for collapse to come; it can arrive if core values come to be reinterpreted in divergent ways by human beings who believe all too ardently that they are upholding the only possible interpretation—​until agreement ends. The thread that we have followed illustrates such a development, and shows that we cannot completely understand the Roman Republic’s structure and disassembly, and cannot completely explain the historical causation that charted the Republic’s itinerary, without understanding rightly the place of belief in personal self-​ restraint in the Romans’ story.

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Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Aburius, 21, 88 Adelphoe (Terence), 54–​55 Andria (Terence), 56 Appian, 35, 44–​45 on Caesar, 161, 164–​65, 182–​83 Cicero and, 2, 15, 16, 25–​26, 28, 35–​36 on Pompey, 176 on pudor, Senate and, 104–​5 on Sulla, 128, 129, 132–​33 on Tiberius, 83, 86, 92–​94 on violence, 112, 113 Appius Claudius, 29–​30, 65–​67, 69, 70, 91–​92, 95, 98, 181, 183 Appius Claudius Pulcher, 29–​30, 141–​ 42, 177–​78 Aristophanes, 132 Astin, Alan, 47–​48 Attalus II (king), 37–​38, 39 Atticus, 177–​78, 179, 182 Augustus (emperor), 1, 187–​89 Bacchides (Plautus), 57 Badian, Ernst, 127 Beck, Hans, 62 behavioral norms, 7, 8, 10, 36, 100. See also normative behavior, system of Bibulus, Calpurnius, 164–​67 Bourdieu, Pierre, 5–​6, 75–​76, 77 Brutus, 1–​2 Buteo, Fabius, 48–​49 Caelius Rufus, 171, 173–​75, 176–​77 Caepio, Servilius, 106–​7, 110 Caesar, Julius Appian on, 161, 164–​65, 182–​83 Bibulus and, 164–​66 Cato the Younger and, 161, 163, 165, 169–​ 70, 181–​82 Catulus and, 162–​63 Cicero on, 177–​78, 179–​80, 182–​83, 184–​86 Crassus and, 137, 155, 166–​67 crossing the Rubicon, 184–​85

Curio and, 174, 175–​76 deference by, 166–​67 dignitas of, 184–​85, 193–​94 existimatio and, 166–​67, 183 Gaul command, legality of, 168, 169–​73, 174–​75, 184, 185 Marcellus and, 181 Marius and, 162 Pompey and, 164–​65, 166–​67, 168, 171–​77, 178, 180, 181, 182–​84, 185–​86 ratio absentis of, 169–​73 restraint and, 155, 180, 181–​82, 184–​85, 193–​94 restraint norms and, 186 self-​control, lacking, 162, 185 Senate on, 161–​62, 164, 165–​66, 171–​72, 181, 183–​84 as shameless, 163, 171, 173–​74, 182–​83 Sulla and, 162, 163 verecundia of, 164–​65 Camillus, 19–​20, 27–​28, 34–​35 Carmen de Moribus (Cato the Elder), 59–​60 Catiline, 137, 147–​54, 161, 177–​78 Cato the Elder, 44, 46–​47, 49–​50, 56–​57, 59–​62, 64–​66, 107–​8 Cato the Younger, 145–​46 Bibulus and, 166–​67 Caesar and, 137, 155, 161, 163, 165, 169–​ 70, 181–​82 Cicero and, 158, 160–​61, 166–​67 Crassus and, 137, 155, 159–​61, 193–​94 on deference and moderatio, 158 moderatio of, 158 modestia of, 158–​59 Pompey and, 159–​61 restraint of, 157–​58, 159–​60 Sallust on, 158–​59, 160 in Senate, 158, 160, 165, 167 wealth of, 157–​59 Catulus, Lutatius, 132, 138, 142–​44, 152–​ 53, 162–​63 Cicero on Andria, 56

