Roma Victa: Rome's way of dealing with defeat 3476059413, 9783476059413

Table of contents :
Preface
Preface to the English Edition
Contents
1: Introduction
1.1 Not Just a Success Story: On the Subject and Structure of the Work
1.2 Defeated Generals and “Traumatic” Memory: Research on Defeats
2: Methodological Preliminary Remarks
2.1 Collective Memory, Social Memory, Memory Cultures, Historical Cultures: Terms and Concepts
2.2 Roman Historical Cultures: Republic and Early Imperial Period
3: The Greatest Danger to Our Empire: Rome’s Celtic Wars
3.1 The ‘Gallic Catastrophe’: The Defeat at the Allia and the Gallic Conquest of Rome
3.1.1 Remembrance in the Calendar: The Dies Alliensis
3.1.2 Messages from the Distant Past: Early Literary Evidence
3.1.3 The Storming of the Capitol: From the Third to the Second Century
3.1.4 New Foundation of the City and New Ways to the Capitol: The Late Republic
3.1.5 Fall and Rise Again: The Augustan Period
3.1.6 The Catastrophe as Origin: The ‘Gallic Disaster’ in Antiquarian Research
3.1.7 The Capitol in Flames: Early to Middle Imperial Period
3.1.8 Later Perspectives: The Further Memory of the ‘Gallic Disaster’
3.2 Self-Sacrifice for the Res Publica and Heroes of the Barbarians: Defeats in the Third and Second Century Celtic Wars
3.3 Summary
4: Under the Yoke: The Samnite Wars
4.1 Memory in Pictures: Numismatic Evidence for the Defeat of Caudium?
4.2 The Form of Defeat: Testimonies of the Late Republic
4.3 Disgraceful Lessons: The Augustan period
4.4 Forgotten Battles? The Early and Middle Imperial Period
4.5 Outlook: Rome‘s Samnite Wars in Late Antiquity
4.6 Summary
5: The Darkest Hour: The Roman-Carthaginian Wars
5.1 A Noble Prisoner and Chickens That Will Not Eat: The First War
5.1.1 Bellum Punicum: Testimonies of Contemporary Authors
5.1.2 The Example of the Tribune: Testimonies of the Second Century
5.1.3 Continued Torture: The First Century to the End of the Republic
5.1.4 Literature of the Augustan Period
5.1.4.1 An Example of Both Extremes: Livy
5.1.4.2 The Example of the Prisoner: Poetry of the Augustan Period
5.1.5 The Examples of the Consuls: Evidence of the Early Imperial Period
5.1.6 The Example of the Father: Silius Italicus, Punica
5.2 The Enemy at the Gates: The Second War
5.2.1 Contemporary Reflections
5.2.1.1 Messages to the Allies? Roman Coins from the Time of the War
5.2.1.2 Veterans Shape Memory: Testimonies from Contemporaries
5.2.2 The War of the Senate: The Second and Early First Centuries
5.2.3 The First Century Until the End of the Republic
5.2.3.1 An Old Enemy as Exemplum: M. Tullius Cicero
5.2.3.2 An Old Enemy, Reconsidered: The Hannibal Biography of Cornelius Nepos
5.2.3.3 An Enemy of Old: Further Evidence from the Late Republic
5.2.4 Interim Conclusion: The Defeats of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War in the Historical Culture of the Republic
5.2.5 The Augustan Period
5.2.5.1 More Admirable in Misfortune than in Fortune: Livy
5.2.5.2 Enigmatic References: Evidence from Augustan Poetry
5.2.6 Memorable Defeats: Testimonies of the Early Imperial Period
5.2.7 Worthy of My Heaven: Silius Italicus, Punica
5.2.8 Old and New Wars: Outlook on the Following Centuries
6: Conclusion
List of Sources and Literature
Abbreviations
Editions, Sources
Literature

Citation preview

Roma Victa Rome’s way of dealing with defeat Simon Lentzsch

Roma Victa

Simon Lentzsch

Roma Victa Rome’s way of dealing with defeat

Simon Lentzsch Institut des Sciences de l’Antiquité Université de Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland

Einbandgestaltung: Finken & Bumiller, Stuttgart. ISBN 978-3-476-05941-3    ISBN 978-3-476-05942-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany

Preface

This book represents the revised and abridged version of my dissertation, which was accepted by the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cologne under the title “Militärische Niederlagen in der römischen Erinnerungskultur” in the winter semester 2016/2017. I completed the manuscript in the fall of 2018, making every effort to incorporate literature that has appeared since I completed the Defensio in December 2016. Now that this work is done, I very gladly take the opportunity to thank teachers, colleagues and friends without whom this book could not have been written. First and foremost, my doctoral supervisor, Professor Dr. Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp, who has been an academic teacher and supporter in the broadest sense of the term since my studies. I thank him very much for his inexhaustible advice and encouragement as well as for his great patience when it came to completing my thesis. I would also like to thank Professor Dr. Peter Franz Mittag and Professor Dr. Jan Felix Gaertner (both Cologne), who were kind enough to take the trouble of reviewing my dissertation as members of the doctoral committee, and who gave me important advice that saved me from many an error. The oral examination was chaired by Professor Dr. Sabine von Heusinger (also Cologne), for which I would also like to thank her warmly. Since the time of my studies, I have considered myself very fortunate to have found a university home in the Department of Ancient History at the Cologne Historical Institute, to which, in addition to the aforementioned professors Karl-­ Joachim Hölkeskamp and Peter Franz Mittag, their colleagues Professor Dr. Walter Ameling and Professor Dr. Werner Tietz have contributed with their friendly advice and support. This also applies to my colleagues in Cologne, with whom I have had the pleasure of working in an extremely pleasant atmosphere over the past few years, for which I would like to express my sincere thanks to each and every one of them. I would especially like to thank Dr. Frank Bücher, who once awakened my interest in the history of the Roman Republic in his introductory seminar, has since helped me in many ways, and has always been available with advice and guidance. I would like to thank my colleagues and office mates Dr. Julia Hoffmann-Salz, Sema Karataş and Katharina Kostopoulos for the always extremely pleasant cooperation, the many conversations we have been able to have over the past years and v

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their friendly support, which have helped me a great deal along the way. I am all the more pleased that our respective works are now all nearing completion or publication. As a friend and colleague equally helpful and with an open ear for an inexhaustible range of topics and problems, Dr. Michael Kleu also showed himself to be so kind as to read and comment on parts of the text. To my colleague and friend Marian Helm (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), who took the trouble to read parts of the text, I thank for hints on different topics around Rome’s wars of the Middle Republic and, above all, for the opportunity to discuss questions concerning our common field of interest. In the first year of working on my project, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Karl Galinsky (University of Texas, Austin) offered me the opportunity to work in his Max Planck Research Award project Memoria Romana. Memory in Roman Culture through a generous grant, for which I owe him a great debt of gratitude. During my stay in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge, Dr. John Patterson and Professor Dr. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill in particular offered me all the help I needed, which helped to keep my studies focused and successful during this time. I would also like to thank Professor Wallace-Hadrill for the opportunity to present my ideas in his PhD seminar. The advice I received here helped me a lot. This also applies to the very different suggestions, questions and constructive criticism that I received in the context of colloquia and conferences in Bielefeld, Bochum, Darmstadt, Essen, Fribourg, Innsbruck, Münster, Passau and Rome. I would like to thank my respective hosts and the other discussants very much for the opportunity to present my thoughts on Rome’s handling of defeats in their respective events and to rethink them again and again in the process. In the arduous burden of proofreading, I had an attentive and competent supporter at my side in my father Günter Lentzsch. It goes without saying that any errors and inconsistencies that may still be present in the text are my sole responsibility. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Metzler-Verlag, especially to Dr. Oliver Schütze, for their willingness to include my work in their programme. I would also like to thank Dr. Ferdinand Pöhlmann and Ms. Britta Rao for their helpful advice on technical issues, and for their support during the preparation of the manuscript. Professor Dr. Jürgen Malitz was kind to provide me with the images of coins from the Eichstätt Numismatic Image Database for publication in my work, for which I thank him sincerely. Not only my professional environment, but above all my family provided the actual prerequisite for being able to begin and complete my studies. I would therefore like to thank my parents, Ute and Günter Lentzsch, for the constant encouragement and support they have given me since my childhood and, above all, for the interest they have shown in everything I did ever since. My parents-in-law, Marion Teubner and Ralf Haven-Teubner, have contributed to the success of my work through many kinds of help, not least through great support with childcare. I owe the greatest thanks, however, to a special colleague, without whom I would probably neither have begun nor successfully completed my study – my wife Melina

Preface

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Teubner, who not only supported me with good advice and great encouragement but also allowed me to share in her own research projects. For our children, Emilia, Klio and Paul, my involvement with “the Romans” was and is a constant part of their childhood. This work is therefore dedicated to them and my wife. Cologne, Germany December 2018

Simon Lentzsch

Preface to the English Edition

The German edition of this book was published in 2019 under the title Roma Victa. Von Roms Umgang mit Niederlagen. I am very pleased that it is now also available in English. I would like to extend my gratitude to the publisher for giving me the opportunity to make my book accessible to a larger anglophone audience. In particular, I would like to thank Oliver Schütze as well as Nandhini Rajadhanam and Snehal Surwade for their friendly and professional cooperation. This translation is, in a way, an experiment, as it was created with the help of artificial intelligence. I then personally revised the entire text and made some stylistic corrections. During this process, I was supported by my colleagues, Dr. Roman Roth (Cape Town) and James Alexander Macksound (Stanford), both of whom read large parts of the text and helped improve it with their constructive suggestions. My heartfelt thanks go to both of them. All remaining errors are, of course, my own responsibility. Since the publication of the German edition, a number of further studies have appeared which I have not been able to consider. I would, however, like to take the opportunity to mention at least some of these works. In 2019, Oliver Stoll published an instructive book on reactions to defeats in the Roman imperial period, which offers numerous suggestions for further research (Stoll 2019). The publication of a volume comparing the interpretation of defeats in Greco-Roman antiquity and the European Middle Ages is in preparation (Manuel Kamenzin, Simon Lentzsch, Geschichte wird von den Besiegten geschrieben. Darstellung und Deutung militärischer Niederlagen in Antike und Mittelalter, Frankfurt am Main 2023). Important recent works on Roman historical culture that appeared too late for the work on the German edition and were therefore not listed there are Jacobs 2020 (on Silius Italicus), Langlands 2018 and Roller 2018 (both on the use of exempla), and the volume by Murray/Wardle (eds.) 2022 (on Valerius Maximus). I would be delighted if the present book could contribute to the ongoing and stimulating scholarly discourse on Roman commemorative culture and Roman history in the Republic and early imperial period. Bern, Switzerland August 2022

Simon Lentzsch

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Contents

1

Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   1 1.1 Not Just a Success Story: On the Subject and Structure of the Work����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   1 1.2 Defeated Generals and “Traumatic” Memory: Research on Defeats������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   8

2

Methodological Preliminary Remarks ����������������������������������������������������  17 2.1 Collective Memory, Social Memory, Memory Cultures, Historical Cultures: Terms and Concepts������������������������������������������  17 2.2 Roman Historical Cultures: Republic and Early Imperial Period ����  33

3

The Greatest Danger to Our Empire: Rome’s Celtic Wars����������������������  63 3.1 The ‘Gallic Catastrophe’: The Defeat at the Allia and the Gallic Conquest of Rome������������������������������������������������������������������  65 3.1.1 Remembrance in the Calendar: The Dies Alliensis��������������  67 3.1.2 Messages from the Distant Past: Early Literary Evidence ������������������������������������������������������������������������������  70 3.1.3 The Storming of the Capitol: From the Third to the Second Century ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  74 3.1.4 New Foundation of the City and New Ways to the Capitol: The Late Republic��������������������������������������������������  83 3.1.5 Fall and Rise Again: The Augustan Period��������������������������  90 3.1.6 The Catastrophe as Origin: The ‘Gallic Disaster’ in Antiquarian Research������������������������������������������������������������ 116 3.1.7 The Capitol in Flames: Early to Middle Imperial Period ���� 125 3.1.8 Later Perspectives: The Further Memory of the ‘Gallic Disaster’�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 129 3.2 Self-Sacrifice for the Res Publica and Heroes of the Barbarians: Defeats in the Third and Second Century Celtic Wars���������������������� 131 3.3 Summary�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 144

4

Under the Yoke: The Samnite Wars���������������������������������������������������������� 149 4.1 Memory in Pictures: Numismatic Evidence for the Defeat of Caudium? ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 153

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Contents

4.2 The Form of Defeat: Testimonies of the Late Republic �������������������� 155 4.3 Disgraceful Lessons: The Augustan period �������������������������������������� 157 4.4 Forgotten Battles? The Early and Middle Imperial Period���������������� 180 4.5 Outlook: Rome‘s Samnite Wars in Late Antiquity���������������������������� 181 4.6 Summary�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 182 5

The Darkest Hour: The Roman-­Carthaginian Wars������������������������������ 185 5.1 A Noble Prisoner and Chickens That Will Not Eat: The First War�������� 186 5.1.1 Bellum Punicum: Testimonies of Contemporary Authors������ 187 5.1.2 The Example of the Tribune: Testimonies of the Second Century �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 192 5.1.3 Continued Torture: The First Century to the End of the Republic�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 197 5.1.4 Literature of the Augustan Period���������������������������������������� 201 5.1.5 The Examples of the Consuls: Evidence of the Early Imperial Period �������������������������������������������������������������������� 206 5.1.6 The Example of the Father: Silius Italicus, Punica�������������� 211 5.2 The Enemy at the Gates: The Second War���������������������������������������� 220 5.2.1 Contemporary Reflections���������������������������������������������������� 220 5.2.2 The War of the Senate: The Second and Early First Centuries ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 241 5.2.3 The First Century Until the End of the Republic������������������ 253 5.2.4 Interim Conclusion: The Defeats of the Second Roman-­­Carthaginian War in the Historical Culture of the Republic���������������������������������������������������������������������� 267 5.2.5 The Augustan Period������������������������������������������������������������ 269 5.2.6 Memorable Defeats: Testimonies of the Early Imperial Period������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 331 5.2.7 Worthy of My Heaven: Silius Italicus, Punica���������������������� 344 5.2.8 Old and New Wars: Outlook on the Following Centuries������ 378

6

Conclusion�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 381

List of Sources and Literature�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 391 Literature������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 393

1

Introduction

1.1  Not Just a Success Story: On the Subject and Structure of the Work Wars and armed conflicts were virtually “fundamental phenomena” of life for most people in the ancient world.1 For the Romans, war perhaps played a particularly important role. Through successful wars, Rome rose to rule the Mediterranean world. The direct and indirect spoils from wars fundamentally changed the economic situation of Rome and the Italic peninsula within a few generations, while at the same time the wars waged by Rome dominated Roman ‘state finances’.2 The events of these wars inspired the beginnings of Latin literature in almost all its manifestations.3 The experience of war also had a considerable influence on the  Schulz 2012, 7: War as a “Fundamentalphänomen” of ancient everyday life. On the importance of war for the societies (not only) of Greco-Roman antiquity, See among others Maier 1987; Lendon 2005, 197; Sidebottom 2008, 7; Schulz 2013, 727 f.; Rüpke 1990, 17–28; Rosenstein 2007, 132 f.; Zimmermann 2009, 43 f. (who, ibid., 55–58, however, rightly argues for greater differentiation, especially with regard to subsections of the imperial period); Howarth 2013, 29; Mann 2013, 1; Millett 2013, 59; Tritle 2013, 281, 291 f.; Raaflaub 2014, 15; Stoll/Meier 2016, 3; Stoll 2016, 93. Unless otherwise specified, all dates refer to years BC. All references appear in the notes as short titles, which are resolved in the bibliography. The abbreviations of ancient authors and titles of works follow those from the New Pauly (DNP, vol. 1, XXXIX–XVII). 2  See the fundamental work of Tenney Frank, according to whose calculations at the beginning of the second century 77% of the state revenues of the republic were needed to cover the expenses for the military (Frank 1933, 146). While it is certainly questionable whether the rather sparse source material allows for such a precise calculation, it is probably fair to agree with Kay that Frank’s figures are a metaphor for “a very high percentage of revenue” (Kay 2014, 25). Kay’s own conservative estimates lead to a sum of 8.1 million denarii or 1350 talents of silver that the Republic had to raise on average annually in the first third of the second century to maintain its legions and fleets during this period of particularly intense warfare (the 2nd and 3rd Macedonian Wars, the war against Antiochus III, and warfare in Spain and northern Italy). See most recently Rosenstein 2016. 3  See the comments below in Sect. 2.2. The great importance of war as a theme can be seen in the historiography of Greco-Roman antiquity as a whole (See on this, among others, Maier 1987, 7; Stoll/Meier 2016, 3 and again the corresponding sections below in Sect. 2.2). 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Lentzsch, Roma Victa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0_1

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1 Introduction

religious ideas of the Romans.4 The architecture not only of Rome, but of many Roman and Italic cities, showed and still shows the influences of war in the form of dedications of booty, historical reliefs, or sculptures of armed gods, generals, and emperors.5 A high proportion of citizens served in the army themselves well into the first century B.C.-perhaps at a higher rate than in any other state entity of the pre-­ modern period.6 Not coincidentally, personal participation in wars remained one of the sources on which the social status of Romans of different social classes could be based. For members of the nobility this spectacularly occurred in the form of triumphal processions, while other groups of the population also reaped their tangible rewards directly or indirectly through sharing in the spoils of war.7 Therefore, the history of the Roman Republic has often been narrated in terms of a military success story. This perspective has been and continues to be embraced by modern scholars, and also beyond the specialist circles, with the military expansion of the Roman Empire likely to be known as one of the best-known phenomena of the ancient world.8 The foundations of this empire were laid in the time of the Republic, at the end of which the Mediterranean as well as parts of the bordering regions were already controlled by the armies of Rome. The speed and extent of Roman expansion were already perceived as impressive by ancient observers, such as the Greek historian Polybios.9 By conquering their Etruscan rival Veii at the beginning of the fourth century, the Romans managed to double their territory. A century later, a large part of the Italic peninsula was already under Rome’s direct or indirect control.  Rüpke 1990; Rich 2013b.  See, for example, Hölscher 1978; 1980 and 2003; Gruen 1992, 86–90; Zimmermann 2009; Davies 2017, 3–5 (each with further references). See also Phang 2011, 114 f. for an overview of more recent work. 6  Thus an often quoted assessment by Hopkins 1978, 11 (“The Romans conquered the whole of the Mediterranean basin in two centuries of almost continuous fighting. During these two centuries of conquest, a higher proportion of Roman citizens was under arms for longer than I have found in any other pre-industrial state.”). On this, however, see also the more recent contributions by, among others, Rich 1993, 39; Lendon 2007, 510 f., and most recently Walter 2017a, 21 f., 146 f. See Kay 2014, 25 (“warrior state”). 7  On the possibility of increasing one’s own social prestige through deployment in war, see, for example, Schulz 2012, 181–183. On the ritual of the triumphal procession, see, among others, Itgenshorst 2005; Hölkeskamp 2006b; 2008; Schulz 2012, 182 f.; Walter 2017a, 73, 215 (each with further evidence). The importance of war booty for soldiers and commanders is discussed by Harris 1979/1985; Bleckmann 2016; Rosenstein 2016 (again with further references). 8  See only most recently Woolf 2015, 11: “Every Roman history written is the history of a world empire.” The very notion and concept of empire date back to the expansion of the Roman Republic, and given the influence of the Imperium Romanum in the reception of the idea and concept of empire-building in the post-antique periods, this can be said to be a “paradigmatic” example of the idea of empire. This is the case, for instance, in the title of the chapter that Kai Ruffing has contributed to the anthology on “Imperien und Reiche in der Weltgeschichte” edited by M. Gehler and R.  Rollinger (Ruffing 2014): “Rom  – das paradigmatische Imperium”. For an up-to-date and pointed overview of research on the “Ursachen der Ausdehnung und Dauerhaftigkeit der römischen Republik” see most recently Walter 2017a, 100 f. 9  See only the famous passage at the beginning of the first book, in which Polybius justifies his choice of subject and the structure of the work. Pol. 1,1–4. 4 5

1.1  Not Just a Success Story: On the Subject and Structure of the Work

3

From the protracted but ultimately successful First Punic War (264–241) onwards, Rome’s dominion spread at an increasingly rapid pace, first across the western and then the eastern Mediterranean, and by the time of Augustus, the first princeps, the Roman poet Virgil could have his Iuppiter speak of an imperium sine fine.10 So it is quite natural to emphasize the victoriousness of Rome. The search for the causes of Roman success, the social position of victorious commanders, the significance of the social capital that could be gained through victories and that could in part be accumulated over generations, as well as the various representations of victors and victories in Roman historical culture, have understandably become the starting point for many extensive and instructive works of research.11 However, the Roman success story was not without its setbacks. Thus, on their way to world domination, the Roman armies left behind “a bloody trail of fallen soldiers – especially from their own ranks” (Schulz).12 The specific forms of battle tactics that the Romans chose for their campaigns already seem to have led to numbers of casualties that were significantly higher on average than had been the case, for example, in land battles between Greek hoplite armies.13 In addition, the Roman armies were by no means victorious in every one of the numerous campaigns to which they were sent by the Senate and the People’s Assembly over the centuries. Our sources do not permit an exact tally of Roman defeats and casualties.14 However, the fact that the Roman Republic was regularly confronted with military defeats of

 Verg. Aen. 1279.  See, among others, Afzelius 1942; Hölscher 1978; 1980; 2003; Hopkins 1978; Harris 1979/1985; Eckstein 1987; 2006; 2007; Hölkeskamp 1987/2011 (see there, ibid., 316 f., the titles collected in the addenda to the second edition); 1993/2004; 2010, 98–124; Rich 1993; 2013b, esp. 551–559; Cornell 1995, 345–368; Rüpke 1995b; Heftner 1997; Beck 2005a; Forsythe 2005, 324–368; Itgenshorst 2005; Cowan 2009; Schulz 2012, 204–226; Walther 2016, 103 f.; Linke 2017. See also the contributions in Rich/Shipley (eds.) 1993. See also the references below in Sect. 2.2 on the different media of Roman historical culture. 12  Schulz 2012, 180 (citation). Rosenstein 2004, 107–140 tries to estimate the number of fallen Roman soldiers from the end of the third to the middle of the second century (see there (140) among others: “Scholars undoubtedly have long been aware in a general way of the terrible toll Rome’s wars took upon its soldiers, but their full extent has for too long not been adequately gauged. To win the republic its empire in the second century, tens of thousands of young Roman and Italian men paid the ultimate price: they were killed in combat, died of complications to their wounds, or perished from the diseases prevalent in military camps.”). See most recently Clark 2018, 191. 13  This conclusion was suggested by Sabin 2000, 5 f. in an extensive comparison of the transferred numbers of casualties. Sabin links this, among other things, to the use of Roman maniple tactics. See Zimmermann 2009, 53 f.; Schulz 2012, 180–194 (with further references); Walter 2014, 102 f. 14  Sometimes campaigns and battles, victories as well as defeats of Rome, are only handed down in one source, so that if it had been lost – like most of the once existing writings of antiquity – we would have no knowledge of the respective events (See Clark 2018, 192, note 4). In principle, this source situation does not change with regard to the transmission of military operations in the imperial period. See Turner 2018, 279 (“If an important victory is known solely from the chance find of an inscription, how many failures were covered up, ignored, or forgotten?”). 10 11

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1 Introduction

considerable magnitude is shown even by a cursory glance at the data that is available on this subject.15 If their wars and the victories they won in them were of great importance to the Romans of the Republic, the question arises as to how the experience of military defeat was dealt with in this society – precisely because it was not a rare phenomenon. Especially for the Nobility – the Republican ruling class – defeats could be seen as a challenge to their own claim to leadership, since they ran counter to the ideals of competence and success in the core areas of military leadership and political advancement.16 In addition, military failures potentially raised doubts about the legitimacy of the nobility’s institutionally and habitually enshrined privileges. The observations outlined so far, the great importance of war and the military for Roman society and culture, the emphasis on its own victories, but also the real occurrence of numerous military defeats form the starting point for the present study. The aim is to determine what traces Rome’s defeats left behind in Roman historical culture, or, to be more precise, in the network of the changing and sometimes very heterogeneous historical cultures of the Roman Republic and the early Roman imperial period, even within a single time period. Thus, the present work can be assigned to several recent approaches to research on this period. First, it is a contribution to the study of Roman historical culture, especially that of the Roman Republic and the early imperial period, and specifically to a complex of topics that – as explained in the preceding pages – occupied a central place in the image which Romans of later generations had of their past.17 The historical culture of the Roman Republic was also an important component of the political culture of Rome as a whole – for which war, and military victories in particular, were of great importance.18 Questions about how defeats were dealt with draw attention to very different areas of this political culture, such as reactions in the Senate and the People’s Assembly, which range from dealing with defeated generals and the practice of filling generals’ posts to the instigation of special

 An impression is given by the compilations of Roman defeats in Rosenstein 1990a, 179–204; Clark 2014b, XI–XIII (especially for the third and second centuries); Engerbeaud 2017, 473–501 (for the period 753–264). 16  See on this, among others (each with further evidence) Hölkeskamp 1993/2004, esp. 38 f.; 1987/2011, 236–240; Zimmermann 2009, 47 f.; Stein-Hölkeskamp/Hölkeskamp 2018, 62–64; as well as most recently Linke 2017, esp. 385: “Die Aura des Erfolges und der Aufstieg zur Großmacht sicherten ganz wesentlich den politischen Dominanzanspruch der Oberschicht insgesamt.” In this contribution, however, Linke rightly emphasizes the ambivalence of military victories for the nobility as a group. For their stability, great military successes of individual commanders always posed a certain potential threat. 17  In order to clarify the context of research on Roman historical cultures and to define the aims of the study more precisely in terms of their possibilities and limitations, an overview of the complex of research on memory and historical cultures will be subject of the following chapter. 18  On Roman cultural memory in its significance for the political culture of republican Rome as a whole, see the synthesis in Walter 2004a and the detailed considerations below in Sect. 2.2. 15

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religious measures or recruitment procedures. However, this also includes the representation and interpretation of less successful chapters of one’s own past.19 Last but not least, the present study also forms a contribution to an expanded military history of the ancient world. Rather than being absorbed by reconstructions of individual battles and the fine-tuned strategies of famous campaigns, this now endeavours to reconstruct the military events, actors and institutions, which for so many people of Roman antiquity represented an elementary component of their lives and of the culture in which they lived, and as part of their connection to other areas of human thought and action. Such a more widely conceived military history does not only form part of cultural history generally speaking: to the present study in fact aims to contribute to a “cultural history of war”. This specifically endeavours to find out more about the “entire complex of communication about war, the actual as well as the imagined or remembered”.20 This approach has a bearing on the present work which sets out to study Rome’s defeats on the battlefield with a view that is less concerned with details of weapons technology or the course of operations and more interested in the close connection with Rome’s political culture. In this connexion, warfare emerges as a repeatedly reconstructed and reinterpreted part of the memories of its own past.21 In this way, an approach is chosen that Nathan Rosenstein, whose book on the imperatores victi of the Roman Republic has

 On the concept of political culture, especially with regard to the Roman Republic, see, with extensive evidence, Hölkeskamp 2004; 2010 and most recently 2017. 20  Programmatically on this, most recently Meier/Stoll 2016, esp. 4–6; Stoll 2019, 32–36. See also Lipp 2000, esp. 214 (“Nimmt man den Krieg mit all seinen Weiterungen in den kulturgeschichtlichen Blick und betrachtet nicht nur das Ereignis und seine militärisch definierten Akteure, eröffnet sich ein Forschungsfeld, das den Rahmen einer Militärgeschichte im engeren Sinne deutlich überschreitet. Eine solche Erweiterung weist zumindest in zwei Richtungen. Zum einen betrifft sie das Veränderungspotenzial von Kriegen für kulturelle Strukturen, wie beispielsweise Nationsvorstellungen und die damit verbundenen Selbst- und Fremdbilder. Zum zweiten umfaßt sie den gesamten Komplex der Kommunikation über den Krieg, den aktuell stattfindenden, ebenso wie den gedachten oder erinnerten. Diese Themen umreißen ein Forschungsfeld, das sich treffender als Kulturgeschichte des Krieges denn als kulturgeschichtlich erweiterte Militärgeschichte etikettieren läßt.”); Carl/Kortüm/Langewiesche/Lenger 2004, 4. See Zimmermann 2009 (et al. ibid., 45: “For the historian, moreover, it is of particular interest into which interpretive horizons these elementary and immediate experiences are and must be placed.”) and the research overviews in Schulz 2012, 8–12 (who, ibid., 8, considers the “Bereich der Erinnerungs- und Mentalitätsgeschichte des Krieges” in this account only insofar as “er für das Verständnis der politischen und militärischen Entwicklungszusammenhänge unabdingbar ist”); Howarth 2013, 41–44; Mann 2013, 60–63. On such an expanded military history in general, see, among others, Kühne/ Ziemann 2000 (albeit with a substantive focus on topics that primarily concern the nineteenth and twentieth centuries). 21  With regard to the ancient world, a number of works have approached this complex of topics, especially in recent years. See, for example, Hölscher 2003; Lendon 2005; Harris 2006; Hornblower 2007; Zimmermann 2009; Arrington 2011; 2015; Cooley 2012, as well as the contributions in Dillon/Welch (eds.) 2006; Meier/Stoll (eds.) 2016; Clark/Turner (eds.) 2018; Stoll 2019. See, moreover, the references to the state of research below in Sect. 1.2. 19

6

1 Introduction

stimulated research on the question of the consequences of Roman defeats like no other, has recently named as an important object of further study.22 The diverse ways in which Roman historical culture dealt with its own defeats will thus be examined in the following chapters. First of all, it will be examined how defeats were explained in Roman cultural memory and to what extent these explanations were connected with more far-reaching narratives and interpretations of the past. In addition, the study examines the extent to which protagonists, political or military measures, and other historical factors could be credited with the diminution of defeats and their consequences in Roman historical culture. An essentially chronological structure of the investigation will help to render changes in historical explanation and interpretation visible. In addition to the question of how Rome’s defeats were explained in later periods of Roman history and how they were interpreted along with their consequences, the focus will also be on the extent to which a general knowledge among (more or less) educated Romans of past events can be reconstructed. This knowledge of history need by no means always have been limited to the mode of explaining and interpreting defeats and overcoming them, and traces of this knowledge are found not only in the historiographical accounts of Rome’s wars, but in a variety of very different sources.23 This should help to reveal what significance these events had in the historical image of the members of later generations, or what they knew about them at all. The chronological framework which should provide information about the handling of Rome’s defeats in the historical culture of the respective period, was deliberately chosen to be broad. The individual chapters begin with the earliest available sources on reactions to and explanations of the respective defeat. Sources which were written until the transition from the early to the middle imperial period, i.e., roughly the turn from the first to the second century A.D., are systematically included. Sources from later centuries will be discussed only in the form of an outlook. This limitation was made, on the one hand, in order not to make the scope of the work too large, and, on the other hand, because the publication of the Punica of Silius Italicus can be placed in this period – a work which, also with a view to the following centuries, represents the most comprehensive examination of the Second

 Rosenstein 2018, 371: “[...] how historians, poets, and other writers used defeat to illustrate and instruct their audiences provides a wealth of material for further study, yet one should not overlook the ways which the commemoration of the fallen in epitaphs and funeral monuments sought to accomplish the same goals.” On the latter point, see Hope 2003a; 2003b; Cooley 2012 (on Rome, especially in the imperial period) and Arrington 2011; 2015 (on Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries). Rosenstein’s classic study: Rosenstein 1990a (see Sect. 1.2 below). 23   See Clark 2018, 192, note 4 (“other types of references have much to offer further examination”). 22

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Punic War, one of the most important conflicts for the present work, which offers the opportunity to pause here and take a look at the results achieved.24 Roman armies regularly suffered defeats throughout the duration of the Republic and even afterwards. However, since not all of Republican battles can be examined in detail here, certain principles of selection had to apply. First, there is a chronological framework. The defeat at the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome by the Gauls (the so-called ‘Gallic Catastrophe’) form the starting point. This seems to have occurred around the year 386.25At the lower end of the spectrum, another limitation was drawn towards the end of the second century B.C. Thus, Roman defeats that occurred after the conquest of Numantia (133) are not consistently included in this discussion. The reason for this was not that Rome’s armies had to accept no more defeats after Numantia  – on the contrary, defeats against foreign enemies, against defecting allies and rebellious slaves were recorded rather frequently for the late Republic too. Yet despite all reservations concerning the periodization between the Middle and Late Republics, the political and social conditions of the Roman world in the Late Republic markedly differed from those of the preceding centuries. Since this applied especially with regard to the role and power of the Senate, but also to the relationship between generals and soldiers, an earlier chronological horizon would seem to be justified in the context of this study.26 Rather than focusing on a set of case studies, the structure of this study follows those groups of opponents who inflicted particularly frequent and serious defeats on Rome’s armies. This structure is furthermore favoured by the observation that both Greek and Latin authors tended to portray Rome’s adversaries as homogeneous groups, with which, for example, e.g. certain stereotypes were associated.

 No claim to completeness is made with regard to the now delimited time span, which after all extends from the third century B.C. to the beginning of the second century A.D., but efforts have been made to gain as comprehensive a picture as possible. The examination of Rome’s defeats in the Republic, however, does not end in this period, nor does it end after the end of antiquity. For example, studies of post-ancient interpretations and depictions of defeats such as that of M. Atilius Regulus (255) or the battle of Cannae (216) promise further potential for research into the history of Classical reception. 25  By excluding the earlier centuries, such interesting events as the presumed capture of Rome by the Etruscan Porsenna or the desaster of the Fabians at the Cremera fall out of the investigation. See on this Engerbeaud 2017. 26  For similar reasons, Clark 2014b, 14 has also justified the end of the second century as the chronological endpoint of her study, while still including the defeats against Cimbri and Teutons in her investigation. Meanwhile, as the defeats of the late republic deserve a separate treatment, the author intends to devote a separate article to this topic in the future. With regard to the defeats of the early and middle imperial period, reference should also be made to a number of recent contributions as well as to a study that will systematically treat this period. See Stoll 2016; 2019 and Turner 2018, both of whom deal with defeats of the imperial period. Under the direction of Oliver Stoll, the treatment of defeats in the Roman imperial period is now being examined as part of a research project at the University of Passau, in the context of which Lena Hoisl is preparing a dissertation, the publication of which I look forward to with great interest (“Die Darstellung von Feldherren und Niederlagen in der historiographischen Literatur der römischen Kaiserzeit,” see Meier/Stoll 2016, 2). 24

8

1 Introduction

The Roman defeats in wars against the Celts, the Samnites and the Carthaginians were selected for the study within the framework of separate chapters.27 This selection was made because, on the one hand, these groups of opponents can be clearly distinguished from one another, while, on the other hand, they are representative of other opponents of Rome who could not systematically be included in the study. Within this framework, the Celts offer an example of so-called ‘barbarian’ enemies outside the Roman order, the Samnites appear representative of the multi-­generational struggles against Italic communities and tribes over the course of Roman expansion across the peninsula, whereas the Carthaginians exemplify the states of the extended Hellenistic world.28 In this way, it is possible to cover as broad a scope as possible of defeats against sometimes very different opponents, which, moreover, provoked a wide range of representations and interpretations in Roman historical culture.29 Exploring the way defeats are dealt with touches on research of Roman cultural memory. Research on cultural memory has formed and continues to form a fruitful field of research. In order to benefit from work that has emerged in this field, a critical review of the research field of “memory culture” will be given. This will be preceded by a discussion of existing studies on how defeats were dealt with in Rome. Subsequently, the defeats of Rome against the selected groups of opponents are examined.

1.2  Defeated Generals and “Traumatic” Memory: Research on Defeats In more than one way, the study of military defeats has proven to be a fruitful object of investigation. Recently, several important studies of military defeats that occurred across different historical periods has been published that demonstrate the wide

 For the definition of the term ‘Celtic’, see below Chap. 3. In the further course of the study, individual conflicts each operate under different names (Second Punic War, Second Roman-­ Carthaginian War, Hannibalic War), which is primarily done in the service of variation. 28  A convincing case for the classification of Carthage as part of the Hellenistic world has been made by Ameling 1993, who has succeeded in revising a number of older views on the structure of the Carthaginian social order (see, moreover, Roth 2007, 368, who highlights the influence of Carthaginian warfare on the Greek world). While the cultural memory of Rome’s defeats at the hands of the Epirote king Pyrrhus would probably also be a worthwhile object of study, the choice fell on the Carthaginians, as the Romans suffered significantly more defeats against this opponent and also engaged in hostilities with the latter over a significantly longer period of time. On Rome’s defeats in the Pyrrhic War, see now also Engerbeaud 2017, 339–362. 29  See Lipp 2000, 224 (“Die kulturelle Hinterlassenschaft von Kriegen ist auch in innergesellschaftlichen Abgrenzungsdiskursen zu sehen, d. h. in den Selbst- und Fremdzuschreibungen, die Kriege, ebenso aber Siege und mehr noch Niederlagen auch innerhalb nationaler Einheiten nach sich ziehen oder verstärken”). This approach has been taken up by Carl/Kortüm/Langewiesche/ Lenger 2004, 4 with reference to Lipp 2000. 27

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range of possible reactions on military defeats.30 Therefore, a comprehensive study of the handling of defeats in the early and middle republic seems promising.31 In the Roman Republic or the early imperial period itself, studies on defeats did not exist. Although some defeats appear to a considerable extent in various sources, no known ancient work dealt specifically with defeats.32 Apparently, there were no institutions in Rome that systematically collected data on defeats on the battlefield.33 In modern research, however, the topic has certainly received attention.34 Studies on Roman warfare, on religious reaction patterns, and on the procedure for occupying high-ranking positions of command (consulate, praetorship, dictatorship) in Rome, for example, have been able to identify a whole range of reactions to defeat.35  This can already be stated, although overarching, comparative presentations or collections of contributions are comparatively rare. See, however, Meier/Stoll (eds.) 2016; Clark/Turner (eds.) 2018, both of which, with few exceptions, remain limited to antiquity. See Carl/Kortüm/ Langewiesche/Lenger 2004, 2 (“Das Spektrum [of dealing with defeats, author’s note] reicht dabei vom uneingeschränkten Eingeständnis der Niederlage bis hin zur konzessionslosen Bestreitung: ‚Es liegt keine Niederlage vor!‘, ja bis zum ‚Vergessen‘der Niederlage, die überhaupt nicht mehr als solche erkannt, sondern nur noch als Sieg erinnert wird. Zwischen diesen beiden Polen existiert ein weites Feld von Möglichkeiten, Niederlagen in eingeschränkter Form einzugestehen bzw. sie in eingeschränkter Form zu bestreiten”). Perspectives on different forms of representations and interpretations of defeats, which can range from almost complete negation or concealment to ostentatious emphasis on a suffered ignominy, can be found, among others, in Wilkcke 2000 (on Sumerian lament songs; for the reference to this source I thank Dr. Sebastian Fink (Helsinki)); Schivelbusch 2001 (on the experience of defeat in the American South after 1865, in France after 1871, and in Germany after 1918); Wolpert 2002 (Athens after the Peloponnesian War); Clauss 2010; 2016 (on dealing with defeat in the European Middle Ages); Afflerbach 2013, as well as in Carl/Kortüm/Langewiesche/Lenger (eds.) 2004. 31  Many of the battles and wars in the course of which defeats discussed in this work occurred have been the subject of repeated study since the beginning of modern classical studies in the nineteenth century. Especially the research literature on the wars between Rome and Carthage has long been so extensive that it seems reasonable to discuss them only in the respective chapter. In the following, therefore, mainly those studies will be listed that either deal with Roman reactions to defeats in general – i.e. not limited to a single event – or with the representation, interpretation, processing and dealing with or the memory of defeats in Rome that Roman armies suffered at the time of the Republic. 32  A detailed overview of the relevant sources can be found at the beginning of the chapters on the individual case studies. 33  Rüpke 1995a, 569 f.; 2006, 565; Walter 2004a, 205 (with note 43). 34  See in the following the references to research in Schulz 2012, 193 f.; Clark 2014b, 1–15; Meier/ Stoll 2016; Stoll 2016 (who, ibid., 109–120, also offers an extensive “bibliography on the topic”); 2019, 13–36; Engerbeaud 2017, 14–26; Walter 2017a, 146; Clark/Turner 2018, 8–12. 35  See, for example, Eadie 1967; Rawson 1991; McCall 2002; Saal 2012 (on changes in the armament of Roman cavalry); Simon 1962; Gundel 1970 (on Rome’s wars in the Iberian Peninsula in the second century); Lippold 1963; Kloft 1977; Beck 2005a (on the connection of iterations of the military high office and rogations with military crises; on the Roman high command, see also most recently Vervaet 2014; Drogula 2015); Cornell 1996; Shean 1996; Erdkamp 1998; Goldsworthy 2000; 2001; Zimmermann 2005; 2008; 2011; Fronda 2007; 2010; 2011 (on the Second Punic War, especially on the consequences of Rome’s defeats on Italy); Hölkeskamp 1990/2004; Bleckmann 2002; Gehrke 2002 (on the First Punic War); Linke 2000 (on reactions on the religious level); Daly 2002; Speidel 2004 (on the Battle of Cannae); Engels 2007 (collecting accounts of Roman portents and reactions thereto); Hölkeskamp 1987/2011; Grossmann 2009 (on Rome’s Samnite Wars; the older account by Salmon 1967 remains valuable, however); Linke 2017. 30

10

1 Introduction

Summarizing the results of these works, the picture that emerges is of a society, or at least of a social, political, and religious elite which was quite capable of reacting pragmatically to military failures. For example, such reactions could take the form of temporarily suspending the accepted norms for the selection of commanders in order to deploy particularly experienced generals, sometimes continuously over a period of years, to important theatres of war.36 From the perspective of contemporaries, measures on a religious level could also be regarded as pragmatic reactions, such as the initiation of special atonement measures, the introduction of new cults, or the vowing and building of temples.37 In addition, innovations in army organization, each of which can be linked to previous defeats, directly affected the military field of action.38 Several other studies deal explicitly with the treatment of defeats, with one group of works being primarily concerned with the literary-stylistic representation of various defeats or individual elements therein. For example, Heinz Bruckmann’s dissertation, published in 1936, examined the representation of Roman defeats in the work of Titus Livius.39 Bruckmann’s main interest is in philological observations, such as the means of literary composition of the accounts. While he offers a number of instructive observations, other conclusions – such as the division of the defeats into three types: Allia, Cannae, Caudium – seem a little too schematic.40 Due to the numerous accurate interpretations of individual passages, Bruckmann’s work is still extremely helpful for the analysis of the depiction of Roman defeats in Livy. In view of the methodologically as well thematically limited approach, it is in turn clear that the work cannot offer a truly comprehensive picture of the handling of defeats in Roman historical culture. In 1975, Karl-Heinz Niemann presented a work that is quite similar to Bruckmann’s study in terms of both topic and approach, in which he examined the depiction of defeats in the Punica of Silius Italicus and concludes that Silius presents defeats as a divine test for the Romans and as a means of the moral probation and renewal of Rome.41 Cannae, the greatest defeat, appears in this conception as a  See, among others, Kloft 1977 and, most importantly, with a thorough statistical analysis of the material, Beck 2005a. 37  Tsiolkovsky 1992; Orlin 1997; Weigel 1998 (all three on the temples of the Middle Republic and the respective contexts of their construction; on this, see also most recently Davies 2017); Linke 2000; Engels 2007. 38  This probably also includes the switch to maniple tactics and the expansion of the regular annual deployment to four legions in the Samnite wars. See Grossmann 2009 with further references. 39  Bruckmann 1936. Excerpts also in Bruckmann 1977. 40  So also Seel 1938, 260, who rightly points out that the value of Bruckmann’s investigation is to be seen less in this classification than in the numerous individual observations. But see also Hellmann 1937, 661: “Die von Br. vorgenommene Verteilung der Niederlagenberichte auf 2 bzw. 3 als typisch erkannte Darstellungsformen ist berechtigt und klärend.” Bruckmann himself addresses this problem, but sees an advantage in the grouping of accounts of defeats, which would mainly consist in the clarity thus gained and outweigh “gewisse einzelne Unzulänglichkeiten” (Bruckmann 1936, 2). 41  Niemann 1975. 36

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turning point not only of the course of the war, but also as the starting point of the renewal of the virtus Romana. In a short contribution in 1983, Wolfgang Will dealt more closely with a single aspect of the representation of Roman defeats, namely with the image of the defeated commanders (imperatores victi) in Livy and specifically in the books that contain the first phase of the Hannibalic War.42 Will points out that the portrayal of the imperatores victi partly served to explain the respective defeat. The defeated general is portrayed as reckless and unrestrained, which in turn prevents him from seeing through Hannibal’s tactics, so that the Roman soldiers had no chance of victory in the battle. The populus Romanus as a whole had thus been exonerated, even though the discordia ordinum had previously given the unsuitable commander in question the opportunity for military leadership in the first place.43 Will’s approach was later taken up by Sandra Geist, who, however, placed her investigation on a broader source basis and endeavoured to include the accounts of the individual defeats preserved in the literary sources as comprehensively as possible.44 Moreover, beginning with the Battle of the Allia and ending with the defeat of Varus she sets the chronological framework much wider than had been done in previous works.45 Thus, it is possible for her to place her results in a larger context and to draw comparisons between the individual case studies, but the examination of the individual source passages is by far not as detailed as it had been the case, for example, in the works of Bruckmann or Niemann.46 Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg (2000) and Hans Beck (2006) each pursued a similar question in a short contribution.47 Both examine parts of the various layers of the tradition of a specific defeat in order to gain insights into the emergence and change of this tradition, with the aim of revealing strategies of processing military setbacks in the literary tradition. With regard to the reconstruction of the ‘real events’ on

 Will 1983a.  Will 1983a, 179 f. 44  Geist 2009. 45  The defeats treated by Geist are the battles at the Allia, at Drepana, at the Trebia, at the Ticinus (which are thus treated in reverse chronological order), at Lake Trasimene, at Cannae, the “ersten drei Niederlagen gegen Kimbern und Teutonen” as well as the battles at Arausio, at Carrhae, the defeat of M. Lollius (16 BC) and the defeat of Varus. 46  Moreover, Geist’s interpretation of her results is more seriously affected by the fact that she has not sufficiently taken into account recent studies in Ancient History on individual commanders, such as C. Flaminius (cos. 217), and thus ventures many a hasty interpretation with regard to the political constellations that would presumably have existed around the individual commanders. Geist 2009, 61 with note 94, for example, assumes without convincing justification a fundamental hostility of C. Flaminius to the rest of the Senate and especially to Q. Fabius Maximus, taking up the position of Bleicken 21968, 28–30. The assumption of an early enmity of Flaminius to the rest of the senate, however, has already been questioned with good reasons by Meißner 2000 and subsequently also by Beck 2005a, 244–268, esp. 244. 47  Ungern-Sternberg 2000; Beck 2006. 42 43

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1 Introduction

which the respective tradition is based, both are decidedly reticent.48 Rather, the focus of their investigations is the question of the development, tendencies and possible causes of those traditions. However, numerous individual motifs that played a significant role in the tradition surrounding the respective defeat are mentioned by both, at least in a concise form. Ungern-Sternberg (Gallic disaster) concentrates primarily on various aitiologies that could be connected with this event, while Beck (Cannae) places his emphasis on the explanations that are offered for this defeat, especially in the historiographical sources. In her 2004 dissertation, Roxana Kath took a different approach to the topic of Roman defeats.49 Starting from the consideration that the Romans derived their origins from the Trojans, Kath states that “the historical background of the Roman founding myth can certainly be described as traumatic”.50 This “founding trauma” had, in turn, led the Romans to always negate their defeats or to transform them into victories through “assertions of validity”.51 Apart from this rather freehand approach both to the Roman reception of the Trojan tradition52 and to the concept of cultural trauma,53 the thesis of a general negation of defeats cannot be upheld either. However, one can agree with the general assessment that in the Roman tradition several peace treaties, which the Romans actually had to conclude under unfavourable conditions after a defeat, were obviously concealed or the tradition was changed to the effect that it appeared that an agreement had been cancelled again immediately after the conclusion of the treaty.54 Kath’s further considerations, for example on the details of the tradition, are also worthy of consideration and will be taken up in the further course of this work.

 Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 207: “Dabei interessiert uns nicht der historische Hintergrund und der ‚wirkliche‘ Hergang des Geschehens; auch nicht die Frage, wie sehr Rom tatsächlich zerstört worden ist. Wir stellen einfach fest, daß das kollektive Gedächtnis der Römer eine Katastrophe in Erinnerung behalten hat und deshalb Wege finden mußte, sie in ihren Ursachen wie in ihren Konsequenzen zu verstehen und zu verarbeiten”. 49  Kath 2006. 50  Kath 2006, 173. 51  Kath 2006, 44, 49–55, 175 and passim. 52  This was far too complex to be reduced to such a simple conclusion. Above all, such a ‘trauma’ would have been downright contrary to the intention of the Roman adoption of the Troian genealogies from the Greek world. On this, see generally, among others, Förstemann 1894, 36–96; Galinsky 1969; Wiseman 1974/1987; Gruen 1992, 6–51; Hölkeskamp 1999/2004, esp. 203–210; Blösel 2003, 56; Walter 2006; and Pausch 2011, 24 f. It should also be noted that, at least until the end of the Republic, descent from the Troians was never without competition (see only the brief enumeration of various genealogies in Wiseman 1974/1987, 207–214). On the contrary, genuinely Roman or Italic derivations were preferred and the ancestral galleries of the magistrates always counted more than the genealogies borrowed from myth (Galinsky 1969, 164; Hölkeskamp 1999/2004, 212; Walter 2003, 256; 2006, 94 f., 97 f.). 53  For a not unjustified criticism of this concept, see Weilnböck 2007 and Weilnböck/Kansteiner 2008. 54  Perhaps the most famous example is the treaty that the Romans had to conclude with the Samnites in 321 after the defeat of Caudium. See on this (with further evidence) most recently Grossmann 2009, 72–80. 48

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From a different, more prosopographical perspective, Nathan Rosenstein has dealt with Roman defeats in a series of publications. In these works, Rosenstein is less interested in the explanation and interpretation of military failures in Roman memory culture, but rather in what consequences these events had for the careers of those commanders who were defeated on the battlefield (the imperatores victi).55 On the basis of a statistical analysis of the careers of “all” Roman magistrates, promagistrates, and legates who suffered defeat at the hands of foreign enemies between 390 and 49, survived this defeat, and returned to Rome without a subsequent victory,56 Rosenstein posits that defeats by and large had no negative effects on the subsequent career of the respective magistrate.57 Rosenstein’s thesis was not without opposition.58 Among other things, this was ignited by Rosenstein’s methodological approach. Criticism was levelled at the statistical basis, i.e., the compilation of the list of defeated commanders and the subsequent evaluation of the collected data.59 The criteria for success and failure established in Rosenstein’s work were also questioned.60 Furthermore, the insufficient embedding of the considerations in

 Rosenstein 1986; 1990a; 1990b. Rosenstein 1990c is a reply to the criticism of William Harris (Harris 1990). See Cheung 1998, who approvingly takes up Rosenstein’s approach and results and compares them with the political consequences of military defeats for commanders at the time of the early Principate. 56  Rosenstein 1990a, 179. 57  Rosenstein 1990a, 6, 18, 37, 46–48. 58  See esp. Harris 1990; Erskine 1992; Rich 1991; Tatum 1991; 1992; Hölkeskamp 1994; Bleicken 2004, 179. 59  Thus, it has been rightly noted that a complete list would be impossible to compile at all, if only in view of the sources (Erskine 1992, 239; Tatum 1991, 149; 1992, 639 et seq. See most recently also Waller 2011, 21; Rich 2012, 86–88. See also above Sect. 1.1). Even the clear distinction made by Rosenstein, who separates between heavy and light defeats, must often be very freehand given our often meagre information. The problems that the patchy material poses for Rosenstein’s evaluation can be illustrated, for example, by the fact that the praetorian fasti, as is well know, have been completely preserved at all only for the period from 218 to 167 – that is, “gerade einmal 50 Jahre aus einer untersuchten Zeitspanne von über drei Jahrhunderten und ein Abschnitt, der wegen der Kriege gegen Karthago in Italien, Spanien und Africa und dann im Osten wohl kaum als repräsentativ gelten kann” (thus the criticism by Hölkeskamp 1994, 335. See Erskine 1992, 239. The gaps in the praetorian fasti are already partly acknowledged by Rosenstein 1990a, 26). Moreover, Rosenstein presupposes for the entire period of the Republic already a great competition among the praetors with regard to their candidacy for the consulship, disregarding the fact that their number had only become large enough for this competition to develop by the end of the third century. On this question see Beck 2005a. 60  Thus, for example, it is quite questionable whether the office of censor was indeed, as Rosenstein assumes (Rosenstein 1990a, 13), consistently regarded as the highest office in the course of the Republic and thus can be seen as a yardstick for the success of the further career paths of the defeated generals (Tatum 1991, 150; Hölkeskamp 1994, 334). In addition, it must be considered that the censor was not assigned any military tasks, so that a proven track record as a general or the opposite of this must not have played a decisive role in the election to this office (Rich 1991, 404). Against this background, precisely those consuls whose year in office as consul had not resulted in a triumph may have sought the office of censor in order to crown their career with it, instead of the missed triumph (Tatum 1991, 150; Hölkeskamp 1994, 334 f.). 55

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the socio-cultural context of the Roman Republic61 and the lack of consideration of the fact that the literary sources used by Rosenstein represent texts that are permeated by “stereotypes, topoi and literary strategies of historiographical coping” were criticized.62 The great merit of Rosenstein’s work, however, is that he has succeeded in showing that defeat on the battlefield did not automatically end a general’s career as a senator or future magistrate. Defeated generals seem to have been treated more leniently by their peers and other fellow citizens in Rome than was customary in other ancient Mediterranean communities.63 A few years ago, the aspect of dealing with imperatores victi in the Roman Republic was again examined in a series of special studies presented by Martin Waller, John Rich and Jessica Clark.64 On the basis of a revision of Rosenstein’s statistical survey, Waller comes to the conclusion that defeats did not automatically mean the end of the careers of the generals involved. However, it cannot be assumed that there was a general equality of opportunity.65 According to Waller, the fact that defeated generals in Rome rarely had to answer for their actions in court, as emphasized by Rosenstein, can be explained by the fact that for the individuals concerned the poorer career prospects were already regarded as a sufficient ‘punishment’.66 Following Rosenstein’s findings and Waller’s revision, with which he agrees, John Rich has examined in an essay, among other things, the conditions under which an indictment of a defeated general could occur in Rome after all.67 For the period from the fourth to the second century, however, such cases were extremely rare and could be explained by the specific context in each case.68 Jessica Clark has recently taken up the topic of dealing with defeats in Rome in a monograph.69 She concentrates on the period from the beginning of the Second Punic War to the end of the second century. Clark is particularly interested in the reactions to defeats that the Romans

 Hölkeskamp 1994, 340 f. See already Harris 1990, 294.  Hölkeskamp 1994, 333 (citation). In fact, Rosenstein does not take into account Bruckmann’s work, though he does take into account the study by Will 1983a. 63  Erskine 1992, 239; Tatum 1992, 638 (“It will no longer be possible to explain a candidate’s failure merely by simplemindedly invoking a lackluster or even disastrous military career.”); Hölkeskamp 1994, 336: “Zwar ist die behauptete grundsätzliche und geradezu selbstverständliche Chancengleichheit der imperatores victi nicht überzeugend nachzuweisen  – […]. Umgekehrt macht die von R. präsentierte erhebliche Zahl individueller Fälle aber immerhin deutlich, daß eine Niederlage die Karriere des verantwortlichen Feldherrn als Senator und (potentiellem) Magistrat zumindest nicht automatisch beendete”. Agreeing on this point also Lundgreen 2011, 282 f., note 802; Waller 2011, 24; Rich 2012, 88; Schulz 2012, 194, 505; Walter 2017b, 373. 64  Waller 2011, Rich 2012, Clark 2014b. 65  Waller 2011, 24 f. 66  Waller 2011, 24 f. 67  Rich 2012. 68  Rich 2012, 102. 69  Clark 2014b. 61 62

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had shown during the respective wars, and here she places an emphasis on the treatment of the defeated commanders. One of the main theses of the work is that the Roman Senate had striven to gain and maintain interpretation over the narratives in which wars, with their victories and their defeats, were perceived in Rome. This was largely successful until about the middle of the second century. For the later period, however, changes could be detected. Among other things, Clark succeeds in showing that in the last third of the second century imperatores victi were prosecuted much more frequently on the basis of their defeat than had been the case two to three generations earlier.70 Clark sees the reason for this primarily in the fact that established representatives of the nobility then had increasing difficulties in bringing the campaigns in North Africa and the battles against the Cimbri and Teutons to a victorious end. This had led to discontent among the Roman population in general and the army in particular. One result, he argues, was ultimately the rising influence of individual commanders who were able to exploit the declining confidence of the population in the military abilities of the nobility.71 Clark succeeds above all in showing in detail that and how the treatment of defeated generals in Rome changed and by no means remained static for centuries. It is regrettable in this context that Clark concentrates only on a ‘long second century’ from 218 to 101 and thus almost completely excludes not only the late but also the early and large parts of the middle Republic.72 Clark also addresses the complex of the explanation and interpretation of defeats in Roman historical culture, for instance by rightly pointing out that in Roman historiography there is a tendency to always end the depiction of campaigns with a victory for the Romans – even if fighting still took place later in the corresponding area of operations.73 Ida Östenberg has recently examined aspects of cultural representations of defeats in Roman historical culture, especially in historiography, in two brief but substantial contributions, focusing in particular on some defeats of the middle Republic and the early Principate.74 A similar, but in terms of the form of treatment clearly different approach is represented by some recent studies that deal with the phenomena of ‘crises’ and how they were overcome in Roman culture, whereby military defeats can then also be considered from this perspective. Even though the

 Clark 2014b. See Walter 2017a, 146 (“Ende des 2. Jahrhunderts gab es sogar eine kleine Prozesswelle.”). 71  Clark 2014b, 172–207. 72  Sometimes, moreover, even greater caution would have been possible in the interpretation of the source material. This applies, for example, to the evaluation of the statistics on the awarding of triumphs in the wars on the Iberian Peninsula in the fourth chapter, which is based on a very fragmentary source material. Clark’s conclusion that defeats not only did not have to entail a disadvantage for the career prospects of the respective generals, as already noted by Rosenstein, but could even function as an advantage, is also based on a rather narrow statistical foundation. 73  See Clark 2014b, 94–133. 74  Östenberg 2014; 2018. 70

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approach to the topic is different here, and the studies in question have clearly different emphases, the results obtained here can certainly be linked to some of the approaches of the present work.75 A chronologically comprehensive work, in which explanations and interpretations of the military failures of the Republic in Roman historical culture would have been examined, is not yet available.76 Building on the previous contributions discussed here, such a comprehensive investigation of the handling of defeats in Rome forms the subject of the present work that aims to examine the history of the Roman Republic not once more along the lines of its successes, but by following its defeats.

 On this approach, see for instance Golden 2013, who (ibid., 11–22, 26–41) is particularly interested in dictatorship as a reaction to external military threats, which he discusses using, among others, the examples of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ and the Roman defeats at the hands of Hannibal’s army at the beginning of the Second Punic War. Toner 2013, 131–143 has subsumed defeats such as the Battle of Cannae under the phenomenon of crisis, placing them alongside natural disasters or epidemics, which distinguishes his approach from that adopted in this study. 76  See Meier/Stoll 2016, 2 (“Für die Epoche der Antike jedenfalls fehlen entsprechende umfassende Versuche der Bearbeitung des Themas ‚Niederlagen‘gänzlich.”); Stoll 2016, 93. Paul Chrystal’s compilation (Chrystal 2015) offers more of a chronological overview, aimed at a broader audience and offering no new insights into the topic. 75

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Methodological Preliminary Remarks

2.1  Collective Memory, Social Memory, Memory Cultures, Historical Cultures: Terms and Concepts In order to understand the place that defeats occupied in the thinking of the Romans during the Republic and the early imperial period, it is helpful to first ask how the memory of these events was transmitted in Roman culture.1 This question refers to a complex of research that have been dealing with the topics of memory culture(s), collective, cultural, communicative and/or social memories, historical cultures and places of remembrance for about three decades. The concepts mentioned differ in terms of their theoretical approach. Nevertheless, they can be grouped into a complex of research with similar interests and models of thought.2

 The term ‘culture’ is understood in a broad sense here, as most recently defined by Jan Assmann and Neville Morley, among others. See Morley 2004, 106 (“The phrase is intended to encompass all the different aspects of how the Greeks and Romans thought, and thought about their world: covering not just the highest products of their intelligence and creativity (the history of ideas, of science, of philosophy, and so forth) but the conceptions and assumptions that shaped the lives of the mass of the population, including such topics as religion and myth and the thought processes that underlie those conceptions.”). 2  Research overviews are provided by, among others, Oexle 1995, 16–29; Zelizer 1995, 215–218; Olick/Robbins 1998; Cornelißen 2003; Kansteiner 2004; comprehensively Erll 2005 and pointedly Beck/Wiemer 2009, 10–16 as well as Galinsky 2016, 1–17. An overview of relevant approaches is also provided by encyclopedias and handbooks on the topic. See, for instance: Pethes/Ruchatz 2001; Erll/Nünning/Young (eds.) 2008; Boyer/Wertsch (eds.) 2009 and Olick/Vinitzky-Seroussi/ Levy 2011. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Lentzsch, Roma Victa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0_2

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With regard to this research complex, there has been repeated talk of a “boom” or a scholarly “conjuncture”.3 Both may already have begun to subside, but this does not necessarily represent a disadvantage for a balanced assessment or a fruitful take­up of these considerations since it does not necessarily alter the fact that many, though not all of the ideas put forward as a result of this ‘boom’ offer considerable explanatory potential when dealing with present and past societies. As has been pointed out repeatedly, despite (or rather because of) the “explosive expansion of studies on memory”, no truly comprehensive “super-theory” has yet been formulated that can bring the various approaches and insights into a coherent model.4 In view of this, it will hardly come as a surprise that such a model will not be presented here either. Perhaps this would not even be desirable. After all, this very openness can also be understood as a possibility to establish numerous connections and to take a look at the manifold representations and manifestations of collective memories and cultures of memory, without theoretically blinkering this view.5 In this study, approaches of different theories and concepts on the topics of ‘memory’ and ‘recollection’ will be considered. In existing studies, some of these

 This is already the case with J. Assmann 62007, 11, who would like to explain this boom by three factors in particular: the digital revolution of the media (“and thus: of artificial memory”), a feeling of “post-culture” in which old traditions and ties exist only in the form of memory, and finally the fact that – at the time when Assmann wrote his study – the generation of “contemporary witnesses of the most serious crimes and catastrophes in the annals of human history […] is now beginning to die out”. Erll 2005, 2–4 also emphasizes this incision and change in the memory of the Holocaust and World War II and adds further “historical transformation processes” such as the end of the Cold War and the thus more clearly emerging diverse national and ethnic memories or the “increasing multi(memory)-culturality of Western societies”, which is a consequence of complex processes of decolonization and migration movements. The change in media technologies has also been stimulating for this field of research. Both the unimagined increase in the possibilities for storing knowledge about the past and the question of the effects of new (and ‘old’!) media on people’s ideas about the past have played an important role here. In addition, there is a “dimension of intellectual and scientific history”, since the topic of memory allows and requires entering into an interdisciplinary “dialogue”. The latter point is also emphasized by Walter 2004a, 25, with note 50, who, however, seems to be critical of the construct of “an all competent interdisciplinary supercultural science.” See also Olick/Robbins 1998, 107 f.; Beck/Wiemer 2009, 13. In addition to the “Holocaust problematic” (ibid.), both contributions refer to various scholarly and intellectual currents that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, for whose representatives the ideological critique and deconstruction of common narratives were or are central concerns, and which thus contributed to asking about the social construction of the past. See also Kühr 2006, 47; Galinsky 2016, 1 f. 4  Thus, for example, A.  Assmann 1999, 16; Echterhoff/Saar 2002, 14; Cornelißen 2003, 550. Kansteiner 2004, 121, 124 also points out that already “some of the key terms of memory research” (124) are hardly adequately defined. Erll 2005, 90 also notes the lack of a comprehensive model, but is optimistic about further developments. See also ibid., 95, where she notes that the “memory theory integrating all approaches has not yet been conceived.” See also Zelizer 1995, 218, 234 f.; Diefenbach 2007, 4. 5   See Kansteiner 2004, 124: “Dieses Arbeitsfeld gedeiht auf dem Boden konzeptioneller Unbestimmtheit, die auf einem Mangel theoretischer Präzision und einer heilsamen Dosis methodologischer Toleranz beruht.” See also the opinion of Ruchatz/Pethes 2001, 8, who have left the articles on ‘memory’ and ‘recollection’ respectively blank in their lexicon. See Erll 2005, 95, who agrees at least in part, and see also Galinsky 2016, 9 f. 3

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approaches have already proven to be particularly viable, and at the same time, some weaknesses have been pointed out. Some of these considerations will be presented in more detail in what follows, in order to work out previous guidelines and questions of research and thus also to formulate the objective of this book more precisely. But also some of the – partly justified – critiques of this research will be addressed. Subsequently, these considerations will systematically be transferred to the historical culture of the Roman Republic and the early imperial period. Hardly any study in the extensive field of humanities and cultural studies that deals with the phenomena of collective or social memory, even in the broadest sense, can do without a reference to the work of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs.6 In a certain sense, it is significant that Halbwachs’ theoretical concept was ultimately considered “insufficiently conceptually differentiated and consistent [...] to serve as the basis of a theoretical concept in cultural studies”.7 Yet this does not diminish the fact that his central ideas are still seen as a starting point for theoretical considerations and individual studies.8 Halbwachs’ probably most influential contribution to the debate on memory and remembrance is his concept of collective memory. He showed himself convinced that individual memories could arise only in social frames of reference (cadres sociaux).9 These frames, he argued, are constitutive for the general perception of external influences as a whole, since they provide thought patterns that shape perception and memory. The memory of the individual is thus collectively shaped. Furthermore, the memories and modes of perception of a group of individuals form, through interaction and communication in various forms, a common reference to the past and an intersection of shared knowledge about it. Both vary from group to group, from one social frame of reference to another. However, individuals generally belong to more than one social group, such  Three works by Halbwachs play an important role here: Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, 1925 La Topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte, 1941 (English translation of both works: On Collective Memory, 1992), La mémoire collective, 1950. On Halbwachs’s studies and their impact see, among others, Oexle 1995, 23 f.; Olick/Robbins 1998, 109–111; J. Assmann 62007, 34–48; Hutton 1993, 73–90; J.  Assmann 2002; Echterhoff/Saar 2002; Egger 2003; Kansteiner 2004, 120 f.; Erll 2005, 14–18; Beck/Wiemer 2009, 10–12; Hartmann 2010, 35–37 with note 21; Eckert 2016, 9–13; Galinsky 2016, 7–10. Early discussions of his work, for example, in Bloch 1925/2000; Bartlett 1932/1967, 294–296. 7  See Gedi/Elam 1996, 35, 37; J. Assmann 62007, 45 f.; Welzer 32,011, 13 or Jung 2006, 16 with note 11. However, it should be borne in mind that Maurice Halbwachs himself was unable to complete his work following his deportation to Buchenwald by the National Socialists in August 1944, where he subsequently died in March 1945; cf. also Hutton 1993, 74. 8  Niethammer 2005, 123: “Er hat uns als ein einsamer Innovator gelehrt, auf den sozialen Konstruktivismus nicht nur des kollektiven Gedächtnisses, sondern auch auf dessen Mitwirkung an der individuellen Erinnerung zu achten”. After “decades of complete silence” (Egger 2003, 219), these ideas experienced a renaissance in the course of the cultural studies turn to the thematic complex of memory and recollection, which was particularly triggered in the German-speaking world by the influential work of Aleida and Jan Assmann on cultural memory. On the reception of Halbwachs’ work, see also Hutton 1993, 74; Niethammer 2005, 105 f.; Beck/Wiemer 2009, 11–13. 9  Halbwachs 1950/1967, 26, 45 and passim; 1925/1985, 21 f., 121, 124, 195–201 and passim. See Burke 1991, 289; Oexle 1995, 23; A. Assmann 1999, 252–255; Echterhoff/Saar 2002, 25 f.; Erll 2005, 15 f. 6

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as a family, a religious community, a village community, an army unit, a state, etc.: therefore, they share more than on social frame of reference. Individually different is “the combination of group affiliations and resulting memory forms and contents”.10 Without explicitly stating this himself, Halbwachs ultimately deals with two different concepts of a collective memory.11 One is ‘collective memory’ as the organic memory of the individual, shaped by social frames of reference. The other relates to ‘collective memory’, aptly described by Astrid Erll as a shared “reference to the past” that is created within social groups and cultural communities “through interaction, communication, media and institutions”.12 The latter is not a superior entity, for it is ultimately only constituted in the individual memories of its participants and moreover becomes visible only through concrete acts of memory. For its part, however, it creates the preconditions for the memory of the individual. Both are therefore mutually dependent on each other.13 From all this follows – as one of Halbwachs’ most important results – that every memory of the past is not simply found “naturally”, but rather represents a social construction14 Since this construction takes place from the respective present, it is also subject to the conditions and needs within the respective social frames of reference in this present.15 It is evident that these considerations have a decisive bearing on the work of the historian in particular, for memories are ultimately “the elementary level of historical processing and thus the precondition for the emergence of all kinds of reflective sources.”16 Halbwachs was also concerned with the question of how collective memory could be constituted apart from the interaction between

 For instance Halbwachs 1950/1967, 31, 64–66; See Confino 1997, 1399; Kansteiner 2004, 127; Erll 2005, 16 (citation). See also Popitz 1961/2006, 67 f., who emphasizes that the “diversity of affiliations” is “by no means a specifically modern phenomenon” (as the “Zeitkritiker likes to claim for himself and his contemporaries”), but rather that it can be found in all cultures. See – in more detail – Popitz 1980/2006, 107–111. 11  As correctly observed by Bloch 1925/2000, 241 f. and Erll 2005, 14 f. 12  See Bartlett 1932/1967, 296: “memory in the group, and not [...] memory of the group”. See also Walter 2004a, 20 with note 39. 13  Halbwachs 1950/1967, 31, 35; Echterhoff/Saar 2002, 21. 14  Halbwachs 1925/1985, 57–68, 125–143, 390; 1950/1967, 45, 55 f. See e.g. J. Assmann 62007, 48 (“The past does not come naturally, it is a cultural creation.”); Ferrarotti 1990, 30–33; Hutton 1993, 78 f.; Keppler 2001, 137; Echterhoff/Saar 2002, 18; Echterhoff 2005; Welzer 32,011, 12 f., passim; Gehrke 2003, 64; Erll 2004, 4; Kansteiner 2004, 124. See also already the considerations of Bartlett 1932/1967, 294–300, with whom Halbwachs agrees on this point. Cf. also Heuß 1959, 19–23, who, without referring to Halbwachs, offers instructive considerations on “collective memory”. While these considerations may readily be accepted today, they are by no means self-evident: – see J. Assmann 1988, 9, who critiques biologistic attempts to conceptualize “collective memory as … hereditary”, for instance as a “racial memory”, “of which there was no lack at the turn of the century”. But cf. Klein 2000, 130, for the problematic view that the socially constructed nature of memory is a ‘truism’. 15  Halbwachs 1925/1985, 200 f., 368, 390 (in agreement with Bartlett 1932/1967, 295 f). 16  Walter 2004a, 24. See also Burke 1991, 291; Walter 2002 as well as Fried 2001; 2004; Rüsen 2008, 13; Singer 2010; for an earlier statement, cf. Heuß 1959, 14. 10

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individuals within a present, such as when it is mediated by objects and, especially, by places and landscapes.17 Nevertheless, many phenomena of collective memory that are described by Halbwachs are rather ephemeral and always at risk of being forgotten, since they are based on the everyday communication of individuals within social frames of reference.18 This forms one important point of departure in Aleida and Jan Assmann’s work on “cultural memory”, since they address the question of how the contents of collective memory can be permanently secured.19 In order to accentuate cultural memory more strongly, these two scholars first distinguish it from so-called “communicative memory”.20 This refers to knowledge of the past that arises through everyday communication between contemporaries. The consequence of this is that communicative memory can only ever relate to a changing time horizon, moving with the times, so to speak, and that its contents are therefore highly variable. Following on from the research of the ethnologist Jan Vansina, J. Assmann assumes a range of 80–100 years for this time horizon.21 The contents of cultural memory, on the other hand, comprise events of a more distant past.22 No less important than the distinction with regard to the time structure seems to be that with regard to the form or shape of the media of communication and the carriers, each of which is pointedly and exaggeratedly contrasted.23 According to this, communicative memory is characterized by a diffuse participatory structure in which, in principle, every individual is regarded as equally competent with regard to his or her knowledge of the past, even if Assmann does not deny that “some know more, others less” and that “the memory of the old [...] goes back further” “than that of the young”. What is decisive with regard to the bearers of communicative memory, however, is that there are “no specialists and experts of such informal tradition”.24 In contrast, cultural memory is fundamentally mediated by just such specialized bearers of tradition. This

 Especially in Halbwachs 1941/2003. On this dimension of Halbwachs’ work, see Galinsky 2016, 8 f. 18  Bloch 1925/2000, 247 and 249–251 therefore also sees an omission on Halbwachs’ part in the fact that he did not pay enough attention to the question of the transmission of collective memories and also did not take enough account of the change in the contents of collective memories, which is often unnoticed by the participants. So also Connerton 1989, 38 f. This criticism is not unjustified, but it should be mentioned that Halbwachs was well aware of these aspects. See, for example, Halbwachs 1925/1985, 368J. Assmann 62007, 36 sees here not simply an omission in Halbwachs’ thought, but rather a fruitful connecting point, namely that this theory was able to explain forgetting at the same time as it explains memory. 19  See especially J. Assmann 1988; 62007; A. Assmann 1999; J. Assmann 2000; 2008. 20  On communicative memory, see especially J. Assmann 62007, 50–56. 21  J. Assmann 62007, 48 f. See Vansina 1985, 23 f. Halbwachs also recognized that the period covered by collective memory was limited. How far back this horizon extends, however, varies from group to group: Halbwachs 1950/1967, 100. 22  J. Assmann 62007, 52. 23  See the table in J. Assmann 62007, 56. 24  Ibid, 53. 17

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difference is also reflected in the distinctions regarding the media and the respective form. While communicative memory is based on the living memory in the organic memories of its bearers and is conveyed through oral everyday communication, the media of cultural memory are incomparably more strongly formed and include, for example, “fixed objectivations” such as buildings, symbolic stagings or festivals and, above all, writing.25 In contrast to the informal form of communicative memory, which is always in a state of flux, the form of cultural memory is thus also more strongly fixed, endowed, and in part also integrated into forms of ceremonial communication.26 The functions of cultural memory also correspond to this stronger fixation in form, the strong binding to media, the mastery, use and decoding of which often requires a considerable amount of special knowledge, which only produces a group of experts in tradition. In Assmann’s model, these lie essentially in the foundation and transmission of a collective identity and the legitimation of the very group that ultimately also produces the specialists and experts in the maintenance of tradition.27 The contents of cultural memory are thus always subject to a more or less strong control by this knowledgeable elite.28 As commendable as the conception of these two areas of collective memory is for understanding the “connection between cultural memory, collective identity formation and political legitimation”, the scholarly discussion of Assmann’s concept has nevertheless revealed a number of gaps, limitations and also inconsistencies.29 First of all, there is the distinction with regard to time structure, which should determine the allocation of the contents of communicative and cultural memory. However, this can hardly be drawn based on the temporal distance to the remembered event alone. On the contrary it is possible for memories of recent events to be strongly shaped by how they are conveyed. Thus, their interpretation can, for example, be determined by a social elite with the result that the memory of recent events assumes a culturally foundational character while straddling the categories of

 Ibid, 56.  See ibid., 53 with the albeit cautious consideration: “Man könnte also die Polarität zwischen dem kommunikativen und kulturellen Gedächtnis der Polarität zwischen Alltag und Fest gleichsetzen und gerade von Alltags- und Festgedächtnis sprechen”. See on this already J. Assmann 1991, 17–20. 27  Ibid, 54 f. 28  Ibid, 55: “Der Polarität der kollektiven Erinnerung entspricht also in der Zeitdimension die Polarität zwischen Fest und Alltag, und in der Sozialdimension die Polarität zwischen einer wissenssoziologischen Elite, den Spezialisten des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, und der Allgemeinheit der Gruppe.” 29  See for example Erll 2005, 27, 112–122; Diefenbach 2007, 8–12. See also Walter 2004a, 24 f.; Beck/Wiemer 2009, 16; Behrwald 2009, 24 f.; Eckert 2016, 18–30. 25 26

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communicative and cultural memory.30 On closer examination, the other distinguishing features from Assmann’s scheme also do not seem suitable for clearly assigning a past event to the realm of communicative or cultural memory.31 After his initially pointed and unambiguous contrast, J. Assmann himself accordingly points out that the two forms of collective memory he describes are also rather modi memorandi, “two functions of memory and the past”.32 The decisive difference therefore also lies in the “mode” of memory, namely in whether an event is attributed to “biographical” or “foundational” memory.33 Assmann also sees that these two functions can often only be separated analytically.34 By concentrating primarily on cultural memory, however, the transitions between the access of communicative and that of cultural memory in the “reality of a historical culture” remain little illuminated, and the model, moreover, actually appears on the whole, as Diefenbach, for example,  Erll 2005, 115–117. The examples of such rapid transformation are numerous and by no means limited to modernity. Prominent cases include the French Revolution, the American Civil War, the memory of the Second World War in various cultures of remembrance, and the German reunification; or – to take an example from antiquity – the memory of various battles of the Persian Wars in the Greek poleis. On the latter, see Jung 2006, esp. 225–295 on the beginnings of the memory of Plataiai and 384: “The memory of the battles of Marathon and Plataiai began immediately after the events themselves. Intensive efforts already by contemporaries show that the events were to be interpreted and commemorated.” See Gehrke 1994, 248 f.; Jahn 2007, 12, note 71 and on Marathon also Hölkeskamp 2009b, 29–36, esp. 29, noting that the origin of a (political) “myth” or a “founding story” can apparently be “quite contemporary [...], even still within the horizon of ‘communicative memory’”. In this sense, see also Beck 2009, 62–64 on Plataiai. On the American Civil War, see Schivelbusch 2001, 52–121 and Osterhammel 2009, 27, who states with regard to the “historical memory” of the American Civil War in the USA: “As is always the case with historical memory, it is not merely a matter of a natural formation of identity, but also of an instrumentalization for the benefit of identifiable interests: Southern propagandists took great pains to cover up the fact that the Civil War was centrally about slavery and emancipation, and pushed the defense of ‘state rights’ to the fore. The opposing side rallied around the mythicization of Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War president assassinated in 1865.” Conversely, even very long ago or entirely fictional events can become part of communicative memory, for example, when “the Bible or the Odyssey are read and understood not as foundational texts” and not in awareness of their “religious, national, or cultural significance” but as representations of everyday life (Erll 2005, 118). See on this also Jahn 2007, 6 f. 31  See Erll 2005, 115. Keppler 2001, 157–159, for example, questions whether in modern societies a distinction between everyday and institutionalized extra-ordinary memory practice is (still) tenable, since, on the one hand, everyday communication is strongly influenced by mass media, and, on the other hand, “medial events” can only become such if “they encounter a corresponding communicative resonance in  local memory practice” (158). For “die frühen Hochkulturen” (ibid.), however, Keppler still considers the division plausible. The examples, which have been treated in more detail in various works on pre-modern periods as well, and certainly also on antiquity (See the preceding note), suggest, however, that such a strict division is doubtful not only for modern societies of the twentieth century. 32  J. Assmann 62007, 51 f. 33  J. Assmann 62007. 34  He therefore proposes (J. Assmann 62007, 55) to distinguish between societies in which “cultural memory is sharply set off against communicative memory, so that one could virtually speak of a ‘biculturalism’”, and those in which the relationship between these two types of memory could be “better described in the image of extreme poles on a scale”. 30

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notes, “essentially static in design and little suited to taking into account historical change and the potential for change in group-related memory”.35 Another point of criticism focuses on the identity-forming and legitimating function of cultural memory.36 In this context, it is important to note that Assmann developed the concept of a cultural memory against the background of the memory cultures of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Israel. In these societies, conditions may indeed have prevailed that favoured the formation of a rather more unified cultural memory that could then serve as the basis of a collective identity.37 Although Assmann himself also uses ‘ancient Greece’ as a case study and suggests that the concept of cultural memory can be applied to a large number of pre-modern as well as modern societies, it cannot be denied that this concept in the narrower sense can only be applied to the Greek culture(s) of memory to a very limited extent. For a cultural memory in the form of a canonically standardized knowledge of the past that is binding for all Greek communities can hardly be expected here – the Greek world appears too heterogeneous (also) in this respect.38 Despite a greater political unity, these limitations also apply to Roman memory culture, both that of the Republic and that of the imperial period. The culture of remembrance of the Roman Republic, for example, appears too heterogeneous and in part contradictory, which, despite the rather sparse source material compared to the situation for modern epochs, often still reveals the strong competitive situation within the nobility on which it was based.39 Aleida and Jan Assmann have also taken these vaguenesses and weaknesses into account, so that they have modified the concept in various places. An essential

 Diefenbach 2007, 9. See Modrow 2017, 47 f.  See also for the following, among others – and with further references – Walter 2004a, 24–26; Diefenbach 2007, 9–12. 37  See Walter 2004a, 25; Diefenbach 2007, 10. 38  J. Assmann 62007, 160. See Walter 2001, 245; 2004a, 25; Jung 2006, 18 f.; Diefenbach 2007, 10; Kühr 2006, 49 f. (with note 40: “Gerade für die polyzentrale griechische Poliswelt gilt, daß das kulturelle Gedächtnis nicht als kanonisch normiertes, alle Griechen jederzeit bindendes Vergangenheitswissen zu verstehen ist.”). See also Gehrke 2004, 471 f., 479; Beck 2009, 78; Beck/ Wiemer 2009, 16; Hartmann 2010, 27 f.; Hölkeskamp/Stein-Hölkeskamp 2011, 42 f. 39  Previous research on the culture of memory and history in the Roman Republic – but also in the imperial period – has clearly and convincingly elaborated its heterogeneity, conditioned, among other things, by the ongoing competition among the noble gentes. See, for example, Walter 2001, 249–260; 2002, 329; 2004a (comprehensive and fundamental); Gowing 2005; Gallia 2012 (the latter both on the memory of the Republic in the early imperial period); See also Hölkeskamp 2004, 66 = 2010, 66 f.; Walter 2006, 98 (“anarchic historical culture of the Roman Republic”). This competition, which shaped the historical tradition and probably also the collective memory, can be clearly seen in the pompa funebris, which gave the relatives of the deceased, among other things, the opportunity to emphasize the merits and importance not only of the deceased, but also of their own family within the nobility. The locus classicus is Pol. 6,53,1–54,3. See, among others, Flaig 1995; Flower 1996, 91–127; Walter 2002, 331–334; 2004a, 89–108; Blösel 2003; Biesinger 2016, 31–40. See for detailed references below Sect. 2.2. 35 36

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extension is the distinction between Funktionsgedächtnis and Speichergedächtnis.40 The former is to be understood as the “inhabited memory” in a society, which is characterized by “group reference, selectivity, value commitment and future orientation” and is used for functions of legitimation, delegitimation or distinction in a particular present.41 This use is always preceded by a “process of selection, of linkage, of the constitution of meaning”. In memory, on the other hand, such knowledge stocks are “stored”, for example in archives, libraries or museums, which are not currently part of functional memory, to a certain extent a “repertoire of missed opportunities, alternative options and unused chances”.42 The Speichergedächtnis forms a possible corrective to the currently used stock of the Funktionsgedächtnis and thus also explains the possibilities of change in cultural memory.43 The prerequisite for such a stock of alternative traditions is writing, since now, only in cultural memory, stocks of knowledge can be accumulated that soon exceed the “horizon of directly used past knowledge”, so that whole libraries are formed around normative texts, the contents of which have “lost all reference to a collective identity, however broadly conceived”, “and thus possess neither horizon nor conciseness”.44 At the same time, cultural memory itself is “complex, pluralistic, labyrinthine” and encompasses “a multitude of binding memories and we-identities that differ in time and space” and derives “its dynamics from these tensions and contradictions”.45 Through these extensions, the concept of cultural memory now appears less static and better suited to explain change in the content and interpretation of collective memories, i.e., a diachronic plurality.46 These modifications also imply that cultural memory, when Funktionsgedächtnis and Speichergedächtnis now coincide in it, is greatly expanded in terms of its subject areas. However, it is precisely these expansions that make the original concept appear – as before – vague, and the function originally attributed to ‘cultural memory’ as a whole, namely the foundation of a binding, almost canon-like, collective identity, is undoubtedly relativized.47 However functional memory and memory relate to each other, they both form a shaped access to the past, which always presupposes acts of reconstruction that start from the respective present.48 The question of “the interfaces and the transitions” between communicative and cultural memory, which Diefenbach rightly calls for, is

 A. Assmann 1999, 130–142; J. Assmann 2000, 38 f. Although this distinction is already hinted at in J. Assmann 1988, 13, the thoughts underlying it are not yet further elaborated there. 41  A. Assmann 1999, 134, 138 f. 42  A. Assmann 1999, 137. 43  A. Assmann 1999, 140 f. 44  A. Assmann 1999, 137; J. Assmann 2000, 43 (quotation). 45  A. Assmann 1999. 46  Erll 2005, 32 and esp. 119–121. 47  See the critique by Walter 2004a, 25 with note 54; Behrwald 2009, 24, who notes that because as a result of these modifications “the proprium of the draft originally presented under the term ‘cultural memory’, precisely its canonical bindingness, has been disposed of”. 48  See Erll 2005, 32 f. 40

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admittedly hardly illuminated by these extensions.49And also the competition and coexistence of different synchronous cultural memories remains little considered, which seems unsatisfactory not only with regard to the memory culture(s) of the Roman Republic.50 Against the background of these considerations, the ideas of Peter Burke, Chris Wickham and James Fentress on “social memory” and of Jörn Rüsen on “historical culture” as a whole seem more appropriate for analysing and describing the memory culture of the Roman Republic or the imperial period as well.51 Burke, too, takes up Halbwachs’ insights and emphasizes as an important starting point that the ideas about the past that an individual develops are always shaped by “categories and schemata” influenced by social groups.52 These schemata, to which Frederick Bartlett and Aby Warburg have already  – and independently  – drawn attention, shape individual perceptions of the present and ideas about the past.53 They put them into a form and thereby combine them into a narrative that corresponds to the expectations provided by the respective schema in the first place. Thus, it finds its confirmation and is recognized as accurate, which promotes its further dissemination and transmission. Historians can often identify these patterns or schemata if the source situation is favourable, but in individual cases it is often not possible to determine the extent to which this imprint was even consciously recognised by the person remembering or his listeners or readers. These schemata are at work, for example, when fragmentary accounts of grandfather’s war experiences are transformed into a coherent story, when veterans recount episodes from the war under the obvious influence of reports from past wars, historical novels or films, or when formative encounters in one’s own biography are recounted according to literary

 Diefenbach 2007, 9. See also Jung 2006, 19 with note 21; Eckert 2016, 29.  Nor is the significance of quite different forms and expressions within cultures of remembrance, such as ritual, material or monumental, really taken into account comprehensively. See Erll 2005, 113 f.; Diefenbach 2007, 8. 51  Burke 1991; Wickham/Fentress 1992; Rüsen 1994; 2008. See on the preference for these more open concepts, among others, Walter 2004a, 19–24; Kühr 2006, 49, note 40 and Behrwald 2009, 25. See also the approving remarks of Wolfgang Blösel in his review of Walter’s study (review of Walter 2004a, in: sehepunkte 5 (2005), no. 11 [15.11.2005]; http://www.sehepunkte. de/2005/11/7422.html. Last viewed on 06.09.2016). 52  Burke 1991, 290 f. 53  Burke 1991, 291, 294 f.; Bartlett 1932/1967, 197–214, 293–300, esp. 296; Warburg 1932. See on this also Harald Welzer’s reflections on cultural frames and schemata, who is able to make the existence and effect of such schemata plausible, among other things, through the results of his work in eyewitness interviews on the thematic complex of National Socialism, the Holocaust and the Second World War: Welzer 32011, 152–206. See also Singer 2010, 332 f., 338 f. and the reflections of Bloch 1921/2000 on the emergence of “falsehoods” in war. Incidentally, J. Assmann 1988, 16, note 1 draws attention to the fact that Warburg apparently had knowledge of Halbwachs’ work, even if it must remain open to what extent he received it. 49 50

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models.54 In many cases, these seem to be rather unconscious adoptions of such schemes, so that even suspicions of a ‘falsification’ of the past with a conscious intention can sometimes lead to the wrong track.55 Burke rightly emphasises that these schemas are not only passed on through oral traditions, but are reflected in a wide range of media, each of which affects individuals and their surrounding groups in different ways. As examples, he mentions such diverse media as oral traditions, “conventional historical documents”, images in the broadest sense, collective commemorative rituals, but also “geographical and social spaces”.56 Even if one accepts a probably often unconscious adoption of interpretations and interpretations shaped by cultural schemata and their continued transmission in various media – and there is indeed something to be said for this – it would again certainly be “politically naïve” to exclude an intentional use of historical memories. For instance this could take the form of a forgery, the creation of political hero figures or similar.57 Thus, social memory is shaped by the interplay and interaction of different media, a complex interplay of intentional use of historical memory, unconscious adoption of socio-culturally mediated schemata and other approaches to the past,  See the examples in Welzer 32011, 172–206; Burke 1991, 294 f.; Bloch 1921/2000, 202–205 with reflections on the emergence and consolidation of “false reports” and “legends” among German soldiers in the First World War, where the influence of culturally mediated schemata is also evident, even though Bloch does not use this term. See also already Whatley 1964, 121, 130. 55  See on this, among others, Fried 2001, 573–577; 2004, 46–56, 153–155, passim; Walter 2002, 326 f. with note 4: “Wenn also ein antiker oder mittelalterlicher Geschichtsschreiber Gehörtes und Gelesenes mit eigenen Erklärungen und Akzentuierungen zu einem neuen, für ihn selbst orientierenden Text verschmolz, so ist dieser Vorgang mit Begriffen wie ‚Unselbstständigkeit‘, ‚Tendenz‘ oder gar ‚Fälschung‘ nicht angemessen zu beschreiben”. In a similar context, Kühr 2006, 28–30 argues for not interpreting the transmission of historical images in (founding) myths primarily as a conscious legitimization strategy, but sees its effect precisely in the fact that contents and interpretations of the past are precisely “often passed on unconsciously or without reflection” (29). In agreement with this also Sommer 2013, 9, note 6. See Reinhardt 1996, 98 f.; Walter 2004a, 20; Echterhoff 2005, 260 f.; Siegel 2006, 36, 42; Singer 2010, 331 and already Bloch 1914/2000, esp. 25 and 28 and 1921/2000. See further also Kansteiner 2004, 127 f. 56  Burke 1991, 292–295. 57  So also Burke 1991, 296–299; Zelizer 1995, 226–230. For some examples, see Gehrke 1994, 255–260 and cf. Olick/Robbins 1998, 117 f. Cf. also Fried 2004, 49–56, who proposes a distinction between “primary” (conditions of memories) and “secondary” (“will, discourse context, any adaptation to a public sphere”, 54) deforming factors of memory, whereby with this only the “temporal sequence of their effectiveness” and “no valence of the factors in question” should be established. The boundaries between “primary” and “secondary factors” are “admittedly fluid” (54). If one assumes the efficacy of cultural schemata in processes of perception and memory, then it would indeed have to be assumed that Fried’s “primary” factors, too, have already been preformed by “secondary” forces of deformation-precisely because an individual has already internalized a certain interest, discourse, etc., in such a way that the individual’s “primary” factors have already been preformed by “secondary” forces of deformation. Fried notes that when he places “die konditionierenden, von Handlungserwartungen gelenkten, unbewußten Wissensvorgaben einer jeden Wahrnehmung” (50) among the conditions to which memories are subject. The transitions are thus not only fluid, but both types of factors condition and influence each other, “both forces of deformation have a reciprocal effect on each other” (334). 54

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characterized by numerous overtones.58 From these considerations it is already obvious to think “in pluralistic terms about the use of memories in different social groups”, or – more clearly – to assume competing, in part fundamentally different positions and interpretati.59 In this sense, the term ‘social memory’ is probably also preferable to that of a ‘collective memory’, since the latter “strictly speaking can at least suggest a holistic implication” that seems to exclude particular or group memories.60 The considerations on ‘social memory’ accord with the concept of “historical culture” which was introduced into academic discourse by Jörn Rüsen. Rüsen understands this to mean, in the first instance, the “articulation of historical consciousness (Geschichtsbewusstsein)” in a certain group whereby those “dimensions and areas of human mentality that do not merge into the goal-directedness and reflexivity of consciousness”  – an “individual and collective historical unconscious”, so to speak  – should not be ignored.61 The term “historical culture” thus ultimately encompasses the entire range of historical memories in a society, both conscious and unconscious, emotionally or cognitively motivated, which enable individuals

 See Olick/Robbins 1998, 112: “In this review, we refer to ‘social memory studies’ as a general rubric for inquiry into the varieties of forms through which we are shaped by the past, conscious and unconscious, public and private, material and communicative, consensual and challenged”. 59  Burke 1991, 298 (quotation). 60  It should be mentioned, however, that Halbwachs precisely emphasized these different group memories through his references to the different social frames of reference in his theory of a ‘collective memory’, so that he was quite aware of the heterogeneity of collective memories despite the, possibly unintentionally, suggestive naming of the phenomenon he described. This becomes visible, among other things, in the often quoted “Walk through London”, in which Halbwachs emphasizes precisely the shares of different frames of reference in the memory of the individual (Halbwachs 1950/1967). See on this point Echterhoff 2005, 252 f. (“Thus individual memories can be shaped by the most diverse social frames, depending on the currently relevant or salient group affiliation. However, the degree to which potentially different social references also influence memories also depends on the mental, especially cognitive, states and operations of the respective individuals.”) See also Eckert 2016, 13. On the problem of a possible misunderstanding of the term: Walter 2004a, 20: “‘Geschichtskultur’ encompasses the synchronic and diachronic social memory of a collective. In the sense of ‘group-related’, the attribute ‘social’ is more appropriate here than the attribute ‘collective’, which is predominantly used in the literature, because strictly speaking a holistic implication lies in the latter and the possibility of segmentary or competing group memories – something of the plebs or the popular respectively – is excluded”. In this sense, already Zelizer 1995, 230–232. See also Confino 1997, 1399–1402; Hartmann 2010, 27 f. (“Ein monolithisches kollektives Gedächtnis und strikte Uniformität der Erinnerungspraxis gab und gibt es nicht, und dergleichen kann deshalb auch durch eine noch so umfassende Quellenerhebung nicht nachgewiesen werden”, 27). However, see also Beck/Wiemer 2009, 16 f., who do not want to attach too much weight to the differences in terminology, since fundamental agreement exists among historians about the essential characteristics of collective memories – “group-related” and “subject to a cultural imprint” (17) – regardless of the exact terminology. 61  Rüsen 1994, 5 and 11; (updated:) 2008, 235 f. 58

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and collectives to attain “temporal orientation of life practice”.62 Through this open approach, it may be possible to integrate into the analysis precisely those “modes of memory” that received less attention in the original concept of an Assmannian “cultural memory”, such as “learned curiosity or the need for edification”.63 In Rüsen’s model specific cultural patterns (compare Burke’s “schemata”) shape the manifestations of historical memories and the medial forms of their transmission and reproduction.64 It is precisely these patterns and, somewhat more generally, the frameworks of “what is fundamentally possible or conceivable within a specific cultural system or society” that can also be reconstructed off a source base that, unfortunately, tends not to be very rich.65 The cultural imprint of such patterns points to the importance of various media for any form of historical culture or social memory.66 At the same time, the media of past societies are our only sources also for the reconstruction of a specific historical culture or for the reconstruction of what is “fundamentally possible or thinkable

 Rüsen, 1994, 11. “Historical memory” is understood by Rüsen as a “mental process of self-reference, of the remembering subjects in the form of a visualization of their past”, which “goes back beyond the limits of one’s own lifetime into the past” and thus also designs a future perspective for one’s own life situation, which in turn “points beyond the limits of one’s own lifetime” (Ibid., 7). Modes as diverse as “functions of instruction, entertainment, legitimation, criticism, distraction, enlightenment, and other modes of memory play into the overarching unity of historical memory” (Ibid., 4). 63  See Walter 2004a, 22, who emphasizes that “historical consciousness in Rome was certainly an essential part of political culture”, but was not absorbed into it, “but [...] could also serve learned curiosity or the need for edification”. See also Confino 1997, 1393–1395, esp. 1395: “We miss a whole world of human activities that cannot be immediately recognized (and categorized) as political, although they are decisive to the way people construct and contest images of the past. We can think of the family, voluntary association and workplace but should also include practices such as tourism and consumerism”. 64  Rüsen, 2008, 241. 65  See Gowing 2005, 9; Hartmann 2010, 28: “Against this background, the only thing that is possible is the identification of a framework of what is fundamentally possible or conceivable within a specific cultural system or society. This designates a legitimate object of knowledge, so that the impossibility of a complete presentation of material need not necessarily lead to a retreat to isolated individual studies”. 66  See, among others, Burke 1991, 292; Zelizer 1995, 232–234; Hölkeskamp 1996/2004, 170; 2001/2004, 163–165; 2012b, 406 f.; Sonne 1999, 535; Esposito 2002, 9 f.; Gehrke 2003, 68; Erll 2004, 4 f. and passim; Kühr 2006, 29, 49 f.; Walter 2001; 2004a, 21 f.; Kansteiner 2004, 128–132; J. Assmann 62007, 139. The influence of the media in the broadest sense on even the most personal memories is overlooked by Gedi/Elam 1996, 46, who explain that Holocaust survivors, for example, often concealed their experiences for a long time for understandable reasons, but nevertheless had “their own memories” of these events. However, there is nothing to contradict the assumption that the perception of these experiences was already shaped by cultural schemata, and that it is very likely that the later memory of these events was also subject to media influences. Such influences have been demonstrated especially in connection with contemporary witnesses of the Second World War. Since such schemata and influences cannot be provided by the individual himself, it is evident that even in the case of the most personal memories, which people do not communicate in conversation over a long period of time, social factors influence the form and content of those memories. 62

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within a specific cultural system or society”.67 Given this importance, it cannot be surprising that there is no lack of attempts to categorize these media.68 For all the differences in terms of the respective characteristics of different media, it is nevertheless necessary to conceive of them collectively as “facets of a single phenomenon of cultural appropriation of the world and self-reproduction.” Thus, in the case of the historical culture of the Roman Republic that is of particular interest here, for example, “education and antiquarian research, social rituals and artistically designed texts, images and objects”, rhetorical-political power struggle and “imperial self-­ representation” – as well as others – have to be seen as components of a ‘web’ in which the individual elements both refer to each other and sometimes also mutually condition each other.69 The relevance of different media for Roman historical culture will be the subject of the next chapter. At this point, however, it should already be pointed out that the respective media do not leave the contents they transmit untouched in different ways, i.e. they by no means function only as carriers of “unchanging ‘messages’”.70 Thus, any specifications and ‘laws’ of a particular medium sometimes condition the contents and interpretations or change them to a considerable extent. In order to grasp such processes more precisely, it is necessary, therefore, to reconstruct and network “the genre development of the most important memory media and their specific grammar, as well as the possibilities and circumstances of their reception, over the course of which those remains and interpretive needs first became ‘history’, as concretely as possible”.71  Hartmann 2010, 28 (quotation).  Burke 1991, 292–294 names oral tradition, conventional historical documents, “painted or photographic, still or moving images”, collective commemorative rituals, and geographical and social spaces. Gehrke 2003, 68 f. distinguishes “oral transmission,” “ritual repetition,” and various forms of “reification” through monumentalization, pictorial representation, or writing. See also the differentiated compilation in Dally/Hölscher/Muth/Schneider 2014, 10–30 (See also the other contributions in Dally/Hölscher/Muth/Schneider 2014 (eds.)). 69  Siehe etwa Walter 2004a, 22 (Zitat) und vgl. u. a. Wickham/Fentress 1992, 47 (“Wie im Falle des individuellen Gedächtnisses sind die im sozialen Gedächtnis gespeicherten Bilder also zusammengesetzt: Sie setzen sich aus einer Mischung von bildhaften Bildern und Szenen, Slogans, Witzen und Versfetzen, Abstraktionen, Handlungstypen und Diskursabschnitten und sogar falschen Etymologien zusammen.”); Irwin-Zarecka 1994, xi; Beck 2003, 75  f., 89  f.; Erll 2004, 11; Kansteiner 2004, 128; Gowing 2005, 9–14 sowie Pausch 2011, 18–24. Siehe außerdem, jeweils mit weiteren Hinweisen, die Fallstudien für ein solches Geflecht bei Hölkeskamp 2001/2004, bes. 139, 163–165; 2006a, 481, 485–487; 2012, bes. 386 f., 394 f. und 406 f.; 2014a, 69 f. 70  Burke 1991, 292; Walter 2001, 256 f. and passim; 2003, 256; 2004a, 22, 32 and passim; Erll 2004, 5 (“Media are not neutral carriers of prior memory-relevant information. What they seem to encode – existing versions of reality and the past, values and norms, identity concepts – they often constitute in the first place.”); 2005, 123–125; Kansteiner 2004, 132; Münker 2008, 328–330. The conception of a distinction between “functional” and “storage memory” also points to this characteristic of the media, since it is only “now, in the medium of writing, that memory stocks quickly burst the horizon of directly used past knowledge” (J. Assmann 2000, 43).On the importance and peculiarities of writing as a storage medium, see also Timpe 1988, 273  f.; 2003, 288. See also Esposito 2002, 34–36; Dally/Hölscher/Muth/Schneider 2014, 6. 71  Walter 2004a, 32. See Hölkeskamp, 2012b, esp. 406 f.; Dally/Hölscher/Muth/Schneider 2014, 3. 67 68

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Before outlining the historical cultures of the Roman Republic and the early imperial period, several objections that have been raised against some of the concepts and models presented will be addressed. This seems to make sense, on the one hand, in order to prevent possible misunderstandings, and, on the other hand, because at least some of the considerations mentioned have by no means met with undivided approval, but rather have provoked partly decisive opposition.72 For example, a too unbiased transfer of individual psychological terms to collectives and the use of “anthropomorphic formulations” in relation to groups, media and memory itself provoked criticism.73 “Anthropomorphic formulations” for groups or objects are also entrenched in everyday language usage without necessarily being misunderstood. However, when dealing with social or collective Erinnerungen or Gedächtnissen, there is definitely a danger of a simplistically transferring individual psychological terms to cultural formations. Therefore, cautioning against this is justified, since findings about the functioning of the human brain cannot be used to “draw conclusions about the functioning of society” without further consideration.74 The difficulties that have arisen in this respect have been particularly evident with regard to the adaptation of psychoanalytic concepts – of particular note here is the metaphor of cultural trauma, which has indeed “produced more misunderstandings than it has opened up insights into memory-cultural processes”.75 However, this does not change the fact that the socio-cultural – or rather collective – conditions for the individual’s memory cannot be disputed. Moreover, it is indeed impossible to negotiate memory

 Although he welcomed Halbwachs’ work on the whole, Bloch also expressed criticism as early as 1925/2000. See Erll 2005, 14, esp. 95–99. Partly thought-provoking objections against some inappropriate use of the concept of memory, with constructive-critical suggestions, are offered by Confino 1997 and Klein 2000. 73  Thus already Bloch 1925/2000, 246 (quotation). See also Wickham/Fentress 1992, 25; Klein 2000, 132, 136 (“The new ‘materialization’ of memory thus grounds the elevation of memory to the status of a historical agent, and we enter a new age in which archives remember and statues forget.”) and See Confino 1997, 1397 and Kansteiner 2004, 125: “Da die Grenze zwischen Individuum und Kollektiv oft ohne entsprechende methodologische Angleichung überschritten wird, lesen wir dann, dass Kollektive sich erinnern, vergessen und die Vergangenheit verdrängen, ohne dass wir gewahr werden, dass eine solche Sprache bestenfalls metaphorisch und schlimmstenfalls irreführend ist.” See also Erll 2005, 98 f., who urges the “important distinction [...] between productive and misleading metaphors” (98). Reinhardt 1996 undertakes a succinct but thoroughly nuanced defense of conceptual transference. 74  Esposito 2002, 18. 75  Erll 2005, 99 (citation). See also Kansteiner 2004, 120, 125 f. as well as Weilnböck 2007 and Weilnböck/Kansteiner 2008, who question the concept of cultural trauma with good arguments. Morley 2004, 109–114, is also critical of the adoption of psychoanalytic approaches to the study of ancient sources. See also Hoffmann 2000, 6, and Eckert 2016, 23 f., who considers a methodologically controlled model of “cultural trauma” (24) to be a fruitful starting point for research. With regard to an alleged collective trauma of the Romans after the defeat of Cannae, see most recently the clarifying remarks in Modrow 2017, 98–111. 72

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without the use of metaphors.76 But do we need the metaphor of memory at all in order to analyse the phenomena it describes, or are more orthodox concepts such as ‘tradition’, ‘knowledge appropriation’ or ‘myth’ in fact sufficient?77 Against this it should be hold in mind that the memory metaphor as a collective term, like the related concept of historical culture, is suitable to “grasping distinct phenomena in their functional context” and analyzing them.78 While the risk of blurring the differences between various cultural phenomena cannot be dismissed out of hand, the emotional dimension in the appropriation of the past, are easily lost from view if the various phenomena are reduced to learning, reception or the cultivation of customs.79 Here, the assumption of a social memory or a culture of history can certainly reveal further facets, without claiming to make the previously established concepts and research obsolete.80 The study of a historical culture or embodiments of a social memory, moreover, should not be misunderstood as denying the historicity of events of the past.81 However, precisely by emphasizing this historicity, it makes perfect sense to consider the emergence and transmission of memories, which ultimately form the basis for the sources that are still available to us from the world of Roman antiquity.82

 Weinrich 1976, 294; Gedi/Elam 1996, 35; A.  Assmann 1999; J.  Assmann 2000, 20; Walter 2004a, 20, note 39; Erll 2005, 96. In a consideration of the history of memory metaphors themselves, such as that undertaken by A. Assmann 1999, it becomes clear that the metaphors used indeed “enable and constitute their object and do not merely illustrate existing knowledge” (Pethes, in Pethes/Ruchatz 2001, 196, s. v. Gedächtnismetapher). See further Timpe 2003, 287, note 1. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that even such metaphors, long established in historical scholarship, are themselves also inherent with considerable suggestive-misleading potential. Most prominent among historians in this context is the notion of ‘source’, about which, for instance, Bloch 1914/1925, 19 is not happy. See also Morley 2004, 3. 77  For example, Cancik/Mohr 1990, 300 f., 308–311; Gedi/Elam 1996, 47: “Collective memory is but a misleading new term for the old familiar ‘myth’ which can be identified, in its turn, with ‘collective’ or ‘social’ stereotypes”. They obviously overlook, on the one hand, how indeterminate and varied the concept of myth itself is (see, for instance, with further references, Kühr 2006, 15–19; Hölkeskamp 2009b, 9–16; Sommer 2013, 6–12), and, on the other hand, that while the phenomena described under ‘myth’ resemble those described by memory metaphors, they are by no means the same thing. Myths (political and otherwise) are parts of the ‘web’ of a social memory or historical culture, but stand alongside other elements which, for all the openness of the term, would certainly not be adequately described as myth. See also Weinrich 1976, who notes that the various memory metaphors are by no means mere “ornaments of speech” (291), but rather have “the value of (hypothetical) models of thought” (294), which help to “ask questions”. 78  Erll 2005, 98. 79  Walter 2004a, 20 f. with notes 39 and 40. 80  See, among others, Walter 2002, 326; Fried 2004, 49–56; Hölkeskamp/Stein-Hölkeskamp 2011, 40 (who therefore also state a “supplementation and expansion of structural and social history” in the history of ideas and culture). See also generally Hölkeskamp 2017, 460 on ‘turns’ in cultural studies, which offer the potential to broaden perspectives, but are not “fundamentally new discoveries, inventions or revolutionary ‘paradigm shifts’”. 81  Walter 2002; 2004a, 19 with note 36. see also Pausch 2011, 8; Itgenshorst 2005, 41. 82  Fried 2004, 46–49; See Walter 2004a, 19 (“all sources of factual events are coagulated memories, which is why it is legitimate to explore their modes and possibilities in advance”). 76

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Even if in many cases uncertainty must remain with regard to details, dates and figures, the fundamental historicity of the defeats that will be the focus of this work will, as a rule, hardly be disputed. To reconstruct how some of the greatest military defeats suffered by the Romans at the time of the Republic were now reflected in this web of different memory media, with their respective different (genre) traditions, and other characteristics, as well as different modes of historical memory, is the aim of this book. It is obvious that no complete picture can (any longer) be drawn here. The loss of sources is generally too great, and the views and historical ideas of the Roman lower classes, who have left relatively few traces in the sources, are hardly comprehensible to us today. However, as Andreas Hartmann has rightly pointed out, it is possible to ask about what is possible and conceivable – in the present work in relation to the defeats of Roman armies on the battlefield.83 In order to delineate these frameworks somewhat more precisely in advance, the next step is to outline the Roman historical cultures of the period of the Republic and the early imperial period. The focus here is on the question of the media that carried historical memory and how military defeats in general could be represented.

2.2  Roman Historical Cultures: Republic and Early Imperial Period For some time now, ancient Rome can no longer be considered an unoccupied field with regard to research on its historical culture and representations of a collective memory.84 The following pages will outline some important features and peculiarities as well as various areas of the heterogeneous and diversely mediated historical culture of the Roman Republic and the early imperial period. Encyclopaedic completeness is not intended.85 Rather, it is intended to outline the significance that the various media had for the representation, interpretation and transmission of defeats in Roman historical culture, without wanting to anticipate the results of the individual investigations.

 See Hartmann 2010, 28.  Without claiming to be bibliographically exhaustive: Flaig 1995; 1999; 2003; Hölkeskamp 1996/2004; 2001/2004; 2006a; 2006 (2007); 2014a; Späth 1998; 2001; Ungern-Sternberg 2000; Mutschler 2000; Beck 2003; 2005c; Blösel 2003; Pina Polo 2004; Walter 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004a; Flower 2003; 2006; Gowing 2005; Bücher 2006; Kath 2006; Diefenbach 2007; Rodríguez Mayorgas 2007; Behrwald 2009; Hartmann 2010; Heusch 2011; Krasser 2011; Pausch 2011; Gallia 2012; Eckert 2016; Modrow 2017. See also a number of contributions in Stein-Hölkeskamp/ Hölkeskamp (eds.) 2006; 2010; Beck/Wiemer (eds.) 2009 and Galinsky (eds.) 2014; (eds.) 2015; (eds.) 2016. See also the research overviews in Beck/Wiemer 2009, 17 and the projects and bibliographies on the homepage of the “Memoria Romana” project, which was led by Karl Galinsky from 2009 to 2013 (http://www.utexas.edu/research/memoria. Last viewed 26th August 2021). 85  For comprehensive overviews, see: Walter 2001, 249–257; 2004a; Bücher 2006, 102–149; Pausch 2011, 18–46. 83 84

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Heterogeneity It is of course an undue simplification to speak of ‘the’ Roman historical culture, even if one wants to restrict it to the epoch of the Republic.86 For even if the source base, especially for the area of the early and middle Republic, could certainly be more favourable, it is clear that the ideas of one’s own past and the representations of these ideas in historical culture were not static over the long period of about half a millennium, but changed again and again, albeit in slow processes lasting for decades. This also applies to a society in which, as in the Roman one, great value was placed on traditions and the traditional. For even the construct of the mos maiorum or the citing of exempla as demonstrative links to past heroes and values were subject to processes of change – in Cicero’s speeches, for example, the ‘fresher’ exempla take precedence over those from older times and are cited more often.87 In view of the theories on the formation of collective memories since Halbwachs, the observation that the form and content of Roman historical culture changed does not come as a great surprise, since ideas about the past are determined by the respective present. Contemporaries of the late Republic and the imperial era were undoubtedly also aware of the fact that much was different in their present compared to the world of their ancestors.88  In a different, but very related, context (the Roman “Gedankenwelt”), von Albrecht 1994, 32 also warns against a too unifying view and – beyond that – against generalizing interpretations, if first of all only the testimony of individuals stands: “Vieles hat sich im Laufe der Zeit gewandelt. Vieles ist je nach dem Ort verschieden – ist doch Italien recht bunt. Vieles wechselt je nach der städtischen oder ländlichen Umwelt, vieles wird selbst von ein und derselben Person in veränderter Situation verschieden beurteilt. Vieles, was wir für allgemein gültig halten, ist durch das Urteil einzelner großer Autoren geprägt.” 87  Flower 2011, 21. On the use of exempla in Cicero’s speeches, see Walter 2004a, 35–38 and especially Bücher 2006. 88  Wiseman 2008, 11: “To be fair to the Roman antiquarians, they did know that the distant past might be very unfamiliar, and sometimes they succeeded in preserving evidence of a lost world”. However, such a differentiated view of the past and the awareness of manifold changes were not widespread (Wiseman 2008, 12). The beginnings of an antiquarian literature in Rome are probably closely related to the awareness of changes, especially in the political sphere, which were understood as a crisis, and which the early antiquarians at the time of the Gracchi wanted to counter with a treatment of political, especially constitutional, conflicts by contributing to the clarification of the issues with their research (see Rawson 1985, 234 f.; Sehlmeyer 2003, esp. 165–170; Walter 2004a, 210). An “awareness of temporality” (Walter 2004a, 208), however, might already have arisen from the knowledge of texts of ancient times that were difficult or even impossible to understand for the respective reader. Pol. 3,22,3 is only one significant example of this (even knowledgeable Roman interpreters, whom Polybius had to consult in order to understand the first ‘RomanCarthaginian treaty’, had great difficulties in interpreting the ancient treaty texts). For the difficulties already faced by second and first century BC authors in understanding ancient texts from the early Republican or even Regal period, see Wiseman 2008, 8–15.The use and understanding of exempla Romana, especially in speeches, seems at first diametrically opposed to the development of a contemporary consciousness that could arise from viewing texts of distant times and researching ancient institutions, but one must probably imagine the relationship of speaker and recipient to such exempla as more complex (see Walter 2004a, 53 f., 61 f. and comprehensively Bücher 2006). If it suited one’s own intentions, an otherwise ‘valid’ exemplum could also be discredited because of its advanced age and thus questionable relevance to the present (See Walter 2004a, 56–61). The use and understanding of exempla were situation  – and also discourse-dependent. So also Lundgreen 2011, 274 f. 86

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Precisely because of this, Romans who lived in the late Republic or early Empire projected ideas and wishes into a distant, partly idealized past, which often makes them appear distorted.89 At the same time, both the extent of the difference to one’s own time and the dynamics of changes within past generations seem to have been underestimated at times. For even at the time of the early and middle (‘classical’) Republic, the lifeworld and literally the horizon of many Romans changed again and again in a comprehensive way. As is well known, this is accounted for by an internal periodization of the history of the Roman Republic, which could perhaps be further differentiated.90 In any case, these changes will also have had a great influence on the historical culture of the respective period. Although this can no longer be traced even approximately without gaps, where it seems possible, these changed presences and the interpretations and patterns of interpretation with regard to defeats that may have transformed as a result will be taken into account in the following chapters. However, a historical culture is not only heterogeneous in diachronic terms, but also within a respective present. With regard to Rome, too, it cannot be assumed that a monolithic conception of the past prevailed here.91 The ‘memoria of the gentes’, the ‘family memories’ of the influential families of Rome, which were based among other things on archives in their houses, are still quite tangible for us indirectly in their heterogeneity, if one accepts, for example, the assumption that some variants in the historiographical tradition originated here.92 Noble families preserved archives with documents that contained their own versions of the past, which could well have  Flower 2011, 19–21, See Beck 2005b, 690: “Was an dieser mittleren bzw. ‚klassischen‘ Republik als klassisch erscheinen mag, ist ja großenteils aus späten idealisierenden Quellen bekannt, in denen das vergiftete Klima der Gegenwart nicht selten mit einer (vermeintlich) besseren Vergangenheit, vorbildlichen Helden und ihren exemplarischen virtutes kontrastiert wurde.” For an early critique of the term, see Kienast 1957, 104, and Cf. also Lippold 1963, 69, 71; Hölkeskamp 2007, 51. 90  See Flower 2011, esp. 9–34, who proposes a more differentiated periodization (“At least six republics, in addition to transitional periods of various kinds, appear to be easily recognizable in the political patterns that the ancient evidence preserves.”, 23). Flower herself, however, deals quite little with the earlier sections of her scheme – the centuries from the 5th to the 3rd with their revolutionary changes are barely outlined, so that the differences in comparison to, say, the later republic are also little contoured (so also Bernstein 2012, 125; Walter 2017a, 99). However, for all the changes over time and all the differences between the various counterparts of the Republic, the unifying elements between them should not be forgotten. So also McCall 2002, 139; Sommer 2013, XXIII f. (the Republic was “not a uniform epoch” (XXIII), but nevertheless also possessed “a remarkable degree of continuity across all upheavals and centuries”). 91  With regard to the exempla Romana Walter 2004a, 60: “Differenzierungen sind in jedem Fall nötig, um vor der Annahme eines allzu monolithischen Geschichtsbildes aus der Summe der fraglos gültigen Vorbilder zu warnen”. See in this sense also Späth 2001, 387. 92  Blösel 2003. On family archives and the transmission of past knowledge in the homes of aristocratic families, see also Badian 1966, 1; Ungern-Sternberg 1988, 238  f.; Culham 1989a, esp. 104 f.; Cornell 1995, 9 f.; Flower 1996, 148 f., 203 f.; Wiseman 2008, 13. 89

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deviated from the mainstream of other traditions, probably even in later times.93 However, since the family archives have not survived in any single case, it must ultimately remain unclear how far back into the past this form of tradition reached and what exactly was to be found there in each individual case.94 Even more significant may have been the differences between various groups of society, for example between the nobility and poorer plebeians, who in turn did not form a homogeneous mass. Undoubtedly, the less privileged parts of the population perceived events of their respective presence, such as battles and campaigns, in a different way than, for example, the consuls and other generals who led the Roman armies into these conflicts. It is not unreasonable to assume that their deeds and experiences were also passed on in oral form in the families of the populus Romanus who did not – or not yet – belong to the senatorial nobility.95 A piece of spoils or perhaps a special distinction of the ancestor by a commander, which the descendants perhaps even still vividly remembered, could have served as “Kristallisationskerne” of the memory – which for its part, however, need not have

 Tacitus, for example, mentions private archives as a place to go for research, and Suetonius reveals knowledge of traditions that seems to have come from family archives. See Tac. Dial. 37.2; 39.1. on this see Culham 1989a, 104, note 18. See also Suet. Tib. 3.2 on a surviving family tradition explicitly commented on by Suetonius as deviating from common ideas and accounts. See Williams 2001, 143: “The chance survival of one family tradition reveals something of how heroic narratives about earlier Roman history circulated within noble families and were propagated by them as part of the continuous and competitive monumentalization of their past. Some of these stories will have caught on and been taken up by historians, while others [...] failed to gain a wider currency for whatever reason and were confined to a purely familial stage, perhaps being brought out only on certain occasions for public rehearsal at family funerals and other suitable occasions”. 94  Wiseman 2008, 13: “One wonders how many can have survived from the fourth century or before, and whether archaic Latin was any more intelligible when written on wax in cursive script than when cut into bronze or stone in a monumental inscription”. See also Hölkeskamp 1987/2011, 27 with note 118; Beck/Walter 22005, 31. 95  So also Bücher 2006, 114. See Itgenshorst 2005, 203–205. 93

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possessed a high content of historicity.96 Moreover, funeral orations were perhaps not only held at funerals for members of the nobility in Rome, but also at the funerals of ordinary citizens, albeit on a smaller scale.97 If the deceased had taken part in military campaigns, which may have been the case for many until the second century, then this was certainly a good occasion to commemorate their deeds on the battlefield. It would be interesting to learn how lost battles were generally dealt with in this context. On the basis of the thin sources available, however, even approximately reliable information on this is beyond our knowledge.98 Nicholas Horsfall views the legions themselves as communities of remembrance, which not only preserved memories of certain battles or other events in their history over decades, but were also able to keep them alive over even longer periods of time

 The practice of military awards is reported, among others, in Pol. 6,39,1–10. See generally Lee 1996, 205 f.; Walter 2004a, 45 f., there 45: “Auszeichnungen oder persönliche Beutestücke wurden aufbewahrt und dienten als handfeste Kristallisationskerne von Erzählungen.”; Bücher 2006, 114: “Die großen Taten der eigenen Vorfahren könnten ebenso gut erzählt worden sein, wenn jemand unter dem Kommando eines berühmten Adligen an einer großen Schlacht teilgenommen hatte und vielleicht ein Andenken aus einer Beute schon seit Generationen im Besitz einer Familie war.”; Harris 2006, 308 f. On such awards, see MacMullen 1984, 449 f. (with further evidence); also Rosenstein 2007, 134. The fact that a correlation apparently developed relatively early between certain deeds and awards specific to them (corona civica, corona muralis) will have contributed to the formation of orally transmitted narratives also at the micro level, for example within the family, which will soon have vaulted over the actual circumstances of deed and awards in the manner of legend. A poetic incorporation of such an object to which certain memories were attached is found at the beginning of the sixth book of the Punica of Silius Italicus (Sil. 6132–139). See on the passage Fröhlich 2000, 145–147 and see below Sect. 5.2.7. See generally Maxfield 1981; Rüpke 1990, 204 f. The archaeological evidence of personal loot for the Republican period is rare. However, Celtic swords found in one of the Roman camps before Numantia may well have served as memorabilia. See Koon 2010, 8 f., note 49. The burning of enemies’ weapons while still on the battlefield, which is well attested for the Republic up to the first century B.C., probably does not necessarily speak against the existence of personal loot in the form of weapons. For the epochs in which Roman soldiers procured their equipment on their own responsibility and also not from a central source, a complete destruction of usable and thus valuable captured weapons can probably be considered rather unlikely. Weapons burning is also associated in research with the “reluctance to bear arms in the pomerium” (Rüpke 1990, 200). However, since increasingly fewer soldiers actually had their residences in the city of Rome itself or within the pomerium, keeping captured weapons was probably unobjectionable in this respect, so that the possession of such weapons in the homes of simple soldiers may be assumed at least for the late Republic-where they could have functioned as Kristallisationskerne of memories. 97  So at least Kierdorf 1980, 2 with the reference to such a speech, which Cicero wrote for the funeral of the son of a certain Serranus Domesticus, who is otherwise not further attested: Cic. ad. Q. fr. 3,8,5. The passage could at least be evidence of such a practice in the late Republic. However, it is also noticeable that Cicero wrote the speech for Serranus, so that his personal memories or those of other relatives of the deceased may have been incorporated into the laudatio to a rather small extent. 98  This is all the more regrettable since corresponding studies of a different epochal nature have already shown the potential for insight that lies in analysing the perspective(s) of the ordinary soldier on the war or memories of it. See only Lipp 2000, 217–222; Kühne/Ziemann 2000, 31–34 (with further references, which, however, mainly present examples since the beginning of the nineteenth century). 96

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with the help of certain symbols and awards, such as the corona civica, and ritual activities, such as celebrations on the respective anniversary.99 Since it was only with the rise of volunteer recruitment in the Roman army that such permanent troop bodies could come into being, the commemorative communities of the legions can, however, also be set at a correspondingly late date. The old procedure of the dilectus was obviously intended to consciously and purposefully prevent that identical comrades of the same regional origin always served together in one unit.100 However, already in the early second century changes seem to have taken place in the Roman army, which were reflected, among other things, in the fact that at least “among the

 Horsfall 2003, 103–115. See previously MacMullen 1984; Lee 1996, 207–210. See also Lendon 2005, 254 (“Units began [since the late Republic] to have long histories and preserved the memories of fighting in many campaigns, under many generals.”); Cagniart 2007, 84 f. on Caesar’s soldiers, who would already have possessed a sense of belonging to a “distinct society with its own rules and codes” (84); see also 86 f. On the group identity of individual legions, in which memories of the unit’s history were cultivated, in the imperial period see Ward 2018, esp. 284, 290 f. Rüpke 1990, 184–198, discusses elements of a religio militum also under the aspect of “group formation” (184). The majority of the testimonies presented there originate from the ‘high’ imperial period, although Rüpke also points to the various military signa at the time of the Republic, the symbolism of which was standardized by Marius, as is well known, and for which, in addition to their religious significance, it may well be assumed (at the latest since Marius) that they also had an identityforming effect (see ibid., 185  f.). If, in addition, the theory is correct that the various symbols (eagle, wolf, minotaur, horse, boar/pig) can be geographically assigned in their origin in the sense that the Italic socii, in the course of their incorporation into the confederate system, “brought their own animal-shaped signa into the common army” (Rüpke 1990, 185), then the ‘function’ of the signa as identity-creating or identity-symbolizing elements can be estimated as quite high. 100  A detailed description is handed down by Polybius (Pol. 6,19–20). See Gschnitzer 1981, 70 note 27 and Jehne 2006, 250–256, who rightly points out (esp. 254–256) that the intention of this procedure could not have been, as Polybius emphasizes (Pol. 6,20,7), to equalize the military strength of the individual legions, but that obviously soldiers of different origins (and different ages and levels of experience, Gschnitzer 1981, 81 note 49) were to serve together in one legion – probably in order to achieve an integration effect among soldiers from far away from each other. However, since most of the veterans in peacetime probably saw each other again very rarely for this very reason, it is unlikely that long-lasting communities of remembrance were formed within the legions for most of the time of the Republic. See Mann 2013, 33; Howarth 2013, 32 (“Individual units had no permanent or long-term identity and the soldiers enrolled only for specific campaigns.”), 34 and further Meyer 1924, 225 f.; Lendon 2005, 184 f.; Lovano 2013, 87. Somewhat differently Scullard 21973, 22, who sees “bonds of war service” also effective in peacetime, here in the elections. For the more manageable contingents of the cavalry, which were also recruited from a narrower circle of individuals who, compared to the foot troops, possessed a more homogeneous origin, this may have looked different. At least according to McCall 2002, 6 and 82 f.: “Cavalry service provided an opportunity for elite Romans from different areas to meet and build relationships. It is not unreasonable to suppose these social contacts and shared experiences of service reinforced the elite’s own sense of corporate identity” (6). The procession of the horsemen, the transvectio equitum, which is said to have taken place annually since the fourth century, may also have contributed to such a lasting, shared identity and commemorative community of the equestrian detachments. See McCall 2002, 7; Walter 2011, 230, note 37; and most recently Albrecht 2020, 155–185. 99

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centurions something like a professional soldiery” developed.101 It is not entirely inconceivable, however, that the veterans, who had fought in different units, came together again in their respective neighbourhoods after the campaigns and compared their, possibly different, perspectives on the experience and, in a broader sense, kept common memories alive. In any case, for the relatively short duration of a campaign, the legions formed important social frames of reference in which memories of shared experiences, especially battles fought together (victories as well as defeats) took their first shape and were also formed in this group.102 Be that as it may, even for later generations, when there were permanent legions or when it was possible to selectively unite men of the same regional origin, we do not have memories that were cultivated in the legions to such an extent that would allow us to write the history of great defeats from the perspective of ordinary soldiers. Moreover, ‘the Roman army’ remained a heterogeneous entity throughout its history, with people from different regions of origin and serving in different divisions.103 In many respects, all these people will have had a different view of the respective events and may also have come up with quite different interpretations of what happened than we can find in the literary sources that have survived today. Their memories and views, however, remain largely closed to us.104 In other respects, too, we can expect great heterogeneity in the context of social memory. Roman women probably remembered battles and defeats in a different

 Jehne 2006, 266. Centurions often volunteered, insisting on reinstatement in the old rank, and it is quite conceivable that they also brought along soldiers of the lower ranks known to them or gathered them around them again and again. As is well known, the development towards the permanent legions of the late Republic and the imperial period began clearly one to two generations before Marius. On this, see Jehne 2006, 266 f.; Schulz 2012, 227–244. Cf. also Rüpke 1990, 95: “Damit [with tendencies towards a professionalization of the troops towards a professional army] beginnt ein Prozeß der Einengung der sozialen und regionalen Herkunftsräume der Soldaten, der nur durch die massive Mobilisierung der Jahre zwischen 49 und 29 v. Chr. verwischt wird: Untere Schichten und bestimmte Regionen dominieren die Legionen.” 102  See Culham 1989b, 193. See in this sense also Daly 2002, 52–54, 200 who discusses integrating rituals that were already established in the Roman army in the second century BC. For a number of his examples, however, he can only cite evidence from the late Republic and the imperial period. Therefore, his classification of the legions as a “society within a society” (ibid., 80; but see also his later qualification: “The Roman army of the Republic, despite its peculiar rituals, was not a separate society, unlike the essentially foreign army employed by the Carthaginians.”, 135) must also be modified in the sense presented here – the legions that fought for Rome in the third and second centuries BC formed only relatively short-lived (memory) communities. A certain role in the formation and orientation of these communities will presumably have been played by the Roman encampment – as a concrete physical site or even as a symbolic one (after all, many marching camps are unlikely to have been used over a long period of time). For the construction and operation of the camp apparently always followed the same pattern (Pol. 6,27–39). See on the significance of the camp in religious terms Rüpke 1990, 165–171. 103  See Phang 2011, 106 f., 109 f. 104  See Evans 1988, 122; Toner 2013, 113 f. MacMullen 1984, 452 f. discusses in concise form evidence in which the different perspectives of commanders and common soldiers come to light. 101

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way than their men.105 Those who lived near the site of a battle were confronted with the memory of it in a very different way than a resident of Rome.106 The soldiers who, from the time of the wars against Carthage, were in action far from Italy and sometimes for years certainly had a different view of the present and the past than the peasants or urban Romans who stayed at home or were recruited only for a few campaigns in Italy itself. Moreover, the composition of the populus Romanus changed with each incorporation of larger groups into the civic community, so that it will also have been heterogeneous to an increasing degree with regard to group identities and collective memories of the respective past.107 However, these considerations must remain rather theoretical. On the basis of the available sources, we cannot expect to be able comprehensively to understand the myriad social memories in the city of Rome and on the peninsula in their historical change. In accordance with the approaches presented in the previous section, however, it may well be a matter of delineating the frameworks of possible conceptions and forms of knowledge of the past and of finding out as much as possible about the specific manifestations of such types of ‘knowledge’. It is therefore worthwhile to approach the problem from the other side and to ask what Romans and Italics may have known about serious defeats, which media of their historical culture conveyed this knowledge, and who was – presumably – reached or not reached by it.108 Media of Roman Historical Culture(s) Under the conditions outlined so far, it is probably to be expected from the outset only for relatively few events that they found a more or less permanent place in  On the roles that women could play in wars in antiquity and their experiences in the context of the perception of wars and memory of these conflicts, see generally (with references to further research) Kühne/Ziemann 2000, 16 (citation), and with regard to Greek antiquity Loman 2004; Hornblower 2007, 43–46, among others. 106  See Hope 2003b, 80. 107  This can be assumed all the more since “the Italic peoples [...] preserved their language and their national identity well into the first century [B.C.]” (Jehne/Pfeilschifter 2006b, 13). Even after the granting of Roman citizenship, these identities could not have disappeared overnight, as it were, without a trace. These changes in the realm of the political  – which precisely also represent changed social frames of reference – will not have remained without influence on the social identity and social memory of the Roman Republic. For example, Schlange-Schöningen 2006 can show that the Marsians, or at least parts of them, “persisted and were received as a separate ethnicity or group” (ibid., 157. See for example Plin. nat. 7,15) and can also be traced in “higher ranks of the Roman military” (Schlange-Schöningen 2006, 169). See also Pina Polo 2006, 204 (with regard to the second century BC) and Mouritsen 1998, 59–86, who, however, sees local distinctiveness clearly in retreat after the Social War (ibid., 8 f., 86): ‘The first century BC probably saw the disappearance of the indigenous Italian languages, most of their cultural distinctiveness vanished as Romanization progressed [...]’ (8). See generally Lomas 2004, 179 f., 191 f., 194 (diversity of epigraphic cultures in Roman Italy, “even within the Latinized epigraphic culture of the first century AD onwards”, 180); Scheidel 2006, 224 f.; Fronda 2007, 105 f.; 2010, 21; Levene 2010, 225; Sommer 2013, 354 f. 108  However, a complete overview of the ramifications of Roman historical culture cannot and should not be offered here. See especially the synthesis by Walter 2004a and the other titles mentioned above in note 85. 105

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extended frames of social reference. The campaigns into which the magistrates of the Republic led citizens and allies alike are more likely to be counted among such events. Even if not all Roman citizens, let alone the entire Roman population, took part as combatants, the wars were still present on many levels of private and public life. Thus, one could learn about the campaigns through relatives. Death and suffering in one’s immediate or extended surroundings inevitably preserved the memory of individual battles. But rapid economic gain on a personal level also brought the wars of the res publica to the attention and memory of those who did not actively participate in them themselves.109 Oral Tradition Therefore, battles in any case constituted collective events in the best or worst sense. At first glance, the large number of participants in fact favoured the emergence of traditions around such events, since large numbers of eyewitnesses were directly involved. The reports of participants and others involved in or affected by an individual battle effectively formed the starting points of any social memory of the event, Some of these reports may even be crystallised in the surviving texts. Here, it will be helpful to consider the initial conditions that existed for this oral tradition to come about in order to be able to make assumptions about its content and character. First of all, the conditions for the perception of the battlefield were already extremely limited for a participant in battles with often tens of thousands of combatants. Normally, it will hardly have been possible for the individual soldier even to have an approximate overview of the overall action, because his perception will have been impaired too much by visual and acoustic obstacles that were caused by the battle as well as by his equipment. These circumstances were well known to ancient historians and are mentioned in a number of battle descriptions.110 If individual combatants, from the common soldier to the commander himself, could not keep track of what was going on during the battle, it follows that a narrative of the particular battle could (at best) be pieced together from the memories of several

 See Meier/Stoll 2016, 3 and the work mentioned at the beginning of the introduction to this thesis on the character of war as a “fundamental phenomenon” of ancient everyday life (Schulz 2012, 7). 110  Thuc. 4,34,2; 7,44,1 (further: 4,44,4); Xen. an. 1,8,8; Pol. 1,34,2; 5,85,12; Plut. Eum. 16,6; Plut. Marius 26,3; Plut. Pomp. 72,1; Amm Marc. 16,12,37. See Whatley 1964, 120 f., 129 f.; Lee 1996, 201; Sabin 1996, 68; Goldsworthy 2001, 127; Daly 2002, 19 f., 168–171. See also Keegan 1976, 47, 128–133, 139–142, who also points to the limited perception of soldiers on the battlefield, which, however, is rarely reflected in literary accounts of battles. The passages cited by Keegan refer in part to the Battle of Waterloo. Some factors that made it difficult for individual combatants to perceive events in that specific case, such as dense smoke and gun noise, did not play a role in antiquity, but others (noise in general, obstruction of vision caused by the terrain, by other people, and by equipment) did. For example, helmets of the type that seems to have been in common use at least in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC (Montefortino type) completely covered the ears of the soldiers (see Koon 2010, 13). In addition, the exceptional psychological situation of the battle must be taken into account, which could also influence the perception of the battle and the later memory of it. See Arrington 2011, 181. 109

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participants after the fighting had ended.111 It does not seem far-fetched that – especially in the case of defeat – explanations were sought, perhaps also recriminations or justifications, even at this early stage of the formation of shared memory.112 Already in this phase, it is very likely that fragments of the individuals’ memories soon merged with those of his fellow combatants. In this way, the soldiers’ narratives may well have resembled those of the people who stayed at home or of the historians who interviewed them later. With increasing distance from the events – as numerous studies on the oral transmission of war experiences suggest – media of the most diverse kinds also have an effect on the memories of the individual, conditioned by the respective frames of social reference which further deform such recollections.113 In addition, we have to take into account what John Keegan has called the “bullfrog effect”. This refers to the efforts of veterans to highlight their own achievements, as their reputations stand to gain or suffer from their testimonies.114 Finally, survivors of a defeat may have felt compelled to explain why they survived the battle when so many other soldiers had fallen. If, for example, Polybius, who claims to have spoken with C.  Laelius, the comrade-­in-arms of the elder Africanus, should also have questioned eyewitnesses, for instance, about the battle of Cannae, then he will have been confronted with numerous difficulties. Even the youngest veterans must have been around 60 years old at the time of a conversation with the Greek historiographer, which could hardly

 See an often quoted comparison by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington: “The history of the battle is not unlike the history of a ball! Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle is lost or won; but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance” [emphasis: S. L.]. Quoted from Keegan 1976, 117. See also Whatley 1964, 121, 129; Sabin 1996, 63 note 21. 112  There may also have been calls to persevere or to continue fighting, or pessimistic forecasts concerning the near future. Such a round is literarily stylized and connected with quite own patterns of interpretation in the meeting of the military tribunes in Livy’s account of the events after the battle of Cannae, where P. Cornelius Scipio, in anticipation of his later achievements, prevents a group of desperate officers from fleeing Italy: Liv. 22,53,1–13. 113  Examples of accounts of World War II that were clearly warped by the influence of films and books are presented by Welzer 32,011, 172–206. See above Sect. 2.1. See Jehne 2006, 254 with note 49. 114  Keegan 1976, 33: “One, well known to all scholars, is the danger of reconstructing events solely or largely on the evidence of those whose reputations may gain or lose by the account they give; even if it is only a warrior’s self-esteem which he feels to be at stake, he is liable to inflate his achievements – what we might call ‘the Bullfrog Effect’ – and old warriors, particularly if surrounded by Old Comrades who will endorse his yarn while waiting the chance to spin their own on a reciprocal basis, are notoriously prone to do so.” Agreeing Daly 2002, 19. 111

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have taken place before his deportation to Rome in 167.115 Thus, several decades would have passed, during which the former soldiers would certainly have told their story more than once and, in doing so, also fleshed it out. In the works of Q. Fabius Pictor, Cincius Alimentus and Q.  Ennius the event had (probably) been treated. These too will have been factors influencing the accounts of some eyewitnesses as well.116 But even if the soldiers had been interviewed a few weeks after the battle, their accounts would have been influenced by other aspects and it would not have been easy to reconstruct the course of the battle from their information. This level of social memory of a battle, the reports of those directly involved, is unfortunately no longer preserved – just as most of this informal form of communication about the past in Rome as a whole.117 ‘Oral Tradition’: Carmina Convivalia – Laudationes It is not only for this reason that it makes sense to separate other types of oral tradition in Rome from these everyday and elusive forms.118 The reports of veterans in their own homes, in the tavern or the village smithy, in the circle of other veterans, relatives, or even to the historian were accompanied by other forms of oral tradition tied to more fixed contexts and social norms, which are discussed in research under the term ‘oral tradition’.119 It can be considered very probable that there was just such a form of oral expression of historical culture in Rome, even if it has not been handed down directly: the so-called carmina convivalia.120 The evidence for the content of the ‘heroic songs’ is, however, also very thin, because for Cato the elder they were already a mere

 Daly 2002, 19. Of course, Polybius may have talked to Roman veterans of the Second Punic War about their experiences before, but such conversations will not have been so much motivated by the interest of later historiographical processing. Polybius states in Pol. 10,3,2 that he spoke with C. Laelius. He attaches particular value to this source. See, however, Seibert 1993a, 118, note 226: “In der Erinnerung des alten Mannes könnte auch diese Geschichte [the alleged rescue of the consul of 218, P.  Cornelius Scipio, by his son, the later Africanus, note Simon Lentzsch] verdreht worden sein”. See, in a different factual context, on the problems of Polybius in his research Kromayer 1912, 173, note 1. 116  See Sect. 2.1 on the influence of media representations of past events on the memories of contemporary witnesses. 117  Lazenby 1978/1998, vii; Sabin 2000, 8  f. See Walter 2004a, 70  f.; Rodríguez Mayorgas 2007, 106. 118  Vansina 1985, 12 f.; Walter 2004a, 71. 119  On the ‘oral tradition’ in general, with concise overviews of various branches of research (each from a different perspective), see Boedeker 1988 and Finnigan 1996, and the classic study by Vansina (Vansina 1985). With regard to Rome, see Timpe 1988; von Ungern-Sternberg 1988. 120  As little as is known about the details of the situation in which these carmina were performed, let alone of their precise contents, there is no reason to doubt their existence principle. See Momigliano 1957/1969, 328 f., 331; Walter 2004a, 71. But cf. Dahlmann 1950/1970, 28, 32. On research on this area in general, see Dahlmann 1950/1970; Momigliano 1957/1969 (history of research, 313–326, and discussion of ancient evidence, 326–335); 1990, 92 f.; Walter 2004a, 70–75. 115

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“piece of remembered historical culture”.121 Thus it is also impossible to decide what part this form of ‘oral tradition’ had for the transmission of the heroic deeds of the protagonists of early Roman history that we encounter in later tradition. Thus, some details about the deeds of certain individuals within individual episodes and reports also of defeats in the early Republic (Cremera, Gallic Disaster) or the description of the sacrifice of individuals for the community (Horatius Cocles) could also derive from these sources. However, it is not possible to be certain about this or even to make concrete attributions.122 Thus the carmina convivalia remain a fascinating but shadowy part of early Roman historical culture. But there were other forms of oral communication about the past in Rome that are (somewhat) easier to grasp. These include the laudatio funebris, which was delivered on the occasion of the funeral service for a deceased Roman of high nobility.123 The Roman noble funeral with procession and speech is described by Polybius, albeit in an idealized manner.124 For various reasons, the pompa funebris has been in the focus of research interest for about two decades; therefore, a detailed analysis is hardly necessary here.125 However, it is worth stressing that, for the broad mass of “the urban Roman population, who were not familiar with literary historiography”, the pompa funebris was probably “the most important and probably the most

 Walter 2004a, 73. The period into which the practice extended is unclear. Momigliano 1957/1969, 331 sees no reason to date the ending of the performance of carmina to before the late fourth century. Rüpke 2000, 35, 44 seems to think of a period at the end of the third century, Walter 2004a, 73 f. with note 140 rejects this and assumes that the practice of carmina disappeared before or with “the formation of the nobility” in the fourth century. Cic. Brut. 75 in fact suggests that a lengthy period had elapsed between the carmina as a living practice and the lifetime of the elder Cato (multis saeclis ante suam aetatem), so that the fourth century seems more likely on balance. 122  See Momigliano 1957/1969, 331–335. But there also: “Aber im ganzen gewinnt man den Eindruck, daß der größere Teil [of the alleged or possible ballad themes, author’s note.] (Tarquinius’ cutting off of poppy heads, Coriolan as a suppliant like Themistocles, the Three Hundred Fabians, only one of whom survived, Camillus’ prayer) das Ergebnis einer direkten Bekanntschaft mit griechischen literarischen Quellen ist, die man schwerlich in vorhellenistische Zeiten verlegen könnte.” See also Walter 2004a, 74. Rüpke 2000, 35, however, assumes “semi-stable prose narratives of similar content” alongside the carmina, which had also been transmitted orally. 123  Collection of the few preserved fragments in Kierdorf 1980. See also Flower 1996, 128–158. To what extent Romans of lower social rank were also honored with such laudationes cannot be answered with certainty. The “secure example of this type of speech” cited by Kierdorf 1980, 2 note 2 (Cic. ad. Q. fr. 3,8,5. See on the content above note 97) cannot be ignored, but it stands quite isolated. The Laudatio Murdiae (ILS 8394) also belongs to the end of the Republic. Perhaps this form of funeral oration developed later for Romans whose social status was below that of a senator, but in any case it belonged to a rather private setting that can hardly be compared to the laudatio funebris in the forum. See Flower 1996, 131 f. 124  Polybius does not reveal how long this practice goes back, but the assumption of a shaping in the fourth century, with the formation of the nobility, seems convincing, whereby the assumption of a development from older funeral rites is obvious. See on this question: Hölkeskamp 1987/2011, 223 f.; Flaig 1995, 121, note 14; Flower 1996, 132. 125  See (each with further references) the contributions by Hölkeskamp 1987/2011, 222–224; 2010, 112–115; Flaig 1995; Flower 1996, 91–127; 2006; Walter 2004a, 89–108; Modrow 2017, 37–40. 121

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formative encounter with – genealogically organized – Roman history”.126 It would be interesting to learn how defeated generals and their defeats were dealt with in in the context of the laudatio funebris. These were not so rare that a descendant would not regularly have been confronted with the difficulty of how to deal with these inglorious chapters in the life of the honoured. In the case of the failures of the marching ancestors, the problem may well have been minor. The series of ancestors, in the form of the pompa funebris as well as in the portraits of ancestors in the atrium of a noble house, made no claim to completeness, since it was evidently possible not to present certain individuals and even whole branches of a family if they had a dubious reputation.127 In the case of imperatores victi of one’s own family tree from older times, such operations could perhaps also be spared, since the majority of the audience (and perhaps the orator himself) presumably possessed rather vague knowledge of the deeds of the individual anyway. Thus, focussing on an individual’s offices and glorious res gestae, while omitting or marginalizing his failures, probably went without the raising of eyebrows.128 In this context, it should be borne in mind that, with regard to the offices and successes of the ancestors, various forms and degrees of falsification and manipulation appear to have been hardly unusual. On the contrary they were quite common, at least if we take the testimonies of Cicero and Livy seriously.129 This was probably different in the case of the recently deceased himself. If he had been responsible for a defeat as a general, he must usually have been at least in the rank of a praetor. Not to hold a public funeral for such personages must have been unthinkable, so that obviously ways were found to deal with defeats in the ‘curriculum vitae’ also in these cases. Perhaps they were simply passed over, which need not even have been particularly conspicuous in the case of nobiles with great and numerous successes, even more so because it was probably

 Walter 2004a, 90 (quotation). See already Flower 1996, 110 and 126  f.: “When viewed as a pageant of Rome’s history, it is hard to imagine a more accessible source of these traditions for the ordinary Roman citizen” (127). 127  However, it is not clear whether ancestors who were responsible for great defeats were counted among them. The testimonies rather point to inner Roman political disputes that had earned the respective ancestors a questionable reputation. See Cic. fam. 9,21,2–3. Cicero advises here to limit oneself to the patrician part of the ancestral line of the Papirii, since the plebeian ancestors were put in a bad light by popular behaviour. See Flaig 1995, 144–146, there: “Die eigene Genealogie war also einem ‚generativen Gedächtnis‘ unterworfen: man selektierte die Ahnen wie man sie brauchte.” (144); Flower 1996, 103 f.; Walter 2004a, 93. 128  See Bethe 1935, 84 f.: “Und selbst wenn sie [the listed ancestors, author’s note] alle echt waren und mit Recht in der Pompa daherschritten, konnte der Leichenredner, weil er jeden einzelnen pflichtmäßig bereden und berühmen mußte, nicht anders, als zum wenigsten einige hochklingende Lobeswendungen auf gut Glück für diesen oder jenen ertönen zu lassen, von dem weder er noch seine Zuhörer viel wußten”. In agreement: Flaig 1995, 142, note 77. 129  Cic. Brut. 62; Liv. 8,40,3–5. Flaig 1995, 137 f.; Flower 1996, 134; Beck/Walter 22005, 30. 126

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also true that strict accuracy was not expected in this setting.130 Circumstances and nature of the speech also suggest that minor failures in particular could be ignored on this occasion – not least because no one was immune from getting into a similar situation himself.131 The situation may have been different in the case of really huge disasters. What, for instance, might the son of C. Terentius Varro (cos. 216) have told the people about his father’s deeds from the rostra? Regardless of how Varro was dealt with after Cannae, this battle was undoubtedly the most famous event of his life, and simply passing over Cannae was bound to make matters worse. Against this background, it would be possible that some attempts to positively reinterpret his behavior stem from this family tradition.132 Since only a few fragments of funeral orations, especially from the Republic, have survived, such considerations necessarily remain speculative. That they are not completely made out of thin air, however, is possibly suggested by the reference to the funeral oration for M. Claudius Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse, who was ambushed in 208 and fell in battle.133 It seems that Marcellus certainly was subjected to criticism after his death, since he, being a very experienced general, had risked his life in a reconnaissance expedition and had thus also placed the state as a whole in a dangerous situation.134 Livy explicitly notes the unusually large number of variants of tradition concerning the death of Marcellus, and also explicitly mentions that his predecessor Coelius Antipater had used as a source the funeral oration that Marcellus ‘son, who is also said to have taken part in the battle, had delivered for his father in the forum.135 Livy’s statements make it seem possible that the younger Marcellus mentioned the circumstances of his father’s death, and so it is not unreasonable to assume that he already attempted in his speech to justify his

 Flower 1996, 147: “In the funeral speech, whether spoken or written, strict veracity could hardly be expected and was probably never the original intention”. See also Biesinger 2016, 37 f. In addition, it can be assumed that a defeat that took place a long time ago was no longer present in wide circles – especially if the battlefield was far from Rome, which was increasingly the case from the late fourth century onwards. 131  See Scholz/Walter 2013, 30. 132  The assessments of Varro’s behaviour before, during and after the battle are not at all clear in Roman tradition. See Sect. 5.2.5.1 below. 133  Pol. 10,32; Liv. 27,27,1–14; Val. Max. 1,6,9; Plut. Marc. 29; App. Hann. 50 (somewhat different course of events). The situation was aggravated by the fact that Marcellus’ colleague, T. Quinctius Crispinus, was also seriously wounded in this skirmish and succumbed to these injuries a little later. See on the military-historical background of the operations in southern Italy in 208 Seibert 1993a, 363–366; Beck 2005a, 324 f. 134  Liv. 27,27,11. On this see Kierdorf 1980, 108: Marcellus had been “caught in the crossfire of public criticism”; Carawan 1984, 140 f.; Flower 2003, 48. 135  Liv. 27:27,13. 130

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father’s behavior or to present explanations for his defeat.136 Perhaps the reference found in Livy, according to which only the hasty flight of the consul’s escort from Etruria led to his downfall, comes from this source or from the family tradition of the Claudii Marcelli.137 The unusual circumstances of Marcellus’ death alone, as well as presumably those of the funeral ceremony itself,138 mark this example admittedly “as an easily comprehensible exception”, Even if much remains unclear, however, this case can perhaps stimulate thoughts on how in others, too, inglorious or controversial incidents could be dealt with in a laudatio.139 History on Stage: The Roman Historical Drama In terms of production and dissemination, historical drama occupies a middle position between orality and writing.140 Although they were apparently recorded in writing, the plays were probably disseminated mainly by oral recitation for a “still almost entirely preliteral audience, which even later, in the second and first centuries, did not come into regular and intensive contact with literature”.141 Research has repeatedly pointed to the importance of historical dramas for the perception, foundation and dissemination of historical ‘knowledge’ for Romans of different social backgrounds.142 Although the few fragments, most of which are not very informative in terms of content, hardly allow any conclusions to be drawn about the exact course of the plot, it is at least possible to reconstruct some of the themes and groups of people portrayed in connection with other ancient evidence relating to the plays:143 Subjects taken from Roman history “of political and historical importance” with “Roman official[s] (magistrates, generals, kings)” as protagonists.144 What else can be concluded concerning the occasions of the performances makes it seem

 See Vogt 1953, 134; Kierdorf 1980, 108: “Aus den Worten des Livius geht unzweideutig hervor, daß in der Rede von den Todesumständen des Marcellus gesprochen wurde; […] vielleicht bemühte er sich, die Motive seines Vaters für die verhängnisvolle Unternehmung zu rechtfertigen, und hob seine mannhafte Haltung in der ausweglosen Situation hervor.”; Flower 1996, 146  f.: “This process was started by his son who published a speech like the one he might have delivered, no doubt justifying his father’s actions and surely attributing a hero’s brave death to him”. 137  Liv. 27:27,5. 138  See, inter alia, Seibert 1993a, 366 note 30; Flower 1996, 147 note 78; Bernstein 2000, 160; Manuwald 2001, 136; Flower 2003, 44, 49; Mineo 2011, 124 and see below Sect. 5.2.1.2. 139  Kierdorf 1980, 108 (quotation). 140  See Beck/Walter 22005, 31: The theatre was “situated on the border between orality and writing [...]”. On research and the history of research on Roman historical drama, see (in each case with references to the older literature), among others, Richter 1960; 1962; Altheim 1969; Seibert 1993b, 20  f.; von Albrecht 1994, 79–96; Wiseman 1998, 1–16; Bernstein 2000; Manuwald 2001, esp. 9–13; Walter 2004a, 76–83. 141  Walter 2004a, 75 (quotation). 142  Bernstein 2000, 165: “The stage had become a first-rate medium of ‘national Roman’ memory and thus of collective self-understanding as well as collective self-assurance.”; Walter 2004a, 75; Wiseman 1998; 2007, 72 f. 143  See especially Manuwald 2001, 131–258 (with a collection of the fragments). 144  Manuwald 2001, 51 f. (citation: 52). 136

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very unlikely that a military defeat would have featured here.145 Since the method of (re-)constructing themes or even sequences of scenes of historical plays, from ‘dramatically’ stylized passages in historiographers like Livy or Dionysius of Halicarnassus, is rightly considered suspect, no evidence for this genre can be consulted in addition to the surviving fragments.146 Rituals in Public and Private Space The function and effect of numerous rituals that were celebrated in Roman society have been repeatedly discussed in detail in recent research – also with regard to their significance within the historical cultures of the Republic and the imperial period – so that it does not seem necessary to discuss the phenomenon as a whole in detail again here.147 In general, it is indisputable that rituals played a considerable role in Roman memory culture. For through them, ‘knowledge’ about the past of the community – or parts of that community – was not only presented to a wide audience, many of whose members were unable, for various reasons, to receive other media of historical culture, but this also occurred at a more or less regular interval. As is well known, this has been emphasized in research especially with regard to the much discussed pompa funebris. Yet this, as discussed above probably contributed rather little to the spread of knowledge about Roman defeats.148 A specific, major ritual that served the public commemoration of the sacrifices which the Republican wars demanded of the community does not seem to have existed at Rome. A Roman version of Pericles’ Funeral Oration has not come down to us.149 However, we know of several minor rituals that were associated with defeats of Rome in the literary tradition. In particular, the memory of the capture of Rome by a Celtic army at the

 More indirectly, it may be possible to infer intentions intended in individual performances that were provoked by defeats and perceptions of crisis. Thus, Naevius’ play Clastidium could be included in attempts by the nobility to strengthen confidence in Rome’s ultimate victories in the Hannibal War by remembering a great victory, or to create it in the first place (See Bernstein 2000, 166–169; Walter 2004a, 83). See below Sect. 5.2.1.2. 146  Flower 1995, 170; Manuwald 2001, 133 f. 147  Walter 2004a, 89–108; Beck 2005c; Itgenshorst 2005; Bücher 2006, 127–129; Flower 1996; 2006; Hölkeskamp 2006 (2007); 2008; 2014b; 2015, as well as the contributions in Beck/Wiemer (eds.) 2009. With regard to the historical culture of the Roman Republic, Pfeilschifter 2009 deserves special mention. 148  Flower 1996, 127; Blösel 2003; 60; Walter 2003, 262 f.; 2004a, 89 f. 149  See Beck 2006, 216. An equally remarkable and significant exception is a passage in the 14th Philippic Speech, which Cicero delivered in the Senate on 21 April 43. In it, he called for the erection of a public monument to commemorate the Roman citizens who had lost their lives in the battle at Forum Gallorum about a week earlier. Cicero’s motivation is immediately obvious, since the opposing general in this battle had been his enemy M. Antonius, whom he wanted to portray – once again – as the enemy of the populus Romanus as a whole by this proposal. In passing, the information can be gleaned from the passage that no such monument had been erected for the fallen of the great wars of the past (Cic. Phil. 14,33). See Cooley 2012, 65. On the dealing with war dead in Rome see also more recently Lentzsch 2019; Stoll 2019, 127–209. 145

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beginning of the fourth century seems also to have been disseminated in this way.150 This is much less evident with regard to other examples. Thus it is known that the 8th of June was the foundation day of the temple of Mens, which had been vowed after the defeat at Lake Trasimene. According to Ovid’s testimony, a festival was celebrated annually on this day.151 To what extent this was still associated by the urban Roman population with the actual occasion, the battle of Lake Trasimene, must remain open. In the case of the Dies Alliensis, on the other hand, a basic knowledge of the background of the naming of this day and the regulations that applied to it may have been rather common knowledge – even if its establishment probably did not serve the purpose of memoralizing the event at all. As a preliminary observation, it can be stated that public rituals in Rome certainly helped to pass on the historical memory of some military defeats. Nevertheless, the commemoration of Roman triumphs – in a double sense – played a clearly greater role in this area of historical culture. Monuments From the second century at the very latest, the city of Rome also seems to have been a commemorative landscape. Here a number of temples, fora and other public buildings, statues, arches or tombs, often provided with inscriptions or decorated with the spoils of war, commemorated the past of the Roman people and of its most distinguished representatives in particular.152 Defeats do not seem to have played a special role in this context, for hardly any monument is known that explicitly referred to a military failure of the armies of the Republic.153 Moreover, it has already been mentioned that little space seems to have been given to the public commemoration of the war dead in Rome. Neither in Rome nor on any of the battlefields in question does there appear to have been a monument commemorating the sacrifices of the soldiers who had fallen there in the name of the Republic.154 To an observer of the equestrian statue of Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus ‘Cunctator’ on the Capitol, which he had erected there after his conquest of Tarentum, the defeats of the Hannibalic war and the crisis connected with it may have been evoked in the background. After all, the Cunctator owed his centuries-long posthumous fame to his essential contribution in overcoming these setbacks. Through the monument itself, however, this historical  In these cases, the historical reference seems to have been reasonably clear to most of the participants – even if this probably did not exist at all in real historical terms, since the rituals in question had other origins. See in detail below Sect. 3.1.6. 151  Ov. fast. 6241–248. See Cooley 2012, 84. 152  See only most recently (and each with further references) Hölkeskamp 2001/2004; 2012; Walter 2004a, 112–121; Bücher 2006, 129–131; Rea 2007; Muth 2014; Davies 2017. See also Diefenbach 2007; Behrwald 2009; Hartmann 2010, 514–539. 153  For the interesting exception of the statue of C. Hostilius Mancinus see below Sect. 3.2. 154  See Beck 2006, 216 (“Bei Cannae gab es offenbar nicht einmal ein Denkmal für die gefallenen römischen Soldaten  – hier zeigt sich ein elementarer Unterschied zur Memorialpraxis in der griechischen Welt: Die monumentalen Grabanlagen für die gefallenen Athener bei Marathon oder für die Thebaner bei Chaironea sind lebendige Zeugen dieser unterschiedlichen Zugänge zur memorialen Bewältigung von Krisen und Katastrophen.”); Stoll 2016, 98. 150

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context was not thematized – at least as far as we can tell.155 The same probably applies to the temples and altars that had been vowed in connection with military threats. A number of sites in Rome and its immediate surrounds, however, appear to have been associated with the capture of Rome by the Gauls. What exactly these attributions looked like in each case, how they came about and how well known they were, will be taken up again in the chapter on the representation of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ (Sect. 3.1.6). Coins From the middle of the third century onwards, Roman coins were increasingly distributed across Italy, quite possibly through the agency of the Roman state.156 Particularly in the late Republic, members of more or less influential families also used the annually assigned office of moneyer to commemorate the deeds of their ancestors.157 What has already been stated with regard to public rituals and monuments applies here as well: the Romans apparently had no need for iconography or legends on their coins, which would have reminded them of past defeats. In the context of the present study, however, it is precisely the motifs on those coins minted during wars in which major defeats had occurred that are of interest. They could open up the possibility of reconstructing a part of the public handling of military failures for a period from which hardly any literary sources have survived. This applies in particular to the period of the Hannibalic War, which also coincided with a fundamental change in the history of Roman coinage. A number of motifs on the coins of these years will therefore be examined more closely in a separate chapter.158 Exempla Romana in Public and Literary Discourse It has long been known that ancient orators liked to make frequent use of historical examples to support their arguments. In connection with the complex of Roman historical culture, the phenomenon of exempla has been intensively investigated in recent years, for example with regard to their use by individual authors.159 With regard to the historical exempla found in speeches, it has been repeatedly stated that the use of such examples indicates that the speaker assumed and was entitled to assume a certain knowledge of the historical context on the part of his audience.

