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PRO AND ANTI: THE DIGNITAS OF THE SENATE IN 88 BC

A.M. Stone

P. Sulpicius Rufus, I of the plebs 88 BC, has won fame in history above all for his "anti-senate". This body of 600 is attested by in his Lives of Marius (35.2) and (8.2). There are some difficulties in the record apart from the av'tt(JuYlCAT]• 'to~ itself. They can be resolved once the and function of this armed retinue are clarified. "What is the for it?" asked Badian.2 The right question, though he did not stay for an answer. Something like aduersus or con• tra senatum would be sufficient deterrent. But that was to overlook Greek practice in rendering Roman terms. Antisynkletos is no anom• aly, but a simple example of a paradigm. aVeU1t(no~ is pro consule; av'tt(J'tpa'tT]Yo~ is (whether or not always applied with legal exacti• tude) pro praetore; av'tt't(x.J.lia~ is pro quaestore. The Greek anti- means "instead of", not "against". Clearly av'tt(JuYlCAT]'tO~ is pro senatu. Sulpicius had an equestrian retinue titled pro senatu. 3 Such a body, even when escorting the tribune in arms,4 is not conceptualised as

1 For the cognomen, 6.5.7; for his consequence, though noth• ing is said of nobilitas, 2.18.5. Cf. D.R. Shackleton Bailey Two Studies in Roman Nomenclature 1st edn. (1976), 2nd edn. (1991), 84; originally reviewed by P. Harvey AJP 10 I (1980), 119; E. Badian "The Clever and the Wise: Two Roman cognomina in context", Vir Bonus Discendi Peritus: Studies in celebration if Otto Skutsch's eightieth birthday, ed. N. Horsfall (1988), 6-7; MJ. Slagter Transitio ad plebem (1993), Diss. Bryn Mawr, 134-67. 2 Foreign Clientelae (1958) 234, n. I; again 'Quaestiones Variae' Hist. 18 (1969), 485 n. 110. 3 AW. Lintott came close to seeing this when he conjectured a mistranslation by Plutarch of something like "quos in consilium senatus vicem vocabat' (The Tribunate of P. Sulpicius Rufus", CQ.21 [1971], 442 n. 3), but it was not his imme• diate concern to follow it further; A Keaveney cites this with approval ("What Happened in 88?", Eirene 20 [1983], 55) among other approved possibilities like "gangster-slang"; effectively he still clings to the "anti-senate". ~ The arms could be used, as (actually) against A Sempronius Asellio ( 89), or (menacingly) in support of Q Varius (tribune 90) ( BC 1.54; 1.37), but were chiefly symbolic of a state of emergency: cf. "Saga populus sumpsit" ( 192 A.M. STONE a praesidium but as consilium publicum supplying that which the tribune felt he lacked in the constituted senatus: i.e. not merely a parade of splendor but . It would be odd, therefore, if the 600 were in fact young sparks, whether the sons of senators or equites Romani. 5 Able-bodied youngsters of that class below the age of thirty were still required to officer the various armies in action throughout Italy in 88. Yet Plutarch writes VeuVtOlCOt, i.e. seems to be representing in Greek the Latin adulescentuli. But this cannot be right. It is nec• essary to start again. The number 600 is significant. It refers to a defined group sepa• rate from the band or bodyguard of 3000 raised by Sulpicius. The officers of that bodyguard would not be a separate corps, and 600 of them would be too many; nor would such terms as pro-senator be applicable. 600 is the number of equites in the comitia centuriata who were not in the 1200 , together making 18 centuries; 600 equites and various recognisable fractions of 600 were the building-blocks of various expedients for manning the criminal courts from C. Gracchus to the Drusus.6 It is noteworthy that the most recent experiment, the lex Plautia of 89, had aspired to concordia by reducing the equestrian component to one-third, the lowest fraction for members of the order since before C. Gracchus.7 A noble aim, but the corps of equites were angry men, not so easily set aside: in or after December 91 they had drawn daggers against of the plebs vetoing the lex Varia;8 in 89 they had murdered

Per. 72); "Ob eam victoriam Romae saga posita sunt." (ibid. 73), of citizens not serving as soldiers in 91-90 BC. Cf. H. Strasburger's seminal discussion of 's equestrian guard on 5th December 63. Again Plutarch ( 8) portrays them as youngsters (Concordia Ordinum [1931], 39-40). 5 Cf. A. Keaveney Sulla, The Last Republican (1982), 59; Eirene 20 (1983), 55. 6 Livy Per. 60 (600 equites); Lex Repetundarum 14 (FlRA [ed. S. Riccobono]) enacts a panel of 450 for anyone year; Appian BC 1.35 (for 300 equites to be empanelled with existing senators to make 600). See my forthcoming The Archaeology of the ' in Proceedings if the Coriference Roman Crossings, T.W. Hillard, K.E. Welch, F. Muecke edd. 7 On the provisions of the Lex Plautia equalising three orders of iudices, Asconius In Comelianam 79C. It broke the situation applying since C. Gracchus of equestrian control of the extortion-court and special quaestiones, briefly interrupted by an exper• iment in equal sharing under the Lex Seruilia of Q Servilius Caepio (consul 106). The scandalous conviction of P. Rutilius Rufus in 92 and the purge atmosphere of the Qyaestio Vanana in 90 cried out for jury-reform. M. Livius Drusus' quite different solution in 90 had never gone into effect. On equites and iudices, see in general P.A. Brunt The Fall if the and Related Essays (Oxford, 1988), chapters 3 and 4. 8 Appian BC 1.37; Valerius Maximus 8.6.4.