222 Index Cicero (cont.) on Antonius, 131–​32 Appian and, 2, 15, 16, 25–​26, 28, 35–​36 on Atilius Calatinus, 68–​69 to Atticus, 177–​78, 179, 182 to Brutus, 1–​2 Caelius and, 171, 173–​75, 176–​77 on Caepio, 110 on Caesar, 177–​78, 179–​80, 182–​83, 184–​86 Catiline and, 147–​54, 161, 177–​78 Cato the Younger and, 158, 160–​61, 166–​67 on Catulus, 143–​44 Crassus and, 109–​10, 156–​57 decline thesis and, 51–​52 on Drusus, 106 habitus and, 149, 151, 184 on Lucullus, 141 on moderatio, 41, 44 on modestia, 38, 39 On the Laws by, 50 On the Republic by, 173, 178–​79 Pompey and, 143–​44, 145–​46, 169–​70, 173–​ 74, 178, 182–​83, 185 on private luxury versus public splendor, 47–​48 on restraint, 1, 168, 184–​85 on Rutilius, 105 on Saturninus, 106 on Scaurus, 104–​5, 110 on shame, Catiline and, 148–​50, 152, 153–​54 on shame and censorial judgment, 70 on temperantia, 43, 143–​44, 145, 149, 152 on Tiberius, 83, 100–​1, 149 on violence, 137–​38 Cinna, 130–​32 Clemente, Guido, 68, 69–​70 collegia and collegiality, 71–​74, 90, 94, 95, 139 competition consensus and, 76, 78 Marius in, 124–​25 performative, 4–​5, 7, 8–​9, 70–​71, 73–​74, 99–​ 100, 125–​26, 191–​92 in republican system, 4–​5, 6, 77 restraint and, 3–​5, 7, 59–​60 restraint values and, 6, 8–​9, 28–​29, 73, 77–​79 among Roman aristocracy, 2–​3, 6, 7, 15, 59–​ 60, 70–​71, 73, 75–​76, 77–​78, 113–​14 in Roman Republic, 4–​5, 6 substance of rules of, 76–​77, 78 concordia, 20–​21, 66–​67, 69, 88–​89, 92, 94, 95, 97–​98, 112, 119, 120, 129–​30, 133–​34, 139, 182, 184 consulship, 67–​68, 72–​73

contestation, 28–​33, 74–​75, 102, 110–​11, 113, 190 continentia, 56, 143 Crassus, Licinius, 109, 112 Caesar and, 137, 155, 166–​67 Cato the Younger and, 137, 155, 159–​ 61, 193–​94 Cicero and, 109–​10, 156–​57 Plutarch on, 155, 156–​57 Pompey and, 139, 145–​46, 155–​57, 161, 166–​67 Sulla and, 155–​56 Curio, 174, 175–​76, 181, 183 David, Jean-​Michel, 118 decline narrative and thesis, 51–​53, 99, 119, 191 deference, 2 by Caesar, 166–​67 concordia and, 20–​21, 66–​67, 88–​89 dignitas, pudor and, 89 Ennius on, 54 to groups of peers, 23–​25 Livy on, 16–​18, 20–​21, 24–​25 Marius and, 122 moderatio, hierarchy and, 171–​74 moderatio, violence and, 174–​77 moderatio and, 158 modestia and, 138 mutual, 15, 19–​20, 112, 119, 122, 123 by Octavius, 94–​95 pudor and, 27, 89 restraint and, 8, 110 as restraint value, 15, 16, 27–​28, 30 Roman aristocracy on, 16–​18, 35–​36, 56, 72, 73–​74, 98 in rules of competition, 77 shame and, 9, 147 to social equals and colleagues, 19–​22 to superiors, 19–​22 Tiberius and, 87, 94–​95, 99, 105, 116–​17 violence versus, 117–​18, 165, 174–​77 Dentatus, Curius, 44, 65–​66 deputation, 17–​18, 19, 23, 27, 30 dignitas, 2–​3, 6, 16, 19 of Caesar, 184–​85, 193–​94 deference, pudor and, 89 existimatio and, 86 groups of peers and, 87–​88 honor and, 54 as mix of advancement and restraint, 32–​33 moderatio and, 87 pudor and, 89, 153–​54 Sulla on, 129