 On the statute of Fabius see, among others, Walter 2004a, 141 f.  Howgego 22011, 65 f. 157  See, for example, Hölkeskamp 1996/2004, 174 f., 178 f.; 2001/2004, 151 f., 155 f., 160; Walter 2004a, 96, 102, 376, 382; Howgego 22,011, 76–88. 158  See Sect. 5.2.1.1 below. 159  Given the large volume of publications, only a few works that also provide access to further research can be discussed here. See, among others, Bloomer 1992; Hölkeskamp 1996/2004; 2012; 2014; Weileder 1998; Chaplin 2000; Walter 2004a, 51–70; Bücher 2006; Piepenbrink 2012; Wiegand 2013, 147–183; Langlands 2018; Roller 2018. See also Sauer 1910; Schütz 1913. 155 156

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This is especially true if the context was not provided by the speaker.160 This observation is fundamentally correct. How exactly that knowledge of the past was interpreted by the listeners in question, however, is in most cases beyond our comprehension. It is very likely that the mention of a specific historical character or place could trigger associations in the listeners that went far beyond what the speaker had actually communicated. This will often have been intended. The direction in which a speaker wanted to guide his audience can – with due caution – often be reconstructed from the context of the speech. To understand precisely which ideas a specific exemplum might have triggered in individual members of a given audience is more difficult. Presumably, one may expect a wide spectrum here, as far as the scope and historical accuracy of the respective associations were concerned. If, for example, Cicero referred to Hannibal in a speech, then most listeners would probably have known at least roughly who the Carthaginian general had been.161 Detailed knowledge of the war’s length or its protagonists’ strategies are, on the other hand, unlikely to have been common knowledge – yet to understand the meaning of such prominent exempla, such specialist knowledge was not usually necessary.162 Even the speaker himself did not necessarily have to know the exact context and historical background of an exemplum in detail. If one takes the exempla as a yardstick, this historical knowledge will probably have been present less in the form of a “chronologically structured context of events”, but rather concentrated “on the events themselves, concrete events, individual stories”.163 Not knowing the extent to which a speech was delivered in the literarily recorded wording poses yet another problem. Moreover, it is also possible that some historical examples were only added during the revision of an oration for publication. These issues remain ambiguous in almost all cases. In general, however, it may well be assumed that precisely those exempla that appear repeatedly were among those taught in the rhetorical schools of the Late Republic and Early Empire, and it is plausible – though beyond proof – that they enjoyed currency in oral discourse, too.164

 Thus Bücher 2006, 155–161 (exempla are not effective on their own, but require “the background and environment of a generally shared knowledge, a generally shared understanding of history, which makes reactions [...] predictable.”); Hölkeskamp 1996/2004; 2014, 67. See also Gowing 2005, 49; Piepenbrink 2012, 116. 161  See Sect. 5.2.3.1 below for this example. 162  See Bücher 2006, 219. 163  Hölkeskamp 1996/2004, 177. 164  See Gowing 2005, 49. 160

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In addition to the extensive œuvre of Cicero, who thus also represents one of our most important sources in this respect, the work of Quintilian165 should also be mentioned in this context.166 Another large corpus of texts is provided by the Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus.167 To what extent the historical examples collected by Valerius were actually used by orators and whether the work was primarily intended as an aid for the creation of one’s own speeches is  – despite the introduction of Valerius, which at first glance seems unambiguous in this respect – disputed.168 Thus, some works have tended to assume that Valerius rather intended to “provide concrete case studies (for imitation or as a guide) for all situations in life.”169 The subdivision into exempla would have served only to improve readability.170 This research discussion has not reached a clear conclusion.171 Ultimately, it seems quite  Possibly Cicero intended to establish himself as a historiographer as well, but he never put this project into practice. See e.g. Cic. leg. 1,5–10 and See Cic. Att. 2,12,3; 2,14,2; 14,14,5 as well as Plut. Cic. 41,1. on this see von Albrecht 1994, 437. His works nevertheless reveal a rather extensive historical knowledge, partly depending on genre and period (See on the following Bücher 2006, 212 f.). Thus Cicero’s work, especially with regard to his rhetorical and philosophical writings, can be roughly divided into three creative periods (von Albrecht 1994, 416  f.). To the first belongs above all the early work De inventione, c. 81–80. The second period begins after Cicero’s return from exile (57) with the dialogue De oratore in the year 55, and the third in the year 46. These phases are closely connected with Cicero’s political biography, since he worked particularly productively during the time in exile as well as during the few years in which he lived under Caesar’s rule, and while he also deepened his own knowledge in various fields through intensive studies (See from a letter of Cicero to M. Terentius Varro, which he wrote in late 47/early 46 (Cic. fam. 9,1,2): Scito enim me, postea quam in urbem venerim, redisse cum veteribus amicis, id est cum libris nostris, in gratiam. See the survey of works on Cicero’s rhetorical and philosophical writings in von Albrecht 1994, 423–427). Von Albrecht’s observations are also reflected with regard to the use of examples referring to the Second Punic War. For the majority of corresponding evidence is found in works that Cicero wrote when he was able to broaden his knowledge, since, although further intensive political activities were for the time being denied him owing to the prevailing circumstances, he at the same time now spent more time on intellectual pursuits (see Bücher 2006, 212 with note 142, who notes a “ratio of 1:2 between ‘early creative period’ and ‘middle/late period’”. See also the overview in Bücher 2006, 207–210 and see also Sauer 1910 and Schütz 1913. See Cic. Tusc. 1,1 (written in the second half of 45), where Cicero admittedly glosses over the situation by merely stating that his earlier duties had left him no room for extensive work on philosophical writings). It follows from this, in turn, that one should not generalize the insights into Cicero’s knowledge of Roman history with regard to the historical knowledge of his contemporaries (Bücher 2006, 213. This was already recognized by Schütz 1913, 6, who cautiously formulates that from a compilation of the historical data mentioned by Cicero one can gain “an insight [...] into the knowledge that the Roman Republic, or at least one of its most finely educated representatives, had of history before Livy, or that its historians offered it”). For even if Cicero was not a historian in the narrower sense, his historical knowledge was certainly above average compared to most other Romans, including many other senators (Schütz 1913, 141 f.). 166  On this, see von Albrecht 1994, 995–1003; Fernández López 2007. 167  On Valerius Maximus and his collection see, among others, Bloomer 1992; von Albrecht 1994, 852–859; Skidmore 1996; Wardle 1998, 1–25; Weileder 1998; Mueller 2002; Gowing 2005, 49–62; Krasser 2011; Langlands 2011; Wiegand 2013, 147–183; Rüpke 2016; and the contributions in Murray/Wardle (Hgg.) 2022. 168  Val. Max. 1, praef. 169  Wiegand 2013, 152. 170  Skidmore 1996, 73. 171  See the overview in Wiegand 2013, 150–159. 165

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conceivable that Valerius’s readers actually did and should use the collection for several purposes – that is, as a quarry for finding exempla Romana when writing their own speeches, or as a source of largely decontextualized Bildungskapital.172 In any case, it offers clues as to which historical materials could be more or less present among an educated audience in the early imperial period. That by no means every recipient was capable of correctly establishing the appropriate context from which an exemplum originated is again beyond question. The use of historical exempla, however, is not only found in speeches, pamphlets or collections, but also  – and to a considerable extent  – in historiographical works, which, moreover, represent the main sources for many of the events discussed in this work. Historiography The most significant source for reconstructing the course of wars, campaigns and individual battles is ancient historiography, which clearly placed considerable emphasis on the topic of war in general. Indeed, major wars in both Greece and Rome seem to have provided the impetus for the beginnings of historiography as genre.173 It is therefore not surprising that historiographical works also offer a wealth of information in many cases with regard to Roman defeats. From a research perspective that is primarily concerned with the reconstruction of a historical past, these may often appear unreliable and, in some cases, worthless.174 However, starting from the question of which explanations are presented in Roman historical culture for military defeats, or in which interpretive contexts and narratives defeats and their overcoming are placed, historiography provides rich illustrative material that will be examined in detail in the following chapters.175 Both the development of Roman historiography and its place in Roman historical culture have been repeatedly and intensively examined and discussed in scholarship. Therefore, it is not necessary to treat both sets of topics in detail here.176 In order to lay a foundation for the following chapters, however, it seems useful, first, to provide an overview of the authors whose works are particularly relevant to this study, and, second, to point out

 This is the view of Wiegand 2013, 155 f., among others, who rightly assumes that Valerius may well have pursued different intentions with his work: “Vielmehr ist eine Überlagerung beider Interessen, der Verfügbarmachung von exempla für den (evt. angehenden) Rhetor einerseits und (landeskundlich orientierter) Moraldidaxe andererseits nicht nur möglich, sondern sogar wahrscheinlich.” See similarly already Wardle 1998, 14 f. and see also Langlands 2011, 102. 173  See Beck/Walter 22005, 58–60; Walter 2004a, 233; Beck 2007, 259. 174  See, for example, Walter 2004b, 424 and, in relation to historiographical accounts of early Rome, Wiseman 2008, 15–18. 175  On this approach to ancient historiography, see, among others, Mutschler 2000, 99–101; Walter 2001; 2004a, 212–220; Beck 2003, esp. 87–92; Beck/Walter 2004, 7; Pina Polo 2004, 151; Pausch 2011, 22–24. See Erll 2004, 4–6; 2005, 45. 176  On the development of Roman historiography, especially from its beginnings to the Augustan period, see (all further references to sources and older studies), among others, Wiseman 1989; 2007; Oakley 1997, 21–108; Flach 31998, 56–158; Beck/Walter 22005, 17–50; Kierdorf 2002; 2003; Walter 2004a, 212–356; Beck 2007; Näf 2010. See also the contributions in Eigler/Gotter/ Luraghi/Walter (eds.) 2003; Timpe (eds.) 2007 as well as the introductions to the individual authors in FRHist I. The textual basis for the fragments of the Roman historians before Livius is now the edition published under the aegis of T. Cornell by Oxford University Press (FRHist). 172

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some characteristics of historiography as a medium, which should also be considered when dealing with historiographical accounts of Roman defeats. Roman historiography conventionally began with the work of Q. Fabius Pictor. The exact dating of his writing is disputed among scholars. However, it is clear in any case that Pictor witnessed both the First and Second Punic Wars. Thus, his work on the history of the city of Rome from its beginnings to the author’s present time offered a very early layer of tradition and also of the representation in different media of Roman defeats from the pen of an author who may even have witnessed some of those events himself. Even the early defeats at the hands of Celts and Samnites may have been dealt with in some form by Pictor.177 The same is true of the historical works of L. Cincius Alimentus and M. Porcius Cato.178 They are followed at a clear chronological distance by authors such as C. Acilius, L. Cassius Hemina, L. Capurnius Piso Frugi and more recent Annalists, such as Q. Claudius Quadrigarius or Valerius Antias.179 It is obvious that the monograph of L. Coelius Antipater on the Second Punic War is of particular interest in the context of this

 On Q. Fabius Pictor see Gelzer 1933; Zimmermann 1933; Lippold 1963, 13–27; Badian 1966, 2–6; Timpe 1972; Frier 1979/1999, 230 f., 233–253; Momigliano 1990, 88–108; Seibert 1993b, 15 f.; Oakley 1997, 22–23; Flach 31998, 61–67; Kierdorf 2002, 400–411; Beck 2003; 2007, 259 f.; Walter 2004a, 229–255; Beck/Walter 22005, 55–61; Mineo 2011, 111–113; Biesinger 2016, 40–52. 178  On L.  Cincius Alimentus see, among others, Badian 1966, 6  f.; Seibert 1993b, 16  f.; Flach 3 1998, 67  f.; Kierdorf 2002, 411  f.; Walter 2004a, 255–258; Beck/Walter 22005, 137  f. On the Origines of M. Porcius Cato see, among others, Badian 1966, 7–11; Gruen 1992, 52–83; Seibert 1993b, 18 f.; Walter 2004a, 279–296; Beck/Walter 22005, 148–154; Mineo 2011, 115 f. The contemporary accounts that had originated on the Carthaginian side and would, for this reason, be particularly informative on Rome’s defeats by Carthage are not preserved, either. Only few fragments survive. See the short overview in Seibert 1993b, 11–14 and further Meister 1975, 150–154. Known only by name are: Chaireas (FGrHist 177), Eumachos from Naples (FGrHist 178) and a certain Xenophon (FGrHist 179). Pol. 3,6,1 f. criticizes ‘Hannibal historians’, whose works apparently preceded his own, for their lack of care or their methodological incompetence in investigating the causes of the war. See Walbank 1957, 305. Hannibal is known to have been accompanied on his campaign by Silenos of Kaleakte (FGrHist 175) and Sosylos (FGrHist 176) from Sparta, whose reports are preserved in a few fragments. See Dessau 1916, 364–371; Cornelius 1932, 81–83; Meister 1975, 155–159; Seibert 1993b, 12 f.; Stocks 2014, 13–15. 179  On C. Acilius see: von Albrecht 1994, 302 f.; Beck/Walter 22005, 232 f.; on L. Cassius Hemina: Forsythe 1990; von Albrecht 1994, 304 f.; Beck/Walter 22005, 242–245; on L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi: von Albrecht 1994, 305; Flach 31998, 74–79; Beck/Walter 22005, 282–285. The historical work of Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, usually called Annales in the ancient evidence, was probably written in the period from the end of the civil war between the supporters of C.  Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla and the end of the 50s of the first century. See von Albrecht 1994, 310; Beck/ Walter 2004, 109–111; Briscoe 2013b, 288 f. On Valerius Antias: von Albrecht 1994, 310 f.; Beck/ Walter 2004, 168–171. 177

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book.180 This also applies to the biography of Hannibal written by Cornelius Nepos, even though this is not a historiographical work.181 Only the extant books of Livy’s history, however, provide a comprehensive record of both Roman defeats in wars against Celts and Samnites in Italy, as well as

 On L. Coelius Antipater: Herrmann 1979; von Albrecht 1994, 307 f.; Flach 31998, 80–82; Beck/ Walter 2004, 35–39 (with further literature); Beck 2007, 264. 181  Cornelius Nepos belonged to the same generation as Cicero and was apparently also friends with the latter as well as with T.  Pomponius Atticus (Gell. 15,28,1 (friendship with Cicero)). Suetonius was apparently aware of an exchange of letters between Nepos and Cicero (Suet. Iul. 55,1). See on the biographical information U. Eigler, DNP 8 (2000) 839 f., s. v. Cornelius Nepos, as well as von Albrecht 1994, 381 (with further evidence). Like Atticus, he did not hold any political office, as far as can be seen, but produced a quite extensive literary œuvre. This included various poems, a chronicle in three volumes and a five-volume collection of exempla of Greek and Roman history. The book on the generals comes from the main work, the 16-volume collection De viris illustribus. See for evidence from Albrecht 1994, 382; Anselm 2004, 32 f. Of this, again, only a relatively small portion survives. This includes a book on famous foreign generals (de excellentibus ducibus exterarum gentium), which was probably part of a more extensive collection of biographies. This book of generals also contains a biography of Hannibal (The questions concerning different editions, the dating of individual books and the form and content of lost parts of the work, which have been discussed extensively in literary-philological research, need not be pursued further here for the most part. See for example Anselm 2004, 24–66 for a detailed discussion of earlier contributions. There (36–43) good arguments can be found for the assumption that Nepos is indeed to be regarded as the author of the “Feldherrenbuch”. This is also the assumption in the present work. On the history of research see, in each case with further references, among others Geiger 1985; Havas 1985; Dionisotti 1988, 36 f.; Anselm 2004, 24 f.; Beneker 2009; Pryzwansky 2009; Stem 2012). Among other things, the composition of the material within the respective biography has been examined in detail (See on this Anselm 2004, 47–66). Thus, some recent works have been able to show that Nepos was apparently concerned with providing examples of morally valuable behaviour, which he believed could also be found in non-Roman generals, against the background of his own contemporary experience of the late Republic, of ongoing civil wars before and after Caesar’s dictatorship. This intention is also reflected in the quite frequent “authorial commentaries” that interrupt the account on numerous occasions, for instance to provide references to universally valid values that are of importance beyond the concrete historical situation described. In this sense, see Anselm 2004, 55 f., 171 (citation) and the detailed examination by Stem 2012, 128–229 and 234. As an audience that may have been in Nepos’s mind, one should think here of the political class of Roman Italy in a broad sense. Thus convincingly Stem 2012, 230–237, there esp. 234: “The brevity and overt moralizing of Nepos’ political biography are thus the very things that make possible its appeal to a wide audience – a more middlebrow audience, admittedly, one that could realistically include the entire breadth of the Roman political class”. Anselm 2004, 175–182 assumes that Nepos imagined his friend Atticus as the ideal reader of the biographies. This may apply to the “moral and value concepts” (ibid., 176) that Nepos presumably wanted to awaken in his readers, or that he hoped they already possessed. In terms of prior education and knowledge of comprehensive contexts, however, Nepos probably did not have to hope for a reader of the educational level of Atticus or Cicero. The exempla were understandable in the manner in which Nepos presented them, even without extensive prior historical knowledge (see Stem 2012, 232 with note 5). 180

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of severe setback against the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War.182 The particular details and challenges of each in dealing with the different parts of the work will be discussed in the chapters of the main section.183 The extant passages from the Histories of Polybius are rightly regarded as one of the most important sources for the first two Punic Wars.184 In the present study, however, Polybius’ remarks will only play a subordinate role in the following. Polybius’ Histories certainly influenced a number of important Roman authors, but the present work concentrates primarily on Roman sources. In order to lend greater coherence to the investigation, we will therefore refrain in the following from systematically examining the interpretations of Roman defeats in Polybius.185 Roman historiography formed an “essential component of Roman memory culture” and as such has been discussed in several recent publications.186 As an integral part of this, the different characteristics and peculiarities of this medium have also been elaborated.187 Therefore, a few basic remarks and references will suffice here, to be followed up in greater detail with reference to specific cases. One outstanding characteristic of historiography in comparison to other media of Roman historical culture is its ability to contextualize and integrate individual events and anecdotes more widely and thus render such narrative snippets as history.188 How difficult such a contextualization is without the help of historiography is known not least to the modern researcher when he or she turns his or her gaze to such epochs for which a corresponding  – and reliable  – form of tradition is not  The quantity of research contributions on Livy is almost impossible to survey. However, there are extensive historical commentaries on various parts of the work that help to make it accessible. See especially Ogilvie 1965 (on the first five books) and Oakley 1997–2005 (on the second pentad). A similar work on the third decade is still a desideratum (a fact already regretfully noted by Lippold 1963, 68, among others). However, with the careful work of Händl-Sagawe 1995, a historical commentary for book 21 is available. For the following sections, the commentary by Weißenborn/Müller is still a good help. Pausch 2011, 3–12 and the contributions in Mineo (ed.) 2015 also offer a research overview. 183  See below Sects. 3.1.5, 4.3 and 5.2.5.1, respectively. 184  See Champion 2011, 95. The three volumes of Walbank’s historical commentary 1957–1979, which also offers a comprehensive discussion of the older literature, continue to be an indispensable aid in studying Polybius’ work. See also, among others, Lippold 1963, 3–7; Irmscher 1989, 308–310; Schepens 1989, here esp. 322–324; Seibert 1993b, 24–29; Eckstein 1995; Flach 31998, 52–54; Goldsworthy 2000, 20 f.; Champion 2004a; 2004b; 2011; and Dreyer 2011 with an extensive index of the research of recent decades (156–169). 185  However, since the Histories offer representations and interpretations of Roman defeats which, precisely because of their differences from Roman sources, raise interesting perspectives, I will address Polybius’ take on Roman defeats in a future publication. 186  Walter 2004a, 220 (quotation). See, among others, Mutschler 2000, 99–101; Walter 2001; 2004a, 212–220; Beck 2003, esp. 87–92; Beck/Walter 2004, 7; Pina Polo 2004, 151; Pausch 2011, 22–24. See Erll 2004, 4–6; 2005, 45. See also Gehrke 2014, 43. 187  For the historiography of the epoch of the Roman Republic, this has been done above all by Hans Beck, Uwe Walter and Fritz-Heiner Mutschler, among others, so that it does not seem necessary to do so again here in an extensive form. Mutschler 2000, 99–101; Beck/Walter 22005, 47–50; Beck 2003, esp. 87–92; Walter 2001; 2004a, 212–220. 188  On this aspect, see Beck/Walter 22005, 48; Walter 2004a, 214–216. See Biesinger 2016, 52–58. 182

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available. It is not only in the case of Roman history that numerous individual short narratives and narrative circles will only have been brought into a relative chronological order at all through their inclusion in a historiographical work.189 Especially with regard to the early history of Rome, such undertakings caused the authors of the middle and late Republic considerable difficulties when they were confronted with the task of bringing events and characters of the (myth-)historical past into a chronological order, which, in addition, had to be reconciled with data from the history of the Greek world.190 Closely connected to contextualization is the creation of far-reaching narratives that not only order reports of individual events but also assign them an overarching meaning.191 The notoriously fragmentary state of almost all Roman historiography before Livy unfortunately does not allow for an analysis of whether and to what extent Rome’s defeats were integrated into such narratives for these works, although it is possible to make some assumptions in this regard.192 From the perspective of the recipients, it should also be emphasized that historiography, like other texts, was “at an advantage over place, monument, and ritual” because it could-at least in theory-“be received in any place and at any time and was thus able to reach a larger audience outside the political and cultural center.”193 This may have played a not insignificant role especially in the Late Republic and Early Imperial period, when the established senatorial aristocracy of the second century increasingly sought participation and influence, and while doing so also ensured an enlargement of the audience interested in Roman historical works.194 Under certain circumstances, historiography could also encourage a tendency towards the canonization of certain contents and/or the specific form of representation and

 Walter 2004a, 215.  Walter 2004a, 215. See Wiseman 2007. 191  See, for example, Mutschler 2000, 101; Beck 2003, 88 f. (“Die von Fabius Pictor aus ganz verschiedenen Gedächtnisbeständen konstituierte Gesamtgeschichte Roms war gerade keine bloße Addition […] zersplitterter Episoden und Streiflichter, sondern sie war die Geschichte eines Kollektivs. Pictors res gestae waren die Geschichte des Senats und Volkes von Rom, kurz: die Geschichte der res publica. […] In gewisser Hinsicht wurde die Thematisierung der Nobilität in Form eines (relativ) einheitlichen Diskurses durch die Geschichtsschreibung überhaupt erst möglich.”) See Walter 2004a, 214–219. 192  See most recently K.-J. Hölkeskamp, Rez. FRHist, in: HZ 303 (2016), 137–147, here esp. 138. 193  Walter 2004a, 213. see already Timpe 1988, 274; Heil 2003, 5. 194  On the earlier situation, see for instance Mutschler 2000, 101 note 57, who notes that “there can be no doubt” that “daß als die ursprünglichsten Rezipienten früher Epik und Geschichtsschreibung in Rom in allererster Linie die Mitglieder der Senatsaristokratie und der ökonomisch ähnlich gut gestellten Schicht unmittelbar unterhalb derselben in Betracht kommen. Dies gilt auch, wenn man annimmt, daß die epischen Texte schon bald zu Unterrichtszwecken benutzt wurden, da eine (auch) literarische Lektüre umfassende Erziehung gewiß in den Familien der Oberschicht eingesetzt und erst später den Weg in die öffentlichen Schulen gefunden haben wird”. See on this also Hartmann 2010, 20 and  – for the situation in the Middle Ages  – further Wickham/Fentress 1992, 146. 189 190

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presentation.195 But even the fragmentary ancient tradition still reveals that such a canonization was apparently never fully achieved in Rome.196 With regard to the recipients, however, it cannot be overlooked that the circle of those directly reached by the works of historiography necessarily remained and had to remain relatively limited, if one compares this with the ‘broad effect’ of other media.197 The economic and socio-cultural conditions under which the large part of the Italic and Roman population lived will have left many people little time or leisure to engage intensively with works of history. This remained largely the preserve of a social and economic elite.198 In this context, it is also worth noting the probably rather limited availability and increasingly considerable size of these writings.199 At least for the authors of the first representatives of the genre in Rome, it is also undoubted that they belonged to the (extended) senatorial ruling class, and that their perspective was therefore generally that of that group.200 These findings have contributed to the fact that Roman historiography has been judged by some scholars to be rather marginal in terms of its significance for Roman historical culture as a whole.201 Furthermore, the explanations, interpretations, and discourses offered in historiography represent only a part of the possible cultural memories on Roman defeats.202 In conclusion, historiography formed a part of Roman historical culture to which, on account of generic characteristics, special significance can be assigned, in respect of contextualization, the drafting of narratives and chronological sequence, and thus of the embedding of individual events in broad “horizons of meaning”.203 At the same time, the circle of those who read historiographical accounts remained quite limited throughout the entire duration of Roman history, even if there was a

 See Walter 2004a, 215; Levene 2010, 34 f.  This is also true of the great history of Livy, as can be seen, for instance, from a remark of Suetonius, who reports an account of the gold paid to the Gauls after the siege of the Capitol in 390 BC, which cannot be reconciled with the variant offered in the fifth book of Ab Urbe Condita (Suet. Tib. 3,2). 197  A fundamental investigation of the audience as well as the ‘broad impact’ of ancient historiography in general has repeatedly been described in research as an important desideratum (Momigliano 1978/1998; Beck/Walter 22005, 48, note 81). 198  Blösel 2003, 69; Morley 2004, 61 (“Given the limitations of a pre-industrial economy, few Greeks or Romans could take food for granted; it is at least plausible that for most of them it was more important, both physically and culturally, than politics or war.”); Bücher 2006, 138–140; Hartmann 2010, 20; Näf 2010, 206–209; Flower 2011, 41. See Beck/Wiemer 2009, 9. 199  Heil 2003, 7–10. 200  See, inter alia, Walter 2001; 2004a, 229 f.; Beck 2003; Pina Polo 2004; Flower 2011, 40 f. 201  Hölscher 2001, 188 (historiography represents “a late, complex side branch of historical memory of lesser publicity, monumentality, and bindingness”). 202  See inter alia Pausch 2011, 23 f. 203  See with regard to the Livian representation of M. Furius Camillus Walter 2004a, 404 (“Ebenfalls allein in einem literarischen Erinnerungsmedium von solcher Spannweite möglich war die Einbindung des Camillus in die ganz weiten Sinnhorizonte.”). See in detail below Sect. 3.1.5. 195 196

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significant expansion of readership towards the end of the Republic.204 Yet it was possible that the interpretations and narratives created in the medium of historiography were also passed on, mediated alike by producers and recipients of this genre, to those members of society who were themselves unwilling or unable to read historical works. This does not refer only to the extended audience at public readings of famous individual works, who may readily have told their families, friends and acquaintances about what they had heard. Mediation in the form of historical exempla by well-read individuals such as Cicero, who apparently studied historical works himself, should also be considered in this context.205 In this way, it was certainly possible to convey information that went beyond mere knowledge of individual protagonists of the Roman past. Although there is no clear evidence of this, it is quite conceivable that, for instance, the narrative, determined by “fundamental criticism of the morals and political culture of his time”, which dominates Sallust’s writings, could also be conveyed in simple brushstrokes to an audience that did not know these works from their own experience.206 Poetry Much of what was said in the preceding pages with regard to the embedding of historiography in Roman historical culture could equally be said about Roman epic.207 This, too, sets the scene for an integration of individual protagonists, motifs and narrative circles into literary contexts and horizons, which was probably absent from oral recitation.208 Owing to the tradition of this genre, Latin epic was, in principle, suited perfectly to taking up the theme of war. The choice of themes that Roman authors selected as the subject of such an epic is in itself important to pay attention to.209 In the context of the present work, it is worth noting that both one of the earliest Latin epics, the Bellum Punicum of Cn. Naevius,210 as well as the most extensive surviving work of this genre in Latin, the Punica of Silius Italicus, deal with wars in which the Roman armies lost a large number of battles and Rome got  See Pausch 2011, 38–45 with numerous further references.  Cicero was undoubtedly a highly literate senator. The extent and selection of his historiographical reading cannot be determined in detail, but some conclusions can be drawn regarding his work as a historian. See, among others, Fleck 1993; Walter 2004a, 361–373; Bücher 2006, 141–147. 206  Walter 2004a, 217 (quotation). See generally on the effect of written culture even in less literate societies Assmann 62007, 266. 207  See generally von Albrecht 1994, 64–75, and the references in the following notes. 208  See Mutschler 2000, 99–105. 209  See von Albrecht 1994, 72 f. 210  Cn. Naevius, who apparently came from Campania, took part in the First Punic War on the side of the Romans and their Italic allies, and probably wrote the Bellum Punicum, which dealt with the First Punic War, during the second war. On Cn. Naevius see, among others, Richter 1960; 1962; Altheim 1969; Seibert 1993b, 20 f.; von Albrecht 1994, 98–106; Bernstein 2000; Walter 2004a, 221–229; Jahn 2007, 52–58. The fragments of the Bellum Punicum are cited below according to Blänsdorf’s edition. The date of the epic and poem’s interpretation are of particular importance to this work in relation to Roman defeats in the Second Punic War, as will be discussed in Sect. 5.2.1.2. 204 205

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themselves into considerable difficulties.211 In addition, two highly influential works in terms of their effect on “historical image and historical orientation” must of course also be taken into account here: these are the only fragmentarily preserved Annales of Q. Ennius and Virgil’s Aeneid.212 With regard to the Augustan poets, one may perhaps rightly assume a broader and more heterogeneous audience than with regard to contemporary historiography.213 However, this too will probably have been recruited primarily from an extended social elite. In this context, it is particularly revealing for the present work to observe which topics and events could apparently be regarded as sufficiently well known by such an audience on the part of the poets that further contextualization did not seem necessary.214 These observations can also be made for other forms of literary activity in Rome, in which case it is also true that the works of Republican poets that once existed have been almost entirely lost. However, a number of fragments from the satires of C.  Lucilius have survived,

 The Punica, written by the Roman senator Tib. Catius Asconius Silius Italicus presumably during the reign of Domitian (81–96), represent the most extensive Latin epic that has been handed down from antiquity (see on the biographical data of Albrecht 1994, 759 f.; Hartmann 2004, 63 f.). For a long time, this special position of the epic in Latin literature was not reflected in research, in which little attention was paid to the Punica by both classical philologists and ancient historians. Since the second third of the twentieth century, however, this has increasingly changed. On the history of research, see von Albrecht 1964, 9–12; 1994, 767; Spentzou 2008, 133 f. On the Punica in general, see among others von Albrecht 1964; 1973; 1994, 759–768; Niemann 1975; Burck 1979, 254–299; Marks 2005; Tipping 2010; Stocks 2014; Jacobs 2021, as well as the contributions in Augoustakis (ed.) 2010. 212  The fragments of Ennius’ Annales are counted and quoted below according to the edition by Otto Skutsch (Skutsch 1985). The former extent of the Annales has been variously estimated. Suerbaum 2002a, 133, followed by Walter 2004a, 259, among others, assumes a volume of 13,000 to 15,000 verses. Admittedly, this is a “minimal value” (ibid., 259, note 216). The epic could also have been considerably longer. Cornell 1986, 245 assumes a volume of 25,000 to 30,000 verses. Of this once considerable volume, at least “about 600 verses or parts of verses” have survived (See Walter 2004a, 260 (citation), with further evidence). The title is already mentioned by ancient sources (earliest preserved mention in Lucilius (Lucil. 343  M. = 345 C./G.) on this F.  Skutsch 1905, 2603; Skutsch 1985, 6 f. with further evidence). On Q. Ennius as a whole see, among others, Skutsch 1968; 1985 (See on the latter the discussion of Cornell 1986); Seibert 1993b, 22–24; Gildenhard 2003; Walter 2004a, 258–279; Jahn 2007, 74–80; Elliott 2013 as well as Walther 2016, 180–186. Q. Ennius, like his predecessor the Campanian Cn. Naevius, not from Rome but from the city of Rudiae, i.e. ‘from ancient Messapian territory’. On this see Cic. Cato 14. See F. Skutsch 1905, 2589 (citation); Skutsch 1985, 1. 213  Apparently there were “public poetry readings in front of a larger audience” (von Albrecht 1994, 514). See also Horsfall 2003, 58–61. 214  See already Callies 1971, 342 f. (among others 343: “Es ist vielmehr nötig, gerade die sonstige Prosa und die Dichtung zur Grundlage der Aussage zu machen, um so einen verläßlicheren Eindruck von der Erinnerung [of a past event, note S. L.] eben nicht nur bei der kleinen Gruppe derer zu erhalten, die von ihrem Metier her gewissermaßen Erinnerung haben [...]”). 211

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which are informative for the present work.215 The situation is considerably more favourable for the later authors of the Augustan period. For a transmission of explanations and interpretations of Roman defeats in wars against Celts, Samnites, and Carthaginians, a wide and diverse space of media of the complex and heterogeneous Roman historical culture was thus given. This will be examined in the following chapters in search of the traces of Rome’s catastrophes at Allia and Lake Trasimene, at Caudium and Cannae, in addition to other cases.

 The fragments of Lucilius are cited below according to the editions by Friedrich Marx (1904), Werner Krenkel (1970), and Johannes Christes and Giovanni Garbugino (2015). The exact time of Lucilius’ life is disputed in research, but a date of birth around the middle of the second century can probably be assumed. See also J. Christes, DNP 7 (1999), 463–465, s. v. C. Lucilius, esp. 463 and Christes/Garbugino 2015, 9–14, who present the scarce information on Lucilius’ life and works. Little is known about Lucilius’ biography. He was apparently a knight, quite wealthy, and took part in the Numantine War i. J. 134/133 (see the testimonies and numerous references to research in Suerbaum 2002c, 305–307). Lucilius’ writings apparently enjoyed a certain popularity into the first century AD, with a readership that probably comprised a rather “exclusive audience”. Research assumes that the complete edition of all 30 volumes was only available posthumously. See Suerbaum 2002c, 308–310 (publication) and 315–318 (on appreciation and reception), there (315): “Lucilius wrote rather for an exclusive audience.” Should Lucilius indeed have filed a suit for insulting his person on a public stage (according to Rhet. Her. 2,13,19, at any rate), this would nevertheless speak for a “certain popularity of the satires” (Suerbaum 2002c, 316). See on the time of composition and publication already the detailed study by Cichorius 1908/1964, 63–98 and the introduction in the edition by Christes/Garbugino 2015, 12. 215

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In his speech On the Consular Provinces, delivered in 56, Cicero names the enemy of the Romans whom he considers most dangerous. While doing so, Cicero goes further by emphasizing that, “from the very beginning our empire,” no one who had studied Roman history in depth could doubt that any other opponent of the empire had been as dangerous as Gaul.1 Regardless of Cicero’s specific intention in this passage, it is hard to disagree with him at first glance, at least in terms of the duration of the conflict. Roman generals had been leading armies against Gallic forces since the beginning of the Republic, and in 56 the most prominent ‘Gallic War’ to date raged, in which C. Iulius Caesar extended the sphere of influence of the Roman Republic into the hitherto little-known European interior beyond the Alps.2 Incursions of Celtic warriors into Etruria as well as Celtic migratory movements into the Po Valley can be assumed already during the late fifth century.3 In the course of the following centuries Romans fought against Celts in northern Italy, on the  Cic. prov. 33 (nemo sapienter de re publica nostra cogitavit iam inde a principio huius imperii, quin Galliam maxime timendam huic imperio putaret). 2  See Dyson 1985, 7: “Starting with the traumatic events of the defeat on the Allia and the sacking of the city by the Celts, the Romano-Gallic wars developed into some of the longest, most brutal conflicts in the history of the Republic”. 3  See, among others, Dyson 1985, 9–13, 48; Cornell 1995, 314 f.; Birkhan 1997, 92–97; Cunliffe 1999, 70–75; Maier 2000, 94–100; Forsythe 2005, 251. The question as to when one can speak of a Celtic settlement in Upper Italy can hardly be answered with certainty, especially since Celts and other groups cannot be distinguished with certainty in the archaeological evidence in all cases. For the period from the turn of the fifth to the fourth century, however, the Celtic presence in the Po valley seems to be securely attested. This is also evidenced by the Celtic depictions in Etruscan pictorial art, of which the image on a funerary stele from near Bologna is probably the best known. The lower section shows an armed mounted warrior riding down a naked Celt fighting on foot. The motif is found in many variations in Etruscan pictorial art in the following generations, which can probably be interpreted, among other things, as a reflection of the experience of generations of fighting against Celts from the north. See Höckmann 1991, esp. 216, 220; Holliday 1994, 23 f., and see also Dyson 1985, 46 on representations of Celtomachia found in the Veneti area. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Lentzsch, Roma Victa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0_3

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Iberian Peninsula, from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, in Asia Minor as well as on the British Isles, where under the command of Cn. Iulius Agricola in the Battle of Mons Graupius (83 AD) in the Scottish Highlands, the Roman subjugation of Britain was sealed.4 Romans thus fought Celts for more than half a millennium, with these clashes occurring in an area stretching from Portugal to Hadrian’s Wall and from the Atlantic to present-day Turkey. This enormous temporal as well as geographical extent already suggests that no homogeneous group should be assumed behind this adversary, and indeed the question of a precise definition of the meaning of the term ‘Celts’ is notoriously disputed in modern scholarship. Unlike the Carthaginians, for example, the Celts did not form a clearly identifiable political community with an administrative or even religious centre whose fall or continued existence could have clearly indicated the end or persistence of this adversary from the Roman point of view.5 The concept of the Celts, which was already quite diffuse in antiquity, was naturally required so that Cicero and other ancient authorities could construct continuities over the centuries and celebrate Caesar, for example, for having finally overcome this ancient threat to the Roman Empire with his victory over Gaul.6 The cultural patterns of interpretation behind such statements will be part of the analysis at various points in the following chapter. The beginning of the old enmity against the Celts was set by the Romans, not only in Cicero’s time, as stemming from an attack of Celtic warriors not far from Rome which is said to have even led to the conquest of the city after their victory at the river Allia.

 Tac. Agr. 29–38.  See, among others, Birkhan 1997, 32–51; Cunliffe 1999, 20–38; Maier 2000, 13–18 (esp. 16: “Die Unzulänglichkeit einer Definition der Kelten anhand ihrer materiellen und geistigen Kultur ersieht man ohne weiteres daraus, daß die als typisch keltisch geltende Latènekunst etwa in Irland und auf der Iberischen Halbinsel kaum eine Rolle spielte, daß die frühkeltischen Handelspartner der Griechen zur Zeit Herodots ganz andere Siedlungs- und Wirtschaftsformen besaßen als die keltischen Völker zur Zeit Caesars und daß den weitaus meisten inschriftlich bezeugten keltischen Göttern nur lokale oder regionale Bedeutung zukam. Ähnliches gilt für das Gemeinschaftsbewußtsein der heute als Kelten bezeichneten Völker.”). 6  See, for example, Cic. prov. 34 (admittedly with the hint offered by the intention of the speech that this work was not yet fully accomplished, which is why Caesar still needed a few years to permanently subjugate the Gauls). See Williams 2001, 179; on the ancient concept of the Celts, e.g. Birkhan 1997, 22–27, 32; Cunliffe 1999, 1–9, esp. 2. 4 5

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3.1  The ‘Gallic Catastrophe’: The Defeat at the Allia and the Gallic Conquest of Rome The defeat at the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome by the Gauls in the early fourth century represent the earliest historically tangible defeats suffered by the Romans against Celtic opponents.7 In the following centuries, both events became points of reference for a whole series of lieux de mémoire and aitia for rituals or place names, which is also due to the fact that the (even supposed) traces of this event in Rome and its environs already attracted the special interest of antiquarian research in antiquity. However, the origin of individual aitia can be fixed chronologically with some degree of certainty only in rare cases. Therefore, this complex of traces left by the capture of Rome by the Celts in Roman historical culture is discussed in a separate section in this chapter, between the testimonies of authors of the Augustan period and those of the early and middle imperial periods. While this hardly does justice to a number of aitia in terms of the chronological place of their creation, as some are certainly older, most of the sources from which knowledge of them can be gained today date from the first century B.C. to the second century A.D., so the placement of this sub-chapter at this point seems most appropriate. Reactions of contemporaries to the defeat at the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome by the Celts have not survived, so that largely only rather general considerations can be made. The fact that Celtic raids of smaller and larger dimensions were obviously part of the experiences that the Romans of those generations associated with the Celts, even in the following decades, will already have contributed to keeping the memory of earlier conflicts with this opponent present in the social memory of the Roman population. Among these, the defeat at the Allia and the capture of Rome will probably have occupied a special status, if only because of the

 There is no reason to doubt the fundamental historicity of the defeat at the Allia and the capture of Rome (see among others Ogilvie 1965, 719 f.; Dyson 1985, 14; Cornell 1995, 314; Kolb 2002, 140 f.; Forsythe 2005, 252 f.). Indeed, news of this event soon reached the Greek world, as reflected in some source testimonies (Plutarch, at any rate, cites references he claims to have found in Aristotle and Herakleides Pontikos: Plut. Cam. 22,2–3). Since, however, most of the details to be found in the sources with regard to the chronological course of events, the individuals and groups acting, and their motivations must be regarded as implausible, many questions concerning the exact course of events remain unanswered. In recent decades, a number of proposals have been put forward to reconstruct at least a rough historical sequence of events, so that a further reconstruction does not seem necessary here. On this, however, see, among others, Alföldi 1963, 355–365; Dyson 1985, 14–16; Cornell 1995, 313–318; Cunliffe 1999, 75 f.; Maier 2000, 96 f.; Rosenberger 2003a, 365; Forsythe 2005, 251–259; Cowan 2009, 1–3; Richardson 2012, 123–130; Sommer 2013, 114–120; Blösel 2015, 54 f.; Helm 2022, 92–98. 7

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singularity of the event.8 In this context, research has discussed the ethnic identity of the attackers at the Allia, who, according to Livy and other authors, are said to have belonged to the Celtic tribe of the Senones.9 The extent to which this has been handed down in a historically accurate manner cannot be determined with any degree of certainty, nor can one resolve the question of the relationship between those Senones and the Celts who settled the area between Ariminum and Ancona in the third century also known as Senones.10 In any case, the latter were among the first Celts to fall victim to Roman advances into Celtic-controlled areas in northern Italy, after the consul of 283, P. Cornelius Dolabella, defeated a Celtic army that may have been part of a wider alliance with Etruscans. Dolabella then had the territory of the Senones plundered and devastated over a wide area, with thousands of members of the tribe dying or falling into slavery.11 In the course of these operations, or in the historiographical account of Dolabella’s campaign, the role of the Senones in the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’ may then have been emphasized, or even manufactured in the first place.12 Against this background, the battle against the Senones in 283 could then have served as revenge or, more generally, as easily justified.13 To what extent these hypotheses are correct must again remain uncertain, since no early third-century sources have survived to securely identify the Celts who had taken Rome.

 Possibly these memories were also an impetus for the Romans to undertake campaigns into Celtic-controlled areas in the north. In any case, it does not seem unreasonable to assume that in order to justify or motivate these campaigns, the Romans were reminded of the attacks they had to suffer from the Celts. Since the city of Rome itself had been affected, it can be assumed that the Celtic conquest of the centre of the Roman world was particularly emphasized. See Dyson 1985, 22: “It [the defeat at the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome] created an intense collective fear of the Gauls that was to carry over into later Roman history. Yet it was itself a single event from which Rome recovered, and it could be regarded as a transitory incident in the Polybian sense. The emergence of the Gauls as an element in Rome’s periodic war with the Latins and other neighboring groups created another, more permanent source of ethnic tension. To the sudden terror of the single attack was added the repeated devastation of frontier raiding. The combination of the two experiences developed in the Romans a fierce hatred and fear of the Gauls that was to fuel the wars of conquest and extermination of the next century”. 9  Liv. 5,35,3; Diod, 14,113,3; Dion. Hal. 19,13; Strab. 5,1,6; App. Celt. 11. 10  On the settlement area of the Senones of Upper Italy see, among others, Birkhan 1997, 96. 11  See Dyson 1985, 15. 12  Thus already Hirschfeld 1895/1913, 284. 13  Thus Dyson 1985, 15: “It should be remembered, though, that the Senones were among the first Gallic tribes conquered by the Romans and that the subjugation was effected with a thoroughness and brutality close to genocide. The Romans coveted Senonian land, and they may well have been tempted to justify their actions by blaming them for the sack”. 8

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3.1.1  Remembrance in the Calendar: The Dies Alliensis July 18, the date of the defeat at the Allia, is already recorded in the oldest surviving Roman calendars as a day on which public business had to be suspended.14 The Dies Alliensis is also attested in numerous literary records.15 Whether this is an authentic tradition, i.e., whether the Romans were actually defeated by a Celtic army on the Allia on 18 July, cannot be determined with absolute certainty. However, it is quite possible that it was set up in the fourth century, a relatively short time after the actual defeat.16 In general, the idea that certain days could have an auspicious or ominous quality was widespread in the Greek and Roman worlds.17 The background to the establishment of the Dies Alliensis has been investigated several times.18 According to some recent studies, the identification of the day of the Allia battle as a ‘day of misfortune’ served first of all to offer an explanation for the defeat such that it could not have been avoided on this date.19 This form of interpretation can also be understood as illustrative of an even deeper cultural phenomenon.20 Political and military developments on the Italic peninsula in the fifth and fourth centuries were marked by uncertainty and uncertain future prospects. Marauding Celtic warrior groups were apparently as much a recurring phenomenon of the period as interventions and campaigns by Greek, Etruscan and, not least of course, Roman military leaders in neighbouring cities and regions.21 The sacking of Rome by the Celts, or forcing them to pay a large ransom for their departure, will have seemed highly  This oldest calendar is known to be the Fasti Antiates maiores, which is the only surviving copy of a Roman calendar before the Julian calendar reform. The Dies Alliensis is already recorded here. See InscrIt. 13,2,15: C. [Al]liens(is) die(s) (see for an illustration Rüpke 1995a, 40). See also, among others, InscrIt. 13,2189. 15  See, among others, Varro ling. 6,32; Cic. Att. 9,5,2; Liv. 6,1,11–12; Plut. qu.R. 25; Cam. 19,1; Gell. 5,17,2; Fest. 6,19–21  L.  For further evidence, see Rüpke 1995a, 567, note 12; Oakley 1997, 395. 16  Since it does not seem entirely far-fetched that the pontifices were already making at least rough records in the fourth century, and copies of these could survive for several generations, the Dies Alliensis could well have been fixed as early as the fourth century (see Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 210; Forsythe 2012, 21). The verdict on this is closely related to how reliable one estimates at least the rough framework of Rome’s preliterary tradition to be for the early fourth century; in this case, especially for what date one places the beginning of regular records on the tabulae of the pontifices maximi. See the overview in Walter 2004a, 196–204 (with numerous references to important sources and further literature), on the question of the beginning of the records esp. 200 f. Cf. Feeney 2010, 884. 17  See, among others, Michels 1967, 25, 63–65; Scullard 1981/1985, 66 f., 229 f.; Brind’Amour 1983, 227–232; Grafton/Swerdlow 1988; Chaniotis 1991 (on “memorial days” in the Greek world); Rüpke 1995a, 565–575; Walter 2004a, 204 f.; Forsythe 2012, 19 f. 18  Particularly in Rüpke 1995a. See for the following especially ibid., 567–575; Walter 2004a, 204–207. 19  Rosenstein 1990a, 67 f. 20  See for the following Rüpke 1995a, 567–575. 21  See the overview in Cornell 1995, 318–326; Forsythe 2005, 268–321; and most recently Walter 2016, esp. 28–31. 14

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unsettling even against this generally uncertain political background of archaic Italy. The identification of the Dies Alliensis may have helped to reduce the sense of ominous and unpredictable contingency that might have resulted from the experience of their own defeat.22 For even if this had been painful, the recognition of the special quality of the Dies Alliensis represented not only an explanation for the individual event, but also, in a sense, a ‘progress’ in understanding and interpreting a complex and dangerous environment. This realisation could have a calming effect – but only if a repetition was avoided in the future, which is why the disruption of everyday business on that day was necessary.23 The fact that the special quality of the Dies Alliensis had only revealed itself through defeat also meant that it had not been possible to recognise before the battle that a confrontation on that day did not promise success. Therefore, this tradition may also have helped to contain any recriminations against the Roman army leaders should these have occurred.24 Even if the purpose of the Dies Alliensis was not to commemorate the event, and it was by no means a ‘commemorative day’ in the proper sense of the term, it is indeed ‘hardly conceivable’ that it did not “already have a commemorative effect” due to the “annually recurring intervention in everyday business”.25 Moreover, due to the fixed entry in the Roman calendar, the Dies Alliensis remained present, as can be shown by numerous literary sources. This persistence then probably also applied to memory of the battle that had once taken place on that date.26 To what extent the day was actually (still) perceived as ominous by wide circles of Roman society in subsequent generations, for example in the late Republic, is again difficult to assess.27 In general, however, the 18th Quintilis, later Julius, seems to have always retained its fundamental significance as a day with a special auspicious character. In  See Rüpke 1995a, 569: “Der psychologische Mechanismus dieser Strategie erscheint klar: Zur Bewältigung großer negativer Ereignisse wird die Kontingenz des Unglücks zu unverfügbarer Zwangsläufigkeit umgedeutet. […], es dient aber auch der Psychohygiene des historischen Bewußtseins der Römer. Militärische Katastrophen werden so über die Tagesqualität dies religiosus bewältigt.” See also generally Rüpke 1995a, 23–36 on the “social dimension” of time and the contribution to the reduction of complexity that the establishment of a calendar generally makes, since it helps the members of a society to find their way in what is actually “uniformly ‘approaching’ time, through the formation of structure” (ibid., 34). By “Nachdenken über unterschiedliche Qualitäten gleicher und ungleicher Kalendertage” this “Reduktionsstrategie” can certainly be increased (ibid., 35). On the social functions of calendars in general, see Feeney 2010, 883 f. 23  See Walter 2004a, 205; Rich 2012, 95. 24  See Rosenstein 1990a, 67 f. 25  Walter 2004a, 204 f., quote: 205. See in this sense also, among others, Beck 2006, 204; Kath 2006, 29–35; Rüpke 2006, 564; Rodríguez Mayorgas 2007, 120. 26  See Oakley 1997, 396 (here reference to: Cic. Att. 9,5,2; Liv. 6,1,11; Tac. hist. 2,91,1; Gell. 5,17,2; Macr. Sat. 1,16,23). See also the evidence in TLL 11676, 27–48. 27  See Scullard 1981/1985, 230 in relation to Cic. Att. 9,5,2. 22

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addition, at some uncertain point in time, a day synchronism was ‘recognized’ between the battle at the Allia and the defeat of the 300 Fabians at the Cremera. According to Livy, the Romans became aware of the coincidence of both defeats on a day shortly after the withdrawal or the expulsion of the Celts from Rome.28 The interpretation is obvious, according to which in this way various defeats of the early Roman period were to be mutually explained.29 Whether the tradition, according to which three Fabians are also said to have played an essential role in the events leading to the capture of Rome, and according to Livy even fought as military tribunes at the Allia, is a product of this temporal alignment or – conversely – led to the two defeats being linked with each other also with regard to the date of the battle, can no longer be determined.30 In any case, however, it is remarkable that Ovid still knew and favored the date of February 13 for the battle at the Cremera.31 The tradition, which included the day synchronism, seems to have had no exclusive validity. An institution apparently close in some way to the Dies Alliensis is found in the idea of the so-called Dies atri. Fundamentally, however, this is a distinct phenomenon from that of the Dies Alliensis.32 Dies atri or Dies postriduani were the days that followed the Calends, Nones, and Ides of a month, respectively. These days were accorded a sacred status that prohibited the performance of a number of private undertakings and public transactions.33 In ancient tradition these days are associated with the defeat at the Allia, claiming that the Dies atri owed their special quality to the fact that Q. Sulpicius Longus, one of the military tribunes who led the Roman army to disaster, had previously conducted auspices on the day after the Ides of Quintilis without a favourable result. This, however, he had ignored – with the obvious fatal consequences.34 Already in antiquity, Livy seems to be not quite sure about the validity of this explanation, and Plutarch provides  – probably

 Liv. 6,1,11.  See Walter 2004a, 205. 30  Walter 2004a, 205. 31  Ovid. fast. 2195–196. on this see Brind’Amour 1983, 231; Grafton/Swerdlow 1988, 14; Walter 2004a, 205; Forsythe 2012, 32. The dating of the Battle of the Cremera to 13 February is, however, as unlikely as that to 18 July. It is therefore considered that this was an aition for the beginning of the Parentalia (see most recently Forsythe 2012, 33). 32  Rüpke 1995a, 570–575; Oakley 1997, 395 f.; Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 210. 33  Liv. 6,1,11–12; Gell. 5,17,1–2; Macr. Sat. 1,16,24–25. See Forsythe 2012, 24 f. 34  Liv. 6,1,11–12; Gell. 5,17,1–2. 28 29

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justified – criticism of the derivation of the Dies atri from the defeat at the Allia.35 Nevertheless, the very existence of such a factually incorrect derivation indicates how present the Dies Alliensis and the tradition associated with it obviously was to Romans of later generations.

3.1.2  Messages from the Distant Past: Early Literary Evidence The question of the time and background of the synchronism of the day of the disaster of the 300 Fabians at the Cremera with the Dies Alliensis, which cannot be verified, reveals a methodological difficulty that must be addressed in an investigation of the representation of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ as well as with regard to other questions. Unlike, for example, in the case of the defeats against the Carthaginians in the first two Punic Wars, there are no longer any written sources that were created more or less within the contemporary horizon of the events. In addition, even the earliest Roman authors did not write their accounts and interpretations of the event until some five generations later. What this account looked like in detail, for example in the historical work of the first Roman historian, Q. Fabius Pictor, is largely unclear. Now, it is by no means impossible that later sources may contain, in part, very old strands of tradition. But, when once again contrasted to the situation surrounding the Punic Wars, for which one also necessarily cannot do without numerous conjectures for the tradition before Cicero, it is much more difficult to trace the

 This seems to be indicated at least by the vague reference to the sources available to Livy. Liv. 6,1,11–12. On this see Oakley 1997, 398 (“we should share his [Livy’s] scepticism about its authenticity”). Plutarch’s critical remarks in Plut. qu.R. 25. See the note in Rüpke 1995a, 570, note 24. In modern scholarship, a connection of the Dies postriduani with the defeat at the Allia has mostly been rejected and replaced by plausible explanations. See on this already Michels 1967, 65, note 16; Grafton/Swerdlow 1988, 14; Forsythe 2012, 24–27, as well as the detailed analysis in Rüpke 1995a, 570–575. Already speaking against a historically authentic connection with the defeat at the Allia is the circumstance that the battle took place 3 days after the Ides and therefore in ancient tradition had to resort to the somewhat awkward “construction of a sacrifice preceding by 2 days” (Rüpke 1995a, 570). The connection to the after-days of Calends and Nones seems even more uncertain, which is why Rüpke 1995a, 750 probably rightly suspects that the after-days of Calends, Nones, and Ides “all gained their religious prominence solely through the calendar as a technical system.” Thus the connection with the battle of the Allia was only established later in ancient tradition. The actual reason for the quality of these days, on the other hand, remains largely unclear, so that various conjectures have been put forward on this in scholarship. See Rüpke 1995a, 571–575, according to whom the so-called ‘following days’, the dies postriduani, were given the restrictions on cultic and other public-social activities (including the prohibition of marriage) in order to prevent preparatory ‘activities on the orientation days serving as feast days and assembly dates’ (ibid., 571). Moreover, the designation as ‘black days’ was not due to the waning moon after the middle of the month, the ides (as assumed by Wackernagel1924), but simply to the use of the color adjective black as a symbol for misfortune. This association, obvious to today’s viewer, was apparently already “widespread in antiquity” (Rüpke 1995a, 574). Brind’Amour 1983, 231, is also skeptical of Wackernagel’s thesis. See Oakley 1997, 398 f. and most recently Forsythe 2012, 27. 35

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development of individual elements of the account and interpretations associated with them for the ‘Gallic Disaster’.36 Any work dealing with ‘early Rome’ up to about the beginning of the third century must therefore fundamentally address the question of the shape, form and content of early tradition at that time. Fabius Pictor wrote his work, in which the Battle of the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome were certainly addressed, probably only towards the end of the third century, so that for the time being it must remain an open question on which paths exactly knowledge of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ reached Pictor and his contemporaries, and which contents were already part of this early composition. The earliest still halfway certain testimonies to the Celtic conquest of Rome come from the pens of Greek authors, who probably never set foot in Italy or Rome themselves.37 In the Natural History of Pliny the Elder there is a reference to the work of a certain Theopompos, presumably Theopompos of Chios. According to this, he was the first Greek author to mention Rome in his work. More than the news that the city had been taken by the Gauls could not be found in Theopompos, according to Pliny.38 In his biography of the legendary M. Furius Camillus, Plutarch mentions two writings known to him on the event, which differ from the account given by him. These are works of Aristotle and of Heracleides of Pontus, who had reported it in his work On the Soul (Περὶ ψυχῆς).39 From Heracleides’ work, according to Plutarch, it had been learned that news had come from the West that an army from the land of the Hyperboreans had conquered a Greek city called Ῥώμη, which lay on the coast of the “Great Sea.”40 Aristotle apparently also had news of the Celtic  Thus also Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 207, note 5, with regard to the representation of the ‘Gallic catastrophe’ in the “collective memory” of the Romans and the possibilities of its investigation: “Uns ist es wichtig, daß die Erinnerung an eine die Gemeinschaft definierende ‘Urzeit’ in jedem Fall ihre die Individuen übergreifende Einheitlichkeit in der Begründung des gegenwärtigen Zustandes und seiner Bedürfnisse findet. Die der ‘Urzeit’ gegenüberstehende ‘Gegenwart’ müssen wir freilich ebenso zeitlos konstruieren, da wir die über viele Jahrhunderte streuenden Zeugnisse nicht verschiedenen, klar voneinander abgehobenen ‘Gegenwarten’ zuordnen können. Deshalb geraten häufig Varianten der Überlieferung in ein Nebeneinander, weil wir sie in ihrem Nacheinander (aus einer gewandelten Zeit heraus) nicht erfassen können.” See also Tränkle 1998, 146: “In vollem Umfang kenntlich ist uns nur die letzte Stufe dieser Entwicklung, eben diejenige, die durch Livius repräsentiert wird. Für die vorausgehenden Phasen sind wir auf bruchstückhafte Nachrichten bei den verschiedenen Autoren angewiesen, und es ist oft nicht leicht zu sagen, was als älter, was als jünger gelten muß, und von welchem Punkt eine bestimmte Version ihren Ausgang genommen hat, zumal stets mit der Möglichkeit zu rechnen ist, daß in einer späteren Quelle eine an sich sehr alte Überlieferung steckt”. 37  On this point, see also Williams 2001, 145–150, who refers to earlier studies in which plausible conclusions have been drawn about, among others, Etrurian, Sicilian and also Massaliotic versions of the event (see esp. ibid., 145). 38  FGrHist 115 F 317 = Plin. nat. 3,57: Theophrastus, qui primus externorum aliqua de Romanis diligentius scripsit  – nam Theopompus, ante quem nemo mentionem habuit, urbem dumtaxat a Gallis captam dixit. 39  Plut. Cam. 22,2–3. 40  Plut. Cam. 22,2: Ἡρακλείδης γὰρ ὁ Ποντικὸς οὐ πολὺ τῶν χρόνων ἐκείνων ἀπολειπόμενος ἐν τῷ Περὶ ψυχῆς συγγράμματί ϕησιν ἀπὸ τῆς ἑσπέρας λόγον κατασχεῖν, ὡς στρατὸς ἐξ Ὑπερβορέων ἐλθὼν ἒξωθεν ᾑρήκοι πόλιν Ἑλληνίδα Ῥώμην, ἐκεῖ που κατῳκημένην περὶ τὴν μεγάλην θάλασσαν. See Wiseman 2007, 69. 36

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conquest of Rome and knew, in a unfortunately lost writing, to report that a certain Λεύκιος had saved the city.41 It is no longer possible to determine how Theopompus, Herakleides, and Aristotle each obtained knowledge of the Celtic capture of Rome. This is also true with regard to the form of the account and possible interpretations that were connected with it. That only a rather vague idea of the events was to be taken from the text of Herakleides needs no further discussion. In what context the fall of Rome was treated in his writing Περὶ ψυχῆς remains obscure.42 Too little is also known about the work of Theopompus in which he commented on the Celtic capture of Rome to be able to draw any further conclusions from this.43 The fact that Aristotle, according to Plutarch, knew a Λεύκιος as the saviour of Rome has, however, given rise to various considerations in modern scholarship.44 For the Roman leader who finally saves the Romans is, in the historiographical tradition that can be grasped in Livy as well as in a multitude of other sources, famously called M. Furius Camillus. As a conceivable option for resolving the question of which Lucius was meant by Aristotle, L.  Furius Camillus has been suggested, who, according to the historiographical tradition and the entry in the Fasti, was the son of M. Furius Camillus. The deeds of the son, who according to Livy is said to have acquired merit in the defensive struggle against Celts who invaded central Italy, might in this case have influenced the tradition of his father’s successes.45 There is also in Livy’s report a Lucius who appears as a savior. This is a certain L. Albinius, who orders his family from his cart in order to bring the priestesses of Vesta as well as the sacra publica to the safety of Caere. Therefore, according to one interpretation of the fragment, Aristotle could have meant this L.  Albinius, who, according to at least one early tradition known to the Greek scholar, played a central

 Plut. Cam. 22,3: Ἀριστοτέλης δὲ ὁ ϕιλόσοϕος τὸ μὲν ἁλῶναι τὴν πόλιν ὑπὸ Κελτῶν ἀκριβῶς δῆλός ἐστιν ἀκηκοώς, τὸν δὲ σώσαντα Λεύκιον εἶναί ϕησιν- ἦν δὲ Μάρκος, οὐ Λεύκιος, ὁ Κάμιλλος. 42  Wehrli 1969, 94 assumes, however, that Herakleides must have been as well informed about the conquest of Rome as Aristotle, so that the “mysterious indeterminacy can be explained by the special conditions” of the composition of the text as a dialogue about the doctrine of the soul, which Plutarch apparently failed to notice. More than the historical circumstances of the conquest of Rome, Herakleides would have been interested in the “mysterious news of the event”, which in turn suggests that “he explained it by some divination”. That Herakleides was less interested in reconstructing the Celtic offensive as precisely as possible than in the news itself is quite conceivable. However, a precise classification of the fragment in the work is not possible for lack of further evidence on this. 43  See Meister 1990, 90–93; Williams 2001, 146. 44  Cornell 1995, 316; Bruun 2000; Williams 2001, 149 f. On Bruun 2000 see Walter 2004a, 385. 45  Flacelière 1961, 237 seems to accept this interpretation as quite certain. See the bibliographical references in Bruun 2000, 59, note 91. 41

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role on the Roman side and could even be considered the savior of Rome.46 Whether Aristotle actually meant that L. Albinius, however, is unclear, which is why Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg rightly expresses skepticism about this.47 However, according to Ungern-Sternberg again, the fragment of Aristotle “at least” indicates that “tradition already early felt the need for a savior figure”.48 Thus, it is basically conceivable that in the fourth century M. Furius Camillus, while later praised for this, was not yet regarded as that savior of Rome.49 This is the starting point for an interpretation that could be used to integrate Aristotle’s Lucius into the story of the fall and salvation of Rome.50 In the Fasti of the time around the year 400, which themselves are highly controversial with regard to their authenticity, a certain L(ucius) Furius Medullinus appears as an apparently very successful aristocrat, about whom, however, hardly any concrete information is known, since his deeds as a magistrate remain almost entirely unmentioned in the Livian work. After M.  Furius Camillus had made his first appearance in Livy, L. Furius Medullinus disappears from the tradition.51 Possibly, so the thought goes, this L.  Furius had played a prominent role in the fourth-century tradition in the defense of Rome, which was only forgotten by the later genesis and spread of the Camillus legend.52 Christer Bruun has taken these thoughts further by suggesting that the well-known ancient Roman hero M. Furius Camillus was an entirely fictitious figure. On the one hand, the tradition around the historically influential L. Furius Medullinus had entered into this figure, which presumably had already been vaulted to legend-like status by the oral tradition at an early stage. On the other  See already Sordi 1960, 49–52. See approvingly, for instance, Cornell 1995, 316. Williams 2001, 149 proposes a reconstruction that is a combination of different theses. First, he adopts Sordi’s view that Aristotle’s Λεύκιος meant Lucius Albinius. According to this, the latter had already saved the sacra publica in a tradition which was known to Aristotle. On the other hand, in this early tradition the Capitol had also been taken by the Gauls-according to the older variant supposed by Skutsch to have stood with Q. Ennius. The military defeat of the Romans was therefore complete, which is why the preservation of the sacra in Caere and the continuity of the cult, which was important for the existence of the Roman religious community, played such an important role in the early tradition. 47  Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 212 (“Die fromme Tat gleich als Rettung Roms zu betrachten, und deshalb den von Aristoteles genannten Retter Lucius heranzuziehen, ist wohl doch zuviel des Guten.”). 48  Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 212, as also Walter 2004a, 387. 49  In research, namely, it has already been suggested some time that the legends surrounding the deeds of M. Furius Camillus represent the product of a long history of tradition, in which new elements and narrative circles were repeatedly added, some of which had previously existed independently of each other. For a comprehensive presentation and interpretation of the material, see most recently Späth 2001 and Walter 2004a, 382–407. See also Münzer 1910. See also Bruun 2000, 43. 50  See Bruun 2000 for the following. 51  Bruun 2000, 57 f. (a. o. 57: “Altogether we can say that the person of Furius Medullinus comes across completely without personality in Livy. On the two occasions where he is mentioned, he handles routine tasks.”). Specifically, L. Furius Medullinus is said to have been consul in 413 and 409, and military tribune with consular authority in 407, 405, 398, 397, 395, 394, and 391. See Broughton 1951, for evidence on the respective years. 52  Bruun 2000, 59. 46

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hand, the figure of M.  Furius Camillus was influenced by elements of older, but today lost, Middle-Italian folk traditions. These are no longer available, but Bruun assumes that the wall drawings found in the Tomba François in Vulci are illustrations of these traditions. The figures depicted there are inscribed to help the viewer identify them, and one of the figures bears the name of Marce Camiltna.53 Bruun suspects that the legendary stories that were supposedly spread in central Italy about this man were another source that could have contributed to the shaping of the Camillus legend.54 Various versions were initially passed on orally until the well-­ known Camillus legend finally prevailed and became established.55 The assumption that different versions of the attack of the Celts and their capture of Rome in central Italy circulated in the form of oral tradition is in principle entirely plausible, and the possibility that the figure of M. Furius Camillus is entirely fictitious is also a distinct possibility. In view of the scanty source material for this period, however, Bruun’s interesting theory cannot be substantiated.56 As already mentioned above, modern scholarship is also in the dark with regard to the content of the carmina convivalia mentioned by Cato. In principle, it is not improbable that in them deeds of individual Romans were praised that were connected with the conquest of Rome by the Celts or with their withdrawal or, in a variant more favourable to the Romans, with their expulsion. But conclusions that go beyond general assumptions and hypothetical conjectures cannot be drawn in this respect. The early phase of the representation of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ in Roman historical culture remains almost entirely hidden.

3.1.3  The Storming of the Capitol: From the Third to the Second Century In the late 230s, various Roman commanders began to undertake a further step in Rome’s expansion into the upper Italian Celtic areas.57 One might suppose that  The drawings in the Tomba François are dated in research to the second half of the fourth century. See, among others, Coarelli 1983/1996, 138. See Bruun 2000, 45 (“This means that the scenes we see depicted are from the past, historical, legendary – from the painter’s point of view.”). 54  Bruun 2000, 46–56. see on this Walter 2004a, 385. see also, with partly divergent considerations, Coarelli 1983/1996, 167–169. 55  See Bruun 2000, 65–67, who, following the considerations of Wiseman 1998, would also like to ascribe an important influence to performances of stage plays in the dissemination of the Camillus legend and assumes an echo of these dramas in the Livian passage in which Camillus arrives in Rome just in time for the expulsion of the Gauls (Liv. 5,48,9-49,6). On this, see already Sect. 2.2 above on the question of the classification of dramas with historical content in Roman historical culture. 56  So also Walter 2004a, 385. 57  The enterprise seems to have been controversial at first, but in the following decades the Romans continued their expansive policy to the north. For their part, they had to resist Celtic attacks, especially in 225, when a large Celtic army was defeated at Telamon. On Roman campaigns in northern Italy in the first decades of the second century, see Dyson 1985, 35–41; Birkhan 1997, 124; Heftner 1997, 350–354. 53

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during a phase of intensified Roman confrontation with Celts, the memory of Rome’s Celtic wars of the past might also have been reinforced. However, due to the fragmentary state of sources from this period, it is difficult to understand to what extent this was actually the case and in what form it took place. In the following section, however, these sources will be examined more closely in order to gain at least an approximate idea of how Rome’s former defeat against the Celts was dealt with in this period of renewed conflict. As already mentioned, the majority of research tends to assume that the figure of M. Furius Camillus was woven relatively late into the tradition of the defeat at the Allia and the capture of Rome by the Celts.58 At what point in time this occurred again remains unclear. Possibly Camillus had already been assigned a central role in the memory of the ‘Gallic disaster’ at the time of the Celtic wars of the 220s, even if the Camillus legend was hardly yet developed in the complete version established later.59 It is certain, however, that the first works by Roman authors dealing with the Battle of the Allia and the capture of Rome were written during this period. The first account of the ‘Gallic disaster’ from the pen of a Roman author was probably to be found in the work of the first Roman historian, Q. Fabius Pictor. Pictor evidently took part himself in the Celtic wars of the 220s, and some of the fragments from his work may be assigned to the account of these campaigns.60 If the attribution of a fragment from the Annales of a certain Fabius quoted by Gellius to Pictor’s work is correct, it could also be argued that Fabius already understood the capture of Rome by the Gauls as a chronological fixed point, and thus possibly also as a historical milestone and turning point. However, since the assignment of the fragment to Fabius Pictor is not completely certain, this must inevitably also apply to interpretations derived from it.61 In general, it is very likely that the ‘Gallic disaster’ was dealt with by Pictor, perhaps also in a somewhat more extensive form than other events from this

 See, among others, Horsfall 1987, 63; Cornell 1995, 317; Forsythe 2005, 255.  Then it would be at least conceivable that the founding of a colony in the territory of the Anares with the name Camillomagus was not a coincidence, but a deliberate reference to the great leader of the Romans in the Celtic battles of the past. But this interpretation must remain uncertain without further information. Thus it would be equally conceivable that Camillus was known at the time of the founding of Camillomagus as a successful general in Rome’s conflict with the Celts, but that he had not yet been established as the saviour of the Romans from the Celtic conquerors. Thus Dyson 1985, 52, noting that one of the consuls who led the Roman army against the Insubrians in 224 was a member of the gens Furia (P. Furius Philus, who was the colleague of C. Flaminius in that year). 60  FRH 1 F 29 = FRHist 1 F 20 (=Plin. nat. 10,71); FRH 1 F 30 a and b = FRHist 1 F 21 a and b (=Eutr. 3,5 and Oros. 4,13,6–7 respectively). 61  FRH 1 F 23 = FRHist 1 F 30 (=Gell. 5,4,1–3, esp. 3: quapropter tum primum ex plebe alter consul factus est duovicesimo anno postquam Romam Galli ceperunt). For the discussion on the attribution of the fragment, see most recently (with further evidence) the commentary in FRHist III, 47 f. 58 59

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period.62 In this context, it is often assumed that at least large parts of Polybius’ overview of the history of Celtic-Roman wars in the fourth and third centuries are based on Pictor.63 A glance at the relevant passage in Polybius shows, for example, that the Celts there withdraw from Rome because they have to protect their homeland from an attack by the Veneti.64 Should this indeed also have been in Q. Fabius Pictor, then it seems rather unlikely that Camillus took a leading role in the portrayal of Pictor, at least in the form found in Livy as the saviour of Rome.65 Furthermore, the assumption is often held that Pictor played an essential role with regard to the form of the representation of the Celtic conquest of Rome as well as with regard to interpretations connected with it. In this context, Pictor’s knowledge of Greek culture in general and historiography in particular, as well as Rome’s intensified contact with the Greek world since the end of the third century, should be taken into account.66 In the Annales of Q. Ennius the ‘Gallic catastrophe’ undoubtedly appeared. In this case, too, however, only conjectures can be made as to the exact form of its incorporation. Ennius spread his material over 18 books, in which, from the fourth to the sixth volume, he treated the early history of the Roman Republic. The capture of Rome by the Celts may have appeared in book four.67 In this context, Otto Skutsch places two verses that have been handed down by M. Terentius Varro without specifying a book and that have been intensively discussed in research:68 Septingenti sunt, paulo plus aut minus, anni Augusto augurio postquam incluta condita Roma est Even if this can by no means be regarded as certain, it is often assumed that this passage comes from a speech, so that the question arises as to the speaker and the situation in which the speech was given.69 Skutsch’s argument is based on the assumption that in the Annales Romulus was a grandson of Aeneas, so the kings of Alba Longa did not appear here. Since Ennius was well aware of the year of the fall of Troy, 1184, as ‘discovered’ by Eratosthenes, one can assume for the Annales a foundation of Rome around the year 1100.70 If one calculates 700 years further from  The battle of the Allia is very likely to have been found in a part of Pictor’s history, of which Dionysius of Halicarrnassus reports that Fabius had here given a rather concise account of events after the foundation of the city. Dion. Hal. ant. 1,6,2. On this see the detailed study by Timpe 1972. 63  Pol. 2.18–35. On this see Walbank 1957, 184: “The source for most of this is probably Fabius Pictor [...], who himself took part in the war of 225 [...].”; Timpe 1972, 938. 64  Pol. 2.18.3. 65  So also Walbank 1957, 185. 66  Since Pictor’s work is hardly known, these assumptions are ultimately based on the account in Livy’s fifth book, which is why they will be discussed in the corresponding section below. See below Sect. 3.1.5. 67  See on the book division of Ennius’ Annales Skutsch 1985, 5. 68  Enn. ann. 154–155 (=Varro r.r. 3,1,2–3). 69  Passage part of a speech: among others Skutsch 1968 12 f.; 1985, 314–316; Cornell 1986, 247. This has most recently been contradicted by Elliott 2013, 65, who reminds us that already this attribution of the passage cannot be considered certain. 70  Skutsch 1968, 12. 62

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here, one arrives at a year around 400, thus approximately that of the ‘Gallic disaster’.71 The most famous speech from the context of this event that can be found in later tradition is that delivered by M. Furius Camillus in the fifth book of Livy in which Camillus tries to dissuade the Roman people from leaving their ruined home town and moving to Veii. Among other things, the Livian Camillus emphasizes the foundation of the city, accompanied by sacred rituals, which forbade the abandonment of its grounds. According to Skutsch, the two lines of Ennius also belong to this argumentative context, which Skutsch regards as proof that Camillus already had a leading role as Rome’s saviour in the Annales, which, as seen above, was probably not given to him in the earlier tradition.72 That the Camillus legend had already taken some shape in Ennius’ time is not at all improbable.73 Skutsch’s argument about the chronological references in the fragment, however, rests on very uncertain assumptions.74 A comparison of the verses of Ennius with the speech of Camillus in Livy also does not bring any definite result.75 Thus, while one may concede the possibility that Camillus may already have played an important role in the Annales in connection with the conquest of Rome by the Celts, this can by no means be regarded as certain, and certainly does not permit any definite statement as to whether Camillus was already involved in the plot to the extent that he is in Livy’s fifth book. Moreover, it is equally possible that the passage comes from an entirely different context. Besides this passage, a short piece of text which has been handed down by Macrobius and which may possibly be related to the ‘Gallic disaster’ has given rise to intense discussion.76 It concerns the following verses:77 Qua Galli furtim noctu summa arcis adorti Moenia concubia uigilesque repente cruentant

 Thus the consideration in Skutsch 1968, 12 f.; 1985, 314 f.  Skutsch 1968, 13. 73  See Walter 2004a, 387–391. 74  See Gaertner 2008, 41, note 68 (“The view [...] is based on an extremely tenuous argument: even if Ennius dated Rome’s foundation to about 1100 B.C. and Enn., Ann. 154 [...] indicates that the lines Ann. 154–5 were spoken by a statesman of the fifth or fourth century B.C., this still does not prove that the context of such a speech was the refoundation after the Gallic sack [...], let alone that the speaker was Camillus and not Lucius Lucretius or one of the other men mentioned at Plut., Vit. Cam. 31–2.”). 75  The passage used for comparison is Liv. 5,51–54, esp. 5,52,2 (urbem auspicato inauguratoque conditam habemus) and 5,54,4 (trecentesimus sexagesimus quintus annus urbis, Quirites, agitur). See on the second passage Skutsch 1985, 315: “[...] the number of years is naturally changed to the Varronian era”. Agreeing Cornell 1986, 247; Walter 2004a, 389, note 73 (“probably the first version of the speech” of Camillus). Skeptical already Tränkle 1998, 147, note 6; Gaertner 2008, 41, note 68 (“The verbal resemblance between Ann. 154–5 [...] and Liv. 5.52.2 [...] and 5.54.5 [...] is not only rather faint (pace Skutsch) but also insignificant in view of the fact that the expression urbem auspicato condere has at least seven exact parallels in Cicero [...].”) and most recently Elliott 2013, 65, 237. 76  See esp. Skutsch 1953; 1978; 1985, 405–408. 77  Enn. ann. 227–228. 71 72

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With regard to the classification and interpretation of this short passage, a number of questions arise. The first concerns its assignment to the seventh book of the Annales, an attribution which comes from Macrobius and should not be discarded without reason.78 For this reason, Theodor Mommsen has also wanted to associate this passage with a Gallic attack on Roman colonies in the third century, which is a perfectly conceivable interpretation, but has hardly been taken up in research since.79 Earlier, Joseph Lawicki and Otto Ribbeck had already suggested that the action of the Gauls was part of a retrospective on the Gallic conquest of Rome, which would then have been in the seventh book.80 This is also a conceivable variant. Retrospectives and foreshadowing are, after all, known to have been part of the epic genre since Homer, and both Polybius’ second book and Silius Italicus’ Punica feature Celts who explicitly allude to their ‘ancestors’ successful campaign on Rome in the course of third-century incursions into Italy.81 The idea that such a retrospective was already present in Ennius has been taken up and extended by Skutsch in a number of essays as well as in the context of his annotated edition of the Annales.82 Thus, Skutsch would like to conclude from the phrase cruentant that the Gauls here actually succeed in killing the Roman guards and thus also in capturing the Capitol with the arx, which they had secretly scaled during the night. According to Skutsch, the passage in fact belongs in the context of the nocturnal attack on the Capitol, which the Gauls undertake in Livy’s account, after they have discovered the traces of the messenger sent by the Romans who had fled to Veii to the defenders trapped in the centre of Rome. In Livy’s version, M. Manlius Capitolinus, warned by the cackling of the geese, is able to confront the attackers just in time and in this way decisively helps to repel the attack. The entire legend surrounding the heroic deed of Capitolinus is clearly the product of a later elaboration, and Skutsch suspects that basically the entire surviving tradition has been altered to the effect that originally there was no successful defense of the Capitol at all, but that the Gauls in fact succeeded in capturing it.83 Skutsch’s interpretation has met with a divided response among scholars.  Macr. Sat. 1,4,17 (Ennius enim – nisi cui videtur inter nostrae aetatis politiores munditias respuendus  – noctu concubia dixit his versibus: ‘qua Galli furtim noctu summa arcis adorti moenia concubia vigilesque repente cruentant.’ quo in loco animadvertendum est non solum quod noctu concubia, sed quod etiam qua noctu dixerit. et hoc posuit in Annalium septimo, in quorum tertio clarius idem dixit: […]). The assignment in book seven was most recently defended by Elliott 2013, 314 in her comprehensive study of the Annales. 79  Mommsen 1879, 298, note 3. 80  Lawicki 1852, 39 (the reference to this in Skutsch 1985, 405, note 17); Ribbeck 1856, 276 f. 81  Pol. 2,22,4; 2,23,7; Sil. 6555–559. See Skutsch 1953, 77; 1985, 405. 82  Skutsch 1953, 77 (bibliographically supplemented version in Skutsch 1968, 138–142); 1978; 1985, 405–408, esp. 407 f. The interpretation that the verses cited by Macrobius are a retrospective is accepted in principle by Elliott 2013, 68. 83  See the references in the preceding note. Skutsch, moreover, tries to support this idea by referring to some other passages, among others, in Lucan, which, in his opinion, also point to a complete conquest of Rome, including the Capitol. Thus, for instance, to Lucan. 5,27; Tert. apol. 40,9. 78

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A number of scholars have received it positively and assume that there was indeed a presumably older version in which the Gauls succeeded in taking all of Rome.84 On the other hand, Skutsch’s thesis has been repeatedly and forcefully rejected.85 Cornell, for example, has rightly pointed out that the corresponding passage in Ennius does not say that the Gauls succeeded in defeating all the Roman defenders, but only that they had overwhelmed the “vigiles”, which could well refer to only a small part of the garrison on the Capitol.86 Also, the passages in Silius Italicus do not contain any clear information that the Capitol had fallen, and Lucan’s formulation could be a rhetorical exaggeration.87 Moreover, it would be at least surprising if no ancient textual witness had explicitly drawn attention to such a variant. Lastly, the widespread circulation of the legend of Manlius Capitolinus and the geese that woke him up in time for him to stop the Gauls rather speaks against the tradition assumed by Skutsch and others.88 It must be stated, therefore, that the version of the tradition as conjectured by Skutsch cannot be proved.89 In view of the importance that was attached to the Capitol as the political and religious center of the Roman world, it would be quite conceivable that such a version, if it existed at all, was rejected in later generations and replaced by the legend of a heroic defense, but this must remain uncertain on the basis of the known sources. M. Porcius Cato was apparently the first Roman historian who decided to write down the history of Rome in Latin.90 Among other things, the writing was apparently characterized by a “broad inclusion of the Italic peoples and landscapes”, to which Cato gave some space, especially in the second and third book, and thereby also allowed “geographical-topographical, mythological, historical and cultural-­ historical notes” entrance into his work.91 This part of the Origines could also have contained an account of the capture of Rome by the Gauls, but no evidence of this has survived.92 The wider context of the event includes, at least in Livy, the account of the causes of the Celtic migration to Italy, where the legend of Arruns of Clusium also appears, who persuades the Celts to invade his homeland in order to defeat his  For example, Sordi 1984, 88; Horsfall 1987; Williams 2001, 144 f.; Kolb 2002, 94; Perl 2007; Richardson 2012, 128. 85  See especially Cornell 1986, 247 f. 86  Cornell 1986, 248: “These lines do not say that the Gauls massacred the garrison, but rather that they killed the vigiles, a very different matter. [...] In Livy the sentries were asleep; in Ennius they were surprised (while sleeping?) and dispatched”. 87  Cornell 1986, 248. 88  With this hint already among others Ogilvie 1965, 720. See Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 215  f.: “Sollte das Kapitol nicht behauptet worden sein, dann würde die Rettungstat der Gänse wegfallen – die doch zum Aition für sehr unterschiedliche Bräuche geworden ist”. 89  So also Ogilvie 1965, 720; Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 215; Williams 2001, 144 f.; Walter 2004a, 269, note 255. 90  See only Beck/Walter 22005, 150; Cornell 2013, 195 f. 91  Beck/Walter 22005 15, (quote). 92  See on the book division Beck/Walter 22005, 152 f. 84

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rival Lucumo, who had seduced Arruns’ wife.93 The appearance of the Celts before Clusium sets in motion the fateful chain of events for Rome. Judging from an entry in Aulus Gellius, this legend was probably already known to Cato.94 Whether in the Origines, as in Livy, it was connected with the capture of Rome by the Celts, and what exactly such a possible connection looked like, admittedly remains completely unclear.95 The earliest work of which fragments can be found which can be clearly assigned to the context of the ‘Gallic disaster’ is probably that of L. Cassius Hemina, apparently a contemporary of Polybius.96 Thus Appian, in the book on Rome’s Celtic wars, refers to the testimony of a certain Κάσσιος ὁ Ῥωμαῖος, by which Cassius

 Liv. 5,33,3–4.  FRH 3 F 2,5 = FRHist 5 F 27 (=Gell. 17,13,4): in secunda quoque origine M. Cato non longe secus hac particula usus est: neque satis, inquit, habuit, quod eam in occulto uitiauerat, quin eius faman prostitueret. Dion. Hal. ant. 13,10,2 reports that Lucumo not only strove to seduce the wife of Arruns of Clusium, but also to make the adultery public, in order to humiliate her-and of course her husband-publicly. The fragment seems to fit well in this context. However, it should not be concealed that in the manuscripts not eam but eum is handed down, which would exclude that the wife of Arruns is the object of Lucumo’s intentions here, so that a connection of this fragment with the tradition around Arruns of Clusium would probably also cease to exist. See for this reference the commentary in FRHist III, 77 f., where plausible arguments are given for the reading eam. The attribution of the passage to the story of Arruns is therefore not certain without any doubt. It is, however, represented in the current editions and commentaries as a plausible assumption (see the commentaries in FRH and FRHist). 95  For this, see the detailed study by Williams 2001, 103 f. and FRHist III, 78. It is highly probable, however, that Cato dealt with the areas of Upper Italy inhabited by the Celts, which would have given him an opportunity to deal with the Celtic incursions into Central Italy and the attack on Rome in more detail and thereby also to set his own accents in connection with the question of the origin and motivation of the Celts. However, beyond the story of Arruns and Clusium, it is not possible to formulate more than general assumptions in this regard due to the state of the sources. The few fragments that have survived from the notes on Celts in the Origines concern ethnological considerations of a general nature. In these, Cato emphasizes their readiness for warfare and a certain eloquence, which fits in quite well with apparently widespread conceptions of the Celts in the Greek and Roman world in the second century (so, for example, in FRH 3 F 2,3 = FRHist 5 F 33 (=Charis. 2 p. 263 B). On contemporary conceptions of the Celts, see, among others, Williams 2001, 68–99). In the context of (cultural) historical notes on individual landscapes and cities, the above-quoted fragment handed down by Gellius could also have fit without question, for example, in an excursus on the history of Etruria or Clusium, which need not necessarily have been directly connected with a depiction of the Celtic march on Rome (this justified reference last in FRHist III, 78). 96  For L. Cassius Hemina, see the bibliographical references above in Sect. 2.2. 93 94

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Hemina may be meant.97 The episode quoted, also handed down in Livy (see below), reports how the Roman C. Fabius Dorsuo descended from the Capitol, enclosed by the Gauls, to stride through the ranks of the enemy and perform a sacrifice at the temple of Vesta. Out of reverence for his piety, by the sight of the sacred act, or for some other reason, the Celts, contrary to expectation, did not attack the Roman, so that he was able to perform the ritual and even to return to the Capitol. In comparison with the version of this story found later in Livy, it is noticeable that the place of the sacrificial act is not the same. In Livy, Dorsuo sacrifices on the Quirinal, where he performs a sacrifice prescribed for the gens Fabia, whereas in Appian/ Cassius he goes to the temple of Vesta.98 Which variant is the earlier cannot be determined with certainty.99 It is conceivable that Dorsuo was originally said to have cultivated a sacrum gentilicium on the Quirinal, and that Cassius Hemina then wished to suggest an upgrading of the act by the institution of the public cult of Vesta, which would now have related to the welfare of the whole res publica.100 On the other hand, it is equally possible that the tradition surrounding the sacrifice in the temple of Vesta is older and that the Fabian cult was only connected with the episode surrounding Dorsuo in the context of an emphasis on the importance of this gens in the context of the ‘Gallic disaster’.101 A common feature linking both divergent versions is the emphasis on Roman pietas in an extremely dangerous situation.  FRH 6  F 22 = FRHist 6  F 22 (=App. Celt. fr. 6): [...] Κελτοὶ μηδεμιᾷ μηχανῇ δυνηθέντες ἐπιβῆναι τῆς ἀκροπόλεως ἠρέμουν ὡς λιμῷ τοὺς ἔνδον παραστησόμενοι. καί τις ἀπὸ τοῦ Καπιτωλίου κατέβαινεν ἱερεύς, ὄνομα Δόρσων, ἐπὶ ἐτήσιον δή τινα ἱερουργίαν ἐς τὸν τῆς Ἑστίας νεὼν στέλλων τὰ ἱερὰ διὰ τῶν πολεμίων εὐσταθῶς- τὸν δὲ νεὼν ἐμπεπρησμένον ἰδὼν ἔθυσεν ἐπὶ τοῦ συνήθους τόπου καὶ ἐπανῆλθεν αὖθις διὰ τῶν πολεμίων αἰδεσθέντων ἢ καταπλαγέντων αὐτοῦ τὴν τόλμαν ἢ τὴν εὐσέβειαν ἢ τὴν ὂψιν ἱερὰν οὖσαν. ὅ μὲν δὴ κινδυνεύειν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἱερῶν ἑλόμενος ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ἐσώζετο τῶν ἱερῶν. καὶ τόδε ϕησὶν ὧδε γενέσθαι Κάσσιος ὁ Ῥωμαῖος.The attribution is not entirely certain, since in the only manuscript through which the Appian fragment has survived, a Byzantine excerpt of the tenth century, Καύσιος, rather than Κάσσιος, is recorded as the Roman’s name. The emendation in Κάσσιος is widely accepted, however, as the corrupt tradition is easily explained by a simple transcription error. Forsythe 1990, 342  f., however, considers two alternatives. On the one hand, he suggests an emendation in Κλαύδιος and suspects a reference to the work of Q. Claudius Quadrigarius in the passage (on this see below Sect. 3.1.4). On the other hand, he also considers the change to Κάσσιος conceivable, but assumes that the work of Cassius Dio is meant by this. Both suggestions are not very plausible, as several commentators have already pointed out. Thus an error in transcribing which led to the form Κάσσιος seems far more probable (only one letter was misrecognized) than one which would have led to Κλαύδιος. The extant account of Cassius Dio (Cass. Dio. fr. 25.5–6) again does not fit the process described in the excerpt. See with these arguments the comments of Beck/Walter 2 2005, 265, as well as in FRHist III, 171 (with further references). Therefore, it is assumed in the following that the passage actually goes back to the work of L. Cassius Hemina. 98  With this reference most recently the comments in Beck/Walter 22005, 265; FRHist III, 171. 99  See the different proposals in Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 213; Beck/Walter 22005, 265. 100  This is the interpretation of Beck/Walter 22005, 265. 101  So Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 213: “Die Verdrängung durch einen Gentilkult der Fabier entspräche dann der auch sonst zu beobachtenden Tendenz, diese Gens vermehrt herauszustellen”. 97

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The wider interpretative context in which this motif was placed in Cassius Hemina can, of course, no longer be traced in detail, so that it will be taken up again in the context of the study of Livy’s account.102 The work of Cassius Hemina was apparently also a source for Macrobius, who fell back on this account in the context of his research into the origin of the dies postriduani, since the latter had apparently connected their special quality with the sacrifice of the military tribune Q. Sulpicius on the day after the Ides of Quintilis (i.e. on 16 July). Moreover, it had been recognized afterwards that such a sacrifice had also been performed in the run-up to the battle of the Cremera “and on many other occasions” (multisque aliis temporibus). Thereupon the pontifices would have acted at the instigation of the senate and determined that neither battles nor popular assemblies should take place on the nights of Kalends, Nones, and Ides.103 Hemina is accordingly the earliest known source for this, certainly factually inaccurate, explanation of the character of the dies postriduani. Whether the aition is based on his own research and where exactly it came from can no longer be said with certainty. Basically, as mentioned, it was a matter of mutually explaining various serious defeats of the early republican period and thereby gaining control over the events of the past in a certain sense.104 That the Senate played a central role in Hemina’s account should not be surprising. The senate claimed in Hemina’s lifetime, as it had before, a barely contested leadership role with regard to the “three fields here presented as closely interrelated: communication with the gods, disposal of the social rhythm of time, and shaping the periodic memory of incisive collective experiences.”105 That the Senate was also authoritative in the reappraisal of the ‘Gallic catastrophe’ could thus seem perfectly natural to Hemina.106 Incidentally, Macrobius names Cn. Gellius as a further source for his derivation, in addition to L. Cassius Hemina, but without mentioning possible differences in the accounts of the two authors, so that it remains unclear whether and to what extent Gellius was able to develop an independent position in the relevant passage of his work.107

 See Sect. 3.1.5 below.  FRH 6 F 23 = FRHist 6 F 23 (=Macr. Sat. 1,16,21–24). 104  See Sect. 3.1.1 above. 105  Beck v Walter 22005, 266 (quotation). 106  This central role of the senate in the coordination of reactions to defeats can be shown in Roman historiography by means of a number of examples, although other emphases were also set with regard to the representation and interpretation of the reactions to the ‘Gallic disaster’, as will be shown in the chapter on Livy’s account. See below Sect. 3.1.5. 107  FRH 10 F 24 = FRHist 14 F 8 (=Macr. Sat. 1,16,21–24). Presumably there was also an account of Rome’s capture by the Gauls in the work of Vennonius, but in view of the at best shadowy picture that can still be gleaned from Vennonius’ writing today, this remains entirely beyond our reach. See S. Northwood, Vennonius, in: FRHist I, 250 f. 102 103

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3.1.4  New Foundation of the City and New Ways to the Capitol: The Late Republic A complete history of Rome was also written by Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, but one that differed from previous works in one respect that is remarkable with regard to the treatment of the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’ in Roman historical culture. Indeed, it can be considered highly probable that Quadrigarius began his account of Roman history not with the deeds of Aeneas or the founding of the city, but with the attack of the Celts on Rome, giving this event a special status simply by virtue of the composition of the material. The subsidiary preface, which Livy placed at the beginning of the second pentad in book six, probably goes back to Quadrigarius.108 Quadrigarius may have made this for the pragmatic reason that he judged the source situation for the earlier period to be inadequate. At any rate, Plutarch writes at the beginning of his biography of King Numa that “a certain Clodius” (Κλώδιός τις), in a critical examination of early Roman history, had found that all older records had been destroyed in the Gallic Sack, so that an account could only be given from that point.109 Quadrigarius’ choice of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ as starting point for an account of Rome’s history was admittedly not entirely without precedent, since Polybius had already done the same.110 On the other hand, many other Roman and Greek historians before and after Claudius Quadrigarius had no qualms about devoting extensive accounts to the centuries of Rome’s history prior to the Gallic attack, despite the obvious source problems. Therefore, it is possible that Quadrigarius’ decision did not only follow from pragmatic motives, but that he also wanted to accentuate a certain interpretation, according to which the reconstruction of Rome after the withdrawal of the Gauls represented a form of (re)founding of the city. Whether all this was actually the case and, if so, to what extent Quadrigarius may have elaborated this idea in detail in his account, however, eludes us just as much as

 A clear statement by an ancient authority that Q. Claudius Quadrigarius began his account with the ‘Gallic Disaster’ has not come down to us. However, numerous fragments that can be attributed to this event are explicitly attested by Gellius for the first book of Quadrigarius’ Annales. The surviving fragments also suggest that Livy’s account of the Celtic conquest of Rome appears to have been influenced by that of Quadrigarius. For earlier parts of Ab Urbe Condita, on the other hand, no use can be detected. See Beck/Walter 2004, 110; Briscoe 2013b, 289. On the parallels to Polybius and Livy, see Gaertner 2008, 37. 109  Plut. Num. 1,2. This does not prevent Plutarch from writing a comprehensive biography of Numa. The similarity to Plutarch’s introduction of the parallel biography of Lykurg is striking (Plut. Lyk. 1,1), but the mention of a concrete work of “Clodius” allows the assumption that this was not only a stylistic device, but that Plutarch also had a corresponding source. This in turn suggests that Claudius Quadrigarius was of the opinion that the sources for the time before the Gallic conquest did not permit a detailed account. See, among others, Oakley 1997, 27 (“(conjectured) view of Quadrigarius that there was no reliable testimony for Roman history before 389”). 110  Pol. 1,6, 1–3; 2,18, 1–3; 2,22, 4–5. 108

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the answer to the fundamental question of whether he actually had his work begin with the ‘Gallic Disaster’.111 However, several fragments from the first book of Quadrigarius’ Annales have survived, all of which are recorded in book 17 of the Noctes Atticae by Aulus Gellius. The first of these testimonies, which can be clearly assigned to the events surrounding the conquest of Rome by the Celts, shows that Quadrigarius was aware of the episode concerning the messenger Cominius, who reached the Romans confined on the Capitol by a secret ascent and left them by the same route. The Gallic besiegers of the fortress did not notice him, so that in this way contact could be established between the defenders on the Capitol and the Romans who were outside the city (according to Livy in Veii). Another fragment obviously belongs to the same episode, without it being possible to see whether and to what extent the account in Quadrigarius might have differed fundamentally from that found later in Livy.112 Very probably the Gauls also discovered the traces of Cominius in Quadrigarius, for Gellius quotes yet another passage in which Quadrigarius refers to an earlier part of the work, in which he had described the rescue of the Capitol by the action of M. Manlius. The same passage, moreover, gives an indication that Rome was saved, first, by the action of Manlius, and, second, by the action of the dictator M. Furius (Camillus), which is the earliest direct testimony to the involvement of Camillus in the events surrounding the capture of Rome by the Celts and their withdrawal.113 Whether Quadrigarius was already familiar with the cognomen Capitolinus, which is said to have been bestowed on M. Manlius because of his deed, cannot be determined with certainty.114 Four further fragments, which Gellius quotes in the passage

 In this respect, the interpretation of Gaertner 2008, 37 (“Hence, from at least the second century B.C., the restoration after the Gallic Sack became viewed as a sort of second foundation.”) is quite possible, even if a definite proof cannot be obtained from the sources. 112  FRH 14 F 4 and 5 = FRHist 24 F 1 and 2 (=Gell. 17,2,24 and 17,2,26). Incidentally, in Appian’s ᾿Ιβηρική (App. Ib. 43,176) also appears a Cominius who was in the army of the consul Ti. Sempronius Gracchus in the war against the Celtiberians. This man had distinguished himself by secretly going, at the risk of his life, to an allied city besieged by the Celtiberians, in order to report to the allies of the coming of the consul’s relief army. It is possible that Cominius, who went to the besieged Capitol, owed his name to this equestrian leader of the Spanish war, but this can hardly be verified on the existing source base. 113  FRH 14 F 7 = FRHist 24 F 3 (=Gell. 17,2,14): nam Marcus, inquit, Manlius, quem Capitolium servasse a Gallis supra ostendi, cuiusque operam cum M. Furio dictatore apud Gallos cumprime fortem atque exsuperabilem res publica sensit, is et genere et vi et virtute bellica nemini concedebat. 114  However, it has been plausibly argued that the older cognomen, which presumably originally referred to a residence, was only connected in later tradition with the story about the siege of the Capitol by the Celts and – in a secondary interpretation – had provided the aition for the episode about Manlius’ heroic deed in the first place. See the commentary in Beck/Walter 2004, 115 f. 111

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mentioned, can probably also be assigned to the events surrounding the siege of the Capitol, but this assignment cannot be proven with certainty in each case.115 Summarizing these observations, it can be considered quite probable that the Battle of the Allia and especially the capture of Rome and the siege of the Capitol by the Celts occupied a prominent position in the first book of the Annales of Q.  Claudius Quadrigarius. Especially concerning the siege of the Capitol, Quadrigarius had probably already integrated some episodes into his account which Livy later also placed in this context. Whether Quadrigarius is also to be credited with having established the contextualization of these various episodes in the first place is unclear, due to the rather uncertain source situation for the earlier period.116 Even if an account similar to the one preserved by Livy should have been found in his work, one should by no means associate this with the idea that this would then have been a universally valid, canonical version. With regard to a number of elements of the tradition, different variants still existed, as can be shown on the basis of numerous documentary sources in the later tradition  – scattered, for example, over the œuvre of M. Tullius Cicero. In Cicero’s writings there are references and allusions to the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’, which indicate that Cicero could count on a certain knowledge of the event among his listeners or readers. These are a dozen different passages in all, distributed more or less evenly between the speeches and the other works.117 If one compares this

 These are: FRH 14 F 1 = FRHist 24 F 24 (=Gell. 17,2,12: postquam nuntiatum est, inquit, ut pugnatum esset in Gallos, id civitas graviter tulit). Obviously, this is about a defeat of the Romans against the Gauls, and the Battle of the Allia is an obvious interpretation in this context, especially since Gellius quotes some passages in Book 17 that clearly come from Quadrigarius’ account of the conquest of Rome by the Gauls. FRH 14 F 2 = FRHist 24 F 22 (=Gell. 17,2,10: sole, inquit, occaso). In Livy the Romans reach Rome after the battle of the Allia after sunset of the same day (see on this below Sect. 3.1.5). In this context, Peter (Commentary HRR, 205) has pointed to Liv. 5,39,2 as a possible parallel to the fragment of Quadrigarius (haud multo ante solis occasum). FRH 14 F 3 = FRHist 24 F 28 (=Gell. 17,2,19: tanta, inquit, sanctitudo fani est ut numquam quisquam violare sit ausus). According to Peter (commentary in HRR, 205) this excerpt belongs to a passage in which Quadrigarius described how the flamen Quirinalis and the priestesses of Vesta bury some of the sacra publica in a shrine proximo aedibus flaminis Quirinalis (to be found in Liv. 5,40,8). This is quite a plausible assumption in the context of the book Gellius was evaluating, even if it can admittedly not be proven with certainty (see the commentary in FRHist III, 310). FRH 14 F 6 = FRHist 24 F 27 (=Gell. 17,2,17: cum iis, inquit, consermonabatur). Peter (commentary in HRR, 206) suggests to place this passage in the context of the negotiations between Romans and Gallic besiegers, which is possible, but also cannot be verified in more detail (see again the commentary in FRHist III, 310). 116  See Beck/Walter 2004, 111, who, with regard to episodes of heroic deeds of individual Roman nobles of the early Republic, assume that Quadrigarius provided this contextualization (“Zum ‚Faktum‘ wurden diese Episoden weiterhin nicht einfach nur durch ihre Verschriftlichung, sondern durch ihre Verortung in einem konkreten Kontext. Anders gewendet: Durch Claudius setzte insofern eine Historisierung dieser und ähnlicher Episoden ein, als sie nun einen festen Platz im historischen Ereignisverlauf erhielten.”). 117  The passages are collected in Sauer 1910, 9; Schütz 1913, 67; Bücher 2006, 180–182. 115

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collection with, say, the references to the Second Punic War and its prominent players in Cicero’s complete works, it is a rather modest balance.118 Nevertheless, the form and content of the passages make a closer examination worthwhile. The first reference to the capture of Rome by the Gauls is found in the speech Pro M. Fonteio, which Cicero probably delivered in 69.119 M. Fonteius seems to have acted as propraetor in Gallia Narbonensis in the years 75/4–72, where he fought against Celtic tribes and conducted levies and requisitions for Cn. Pompeius’ war in Spain as well as Roman campaigns in the East.120 After his return to Rome, Fonteius was accused by the quaestor M. Plaetorius Cestianus, as well as a certain M. Fabius, who acted as representatives of the Celtic tribe of the Allobroges, of various offences of which Fonteius was said to have been guilty during his governorship of the province. Thereupon, Cicero took over the defense of the former propraetor in front of the quaestio de repetundis, whose family, like Cicero’s, came from Tusculum.121 In the speech, Cicero emphasizes, among other topics, first of all and in general terms, the long history of war between Rome and the Celts, which shows their dangerousness, even if the battles had always ended with Roman victories.122 Moreover, Cicero apparently recognized in this context a suitable opportunity to combine an invective against the accusers of his client with a reference to the siege of the Capitol by the Celts: The statements of the Allobroges against Fonteius were not to be trusted even if they had made them under sacred oaths. After all, these were the descendants of those peoples who had once “waged war” against the “immortal gods themselves” when they went to Delphi to plunder the temple of Apollo as well as the oracle site there, and besieged the Capitol together with the temple of Iuppiter, by whose name the maiores already wanted to bind the

 See Sect. 5.2.3.1 below.  See von Albrecht 1994, 418. 120  All these details are attested in Cicero’s speech alone: Cic. Font. 13; 16. 121  On the historical context of Fonteius’ speech and governorship, see Coşkun 2006, esp. 354–357; Dyck 2012, 11–15. Cicero’s motivation for defending Fonteius seems to have stemmed essentially from the fact that he was considered a protégé of Pompey, who was also indirectly responsible for some of the offences Fonteius was accused of, since he had ordered them and ‘from which he himself had directly profited’ (Coskun 2006, 361). What is meant here is special levies for Pompey’s campaign in the Iberian Peninsula. Moreover, it could appear attractive for Cicero to present himself before the equites as the defender of one of their own (see Coskun 2006, 361). 122  On the construction of Pro Fonteio and the image of the Celts in general, see Kremer 1994, 83–104; Dyck 2012, 12–15. 118 119

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fides of statements.123 A few chapters later, Cicero suggests that a new war would break out with the notoriously bellicose barbarians if they succeeded in their charges against a former governor of the province.124 Only a little later Cicero put an allusion to the attack of the Gauls on the Capitol in the speech Pro A. Caecina. Cicero was concerned here with asserting the claim to ownership of a plot of land for his client Caecina.125 In order to prove the possibility of using the word unde in the sense of ex quo loco as well as a quo loco, Cicero gives several example sentences in which he also refers to the  – unsuccessful  – attack of the Gauls on the Capitol (unde deiecti Galli? a Capitolio). Still in the same passage he uses the Gaulish example to explain the meaning of the instruction to reinstate someone there. If the Gauls had asked their Roman ancestors to reinstate them in the place where they had been expelled, this would have meant the Capitol, not the tunnel (cuniculum) through which they had got there.126 The reference to the ‘Gallic disaster’ here is of a different kind than had been the case in the speech for Fonteius, but what is common to both examples is that Cicero was evidently confident that this event was such a familiar episode to his audience that they could understand the reference without further explanation. Especially at this point, this had to be an important criterion for Cicero in his search for a suitable exemplum, since his listeners were, after all, supposed to concentrate on his explanations of the semantics of the legally relevant vocabulary. Recourse to an obscure episode of Roman history would only have been distracting.127 The passage is interesting mainly because Cicero apparently knew a different variant of the tradition than the one that can be found later in Livy. In the story he recalls to his audience, the Gauls  Cic. Font. 30: An vero istas nationes religione iuris iurandi ac metu deorum immortalium in testimoniis dicendis commoveri arbitramini? quae tantum a ceterarum gentium more ac natura dissentiunt, quod ceterae pro religionibus suis bella suscipiunt, istae contra omnium religiones; illae in bellis gerendis ab dis immortalibus pacem ac veniam petunt, istae cum ipsis dis immortalibus bella gesserunt. hae sunt nationes quae quondam tam longe ab suis sedibus Delphos usque ad Apollinem Pythium atque ad oraculum orbis terrae vexandum ac spoliandum profectae sunt. ab isdem gentibus sanctis et in testimonio religiosis obsessum Capitolium est atque ille Iuppiter cuius nomine maiores nostri vinctam testimoniorum fidem esse voluerunt. See on the passage Kremer 1994, 95; Bücher 2006, 181; Dyck 2012, 65  f. On the connection drawn in Roman tradition between the Celtic attack on Delphi in 278 and the conquest of Rome around 386, see Williams 2001, 158–170. 124  Cic. Font. 36 The negative picture that Cicero draws here of the Gauls does not have to be a product of his specific intention at this point. There is nothing to prevent us from assuming that Cicero actually regarded the Celts in particular, who settled beyond the Alps, with suspicion and therefore did not see any moral or ethical reason, for example, in the exercise of the governorship by M. Fonteius for complaint; especially since from the Roman point of view he had apparently fulfilled his duties, which is why one can indeed assume with Coşkun, among others, that the trial against Fonteius did not end with a conviction of the former governor (see Coşkun 2006, 363). 125  For a summary of the litigation, see Stroh 1975, 80 f. 126  Cic. Caec. 87–88. See on the structure of Cicero’s argumentation in this passage Stroh 1975, 98 and see also Bücher 2006, 181. 127  On the question of the dissemination of knowledge about historical exempla among speakers and audiences, see generally above Sect. 2.2. 123

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seem to have climbed the Capitol through a tunnel and not along the tracks of Cominius, as Livy reports. In the latter, at least, there is no mention of a cuniculum through which the Celts reach the Capitol.128 The next speech in which Cicero alludes directly to the ‘Gallic disaster’ was, as far as we know, delivered towards the end of his career, probably in December 44.129 In the Third Philippic, he attacks his opponent M. Antonius, who had convened the Senate, among other things by pointing out that this enemy of the Roman people had climbed up the Capitol on the same path that the Gauls had once taken.130 Here, Cicero again uses the expression cuniculum Gallorum, which, after the allusion in Pro Caecina, is a second reference to this variant of the tradition, which differs from the Livian one.131 The basic thrust of the argument hardly needs further explanation. Antony’s status as hostis should be emphasized by this reference.132 If, moreover, some senators should have seen in the connection to the attack of the barbarian Celts an allusion to the, according to Cicero, vicious and despicable character of Antonius, Cicero certainly would have agreed. The ‘Gallic disaster’ does not appear in other exempla in Cicero’s speeches. What all three passages have in common is that they each refer exclusively to a very specific element of the event, namely the attack on the Capitol or its siege by the Celts. Moreover, Cicero remains rather unspecific and, apart from the cuniculum Gallorum, does not mention any details of the event; other episodes that belong in this context, such as the Battle of the Allia or other events that are said to have taken place during the Celts’ stay in Rome, remain unmentioned. It was thus up to the historical knowledge of each audience to what extent they could associate Cicero’s allusion with other elements of the tradition. However, Cicero was obviously able to rely on at least a vague idea of what the ‘Gauls at the Capitol’-episode was all about. It is striking, as Frank Bücher has already pointed out, that although Cicero mentions M. Furius Camillus in three speeches, he does not establish any connection to his role in the capture of Rome or the expulsion of the Gauls from Rome.133 However,

 See Wiseman 1979, 39; Sordi 1984, 88 f.  On the political context in which Cicero spoke in the Senate, see, among others, Bringmann 2010, 269–273. 130  Cic. Phil. 3,20. 131  See Wiseman 1979, 39: “However, the story Cicero had learned as a boy was that the Gauls ascended the Capitol by means of tunnels. He mentions it twice [...], both times in a casual and unemphatic way which suggests that the cuniculi Gallorum were well known to all educated people”. See also Bücher 2006, 182. 132  See also Manuwald 2007, 397: “The idea that Antonius has somehow crept up the Capitoline Hill by such a passageway, ridicules Antonius’ sudden return to Rome (see Phil. 13,19)”. 133  Since this does not happen even when it would have been quite obvious thing to do, it seems possible that Cicero either did not know of such a role of Camillus or did not consider it sufficiently well known that it would have been worthwhile to refer to it in a speech. On this point, see Bücher 2006, 181 f. (see 182: “Von Cicero und dem politischen Diskurs seiner Zeit wird – jedenfalls was die spärlichen Hinweise hergeben  – aus Camillus keine große Figur der römischen Geschichte konstruiert. Die Stilisierung des großen Camillus ist vielleicht doch mehr mit der augusteischen Vergangenheitskonstruktion anzusetzen”). See Walter 2004a, 397 f. 128 129

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the legend of Camillus already appears in Livy in a very detailed version, which seems to refer back to earlier sources. The parallel existence of different variants in the late Republic and early imperial period therefore seems most likely.134 In Cicero’s philosophical works, three references to the capture of Rome by the Celts can be found scattered throughout the entire work; another passage comes from a letter to Atticus. In De re publica, Cicero praises Rome’s natural protection, as it were, which the city’s founder Romulus had already ensured by skilful use of the topography. Therefore, the arx was able to withstand even the attacks of the Gauls.135 In two other passages Cicero comments on the dating of this event, each in a different form. In both cases he refers to other events to set a date for the capture of Rome but while in the first book of the Tusculanae Disputationes Cicero chooses the year of the publication of this work as a starting point (and thereby dates the capture of Rome to the year 395), in De Divinatione he starts from the Roman conquest of Veii; 6 years after this the Celts would have taken Rome.136 In the latter passage, moreover, Cicero reveals that from at least one of his sources he was aware of a causal connection between the Roman conquest of Veii and the fall of Rome to the Gauls a little later. In a kind of prophecy, which a defector from Veii had reported to the Romans and which showed them the way to the capture of the Etruscan city, it had also been revealed that Rome would be conquered by the Gauls a little later – which came to pass just 6 years after Veii’s fall.137 In a letter to Atticus, written by Cicero in Formiae on March 10, 49, he uses the defeat at the Allia and the capture of Rome as a comparison to illustrate his assessment of the current political situation – Caesar has invaded Italy, and Pompey has fled to Greece with part of the Senate.138 In some ways, Cicero resented Pompey even more than Caesar. After all, the maiores also regarded the day at the Allia as even more calamitous than that of the capture of Rome, for without the first

 Such a coexistence of different variants in Roman historical culture can be clearly demonstrated with regard to the question of the whereabouts of the gold that is said to have been paid to the Gauls. At first glance, moreover, it may seem surprising that Cicero should have dispensed with references to the ‘Gallic disaster’ in the very speech in which he also discusses the great Celtic war of his own time. In the speech De provinciis consularibus such references do not occur at any point. Instead, Cicero refers there, as in the passage quoted at the beginning of the chapter, to the general danger that had always emanated from the Gauls. Since this fundamental one still existed, a continuation of Caesar’s campaign was also urgently necessary. To suggest that a withdrawal of the proconsul’s legions from the areas beyond the provincial borders would have threatened a renewed attack of the Celts on the capital probably seemed too absurd to Cicero as well, so that he could do without an allusion to the Celts in front of the Capitol in this case. 135  Cic. rep. 2.11. 136  Cic. Tusc. 1.90; div. 1.100. 137  Cic. div. 1.100. How exactly the connection between the respective conquest of both cities was presented in Cicero’s source can no longer be clarified in detail, but this theme reappears later in book five of Livy (in a more developed form?). See below Sect. 3.1.5. 138  Cic. Att. 9,5,2. 134

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calamity the second could not have occurred at all.139 ‘Similar’, then, would be the case here: had Pompey been more energetic and also shown perfect moral integrity during the preceding 10 years, Rome would not have got into the present situation at all. A comparison between the catastrophe of the early period and the, from Cicero’s point of view, disastrous condition of the Republic in 49 is probably implicit in the allusion, without it being further elaborated. In Atticus, however, Cicero could rely on an educated reader who did not need any further explanation in order to understand his friend’s historical cross-references, comparisons and allusions. All in all, it can be stated that in the three quoted passages different aspects of the historical memory of the ‘Gallic disaster’ play a role than in the speeches in which the exempla refer exclusively to the Capitol and its threat by the Gauls. An extremely profound knowledge of details on the part of the readership, which goes beyond the superficial knowledge that Rome had once been invaded by Gauls in the early days of the Republic, was probably not necessary for the basic understanding of these examples – the ability to at least classify those ‘narrative abbreviations’ (Rüsen), however, certainly was.140

3.1.5  Fall and Rise Again: The Augustan Period The epoch of the civil wars at the end of the Republic and the reign of Augustus, which in this chapter will be simplified as the Augustan period, belongs to the periods of ancient history from which a relatively rich tradition has been preserved in various kinds sources. This also facilitates an investigation of the representations of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ in Roman historical culture, since for this period more than just fragments and isolated references are preserved. Most importantly, the second half of Livy’s fifth book, the most comprehensive account of the event still extant, also dates from this period. In order to do justice to the complexity of Livy’s account, it makes sense to examine it in individual steps. Since not only the corresponding chapters, but the entire fifth book as well as the context of Livy’s first decade have been preserved, it first seems worthwhile to take a look at the composition of the material in Ab Urbe Condita, which in itself already reveals clues as to the way in which the event is depicted and interpreted. Subsequently, the explanations that can be found in Livy for the defeat of Rome will be discussed, which in turn lead to additional observations on the integration of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ into broader historical horizons.  Cic. Att. 9,5,2 (semper enim causae eventorum magis movent quam ipsa eventa. haec igitur mala (quibus maiora esse quae possunt?) considerans vel potius iudicans eius opera accidisse et culpa inimicior eram huic quam ipsi Caesari. ut maiores nostri funestiorem diem esse voluerunt Alliensis pugnae quam urbis captae, quod hoc malum ex illo (itaque alter religiosus etiam nunc dies, alter in vulgus ignotus), sic ego decem annorum peccata recordans, in quibus inerat ille etiam annus, qui nos hoc non defendente (ne dicam gravius) adflixerat, praesentisque temporis cognoscens temeritatem, ignaviam, neglegentiam suscensebam.). 140  See Rüsen 2008, 19 f. 139

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Livy has placed the account of the Battle of the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome at the end of the first pentad. The sixth book begins with a second preface, in which Livy sums up the earlier parts of Roman history and he labels it as a second beginning of this history.141 The fifth book has a composition of its own in that the action revolves around the siege of two cities – Veii, which is besieged and taken by the Romans in the first half of the book, and Rome, which the Gauls take in the second part of the book, with the exception of the Capitol, which they subsequently besiege for 7 months.142 Livy’s account of the siege of Veii, which the Romans actually managed to take in the early fourth century, is partly modelled on the siege of Troy, with the Romans, who in other contexts invoked their Trojan origins, here playing the role of the Greeks.143 Finally, the fact that the Romans, in contrast to the inhabitants of Veii, showed special pietas had a decisive effect on their success, and they were therefore able to take the Etruscan city after a long siege under the leadership of M. Furius Camillus.144 The figure of Camillus, who is the central protagonist of the fifth book, acts as another link between the two halves of the book, as the successful general is driven into exile by the ungrateful treatment of his fellow citizens, who want to accuse Camillus of allegedly unfairly distributing the spoils made in Veii. This then has a fatal effect during the Celtic invasion, as the Romans now lack an adequate leader.145 Camillus, however, returns in time to save Rome and immediately afterwards to initiate a new foundation on the ruins left by the Celts. At the same time, this lays the foundations for Rome’s military success, which, having overcome defeat, sets out on a triumphal march across Italy. The destruction of the cities of Veii and  Liv. 6,1,1–3 (Quae ab condita urbe Roma ad captam eandem Romani sub regibus primum, consulibus deinde ad dictatoribus decemvirisque ac tribunis consularibus gessere, foris bella, domi seditiones, quinque libris exposui, res cum vetustate nimia obscuras, velut quae magno ex intervallo loci vix cernuntur, tum quod [parvae et] rarae per eadem tempora litterae fuere, una custodia fidelis memoriae rerum gestarum, et quod, etiam si quae in commentariis pontificum aliisque publicis privatisque erant monumentis, incensa urbe pleraeque interiere. Clariora deinceps certioraque ab secunda origine velut ab stirpibus laetius feraciusque renatae urbis gesta domi militiaeque exponentur). See with further references Kraus 1994, 269; Oakley 1997, 381 f. 142  Ogilvie 1965, 626; Luce 1971, 268; Levene 1993, 175; Kraus 1994, 282; Jaeger 1997, 59; Tränkle 1998, 145; Oakley 2015, 230 f.; Stoll 2016, 91. Jaeger 1997, 60 also points to the spatial dimension of the depiction, which is characterized, among other things, by the fact that the location of the interactions between Romans and Gauls moves step by step (negotiations in Clusium  – Battle of the Allia – capture of the city – attack on the Capitol) from the periphery of the Roman sphere of power to its center. 143  See in detail Kraus 1994, esp. 271–273. Like Troy, Veii is held by the defenders for 10 years and can only be defeated by a ruse. For success, however, the inner attitude displayed by the Romans is more important than the stratagem. After disunity and discontent had spread in the army camp, Appius Claudius succeeds in restoring unity by a great speech (Liv. 5,3–6). In this speech, Appius Claudius points the Roman soldiers themselves to the example of the siege of Troy to dissuade them from giving up. After all, the Greeks had besieged Troy over a period of 10 years. This endurance was therefore now to be provided by them as well (Liv. 5,4,11–12). See on this Ogilvie 1965, 637; Galinsky 1969, 137; Kraus 1994, 271. 144  See Ogilvie 1965, 673 f.; Burck 1967, 313–315; Walter 2004a, 388. 145  See Burck 1967; Luce 1971, 268; Tränkle 1998, 145; Gaertner 2008, 27; Oakley 2015, 230. 141

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Rome, as well as the rebuilding of the Roman capital, are thus integrated in book five of Livy into an overarching, grand “context of the end of an era and a new beginning”, which assigns the ‘Gallic Disaster’ a significant position in the composition of Livy’s historical work as a whole.146 The treatment of Camillus by his fellow citizens, i.e., the aforementioned episode surrounding the expulsion of the deserving commander, leads to the complex of explanations of the defeat in Livy’s account. Livy presents several explanations for the Roman defeat by the Gauls. Some of these are closely linked to each other and can be integrated into broader interpretative patterns, while others rather complement each other. It can therefore be assumed that various explanatory approaches had been developed side by side and one after the other before they were integrated into one narrative, even if these processes can no longer be reconstructed with certainty in detail – despite the clues given by the fragments of the earlier tradition. For Livy’s text offers in most cases the earliest clear evidence for a variant, so that it seems convenient to examine explanations and interpretations of the ‘Gallic disaster’ on the basis of his account.147 One explanation interprets the defeat as the result of disunity among the Roman citizens. Already at the beginning of the fifth book, the patrician Ap. Claudius emphasizes concordia as a prerequisite for the prosperity and existence of Rome’s rule over its neighbors.148 After the capture of Veii, however, a dispute arises among the Romans over the distribution of the booty, as a part of the plebs accuses the dictator Camillus of allocating too small a share to the soldiers. Finally Camillus is accused by the tribune of the people, L. Apuleius, of the improper distribution of the spoils, whereupon the honorable general voluntarily leaves Rome, by which, according to Livy, the Romans drove from the city the “only human help they had,” which removed any prospect of preventing the capture of Rome.149 When he left the  See only Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 208 (“Im Grunde ist [...] der Gesamtkomplex des Kampfes zwischen Rom und Veji und der Gallierkatastrophe ein großer Zusammenhang von Zeitenende und Neubeginn.”); Walter 2004a, 382. 147  However, conjectures about possible models and influences that might have influenced the text in Livy’s fifth book will also be addressed, drawing on the results elaborated in the previous sections. The account of the Battle of the Allia, the capture of Rome up to the liberation of the city by Camillus in book five of Livy have repeatedly been intensively studied, so that a number of works can be drawn upon in the context of this chapter. See esp. Niebuhr 1853, 647–661; Schwegler 1872, 234–282; Mommsen 1878; Kornemann 1911; Hirschfeld 1895/1913; 1913; Alföldi 1963, 355–365; Ogilvie 1965, 693–752; Burck 1967; Wiseman 1978; 1979/1987; Sordi 1984; Horsfall 1987; Jaeger 1997, 57–74; Kraus 1994; Luce 1971; Tränkle 1998; Ungern-Sternberg 2000; Williams 2001, 140–184; Rosenberger 2003a; 2003b; Urban 2004, 682–685; Forsythe 2005, 253–257; Perl 2007; Richardson 2012, 116–152; Oakley 2015. 148  Liv. 5,3,10 (Quae si perpetua concordia sit, quis non spondere ausit maximum hoc imperium inter finitimos brevi futurum esse?). See, moreover, Liv. 5,6,11, where it is implied that the defenders of Veii could desire nothing more than seditiones in the Roman camp. The disagreement of two military tribunes before Veii leads to the interim loss of the Roman camp (Liv. 5,8,4–13; see on this Ogilvie 1965, 645; Oakley 2015, 234). See on concordia as a precondition for Rome’s well-being in book five of Livy Burck 1967, 313; Oakley 2015, 232 f. 149  Liv. 5,32,7–9. 146

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city, Camillus himself had asked the gods to awaken a desire among the Roman citizens for his return, provided he had been unlawfully expelled.150 The story of Camillus’ banishment was probably inserted relatively late in the context of the defeat by the Gauls and their capture of Rome.151 It is probable, however, that various versions and narratives of Camillus’ deeds in the Italic wars of the early fourth century already existed, so that the question could arise why the great hero of early times played no part in the events of the Celtic invasion. The story of the exile of Camillus offered a plausible explanation for this.152 Possibly only secondary is the interpretation suggested by Livy, according to which the defeat by the Celts was to be seen as a consequence of the absence of Camillus.153 Moreover, the whole incident is reminiscent of disputes between militarily successful commanders and parts of the citizenry in better documented periods of Roman history, so that it has been assumed that one or more of these later events gave rise to the tradition surrounding the trial of Camillus and his exile.154 Possible historical models for the trial against Camillus would then be cases in which the dispute over the distribution of spoils of war played a central role, for example the accusations of tribunes of the people and parts of the senate against the brothers L. and P. Cornelius Scipio after their campaign against Antiochos III and

 Liv. 5,32,9 (in exsilium abiit, precatus ab dis immortalibus, si innoxio sibi ea iniuria fieret, primo quoque tempore desiderium sui civitati ingratae facerent). The resemblance to the words uttered by Achilles in the Iliad on the occasion of his quarrel with Agamemnon is probably no coincidence, which was already noticed by ancient readers, and is another reference to the Trojan war. See Hom. Il. 1233–244, and see Plut. Cam. 13,1; App. It. 8,5. See on this, among others, Ogilvie 1965, 699; Kraus 1994, 273; Tränkle 1998, 150, note 19 (“Die Herkunft dieser Wendung ist so offenkundig, daß sie schon den antiken Schriftstellern auffiel [...]”); Gaertner 2008, 31 with note 17. 151  As it is widely agreed in modern scholarship. See only Williams 2001, 143; Richardson 2012, 127 f. (127: “Also problematic, and best rejected as wholly unhistorical, is the role of M. Furius Camillus.”). 152  See Tränkle 1998, 160 f. esp. 161: “Als dann Camillus immer mehr glorifiziert wurde, wurde auch die Frage drängend, wie denn zu seinen Lebzeiten eine so furchtbare Katastrophe wie die Niederlage an der Allia und die anschließende Zerstörung Roms überhaupt eintreten konnte. Das provozierte die Antwort: Weil er damals gar nicht in der Stadt weilte”. Already Hirschfeld 1895/1913, 277 assumes that the trial of Camillus and his exile “auf freier Erfindung beruhen”. See also Richardson 2012, 127. 153  See Tränkle 1998, 150, note 19. 154  See, for example, Hirschfeld 1895/1913, 281 f. (suggesting that several historical trials at once provided inspiration for the framing of the accusation against Camillus). As is well known, Roman historiographers and other scholars, especially in the second and first centuries, ‘expanded’ their knowledge of early Roman history to a considerable extent through such back-projections (on this see, among others, Badian 1966; Tränkle 1998, 146). Perhaps, then, the idea of Camillus’ absence from Rome during the Celtic invasion was first developed to explain why he did not appear in the accounts of this event, which could then – see above – also serve as an explanation for the occurrence of the defeat. The reason for Camillus’ absence from Rome could then be ‘explained’ by a report about a trial for the booty of Veii, which in turn could have been inspired by historically vouched cases from later times. However, this reconstruction is ultimately hypothetical, since the exact development of the tradition can no longer be determined. 150

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the victory at Magnesia.155 The accusations brought against L.  Aemilius Paullus after the victory in the Third Macedonian War are also similar to those formulated by members of the plebs and a tribune of the people against Camillus in Livy’s account.156 From the perspective of a historiography conducted by senators or actors close to them, it might have been obvious in this context to portray an ungrateful plebs, intemperate in its demands, as responsible for the dispute within the citizenry. In this way, the description of the charges against Camillus could also illustrate the negative consequences that could result when such demands were supported by individual tribunes of the people.157 However, it is not the plebeians alone to whom Livy’s account attributed a detrimental influence on events for Rome. Thus, in a detailed analysis of the fifth book, Gary Miles has pointed out that the disunity among the Romans, both in the field before Veii, and in their own city, was ultimately based on a deeper cause, namely the excessive greed for wealth, which was by no means limited to the plebeians alone.158 This greed, he argues, was not quenched even by the considerable booty the Romans were able to take from Veii, but rather was fueled even more, which ultimately led to the accusation and expulsion of Camillus. Thereafter, too, the exaggerated desire for wealth and power has a harmful effect in Rome, which is reflected in neglect towards ordinary Romans (again, a lack of concordia) and towards divinely sanctioned norms.159 Thus M. Caedicius, who tells the Senate of the warning by a divine voice, is not listened to, as Livy criticizes, because Caedicius was of low social status.160 Moreover, the complaints of the Gallic envoys are also not granted because, according to Livy, the amibitio prevented the senate from reaching the decision on men “of such high nobility” that the assembly actually thought proper.161 The people, to whom the decision is then submitted, were impressed and influenced to an even greater degree by the influence and power of the Fabians, so that they are even elected consular tribunes.162 The Romans can then, as mentioned, offer so little resistance to the advancing Gauls, partly because Camillus had fled from the charges which grew out of the internal strife. The greed for wealth thus further erodes the moral integrity of the Romans, after it had already been severely damaged by discord within the citizenry.

