The Emergence of Archival Records at Rome in the Fourth Century BCE
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Foundations of History: The Emergence of Archival Records at Rome in the Fourth Century BCE by Zachary B. Hallock A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Greek and Roman History) in the University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Professor David Potter, Chair Associate Professor Benjamin Fortson Assistant Professor Brendan Haug Professor Nicola Terrenato Zachary B. Hallock [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0337-0181 © 2018 by Zachary B. Hallock To my parents for their endless love and support ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Rackham Graduate School and the Departments of Classics and History for providing me with the resources and support that made my time as a graduate student comfortable and enjoyable. I would also like to express my gratitude to the professors of these departments who made themselves and their expertise abundantly available. Their mentoring and guidance proved invaluable and have shaped my approach to solving the problems of the past. I am an immensely better thinker and teacher through their efforts. I would also like to express my appreciation to my committee, whose diligence and attention made this project possible. I will be forever in their debt for the time they committed to reading and discussing my work. I would particularly like to thank my chair, David Potter, who has acted as a mentor and guide throughout my time at Michigan and has had the greatest role in making me the scholar that I am today. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Andrea, who has been and will always be my greatest interlocutor. Our time spent discussing our respective projects will always be the happiest moments of my graduate work. iii Table of Contents Dedication ii Acknowledgments iii List of Tables v List of Figures vi Abstract vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 – Buried in Text: Archival Material in the Second Pentad of Livy 16 Chapter 2 – The Fasti of the Fourth Century: Increasing Frequency but Minimal Content 56 Chapter 3 – The Partiality and Integrity of Livy’s Second Pentad 98 Chapter 4 – Rome Ripe for ‘Revolution’ 137 Chapter 5 – Documenting the Roman Senate 172 General Conclusions 203 Bibliography 209 iv List of Tables Tab. 1 – Annalistic Notices in Livy’s Second Pentad 34 Tab. 2 – Summary of Annalistic Notices in Livy’s Second Pentad 41 Tab. 3 – Conflicting Magistrates in Livy, Diodorus Siculus, and the Fasti Consulares 48 v List of Figures Fig. 1 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 362-355 BCE 186 Fig. 2 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 354-350 BCE 187 Fig. 3 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 349-345 BCE 188 Fig. 4 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 344-340 BCE 189 Fig. 5 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 339-335 BCE 190 Fig. 6 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 334-330 BCE 191 Fig. 7 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 329-325 BCE 192 Fig. 8 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 324-320 BCE 193 Fig. 9 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 319-315 BCE 194 Fig. 10 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 314-310 BCE 195 Fig. 11 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 309-305 BCE 196 Fig. 12 – Senatorial foreign policy actions in central Italy in 304-300 BCE 197 vi Abstract This dissertation examines the historical narratives of Rome in the fourth century BCE, as well as the lists of consuls and triumphs, in order to demonstrate that they are based on contemporaneously recorded documents, in the form of eponymous magistrate lists, pontifical records, and proceedings of the Senate. The historical material from this century has largely been viewed as fictitious, the creation of later historians through a combination of self-aggrandizing family narratives, anachronistic retrojection, and didacticism. This project does not argue that these were not operative factors in the creation of the existing records, but rather that there is a foundation of reliable records around which these later accretions were constructed. Thus, this dissertation rehabilitates certain details of the fourth century that likely stem from these records, such as elections and actions taken by the Senate. The pivotal moment in the advent of these records is the social and political turmoil of the early fourth century BCE, which leads to a series of power sharing compromises between the patricians and the plebeians. To demonstrate this connection between state record keeping and socio-political transformation, archival notices from Livy’s second pentad are identified and accumulated; these show an increased presence after the first compromise in 367 BCE and as the fourth century progresses. Alterations to governmental structures, a changing relationship between the Senate and chief magistrates, and a wider pool of participants in political and religious