Index  223 of Tiberius, 93 victus consensu and, 24–​25 Dio, Cassius, 18, 34–​35, 44–​45 on Caepio, 106–​7 on Caesar, 165–​66, 183–​84 on Cato the Younger, 159 on Pompey, 140 on Sulla, 129–​30 on Tiberius, 83, 84, 93 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 30 Domitius Ahenobarbus, 107–​8, 109–​10 Drogula, Fred, 160 Drummond, Andrew, 71 Drusus, Livius, 106, 110–​11, 112, 117, 126–​27 Edwards, Catherine, 4, 47–​48, 76–​77 Engels, David, 51–​52 Ennius, 22, 37–​38, 44, 54 epitaphs, 68–​69 Euripides, 182–​83 exempla, 8, 29, 36, 59, 74, 77, 118 existimatio, 15, 25–​29, 33–​34, 61, 66, 89 Caesar and, 166–​67, 183 Catiline and, 153, 154 concordia and, 69 dignitas and, 86 Gaius and, 115–​16 honores and, 35 mutual, traditional norms and, 132–​33 Pompey and, 144–​45 pudor, verecundia and, 25–​29, 37, 77, 137 Tiberius and, 115 Fabius Maximus Rullianus, 16–​18, 19, 23, 27, 33–​35, 40 Fabricius Luscinus, 44–​45 Festus, 66, 69–​70 Flaccus, Fulvius, 29–​30, 112 Flaig, Egon, 75–​77 Flamininus, Quinctius, 46–​47 Fulvius Nobilior, 21–​22, 23, 34–​35, 54, 88, 91 Furius Medullinus, 19–​20 Gabinius, 139–​40 Gaius Gracchus, 50, 54, 103, 105, 110, 112, 115–​18, 119 Glaucia, Servilius, 112 Goldsworthy, Adrian, 161–​62 Gruen, Erich, 31–​32, 134–​35, 147, 150 habitus, 65–​66 Cicero and, 149, 151, 184 of competition, 75–​76

exempla and, 77 of normative restraint behavior, 52–​53, 74 of restraint, 11, 69, 73, 95, 99, 109–​10, 119, 133, 186, 192 restraint norms and, 70–​71 of restraint values, 5–​6, 7, 10–​11, 78 Sulla and, 128, 133, 135, 136 Tiberius and, 87, 93–​94, 99–​100 Hammar, Isak, 47 Hannibal, 23, 31–​32, 39, 85, 89 Hasdrubal, 24 Hölkeskamp, Karl-​Joachin, 7, 75–​77, 134 honores, 34–​35, 62, 64–​65, 67, 77, 78, 99 Horace, 46–​47 Hostilius Mancinus, 84 hostis, 118–​19, 128, 130–​31, 185–​86 ingenium, 43, 58–​59 intemperantia, 43, 54, 96, 99–​100, 105, 114, 118, 127, 166–​67 invidia, 33–​35, 90–​91, 137, 146 Jehne, Martin, 161–​62 Junius Bubulcus Brutus, 30 Kaster, Robert, 25–​27 Keaveney, Arthur, 127, 128–​29 Kenty, Joanna, 151, 192 Laelius, 86–​88, 91–​92, 93–​94 Law of the Ten Tribunes, 169–​70 Lentulus, Lucius Cornelius, 24–​25, 179–​80, 181, 183–​84 Lepidus, Aemilius, 21–​22, 23, 34–​35, 54 Lintott, A. W., 111, 127 Livius, 23–​24 Livy, 51 on Appius Claudius, 29–​30 on Camillus, in Senate, 19–​20 on Cato the Elder, 59 on deference, 16–​18, 20–​21, 24–​25 on Fabius Rullianus and Papirius, 33–​34 on Lepidus and Fulvius, 21–​22 on Metellus, 21 on moderatio, 41 on modestia, 37–​38, 39 on Pompey, 140 on Tarquin the Proud, 1–​2 on temperantia, 46, 49–​50 on Valerius, 41 on victus consensu, 24–​25 Lucilius, 54, 108–​9, 118 Lucullus, 141–​42, 145–​46

