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Sulla and the Tarpeian Rock in 88 and 82 Bc* Twelve Men Were SULLA AND THE TarpEIAN ROCK IN 88 AND 82 BC* Abstract: In 88, the slave who betrayed the tribune Sulpicius was manumitted in accordance with the Sullan hostis-declaration, but then he was hurled from the Tarpeian Rock to punish his treachery and deter potential servile unrest. In 82, Sulla precipitated a freedman sus- pected of harbouring one of the proscribed. This article argues that Sulla returned to the Tarpeian Rock, to execute an ex-slave for his loyalty, in order to persuade potential slave accomplices that they would not be subjected to arbitrary punishment if they killed or betrayed their proscribed masters for the promised rewards of money and manumission. Twelve men were declared hostes, or public enemies, after Sulla’s march on Rome in 88 BC. Marius fled the city with his son and suffered the humiliations of life as a fugitive on the run, but eventually he made his way to safety on an island off the coast of Africa.1 The tribune P. Sulpicius Rufus also fled, but he was caught and killed. He took refuge on an estate to the south of Rome, and one of his slaves betrayed his hiding place to the soldiers sent by Sulla to track and kill him. The slave received his freedom as the reward for acting as an informer. Paradoxi- cally, he was then subjected to an exemplary public execution for the crime of betraying his master: he was hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, with the pilleus, the cap of liberty, placed on his head.2 An inverse case of precipitation is attested just over five years later in the Sullan pro- scriptions of 82 BC. On this occasion the victim was not a treacherous slave but a loyal freedman suspected of having broken the prohibition on * I am grateful to the editors for accepting this article, to the anonymous referees for their comments, and to Federico Santangelo (University of Newcastle) for invaluable feedback on the various drafts. 1 Hostis-declaration: App. B.C. 1.60; senatorial decree: Livy Per. 77; Val. Max. 1.5.5; Flor. 2.9.8; Plut. Sull. 10.1; law of popular assembly: Vell. Pat. 2.19.1; cf. Allély (2007) 177-179. Flight of Marius and his son: Vell. Pat. 2.19.2-4; Plut. Mar. 35.8-40.14; App. B.C. 1.61-62; cf. Carney (1961); van Ooteghem (1964) 288-302. Of the nine hostes known by name, Sulpicius is the only one known to have been killed. 2 Sulpicius was killed at a country villa: Livy Per. 77; Val. Max. 6.5.7; or in the marshes of Laurentum: Vell. Pat. 2.19.1; one source conflates the slave’s betrayal with his punishment and places the capture of Sulpicius on the Capitol: Oros. 5.19.6. Precipi- tation: Val. Max. 6.5.7; Livy Per. 77; Plut. Sull. 10.1. Sulpicius was hunted down by a unit of cavalry: Vell. Pat. 2.19.1 (cf. App. B.C. 1.60, for the suggestion of bounty hunt- ers). The name of the soldier who struck the fatal blow is not known, but his identity seems to have been common knowledge: Rhet. Her. 1.25. Ancient Society 45, 171-186. doi: 10.2143/AS.45.0.3110546 © 2015 by Ancient Society. All rights reserved. 98256.indb 171 9/11/15 14:35 172 A. THEIN assisting the proscribed.3 Plutarch, our only source, tells the story to illustrate the topic of Sulla’s ancestral poverty: he states that the freed- man reminded Sulla, who was present at the execution, that they had once lived in the same building and that his rent for the upstairs rooms had been only slightly less than Sulla’s rent for the ground-floor apart- ment.4 The precipitation of the slave of Sulpicius has been studied in detail.5 By contrast, the freedman’s precipitation in the proscriptions has received little comment.6 It is my aim in this article to show that the two Sullan instances of precipitation, in 88 and 82, form an antithetical pair. In each instance the message must be understood in terms of the role of slaves in the mechanics of state violence. The passages which describe the death of Sulpicius and the fate of his slave are the proof texts which inform us that Sulla promised state man- umission to any slave who killed or betrayed one of the twelve hostes of 88 BC. Plutarch, in his Life of Sulla, states only that Sulpicius was killed after he was betrayed by his slave, and that Sulla first granted the slave his freedom before having him hurled from the Tarpeian Rock. The Liv- ian Periochae