 See on this already (in each case with further references) Hirschfeld 1895/1913, 281 f.; Tränkle 1998, 160; Gaertner 2008, 31. 156  See Walter 2004a, 389 f. 157  See also below Sect. 5.2.5.1 on the historiographical presentation of the defeats of the Romans against Hannibal’s army and the unfortunate role that tribunes of the people and their allies are said to have played. 158  Miles 1986, 5–10. see Jaeger 1997, 68 f.; Biesinger 2016, 239. 159  For the following examples, see the notes in Miles 1986, 10. 160  Liv. 5,32,7 (propter auctoris humilitatem). See on Livy’s interpretation and further sources Engels 2007, 374 (“Doch wurde Caedicius ignoriert, da, wie Livius kritisch bemerkt, sein niederer Stand die Zuhörer dazu veranlaßte, ihm keine Beachtung zu schenken.”). 161  Liv. 5:36,9. 162  Liv. 5,36,10 (gratia atque opes). 155

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The emphasis on the importance of internal harmony, of concordia, for the well-­ being of Rome is found throughout the Livian work.163 The account of the conquest of the two cities of Veii and Rome, however, is one of the passages in which this idea is particularly prominent, when the lack of concordia contributes decisively to the catastrophe of the defeat by the Gauls.164 Livy’s appreciation of concordia may well have been fed or reinforced by the experience of civil wars in his own lifetime, reflecting the experiences and views of many of his contemporaries as well.165 In this context, the explanation that this disagreement ultimately resulted from the excessive desire for wealth, which easily led to luxuria – as is well known, an idea found in a number of Roman authors – may also be plausible.166 It is also conceivable that already the impression of the defeats against Germanic tribes invading Italy at the end of the second century, which had obviously been favoured in no small measure by quarrels between Roman commanders, contributed to seeing in such disunity also a reason for the catastrophe of the early period, which had also been inflicted by invaders from the north.167 When exactly this motive found its way into the historiographical tradition as an explanation for the defeat against the Gauls cannot, however, be determined with certainty on the basis of the sources. It can be stated, however, that the blindness and corruption within the Roman citizenry leads Livy not only to the expulsion of Camillus, but also to the rejection of the justified request of the Gauls.168 Through this, the Romans incur divine wrath. In the further exposition of the fifth book, special weight is given to the interpretation of the capture of Rome by the Celts as a form of divine punishment. The behavior of the Romans toward the gods is a dominant theme of the fifth book as a whole.169 Whereas during the siege of Veii the Romans had distinguished themselves by particularly careful attention to omens, properly performed expiatory sacrifices, and the reverent transfer of Iuno from Veii to Rome, filled with respect for the divine, they now lack all these virtues and virtuous behaviors. A number of passages in the second half of book five can be placed in this context. In the first, as already seen, the Senate ignores the report of M. Caedicius, who had heard a divine voice warning of the attack of the Gauls.170 After ignoring the divine warning and after Camillus had gone into exile, the city’s defeat, “determined  See, among others, Liv. 9,19,17 and see Oakley 2015, 232, 239.  Oakley 2015, 232. see Levene 1993, 190–192. see on the meaning of concordia in Ab Urbe Condita as a whole Mineo 2015 (with further references). 165  See Oakley 2015, 232 (“However, the text also echoes the experiences of its first readers: they must often have believed during the civil wars that the state would collapse if concordia were not achieved.”). 166  See only Miles 1986, 5 with numerous supporting documents and further references. 167  See Williams 2001, 172 f. 168  See Burck 1967, 315 (“In einer unbegreiflichen Verblendung unterschätzen die Römer die gallische Gefahr, reizen durch eine schwere Verletzung des Völkerrechts durch ihre Unterhändler die Gallier zum Marsch gegen Rom und treffen fast keine Gegenmaßnahmen zum Schutze der Stadt.”). 169  On the importance of religion in the fifth book as a whole, see, among others, Luce 1971, 268; Levene 1993, 175, 192–203; Oakley 2015, 237 f. 170  Liv. 5,32,6–7. See Levene 1993, 192. 163 164

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by fate,” had then come.171 Later, the three Fabians go to Clusium as Rome’s envoys to negotiate with the Gauls, but there they take part in the fighting “in defiance the law of nations” (contra ius gentium), thereby provoking the Gauls’ march on Rome.172 The Gauls’ demand for the extradition of the three Fabians is recognized as justified by at least part of the Senate, but the influence of the Fabians prevents the senators from acting accordingly. The decision is transferred to the people’s assembly, which finally rejects the extradition. The Gauls threaten war, and the three Fabians are elected among the six military tribunes of the next year. The misconduct of the envoys and the intransigent attitude of the Senate and the people thus lead the Romans to defeat.173 Moreover, according to Livy, despite the manifestly threatening situation, they had not elected a dictator, nor had the military tribunes adapted their measures to the situation. The former had been prevented by Fortuna, which, according to Livy, blinded the people in order to prevent them from opposing her actions.174 The generals commanding the Roman contingent at the Allia also fail to obtain the auspices, which Livy notes as a serious mistake.175 The Roman leaders also prove incompetent with regard to tactical aspects, for they fail to have a camp set up and the deployment of troops is inappropriate to the terrain.176 The ordinary Roman soldiers also do not fight in the manner to which they are accustomed, which can also be seen as a consequence of the action of Fortuna. In the battle itself there is nothing characteristic of the Romans, while Fortuna was on the side of the Gauls.177 The Romans are obviously not to be forgiven their punishment. Consequently, the defeat is quickly inflicted, and the Romans flee from the battlefield almost unconsciously. They still seem to be in a daze when they not only head straight for the Capitol in Rome, but also fail to close the city gates in the process.178 Other groups of fugitives make their way to Veii.179 The passages mentioned above add up to a coherent interpretation. First, excessive desire for wealth weakens the internal cohesion of the Romans, which results in the expulsion of their most capable commander. Then, through their ignorance of divine portents and the unpunished perjury of their envoys, the Romans turn the

 Liv. 5,33,1 (fatali urbi clade).  Liv. 5,36,5–6. See on this already Schwegler 1872, 237 f.; Bruckmann 1936, 41 f.; Ogilvie 1965, 716 (“L. makes the story a moral and psychological pretext for the impending disaster at the Allia”); Levene 1993, 194. 173  Liv. 5,36,8–12. On this explanation for the defeat at the Allia and the capture of Rome, see again already Schwegler 1872, 237 f.; Bruckmann 1936, 41 f.; Ogilvie 1965, 716; Levene 1993, 194. 174  Liv. 5,37,1. See already Schwegler 1872, 242, 246; Jaeger 1997, 60. 175  Liv. 5,38,1. 176  Liv. 5,38,1–2. See Bruckmann 1936, 42 f. 177  Liv. 5,38,4–5 (adeo non fortuna modo, sed ratio etiam cum barbaris stabat. In altera acie nihil simile Romanis, non apud duces, non apud milites erat). See Ogilvie 1965, 719; Luce 1971, 270. 178  Liv. 5,38,10. See already Schwegler 1872, 252 (“eine offenbare Uebertreibung der verzweifelten Rath- und Kopflosigkeit, in der man sich die unglückliche Bevölkerung dachte”). 179  Liv. 5,38,10. Concerning the open city gates at the approach of the Gauls see the further remarks. 171 172

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gods themselves against them. In battle, the Romans – as a consequence of divine wrath – are then not masters of themselves, making their defeat inevitable. To some degree, the Gauls function more as executors of the divine will than as independent, autonomous actors. At least, however, Livy credits them with great godliness; moreover, they would have undeniably had right on their side.180 In any way outstanding achievements in the battle had obviously not been reported.181 The Romans, on the other hand, first oppose divine right and then act as if blinded and in a negligent manner. The errors committed by the military tribunes at the Allia in Livy, such as the failure to establish a camp and to collect the auspices, or the clumsy deployment of troops for battle, can all ultimately be explained as the result of the action of Fortuna.182 After their defeat and their flight from the battlefield, however, the image of the Romans changes, in a certain sense even their nature, for those of them who were preparing in Rome for the approach of the Gauls would, according to Livy, no longer have resembled those who had fled at the Allia.183 This remark marks a turning-­ point in the conduct of the Romans, who now show all that they had previously lacked. A process can be observed, at the end of which there is finally a “restoration of Roman morality”, which is a prerequisite for the liberation of Rome from the Gallic occupiers and thus the overcoming of the crisis.184 For before the Gauls reach Rome, the Romans organize the defense of the city, more precisely the Capitol. There the able-bodied Romans retreat with their families to defend “gods, men and the Roman name” from this fortress.185 Afterwards the Romans decide that the Flamen Dialis and the priestesses of Vesta should take away the sacra publica in order to ensure that the worship of the gods is not stopped as long as there is even one member of the Roman people left to accomplish this.186 The survival of the older Romans is seen as less important, since they would no longer be able to protect Rome anyway. Consequently, they remain in the city, neither fleeing to the surrounding countryside nor going to the Capitol. To make it  Liv. 5,34, 2–8; 5,36, 11. See among others Levene 1993, 193 f.; Engels 2007, 375.  See with this observation already Bruckmann 1936, 44 (“Bei einem Vergleich auf die gesamte Erzählung […] fällt zunächst auf, daß es Livius hier wie dort peinlich vermieden hat, im Leser den Gedanken an eine große heldische Leistung der Feinde aufkommen zu lassen. Er hat im Gegenteil alles dafür getan, um den feindlichen Sieg als Kampfesleistung herabzumindern.”). On the other hand, Livy has emphasized the virtus that the Fabians are said to have shown in the battle before Clusium, although they had taken part in the battle contra ius gentium (Liv. 5,36,6–7). See Luce 1971, 277 (“Livy could not resist pointing to an example of peregrina virtus (36.6) on the battlefield at Clusium.”). 182  See also Luce 1971, 271 f. 183  Liv. 5,39,8 (Nequaquam tamen ea nocte neque insequenti die similis illi, quae ad Alliam tam pavide fugerat, civitas fuit.). 184  Ogilvie 1965, 720 (“restoration of Roman morale”); Miles 1986, 11 (“sudden change of heart”). On the structure described here, see already Burck 1967, 315  f.; Luce 1971, 268–276; Levene 1993, 194–202; Jaeger 1997, 62 f.; Oakley 2015, 236 f. 185  Liv. 5,39,10 (deos hominesque et Romanum nomen). 186  Liv. 5,39,11. See Levene 1993, 195. 180 181

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easier for the plebeians to accept this decision, the old men among the senators also remain in the city and await the Gauls there, sitting in the atria of their houses and wearing the signs of their former offices.187 When the Gauls arrive in Rome and catch sight of the old senators, they are at first filled with awe, but then slay the old men in front of their houses and plunder them. Earlier, one of the senators had struck one of the Gauls on the head with his ivory staff after the Gaul touched his long beard.188 In this connection Livy knows to report that some handed down (tradant) that the old senators had previously devoted themselves for their city and their fellow citizens (pro patria Quiritibusque Romanis).189 The salvation of the sacra publica also succeeds because Flamen and priestesses are filled with the sole concern for its preservation.190 This was ensured in two ways. Some of the sacred objects were hidden in small barrels in a chapel near the house of the Flamen Quirinus.191 In addition, the aforementioned L.  Albinius took the priestesses and the Flamen, who fled the city on foot and made correspondingly slow progress, together with the sacra publica on his wagon and brought them to Caere, so that the continuation of the cult in exile was ensured.192 In Livy’s account, the Romans then succeed in defending the Capitol Hill against the first attacks of the Gauls, so that a longer siege begins.193 The description of this siege offers Livy the opportunity to weave in a whole series of individual episodes that can be read as further steps on the way of the Romans to regaining the favour of the gods, which they had previously deprived themselves of by their sacrilegious

 Liv. 5,39,12–13. See Levene 1993, 195 f.  Liv. 5,41,1–3; 5,41,8–10. 189  Liv. 5,41,3 (Sunt, qui M. Folio pontifice maximo praefante carmen devovisse eos se pro patria Quiritibusque Romanis tradant.). On this, see Levene 1993, 196. A corresponding tradition could indeed be the origin of the peculiar episode (see Ogilvie 1965, 725). As a rule, it is assumed in research that the episode surrounding the death of the old senators was integrated quite late into the tradition of the Gallic capture of Rome. See most recently Koptev 2011, esp. 173–179, who believes that the story entered the tradition in the last third of the second century. Hirschfeld 1895/1913, 272 suggests that the violent death of the consul Cn. Octavius in 87 provided the model for this episode. Octavius, according to the account of Appian (App. civ. 1,326–328), is said to have refused to flee from the followers of his opponents Cinna and Marius, who invaded Rome in Sulla’s absence. Instead, he is said to have awaited his enemies on the Ianiculum, in official dress, surrounded by the fasces of the lictors and sitting upright on the sella curulis, whereupon C. Marcius Censorinus is said to have beheaded him. 190  Liv. 5,40,7. 191  Liv. 5,40,8. According to Livy, spitting was considered a sacrilege there until his time, which was obviously connected to the hiding of the sacra publica there during the Celtic invasion. See also below Sect. 3.1.6. 192  Liv. 5,40,6–10. For considerations about an earlier integration of the role of L. Albinius into the tradition of the ‘Gallic catastrophe’ see above Sect. 3.1.2. 193  Liv. 5,43,1–5. According to one tradition the Gauls besieged the Capitol for 7  months (Pol. 2,22,5). Livy does not give a precise time, but a longer duration can be assumed, since on the one hand the supplies of the Romans on the Capitol run out, and on the other hand Camillus and the Romans who fled to Veii have enough time to raise troops and carry out operations against marauding Gauls and Etruscans. See Luce 1971, 283 f. 187 188

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behaviour.194 Among these episodes is the sacrificial course of C. Fabius Dorsuo, which, as seen above, was demonstrably already included, in variants differing from Livy’s text, in earlier works.195 In book five of Ab Urbe Condita, Dorsuo is concerned with performing a sacrifice on the Quirinal, which he claims is prescribed for the gens Fabia. To do this, he girds himself in the Gabinian manner and strides through the ranks of Gauls with the offerings in his hands. Livy is not sure why they do not attack Fabius. He does, however, suggest that they were either frozen by the bold act itself or as a result of their “pious timidity.”196 In any case, Dorsuo had risked his life to be able to perform the prescribed sacrifice.197 The special pietas that the Fabian reveals here is also shown by the other Romans in the course of the siege, which contributes decisively to their ability to hold their ground against the attacks of the Gauls. For even when those trapped on the Capitol run out of supplies, they do not touch the sacred geese of Iuno, which is explicitly stated as a prerequisite for saving the Capitol.198 The animals notice the Gallic attackers sneaking up on the Capitol at night on the trail of Pontius Cominius, and betray them by their chattering and loud flapping of wings while the guard dogs sleep. Thus one of the Romans, M. Manlius, is able to become aware of the Gauls just in time to obstruct them.199 Thus, after their transgressions and disregard of clear omens, which earned them divine disfavor and thus the attack of the Gauls, the Romans show special pietas in the siege. Individual men and women take upon themselves sacrifices to protect the gods and the Roman community that worships those gods. Moreover, even in a situation of supreme danger and deprivation, religious duties and customs that have been handed down are adhered to by performing sacrificial acts and by observing other regulations strictly. The warning by the sacred geese could be seen as a sign that the gods honor this change in the Romans. For finally the Romans succeed in defending the Capitol, the “seat of the gods”.200 As seen, however, it was not only the disregard of divine commandments and signs that had led the Romans to defeat. They were also helpless in the face of the  See Luce 1971, 277. As the review of fragments of earlier works in the preceding chapters has already shown in this context, some of these episodes had already found their way into historiographical accounts and other media of Roman historical culture well before Livy. Within Latin literature, however, the Livian narrative represents the earliest extant overall account linking those episodes. It is possible, however, that these episodes had already been integrated into a narrative context by Q. Claudius Quadrigarius (see Sect. 3.1.4 above). 195  Levene 1993, 197 f. 196  Liv. 5:46, 1–3. See Ogilvie 1965, 731 (“the superstition of the Gauls was proverbial”). 197  So esp. Liv. 5,46,3. 198  Liv. 5,47,4 (anseres non fefellere, quibus sacris Iunonis in summa inopia cibi tamen abstinebatur. quae res saluti fuit [...].). See Levene 1993, 198 f. 199  Liv. 5,47,1–5. For the various aitia that go back to this episode or contributed to its creation in the first place, see below Sect. 3.1.6. 200  Liv. 5,39,12 (sedes deorum). See Levene 1993, 198 (“Divine aid may also be seen in the story that follows, about the geese that saved the Capitol by warning its defenders of the Gauls’ attack [...].”). 194

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attack of the Gauls because they had driven their great leader Camillus into exile through internal strife. In the aftermath of the defeat at the Allia, a change for the better is now observable, not only in regard to the religious, but also to the political community of the Romans, which helps them to overcome the crisis which had been occasioned by the siege of the Capitol and the extensive destruction of the city.201 The very willingness of the old senators to devote themselves to saving the community is a sign that the strife between different groups of the citizenry can be overcome. While the siege continues, a large number of Romans have gathered in Veii. Their plan is to win back Rome, for which they want to appoint M. Furius Camillus as leader.202 This, however, could only be decided by the Senate, which is finally responsible for the appointment of a dictator, for although “almost all was lost” respect for custom and the powers of the various institutions of the res publica still determined all decisions.203 This then led to the dispatch of a messenger to the enclosed residual senate on the Capitol  – a task for which the aforementioned Pontius Cominius, “an industrious young man”, volunteered and then carried out. The intervention of Camillus is thus not based on a self-empowerment of the commander or a choice of the army in exile, but in accordance with the institutional order of the Republic, although the conditions for its observance are extremely adverse.204 According to Livy, this attitude had also been maintained. At the same place where Cominius had previously climbed the slope to the Capitol and had later descended from there, the Gauls were able to climb the hill shortly afterwards. Only the quacking of the geese had startled M. Manlius, who alone succeeded in holding off the attackers long enough for the other Romans to become aware of the attack.205 After the Gallic attackers have been repulsed under the leadership of M. Manlius, the soldiers on the Capitol are in fact summoned by a trumpet signal, since one  See on the following Ogilvie 1965, 727 f.  Liv. 5,46,4–7. 203  Liv. 5,46,7. 204  Liv. 5,46,7–11. 205  Liv. 5,47,1–6. With regard to the place of the attack, Wiseman 1979 draws attention to the fact that in Livy (Liv. 6,20,10–12), in the account of the execution of M. Manlius Capitolinus by the tribunes, another place of the Gauls’ ascent to the Capitol is mentioned. According to Livy, Manlius had been thrust from the Tarpeian rock, which enables the narrator to remark that this place had become a monument both to Manlius’ glory and to the supreme punishment to which he had been condemned on account of his attempted overthrow (Liv. 6,20,12: Tribuni de saxo Tarpeio deiecerunt, locusque idem in uno homine et eximiae gloriae monumentum et poenae ultimae fuit.). However, since the Tarpeian rock probably did not rise on the slope facing the Tiber, this means that in this passage a different section of the hill is seen as the place where the Gauls had been stopped by Manlius than is the case in the account of the episode in book five. Wiseman suspects that the reason for this change was to create the tragic as well as didactically productive sentiment (Manlius, unlike Camillus, strives to use his fame to attain a personal position of power, which brings about his failure and thus his death; see Jaeger 1997, 74–93) found in the quoted passage in Livy’s book six (Liv. 6,20,12). Wiseman suspects Valerius Antias as the possible author of the episode (Wiseman 1979, 49). See approvingly to this consideration Jaeger 1997, 76; Oakley 1997, 489 f. 201 202

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“good conduct and bad had both to be requited”.206 Manlius is decorated by the tribunes for his bravery, and by the decision of the soldiers is richly rewarded – under the circumstances. To his house, which was evidently in arce, each of them brought a quartarius of wine, as well as half a pound of wheat, which, in the siege, had constituted a great sacrifice to each soldier, and a great gift to Manlius.207Against the guards, in turn, who had not noticed the attackers during the night, the military tribune Q. Sulpicius wishes to proceed more militari, but, at the request of the soldiers, agrees to assign the blame to an individual who, guilty “without doubt”, is thrown from the Tarpean rock with general consent.208 The Romans on the Capitol surrender only after the very last supplies had been consumed, and the soldiers therefore demanded of their leaders that they either surrender or buy off the Gauls, under whatever conditions. Only then does the Senate convene, which instructs the tribunes to begin negotiations with the Gauls. These negotiations then lead to the handing over of gold to the Gauls. Now it also becomes apparent that the greed for wealth, which had such a negative influence before the Gauls appeared at Clusium, has given way to a generous solidarity among the Romans. Thus, wealthy women voluntarily donate valuable jewelry to reach the ransom sum without the Romans having to resort to treasures in the temples for this purpose. The emphasis that this was not necessary again underpins the reverence now restored to the gods.209 During the handover, however, Camillus appears and thus provides another twist.210 Before going into these, however, it may be stated that the Romans, both those at Veii, and those on the Capitol in Rome, act in a particularly prudent manner, not only with regard to their religious duties, but also with regard to political customs and norms.211 In this way the blow against the Gauls could be properly prepared and carried out. Previously, the Romans had appeared as divided among themselves, and their commanders had led the army into battle at the Allia without properly carrying out the preparations for battle (see above). In the battles fought by the newly formed troops of the Romans at Ardea and Veii against Celtic raiding parties, the superior organization and efficiency of the Roman troops is revealed, so that also in this respect a transformation of the Romans to old strength can be attested.212 Both their return to pietas as well as the special attention to political norms and military organization attest to the fact that the Romans now appear changed. The  Liv. 5,47,7: (Luce orta vocatis classico ad concilium militibus ad tribunos, cum et recte et perperam facto pretium deberetur). 207  Liv. 5,47,8. 208  Liv. 5,47, 9–10. See on the passage and on the use of the expression mos militaris here Ogilvie 1965, 735. 209  Liv. 5,50,7. See on this already Miles 1986, 12. 210  Liv. 5,49,1. See Levene 1993, 199. 211  The competences of individual institutions (among others, not the exiled Romans in Veii, but the senate appoints the dictator) are observed as well as the proper course of proceedings (tribunes call to the army assembly on the Capitol, rewards and punishments are distributed). 212  See Luce 1971, 274 f. 206

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capitulation of those trapped on the Capitol, however, cannot be prevented by this. The appointment of M. Furius Camillus as dictator by the Senate, however, prepares the rescue. For Camillus now appears in time to interrupt the handing over of the gold to the Gauls. Significantly, Camillus not only intervenes by letting the weapons speak, but he begins by stating that the payment of the gold was made without a legitimate basis – after all, as dictator, he alone is entitled to make such decisions on behalf of the Roman people. The results of the negotiations that the Gauls had conducted with the military tribunes were therefore to be regarded as null and void. As expected, the Gauls do not want to go along with this view, which is why it first comes to a clash of arms.213 That the gold can be recovered is therefore due to Camillus’ intervention, which in turn can only come about because the Romans, whom the defeat has distributed among Ardea, Veii and Rome, unlike before the catastrophe, act in unity even under difficult circumstances, the common guiding principle of action being the mores known to all. The defenders, in turn, also succeed in holding out for so long because they themselves have turned back to the gods in a particularly prudent manner, obeying their precepts and thus being able to protect the temples on the Capitol. On the other hand, the successful contestation indicates that the gods are also once again willing to assist the Romans. “Gods and men” had protected the Romans from the fate of “living as ransomed”, Livy consequently states at the end of his account of the siege.214 That the appearance of Camillus in Rome was inserted relatively late into the narrative of the capture and liberation of the city has long been recognized by scholars.215 Apparently, there also circulated a number of variants on the recovery of the gold that the Romans had paid to the Celts, in which Camillus either played no role or only succeeded in recovering the gold for the Romans at a later date.216 When and by whom the version found in Livy was conceived is ultimately unclear.217 Within the composition of the fifth book of Ab Urbe Condita, in which Camillus had already been the predominant figure on the Roman side up to this point, it represents in any case a consistent construction to have him also drive the Gauls out of Rome. However, Rome itself is not yet saved, for now internal dissension again threatens the future of the city. A part of the population is of the opinion that it would be best to abandon the ruins left by the Gauls and to move to Veii instead.218 Again,  Liv. 5,49,1–6.  Liv. 5,49,1 (dique et homines prohibuere redemptos vivere Romanos). See generally Luce 1971, 272 (“‘Gods and men’ becomes thereafter a leitmotif which appears at each crucial stage of the story, [...].”). 215  See, among others, Schwegler 1872, 262 f.; Luce 1971, 290. 216  In Diod. 14,117,5 Camillus takes the gold from the Gauls again in a later campaign in Etruria. According to Suet. Tib. 3,2, it was a certain M. Livius Drusus who, as praetor of the provincia Gallia, defeated a Gaulish leader named Drausus and thereby recovered the gold that had once been paid to the Senones for their withdrawal from Rome. Strab. 5,2,3, p. 220 again reports that the inhabitants of Caere had taken the gold from the Celts and returned it to the Romans. See Luce 1971, 292; Williams 2001, 143; Walter 2004a, 386 f. See on this Schwegler 1872, 262, 266. 217  See Walter 2004a, 387. For a consideration of Bruun, see above Sect. 3.1.2. 218  Liv. 5,49,8; 5:50,8. 213 214

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M. Furius Camillus must step up to save the city of Rome from its end.219 First, as dictator, he sees to it that all the sanctuaries destroyed by the Gauls are restored, expiatory measures are adopted, and the inhabitants of Caere are thanked for their help in preserving the sacra publica. In addition, games should be established in honor of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, who had protected the Capitol. Moreover, the failure to heed the divine voice, which had warned the Romans in vain, was to be atoned for by the erection of an altar to Aius Locutius on the Nova Via. The recovered gold was to be deposited in the temple of Iuppiter under his sella, and declared the property of the god.220 These measures fit in well with the interpretation previously put forward in Livy’s account, according to which the defeat was brought about very essentially by the disregard of divine omens and laws. This is probably why he presents them in dense sequence and goes into them in greater detail than any other author from whom accounts of them have survived.221 Under the guidance of Camillus, the Romans now strive with great conscientiousness and thoroughness for a complete reconciliation with the gods. Afterwards Camillus delivers a longer speech, in which he gives in concentrated form the interpretation of the events, which has already been suggested to the reader by the reading of the preceding chapters.222 Veii could be conquered by particularly careful attention to divine signs, and the defeat at the Allia had been brought about by disregarding the warning voice as well as by breaking the law of nations. Their misfortune, however, had again reminded the Romans of the res religionum, which had allowed them not only to withstand the siege, but finally and successfully to drive out the Gauls.223 Camillus then goes on to show his fellow citizens the terrible damage they would do if they were to leave Rome for Veii. Rome, in fact, was the place on which the city was founded under strict observance of religious rites, where temples and altars had their fixed places, and thus the gods a home. There various deities had revealed themselves to the Romans, and there finally rose the Capitol, which, according to the seers, would one day be the head of the world. This destiny could not be transferred from one place to another, and in no other place could the religious duties imposed on the Romans be adequately observed.224 The idea underlying these remarks is that a violation of these duties would again have terrible consequences for Rome.225  Liv. 5,49,8 (Servatam deinde bello patriam iterum in pace haud dubie servavit, cum prohibuit migrari Veios et tribunis rem intentius agentibus post incensam urbem et per se inclinata magis plebe ad id consilium). 220  Liv. 5,50,1–7. 221  Levene 1993, 199 (“While there are one or two references to these events in other writers, no one but Livy brings them together and describes them in such detail [...].”). 222  Camillus’ speech in Liv. 5,51 1–54,7. On this, see Ogilvie 1965, 741–750; Burck 1967, 316 f.; Levene 1993, 199–202; Jaeger 1997, 89–92; Walter 2004a, 401 f.; Oakley 2015, 238 f. 223  Liv. 5,51,9 (adversae deinde res admonuerunt religionum). See Oakley 2015, 238. 224  Liv. 5,54,7. See Oakley 2015, 239: “In short, in this final appearance of the theme of what it means to be a Roman, we learn that, for Camillus at least, ‘Romanness’ was not possible if Romans did not inhabit the city of Rome itself.” 225  See Tränkle 1998, 155. 219

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In the speech of Camillus, Livy not only succeeds in repeating in condensed form the interpretation underlying his account of the ‘Gallic disaster’, but his Camillus also gives the Romans a series of references to important events in the history of Rome’s rise to date, which Livy had described in the first decade up to that point and which are now brought into an overarching context at the end of the fifth book.226 These are also events that may be interpreted as important steps on Rome’s way to dominion over the world, and in which the Capitol – as in the whole account of the Gallic conquest of Rome before – always plays an important part.227 Camillus himself concludes the course of Roman history so far by pointing out to his fellow citizens that Rome is in the 365th year since its foundation – 365 years in which no opponent has been a match for the Romans in war.228 Camillus, then, by pointing out Rome’s past, wants to discourage the Romans from leaving the area of the city. Instead, they should rebuild their city on the ruins left by the Gaulish storm and do so with awareness of the continuity since its foundation. At the same time, the reference to the 365th year since the founding of the city points to the idea of a so-called ‘Great Year’, whose end had come after the expiration of 365 years.229 The reference to the fact that a new epoch of Roman history had dawned with the accession of Augustus was an integral part of the ideology of the principate.230 Livy places these designs for periodizing Roman history in the speech of Camillus in a larger context that spans the entire history of Rome.231 The indication of 365 years was chronologically inaccurate, but that does not detract from the symbolism associated with it. For the rebuilding of the city could be interpreted in this perspective as a second founding of Rome that had come after the passing of a ‘Great Year’. As already mentioned, the Roman soldiers finally celebrate Camillus as the ‘second founder of the city’ (conditor alter urbis).232 Indeed, Livy then also begins the sixth book with a new preface, in which he emphasizes that with the time

 See Ogilvie 1965, 742.  These episodes include the foundation of the city by Romulus, the finding of the so-called caput Oli in the course of the construction of the temple for Iuppiter Optimus Maximus and the refusal of the deities Iuventas and Terminus to be removed from their ancestral places in the course of these construction measures (Liv. 5,54,7). In the corresponding passage in the first book (Liv. 1,55,3–4) only Terminus, the god of borders and boundary stones, refuses to vacate the place, which is taken there as an omen for the permanence of the whole (see Hölkeskamp 2001/2004, 137 f.). A similar incident concerning Iuventas is not mentioned there, which is why Ogilvie 1965, 750 assumes that this is an addition that goes back to the researches of M. Terentius Varro, who might have noticed that Iuventas had her own shrine in the cella of Minerva in the Capitoline temple. On this passage, see further Kraus 1994, 281. For an in-depth analysis of the way in which the Capitol, not only in Camillus’ speech, but in the second half of the fifth as well as in the first half of the sixth book, functions as the focal point in Livy’s narrative, see Jaeger 1997, 57–93. 228  Liv. 5,54,5. 229  On the notion of a ‘great year’, see Ogilvie 1965, 749; Williams 2001, 156; Koptev 2011, 175 f. 230  Galinsky 1996, 90–121. 231  See already Levene 1993, 201; Walter 2004a, 402 f. 232  Liv. 5,49,7. 226 227

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since the expulsion of the Gauls a new epoch in Roman history had begun.233 On a continuous reading of the work, this connection is particularly striking, since this second introduction directly follows the resolution to rebuild Rome at the end of the fifth book.234 In the time of Livy and his recipients, this could well recall the ‘refounding’ of Rome under Augustus in 27, before which ‘there should pass again almost exactly the same interval’ that had elapsed from the first foundation under Romulus to the second under Camillus.235 The interpretations that could result from this historiographical construction have already been pointedly summarized by Uwe Walter.236 On the one hand, the connections in which Livy places the victor over the Gauls result in a “series ‘Romulus’ – Camillus – Augustus”, at whose “provisional centre on the time axis of Rome’s history” Camillus appears. On the other hand, through Camillus in this way, “the merging of two pasts with a present into a cyclical continuum lasting almost eight centuries with passable prospects for the future” succeeds. A further connection arises with Aeneas, for Camillus could be understood as a “bridge between two epochs”, just as Aeneas could be interpreted as a “bridge between two worlds”, the lost Trojan past and the future of the Romans beginning in Italy.237 The theme of refounding and renewal, as well as the references to the similarities between Camillus and Aeneas, point, as mentioned, to Augustus, whose reign was interpreted by contemporaries as the founding and beginning of a new ‘Golden Age’ that in many respects echoed the glorious periods of Roman history.238 These references in Livy’s account were explained, Walter argues, by the need for Livy to make the “events of a temporally distant past intelligible and comprehensible” to his audience.239 This production of references also lent itself to the fact that ‘Rome’, understood as a city as well as an area of rule, lay partly in ruins, figuratively speaking, even at the end of the third ‘Great Year’ of its history – in those left behind by the civil war – and new conflicts threatened to approach. At the same time, looking into the distant past also offered a perspective for the future, for indeed ‘“the solution of 390 seemed to have proved itself in the future of that year”, that is, in the further course of Roman history after the departure of the Gauls.240 The projection of situations and perspectives from Livy’s present into the time of the ‘second foundation’ after the expulsion of the Gauls had been achieved could in this sense also give expression to “the hope [...] that Roman history, beyond all ruptures”, was and remained after all a success story that extended continuously from  Liv. 6,1,1–3.  Liv. 5,55,3–5. 235  Walter 2004a, 402 (quotation). See previously Edwards 1996, 49; Williams 2001, 156. 236  Walter 2004a, 402 f. 237  Walter 2004a, 402 (quotation). On the connection between Romulus – Camillus – Augustus, see also Miles 1986, esp. 17 f.; Edwards 1996, 48 f. (49: “Camillus then, in Livy’s account, stands exactly midway between Romulus and Augustus.”). 238  Galinsky 1996, 90–121. 239  Walter 2004a, 402 f. 240  Walter 2004a, 403. 233 234

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the arrival of Aeneas in Italy to the time of the first emperor.241 The memory of the destruction and the subsequent reconstruction of the city could also be read here as an indication that for Livy’s contemporaries, too, such a renewal could only be achieved, as it had been in the past, through a return to ancient Roman virtues, unity among the citizenry, and the intervention of a leader who was particularly exemplary in every respect.242 Of course, it is not necessary to assume that it was only under the reign of Augustus that the figure of Camillus as a second founder was integrated into the representation and interpretation of the Gallic catastrophe. Rather, it is more likely to assume that Augustus succeeded in this case as well in adapting ideas that had already gained some popularity in Roman historical culture and using them for his own purposes.243 Direct instruction from the princeps to the address of Livy is not to be. The Paduan historian could have gained the idea of Camillus as a second founder even without a direct influence of Augustus, for the striving for a ‘renewal’ of Rome after the end of the civil wars connected not only Augustus and Livy, but also many of their contemporaries.244 In historiography, in turn, these thoughts could perhaps gain particular depth.245 This is especially true of a work in which, as is the case for Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, the entire history of Rome is told from its beginnings to the time of Augustus, making it possible to span wide narrative arcs, to vary motifs, and to incorporate the interpretation of individual events into sweeping interpretations in which the distant past seems linked to the present.246 However, the story of the destruction and reconstruction of Rome in Livy’s fifth book was also likely to evoke associations with another narrative of the fall and assertion of a great city, namely the destruction of Athens in the Persian Wars of the early fifth century. Even a cursory reading of the fifth book reveals how little space Livy has given to the account of the actual battle of the Allia. This extends over only a relatively few sentences. In these, moreover, there are no reports of heroic deeds on the  Walter 2004a, 403.  So also already Miles 1986, 22. See furthermore already before with regard to the image of Camillus in the first decade as a whole Burck 1967, 311 f., 317 (there, 317 among others: “Der Glaube an die Weltherrschaft und Ewigkeit Roms, den Livius schon in Buch 1 trotz der düsteren Eindämmung des Prooemiumschlusses in bedeutsamen Voraussagen durchbrechen läßt, findet in der Stunde der Neugründung Roms eine strahlende, aber zugleich auch warnende Bekräftigung: nur im Einklang mit den Göttern und in der Eintracht des ganzen Volkes kann Rom unter der Führung eines vom Schicksal erlesenen und ihm gehorsamen Feldherrn und Staatsmanns vom Rande des Abgrunds zur inneren und äußeren Neuordnung seines Kults, seines Staatswesens und der bürgerlichen Gemeinschaft kommen.). 243  Thus Gaertner 2008, 51 f. 244  See for example Burck 1967, 326 f.; Deininger 1985; Galinsky 1996, 280–287. 245  See Walter 2004a, 404 (“Ebenfalls allein in einem literarischen Erinnerungsmedium von solcher Spannweite möglich war die Einbindung des Camillus in die ganz weiten Sinnhorizonte.”). 246  See also Gaertner 2008, 42 (“Camillus’ prominence as a second founder and the religious themes of this speech clearly evoke the foundation of the city by Romulus and the institution of Roman cults by Numa in Book I and thus are a particularly suitable closure for the first five books of Ab Urbe Condita.”). 241 242

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battlefield, which Livy, like other ancient authors, was otherwise so fond of weaving into his text. In fact, it seems that there was hardly any actual fighting.247 The focus of the account of the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’ is clearly on the events in Rome, from the flight of the Romans to their city, to the invasion of the Gauls, to the intervention of Camillus.248 In this context, it has long been noted in research that Livy’s account of the capture of Rome by the Celts, as well as the subsequent siege of the Capitol, shows echoes of the literary descriptions of the siege and conquest of Athens in Greek historiography. Without having pursued this observation in detail, Barthold Georg Niebuhr has already remarked that Livy’s account shows similarities to Herodotus’ account of the capture of Athens by the Persian army of Xerxes led by Mardonius.249 This idea has since been carried forward in research in a number of works. Thereby, Niebuhr’s observation could be confirmed, in that similarities between both historiographical accounts could be worked out.250 Thus both cities, Athens and Rome, are abandoned by the majority of their inhabitants, so that they fall into the hands of the respective enemy without resistance.251 Neither in Herodotus nor in Livy, however, are Athens or Rome completely evacuated, for a small garrison retreats to the Acropolis or the Capitol, respectively, to defend this place against the attackers.252 In both cases, the enemies then fail to launch an assault, so that they attempt to take the fortress by a stealthy attack during the night. In Livy’s case this fails, as the geese kept in the temple of Iuno warn M. Manlius, who earns the epithet Capitolinus by his determined intervention. In the case of Athens, the Persians again overpower the guards on the Acropolis, so that, in fact, the whole city falls into enemy hands.253 Athens and Rome respectively are then largely destroyed in both accounts. The existence of these parallels in both accounts is widely acknowledged. In terms of interpretation, however, views differ, for example on the question of whether Livy’s text was influenced by Herodotus’ account, possibly through an

 Liv. 5,38, 1–10. See Luce 1971, 278 (“The colorless account of one of the best known episodes in Roman history is remarkable.”). Anders Ogilvie 1965, 718 (“[H]e [Livy] retells it strongly and with emotion.”). 248  Whereby it is noticeable that the latter passage, that is, the successful struggle of the Romans under their dictator Camillus against the Gauls in Rome (Liv. 5,49,3–6), is distinguished by a remarkable poverty of detail and lack of colour. 249  Niebuhr 1846, 381 („[D]ie Erzählung ist sehr schön und erinnert an die von der Einnahme der Akropolis von Athen durch die Perser“). 250  See, for example, Soltau 1909, 80, 113 f.; Ogilvie 1965, 720; Sordi 1984, esp. 86–88; Horsfall 1987, 72 f.; Williams 2001, 152–155; Rosenberger 2003b, 47; Gaertner 2008, 31 with note 23; Richardson 2012, 130–138. 251  Hdt. 8,41,1–3; 8,51,1; Liv. 5,39,9. 252  In Livy’s account, as already discussed in detail, this gives rise to the report of numerous heroic deeds among the besieged. According to Herodotus, some Athenians interpreted the advice of the oracle, according to which the inhabitants of Athens would find protection behind wooden walls, to entrench themselves on the Acropolis, where they were surrounded by a dense hedge (Hdt. 8,51,2. The saying of the oracle at Hdt. 7141,3). 253  Hdt. 8,53,2. 247

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intermediary source, or whether the points mentioned owe their similarity merely to the fact that a number of stereotypical elements of ancient accounts of sieges and the conquest of cities were used here by both historians independently of each other.254 In favour of the latter view is the fact that ancient historians had at their disposal a wide range of narrative and representational elements with which they could embellish accounts of the capture of cities, without there necessarily being historically authentic information behind this or direct influence from other accounts.255 In the case of the account of the capture of Rome by the Gauls, however, there is more to be said for actually assuming influences from the tradition of the conquest and destruction of Athens by the Persians.256 This can be seen, for example, in the fact that further borrowings from the tradition of the conquest of Athens can also be found in depictions of the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’. Thus Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch report that after the withdrawal of the Gauls, to the great surprise of the Romans, the lituus of Romulus, the founder of the city himself, was recovered intact from the ashes and rubble on the Palatine. The Romans would have seen this as a sign that their city would survive the destruction and emerge anew from the calamity; since the sign still existed, it symbolized the continued existence of Rome. Dionysius thereby explicitly establishes a connection between Rome and Athens by reporting a similar event that occurred when Athens was taken.257 This episode is also found in Herodotus.258 According to this, Xerxes had sent those Athenians who had gone to him as refugees to the Acropolis to offer sacrifices according to their own customs.259 There these Athenians had also visited the ruins of the temple of Erechtheus. In this temple there had been an ancient olive tree, which Athena herself had planted at the foundation of the city. According to Herodotus, the Persians had also burned down this olive tree, but the Athenians, who had been sent out by Xerxes, found on the second day after the fire a new sprout growing out of the burned bump – a sign of the continued existence of their city.260 It seems that the parallels mentioned in a whole series of texts go well beyond generalities and stereotypical motifs that regularly appear in ancient accounts of city conquests. This suggests that the similarities between the accounts in Book Eight of Herodotus and Book Five of Livy do not only stem from the fact that in both cases the conquest of a large city is described and that the authors drew on a set

 Williams 2001, 153 f. argues for the latter interpretation. On the use of such motifs in Livy’s account of the capture of Rome see also Paul 1982, 152 f. 255  See only Paul 1982 with further references. The tradition of the capture of Troy obviously exerted a lasting influence (see Paul 1982, esp. 147 f.). 256  Thus, most recently, Richardson 2012, 134–137, who reaches this conclusion in discussion of Williams’ 2001 survey. 257  Dion. Hal. 14,2; Plut. Cam. 32,4–5. 258  Hdt. 8,55. 259  Hdt. 8,54. See on this, among others, Will 2010, 84. 260  This legend seems to have circulated in Athens in Herodotus’ time (Hdt. 8,55). 254

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of typical motifs that had existed since Homer. Rather, a direct or – perhaps more likely – indirect influence is to be expected.261 Furthermore, it has been noted that Livy’s account has echoes not only of the conquest of Athens, but also of the attack by Celts on the temple of Apollo at Delphi in 279.262 The most obvious similarity between the two accounts is that the leader of the attacking Celts in both cases is named Brennus.263 Since the name of the Celtic commander who commanded the siege of the Capitol is unlikely to have survived in historically authentic form, it is reasonable to think that the Brennus who led Celts to attack Delphi lent his name to his ‘predecessor’. Moreover, in both traditions a looting of the temple or a payment of the ransom is finally prevented, so that the Celts have to leave unsuccessfully.264 The Celtic attack on Delphi had first attracted attention in the Greek world and then also in Rome and Italy.265 In Greece, moreover, the event seems to have been soon put into a parallel with the attack of and the defense against the Persian Great King some generations before, so that also in this way an indirect connection of the cases Delphi – Athens – Rome could be drawn.266 Historiographical constructions that refer to these connections may also have influenced the representation of the ‘Gallic disaster’ in Roman tradition, which is tangible in Livy. Some unifying features can be noted. In all three cases the attackers are – at least in their majority – ‘barbarians’, and in all cases the attack is not only directed at a politico-militarily important place, but also at the religious centre of the attacked community. In the case of Athens, this is physically devastated, but the defenders of all three places ultimately succeed in protecting the cult, which ensures the continued existence of the city and the community. With regard to the interpretation of these similarities, further considerations can now be added. As mentioned, the Battle at the Allia itself is not the focus of the second half of Book Five. In purely quantitative terms, the events following the battle occupy a much more extensive space.267 The account lingers particularly often

 So most recently also Richardson 2012, 130 (“Although many of these parallels are quite obvious, it is worth discussing them in detail. They cannot be dismissed as mere coincidences, nor are they necessarily the inevitable result of the similar nature of the two events. They must rather have been devised intentionally.”). 262  With this reference already Ogilvie 1965, 720. See most recently in detail Williams 2001, 158–170. 263  Liv. 38,16,1–2. See Prop. 3:13, 51. See Ogilvie 1965, 719 (“a name not a title”); Williams 2001, 166. 264  Liv. 5,49,1–6; 38. 265  On this point, see Williams 2001, 158–161. 266  Williams 2001, 158 (“In third-century BC Greece the traditions surrounding the invasions of Greece by the Keltoi or Galatai, and particularly those about the miraculous salvation from Brennus’ hordes of the shrine at Delphi, were invested with profound cultural symbolism. Thematic parallels with the events of the Persian Wars were sought and invented.”). 267  The account of the Battle of the Allia takes up only one chapter (Liv. 5,38), while the account of the capture of Rome, the siege of the Capitol and related episodes (exiles in Veii and Camillus gather troops and drive the Gauls out of the surrounding countryside) extends over 11 chapters (Liv. 5,39–49). 261

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in Rome, and here the Capitol is clearly the focus.268 It is here that Rome’s last defenders entrench themselves, it is here that Rome’s most important temple stands, and it is also the only place that the Gauls cannot take. The deeper significance of the Capitol is highlighted by Camillus himself in his speech at the end of the book. In front of the Romans, among whom many had wanted to leave Rome for the conquered Veii, lies the Capitol, where once, upon the discovery of a human skull, the prophesy had been received that in this place would one day exist the “head of the world and the highest power”, and where once Juventas and Terminus had not wanted to vacate their ancestral places.269 Moreover, it can hardly be denied that the Capitol as a whole possessed a high symbolic significance for the Romans at least since the middle Republic.270 In rituals, buildings, and stories such as those of the finding of the caput Oli or the refusal of the god Terminus to vacate his ancestral place, the idea of the Capitol was formed not only as the center of the Roman world but also as a symbol of Roman rule.271 The prophecy that had been proclaimed on the occasion of the discovery of the caput Oli promised unlimited duration of this rule. Livy was thus able to draw on all of these traditions, which were reflected in a wide range of the media of Roman historical culture, when he depicts the Capitol in Ab Urbe Condita on the one hand as a symbol of Rome’s rule and duration and at the same time as the physical center of the Roman world. This explains the prominence of the Capitol in Livy’s text, which not only literally eclipses all other sites of action in the fifth book, but also remains one of the most important settings in the Livian narrative beyond these sections.272 Against the background of the possibility that Livy’s depiction of the ‘Gallic disaster’ was influenced by Greek accounts of the attacks on Athens and Delphi, it  In Rome: Liv. 5,39,1-43,5; 46,1–3; 46,8–10; 47,1-49,7. Outside (Veii/Ardea): Liv. 5,43,6-45,8; 46,4–7; 46,11. 269  Liv. 5,54,7. The event that Livy has Camillus allude to in this passage is actually described by the historiographer in the first book in the course of a report on the construction work for the great temple of Iuppiter (Liv. 1,55,5–6). The origin of the story of the caput Oli, however, goes back much further in time, for it seems to have been known already to Q. Fabius Pictor (FRH 1 F 16 = FRHist 1 F 30 (=Arnob. 6,7)). See also Valerius Antias FRH 15 F 14; Dion. Hal. ant. 4,59–61; Plin. nat. 28,15. See on this, among others, Ogilvie 1965, 211 f.; Sordi 1984, 84 f.; Cornell 1995, 145 (“A tradition that is at least as old as Fabius Pictor.”); Williams 2001, 157; Hölkeskamp 2001/2004, 138; 2006a, 480. Chassignet 1996, 83, however, considers the attribution of the fragment to Pictor to be uncertain. 270  The Capitol probably already formed the end point of every pompa triumphalis from this time on, where the triumphant offered a sacrifice to Juppiter Optimus Maximus, whose temple rose above Rome on the Capitoline hill (Hölkeskamp 2001/2004, 150; Itgenshorst 2005, 60, 101  f., 212). Moreover, the monumental decoration of the Capitol, which was not limited to the erection of temples, can already be attested for this period (Kolb 2002, 91–96). 271  The question of how universal the Romans understood this rule in the third century must ultimately remain open. Presumably, however, the Roman claim to rule expanded only in the course of the First and Second Punic Wars, so that with the beginning of the second century the entire Mediterranean region increasingly came into view. 272  See, among others, Jaeger 2015, 66 f. with numerous further references. 268

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is worth considering with regard to the Capitol whether the accounts were not originally similar in the point that is probably the most striking difference in the surviving texts – the fact that the Acropolis falls into the hands of the Persians while the Capitol is able to be held. In two recent considerations of this question, the older theory of Skutsch, mentioned above, was taken up again, according to which a variant of the tradition once existed in which the Capitol was also taken by the Gauls, but of which only traces, for example in Ennius, exist today.273 As discussed above, the theory of the existence of this variant of the tradition cannot be confirmed with certainty. Should it, however, have been found in Ennius and other authors, this leads to the question of when the version spread in the present sources would have originated, according to which the Capitol was able be held as the last bastion of the Romans, and in which chronological relation both variants would stand to each other. One possible answer is to assume that the version in which the Capitol had been conquered represents an older layer that may have emerged as early as the fourth century.274 Only later, when the Capitol became increasingly charged with symbolic meaning in the course of Rome’s military-political expansion, first over the Italic peninsula and then over the entire Mediterranean region, would the idea that the center of the Roman world had once been conquered by barbarians have been increasingly perceived as inappropriate, which is why the tradition of the successful defense of the Capitol may have emerged.275 Subsequently to this more recent variant would have arisen the various stories centred around individual events in which the Romans, during the siege, displayed acts of particular bravery and loyalty to their own community and to the gods who protected them. As already mentioned, it is certainly true that these stories, like probably virtually all the details of the tradition of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ as found in Livy, are fictitious, and some of them were also inserted late in accounts of the event. It follows that the multiple heroic defences of the Capitol described there also never took place in this form, which in turn makes it necessary to conclude that it must have been invented at some point in the formation of this tradition. This could have happened, for instance, when the Capitol was gaining increasing symbolic importance as a consequence of Roman expansion. But, as already pointed out – the existence of a variant in which the conquest

 On Skutsch’s theory see above Sect. 3.1.3. This was most recently taken up by Williams 2001, 144 f. and Richardson 2012, 128. Should this variant have once existed and only later been replaced by the one known today about the defense of the Capitol, it would, however, at least remain remarkable that this would have left hardly any traces or we receive no explicit reference to it. After all, the Annales of Ennius were still available to the authors of the late Republic and early imperial period in their entirety, so that they would certainly have noticed this not insignificant difference. See on this already above Sect. 3.1.3. 274  Williams, who holds this view, would like to conclude this, among other things, from the fact that Aristotle, as mentioned above, knows a Lucius as the savior of Rome, whom Williams identifies as the Lucius Albinius who is said to have brought the sacra publica to Caere. According to this, in a version known to Aristotle, the preservation of those sacred objects in Caere would have been considered the salvation of Rome, since this, symbolized by the continued existence of the sacra publica, had survived the conquest by the Celts (Williams 2001, 149). 275  See already Sordi 1984, 91. See Williams 2001, 149–157. 273

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of the Capitol by the Celts was reported is uncertain, and in the surviving representations the prevailing interpretation is again clear: as the religious and political center of the Roman world, the Capitol had survived undefeated even the greatest catastrophe that Rome had experienced since the founding of the city. So far, the question has not been addressed as to why Livy or, more likely, his predecessors, might have shaped the account of the Gallic conquest of the city with elements from the Greek tradition of the capture of Athens by the army of the Persian Great King as well as the Celtic attacks on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. An obvious answer to this is that not only Roman historiography, but numerous media of Roman historical culture were influenced to a great extent by Greek models. As is well known, this is true, among other things, of Roman epic, drama, presumably the practice of, entirely lost, carmina convivalia, and, above all, Roman historiography.276 Against this background, James H. Richardson has interpreted the tradition of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ in a wider context. According to Richardson, the entire context of the Persian Wars from the Ionian revolt to the conquest of Athens finds a parallel correspondence in the tradition of the defeat by the Gauls and the capture of Rome in Roman historiography.277 One does not have to follow Richardson so far, but similarities are again hardly to be denied. It is no longer possible to determine who in Rome, and when, began to describe events of Roman history under the recognizable influence of Greek traditions, or even to model the course of individual events in their own representation after those found in Greek texts. Sordi, among others, suspects that in the case of the references between the capture of Rome and Athens Q. Fabius Pictor was responsible for these acquisitions, which seems quite conceivable.278 Moreover, since Pictor most likely took inspiration from Greek historiography with regard to the form and content of his material, it is equally conceivable that the references to the conquest of Athens or to the attack on Delphi had already been made by Greek historians.279

 As has been shown in a number of studies, numerous events of early Roman history in the tradition available to us are modelled on Greek historiography, if they do not owe their existence in Roman historiography entirely to inspiration by events of the Greek past. See in particular various works by Gary Forsythe (Forsythe 2005, here among others 74–77. See however the critical review by K.-J.  Hölkeskamp, in: Gnomon 2007, 50–56, here especially 54, who advises caution with regard to far-reaching parallelizations). See also Wiseman 2007 with further references. 277  See the overview in Richardson 2012, 151. 278  As is known, Pictor was highly familiar with Greek culture and language and also wrote his own work of history in Greek, which can support Sordi’s assumption to a certain extent. However, this must remain unclear in the absence of evidence, and it should be noted that the section on the ‘Gallic Disaster’ in Pictor’s work cannot have been too extensive, so that one should probably not expect far-reaching parallelisms there, such as Richardson claims to have recognized in the historiography of the late Republic. See on considerations concerning the structure of Pictor’s work most recently Bispham/Cornell 2013a, 172 f. 279  Perhaps Greek historians from the Magna Graecia were responsible for this, who may be assumed to be the source for the knowledge of the Gallic capture of Rome and the conditions in Italy for authors such as Aristotle and his contemporaries. On Western Greek historians of this period see Vattuone 2007. 276

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The motives for these historians or for Q. Fabius Pictor to depict Roman history on the model of Greek history were certainly heterogeneous. A very important motive was presumably to be able to embellish their depictions with vivid descriptions, since there was probably little concrete information available about the Roman past, especially from the time of the founding until about the middle of the fourth century.280 Once these references were established, another motive might have been added with regard to the capture of Rome by the Gauls. The memory of the conquest of Athens by the Persians had a great significance in the Athenian historical culture of the fifth and fourth centuries.281 This was true for the Greek world as a whole, at least since the third century, also with regard to the battles of Greek armies against invading Celts.282 In both cases, not only did the memory of the military operations in the narrower sense play a role, but these were also integrated into a broader interpretative horizon in which both barbarian invasions could also be linked with each other.283 The struggle against the so-called barbarians, Persians as well as Celts, opened up to kings, cities, alliance systems, and other actors in the Greek world both legitimizing strategies for their own military and political actions and the possibility of participating in a common identity-forming discourse that, simply put, divided humanity into Greeks on the side and barbarians on the other.284 As contact between Romans and Greeks intensified from the first third of the third century onwards, partly because more and more Greek cities in Italy were now included in Rome’s system of alliances, the Romans also seem to have been seen by some Greeks as barbarians within the framework of this cultural schema.285 Evidence of a reaction on the Roman side includes the construction of Greek and especially Trojan genealogies that reached back into the mythical era that Roman noble families probably began in the third century.286 Another reaction was possibly to refer to the Romans’ own battles against Celts, through which they could demonstrate their  See Sect. 3.1 above.  See, among others, the more recent contributions by Jung 2006; Meier 2010; Zahrnt 2010 (each with numerous further references). 282  See only Mitchell 2003, esp. 284–287. 283  See Williams 2001, 158 (“Thematic parallels with the events of the Persian Wars were sougth and invented.”). 284  See Mitchell 2003, 284: “Without exception the major Hellenistic monarchies used their own Galatian victories to argue that they had saved the Greeks from the new barbarian peril and thus to justify their own right to rule”. 285  See, inter alia, Plin. nat. 29.14. See Williams 2001, 162 with note 78 for further evidence. 286  In this context, however, since it was hardly appropriate for Romans to locate their own origins in one of the cities of Greece that still played an important political role in their time, genealogies that constructed Romans as descendants of Troian noble families offered a particularly welcome opportunity to place themselves in the context of Greek culture. Moreover, the Troians themselves apparently occupied a status in the Greek imagination that, while not Greek, did not necessarily identify them as barbarians either. The Trojan genealogies of Roman noble families represented, among other things, a possibility for Romans to present themselves as being on an equal cultural level with the Greeks (see, for example, Galinsky 1969, esp.161 f., 187–190). On this, see generally, among others, Förstemann 1894, 36–96; Galinsky 1969; Wiseman 1974/1987; Gruen 1992, 6–51; Hölkeskamp 1999/2004, esp. 203–210; Blösel 2003, 56; Walter 2006 and Pausch 2011, 24 f. 280 281

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contribution to the defense of the civilized world against the barbarian onslaught that continually threatened civilization from the perspective of Greek barbarian discourse. This need not have been the initial intention of the adoption of motifs and representational elements from Greek accounts of the conquest of Athens or the attack on Delphi. But against the background of those accounts, the account of the Roman battles against the Celts could take on a deeper dimension of meaning and cultural-historical significance, assigning the Romans a place of their own among the few civilized polities that stood their ground against the world of barbarians that surrounded them.287 The narrative of a defeat could also offer considerable potential in this context and, moreover, had, after all, a prominent model in the past of Greece’s greatest city. Moreover, the conquest of Rome was not the end of the story. Just as the Greeks, after the fall of Athens, finally defeated the Persians at Salamis and Plataiai, the Romans also succeeded in driving out the Gauls. To what extent the last suggested interpretations were actually perceived by Romans and Greeks who received Livy’s account or any earlier reports, or whether this interpretation goes to far, is admittedly unclear. What is clear, however, is that in Livy’s account of the defeat at the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome by the Gauls, as well as the liberation of the city by M. Furius Camillus, several interpretations overlap and stand side by side. What they have in common is that they place the episode  – which was presumably relatively insignificant in historical terms – in a broad context of interpretation that assigns it – again from different perspectives – a high symbolic significance: as a precondition for a second foundation of the city, as a time of the greatest threat and at the same time of the successful defence of the Capitol and thus of the preservation of Rome’s continuity over time, or even (possibly) as proof and a symbol of Rome’s contribution to the struggle of the civilised world against the barbarians who continually threatened it. In writing his entire work, and perhaps especially the fifth book, Livy stood in a long tradition of interpretations and adaptations. In doing so, he took up suggestions, but also set his own accents.288 Especially the ideas of a connection between the battles of the Romans against Veii and the capture of Rome by the Gauls, a cycle in the form of a ‘Great Year’, which Roman history regularly went through, but also the references to the tradition of the Persian conquest of Athens and the Celtic attacks on Delphi

 In this context it should also be mentioned that some Roman generals, for instance in the second century, on the occasion of their military successes against the Celtic Galatians in Asia Minor, stylized themselves towards the Greek inhabitants of the bordering regions as liberators from the barbarian threat and, on the other hand, were given corresponding recognition by those Greeks (Mitchell 2003, 289). 288  This can be seen, for example, in the decisions concerning Livy’s arrangement of the material in the fifth book. Thus, the accounts in Plutarch’s biography of Camillus, as well as those in Diodorus Siculus and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, show a whole series of differences compared to the Livian text. See for a detailed overview Mommsen 1878; Luce 1971, 277, esp. 289–297; Gaertner 2008, 29–35. 287

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would not have been equally realizable in every medium. Historiography, however, was particularly suitable for this purpose.289 However, the ‘Gallic Disaster’ was also taken up in other literary genres and media of Roman historical culture in the Augustan period. Thus, in the poetry of the Augustan period, the event was referred to on various occasions. Virgil places the secret attack of the Gauls on the Capitol in those stages of setbacks in Roman history which are seen on the Shield of Aeneas. In the scene described there, M. Manlius, warned by the call of the geese, has already armed himself and is ready to repel the Gauls. The description of the shield, however, culminates in the battle of Actium, that is, in the confrontation that was stylized in Augustan historical culture as the decisive victory in Augustus’ struggle to defend the res publica. On the way to this triumph – as the Gauls on the shield might be interpreted – the Romans, like the hero of the epic, Aeneas, themselves overcame setbacks and defeats to lay the basis for Rome’s successful future through military victory in the end.290 The salvation of Iuppiter’s temple by the cackling of geese is also among the subjects which the poet considers as the subject of his poetry in the third poem of Propertius’ third book of elegies, before Apollo prevents him from doing so.291 The enumeration of possible subjects given here, all of which are discarded, nevertheless conveys an impression of the contents and themes which would be appropriate to an epic, for instance, and which Propertius evidently regards as so sufficiently familiar to his readers that he can refer to them in terse allusions, evidently relying on being understood. In this context, Ovid, on the other hand, knows how to take a positive view of the Dies Alliensis: after all, shops are closed on this day, so that a lover eager for gifts can easily be put off.292 Precisely because of the casualness of the remark, the passage can certainly be regarded as further evidence of the knowledge of the Dies Alliensis in Roman everyday life, even if it does not necessarily follow from it that those Romans who stood in front of closed shops on this day would have been able to explain exactly why the shops were not open.293 In the first book, Ovid also notes that the fact that the goose had saved the Capitol did not save her from having to give her liver for the sacrifice to Isis, which can be read as a casual reference to the episode that was apparently presupposed to be known.294 On the whole, allusions to the ‘Gallic disaster’ are rather scarce in Augustan poetry. If reference is made to this, then elements can be found that can be interpreted even without a deeper knowledge of the context of the capture of Rome,  See Gaertner 2008, 30  f. (“a single quasi-epic plot of human success, hubris, and divine nemesis”). 290  Verg. Aen. 8652–662. 291  Prop. 3,3,12. His talent was not sufficient for this and besides these materials would have little prospect of appeal to the ladies. See also below Sect. 5.2.5.2. 292  Ov. am. 1413. 293  If Ovid had indeed completed the Fasti, the day at the Allia would probably have been found in a possibly lost second half. On the question of whether Ovid actually produced a second half of the Fasti, see, among others, Fantham 1998, 2. 294  Ov. fast. 1453–454. 289

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since a relatively vague knowledge will already have sufficed to assign the pairing ‘geese or Gauls/Capitol’ to the appropriate historical context. The casualness with which the poets introduce these examples in each case again allows the assumption that the story of the capture of Rome and the siege of the Capitol was well known among the recipients of these works.295

3.1.6  The Catastrophe as Origin: The ‘Gallic Disaster’ in Antiquarian Research In the ancient sources, the ‘Gallic Disaster’ provides a starting point for numerous aitiologies on place names, religious celebrations, everyday customs and on designations of objects. These explanations are often attested in only one or a few passages, which in turn rarely come from sources going back earlier than the first century BC. Dating these references, some of which are quite idiosyncratic, to the conquest of Rome in the early days of the Republic is therefore often difficult. Gary Forsythe, for example, assumes that the presence in the Roman calendar of the Dies Alliensis, which is, so to speak, actually remembered from ancient times, encouraged Roman antiquarians, who intensified their research into early Roman times from the late second century onwards, to ‘discover’ the origins of other religious observances and celebrations in the events of the ‘Gallic Disaster’.296 This is a perfectly plausible assumption, but other factors can be hypothesized that helped to ‘uncover’ further traces of the past of the Gallic Conquest of Rome. Thus, as seen above, this event already seems to have become a chronological fixed point for the dating of other events and chronological synchronisms in early Roman historiography, as well as in the works of various Greek historians who dealt with the Roman past – in part, probably, because other dates that were considered to have survived with some degree of certainty were not available.297 The ‘secure’ location of the Celtic invasion in the early Roman period may also have encouraged the linking of the origins of celebrations, religious regulations or place names that were considered ancient to this event. To what extent the Roman antiquarians were able to draw on older traditions, for example in the form of oral tradition, which of course could therefore by no means claim a higher historical authenticity, or whether they were creatively active on their own, is largely unclear.298

 How pronounced the associated knowledge was in the individual, in turn, cannot usually be concluded from the cited testimonies. However, as in other cases, one can expect that the associations that the respective recipients associated with such allusions were quite different and ranged from vague information about the event to detailed knowledge of the sometimes variant tradition. 296  Forsythe 2005, 253 (“In addition, the presence of the dies Alliensis in the official calendar encouraged later Roman antiquarians to discover the origin of other Roman festivals or important events in the circumstances surrounding the Gallic capture of the city.”). See already Forsythe 1994, 319 f. 297  Liv. 6,1,1–3 and Plut. Num. 1,2 can be interpreted in this way. See Oakley 1997, 381. 298  Moreover, it is not always clear how common a particular derivation was. See Walter 2004a, 208. 295

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Therefore, various aitiologies associated with the ‘Gallic Disaster’ will be examined below, without any attempt at a continuous chronological order. Instead, they are here divided into subgroups based on the nature of the subject matter in question (celebrations, places, names, etc.). Within these subgroups, the individual examples are then cited according to their appearance in the context of the ‘Gallic Disaster’. This topic is already discussed in a number of studies, so that not every detailed question is addressed here, some of which have also proved almost impossible to resolve.299 Despite the difficulties in analysing these passages, however, it is worth taking a closer look, as these sources provide a further perspective on aspects of the presence of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ in Roman historical culture, through which, in part, clearly different emphases become discernible than those found in the historiographical tradition, for example. Thus, in and around Rome in the late Republic, a number of places were associated with the time of the Gallic conquest. According to various authors (including Cicero, Livy and Plutarch), the Romans were warned of the arrival of the Gauls by a divine voice.300 As mentioned above, this voice came from the grove of Vesta and demanded the reconstruction of the city’s fortifications (Cicero) or had ordered the plebeian M. Caedicius on the Nova Via to warn the magistrates of the approaching Gauls.301 After the departure of the Gauls, a temple was erected to Aius Loquens or Aius Locutius in gratitude for this warning.302 According to Plutarch, Camillus finally erected this shrine.303 The location of the shrine has not been identified to this day, but it seems to have still been visible to the Romans of the late Republic.304 A deity named Aius Locutius is not known from any other context, and the name itself apparently represents a pleonasm from which little further information can be gleaned about the background of the cult, which apparently played no important role in everyday Roman life.305 The altar that Cicero and his contemporaries could see at the Nova Via certainly had no historical points of contact with the attack of the Gauls, so that the whole story about the divine warning in its “core” probably

 See esp. Schwegler 1872, 272–275; Ungern-Sternberg 2000.  Cic. div. 1101; 2,69; Liv. 5,32.6–7; 5.50.5; Plut. Cam. 14,2–4; Cass. Dio. 7. 301  Cic. div. 1101; 2,69. Liv. 5,32,6. Cicero, in Cic. div. 1101, seems to be of opinion that the voice is to be ascribed to a faun, while Livy makes no further statement on this point. 302  Liv. 5,50,5. 303  Plut. Cam. 30,4; fort. Rom. 5 (mor. 319a). 304  So quite clearly Cic. div. 1101 (ara enim Aio Loquenti, quam saeptam videmus, exadversus eum locum consecrata est.). See Engels 2007, 375 and the comments of J. Aronen, Aius Locutius, in: LTUR I (1993), 29. 305  This can probably be inferred from Cicero’s mocking remark in the second book on divination, according to which that ‘warner’ had spoken when no one listened to him, and was now silent, since a temple was dedicated to him on the Nova Via (Cic. div. 2,69). 299 300

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indeed turns out to be a “cultaition for Aius Loquens or Locutius”, a deity whose original nature had long since been forgotten.306 Another place associated with the Gallic Disaster was a “place with the strange name of Doliola”, where, according to Varro and Livy, it was said to have been forbidden to spit. The doliola, according to Livy, were apparently situated by the house of the Flamen Quirinalis, or, according to Varro, ad cluacam maxumam.307 The two authors give different reasons for the name and the rule. Varro, for instance, knows to report that bones or sacred objects were supposed to have been buried there after the death of King Numa Pompilius.308 According to Livy, on the other hand, the Flamen Quirinalis, as well as the priestesses of Vesta, would have hidden in this place a part of those sacred objects which they wished to save from the approaching Gauls, as they could not bring all of them to Caere.309 It is obvious that especially this second explanation, which was supposed to connect the Doliola with the Gallic conquest of Rome, makes rather little sense in the context of the other traditions of the event.310 Regardless of this, this version shows that the ‘Gallic Disaster’ apparently took on a prominent role in the search for explanations for designations and institutions whose original meaning had been lost, and could therefore be linked to numerous phenomena.311 At the Busta Gallica, according to Varro, the Romans are said to have burned the bodies of fallen Gauls and buried their remains, while Livy reports that the Gauls themselves had burned the mortal remains of those of their comrades-in-arms who had fallen victim to a plague.312 Although there is also epigraphic evidence for the Busta Gallica, they cannot be precisely located.313 However, they were apparently located centrally in the city area, perhaps directly below the Capitol.314 The reasons  Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 209 (“Als Kern der Warnung erweist sich aber ein Kultaition für Aius Loquens oder Aius Locutius.”). Wissowa 21912, 55, however, apparently considers the tradition in this point to be historically authentic and assumes that the Romans erected an altar to Aius Locutius in the time after the withdrawal of the Gauls in order to give thanks and worship to the divine power “deren Einwirkung man erfahren zu haben glaubte, ohne daß man sich über den Namen des Gottes klar gewesen wäre […] Dank und Verehrung unter einem neugebildeten Namen, der an die Veranlassung der Weihung anknüpfte”. 307  Varr. ling. 5157; Liv. 5,40,7–8. See on this F. Coarelli, Doliola, in: LTUR II (1995), 20 f. as well as Wissowa 21912, 478 with note 3. 308  Varr. ling. 5157 (locus qui uocatur doliola ad cluacam maxumam, ubi non licet despuere, a doliolis sub terra). 309  Liv. 5,40,7–8. So also Plut. Cam. 20,6. 310  See only Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 211 (“Offen muß auch bleiben, warum die Heiligtümer nicht mit den anderen auf das Kapitol gebracht wurden, oder anders herum: aus welchem Grunde nicht alle vergraben wurden, sondern ein Teil mit den Vestalinnen nach Caere gebracht werden mußte.”). The real background might lie in a taboo connected with this place, the reasons for which were no longer known. See Ogilvie 1965, 724, with reference to Frazer 31911/1963, 196. 311  See Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 211. 312  Varr. ling. 5157; Liv. 5,48,1–3; 22,14,11. See also Sil. 8642. 313  CIL I2 809: in [scal]leis [Can]inieis ab cleivo [infi]mo busteis Galliceis versus [ad su]mmum cleivom. 314  See Liv. 22,14,11 (media in urbe). 306

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for the original designation of this place were probably already obscure in antiquity.315 For Romans of later generations it may have been obvious to connect this designation with the Gallic conquest of Rome in early times, which was undoubtedly the most famous event in the tradition of the city’s history, in which Gauls appeared in Rome.316 The so-called cuniculi Gallorum were already mentioned in connection with other testimonies, which are attested by Cicero.317 Since here, too, a real historical background is rather improbable, the designation will have been associated with the ‘Gallic Disaster’ at a point in time that cannot be fixed. The casualness with which Livy or Cicero mention these places suggests that they did not have to explain the derivation of the names in more detail to their readers, so that one may well assume that at least in the first century they could already be expected to be known and were perhaps also part of the orally transmitted ‘memory’ of the defeat of the early republic. In addition to a number of conspicuous names for places in the Roman urban area, ancient tradition also links the emergence of some cults and religious festivals with the ‘Gallic Disaster’. Ovid, for example, reports in the Fasti that the emergence of the cult of Iuppiter Pistor was linked to the siege of the Capitol by the Gauls. There, the altar to Iuppiter Pistor, although of little importance, is to be found. According to the legend, the long siege led to a famine among the Romans, which was followed by a meeting of the gods. In this meeting Mars persuaded Iuppiter to intervene by a great speech. The latter finally ordered Vesta to give the besiegers the impression that the grain, which was actually lacking among the Romans, was available in abundance, which is why she was to produce flour from the remains of unground grain and then bake loaves of bread from it. During the night Iuppiter again called upon the leaders of the Romans to rise up and hurl from their fortress among the enemies that which they were least willing to surrender. The latter at last perceived that herewith the loaves were meant, and threw them upon the besiegers, so that they were obliged to give up the hope of being able to take the Capitol by

 Some researchers discuss the possibility that the human sacrifices of the years 228 and 216, in which a Gaul and a Gauless had been sacrificed, were connected with the name or whether an old grave, which was attributed to a Celtic origin, had been found here in an early phase of the urban development of the area. See Ogilvie 1965, 737. Platner/Ashby 1929, 86 (“One might conjecture that the name and the tradition had arisen from the discovery of some prehistoric cemetery [...].”) and F. Coarelli, Busta Gallica, in: LTUR I (1993), 203 f. 316  An interesting hint is given by Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 217, who points out that according to the report of Procopius Narses had pitched his camp on the campaign against Totila at a place called Bustagallorum – a name which, according to Procopius’ testimony, was attributed to the victory of Camillus, whereby the memory of the defeat of the Gauls would be carried forward to his time (Prok. BG 4,29,4–5). 317  See Sect. 3.1.4 above. 315

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starvation. After the withdrawal of the Gauls an altar was erected to the Iuppiter Pistor in gratitude.318 The epithet of Iuno Moneta, whose temple also stood on the Capitol Hill, was explained in later times also in relation to the tradition of the siege or the attack of the Gauls on the Capitol. For it was the geese of Iuno that had warned Manlius Capitolinus of the approaching enemies, which is why the temple for the ‘warning’ Iuno is to be found on the Capitol. Also in this case the original context can no longer be reconstructed with certainty.319 At any rate, in the social memory of educated classes, the image of geese warning the Roman guards just in time was closely associated with the siege of the Capitol by the Gauls towards the end of the first century, as has already been shown with the help of a few examples. This act of the geese seems indeed to have “become the aition for very different customs.”320 Thus, according to Pliny the Elder and Plutarch, it was one of the first duties of the newly-elected censors to let the contract for the feeding of the sacred geese of Iuno, while as a punishment for the carelessness of the dogs, a dog was annually nailed to a wooden fork of elder wood between the temples of Iuventas and Summanus.321 It is also learned from Plutarch that in Rome an impaled dog and a goose, resting on a costly cushion in a palanquin, were carried through the city every year in a solemn procession. Plutarch explicitly mentions that this was done to commemorate the rescue or passing of the respective animals during the siege of the Capitol by the Gauls.322 Unfortunately, Plutarch does not reveal which route this rather peculiar procession took, but given the claimed origin of the custom, it may have led along near the Capitol, perhaps even up to the Capitol hill. It is hardly necessary to mention that none of these customs can actually be traced to a siege of the Capitol. The ritual killing of dogs is also attested for other cities of Latium and will originally have been set in a quite different cultic

 Ov. fast. 6349–394. The altar is known only from this mention by Ovid and a terse remark by Lactantius (Lact. inst. 1,20,33). See Littlewood 2006, 114. A variant of this narrative is also found in Livy, where the Romans also throw down loaves of bread on the Gauls, but this does not have the desired effect. Moreover, a number of other passages are found in various authors, which are evidently connected with the story handed down by Ovid, though it is scarcely possible now to ascertain how exactly it developed (Liv. 5,48,4). For other passages related to the tale, see the extensive discussion of the passage in Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 213–215. See also Littlewood 2006, 112–123. Among other things, the tale recalls – despite the differences between the two passages  – the episode in question about the positional battle at Dyrrachium in the Bellum Civile. There Caesar’s soldiers are said to have hurled bread, which they had previously baked from roots, at their enemies in order to deprive them of the hope that Caesar’s troops might give up the fight due to a lack of supplies (Caes. civ. 3,48). 319  For some suggestions, see Forsythe 2005, 254. See also Wissowa 21912, 190. 320  Thus Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 215 f., whose remarks are also to be used in the following. 321  Plin. nat. 10,51; 29,57. Plut. qu. R. 98 (mor. 287 b–d). 322  Plut. fort Rom. 12 (mor. 325 d). See also Serv. Aen. 8625; Lyd. mens. 4114. See Zimmermann 2009, 41. 318

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context, even if this can no longer be reconstructed in detail.323 It is remarkable that this original context was apparently completely overlaid, even for scholars such as Pliny or Plutarch, by the popular version in which these sacrifices and the procession were associated with the ‘Gallic Disaster’. The period immediately following the departure of the Gauls was in turn associated, at least in some versions of tradition, with two other festivals, the Poplifugia on July 5 and the Nonae Capratinae on July 7.324 Little is known about the course of these two celebrations, and their historical roots are almost entirely obscure. In the context of the Poplifugia, men would have left the city in an apparently somehow recognizable organisation, whereby they did not move forward in a well-­ ordered manner, but rather in a tightly packed and jumbled manner, shouting common male Roman praenomina to each other. On the Field of Mars, more precisely at the so-called Goat Swamp, a sacrifice was then offered. At the Nonae Capratinae, female slaves dressed in the typical costume of Roman matrons, but at the same time begging and mocking the spectators, also moved to the Field of Mars, where they ate “a feast in huts made of fig branches” together with free Roman women.325 Plutarch linked the two celebrations, but apparently in the late Republic there existed different traditions concerning the origin of the festivals.326 According to one of these, reported by Varro, Rome, apparently weakened by the catastrophe, was in a state of defenselessness after the withdrawal of the Gauls, among other things because the fortifications had been severely damaged. In this situation, the inhabitants of some neighboring towns then conspired to attack the Romans. When the enemies reached Rome, the people were startled by the sudden attack and fled, giving rise to the custom of poplifugia, the flight of the people.327 For the Capratinae it was reported, among other things, that the attackers from the neighboring towns had demanded of the Romans the renewal of the right of conubium. The Romans escaped this situation by the cunning of a female slave, whose name has been handed down as Tutula as well as Philotis, who suggested to the Roman magistrates that they should agree to the enemies’ demand in pretence, but in reality hand over only her and other female slaves. The Romans had agreed to this, and the deception had succeeded. After the slave-girls had reached the camp of the enemies and they had  See Forsythe 2005, 254 f. (“The sacrifice of the dog on the Capitol was probably a primitive religious ritual whose original meaning had been forgotten by the second century B.C., and for which a historical etiology was concocted.”). On the ritual killing of dogs in Rome and Italy in archaic times, presumably performed as part of lustration rituals, see Wissowa 21912, 210, 393 note 5; Scholz 1937, 10 f., 22, 56 f. For further parallels in the Italic context see, among others, Forsythe 2005, 255. 324  See for the following, among others, Schwegler 1872, 272–275; Robertson 1987; UngernSternberg 2000, 220 f.; Pfeilschifter 2009. Pfeilschifter 2008 suggests that both festivals were not celebrated on the same day, as is sometimes assumed, but that a dating to 5 July for the Poplifugia or to 7 July for the Nonae Caprotinae is most likely. 325  See most recently the summary in Pfeilschifter 2009, 109 (citation). 326  Plut. Cam. 33,5–7. 327  Varr. ling. 6,18. See on similar variants Pfeilschifter 2009, 119 with note 39. 323

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fallen asleep – “after extensive sex and drinking of wine”, which the “distinguished Plutarch conceals”, while other authors gratefully took up these narrative embellishments – the said Tutula or Philotis climbed a goat fig tree in order to give with a torch the signal to the Romans in the city to attack.328 The ruse succeeded and the Romans were able to put their enemies to flight.329 According to Plutarch, some Romans derived the custom of the Nonae Capratinae from this incident, while others associated it with the disappearance of Romulus in the palus Caprae.330 What all these festivals and rituals have in common is that, at least for the inhabitants of the city of Rome, they each represented a visible part of their everyday life, but apparently no one knew any more about their actual historical background and original religious significance.331 Whether customs such as the annual sacrifice of a dog at the temple of Iuventas first inspired the emergence of the apparently popular legend of the defense of the Capitol through the vigilance of the geese, which were actually kept in the temple of Iuno on the Capitol, or whether – conversely – the dog sacrifice was later associated with this story, can no longer be decided with certainty. Both are conceivable. These aitologies seem to have been quite uncontroversial, which again was not the case for the explanation of the origin of the Poplifugia or the Nona Capratinae. This may be explained by the fact that here the reference to the ‘Gallic Disaster’ was less ‘obvious’. The questions about the respective distribution and the general level of awareness of the different explanations can no longer be resolved.332 A number of authors emphasize that the comparatively chaotic layout of Rome was also a result of the destruction of the city by the Gauls.333 Apparently, the initial construction of Rome under the aegis of Romulus and the kings who followed him was thought to be a well-planned and executed act, which in turn did not fit well with the evidence of the ancient streetscapes and buildings that the Romans saw before them every day. Since the idea of the wholesale destruction of Rome by the Gauls was apparently already established, the ‘logical’ explanation for the unplanned layout was to assume that after the widespread devastation of Rome, reconstruction had needed to be rapid under the pressure of circumstances. Therefore, everyone had built as it seemed reasonable to him at that moment; there had been no general  Pfeilschifter 2009, 142 (quotation).  Plut. Cam. 33,1–4. 330  Plut. Cam. 33,5–7. In this context Plutarch (Plut. Rom. 29) also connects both festivals, but this is probably factually incorrect. See also Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 221 as well as esp. Pfeilschifter 2009, who discuss the other variants that have no connection to the time after the departure of the Gauls. The story about the slave Philotis also ‘explained’ the Poplifugia, because the Romans, who now left the city at night to destroy the enemies, would have had to call out their names to each other for orientation in order to be able to establish a more or less orderly attack. The fact that they did not actually flee, as in other explanations of the festival, seems to have played no role in the construction of this aitiology (Pfeilschifter 2009, 125 f.). 331  See Pfeilschifter 2009, 110 with references to a number of explanations that have been put forward in modern scholarship. 332  See the considerations in Pfeilschifter 2009, 111–118. 333  Liv. 5,55,4–5; Diod. 14,116,8–9; Plut. Cam. 32,3. 328 329

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agreement.334 Diodorus also reports about the public provision of building bricks, which were called “state bricks” until his time.335 That this peculiar expression, which is “otherwise not attested in Latin,” is probably due to some other origin, is to be assumed, but only conjectures can be made as to this actual background.336 In any case, it represents evidence of how terms from very different areas, whose origin had fallen into oblivion, were also associated with the ‘Gallic Disaster’.337 How deeply rooted was the idea of an extensive destruction of Rome in the Gallic fire is again shown by the fact that several ancient authors explained the obvious lack of textual sources on the early history of Rome by the fact that all other records that had once existed had been destroyed by the fire.338 The fact that such explanations in turn brought with them new contradictions and problems seems to have been largely accepted.339 Attempts to explain the irregular structure of Rome or the lack of sources on early Roman times were, of course, hardly part of the everyday life of most inhabitants of Rome. For them, it is more likely that the aforementioned festivals and sites, and especially the Dies Alliensis, contributed to the transmission of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ in the collective memory of the urban Roman population. Furthermore, nothing is known of statues or other monuments that explicitly commemorated this event. Nevertheless, several authors from the first century AD testify that a statue of Camillus stood at the Comitium.340 Those who did not know who Camillus was, or who he was supposed to have been, could not, of course, associate this statue with the ‘Gallic Disaster’. An inscription found on the Forum of Augustus referenced even more clearly of the events during the Gallic siege. There, an unnamed hero was praised for having ensured that the Vestal virgins and the sacra publica were brought to safety in Caere and then brought back to Rome after the Gauls had withdrawn.341 The exact context in which one must imagine this inscription is unclear, but it probably offered at least the visitors to the Forum of Augustus

 On this, see Ogilvie 1965, 750 f.; Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 208.  Diod. 14,116,8 (δημοσίας κεραμῖδας). The supply of bricks on the part of the state is also reported by Liv. 5,55,3. 336  Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 212, note 9 (quotation). 337  See Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 208. 338  See for example Liv. 6,1,2; Plut. Num. 1,2. 339  See Oakley 1997, 382. 340  Presumably this had also been established only in the imperial period, for it seems to have been still unknown to Cicero (Walter 2004a, 399). 341  InscrIt XIII 3, n. 11: [Cum Galli ob]siderent Capitolium, [virgines Ve]stales Caere deduxit; [ibi sacra at]que ritus sollemnes ne [intermitte]rentur, curai sibi habuit; [urbe recup]erata sacra et virgines [Romam re]vexit. Which person was vaunted here is disputed. According to the Livian account, it is indeed “nahe, an ein Lob des L. Albinius zu denken”, although “die Sorge für den Kult der Vesta […] weit über die Möglichkeiten eines einfachen Plebejers” (Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 212). It should also be considered that L. Albinius does not appear in Livy as the initiator of the evacuation at all, but rather intervenes in the events by chance. Some scholars therefore tend to assume that the Flamen Quirinalis is meant in the inscription, who, however, is not mentioned by name at all, at least in Livy, and is not particularly prominent there either. See Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 212. 334 335

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another reminder of the catastrophe that had once befallen their city and, above all, of the great deeds that had been performed by Romans in that difficult hour.342 In Rome itself, therefore, several annually repeated celebrations and sacrifices, as well as monuments or the aitologies devised to clarify the origin of these institutions and buildings, ensured that the memory of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ was passed down through generations. In the process, some elements of the story probably were more and more seen as important elements of it, so that most of the inhabitants of Rome must have had similar ideas associated with the event. With regard to the formation and contents of the social memory of the population beyond the capital, we are much less well informed. Members of the educated classes of the Italian cities, however, will probably have been familiar with the most important episodes of Roman history.343 However, in these cities, unlike the case for the Hannibalic War, no squares or temples could be associated with the invasion of the Gauls (with the possible exception of Clusium). But the Roman calendar, together with the Dies Alliensis, was, of course, also valid here and could be used for comparison with other catastrophes. Thus the inhabitants of Pisa referred to the day on the Allia in an inscription with which they wanted to show their loyalty to the imperial house, in that they laid down in a resolution which public mourning regulations should henceforth apply to the day of the death of the young C. Iulius Caesar, the grandson, adopted son and designated successor of Augustus, who had died of the consequences of a wound on 21 February of the year 4 AD in Limyra on the Lycian coast. As on the Dies Alliensis, it was henceforth to be forbidden on the day of the young prince’s death to sacrifice publicly, to marry, or to celebrate, plan, or announce a public banquet on that day. The prohibition also extended to theatrical performances and chariot races, which were not to be held or attended on that day. Quite in keeping with other representations of the historical culture of the Augustan period, a model from the Republic, in this case the handling of a catastrophe, set the standard for the city’s own time, although the changes that had taken place in the new age were thereby made even more apparent on the other side. For the death of a (admittedly important) member of the imperial house is here, after all, on a par with one of the most famous catastrophes in the history of the Roman Republic.344 In the following decades, individuals from Italy and other parts of the empire, for whom, for example, the ‘Gallic Disaster’ was not part of the past knowledge with  See on the construction of the complex, in which the presentation of ‘great figures’ of Roman history was constructed almost in the form of a canon, among others Galinsky 1996, 197–213; Walter 2004a, 417–420 (with numerous further references). 343  See Sect. 2.2 above. 344  CIL XI 1421 = ILS 140 = InscrIt VII 1.7. (See esp.: di[em]que eum, quo die C(aius) Caesar obit qui dies est a(nte) d(iem) VIIII k(alendas) Martias pro Alliensi/lu[gub]rem memoriae prodi notarique in praesentia omnium iussu). See on this already Lott 2012, 203: “Thus the well-established pattern of reworking a Republican precedent to provide a model for the proper interaction of the state and the imperial family appears again. Gaius’ death, the loss of the custos of the empire and praesidium of the colony, is a disaster akin to a military defeat and is to be treated similarly”. I thank Prof. Dr. Gunnar Seelentag for the kind reference to this inscription. 342

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which they had been socialized, were able to acquire knowledge of important episodes of Roman history not only through Roman historiography, but also through works such as the exempla collection of Valerius Maximus. Their examples, along with other evidence, will be examined in the following section in order to shed light on some aspects of the collective memory of the day at the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome in the early and middle imperial period.

3.1.7  The Capitol in Flames: Early to Middle Imperial Period In the Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus, more or less direct references to the ‘Gallic Disaster’ appear in nine places. This falls well short of the numerous mentions of the defeats of the Roman-Carthaginian wars, especially the battle of Cannae.345 The Battle of the Allia itself is hardly mentioned in Valerius Maximus. Only in one place it is located within a series with other Roman failures on the battlefield: the battle of the Fabians at the Cremera, the downfall of the Scipios in Spain and the battles at Lake Trasimene and Cannae.346 All the other passages refer to events connected with the conquest of Rome and the siege of the Capitol. The episodes are in each case also known from the historiographical tradition, which can be found in Livy, among others, although they show differences and variants in detail which Valerius obviously could not have taken from Livy’s account. As an example of bravery (fortitudo), Valerius cites the older Romans, especially the aged senators, who did not flee to the Capitol, but remained in the city, whereupon the well-known episode of the massacre of these venerable men occurs.347As examples of the preservation and scrupulous observance of Roman religion, Valerius knows the pious deed of L. Albinius, who dismounted his family from his cart to bring on it the priestesses of Vesta, together with the sacra, to Caere, where they survived the period of the Gallic occupation of Rome unharmed. The Romans were therefore grateful to the inhabitants of Caere from then on, and the memory of that time lives on, among other things, in the word caerimonia, which came into being precisely because the cult and its rites had been continued in Caere. This etymological note Livy either did not know or passed over, so that Valerius must have drawn here from another source. Varro has been suggested as an obvious candidate here, who – as we have already seen above – also knew how to illuminate the backgrounds of other names of places or festivals through a connection to the Gallic conquest of Rome.348 Moreover, Valerius mentions the passage of Fabius

 Val. Max. 1,1,10; 1,1,11; 1,5,1; 3,2,7; 4,1,2; 5,6,8; 6,3,1a; 7,4,3; 9,11,ext. 4 On the defeats of the Roman-Carthaginian wars in Valerius Maximus, see below Sects. 5.1.5 and 5.2.6. 346  Val. Max. 9,11,ext. 4 See Weileder 1998, 185. 347  Val. Max. 3,2,7. The Roman who triggers the act of violence of the Gauls by his blow, however, bears a different name here (C. Atilius) than in the report of Livy (M. Papirius; Liv. 5,41,9). 348  Val. Max. 1,1,10. See on this already Wardle 1998, 16, 103; Weileder 1998, 185; Mueller 2002, 64 f. See Liv. 5,40,9–10. 345

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Dorsuo through the ranks of the Gauls, which he took upon himself to perform a sacrifice ordered by the gens Fabia, whereupon, in Valerius’ words, he returned to the Capitol virtually as the actual victor.349 In another passage, it is emphasized that M. Furius Camillus had not accepted the office of dictator until not only the exiled Romans at Veii or Ardea, but as the senate at Rome on the Capitol had duly appointed him – an attitude filled with moderatio, and in this sense even more significant than Camillus’ victories over Veii and the Gauls.350 The besieged Romans were able to persuade the Gauls to negotiate by hurling loaves of bread at them, which deprived the besieged of the hope of being able to starve out the defenders.351 In order to raise the gold for ransom, the Roman matrons willingly gave up their jewelry, which in turn set an inspiring example for the Romans in the Second Punic War to in turn make material sacrifices for the salvation of the res publica.352 Among the significant portents of the past, Valerius mentions the order of the standard-bearer to stop in front of the Senate building, which finally persuaded the senators meeting inside to refrain from moving the Roman capital to Veii and to rebuild Rome instead.353 Later, Manlius Capitolinus was then plunged to his death from the very place where he had once fought off the Senones in their night attack on the Capitol. Through his attempt to seize power over Rome, he himself had become a Senon.354 Almost all passages in which the ‘Gallic Disaster’ appears in the collection of Valerius Maximus are thus connected with the siege of the Capitol. The quoted episodes are also known from the historiographical sources. In detail, for example with regard to names, there are deviations, which, however, never touch the core of the tradition, but can certainly reveal further interpretations. Since he usually gives only brief explanations of the individual exempla, Valerius was obviously able to assume that his audience knew them. Camillus, the great hero of Livy’s account of the events, appears in four places in the collection, but interestingly only one of them refers to his role in the defense against the Gauls.355 In Tacitus’ works, references to the ‘Gallic Disaster’ can be found in various passages.356 In the Annales, the Gauls who once besieged the Capitol appear in the context of a rhetorical argument. Under no circumstances should the descendants of those enemies now be allowed access to the senatorial rank, the senators demand in

 Val. Max. 1,1,11. See Wardle 1998, 105 (“The idea of a triumph, [...]”); Weileder 1998, 187.  Val. Max. 4,1,2. on this see Weileder 1998, 287. 351  Val. Max. 7,4,3. 352  Val. Max. 5,6,8. 353  Val. Max. 1,5,1. 354  Val. Max. 6,3,1a. 355  Namely, Val. Max. 4,1,2. See also 1,5,2; 1,8,3 (both on the taking of Veii); 2,9,1 (Camillus as censor). 356  Moreover, in a passage in the Germania, the Gauls are grouped in a series of once dangerous but now overcome opponents (Samnites, Carthaginians, Spaniards and Parthians). This series clearly relegates the Gauls as a whole to the realm of the closed past (Tac. Germ. 37). 349 350

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Tacitus, when they oppose the corresponding decision of Claudius.357 Whether the senators actually ‘argued’ with this historical exemplum in the historical debate about the admission of Gauls to the senate can no longer be determined. In any case, the passage recalls Cicero’s invective to the address of the Gallic witnesses who had accused his client M. Fonteius, the former governor of Gallia Narbonensis, so that it seems possible that either rhetorically trained senators or Tacitus himself were inspired by Pro Fonteio or that in both speeches an invective was used which was to a certain extent ready for trained rhetors in relation to Gallic opponents of the process or in opposition to projects which were supposed to benefit Gauls.358 Already known, not only from Pro Fonteio, is also the narrative abbreviation from the term pair Gaul/Capitol for the event, which needs no further explanation. The Capitol is also the focus of a historical comparison that Tacitus makes in his account of the battle between the followers of Vitellius and Vespasian in order to illustrate the singular scale of the destruction of the Capitoline temple of Iuppiter in the course of the fighting. No act, he says, was more shameful than this destruction of the temple, though probably unintentional, which not even the Gauls or Porsenna had managed before.359 Two other passages are particularly interesting, both related to the burning of Rome in AD 64. First, after the fire that devastated large parts of the city centre, some Romans would have ‘noticed’ that the same number of days, months and years had passed between the day the Gauls set fire to Rome and the date of the fire under Nero.360 This calculation opens up an interesting view of a variation on the idea of the course of Roman history in cycles in which the Gallic conquest of Rome played an important part. Livy’s Camillus, after all, as seen, emphasized the new beginning, the second founding of Rome, after the catastrophe, whose time had come after the lapse of 365 years, the end of a ‘Great Year’.361 In Tacitus’ account, the Romans focus on the recurrence of the catastrophe of Rome’s destruction by a great fire, with the Gallic Sack as the archetype of a destruction of the Roman capital.362 The memory of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ for anti-Roman motives is evoked elsewhere in Tacitus by Celtic druids – allegedly inspired by the burning of the Capitol  Tac. ann. 11,23,3–4 (quem ultra honorem residuis nobilium, aut si quis pauper e Latio senator foret? oppleturos omnia divites illos, quorum avi proavique hostilium nationum duces exercitus nostros ferro vique ceciderint, divum Iulium apud Alesiam obsederint. recentia haec: quid si memoria eorum oreretur qui sub Capitolio et arce Romana manibus eorundem postrati sint: fruerentur sane vocabulo civitatis: insignia patrum, decora magistratuum ne vulgarent.). 358  Cic. Font. 30. See above Sect. 3.1.4. 359  Tac. hist. 3,71,4-3,72,1 (sic Capitolium clausis foribus indefensum et indireptum conflagravit. Id facinus post conditam urbem luctuosissimum foedissimumque rei publicae populi Romani accidit, nullo externo hoste, propitiis, si per mores nostros liceret, deis, sedem Iovis Optimi Maximi, auspicato a maioribus pignus imperii conditam, quam non Porsenna dedita urbe neque Galli capta temerare potuissent, furore principum excindi). 360  Tac. Ann. 15,41,2. 418 years, months and days each (Grotefend 1845, 153). 361  See Sect. 3.1.5 above. 362  See Baudy 1991 for furtherconsiderations. 357

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in the ‘year of the four emperors’ 69 AD – who wanted to incite the members of their peoples to revolt against Roman rule. At that time they had succeeded in taking the city, but not the temple on the Capitol. The burning of the temple was to be interpreted as an omen for the now dawning rule of the peoples “beyond the Alps”.363 It cannot be completely ruled out that Celtic leaders had learned from Romans about the Celtic conquest of Rome in the early days of the Republic and now used this tradition to motivate an uprising against the Romans. Presumably, however, this will be a historiographical construction that Tacitus either adopted or invented himself in order to point to the potential danger posed by the peoples north of the Alps and, arguably, even more to the damage that civil war had done.364 The idea that internal discord would have threatening consequences for Roman rule externally had, as we have seen, already been formulated by Livy, among others, both in his account of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ and other Roman defeats.365 In Lucan’s Bellum Civile, Pompey and other Romans equate Caesar’s attack on Italy with the invasion of the Gauls.366 This motif is also found later in Appian, whose account of the Roman civil wars sometimes emphasizes that the cruelty of individuals or groups in these conflicts surpassed that of the Gauls when they took Rome.367 Indeed, Cicero had already linked the situation before Caesar’s invasion of Italy with the invasion of the Gauls before the Battle of the Allia (see above).  Tac. Hist. 4,54,1–3.  See already Urban 1999, 73–75, esp. 73 f.: “Wieweit das Ereignis dagegen im Bewußtsein der Gallier Spuren hinterlassen hat, ist eine ganz andere, mit unseren Mitteln nicht zu beantwortende, Frage. Hinzuweisen ist allerdings auf das Fehlen eines ausgeprägten gallischen Nationalbewußtseins und einer gallischen Literatur. Eine entsprechende Wirkungsgeschichte ist deshalb nicht unbedingt zu erwarten.” Nevertheless, the possibility remains that Gauls and Teutons in the first century A.D. had also learned about the conquest of Rome at the beginning of the Republic through contact with Romans, which they could now use in the sense of their own historical constructions. The design of the present passage, on the other hand, is in any case shaped in this form by the historical ‘memory’ of the event in Roman historical culture, which can be seen, among other things, in the special emphasis on the Capitol as a symbol of Rome’s rule (see also here already Urban 1999, 74). 365  With regard to Tac. 4,54,2–3 see again Urban 1999, 74 (“Gut römisch ist, wie gesagt, auch die gleich dreifache (54,1 und 3; 55,4) Betonung der Gefährdung der Weltherschaft durch die Auseinandersetzungen im Inneren.”). See above Sect. 3.1.5. 366  See Lucan. 2534–536. In 5,27–34 Lentulus draws a comparison between the situation of the exiled senate in Greece with that of the Romans during the occupation of Rome by the Gauls. At that time Camillus had been in Veii, which would have ensured the continuity of the Roman state. The comparison, of course, aims at the fact that even in the given situation the legitimacy of the exiled senate was not bound to the city of Rome. In this respect, the argumentation of Lentulus differs not insignificantly from the interpretation offered by Livy, where it is precisely emphasized how important it was for Camillus to have his mandate for military leadership approved not only by the exiled Romans in Veii, but also by the rests of the republican institutions on the Capitol (see above Sect. 3.1.5). Whether the short passage in Lucan is therefore suitable to serve as evidence for the existence of another variant of tradition assumed by Skutsch may, as already noted above, be doubted (see above Sect. 3.1.3). The reference to a legitimate leadership in Rome could not be in Lentulus’ interest at this point and was therefore passed over by Lucan. Elsewhere, Pompey suggests to his supporters that he, as the second Camillus, will save Rome from invasion (Lucan. 7358–360). See on these passages, among others, Gaertner 2008, 49–51. 367  App. civ. 2,50,205. 363 364

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Perhaps the comparisons in Lucan or Appian go back to contemporary accusations among opponents of the civil war or earlier accounts of the events. Thus Gaertner considers a similar literary motif already in Livy, who could have served Lucan as a model here.368 Moreover, Cicero’s invectives against M.  Antonius had already offered examples of how the comparison with the Gauls attacking Rome could also be used in other contexts for an attack on domestic opponents. Seneca used the allusion to the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’ in the context of his reckoning with the recently deceased Emperor Claudius. After all, Claudius had once been born in the Celtic city of Lugdunum, which made him a Gaul, and as a true Gaul he had done what every Gaul strives for – to conquer Rome.369 Perhaps this attack is also to be seen in connection with the protest of the senators against the admission of elites from the Gallic provinces to the senate, which is handed down by Tacitus.370 In the Punica of Silius Italicus, the focus is naturally on the battles of the Hannibalic War, which is why this work will be discussed in the corresponding chapter at a later point, but it should already be pointed out here that the ‘Gallic Disaster’ is referred to several times. The relevant passages refer almost exclusively to the threat to the Capitol by the Gallic invaders, whose descendants are now marching on Rome again, this time under Hannibal’s command in order to achieve the old goal of the complete conquest of the city, including the Capitol.371

3.1.8  Later Perspectives: The Further Memory of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ The ‘Gallic Disaster’ remained present in the historical culture of late antiquity as one of the most famous events in the history of the Republic. A certain prominence can be noted until the end of the Western Roman Empire with regard to Camillus, who could serve as an exemplum in different contexts.372 One point to which late antique authors could refer in this context was the role of Camillus as a successful

 Gaertner 2008, 49–51.  Sen. apocol. 6,1 (ego tibi dico, quae cum illo tot annis vixi: Luguduni natus est, Marci municipem vides. quod tibi narro, ad sextum decimum lapidem natus est a Vienna, Gallus germanus. itaque, quod Gallum facere oportebat, Romam cepit.). See Williams 2001, 182. 370  Tac. ann. 11,23. The answer of the emperor in Tac. ann. 11,24 is also preserved in inscriptions (CIL 13,1668 = ILS 212). In both versions of the emperor’s speech he emphasizes that the Roman senate had already in earlier generations always been supplemented by members from other ethnic groups, which can be interpreted as an indication that the senators actually agitated with the argument of foreignness against the admission of Gallic senators. Whether they then actually also resorted to the ‘Gallic Disaster’ as a negative example must of course remain open, but against the background of the use of this invective in other contexts this seems at least conceivable. 371  See only Sil. 4150–153; 6555–556; 8624–655 as well as 13,79–81 (see on this Spaltenstein 1990, 211). In Sil. 13,1–2 it is the Tarpeian hill (Tarpeia [...] culmina) that disappears from Hannibal’s view during the Carthaginian retreat, illustrating his failure. See on these passages as a whole below Sect. 5.2.7. 372  On this, see comprehensively Felmy 2001, 125–159. See Walter 2004a, 406 f. 368 369

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defender of Rome against a barbarian attack from the north. This could also appear (again) relevant against the background of external threats in late antiquity. Although Camillus had fought against Celts, an equation of Celts or Gauls and Teutons remained possible into late antiquity, if this seemed to be conducive to the author’s rhetorical, historiographical, or historical-philosophical intentions. Thus Camillus could serve as an exemplum for authors such as Claudian that “once before a Roman had stood his ground against the enemy of the present”.373 In addition, according to Felmy, Camillus also remained relevant as a moral exemplum, since he had not abandoned his hometown despite his banishment, which had been based on unjustified accusations, but had returned to defend it.374 In addition to the figure of Camillus, whose legend was “subject to change into Byzantine times”, the capture of Rome by the Gauls of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ still retained a certain special position in the historical memory of the history of the Republic in late antiquity. Against this background, the conquest of Rome by Alaric in AD 410 was able to evoke a renewed memory of the ancient defeat. This can be seen, for example, in the historical reflection of Rutilius Namatianus, who places the conquest of Rome by the Gauls in a series with the defeats at the hands of the Samnites, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal, in order to (supposedly) confidently deduce from the experience of these battles of the past for his own present that Rome, as always before, will again emerge strengthened from the latest defeat – for “what cannot go down, emerges again with greater strength and swings from the deepest depth only higher up” and so “as the lowered torch draws new strength”, Rome also strives “from deep disgrace more brightly upwards”. For the ordo renascendi, which Rutilius invokes at the end of this passage, is the Roman ability, that power, to “grow from suffering” (crescere malis).375 By the preceding enumeration of Roman disasters of the past, it is unquestionable from which historical experiences Rutilius thinks he can derive those specific powers and capacities. It is noteworthy here that these are exclusively defeats from the time of the Republic. The distant past had already been depicted at the end of the Republic in ‘grand narratives’, such as that of Livy, and the defeats of this period interpreted within the framework of a narrative of setbacks that were always followed by a new rise. Contrary to the hopes of Rutilius, this cycle was not repeated again. More than eight centuries after a Gallic raid had led to the capture of Rome, a new world arose on the ruins of the Western Roman Empire, in which Rutilius’ idea of an eternal Rome was carried forward in a very different form.376

 Felmy 2001, 126. See ibid., 135–142 for a detailed analysis of individual passages.  See the references in Felmy 2001, 128–134. 375  Ruth. Nam. 1115–140, here esp. 125–132; 140 (translation: E. Doblhofer). 376  See Meier/Patzold 2010, 69–82 for an introduction. 373 374

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3.2  Self-Sacrifice for the Res Publica and Heroes of the Barbarians: Defeats in the Third and Second Century Celtic Wars There are practically no records of any further Roman defeats against Celts in the fourth century, so that no corresponding traces can be found in Roman historical culture. For the Celtic wars of the third century, however, our sources record four major defeats of Roman armies against Celts: 295 at Clusium (actually probably at Camerinum in Umbria377), 284 at Arretium, 225 at Faesulae and 216 in the silva Litana.378 Only Livy comments on the first battle in this list, but in doing so he gives an insight into the apparently divergent sources available to him.379 According to Livy, Q.  Fabius Maximus Rullianus, one of the consuls of the year, operated with his legions in Etruria until he was recalled to Rome.380 The command of the army camp at Clusium, where Fabius left a legion, is said to have been handed over by the consul to the “propraetor” L. Cornelius Scipio.381 Even before Fabius returned with the main army and his colleague P. Decius Mus, a large army of Celtic Senones had appeared near Clusium, whereupon Scipio had decided to fight. However, this battle had been poorly planned by him, so that the legion was encircled and defeated by the Celts due to a lack of reconnaissance of the area of operation. The defeat was, according to Livy, generally denied by some authors, which Livy again regards as implausible. He himself seems to have seen the Roman commander L. Cornelius Scipio as responsible for the defeat, since he had led the army into the area of operations without sufficient reconnaissance.382 That the consul Fabius Rullianus, who later achieved great military fame, should have set off for Rome before the

 Liv. 10,26, 8–15. on this see Dyson 1985, 23; Birkhan 1997, 109 f.  On the defeat at Camerinum, see Liv. 10,26,8–15. See Dyson 1985, 23; Birkhan 1997, 109 f.; Oakley 2005, 285–288; Grossmann 2009, 131–134; on Arretium Pol. 2,19,8; Dion. Hal. 19,13,1–3; Liv. per. 12; Flor. 1,8,21; Eutrop. 2,10; App. Celt. 11; App. Sam. 6; Aug. Div. 3,17,2; Oros. 3,22,13–14. see Dyson 1985, 25; Birkhan 1997, 111; Cunliffe 1999, 77; Blösel 2015, 75; on Faesulae Pol. 2,23,5 (L. Aemilius is sent to Ariminum and a praetor is sent to Etruria); 2,25,5–10 (battle of Faesulae). See on this Walbank 1957, 203 f.; Dyson 1985, 29; on the forest Litana Pol. 3118,6; Liv. 23,24,11–12. See also Frontin. strat. 1,6,4. The choice of the Roman commander who was defeated with his army in the Litana forest and fell himself, L. Postumius Albinus (in absentia) for the year 215, is well attested in Roman tradition (Liv. 23,24,3; 23,24,6; 23,31,12; Fast. Cap. Chronograph). It should therefore not be dismissed without good arguments as an “annalistic invention” (T. Schmitt, DNP 10 (2001), 223, s. v. Postumius Albinus). In general, therefore, the authenticity of the election is not doubted. See, among others, Münzer 1953, 913; Broughton 1951, 253; Lazenby 1978/1998, 94; Seibert 1993a, 226; Brennan 2000, 195; Goldsworthy 2000, 227 f. 379  Liv. 10,26,10–12. 380  Why Fabius had to return to Rome was apparently disputed in Roman historiography. See Liv. 10,25,11–18, which states to have found different versions in its sources. See Oakley 2005, 272–274. 381  Liv. 10,25,11. 382  Liv. 10,26,9. 377 378

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encounter with the Celts – according to Livy – has been doubted by modern scholars.383 The reason for the departure for Rome was apparently already unclear in Livy’s sources, which indeed makes the entire journey seem at least questionable. It is therefore possible that the later victor of Sentinum was subsequently exonerated in the historiographical tradition by inventing Rullianus’ journey to Rome.384 A concealment of the actual background of the defeat is also suspected in the case of the Battle of Arretium in 284. In connection with this battle, a number of sources report that the Celts did not advance southwards to ‘merely’ plunder, as Polybius states, but had been recruited as mercenaries by Italic opponents of the Romans.385 If this should indeed have been the case, the question arises whether Polybius omitted this background, since he wanted to keep his account of the Celtic-­ Roman wars in this period as concise as possible, or whether already his (presumed) source Q. Fabius Pictor did not report anything about this. In the latter case, it is possible that Pictor did so with the intention of creating the impression of all-Italian unity and cohesion against external enemies in his work. Such an endeavour has been attributed to him, at least by some scholars, with regard to his account of the Celtic wars in the years around 225 BCs.386 In view of the fragmentary nature of the sources, however, these considerations must inevitably remain speculative. The defeat in the silva Litana seems to have been perceived as worthy of remembrance, especially on the side of the Celtic victors, if it was indeed the case that the Celts gilded the braincase of the slain general L. Postumius and used it as a drinking vessel for generations, as Livy reports. Moreover, the death of Postumius in battle could be combined with other examples of other Roman generals who lost their lives in battle in the time of the Second Punic War. However, the end of Postumius did not have the same prominence as the death of L. Aemilius Paullus at Cannae or the two Scipio brothers who fell in Spain.387 Livy explains the defeat with the ambush of the Celts, who succeeded in wearing down the legions in close combat in the impassable forest, which probably also roughly corresponded to the actual events.388 The emphasis on the brave fight of Postumius, who is said to have passionately resisted being taken prisoner – thus preferring a death on the battlefield – is akin to similar descriptions that can also be found in Livy in connection with the death of other commanders in battle.389

 See only Harris 1971, 71; Oakley 2005, 287.  See for this interpretation already Grossmann 2009, 133 f. It remains unclear, as considered by Grossmann, if the version, in which Fabius Rullianus had been asked to come back to Rome before the defeat, actually goes back to Q. Fabius Pictor. 385  Dion. Hal. 19,13,1–3; Liv. per. 12; Flor. 1,8,21; Eutrop. 2,10; App. Celt. 11; App. Sam. 6; Aug. Div. 3,17,2. See Dyson 1985, 25. 386  Thus in Beck/Walter 22005, 131. See, moreover, the list of Roman and allied troops for the year 225 in Pol. 2,24,1–17 and see on this Walbank 1957, 196–203 (196: “P.’s figures evidently go back through Fabius to the actual καταγραφαί, and are mainly reliable [...]”). 387  e.g. at Cic. Tusc. 1.89. 388  Liv. 23,24,7–11. 389  Liv. 23,24,11. 383 384

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The Roman defeats in Northern Italy against the Celts and the Ligurians in the second century have been handed down mainly by Livy, who relies on works by predecessors for his account, some of whom he also mentions by name. The defeat of the praetor Cn. Baebius Tamphilus is known only from the historiographical tradition. The report in Livy takes up only a few lines.390 According to it, Baebius “recklessly” invaded the territory of the Insubrians and was then surrounded with almost his entire army. The Romans lost 6700 soldiers in the ensuing battle. Livy seems to regard it as particularly serious that Baebius brought about such a great defeat in a war which, on account of the victories of the previous year, had already ceased to be feared.391 Livy’s relatively brief account thus conveys the impression of a reckless commander who had led his troops to their doom without any necessity. In Roman historical culture, however, this event does not seem to have left any deep traces. Livy comments in more detail on a campaign led by M. Claudius Marcellus in the year 196.392 According to this account, the consul first operated in the territory of the Boians, where the Romans were attacked by a larger force of the Celts just as they were about to set up camp. About 3000 of Marcellus’ soldiers are said to have fallen in this attack, including some high-ranking officers whom Livy mentions by name.393 However, since the Boians were unable to take the Roman camp due to their unsteady character, which was, according to the Roman historian, typical for Celts, this defeat remained without further consequences. Marcellus then advanced across the Po into the territory of the Insubres, where he led his army to a great victory over this group, killing 40,000 opponents.394 Interestingly, Livy notes at the end of the chapter that in the accounts of the campaign he had found in his sources, the order in which the two operations were carried out varied. It was therefore unclear whether the victory over the Insubrians caused the defeat against the Boians to be forgotten or, conversely, whether the defeat followed the victory and thus robbed it of its glory.395 Which of the two variants correctly reflects the historical course of events can no longer be ascertained. It is possible, however, that the account of the campaign was subsequently embellished in that the order of operations was reversed in order to give the impression that the consul Marcellus had completely made up  Liv. 32,7,5–7.  Liv. 37,7,5–7 (5–6: Eodem anno Cn. Baebius Tamphilus, qui ab C. Aurelio, consule anni prioris, provinciam Galliam acceperat, temere ingressus Gallorum Insubrum fines prope cum toto exercitu est circumventus: supra sex milia et septingentos milites amisit; tanta ex eo bello, quod iam timeri desierat, clades accepta est. Ea res L. Lentulum consulem ab urbe excivit.). See Clark 2014b, 110 (“This suggests that the triumph of the previous year, however unconventional, ought to have put an end to concerns in the north.”) with further references. 392  Liv. 33,36,4–15. See FRH 15 F 35 = FRHist 25 F 38; Oros. 4,20,11. See also the commentary in FRHist II, 320. 393  Liv. 33,36,4–5. By the way, Livy also knows the name of the Celtic leader, Corolamus, which is rather rare in the accounts of the Celtic wars as a whole. 394  Liv. 33,36,9–14. 395  Liv. 33,36,15 (Id quoque inter scriptores ambigitur, utrum in Boios prius an Insubres consul exercitum duxerit adversamque prospera pugna oblitteraverit, an victoria ad Comum parta deformata clade in Bois accepta sit.). With reference to this passage most recently Clark 2014b, 4–7. 390 391

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for a defeat by a glorious victory, which, moreover, had been brought about by an attack by the Boians and not in open field battle.396 The defeat of Q. Marcius Philippus against the Apuani in Liguria had, according to Livy, been caused by the fact that the consul had led his troops too deep into the impassable territory of the Ligurians, where he had been ambushed with his soldiers and had fled the Ligurian territory in an apparently disorderly retreat after a battle full of losses (allegedly about 4000 casualties).397 At least it is noteworthy that the place of the battle, according to Livy, was henceforth called saltus Marcius, commemorating this defeat, although Marcius had striven to suppress the news of his failure.398 Apart from this passage in Livy, there are no other mentions of this toponym in the ancient tradition, so that it must remain uncertain how well known it was at all and to what extent it was associated with the defeat of Marcius among those who knew it.399 There are scattered references in various sources to further operations with an at least partially negative course from the Roman point of view.400 A defeat of Ap. Claudius Pulcher in 143 against the Salassi had been overcome by advice from the Sibylline Books, according to which the Romans had to make a sacrifice for a success in the war against the Celts in Celtic territory.401 Finally, the downfall of L. Cassius Longinus in 107, who was defeated by the Tigurines with his army and fell in this battle, was used by C. Iulius Caesar about 50 years later to justify his aggressive action against the Helvetii. The Helvetians had defeated the army of Longinus and sent it under the yoke, which is why they were not to be trusted now.402 Whether by chance or by the decree of the gods, Caesar had succeeded through his military exploits not only in avenging the injustice suffered by the res publica as a whole, but also in taking revenge for his family, since the grandfather of his father-in-law, L. Calpurnius Piso, had died in that battle.403 From the summary of Livy’s (lost) book 65, it appears that the Roman soldiers who survived the battle  Clark 2014b, 4–7.  Liv. 34,20,5–8. 398  Liv. 39,20,9–10 (Consul ubi primum ex hostium agro evasit, ne, quantum deminutae copiae forent, appareret in locis pacatis exercitum dimisit. Non tamen oblitterare famam rei male gestae potuit; nam saltus, unde eum Ligures fugaverant, Marcius est appellatus.). See Clark 2014b, 115 f. 399  That this was a rather remote wilderness in Liguria is quite remarkable, but probably also speaks against a widespread knowledge of this toponym. Whether in the defeat of Q. Marcius Philippus actually lie the historical circumstances of the designation of the area, can no longer be clarified. 400  In addition to the examples mentioned below, Livy, Valerius Maximus and other authors report an unusual episode with regard to the death of Q.  Petilius Spurinus in the battle against the Ligurians in 176. According to them, the consul himself had given an omen of his imminent end. Apparently a tactically important mountain range in the area of operations was called Letum. Petilius had now announced before the start of the battle that he would win Letum, i.e. “death”, on that day. Petilius then fell at the beginning of the battle. This, however, had then turned out favorably for the Romans (Liv. 41,17,6-18,16; Val. Max. 1,5,9; 2,7,15. See further Front. Strat. 4,1,46). 401  Obseq. 21. 402  Caes. Gall. 1,7,4. 403  Caes. Gall. 1,12,6–7. 396 397

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had negotiated a treaty with the Helvetians that allowed them to leave after giving hostages to the Helvetians and surrendering half of their possessions.404 It would be interesting to know how exactly Livy described this process. For the situation in which a Roman force finds itself in a tactically hopeless position, and is therefore faced with the choice of either entering into negotiations with the enemy or fighting and thus accepting its own death, is repeatedly thematized in historiographical accounts of Roman defeats, and narrative connections can be drawn to similar situations.405 In the relevant passages of his report, Caesar is concerned in each case with underlining the danger that supposedly emanated from the Helvetians by referring to an earlier defeat of Roman troops against a Helvetic army, which is why he refers to the fall of Longinus’ army in no less than four different places.406Against this background, he could dispense with details such as Livy presumably reported. With the exception of this defeat of L. Cassius Longinus, Rome’s failures in the wars against the Celts and the Ligurians in the second century have left no noteworthy trace in the Roman historical culture of the Republic and the early and high imperial period – as far as can be discerned. Nor does the downfall of Longinus appear in the republican sources, for the motives mentioned, in Caesar alone. Thus, even if traces can be found of the impact that these defeats left in Roman historical culture, the contrast with the manifold presence of the “Gallic Disaster” from the beginning of the fourth century in this historical culture is in any case unmistakable. In the Iberian Peninsula, Roman armies suffered failures in far greater numbers than in Northern Italy in the second century.407 The early defeats of Roman armies that occurred there after the end of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War appear within Roman historical culture exclusively in historiographical accounts. Livy reports the first three of these battles in almost monosyllabic brevity, and even apart from the Livian account, whose focus for these years is recognizably not on the events in Spain, hardly any traces of these defeats can be discerned in Roman historical culture.408

 Liv. per. 65.  See in more detail the following notes on the defeats in the Iberian Peninsula. 406  Caes. Gall. 1,7,4; 1,12,5; 1,12,7; 1,13,2. 407  On Rome’s wars in the Iberian Peninsula in the second century, see (each with further evidence) Simon 1962; Gundel 1970; Rubinsohn 1981; Richardson 1986; Heftner 1997, 403–406; Clark 2014b, 147–171; Blösel 2015, 149–152, among others. 408  The supporting passages are respectively: Liv. 33,25,8–9, where the defeat of C. Sempronius Tuditanus in 196 is mentioned only in indirect form by the arrival in Rome of a letter from Spain. App. Ib. 39 offers a vague reference to continuing unrest in the Iberian Peninsula, which would have led to M. Porcius Cato being sent there. The battles with heavy losses, which Sex. Digitius led in Spain in 194 are also worth only a few lines to Livy (Liv. 35,1,1–2). Also the defeat of L. Aemilius Paullus, which he had to suffer as proconsul in Spain, Livy describes only in the form of a report to the senate in Rome and in corresponding brevity (Liv. 37,46,7–8). Plutarch passes over the defeat of Paullus completely in the corresponding chapter of the biography of Aemilius (Plut. Aem. 4). 404 405

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In a somewhat more extensive form, Livy describes the defeat that C. Calpurnius Piso and L. Quinctius Crispinus suffered in Hispania Citerior in 185.409 The account, which extends over a total of two chapters, follows a narrative scheme that is also known from reports of other Roman defeats in Roman historiography: following the defeat of the Romans, a Roman victory can be achieved in the immediate aftermath, which surpasses the previous failure in both quantitative (number of casualties) and qualitative (consequences of the battle) terms.410 The defeat had come about mainly because the confrontation had developed rather spontaneously from a fight between the pabulatores of both sides and had then escalated in a disorderly manner, whereby the Romans’ enemies had also gained an advantage from their familiarity with the terrain.411 The victory that soon followed was again won by the Romans in a ‘regular’ encounter on the battlefield, where the Hispani were able to put the Roman centre in distress by a powerful attack on the Roman centre, carried out in wedge formation, but the Romans were victorious both by their superior discipline and by their tactical superiority, which manifested itself first in a careful preparation of the battle and then also in the successful interaction of different types of weapons.412 Irrespective of the fact that the events may have played out more or less in this way, the two chapters thus offer another example of a typical sequence of events in Roman historiography, which begins with a defeat under adverse circumstances, which only a little later, often by the same commander under whose command the defeat had happened, can not only be compensated for but even eclipsed by a Roman victory. In this context, Clark has put forward the thesis that already the Roman Senate in the second century strove to end campaigns when a Roman victory offered a favourable moment for this – even in part independently of whether the operations in the corresponding area had thus actually come to a successful conclusion for Rome. The ambition to describe each defeat within the framework of a “monograph”, at the end of which stood a Roman victory, apparently also found expression in Roman historiography.413 Accordingly, the compositional arrangement of events need not have originated with Livy himself. If one follows Clark’s thesis, it is rather reasonable to assume that already some historians of the second century depicted the operations of the year 185 in a form similar to that found in Livy.414 Due to the loss of these sources, however, any similarities or differences in the accounts can no longer be traced.  Liv. 39,30–31.  For Romans and confederates Livy notes a number of about 5000 killed (Liv. 39,30,6), on the Spanish side there were more than 30.000 dead in the second battle (Liv. 39,31,14). While the Romans recover quickly from the defeat and are able to repulse their opponents, their opponents are so severely weakened that the fighting comes to a (temporary) end. 411  Liv. 39,30,2–3. 412  Liv. 39,30,8-31,16. 413  Clark 2014b, 210 (“What we can see in the wars of this period might thus be considered as an effort to have every conflict ‘read’ like a monograph. Defeats were met by victories, and defeated commanders and armies were encouraged to re-engage after initial (and sometimes repeated) losses.”). 414  See Clark 2014b, 99. 409 410

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To a large extent, this also applies to the way in which Livy treated the further defeats of Roman armies in the Iberian Peninsula that occurred there in the following decades. By their very nature, only scanty information can be gleaned from the Periochae in this regard. It appears, however, that the failures of Roman armies there in 154, 153, and 151 had been described only to a limited extent.415 Appian, however, reports about the campaign of L. Mummius (pr. 153) in a relatively detailed form and follows the already mentioned narrative pattern of a victory directly following a defeat.416 Appian describes the praetor of 151, Ser. Sulpicius Galba, as a militarily reckless and deceitful commander, whose moral faults were shown on the one hand by the fact that he had his opponents, who had already surrendered, executed in a massacre, and on the other hand by the fact that he behaved in a decidedly greedy manner when distributing the booty.417 The extent to which similar accounts were perhaps already to be found in Livy or other historiographers can no longer be determined. It should be noted, however, that in both cases the already familiar sequence of events is described: after a defeat, the Romans are again able to recover soon and defeat their enemies in a way in which the losses they inflict on the enemy are considerably greater than those they suffered themselves beforehand. It is noteworthy, moreover, that the defeat of Q. Fulvius Nobilior in 153 is said to have occurred on the day of the Volcanalia, that is, on the 23rd of August. According to Appian, this had the consequence that since then no Roman commander should start a battle on this day, unless he was forced to do so by external circumstances.418 In the year 147, the campaign of the Lusitani and other groups under their leader Viriathus against the Romans began. The notes on this army leader, which can still be gathered from the ancient summary of Livy’s book 52, indicate that Viriathus had also been portrayed in the complete account in quite extensive form.419 In his work, Appian establishes a connection between the massacre of the Lusitani ordered by Galba and the uprising under Viriathus, since the latter had survived the killing and subsequently gathered troops to begin an uprising against the Roman conquerors.420  Probably we may here assume chiefly terse notes in the form in which they have come down to us for the operations of 196, 194, and 190. See Liv. per. 47 (There, probably for the years 154 and 153, it is merely stated in general terms: Praeterea res in Hispania a compluribus parum prospere gestas continet.) and Liv. per. 48 (Ser. Sulpicius Galba praetor male adversus Lusitanos pugnavit.). Liv. per. 47, moreover, covers a period of 5 years, which will have left less room overall for the account of individual events. See Brennan 1995, 55. 416  App. Ib. 56–57. 417  App. Ib. 58–60. 418  App. Ib. 45. See Forsythe 2012, 35, 37 f. However, there is no further evidence of this, so that it remains unclear whether Roman military leaders of the following generations took this circumstance into account in their campaigns. 419  After all, Livy apparently also addressed the origin of the Roman opponent. See Liv. per. 52 (Viriathus in Hispania primum ex pastore venator, ex venatore latro, mox iusti quoque exercitus dux factus totam Lusitaniam occupavit). 420  App. Ib. 60–61. The author is currently preparing a more extensive study on the representation and interpretation of Rome’ defeats against Viriathus. 415

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Perhaps this connection was already found in Livy or his predecessors, which is not unlikely, since elsewhere in Livy’s work the course of individual battles and campaigns is interpreted as a consequence of morally appropriate or reprehensible actions. Finally, the summary of book 52, which was found in papyri from Oxyrhynchos, notes that the Lusitani inflicted a heavy defeat on the Romans as a result of an injustice.421 Suetonius also knows from his sources that Galba’s broken promise caused the “Viriathic War”. Apparently, then, this connection had been clearly emphasized in the works available to Suetonius.422 Viriathus, on the other hand, is portrayed in Appian’s account of the fighting in the following years as a commander who acted with great prudence and skill, both strategically and tactically, and after some successes concluded a peace with the Romans.423 Shortly afterwards, however, the Romans break the peace, and the proconsul Q.  Servilius Caepio is able to successfully carry out the assassination of Viriathus.424 Appian then reports on the relatively elaborate funeral ceremonies that his followers conducted for Viriathus, and honors Rome’s opponent with a succinct necrology in which he attributes to him outstanding military prowess, personal courage, and moral integrity.425 Again, it is quite likely that earlier Roman authors had already made similar positive comments about Viriathus. Livy, for example, apparently called him a “great man and commander” (vir duxque magnus), probably also described the funeral ceremonies and praised his achievements in a brief review.426 Valerius Maximus also disapproved of Caepio’s actions, which he included in his collection as an example of perfidia. Caepio had not earned his victory but bought it, which of course does not meet the moral standard to be applied  Liv. Oxy. per. 52: A Lusitanis Romanorum peruria u[ltis gravis clades accepta.  Suet. Galba 3,2. On this see Simon 1962, 66. Some scholars have followed this interpretation of the ancient sources by seeing in the massacre ordered by Galba the cause of the following wars. On this, see Rubinsohn 1981, 174 f., who offers a survey of older works. 423  App. Ib. 61–69. 424  App. Ib. 71, 74. 425  App. Ib. 75. See also Simon 1962, 94 f. (with further evidence) on the numerous anecdotes that can be found in the ancient tradition on Viriathus. In these, particular emphasis is placed on his simple origins, which, on the one hand, had enabled him to endure even great hardships in war, and, on the other, had made him immune to the seductions of wealth and luxury, which he therefore also despised. Not only does this present an obvious contrast with the character of some of his opponents, and also that of his murderers. This material modesty, which is moreover associated with high physical resilience, are virtues that were also attributed to successful Roman generals who embodied the ideals of ancient Roman unpretentiousness and moral austerity (see only SteinHölkeskamp 2002, 476 f.; Beck 2005a, 188 f. on the stylization of M’. Curius Dentatus in Roman historical culture, in which the latter became the “exemplum eines frugalen Lebensstils, altrömischer Bedürfnislosigkeit und Unbestechlichkeit”, which especially in the second century was regarded by authors such as Ennius and Cato the Elder as a characteristic of ancient Roman nature of high moral-ethical value). 426  Liv. per. 54: Viriathus a proditoribus consilio Servilii Caepionis interfectus est et ab exercitu suo multum comploratus ac nobiliter sepultus, vir duxque magnus et per quattuordecim annos, quibus cum Romanis bellum gessit, frequentius superior. See Schulten 1917, 237; Simon 1962, 133 f. 421 422

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to a Roman general.427 Florus even calls Viriathus a “Spanish Romulus” (Hispaniae Romulus, which presumably goes back to a correspondingly positive description in Livy).428 Even if the evidence for this is on the whole rather sparse, it does not seem far-­ fetched that the defeats of Roman armies against troops under the command of Viriathus in the years 147–140 were already interpreted in historiographical accounts of Roman authors at the time of the Republic, but at the latest since Livy, on the one hand against the background of morally reprehensible procedures of the Roman generals on the Iberian Peninsula, and on the other hand as a consequence of the outstanding military skills of the former shepherd, who significantly could not be defeated by a victory on the battlefield, but only by a contract killing. Viriathus’ qualities as a general, moreover, seem to have been well recognized already by contemporaries of the wars in Spain. For after all Lucilius mentions him in a verse next to Hannibal. Lucilius, however, wants the defeats of Rome against the Carthaginian as well as against the Lusitanian commander to be understood as proof that Rome, even and especially after severe setbacks, ultimately emerges victorious from every war, as two fragments show, which, according to Nonius, both come from the 26th book of Lucilius.: “ut Romanus populus victus vi et superatus proeliis/saepe est multis, bello vero numquam, in quo sunt omnia”, and, “contra flagitium nescire, bello vinci barbaro/Viriato, Annibale”.429 The short passages are instructive for two reasons. First, we find here an early formulation of an idea that takes clearer shape in later works of Roman historical culture – namely, the idea that Rome was often defeated on the battlefield, but could always end the war as a whole victorious.430 The ‘many battles’ in which the Roman people were defeated may even refer in Lucilius primarily to the tenacious war in Spain, in which he himself apparently took part and about which he wrote in a series of war anecdotes also in the Satires. The course of the wars in the Iberian Peninsula, marked again and again by setbacks, was a topic that was probably gladly suppressed

 Val. Max. 9,6,4: Viriathi etiam caedes duplicem perfidiae accusationem recipit, in amicis quod eorum manibus interemptus est, in Q.  Servilio Caepione consule quia is sceleris huius auctor impunitate promissa fuit, victoriamque non meruit sed emit. See Simon 1962, 133. 428  Flor. epit. 1,33,15. The positive image of Viriathus lived on, after the rediscovery of the ancient sources, until modern times. Thus, in modern reception, especially in the nineteenth century, he became a popular figure and a Portuguese national hero (see only Cunliffe 1999, 13; Schulten 1917, 235; Rubinsohn 1981, 161). Schulten 1917, 209, 215 f. still gives pathetic expression to his fascination with the “great barbarian popular hero” (209). 429  Lucil. 613–614 M. = 683–684 K. = 591–592 C./G. (“as the Roman people has been often beaten by force and overcome in many battles, but never in a whole war, in which lies all that is vital”) and 615–616 M. = 685–686 K. = 593–594 C./G. (“that on the contrary we know not disgrace of defeat in a whole war by barbarian Viriathus or Hannibal”). See also below Sect. 5.2.2. 430  On the passage, see, among others, Clark 2018, 191. See also Liv. 9:18, 9. On this, see Oakley 2005, 234. 427

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in Rome, but at the same time also present.431 The victory over Numantia, which had resisted the Romans particularly vehemently and successfully in the preceding years, may well have been an occasion for Lucilius to formulate these lines. If the poet was indeed a friend of P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus and served on his staff in Spain, then the connection of Numantia with the emphasis on the idea of a Rome that was always victorious, even after many setbacks, would be all the more obvious.432 The second fragment also establishes a connection to the wars on the Iberian Peninsula by naming Viriathus, who had been murdered shortly before, in 139, and at the same time builds a bridge back to the Second Punic War – there the Romans had indeed been defeated in many battles, while a Roman victory stood at the end. This positive view of the Roman victory against Viriathus, as seen, apparently did not find much resonance in Roman historical culture. Only the conquest of Numantia could be seen by later generations as an important milestone on the way to Rome’s world domination.433 Due to the extremely narrow source base, it is not possible to say to what extent Lucilius’ contemporaries shared his assessments. In later historiography, however, Viriathus seems to have been seen primarily as a figure of high moral integrity. Outside of historiography, however, the war against Viriathus has left no deeper traces in Roman historical culture, as far as can be  Especially in the years before the victory over Numantia, which took place under Scipio’s command, Roman armies had to accept a series of partly heavy defeats. Thus, in 138 (under M. Popilius Laenas) and 137 (under C. Hostilius Mancinus), the Romans were defeated by their Spanish opponents (see Broughton 1951, 484 for evidence). Cichorius 1908/1964, 29–40 discusses fragments of the satires which he associates with Lucilius’ war experiences in Spain. According to this, Lucilius had already participated in the Spanish campaigns since 139. On the basis of Lucil. 1324–1325 M. = 1340–1341 K. (vidimus abina) Cichorius 1908/1964, 37–39 furthermore considers that Lucilius had also witnessed the attempt of the Romans to hand over the former consul C. Hostilius Mancinus to the Numantines (vidimus is interpreted as a reference to an eyewitness). Admittedly, this cannot be substantiated, although the possibility certainly exists. The assumption that Lucilius paid special attention to the Spanish theater of war, however, is altogether quite plausible. 432  The friendship of the two men is mentioned in Schol. Hor. sat. 2,1,72. See also Cic. de orat. 2,22 (estate of Scipio near Lavernium). See also Cichorius 1908/1964, 55 f., who notes that the landed estate of the Lucilii was close to the estate of Scipio near Lavernium. Cichorius 1908/1964, 110–121 suspected that the two fragments were parts of a satire addressed to a younger historian who intended to write a work on “ancient history” (vetus historia) (Lucil. 612 M. = 672 K.), from which Lucilius had advised him against. Lucilius had instead persuaded the young man to devote himself to the more recent past. If Cichorius’ reconstruction is correct, the mention of Hannibal next to Viriathus’ name could indicate that Lucilius advised his friend to let this contemporary history begin with the Hannibalic War. However, this reconstruction was challenged by Christes in 1971 with plausible arguments. Christes (ibid., 26  f.) points out, among other things, that the phrase vetus historia for “ancient history” is nowhere else attested. Accordingly, these verses would have to have a different meaning than Cichorius assumed. Christes 1971, 83  f. assumes instead that the two fragments, written in ‘epic[r] diction’ (83), belong to an introductory satire in which Lucilius ‘repels the suggestion that he should turn to the epic instead of the satires’ (ibid., 24). See also the commentary on the passage in Christes/Garbugino 2015. 433  See among others Cic. Phil. 4,5,13; Hor. carm. 2,12; Flor. 1,33,17. See Bane 1976, 410. 431

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discerned. Much more than the already mentioned testimonies are not to be found. Silius Italicus, however, mentions a Viriathus as a subleader of Hannibal’s army in the catalogue of his troops before the battle of Cannae.434 Besides the war against Viriathus, among the Roman defeats in the Spanish provinces in the second century, the failed operations carried out by C. Hostilius Mancinus at Numantia seem to have received relatively high attention in Roman historical culture. As is well known, Mancinus’ campaign ended in the surrender of the Roman army, whose commander negotiated an agreement with the Numantines, but this was not ratified by the Senate in Rome, which instead decided to hand Mancinus over to the Numantines in order to satisfy the commander’s promise and continue the war against Numantia.435 From the summary of the 55th book of Livy, it can be deduced that the latter had reported the failure of Mancinus to an extent that in any case went beyond a few lines. Thus, ominous portents are said to have occurred before or as Mancinus set out for Spain, which announced his defeat.436 These prodigies Livy will probably have already found in his predecessors; perhaps they already go back to contemporary interpretations and explanations of the defeat.437 Reports on those negative omens that would have foreshadowed Mancinus’ defeat can also be found in a number of later authors, among them Valerius Maximus, who even mentions a third omen, namely a snake that Mancinus found on a second ship that he had boarded in Genoa after he had made part of the journey to Spain by land, having been warned by the aforementioned voice. Valerius connects the three negative omens that Mancinus encountered on his way to Spain with the three calamitates that

 Sil. 3354–356 (hos Viriatus agit Lusitanumque remotis/extractum lustris, primo Viriatus in aeuo,/nomen Romanis †pactum† mox nobile damnis.). On the reading of the passage, see Spaltenstein 1986, 221 f. However, Silius does not comment on this on this occasion, so that this mention must certainly not have occurred to all recipients. On the integration of persons from the history of the Republic into the battles of Hannibal’s War in the Punica, in the course of which it also happens that protagonists who did not participate in the respective battles are mentioned as fellow combatants, see below Sect. 5.2.7. 435  On the failed campaign of Mancinus and its consequences, see, among others, Cic. off. 3.109; rep. 3.28; Brut. 103; Liv. per. 55–56; Plut. Tib. gr. 5–7; Flor. 1,34,5–6; 2,2,2; App. Ib. 80, 83. see Simon 1962, 146–155; Rosenstein 1986. 436  See on this Engels 2007, 540 f. 437  Liv. per. 55: C. Hostilio Mancino consule sacrificante pulli ex cavea evolaverunt; conscendenti deinde in navem, ut in Hispaniam proficisceretur, accidit vox: “Mane, Mancine”. Quae auspicia tristia fuisse eventu probatum est. Victus enim a Numantinis et castris exutus, cum spes nulla servandi exercitus esset, pacem cum his fecit ignominiosam, quam ratam esse senatus vetuit. XXXX milia Romanorum ab IIII milibus Numantinorum victa erant. 434

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subsequently befell the consul: defeat in battle, the conclusion of an ignominious peace treaty, and surrender to the enemy.438 It is quite conceivable that the accounts of the omens arose during the lifetime of Mancinus, or at least were included in accounts of his ill-fated campaign that predate the account of Livy. The earliest evidence of Mancinus’ defeat that can be securely grasped, however, is found scattered in a few passages in Cicero.439 Cicero makes no mention of the negative portents to which Livy and Valerius Maximus refer. Instead, all passages are related to the treaty Mancinus had concluded with the Numantines, or to the reactions this had provoked in Rome. Thus Cicero seems to have thought that the case was suitable for discussing the question of in which cases a Roman could lose his citizenship. According to Cicero, Mancinus had not lost his citizenship at all, since the Numantines had rejected his surrender, which allowed the former general to return to Rome.440 In this context, Cicero praises Mancinus several times as exemplary in character and at one point compares him with Q. Pompeius, who had broken an agreement with the Numantines in a similar situation in the year 140. Oaths, however, were to be kept unconditionally even in war.441 Although no direct evidence of this has survived, it is not improbable that Q. Pompeius already had a bad reputation in sources known to Cicero and was perhaps attributed responsibility for the failure in historiographical accounts of the Spanish wars.442 The fact that Cicero did not find it necessary to explain to his readers, even in broad outline, the events that led to the surrender of Mancinus probably indicates that he could count on some knowledge of the case. It is possible that this case – certainly considered unusual and therefore striking – was one of those discussed in the training of Roman orators and jurists.443 In this context, it is interesting to note that the case of Mancinus also appears in Quintilian’s collection. There it serves as  Val. Max. 1,6,7 (following the notes of the negative omens which C. Flaminius is said to have ignored before the battle of Lake Trasimeno): Flamini autem praecipitem audaciam C. Hostilius Mancinusvesana perseverantia subsequitur. cui consuli in Hispaniam ituro haec prodigia acciderunt: cum Lavinii sacrificium facere vellet, pulli cavea emissi in proximam silvam fugerunt summaque diligentia quaesiti reperiri nequiverunt. cum ab Herculis portu, quo pedibus pervenerat, navem conscenderet, talis vox sine ullo auctore ad aures eius pervenit: ‘Mancine, mane.’ qua territus, cum itinere converso Genuam petisset et ibi scapham esset ingressus, anguis eximiae magnitudinis visus e conspectu abiit. ergo prodigiorum numerum numero calamitatium aequavit: infelici pugna, turpi foedere, deditione funesta. In Val. Max. 2,7,1 Valerius also mentions the defeat of Mancinus, but without going into the omens. For further considerations see the references in Wardle 1998, 196. 439  Cic. har. esp. 43; Caecin. 98; rep. 3,28; de orat 1,181; 1,238; 2,137; off. 3,109. 440  Cic. Caecin. 98. 441  Cic. rep. 3,28; off. 3107–109 (107: est autem ius etiam bellicum fidesque iuris iurandi saepe cum hoste servanda.). The comparison between C. Hostilius Mancinus and Q. Pompeius, in which Mancinus’ conduct is judged more favourably, is placed in a discussion of a number of cases in off. 3,109. 442  In any case, Cicero knows of Pompeius’ alleged lowly origin (Cic. Verr. 2,5181: humili atque obscuro loco natus.). See Garcia Riaza 2002, 89. 443  See similarly already Nissen 1870, 55. 438

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an example of the weighing comparison between two bad alternatives that the teacher of rhetoric wants his readers to understand as a possible course of action in a speech. Thus, a defendant might plead in court that worse would have occurred had he not acted as he did. Mancinus, for example, had been faced with the choice of whether to make the treaty with the Numantines on such bad terms, or whether the Roman army should fight but be destroyed. In this situation, he chose the “lesser of two evils,” that is, agreeing to the Numantines’ offer.444 The casual manner in which Quintilian alludes to the case of Mancinus seems to indicate  – similar to Cicero’s mention of Mancinus  – that this was familiar to (aspiring) rhetors from their previous training. If one believes the evidence from parts of the later tradition, these offer clues for the handling of Mancinus’ defeat on the part of the commander himself and some of his contemporaries, which in turn are relevant in connection with the question of the handling of defeats in Roman historical culture. For example, Pliny the Elder reports that Mancinus had a statue of himself erected after his return to Rome, showing him at the moment of surrender to the Numantines, thus apparently as naked and bound.445 If this statue was indeed erected in Rome, it may well be interpreted as indicating that Mancinus strove to cover up, as it were, the memory of his actual defeat by emphasizing his morally upright attitude thereafter, by which he had proved himself a man who respected oaths and put his own welfare behind that of the res publica.446 How successful Mancinus was in this is difficult to estimate. Cicero does take up this interpretation in his writings, but, as has been seen, there existed alongside it a historiographical tradition in which negative omens that had not been given sufficient attention were apparently emphasized. The interpretation of Mancinus’ behavior thus seems to have varied in the Roman historical culture of the following decades.447 According to Appian’s account, Mancinus’ opponents are said to have argued with a historical example that seemed to justify their action and could thus serve as a precedent. According to this, the majority in the senate, which was finally able to enforce the extradition of Mancinus to the Numantines and effect the continuation of the war, would have argued with the example that the generals with a Roman army at Caudium who had once been ambushed by the Samnites had also been extradited to those enemies. Thereupon the Romans soon resumed the war and brought it to a successful end. This was the way to proceed again.448 Whether Mancinus’ opponents in the Numantia affair actually argued with the historical example of Caudium can no longer be reconstructed. However, the tradition of the defeat from the Second Samnite War bears clear traces of later revision. This, in turn, could have been done in the context of a reference to the battle of Caudium in  Quint. inst. 7,4,13.  Plin. nat. 34,18. See among others Simon 1962, 157. 446  In a similar vein, Gruen 1992, 120, already evaluates this note. 447  More resolutely in favor of a positive image of Mancinus in Roman historical culture Simon 1962, 157. 448  App. Ib. 360. 444 445

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the argument about the failure before Numantia and the consultation about the further procedure. This, of course, cannot be proved with any more certainty than already a possible reference by Mancinus’ opponents to the defeat of the Samnite war.449 Apart from the question of the further handling of the hapless Mancinus and the different assessments that this case received from contemporaries and those who came after him, the defeat at Numantia probably owed a certain prominence already in antiquity also to the fact that Ti. Sempronius Gracchus belonged to the members of the staff who had taken the oath with their commander against the Numantines. In any case, this is a reason for Plutarch to mention the campaign in Spain at all.450 All in all, in connection with Mancinus’ defeat, it seems that it was not so much the military operations near Numantia that gave rise to historical references in various media of Roman historical culture, but rather the negotiations with the Numantines and especially the consequences that these had for Mancinus. The withdrawal of Mancinus’ army from Numantia, moreover, seems to have been partially dramatized in later tradition, for instance when it is reported there that the consul and his soldiers departed under the yoke.451 Compared to the other Roman defeats on the Iberian Peninsula in the second century BC, the failures against Viriathus and Numantia seem to have left relatively deep traces in the social memory of the Roman Republic. After all, they apparently did not fall into complete oblivion, but could still become the subject of legal discussion or instructive exempla. Compared to the variant and long-lasting effects that the ‘Gallic Disaster’ had in this respect, however, the memory of the defeats against Viriathus and Numantia had rather small dimensions. This observation invites us to consider, in a brief summary, commonalities and differences in the collective, historical memory of defeats in Rome’s Celtic wars from the beginning of the fourth to the end of the second century.

3.3 Summary For centuries, Roman armies had undertaken campaigns against Celtic opponents and had to accept numerous defeats in the process, even though Rome’s sphere of influence continuously expanded in the course of these battles. In the preceding sections it could be shown that the ‘Gallic Disaster’ was especially remembered in

 Representations and interpretations of the Battle of Caudium will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter. 450  Plut. Tib. 5–6. 451  So Min. Fel. 26,3; Eutr. 4,17. See Simon 1962, 148 f. There was no need at all for the Numantines to do this. Presumably this is an adaptation of the tradition of the defeat of Caudium. See on this below Chap. 4 449

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Roman historical culture over a long period of time and in variant forms.452 The chronologically earliest of those defeats, the Battle of the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome, was at the same time the one that occupied the most prominent place in Roman historical culture. The fact that neither the defeat of the Roman contingent at the Allia nor the capture of Rome at the beginning of the fourth century were events of singular rank in the context of the history of Italy in the archaic period as a whole did not seem to stand in the way of the exceptional character assigned to the ‘Gallic Disaster’ by Romans of later times. Among the other failures in Rome’s Celtic wars, the defeats of Viriathus’ troops and the capitulation of Mancinus before Numantia can also be said to have a noteworthy status in Roman historical culture. Both events, however, remain clearly behind the ‘Gallic Disaster’ in terms of their perception by later generations. The defeats of Roman armies in the Celtic wars in Northern Italy in the third and early second centuries do not seem to have left any deeper traces in the social memory of the Romans. Since apparently neither a greater temporal proximity nor the real historical effects of an event are necessarily directly related to the significance that was subsequently attributed to it in Roman historical culture, other factors must be decisive for this. One of the reasons for the prominence that the ‘Gallic Disaster’ was able to claim even in the imperial period is surely rooted in the setting of the events themselves. In many cases of reference to the invasion of the Gauls, as has been seen, the focus was less on the battle of the Allia itself than on such parts of the event that are said to have taken place in Rome itself, such as the sacrifice of the elderly senators, the brave deed of Pontius Cominius, the preservation of the sacra publica, and especially the attack of the Gauls on the Capitol itself. The possibility of tying the tradition of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ to sites and “Schau-Plätze” in the urban area of Rome may have promoted the familiarity of this specific defeat among members of later generations in no small measure. As emphasized in the introductory remarks at the beginning of this study, Halbwachs and Assmann have already pointed out the importance of concrete spaces and places for the formation and transmission of contents and interpretations in the social memory of a community.453 In the context of the ‘Gallic Disaster’, it has been possible to show in the preceding pages how such places in Rome, but also – in part connected with such places – cultic acts, certain processions or sacrificial rituals, which in fact may go back to quite different origins in each case, were associated with the defeat and repulsion of the Gauls. Certainly, in chronological terms, these aitiological constructions must be regarded rather as secondary forms of reference to the past. Before Romans in the late  See Williams 2001, 150 (“The tradition of the Gallic sack as a whole [...] was a consistently diverse and changing story, comprising many concurrent versions of various origins, geographical and chronological, within which conflicting traditions, old and new, could and did co-exist, at some points intersecting, at others continuing in isolation from one another [...].”). 453  On the differentiation of ‘Schauplätze’ and ‘Schau-Plätze’ in this context see Hölkeskamp 2001/2004, 143. On this see also Halbwachs 1941/2003; J. Assmann 62007, 38 f. and the references above in Sect. 2.1. 452

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Republic could come to the conclusion that at the Busta Gallica the bodies of Gallic besiegers who had once fallen or been carried off by a plague had been burned, or that the annual sacrifice of a dog near the Capitol was to be understood as a symbolic punishment for the lack of vigilance of the guard dogs on the night of the Celtic attack, first one or, as seen here, more likely several versions of the context of events had to be present. Then, however, the ‘evidence’ of the scenes and rituals could certainly have ensured the dissemination and transmission of knowledge about the ‘Gallic Disaster’ even among contemporaries who received literary texts only to a limited extent or not at all. In many cases, it can hardly be worked out with certainty by which steps and on which paths through the web of Roman historical culture, certainly already dense and complex in the third and second century, descriptions and interpretations of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ finally reached the first century. An important role was probably played by the Dies Alliensis, through which the Romans were reminded annually of the defeat. The existence of this chronological fixed point for an epoch of Roman history, which was rather poor in events that could be dated with some certainty, probably also contributed to assigning the ‘Gallic Disaster’ a fixed place already in early (also non-Roman) narratives of the history of Rome. Later, moreover, the existence of the Dies Alliensis probably encouraged Roman antiquarians to associate place names, cults and practices that could no longer be explained historically with the ‘Gallic Disaster’, which in turn – see above – increased its prominence and the range of possible interpretations that could be associated with it. It seems that even Roman observers had few illusions about the fact that much of what was thought to be known about the invasion of the Gauls and their defence against them in the middle and late Republic had by no means been handed down with certainty, as the corresponding assessments of Plutarch and Livy show. But that was not necessarily what they were concerned with. In historiography, for which Livy presented an extremely influential account of the ‘Gallic Disaster’, there were in many respects greater possibilities. The narrative that Livy integrated the Celtic invasion into in the fifth book, which spans generations, stands apparently only at the end of a longer development of tradition. In this development, the endeavour to interpret the battle of Romans against Gauls against the background of conflicts between Greeks and Barbarians could have played a role, as could the increasing religious and political importance of the Capitol, whose status was therefore exaggerated in the historiographical account of the events, as could also the further development of the Camillus legend, which was integrated in a prominent position in the tradition of the battle against the Gauls. The story of the fall and rise of a Rome that had been renewed both morally and physically and that had emerged strengthened from defeat, constructed from these different elements and strands of tradition, could serve as an exemplum in later times and in relation to challenges of its own time. Closely related to this, in turn, are the explanations that had been constructed for the defeat. Most of these have in common that the Romans themselves, or groups within the Roman people, are responsible for the defeat, which is why they are also given the opportunity to learn from the disaster and thus bring about the aforementioned renewal and renewed rise. For better or for worse,

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then, the Romans remain masters of their fate, even if they sometimes realize their mistakes and failures only later. This is also true of the Dies Alliensis, which does indeed reveal a residue of unease about the irremovable character of that date. But by marking and enclosing it in the calendar, the Romans regained control over it as far as possible and at the same time preserved the memory of the defeat of the distant past. In other areas of Roman historical culture, for example in the exempla in preserved speeches or collections, a narrowing of the references to a few aspects can be discerned, among which references to the Capitol stand out, including its threat by the Gauls as well as the rescue by the geese and M. Manlius Capitolinus. The images that were thereby called up in the recipients can be interpreted, following Jörn Rüsen’s terminology, as “narrative abbreviations”, which could awaken quite different associations in the respective recipients, each of varying extent and depth of content.454 In any case, these passages show that the event was, at least in principle, familiar enough to be understood even with rather terse and minimally elaborated references and comparisons. Rome’s defeats in the Iberian Peninsula, as seen, fell well short in comparison in terms of prominence, which contrasts with the real-­ historical consequences that this chain of failures actually had for Rome. Some attention was drawn to the person of Viriathus, who is one of the relatively few enemy generals in Roman history who not only survived by name, but to whom at least Roman historians devoted descriptions of origin and character. These, in turn, were probably based less on actual information than on constructions built on cultural schemes and stereotypes that could be applied to the leader of the Lusitanians. Praising the character of the enemy also provided an opportunity to criticize one’s own commanders, whose military prowess as well as moral character were portrayed as unworthy of Rome. Ultimately, however, the campaigns of Viriathus were at no time a threat to Rome itself, but took place on the periphery of the Roman sphere of influence, which probably contributed to the fact that the individual battles in which Roman armies were defeated in this theatre of war were given less attention by later generations. The sacrifices made by the Roman armies of the time apparently seemed less memorable than those of the soldiers who had fallen at Lake Trasimene or at Cannae, and the generals who fell in these battles were not fit to be icons of Roman valor, as was the case with L. Aemilius Paullus and others.455 In the case of Mancinus, later observers were apparently most interested in the conditions under which he surrendered, and even more in what consequences this had for him, his legal status, and his reputation. It would seem that this case was discussed by Roman rhetors or jurists, among others, perhaps in their training, for Cicero or Quintilian can apparently presume it to be familiar to their recipients. The treatment of the defeat of Mancinus is remarkable in other respects. On the one hand, it represents one of the few cases in which an attempt was made to intentionally influence the memory of a defeat in the form of a monument, or more precisely  Rüsen 2008, 19 f. See Sect. 2.1 above.  On the representation and interpretation of the figure of L. Aemilius Paullus, who fell at Cannae, in Roman historical culture, see below Chap. 5. and others; Sects. 5.2.3.1 and 5.2.5.1. 454 455

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a statue of the general. The originator of this initiative is said to have been the defeated Mancinus himself, who in this way probably strove to direct the memory of his failure and its interpretation in a direction favorable to him by emphasizing the sacrifice he had made for the res publica. Secondly, it appears that in the context of the discussion of the consequences of Numantia, i.e. the form in which contemporaries of the event itself wanted to interpret it, arguments were made with the memory of another defeat of Rome: the battle of Caudium from the Samnite wars. Apparently, at least a similarity between the two events was constructed here, which should give reason to a closer examination of the representation of the Battle of Caudium and other defeats of the Samnite Wars in Roman historical culture in the following chapter.

4

Under the Yoke: The Samnite Wars

In comparison to Rome’s wars against the Celts and Carthaginians, the Roman wars against the Samnites have received and continue to receive relatively little attention, both from modern scholars and from a wider audience. Thus, in the introduction to his study on “Rome’s Samnite Wars”, published 2009, Lukas Grossmann was still able to state that since Salmon’s “standard work on the Samnites, which also deals in detail with the military conflicts with Rome” published in 1967, no more recent monographs on this topic have appeared.1 Little has changed in this respect in recent years.2 In more recent standard works on the early Roman Republic, for example by Tim Cornell and Gary Forsythe, the Samnite Wars are of course dealt with in detail, but in many overall representations of the Roman Republic they are treated much less extensively than the Roman–Carthaginian wars or the Roman campaigns against the Hellenistic empires of the eastern Mediterranean.3 In view of the sometimes enormous dimensions of Rome’s wars against Carthage, for example, and the often much more favourable source situation that can be stated with regard to these later conflicts, this situation is on the one hand easily understandable.4 On the other hand, the time of the Samnite Wars can and should also be considered an important epoch in Roman history. Especially given that in the last decades of the fourth century, “in which the largest part of the protracted conflicts between Romans and Samnites” took place, the “core for numerous important developments of the Roman

 Grossmann 2009, 1.  See Grossmann 2009, 1, but see the contributions in Jones (eds.) 2004. 3  More extensive studies are found in Salmon 1967, 187–292; Cornell 1995, 352–363; 2004; Forsythe 2005, 281–288, 292–311, and now Helm 2022, 282–309. see also the brief overview in Cornell 2017; descriptions of the Samnite Wars as part of the overall history of the Republic in Bleicken 2004, 32–34; Summer 2013, 124–132; Blösel 2015, 67, 71–74. 4  Relevant in this context are also ancient and modern historiographic narratives, which present the Punic Wars and even more so the Roman conquests in the East as a more or less immediate prelude for the last generations of the Republic. 1 2

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Lentzsch, Roma Victa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0_4

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Republic” can be located in different areas.5 Although there is no evidence that Romans or Samnites regarded the campaigns they waged against each other as a part of a struggle for hegemony over Italy, during these decades and as a result of those battles, the Roman sphere of influence on the Italian peninsula expanded considerably, which, like the innovations in the organization and fighting methods of the Roman army, created important conditions for Rome’s great expansionist ventures against Celts and Greeks in Italy, and against Carthaginians and Greeks in Spain, Africa and the Hellenistic world.6 For decades, the fight against the Samnites demanded considerable forces and resources on the Roman side. Therefore, the campaigns and battles of the Samnite Wars must have been formative events for two generations of Roman citizen soldiers, for both the simple legionnaires and for their commanders, in which on the one hand military merits could be acquired and rich booty made, and on the other hand thousands of Romans lost their lives. It can be assumed that the veterans of the campaigns passed on their experiences of these years in stories to the following generations. For the first Roman historian, Q. Fabius Pictor, this time may have been a “living past”, about which his grandparents might have told him.7 The long period over which the Samnite Wars extended already indicates that Rome’s armies did not triumph year after year in this conflict, and indeed it was during this period that they  Grossmann 2009, 1 (quotation). See ibid., also on the following.  Salmon 1967, 214 (“[...][I]t was the most decisive of all the wars in its ultimate results, since it paved the way for Roman supremacy in peninsular Italy”) See most recently Beard 2015, 159 (“Almost fifty years later, the decades of Samnite Wars ended, with more than half the peninsula under Rome’s thumb in various ways, from treaties of ‘friendship’ to direct control. Roman writers presented these wars as if they were a struggle between two states for Italian supremacy. They were certainly not that, but the scale of the conflict was something new and set the stage for the future.”) It is, however, not clear that the Romans actually wrestled with the Samnites for supremacy in Italy in this conflict (although Salmon 1967, 214 seems to hold this view). For as far as can be seen, the Samnites did not pursue a policy of expansion that went far beyond the horizon of Samnium and the neighboring regions. Cornell 2004, 123–129 can convincingly argue that very probably neither Romans nor Samnites regarded their conflict as a struggle for control over Italy. Given their organization, which included rather loose alliances, the Samnites were probably not in a position to undertake any more far-reaching, long-planned expansionary ventures. To what extent expansion plans that would have gone beyond individual campaign years already existed in Rome in the late fourth century remains uncertain. Perhaps such ideas were only developed in the course of the wars against the Samnites. Parallel to these developments outwardly and in many ways connected with them, these years also include important processes within Roman society. Thus, the (new) Roman nobility formed out of patricians and plebeians, from whom the politicians and commanders were recruited to a large extent, who led the republic to hegemony over the Mediterranean in the following generations. This was accompanied by numerous (further) developments and new cultural creations, for example in the field of Roman “Repräsentationskunst”, which were closely linked to foreign and domestic political history. On the formation of the nobility in the late fourth and early third century, see already Salmon 1967, 217 and fundamentally Hölkeskamp 1987/2011 (there now in the Addenda to the second edition with numerous references to more recent research). Tonio Hölscher has examined the beginnings of Roman “Repräsentationskunst”, which was stimulated to a large extent by the spoils of the Samnite Wars, in a series of contributions. See especially, Hölscher 1978; 1980. 7  See Cornell 1995, 356 (“living past”); 2004, 119; 2017, 472 f.; Forsythe 2005, 294f. 5 6

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suffered one of their most humiliating defeats at Caudium, which, however, only stands out among a series of other failures. Today’s conventional division into three Samnite wars, which took place at 343–341, 326–304 and 298–290, is a modern construction that is not found in the ancient sources.8 Moreover, the assignment of individual population groups and tribes to the Samnites is not uncontroversial in all cases.9 Even if some uncertainty is accepted, the ‘Samnite wars’ will be understood in the following sections as those conflicts and wars that the Romans fought with different Samnite groups in a period of a little more than one generation, namely from about 343–290.10 Reports from contemporaries of the Samnite wars have not survived. The oldest surviving coherent account of the wars is found in books eight to ten of Livy. His report, especially with regard to unusual events such as the Battle of Caudium, is obviously the product of an intensive revision, which probably went through several stages, which in turn can only be reconstructed with some degree of accuracy in relatively few cases.11 We do not know exactly when Fabius wrote his work. It is clear, however, that two or three generations had passed since the Battle of Sentinum, which brought the end of the Samnite Wars. Therefore, no Roman author whose work has been handed down to us even in fragments had experienced Rome’s wars against the Samnites.12 In this context, however it is worth consulting studies on the transmission of historical knowledge in cultures relying on oral tradition, especially the phenomenon of the so-called floating gap. It describes a noticeable break between accounts about more recent times, for which usually plenty of information is available, and those concerning a more distant period of the past, which is more obscure. Furthermore, knowledge of foundation myths or genealogies of distant ancestors are again widely known. The – often long – period between this very distant past with its imaginary myths and heroic tales and the most recent past is called the floating gap; floating because, by definition, this gap moves as time moves forward. According to Vansina, in cultures relying on oral tradition the gap can be situated about 80 years in the past.13 This would be roughly the time span between Pictor and the Samnite Wars. In their childhood and youth, Pictor and his contemporaries will thus probably have known veterans of the Samnite Wars, and perhaps some of the information they had about this period may indeed have come from such oral

 According to an assumption by Cornell, this classification may possibly go back to Niebuhr (Cornell 2004, 121–123). This is a striking difference to the Roman–Carthaginian wars, for example, which were already numbered in ancient sources. See also Cornell 2017, 469. 9  See Cornell 2004, 126f. 10  This is also the period Grossmann chose in his more recent work on “Rome’s Samnite Wars” (Grossmann 2009). 11  See in detail, among others, Nissen 1870; Oakley 1997, 13–20. 12  For notes on the dating of Fabius Pictors work see above Sect. 2.2. 13  See especially Vansina 1985, 23f. and see on this J. Assmann 62007, 48–50 and above Sect. 2.2. For the situation in Rome see for instance Ungern-Sternberg 1988; Timpe 1988; Walter 2004a, 42–83. 8

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tradition.14 It is also known, however, that events on the edge of the floating gap are probably already conveyed in a rather vague way.15 The presumed, often rather dry state of the tradition still shines through in the account of Livy, who offers a relatively monosyllabic account of many years of the Samnite Wars, which, without the insertion of obvious embellishments, would probably have contained in many cases little more than the names of the Roman magistrates – which Livy himself considers generally uncertain.16 The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Q.  Fabius Rullianus and P. Decius Mus were not only reminded of the battles of the Samnite Wars by the stories of older family members, but also by a number of other media of Roman historical culture, which are difficult for us to grasp today. Thus, research has repeatedly assumed that episodes that deal with individual events, such as the deeds of the two aforementioned protagonists, were first conveyed by family traditions that only secondarily found their way into historiographical tradition. It is also conceivable that the carmina convivalia mentioned by Cato the Elder contributed to the dissemination of knowledge about the Samnite Wars, which, as already explained, can no longer be determined.17 Thus, one will not get much beyond suppositions about the early depiction and interpretation of the defeats of the Romans against the Samnites. It can be assumed with some certainty that some form of tradition of the defeats discussed in the previous chapter already existed in early Roman historiography.18

 See Cornell 1995, 356 (“living past”); 2004, 119; Forsythe 2005, 294f.  See J. Assmann 62007, 50f. 16  See only Badian 1966, esp. 11; Timpe 1972; Beck 2007. 17  See Walter 2004b with further literature and see above Sect. 2.2. 18  For on the one hand, Livy reports on variations that he had had on individual events. On the other hand, the memories of the reactions to the defeat of Caudium in the discussion about how to deal with the defeated commander of Numantia in 137, C. Hostilius Mancinus, seem to have played a role in whether the alleged similarity of the two events played a role. If this was indeed the case, it would mean that at least the contemporaries of Mancinus were aware of a tradition of Caudium – whatever this tradition may have been in detail (see above, Sect. 3.2). This aspect will be returned to in the following in the context of the examination of the representation and interpretation of the defeats of the Samnite Wars by T. Livy (see below Sect. 4.3). 14 15

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4.1  Memory in Pictures: Numismatic Evidence for the Defeat of Caudium? A Roman denarius, apparently issued by a mint master named Ti. Veturius, was linked by some scholars, among others by Michael Crawford, to the Roman defeat of Caudium in 321 (Fig. 4.1).19 On the obverse is a bust of Mars looking to the right, wearing a helmet. To the left of the head of the god of war, we can read “TI VE”. On the reverse, there are two men facing each other. Both are armed, one of them is shown with a beard and naked upper part of his body, the other apparently wears armour but no beard. In their left hands they both hold a spear, in their right hand a sword with which they touch a pig holding a person kneeling on the ground between the two men. Above the men we read ROMA. The general interpretation, according to which the action depicted on the reverse is an oath scene, is certainly correct.20 Against this background, it was suspected quite early that this scene alludes to the oath that the consuls of Caudium are said to have made to the Samnites.21 If one accepts this interpretation, the question arises in

Fig. 4.1  Denarius of Ti. Veturius (137/136 BC?), RRC 234  RRC 234. See Crawford 1973, 4–6. The main source on Rome’s defeat at Caudium is Liv. 9,1,1–16,19. See also some fragments preserved from the work of Claudius Quadrigarius (FRH 14 F 18–21 = FRHist 24 F 13–16), and other reports and mentions by other authors: Cic. off. 3,109; Cato 41; inv. 91–92; Dion. Hal. 16,1,-2,4; Flor. epit. 1,11,9–12; App. Samn. 4,1–12; Cass. Dio frg. 36.8–22M; Zon. 7,26,10–16. On this see, among others, Brouhgton 1951, 150f.; Salmon 1967, 224–229; Cornell 1995, 353; 2004; 2017, 474f.; Forsythe 2005, 298–301; Oakley 2005, 25–38; Grossmann 2009. See also the sections in the overview of the history of the Roman Republic at Bleicken 2004, 33; Summer 2013, 127f.; Blösel 2015, 71f. 20  See RRC, 234 (commentary); Crawford 1973, 4–6; Oakley 2005, 650. 21  Mommsen 1860, 556; Badian 1968, 34f.; Crawford 1973, 5. Rawson 1991, 597, however, rejects this interpretation. This assumption is based primarily on the name of the mint master, in which one sees a descendant of one of the two consuls of Caudium. In addition, it was argued in this context that one of the two warriors on the revers was obviously supposed to represent a member of a barbarian people, under which the Samnites from the Roman point of view definitely fell (see especially Crawford 1973, 5). 19

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what context such an imprint could have been made. Crawford has assumed that the coin was minted in the context of the discussions surrounding the political debate concerning the fate of C. Hostilius Mancinus. According to this, the master of the mint, T.  Veturius, who is otherwise completely unknown, was a cousin of Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, who also had to fear extradition to the enemy because of his capitulation to Numantia. In order to support his relative, Veturius had wanted to use his coinage to promote compliance with the agreement in this situation by depicting a scene that stood for the concept of the fides Romana like no other.22 At the same time, Veturius wanted to recall his ancestor T. Veturius Calvinus, one of the consuls of 321 who was defeated at Caudium, whose oath was apparently to be understood here as an exemplary deed.23 According to this argumentation, the coin would thus be dated in the years 137 or 136.24 If Crawford’s interpretation is correct, one would probably have to assume that in the year 137 there already existed a version of the story of the defeat of Caudium in which the agreement with the Samnites had been kept at least for some years (until 315?). Otherwise, it would remain incomprehensible within the framework of the interpretation advocated by Crawford why Veturius should have referenced his ancestor’s deeds at Caudium in the form of an oath scene in which an agreement is apparently made.25 While Livy’s account is in many respects unbelievable, this had also presumably been the actual course of events of the years 321–315.26 Crawford also assumes that with this coin Veturius was the first to link the Numantia affair with the Caudium tradition. By referring to the observance of the old treaty in the Samnite Wars, Veturius had wanted to advocate also keeping the treaty with the Numantians – and therefore not hand over either Mancinus or Sempronius Gracchus to the enemies.27 Only then did their opponents in the senate begin to use the memory of the consequences of Caudium for their own purposes by spreading the version of the annulment of the treaty – successfully, as the tradition supported by Livy shows. According to this interpretation, the latter had only come into being in the course of the Mancinus Affair. However, Oakley rightly points out that a reverse order would be at least as conceivable. Thus, the opponents of the agreement with Numantia could have rejected it before with the remark that after Caudium the agreement had been rejected as well. Only as a reaction to this might Veturius have

 Crawford 1973, 5f.  Siehe Crawford 1973, 5 (“Some have objected that the foedus of the Caudine Forks would not be portrayed on a coin because of its disgraceful nature. But there is no a priori reason to suppose that a Veturius thought his ancestor’s action disgraceful; the story of the Caudine Forks was perhaps to him a story of an agreement honourably made and kept.”). 24  Crawford 1973, 4. Mattingly 2004, 216 uses plausible arguments to argue that the coin was minted in the year 136, but basically agrees with Crawford’s interpretation. See also Molinari 2016, 84f. 25  See Crawford 1973, 4–6. 26  See the notes on research in note 19. 27  Crawford 1973, 6. 22 23

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minted the coin, but his appeal was ultimately unsuccessful.28 All in all, this second variant is perhaps the more probable. After all, as Loreto and Oakley have already pointed out, it is difficult to imagine that Veturius would have referred to the defeat of his ancestor on his own initiative.29 If this coin was actually minted in the late second century, which is by no means certain, it provides an insight into how the ‘memory’ of Caudium could be used as an argument at this time and how (probably) the traditions of the two defeats at Caudium and Numantia were compared and probably also changed. Again, the sources discussed in the following sections allow further insights.

