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The Role of Philhellenism in the Political Invective of the Late Roman Republic

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The Role of Philhellenism in the Political Invective of the Late Roman Republic The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts THE ROLE OF PHILHELLENISM IN THE POLITICAL INVECTIVE OF THE LATE ROMAN REPUBLIC A Thesis in History by Andrea F. Gatzke ©2008 Andrea F. Gatzke Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts August 2008 ii The thesis of Andrea F. Gatzke was reviewed and approved* by the following: Garrett G. Fagan Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and History Thesis Adviser Paul B. Harvey Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, History, and Religious Studies Head of the Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies Mark X. Munn Professor of Ancient Greek History, Greek Archaeology, and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies Daniel W. Berman Assistant Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies Matthew X. Restall Professor of Colonial Latin American History, Anthropology and Women's Studies Director of Graduate Studies, History *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. iii ABSTRACT The late Roman Republic was plagued with political strife in various forms, with the result that political rhetoric became an essential tool for prominent men to gain support and denigrate their opponents. This rhetoric took many forms and appealed to different popular sentiments. Among these various charges, accusations of philhellenism became frequent tools of invective for Romans who hoped to appeal to the miso-hellenic sentiments of certain groups in the city. This thesis examines the various ways in which accusations of philhellenism were employed in the political rhetoric of the late Roman Republic, addressing specifically issues of Greek living, luxury, and symbols of power, and shows that in spite of the overwhelming influence Greece had over Rome, miso-hellenic sentiment had a strong presence in Rome. For those whose lives were overly imitative of the Greek lifestyle, charges of philhellenism were readily employed by their opponents in an effort to appeal to this hostility to Greek culture and thus to alienate the philhellenes as un-Roman and unreliable. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….……........................................ v INTRODUCTION.........………………………………………………………….......................................................... 1 Chapter 1. ORIGINS OF ANTI-HELLENISM...................................................................................... 5 Romans and Greeks in the Third and Second Centuries BC.............................................. 5 M. Porcius Cato.......…………………………………………………………............................................ 11 Scipio Aemilianus............................................................................................................. 13 Tiberius Gracchus............................................................................................................. 16 Early First Century BC....................................................................................................... 18 Conclusions...................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2. LIVING THE GREEK LIFE................................................................................................ 22 Greek Appearance........................................................................................................... 26 Greek Behavior................................................................................................................ 29 Conclusions...................................................................................................................... 39 Chapter 3. LUXURIOUS INDULGENCES.......................................................................................... 41 Accusations of Luxuria..................................................................................................... 45 Luxurious Building............................................................................................................ 53 Conclusions...................................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 4. GREEK POWER AND DIVINITY...................................................................................... 60 Kings and Tyrants............................................................................................................. 60 Other Symbols of Greek Power........................................................................................ 73 Persian Power.................................................................................................................. 75 Divinity............................................................................................................................. 77 Conclusions...................................................................................................................... 81 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................. 85 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………...........................................….. 90 v Acknowledgements I would like to extend my deepest thanks to Garrett Fagan for reading endless drafts of this thesis and giving me extensive comments and criticisms. I am eternally grateful to him for his encouragement and patience. I would also like to thank Paul Harvey for his extensive bibliographical assistance, as well as his thorough feedback on this thesis. He continuously held me responsible for every last detail of every page and footnote. Thank you also to Mark Munn and Dan Berman, who sat on my committee and provided me with assistance on many Greek aspects of my paper, including historical and literary questions, and who encouraged me to look at the broader picture of miso- and philhellenism in antiquity. Thanks to the other graduate students in the department, who served as a reliable sounding board for my ideas and clarified many of my confusions while writing this thesis. I am also deeply indebted to my family and Sara for supporting me though all of this and encouraging me in the more trying times. Your endless love and encouragement has kept me going and will continue to do so. Introduction The Romans have been compared both to their predecessors and their successors in an effort to understand the various ways that the cultures influenced each other. However, the Greeks have been a particular point of comparison for studies in Roman history, for their social and political advancements in the archaic and classical periods greatly influenced the rise of Rome from the third and second centuries BC onward. Roman culture is often examined with reference to its Greek models and set apart by its own innovations. The comparison between the two cultures is not, however, a modern invention. The ancients themselves regularly reflected on their relationships to each other in an effort to establish their own identity and to set boundaries between themselves and outsiders. The Romans in particular devoted much time to distinguishing themselves from their eastern Greek neighbors, who were renowned for their intellectual and scientific advances and who under Alexander the Great had established the largest Mediterranean empire up to that point. Seeing themselves as the successors to the Hellenistic kingdoms, the Romans strove to establish their own place in the Mediterranean and eclipse the monumental advancements and legacy left by their Greek predecessors. As is often the case in establishing an identity, it was at the expense of an out-group. Roman self-definition was partially in direct contrast to Greek culture, and the Greeks were viewed very negatively as a result. The interaction between Romans and Greeks was complex. On the one hand, they admired the Greeks for their artistic and intellectual developments, but they also were threatened by the prestige Greeks enjoyed throughout the Mediterranean. Much has been written on this complicated, and often contradictory, relationship between Roman and Greek culture.1 In spite of the many contributions that 1 See for example, N. Petrochilos, Roman Attitudes to the Greeks (Athens 1974); E. S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (Berkeley 1984), 203-72; Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 2 the Greeks made to Roman culture, they were often cast as moral inferiors who posed a threat to the stable Roman republic. Greek culture was portrayed as one of lazy indulgence in contrast to the active and moderate Roman life. Throughout classical literature, especially in the last century of the Republic, Romans faulted the Greeks for their leisurely lifestyle which focused more on athletics, discussions, and artistic pursuits than on politics and war.2 While the Romans acknowledged Greek superiority in those fields, they viewed them as impractical and therefore frivolous. Instead, activities which were more pragmatic and served to advance the state, such as farming and military training, were laudable. The creation of this value system, then, which relied on one’s active involvement in the community, caused Greek culture, or at least what the Romans perceived of as Greek culture, to be cast as an opposing category. Greek culture became the antithesis of the idealized Roman life, and anyone who succumbed to the pleasure-seeking life of the Greeks risked being accused
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