alludes to an official reward and offers an explanation for the slave’s punishment: he was manumitted “so that he should have the reward promised to an informer” and then thrown from the Tarpeian Rock “for the crime of betraying his master”. Orosius implies that Sulla issued a public statement, endorsed by his consular colleague Q. Pom- peius Rufus, to explain his actions: “the consuls decreed that the slave should be manumitted because he had informed against a public enemy, but also that he should be thrown from the Tarpeian Rock because he had betrayed his master”. Valerius Maximus uses the episode to moral- ise on the theme of justice: the slave is labelled a parricide, and Sulla is praised for granting his manumission “in order to maintain the integrity of his own edict” before ordering him to be hurled from the Tarpeian Rock “with the cap of liberty won by his crime”.7 Emphasis is given to 3 Plut. Sull. 1.6, quoted in full below. 4 Plut. Sull. 1.6-7. 5 The best analysis is Schumacher (1982) 92-104. 6 It is not even mentioned by David (1984) 134-139 or Cadoux (2008) 215-218 in their surveys of the known instances of precipitation. Cf. Hinard (1987) 119 for a brief discussion of the Tarpeian Rock in a survey of the topography of public executions in Rome; the two Sullan cases of precipitation are noted but not compared. 7 Plut. Sull. 10.2; Livy Per. 77; Oros. 5.19.6; Val. Max. 6.5.7. Some sources record Sulpicius’ death with no mention of his slave’s betrayal: Cic. De Or. 3.11; Nep. Att. 2.1- 2; Flor. 2.9.8; App. B.C. 1.60; Eutr. 5.4; Firm. Mat. 1.7.30. 98256.indb 172 9/11/15 14:35 SULLA AND THE TARPEIAN ROCK IN 88 AND 82 BC 173 the fact that the slave was freed as an official reward for acting as an informer, and thus killing by proxy, but it must be assumed that rewards were also offered to slaves who struck the fatal blow themselves, and it may be that they were also promised money in addition to their freedom.8 It is possible to explain why Sulla appealed to slave accomplices and why he then executed the one slave who is known to have responded to his proclamation. The twelve men named in the Sullan hostis-declaration were defined as outlaws, and Appian explains that “anyone meeting them had been authorised to kill them with impunity or to drag them before the consuls, while their goods had been confiscated”.9 Slaves were chattels, and as confiscated property which vested in the state the slave of a hostis was released from the bonds of the slave-master rela- tionship; this was the jurisprudential basis for the promise of legal immunity and state manumission for slaves in the Sullan hostis-declara- tion of 88.10 Sulla wanted his enemies dead, and he was prepared to use every means at his disposal to ensure that they did not escape: military forces were dispatched to carry out manhunts, orders were issued to the municipalities of small-town Italy, and a bounty was placed on the heads of the twelve hostes.11 In addition, rewards were promised to enlist slaves as proxy assassins, thus giving them the power of life and death over their masters.12 Some slaves remained loyal. Marius the Younger made his escape from a villa belonging to his wife’s grandfather with the assistance of a slave overseer who concealed him in a cart carrying beans and drove him to safety just as a troop of cavalry arrived at the estate to conduct a search.13 Marius the Elder had a retinue of faithful 8 Schumacher (1982) 94. Cf. Thein (2013) 165-171 for a survey of promises of state manumission to slave informers and other slave accomplices in the period of the Republic. 9 App. B.C. 1.60; cf. Diod. Sic. 37.29.3. 10 Schumacher (1982) 94. 11 Manhunts near Rome: Vell. Pat. 2.19.1; Plut. Mar. 35.10-11; cf. App. B.C. 1.60. Local militia sent by Geminius of Terracina: Plut. Mar. 36.5, 37.1-5, 38.1-2. Orders to hunt and kill the twelve hostes, sent to all cities in Italy: Plut. Mar. 38.3. Bounty: Plut. Sull. 10.2. 12 Paradoxically, Sulla justified his hostis-declaration in part with the charge that ­Marius had incited a slave insurrection: App. B.C. 1.60; Marius had promised freedom to any slave who assisted him in the street fighting during Sulla’s march on Rome: Val. Max. 8.6.2; App. B.C. 1.58; Plut. Mar. 35.7, Sull. 9.14; Oros. 5.19.5. 13 Plut. Mar. 35.10-12; the villa belonged to the augur Q.
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