4.2  The Form of Defeat: Testimonies of the Late Republic The earliest surviving source which actually mentions the Roman defeats in the Samnite Wars can be found in the writings of Cicero and refers to the Battle of Caudium.30 There are three passages in which Cicero deals particularly with (international) legal aspects of the episode of the defeat.31 Even if they are only brief mentions, they can provide insights into the presentation of the depictions of the defeat as they were presented to Cicero.32 First, it seems quite clear that Cicero knew of a battle at Caudium, that is, he did not assume that the Romans had surrendered without a fight, since the tactical situation made every battle seem hopeless.33 Second, he apparently assumed that the Romans had concluded a foedus with

 Oakley 2005, 649f.  Oakley 2005, 650 (“No Roman noble would spontaneously wish to remind the public that his ancestor was responsible for one of the greatest Roman disasters.”) See already Loreto 1989/90, 658 f.; Rawson 1991, 597. But see also Crawford 1973, 5 for a different point of view. In addition, the literary sources of the first century allow the assumption that a version of the events of Caudium in which the Romans rejected the agreement already existed towards the middle of the second century (see below Sects. 4.2 and 4.3). 30  See Schütz 1913, 69; Oakley 2005, 10; Grossmann 2009, 65. 31  Cic. Cato 41 (haec cum C.  Pontio Samnite, patre eius a quo Caudino proelio Sp. Postumius T. Veturius consules superati sunt); off. 3,109 (At uero T. Veturius et Sp. Postumius cum iterum consules essent quia cum male pugnatum apud Caudium esset legionibus nostris sub iugum missis pacem cum Samnitibus fecerant dediti sunt iis iniussu enim populi senatusque fecerant. eodemque tempore Ti. Numicius Q. Maelius qui tum tribuni pl. erant quod eorum auctoritate pax erat facta dediti sunt ut pax Samnitium repudiaretur. atque huius deditionis ipse Postumius qui dedebatur suasor et auctor fuit.); inv. 2,91 (in eo foedere, quod factum est quondam cum Samnitibus, quidam adulescens nobilis porcum sustinuit iussu imperatoris. foedere autem ab senatu inprobato et imperatore Samnitibus dedito quidam in senatu eum quoque dicit, qui porcum tenuerit, dedi oportere.). See also a mention of C. Pontius, which is not directly connected with the events at Caudium – at least no such connection can be recognized – but shows that Cicero apparently had further information about the Samnite commander, Cic. off. 2,75. 32  See the brief analysis in Oakley 2005, 10f. 33  See especially Cic. Cato 41 (Caudino proelio); off. 3,109: (cum male pugnatum apud Caudium esset). See Liv. 9,2,9–3,4. 28 29

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the Samnites.34 Both aspects are fundamentally different from Livy’s account, as will be seen in the following.35 The reference to Caudium in De officiis suggests that Cicero remembered this event in connection with the defeat of C. Hostilius Mancinus at Numantia and its consequences and took the fundamentally similar situation as an opportunity to address these battles. Other cases that Cicero quotes here, apparently because he also sees a parallel in them to the case of the consuls of Caudium, are those of M. Atilius Regulus and Q. Pompeius, who some years earlier than Mancinus, also before Numantia, had negotiated with his enemies in a strategically unfavorable situation.36 Whether he had made this connection himself or already found it, is ultimately not clear, but perhaps both events were taught and discussed as historical exempla in connection with the legal complex in question in the legal ‘training’ and were therefore known to Cicero.37 Neither Caudium nor any of the other lost battles of the Samnite Wars appear in Cicero’s speeches. A brief mention handed down by Livy refers to the depiction of the Battle of Caudium in the work of Q. Claudius Quadrigarius.38 This shows not only that Quadrigarius had dealt with the event, but also that he apparently believed (as Cicero did) that the defeated Roman consuls on the spot had made a foedus to the Samnites. Here, Quadrigarius therefore took a different position than Livy.39 A. Gellius also preserved two other fragments, which probably also belong in the context of Caudium, one of which shows that Quadrigarius reported on the handing over of the Roman hostages to the Samnites and apparently also described scenes of emotional pain of the hostages’ relatives when they learned of this in Rome. Livy also reports reactions accompanied by strong emotions in the context of the return of the army to Rome, but he does not offer a specific description of the mourning of the hostages’ relatives, so that one can conclude that he reworked his models on this point or that he had another version in front of him than the one of Quadrigarius and

 Cic. off. 3,109.  Cic. inv. 2,91. See below Sect. 4.3. 36  Immediately he mentions the fate of Postumius after Caudium, Cicero refers to the example of Mancinus at Numantia (Cic. off. 3,109: atque huius deditionis ipse Postumius qui dedebatur suasor et auctor fuit. quod idem multis annis post C. Mancinus qui ut Numantinis quibus cum sine senatus auctoritate foedus fecerat dederetur rogationem suasit eam quam L. Furius Sex. Atilius ex senatus consulto ferebant qua accepta est hostibus deditus.). For M. Atilius Regulus see below Sect. 5.1.1. For Q. Pompeius see above Sect. 3.2. 37  Cicero wrote De officiis at a considerable speed (namely from October to December 44, see von Albrecht 1994, 427), which is why it is quite obvious that in many cases he himself probably did not conduct intensive historical research, but rather relied on information that he had either taken up in his rhetorical training or had found in other works during his research in exile or in forced retirement during Caesar’s dictatorship. The present passage gives the impression that various historical exempla, each of which illuminates different aspects of a similar subject, were already pre-formulated here, which is why Cicero manages without further contextualization of the examples. 38  FRH 14 F 18 = FRHist 24 F *13 (= Liv. 9,5,1–5). 39  See the commentary in FRHist III, 306f. (with further references). See also Crawford 1973, 3. 34 35

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that both variants differed from each other in this respect.40 Another fragment may belong to the context of the (fictitious) Roman victory at Luceria one year after Caudium, which Livy also reports, but this attribution must ultimately remain uncertain.41

4.3  Disgraceful Lessons: The Augustan period The description of the events of Caudium at the beginning of the ninth book of Ab urbe condita is by far the most comprehensive account of this event in the ancient tradition. Livy also mentions the operations of the years 315 (at Lautulae) and 311 (under the command of C. Iunius Bubulcus), in which the Romans were probably defeated.42 Finally the defeats of Camerinum and that of Q. Fabius Maximus Gurges (292) also appear in Livy’s account.43 First, however, it makes sense to examine Livy’s account and interpretation of the Battle of Caudium, since this battle occurs first chronologically and is treated by Livy in a much more comprehensive manner. The defeat at Caudium and its immediate consequences for Romans and Samnites is without doubt one of the most striking episodes in Livy’s account of the Second Samnite War. Livy already underlines the significance of the event by the compositional arrangement of the material.44 The depiction of the events surrounding the defeat of Caudium, from the introductory speech of the Samnite leader C. Pontius to the Roman victory at Luceria, in which Pontius is captured and the failure is rectified, covers about one-third of the ninth book and thus represents one of the most extensively described individual events in Livy’s account of the Samnite war, which

 FRH 14 F 19 = FRHist 24 F 14 (= Gell. 2,19,8: Item Quadrigarius in eodem libro in re tristi et inopinata verbo isto ita utitur: Id ubi rescierunt propinqui obsidum, quos Pontio traditos supra demonstravimus, eorum parentes cum propinquis capillo passo in viam provolarunt.). What is meant (eodem libro) is obviously the first book (see Gell. 2,19,7). See the remarks in FRHist III, 307, where the fragment is also placed in the context of the reactions of members of the 600 Roman hostages who had been handed over to the Samnites. (See. ibid.: “Claudius perhaps had a version in which the relatives of the hostages learned that rejection of the agreement was likely, and reacted as described in the fragment”). See also FRH 14 F 20 = FRHist 24 F 15 (= Gell. 17,2,21). 41  FRH 14 F 21 = FRHist 24 F 16 (= Gell. 1,25,6). The corresponding passage in Livy is Liv. 9,15,3. See for arguments for this attribution FRHist III, 308, where an attribution is also considered in the context of the negotiations of the Romans with the Tarentines, who wanted to act as mediators between Samnites and Romans (Liv. 9,14,6–7). Both contexts are conceivable, in both cases the Roman conquest of Lucerias would have been recorded by Q. Claudius Quadrigarius. 42  That the Romans lost both battles is clearly visible for the battle of Lautulae, for the battle of Bubulcus in 311 at least very likely, even if Livy reports something different in each case. For Lautulae see among others Diod. 19,72,3–9; Liv. 9,23,1–6. See (with further references) Grossmann 2009, 92–96. On the campaign of C.  Iunius Bubulcus Liv. 9,31,2–16; Zon. 8,1,1. See Salmon 1967, 244; Grossmann 2009, 105. See also Oakley 2005, 404. Cornell 1995, 354 states that we cannot decide whether a Roman defeat occurred. 43  Liv. 9,23,1–6; 9,31,2–16. 44  For further details see Bruckmann 1936, 3; Oakley 2005, 3–6, 11–13. 40

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is otherwise largely monosyllabic.45 This brief report may well be a reflection of the, presumably also brief, descriptions of these periods of Roman history by the first Roman historiographers.46 This can be taken as a further indication that the Caudium episode was the subject of a later narrative, which probably evolved in several steps and was also considerably further developed by Livy himself. 47 Concerning the structure of the episode, it can first of all be noted that Livy divided the description of the defeat at Caudium and the Roman revenge for this defeat into two parts of approximately equal size.48 The first begins with the speech of C. Pontius, who calls the Samnites to fight against Rome again, assures that the gods are now on the Samnite side and at the same time announces that they already have a strategy ready.49 This plan will apparently soon be implemented by the Samnites. The Romans then set off from Calatia in the direction of Luceria and on the way there they are ambushed at the Caudine passes, where their misfortune begins. The later speech of the consul Sp. Postumius Albinus in front of the Roman people, in which he calls upon the Romans not to surrender to the Samnites but instead to launch a direct retaliatory attack, forms the starting point for Rome’s subsequent triumphal march, thus initiating the turning point and thereby

 Liv. 9,1,2–15,8. See Oakley 2005, 3, 11–13.  In any case, the concise form of the representation fits in well with reconstructions which, based on remarks made by ancient sources, can be made with regard to the compositional arrangement of the work of Q. Fabius Pictor. The basic contribution to the reconstruction of the compositional arrangement of Pictor’s work is still Timpe 1972. See also the introductions in the more recent editions of the fragments (Beck/Walter 22005, 55–61; Bispham/Cornell 2013a) and see above the notes in 2.2. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Pictor’s work consisted of three major sections, namely first a detailed report on the founding phase of Rome, which presumably also included the first years of the Republic, a brief middle section from the middle of the fifth century until about the beginning of the First Punic War, and finally a more detailed description of contemporary history, which in Pictor’s case probably means the decades from about 260–210 (Dion. Hal. 1,6,2). As is well known, this corresponds quite exactly to those patterns that have proven to be typical for knowledge of the past in societies with oral traditions. We have already considered the possible oral tradition of the Samnite wars at the beginning of this chapter. For the situation in Rome, see for instance Ungern-Sternberg 1988; Timpe 1988; Cornell 2004, 115f.; Walter 2004a, 42–83 and the references above in Sect. 2.2. The Second Samnite War thus probably fell in that middle section and will therefore probably also have been presented quite succinctly by Pictor, which in a certain way still generations later seems to have been reflected in Livy’s report on that time. For even if in Ab Urbe Condita a whole series of events from the time of the Samnite Wars are described in a more extensive form, it can be stated that Livy’s account is very short for many years and therefore contains only relatively scant information. However, see also Cornell 2004, 116–118, who emphasizes that some of Livy’s sources may well have been more extensive than the fragments preserved in each case suggest. 47  This is already indicated by the differences between the versions of the event in Livy’s work and those of other authors, such as Cicero, Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, Zonaras and others, which were discussed in the previous chapter with regard to the question of the character of the encounter (fight or surrender without a fight) and the nature of the agreement with the Samnites (foedus or sponsio) (see above, Sect. 4.1). 48  Oakley 2005, 11. 49  Liv. 9,1,2–11. 45 46

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representing the compositional centre of the episode.50 In the second half of the story, the Romans succeed in a series of victories against the Samnites, which reaches its final climax in the subjugation of the Samnite army together with C. Pontius.51 In contrast to Livy’s account of the ‘Gallic catastrophe’, his description of Caudium does not give the impression that a series of individual episodes and narrative circles, which in all probability were not originally connected at all, have been put together here. The narrative progresses relatively quickly, with the individual scenes mostly tying in directly with one another, thus creating the image of a closed story that begins at Caudium and ends at Luceria.52 It is possible that this arrangement of the Caudium episode is not only intended to create a greater coherence in the plot, but also to promote a certain interpretation of the events, which suggests an explanation for the Roman defeat, a point to which we will return later. The most obvious explanation for the defeat of Caudium that Livy offers, however, is put into the mouth of Rome’s opponent, C. Pontius, who in his speech at the beginning of the ninth book explains to his Samnite audience why the gods would side with the Samnites this time, and why the new campaign would lead to a Roman defeat.53 Pontius refers back to the events that Livy had described at the end of book eight.54 The defeat reported there had been suffered by the Samnites because they had made themselves guilty in the eyes of the gods by breaching contract and starting the war. This guilt, however, had been compensated for by the failure in the meantime. But since the Romans had arrogantly rejected the Samnite envoys that had come to them after the Roman victory with an offer of peace and the will to hand over the guilty ones, the latter had now loaded guilt upon themselves in the eyes of the gods and men. A greater reparation was not possible. The Romans had also shown by their irreconcilable attitude that they had lost all sense of proportion, which is why the gods were now on the side of the Samnites. The war against Rome was now almost akin to self-defense against the bloodthirsty and predatory Romans.55 In order to confirm Pontius’ interpretation of the events, Livy apparently did not want to rely on his readers being able to infer his interpretation from the further account of the events at Caudium, but he added directly to the Samnite

 Liv. 9,2,1–10,2. See Oakley 2005, 11, who sees the consul elections for the year 320 as the compositional focus. See also Chaplin 2000, 33. 51  Liv. 9,10,3–16,10. See Chaplin 2000, 34. 52  See Oakley 2005, 11f. For Livy’s description of the ‘Gallic catastrophe’ see above Sect. 3.1.5 This impression is further supported by the fact that Livy hardly gives any information about the time that passed between the individual events. See for this hint already Oakley 2005, 12. Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 5. This is relatively unusual, if one takes as comparison for instance the descriptions of the capture of Rome by the Gauls or Hannibal’s campaign in Italy during the Second Punic War, where Livy repeatedly gives hints about the time intervals between the individual events. 53  Liv. 9,1,2–11. 54  Liv. 8,38,1–39,15. 55  Pontius expresses these thoughts especially in Liv. 9,1,9–11. 50

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speech an explicit confirmation in which he describes the prophecy of Pontius not only as encouraging but also as correct.56 In the end, the plan of Pontius succeeds and the Romans walk into the trap at Caudium.57 Livy’s account in the corresponding passage suggests that the Romans also get into this situation because they acted in a way that was completely atypical for Roman soldiers. This can be seen in the passage in which Livy describes the reactions of the Romans after they realized that they had fallen into an ambush from which there seems to be no escape. The Roman soldiers are initially dismayed and paralyzed with shock, as they have been attacked by “a strange kind of numbness” (torpor insolitus).58 Only when they see that the tents of the consuls are being erected do the soldiers move again and some of them also begin to set up camp, but these soldiers are ridiculed by others for this activity. The consuls themselves, Sp. Postumius Albinus and T. Veturius Calvinus, are so perplexed and dismayed that they do not convene a council of war, but rather sit idly in their tents. This situation, in turn, leads the Romans to fall into a confused disagreement as to how to proceed and to spend the whole night in fruitless discussions, thinking neither of food nor sleep.59 In the conversations between the Roman soldiers that night, which Livy summarizes in a pointed way, the hopelessness of the tactical situation is once again emphasized.60 Summarizing these observations, the defeat of Caudium in Livy is thus quite explicitly explained by the fact that the Romans had previously angered the gods by

 Liv. 9,2,1 (Haec non laeta magis quam vera vaticinatus exercitu educto circa Caudium castra quam potest occultissime locat [...]). See Bruckmann 1936, 5; Pausch 2011, 180 (“Dieser Interpretation der Geschehnisse und der damit einhergehenden Kritik an Roms Außenpolitik widerspricht der Erzählers [sic] nicht, sondern stimmt ihm bei der Schilderung der Reaktion des internen Publikums ausdrücklich zu, wenn er festhält, daß Pontius dies nicht nur zur Freude seiner Zuhörer, sondern auch in Übereinstimmung mit der Wahrheit vorausgesagt hat.”). 57  Liv. 9,2,4–5, but Livy omits the actual decision to take the path through the Caudine Passes. After the description of the two possible ways to Luceria, the action starts immediately at the point where the consuls lead the army into the valley at Caudium (Liv. 9,2,9). See Grossmann 2009, 63. 58  Liv. 9,2,10 (sistunt inde gradum sine ullius imperio, stuporque omnium animos ac velut torpor quidam insolitus membra tenet, [...]). See for this passage Oakley 2005, 62. 59  The renunciation of these physical needs can also be described by Livy and other authors as positive, since it is a sign of strength of character. See, for example, Livy’s characterization of Hannibal (Liv. 21,4,3–9) or those offered by Sallust to Iugurtha (Sall. Iug. 6,1). In these cases, however, it is always a matter of conscious renunciation and not – as in the case of the Romans at Caudium – the result of spiritual confusion. See for the two passages mentioned the considerations below in Sect. 5.2.5.1. 60  Liv. 9,3,1–4 In ancient tradition, night is often considered the appropriate time for making plans (see the examples in Oakley 2005, 64 (there: “traditionally the time for making plans”). The fact that the Romans do not succeed in this here, but spend the time more with moaning (querentes magis quam consultantes), seems to be a further indication of how much the unfamiliar situation as well as the peculiar surroundings in the valley contribute to the completely unfamiliar behaviour of the Romans (see already similarly Oakley 2005, 64). 56

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refusing the Samnite request for peace.61 It is important to note that the Romans had done this, at least in the opinion of Pontius, primarily by ignoring the norm-­ compliant actions of the Samnites, since they were striving for even more gain from their victory.62 The defeat at Caudium is the punishment for this offence. This interpretation is again confirmed later by the Roman consul Sp. Postumius Albinus, who in a speech he gives after the election of the new consuls in the context of the discussion about the resumption of the war, emphasizes that at Caudium “nothing” was done according to “man’s wisdom”, since the “immortal gods deprived of understanding both” the Roman commanders and the Samnites.63 For the Romans had advanced too carelessly, while the Samnites had not understood how to make adequate use of their victory.64 The fact that this is not a mere protective assertion of Postumius, but that it also meets with the approval of the narrator, becomes apparent on a closer analysis of the passage, beginning at the point where the Roman soldiers entered the valley at Caudium. There, as seen, the Romans are portrayed not only as surprised or startled, but also as partially paralyzed, which is especially true of the consuls.65 Even when they are again capable of action, or at least of consultation, this is not very helpful.66 On the other hand, the Samnites also show themselves to be helpless, which may seem particularly surprising at first, since their plan has worked and they have trapped the Romans in the valley as planned.67 Lipovsky therefore recognizes in the depiction of the Romans at Caudium a temporary loss of their actual character, which was caused by the – ultimately also temporary – loss of divine favor.68 This impression can indeed be gained, and it is further underlined by Livy’s remark that when the Romans left the valley, that is, after they had surrendered and left through the yoke, it seemed to the Romans as if “they had been dragged out from the underworld” and as if they were “seeing the light for the first time”.69 Dejected, the Romans now set off for Rome via Capua, offering a pitiful sight.70 They arrive in Rome at a late hour, go directly to their homes and avoid the public for the time being. Only with the election of the new

 See already Nissen 1870, 42f.; Bruckmann 1936, 4f.; Lipovsky 1984, 144; Levene 1993, 226f.; Forsythe 1999, 70; Chaplin 2000, 34f.; Oakley 2005, 13f. (u.a. 13 :“[...] his primary explanation for Rome’s troubles is that she has lost the favour of the gods”); Grossmann 2009, 63f. 62  So in Liv. 9,1,9. 63  Liv. 9,9,10 (nihil ad Caudium, patres conscripti, humanis consiliis gestum est: di inmortales et vestris et hostium imperatoribus mentem ademerunt.). See Bruckmann 1936, 25. 64  Liv. 9,9,11–13. 65  Liv. 9,2,11. See Oakley 2005, 16. 66  See already Bruckmann 1936, 7f. 67  Liv. 9,3,4. See Lipovsky 1984, 145. 68  Lipovsky 1984, 143–145; see approvingly Oakley 2005, 16 and see already Bruckmann 1936, 6–8. 69  Liv. 9,6,3 (ita traducti sub iugum et quod paene gravius erat, per hostium oculos, cum e saltu evasissent, etsi velut ab inferis extracti tum primum lucem aspicere visi sunt, tamen ipsa lux ita deforme intuentibus agmen omni morte tristior fuit.). See Morello 2003, 295. 70  Liv. 9,6,3–13. 61

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consuls and the speech of Postumius does the mood in Rome take a turn, which is the prerequisite for a successful retaliation against the Samnites.71 At Caudium, on the other hand, the Romans, as seen, are still not only in a state of the greatest despair and seemingly helpless, partially paralyzed, but when they leave the valley they feel as if they are leaving the underworld. In this context, the description of the topography of the valley by Livy is also of interest.72 Since we do not know whether Livy ever visited this area himself, it is not impossible that the often noted inaccuracies of the description are merely due to ignorance. For example, the western exit of the valley of Caudium, in which the Roman army was probably encircled, is not nearly as narrow as Livy describes.73 The description of the valley entrance by Livy as angustia, which obviously distorts the actual conditions, could stem not only from a lack of information but also from the intention to present every attack of the Romans on the Samnite positions as hopeless from the outset in order to prepare a justification for the soon to follow surrender.74 In general, one can certainly agree with Bruckmann’s observation that Livy wants already to evoke “the image of a landscape pressing on man” by the choice of adjectives with which he describes the valley.75 In another contribution, Morello has suggested another reading, according to which Livy’s description of the topography in Caudium shows the characteristics of a locus amoenus in which the Roman soldiers were a foreign body, which in turn helps to explain their peculiar inability to react adequately to the

 On the way there, however, the problem of the agreement still needs to be tackled, the interpretation of which will be examined more closely below in Livy. See below Sect. 4.3. 72  Despite decades of efforts, no place in the area around Caudium could be found that fully fits the description of the Augustan historiographer. On the question of the localization of the battle and the topography on site see Nissen 1870, 10–18; Salmon 1967, 225f.; Oakley 2005, 52–60; Grossmann 2009, 61–63; Cornell 2017, 475. 73  Liv. 9,2,8 Here, as already mentioned, it must have been hardly possible for the Samnites to erect a barricade, which the Romans regarded as insurmountable, since there would not have been time for such a construction. See Grossmann 2009, 61f. 74  See with a similar interpretation already Lipovsky 1984, 142; Oakley 2005, 16 (“L.’s description of the terrain of the Caudine Forks is imaginary [...]. However, he has exaggerated its difficulties in such a way as to help absolve the Romans from their defeat.”). Cf. also Grossmann 2009, 64. 75  Bruckmann 1936, 6, note 6 (“Die Adjektiva (alti, silvosi, angusti, perpetui) sind nicht geeignet, eine bestimmte Gegend zu umreißen, sondern reizen alle die Phantasie des Lesers an und geben das Bild einer auf den Menschen drückenden Landschaft.”). See Morello 2003, 291f. 71

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threatening situation.76 Whether it is indeed obvious to associate a threatening place, such as the valley at Caudium, with the characteristics of a locus amoenus, however, seems questionable.77 Although this does not yet completely exclude Morello’s interpretation, it does suggest that the Romans are not unwillingly exposed to the circumstances in which they are “separated from the real world”.78 The fact that the Romans are actually in a place that is fundamentally different from the world from which the Roman soldiers came is indicated by Livy’s phrase (cf. above) according

 Morello 2003, esp. 293f: “This mismatch between the soldiers and their environment functions on other levels too. A soldier is usually a destructive alien in the pastoral world of otium and peaceful husbandry and the soldiering profession banishes men [...] from the pastures. The locus amoenus is intrinsically hostile to the natural functioning of the Roman military unit.” On the characteristics of the locus amoenus in classical literature, see Haß 1998, esp. 98f.). In this context, the description of the basin itself deserves special attention, which according to Livy comprises a wide field “rich in grass and water”, through the middle of which a path leads. See Liv. 9,2,7 (iacet inter eos satis patens clausus in medio campus herbidus aquosusque, per quem medium iter est) and see Morello 2003, 292. Even the high mountains around the valley, painted in gloomy colours, do not stand in the way of this interpretation of the scene. Rather, the path through the gorge through which the Romans entered the valley – which, as already seen above, cannot be found in the real topography of Caudium – points to a “pastoral ambience” that can be very well added to the interpretation of the scene as a form of the classical locus amoenus (Liv. 9,2,9: cava rupem). See Morello 2003, 292; according to Morello, these observations could again be followed by several interpretations. On the one hand, in classical literature the locus amoenus is a frequently chosen setting for shepherd scenes. This corresponds, according to Morello, in a certain way to the cunning of the Samnites, who lured the Romans disguised as shepherds into the ambush in the valley. It could also be considered whether there is another allusion to the Samnites’ character as a less civilized mountain and pastoral people, which hardly corresponds to the historically authentic circumstances, but which the Romans sometimes liked to ascribe to them. See Morello 2003, 294, for example, in Liv. 9,14,3. In this vein, it should be noted that the image that Romans and Greeks had of the Samnites in antiquity is not only interpreted negatively, but, in the case of Livy and other authors, also contains positive elements, such as original bravery and personal courage. For other ancient (and modern) ideas about the Samnites see also, among others Oakley, 2005, 18; Grossmann 2009, 15–18; Bernard 2015, 45. On the other hand, according to Morello, a parallel to other works can be found here, in which the beauty of a place and the danger hidden there often form a contrast (Morello 2003, 293f.: “The challenge to the Romans is a struggle against the landscape itself, a terrain which by its nature prevents them from showing who they really are and what they can do”, 294). 77  In any case, at least some Romans, like the veteran legate and consul L. Lentulus (see below), succeed in showing determination and devotion to the res publica even in this environment. The speech of Lentulus at Liv. 9,4,7–16. Cf. Oakley 2005, 79f. 78  Morello 2003, 294 (“separated from the real world”). 76

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to which the Romans felt as if they had been wrenched from the “underworld” when they left the valley.79 Excessiveness and greed had prevented the Romans from recognizing the Samnite reparations that met all standards, which in turn had led to the gods withdrawing their favor from the Romans and punishing them for their crimes by defeating them at Caudium. Both the success of the cunning of the Samnites and the events of the ambush itself can therefore be regarded as a consequence of the morally reprehensible actions of the Romans, which had triggered the punishment of the gods.80 In the end, this probably also applies to further explanations for the defeat that can be seen in the text.81 Thus the two consuls, who remarkably are not mentioned by name once after the departure of the army until the return to Rome, appear to be extremely weak in leadership.82 This, in turn, does not pass without consequences for the simple soldiers who look to the tent of the commanders and obviously expect a signal from them, but are disappointed in this expectation.83 Subsequently, disagreement among the soldiers about the further course of action becomes apparent, which in turn must be seen as a consequence of the lack of clear guidance by the consuls. Significantly, the decisive contribution leading to the acceptance of the Samnite’s conditions is not made by one of the two consuls but by the veteran L. Lentulus.84 As is in the case of the ‘Gallic catastrophe,’ it is thus possible to work out a hierarchy of explanations for the defeat in Livy’s text. The fundamental cause of the failure is in both cases a moral one, because the Romans attract the resentment of the gods by their greed. The defeat against the Samnites at Caudium had been initiated by the Romans themselves through their disregard for the offer of their enemies, which is described at the end of the eighth book and through which they had drawn the resentment of the gods upon themselves. The other explanations of the defeat, such as the terrain at Caudium, the incompetence of the commanders, the dissension of the Roman  There is no doubt that the stylised literary treatment of the description of the topography of the Caudine passes is one of the reasons why the numerous explorers of modern times have been unsuccessful, who, with Livy’s text in their hands, set out to find a valley that corresponds exactly to the descriptions given there. See Oakley 2005, 52 (“The precise site of the Caudine Forks must have been well known in antiquity, but has been much debated by modern scholars. The main reason for this is that L.’s narrative, which provides our only description of the area, satisfies deeply as literature but hardly at all as a piece of topographical description; modern researchers have been quite wrong to use it as though it were a tourist-guide bought from nearby Benevento.”). See in general also Östenberg 2018, 243 on the schematic character of battlefield descriptions in Roman tradition. 80  Cf. already Chaplin 2000, 35 (“But the episode’s moralistic colour is not limited to the god’s involvement. Livy’s human agents also invite a consideration of the moral issues to be found in history.”); Oakley 2005, 14 (“The gods may be the prime movers in the downfall of the Romans, but the action still has to be worked out on the human level.”). 81  See already Oakley 2005, 14–16. 82  See Oakley 2005, 20. 83  Liv. 9,2,15. 84  Immediately after Lentulus’ speech Livy reports that the two consuls had gone to Pontius. For Lentulus see below. 79

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soldiers, who also show a temporary loss of character traits that are considered typically Roman, such as courage and determination, all ultimately go back to the actual cause – the annoyance of the gods and their subsequent punishment. Against this background, the turning point in the plot can only occur when the Romans have received their punishment through defeat, which is why only the speech of Postumius, who points the way to a just retaliation against the Samnites, can mark this turning point in the text. However, there are indications that the Romans were not completely blinded at an earlier time. While they may have rejected the offer of the Samnites out of an attitude of immoderation, the impetus for the march through the Caudine Passes originated in response to a cry for help of the allies in Luceria.85 Although this is faked by the Samnites (and most likely does not fit the historical circumstances), it is a very just cause for the war from the Roman point of view within the narrative of the text.86 The justification that the Romans go to war in support of their allies and in response to their cry for help is widespread in Roman tradition, so it is likely to have been an acceptable reason for war to the readers of Livy, and it also explains to a certain extent the haste with which the Romans in Livy’s text set off in the direction of Luceria and in doing so accept the crossing of the impassable and unknown terrain at Caudium.87 Also, the speech of the legate L. Lentulus, who convinced the other Roman soldiers to respond to the demands of the Samnites and to surrender, has to be considered in connection with the Roman management of the defeat.88 Lentulus rises to speak because the majority of the other Romans in the valley are against the acceptance of the shameful conditions of Pontius. The soldiers feel these even worse than death. Lentulus can therefore not safely count on having a majority for his proposal behind him.89 To convince the other Romans, Lentulus first points to a comparable situation in the Roman past in order to gain weight for his own position by resorting to the historical example. This is the siege of the Capitol by the Gauls after their victory at the Allia. As is well known, the Romans had, after a long siege, finally entered into negotiations with their enemies and bought their way out with gold, before – at least in Livy’s version – Camillus appeared to stop the handing over of the gold and drive the Gauls out.90 Lentulus now claims that his father was the only Roman among the defenders of the Capitol who advised the senate not to pay the

 Liv. 9,1,5.  See Chaplin 2000, 35; Grossmann 2009, 60 (“Livius ist aber bemüht, das folgende Geschehen zu erklären und die römischen Feldherren zumindest teilweise von ihrer Schuld zu entlasten, indem er sie aus moralischer Verpflichtung heraus die Fehler begehen lässt, die zum folgenden Desaster führen werden.”). 87  This is not explicitly said, but it can be assumed, since it is mentioned that the way the Romans finally chose was the shorter one (Liv. 9,2,6). 88  Liv. 9,4,7–16. See Oakley 2005, 77–85. 89  Liv. 9,4,6. See Bruckmann 1936, 12. 90  Liv. 5,49,1–7 See in detail above Sect. 3.1.5. 85 86

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gold to the enemies.91 Lentulus’ father had been able to advise against this because the conditions for their enemy’s failure had actually been quite favourable. After all, the careless Gauls had not even surrounded the Capitol with a wall. In their own situation at Caudium such an undertaking was doomed to failure from the outset due to the terrain conditions. Now it was certainly an honourable death for the fatherland – and without doubt he, Lentulus, was ready to do so – but this fatherland was doomed to perish if now all the soldiers of Rome were destroyed and the city itself stood defenceless.92 Under the circumstances, therefore, it was not only justifiable but even the duty of the trapped Romans to take upon themselves the personal dishonour of surrender in order to be able to serve the fatherland at another occasion.93 The position that Lentulus can finally enforce is apparently highly controversial. Morello even sees the speech of the legate as a further indication that the true Roman characteristics had been temporarily lost due to the strange environment of the valley.94 But this is probably not the case here, for Livy, in his description of the speech and the situation in which Lentulus delivers it, gives indications that he considers the view of the legate to be the correct one, so that the Roman surrender in this case is justified.95 For when Lentulus rises to speak, Livy gives him a special authority by pointing out that because of his previous achievements and offices he was the princeps legatorum.96

 This reference is remarkable in that Livy does not mention the father of Lentulus at all in the account in Book 5. It is possible that he appeared in other versions of the story, which have been lost today, but to which Livy could still refer, even though he had not included them himself in his account. However, it is also quite conceivable that Livy simply invented the father of Lentulus. See in this sense already Luce 1993, 87, note 44, who also refers to the very long time interval between the two events, which makes it seem implausible that the father in the course of the siege of the Capitol and the son at Caudium are supposed to have played a leading role (“Note the seventy year gap.” In the context of Lentulus’ speech, however, it seems more relevant that the legate (and through him Livy) can explain why a surrender at Caudium is justifiable by referring to the defenders of the Capitol, whose courage and willingness to sacrifice is never questioned. See in this sense also Chaplin 2000, 40 (“Livy’s aim here, however, is not to reproduce his own narrative, but to explain why the Romans decided to accede to the Samnite demands.”) 92  Liv. 9,4,9–14. 93  Liv. 9,4,15–16. 94  Morello 2003, 294. 95  See in this sense already Chaplin 2000, 36; Oakley 2005, 16, note 4, and see Grossmann 2009, 69, who also interprets the passage to the effect that Livy was striving to dispel any doubts about the character of Lentulus and thus also about his argumentation. 96  Liv. 9,4,7 (tum L. Lentulus, qui princeps legatorum virtute atque honoribus erat). Apparently Lentulus was consul in 327 and fought in Campania against the Samnites (see Broughton 1951, 145 with the sources). An advanced age and political as well as military experience in other passages in the Livian text generally indicate that the arguments of the respective speaker have high weight. See on the appreciation of age in Roman society in general Walter 2004a, 14f. In the context of the Caudium episode this applies in particular, since here several experienced speakers appear at once, whom nobody believes at first, but whose predictions are fulfilled. This will be discussed further below (see the following remarks on the “warning figures” of Herennius Pontius and A. Calavius). 91

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The words of Lentulus are also given special weight by the fact that, contrary to the example once set by his father, he is committed to the acceptance of Samnite conditions. From a Roman nobilis one should naturally rather expect an imitation of his father’s deeds.97 However, Livy hardly wants that to be understood as an indication of the legate’s lack of moral character, but on the contrary probably as an indication of Lentulus’ honourable disposition, as one who puts the greater good of the Roman people above his personal honour and in this way offers an example worthy of imitation.98 The advice of Lentulus is especially confirmed in retrospect by the further course of the war, after the election of the new consuls, when the Romans succeed in quickly achieving great success.99 Despite the temporary loss of their ancestral virtues and the resulting desperation and helplessness, at least a Roman subordinate, if not the consuls, succeeded in combining moral integrity with selfless sacrifice for the fatherland. Not just the speech of Lentulus points to a turn in favour of the Romans. Even more explicit is the speech of two figures who are not on the Roman side: the old Samnite Herennius Pontius and the Capuan A. Calavius. Both have in common that they predict to their respective compatriots that the Romans may appear defeated, but that they would not accept it at all according to their nature. Soon the Romans would undoubtedly regain their strength and then defeat the Samnites.100 Such “warning-figures” generally appear often in the ancient tradition.101 In the description of crises in Rome caused by military defeats, Livy is not alone in using this motif elsewhere.102 The fact that it is especially current or former enemies of Rome who are convinced that the Romans, despite a momentary defeat, would regain their old strength and turn the war in their favour must make their view even more

 See Walter 2004b with a number of examples.  See Bruckmann 1936, 13 (“Die Rede des Lentulus erzwingt in besonderem Maße die Billigung des römischen Verhaltens durch den Leser, da es auf diesen nicht ohne Eindruck bleiben kann, daß gerade Lentulus sich für die Annahme des Vertrages einsetzt, obwohl er von seinem Vater her gewissermaßen für Widerstand prädestiniert ist.”). 99  See Oakley 2005, 16, note 4. 100  See generally Lipovsky 1984, 145f.; Chaplin 2000, 37–39; Oakley 2005, 19f. 101  Lipovsky 1984, 145; Oakley 2005, 19 (“ [...] L. presents us with two foreign warning-figures, who take a longer-term view of the Roman character and see the true consequences of the Caudine Forks for the Samnites.”). 102  For example, in Liv. 22,37,3 (Hieron II of Syracuse, a former enemy of Rome, underlines their special ability to emerge strengthened from defeats); 23,12,8–13,5 (the Carthaginian Hanno warns in the Carthaginian ‘Senate’ against the resurgence of the Romans). For the use of such “warners” in ancient, especially Greek, literature see Lipovsky 1984, 119, note 1; Oakley 2005, 68–70 (with numerous examples and further references). See also Caldwell 2018, 341f. on warnings to the Sassanids after the capture of Valerian in the Battle of Edessa (260 AD). 97 98

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relevant.103 The further course of the plot also proves Herennius Pontius and Calavius right, because in fact the Romans do indeed rise up in this case as well and defeat their opponents after their own previous crushing defeat.104 An important position in overcoming the defeat and its consequences is held by the question of the legality of the Roman resumption of fighting after the return of the army to Rome. In this respect, Livy positions himself with great clarity by rejecting corresponding interpretations by predecessors according to which the Romans had concluded a foedus at Caudium, which would have bound the Republic as a whole under international law.105 The resolute interpretation of the agreement as sponsio, which would have bound only the guarantors, is necessary for Livy because it prepares the actual turning point shortly afterwards. Had it not been a sponsio, the recommendation of Sp. Postumius, which he presents a few chapters later, would not have been an expression of heroic self-sacrifice, but a call for the blatant breaking of an oath and of the rules of international law. Livy’s idiosyncratic interpretation, with which he, according to his own statement, probably opposes the majority of the rest of the tradition and which is probably hardly tenable historically, thus takes on an important function in the context of the Caudium episode and already points to the following turn in Rome’s favour.106 This is then finally initiated with the election of the new consuls, Q. Publilius Philo and L. Papirius Cursor, about whom Livy can report that the entire citizenry was united behind them, since “at that time there were no more famous military leaders”.107 Again, this account is probably only losely connected with the historical situation. Rather, it aims to signal to the reader that the following Roman offensive was supported by the entire people, thus fulfilling the important ideal of the

 After all, they themselves have already experienced Roman power and the potential to overcome setbacks and see this as a typical characteristic of the Romans. The advanced age and the experience of the speakers are also suitable to give their words a great weight. The combination of old age with physical and mental vitality is particularly evident in Liv. 9,3,5 (in corpore tamen adfecto vigebat vis animi consiliique). See Oakley 2005, 70 (“a commonplace of classical literature”). See in this sense already Bruckmann 1936, 9, 19f. Chaplin 2000, 34 also points out, with regard to the supposedly contradictory instructions of Herennius Pontius, that Livy notes that these appeared to the Samnites as if they came from an “ambiguous oracle” (Liv. 9,3,8: velut ex ancipiti oraculo). The only Samnite who can adequately assess the situation is thus “associated with divine knowledge that is incomprehensible to other mortals”. 104  See Oakley 2005, 20 (“As one suspects when they speak, Herennius and Calavius are proved to be right and the Romans do indeed show their true character in the second half of the story.”) Bruckmann 1936, 10 considers as a further motive of the narrator for the installation of such “warning-figures” on the side of the enemy, that with their use the “ganze historische Situation […] für die Römer erträglich gemacht”. It is a “Lichtblick, der in das Dunkel der römischen Stimmung fällt”. 105  See Bruckmann 1936, 13–16; Levene 1993, 227 f.; Forsythe 1999, 70 f. 106  See Oakley 2005, 17f. On the historical reconstruction of the Caudium agreement, see Salmon 226–233; Cornell 1995, 353; Oakley 2005, 31–38; Grossmann 2009, 72–81. 107  Liv. 9,7,15 (Is consules creavit Q. Publilium Philonem et L. Papirium Cursorem iterum haud dubio consensu civitatis, quod nulli ea tempestate duces clariores essent.) 103

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concordia omnium ordinum in many passages of Livy’s work, as well as giving him the best available commanders, whom the entire citizenry had demanded.108 Following the note on the election, Livy goes directly to the speech of Postumius, who is called upon by his successor Publilius to give an account of the pax Caudina.109 The speech of the former consul introduces, as mentioned, the turn in favour of the Romans in the war against the Samnites and is therefore reproduced by Livy in a long direct speech as a central element of the account of the defeat of Caudium and its consequences. Postumius is even allowed to speak a second time to put two unruly tribunes of the people in their place.110 First of all, he explains that he did not respond to the demands of the Samnites at all in order to protect himself, but to preserve the lives of the soldiers. Therefore, he had only made a sponsio, which only bound the other tribunes and himself. One should therefore hand over them, so that the Romans would be able to start again a “just and pious war” (iustum piumque bellum) against the Samnites.111 The consuls should therefore immediately begin to raise and arm a new army.112 The consul then reacts with a direct reply, which forms his second speech, to the objection of the tribunes of the people, who question Postumius’ argumentation regarding the sponsio, since, according to Livy, they wanted to prevent their own extradition – as they were obviously involved in Caudium as sponsores.113 According to Postumius, the People’s Tribunes should be spared for the rest of their term of office and then extradited – if he had his way, after a public flogging at the Forum. The justified objection concerning the character of the agreement as a sponsio, which the tribunes had doubted, is rejected by Postumius.114 In this context, he then defends himself against the accusations of failure, emphasizing that at Caudium nothing had happened “according to human plans”, but that the gods themselves had influenced both the Romans and the  See bereits Oakley 2005, 114 (“although this statement may be true, it is quite as likely to be an annalistic or Livian invention; for L. had a romantic view of his warrior-heroes and liked to believe that their appointment was uncontroversial”). For Livy’s appreciation of the concordia and its importance for his historiographical presentation and conception see Mineo 2015 and below Sect. 5.2.5.1. 109  Liv. 9,8,1 See Bruckmann 1936, 22. 110  Liv. 9,8,3–10 (first speech); 9,9,1–19 (second speech). Postumius states that he does not want to defend himself, but he would like to present his view of what happened. 111  Liv. 9,8,4–6 (ego tamen, quando neque de noxa nostra neque de poena rettulistis, omissa defensione, quae non difficillima esset apud haud ignaros fortunarum humanarum necessitatiumque, sententiam de eo, de quo rettulistis, paucis peragam; quae sententia testis erit, mihine an legionibus vestris pepercerim, cum me seu turpi seu necessaria sponsione obstrinxi, qua tamen, quando iniussu populi facta est, non tenetur populus Romanus, nec quicquam ex ea praeterquam corpora nostra debentur Samnitibus. dedamur per fetiales nudi vinctique; exsolvamus religione populum, si qua obligavimus, ne quid divini humanive obstet, quo minus iustum piumque de integro ineatur bellum.). 112  Postumius closes his first speech with a plea to the gods to be satisfied with the punishment already inflicted on himself, his colleague and his soldiers, and to grant the new consuls and their army a successful campaign against the Samnites. Liv. 9,8,7–10. 113  Liv. 9,9,1–19. 114  Liv. 9,9,3–8; 9,9,14–18. See Oakley 2005, 18. 108

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Samnites in their actions. A lasting Samnite victory, it can be concluded, was not at all the intention of the gods, because otherwise the Samnites would have acted more cleverly in many respects. Therefore, the objection of the tribunes ought to be rejected and the war against the Samnites was to be resumed immediately.115 But he himself, Postumius, and the other guarantors, should now be handed over, for by his death he would free the “Roman weapons” (Romana arma).116 In Rome, this speech is the decisive factor for the extradition of Veturius and Postumius and the other guarantors, while Q.  Publilius Philo and L.  Papirius Cursor are to raise a new army.117 Meanwhile, the Roman citizens celebrate Postumius for his sacrifice and even equate him with P.  Decius Mus, a paradigm of self-sacrifice for the res publica.118 The arguments Postumius puts forward fit in well with how the reasons for the defeat, as well as the prospect of the Romans overcoming it, had previously been interpreted either through speeches of individual characters or through the voice of the Livian narrator himself.119 Postumius’ speech thus not only points the way to Rome’s future, which will now again hold victories and triumphs over the Samnites and other enemies, but recapitulates once more what has happened, thereby bundling together the explanations for the defeat and stating the conditions for the coming success. In the following chapters, Postumius is not just vindicated by the triumph of the new consuls, which culminates in the Roman victory at Luceria and the subjugation of Pontius and his army, and thus, in a sense, a mirror image of the Roman defeat at Caudium.120 For henceforth, as we shall now see, in Livy’s text both the Roman generals and the common soldiers show that they have learned the right lessons from the defeat.

 Liv. 9,9,11–12; see Bruckmann 1936, 25; Lipovsky 1984, 148.  Liv. 9,9,19. 117  See Bruckmann 1936, 25f.; Lipovsky 1984, 148f. 118  Equation of Postumius with P. Decius Mus: Liv. 9,10,3–4 (3 : Postumius in ore erat, eum laudibus ad caelum ferebant, devotioni P.  Deci consulis, aliis claris facinoribus aequabant...). See Oakley 2005, 131 (“Postumius was compared to Decius because his action could be viewed as a substitutionary sacrifice on behalf of the state”), who also points out that this recognition had already been indicated in the speech of Lentulus (namely in Liv. 9,4,10: equidem mortem pro patria praeclaram esse fateor et me vel devovere pro populo Romano legionibusque vel in medios [me] inmittere hostes paratus sum...). 119  With the necessity of sparing the soldiers Lentulus had already argued for the acceptance of the Samnite offer (Liv. 9,4,14: hic omnes spes opesque sunt, quas servando patriam servamus, dedendo ad necem patriam deserimus ac prodimus.). The character of the agreement as sponsio had again been underlined by Livy himself in a brief commentary, thus confirming Postumius’ line of thought in advance. An interpretation of the events as a consequence of an intervention of the gods at Caudium, by which neither Romans nor Samnites were masters of their actions but acted as if in a space outside the real world, had already been supplied on the one hand by the Samnite Pontius, on the other hand suggested by the description of the valley at Caudium and the Roman behavior there. 120  Liv. 9,15, 6–8. Cf. Lipovsky 1984, 150 f.; Levene 1993, 228–230; Chaplin 2000, 34 (“complete reversal of fortune”). 115 116

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Already a few years after the events of Caudium, in 311, the consul Iunius Bubulcus moves with his troops to Samnium, where the Romans are ambushed on all sides by the Samnites in a wooded mountain valley.121 For a short time, the Romans are thrown into disorder, but their military discipline quickly closes their ranks. Iunius fights among the other combatants and boosts the morale of his soldiers, pointing out in particular that no terrain is impregnable for the virtus Romana.122 Encouraged by this advice, the legionaries then advance against the enemy themselves and achieve a resounding Roman victory.123 Again, a year after the campaign of Bubulcus, a Roman army under the command of the consul Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus, in the course of operations in Etruria, comes to the edge of the Ciminian Forest, notorious for its impassability.124 Although its crossing would bring great strategic advantages, the soldiers hesitated because the memory of the defeat at Caudium was still too present. After all, it had been shown there how dangerous rough and unknown terrain was for the Romans. The Silva Ciminia is appropriately portrayed as an eerie wood, a wilderness that no man had entered before and was even more frightening than the forests of Germania.125 This is already likely to evoke further ominous memories of defeat at the beginning of the book not only in the soldiers in the text but also in the readers. Livy emphasizes this aspect even more explicitly by adding that the memory of the defeat of Caudium had not yet faded.126 Now, however, it becomes apparent that after Caudium the Romans had not only punished the Samnites but had also learned from this failure. The consul’s brother offers to explore the forest alone. The army is not put in danger in this way, for only when the scout has successfully crossed the forest and gained allies on the other side does the consul send the troops after him, and only then follows himself with the cavalry after he has secured the army’s move.127 Although the soldiers of his army are highly unsettled by the memory of the old defeat, which is evoked especially by the supposedly similar topography, Rullianus thus maintains his composure and in this way also maintains control of the events.  Liv. 931,7–16. Already in Liv. 9,27,1 the armies of Romans and Samnites return to the vicinity of the Caudine passes. However, Livy does not yet use this opportunity to demonstrate the new insight and superiority of the Romans. Cf. however Oakley 2005, 22. 122  Liv. 9,31,13. 123  Liv. 9,31,14–16. Cf. Kraus 1998, 268. 124  Liv. 9,35,7–36,14. 125  Liv. 9,36,1 (Silva erat Ciminia magis tum invia atque horrenda, quam nuper fuere Germanici saltus, nulli, ad eam diem ne mercatorum quidem adita.). Cf. on the stylistic design and the use of language in this passage Lipovsky 1984, 154, note 2; Nenninger 2001, 33. Both the untouched wilderness of the Ciminian forest and its extent are certainly portrayed by Livy here in an exaggerated manner, even if it can be assumed that the forest was at the end of the fourth century larger than in Livy’s time, as he himself indicates (tum). See on this and on further references to this area Oakley 2005, 467 f. 126  Liv. 9,36,1 (eam intrare haud fere quisquam praeter ducem ipsum audebat; aliis omnibus cladis Caudinae nondum memoria aboleverat.). 127  Liv. 9,36,9–11. 121

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The story surrounding the exploration of the Ciminian Forest, which gives the impression that it had already existed as an independent narrative before its integration into the historiographical account and interpretation of the Second Samnite War, thus serves in Livy primarily to demonstrate that the Romans had learned the appropriate lessons from the heavy defeat at the beginning of the war. The success they now enjoy is therefore justified.128 The Samnites, on the other hand, do not (yet) recognize the change and the newfound abilities of the Romans, for when they hear that Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus has left with his troops for the Ciminian Forest, they assume that the Romans are cut off from supplies and surrounded. They themselves, remembering the victory of Caudium, assume a new glorious triumph.129 The message of this passage is that the Samnites not only misjudge the situation but, unlike the Romans, who have learned the appropriate lessons for themselves, show themselves to be incapable of learning if they continue to feed on the memory of a victory that in the medium term – in Livy’s account – not only did not bring them any advantages but also set the stage for the subsequent Roman campaign of revenge across Samnium. Thus, even in the intellectual confrontation with Caudium and its consequences, the Romans ultimately triumph over the Samnites.130 As Christina Kraus has correctly observed, the above passages reveal an ambivalent relationship of the Romans in Livy’s text to their own great defeat at Caudium. On the one hand, they strive to put this failure behind them. The memory of defeat should no longer paralyze the Roman soldiers. On the other hand, it is precisely the memory that helps them find the way to cope with new potentially dangerous situations by adapting their strategies and tactics accordingly.131 However, it is not only the Romans in Livy’s narrative who can and should learn from Rome’s defeats, but of course also his readers, to whom he had already addressed himself in this sense in the praefatio of the work.132 In the context of Caudium, in addition to the aspects  Cf. Kraus 1998, 268; Chaplin 2000, 41 f.  Liv. 9,38,4–5. cf. Chaplin 2000, 42; Oakley 2005, 22. 130  Chaplin 2000, 42 (“So here, equipped with the same experience, the Romans modify their behaviour while the Samnites assume the Romans will repeat the mistake. They have not taken into account the Roman ability to interpret the lessons of history.”). The Samnites had already shown themselves to be intransigent towards the advice of the wise Herennius, at first they had not even understood it (Liv. 9,3,4–13. Cf. Chaplin 2000, 38). As late as 193, the memory of Caudium is said to have frightened the soldiers of Q. Minucius Thermus when he undertook a campaign into the territory of the Ligurians, passing through a narrow pass (Liv. 35,11,1–3). Here, too, however, the commander preserves prudence and sends Numidian auxiliaries to set fire to Ligurian villages in the vicinity, whereupon the Ligurians retreat from the pass, bringing victory to the Romans (Liv. 35,11,4–13. Cf. Chaplin 2000, 46 f.). 131  Kraus 1998, 268 (“These passages underscore a recurring tension between memory and forgetting: to move ahead the Romans have to forget, to delete their memory; but only preserving the knowledge of what happened before allows them to change.”). Cf. approvingly Oakley 2005, 22 f. The memory of defeats by the Romans is also emphasized by Livy elsewhere as an important part of coping with the consequences of military failures. Cf. below Sect. 5.2.5.1. 132  See esp. Liv. praef. 10. (hoc illud est praecipue in cognitione rerum salubre ac frugiferum, omnis te exempli documenta in inlustri posita monumento intueri: inde tibi tuaeque rei publicae quod imitere capias, inde foedum inceptu, foedum exitu, quod vites.). 128 129

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already mentioned, another dimension of this learning from history should be considered here, which Livy introduced in the context of the so-called digression on Alexander in the ninth book. Following an eulogy on the Roman commander L. Papirius Cursor, which Livy has inserted after the description of the Roman victory over the Samnites at Luceria, he ventures a comparison between Cursor and Alexander the Great.133 From there, Livy opens the digression by exploring the question of what course Roman history would have taken if Alexander had been able to carry out his alleged plans for the conquest of the western Mediterranean.134 The digression that follows spans a total of three chapters, in which Livy takes up various aspects of this fictional clash and weighs the strengths of both sides against each other.135 The defeats of Rome’s history also have their place in this digression – and are interpreted to the advantage of the Roman side. Had Alexander, according to Livy, suffered only one defeat, the whole war would also have been lost for him. What battle, on the other hand, should have broken the Romans, who had not been broken even by Caudium and Cannae?136 The idea that Livy takes up here will already have been well known to many of his readers: The idea that Rome could be defeated in battles but never in war is already found in second-century sources, especially Lucilius, who, as seen in the previous chapter, had formulated it in relation to Rome’s battles against the forces of Hannibal and Viriathus.137 There is something to be said for the fact that the experiences of the wars against Pyrrhus and the Carthaginians had contributed to the development of this idea in Roman (historical) culture.138 As will be shown, it was no coincidence that it formed a baseline in the historical memory of Rome’s defeats in the wars against Carthage, so that Livy also at this point in the digression on Alexander does not accidentally link Caudium directly to Cannae.139 After a reference to the First Punic War, which Alexander would never have endured in his relatively short life due to the sheer duration of the conflict, Livy turns back to Caudium at the end of the digression.140 Although this name is not explicitly mentioned, the reference becomes clear when Livy emphasizes that Roman armies (except in the bella civilia!) “never have been beaten […] on favourable ground [...]”. Only by ambushes, namely in “impassable defiles”, did the Roman soldier have to fear his  Liv. 9,16,19.  Liv. 9,17,1–2. 135  Liv. 9,17,3–19,17. cf. Oakley 2005, 184–261. 136  Liv. 9,19,9 (Uno proelio victus Alexander bello victu esset; Romanum, quem Caudium quem Cannae nonfregerunt, quae fregisset acies?). 137  Lucil. 613–614 M. = 683–684 K. = 591–592 C./G. and 615–616 M. = 685–686 K. = 593–594 C./G. (“ut Romanus populus victus vi et superatus proeliis/saepe est multis, bello vero numquam, in quo sunt omnia”, and, “contra flagitium nescire, bello vinci barbaro/Viriato, Annibale”). 138  Thus most recently, among others, Oakley 2005, 254 (“This way of viewing the Roman character was formed perhaps in the third century, under the influence of Roman successes in the Pyrrhic and Hannibalic Wars.”), and Clark 2014b, 50–93. 139  The sequence “quem Caudium, quem Cannae” could merely reflect the chronological order. However, it is also possible to read it as an intensification. 140  Liv. 9,19,12–17. 133 134

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enemies.141 Finally, Livy considers the inner, moral attitude of the Romans to be even more important than their pure military abilities. Here, too, special attention is given to concordia, which, as we have already seen, plays a role in Rome’s well-­ being that can hardly be overestimated for the historian of the Augustan period.142 With this remark, Livy indirectly refers the attentive reader to the description and interpretation of the defeat against the Gauls in the fifth book, to which further references can be found in the description of the events at Caudium. For the defeat at Caudium represents a special form of military failure in that here – at least in Livy’s account  – there is no open battle.143 But in the case of the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’, although the Romans lose in the Battle at the Allia, later tradition was far more interested in the siege of the Capitol. The siege of the Capitol in connection with the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’ is first referred to by the legate L. Lentulus in his speech at Caudium, with which he can convince his comrades to accept the offer of the Samnites.144 Only later do the senators notice that before the two defeats at the Allia and at Caudium, the curia Faucia had been the first to vote. In view of the relevant experience, this is now regarded as an unlucky sign, and the vote is repeated.145 Lentulus recalls the example of the earlier defeat in order to legitimize his proposals for further action by referring to those Romans whose defense of the centre of the city Livy himself had presented in Book 5 as a prerequisite for the symbolically charged second founding of the city. The senators’ subsequent discovery that before the defeats at the Allia and at Caudium the same curia had lined up for the vote first in each case can be compared in terms of its meaning with the parallelization of the dates of the battles at the Allia and at the Cremera, for which apparently two different days had been handed down at first before these were synchronized, so that this date was then subsequently

 Liv. 9,19,15–16 (absit invidia verbo et civilia bella sileant: [numquam ab equite hoste] numquam a pedite, numquam aperta acie, numquam aequis, utique numquam nostris locis laboravimus; equitem sagittas, saltus inpeditos avia commeatibus loca gravis armis miles timere potest.). 142  Liv. 9,19,17 (mille acies graviores quam Macedonum atque Alexandri avertit avertetque, modo sit perpetuus huius, qua vivimus, pacis amor et civilis cura concordiae.). Cf. on this the further remarks in Oakley 2005, 261. 143  Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 3. 144  In order to underline the hopelessness of his own situation, he refers to an oral tradition that he claims to have received from his father and that has already been mentioned above. According to this, the father of Lentulus was the only one who pleaded against a ransom of those who were enclosed by the Gauls. See Liv. 9,4,8. Cf. on this Oakley 2005, 80. 145  Liv. 9,38,15. on this see Rosenstein 1990a, 70 f.; Levene 1993, 232; Chaplin 2000, 42 f.; Oakley 2005, 14, note 1. 141

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regarded as the unlucky day.146 Apart from a preference in parts of the ancient tradition for chronological synchronisms in general, it certainly also played a role here, as seen above. In this way, both catastrophes explained themselves mutually and in such a way that, on the one hand, did not shift the occurrence of the defeats into the realm of a potentially always disturbing contingency and, on the other hand, also largely faded out human guilt – after all, the disastrous character of 18 July had only revealed itself in retrospect. The explanation of the defeats of Caudium and Allia can probably be interpreted in a similar way, as starting from the voting order of the curiae.147 That both the Dies atri and the reference to the Curia Faucia are not integrated into the more comprehensive narrative of the defeat itself, but are only reported afterwards, can hardly be surprising. The explanation and interpretation of the defeats Livy has laid out there work, as seen, in a different way, by presenting moral-legal misconduct of the Romans as the actual cause of the defeats. These mistakes have then in each case quite different consequences – just as the way out of the crisis is in detail different – but what they have in common is that the failures are the result of human misconduct, which in principle was already recognizable as such beforehand. This did not apply to the unlucky character of some days or elections – this could only be recognized in retrospect, which indirectly could also exonerate the respective protagonists who had previously led Rome into defeat. Without contradiction, such an explanatory approach cannot be well combined with a historiographical narrative, such as that in Livy’s books 5 and 9, where it is precisely his aim to provide a didactically valuable interpretation of historical events through positive and negative examples of human action. A second defeat with which Caudium was already compared in antiquity is the defeat of C. Hostilius Mancinus at Numantia on the Iberian Peninsula.148 Already in antiquity, some observers drew a parallel between both cases or individual aspects of the respective tradition in view of the surrender of an encircled commander together with his army, the ignominious withdrawal as well as the handing over of the Roman commander to the enemies.149 On closer examination, moreover, a

 In fact, Livy points out that Licinius reported to Macer that the curia Faucia had voted first even before the defeat at the Cremera. See Liv. 9,38,16 (Macer Licinius tertia etiam clade, quae ad Cremeram accepta est, abominandam eam curiam facit.) = FRH 17 F 18 = FRHist 27 F 23. Since Livy explicitly mentions Macer’s version at this point, one can probably assume that the connection to the Cremera actually only appeared in Macer, i.e. that he had this variant exclusively. Cf. similarly already the comment in FRHist III, 444 f. On the day synchronism of the dates of the battles at the Cremera and at the Allia see above 3.1.1. 147  Cf. Rosenstein 1990a, 70 f.; Stewart 1998, 43–46. 148  See Sect. 3.2 above. 149  See, for instance, Cic. off. 3,109; Vell. 2,1,5; Plut. Tib. gracchus 7,2; Flor. epit. 1,34,7; Tac. ann. 15,13,2; App. Ib. 83.360. Cf. Oakley 2005, 27. 146

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number of similarities can also be observed with regard to some details.150 These similarities of representation can now be interpreted in different ways, as Oakley has already carefully discussed and analyzed.151 Thus, it is at least theoretically possible that the events surrounding the defeat of Caudium and the abrogation of the treaty had in fact occurred more or less in the way they are recorded in Livy or had been similarly recorded before. In this case the senators of the year 136, who strove to annul the treaty with the Numantines and to hand over Mancinus, could actually have referred to the old case of Caudium, which would then also have been reflected in the partial tradition that still exists (Plutarch, Appian).152 Against this interpretation, however, stands the fact that the report of Livy, as already seen above, is extremely implausible in several respects, which is especially  Already recognized by Nissen 1870, 50–65; Crawford 1973, 2; Oakley 2005, 27–31. Since book 55 of Livy has been lost, it is unfortunately no longer possible to trace whether and, if so, how a possible relationship between the two defeats had been drawn in his work (cf. Sect. 3.2 above). In his extensive commentary on Book 9, however, Oakley has collected a number of passages in other works that point to the existence of parallels in presentation and interpretation or even substantiate them. Oakley 2005, 27–29. Thus, both Mancinus and Postumius complain to the Senate that defeat was inevitable because of the misconduct of predecessors (in the case of Mancinus, Q. Pompeius, who had negotiated an agreement with the enemies in 139 but later rejected it) had placed them in an extremely bad tactical situation (App. Ib. 83,360). In the case of Caudium, the Romans’ lapse had only brought the intervention of the gods on the scene, while some authors report that Mancinus’ departure for Spain had been accompanied by bad omens, which, incidentally, Dionysius of Halicarnassus also reports for the year 321 in the run-up to the defeat of Caudium. See Liv. per. 55; Val. Max. 1,6,7; Oros. 5,4,19–20. Bad omens (lightning strike) before Caudium: Dion. Hal. 16,1,1–3. Livy might have known this tradition as well, but it probably did not fit sufficiently into the conception of his account, in which he wants to emphasize precisely the human error of the Romans in rejecting the Samnites’ offer out of lack of moderation. Similarly, Engels 2007, 393, note 119. Levene 1993, 227 considers as a possibility that Livy did not want to emphasize the Roman impietas too much before the battle, which is why he then deleted this foreshadowing report from his account. According to the respective accounts, both commanders had been lured into the trap by deliberately planted false rumors. See Liv. 9,2,1–5 (Caudium) and App. Ib. 80,346 (Numantia). In both cases this had the effect of trapping the Romans in a situation from which they could have extricated themselves by an agreement alone (Liv. 9,2,9–3,4 (Caudium); Plut. Tib. 5,2; App. Ib. 80,346–347 (Numantia)). The senate and people of Rome would have rejected the conditions which had been accepted by the generals, and those responsible, here Postumius, there Mancinus, would thereupon have offered themselves to be delivered up to the enemies. See on this Liv. 9,8,1–10,1 (Caudium); Plut. Tib. 7,1–4; App. Ib. 83,358–360; Cass. Dio frg. 79 as well as Liv. per. 56; Cic. rep. 3,28; off. 3,109 (Numantia). The variant that Mancinus would have offered his extradition himself is found mainly in Cicero. See in detail (with references and literature) above Sect. 3.2. Both commanders were later given recognition because they had sacrificed themselves for their fatherland. In addition, as mentioned above, the senators, who in 136 pressed for a revocation of the treaty and an extradition of Mancinus, are said to have explicitly referred to the example of Caudium and thereby referred to the fate of Postumius. 151  Oakley 2005, 29–31. 152  In this case there would be two situations that would have resembled each other very much, which would have been noticed by the contemporaries of Mancinus, who probably must have considered themselves as part of a peculiar “re-enactment” performance. Oakley 2005, 29 (“If one believes either that the story of the repudiation of an agreement with the Samnites is true or that it was invented before 137 [...], one may argue that it influenced both events at Numantia (which may have seemed like a curious re-enactment of a familiar story).”). 150

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true for the tradition of the revocation of the agreement and the following Roman victories. In this context, some scholars have raised the question of why a version of events as disadvantageous to Rome as the repudiation of an already concluded treaty should have been invented to begin with in the Roman tradition.153 In this context, Oakley points to a quite conceivable motive for the invention of a subsequent rejection of the agreement. According to this, the invention of Roman victories directly after Caudium, which had to be morally questionable if the treaty had not been revoked, was responsible for this.154 To which period these constructions are to be dated first is completely unclear.155 Since the details of the Livian account, first, as already mentioned, can hardly claim credibility for themselves, and, second, show such a large number of similarities in comparison with the tradition of the Mancinus affair, it probably indeed represents, as Oakley and others think, the most probable explanation that a version of the rejection of the treaty with the Samnites and the following Roman successes already existed before the defeat at Numantia, which then, inspired by the more recent event, was clearly embellished and told more broadly.156 Thus, with all due caution, it can be argued that the report of Caudium, which can be found in Livy, owed its elaboration to the Numantia affair, especially with regard to a whole series of details. As could be shown in the previous chapter on the basis of the testimonies in Cicero, Mancinus was granted a certain posthumous fame, at least among some Romans, if he was seen there as an example of loyal performance of duty towards the fatherland, for which he did not even shrink from personal disgrace. In addition to details concerning the fleshing out of his portrayal, Livy may  Cornell 1989, 370 f.; Loreto 1989/90, 654.  Oakley 2005, 30. 155  Should, however, the account of the events of Caudium by Q.  Claudius Quadrigarius, from which admittedly only meagre fragments with little meaningful content are available, actually builds, as Forsythe assumes, on an earlier account by C. Acilius, this could well mean that the rejection of the peace was already reported by him, i.e. presumably before 137/6. On this, see Forsythe 1999, 71, who, however, considers that neither Quadrigarius nor Acilius reported a rejection of the foedus. Admittedly, this must remain unclear. Cf. Oakley 2005, 30, note 1. 156  Oakley 2005, 28 f. Moreover, the extradition of a Roman commander to enemies in order to be able to repudiate an agreement and then continue the campaign was not without precedent in Roman history, as the case of M. Claudius Clineas shows, who was extradited to the inhabitants of Corsica in 236. Val. Max. 6,3,3a.; Cass. Dio. frg. 45; Zon. 8,18,7–8. The Corsicans, like the Numantines a hundred years later, seem not to have accepted the extradition of the Roman legate, which is why Clineas had to go into exile. On this, see Kuhnert 2013, 113 f. Perhaps this presumably historically authentic case formed an early template for the elaboration of the abrogation of the Caudium treaty.The existence of an earlier variant of the story is perhaps also supported by the fact that the tradition surrounding the figure of Herennius Pontius apparently dates back well before the late second century. On this, see in detail Oakley 2005, 40 f. Apart from his role in the events surrounding Caudium, Herennius Pontius is only explicitly mentioned in one other context. According to Cic. Cat. 41, Herennius is said to have once met with Plato at Taranto and had a philosophical conversation. This indeed sounds like an apocryphal legend, which in turn suggests that this was not the only story of this kind circulating about Herennius Pontius in southern Italy. See in this sense already Oakley 2005, 41 (“Herennius must have been a legendary figure in southern Italy”). 153 154

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also have been inspired here with regard to his composition of the figure of Postumius. In order to make his actions appear even clearer and more upright from a moral point of view, Livy then possibly also fell for the idea that the agreement was precisely not a foedus, as it could be read in Claudius Quadrigarius or Cicero, but a sponsio. The other defeats of the Romans in the years after Caudium, i.e. the battle of Lautulae and the battle fought under the command of C. Iunius Bubulcus, which was most likely also lost, were not recorded as defeats by Livy in his report on these campaigns. However, he obviously knew some corresponding variants of tradition from which it was clear that the Roman armies had lost these battles.157 Since Livy, as we have already seen, did not shy away from mentioning Roman defeats in his work and sometimes even described them in great detail, his decision in these cases probably has a different background than the simple striving to make Roman arms appear glorious and invincible. This motive is to be sought in the broader narrative of Livy’s account. In the context of his account and interpretation of the war against the Samnites, the defeat of Caudium, together with its consequences, represents, according to Livy, a turning point in the war. For the Romans are now so successful in all their fury that they overrun Samnium and win a great victory at Luceria, which, according to Livy, foreshadows the Roman victory in the whole war. If, however, the turning point had already been heralded with the victory at Luceria, the defeats of the following years no longer fit the picture, which could be one reason why Livy chose to interpret the outcome of these battles as Roman victories.158 Only the defeat of Camerinum is again clearly and unambiguously described by Livy as a failure of Rome. This posed no difficulty for him, since the battle of Sentinum followed shortly thereafter, which was described and remembered, not only by Livy, as a triumphant Roman success. As already observed several times, a compensatory victory that followed as soon as possible represented a strategy often

 See in detail Liv. 9,23,1–6 (battle of Lautulae; Livy knows tradition of a defeat, but does not adopt it, see Liv. 9,23,5: invenio apud quosdam adversam eam pugnam Romanis fuisse atque in ea cecidisse Q. Aulium magistrum equitum. Cf. Lipovsky 1984, 152); 9,31,6–16 (battle of C. Iunius Bubulcus; tradition of a defeat at Zonaras not mentioned by Livy: Zon. 8,1,1); 9,38,7–8 (battle under command of C. Marcius Rutilus, which probably ended in defeat, Livy assuming a drawn outcome, which only the fama and the wounding of the consul made it a defeat in the perception of the Romans (Liv. 9,38,8)). Perhaps the very successful further career of C. Marcius Rutilus, who is said to have been pontifex and augur at the same time and, moreover, censor in the years 294 and even 265, contributed to the fact that possible earlier defeats of a rather smaller scale largely disappeared from the tradition. On the career data of Marcius see only C. Müller, DNP 7 (1999), 862, s. v. Marcius [I 26] Rutilius Censorinus, C.). 158  Cf. on this already Lipovsky 1984, 149 (“When once the Romans have regained their traditional character and the gods’ favor, Caudium – the result exclusively of special favors – can have no lingering effects upon the war. The battle emerges from Livy’s narrative not so much as a Samnite victory as a prolegomenon to massive Samnite defeats [...].”). See also Levene 1993, 230. 157

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used in Roman historiography to compensate for a previous defeat, which is thus also found here.159 In addition to Livy’ extensive account, references to Rome’s defeats in the Samnite wars can be found in the Fasti Capitolini, whose redaction fell into the Augustan period, for the year 332, when Sp. Postumius Albinus was censor: ... Albinus] qui postea [C]audinus appell(atus) [est.160

The corresponding entries for the consulate years of Postumius, 334 and 321, are no longer preserved, but one can assume that the epithet Caudinus was also to be read there.161 It is no longer possible to determine when this originated, since the inscription offers the only evidence for the designation. An entry in the Fasti probably indicates that Caudinus was understood as a praising epithet in this context. The idea that descendants of Postumius strove in this way to direct the memory of their ancestor in a positive direction may be obvious, but this line of thought cannot be pursued further.162

 See only Liv. 5,49,1–7; 39,30–31. On this narrative scheme see also in detail Forsythe 2005, 298 f.; Clark 2014b, 94–133. Concerning the lost battle at Camerinum Livy apparently had several variants of tradition at hand, of which he chose one in which the defeat was not blamed on the consul Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus but on L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, to whom Fabius is said to have transferred the command, since he himself had been summoned to Rome on unspecified official business. It is quite conceivable that the later celebrated victor of Sentinum should have been absolved in this way from a direct participation in the preceding failure (see in detail above Sect. 3.2). With all caution that should be exercised, if only because the corresponding passage from the eleventh book of Ab Urbe Condita has not been preserved due to the loss of the second decade, something similar can also be said for Livy’s account of the defeat of Q. Fabius Gurges in the year 292. So Grossmann 2009, 156–161. Probably the consul was accompanied by his father Q.  Fabius Maximus Rullianus, the victor of Sentinum, as legate at first on the campaign (Zon. 8,1,10–11). In the Periochae as well as in the report of Orosius, which could go back to Livy’s account, Rullianus, however, only appears after the defeat of his son. He now promises to be at his son’s side as a companion and advisor, with which he could have averted negative consequences of the defeat for his son, whom the senate wanted to recall from the army (Liv. per. 11; Oros. 3,22,6–7). As in the case of the battle of Camerinum, Rullianus seems to have been absolved of direct involvement in the defeat in the course of the development of a historiographical tradition in which he was increasingly stylized as one of the towering heroes of the Samnite wars. Since his son was consul, the latter was also clearly the one formally responsible for the defeat. The participation of Rullianus in the defeat as legate seems to have been considered inappropriate by some authors. Cf. Grossmann 2009, 160 f. 160  Degrassi FCap. 44–45. 161  Cf. Oakley 2005, 11. 162  InscrIt. 13,1,107 (“scilicet posteriores Postumii cladem a gentili suo acceptam decori uertere studuerunt.”). Moreover, it would be quite conceivable that the entry was only a consequence of the portrayal of Postumius in later sources, for instance in Livy, where – as seen – he ultimately appears in a favourable light. Cf. already Oakley 2005, 11, note 1 (“However, the heroic role of Postumius in the Caudine story could have been invented by others apart from later Postumii.”). 159

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4.4  Forgotten Battles? The Early and Middle Imperial Period As we will see, some of the defeats of the Roman Republic still appear quite frequently in sources of the imperial period. The Samnite wars, which were so important for the Romans of the fourth and early third centuries, do not seem to have played a major role in the historical culture of the imperial period. Thus Valerius Maximus mentions the defeat of Caudium in only two passages.163 In the first, he describes the help that the defeated Romans received from the inhabitants of Capua after their withdrawal from Caudium, and concludes by referring to Capua’s defection to Hannibal about a century later, which in turn ended in the destruction of the city.164 In the second passage, Valerius tells of the wise advice given by Herennius Pontius to the Samnites. However, the recklessness of the Samnites, who were initially victorious, had led them to pay no attention to Herennius’ words. When they sent the Romans under the yoke shortly thereafter, the Samnites hastened their own demise.165 While the defeat of Caudium in the first passage serves merely as a starting point for the real core of the example, it is in the second case that Valerius picks out one of the key scenes of the account as offered in Livy.166 The explanation for defeats by reference to the temeritas of individuals or groups is quite popular in Roman tradition – here we find an instance where it is imputed to Rome’s opponents.167 Lucan mentions the defeat at Caudium only in one passage, in the context of a retrospective view on the epoch of C.  Marius and L.  Cornelius Sulla in the second book, where, with regard to the battle of the Colline Gate (in 82), it is asserted that almost on that day the caput mundi had been moved to another place and that the Samnites had hoped to beat the Romans even more severely than once at Caudium.168 For Lucan’s educated readership, the allusion to the defeat of the Samnite wars should have been easy to understand. This passage is also interesting because one can well imagine that in the context of the battles Sulla was waging against the Samnites in the late eighties of the first century, references to the Samnite wars of the fourth and early third centuries were indeed made or propagated from various quarters.169 Tacitus certainly knew the ancient lore of the Samnite wars at least in broad outline, but made significantly fewer references to this period than to  Val. Max. 5,1,ext. 5; 7,2,ext. 17. An indirect allusion to the defeat of Caudium is also found in Val. Max. 6,1,9, which concentrates on the fate of T. Veturius, the son of the consul of Caudium with the same name, who had apparently fallen into great financial distress (cf. on this Nissen 1870, 63). Valerius also refers to events from the Samnite wars in the following passages, without mentioning the Roman defeats: Val. Max. 2,7,8; 3,2,9; 4,3,5a. 164  Val. Max. 5,1,ext. 5. 165  Val. Max. 7,2,ext. 17. 166  See Liv. 9,3,4–13. 167  As seen above, the Romans, at least according to Livy, were at this point already back on the path of moral purification. Cf. above Sect. 4.3. 168  Lucan. 2,134–138 (iam quot apud Sacri cecidere cadavera Portum/aut Collina tulit stratas quot porta catervas,/tum cum paene caput mundi rerumque potestas/mutavit translata locum, Romanaque Samnis/ultra Caudinas speravit vulnera Furcas!). Cf. Nissen 1870, 58. 169  The present passage in Lucan, however, offers no direct evidence for this. 163

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other periods of the Republic’s history, which is also evident in terms of his references to defeats – the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’, for example, occurs significantly more frequently than Caudium. This may be due to the fact that the Roman armies, whose operations Tacitus granted considerable space in his account, continued to have opponents in the form of Germanic tribes and Celts in northern and central Europe who superficially resembled the Celtic enemies of the early Roman period. More crucially, however, the conquest of Rome by the Gauls, especially the siege of the Capitol, occupied a prominent position in Roman historical culture, as discussed above, and this memory continued to be transformed in the imperial period.170 As far as can be discerned, this was apparently not the case with regard to the defeats of the Samnite war. Probably the one at Caudium remained the best known, so Tacitus does make occasional reference to it. Thus, members of the Roman army of L. Iunius Caesennius Paetus on his campaign against the Parthians are said to have got into a situation in which they were surrounded by their enemies, whereupon they are said to have referred to the decision of their predecessors at Caudium (and Numantia) in order to justify their own surrender. After all, even the excellent men of the glorious old days would have made a peace in a hopeless situation to ensure the survival of the army.171 That this was a reproduction of the arguments actually expressed in the historical situation may justly be doubted, though final certainty on this question cannot be gained. It seems more likely, however, that Tacitus himself recognized the fundamental similarity of the two constellations and then underscored it by the comparison he put into the mouths of the soldiers involved.172

4.5  Outlook: Rome‘s Samnite Wars in Late Antiquity As far as the surviving sources reveal, the Samnite Wars were never completely forgotten until the end of the Western Roman Empire and were still well known to an educated public. Essentially, however, this knowledge probably referred to the defeat of Caudium.173 Thus, in the passage already discussed above, in the chapter on the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’ in Roman historical culture, Rutilius Namatianus evidently refers to Caudium as one of the many crises survived by Rome.174 Caudium, moreover, is one of those events that were apparently considered worthy of commemoration in epitomes and encyclopaedias, such as the works of Eutropius or  See Sects 3.1.6 and 3.1.7 above.  Tac. ann. 15,13,1–3. 172  That Tacitus obviously considered a surrender in a tactically hopeless situation to be in need of explanation can probably also be seen in his description of the, ultimately futile, defense of Vetera, when the defenders finally surrender after a long and extremely exhausting battle instead of letting themselves be starved further, and Tacitus shows himself disappointed about this decision. Tac. hist. 4,60. 173  This can be well explained by the fact that this failure was already clearly in the foreground in the (late) republican sources discussed above. See above Sects. 4.2 and 4.3. 174  Ruth. Nam. 1,126:: Samnis servitio foedera saeva luit. This can only refer to Caudium. Cf. also the commentary by Doblhofer 1977, 76. 170 171

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L. Ampelius.175 On the whole, however, these are rather isolated testimonies, so that it seems that the period of the Samnite wars rather receded in favor of other periods of the history of the Republic in the perception of the authors of Late Antiquity.

4.6 Summary Among the defeats suffered by Roman armies in the Samnite Wars, that of Caudium clearly stands out in terms of the importance assigned to it in Roman historical culture. In Livy’s account, this event forms the first climax of the war, the account of which he inserted into a broader narrative that he himself may have constructed in this form. According to this narrative, this failure was the result of Roman misconduct beforehand, when the Romans had rejected an offer by the Samnites to make amends for wrongs committed, apparently motivated largely by intemperance and greed. By this act, the Romans had, in the eyes of the gods, violated sacred norms, which is why they were defeated at Caudium. Sufficiently punished, as it were, by this failure, it is afterwards possible for them to regroup and to defeat the Samnites in a series of victories. Livy leaves no doubt that by overcoming the consequences of the defeat at Caudium, the Romans had achieved the essential turning point in this conflict. Against this background, the further defeats against the Samnites could not take the same rank, even though the battle of Lautulae perhaps entailed even more serious consequences in historical terms than the surrender of a Roman army at Caudium.176 The Roman failures in these battles, therefore, Livy either marginalized or immediately concealed completely. Only the defeats that occurred after the peace supposedly concluded in the meantime, in 304, at the end of the long struggle with the Samnites, especially the battle of Camerinum, were described more clearly by Livy. However, this account is shortly followed by the triumphant success at Sentinum, which puts the defeat shortly before into perspective. Especially in the chapters and books that follow the account of the defeat at Caudium, Livy shows that the Romans in his text have learned from past events. Henceforth, they can no longer be conquered through unfavorable terrain alone, as they proceed in a more coordinated manner, and even the eerie Ciminian Forest, which is apt to evoke bad memories of Caudium, can now be safely traversed by the Romans under the prudent guidance of their leaders. Caudium, moreover, functions, not just in Livy, as a paradigm for a tactical situation in which Roman soldiers are trapped and there is hardly any prospect of making a successful sally, so that the choice between a fight to the death or negotiations with the enemy must be made from a clear position of weakness. Different cases are compared in different authors, and in addition to Caudium, particular mention is  Eutr. 2,9. taken up again in 10,17. L. Ampelius lists Sp. Postumius – along with Horatius Cocles, M. Atilius Regulus, and others – as examples of men of the past qui pro salute se optulerunt. See Ampelius 20,10 (Spurius Postumius qui a Pontio Telesino Samnitum duce sub iugum missus cum exercitu auctor fuit rumpendi foederis seque hostibus censuit esse dedendum.). 176  Cf. on the consequences of the Battle of Lautulae already Salmon 1967, 235. 175

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made of the Romans besieged on the Capitol after the defeat at the Allia, and of the consul C.  Hostilius Mancinus, who had to enter into negotiations with the Numantines. What differs in each of these cases is the specific interest that the transmitting authors have. For Livy and others, the focus is particularly on the moral dimension of the decision, by addressing what behavior can be understood as corresponding to Roman pietas and virtus. Cicero, in turn, is even more interested than Livy in the legal aspects of the case. In other sources, too, Caudium clearly dominates among all the defeats the Romans suffered against the Samnites in the course of more than three decades. Basically, however, it appears that the defeats of those protracted and costly wars clearly retreated in the perception of later generations to the failures in other conflicts, especially those of Rome’s wars against her great rival Carthage, which will be the focus of the following chapter.

5

The Darkest Hour: The Roman-­Carthaginian Wars

Grouping together the wars between Rome and Carthage, as this chapter does, is not a convention of modern research alone. Already during the time of the Republic, the three ‘Punic Wars’ were “considered to belong together historically”.1 Therefore, it makes sense to juxtapose them in this chapter as well, not least in order to compare which differences and similarities can be found with regard to representations, interpretations, and explanations of the Roman defeats in the various wars and to determine what reflections these conflicts elicited in Roman historical culture in each case.2 As already mentioned in the introductory remarks of this work, the individual as well as the collective memory of a battle does not begin generations later but immediately after the respective event. The memories that are formulated in the days, weeks and months following a battle can give rise to impulses that also shape later forms of interaction and thereby also become the content of a society’s historical culture. However, there need not be continuity between early memories and later ones, and interpretations and narratives can emerge at a greater temporal distance  Irmscher 1989, 307. With increasing temporal distance from the wars, they were even partly brought so close together that the second and third wars could appear “as one historical event” (Weileder 1998, 193). Research on the first two Punic Wars, especially on the second war, is so extensive that a reference to only a few works will suffice here to facilitate access to further studies. On the first war, see, among others, Lazenby 1996a; Le Bohec 1996, 67–106; Heftner 1997, 105–200; Goldsworthy 2000, 63–140; Bleckmann 2002; Gehrke 2002; Hoyos 2011. On the second war, see for instance (again with further references) Lazenby 1978/1998; Briscoe 1989; Seibert 1993a; 1993b; Le Bohec 1996, 129–196; Heftner 1997, 201–310; Goldsworthy 2000, 141–309; Christ 2003; Barceló 2004; Fronda 2010; Garland 2012; Blösel 2015, 111–119, as well as a number of contributions in Cornell (ed.) 1996 and, on both wars, also Zimmermann 2005 and the contributions in Hoyos (ed.) 2011. 2  Without prejudging the analysis, it can be said in advance that the focus of the study will be on the first and especially the second war, while the third war, basically little more than the siege of Carthage, is of lesser interest in the context of this work. Cf. among others Le Bohec 2011, 430 (“third war” only the siege of Carthage) with further references. 1

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that have little basis in earlier expressions. In the case of ancient battles, however, such developments, breaks, and reinterpretations can often hardly be reconstructed, if at all, to the extent that this is possible for examples from later periods. For the case of the First Roman-Carthaginian War, too, there are hardly any sources that actually date directly from that period, but at least some clues can be found that can still be linked to the representation and interpretation of Roman defeats during the war.

5.1  A Noble Prisoner and Chickens That Will Not Eat: The First War Contemporary sources from the time of the war have hardly survived, but some of the Roman authors whose early works on the war have survived in fragments were contemporaries of the conflict and probably also took part in it. Foundations of temples can be interpreted as contemporary reactions to defeats in the First Punic War. For “most probably in his censorship 247” A. Atilius Caiatinus consecrated a temple to Fides on the Capitol “in the immediate neighbourhood” of the temple of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, i.e. “in the middle of the religious and political centre of the res publica”.3 The reason for erecting a temple to Fides was most probably the journey of M.  Atilius Regulus to Rome only a few years before and his fate in Carthaginian captivity which he had fallen into as a result of the defeat at Tunis under his command in 255.4 After the failure of his mission, Regulus returned to Carthage, where he died in captivity.5 It is reasonable to assume that the family of Regulus, who had failed in his invasion of Africa, seized the opportunity to present his behavior as an exemplum of Roman fides, thus offering a positive interpretation at least for the consequences of the defeat.6 Fides also possessed great significance with regard to treaties and treaty-keeping between the Romans and their allies, as well as in the context of the establishment and continuation of intra-Roman patronage relations.7 Therefore, the consecration on the Capitol will also have to be considered from the point of view that it was intended to proclaim the ‘fundamental fides of the populus Romanus’ in relations between Romans and non-Romans and  See Pietilä-Castrén 1987, 40 f.; Beck 2005a, 242 (quote). For an overview of various exact localization proposals, see Ziolkowski 1992, 28–30. The year of the temple’s dedication has not survived, but dating it to the censorship seems quite plausible. 4  Pol. 1,32,1–34,12. The exact place of the battle has not been handed down, but can be localized on the basis of the context near Tunis, which is why the battle is listed here under this name. See on the question of localization Lazenby 1996a, 104. Cf. on the battle Lazenby 1996a, 105 f.; Heftner 1997, 138; Tipps 2003, 380 f.; Beck 2005a, 237. 5  On sources and modern research on Regulus Beck 2005a, 229–243. 6  Cf. Beck 2005a, 243: “Konkreter Anlass für die Fides-Weihung des Atilius Caiatinus dürfte der […] Auftritt seines Cousins Regulus in Rom gewesen sein, der dann schnell zum exemplum wurde; in gewisser Hinsicht dürfte der Tempel selbst zur Verbreitung und Auskleidung dieser Geschichte beigetragen haben”. Cf. Pietilä-Castrén 1987, 40 f. 7  Cf. Gehrke 2002, 161. 3

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internally.8 In particular, this ought to be considered given the background of the political situation as well as the course of the war in the years before the temple was built. After all, the Romans, as well as their allies, had suffered heavy losses in the decade before.9 If the temple dedication did indeed refer to the fate of Regulus, then most people who viewed the Temple of Fides in Rome would likely have been aware of this background. After all, the members of the gens Atilia would then hardly have lacked the initiative to style their actually failed relative as an example to their fellow citizens. The beginning of the Regulus legend, which in later sources almost completely overshadows the historical events of the African campaign, could then certainly be assumed to have taken place as early as the time of the first Roman-­ Carthaginian War itself.10 The fact that the distorting retrospective view of Regulus and his failed campaign was already present in Roman historical culture a generation later can certainly be surmised from the fragments of early Roman authors.

5.1.1  Bellum Punicum: Testimonies of Contemporary Authors From the fragments of the Bellum Poenicum of Cn. Naevius, it is no longer possible to gain a complete and detailed picture of the depiction of Roman setbacks in the battle against Carthage in this epic, but a number of clues can certainly be found in the surviving fragments. Thus, Cichorius has placed the following verse from the Bellum Punicum, handed down by Nonius, in the context of one of the Roman defeats of the war:11 atrox crudum Naevius belli Poenici lib. III ‘simul/atrocia proicerent exta ministratores’.12

His further interpretation is at least plausible. According to this, Naevius would presumably have included such a scene in his work primarily because the ominous portent during the extispicy was followed by a corresponding failure of the

 Beck 2005a, 243 (quotation).  Probably also the trial of P. Claudius Pulcher, which may have again updated the memory of these losses, occurred in the same year, 247, as the foundation of the temple of Fides. On the battle of Drepana (249) Pol. 1,49,6–51,12; Diod. 24,1,5; Zon. 8.15. For further sources see Broughton 1951, 214; Walbank 1957, 113 f. On the course of operations see Thiel 1954, 272–281; Lazenby 1996a, 131–136; Bleckmann 2002, 186–188. On the process see, among others, Ungern-Sternberg 1986/2005, 321; Hölkeskamp 1990/2004, 85–93; Lazenby 1996a, 136  f.; Bleckmann 2002, 192–201; Rich 2012, 102 f.; Kuhnert 2013, 109–113. 10  Cf. Beck 2005a, 243 (“in gewisser Hinsicht dürfte der Tempel selbst zur Verbreitung und Auskleidung dieser Geschichte beigetragen haben”). 11  Cichorius 1922, 30–32. 12  Naev. 33 Strzelecki = 38 Blänsdorf (=Non. 106 L.). Obviously, the verse belongs in the context of a sacrificial act and since it seems to make little sense that the sacrificial servants “throw down” the entrails of the sacrificial animal, one will rather be able to assume a translation in the sense of “offer” which Cichorius suggests for this passage. The suggested translation in Cichorius 1922, 31 is: “die Opferdiener die Eingeweide (obwohl sie) unheilverkündend waren, darbrachten”. 8 9

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operations of the Roman commander who was preparing for a campaign here.13 The numbering of the book here probably points rather to an event at the beginning of the war. The only Roman defeat which certainly occurred in the early years of the war is that of Cn. Cornelius Scipio Asina, who was taken prisoner at Lipara in 260.14 If Cichorius’ reconstruction is correct, then it could be the case that in Naevius’ text Asina had been confronted with unfavorable omens before his failed attack on Lipara but had ignored this, which is why he subsequently fell into the hands of the Carthaginians.15 Admittedly, this reconstruction of the original context of the fragment stands on uncertain ground and can by no means be regarded as certain.16 After the defeat of Cornelius Asina at Lipara, the ultimately disastrous invasion of Africa by M. Atilius Regulus was the next major setback for the Roman side in the First Punic War. That this episode was dealt with in some form in Naevius’ Bellum Punicum could have been assumed even if no fragments that could be related to it had been handed down. However, some verses handed down by Festus probably offer more precise insights into the way Regulus was portrayed, as well as an early shaping of the Regulus legend: seseque ei perire mavolunt ibidem/quam cum stupro redire ad suos popularis.17

and sin illos deserant fortissimos viros,/magnum stuprum populo fieri per gentis.18

Both passages are cited by Festus as evidence “for stuprum in the meaning ‘disgrace’”.19 The first fragment seems to be about a group having to decide whether they should perish honourably in a certain place or whether they should return to their own “with shame”.20 The second fragment, which is probably close in content to the first, is apparently about whether “brave men” should be abandoned, which will bring “great shame” to the people as a whole.21

 Cichorius 1922, 31 f.  Pol. 1:21:4–8. on this see, among others, Lazenby 1996a, 66 f.; Bleckmann 2002 113–144; Beck 2005a 223–225. 15  Cichorius 1922, 32. If Asina’s actions in the Bellum Punicum had indeed been described in this way, an explanation for the Roman defeat would have been given here – namely, lack of consideration of unfavorable campaign auspices. If this was the case, Scipio would probably have been cast in a rather unfavourable light by Naevius. After all, Asina would then probably have deliberately ignored these bad omens. 16  This has already been admitted by Cichorius himself (Cichorius 1922, 32: “eine durchaus nicht beweisbare Möglichkeit”). Cf. Altheim 1969, 341. 17  Naev. 46 Strzelecki = 50 Blänsdorf (=Fest. 418 L.). 18  Naev. 47 Strzelecki = 51 Blänsdorf (=Fest. 418 L.). 19  Cf. Cichorius 1922, 41 (quotation). 20  With regard to this interpretation, there is agreement among researchers. See Cichorius 1922, 41; Bleckmann 1998. 21  Cf. Cichorius 1922, 42. 13 14

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With regard to the situation of these verses within a concrete historical context, several suggestions have been put forward in research.22 Since in the words of Naevius a certain glorification of the persons involved is recognizable, Cichorius, among others, has concluded that it was very likely soldiers of the army of Regulus.23 This attribution is certainly plausible in principle, since, at least as far as can be discerned, no other episodes are known from the tradition concerning the First Punic War in which a Roman army faced the question under discussion. What is questionable, however, is the exact chronological location. Cichorius reckons that the verses belong to a context in which the remnants of Regulus’ defeated army had been trapped by the Carthaginians at Clupea on the African coast.24 Bleckmann, however, has rightly pointed out that in the other tradition there is no mention of any negotiations in which the soldiers trapped there would have negotiated with the Carthaginians for their withdrawal.25 This is equally true of a possible discussion in Rome about whether Regulus’ remaining troops trapped on the coast should be rescued.26 Nor is the attribution to the context of the peace negotiations of 241 between Hamilcar and Roman envoys suggested by Altheim fully convincing.27 A reconstruction proposed by Bleckmann seems more convincing.28 According to this, both fragments belonged to the context of the negotiations for an exchange of prisoners which a Carthaginian legation conducted with the Senate in Rome in 250.29 Since the first of the two fragments is “written in the present indicative”, Bleckmann

 Cf. for the following the pointed discussion in Bleckmann 1998, 61–65.  Cichorius 1922, 41. 24  Cichorius 1922, 41. So also Blänsdorf 1995, 63. 25  Bleckmann 1998, 61 f. 26  Bleckmann 1998, 62 (“Für eine solche Beratung im Zusammenhang mit Clupea findet man in den antiken Quellen zur Geschichte des Ersten Punischen Krieges keinen Anhaltspunkt.”). 27  Altheim 1969, 359 f. In the tradition of these negotiations found in Zonaras, it is revealed that Hamilcar had at least manged to achieve that he and his soldiers be spared the disgrace of leaving under the yoke (Zon. 8,17,5). According to Altheim, the stuprum in Naevius fits with this. According to Altheim’s reconstruction, a speech by Hamilcar, for example, seems conceivable. See Altheim 1969, 359 (“Der dort [in Naevius, note S.  Lentzsch] Genannte weigerte sich mit dem Hinweis darauf, daß seine Leute lieber sterben wollten.”). In the corresponding passage in Diodorus’ account, Hamilcar rejects Roman envoys who presented him with the terms of the treaty, since these included handing over the Roman defectors (Diod. 24,13). These, according to Altheim, were meant by the fortissimi viri of the Naevius fragment (Altheim 1969, 360). But notwithstanding the linguistic similarities of the Naevius verses and the corresponding passage in the account of Cassius Dio/Zonaras and Diodorus, to which Altheim has drawn attention, this attribution nevertheless seems questionable. Bleckmann, for example, has rightly noted that it seems rather unlikely that “in a national Roman epic” defectors to the Carthaginian side were referred to as fortissimi viri. Moreover, it may seem exaggerated that Hamilcar would have called the surrender of Roman defectors to the Romans a disgrace to Carthage (Bleckmann 1998, 63). In addition, there are concerns about Altheim’s source-critical deductions. Especially the reconstructed connection between Naevius and Philinos is not very convincing. Cf. Bleckmann 1998, 64 f. 28  Bleckmann 1998, 65–70. 29  Zon. 8,15,1–7; Cass. Dio Frg. 43,26. 22 23

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assumes that it is a “section from a direct speech”.30 A speech of Regulus before the Senate in Rome is attested by several authors, and, in principle, one may also assume that Regulus would indeed have spoken before the Senate in some form.31 In later versions, especially in Horace, Regulus presents his fellow prisoners in a less than favorable light.32 This does not seem to have been the case with Naevius, for, if he is indeed the speaker, Regulus here states emphatically that the soldiers, certainly including him, would rather perish “there” (ibidem – in this case, therefore, probably in Carthage) than return to their people in disgrace.33 In the second fragment, Bleckmann then consequently assumes a discussion in the Senate reproduced in indirect speech. According to this, the senators would have had great scruples about following Regulus’ recommendation. Instead, they would have looked for ways to convince the imprisoned commander to let himself be ransomed.34 As will be shown, later versions of the Regulus legend do indeed offer such attempts by the other senators.35 In any case, it stands to reason that in an epic in which the Romans as a whole were to be portrayed as fighting heroically against Carthage, the thoroughly thorny matter of the failed negotiations over the ransom of Regulus might have been glorifyingly obscured.36 In this context, it is worth mentioning that, according to some scholars, the gens Atilia came from Campania, which was also the homeland of Naevius.37 Possibly for this reason, Naevius saw himself as particularly connected to the family of Regulus, which is why he could have portrayed the latter in a favourable light. The origin of the Atilians, however, is not certain.38 While it can be considered at least probable that the Regulus episode occupied a relatively large space  Bleckmann 1998, 67 (quotation). The possibility that this could be the use of a historical present is also considered by Bleckmann. A speech, however, will be at least as likely, especially in view of the content of the verses. 31  Cf. Beck 2005a, 241, note 66. 32  Hor. carm. 3,5. See in detail below Sect. 5.1.4.2. 33  Cf. Bleckmann 1998, 68. 34  Bleckmann 1998, 69 (“Das Fragment 51 des Naevius gibt m.E. in indirekter Rede einen Teil dieser Skrupel des Senats wieder, der um das Los der fortissimi viri besorgt ist.”). 35  See below especially the sections on Horace, Valerius Maximus and Silius Italicus. Sections 5.1.4.2, 5.1.5 and 5.1.6. 36  Cf. Bleckmann 1998, 69: “Trifft unsere Zuordnung der beiden Fragmente zu, hat Naevius die Regulusgesandtschaft von 250 als einen tragischen Wettstreit edler Gefühle gezeichnet”. For the historical course of Regulus’ journey to Rome and its outcome may have been much less edifying. The already mentioned temple endowments of the Atilians, which took place during the war, are probably to be interpreted against the background that Regulus’ family strove to reinterpret his fate in an advantageous way. The representation in the Bellum Punicum seems to have been oriented in a very similar interpretation (Bleckmann 1998, 69 f.). 37  On this, see Münzer 1920, 58 (“entweder sind die Atilier dort zu Hause gewesen oder haben dort ihre Besitzungen gehabt […]; das eine schließt das andere nicht aus”). Cf. Bleckmann 1998, 70. 38  See Bleckmann 1998, 70: “Naevius, der als Kampaner den Atiliern in besonderer Weise verpflichtet war, mag dann durch seine künstlerische Gestaltungskraft wesentlich dazu beigetragen haben, daß diese Geschichtslegende zum Exemplum römischer Virtus stilisiert wurde”. For the uncertain reconstruction of the origin of the Atilians see for instance Hölkeskamp 1987/2011, 179 f., note 84 (with further references). 30

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in Naevius’s work – even if the details must remain unclear – with regard to other Roman defeats, only fragments have survived that are less significant and whose attribution is uncertain.39 The details of the account and interpretation of the defeats of the First Punic War by the first Roman historiographers remain largely unclear, which is particularly regrettable since Q. Fabius Pictor himself could well have taken part in the war.40 For if Pictor was indeed born around 270, he would have been about 30 years old at the end of the war, which certainly opens up the possibility that he participated in the final phase of the war as a young man. In that case, participation in the operations of the last years of the war in Sicily would be likely. It is into these operations, in fact, that the only fragment on the First Punic War that survives from Pictor’s work belongs. In connection with his account of the operations around Mount Eryx in the years 244–241, Polybius gives the information that, according to the testimony of Fabius, the fighting there was supposed to have ceased on account of  Thus, Cichorius wanted to refer a fragment of the sixth book to the defeat of Drepana. However, even if one accepts this interpretation, only a few conclusions can be drawn from it with regard to the representation of that defeat in Naevius. From the sixth book of the Bellum Punicum, Nonius quotes the following verse: superbiter contemptim conterit legiones (42 Strzelecki = 42 Blänsdorf (=Non. 830 L.)). The person acting is probably indeed a Roman commander, whereby the assignment made by Cichorius, essentially on the basis of the book number mentioned by Nonius, to P. Claudius Pulcher and his behavior before the battle of Drepana has some plausibility (Cichorius 1922, 45. Cf. approvingly to this assignment Altheim 1969, 349; Blänsdorf 1995, 60). A haughty attitude of Claudius especially towards his predecessor is attested in various later sources. To what extent this episode in Naevius was connected with the Roman defeat at Drepana under Claudius’ command, whether, for example, a passage about the outrage witnessed by Cicero was included in the Bellum Punicum, can admittedly not be clarified from the scanty verse. Consequently, this also applies to the consideration in Cichorius 1922, 45, that Naevius himself might have “served under P. Claudius Pulcher already in 249 before Lilybaeum” and described the defeat “from the point of view of the Roman socii, in whose ranks he had taken part in the last part of the war”. Finally, according to Cichorius, another Naevius fragment, in which the goddess Proserpina is mentioned, cannot be connected directly with a defeat but rather with the reactions to military failures and setbacks: prima incedit Cereris Proserpina puer (Naev. 19 Strzelecki = 22 Blänsdorf (=Prisc. 2231,13)). Cichorius assumes that the fragment can be connected with the introduction of the ludi saeculares in Rome in 249 (Cichorius 1922, 47 f.). This could have been a reaction of the Romans to the high and drastic losses at Drepana and in the storm catastrophe at Kamarina, the third within a few years (cf. on this Bernstein 1998, 141; Bleckmann 2002, 193, note 4: “Die Säkularspiele von 249 wurden zur religiösen Bewältigung außerordentlicher Verluste eingerichtet.”; Gehrke 2002, 167; Forsythe 2012, 61. Cf. also Beard/North/Price 1998, 71). If Naevius did indeed describe this event in the context of the fragment, this would probably indicate its importance in the eyes of contemporaries (Cf. Cichorius 1922, 47 f.). In retrospect, the introduction of the ludi saeculares may have appeared to some Romans as a turning point in the history of war, for after all, no further catastrophes or serious military defeats occurred after this demonstrative turning of the Romans towards the gods. In more recent works, however, the fragment has been assigned with good arguments to the mythical parts of the epic, where it could have been part of a description of a meeting of the gods. See Blänsdorf 1995, 52 and Jahn 2007, 61, 64 (with further references). 40  The majority of research contributions on Q. Fabius Pictor assume that the first Roman historian was born around the year 270. Little is known about his career and biography, so it remains unclear whether he participated in any way in the First Roman-Carthaginian War. Cf. most recently Bispham/Cornell 2013a, 162 with further references. 39

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exhaustion and excessive suffering, while he held that the struggle there would have continued had not the conclusion of that war been determined in some other theatre.41 Whether the impression of suffering and exertion in the siege is based on Pictor’s personal experience must remain open in view of the available sources.

5.1.2  The Example of the Tribune: Testimonies of the Second Century Q. Ennius apparently only gave a very brief summary of the First Punic War in the Annales.42 Therefore, only a few fragments of the Annales can generally be assigned to the first war between Rome and Carthage. Of these, again, none can be directly related to the defeats of Rome.43 However, there are at least two short passages about specific characteristics of the Carthaginian opponents, both of which were certainly interpreted by Ennius as negative characteristics. First, the author of the epic reports the custom of the Carthaginians to sacrifice their children to Moloch, and second, he notes that the Carthaginian soldiers were mercenaries.44 The accounts of the phenomenon of child sacrifice in Carthage are presumably based at their core on historically authentic information.45 It is also true that the Carthaginians resorted to the recruitment of mercenaries in their wars against Rome.46 It is reasonable to suppose, however, that both phenomena were communicated to Ennius, as is more palpable for later writers, with a pejorative intention. In the case of the sacrifice of children, from the Roman point of view, it is probably also difficult to imagine a context in which this behaviour could have been interpreted as positive47 With regard to the note that indirectly refers to mercenaries in Carthage’s service, this is admittedly not certain. The context of the fragment is entirely unclear. Among other things, a Roman defeat could also be considered. In a short discussion of the reasons

 FRH 1  F 28 = FRHist 1  F 19 (=Pol. 1,58,2–6). See especially the clarifying commentary in FRHist III, 35 f. 42  This was perhaps because it had already been treated in epic form by Cn. Naevius. On this see Skutsch 1985, 8 and 366 f. 43  Cf. the overview of the fragments in Skutsch 1985, 367. 44  Enn. ann. 214 (Poeni soliti suos sacrificare puellos); 215 (Poeni stipendia pendunt). From the context in which Varro places the latter quotation from Ennius, it appears that the latter wrote of payments by the Carthaginians to mercenaries (Varro ling. 5182: militis stipendia ideo, quod eam stipem pendebant; ab eo etiam Ennius scribit: ‘Poeni stipendia pendunt’). Cf. Skutsch 1985, 383. Both verses are not clearly attested for the seventh book, in which apparently the First Punic War was described, but Skutsch assumes that both passages are fragments from an ethnographic discourse inserted at the beginning of the conflict between Romans and Carthaginians (Skutsch 1985, 381, 383 f.). Overall, this is a plausible assumption. 45  However, this will have been a ritual that was performed only in times of need. On this, see Seibert 1993b, 111 f. 46  On the emergence of the Carthaginian mercenary armies, see Ameling 1993, 183–225. 47  Cf. Gruen 2011, 122 (“At the last it reflects a campaign to brand the evildoers with the worst form of wickedness.”). 41

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for the defeat of M.  Atilius Regulus at Tunis, Polybius points out that the Carthaginians owed the happy outcome of the battle essentially to the Spartan Xanthippus and the mercenary army he commanded.48 According to Polybius, the Roman attack on Lilybaeum in 250 had also been repelled primarily by the use of Greek mercenaries.49 Even if such a context is also conceivable for the fragments of the Annales mentioned, these remarks in Polybius do not prove that Ennius, in his presumably very brief account of the war, had commented on the reasons for these Roman failures in a similar way as Polybius had done. Moreover, it is precisely the comparison with the latter’s Histories that draws attention to another possible connection. For Polybius cites as one of the reasons for Rome’s ultimate superiority over Carthage its recourse to foreign mercenaries. The Romans, on the other hand, were able to rely on their own citizen-soldiers, who showed greater commitment to their community.50 According to the testimony of Cornelius Nepos, M. Porcius Cato treated the First Punic War in the fourth book of the Origines.51 A number of fragments indicate that Cato there first gave general information about the opponent of the Romans, mentioning political and cultural peculiarities of the Carthaginians.52 Two fragments can be placed in the context of (possible) Roman defeats. The first of the two is not very instructive with regard to the topic at hand. Servius points out that Cato apparently understood the form “Drepana” as a plural form.53 This remark hardly provides any information beyond the fact that Cato treated the battle of Drepana in the Origines, which was to be expected anyway. The other of the two fragments belongs to the context of the description of operations that A. Atilius Caiatinus carried out in Sicily in 258, apparently with moderate success.54 When the consul had maneuvered his troops into an unfavorable position, a military tribune, whose name is not mentioned by Cato at this point,55 offered to lead a small detachment of 400 men to an exposed

 Pol. 1,32, 1–9 (construction of Carthaginian defenses by Xanthippus).  Pol. 1,43,1–8 (failed conspiracy of part of the mercenaries at Lilybaeum); 1,48,1–11 (repulse of Roman attack by destruction of siege works). 50  Cf. Gruen 2011, 120. In research, the assumption has also been made that already in Ennius, as is the case in a number of later sources, Regulus’ legation in which he appeared as a prisoner of war before the Senate in Rome, was connected with the discussion about the ransom of the Cannae prisoners (see, for example, Kornhardt 1954, 112–117). This is possible, but no relevant fragments of Ennius have survived on this question, so that these considerations must remain uncertain. 51  Nep. Cat. 3,3 (in quarto autem bellum Punicum est primum). 52  See, for example, FRH 3  F 2,36 = FRHist 5  F 38 (=Prisc. 2171): on salt extraction by the Carthaginians; FRH 3 F 4,2 = FRHist 5 F 84 (=Fest. 132,11–13 L = Serv. Aen. 1421): on residential buildings; FRH 3  F 4,3 = FRHist 5  F 148 (=Serv. Aen. 4682): on the Carthaginian constitution. 53  FRH 3 F 4,8 = FRHist 5 F 146 (=Serv. Aen. 3707): Cato pluraliter haec Drepana dicit. 54  Pol. 1,24, 9. See the reconstruction of his operations in Bleckmann 2002, 151–155. 55  The name of the military tribune varies in tradition. According to Claudius Quadrigarius he was called Q. Caedicius and it is quite conceivable that Cato had also given this name but that the corresponding passage of the Origines is no longer extant (cf. the commentary in FRHist III, 122 with further references). 48 49

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position in order to distract the enemy in this way, thereby allowing the rest of the army to retreat in an orderly manner. The consul approved the proposal in principle but expressed doubts about finding a commander who would lead the soldiers in this dangerous undertaking. At this point, the tribune offered himself for the task. This officer who had made the proposal to the consul then led the Roman soldiers to a nearby hill, where they were attacked and routed by the enemy. Only the tribune himself, according to Cato, survived the battle and was recovered seriously wounded. By his action and the sacrifice of his soldiers, this tribune had saved the rest of the army. Cato records that the actions of the tribune would have been equal to those of Leonidas. Unlike the little-known Roman, however, the Spartan king had been highly praised in many ways in Greece. In Rome, the tribune had not been accorded this honour, although he had done an equal deed.56 It is not unlikely that the episode lacked a high profile before Cato took it up and made it an integral part of the historiographical accounts of the First Roman-Carthaginian War in Sicily.57 Whether the story about the military tribune was used to conceal the less successful operations  FRH 3 F 4,7a = FRHist *76 (=Gell. 3,7,1–19): Pulcrum, dii boni, facinus Graecarumque facundiarum magniloquentia condignum M. Cato libris Originum de Q. Caedicio tribuno militum scriptum reliquit. id profecto est ad hanc ferme sententiam: imperator Poenus in terra Sicilia bello Carthaginiensi primo obviam Romano exercitu progreditur, colles locosque idoneos prior occupat. milites Romani, uti res nata est, in locum insinuant fraudi et perniciei obnoxium. tribunus ad consulem venit, ostendit exitium de loci importunitate et hostium circumstantia maturum. ‘censeo’, inquit, ‘si rem servare vis, faciundum, ut quadringentos aliquos milites ad verrucam illam’ – sic enim Cato locum editum asperumque appellat – ‘ire iubeas, eamque uti occupent, imperes horterisque; hostes profecto ubi id viderint, fortissimus quisque et promptissimus ad occursandum pugnandumque in eos praevertentur unoque illo negotio sese alligabunt, atque illi omnes quadringenti procul dubio obtruncabuntur. tunc interea occupatis in ea caede hostibus tempus exercitus ex hoc loco educendi habebis. alia nisi haec salutis via nulla est’. consul tribuno respondit consilium quidem istud aeque providens sibi viderier; ‘sed istos’, inquit, ‘milites quadringentos ad eum locum in hostium cuneos quisnam erit qui ducat?’ ‘si alium’, inquit tribunus, ‘neminem reperis, me licet ad hoc periculum utare; ego hanc tibi et rei publicae animam do.’ consul tribuno gratias laudesque agit. tribunus et quadringenti ad moriendum proficiscuntur. hostes eorum audaciam demirantur; quorsum ire pergant, in expectando sunt. sed ubi apparuit ad eam verrucam occupandam iter intendere, mittit adversum illos imperator Carthaginiensis peditatum equitatumque, quos in exercitu viros habuit strenuissimos. Romani milites circumveniuntur, circumventi repugnant; fit proelium diu anceps. tandem superat multitudo. Quadringenti omnes cum uno perfossi gladiis aut missilibus operti cadunt. consul interim, dum ibi pugnatur, se in locos tutos atque editos subducit. sed quod illi tribuno, duci militum quadringentorum, divinitus in eo proelio usu venit, non iam nostris, sed ipsius Catonis verbis subiecimus: ‘dii immortales tribuno militum fortunam ex virtute eius dedere. nam ita evenit: cum saucius multifariam ibi factus esset, tamen volnus capiti nullum evenit, eumque inter mortuos defetigatum volneribus atque quod sanguen eius defluxerat cognovere. eum sustulere, isque convaluit, saepeque postilla operam rei publicae fortem atque strenuam perhibuit; illoque facto, quod illos milites subduxit, exercitum ceterum servavit. sed idem benefactum quo in loco ponas nimium interest. Leonides Laco, qui simile apud Thermopylas fecit, propter eius virtutes omnis Graecia gloriam atque gratiam praecipuam claritudinis inclitissimae decoravere monumentis: signis, statuis, elogiis, historiis aliisque rebus gratissimum id eius factum habuere; at tribuno militum parva laus pro factis relicta, qui idem fecerat atque rem servaverat’. 57  Cf. the comment in FRHist III, 122: “If the episode had been a well-established part of the tradition about the First Punic War, commemorated in Naevius and Ennius, or in Fabius Pictor and other early historians, one would expect the hero’s name to have been enshrined for ever”. 56

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of the Roman consul Caiatinus can no longer be determined. However, as far as can be seen, the focus of the account is not on this, but, in addition to the comparison with Leonidas, on the example of Roman virtue that the tribune had offered.58 The sacrifice of an individual or a small group of fighters for the common good forms a motif that is expressed on various occasions in Roman tradition.59 By the nature of things, it is obvious that military emergencies especially offer the opportunity to weave corresponding episodes into the narrative. For Cato, this was also an opportunity to emphasize that heroic deeds worthy of remembrance by later generations were to be found not only in Greek history but also in the past of the Romans themselves.60 In this case, Cato’s efforts were apparently crowned with success. The story of the military tribune became, as will be shown later, an integral part of the collective memory of the First Punic War in Rome.61 Although the First Roman-Carthaginian War was treated in a number of works by Roman historiographers, dated with good arguments to the second half of the second century, very few fragments are preserved from these writings which can be attached to this war without doubt.62 A direct connection with one of the Roman  That Cato chose the battle of the Spartan king Leonidas at Thermopylae as a comparison for the deed of Caedicius was probably obvious in his view for several reasons. On the one hand, the tradition of the battle of the Spartans against the army of the Persian king Xerxes, which was covered by legends soon after the event, seems to have been widespread in Italy and Rome already before the second century and the contact of Rome with the Hellenistic East of the Mediterranean, which became more intensive in this period (on the transmission of Greek mythical and historical contents already before the beginning of Roman historiography cf. above Sect. 2.2). On the other hand, Cato had not only visited the site of the historical events in Greece himself, but had also actively participated in the victory of the Roman army over the troops of the Seleucid Antiochos III at Thermopylae in 191 (see on this Kienast 1979, 49 f. with further references). There Cato could, for example, look at the monument that Leonidas had apparently erected there soon after the battle and in this way convince himself of the fame and impact of the Leonidas legend. (Herodotus tells of a stone lion having been erected on the hill where the last Greek combatants are said to have fallen, dedicated to the memory of Leonidas-the choice of the lion thus constituting in several respects an allusion to the Spartan general and his name. See Hdt. 7225 and cf. Meier 2010a, 108  f.) On the possible influence of the experiences and impressions Cato gathered during the campaign in Greece, cf. among others Chassignet 1986, 89 (“L’intérêt de Caton pour le site des Thermopyles n’est pas livresque; lui-même y combattit en 191 comme tribun militaire sous le consulat de M’ Acilius Glabrio [...].”); Calboli 1996, 11, as well as the commentary of Beck/Walter in FRH I, 202 f. Finally, the possibility that Cato wanted to indirectly refer to his own achievements in defending the Thermopylae Pass in 191 by comparing Leonidas and the young Roman tribune should not be disregarded. On this idea see in detail Calboli 1996, 11 f. 59  See e.g. the, multi-faceted, tradition of the fight of Horatius Cocles on the Milvian bridge or the devotion of three Decii Mures, which are said to have happened in the late fourth and early third century. On the latter, see Walter 2004b and see the commentary in FRHist III, 121 on similarities between the two episodes surrounding the deed of the military tribune P. Decius Mus and the tribune of the First Punic War, respectively. 60  To show that Rome and Roman (as well as Italian) history and culture were of equal rank to those of Greece was probably one of Cato’s main concerns when writing the Origines. Cf. Gruen 1992, 52–83; Beck/Walter 22005, 154. 61  Cf. below the section on Livy (Sect. 5.1.4.1). 62  FRH 7 F 32 = FRHist 9 F *31 (=Plin. nat. 16,192). 58

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defeats of the war is revealed by a fragment of C. Sempronius Tuditanus which Gellius has handed down. It deals here with the fate of M. Atilius Regulus after his capture, more precisely with his journey to Rome and with his death in captivity.63 As seen above, it can be assumed on the basis of plausible arguments that Regulus was presented as an exemplary model of fides in service to the res publica already shortly after his death (construction of the temple of fides by his cousin A. Atilius Caiatinus) or a generation later (Bellum Punicum of Naevius). By this point, the beginning of the Regulus legend had probably already been laid.64 Nevertheless, the fragment from the work of Tuditanus represents the earliest direct evidence for the story surrounding Regulus’ death.65 Tuditanus also seems to have emphasized Regulus’ willingness to sacrifice himself for the Republic. For according to the surviving passage, Regulus had advised the Senate against an exchange of prisoners, pointing out, among other things, that the Carthaginians had given him a slow-­ acting, deadly poison. In retrospect, this could have made the Senate’s decision even more understandable and possibly made Regulus’ attitude seem even more heroic. At the same time, the Carthaginians were thereby portrayed as devious, which, as we know, was part of the cultural stereotypes often attributed to them by Greek and Roman authors.66 The Carthaginians would eventually kill Regulus by sleep deprivation after his return to Carthage, whereupon the Senate handed over the most distinguished Carthaginian prisoners in Rome to Regulus’ children, who subjected them to death in the same way.67 As will be shown below, numerous variants on details of Regulus’ fate circulated in the Roman tradition, most frequently referring to the circumstances of his death and the manner in which the Carthaginian prisoners were tortured.68 To what degree these variants were already widespread in the time of Tuditanus cannot be determined with certainty but it does not seem

 FRH 8 F 5 = FRHist 10 F 8 (=Gell. 7,4,1–2,4): Quod satis est celebre de Atilio Regulo, id nuperrime legimus scriptum in Tuditani libris: Regulum captum ad ea, quae in senatu Romae dixit suadens, ne captivi cum Carthaginiensibus permutarentur, id quoque addidisse venenum sibi Carthaginienses dedisse, non praesentarium, sed eiusmodi quod mortem in diem proferret, eo consilio, ut viveret quidem tantisper quoad fieret permutatio, post autem grassante sensim veneno contabesceret. eundem Regulum Tubero in historiis redisse Carthaginem novisque exemplorum modis excruciatum a Poenis dicit. [...] Tuditanus autem somno diu prohibitum atque ita vita privatum refert, idque ubi Romae cognitum est, nobilissimos Poenorum captivos liberis Reguli a senatu deditos et ab his in armario muricibus praefixo destitutos eademque insomnia cruciatos interisse. 64  See Sects. 5.1 and 5.1.1 above. 65  Frank 1926, 311. Cf. the commentary in FRHist III, 224. 66  Kornhardt 1954, 104. 67  Walbank 1957, 93 f. assumes that this murder of Carthaginian prisoners by members of Regulus’ family formed the nucleus of the Regulus legend. According to this, the tale about the torture of Regulus in Carthaginian captivity was spread in order to justify the deed of the Atilii. In any case, the fact that according to Tuditanus the prisoners had been handed over by the Senate to the children of Regulus is remarkable, which weakens the impression of an illegitimate action. Cf. also the commentary in FRH I, 334–336. 68  See Sects. 5.1.3 and 5.1.5 below. 63

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unreasonable to assume that the Regulus legend already enjoyed a certain popularity by the end of the second century, which encouraged the creation of variants.69

5.1.3  Continued Torture: The First Century to the End of the Republic The search for references and allusions to the First Punic War in Cicero’s œuvre, especially to the Roman defeats in the battle for Sicily, leads to a rather meagre result.70 Basically, Cicero was apparently able to draw on a certain degree of familiarity with a number of important Roman commanders of the war, such as A. Atilius Caiatinus, C. Duilius, and L. Caecilius Metellus.71 The only Roman figure of the First Punic War to whom Cicero alludes to more extensively in his speeches is M. Atilius Regulus, who appears as many as three times. In all passages, Cicero refers to Regulus’ journey to Rome or to Regulus’ death in captivity.72 These events are integrated into the argumentation in different ways.73 In the defense speech Pro Sestio (in the year 56) Cicero apparently reacts to an attack by the accuser P. Albinovanus. The latter had apparently accused Cicero of having returned from exile to Rome to the detriment of the community and with the help of threats of violence from his allies, while M. Atilius Regulus had returned to Carthage to serve the community.74 This accusation emerges from Cicero’s repetition of the invective against him, who then takes the opportunity to point out his own, of course outstanding, services to the res publica.75 Since the invective against Cicero seems to have already included the exemplum of Regulus, the passage probably also testifies to its use by other speakers.  Two other fragments from the writings of other historiographers are so short that an analysis of their content leads little further. At least, however, it becomes clear that C.  Fannius apparently treated the battle of Drepana in the eighth book of his work. FRH 9 F 3 = FRHist 12 F 3 (=Schol. Veron. ad Verg. Aen. 3707 p. 430): C. Fannius in VIII annali Der modo, modo Drepana appellat. Into the wider context of this skirmish might also belong a sentence handed down by A. Gellius from the History of Cn. Gellius, but this attribution is not clearly certain. See FRH 10 F 26 = FRHist 14  F 28 (=Gell. 18,12,6): Cn. Gellius in annalibus: postquam tempestas sedavit, Atherbal taurum immolavit. Cf. on the possible contexts of the fragment the commentary in FRHist III, 240, where an assignment to the run-up to the defeat of Drepana is considered most likely. 70  Cf. Bücher 2006, 196–200. 71  See, for instance, Cic. Pis. 14; Planc. 60; Scaur. 48. 72  Cic. Sest. 127; Pis. 43; Phil. 11,9. 73  Cf. on the following Schütz 1913, 72–74; Bücher 2006, 199 f. 74  Cf. Kaster 2006, 360 f. (“Albinovanus presumably said e.g. ‘You claim to be a patriot, after violently forcing a return from an exile that expressed the Roman people’s will? How different the great Regulus: though his capture while fighting in Rome’s defence reduced him to servile status, he accepted that condition rather than violate his fides to gain a return!’”). 75  Cic. Sest. 127–128. Cf. Mix 1970, 37: “This composite mental portrait of Regulus was useful to Cicero in a personal way. As Regulus freely left Rome to go to his death, so Cicero implies that he himself returned to Rome without concern for his personal safety, without the need of such gangs as those of Milo and Sestius”. 69

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In his invective against L. Calpurnius Piso (in the year 55), Cicero compares the attacked with the famous Regulus. The basic idea can be formulated in such a way that the characteristically and morally upright person is not disgraced if he is wronged by others since this would not be his own fault but the result of a stroke of fate. As an example of the blameless who have been wronged, Cicero cites Regulus and C. Marius, whereby, as the context of the speech suggests, he undoubtedly also indirectly refers to his own temporary banishment.76 Cicero describes on this occasion the death of Regulus under torture, whereby he knows to add further details to the cruel deed, which were perhaps still unknown to Sempronius Tuditanus, at least as far as this can be concluded from the note by Gellius (see above).77 In the 11th Philippic speech (in the year 43), Cicero uses the comparison to Regulus again as a tool in the fight against an opponent, in this case against P. Cornelius Dolabella: If “the Punic” had to be considered cruel to a high degree because they tortured Regulus, how should one then judge Dolabella, who even had his fellow citizen C.  Trebonius, the proconsul of the province Asia, tortured to death?78 Unlike in the speech against Piso, Cicero does not give any further explanations about the fate of Regulus here. Apparently, he could rely on at least a vague familiarity with the Regulus legend among his audience. In addition to the three aforementioned passages from speeches in which Cicero alludes to the example of Regulus, there are other references to the fate of the Atilian in Cicero’s philosophical writings. These passages also mention torture by the Carthaginians, but the focus here, in keeping with the context of the works, is on the attitude that Regulus himself had displayed, which could be considered an example of Roman devotion to duty and fides. In two passages in De Officiis, Cicero draws on the example of Regulus.79 In both passages, however, the focus is again on the Atilian’s journey to Rome as well as his return to Carthage, where he suffered death by cruel torture.80 In the first book, Cicero cites Regulus as an exemplum for keeping  Cic. Pis. 43: Quae est igitur poena, quod supplicium? id mea sententia quod accidere nemini potest nisi nocenti, suscepta fraus, impedita et oppressa mens, bonorum odium, nota inusta senatus, amissio dignitatis. nec mihi ille M. Regulus quem Carthaginienses resectis palpebris inligatum in machina vigilando necaverunt supplicio videtur adfectus, nec C. Marius quem Italia servata ab illo demersum in Minturnensium paludibus, Africa devicta ab eodem expulsum et naufragum vidit. fortunae enim ista tela sunt non culpae; supplicium autem est poena peccati. Cf. Mix 1970, 37, who cautiously interprets Cicero’s intention behind this speech: “Here, then, is a subtle, perhaps unconscious desire of Cicero to wear Regulus’ halo for a moment”. 77  According to this, Regulus had not only had his eyelids cut off so that he would die of insomnia but the consul had also been tied to a rotating scaffold. 78  Cic. Phil. 11,9 (Alia sunt, alia, inquam, o perditissimi homines et amentissimi, multo miseriora. nam quo maior vis est animi quam corporis, hoc sunt graviora ea quae concipiuntur animo quam illa quae corpore. miserior igitur qui suscipit in se scelus quam is qui alterius facinus subire cogitur. cruciatus est a Dolabella Trebonius: et quidem a Carthaginiensibus Regulus. Qua re cum crudelissimi Poeni iudicati sint in hoste, quid in cive Dolabella iudicandum est?). 79  In a letter to Atticus of November 5, 44, Cicero tells his friend about the work on De Officiis and mentions Regulus in this context to explain the argumentation he wants to follow in his writing (Cic. Att. 16,11,4). 80  Cic. off. 3,99–101. 76

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oaths to enemies, comparing the positive example he offered with the reprehensible actions of the envoys of the Roman prisoners at Cannae.81 In a relatively detailed discussion of the fate of Regulus in the third book, Cicero emphasizes, on the one hand, the bravery (fortitudo) and high-mindedness (magnitudo animi) of the Atilian, who had given advice to the Senate that, while beneficial to the commonwealth, had brought death to himself as he returned to Carthage.82 Furthermore, however, it is inappropriate to claim that Regulus’ deed had brought him no benefit himself, for by his conduct he had escaped an unworthy life as a oath-breaking old man in Rome. Moreover, his deed had benefited the res publica, and what was beneficial to the res publica could not mean any harm to the individual citizen.83 In the treatise De finibus bonorum et maiorum, Cicero presents M.  Atilius Regulus as an example of true virtue (virtus) in the rebuttal he delivers in the second book as part of the fictional dialogue with his opponent L. Manlius Torquatus on Epicurean doctrine. What seemed deplorable to those who heard of his fate, which Cicero paints in detail, was a form of fulfillment for the truly virtuous Regulus. For those “blissful men” were characterized not by the cheerfulness favored by the Epicureans but by “firmness and perseverance.”84 Cicero also takes up the death of Regulus under torture in a number of other examples in which, with slight variation in the concrete argumentation, he always emphasizes the exemplary nature of Atilius’ attitude and actions.85 In two other of his philosophical writings, De divinatione and De natura deorum, Cicero also reveals his knowledge of the defeat of P. Claudius Pulcher at Drepana, which was preceded by the momentous outrage of the consul.86 Since it cannot be assumed that Cicero invented this episode, one can probably assume that at least in  Cic. off. 1,39.  Cic. off. 3,100. 83  Cic. off. 3,101 (at stulte, qui non modo non censuerit captivos remittendos, verum etiam dissuaserit. quo modo stulte? etiamne, si rei publicae conducebat? potest autem, quod inutile rei publicae sit, id cuiquam civi utile esse?). 84  Cic. fin. 2,65 (dicet pro me ipsa virtus nec dubitabit isti vestro beato M. Regulum anteponere, quem quidem, cum sua voluntate, nulla vi coactus praeter fidem, quam dederat hosti, ex patria Carthaginem revertisset, tum ipsum, cum vigiliis et fame cruciaretur, clamat virtus beatiorem fuisse quam potantem in rosa Thorium. bella magna gesserat, bis consul fuerat, triumpharat nec tamen sua illa superiora tam magna neque tam praeclara ducebat quam illum ultimum casum, quem propter fidem constantiamque susceperat, qui nobis miserabilis videtur audientibus, illi perpetienti erat voluptarius. non enim hilaritate nec lascivia nec risu aut ioco, comite levitatis, saepe etiam tristes firmitate et constantia sunt beati). 85  Cic. Cato 75 (M. Atilius Regulus is cited in a series with other famous generals of Roman history as an apparently common example of inner composure and strength of character in the face of death. Both were befitting of a virtuous man, and both had often been demonstrated in battle by the Roman legions); nat. deor. 3,80 (Regulus appears in an enumeration with other well-known persons of the Roman past, such as L. Aemilius Paullus, M. Claudius Marcellus, or the Scipio brothers in Spain who, in battle or by murder, perished violently. The starting point of the enumeration is the question why the gods, if they cared for the human race, allowed such “good” men to die violently); Tusc. 5,14 (Regulus is cited in a series of Romans of the past who died under torture). 86  Cic. div. 1,29; 2,71; nat. deor. 2,7. 81 82

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parts of the tradition this outrage was presented as the cause of the defeat.87 Cicero also knew of the trial of Claudius as well as of his conviction.88 In both passages, moreover, the destruction of the fleet of Iunius Pullus in the sea-storm is placed alongside the defeat at Drepana. This catastrophe was also preceded by an outrage. Iunius Pullus had committed suicide following the sinking of his fleet. Further references or allusions to defeats of the First Punic War cannot be cited.89 It can, thus, be stated that Cicero, with regard to the First Roman-Carthaginian War, refers relatively often to events that belong to the context of the fate of M. Atilius Regulus. The actual defeat on the battlefield at Tunis is conspicuously not mentioned at all but rather Regulus’ behavior in captivity or his death under torture, which is perceived as exemplary. Depending on the situation, Cicero can use the example either to rhetorically reinforce invectives against political opponents or to put himself in a favorable light.90 From the historical work of Q. Aelius Tubero, a contemporary and acquaintance of Cicero, which is said to have comprised at least 14 books, two fragments from the context of the First Punic War have been preserved. Both concern the deeds and fate of M. Atilius Regulus and have been preserved by Gellius. The first episode does not concern a defeat of Regulus but a heroic deed of the Roman commander, who, according to it, fought and killed a huge snake at the river Bagrada, for which the support of the whole army was necessary.91 In the second fragment it becomes apparent that Tubero, whom Gellius quotes here verbatim, knew how to contribute details about further cruelties of the Carthaginians to the torture and death of Regulus.92 The passage offers no fundamentally new ‘insights’ into the end of the famous general. It can, however, be seen as a further indication of the prevalence of the episode in Roman historical culture of the first century, in which the

 This is also suggested by Liv. per. 19,2.  Cic. nat. deor. 2,7. 89  Also other events of the war are, as stated, hardly mentioned by Cicero. This is also true for the great Roman victories, for instance at Mylae, Eknomos or at the Aegatic Islands. In a stringing together of great generals of Roman history in the second book of De natura deorum (Cic. nat. deor. 2165) Cicero also mentions four, apparently in some sense canonical, names of the First Punic War – Caiatinus, Duilius, Metellus and Lutatius. In this passage the respective victories won under the command of these commanders are included, though they are not explicitly mentioned. An actual engagement with Roman victories of war is found only with regard to the battle of Mylae and the triumph of C. Duilius. In this context, Cicero mentions the special honours that had been bestowed on Duilius, since he was the first Roman to defeat the Carthaginians in a naval battle (Cic. orat. 153; Cato 44). 90  Cf. Mix 1970, 38. 91  FRH 18 F 9 = FRHist 38 F 11 (=Gell. 7,3). Cf. especially the commentary in FRHist III, 472 f., in which the episode is not denied an authentic core. 92  FRH 18 F 10 = FRHist 38 F 12 (=Gell. 7,4,2–3): Eundem Regulum Tubero in historiis redisse Carthaginem novisque exemplorum modis excruciatum a Poenis dicit: “in atras”, inquit, “et profundas tenebras eum claudebant ac diu post, ubi erat visus sol ardentissimus, repente educebant et adversus ictus solis oppositum continebant atque intendere in caelum oculos cogebant. Palpebras quoque eius, ne conivere posset, sursum ac deorsum diductas insuebant”. 87 88

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circumstances of the torture and death of Regulus, in particular, apparently stimulated the creation of ever new variants.

5.1.4 Literature of the Augustan Period 5.1.4.1 An Example of Both Extremes: Livy In his history of the Roman past, Livy naturally also dealt with the First Punic War. Due to the loss of the entire second decade of Ab Urbe Condita, however, the corresponding books can no longer be studied, so that an important source for a comprehensive account and interpretation of the Roman defeats of the war in Roman historiography is also missing. At least, the information in the ancient summaries of the books, the Periochae, allow us to make some educated guesses on the subject.93 An examination of the Periochae reveals first of all that Livy gave the First Punic War considerably less space in his work than the Second, for which he devoted several times the room on a per year basis.94 On the first Roman defeat of the war, the fiasco of Cn. Cornelius Scipio at Lipara, Livy seems to have offered an account in which the failure of the enterprise is attributed to an insidious trick of the Carthaginians.95 In the same book, Livy apparently also described the rescue of the army, which A. Atilius Caiatinus had manoeuvred into an unfavourable position, by the Roman military tribune, who was already known to Cato. However, this tribune apparently had a different name in Livy than in earlier works. Moreover, he no longer listed 400 legionaries, as in Cato, but 300, which can probably be interpreted as an indication that the alignment of the episode with the tradition of the Spartan battle under Leonidas – presumably already begun by Cato – had progressed further.96 The 18th book seems to have been devoted mainly to the operations of Regulus in Africa, his defeat at Tunis, his journey to Rome, and his death in captivity. At least the chapters on Regulus probably took up a large part of the book.97 The brief information summary certainly gives an impression of the extent to which the Regulus legend had been edited and expanded in the generations before Livy. The battle of the commander and his army against a supernaturally large serpent at Bagradas was also mentioned by Livy. Regulus, after his victories on the battlefield,  Cf. on the second decade of Livy in the Periochae Bessone 2015. In addition, there is information that can be inferred from later works for which Livy most probably served as a source. Here, especially the account of Florus is to be mentioned. 94  Liv. per. 16–19. for the account of the 24 years of the first war Livy required four books (16–19), thus, treating an average of 6 years per book, though he did not make this distribution so evenly, while he distributed the 17 years of the second war over the whole of the third decade (21–30). 95  Liv. per. 17,1: Cn. Cornelius consul a classe Punica circumventus et per fraudem, veluti in conloquium evocatus, captus est. 96  Liv. per. 17,5: Atilius Calatinus consul cum in locum a Poenis circumsessum temere exercitum duxisset, M. Calpurni, tribuni militum, virtute et opera evasit, qui cum trecentis militibus eruptione facta hostes in se converterat. 97  Liv. per. 18.1–2, 7. 93

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was said to have preferred to return to Italy rather than remain in Africa, and addressed a request to the Senate to relieve him, as his humble estate had been deserted by the workers in his absence.98 In Livy’s account, Regulus’ subsequent defeat and death probably appeared more tragic because of his now enforced continued stay in Africa. Moreover, Regulus thus fulfilled the ideal of a modest Roman of old, to whom the desire for luxury as well as the – potentially always destructive – striving for power were still alien.99 For the defeat at Tunis, Livy – as already Polybius – seems to have seen the intervention of the Spartan Xanthippus as the cause. Moreover, the phrase that Fortuna wanted to give Regulus “an example of both extremes” points to the explanations about the change of Tyche and the possibilities to learn from it, which Polybius had already attached to the description of Regulus’ defeat in the Histories.100 The other components of the long-established Regulus legend then also seem to have corresponded in Livy essentially to the elements already known. Regulus came to Rome as an envoy but advised the Senate against accepting the offers of the other side, and then returned to Carthage, where the Carthaginians tortured him to death.101  These are probably free inventions, since Polybius and Cassius Dio/Zonaras show that Regulus obviously continued the operations in Africa very offensively and had his own political ambitions in mind. See on the negotiations between Regulus and the Carthaginians after Roman successes at the beginning of the campaign Pol. 1,31,4, which explicitly states that the Roman consul sought a peace treaty because he wanted to bring the war to a victorious conclusion under his command. Polybius does not transmit the exact terms of peace but merely informs us that they were unacceptably harsh for the Carthaginians. The Roman demands are handed down by a fragment of Cassius Dio. To what extent the individual points were actually demanded by Regulus can no longer be clearly determined. Zon. 8,13,4 is also rather vague. According to Cass. Dio frg. 43,22 Regulus would have demanded that the Carthaginians leave Sardinia and Sicily, release the Roman prisoners of war, ransom the Carthaginian prisoners of war from the Romans, and pay the Roman war expenses. Moreover, they should have accepted a treaty that would have forced them into an unequal alliance with Rome, essentially imposing on them the restrictions that the Carthaginians actually had to accept after the Second Punic War. This consistency in the terms of the treaty has aroused suspicion in scholars as to their authenticity. On the whole, the terms Regulus set for the Carthaginians will have been too high in any case. On the failed negotiations of the year 255 see, for example, Lazenby 1996a, 101 f.; Bleckmann 2002, 166; Beck 2005a, 237, there: “Von welcher der beiden Seiten eine entsprechende Friedensinitiative ausging, läßt sich nicht entscheiden, wie auch die Forderungen des Regulus im einzelnen nicht mehr zu erkennen sind. […] [I]n allen Quellen herrscht Übereinstimmung darin, daß die Verhandlungen an überzogenen Forderungen des Prokonsuls scheiterten”. 99  Liv. Per. 18,1: Atilius Regulus in Africa serpentem portentosae magnitudinis cum magna clade militum occidit, et cum aliquot proeliis bene adversus Carthaginienses pugnasset successorque ei a senatu prospere bellum gerenti non mitteretur, id ipsum per litteras ad senatum scriptas questus est, in quibus inter causas petendi successoris erat, quod agellus eius a mercennariis desertus esset. 100  Liv. Per. 18,2: quaerente deinde fortuna, ut magnum utriusque casus exemplum in Regulo proderetur, arcessito a Carthaginiensibus Xanthippo, Lacedaemoniorum duce, victus proelio et captus est. See Pol. 1,35. 101  Liv. Per. 18,7: Regulus missus a Carthaginiensibus ad senatum, ut de pace et, si eam non posset impetrare, de commutandis captivis ageret, et iureiurando adstrictus rediturum se Carthaginem, si commutari captivos non placuisset, utrumque negandi auctor senatui fuit, et cum fide custodita 98

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Livy apparently attributed the defeat of P.  Claudius Pulcher at Drepana to his disregard of the unfavorable auspices indicated by the sacred chickens and also reported that Claudius had them thrown into the sea. According to the summary of the book, Livy likewise reported on Claudius’ unsuccessful appointment of the dictator M.  Claudius Glicia. However, the trial of Claudius is not mentioned here. Apparently Livy here underlined the image of Claudian arrogance (superbia Claudia), which was widespread in Roman tradition.102 The sister of the now deceased consul, confronted with the crowds in the streets of Rome that made it difficult for her to move forward in her palanquin, had expressed the wish that her brother, who had apparently died in the meantime, might return from the grave and lose another fleet, which would also solve the traffic problem in Rome.103 The last scant decade of the war, including the great naval victory at the Aegatic Islands, was afterwards apparently summarized by Livy in a comparatively concise manner in one book.104 Overall, then, a number of insights can be gained despite the loss of the second decade of Ab Urbe Condita. The arrangement of the material and the weighting of individual passages of the First Punic War in Livy seemed fundamentally similar to those of earlier works. Compared with the Hannibalic War, Rome’s first war against Carthage also occupied a subordinate position in Livy. Among the operations of the war, Regulus’ campaign in Africa seems to have occupied a prominent place in the account of the war as a whole. In this respect, the terse remarks of the summary indicate that the account of his fate in captivity followed patterns of representation and interpretation that had been previously established. To what extent Livy set his own accents here remains unclear. He seems, however, to have endeavoured to create the impression of a particular tragedy.105 With regard to possible explanations for the individual defeats, two patterns of representation can be found again, which are already known from the description of other failures in Livy as well as other authors. One of the Roman consuls is defeated in an insidious ambush by the opponents, another one is himself to blame for his failure in battle, as he does not pay attention to unfavourable omens and also behaves arrogantly.

reversus esset, supplicio a Carthaginiensibus de eo sumpto periit. It is not clear from the brief note in the Periochae how Livy imagined this torture of Regulus, which had inspired the formation of so many different variants among earlier writers. Due to the “Auffälligkeit, daß sich auch zu Silius’ [Italicus] Lebzeiten noch keine wirklich kanonische Fassung des Regulusmartyriums herausgebildet hatte”, Fröhlich concludes that Livy on this matter “put various traditions to choose from instead of risking a switch” (Fröhlich 2000, 308. This was also indicated by the “diplomatic formulations in Florus and Eutrop”. Cf. Flor. epit. 2,2,25; Eutr. 2,25,3). 102  On the superbia Claudia see, among others, Ungern-Sternberg 2006. 103  Liv. Per. 19,8–9: Claudia, soror P. Claudi, qui contemptis auspiciis male pugnaverat, a ludis revertens cum turba premeretur, dixit: “Utinam frater meus viveret, iterum classem duceret.” Ob eam causam multa ei dicta est. 104  Liv. Per. 19,12–13. 105  Cf. the account of the campaign of M. Atilius Regulus in Africa (Liv. Per. 18,1–2).

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5.1.4.2 The Example of the Prisoner: Poetry of the Augustan Period In Virgil’s Aeneid, the conflict between Rome and Carthage is famously ‘foretold’ but without direct reference to the First Punic War and one of the Roman defeats.106 In Horace’s œuvre there are some references and allusions to the First Punic War but these are kept quite brief.107 The person most frequently mentioned in this context is M. Atilius Regulus. Horace is also particularly interested in the fate of the commander after his capture by the Carthaginians.108 Thus, at the beginning of the twelfth ode of the first book, the poet raises the question of which man or hero he should praise, and then goes through a gallery of famous figures of the mythical as well as historical Roman past, Regulus being one of them. The recipient is not given any further information.109 For the understanding of the passage, however, a comparatively vague knowledge of the fact that Regulus was a famous hero of Roman history was sufficient. Depending on the level of education and historical knowledge, the mention of the name could then evoke further associations with the Regulus legend. In the fifth ode of the third book, Horace again describes the fate of Regulus in relative detail and even has him appear in direct speech before the Senate and speak out against the exchange, here apparently rather against a ransom, of the Roman prisoners.110 Such an act, he argues, would set a bad example for the future. Regulus’ characterization of his fellow prisoners, perhaps surprisingly negative, underscores this. For the captured legionaries would have surrendered without resistance and thus brought disgrace upon themselves. It would hardly be possible to redeem them by buying their freedom with gold, which is why it would be preferable for the Romans in question to remain in captivity. The portrayal of the Roman prisoners and the manner of arguing against their ransom reveal similarities to the episode surrounding those Roman soldiers who, after being captured by Hannibal’s troops at Cannae, are said to have pleaded in front of the Senate for their ransom.111 In fact, both incidents are also cited directly one after the other in a number of passages, although not in this passage in Horace.  The foreshadowing of Dido’s avenger may well be referred to Hannibal. Verg. Aen. 4622–629. So also, among others, Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2495  f. Cf. also Glei 1991, 158; Modrow 2017, 276 f. 107  Hor. carm. 2,12,2 can be interpreted as a reference to the First Roman-Carthaginian War. This war is classified among the great deeds of the Roman past, which the poet does not want to deal with in this context. 108  Hor. carm. 1,12; 3,5. 109  Hor. carm. 1,12,37–40: Regulum et Scauros animaeque magnae/Prodigum Paulum superante Poeno/Gratus insigni referam camena/Fabriciumque. 110  Hor. carm. 3,5,18–40. Usually, passages referring to Regulus’ voyage to Rome are about an exchange of prisoners. That the reference here is to a ransom may be an allusion to the payment of a ransom or a larger quantity of gold to the Gallic besiegers of the Capitol. Cf. Kornhardt 1954, 109, who understands the expression “auro repensus ... miles” (Hor. carm. 3,5,25–26) as an “allusion to the Gaulish example”. 111  Cf. Syndicus 2001, 76, note 40. Seibert 1993b, 231 estimates, based on varying accounts, that a total of “at least 10,000 men” were taken prisoner on the Roman-Italian side at Cannae. Sources: Pol. 3,117,3; Liv. 22,49,18; Plut. Fab. 16,8. For the treatment of this episode in Roman historical culture see below the respective sections in Sect. 5.2. 106

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Furthermore, the speech Regulus gives in Horace resembles, not only with regard to the fundamentally similar subject matter but also with regard to the topicality used, that speech in Liny with which Manlius Torquatus rejects the request of the Cannae prisoners for their ransom.112 According to Horace, Regulus, by his speech, as well as by his exemplary manly bearing, had dissuaded the Senate, which was evidently wavering in its decision, from reaching an agreement with the Carthaginians, and had then returned to Carthage as quickly as possible, although he knew that certain death awaited him there.113 Although Horace gives far more information in this ­passage about the events that had led to the imprisonment of Regulus’ soldiers in the first place, a certain prior knowledge of the episode is basically assumed here as well.114 More important in this context, however, was probably the knowledge of another event. The detailed reference to the well-known Regulus legend had at this point above all a direct contemporary reference. This was the imprisonment of Roman and Italian soldiers by “the Persians” from the army of M. Licinius Crassus, which had perished at Carrhae. The ode begins, in fact, with a call for the conquest of the Parthian empire.115 The following description of the unworthy living conditions of the former soldiers of Crassus, who now live among the “Medes” and have lost the memory of Italy, is shown as a disgrace for all Romans, which now, so one may well interpret the ode, is finally to be ended.116 Regulus’ speech itself alludes several times to the defeat of Crassus at Carrhae, among other things, by referring to the Roman standards that now hung in Punic temples, thus emphasizing the basically timeless relevance of the exemplum Regulus.117  Cf. Kornhardt 1954, 107 f.; Syndikus 2001, 76 f., note 41.  Hor. carm. 3,5,41–56: Fertur pudicae coniugis osculum/Parvosque natos ut capitis minor/Ab se removisse et virilem/Torvus humi posuisse vultum./Donec labantis consilio patres/Firmaret auctor numquam alias dato/Interque maerentis amicos/Egregius properaret exsul./Atqui sciebat, quae sibi barbarus/Tortor pararet: non aliter tamen/Dimovit obstantis proprinquos/Et populum reditus morantem,/Quam si clientum longa negotia/Diiudicata lite relinqueret/Tendens Venafranos in agros/Aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum. 114  This knowledge, however, did not have to extend to all details, since an at least vague idea of the course of events was probably already sufficient to follow the argumentation of Regulus’ speech. Cf. Syndicus 2001, 74 (“Horaz konnte so vorgehen, weil jeder Leser die Grundzüge der RegulusGeschichte kannte”). 115  Hor. carm. 3,5,1–12: Caelo tonantem credidimus Iovem/Regnare: praesens divus habebitur/ Augustusadiectis Britannis/Imperio gravibusque Persis./Milesne Crassi coniuge barbara/Turpis maritus vixit et hostium – Pro curia inversique mores! – Consenuit socerorum in arvis?/Sub rege Medo Marsus et Apulus,/Anciliorum et nominis et togae/Oblitus aeternaeque Vestae,/Incolumi Iove et urbe Roma? These lines of Horace, as is well known, were no exception at the time of the ode’s composition. The call for a renewed campaign against the Parthians is found in a number of passages by Augustan poets. Cf. Syndicus 2001, 71, note 17 for further evidence. See ibid., 70 f. (“Der Dichter will damit dem Kaiser nicht gerade eine Bedingung stellen; das Futur dieser feierlichen Stelle sagt vielmehr im Ton einer Prophezeiung ein sicher zu erwartendes Ereignis voraus.”). 116  See the quotation in the previous note. Cf. for the description of the life of Crassus’ former legionaries, unworthy of a Roman, Syndikus 2001, 71 f. Cf. Kornhardt 1954, 118. 117  See Mix 1970, 41 f.; Syndicus 2001, 75–77. More precisely, in the speech that Horace puts into his mouth here, Regulus even makes an almost eternal claim to the validity of his conviction. For 112 113

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Apart from these two passages, the search for interpretations, references and allusions to the First Punic War and, in particular, the Roman defeats of this period in Augustan poetry yields only meagre results. As far as can be discerned from the existing corpus of sources, the subject does not seem to have played a major role. Only the Regulus legend appears sporadically, with the relevant passages suggesting a fairly widespread knowledge of at least the broad outlines of the story, while the form of presentation and interpretation of the episode vary to a considerable extent, depending on the specific context.