224 Index Lundgreen, Christoph, 19, 62, 63–​64, 68, 76–​77 luxuria, 9, 114–​15 Cato the Elder against, 59–​60, 62, 64 of Crassus and Domitius, 109 Gaius on, 105 libido and, restraint of, 44–​48, 59–​60 limits on, senators and, 109 private versus public, 47–​48 pudor and, 59 senators expelled and attacked over, 103–​4 temperantia toward, 108–​10 Tiberius and, 95–​96, 99–​100, 118 Mallius Maximus, 106–​7 Manlius Torquatus, 49–​50 Marcellus, 40, 181 Marcius, 17, 48–​49 Marius, Gaius Caesar and, 162 on Catulus, 132 Cinna and, 131 in competitions, with younger men, 124–​25 deference and, 122 Metellus and, 122, 123–​24 moderatio, pudor and, 124–​25 modestia and, 121–​22 Roman aristocracy, 123 Senate and, 121–​22, 124 Sulla and, 10, 121, 123–​24, 125–​28, 129, 130, 131–​33, 135–​36, 141, 146–​47, 193, 194 Sulpicius and, 125–​27, 128, 129–​30 Maschek, Dominik, 134–​35 Massinissa (king), 46 Meier, Christian, 75–​77, 134, 191 Menander, 54–​56 Mercator (Plautus), 58 Metellus Numidicus, Caecilius, 21, 23, 95–​96, 100–​1, 104–​5, 107–​8, 112–​13, 114, 122, 123–​24, 125 Millar, Fergus, 167 Minucius Rufus, 31 Minucius Thermus, 61–​62 Mithridates VI (king), 124 moderatio of Cato the Younger, 158 deference, hierarchy and, 171–​74 deference, violence and, 174–​77 deference and, 158 dignitas and, 87 invidia and, 137 luxury and, 44 Marius and, 124–​25 modestia, res publica and, 41–​42

modestia, temperantia, res publica and, 48–​50 modestia, temperantia and, 42–​44, 47 modestia and, 40, 41, 77, 94 Pompey, mutuality and, 138–​47, 160–​61 restraint, with superiors and peers, 40–​41 temperantia and, 37, 42–​44, 55, 59–​60, 65, 92, 144, 146–​47 verecundia and, 165 modestia, 37–​39 of Cato the Younger, 158–​59 deference and, 138 Laelius and, 86–​87 Marius and, 121–​22 moderatio, res publica and, 41–​42 moderatio, temperantia, res publica and, 48–​50 moderatio, temperantia and, 42–​44, 47 moderatio and, 40, 41, 77, 94 reciprocity of, 38–​39 of Tiberius, 89 mos maiorum, 65, 75–​76, 78, 151, 160 Mouritsen, Henrik, 101 mutual deference, 15, 19–​20, 112, 119, 122, 123 mutuality, moderatio and, 138–​47, 160–​61 Nasica, Cornelius Scipio, 96–​97, 98 Nero, Claudius, 23–​24, 33–​34, 60 new nobility, 7, 66–​67, 69–​71, 74 normative behavior. See also restraint norms Cato the Elder on, 64–​65 contested, 102 in Plautus, 56–​59 restraint, aristocratic consensus on, 191–​92 restraint, habitus of, 52–​53, 74 restraint values and, 120, 137 Roman aristocracy and, 56, 78 system of, tensions in, 32–​33 in Terence, 54–​56 uncertainty about, 135–​36 Octavius, Marcus, 83, 88–​91, 92–​95, 96, 97–​98, 100, 116–​17, 129–​31 office-​holding status, 15, 22 On the Laws (Cicero), 50 On the Republic (Cicero), 173, 178–​79 Opimius, 112, 119 Oppian law, 59 Origines (Cato the Elder), 60–​61 Papirius Cursor, 16–​18, 19, 27, 33–​35, 43 patricians, 66–​68, 70–​71 Paullus, Aemilius, 23, 24–​25, 45, 54–​55