positions all provide motivations for the publication of these records, including efforts at legitimization and providing access to religious knowledge. To accompany this quantitative analysis, a study of the vii social, economic, and political environment of the early fourth century demonstrates that such radical change in the Roman state was a predictable result. The second part of the dissertation is a qualitative analysis of the historical material in order to demonstrate internal consistency, plausibility, and coherence, and thus the likely product of contemporaneously recorded documents. Seeming inconsistencies in the records, such as conflicting magistrate names, provinciae, and triumphs are analyzed and explained as the product of a Roman state in the early to middle Republic that is not bound to the same degree of legal rigidity as in later periods. Additionally, potential Senate records are considered; a coherent and consistent sphere of foreign policy emerges from these notices and mirrors the growth of the Roman state throughout this period. Ultimately, this dissertation takes a cautiously optimistic approach to the historical narrative of the fourth century BCE, while accounting for the presence of interpolated material, especially campaign and battle narratives. Nevertheless, it is argued that domestic notices of governmental and religious functions become increasingly anchored to archival material and therefore constitute a reliable backbone of historical information for a period that was once disregarded by scholars as largely pre-historic. This project, therefore, provides increased access to a formative period in Rome’s republican development, long considered unrecoverable. viii Introduction When does the historical record of Rome transition from an unreliable narrative full of retrojection, interpolation, creative reconstruction, and etiology—as characterized by Livy’s first books—into one based on solid source material? In other words, at what point in the progression of the tradition can we begin reading with confidence in the historicity of the transmitted information? This question, much discussed by scholars of Roman history since the height of Quellenkritik in 19th century Germany, necessarily pivots on a very small selection of late republican and imperial notices concerning the records kept by early pontifices. Trusting Cicero when he says, “To preserve public affairs and memory, the pontifex maximus used to, from the beginning of the Republic until P. Mucius held the office, committed every event of each year to letters, recorded them on a white tablet, and deposited it in his home,”1 should we have confidence in the historical tradition’s ability to convey accurate information from so early a date? Or should we heed Cato’s assessment of these records as containing little more than “how often grain was expensive or how often darkness or something obscured the light of the sun or the moon,”2 and therefore conclude that they were ultimately useless for an historian’s reconstructive efforts? Of course, there were other sources of information that could be consulted, such as the first treaty 1 Cic. De Or. 2.52: cuius rei memoriaeque publicae retinendae causa ab initio rerum Romanarum usque ad P. Mucium pontificem maximum res omnis singulorum annorum mandabat litteris pontifex maximus referebatque in albo et proponebat tabulam domi. See also Serv. Dan. ad Aen. 1.373 for an even stronger restatement of Cicero’s sentiment. The fourth century CE grammarian, however, assuredly had less knowledge of the ancient document than Cicero, and much less than Cato, below, who was alive during its publication. 2 Gell. 2.28.6 = Annales Maximi T1: quotiens annona cara, quotiens lunae aut solis lumine caligo aut quid obstiterit. 1 between Rome and Carthage in 509 BCE mentioned by Polybius,3 an early inscription concerning the praetor maximus,4 or the XII Tables. The documents, however, could not provide the sufficient narrative stream required to compose a fulsome historical account. Reading the first decade of Livy’s massive work with an historical eye, one finds a new perspective on the ancient sôritês paradox. Argued by Eubulides of Miletus in the 4th century BCE, this puzzle asks when a mound of sand, with grains removed individually, ceases to still be a “mound.”5 It is a paradox founded on the uncertainties of gradual transition, realized by ancient philosophers, and played out in the scrolls of Livy: when does an unhistorical text, growing increasingly better informed as it moves through the centuries, covering events closer to the time of its composition and drawing upon steadily increasing source material, become “historical.” The tradition of regal Rome and the early Republic is quite clearly a “mound,” while the third decade of Livy, confirmed by Polybius and within the lifetime of Rome’s first historian, obviously is not. On this transition, therefore, hinges a great deal of importance for the study of these intervening centuries. This paradox, of course, highlights the vagueness of language in the face of the exactitude of mathematics.