5.1.5  The Examples of the Consuls: Evidence of the Early Imperial Period In the collection of Valerius Maximus, about ten passages refer more or less directly to actors and events of the First Roman-Carthaginian War, which is thus far fewer than those which refer to the second war.118 In Valerius Maximus, the figure of the First Punic War who is clearly most frequently mentioned is also the famous M. Atilius Regulus.119 P. Claudius Pulcher, the consul of Drepana, is still mentioned three times, while other generals and events are only mentioned in one or two passages.120 The different interpretations with which the exemplum Regulus is connected in Valerius’ work are partly already known from other sources. However, further interpretations show up here. In the first passage, which deals with the fate of Regulus, Valerius first mentions his defeat by Xanthippus, and then goes into more detail about Regulus’ actions before the Senate in Rome. As is the case in other sources on this event, Regulus again advises against accepting the Carthaginian’s terms.121 The Atilian then returned to Carthage, although he was aware that the revenge of the Carthaginians would await him there. No doubt it would now have been possible for the gods to protect the blameless Regulus by mitigating the Carthaginians’

by refusing any negotiations for a ransom, Roman soldiers are to be deprived for all time of any hope of gracious treatment after their surrender. So rightly Syndicus 2001, 75 (with references to older commentaries on the passage). 118  Cf. below the list and discussion of the various passages on the Second Roman-Carthaginian War (Sect. 5.2.6). The battle of Cannae alone is mentioned by Valerius Maximus in about 20 passages. 119  Val. Max. 1,1,14; 1,8,ext. 19; 2,9,8; 4,4,6; 9,2,ext. 1; 9,6,ext. 1. 120  P. Claudius Pulcher: Val. Max. 1,4,3–4; 8,1,absol. 4 (here referred to as App. Claudius; the focus is on the trial of Claudius); 8,1,damn. 4 (this is actually about Claudius’ sister and her conviction for insulting the people); C. Duilius: Val. Max. 3,6,4; 7,3,ext. 7 (Duilius was the Roman who celebrated a naval triumph over the Carthaginians); Cn. Cornelius Scipio Asina: Val. Max. 6,6,2; 6,9,11 (see on this below in the further text); C. Lutatius Catulus: Val. Max. 1,3,2 (Lutatius managed to end the war with a victory for the Romans); L. Cornelius Scipio: Val. Max. 5,1,2 (Scipio had an enemy commander honourably buried after his death in battle). 121  These would have consisted in exchanging numerous young men of the Carthaginians for an old man, Regulus himself. Cf. above Sect. 5.1.4.2 (on Horace).

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“savagery,” but they would have preferred instead to let Regulus’ glory shine even brighter by letting the Carthaginians act “according to their customs.” Moreover, by destroying Carthage in the third war, they would have ensured a just punishment for the Carthaginians.122 As seen, the question of how the gods could have allowed such a virtuous man as Regulus to suffer such a cruel fate was already raised in Cicero’s De natura deorum, where the Atilian is mentioned as a case of the many who had not been protected by the gods, even though they possessed great virtue.123 Valerius does not deal in this passage with the detailed description of the tortures of Regulus that is often found in other ancient sources, the description of which became increasingly varied over the generations with regard to the details of the kinds of torture the Carthaginians inflicted on Regulus. He does so instead in a collection of instances of cruelty in the ninth book. Here, too, it is noticeable that Cicero used the same episode in a quite similar way as exemplum in a speech (In Pisonem). In fact, it is reasonable to assume that this work served as a source for Valerius, since Cicero is generally considered one of the main sources for the Facta et dicta.124 Another passage is about the sentence passed on the quaestor M. Metellus and an unspecified number of Roman equites who, after the battle of Cannae, had planned to abandon the Republic and flee Italy.125 After punishing this offense, the censors punished those Roman soldiers who had been captured at Cannae and then sent to Rome by Hannibal as negotiators but had broken their oath to return to the Carthaginian camp. The punishment by the censors had been inflicted both because it was proper to “Roman blood” to maintain fides, and also because one of the censors had been the son of the famous M. Atilius Regulus, who, in the First Punic War, had preferred to die by suffering torture rather than break the word he had given to the Carthaginians. The censor, therefore, acted entirely in accordance with the

 Val. Max. 1,1,14: Sed quae ad custodiam religionis attinent, nescio an omnes M. Atilius Regulus praecesserit, qui ex victore speciosissimo insidiis Hasdrubalis et Xanthippi Lacedaemonii ducis ad miserabilem captivi fortunam deductus ac missus ad senatum populumque Romanum legatus, ut [ex] se et uno et sene complures Poenorum iuvenes pensarentur, in contrarium dato consilio Carthaginem petiit, non quid ignarus ad quam crudeles quamque merito sibi infestos [deos] reverteretur, verum quia iis iuraverat, si captivi eorum redditi non forent, ad eos sese rediturum. potuerunt profecto di immortales efferatam mitigare saevitiam. ceterum, quo clarior esset Atilii gloria, Carthaginienses moribus suis uti passi sunt, tertio Punico bello religiosissimi spiritus tam crudeliter vexati urbis eorum interitu iusta exacturi piacula. 123  Cic. nat. deor. 3,80. Cf. above Sect. 5.1.3. 124  Val. Max. 9,2,ext. 1: Transgrediemur nunc ad illa quibus, ut par dolor, ita nullus nostrae civitatis rubor inest. Carthaginienses Atilium Regulum palpebris resectis machinae, in qua undique praeacuti stimuli eminebant, inclusum vigilantia pariter et continuo tractu doloris necaverunt, tormenti genus indignum passo, auctoribus dignissimum. A few paragraphs later, another cruelty of the Carthaginians is communicated. These would have drowned the Spartan Xanthippus after the latter had defeated Regulus on the battlefield. Previously, they had pretended to give him safe passage to his homeland: Val. Max. 9,6,ext. 1. Cicero as Valerius’ source for this episode: Bloomer 1992, 96 f. 125  A detailed description of the events after the battle of Cannae, to which this passage refers, can be found in Liv. 22,53,1–13. Cf. in detail below Sect. 5.2.5.1. 122

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example set by his father.126 Punishment by the censors is also attested in other sources. The censors of the year 214 were indeed M. Atilius Regulus and P. Furius Philus but their names are not mentioned in Livy, for example, in the corresponding passage in which he describes the punitive measures against the oath-breaking Cannae veterans.127 Consequently, no reference is made there to Regulus’ conduct in the First Punic War. In fact, as far as the extant sources indicate, Valerius seems to be the only author who came up with the idea of linking the fate of the father with the censor Regulus.128 In general, however, as already seen, the two cases were often drawn together as exempla in Roman tradition.129 Now, here is added a connection with the episode of the military tribunes at Canusium after the battle of Cannae, which Valerius also takes up in other passages.130 The theme of the latter, though different in some respects from the cases of the Cannae prisoners and Regulus, is again linked by the fact that here too the focus is on appropriate behaviour after defeat. In another passage, it is mentioned that Regulus wanted to return home after the first year of the campaign in Africa to take care of his estate and his family. This detail, after all, was apparently already in Livy.131 In the account of the Augustan historiographer, the impression of a special tragedy in Regulus’ fate seems to have been reinforced by Regulus’ wish, which the Senate rejected. In Valerius, the focus is rather on the measures that the Senate had taken to support the commander’s family, so that the example here is not integrated into the overall context of the Regulus legend.132 As mentioned, P. Claudius Pulcher is the Roman general of the first war who is most frequently mentioned in the collection of Valerius after Regulus. All mentions here relate more or less directly to the context of the defeat at Drepana. In the first example, the causal sequence of the action (disregard of the auspices and sacrilege against the sacred fowls  – loss of the fleet in battle) is described succinctly and  Val. Max. 2,9,8: Turpis etiam metus censores summa cum severitate poenam exegerunt: M. enim Atilius Regulus et L. Furius Philus M. Metellum quaestorem compluresque equites Romanos, qui post infeliciter commissam Cannensem pugnam cum eo abituros se Italia iuraverant, dereptis equis publicis inter aerarios referendos curaverunt. eos que gravi nota adfecerunt qui cum in potestatem Hannibalis venissent, legati ab eo missi ad senatum de permutandis captivis neque impetrassent quod petebant, in urbe manserunt, quia et Romano sanguini fidem praestare conveniens erat et M. Atilius Regulus censor perfidiam notabat, cuius pater per summos cruciatus exspirare quam fallere Carthaginienses satius esse duxerat. iam haec censura ex foro in castra transcendit, quae neque timeri neque decipi voluit hostem. 127  Liv. 24,18,1–15. 128  Weileder 1998, 57. 129  See Kornhardt 1954 for a discussion of the examples found in Cicero (Sect. 5.1.3). 130  Val. Max. 5,6,7. Here, however, the main point is to praise the exemplary attitude of P. Cornelius Scipio, who is able to prevent the escape of the other military tribunes. 131  Val. Max. 4,4,6. cf. above Sect. 5.1.4.1. 132  There is only a rather superficial reference at the beginning of the section to the fact that Regulus had suffered both the greatest victory and the greatest defeat of the Romans in the war. Knowledge of Regulus’ history is certainly assumed here to some degree (Val. Max. 4,4,6: Atilius Regulus, primi Punici belli qua gloria qua clades maxima, ...). In another passage, the focus is on the fight of Regulus and his soldiers against a huge snake at the river Bagradas (Val. Max. 1,8,ext. 19). 126

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directly.133 The second passage is given in a series of examples in which defendants were acquitted in court. Here, accordingly, the emphasis is on a sketch of the course of the trial. Supposedly, the gods were thought to have intervened by sending a storm that disrupted the trial in Claudius’ favour. The episode concludes with the wording, as pointed as it is factually incorrect, according to which a storm at sea cost Claudius the fleet but a storm on land also saved his life. Before that, even in this passage, no doubt is left that the consul had caused the defeat and the loss of most of the fleet.134 In a second list of examples in which defendants were condemned, the sister of P. Claudius Pulcher is also mentioned. This Claudia had been sentenced to a heavy fine because of her derogatory remark about the population of the city of Rome and the allusion to her brother’s defeat that was connected with it.135 Cn. Cornelius Scipio Asina appears in two examples, in both of which reference is made to his defeat at Lipara. In one passage, a group of high-ranking Carthaginians discuss the option of negotiating with the Romans after a defeat of “a large Carthaginian fleet at Sicily”, which is thought to have been the Battle of the Aegatic Islands. This Hamilcar rejects, referring to the capture of Asina at Lipara – it was to be expected that the Romans would now repay this act if given the opportunity. When negotiations do take place, however, the Romans do not act at all as Hamilcar had predicted, underlining the moral superiority of the Roman consuls over the Carthaginian generals. The defeat of this Scipio is, thus, ultimately attributed to a Carthaginian ambush. There is no sign of criticism of his actions here. Instead, the focus of the account is on Roman fides, which protects even the Carthaginian opponents.136 This is also true of the second passage, which refers to the capture of Scipio  Val. Max. 1,4,3 (Par.): P. Claudius bello Punico primo, cum proelium navale committere vellet, auspiciaque more maiorum petisset, et pullarius non exire cavea pullos nuntiasset, abici eos in mare iussit, dicens ‘quia esse nolunt, bibant’; (Nepot.): P. Claudius, praeceps animi, primo bello Punico pullarium consuluit. qui cum dixisset non vesci pullos, quod malum omen est, ‘bibant’ inquit et in mare proici iussit. mox classem apud Egadas insulas cum multo rei pub. damno et suo exitio amisit. 134  Val. Max. 8,1,absol. 4: Ap. Claudius, nescio religionis maior an patriae iniuria, si quidem illius vetustissimum morem neglexit, huius pulcherrimam classem amisit, infesto populo obiectus, cum effugere debitam poenam nullo modo posse crederetur, subito coorti imbris beneficio tutus fuit a damnatione: discussa enim quaestione aliam velut dis interpellantibus de integro instaurari non placuit. ita cui maritima tempestas causae dictionem contraxerat, caelestis salutem attulit. (Valerius Maximus here gives a false praenomen for Claudius. It is, nevertheless, clear that P. Claudius Pulcher is meant). If we are at all to suppose an error in the proper sense, it would be natural to suppose that Valerius had here mixed up the loss of the fleet of Iunius Pullus and the defeat at Drepana. However, it is equally possible that Valerius did not care about this conflation at all and that it simply arose from the effort to let the description of the trial end on a catchy punch line. 135  Val. Max. 8.1,damn. 4. 136  Val. Max. 6,6,2: Speciosa illa quoque Romana fides. ingenti Poenorum classe circa Siciliam devicta, duces eius fractis animis consilia petendae pacis agitabant. quorum Hamilcar ire se ad consules negabat audere, ne eodem modo catenae sibi inicerentur quo ab ipsis Cornelio Asinae consuli fuerant iniectae. Hanno autem, certior Romani animi aestimator, nihil tale timendum ratus, maxima cum fiducia ad conloquium eorum tetendit. apud quos cum de fine belli ageret et tribunus militum ei dixisset posse illi merito evenire quod Cornelio accidisset, uterque consul, 133

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Asina at Lipara. Here, however, his career in the First Punic War serves to illustrate the vicissitudes of fortune. As consul, he had fallen into captivity, in which he had to suffer a hard lot, only to be released and, again unexpectedly, to reach the summit of a second consulship.137 Given the way in which the fate of M.  Atilius Regulus had been taken up in Cicero’s philosophical writings, it is hardly surprising that Seneca the Younger also referred to the example of the Atilian. For the interpretation already sketched out of this exemplum, which, as has been seen, enjoyed a certain currency in rhetoric as well, fitted in well with Seneca’s favored interpretation of Stoic doctrine, which he advocated in a number of writings.138 Thus, the fundamental question in De Providentia is why “evil so often befalls good men” if a providence (providentia) governs the world.139 Starting from the thesis that opposites are mutually exclusive and that therefore evil can never happen to good people in reality, Seneca concludes that what appears to be a hard blow of fate to other, less stable, weaker individuals, actually happens by the will of the gods in order to test and, so to speak, educate those people. A virtuous man, like a gladiator ready for battle, faces any fate, no matter how hard, and even accepts it with joy, since he can be sure that he will grow from it.140 In a series of historical heroes who exemplify such an attitude, Seneca lists M. Atilius Regulus alongside Mucius Scaevola, Socrates and the younger Cato. The extent of the torture under which Regulus had died, which Seneca describes in detail, had raised the fame of the Atilian even higher. Therefore, the latter had not regretted his decision, which is no longer explicitly stated here, but had rather made the same request (eandem sententiam) in the Senate a second time.141 Regulus – or

tribuno tacere iusso, ‘isto te’ inquit ‘metu, Hanno, fides civitatis nostrae liberat.’ claros illos fecerat tantum hostium ducem vincire potuisse, sed multo clariores fecit noluisse. Cf. on the emphasis on Roman fides in this passage as well as in the other examples of the book Weileder 1998, 57 f. 137  Val. Max. 6,9,11. 138  On Seneca’s philosophical writings and his reception and interpretation of Stoic doctrine, see, among others, von Albrecht 1994, 940–943. 139  Seneca regards the existence of such a providence as sufficiently secured by the observation of regularities of nature. Sen. dial. 1,1,2–4. On the structure and theme of the work, cf. Smith 2014, 116–118. 140  Sen. dial. 1,1,4–2,12. 141  Sen. dial. 1,3,4–14, bes, 9: Veniamus ad Regulum: quid illi fortuna nocuit, quod illum documentum fidei, documentum patientiae fecit? figunt cutem clavi et, quocumque fatigatum corpus reclinavit, vulneri incumbit; in perpetuam vigiliam suspensa sunt lumina: quanto plus tormenti, tanto plus erit gloriae. vis scire, quam non paeniteat hoc pretio aestimasse virtutem? refice illum et mitte in senatum: eandem sententiam dicet. What is meant, of course, is the rejection of the Carthaginian proposals. The subsequent comparison between the love-suffering of Maecenas and the torture of Regulus recalls the comparison made by Cicero between Regulus and L. Thorius Balbus in Cic. fin. 2,63–65. Almost the same enumeration of individuals outstanding in the Stoic sense is still given by Seneca in two places in the Epistulae (Sen. epist. 67,7; 98,12). Seneca could assume a knowledge of the basic events that are said to have preceded the torture of Regulus among his educated readers, given the presence of the exemplum in the writings of Cicero, Livy, and the collection of Valerius Maximus. It is possible that Seneca himself drew from the latter here. Cf. Smith 2014, 119: “Perhaps deriving from rhetorical handbooks/schools are the laudatio Catonis [...], and

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rather, the image that had been spread of him over generations in the meantime – was, of course, excellently suited to be praised in a work that was supposed to spread the Stoic doctrine. The interpretation of his fate that was shaped by this remained popular even after Seneca, as can be seen above all in the Punica of Silius Italicus.

5.1.6  The Example of the Father: Silius Italicus, Punica Although the Punica, written by the Roman senator Silius Italicus towards the end of the first century AD, deals mainly with the Second Punic War, the sixth book of the historical epic offers a detailed retrospective on the first conflict as well.142 An overview of the macrostructure of the book is informative in this context. In the fifth book, Silius describes the defeat of the Romans at Lake Trasimene. At the beginning of the sixth book, the action begins with a view of the battlefield on the morning after the battle.143 The introduction of the two characters Serranus and Marus (for these see below) then provides the transition to the retrospective.144 This deals almost exclusively with the fate of M.  Atilius Regulus and can again be divided into several sections: the battle against a giant serpent or dragon at the river Bagradas, the capture of Regulus after his defeat by Xanthippus, the journey to Rome, and the death of Regulus. The journey to and the stay in Rome, including the appearance in front of the Senate, form the most extensive part of the retrospective, while the military successes that Regulus’ troops were able to achieve in Africa, apart from the fight against the dragon, are hardly given any attention.145 The fact that the focus here is thus on the journey to Rome fits in with the observations made so far on the presence of the First Roman-Carthaginian War in the historical cultures of the Republic and the early imperial period. With regard to the treatment of this material – as well as the rest of Regulus’ fate – in the Punica, it is worth taking a closer look. After the account of the battle of Lake Trasimene in the fifth book and the description of the battlefield the next morning, Silius describes the flight of a few the long list of historical exempla of great men facing adversity (3,4–14: Mucius, Fabricius, Rutilius, Regulus, Socrates, Cato)”. 142  Therefore, the treatment of Rome’s defeats in book six of the Punica will be dealt with at this point, while the main part of the books will be taken up in the context of the analysis of the historical memory of the defeats of the second war. See below Sect. 5.2.7. Since there is already an extensive and detailed interpretation of book six by Uwe Fröhlich, it does not seem necessary in the context of the present work to analyze each verse of the text in detail again. In addition, François Spaltenstein’s commentary on the passages (Spaltenstein 1986) remains a great help for the sixth book as well. Fröhlich’s thorough work makes it easier to focus on the discussion of the Roman defeats of the war in this part of the Punica. 143  Sil. 6,1–53. See below Sect. 5.2.7. 144  Sil. 6,54–139. 145  Sil. 6140–298 (battle against dragons at Bagradas); 6:299–345 (battle against Xanthippus and capture of Regulus); 6346–298 (legation to Rome); 520–551 (the death of Regulus).

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survivors from Mago and Hannibal, who lead their pursuit.146 One of the fugitives was thus a certain Serranus, who is directly introduced as the son of the famous Regulus.147 The latter, badly wounded, wanders through the countryside at night and on remote paths, until he comes across a croft in which lives an apparently lonely veteran named Marus, who takes in the wounded man. This veteran is a former soldier of Regulus, who is both already aware of the outcome of the battle and recognizes the son of his former commander as such at first glance.148 After Marus has  Sil. 6,54–62.  Sil. 6,62–71: Serranus, clarum nomen, tua, Regule, proles,/qui longum semper fama gliscente per aeuum/infidis seruasse fidem memorabere Poenis,/flore nitens primo patriis heu Punica bella/ auspiciis ingressus erat miseramque parentem/et dulces tristi repetebat sorte penates/saucius. haud illi comitum super ullus et atris/uulneribus qui ferret opem. per deuia fractae/innitens hastae furtoque ereptus opacae/noctis iter tacitum Perusina ferebat in arua. The description of Serranus, who is described as clearly scarred by the battle, forestalls the possible suspicion that the son of Regulus might have survived the battle because he would have stayed in the background. He himself is wounded (saucius), his lance is broken (fractae hastae) and can therefore only serve him as a crutch on which he leans while silently dragging himself from the battlefield. Cf. Fröhlich 2000, 127. The description of Serranus as that of a young man can most probably be regarded as a “poetic stylization”. Since between the battle of Tunis, before which a son of Regulus would have had to be conceived, and the defeat of the Romans at Lake Trasimene there were almost 40 years, a young Serranus represents an “unmistakable anachronism”. See Fröhlich 2000, 128 with note 11 (citation) and cf. already Spaltenstein 1986, 395. A young Serranus being lectured by the old Marus was again more plausible to imagine in the context of the epic. The son of Regulus, who can actually be testified historically, returned to Rome in 216, shortly before the battle of Cannae, referring to his too old age because he was no longer suitable for combat (Liv. 22,40,6). Cf. Fröhlich 2000, 150. Accordingly, the Serranus of the Punica is a completely fictitious figure. On the choice of name, see the considerations in Spaltenstein 1986, 395; Fröhlich 2000, 150 f. (each with further references). 148  Sil. 6,72–100: hic fessus parui, quaecumque ibi fata darentur,/limina pulsabat tecti, cum membra cubili/euoluens non tarda Marus (uetus ille parentis/miles et haud surda tractarat proelia fama)/procedit renouata focis et paupere Vesta/lumina praetendens. utque ora agnouit et aegrum/ uulneribus duris ac, lamentabile uisu,/lapsantes fultum truncata cuspide gressus,/funesti rumore mali iam saucius aures:/‘quod scelus, o nimius uitae nimiumque ferendis/aduersis genitus cerno? te, maxime, uidi,/ductorum, cum captiuo Carthaginis arcem/terreres uultu, crimen culpamque Tonantis,/occidere atque hausi, quem non Sidonia tecta/expulerint euersa meo de corde, dolorem./ estis ubi en iterum, superi? dat pectora ferro/Regulus, ac stirpem tantae periura recidit/surgentem Carthago domus.’ inde aegra reponit/membra toro nec ferre rudis medicamina (quippe/callebat bellis) nunc purgat uulnera lympha,/nunc mulcet sucis. ligat inde ac uellera molli/circumdat tactu et torpentes mitigat artus./exin cura seni tristem depellere fesso/ore sitim et parca uires accersere mensa./quae postquam properata, sopor sua munera tandem/applicat et mitem fundit per membra quietem./necdum exorta dies, Marus instat uulneris aestus/expertis medicare modis gratumque teporem/exutus senium trepida pietate ministrat. The monologue of Marus that begins in verse 81 (quod scelus, ...) can be interpreted, as Fröhlich 2000, 131 f. shows, as a dirge to Regulus. Here Marus also reveals that he was personally present at Regulus’ death. The pain that resulted from this apparently burned itself into Marus so deeply that not even the destruction of Carthage, to which indirect reference is made here, could remove it. At the same time, therefore, the old veteran must seem especially qualified and competent to tell the story of M. Atilius Regulus. So rightly Fröhlich 2000, 133, who even ‘diagnoses’ a downright “trauma” in Marus: The monologue characterizes Marus as a person “perpetually in mourning”, “under the spell of the past”, who with his speech makes “the open-hearted confession of a personal trauma”. 146 147

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tended to Serranus’ wounds, the latter laments the terrible fate that has befallen the Romans as a result of their defeats at the hands of Hannibal. In order to cheer up the younger man again, Marus reminds him of the example of his father, i.e. Regulus of the first war, after whose example they should also now “endure all conceivable hardships and falls” in order, following Regulus, to stand up to misfortune.149 Marus shows Serranus his old weapons as well as decorations which he had once received from the hand of M. Atilius Regulus, which in turn gives him occasion to relate in detail his experiences at the side of his old commander.150 The actual core of the Regulus legend, the call to see in the behavior and attitude of the Atilian an exemplum for one’s own life, is thus illustrated here by means of a concrete situation. Although this is fictional, it is embedded in a real historical event in the form of the Battle of Lake Trasimene. The connection between the old Regulus, the young Serranus as well as the veteran Marus, which is constructed beyond all logical and factual contradictions, adds another component to this general validity of the exemplum. After all, the continuation of patterns of action associated with certain values within a family across generational boundaries had been considered appropriate as well as expected behavior in Rome since at least the Middle Republic.151 The fact that Serranus must first be urged to do so by the veteran Marus does not constitute a contradiction. After all, the young soldier is described as emotionally distraught, which is why he also needs the veteran’s support. Moreover, the genre-specific use of a narrative pattern established in the epic, namely the encounter of a young hero with an older and experienced advisor, must be taken into account here.152 Starting with the presentation of the lance with which Marus claims to have once fought alongside Regulus against the dragon at Bagradas, the review of the events

 Sil. 6,101–116 (monologue of Serranus); 6,117–139 (reply of Marus): Cetera acerbantem questu lenire laborans/effatur senior: ‘patrio, fortissime, ritu,/quicquid adest duri et rerum inclinata feramus./talis lege deum cliuoso tramite uitae/per uarios praeceps casus rota uoluitur aeui./sat tibi, sat magna et totum uulgata per orbem/stant documenta domus: sacer ille et numine nullo/inferior tuus ille parens decora alta parauit/restando aduersis nec uirtutem exuit ullam,/ante reluctantes liquit quam spiritus artus./uix puerile mihi tempus confecerat aetas,/cum primo malas signabat Regulus aeuo./accessi comes, atque omnes sociauimus annos, donec dis Italae uisum est exstinguere lumen/gentis, in egregio cuius sibi pectore sedem/ceperat alma Fides mentemque amplexa tenebat./ille ensem nobis magnorum hunc instar honorum/uirtutisque ergo dedit et, sordentia fumo/quae cernis nunc, frena; sed est argenteus ollis/fulgor, nec cuiquam Marus est post talia dona/non praelatus eques, uerum superauit honores/omnes hasta meos. cui me libare Lyaei/ quod cernis latices, dignum cognoscere causam’. 150  Cf. Sect. 2.2 above for considerations on pieces of booty and decorations by commanders as focal points of the memory of past wars. 151  See generally Walter 2002; 2004b with some examples. 152  See, among others, Bassett 1955, 3; Häußler 1978, 170 f., as well as Fröhlich 2000, 128 f., who each refer to the dialogue partners Nestor/Telemachos in the Iliad. Häußler 1978, 171 also reminds us that for “the situation of an old, modestly living man giving information to a needy guest about his parents”, with the meeting between Odysseuss and Eumaios in the fifteenth canto of the Odyssey “a sublime model was available”. 149

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of the First Punic War begins.153 This fight against a monster, which in different forms had found its way into the Regulus legend much earlier, is actually a victory of the Atilian, but the passage is also relevant with regard to his later defeats and probably also to his death.154 Immediately after the dragon sinks to the ground, nature herself mourns in lamenting songs and “pious seers” (6288: pii vates) prophesy the disaster that will befall the Romans because of this deed.155 Only now does it become clear that the monster had been a servant of the Bagradas nymphs.156 The narrator Marus, who claims to have been present at this and the following events, confirms the gloomy prophecy of the seers that this deed had disastrous consequences.157 Fröhlich, in continuation of earlier work, is also able to elaborate further indications “of the tragic component of Regulus’ fate”.158 The Atilian had intended to avenge the death of two soldiers at the hands of the dragon, without knowing of its special nature. Thus, there can be no question of an outrage committed with malicious intent, which is probably why Marus also laments the overly harsh punishment, and the later defeat by Xanthippus as well as the death of Regulus in captivity can certainly be interpreted as a tragic peripetism from this perspective.159

 See esp. 6138–139: cui me libare Lyaei/quod cernis latices, dignum cognoscere causam.  Sil. 6.140–298. 155  Cf. on this Häußler 1978, 171 f. (“Motivating in the Spirit of Myth”). 156  The news that the monster was a sacer serpens is not found in any earlier source before the Punica, which contributed to the conjecture repeatedly expressed in research that there was an influence at this point from Ovid’s description of the battle of Kadmos. Thus, Silius’ specific description of Regulus’ fight at Bagradas indicates that the epic poet wrote it partly on the model of Kadmos’ fight against the serpent of Mars, which Ovid describes in the Metamorphoses (Steele 1922, 324; Häußler 1978, 171–173. Cf. approvingly Fröhlich 2000, 178–182; Williams 2004, 73 f.). Apart from some borrowings, to which Steele has already drawn attention, the content of the verses immediately following the killing of the monster at the Bagradas point especially to a certain parallelism of the cases. See Steele 1922, 324 (“Silius had his eye on Ovid (Metam. iii. 31 ff.), as is shown by a word here and there”); Bassett 1955, 10; Häußler 1978, 171 f.; Fröhlich 2000, 178 with note 18. Besides this model, however, Silius most probably also had in mind to portray Regulus as a hero who walks in the footsteps of Hercules (on this see in detail Bassett 1955; Fröhlich 2000, 173–177). In this context, a special connotation arises from the fact that Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, within the overall composition of the Punica following the Regulus retrospective, after the battle of Lake Trasimene, enters the stage as a saving dictator. The Fabians, in turn, derived their origin from Hercules. According to Fröhlich 2000, 177, the sixth book, especially the retrospective of Regulus in the first war, is anchored in the “book and work as a whole” by this “common relationship to Hercules, which in the case of Fabius is based on descent, in the case of Regulus on elective affinity”. 157  Sil. 6,283–290: erupit tristi fluuio mugitus et imis/murmura fusa uadis, subitoque et lucus et antrum/et resonae siluis ulularunt flebile ripae./heu quantis luimus mox tristia proelia damnis,/ quantaque supplicia et quales exhausimus iras!/ne tacuere pii uates famulumque sororum/ Naiadum, tepida quas Bagrada nutrit in unda,/nos uiolasse manu seris monuere periclis. 158  See in detail Fröhlich 2000, 179–182 (quote: 179). 159  Another obvious interpretation of the fight against the dragon leads to a completely different result. In several passages of the Punica as well as in other traditions Hannibal himself is called “snake”. Regulus, who was able to defeat the monster, apparently strongly connected with the African soil, had thus, with the active support of the entire Roman army, defeated this “Libyan serpent” (cf. Fröhlich 2000, 183 with evidence), as it would also happen to Hannibal. As Fröhlich rightly notes, no contradiction need be seen in these different interpretations of the passage. Silius may well have intended this ambiguity (cf. Fröhlich 2000, 186). 153 154

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Nevertheless, it can be argued that Regulus’ attack on the dragon was ultimately motivated by “questionable emotions” after all, if the commander wanted to avenge the death of the soldiers and had proceeded with rash audacity.160 This somewhat shadowy side of the great war hero emerges both in the course of the hunt for the Bagradas monster and in the account of the battle against Xanthippus. Silius passes over almost completely the victories of Regulus, which he must actually have won at the head of his army in the period between the battle at Bagradas and the battle against the troops of Xanthippus at Tunis, and continues directly with the defeat of the Atilian and his capture by the Spartan commander.161 Several motives may be conjectured behind this proceeding. On the one hand, a description of Regulus’ victories would probably also have required a discussion of the proconsul’s failed peace negotiations, which, however, belonged to the rather inglorious chapters of his campaign and, presumably for this reason, have hardly found any expression outside the historiographical tradition. On the other hand, already at the time of the writing of the Punica, it was not so much Regulus’ preliminary, military successes but his fate as a prisoner of war and his exemplary attitude as an envoy in front of the Senate for which he had won a place in the social memory of the Republic and the early imperial period.162 A detailed account of the latter episode was, therefore, also obvious for Silius, which is why it directly follows the account of the dragon fight, a point which does not make the possibility discussed above of interpreting the victory at Bagradas as the trigger for a later tragic peripetia any less likely. In the battle against the army of Xanthippus, for which Silius does not even give half as many verses as the one against the dragon at Bagradas, the Regulus of the  Punica initially proves himself to be a brave fighter who does not avoid any challenge. But it can hardly be overlooked that Regulus’ soldierly courage here also brings out its darker side.163 For such a dedicated personal participation of the commander in a battle also brings dangers with it, especially in the sense that the leader  See especially Williams 2004, 72–76, and Fröhlich 2000, 182.  Readers who knew about Regulus’ interim successes, however, could gather from verses 299–303 that the Atilian had, as it were, already taken revenge in advance for his later death (Tum senior ‘magnas’ inquit ‘de sanguine poenas/praecepit Tyrio et praesumpta piacula mortis./nam defecta uiris et opes attrita supinas/Africa tendebat palmas, cum sidere diro/misit Agenoreis ductorem animosa Therapne.’). Cf. Fröhlich 2000, 220 f.: Although Marus “das militärische Desaster der Gefangenensetzung schildert, ohne über Regulus’ afrikanische Siege umfassend berichtet zu haben, so findet er doch gleich zu Eingang tröstliche und beschwichtigende Worte, die das Folgende ein wenig erträglicher machen sollen. So läßt sich der Blutzoll, den die Karthager an den in einem fort obsiegenden Feldherrn zu entrichten hatten, als vorweggenommene Rache für den später durchlittenen Foltertod interpretieren.” 162  Cf. Fröhlich 2000, 220 f., note 3: “Im sechsten Buch der Punica sind diese kriegerischen Erfolge wohlweislich an den Rand gedrängt […], weil der Atilier nicht ihretwegen zur Legende wurde; denn nicht als genialer Stratege, sondern als moralischer Sieger lag Regulus der Nachwelt am Herzen”. At this point in the narrative, Silius may therefore have willingly fulfilled “the obligation to reduce the material” (ibid.), which was demanded by the genre principles of the ancient epic (cf. on this von Albrecht 1994, 68). 163  The battle against the army of Xanthippus and the capture of Regulus: Sil. 6,316–345. 160 161

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of the army could fall in close combat or become a prisoner, which, at least in the Punica, often means defeat in the battle as a whole.164 In the battle against Xanthippus’ army, Regulus’ overly impetuous advance, as it had already been observed at the Bagradas, leads to the Roman commander and his soldiers being ambushed by the Lacedaemonian, who, according to his Greek origins, had an excellent understanding of the terrain. In addition, Xanthippus is compared with Hannibal, which can excuse Regulus’ defeat to a certain extent, for after all, the Barcid was also considered an outstanding general in Roman tradition.165 But against the background discussed above, wherein Regulus had entered the battle against the dragon at Bagradas rather rashly and impetuously, “the impression settles that Regulus is to some extent the architect of his own misfortune”.166 The encirclement by Xanthippus’ ambush causes the capture of Regulus, which, incidentally, is ultimately accomplished not by Carthaginian soldiers but by Spartan mercenaries.167 Silius completely omits the years that the Atilian spent in captivity with the Carthaginians, presumably half a decade in total.168 Thus, the battle against the army of Xanthippus near Carthage is directly followed by the extended description of the legation journey to Rome.169 In order to maintain the fiction of the old veteran’s account, Marus states that he accompanied his commander on his journey home out of loyal attachment.170 Marus, thus, describes how the ship of the Carthaginians sailed into the mouth of the Tiber, at which practically the whole population of Rome would have assembled to greet

 See, for example, the description of the battle of Lake Trasimene in the fifth book, in which after the death of C. Flaminius in battle the Roman army immediately begins to fall (Sil. 5658–664; cf. Spaltenstein 1986, 386), which is already described in Livy (Liv. 22,6,5). For Livy’s description and interpretation of Rome’s defeats in the Second Punic War, see below Sect. 5.2.5.1, for Silius Italicus Sect. 5.2.7. 165  See the introduction of Xanthippus at Sil. 6,304–310, where his superior qualities as a general are emphasized by Silius, and the Spartan is compared to Hannibal in the mastery of the art of war. The trap into which Regulus enters with his soldiers is described by the epic poet in: Sil. 6,326–331. 166  Fröhlich 2000, 224. see especially Sil. 6,332–338: abripuit traxitque uirum fax mentis honestae/ gloria et incerti fallax fiducia Martis./non socios comitumue manus, non arma sequentum/respicere; insano pugnae tendebat amore/iam solus, nubes subito cum densa Laconum/saxosis latebris intento ad proelia circum/funditur, et pone insurgit uis saeua uirorum. On Regulus’ appearance as a general in the Punica, cf. also Fröhlich 2000, 224, note 11. On this, see also esp. Williams 2004, 76–82, who emphasizes that the depiction of Regulus in battle against Xanthippus has echoes of that of C. Flaminius, who – also in the Punica – functions to a certain extent as the prototype of the reckless and too impetuous general. 167  Sil. 6,336–338. The short lament in 6,339 (o diram Latio lucem fastisque notandam!) may be understood as an indirect reference to the defeat of the Romans at the Allia, which, as is known, had been firmly marked in the calendar. On the Dies Alliensis cf. Sect. 3.1.1 above. 168  Their representation would probably have been difficult to integrate into the epic. Cf. Fröhlich 2000, 246 with note 3. 169  Before the account of the journey, Silius interpolates a description of the construction of the ship that is to take Regulus to Rome. Sil. 6,346–363. 170  Sil. 6,371–372. 164

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the great hero Regulus.171 The arrival of Regulus on home soil gives Silius his first opportunity to illustriously display his outstanding morality. Indeed, Regulus refuses the respectful greeting of the consul, the representative of “the relieved citizenry,” since he has returned to Rome not as a Roman citizen, much less as imperator, but as a slave of the Carthaginians.172 Regulus is also not softened by the pleading of his wife Marcia – this name for Regulus’ wife only appears in Silius – who leads his two sons by the hand and appears publicly in mourning clothes in order to shake her husband in this “extreme way and to reach the seemingly inaccessible [...] in his self-chosen obduracy after all”.173 While he had personally rejected the welcome of the consul as the highest representative of the res publica, Regulus delegates this task of rejection to his companion Marus in the case of his wife’s pleas, which in the given context, however, is hardly to be interpreted as a weakness of Atilius but as a consistent continuation of his previous appearance.174 The following day Regulus then appeared in front of the Senate to deliver his memorable speech.175 Without a long introduction, the Atilian had gone straight to the heart of his argument. The offer of the Carthaginians had not been fair at all – a view apparently held by many senators – but had been permeated by underhand calculation of the enemies. Apparently, they had proposed first to carry out an exchange of

 Sil. 6,383–391. cf. Fröhlich 2000, 251.  Sil. 6,396–402: aggere consul/tendebat dextram et patria uestigia primus/ponentem terra occursu celebrabat amico./collegit gressum, monitusque recedere consul/nec summum uiolare decus. cingente superba/Poenorum turba captiuo tegmine saeptus/ibat et inuidiam caelo diuisque ferebat. Cf. Fröhlich 2000, 277 f. (citation: 278). As already seen, this was a motif closely related to the theme of captivity in war, which had also been taken up in connection with the Regulus legend in numerous adaptations even before Silius. On this, see Kornhardt 1954, 85–100. 173  Sil. 6,403–414: Ecce trahens geminum natorum Marcia pignus,/infelix nimia magni uirtute mariti,/squalentem crinem et tristes lacerabat amictus./agnoscisne diem? an teneris non haesit in annis?/atque ea, postquam habitu iuxta et uelamine Poeno/deformem adspexit, fusis ululatibus aegra/labitur, et gelidos mortis color occupat artus./si qua deis pietas, tales, Carthago, uidere/dent tibi Sidonias matres. me uoce quieta/affatus iubet et uestros et coniugis una/arcere amplexus pater, impenetrabilis ille/luctibus et numquam summissus colla dolori. On this, see Fröhlich 2000, 254 f. (citation: 254). Regarding the name of Regulus’ wife, Marcia, two interpretations are possible, none of which can be proven with certainty. It is quite conceivable, for example, that Silius, who was obviously very well-read, drew on sources that have no longer survived, and that Marcia was in fact the name of Regulus’ wife. This interpretation has been suggested by Münzer, who conjectures that it could have been a daughter of the consul of the year 281, Q.  Marcius Philippus (F. Münzer, RE 14,2, 1930, 1601, s. v. Marcia (112)). However, it is also possible that the name has not survived historically. In this case, it would be possible that he had “the image of the Lucan uxor Catonis in mind” and in this way wanted to emphasize the virtuousness that had distinguished not only Regulus but also his wife. Thus, Fröhlich 2000, 279 (quotation). Cf. Spaltenstein 1986, 279. The wife of M.  Porcius Cato Uticensis was actually called Marcia and is presented in Lucan. 2326–349 as a morally upright matron. 174  See Fröhlich 2000, 255 f., esp. 256: “Sowenig er [Regulus] damit einverstanden sein konnte, dem ersten Mann des Gemeinwesens als (vermeintlicher) Standesgenosse die Hand zu schütteln, sowenig kommt es von seiner Warte aus in Betracht, auch nur für eine Nacht in die abgelegte Rolle des Ehemannes und Vaters zurückzukehren und sich seiner Familie zu erklären”. Even Marcia’s second appearance does not change this (Sil. 6,430–451). 175  Sil. 6,452–489. 171 172

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prisoners and then to negotiate a peace that would benefit both sides equally.176 Regulus had now revealed unsparingly against himself why the proposals of the Carthaginians had to be judged as a deceitful feint. For he was to be exchanged for a whole host of prisoners – a point already found in Horace, from where Silius will presumably have taken it, since this condition is hardly to be found elsewhere.177 By no means, however, would the Romans now get back a full-fledged imperator, certainly not the outstanding general they had known but merely an old man, scarred by “so many wars and so many years,” whose strength had been slackened by long imprisonment. The senators should, therefore, not be blinded by his great name; he was now worthless for the res publica. An acceptance of the Carthaginians’ conditions was therefore out of the question.178 The senate, impressed by his virtue, follows Regulus’ recommendation, which, as is indicated by the speech of the “Tyrian wrath”, he should have to atone for after his return to Carthage. Regulus had already made it clear that it was out of the question for him to remain in Rome against the oath he had given to his enemies, so he set out for the ship that was to take him back to Carthage directly after the Senate had decided in his favor.179 The retrospective concludes with the relatively brief account of Regulus’ death.180 Silius, too, does not miss the opportunity to describe in detail the tortures of the  Proposal for an agreement: Sil. 6,484–489: nec uero placeat, nisi quae de more parentum/pax erit. exposcunt Libyes nobisque dedere/haec referenda: pari libeat suspendere bellum/foedere et ex aequo geminas conscribere leges./sed mihi sit Stygios ante intrauisse penates,/talia quam uideam ferientes pacta Latinos. Especially by the reference to the “custom of the fathers” given right at the beginning, Regulus wants to dismiss any thought of responding to the Carthaginians’ proposals from the outset. Cf. Spaltenstein 1986, 425; Fröhlich 2000, 262 f. The refusal of peace negotiations from a position of weakness is a recurring motif that appears in the tradition in connection with Roman defeats, and probably also had a certain historical background (although probably, as far as can be seen, not with regard to Regulus’ legation, which was presumably only about an exchange of prisoners). 177  See Sil. 6,479–483, and cf. already Sil. 6,348 f. On Horace cf. above Sect. 5.1.4.2. 178  Sil. 6,473–489: sic nobis rerum exitio desistite honorem/tendere. tot bellis totque annis fregimus aeuum./nunc etiam uinclis et longo carcere torpent/captiuo in senio uires. fuit ille nec umquam,/ dum fuit, a duro cessauit munere Martis/Regulus. exsangui spectatis corpore nomen./at non Carthago, fraudum domus, inscia quantum/e nobis restet, iuuenes parat, aspera ferro/pectora, captiuos nostra pensare senecta./ite dolos contra, gensque astu fallere laeta/discat, me capto quantum tibi, Roma, supersit./nec uero placeat, nisi quae de more parentum/pax erit. exposcunt Libyes nobisque dedere/haec referenda: pari libeat suspendere bellum/foedere et ex aequo geminas conscribere leges./sed mihi sit Stygios ante intrauisse penates,/talia quam uideam ferientes pacta Latinos. Cf. Fröhlich 2000, 261. 179  Sil. 6,490–496: Haec fatus Tyriae sese iam reddidit irae,/nec monitus spernente graues fidosque senatu/Poenorum dimissa cohors. quae maesta repulsa/ac minitans capto patrias properabat ad oras./prosequitur uulgus, patres, ac planctibus ingens/personat et luctu campus. reuocare libebat/ interdum et iusto captum retinere dolore. See previously Sil. 6,467–472. The episode concludes with a third appearance of Marcia, who accuses her departing husband of having abandoned her, who had always behaved with exemplary fidelity towards her husband, and the children they had together, in order to keep his word to, of all people, the devious Punics (Sil. 6,497–511). 180  Sil. 6,529–544: Infelix uidi patriamque remissus in urbem/narrator poenae dura mercede reuerti./nec tibi nunc ritus imitantem irasque ferarum/Pygmalioneam temptarem expromere gentem,/si maius quicquam toto uidisset in orbe/gens hominum, quam quod uestri ueneranda parentis/ 176

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Atilian, which he apparently had to endure immediately after his return to Carthage, even though the narrator Marus apparently strives for “brevity and objectivity” here.181 At the end of his account, the old Marus rebukes Regulus’ son, who is apparently in tears: the end of the famous general should not be mourned but praised as a glorious example of patientia and fides until “what virtue means will be revered”.182 This request was probably also addressed to the recipients of the epic, and indeed almost the entire sixth book can be understood as a monument to the glory of Regulus, praising his fides, which he had proven time and again.183 Silius Italicus, like many educated Romans of his time, was a follower of the Stoic doctrine, and his ethical-philosophical convictions can be clearly read out in the Punica.184 This is also true of the portrayal of Regulus, whom he constructs according to older models as a prime example of an inwardly stable man who  – despite all material hardships and physical pain – endures even the harshest fate and thus sets an example for all who follow him.185 This grouping of Regulus among the icons of Stoic doctrine seems to have contributed in no small measure to the fact that the Atilian – unlike numerous commanders who were far more successful in their time – remained one of the best-known commanders of the era of the Republic, even in imperial times. The transmission of the Regulus legend reaches a climax in the Punica, though by no means its end. The exemplum of the Atilian, usually focused on his legation journey to Rome and or his death under torture in Carthage, remained popular edidit exemplum uirtus. pudet addere questus/suppliciis, quae spectaui placido ore ferentem./tu quoque, care puer, dignum te sanguine tanto/fingere ne cessa atque orientes comprime fletus./ praefixo paribus ligno mucronibus omnes/armantur laterum crates, densusque per arcam/texitur erecti stantisque ex ordine ferri/infelix stimulus, somnisque hac fraude negatis/quocumque inflexum producto tempore torpor/inclinauit iners, fodiunt ad uiscera corpus. 181  Fröhlich 2000, 303: “Um Kürze und Sachlichkeit bemüht, beschwört Marus weder jene Gefühlswallungen herauf, mit denen er als Augenzeuge zu ringen hatte, noch läßt er jene Emotionen lebendig werden, die die punischen Schaulustigen doch wohl beseelten”. The method of execution which Silius puts into the veteran’s mouth corresponds to that already described by Valerius Maximus: Regulus is locked in a narrow wooden box covered with nails pointing inwards, as a result of which, condemned to sleeplessness, he died slowly and agonizingly. See Val. Max. 9,2,ext. 1. 182  Sil. 6,544–550: absiste, o iuuenis, lacrimis. patientia cunctos/haec superat currus. longo reuirescet in aeuo/gloria; dum caeli sedem terrasque tenebit/casta Fides, dum uirtutis uenerabile nomen,/uiuet; eritque dies, tua quo, dux inclite, fata/audire horrebunt a te calcata minores. Cf. Fröhlich 2000, 303–305. 183  See on this Sil. 6,64; 6,378; 6,472; 6,516–518 and cf. Bassett 1955, 3, with further evidence. Cf. likewise Fröhlich 2000, 302: “So kann der junge Atilier, der zu Beginn und am Ende des Abschnitts jeweils ausdrücklich angesprochen wird […], den Ausführungen des Augenzeugen Marus die gewisse Überzeugung entnehmen, daß sich sein Vater bis zuletzt treu blieb und sich als Sterbender ebensowenig instrumentalisieren ließ, wie er als Gefangener des Feindes dessen Interessen diente”. See also the summarizing remarks on the “Gedankenwelt” recognizable in the sixth book of the Punica in Fröhlich 2000, 412–417. 184  From Albrecht 1994, 760, 766 (“In diesem Epos von der Bewährung römischer Tüchtigkeit (virtus) durch Mühsal (labores) ist das Römische stoisch verklärt und vergeistigt.”). 185  Cf. also Fuhrmann 1968/1983, 62 f.; Kissel 1979, 122 f.

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throughout antiquity. His fate was also referred to by Christian authors, especially Augustine, and beyond, in the form of praising exempla. In modern times, the material then gained a new popularity, which was reflected above all in a series of stage plays but also paintings.186 Regulus, thus, remained, presumably to this day, the best known of the defeated commanders of the Romans in the First Roman-Carthaginian War, even if this rarely concerns his defeat on the battlefield at Tunis but far more often his fate in captivity by the Carthaginians. The other defeats of the conflict clearly take a second place to this, and were taken up far less frequently even after Silius’ Punica. Moreover, they receded  – incidentally, just like the victories at Mylae or the Aegatic Islands – clearly behind the memory of the events of the second war, to which we now want to turn.

5.2  The Enemy at the Gates: The Second War 5.2.1 Contemporary Reflections With regard to representations and patterns of interpretation in which the defeats of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War were already perceived and remembered by contemporaries, the source situation is more favourable than with regard to the first war, but here, too, much must remain unexplained. The works of the first Roman historians who took part in the Hannibalic War are only fragmentarily preserved, as is the case with the epic poem of Q. Ennius, which obviously had some influence on the shaping and dissemination of the collective memory of the defeats at the hands of the Carthaginian armies. The memory of the battles at Lake Trasimene, at Cannae and elsewhere, however, did not begin with the account of these events by Q. Fabius Pictor. Rather, it directly followed the end of the respective battles, even from the very evening after the battle. These immediate memories are entirely lost but at least some reflections can be made on the impressions that the defeats by Hannibal’s army in Italy might have made on the population of Rome and the neighbouring areas.187 Thus, various temples, which were apparently erected in Rome during the war in order to redeem vows that Roman commanders had made in order to draw the favour of the gods back to the Roman side, certainly remained visible in the cityscape for a long time and recalled the time of the defeats against Hannibal’s army in the first years of the war.188 At any rate, this can be assumed for the period immediately  See Mix 1970, 21–24; 43–62; Fröhlich 2000, 75–77.  See Sect. 2.2 above. 188  After the defeat at Lake Trasimene, temples were vowed to the deities Venus Erycina and Mens. The temple for Mens was vowed by the praetor T. Otacilius Crassus, the son-in-law of Q. Fabius Maximus, who had been appointed dictator after the defeat at Lake Trasimene and who, in turn, himself promised to build the temple for Venus Erycina (Liv. 22,10,10). Only two years later, both men also dedicated the temples, which can be seen as an unusual event in several respects (Liv. 23,30,13–14; 23,31,9). Especially the vow to Venus Erycina is interesting in connection with the concrete situation of the year 217. This deity was originally worshipped on Mount Eryx in Sicily. 186 187

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following the erection of the temples and the post-war years. Later, the memory of the concrete occasion of a temple dedication may have diminished in the respective case, with increasing distance to the events. It is quite conceivable that then it was often only specialists, such as the antiquarians of the late republic or tradition-­ conscious descendants of the temple founders, who knew about the concrete occasion. These individuals, of course, could then in turn ensure that this form of historical memory was updated.189 There had been fighting not only in the vicinity of Rome but also in other parts of Italy, and the memory of the war years, including their defeats, seems to have lingered for a long time. It can be observed that this memory was also fixed on specific places. Thus, the mention of individual places in the vicinity of Rome, which occurs in a number of source passages in connection with Hannibal’s approach to the capital in 211, is perhaps an indication that these were still associated with the memory of this part of the Carthaginian campaign generations later.190 Whether and to what extent widespread devastation was wrought in Italy during Hannibal’s war that was still felt and visible generations later is a matter of Sicily had been the main theatre of the first war against Carthage, and it was around Mount Eryx that fighting had been particularly fierce. In particular, the well-fortified temple district seems to have represented a strategically important position. In the sources relating to the First RomanCarthaginian War, it appears mainly in connection with Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal’s father, who established a strong position here from the year 244 on and fought the Roman troops from there. See Pol. 1,58,1–6 and cf. among others Liv. 21,10,7; 28,41,5. It is, thus, quite plausible to see behind this new temple dedication a deliberate reference to the conflict in which Fabius as a young man might have fought himself. See already Engels 2007, 439 and cf. Beck 2005a, 274 on the sparse information or considerations derived from it about Fabius’ early career in the First Punic War. Finally, even before the death of Hieron of Syracuse it will have been foreseeable that Sicily would again be an important theater of war, at least in diplomatic and strategic terms. Perhaps the honouring of the actually foreign deity was also intended to send a message to its followers in Sicily, urging them to choose the Roman side in the conflict that was now also to reach them sooner or later (Gruen 1990, 9; Orlin 1997, 108 f.; Rasmussen 2003, 252; Engels 2007, 439). A note in Livy also indicates that a temple to Concordia was consecrated in 216, presumably the first temple to deified Concord in Rome in general. The original occasion for its erection had apparently been the restoration of Concordia to the army of the praetor L. Manlius after a revolt of his soldiers in 219, though it was not Manlius but the two duumviri M. and C. Atilius who performed the consecration (Liv. 23,21,7). The decision to erect the temple is mentioned earlier by Livy (Liv. 22,33,7–8). Why L.  Manlius did not himself take care of the erection and consecration of the temple he vowed is unclear. Orlin 1997, 155, note 155 makes a number of considerations in this regard. Indeed, since Manlius had commanded an army in Gallic territory a few years earlier, it does not seem unreasonable to assume that he also served and fell in the battles of 218–217 in northern Italy. Against the background of the threat to the Republic and its alliance system by the defeats against Hannibal’s army, however, it is quite conceivable that by dedicating the temple “in einer bedrohlichen Krisensituation die innere Einigkeit des römischen Volkes bedacht werden sollte” (so Burckhardt 1988, 74; Orlin 1997, 154 f.). 189  Cf. on this above the overview of various places in Rome that in later times were associated with the invasion of the Gauls and the siege of the Capitol (see above Sect. 3.1.6). Cicero famously praised Varro in the first century for making the Romans reacquainted with their city, through which they had wandered like strangers, by his explorations. Cic. ac. 1,9. Cf. on this passage, among others, Walter 2004a, 175 f. (with further references). 190  One example is the Anio, another the pass Algidus. See for instance Hor. carm. 4,4,28.

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debate among scholars.191 However, it can be assumed that not all towns, villages and farmsteads were rebuilt immediately after the end of the war, or at all, so that the traces of the war and the setbacks suffered by the Romans and their Italian allies remained visible, at least in some places. Thus, a traveler passing through Italy in the years following the war would probably have encountered its traces again and again. However, few people were likely to have undertaken such extended journeys during this period.192 On the battlefields themselves, the sites of Roman defeats, as far as can be discerned, this traveller would have seen nothing to commemorate the battles and their dead. Unlike in the Greek world (or in some later cases), the Romans were apparently not driven by a need to memorialize the soldiers who had sacrificed their lives in defeats against the Carthaginians through some form of monumentalized remembrance, or to incorporate these events into a particular narrative on the ground or in Rome through the erection of monuments.193

5.2.1.1 Messages to the Allies? Roman Coins from the Time of the War The time of Hannibal’s War also brought changes to the Roman economy – in addition to many other upheavals and (further) developments in various fields.194 The Romans introduced the denarius system and thus began for the first time to mint their own coins on a larger scale and continuously, which no longer needed to fear comparison with Hellenistic standards and, moreover, also marked “a return to stability” in Roman coinage after the crisis that followed the defeats of the first years of the war.195 In addition to the valuable clues to Rome’s economic and political  A major methodological difficulty in the study of the effects of the destruction wrought by the Hannibalic War in Italy, for example, is the inadequacy of sources relating to the decades before the outbreak of the war, which Cornell 1996, 97 and passim, refers to as the “third-century gap”. This makes the analysis of long-term developments considerably more difficult. The news about deliberate devastation and plundering of whole regions by Hannibal’s troops, but also by Roman armies, are on the whole credible. This seems to have affected southern Italy in particular, where most of the fighting and army movements shifted to after the Battle of Lake Trasimene. The exact extent of this devastation is, again, difficult to estimate, which is why this issue is also controversial among scholars. See Cornell 1996, who argues for a balanced position between the views expressed by Toynbee 1965 II, 35 and Brunt 1971, 269–277. Cf. also Garland 2012, 117 f. 192  Not to a Roman defeat but very probably to the presence of the Carthaginian army in Italy during the Second Punic War refers the place name Castra Hannibalis for a harbour on the peninsula of Terina, which according to Pliny the Elder (Plin. nat. 3,95) bore this name. 193  Cf. Beck 2006, 216; Clark 2014b, 18, 23–29. cf. already above Sect. 2.2. 194  See most recently Kay 2014, esp. 21–42. 195  Howgego 22011, 129 (citation). Previously, the Romans had minted coins of various other types but these gradually declined significantly in value during the early years of the Second Punic War. In 212, one Roman ace weighed two Roman ounces, a weight loss of 80% in the 6 years since 218. Crawford 1974/1983, 35–46 (“The Pre-Denarius Coinage”), see here esp. 43 on weight reduction. See also Seibert 1993b, 360  f., 364 (with a concise overview of research positions); Howgego 2 2011, 129; Szaivert 2008, 166; Burnett 2012, 310; Woytek 2012, 315. When exactly this reductions were conducted, which is disputed in research, is beyond the scope of this study but is also not of central interest for the question of interest here. See, however, Crawford 1974/1983, 43, who assumes that the weight reduction began after the defeat at Lake Trasimene.The innovations in Roman coinage are part of the reactions with which Rome tried to remedy the financial difficulties 191

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history during this period of upheaval that can be gleaned from numismatic sources, the motifs on the coins open up a number of perspectives for the question of how Rome dealt with its defeats. According to Crawford’s dating, Roman gold coins were minted for the first time between 217 and 215, which may be interpreted as a recourse to emergency reserves.196 Two warriors are seen, with a younger man or youth kneeling between them, holding a pig in his arms, which the two warriors are in turn touching with their swords (Fig.  5.1).197 The youth has his head turned towards the warrior on the right, who is identifiable as a Roman by his clothing. The man on the left is bearded and leaning on a spear with his left hand. The inscription ROMA can be read under the picture. The choice of this motif is hardly likely to have been determined by chance, and indeed it can be well placed against the background of the first years of the war against Hannibal’s troops in Italy, which were so fatal for the Romans. It was an important part of Hannibal’s strategy to induce Rome’s Italian allies to defect from the hegemonic power. From the perspective of 217, after the Roman defeats at Trebia and Lake Trasimene, and even more so after Cannae the following year, the prospect of the freedom propaganda Hannibal used to bring the Roman socii over to his side falling on fertile ground must have seemed quite worrisome to the Romans.198 The oath scene on the gold coins can be interpreted against this specific background.199 It could have been intended as a representation of the alliance that Rome had entered into with each of the subjugated communities.200 If this interpretation is correct, one possible intention in the choice of the motif could have been to send a caused by the war in Italy. On this, see Lazenby 1978/1998, 93; Howgego 22011, 128 f. These difficulties of Rome are also reflected in the sources in the note in Livy according to which Hieron II Syracuse came to the aid of the Romans in 216 with a substantial donation of a total of 300,000 bushels of wheat, 200,000 bushels of barley, 1000 archers and slingers. As a special gift Hieron sent a golden statue of Victoria, said to have weighed 220 pounds (Liv. 22:37, 1–12). Presumably the Romans had already received a donation from their allies in Naples before, even though Livy reports that the senators had rejected it (Liv. 22,32,4–9). Cf. Seibert 1993a, 184 with note 3. In 215, the Senate apparently decided to increase the tributum to be paid annually by the citizens by double in order to be able to guarantee the payment of the troops (Liv. 23,31,1–2: Senatus [...] decrevit, ut, quod eo anno duplex tributum imperaretur, simplex confestim exigeretur, ex quo stipendium praesens omnibus militibus daretur, praeterquam qui milites ad Cannas fuissent.). 196  Dating: Crawford 1974/1983, 43–46, 103–105. Cf. Crawford 1973, 5. Cf. in this sense also Seibert 1993b, 361 (“wohl im Jahr 216”). Interpretation: Crawford 1974/1983, 46 (“it is presumably an emergency coinage and is, I think, best associated with the semilibral reduction; it will have been produced in an attempt to bolster confidence in the coinage despite the reduction of the bronze standard”). Cf. Seibert 1993b, 361 f. See on gold coinage in the Roman Republic in general Kay 2014, 23 f. (“gold was used by the Romans principally as a store of value, [...] it was in some way associated with the gods, [...] it was not normally used as a way of making payments”). 197  See, for instance, RRC 28/1. 198  On Hannibal’s strategy in the Italian theater of war and the defection of confederates of the Romans to the Carthaginians, see extensively Fronda 2010 and cf. Erskine 1993; Miles 2011. 199  See on the following already Alföldi 1959, 20  f.; Crawford 1974/1983, 46, 715; Lazenby 1978/1998, 94. The interpretation in detail modified in Instinsky 1964, 85 f. 200  Bleicken 1963, 63–66, however, interprets the two men depicted on the coin as Roman soldiers of different divisions who assure each other of their support in battle by taking an oath.

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Fig. 5.1  Stater, Romano-Campanian, (217–215 BC?), RRC 28/1

reminder of the alliance to Rome’s own allies, some of whom were apparently wavering in their loyalty to Rome.201 It seems as if Rome reacted to the defeats of the first years of the war and Hannibal’s offers to the allies with a message of its own – which, in case of doubt and when the opportunity arose, was underlined by other measures, which the inhabitants of Capua, in particular, had to experience after the conquest of their city by the Romans in 211.202 Here, too, the coins admittedly already gave a hint: anyone who violated the oath given before the gods and thus severed the bond of fides between Rome and his own commonwealth deserved a harsh fate from the Roman point of view. In addition to these coins, others were minted, complementary and with other coin values. These included the so-called ‘Victoriate’. The question of the dating of the first coins of this type cannot be answered with absolute certainty from the sources, but the period from 212 to 211 seems the most likely.203 The Victoriate owe their name to the image on the reverse, on which the goddess of victory, standing and looking to the right, is wreathing a tropaion (Fig. 5.2).204 If the dating of the first Victoriate to the year 211 is correct, this could allude to the conquest of Syracuse by M. Claudius Marcellus, which probably took place in

 Crawford 1974/1983, 46, 715 (“The reverse type of the issue of gold associated with quadrigati of the Second Punic War, an oath-taking scene, is presumably a call to loyalty addressed to Rome’s allies, whatever the precise symbolism involved.”); Lazenby 1978/1998, 94 (“But it was perhaps during these grim years, partly to restore confidence in the finances, partly as a call on the loyalty of Rome’s allies, that the gold coins depicting on oath-scene were issued.”). As will be shown in the following chapters, a call for unity to the Italian allies was probably also formulated in literary works written (presumably) during the war. Cf. below Sect. 5.2.1.2. 202  Liv. 26,13, 1–16, 13. on this see Seibert 1993b, 311–314. 203  Crawford 1974/1983, 28–32; Woytek 2012, 316. Cf. Seibert 1993b, 365 with a brief overview also of older research positions. 204  See RRC 44/1. 201

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Fig. 5.2  Victoria (212/211 BC), RRC 44/1

the spring of 211.205 The distribution of the Victoriates, which were mainly found in southern Italy as well as in Sicily and Spain, is striking.206 This can be explained by their intended use.207 By depicting the goddess of victory, the communities in southern Italy, Sicily and Spain, i.e. the areas that were the main theatres of war in these years, were also literally made aware of the claim to Roman victoriousness that was to triumph over all previous setbacks.208 It is worth mentioning in this context the fact that, according to Livy, Hieron II had given the Romans a golden statue of Victoria after the battle of Lake Trasimene.209 It can be stated that the Roman coinage of the period of the second war against Carthage was already used in this rather early period of Roman coinage history for the dissemination of political messages. These were presumably intended to propagate the Roman view of the course of the war, especially among apostate as well as (still) loyal allies, especially in southern Italy and Sicily. Of course, the defeats were not explicitly discussed – this would have been diametrically opposed to Rome’s message. Rome’s difficult situation was in any case apparent to all contemporaries.

 For a discussion of the chronology of the fighting in Sicily in the years 214–211 and the conquest of Syracuse by the Romans, see Seibert 1993b, 286–291, who also undertakes a detailed discussion of older research positions and whose dating is followed here. 206  See the overview of Victoriate sites in: Crawford 1974/1983, 25 and also 22  f., 28 (finds in Spain). Cf. Seibert 1993a, 257; 1993b, 365. 207  The denarii were probably initially difficult to offset against the Greek coins that were common in Magna Graecia, which is why the Victoriate were used as a traffic coin. 208  Thomsen 1961 II, 366–371 (371: “the Roman state in a propagandistic way proclaimed its own forthcoming victory”); Seibert 1993a, 257; 1993b, 365. The motif is also found in later literary sources. Its use, however, seems to date back to the time of the war itself, at least in the form of the image on the Victoriatus. This was probably also a direct reaction of the Romans to similar coinage of former confederates in southern Italy who had switched to the Carthaginian side (at least according to Seibert 1993b, 365). 209  Liv. 22,37,1–12. 205

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5.2.1.2 Veterans Shape Memory: Testimonies from Contemporaries The period of the Second Punic War was extremely important for the development of Roman literature, and in this context Rome’s military failures and the crisis that followed them seem to have had a stimulating effect. Among these early works, which are not only known by name but are also still preserved at least in some fragments, is the already mentioned epic Bellum Punicum by Cn. Naevius. With regard to the handling of the defeats of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War, the question of dating is of particular importance. According to a passage of Cicero, Naevius wrote the epic in his old age.210 This is not a very precise statement. Moreover, since the dates of Naevius’ life can no longer be determined exactly – the estimates of his year of birth vary between 280 and 260 – there remains a rather wide margin.211 A dating to the years of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War, however, seems plausible.212 Cn. Naevius was not a Roman but came from Campania. In a contingent of the Campanians he had apparently also taken part in the first war against Carthage.213 It does not seem too bold to assume that this experience shaped his biography in a significant way – an experience he shared with many Roman and Italian contemporaries.214 Thus, the choice of subject matter should also be seen in direct relation to the time of the work’s creation and publication.215 In view of the numerous defeats the Romans suffered against Hannibal’s army in Italy – and in other theatres of war – the assumption is obvious that (not only) veterans of the first war referred to the old victory, which was also only won after many setbacks and hard privations. Naevius now gave this idea a literarily highly regarded form.216 Assuming that at least parts of the epic, which may not have been too long217 were presented in public lectures, one can indeed well imagine a “considerable mobilizing effect” of the work in a time of serious threat from without and the appearance of crisis factors within.218 The motif of Rome overcoming all setbacks and ultimately emerging victorious even after numerous defeats, which often

 Cic. Cato 50.  A vague clue for determining the year of Naevius’ birth is offered by the indication that Naevius probably took part in the First Roman-Carthaginian War (see F 44 (2)). See on this von Albrecht 1994, 98; Suerbaum 2002d, 105 f.; Walter 2004a, 222 f. with note 53. See also the concise but pointed overview in P. Schmidt, DNP 8 (2000), 687–689, s. v. Naevius (I 1). 212  On this, see Richter 1962, 294; Suerbaum 2002d, 112; Walter 2004a, 223. 213  See: Gell. 1,24,1–2 (origin from Campania). Participation in the first war: F 44 (2) (=Gell. 17,21,45). Cf. on this, among others, Richter 1962, 290; von Albrecht 1994, 98. 214  Cf. Richter 1962, 290 f. 215  See also for what follows Richter 1962, 294–296; Walter 2004a, 223–225. 216  See the literature in the previous note and cf. also Frier 1979/1999, 280. 217  Von Albrecht 1994, 100, assumes a “Gesamtlänge von ungefähr 4000–5000 Versen”. Rüpke 1998, 78 assumes only 1600–1800 verses, while Suerbaum 2002d, 112 notes that the epic “originally filled a single papyrus scroll without book division” and therefore “could hardly have comprised more than 2000 verses”. Cf. also Walter 2004a, 223, note 54. 218  Walter 2004a, 223 (citation). See previously already Richter 1962, 294. 210 211

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appears in later sources, can be glimpsed in Naevius in its earliest form.219 The question of whether the war in Naevius was already placed in a myth-historical horizon by the incorporation of an episode about Aeneas and Dido – as later in Virgil – cannot be decided with certainty on the basis of the preserved fragments, although Jahn has put forward thoughtful arguments against such an assumption, which enjoyed some popularity in research for a long time.220 If, however, the war against the Carthaginians had not been the result of more or less contingent chain of events already in Naevius’ work, but rather the redemption of a predefined path, then the defeats in this context could also have been interpreted as merely temporary setbacks.221 But it must remain open whether the Bellum Punicum actually opened up this perspective. Naevius, however, created not only the first historical epic but also the first actual historical drama in Latin literature.222 In Clastidium, Naevius very probably dealt with the Roman victory over a Celtic army at this very place in northern Italy under the consul M. Claudius Marcellus in 222, who also played a prominent role in the Hannibalic War.223 Only two short fragments can be attributed to Naevius’ Clastidium.224 For this reason, too, the dating of the work is unclear, so that a

 Richter 1962, 296: “Es ist das erste Mal, daß ein Dichter dem römischen Volk in einem Kampf, der um seine Existenz ausgetragen wurde, geistige Hilfestellung geleistet hat, und zwar einfach dadurch, daß er ihm als Dichter das Bewußtsein zu geben suchte, daß und warum dieses Volk unüberwindlich sei”. 220  The starting point of these considerations was the fact that according to the surviving fragments, not only was the Trojan descent of the Romans referred to in the figure of Aeneas but also Dido already appeared in this part of the work (F 21 (6) (=Serv. Aen. 4,9)). Therefore, Niebuhr already suspected that Dido’s curse and the hereditary enmity between Carthaginians and Romans beginning with it also occurred in Naevius’ epic (Niebuhr 1846, 17). This cannot be clearly shown, which is why this idea did not meet with undivided approval (cf. already Mommsen 1879, 280 f. and more recently Jahn 2007, 59–73). If one accepts this line of thought, however, then the war against Carthage would not only have been described in its concrete historical context but would also have been placed in a ‘myth-historical’ context – and of course this would then have applied not only to the ostensible subject of the epic, the first war between Rome and Carthage but also – and possibly above all – to the second war, which in this way would have been placed in “a conceivably broad historical context” (Walter 2004a, 223. See already before: Häußler 1978, 10; Frier 1979/1999, 280). 221  Cf. again Richter 1960; 1962, 296. 222  Cf. the classification in Manuwald 2001, 134 f. 223  See only Bernstein 2000, 158; Manuwald 2001, 135; Suerbaum 2002d, 106. Even if the fragments leave the attribution of the title of the work to this battle open, there can hardly be any doubt about this. See, however, Klussmann 1843, 131, who assumes as background the capture of the Roman supply depot at Clastidium by Hannibal’s troops in 218 (Pol. 3,69,1–4; Liv. 21,48,8–10). On the career of M. Claudius Marcellus in the Second Punic War see (with further evidence) Beck 2005a, 308–326. 224  Manuwald 2001, 134. The first fragment is only one word: vitulantes. The second consists of a verse that “sich als iambischer Senar und damit als Sprechvers deuten [lässt]” (Ibid., 140): vitia insepulta laetus in patriam redux. Far-reaching conclusions on the content of the drama are of course not possible from this. For plausible attempts to classify the fragments, see again Manuwald 2001, 138–141 (both fragments in the context of the return of the victorious army). 219

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number of alternatives have been considered.225 An argument for the years 207 or 205, however, seems most plausible.226 In both cases (207 and 205) the basic findings remain similar. A victory against a dangerous opponent from outside of Italy  See, with further references, the overview in Bernstein 2000, 159–161; Manuwald 2001, 136 f. as well as the following note. 226  Thus, two triumphs of the Marcelli have been suggested as occasions: the triumph of the general of Clastidium himself, i.e. a performance in 222, and the triumph of Marcellus’ son in 196. Why the latter should have referred to his father on this occasion which had given him the opportunity to present his own glory remains admittedly unclear (Manuwald 2001, 136 f.). Regarding the triumph of the year 222, neither ludi triumphales nor a performance are mentioned in the sources (so Bernstein 2000, 160). Another dating is therefore more probable. In addition to the already mentioned backgrounds, possible funeral games for Marcellus in 208, who had been killed in battle in that year, the performance at ludi scaenici in 207, or the consecration of the temple vowed in the battle at Clastidium by the son of Marcellus in 205 have been suggested as occasions for the performance (see with further evidence Manuwald 2001, 136 f.). Due to the confused tradition surrounding the death of Marcellus and especially the whereabouts of his mortal remains, it is unclear whether there was an “ordinary funeral ceremony” for Marcellus at all (so already Flower 1995, 183 f.). Liv. 27,28,1–4, for example, reports that Hannibal had the fallen enemy buried but that he also tried to take advantage of the situation by a ruse. Thus, he had wanted to use Marcellus’ ring to send fictitious orders of the consul to Roman troops who had not yet learned of his death. Marcellus’ colleague Quinctius, however, had foreseen this and thus thwarted Hannibal’s plans. The historicity of the episode is disputed. If one takes it seriously, however, a transfer of the corpse seems to be excluded, since Hannibal would have torpedoed his own plan (Seibert 1993a, 366 f. with note 30 against the historicity of this tradition; but Flower 1995, 184; 1996, 146). There were other versions of the whereabouts of the corpse of Marcellus. Plut. Marc. 30,4 mentions a version supposedly handed down by Livy and Valerius Maximus, in which the urn with the mortal remains had been handed over to Marcellus’ son, which, however, can neither be found in Livy nor Valerius Maximus (cf. Seibert 1993a, 366 note 30; Flower 1996, 147 note 78 and Mineo 2011, 124, who assumes that Plutarch here quoted from memory, which explains his mistake). According to another version, the bones had been accidentally scattered on the way to Marcellus’ son in a skirmish (Plut. Marc. 30.2). See the commentary at FRH 11 F 36 for further evidence. All in all, however, a transfer seems unlikely, so that Marcellus’ son probably could not have buried his father’s remains (see also Bernstein 2000, 160; Manuwald 2001, 136; Flower 2003, 44, 49). Moreover, the integration of fabulae praetextae into the ritual of Roman funeral celebrations is otherwise not attested (so rightly Manuwald 2001, 136).The dedication of the temple vowed at Clastidium in 205 seems a more likely approach, since the dedication of the temple was obviously directly related to the battle (Manuwald 2001, 137). Finally, Frank Bernstein, in particular, introduced another approach to the discussion with the plays of 207, based on the assumption that the play was less related to Marcellus but to the populus Romanus as a whole (Bernstein 2000). According to this, the battle against the Celts, the successful defensive struggle of the RomanItalian allies against an external invader who wanted to invade Italy from the north, represented an act of the populus Romanus, albeit with Marcellus as the central representative. However, the “collective accentuation” had prevailed (Bernstein 2000, 163 (citation)). This interpretation is supported by the fact that the title of the work is not Marcellus, as one might expect as a parallel to other fabulae praetextae (Bernstein 2000, 162). Moreover, a ‘collective reading’ of the scanty information we have about the play would be consistent with what can be concluded about Naevius’ Bellum Punicum. Bernstein’s considerations seem plausible, but a definitive decision about the accentuation of the play can hardly be made on the basis of the known sources. Bernstein himself admits this: “Gewiß, die zwei spärlichen Fragmente geben über eine derartige inhaltliche Akzentuierung der Praetexta ebensowenig klare Auskunft wie darüber, ob Naevius allein die gloria des Marcellus verkünden und damit festigen wollte und sollte” (Bernstein 2000, 163). 225

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was depicted, who could only be defeated after a hard struggle and with great effort.227 If one accepts one of the dating suggestions, which fall into the time of the Hannibalic war, then in any case there was a relationship here between what was offered on the stage and the present situation. In addition, Hannibal’s army, at least in the first years of the campaign, consisted to a large extent of Celts, who had been defeated at Clastidium. If one follows Bernstein’s considerations, who dates the performance of the play to the year 207, then in this respect an even more concrete parallel would emerge. For in this year Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal, coming from Spain, marched over the Alps into the Po valley. His army also included numerous Celts. Thus, at the Battle of the Metaurus, the entire left wing of Hasdrubal’s army is said to have been made up of Celtic fighters.228 According to this interpretation, the performance of Clastidium took place under the impression of very concrete present-day events, of which the events seen on stage were a direct reminder. The play, thus, had “also an adhortative function” in that it demonstrated the “victoriousness of Rome, which had to be reassured as seldom before in the Hannibalic War”.229 If one follows this interpretation, there are clear similarities to the just discussed interpretation of the thrust of Naevius’ Bellum Punicum: the staged memory of successful battles against a foreign enemy of the Italian “military community”, in both cases against the very opponents that one was now also facing, are well conceivable as at least an intended effect of both works.230 The mental motifs that can be cautiously inferred from this – unity against external threat, a hard-won victory even after sensitive setbacks – can be well combined with the images on coins from the time of the war mentioned above, where a demonstrative confidence in victory can still be seen.231 Admittedly, in this context much must remain conjecture.

 In retrospect, the Celtic Wars of the twenties of the third century may easily be overshadowed by the conflict with Carthage or the campaigns in the eastern Mediterranean a generation later. For contemporaries, however, it was hardly a peripheral conflict. Accordingly, Polybius emphasized the harshness of the conflict some decades later: Pol. 2,35,2. Cf. Bernstein 2000, 169 and see also Gelzer 1933, 148. On the other hand, the passage in Polybius can hardly be denied a topical connotation. Cf. Walbank 1957, 211 with reference to, among others, Thuk. 1,1,2. Cf. also Liv. 21,1,1–2. 228  So at any rate Liv. 27,48,5. see also Pol. 11,1,2. cf. Bernstein 2000, 167. on the use of Celtic troops in the Second Roman-Carthaginian War see Rawlings 1996. 229  Bernstein 2000, 166 (quotation). 230  Bernstein 2000, 166–168, there (168): “Das exemplum virtutis Clastidium erinnerte an die Tatsache, daß man den gallischen Angstfeind letztlich doch bezwungen hatte. Und wenn es nun galt, den neuen Angstfeind, die Karthager zu besiegen, so sollte das Naevianische Drama wohl zugleich die Furcht in Hoffnung und Zuversicht ummünzen”. 231  This “vielbeachtete Siegesgewißheit” of Rome was, as Bernstein notes, “kein Geschenk des Himmels” and was not an expression of “einer uneingeschränkten und tiefen Überzeugung aller Zeitgenossen” but it first required the memory of past victories, which were won under adverse circumstances and after heavy setbacks – the later victory in the Second Punic War will have certainly strengthened this confidence in retrospect. Bernstein 2000, 168  f. (there also the quotation: 169). 227

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The first Roman historians, Q. Fabius Pictor and L. Cincius Alimentus, were also contemporaries of the Hannibalic War and took an active part in it. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that this conflict was a major factor in their motivation to take up the pen in order to present the history of Rome from a Roman point of view, although in Pictor’s case this cannot be shown with absolute certainty.232 Q. Fabius Pictor apparently wrote his work before Cincius Alimentus but the exact date of composition has always been disputed.233 The latest datable fragment from Pictor’s work belongs to the year 217, although it is clear that the account extended even further. The last known event in Pictor’s life is his legation journey to Delphi in 216.234 The year to which the history extended is also disputed. Walbank, for example, assumes that Polybius was still drawing from Pictor for the year 209, while Frier is of the opinion that Pictor’s account was already no longer available for the year 213.235 The Roman defeats of the first years of the war would still have been included in both cases. Fabius Pictor’s text will in many respects have been an important basis for later accounts, such as that of Polybius. However, only two fragments on the Second Roman-Carthaginian War have survived which can be assigned to it with certainty. The first is a mention by Polybius concerning the outbreak of the war, while the second contains information on the number of Roman casualties at Lake Trasimene, for which Livy refers to Pictor.236 Pictor has also been regarded by many researchers as the author of the exceedingly negative image of the consul of the year 217, C. Flaminius, which is present in Livy in a later adaptation.237 That this was the case can indeed “neither be shown positively in the present fragment nor in any other place in the surviving text”.238 It  For general information on both historians, see Sect. 2.2 above.  Suggestions for dating range from before the start of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War to the post-war period, i.e. over a period of 20–30 years. Beginning of the work before 218: Zimmermann 1933; 262; Kierdorf 2002, 402; 2003, 10; Marincola 2007, 7. Years after 216 (partly considering the crisis after Cannae as the trigger): Frier 1979/1999, 201, 206 and esp. 236–239; Momigliano 1990, 88; Walter 2004a, 232 f.; Beck 2007, 259; Mineo 2011, 112 f. After the end of the war: Münzer 1909; 1837; Badian 1966, 4–7. 234  The last datable fragment belongs to the Battle of Lake Trasimene (217). Appian (27,116) attests that the work also covered the events up until 216 (return of Fabius from Delphi). Cf. Liv. 23,11,1–6. Both, of course, do not exclude that he still witnessed the end of the war and also only then began with the work – so he could have died before the completion of the work or been prevented from its completion for other reasons. Cf. Bispham/Cornell 2013a, 166 f., who also point to the possibility that the work could also have begun before the Second Punic War, which would then have forced Fabius to expand his text. Ultimately, the question cannot be decided with certainty. 235  Frier 1979/1999, 236 f. Already Zimmermann 1933, 262 f. had assumed that Fabius’ account would have reached only until shortly after the battle of Cannae and his subsequent journey to Delphi. 236  Pol. 3,8,1–8 (=FRH 1 F 31 = FRHist 1 F 22). Not surprisingly, the responsibility for the war is located here on the Carthaginian side and there especially with the Barcids in Spain. Cf. the commentary in Beck/Walter 22005, 132–134. Liv. 22,7,1–4 (=FRH 1 F 32 = FRHist 1 F 23). 237  See in this sense already Gelzer 1933, 153 f. 238  Beck/Walter 22005, 135 (quoting). 232 233

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is, nevertheless, by no means improbable. As will be shown in more detail later, C. Flaminius was accused in Roman tradition not only of demagogic machinations and foolish recklessness but also, in particular, of blatant disregard of politico-­ religious precepts and warning portents.239 Fabius Pictor’s journey to Greece to the Oracle of Delphi, through which the Senate hoped to gain insight into measures to be taken to lead the Republic out of the crisis after the battle of Cannae, points to a proximity of the Fabian to religious questions.240 Moreover, it seems reasonable to assume that the account of Fabius’ journey and Livy’s literal reproduction of the oracle’s saying go back to Fabius’ own account, without Livy noting this at this point.241 Thus, it does not seem far-fetched to suppose that the defeat at Lake Trasimene was also interpreted by Pictor as the result of religious misconduct.242 Since after the downfall of Flaminius with Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, another Fabian temporarily took over the leadership of the Republic in the war, who at any rate was celebrated in later tradition as the saviour from adversity, the thought also suggests itself that Pictor had also already drawn the strong contrast between the in every respect reckless Flaminius and the responsible Fabius.243 This assumption, too, cannot be proven with certainty by the preserved fragments, although it seems plausible.244  See, inter alia, Sect. 5.2.5.1 below.  There is, however, no evidence that Fabius Pictor held a priesthood, nor of any other special religious expertise, although this does not rule out the possibility that he possessed it. It is also possible that he belonged to the decemviri sacris faciundis, whose personnel composition is not known for this period. See Frier 1979/1999, 247; Momigliano 1990, 88; Bispham/Cornell 2013a, 161. 241  This assumption is also expressed by Engels 2007, 449. That Fabius Pictor still wrote down his journey to Delphi himself is attested by App. Hann. 27,116. Cf. Frier 1979/1999, 235; Walter 2004a, 232, note 99; Bispham/Cornell 2013a, 166 with note 29. 242  That little of this has survived in Polybius, who demonstrably drew from Pictor’s text, is no surprise, given Polybius’ well-known disdain for explanations of historical events of this kind. On the contrary, it is indeed all the more striking when “the unbelieving Polybius” takes “note of these things [prodigies and their atonement]” on the occasion of the departure from Rome for the army (Pol. 94,8) and in the run-up to the battle of Cannae (Pol. 112,8), from which Gelzer 1933, 154 (quotation) again draws the conclusion that this had already been dealt with in detail by Fabius Pictor as well. 243  So also Gelzer 1933, 154 f., who also assumes that the famous homage to Fabius and his cunctatio strategy, to be found in Ennius, had already been “pronounced by Fabius Pictor and Cincius”. See also Frier 1979/1999, 281 f.; Schmitt 1991, 145. Cf. already Nissen 1867, 565. 244  However, this does not necessarily mean that Fabius Pictor also used the opportunity to unilaterally spread the fame of the gens Fabia. The examination of Pictor’s fragments as a whole rather suggests that he exercised restraint in this matter. Thus, if Flaminius was already portrayed in Fabius as in every respect responsible for the catastrophe at Lake Trasimene, one should rather assume that “Flaminius’ failure as a general [...] was pretended” in order to “cover up” the misjudgements of the Senate as a whole, thus exonerating the nobility in general, and less in order to unilaterally glorify the Fabians. To assume this is obvious already because a one-sided glorification of the Fabians cannot be proven for other parts of Pictor’s work either, rather the opposite: FRH 1 F 24 (=Liv. 8,30,8–10) Cf. Momigliano 1990, 103; Beck 2003, 88; Kierdorf 2003, 15; Walter 2004a, 242 f., 245; Bispham/Cornell 2013a, 177 f. (“Pictor’s account [...] is not invariably favourable to the Fabii”, 177). See also the cautious position in Frier 1979/1999, 282. Cf. further 239 240

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A connection with the Hannibalic War and the threatening time for Rome after the defeats against the Carthaginian army in Italy has also been suspected with regard to two fragments of Pictor, which are connected with the wars of the Romans against the Upper Italian Celts in the years 225–222.245 Here, Fabius gives precise details of the Roman-Italian military potential and the troops that were mustered by the consuls in 225 against the Celts who were then invading Italy.246 These fragments may well be interpreted as indicating that Fabius was keen to emphasize the defensive nature of Roman warfare.247 Moreover, it is possible that he intended to emphasize the need for “mutual loyalty” and unconditional cohesion among Romans and allies by portraying the repulsion of the Celts as a successful enterprise for all of Italy, when it would have been possible to emphasize the deeds of the Roman generals and legions alone.248 If one follows those research contributions in which Pictor’s work is dated to the years from approximately 215 to 210, then the same situation would result for it as that which has already been discussed in connection with the writings of Naevius as well as the coinages of the Hannibalic War: The first work of Roman historiography would then also be a reaction to the crisis of Rome after the heavy defeats of the preceding years, which threatened to become a crisis of the alliance system, the erosion of which Hannibal worked on persistently and

Mommsen 1879, 278 f. Q. Fabius Maximus will, of course, probably have played an important role in Pictor’s work as well, if only because of his actual influence on Roman warfare. 245  FRH 1 F 30a (=Eutr. 3,5) and 30b (=Oros. 4,13,6–7) = FRHist 1 F 21a and b. 246  Cf. also Pol. 2,24, which is probably based here on Fabius Pictor. See Gelzer 1933, 147  f.; Walbank 1957, 196. 247  In the context of the Celtic Wars, this was more controversial than it might seem – after all, the Celts marched into the Po Valley. The Celtic advance, which was hardly intended to serve the longterm occupation of territory south of the Po Valley but rather to make booty, had been preceded by Rome’s expansion through the establishment of colonies and land distribution on the so-called ager Gallicus (cf. Beck/Walter’s commentary on the passage (Beck/Walter 22005, 130): “Wenngleich die Flaminius-feindliche Überlieferung dessen individuelle Schuld überzeichnete […], dürfte die Ansiedlung römischer Veteranen nahe des Keltenlandes durchaus als Bedrohung empfunden worden sein.”). An apologetic tendency of Fabius Pictor’s depiction of Roman ‘foreign policy’ becomes clearer with regard to the respective beginning of the war in 264 and 219/18, when the Romans are assigned the role of the innocent drawn into a war. Cf. Pol. 1,14,1–3 (FRH 1 F 27 = FRHist 1 T 6) resp. Pol. 3,8,1–8 (FRH 1 F 31 = FRHist 1 F 22, each with commentary). It seems reasonable to assume that the background of this account was the attempt to present Roman policy towards Greek communities and kingdoms in Magna Graecia and also beyond the Adriatic, where it was apparently increasingly judged as aggressive, in a more favourable light. See Beck/Walter 2 2005, 58 f. with further references. 248  According to Gelzer 1933, this interpretation is also suggested by the fact that especially in the first books, i.e. for the parts of his work for which Pictor could still serve him as a model, Polybius emphasizes Rome’s concern for its allies as a leitmotif. Indeed, in Polybius’ text the Romans repeatedly bring up this concern as a justification for their military intervention: Pol. 1,10,2; 1,83,7; 3,77,6; 3,85,4; 3,90,4; 3118,5. See also: Pol. 2,23,13; 2,24; 3118,7. Agreeing: Frier 1979/1999, 243 f. Cf. also the brief remarks by Hans Beck and Uwe Walter in their commentary (Beck/Walter 22005, 131).

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not without success.249 That Fabius Pictor in this situation referred to acts of Roman fides towards the allies, to the successes of past common struggles, as well as to the necessity of passing these also now together, is in itself plausible and seems well conceivable. That this account was at least also aimed at the relations between Romans and allies after the defeats of the years 218–216 is possible, although it should be admitted that even this assumption cannot be proven with certainty from the fragments, which are ultimately quite sparse for these questions, so that here – as also with regard to the texts of Naevius – once again much must remain unclear.250 Even more uncertain is the information that can be gained from the remains, rather debris, of the work of L. Cincius Alimentus in the question of how to deal with Roman defeats. Alimentus apparently fell into Carthaginian captivity in the last third of the war, and is said to have spoken to Hannibal himself during this period.251 This statement, handed down by Livy, is the only fragment, even more so indirectly reproduced, which can be clearly assigned to the Second Roman-Carthaginian War, which has survived from Cincius’ work. Obviously, the latter could not really “step out of the shadow” of its predecessor – Cincius will presumably have begun writing only after the end of the war.252 Consequently, no statement can be formulated about how Rome’s defeats, their reasons and consequences were dealt with here.253 Q. Ennius was, on the one hand, a contemporary of the war, who was already old enough at its beginning to consciously experience the entire course of the war, and, on the other hand, he lived long enough afterwards to have the opportunity to set down his view of things in an extensive work  – in Ennius’ opus magnum, the Annales.254 Ennius apparently distributed the voluminous material over 18 books,  See only Frier 1979/1999, 206: “[T]hose modern scholars who see in it [Pictor’s work] a nationalistic reaction to challenge raised by the war are undoubtedly right.” 250  In particular, as we have seen, the dating of the work to the years after Cannae is already uncertain, which must then also apply to all conclusions that are connected with this approach. Cf. Bispham/Cornell 2013a, 167, who emphatically refer to the problem of dating and thus of the interpretations derived from it: “We do not know how long he worked on the history, or when he stopped; equally we do not know when he started, or what inspired him to write”. Cf. also Frier 1979/1999, 246, who admits that final certainty cannot be reached, even if he vehemently defends his dating proposal – middle of the Hannibalic War. 251  FRH 2 F 10 = FRHist 2 F 5 (=Liv. 21,38,3–5). 252  Cf. Kierdorf 2003, 15 f. 253  Cf. Vogt 1953, 191, who assumes that Cincius Alimentus had come into “contact with Carthaginian thinking” through the years of his captivity and possible conversations with Hannibal, which “also had an effect on his historical work”. At the same time, however, Vogt must concede that this consideration must remain speculative in view of the scanty tradition. To a certain extent, however, the career of Alimentus himself can be seen as a consequence of the defeats against the armies of Carthage. For the Cincii do not seem to have played any significant role in the Senate, either before the war or afterwards. The rise of their most important representative seems to have been made possible in the first place under the, above discussed, special conditions of the middle phase of the war. Cf. Walter 2004a, 255. However, Bispham/Cornell 2013b, 179 point out that his obvious command of the Greek language qualified him for his tasks in Sicily, where he held a propraetoric command from 210 to 208. 254  Since he seems to have been born around the year 239, he himself experienced the Second Roman-Carthaginian War, during the course of which (around 204) he apparently also came to 249

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possibly divided into triads. Books 7 to 9 covered Rome’s two wars against Carthage, as well as the wars in northern Italy (against the Gauls) and in Illyria (against Demetrios of Pharos, for instance) during those decades.255 Presumably the first war, for which the Bellum Punicum of Naevius was already available, was more succinctly presented in the Annales than the second, which, as seen, Ennius himself witnessed.256 A number of fragments of the work, however, can be directly assigned to the Hannibalic War. From this, again, cautious conclusions can be drawn about aspects of the representation and interpretation of Roman defeats. In his commentary on Ennius, Skutsch has interpreted a statement by Cicero to the effect that in Ennius the Roman defeats were generally treated only cursorily.257 Although this may be true in general, Ennius seems to have made an exception with regard to the battle of Cannae. Skutsch wanted to assign a number of fragments to Cannae, which will be discussed below.258 In the first passage, at least the attribution to a defeat of Rome seems indeed plausible: multa dies in bello conficit unus/Et rursus multae fortunae forte recumbunt:/Haudquaquam quemquam semper fortuna secuta est.259 The statement that many things can happen in a day in war, followed by a warning about the vicissitudes of fortune, recalls the account of the disputes between Roman generals, such as the consuls of 216, C. Terentius Varro and L. Aemilius Paullus, over the proper strategy, especially whether to venture a battle against Hannibal, as found in later sources, such as Polybius and Livy.260 To think of an account of the battle of Cannae Rome. The evidence is again found in F. Skutsch 1905, 2589 f. To Rome he is said, according to Nep. Cato 1,4 he came in the retinue of M. Porcius Cato, when the latter returned from Sardinia, which raises the question for what reason Ennius was on the island. The credibility of the passage recorded in Cornelius Nepos has been rejected by Badian 1972, 155–158, who, however, considers it possible (162 f.) that Ennius might have served as a member of a contingent of Roman allies in Sardinia. This would make him a participant in the war. Cf. Sil. 12, 393–402. According to the ancient evidence he probably died in Rome in 169. Cf. F. Skutsch 1905, 2592; Skutsch 1985, 2. However, the year of death 169 is not certain beyond doubt. Cf. Badian 1972, 154. On the Annales as a whole, see above Sect. 2.2. 255  On the division, see F.  Skutsch 1905, 2604–2610; Skutsch 1972, 4.f; 1985, 5  f. and, most recently, the overview in Elliott 2013, 298–302. In research, the following division is generally accepted, even if definitive certainty cannot be gained on the basis of the known sources: Royal Period (books 1–3), Early Republic up to the war against Pyrrhus (4–6), Punic Wars and Intermediate Period (7–9), 2nd Macedonian War and further campaigns in Greece (10–12), War against Antiochos III and campaign of M.  Fulvius Nobilior against the Aitolians (13–15). The content of the last triad (16–18) is unclear. See Enn. ann. 229 and 230 (placing in the context of the Gallic Wars of the twenties with the battle of Telamon not unlikely), ann. 231 (probably to be assigned to the campaign of L. Aemilius Paullus against Demetrios of Pharos). 256  Skutsch 1985, 8 (“very brief summary”). 257  Skutsch 1985, 384 and 431 with reference to Cic. Manil. 25 (sinite hoc loco, Quirites, sicut poetae solent qui res Romanas scribunt, praeterire me nostram calamitatem). 258  These are fragments iv–xiv of book 8, i.e. Enn. ann. 258–288. 259  Enn. Ann. 258–260. The assignment to the eighth book and thus to the period of the Second Punic War is secured by the testimony of Macrobius (Macrob. 6,2,16). 260  See below Sect. 5.2.5.1 (Livy). An examination of the representation and interpretation of the Roman defeats in Polybius will take place in a separate study.

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is therefore obvious. It would also be possible to assign it to the battle of the Trebia or to the conflict between Q. Fabius Maximus and M. Minucius Rufus. The basic idea of the statement would always remain the same. Skutsch assumes that the fragment originates from a speech of L. Aemilius Paullus to C. Terentius Varro, in which Paullus warned his colleague about the opening of the battle.261 In addition, two further passages can be quite plausibly assigned to a similar, perhaps even the same context: praecox pugna est and certare abnueo. metuo legionibus labem, respectively.262 Skutsch and other researchers also suspect a connection to Cannae for a number of fragments that probably originate from the description of battles. This assignment is possible in each case, although another context seems equally conceivable.263 In one of the fragments, the mention of dust being raised (iamque fere puluis ad caeli vasta videtur) is striking. Since at least later accounts of the battle of Cannae emphasize that the soldiers of the Roman side were considerably hindered in battle by dust that the wind would have driven into their faces, this fragment may have

 Skutsch 1985, 440. Walter 2004a, 271, among others, agrees with this assessment. Cf. Elliott 2013, 130 f.: “[T]he lines in Ennius are essentially pessimistic, speaking of the likelihood of disaster following on success”. 262  Enn. ann. 261 and 262. Cf. again Skutsch 1985, 441 (on ann. 261: ‘clearly the words of Aemilius Paullus trying to restrain his impetuous colleague’) and 442. See further Walter 2004a, 271. 263  Skutsch sees this context for, among others, Enn. ann. 263, 264, 267, 287. Skutsch considers the battle of Cannae as possible, though more uncertain, as the context for verses 265 and 266 (see the respective commentary on the passage in Skutsch 1985). It is also possible that Cn. Servilius Geminus, who was the colleague of C. Flaminius as consul in 217, played a greater role in Ennius than, for example, in the surviving accounts of Polybius and Livy. Thus, Aulus Gellius quotes a passage from Ennius’ text in which, inter pugnas, a certain Servilius addresses a companion who is said to combine numerous virtues and positive character traits in his person (Enn. ann. 268–286 = Gell. 12,4,4). This portrayal of the ideal companion already attracted attention in antiquity. See the considerations in Skutsch 1985, 450 f. with the older literature; cf. esp. Elliott 2013, 229. In research, the suggestion has been made to connect this passage with the account of the battle of Cannae, where Servilius’ death may have been depicted there in a manner similar to the farewell scene of L. Aemilius Paullus in Livy’s account, including the conversation between Paullus and the military tribune Cn. Lentulus (conversation between L. Aemilius Paullus and Cn. Lentulus in Livy: Liv. 22,49,6–11. Cf. on this below Sect. 5.2.5.1). However, since it would be surprising if the death of L. Aemilius Paullus had not received more attention in the Annales, and two speeches, each with the foresight of his own approaching death, would probably have overused this motif, as Skutsch rightly notes, another context of Servilius’ speech is more likely. The battle of Cannae could have played a role here but this must ultimately remain entirely open. In principle, it is not at all certain that the consul of the year 217 is meant at all, since the text leaves other possibilities open. Cf. Badian 1972, 175, who excludes an attribution to Cannae and instead assumes (180) that P. Servilius Geminus, the consul of the years 252 and 248, is meant. This assignment can claim for itself that for this no correction of the indication of the book number in Gellius would be necessary, who clearly speaks of the seventh book of the Annals, in which presumably the First Punic War was treated (Gell. 12,4,1: Ennio in annali septimo). Skutsch 1985, 448 considers a mistake by Gellius possible and therefore transfers the fragment to the eighth book, which, however, has not met with unanimous approval. Cf. among others Elliott 2013, 231, who sees no reason to doubt Gellius’ indication of the book. 261

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belonged in Ennius’ description of the battle.264 If the attribution of this passage to Cannae is correct, one might see in it a relatively early attempt to explain the defeat, at least in part, by the adverse conditions on the battlefield.265 This, however, must remain as unclear as the interpretation of an Ennius verse of the eighth book handed down by Macrobius, which was associated with the nocturnal outbreak of the Romans trapped in the army camp through the ranks of the victorious Carthaginians, who had only inattentively kept watch after the battle of Cannae (Ennius in octavo ‘nunc hostes vino domiti somnoque sepulti’).266 In Livy’s version, these soldiers escape imminent capture by Hannibal’s soldiers.267 Thereupon the old consular T. Manlius Torquatus, in turn, points out this action to those Romans who, as prisoners of the Carthaginian general, petitioned the Senate for their ransom. In this way, Manlius wants to demonstrate that the prisoners had brought their fate on themselves. After all, it had been possible to escape capture through energetic action. As a result of Torquatus’ speech, the Senate refuses to ransom the prisoners. They must, therefore, return to Hannibal.268 Whether this motive was already to be found in Ennius in the sense outlined here must remain unclear on the basis of the known evidence. In any case, the episode was widely embellished in later tradition, so that it is quite conceivable that it already appeared in some form in Ennius. At least indirectly, three of the most quoted verses of Ennius can be assigned to the Roman defeats of the Hannibalic War – the well-known praise of the “Cunctator” Q. Fabius Maximus: Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem./Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem./Ergo postque magisque viri nunc gloria claret.269 The strategy of Q.  Fabius Maximus, especially during his dictatorship after the defeat at Lake Trasimene (217), seems to have been highly controversial in Rome and among the allies.270 In this context, an analysis of the “temporal[s] and mental[s] structure

 Enn. ann. 264 (iamque fere pulvis ad caeli vasta videtur). Cf. Skutsch 1985, 443: “The dust of the battlefield was an important factor at Cannae [...], and the line may therefore have its place here”. 265  As will be shown, this aspect was in any case repeatedly taken up in later accounts and also quite broadly developed, which admittedly does not yet constitute proof that this was already the case with Ennius. See only Liv. 22,46,9 (ventus  – Volturnum regionis incolae vocant  – adversus Romanis coortus multo pulvere in ipsa ora volvendo prospectum ademit) and even more strongly emphasized in App. Hann. 22,99–100. 266  Enn. ann. 288 (=Macrob. 6,1,20). 267  The episode in Livy: Liv. 22,50,4–12. Skutsch 1985, 464 assumes that the verse of Ennius comes from a speech of the military tribune P. Sempronius Tuditanus, which was similar to the one the latter delivers in Livy. The corresponding passage, however, is preserved in Livy as a rendering of a message from the Romans in the larger army camp to the soldiers around Sempronius Tuditanus in the smaller one. Skutsch 1985, 464 therefore assumes that Ennius had made a change here (“The words which Livy gives to the messenger would in the Annals naturally belong to Sempronius”). 268  Liv. 22,60,6–27 (speech of Manlius Torquatus); 22,61,1–10 (different versions about the return of the prisoners to Hannibal). See below Sect. 5.2.5.1. 269  Enn. ann. 363–366. 270  Cf. also, among others, Erdkamp 1992, 141; Seibert 1993a, 168; Christ 2003, 84; Speidel 2004, 50; Beck 2005a, 288. Cf. also Gruen 1978, 65 f. 264

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of the three verses” is revealing.271 Thus, the first two verses clearly refer to the past of the Hannibalic war: by his strategy Q. Fabius Maximus saved the res publica. This makes an assessment on the part of Ennius unmistakably clear. During the war, Fabius did not put the, apparently contrary, public opinion above the saving of the commonwealth, and because of this his fame now shines all the more. The verses of Ennius, then, reflect both the disagreement over strategic direction during the war and the change in judgment of the person of Fabius that had taken place since.272 Without anticipating the further sections, even a glance at the evidence for quotations and indirect allusions to the Unus-homo verses collected in the Ennius editions by Johannes Vahlen and Otto Skutsch, among others, suggests the extent to which Ennius’s poetry had an impact on the Roman historical image (and not only) in this case.273 The Annales were apparently read in school lessons and passages from them were brought to public readings for recitation.274 One can well imagine that the verses on Fabius Maximus, which were certainly easy to remember and presumably stood out due to the prominence of the subject, were disseminated in this way. Whether through this “the historical view of the Romans” with regard to Fabius Maximus and the cunctatio strategy was already formulated “once and for all” and decided canonically cannot be clearly decided on the basis of the sources, which are rather sparse especially for the second and early first century. However, a considerable influence of Ennius on the image of Fabius and the associated disputes about the right strategy, which, in turn, are closely linked to the defeats of the war, may well be assumed.275 The military and political career of M. Porcius Cato was closely connected with the Second Roman-Carthaginian War. Born in 234, he apparently took part in this war as a young man (“starting in 216 BC”), served as a military tribune in Sicily from 214 to 210 (under the command of M. Claudius Marcellus, so it is likely that he saw the siege and conquest of Syracuse), and is said to have participated in the conquest of Tarentum in 209 under the command of Q. Fabius Maximus. In 204, Cato was quaestor under P. Cornelius Scipio in Sicily and Africa, and he returned from there to Rome in 203 or 202.276 In view of the data surviving on Cato’s career,  Walter 2004a, 271 (quote). The following according to Walter 2004a, 271 f.  According to Walter 2004a, 271 f., they thus marked the “früheste[n] greifbare[n] Beleg in der römischen Literatur für einen ausdrücklichen Wandel der geschichtlichen Beurteilung einer Person in einer nur wenig späteren Zeit”. 273  Vahlen 1928, 66; Skutsch 1985, 529 f. Cf. Elliott 2013, 41 f.: “These two fragments are already at a peak of popularity in antiquity, as the rate of quotation shows, ...”. 274  See Suet. gram. 2, 3–4 (public readings of the work towards the end of the second century). For the use of Ennius’ Annales as school reading and in rhetoric classes, see the evidence in Skutsch 1985, 8–10. See also Walter 2004a, 278 and cf. above Sect. 2.2. 275  Walter 2004a, 272 (quotation). On the ancient reception of these Ennius verses, see Stanton 1971; Elliott 2009 (esp. Sallust and Livy). On the aftermath of Ennius in antiquity as a whole, see the brief survey in F. Skutsch 1905, 2614–2619; Skutsch 1985, 8–46. 276  On Cato’s career see, among others, Beck/Walter 22005, 148  f.; Suerbaum 2002b, 381–383; Cornell 2013, 192 f. (quote) each with references to the individual stages and references to more extensive works on Cato. While the military service in Sicily is considered to have survived quite 271 272

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it would already be natural to assume that the Hannibalic War was treated extensively in the Origines but there is also explicit, if scant, evidence for this.277 Above all, two fragments in Gellius are to be mentioned, in which, apparently following the battle of Cannae, it is described how a Carthaginian cavalry leader tries to convince Hannibal to march on Rome in order to take the enemy capital by force278: Igitur dictatorem Carthaginiensium magister equitum Romamequitatum: diequinti in Capitolio tibi cena cocta erit’.

monuit:

‘mitte

mecum

and Deinde dictator iubet postridie magistratum equitum arcessi: ‘mittam te, si vis, cum equitibus’. ‘sero est’, inquit magister equitum, ‘iam rescivere’.

Also, due to the respective reference of Gellius to the fourth book of Cato’s work, it is obvious to draw the two fragments together in terms of content. Hannibal’s dialogue with his horseman is well known from the account in Livy and can also be found in a number of other sources.279 These two Cato fragments, however, are the earliest evidence for this, even if it is not excluded that earlier authors had already incorporated the dialogue in at least a similar form into their respective accounts.280 The brief lines already give a number of clues to the depiction and interpretation of the defeat of Cannae in the Origines, which possibly soon had an effect beyond Cato’s work. Thus, it at least appears that Hannibal was given the possibility of conquering Rome by Cato, which implies that the defeat was in no way marginalized. The fact that a march of the Carthaginian army on Rome would have had little

securely, Cato’s participation in the capture of Tarantum in 209 under the command of Q. Fabius Maximus, as reported by Cicero (Cic. Cato 10), is controversial. Thus, it also seems conceivable that Cato and Fabius, who from the perspective of the late republic both stood for the idealized period of the ‘classical’ republic, and not only play an important role in Cicero’s writings in this respect, are brought closer together. Cf. Kienast 1954, 11 f. After the end of the Hannibalic War, Cato managed to continue his career rapidly, which was reflected in his praetorship (198, Sardinia), the consulship (195) and the following proconsulship (194, both Spain), which was followed by a triumph. In 191, moreover, he took part as military tribune in the war against Antiochos III and his allies in Greece. In 184 Cato attained the censorship, that is, the office with which his name has been closely associated in posterity. Cato was the son of a knight who knew how to take advantage of the opportunities offered in the Hannibalic War to recommend himself to influential senators who apparently promoted his career. On this, see Kienast 1954, 36–40. Cf. Beck/Walter 22005, 148. 277  Cf. the overview of Cato’s division of the material in Nep. Cato 3,3–4, according to which Cato treated the Second Punic War in the fifth book. 278  FRH 3 F 4,13 = FRHist 5 F 78 (=Gell. 10,24,7; Macrob. 1,4,26); FRH 3 F 4,14 = FRHist 5 F 79 (=Gell. 2,19,9). 279  Liv. 22,51,1–2. See, for instance, Val. Max. 9.5 ext. 3; Flor. Epit. 1,22,19–20; Amm. Marc. 18,5,6. In Livy Hannibal’s interlocutor is called Maharbal, in other authors other names are mentioned. Plut. Fab. 17,1 mentions a certain Barca as Hannibal’s equestrian leader. Sil. 10,375–376 names Mago in this position. Pol. 3116,6–8 has the cavalry commanded by officers named Hasdrubal and Hanno. 280  Vogt 1953, 169 suspects that the episode was first found in Cato. As in other cases, no certain decision can be made here. Cf. FRHist 5 F 78–9 with commentary.

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chance of success in historical reality, even after the victory at Cannae, and that Hannibal had probably not planned such a move at all, did not matter here.281 The Capitol, as seen, had already assumed an important position in connection with the memory of the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’.282 The motif of the threat to the Roman centre by the image of Hannibal dining on the Capitol, which was certainly uncanny for Romans, was thus likely to evoke echoes of the siege of the heart of the city by the Gauls – which illustrates the extent to which the threat posed by Hannibal was still perceived in retrospect.283 Without prejudging the further chapters, it can already be said that in Hannibal’s case, as with the Gauls, the combination with the Capitol, ominous from the Roman point of view, was taken up again and again as a symbol of the threat to Rome.284 This image that Cato was perhaps the first to create was thus obviously memorable. At the same time, the lines betray an approach to their own history that is characterized by counterfactual considerations: what would have happened if Hannibal had not hesitated? This is also interesting insofar as it could, at least potentially, call into question the teleological view of history, which seems to have been first formulated in Rome in the first half of the second century, that saw Rome as the centre of the world, predestined for world domination.285 In this framework, the fragment also

 The question of whether Hannibal, by his decision not to march on Rome after Cannae, gave away a possible strategic advantage, if not the outcome of the war, is one of the most discussed individual problems in research on the Second Punic War. The majority answer the question in the negative, pointing out that a direct attack on Rome was probably not part of Hannibal’s strategy either. See in this sense, among others (each with different weighting in the argumentation): Hallward 1930, 47; Lazenby 1978/1998, 85 f.; 1996b; Shean 1996, esp. 162–167; 184 f.; Heftner 1997, 242 with note 45; Zlattner 1997, 26–28; Erdkamp 1998, 177  f.; Lancel 1998, 183; Goldsworthy 2001, 168; Barceló 2004, 147 f.; Linke 2006, 67; Zimmermann 2008; Schulz 2012, 212. In contrast, Hannibal’s decision is judged in some other contributions as a mistake that possibly deprived the Carthaginians of victory in the war. Hoyos 2000 considers that the dialogue between the cavalry leader and Hannibal in Cato’s account did not occur after the battle of Cannae but after the one at Lake Trasimene. He draws this conclusion, among other things, from the fact that from Etruria Rome could well have been reached within five days, and considers, moreover, that Cato had not mentioned the place of the battle by name at all (in parallel, as it were, to the – alleged – omission of names in the entire Origines). The argumentation is not convincing. Cf. on this also T. Cornell’s comment on the passage in FRHist. 282  See Sect. 3.1 above. 283  Cf. Beck 2006, 217 f. The connection between both defeats could be seen even stronger by the fact that Hannibal’s army, as already mentioned several times, consisted to a large extent of Celtic units. 284  See, for instance, below the sections on Coelius Antipater, Cicero and Livy. Cf. for the time being Schmitt 1991, 180, note 121, who notes that in the late Republic it was part of “the general convictions” that Hannibal wanted to attack and take Rome. 285  Cf. – with reference to the dialogue between Hannibal and the Carthaginian cavalry leader in Cato  – Beck 2006, 218 (“Daß Hannibal in der römischen Überlieferung die Möglichkeit zugeschrieben wurde, diesen Ort, der wie kein anderer für die Existenz der freien Republik stand, in die Hände zu bekommen, verdeutlicht noch einmal, daß mit Cannae nicht einfach nur ein diffus-irrationaler Gefühlszustand von Angst kommuniziert wurde, sondern daß es um eine tatsächliche Bedrohung für den Fortbestand der res publica ging. Der Erinnerungsort Cannae wurde damit auf 281

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points to the special position Hannibal held among Rome’s enemies in Roman historical culture. Beyond the Origines, other fragments have survived in which Cato referred to the setbacks and the crisis of the Hannibalic War, for example, in surviving speech fragments.286 It is known that Cato had demanded the destruction of Carthage in speeches in the Senate since the late 50s of the second century – allegedly regardless of the actual content.287 He is said to have justified his agitation for a third war by referring to the threat posed by the now economically prosperous city in North Africa, only a few days’ journey from Rome, which had in the meantime paid off the indemnity that had been stipulated by treaty at the end of the Second Punic War.288 Against this background it seems reasonable to assume that Cato in this context at least now and then interspersed in some speeches also retrospections to the Hannibalic War, in order to warn against a rising Carthage by remembering its horrors.289 Another context is probably indicated by a fragment in which Aulus Gellius quotes a sentence of Cato’s from his speech De Achaeis. Even if the exact context must remain unclear, the allusion to the war against Hannibal’s army in Italy and the setbacks that Romans and Italians had to suffer as a result is clear: M. Catonis verba sunt ex oratione, quam de Achaeis scripsit: “cumque Hannibal terram Italiam laceraret atque vexaret”.290 The speech from which Gellius quotes here was probably about the question whether those Achaians who had been hostages in Italy for more than 15 years – among them Polybius – should be allowed to return to their homeland, which Cato advocated.291 Janzer assumed that the fragment within the speech belonged to a context in which Cato emphasized that the leaders of the Achaean League had opposed Philip V of Macedonia when he attacked the Romans in Illyria in 215, following his alliance with Hannibal after Cannae.292 Of course, there is no certainty in this matter.

alle Zeiten zum Denkmal dafür, daß die römische Erfolgsstory wenigstens einmal, im Jahr 216, auf des Messers Schneide stand.”). 286  Cato delivered numerous speeches in the course of his long political career, of which Cicero knew more than 150 (Cic. Brut. 65–67). 287  The earliest evidence for this is found in Cic. Cato 18. The repetition of the demand for the destruction of Carthage is reported by Plut. Cato Maior 54,1. The well-known phrase Censeo Carthaginem esse delendam was apparently formed later, the now proverbial Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam only by modern adaptation. See on this (with further evidence) Little 1934; Thürlemann 1974; Burian 1978, 172. 288  Carthage was to deliver to Rome a total of 10,000 talents of silver, payable in 50 annual instalments of 200 talents each (Pol. 15:18, 7–8; Liv. 30:37, 5). This period had expired in 152. Cf. Kay 2014, 39 f. 289  So already Janzer 1936, 82, who wants to take the fragment from the speech De Achaeis (see the following note) as a testimony for “welche Gefühle Cato mit der Erinnerung an den Hannibalischen Krieg [verband]”. 290  ORF 187 = 142 Cugusi (=Gell. 2,6,7). Cf. also Kienast 1954, 164. See the commentary on the passage by M. Cugusi (Cugusi 1982, 364) and already before by Janzer 1936, 82. 291  Plut. Cato Maior 9,1–3. Possibly the report that Plutarch gives in the Vita Cato on this event goes back to Polybius himself. Cf. on this Kienast 1954, 113 f. 292  Janzer 1936, 80. see Pol. 7,13,1–2.

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The passage contains the earliest surviving fragment of Latin speeches in which Hannibal is explicitly mentioned (as said, in an ultimately unclear context).293 Similar to what is repeatedly found in chronologically later sources, Hannibal’s name in Cato’s speech is representative of the horrors and losses that the war as a whole had brought upon Italy. Further, it is certainly no accident that Cato speaks of the Italian soil and not of the Roman territory alone. The idea that the repulse of Hannibal’s army was to be regarded as an all-Italian task was, as seen above, perhaps already emphasized by Q. Fabius Pictor and was emphasized in various places in later accounts.294 Further evidence that can be directly linked to Rome’s defeats has not been preserved from Cato’s work, even though ancient sources report basic features of the account that will also have applied to the sections on Roman defeats.295

5.2.2  The War of the Senate: The Second and Early First Centuries With Cato ends the series of Roman authors who had experienced the Second Roman-Carthaginian War  – and thus directly or indirectly also its defeats  – and from whom at least text fragments have survived. All the authors of later sources that have survived for us had not experienced the war themselves and knew it only from the works written and published up to that time and, presumably to a much

 Speeches that Livy, for example, preserves for earlier speakers are excluded from this statement, since it must remain unclear in each case to what extent these are later compositions. 294  Moreover, the all-Italian perspective fits the conception of the Origines, in which Cato obviously tried to include the Italic peoples in his account. On this, see Cornell 2013, 205–217, esp. 208–213 and Kierdorf 2003, 24. 295  That Cato completely refrained from naming generals in the Origines seems very unlikely, even if Nep. Cato 3,4 as well as Plin. nat. 8,11 (=FRH 3 F 4,11 = FRHist 5 F 115) were and are often interpreted in this sense in research (see for instance: Kienast 1954, 109 f.; Kierdorf 2003, 23 f.). If it was indeed Cato’s intention to demonstratively sideline the ambition of individual nobles, which in his eyes was harmful because excessive, and to emphasize instead that the well-being of the res publica and its success were not due to the deeds of individuals but to the efforts of many people working over a long period of time, then this would still not have been a reason to refrain from naming names from the early Roman period. In fact, the wording of Nepos suggests that his remark refers only to those books in which the wars of Rome had been described since the First Punic War (atque horum bellorum duces non nominavit, sed sine nominibus res notavit). Even in the context of speeches, at least the name of the speaker will probably have been mentioned. Moreover, it seems hardly conceivable that Cato in his account of the Hannibalic war managed entirely without mentioning names, since this would have made the narrative basically completely incomprehensible (see in this sense already, with further evidence, Beck/Walter 22005, 153 (“Dass Hannibal niemals namentlich genannt wurde, erscheint ebenfalls ausgeschlossen.”); Walter 2004a, 290 f.). It is more likely that Cato mentioned the names only rarely, perhaps at the first occurrence, while in the account of further events he merely listed the respective title  – such as dictator Carthaginiensium and magister equitum in the fragment cited above (FRH 3 F 4,13 = FRHist 5 F 78). The corresponding note by Cornelius Nepos could well be attributed to a quick, rather superficial reading, which has also been attributed to him in research on the basis of other indications (for example, by Chassignet 1986, XIII; Flach 31998, 69). 293

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greater extent, from the accounts of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Thus, to a certain extent, a new period began in the perception, interpretation and further transmission of the events of the Hannibalic War. Although there were apparently still some contemporary witnesses of the events alive, such as C. Laelius, one of the companions of P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus Maior, from whom Polybius claims to have learned information about individual events of the war, this does not change the fact that by the middle of the second century an increasing number of people had to rely on other media if they wanted to obtain information about the Second Punic War. In Assmann’s diction, then, the boundary between the spheres of communicative and cultural memory runs in some sense during those years with regard to this war.296 Admittedly, the distinction between communicative and cultural memory is often not clearly defined, which is also true for this period. Contemporary witnesses like Laelius or the Numidian king Massinissa were still alive, while Q.  Ennius or Polybius created highly elaborated adaptations of the ‘material’ that the Second Punic War represented for them. For modern historians, the Histories of Polybius are one of the most important sources for reconstructing the history of the Roman rise to dominion over the Mediterranean. M. Porcius Cato added a striking figure of high symbolic power to the cultural memory of the late Roman Republic, and Cato’s writings occupy an important position in the history of Latin literature, although the formal approach he took in the Origines has was not revisited.297 The works of other Roman authors who were working on historical works in Rome at about the same time may have had less influence on the historical consciousness of contemporaries and later generations.298 Nevertheless, with regard to the representation and interpretation of the defeats of the Hannibalic war in the Roman historical culture of their time, the fragments that have survived from the works in question allow interesting insights. The chronology of the authors is often unclear in detail, since no reliable data are known either on their biographies or on the time and circumstances of the publication of

 See Sect. 2.1 above.  In terms of content, however, the Origines seem to have been of no small influence for works of some successors (cf. on this view Forsythe 2000, 5). 298  The work of A. Postumius Albinus is described by von Albrecht 1994, 303 as an “instructive example of the downfall of literature through one-sided tradition-building”. This refers to Polybius and Cato, both of whom made disparaging remarks about both the politician and the historian A. Postumius Albinus (see Gell. 11,8; Pol. 33,1,3–5; 39,1). Walter 2004a, 297 sums up: “Über sein Werk können wir nicht mehr sagen, als daß es wohl nicht den Orientierungsbedürfnissen weiterer oder auch intellektuell tonangebender Kreise entsprach und von ihm offensichtlich keinerlei Impulse ausgingen.” Beck/Walter 22005, 233 are of the opinion that also the “Werk des Acilius […] nur begrenzt rezipiert [wurde]”. A small sphere of influence must also be attested for L. Cassius Hemina, for whom a citation is only attested in Pliny the Elder. Cf. C. Cichorius, RE III.2, 1899, s. v. L.  Cassius Hemina, 1723–1725, esp. 1725: Hemina had remained “für die Entwicklung der Tradition über die ältere römische Geschichte, wie sie sich in der Zeit von den Gracchen bis auf Cicero immer mehr und mehr erweitert hat, ohne jeden Einfluss”; Scholz 1989, 181; Forsythe 1990, 326; Beck/Walter 22005, 245; Walter 2004a, 305. 296 297

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their works.299 This is also true for the work of C. Acilius,300 which, however, is probably the earliest testimony to the episode surrounding the negotiation of the further fate of those Roman soldiers who had become prisoners at Cannae – an episode very common in later sources. This negotiation ended with the Roman Senate rejecting the prisoners’ plea. They faced a fate as slaves301 in Acilius’ version, as Cicero reports in De Officiis.302 This differs from other accounts, such as that found at the same time in Polybius, first in that, according to Acilius, several envoys had apparently tried to evade their sworn obligation to return to Hannibal’s camp. This they had evidently succeeded in doing, as they had been subsequently subjected to dishonouring punishments by the censors. According to Polybius, it was only one man out of ten who refused to return. He had returned to the prison camp for a short time under a pretext immediately after leaving it, whereupon he had seen himself

 The year of publication of the work of L. Postumius Albinus is unknown but at least excerpts from it must have been published during the lifetime of Cato, who died in 149, since otherwise he could hardly have mocked Albinus for apologizing for his supposedly bad Greek (Gell. 11,8). With regard to the work of C. Acilius, Liv. per. 53 allows a dating to the time around the year 141 but this is not undisputed. Cf. Forsythe 2000, 3 and see the following note. For the work of L. Cassius Hemina, only a vague dating can be given (Walter 2004a, 303: “Zeitlich steht Hemina zwischen Cato und Calpurnius Piso.”). Proposals discussed range from a dating for the period before the beginning of the Third Punic War to a late dating around 133/132 (on this, see Forsythe 1990, 327–333). 300  Little is known about the life of C. Acilius. See the testimonies at FRHist 7 T 1 a–4c. The family of Acilius seems to have risen to the Senate only as a result of the enormous losses among the senators caused by the defeats at Lake Trasimene and especially at Cannae – perhaps, then, an ancestor of Acilius was one of those men whom M. Fabius Buteo admitted to the ranks of the Senate after Cannae on account of special merit (see Liv. 23,6–7). A C. Acilius was apparently a senator in 155 and led the Greek ‘philosophers’ legation to the Senate. In doing so he is said to have incurred the wrath of M. Porcius Cato. The identification of this Acilius with the historian is widely accepted, though in the end there is no certain evidence for it. The news handed down from Liv. per. 53, i.e. for the years 143–141, that “the senator Acilius” had published a Greek work of history (Acilius senator Graece res Romanas scribit), must be treated with caution, since it is merely a conjecture by the editor Hertz. In the surviving text the name C. Iulius is found. Thus, the time of writing and publication of Acilius’ work remains ultimately uncertain. His classification in this work among the Roman historians who lived and wrote in the middle of the second century follows the majority of research, in which Hertz’s conjecture was accepted. Cf. most recently the introduction to Acilius by E. Bispham/S. Northwood, C. Acilius in: FRHist I, 224–226, esp. 224 f. Acilius wrote his work, like his predecessors Q. Fabius Pictor, L. Cincius Alimentus and others, in Greek. After Cato had established historiography in Latin as well, this will no longer be understood as a consequence of genre convention alone but as a conscious decision of Acilius, and can probably be interpreted as an indication of the “Greek affinities of Acilius” (commentary by Beck/Walter on FRH 5, 232). 301  See Sect. 5.2.5.1 below. 302  Cic. off. 3,115 (=FRH 5  F 5 = FRHist 7  F 2): Acilius autem, qui Graece scripsit historiam, plures ait fuisse, qui in castra revertissent eadem fraude, ut iure iurando liberarentur eosque a censoribus omnibus ignominiis notatos. 299

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thus released from his oath. This man was put in chains in Rome and sent back to Hannibal with the other prisoners.303 The role that the censors apparently played in Acilius’ account in connection with the punishment of the oath-breaking soldiers can be regarded as a ‘politicisation’ of this episode, in contrast to the tradition in Polybius, who was concerned to emphasize the uniform reaction of ‘the Romans’ as a whole. After all, according to Acilius, the reaction of the Romans does not seem to have been at all as homogeneous as Polybius suggests at the end of his account of the Roman constitution.304 It can already be anticipated that in Livy, in a summary offered in book 24 of the measures supposed to have been carried out by the censors of 214, M.  Atilius Regulus and P. Furius Philus, the punishment of those envoys of the Cannae prisoners is included.305 This passage may already go back to Acilius’ account, which Cicero, after all, merely summarizes indirectly. It seems, then, that Roman historiographers offered a much more complex variant of the episode than Polybius’ account at the same time. The reaction here was temporally displaced and apparently could only be enforced by the authority of the censors. According to Livy, by the way, the same collegium of censors had also carried out the punishment of those young aristocrats around M. Caecilius Metellus who were said to have planned to leave Italy after Cannae.306 While serving as a tribune of the people in the following year, the same Metellus is said to have accused the censors; however, his prosecution apparently did not succeed.307 Roman historiography, which for a long time was conducted by members of the senatorial ruling class, seems to have transmitted such and similar differences within its own group more clearly than the Greek Polybius. The core idea underlying the episode, to be sure, may also have been found in Acilius’ rejection of the diplomatic motion itself, and thus of all of Hannibal’s attempts at negotiation in the situation so precarious for the Romans. The mention of dissonances among the Romans concerning other aspects did not have to contradict this. Finally, in the dramatic situation described in Acilius, the moral claim to leadership, not least over their peers, could also be demonstrated by those senators

 Cf. the version in Pol. 6,58,2–12. According to another version, which Livy adds to his account of the episode, the ten envoys had remained in Rome for such a long time that three more prisoners had been sent to Rome as negotiators (Liv. 22,61,5–10). After the failed request of a tribune of the people for the ransom of the prisoners, these three envoys had returned to the Carthaginian camp. The ten men who had originally come to Rome had now found themselves released from their oath and remained in the capital, where they had been subjected to such disgrace by the censors that some of the former prisoners had committed suicide. A suicide of the former prisoners is also reported by Cicero (Cic. off. 1,40). Cf. the clear presentation of the different variants in the table in Walter 2001, 277. 304  Walter 2001, 278. see Pol. 6,58,2–13, esp. 7 and 13. 305  Liv. 24,18,1–15, there esp. 5–6: Secundum eos citati nimis callidi exsolvendi iuris iurandi interpretes, qui captivorum ex itinere regressi clam in castra Hannibalis solutum, quod iuraverant, redituros rebantur. His superioribusque illis equi adempti, qui publicum equum habebant, tribuque moti aerarii omnes facti. 306  Liv. 24,18,3–4. 307  Liv. 24,43,2–3. 303

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from whose ranks the two censors came. The specific differences with regard to various details and associated emphases in the interpretation of the episode were made possible by an extensive narrative context, which the medium of historiography, in particular, was able to provide.308 In Acilius, the episode will have been integrated into the ongoing account of events. The presumably roughly contemporaneous use of the tradition surrounding the prisoners in Polybius again shows that, some two generations after the event, it could also be brought into other contexts as an exemplum of the preservation of Roman virtues.309 It is easy to understand that in Roman historiography, which in the second century was conducted almost exclusively by senators, the episode was not only handed down as an example of a principled and capable Senate even in the most severe distress (from the outside by Hannibal, internally by the pleading soldiers and their relatives as well as by high losses and precarious recruitment potential), but was also further developed, as will be shown in detail.310  This is rightly emphasized by Walter 2004a, 298, who stresses that in this case it is a matter of a “special type of exempla”, which were not “simply present and could be called up like ciphers” but required the narrative context and the literary design in order to clarify the respective “direction of reference”. See also Walter 2001, 276–278. 309  The use of the episode as a rhetorical exemplum in the first century, to which we will return later, also suggests that such an episode was already part of accounts written in the middle of the second century. Incidentally, it cannot be clearly determined whether the earliest extant source for the episode about the prisoners of Cannae is to be seen in the work of Polybius or C. Acilius. Walbank 1972, 20 assumes that Polybius published his book 6, in which he noted the relevant passage, around the year 150. If one accepts this dating, one would probably have to place Polybius’ version chronologically before that of Acilius – at least if one really refers the note in Liv. per. 53 to the historian C.  Acilius, which (see above) admittedly cannot be clarified with absolute certainty. Moreover, it is quite possible that Polybius inserted the corresponding passage (Pol. 6,58) only later in his account of the Roman constitution. At any rate, this is assumed by Edward Bispham and Simon Northwood in their commentary on the fragment (see the commentary on FRHist 7 F 2, 186 f.). The question of which author first published the relevant passage of his work cannot be settled with absolute certainty, and thus also whether both variants were produced independently of each other or whether one author deliberately reacted to the work of the other. Again, both possibilites are conceivable. 310  Further fragments that have survived for the work of C. Acilius can only indirectly be connected with the defeats of the Hannibalic War. Thus Livy, mediated by an intermediary source, knows of casualties handed down to Acilius of a battle in Spain in which the military tribune L. Marcius Septimus commanded the Roman troops there after the death of the two Scipio brothers in 211. A shield with the image of the enemy commander Hasdrubal had functioned as a monument to his victory (monumentum victoriae). This shield had been called ‘Marcius’ and had hung in the temple on the Capitol until the fire of the year 84 destroyed it. See FRH 5 F 6 = FRHist 7 F 3 (=Liv. 25,39,12–13; 16–17). The number of fallen enemies, which is here given as 37,000 men, may certainly be regarded as an exaggeration. This was probably intended to give the impression that the defeats and deaths of the two Scipios were soon followed by a glorious Roman victory. Cf. on this scheme, among others, Clark 2014b. The learned reader may also have thought of the defeat of the Scipio brothers at the sight of the shield, which after all had only formed the prerequisite for the unusual heroic deed of Marcius. In this case, the work of Acilius will not have had any significant influence on such associations. It is rather to be assumed that the existence and presence of this shield called ‘Marcius’ in the first place contributed in a decisive way to a lasting “transmission of the episode” and above all to the important role that the until then completely unknown 308

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From the work of L. Cassius Hemina only one fragment has been preserved, which can be assigned without any doubt to the context of the Roman defeats of the Hannibalic war. Although this is only part of a sentence noted by the grammarian Priscian, it is likely to have come from the account of the trial of those involved in the ‘sacrilege of the Vestals’, which became known after the battle of Cannae in 216.311 However, the short note cannot make a clarifying contribution to the question of the specific representation of the events in Cassius Hemina. With regard to the division of the material in Hemina, Udo Scholz has assumed that Hemina’s third book, like that of Polybius, ended with the defeat of the Romans at Cannae.312 Accordingly, the Roman historian would have used this battle as a narrative break, which would have given this defeat of the Romans a special prominence in his work. This setting of the end of the third book cannot be determined on the basis of the known evidence, even though this assumption is quite compelling.313 L. Marcius had played in it. Another fragment (FRH 5 F 7 = FRHist 7 F 4 (=Liv. 35,14,5–12)) refers to a meeting of the former war opponents Hannibal and P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, which is said to have taken place in 193 at the court of the Seleucid king Antiochos III. Hannibal was in exile there, Scipio had been a member of the Roman legation sent to Asia Minor by the Senate. It is remarkable that Hannibal, like Scipio, is placed in a line of outstanding generals of the Mediterranean world. Regardless of the question of the historical authenticity of the episode, the tradition shows the important role Hannibal occupied among Rome’s opponents. Cf. among others Gruen 2011, 125 f. 311  FRH 6 F 35 = FRHist 6 F 33 (=Prisc. Gramm. 7 p. 294): ‘Eabus’ etiam pro ‘eis’ differentiae causa in feminino Emina protulit in IV annalium: “scriba pontificius, qui cum eabus stuprum fecerat.” [...] dicit enim de Vestalibus. Cf. on the passage most recently the commentary by Briscoe in FRHist (there, II, 176: “It is clear [...] that the fragment comes from Hemina’s account of the condemnation, in 216 BC, of two Vestals, Opimia and Floronia, for having sexual relations.”). The fragment is also assigned to this episode (Liv. 22,57,2–6), which Livy records in detail, in the other collections of fragments that provide an overview of Hemina’s work. Apparently Cassius Hemina showed a special interest in cultural and religious aspects of Roman history (see only Kierdorf 2003, 26 and Walter 2004a, 303 f. with proofs), for which his work may have been primarily consulted later. In the crisis after Cannae, as shown above, a Greek and a Gallic couple were each buried alive at the Forum Boarium in an apparently religiously charged atmosphere. On this, see Linke 2000, 281; Engels 2007, 443–448. 312  Scholz 1989, 170. 313  According to another note by Priscian, the Second Punic War was the content of the fourth book of Cassius Hemina’s work (FRH 6 F 34 = FRHist 6 F 32 (=Prisc. Gramm. 7 p. 347 H)): Cassius Hemina annalem suum quartum hoc titulo inscripsit: bellum Punicum posterior. However, since Scholz 1989, 169 f. wants to assign two further fragments, which were attributed to the third book by Priscian and Nonius, to events of the year 217, he assumes that the first years of the war were described in this book, while the greater part of the years of the Hannibalic war was treated in the fourth book. The first fragment is FRH 6 F 30 = FRHist 6 F 28 (=Non. p. 129 L): Cassius Hemina libro III: mulier cantabat tibiis Phrygiis et altera cymbalissabat. The introduction of the cult of the Magna Mater in 204 is widely regarded as the context for this, although a placement in the account of the First Punic War has also been considered, since the cult also existed in Sicily. For the assignment to the year 204, an error in the manuscript would have to be suspected and a change in the book numbering from III to IIII would have to be made (cf. the commentary in FRHist, here 174). This solution is possible, but Scholz 1989, 169 has suggested to place the fragment in the context of the religious measures after the defeat at Lake Trasimene in 217 and to retain the surviving book number. In this year, triggered by the military-political crisis situation, numerous religious innova-

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Even if one accepts the assumption, one must admittedly assume differences with regard to the narrative composition in detail.314 In the last third of the second century the production of historiography in Rome increased markedly, while at the same time other forms of literary output developed. In general, the evidence that has survived from these works, with regard to the defeats of the Hannibalic war as well as with regard to this war, is quite meagre. Most of these works will have dealt with the war and its defeats, but little can be said about the details of these accounts.315 A number of fragments of the satires of tions were initiated in Rome, which “induced ancient historiography as well as modern religious research” to evaluate this year as an epochal year of Roman religion, in the wake of which the “introduction of the cult of Cybele 12 years later, also demanded by the libri fatales, was only a consequent extension”. Therefore, according to Scholz, it is probable that the fragment belongs to the events of 217, which took place after the defeat of Flaminius, where an anticipation of the later event was interwoven (Scholz 1989, 169, (quotation) with reference to similar passages). The second fragment is FRH 6 F 32 = FRHist 6 F 30 (=Prisc. Gramm. 10 p. 537 H): Cassius Hemina in III annalium: in campo Tiburte ubi hordeum demessuerunt. Here Scholz, 169 f. considers an assignment to the mobilization of the troops of Dictator Q. Fabius Maximus, which also fell into the period after the battle of Lake Trasimene. The basis for this assumption is the fact that the campus Tibur, apart from an earlier mention by Cato, is otherwise only mentioned in Liv. 22,11,3 (Fabius duas legiones se adiecturum ad Servilianum exercitum dixit. iis per magistrum equitum scriptis Tibur diem ad conveniendum edixit.). Since the mention of Tibur in Livy represents “a completely superfluous communication” (Scholz 1989, 170), it must be assumed that Livy found the name of Tibur in the “annalistic tradition” (ibid., 169). From the assumption concluded from these considerations that events of the year 217 had still been depicted in the third book of Hemina’s work, Scholz again looks for a place where an incision in the depiction would have offered itself, and finds it after the battle of Cannae. However, this attribution of both fragments is by no means certain, which is why Scholz’s thesis remains controversial (see most recently only J.  Briscoe, L. Cassius Hemina, in: FRHist I, 219–223, here 222). Since in Polybius – as also later in other authors  – a break in the depiction of the war after Cannae can be found, the assumption that Hemina had proceeded in the same way is nevertheless plausible (cautious agreement is therefore expressed by Kierdorf 2003, 25). The differences between the various accounts should, however, not be lost sight of (cf. the next note). 314  Thus, the defeat at Cannae is also the last major event described by Livy in book 22 but the narrator leaves Rome in a different situation than, for example, at the end of the third book of Polybius. How this had been arranged in detail by earlier authors, such as L. Cassius Hemina here, can no longer be clarified. Cf. on Livy below Sect. 5.2.5.1. 315  From the historiographical works written during this period, only one fragment has survived that can be attributed without doubt to the Second Roman-Carthaginian War. Livy (24,39,11), in his account of the battle in which the tribune L. Marcius commanded the troops in Spain, which had been left leaderless after the death of the Scipio brothers, mentions a number of Roman fallen who had fallen into a Carthaginian ambush. Livy has cited various versions at this point, and concludes the episode with a summing-up sentence about the person of L. Marcius and his fame. From the passage it is clear that other authors had reported this battle (25,39,16: apud omnes magnum nomen Marcii duci est). The Hannibalic war, with its defeats, will certainly have occupied a fairly wide space in authors such as C. Sempronius Tuditanus and Cn. Gellius. Especially in view of the apparently comparatively large volume that the work of Cn. Gellius is said to have had, a relatively detailed treatment of the war can certainly be assumed (cf. on the authors mentioned, among others, Kierdorf 2003, 29 f.). Later works, especially the monograph of L. Coelius Antipater, may have soon displaced their predecessors as reference sources. With regard to C. Fannius, Badian 1966, 14, among others, has assumed that he wrote a pure contemporary history, which, however,

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C. Lucilius, however, indicate a discussion of the Hannibalic War, even if an exact classification is difficult in each case, since the context remains unclear.316 The line quoted by Nonius “deletionem nostri ad unum exercitus” could refer to the battle of Lake Trasimene or that at Cannae. However, another context is also possible.317 With regard to the representation and interpretation of Rome’s defeats in Roman historical culture, two fragments are the most interesting. Neither refer exclusively to the Second Punic War and have therefore already been presented in the chapter on the representation of defeats in Rome’s Celtic wars. Nevertheless, since Hannibal is mentioned by name in one of the fragments, they are also addressed in this chapter. These are the fragments: “ut Romanus populus victus vi et superatus proeliis/ saepe est multis, bello vero numquam, in quo sunt omnia” and “contra flagitium nescire, bello vinci barbaro/Viriato, Annibale”.318 cannot be clarified. If Badian is correct, it would be open to what extent the Hannibalic War would still have belonged to a contemporary historical horizon, given that the historian was born around the year 170. 316  These include Lucil. 824 M. = 901 K.= 903 C./G. (hoc tum ille habebat et fere omnem Apuliam); 825 M. = 902 K. = 904 C./G. (detrussus tota ui deiectusque Italia) and 826–827 M. = 899–900 C.= 901–902 C./G. (sic, inquam, veteratorem illum vetulum lupum/Annibalem acceptum). With regard to the first of these fragments, a connection with the part of the campaign Hannibal led in Apulia is conceivable, perhaps also with the battle of Cannae, even if the Carthaginian is not named (cf. Marx 1905, 287, who (referring to Liv. 22,54,9) would like to refer hoc to Samnium and ille to Hannibal. Should this be true, the fragment could belong in the context of an account of the situation after Cannae). Cichorius 1908/1964, 164–166 with another suggestion: the hoc in 824 M. = 901  K.= 903 C./G. refers to Bruttium and is in this respect “in close connection” (165) with 825 M. = 902 K. = 904 C./G., which is interpreted in such a way that here the speech was about Hannibal having already been “ousted from the whole of the rest of Italy by force of arms at that time” (Cichorius 1908/1964, 165 assumes “irgendein das tota beschränkendes Wort im Vers vorher”). The deception of Hannibal, of which in 826–827 M. = 899–900 K.= 901–902 C./G. is spoken of (Nonius cites the passage as evidence for this meaning of accipere), is to be connected with a situation late in the course of the war, since Hannibal is (almost) driven out of Italy. Finally, the deceptive manoeuvre of C. Claudius Nero before the battle of the Metaurus suggests itself for this. This ‘Metaurus’ satire would then have contained a retrospective reference to Cannae (see the following note). Whether this interpretation of the fragments is correct, however, can hardly be decided with certainty. Moreover, it can indeed not be ruled out that “Lucilius auf andere geographische Orte oder Umstände allgemeineren Charakters anspielte” (Christes/Garbugino 2015, on the passage). 317  Lucil. 823  M. = 903  K.= 905 C./G.  Marx 1905, 286 suspects that the Battle of Cannae was alluded to here. So also most recently to the passage Christes/Garbugino 2015 (“Wahrscheinlich eine Anspielung auf die Niederlage von Cannae.”). Cf. Cichorius 1908/1964, 166 f. with the suggestion of a contextualization of the fragment. According to this, Cannae had been mentioned in the context of a satire that had the battle of the Metaurus (207) as its subject, in the form of a contrasting review (see the previous note). The idea would then have been roughly that Rome, after the heavy defeat at Cannae, had achieved an “Auslöschung der alten Schmach” (Cichorius 1908/1964, 167) by defeating Hasdrubal’s army, which had been preceded by the deception of Hannibal by C. Claudius Nero at Canusium, i.e. near the battlefield of 216. On the existing source basis, however, this assumption cannot be pursued further. 318  Lucil. 613–614 M. = 683–684 K. = 591–592 C./G. and 615–616 M. = 685–686 K. = 593–594 C./G. Christes 1971, 83 f. translates: “wie das römische Volk besiegt durch Gewalt und überwunden worden ist oftmals in vielen Treffen, im Kriege aber niemals, worauf doch alles ankommt”

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Here, then, we find early evidence for the idea, widespread in later sources, according to which Rome was often defeated on the battlefield but could always end the war as a whole victoriously.319 By naming Viriathus, who had been murdered in 139, the second fragment establishes a connection to the wars on the Iberian Peninsula and at the same time builds a bridge back to the Second Punic War – there the Romans had indeed been defeated in many battles, while at the end there was a Roman victory. As already in Cato’s speech fragment, Hannibal again appears as a representative for the Carthaginians as a whole or for the threat to Rome in the Second Punic War, which will be shown by further examples. In the discussion of the Second Punic War in Roman historical culture at the turn of the second to the first century, the monograph of L. Coelius Antipater on the Second Punic War occupies a special position, as it represents the first historical monograph of Roman literature ever; this is a form with which Coelius clearly distinguished himself from the works of his predecessors.320 The choice of subject certainly already shows the great importance that the Hannibalic War possessed in the Roman historical culture of the time.321 At the same time, it is clear that Coelius, even though he established a new genre in Latin historiography, did not find an unoccupied field but on the contrary worked against the background of already existing representations and interpretations of the Hannibalic War, shaped in various media.322 His work was regarded by later authors as a reliable source of the events and was therefore well received even in the imperial period.323 The writing at least shaped the historiographical treatment of the Hannibalic War, and thus also of the Roman defeats, to an arguably greater extent than the surviving fragments alone reveal.324 Nevertheless, great caution is required when it comes to placing these often very short texts in context; in a number of cases, this will ultimately hardly be possible. The series of Roman defeats of the years 218 to 216 was apparently described in the first book, as were Hannibal’s actions in Spain and the early stages of the resp. “dagegen die Schande nicht zu kennen, im Kriege von Barbaren wie Viriathus und Hannibal besiegt zu werden”. 319  Cf. only Liv. 9,19,8–9. On this, see Oakley 2005, 253 f. 320  See the references above in Sect. 2.2 and see most recently only the introduction Briscoe 2013a, bes. 257. 321  The lifetime of Coelius Antipater is unclear in detail, as is the time of publication of the work. The testimonies (see FRHist T1-T9), however, point to the last third of the second century. See also Kierdorf 2003, 35; von Albrecht 1994, 307 f. 322  Cf. Beck/Walter 2004, 36: “Hinzukam, dass der Hannibalkrieg als Teil der Gesamtgeschichten und des Epos vielfach behandelt worden war und somit schon vor Coelius zu einem ‚Text‘ mit eigener Sinndimension geronnen war. Der Schlüssel, sich davon abzusetzen, lag in der Monographie, die schon rein quantitativ neue Spielräume für die Interpretation eröffnete”. 323  Cicero saw in the monograph the first Roman work of history that could also be considered ambitious in terms of the form of presentation. For references see von Albrecht 1994, 308; Kierdorf 2003, 36–38. 324  See Cic. de orat. 2,54; leg. 1,6. Cf. von Albrecht 1994, 307 (“der erste wirkliche Schriftsteller unter den römischen Historikern”).

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campaign in Italy. In the account of the events that followed Cannae, Coelius seems to have made a division. Thus, part of the actions of the Romans and Carthaginians is contained in the first book, with the rest being described in the second.325 Some of the extant fragments refer directly to Roman defeats. Because of the testimony of Livy we know that Coelius reported a different version of the rescue of the consul P. Cornelius Scipio at the Ticinus than apparently the majority of the other authors who were known to Livy did. For according to Coelius, it was not the consul’s son but a Ligurian slave who saved the general.326 It is quite conceivable that in the versions which attributed the rescue to the later Africanus, this was done in anticipation of his later deeds. With his version, Coelius probably went against the mainstream of tradition already in the second century, although any motives he may have had in doing so must remain unclear.327 No fragments from Coelius’ work have survived on the battle of the Trebia but they do on the wider context of that at Lake Trasimene. According to Cicero’s testimony, Coelius had reported a series of negative omens that had occurred before this battle. However, these had all been ignored by the consul C.  Flaminius. These apparently included a fall from his horse in front of the statue of Iuppiter Stator, non-observance of a negative chicken auspicium, field signs that could not be pulled out of the ground as well as violent earthquakes on the entire Italian peninsula that would have left severe damage.328 Explicitly for Coelius, only the news of the  Beck/Walter 2004, 37; Briscoe 2013a, 259.  FRH 11 F 18 = FRHist 15 F 12 (=Liv. 21,46,7–10): Is pavor perculit Romanos auxitque pavorem consulis volnus periculumque intercursu tum primum pubescentis filii propulsatum. Hic erit iuvenis penes quem perfecti huiusce belli laus est, Africanus ob egregiam victoriam de Hannibale Poenisque appellatus. Fuga tamen effusa iaculatorum maxime fuit, quos primos Numidae invaserunt; alius confertus equitatus consulem in medium acceptum non armis modo sed etiam corporibus suis protegens in castra nusquam trepide neque effuse cedendo reduxit. Servati consulis decus Coelius ad servum natione Ligurem delegat. Malim equidem de filio verum esse, quod et plures tradidere auctores et fama obtinuit. 327  Walbank 1967, 198  f. (on Pol. 10,3,3–7) considers an anti-Scipio tradition with the help of which its originators would have tried to deliberately curtail the fame of Africanus through the story of the slave. This possibility cannot be ruled out either. If Walbank’s suggestion should hit the mark, however, it would not yet mean that Coelius joined such a tradition with deliberate intent to diminish the posthumous fame of Africanus. For even in the course of an effort to explore the sources as accurately as possible, which can be seen in him from other passages (cf. on Coelius’ diligence with further references Gärtner 1981, 118; Beck/Walter 2004, 36), Coelius might have come across the version about the Ligurian slave. Cf. Herrmann 1979, 102. 328  FRH 11 F 20 a/b = FRHist 15 F 14 (=Cic. div. 1,77–78: Quid? bello Punico secundo nonne C. Flaminius consul iterum neglexit signa rerum futurarum magna cum clade rei publicae? qui exercitu lustrato cum Arretium versus castra movisset et contra Hannibalem legiones duceret, et ipse et equus eius ante signum Iovis Statoris sine causa repente concidit nec eam rem habuit religioni obiecto signo, ut peritis videbatur, ne committeret proelium. idem cum tripudio auspicaretur, pullarius diem proelii committendi differebat. tum Flaminius ex eo quaesivit, si ne postea quidem pulli pascerentur, quid faciendum censeret. cum ille quiescendum respondisset, Flaminius: ‘praeclara vero auspicia, si esurientibus pullis res geri poterit, saturis nihil geretur!’ itaque signa convelli et se sequi iussit. quo tempore cum signifer primi hastati signum non posset movere loco nec quicquam proficeretur, plures cum accederent, Flaminius re nuntiata suo more neglexit. itaque tribus iis horis concisus exercitus atque ipse interfectus est. magnum illud etiam, quod addidit 325 326

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earthquake prodigium survives, which Cicero seems to have taken primarily from this text. However, the widespread assumption among scholars is that Coelius was also already aware of the other portents enumerated earlier and listed them in his account.329 Cicero’s reference thus identifies with Coelius’ work the earliest surviving account of Flaminius’ disregard for prodigies. In the absence of clear evidence, it must remain unclear how and whether this had been reported in earlier sources. In Coelius’ account, the religious misconduct of Flaminius will have served with some certainty as an explanation for the subsequent defeat at Lake Trasimene.330 The exact way in which the defeat at Cannae was depicted and explained by Coelius can no longer be determined. However, three further fragments have survived which can be placed in the context of the battle with a high degree of probability. From one of these it has been concluded that Coelius described the escape of the Romans who, after the battle, were trapped in the smaller of the two army camps and fought their way under the command of a military tribune into the larger camp, from where some detachments managed to escape through the Carthaginian lines.331 Since the two passages are closely related narratively, we may assume that the one about the refused ransom of the Cannae prisoners was also included in Coelius. What Coelius’ own accents were here can, of course, not be concluded from the short quotation – if it belongs in this context at all.332

Coelius, eo tempore ipso, cum hoc calamitosum proelium fieret, tantos terrae motus in Liguribus, Gallia compluribusque insulis totaque in Italia factos esse, ut multa oppida conruerint, multis locis labes factae sint terraque desiderint fluminaque in contrarias partes fluxerint atque in amnes mare influxerit.; Cic. nat. deor. 2,8: C.  Flaminium Coelius religione neglecta cecidisse apud Trasumenum scribit cum magno rei publicae vulnere). 329  This is already indicated by Cicero’s transition in the corresponding passage (addidit Coelius). See last with this reference the commentary on the fragment by Briscoe (in FRHist III, 248) and cf. already Herrmann 1979, 116. 330  This again results from the context in Cicero’s passage, and in this case it may be concluded with due caution from the later tradition (see below, esp. Sect. 5.2.5.1). 331  FRH 11 F 22 = FRHist 15 F 16 (=Prisc. Gramm. 3 p. 98 H): Coelius in primo historiarum: dextimos in dextris scuta iubet habere. Cf. FRHist III, 249 (“This fragment must be part of Coelius’ narrative of the events described by Livy 22.504–12. After the defeat at Cannae, the Romans left in the smaller of the two camps attempted to join those in the larger.”). 332  It seems conceivable that Coelius – similar to the surviving account in Livy – was concerned, on the one hand, with the courage and readiness to fight of even simple officers and soldiers, who had not been broken even by the preceding catastrophe on the battlefield, and, on the other hand, with the firmness of principle of the Senate or at least a majority of the senators. Cf. on the interpretation, among others, the commentary by Beck/Walter in FRH II, 56 f., there 57: “Die Episode stellte exemplarisch den Mut und die Durchsetzungskraft eines einzelnen römischen Offiziers heraus, der das Heft nach dem Verlust der Oberbefehlshaber kompetent in die Hand nahm”. As stated, it is likely that Coelius’ account, in connection with the escape of some of the trapped Roman soldiers, also addressed the legation of the soldiers taken prisoner at Cannae to the Senate. The episode seems to have taken a firm place in the social memory of the Roman Republic already in the middle of the second century (see above for the treatment in Polybius and C. Acilius), linked with specific messages. With regard to the exact form and direction of the thrust, however, as can be seen from examples in Polybius and C. Acilius. Acilius, however, differences can be observed.