Index  225 performative competition, 4–​5, 7, 8–​9, 70–​71, 73–​74, 99–​100, 125–​26, 191–​92 Perseus, 45, 60 Philippus, 112 Plautus, 37–​38, 56–​59, 64–​66 plebeians, patricians and, 67–​68, 70–​71 Pliny the Elder, 110–​11 Plutarch, 45 on Cato the Younger, 159–​60 on Crassus, 155, 156–​57 on Drusus, 106 on Gaius, 105, 110, 116 on Lucullus, 141–​42 on Marius, 121–​22, 124–​25 on Sulla, 133–​34 on Sulpicius, 126–​27 on Tiberius, 84, 86–​87, 88–​89, 90, 91, 92–​ 95, 96–​97 Poenulus (Plautus), 58–​59 Polybius, 46, 54, 101 Pompey the Great, 137 Caesar and, 164–​65, 166–​67, 168, 171–​77, 178, 180, 181, 182–​84, 185–​86 Catiline and, 147 Cato the Younger and, 159–​61 Catulus and, 142–​44, 162–​63 Cicero and, 143–​44, 145–​46, 169–​70, 173–​74, 178, 182–​83, 185 Crassus and, 139, 145–​46, 155–​57, 161, 166–​67 existimatio and, 144–​45 Gabinius and, 139–​40 Lucullus and, 141, 142, 145–​46 moderatio, mutuality and, 138–​47, 160–​61 restraint and, 139, 144 restraint norms and, 186 Scipio the Younger and, 146, 193 Senate and, 138, 139–​41, 145, 171–​72, 176, 185–​86 Sulla and, 138, 139, 142 temperantia of, 143–​44, 145, 175 Postumius Megellus, 30, 33–​34 pudor, 58–​59 Appius and, 29–​30 Cato the Elder on, 59 deference and, 27, 89 dignitas and, 89, 153–​54 existimatio, verecundia and, 25–​29, 37, 77, 137 Marius and, 124–​25 moderatio, modestia, and temperantia, 43 of Octavius, 88–​89 Senate and, 29–​30, 104–​5

verecundia, existimatio and, 25–​29, 37, 77, 137 verecundia and, 15, 33–​34, 37, 98, 104–​5, 116–​17, 148, 178–​79 ratio absentis, 169–​73, 183–​84, 185 republican system, 75–​76 Cicero, on legitimacy of, 184–​85 competition in, 4–​5, 6, 77 consequences, normativity and, 33–​36 dignitas distribution in, 24–​25 merit and honors in, 25–​26 meta-​rules for, 77, 190 restraint values in, 9, 99 self-​advancement, as danger to, 22 Res Gestae, of Augustus, 187–​89 res publica, 41–​42, 48–​50, 64–​65, 66, 75–​76 restraint agrarian law of Tiberius and, 85–​86 Appian on, 2 Caesar and, 155, 180, 181–​82, 184–​ 85, 193–​94 Catiline, Cicero and, 151–​52, 153–​54 of Cato the Younger, 157–​58, 159–​60 Cicero on, 1, 168, 184–​85 competition and, 3–​5, 7, 59–​60 contested, 110–​11 deference and, 8, 110 habitus of, 11, 69, 73, 95, 99, 109–​10, 119, 133, 186, 192 in last generation, of Roman Republic, 138–​39 Livy on, 1–​2 of lust and desire for luxury, 44–​48, 59–​60 mos maiorum, 65 mutuality of praise for, 130 patterns, 98, 102, 107–​8, 126–​27, 128, 131, 133, 136, 144, 154, 160, 162 Plautus on, 58–​59 Pompey and, 139, 144 public performance of, 105 Roman Republic and, 2–​5, 7, 190–​91, 194–​95 self-​advancement and, 2–​3, 7, 15–​16, 29, 32–​ 33, 35–​36, 98, 134, 159 Sulla and, 128, 130, 133–​34, 136 with superiors and peers, 37–​39, 40–​44 restraint norms Caesar, Pompey and, 186 Cato the Elder on, 59, 61–​62 of Cato the Younger, 159 decline thesis and, 52–​53 in disintegration of Roman Republic, 7–​9 habitus and, 70–​71

226 Index restraint norms (cont.) laws and, 63 Plautus on, 57 Roman aristocracy and, 68, 119, 190 Tiberius and, 10, 99 violence and, 120, 121, 132–​33 restraint values, 5–​6. See also deference; moderatio; modestia; pudor; temperantia; verecundia agrarian law of Tiberius and, 86 Augustus on, 188–​89 as behavioral norms, 8 Cato the Elder on, 61, 62 competition and, 6, 8–​9, 28–​29, 73, 77–​79 habitus of, 5–​6, 7, 10–​11, 78 ideal leadership, honors and, 35 normative behavior and, 120, 137 political content of, 6 in republican system, 9, 99 res publica and, 64–​65 among Roman aristocracy, 6, 7, 8–​9, 15–​16, 37, 83–​84, 102–​3, 167 in Roman Republic, 6, 78–​79, 98, 192 Tiberius and, 115, 117–​19 uncertainty of, 102–​3, 108, 111, 119 violence and, 83–​84, 100–​1, 102, 103, 107–​8, 111, 112–​13, 118–​19, 120, 132–​33, 134, 135, 137 Roller, Matthew, 33 Roman aristocracy aristocratic consensus, 8–​9, 118, 191–​93, 194 aristocratic values and virtues, 56–​57, 58, 59–​60, 188–​89 care for "face," 72, 73–​74 code of ethics, 75–​76 competition among, 2–​3, 6, 7, 15, 59–​60, 70–​ 71, 73, 75–​76, 77–​78, 113–​14 contestation, of proper behavior among, 31–​32 on deference, 16–​18, 23, 35–​36, 56, 72, 73–​ 74, 98 epitaphs of, 68–​69 expansion of, 67–​68 funerals and tombs of, 71–​72 isonomy among, 71–​72 on Marius, 123 on mutual accord, in interpeer relationships, 15 new nobility and, 70–​71 normative behavior and, 56, 78 patrician families in, 67–​68 performative display of aristocratic capital, 75 restraint, toward luxury, 59–​60