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Nonius also transmits a short fragment that Peter already referred to in his collection of fragments on the entry of C. Terentius Varro and other survivors after the battle in Rome.333 The exact interpretation of the passage is somewhat unclear due to the incomplete citation by Nonius.334 If the fragment does indeed belong in this context, it seems that there are differences between the version in Coelius and later descriptions of the same scene in Livy and Plutarch, but the details depend on the particular reading of the passage. According to Livy, citizens from all ranks of society had marched to meet the consul Varro (ab omnibus ordinibus).335 Livy might have been especially concerned with the emphasis on a common reception of a citizenry that was united in this matter, as will be shown later. In this context, Coelius could have represented a somewhat differently accentuated interpretation, according to which it was individual Romans – and not, as in Livy, the entire people – who went to the gate to meet the defeated consul. Accordingly, this idea would have been developed only after Coelius, perhaps only by Livy himself, in the form that was later handed down. But this must ultimately remain uncertain due to the unclear tradition of the passage.336  FRH 11 F 23 = FRHist 15 F 17 (=Non. p. 259 L): Coelius annali libro i: primum malo publico gratias singulatim †nomina†. This assessment has been followed in research since then, probably rightly. See only most recently the commentary in FRHist III, 249. 334  See for what follows the commentary in FRHist III, 249 f. 335  Liv. 22,61,14 (quo in tempore ipso adeo magno animo civitas fuit ut consuli ex tanta clade, cuius ipse causa maxima fuisset, redeunti et obviam itum frequenter ab omnibus ordinibus sit et gratiae actae quod de re publica non desperasset). This is quite compatible with the corresponding passage in Plutarch’s Vita of Fabius. The latter first reports that the Senate and the people (ἥ τε βουλὴ καὶ τὸ πλῆθος) had greeted Varro at the city gates, and then adds in the next sentence that the Senate and the magistrates, including Fabius, had expressed their gratitude to him for not having given up the cause of the republic even after the heavy misfortune of defeat (Plut. Fab. 18,4–5). 336  Herrmann assumes that in a Senate meeting (i.e. not at the city gate as in Livy; however, Herrmann does not provide a reason for this assumption) “the consul P. Varro [sic] and other leaders (perhaps Sempronius Tuditanus)” were thanked. See Herrmann 1979, 123. However, there is no mention of a Senate session in which Varro would have been thanked in any of the extant sources that refer to this situation. This assumption of Herrmann should therefore be rejected. Cf. the comment on the passage in FRHist III, 249: “There is no reason to think a meeting of the Senate is being described, as Herrmann thinks”. But to reject the attribution of the fragment to Varro’s reception in Rome after the battle of Cannae, as Gärtner does, is probably going too far. The reconstruction of the context remains plausible even if one does not accept Herrmann’s suggestion concerning the Senate session. See Gärtner 1981, 119. Cf. in this sense also the commentary of Beck/Walter in FRH II, 57. Beck and Walter (Beck/Walter, FRH II, 57) assume that the thanks in Coelius’ version applied “also to the common soldiers and officers”. Cf. again FRHist’s comment on the passage: “In Coelius’ version individuals offer their thanks to Varro: Livy talks merely of all ranks of society meeting him, while Plutarch refers specifically to the magistrates and senate”. The most striking difference in comparison to Livy’ account would thus have been that in Ab urbe condita the cohesion of the entire community would have been emphasized even more clearly after the previous disunity, which is presented there as largely responsible for the defeat. In Livy, the people marches to meet Varro as a united force, whereas in Coelius it would have been individual Romans (cf. on this below Sect. 5.2.5.1). Due to the unclear preservation of the text passage, which makes both readings seem possible, it is not possible to decide with certainty to what extent there were actually different emphases here. 333

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Apparently, Coelius had included the episode about the dialogue between Hannibal and his cavalry leader concerning the possible attack on Rome from Cato’s Origines.337 Whether Coelius had adapted the temporal division of the episode into two days from Cato or had already condensed it into a single dialogue, as Livy did later, cannot be deduced.338 From the other fragments that have survived from Coelius’ work, little further insight can be gained with regard to the Roman defeats of the war. In connection with the death of Marcellus in 208, Livy refers to the fact that Coelius Antipater had three different versions of this event, but it is not clear on what points they differed.339 Of the other rich literature of the time, hardly any remains have survived which can be connected with the Roman defeats in the Hannibalic war. A more extensive tradition is only preserved in the œuvre of Cicero.

5.2.3 The First Century Until the End of the Republic 5.2.3.1 An Old Enemy as Exemplum: M. Tullius Cicero An analysis of the examples in Cicero’s speeches that can be assigned to the context of Rome’s defeats in the Second Punic War shows that he referred to some events and protagonists particularly frequently.340 Among these is the adversary Hannibal himself, whose name is usually representative of the threat to Rome in this war as a whole. In a number of passages, the mention of Hannibal is connected with an invective against political opponents, for example, against M.  Antonius in the Philippic speeches. Either Cicero compares a political opponent with Hannibal without further comment or he adds that the latter is as dangerous or even more dangerous (because even more cruel, godless, etc.) for the res publica than Hannibal once was. In doing so, Cicero occasionally alludes to specific events and situations of the Hannibalic war.341 Allusions of this kind can also be found beyond invectives  FRH 11  F 27 = FRHist 15  F 22 (=Gell. 10,24,6–7): suppetit etiam Coelianum illud ex libro historiarum secundo: “si vis mihi equitatum dare et ipse cum cetero exercitu me sequi, diequinti Romae in Capitolium curabo tibi cena sit cocta”. et historiam autem et verbum hoc sumpsit Coelius ex origine M. Catonis. 338  Herrmann 1979, 126 points out that the statement of Gellius, according to which Coelius mentioned this incident in the second book of his work, possibly indicates that this episode had an exposed position in the overall layout of the account. For since the battle of Cannae and parts of the events following it were treated in the first book, the conversation between Hannibal and his cavalry leader at Coelius will have been described in the first sections of the second book (cf. Beck/ Walter 2004, 37; Briscoe 2013a, 259). According to Herrmann, Coelius aimed by this arrangement to underline the basic theme of the second book, namely the Carthaginian “goal of conquering Rome”, right at the beginning. 339  FRH 11 F 36 = FRHist 15 F 27 (=Liv. 27,27,11–14). Cf. the commentary in FRHist III, 253. 340  The following overview is based in particular on the studies by Schütz 1913 as well as Bücher 2006. See there esp. 218 f. and the evidence in the appendices attached there. 341  Cic. Verr. 2,5,31 (iste autem Hannibal.); prov. 4 (on the alleged misdeeds of Aulus Gabinius and L. Calpurnius Piso: omnia domestica atque urbana mitto, quae tanta sunt ut numquam Hannibalhuic urbi tantum mali optarit, quantum illi effecerint); Phil. 5,25 (Antonius had raged in Italy even worse than Hannibal: ergo Hannibal, quia multa ad usum suum reservabat, at hi, qui in horam 337

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against political opponents, for example, when Cicero refers to the introduction of new cults in Rome at a time when Italy had been devastated by Hannibal, or alludes to the situation of the year 211, in which Hannibal had advanced with his troops to the vicinity of Rome.342 The reference to the latter situation here takes the form of a narrative abbreviation, as it were, in that Cicero merely refers to the catchy phrase Hannibal ad portas.343 Whether, and if so to what extent, this phrase had already been used before cannot be determined with certainty, however, since the passage cited here in the first Philippic speech offers the earliest extant evidence for the idiom that is still known today.344 Admittedly, it does not allude directly to a defeat of Rome, but on the contrary to an event that must ultimately be seen as a setback for the Carthaginian side in the course of the war.345 Nevertheless, the impression of a potential threat to the Roman capital prevails. In this respect, the use of Hannibal as exemplum follows a similar pattern to that already observed in connection with ‘the Gauls’, who could also be named as the epitome of the threat to Rome. One difference is that in Hannibal’s case, the name of an opposing general apparently retained lasting prominence in the social memory of the Roman Republic, while generals of other opponents gained far less profile in comparison.346 Specifically, it is uncertain exactly what associations Cicero’s listeners or readers made with the name Hannibal in each case. Probably the mere name in the first place said “enough: it implies the highest danger and greatest military potential.”347A further contextualization may then not have been absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, the learned readers among Cicero’s addressees could certainly connect individual examples with concrete situations of the Hannibalic war. In this context, it is worth mentioning that Cicero notes that Hannibal, although an enemy of the Romans, was now praised by them in written works, and that the knowledge of his deeds, which essentially included the victories over Roman armies, was apparently also spread in this way in an appreciative manner. Last but not least the

viverent, non modo de for Tunis et de bonis civium, sel ne de utilitate quidem sua cogitaverunt); Phil. 6,4; 13,25 (Antony being a ‘new Hannibal’); 14,9 (Antony rules over Parma in a worse way than Hannibal did over any city in Italy.). 342  Cic. har. resp. 27 (after Hannibal’s destructions in Italy new cults had been introduced); phil. 1,11 (Hannibal at the gates of Rome). See also Cic. leg. agr. 1,20, 2,95 (in both passages an allusion to the stay of Hannibal’s army in the winter of 216/215, during which his soldiers were supposedly corrupted by Capua’s luxury). 343  Cic. phil. 1,11: Hannibal credo, erat ad portas [...]. Cf. Stocks 2014, 23. 344  See Ramsey 2003, 109; Pausch 2011, 195. Cf. also Otto 1890, 158 f. 345  After all, Hannibal’s march on Rome in 211 was merely a failed diversionary maneuver designed to relieve the allies in Capua. As is well known, Hannibal’s maneuver failed. See on this only Seibert 1993a, 304–314 with further references. 346  Another opponent, whom the Romans apparently remembered by name even generations later, was Pyrrhus of Epirus. 347  Bücher 2006, 219.

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victory of the Romans, which they finally could achieve against such an outstanding commander, was emphasized even more.348 On other occasions, Cicero refers in speeches to concrete situations and events of the Hannibalic war, including Roman defeats as well as the threat posed to the capital itself by the Carthaginian army, even without mentioning Hannibal.349 In these instances, it does not seem that Cannae would have been mentioned more often compared to other events. For Cicero alludes just as often to, for instance, the Battle of Lake Trasimene or the death of the Scipio brothers in Spain.350 Cicero sometimes uses the names of the great defeats for an invective against opponents, i.e. in a similar way as he uses Hannibal as a comparison elsewhere. In pro Sextio Roscio, his second court oration, he compares the participation of his client’s accuser, a certain C.  Erucius, in the proscriptions under Sulla to the battles at Cannae and Lake Trasimene. Not at the latter but at Servilius lacus, a cistern near the Forum, one could see Romans slaughtered under Sulla at that time.351 Further, with regard to those places where Verres in his time as governor in Sicily had organized wild orgies, Cicero states that for an observer viewing the scene after this debauchery, which was described in detail, it would have seemed as if no reception of an honourable Roman magistrate had taken place but rather as if the battle of Cannae had raged.352 This passage, to be sure, belongs to that “fictitious second speech, swollen to excessive volume,” which Cicero, after Verres had gone into exile, did not deliver publicly but published later with subsequent elaboration.353 However, the ironic  Cic. Sest. 142 (The sentence is in the context of a passage in which Cicero gives examples of statesmen who were held in low esteem by their fellow-citizens but would have found great recognition afterwards): quis Carthaginiensium pluris fuit Hannibale consilio, virtute, rebus gestis, qui unus cum tot imperatoribus nostris per tot annos de imperio et de gloria decertavit? hunc sui cives e civitate eiecerunt: nos etiam hostem litteris nostris et memoria videmus esse celebratum. An example of this can be found in the Hannibal -Vita of Cornelius Nepos, who was also personally known to Cicero. See on this text the next section. Cf. on the passage Kaster 2006, 386: “Yet the Romans did not stint in recognizing his capacities as a general, perhaps aware that in granting these capacities they magnified their victory; in that regard it could be said that he was ‘celebrated’ in Roman tradition in something other than the merely neutral sense of ‘named frequently’ and hence ‘made well-known’”. See in this sense also Beck 2006, 214 f. 349  For the latter see, for instance: Cic. Mur. 84 (Hostis est enim non apud Anienem, quod bello Punico gravissimum visum est, sed in urbe, in foro ...). 350  Battles of Lake Trasimene and Cannae: Cic. S. Rosc. 89; Verr. 2,5,28. death of the Scipios: Balb. 34; Scaur. 45a. 351  Cic. S. Rosc 89: Verum ego forsitan propter multitudinem patronorum in grege adnumerer, te pugna Cannensis accusatorem sat bonum fecit. Multos caesos non ad Trasumenum lacum, sed ad Servilium vidimus. Cf. the commentary by Dyck 2010, 154 f. At the Lacus Servilius heads of senators who had been executed in the proscriptions under Sulla were apparently displayed. Cf. i. a. Sen. dial. 1,3,7 further references in A.  La Regina, in: LTUR 3, 1996, 172–173, s. v. Lacus Servilius. 352  Cic. Verr. 2,5,28: Itaque erant exitus eius modi ut alius inter manus e convivio tamquam e proelio auferretur, alius tamquam occisus relinqueretur, plerique ut fusi sine mente ac sine ullo sensu iacerent, ut quivis, cum aspexisset, non se praetoris convivium, sed Cannensem pugnam nequitiae videre arbitraretur. 353  Cf. on the background, among others, Bringmann 2010, 71 (quote). 348

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comparison would certainly have been understood by listeners of the trial, had Cicero still delivered the speech. Allusions to individual defeats in the war against Hannibal are not particularly frequent in Cicero’s speeches as a whole. In a far greater number of cases, Cicero prefers to mention the name of Hannibal in order to enhance the effect of comparisons and/or invectives by referring to the sorrowful history of the Second Punic War for Rome. In other works, such as his philosophical and rhetorical writings, Cicero used a number of examples from the Hannibalic War that refer to individual Roman defeats in more specific ways. For example, in his early work De inventione, Cicero mentions a rhetorical exercise connected to the Hannibalic War.354 This alluded to the surrender of the city of Casilinum in 216 after the defeat at Cannae, when its inhabitants surrendered their city to Hannibal.355 After the Romans recaptured the city in 214, they punished their former allies with exemplary severity.356 The exercise, thus, alludes to an exemplum that was connected, on the one hand, with the crisis of this war, which had only been caused by the heavy defeats of the first years of the war, and, on the other hand, with the defection of allies to the enemy as well as with the severe punishment of this behaviour by the Romans. It is not unreasonable to assume that for Cicero, as well as for other aspiring orators, the “keyword ‘Casilinum’” could evoke associations with this historical context.357 Other events of the Second Punic War were evidently drawn upon as part of such rhetorical exercises. These included the question of whether or not Hannibal should have moved on Rome after Cannae. This matter, as we have seen, had apparently been addressed at the latest by Cato the elder in his Origines, i.e. within a historiographical work, and had now apparently also found its way into the thesaurus of those historical exempla that could be taken up without explanation of a further narrative context.358 As already mentioned, Cicero refers several times to the account of Coelius Antipater when he reports on the disregard of religious omens by C. Flaminius in the run-up to the battle of Lake Trasimene. These are apparently regarded as the cause of the defeat in the tradition referred to here by Cicero. The death of the consul is also mentioned in this connection. Varro, on the other hand, had observed the auspices before Cannae, which, however, had not saved him from defeat either.359  Cic. inv. 2,171 (Nam aliter dicere solemus: “Necesse est Casilinenses se dedere Hannibali”; aliter autem: “Necesse est Casilinum venire in Hannibalis potestatem”.). Cf. Bücher 2006, 213 f. 355  Cf. Liv. 23,19,13–18. 356  Liv. 24,19, 1–11. 357  Thus, Bücher 2006, 214 (quotation). 358  Cf. in later times Iuv. 7,158–164. 359  Most extensively in: Cic. div. 1,77–78: Quid? bello Punico secundo nonne C. Flaminiusconsul iterum neglexit signa rerum futurarum magna cum clade rei publicae? qui exercitu lustrato cum Arretium versus castra movisset et contra Hannibalem legiones duceret, et ipse et equus eius ante signum Iovis Statoris sine causa repente concidit nec eam rem habuit religioni obiecto signo, ut peritis videbatur, ne committeret proelium. idem cum tripudio auspicaretur, pullarius diem proelii committendi differebat. tum Flaminiusex eo quaesivit, si ne postea quidem pulli pascerentur, quid faciendum censeret. cum ille quiescendum respondisset, Flaminius: “Praeclara vero auspicia, si esurientibus pullis res geri poterit, saturis nihil geretur!” itaque signa convelli et se sequi iussit. 354

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Flaminius and Varro, moreover, appear in Brutus in a passage in which Cicero lists a number of able orators who lived at the time of the elder Cato.360 No negative evaluation of the oratory of Flaminius or Varro can be detected in this passage, which may be taken as an indication that the memory of the two consuls was not reduced exclusively to the great defeats suffered by the Romans under their command.361 In another passage, in the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero cites a number of Roman generals who fell in battle as examples of contempt for death. The named, among them the Scipios in Spain, Paullus and Servilius Geminus at Cannae, and Albinus in the forest Litana, had gone into battle in certain expectation of death.362 In a very similar context, Cicero inserted almost the same chain of examples a little later in his De senectute.363 Previously, he had already incorporated the deaths of the Scipios in Spain, and of Paullus and Marcellus in the war against quo tempore cum signifier primi hastati signum non posset movere loco nec quicquam proficeretur, plures cum accederent, Flaminius re nuntiata suo more neglexit. itaque tribus iis horis concisus exercitus atque ipse interfectus est. magnum illud etiam, quod addidit Coelius, eo tempore ipso, cum hoc calamitosum proelium fieret, tantos terrae motus in Liguribus, Gallia complurisbusque insulis totaque in Italia factos esse, ut multa oppida conruerint, multis locis labes factae sint terraeque desiderint fluminaque in contrarias partes fluxerint atque in amnes mare influxerint. See, moreover, Cic. div. 2,71; nat. deor. 2,8. 360  Cic. Brut. 77: Cum hoc Catone grandiores natu fuerunt C. Flaminius, C. Varro, Q. Maxumus, Q. Metellus, P. Lentulus, P. Crassus, qui cum superiore Africano consul fuit. 361  The interpretation that this appreciation of “Varros Leistungen als Redner […] dem Bild eines Demagogen entspricht, der die Massen mittels seiner rhetorischen Fähigkeiten in seinem Sinne manipuliert” (so Geist 2009, 83) is probably going too far. Such a negative assessment cannot be gained from the quoted Cicero passage in itself. Cf. Münzer 1934, 282, who notes that the “geschmähte Auftreten des T. als Gerichtsredner und Volksredner […] ihm [Varro] einen Platz in der Geschichte der Beredsamkeit verschafft”. 362  Cic. Tusc. 1,89 (quotiens non modo ductores nostri, sed universi etiam exercitus ad non dubiam mortem concurrerunt! quae quidem si timeretur, non L. Brutus arcens eum reditu tyrannum quem ipse expulerat in proelio concidisset, non cum Latinis decertans pater Decius, cum Etruscis filius, cum Pyrrho nepos se hostium telis obiecissent, non uno bello pro patria cadentis Scipiones Hispania vidisset, Paulum et Geminum Cannae, Venusia Marcellum, Litana Albinum, Lucani Gracchum.). The selection does not seem to have been entirely successful for Cicero, since the last three commanders he mentions – Marcellus, Albinus and Gracchus – fell in an ambush, so that they could not have deliberately gone to meet a possible death in battle. One can probably connect these examples with the thought expressed earlier in the dialogue, according to which death is not to be feared, since the moment of dying is only for a short time (Cic. Tusc. 1,82). Without giving names, Cicero already mentions the sacrifice of one’s own life for the fatherland, which a number of “great men” had accomplished, in Cic. Tusc. 1,32. 363  Cic. Cato 75 (De qua non ita longa disputatione opus esse videtur, cum recorder non L. Brutum, [...], non duos Decios, [...], non M. Atilium, [...], non duos Scipiones, qui iter Poenis vel corporibus suis obstruere voluerunt, non avum tuum [Cato addresses P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the natural grandson of Paullus] L. Paulum, qui morte luit collegae in Cannensi ignominia temeritatem, non M. Marcellum, cuius interitum ne crudelissimus quidem hostis honore sepulturae carere passus est, sed legiones nostras, [...] in eum locum saepe profectas alacri animo et erecto, unde se redituras numquam arbitrarentur). A few chapters later (Cato 82), the father and uncle of Africanus as well as L. Aemilius Paullus, the consul who fell at Cannae, are mentioned once more but not in explicit reference to their death on the battlefield.

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Hannibal, into the argument in De natura deorum.364 It seems that Cicero was particularly familiar with these examples – at least at the time when he was working on the relevant works. In this context, it is worth mentioning that Cicero produced these writings in a rather short period of time, from the summer of 45 (De natura deorum) through the autumn of the same year (Tusculanae disputationes) to May 44 (Cato Maior de senectute). Presumably the examples mentioned were particularly well remembered by Cicero because of a short period of reading in the past. Or perhaps they already appeared in similar juxtapositions in his sources. In any case, it appears that he was able to include them into his argumentation in various contexts in the form of handy exempla series.365 In view of his probably rather exclusive circle of recipients, Cicero could apparently trust that they understood those historical exempla even without further contextualization. The extent to which these examples were also readily comprehensible to a broader audience, such as the people in front of the rostra, can hardly be determined. With regard to other events of the Second Punic War, it can again be assumed that they were very likely also known to a wider circle of listeners and readers. These probably included the fate of the prisoners of Cannae, which is also discussed by Cicero in a number of passages. In De officiis (completed in late 44), Cicero discusses at length in two passages the episode surrounding those Roman soldiers who had been taken prisoner at Cannae.366 Cicero knows different versions of the incident, of which he tells his readers. The basic message remains unaffected by the variations he found in Polybius and C. Acilius.367 Those who sought to avoid continued imprisonment by breaking their oaths had acted dishonourably. The mere benefit of such conduct did not justify it. The passages belong in De officiis in a longer intellectual context in which Cicero discusses possible conflicts between the morally valuable, the ‘moral’, and the ‘useful’. The result for Cicero is that the conflict only appears to exist – the moral and the honourable are ultimately always also the useful. In the specific case, according to Cicero, this can be seen in the fact that Hannibal, after the Romans rejected his offer despite their precarious position, lost all hope of victory. In this way, honesty (honestas) had also brought greater long-­ term benefit in this situation than the ransom of 8000 prisoners of war would have done.368 Polybius already presented the episode of the Cannae prisoners in isolation from the account of the course of the war in his discussion of the Roman constitution as

 Cic. nat. deor. 3,80 (cur igitur duo Scipiones fortissimos et optimos viros in Hispania Poenus oppressit, cur Maximus extulit filium consularem, cur Marcellum Annibal interemit, cur Paulum Cannae sustulerunt, ...). Cf. also the beginning of De re publica (Cic. rep. 1,1). 365  Cic. ad. Att. 14,21,3 (mention of Cato). Cf. generally Bloomer 1992, 6. 366  Cic. off. 1,40; 3,113–115. 367  See Sect. 5.2.2 above. 368  Cic. off. 3,114: Eos senatus non censuit redimendos, cum id parva pecunia fieri posset, ut esset insitum militibus nostris aut vincere aut emori. Qua quidem re audita fractum animum Hannibalis scribit idem, quod senatus populusque Romanus rebus afflictis tam excelso animo fuisset. Sic honestatis comparatione ea, quae videntur utilia, vincuntur. 364

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an example of unshakable morality of the Romans, particularly of the Senate, especially in crisis situations. The story may well have been present as a moral lesson, then, at least in educated circles. A certain popularity in scholarly discourse is probably also indicated by the existence of several variants, which may have been created through independent revisions.369 Again, without being embedded in an overarching context, a historical comparison that Cicero included in a letter to Atticus functioned well. In a letter from January 49, the former gives expression to his anger at Caesar’s advance into Italy, alluding to the Carthaginian general.370 An explicit parallelization was hardly necessary, since for Atticus the comparison of Caesar’s invasion with Hannibal’s invasion of Italy will have been obvious. Summarizing the individual observations on allusions and references in Cicero’s writings to the Hannibalic War in general and the Roman defeats in this conflict in particular, it can first be stated that the Second Punic War seems to have played a more important role than the first one, at least for Cicero.371 A closer look reveals a concentration on a few specific historical events and situations. These include the episode surrounding the Cannae prisoners, the misconduct of Flaminius in the run­up to the defeat at Lake Trasimene, and a string of commanders who did not survive the defeat of their army, which could be understood as an act of heroic sacrifice for the community.372 The fact that Cicero was able to bring in these examples on occasion and without further explanation of the context indicates that he assumed a sufficiently high level of historical knowledge among his educated readers that enabled them to at least roughly classify the examples he chose. In many cases, however, a really detailed knowledge of the context was not absolutely necessary. Where exactly the Scipio brothers had fallen in Spain, how this had happened in detail, where exactly the forest Litana was located, or what the tactical formation at Cannae had looked like, nobody had to know in order to be able to follow Cicero’s trains of thought in the corresponding passages. In the speeches, Cicero often manages without explicit reference to an individual situation. Instead, he refers to the enemy commander Hannibal, who is considered the epitome of the greatest threat to the security and existence of the city of Rome

369  The fact that Cicero is able to indicate these variants in the quoted passage in De officiis can probably be interpreted as an indication that he had actually consulted the passages in his originals again in order to be able to reproduce them precisely. Cicero evidently had a private copy of Polybius’ Histories at his Tusculanum, as the letter to Atticus from the spring of the same year shows (Cic. Att. 13,30,2). Cf. the analysis of the correspondence between Cicero and Atticus, there making inquiries into a historical question. On this, see Walter 2004a, 361–373. 370  Cic. Att. 7,11,1 (utrum de imperatore populi Romani an de Hannibale loquimur?). Cf. Oppermann 2000, 41 f. 371  At any rate, this is the case if the frequency of mention is taken as a measure of the importance attributed to it. Cf. Sect. 5.1.3. 372  It has been shown that Cicero used these examples especially in his late work. There, the selection and use in the respective argumentative context are similar in writings that Cicero wrote in a relatively short period of time. The idea suggests itself that the references in some way represent fruits of Cicero’s studies, to which he now had increased opportunity again in his enforced political retirement.

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and the Republic as a whole. In this context, the comparison with Hannibal can serve as an invective in political disputes, with the possibility of a heightening to the effect that the current enemy of the state is guilty of even greater atrocities than the famously cruel Carthaginian. This use in invective, even in that heightened form, was already to be observed in connection with the exemplum of the ‘Gallic catastrophe’. A difference can be seen in the fact that with Hannibal a named general of the enemy is known and was obviously felt worthy of naming and memorizing. In addition, there are individual references to rhetorical exercises that were associated with situations of Hannibal’s war. It is quite conceivable that other episodes not explicitly mentioned by Cicero in such a context also found a foothold in this subsection of Roman historical culture in a similar capacity as teaching examples of rhetoric instruction. For a certain group in Roman society, this thus offered the opportunity to also deal with Rome’s defeats against the Carthaginians and in this way to gain a deeper insight into Roman history.

5.2.3.2 An Old Enemy, Reconsidered: The Hannibal Biography of Cornelius Nepos Hannibal and his father Hamilcar are the only commanders in Nepos’ collection of biographies who had faced the Romans as opponents. The Hannibal vita also occupies a central place in the composition of the collection, to which we will return later.373 In the biography, the Carthaginian general is singled out at the very beginning in a way that should undoubtedly dignify him. For Hannibal was superior to all other commanders in prudentia to the same extent that the Romans were superior to the other peoples in bravery.374 Remarkably, Nepos does not provide a comprehensive list of Hannibal’s character flaws alongside his qualities as a general, which were hardly ever doubted in Roman tradition, as Livy would do some years later and which was apparently already the case in accounts written before Nepos’ time.375 Nepos does not evaluate Hannibal’s strategic and tactical tricks as perfidia but reinterprets them – refraining from recourse to cultural stereotypes – in an exclusively positive interpretation as characteristics of prudentia. This is a virtue that, according  Anselm 2004, 61 f. Apart from the biographies of Miltiades, with which the collection begins, and that of Chabrias, that of Hannibal is the only one that begins with a praescriptio and concludes with a subscriptio in which the respective person is acknowledged. The subscriptio will be discussed at the end of this section. It has long been assumed in research that the biographies of Damates, Hamilcar and Hannibal were inserted only in a second edition of the work. This view goes back to Leo 1901, 195–198, who has usually been followed on this issue, in variant versions. See, among others, Geiger 1985, 85, 97; Dionisotti 1988, 38, note 15; Anselm 2004, 43–46. This question is not of central interest to the present work, since Hannibal was in any case considered significant enough to be included in the collection. Stem 2012, 24–29 has also convincingly argued that a second edition need not necessarily be assumed. 374  Nep. Hann. 1,1: si verum est, quod nemo dubitat, ut populus Romanus omnes gentes virtute superarit, non est infitiandum Hannibalem tanto praestitisse ceteros imperatores prudentia, quanto populus Romanus antecedat fortitudine cunctas nationes. 375  The characterization of Hannibal in Livy: 21,4,5–10 (cf. on this below Sect. 5.2.5.1). News about Hannibal’s alleged cruelty and other character flaws are already pointed out by Polybius, who defended Hannibal against some accusations (Pol. 9,24). 373

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to a conception that was apparently widespread in Roman memory, was rather attributed to important opponents of Hannibal on the Roman side, such as Fabius Maximus or the elder Africanus.376 The only questionable, yet very dominant, trait of Hannibal’s character that Nepos cites is his hatred of the Romans, which was imparted to him by his father Hamilcar. Nepos identifies Hannibal’s hatred as the driving force behind the Carthaginian’s actions, which guided his actions until the end of his life.377 Remarkably, Nepos does not mention any military defeats of Hannibal in the Praescriptio. Rather, he says, he was defeated by the “envy of his fellow citizens” and “the ill-will of many”, which can only refer to an internal Carthaginian opposition. The contribution of the Roman army leaders to the victory over Hannibal is therefore not mentioned here.378 Nepos also uses numerous opportunities in the further course of his account to emphasize Hannibal’s deeds and to portray the Carthaginian in a particularly positive manner in comparison to the accounts of other authors.379 This is, of course, related to the genre chosen by Nepos but is nevertheless quite remarkable with regard to one of Rome’s most important and dangerous opponents. After all, Hannibal, for example, in Cicero’s speeches, had to serve at the same time as a symbol of terror and threat to the existence of the city of Rome itself.380 Hannibal is, thus, portrayed by Nepos as an outstanding general and prudent strategist. The Roman defeats of the Second Punic War are again dealt with by Nepos only in very brief form, which has led Karl Christ, among others, to the assumption that Nepos could assume that his readers were sufficiently familiar with  Cf. Anselm 2004, 152.  In this context, of course, Nepos does not fail to include the oath scene from Hannibal’s childhood, which he presents in its narrative context – Hannibal’s stay with Antiochos III and his efforts to defend himself against accusations that he seeks the friendship of the Romans (Nep. Hann. 2,2–6). Cf. already Christ 1974, 369–371 and Anselm 2004, 153. 378  Nep. Hann. 1,2: nam quotienscumque cum eo congressus est in Italia, semper discessit superior. quod nisi domi civium suorum invidia debilitatus esset, Romanos videtur superare potuisse. sed multorum obtrectatio devicit unius virtutem. Cf. on this thought also Cic. Sest. 142. Cf. also Stocks 2014, 25: “In stating that jealously (obtrectatio) conquered (deuicit) Hannibal and his uirtus, Nepos is following a trend among Rome’s authors of viewing Hannibal’s failure as due to factors other than the success of Rome and her uiri”. 379  For example, in regard to the crossing of the Alps by the Carthaginians (Nep. Hann. 3,4). Hannibal had been the first since Hercules to lead an army across the Alps to Italy, had defeated all the mountain dwellers on his march, and had also rendered services to achievements by opening up the mountains by solid roads, so that now fully equipped war elephants (elephantus ornatus. This probably refers to a tower-like structure from which soldiers could attack their opponents with projectiles. The historicity of this equipment, as well as that of the tactics associated with it, is disputed. See Scullard 1974, 240–245, esp. 241 f.) could walk along where before hardly a single unarmed man could advance. Overall, Nepos was apparently less concerned with historical accuracy or with a detailed account of the campaign than with an appreciation of Hannibal’s qualities as a general whose prudentia (cf. Nep. Hann. 1,1) showed itself even under adverse circumstances. Cf. Anselm 2004, 154 f.; Stem 2012, 40–44. This, incidentally, can also be seen in the fact that Antiochos III would probably have advanced as far as Italy in the war against Rome had he listened to Hannibal’s advice (Nep. Hann. 8,3). See also von Albrecht 1994, 387, 389. 380  See Sect. 5.2.3.1 above. 376 377

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them, so that he did not consider a detailed description necessary.381 This may well have been the case. Nevertheless, in the biographies of other generals, Nepos also dealt with important battles of Greek history, for example, for which he probably could not assume a comprehensive knowledge of the respective historical contexts among his readers, sometimes in a very concise manner or even only in the form of an indirect reference. This indicates that Nepos was generally more concerned with highlighting exemplary virtues, which were therefore worthy of imitation, than with the extensive description of military operations – even when these were events that occupied a prominent place in the lives of the persons concerned.382 For the ­presentation of such exempla, a comprehensive knowledge of the historical context was presumably not even absolutely necessary.383 Despite the brevity of the account, Nepos also set his own accents in his description of Hannibal’s victories over Rome. Thus, he varies the tradition about Hannibal’s eye disease, which he had contracted while crossing the flooded areas along the Arno in 217, to the effect that the Carthaginian commander had been forced by the disease to command his troops from a litter. Thus handycapped, Hannibal nevertheless succeeded in destroying the army of C. Flaminius at Lake Trasimene. He then defeated the soldiers of C. Centenius, although the latter had occupied mountain passes with selected troops, i.e. had been in a difficult position to attack.384 Hannibal had, thus, defeated the Romans several times under adverse circumstances. This is an account that offers a remarkable contrast to other interpretations of defeats in  The war in Italy is described in Nep. Hann. 4,1–5,4. The description of individual battles usually only takes one sentence. See for the battles at Ticinus, Trebia, Lake Trasimene, at Cannae Nep. Hann. 4,1–4. In 5,3 the victories over M. Minucius Rufus i. J. 217, Ti. Sempronius Gracchus and M. Claudius Marcellus are mentioned. Cf. Christ 1974, 370. 382  For example, the Battle of Leuktra in the Epaminondas Vita, which occurs in only two brief indirect references (Nep. Epam. 8,3; 10,2. However, Nepos uses the battle of Mantineia to emphasize the self-sacrificing attitude of Epaminondas, who falls in this battle). In the biography of Miltiades, Nepos devotes a fairly extensive account to the preparations for the battle of Marathon as well as the subsequent tributes to the commander. The description of the battle itself is again rather brief (Nep. Milt. 5,5). Cf. Beneker 2009, 118 f.; Anselm 2004, 157. With regard to the biography of Hannibal, it has been rightly noted that Nepos devoted a conspicuously large amount of space to Hannibal’s life after the Second Punic War (Christ 1974, 370). 383  Cf. Stem 2012, 235 f., who refers to this circumstance in connection with Nepos’ account of the honours bestowed on Miltiades by the Athenians after the battle of Marathon. A statue had been erected to Miltiades, and his victory had been immortalized in a painting in porticu, quae Poecile vocatur. Nepos adds that these honours were modest in comparison with those which came to Demetrios of Phaleron in later times. In Miltiades’ time, there had still been a sense of proportion among the citizenry, but with the expansion of the Athenian empire this had been entirely lost. Nepos does not leave it to the reader himself to draw the parallels with Roman history but explicitly points them out (Nep. Milt. 6,2–4). The example of Miltiades is not cited for its own sake but to give Roman readers a critical view of their own times. More detailed knowledge of Greek history of the early fifth century was not absolutely necessary to follow Nepos’ argumentation. 384  Nep. Hann. 4,3: Hoc itinere adeo gravi morbo afficitur oculorum, ut postea numquam dextro aeque bene usus sit. Qua valetudine cum etiam tum premeretur lecticaque ferretur, C. Flaminium consulem apud Trasumenum cum exercitu insidiis circumventum occidit, neque multo post C. Centenium praetorem cum delecta manu saltus occupantem. Cf. Anselm 2004, 155, note 355. 381

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Roman historical culture. For as a rule, it is rather the supposed difficulties with which the Romans would have been confronted that are emphasized there. Nepos’ account of Hannibal’s victories in Italy, however, is in line with other parts of the biography. Hannibal is almost consistently portrayed as a hero who triumphs even under difficult conditions. Nepos then describes the events from the dictatorship of Q.  Fabius Maximus (historically in the year 217) in chronologically wrong order, namely only after the account of Hannibal’s victory at Cannae. Perhaps in this way he did not want to break the chain of Hannibal’s victories, which offers a contrast to the extant historiographical accounts, in which the dictatorship of Fabius appears as a positive contrast, from the Roman point of view, to the inadequately conducted campaigns of his predecessors and successors.385 Also peculiar is Nepos’s assertion that Hannibal moved with his army directly after Cannae to Rome only to “return” to Capua. Why Hannibal is said to have left the area of Rome again after a few days remains unclear. Perhaps Nepos wanted to avoid having to describe more extensively the operations around the Roman siege of Capua and Hannibal’s march towards Rome, which, moreover, did not occur directly after Cannae and turned out to be much more protracted than Nepos makes it appear.386 Probably Nepos sought to emphasize Hannibal’s success at Cannae by this arrangement of events. Indeed, at the end of the chapter in question, Nepos argues that the further actions of the war in Italy need not be discussed in detail and that it is sufficient instead to mention that Hannibal won every battle there. After Cannae, no opponent had even dared to enter into an open field battle against him. Thus, Hannibal returned “undefeated” (invictus) from Italy.387 The battle of Zama, by the way, is then treated in the same concise manner as the battle of Cannae.388 The very positive portrayal of Hannibal in many areas in Nepos may at first seem surprising. However, explanations can certainly be found for this. For example, it is certainly true that “with the greatness of the opponent [...] the performance of the

 See in particular the account in book 22 of Livy (cf. below Sect. 5.2.5.1).  Nep. Hann. 5,1: Hac pugna pugnata Romam profectus est nullo resistente. In propinquis urbi montibus moratus est. cum aliquot ibi dies castra habuisset et Capuam reverteretur, Q.  Fabius Maximus, dictator Romanus, in agro Falerno ei se obiecit. Cf. Anselm 2004, 155: „Nepos vermeidet es, die Situation Hannibals vor Rom zu beschreiben, offenbar um den blamablen Rückzug seines Helden nicht andeuten zu müssen. Es wirkt daher so, als sei Hannibal gelangweilt nach Capua zurückgekehrt, weil er nicht auf den erwarteten Widerstand stieß“. 387  Nep. Hann. 5,4–6,1. Cf. Stocks 2014, 26: “The focus is on Hannibal as a victor: no space is given to his defeats after Cannae”. Among the other surviving Roman authors, Nepos stands alone with this view. However, Polybius (Pol. 15,16) had already noted that Hannibal had remained without defeat until the battle of Zama. Cf. Vogt 1953, 171. 388  Nep. Hann. 6,3. Nepos also maintains the line of his account by emphasizing in connection with the battle of Zama not the achievement of the Roman victor Scipio but that of Hannibal. Hannibal had succeeded in escaping to Hadrumetum in a very short time and under the dangers of persecution, where he had been able to gather a considerable number of soldiers in a short time. By far the most extensively described battle is a naval battle that Hannibal led and won in the service of Prusias of Pontus against Eumenes of Pergamon (Nep. Hann. 10,3–11,7). 385 386

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Romans, who finally defeated him”, had also increased.389 Nepos’s almost unclouded picture of Hannibal’s qualities, achievements and military abilities furthermore indicates that Hannibal had already found a place in a military-theoretical discourse in the first century, in which the Carthaginian general was regarded by Greeks and Romans alike as one of the most capable and altogether most important commanders in the history of the Mediterranean.390 The biography of Hannibal forms the last chapter in Nepos’ book on the generals of other nations. In the subsequent, lost book, Nepos probably turned to Roman commanders, which has given rise to considerations in research regarding Nepos’ ideas on the philosophy of history. Sabine Anselm observes, for example, that the entire second decade of Nepos’ books on generals is dominated by the “theme of the decline of a state”. Taken together, this gives rise to the image of the “decline of the foreign world”, which is followed by the Romans’ breakthrough to world domination.391 With Hannibal’s defeat, which initiated the downfall of Carthage, this decline of the non-Roman Mediterranean world had reached its end. In this development, the Roman reader in Nepos’ time should recognize a warning and lesson from history – after all, the res publica had also reached a point where its near end was to be feared.392 Thus, in addition to the virtues of individual generals worthy of imitation, the book about the generals also contained a more comprehensive historical-­ philosophical message. Indeed, the biography of Hannibal reflects on the downfall of Carthage insofar as Nepos notes, even before the actual account begins, that it was the envy of Hannibal’s fellow citizens that prevented the Carthaginians’ best general from achieving a final victory over the Romans.393 In contrast, the notion that Hannibal, blinded by his hatred of the Romans, which in fact runs through all parts of the biography as an underlying theme, had “plunged Carthage into ruin” is by no means so obvious in Nepos’s text as Anselm, for instance, makes it out to be.394 The fact that the Hannibal chapter in Nepos’ book on the generals of “foreign nations” is the last one in the work can also be interpreted from another perspective. Claire Stocks has suggested

 Anselm 2004, 153 (quote). Cf. in this sense before already Geiger 1985, 97. See on this also Seibert 1993a, 150; Beck 2006, 214 f. (although not directly related to Nepos) and further Kaster 2006, 386 (with reference to the passage in Cic. Sest. 142 already discussed above). 390  This may already be suggested by the famous anecdote about Hannibal’s and Scipio’s meeting at the court of the Seleucid Antiochos III. See FRH 5 F 7 = FRHist 7 F 4 (=Liv. 35,14,5–12) (with commentary). 391  Anselm 2004, 119 f. 392  However, this interpretation was rather implicit. Cf. Anselm 2004, 159 f. 393  Nep. Hann. 1,2. 394  Anselm 2004, 118 (quote), 159. It is true that Hannibal’s hatred of the Romans will certainly not have been sympathetic to Roman readers. However, at no point in the biography itself is this explicitly named as the cause of Hannibal’s failure and an associated downfall of Carthage (cf. only Nep. Hann. 1,3; 2,3–6; 10,1). If Nepos had wanted to draw the attention of his recipients to this, however, it is probably to be expected that he would have done so explicitly, judging by the nature of the many comments scattered throughout the text. 389

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that Nepos regarded Hannibal as “the greatest” of the foreign generals he portrayed and for this reason placed his biography at the end of the collection.395 In any case, it becomes clear that Nepos’ possibly peculiar treatment of the material, which in part clearly differs from other representations, was not based on pure ignorance. Rather, he made changes in the order and evaluation of individual events for other reasons, which lie in the intention of his representation. A note by Gellius also indicates that Nepos had knowledge that he did not include in his biography of Hannibal. There he mentions that Nepos had included the episode of the prisoners of Cannae and their legation to the Senate in Rome in a collection of exempla that has not been preserved.396 The relative popularity of this episode can already be seen a century earlier in C.  Acilius as well as in Nepos’ contemporary and friend Cicero.397

5.2.3.3 An Enemy of Old: Further Evidence from the Late Republic Already two decades before Livy began to work on his monumental history, some historiographers returned to the form of the complete history of the city of Rome, after works that concentrated on contemporary history or monographs on individual wars had predominated in the decades before.398 The works of authors such as Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, Valerius Antias, Licinius Macer, or Aelius Tubero have unfortunately come down to us only in fragments. Of the surviving testimonies, only one can be linked to the context of the Roman defeats of the Second Punic War, although it is clear from the layout of the works that this was dealt with in all these accounts.399 Here, as in other cases, the history of Livy, which appeared a little later, replaced the earlier works.400 With regard to the status that Rome’s struggle against Carthage occupied in the social memory of the Roman Republic at the time of Cicero, a passage from

 Stocks 2014, 25: “The life of Hannibal is thus one among many, though its structural placement as the final life in the book on foreign generals – a position dictated by Nepos himself […] suggests that Nepos considered him the greatest of his foreign generals”. 396  Gell. 6,18,11. Cf. Stem 2012, 83 f. 397  See Sects. 5.2.2 and 5.2.3.1 above. 398  See in each case with further references, among others, Timpe 1979/2007; Walter 2004a, 340–353. 399  By a fragment of Q. Claudius Quadrigarius a possible date of the battle of Cannae has come down to us. See FRH 14 F 52 = FRHist 24 F 53 (=Non. p. 757 L.). The Second Punic War must also have been part of other works. However, we are not, able to make any statements about the respective form and design of the tradition. 400  There has certainly been no lack of attempts to search the third decade of Ab Urbe condita in general and the account of the great defeats against the Carthaginians in particular for traces of Livy’s predecessors. These approaches, however, will not be pursued in detail here. Instead, it seems more useful to turn directly to Livy’s work in the next subchapter, which provides an extensive account of the entire Second Punic War in the fully preserved third decade. Cf. below Sect. 5.2.5.1 and see most recently the contributions by Richardson 2015 and Hoyos 2015 (each with further references to research). 395

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Lucretius’ De rerum natura is not uninteresting.401 In the third book, Lucretius is concerned with showing how and for what reasons man’s fear of death is to be overcome. The basic idea of the passage we are interested in here is that death is basically irrelevant to man, since he will never consciously experience it anyway.402 To support his argument, Lucretius constructs a comparison that relates to the Roman past. As little as his contemporaries now felt the terror and fear that would have held the (Roman) world in thrall at the time of the wars against Carthage, so little would they be touched by the fears and other feelings when soul and body separated after their death.403 In this form of reference to the distant event, in which above all the distance is emphasized that separated the Romans of his time in every respect from the age of the Punic wars, one can certainly recognize an ironic side blow of Lucretius to such contemporaries who permanently referred to this already distant epoch either as a golden age or as a storehouse of seemingly actualizable examples.404 In addition to this form of remembrance of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War, it remained firmly anchored in various media of the increasingly ramified Roman historical culture in the following generations, so that it is worthwhile to pursue this topic through the early imperial period as well. Before doing so, however, an interim summary of representations and interpretations of the Roman defeats of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War will provide an overview of the results achieved so far.

 The exact biographical data of Lucretius have not been handed down, but a life span from “the beginning of the first century B.C. [...]” to the “middle of the 50s” is considered very probable (von Albrecht 1994, 229). 402  Cf. Bailey 1950, 1133–1135; O’Gorman 2004, 101; Kenney 22014, 183. 403  Lucr. 3830–842 (Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum,/quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur;/et, vel ut ante acto nihil tempore sensimus aegri,/ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,/omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu/horrida contremuere sub altis aetheris auris,/in dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna cadendum/omnibus humanis esset terraque marique,/ sic, ubi non erimus, cum corporis atque animai/discidium fuerit, quibus e sumus uniter apti,/scilicet haud nobis quicquam, qui non erimus tum,/accidere omnino poterit sensumque movere,/non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo.). 404  See on this especially Kenney 22014, 18: “The vocabulary and phrasing of lines 833–7 parody the high epic style, and the irony is pointed: these events were at the time world-shaking and so presented themselves to the first great national poet – but what are they to us now? [...] Hannibal continued to haunt the declamatory tradition for centuries to plague Roman schoolboys [...], already for L. a subject for sardonic reflection.” In this context, Kenney also points to a number of stylistic allusions that Lucretius, probably with ironic intent, allowed himself in this passage (Kenney 22014, 183  f.). Thus, lines 834–837 referred to Ennius’ Africa terribili tremit horrida terra tumultu (Enn. ann. 309), which Skutsch 1985, 486 had already noted. 401

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5.2.4 Interim Conclusion: The Defeats of the Second Roman-­Carthaginian War in the Historical Culture of the Republic The preceding sections have shown that the Roman defeats against the Carthaginian armies in the Hannibalic War left manifold traces in the historical culture of the Roman Republic. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify focal points and recurring patterns and motifs. Quite early, apparently already during the war, defeats in Rome were explained within the framework of religiously influenced patterns of interpretation. The earliest direct evidence for the explanation of a defeat in the Second Punic War by disregarding omens in Roman historiography is found in the work of L. Coelius Antipater in connection with the defeat of Flaminius at Lake Trasimene. However, it is reasonable to assume (and indeed indirectly attested by Appian) that the advice of the Oracle of Delphi, which Q. Fabius Pictor brought back from his legation journey, which he undertook there after the battle of Cannae in 216, were already described in the work of the first Roman historian. This account was probably integrated in the context of explanatory patterns that interpreted the defeats against Hannibal’s army in the previous years in the context of religious patterns of interpretation. Probably also quite early another strategy for explanation, and at the same time exoneration, seems to have consisted in assigning the blame for a defeat to individual commanders. This seems to have been the case especially with regard to C. Flaminius, who is demonstrably already judged very unfavourably by Polybius. This is a position which possibly goes back to the account of Q.  Fabius Pictor. However, such an account by Pictor cannot be proven with certainty. Some fragments of Ennius indicate that in his Annales strategic and tactical decisions leading to defeats were discussed. In particular, Ennius seems to have addressed the problem of a too hasty decision to battle, which is later found in the third decade of Livy as a recurring motif in the interpretation of defeats. The often quoted verses praising the cunctatio strategy of Fabius Maximus also indicate a reflection around strategic (mis)decisions and the handling of Roman defeats in the Annales. With regard to interpretations that are not exclusively aimed at explaining defeats, some patterns can also be discerned despite the fragmentary state of the tradition. The conflict against the Carthaginians was apparently embedded in broader mythical and/or historical contexts even during the war. Two works by Cn. Naevius, the epic Bellum Punicum and the play Clastidium, seem to have contributed to this, if the respective dating as well as the interpretations discussed above are correct. With regard to the Roman defeats and the resulting situation, the placement in further contexts could have had an affirmative character, since reference was made to the earlier victory against the same opponents (groups) that the Romans and their allies were now facing again. Some motifs on Roman coins, which were apparently minted in the first half of the Hannibalic War, may also have been directed particularly at the Roman allies. The motifs on the so-called Victoriates as well as on the gold coinage, which show oath scenes, can be interpreted as a demonstration of confidence in victory and the

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emphasis on mutual alliance obligations and loyalty between allies. The latter was indeed endangered by Hannibal’s strategy, which is why it is understandable that the Romans sought to maintain it in various ways. At the same time, as the example of Capua shows, they were also prepared to take exemplary retaliatory action. An emphasis on unity between Romans and allies in Italy has also been seen in other areas of Roman (historical) culture of the Republic, such as in individual fragments of Fabius Pictor. These interpretations are possible, although certain evidence is lacking here as well. In view of the importance that the existence of system of alliances in Italy had for the Roman side in overcoming the crisis of the Hannibalic War, an emphasis on values associated with it, such as unity and loyalty among the allies, in early Roman historiography would in any case not be surprising. In addition to the emphasis on fides between Romans and their allies, the loyalty and duty of Roman citizens towards the res publica was apparently also emphasized. In this context, the episode about the prisoners of Cannae, which circulated in different versions and was referred to in different media and in variants, seems to have acquired exemplary character quite early on. The moral qualities of the Romans, especially the senators, in the face of defeat, presented in this episode, were also addressed in other contexts. In the historiographical treatment of the subject, a number of scenes seem to have formed a repertoire in the process, which was apparently used repeatedly in the context of an account of Roman defeats. These include, besides the episode about the Cannae prisoners, Hannibal’s dialogue with his ‘cavalry leader’ and probably also the reception of the defeated C.  Terentius Varro after Cannae. Moreover, these episodes, as well as some other events and situations of the war, could apparently be referred to without the explicit naming of the respective context and appear in other media of Roman memory culture. For it could be assumed that the respective context was known to the recipients to a more or less comprehensive extent. It was also possible to refer to individual battles (especially Lake Trasimene and Cannae) without further elaboration of the context. On the other hand, the overview of the exempla used by Cicero in his speeches also shows that Cicero did not resort to these references very often. When he did, he nevertheless managed without further explanation. The references are partly very reduced and sometimes contain no more than the name of the respective battlefield or the actors involved, mostly the generals. Among these names is that of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who apparently assumed an important role in the Republic’s historical culture at an early stage and retained it until the end of the Republic – and, as the following chapter will show, even beyond. The conflict against the Carthaginians was apparently largely reduced to his person.405 In a fragment of a speech, the elder Cato refers to the destruction of Italy wrought by Hannibal. Lucilius also lists the name of the Barcid as a symbol of a danger overcome. As far as can be seen, the manner of remembering Hannibal was not as one-sided as might have been expected. On the one hand,

 Right at the beginning of the Histories, Polybius transmits the common name of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War in his time, which was therefore usually called “Hannibalic War”. Pol. 1,3,2. According to Walbank 1957, 42 this designation was to be assumed mainly within the Greek world. 405

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Hannibal did serve subsequent generations as a synonym for a major military threat to the existence of the Roman state, which found a lingering impression (to this day) especially in the historically questionable fixation on the Carthaginian’s physical threat to the city of Rome. To invoke this aspect of the Roman image of Hannibal, it was apparently sufficient to mention Hannibal’s name. This could sometimes be done in conjunction with an epithet (e.g. dirus, crudelis) or a reference to a specific event of the war without necessarily explaining it – here, too, an allusion was sufficient (e.g. Hannibal ad portas).406 On the other hand, however, other interpretations existed that put the Carthaginian commander in an extremely positive light. According to Cicero, Hannibal was admired by his contemporaries of the first century for his skill as a general. In the biography of Cornelius Nepos, an example of such recognition of the achievements of the enemy general has been preserved, who could even serve here as a model of virtuous conduct. The great adversary of Rome thus found space in the historical culture of the Roman Republic. Regardless of how Hannibal was viewed, the great defeats inflicted on the Romans by the Carthaginian army under his command were in any case associated with his name and thus remained present in the historical consciousness of later generations. From another point of view, the admiration, or at least recognition, of Hannibal could help to highlight the achievements and qualities of the Romans themselves. For precisely when this opponent, due to his special abilities, had been able to defeat Rome’s armies and generals several times and seriously threaten the Romans’ rule over Italy, the fact that they had finally defeated him was naturally all the more glorious.407 Against this background, remembering and referring to the defeats of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War in general, i.e. not only in direct connection with Hannibal, could hold positive messages from the Roman point of view, since the Romans had emerged victorious from the war in the end, despite the defeats they had suffered and the enormous losses they had entailed. In a number of historiographical works, the battle of Cannae seems to have been particularly emphasized in the composition of the material, perhaps in order to underline the achievement of the Romans to rise again after this great defeat.408

5.2.5 The Augustan Period Among the surviving representatives of the literature of the Augustan age is the third decade of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, the most comprehensive surviving account of ancient historiography on the Second Punic War. Representations and interpretations of Roman defeats in Livy’s third decade will therefore be discussed in detail below. Subsequently, references to these defeats in other works of the Augustan period will be examined.

 Cf. also Stocks 2014, 16.  Cf. Beck 2006, 215. 408  Cf. for this idea below the sections on Livy (Sect. 5.2.5.1) and on Silius Italicus (Sect. 5.2.7). 406 407

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5.2.5.1 More Admirable in Misfortune than in Fortune: Livy Livy’s account of the Second Punic War in the third decade of his work is, in contrast to those of all his predecessors, completely preserved. Especially with regard to this section of Ab Urbe Condita, there exists a long and controversial discussion on the question of which sources Livy drew upon and how one should think of the relationship of his text to those of his predecessors.409 This question, or rather these questions, for in the course of the long and rich history of research a very large number of works have been presented on individual aspects, are also of some importance for the present work. Nevertheless, it seems even more important to turn to Livy’s account itself and to examine it for the explanations and interpretations of the defeats of the war to be found there. Where possible, the relations to earlier accounts will nevertheless be shown in order to elucidate, on the one hand, where Livy took up already existing interpretations and narratives and, on the other hand, to trace the extent to which he set his own accents. For even if, with regard to a number of details, it will remain unclear to what extent these are, as it were, originally ‘Livian’, a large number of recent research contributions have been able to convincingly demonstrate how Livy, while borrowing from predecessors, at the same time endeavoured to set his own accents in representation and interpretation.410 These become particularly clear when one follows the treatment of Rome’s defeats over the third decade as a whole, in order to uncover what explanations Livy wanted to suggest to his readers, on the one hand, for the occurrence of these failures, and on the other for overcoming their consequences. In this context, it is first worthwhile to take a look at how Livy arranged the material of the Hannibalic war, and what position the Roman defeats occupy in this composition.411 In this regard, even a cursory  See for a discussion of this question and the research problems associated with it Rieck 1996, XIII–XV; Levene 2010, 126–163, who refers to numerous older works. Cf. also most recently Hoyos 2015. 410  Levene 2010, 82–162 offers a comprehensive analysis of Livy’s sources for the third decade and the allusions and references to earlier works and historical events that can be found in Livys’ text. Cf. for the relationship between Livy and his source Polybius in the fourth decade, most recently, for example, the analysis in Eckstein 2015. Valuable analyses, moreover, in Bruckmann 1936; 1977; Levene 2010; Pausch 2011, among others. On Livy’s account of the Second Punic War in general, see also, among others, Lippold 1963, 30–34, 69 f.; Seibert 1993b, 31–36; Goldsworthy 2000, 21 f.; Ridley 2000; Hoyos 2015. 411  Unlike in the case of some other ancient texts, the book division in which Ab Urbe condita appears in modern editions actually goes back to its author. It is, thus, clear that the division of the account of the Hannibalic war, which falls precisely on books 21–30, i.e. the third decade of the work, is neither a coincidence nor an intervention of ancient or modern editors. The beginning and end of the war are clearly marked beyond the mere division of books. Book 21 begins with its own proem, and book 31 explicitly states that the Punic war had ended in the previous book. Liv. 21,1,1–3; 31,1,1–6 (there: me quoque iuvat, velut ipse in parte laboris ac periculi fuerim, ad finem belli Punici pervenisse [...]). Despite its integration into the work as a whole, which is reinforced by forward and backward references in the third decade that point beyond the events of the Hannibalic War, Livy’s account of the Second Punic War thus forms a narrative of its own within the work as a whole. Cf. Burck 1950, 26; Briscoe 1973, 49; Händl-Sagawe 1995, 15 f.; Ridley 2000, 17 (“The third decade was perhaps the most self-contained, most monograph-like, of all his work.”); Levene 2010, 10 f.; Stocks 2014, 37. See for the following overview Burck 1950, 11–56; 409

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glance reveals that the Roman defeats at the hands of Hannibal’s army are in no way marginalized but rather occupy central roles in the structure of Livy’s account. Thus, the first two books are dominated by Hannibal’s triumphal march, with the extent of his successes increasing from battle to battle. At the end of book 22, the account reaches the aftermath of the battle of Cannae, the book concluding with the return of the consul C. Terentius Varro to Rome.412 As has been seen, this narrative break was also placed at the end of a book in the works of a number of Livy’s predecessors. After the battle of Cannae, both the Roman and Carthaginian sides varied their strategy. The next three books, 23–25, describe this phase of the war, in which the Romans are gradually able to regroup and seem to recover from the heavy losses of the first years of the war. Nonetheless, they continue to suffer defeats and setbacks, for instance, in the sense that important allies, such as Capua and Tarentum, in particular, fall away from them, or Hannibal is able to occupy parts of formerly allied cities.413 At the end of book 25, i.e. at the end of the first half of the third decade, a certain balance seems to have been achieved between the two warring parties, which is also reflected in the composition of the material. For towards the end of book 25, there is first an account of how M.  Claudius Marcellus succeeds in conquering Syracuse, then of how P. and Cn. Cornelius Scipio fall in battle in Spain.414 The second pentad of Livy’s account of Hannibal’s war is then, even though minor setbacks still occur, mainly marked by Roman victories. One after the other, the Romans are able to decide the events in the theatres of war in Spain, Italy and Africa in their favour and thus finally win the war. Moreover, the last two books of the decade, which contain the successful African campaign led by P. Cornelius Scipio, can be interpreted as a counterpart to books 21 and 22, which are dedicated to Hannibal’s victorious campaign.415 Certainly, the course of events in the war was Ridley 2000, 14 f.; Levene 2010, 15 f. There (6–9) is also a tabular overview of the contents, in which, however, numerous details have been – deliberately – omitted. 412  Liv. 22,61, 13–15. Cf. Burck 1950, 12. 413  A success for the Carthaginian army, which in turn is interpreted as the seed of their decline, as their soldiers in Capua are corrupted by the luxury and dissolute lifestyle of the Campanians. In this way, they forfeit their previous strength and fighting power. For this, see Liv. 23,18, 10–16. cf. Ungern-Sternberg 1975, 41, note 45; Levene 1993, 58; 2010, 105, 363–365. 414  Cf. Burck 1950, 15–17, 36 f.; Levene 2010, 15. Strictly speaking, the account of the defeat of the Scipios is framed by the description of the deeds of the Romans in Sicily, which took place under the command of Marcellus. Both scenes, the one in which the Romans can celebrate successes and the one in which the Carthaginians succeed in doing so, are connected in this way. Liv. 25,23–31 (Roman conquest of Syracuse); 25,32–39 (defeat of the Scipios in Spain); 25:40–41 (Marcellus puts down resistance in Sicily). 415  Burck 1950, 12. Cf. Walsh 1961, 7, 173. On the various stages of Roman successes, see Liv. 28,37,10 (end of the war in Spain); 30,16–20 (Mago defeats the Romans in Italy, Hannibal is recalled to Africa to defend Carthage); 30,29,1–38,4 (battle of Zama and surrender of the Carthaginians); 30,40–45 (the Senate confirms the peace negotiated by Scipio; Scipio returns to Rome in triumph). It can be observed that within this second pentad a number of events are related to those from the first half of the war. Thus, Erich Burck has already noted that the news of the victory of the consul C. Claudius Nero after the battle of the Metaurus to Rome (Liv. 27,51,1–6)

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predetermined for Livy, and it also stands to reason that he was influenced or inspired by already existing works when distributing the material to individual books.416 Nevertheless, with regard to Livy’s account, special features and the accents that he probably set himself can be worked out.417 Book 21 begins with a separate prooemium on the Hannibalic war, in which its special significance for Roman history is highlighted. After an introduction and characterization of Hannibal, which will be discussed later, follows the account of his first campaigns in Spain, the siege of Saguntum and the associated beginning of the war. Hannibal’s army then moves across the Pyrenees and the Rhône and then crosses the Alps.418 This is followed by the account of the first Roman defeat at the Ticinus.419 Although this is a comparatively small battle, Livy highlights it by having both Hannibal and P. Cornelius Scipio address their soldiers before the fight. The confrontation at the Ticinus is thereby also established in Livy’s account as the first battle of the war. Livy was obviously not the first to make this accentuation, for speeches by the commanders at this point were already to be found in Polybius, so that it can be assumed that Livy adopted this element here or from a source in which the speeches of the two commanders at the Ticinus were also included.420 In detail, however, the speeches included in Polybius and Livy are quite different, so that the latter’s intention to emphasize the – historically rather insignificant – battle is clearly recognizable.421 This intention is also shown by the fact that Livy, on the occasion was constructed as a counterpart to the return of Varro after the battle of Cannae (Liv. 22,61,13–15). See Burck 1950, 132–135. Cf. Jaeger 1997, 96: “The closing scenes of Books 22 and 27 make it clear that Rome and Carthage have traded the roles of victor and vanquished”. 416  Polybius had already used the battle of Cannae as a striking incision for his account. With regard to the work of L. Cassius Hemina, as seen above, Scholz had considered a similar incision, in the case of the monograph of L. Coelius Antipater it seems very likely (see above Sect. 5.2.2). 417  See Levene 2010, 6–9, and cf. already Burck 1950, 10: “Trotz der Verschiedenheit und des Wechsels der Kriegsschauplätze und trotz des traditionellen Zwanges zum Bericht auch solcher Ereignisse und Fakten, die – wie etwa die Prodigien, Tempelbauten, Abhaltung von Spielen u. a. m. – mit dem Kriege nichts unmittelbar zu tun haben, wird überall der Versuch spürbar, die einzelnen Berichtsteile dem Gesamtzusammenhang unterzuordnen, ihnen in ihrer Bedeutung für das gewaltige Ringen ihre besondere Schattierung zu geben und das annalistische Gerippe einer neuen darstellerischen Gliederung und Sinngebung des Kriegsgeschehens unterzuordnen”. 418  Liv. 21,1, 1–3 (introduction); 21,1, 4–4, 10 (introduction of Hannibal with characterization); 21,5, 1–15, 6 (first campaigns of Hannibal in Spain with successful siege of Saguntum); 21:16–20 (Romans prepare for war; declaration of war in Carthaginian council); 21:21–38 (Hannibal’s departure from Spain; march toward Italy and over the Alps). 419  Liv. 21,39–48. 420  Cf. Händl-Sagawe 1995, 255 with further references. 421  Liv. 21,40,1–41,17 (speech of Scipio); 21,43,2–44,9 (speech of Hannibal). Doblhofer 1983, 146 points out, for example, that the passage in which Scipio motivates his soldiers by pointing out that there is neither a second army behind them nor “other alps” (Alpes aliae) that could defend Rome in case of defeat (Liv. 21,41,15) does not find any equivalent in the consul’s speech in Polybius. According to Doblhofer, Livy alludes at this point to the call of Ajax in the Iliad, with which the latter urges the Greeks to defend the ship of Protesilaos (Hom. Il. 15,735–736). Livy here substitutes the Alps for the wall in Homer. Cf. approvingly Levene 2010, 107 f., who rightly points out that the idea of calling the mountains the ‘wall of Italy’ was again not a Livian invention but goes

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of the rescue of the wounded consul, introduces his son, the later Africanus, with the remark that he was the Roman who finally decided the war for Rome as a general. The later Africanus will become one of the central figures of the third decade, so that Livy uses this opportunity to emphasize that he – alone among all the Roman commanders – had taken part in both the first and the last battle of the war. At the same time, Livy thus connects events from different books in the form of a narrative bridge, thus pointing in the account of a Roman defeat to the victory that the Romans will eventually achieve.422 Livy then summarizes the rather meager successes the other consul of the year, Ti. Sempronius Longus, had been able to achieve in the waters around Sicily up to that point. Perhaps he intended this to offer a positive contrast for Rome to the failures of the war so far.423 However, Livy in book 21 does not seem to be primarily concerned with highlighting news that is positive for Rome. For following Sempronius’ arrival in northern Italy, Livy emphasizes the discord between the two consuls and Sempronius’ strategic and tactical cluelessness, and then describes the battle of the Trebia. The book ends with the quarrel between the newly elected consul C. Flaminius and the Senate and the premature departure of Flaminius from Rome, who had gone to Etruria without first obtaining the auspices.424 Book 21, thus, ends with the end of the year of office of the consuls P. Cornelius Scipio and Tib. Sempronis Longus and begins with the, albeit premature, assumption of office of the newly elected C.  Flaminius. His colleague, Cn. Servilius Geminus, does not take office until the beginning of the following book. This coincidence of the end of the book and the end of the consuls’ year in office is by no

back at least to Cato the Elder. See FRH 3 F 4,10 = FRHist 5 F 150 (=Serv. Aen. 10,12–13). Cf. on this already Doblhofer 1983, 135–138. Before the last battle of the war at Zama, again a Scipio, the son of the consul of 217, and Hannibal hold an address to their soldiers, which Livy reproduces in indirect speech (Liv. 30,32,5–11). In this way, Livy makes a narrative arc back to the beginning of the war in book 30. However, he could already find inspiration for the speeches of the two commanders at Zama in Polybius (and presumably also in other historians who wrote before him). Cf. (with further references) Burck 1950, 50; Levene 2010, 16 f. 422  Liv. 21,46,7–8 (Is pavor perculit Romanos, auxitque pavorem consulis volnus periculumque intercursu tum primum pubescentis filii propulsatum. Hic erit iuvenis, penes quem perfecti huiusce belli laus est, Africanus ob egregiam victoriam de Hannibale Poenisque appellatus). See Levene 2010, 14: “Livy repeatedly marks the book as the opening of the war by pointedly introducing motifs and people that will be significant later”. Cf. the repeated reference to Scipio’s coming role in the war in Livy’s account of the meeting of military tribunes at Canusium, in which Scipio prevents a number of young nobles from fleeing Italy after the battle of Cannae (Liv. 22,53,6: Quod malum, praeterquam atrox, super tot clades etiam novum, cum stupore ac miraculo torpidos defixisset, qui aderant, et consilium advocandum de eo censerent, negat consilii rem esse Scipio iuvenis, fatalis dux huiusce belli [...].). On these aspects of the Battle of Ticinus and the role played by the later Africanus in the account, especially that of Livy, cf. among others Händl-Sagawe 1995, 283; Schwarte 2000, 107; Geist 2009, 59; Levene 2010, 14. 423  This assumption is also supported by the fact that Livy, through the layout of the passage, suggests an “impression of extremely crowded action on the Sicilian theatre”. In fact, the operations carried out under the command of Sempronius seem to have been spread over a longer period of time. See Handel-Sagawe 1995, 303 f. (quote: 303). 424  Liv. 21,62–63.

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means self-evident.425 But Livy proceeds here according to compositional points of view, which are intended to accentuate his interpretation of the events.426 Thus, he places the conspicuously long list of prodigies for the year 218 not at the beginning of the year but at its end, immediately before he reports the election of Flaminius as consul and his intentions to take up his office outside Rome.427 Then again, Livy has placed the prodigies for the year 217 almost immediately at the beginning of the year and thus at the beginning of book 22.428 Flaminius’ assumption of office is thus overshadowed by several portents at once (dispute with the senate, leaving the city without obtaining the auspices, two long lists of ominous portents), which refer to the defeat at Lake Trasimene, which in Livy’s account is explained primarily by the consul Flaminius’ disregard for prodigies.429 In book 22, Livy describes above all the two great defeats at Lake Trasimene and Cannae, which, in turn, frame the dictatorship of Q. Fabius Maximus, together with the dispute between him and his magister equitum, M. Minucius Rufus. In this way, not least, the figure of Fabius Maximus is highlighted, whose importance in overcoming the consequences of the heavy defeats of the early years of the war is also emphasized by Livy in other ways in the account.430 Livy, thus, draws together in one book a period of about 1½ years (March 217 to August 216), and these months were undoubtedly the period of the war with the heaviest losses for the Roman side.431 One might suppose that one idea behind this was that for those Roman readers who read the books of the Hannibalic War in continuous succession, this division would mean that the darkest period of the conflict would be passed through relatively quickly with the end of this ‘book of defeats’. However, the shattered impression left by the res publica, buffeted by external pressures and internal strife, in book 22 already militates against such an interpretation. The battle of Cannae, the description of which in Livy, due to the incorporation of individual scenes such as the one in which the death of Aemilius Paullus is described, turns out to be much more extensive than is the case, for example, in Polybius, undoubtedly forms the

 In the third decade, besides book 21, only two other books, 25 and 29, end with the end of a consular year. Cf. Levene 2010, 15 f., 35. 426  This applies not only to the inauguration of the consuls but also to a number of other recurring elements, which are parts of the so-called annalistic scheme. On this, see Rich 2009, 120 f.; Levene 2010, 37 f.; Pausch 2011, 82 f. 427  Liv. 21,62, 1–11. cf. Handel-Sagawe 1995, 381 f.; Levene 1993, 38; 2010, 37 f. 428  Liv. 22,1, 8–13. cf. Levene 2010, 38. 429  Cf. Levene 1993, 38  f.; Pausch 2011, 94 (“Sowohl die ungewöhnliche Länge der Listen mit Vorzeichen als auch ihre Verdopplung durch die Umstellung tragen dazu bei, dass für das kommende Jahr eine in besonderer Weise bedrohliche Atmosphäre erzeugt wird.”). 430  Liv. 22,3,1–6,12 (operations in spring/early summer 217 and battle of Lake Trasimene); 22,8,6–18,10; 22,23,1–31,11 (events during the dictatorship of Q. Fabius Maximus); 22,33,9–50,3 (election of the consuls of 216 and Cannae campaign). Cf. Burck 1950, 84, 89 f.; Rieck 1996, 10. 431  With the defeat of C. Flaminius, the loss of the cavalry of the army of Cn. Servilius Geminus (both in 217), and the battle of Cannae, all of which are described in book 22. 425

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dramatic climax of the book.432 Livy then lets the account of the fall of the Roman army be followed by seven more book chapters, in which he concentrates on the description of the emergency measures in Rome and also  includes, among other things, the discussion of the legation of the prisoners of Cannae, which has already been mentioned several times. Book 22 ends with Varro’s reception in Rome, offering a conclusion that is at least cautiously conciliatory when measured against previous events, emphasizing the standing together of all Romans in this difficult hour.433 Even a cursory glance reveals that Livy has set his own accents here, which find expression especially in the final scenes of book 22. For both the Senate’s uncompromising stance on the prisoner question and its refusal to negotiate peace with Hannibal, and finally Varro’s reception, signal that even after the greatest defeat in their history, the Romans still cling to their traditional values. The conclusion of book 22, thus, offers to a certain extent a positive, albeit restrained, outlook on the further course of the war, in that the special moral firmness that helped the Romans to overcome the setbacks they had suffered is already discernible there.434 However, Livy makes it clear in the following book that the crisis has not yet been overcome with the demonstrative recollection of Roman virtues alone. Book 23 begins with Capua’s defection from Rome.435 Shortly thereafter, Mago reports to the Carthaginian council on the successes so far of his brother’s campaign in Italy.436 This scene is in a sense parallel to a messenger scene in Rome: Q. Fabius Pictor’s report of the oracle he received in Delphi. While Mago reports on past successes, the message from Delphi conveyed by Fabius Pictor represents a glimpse, albeit still vague, of a more positive future for Rome.437 Nevertheless, references that

 Livy seems to have endeavored to have the end of each book in the third decade coincide with such a narrative climax. Cf. Levene 2010, 27. 433  However, see also Pausch 2011, 207, who rather emphasizes the ambivalent character of the ending of book 22 and connects it with the intention of creating tension on the part of Livy: “Indem hier noch im Unklaren gelassen wird, welche der beiden Bewertungen der Situation sich als zutreffend erweist, wird der Leser zu Vermutungen über den weiteren Verlauf der Handlung animiert. Diese dienen erneut der Erzeugung von Spannung und damit der Verkürzung der Lesepause.” Details that should be noted about these chapters will be discussed later. 434  Cf. Burck 1950, 29: “Der Ausgang dieses Buches stellt leitmotivartig die Richtungspunkte für die drei folgenden Bücher auf, die sich etwa in folgende Frage zusammenfassen lassen: werden der römische Senat und das römische Volk, die sich jetzt in vorbildlicher Haltung zusammenschließen und dem bei Cannae geschlagenen Consul danken, daß er nicht am Staate verzweifelt habe, in Zukunft die Kraft behalten und so viele Reserven aufbringen können, daß sie Hannibal, dem Italien jetzt offen steht, erfolgreich Widerstand zu leisten in der Lage sind?” Already before (Liv. 22,54,10: nulla profecto alia gens tanta mole cladis non obruta esset) Livy points to the Romans’ power of resistance and perseverance, which had been shown in defeat. Cf. e.g. Burck 1950, 28. 435  Liv. 23,1–10. 436  Liv. 23,11,7–12,5. 437  Liv. 23,11,1–6. With regard to this passage, Burck 1950, 30 f. emphasizes the positive outlook on the further course of the war from the Roman point of view, which he also regards as little diminished by Mago’s message of victory before the Carthaginian senate, since Livy as a counterweight lets Hanno, the opponent of the Barcids in Carthage, relativize Hannibal’s successes (Liv. 22,13,2–5). 432

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e­ mphasize the crisis in which Rome still finds itself predominate in book 23. This is again helped by the way in which Livy arranges the ‘annalistic material’ in this book.438 This is unusually widely distributed across different chapters. Before the new consuls for the year 215 are elected and can then take office, repeated difficulties arise. The usual ‘annalistic form’ is broken through this several times. All in all, this gives the impression, at least to readers familiar with Livy’s usual account, that the Roman year of office itself was severely disrupted by the crisis triggered by the defeats at Lake Trasimene and Cannae.439 Then, after the Romans have finally succeeded in electing new consuls, and the usual news belonging to the ‘annalistic material’ has been gradually completed by Livy, the turn of the year 216/215 still falls in book 23, at the end of which there is news of Roman successes: successful battles in Sardinia, a victory under Marcellus against the Carthaginian army commanded by Hannibal himself at Nola, and advances by the Scipios in Spain.440 The death of the two Scipio brothers paves the way for the second half of the third decade to be marked by P. Cornelius Scipio, the later Africanus, who now goes to Spain.441 Those who read books 26–30 in continuous succession get the overall impression that the Romans now have successes to report above all else. Although these are described in detail as hard-won, and there are also occasional setbacks, there is no doubt about the positive trajectory – in any case, it is precisely the hard achievement of successes that is to be seen as particularly positive from the Roman point of view.442 From the perspective of modern research, the actual turning point  The following in Levene 2010, 38–43.  The first of these messages is found at Liv. 23,21,7 with notes on temple dedications and priestly elections, which in other books often introduce the end of the year (Levene 2010, 38: “a regular formula concluding the year”). However, this is first followed by the replacement of the Senate (23,22–23), after which only M. Iunius Pera returns to Rome to conduct the elections for the new consuls (23,24,1–5). Through messengers, the Romans learn of the death of L. Postumius Albinus in battle in the forest Litana (23,24,6–13), which causes concerned reactions in Rome. In the same chapter, the Romans are nevertheless also concerned about the distribution of their troops (23,25). Between these reports and the turn of the year (23,30,13) Livy interpolates descriptions of the Spanish theater of war (23,26–29) and news of anti-Roman sentiments in Sicily (23,30,1–13). Cf. Levene 2010, 38–40: “In effect the disaster that came on Rome at Cannae seems to be affecting the year itself. The series of deceptive closures is not simply the result of Livy playing games with the reader’s expectations, but graphically illustrates a central political point: that the emergency that Rome is facing has undermined the normal workings of the Roman year” (40). 440  Liv. 23,40,1–41,7 (victory of the Romans in Sardinia); 23,41,13–48,3 (victory under Marcellus at Nola); 23,48,4–49,14 (successes in Spain). See on this also Burck 1950, 31 f. As already mentioned, the following books are under the impression of an increasing balance between the two sides. Hannibal still manages minor successes in the capture of a number of Italian cities, while the Romans are able to regroup their forces and offer sporadic resistance. The first pentad ends with the balance between the warring parties expressed by victories on each side, that of Marcellus and that of the Carthaginians under Hasdrubal against the Scipios in Spain. Liv. 25,23–31 (Romans take Syracuse under the command of Marcellus); 25,32–39 (Scipios fall in Spain); 25,40–41 (Marcellus endeavors to settle conditions in Sicily). Cf. among others Burck 1950, 36 f. 441  Liv. 26,19,10–20,11 (Scipio goes to Spain after his unusual election). 442  Cf. Galinsky 1996, 94, 122–124 for examples in literary works of the Augustan period and below the chapter on the punica of Silius Italicus (Sect. 5.2.7). 438 439

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of the Second Punic War is often placed with the defeat of Hasdrubal at Metaurus in 207.443 Livy also emphasizes the importance of this battle by comparing it directly with Cannae.444 Nevertheless, he evidently attaches less importance to Roman defeats that occurred before 207 than to those of the first years of the war. This can be seen, for example, in the two battles at Herdonea, which, according to Livy, were comparable in size to the battle at Lake Trasimene.445 The death of the two consuls of the year 208, M. Claudius Marcellus and T. Quinctius Crispinus, Livy assesses as potentially threatening for the well-being of Rome but at the same time he leaves no doubt that the Romans would also succeed in surviving this setback.446 In the second half of the third decade, therefore, there is no longer any room for the detailed description of Roman defeats; these books are dominated by Roman victory. This is also indicated by observations on individual topics in the third decade, which will be discussed in the following – especially the various explanations presented for the Roman defeats. The explanation for defeats that most quickly catches the eye when reading the battle accounts concerns the behaviour of individual Roman commanders who fail in several respects and thus lead the armies entrusted to them to their doom. These commanders are, for instance, Ti. Sempronius Longus, C. Flaminius, C. Terentius Varro, and to a certain extent also M. Minucius Rufus. In the account of the first years of the war up to and including the battle of Cannae, i.e. in books 21–22, a narrative pattern can be discerned in this context, namely in the description of the defeats at the Trebia, at Lake Trasimene and at Cannae as well as the operations of M. Minucius Rufus, which Wolfgang Will has already pointed out.447 In addition to the similarities between the commanders in question, as Will has noted, there are, however, also some differences. That narrative structure obviously has the purpose of offering explanations for Rome’s defeats against the Carthaginians, to which we will now turn. First of all, Livy points out that one of the commanders involved in each campaign had disadvantageous character traits that made him seem unsuitable for the task entrusted to him. In this respect, the different characters each have quite similar

 Seibert 1993a, 393 (“die entscheidende Wende im Krieg”). For Lazenby 1978/1998, 115 this turning point had already come with the Roman conquest of Syracuse. 444  Liv. 27,49,5 (Numquam eo bello una acie tantum hostium interfectum est redditaque aequa Cannensi clades vel ducis vel exercitus interitu videbatur). Cf. Burck 1950, 43. 445  According to Liv. 25,21,9–10 only 200 horsemen had escaped and 16,000 men of the foot troops had fallen at the first battle at Herdonea with the consul, according to Liv. 27,1,13–14 he had found such diverging data with regard to the Roman defeat in 210 that Livy does not want to make a decision (between 7000 and 13,000 fallen). 446  This is at least suggested by Livy’s comment on the prodigies of the year 208, in which he gives a preview of the events of the following year (Liv. 27,23,4: In capita consulum re publica incolumi exitiabilis prodigiorum eventus vertit). Cf. Levene 2010, 32. Nevertheless, the death of Marcellus had almost put the state in great danger as well (Liv. 27,27,11: Mors Marcelli cum alioqui miserabilis fuit, tum quod nec pro aetate – iam enim maior sexaginta annis erat – neque pro veteris prudentia ducis tam improvide se collegamque et prope totam rem publicam in praeceps dederat). 447  Will 1983a. 443

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flaws.448 Livy mentions above all, here doubtless to be interpreted negatively, ferocia and temeritas, which would have predestined the undertaking of risky operations for the persons in question.449 These qualities are not the only explanation for those defeats. However, they always form an important prerequisite for the further course of events. For in this, the characters act throughout according to a stereotypical pattern of action – that of the reckless commander who leads his army to its downfall through negligent and risky actions.450 In accordance with the stereotypical characterization of the protagonists, the course of events in Livy’s account, especially in the years 218 to 216, continues to follow a fairly uniform pattern, despite a number differences in the details.451 At first, other Romans would still have tried to dissuade the commanders, whose deficiencies Livy had previously emphasized, from making fatal decisions because they were too risky. They even succeed in doing so in some cases. These prudent figures are either the respective colleagues in office, P. Cornelius Scipio (in the year 218) and L. Aemilius Paullus (216), the dictator Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (217) or unnamed advisers and officers (so in the case of C. Flaminius 217).452 However, in Livy’s account, Hannibal quickly recognizes the character deficits of the Roman commanders in question, or learns of them through allies, and is able to use them to his advantage.453 In this way, he induces those opponents whom he has identified as being particularly susceptible to provocation, in part specifically to offensive actions, for example, by having the land around the Roman army camp devastated or by luring the opposing troops away from their army camps through actions of his light cavalry.454 Ti. Sempronius Longus, M. Minucius Rufus and C. Terentius Varro  Cf. Will 1983a, 177; Levene 2010, 170–172.  See for ferocia: Liv. 21,52,2; 21,53,8 and cf. 21,54,6 (both in reference to Sempronius); 22,3,4–5; 22,3,14 (Flaminius); 22,24,3; 22,28,9 (Minucius); 22,41,4 (Varro); for temeritas: Liv. 21,53,7 (Sempronius); 22,3,4 (Flaminius); 22,28,2 (Minucius); 22,41,1; 22,41,4; 22,44,5 (Varro). See Will 1983a, 177 with notes 23 and 24. Cf. inter alia Bruckmann 1936, 60 f., 66 f., 72 f., 80 f.; 1977, 301; Burck 1950, 75, 77, 80, 91–96; Walsh 1961, 72; Händl-Sagawe 1995, 322; Rieck 1996, 16 f., 25 with note 3; Ridley 2000, 23 f.; Geist 2009, 52, 67, 79. 450  Cf. Levene 2010, 186: “The most important thing about the sequence of rash commanders in Books 21 and 22 is that they are more or less identical: this matters far more than the elements that might differentiate them. It is that similarity which leads to the escalating sequence of defeats despite the efforts of the (hardly any less stereotyped) commanders Publius Scipio, Fabius, and Aemilius to craft a strategy to counteract them”. 451  Cf. for the following Will 1983a, 177. 452  Warnings to the commanders against acting too hastily and being overconfident: Liv. 21,53,7 (Scipio tries to dissuade Sempronius from a battle); 22,3,8–9 (consilium advises Flaminius not to pursue Hannibal); Liv. 22,18,8–10 (Fabius warns Minucius); 22,42,4; 22,42,8–9 (Paullus advises caution and is able to persuade Varro to comply by telling him that the chicken auspice had turned out unfavorably). 453  This can already be observed in the account of Polybius. 454  Thus, Sempronius succeeds in putting to flight Numidian detachments that are roaming around plundering (Liv. 21,52,8–53,1). Hannibal knows how to take advantage of his opponent’s emboldened arrogance (Liv. 21,53,8). Minucius is said to have been victorious in a battle in front of the enemy army camp. In this connection, however, Livy points to information in his sources accord448 449

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manage to score minor successes in relatively insignificant engagements during these actions, which now, as expected, make these commanders even more careless. All warnings now go unheeded.455 C.  Flaminius, during his campaign before the battle of Lake Trasimene, was not able to achieve any such minor victories but due to his successes in the first consulate, he was so overconfident from the start that no one was able to bring him to his senses.456 In the following battles, Hannibal is often able to exploit the ferocia of the Roman generals for his own tactical benefit. In this context, the characterization of Hannibal that Livy brings in the first chapters of book 21 plays a role as well as stereotypical ideas about Carthaginian guile.457 The rather detailed description of the Carthaginian commander’s stratagems in each case is certainly also intended to help explain the Roman defeats in the Second Punic War.458 Whether they could also serve to “sweeten the bitterness of the following defeat for the Roman reader”, however, can be questioned.459 For, after all, no doubt is left that Hannibal’s stratagems were only crowned with success due to the imprudence of his respective opponents. As soon as the actual events of the battle have been reached in the course of the account, at least in some cases, the praiseworthy qualities of the commanders in question, which they evidently possess notwithstanding their other shortcomings,

ing to which Minucius lost almost as many soldiers as Hannibal (Liv. 22,24,1–14). Hannibal integrates Minucius’ lack of prudence, which has now become apparent to him, into his battle plan (Liv. 22,28,3). Varro succeeds in leading his soldiers to victory over furagant units of Hannibal (Liv. 22,41,1–3). Cf. on this, among others, Bruckmann 1936, 61 f., 76 f.; Händl-Sagawe 1995, 330; Johner 1996, 31 f., 56 f.; Rieck 1996, 18; Geist 2009, 52, 101 f.; Pausch 2011, 153 f., 243 f. 455  Liv. 22,3,8–9 (C.  Flaminius before Lake Trasimene); 22,44,5–7 (C.  Terentius Varro before Cannae). 456  Liv. 22,3,4: consul ferox ab consulatu priore et non modo legum aut patrum maiestatis, sed ne deorum quidem satis metuens; hanc insitam ingenio eius temeritatem fortuna prospero civilibus bellicisque rebus successu aluerat. The mention of Flaminius’ earlier success as an effect of Fortuna – and thus probably less as an achievement of the consul himself – diminishes its significance and underlines the misjudgement on the part of Flaminius. Cf. in this sense already Bruckmann 1936, 65; 1977, 301; Burck 1950, 80. 457  The role Hannibal plays in the depiction of Roman defeats, however, deserves a closer look, so this aspect will be examined separately later. 458  Cf. on this aspect Bruckmann 1936, 61, 81 f.; Burck 1950, 75 f.. See respectively Livy’s account of the battle of the Trebia (concealing Mago’s horsemen at a stream: Liv. 21,54,1–5), at Lake Trasimene (ambush on the hills by the lake: Liv. 22,4,1–2) and in the battle against Minucius (concealing units in unclear terrain: Liv. 22,28,5–8). Before Cannae Hannibal tries to lure Varro’s troops into an ambush by a feigned retreat, which can still be prevented by the prudence of Paullus (Liv. 22,41,6–42,12). During the battle, 500 Numidians defect from the Carthaginians to the Romans, only to stab them in the back. However, there is no explicit instruction from Hannibal to the Numidians to act in this way (Liv. 22,48,1–4). Probably because this episode seems quite implausible, scholars have repeatedly tried to present a plausible explanation for its origin. Thus Cornelius 1932, 70 f. assumes that the attack of enemy horsemen in the back of the formation soon after the defeat was interpreted as the result of a ruse and should be seen as the “Ausgeburt eines verzerrten Ehrgefühls […], das nicht zugeben will, daß eine Niederlage anders als durch Verrat erlitten sein könne” (71). Similarly: Lazenby 1978/1998, 84. 459  Thus Burck 1950, 75 f. with regard to the Battle of the Trebia.

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come to light. In the case of Sempronius Longus, Livy still shows himself restrained in this respect. The consul does not appear in the account of the battle of the Trebia. At least the consul manages to return to Rome afterwards to hold elections for his successors, and to reach some defensive successes against Hannibal’s troops.460 C. Flaminius, on the other hand, takes centre stage in Livy’s account of the battle of Lake Trasimene. Thus, no one fought there more valiantly than the consul himself, who, moreover, rushed across the battlefield to support his troops, who were at a loss. It is certainly true that Livy wanted this account to be interpreted as an example of “discipline and self-sacrifice”.461 After all, the consul had fallen in a duel with a Celtic warrior. The description of the motivation of this Celtic opponent can, in turn, also be seen as an echo of the criticism of Flaminius, despite his death in combat, which in itself was probably judged to be honourable. For it is shown that the consul here ultimately atones for his controversial actions in the first consulship.462 C. Terentius Varro’s performance during the battle of Cannae is at least not explicitly negatively portrayed.463 When he flees the battlefield, he is at least able to lead a few dozen horsemen to nearby Venusia. Livy does not explicitly censure Varro’s flight at this point, as was still the case with Polybius, although the juxtaposition with his colleague Paullus certainly does not show Varro in a particularly favorable light either.464 After the defeat at Cannae, Varro then appears clearly changed in that he completely ceases his agitation against the Senate and strives to limit the damage. Until then, Varro had pursued a policy characterized by Livy as demagogic and directed against the Senate as well as other, established magistrates. We will come to this earlier appearance of Varro in more detail later. By his change of conduct, the consul, after the lost battle, helps to lay a first foundation for the regeneration of the Roman forces. Thus, he succeeds in gathering a considerable number of survivors. On his return to Rome, he is received by the Senate at the city gate.465 On the other hand, he fails to convince envoys of the Campanians to remain on the Roman side.

 Liv. 21,59,1–9.  Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 67 f.; 1977, 304 f.; Burck 1950, 81 f. (citation: 81). The positive description of Flaminius’ last battle is particularly striking when compared to the account of the battle in Polybius, who does not mention any outstanding actions of Flaminius. 462  In his first consulship Flaminius had therefore disregarded the instructions of the Senate and already in the people’s tribunate had enforced a land distribution on formerly Gallic territory. In Liv. 22,6,1–4 the Celtic warrior who kills Flaminius establishes this connection. He is even mentioned by name (Ducarius) and explains his special motivation to kill the consul. Ducarius recognizes in the consul the commander who had once devastated the lands of the Celts and avenges with his death the losses that Flaminius’ troops had inflicted on the Celts and their families some years before. See on this, among others, Beck 2005a, 266 f. (with further references). 463  Having given the order to lead the troops across the river, he is hardly mentioned in the further course of the fighting, and only reappears at the end of the battle. 464  Liv. 22,49,14: consul alter [Varro], seu forte seu consilio nulli fugientium insertus agmini, cum quinquaginta fere equitibus Venusiam perfugit. Cf. however Pol. 3,116,13. On this see among others Johner 1996, 67 f., who interprets this passage as a clear devaluation of Varro by Livy. 465  Liv. 22,61,13–15. 460 461

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In fact, his inept appearance seems rather to encourage the Campanians to seek an alliance with Hannibal.466 The observation that those among the Roman generals who had previously been conspicuous as negligent-careless leaders or demagogues shed these negative qualities in the face of defeat is also confirmed with regard to M. Minucius Rufus. The latter honours Q. Fabius Maximus, who had rushed to his aid with his troops at the last moment, as pater, and also orders his soldiers to honour Fabius’ legionaries in this way. Minucius admits that his previous behaviour was unreasonable and places himself again under the supreme command of Fabius.467 The disagreements between the pairs of Roman generals or between the general and his advisors, which are described in the account of almost all defeats of the first years of the war, lead to another point, which concerns the explanations for the Roman defeats in Livy, but has so far only been mentioned implicitly. Not only is the negligence and recklessness of individual commanders responsible for the defeats, but also other negative factors on the Roman side, especially disunity (discordia), have a destructive effect on effective warfare. This disunity can be regarded as the central theme of Livy’s account of the Roman defeats and failures from Trebia to Cannae, one which increasingly takes centre stage. At the Trebia, this discordia still ‘only’ concerns the two consuls. Scipio and Sempronius have different views on how to proceed against Hannibal.468 Scipio, who is wounded and therefore temporarily unable to fight, intends in principle to confront Hannibal on the battlefield, as does his colleague Sempronius, but the two disagree about the timing. Scipio prefers to wait through the winter to train his – allegedly – inexperienced troops and is also of the opinion that Hannibal would find it difficult to keep his new Celtic allies in line for a prolonged period without a fight. Sempronius, on the other hand, urges a battle as soon as possible, fearing that the potential glory of a victory over Hannibal would fall to the consuls of the following year.469 Livy, in his account of the Battle of the Trebia, suggests that this d­ isagreement  Liv. 23,5,1–15. See esp. 23,5,2: auxit rerum suarum suique contemptum consul nimis detegendo cladem nudandoque. The consul’s subsequent speech also contributes to portraying the Romans as weak in relation to the Campanians (see, for instance, 23,5,7: itaque non iuvetis nos in bello oportet, Campani, sed paene bellum pro nobis suscipiatis). On the passage, see Ridley 2000, 26; Levene 2010, 172 (“This [Varro’s speech to the Campanians] is a masterly and subtle piece of writing by Livy, a speech whose effect is entirely misjudged by its speaker, and which can stand comparison with the finest pieces of self-undermining rhetoric in ancient literature. But there is little apparent connection with the aggressive and cleverly manipulative demagogue of the previous book”). 467  This early insight – Minucius comes to his senses before defeat – sets him apart from Sempronius, Flaminius and Varro in a positive sense. Liv. 22,29,7–30,6. Cf. Levene 2010, 171: “Minucius’ recantation and acknowledgement of Fabius’ authority ultimately show him in a better light than any of the other three”. The focus of the actions in this passage is nevertheless Q. Fabius Maximus, whose virtuous attitude described here drives him to come to the aid of Minucius, despite his previously shown reprehensible behaviour. Cf. Burck 1950, 89. 468  Liv. 21,52,1–2; 21,53,6–7. 469  Explicitly mentioned as a motive of Sempronius in Liv. 21,53,6: stimulabat et tempus propinquum comitiorum, ne in novos consules bellum differretur, et occasio in se unum vertendae glo466

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between the two Roman commanders should be seen as an important precondition for the defeats that followed.470 Ultimately, however, Livy’s controversy concerns the timing of the battle alone. That the Romans should fight a battle against Hannibal in Upper Italy, on the other hand, is basically settled. Apart from an excessive desire for glory, Sempronius does not otherwise seem to have attracted negative attention in his career before. It remains to be noted, then, that Sempronius’ misconduct and his disagreement with the respected Scipio occur relatively close to the battle.471 In the case of C. Flaminius, Livy knows of controversies between him and allegedly the entire rest of the senate, which first ignited over the questions of land distribution on former Gallic territory as well as over the law on senatorial ownership of ships and then flared up again during his consulate.472 Livy then describes the inauguration of Flaminius, which he, against all custom, carried out outside Rome and therein avoided the taking of the auspices. Flaminius had decided to do this as he had feared difficulties in connection with his accession which the senators would cause him on account of his former quarrels with the senate, as was alleged during his first consulate.473 The old discord, then, brings forth new ones; for, as might be expected, the other senators react indignantly.474 The discord is likewise reflected in the differing accounts of Flaminius and his colleague Servilius Geminus. Thus Livy emphasizes that Servilius had conscientiously performed all the political and religious acts due to a consul in Rome before he in turn departed.475 Flaminius, in turn, disregards all negative omens in what follows and in this way also opposes the gods.476 In the army camp, Flaminius angrily rebukes both the messengers of the Senate and his own legates and officers when they try to persuade him to adopt a

riae, dum aeger collega erat. 470  Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 61; Burck 1950, 74; Geist 2009, 51. 471  That Livy did not describe any detrimental information concerning Sempronius Longus’ earlier political career in the lost books of the second decade can admittedly not be proven with certainty. However, it would be rather surprising if this had been the case, since in the case of C. Flaminius and C. Terentius Varro he refers to situations in which they had already attracted negative attention (cf. for Flaminius the information in the following note). 472  Even if Livy abstains from an explicitly negative evaluative comment in his account of Flaminius’ earlier career, the picture offered by it is not favorable. See Liv. 21,63,2–4. For considerations on the historical role of Flaminius in the decade before the Hannibalic War, which may have differed significantly from the picture offered by the sources, cf. Bruckmann 1936, 66; Geist 2009, 65 f.; Levene 2010, 290. 473  Liv. 21,63,5: ob haec ratus auspiciis ementiendis Latinarumque feriarum mora et consularibus aliis impedimentis retenturos se in urbe, simulato itinere privatus clam in provinciam abiit. This assumption of office in provincia is likely to be unhistorical. 474  Liv. 21,63,6: ea res ubi palam facta est, novam insuper iram infestis iam ante patribus movit: non cum senatu modo, sed iam cum dis immortalibus C. Flaminium bellum gerere. Cf. among others Händl-Sagawe 1995, 308; Geist 2009, 65 f. 475  Liv. 21,15,6; 21,63,2; 21,63,5–15; 22,1,4–6. Cf. on the alleged hasty departure of Flaminius also Sil. 4711–721. Pol. 3,75,5–8; 3,77,1–2, which elsewhere by no means spares criticism of Flaminius, does not, however, mention a departure from Rome and a dispute about this incident. 476  Cf. Levene 1993, 38–40.

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more prudent strategy.477 This dissension in the Roman army is compounded by the fact that the common soldiers, unlike the officers, are enthusiastic about Flaminius’ ferocia.478Against all reasonable advice, Flaminius has Hannibal’s army pursued, which leads to the defeat at Lake Trasimene.479 During the dictatorship of Q. Fabius Maximus the disunity on the Roman side develops a new, even more threatening dimension on the occasion of the unusual choice of the team of Fabius Maximus and M. Minucius Rufus – described above. Although Livy does not know of any previous disputes between the two men or between Minucius and the senate, they soon clash in the course of the campaign.480 An increase in the destructive disagreement on the Roman side can now be seen among the people siding with Minucius and despising the dictator Fabius for his strategy. This development is initiated by Minucius himself through a speech to tribunes and equites in the army, in which he refers to the destruction Hannibal’s army had caused. The word of the magister equitum eventually gets through to the common soldiers, who, like their predecessors in Flaminius’ army, are excited by the prospect of a swift attack on the enemy army. Already at this point they would have preferred Minucius to Fabius as their commander.481 The dangerous development does not go unnoticed by Fabius himself, so that the disunity in the Roman army smolders visibly for all concerned, even if it does not erupt until later.482 The consequence of this is then the equation of M. Minucius Rufus with Fabius Maximus, which is actively supported by C.  Terentius Varro  – for the reader, who already knows about the events of the following year, an ominous foreshadowing.483 As mentioned earlier, Minucius only comes to his senses in the face of his own downfall and returns to the command of Fabius.484 It is highly probable that there is indeed a historically credible kernel of truth behind this account of Livy. The dictator’s strategy will certainly have been controversial in 217, and there is basically no

 Liv. 22,3,7–14.  Liv. 22,3,14: incedere inde agmen coepit primoribus, superquam quod dissenserant ab consilio, territis etiam duplici prodigio, milite in volgus laeto ferocia ducis, cum spem magis ipsam quam causam spei intueretur. 479  Liv. 22,4,1–6,12. 480  On the occasion of the election Livy only mentions the names of the two men (Liv. 22,8,5–7). First hint of the quarrel at 22,14,3–15 (cf. the following note). See also 22,18,8–10 (vain warning of Fabius to Minucius). 481  The speech of Minucius at Liv. 22,14,4–14. According to Livy Minucius had delivered this speech as if he had been on a contio. Minucius refers to examples of energetic courage that Romans had offered in other emergency situations. These include the ‘Gallic disaster’ and the defeat at Caudium. See in connection with the theme of increasing discordia on the Roman side esp. Liv. 22,14,15: haec velut contionanti Minucio circumfundebatur tribunorum equitumque Romanorum multitudo, et ad aures quoque militum dicta ferocia evolvebantur; ac si militaris suffragii res esset, haud dubie ferebant Minucium Fabio duci praelaturos. 482  Fabius recognizes the development: Liv. 22,15,1: Fabius pariter in suos haud minus quam in hostes intentus, prius ab illis invictum animum praestat. 483  Liv. 22,25,17–26,7. 484  Liv. 22,28–30. 477 478

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reason to doubt that Minucius Rufus was indeed equal to Fabius in command.485 That Livy’s account is admittedly highly stylized now becomes even clearer when the details of the account of the popular decision that upgraded Rufus’ position are considered. In Livy’s account, first of all, the tribune of the people, M. Metilius, rages against Fabius. He accuses him of deliberately dragging out the war in Italy, so as to retain supreme command of the army for a longer period of time. Metilius finally requests that Fabius and Minucius be put on an equal footing in the supreme command.486 Metilius’ speech is successful, for Fabius, because of his unpopularity, can now no longer go to the contiones, and even in the Senate they no longer like to listen to him.487 In order to settle the dispute between Fabius and Minucius, a vote is held by which the dictator and the magister equitum are to be put on an equal status. The decision is then essentially brought about by the agitations of C.  Terentius Varro.488 Livy introduces Varro on this occasion in a lengthy characterization which shows him in a very unfavorable light.489 Varro comes across as the prototype of a demagogic agitator who, coming from a low and, above all, dishonourable background, had attained office solely through lawsuits that he had conducted “for dirty people and causes” (pro sordidis hominibus causisque) against decent people. Acting against Fabius was a continuation of this method, Livy says, since it was intended to help him rise to the consulship.490 Compared to Sempronius Longus and even to Flaminius, Varro is even worse, since it is emphasized that he came from the lowest and most morally reprehensible social circumstances into the political sphere, in which he represents an outsider who, on top of that, decisively contributes to further dividing the Romans. Thus, when he is elected to the consulship a few chapters later, no other senators support him, but only the people whipped up by him and seditious tribunes of the people. Varro’s supporters attack the entire Roman political elite in their speeches.491 According to Varro’s supporters, true representatives of the plebeians were no longer to be found among those plebeians who had found their way into the nobility. Instead, just like the patricians, they despised the people, on whose backs they protracted the war for the sake of selfish motives. Only

 See only Beck 2005a, 287–290 (with further references).  Liv. 22,25, 1–11. 487  Liv. 22,25,12–13. 488  Liv. 22,25,17–26,7. 489  Liv. 22,25,18–19: Unus inventus est suasor legis C. Terentius Varro, qui priore anno praetor fuerat, loco non humili solum, sed etiam sordido ortus. Patrem lanium fuisse ferunt, ipsum institorem mercis, filioque hoc ipso in servilia eius artis ministeria usum. Cf. Cic. off. 1,150 for the contempt in which the profession of lanius, among other professions regarded as “dirty,” was held by Roman aristocrats (apparently quoting from a well-known verse of Terence). Cf. on the introduction of Varro in Livy Seibert 1993a, 185, note 7; 1993b, 354 f.; Geist 2009, 103. 490  Liv. 22,26,1–4: Is iuvenis, ut primum ex eo genere quaestus pecunia a patre relicta animos ad spem liberalioris fortunae fecit, togaque et forum placuere, proclamando pro sordidis hominibus causisque adversus rem et famam bonorum primum in notitiam populi, deinde ad honores pervenit, quaesturaque et duabus aedilitatibus, plebeia et curuli, postremo et praetura, perfunctus, iam ad consulatus spem cum attolleret animos, haud parum callide auram favoris popularis ex dictatoria invidia petit scitique plebis unus gratiam tulit. 491  Liv. 22,34, 1–35,1. cf. Geist 2009, 78 f. 485 486

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men who did not belong to this elite could provide a remedy.492 As a reaction to Varro’s agitations and his election, the Senate helps L. Aemilius Paullus, morally upright but unpopular with the people, to the consulship, so that he can form a counterweight to Varro, who is more an opponent than a colleague.493 The populus Romanus is thus torn apart, which is also reflected in the fact that Paullus is accompanied on his departure from Rome by all the other senators and other honourable citizens, while Varro is led to the gates by a large crowd, among whom, however, no honourable people could have been found.494 The entire description of Terentius Varro’s career, the election to the consulship for the year 216 as well as the political climate in Rome thus contributes to reinforcing the image of disunity on the Roman side. Even more clearly than in the preceding chapters, the Roman plebs, understood here as the mass of the general population, now emerge as actors. Their actions are disastrous. Incited by individual demagogues, they support Varro, who for his part pursues the sole aim of gaining power for himself.495 His strategic incompetence, expressed as mentioned in his reckless daring among other things, is clearly presented in the following chapters as a major cause of the disaster at Cannae. But it is not only the deficiencies of character of individual commanders, reflected in their strategic and tactical blunders, that are to be regarded as the cause of Rome’s greatest defeat in this war. For beyond that, the account of Varro’s actions in the years 217 and 216 also contains a clear warning of the disastrous consequences to be feared if it is not the senate, but rather the plebs through their favourite magistrates, that makes decisions of far-reaching importance.496 In the description of the campaign itself, Livy then emphasizes in particular the disunity that prevailed in the Roman army. In this respect, too, the account goes a step further in comparison to the reports on the campaigns of the previous years. Thus Fabius Maximus warns the just elected Aemilius Paullus, even before his departure from Rome, about Varro.497 The latter, he says, is an even more dangerous opponent than Hannibal himself, since Paullus must confront him not merely on the battlefield, as he would the foreign opponent, but at any time and in any place. The warning is reinforced by the semantic implications of the phrase, since Varro is here

 See esp. Liv. 22,34,7–11, bes 8: nam plebeios nobiles iam eisdem initiatos esse sacris et contemnere plebem, ex quo contemni patribus desierint, coepisse. 493  Liv. 22,35,3–4: Tum experta nobilitas parum fuisse virium in competitoribus eius, L. Aemilium Paulum, qui cum M. Livio consul fuerat et damnatione collegae sui prope ambustus evaserat, infestum plebei, diu ac multum recusantem ad petitionem compellit. Is proximo comitiali die concedentibus omnibus, qui cum Varrone certaverant, par magis in adversandum quam collega datur consuli. 494  Liv. 22,40,4: Ab hoc sermone profectum Paulum tradunt prosequentibus primoribus patrum: plebeium consulem sua plebes prosecuta, turba conspectior, cum dignitates deessent. Cf. among others Bruckmann 1936, 75; Johner 1996, 80 f. 495  See especially Liv. 22,26, 3–4. Cf. Vallet 1964, 707  f.; Bernard 2000, 139–141; Levene 2010, 170. 496  Cf. also Beck 2006, 217. 497  Liv. 22,39,1–22. 492

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referred to as hostis.498 Moreover, Varro’s behaviour is worse than that of Flaminius. For the consul of the previous year had only gone mad in the army camp, whereas Varro had already been so before his election. As soon as he was with the army, therefore, worse things were to be feared, and the defeat at Lake Trasimene would be surpassed.499 That Fabius’ warnings were to be regarded as justified is already suggested by the fact that in the description of his dictatorship he was presented as a far-sighted and prudent authority.500 Once in the camp, Varro agitates against his colleague almost without interruption, incites the common soldiers in the same way as he did before with the people in Rome, and, as already mentioned, cannot be convinced by Paullus to take a cautious strategic approach against Hannibal. The deeply divided consuls do agree to alternate daily in the supreme command of the double consular army, but this measure brings no improvement.501 On the contrary, the Romans are now even more at odds with each other, a fact that does not go unnoticed by Hannibal.502 In Livy’s report, unlike that found in Polybius, Paullus and Varro no longer disagree only about the choice of the battlefield, but also have fundamentally different ideas about the preferable strategy. Paullus intends to continue the cautious approach of Fabius Maximus, who, as mentioned, acts as his adviser before the campaign begins, while Varro wants to open battle against Hannibal as quickly as possible. In this, according to Livy, he sees the rest of the Senate against him, which, of course, cannot

 Liv. 22,39,4–5: Erras enim, L.  Paule, si tibi minus certaminis cum C.  Terentio quam cum Hannibale futurum censes; nescio, an infestior hic adversarius quam ille hostis maneat; cum illo in acie tantum, cum hoc omnibus locis ac temporibus certaturus es; adversus Hannibalem legionesque eius tuis equitibus ac peditibus pugnandum tibi est, Varro dux tuis militibus te est oppugnaturus. Cf. Levene 2010, 189, note 57: “The suggestion that it is Varro who is the hostis, while Hannibal is merely the adversarius, is especially striking”. Fabius’ warning to Paullus at this point is in a way a step up from Livy’s assessment on the occasion of the election of the two consuls, in which Varro was described more as an opponent (here an adversarius) than as a colleague for Paullus (Liv. 22,35,4). Cf. on the fatal disunity on the Roman side, which Livy clearly portrays before Cannae as the cause of the following defeat, also, among others, Burck 1950, 93 f.; Geist 2009, 79 f. 499  Liv. 22,39,6–8: Ominis etiam tibi causa absit C. Flamini memoria. Tamen ille consul demum et in provincia et ad exercitum coepit furere: hic, priusquam peteret consulatum, deinde in petendo consulatu, nunc quoque consul, priusquam castra videat aut hostem, insanit. Et qui tantas iam nunc procellas proelia atque acies iactando inter togatos ciet, quid inter armatam iuventutem censes facturum et ubi extemplo res verba sequitur? Atqui si, quod facturum se denuntiat, extemplo pugnaverit, aut ego rem militarem, belli hoc genus, hostem hunc ignoro, aut nobilior alius Trasumenno locus nostris cladibus erit. Cf. on the presumably intended effect of the passage on the recipients Bruckmann 1936, 73. 500  Cf. on the speech of Fabius Maximus to L. Aemilius Paullus the detailed analyses in Bruckmann 1936, 73 f.; Rieck 1996, 25–35. 501  Liv. 22,41, 1–3; 22,42, 3–12; 22,44, 5–7; 22,44, 5. Cf. Burck 1950, 95–97. 502  See esp. Liv. 22,41,4–5: Hannibal id damnum haud aegerrime pati; quin potius credere velut inescatam temeritatem ferocioris consulis ac novorum maxime militum esse. Et omnia ei hostium haud secus quam sua nota erant: dissimiles discordesque imperitare, duas prope partes tironum militum in exercitu esse. Cf. Liv. 22,43,1; 22,44,5. 498

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prevent him from proceeding.503 Finally, against the declared will of his colleague, Varro leads the army into battle on the day he holds the supreme command. Paullus follows him out of loyalty, but against his convictions. Thus, according to Livy, the responsibility for the defeat lies with Varro.504 On the whole, Livy’s Varro, compared with his inglorious predecessors Sempronius Longus, Minucius Rufus, and C. Flaminius represents in almost every respect the worst of these commanders. In him we find not only the image of a careless general, but additionally that of a demagogue who incites the people against the senate.505 Moreover, Livy leaves no doubt that discordia on the Roman side had reached an unprecedented peak with Varro’s consulship. As mentioned earlier, however, the view of Varro changes with the onset of the battle of Cannae. Book 22 ends with an account of the surviving consul’s return to Rome, in which Livy explicitly notes that Roman citizens of all ranks (ab omnibus ordinibus) went out to meet the consul, notwithstanding that he had been supremely responsible for the disaster on the battlefield.506 The Roman people, who only a few chapters before seemed to be highly divided and disunited, now, after the greatest defeat in Roman history, face the consul in accentuated unity to greet him on his return to Rome. This aspect, the theme of discordia and concordia in their significance for the victory or defeat of the Romans, will be discussed in more detail below. First, however, we shall consider other explanations offered in the third decade for defeats that occurred after the battle of Cannae. The battle in the Litana forest, in which the army of the praetor and consul-­ designate L. Postumius Albinus was routed by his Celtic opponents and Postumius fell, is explained in Livy primarily by the ambush that the Celts had prepared.507 Moreover, in the account it almost seems as if the defeat had fatefully befallen the Romans.508 There is no mention of strategic or tactical errors on the part of Postumius, or of any detrimental character traits. In his account of the first battle at Herdonea in 212, Livy varies the pattern according to which the explanation of defeat is to be found in the temeritas of the commander. As before the battles at Trebia or Lake Trasimene, Hannibal is informed by subordinates about the flaws of the Roman commander, here the praetor Cn. Fulvius Flaccus. After the latter had

 Livy does not report anything about a request of the Senate to the consuls to attack Hannibal’s army, as it is reported by Polybius. Pol. 3107,7; 3108,2. Cf. in this context among others Johner 1996, 41. 504  Liv. 22,45,5: Itaque postero die Varro, cui sors eius diei imperii erat, nihil consulto collega signum proposuit instructasque copias flumen traduxit, sequente Paulo, quia magis non probare quam non adiuvare consilium poterat. Cf. among others Bruckmann 1936, 82; Burck 1950, 97. 505  Cf. Levene 2010, 171. 506  Liv. 22,61,13–14. 507  Liv. 23,24,6–13. Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 104 f. 508  Liv. 23,24,6: Cum eae res maxime agerentur, nova clades nuntiata aliam super aliam cumulante in eum annum fortuna, L.  Postumium consulem designatum in Gallia ipsum atque exercitum deletos. 503

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proceeded cautiously at first, smaller successes had made him careless.509 In the further course of the description of the events at Herdonea, however, this applies even more to the soldiers of Fulvius Flacchus. After the successful plundering of smaller towns, they no longer practice any moderation and line up for battle without orders from their commander. The formation of the troops is accordingly chaotic, and consequently Hannibal’s army crushes the Romans with the first attack. Livy reports the losses as quite high.510 Finally, both the soldiers and Fulvius himself are attributed temeritas, the latter even stultitia. Unlike his inglorious predecessors Flaminius or Varro, his conduct during the battle is also described as dishonourable. He had fled at the first sign of confusion in his own ranks.511 The account of the second battle of Herdonea in 210 essentially offers another version of the already familiar pattern in rather slight variation.512 The proconsul Cn. Fulvius Centumalus is also too careless, which is why probably already the prospect of an easy success in the form of a (re-)conquest of Herdonea is sufficient to tempt him not even to fortify his army camp.513 As in the cases already mentioned, information about the Roman commander’s weakness of character and the resulting favourable opportunity for his own attack is brought to Hannibal’s attention, so that the Carthaginian commander, to whom superior abilities are attributed, has no trouble leading his troops to another victory at Herdonea.514 Negligent recklessness also earns the two consuls M.  Claudius Marcellus and T.  Quinctius Crispinus death in an ambush two  years later.515 Like other authors  Liv. 25,20,6–7: Cn. Fulvium praetorem Apuli legati nuntiabant primo, dum urbes quasdam Apulorum, quae ad Hannibalem descivissent, oppugnaret, intentius rem egisse: postea nimio successu et ipsum et milites praeda impletos in tantam licentiam socordiamque effusos, ut nulla disciplina militiae esset. Cum saepe alias, tum paucis diebus ante expertus, qualis sub inscio duce exercitus esset, in Apuliam castra movit. 510  Liv. 25,21,1–10. out of 18,000 foot soldiers not more than 2000 had escaped, the praetor had fled with 200 horsemen – a behaviour Livy explicitly disapproves of (cf. the following note). 511  Liv. 25,21,9: Dux stultitia et temeritate Centenio par, animo haudquaquam comparandus, ubi rem inclinatam ac trepidantes suos videt, equo arrepto cum ducentis ferme equitibus effugit. Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 107 f. This strikingly negative description of Fulvius’ behavior in battle could conceal a kernel of truth. After all, he is the only one of the imperatores victi of the Hannibalic War against whom legal actions were conducted in connection with his defeat. See on this, among others, Feig Vishnia 1996, 76 f.; Rich 2012, 104. 512  Liv. 27,1,3–15. 513  Liv. 27,1,4–5: Castra ibi Cn. Fulvius proconsul habebat spe recipiendae Herdoneae, quae post Cannensem cladem ab Romanis defecerat, nec loco satis tuto posita nec praesidiis firmata. Neglegentiam insitam ingenio ducis augebat spes ea, quod labare iis adversus Poenum fidem senserat, postquam Salapia amissa excessisse iis locis in Bruttios Hannibalem auditum est. 514  Liv. 27,1,6: Ea omnia ab Herdoneaper occultos nuntios delata Hannibali simul curam sociae retinendae urbis et spem fecere incautum hostem adgrediendi. Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 104; Ridley 2000, 27; Levene 2010, 305 f.: “Hannibal appears to be at an advantage in any case-even before the Romans are encircled from behind, ‘many’ of them fall in what appears to be a straightforward infantry battle” (306). Compared to Hannibal’s abilities as a general, the Roman proconsul is described as clearly inferior (Liv. 27,1,7: Par audacia Romanus, consilio et viribus impar, copiis raptim eductis conflixit). 515  See esp. Liv. 27,25,14; 27,27,11. 509

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before him – and presumably already the contemporaries of Marcellus – Livy criticizes his last operations.516 Especially in view of his age and experience, Marcellus’ behavior had been incomprehensible. One would not expect such an unwise action from such a commander.517 In addition, Livy brings into play other factors that would have caused the defeat and death of the two consuls. First of all, Marcellus ignores warnings of a haruspex of unfavourable omens that would have already foreshadowed his end.518 In the ensuing battle, the fact that a unit of Etruscans allied with the Romans had taken flight had an unfavourable effect for the Romans. However, this was not decisive for the battle, so that one can see a limited exoneration of the consul in this.519 With regard to the broader context of Livy’s portrayal of Marcellus in the third decade, Levene has shown how the latter’s “arrogant,” since exaggerated, self-­ confidence gradually increases, especially in Book 27.520 Probably since Poseidonius, Marcellus’ deeds in the Second Punic War were closely associated with the idea that he, in the role of a “sword” – reflecting his preference for offensive strategy – along with the “shield” Fabius, who, as seen, acted rather cautiously after the defeats at Lake Trasimene and Cannae respectively, defended Italy from Hannibal’s army.521 This penchant for offensive action now takes on a negative dimension in Livy’s account, in that Marcellus had negligently endangered his life and, Livy comments, the well-being of the res publica.522 For on closer examination, Marcellus had already been presented in a moral twilight by a series of actions in earlier books. This concerns in particular his actions in Sicily in connection with the siege and capture of Syracuse. Although this was undeniably an important Roman success in the Second Punic War, the conquest of the capital of independent Sicily occupied an ambivalent position in Livy’s account of the course of the war, as well as in his  On this, see Kierdorf 1980, 108; Flower 2003, 48–51.  Liv. 27,27,11: Mors Marcelli cum alioqui miserabilis fuit, tum quod nec pro aetate – iam enim maior sexaginta annis erat – neque pro veteris prudentia ducis tam improvide se collegamque et prope totam rem publicam in praeceps dederat. 518  Liv. 27,26, 13–14. cf. Walsh 1961, 63. 519  Liv. 27,27,5–6. Against Rieck 1996, 160–169, who identifies an exoneration of the consul by Livy in the whole account of Marcellus’ last skirmish. But see also Bruckmann 1936, 105. 520  Levene 2010, 197–208, there: ‘But we can see Marcellus’ arrogant confidence against Hannibal growing from the very start of the book, even before the defeats that led to decline in his reputation at Rome [...]’. 521  The picture is, of course, highly simplistic. Thus, Fabius repeatedly ordered his troops to take offensive actions against Italian cities and communities that had passed from the Romans to Hannibal. Only a direct confrontation with Hannibal’s main army he avoided, as apparently no favourable tactical opportunity arose. See on this, among others (with further evidence) Lazenby 1978/1998, 68–73; Beck 2005a, 287 f., 294–300. 522  Liv. 27,27,11. In fact, Hannibal’s strategic situation might not have been decisively improved by this success. This interpretation had already been hinted at in the previous chapters of Book 27, so it does not come as a complete surprise to the reader. Cf. again Levene 2010, 208: “The antithesis is much more marked in Book 27, and increasingly so through the first half of the book, especially because of the increasing focus on Marcellus’ belligerence. Effectively, he is growing into his traditional role – yet whereas for Posidonius that role, when combined with Fabius’ caution, is something that preserves Rome, for Livy it all but brings the country to destruction”. 516 517

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interpretation of the significance of this event for Roman history as a whole. The broader interpretations associated with the capture of Syracuse, however, go far beyond the death of Marcellus and its explanation in Livy’s account, a point to which we shall return later. It should be noted, however, that Livy announces Marcellus’ end a book earlier in a context that suggests that ultimately the impietas of his behavior in the siege and capture of Syracuse brought about his death.523 Thus, in addition to Marcellus’ recklessness, which is the focus of this passage as an obvious cause, there is a second explanation for Marcellus’ death that only comes into focus when the portrayal of Marcellus in the third decade as a whole is taken into account. As the primary reason for the defeat and death of the Scipios in Spain, Livy cites not internal strife or recklessness, but the treachery of the Celtiberian auxiliaries, who had allowed themselves to be poached by Hasdrubal. According to Livy’s commentary on the episode, there are lessons to be learned from this incident for Roman commanders as a whole. Under no circumstances should the proportion of foreign auxiliary troops be so large that their defection could endanger one’s own position.524 Nevertheless, one may recognize an implicit criticism of the two Scipio brothers in this comment, who, carried by the hope of driving Hasdrubal out of Spain, had recruited 20,000 Celtiberians, an action which had now become their undoing. Only by relying on this considerable contingent they had taken up positions from which, after the Celtiberians had left the Roman camps, no safe retreat from Hasdrubal’s troops had been possible.525 Finally, the bravely fighting Romans were defeated by the superiority of the enemy.526 Later, we will come to the question of the extent to which the Romans’ relationship to the gods is also of great relevance for understanding the representation and interpretation of Roman defeats and the Romans’ reactions to these failures in Livy’s third decade. While religious explanatory patterns were clearly utilized in the context of the defeats at the Allia and at Caudium, they appear rather rarely as a direct explanation for defeats in the Second Punic War. Livy makes the clearest use  See Liv. 26,29,9–10: In the discussion about the distribution of the provinces, the Senate decides that Marcellus should leave Sicily and go to Italy. Inhabitants of Sicily, who had previously complained to Rome about Marcellus’ conduct in the sack of Syracuse, would have had an influence on this decision. Thus Marcellus’ success in Sicily indirectly leads to his end (Inter ipsos consules permutatio provinciarum rapiente fato Marcellum ad Hannibalem facta est, ut ex quo primus post adversissimas haud adversae pugnae gloriam ceperat, in eius laudem postremus Romanorum imperatorum prosperis tum maxime bellicis rebus caderet). On this see Carawan 1984, 138 and Levene 1993, 64: “We thus already get here a clear hint that Marcellus’ impiety is leading him, albeit indirectly, to his death”. Cf. Jaeger 1997, 127; Levene 2010, 203, 314. 524  Liv. 25,33,1–9. See esp. 6: Id quidem cavendum semper Romanis ducibus erit exemplaque haec vere pro documentis habenda, ne ita externis credant auxiliis, ut non plus sui roboris suarumque proprie virium in castris habeant. Cf. Burck 1950, 119. 525  Liv. 25,32,2–3 Hasdrubal proves to be superior to the two Roman commanders in this respect, since he had known about the disloyalty of the “barbarians” and therefore had been able to adjust his plans appropriately to the given situation (Liv. 25,33,1–3). 526  In Liv. 25,36,4 Livy explicitly notes that the enemy troops had been reinforced again before the attack on the Roman camp, where Cn. Scipio is killed. Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 106; Burck 1950, 120. 523

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of such explanations in connection with the defeat at Lake Trasimene.527 It has already been pointed out that even the assumption of office by C. Flaminius was problematic due to the fact that he had not obtained the auspices before leaving Rome. Since this was an official act of the consul with high religious significance, his consulship already seems to be burdened from the beginning.528 Flaminius’ actions leading up to the battle of Lake Trasimene are accompanied by a whole series of ominous portents in the further account, all of which are ignored by Flaminius.529 As the above-mentioned fragments from the monograph of L. Coelius Antipater, quoted by Cicero, show, Livy could already find these prodigies reported in his sources.530 On comparison, the first thing that strikes us is that Livy seems to have abridged the account of his presumed source Coelius Antipater.531 In Livy there is no chicken auspicium, and while in Coelius Flaminius apparently fell from his horse in front of a statue of Iuppiter Stator, which thus not only gave this prodigium a deeper meaning as well as a more ominous aura, in Livy’s account the consul falls from his horse immediately before leaving the army camp after giving the order to pursue Hannibal’s army.532 Immediately before his fall, it had been reported to Flaminius that the standards could not be pulled out of the ground. Livy has thus drawn together into one scene passages which seem to have been more widely separated in Coelius. With Levene, one will be able to recognize in this a dramatic intensification of the account.533 Livy also uses this scene to build a narrative bridge back  Cf. on Flaminius’ ignorance of the Roman gods as one explanation of the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene in Livy et  al. Burck 1950, 78–80; Walsh 1961, 58, 68; Schmitt 1991, 105; Levene 1993, 22. 528  Liv. 21,62,1–5; 22,1,8–13. Livy underlines this impression, as already mentioned, by framing the beginning of Flaminius’ consulate by the two longer than average prodigy lists concerning the years 218 and 217. 529  See (with hints to the evidence) Engels 2007, 431–438. 530  See Walsh 1961, 131 and especially Levene 1993, 40–42; 2010, 134 f. 531  Compare the rendering of Coelius’ account by Cicero (1) with the account in Livy (2). (1) FRHist 15  F 14 b = FRH 11  F 20 b (=Cic. div. 1,77–78): Quid? bello Punico secundo nonne C. Flaminiusconsul iterum neglexit signa rerum futurarum magna cum clade rei publicae? Qui exercitu lustrato cum Arretium versus castra movisset et contra Hannibalem legiones duceret, et ipse et equus eius ante signum Iovis Statoris sine causa repente concidit nec eam rem habuit religioni obiecto signo, ut peritis videbatur, ne committeret proelium. Idem cum tripudio auspicaretur, pullarius diem proelii committendi differebat. Tum Flaminiusex eo quaesivit, si ne postea quidem pulli pascerentur, quid faciendum censeret. Cum ille quiescendum respondisset, Flaminius: ‘Praeclara vero auspicia, si esurientibus pullis res geri poterit, saturis nihil geretur!’ itaque signa convelli et se sequi iussit. Quo tempore cum signifer primi hastati signum non posset movere loco nec quicquam proficeretur, plures cum accederent, Flaminius (2) Liv. 22,3,11–13: Haec simul increpans cum ocius signa convelli iuberet et ipse in equum insiluisset, equus repente corruit consulemque lapsum super caput effudit. Territis omnibus, qui circa erant, velut foedo omine incipiendae rei, insuper nuntiatur signum omni vi moliente signifero convelli nequire. Conversus ad nuntium ‘Num litteras quoque’, inquit, ‘ab senatu adfers, quae me rem gerere vetant? Abi, nuntia, effodiant signum, si ad convellendum manus prae metu obtorpuerit’. 532  Cf. Levene 1993, 41 (“The omen in Livy has less of a miraculous cast.”). 533  See Levene 1993, 40–42. The observation that Livy shortened passages from his originals with dramaturgical intent can also be made in numerous other parts of Ab Urbe Condita. Cf. among others Eckstein 2015. 527

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to the first consulate of Flaminius (in the year 223). During his campaign against the Insubrians, he had apparently received a letter from the Senate ordering him to stop his campaign due to reported prodigies. Flaminius and his colleague P. Furius Philus had opened this letter only after the victorious battle at the river Clusius – at least that is the apparently prevailing tradition. Flaminius alludes to this letter in his harsh reply to the report of the prodigium at Arretium.534 His impietas proved in the first consulate thus continues to have an effect. A second connection to this is found in the death scene of Flaminius, who is killed in Livy, not coincidentally, by a Celtic warrior whose name (Ducarius) the historian even mentions, avowedly in revenge for the havoc Flaminius as consul had once wreaked on Celtic territory.535 Since, according to the interpretation of the Senate to which Livy had previously alluded, this campaign had been carried out against the declared will of the gods, Flaminius is thus finally punished for his previously proven impietas, and in the process also leads the army entrusted to him to ruin.536 This series of references to ominous portents, which Flaminius not only ignores but explicitly rejects as null and void, as well as the recounting of the events of his first consulate, leave little doubt that Livy also sees Flaminius’ repeatedly proven impietas as a major cause of the defeat at Lake Trasimene. In this case, then, three explanatory patterns are interwoven: the interpretive pattern of the reckless commander discussed above, the description of  See Plut. Marc. 4,2  f. Cf. Plut. Fab. 2,4; Liv. 21,63,7; 21,63,12. On this see Handel-Sagawe 1995, 398–401; Beck 2005a, 253 f. 535  Liv. 22,6,1–4: Tres ferme horas pugnatum est et ubique atrociter; circa consulem tamen acrior infestiorque pugna est. Eum et robora virorum sequebantur et ipse, quacumque in parte premi ac laborare senserat suos, impigre ferebat opem, insignemque armis et hostes summa vi petebant et tuebantur cives, donec Insuber eques – Ducario nomen erat – facie quoque noscitans consulem, ‘En’ inquit ‘hic est’ popularibus suis, ‘qui legiones nostras cecidit agrosque et urbem est depopulatus; iam ego hanc victimam manibus peremptorum foede civium dabo’. Subditisque calcaribus equo per confertissimam hostium turbam impetum facit obtruncatoque prius armigero, qui se infesto venienti obviam obiecerat, consulem lancea transfixit; spoliare cupientem triarii obiectis scutis arcuere. The death of Flaminius again closes a narrative arc that had begun in his first consulate. Cf. Beck 2005a, 267: “Die livianische Überlieferung schlägt damit einen grandiosen Erzählbogen zurück in den Gallierkrieg, der seinerseits gedanklich aufs engste mit den strittigen Landverteilungen im Volkstribunat verzahnt war. Zum tumultus der Gallier war es angeblich ja nur wegen der Landzuweisung gekommen, die Flaminius in seinem Tribunat eingeleitet hatte. Das Bild des Außenseiters, der die Hauptschuld an allen vermeintlichen und tatsächlichen Krisen der letzten 15 Jahre trug, erhielt dadurch eine in sich geschlossene Dramaturgie”. Since Flaminius is said to have disregarded reports of prodigies already in his first consulate, another dimension appears in Livy’s account here. Finally, Livy’s account of events leading up to the Battle of Lake Trasimene suggests that the defeat resulted particularly from Flaminius’ disregard of a variety of unfavorable omens. Cf. on the Ducarius passage Levene 1993, 39 f. under the aspect of Flaminius’ lack of pietas already in his previous career. Catin 1944, 46 also considers that the fact that Hannibal’s soldiers failed to find and bury Flaminius’ body could be seen as a final punishment for Flaminius’ earlier disrespect of the gods. Cf. Liv. 22,7,5. 536  Cf. Levene 2010, 290: “Flaminius is trapped and defeated through his failure to heed divine signs, but the specific trigger for his death and hence defeat within the battle has its roots in his wrongdoing years earlier. It makes sense morally that he should die in this way; it also makes sense morally that this should in turn trigger the Roman defeat, since the Roman state as a whole has been implicated in his behavior.” See also Johner 1996, 109 f. and cf. Beck 2005a, 266 f. 534

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the increasing disunity on the Roman side, and the disregard for prodigies by a commander distinguished by impietas. As already mentioned, Livy does not associate any other defeat of the Hannibalic war with religious explanatory patterns in such a clear form as in his account of the battle at Lake Trasimene. Ominous omens, meanwhile, are also said to have preceded the death of Ti. Sempronius Gracchus. The proconsul, however, ignored them. Shortly thereafter, he is said to have been ambushed by the treachery of the Lucanian Flavus, whereby he and his companions were killed. The numerous variants collected by Livy on the death of Sempronius indicate a certain notoriety of the event in later tradition, which may have been fostered by the prominence of the Sempronii Grachii family.537 Prior to the battle at Ticinus, Livy also records prodigies, but gives no indication that the consul P.  Cornelius Scipio disregarded the signs. Rather, Scipio had atoned for these signs before he left the army camp.538 With regard to the battle of Cannae, interestingly enough, there are hardly any indications of a religiously inflected pattern of interpretation. Although Livy introduces the account of the Cannae campaign with the note that the consuls lead the army to the place that had been chosen by fate for the Roman defeat, this interpretation finds no support in the further account.539 Rather, Terentius Varro abandons an initial plan of attack when his colleague Paullus has him report a chicken auspice that turned out negatively.540 That there are no reports of unatoned or disregarded prodigies before the greatest defeat of the war may seem surprising. Levene, however, in a comprehensive consideration of the portrayal of religion in Livy’s work, has noted that the latter generally paid little attention to this explanatory model in the run-up to “decisive” battles.541 However, it also plays a central role in Livy’s account with regard to the description and interpretation of the defeats at the Allia and at Caudium. In the case of Cannae, the almost conspicuous absence of religiously connoted interpretations of the defeat may also be related to the fact that this would ultimately have incriminated Varro’s colleague, L.  Aemilius Paullus, who was apparently ascribed an almost unbroken positive role in Roman historical culture.542  Liv. 25,16,1–4. On this see Levene 1993, 53 f. Variants in Livy: Liv. 25,17,1–17,7. For the background and considerations on the variant-rich tradition surrounding the death of Sempronius Gracchus and the whereabouts of his mortal remains cf. the detailed discussion in Kukofka 1990, 60–67. 538  Liv. 21,46,1–3. 539  Liv. 22,43,9. 540  Liv. 22,42,8–10. Cf. Levene 1993, 48. 541  Levene 1993, 48 f., 75: “[T]his is the first example of a phenomenon which we shall often have occasion to notice: that, although Livy often shows the supernatural at work in his narrative, when it comes to the central battles of his history, he prefers to play it down, and to attribute defeat and victory to human factors alone”. 542  In fact, it is Paullus who lets his colleague Varro report about the unfavorable auspices and thus prevents the Romans from being ambushed by Hannibal before Cannae (Liv. 22,42,8–9). In the death scene of Paullus, the military tribune Cn. Lentulus calls Aemilius Paullus the only innocent in the defeat (Liv. 22,49,7). 537

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In addition to the explanations for Livy’s defeats in the Second Punic War discussed so far, it is striking that in several accounts of battles external factors, such as unfavourable weather conditions, are cited as partial explanations for the failure of a Roman army. At the Trebia, for example, the river, swollen by heavy rainfall, had initially hindered the advance of the Roman troops, and in the ensuing battle the legionaries had been soaked and stiff with cold.543 At Lake Trasimene, unusually dense fog hindered visibility to such an extent that it was easier for Hannibal’s ­soldiers to carry out an ambush.544 At Cannae a steady wind blew swirling sand towards the Roman soldiers, which hindered their vision.545 In no case are such unfavourable battle conditions alone presented as the cause of the defeat, but again no doubt is left that they would have contributed to it in each case.546 Overall, then, a number of explanations for the defeats of the Second Punic War can be found in Livy’s third decade, some of which also overlap and complement each other in individual cases. Moreover, the relationship between Rome and the gods plays an important role in Livy’s account of the Roman defeats in the Hannibalic War, which is why it is worth going into this aspect in more detail. In connection with the question of the extent to which the division of the books and the distribution of the material among the books of the third decade are  Liv. 21:54,6–9. See Östenberg 2018, 249, who lists and compares factors such as adverse weather conditions or even terrain unfavorable to Roman troops in other accounts of defeats as well. 544  Liv. 22,4,6–7. The fact that at Lake Trasimene dense fog had hindered the view is already mentioned by Polybius, according to whose account the fog had favored the success of Hannibal’s tactics (Pol. 3,84,1–2). However, Bruckmann 1936, 67 rightly notes that Livy puts more emphasis on the “disadvantage of the Romans and, in contrast, the advantage of the enemies”. Cf. Östenberg 2018, 249 f. 545  Liv. 22,46,9. Polybius does not mention this wind, which was unfavorable for the Romans. Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 83. Schmitt 1991, 234 assumes that the effect of the Volturnus wind is a rather late addition. Östenberg 2018, 250 assumes that it goes back to Livy, who would thus have fleshed out the battle report himself on this point. Lazenby 1978/1998, 77, on the other hand, considers the passage to be historically credible in its core. 546  At the Trebia the Roman soldiers had been led out of the army camp in great haste by their commander Sempronius without having had a chance to have breakfast. In this way they were additionally weakened (Liv. 21,54,8). Hannibal, on the other hand, had taken care that his troops went into battle rested and strengthened, which gave them an additional advantage (Liv. 21,55,1–2). Thus several unfavourable factors, the bad external conditions and the careless as well as hasty action of the consul, appear to be linked. These events are already reported by Polybius (Pol. 3,72,2–4). However, the disadvantages for the Romans resulting from the situation are more strongly elaborated in Livy and are emphasized more clearly, for example by referring to the particular cold, which was aggravated by nearby rivers and swamps (Liv. 21,54,7). Nor is the remark that the Romans left their camp without any protection from the cold found in Polybius (Liv. 21,54,8). As in most other cases, it is unclear whether these are extensions written by Livy himself or from the pen of another author. Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 62, who considers that in this context Livy, as a “Paduaner” could “eigene Kenntnis des oberitalienischen Winters mitsprechen lassen” (ibid., note 54). The resistance of the Roman troops against the respective defeat seems even more remarkable under these circumstances, which is occasionally pointed out, especially so in the context of the description of the battle of Lake Trasimene, where Livy emphasizes that C. Flaminius kept calm and maintained an overview of the situation in the midst of the rampant confusion, which is why he succeeded in forming the Roman soldiers at least partially for the resistance (Liv. 21,5,1). 543

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themselves relevant for the representation and interpretation of the Roman defeats of the Second Punic War, it has already been pointed out above how Livy strategically placed news about the prodigies of the years 218 and 217. This was probably intended to reinforce the impression that the inauguration of C.  Flaminius had already been overshadowed by ominous portents. Livy makes similar rearrangements on other occasions, for example with regard to the battle of Zama, but this no longer plays such a prominent role with regard to the Roman defeats in the further course of the third decade as it did before the battle of Lake Trasimene.547 With the case of C. Flaminius, moreover, it has already become clear to what extent impietas can move to the centre of the account in the third decade as an explanation for victory or, as there, defeat.548 However, aside from its clear significance in connection with the defeat at Lake Trasimene, lack of respect for the divine is rarely cited as a reason for defeat in the further course of Livy’s account of the Hannibalic war. Particularly at the beginning of the war, Roman defeats seem to come not only from Roman mistakes, disunity, and the character flaws of individual commanders, but also from Hannibal’s abilities. At the beginning of the war, it also seems to be Hannibal’s temporary pietas that contributes to his early successes on the campaign and thus to at least one of the Roman defeats.549 This pietas is first clearly revealed in the account of his visit to the ancient temple of Heracles Melquart at Gades, to which Hannibal goes after the capture of Saguntum and before the campaign begins in Italy, apparently to redeem vows previously made and to make new ones.550 Moreover, before the battle at the Ticinus, the Carthaginian commander had sacrificed to Juppiter and “the rest of the gods” to reaffirm a promise made to his soldiers.551 This sacrifice – as shown by the positive reactions of the Carthaginian army and the subsequent victory at the Ticinus – is obviously successful. Thus, it is possible to interpret Hannibal’s success in initiating his campaign as a result of the pietas he shows in these scenes. However, this clearly contradicts the decidedly negative introduction of his character at the beginning of Book 21, in which Livy denies Hannibal any reverence for anything divine.552 Thus, Hannibal shows his pietas only temporarily within the account of Livy, so that it is probably only suitable as a (partial) explanation for his success at the beginning of the campaign. In the account of the reactions shown by the Romans under the authoritative leadership of the dictator elected after the defeat at Lake Trasimene, Q.  Fabius

 Levene 1993, 75.  Especially the comparison with the third book of Polybius’ Histories, which is often made in research, makes this clear. Cf. among others Develin 1978, 5. 549  See Levene 1993, 44 f. 550  Liv. 21,21,9: Hannibal cum recensuisset omnium gentium auxilia, Gades profectus Herculi vota exsolvit novisque se obligat votis, si cetera prospera evenissent. 551  Liv. 21,45,8: Eaque ut rata scirent fore, agnum laeva manu, dextra silicem retinens, si falleret, Iovem ceterosque precatur deos, ita se mactarent, quemadmodum ipse agnum mactasset, et secundum precationem caput pecudis saxo elisit. 552  Liv. 21,4,9. 547 548

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Maximus, show, the religious measures are emphasized.553 Thus, not only are these enumerated in detail, but the procedure of the expiatory measures is also described.554 The oath of ver sacrum is even quoted verbatim.555 All this helps to underline the religious dimension that characterizes the actions instigated by Fabius.556 In this respect, too, the conduct of the dictator’s office thus stands in marked contrast to the disastrous command of Flaminius, the account of which had dominated the first chapters of the book and left no doubt about the consul’s opposition to the Senate.557 In the person of Fabius, Livy now singles out a representative of the Senate after the  Liv. 22,9,7–22,10,10. See on this, among others, Seibert 1993a, 161 f.; Beck 2000, 85 f.; Linke 2000, 277–280; Engels 2007, 438–440. 554  After the Sibylline books had been consulted on the initiative of Fabius, it was announced that again a lectisternium and a supplicatio were to be held (Liv. 22,9,8–11). The Romans also vowed to hold a ver sacrum in the event that the republic emerged unscathed from the coming five years of war. In this ritual the entire yield of a spring (ver), which probably meant the animals and humans born in this spring as well as the plants that had grown, was consecrated to a deity (sacer). In concrete terms, this probably meant above all that the animals in question were sacrificed and the people driven out. There is no evidence that the Romans had ever made this oath before or since, which underlines the exceptional nature of the constellation after the Battle of Lake Trasimene, as well as the exceptional quality of the reactions in Rome to the previous defeats. See North 1976, 6 (“the first and only time that this extraordinary ceremony was performed at Rome”); Beard/North/Price 1998, 80; Clark 2014a, 406. Cf. also Burck 1950, 86. Wissowa 21912, 60  f. admittedly suspects that this “alteinheimische Sühnung”, which had merely fallen into oblivion in Rome, had been brought out again in the given crisis situation. An innovation had consisted in the fact that the Sibylline books, i.e. a non-Roman source, had ordered the ver sacrum. But see also Wissowa 21912, 145, note 7, 410, note 6, where Wissowa notes in each case that the case of the year 217 was “den einzigen aus historischer Zeit bekannten”. 555  Liv. 22,10,2–6: Si res publica populi Romani Quiritium ad quinquennium proximum, sicut velim eam salvam, servata erit hisce duellis, quod duellum populo Romano cum Carthaginiensi est quaeque duella cum Gallis sunt, qui cis Alpes sunt, tum donum duit populus Romanus Quiritium, quod ver attulerit ex suillo, ovillo, caprino, bovillo grege, quaeque profana erunt, Iovi fieri, ex qua die senatus populusque iusserit. Qui faciet, quando volet quaque lege volet, facito; quo modo faxit, probe factum esto. Si id moritur, quod fieri oportebit, profanum esto, neque scelus esto. Si quis rumpet occidetve insciens, ne fraus esto. Si quis clepsit, ne populo scelus esto, neve cui cleptum erit. Si atro die faxit insciens, probe factum esto. Si nocte sive luce, si servus sive liber faxit, probe factum esto. Si antidea senatus populusque iusserit fieri ac faxitur, eo populus solutus liber esto. 556  So also Burck 1950, 84 f., who points out that also through these “unverkennbaren Anklänge[n] an den zeremoniellen Redestil” (ibid., 84) Fabius’ “Gebundenheit […] an die Götter und des Senats an die großen altrömischen Werte der pietas, auctoritas, fides, gravitas und constantia” is established in Livy’s account. Cf. also Rieck 1996, 14 f. 557  Cf. Burck 1950, 84, who underlines the special role that Q. Fabius Maximus plays in Livy’s account for the regeneration of Roman forces: “Fabius [wird] in einen scharfen Gegensatz sowohl zu seinen Vorgängern wie zu seinem Nachfolger gerückt und zum Repräsentanten der staatserhaltenden und siegbringenden Kräfte erhoben. Seine ethischen und militärischen Grundsätze werden als die richtigen erwiesen, und es wird ihnen gegenüber der Leichtfertigkeit, dem persönlichen Geltungstrieb und der Mißachtung der Religion durch Flaminius und Varro eine überzeitliche, vorbildliche Gültigkeit zuerkannt. Fabius erscheint wirklich als die Mitte, als die erhaltende Macht Roms, die allein dem Volke und Staate in der höchsten Not Bestand verleihen kann.” See also Walsh 1961, 106; Johner 1996, 108–110. Modifyingly, it should admittedly be added that C. Terentius Varro does not stand out negatively with regard to the observance of religious omens. In contrast to his predecessor C. Flaminius, Varro finally lets himself be dissuaded from a battle on 553

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downfall of Flaminius, as he does later after the defeat at Cannae. But the impression of action guided by pietas extends also to the other senators in Rome, who had brought about the appointment of the dictator and supported him in his measures. This reinforces the impression that individual dissenters who ignore the advice of the other members of the Senate, which is basically considered a stronghold of religious competence, are ultimately responsible for the defeats. Moreover, the Senate appears as the institution that alone is able to take the appropriate measures after a defeat in order to steer the course of the war back in a direction favorable to the Romans.558 As is well known, the Romans actually succeeded in stabilizing their positions in Italy and in the other theaters of war in the years following the battle of Cannae, only to finally be able to decide the war in their favor by invading Africa. Both the events in the middle phase of the war, in which both the Roman and the Carthaginian sides were able to score successes, and those that took place in its last third are always described in Livy’s account in connection with religious patterns of interpretation. The Romans’ new devotion to the gods, which had previously been presented as an essential reaction to the defeat at Lake Trasimene in particular, but also, to a lesser extent, to that at Cannae, bears its first fruits in the years that follow, while other participants in the war are punished for their sacrilegious deeds. The Roman capture of Syracuse, for example, can be interpreted by Livy as a punishment for the murder of the Syracusan royal family after the death of Hieron II.559 Other examples, now from the second half of the third decade, in which, according to Livy, the gods seem to have turned their favor back to the Romans, are found especially in the passage describing Hannibal’s march on Rome in 211, and in the account of the conquest of New Carthage by P. Cornelius Scipio, the later Africanus, in 210. Thus, at Rome, Hannibal was repulsed not only by the valiant resistance of the Romans, but also by sudden storms which prevented his victory over the defenders of Rome at the Anio. The Carthaginians interpret these as divine signs.560 Scipio, in turn, gives a speech to his soldiers before the storming of New Carthage, in which he explains that the gods have turned their backs on Hannibal, who now longs only to be able to leave Italy unharmed, and are now on the side of the Romans.561 The success at New Carthage, which is described immediately after the speech, proves Scipio’s words to be true.562 In the long struggle that the Romans have to fight

the corresponding day by the report of a negative chicken auspicium by his colleague L. Aemilius Paullus (Liv. 22,42,8–9). 558  Cf. Beck 2006, 209 f. 559  Livy describes the siege of Syracuse in great detail in Liv. 25,23,1–31,15. On this see Levene 1993, 54. 560  Liv. 26,11,2–4. Cf. Levene 1993, 59 f. 561  Liv. 26,41,18–19. 562  See Levene 1993, 61: “[T]he speech before New Carthage continually refers to the ultimate Roman victory in prophetic terms. We might take this as nothing more than Scipio’s attempt to encourage his hearers, if it were not that we know that he is right and that Carthage will be defeated”.