restraint norms and, 68, 119, 190 restraint values and, 6, 7, 8–​9, 15–​16, 37, 83–​ 84, 102–​3, 167 verecundia and, 28 violence among, 115, 134–​35 Roman law, 62–​64, 69–​70, 71–​72 agrarian, of Tiberius, 83, 85–​86, 87–​88, 89–​92, 95 Law of the Ten Tribunes, 169–​70 legality, spark of civil war and, 169–​71 public violence and, 111–​12 Roman Republic. See also republican system; specific topics ancient sources of, 2 "breakdown" of, 189 Cicero and Pompey on, 185 civil wars in, 121, 169–​71, 186 empire, growth of, moral corruption and, 114–​15 final crisis of, 168, 173 last generation of, 137, 138–​39 modern scholarship on, 75–​77 moral decay of, 51–​52 restraint and, 2–​5, 7, 190–​91, 194–​95 restraint norms, in disintegration of, 7–​9 restraint values in, 6, 78–​79, 98, 192 Rosenstein, Nathan, 107 Rufinus, Cornelius, 45 Rufus, Pompeius, 126–​27, 128, 130–​31 Rutilius Rufus, 105, 107–​8, 110, 114, 122 Sallust, 49–​50, 51–​52, 103–​4, 121–​22, 130–​31, 132–​33, 141–​42, 146, 147–​48, 150, 151, 152, 153 on Cato the Younger, 158–​59, 160 Samnites, 16, 17, 30, 44, 45 Saturninus, Appuleius, 106, 107–​8, 112–​ 13, 116–​18 Scaevola, Mucius, 91, 96–​97, 130 Scaurus, Aemilius, 103–​5, 106–​7, 110, 111 Scipio Africanus the Elder, 31–​32, 46, 62, 68–​69, 89, 118–​19, 144 Scipio Africanus the Younger, 34–​35, 46, 49–​50, 54–​55, 84, 86, 101, 118–​19, 146, 193 Scipio Asiaticus, 31–​32 Scipiones, Corneliii, family, epitaphs of, 69 Seager, Robin, 172–​73 Second Punic War, 31–​32, 46, 48–​49, 59, 85 self-​advancement, 22, 101, 165 restraint and, 2–​3, 7, 15–​16, 29, 32–​33, 35–​ 36, 98, 134, 159 self-​control, 5–​6 Caesar lacking, 161–​62, 185

Index  227 Catiline, Cicero and, 149, 150–​51, 152, 153–​54 contradictory reputations for, 110 of Crassus, 155–​56 lack of, superbia and, 61 moral, 7 Plautus on, 57 for res publica, 66 Tarquin lacking, 1–​2 Sempronius Longus, 24–​25, 29 Senate, 1–​2, 69–​70 on Caesar, 161–​62, 164, 165–​66, 171–​72, 181, 183–​84 Camillus and, 19–​20 Catiline in, 148, 153, 154 Cato the Younger in, 158, 160, 165, 167 Cicero on, 50 on Cinna, 130–​31 expulsions from, 103–​4, 107–​8 Fabius and Papirius in, 16–​18, 19 Fabricius and Rufinus in, 45 Gaius and, 116, 117 Lentulus and, 24–​25 Lepidus and Fulvius in, 21–​22, 23 limits on luxuria, for senators, 109 on Livius, 23–​24 Marius and, 121–​22, 124 on Minucius and Cornelius, 31 Pompey and, 138, 139–​41, 145, 171–​72, 176, 185–​86 on Postumius and Gurges, 30 pudor and, 29–​30, 104–​5 on Saturninus, 106 on Scipio the Elder, 32 on Servilius Ahala, 40 shame, as censor in, 70 Sulla and, 126, 128, 129, 130 Tiberius and, 91–​93, 95, 96–​98, 99–​100 violence and, 117–​18, 119, 132–​33 Sententiae (Appius Claudius Caecus), 65–​66 Servilius Ahala, 40, 48–​49 shame, 15. See also pudor Caesar, as shameless, 163, 171, 173–​74, 182–​83 Catiline, Cicero and, 148–​50, 152, 153–​54 as censor, in Senate, 70 deference and, 9, 147 fear, the Rubicon and, 181–​86 public, 46–​47 of Tiberius, 92 Siculus, Diodorus, 94, 106 Simmel, Georg, 75–​76, 77, 78–​79, 129 the Social War, 124, 125, 134–​35, 138–​39, 147, 159