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against their opponents, they have now, in Book 26, succeeded in tipping the scales in their favour again, including with regard to the support of the gods. Livy’s description of how Hannibal, after his retreat from the Anio, has the temple in the grove of Feronia plundered, which is said to have even worried his own soldiers, also fits into this pattern.563 However, in the second half of the third decade, there are still a few Romans who distinguish themselves by impietas. Thus, the behavior of M. Claudius Marcellus in the course of the conquest and sack of Syracuse is presented ambivalently by Livy. On the one hand, the capture of the city is considered a great military success, through which Marcellus confirms his reputation as an outstanding general. On the other hand, Livy criticizes the extent of the looting, in the course of which images of the gods were also carried off to Rome as spoils.564 Marcellus’ star indeed begins to decline after his victory over Syracuse, which can be underlined by a series of passages, which end with the account of his death near the middle of book 27.565 By contrast, Q. Fabius Maximus, in accordance with his image in Livy, conducts himself in an exemplary manner by leaving the Tarentines their statues of the gods after the capture of Tarentum.566 The death of Marcellus is just one example of how Livy also presents the events he describes in the third decade against the background of religious patterns of interpretation. As seen, these patterns for explaining and

 Liv. 26,11,8–9.  Liv. 25,40,2–3. In the tradition, which can be attested since the time around the middle of the second century, Marcellus, for instance in Polybius, is criticized for his decision to loot the statues of the gods from Syracuse (Pol. 9,10). Such criticism may already have been voiced by the Cato the elder. See in any case Liv. 34,4,1–5. Cf. Levene 1993, 56 f.; 2010, 209. See also Walbank 1967, 134–136 for further sources and cf. furthermore Rieck 1996, 137 f. 565  See the following passages: Liv. 26,29–32, esp. 26,30,9. Syracusan envoys complain to Rome about the plundering of the images of the gods from their city by the troops under the command of Marcellus. In response to these complaints Marcellus had exchanged his provincia with his coconsul M. Valerius Laevinus and had returned in this way from Sicily to Italy. In this context Livy already refers to the end of Marcellus in the battle against Hannibal (Liv. 26,29,9–10: Inter ipsos consules permutatio provinciarum rapiente fato Marcellum ad Hannibalem facta est, ut ex quo primus post adversissimas haud adversae pugnae gloriam ceperat, in eius laudem postremus Romanorum imperatorum prosperis tum maxime bellicis rebus caderet.). Moreover, in connection with the intended consecration or decoration of the temples to Honos and Virtus at the Porta Capena by Marcellus, it is mentioned that he had already vowed a temple to these two deities years ago in the war against the Gauls in Upper Italy before the battle of Clastidium. The fact that this building had not yet been erected was admittedly not entirely Marcellus’ fault, since apparently some pontifices had had religious objections to the dedication of a temple to two deities (Liv. 27,25,7–9). Finally, Marcellus discounts the haruspices’ warnings of unfavorable auspices and sets out to attack Hannibal’s army (27,26,13–14). Cf. on these passages Levene 1993, 63–65; Rieck 1996, 142–150. Differently, Walsh 1961, 101 f., who sees Livy’s portrayal of Marcellus as unbrokenly positive even after the conquest and sack of Syracuse (“Livy constantly seeks to mitigate his savagery in Sicily”, ibid., 101). 566  Livy explicitly points out the contrast to the behavior of Marcellus in Syracuse (Liv. 27,16,7–8). In fact, also Q. Fabius Maximus had captured works of art brought to Rome from Tarentum, such as a statue of Heracles made by Lysippos. According to Plin. nat. 34,40 Fabius had left a statue of Juppiter, also from the workshop of this artist, in Tarentum, because it was too large to be transported to Rome. Cf. on the portrayal of Fabius by Livy at this point, among others Rieck 1996, 59. 563 564

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i­nterpreting Roman defeats as well as for coping with them play an important role in Livy’s text. In the process, the Romans are also led by their defeats to turn more strongly to the gods again. Nevertheless, pietas is just one key to overcoming the crisis. In Livy, defeats and how they are overcome are also presented against the background of other patterns of interpretation that are closely linked to Roman virtues, which will now be discussed in more detail. For in the third decade the thematic field of unity and disunity, concordia and discordia, plays an important role. It has already been shown that, according to Livy’s account, in the first years of the war there was a steadily increasing disunity on the Roman side. While the two consuls at the Trebia still disagreed only on the question of the best time for the offensive against Hannibal’s army, the discord before the battle of Cannae was no longer limited to the college of consuls nor solely to tactical questions, but had gripped the entire populus Romanus. Therefore, the discord gradually extended to a wider circle of persons while at the same time the controversies themselves became more intensive. Both in the city and in the army, individual tribunes of the people or even one of the consuls railed against their colleagues in office, the Senate and the nobility, accusing them of pursuing a policy that was fundamentally not oriented towards the interests and welfare of the res publica, but solely towards their own personal goals.567 The image of disunity is particularly pointed and striking in the scene of the departure of the two consuls of 216, L. Aemilius Paullus and C. Terentius Varro. Instead of the citizens escorting their representatives to the gates together during the threatening situation in which the res publica finds itself, each consul has been joined by a procession of followers.568 Thus it does not appear that two Roman generals are leaving the city to fight against a common enemy, but rather that they are facing a struggle in which they have to fight against each other in the field.569 The profectio of the consuls finds a kind of counterpart at the end of Book 22 in the passage describing Varro’s return to Rome.570 Of course, there is nothing to prevent us from assuming that Varro was indeed greeted by his fellow citizens in demonstrative unity on his return to Rome. But even if this scene may have had a real historical background and Livy may already have found models for its elaboration in his sources, it probably also illustrates Livy’s own accents in his adaptation. After an enumeration of the allies who, under the impression of the defeat at Cannae, had gone over from Rome to the Carthaginians, Livy describes the entry of the consul:

 See, among others, Liv. 22,38,6–7; 22,41,3; 22,42,3; 22,44,5–7.  See the juxtaposition at Liv. 22,40,4: Ab hoc sermone profectum Paulum tradunt prosequentibus primoribus patrum: plebeium consulem sua plebes prosecuta, turba conspectior, cum dignitates deessent. 569  To support this impression, Varro, as already noted, is called hostis a few paragraphs earlier. Liv. 22,39,4. Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 73; Levene 2010, 189 with note 57. 570  Liv. 22,61,14–15. Probably a similar scene had already been found in the work of L. Coelius Antipater (cf. above Sect. 5.2.2). 567 568

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Nec tamen eae clades defectionesque sociorum moverunt, ut pacis usquam mentio apud Romanos fieret neque ante consulis Romam adventum nec postquam is rediit renovavitque memoriam acceptae cladis; quo in tempore ipso adeo magno animo civitas fuit, ut consuli ex tanta clade, cuius ipse causa maxima fuisset, redeunti et obviam itum frequenter ab omnibus ordinibus sit et gratiae actae, quod de re publica non desperasset; qui si Carthaginiensium ductor fuisset, nihil recusandum supplicii foret.571

Among other aspects, a demonstration of unity can be seen in this passage, which, as stated already, is particularly striking when one compares the account of the consul’s return with that of his departure before the battle. The populus Romanus now faces its commander united and welcomes the man, who had previously been presented as near to an enemy of the Roman side, in order to welcome him back into the community as well.572 This message goes beyond a mere “resocialization” of the consul, which has often been associated with this scene.573 The passage rather fits into a series of passages in which now, after the heavy defeats of the first years of the war, the unity of the Romans is emphasized, whereas in Livy’s account  – as seen – lack of unity was previously recognized as an essential factor in bringing about these defeats.574 The first of these passages is found in the immediate aftermath of the battle of Cannae in the account of a group of military tribunes who, after escaping the battlefield, have taken command of the soldiers assembling at the place of Canusium in the absence of consuls and legates.575 The supreme command of the troops has been assumed by the young tribunes Ap. Claudius Pulcher and P. Cornelius Scipio. The latter, after rescuing his father at the Ticinus, makes his second appearance here in the third decade.576 From another young nobleman they receive news that a group of young men around M. Caecilius Metellus intend to leave Italy, thinking the Roman cause lost after the disaster of Cannae.577 Instead of holding a council of war, as contemplated by the other tribunes, the young Scipio now takes the initiative and rushes armed to the potential deserters. At swordpoint, he asks them to swear – as he did – neither to abandon the res publica himself nor to allow any other Roman citizen to do so. He had previously justified this measure to those present by describing those who were thinking of fleeing as enemies of the Romans.578 However,  Liv. 22,61,13–15.  Cf. Jaeger 1997, 97. 573  See only Geist 2009, 78 (“Die Schuld des Varro und seine Resozialisierung bei Livius”), among others. 574  Cf. Burck 1950, 102. 575  Liv. 22,53,1–13. 576  Liv. 22,53,3: omnium consensu ad P. Scipionem admodum adulescentem et ad Ap. Claudium summa imperii delata est. 577  Liv. 22,53,4–5. 578  Liv. 22,53,7–8: irent secum extemplo armati, qui rem publicam vellent; nulla verius, quam ubi ea cogitentur, hostium castra esse. The oath of Scipio, which the other tribunes then swear after him, at Liv. 22,53,10–12: “Ex mei animi sententia,” inquit, “ut ego rem publicam populi Romani non deseram neque alium civem Romanum deserere patiar; si sciens fallo, tum me, Iuppiter optime maxime, domum, familiam remque meam pessimo leto adficias. In haec verba, L. Caecili, iures 571 572

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Scipio does not need to intervene again because the later Africanus, whose ‘fateful’ significance for the later victory Livy does not fail to point out in this context, is able to prevent the flight of the other tribunes – and thus a renewed division among the Romans – by his appearance.579 In addition to the description of Varro’s return quoted above, the idea that after Cannae the Romans found their way out of their crisis through a new internal unity becomes clearer in a passage that refers to an event of the year 215.580 There Livy first reports a letter from the Scipios in Spain to the Senate, in which they report on the strained logistical situation there. Without supplies from Rome, the provincia could no longer be held. The Senate then instructs the praetor Q. Fulvius Flaccus to ask the publicani for a loan. In order to obtain this, he was to assure them that as soon as the aerarium was filled again, they would be the first creditors to have their money repaid. Moreover, they were then to convey the much-needed supplies to Spain.581 Indeed, shortly thereafter, 19 publicani, who had been organized into three societates, come forward to take on the job. However, they impose conditions that go beyond those that the praetor had offered them. On the one hand, they demand to be exempted from military service, and on the other hand, all risks arising, for example, from enemy attacks or storms at sea, should lie with the state. Apparently the praetor has no other options, so the deal is closed.582 The fact that the publicani take advantage of their favourable position is not commented on by Livy with a single syllable. Instead, he praises them with similar phrases he used a book earlier to characterize the citizens who had met Varro on his return to Rome. Livy concludes the chapter on the extortion of the res publica by the publicani by stating that “such morals and love for the fatherland” had existed as a uniform attitude in all classes of society.583 What specific historical events lie behind the tradition on this postulo, ceterique, qui adestis. Qui non iuraverit, in se hunc gladium strictum esse sciat”. On what sources Livy based the account of this episode remains unclear. See Zimmermann 1997, 472–474 for a concise overview. 579  Cf. Liv. 22,53,6 (fatalis dux huiusce belli). The passage is obviously a component of the legendary tradition around the elder Africanus, whose pietas “gegenüber seiner Heimat in scheinbar auswegloser Situation” is positively emphasized (Zimmermann 1997, 480). See already, among others, Walsh 1961, 96. Zimmermann 1997, 480  f. considers that the episode about the young Scipio’s oath was also meant to protect him against the accusation that he had fled the battlefield at Cannae. Against this background, Zimmermann 1997 considers an emergence of the episode in connection with political disputes between the elder Africanus’ adopted grandson, P.  Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, and his domestic opponents to be conceivable (ibid., 481). In this case, this would be a revealing indication of the way in which the memory of a participation in the battle of Cannae could still be used as a means in domestic political disputes two generations after the end of the war. Due to the unclear source situation regarding the tradition in the second century, this consideration must admittedly remain speculative. 580  Liv. 23,48,4–49,4. 581  Liv. 23,48,4–12. 582  Liv. 23,49,1–2. 583  Liv. 23,49,3–4: Ii mores eaque caritas patriae per omnes ordines velut tenore uno pertinebat. Quemadmodum conducta omnia magno animo sunt, sic summa fide praebita, nec quicquam , si ex opulento aerario, ut quondam, alerentur.

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episode remains unclear. However, a stylization of the tradition so as to reflect the political, social, and economic conditions of the late republic is not unlikely.584 In any case – regardless of whether the episode is a tradition of fundamentally historically authentic events or an invention of later times – Livy presents the passage in a way that interprets and thus idealizes the behavior of the publicani as characterized by concordia and fides vis-à-vis the res publica.585 In addition to the passages mentioned above, in which (supposed) unity and solidarity among the Romans are emphasized, it is also noticeable that in the context of defeats after Cannae there is no longer any talk of discord and strife. For none of these defeats is attributed in Livy’s account to disunity among the generals involved and/or between the Senate and the rest of the populus Romanus. The two consuls of the year 208, M.  Claudius Marcellus and T.  Quinctius Crispinus, whom Livy accuses of irresponsible recklessness (especially Marcellus), act inappropriately but in harmony.586 The complex of themes of disunity and unity in Livy’s account in the third decade can be interpreted in various ways, especially in the context of the Roman defeats of the war. The recognition that it is likely to be fundamentally disadvantageous for any army if its leaders disagree about, or even fall out over, tactical and strategic issues probably requires no deeper insight.587 On the whole, however, it seems rather unlikely that, from a historical perspective, the primary cause of the Roman defeats of the Hannibalic War can be found in such disagreement.588 This does not mean, however, that internal disunity as an explanatory pattern for defeats in the Hannibalic War could not have been brought into play quite early on. As already seen, some verses of Ennius have been interpreted as part of a controversy between Roman commanders. Due to the very fragmentary tradition of Ennius’ Annales, which in the aforementioned cases offer only vague clues as to the respective context of the content, caution is nevertheless certainly advisable with regard to further interpretations. Polybius, on the other hand, demonstrably mentions the disagreement between the generals Sempronius and Scipio as well as that between Varro and Paullus over tactical questions and seems to have seen a dangerous demagogue in Flaminius.

 The tradition is mostly considered to be basically historically authentic. Lippold 1963, 99 f.; Lazenby 1978/1998, 98 f.; Seibert 1993a, 229; Badian 1997, 9–14. Lippold 1963, 99 rightly points out that the idea of an ordo equester for the time of the Second Punic War is anachronistic. Erdkamp 1998, 114–117 considers the whole episode to be an invention from later sources, from which Livy then drew. Vervaet/Ñaco del Hoyo 2007, 42 also assume that Livy’s account is anachronistic in the sense that it was about organized societates of publicani – there is no evidence for such societates in the late third century  – but they point to the possibility that some privati could have been involved in the organization of Roman supplies for Spain. 585  Cf. Lippold 1963, 99 f.; Lazenby 1978/1998, 98 f.; Ridley 2000, 38. 586  Liv. 27,26,10–11. 587  See also Pol. 3,110,3 and cf. Walbank 1957, 442 (“a typical, didactic triviality”). 588  On Hannibal’s triumphal march in the early years of the war, see, among others, Lazenby 1978/1998, 49–86; Seibert 1993a, 75–225; Fronda 2010 34–37. 584

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However, this topic is much more restrained in Polybius than in Livy.589 This is probably not merely due to the fact that Livy’s description of the respective campaigns and battles is much more extensive. As seen above, the motif of a lack of concordia as a cause for Roman defeats already played a central role in Livy’s account of the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’ as well as the defeat at Caudium.590 The importance of the complex of unity and disunity in Livy’s interpretation of the Second Punic War has been linked in research to the historical background of the period in which Ab urbe condita was written.591 Although Livy himself explicitly makes no such connections, the idea does indeed suggest itself. Internal political conflicts, which in Livy’s generation as well as in the decades before had more than once led to proscriptions and civil wars, will certainly have led him to appreciate the value of concordia.592 In this, of course, Livy was by no means alone. For Cicero, who is certainly also influenced by the impression of the conditions of his own present as well as the history of the republic since the Gracchi, the concordia ordinum represented an essential prerequisite for the continued existence and well-being of the res publica. Already in the second century, in connection with conflicts between different groups of the populus Romanus, the special importance of concordia for the republic seems to have been emphasized by different actors, possibly for instance P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus.593 Moreover, the influence of the political conditions of the late Republic on Livy’s account of the crises of the Hannibalic war is indicated by the numerous echoes of domestic political disputes, such as seditious tribunes of the people and consuls using ‘popular methods’ to push through their selfish aims in speeches before the contiones.594 At the same time, the notion that higher moral standards generally applied in the past of the Punic Wars, which has often been dubbed the ‘classical republic’ even in modern scholarship, was famously widespread in the thought world of the late republic.595 This outstanding virtue of the maiores is also emphasized in Livy’s text in the account of defeats as well as Roman reactions to them. As already mentioned, the consul Flaminius, for example, who had previously been attributed a high degree of responsibility for his defeat, is presented in the account of the Battle of Lake Trasimene as virtually a model of

 See above Sect. 5.2.1.2 (Ennius). As mentioned above in Sect. ion 2.2, an in-depth and detailed study of the representation and interpretation of Roman defeats in Polybius will follow in a separate article. 590  See Sects. 3.1.5 and 4.3 above. 591  For example, Ridley 2000, 30, 38. Cf. Dahlheim 2006, 60 f.; 66–72; Galinsky 1996, 280–287. 592  Cf. Ridley 2000, 30: “Rome’s survival had been attributed by Polybius to the nature of the state; for Livy as well as Pictor, it was the refound political unity, Livy’s much loved concordia again [...]. In this the influence of the civil wars is to be detected”. 593  On the history and significance of the concordia idea in Roman (domestic) politics, especially since the middle of the second century, see Burckhardt 1988, 70–85. For the position that concordia occupied in Cicero’s political thought, see, among others, Strasburger 1931. 594  This is especially clear in the picture Livy draws of Varro’s character as he introduces him into the account. See Liv. 22,25,18–26,4. 595  See only Beck 2005b, 690; Flower 2011, 19–21; Biesinger 2016. 589

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leadership and personal commitment in battle.596 However, the emphasis on martial virtus, even or especially in the hopeless situation of the ambush at Lake Trasimene, is not limited to the description of the consul’s behaviour, but also concerns the way in which the fight of the ordinary legionaries is described.597 Already in his account of the battle of the Trebia, Livy had emphasized the energetic and courageous efforts of the legionaries fighting in the centre, who, unlike the Gauls allied with them, had not retreated even before the onslaught of the Carthaginian war elephants. The flight of the Gauls causes the Romans great distress. The Roman soldiers, on the other hand, had been able to break their way through the enemy ranks by great effort. They left the battlefield simply because the unfavourable weather conditions prevented them from seeing where it would have been possible to provide meaningful support for their companions.598 In this respect, the account of the battles at Lake Trasimene and at Cannae takes on a different quality, since here the Romans, even when they are on the losing end, do not think of surrendering or fleeing, but continue to fight.599 In the account of the controversy over the treatment of the soldiers who had become prisoners at Cannae, this behavior is explicitly praised.600 Even though Livy does not fail to emphasize the commitment of the legionaries, the consul L. Aemilius Paullus, to whom Livy has dedicated a long death scene,

 Liv. 22,6,1–2: Tres ferme horas pugnatum est et ubique atrociter; circa consulem tamen acrior infestiorque pugna est. Eum et robora virorum sequebantur et ipse, quacumque in parte premi ac laborare senserat suos, impigre ferebat opem, insignemque armis et hostes summa vi petebant et tuebantur cives, donec Insuber eques Ducario nomen erat – facie quoque noscitans consulem. See on this, among others, Ridley 2000, 24; Levene 2010, 171, note 18. This image is again not without shadow, since the scene immediately following this quotation, in which the Celt Ducarius kills Flaminius, again recalls the latter’s first consulship, with which a lore apparently less favourable to Flaminius was associated. 597  In Liv. 22,4,7 the Romans take up the fight, which, as already Heinz Bruckmann (Bruckmann 1936, 67 f.; 1977, 303) has pointed out, is a contrast to the account of Polybius, where most of the Romans cannot take up the fight at all and therefore die almost without resistance (Pol. 3,84). In Liv. 22,5,5–8 even those Romans who had thought of fleeing form up for battle – albeit with the understanding that under the circumstances escape is not possible – and fight the Carthaginians. The action of Flaminius serves as a model (Liv. 22,5,1–2). Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 68; 1977, 303–305; Johner 1996, 170 f.; Levene 2010, 268 f. 598  See first Liv. 21,55,10–56,1. Hannibal then withdraws the elephants from the legionaries and sends them against the Gauls, who then flee in terror and in this way initiate the defeat, thus assigning them a (partial) blame for it. Cf. Walsh 1973, 226. Then the Romans fight their way free and leave the battlefield (Liv. 21,56,2–3). 599  Liv. 22,49,4–5: Equitum pedestre proelium, quale iam haud dubia hostium victoria, fuit, cum victi mori in vestigio mallent quam fugere, victores morantibus victoriam irati trucidarent, quos pellere non poterant. Livy also emphasizes the sacrifice of the Roman soldiers by describing the battlefield Hannibal walks with his officers the day after the battle. There the Carthaginians find, among other things, the corpses of a Numidian and a Roman who, having lost his weapons, had mauled his opponent with his teeth (Liv. 22,51,9). Cf. generally Bruckmann 1936, 101: “Bei einem Überblick über die gesamte Erzählung stellen wir noch einmal fest, daß Livius an keiner Stelle einen Vorwurf gegen die Soldaten erhebt oder von einer Schande der Niederlage spricht. Vielmehr führt er zahlreiche Fakten an, als deren unausbleibliche Folge er die Niederlage darstellt, so daß die römischen Soldaten keine Schuld trifft.” 600  Liv. 22,60,14. 596

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takes centre stage in the account of the battle of Cannae before all other actors.601 First Livy reports on the wounding of Paullus, who despite this – now on foot – continued to fight, even if this no longer had any chance of success.602 As the consul holds out leaning against a rock, covered in blood, a military tribune “riding by” named Cn. Lentulus catches sight of him and urges Paullus to take his horse in order to leave the battlefield. If the catastrophe for Rome could not be averted, at least the consul, who alone was not to blame for the disaster, should not fall in battle.603 As expected, Paullus refuses. Instead, he gives Lentulus the order to inform the senate. The dying consul gives last advice concerning the further conduct of the war. In addition, he justifies his decision to die with his soldiers by saying that he does not want to get into the situation of having to accuse his colleague in office in order to prove his own innocence of the defeat.604 This last point can again be linked to the idea mentioned earlier that in the face of defeats at the hands of the external enemy, internal unity was now a high, perhaps the highest, good. After all, according to Paullus’ words in Livy, the consul foregoes saving his own life in order to spare his colleague, about whose guilt in the defeat Livy leaves no doubt. By dying in battle, a fate which he now shares with his soldiers, he also sets an example of personal bravery in battle (virtus) and devotion to duty towards the Roman citizens under his command as well as the allies. In the sentence before, he had revealed that even in the face of his own death concern for the res publica was the most important thing to him, and he still had final instructions and advice to convey to his peers. The description of Paullus’ virtuous and therefore exemplary attitude, which he demonstrates “at the lowest point of the Roman cause”, becomes the starting point for further episodes in which other Romans, faced with Rome’s deep crisis, also give examples of deeds marked by virtus and constantia.605 These include the already mentioned passages about Scipio’s oath in the assembly of military tribunes at Canusium as well as Varro’s reception by his fellow

 Liv. 22,49,1–13. Cf. on the speech of Aemilius Paullus and the account of his death in Livy Bruckmann 1936, 86 f.; Burck 1950, 98; Johner 1996, 196 f. 602  Liv. 22,49,1–2: Parte altera pugnae Paulus, quamquam primo statim proelio funda graviter ictus fuerat, tamen et occurrit saepe cum confertis Hannibali et aliquot locis proelium restituit, protegentibus eum equitibus Romanis, omissis postremo equis, quia consulem et ad regendum equum vires deficiebant. 603  Liv. 22,49,6–8: Cn. Lentulus tribunus militum cum praetervehens equo sedentem in saxo cruore oppletum consulem vidisset, ‘L. Aemili’ inquit, ‘quem unum insontem culpae cladis hodiernae dei respicere debent, cape hunc equum, dum et tibi virium aliquid superest et comes ego te tollere possum ac protegere. Ne funestam hanc pugnam morte consulis feceris; etiam sine hoc lacrimarum satis luctusque est’. 604  Liv. 22,49,9–11: Ad ea consul: ‘Tu quidem, Cn. Corneli, macte virtute esto; sed cave, frustra miserando exiguum tempus e manibus hostium evadendi absumas. Abi, nuntia publice patribus, urbem Romanam muniant ac, priusquam victor hostis adveniat, praesidiis firment; privatim Q. Fabio L. Aemilium praeceptorum eius memorem et vixisse adhuc et mori. Me in hac strage militum meorum patere exspirare, ne aut reus iterum e consulatu sim aut accusator collegae exsistam, ut alieno crimine innocentiam meam protegam’. 605  Cf. Gärtner 1975, 17 f. (quote). 601

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citizens upon his return to Rome.606 Livy introduces the latter episode with the enumeration of socii who had fallen away from Rome, in order to emphasize that the Romans, especially in such a time of need, not only would not have thought of a peace treaty with the Carthaginians, but also would have taken a particularly upright attitude.607 Already, Livy had emphasized that no other people but the Romans would have borne with such composure such great losses as those which the Romans had suffered at Cannae. The Carthaginians, in particular, did not show such poise after their defeat in the First Punic War.608 Here Livy takes up an idea that had already been formulated a few chapters earlier by Hieron II of Syracuse, a loyal ally of Rome, and which recurs elsewhere: the idea that the virtus and constantia of the Romans are shown especially in defeat. The greatness of the Roman people was even more admirable in misfortune than in fortune.609 Indeed, both after Cannae and after later defeats in the war, the Romans in Livy’s text now behave according to the attitude attributed to them by these foreign protagonists. After the defeats at Trebia and Lake Trasimene, Livy still described in detail how uncertainty about the losses had paralyzed the population of Rome (the account of reactions to defeats always focuses on Rome itself) and how panic had spread when more accurate news had arrived. Especially after the battle of Lake Trasimene, Livy describes the reactions of the people of Rome in rich detail in sometimes dramatic individual scenes.610 Only when the senators, among them especially – after his election as dictator – Q. Fabius Maximus, take the reins of action, do the Romans show themselves to be in a position to take adequate m ­ easures,  See respectively Liv. 22,53,1–13 (military tribunes in Canusium); 22,61,13–15 (Varro’s return to Rome). Cf. Bruckmann 1936, 92. 607  Liv. 22,61,13: Nec tamen eae clades defectionesque sociorum moverunt, ut pacis usquam mentio apud Romanos fieret neque ante consulis Romam adventum nec postquam is rediit renovavitque memoriam acceptae cladis. 608  Liv. 22,54,10–11: Nulla profecto alia gens tanta mole cladis non obruta esset. Compares cladem ad Aegates insulas Carthaginiensium proelio navali acceptam, qua fracti Sicilia ac Sardinia cessere, inde vectigales ac stipendiarios fieri se passi sunt, aut pugnam adversam in Africa, cui postea hic ipse Hannibal succubuit; nulla ex parte comparandae sunt, nisi quod minore animo latae sunt. See on this already Bruckmann 1936, 93 f. 609  Liv. 22,37,3: itaque, quamquam probe sciat [Hieron] magnitudinem populi Romani admirabiliorem prope adversis rebus quam secundis esse [...]. Cf. on this, among others, Levene 2010, 326 with note 22. According to Pol. 3,75,7 the Romans address a request for help to Hieron II, in which they ask for troops to support them. In Livy, the ruler of Syracuse offers support on his own initiative. Cf. Walsh 1961, 144. As seen above, after Livy also the Samnite Herennius Pontius, who there occupies the position of a wise, though disregarded, counsellor, had expressed a very similar thought with regard to the Roman defeat at Caudium. Liv. 9,3,5–13. See on this above Sect. 4.3. Cf. also the warning of Hannibal’s Carthaginian adversary Hanno, who warns the Carthaginian “senate” still during the siege of Saguntum, with reference to the first war, of the intransigent attitude of the Romans (Liv. 21,9,7). 610  After the battle of Trebia: Liv. 21,57,1 (Romam tantus terror ex hac clade perlatus est, ut iam ad urbem Romanam crederent infestis signis hostem venturum, nec quicquam spei aut auxilii esse, quo portis moenibusque vim arcerent). After the battle of Lake Trasimene: Liv. 22,7,6–13 (6: Romae ad primum nuntium cladis eius cum ingenti terrore ac tumultu concursus in forum populi est factus.) Dramatic account of relatives, especially mothers, of soldiers, holding out at the city gate, hoping for the return of survivors, in paragraphs 11–13. Walsh 1961, 170 f. For a concise compilation of similar scenes. 606

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which here particularly concern the religious sphere.611 The description of the reactions in Rome after Cannae shows some similarities to this, but, on the other hand, it is significantly different in some points. First of all, Livy reports that even after Cannae terror and excitement prevailed in the city. This mood had been intensified by uncertainty, for instance by rumours of the defection of almost all allies in Italy.612 Nevertheless, the reaction of the Roman people to the terrible news, which they received with composure, was outstanding.613Mary Jaeger, in a close analysis of this passage, has shown how Livy’s account of events supports the impression that, despite the scale of the defeat, the actions of the Romans after Cannae were much less determined by fear than by a desire to restore order and take up planned responses.614 In this, the senators, among them, as mentioned, especially Q. Fabius Maximus, take centre stage by issuing instructions to gather information, guard the city, deploy and distribute troops, and limit the period of mourning.615

 See, on the one hand, Bruckmann 1936, 69 („Der Senat ist bei Livius in seiner unermüdlichen Tätigkeit gleichsam als Gegenpol zu der aufgeregten Menge gesetzt und verkörpert die ruhige Haltung des Staates […]“); Walsh 1961, 152. 612  Liv. 22,54,7–10. 613  Liv. 22,54,10–11. 614  Jaeger 1997, 99–103. Cf. Earlier already Bruckmann 1936, 94 („Diese Charakteristik [der Reaktionen in Rom] ist so sachlich wie möglich, und Livius vermeidet es, Einzelheiten oder rührselige Szenen wiederzugeben. Im Gegenteil führt er betont das beinahe brutale Eingreifen des Staates an […] – ein Zeichen für den Leser, daß jetzt der Senat die Zügel in der Hand hat und alles Persönliche vor dem großen Gedanken an den Staat und die Religion zurücktritt.“); Burck 1950, 100 f. („Wandel der Gesinnung und Haltung,“ 100). See also Walsh 1961, 171 (“Livy may impress us with the native courage and determination adapting themselves to the critical situation”). 615  Liv. 22,55,1–57,1; 22,57,7–12. This impression of order is underlined by a number of details. For example, the content and order of the information about the battle and his measures for gathering troops that the consul communicates to Varro in his letter to the Senate in Rome correspond exactly to the request that the Senate has messengers deliver to Varro at the request of Fabius Maximus. First, it is about the fate of the army and Paullus (Liv. 22,55,4 and 22,56,2, respectively), then about the whereabouts of the troops that survived the battle (Liv. 22,55,5 and 22,56,2, respectively), and finally about Hannibal’s movements (Liv. 22,55,5 and 22,56,3, respectively). See Jaeger 1997, 102. In order to limit the mourning in Rome and to take countermeasures, the Romans proceed according to instructions emanating from the centre, where the Senate and in turn Fabius Maximus stands. Cf. Jaeger 1997, 101 f., there (102): “A diagram of influence would show a series of concentric circles, with Fabius at the centre, the Senate in the first ring, the guards at the gates in the next, and the other citizens further out (with the male citizens one ring closer to the centre than their wives and other household members.)”. In a detail mentioned later, the memory of earlier victories shines through in the account of reactions to defeat. Livy, in fact, explicitly records that the weapons with which the convicts recruited by the Senate to Cannae are armed come from the booty once brought to Rome by C. Flaminius in his triumph over the Gauls (Liv. 23,14,2–4). Cf. Jaeger 1997, 103. See further on the central role played by the Senate, with Q. Fabius Maximus at the head, in the management of the crisis triggered by the military defeats at Lake Trasimene and Cannae, according to Livy, see, among others, Beard/North/Price 1998, 80 (“[H]is narrative of prodigies repeatedly emphasizes the place of the Senate at the centre of events and shows it as organizing the city’s response to the reports that come in from all over Italy – controlling religious and political response to such crises.”); Ridley 2000, 29 f. 611

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The senators give the direction for further action against the Carthaginians. Hannibal’s emissary, who is supposed to offer the Romans conditions for peace, is sent back far before he can reach the area of the city.616 The envoy of the Roman prisoners first makes the argument, similar to that found in the speech given by the legate L.  Lentulus to the Romans trapped at Caudium, that the prisoners from Cannae had surrendered in order to be available again as soldiers for the Roman army after being ransomed.617 However, compared to the account of Caudium, more space is given to the episode concerning the discussion of the possible ransom of the Romans taken prisoner at Cannae. Indeed, Livy’s account is the most extensive extant version of the episode of the prisoners from Cannae.618 First, the envoy of the captives makes a speech in which he asks the senators to ransom his companions and him from Hannibal.619 Had they allowed themselves to be killed by Hannibal’s soldiers – this, the speaker suggests, was the alternative to captivity – they would have been of less use to the res publica.620 The speaker then argues, again like the soldiers in Livy’s account of events at Caudium, by referring to examples from Roman history in each of which a ransom had been paid to ransom Romans from a captivity or siege. He refers to the Romans besieged on the Capitol after the Battle of the Allia, as well as to the legionaries who had fallen into captivity with Pyrrhus at Heraclea. Since the suffering at Cannae was even greater than in these earlier defeats, the surrender of the legionaries had not been disproportionate.621 The reference to the maiores, who had bought the withdrawal of the Gauls from Rome with gold, is – again as in the speech of the legate Lentulus at Caudium – at least inaccurate, since in the Livian version of this event Camillus, who had returned to Rome, was able to prevent the handing over of the gold.622 Perhaps Livy, by putting a

 Liv. 22,58,7–9.  Liv. 22,58,2–61,10. As seen, this episode already had a certain prominence in Roman historical culture at least since the middle of the second century (see above Sect. 5.2.2). Cf. Chaplin 2000, 57: ‘The story of the embassy was familiar in antiquity, but Livy alone reports extended speeches for both sides’. On the passage in Livy, see already Bruckmann 1936, 95–99; Burck 1950, 101. 618  Speech of the representative of the prisoners: Liv. 22,59,1–19. 619  Liv. 9,4,7–16. See above Sect. 4.3. 620  Liv. 22,59,3–5. The spokesman for the prisoners also mentions the emergency measures for recruitment that the Senate had decided to take in order to advertise the ransom-it was no more costly for the Senate to ransom the prisoners than to arm slaves (22,59,12). 621  Liv. 22,59,7–8: Maiores quoque acceperamus se a Gallis auro redemisse et patres vestros, asperrimos illos ad condiciones pacis, legatos tamen captivorum redimendorum gratia Tarentum misisse. Atqui et ad Alliam cum Gallis et ad Heracleam cum Pyrrho utraque non tam clade infamis quam pavore et fuga pugna fuit: Cannenses campos acervi Romanorum corporum tegunt, nec supersumus pugnae, nisi in quibus trucidandis et ferrum et vires hostem defecerunt. 622  Liv. 5,48,8–49,2. Moreover, the comparison is also inaccurate in that the Romans on the Capitol were not in captivity, in contrast to the envoys of the prisoners who speak before the Senate in Livy (cf. Kornhardt 1954, 98). The connection of both cases lies rather in the preceding situation in which the legionaries were locked up in their camp by enemies in a hopeless situation (as on the Capitol, as at Caudium). At any rate, the speaker of the prisoners in front of the Senate wants to give this impression. 616 617

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factually questionable comparison into the mouth of the prisoners’ envoy, also intended to make his intentions appear similarly dubious.623 In any case, the reader experiences here another variant of the theme on the appropriate behavior of Roman soldiers in the face of defeat, which is also clearly indicated in Livy’s text itself by the reference to earlier exempla by the two speakers as well as already by the beginning of the speech of the prisoners’ envoy.624 As in other cases, those affected refer to examples from the past to legitimize their behavior, but this remains unsuccessful in the case of the Cannae prisoners. However, the Senate still does not decide how to react to the prisoners’ speech. While the crowd at the Forum is anxious – apparently united in their view that the prisoners should be ransomed – the senators are of different opinions. When a compromise begins to emerge, according to which at least the relatives of the prisoners should be allowed to ransom them with state support, the old senator T. Manlius Torquatus is asked for his opinion.625 The latter, in keeping with his reputation and that of his family, formulates a speech recommending an uncompromising line.626 Especially in view of the fact that other Romans under the leadership of the soldier P.  Sempronius Tuditanus had succeeded in fighting their way through the Carthaginian ranks even from a position similar to that held by the prisoners, a ransom was out of the question. Comparing the account of Sempronius’ actions and the legionaries who followed him in Torquatus’ speech with Livy’s account a few chapters earlier, it is noticeable that Torquatus presents the events in a dramatic and stylistically embellished manner.627 In this way, within a few chapters, the act of Sempronius itself becomes an exemplum of behaviour in the hour of defeat, seen as befitting a Roman soldier, and appropriately deployed in a speech.628 The prisoners, on the other hand, who now ask for their ransom, had not been able to recognize such an exemplum, since they had not even recognized the exempla virtutis of 50,000 fallen citizens and  Cf. Chaplin 2000, 40, note 26; Levene 2010, 118, note 80. On the other hand, it is rather unlikely that in this case there was an oversight on Livy’s part, who had failed to reconcile references to an event in different parts of his work (as Walsh 1961, 146 apparently assumes). The idea may be obvious at first, since with regard to the payment of a ransom to the Gauls as well as its whereabouts – as seen – different versions existed side by side. 624  Liv. 22,59,1: nemo nostrum ignorat nulli unquam civitati viliores fuisse captivos quam nostrae. The speaker then endeavours to show that the current case had such a special quality that the behaviour of the prisoners was justifiable (or at least excusable). Cf. Chaplin 2000, 57 f. 625  Liv. 22,60,1–5. 626  In the cultural memory of the Roman Republic, the Torquati stood for uncompromising adherence to principle and appear as representatives of such an attitude in Roman historiography in various places. See, for example, Liv. 8,7,15–8,1 (on this, see Oakley 1998, 436–439). Cf. on the appearance of Torquatus in the discussion of the prisoners of Cannae Chaplin 2000, 59–62, there (59): “Manlius is particularly qualified to speak on a matter of military discipline because his family instantiates the trait”. 627  See Chaplin 2000, 60–62 for details. 628  Cf. Chaplin 2000, 61 f.: “[H]e [Sempronius] does not become an exemplum until Livy gives Manlius a speech and has him elaborate the significance of Sempronius’ bravery. By turning Sempronius into an exemplum, Livy can show the side of Roman character that allows the Romans to recuperate after Cannae”. 623

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allies around them.629 The inability to recognize and understand exempla thus demonstrated also disqualifies, in the context of the account, the prisoners’ attempts to justify their own behavior by referring to supposedly relevant examples. Moreover, Manlius Torquatus also refers to exempla from Roman history, but chooses different examples than those of the prisoners’ speaker, and, more obviously, ones in which the protagonists preferred fighting to surrendering.630 After all, the soldiers who were captured at Cannae were unreliable comrades-in-arms, since they had already sufficiently demonstrated their lack of bravery in the face of adversity.631 Torquatus’ speech tips the scales for the Senate’s decision. The prisoners are sent back to Hannibal’s army camp without any prospect of a ransom.632 Livy then provides an overview of variants on this episode that were apparently available to him in his sources. Their existence can serve as a further indication of the popularity of this episode in Roman historical culture, in which frequent reference was made to this exemplum.633 In the context of the epilogue of the battle of Cannae, the episode about the prisoners is not only a discussion about the appropriate behavior in the face of defeat. For both in the speech of the prisoners’ envoy and in the wider context, reference is made to the particularly precarious situation in which the Romans find themselves. Due to the enormous losses at Cannae, there was a lack of soldiers, so the prisoners would basically represent a much-needed reinforcement. The unyielding line that is now followed, considerably strengthened by Torquatus’ speech, is, in Livy’s account, a further indication of the Romans’ loyalty to principle, which they had shown precisely in the wake of the greatest defeat in their history and under extremely adverse circumstances. In the passage quoted above, in which Varro’s return to Rome is described, Livy highlights this idea in a prominent place by emphasizing that neither the recent defeat itself nor the defection of numerous allies could have induced the Romans to even think about a peace with the Carthaginians.634

 Liv. 22,60,13–14: Viam non ad gloriam magis quam ad salutem ferentem demonstrat [Sempronius leading the sortie out of the camp]; reduces in patriam ad parentes, ad coniuges ac liberos facit. Ut servemini, deest vobis animus: quid, si moriendum pro patria esset, faceretis? Quinquaginta milia civium sociorumque circa vos eo ipso die caesa iacent. Si tot exempla virtutis non movent, nihil unquam movebit; si tanta clades vilem vitam non fecit, nulla faciet. Cf. Jaeger 1997, 104 f. 630  Liv. 22,60,11. The examples come from the Samnite wars (P. Decius) and the First Punic War (Calpurnius Flamma). 631  Liv. 22,60,20–27. 632  Liv. 22,61,1–4. 633  Liv. 22,61,5–10. Cf. also below Chap. 6. 634  See especially Liv. 22,61,13: Nec tamen eae clades defectionesque sociorum moverunt ut pacis usquam mentio apud Romanos fierit neque ante consulis Romam adventum nec postquam is rediit renovavitque memoriam acceptae cladis. Cf. Jaeger 1997, 96–98, who points out (98) that the phrase rediit renovavitque memoriam indicates that, according to Livy, the Romans had already put defeat behind them at this point in order to continue on their way. In fact, Livy had described in the previous chapters – as seen – how the Romans, led by the Senate, had processed the news of the defeat and initiated countermeasures. See also already Burck 1950, 101 f. 629

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In a way, it even seems as if the Romans could only have regained their former virtuousness through the defeats they suffered. This at least suggests the already mentioned observation that the destructive disunity on the Roman side seems to have been largely banished for the course of the war after Cannae. To be sure, controversies continue to be portrayed. The best known of these is the discussion between Q. Fabius Maximus and P. Cornelius Scipio about the decision to invade Africa, which initiates the end of the war. But these no longer take on the fundamental character they had in the first years of the war and, above all, are no longer interpreted as the cause of military defeats.635 Already in the context of the account of Caudium, it could be observed that the Romans in later chapters and books in Livy’s work drew on lessons they had learned.636 In a similar way, according to Livy, the Romans of the Second Punic War seem to have learned from the defeats of the war. The overcoming of the disunity of the first years of the war can be understood against this background. Accordingly, the Romans as a whole learned to overcome discordia for the good of the community – an insight that Livy certainly hoped would be gained by his contemporaries. On the occasion of the death of the Scipios in Spain, Livy himself points to a central lesson to be learned from this defeat for Roman commanders, namely to rely to a lesser extent on contingents of foreign troops as reinforcements for the legions, since this always was a risk.637 Indeed, in the last great battle of the war in Spain, the proconsul’s son, the young Scipio, seems to have taken to heart the very lessons to which Livy here refers. For when he learns before the battle of the great strength of the opposing army, he recognizes the necessity of recruiting auxiliaries. At the same time, however, he is prudent enough not to give them so much importance for his tactics that they could cause his defeat, as was the case in the last battle of his father and uncle.638 Such direct commentaries, like Livy’s on the occasion of the fall of the Scipios in Spain, are rather rare not only in the third decade, but in Livy’s work as a whole.639 More often, speakers in Livy’s text take the opportunity to explicitly refer to earlier defeats of the war, thus conveying to their respective addressees lessons to be learned from these setbacks. In this context, members of the Senate, especially  The controversy surrounding the invasion into Africa is found at Liv. 28,40–44. This is again due to the fact that this campaign was exceedingly successful. Indeed, “bedarf [es] keiner besonderen Phantasie, um sich vorzustellen, wie das Bild des alten Fabius ausgesehen hätte” and how the discussion between Fabius and Scipio would have been portrayed in Roman historiography had Scipio’s invasion failed. See Beck 2000, 90 (quotation). 636  See Sect. 4.3. 637  Liv. 25,33,6: Id quidem cavendum semper Romanis ducibus erit exemplaque haec vere pro documentis habenda, ne ita externis credant auxiliis, ut non plus sui roboris suarumque proprie virium in castris habeant. 638  Liv. 28,13,1–2: Scipio, cum ad eum fama tanti comparati exercitus perlata esset, neque Romanis legionibus tantae se fore parem multitudini ratus, ut non in speciem saltem opponerentur barbarorum auxilia, neque in iis tamen tantum virium ponendum, ut mutando fidem, quae cladis causa fuisset patri patruoque, magnum momentum facerent. Cf. Levene 2010, 246. 639  Chaplin 2000, 3; Levene 2010, 245. 635

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those who are particularly distinguished by age and/or descent or office, each take a central role in coping with the loss by prescribing a behavior appropriate to the situation. This can be well observed in the reaction to the news of the next defeat that befalls the Romans after Cannae. There Livy describes how the people of Rome had been thrown into such great fear by the news of the defeat of the army of the consul-­ designate, L. Postumius Albinus, in the forest of Litana, that the streets of the city had been deserted and the shops closed for several days. Thereupon the Senate sent the aediles into the city with the order to see to it that the shops were reopened.640 The second consul designate Ti. Sempronius Gracchus was then able to encourage the other senators in a speech by pointing out that the Romans who had survived Cannae should not now lose courage and confidence after a defeat of lesser magnitude.641 In another passage Q.  Fabius Maximus prevents, in the elections for the consulship for the year 214, the election of two candidates supposed to be moderately experienced, by pointing out that against so excellent a commander as Hannibal the supreme command must go only to similarly skilled commanders.642 The memory of the battles at Lake Trasimene and at Cannae offered sad examples, but at the same time also lessons to prevent similar defeats in the future.643 Fabius himself and M. Claudius Marcellus are then elected, which, against this background, is obviously to be understood as an appropriate choice.644 A few years later, after the first battle at Herdonea, the senators already react in an appropriate manner to the news of the defeat of the praetor Cn. Fulvius, even without a call from a high-ranking consular. Two legates are sent to the consuls with the order to gather the scattered remnants of the army in the area of Herdonea, so that they do not surrender to Hannibal’s soldiers out of fear and despair, as had happened at Cannae.645 This order, as well as a second one involving the repatriation of deserters from a second army, had been carried out with great care.646 Apparently, in Livy’s account, the senators wanted to avoid further losses of troops through capture and the

 Liv. 23,25,1–2: Hac nuntiata clade cum per dies multos in tanto pavore fuisset civitas, ut tabernis clausis velut nocturna solitudine per urbem acta senatus aedilibus negotium daret, ut urbem circumirent aperirique tabernas et maestitiae publicae speciem urbi demi iuberent, […]. 641  Liv. 23,2 5,3: tum Ti. Sempronius senatum habuit consolatusque patres est et adhortatus, ne, qui Cannensi ruinae non succubuissent, ad minores calamitates animos summitterent. No detailed reaction of Sempronius’ audience is noted. But the passage as a whole gives the impression that his speech had the desired success. Cf. Chaplin 2000, 63. 642  Liv. 24,8,1–20. Cf. on Fabius’ speech the analysis in Rieck 1996, 41–48. 643  Liv. 24,8,20: Lacus Trasumennus et Cannaetristia ad recordationem exempla, sed ad praecavenda similia utiles documento sunt. 644  This and the fact that the only negative reaction to Fabius’ speech is the protest of Otacilius, who was deprived of his consulship, which he thought was already secure, speak for the success Fabius had with his speech, even if no reactions of other listeners are described. Cf. Chaplin 2000, 63 f. 645  Liv. 25,22,2–3: Legatos ad consules mittunt C. Laetorium M. Metilium, qui nuntiarent, ut reliquias duorum exercituum cum cura colligerent darentque operam, ne per metum ac desperationem hosti se dederent, id quod post Cannensem accidisset cladem, et ut desertores de exercitu volonum conquirerent. Livy did not explicitly note that the Senate sends out the legates, but this can nevertheless be assumed. Cf. Chaplin 2000, 64. 646  Liv. 25,22,4. 640

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c­ onsequences associated with this (possibility of revenue for Hannibal; prospect of further discussion of a possible ransom).647 After the intervention of Fabius Maximus in the elections for the consulship for the year 214, we thus find here another example of how the Romans in Livy draw important lessons from the defeat of Cannae and its consequences, which affect the continuation of the war and ultimately pave the way for victory over Carthage.648 Another important passage in this context is found in a speech by the young P. Cornelius Scipio, which he delivers to the troops after his arrival in Spain.649 The speech shows that the memory of defeats in the text serves not only to avert but also to overcome new crises. Thus, Scipio refers in his speech to Roman defeats of the past – both those of the Hannibalic War and those of earlier conflicts. The occasion for this is the recent defeats in which the father and uncle of the young Scipio had fallen. In view of this heavy setback, the latter now intends to instill confidence in his soldiers for a victory in Spain.650 It is an integral part of Roman history, even the fate of the Roman people, to suffer heavy defeats in all great wars.651 After referring to defeats in earlier wars (Porsenna, Gauls, Samnites) only en passant, Scipio mentions the defeats of the Second Punic War in detail (among others Trebia, Lake Trasimene, Cannae), in order to then emphasize that the virtus of the Roman people alone had ensured that the Romans could have recovered from these setbacks.652 Especially, the soldiers of his father, to whom he turns, had played a great part in this, since, while the Roman armies had still suffered defeat after defeat in Italy, they had been victorious in Spain. Now, he says, the situation is reversed – while the Romans were victorious in Italy and Sicily, the troops in Spain were defeated. Speaking to them, then, he refers to the example of the recent past, to overcome defeat once more, in order finally to gain victory for the Roman side.653 The further course of the war in Spain proves Scipio’s words to be true  – a little later he

 Chaplin 2000, 64.  See Chaplin 2000, 71. 649  Liv. 26,41,3–25. 650  Liv. 26,41,6–8. 651  Scipio here connects the losses his family has suffered with the defeats of the res publica as a whole. He endures the losses and moves forward, just as the Roman people will. Liv. 26,41,9: sed ut familiaris paene orbitas ac solitudo frangit animum, ita publica cum fortuna tum virtus desperare de summa rerum prohibet. Ea fato quodam data nobis sors est, ut magnis omnibus bellis victi vicerimus. 652  Liv. 26,41,10–12: Vetera omitto, Porsennam, Gallos, Samnites: a Punicis bellis incipiam. Quot classes, quot duces, quot exercitus priore bello amissi sunt? Iam quid hoc bello memorem? Omnibus aut ipse adfui cladibus aut, quibus afui, maxime unus omnium eas sensi. Trebia, Trasumennus, Cannae quid aliud sunt quam monumenta occisorum exercituum consulumque Romanorum? Adde defectionem Italiae, Siciliae maioris partis, Sardiniae; adde ultimum terrorem ac pavorem, castra Punica inter Anienem ac moenia Romana posita et visum prope in portis victorem Hannibalem. In hac ruina rerum stetit una integra atque immobilis virtus populi Romani; haec omnia strata humi erexit ac sustulit. 653  Liv. 26,41,13–25. 647 648

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succeeds in leading his listeners to the capture of New Carthage.654 In another speech to the troops in Spain, Scipio also refers to the defeats of the war that had occurred up to that point, or more precisely, to the deaths of Roman commanders in these battles, in order to lend more force to his words. To the soldiers who had instigated a mutiny against his supreme command at Sucro, he points out the hopelessness of their undertaking: if Rome could cope with the loss of all the commanders who had already fallen in that war, it would be of little use to them to kill him. Others would take his place; the Roman people themselves would continue to fight even after the loss of thousands.655 Again, even before Scipio’s arrival in Spain, the knight L. Marcius had given an example of this, rallying the Roman troops after the death of the two commanders and leading them to a victory  – probably exaggerated in its dimensions  – over Hasdrubal’s army.656 Marcius delivers a speech to the other soldiers in which he urges them not to take the memory of the recent defeat as an occasion to remain in mourning, but rather to let themselves be driven by the anger resulting from this memory so as to defeat the opposing troops. The people, Marcius said, who did not perish by the disaster of Cannae, would overcome even this setback. Moreover, the death of the Scipios was not to be equated with the downfall of the Romans as a whole.657 This idea is also emphasized by the young Scipio when he speaks to the soldiers as his father’s successor: the fate of the res publica does not depend on the well-being or downfall of a single family.658 This conviction had meaning for earlier generations as well. Perhaps, however, it was particularly emphasized by Livy against the background of the influence that relatively few individual commanders

 Capture of New Carthage by the Romans at Liv. 26,42–46.  The speech of Scipio in Sucro: Liv. 28,27,1–29,8. See esp. 28,28,11–12: Quid? Si ego morerer, mecum exspiratura res publica, mecum casurum imperium populi Romani erat? Ne istuc Iuppiter Optimus Maximus sirit, urbem auspicato dis auctoribus in aeternum conditam huic fragili et mortali corpori aequalem esse! Flaminio, Paulo, Graccho, Postumio Albino, M. Marcello, T. Quinctio Crispino, Cn. Fulvio, Scipionibus meis, tot tam praeclaris imperatoribus uno bello absumptis superstes est populus Romanus eritque mille aliis nunc ferro nunc morbo morientibus. Meo unius funere elata populi Romani esset res publica? See for an analysis of Scipio’s speech, also against the background of the one Scipio gives in Polybius’ account, Burck 1977, 430–440, esp. 437: „Denn Rom überstehe nach dem Willen der Götter trotz aller Verluste, die auch dieser Krieg der römischen Führungsschicht gebracht habe, alle solche Schicksalsschläge, da es für die Ewigkeit gegründet sei, und sogar jetzt gäbe es Führer genug, die römische Herrschaft in Spanien zu behaupten“. 656  Liv. 25,37,1–39,17. 657  Liv. 25,38,8–10: Vos quoque velim, milites, non lamentis lacrimisque tamquam exstinctos prosequi – vivunt vigentque fama rerum gestarum – sed, quotienscumque occurret memoria illorum, velut si adhortantes signumque dantes videatis eos, ita proelia inire. Nec alia profecto species hesterno die oblata oculis animisque vestris memorabile illud edidit proelium, quo documentum dedistis hostibus non cum Scipionibus exstinctum esse nomen Romanum et, cuius populi vis atque virtus non obruta sit Cannensi clade, ex omni profecto saevitia fortunae emersurum esse. Cf. on the speech of Marcius, among others, Clark 2018, 196 f. (with further references). 658  Liv. 26,41,9: sed ut familiaris paene orbitas ac solitudo frangit animum, ita publica cum fortuna tum virtus desperare de summa rerum prohibet. 654 655

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and politicians now occupied in the first century.659 The attack on the Carthaginians and their Celtiberian allies that the Romans under Marcius subsequently mount is successful. This success represents, on the one hand, another example of the narrative scheme often found in Roman historiography, according to which a defeat is followed by a swift Roman victory, the historical credibility of which, at least with regard to its quantitative dimensions, is subject to justifiable doubt, but on the other hand – and above all – it is a confirmation of Marcius’ words – Rome will overcome this defeat as well.660 In Livy’s third decade, the defeats of the Second Punic War thus provide an opportunity for reflection on the consequences of character flaws, the value of concordia and the dangers of discordia, as well as the path that led the Romans back out of the crisis that had been triggered by the defeats of the war, especially in Italy. The lessons that can be drawn for the Romans in Livy from the defeats of the Second Punic War can be roughly divided into two categories. On the one hand, there are lessons that concern measures that can be directly implemented. Thus, Fabius Maximus recommends the temporary suspension of norms that were valid until then in the elections for the consulship, the Senate takes direct measures after Herdonea to prevent another instance in which so many Romans end up as prisoners of war, as it was the case after Cannae, and the later Africanus is careful to take appropriate measures when recruiting auxiliary troops, so as not to suffer the same fate as his father and uncle. On the other hand, there are lessons which concern the moral attitude that helped the Romans to survive defeats and crises. In these cases, the memory of recent defeats also helps them to cope with new setbacks. Since the experience of defeat is now not (any longer) new to the Romans, they can also overcome further crises or even react calmly to the news of defeat (as, for example, after the battle of Herdonea). Behind this is an idea that is also found elsewhere in Livy and can indeed already be traced in earlier authors, such as Lucilius  – the idea that Rome will ultimately  Cf. also Burck 1977, 439 f.  The attack on the apparently surprised Carthaginians is described in Liv. 25,38,23–39,18. The information on the number of killed opponents apparently differed widely in Livy’s sources, but are consistently set quite high (Liv. 25,39,12–15). Cf. among others Ridley 2000, 15. The shield of Hasdrubal, which Marcius had been able to capture in this battle, is said to have been on display in the temple on the Capitol decades later. As mentioned, the story was apparently already known in the second century (see above Sect. 5.2.2). If the shield of Marcius was indeed to be seen on the Capitol, it probably represented a visible relic from the time of the Hannibalic War, to which the story about the downfall of the Scipios could well have attached itself, since this was the precondition for the appearance and the deed of Marcius in the first place. See Liv. 25,39,17, who calls the shield a monumentum victoriae, which even bore the name of Marcius (monumentumque victoriae eius de Poenis usque ad incensum Capitolium fuisse in templo clipeum, Marcium appellatum, cum imagine Hasdrubalis). Cf. Jaeger 1997, 122 f., who sees the shield with Hasdrubal’s image on the Capitol as a symbol for the Carthaginian commander himself, who only by his death at the Metaurus had escaped the fate of being led in triumph to the Capitol (and being executed there in the carcer). At the same time, the monumentum refers to Marcius’ fallen commander Scipio and indirectly to the necessity of not giving up the fight for the Roman cause even in the face of a heavy defeat, as well as to the way in which this can be achieved. 659 660

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survive all losses and defeats not only essentially unscathed, but rather strengthened.661 In some passages in the third decade this conviction is explicitly expressed, in other passages it is more in the background, but even then it is recognizable.662 The practical lessons that the Romans can draw from Livy’s defeats in war may seem trivial at first glance. However, they relate to the very explanations Livy has previously offered for lost battles and their consequences. The examples of morally upright behavior in the hour of defeat and the instances in which the memory of defeat is supposed to provide incentive for further action prove to be similarly adequate interpretations of the past in the context of the text, since the Romans always act successfully in response. Moreover, as the war progresses, the Romans seem to be able to face defeat more and more effectively. The battle of Cannae in particular is quite clearly staged as an important turning point in the course of the war. Not only do most of the Romans seem to have actually learned from their defeats, it is only through their earlier losses in the war that their actual virtues and strengths are consolidated or even restored.663 At a deeper level, further perspectives emerge. The idea, clearly observable in the third decade, that Rome would ultimately emerge unscathed and strengthened from all setbacks, no matter how severe, is, as seen, not originally Livian, but rather part of a teleological view of history that had apparently been widespread in Rome since at least the late second century. The victories that the Romans had won in the numerous wars of the third and second centuries provided the factual basis for this view.664 Moreover, the shape of the crisis that apparently temporarily gripped the res publica in Livy’s Second Punic War has clear echoes of the political situation of the late Republic. The means by which further setbacks were to be prevented and the consequences of the defeats that had already occurred overcome seem, in turn, to fit well with ideas that were formulated in the late Republic; not least, the moral values that were necessary in overcoming defeats can be found in numerous representations of Augustan culture. In Livy, the defence of the Republic and its reconstruction are also tasks in the time of the Second Punic War in which the Romans have to prove themselves in moral terms.665 However, even the hard-won victories over the Carthaginians already endanger the Romans’ moral firmness again. Livy expresses this thought on the occasion of the description of the conquest of Syracuse under Marcellus.666 As is well known, the idea that such a danger lies in military success does not only appear in Roman tradition in Livy, but was already discussed earlier  See above Sects. 4.3 and 5.2.2. See also below Chap. 6.  Explicitly formulated, for instance, in Liv. 28,28,11–12. See also Liv. 22,54,10–11; 22,61,10–15. 663  Cf. with regard to Cannae Chaplin 2000, 70–72, see there 70: “For the Romans within the text, Cannae is an exemplum of resilience, of the need for on-going leadership, of the necessity of reassembling troops after a loss, and of a disaster they have put behind them”. 664  Cf. in connection with Cannae Beck 2006, 215. See also below Chap. 6. 665  See comprehensive discussion in Levene 2010, 339–354 (with further evidence). 666  Liv. 25,40,2–3. Cf. Liv. 34,4,1–5. From the spoils, which the Romans were able to capture during the plundering of the city and bring to Rome, a harmful effect had emanated, since here the beginning of a decomposition of Roman morals and virtues could be seen. 661 662

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by Sallust in connection with the final victory over Carthage. Against the background of such ideas, the idea that military defeats and setbacks could have an almost salutary effect in overcoming moral deficits is almost obvious. Another aspect of Livy’s third decade, which is of importance with regard to the Roman defeats, has not yet been discussed in detail and shall therefore form the conclusion of the considerations presented here on the representation and interpretation of the Roman defeats of the Second Punic War in Livy. This concerns Livy’s representation of the Carthaginians and especially of their most important commander Hannibal. Right at the beginning of book 21, Livy offers a detailed characterization of Hannibal.667 At least in the surviving parts of Ab urbe condita, no other opponent of the Romans is portrayed so extensively.668 Hannibal thus appears from the beginning of the third decade as the central antagonist of the Roman side. It is very likely that Livy was able to draw on a number of models for this passage; Coelius Antipater perhaps already offered a similar introduction of the Romans’ antagonist.669 Some scholars suggested that Livy had also drawn inspiration for this passage from similar passages in Sallust (in the Catilinarian conspiracy as well as in the Jugurthine War).670 Then, however, Livy points out that Hannibal was by no means an ideal general. His shortcomings of character would have compensated for his positive qualities in a negative way. Accordingly, Hannibal was of inhuman cruelty and a falseness that exceeded what was to be expected from Carthaginians. Therefore he was indifferent to oaths and all other religious obligations. These negative sides of Hannibal are listed by Livy in dense sequence, which is probably intended to emphasize the shadows that fall on the character of the Carthaginian.671

 Liv. 21,4,3–9. On the characterization of Hannibal in this passage, see generally, among others, Vogt 1953, 4–15; Handel-Sagawe 1995, 41–46; Levene 2010, 99–104. 668  In the case of Pyrrhus, it does not seem inconceivable that Livy also introduced him with a relatively detailed characterization. Due to the loss of books 12–14, however, this can no longer be clarified. After all, protagonists in Livy’s account refer at a later point to the king of Epirus, whose name is a symbol for the war that the Romans had to wage in Italy in the years 280 to 275/4. 669  With this assumption, for example, Vogt 1953, 11, who also assumes that Antipater again drew from the work of Silenos. In the absence of sources that could confirm this assumption, however, this must remain speculation. 670  Liv. 21,4,3–8: Nunquam ingenium idem ad res diversissimas, parendum atque imperandum, habilius fuit. Itaque haud facile discerneres, utrum imperatori an exercitui carior esset; neque Hasdrubal alium quemquam praeficere malle, ubi quid fortiter ac strenue agendum esset, neque milites alio duce plus confidere aut audere. Plurimum audaciae ad pericula capessenda, plurimum consilii inter ipsa pericula erat. Nullo labore aut corpus fatigari aut animus vinci poterat. Caloris ac frigoris patientia par; cibi potionisque desiderio naturali, non voluptate modus finitus; vigiliarum somnique nec die nec nocte discriminata tempora; id, quod gerendis rebus superesset, quieti datum; ea neque molli strato neque silentio accersita; multi saepe militari sagulo opertum humi iacentem inter custodias stationesque militum conspexerunt. Vestitus nihil inter aequales excellens: arma atque equi conspiciebantur. Equitum peditumque idem longe primus erat; princeps in proelium ibat, ultimus conserto proelio excedebat. 671  Liv. 21,4,9–10: Has tantas viri virtutes ingentia vitia aequabant, inhumana crudelitas, perfidia plus quam Punica, nihil veri, nihil sancti, nullus deum metus, nullum ius iurandum, nulla religio. 667

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A comparison with the introductory characterizations of Catiline and Jugurtha in Sallust reveals a number of similarities to that of Hannibal in Livy.672 Overall, Hannibal combines characteristics of both ‘models’. The idea that Livy drew some inspiration from Sallust’s models in shaping the characterization of Hannibal is hardly disputed in research.673 This borrowing of the Augustan historiographer from his predecessor, however, has been interpreted differently.674 Levene considers whether, against the background that both historians understood the crisis of the late republic primarily as a moral crisis, a further perspective can be discerned.675 In a certain sense, Hannibal prefigured the antagonists in Sallust, Catiline and Jugurtha, in Livy. Thus Livy had wanted to modify the idea of a moral decline in the course of Roman history that he could find in Sallust. This development had not begun with the destruction of Carthage, as Sallust put it, but was already present in the time of the Hannibalic war. That Livy did not evaluate the time of Hannibal’s war positively without exception has already been shown.676 Levene admits, however, that this interpretation has uncertainties.677 However, it is quite conceivable that Livy, by deliberately alluding to Sallust’s monographs, wanted to hint, for a sufficiently educated audience, to the fact that the problem of Rome’s moral decline had already begun earlier – after all, Livy also refers in his own account to the fact that victory and defeat in the Second Punic War are linked in a context of morally appropriate behaviour before, during and after a battle. Cum hac indole virtutum atque vitiorum triennio sub Hasdrubale imperatore meruit, nulla re, quae agenda videndaque magno futuro duci esset, praetermissa. Cf. Christ 1974, 374; Stocks 2014, 39. 672  Cf.  – also on the following  – Levene 2010, 100–104. Thus Catiline also had an outstanding constitution, which allowed him, like Hannibal, to endure hunger and cold to an unusually high degree and to get by on very little sleep. In his mental qualities, too, he resembles the Carthaginian general described by Livy. According to Sallust Catiline was on the one hand educated and intelligent, on the other hand cunning and greedy (Sall. Catil. 5,1–4). Again in a similar way Iugurtha is described, who according to Sallust had excellent abilities as a soldier as well as a commander, to which also here physical strength and courage belong. Just like Hannibal, he enjoys the admiration of soldiers and generals alike. On the other hand, there are no references to the character flaws, which in Hannibal (and in Catiline) overshadow the qualities (Sall. Iug. 6,1). 673  In addition to these parallels in content, Patrick Walsh, for example, has pointed out that Livy uses a linguistic style in this passage that is similar to that found in Sallust. See Walsh 1973, 127: “For the character-sketch, Livy adopts the pithy Latinity of Sallust. Catiline’s portrait (Cat. 14–16) is the model. The structure is paratactic; notable are the use of historic infinitives [...], the omission of verbs [...], alliterative effects [...], and anaphora”. Agreeing: Clauss 1997, 172; Levene 2010, 101. 674  James Clauss interprets the allusion, among other things, in the sense that Livy wanted to portray Hannibal as a danger to Carthage itself – just as Catiline was a danger to Rome (Clauss 1997, 179 f.). Moreover, it is conceivable that by alluding to the ‘enemy’ Catiline, who was presumably still quite present to Livy’s readers due to the greater temporal proximity (and Cicero’s role in the Catilinarian conspiracy), the threat posed by Hannibal was supposed to appear more tangible. (Clauss 1997, 180: “Such attempts to create the mood and the feelings of a past event are one of the typically Hellenistic features of the Ab Urbe Condita.”). 675  Levene 2010, 103. 676  An example of this is found in his commentary on the conquest of Syracuse. See Liv. 25,40,2. 677  Levene 2010, 103. Thus the topic of the moral decline of the res publica, so intensively discussed by Sallust, is not at all the focus of Livy’s account in the passage characterizing Hannibal.

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If we look at the portrayal of Hannibal over the course of books 21–30, we find that he is not consistently portrayed in such a negative light as might have been expected after the introductory characterization, which ends in a concisely pointed manner on the vitia of Hannibal.678 That the image of Hannibal in Livy is relatively ambivalent becomes apparent precisely in connection with the account of the Roman defeats of the war. Thus, different stratagems of Hannibal certainly form his most conspicuous actions at first in the account of the battles in question. In connection with each of the major battles, at least one stratagem is described which the Carthaginian commander is able to have successfully implemented.679 However, the use of such insidiae is not emphasized as particularly morally reprehensible.680 The rather detailed description of the ambushes, however, undoubtedly serves as a partial explanation for the Roman defeats. As seen above, Livy explains these defeats mainly by the unrestrained and thoughtless actions of some commanders as well as by the increasing disunity on the Roman side. In this context, Livy emphasizes that the temeritas of commanders such as Sempronius and Flaminius did not escape Hannibal, given the outstanding leader he was. This again fits quite well with parts of the characterization of the Carthaginian general that attribute great strategic qualities to him. Various explanations for Rome’s defeats thus appear linked here.681 In the account of the battle of Cannae, Livy in turn evaluates the feigned defection of 500 Numidian horsemen to the Romans, behind which lies the goal of being able to attack them from behind, as fraus punica. This expression can hardly be denied an explicitly negative connotation.682 In any case, the rather detailed descriptions of Hannibal’s war stratagems in each case serve to explain the defeats of the Romans and to exonerate the common soldiers in particular, which is only partly earned for their commanders.683 An episode in which Livy emphasizes the proverbial punica fides, which Hannibal, at least according to the above-mentioned introduction in book 21, is said  Cf. already Walsh 1961, 104: “The traditional portrait of Hannibal, which Livy has retailed in Book XXI in a manner strongly reminiscent of Sallust’s pen-portrait of Catiline, is not wholly reconcilable with Livy’s indirect characterisation”. 679  See respectively: Battle of the Trebia (concealment of Mago’s horsemen at a stream: Liv. 21,53,11–54,5), at Lake Trasimene (ambush on the hills near the lake: Liv. 22,4,1–2) and in the battle against Minucius (concealment of units in unclear terrain: Liv. 22,28,5–8). Before Cannae, Hannibal tries to lure Varro’s troops into an ambush by a feigned retreat, which can be prevented by the prudence of Paullus (Liv. 22,41,6–42,12). 680  Thus, Vogt 1953, 73 points out that the Livian term insidiae for the ambushes that Hannibal’s troops set for their opponents at the Trebia and at Lake Trasimene probably did not necessarily have a negative connotation. The same applies to the ambush in which M. Claudius Marcellus falls in southern Italy in 208 (Liv. 27,26,2–27,10. Cf. Christ 1974, 372  f.). According to this, these actions of Hannibal were still within the bounds of what was morally justifiable for Livy (so Vogt 1953, 73). 681  Cf. Levene 2010, 263. 682  Liv. 22,48,1–4 (there, 1: Iam et sinistro cornu Romanis, ubi sociorum equites adversus Numidas steterant, consertum proelium erat, segne primo et a Punica coeptum fraude). 683  The allegedly underhand character of the opponent’s tactics is again not emphasized on all the occasions mentioned. Cf. Burck 1950, 75 f.; Händl-Sagawe 1995, 45. 678

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to have possessed to a particularly high degree, occurs directly after the description of the battle at Lake Trasimene. A detachment of Flaminius’ army, which had escaped the ambush at Lake Trasimene, is there induced to surrender by Hannibal’s officer Maharbal under a false promise, and is then led into captivity by Hannibal.684 In this passage, then, Hannibal’s conduct is consistent with that of the introductory characterization. On the whole, passages of this kind, in which actions or maneuvers of Hannibal are clearly and directly evaluated as punica fides or fraus, are rather rare.685 Another defect Livy had attributed to Hannibal in his introduction concerned his supposed excessive cruelty. This, however, hardly appears in connection with the Roman defeats. It is true that after the battle of Cannae the consul C. Terentius Varro reported Hannibal’s alleged misdeeds to the envoys from Capua. For example, Hannibal had a bridge built over the river (probably the Aufidus) from the corpses of the killed Romans and had encouraged his soldiers to engage in cannibalism.686 However, it is striking that Livy makes no mention of such atrocities in his account of the battle of Cannae and its aftermath.687 That Livy now puts these two points into the mouth of C. Terentius Varro, of all people, is quite striking. For Varro had been portrayed as untrustworthy in his previous speeches. Varro does not appear as a  Liv. 22,6,8–12 (see there esp. 11–12: Postero die cum super cetera extrema fames etiam instaret, fidem dante Maharbale, qui cum omnibus equestribus copiis nocte consecutus erat, si arma tradidissent, abire cum singulis vestimentis passurum, sese dediderunt; quae Punica religione servata fides ab Hannibale est atque in vincula omnes coniecti). Cf. Burck 1950, 82; Levene 2010, 216, who points out how Livy puts the motif of Punica fides into the mouth of the Carthaginian commander in the parley between Hannibal and Scipio before the battle of Zama (Liv 30,30,27: haud negaverim [...] suspectam esse vobis Punicam fidem). 685  Cf. Vogt 1953, 71 f., 91 f. It should also be noted that according to Liv. 23,19,16 Hannibal let the defenders of Casilinum withdraw according to the agreement he had made with them, thus keeping summa cum fide to the agreement. Apparently Livy knew another variant of tradition, according to which Hannibal had broken his word and had caught up with the garrison on their way back to Praeneste and had them killed. However, Livy explicitly rejects this variant (Liv. 23,19,17–18). Cf. Vogt 1953, 126–129; Walsh 1961, 104. In the introductory enumeration of Hannibal’s vitia, punica fides is closely associated with Hannibal’s supposed lack of respect for all things divine. His impietas, as seen in the previous section, plays an important role in the Livian account and interpretation of the course of the war as a whole and in particular with regard to Roman defeats. 686  Liv. 23,5,12: Hunc natura et moribus immitem ferumque insuper dux ipse efferavit, pontibus ac molibus ex humanorum corporum strue faciendis et, quod proloqui etiam piget, vesci corporibus humanis docendo. One can learn of this action from other testimonies as well. The episode seems to have been a common part of the Hannibal tradition. See for instance Val. Max. 9,2 ext. 2; Sil. 8,668–669; Flor. epit. 1,22,18; App. Hann. 28. Cf. Vogt 1953, 19 f., who assumes that the tradition of the bridge made of corpses of Roman fallen had become “ein fester Bestandteil der Darstellungen des zweiten punischen Krieges”. See, moreover, Levene 2010, 161. The accusation of cannibalism against Hannibal probably existed well before the time of Livy, since Polybius would otherwise hardly have felt compelled to defend the Carthaginian commander against these accusations. Perhaps they date from as early as the time of the war. See Pol. 9,24. Cf. Vogt 1953, 16–18; Seibert 1993a, 68 with note 34; Levene 2010, 161. 687  See on this Vogt 1953, 2. Cf. Levene 2010, 160: “Livy nowhere shows the Carthaginian army either building bridges from corpses or engaging in cannibalism, and this accordingly looks like lurid exaggeration on Varro’s part”. 684

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demagogue after Cannae, but his speech to the Campanians is still unsuccessful. Above all, it fails to have an effect despite, or possibly because of, Varro’s descriptions of Hannibal’s alleged atrocities, for the Campanians subsequently decide to defect to Hannibal. It is therefore quite possible to interpret this as an indication that Livy himself considered these reports to be not very credible and for this very reason let Varro express them.688 Otherwise, too, there are by no means conspicuously many reports of atrocities that Hannibal is said to have committed or ordered in the war in Italy, and which would have exceeded the usual measure of ancient warfare (and would therefore have struck a Roman reader as exceptionally cruel). On several occasions, however, Livy reports actions by the Carthaginian commander that apparently struck him as unusually humane. Thus, after those battles in which a Roman commander had fallen, Hannibal orders his soldiers to recover the enemy’s body and give it an honourable burial. Even if this is not always successful, for example because the body can no longer be identified on the battlefield, this undoubtedly describes an honourable intention of Hannibal.689 In his treatment of Roman prisoners of war, Hannibal, to the best of Livy’s knowledge, had also apparently not been guilty of any shameful deeds worth mentioning. On the contrary, he again appears more humane than in other branches of the tradition.690 In the battle accounts themselves, Hannibal appears to a rather small extent.691 Here, as far as the commanders of the armies involved are concerned, the focus is on Roman consuls or praetors, who – as seen above – are usually depicted as fighting bravely and/or dying gloriously. Hannibal’s qualities as a fighter, which according to Livy he had demonstrated as a cavalry officer under Hasdrubal, are thus hardly thematized.692 In Livy, on the other hand, he demonstrates his abilities primarily as a tactician who lays out his stratagems before battles, which he then has subordinates execute, and is himself only occasionally described as intervening  Cf. Levene 2010, 161: “Livy, however, implicitly rejects those who relayed such atrocity stories, not only by not relaying them himself, but by damningly associating them with Varro’s speech, a speech which for other reasons appears dreadfully misplaced”. For further references to Varro’s misplaced speech to the Campanians see Levene 2010, 172, 359. 689  Hannibal orders his soldiers after the battle at Lake Trasimene to search for the body of C. Flaminius and to give it an honourable burial. The Carthaginians, however, do not succeed in finding it (Liv. 22,7,5). The mortal remains of Paullus were found and buried by Hannibal after Cannae, according to some unnamed sources of Livy (Liv. 22,52,6: Consulem quoque Romanum conquisitum sepultumque quidam auctores sunt). He also had the body of Marcellus buried (Liv. 27,28,1). Cf. Vogt 1953, 129–137. The whereabouts of the mortal remains of Marcellus were apparently disputed in the ancient tradition. However, Hannibal’s intention to honour his dead opponent by burying him or handing over an urn to the Romans is not questioned. Cf. Seibert 1993a, 366 with note 30. 690  After the battle of Cannae he had addressed the captured Romans leniently in order to explain to them that he had no intention of destroying Rome (Liv. 22,58,2–3). Following this, he offers them the possibility to ask for their ransom in Rome, which introduces the section discussed above with the controversy about the treatment of the Cannae prisoners along with the speech of Manlius Torquatus. 691  Cf. Vogt 1953, 148–152, 160 f., 172 f. 692  Cf. Liv. 21,4,8 (Equitum peditumque idem longe primus erat). 688

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directly in battle by commanding units to other positions.693 This may well have to do with the fact that in the context of the Roman defeats and in view of the hardships the Romans have to suffer here, Livy was reluctant “to emphasize and admire the ingenious tactics of the enemy even more”.694 However, especially at the beginning of the war, Hannibal knows to a high degree how to recognize the character flaws of his enemies and to initiate adequate measures against the Roman armies as well as to use advantages and disadvantages of the respective battlefield topography.695 In this way alone, he is considered to have played at least a part in the Roman defeats.696 With regard to opposing commanders, this is in fact uniquely the case with Hannibal to this extent in the preserved part of Ab urbe condita. The commanders of the Gauls and Samnites, but also other Carthaginians, if they are mentioned by name at all, are less in the focus than the Carthaginian commander. However, Livy does not mention Hannibal’s victories over Roman armies as his most outstanding deed, but rather the integration of a multitude of foreign troops into his army, which he held together for years and under adverse circumstances without any mutiny.697 Hannibal may therefore have been “more admirable in misfortune than in fortune”. This assessment by Livy opens up a perhaps surprising parallel to that quality of special resistance that Hieron II of Syracuse ascribes to the Romans in Book 22 – which thus represents no small praise for the enemy commander.698 That the latter could also be recognized by Romans as a ‘great general’ by the end of the first  At the Trebia, Hannibal commands the units of elephants to another position, which is described as an extremely successful move (Liv. 21,56,1–2). Admittedly, it is also unclear to what extent Hannibal as a general actually took part in combat operations. Possibly he kept as far away as possible from direct confrontations with opponents, so that Livy could not find any sources on this topic. 694  Vogt 1953, 173. Moreover, Livy had already developed a completely different explanation for the defeats. 695  See, for example, the account of Hannibal’s deliberations and plans before the Battle at the Trebia (Liv. 21,53,8–11), before the Battle of Lake Trasimene (Liv. 22,3,1–4,3) and before Cannae (Liv. 22,41,4–9). Cf. Burck 1950, 75 and most recently Stocks 2014, 40 f. 696  See also Pausch 2011, 154  f., who notes that by focussing the representation on Hannibal’s thoughts, motives and actions (e.g. in the instructions Hannibal gives his brother Mago before the battle of the Trebia; Liv. 21,54,2–54,3) not only the Roman defeats should be made understandable to the reader, but furthermore “mit dem Perspektivwechsel und dem Spiel mit dem Wissen und Nichtwissen in Bezug auf das weitere Geschehen andererseits auch eine Steigerung der Unterhaltung des Rezipienten” (Pausch 2011, 155) was also intended. 697  See esp. Liv. 28,12,3–5. It is quite remarkable that Hannibal, according to Livy, proves his mastery as a commander just under such conditions that become the doom of the Scipios in Spain. In connection with the death of the two Scipio brothers, Livy notes, as already seen above, that a large number of foreign troops in the army meant a risk for the commander (Liv. 25,33,1–9). 698  Liv. 28,12,1–9. There (2): Ac nescio, an mirabilior adversis quam secundis rebus fuerit, [...]. Cf. Hieron’s earlier assessment at Liv. 22,37,3: itaque, quamquam probe sciat [Hieron] magnitudinem populi Romani admirabiliorem prope adversis rebus quam secundis esse [...]. This parallel is also referred to by Ridley 2000, 32, note 64. On this recognition by Livy of Hannibal’s leadership of his army, see Will 1983b; Levene 2010, 79 and esp. 237–239. Chaplin 2000, 68 notes that it is Hannibal’s ability to hold his culturally very heterogeneous army together without the soldiers ever mutinying that will have been remarkable to Livy. After all, for Livy, the unreliability of allies had 693

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century at the latest was, after all, already been shown by the analysis of Cornelius Nepos’ biography of Hannibal. But despite this recognition, those passages predominate in which Livy emphasizes that the Romans, in comparison to the Carthaginians, had met defeats with greater strength of character and steadfastness, which in the end would also bring them victory in this war. In the account of the aftermath of the Battle of the Metaurus, this also concerns Hannibal. At the end of Book 27, which describes the aftermath of the Carthaginian defeat, which Livy had previously compared in its dimensions to the battle of Cannae, Hannibal’s reactions to the news of his brother’s death and the loss of his army are described. The scene is constructed, as Erich Burck has already seen, in clearly recognizable echo to the account of the reaction of the people of Rome and their reception of the consul Varro, described at the end of Book 22.699 Hannibal, struck by the loss to his state and family alike, recognized Carthage’s fate and ordered a retreat to “the farthest corner of Italy.”700 The contrast to the militant-unbending attitude that Livy has the Romans adopt after Cannae could hardly be greater. Already there he had noted that the Romans bore the losses of the war with greater fortitude than the Carthaginians had done in the first war.701 The difference between the two warring parties is therefore especially evident in the way they deal with their own defeats.

5.2.5.2 Enigmatic References: Evidence from Augustan Poetry When considering representations of the Roman defeats of the Second Punic War in the poetry of the Augustan period, it may at first seem obvious to think of the well-­ known passage from Virgil’s Aeneid in which Dido curses Aeneas for his departure from Carthage, thus placing the beginning of the conflict between Rome and Carthage already before the foundation of the city itself. Moreover, in the famous curse Dido sends after Aeneas at the end of Book 4, the Carthaginian queen explicitly predicts enmity and war between Carthaginians and Romans. In the “avenger” (ultor) whom Dido says will rise again and fight the Troians/Romans, Hannibal is always been assumed to be probable. He had, for example, attributed the defeat of the Scipios in Spain to this (cf. Liv. 25,33,1–9). 699  Burck 1950, 132–135. Cf. Wille 1973, 52; Jaeger 1997, 94–98; Levene 2010, 18. 700  Liv. 27,51,11–13: C. Claudius consul cum in castra redisset, caput Hasdrubalis, quod servatum cum cura attulerat, proici ante hostium stationes captivosque Afros vinctos, ut erant, ostendi, duos etiam ex iis solutos ire ad Hannibalem et expromere, quae acta essent, iussit. Hannibal tanto simul publico familiarique ictus luctu agnoscere se fortunam Carthaginis fertur dixisse; castrisque inde motis, ut omnia auxilia, quae diffusa latius tueri non poterat, in extremum Italiae angulum Bruttios contraheret, et Metapontinos, civitatem universam, excitos sedibus suis, et Lucanorum, qui suae dicionis erant, in Bruttium agrum traduxit. 701  Moreover, as seen, he underlines this assessment in the last sentence of Book 22, in which he implies that Varro would have faced the worst punishments as a Carthaginian general, while the Romans welcome him into the community because of their noble disposition. See Liv. 22,54,10–11: Nulla profecto alia gens tanta mole cladis non obruta esset. Compares cladem ad Aegates insulas Carthaginiensium proelio navali acceptam, qua fracti Sicilia ac Sardinia cessere, inde vectigales ac stipendiarios fieri se passi sunt, aut pugnam adversam in Africa, cui postea hic ipse Hannibal succubuit; nulla ex parte comparandae sunt, nisi quod minore animo latae sunt. Liv. 22,61,15: qui si Carthaginiensium ductor fuisset, nihil recusandum supplicii foret.

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commonly seen.702 The allusion to Hannibal and the attack on Italy he commands is even clearer in the speech Iuppiter gives at the beginning of the tenth book in a council meeting on Olympus. Iuppiter there refers to the coming “just time” (iustum tempus) when the Romans would fight the Carthaginians, and the Carthaginians, coming over the Alps, would threaten Rome.703 The attack across the Alps which Virgil here describes will have been certainly associated with Hannibal’s invasion, at least for all those Romans who had some knowledge of Roman history. Although Hannibal’s name is not mentioned at all in either passage, both refer to his operations in the Second Punic War, which is interpreted as a continuation of the struggle between Carthage and Rome set up in Rome’s prehistory. In this epic struggle, Hannibal’s invasion of Italy thus takes on a central role. Ovid knows to report in the Fasti that the temple for the goddess Mens had been vowed by the Romans after the death of the consul against the deceitful Punic because in Rome there had been great fear of the Punic army. The death of C. Flaminius and the defeat at Lake Trasimene are meant in this context. The vow was redeemed, according to Ovid, on June 8.704 Ovid preserves in a later passage in the same book of the Fasti the day of that battle, which according to this had taken place on 21 June 217. There the downfall of Flaminius is explained by his disregard of the divine omens.705 In Horace’s work there is again another indication of how Hannibal’s name could be used as a proxy for the entire conflict between Rome and Carthage. In Epode 16, the poet is pessimistic about the near future of Rome. The immediate cause for this was probably the war against Sextus Pompeius that was looming in 39. Once again a civil war was coming, and Rome would ruin itself in this way.706 This is followed by a list of external enemies from Rome’s history, which is not purely chronological, but is apparently to be understood as a “heightening of the terrifying”. The climax of this chain of enemies is “Hannibal, cursed by the ancestors.”707 The Carthaginian, whose name here is apparently once again sufficient to call up associations of the greatest military threat and probably also with associated defeats, is here regarded as the most dangerous enemy in Roman history. This one, however, the Romans were able to defeat – admittedly only to destroy  Verg. Aen. 4621–629 (625–626: exoriare, aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor, qui face Dardanios ferroque sequare colonos, nunc, olim, quocumque dabunt se tempore vires.). 703  Verg. Aen. 10,11–14: adveniet iustum pugnae (ne arcessite) tempus,/cum fera Karthago Romanis arcibus olim/exitium magnum atque Alpes immittet apertas. 704  Ovid. Fast. 6,241–248. Cf. among others Littlewood 2006, 77–79. 705  Ovid. Fast. 6,765–767. Cf. Littlewood 2006, 221 (“As vates of Roman religion, Ovid points out that Roman generals ignore or abuse the gods and their ministers at their peril.”). 706  Hor. Epod. 16,1–2: Altera iam teritur bellis civilibus aetas,/Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit. This dating of epode 16 according to Maurach 2001, 18. 707  Hor. Epod. 16,3–10: Quam neque finitimi valuerunt perdere Marsi/Minacis aut Etrusca Porsenae manus,/Aemula nec virtus Capuae nec Spartacus acer/Novisque rebus infidelis Allobrox,/ Nec fera caerulea domuit Germania pube/Parentibusque abominatus Hannibal/Inpia perdemus devoti sanguinis aetas,/Ferisque rursus occupabitur solum. Cf. Maurach 2001, 23 (“Steigerung des Schreckenerregenden”). 702

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their city and commonwealth themselves in Horace’s time, that is if they indeed set out again on the path of civil war.708 In another passage, the name of Hannibal is not explicitly mentioned. For most of Horace’s recipients, however, the reference will have been understandable. In the twelfth ode of the first book of odes, in the context of considering which man or hero to praise, Horace goes through a number of possibilities, one of which is L. Aemilius Paullus, “who laid down his noble life when the Punic was victorious”.709 The mention of Paullus’ name – like that of the other Roman generals mentioned in the text (such as Camillus, Regulus and the younger Cato) – will have been sufficient for the majority of the addressees to make a connection with his death at the battle of Cannae. To what extent this then triggered more detailed associations in the individual remains again uncertain. In order to understand the verses, however, a more detailed knowledge of the history of the Second Punic War was not absolutely necessary and in this case probably did not bring the reader much additional insight. Knowing that L. Aemilius Paullus had once fallen at Cannae in battle against the army of Carthage is already sufficient for understanding the passage  – a basic knowledge that Horace assumed he could take for granted in his readers. In connection with other references to the history of the Hannibalic War, it was again quite possible to develop more far-reaching allusions, which required a deeper knowledge of the history of the Hannibalic War in order to decode. In the fourth ode of the fourth book of odes, Horace praises Augustus’ stepson, Nero Claudius Drusus, for his victory over the Vindelici.710 After a double panegyric comparing Drusus, first to an eagle and then to a lion, an erudite commentary on the armament of defeated enemies, and an emphasis on the value of an excellent education, Horace turns to the honoured man’s ancestors.711 In doing so, the poet comes directly to the consul of 207, C.  Claudius Nero, who, together with his colleague, M.  Livius Salinator, had succeeded in leading the Roman legions to victory over Hasdrubal’s army at the Metaurus.712 Drusus was connected through the family of his natural father Ti. Claudius Nero to the consul of the Second Punic War. The victory of the

 Cf. on the interpretation of Epode 16, among others, Maurach 2001, 18–24; also von Albrecht 1994, 577. 709  Hor. Carm. 1,12,37–40: Regulum et Scauros animaeque magnae/Prodigum Paulum superante Poeno/Gratus insigni referam camena/Fabriciumque. 710  These were located north of the Alps in the area of today’s Upper Bavaria and Upper Swabia. See G. Waldherr, DNP 12/2 (2002), 228, s. v. Vindelici. Horace apparently followed a request by Augustus himself, who had asked him to add a fourth book to the three books of odes already published ten years earlier, in which the poet was to treat the victories of the princeps himself as well as those of his stepsons Tiberius and Drusus. The book seems to have been published i. y. 13. See Suet. Hor. 17–18. Cf. Quinn 1980, XII; Galinsky 1996, 260; Syndicus 2001, 303; Lowrie 2010, 211; Thomas 2011, 5–7. 711  Hor. Carm. 4,4,1–36. For interpretations and explanations of this text, see Thomas 2011, 131–151, whose commentary also serves as support for the following remarks. Cf. also Syndicus 2001, 304 f. with note 7; Lowrie 2010, 226. 712  For source references and an overview of research on the Battle of Metaurus, see Broughton 1951, 294; Seibert 1993a, 388–393. 708

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latter undoubtedly formed an important part of the history of the Claudii Nerones, which may have been particularly prominently highlighted by representatives of the family.713 The search for glorious ancestors of the person to be honoured therefore probably led relatively quickly to C. Claudius Nero and thus also indirectly to the Carthaginians, as whose representatives Horace selects the opposing commanders Hasdrubal and – above all – Hannibal. Roma herself, who is now directly addressed in the ode, owes the important victory over Hasdrubal at the Metaurus to the Nerones, through which the “darkness” was driven out of Latium. That Nero who was victorious at the Metaurus was even the first to have acquired martial fame since Hannibal (the dirus Afer) stormed like fire through a pine forest, or like Eurus, the wind rushing from the east, through the Sicilian sea. The temples, which had been devastated in the tumultus Poenorum, had been rebuilt only after Neros’ victory.714 After Horace has indirectly referred to the defeats and destruction of the previous years of war by referring to the victory at the Metaurus, he then lets the “faithless Hannibal” (perfidus Hannibal) himself reflect on Roman history. In the first verses of his speech, the Carthaginian commander captures the hopelessness of his efforts in a memorable image – the Carthaginians had acted like deer pursuing wolves, whose prey they had now become in turn. In retrospect, therefore, much would have been gained by remaining hidden from the Romans.715 The following passages refer to an idea that has already been encountered elsewhere and must have been part of the standard repertoire of descriptions of Roman defeats in Horace’s time: No matter how hard the Romans are beaten or how severe the defeat, in the end they will emerge even stronger from these setbacks and crush their enemies. Already in Livy it could be observed that members of other peoples, in some cases also enemies of Rome, formulate this thought, which should

 This was certainly also due to the fact that the Claudii Nerones had not produced any further triumphators since the victor of the Metaurus battle. The father of Drusus was apparently the first representative of the family who, since the praetor of the year 195, Ap. Claudius Nero, had ever succeeded in advancing to a higher office. Ti. Claudius Nero rose, perhaps significantly, only in Caesar’s entourage. In 48 he was quaestor, in 47 proquaestor, and in the following 2 years carried out Caesar’s instructions for the veteran settlement in Gaul. In 42, that is, already after Caesar’s death, he attained the praetorship. In the following he fought against Octavian, but was pardoned by him in 39. See Broughton 1952 for the respective years. 714  Hor. Carm. 4,4,37–48: Quid debeas, o Roma, Neronibus,/Testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal/ Devictus et pulcher fugatis/Ille dies Latio tenebris,/Qui primus alma risit adorea,/Dirus per editi Afer ut Italas/Ceu flamma per taedas vel Eurus/Per Siculas equitavit undas./Post hoc secundis usque laboribus/Romana pubes crevit et inpio/Vastata Poenorum editio/Fana deos habuere rectos. Dirus Afer does not necessarily mean Hannibal in particular, as it could also be a collective singular (‘the cruel/terrible African’). Cf. Thomas 2011, 142, who also points out that the phrase Hannibalemque dirum in Hor. Carm. 3,6,36 indicates that the dirus Afer probably means Hannibal himself. After all, the basic message of the passage is likely to be little affected by this question. See Thomas 2011, 142 also for the translation of taeda as pine tree. 715  Hor. Carm. 4,4,49–52: Dixitque tandem perfidus Hannibal/’Cervi, luporum praeda rapacium,/ Sectamur ultro, quos opimus/Fallere et effugere est triumphus’. 713

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probably appear even more impressive here.716 The specific wording in Horace deserves a closer look. First, Hannibal refers to the Trojan origins of the Romans, the gens who had bravely set out from burnt Ilion to bring their sacra, their sons and aged fathers to Italy (more precisely ad Ausonias urbis). Like an oak hewn by an axe, the Roman people draw strength and courage in or through “defeats and slaughter” (per damna, per caedis) “from the iron itself” (ab ipso ferro).717 Three comparisons to Greek mythology follow: Neither had the Hydra raised its body again more strongly in the fight against Hercules-after the latter had cut off a head that grew back directly-nor had the Colchians or Echion’s Thebes produced a greater monster.718 Then Hannibal addresses a listener in direct speech719 Even if he were to sink the Roman people in the depths, they would reappear more beautiful (pulchrior); if he had brought them down, they would rise again in great praise, and would bring down the (hitherto) unharmed victor.720 By the defeat and death of his brother Hasdrubal, all hope for Carthage was lost.721 The recipients of Horace probably grasped this basic idea on first reading, even without a deeper education. Those who had enjoyed a deeper education were also able to access further facets. In the allusion to the destroyed Troy, Hannibal refers not only, as it were, to the first defeat that the Romans had overcome in their long history, but also to the common prehistory of Rome and Carthage with the meeting of Dido and Aeneas, which resulted in the hereditary enmity between the two

 Cf. Syndicus 2001, 309: „[I]n der Hannibalrede ist das tragende Motiv die römische Fähigkeit, aus Niederlagen mit ungebrochener Kraft wieder aufzustehen.“ See also ibid., 311 f. The rather terse reference to the fact that Hannibal resigned after hearing of his brother’s defeat at the Metaurus and uttered that he knew the fate of Carthage (Liv. 27,51,12) may be interpreted as an indication that there had been a more extensive account of these thoughts of Hannibal in the form of a direct speech “in der annalistischen Historiographie […] in der üblichen anekdotenhaften Weise”, to which Horace possibly fell back (quote: Syndikus 2001, 311). 717  Syndikus 2001, 305 recognizes in this comparison an “albeit modified Pindar reminiscence”, in which Horace alluded to Pind. P. 4,263 f. Cf. Reckford 1960, 23. 718  Hor. Carm. 4,4,53–64: Gens, quae cremato fortis ab Ilio/Iactata Tuscis aequoribus sacra/ Natosque maturosque patres/Pertulit Ausonias ad editi,/Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus/Nigrae feraci frondis in Algido,/Per damna, per caedis ab ipso/Ducit opes animumque ferro./Non hydra secto corpore firmior/Vinci dolentem crevit in Herculem,/Monstrumve submisere Colchi/Maius Echioniaeve Thebae. 719  Hor. Carm. 4,4,65–68: Merses profundo, pulcrior evenit;/Luctere, multa proruet integrum/Cum laude victorem geretque/Proelia coniugibus loquenda. 720  Hor. Carm. 4,4,69–72: Carthagini iam non ego nuntios/Mittam superbos: occidit, occidit/Spes omnis et fortuna nostri/Nominis Hasdrubale interempto. On this idea, cf. Reckford 1960, 26. 721  The interpretation of the last stanza of the ode is controversial, since it is disputed whether these lines are still to be attributed to Hannibal’s speech or are to be understood as praise of the poet himself (Hor. Carm. 4,73–76: Nil Claudiae non perficient manus,/Quas et benigno numine Iuppiter/Defendit et curae sagaces/Expediunt per acuta belli.). On the whole, it seems more obvious not to assume a change of speaker, since this is not clearly marked here. Cf. in more detail Quinn 1980, 307; Syndikus 2001, 312 f. In the context of interest here, this question is of rather secondary interest, since the praise of the Romans, which Horace puts into Hannibal’s mouth, is also expressed in detail by the preceding stanzas. 716

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peoples.722 Aeneas is of course alluded to in the mention of the rescue of sacra, sons and aged fathers. For the pictorial representation of the Trojan hero Aeneas leaving Troy, carrying his father Anchises and leading his son Ascanius/Iulus by the hand, was a central motif in the iconography of the Augustan period and closely associated with the family of the princeps.723 The motif stood for the pietas that Aeneas showed here towards his father and his son, which also, as seen above, played a central role in the depiction of other Roman defeats when it came to demonstrating exemplary behaviour in adversity.724 In the following passage, the poet probably wanted to create a transition from the end of Troy to Hannibal’s war through the image of the fiercely hewn oak. For in the Aeneid, the fall of Troy is compared to the fall of a tree.725 The oak to which Hannibal compares the Roman people, however, no longer stands in Asia Minor, but on Mount Algidus, a mountain in the Alban Hills in the immediate vicinity of Rome.726 The Algidus evidently possessed considerable strategic importance early on, for the Via Latina led from Rome to the southeast over a nearby pass. It was through this pass that Hannibal’s army advanced in 211, when the Carthaginian commander attempted to draw away the Roman troops besieging Capua by marching on Rome itself. In any case, Livy notes in this connection that Hannibal advanced from Algidus against Tusculum.727 The locating of the oak is to be understood in this context as a reference to this greatest approach of the Carthaginian army to Rome, which, as has been seen, could also be invoked on other occasions as a symbol of the ultimate threat. The abbreviated reference to a toponym associated with Hannibal’s campaign (in other cases, for instance, the river Anio) could thereby serve, as in this passage, as a narrative abbreviation for the situation of 211, in which Rome appeared to be under great threat from Hannibal’s army ad portas. In contrast to Troy, however, Rome does not fall. Hannibal’s comparison of the Romans to the Hydra, in turn, surely alludes to a saying attributed to the Epirotic king Pyrrhus, who is said to have expressed concern

 See Quinn 1980, 306: “A neat summary of the theme of Aen. 2–3 (published about 5  years before Odes 4, and consecrating the myth of the Trojan origin of the Romans)”. Cf. Thomas 2011, 145. 723  Cf. Reckford 1960, 25  f.; Zanker 1987, 204–213; Galinsky 1996, 204–206; Syndicus 2001, 312 f.; Thomas 2011, 145. 724  On this idea, see Syndicus 2001, 313. On the importance of pietas among the four virtutes named on the clupeus virtutis awarded to Augustus in January 27, see Galinsky 1996, 86–88. 725  Verg. Aen. 2626–627: ac veluti summis antiquam in montibus ornum/cum ferro accisam crebisque bipennibus instant. Cf. Syndikus 2001, 309: the supporting motif of the Hannibal speech, namely „die römische Fähigkeit, aus Niederlagen mit ungebrochener Kraft wieder aufzustehen“, is first „durch die Erinnerung an das unerschütterliche Wiederbeginnen nach Trojas Fall angeschlagen, dann wird es durch das Bild einer Steineiche fortgeführt, die, ihrer Zweige beraubt, um so kräftiger neues Laub hervorsprießen läßt, wobei die Verse 59  f. Die gemeinte geschichtliche Wirklichkeit klar [erkennen lässt].“. See also Thomas 2011, 145. 726  Thomas 2011, 146. See also S. Quilici Gigli, DNP 1 (1996), 490, s. v. Algidus. 727  Liv. 26,9,12 (inde Algido Tusculum petiit, ...). 722

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about Rome’s ability to repeatedly raise new troops.728 Moreover, through the ­connections apparently drawn from the Carthaginian side between Heracles and Hannibal, another facet of the comparison emerges.729 The next two lines warn of the resilience of the Roman legions, which – like the Spartoi from the teeth of the dragon of Ares – will grow out of the ground.730 After these references to mythology, Hannibal returns to recent history or formulates observations that go beyond a specific situation or war. Thus he once again describes the Roman ability to rise again even after severe setbacks and to triumph even over opponents who had not suffered defeat up to that point (as had been true of the Carthaginians until the battle of the Metaurus, according to the view expressed earlier in the ode).731 Certainly not all of Horace’s addressees will have grasped and adequately interpreted all the allusions and references on first reading. The basic idea of the passage, however, according to which Rome, indestructible and rather strengthened by defeats and their overcoming, continues to rise, will of course have been understandable even without deeper insights and knowledge of mythology and history. With a deeper understanding (perhaps gained from discussion with other interested recipients), nuances could nevertheless be added to this thought. In the context of a panegyric text, allusive references to the Hannibalic War were appropriate; on other occasions, the opposite could be true – or at least rejected with scarcely less verbosity and allusion. Thus, in his third book of Elegies, Propertius

 Adolf Kiessling and Richard Heinze already refer to this context in their commentary on the passage, which they see as an allusion to a “famous apophthegma of Kineas”, referring to an episode handed down by Plutarch, in which the envoy of Pyrrhus reports to his king on his explorations of the Romans. In doing so, he expresses the fear that the latter would prove to be a “Lernaean Hydra” in war, since they were always able to raise new troops (Kiessling/Heinze 41901, 367. Cf. Thomas 2011, 147. See Plut. Pyrrhus 19,5). If Horace was alluding to such a comparison of Kineas here, he must have had occasion to find it in a source preceding Plutarch. Kiessling/Heinze suggest that Plutarch draws from Livy, which seems quite plausible. Kiessling/Heinze 41901, 367. The episode appears later in Flor. 1,13,19 and Cass. Dio. Frg. 40,28 (where, however, in each case Pyrrhus himself draws the comparison between the Romans and a hydra), which indeed makes it seem likely that Livy had already recorded it. Horace might therefore have found the suggestion for his comparison there; another source would of course be equally conceivable. Syndicus 2001, 312 notes that this was a “Gemeinplatz der Selbstdarstellung Roms in seiner Geschichtsschreibung” and in this context also points to the alleged saying of Pyrrhus. The evidence he cites, however, comes exclusively from authors of the imperial period. The extent to which, as Richard Thomas suggests, the Roman/Hydra comparison was in fact a Greek and Carthaginian topos that may already have arisen in the period of the respective historical conflict is difficult to fathom. Cf. Thomas 2011, 147: “This looks to have been a Greek and Carthaginian topos”. 729  See, among others, Seibert 1993b, 184–191 (with further references). 730  Hor. Carm. 4,4,63–64. 731  The statement that the Roman people reappear “more beautiful” (pulchrior) may at first seem strange, which is why some editors have suggested emendations, such as changing it to fortior or firmior. However, Thomas 2011, 148 points to a pun that Horace may have intended by using pulchrior: The victor of the battle of the Metaurus, C. Claudius Nero, who by this success had become pulchrior as the Claudii Pulchri. However, this seems a bit far-fetched. Therefore, the suggestion of Kiessling/Heinze 41901, 368 is worth considering. They consider that Horace used pulcher here in an ancient usage with a meaning in the sense of fortis. 728

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describes an encounter he claims to have had in a dream.732 The poet, lying “on the Helicon [...] in the soft shade,” had intended to forge an epic about the great heroes and incisive events of Roman history. Following examples from the royal period and the early Republic, he cites the victorious faltering tactics of Fabius, the terrible battle of Cannae, how Hannibal was repulsed by the Roman temples, and the saving of the temple of Iuppiter on the Capitol by the cackling of geese.733 However, the poet, because of his limited abilities, is by no means capable of the task of praising such deeds, which Phoibos Appollon and Calliope, who appear to him in a dream, forcefully make clear to him. Moreover, he says, no success with women can be expected from writing a heroic epic.734 He should continue not to concern himself with writing poems of battles and wars, but of lovers and their efforts to lure married women over the thresholds of their houses without the husbands becoming aware of it – an art at which the poet is better versed anyway.735 Propertius, unlike Ennius, does not wish to write poetry about famous battles and wars of the Roman past. The dense enumeration given at the beginning of the text nevertheless gives an impression of those contents and themes which would be appropriate to an epic. Propertius was apparently able to assume that his readers were sufficiently familiar with these that he could refer to them in brief allusions and thereby expect to be understood. The disaster of Cannae as well as the subsequent salvation through a reconciliation of the Romans with the gods belonged to this (pugnamque sinistram Cannensem et versos ad pia vota deos).736 The reference to Ennius testifies once again to the influence of the Annales on the view of history held by educated Romans of the first century.737 Propertius was thus familiar with all those topics, but his lines also reveal a certain weariness in dealing with them.738 A survey of the evidence for references and allusions to the Hannibalic War in the works of Latin poets of the Augustan period reveals first of all that the war against the Carthaginians was not a central theme for these poets. The corpus of

 Prop. 3,3,1–52. With this introduction Propertius places himself in a tradition going back to Hesiod. Cf. Heyworth/Morwood 2011, 113: “From Hesiod on, poets encounter gods and muses in the wild, and they receive inspiration in dreams: this poem sets itself in a long and glorious tradition”. In Roman poetry Ennius seems to have introduced the “programmatic dream” (see ibid., 113). The latter’s epic poem is subsequently also cited by Propertius as a model for the depiction of the ‘great themes’ of the glorious Roman past (see the quotation in the following note). 733  Prop. 3,3,1–12: Visus eram molli recubans Heliconis in umbra,/Bellerophontei qua fluit umor equi,/reges, Alba, tuos et regum facta tuorum,/tantum operis, nervis dicere posse meis,/parvaque iam magnis admoram fontibus ora,/unde pater sitiens Ennius ante bibit./et cecini Curios fratres et Horatia pila/regiaque Aemilia vecta edition rate,/victricesque moras Fabii pugnamque sinistram/ Cannensem et versos ad pia vota deos,/Hannibalemque Lares Romana ex aede fugantis,/anseris et tutum voce fuisse Iovem. 734  Prop. 3,3,13–26. 735  Prop. 3,3,41–52. 736  Prop. 3,3,9–10. Cf. Heyworth/Morwood 2011, 117. 737  See, inter alia, Sect. 5.2.1.2 above. 738  This, too, could already be stated in the discussion with testimonies of earlier authors. See, for example, Lucretius’ ironic references to the epic of Ennius (see above Sect. 5.2.3.3). 732

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extant texts is relatively large, but Hannibal and/or events from the Second Punic War are mentioned in only half a dozen passages. The Aeneid of Virgil is to some extent an exception in this context, because a relationship to the conflict with Carthage is established through books 2 and 3 as a whole, but this is done in a way that only to a limited extent allows them to be evaluated as direct allusions to Hannibal and his victories over the Romans. The form of the reference depends on the context. Thus the repulse of the Gauls and the war against the Carthaginians, between which, after all, some five generations lay, could in a sense be parts of the same layer of a distant past for Horace and Propertius, if the great distance from their own present was to be expressed. If, on the other hand, Horace wanted to honour the glory of the ancestor of a contemporary, the victory at the Metaurus could again be close in a direct sense. Moreover, it is interesting to note which events of the war are referenced. In addition to the Roman victory at the Metaurus, which probably came into focus primarily because of C.  Claudius Nero’s kinship with Augustus’ stepson, it is not the victory at Zama, for example, but rather the defeat at Cannae that is cited as representative of the war. If an abbreviation is needed for the ancient enemy of the war, the choice again falls on Hannibal. In this way, the Carthaginian general also remained firmly anchored in the historical culture of the early imperial period.

5.2.6  Memorable Defeats: Testimonies of the Early Imperial Period The extremely influential work of Livy apparently covered the need for extensive overall representations of Roman history Ab urbe condita for the time being, so that for the following decades no successors are known who would have described the period of the third century, including the Hannibalic War, in such a detailed manner as Livy had done.739 The tendency was apparently rather to treat the older time, if at all, cursorily or largely summarized, in order to then offer a more detailed account of events in greater temporal proximity to the present. This also applies to the only Roman historical work of that time which has survived on a large scale, the so-­ called Historia Romana of Velleius Paterculus, which he wrote in two books by 30  AD at the latest.740 The account of the Second Punic War fell into the lost  As is the case for many other periods of ancient history, the literature of the decades that followed the death of Augustus has survived only comparatively sparsely compared to its former extent. See, for example, the fragments and testimonies collected in FRHist II, 932–1083 (cf. the related introductions in FRHist I, 486–589). Cf. also the overview in Wiegand 2013, 14–26, which is limited to authors who wrote their works under the reign of Tiberius. See also Flach 31998, 166–256. On the general conditions and further tendencies, see von Albrecht 1994, 707–721. 740  The title Historia Romana does not originate from antiquity, but goes back to the editio princeps of Beatus Rhenanus from the year 1520/1521. It seems inappropriately chosen, since Velleius was more concerned with a – in terms of content strongly compressed – universal historical approach. See, among others, G.  Krapinger, DNP 12/1 (2002), 1169–1172, s. v. V.  Paterculus, and on Velleius’s work as a whole now Biesinger 2016, 277–311. 739

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chapters of the first book, so that a detailed analysis is no longer possible.741 However, given the enormous time span covered in this book, one would not expect a detailed account either.742 After all, it is clear that Velleius, following predecessors, especially Sallust, saw the destruction of Carthage by the Romans in 146 as an important turning point in Roman history from which far-reaching consequences had emanated, especially “the beginning of the decadence of the Roman Republic”.743 Against this background, it is reasonable to assume that Velleius portrayed the time of the Second Punic War as an era in which Roman virtues and values were at least more widespread than in the generations that followed. These virtues were then probably also presented in his account as an essential factor that helped to finally overcome the defeats against Hannibal’s army. Possibly he resorted to Livy and especially Sallust as a source for this purpose.744 In the collection of Valerius Maximus, persons, deeds and events connected with the Second Punic War again occupy a large space.745 The event that is mentioned by far most often in the Facta et dicta memorabilia is the battle of Cannae, which thus also ranks ahead of the great victorious battles of the Romans in the Second Punic War in this ranking. However, the Roman victory in the war is referred to in a more general way when it comes to the deeds of the elder Africanus, who in turn is the

 Velleius mentions the war only in passing in his overview of the Roman colony foundations. The information is accordingly also exhausted in the fact that the Romans had not been able to found further colonies during the war (Vell. 1,14,8–1,15,1). 742  In the first book of his work, Velleius described the period from the end of the Trojan War to the destruction of Carthage in 146  in 18 chapters. For an analysis of the first book, see Schmitzer 2000, 37–71. 743  Schmitzer 2000, 82. see Vell. 2,1,1 (Potentiae Romanorum prior Scipio viam aperuerat, luxuriae posterior aperuit: quippe remoto Carthaginis metu sublataque imperii aemula non gradu, sed praecipiti cursu a virtute descitum, ad vitia transcursum; vetus disciplina deserta, nova inducta; in somnum a vigiliis, ab armis ad voluptates, a negotiis in otium conversa civitas.) and cf. Sall. Catil. 10,1–2. Cf. on this von Albrecht 1994, 847, who notes that the “Gedankenwelt eines Autors wie Velleius” was not marked by “Originalität”, but offers the possibility of an insight “in die Denkweise von Leuten seines Standes.” According to this, history for Velleius is divided into “zwei Teile: Scheitelpunkt ist (wie bei Sallust) die Zerstörung Karthagos”. See Schmitzer 2000, 105–110 for more details. 744  See on the sources of Velleius Paterculus Albrecht 1994, 843 f. and see Schmitzer 2000, 106 (“Das Geschichtsbild, das einen Sallust oder Livius geprägt hat, ist noch für Velleius bestimmend.”). After all, Velleius refers to the bravery that one of his ancestors had shown in the Second Punic War in the Campanian theater of war, for which he is said to have been rewarded with Roman citizenship (Vell. 2,16,2–3). Wiegand 2013, 128 f. refers in this context to the context in which Velleius mentions his ancestor. The emphasis on the “Fortexistenz hervorragender Familien über den Systemwechsel [between republic and principate, note Simon Lentzsch]” (ibid., 128), who had already been in the service of the res publica in ancient times, was supposed to imply that it was still in “good hands”. Velleius certainly did not mean to imply that his family was on a par with that of Tiberius, but rather that “not only the leaders” but also “the capable and loyal followers [...] remained the same” (ibid., 129). 745  See, among others, the overview in Carney 1962, 289, note 2. 741

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most frequently named person in whole work.746 For although a number of these passages focus on stages of his career in the Italian or Spanish theater of war, it is probably fair to assume that Scipio’s triumph at Zama over the Carthaginians was considered his most famous deed, so that the memory of this victory certainly always resonated with every mention of the elder Africanus.747 Valerius apparently did not consider it necessary to explicitly mention the name of the last battle of the Second Punic War in this context, because the toponym Zama does not appear anywhere in Valerius’ text. With regard to the battle of Cannae, one may also assume that even in passages in which the name of the place is not explicitly mentioned, but rather the hardship of the Romans or the destruction that Hannibal’s campaign had caused in Italy are mentioned in general, the thought of the defeat was always resonant.748 In addition to such passages, a total of over 20 instances can be found in the text in which Cannae is explicitly mentioned.749 Even a first survey of the passages shows that Valerius took up quite different aspects of the tradition of the battle, so that the exempla associated with Cannae have different thrusts. In four passages, episodes closely related to Cannae serve to demonstrate the constantia of the Romans even and especially under the most adverse circumstances. As in Livy, it is above all the Senate that, through its upright and appropriate action in the difficult situation, offers an example to the rest of the people – and to Valerius’ audience. The episodes here are already known from the Livian work and other branches of the Roman tradition. Thus, after Cannae, the Senate had limited the mourning period of Roman women to allow them to perform the rites for the goddess Ceres. This exemplary constancy in the adherence to their religious obligations, which the Romans had shown in the process, had then finally also induced the gods not to plague them further.750 On another occasion, the Senate is praised for having, immediately after Cannae when the power of the Romans in Italy had been so badly hit, nevertheless sent troops to Spain to support the commanders there.751 Thus, even in this difficult situation, the Romans continued to believe firmly in victory and pursued their plans undeterred. In this way, Valerius suggests, they turned  See Carney 1962, 289, note 2: Scipio Africanus is mentioned 46 times. Cf. Bloomer 1992, 150 (“Valerius’ all-time favorite Scipio Africanus the Elder”). 747  In this context, it should also be noted that Valerius dates the fall of Carthage as early as 201. A fundamental distinction between the Second and Third Punic Wars does not seem to have played a role for him (see Weileder 1998, 193). 748  See for example Val. Max. 5,6,8. 749  Val. Max. 1,1,15; 1,1,16; 2,7,15c; 2,7,15e; 2,9,8; 3,2,11; 3,4,4; 3,7,ext. 6; 3,7,10b; 3,8,2; 4,8,2; 4,5,2; 5,1,ext. 6; 5,6,4; 5,6,7; 6,4,1a; 6,6,ext. 2; 7,2,ext. 16; 7,4,ext. 2; 7,6,1b; 9,5,ext. 3; 9,11,ext. 4. 750  Val. Max. 1,1,15: qua quidem constantia obtinendae religionis magnus caelestibus iniectus est rubor ulterius adversus eam saeviendi gentem quae ne iniuriarum quidem acerbitate ab eorum cultu absterreri potuerit.Vgl. Weileder 1998, 162. 751  Val. Max. 3,7,10b: Idem post aliquot annos, Cannensi clade exhaustis Romani imperii viribus, supplementum in Hispaniam exercitu mittere ausus, fecit ne locus hostilium castrorum, tum maxime Capenam portam armis Hannibale pulsante, minoris veniret quam si illum Poeni non obtinerent. ita se gerere in adversis rebus quid aliud est quam saevientem Fortunam in adiutorium sui pudore victam convertere? 746

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“angry Fortuna” to their own assistance and thus extricated themselves from the hardship by their own efforts. Virtus proves superior to Fortuna in examples like these. In other words: the Romans take their fate into their own hands.752 In the quoted passage, Valerius refers not only to the sending of troops to Spain, but also to the fact that the Senate would have seen to it that the plots of land near the Porta Capena, where Hannibal had pitched his army camp on his approach to the city, were traded at the usual price. Since Hannibal is known not to have marched on Rome after Cannae, this episode can only belong in the context of the approach of the Carthaginian army to the capital in 211.753 Two other passages focus on outstanding representatives of the Senate. First, there is the example of Q. Fabius Maximus, who after Cannae had contributed significantly to the victory over the Carthaginians by his perseverance, which was reflected in his cunctatio strategy. This strategy, as we have seen, had been celebrated at least since Ennius in a wide spectrum of media of Roman historical culture as the strategy that had saved the Romans from annihilation after the battle of Lake Trasimene.754 Furthermore, Valerius cites as exemplum a speech by T.  Manlius Torquatus in which the latter had dissuaded the Senate from granting the Campanians one of the two consulships each year, which they were said to have demanded after the battle of Cannae as a condition for remaining on Rome’s side.755 The defection of Capua, which is portrayed very negatively by Valerius overall, is also an important theme in other passages. Here, Valerius cites the Campanian city as a ‘prime example’ of disloyal behavior and betrayal of one’s allies. In this context, both the precarious situation after Cannae, in which the treacherous Campanians had fallen away, and the loyal perseverance of other allies, such as the garrison of Petelia, which had preferred death to surrender, are sometimes emphasized.756 As further examples of the adherence to principles in the time of greatest threat, Valerius also refers, closely connected to each other, to the Senate’s rejection of the envoys of the Cannae prisoners as well as the rejection of the plea for clemency that members of the legiones Cannenses are said to have brought to the Senate via M. Claudius Marcellus.757 In two passages, Valerius also highlights the episode of the military tribunes who were willing to flee and who had gathered around M.  Metellus in Canusium after Cannae. On the basis of this passage, Valerius  Cf. Weileder 1998, 161 (quotation), who interprets the passage against the background of a more far-reaching controversy, which was already repeatedly discussed in antiquity, namely the question of the causes of the military and political success of the Romans. According to the view of Valerius, who shares it with numerous other Roman authors, it was primarily the virtutes, considered typically Roman, that had brought about this success. Greeks who were “critical of Rome” (Weileder 1998, 161), on the other hand, would have emphasized the favor of Fortuna as the cause of the Roman rise (see in detail Weileder 1998, 161 f.). 753  In fact, both decisions of the Senate, that is, both the sending of reinforcements to Spain and the decision on land prices, are found in Livy in the account of the events of 211 (Liv. 26,11,6–7). 754  Val. Max. 3,8,2. cf. e.g. Sect. 5.2.1.2 above. 755  Val. Max. 6,4,1a (Civitate nostra Cannensi clade perculsa, ...). Cf. Weileder 1998, 180 f. 756  Val. Max. 6,6,ext. 2. 757  Val. Max. 2,7,15c (request for clemency by members of the legiones Cannenses is rejected); 2,7,15e (Senate rejects emissaries of the soldiers who had been taken prisoner at Cannae). 752

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h­ ighlights the harsh degradation of the near-escapees by the censors and the determined appearance of Scipio, who was able to prevent the escape, in order to offer another example of reliable fulfillment of duty. The behavior of those who decided to flee serves at the same time as a negative example, against the background of which the exemplary behavior of the censors and Scipio can be shown even more clearly, which thus manifests itself especially in their loyalty (fides) to the res publica. As mentioned above, Valerius also uses this for a reference to the behavior of M. Atilius Regulus in the First Punic War. Here, too, the unworthy actions of various groups of Romans after Cannae are contrasted with the morally exemplary behavior of M. Atilius Regulus.758 Following another line of thought, Valerius knows to report about the extraordinary measures that the Senate or the dictator M.  Iunius Pera had initiated after Cannae in order to be able to quickly lead new troops into the field against the Carthaginians. He mentions the recruitment of 24,000 slaves and 6000 convicted criminals as well as their equipment with weapons looted from temples as proof that in times of need such measures could be justified, which would be shameful under normal circumstances.759 Without explicitly mentioning the word Cannae, but in a clear context, Valerius mentions the willingness of wealthy Roman citizens to make their riches available for the rescue of the res publica.760 Elsewhere he emphasizes the generosity of Q. Fabius Maximus, who paid the ransom for captured Roman soldiers to Hannibal from his private fortune.761  Val. Max. 2,9,8 (on the punishment of deserters and fugitives by the censors: Turpis etiam metus censores summa cum severitate poenam exegerunt: M. enim Atilius Regulus et L. Furius Philus M.  Metellum quaestorem compluresque equites Romanos, qui post infeliciter commissam Cannensem pugnam cum eo abituros se Italia iuraverant, dereptis equis publicis inter aerarios referendos curaverunt. eos que gravi nota adfecerunt qui cum in potestatem Hannibalis venissent, legati ab eo missi ad senatum de permutandis captivis neque impetrato quod petebant, in urbe manserunt, quia et Romano sanguini fidem praestare conveniens erat M. Atilius Regulus censor perfidiam notabat, cuius pater per summos cruciatus exspirare quam fallere Carthaginienses satius esse duxerat. iam haec censura ex foro in castra transcendit, quae neque timeri neque decipi voluit hostem.). In contrast to Livy, who does not mention the names of the censors in the corresponding passage (Liv. 24,18,1–15), Valerius here establishes a connection of the one censor of the year 214, M. Atilius Regulus, to his father, the consul of the same name of the year 256, and his behavior as a prisoner of the Carthaginians, which was praised as exemplary in the Roman tradition. Cf. Weileder 1998, 57. See also Val. Max. 5,6,7 (appearance of Scipio after the battle of Cannae). Cf. passages in which Valerius Maximus refers to the example of M. Atilus Regulus in the First Punic War, above Sect. 5.1.5. 759  Val. Max. 7,6,1. Such special circumstances, which excuse repudiatory behavior in other situations, are Valerius Maximus’ theme throughout the relevant chapter of his collection and represent an example of the special importance of the particular context to be taken into account for the respective moral evaluation of an exemplum. On this point, see Langlands 2011, esp. 119. The behavior of the allies’ inhabitants in Casilinum, who under the hardship of the Carthaginian siege decide to cook and eat strips of leather severed from their shields, which is described immediately afterwards (in Val. Max. 7,6,2), can also be interpreted in this way. 760  Val. Max. 5,6,8. 761  Val. Max. 4,8,2. 758

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The important Roman victory at the Metaurus was only made possible by the reconciliation of the two opposing consuls, C.  Claudius Nero and M.  Livius Salinator, who settled their personal feud and then defeated the Carthaginians in the decisive battle.762 In this exemplum the motif of harmony shines through, which is indispensable for the victory of the Romans – an idea that had already played an important role in earlier depictions and interpretations of the war (especially in Livy).763 Indirectly, this also suggests an explanation for the previous defeats of the war. As explicit explanations for the greatest defeat of the war at the battle of Cannae, the Punic deceit that Hannibal had set in motion, the working of fate, or the fatal action of C. Terentius Varro are each mentioned, whereby various factors can also appear in combination within an exemplum.764 In the latter context, Valerius notes an episode, which is first attested here, according to which Varro, as an aedile, had an actor perform the role of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus as part of the ludi circensis. This had enraged the gods to such an extent that they brought the catastrophe of Cannae upon the consul and the Roman people.765 The lowly circumstances, from which Varro allegedly came, are also discussed by Valerius, who furthermore knows to report that after Cannae the Senate had offered Varro the dictatorship, which he, however, had rejected with commendable modesty.766 In the narrower sense, military virtue, namely bravery, is illustrated by the Roman soldier who in the battle at Cannae bit into his Numidian opponent with his teeth and in this way avenged his own death at the time when his opponent wanted to take the armor of the supposedly dead Roman.767  Val. Max. 4,2,2. Cf. on the passage Weileder 1998, 179, note 357.  See Sect. 5.2.5.1 above. 764  Guilt of the consul Varro: Val. Max. 1,1,16; 3,4,4; 4,5,2. deceit of the Carthaginians: Val. Max. 7,4,ext. 2 (see here esp.: haec fuit Punica fortitudo, dolis et insidiis et fallacia instructa. quae nunc certissima circumventae virtutis nostrae excusatio est, quoniam decepti magis quam victi sumus). Cf. Weileder 1998, 55–57. The work of Fortuna, which made it possible for Varro to reach his fatal consulship: Val. Max. 3,4,4. 765  Val. Max. 1,1,16: creditum est Varronem consulem apud Cannas cum Carthaginiensibus tam infeliciter dimicasse ob iram Iunonis, quod cum ludos circenses aedilis faceret, in Iovis Optimi Maximi tensa eximia facie puerum histrionem ad exuvias tenendas posuisset. quod factum, post aliquot annos memoria repetitum, sacrificiis expiatum est. 766  Varro’s guilt for the defeat is also clearly emphasized in this passage. Val. Max. 4,5,2: Confregit rem publicam Terentius Varro Cannensis pugnae temerario ingressu. idem delatam ab universo senatu et populo dictaturam recipere non sustinendo pudore culpam maximae cladis redemit, effecitque ut acies deorum irae, modestia ipsius moribus imputaretur. itaque titulo imaginis eius speciosius non recepta dictatura quam aliorum gesta adscribi potest. 767  Val. Max. 3,2,11 (Eiusdem temporis et notae miles qui Cannensi proelio, quo Hannibal magis vires Romanorum contudit quam animos fregit, cum ad retinenda arma inutiles vulneribus manus haberet, spoliare se conantis Numidae cervicem complexus os naribus et auribus corrosis deforme reddidit, inque plenis ultionis morsibus exspiravit. sepone iniquum pugnae eventum, quantum interfectore fortior interfectus! Poenus enim in victoria obnoxius morientis solacio fuit, Romanus in ipso fine vitae vindex sui exstitit.). The scene is also already found in Livy (Liv. 22,51,9). One difference between the two accounts is that in Livy it appears that the Roman had bitten into his opponent in the course of the actual battle, while Valerius explicitly states that the supposedly 762 763

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In three passages Cannae is mentioned rather from the perspective of the Carthaginians. It was a mistake of the Carthaginian side not to have made peace with the Romans after Cannae.768 In general, the battle represents the most famous victory of the Carthaginians ever and, together with the other victories of Hannibal in Italy, it serves as proof of the outstanding military skill of the Carthaginian commander.769 In addition, Valerius also included the episode about the Carthaginian cavalry leader Maharbal and his offer to Hannibal to ride ahead to Rome and take the enemy’s capital by storm, which apparently could already be found in the Origines of Cato Maior. In Valerius’ version the episode gets a new accent in that here the supposed arrogance of Hannibal is in the foreground. The Carthaginian commander, thrown into great joy by his victory at Cannae, had been literally inaccessible to any expression of opinion by his subordinates. Luck (in battle) and moderation (moderatio) were  – according to the message  – difficult to unite.770 The drama emphasized in other versions of this episode, generated there by the reference to the extreme threat to Rome, recedes here in favor of this aspect. Finally, in a rather loose connection to Cannae, there is the note that a success of the praetorian prefect Sejanus would have had such negative consequences for the Roman Empire as the worst defeats in its own history – here mentioned are the battle of the Allia, the battle at Lake Trasimene, the battle of Cannae, the downfall of the Scipios in Spain as well as the civil wars – with which this remark ultimately offers a further example of the procedure already known from earlier contexts (Cicero against Antonius) of underlining the dangerousness and moral corruption of internal Roman opponents by equating them with external enemies.771 The other Roman defeats of the Second Punic War, some of which are mentioned in the latter passage, generally fall behind Cannae in Valerius’ collection. The battle of Lake Trasimene is explicitly mentioned, in addition to the passage from the Sejanus-exemplum, in four other contexts. In one of these, the explanation for the defeat, known from other sources as well, is C. Flaminius’ disregard for the prodigies. The reference to the gifts given to the Romans by Hieron II of Syracuse after Lake Trasimene serves both as an example of the loyalty of an old ally and of Roman firmness of principle in defeats. Hieron had been aware that the Romans, because of their verecundia, would have refused to send gold if he had not sent it in fallen man attacked an opponent in this way who wanted to take his equipment after the battle. Cf. Weileder 1998, 235, who assumes a special “discrediting of the opponent” in this. An error on the part of Valerius in transcribing his source would also be conceivable, but a deliberate alteration seems at least as plausible. In any case, the episode serves as an example of the bravery of the Roman soldier who, without weapons and shortly before his demise, still rises to take the supposed victor with him to his death. 768  Val. Max. 7,2,ext. 16. 769  Val. Max. 3,7,ext. 6 (Punicae victoriae clarissimum monumentum). 770  Val. Max. 9,5,ext. 3 (Hannibal autem Cannensis pugnae successu elatus nec admisit quemquam civium suorum [in] castris nec responsum ulli nisi per interpretem dedit. Maharbalem etiam, ante tabernaculum suum clara voce adfirmantem prospexisse quonam modo paucis diebus Romae in Capitolio cenaret, aspernatus est. adeo felicitatis et moderationis dividuum contubernium est.). 771  Val. Max. 9,11,ext. 4.

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the form of a votive gift.772 In another passage, the defeat at Ticinus and the death of Ti. Sempronius Gracchus in ambush are mentioned, and in two plassages the death of Marcellus. The latter, so it is noted on one occasion, had brought both, benefit and harm to the country in equal degree.773 Furthermore, in two passages Valerius ­mentions the death of the two Scipio brothers in Spain, in order to highlight the spirit of L. Marcius on one of these two occasions.774 The other of the two passages states that after the death of the Scipios the Spanish city of Saguntum had fallen. This gross distortion of the actual chronology draws the attention to a general peculiarity of the collection, which has to be considered for its interpretation.775 For Valerius is seldom concerned with chronological precision, and in other respects, too, various examples referring to one event may sometimes contradict each other in terms of content and message.776 Thus, in both passages on the downfall of the Scipios, Hannibal is mentioned as an opponent of the Romans in Spain,  Val. Max. 4,8,ext. 1 The dedicatory gift was in the form of a statue of Victoria, which was certainly intended to give a message of confidence and support to the allies in Rome. In the broader context of the Battle of Lake Trasimene, there is also an anecdote about a soldier’s mother who assumed that her son had been killed in battle. When he unexpectedly returned to Rome, she died of happiness on the spot (Val. Max. 9,12,2). 773  Val. Max. 1,6,9 (ita monitus M. Marcellus ne quid temere conaretur, insequenti nocte speculandi gratia cum paucis egredi ausus, a multitudine hostium in Brutiis circumventus aeque magnum dolorem ac detrimentum patriae interitu suo attulit); 5,4,2 (defeat at the Ticinus). The death of Marcellus, as well as that of Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, Valerius mentions in a survey of the generals who died in the war, whose mortal remains Hannibal had searched for, which had been a sign of his clemency (Val. Max. 5,1,ext. 6). 774  Val. Max. 6,6,ext. 1; 8,15,11 (Sed nescio an praecipuum L. Marci inusitati decoris exemplum, quem equitem Romanum duo exercitus, P. et. Cn. Scipionum interitu victoriaque Hannibalis lacerati, ducem legerunt, quo tempore salus eorum in ultimas angustias deducta nullum ambitioni locum relinquebat). 775  Val. Max. 6,6,ext. 1 (Post duorum in Hispania Scipionum totidemque Romani sanguinis exercituum miserabilem stragem, Saguntini victricibus Hannibalis armis intra moenia urbis suae conpulsi, […]). Also in the enumeration of severe defeats of the Roman past (Val. Max. 9,11,ext. 4), the defeat of the Scipios precedes the battles at Lake Trasimene and Cannae, but comes after the fall of the Fabians at the Cremera and the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’, which is referred to twice, which gives the impression of a chronological listing (urbem a Gallis captam, e trecentorum inclitae gentis virorum strage foedatum Alliensem diem, et oppressos in Hispania Scipiones et Trasumennum lacum et Cannas, [...]). Weileder (ibid., 190 f.) interprets this reversal of the actual chronology to the effect that, according to Valerius’ view of history, Spain had already belonged firmly to the Roman Empire before the Second Punic War, which is why the Scipios had to be defeated first so that Hannibal could then attack Saguntum. 776  Besides the already mentioned wrong chronology of the events in Spain (death of the Scipios before the fall of Saguntum), T. Manlius Torquatus, whose speech after Cannae is said to have been decisive for the rejection of the request of the Cannae prisoners and to have prevented that the demands of the Campanians for a consulship were heard in the Senate, is described as the son of T. Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus (Val. Max. 6,4,1), which is not correct. In fact, a very similar episode is reported by Livy for the context of the Latin War for the year 340 (Liv. 8,5,1–6,7), in which the very same Imperiosus Torquatus rejected a demand of the Campanians for one of the two consulships. The rejection of the Campanians’ request for Cannae is also reported by Livy for the year 216 (Liv. 23,6,6–8), but without the appearance of Torquatus. The similarity of both episodes had already been noticed by Livy, who therefore also expresses doubts about the authenticity of the 772

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although at that time his brother Hasdrubal held the supreme command over the Carthaginian troops there. Hasdrubal, in turn, is mentioned in four places in the Facta et dicta, but exclusively in connection with the Roman victory at the Metaurus.777 However, Valerius’ collection must give the impression that Hannibal alone opposed the Romans in all theaters of war. According to the exempla of Valerius, the war against Carthage was above all a war against Hannibal. The special status that Hannibal held among Rome’s enemies is underpinned by the fact that no other enemy commander in Roman history is mentioned by name nearly as frequently.778 Valerius Maximus and his audience, however, were not primarily ­interested in chronologically or historically exact information, as we understood it today779 Against the background that the examples collected in the Facta et Dicta were probably also among those taught in Roman schools of rhetoric, interesting insights nevertheless emerge. First of all, the war against the Carthaginians was above all apparently a war against Hannibal, who, in the exempla collected by Valerius, leads the Carthaginian armies even in those situations in which historical context he was not present at all, as, most clearly, in the Spanish theater of war. In the numerous passages in which his name is mentioned, the whole range of qualities attributed to him in other sources is invoked. In quantitative order of importance, these are: his outstanding abilities as a commander, his cruelty as well as his deceitfulness, typical for a Punic, thanks to which the Carthaginians were able to triumph over the Romans at Cannae in the first place. In numerous passages, the name Hannibal again serves primarily to designate the enemy, without seeming to be connected with a deeper meaning. The equation of internal Roman enemies with Hannibal, familiar from Cicero’s speeches and letters, can be observed not only in the already mentioned Sejanus passage, but also elsewhere, where Sulla is put on a par with Hannibal in terms of cruelty. This is to be seen against the background that the “time of Sulla” in Valerius’ work “is stylized as the worst in Roman history”.780 second one. For the intention of Valerius, however, these source-critical considerations were irrelevant. 777  Val. Max. 3,7,4; 4,1,9; 7,4,4; 9,3,1. 778  Cf. Carney 1962, 289, note 2. In the ranking of the mention of individuals by name, Hannibal shares second place with Caesar and Pompey behind the elder Africanus. Among the opponents of Rome who are mentioned by name, Pyrrhus of Epirus follows in second place, with a clear gap. 779  Cf. above on the character and orientation of the work (Sect. 2.2). 780  Cf. Wiegand 2013, 174 (quote). Mentions of Hannibal in the Facta et dicta: Hannibal as a prudent and capable general (Val. Max. 9,5,ext. 3). Hannibal’s cruelty (Val. 9,2,1 [comparison with Sulla]; 9,2,ext. 2; 9,8,ext. 1). Hannibal’s war stratagems (Val. Max. 1,6,9; 7,3,ext. 8; 7,4,ext. 2; 9,6,ext. 2). See also: Val. Max. 1,7,ext. 1 (Hannibal’s dream said to have been dreamed before his march to Italy); 2,7,ext. 15e (Senate refuses to ransom prisoners to Cannae); 3,2,20 (Roman valor drove Hannibal’s troops from Capua); 3,7,1d (Scipio allows Hannibal’s messengers to inspect a Roman camp); 3,8,1 (Fulvius Flaccus has prisoners he took at Capua executed because they had defected to Hannibal); 5,1, ext. 5 (also reference to Capua’s defection); 4,1,6b (Scipio defends Hannibal after the war against charges by other Carthaginians); 4,1,7 (Marcellus as the first Roman to defeat Hannibal); 4,8,1 (Q. Fabius Maximus ransoms Roman prisoners from Hannibal at his own expense); 5,1,ext. 5; 5,1,ext. 6 (Hannibal orders a search for the bodies of Roman generals killed in battle); 5,2,4 (Fabius rescues Minucius in battle against Hannibal, which Minucius had

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The explanations for the defeats are also within the framework already known from the earlier tradition. The disregard of prodigies is mentioned with rather low frequency, which is probably mainly due to the fact that the battle of Lake Trasimene, whose unfortunate outcome was already attributed to such disregard in particular in the earlier tradition, is only rarely in the focus of the examples collected by Valerius.781 For with respect to the entire work, the relationship of the Romans to the gods plays a prominent role.782 If reasons are given for the defeat at Cannae, they are often to be found in the behavior of Varro, whose alleged faults are again seldom explained in detail.783 Apparently, his name was sufficiently associated with the blame for the defeat to make a more detailed explanation unnecessary. Elsewhere, it is mainly Hannibal’s deceit, already mentioned, that brought about the Roman defeat.784 However, for Valerius’ recipients, the factual information about the battles of the Punic Wars was less important than the mental and moral context in which they could be placed. From this perspective, the observations on the Roman defeats coincide with those that Wiegand has elaborated for the image of the time of the Republic in general that can be found in Valerius.785 A differentiation with regard to the chronology of the events is not in the foreground of interest and is also not necessary for Valerius and his readers. From Valerius’ point of view, it is precisely for this reason that it is possible to apply the exempla of his collection to his time of the early imperial period. For even a Roman of the early first century could be inspired by the recklessly begun); 5,3,ext. 1 (Hannibal leaves Carthage); 5,4,2 (Scipio saves his father in battle against Hannibal at the Ticinus); 7,2,3 (threat of Hannibal had positive effect on Romans); 7,2,6a and 7,4,4 (Hannibal in context of the battle at the Metaurus); 7,6,2 (inhabitants of Casilinum resist Hannibal’s attacks in contrast to Campanians who had defected to Hannibal; cf. the mention of the episode as a rhetorical exemplum in Cic. inv. 2,171, who, however, links a different question to it when discussing whether the inhabitants of the city should defect to Hannibal or not [cf. above Sect. 5.2.3.1]); 9,1,4 (in the luxury of later times forget the hard time of the wars against Pyrrhus and Hannibal); 9,1,ext. 1 (the luxury of Capua had corrupted Hannibal’s army); 9,3,ext. 3 (Hannibal was a sworn enemy of the Romans). 781  But see Val. Max. 1,6,6, where the series of bad omens already found among others in Liv. 22,3,11–14 is collected (C. autem Flaminius inauspicato consul creatus cum apud lacum Trasumennum cum Hannibale conflicturus convelli signa iussisset, lapso equo super caput eius humi prostratus est, nihilque eo prodigio inhibitus, signiferis negantibus signa moveri sua sede posse, malum, ni ea continuo effodissent, minatus est. verum huius temeritatis utinam sua tantum, non etiam populi Romani, maxima clade poenas pependisset! in ea namque acie quindecim milia Romanorum caesa, sex milia capta, decem milia fugata sunt. consulis obtruncati corpus ad funerandum ab Hannibale quaesitum, qui, quantum in ipso fuerat, Romanum sepelierat imperium.). 782  See Weileder 1998, 160–167; Mueller 2002; Rüpke 2016. 783  Val. Max. 1,1,16; 3,4,4; 4,5,2. Where this occurs, however, Valerius opens the view to an otherwise unknown tradition that also ranks violations of norms of religious ritual among Varro’s errors (1,1,16: creditum est Varronem consulem apud Cannas cum Carthaginiensibus tam infeliciter dimicasse ob iram Iunonis, quod cum ludos circenses aedilis faceret, in Iovis Optimi Maximi tensa eximia facie puerum histrionem ad exuvias tenendas posuisset. quod factum, post aliquot annos memoria repetitum, sacrificiis expiatum est.). 784  See esp. Val. Max. 7,4,ext. 2. 785  Wiegand 2013, 163, 167 f.

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morally-fortitudinous leadership of a Q. Fabius Maximus or to the firmness of principle of the senators as a whole. In Valerius’ view, this period, in which the Romans proved themselves after serious setbacks, marks the beginning of the “world domination of the Romans” and is thus, as already in the case of authors of the late republic, evaluated as extremely positive.786 Unlike earlier authors, however, there is no explicit criticism of the present or of the rule of Augustus or Tiberius. It is true that Valerius’ work also contains the idea, already tangible in Sallust, Livy and other authors, that military successes against foreign powers could contribute to a threat to internal morals and customs, since peace brings luxuria with it, which in turn threatens a disintegration of the traditional morals and order. However, Valerius apparently does not see his own present as affected by this.787 At least, however, the luxury of one’s own present would have made one forget the hard times of the wars against Pyrrhus and Hannibal.788 To what extent the examples collected by Valerius were actually often used in speeches of the early imperial period is unclear. Valerius himself apparently regarded them as so significant that he included them in large numbers in his collection. However, as in other cases, caution is certainly called for in generalizing the conclusions that are valid for one author. Nevertheless, a certain possibility to verify the conclusions drawn concerning Valerius is offered by the works of other authors of his generation. For this, on the one hand, there is the work of Seneca the Elder, who, although born around the year 55, wrote collections of sententiae of famous orators under Tiberius, in which ten books of controversiae and a book of suasoriae were included.789 A review of Seneca’s compendium shows that he apparently did not share Valerius’ enthusiasm for the period of Rome’s wars against Carthage. Among the examples Seneca refers to, this period and the important events of this time do not play a major role. In general, the Republican period receives little attention.790 Among earlier Roman victories, Cicero’s action against Catiline was of greater importance than Scipio’s triumph over Carthage.791 The only place where Seneca  Weileder 1998, 194 f. (quote: 194).  See Weileder 1998, 195–199 and esp. 237–254, who emphasizes the differences in the historical conditions of the various works. While for Sallust and Livy the civil wars at the end of the republic were still part of their own life experience, and the outcome of the crisis seemed very uncertain even under the incipient rule of Augustus, Valerius was able to state a few decades later that the “principate was already consolidated” “and had also survived the succession to Augustus unscathed” (ibid., 197). Cf. Weileder 1998, 188–190. The only really negatively evaluated epoch of Roman history is, as said, the reign of Cornelius Sulla, who is put on a par with Hannibal as far as his cruelty is concerned (Val. Max. 9,2,1). See Wiegand 2013, 162–178. 788  Val. Max. 9,1,4 (comparison of own present with the time of the wars against Pyrrhus and Hannibal). 789  The work is not completely preserved. See the overview in von Albrecht 1994, 987; Wiegand 2013, 239–244. 790  See Wiegand 2013, 279–291. 791  Sen. contr. 7,2,7: Metellus Vestae extinxit incendium, Cicero Romae. glorietur devicto Hannibale Scipio, Pyrrho Fabricius, Antiocho alter Scipio, Perse Paulus, Spartaco Crassus, Sertorio et Mithridate Pompeius: nemo hostis Catilina propius accessit. On the high esteem in which Seneca held the life and work of Cicero, see Wiegand 2013, 282. 786 787

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explicitly refers to one of the defeats of the Second Punic War concerns one of the situations after the battle of Cannae, which is also listed by Valerius Maximus. After Cannae, Rome’s need had been so great that it had been justified to recruit slaves. In a figurative sense, therefore, it was generally permitted in emergency situations to take such extraordinary measures as well.792 The recruitment of an unusually large number of slaves after Cannae may have been one of the examples taught in declamation schools of the early imperial period, given the mentions in Valerius and Seneca. It should be noted, however, that the works of Valerius and Seneca are laid out differently.793 The fact that only one of the numerous episodes that Valerius included in his collection can actually be found in Seneca is possibly surprising, and warns against drawing too far-reaching conclusions from the historical references found in one author. Thus, only a part of the social memory of the respective time becomes visible. An insight into a completely different area of Roman historical culture is again offered by the Satyrica of T. Petronius, which represent the earliest extant example of a Latin “humoristisch-realistischen Gesellschafts- und Sittenromans”.794 As is known, the work has survived only in parts, from which, however, at least a vague plot can be discerned.795 In the context of the present work, it is of greater interest to ask whether there are allusions to the Second Punic War in general and to the Roman defeats of this war in particular in the text, whose author tries to draw a picture of various milieus of the Roman-Italian society that is certainly exaggerated, but ultimately plausible. The first passage of this kind appears in the episode about the banquet of Trimalchio. The latter boasts to his guests about his exquisite tableware, proclaiming, among other things, that he is the only one who possesses “genuine Corinthian bronze” (vera Corinthea).796 Trimalchio then explains to his guests the origin of this alloy, which was created when Hannibal conquered Troy. In the  Sen. contr. 9,4,5: Necessitas magnum humanae inbecillitatis patrocinium est: haec excusat Saguntinos, quamvis non ceciderint patres sed occiderint; haec excusat Romanos, quos ad servilem dilectum Cannensis ruina compulit; quae quidquid coegit defendit. 793  The first collects exempla, the second sententiae, and they probably also differ in other respects with regard to their intention. Cf. Wiegand 2013, 281: “Seneca sammelt v.a. sententiae; diese beziehen sich vornehmlich auf das zu deklamierende Thema, das im Fall der controversiae nur selten in einer historisch genau datierbaren Zeit (z. B. der mittleren Republik) angesiedelt ist. Daher fehlen Bezugnahmen auf historische Ereignisse. Solche finden sich dagegen in exempla (welche z. B. bei Valerius Maximus aufgenommen sind); die Erwähnungen historischer Figuren aus älterer Zeit bilden auch bei Seneca daher meist den – pointierten – Abschluß eines exemplum”. 794  See for discussions on dating, the biographical data of Petronius and general information on his work by Albrecht 1994, 960–981 (quote: 968); Habermehl 2006, XI–XXXVI; Schmeling/Setaioli 2011, XIII–XVII. The title is not from antiquity (cf. Schmeling/Setaioli 2011, XVII). In this work, the communis opinio is followed, according to which the author Petronius is the Petronius mentioned by Tacitus (Tac. ann. 16–20), who thus worked under Nero’s rule and chose suicide when the emperor withdrew his favor. A more exact dating is again hardly possible on the basis of the known information (Habermehl 2006, XII). 795  Cf. von Albrecht 1994, 963–965. 796  Petron. 50,2 (quam cum Agamemnon propius consideraret, ait Trimalchio, “solus sum qui vera Corinthea habeam”). 792

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­process, Hannibal, a homo vafer et magnus stelio, had melted down all the pieces of precious metal that he could find in the city. From this mass all known pieces of Corinthian bronze were made.797 The second passage belongs to the context of a ship voyage that the protagonists Eumolpius, Encolpius and Giton undertake. On board, Encolpius learns that they are on the ship of Lichas, who is an old personal enemy of his.798 Eumolpius reacts to this, apparently in an ironic way, by asking his companion into which ambush they have fallen or “which Hannibal” (quis Hannibal) is traveling with them.799 The ironic question of Eumolpius to Encolpius, with which he mocks his travel companion during the voyage, can be interpreted as a further indication of Hannibal’s place in Roman historical culture, whose rank as the most dangerous enemy of the Roman past here once again takes on a proverbial character.800 The coupling with the question of an ambush established the link to the image of the Carthaginian’s alleged deceitfulness, which is also emphasized in numerous sources and which could presumably be taken for granted as common knowledge.801 Trimalchio’s remarks, in turn, shed a doubly refracted light on the habit of enriching one’s speeches with learned historical references. The rich freedman, who wants to impress his guests with both his wealth and his worldliness, imitates the practice of members of established circles, who admittedly also need not necessarily have had a much more solid education than Trimalchio.802 The passage, which offers only one example of Trimalchio’s amateurish attempts to demonstrate his worldliness to his guests, is probably to be understood as a parody of such behavior, perhaps also of the demonstration of cultural capital in the form of historical knowledge as a whole. Thus, it is not only the upstart Trimalchio who is mocked, but the practices of social distinction as a whole, which the freedman ultimately emulates here.803 The fact that  Petron. 50,5–6 (et ne me putetis nesapium esse, valde bene scio, unde primum Corinthea nata sint. cum Ilium captum est, Hannibal, homo vafer et magnus stelio, omnes statuas Aeneas et aureas et argenteas in unum rogum congessit et eas incendit; factae sunt in unum aera miscellanea. ita ex hac massa fabri sustulerunt et fecerunt catilla et paropsides statuncula. sic Corinthea nata sunt, ex omnibus in unum, nec hoc nec illud.). The origin of Corinthian bronzes is associated by Pliny the Elder with the burning of Corinth during the capture of the city by L. Mummius in 146 (Plin. nat. 34,8). This derivation seems to have been followed by numerous later authors. See García Morcillo 2010, 445 f., who cites further ancient speculations about the origin of the bronzes. 798  Petron. 101,1–2. 799  Petron. 101,4 (“quae autem hic insidiae sunt” inquit “aut quis nobiscum Hannibal navigat?”). 800  See already Cic. Phil. 1,11 und vgl. Walsh 1970, 101; Habermehl 2006, 342  f.; Schmeling/ Setaioli 2011, 402 (“in the Roman mind the name of Hannibal is for ever synonymous with implacable enmity”). 801  Cf. Schmeling/Setaioli 2011, 402. 802  In this context, a remark by Pliny the Elder is interesting, according to which numerous dilettantes spread devious derivations about the origin of the Corinthian bronzes in order to gain distinction through their supposed expert knowledge (Plin. nat. 34,6). Cf. Grüll 1995, 103; García Morcillo 2010, 443 and 446 f. On the social type that Petronius parodies in Trimalchio’s banquet, see also Walsh 1970, 133–140. 803  Baldwin 1987, 6 suspects in this passage a parody on Roman “schoolboy texts [...] and schoolboy confusion, beyond neither of which Trimalchio had progressed.” See also Grüll 1995, 104 (“Or 797

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Trimalchio mentions Hannibal, complete with stereotypical attributes, can be interpreted as an indication of how references to the Carthaginian could be woven into such writings and conversations of contemporaries. A highly elaborate discussion of the events and protagonists of the Second Punic War was again found in the Punica of Silius Italicus, which represent a (relatively late) highlight in the ancient examination of this topic.

5.2.7  Worthy of My Heaven: Silius Italicus, Punica Without a doubt, the Punica of Silius Italicus forms one of the most outstanding literary discussions of the past of the Second Punic War in Latin literature. It is disputed, however, whether Silius actually intended for the epic to consist of only the preserved 17 books, but the arguments presented speak overall for the assumption that this was indeed the case.804 On the question of the internal structure of the work, again, no agreement has been reached so far.805 A resolution of this question will not be proposed here, rather only attention will be drawn to two points that are particularly relevant in connection with the subject of Roman defeats in the Punica. First, the battle of Cannae clearly occupies a special position in the Punica.806 Its rather, if we examine it from another point of view, Petronius is mocking the general ignorance in this question.”). Cf. von Albrecht 1994, 967 (on “Trimalchio’s ignorance” revealed in his inappropriate remarks on topics of astrology, mythology, literature, or even, as here, history). Petronius’ technique of differentiating his text in terms of language and style in order to characterize the members of the different milieus that appear in the Satyrica also through a “Vielfalt der Sprachebenen” is well known. On this, see von Albrecht 1994, 973 (quotation) and cf. ibid., 969 (“Statt Personen umständlich vorzustellen, charakterisiert er [Petronius] sie wie ein Komödiendichter durch ihre Handlungsweise oder wie ein Historiker durch Reden.”). 804  On this, see von Albrecht 1964, 133, note 34, 171, note 13, and, often following the latter, for example Niemann 1975, 3 f.; Pomeroy 1990, 127; Fröhlich 2000, 50; Augoustakis 2010, 8–10. Cf. also Marks 2005, 287 f.; Tipping 2010a, 12. 805  Cf. the different proposals by Niemann 1975, 14–36; Fröhlich 2000, 20–58 (each with references to the older literature). 806  In its present form, the material is distributed throughout the work in the following manner (cf. on this Niemann 1975, 3–36; von Albrecht 1994, 760 f.; Fröhlich 2000, 28–49). In the first book, the causes of the war are presented. Accordingly, these lie to a certain extent in Hannibal’s character itself, which is portrayed in a particularly dark light due to the upbringing to hate the Romans that his father Hamilcar teaches him (see esp. Sil. 1,70–119). The action begins in Spain and progresses in the first book to the legation sent by the Romans after Hannibal’s attack on Saguntum. The second book contains the Roman envoys’ onward journey to Carthage, where Q.  Fabius Maximus declares war on the Carthaginians. Saguntum falls and Hannibal is able to enter the city, also thanks to the help of Iuno. In the third book, a catalog of Carthage’s allies is given before describing the march of Hannibal’s army across the Pyrenees and the Alps. In an outlook, Iuppiter explains to his daughter Venus the reasons for allowing the Carthaginians to proceed on their march to Italy. According to this, Iuppiter intends to subject his people to a test by a hard war. In addition, the supreme Roman god also grants a view of the Roman future in this context. We will come back to this important passage later. The next two books cover the first three defeats of the Romans in Italy, i.e. the battle at Ticinus and the battles at the Trebia and Lake Trasimene. The sixth book then contains a historical review of the First Punic War, essentially glorifying the deeds

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d­ escription covers almost three books and is thus the most extensively described single event of the entire war. These three books in turn form the centrepiece of the Punica, so that the thought suggests itself that Cannae is of central importance to the epic not only in terms of composition, but also in terms of content and theme.807 On the other hand, it should also be noted that the account of Hannibal’s triumphal march in the years leading up to the battle of Cannae occupies a much larger space than the other sections of the war. The years 218 to 216 are described in almost seven books (book six contains to a large extent the Regulus excursus discussed above), while the seven following books cover the much longer period of the conflict, namely from Cannae to the end of the war, i.e. the years 216 to 201.808 Cannae and the further defeats of the Romans in the years 218 to 216 thus receive more attention than other events of the war. To what extent this finding regarding the composition can also be stated for the weighting of the Punica’s content, and which interpretation the Roman defeats of the war are given against this background, will now be examined in more detail. In order to understand Silius’ interpretation, it is important to consider that the poet of the Punica fundamentally moved in a “field of tension” between historical tradition on the one hand, which he drew upon primarily from the works of Roman historiography, probably especially Livy, and the genre-related requirements of the epic on the other hand. This field of tension can also be seen with regard to the accounts of the Roman defeats of the war.809 This is certainly most conspicuous with and person of M. Atilius Regulus (see in detail above Sect. 5.1.6). Book 7 again introduces the dictatorship and the strategy of Fabius Maximus, which he had implemented after the defeat at Lake Trasimene. The account of the ensuing battle of Cannae, with the greatest defeat of the Romans, spans three books, Books 8 through 10, which will also be discussed in detail later. In book 11, Hannibal enters Capua, and his troops face an attack by love gods sent by Venus. The stay in the Campanian city weakens Hannibal’s soldiers’ fighting ability and corrupts their morale, which can be seen as the first indication of a turning point in the war. Nevertheless, it is not until Book 12, with a Roman victory under M. Claudius Marcellus at Nola, that the first clear Roman success is described. Hannibal then turns against Rome itself. His unsuccessful march on the capital is described in book 13. In addition, this book contains the Roman conquest of Capua, the downfall of the Scipios in Spain, which is described quite briefly, and a nekyia of Scipio. Then, in the last four books, the author describes the Roman successes that eventually bring victory in the war. In book 14, Marcellus conquers Syracuse, and the fighting in Sicily ends, while book 15 describes young Scipio’s victories in Spain and the battle of the Metaurus. After an insertion in Book 16 with the funeral games hosted for the Scipios who fell in Spain, Book 17 finally describes the victory of the Romans at Zama and the subsequent triumph of Scipio. 807  Niemann 1975, 23–25. Cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2505–2507, who point to passages in which Silius foreshadows the battle of Cannae, which emphasizes its key character (see Sil. 1,12–14; 1,50–51; 1,125–126; 7,481–484). See also Augoustakis 2010, 8 f. (“books 8–10 [...], the core of the poem”). 808  An exact comparison of the years treated per book makes this discrepancy even clearer. Cf. Niemann 1975, 23 f. (ibid., 24: “Der umfangreichste Bücherkomplex behandelt also in 8 Büchern nur etwa 3 der insgesamt 18–19 Jahre, d. h. nur ein Sechstel des gesamten Zeitraums, obwohl er nahezu die Hälfte des Epos einnimmt, während der dritte noch um ein Buch kürzere Handlungskomplex etwa sieben Neuntel der Gesamtzeit umgreift.”). See also Pomeroy 2010, 31. 809  Cf. Niemann 1975, 41.

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regard to the depiction of the battles themselves, which, among other things, often differs considerably from the descriptions of the historiographical sources due to the incorporation of numerous and sometimes extended aristeiai. In addition, Silius rearranged the material in several places, so that those readers who were familiar with the accounts of the events in Polybius, Coelius Antipater, or Livy, for example, were presented with a sometimes completely different arrangement of familiar episodes. But this is not only the result of an adaptation of the material to the epic form. Rather, an independent interpretation of the past is revealed here, for which the time of Silius played an important role. In the following, we will first give an overview of the depiction of the Roman defeats in the Punica, in order to then go into more detail about some of the overarching themes that are connected to this in the work. Silius describes the first two defeats of the Romans at the Ticinus and at the Trebia in books 4 and 5. Among other things, the poet uses the battle at the Ticinus to introduce the son of the Roman consul P. Cornelius Scipio, i.e. the later Africanus, meaningfully into the plot.810 Already Livy wanted to attribute the rescue of the wounded consul above all to his son, and on this occasion also emphasized that the young Scipio was later to be credited with ending the war against the Carthaginians.811 As has been discussed elsewhere, the attribution of this act of rescue to the young Scipio was not without controversy in antiquity, for at least Coelius Antipater reports that a Ligurian slave rescued the consul.812 With Silius there is now no question that it was the young Scipio who saved his father from the battle. This act is further emphasized by the fact that the son intervenes in the events with the support of Mars, the god of war, who acts at the behest of Iuppiter.813 At the end of this passage, Mars himself predicts to the young Scipio that he, the “true descendant of Iuppiter,” will end the war with victory over Carthage.814 However, Mars first had to dissuade the young man from his plan to commit suicide while still on the battlefield in view of his father’s wounding, and only then spur him on to energetic action. In this way, Mars sends the future Africanus on the path that would eventually make him the outstanding leader of the Romans in this war. This formation of Scipio’s character will be returned to in the next subchapter.815  Niemann 1975, 71 f., 76 f.; Marks 2005, 163–169. On the epic models that Silius could allude to here, see Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2544 f., who refer in particular to the rescue of Anchises by Aeneas. This is, of course, a connection that morally enhances the deed of the young Scipio (“The image of the son carrying his father upon his shoulder is pietas in its classic.”). 811  Liv. 21,46,7–8. 812  Livy points this out at the end of the passage: Liv. 21,46,10. Cf. above Sects. 5.2.2 and 5.2.5.1. 813  Sil. 4,417–477. 814  Sil. 4,472–477 (tum celso e curru Mauors ‘Carthaginis arces/exscindes’ inquit ‘Tyriosque ad foedera coges./nulla tamen longo tanta exorietur in aeuo/lux tibi, care puer. macte, o macte indole sacra,/uera Iouis proles. et adhuc maiora supersunt/sed nequeunt meliora dari.’). 815  Sil. 4,454–459 (hic puer ut patrio defixum corpore telum/conspexit, maduere genae, subitoque trementem/corripuit pallor, gemitumque ad sidera rupit./bic conatus erat praecurrere fata parentis/conuersa in semet dextra, bis transtulit iras/in Poenos Mauors.). Cf. Marks 2005, 116  f.; Tipping 2010a, 148. 810

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Already before the beginning of the battle, in front of the eyes of both armies, a fight had taken place between a falcon and an eagle, which was generally considered a prodigium, and which the Roman seer Liger had interpreted to the effect that Scipio, who had been touched by the eagle of Iuppiter on his helmet, would one day defeat Carthage.816 However, since the falcon had previously killed 15 pigeons, birds considered closely associated with the Roman patron goddess Venus, and pursued another, it had also already been predicted that the Romans would not be able to drive the Carthaginians out of Italy until the sixteenth year  – a long time that would also be very hard for the Romans.817 The idea that the Roman victory in the war against Carthage would only be achieved after a long and bitter period of time is a prominent theme in various parts of the Punica. In the description of the defeat at the Ticinus, this emphasis serves above all to introduce the hero of the second half of the Punica, Scipio Africanus, into the events and to place the following heavy defeats of the Romans into an overarching narrative. This narrative can be followed up with the epic account of the defeat at the Trebia. First of all, however, it is noticeable that Silius refrains from reproducing in the Punica the controversy about the correct time of the battle between the two consuls P. Cornelius Scipio and Ti. Sempronius Longus, which Livy, for example, had previously given significant attention. Instead, it seems that the battle at the Trebia takes place only a few days after the battle at the Ticinus.818 Scipio also takes part in the battle, although the historiographical sources agree that he was still suffering from the wound he had received on the Ticinus and therefore was not able to fight.819 The disagreement of the two Roman commanders as well as with the sole leadership of the battle by the allegedly reckless Sempronius Longus, two explanations for the defeat at the Trebia, which are otherwise often found in Roman tradition, are thus omitted. All in all, it can be stated that Silius, in his account of the battle at the Trebia, refrained from going into more detail on the tactical development of the battle including the deployment of the troops, which, as is well known, is one of the standard elements of historiographical accounts of battles, and the course of operations, omissions which also eliminate a number of explanations for the defeat that can be found, for example, in Livy.820 On the other hand, Silius introduces other factors that  Sil. 4,103–130.  Cf. Niemann 1975, 47–50; Tipping 2010a, 146. On the connection of the dove to Venus, see Steier, RE IV A,2 (1932), 2479–2500, s. v. Taube, esp. 2496–2498. The sign that occurs in the twelfth book of the Aeneid before the battle between Aeneas and Turnus (Verg. Aen. 12,244–256) is commonly regarded as a direct model for this bird lugurium. Cf. Niemann 1975, 47; Spaltenstein 1986, 271. 818  Sil. 4,485 (iamque dies rapti...). Cf. above Sect. 5.2.5.1. 819  Pol. 3,70; Liv. 21,52,2; 21,53,1–6. The wound is also reported by Silius, but here it does not seem to be able to prevent the consul from participating in the following battle (Sil. 4,454–455). 820  Silius also ignores factors that – according to the historiographical sources – were decisive for the defeat. These include, in particular, the fact that the soldiers of the Roman army were forced to wade through the icy waters of the Trebia and then immediately fight the Carthaginian troops, which was not insignificant for the further course of the battle. Silius also does not deal with the 816 817

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had not played a role in the tradition of the battle of the Trebia. An important feature of the Punica is that the gods themselves intervene directly in the events. This is also the case at the Trebia, where Iuno intervenes on the side of the Carthaginians and in this way decisively contributes to the fact that the Romans are defeated there. Here, the fact that the battle takes place directly on the bank of the river becomes relevant. The topography of the battlefield, as seen, had also been included as an important factor in earlier depictions, which is now also the case in the Punica. However, here the Trebia itself – at the request of Iuno – intervenes in the battle against the Romans, which gives Silius the opportunity to make an allusion to the Iliad and to emphasize the bravery of the Roman soldiers.821 Silius also makes an important change in that he allows the consul P. Cornelius Scipio to take an active part in the battle, although the commander had been weakened by the wounds he had received in the battle at Ticinus. In this way, the degree of sacrifice of the consul seems increased.822 The integration of Scipio into the battle may also have resulted from the necessity that Silius needed a Roman hero for the epic description of the battle who was suitable as the protagonist of a great aristeia.823 Sempronius Longus, who did not hold a significant place in Roman historical culture, was hardly suited for this in the same way as Scipio, who is thus at the centre of the action in one of the most important passages of the battle description. Through this “exposed position of the consul ambush that Mago had laid at the behest of his brother. Cf. Niemann 1975, 79: “Die silianische Schilderung bewegt sich also von der allgemeinen Aufzeichnung der strategischen Entwicklung des Kampfverlaufs weg und konzentriert sich auf die Darstellung einiger weniger Personen und effektvoller Kampfszenen, die allerdings auf historischen Anregungen basieren”. 821  The importance of the Trebia for the course of the battle was also mentioned in earlier accounts of the battle. According to these accounts, the Trebia was said to have been heavily swollen by persistent snowfall. Given the date of the battle, which according to Polybius took place around the time of the winter solstice, this information does not seem implausible (Pol. 3,72,3). In the Punica, the Trebia becomes a raging torrent because Iuno asks the god of the river to wash away the already retreating Roman soldiers with his waters (Sil. 4,573 f. (Tum Trebia infausto noua proelia gurgite fessis/incolat ac precibus Iunonis suscitat undas)). The situation becomes even more precarious for the Romans because at the river the war elephants of the Carthaginians also enter the fray and attack the Roman soldiers as they attempt to cross the stream. See Sil. 4,598–604. Cf. Niemann 1975, 93 (“Zur Steigerung der unglücklichen Situation der römischen Soldaten (598 f.: Accumulat clades … vis elephantorum) bezieht Silius die Elefantenstreitmacht, von der in den historischen Berichten […] nur im Zusammenhang mit dem Kampf zu Lande die Rede war, in den Flußkampf ein.”). That Hannibal also used elephants in the battle of the Trebia is basically historically correct. However, Silius places this element of the battle in a different position in time and space than is the case in other sources. Silius probably made this shift, on the one hand, to increase the drama of the situation and, on the other hand, to offer an example of Roman bravery, which had proven itself again and again, especially in difficult situations, by describing how the Roman soldiers fearlessly faced the elephants. See especially Sil. 4,603  f.: Explorant aduersa uiros, perque aspera duro/ nititur ad laudem uirtus interrita cliuo. Cf. Niemann 1975, 93 f. (94: “die ganze Szene” should glorify “römische Tapferkeit in schwierigen Lagen”); Tipping 2010a, 31. 822  Sil. 4,622–624 (Ecce per aduersum, quamquam tardata morantur/uulnere membra uirum, subit implacabilis amnem/Scipio et innumeris infestat caedibus hostem). 823  Scipio’s participation in the battle of the Trebia is otherwise only recorded by Appian (App. Hann. 7). In view of the consistent reports of the historiographical sources, however, it seems likely that Scipio did not actually take an active part in the battle. Cf. Niemann 1975, 94, note 1.

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Scipio,” the two battles at the Ticinus and at the Trebia, which Silius obviously wanted to bring closer together than was the case in his historiographical sources, are closely connected in a further way.824 In the course of the battle there is a confrontation between Scipio and the river god, whom the Roman commander accuses of treason, since he, as an Italic deity, had stabbed the defenders of the country in the back and thus helped the foreign attackers alongside Hannibal.825 When the Trebia prepares to sweep Scipio away with a flood wave, Vulcanus, at the request of Venus, puts the river in its place by setting fire to the trees on its banks, whereupon the heat of the fires threatens the Trebia itself.826 With this scene, the account of the battle ends rather abruptly, for as soon as Scipio has been rescued from danger by the intervention of Vulcanus he orders his troops to retreat to a hill.827 Certainly, Niemann rightly notes that Silius, by choosing Scipio’s rescue from great danger through the intervention of a god as the compositional as well as textual climax of the fourth book, in a way covers up the actual Roman defeat on the battlefield.828 At the same time, the fact that the Italian river Trebia betrays the Romans and their allies also serves as an explanation for the defeat, because until then the battle was successful for the Romans under their consul Scipio.829 The other consul, Sempronius Longus, whom Silius accidentally calls Gracchus repeatedly is hardly mentioned in the account of the battle. Therefore, his supposedly rash and ill-considered actions and decisions, which according to the account in Polybius and Livy would have contributed to the defeat, are also little illuminated.830 While the Romans retreat under the leadership of Scipio, Hannibal erects altars honouring the river deity. In this context, Silius already foreshadows the following battle at Lake Trasimene, which is explicitly announced as an intensification of the defeat at Trebia.831 Omitting the events that took place in the good 6 months between the two battles, Silius then leads directly

 Cf. Niemann 1975, 104 (“So konnte schon zu Eingang festgestellt werden, daß sie [die beiden Niederlagen der Römer am Ticinus und an der Trebia] absichtlich ganz nahe aneinandergerückt wurden, ferner durch die exponierte Stellung des Konsuls Scipio miteinander verbunden sind.”). 825  Sil. 4,642–648. 826  Sil. 4.675–697. The river-god justifies his intervention in the battle by saying that the course of his waters is impeded by the bodies of the fallen of the battle in general and in particular by the dead that the consul’s aristeia had claimed (Sil. 4,660–666). The entire passage is, of course, an obvious allusion to the battle of Achilles against Skamandros described in the Iliad, where he is finally defeated by Hephaistion: Hom. Il. 21,212–384. On this, see Schönberger 1965, 141; Spaltenstein 1986, 319–322; Niemann 1975, 96–103; Horn 2014, 211  f. Cf. further Tipping 2010a, 169. 827  Sil. 4,698–699. 828  This can also be seen with regard to the battle at the Ticinus, so that here a repetition of this motif is present. Cf. Niemann 1975, 104. 829  At the same time, the poet does not forget to emphasize the self-sacrificing struggle of the Roman soldiers and, in particular, of the consul, which takes the form of a series of individual scenes that culminate in Scipio’s aristeia. 830  Pol. 3,70,3–6; Liv. 21,52,2–8. Cf. above Sect. 5.2.5.1. 831  Sil. 4,700–703. 824

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to the prelude to the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene. Again, Silius’ endeavor to bring the chain of Roman failures as close together as possible is evident here.832 Silius opens the new section with a negative characterization of the consul C. Flaminius, who had been identified almost unanimously in earlier sources as the main person responsible for the defeat of the Romans at Lake Trasimene.833 In the Punica, the already negative tradition of the consul of the year 217 is extended by another aspect, because the election of Flaminius is here the result of the activity of Iuno, who intends to cause further damage to the Romans in this way.834 Thus Flaminius, unlike Sempronius before him, is portrayed from the beginning in a very negative light. This becomes even more clear in the following.835 In addition, Iuno also shows Hannibal the way to Lake Trasimene through a dream, on the shores of which she promises him another great victory over the Romans.836 Again, Silius then offers a concentrated version of the events, so that the account of the battle follows quite closely Hannibal’s dream.837 The fifth book then begins directly with the description of the Carthaginian ambush.838 In a disorganized formation, the Roman army marches into the bottleneck, and Silius also does not fail to point out the fog that favored the Carthaginian

 Cf N.iemann 1975, 107.  Cf. above, among others, the sections on Coelius Antipater (Sect. 5.2.2), Cicero (Sect. 5.2.3.1) and Livy (Sect. 5.2.5.1). 834  Sil. 4.708–710 (hunc laeuis urbi genitum ad fatalia damna/ominibus parat imperio Saturnia fesso/ductorem dignumque uirum ueniente ruina.). Cf. Niemann 1975, 107. 835  Cf. Niemann 1975, 106 f. 836  Sil. 4,722–738. Siehe Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2521 (“That fact that he [Flaminius] is an instrument of Juno’s design takes him out of the ranks of the Romans being tested by Jupiter, and sets him beside Hannibal as an opponent of Rome.”). 837  In between Silius inserts the episodes known from the earlier tradition about the march of the Carthaginian army over the Apennines and through the Anio Marshes, in which Hannibal had lost an eye. In addition, there is an episode that is found in this way only in the Punica (Sil. 4,763–822). At Lake Trasimene, Hannibal meets envoys who had gone there from Carthage to deliver a dark message to the Carthaginian commander. Silius explains that every year the Punic had drawn lots among the children of the city for individuals to be sacrificed on flaming altars to show mercy to the Carthaginian gods. At the instigation of Hanno, Hannibal’s famous rival, his son had been designated as the sacrifice in Hannibal’s absence. However, fearing the wrath of Hannibal as much as that of the gods, the Carthaginian council members preferred to leave it to the latter to decide whether to follow the lot. In a self-assured speech, Hannibal accepted the godlike status the councilors had implicitly accorded him and decided against sacrificing his son. Addressing the Carthaginian gods, he announces instead that he will offer the Roman soldiers as human sacrifices. In the short episode, Silius succeeds, first, in offering an exaggerated account of Carthaginian child sacrifice (annual lot instead of the ritual actually performed probably only in times of crisis), which is complemented by an emotional speech from the mouth of Hannibal’s wife Imilke (Sil. 4,779–802), and, secondly, to illustrate Hannibal as haughty (he sees himself on a par with a god) as well as sacrilegious (Roman soldiers chosen for human sacrifice) nature. 838  Sil. 5,1–3 (Ceperat Etruscos occulto milite colles/Sidonius ductor perque alta silentia noctis/ siluarum anfractus caecis insederat armis). 832 833

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venture.839 Ultimately decisive for the Roman defeat, however, had been the rash action of C.  Flaminius, the commander ‘appointed’ by Iuno, who had recklessly ordered his troops to march into the trap at an even faster pace.840 In addition, the poet of Punica reports a total of four prodigies that occurred before the battle, all of which were ignored by Flaminius.841 Even his advisors, represented here by a certain Corvinus, who raised concerns due to the ominous prodigies and the disadvantageous topography of the battlefield, had not been able to persuade Flaminius to act more thoughtfully. In particular, he had refused to wait for the arrival of his colleague Servilius, putting forward the frank reason that he did not want to share the glory of victory with another commander. Significantly, Flaminius does not address the objection concerning the topography of the battlefield, which underscores his incompetence as a commander.842 As Flaminius prepares for battle, Silius takes the opportunity to point out that the consul’s shield had once been “splashed with Celtic blood,” which, on the one hand, is not the first allusion to Flaminius’ Celtic war, much maligned in Roman tradition, and, on the other, foreshadows his death in battle at the hands of the Boian Ducarius.843 In these sections Silius thus gathers the four factors that had already been mainly associated with the defeat at Lake Trasimene in the earlier tradition. Flaminius always plays a leading role: his ill-­ considered advance to Lake Trasimene, the list of prodigies, the disagreement with his advisors and finally his past in the Celtic war, which now falls back on him.  During the battle, however, the fog apparently has no significant effect on the battle, because it is no longer mentioned in the further course of the account. This is probably due to the fact that the “manifold epic battle scenes, which the poet, in contrast to the historians, was primarily interested in,” would not have been “conceivable in dense fog”. This is the assumption of Niemann 1975, 112. Accordingly, the fog dissipates even before the beginning of the battle (see the following note). 840  Sil. 5,53–58 (Ocius interea propelli signa iubebat/excussus consul fatorum turbine mentem,/ donec flammiferum tollentes aequore currum/solis equi sparsere diem. iamque orbe renato/ diluearat nebulas Titan, sensimque fluebat/caligo in terras nitido resoluta sereno). 841  Sil. 5,59–76. The reference to the fact that C. Flaminius is said to have disregarded warning prodigies before going out against Hannibal was part of the tradition of the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene at least since the account of Coelius Antipater (see above Sect. 5.2.2). However, the omens that are said to have occurred according to the account in the Punica differ from those known from earlier sources. First, the sacred chickens would have refused food, which was just as traditionally considered a bad omen as the fact that a sacrificial bull would have torn itself loose after the blow of the sacrificial axe had not hit it properly. Whether Silius had a specific example in mind in each case when he incorporated this omina into the opening credits of the Battle of Lake Trasimene is unclear (cf. the brief discussion in Niemann 1975, 113, note 2). In the case of the escaped sacrificial animal, however, it would be conceivable that Silius moved this incident, which according to Liv. 21,63,13 is supposed to have occurred at the inauguration of Flaminius, from there into the direct prelude of the battle (Niemann 1975, 113, note 2 shows himself skeptical in this respect, however). Spaltenstein 1986, 340 assumes that Silius took the passage about the disrespect of the sacred chickens from Cicero (Cic. div. 1,77), whose work he obviously appreciated (cf. Pomeroy 2010, 31: “a favorite author”). 842  Sil. 5,77–129. Cf. Niemann 1975, 115. 843  Sil. 5,130–150. further allusions to the Celtic campaign of Flaminius in Sil. 5,107–113; 5,137–139; 5,649–655. cf. Spaltenstein 1986, 344 f. 839

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Silius describes the events leading up to the battle, that is, the preparation of the ambush by the Carthaginians as well as the controversies on the Roman side, in such a way as to give the impression that these took place in a temporally concentrated manner on the morning of the battle. The description of the battle itself, like that of the fight at the Trebia, follows more the models of “traditional epic battle performances” than the “known historical tradition”, so that “a largely independent structure emerges”.844 Niemann has already presented a detailed analysis of the entire account of the battle at Lake Trasimene by Silius Italicus, so that in the following the focus will be placed on the aspects that are particularly relevant for the topic.845 The battle breaks down into a series of aristeiai, which here generally serve to demonstrate bravery and self-sacrifice shown by the Romans in defeat. Thus, the military tribune Lentulus, who in the works of other authors appears at Cannae to offer L. Aemilius Paullus his horse so that the wounded consul could flee the battlefield, already appears at Lake Trasimene as a helpful comrade-in-arms.846 The Roman Appius, whose aristeia ends with his own death, again shows not only his willingness to give his own life for the Roman cause, but also a special fighting spirit, which the Romans demonstrate here precisely in defeat, and which makes them particularly dangerous to their opponents.847 As a contrast, a scene can be identified in which a group of allied fighters fled from the Carthaginians to some trees to escape death by the weapons of the enemy.848 This escape, however, brings them an even worse fate, as the trees are cut down or set on fire by the Carthaginians. By demonstrating the consequences of the “cowardice” of these fighters, this passage is thus ultimately also in the service of “conventional notions of bravery”.849 In other passages, Silius has taken up details from earlier reports on the battle, but then used them in his account in a way that clearly differs from those of his originals. For example, Silius also mentions an earthquake that is said to have occurred during the battle.850 In the Punica, the earthquake prevents the meeting of the two commanders Hannibal and Flaminius, who are already ready to fight when the ground begins to

 Niemann 1975, 120 f. (quotation).  Niemann 1975, 120–158. 846  Cf. Niemann 1975, 127: “Daß Silius gerade den Lentulus als einen jederzeit zum hilfreichen Einspringen bereiten Kameraden charakterisiert, ist keineswegs Zufall. Durch diese Szene soll offenbar Lentulus’ Verhalten dem verwundeten Feldherrn Paulus in der Schlacht bei Cannae gegenüber bereits vorbereitet werden; denn Lentulus stellt hier dieselbe Charaktereigenschaft unter Beweis, durch die er sich in der späteren Szene in noch stärkerem Maße auszeichnen wird”. 847  Niemann 1975, 127–133, esp. 129: The “ganze Appius-Passage […]” has “die Funktion, Leistung, Tapferkeit und Gefährlichkeit der Römer in der Niederlage hervorzuheben”. 848  Sil. 5,475–516. Even before the Carthaginian soldiers attack their opponents, who have fled to the trees, they argue for the safest possible place (Sil. 5,494–497). 849  Fuhrmann 1968/1983, 61: “[D]ie Partie soll zugleich dartun, daß Feigheit vor dem Feinde nur ein desto schlimmeres Ende bewirkt; sie dient also konventionellen Tapferkeitsvorstellungen.” Cf. Niemann 1975, 143. 850  Sil. 5,609–631. Livy had already reported this (Liv. 22,5,8). 844 845

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shake.851 By separating the generals due to the earthquake, Silius succeeds, on the one hand, in reaching the climax of both aristeiai, that of Hannibal and that of Flaminius, in the form of a direct encounter of the military leaders, and is still able, on the other hand, to recount the death of Flaminius, as handed down, at the hands of a Celtic warrior.852 The remaining fighters continued to fight for a short time on shaky ground until the Romans quite abruptly took flight. The fifth book, however, does not end with the flight of the Roman soldiers, but with the death of Flaminius on the battlefield. As mentioned, it was already an established part of the tradition of the battle that Flaminius had died at the hands of a Celtic warrior whose name, Ducarius, had been ‘known’ since at least Livy.853 In the Punica, Flaminius first tries to stop the rout of the Romans, until Ducarius reaches him and engages him in combat, referring again to the campaign of Flaminius against the Celts, which had brought great terror to the Boians.854 The death of Flaminius is therefore (also) an act of revenge by the Celts, wherein Silius changes this passage in comparison to the Livian account in that here it is not the act of a single Celt, but that of many, who wound the consul with projectiles and attack him from all sides until he falls to the ground. This modified account can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, Flaminius pays the price for his rash action, which made him ignore omens and warnings; on the other hand, it is not possible for a single opponent to overcome the Roman consul, so that many Celts have to accomplish this, moreover with ranged weapons, i.e. not in close combat. In this context, this can probably be interpreted as a less honourable attack.855 With the death of Flaminius, the battle had been decided, but a group of young Roman fighters decided to follow their commander to his death. They threw themselves on the corpse of their commander and in this way built him a tomb from their own bodies.856 Flaminius’ last stand had already been described in earlier accounts of the battle as a heroic engagement in which the consul, who  Livy, on the other hand, had known to report that the fighters had struggled so doggedly that they had not been aware of the quake (see previous note). 852  See esp. Sil. 5,611–613. See on the passage Niemann 1975, 151 (“Silius hat einen Kompromiß zu schließen versucht”). Cf. Spaltenstein 1986, 382 f. 853  The deed of Ducarius was described in this context as revenge for the devastation of the campaign that Flaminius had led years earlier in the territory of the Celts. See especially Liv. 22,6,1–4. Cf. on this above par. 5.2.5.1. As already mentioned, Silius had also referred elsewhere to the earlier Celtic war of Flaminius. See, among others, Sil. 4,704–706; 5,142–143. 854  Sil. 5644–655: Dumque ea commemorat densosque obit obuius hostes,/aduolat ora ferus mentemque Ducarius. acri/nomen erat gentile uiro, fusisque cateruis/Boiorum quondam patriis antiqua gerebat/uulnera barbaricae mentis noscensque superbi/uictoris uultus ‚tune‘ inquit ‚maximus ille Boiorum terror? libet hoc cognoscere telo,/corporis an tanti manet de uulnere sanguis./nec uos paeniteat, populares, fortibus umbris/hoc mactare caput. nostros hic curribus egit/insistens uictos alta ad Capitolia patres./ultrix hora uocat.‘ 855  Sil. 5,655–658. Cf. Niemann 1975, 155 (“Im Gegensatz zu Livius läßt Silius Flaminius nicht von der Hand des Ducarius umkommen, sondern durch einen Hagel von Bojergeschossen, um wie er hier selbst sagt - keinem konkreten Gegner den Ruhm zu überlassen, den römischen Konsul getötet zu haben [...]”). See in this context also Sil. 10,301–308 (death of Paullus at Cannae). 856  Sil. 5,658–666. 851

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bore a great responsibility for the defeat, could at least prove himself as a warrior even though he had already failed as a commander.857 Silius takes up this model in the Punica and expands it by adding the aspect that not only the consul, but also a group of young Roman fighters take part in the events. By having them cover their dead commander with their own bodies, Silius takes up the well-known tradition according to which the body of Flaminius could no longer be identified by Hannibal’s soldiers the next morning on the battlefield, and he uses this detail to draw a monument to the bravery and fighting spirit of the Romans.858 Hannibal himself points out these Roman characteristics to his subordinates when inspecting the battlefield after the battle. The Carthaginian commander also predicts Rome’s domination of the world, as it still constrains it even in defeats (ipsis devincat cladibus orbem).859 Hannibal’s speech at this point highlights a basic theme of the Punica as a whole, namely the special strength that the Romans would have revealed precisely in defeats – an idea that is also expressed here, as elsewhere, by an opponent of Rome.860 The battle at Lake Trasimene undoubtedly marks one of the highlights of the first books of the Punica, after which Silius inserted the Regulus episode.861 As already seen, after the greatest defeat of the war so far, the Romans in the Punica recall the example of Regulus, whose steadfastness of character and sacrifice in the service of the Romans had indeed become a Republican exemplum long before the time of Silius. It has already been pointed out that the Regulus of the Punica in the sixth book in a certain way prefigures the great hero of the middle phase of the Hannibalic war, Q. Fabius Maximus.862 That Fabius is then also the central figure who dominates the events in the seventh book on the Roman side. His replacement by the new consul C. Terentius Varro leads to the catastrophe at Cannae, as is emphasized several times. For as long as Fabius had prudently held back the Roman armies, there had been no opportunity for Hannibal to achieve another victory on the battlefield.863  This is especially the case in Livy’s account. Cf. Spaltenstein 1986, 386. See above Sect. 5.2.5.1.  Sil. 5,665–666 (sic densi caedis aceruo/ceu tumulo texero uirum.). Cf. Niemann 1975, 156, who notes that the “Verhalten von Flaminius’ Mitstreitern gegenüber Livius’ Erzählung, in der diese Ducarius daran hindern, den Toten seiner Rüstung zu berauben […],” was “erheblich gesteigert”. 859  Sil. 5,669–676 (Hannibal’s speech): ‚Quae uulnera cernis,/quas mortes!‘inquit ‚premit omnis dextera ferrum,/armatusque iacet seruans certamina miles./hos, en, hos obitus nostrae spectate cohortes!/fronte minae durant, et stant in uultibus irae./et uereor, ne, quae tanta creat indole tellus/ magnanimos fecunda uiros, huic fata dicarint/imperium, atque ipsis deuincat cladibus orbem‘. Vgl. Kissel 1979, 91; Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2522; Tipping 2010a, 78. 860  Already before (see for instance the previous sections on Livy) it could be noted that in different works it is often precisely Rome’s enemies who emphasize this quality of the Romans in a praising or warning manner. The passage at the end of the fifth book thus offers another example of this previously established mode of representation. Cf. Niemann 1975, 156  f., who sees in this the “Grundgedanke[n], den Silius seiner Darstellung der römischen Niederlagen unterlegt hat” (157). 861  This need not be discussed in detail again here. See Sect. 5.1.6 above. 862  Cf. Sect. 5.1.6 above and see Niemann 1975, 159 f.; Fröhlich 2000, 176 f. 863  Sil. 8,35  f. (cum Varrone manus et cum Varrone serenda/proelia. ne desit fatis ad signa mouenda). See also Sil. 8,216–218 (Mutati fasces; iam bellum atque arma senatus/ex inconsulto posuit Tirynthius heros,/cumque alio tibi Flaminio sunt bella gerenda.); 8,235–237. Previously, Silius also reports the equation of M. Minucius Rufus with Q. Fabius Maximus in rank and the 857 858

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With this interpretation Silius thus follows the interpretive path established at least since Ennius. The account of the battle of Cannae and of the events that preceded it also combines elements of the historiographical tradition that Silius Italicus had before him and the epic tradition from which his models came. Thus, also in the Punica, at the beginning of the eighth book, there is a reference to the fact that the Carthaginian army was on the verge of having to abandon its enterprise, because it was suffering from a great shortage of food.864 Even Hannibal himself had been discouraged until Iuno pointed out to him the new, more favorable situation through the nymph Anna Perennia with explicit reference to Varro’s assumption of office. As on the previous occasions when Iuno gave Hannibal decisive hints for the further planning of the campaign through dreams, the nymph also gives Hannibal a direct recommendation regarding the choice of the battlefield.865 The Carthaginian commander thus acts once again under the guidance of the deity who is favorable to him. However, the fact that Varro now holds the consulship is clearly the decisive factor in the defeat. Following the historiographical tradition, in particular the Livian account, the poet of the Punica recounts Varro’s lowly origins and leaves no doubt that he only reached the consulate through demagogic activities directed against the Senate. Varro confirms this assessment by a speech directed against Fabius Maximus, in which he announces a quick victory over Hannibal, which will also help the Roman people to break the rule of the senators (patrum regnum).866 Silius refrains from describing Varro’s election to the consulship, but adopts both the warning that Fabius addresses to Varro’s colleague, L. Aemilius Paullus, and the latter’s resigned reply, in which the Aemilian announces his own death on the battlefield in the event of defeat.867 The comparison with Livy’s text also shows that Silius does mention the opposition between the two consuls and especially the disagreement that existed between the Senate and Paullus and Varro on the one hand, and between the senators and the consequences this had for the Romans. In the end, Fabius can still prevent a catastrophe (see Sil. 7,494–750). 864  Sil. 8,11–15. 865  Sil. 8,25–241. See esp. 8,35–36 (cum Varrone manus et cum Varrone serenda/proelia. ne desit fatis ad signa mouenda). Cf. on the passage Spaltenstein 1986, 500 f., who points out, among other things, how Silius also linguistically emphasizes the turnaround that had occurred for the Carthaginian cause by Varro’s assumption of office. However, the authenticity of verses 8,144–226 is uncertain, since the extant manuscripts show a gap at this point. However, there can again be little doubt that in this passage the nymph will have held out to Hannibal the prospect of a successful continuation of his campaign. Cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2497: “Even on the basis of what remains if we exclude from consideration, a number of observations are justified. First, Anna must have offered some strong reassurance to Hannibal [...]”. 866  Sil. 8,242–277. Cf. for the characterization Varros Niemann 1975, 161 f.; Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2531 f. 867  Sil. 8,297–348. See especially the concluding words of Paul in 8345–348 (sed si curda mihi pugnabunt castra monenti,/haud ego uos ultra, nati, dulcemque morabor/Assaraci de gente domum similemue uidebit/Varroni Paulum redeuntem saucia Roma). Cf. Niemann 1975, 162; Ahl/Davis/ Pomeroy 1986, 2533 f.; Spaltenstein 1986, 520 f.

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common people on the other. But Silius does not emphasize this conflict to the same extent as Livy had done.868 The contrast between Varro and Paullus at the time of their departure is merely rendered by Silius in a rather inconspicuous phrase.869 With the departure of the two consuls to their army camp, a new phase in the account of the events around Cannae begins. Silius has given several hints in the Punica that this battle has a special status. This begins by emphasizing that never before had a larger army than that of the consuls marched on Italian soil, and finds a continuation in the fact that Silius furthermore presents the army of Romans and allies in the form of a troop catalogue, with which he simultaneously inserts a typical element of the historical epic.870 Moreover, Silius establishes a connection with another famous Roman defeat, which is mentioned in several places in the epic, namely the battle of the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome.871 For the spirits of the Gauls, who had risen from their graves, haunt the sleeping Romans before the battle.872 Silius reports this apparition in the context of an enumeration of various ominous portents that would have occurred not only in the camp of the Romans, but in all of Italy. In doing so, this of course also helps to emphasize the significance of the following event. That we may attribute this intention to Silius becomes still more evident when we compare his account of omens with earlier accounts. In the Punica, the poet strings together 20 different omens, which represents a clear increase over the account in Livy, for example, who had recorded relatively few prodigies just before Cannae.873 Before the actual start of the battle, Silius inserts two further passages, each of which casts additional shadows on the forthcoming fighting. From the historiographical model he takes the quarrel of the consuls before the battle begins, the change of command, and the attack which Varro breaks off  On this observation, see Pomeroy 2010, 40. Cf. supra Sect. 5.2.5.1.  Sil. 8,349–350: Sic tum diuersa turbati mente petebant/castra duces. Thus, there is no equivalent in the Punica to the passage in Livy, in which the latter charges the separate departure of the two consuls, one of whom is accompanied by the senators and the most respected citizens, the other alone by members of the lowest classes, from the city with a high significance (Liv. 22,40,4). 870  Sil. 8,352–616. Cf. Niemann 1975, 162 f., esp. 163 (The troop catalogue at this point helps to “die Bedeutung der bevorstehenden Niederlage vor den anderen hervorzuheben, was Silius’ Intention, wie sich noch an vielen anderen Einzelheiten zeigen wird, sehr entgegenkommt.”). 871  Further examples of allusions to the ‘Gallic catastrophe’ can be found, for instance, in Sil. 4,150–153; 6,555–556; 13,79–81 (cf. on this Spaltenstein 1990, 211). In Sil. 13,1–2 it is the Tarpeian hill (Tarpeia [...] culmina) that disappears from Hannibal’s field of vision during the Carthaginian retreat, which illustrates his failure. 872  Sil. 8,641–642 (ludificante etiam terroris imagine somnos/Gallorum uisi bustis erumpere manes, [...]). The mention of the busta Gallica is clearly apt to create an association with the siege of the Capitol by the Gauls, even if it is not explicitly mentioned here. Cf. Spaltenstein 1986, 556. 873  On this see Niemann 1975, 165: „[D]er wesentliche Unterschied zu Silius besteht jedoch darin, daß Polybios nur allgemein vom Auftreten solcher Prodigien spricht und Livius lediglich vier verschiedene Zeichen nennt, die zudem noch zu einem früheren Zeitpunkt stattfinden, während der Dichter eine ganze Fülle von Vorzeichen (20!) aneinanderreiht“. In this comparison, of course, it must be taken into account that omens and religious reactions were, in the eyes of Polybius, expressions of a superstition that he disapproved of and probably therefore generally gave little space in his account of the Punic wars. 868 869

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when Paullus warns him that the visceral inspection that day had revealed unfavourable omens. At this point the poet of the Punica has evidently drawn together two different events, as Niemann has already pointed out.874 For Silius first describes that Paullus had warned his colleague of bad omens. Varro, however, had not let himself be deterred by this in his urge to attack, but had only been stopped by the fact that Paullus had held the supreme command on the day in question.875 In Livy these two incidents are reported in different passages referring to two different days.876 Presumably, Silius intended to focus the account on Cannae by this temporal shortening, even though, strictly speaking, Paullus’ first attempt to stop Varro by referring to the unfavorable auspicium makes little sense, since he could have referred directly to his rotational supreme command.877 Moreover, Silius reports that two soldiers from the opposing camps had met at night during a reconnaissance. They were father and son who did not recognize each other, which is why the son killed the father.878 Silius inserted this ‘night play’ immediately before the battle of Cannae to give a further indication of the impending defeat.879 This foreshadowing is underlined by the explicit warning that the son Solimon puts on his father Satricus’ shield on his behalf (fugue proelia Varro).880 In describing the battle formations of both sides, Silius, as in the case of the previous defeats, hardly follows the historiographically transmitted formations, and takes some liberties in other respects as well, among the most striking of which is the positioning of the young Scipio as commander over a body of troops. This helps to establish Scipio even more firmly as one of the central persons in the epic.881 The special status of the battle of Cannae is probably also meant to be emphasized in the direct intervention of a number of gods in the battle.882 Silius forms the account of  Niemann 1975, 171.  Sil. 9,15–18 (nec pecudum fibras Varro et contraria Paulo/auspicia incusante deum compesceret arma,/ni sors alterni iuris, quo castra reguntur,/arbitrium pugnae properanti in fata negasset.). Cf. on this Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2533 f. 876  Liv. 22,42,7–9 (halting the attack because of unfavorable results of visceral examination); 22,41,2–3; 22,45,4 (Varro halted by the supreme command of Paullus). 877  As seen above, Silius had also made a temporal compression of his model with regard to the battles at the Trebia as well as those at Lake Trasimene. 878  Sil. 9,66–177. 879  Cf. Niemann 1975, 176 f. Silius had chosen for this episode “die für die Römer böseste Nacht […]: Hannibals Heer sitzt ihnen kampfbereit gegenüber; durch das kriegerische Vorgeplänkel einerseits und den Rededisput zwischen Varro und Paulus andererseits ist deutlich geworden, daß es beim Kommandowechsel am folgenden Morgen zur Schlacht kommen wird, die nach den zahlreichen vorausgegangenen Omina für die Römer unglücklich verlaufen muß […]”. 880  Sil. 9,175. See on this, among others, Tipping 2010a, 37 f. 881  Scipio in the battle formation at Cannae: Sil. 9,275–277. According to this intention Silius had already designed the representation of the battle at the Ticinus. 882  Mars, Apollo, Neptune, Venus, Vesta, Hercules, Cybele, Faunus, Quirinus as well as Castor and Pollux are fighting on the Roman side, while Iuno, Pallas, Ammon and an unspecified number of “lesser gods” (turba divorum minorum) want to fight for the Carthaginians. Cf. Niemann 1975, 187: “Das Herannahen der Götter zum Kampf hat in den Punica die Funktion – und darauf kommt es Silius im wesentlichen an –, die Schlacht bei Cannae gegenüber den voraufgegangenen 874 875

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the battle in the case of Cannae from various individual episodes and aristeiai as well, almost entirely refraining from mentioning or even explaining the specific tactical maneuvers of the battle. Rather, virtually all the passages aim primarily, on the one hand, to make visible the special significance of the battle and, on the other, to give examples of the outstanding moral stance with which the Romans faced defeat.883 The central figure on the Roman side is Paullus, who appears in several important passages. In one instance, the two Roman consuls meet on the battlefield – further evidence of the extent to which Silius departed from his models in his interpretation of the historical events handed down to him. Paullus angrily reproaches Varro for his responsibility for the looming catastrophe. The Aemilian explicitly includes the common people, who had brought Varro into the consulship in the first place, in his reproaches. Varro, on the other hand, in the face of disaster seems to have completely lost confidence in the correctness of his own position. He admits his failure, but at the same time reproaches the “fatherland” (patria) for having appointed him commander in the first place, which must further strengthen the negative impression that weighs on him, since he reveals that he is in no regard up to the situation.884 Resenting his fate, Varro leaves the battlefield, making his flight, a rather unspectacular event with which the ninth book concludes. The tenth book sees only one consul, Paullus, acting at Cannae.885 There Paullus defeats numerous Niederlagen hervorzuheben, in denen zwar auch bisweilen ein göttlicher Eingriff stattgefunden, aber nirgendwo eine so große Zahl Überirdischer durch ihre Anwesenheit am Orte der Begegnung ihr Interesse bekundet hatte […]”. See also Spaltenstein 1990, 27. 883  Thus Hannibal leads a considerable elephant force into the field here, which lends the battle even more monumental dimensions. Silius grants considerable space to the Romans’ fight against the war elephants (Sil. 9,570–631) and paints as threatening a picture of the animals as possible. See, among others, Sil. 9,570 f. (appellitur atra/mole fera, et monstris componitur Itala pubes). Cf. on the implications of the semantics used here Spaltenstein 1990, 49. See also Niemann 1975, 212. 884  Cf. Sil. 7,555–556, where Q. Fabius Maximus admonishes his son that anger towards the fatherland is an outrage (nefas). Even in admitting his own faults, Varro thus behaves contrary to the norms that would be expected of a Roman consul. See on the Fabius speech in the seventh book Marks 2005, 25. Cf. also Spaltenstein 1986, 483. 885  Sil. 9,632–657: Has inter clades uiso Varrone sub armis/increpitans Paulus ‘quin imus comminus’ inquit/’ductori Tyrio, quem uinctum colla catenis/staturum ante tuos currus promisimus urbi?/heu patria, heu plebes scelerata et praua fauoris!/haud umquam expedies tam dura sorte malorum,/quem tibi non nasci fuerit per uota petendum,/Varronem Hannibalemne, magis.‘ dum talia Paulus,/urget praecipites Libys atque in terga ruentum/ante oculos cunctas ductoris concitat hastas./pulsatur galea et quatiuntur consulis arma./acrius hoc Paulus medios ruit asper in hostes./ Tum uero excussus mentem, in certamina Paulo/auia diducto, conuertit Varro manuque/cornipedem inflectens ‘das,’ inquit ‘patria, poenas,/quae Fabio incolumi Varronem ad bella uocasti./quaenam autem mentis uel quae discordia fati?/Parcarumque latens fraus est? abrumpere cuncta/ iamdudum cum luce libet. sed comprimit ensem/nescio qui deus et meme ad grauiora reseruat./ uiuamne et fractos sparsosque cruore meorum/hos referam populo fasces atque ora per urbes/ iratas spectanda dabo et, quo saeuius ipse/Hannibal haud poscat, fugiam et te, Roma, uidebo?’/ plura indignantem telis propioribus hostes/egere et sonipes rapuit laxatus habenas. Cf. on this passage Niemann 1975, 212–215 (214): “Sehr dezent hat Silius mit dieser Szene die Flucht des Konsuls gestaltet, welche darzustellen ihm als Proklamator alter römischer Tugend, die er gerade am Beispiel des Zweiten Punischen Krieges aufzeigen wollte, peinlich sein mußte; ganz verschweigen konnte er aber dies wichtige Faktum nicht, von dem die Historiker vornehmlich in tadeln-

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opponents in a long aristeia described in two divided passages, but his real aim is to kill Hannibal himself on the battlefield in order to stop the enemy by risking his own life.886 The consul is only stopped by a hurled boulder that wounds him severely, leading to the scene that Livy had already recounted as the death scene of Paullus.887 The fleeing military tribune Lentulus encounters Paullus, who is leaning against a rock, bleeding and “sinking grimly down into Tartarus.” As in the Livian text, Lentulus tries to convince Paullus to flee the battlefield.888 In addition to this general agreement between the two depictions, however, there are also differences. In Livy, for example, Lentulus was guided above all by the idea that Paullus, who was innocent of the events, should not die and that the defeat should not be aggravated by the death of a consul.889 In the Punica, the military tribune explicitly expresses the thought that Paullus would serve Rome less by dying than by surviving. Emotionally agitated, he even accuses the consul of doing even greater harm to the Republic than dem Tone berichten; so mußte er es abzumildern suchen”. At the same time, the view into Varro’s world of thought, which is made possible by the consul’s monoloque, does not make him appear too positive when he combines the “Eingeständnis seines Scheiterns” with a reproach “gegen das Vaterland”, “mit ihm den Falschen zum Oberbefehlshaber gewählt zu haben”. Paullus, on the other hand, faces his fate, for which, according to the account in the Punica, he is not to blame, without complaining. 886  The aristeia of Paullus: Sil. 10,1–82 and 10,170–308. Between both parts Silius has inserted an aristeia of Hannibal, which is connected to the first of Paullus in that the consul intends to confront the Carthaginian commander in battle, but this is thwarted by Iuno, who is concerned for Hannibal’s life (Sil. 10,83–91). Cf. on the structure Niemann 1975, 215. The consul’s intention to face the enemy commander in battle shows his willingness to give his life for the Roman cause. At the same time, he considers it intolerable that Hannibal should survive should he himself meet death. See Sil. 10,42–44 (per medios agitur proiecto lucis amore/Hannibalem lustrans Paulus. sors una uidetur/aspera, si occumbat ductore superstite Poeno). Cf. on this Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2535. 887  Sil. 10,235–237. Cf. Niemann 1975, 238  f. Fuhrmann 1968/1983, 63 elaborates that Roman army commanders who fall in the Punica often suffer particularly gruesome wounds before they die. The physical disfigurement, which, however, cannot overcome the psyche of the commanders, emphasizes their heroic behavior even more (see ibid.: “Bei Silius vermag gerade die physische Entstellung Heldentum zu dokumentieren […].”). Agreeing Niemann 1975, 239. 888  Sil. 10,260–291: Ecce Cydonea uiolatus harundine plantam/Lentulus effusis campum linquebat habenis,/cum uidet in scopulo rorantem saxa cruore/toruoque obtutu labentem in Tartara Paulum./ mens abiit, puduitque fugae. tum uisa cremari/Roma uiro, tunc ad portas iam stare cruentus/ Hannibal; Aetoli tum primum ante ora fuere/sorbentes Latium campi. ‘quid deinde relictum est,/ crastina cur Tyrios lux non deducat ad urbem,/deseris in tantis puppim si, Paule, procellis?/testor caelicolas,’ inquit ‘ni damna gubernas/crudelis belli uiuisque in turbine tanto,/inuitus plus, Paule, (dolor uerba aspera dictat)/plus Varrone noces. cape, quaeso, hunc, unica rerum/fessarum spes, cornipedem. languentia membra/ipse leuabo umeris et dorso tuta locabo.’/Haec inter lacero manantem ex ore cruorem/eiectans consul: ‘macte o uirtute paterna!/nec uero spes angustae, cum talia restent/pectora Romuleo regno. calcaribus aufer,/qua uulnus permittit, equum atque hinc ocius; urbis/claudantur portae (ruet haec ad moenia pestis)/dic, oro. rerum Fabio tradantur habenae./ nostris pugnauit monitis furor. amplius acta/quid superest uita, nisi caecae ostendere plebi/Paulum scire mori? feror an consumptus in urbem/uulneribus? quantine emptum uelit Hannibal, ut nos/ uertentes terga adspiciat? nec talia Paulo/pectora, nec manes tam parua intramus imago./ille ego – sed uano quid enim te demoror aeger, Lentule, conquestu? perge atque hinc cuspide fessum/ erige quadrupedem propere.’ tum Lentulus urbem/magna ferens mandata petit. 889  Liv. 22,49,6–8.

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Varro, who has already fled the battlefield.890 On the other hand, the dying Paullus, committed to the res publica until his death, gives Lentulus instructions for the Senate in Rome, according to which the hope for victory should now rest once again on Fabius Maximus.891 Above all, however, he emphasizes that he wants his own death to be understood as an exemplum from which the Roman people, especially the mob that had turned against him before the battle, should derive a lesson in Roman virtus. Even at the moment of his own end, then, the consul thinks of the community and uses his death for a final service to the republic.892 If nothing else, Paullus intends not to allow Hannibal the satisfaction of seeing a fleeing consul.893 Literally dying, the Aemilian then kills several more enemies and is only finally killed – as Flaminius had already been – by the fire of ranged weapons wielded by a group of motley members of ‘barbarian’ peoples.894 His death further enhanced the glory of the city, Silius adds, which again points beyond the deed of Paullus to the overall Roman dimension of the battle of Cannae in the Punica. As already mentioned, Silius integrated figures who had actually left traces in Roman tradition in other contexts into the events in the context of the account of the defeats before Cannae, especially the young P. Cornelius Scipio. In the description of the battle of Cannae, this approach is intensified further. The future Africanus, who probably actually fought as a military tribune at Cannae, is again given his own appearance, which puts him almost on a par with the commanders of the Roman army. In addition to Scipio, the young M. Porcius Cato, who was indeed a veteran of Hannibal’s war, but probably not in the army of Varro and Paullus, now fights at Cannae. With Scipio Africanus and Cato Censorius, Silius has in this way integrated two of the most prominent figures in the social memory of the Roman Republic from the ‘classical’ period of the res publica into the Cannae account in the Punica. Both were regarded in the late republic and early imperial period as emblematic of that epoch, which was perceived by many authors not only as glorious but also as exemplary in moral terms.895 In the Punica, the virtutes represented by Scipio and

 Sil. 10,270–275.  Modifying the corresponding passage in Livy (Liv. 22,49,10; see also Plut. Fab. 16,7), in which Paullus gives Lentulus general instructions for the defense of Rome and a more private message to Q. Fabius Maximus, Silius has combined these two elements when Paullus here recommends the transfer of political-military leadership to Fabius. See Kissel 1979, 124. 892  Cf. Kissel 1979, 125; Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2536 (“His [Paul’s] glory comes from his refusal to act for his own sake; his uniqueness from realizing he is not unique.”). 893  Sil. 10,276–291. 894  Sil. 10,292–308. 895  Sil. 9,275–277 (Scipio entrusted with a responsible position in the battle formation); 10,14–15 (mention of Cato). Conversely, Silius also has fighters appear on the Carthaginian side whose participation in the Second Punic War is not attested or is anachronistic. Thus, in the troop catalogue of Hannibal’s army, the leader of the Lusitanians is Viriathus, who would “soon” make a “famous name” for himself through Roman defeats (Sil. 3,354–356: hos Viriatus agit Lusitanumque remotis/extractum lustris, primo Viriatus in aeuo,/nomen Romanis †pactum† mox nobile damnis.). It cannot be assumed that Silius made a simple chronological blunder here. Cf. Spaltenstein 1986, 221 f. See there (222) also considerations on the difficult reading of the last verse (3,356: factum 890 891

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Cato embody not only prominent fighters but also ordinary Romans whose bravery is portrayed in exemplary fashion. Among these is the old warrior Christa, who together with his six sons had gone into battle wherein he had wrestled down a huge war elephant and subsequently fought Hannibal, who, however, struck down all his opponents, mocking the pietas that Christa and his sons had shown.896 Further examples could be added to this list. Overall, it becomes apparent that the battlefield of Cannae in the Punica becomes a parade ground of Roman virtutes, which the Romans (once again) display precisely in defeat. Thus, Silius explicitly emphasizes that such strength of character had disappeared in his time and that one could therefore learn from the behavior revealed by the Romans who were defeated at Cannae.897 Silius closes the tenth book with a sequence of episodes that can already be found in the last part of Livy’s book 22, where they also form the epilogue to the battle of Cannae.898 Among other things, here too Scipio dissuades the military tribune Metellus from leaving Italy, and swears that he will never abandon Rome and Italy when it is necessary to defend both against enemies from without. The contrasting fates of the two consuls are portrayed in two scenes.899 First, Hannibal’s soldiers find the body of L. Aemilius Paullus, which Hannibal has burned on a pyre erected for this purpose, paying tribute to the slain enemy once again. Silius then describes Varro’s return to Rome. Here an angry crowd is actually waiting for the consul, but it is calmed by the prudent Q. Fabius Maximus, who provides a respectful welcome for Varro in Rome. As seen above, this scene was probably known in Roman historiography at least since L.  Coelius Antipater.900 In the Punica, the defeated consul returns to the city full of shame, having by now realized his guilt in the defeat.901 The leading role after the army’s downfall is taken by the senate, especially Fabius Maximus, who is first able to calm the partly panicked population, then demands unity and respect for the consul upon Varro’s return, and finally begins to raise a new army; Silius also reports the emergency measures taken for this purpose.

for pactum?). On the inclusion of names for which no individual is attested for the time of the Roman-Carthaginian wars, see McGuire 1995. 896  Sil. 10,92–169 (Hannibal’s fight against Christa and his sons). 897  See esp. Sil. 9,346–353: uerum utinam posthac animo, Romane, secunda,/quanto tunc aduersa, feras! sitque hactenus, oro,/nec libeat temptare deis, an Troia proles/par bellum tolerare queat. tuque anxia fati/pone, precor, lacrimas et adora uulnera laudes/perpetuas paritura tibi. nam tempore, Roma,/nullo maior eris. mox sic labere secundis,/ut sola cladum tuearis nomina fama. On this passage, see Niemann 1975, 193 f., who ascribes to it “central[n] importance [...] for the Silian interpretation of the Roman defeats and their position in the epic as a whole”. See also Sil. 10,657–658, where this idea is taken up again at the end of the last ‘Cannae -book’: haec tum Roma fuit. post te cui uertere mores/si stabat fatis, potius, Carthago, maneres. Cf. Spaltenstein 1990, 102 and see below on causes of Roman defeats and the way to overcome the crisis in the Punica. 898  See Sect. 5.2.5.1 above. 899  Sil. 10,415–448. on this, see Marks 2005, 131–133. 900  Sil. 10,605–629. 901  Sil. 10,630–639.

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If one takes the aforementioned individual observations on the depiction of Roman defeats up to the battle of Cannae in the Punica together, it is difficult to dismiss the impression that Silius regarded this as at least a central part of his work. Moreover, as argued above, there is much to be said for regarding those books that contain the account of the battle of Cannae as the compositional centre of the Punica. This impression is solidified by an examination of the later books, in which can also be seen the account of Roman defeats after the battle of Cannae until the end of the war. These events, in fact, Silius has incorporated into the Punica with remarkable brevity. In the twelfth book, he ranks the victories of Hannibal against the officer C. Centenius, whose historical background is elusive, the first battle of Herdonea in 212, and the ambush of the Lucanians in which Ti. Sempronius Gracchus dies, in relatively few verses. These events also form here merely marginal episodes within the narrative of the fate of Capua. Hannibal rushes to the aid of the allied city from Tarentum and relentlessly clears away every enemy force that stands in his way.902 The three defeats are thus transferred by Silius into a context different from that within which they have been historiographically transmitted, and at the same time presented in a marginalized manner.903 The subsequent dramatic climax of the book, however, does not consist in Hannibal’s attempt to liberate Capua, but in his failed march on Rome in 211, that is, around one of those episodes of the war which, as already seen, seems to have been among the best known in Roman historical culture after Cannae.904 Silius dedicates only one verse to the second battle of Herdonea in 210, in which the proconsul Cn. Fulvius Centumalus fell, in the speech of Hannibal before the battle of Zama, in which he reminds his soldiers of the common victories of the war in Italy.905 Even the death of the Scipios in Spain in battle with Hasdrubal’s army, told in five chapters in Livy’s account, is described by the poet of the Punica only in indirect form in Book 13, where the young Scipio learns by messengers of the death of his father and uncle.906 Of the Roman defeats of the second half of the war, the death of Marcellus in battle on a reconnaissance expedition is alone described in a relatively comprehensive manner.907 That the death of Marcellus, who until then had also been portrayed in the Punica as one of the most important commanders on the Roman side and, despite the inglorious circumstances of his death, was considered one of the outstanding Roman commanders of this war, is described here in  Sil. 12,463–478.  Cf. Pomeroy 1990, 126. 904  See for example Sects. 5.2.3.1 and 5.2.6. 905  If one wants to refer verse 17,304 (Fuluius excepit non unum pectore uulnus) to the second battle of Herdonea at all, as Broughton 1951, 280 does. 906  Sil. 13,381–384 (Dum Capuainfaustam luit haud sine sanguine culpam,/interea geminos terra crudelis Hibera/fortuna abstulerat permiscens tristia laetis/Scipiadas, magnumque decus magnumque dolorem.).In Book 16, Scipio holds funeral games in honour of his father and uncle in Spain (Sil. 16,287–574). 907  Sil. 15,334–380. Here Silius directly follows a passage in which Hannibal’s honourable handling of the corpse of Marcellus is described, which was already known from earlier sources (Sil. 15,381–396). 902 903

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some detail is hardly surprising. When compared with extant historiographical accounts of the event, it is noticeable that the poet of the Punica refrains from any criticism of the fallen consul. Instead, Silius uses the historically corroborated circumstance that the consul’s son had accompanied his father in the latter’s last battle to offer another variation on a motif that appears repeatedly in the Punica, namely the joint struggle of father and son or sons against the invaders.908 Indeed, Marcellus is killed when he lets his guard down upon noticing that his son had been badly wounded. Just prior to the fatal reconnaissance ride, Marcellus praised his son with paternally benevolent words for his commitment to the war, a commitment which the son had already revealed at the time of the war in Sicily.909 Rather than characterizing Marcellus as a reckless or even foolish general who had risked not only his own life but also the welfare of the Roman cause as a whole, Silius here emphasizes, on the one hand, the tragedy of the event.910 In addition, the father’s preceding praise of the young Marcellus can be interpreted to mean that his warlike spirit should live on through his descendants and continue to be of service to Rome.911

 First and foremost are the battle at the Ticinus, in which the consul Scipio is saved by his son (Sil. 4,454–470), and the fight of Christa and his sons against Hannibal on the battlefield of Cannae (Sil. 10,92–169). See, moreover, Sil. 9,66–177. A variation on the theme is offered by the sixth book with its Regulus excursus, when there the son of the famous Atilius joins the battle against the Carthaginians at Lake Trasimene, which his father had fought a generation earlier in Africa. Cf. above Sect. 5.1.6. See Burck 1984, 64–66, who elaborates on Silius’ reference to Virgil’s Aeneid, which can be seen in the elaboration of Marcellus’ last battle in the Punica. Thus, the speech that Marcellus addresses to his son before setting out on the fatal exploratory ride (Sil. 15,355–360) is to be understood as a reference to Aeneas’ “turning to Ascanius before his last battle with Turnus”. Silius was less concerned with an “external equality or similarity of the two scenes”, which indeed show some differences, but rather “that he wants to demonstrate with them how the exemplary spirit of early times [...] lived on and continued to work in Roman history” (Burck 1984, 64). On the intertextual references in the passage about the death of Marcellus in the Punica, see also Fucecchi 2010, 235. 909  Sil. 15,353–360; 15,370–380 (circumdata postquam/nil restare uidet uirtus, quod debeat ultra/ iam superis, magnum secum portare sub umbras/nomen mortis auet. tortae nunc eminus hastae/ altius insurgit, nunc saeuit comminus ense./forsan et enasset rapidi freta saeua pericli,/ni telum aduersos nati uenisset in artus./tum patriae tremuere manus, laxataque luctu/fluxerunt rigidis arma infelicia palmis./obuia nudatum tramittit lancea pectus,/labensque impresso signauit gramina mento.). Cf. Fucecchi 2010, 234 f. 910  So also Fucecchi 2010, 235 f. (“The poet rather softens some negative judgments on this controversial figure, expressed by a significant portion of our historiographical sources, by dramatizing the tragedy of Marcellus’ heroism, the pathos of the untimely and unfortunate fate of a triumphator-to-be, who paradoxically dies like a father destroyed by his son’s death.”). The interpretation put forward here by Fucecchi, according to which Marcellus’ son also fell in this battle, cannot be verified. The historical son of the consul survived the battle (cf. also the following note). 911  Cf. Burck 1984, 64 f. The intergenerational success in the service of the res publica was ostentatiously and publicly visibly emphasized by historical members of the Claudii Marcelli, as indicated, among other things, by an inscription affixed to a triumphal arch, in which offices held by various family representatives had been listed in an accumulated manner. See Ascon. in Pis. 44p. 18 Stangl for a quotation of the inscription (III MARCELLI NOVIES COS). Cf. on this, among others, Hölkeskamp 1996/2004, 192. 908

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Despite the rather detailed passage in which Silius describes the death of Marcellus as well as his burial by the Carthaginians at the instigation of Hannibal, it becomes clear that the battle of Cannae represents the actual centre of the Punica. At the same time, Roman virtues are revealed on the battlefield – and also in Rome – which had previously been partially buried and now contribute significantly to the turning point in the war and to victory as a whole, so that the site of the greatest defeat becomes at the same time the site of moral triumph.912As seen, similar conceptions were already encountered in earlier accounts of the Second Punic War, especially in the work of Livy, where Cannae brought about a turnaround in that immediately after the battle the unity of the Romans, which had previously been lost, was restored and could not be significantly shaken until the end of the war. In the Punica, this interpretation of the war is expanded by an additional aspect, namely the direct intervention of the gods in the historical events, which, as will become visible in the following, can be well integrated into the interpretation of the heavy defeats of the war as ultimately morally valuable events. In this context, the question of what standpoint Silius Italicus took towards the past of the era of the Middle Republic as well as towards his own present is of some relevance. Not least on the basis of the necrology on Silius Italicus obtained from the pen of Pliny the Younger, the Flavian poet has often been characterized in research as a scholar who had turned away from the world in an escapist manner in order to devote himself exclusively to his studies, poetry and learned conversation with other educated people on one of his country estates, which he had endowed with libraries and works of art. Indeed, Silius apparently occupied himself extensively with the history of Rome, and seems to have virtually worshipped his predecessor Vergil, even acquiring the plot of land on which the latter’s tomb was situated, which he is said to have regarded as a sanctuary.913 Nevertheless, the view according  Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2504: “Silius suggests that the moral watershed of Roman virtue was not so much the second Punic War itself as some point within that war. If Silius, like Lucan, finds defeat more ennobling than victory, no battle could ever have ennobled the Romans more than Cannae”. Cf. also Kissel 1979, 107: Cannae “bildet den größten Erfolg Hannibals, leitet aber in Wirklichkeit bereits die Wende zu seinem Niedergang ein”. 913  Plin. ep. 3,7,1–10, bes. 8–9 (plures isdem in locis villas possidebat adamatisque novis priores neglegebat. multum ubique librorum, multum statuarum, multum imaginum, quas non habebat modo, verum etiam venerabatur, Vergili ante omnes, cuius natalem religiosius quam suum celebrabat, Neapoli maxime, ubi monimentum eius adire ut templum solebat. In hac tranquillitate annum quintum et septuagensimum excessit delicato magis corpore quam infirmo, utque novissimus a Nerone factus est consul, ita postremus ex omnibus, quos Nero consules fecerat, decessit.). Here, however, Pliny seems chiefly to describe the last years of Silius’ life. Before that, he had had a long and active career in politics and public life, which was reflected in an early activity as a lawyer, a consulship in 68 AD, a friendly relationship with Vitellius, and a proconsulship in the province of Asia, already under Vespasian in 77/78  AD (cf. the following note). Nevertheless, Silius was repeatedly characterized as a world-weary scholar, which, of course, was not based solely on the quoted passage from Pliny’s letter, but also on interpretations of the epic itself. See for this interpretation, for example, Mendell 1924, who on the one hand registers Silius’ public activity, but on the other insinuates that he had entered into a form of ‘inner emigration’. See in this context especially Mendell 1924, 101: “It seems safe to assume that he [Silius] belonged to that quieter Stoic group of cultivated men and women that must have formed the choicest society of the last half of 912

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to which Silius had, as it were, embarked on a form of ‘inner emigration’ may well be described as at least too one-sided in several respects.914 Moreover, as has been shown in a number of works, especially in the last two decades, it is probable that both the references to the Roman and Italian past and the references and allusions to the present of the late first century that can be found in the Punica can be regarded as thoroughly serious and earnest articulations of an independent historical consciousness and conception of history.915 A passage that is of particular importance in this context, and also important with regard to Silius’ interpretation of the Roman defeats, is found in the speech of Iuppiter in the third book of the epic.916 This speech can be divided into three sections, which are closely connected in content and thought.917 First, Iuppiter explains to his daughter Venus, who is concerned about the welfare of her people after Hannibal’s conquest of Saguntum, the reasons for the looming war by explaining why the god has allowed the Carthaginian commander to march across the Pyrenees to Italy together with a large army. According to this, the Romans would have lost their ancient virtus as well as their thirst for martial contest and glory. The road to dominion over many other peoples, however, demands great exertions, to which he intends to subject the Romans in order to test them in this way.918 Iuppiter then opens a glimpse into the future of the war, insisting the first century. [...] They were supporters of the old order, dreamers of a new republic, no doubt still celebrating the birthdays of Brutus and Cassius with secret toasts, but they were for the most part men of the world and men of peace. They served the state when they could and when that was impossible they maintained a dignified retirement. But always for them the old days were the golden days”. See also Schönberger 1965, 123, 137 (ibid: “Silius beschreibt nur einen Traum vergangener Größe, dem es am lebendigen Bezug zur Gegenwart fehlt. Die Wendung zur Geschichte könnte eine Flucht sein.”). 914  Silius held public office, was also active in other ways on the political stage of the capital, and lived to see one of his sons also advance to the consulate. Cf. Pomeroy 1990, 119–122; Marks 2005, 8: “He [Silius] spent much of [his life] in the public eye, was actively involved in politics, and was close to some of the most powerful men in Rome. [...] It is true that he retired from public life to Naples, perhaps soon after his proconsulship, and that in his retirement he composed the Punica, but we should be careful not to let Pliny’s portrait of him in these later years influence too much our reading of his epic”. 915  See, for example, Pomeroy 1990; Marks 2005, 210 for detailed evidence. Cf. Kissel 1979, 102: Silius “wählte für sein Epos nicht irgendein Sujet, dem er erst durch eine essentielle Umdeutung seine historische Anschauung aufpfropfen mußte, sondern er machte sich an die Bearbeitung eines Themas, das bereits aufgrund der historischen Faktizität des Behandelten als Exempel für seine Ansichten dienen konnte”. 916  Sil. 3,573–629. Cf. Pomeroy 1990, 126 (“key to the epic”); Marks 2005, 210–217 (there, 211: “The prophecy about the Flavian emperors in Jupiter’s speech in book 3 represents Silius’ most sustained and direct engagement with the contemporary world in the Punica and offers a natural starting-point for a discussion of the epic’s relation to the context in which it was composed.”). 917  Cf. on this classification Marks 2005, 213 with note 16. 918  Sil. 3,573–583 (hac ego Martis/mole uiros spectare paro atque expendere bello./gens ferri patiens ac laeta domare labores/paulatim antiquo patrum desuescit honori,/atque ille haud umquam parcus pro laude cruoris/et semper famae sitiens obscura sedendo/tempora agit mutum uoluens inglorius aeuum/sanguine de nostro populus, blandoque ueneno/desidiae uirtus paulatim euicta senescit. magnae molis opus multoque labore parandum/tot populos inter soli sibi poscere regna.). Cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2504.

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that Rome will emerge stronger from the defeats to come, with suffering in particular producing men who will not be unworthy of his heaven. Those among these heroes who particularly stand out are then named by Iuppiter. They are, in this order, Q. Fabius Maximus, L. Aemilius Paullus, and M. Claudius Marcellus. Additionally, P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, though not mentioned by name, is nevertheless singled out by Iuppiter in a special degree. The god not only devotes a much longer part of his speech to Africanus than to the other three commanders, but also predicts Scipio’s victory in Africa, which he declares to be the immediate prerequisite for the Romans’ world domination.919 In the third section of his speech, Iuppiter draws a connection from the age of the Punic Wars to the reign of the Flavians and, emphasizing the expansion into previously unknown territories that the Romans had succeeded in during this period, gives an outlook on the reign of Vespasian, Titus, and finally Domitian, whose reign appears at the end of the speech as the culmination of the Romans’ long warlike path to domination of the world.920 The last section, in which Silius’ own time is discussed, has been interpreted by some scholars as a merely obligatory “panegyric interlude” or as “a purely formal concession to the present”.921 There are, however, reasons for considering this third part of the speech as closely related to the first two sections, as Raymond Marks, in particular, has pointed out in a detailed discussion of this passage.922 Such a reading  Sil. 3,584–592 (iamque tibi ueniet tempus, quo maxima rerum/nobilior sit Roma malis. hinc nomina nostro/non indigna polo referet labor, hinc tibi Paulus,/hinc Fabius gratusque mihi Marcellus opimis./hi tantum parient Latio per uulnera regnum,/quod luxu et multum mutata mente nepotes/non tamen euertisse queant. iamque ipse creatus,/qui Poenum reuocet patriae Latioque repulsum/ante suae muros Carthaginis exuat armis.). 920  Sil. 3,593–629 (hinc, Cytherea, tuis longo regnabitur aeuo./exin se Curibus uirtus caelestis ad astra/efferet, et sacris augebit nomen Iulis/bellatrix gens bacifero nutrita Sabino./hinc pater ignotam denabit uincere Thylen/inque Caledonios primus trahet agmina lucos,/compescet ripis Rhenum, reget impiger Afros/palmiferamque senex bello domitabit Idymen./nec Stygis ille lacus uiduataque lumine regna,/sed superum sedem nostrosque tenebit honores./tum iuuenis magno praecellens robore mentis/excipiet patriam molem celsusque feretur/aequatum imperio tollens caput. hic fera gentis/bella Palaestinae primo delebit in aeuo./at tu transcendes, Germanice, facta tuorum,/iam puer auricomo praeformidate Batauo./nec te terruerint Tarpei culminis ignes;/sacrilegas inter flammas seruabere terris./nam te longa manent nostri consortia mundi./huic laxos arcus olim Gangetica pubes/summittet uacuasque ostendent Bactra pharetras./hic et ab Arctoo currus aget axe per urbem,/ducet et Eoos Baccho cedente triumphos./idem indignantem tramittere Dardana signa/Sarmaticis uictor compescet sedibus Histrum./quin et Romuleos superabit uoce nepotes,/quis erit eloquio partum decus. huic sua Musae/sacra ferent, meliorque lyra, cui substitit Hebrus/et uenit Rhodope, Phoebo miranda loquetur./ille etiam, qua prisca, uides, stat regia nobis,/ aurea Tarpeia ponet Capitolia rupe/et iunget nostro templorum culmina caelo./tunc, o nate deum diuosque dature, beatas/imperio terras patrio rege. tarda senectam/hospitia excipient caeli, solioque Quirinus/concedet, mediumque parens fraterque locabunt;/siderei iuxta radiabunt tempora nati.). 921  See, for example, Schönberger 1965, 138; Kissel 1979, 66, 159 (ibid., 159: “Der Preis der flavischen Kaiser aus dem Munde Juppiters (3,594–629) ist nichts weiter als die gebotene Panegyrik, […]”); Fröhlich 2000, 8 (“Ein rein formales Zugeständnis an die Gegenwart (und darum nicht mit einem von Herzen kommenden Credo zu verwechseln) ist die panegyrische Einlage in Pun. 3,594–629 […]”.). 922  Marks 2005, 211–217. 919

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also has implications for the interpretation of the Roman defeats in the Punica. As a unifying motif, the regnum of the Romans appears in all three parts of the speech.923 As seen, in the first section Iuppiter laments the decline of Roman virtus and presents war against the Carthaginians as the means by which the Romans would find domination. This path, he argues, leads through defeats in the Second Punic War, for it is through suffering that the Romans will establish their dominion. Finally, Iuppiter looks further ahead to the reign of the Flavian emperors, under whom the rule of the Romans would be extended to the farthest borders of the world.924 The connection that is drawn between the different time levels of Roman history is quite peculiar, which will probably also have been a reason why the outlook on the Flavian period was often not even considered to be connected in content with the two previous sections of the speech. For from the perspective of the speech, the events of the Hannibalic war seem to lead directly into the reign of the Flavians, that is, the time of Silius Italicus. Silius merely bridges the quarter of a millennium between the two temporal reference points with one verse.925 This impression of a close link was probably reinforced in other ways by the poet of the Punica. Thus Marks could make it plausible that Silius intended to draw a close connection between the figure of Scipio Africanus and the last Flavian, Domitian, under whose reign work on the Punica apparently began.926 If one accepts this interpretation, interesting insights arise for the interpretation of the Roman defeats in the Punica and for the question of how the Romans in the epic were able to overcome these setbacks. In this context, the great individuals addressed by Iuppiter in his speech, the heroes of the Roman side, play an important role. This becomes particularly clear in a comparison with other accounts of the Second Punic War. While Livy, for example, explains the overcoming of defeats and the crises they brought about in particular by the newly won unity of the Roman people after Cannae, in the Punica it is above all great individuals whose deeds, according to Iuppiter’s words, will enable Rome to overcome even the most severe defeats and setbacks.927

 See Marks 2005, 214 for this observation.  See esp. Sil. 3,582–583 (magnae molis opus multoque labore parandum/tot populos inter soli sibi poscere regna); 3,588 (hi tantum parient Latio per uulnera regnum); 3593 (hinc, Cytherea, tuis longo regnabitur aeuo). 925  Namely in Sil. 3,593 (hinc, Cytherea, tuis longo regnabitur aeuo.). Cf. Marks 2005, 214: “How better to show us that the past of the Second Punic War and the present of the Domitianic Rome are intimately linked than to compress the hundreds of years of history between them into a single hexameter?”. See also Tipping 2010a, 35. 926  See Marks 2005, esp. 218–288. 927  See also the beginning of the Punica, where Silius also emphasizes the importance of individuals for the victory in war (Sil. 1,4–5: quantosque ad bella crearit/et quot Roma viros). Cf. Ahl/ Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2520; Pomeroy 1990, 125: “It is not Rome’s power, but the numerous great heroes [...] who are stressed in Silius’ preface [...].”; Tipping 2010a, 3 f. Cf. Sil. 3,585–592 (hinc nomina nostro/non indigna polo referet labor, hinc tibi Paulus,/hinc Fabius gratusque mihi Marcellus). On the epic heroes in Silius’ Punica in general, see, among others, Kissel 1979, 87–152; Spentzou 2008; Marks 2010; Tipping 2010b.

923 924

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The influence that the deeds of these figures are said to have had on Rome’s fortunes in the war against the Carthaginians in this perspective was then also quite consistently incorporated by Silius into the description of the battles in the Punica. For, as has been seen, the description of tactical formations, manoeuvres and the general course of battles hardly plays a role in the epic depictions of the battles. Instead, the description of aristeiai dominates, in which above all the energy of the great heroes of the Roman side, or the destructive energy released by the unfortunate C. Flaminius and above all the great antagonist of the Romans, Hannibal, is expressed.928 It is true that heroic deeds performed by ordinary fighters on the Roman side are also found. However, passages that generally refer to the resilience and perseverance of individual troop bodies, as is often the case in Livy, who on various occasions emphasizes the bravery of the Roman legions with their battle lines, especially in the face of inevitable defeat, are found in the Punica to a much lesser extent. Now, for Roman (historical) culture as a whole, a tendency can be observed to closely link landmarks of its own past, victories as well as defeats, with individual names in narrative abridgement.929 In the genre of epic in particular, this focus is generally applied in a special way, as is shown not least by the fact that the often quoted praise of the Cunctator, Q. Fabius Maximus, was cast in such memorable verses by the predecessor of Silius, Q. Ennius. Also from the Annales of Ennius comes, as is well known, the phrase, scarcely less familiar, according to which the good of the res publica rests not only on “the old customs” but also on the “men” of old.930 The central role played by individual heroes of the Roman side in victory and defeat in the Punica can, however, be interpreted not only as a reflection of epic genre conventions, but also as an expression of a Silian view of history. According to this, Rome owes its salvation and rise to world domination to the energy of these heroes, and above all to that of Scipio Africanus, who represents the actual hero of the epic.931 Africanus, in fact, receives special attention not only in the speech in the third book. As we have seen, Silius allows Scipio to take part in the early battles of the war to a far greater extent than was historically the case or than has been handed down by earlier authors. For instance, the omen that the troops of both warring parties behold before the first battle at the Ticinus can be linked to the figure of the future Africanus.932 At Cannae, Scipio even appears already as a troop leader who  See on the image of Hannibal in the Punica now detailed Stocks 2014.  Cf. Hölkeskamp 1996/2004, 178 (“Im Mittelpunkt stehen letztlich immer die maßgebenden Akteure.”). 930  Enn. ann. 156. cf. e.g. Hölkeskamp 2001/2004, 141; Blösel 2000, 27. cf. above Sect. 5.2.1.2. 931  Cf. Tipping 2010b, 194: “Both mythos and ethos, moreover, promote Scipio Africanus Maior’s claim to be the true hero of the Punica”. 932  As mentioned above, a falcon strikes twelve doves there before it can be driven away by an eagle, which subsequently touches the tip of the young Scipio’s helmet before rising again into the sky. The prodigium at Sil. 4,101–119. On this see Marks 2005, 163–169. At the Ticinus, moreover, Scipio intervenes in the epic action for the first time, which can be seen as the first step on his way to becoming the leader of all Romans (Sil. 4,425–477). For there Mars, at Iuppiter’s behest, stands by Scipio’s side and uses this opportunity not only to promise the future Africanus victory over the 928 929

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stands in the way of Hannibal himself.933 Despite this early involvement of the young Scipio in events, in the first half of the Punica it is still mostly other heroes who take centre stage on the Roman side. In this context, a closer look reveals that many of the Roman heroes in Silius’ epic are drawn quite ambivalently.934 The perfect leader who leads the Romans to victory over the Carthaginians is neither the father of Africanus nor M.  Claudius Marcellus.935 Although Q.  Fabius Maximus, who leads the Romans especially after the defeats at the battle at Lake Trasimene Carthaginians, but also to introduce him to the craft of war and thus to guide him on the way to triumph (see esp. Sil. 4,425–429, where Iuppiter gives Mars the corresponding order. Cf. Marks 2005, 115–122). 933  See Sil. 9,275–277 and esp. Sil. 9,412–485 (duel between Scipio and Hannibal). Cf. Marks 2005, 126–130. Even before the battle begins, Scipio stands out for his great physical strength, which he demonstrates to the soldiers during physical exercises in the army camp (Sil. 8,551–561). On this passage, see Kissel 1979, 131; Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2545 f.; Marks 2005, 123–125; Tipping 2010a, 150 f. In addition to this passage, which Silius constructed according to epic models and inserted into the account of the battle, the episode about the military tribunes in Canusium, already established in earlier tradition, also appears in the Punica, in which Scipio prevents the group around the young Metellus from escaping with sword in hand. This is presented in Silius, as in earlier versions of the story, as an energetic intervention on behalf of the republic. Sil. 10,415–448. Cf. Kissel 1979, 131; Marks 2005, 131–133, who, in disagreement with other research positions (e.g. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2547), rightly emphasizes that Scipio’s appearance in this passage is not to be interpreted as an assumption of a fullness of power, which the young military tribune was not entitled to, but as a committed intervention for the res publica. 934  See generally Marks 2010; Tipping 2010b. Cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2519. 935  Now, as is well known, the Homeric heroes are already quite complex figures in moral-ethical terms. This is revealed in the Iliad and Odyssey especially in battle, and it is precisely in the battles that this ambivalence is also to be found in the Punica (on the Homeric “hero concept” see Horn 2014, there esp. 95 f. and 201–212 on the Aristia of Achilles). Thus the father of the later Africanus rages against the river-god of the Trebia in unbridled fury, like Achilles in the Iliad at the Skamandros (Sil. 4,622–697). Later, in the thirteenth book, the spirit of the old Scipio, who had fallen in Spain in the meantime, warns his son, the later Africanus, in the underworld not to take Achilles as his model (Sil. 13,666–671. Cf. Marks 2005, 139 f. (“The dead father, in other words, cautions his living son against indulging that martial rage that makes them both Achillean so that by receiving this advice Scipio has the chance to learn from his father’s mistakes and to transcend those limitations that he shares with his heroic model”). M.  Atilius Regulus, who is generally praised in the sixth book as an exemplum of constantia and fides towards the community, rages both in the fight against the monster at Bagradas and in the battle of Tunis in a vindictive anger which blinds him to possible consequences. He is definitely partly to blame for his capture and his further fate (see above Sect. 5.1.6). M. Claudius Marcellus, one of the most successful military commanders of the war, had already been portrayed as a morally ambivalent figure in earlier sources. Livy, for example, had suggested that Marcellus’ death was connected with his character, which had become increasingly questionable after his greatest victory, the conquest of Syracuse (cf. above the remarks in Sect. 5.2.5.1). In Silius, Marcellus again shows reverence for the gods by instructing his troops to spare the houses and especially the temples of Syracuse. A bloody plundering had been avoided in this way. Rather, Marcellus had, as it were, refounded the city he had just liberated (Sil. 14,665–688. Cf. on the role of Marcellus with regard to the conquest of Syracuse in Silius also Kissel 1979, 129; Burck 1984, 50–60). The role of Marcellus in the capture of Syracuse thus receives a more favorable picture in the Punica than in other parts of the ancient tradition, which is consistent with the observation that Silius also presents the last battle of Claudier in a relatively favorable light.

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and at Cannae, comes close to this ideal in the Punica, the ultimately decisive blow against the Carthaginians, the battle on African soil, is not to be expected from the Cunctator, who, according to the account in the Punica, lacks, for example, a basic offensive attitude required for this.936 Rather, the victory can only be prepared by Fabius. It must be brought about by another leader – this is the future Africanus.937 On the basis of an analysis of the passages in which P. Cornelius Scipio appears in the Punica before his departure for Africa, Marks has put forward the interpretation that in this context a character formation of Scipio can be recognized, in which he grows up over several stages to become the perfect leader, one who unites all the positive qualities in his person that are necessary to achieve victory over Carthage.938 As seen, Scipio indeed already proves energetic on the battlefield at Ticinus and both before, during and after the battle of Cannae, always keeping Rome’s well-­ being in mind. However, in his first battle he must first be relieved by Mars of the terror which the sight of his father’s wounding had caused. At Cannae, on the other hand, he acts with great physical commitment, but also still quite impetuously.939 Scipio then comes increasingly into focus in the last third of the epic, where, as announced by Iuppiter, he is able to bring about the decisive victories against the Carthaginians. A reading of books 13–17 of the Punica, focused on the figure of the future Africanus, indeed suggests, as already pointed out by Marks, that Scipio undergoes a character development on the way to victory. At the end of it, he is the Roman general who will achieve not only triumph over the Carthaginians, but also a higher reward, namely, ascension to heaven. The Scipio who leads Rome to victory over Carthage at the end of Punica is a perfect leader. As such, he possesses all the positive qualities necessary to clothe himself in this position. He has overcome timidity and impetuosity of youth, and finally does not shrink from putting his life at the service of the res publica, even though personal misfortune is prophesied for him as a consequence.940 As particularly important stations on this path, Scipio, following in the footsteps, as it were, of Odysseus, Aeneas, and other epic models, encounters a number of ghosts of former comrades-in-arms and family members; he

 Cf. Kissel 1979, 116–127; Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2523–2531; Fucecchi 2010, 221–230.  See, among others, Sil. 16,595–599. Cf. on this, among others, Kissel 1979, 145 f.; Spaltenstein 1990, 438 f.; Marks 2005, 280 f.; Stocks 2014, 196 f.. Cf. also Lorenz 1968, 34 (“Die drei Männer werden nicht nur durch Namensnennung, sondern auch durch einen Zwischensatz von Scipio getrennt. Darin kommt zum Ausdruck, daß ihre Taten keine unmittelbaren Siege sein werden. Aber durch ihre Teilerfolge bzw. ihren Tod wird der Sieg und damit auch das zukünftige Weltreich vorbereitet.”). 938  See altogether Marks 2005, 113–161 (including 114 f.: “[T]hey [the passages in which Scipio appears] document Scipio’s ‘education,’ a process of development or maturation in which he learns to temper his impetuousness with moderation and focus and comes to understand the central importance of dutiful service to his country.”). 939  See the evidence given in each case above and cf. the references in Marks 2005 (preceding note). 940  Cf. Kissel 1979, 151: Silius has “seinen Scipio als das stoische Ideal des Menschen gezeichnet, der in seinem Wollen die faktische Notwendigkeit des Müssens anerkennt und nach ihr handelt. Scipio ist die ideale Verkörperung der römischen virtus, die Sallust in seinem Geschichtswerk als gebrochen angesehen hatte.” Cf. the passages in the epic discussed in the following note. 936 937

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stands, like Heracles once did, at the crossroads, and finally reaches the centre of Rome, where he ascends to the Capitol, in the triumphal procession with the description of whom Silius brings his epic to an end.941  These passages, then, include the nekyia of Scipio that Silius inserted in Book 13 (Sil. 13,381–895), as well as a passage in Book 15 that shows Scipio at a crossroads after arriving in Spain, where he must choose between the paths of Virtus and Voluptas (Sil. 15,18–137). On his journey through the underworld, Scipio encounters several characters who serve as important advisors as he continues on his journey and help to further his character development. First, Scipio encounters the Sibyl of Cumae, who, like Aeneas (Verg. Aen. 6,226–263), shows him the way to the underworld and provides insight into his and Rome’s future (Sil. 13,400–448; 4494–614). The Sibyl prophesies Scipio’s victory over the Carthaginians, on the one hand, but also the ingratitude of his fellow citizens, who will drive him from his homeland (Sil. 13,514–515). The young Scipio accepts the prospect of this fate in a stoic attitude – the only thing that matters is that he maintains his moral uprightness (Sil. 13,517–518: Tum iuuenis ‘quaecumque datur sors durior aeui,/obnitemur,’ ait ‘culpa modo pectora cessent.’). Marks 2005, 136 rightly emphasizes that this reply by Scipio already reflects a development of character. It should be remembered that the young Scipio at Ticinus was still so desperate in the face of his father’s wounding that Mars had to prevent him from committing suicide. The influence of Stoic doctrine on Scipio, which can be seen in his reply to the prophecy of the Sibyl, is already emphasized in Kissel 1979, 167 f.; Reitz 1982, 47 f.; Ahl/ Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2550 (“Though Scipio is no Stoic sage, this reply would earn Cato’s approval.”). The second figure of particular importance here is his mother Pomponia, whose shadow is the first to approach. Apparently she had died at the birth of P. Scipio (Sil. 13,613–614. Cf. Plin. nat. 7,47, according to which this was considered a favorable omen, and see on this as a whole Spaltenstein 1990, 259  f. On the historical Pomponia, however, see after all also Pol. 10,4,4–5,7  – an episode that presupposes the survival of the Pomponia until the middle of the Second Punic War. The credibility of the conversations between Scipio and his mother reported by Polybius, however, is probably low. Cf. Walbank 1967, 199 f. Differently Scullard 1970, 28, who considers the episode to be historically authentic in its main features). Pomponia reveals to her son, who was filled with deep grief after the news of the death of the Scipios in Spain, that his true father was Iuppiter himself, who had approached her in the form of a serpent and raped her (Sil. 13,634–647). This circumstance had already been hinted at earlier in the epic (Sil. 4,476; 7,487–488), and was known to a knowledgeable readership from an older tradition, for his divine origin had evidently already been hinted at by the historical P.  Cornelius Scipio. The tradition, according to which Iuppiter had approached Pomponia in the form of a serpent, placed Scipio close to Alexander the Great, about whose conception a similar tale had been spread. It was apparently already an early part of the legendary tradition around Scipio. See on this Scullard 1970, 18–23; Reitz 1982, 91 f.; Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2542 f.; Spaltenstein 1990, 261; Marks 2005, 138 f. Cf. also Beard/North/Price 1998, 84–86 on the religiously connoted fama that Scipio himself apparently built up around his person. It is clear that Pomponia’s revelation to her son serves a didactic purpose. She states that she has told him the truth so that he should neither fear war nor doubt that he will ascend to heaven as a result of his deeds, i.e. that he will attain immortality (Sil. 13,634–636: uerum age, nate, tuos ortus, ne bella pauescas/ulla nec in caelum dubites te attollere factis,/quando aperire datur nobis, nunc denique disce). See, among others, Reitz 1982, 91; Marks 2005, 138 (there are also references to the connections to Heracles and Alexander the Great that arise within the nekyia and the further course of the epic from Pomponia’s revelation). Scipio next encounters the shadows of his (supposed) father and uncle, who had fallen in Spain without the later Africanus being able to assist them, for which he is obviously very sorry. The fallen P. Cornelius Scipio, after assuring his son that death was no terror to those whose fame reverberated with them even after their demise, and thus threatened no oblivion, exhorts his son to greater caution in battle. See esp. Sil. 13,666–671 (uerum age, fare, decus nostrum, te quanta fatiget/ militia. heu, quotiens intrat mea pectora terror,/cum repeto, quam saeuus eas, ubi magna pericla/ contingunt tibi! per nostri, fortissime, leti/obtestor causas, Martis moderare furori./sat tibi sint documenta domus!). He himself had given another example in this respect in his battle frenzy at the Trebia, where, like Achilles, he raged against the river itself, which he thus now implicitly advises against imitating. In this respect, the reports that P. and Cn. Cornelius Scipio subsequently 941

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This very place, which can be regarded as the religious centre of the Roman world with a high symbolich meaning, also occupied an important place in the speech of Iuppiter in the third book. For the future emperor Domitian, according to the prophecy of the supreme god, will have a special relationship with the Capitol, remaining fearless in the midst of sacrilegas flammas that the burning of the Tarpean summit will bring forth.942 These lines are an allusion to Domitian’s role during the give to their son and nephew, respectively, of their own deaths in Spain are probably also motivated. Cf. Reitz 1982, 93–97, and esp. Marks 2005, 139–142, who elaborates that moderation in battle adds an important new element to the young Scipio’s ‘education’ (‘Scipio’s education’, ibid., 139), after he had already grown up to be a brave warrior showing full commitment to the family as well as to the fatherland, and had received a view of his origins and future from the Sibyl as well as from his mother. See on this also Tipping 2010a, 168. Subsequently, Scipio meets the shadows of the commanders who had fallen in the war, having already encountered Ap. Claudius Pulcher, mortally wounded before Capua, at the beginning of the nekyia (Sil. 13,450–487 and 13,705–718 respectively; cf. Reitz 1982, 97–99). Alongside a number of well-known figures, men and women, from Roman history (for the composition and models from the epic tradition that can be discerned in this regard, see Reitz 1982, 103–111), Scipio encounters the shadow of Alexander the Great, who, as – up to that point – the greatest general in history, readily gives him advice on warfare. The essence of which is to approach the war vigorously and not hesitantly, wherein can surely be seen an allusion to the strategy of the Cunctator, which (this is later clearly named in Sil. 16,595–599) cannot bring about the victory over Carthage. Scipio’s later action thus appears legitimized (cf. Marks 2005, 142–148).The model for the crossroads episode is obviously the well-known story of Hercules at the crossroads, which seems to have owed its first literary form to the philosopher Prodikos (transmitted in Xen. mem. 2,1,21–34). The most extensive version of this story in Latin literature before Silius, however, is found in Cicero (Cic. off. 1,118; leg. 1,30), and, as Marks 2005, 149–160 can show, the poet of the Punica also drew heavily on this passage as well as the Somnium Scipionis (in Cic. rep. 6,8–29) in his elaboration. According to Marks, the essence of this Ciceroinfluenced Silian version of the crossroads episode consists first of all in the fact that the young Scipio is encouraged by the speech of Virtus to show virtus by striving for military glory, which, compared to the understanding to be found in Prodicos/Xenophon, represents a narrowing of the concept of virtus insofar as it is here referred to virtus militaris alone (see Sil. 15,98–100, where virtus points out to the young Scipio which of her companions await him should he choose her path: mecum Honor ac Laudes et laeto Gloria uultu/et Decus ac niueis Victoria concolor alis./me cinctus lauro producit ad astra Triumphus. Cf. Marks 2005, 157 f.). The proof of virtus and the companions who follow it, however, are not to be understood as an end in itself, but as a service to the fatherland, which Scipio, if he follows the path of virtus, will rescue in danger in order to gain victory over the Carthaginians and return home in triumph (Sil. 15,113–120; cf. Marks 2005, 156). As a reward, moreover, Scipio expected immortality, since to those who walk in the way of Virtus “the gate to heaven” is open (Sil. 15,77–78). This idea is also already found in Cicero, where it is formulated in Cic. rep. 6,26 by none other than Scipio himself (on this see Marks 2005, 155). This had, after all, already been revealed to Scipio in his nekyia in Book 13. Both passages point ahead to the end of the epic. On the crossroads episode, see also Kissel 1979, 136–142, esp. 141 (there: “Scipios Wahl selbst bedeutet keinen wirklichen Kampf mehr, sondern nichts anderes als eine Bewußtwerdung der eigenen Art und eine daraus resultierende ebenso bewußte Einordnung der eigenen Person in den Dienst am Vaterland ohne Aufgabe der eigenen Freiheit, sondern gerade im Gegenteil als höchste Verwirklichung des eigenen stoischen Selbst.”). Overall, Mark’s interpretation that Scipio undergoes a journey toward a higher maturity of character in the various passages in which he appears in the Punica before his departure for Africa is convincing. The journey up to the Capitol at the end of the epic can be interpreted, against the background of the allusions given earlier in various passages, as an ascent to Iuppiter’s heaven, as Scipio’s homecoming to his true father (see, for instance, Sil. 17,653–654: nec uero, cum te memorat de stirpe deorum,/prolem Tarpei, mentitur Roma, Tonantis). Cf. in this sense Marks 2005, 200. 942  Sil. 3,609–610.

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so-called Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD), during which Domitian participated in the fighting within the city of Rome against the supporters of Vitellius. As already mentioned above, the temple of Iuppiter on the Capitol went up in flames in the course of these battles, which led Tacitus to the bitter remark that the deed that the Celtic attackers had once failed to accomplish, namely to destroy the temple itself, had now been accomplished by the Romans themselves.943 Domitian later referred to this event several times, for example in the form of a building program initiated by him.944 On the one hand, the emperor emphasized how Iuppiter had protected him in the battle on the Capitol, on the other hand, he himself underlined his role as guardian of the Capitoline temple.945 The Capitol and especially the temple of Iuppiter appear again and again in the Punica even when the events actually take place elsewhere. Thus, Silius rarely forgets to mention that Hannibal’s plans would always have referred to the capture of Rome and especially of the Capitol and the temple as the heart of the city and of the Roman empire.946 In this context, it is also interesting to observe that Silius has numerous references to the Celtic siege of the Capitol scattered throughout the text.947 The mental connection of the threat to the Roman centre by the Gauls and that by Hannibal’s Carthaginians is not an original invention of Silius, but he has  Tac. Hist. 3,72.  See, among others, Jones 1992, 79–92; Marks 2005, 231–235. 945  Thus Domitian had a sacellum erected at the place where the house stood in which he could hide from the followers of Vitellius. According to Tacitus (Tac. Hist. 3,74), one could have looked at a representation on the altar, on which the rescue of the young Domitian had been recorded. After his accession to power the emperor replaced the sacellum by a temple dedicated to Iuppiter Custos. The great temple for Iuppiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol had already been rebuilt by Vespasian (Suet. Vesp. 8,5). After a fire in 80 AD Domitian had a new temple built, which he had splendidly decorated. Cf. Jones 1992, 92. Coins from the Domitian period as well as literary evidence also indicate that the emperor apparently strove to propagate a close connection between himself and the supreme god, possibly also wanting to see himself worshipped as a god. For example, RIC II2 Dom. 218–220, 302. on this see most recently Clauss 1999, 125 f.; Gering 2012, 149 f. Domitian was admittedly not the first Roman emperor to propagate such a connection to Iuppiter, but the depiction of Domitian with a bundle of lightning in his hand certainly represents “ein Novum der Münzprägung in der Kaiserzeit” (ibid., 150). See, among others, RIC II2 Dom. 474, 639, 703, 752, 795. Although the details of interpretation are disputed, there should be no doubt that Domitian wanted to emphasize a close connection between Iuppiter and his person. On Domitian’s “equality” with Iuppiter, especially in Martial, see Clauss 1999, 125 (quote). 946  See, for example, Sil. 1,64; 1,117; 1,270; 1,384; 3,509–510 (Hannibal during the crossing of the Alps in a speech to his soldiers: nunc, o nunc, socii, dominantis moenia Romae/credite uos summumque Iouis conscendere culmen. Cf. Spaltenstein 1986, 242: “‘Iovis...culmen’ designe le Capitole et son attaque est symbolique de celle de Rome elle-même, [...].”); 9,215–216; 13,1–2. Cf. moreover the last words of Hasdrubal at the battle of the Metaurus, in which he announces that his last message to his brother Hannibal would be to recommend to him the destruction of the Capitol by fire: Sil. 15,800–805. Cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2540. See also generally Tipping 2010a, 61 (“In the Punica, Hannibal is both Rome’s implacable opponent and a demonic exemplar of the un-Roman; his opposition to Rome is central to the main themes of Silius’ first 12 books: [...] Hannibal at the walls of Rome and, connectedly, crossing the Alps and attempting to storm the Capitol [...].”). 947  See only Sil. 4,150–153; 6,555–556; 13,79–81. 943 944

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consistently incorporated this idea into the Punica. Through the campaign of Hannibal, who intends to accomplish what the Gauls had once not entirely succeeded in doing, the two great enemies of Rome who seem capable of actually threatening the capital are united. It was certainly in the poet’s mind that the achievement of the Romans could be more highly esteemed when placed within this background wherein they finally succeed in repelling the united attack of their enemies. This threat is at first kept away from Rome, under the decisive leadership of Fabius Maximus, until Scipio is finally able to banish it once and for all, for which, as mentioned, he is finally rewarded with his move to the centre of the Roman world.948 Summarizing what has been said so far, the following conclusions can be drawn. Iuppiter allows the Roman defeats in the war against Hannibal’s Carthaginians to happen in order to test the Roman people, who have lost their traditional virtus, and to lead them to new heights by overcoming these defeats, which will finally culminate in their domination of the world. The key role in this is played by a number of outstanding Roman heroes who are first formed and brought forth through suffering, and in this way prove themselves worthy to the father of the gods. The victory over the Carthaginians, however, which will forever remove the threat to Rome’s and Italy’s freedom and simultaneously form the actual foundation stone for Roman world domination, will ultimately be brought about for the Romans by a single leader, namely Scipio, from whom a line is drawn to the Flavians and especially to Domitian. On the other hand, in the two greatest Roman defeats at Lake Trasimene and at Cannae the Roman armies had been led by commanders whose influence was based on the power of the general population. Finally, defeats and suffering are overcome by the leadership of a leader who is outstanding in every respect and who, on the way to the summit, which he climbs literally as well as symbolically, undergoes a process of character maturation that allows only him to become that perfect leadership figure.949 Through their common close relationship to the Capitol, to the Capitoline temple, and to Iuppiter himself, as well as through the linkage in the speech of the supreme god in the third book, Scipio and Domitian finally appear as closely connected. From this perspective, the Punica appears (even) less as an escapist turn towards a supposedly better and more glorious past to be sought in the era of the Hannibalic war, and Silius also does not appear so much to present his recipients with the general collective of Romans of a distant time as positive examples. Rather, the focus is basically on the question of what constitutes a true Roman hero as well as an exemplary leader. Of course, that the answer to this question  Cf. Marks 2005, 31 (“[I]t is Scipio’s deeds in the final books of the epic that have by far the greatest impact on the city’s transformation. He embodies, more than any other figure, the virtues of the new Rome in the post-Cannae era and does the most to infill them in her leadership.”). In this context, see also Silius’s concluding remarks on Marcellus’s capture of Syracuse at the end of the fourteenth book: Sil. 14,684–688 (felices populi, si, quondam ut bella solebant,/nunc quoque inexhaustas pax nostra relinqueret urbes!/at, ni cura uiri, qui nunc dedit otia mundo,/effrenum arceret populandi cuncta furorem,/nudassent auidae terrasque fretumque rapinae.). 949  Cf. also Kissel 1979, 132, who points out that the passages to be found in Livy about Scipio’s “grausame Strafexpedition gegen Iliturgi (Liv. 28,19 f.) und sein harsches Durchgreifen anläßlich der Meuterei bei Sucro (Liv. 28,24–29)” had to “fall victim” to the Silian conception of Scipio. 948

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ultimately comes down to Scipio is no surprise. The historical Scipio led the Roman expeditionary army to victory at Zama and occupied a prominent position in Roman historical culture even before Silius’ epic. He was, for instance, described by Livy as the “leader chosen by fate in this war”, and Valerius Maximus associated more positive exempla with him than with any other protagonist in Roman history.950 In the way described above, this Roman heroic figure is now associated in the Punica with the last Flavian, Domitian. The Punica, however, is not only about the victory of the Romans under the leadership of a great general, but also contain cautionary outlooks on the course of Roman history for the time after the victory over Carthage. Nor was this without precedent. Indeed, the confrontation with Carthage was not only remembered in Roman historical culture as a time of proving oneself in a great crisis that eventually resulted in triumph. According to another interpretation, the success also marked the beginning of a moral decline, which ultimately led to the crisis of the late Republic. In the context of the Second Punic War, the conquest and sack of Syracuse had been identified by various authors as the ‘fall from grace’ of Roman collective morals951 In the Punica, the capture of Syracuse does not pose a moral problem.952 However, there are also to be found in Silius’ sceptical outlooks on the further course of Roman history after the Hannibalic war. Thus the poet of the epic remarks that the Romans of later generations lacked the strength of character, especially military virtus, that the soldiers who had fought at Cannae had possessed in an extraordinary way.953 To this he also adds that Voluptas proclaims to Scipio at the  Liv. 22,53,6 (fatalis dux huiusce belli). See above Sects. 5.2.5.1 and 5.2.6.  Already Polybius saw in the plundering that followed the capture of Syracuse the seed of an erosion of public morals that had grown especially through the wealth that had flowed to Rome through the conquest of the Sicilian royal city (Pol. 9,10). Especially the robbery of the Syracusan images of the gods is seen by Livy as damaging to the moral integrity of the Roman general Marcellus. Already Cato the Elder is said to have expressed his concerns about the effects of importing these Greek art treasures to Rome (Liv. 25,40,2–3; 34,4,1–5). Probably the best-known Roman example of a conception of history that interprets victory over Carthage as a threat to Roman collective morals can be found in Sallust (on this see, among others, Walter 2004a, 319–325). That success brought with it the danger of collapsing the basis on which it could flourish in the first place is thus a widespread idea in Roman historical culture. Cf. on the whole Biesinger 2016. 952  Cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2538 f. 953  See esp. Sil. 9,346–353 (uerum utinam posthac animo, Romane, secunda,/quanto tunc aduersa, feras! sitque hactenus, oro,/nec libeat temptare deis, an Troia proles/par bellum tolerare queat. tuque anxia fati/pone, precor, lacrimas et adora uulnera laudes/perpetuas paritura tibi. nam tempore, Roma,/nullo maior eris. mox sic labere secundis,/ut sola cladum tuearis nomina fama.). Cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2505; Spaltenstein 1990, 32; Marks 2010, 191. It is possible to detect also in the catalogue of Roman troops before the battle of Cannae a critical, perhaps ironic, commentary on Roman history after the Second Punic War. The Roman commanders listed there are for the most part not attested for the time of the confrontation with Carthage, but bear names reminiscent of persons from the first century B.C. or A.D., which, McGuire 1995 suggests, was also intended to evoke the memory of their deeds as well as – connected with this – of Rome’s development after the Hannibalic War. Among these are the names of Galba and Piso, two protagonists of the four-emperor year of 69 AD (cf. McGuire 1995, 113–116). The criticism that Silius’ contem950

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end of the crossroads episode that the Romans of later generations would no longer choose the path of virtus as he had done.954 How are these comments and references by the poet of the Punica now to be fitted into his conception of history? Since the course of Roman history after the victory in the Hannibalic War is only very vaguely outlined in the above-mentioned Iuppiter speech in the third book, it remains largely unclear how exactly, i.e. in which stages, Silius conceived the moral decline of the Romans after the victory over Hannibal’s Carthaginians. The historical P. Cornelius Scipio, for example, was apparently involved in conflicts within the nobility, behind which there may have been an attempt by his peers to put the victor of Zama, whose fame must have far outshone that of most other senators, in his place.955 However, against the background of the foreshadowing discussed above and the development of Scipio’s character in the course of the epic, it does not seem very convincing to see his triumph as the beginning of moral degeneration or disintegration in the Roman community and to regard his ascent to the Capitol as a symbol of a quasi-monarchical acquisition of power, which the old republican Silius might have regarded as the nucleus of decline.956 Scipio Africanus as a figure in Roman historical culture had long since detached himself from the historical individual of P. Cornelius Scipio in this respect. Silius Italicus was unlikely to interpret his victory at Zama as the starting point of moral decline. Since this option is ruled out, the destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War comes into consideration as another possibility, most recently advocated especially by Marks. Against the background of Sallust’s interpretation of Roman history, this possibility is in a way obvious, but can also be supported by evidence from the Punica itself.957 On the basis of this, a further connection can now be drawn between Scipio and Domitian. Both

poraries had strayed far from the great strength of character of their ancestors is also encountered in the Regulus excursus of the sixth book (Sil. 6,549–550). 954  Sil. 15,124–127. Cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2553; Tipping 2010a, 34 (“Voluptas, whom Scipio has rejected in favor of Virtus, asserts without any subtlety that she will have her day at Rome [...].”). In addition, scholars have identified a number of indirect references in which the decline of the res publica and the civil wars are alluded to partly through allusions to names in the history of the late republic and partly through intertextual references to other works, especially Lucan’s earlier epic. See on this, with numerous references, Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2518 f.; Tipping 2010b. 955  Perhaps the self-confident Scipio had provoked numerous other senators with his appearance. See on this, among others, Beck 2005a, 363–365. Against this background, Scipio has also occasionally been seen in modern research as an early representative of a protagonist of disintegration within the nobility, i.e. as a kind of precursor of figures such as C. Marius, L. Cornelius Sulla, Cn. Pompeius and C. Iulius Caesar interpreted. Cf. among others Löffl 2011, 40. 956  However, this is the interpretation at Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2510 f., 2518 f. 957  At the end of the tenth book, the beginning of the decline is named quite precisely, namely in the two verses with which the account of the events after the battle of Cannae and thus the chain of Roman defeats at the beginning of the war ends. According to this, the final victory over Carthage, by which the end of the third war will probably be meant, is to be regarded as the starting-point. Sil. 10,657–658 (haec tum Roma fuit. Post te cui uertere mores/si stabat fatis, potius, Carthago, maneres.). Cf. Spaltenstein 1990, 102. See especially Marks 2005, 253–256, who – in contrast to some other contributions – succeeds in showing that Silius Italicus in this passage actually had the end of the third Roman-Carthaginian war in mind.

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men are thus closely related to Iuppiter and also defend his central temple on the Capitoline Hill. The defeats against Hannibal’s army had been brought about by Iuppiter in the Punica as a test for the Romans, who had lost their traditional virtus. This is precisely what happens to them again after the end of Carthage, resulting in the erosion of public morality and the crisis of the res publica as a whole, alluded to several times in the Punica. Africanus had finally led the Romans from the crisis of the Hannibalic war. The Flavians, among them especially Domitian could now lead out of the later state of degeneration  – following Iuppiter’s speech in the third book.958 In but one verse Iuppiter had at this point linked Scipio’s victory with the rise of the Flavians culminating in the reign of Domitian.959 That the latter’s reign did not now result in the restoration of the classical republic was apparently not seen by Silius as a flaw.960 Rather, Silius seems to have been of the opinion that the Flavian emperors also liberated the Romans from a threatening situation, which, according to the outlook on Roman history in the Punica, had been characterized by a crisis of Roman moral and value concepts. By this act, the Flavian rulers would have prepared the way for a better future in which Rome would have completed world domination.961 It is also possible, according to Marks, that Silius intended to present a positive exemplum to the young emperor Domitian with the figure of Scipio Africanus, who, as we have seen, was already known at this time as an outstanding figure in Roman history.962 If the Roman “icon of virtus” Scipio came close to a positive exemplum, then this is equally true for the Second Punic War, which, from Silius’ point of view, was particularly suited to demonstrate the positive effect a form of moral renewal could have for the Romans, precisely as a result of the many Roman defeats. Domitian, in turn, also seems to have associated his reign with a proclamation of a return to ancient Roman values and moral renewal.963 The close connection Silius drew between the emperor and Scipio may thus have been, on the one hand, likely to flatter Domitian and to encourage him to turn to the  Marks 2005, 283–285.  Sil. 3,593. 960  On the one hand, Silius as an experienced politician (see above) will have been aware that a return to the res publica of the past was not possible. On the other hand, he does not always present this republic in the Punica in the most favorable light, for instance when the Senate and the people appoint incompetent generals like Varro or Flaminius or Q. Fabius Maximus and other senators try to keep the savior of Rome, Scipio, from his mission (cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2504). Moreover, on closer inspection, there is also no indication that Silius would have considered such a turn of events desirable at all. For there is little to suggest that Silius would have been generally critical of the Principate. Although he obviously loved the literature and culture of the old republic and seems to have virtually worshipped outstanding representatives of its nobility, this does not mean that Silius secretly longed for the republic. There is also no evidence that he rejected the rule of the Flavians and especially that of Domitian. As mentioned above, Marks 2005, 245–283 has been able to show this convincingly. 961  See again Marks 2005, 283–287 for this interpretation. 962  Marks 2005, 287 f. 963  Gering 2012, 214–221, esp. 218 (“Domitian dürfte tatsächlich viel daran gelegen haben, für die alten Werte der römischen Gesellschaft einzutreten und seine Untertanen zu sittsamem Verhalten zu erziehen.”). 958 959

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ancient Roman virtues that had already saved the res publica in the past. Secondly, the poet may indeed have been striving, within the limited framework available to him under the circumstances, to present his ruler with a positive example of a leader of virtue and moral integrity in the shape of P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus. Whether Silius actually wanted his epic to be read and interpreted in this sense remains unclear, just as the history of the reception of the Punica in the imperial period is largely obscure.964 On the other hand, there can be little doubt that the Roman defeats of the Second Punic War played a central role in the conception and understanding of the Punica.965

5.2.8  Old and New Wars: Outlook on the Following Centuries The Punica of Silius Italicus should represent a caesura in the context of this study insofar as later testimonies for representations of the Roman defeats of the first two Punic wars will not be systematically included and analysed. After Silius Italicus, no author seems to have dealt so intensively with the Hannibalic War, including its setbacks and crises. Among representatives of historiography, the war no longer occupied such a central position as it had with representatives of republican historiography up to Livy. This certainly does not mean that an author like Tacitus knew nothing about it. For his conception of history, however, the Punic wars and their defeats did not play a significant role, since his gaze had shifted to other periods of the Roman past.966 In other areas of historical culture, however, reference could still be made to Cannae and Hannibal; certainly also including an effort to derive from these references means of interpretation and patterns of action for his own present. In the Stratagems, Frontinus thus knows a multitude of exempla from the campaigns of the Punic wars, among which many can also be linked to Rome’s defeats and most of which are also known from historiography.967 Due to the composition and nature of the work, these examples concentrate on individual episodes and situations, which do not allow the reconstruction of an extensive narrative in which Frontinus could have classified the defeats and victories of the Punic wars. A survey of the examples, however, shows that some of them are interpreted in a different way than in Frontinus’ historiographical sources. This is the case, for example, with the death of L.  Aemilius Paullus at Cannae. In this context Frontinus considers whether it would not have been more favourable for the welfare of the republic if Paullus had also left the battlefield at Cannae, i.e. had fled like C. Terentius Varro, rather than dying there. While his death was certainly honourable, in the interest of  Little is known about the reception and dissemination of Silius’ epic in antiquity. See von Albrecht 1994, 767. The reception history of the Punica can only be traced again for the period since the fifteenth century. See on this, among others, Muecke 2010. 965  Cf. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986, 2504. 966  Cf. Tac. Germ. 37, where the Carthaginians, among other opponents, are listed as a danger of the past that has been overcome. 967  See, for example, Frontin. strat. 2,2,7; 2,3,7; 2,5,27; 3,10,4, 3,18,1–3; 4,5,20. 964

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an efficient continuation of the campaign a timely retreat was the better alternative. Compared with most of the earlier tradition there are some shifts in Frontinus’ way of presenting and interpreting certain episodes, which has implications for the articulated view of the past and the lessons to be drawn from history.968 One will be able to relate this primarily to the orientation of Stratagems. In a military-theoretical examination of the events and protagonists of the Punic wars, different perspectives on this past could emerge than was the case in the historiography of the Republic.969 Unfortunately, not enough of the texts of the rhetors of the middle imperial period survives today to provide a reasonably meaningful picture of the extent to which orators drew on examples from the Punic wars and, in particular, Roman defeats. In the schools of rhetoric, after all, these topics seem to have been covered at least as late as the turn of the first century A.D. to the second. D. Iunius Iuvenalis, for example, whose life span still overlapped with that of Silius Italicus, seems to have been quite familiar with the stories of Hannibal’s triumphal march and the heavy defeats he inflicted on the Romans in the process.970 These topics do not seem to have disappeared entirely from the education of the orators and the educational horizon of the learned part of their audience even in the following generations. For even if no one in the fourth and fifth centuries seems to have “felt impelled” to “rewrite the history of the Roman Republic for his time,” this does not mean that events and persons from the Republic were generally unknown in late antiquity.971 In various genres of Latin literature, especially that of the Western Roman part of the Empire, according to Andreas Felmy, “orators, poets and other writers [...] mostly [...] resorted to the epoch of the Roman Republic” when it came to finding historical exempla. References to incidents from the imperial period, on the other hand, were much rarer.972 In this context, the Roman defeats in the wars against Carthage also appear, although here, too, one can certainly not speak of them having assumed a central position for historical images circulating in Late Antiquity. References to individual events and protagonists, however, were apparently still possible. Thus Cannae is

 Frontin. strat. 4,5,6.  Geist 2009, 86 f. suspects here the traces of a family tradition of the Terentii Varrones, which had existed to a certain extent parallel to the depiction of the consuls of Cannae in authors such as Polybius and Livy and is visible in Frontinus. This is certainly possible, but Frontinus can be credited with also having his own position with regard to the evaluation of the behavior of the two consuls, and with evaluating the actions of Paullus and Varro from the perspective of the military expert. 970  This is indicated by his references to persons and events at various points in the Satires. On Cannae: Iuv. 2,155 (What should the soldiers of Cannae think of their morally degenerate descendants?); 7.163; 10,165; 11,200. On Hannibal: Iuv. 6,170; 6,291 (Threat to the city by the approaching Hannibal contributed, among other factors, to the observance of ancient Roman morality, here referring to fidelity of Roman wives); 7.161–164; 12,108; 10,166–167. Q. Fabius Maximus: 7,65. Among other authors, it was apparently Cicero above all who was an authority for Juvenal, mediating the history of the ancient republic. On Juvenal’s sources see, among others, von Albrecht 1994, 808 f. 971  Felmy 2001, 18 (quotation). 972  Felmy 2001, 22 f. (quotation). 968 969

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famous to Sidonius Apollinaris because of the flight of Varro.973 In the third book of his De Consulatu Stilichonis, Claudian knows Cannae as an example of a blow of fate from which Rome had not only recovered but from which it had emerged stronger.974 Authors and audiences may have gained knowledge of these events not only from rhetoric lessons but also from the breviary literature on Roman history, such as the work of Eutropius.975 Among members of the educated circles of their time were undoubtedly the aristocrat Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, the author of the highly ambitious literary poem De reditu suo, and Ammianus Marcellinus, to whom is owed the most comprehensive extant work of history in Roman literature since the Histories of Tacitus.976 Ammianus and Rutilius were evidently well acquainted with the literature of the (late) Republic and the early imperial period, which also gave them knowledge of the Punic wars and Rome’s defeats in these conflicts. They integrated references to these into their own works in clearly recognizable relation to Rome’s crises, especially the heavy military defeats at Adrianople (AD 378) and the conquest of the capital itself by Alaric’s Goths (AD 410). Thus, in the context of a veritable hymn to Rome in the first book of his poem, Rutilius cites Hannibal as an example of danger overcome by eternal Rome.977 Without directly naming the capture and sack of Rome by Alaric’s army, Rutilius refers to defeats in Roman history after which Rome had always risen anew – one of the motifs that, as seen, had long been part of the historical memory of Rome’s heaviest defeats and appears again and again in various sources.978 And so it is not by chance that Ammianus Marcellinus will have recalled the battle of Cannae in order to describe the great military defeat of his own lifetime, namely the battle of Adrianople (378 AD). In its magnitude, this disaster, in which even the Roman emperor Valens I himself had fallen, was alone to be compared with the battle of Cannae.979 Now if Ammianus’ recourse to Cannae had any evocative purpose, or if he hoped that the story of overcoming defeat would be repeated, he was disappointed.980 Unlike the res publica of the Punic wars, the Imperium Romanum of the fourth century AD was not to recover from the disaster at Adrianople. A century later, the Roman Empire in the western Mediterranean had disappeared.

 Sidon. carm. 7,554.  Claud. de. cons. Stil. 3,149–158. 975  See there on the battle of Cannae: Eutrop. 3,10. f. 976  On Ammianus, see von Albrecht 1994, 1127–1129. 977  Ruth. Nam. 1,115–132. 978  Cf. Christ 1974, 390; Meier/Patzold 2010, 77 f. 979  Amm. 31,13,14. Cf. already Amm. 15,10,10–11, where Ammianus offers an informed overview of the beginning of the operations of the second Roman-Carthaginian war in the Alps. 980  Cf. Meier/Patzold 2010, 78: Ammianus invokes the “motif of renewal after defeats and catastrophes [...] at the end of his historical work in view of the catastrophic Roman defeat at Adrianople”. Brodka 2009, 121 f. points to another possible dimension of the comparison. According to this, Ammianus wanted to draw a parallel between the two commanders C. Terentius Varro and Valens I, who were both responsible for the defeat of Rome due to their recklessness and military incompetence. 973 974

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Since a number of interim summaries have already been provided within the chapters, it does not seem necessary at this point to address again all the points that have already been taken up there. Instead, a few aspects that appear to be particularly significant will be singled out in the following. “Cultural memory,” as Jan Assmann puts it, “is directed towards fixed points in the past.”1 This observation can also be applied to the representations of Rome’s defeats in Roman historical culture. For it can first be noted that, as far as can be discerned, the various forms of historical memory concentrated on a selection of a few defeats which, among the many dozens of lost battles, were evidently felt to be in some way worthy of remembrance or prominence. It was not necessarily the temporal proximity to the event, the number of casualties, or the direct impact of a defeat that was decisive.2 Thus, while the battle of Cannae, a defeat of enormous proportions, the consequences of which were to preoccupy the Romans for a long time to come, left on the whole the deepest mark on Roman historical culture, this was closely followed by the battle at the Allia with the subsequent capture of Rome at the beginning of the fourth century. This was again an event that, at a time when Rome was still very far from its later position of power, must be perceived as anything but exceptional in the context of archaic Italy, where such events occurred regularly, and from which the Romans were also able to recover relatively quickly. Moreover, for Romans of the late Republic and early imperial period, the event was much further in the past than other defeats, which left fewer traces in social memory. The continuing failures on the Iberian Peninsula, for example, in which tens of thousands of soldiers lost their lives and which helped to fuel social and economic conflicts in Italy, seem to have held of little significance for later generations. Evidence for the perceived significance of battle of Caudium, on the other hand, has  J. Assmann 62007, 52.  Cf. Beck 2006, 216 (“Kulturelle Erinnerung lebt nicht von statistisch quantifizierbaren Größen, schon gar nicht wenn es um die Zahl von Toten geht. Wichtiger sind die sozialen Rahmenbedingungen der Erinnerung, das Potenzial ihrer Sinnstiftung sowie die Medien der memorialen Verbreitung.”). 1 2

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Lentzsch, Roma Victa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0_6

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proven much more extensive, even though it occurred much further back in time. Common to most of the defeats, which even after generations still occupied a prominent place in Roman historical culture, was that they were associated with the memory of a threat to the city of Rome itself – often symbolized in the form of the Capitol. This did not necessarily correspond to the historical circumstances. For example, at no point in the campaign was it probably part of Hannibal’s strategy to capture Rome itself and destroy the Republic, yet this plan is attributed to him in stereotypical repetition in Roman sources up to the imperial period. This applies in a similar way to various Celtic groups, to whom the goal of taking Rome was as persistently attributed or imputed although it was absurd in the concrete individual cases. The rhetorical equation with Hannibal or the Gauls was apparently also suitable as an invective against political opponents until the imperial period, wherein it served as an allusion which one could apparently expect the respective audience to easily understand. In this respect, the Samnites seem to have appeared increasingly less ‘dangerous’; in Livy’s account of the Samnite wars, however, this conflict is elevated to a struggle for dominance over Italy, and the defeat of Caudium with the (allegedly) threatening destruction of the army is interpreted as a critical hour in Roman history. This focus on the capital in the memory of defeats and military crises is also shown on another level by the fact that the battlefields at Lake Trasimene, Cannae or Caudium do not seem to have played a significant role in the historical memory of the Romans.3 The topography of the Samnite mountains at Caudium, however, became an impressive monument in the historiographical treatment. However, part of the urban Roman “memorial landscape” also referred to the defeat against the Gauls from the early period, which in retrospect had assumed ever greater proportions – and therefore probably had to serve as an explanation for rituals and peculiar place names whose actual backgrounds had been forgotten.4 Overall, it is also apparent that, particularly in media other than historiography or the historical epic, it was less the actual events on the battlefield that were remembered, but rather individual episodes that were associated with defeats and that were suitable for exemplifying and handing down exemplary behaviour that individuals or groups had shown. In general, as might be expected, the focus is often on personal bravery and/or exemplary commitment to the res publica. One episode that particularly often provides the background for such examples is that of Roman troops who find themselves in a tactically hopeless situation because they are trapped by the enemy and therefore have to decide on how to proceed or have already been captured. This episode occurs in different variants. The image of the Romans trapped by the Celtic besiegers on the Capitol, holding there the last bastion of the Roman community against the enemy, can be described as a  Here, the Roman historical culture clearly differed from those in Greece – for example in Athens – where especially the battlefields of the Persian Wars became multidimensional places of remembrance. On this, see especially Jung 2006. Cf. Zahrnt 2010. 4  Cf. Hölkeskamp 2001/2004 156, who admittedly refers here to the extensions of the urban Roman “memorial landscape” by those generals who could celebrate a triumph. 3

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paradigmatic situation. Only after great sacrifices could the trapped have brought themselves to buy their freedom by paying a ransom. The numerous individual episodes of acts of outstanding bravery and reverence for the gods, which Livy integrates into a coherent narrative, show the extent to which this defensive struggle was heroized in Roman historical culture over the centuries. The decision of the Romans on the Capitol is invoked in historiographical accounts of other defeats by the soldiers trapped at Caudium or even by the Cannae prisoners. Under extreme circumstances, it is said there, it was also permissible for Romans to capitulate, especially if the common good was served in this way, for example by enabling an intact army group to withdraw – the personal shame of surrender was in this case to be accepted. This orientation towards the common good, which in case of doubt gives less weight to the well-being of the individual, also forms the didactic core of two further episodes, which after the besieged Capitol are among the best known. The first is the fate of M. Atilius Regulus, who had put the advantage of the state above his own well-being. The fate of Regulus was also held up to the soldiers who were prisoners of war at Cannae. In historical memory, the incident was henceforth suitable on the one hand as a negative example of the unprincipled behaviour of desperate soldiers, and on the other hand as a great moment of a steadfast senate that had not deviated from its principles even in the greatest distress. Further examples could be added to the series ‘Siege of the Capitol’, Caudium, Regulus, the prisoners of Cannae – for instance, the surrender of C. Hostilius Mancinus before Numantia. The connection between those cases could be drawn particularly well in historiography, since this medium effectively offers the possibility of laying out far-reaching narratives and comparisons, but such connections also appear in other media of Roman historical culture. One of the reasons for the popularity of this theme is probably that these circumstances were eminently suitable for demonstrating exemplary behaviour in the sense of ancient Roman moral and virtuous ideas. In other contexts, legal or philosophical questions could also be linked to these apparently familiar episodes. Although the actual military failure in the narrower sense was, as already mentioned, as a rule no longer a topic at all – the battle of Tunis hardly appears at all in the treatments of the Regulus legend, and those born later evidently found the invention of ever more tortures that the noble Regulus had to endure far more interesting  – at least a vague knowledge of the connections can be assumed among the majority of recipients. The persistent reference to the aforementioned episodes in various media and contexts will in turn have contributed to the further dissemination and transmission of such knowledge. In a very similar way, one can imagine the dissemination, transmission, and function of references to the deaths of Roman generals on the battlefield, which were perceived as heroic. In this context, too, a number of examples can be found in references in historiography, rhetoric and other media, which appear particularly frequently in this composition and sequence – for example, L. Aemilius Paullus at Cannae, P. and Cn. Cornelius Scipio in Spain or – at least up to a certain point – M. Claudius Marcellus. Again, it does not seem to have been of primary importance for the selection how long ago the event took place or how momentous it was. In the cases mentioned, the Second Punic War, which was later interpreted as a heroic

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defensive struggle, probably formed the decisive frame of reference. The numerous Roman commanders who were killed in the wars on the Iberian Peninsula in the second century, for example, did not receive nearly as much attention from those who came after them. In general, deeds performed during or after the battle by individual Romans or groups in the face of or with the certain knowledge of defeat could be glorified and handed down. Again, the knowledge of defeat was the prerequisite for understanding these episodes, in which the battle itself, however, did not need to be further addressed. In the cases mentioned, the idea that it was precisely the defeats that had helped the Romans to regain those virtues that had previously been buried also often played an important role. This message, too, could be conveyed in a wide range of media, but those that allowed the development and presentation of longer narratives in which the defeats and the associated praiseworthy examples could be integrated were particularly suitable for this purpose. This could be observed, for example, in the third decade of Livy, in which the Hannibalic War is presented almost in the form of a monograph of its own. A continuous reading of books 21–30 yields a number of insights with regard to the presentation and interpretation of Roman defeats. For those defeats above all offer Livy an opportunity for reflection and discussion on the causes and consequences of character flaws, on the value of concordia and the dangers of discordia, and on the path that led the Romans out of the crisis again. The defeats unfold a didactic value in the process. The lessons that Livy draws for the Romans from the defeats of the Second Punic War can be roughly divided into two categories. On the one hand, there are those lessons that concern directly implementable measures. For example, the proven general Q.  Fabius Maximus orders the temporary suspension of norms that were valid until then in the elections to the consulship. The Senate, after the defeat of Herdonea, takes direct measures to prevent as many Romans from becoming prisoners of war again as had been the case after the battle of Cannae. The proconsul P. Cornelius Scipio, the later Africanus, again takes care when recruiting auxiliary troops in Spain to keep only an appropriate amount of them in order not to suffer the same fate that had previously befallen his father and uncle, who had allegedly met their doom by relying too much on foreign troops. The other category of lessons concerns the moral attitude that helped the Romans to survive defeats and crises. In these cases, the memory of defeats that occurred only a short time ago also helps them to cope with renewed setbacks. Since the experience of defeat is now no longer new to the Romans, they can also overcome further crises or even react calmly to the news of defeat (as, for example, after the battle of Herdonea), whereas Livy had in each case reported with great detail after the first defeats how the news of the lost battles had caused panic in the capital. The turning point in the narrative is, of all things, the battle of Cannae – a narrative construction that Livy had not created himself, but which, with a different emphasis in each case, was already to be found in Polybius and probably also in Roman historians of the second century, constructions which will have contributed to the prominence of Cannae.

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Behind this is an idea that is also found in Livy with regard to other defeats and that can already be proven for earlier authors, such as the poet Lucilius towards the end of the second century – namely the idea that Rome would ultimately survive all losses and defeats not only essentially intact, but rather strengthened. It is quite conceivable, as has occasionally been assumed in research, that this idea was originally fed by the real experiences of a chain of defeats in the Pyrrhic War and the Second Punic War, both of which, however, were ultimately won by Rome after heavy losses and setbacks.5 In Livy’s account of the Hannibalic War, and in a number of other accounts, it is precisely the disaster on the battlefield that allows the Romans to regain the moral firmness they had previously lost. It is not only the bravery or willingness to do one’s duty that proves to be decisive, but the fact that the Romans, under the impression of devastating catastrophes, had found their way back to an inner unity. Previously, Livy had identified an increasingly growing discord as the actual cause of the defeats against Hannibal, which had first manifested itself in disagreement between two Roman commanders, then in quarrels between different groups in the army camp, and finally in a division of the entire citizenry. Only the catastrophe of Cannae had led to a rethinking and, following the account of the battle, Livy describes scenes that demonstrate how the citizenry united in a new concordia in order to now fight the enemies together. This moral and political-philosophical dimension in the construction of causality can be found not only in Livy’s interpretation of the defeats against the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War but also in his accounts of the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’ and the defeat against the Samnites at Caudium. The admittedly scanty sources, moreover, at least suggest that in the Roman sources the defeats on the Iberian Peninsula against Viriathus and the Numantines had been brought about by morally questionable behaviour on the part of Roman commanders there. In this theater of war, however, the path to victory was also seen as problematic in some cases, which may have contributed to the fact that the campaigns there never occupied the same rank in Roman historical culture as can be stated for other wars against Celts, Samnites, or Carthaginians. There are also further explanations for Roman defeats to be found in Roman historical culture. Early on – presumably already during or shortly after the respective wars – defeats were explained within the framework of patterns of interpretation shaped by religious ideas. This can be seen, for example, in the – presumably ancient – institution of the Dies Alliensis, the reports of special sacrifices and atonement measures that stood outside the social order accepted by the Senate, the reports of omens, and similar explanations. It also seems to have happened quite early that individual commanders were blamed for the defeat. Many imperatores victi are accused in this context of a too hasty, often even reckless tactical and/or strategic approach, to which they would have adhered in part even against the explicit advice of experienced fellow citizens.  Thus, for example, Oakley 2005, 254 (“This way of viewing Roman character was formed perhaps in the third century, under the influence of Roman successes in the Pyrrhic and Hannibalic Wars.”); Clark 2014b, esp. 92 f. 5

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If, in addition, these commanders disregard clear omens, several explanatory approaches can be combined. This attribution of responsibility for defeats to individual commanders was probably also so widespread because it accommodated a tendency that can be observed within Roman social memory on the basis of a large number of examples, namely the tendency to interpret events of the past to a large extent as the result of the actions of individual protagonists. This applies to great military successes in Roman history as well as to its defeats.6 Through this mode of explanation, military failures also remained largely the result of the actions of Roman protagonists, which conversely implied that the overcoming of a defeat also lay in Roman hands. Accordingly, many of Rome’s opponents appear more as instruments of punishment for moral failures or similar offenses. The Romans always hold their fate in their own hands.7 Among the enemy commanders, however, Hannibal stands out by far. In Roman social memory of the republican and imperial periods, he is always credited with superior military skills and still most likely to be given his own agenda of more complex content.8 His name also became a cipher for the greatest threat, which could be alluded to even without further narrative context. In this capacity, Hannibal eclipsed all other opponents of Rome – of the many opposing commanders who inflicted defeats on Rome’s armies over a period of several centuries, to the vast majority only a shadowy existence in the web of Roman historical culture can be attested, many even remaining nameless. The deceitfulness (punica fides) often stereotypically attributed to Hannibal and the Carthaginians as a whole in Roman sources plays a rather minor role in the explanations of the defeats. Although Hannibal’s ability of cunning or the moral depravity of the Carthaginians in the Regulus episode are recurring motifs in the historical memory of these events, they rarely serve as the primary explanation of defeats. All in all, when looking at such media, which offered the possibility of forming more far-reaching narratives, the impression can be gained that explanations such as the disregard of omens, reckless commanders or stratagems of the enemy – sometimes also inclemencies of the weather – were to be regarded as causal for military failure only on a superficial level. This can only (still) be analyzed on the basis of such sources that have been handed down in a sufficiently extensive manner. In the case of Livy’s accounts of the ‘Gallic Catastrophe’, the defeat at Caudium, and the defeats of the Second Punic War as a whole, a distinction can be made between rather superficial reasons for individual failures and the actual causes, which are to

 Cf. Flaig 1999, who interprets this form of historical memory in relation to the Roman triumphal procession  – perhaps somewhat over-pointedly  – as “Soziales Vergessen”, which in this case affected the participation of other members of the populus Romanus in the thriumph, whose achievements would have completely disappeared behind that of the triumphant general. 7  Cf. most recently Stoll 2016, 92. 8  Even Hannibal, however, in some adaptations-see below on the Punica of Silius Italicus-can become a pure executor of divine will. 6

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be found at a deeper level.9 These causes tend to concern moral categories whose disregard has far-reaching consequences  – which is in keeping with the didactic undercurrent of Livy’s work.10 The Romans in Livy’s text not only learn to deal with defeats and setbacks better and better as the war progresses, they actually suffer fewer failures than before. When Rome does lose a battle, the people and especially the Senate face the consequences with greater moral steadfastness than had previously been the case. Especially with regard to the Senate, further perspectives emerge on a deeper level that reveal the time-bound nature of various interpretations. Thus, the shape of the crisis that, according to Livy, temporarily gripped the res publica in the Second Punic War and manifested itself especially in the disunity between the citizens of Rome shows clear echoes of the political situations of the late Republic. That the Romans of the Second Punic War actually suffered their defeats at the hands of the Carthaginians because of internal disunity or moral vacillation seems an inadequate explanation to the modern observer. However, the fact that Livy’s Romans see in a newfound concord, which was to be seen as a consequence of defeat, the means by which further setbacks could be prevented and the consequences of defeats already suffered overcome fits well with concepts of crisis management formulated in the late republic and early imperial period under the impression of continued internal conflicts leading to civil war. Livy’s focus on the (supposed) values of the old republic is illustrated by the fact that in his account of Hannibal’s war the centre of prudent action is in the senate, and similarly, in his account of the Gallic catastrophe, by the fact that the exiles in Veii want to appoint Camillus dictator only after they have obtained the official nomination for this by the enclosed rest of the senate on the Capitol. Discord and the associated failure are in turn attributed to the seditious machinations on the part of individual demagogic tribunes of the people or other outsiders. Another, also time-bound, interpretation of the defeats of the Hannibalic War and the means the Romans found to overcome the crisis is offered by Silius Italicus. Already the choice of medium to deal with the subject was an important statement.  Cf. with regard to the third decade Levene 2010, 316 (“Despite focusing on generals, Livy shows that generals matter rather less than one might expect. The things that generals fail to predict are sometimes things that are fundamentally impredictable, tiny things which make a vast difference in the battle: and many of Livy’s battles turn on such apparently minor considerations. But Livy’s battle narratives challenge expectations more radically, because sometimes it is not clear that battles are turned by any defined cause at all – indeed, as I showed, he presents a battle in a way that suggests that all of the causes that one might think led to victory or defeat failed to be decisive. Yet he does not attribute it to blind chance either, which one might think would be the obvious alternative. Victory and defeat happen: and they appear to happen in ways that make sense, in that they fit the wider moral significance of Livy’s narrative, yet they ostentatiously do not appear to be capable of being analysed in any causal terms that we would think normal.”). 10  The distinction between superficial reasons and deeper  causes is of course reminiscent of Thucydides’ historiographical conception (Thuc. 1,23). This need not be a coincidence, as further echoes of the Athenian historian’s work may be found in Ab Urbe Condita – especially in the third decade. See Levene 2010, 111–114, who discusses some examples, but is quite skeptical about individual – supposed – references. 9

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For Silius, too, the time of the Hannibalic war was evidently generally a time of heroic fashioning and moral exemplarity. In the Punica, too, this must admittedly be renewed by the disastrous defeats inflicted by Hannibal’s army. These failures are in every way central to the epic poem and are interpreted as a touchstone for the Romans. The war as a whole is assigned an almost teleological significance, in which the defeats in turn occupy a key position on the Romans’ path to world domination. While in Livy, however, it was still primarily the internal unity and central sovereignty of the Senate that brought about the way out of the crisis, in Silius the question of the appropriate leader of the Romans moves more into focus. Iuppiter’s test proves to be not met, or not fully met, by numerous Roman commanders in the first books of the epic. The perfect leader only emerges for the Romans  – under divine guidance – in the form of P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, who must, however, first pass through a series of stages, some of which are closely linked to Rome’s defeats, until he is finally a match for Hannibal and can lead the Romans to victory and thus on the road to world domination. The focus on one hero in the epic is certainly also due to the genre. However, the fact that a poet of the imperial period attributes the overcoming of defeat essentially to the appearance of a rescuing leader can also be interpreted as an expression of Silius’ approval of the ruling system of the Principate. Perhaps it is no coincidence that in this context Silius took up the stylization of Africanus as the son of Iuppiter, which had already begun during the lifetime of Scipio himself, and developed it into a basic theme of the Punica. For after all the emperor Domitian, under whose reign Silius wrote his work, also proclaimed a special closeness to Iuppiter. Just as Scipio – as the Punica could also be read – had once led the Romans, who had been tested by heavy defeats, on the path to victory and rule, Domitian, or rather the Flavians, had also led Rome out of the crisis of the civil war into a new glorious future. A look at reconstructions of historical reactions to defeats, for example in the period of the Second Punic War, shows that these hardly played a role in later representations and interpretations of war in Roman historical culture. For example, the practice of appointing proven commanders over established norms for awarding magistracies over a period of years is barely addressed by authors such as Livy and Silius Italicus.11 And peculiarly, in the memory of later times, that factor which modern scholarship regards as so essential to the Roman overcoming of the crisis after Cannae seemed to have played no role – the superiority of the Roman reservoir of recruits and greater access to material resources.12 The examples of Livy or Silius Italicus are suitable for illustrating two of the possible forms of describing and interpreting Rome’s defeats in the context of a

 On this practice, see Beck 2005a, 97–100, 109.  Cf. most recently Walter 2017a, 1 f. (with regard to considerations on the reasons for the success of Roman expansion): “Die Überzeugung der Römer, moralisch überlegen und mit den Göttern im Bunde zu sein, vermag Historiker unserer Zeit nicht zu überzeugen. Umgekehrt findet sich nirgendwo in der antiken Literatur ein Hinweis auf die überlegene manpower, die es Rom schon früh ermöglichte, auch nach verlustreichen Niederlagen gegen militärtaktisch überlegene Feinde einen Krieg so lange weiterzuführen, bis der Sieg errungen war.” 11 12

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larger narrative. In turn, however, one should not lose sight of the fact that these interpretations never represented the only form of dealing with defeats in Roman historical culture. In the mid-first century, for example, Cornelius Nepos unhesitatingly portrayed Hannibal as a military genius who had remained undefeated on the battlefield because he was far superior to his Roman adversaries, and who was also suitable as an exemplum for the Romans in Nepos’ time. Petronius alludes ironically to the reference of half-educated dilettantes to the supposed deeds of Hannibal – of which they had perhaps read in the collection of Valerius Maximus  – while for Juvenal this was primarily the content of rhetoric lessons. In the Roman urban area numerous places reminded the educated citizen of the siege by the Gauls, while many Romans believed that an annual dog sacrifice and a peculiar procession were to be regarded as ritual reminders of the catastrophe of the early days. At least to the members of educated circles, the memory of Rome’s great defeats at the hands of the Celts, Samnites, and Carthaginians remained present well into late antiquity. However, trauma in the true sense of the word was not born on the battlefields of the Allia, Caudium, Lake Trasimene or Cannae – at least not one that the Romans could not overcome.13 In modern trauma therapy, it is precisely the narrativization of the experience that is regarded as an important prerequisite for coping, so that the wounds suffered can heal again.14 Even if caution should be exercised with regard to the transfer of individual psychological terms to groups, it is perhaps appropriate to say that the Romans also performed such narrativization. The great defeats of the Republic did not remain as inexplicable injuries, nor were they relegated to the margins of cultural memory, but rather were accepted as an inevitable part of their own history and even interpreted as genuinely useful experience. A look at reports and interpretations of military failures in other cultures and epochs reveals how little such a way of dealing with defeats can taken for granted. This reveals a wide spectrum of possibilities, ranging from deliberate ignoring, to various options of reinterpretation, to detailed descriptions, to which, in turn, quite different interpretations can be attached.15 The view that has been identified in this work as typical for large parts of Roman historical culture – explanation and interpretation of defeats as even useful experiences – is probably particularly obvious

 In this sense, see also most recently Modrow 2017, 101.  Weilnböck 2007. cf. M. Eggers, in: Ruchatz/Pethes 2001, 602 f., s. v. Trauma. 15  See, for example, the instructive studies by Martin Clauss on interpretations of war defeats in the European Middle Ages (Clauss 2010; 2016). The Frankish imperial annals, for example, were characterized by the fact that “Niederlagen dadurch historiographisch bewältigt werden, dass sie gar nicht in die Geschichtserzählung aufgenommen werden” (Clauss 2016, 142). In Sumerian laments, the destruction of a city is attributed to a storm sent by divine powers rather than to human enemies (Wilcke 2000, 70  f.). In Athens, after the defeat in the Peloponnesian War, a complex process of reinterpretation of the past can be discerned, which differs recognizably from the Roman way of dealing with defeat (Wolpert 2002). An impression of the range of possible options for dealing with defeat is also provided by Afflerbach 2013 and the contributions in Carl/Kortüm/ Langewiesche/Lenger (eds.) 2004; Stoll/Meier (eds.) 2016; Clark/Turner (eds.) 2018. Cf. overall the references above in Sect. 1.2, here the information in notes 29 and 30. 13 14

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when one knows about the positive outcome of the events.16 The permanently defeated, insofar as this happens or can happen at all, usually adopts a different narrative, which may be, for example, martyrologically or revanchistically dominated. In contrast, Roman culture was not a ‘culture of defeat’, but it developed and preserved its own ‘culture of dealing with defeat’, a specifically Roman ‘culture of defeat’, which became part of the cultural interpretation with Rome’s numerous wars.17 The notion that all this existed ‘merely in the minds of the Romans’ should not be hastily concluded. The Romans’ often-described resilience in the face of defeat, their will and ability to attack again and again with regrouped forces even after severe setbacks, may be due to past experiences and especially to the way in which these were interpreted. For the awareness of being defeated on the battlefield was and remained present in Roman (historical) culture. At no point in their history did the Romans consider themselves invincible on the battlefield because they had driven back and subjugated Celts and Samnites or because they had driven out Hannibal and ultimately destroyed Carthage. However, they always sought and found new ways to draw confidence for the respective present and future from the memory of their own defeats.18

 Cf. Beck 2006, 215  – in recourse to Koselleck: “Für die Verlierer gehen mit der memorialen Bewältigung eines Krieges stets eine höhere Analysefähigkeit und tiefere Neueinschreibung ihrer Erinnerung einher als für die Sieger, die dafür anfällig sind, ihren Erfolg ‚im Sinne einer ex postTeleologie‘ auszulegen (Koselleck)”. On this, see comprehensively Koselleck 1991. 17  Cf. on the “culture of defeat” Schivelbusch 2001. 18  See for examples of this view of their own defeats in sources of the imperial period, which could no longer be systematically included in this work, now Stoll 2016, 106 f. 16

List of Sources and Literature

Articles from encyclopedias such as the Neues Pauly or the RE are only listed in the bibliography if they are cited in several places, which will be necessary for some of the commanders of the Hannibal War, for example.

Abbreviations CIL = Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Berlin 1862 ff. Degrassi FCap. = A.  Degrassi, Fasti Capitolini (Corpus scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum), 1954. DNP = Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike, ed. by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, Stuttgart/Weimar 1996–2003 (u. ö.). FGrHist = F. Jacoby, The Fragments of the Greek Historians, 3 parts in 14 volumes, 1923–1958, Part I: 2 1957. FIRA = Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani, ed. S. Riccobono and others (1940) 1968. FRH = H. Beck; U. Walter, vol. I, Fabius Pictor to Cn. Gellius, Darmstadt 2 2005 (first 2001); vol. II, From Coelius Antipater to Pomponius Atticus, Darmstadt 2004. FRHist = The Fragments of the Roman Historians, ed. by Tim Cornell, Edward Bispham et  al., vol. I, Introduction, vol. II, Texts and translations, vol. III, Commentary, Oxford 2013. ILS = H. Dessau (ed.), Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 3 vols. in 5 parts, 1892–1916 (ndr. 4 1974). InscrIt = A. Degrassi (ed.), Inscriptiones Italiae, 1931 ff. LIMC = J. Boardman et al. (eds.), Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 1981 (et al.). LSJ = H.G. Liddell, R. Scott, H.S. Jones et al. (eds.), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9 1940 (suppl. 1968; ndr. 1992). LTUR = E. M. Steinby (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, 1993 (etc.). ORF = E.  Malcovati, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Corpus scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum 56–58), 3 vols, 1930.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Lentzsch, Roma Victa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0

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392

List of Sources and Literature

RE = G.  Wissowa et  al. (eds.), Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Neue Bearbeitung, 1893–1980; C.  Frateantonio, M. Kopp, D. Sigel et al., Complete Index I., Alphabetical Part, 1997. RIC II 2 = H. Mattingly, E.A. Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage, 10 vols, 1923–1994. RRC = M.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge 1974/1983 (ndr. 1991). TLL = Thesaurus linguae Latinae, Leipzig 1900 ff.

Editions, Sources The common standard editions (Oxford Classical Texts, Biblioteca Teubneriana, etc.) and the common translations (Tusculum, etc.) are not usually listed individually. Titles marked with a modern author and year are listed in the general bibliography (see below). Blänsdorf 1995 = Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum Epicorum et Lyricorum. Praeter Ennium et Lucilium, auctam cur Jürgen Blänsdorf, 3rd ed. Chassignet 1986 = Cato. Les Origines, texte établi, trad. et commenté par Martine Chassignet, Paris 1986. Chassignet 1996 = Les annales des Pontifes et l’annalistique ancienne (fragments), texte établi et. trad. par Martine Chassignet, Paris 1996. Christes/Garbugino 2015 = Lucilius, Gaius, Satiren, lateinisch und deutsch, eingeleitet, übersetzt und erläutert von Johannes Christes, Darmstadt 2015. Cugusi 1982 = M. Porci Catonis Orationum reliquiae, introd., testo critic e commento filologico a cura di Maria Teresa Sblendorio Cugusi, Turin u. a. 1982. Doblhofer 1972–1977 = Ernst Doblhofer, De reditu suo sive Iter Gallicum, 2 vols, Heidelberg 1972–1977. K.-H. 1968 = Q.  Horatius Flaccus, explained by Adolf Kiessling and Richard Heinze, Berlin 1968. Klussmann 1843 = Cn. Naevii poetae Romani vitam descripsit, carminum reliquias coll., poesis rationem exposuit Ernestus Klussmann, Jena 1843. Krenkel 1970 = C. Lucilius, Latin and German by Werner Krenkel, Leiden 1970. Marx 1904–1905 = C. Lucilii carminum reliquiae, vol. 1, Prologomena, testimonia, fasti Luciliani carminum reliquiae, indices, 1904; vol. 2, Commentarius, rec. enarravit Fridericus Marx, Leipzig 1904–1905. Stangl 1912 = Ciceronis Orationum Scholiastae, rec. Th. Stangl, Vienna 1912 (ND 1964). Strzelecki 1964 = Cn. Naevii Belli Punici Carminis quae supersunt, ed. W. Strzelecki, Leipzig 1964. Skutsch 1985 = Otto Skutsch, The Annals of Quintus Ennius, Oxford 1985. Vahlen 1928 = Q.  Ennius, Poesis reliquiae, iteratis cur. rec. Joannes Vahlen, Leipzig 1928. Walsh 1973 = Livy, Ab urbe condita, Book XXI, ed. P.G. Walsh (with intr., notes and voc.), Bristol 1973 (ndr. 2003).

Literature

Afflerbach 2013 = Holger Afflerbach, Die Kunst der Niederlage. Eine Geschichte der Kapitulation, München 2013. Afzelius 1942 = Adam Afzelius, Die römische Eroberung Italiens (340–264 v. Chr.), Kopenhagen 1942. Ahl/Davis/Pomeroy 1986 = Frederick Ahl, Martha A. Davis, Arthur Pomeroy, Silius Italicus, in: ANRW XXXII, 4, 2492–2561. Albrecht 2020 = Janico Albrecht, Die Religion der Feldherren. Vermittlung und Inszenierung des Krieges in der späten römischen Republik (Schriften zur Alten Geschichte), Stuttgart 2020. Alföldi 1959 = Andreas Alföldi, Hasta – Summa Imperii. The Spear as Embodiment of Sovereignty in Rome, in: American Journal of Archaeology 63 (1959), 1–27. Alföldi 1963 = Andreas Alföldi, Early Rome and the Latins (Jerome Lectures, 7), Ann Arbor 1963. Altheim 1969 = Franz Altheim, Naevius und die Annalistik, in: Pöschl (Hg.), 1969, 340–366. Ameling 1993 = Walter Ameling, Karthago. Studien zu Militär, Staat und Gesellschaft (Vestigia, 45), München 1993. Anselm 2004 = Sabine Anselm, Struktur und Transparenz. Eine literaturwissenschaftliche Analyse der Feldherrnviten des Cornelius Nepos (Altertumswissenschaftliches Kolloquium, 11), Stuttgart 2004. Arrington 2011 = Nathan T. Arrington, Inscribing Defeat. The Commemorative Dynamics of the Athenian Casualty Lists, in: Classical Antiquity 30 (2011), 179–212. Arrington 2015 = Nathan T. Arrington, Ashes, Images, and Memories. The Presence of the War Dead in Fifth-Century Athens, Oxford 2015. A. Assmann 1999 = Aleida Assmann, Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, München 1999. J. Assmann 1988 = Jan Assmann, Kollektives Gedächtnis und kulturelle Identität, in: Jan Assmann/ Tonio Hölscher (Hgg.), Kultur und Gedächtnis, Frankfurt a. M. 1988, 9–19. J. Assmann 1991 = Jan Assmann, Der zweidimensionale Mensch. Das Fest als Medium des kollektiven Gedächtnisses, in: Assmann/Sundermeier (Hgg.) 1991, 13–33. J. Assmann 6 2007 = Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, 6. Aufl., München 2007. J.  Assmann 2000 = Jan Assmann, Religion und kulturelles Gedächtnis. Zehn Studien, München 2000. J. Assmann 2002 = Jan Assmann, Zum Geleit, in: Echterhoff/Saar/Assmann 2002, 7–11. J. Assmann 2008 = Jan Assmann, Communicative and Cultural Memory, in: Erll/Nünning/Young (Hgg.) 2008, 109–118. Assmann/Sundermeier (Hgg.) 1991= Jan Assmann, Theo Sundermeier (Hgg.), Das Fest und das Heilige. Religiöse Kontrapunkte zur Alltagswelt (Studien zum Verstehen fremder Religionen, 1), Gütersloh 1991. Augoustakis 2010 = Antony Augoustakis, Silius Italicus, Flavian Poet, in: Augoustakis (Hg.) 2010, 3–23. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Lentzsch, Roma Victa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0

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