Stockton, David, 172–​73 Strabo, Caesar, 126–​27 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, 2 Caesar and, 162, 163 Catiline and, 154 Cinna and, 130–​32 concordia and, 129–​30, 133–​34 Crassus and, 155–​56 on dignitas, 129 habitus and, 128, 133, 135, 136 Marius and, 10, 121, 123–​24, 125–​28, 129, 130, 131–​33, 135–​36, 141, 146–​47, 193, 194 Octavius and, 129–​31 Pompey and, 138, 139, 142 restraint and, 128, 130, 133–​34, 136 Senate and, 126, 128, 129, 130 on Sulpicius, 126–​27 violence of, 130–​31, 132–​33 Sulpicius, Publius, 125–​27, 128, 129–​30 superbia, 1, 16, 31–​33, 54–​55, 61, 95 Syme, Ronald, 189 Tacitus, 110 Tarquin the Proud, 1–​2, 73 Tatum, Jeffrey, 150–​51, 172–​73 temperantia, 37, 46–​48, 55, 59–​60, 63–​64, 86, 103–​4 Catiline and, 149, 152 of Cato the Younger, 157–​58 Cicero on, 43, 143–​44, 145, 149, 152 Livy on, 46, 49–​50 moderatio, modestia, res publica and, 48–​50 moderatio, modestia and, 42–​44, 47 moderatio and, 37, 42–​44, 55, 59–​60, 65, 92, 144, 146–​47 of Pompey, 143–​44, 145, 175 in rules of competition, 77 Rutilius and, 107–​8, 114 toward luxuria, 108–​10 Terence, 54–​57 Thomas, Jean-​François, 25–​26, 27 Tiberius Gracchus, 21, 35, 78–​79, 194 agrarian law of, 83, 85–​86, 87–​88, 89–​ 92, 95 behavioral norms and, 100 Cicero on, 83, 100–​1, 149 death of, 83–​84, 91–​92, 97–​98, 100–​1, 102, 103, 111, 117, 118–​19 deference and, 87, 94–​95, 99, 105, 116–​17 existimatio and, 115 habitus and, 87, 93–​94, 99–​100 Hostilius and, 84

228 Index Tiberius Gracchus (cont.) intemperantia of, 99–​100, 118 Laelius and, 86–​87 luxuria and, 95–​96, 99–​100, 118 Metellus and, 95–​96, 100–​1 Nasica and, 96–​97 Octavius and, 88–​91, 92–​95, 96, 97–​98, 100, 116–​17 republican system and, 99 restraint norms and, 10, 99 restraint values and, 115, 117–​19 Scipio the Younger and, 84, 86, 101, 118–​19 Senate and, 91–​93, 95, 96–​98, 99–​100 Timmer, Jan, 73, 75–​77 trials of the Scipios, 31–​32, 33 Trinummus (Plautus), 57 tyranny, 177–​80, 186 Valerius Maximus, 32, 41, 48–​49, 59, 158 Velleius Paterculus, 131, 132, 142–​43 verecundia aristocrats displaying, 28 of Caesar, 164–​65 by Catulus, 142–​43 existimatio, pudor and, 25–​29, 37, 77, 137 moderatio and, 165 modestia and, 38

pudor and, 15, 33–​34, 37, 98, 104–​5, 116–​17, 148, 178–​79 Scipio the Elder on, 89 de Vestitu et Vehiculis (Cato the Elder), 62 victus consensu, 24–​25, 27, 92, 93, 111, 142–​ 43, 186 Viglietti, Cristiano, 71–​72 violence assassinations, 103, 106, 112, 113, 124 Cicero on, 137–​38 deference versus, 117–​18, 165, 174–​77 Marius, Sulla and, 121, 125–​26, 132–​33 mob, 103, 112–​13, 117, 119, 126–​27, 129–​30 restraint norms and, 120, 121, 132–​33 restraint values and, 83–​84, 100–​1, 102, 103, 107–​8, 111, 112–​13, 118–​19, 120, 132–​33, 134, 135, 137 among Roman aristocracy, 115, 134–​35 Roman laws and, 111–​12 Senate and, 117–​18, 119, 132–​33 of Sulla, 130–​31, 132–​33 Vulso, Manlius, 37–​38 Wallace-​Hadrill, Andrew, 47–​48, 114 Wlosok, Antonie, 63–​64 Zanda, Emanuela, 47–​48